John raced across the Pythian Court compound, anxiously heading for the Infirmary. The child had been virtually comatose for almost three days for no known reason. He charged through the doors and skidded to a stop inside her hospital room.
"How is she?" he demanded.
"Getting better every minute," answered the nurse as she adjusted the blankets. "I've removed the IV and catheter. She tells me she's hungry, and that's a good sign. Let me find her some solid food to try. Maybe a nice pudding, sweetheart?" The nurse smiled at her and left. John sat on the edge of the bed and placed his hand on the small girl's forehead.
"You gave us a scare, didn't you?" he murmured. She sat up and crawled onto his lap, placing her thin arms around his neck. Her brown eyes, looking huge in that pale face, peered into his green ones.
"Time to go. Now," she whispered.
John patted her back. "Let's hear what the healer says first, shall we?"
"No! Time to go…now!" She pulled her stuffed bear to her side, dropped to the floor and stumbled unsteadily towards the door, light-headed from three days of dormancy.
John muttered to himself as he strode over and picked her up, holding her against his chest. "What did you see?" he asked gently, guessing at the reason for her trepidation. He had spent time with her intermittently in the past few weeks and then almost constantly in the last few days, and each vision she had relayed to him during that time had proved legitimate. He had learned when to pay attention to her and this was one of those times. He went on alert, heightened senses automatically reaching out to assess the vicinity for threats. The wards were strong, crackling busily, but he perceived no immediate trouble.
"Time to go…now," she sobbed instead of answering, voice shaking as she pointed towards the door.
John sighed and swept her out of the room, tucking her close to sooth her trembling. She waved towards the end of the hall and John jogged in that direction until he reached a dented gray metal door.
"In there," she urgently insisted. John frowned, wanting her to give him some details but deciding for now not to press her for specifics when she was so agitated. He hurried through the door and found himself balancing at the top of a staircase that disappeared into darkness.
"Down there?"
She dipped her chin in a quick nod. John touched her face and murmured a spell, giving them both enhanced vision in the dark as he swiftly carried her down the stairs into the lower level.
He followed her outstretched hand, aimed into the bowels of the basement. He glanced at her face, her damp nose wrinkling at the musty smell as he ran past clanking industrial boilers and hissing pumps, batting away dusty cobwebs until they reached a rusted iron box-like structure installed against the wall.
"Now what?"
"Open it," she cried frantically as tears leaked from her eyes.
John grabbed the handle and yanked, hinges screeching like an unhappy harpy as he worked the corroded door open. Inside, a ley line ripped, revealing flashing brown energy that pulsed with glittering gold and umber streaks. It was the old Infirmary incinerator, he realized. Medical waste was sucked into the ley line unshielded and was instantly turned to ash and then to nothing by the powerful energy inside the line. Many times he had used the same method to dispose of the corpses of his prey.
"What do you want with this," he asked her, confused.
She looked at his face as she placed both hands on his cheeks, and fiercely told him "we must go now...inside." And she reached into the incinerator.
"Shields!" he reminded her, unnecessarily, as she leaned farther through the aged door to get to the line.
She was fully inside the box when the building exploded around him, searing his eyes with blinding white while intense pain detonated in his head, and then nothing.