Master of Honor (Merlin's Legacy #5) - Angela Knight Page 0,2

at Brandon’s CT scans, they’d all turned him down.

The neurologist had scheduled a proof-of-life electroencephalogram for later tonight to see if Brandon was brain dead. If so, his parents would have to decide whether to take him off life support. Based on his declining vitals, nobody thought he had a prayer of passing the EEG.

Brandon had one chance, and one chance only. Cheryl.

She wasn’t a doctor, much less a neurosurgeon. Yes, she’d been a nurse for almost forty years, fifteen of them as a nursing supervisor. She’d treated thousands of sick and dying people, and she’d fought like hell for every one of them. Too often, there’d been nothing she could do. She’d been only human.

Cheryl wasn’t sure what she’d become last month, but “only human” no longer applied. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have to cast spells to make her twenties-looking face appear its true fifty-nine. Mirrors were still freaking her out. She’d glimpse herself and think, Who is that kid and what is she doing in my house?

So yeah, she had power. But this was brain damage that scared neurosurgeons who thought they were gods. Can I pull this off?

The answering silence in her head seemed to tick.

At last Gaia’s voice whispered through her mind like the sigh of leaves in a cold wind, inhuman and distant. If we do nothing, the Sight tells me his parents will be planning his funeral tomorrow.

Shit. She remembered the look on his father’s face. That stunned I’ve-killed-my-boy expression had made her worry Stephen Sanders would try to self-medicate with a bullet. Where would that leave his wife and eldest child?

Cheryl had never faced anything like this with her son Adam, but she could imagine how she’d feel. Paul would have been devastated…

Not Paul, she reminded herself. His name is Ulf. He lied about that like he lied about everything else. Despite the bitterness in that thought, there was longing in the next. Will he show up again tonight?

After twenty-eight years without a word, Ulf had dropped by half a dozen times in the last month. Probably making sure she hadn’t gone evil and started eating the neighbors.

Who the hell cares? she told herself impatiently. Healing this kid is what matters.

Besides, she’d violated her own code of magical ethics to create the opportunity. First she’d had to put a spell on Brandon’s parents to send them down to the cafeteria for dinner. Otherwise they wouldn’t have left for more than a few minutes. They’d be gone for the next hour. Then she’d compelled the medical staff to ignore anything odd going on in Brandon’s room. She’d laid a third spell on the equipment, making sure everything would maintain the same readings the machines were recording now. Otherwise, changes to Brandon’s heartbeat and respiration might raise questions later she wouldn’t want to answer.

Damn, she hated using her power to fuck with people’s heads. This was the same kind of shit witches had done to her. Guess I’ll just have to live with being a hypocrite. Gaia, can we pull this off in the time we have?

Yes. But it will not be easy. This is a complex and delicate procedure.

And worth it if we can keep Brandon from becoming an organ donor.

It wasn’t the first time Cheryl had used Gaia’s magic to heal, though those cases had been far less complicated. One man had coded, and the ER staff hadn’t been able to get his heart beating again. She’d given him a quick magical zap and restored its normal rhythm. There’d been other patients as well, though they’d had comparatively minor issues she’d been able to heal with little trouble. But this…

Suck it up, Cheryl thought, impatient with her own dithering. She drew the curtain around the bed to lay a hand on the boy’s pale cheek. His skin felt cool even though the Nitrile glove. Closing her eyes, she started drawing power through the crystal network Gaia had assembled in her brain, and began to scan the damage.

“Oh, fuck me…” Cheryl breathed into her surgical mask, her heart sinking. She’d never seen anything so insanely complex. Oh, she’d studied plenty of neurological computer models. But even the best models failed to capture the billions of brain cells and trillions of synapses packed into three pounds of tissue the consistency of Jell-O.

Suddenly she understood why all those neurosurgeons had begged off. Where do I even look for the bleed? What if I kill him? What if I save him just enough to leave him brain damaged?

Calm