again, gasping for air, my nerves singing with so much carnal joy I nearly passed out.
We collapsed, spent, after that. I fell asleep in the slow afternoon light filtering through the silent windows.
chapter
twenty-two
Fever
I awoke with a start in the hellement; Cooper’s doppelganger was gone. How long had I been in there? There was no way to tell. I rolled out of bed and opened the red portal door.
When I came to in the restraint chair, I immediately knew something was wrong. My vision was blurry. My head was throbbing. Fever chills were washing through me. I tasted bile in the back of my throat, and my guts were in an uproar.
Pal? I thought. Pal, are you here?
“Oh, thank goodness you’re back. You had me worried sick,” he replied. “You were gone all night.”
I feel like crap. Can you untie me, please? I blinked my eyes to try to clear my vision; Pal came into focus, hovering beside me.
“Certainly.” Pal undid the straps binding my head and jaws, then released my arms and freed my legs.
I pulled out my mouthpiece and got up slowly, my stiff joints and strained muscles bitching at me with every inch. My stomach was cramping, acidic. The floor felt like it was tilted at a weird angle. The furniture seemed to be undulating, and suddenly I realized I was seeing small, indistinct creatures scuttling in the periphery of my vision.
“I’m seeing the fey,” I slurred.
“Oh dear.” Pal put a clawed paw to my forehead. “You’re burning up.”
I sat back down on the chair. “I thought the hepatitis wouldn’t set in for weeks.”
“This doesn’t look like hepatitis to me. Admittedly I am not especially familiar with the disease, but you don’t seem to be jaundiced. A different blood-borne infection that the Warlock’s fetish couldn’t detect is the likely culprit.”
“Where are the guys?”
“The Warlock and Cooper came back about an hour after you went into your hellement—Cooper was apparently given a clean bill of health by the doctor—but an airman came to get them soon after. Evidently they were needed to help repel an attack by the meat puppets. Unfortunately I have no idea when they are likely to return.”
“Well, damn.” I licked my lips; my tongue felt like it was covered in paste. I could see the fey more clearly now: the weird little creatures were all over the place. A vermilion-feathered starfish was napping on my knee. “Could you grab me a bottle of water?”
“Certainly.” Pal turned away to get into my backpack.
One of the kittens mewed, attracting my attention. In my fevered vision, it no longer looked much like a kitten: it was a rangy creature of utter blackness with huge mirrorlike eyes and a gaping mouth of long, curving teeth. Its head reminded me more of a deep-sea angler-fish than anything truly feline.
I watched, horrified, as it pounced on a fey that looked like a fleshy daisy with tentacle legs. The “kitten” devoured the fey in two savage bites.
“Hey, Pal?” My voice shook.
“Yes?” He handed me the water bottle.
“I just found out what Sara’s kitties eat—they’re fey predators.”
“Oh dear. Well, given their reaction to the exorcism magic, we can be certain that they’re some type of devil.”
I looked around the room. “Also we’re apparently surrounded by paradimensional cat poop.”
“I must say I’m pleased that I do not share your enhanced vision.” He put his paw against my forehead again as I took a long drink from the bottle. “I think you should go see the doctor.”
“No argument here.”
Pal helped me up out of the restraint chair, and I leaned on him as we made our way down the hall to the elevators. It was probably five in the morning, and the dorm lobby was utterly quiet. A new girl was napping in the chair behind the counter. Once we got outside, the heat made me queasier and dizzy and I tripped on the curb in the early morning darkness. Pal caught me, sang himself a bit bigger, and carried me the rest of the way to the clinic.
The broad entry hall of the Student Health Center was completely lined with military cots on which meat puppets lay blindfolded and earplugged, their arms and legs tied down. IV drips carrying nutrition and drugs were taped into every arm, and catheter bags hung beneath the cots. At the end of the hall, I saw Sara sitting in a folding chair beside one puppet, holding his hand, her eyes wet with tears.