"What?" Patrick gaped at him. "How do you know? Can - is that even a thing, can people even do that?"
Andy nodded. "It happened to someone I knew," he said awkwardly. "They had leukemia. But it wasn't as bad as this."
Joe sat heavily down on the bed. "Jesus Christ."
Bob cleared his throat. "Should we get Frank? He's with Cortez, right?"
"No," Joe said sharply. Patrick looked at him in surprise. Joe waved his hands and said, "Cortez might follow him. I just don't think anyone outside of the band needs to know."
"He's right," said Gerard. "Besides, I think we can handle it. Ray, you brought your kit?"
"Of course." Ray knelt down next to Gerard, wobbling a little. "What are you thinking, a block?"
Gerard nodded. "Brian, can you run back to our rooms and get me the Compendium Tutela Preces?" Brian nodded and ran off. Gerard looked up. "Okay, guys, this is going to sound a little crazy, but just hear me out, okay? I think Pete's being drained of his life force by a necromancer."
"Oh," said Andy. "Only a little crazy?"
"I know how you feel," said Bob, making an obvious effort not to slur. "Believe me, I do. But this is not even the weirdest thing we've ever seen."
"We're not sure yet exactly how it's being done." Gerard gestured to Brian when he came skidding back into the room, and grabbed the book off him. "But we're going to try to put some protection over him until we can figure it out."
Ray must have been expecting something like this to happen, because he already had a mixture prepared in a vial. He tapped it out onto the shallow metal dish as Gerard flipped through the book. "Ready when you are, boss."
"What are you going to do?" Patrick said shrilly. "Put a fucking spell on him? How is that going to help?"
"Let's find out," said Gerard. He held the rosary in the air and made a cross over Pete's body. "Sancta Michael Archangele," he began. "Defende nos in proelio; contra nequitiam et insidias diaboli esto praesidium."
Pete moaned again, his body going tense and still.
"Oh, God," said Patrick. "Pete, Pete."
"This is fucking crazy," said Andy. "You guys all know this is fucking crazy, right?"
Gerard ignored him and kept talking; Ray touched a match to the mixture in the dish and set it next to Pete's shoulder. The smoke curled up in tendrils, then Gerard moved his hand through it, the one holding the rosary, and the tendrils started weaving together, knitting themselves into a thin layer that stretched all the way down from Pete's forehead to his feet.
"What the fuck," said Joe. "Is that going to hurt him?"
"You have to stay calm," Mikey told him, although if someone had told him to stay calm when it was Frank who was in danger, he probably would have punched them in the face.
It was strange to see Pete like this; it was like Frank with all the blood, but it wasn't as violent, plus he wasn't Mikey's in the same way Frank had been. Also, this time Mikey had a year's worth of watching Gerard and Ray kick ass to fall back on. These guys didn't have any such thing, so while Gerard carried on praying, Mikey said, "It's going to be okay."
Patrick shook his head. He wasn't wearing his hat, and Mikey was struck by how young he actually was. "How do you know?"
"Because it always is," said Mikey, which was kind of lame, maybe, but it was the truth. "You just have to let them do their thing."
