The Arrival | The House of Voices #3

Thirty One - Wake

Wake

 

October:

Even with the rain pattering against the window of the green room, I could hear Ace arguing on the phone outside the door. Someone had called her a little after we’d managed to get Parish upstairs and in bed and she’d decided to take the call outside.

A client, I assumed.

With a sigh, I picked up the little cloth from the bowl of chilled water and mint leaves that Spade brought up and pressed it against Parish’s forehead. He had a raging fever and his skin was hot to the touch. It was weird, because he was fine while Spade was mending his bones. The fever started up when the three of us started carrying Parish up the stairs.

Once we’d brought him to the green room, Ace started to worry about whether or not she used a strong enough spell when putting Parish to sleep. Spade assured her that things would be fine, but Ace still worried. In the end, Spade had had to threaten to put her under a sleeping spell as well.

She narrowed her eyes in his direction, but didn’t argue anymore.

And then he’d gone downstairs to clean up Gomez’s car, leaving me and Ace to deal with Parish’s weird fever.

We’d mopped his forehead for a bit, but his fever had only continued to grow. “I don’t like this,” Ace had mumbled to me. “I think I’m going to get Spade to…” and then she’d trailed off when her phone started ringing.

I didn’t know what she wanted Spade to do, but I hoped they’d do it soon.

I pushed a bit of Parish’s hair off his forehead and pressed the cold cloth against his skin, frowning when I realized that his fever had gotten worse since Ace left the room. What was going on?

I was about to call out to her when I heard Spade’s voice join hers outside the door.

“What’s wrong?” His voice rumbled through the door, sounding concerned. I didn’t hear Ace’s reply. “May I?”

Slightly curious, I listened to their conversation. “Hello? No, you may not,” I heard Spade say, talking to the person on the phone, I guessed. There was a tense pause, and when Spade spoke again, his voice was gruff. “I think my friend already explained why not. Whatever it is you have to say, you can say to me.”

There’s another pause before Spade’s tone suddenly changes. “What?” he sounds surprised. “That can’t be right. We got him out, but everyone we encountered should be asleep for another hour or so. There’s no way word could have gotten out this quickly.”

It didn’t take a genius to realize that it was Darren who’d called Ace. Who else would Spade be talking to about Parish’s break out?

I removed the cloth from Parish’s forehead and dipped it into the bowl again. “I don’t know,” I heard Spade say as I pulled the cloth out of the bowl and wrung some of the excess water out of it. “I’ll try and find out… Yes, I’ll contact you if and when I do.”

When I pressed the cloth to Parish’s head again, he stirred. His eyelids fluttered minutely, he groaned, and then he went still again. I pulled my hand away, worried. The last time he’d been under a sleeping spell he hadn’t so much as wrinkled his nose.  Why was he moving?

I slowly rose from the wicker chair I’d been sitting on to go speak to Ace and Spade, who were having a quiet conversation between themselves outside the room when Parish woke up, his screams filling the entire room.

Ace and Spade rushed into the room the same time as I leapt closer to Parish, grabbing him by his shoulders to keep him from jostling his arm. It hadn’t healed yet, and the last thing I wanted was for Spade to have to reset the bone again.