Post by StoryGirl83 on Nov 10, 2011 23:18:54 GMT -5
Chapter Eleven – Bad News and Worse News
“As if the people of North America don’t have enough to worry about with the short life span of anyone with the witch’s fever,” the reporter on the TV informed Alanna and anyone else watching, “now they have to worry about someone making that time even shorter.”
Alanna froze. She’d gotten the terrifying number of the current death count along with the best collected number of the sick, so she’d been about to turn off the TV. Now, that would have to wait.
“Hospitals all in three New England have suffered premature loss of patents as some unknown assailant or group of assailants has been going into hospitals and snuffing the life out of them,” the reported announced. “The assailant’s favorite method of killing seems to be suffocating his victims with the pillow off their hospital bed, though six victims believed to be the work of the same killer have had their windpipe crushed and one victim who survived was having the blood dripped out of him through an IV when attendants came across him. Family is relieved that the hospital staff located him in time. That patient is identified only as being in stage five of the witch’s fever. The people who found him may have only put off his death by a few hours.”
Alanna watched the reporter with horror. She wondered if these deaths were included in the death count she had just heard for the witch’s fever victims. Somehow she doubted it, which meant the number of deaths connected to all this was even higher.
“In the twelve hours since police have noticed the pattern they have identified at least thirty-eight victims of this killer in sixteen hospitals. Most were stage four or five witch’s fever patents. Most would have been dead by now but that’s not making any of us feel any better.”
“No kidding,” Alanna mumbled to herself.
“An hour ago four patients in an Eastern Massachusetts hospital brought the total number of known victims up to thirty-eight. Three of the patients were stage five witch’s fever patients. The fourth, though, was one of the few people in the hospital who had not contracted the disease.”
Alanna blinked in surprise. She hated seeing all this death, but it kind of surprised her that someone who seemed to be specifically killing victims of the witch’s fever would make a mistake or worse specifically target someone who wasn’t sick with it.
“The fifteen-year-old victim has not been identified other than to say that he or she was the victim of a car accident some weeks ago,” the reporter announced.
Alanna grimaced. Poor kid was younger than she was. This whole thing was just so awful. She flicked off the TV as the reporter started on a new topic. She left the room and headed up stairs. She stopped when she got to the guest room where her little brother lay sleeping. She pushed opened the door and walked inside.
Hank was facing the wall with one leg sticking out from underneath the covers. He must have found it comfortable, because as she stood there watching he’d didn’t move an inch.
She walked over and sat down on the edge of the bed by his pillow. She smoothed the hair on his forehead and sighed. “I’m sorry I didn’t notice you were having troubles with magic, little brother. I’ve been so caught up in finally having magic of my own that I didn’t realize that you quit casting spells. I wish you would have confided in me. When this is all over we are going to have a long talk.” She leaned down and kissed his cheek.
Hank’s cheek twitched pulling an amused look from Alanna. “Even in sleep . . .” she mumbled as she got off the bed and continued toward the attic.
“How bad is it?” Ladybug asked as Alanna closed the attic door behind her a few moments later.
“How bad do you think?” Alanna snapped back. “Fourteen-thousand-six-hundred-and-eleven dead,” she recited with a gulp. “And some creep has been taking advantage of the situation to kill even more. “They’ve killed thirty-eight people so far or at least that the police have found. At least one was not sick with the witch’s fever.” She looked at her mom. “Why do they do this? Why do people do this?”
Paige walked over to her daughter and put her arms around her. “I don’t know.”
“I found something,” Jani announced as she flipped her laptop around for them to see. She’d had her mom orb her home to get it while her sister was downstairs.
“Something useful?” Paige asked, hopefully.
“Probably not,” she admitted. “It’s a blog from a week or so ago, the 27th. It’s kind of cryptic, but I get the idea this gal knows something.” Jani scribbled something onto a piece of paper and handed it to Ladybug. “Here, ‘Rudy’, can you call on this lady, find out what she remembers?”
Ladybug frowned. “Why me? You’re the one who knows what to ask.”
“I can’t orb,” Jani pointed out. “You on the other hand can . . . well, whatever it is you can do.”
“You don’t pay much attention to cupid powers, do you?” Ladybug teased. “Nope,” Jani admitted, “but what you do is not what your dad does, so I’m guessing knowing cupid powers wouldn’t help in this case.” When Ladybug didn’t do anything she asked, “Are you going to get going?”
Ladybug chuckled and disappeared in pink hearts.
Paige watched bemused. It was interesting seeing her kids learning to deal with magical problems. She turned her attention to her older daughter still snuggling in her arms. “Alanna, you told us the death count. Did they say the sick count?”
Alanna nodded. “There’s already over two million cases in Europe and Africa. It’s been a day since they started showing signs over there. Current total worldwide is somewhere just short of one-hundred-and-thirty-seven-million. At this rate, it could be one billion by tomorrow.”
“No,” Paige announced, causing her daughters to look at her. “Tomorrow, no one will be sick.”
Jani looked at her confused.
Alanna frowned. “Mom?”
“One way or the other,” Paige told them, “we end this today.”