Pockets of Darkness by Jean Rabe Page B

opened it and took out the statue of Kanefer. It was like popping open a bottle and finding a genie inside. Elijah Stone must have had some sort of summoning ward on the briefcase to protect the million-dollar relic. Opening the case summoned the monster. Bridget had not looked for such a ward, thinking that Stone was just a normal man; only a small percentage of the populace was gifted with any sort of magic, or had any access to buying wards and the like. If she had opened the case in that apartment, the beast would have come out right there and then and woken Stone, and Bridget would have been caught and staring at serious prison time.
    It was fortunate she had simply stolen the entire case and opened it here, Stone none the wiser. The monster was a temporary inconvenience.
    “Yes, of course,” Bridget said, relaxing. “Throw it out.” Getting rid of the briefcase would get rid of the monster that had been warded to it. The creature was not connected to the statue; she would have learned that with her psychometry, and so it was linked only to the damn ugly briefcase. It did not appear to be vicious. It had not attacked her when she removed the statue—an alarm, nothing more, and a hideous and smelly one to say the least. A creature meant only to frighten and hold the thief in place until Stone could summon the police. “Yes, definitely. Throw the damn old briefcase out. Throw it out right away.” Odd that Michael and Dustin couldn’t see the monster, she thought. But perhaps only the ones designated by the ward were so unlucky—the thief and Stone; magic could be that quirky and specific.
    “And that little statue, ma’am? What shall I do with it?”
    “Leave that, Michael. I’ll take care of it. Just—” The monster belched again, a visible gray-green cloud of noxiousness wafting from its maw. Bridget did not hold her breath in time and inhaled the biting, sulfurous reek. She felt the room spin and her knees gave out.
    O O O
    She was in bed, bathed, covered with a wool blanket, and had an IV needle sticking in her arm. Dustin and Michael stood behind Bridget’s doctor, a fiftyish man who had retired from his practice a handful of years ago and made more money with his “house calls” to a group of select patients, Bridget on rare occasions among them.
    “Fluids,” the doctor told her, seeing Bridget staring at the drip. “And potassium before that. You were seriously dehydrated.” He drew his thin lips into a line and shook his head in obvious disapproval. “And suffering from exhaustion. Bruised ribs.” He paused and added a finger wag for emphasis. “I don’t want to know how you came to be in such shape, Miss O’Shea, that’s none of my business. But I’d advise you against future similar behavior. You’re not a teenager.”
    Bridget caught Dustin hiding a smile at that comment. Dustin was dressed smartly in a sweater vest over a maroon shirt and dark gray slacks. She remembered him saying he had a cooking class to attend.
    “Though you are—overall—usually in remarkable physical shape, you need to know your limits.” The doctor’s expression softened. “Seriously, Bridget, you had us worried for awhile. I wanted to put you in the hospital.”
    Bridget opened her mouth to offer a retort—several churned through her head, but changed her mind. “Thank you for coming over.”
    “Coming twice. The first to set you up this morning and make sure we didn’t need an ambulance. This just to give you one more bag of fluids. You were in far worse shape then, I could’ve sworn you had a few broken ribs. Now, it looks only bruised. You’re healing remarkably well. Still, take it easy.”
    “Thank you for checking on me,” Bridget said.
    “Twice.” The doctor shrugged. “I was on my way to a late dinner anyway, Bati. Craving something Moroccan, you know. So not out of the way, actually.” He patted his stomach and watched the last of the fluid clear the line, and then disconnected it.