It was only after they had started towards the hospital that Rory figured they maybe should have brought in another vehicle. Then again, with all the patients who were in the hospital, they’d need multiple trips anyway.

“Can’t believe you’ve managed to hold out for this long,” Evelyn said.

Adam swiped imaginary sweat off his forehead. “We’ve been lucky. Apart from the flying ones, all the other monsters gave up after we barricaded the doors.”

All along the trip, Rory kept imagining what conditions were like back there. A hospital crammed with patients, staff overrun with people they had to look after and issues they had to address. Their food had to be running low, their medicine stocks almost depleted, and that wasn’t even considering the severe mental strain they’d been going through.

Rory had to admit he was fortunate that he was allowed to let his mind wander on their way to the hospital. The streets weren’t teeming with monsters as he feared they might. All they saw was a Thundershell in the distance that quickly disappeared once they got close.

“These things are like ants,” Trish muttered. “Everywhere you go, and no matter what you do, there’s always one popping up out of nowhere.”

“Ants are harmless,” Sue said. “Usually. But these things…”

“What are they?” Adam asked. “I’ve seen a few on my—when I was travelling.”

Trish went on a lengthy diatribe about the Thundershells and how they were intent on frying every living thing they came across. Adam’s face blanched.

Rory recalled the smaller hall near the back of the palace they had cleared last night. “If we want to get rid of them for good, we’re going to have to find more of those spawn points.”

“Like the one you found last night?” Sue asked.

“Yes, exactly. We’ve cleared the substation and now the palace, but there’s no telling where else they might have those Electrium deposits.”

That was when Rory realized just how impossible the task of rooting out all the Thundershells could be. They had no idea where the other spawn points were. It wasn’t like they had a handy map, nor could the Thundershells themselves reveal their spawning location somehow. Unless they were followed, of course, though even that would be a gamble.

“They’re easy to beat,” Dez said. “Nothing to worry about anymore. So long as their master doesn’t pop up again.”

That was a grim line of thought, but Rory chose to focus on the positive. “That’s right. They’re a nuisance, not a big danger. Let’s take care of things one issue at a time.”

A strange, expectant atmosphere settled on them as they drew closer to their destination. Rory noticed that Adam looked more and more concerned as they neared the hospital. The doctor was probably worrying about the state of his patients and colleagues, but the lack of relief at the fact that he was arriving with help was strange.

They arrived before long. The hospital was just as Rory remembered—a wide building with a fence-lined roof. Once they got close enough and got out of the pickup, Rory saw the signs of the apocalypse all over it. Its large portico was stuffed with rubble and debris to form a makeshift barricade, most of the windows were all broken or boarded up, and several areas sported various cracks and fissures.

At first, it looked deserted all over. Then Rory noticed the few people who had ventured out to greet them.

“Hello,” a large woman in scrubs said. She had a bright smile plastered on her face. “Gosh! I wasn’t sure you all would make it here.”

“This is Jesse,” Adam said. “She’s the head nurse here, and the person holding everything together.”

“Oh, you give me too much credit, doctor.”

Rory nodded, introducing himself and the others. “Nice to meet you.”

Jesse’s eyes alighted on Evelyn with a strange mix of sadness and delight. “Evy! I’m so glad to see you’re okay.”

Evelyn smiled at her. “It’s good to see you’re okay, Jesse.”

“Same here.” Adam laughed a little. “Wish I’d known before though.”

Jesse looked away.

“No sign of any monsters yet,” Dez said from off to one side.

He and Trish had already ranged out, inspecting the grounds for any signs of Otherworlders. There wasn’t much to see. Some of the trees were broken, the ground was gouged in a few places, and a couple of traces of blood and other human bits indicated spots where violence had occurred. There were no monster signs, however.

“How many patients do you have here?” Evelyn asked. If she noticed anything odd about their behaviour, she didn’t let on. “Last I checked, it was twelve, right?”

“We have thirty-five now,” Jesse said. “And six staff members, us here.”

Rory tried not to react, but that sounded overbearing to him. “I’m glad you’ve held out for this long.”

“So am I, honestly.”

“Maybe we can start figuring out logistics inside,” Sue said. “Get a feel for what we need to do.”

Evelyn nodded in agreement. “We need to see how we can start transferring everyone from the wards to the palace. And then figure out how we’ll move any equipment we need, plus medicine and other supplies.” She sighed a little. “There’s a lot we need to figure out. Best to get started as soon as possible.”

“Truer words have never been spoken,” Trish said from the corner of the hospital grounds she had walked. She was looking straight up, staring at the sky. “I think they’re coming.”

Rory swallowed and followed her gaze. They were small, but if he squinted against the light a little, he could make out the flying monsters far, far above.

“Looks like they know we’re here,” he said.

“All the more reason to get things going as fast as possible,” Evelyn said. She turned to Jesse and Adam. “If your front door is blocked off, how do you guys get in and out?”

Jesse turned quickly. “Um, come on over. I’ll show you the way in. It’s a little weird but it works.”

She led them to the other side of the hospital, where one of the windows was open unlike the others. It was on the third floor, however, and without any obvious way of reaching it.

“We normally keep that barricaded with this huge wardrobe we’ve got,” Jesse said. “But we can use a ladder to get in or our when we need to.”

“Is it me, or are those birds coming closer?” Trish asked, still staring up.

“You’re not wrong,” Dez said. “They’ve seen us, and now they want a piece of us.”

A sense of unease was sliding over Rory, and he couldn’t decipher why. Maybe it was his subconscious recalling of the last meeting they’d had with the bird-monsters and how disastrous it had been.

“Not good.” Sue nudged Jesse. “Time we got moving, right?”

Jesse jerked at the contact, looking startled and a little frightened. “Right, right.” She stepped forward and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Lyle, Vern. They’re here. We need to start.”

That was a strange way of phrasing things, but Rory was distracted by the appearance of two more nurses at the window. Unlike Jesse and Adam, neither of them looked happy to see Rory and the others.

“I’m not sure about this,” the guy on the right, Vern, said. His bald head glistened as though he was sweating. “Maybe we can figure out some other way to—”

“There’s no time.” Adam had stepped forward, his voice strained and harried. “Just lower the ladder so we can come up. Hurry!”

Rory frowned. “What’s going on, Adam?”

“They’re just nervous about getting out of the hospital,” he said, all too quickly. “Hurry up, you two. We don’t have all day.”

Berated, the two nurses on the third-floor window threw the ladder down with a heavy clatter. Jesse was the first to go up, needing a moment or two to make sure it would be steady as she stepped on rung after rung. Once she was up, Adam quickly got ahead and claimed the second climbing spot. Rory frowned but tried not to think too much of it.

Dez went third, and halfway up, Adam reached the window, climbed within, and pushed the ladder off the wall.

“Hey!” Dez shouted as he jumped off, landing with a tuck and roll to save himself from injury.

Rory stepped back, heartrate spiking in alarm. He scowled up at the third-floor window. “What’s the meaning of this?”

“I’m really sorry about this,” Adam said, sounding truly remorseful. There was some kind of noise behind him, but Rory’s thoughts were in too huge of a cloud to figure out what they could have been. “It’s the only way we can save ourselves.”

“What are you talking about?” Trish yelled.

“Don’t struggle. It’ll make things a lot easier. Trust me.”

And with that, Adam slammed the window closed.

“Dr. Bueller!” Evelyn shouted. “Adam!”

The only response she got was a grinding noise confirmed that they were blocking the window up with something heavy. Even if they got the ladder up again, they couldn’t go in.

Sue cursed loudly. “A trap!” She looked up and cursed again. “We were led into a trap.”

Rory did the same, then felt his heart sink into his guts. It felt as though his heart’s pounding was now going through his whole body.

All the raptors they’d seen high up in the sky were about to flash down upon them.

“The portico!” Rory said, already starting to run. “Hurry.”

Dez was back up, fists aflame with darkness, blue glints lost in the flood of black. “I’ll cover you. Go, go.”

They ran as the first shrieks carved through the air to spike into Rory’s ears. He was too slow, especially compared to the others. But they didn’t leave him behind. Rory would have told them to hurry on, but they moderated their pace and kept close, Sigils glowing and ready.

Dez was the first to attack. His black flames went up in huge gouts over them, dark fireballs exploding in the air. Rory was too busy running and dragging in lungful after lungful of tired breaths to see if it worked, but he did hear the monstrous birds screaming and shrieking harder than before. That had to mean they were at least somewhat inconvenienced.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. Several shot past Dez’s fires and flashed towards the running group.

It gave Rory a millisecond or two to get a look at their forms. Most were the size of cows or hippos, their bodies part-reptilian, part-avian, and entirely feathered. They moved too fast for him to be certain, but if Rory had to guess, each one’s wingspan had to be twice as long as he was.

Trish shouted and chopped into the nearest bird with a vicious swing as soon as it got close. On the other side, Sue had erected a long Electrium barricade. The raptors crashed into it and screamed as they were shocked by the lightning.

“We’re almost there,” Evelyn said over the din of the battle. “Move.”

Rory was in the middle of gulping in another breath, so he couldn’t reply.

He didn’t need to. A second later, after some more haphazard teamwork, they reached the portico in front of the hospital, throwing themselves against the makeshift barricade of debris.

Of course, there was no time to rest. Dez positioned himself to cover the front, his Abyssal Inferno flaring everywhere. Trish covered the left with her steel axe and shield, while Sue kept up her lightning barricades on the right.

The just left the debris itself.

“I can punch through this,” Evelyn said. “Just going to need some time.”

“Hurry,” Dez shouted back. “We can only hold these things for so long.”

That didn’t sound good. The situation was just as it had been the night they had travelled from the substation to the pharmacy near the bank. Too many monsters for them to take care of. There might be more options to fight them off with, but the sheer number and unrelenting ferocity of the creatures meant they were hard-pressed to find anything that worked.

Even Rory’s Sigil of Knowledge wasn’t working. He figured it needed a few moments to observe the creature to provide any passive information about it, but these things moved too fast.

Heat blanketed Rory from behind. Evelyn’s Pyroclastic Hellfire was eating through the debris, leaving a trail of lava on the floor near them. But it was far too slow. Dez was stepping back, Trish’s hacks and slashes were growing more desperate, and Sue’s barricade was crumbling. They’d be overwhelmed soon at this rate.

Rory knew what he had to do. Smiling at the fact that this was to be the moment he was needed, he stepped forward with his staff already moving in the necessary motions.

“Sue.” He raised his voice to make sure that she heard. “Wrap your barricade around the porch. Dez, get inside, now.”

Dez blasted his flames everywhere then fell back. At the same time, Sue curved her barricade around the left, front, and right of the portico. Dez’s fire hadn’t stopped the birds from trying to dive bomb them. It was Rory’s turn.

He stepped forward and activated the Sigil of Harmonic Blizzard, poking his staff through the gap between Sue’s barricade and the portico.

The raptors were finally stopped. They were the target of the storm’s destruction, Sue’s barricade the target of its preservation. Under the assault of winds that made walls and floors crack, and a cold so vicious that it summoned frost and snow from nothing, the monsters fell back. They couldn’t stand up to the blizzard now claiming everything outside the hospital.

A horrific shriek pierced the stormy air.

Rory’s heart thundered in his chest. He knew that call too. It had to be from the giant bird-monster that had lifted the entire van with one enormous leg.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Dez said.

“Evelyn.” Rory looked back at the pool of growing lava that was forcing them all to stay at the edge of the portico. “How—”

“Got it,” Evelyn said.

The doorway burst open with a crumble of rubble. At the same time, the humongous shriek tore through the air, so close that it made the rafters above them shiver.

“Go,” Rory shouted. “Get inside.”

Rory’s blizzard had infiltrated within the portico to cool down the lava to solid rock and blow away the smoke and ash from Evelyn’s Pyroclastic Hellfire. It allowed them all to hurtle inside without setting themselves aflame or choking on smoke.

“Farther inside,” Dez shouted as another shriek burst through the air, closer than ever. “Go, go—”

He didn’t get to finish. With another earth-rending screech, a monstrous head the size of a lorry barged through the front entrance. Rory and the others had managed to fling themselves far enough into the room to avoid the snapping jaws from swallowing them whole.