In that moment, I couldn't explain things away. Maybe Calista had been knocked out cold and suffered a head wound from Bungee that was simply that, a wound, nothing fatal. Maybe the Antonov children were sick with a genetic disorder. Maybe those people in the field were a gang mixed up with some bad drugs. I couldn't however explain away a man floating in front of me. A projection, maybe? But how did he glide over to a tea cart and retrieve a glass of water for me to sip. A glass of water that felt very real inside my hand. A glass of water that shattered just as it should when it fell from my shaking grip.

"Oh dear," muttered Spencer. "I think she may be going into shock."

"She's shocked, but not in the medical condition sense," said Gregory, who grabbed one of my arms and wrapped it over his shoulder so I could balance my weight upon him. "Come on Del, let's get you to the laundry room and I can get you bandaged up."

"Oh dear," sighed the ghost again as Gregory pulled me along to a back hallway. "What a mess, I really must give all the guests coupons for the midnight buffet after this."

"Are you a human?" I asked, my words raspy whispers upon my sore throat.

"Yes, for now," he replied with a handsome twist of his lips and a coy glint in his eyes. Some heat rushed to my cheeks, but I knew they had to be too ruddy with dirt and exhaustion to tattle my blush.

We reached a room in a back corner of the grand building and he nudged the door open, still maintaining a hold on me and his medical kit. Once inside, I saw a stool calling my name, but Gregory kept me aloft.

"I'll need you to take off your jeans and shirt."

"P-pardon?" I stuttered. After ever only having a few uneventful dates throughout my years, the amount of rather intimate attention I was getting that night was about as terrifying as seeing Spencer float.

"I won't be able to properly dress your wounds with your clothes in the way." He turned to the wall, putting his kit on top of a washer, which he opened and began rummaging through. "Don't worry, you can keep your underwear on, think of it like wearing a bikini." As if I ever felt comfortable wearing one of those. "And honestly I don't pay attention once I'm in doctor mode. I won't even notice anything above or below the wounds. I was a well respected doctor in my first life and I plan to uphold those ethics into my second life."

"First life?"

"I'll tell you more," he said, looking at me from over his shoulder with a smirk that sent a new wave of fiery color to my cheeks, "but only if you let me do my job and tend to those wounds."

I gave him a little nod. Whatever embarrassment I may have felt, I couldn't very well continue on with the wounds as they were. I felt certain my leg had long ago clotted as they were just puncture wounds, but my side was a different story. With pressure from my hand and a bit of my remaining shirt, I created a temporary bandage, but the moment I removed my clothes, I knew the blood would once again flow freely.

I cringed as the shirt peeled from my side and a squeak of pain managed to break past my throat.

"That's a nasty one," he said, turning around with a syringe, bandages, cotton swabs, and bottles of what I assumed to be some sort of antibiotic. "I'm going to start by giving you a shot of vitamin K. Vampire venom has an anticoagulant quality to it to make it easier for them to draw out blood. The vitamin K will combat that."

I gave him a nod before turning away as he pricked my arm with the thin needle. After the slight burn of the syringe's contents spreading through me, I turned back to find him disposing of the needle and retrieving a squirt bottle.

"Alright, with that done, your body can start doing what it needs to do. So now I'm going to clean your wound, okay?"

With a few sprays he rinsed off my side, revealing a much smaller wound than I had expected. Two gnarled streaks about two inches in length tore along my side, taking a bit of skin with it.

"All right, now I'm going to disinfect this before giving you a couple stitches. This will burn a bit."

It burned more than a bit.

"I was an ER doctor, you know?" he said, his voice calm and smooth while I cried out.

"What?" I breathed as he took another swab to my side.

"I saw so much death. I mean sure, I saved a lot of people, but some just couldn't be saved. Sometimes, it was just someone's time, but still I got blamed. I know I should have just stood there and taken it. I mean, these people just lost someone tragically, often well before their time and they needed to blame someone, but after so many years, it starts to wear you down. I could only be blamed for someone else's drunk driving or heart attack so many times before I began to question it all."

His voice had the pleasant inflection of a practiced speaker. His hands moved deftly, acting without thinking so that his tale remained unhampered by a need for concentration. As he shared his story, my heart slowed down to a normal pace and my breathing settled. I didn't even notice when he started to stitch me together.

"I had to sit there and be berated by their grieving family because life could not continue on without their recently deceased loved one. The only way I could cope was believing that they were wrong, that their life would, in fact, go on and, not only that, but that perhaps even the dead would go on. It made it easier to witness them dying if I believed they were going to keep living, it would just be in a life outside of our own.

"I think at the time I considered something like heaven, but I've never been a particularly religious man. For some the medical profession brings you closer to God, but for others it turns you right away. It's all a matter of how you looked at it and I took the more pessimistic route. Yet, there I was, convinced that there had to be more. You see, every day, I saw death reflecting in these patients' eyes and they weren't afraid. Sure they'd be terrified five minutes before Death came knocking, but the instant they released their hold on the mortal coil, I saw contentment. I knew there just had to be more. That what I was seeing was the moment they realized another journey lay ahead of them and that it would all be okay. That's when I got my calling."

"Calling? Like divine inspiration?"

"At the time, I thought maybe it was." He placed a square of gauze over his work and then taped it down. "You calf won't need stitches, so I'll just need to clean and dress it."

He gathered a few more things from his bag and continued. "When you're called, you don't understand it and sometimes you don't even notice it, but in the end it wasn't divinity that brought me here, but magic."

"Magic?"

"The mages have a rather ingenious system for drawing Bodies to the town. As soon as one of the Bodies is set to end their contract, a magical beacon is sent out to a likely candidate for a new Body. In fact, there may be one buying a ticket right now to make their way here and not even know why."

"Because of Calista?"

"Her replacement should be well on their way by now too. It can take a couple days, depending where the Body is coming from, but they'd definitely be a good way here at this point. But, what I meant is, someone is probably coming to replace me." He looked up at me with a proud smile, before returning to his work with bandaging my calf.

"I thought you were human?"

"I am, but once things have been determined, the call can go out, and, well, my sponsor has already claimed me. Just hasn't been announced yet because of this whole thing with Calista. Usually conversions are supposed to be a big to do in town. Gives people something to celebrate, but with Calista's botched conversion, things are a bit uneasy here. It would just be in poor taste to say anything right now, but soon, soon it will be official." He sighed with a giddy twist of his lips.

"But, if you haven't been officially claimed then will it really call someone?"

"I don't know," he said with a shrug. "It's just nice to think about. I've been waiting for this for a long time."

"Do you..." I stopped and considered my words. I thought of the night that brought me to the forest. The night I let my feet guide me. "Do you think I was called?"

"I wouldn't think so, there wasn't an opening until after you arrived, right?" He didn't turn to face me, instead he inspected the bandage he had just placed on my leg.

"Does that mean I may be booted from the room here?"

"Well, I suppose if no one has been called for my replacement yet, then maybe the spell might not call anyone and just let you stay here. The mages are a whole world of their own. The vampires, werewolves, and zombies may bicker a lot, but that's because they're really close relatives and isn't that what family does? But, the mages, they are a bit of a mystery."

He stood up and offered me his hand.

"I wouldn't worry. The spell is to fill rooms. If you're in a room then the spell won't call out for another."

"I hope so." I tried not to think about the implications of not having a space in housing. Instead, I thought about a bed waiting for me and I took his hand, allowing him to help me up.

"I'll wait outside for you to get dressed and then I'll take you to your room."

Was it really my room though? Wasn't it Calista's? Wasn't it meant for whomever was called to replace her? Even in this strange little world, was I still just an outsider?

Was I still unwanted?

I thanked Gregory and wished him a good night. I didn't even turn on the lights when I entered. I simply found what felt like a bed and fell down upon it. I slept with tears in my eyes, wondering if I'd ever go home, wondering if I even had a home to go to.