Crap. And with Kari’s insane level of magical power, if she has a problem with her spirit, that’s a big problem for her. A really big problem. Kari is like a nuclear power plant of magical energies, and by the sounds of it, she is currently having a catastrophic meltdown.
Noah finally looked up from Kari’s face. His voice barely over a whisper.
“How did this happen?”
The doctor sighed.
“We don’t know for sure, but we believe Kari may have experienced an attacked by another magic user and must have suffered some kind of extreme magical trauma.”
 Jiro’s voice sounded almost angry, as his words thundered out.
“How do we force Kari’s spirit to calm down and make the connections?”
The doctor winced again.
 “We don’t. The best we can do is keep Kari’s body safe and comfortable, and we wait. The spirit should try to fix itself on its own. We just need to be patient.”
The doctor droned on about how they were going to move Kari into the long term care wing of the hospital, what the family could do to help, what therapies they were going to try to improve Kari’s condition.
My mind was blitzing around faster than Kari’s spirit.
Okay, okay, what do we know? 
First, Kari’s body is in perfectly good shape, she’s not bleeding out, she has no life threatening injuries, everything is intact. 
That’s good, that’s very good. 
Next, is the problem with her spirit. 
That’s bad. 
But Kari isn’t just some kid that recently stumbled into magic, she’s a well trained and experienced professional magic user, so she should be able to work her way out of this problem.
That’s good.
If we are all still up and kicking, that means that Kari’s spiritual power hasn’t diminished in any major way. Her spell that keeps her zombies working is clearly still functional. If her spirit was shattered, or dissipating into the ether, her necromancy spell would have broken down by now. So her spirit must still be in pretty okay shape. Maybe a little battered, but not damaged.
That’s good.
As creepy as that is, it’s actually a good thing we can use ourselves as a barometer for how healthy Kari’s spirit is.
So the only real problem is the psyche disconnect.
The doctor had left at some point, and now everyone was standing just around Kari’s bed nodding, and muttering to themselves. Yeah, it looked like everyone came to the same conclusions I did. 
Good. That will make things much faster.
I clapped my hands together.
“So, that’s good news, right?”
The twin turned to me, looking confused.
“Good?”
I shrugged.
“Well, yeah. We’re all still okay, so there’s nothing to worry about.”
Wasn’t that what they had just been nodding and talking about?
Why had everyone turned to glare at me? Noah’s jaw was literally hanging open.
I shrugged again, a nervous jerk of my shoulders.
“Kari’s zombie spell is still intact, so everything is basically okay.”
Why were they looking at me horrified? 
If Kari’s spell was in good shape, than her spirit was in good shape. This wasn’t rocket magecraft.
Jiro took a step towards me, I could feel the burning hot rage simmering off of his blood splattered skin.
“You think my niece being in a coma is, ‘Nothing to worry about’?”
Umm, that’s not what I said.
Jiro stalked towards me.
“You think that Kari nearly dying is, ‘Basically okay’?”
I was frantically waving my hands around. That wasn’t what I said at all.
“Jiro, I –“
He didn’t let me finish. Jiro grabbed my arm in a vise like grip and swung me out the still open hospital room door.
His voice a low growl.
“You need to leave.”
And then slammed the door in my face.
I stood there blinking, stunned for a few long moments.
Oh my gods, what the hell is wrong with them!
I spun and stormed away down the hall. 
Seriously, I understand that they are upset, but why the hell are they taking it out on me? I was just pointing out what everyone was thinking. Why am I the bad guy for saying that Kari’s condition is mostly good? And people say I have a bad temper!
While marching down the hall, I passed the children’s waiting area with a sleeping Tina slumped in one of the giant beanbag chairs and a very nervous looking teen boy pacing back and forth.
It always gave me a bit of a mental whiplash to see one twin in one room and then move to another room and see someone that looked exactly the same.
While the first twin was back in Kari’s room fuming at me for nothing, this other one was still in the past, lost, worried, and waiting for any news.
“Hey, the doctor was in giving us an up date. Why don’t you go see the rest of the family, I’ll sit with Tina.”
The twin’s head snapped up at my words. He didn’t even stop to think, he was already racing for the hallway before I could even step into the waiting room.
Late night had just ticked over into very early morning. The lights in the children’s lounge were turned down low. Most of the toys and books had already been put away for the night. There was no one else to play with. Even as the hospital continued to buzz with activity beyond, this little haven was strangely quiet. 
Peaceful. 
Tina, her head nodded forward in sleep, looked like a beautiful doll someone forgot to put back in the toy box. 
Scootching Tina over to the side a bit, I snuggled in beside her on the beanbag, wrapped my arm around her shoulders, and rested my chin on her soft curls. 
Since the day I was born, like my whole family, I’ve been a follower of the god Korgan the Shield Bearer. Nearly all police are members of the temple, the few the don’t look to Korgan for guidance, honestly no one trusts. Because the shield bearers was a way of life. It was a vow to protect all that could not protect themselves. 
In Korgan’s own scriptures, “We are the unshakable guard standing in the breach, holding back the monsters of the night, until the coming of the dawn.” 
My whole career, my whole way of life, to this day, I had always without fail did everything to protect those that could not protect themselves. 
But this?
How the hell was I supposed to protect someone so tiny from something like this?
How were we ever supposed to explain to Tina what had happened to her big sister? 
Kari might have been an epic level screw up, and had more in common with the average vagrant than with normal society, and she definitely was a terrible influence on a small impressionable person, but Tina loved her. And Kari being in the hospital was going to hurt, no matter what we chose to say.
I wrapped my arms around Tina a little tighter, and hoped like hell it was enough to hold back the monsters, for this night at least.