“Oh honey,” Barlonda says, embracing me. She reeks of sweat, beer, and very non-medieval Aqua Net. “It’s all right. I’m sure everything will be fine—“
“No it won’t! I want to go home. I need to go home, but I can’t if I have rabies! And what am I supposed to wear to the hospital? I can’t wear this—this thing,” I wail, tugging at my shredded, rust-stained skirts.
Barlonda looks offended. “Why dear, what’s the matter with your dress? I thought you liked that gown. It’s one of the best pieces in my spring collection.”
“Are you blind, Barlonda? My dress is ruined,” I wail. Barlonda looks puzzled for a moment; she squints, pulls a set of glasses out of her bosom, puts them on, and finally understands.
“Oh my, well, it is a bit of a mess, dear. And Syr Phillip hasn’t even paid for it yet—”
“Now you see what kind of luck I have. Syr Phillip has probably been stringing me along this whole time.”
“There, there, dear. It’s all right.” Barlonda inspects my shredded dress more closely. “Well, that’ll be a real bear to fix,” she says. “But don’t you worry about a thing, hon. I’ll have this gown fixed up for you in a jiffy. And about Syr Phillip—don’t let his little tizzy with Lady Ramona out on the driveway ruffle your feathers too much. She means nothing to him, nothing at all. But you for sure do. I guarantee you that.”
“I’m not sure I should believe you,” I manage just as Syr Phillip and Baron Grizzly come rushing down the hall.
Syr Phillip, breathless, glances nervously at me, then Barlonda, and then back at me and my now-shredded gown. “What the hell is going on here?”
“Look Phil,” I snarl. “While you were busy saying your goodbyes to all your other girlfriends, or whatever it was you were just doing, Lady Ramona’s crazy dog attacked me and chewed the bejeezus out of my leg. I probably have rabies now. I need a ride to the hospital, and pretty much everybody here except you and me is either drunk or stoned. So even though you are not exactly on my A-list of hot, desirable boyfriends right now, I would appreciate it if you’d get me to an emergency room for whatever horrible torture-treatment they give for rabies nowadays before I start frothing at the mouth. ‘Kay?”
Syr Phillip blinks twice. “Do you really think you might have rabies, Lisa?”
“Unless your snotty little chain-smoking girlfriend Lady Ramona can show me proof of vaccination, yes.”
Syr Phillip looks hurt. “Lady Ramona is not my girlfriend, Lisa. I thought we already established that.”
I roll my eyes. “I think the only thing we’ve established so far today is that you’re a very eligible bachelor that every woman in the SCA wants to suck-face with.”
Syr Phillip doesn’t comment on my last remark. He just inspects my ankle and sucks in his breath. “This doesn’t look good at all. I’ve got some pharmaceutical-grade Bacitracin in my car—lucky for you I’ve still got some samples left from my last sales trip. I’ll spread that on here until I can get you to the hospital.”
With that, Syr Phillip scoops me up in a threshold carry before I can protest.
“Look out! Make way, make way, good gentles! An injured lady comes forthwith!” Syr Phillip calls out to everyone within hearing. "Grizz, see if you can find Ramona. And then call the police. Tell them there’s been a dog attack here. Have them arrange to take the poodle away for testing and then tell them to meet us at the hospital. We’ll be at the Greenfield County ER.”
Baron Grizzly looks scared. “Phil, I really can’t be the one who calls the police. You know Ramona’s got a stash here, and she’s been such a good source for me all these years, and—“
Syr Phillip sets his jaw. “Do it, Grizz.”
Grizzly looks panicked. “But Phil—“
“If you’re worried about getting hit for possession again, then just make the call anonymously and leave. But as Kingdom Champion, a Knight of the Midrealm, and a fellow Peer, I hereby order you to contact the authorities about that dog attack. Ramona keeps a phone on the desk in the upstairs den. It’s an old Princess trimline phone, hot pink. You can’t miss it.”
“All right, all right!” Grizzly runs a sweaty hand through his scraggly gray hair and sighs.
“You sure know a lot about this house for someone who couldn’t remember whose house it even was when we first got here,” I snarl.
Syr Phillip doesn’t answer. He just carries me out to his trusty red dragon.
Chapter 12
We pull up outside Greenfield County Hospital about five minutes later. Syr Phillip doesn’t bother to park; he just leaves his dragon in the ambulance driveway in front of the ER and carries me, young-bride style, through the hospital’s automatic doors. My ankle is now a piece of red-hot nuclear fallout, and my head is starting to spin a little, too. I don’t know if the head-spinning is from fast-incubating rabies or from the fact that a very strong, sexy man in a medieval knight’s tunic is carrying me around in public.
Syr Phillip carries me past the triage desk straight into one of the examination cubicles. The duty nurse, a heavyset young woman with pink highlights accenting her dark hair, tries to stop us.
“Hey! You can’t go back there!” Syr Phillip ignores her. I hitch up my shredded gown to rub my scorching ankle. I see the nurse do a double-take when she takes the time to notice our outfits.
“Hey! Hey, you! What’s with the weird clothes? Are you two in some kind of Satanic cult or something?” the nurse hisses at us, blocking our entrance into the curtained-off exam cube.
“Just tell Dr. Kavanaugh that Phil Dawson is here to see him with a possible rabies case,” Syr Phillip says, cool as bubble tea. “He’s the attending emergency physician on call tonight, right?”
The nurse gives us a single nod, her mouth still hanging open. She finally shuts it with a click and says, “How did you know that?”
Syr Phillip sets me down on a paper-swathed examining table. “Dr. Kavanaugh’s one of my best customers. Do you know that I sell this hospital your entire annual supply of Zoloft and Lipitor? Not to mention all the antibiotic IV drips.” Syr Phillip takes a business card out of his tunic pocket and hands it to the nurse. “Tell Dr. Kavanaugh I’m here, please. And send someone in to clean the lady’s wound. I’ve got some Bacitracin on it, but it’s a dog bite so it’ll need to be irrigated.”
The nurse’s mouth drops open again. “Right,” she says, and disappears.
I lie back on the examining table. “Do you always boss people around like that?” I ask.
“Only when they need it. The weekend nursing staff isn’t always the greatest at these country hospitals. Relax, Lisa. I’m good friends with the ER chief here, and I’ve been the exclusive Pfizer rep to this hospital for five years now. They’ll take good care of you here, don’t worry.”
I close my eyes and take several deep breaths, trying to take my mind off the fact that I am now probably in the early stages of rabies—or in true medieval style, perhaps even the bubonic plague. Specks of light flicker underneath my eyelids as I feel my ankle start to go numb. Vaguely I sense Syr Phillip take my left hand in his, and he begins stroking the inside of my palm with the tips of his fingers. The light touch of his skin on mine is like a thousand tiny dandelions kissing the whole length of my arm. Even in my dazed state I experience the deep sensual connection between the two of us. I’m still not sure how I feel about Syr Phillip as a person, but it’s obvious that we have an intense physical attraction, one that I feel more and more urgency to explore as soon as possible—maybe even here in the ER, rabies or no rabies.
A deep, cigarette-roughened man’s voice stirs me from my reverie. “Phil! What the hell you doin’ here this time of night?” I open my eyes to see a sixtysomething, buff-haired gentleman. His tubby body is pear-shaped and his face looks like a hundred miles of bad road, but his voice is kind.
“Dr. Kavanaugh, I’ve brought you an urgent case.” Syr Phillip’s voice is rough and edgy with concern.
“I see you’re in
one of your kingdom outfits or whatdoyocallim, Phil,” Dr. Kavanaugh replies, not even glancing in my direction. “Don’t tell me you got hit in the crotch with one of them bad swords again. I can only fix so many hernias, you know. You medievalers or whatever the hell you call yourselves—I get more weird injuries from you types than anybody else. You guys even outdo those Civil War reinactors. Which takes talent, since those guys use real bullets.”
Syr Phillip goes a deep red. “Actually, the lady is the one with the injury tonight. Dog bite. And I’ll have you know that it didn’t happen at the SCA event itself. This was at a party.”
“Close enough,” Dr. Kavanaugh snorts. “I like ya Phil, but I really don’t see why you feel the need to spend your weekends running around in a dress and chasin’ guys with sticks.”
“It’s a tunic, not a dress,” Syr Phillip snaps. “Please, buddy, stop razzing me and take a look at the lady here.”
Dr. Kavanaugh turns to me and inspects my ankle. “Nice little bite you’ve got there, miss. Poodle, was it?”
“Yes,” I say, breathless. It’s starting to get a little hard to talk. I can’t tell if it’s from the rabies or the fact that Syr Phillip’s finger caresses have set me ablaze.
“I can always tell a poodle bite,” Dr. Kavanaugh says, his voice less rough now. “Those dogs got a certain kind of pointy shape to their teeth. Poodles always bite pretty young ladies like you. It’s because they’re vain and can’t stand the competition.”
I blush. “I always thought pets were a reflection of their masters,” I say, slanting my eyes in Syr Phillip’s direction. “And that poodle’s definitely got the same personality as its owner.” Syr Phillip flinches, but says nothing.
“Well, looks like you got yourself a pretty bad infection started here,” Dr. Kavanaugh says, probing my ankle with a sterile instrument. I wince in pain. “You were right to put that Bacitracin on there, Phil. But that dog must have had some pretty rotten teeth to have something set in this fast and this deep. I’ll get one of my residents in here to irrigate it and get the lady started on an antibiotic IV drip before that infection has a chance to go systemic. By the way Phil, we really like those Zithromax drips you’ve been bringing us lately. They knock out all the bugs, and then some.”
“Thanks,” Syr Phillip says, sheepish. “That’s one of my top sellers.”
“Probably because I’ve been buying out all your stock.” Dr. Kavanaugh removes my blue velvet slipper and rubs my foot, ankle, and lower leg up and down. My skin screams in fury at his grip. “Your leg here is hot to the touch,” he says. “And swollen, too. Sure sign of a spreading infection. We’ll have to keep you here overnight, Lisa, and get you started on those antibiotics right away. And rabies is always a possibility with a dog bite.”
“Yes, I know,” I say, biting my lip.
“You got the dog, Phil? The dog will have to be tested for rabies. Although from what I’ve seen so far, I think it isn’t likely, but there’s always that chance.”
“The dog should be here soon,” Syr Phillip replies. “At least I hope it will.”
As if on cue, two hulking Wapakoneta police officers enter the examination cubicle. One is tall and lean as a hockey stick; the other, a fat redheaded man in his thirties, resembles a dodgeball.
Officer Dodgeball taps a golf pencil against his traffic-ticket pad. “You the ones from that big marijuana orgy out on Route 43? I swear, I’ve never seen so many freaks in one place in my life.”
“Ummm, yeah, that’s us,” Syr Phillip replies, not even trying to contradict the portly cop.
“Damn straight,” snarls Officer Hockey Stick, placing his left hand on his gun. “I’d say you two look like you came from the same place. What’s with those outfits? You guys into some kind of Goth scene? ‘Cause if you are, I’ll tell the doc here to test you both for crystal meth.”
“These folks are friends of mine, officer,” Dr. Kavanaugh says, his voice cool and clipped. “Why don’t you two gentleman have a seat in the hallway until I’m done examining the lady?”
Officers Dodgeball and Hockey Stick sit down on a Naugahyde couch just outside the exam cubicle, their arms folded in matching postures of contempt. Officer Dodgeball keeps his flinty eyes on me, while Hockey Stick starts squawking something unintelligible into the Motorola radio clamped to his right shoulder.
Dr. Kavanaugh jots something down on a clipboard and presses the “Call” button just to the left of the examining table. He leans in to whisper something to Syr Phillip that I can’t make out, and Syr Phillip shrugs and shakes his head.
“Just think about it, Phil,” Dr. Kavanaugh grunts. Then he nods at me. “It was nice to meet you, Lisa. One of my residents will be in to irrigate your wound, and you’ll have to sign some paperwork. We’ll get you a room here for the night. Oh, and if that dog doesn’t show up soon, we’ll have to start the rabies shot regimen as a precaution. Hope you’ve got a strong stomach, dear. That’s where you’ll have to take ‘em, and the needles on those dadburn shots are huge.”
Dr. Kavanaugh waves his hand toward Officers Dodgeball and Hockey Stick and disappears. The two cops stagger back into the cubicle.
“You wanna tell us what happened over at your Goth orgy party, ma’am?” says Officer Hockey Stick.
“Any drugs over at that party, ma’am?” Officer Dodgeball asks, tapping his golf pencil.
“Well, ummm—“ I stammer.
Syr Phillip steps in. “We were only at the party for a few minutes. There was a little bit of pot smoking and. . .other activities going on there, but Lisa here is a very upstanding, sensitive lady, and she wasn’t comfortable staying in that environment. Isn’t that right, Lisa?”
“That’s right,” I sputter, grateful for Syr Phillip’s gallant rescue. “We were just trying to, umm, leave when the dog attacked me.”
“Is that right?” Hockey Stick drawls, leaning against the cinderblock wall. “Did anything else happen while you were there?”
“No,” I say, suspicious. “Just that.”
“You sure ‘bout that?” Dodgeball growls, leaning closer. “’Cause that’s not what we understand from the folks we met at the scene.”
I turn to Syr Phillip for help and he gives me a blank look. Before I can respond to Dodgeball’s scowling accusation, Barlonda, Grizzly, Pegeen, and Arundel the Black all burst in, tripping over each other.
“We can explain! We can explain!” Barlonda shouts, waving her arms. I can smell the liquor on her breath from five feet away.
“Barlonda, let me tell it,” Grizzly growls, still wearing nothing but his cutoff sweatpants. “You’re hammered.”
“You’re hammered too, dude,” Arundel the Black retorts, although his eyes’ sunken glossiness and graveled voice belie at least a couple joints’ worth of pot inhalation. “Let me tell it.”
Pegeen rushes to my side and takes my hand. “No, let me tell it,” Pegeen insists. “Lisa’s my best friend, after all. Are you okay, hon? If I knew that this was going to happen I never would have dragged you along with me this morning.”
Officers Hockey Stick and Dodgeball are growing impatient. “Somebody spit it out,” Dodgeball yells. “We ain’t got all goddamn night here.”
“Right,” Pegeen says, squeezing my hand again. “You see, Arundel and I, we got there right after Lisa and Phillip left. That’s when everything happened.”
“Like what?” I ask.
“Well, you getting bitten by Piddles was only the beginning,” Pegeen explains. “You guys missed the real excitement. Some Tuchux crashed Lady Ramona’s party.”
This interests the cops. “Tuchux?” asks Hockey Stick. “Is that what all those people in the leather bikinis were?”
“Yeah,” Pegeen replies. “Whenever the Tuchux show up someplace, trouble is sure to follow.”
“I didn’t realize there were any Tuchux in Ohio,” Syr Phillip says. “I thought they were all on the East Coast.”
“So anyway,” Pegeen continues. “Sy
r Phillip carried Lisa out of Ramona’s house after that stupid dog bit her, right? Or at least that’s what I heard. The Tuchux showed up right after that. And then all hell broke loose.”
“What do you mean?” asks Syr Phillip.
Pegeen bites off a hangnail on her pudgy left thumb. “Well, I don’t know the whole story, but supposedly Lady Ramona didn’t deliver on some pot deal that she’d made with the Tuchux at Pennsic last year, and, well—they showed up to collect. You know what the Tuchux are, don’t you Lisa?”
“Ummm, no, Pegeen,” I say.
“Tuchux—that’s the names of a drug gang, right?” Officer Hockey Stick says, wagging his pencil in Pegeen’s direction. “’Cause the drug gangs are what we’re after.”
“Dude, the Tuchux are just some random SCA weirdos, man,” Arundel says, his tone condescending. “They’re not part of any drug gang, man. But a lot of ‘em use a lot of drugs. Grass, anyway.”
Pegeen shushes Arundel with a light slap to his behind. “To make a long story short, officer, the Tuchux showed up demanding their share of some pot that they paid Lady Ramona for at Pennsic last year, or something.”
Officer Hockey Stick looks close to splitting a vein. “Can you just get to the point, ma’am? Tell us what happened with the drug deal already.”
Pegeen stands up a little straighter. “Well, like I said, I don’t know the whole story. But it’s pretty much common knowledge in the SCA that Lady Ramona grows some fair-quality marijuana in the cornfield behind her house, and she sells it to folks at SCA events and Ren-fairs and such. But she’s not part of any gang or anything. She just grows and sells the stuff to pay her bills, that’s all. Supposedly she has a medical marijuana prescription for some medical condition she has—epilepsy, or something. So anyway, after the Tuchux showed up, there was a huge fight, and then, well—“ Pegeen started to tear up.
“There was like, a pretty huge fire, dude,” Arundel finished. “Nobody knows how it started, but Lady Ramona’s house was about half burned down when we left. I don’t think anybody’s hurt though. Pretty much everybody got out of the house okay—”
Knights and Kink Romance Boxed Set Page 62
