Lenny smiled. “Okay, okay. I understand.” He rose and extended a hand. “You’re a good bargainer. I hope we never have to do this again.”
“Really?” I said as I shook his hand. “Never say never, Lenny. Don’t you have other clients you represent?”
17
At eleven the next day, I went down to Receiving to greet a new arrival.
The ambulance bounced up as Big Mac MacDonald exited the rear. He was in civilian clothes, but still presented as a leader.
The driver and EMT hurried to roll out their patient, Brian’s mother, Mrs. MacDonald.
Age affects everyone differently. Even among humans, there’s a huge variation. Mrs. MacDonald was not one of the lucky ones. Her hair was mostly white, her face wrinkled, and her swollen-knuckled hands were liver-spotted.
“Hello, Brian. Hello, Mrs. MacDonald. Let’s get you checked in right away.”
While Brian filled out paperwork, I chatted with Mrs. MacDonald.
It took her a few minutes, but she squinted through thick-lensed glasses at my face. “Don’t I know you? You seem familiar.”
I gave her my biggest smile. “I’m happy you remember! I’m Luna White. I was in school with Brian.” I put a hand on her shoulder. “You helped me get on the cheerleading squad by tailoring an old uniform for me.”
She looked down at her hands. “I haven’t done any sewing since the arthritis got bad.”
“We’ll see what we can do to help you.”
The clerk came over with a registration packet in her hands. I shook my head and said, “This is wrong. Mrs. MacDonald gets a VIP room on the fifth floor.”
“But her insurance—”
I gave her my ‘did you hear me?’ look and she scurried away to change the paperwork.
Brian and his mom exchanged a look. “You seem to have a lot of pull here.”
“I handle a lot of the administration.”
“And the mine? You seemed to be in charge there, as well.”
“The mining is really my husband’s thing. I was just there that day to handle some paperwork. This is where I spend most of my time.”
The clerk came back. “Sorry about the confusion, Mrs. White. Here’s the packet for your patient.”
Ten minutes later, we dropped Mrs. MacDonald off in her room. Brian chose to stay with her for a bit.
After our successful experience with Levron, Dad pushed ahead with a treatment plan for Mrs. MacDonald. Instead of using an operating room, we performed the procedure in his examination room.
Due to her weakened condition, the rapid acting spells we had used on the physically fit athlete were replaced with much more gentle spells that would have to run over a longer term.
Her son was waiting when we brought her back to her room after the procedure.
“Hi, Mom,” he said. “Did the examination go well?”
“It was over quickly. They treated me very well.”
Brian watched as a nurse hooked up an IV to his mom.
“Will that knock her out?” he asked.
“No, not at all,” said Dad. “That’s a slow-release anti-inflammatory drip. It’s a new treatment for her type of arthritis. Over the next few days, her symptoms will subside.”
“Any side effects?”
“Possibly nausea, increased fluid retention, perhaps some balance issues as long as the drip is going. But long-term? This protocol has proven to be extremely low risk.” Dad exuded confidence.
Brian peered at his mother, who had dozed off. “Her hair looks darker. Is that normal?”
“It’s just the lighting in the room, Brian,” I said. “But if she wants her hair done later this week, we have a full salon for the patients on this floor.”
“Really? A beauty salon in a hospital?”
I lowered my voice, as if sharing a secret. “Brian, we have some very high-profile patients come through here. People who insist on discretion. It’s better for them to have access to every service here on-site than to be seen coming and going to a hospital.”
“You mean like plastic surgery?”
Dad made a face at the term, and I jumped in before he could express his opinion. “We prefer the term reconstructive surgery,” I said.
I took Brian by the arm and guided him out, “I think we should let your mom rest. You can drop back in later today or tomorrow.”
In the hallway, Brian took my hand. “Mom looks better already.”
“I didn’t want to get her hopes up, because the treatment varies depending on the patient, but many patients make remarkable progress.”
“If she’s one of the lucky ones, what can we expect? Will she be able to get up on a walker?”
“Brian, if she responds well, we’ll have her dancing again.”
“I don’t know how we can repay you.” He turned away in embarrassment. “I wish we hadn’t been ordered to kick you off of your property.”
Make friends, Luna. Dr. Patrizia’s advice rung in my ears. “Don’t worry about it, Brian. I’m glad it was you who showed up. Having an old friend there was a big help.”
“It wasn’t very friendly to kick you out.”
“Let the lawyers worry about the mine. I’m sure it’ll work out in our favor.”
“So you’re not angry at me over that?”
“Not at all. You were just doing your job.”
I touched his arm again, “You’re one of the few friends I made in high school.” I emphasized the ‘friends’ slightly to let him know there was no romantic intent. “And friends help each other out.”
I was sitting at an empty table in the doctor’s lunchroom, ready to attack my plate of grilled chicken, when I felt the looming presence behind me.
“Dr. Sutton, care to join me?”
She stepped around the table and set her tray down opposite mine. Vegan curry and grilled vegetables.
“It’s hard to sneak up on you,” she said with a smile.
“Yeah, the smell—” Oops, humans hate to be told how they smell. At her frown, I redirected—” of that curry told me it was a vegan and the steps of a six-foot tall woman are distinctive. Put it together, and it had to be you. Please join me.”
She accepted my explanation with a grin and sat.
“Surprised they let you use the doctor’s lounge.”
“Yeah. I’m not a doctor, but since we own the hospital, they let it slide.”
“Must be nice to be rich enough to own a hospital. I’m jealous Mrs. White.”
“Call me Luna. I said ‘we’ own the hospital. That’s the company. My salary is less than any of the doctors on staff.”
Her brown eyes gazed into mine. For the hundredth time, I wondered what a witch saw when she looked at a werewolf.
Whatever she saw must have been reassuring. “Call me Deshondra.”
We ate in companionable silence for a few minutes, the vegan Wiccan and the meat-loving werewolf. Then we chatted about our backgrounds; the woman from a poor town in Louisiana who worked hard to become a doctor and the werewolf woman who escaped her pack in Wyoming.
“This makes me think of the parable of the lion laying down with the lamb,” I said.
Deshondra gave me a side eyed look and said, “So, you’re Luna the White Wolf of Wyoming and I’m the black sheep?” She raised an eyebrow, “Isn’t that kind of racist?”
My mouth snapped shut so quick, I bit my tongue. Heat flared on my cheeks. “Oh, my Lord, I didn’t mean anything like that!’ I spluttered. “I’m so sorry.”
Deshondra held the look for a few seconds, then laughed loudly enough to turn heads. She reached over and touched my arm. “I’m just joking. You didn’t grow up around any of my people, did you?”
“Yeah, where I’m from, we run vegans out of town.” I leaned forward and whispered, “Go ahead and take a piece of my chicken. I won’t tell anyone.”
She leaned in and whispered back, “You can’t tempt me with chicken. Now if it was ribs…”
We both laughed.
Was this what making friends was like?
18
Two days later, I was driving our new Tesla down I-215 near Henderson, Nevada. Yes, driving. This spoiled werewolf girl was finally learning to drive.
A tingle up my spine was the only warning. Then the car sped up, hitting ninety in less than ten seconds. The tingling sensation was not unlike the feeling I get when targeted, but not the pinpoint tingle of a weapon's aim. What the hell was going on?
"Luna, you need to slow down now," said Mike.
I pushed on the brake, but the vehicle's speed only increased. I swerved around all the cars in front of us, jerking the wheel to miss. The steering wheel was suddenly hard to move, though my werewolf strength was still enough to maintain control.
But all the strength in the world didn't help with the brakes. The pedal went to the floor with no change in speed.
"Look for a black SUV," snapped Mike.
"What?"
"There'll be a black SUV nearby. Find it and crash into it."
I did a quick scan. "It's behind us."
"Shit, we're screwed."
I scrambled desperately for a way to slow the car down. I didn't know of any spells that could help. A lock of hair flopped in front of my face, loosened from my bun by quick turns of my head. I blew it out of the way with a puff of air.
A puff of air? Could that work?
It took less than a second to recreate the spell I had used to embed a playing card in a plaster wall, then another second to pump the spell up to compensate for the weight of a fully loaded Tesla.
"Mike, cover your eyes. This might blow the windshield out."
Instead of asking questions, Mike brought both arms up and covered his face. I squinted tightly and tilted my head down.
I unleashed the spell and a hurricane-strong wind swept down the highway toward us, hitting the car with enormous force. The hurricane created a headwind that sought to push the car backward while the electric motor screamed to push us ahead. I sent a lightning bolt down the steering column, and the electronics died abruptly. The acceleration stopped, but I still had no brakes.
The safety glass of the windshield cracked into tiny squares, but did not shatter completely. I juggled the wind to keep it pushing straight against our car from the front; any loss of control would force the car into a spin and result in us flying off the road.
I was rolling at about seventy miles an hour in the leftmost lane when the big SUV pulled up next to us. The front windows were clear, and dark tint covered all other windows. All the windows had the distortion that indicated thick bulletproof glass.
The driver was a young African-American man with a very short haircut. He stared at us in amazement as he slowed to keep pace with us. Then he turned his head and shouted to someone in the back. Even with werewolf hearing, I couldn't make out what he said over the wind and the insulation of the thick glass.
He looked at us again, and I gave him the finger. The asshole swerved toward us, trying to force us off the road while we were still traveling fast enough to be injured. I used my mini-hurricane to push the huge SUV away from us.
Mike had pulled a .45 automatic from a holster and was trying to aim at the SUV. The driver just smiled a wide grin and tapped on his glass.
Mike shook his head in frustration. "It's bulletproof. There's no way to shoot the bastards."
In the mirror I saw flashing lights far behind us. For a moment my heart lifted. The cops would surely straighten this out. Then I saw that the police cars had halted, blocking all traffic in our section of road. These assassins were government-backed, and getting help from the cops.
I drove left-handed and held my right hand out to Mike. "Give me the gun."
"But it's—" At my glare, he quickly handed over the .45.
"Lean back, Mike."
I allowed the wind separating us to weaken, and the SUV pulled closer. The driver saw me fumbling with the .45 as the clip dropped. His grin widened like a werewolf closing in on prey.
The wind that had pushed them away died as I dropped the hurricane spell. We were still rolling at over sixty miles per hour.
The heft of the weapon was a comfort, pure steel that weighed almost two pounds. I gathered magnetic energy in enormous amounts, forcing lines of force to warp around the pistol, warp so hard that the metal folded in on itself like a crumpled ball of aluminum foil.
Then I used the lines of force to propel my two-pound missile out of our passenger window towards the SUV. The projectile was only moving at hundreds of feet per second when it broke our window, but the force I projected raised its speed to thousands of feet per second in the ten-foot distance that separated our vehicles.
My aim was off. The projectile didn't hit the grinning idiot; it hit the frame member between the body and roof that held the windshield in place. Bulletproof against small arms fire doesn't mean Luna-proof.
The projectile destroyed the pillar, sending the entire bulletproof windshield flying and ripping the front section of the roof loose. The driver's grin was now a rictus of fear. He ducked his head to avoid the blast of air coming through the missing windshield and slowed down.
"Yes!" I exulted, eager to get my fangs into these bastards who had dared to endanger my children.
Then the second SUV hit our right rear and sent us spinning. I dropped the wheel and curled over my pregnant stomach to protect the children as best I could while the car spun at a dizzying pace. No way to use wind to redirect our movements; we were going much too fast to control.
We crashed against the rightmost guardrail, which thankfully stopped our movement. I took a deep breath and unclenched my fists. My ears were ringing from the scream of tortured metal and the shock of slamming into the guardrail.
I sat up and looked around, amazed that the airbags hadn't deployed. Mike had a cut on his forehead, but otherwise appeared unharmed. He was clutching his medallion through his shirt, murmuring some kind of prayer. I could have sworn he mentioned my name in the prayer. I shook my head to clear it and looked over at the destroyed SUV. The SUV that had hit us had parked in front of the destroyed SUV, and the bastards were transferring a bulky case from the destroyed vehicle to the other one.
I growled through elongated fangs and jumped to attack the bastards, only to be stopped by my damn safety belt. Popping the catch didn't help; it was jammed. I lost precious seconds sawing through the tough fabric with my claws. By the time I was out of the car, the SUV was peeling out, doors open and the passengers scrambling to get fully inside. None of them were smiling now.
The freeway was still empty, so I jogged back across the road and sawed through Mike's belt to free him. His door wouldn't open because of being crushed in the collision, so he climbed out the window. I reached into the glovebox and grabbed the wad of cash we kept there for emergencies.
Mike followed me back to the trashed SUV and waited patiently while I sniffed around the wreckage. Five distinct scents, strong on fear, adrenaline, and, in one case, urine, permeated the vehicle.
In the distance, traffic had finally unblocked, and a row of cars was headed in our direction. Leading the procession were the two police cars that had blocked traffic for the assassination attempt.
Two destroyed vehicles, a pregnant woman in obvious distress, and a man with blood on his face. You'd think the police would stop to render assistance, right?
The officers' eyes remained focused straight ahead as they passed. Hypnotized or under strict orders not to help?
Mike was shaking his cell phone. "Damn thing must have broken in the crash."
"No, Mike," I said, "When I did the trick with the pistol, the magnetism trashed anything electronic within ten feet. Nothing will work."
"Oh. Wait, what was that?"
"Magic, Mike. You know I can do magic, right?"
Mike shook his head and returned to the practical. "We need to get help—get out of here and get you to a hospital so you can get checked out."
"No, Mike. We need to t
rack down these bastards and make sure they never endanger our lives again." I waved my claws in frustration and Mike stepped back. I had the feeling that even if our phones worked, a 911 call to this location would not result in a rescue vehicle arriving.
"How can we find them? They'll be long gone by now."
I pointed to my nose. "I've got their scent. I can recognize them when I see them again, no matter what."
Mike was walking around the trashed SUV, examining the vehicle minutely.
"Mike, there's nothing you can see that I haven't—"
"I know where they went," said Mike.
"What? Where did they go?"
"To Nellis Air Force Base." Mike was pointing to a small decal affixed to the front bumper of the car. "That's a sticker that gives the vehicle access to a secure area of the base. I had one like it on my car."
"Okay, experience beats werewolf senses this time. We need to get there fast, before they can jump on a plane and get away."
I extended a razor-sharp claw and cut the decal off of the vehicle. "Maybe we can use this to get on to the base."
"The base doesn't use decals at the main gate; they check everyone's ID cards. That decal is for the secure area."
"Do you still have your ID card?" I dug through my purse. "Mason gave me a set of them."
I pulled out a small smart-card with my photo and a fake name on it. "Is this the one we need?"
"Yes, that'll get you on base." He squinted at the name. "Emma Peel? Isn't that the name of a character from an old TV show?"
"Yes, Mason's sense of humor is weird. But it’ll be backed up in the government database."
"Okay. I've got mine here with me."
Traffic was zipping by at normal speed now, all the humans ignoring us. I was in no shape to run to Nellis, and the delay would allow the bastards time to get away.
"Mike," I asked, "How did you know to look for a black SUV?"
"That crash wasn't an accident. We were attacked by a team with a device that allows them to take control of any car with a computer. That's why the accelerator jammed and the brakes quit. The device is bulky and uses a lot of power. Government SUVs have dual-battery systems and enough space for the tech to work. And black is the cheapest color. I was hoping we could ram them."
Lycan Legacy - 4 - 5 - 6: Princess - Progeny - Paladin: Book 4 - 5 - 6 in the Lycan Legacy Series Page 40
