Shades of Night (Sparrow Falls Book 1)

by Justine Sebastian

  With a soft laugh, Nick put the spray back in his janitorial trolley cart and turned around. Nancy was standing across the hallway from him, hands in the pockets of her scrubs, hair flopped down over her right eye.

  “Damn,” Nick said as he leaned back against the wall. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

  She grinned at him and rocked on her heels. “I am hardcore ninja, this is true,” she said. The smile fell away from her face and she glanced down at the floor. “So.”

  “So…” Nick looked around, waiting for something to happen. Nancy had been talking to him again for a while; she’d shown up at his place one night with a twelve pack and a, I’m sorry I called you a whore. They’d been good ever since, but she was being strange, acting apologetic though he had no idea what for. “What’s going on?”

  “A little while ago they brought your friend in here,” she said. “It was before we came on shift. I just found out because I heard some of the ER nurses talking about it. They were trying to find the person he said they should contact. Someone named Nick. Then they said Nick Lange and I only know one of those, obviously. I asked who the guy was and they told me. I said I’d let you know.”

  “Who the hell was it, Nance?” Nick said. “I’m not exactly overrun with friends these days. I’ve got you and Hylas and Dawn Marie, I guess, but they’re your friends, too.”

  “It wasn’t any of them, no,” Nancy said.

  “Then who?” Nick asked again, growing irritated with her hedging.

  “Ugly Christmas Sweater,” she said. “That guy, Wes.”

  “The fuck?” Nick’s voice echoed in the hall and Nancy gave him a look that said, Keep your voice down.

  “He came in sometime around seven o’clock,” Nancy said. “Dawn Marie and Tobias brought him in. They were still in the waiting room when I checked and we talked a bit. Something messed him up pretty bad.”

  “Something.” Nick’s voice was flat; curious and dumb at the same time. It sounded tinny in his ears.

  “Yeah.” Nancy took a deep breath then crossed the hall to stand closer to him while she related what Dawn Marie had told her in hushed tones. She concluded with, “I know it was that damned whatever it is that’s been raising hell all over town. God, the poor Washington family. Hunter. Now this guy, your little… um…”

  “John,” Nick said. Nancy flinched like she always did when he so bluntly said such things. It was minute, but he knew it by heart; the little twitch at the corner of her mouth, the quick, shocked blink and momentary stiffening of her entire body like she was preparing to recoil from him.

  “That guy,” she said. “Ugly Christmas Sweater,” she repeated.

  “Wes,” Nick said. “I know you won’t believe it, but he’s actually a nice—no, he’s a sweet guy, Nance.”

  “You like him.”

  “I don’t hate him.” Nick pushed away from the wall and went back to his cart. “Where is he?”

  “Upstairs,” she said. “He just got out of surgery a little while ago. I’ll go up with you if you want to see him, but he’s probably still out cold and even if he isn’t, you can’t stay long.”

  “How bad is it?” Nick asked as he pushed his cart to the elevator.

  “Not fatal, but he’s going to have some nerve damage if what I gleaned off a quick look at his chart is any indication,” she said. “His back and shoulders caught the worst of whatever happened to him. Cops went out to Tobias’s place with a tow truck to bring his car in. Dawn Marie said it looked like whatever it was tried to get him out of the car.”

  “Jesus.”

  Nancy leaned over him and hit the button for the floor Wes was on. Together they tipped their heads back and watched the numbers slowly tick past.

  Tick-tick.

  Nick wondered if Wes had heard that sound or if he had heard nothing. Just one minute he’s sitting in his car, the next some freak of nature is trying to drag him out of it.

  Wait.

  “If he was in his car then how the hell did it get to his back?” Nick said.

  “I have no idea.” Nancy pushed her hair out of her face then jumped like she had just been goosed. “Oh, God.”

  “What?”

  “What if he wasn’t in his car to begin with?”

  “So it… he… chased him to his car then tried to drag him out of it?”

  “Shit like that happens every day,” Nancy said. The elevator slowed and came to a stop. “Who’s to say a monster wouldn’t think of the same thing? Especially a monster that thinks like a man.”

  Nick walked out of the elevator with her, dragging his cart along and parking it between the two elevators. “That shit again.” He scoffed. “It’s just a man.”

  “No, it’s damn well not.” Nancy whirled on him, blue eyes blazing bright as gas flames. “We’ve been over this and I wanted to believe that was true—hell, I still want to believe it because all other explanations fly in the face of fucking logic, Nick, which I need if I am going to do my job well.”

  “Then what do you think it is?” Nick asked. “You got any new theories? Calling it a ‘monster’ is fucking useless, not to mention ridiculous.”

  “Yeah, I know all of that, thanks.” Nancy’s shoulders drooped. “I don’t know though, Nicky. I just don’t know. I’ve racked my brains and I can’t come up with anything that seems right.”

  They approached the duty desk and Nancy stopped to speak with the two nurses sitting there. They both glanced over at Nick who stared back at them; he wasn’t in the mood to be charming or likable at the moment.

  When Nancy motioned for him to come along, he followed her and tried not to look in the windows lining the wide corridor. All of the sick and dying people, the coma patients, the trauma victims. They were just lumps beneath the glaringly white blankets thrown over them. In the flickering blue light of all the machinery surrounding their beds, they looked like shrouded corpses already. Nick understood why they almost never closed the blinds over the windows to the ICU rooms, but he wished they would. The silence on the floor was thick, heavy with the strain that came from waiting on death.

  They stopped outside of the room Wes was in and before he walked in, Nick saw him like he did all the other inhabitants of the floor. As a museum piece, an exhibition to pain: just a sad bump under a white sheet, his dark hair an array of shadows across the equally white pillowcase.

  “Don’t take too long,” Nancy reminded him. “He might not even wake up, but if he does, don’t tire him out.”

  “I know the drill,” Nick said. His dad had been in the ICU and though that had been years and years ago, the song and dance about not tiring the patient out had never changed. But Nick’s dad had never woken up. He’d never even stirred.

  He stood at the foot of Wes’s bed for a moment then walked around to look at his sleeping face. He was lying on his side since his back had been so horribly torn up. Closer to him, Nick could smell the antibiotics and the strange, vitamin-like scent of sterile gauze. He crouched on his heels to look at Wes’s face, creased with worry and stress even in sleep. Nick’s stomach did a weird flip-flop and his throat felt tight. They had tidied Wes up somewhat, but where his hand rested beside his face Nick could see the dark lines of dried blood beneath his fingernails.

  Nick reached out and brushed the hair back from Wes’s face. He didn’t think about it, he just did it. It felt greasy and a little gritty under his fingers and when he took his hand back there were dark flecks against his skin. More dried blood. The sponge bath crew had missed another spot. Nick had half a mind to get up and take care of it himself and thought maybe if they hadn’t gotten Wes cleaned up by his next visit then he would do that. He did like Wes, he hadn’t wanted to, but he did. He’d never liked a john before, but he’d had very few regulars before either.

  Wes opened his eyes as Nick withdrew his hand. His vision was unfocused and for a second, he looked afraid; the heart monitor spiking proved that he was. Then he blinked and his eyes cleared, though not
much. He was sure to be on some heavy duty painkillers after what had happened to him.

  “Nick?”

  “Yeah, I’m here,” Nick said.

  “I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” Wes said. “I didn’t know who else to ask for.”

  “It’s fine,” Nick said. He took Wes’s hand because that was the nice thing to do and he looked so grey and small lying there. He looked scared all over again in a different way.

  “It’s not,” Wes said. “Nick… Nick it was awful.”

  “What happened, Wes?” he asked. “The cops are are going to want to talk to you.”

  “The cops won’t believe me.” Wes licked his lips. “You won’t believe me either.” He blinked and was slow opening his eyes. “Can I have some water, please?”

  “Yeah.” Nick got up only to stop when Wes squeezed his hand hard and made a soft, sad sound that had him looking down again. Wes was crying, his tears like liquid electricity in the blue light of the machines. “Hey, come on, don’t do that.” Nick crouched down again and propped his chin on the side of the bed. “You’re okay now, Wes.”

  Wes swiped feebly at his face and almost poked himself in the eye, which served to make him cry harder. There was a box of tissues on the little table by the bed and Nick took one. He gently blotted Wes’s face while he sniffled and made little sounds of upset.

  “I’m so pathetic,” Wes said when he spoke again. “So pathetic. God.”

  “You’re not pathetic,” Nick said.

  “I am, too,” Wes said. “When the only person you can think to call is the prostitute you’ve been… been… fucking… then you are the definition of pathetic. I could’ve called my family, but oh no, I called you because I wanted you here and you don’t care about me.”

  “I like you, so shut the fuck up with that crap,” Nick said. The words fell out of his mouth and he regretted them. Cursing at a poor, sad boy who had been brutally attacked was not the way to go about things. It was, in fact, a pretty crappy way to go about them.

  Wes fell silent and just gaped at him—as much as a guy that wasted on pain meds could gape.

  “So you didn’t come just to… to…”

  “See if my cash cow was gonna pull through?” Nick asked. His voice was dry and he plucked another tissue out of the box and wiped Wes’s face again. “I came because I like you and because I’m not that interested in your money. Sure, it’s nice and no lie—you pay really damn well, but that has nothing to do with me being here right now.”

  “Thank you,” Wes said after a minute. “Thank you so much. I really wanted you to be my friend, Nick. I don’t have a lot of those.”

  He launched into another round of sobbing that shook his shoulders and left him making pained sounds with each shaking exhalation.

  Nick rose from his crouch and took a seat on the edge of the bed so he could stroke Wes’s hair with more ease. With his other hand, he took a tissue, held it to Wes’s nose and said, “Blow.”

  Wes made a miserable, apologetic sound, but did as he was told. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “You apologize too damn much,” Nick said.

  “I’m—”

  “Wes.”

  “Oh.”

  “What happened to you tonight, huh?”

  “I told you that you won’t believe me.” Wes sounded groggier, words thick and slurring in his teary voice.

  “If you say ‘Bigfoot’ then no, I probably won’t,” Nick said.

  Wes’s responding snort wasn’t much better than a weak puff of air from one snot-clogged nostril that whistled faintly. “Bigfoot wouldn’t attack someone like that,” Wes said. “I think he would only do that if he was being threatened.”

  Nick raised his eyebrows and chose to say nothing about that, though when he thought about it, it was really no surprise that Wes believed in Bigfoot. He probably believed in the Loch Ness monster and Mothman, too.

  “Okay, so it wasn’t Bigfoot,” Nick said. “Good to know.”

  “You’re making fun of me,” Wes said.

  “Only a little. See?” Nick held his hand up in front of Wes’s sleepy, puffy face and showed him the narrow gap between his thumb and forefinger. Wes smiled, wan and tired as he walled his eyes to look at Nick’s face.

  “Mean,” Wes said around a yawn. “So mean.”

  “I’ll make it up to you later, huh?” Nick said. “Me, you, a pan of warm water and a washrag. I’ll even light a couple of candles if they’ll let me.”

  Wes was confused for a moment, staring blankly at Nick, then what he meant filtered through the heavy fog in his mind. He smiled again, bigger, better than the first time. “Sponge bath by candlelight. What fun.” He sighed. “Nick… Nick… I lost my phone. I can’t call anybody now.”

  “Tell me where you were and I’ll go get it for you,” Nick said. “If the cops haven’t already found it, that is.”

  Wes’s reaction was automatic and quick—quicker than Nick would have thought someone high on downers could manage. On the monitor, his heart rate spiked as he sat up and grabbed Nick’s arm. He loosed a sharp, surprised scream of pain at the movements as they pulled and agitated all of his wounds.

  “No.” Wes’s voice was tight, low and choked with fear, his eyes were big and wet in his face, all of his previous calm gone away. “Nick, no, you can’t go out there. Promise me you won’t go out there.”

  “Wes, you need to lie back down.” Nick pried Wes’s hand off his arm and stood to try and coax him back down in the bed. The door to the room opened and he heard footsteps on the tile.

  “Nick,” Nancy said, voice stern.

  “I know, I know,” Nick said, waving her off with one hand. Wes grabbed him again and he once more pulled him loose and then just held his hand. “Wes, you need to lay back down now. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

  “I don’t care,” Wes said. He was breathing quickly, sweat popping out on his face and sparkling in the light of the heart monitor that was really dancing by then. “Don’t you dare go back to the place. Please, Nick, don’t go.”

  “I won’t, I swear,” Nick said. He didn’t even know where the damn place was, so he couldn’t even if he wanted to.

  “Seriously, Nick, you need to go so we can get him calmed down,” Nancy said. She lightly touched Nick’s elbow. “Come on.”

  “Don’t touch him,” Wes snapped at her. “Don’t. I have to tell you, Nick. I almost forgot. You asked and I have to tell you.”

  “Okay, so tell me, but then I really do have to go,” Nick said. “If I don’t, they won’t let me come back.”

  “Well, that’s shitty of them.” Wes looked crazy; half-sitting up in bed, trembling he was in so much pain. Sweat dripped from the ends of his hair from the exertion of keeping himself upright under such agony. He gripped Nick’s hand in his as hard as he could. “Listen, okay?”

  “I’m listening,” Nick promised.

  “It was a werewolf.” Wes breathed it across Nick’s mouth, breath sour and stale. He pulled back to look at Nick and it was beseeching, begging with his eyes for Nick to please believe him.

  “Wes…” Nick leaned away from him, once more trying to ease him back down in the bed.

  Wes pushed himself up more, oblivious to Nick or anyone else in the room at the moment. He grabbed Nick’s arms, gripping tightly as he tipped his head back. His eyes were feverish, glassy and his lower lip trembled. Nick understood he had seen something horrific and that the trauma he’d suffered had done a number on him. Somewhere in there, Wes’s poor mind was trying to make sense of the awful thing that had happened to him. It made sense that he would associate all the pain, all the fear and agony, with some beastie right out of the annals of folklore. Werewolves were scary. They just were. It was no wonder Wes’s addled, stressed mind had made the leap to such an association, that it had subbed in a werewolf for the actual cause of all his hurts.

  None of that meant Nick believed him. Not one little bit.

  “I saw it,” Wes said.
“Nick, I saw it.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Nick said.

  “Step away, Nick,” Nancy said. Her tone was firm, but compassionate; she wasn’t angry with Nick, she was worried about the patient. “Mr. Panzram, you need to calm down and relax so we can help you now.”

  “I don’t need help,” Wes insisted. “I just need someone to listen to me. I need… I swear to God, I saw the darned thing. I fucking saw it!”

  “Wes!” Nick snapped it at him to get his attention. Wes was working himself up into a mighty fit and there was a bright red stain spreading across the back of Wes’s right shoulder through the thick layers of gauze. “Wes, you need to lay down right now. Do you understand me?”

  Wes blinked at Nick, owlish and confused, but he stilled. Nick had hoped he would; it had been a chancy thing, but it seemed to be working.

  “Yes,” Wes said. “But, Nick—”

  “We can talk later, but right now all you’re doing is upsetting yourself and fucking up your stitches.” Nick framed Wes’s sweaty face in his hands and bent to look him in the eye. “Let the doctor and nurse here take care of you, all right? In a couple of days you’ll be off this floor and in a room where we can actually talk and visit some. You can tell me about it then if you still want to talk. It’s enough for now though and you need to rest.”

  “You’re placating me,” Wes said, but he laid back down, moving gingerly, face twisting at the pain he was becoming aware of now that his fit had subsided.

  “No, I’m not,” Nick said. He kissed Wes’s temple then stroked his hand over his hair one last time. “I’ll come see you, I promise. I have to go now though.”

  “Okay.” Wes’s voice was faint, quivering again. “I’m sorry I caused a scene. To all of you.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Nick stepped away from the bed so Nancy could move in. “I’ll see you later.”

  “I’m scared, Nick.”

  “Don’t be. It’s over now.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  The words followed Nick into the hallway and he paused outside the door. Then he shook it off and walked away to go back and collect his janitor’s cart though the idea of mopping up anymore piss or puke right then held even less appeal than usual. He thought he would go ahead and take his lunch break. It was earlier than usual, but after Wes he needed a few minutes to decompress and sort through the crazy that had just been spewed at him. His heart gave another little lurch, that time of pity. He hated what had happened to Wes, but he was Nick and Nick had no idea how to make things better. All he could do was break them or fuck them and either way, he repaired nothing for no one, not even himself.