Addictive Paranormal Reads Halloween Box Set

by Nana Malone

  “You know that’s classified,” Elisabeth grunted, gently pushing aside a bit of grey matter, fishing for the source of the blood pouring down the white plastic onto her boots. “Besides, if I talk about it they’ll Section 8 me for sure.”

  Mary turned grey at the sight of the kid's brain tissue, exposed by the mortar which had taken a chunk of his skull along with it.

  “Goddang reject flack helmets,” Mary mumbled, her hand over her mouth to prevent herself from succumbing to the urge to vomit. “When’s them Pentagon bean counters gonna acknowledge them two-piece chin straps are a piece of crap? This kid’s helmet should’ve protected him better!”

  “Maybe your friend can help?” Lucy pulled a bloody photograph out of the soldier's breast pocket and held it under Elisabeth’s nose. “Look … this guy’s got five kids stateside.”

  “Not his job to save lives,” Elisabeth said. “That’s my job. Hey! Soldier! You going to abandon those five kids of yours when you can hang on a little longer? Just give me some time! Ain’t nothing wrong with you that can’t be fixed if you just give me a little more time!”

  “Blood pressure is fifty over ten,” Mary said. “We’re losing him.”

  “Doing the best I can.” Elisabeth spotted the bleeder. “Got it!!!” she shouted victoriously as she dug in with the forceps and clamped it off. “Middle temporal artery. Lucy … jot that down on his chart … it will affect the eye.”

  “Sixty-five over fifteen!” Mary said hopefully.

  “Adding another pint of blood,” Lucy said. “He’s losing it faster than I can get it into him.”

  “Seventy over forty!” Mary practically jumped up and down.

  “C’mon … c’mon … c’mon…” Elisabeth muttered, squinting through the eyepiece of the surgical binoculars she wore as she began the painstaking process of piecing the two ends of the severed artery back together. “Tick tock … race the clock … get you stable and send you off.”

  The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. Azrael … stopping in. She no longer felt the need to fight him. This patient was nearly out of danger. Azrael only took those who wished to leave their mortal shells behind. In a way, his presence had become reassuring. More than one surviving patient had told her they’d been floating above their bodies, able to see into a white room filled with deceased loved ones when Azrael had urged them to give her a chance to save their lives.

  “Be with you in a few, Az," Elisabeth was too busy to speak to him right now. “This guy’s almost out of danger. You’ll have to find somebody else to be your good deed for the day.”

  The other two nurses looked at each other and glanced nervously around the tent. They’d learned to humor their colleague's peculiar ramblings into empty air … not sure whether the rumors of a death-angel were true … but too awe-struck by Elisabeth’s ‘save’ rate to question it.

  “At least we don’t have to worry about insurance companies or lawsuits,” Mary quipped as she watched Elisabeth fearlessly dive into the folds of the soldier's exposed brain. “So long as we save lives, they give us free reign.”

  “Stabilize the patient,” Lucy said. “Keep him alive. Ship him off to someplace more qualified to treat him. If he survives the first 36 hours, his chances of recovery are good.”

  “They never let me do this kind of thing back home,” Mary lamented. “Why do you think I keep re-enlisting? I can’t adjust to being treated like a stateside nurse.”

  “All we have to do is keep them alive,” Elisabeth muttered. “Let the doctors pretty things up and wrap a ribbon around it.”

  “We’re sure doing a surgeons job!” Mary poured on her southern accent as thick as maple syrup. “They figure they ain’t got nothin' to lose by letting us pretty little gals comfort the black-X triage cases while the big boys are busy.”

  “Yeah,” Lucy said. “Only Elisabeth’s brand of ‘comfort’ is kicking the trauma surgeon's asses and making them look bad.”

  “Medics out in the field do the same thing we’re doing,” Elisabeth reminded them, breathing a sigh of relief as she made the last stitch and searched for signs of other damage. “They’re the real heroes. That first hour after they’re hit is critical. At least we’re not getting shot at while we’re working.”

  “Usually,” Mary added with a wry grin. “If you discount the RPG’s shot over the wall at the compound.”

  “Or the grenade someone threw into the tent last week,” Lucy added.

  “Hey … Lucy!” Elisabeth interrupted. “Quit gabbing and get me some more blood!” Blood continued to seep out of the soldiers head wound, but it no longer spurted like a lawn sprinkler. He now had a chance. –If- they were able to airlift him to Germany fast enough so a real neurosurgeon could repair the damage. Speed. Saving lives was about quick, decisive action.

  “Okey-dokey, boss-woman Sir,” Lucy said good-naturedly, omitting the salute as both hands were occupied at the moment doing other things. “Fill ‘er up, AB-positive.”

  Both Lucy and Mary outranked Elisabeth, but when it came to trauma cases, they followed her lead. Although it wasn’t unheard of for nurses, or even medics, to suddenly be deputized ‘de facto surgeon’ when the need was great, it was unusual for Elisabeth to consistently be given such free-reign in the more formal setting of a mobile combat trauma unit. Elizabeth suspected Azrael’s friends in high places had passed down instructions to humor her so long as she got results.

  “One-ten over sixty-five,” Mary breathed a sigh of relief. “I think you got him.”

  “And here is …” Elisabeth pushed a fragment of shattered bone back into place, “your … piece of … skull … back … Sergeant. Next time, keep your helmet securely on your head. That’s why they make you wear it in the first place.”

  “Pressure bandage?” Lucy held out a special bandage used when a patient had extensive skin damage and burns such as this one did.

  “Roger.” Elisabeth painstakingly pulled what tissue she could back into place before applying the bandage. “Careful … this guy's skull is like Humpty Dumpty right now.”

  “Lieutenant Kaiser?” the trauma surgeon stepped behind her. “I’ll take over now.”

  Elisabeth could sense Azrael move so he didn’t zap her boss. In close quarters such as this, his wings would be tucked into his cloak so he didn’t accidentally kill someone. Especially after the incident with the boy. Elisabeth was slowly, but surely, getting used to the idea Azrael didn’t view leaving your mortal shell behind and journeying into heaven with the same … finality … that those around her did. But he still believed life was too precious to just casually throw away.

  “Your sandbox, Major Devens,” Elisabeth said to the surgeon, stepping aside. “Male … twenty-seven years old … mortar damage to the left side of the cheek, ear, and neck … skull fractured with fragments imbedded in the grey matter … severed middle temporal artery … pieced it back together … likely damage to the left occipital nerve due to oxygen deprivation.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant Kaiser,” Major Devens said. “That will be all. You can scrub out and grab a bite to eat.”

  “Yes, Sir,” Elisabeth glanced down at his clean, blood-free boots and wrinkled her nose with disgust. Bloodied boots were a badge of honor in this unit. The fact Major Devens didn’t like to get his hands gory spoke volumes about his level of dedication. Elisabeth gave him the obligatory salute. “Thank you … Sir.”

  “Unless you’d like to wait until I get off shift,” Major Devens added, giving her his most charming ‘nurses throw themselves at my feet and suck my dick’ smile. “We could do lunch together. I’ve been wanting to talk to you about your career possibilities.”

  “I’ve already got lunch plans,” Elisabeth glanced over to where Azrael observed from the shadows. For the hell of it, she gave Major Devens a coy smile, hoping it aroused a twang of jealousy in her invisible friend. “But thank you, Sir. Maybe some other time?”

  Elisabeth knew damned well the only reason Devens
was taking over was because the upper ranks had noticed she was kicking his ass. Devens claimed the credit. It was the same shit Nancy had complained of while she’d still been alive.

  “I’ll just clean up and go get some fresh air, Sir,” Elisabeth gave Devens her sweetest ‘fuck you and die’ smile.

  She held up her hands. Blood had travelled beyond her latex gloves, down her arm, all over the front of her shirt, her neck, her cheek, and down her pants to her boots. Devens backed off, his expression one of disgust. Except for a few stray spatters of blood on his pale blue doctor's scrubs, Devens was clean. He turned to the patient and pompously rattled off his ‘diagnosis,’ the exact same diagnosis Elisabeth had just told him.

  ‘Prick!’ she silently mouthed the moment Devens turned his back so that Mary and Lucy saw it.

  Mary, who was in the direct line-of-sight of the surgeon snorted as she suppressed a laugh, while Lucy, who was at his back, pointed to her crotch and made a motion like she was jerking off. Elisabeth smiled. She wasn’t the only nurse Devens hit on. Fraternization was against Army regulations, but a dire shortage of competent doctors willing to put themselves in an active war zone forced the military to overlook Deven's extracurricular activities. It was the same shortage which had caused them to deputize three nurses as a de facto trauma team.

  Azrael disappeared through the walls rather than risk weaving his way through the crowded trauma ward. Their meetings had developed a pattern. Azrael manifested just enough of his consciousness for her to sense his presence. Sometimes he could only stay long enough for her to sense him. Other times he stayed and observed.

  Elisabeth scrubbed out, automatically clipping spare surgical clamps to her clothing and tucking medical tape and syringes in her pockets … just in case. She grabbed something from the canteen and hobbled beyond a small rise at the far end of the makeshift heliport, leaning on her cane. She’d been on her feet nonstop for days.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Elisabeth called into the shadows, groaning as she lowered her aching body to a convenient boulder.

  “Olly olly oxen free!” Azrael faded into view like an enormous black-winged Cheshire cat.

  “Did you see that?” Elisabeth groused. “Devens stole my ‘save’ again.”

  “I could brush up against him if you like?” Azrael gave her a look of such pure innocence that she burst out laughing.

  “You wouldn’t!” Elisabeth laughed. “But thanks for offering.”

  “No … I wouldn’t,” Azrael said. His smile disappeared.

  “You’ve got something on your mind.” Elisabeth took a bite of her soggy tuna salad sandwich and grimaced as tuna juice dribbled down her chin onto her last clean shirt. Blech! Now she'd smell like tuna fish until she had a chance to take a shower. How romantic! But if she didn’t snarf down her sandwich as they talked, she wouldn’t get to eat. The 2nd Battalion was meeting fierce resistance over Objective Jenkins, a bridge over the Euphrates River just north of Najaf. It was only a matter of time before the next medevac chopper came roaring in with more wounded.

  “Chemosh and a bunch of squatters are in Najaf posing as Saddam Fedayeen fighters,” Azrael said. “He’s been gathering up local al-Quds militia, putting outdated Kalashnikov rifles in their hands, and sending them up against your troops. That’s why casualties on both sides have been so high.”

  “Then they’ll be shot,” Elisabeth said dispassionately, thinking of the soldier she’d just pieced back together. “They were ordered to put down their weapons or face the consequences.”

  “Chemosh lined up their families and threatened to shoot them if they didn’t do suicide runs against your troops,” Azrael said. “They’re not even giving them any bullets.”

  “Why would our guys shoot back if they’re not shooting in the first place?” Elisabeth asked.

  “They’re calling it ‘Iraqi Rush Hour.’” Azrael said. “The al-Qud irregulars are being sent against tanks at the same time real insurgents are doing the same thing. The tank drivers have no way of knowing which of the guys coming at them are which.”

  “How many of these al-Qud militiamen have been lost so far?” Elisabeth asked.

  “We think over 800,” Azrael said. “And climbing. There can only be one outcome when a pickup truck meets a tank.”

  “Why don’t they just walk up with their hands above their heads and surrender?” Elisabeth asked. “That’s what half the official regular Iraqi army has been doing.”

  “The men are doing suicide runs in the hopes of saving their families,” Azrael said. “Civilians who’ve managed to escape are meeting your troops on the road and begging them to take the city, but your troops are so spooked right now that they’re shooting anything even remotely hostile. A lot of civilians are getting killed.”

  “I’m out of the loop,” Elisabeth said. “How close are our troops to securing that city?”

  “Too far out,” Azrael assumed the grave facial features most people thought of when they pictured the Angel of Death. “Chemosh has gone crazy … shooting old ladies and children. We … um … I could use your help.”

  “My help?” Elisabeth asked. “I’m not a soldier … well … technically I am. But I’m … not … really. My combat training is a mile wide and a half-inch deep.”

  “Sam’s got men imbedded with the 101st Airborne Division,” Azrael said. “They’re getting ready to thrust into the city.”

  “I thought you weren’t supposed to choose sides?"

  “We’re not,” Azrael said. “We’re only going in because Chemosh is slaughtering civilians. He’s killing children.”

  The nightmares about clawed hands reaching at her through fire leaped into her mind. She’d had such nightmares her entire life, but they hadn’t started becoming … well … real … until Azrael had told her followers of those he fought to keep imprisoned sacrificed humans trying to engineer an escape.

  “You’re worried Chemosh might open a portal to this Moloch-god?” Elisabeth asked.

  “It would be the perfect cover.” Azrael face grew angular and stern as hatred swirled through his midnight black eyes. “You’ve got air strikes. The most advanced military equipment from all over the world. And enough electronics chatter to drown out even the most sensitive monitoring equipment. We now suspect the World Trade Center bombing was cover for Chemosh to escape.”

  “How can I help?”

  “The al-Quds?” Azrael said. “A lot of them are just old men with medals from past wars. Don’t get me wrong … they’re radical Shiite Muslims fighting to protect their faith. But they have more in common with the veterans who come out to march in your parades back home than Al Qaida.”

  “Opa’s father was a veteran of World War II.” Elisabeth frowned. Franz had been embarrassed at the fact their great-grandfather had fought on the ‘wrong’ side of the Great War. “Opa said his father hated what Hitler and the Nazi’s did to his country, but he earnestly believed he was fighting to protect it. He was an honorable man.”

  “We’re going in to eradicate the squatters and cover it up with a US airstrike,” Azrael said. “With conditions on the ground the way they are, there’s no way we can do that without significant civilian deaths. I was hoping…”

  “You want me to see if I can save some of them?”

  “I won’t let you go in until it’s secure,” Azrael said softly, his face grave. “But the al-Quds are not the only ones being slaughtered and not being given medical treatment. We, um … Sam’s men. They … um … you know how black ops are. Cover your tailfeathers first. Worry about the guy you sent in to do sneak-and-peak last.”

  “They won’t let me go in,” Elisabeth said. “My leg means I’m a liability in a firefight. I’m too valuable to them here.”

  “Sam has connections,” Azrael said. “They’re going to move some of you up closer to the action. Your team will be put in charge of the hopeless cases. All I ask is when you triage the wounded, you remain color-blind as best you ca
n without getting into trouble.”

  “You know I will.” Elisabeth looked into his bottomless black eyes and noticed the way his nostrils flared, the slight hitch of his breath, the way he unconsciously curled his wings forward. Her breathing slowed. Her heart beat faster as the urge to touch him became almost overwhelming.

  “Thank you,” Azrael's expression softened. He fished inside a pocket of the hated cloak he’d tossed over his shoulders to free his wings and pulled out a small pendant. “I … um … thought you might like this. I made it myself.”

  He held out one hand, fist clenched, until she put her hand underneath to catch it. Trust. He trusted her not to bump against his hand. She trusted him to not bump against her. It was a dangerous game they’d been playing lately without speaking about it, to see how close one could get to one another without touching. She could feel his expanded consciousness nestle against hers.

  “Thank you,” Elisabeth admired a tiny wooden twig looped into an infinity symbol enclosed in an intricate platinum wire cage. “I didn’t know you were an artisan.” She pulled off her dog tags and slipped the chain through the loop.

  “It’s from the Eternal Emperor’s garden on Haven-1,” Azrael said. “The wood is from the tree Hashem planted the day he assumed rule of the Alliance. Your legends call it the Tree of Eternal Life.”

  “Oh!” Elisabeth lifted the chain to stare at the tiny fragment of wood. No wonder he’d fashioned such a beautiful cage to protect such a simple object of nature. “Was it okay for you to take this?”

  “I have no idea.” A guilty grin appeared on his face. “It’s forbidden to touch the tree. Especially me! It’s said so long as the tree thrives, so shall the Alliance. But the wind blew loose a few leaves and that small twig was attached. I figured if I didn’t ask, they couldn’t say no.”

  “I will cherish it always,” Elisabeth clutched it to her chest. “I have to keep it under my uniform but … see … I’ll wear it right next to my heart.”

  Azrael stepped closer. If she reached up, she could touch him. She wanted to touch him. She stared up into obsidian eyes, blacker than the darkest night, into the hunger which swirled beneath the surface he had fashioned to walk in this world. Azrael’s bottomless black eyes were the mirror to his soul.