The Days Fly

by C. L. Quinn

  Not this morning, though, with her shift beginning and an ambulance just arrived. Leaving her personal belongings in her locker, she swung her stethoscope around her neck, pulled back her newly brightened hair, and headed toward the examination bays.

  “Sarah,” a voice travelled to her from behind.

  Turning, she nearly crashed into an intern she’d been working with off and on from her first night here at Mass Gen.

  “Trixie, just coming on?”

  “No, just going off. Beat to shit! Dr.P is on tonight.”

  “Oh, that’s nice. You get some sleep, then, Trix.”

  Trixie brushed a hand against Sarah’s sleeve.

  “Yes, I will. And you enjoy Dr. P’s company,” she said with a sly smile as she hurried toward the locker room to gather her things and get out of the hospital before someone asked her to stay.

  Embarrassed, Sarah knew what Trixie meant by that comment. As much as she tried to squash her attraction to the gorgeous, aggressive, but ridiculously charming doctor that ran the pediatric center in trauma care, it hadn’t worked. He was the major reason that her mind was on sex too much this past month. Working with him, remaining professionally detached, was her toughest challenge since she’d arrived in Boston. Since Sarah worked side by side with Trixie many nights, the astute young doctor had long ago seen Sarah’s flushes and quickened breath when Leo Peretti walked into a room.

  A call from the nurse’s station let her know that she was needed in exam room 6 for the patient the ambulance team was bringing in.

  As she arrived, the quickly moving EMT gave her his report on the victim. A 69 year-old woman, normal vitals, but every sign of a stroke.

  Sarah’s mind closed off everything else and went to work.

  Exhausted, Sarah dropped into her bed after a quick shower, still damp, and pulled up a sheet. Although she closed her eyes, it took several long minutes to shut off the events of the day. It was after midnight and she’d been on duty nearly every minute of the past sixteen hours.

  After two months, she was still adapting to the brutal requirements of an emergency room doctor. While it was gratifying to help people in desperate need, it took its toll on the medical staff that worked with dedication to save lives.

  Eyes closed, she rolled over and sighed. There had been no time to speak with Leo about anything other than their patients tonight. It was frustrating because she’d decided to let him know, subtly, that she was interested in him as more than an admired associate. While there would be plenty of other opportunities, that didn’t exactly help the twitching between her legs tonight.

  Eventually, the sandman brought sweet oblivion.

  A raucous disco-era song woke Sarah abruptly, shooting her from her sleep, upright, confused, her eyes reluctant to open. Seconds later, wakefulness let her recognize Naji’s self-installed ringtone, Funkytown.

  Fumbling for her cell phone, Sarah finally stopped the annoying tinny music and answered while she pressed a hand into her eye. “Naj, I was asleep.”

  “I’m sorry, kitten. It’s nearly five. You missed our yoga class this afternoon.”

  “Ah, I’m sorry. We had a long shift yesterday and I’m on again tonight. I went out right away when I got home and I must have slept through the alarm.”

  “I forgive you. Make it up to me and join me this weekend for a trip to the country with my new boy and his roommate. Separate rooms, if you want.”

  “I have to work the entire weekend.”

  “I thought you were off this one.”

  “Originally, yes. But one of the other doctors traded this weekend for next. She has a graduation to go to.”

  “Well, hell. Doubles are always more fun, and especially with you. Okay, you’re out of it, but you need to promise me that next week, we’ll get a nice dinner and talk about my birthday party.”

  Birthday party? “I didn’t know that. Of course we’ll celebrate.”

  “You bet your pretty little ass we will. Everything is ready, but I want you to know that I intend that you have a plus one.”

  “The party’s already set?”

  “Oh, girl, I don’t leave important details to other people. Of course my party is set. Invites were sent out three weeks ago and my guest list is long. This might be Boston’s party of the season.”

  No surprise that Naji would throw her own birthday celebration. She wasn’t kidding when she said that she wouldn’t leave her own birthday soiree to just anyone.

  “I didn’t get mine.”

  “You get a personal invitation. You’re my soul sister, love.”

  Sliding from her bed, the floor too cool on her bare feet, Sarah hurried over to a rug in front of her sofa. “I am honored. If you need any help with the party, you must let me know. And speaking of that, I understand that gifts are customary for birthday parties.”

  “Customary? Mandatory, love. I’ll get the list to you.”

  Sarah laughed as she pulled a robe around her shivering body and made it into the kitchen to put on a kettle to heat water for coffee. She’d be back on duty before she knew it, so it wasn’t too early to begin preparation for her next shift.

  “Okay. Sorry again for missing our date.”

  “Nah, no worries. I’ll see you next week.”

  “Enjoy the weekend trip.”

  Naji purred. “You know I will.”

  Ringing off, Sarah set a cup on the counter and filled it with coffee grounds and a generous amount of sugar.

  A weekend trip to the country. Sex with a stranger.

  Grinning, she spoke out loud. “It’s just not me.”

  Turning, she went to her small closet to pull out a lightweight sweater and dark blue slacks. The pale amber sweater would bring out her eye color, which Naji said was astounding, just in case she and Leo might have a chance to speak tonight. Maybe that weekend trip could happen for Sarah sometime in the near future. The twitch between her legs returned.

  Two

  THREE MONTHS EARLIER IN SIBERIA

  BENEATH LAKE BAIKAL

  Nikolai came awake, confused, freezing. After a few seconds, he tried to sit up, but he knew by how he felt, by the extreme cold, that his body was near hypothermia. He couldn’t feel his extremities at all, and each breath hurt. When he was able to open his eyes, they met pitch darkness except for a weird hard column of light near his feet that shot straight up until it disappeared into darkness again.

  Trying to scan his surroundings, he considered what he knew, where he could be, how he came to be here. Like something hit him in the temple, the memory crashed back to him. He’d fallen through the ice!

  Several attempts to push upright failed, so he rolled to his side and shakily got up on all fours. His eyes landed on the light source, grateful to realize that it was his flashlight lying on its end and that it still worked. Other than that one device, whatever cave he’d landed in was very deep and would be the definition of absolute darkness.

  A slow crawl brought him to the light and he curled stiff fingers around the handle to lift the flashlight and begin to assess his surroundings. The light was bright for the moment, but he knew that when it began to die, it would do so quickly. Nikolai had no idea how long he’d been out and how long it had been burning.

  The flashlight revealed that he was in exactly the situation that he was afraid of. He was in a dark cavern well below the one that had held the vampire graves. It was devoid of ice, of which he was grateful, but still dangerously cold. When he shined the light on the ground around him, the broken corpses he’d so carefully worked around lie shattered along with the ice that had encased them.

  His situation was dire indeed. No one would check on him, so no one would know that he was missing and arrange for a rescue. His only chance was that many of these subterranean chambers could be traveled to possible openings somewhere on the surface.

  “If only I survive long enough to do so,” he said out loud in his native Russian.

  Taking a deep breath, painfu
l though it was, he made a strong push to stand up, and achieved it, but his right knee would not support him and he crashed back to solid rock. Pain shot through him that was so intense, he sucked in air and couldn’t release it. Seconds later, it expelled violently as he fell back onto the ground.

  Assessment, then. He was injured, badly, probably couldn’t walk out of here. It was Friday night, and someone would come to the cave above this one after the weekend, but by then, he’d either have found a way out of here or he would be dead. His cell phone didn’t work this deep in the ground.

  “You are not so good, my buddy,” he said, again out loud, the slight echo somewhat comforting. “You are screwed.” He thought of this discovery, the find of any archeologist’s career, and that it would also be the end of him. Was there some twisted cosmic justice here? Or did it mean that the universe had a sense of humor? It didn’t matter, he wasn’t ready to die yet.

  Once he gathered his strength, Nikolai rolled onto his side and pushed against the hard ground that seemed to push back. Eventually, he regained his footing, the pain in his knee nearly driving him back down, but he surged to the left to where he’d noticed a wall and pressed himself into it for support. Relieving all weight from his right leg, he rested. Several long moments later, he carefully tried to step forward on the damaged leg to see if there was any way he could tolerate the pain enough to walk. Sharp stabs ripped through him, but he knew that he was strong enough to deal with it.

  Unfortunately, the injury was so egregious, he fell again, forward onto the damaged leg, catching himself before he hit the ground once more. He could have tolerated the pain in an attempt to hike out of this underground grave, but the damage to his leg was too severe; it would not hold his weight.

  “Fuck me,” he whispered, no longer comforted by the sound of his voice as it echoed off the high walls of stone.

  Looking around, he wondered if he might be able to cobble together a brace and realized immediately that the most likely possibility down here would be the bones of the long-deceased vampires. What sacrilege, that he must consider such an act, but this was all about his survival now.

  Nikolai reached for the flashlight, and as his fingers curled around the handle, the brightness dimmed.

  God, it was failing! In moments, he would be trapped beneath the earth in total darkness. Rapidly swinging the flashlight around the cave, he scanned the area and tried to memorize the objects and their positions, and the chambers as they led off in four different directions. Within seconds, the light dimmed again, so much so that it barely illuminated his hand. Then, it was gone.

  He didn’t move. First, because the pain was so awful, he dreaded the moment when he would have to crawl across the ragged rock to the nearest skeletal remains only a few yards away. And mostly, because everything about this seemed wrong, like karma would smite him just for his arrogance. But it had to be done. To survive, to try to find a way to brace the damaged knee, he would have no choice but to break apart the precious remains of the most ancient first blood vampires ever known.

  “Forgive me,” he said, his head tilted up, because it seemed appropriate to look towards heaven when asking God to grant him permission for this horrible act of desecration. “I do this only because I must.”

  Scooting the flashlight out of his way, Nikolai advanced in the direction he was sure to find the skeleton that he’d been looking at when the floor gave way, the one whose spirit amulet had begun to glow, the one that attracted him back into the cave and put him in exactly the right place to get trapped. A niggling feeling in his stomach tried to convince Nikolai that the dead man deserved this for not dying properly and staying dead.

  Pitch darkness, it turns out, can totally fuck any sense of direction. He wasn’t sure if he would be able to find the skeleton after all, but, crawling on two hands and one knee while dragging the damaged leg, his fingers struck a hard bone.

  Between the cold, the pain, and the exertion, Nikolai collapsed onto his back as he wrapped his hand around what felt like a femur. Closing his eyes was automatic, but there wasn’t any reason to, he could see exactly the same black nothingness. As he lay still to allow his body a chance to recover enough to begin to construct a brace for his leg, his mind wandered over this vampire gravesite.

  He’d been dumbfounded when his team uncovered the ice-encased remains in the subterranean cave here in Siberia. Shocked further when it became apparent to him that these were no ordinary remains, he’d contacted his dear friend Olivia, who had been vampire for centuries, and asked her to come verify that these really were vampire remains. They had indeed been exactly that.

  She’d come, as he expected her to, but along with another vampire, and ultimately, a vampire that blew his mind. This vampire was not made like he thought they were by changing a human with blood. He was born as a vampire. And so, too, it turned out, were the bodies of those he’d uncovered under Lake Baikal. Here he was, unremarkable Nikolai Zalesky, conservational biologist, among supernatural beings that nearly no one else on this world even knew existed. He’d been overwhelmed and humbled.

  He still was. It’s just that now, all of his fine plans and ideas would dissipate like smoke on wind because his life would end the same way as those vampires of centuries ago…white bones locked in blocks of ice in a place no one would ever find him. It was sad to think that he would end so unceremoniously.

  Olivia would grieve, she really cared for him, but she was hundreds of years old, she knew how to move on after loss. He would be soon forgotten, not even a memory on this earth.

  “You’ve had your cry, now get that brace made and get out of this hole.” His skin was so cold now, he tried to smile at his better self telling the complainer to fix this and get the job done. The smile didn’t come. Hypothermia was setting in. Trying to push back up, lethargy worked against him and he dropped back down.

  What had he been doing? Hmmm…there was something…

  Nikolai knew that he was losing focus, another symptom of the extreme cold. His body was trying to shut down. He couldn’t let it!

  In desperation, and with the greatest effort of his life, he grasped the bone and held on tight, as if it could imbue him with the strength to accomplish his task of walking out of here. Somehow, it seemed to, for he rolled over again, pushed up, breathing hard, and pulled himself closer to the vampire’s fragmented parts.

  But with the absence of light, the devastating cold, and aware now that he’d been losing blood all of this time, as well as the ability to think clearly, Nikolai knew that his chances were sliding away by the second. He would die here, this night, the struggle of life over, and, hopefully, go on to a cosmic reward for a life well-lived with kindness and gratitude.

  Heat surged in the back of his head, and he thought it was the fight or flight trigger. Emotionally, intellectually, he wanted to fight for life, but his body was succumbing to factors beyond his control. He was just too injured and in a deeply inhospitable place to survive. But the heat burned on, and sparks of light twinkled in his sight behind closed eyelids. He wished for the peace of heaven or at least a place in the stars from which he could watch eternity as it unfolded on earth.

  Brightness interfered suddenly and blinded him. His eyes were still closed, so he knew it wasn’t real. But the light persisted and he opened his eyes, expecting to see the unkind blackness that surrounded him. The light still invaded the space, a glow, golden with warm edges, filled the area just above his head.

  What the hell? Was someone here? Would he be rescued after all?

  He had enough strength to turn his head and tilt it up.

  There, just out of reach, the glow, the light…

  What was it?

  It hit him suddenly. There was only one thing that it could be…the spirit amulet that had started this whole nasty event. What should have been dormant, dead in fact, according to the first blood, Xavier, had begun to glow above, and now, at the moment when Nikolai had accepted his fate, it was doing so aga
in.

  While he didn’t know what it meant, he did know one thing. He had to get the thing. For some reason, he knew that he had to get to it. One thing that Olivia had taught him over the years was that, while life followed its own haphazard path for many people, sometimes, often, a path is drawn, guided, by destiny’s hand. All that person has to do is to make the right choice.

  What made him think that this might be true for him?

  Because it had to be. In the back of his mind, in his heart, in his soul, and even in this broken body, Nikolai knew that it was never his destiny to die alone in an ice-cave before he ever had a chance to leave his mark upon this world. The heat in the back of his head pushed him to get up, and he knew it now for what it was. It was something from beyond him, from beneath this earth, from above the sky, it was hope and purpose, a future that he still had to make.

  “I’m not finished,” Nikolai said, out loud, but so softly that even in the deathly still cavern, he couldn’t hear his own voice. But he believed every word.

  Now, ready, and knowing that the strength would be there when he needed it to be, Nikolai shoved himself across the jagged rock. Even though it tore at his skin, he pushed and pulled, and crawled, until the fingertips of his right hand touched the central stone of the glowing amulet.

  Warmth surged into his fingers, through his hand, up his arm, and into his body. The heat felt like hot water, coursing through him in a furious flood, and, oh, God, it was good!

  A second push against the ground pulled him close enough to lift the amulet off the rock and hold it to his chest. He could feel moisture on his face. Tears, that there was hope. Grateful for the warmth, the light, and the chance, Nikolai pulled the amulet around his neck. It took what seemed like an eternity to slip the simple hook over the small circle to latch the amulet, but once he had, he collapsed again.