by Hadena James
After watching him sleep for several minutes, I stood up and stretched. Ligaments popped with every movement. The sound was loud enough to echo in the cluttered room with monitors that beeped and machines that buzzed. The machines and a drugged Malachi were preferable to going home, so I sat back down in the uncomfortable chair. The chair was wine colored, and in theory, it reclined. I wasn’t interested in the reclining feature, so I hadn’t tested it out. The room had a wide blue stripe about a third of the way up the wall. Below the stripe was light brown and above it was beige. This color preference seemed out of place for a hospital, but since Xavier had pointed that out, I had never really looked at the colors. I was attempting to be more connected to the physical world.
That was a big part of the reason I was avoiding going home. At home, there was a dog that either hated me or loved me, but the jury was still out as to which. Badger had finally stopped peeing on me, but he had picked up other odd habits, such as eating my clothing. My mother had started a crafting group for the spouses of those in the Federal Guard Neighborhood. They met in my house twice a week. She had taken over my library, requesting everything be moved to an upstairs room for the hobby. The group quilted, knitted, crocheted, made jewelry, and who knew what else. These items were then given to my niece to be sold in an Etsy store. All the money made by the group went into a fund to help families of fallen law enforcement officers.
My niece was something of an Etsy prodigy. She now ran two shops: her own, where she sold jewelry that she made, and the charity store. From what I understood, she was going to be making enough from her personal store to pay her way through design school. It had started with a science kit, a rock tumbler to be exact that I had gotten her for her tenth birthday. She had started digging up her front yard and sticking the rocks in the tumbler. I’d followed that up with a book on mineralogy, because she seemed fascinated by the rock tumbler. Soon, she was learning about geodes and crystals and only the gods knew what else. Somehow, that had turned into a business. I still didn’t follow the exact path of how it had happened, but I was glad that she wouldn’t be compiling hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debts.
My mother’s crafting group was doing a marathon session. It had started at 7 in the morning and I had been told it would last most of the day. Since the attack on the FGN, the group had been meeting more frequently, raising money to help those they knew had suffered injuries and property damage from the bombing. Insurance and the government would pay for these things, eventually, but it was hard to live in a house with plywood doors and windows or gaping holes in the wall, while red tape was cut to approve all the funding.
Almost two months had passed and Malachi’s house was still unlivable. The bombing had decimated the entire back of the house. His front door had shot across the street, punched through a vehicle’s trunk, and embedded itself in the back seat. The only thing that had saved Malachi, Rhodes, and Green had been the non-standard construction design.
Every house in the neighborhood had a panic room, usually in the basement. The area above these rooms was reinforced with steel and concrete. The bomb had been on his kitchen counter when it exploded. However, his panic room was below the kitchen. This meant the upstairs walls were not made out of normal timber. There was concrete, rebar, and I-beams to ensure that a criminal couldn’t tamper with any of the systems that led into the panic room, nor could they cut through the kitchen floor to get to the safe room.
Of course, Malachi was still being held in the hospital. Aside from burns suffered from the explosion, he had been impaled by a metal section of the sliding glass door. It had gone through his chest, damaging his lung, kidney, liver, and spleen. Clinically, he’d died seven times in the twenty-four hours after the explosion and twice since then. Each time, he managed to come back from being clinically dead. Still, he wasn’t healing very fast and he’d developed multiple infections due to the lacerations on his internal organs. We both had an abundance of red blood cells, but while mine had helped me to survive some devastating injuries, his seemed to keep clotting and being a nuisance. He was on blood thinners and they were still having to filter out blood cells. He had another procedure scheduled for afternoon, which was why he was heavily medicated. They were using leeches to bleed him and he reacted quite violently to them. The only option was to sedate him.
I was more interested in him being bled than going home to the crafters, so I had agreed to stay and be there when he woke up. He’d been out for approximately ten minutes when a nurse came into the room. She was carrying a box marked with the word STERILE in big, bold, red letters. Two more nurses came in behind her. Technically, they were all nurse practitioners and I had gotten to know them fairly well during the past two weeks.
The two nurses without boxes began to construct a plastic case around Malachi’s sleeping form. They gently tugged and pushed on his body, adjusting him into position. The entire process required intense monitoring. The leeches wouldn’t suck him dry, but since he was on blood thinners already, the wounds would require pressure to help them close on their own.
“Marshal Cain, you look exceptionally dreary today,” the nurse practitioner with the box full of leeches said. “The crafting club still taking over your house?”
“Yep, that is why I am going to stay and watch this.” I gave her a small smile. I liked her. She was funny, smart, and spoke her mind.
“Those options would make anyone dreary,” she answered. The plastic box created, one of the nurses opened a door while the other took the top off the box marked STERILE. The leeches were poured into the plastic rectangle that surrounded Malachi’s legs.
The small creatures organized themselves. Within a few minutes, they had lined up along the arteries and veins that ran from Malachi’s feet to his thigh. Their bodies touched as they arranged themselves to the best advantage. They made it obvious where the blood supply ran in Malachi’s body.
One nurse stood over the bed, watching carefully. The other busied herself with tidying stuff in the room. The main nurse practitioner sat down in the chair next to me. She didn’t make small talk, as she had come to realize that I wasn’t that type of person. Instead, she asked about me. I had been waiting for it. This was my first visit to the hospital in four days, coupled with the new bandage on my arm. She could surmise that I had been working.
“Did you win or did the other person?” She pointed.
“Me.” I pulled on the bandage and showed the wound. My bone was visible when I moved the skin right. He’d stabbed me with a fire poker that had been in a fire. The red-hot iron had burned my flesh as the pointed end dug into it. After cleaning it up, it had been decided that stitches were pointless. I had been clotting faster than they could clean the wound anyway.
“Have you considered letting the guys go in first?” She carefully examined the healing burn.
“Is this a gender thing?” I raised an eyebrow.
“No, I was just thinking that if one of them went in first, the group could rotate who got the scars in an even manner.” She looked up at me. “Malachi could use the game plan too.”
“I’ve been told they give me character.”
“Nah,” she waved it away. “They prove you’re unstoppable.”
“I have never considered myself unstoppable. Getting shot, stabbed, or burned hurts. I do not enjoy it.”
“I didn’t say you were a masochist, I said you were unstoppable. Totally different,” she informed me. “I read the news. The guys you hang out with are badass serial killer hunters, but you are out of their league. I don’t think even Malachi could take you, and that’s saying something considering his souvenir collection.” It took me a minute to realize that souvenir collection was her way of saying massive amount of scar tissue. Malachi had been shot, stabbed, set on fire, and hit with a chainsaw. The impaling just added another scar to a body that was already covered in them. The single tattoo that Malachi bore had been damaged years ago. Only a select few knew what it
had once been.
This was one of the reasons I had never gotten a tattoo. If it were still visible, the meaning would be lost due to scarring. It was another trait that I shared with Malachi Blake. One I wasn’t sure was good or bad. For beings that were supposed to be badasses, we had been through a lot of battles that had left their marks. The fact that we were both alive said something about us, but exactly what was open for debate. Most of the serial killers we chased were not covered in scarred flesh.
The first leech fell from Malachi’s leg. The nurses, all three of them, went to work without another word to me. This suited me fine. Hearing other people’s opinions about me was not comforting or comfortable. I could appreciate that they thought I was special, my niece’s admiration, had taught me to respect that. What I didn’t like was having my ego inflated, and if I bought into the thought that I was a badass, I’d die or get someone else killed. If I had learned anything from Patterson, it was that there was always someone bigger and badder, and it was just a matter of time before they found you. I strongly suspected that the person bigger and badder than me was lying in a hospital bed with leeches on his legs, but my thoughts on the matter might have been biased based on an understanding of Malachi and myself. In other words, it could have been wishful thinking. If Malachi were the one bigger and badder than I was, I would never have to worry about coming across that psychopath on the other side of the law.
I waited for another hour, trying to avoid thoughts of titans and psychopaths. When Malachi finally began to wake up, he was cranky. However, Malachi was often cranky when I was around. He dropped the charm and charisma with me, it was unnecessary.
“I am ready to go home,” he growled as he shook his head and glared at his legs.
“Me too,” I answered, shifting in the chair. “This chair sucks and your nurses think I am awesome.”
“Awesome as in cool or as it should be used?” Malachi asked.
“I think I actually might inspire them with awe.”
“They are not giving me enough drugs to deal with your ego.”
“I agree.” I stared at him for a moment. The silence became oppressive. This was unusual for Malachi and me. We both enjoyed silence, even when around other people. Oppressive silences were the result of one of us wanting to say something, but being unwilling. Since I had nothing to say, I guessed it was he. “Just spit it out.”
“I get released next week and my house won’t be ready.”
“We are not living together, even temporarily, while they fix your house. Our friendship is based on mental instability. Living together will not go well.”
“I’m aware,” Malachi looked at the wall for a moment. “But I trust no one as much as you.”
“I keep my Taser on me, even at the house,” I warned him. He nodded, and I mentally kicked myself. I was fairy sure that I had a houseguest coming to stay. I wondered whom I had to call to get his house rebuilt.
Two
“Grab your bag,” Fiona said as I parked my car, “we’ve got another case.”
“I thought we had a day off?” I told her. She was standing in my front yard, observing some sort of flowering bush that was supposed to bring harmony to the house.
“That was before,” she shrugged. “We should get rid of this bush.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m pretty sure its berries are poisonous.”
“I have no intention of eating them.”
“Badger might eat them accidentally.”
“That would mean he would have to stop eating my stuff and I do not foresee that.” I looked at the bush. I knew little about plants and I had not planted that offensive piece of shrubbery. I had a gardener to do those sorts of things for me, because despite living in a government run neighborhood, my neighbors disapproved of brown grass and barren yards.
“I’ll make arrangements with Holly to change the bush out for something else.”
“Sure,” I shrugged. “Preferably something not quite as ugly. Harmony is not going to come to my house based on a bush in my front yard.”
“Harmony doesn’t even know where you live,” Fiona told me.
“I do not disagree. So, how gruesome is the case?”
“Based on my scale or yours?”
“Give me both.”
“Mine, it’s like a twenty, yours, it’s like a five.” Fiona picked a leaf from the shrub that still held her attention.
“Unless we are about to recreate Monty Python sketches about knights who request shrubbery, I would like a little more information about the case.”
“Slash and dash jobs, except the assailant is taking trophies in the form of skin swatches. Usually a tattoo, but they’ve also taken a few birth marks and scars.”
“Assailant.” I repeated the word as if it left a bitter taste in my mouth. “Do we have a killer or something else?”
“No one’s dead yet,” Fiona finally looked at me, “but I’m not supposed to tell you that.”
“Why are we chasing a non-serial killer?”
“Because no one else chases them.” Fiona dropped the leaf. “I don’t know, I guess they figure we will be useful because we do chase serial killers, and if the assailant is taking trophies, what’s to stop them from becoming a serial killer?”
“If we catch the non-serial killer, will we get a day off?” Since the VCU had fallen victim to a bomb, days off were rare. We were covering as much of their caseload as possible, as well as our own. We’d been home less than eighteen hours. My brain told me it was getting really tired of travel, hotels, and foods that were bad for me. For about a week, I had been popping migraine pills from the moment I woke up just staving off the dreaded condition that was threatening to shut me down. I needed a day or two off, a day or two alone, a day or two to recover, because what I really needed was a migraine cocktail and about twelve hours of sleep. However, I couldn’t do that and work. Especially now that Xavier had access to a new narcotic that knocked my socks off. The chances of death were much lower than the DHE I occasionally injected into my thigh, but it would make me a dribbling, drooling, wreck of a human for a day or so. However, it worked like magic. It also made me vomit and pass out, but migraines had similar side effects, so I was sort of used to it.
As if thinking about him had summoned him, Xavier exited his house with his luggage in his right hand. The camo duffle bag was left over from his days in the military. It would hold a surprising amount of stuff and contributed to his wrinkled clothing fashion statement. I had seen him pack it and he just tossed his stuff inside. It was a miracle that his clothes weren’t more wrinkled or damaged, especially since he packed his clothes under any extra weapons he was carrying inside. His left hand held something strange in it. I couldn’t quite make it out. He rushed towards us, not bothering to look as he crossed the street. Traffic was minimal in the neighborhood and most people just expected our deranged lot to be dashing around like there were zombies after us. He reached us, tossed his bag at my feet, and pain suddenly shot up my arm. I could feel whatever he had injected into me flowing through my blood stream. It was warm and tingly. I growled at him.
“You can thank me later,” Xavier said. “Is your bag inside the door? I’ll get it, you should sit down.”
“What did you give her?” Fiona asked.
“Something for that migraine she’s been nursing for over a week now.” Xavier reached my front door in a few strides. The ground seemed very far below me. I glared at it, feeling my eyes squinting, as I attempted to walk. My feet were numb or not attached to my legs, I wasn’t entirely sure which. The world moved in slow motion. One knee lifted, bringing the foot with it, but the foot couldn’t find the ground when I attempted to put it back down. I closed my eyes and felt myself sway. If I survived, I was going to punch him.
“Whoa there,” Lucas’s arm was suddenly grabbing onto me. His words seemed to float in the air above us.
“Homlask dismtane blah,” I said and realized it didn’t make an
y sense. “Shit me hell float by what impish asshole give my blood what?” I shook my head as Lucas walked me to the SUV.
“I thought we agreed to do it on the plane?” Gabriel asked.
“Yeah, well, the flight to Louisiana isn’t that long, so we should get a running start. She’s going to be pissed about the case when we land. No need for us to suffer the wrath of that and her burgeoning migraine.”
“Satan having a bad day is nicer than Aislinn with a migraine,” Fiona said.
“Anti-money leprosy cockroaches.” I was going to kill him, if I remembered this.
“Why is she speaking gibberish?” Fiona asked.
“A side effect of the mambalgins. It isn’t officially approved for use in humans, but Aislinn agreed to join the human trial for severe chronic cluster migraines. I got it in last week, but since we aren’t entirely sure of the side effect, who knows.” Xavier shrugged. “It doesn’t last as long as the Nubain or morphine I could have injected her with.” My mind tried to latch onto the word mambalgins. I had read it before and it had seemed ludicrous, but the connection wasn’t coming.
“Mammary goblins,” I repeated the word and then repeated it again to try to make it sound remotely like a real thing. I failed the second time too. Then another word came to me, “Manda.”
“Please stop talking, it’s painful to listen to,” Lucas said.
“Manda,” I repeated the word. Xavier had just injected me with compounds extracted from black mamba venom. My brain knew it, but couldn’t make my mouth work enough to say it. I moved my hand in front of my face. My vision was out of focus. My eyes felt weird.
“Um, should her eyes be bulging out of her head?” Fiona asked.
“I think she’s just stressed,” Xavier answered, pulling out a flashlight.
“Great,” Gabriel threw his hands into the air. “We are supposed to be getting on a plane. She can’t fly like this. What if she has some kind of reaction?”
