by Peter Dawes
Reluctantly, I embraced her in return, weighing myself against the knowledge that this was my first physical contact with a mortal since my detoxification. Granted, I had taken company with Monica, but Chloe knew no protective incantations and unknowingly exposed herself to a moment of closeness with a predatory sadist. “It is surreal to see you as well.” Pulling away before the temptation became too much, I nodded. “I hardly know why the sight of me would constitute being ‘for sore eyes’, but thank you just the same.”
“Are you kidding?” Chloe laughed. “We all wondered what happened to you. You wandered out of the E.R. one night and never came back.”
“I have had an… interesting five years, Chloe.”
“I’m sure.” She glanced at Monica as the sorceress strolled carefully toward us. “What brings you back here?”
As if on cue, Monica’s face contorted and she clutched her gut. I perked an eyebrow at her. “Ow. Oh shit… It’s starting to hurt again,” she said. A gloved hand reached to pat my upper arm, then returned to its position on her stomach. “Thanks for helping me to the hospital, Pete.” Her eyes glinted with mischief when they met mine. “I think I can find my way to reception from here.”
I resisted the urge to glower at Monica as she hobbled away. “My pleasure,” was all I could manage, feet rooted in position for the lack of a better reaction. I found myself staring at Monica until she rounded a corner and disappeared.
“Should you tell her she just turned the wrong way?” Chloe asked, directing my attention back to her.
“She will figure it out eventually.” My gaze returned to the nurse when I felt I could offer her a more neutral expression. Sighing, I cocked a thumb toward where Monica had departed. “There is nothing actually wrong with her. I think she just enjoys doing this to be eccentric.”
“Seems like a strange girl.” Chloe shrugged and looked back toward me. Her eyes traced up and down my body, and for a moment I felt somewhat self-conscious, wondering what I must look like. Black suit. Pale complexion. Dark sunglasses over my eyes. She frowned, just as I thought she might. “Running with the Goth crowd these days?”
“No.” Despite her frown, I was amused, though I tried not to smile and jar her with the sight of my fangs. “I can see where you might assume that, though. No, she is a friend I met through… well, work, I guess you could say.”
“You’re working somewhere else now?”
“In a much different line of work. I suppose this place lost some of its luster after…” Trailing off, I hesitated when the thought of mentioning Lydia threatened to be a sore subject. Her brow smoothed and when I saw the sympathetic way she looked at me, I shook my head as if to deter her. “Anyway,” I said, brushing past the topic, “she wanted company and urged me here despite my reservations.”
“Reservations?” Chloe frowned, though failed to chase the smallest hint of humor from her eyes. “You disappeared without so much as a peep, dropped off the face of the map, and show up here after all this time with some girl who’s heavy in the dramatics.” I could not tell for certain if she was affirming or countering my assertion and neither did she explain. Instead, she nodded toward the opposite side of the corridor. “Come take a walk with me and tell me what you’ve been up to.”
We turned to walk in the opposite direction. She clutched a manila folder closer to her chest – a patient chart from the look of things – while I dug my hands into my pockets, mindful to keep my coat closed and weapons hidden from view. “What would you like to know?” I asked.
Chloe sighed. “We’re pussy-footing around the issue, so I’m just going to blurt it out.” As we made eye contact, she gave me a far more genuine frown. “I heard what happened to Lydia.”
I nodded and peered down at the tiled floor. “I had no doubt that you had.”
“Didn’t hear the news report, but shortly after you disappeared, some police officers came around asking about you. I told them flat-out that you wouldn’t have harmed a hair on her head.”
“They suspected I was the killer?” I asked, fighting back the urge to wince.
“Something about your fingerprints on the murder weapon, when I told them you were there all the time. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find your prints all over the place.” When I glanced up at her again, I saw her open the manila folder and page through its contents with a sigh. “Hope they found the actual son of a bitch that took her.”
“Not yet, no.” I nodded at the folder. “What is that?”
“Oh, just another day in the life of this damn, crazy city. It’s only gotten nuttier since you left.” Closing the file, she walked through the doors leading into the emergency area, not indicating if I should stay behind. I continued to walk alongside her. “Weird shit shows up in the morgue and people walk in with all kinds of crazy stories. This one, for example –” Chloe motioned with the folder before tucking it under her arm. “Jane Doe came in bleeding out from an animal bite and won’t even give us her name. She goes catatonic every time that I try. She had no ID on her, so I can’t call her next of kin or get her registered correctly for going up into a room. We might have to send her up as is.”
“How was she brought in?”
“Ambulance. Somebody found her and called 911.”
“Could I take a glimpse at her chart?”
Chloe waited until we paused by the long desk taking up one wall where two other nurses sat. They did not look familiar and gave me only a cursory look before returning to their work. Nodding, she handed it over to me and allowed me to read. “Don’t let any of the doctors see you reading that,” she muttered. “I’m only handing it over because you used to be good at these sorts of puzzles.”
I flashed a small, appreciative smile and shifted to face the desk. Flipping the file open, I paged through the notes already penned by the paramedics and her attending physicians. She skirted close to the edge of hypovolemic shock, and if the loss of blood had not been alarming enough, the scratches from a struggle and eerily placed puncture wounds were enough to inspire even a skeptic toward belief in the paranormal. Some vampire had done a woeful job of attempting to dispatch of her. I felt revolted.
“How do you see with those sunglasses on?” Chloe asked.
“I had an accident shortly after Lydia’s death which makes me sensitive toward light. Without them, I would not be able to see at all.” The lie came easily, though I was far from proud of it. Glancing up at Chloe, I raised an eyebrow. “I know I am not a doctor here any longer, but can I speak to her. I think I might have an idea of to help her.”
“How are you going to manage that?”
“Hard to explain without sounding insane, but I can help.” I paused. “If you still trust me, that is.”
She studied me intently. I could hear it turning around in her mind, the faintest amount of distrust she tried desperately not to admit even to herself. “I’ll let you, but make it quick. We’re supposed to have her out as soon as possible.”
“I promise it will not take but a minute.”
Chloe nodded, but I could tell something still seemed off about me in her mind, an unanswered question she staked faith on in the meantime. “Alright, Peter,” she said, starting to walk again. I followed her without responding.
We walked past a row of bays, separated by shut curtains, and paused in front of one. “Work your magic, Dr. Dawes,” Chloe said, gesturing at the bay. “I’ll be over at the nurse’s station when you’re finished.” Without any further ceremony, she marched back in the direction of her desk, leaving me to watch until I had become only a tertiary focus of her attention. Turning to face the curtain again, I parted it enough to step inside. Then, I drew it shut behind me.
Jane Doe lay on a bed, covered in blankets and curled up on her side with her back to me. While she did not move in response to my entrance, her breathing shifted, quickening as if she sensed my presence. Bathed in florescent light, she looked pallid and as I walked around the other side of her bed, I noticed a
bandage covering her neck. Fluids dripped from an IV into her arm. Studying it, I wondered if they had given her a transfusion earlier.
“You are lucky,” I said, my gaze shifting toward her heart rate monitor. “Most people do not survive a vampire attack if the intent was to kill you. And I suspect that might have been the case.” A frown touched my lips, my mind engaged in theorizing while I watched each blip cross the screen. “Though one wonders why they did not finish the act, if that was their intention. I have a feeling I will need to wake you to ask.” This prompted me to look for a chair and, once spotted, drag it closer to where she lay. Sitting, I settled in and folded my hands on my lap.
Only then did I allow the act to slip.
Not concerned about the appearance of my knives, nor the sight of my fangs or the silence which mental concentration would take, I let the world go quiet, concerning myself only with the woman and her thoughts. At first, they only formed static, her eyes vacant and staring into nowhere, shutting only for milliseconds to allow her to blink. Taking a deep breath inward, I released it slowly, stepping further into her consciousness without knowing what I was doing. I trusted instinct over logic, telling myself that if I could read minds, then surely, I could wander past the contents I found on the surface. It only took a moment for my theory to be proven correct.
Images slowly filtered toward me. At first, they made no sense, comprised entirely of shattered vignettes, only half of which contained anything pertinent. The deeper I sank, though, the more they coalesced. I saw the face of her attacker and tensed immediately, recognizing him as a member of one of the area covens. What concerned me more, however, was what I saw him doing to my new friend, Ms. Joann Griffith. Concentrating harder, I continued my examination.
While other details about her – such as the fact that she had been walking to meet with a blind dinner date – wafted toward me, I filtered them out, focusing closer on her attacker. Sloppy workmanship marked the attempt at hunting, as if it bore more purpose than simple happenstance. When he reached the point of imminent death with her, he pulled away and hesitated. And in the precious moments he lost, the humans who discovered her prevented him from doing more than dropping her onto the ground. I furrowed my brow, searching out an answer to the riddle of why he hesitated. The young woman had nothing further to offer.
“It would have been better had he finished you off,” I said. “Little wonder the psychological trauma has you catatonic.” I motioned to stand, having collected all I needed, but paused when I took notice of her vacant stare again. Frowning, I debated the prudence of interfering in her mental health, releasing an exasperated sigh as I realized I cared about the pitiful creature. “Perhaps I can do you some good before I go.”
Lifting to my feet, I strode the two steps which separated me from Ms. Griffith and pressed a palm against the side of her head. Shutting my eyes, I returned to that place of deeper thought where I had been, allowing more of her personal details to lift from the abyss. She was thirty years old, but told people she was twenty-eight. Not married. No children. She worked as a legal secretary and had never been so afraid before in her life. As her fear reached me, palpable in its intensity, I shuddered and whispered to her, “Wake up. The only monster in here is me, and I am not going to harm you.”
She drew a sharp breath inward, reflexively kicking me from her head and forcing me to recoil. As I struggled to get my bearings, I heard her groan and once I had opened my eyes again, she met my gaze and furrowed her brow. Where once had been nothing but emptiness, a light now shone through, her expression panicked as she struggled with how to weigh me.
“Who…?” she began, pausing and regrouping while I took an additional step back from her. Swallowing hard, Joann glanced around the room surrounding her and motioned to sit upright. “Where am I?”
“Oh, no,” I said, holding out a hand to stop her. “I would not sit up just yet. You lost a lot of blood.”
Joann shook her head, but when the effort became more than she could manage, she relaxed against the cot again. “I need to leave. That man, he might come back. I need to go…” She fumbled at the IV taped to her hand. “This city isn’t safe. What they say about these people who keep disappearing… it’s that thing that tried to kill me, isn’t it?”
“In brief. You are not well, though.” Snapping my fingers, I captured her attention and quickly held it, using vampire glamour. Despite the dark lenses covering my eyes, hers made contact enough for it to stick. She paused her frenzied escape and I sighed. “At this rate, you are going to either go mad or catatonic again, because of my kind’s sloppy workmanship. Do I have your attention yet?”
Slowly, she nodded, head bobbing up and down twice before settling against her pillow again. “Good,” I said. “Now, you are not going to remember the man who attacked you. I assure you, you will probably not see him ever again. You will be more careful walking the streets because there are shady characters out there, but you know nothing of vampires. They are still myths, and you are a fortunate survivor of an attempted mugging. Nothing more. Are we clear?”
Joann nodded again, and as I broke her from my thrall, I turned to make my departure before she could question me any further. Walking immediately toward the nurse’s station, I caught Chloe’s attention and motioned her forward, meeting her halfway between the enclosed bay and the desk where she had been sitting. “Her name is Joann Griffith,” I said. “I did not get any next of kin information, but you might find her more willing to talk.”
“What the hell did you do to her?” Chloe asked. She glanced at the shut curtain, then back at me, taking hold of my arm and leading me away from the main thoroughfare and toward the other side of the emergency area. “We’ve been working on her for the past hour and you got her talking in a few minutes?”
“I suppose my bedside manner is not as lacking as I thought it might be.” I sighed. As we passed one of the emergency room doctors, I ignored them, lest I discover them to be someone I recognized. “She was scared. She simply needed a hand to guide her out of the darkness.”
“You’re not looking like a hand outstretched in the darkness lately, kiddo. No offense intended.”
“No, I am aware. On that note, I should probably leave. I have to find Monica and figure out where in the hospital she got herself lost.”
Chloe frowned. As she looked up at me, I peered down at her and when she shook her head, I grinned, keeping my lips closed in the process. “There’s one hell of a story trapped somewhere in there,” she said, leading me down an adjoining corridor which I remembered lead into the waiting area. “If I wasn’t on shift, I’d be forcing you out for diner coffee so you could explain it to me. As it is, I have half a mind to force you to give me your number.”
“Why would you want me to do that?” I asked.
“Are you kidding me?” When I met her gaze again, she frowned. “Honey, we were worried sick about you. And you show up after five years, wearing sunglasses like you stepped out of a Corey Hart song with no good explanation as to what happened to you. You were like family, Pete, and you disappeared.”
“I know.” We paused near the doors leading out to the waiting area, both of us turning to face each other. I placed a hand on her shoulder. “I could try to explain it all, but none of it would sound sane to you, Chloe. I know all I left was uncertainty and a trail of police officers, trying to figure out why I would kill my girlfriend, but I have nothing to offer you that will assuage your worry.”
“Did you kill her, Pete?”
The direct question came out with more certainty than any of her previous allusions, finally giving voice to the doubt which had been plaguing her. I frowned and as I glanced toward the small windows looking out into the waiting area, I shook my head. “I am far guiltier than you might like to hear,” I said. “And, at the same time, there is so much more to it.”
“Then why don’t you tell me about it?”
“If I had the time, perhaps, but I…” As I continued
to stare out the window, a disquieting feeling raced through me, bringing a shiver up my spine and causing the hair on the back of my neck to stand on-end. In the background, I heard Chloe attempt to prod me onward, though what she said to me exactly fell on deaf ears. Instead, I watched as the automatic doors which first brought me into the hospital parted, allowing a group of men through.
“Pete? Pete, what the hell is the matter with–”
Without thinking, I took hold of Chloe. Forcing her away from the door, I pinned her to an adjacent wall. Her eyes widened. “What the hell are –?”
“Silence,” I whispered harshly as I released my hold on her. “Stay there and do not move. Do you hear me?”
She nodded slowly. I cast a stern gaze at her, then walked toward the door and peered through the small window again. Ten people, if they could even be called that, strode toward the emergency room entrance. Men and women alike, they were tall, strong, and by the way they glanced around the room, gave the distinct impression they were not here for medical assistance. I watched one part his lips, revealing sharp fangs hiding in slumber. “Bloody fucking wonderful,” I muttered. “What a bed I have made for myself.”
I sighed and looked toward Chloe again. Inching closer, I whispered, “Chloe, there are a group of dangerous beings out there. Do not let anyone near this door and do not allow them to see you. I need you to fetch something for me.”
Her eyes shifted from the doors back to me. “‘Dangerous beings’?”
“I have no time to explain. Fetch me anything sharp. Scalpels, preferably. I have a few knives, but I don’t know if they will be enough.”
“Peter, what are you going to –?”
“Chloe, I wish I had time to explain, but I do not. Fetch me the scalpels and return swiftly, but do not allow them to see you. Are we clear?” She remained frozen in position. I frowned. “If you ever considered us friends…”
“Alright.” Chloe swallowed hard and stepped away from the wall. She eyed me skeptically for a moment before hurrying toward one of the storage rooms and disappearing inside. I indulged in a steadying breath and focused my attention once more on the pack of vampires, noting the sorry bastards had not counted on me being there. Whatever led them to the hospital, and whatever stroke of fortune had me present at the same time, it revealed one more absurdity in what was becoming a growing list. I began to think coincidence had little to do with it.
