by Cheree Alsop
She spread salve across the wound. “And heat, apparently,” she replied without looking up at him. “And also good sense.”
The fact that she had just made a joke lifted Aleric’s head. “I had to try.”
“You’re a doctor,” she said with her attention on his hand. “You need to take care of your hands or you won’t be helping anyone.”
“It’s not like I helped anyway,” he replied bitterly.
She looked up at him, her gaze direct. “You did everything you could and more. You sacrificed to try to save him.” She gave a small shake of her head. “I’ve never seen someone do that before.” She indicated his hands. “Not to this extent.”
“Before the fae, this wasn’t a possibility,” he replied. “I’ll bet you wish life went back to when it was simpler before we appeared.”
She wrapped the gauze securely around his left hand. “Who says it was any simpler? Accidents still happened; people still died.”
It was there in her voice, regret, guilt, and deep sorrow. Aleric realized she wasn’t angry with him, she was angry with everyone and everything.
“Who did you lose?” he asked, his voice gentle.
She paused; her fingers hovered above the half-wrapped gauze on his forearm. Her shoulders were tight where they had been loose, and she glared at his wounded hand as though she wished she could finish melting it to oblivion.
“My daughter, Kierlie.”
The way her voice caught at the name filled Aleric with empathy. He opened his mouth to ask another question, but she cut him off with a shake of her head.
“You’re not my psychiatrist. I shouldn’t have told you that.” She sniffed and quickly finished wrapping the wound, her movements not harsh, but no longer containing the gentleness of before. She rose to her feet. “Take care of your hands, Dr. Wolf. You won’t be of much use here without them.”
She left the room in a whirl of scented emotions, regret, sorrow, and the same anger that resonated in Aleric’s chest. He stared after her, the aching in his heart amplified by the nurse’s pain. She had bandaged his hands, and the fact that she had called him ‘Doctor’ without the ironic emphasis wasn’t lost on him.
There had been such loss in her eyes. It resonated with the ache in his heart, the pain that came from holding the ifrit’s life in his hands and watching it flow away, and him helpless to do anything about it.
Aleric knew what he needed to do. He couldn’t put it off any longer because they deserved to know. He had to tell them that he had failed them. He made his way down the empty hall, his hands thankfully numb and his thoughts clouded. He tried to accept what had happened, but he couldn’t.
The werewolf paused in the Light fae side of the D Wing. Diablo meowed from her favorite place on the back windowsill. Braum was up watching out the dark window near her, his fingers trailing through her soft black fur. His voice was pitched quietly for only the minky to hear. He turned at the sound of Aleric’s entrance.
“Dr. Wolf, the moon seems a lot brighter than….” The faun’s voice faded away. He searched Aleric’s face. “Are you alright?”
“Not exactly,” Aleric answered.
He reached clumsily for Diablo. The winged kitten climbed eagerly into his arms. She settled into the crook of his elbow, a contented purr rising from her.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Braum offered. “I’m tired of being stuck here. There’s really nothing wrong with me, despite the monitoring the nurses keep insisting they need to do. They’re worried about something called pneumonia because they say my lungs appear restricted in imaging scans, but have they ever actually seen the lungs of other fauns? How do they know mine aren’t just perfectly normal? We’re being compared to humans, but you have to admit that they’re not exactly normal, either.”
When that failed to bring any hint of a smile from the werewolf, the faun gave him a closer look. “Serious, Doc. What’s going on?”
Aleric lowered his gaze. “I lost a patient today.” He studied his bandaged hands. Talia had wrapped them thickly from his wrists to his fingertips. The voice in the back of his mind noted that they looked like giant Q-tips; he ignored the voice. “He died under my fingers. I did everything I could, but it wasn’t enough.” He met Braum’s sorrow-filled gaze. “Now my job is to tell his wife and daughter that he’ll never be coming home. It’s something I’ve never done before.”
Braum looked taken aback. He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again to say, “I guess I didn’t expect that. I didn’t really think, well, that your position here included things like that.” His voice lowered and he said, “I didn’t really think about it at all. That has to be hard. I’m so sorry.”
Aleric was touched by the faun’s compassion. “I guess things like this happen, but I didn’t think it would happen to someone under my care. I wasn’t really ready for it.”
“I don’t know if anyone can ever be ready to face death,” Braum replied. “And your compassion is what makes you a good doctor.”
“I’m not really a doctor,” Aleric said.
“Aren’t you?” Braum replied. “You take care of people who need you, you give them comfort, tend to their wounds, and provide a place of safety while they recover. If that doesn’t make you a doctor, I don’t know what does.”
“A degree.”
Braum gave an accepting smile. “I suppose. Although I doubt they offer degrees here on fairy wounds and ogre care.”
That brought a small answering smile to Aleric’s face. “I suppose not.” His smile faded. “I shouldn’t make them wait. The sooner they know….”
“The sooner they will find a way to accept it,” Braum replied when Aleric’s words left him.
Aleric nodded. He lifted Diablo to his cheek and took solace in the contented purr from the kitten.
“Listen to the nurses,” he said over his shoulder to the faun on the way out the door. “They’re here to help you recover.”
“Fine,” Braum replied before the door shut. “But only because my doctor told me to do so.”
Chapter Eight
Aleric paused in front of the door to the Dark fae wing. He closed his eyes and saw the ifrit again, his blood pattering to the pan below the operating table, his life fading away despite their best efforts. He told himself it was the accident that had killed Starija’s father, but he couldn’t fight the guilt at what he hadn’t been able to prevent.
It took a huge effort to push down the emotions that flooded through him. Aleric knew he had to put on a strong front to face Danjin’s wife and daughter. He couldn’t break down. It would make it that much worse for the ifrit family. He would be stalwart for them.
Aleric pushed the door open with his forearm. He felt the expectancy in the air the moment he entered. Dartan, Maes, and Starija all looked at him with hope on their faces. Aleric forced himself to meet Maes’ gaze.
“I’m so sorry,” he began.
Magma tears filled her eyes. Starija buried her head against her mother’s chest. They both held each other and sobbed.
Diablo leaped from Aleric’s arms and soared to the bed. The little minky climbed up to Starija’s side and rubbed her head against the little girl’s arm. The young ifrit gathered the winged kitten up in her arms and cried, tears wracking her body. Diablo rubbed her head along the little girl’s cheek. The heat from the young ifrit didn’t seem to bother the minky at all.
“I did everything I could,” Aleric said. His throat tightened, choking off what he wanted to say. He forced out the words, “Dr. Worthen said he wasn’t in pain.”
Maes nodded, but wasn’t able to reply. The sight of someone in so much heartache, heartache he could have prevented if he had just been able to relieve the pressure in the ifrit’s skull without risk to the man’s life, ate at Aleric. He stopped halfway to their bed. He wanted to console them, but couldn’t touch them. He wasn’t sure what words to use; he wished Lilian was there to help him say the right things, but her absence was a
nother dagger to his heart.
The pain Aleric felt changed to fire and fury. As he stood there listening to the sorrow of the ifrit mother and daughter, anger took over where the loss ate at Aleric’s heart. He didn’t know if he had experienced so much in Edge City that he had hit a wall, or if the ache of his shattered soul needed an outlet so badly that it turned to ire. All he knew was that he needed to hit something, to fight, to run, to do all the things he would normally do in his wolf form but was prevented from doing because of the burns.
Aleric’s hands clenched into fists.
“Dr. Wolf,” Dartan said.
Aleric turned on his heels. He shoved through the doors without heeding the vampire’s call. His hands clenched and unclenched; he welcomed the pain that dulled the feeling of helplessness and loss. He needed to punch something, to fight, to find the release he had felt when he fought the Fervor. He didn’t know of any other way to cope with the pain that threatened to overwhelm him.
“Aleric, stop!”
The vampire’s command echoed through the small parking lot behind the hospital. Aleric paused halfway across, but he didn’t turn around.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Dartan demanded.
Aleric felt the healing comfort of the moon bath him with its light, but he couldn’t take relief in its touch. Though the moonlight felt good on his bandaged hands and sore shoulders, it wasn’t able to take the edge off of the rage that surged through him. “I need to hit something,” he replied, his chest heaving and response short.
“With those hands?” the vampire replied.
Aleric stalked forward again.
“Okay, wait. I’m sorry,” Dartan said. The vampire caught up to him. “Why do you need to hit something?”
Aleric shook his head. “I don’t expect you to understand.”
“That you’re upset?” Dartan asked, following him into the alley. “That you need an outlet? What’s there not to understand? Hit me if you need to hit something.”
Aleric glanced at his friend. The vampire’s red gaze was too knowing for him to hold. He shook his head. “Leave me alone.”
Dartan’s steps slowed. “Friends are there for each other.”
“Friends aren’t what I need right now,” Aleric replied.
He turned down the next alley. He had walked for several minutes in heated silence when he heard the vampire’s steps shadowing his once more. He ignored the sound for several more blocks until the police station came into sight.
“I know you’re back there,” Aleric said over his shoulder.
“I’m just curious what your plan is,” Dartan replied. “Are you going to punch a policeman? That seems counterproductive.”
Aleric shook his head. “I have friends on the force.”
“I’m really the only friend you should punch,” Dartan pointed out from the shadows. “I’ll recover. They probably won’t.”
“I’m not going to punch them,” Aleric said with exasperation.
The door to the precinct opened. Aleric let out a breath of relief at the sight of Officer Ling among the others. He crossed the street toward the group of policemen and women.
“Officer Ling, can I have a word?” Aleric asked.
Several of the officers’ hands moved to the guns at their hips when they turned. Aleric couldn’t blame them. Given his run-in with the Fervor, who knew what sort of person would be retaliating.
“Dr. Wolf?” Officer Ling said with surprise and relief in his voice. “We were worried we’d find you dead somewhere.”
Aleric shook his head. “I’m harder to kill than that.”
“Yeah, a few bullets and knife wounds are nothing,” the officer replied with a sarcastic smile. “It really is good to see you.”
He walked down the steps and held out a hand to Aleric.
Aleric lifted his hands to show the bandages. “These aren’t much good for handshakes at the moment.”
“What happened to you?” Officer Darold asked. “You disappeared after the Fervor incident. There was talk you’d be the next headless body we found.”
Aleric read wariness in the officer’s gaze. For some reason, it brought a touch of humor to his thoughts that he welcomed. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
The officer held his eyes. “I may not like you, but I like what the Fervor have been doing even less. I’m tired of cowards hiding in the shadows.” He crossed his arms. “Though I didn’t appreciate your implications the other night about me being one of them.”
Aleric lifted a shoulder. “If the shoe fits.”
Darold took a step forward. “Why are you here?” he demanded.
“Officer Ling offered to hone my fighting tactics. I’ve had a rough day and I would like to hit something.”
Aleric met the officer’s gaze.
Ling nodded. “Our shift just got over. Now’s as good a time as any.” He looked at Aleric’s hands. “I was also thinking of evasive maneuvers instead of direct assault. I think it could help you avoid sending fifty percent of your victims to the hospital before they go to jail.”
“They deserve pain after what they’ve put us and the citizens of Edge City through,” Officer Teri pointed out.
Everyone chuckled except Officer Darold.
“We don’t need a loose cannon helping the force. You’re a vigilante at best. We shouldn’t be helping you and you shouldn’t be helping us,” the officer growled.
“Try to stop me,” Aleric replied.
Darold crossed so that he stood directly in front of Aleric, his face inches from the werewolf’s. “You’re young, you’re impulsive, and you endanger lives,” the officer said.
“You’re a bully, you’re obstinate, and your breath smells,” Aleric replied.
“I should knock you down to size,” Darold said, leaning toward him with a death glare. “It would serve you right.”
“Take your best shot,” Aleric taunted.
The officer hit him square in the jaw.
Aleric took a step backward with the force of the blow, but his werewolf strength kept him on his feet. He touched his jaw with bandaged fingers and lifted an eyebrow. “Was that really your best shot?”
Everyone stared from Aleric to Officer Darold. The officer’s eyes were wide, his face filled with fury. He balled his fist again and was about to swing when Officer Ling caught his arm.
“Knock it off, Darold,” Ling said. “Remember what he did in the Fallows? Do you really want to relive that here?” He looked at Aleric. “And don’t egg him on. Officer Darold’s a valuable part of this police force. We don’t need him nursing a broken jaw for the next month.”
Aleric nodded. “Sorry. I know I’m impulsive. I shouldn’t have rushed into the Fervor lair without waiting for the Commissioner’s backup.” He met Officer Darold’s gaze. “I also shouldn’t have called you out like that.”
The officer studied him in silence for a moment. When he finally spoke, there was a glimmer of respect in his eyes. “I’ve never seen anyone take a punch like that from me and stay standing. I’d be happy to train with you.”
“We could all use a refresher course,” Officer Rellen said. “Given all that’s happened, I wouldn’t mind honing my skills a bit.”
“Let’s head out back to the—” Officer Ling’s gun was suddenly in his hand. He kept it pointed at the alley across the street, his hand steady and gaze sharp. “Step into the open.”
Everyone turned; tension filled the air.
Dartan appeared, his hands raised and a wry smile on his face. “Shooting a vampire might not be the best decision you could make tonight. We don’t stay down long.”
“He said vampire,” Officer Rellen whispered to Teri.
Other guns appeared.
“Take it easy,” Aleric said. He backed up with his hands raised, moving to shield Dartan from view. “He’s with me.”
“Then why is he lurking in the shadows?” Darold demanded.
“Because I’m tired of Wolfi
e’s acquaintences trying to kill me,” Dartan replied dryly.
“He’s my friend,” Aleric told them. “He’s not going to hurt anyone.”
“The big one split his knuckles on your face,” Dartan replied. “I can’t say I’m not tempted.”
Aleric glanced at Officer Darold. The man looked down at his hand as if he was also surprised to see the blood dripping to the sidewalk.
“You should probably bandage that,” the werewolf suggested. He looked back at Dartan. “And you shouldn’t scare them. It’s not polite.”
Dartan lowered his hands with a smirk. “And punching you is? I need to brush up on my human customs.”
“Punching isn’t polite, either,” Officer Ling said. He put his gun back in his holster. The other officers followed warily. Officer Ling glared at the tall officer who was attempting to wrap his knuckles in the napkins Officer Teri had handed him. “Darold just has a particular dislike for the way the fae have disrupted our city.”
“If the Fallows were any indication, the city was already disrupted,” Dartan said. “I’ve watched your television. This isn’t exactly Elysium.” At their blank expressions, he explained, “A mythological heaven, happiness forever, fields of beauty and all that.” At their continued incomprehension, he shook his head. “Theology is lost on weak minds. What do you have during your short lifespans if not the baseless assurance of imagined worlds beyond?”
“That’s not nice,” Aleric pointed out.
“I don’t have to be nice to have a conversation,” Dartan replied. “I’m just an enquiring intellectual on a search for a greater understanding as to how our world has so impacted theirs that to pull a gun instead of granting presumed innocence until proven guilty as per their own laws is considered acceptable.”
Silence followed the vampire’s words. Aleric raised a hand. “Dartan, you need to stop watching cop shows on the t.v. in the breakroom.”
“What else am I supposed to do when the sun’s up?” Dartan asked. “Besides, it’s very entertaining.”
“You’re right,” Officer Ling said.
