Extreme Medical Services Box Set Vol 4--6

by Jamie Davis

  Jo must have grown up with two parents who had wildly different views on this subject, Dean knew. Her mother had trained her well. That much was evident based on her handling of the situation back at the hospital. She had survived an enraged and blood-crazed vampire attack. He wasn’t sure he would have been able to do as well, in fact he was sure of it. If it had been someone else in that alley by the ambulance entrance, they would be dead right now. That was thanks in no small part to her being armed and trained to defend herself.

  Dean thought about all of these things as Gibbie stopped in front of Jaz’s apartment building. He found a parking spot and pulled his van into it, in front of the building. Dean and the girls got out but Gibbie wanted to stay in the van.

  “I think I’ll pass on meeting the Errington heir in person, Dean,” Gibbie said. “She’s dedicated to killing people like me.”

  “Oh, nonsense, Gibbie,” Jo said. “Trust me. You and mom are good friends where I come from.”

  Gibbie snorted out a strange noise that Dean realized was half laughter and half crying.

  “Come on, Gibbie. It’s just Jo’s mom,” Marian said. “How bad could she be?”

  “Ask Dean that question. He told me how she single-handedly took on a revenant demon lord in a sword fight.”

  Marian laughed. “That just makes her awesome, not scary. Come on.”

  They waited and the middle-aged vampire climbed out of his van, locked the door and joined them as they went up to Jaz’s apartment. Jo must have texted her to let her know they were coming. She opened the door as they arrived greeting them with a grim look on her face. She was dressed in full hunter mode, with black BDU pants and a black t-shirt. Her pistol and Bowie knife rested in the shoulder holster rig she wore. She reached over and pulled on her black leather jacket to complete the outfit as she gestured to them.

  “Come in and tell me what the problem is,” Jaz said. “I have a few vague texts from Jo, but nothing that makes a lot of sense.”

  Dean filled her in on what he discovered about his patient’s recent change to being a vampire, the attack at the hospital, and the incident in the alley between the girls and the vamp. He expressed his belief that this was the act of a young vampire, out of control and without support.

  “So, what, Dean?” Jaz asked. “Are you asking me to go easy on this guy? He’s killed or turned eighteen people that we know of right now. How many more have to die before he is stopped?”

  Gibbie muttered something under his breath and Jaz shot him a glance that caused the vampire to shriek and throw up his hands in apology.

  “Oh, be quiet,” Jaz said. “I’m not going to hurt you Gibson Proctor. Everyone in the hunter community knows you are harmless. In fact, I have seen notes to that effect going back over a hundred years.”

  “Really?” Gibbie asked. “You know, I really don’t want to hurt anyone. I don’t.”

  “See, Gibbie. I told you. Mom and you are going to be friends.”

  “I don’t know about that, Joanna,” Jaz said. “I don’t have vampire friends.”

  “You must mellow with age then, Mom. You let Gibbie and Celeste both babysit several times when I was little.”

  Marian laughed aloud at that statement, and Jaz shot her a look. She raised her hands in defense. “I’m sorry Ms. Errington. I just find that so funny. It’s like the beginning of a joke.”

  “Well I’m not laughing, Marian. It’s not a joke and I don’t approve. Just like I don’t approve of my daughter having a werewolf as a friend. You seem like a nice enough girl, but you can’t change who you are underneath.”

  “Mom, that is just rude. Take it back.”

  “I won’t, Joanna. You may know me as a different person in your future, but I’m not that person. I only know who I am right now and I’m the hunter who has seen a lot of situations that are a made more dangerous because of Unusuals out of control. That is the reason you are all here, after all.”

  Dean had to diffuse this situation. He stepped between Jaz and Jo. “Maybe the two of you could work together to track this guy down before he kills anyone else. He’s been shot with silver bullets so he can’t heal, right?”

  Jo nodded and Jaz explained, “The silver inhibits healing and regeneration within about one inch of every fragment in the body. Based on Jo hitting him with fifteen rounds, he’ll need surgery to remove the bullet fragments before he can start healing again.”

  “So where would he go?” Dean asked.

  Gibbie cleared his throat and everyone looked his way. He paused and swallowed hard before continuing. “I was just thinking what I would do. If I was hurt like that, I’d go home and lair up while I tried to heal. He’s new, though so I don’t know where he’d lair up. He wouldn’t have a lair yet, would he?”

  “But he’s human so he does have a lair, Gibbie,” Dean said. “He would go back home, the only place he would feel safe and secure.” He looked around the room. “We’ve got to hurry. His wife will probably let him in, but that will put her in incredible danger.”

  They all nodded and Dean led the group back downstairs to Gibbie’s van. Jaz grabbed her katana sword on the way out the door. Once outside she settled in the center of the van’s middle back seat, forcing Jo and Marian to sit behind her in the rear seat. Gibbie hopped into the driver’s seat and Dean gave him the directions to the apartment building where he had picked up Steve, the new vampire, earlier in the evening. They sped across town, hoping they would get there in time to save the man’s wife.

  * * *

  ———

  * * *

  By the time they arrived, Jaz had laid out her plan to approach the apartment and assess the situation. Dean knew she had the most experience with this sort of take-down. It was why they had sought her out. She and Jo, as the only trained hunters in the group, would stand on either side of the apartment’s door while Dean knocked to see if anyone answered.

  Gibbie would be next to Dean and if he could, would use his superior speed and strength to tackle the vampire if he answered. Marian would stay back, behind Dean and help lend first aid if anyone needed it. She would carry the EMS bags Gibbie kept win the back of his van.

  Dean approached the ground floor apartment’s door from the inner courtyard of the apartment complex. Everyone else was in place, Jaz to the left with her sword drawn in one hand and her pistol in the other. Jo was on the right, pistol at the ready. He looked at Gibbie who nodded he was ready.

  Knocking on the door, Dean took a step back to give the team some room should the vampire come charging out. The door opened a crack and he saw the wife’s face appear.

  “Yes, who is it?”

  “Ma’am, I’m paramedic Dean Flynn. Do you remember me? I was here earlier with your husband.”

  “I remember you. You should go. My husband doesn’t want to go back to the hospital.”

  “Oh, so he’s here?”

  She nodded, looking back behind her somewhere. Dean could hear another voice inside but not what it said.

  “Ma’am, tell your husband that we mean him no harm.” Dean raised his voice, knowing the new vampire’s sensitive hearing would be able to hear him. “Steven, we can help you. We know you are hurt. Unless we get the bullet fragments out of you, you will not heal, no matter how much blood you get. You need surgery. We can help.”

  The wife squealed in alarm as she was pulled back from the door and then it opened, showing Steven standing there. He was a mess. His hospital gown was covered in dried and crusted blood. The bullet holes where Jo had shot him were evident. His eyes were red-rimmed and his pale skin color was even more alarming now than before.

  “I have to drink more. The master instructed me to feed and share blood with as many as I could. It was the only way to heal me. Now you tell me I have to go back to the hospital?”

  Dean held his hands out to try and show he was no threat. “I have a friend with me who is like you are now. He can help you with what is happening to you.”

 
Gibbie waved, “Hi, Steven. I remember when I was new like you. I know there are so many distractions and urges that you don’t understand. If you’ll come with us, we can help you.”

  “Then why do you have more people with guns nearby? I can smell them, you know. It’s faint, masked somehow, but I think they’re closer than their smell would indicate,” the new vampire said.

  Dean was alarmed. If he decided to fight, someone was going to get hurt. Jaz and Jo had hunter amulets that both enhanced their vision into the infrared and ultraviolet spectrums, as well as masking their heat signatures and scents. It seemed that it could only mask so much when they were just a few feet away from their target.

  “Of course we brought some protection, Steven,” Dean said, trying to soothe the man. “You have caused many injuries tonight. We have to be sure that you don’t hurt anyone else. If you come with Gibbie and me peacefully though, there is no need for anyone else to get injured.”

  It was a standoff. Dean knew it. He was at a loss as to what he should do to defuse the situation. Gibbie took a step forward and tried to take matters into his own hands and that triggered something in Steven. He charged forward with a snarl, aiming for Dean. What happened next seemed to go in slow motion.

  Dean saw Jaz raise her katana up to strike as the vampire passed through the door. Jo pushed her free hand forward and he saw her lips begin to move, casting a spell, no doubt. He started to call out for everyone to stop, but Gibbie was already moving. Dean had never seen the frumpy, middle-aged vampire move so quickly.

  Gibbie dove forward, intercepting the charging vampire and knocking him to the sidewalk in front of his apartment door. They both fell to the ground and Jaz’s heaven-blessed sword blade swished through the air just above them. At the same time, Jo finished her spell and a brief flash of light caused both vampires to cry out, covering their eyes. Gibbie didn’t let go, though, and had the younger vampire wrapped up in a bear hug. Steven struggled, but Dean could see that Gibbie had him under control.

  The elder vampire, looked up at Dean from the ground, rolling his eyes. “Well, that was close.”

  Chapter 12

  It was an hour later when the five of them turned Steven over to a pair of vampires sent by James to collect him. Then they returned to Jaz’s apartment. The whole evening had not gone as Dean, or any of them, had expected. A text query to Celeste had come back with the listing of the carnage. Twenty-one people in all, counting Steven, had been turned into vampires. Two more were dead and would not rise again. It was unlike anything most of them had seen before.

  “What concerns me is something Steven said before we captured him,” Jaz said. “He said something about his master telling him to feed on blood and let others feed on him in turn.”

  “They are simple instructions, but they would be enough along with the vampire instincts to create a small army of hungry, new vampires in the city,” Gibbie observed.

  “Does this mean we have more vampires to look forward to?” Jo asked.

  “It means that this is not an isolated incident,” Dean said. “James told me that in the earliest days of man, vampires and some of the other Unusuals were created by netherworld demon lords to fight with the humans and other forces of good in the world at the time.”

  “That matches up with the lore of the hunter clans. We learn a lot about Unusual creature origins growing up,” Jaz said. “It’s said we gained some of our abilities during those ancient times to help us battle the enemies of mankind. It would make sense that the Gods of good would make some changes of their own to counter those of the other side.”

  “But both sides eventually determined to back off direct intervention in the world thousands of years ago,” Dean mused. “What would have changed that brought a demon lord back on the scene here in Elk City to start the process all over again?”

  “The better question is, what other types of Unusuals have been created?” Jo said, jumping into the conversation. “If demon lords can create vampires, what else can one create?”

  “Werewolves, and other Lycans and shifters, maybe more,” Marian said. She said the words in a whisper as if she were afraid of them. “We need to warn my dad and the other pack leaders. The next full moon will be in two days. If there’s a new werewolf out there, we can expect him or her to strike then.”

  “I’ll have Celeste warn Rudy and James,” Dean said pulling out his phone to send a text. Rudy was James’ second in command. He was also the Alpha werewolf pack leader in the Elk City area.

  “The thing I’m most concerned about is finding the source of the new vampire,” Jaz said as she crossed the room and looked out the window of her apartment. Dean noticed that Gibbie flinched a little when she passed close to him.

  “You think this all has something to do with your missing summoning figurines?” Dean asked.

  Jaz turned and shot him a look. He knew she didn’t like sharing information openly with anyone, but how else were they supposed to get to the root of the problem if they didn’t include the whole team in the information chain?

  “Jaz, you have to let people help you,” Dean urged. “You don’t have the whole clan to back you up like you used to. I know that’s a hard pill to swallow, but if you’ll let us, we can help you out and take some of the burden the rest of the clan used to before the explosion and fire.”

  The huntress looked around the room and Dean wondered what she thought of the group assembled there. It wasn’t exactly a hunter’s dream team. She had the future father of her child, the daughter who was also a witch, a teenaged werewolf, and a middle-aged vampire who was scared of the dark. She used to think of most of the group as second-class citizens simply because of who they were. For all Dean knew, she still did. This was the team she was stuck with, however. He was trying to help her see that.

  He watched her shoulders slump a little in resignation and then she said one word.

  “Okay.”

  She turned to look outside and Dean took that as permission to take the lead and fill the team in on what they were up against. He told them of the missing summoning idols and the fact that it was likely, based on current events, that there might be some sort of demonic force involved in the recent outbreak of vampires in the city. If there were other, similar outbreaks of dangerous Unusuals, they would have to take the lead on tracking them down and containing the situation.

  “I can tap us into the dispatch network for Station U. If there are suspicious calls, I’ll make sure the paramedics on call at the station each shift alert me so we can follow up on it afterwards.” Dean looked at the assembled group and they all nodded. They were in on the plan so far. “Ideally, we can find out quickly what is going on and respond with our team simultaneously, assisting the paramedics and other responders. Our goal is to find the source of the outbreak and then track that back to the demon lord behind it all.”

  “We’ll have to work in shifts of some sort,” Jo interjected. “I’m available all the time, but Marian has school during the day, and Gibbie can only come out at night.”

  “We could bring the rest of the CERT team in on this,” Gibbie suggested. “Kristof would be available during the daytime before his restaurant opens. The Dryad twins, Wim and Dora, are around most of the time, too, so they can fill in as needed.”

  Jaz spun around from where she stood looking out the window. “I don’t think you all understand the danger we are facing here. Demon lords are not to be underestimated. They are ruthless and very powerful.”

  “But, Mom, this demon lord is limited some way. He has to be. He can’t be here fully, can he? We have the third figurine, so the demon must be here in some other form and that gives us an advantage.” Jo looked from her mom to Dean and he picked up the thought.

  “Jo’s right, Jaz. We have the advantage of that weakness and the surprise that it doesn’t know we are chasing it yet. The faster we work, and the bigger the team, the more likely we are to find the demon before he creates too many more rogue Unus
uals to run amok in the city.” Dean watched as Jaz looked from him to the rest of the assembled team.

  “We only have one hunter, Dean. I can only be in one place at a time and I have to sleep at some point. We can’t staff a response group twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”

  “You’re wrong, Mom. We have two trained hunters.”

  Jaz started to protest but Jo held up her hand.

  “I handled myself fine tonight. I stopped the vampire and kept him from injuring me and my companions, and I helped cover up the incident from mundane eyes and attention. I can pull my weight.” Jo looked to Dean for help.

  Dean looked back at her. He was torn. He was thinking of her like a daughter more and more. That meant he wanted to protect her. The other side was that she was right. Jaz needed help with this, and Jo had exhibited the skills needed on more than one occasion. She could take care of herself. He knew that Jaz was aware of that, too.

  Jaz met his eyes and then gave him a slight nod. Jo saw it, too, because she gave a quiet fist-pumped yes from where she sat on the couch next to Marian. They had a team and basics of an idea on how it would work. It was time to get down to business on who would do what and when.

  Dean sent Gibbie home and had him drop Marian off. He and Jaz would work out the details, with Jo’s help, and he told the vampire that they would be in touch about setting up their response team. Gibbie smiled a little, nodded at Jaz and left. He told Dean that he’d alert the rest of the CERT team to await instructions.