Extreme Medical Services Box Set Vol 4--6

by Jamie Davis

  Looking around the grounds as he walked to the front door, Artur was happy with the decision to relocate. The house was set well back from the road so any noise from the home’s Unusual residents and their victims would be masked. There were numerous rooms in the house to provide a place for the growing army of followers to stay. He would have to reward Felicity for her initiative. Perhaps he would let her turn a vampire on her own the next time they went hunting. The former public health nurse was surprisingly vicious in the way she preyed upon human victims. She showed promise of being one of his best children in a long time. That type of promise must be rewarded.

  Artur stepped inside the entry hall and looked around. A vampire in a business suit came around the corner at the far end of the hall and noticed him standing there.

  “My lord, we didn’t know you were arriving quite so soon.”

  “Never mind that, where is she?” Artur asked looking around the grand entry hallway with a large chandelier overhead and a broad staircase leading up to the second floor.

  “I’m sorry, sir. Who did you mean?”

  “The hunter girl. I got word she was captured and brought here.”

  “Ah, the captive is being held in the basement, your lordship,” the man said with a bow. “May I show you the way?”

  “Just point me to the stairs and then go out back and help Felicity bring in my belongings,” Artur ordered.

  “Yes, sir. As you wish, sir.”

  Artur followed the servant. The man led him to a door that opened to reveal stairs down into the basement. Artur started downstairs while the other vampire left to bring in his belongings from the car. Felicity would ensure the bedroom was arranged the way he liked it and that his clothes were unpacked and put away.

  The basement of the home was finished into a recreational area with one large room and several smaller rooms off of it. In the main room, there was a wet bar made of wood off to one side. Someone, probably one of his followers, had screwed eye bolts into the front of the wooden counter top. They were currently being used as positions to secure the bindings of one Jaswinder Errington, her arms tied, so they were spread wide across the front of the bar while she was seated on the floor, still wearing the tight little black dress in which she’d been captured. She looked up at him as he came down the stairs.

  He expected her to be somewhat cowed by her captivity, but she was not. On the contrary, she stared him down as he approached, raw defiance lending a fiery glint to her eyes.

  “Ms. Errington,” Artur said. “This moment has been a long time coming. I will finally realize my aim to rid the world of your meddlesome family once and for all.”

  “I don’t think you realize what kind of trouble you’re bringing down on yourself, Artur,” Jaz replied. “You’ve bitten off more than you can chew this time.”

  “Ah, my dear, that is delightful. Such defiance in the face of impossible odds. There is nothing you can do, no one you can count on for help, no possible escape. I hold all the cards here.”

  “So, what? You toy with me until you tire of the sport, and then you kill me? I promise you; I won’t give in that easily.”

  “You prefer ‘Jaz’ don’t you?” Artur asked. “Well, Jaz, I would certainly not want to miss out on the chance to torture you endlessly in the interest of getting back at your family for hounding me all of these long centuries. I’m not going to do that, though. I think I’m just going to rip your throat out and have a long drink as the last of the Errington clan leaves this earth.”

  “That would be a mistake, Artur, one that you’ll live to regret, if only for a short time,” Jaz replied.

  “Oh, how do you mean?”

  “I mean that you should be aware of things I’ve discovered about Dean Flynn’s true nature that you might want to know. He’s the real opposition to your attempt to take over Elk City from James Lee.”

  “That human paramedic is no threat to me,” Artur lied. He wondered what this hunter girl knew about the paramedic that he didn’t. It was true they were companions, that much he knew, but what else was there?

  “Tell me what you know, and perhaps I’ll make your death a little less painful.”

  “I think not,” Jaz said. “I just know I don’t want you using me to lure him here. I don’t want any part of the carnage that would follow such a vain attempt at killing him. He probably won’t come unless there’s proof I’m alive anyway.”

  “Tell me what you know, girl. I know he has fallen under the protection of the Eldara in the past, but I rid the world of that particular bitch for a while. What else has he managed to find to protect himself?”

  “His power is getting stronger all the time, Artur. That’s all I know. Every time he’s stepped in to counter you, you’ve failed to stop him. Isn’t that evidence enough of his capabilities?”

  “Whatever method or tool he’s discovered to protect himself if he comes here, he’ll never walk out alive. Still, you will be useful as bait to lure him into the little trap I have planned.” Artur liked the idea of killing them both together. The girl was right. The paramedic had been a thorn in his side since he started working at that station.

  “I’ll leave you alive for a short time longer. Perhaps you and the paramedic can die together down in this basement.” Artur laughed. All this gloating had made him hungry, but he resisted the urge to have a sip from the prisoner. That was a meal he wished to savor in its entirety. He smiled down at the girl one more time and turned to go back upstairs. He wanted to see who his followers had procured as feeders for himself and Felicity. He was suddenly famished.

  Jaz watched him go and counted her blessings again. Her hasty plan had worked for now. She was sure for a moment the vampire lord was going to go ahead and kill her no matter what it meant to his other plans. It was only her quick thinking about how Dean and the others might impact his ultimate goals that saved her.

  Once Artur reached the top of the stairs and closed the door, the lights shut off again and she was plunged into near total darkness. Luckily, the vampires who kidnapped her didn’t take her hunter charm from her. It still dangled on the gold chain at her throat. Closing her eyes, she said “Lumos,” and when she opened them again, she could see much better in the darkened room. Not as well as with the lights on but sort of a muted green haze over the contents of the room.

  Looking around, she tried again to find a possible way to escape from the ropes that bound her arms. Her shoulders were already cramped from being extended in this position for so long. She tried to tense and relax the muscles in alternate cycles in order help alleviate her cramping pain. There was nothing else she could do until she managed to find a way out of her bonds.

  She had one trick she could try, but it would take a long time, time she might not have. These ropes were thick. Jaz was glad she had taken to wearing finger blades in the past year. They were small, narrow razor-edged blades glued under the fingernails of her index fingers. They were invisible unless you looked closely at her hands. The blades weren’t much, and it would take a long time to saw through the stout ropes they’d used to bind her, but it was all she had right now.

  Twisting her hands to a painful angle, she was able to press her finger against the edge of the rope knots binding her wrists. She had to make sure she attacked the underside of the knot so it wouldn’t be visible to any casual inspection. It was awkward to do, but she managed to slowly move her fingertip back and forth and start fraying rope in one part of the knots on either side. It was hard work, but it wasn’t like she had anything else to do.

  While she worked at her bonds, Jaz let her mind drift to thinking about Dean again. The two of them were getting along well, and she had planned to invite him back up to her apartment after dinner that night. She figured it was time for them to move forward in their relationship. Now it was all falling apart, and that pissed her off. She hoped Dean was smart enough to enlist some help at least when Artur tried to trap him into coming to rescue her. He wouldn’t be that pi
g-headed, would he?

  Chapter 21

  Dean returned to work the next morning feeling like the walking dead himself. He’d been up all night after going on the raid Rudy and James assembled on a townhouse in the suburbs. The vampire they had captured assured them it was the hideout for Artur and his crew. Dean doubted it. He couldn’t see the haughty vampire lord living in a small home like that.

  It turned out Dean was both right and wrong. There was definite evidence of Artur’s presence, but the vampire lord had clearly moved on. There were at least twenty bodies stacked in the basement in various stages of decomposition. Rudy said he detected the smell from outside the home, though Dean couldn’t smell anything. Once they made entry to the home, the smell was obvious. It was probably the reason they moved on to another location. The neighbors were so close in these townhouse communities that it was only a matter of time before someone passing by detected the odors.

  They checked on all the neighbors to make sure everyone was all right. The houses on either side of the target home were both empty. Someone lived there but no one was home. Dean suspected they would find that some of the bodies in the basement belonged to them. After they checked in with the police and turned the crime scene over to the ECPD and the coroner’s office, Dean and the rest of the small group loaded back into their black SUVs and rode back downtown to the Nightwing Building. Dean returned home with only enough time to check his mail and get a quick shower before going to work.

  He didn’t want to be at work. He wanted to be out searching the city for Jaz. She was still out there, and he knew, somehow, she was still alive. He couldn’t say how, but he knew deep inside that there was still time to get to her. Instead of looking for her, he was stuck here at the Station because the crews were stretched so thin.

  As soon as he walked in the door at Station U, Dean could tell his co-workers detected his fatigue and distraction. He was usually talkative and upbeat. Today, he was sullen and withdrawn. He saw Brook and Tammy make eye contact and shrug at each other while they packed up to leave work. Barry must have detected his desire to be alone because he went into the ambulance bay and started the beginning shift checks on their gear and meds, leaving Dean alone in the squad room.

  Dean stared at the computer screen in front of him, trying to make sense of what had happened overnight. His emotions had been riding a roller coaster for the last twelve hours, and he wasn’t sure he could take much more of this. The kidnapping knocked him to his knees emotionally, and then the capture of the vampire and the hope they could question him for information brought him back up. He was excited when they finally got an address only to have his hopes dashed again when they found nothing to lead them to Jaz. He was emotionally spent.

  He needed rest and sleep to right the ship, but that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. He had to work the rest of the day, and while he might get lucky and catch a short catnap here and there, it wasn’t the same as a real night’s sleep. Dean knew he was running at less than peak effectiveness. His training told him to be very careful at times like this and make sure to avoid making errors in judgment and patient care. He couldn’t think about anything but Jaz, though. His thoughts centered on her.

  Looking at the computer screen in front of him, Dean decided to get to work, to go through the motions until he found a way to get himself back on track. He logged in and started going through the morning email from headquarters. There were the usual medication shortage updates and notifications of upcoming training sessions available for the crews. He sorted through them, tagging some to forward to Barry’s account until he came to one that caught his eye. There was a report of several individuals going missing on the outskirts of town with descriptions of the missing people. All stations were to keep their eyes open and report if anyone matching the descriptions and photographs in the email was spotted.

  It struck Dean as strange that all of the reported missing people were males in their mid to late twenties. It didn’t strike him as the normal type of missing person. Usually, such missing people were teen girls or women from at-risk situations. To have all four of the missing people listed be men in their prime was strange. He read the whole email twice thinking it must be important to have caught his eye like that but no other information leaped out at him. He shrugged and went back to sorting emails and filing the morning reports until the first ambulance call came in.

  As Dean and Barry rode to the address provided, Dean listened to the dispatcher’s description of the patient. They were responding to a female with a severe laceration with uncontrolled bleeding. Trauma calls were always interesting, and Dean perked up a bit to back into a routine in which he had some control.

  They pulled up in front of a small single-family rancher on the western edge of town, and Dean got out to help Barry back into the driveway. He didn’t see any sign of a patient. They must be inside the house. He and Barry unloaded their gear and walked to the front door. Dean was just about to knock when the door creaked open, revealing an empty hallway into the home.

  Dean looked at Barry who shrugged his shoulders.

  “After you, Dean. You’re the lead medic today, and this is why you get the big bucks.”

  Dean snorted at the comment. No one in EMS made anything resembling big bucks. He looked into the darkened interior of the home from the front stoop and called out.

  “Hello. City paramedics. Did anyone call for help?”

  A woman’s voice called from inside the home. “I’m in here. In the back bedroom.”

  Dean took a step inside and tried a light switch inside the doorway, but nothing happened. There was enough sunlight streaming in to reveal a short hallway that opened on the left into a living room and continued to the rear of the home, turning to the right at the end. The daylight didn’t penetrate beyond the first ten feet, though. It was dark at the back of the house. Dean pulled the mini-Maglite from his belt and shined the bright LED beam into the rear of the hallway as he advanced in that direction.

  Turning the corner, he saw another light switch and tried it. Nothing happened. The electricity must be out for some reason. Dean looked behind him to reassure himself that Barry was right there then continued towards an open door at the end of the short rear hallway.

  “I’m in here,” the woman’s voice called. “I can see your lights.”

  “Why aren’t the lights working?” Dean asked.

  “I think the electricity is shut off. The owner must not have paid his electric bills for a while,” the woman answered.

  Dean walked forward up to the doorway and looked inside. To the right was a pile of dark clothes on the floor and to the left, there was a bed with someone in it, but their back was to him. He relaxed a bit and took a step inside towards the bed. That was when the pile of clothes shifted, and a pasty white hand reached out to grab his ankle. With a shout and a jump backward, Dean shifted his light to shine on what he thought was a pile of clothing. His heart was racing, and he had very nearly pissed himself.

  “I’m sorry,” the voice from the pile of clothes on the floor said. Dean realized as the pile moved that it wasn’t a pile of clothes after all. It was a woman collapsed in a heap on the floor wearing black robes. She had flipped the robes back to reveal herself. The woman had one hand gripping her thigh where he could see the wet fabric that was probably blood from a deep gash. The other hand had reached out to him.

  “You startled me,” Dean said. He looked at the figure on the bed and then back at the woman. The person on the bed hadn’t moved despite his shout. “Barry, check the person in bed while I look over our patient here.”

  Dean wasn’t sure if they’d stumbled on a burglar who’d injured themselves or what, but he needed to be careful.

  “Don’t worry about him,” the woman said pointing to the bed. “He’s dead. That’s why I’m here.”

  “You killed him?” Dean blurted out the question before he realized he’d said it.

  “No, silly,” the woman laughed. “
I’m here to collect him. I’m a reaper.”

  Dean looked at the woman, took in her black robes and the pale complexion. Barry said it before Dean could gather his thoughts.

  “You mean like the Grim Reaper? You’re kidding me, right?”

  “Do I look like I’m kidding, dude?” She paused only a moment before continuing. “I was here collecting this guy’s soul. None of the lights worked, so I was using my night vision to see, which isn’t perfect in zero light conditions like this. The next thing I know, I tripped and was on the floor with my scythe blade sticking out of my leg. I pulled it out and tried to stop the bleeding but I can’t, and now I feel weak and too dizzy to stand.”

  That last statement hit Dean, and his training moved him to action. He unzipped the trauma bag and grabbed an absorbent trauma pad impregnated with a quick-clotting product and slapped it over the wound in the woman’s leg. Barry was checking on the man in the bed. Dean saw him shake his head and move back towards Dean and the woman.

  “Hold this in place and press down hard while I get some things together,” he told the woman. While he gathered the IV supplies and handed them to Barry, he introduced himself, trying to get back into control over the situation.

  “I’m Dean, and this is my partner Barry. What’s your name?”

  “I’m Katya.” She hissed in pain when he pressed harder over her hand on top of the dressing on her leg. “Man, I’m gonna get in trouble over this.”

  “Why’s that?” Dean asked. “It’s an accident and accidents happen all the time. I would suspect as a reaper you’d know that.”

  “It’s my first job,” Katya said. “It was supposed to be a cake walk. My superiors don’t like to throw us to the wolves right away, and so I came here to collect Mr. Anderson’s soul. He had died in his sleep after a long battle with cancer. It was his time, and I was to escort him along his journey to the afterlife.”