Cheetahs Never Win

by RJ Blain

  “What would you do?”

  I stepped to the window, pushed aside the curtains enough I could get a good view of the neighboring building, and I took my time examining every nook and cranny. I checked the street below, the windows, and everywhere a sniper might be able to get a shot at the woman. Once satisfied I’d gotten a good look at the possible routes, I positioned myself where a shooter would have to go through me to get her. Sassy would kill me herself if she found out I’d deliberately put myself in the line of fire Then, I turned my back to the window. “Whatever’s necessary to get the job done.”

  “When Abraham Sarmassen found out his bastard son would ruin his Presidential campaign, he started making plans. If he couldn’t be President, then he’d groom the next best thing: his son. Tom went after us trying to destabilize his father’s campaign and put an end to the bid. Revenge. That’s what this is all about. But if Tom’s after the senate, the Presidency is next. That’s how these assholes work. If they can’t get the seat themselves, they put someone they control in their place. So, Tom decided it’d be a good idea to try to ruin his father so he couldn’t even have that. But that’s all blowing up in his face. Abraham Sarmassen’s a bastard even worse than his son, Mr. Clinton. Never believe anything otherwise. Killing us off to protect his son’s bid for the Presidency would only be his first step, and if his son takes the fall for it? That’d make him happy. But really? They’re probably working together because if Tom doesn’t, he’ll probably join us in the grave.”

  “I need proof.”

  “Tom’s not the only unethical player, and not all of us slept with Tom. Some of us slept with his father.”

  Holy hell. “If you don’t mind me asking, how about you?”

  “Ask Max.”

  “Before or after you got hitched, Max?”

  “Before, of course. I don’t cheat.”

  “He’s already a unicorn among politicians. I sleep around, Mr. Clinton. Do you have a problem with that?”

  “Not at all, ma’am. I slept around before I really got to know Sassy.”

  “How long have you been waiting around for her?”

  “It’s been a few years,” I admitted.

  “That’s a lot of man to enjoy. Lucky woman. This is what didn’t hit the papers, Mr. Clinton, and this is probably what’s going to get me killed no matter what you do. Abraham Sarmassen entered his campaign knowing that all the funding he gathered wouldn’t be going to his campaign. He blackmailed and coerced his way into free advertising, venue usage, and so on. He called in favors. Right from the beginning, he understood Tom Heatherow’s existence would hamper his campaign. No, he knew it would end it. It’s campaign fraud, pure and simple. He gathered millions for his run and didn’t spend a cent of it on his run. He had the venues bill him and mark the invoices as paid for records, and he kept all the money for himself. Planning for his next attempt. He’s been buying off politicians ever since. It’s what sank you, Max. You wouldn’t play the game he wanted, so he made everyone know about the true price of your bills. A price you hadn’t even realized women and children would pay until it became law because he had his allies write in clauses to make you, the bill’s sponsor, take the fall. He didn’t anticipate you becoming a cop. No one did.”

  Maxwell’s cheek twitched. “I knew something was up when those clauses showed up. They weren’t written by hand, but yes. I’d sponsored that bill. It was my responsibility.”

  Everything I’d thought I’d known about Maxwell shook on its foundations. “You weren’t behind those inclusions, Max?”

  “No, I wasn’t. But it was slipped under the wire. It was easier to just take the fall than it was to try to salvage my political career at that point. I became a cop instead. Even if I found out who’d slipped in those lethal clauses, none of us really understood what they’d do in application. I didn’t figure it out until after it started taking lives.”

  “You were in the way, Max. It’s as simple as that. Abraham Sarmassen has always had one goal, and that was to change the world. But not in a way most of us think of it. He wanted to change the world in a way that suited him best. He’s only one of the players in this game. Tom Heatherow’s another player. If his father gets his way, he’ll be President. In name only, but President. He’ll get the visible glory, but he’ll be doing his father’s bidding. Then there’s everyone else beneath who gets a share of the glory, too.”

  I fought my urge to start cursing. “Can you name them all Sharon?”

  When she started naming names, cold shock enveloped my heart. From judges to senators, she left no branch of government untouched, and when she named the police commissioners of Dallas, Houston, and Austin, I wondered how anyone could stop the tide of corruption.

  No wonder she lacked confidence in the courts. The local judges belonged to the men she’d never be able to touch.

  How the hell was I supposed to investigate so many men and women, who all answered to Abraham Sarmassen, Tom Heatherow, and those seeking power to change the world to their liking?

  I turned to the window and wondered if the killers knew just how deep the corruption ran and if they truly believed scraps of newspaper and subtle clues could make such an empire fall. Movement from the neighboring roof drew my eye, and Sharon’s warnings sliced through my memories.

  I pivoted, whipped my arm out, and caught Sharon in the ribs, putting every bit of my strength into the blow and followed through with a shove in the direction of the kitchen. Maxwell spat curses and dove for the window.

  Shots rang out, glass shattered, and Sharon’s apartment fell into darkness.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Being shot hurt like hell, and my arm wouldn’t be the same for a while, but the pain came second to the reality that Sharon had been right all along.

  I hadn’t moved fast enough.

  It took one look at her to realize seconds mattered and slipped away. Pre-shift lycanthropes weren’t much sturdier than regular humans, and I had no idea how I’d staunch the bleeding from two chest wounds. Her breath bubbled, and blood seeped from the corners of her mouth.

  Her dulling eyes focused on me. “Told you,” she choked out in a whisper.

  Why couldn’t I be Joe? Why couldn’t I be Grover? Either would’ve known what to do.

  I couldn’t let her last words be a pained ‘Told you.’ I couldn’t let it end with blood in a tiny, cramped apartment in the seediest part of Dallas.

  Something changed in Sharon’s face, a determination to not fade away until she finished what she set out to do. What that was, I couldn’t guess. Ignoring the burn in my arm, I ripped my shirt pulling it over my head and applied pressure to the entry wounds. “You’re not dead yet, Sharon.” I growled the words, and my entire body shook from the growing fury deep within.

  She’d been right, and I hadn’t been fast enough.

  Some stains wouldn’t wash away, and her blood covered my hands.

  “You tried,” she said.

  She stopped breathing, so I breathed for her. I had no idea what CPR would do with gunshot wounds in the chest, but it was the only trick I had up my sleeve, and until someone who knew what the fuck he was doing told me to stop, I’d keep trying.

  I didn’t want those being her last words, either.

  Sirens screamed, and it wasn’t until someone pulled me off Sharon that I comprehended we were no longer alone. Blood covered everything, and the reality of what I’d become hit almost as hard as the presence of the paramedics taking over. “We’re infected.”

  Then I remembered Maxwell, and I twisted towards the window.

  Death came to us all, and one day, I might find comfort in Maxwell’s end. The shooter hadn’t taken any chances with him, and his life had fled from his body long before his body had hit the floor. His open, unseeing eyes would haunt me, already clouded.

  My chest hurt as though I’d been the one shot, and I struggled to breathe.

  Someone cursed, but the crash of thunder in my ears drown
ed all other sound. The fire in my arm spread and consumed me from within.

  Time stretched and snapped, folding in on itself and dumping me from the reality of Maxwell’s death to a sterile, white room splattered with blood and the metallic stench of blood mixing with the harsher fumes of disinfectants. In spots, the walls shimmered where someone had thought to use neutralizer and likely gave up on the idea, leaving the room to its fate.

  I growled with every breath.

  “I have no idea how you expect me to treat a lycanthrope who won’t let anyone near him,” a man’s voice announced. “How many people do you want to sacrifice to him? I don’t have any infected on staff. This is a hospital, not a veterinarian’s office.”

  From the day I’d met Sassy, I’d learned the hard way about the prejudices she faced, then his words sank in, and I froze, lowering my gaze to my hands, shivering as I confirmed without a shadow of a doubt I’d sprouted a fur coat and exchanged hands for paws.

  “Doctor, sir, we swore an oath. He’s been shot several times. We may not be a veterinarian’s office, but he’s here. We can’t just let him bleed out in our ER.”

  “That argument got the other lycanthrope into my ICU ward. I don’t know what you expect us to do if he won’t let any of us near him. At least she was in a human form so she could be treated. We don’t even have an ID on him.”

  “Let me try,” the woman replied, her tone firm.

  I recognized that tone. The woman would get her way, and she’d kick the ass of anyone who tried to stop her.

  “I am not responsible if you contract lycanthropy,” the doctor warned.

  “If you won’t treat him because you’re afraid of contracting lycanthropy, I will,” she countered. “It’s no different from treating any other patient with a contagious disease, sir. Don’t lick his blood, don’t get cut, and it’s not a problem. It’s not an air-borne illness.”

  “If he cooperates long enough for us to sedate him so we can work, I’ll treat him, but I don’t know what you expect me to do. I’m trained in the surgical care of humans. That is not a human. That is a very large and angry cat.”

  “How else do we treat gunshot wounds? We remove the bullets and do what we can to stop the bleeding and repair the damage. You have magic, sir. Use it. That’s what you’re paid to do. The rules are clear. If we don’t have insurance information on critical injuries, we treat and worry about it later. This is a treat and worry about it later situation.”

  Without any sign of fear of the blood decorating the room, a woman in green scrubs strode in and approached me, and she went to a tray containing syringes and clear, glass bottles. “If you’d please keep your teeth and claws to yourself, sir, this will only take a moment.”

  Once again, the nurse’s tone implied if she didn’t get her way, someone would pay, and as she was talking to me, I would be the one to pay the price for her wrath. My ears twitched back, and I stared at her. I’d heard cats couldn’t see colors the same way as humans, but the woman seemed as I expected, green scrubs and all.

  Perhaps lycanthropes borrowed from humans while in their animal forms.

  She approached me, tapping the air out of her syringe and depressing the plunger until fluid beaded on the needle’s tip. “Where do you suggest the best injection site to be, doctor?”

  “My vet stabs my cats on the back somewhere.”

  “Your cats are also clones of Satan and rule Hell. Where do you think is the most effective place?”

  “Try his shoulders near the neck. That should spread the sedative around faster. That’s just a guess. The last time I worked on a cat, it was dead and a part of an anatomy lab.”

  If the doctor was trying to instill confidence in his skills, he needed to rethink his strategy.

  The nurse approached, and when I kept still, she dropped to a knee, not caring that my blood got onto her scrubs. “Please lower your head, sir.”

  Given a choice between bleeding out in the ER and being treated by a doctor who likely didn’t give a flying shit if I died in his ER, I took my chances with the nurse and hoped she did a better job than the prejudiced asshole in charge. Moving hurt, and I hissed at the pain, which engulfed my chest and arm. Did the forelegs of a cheetah count as arms?

  The instant I placed my head on the cold tiles, the nurse jabbed me in the shoulder, rose to her feet, and backed away to give me space. “See, sir? That was not nearly as bad as you thought it would be.”

  “He’s been hissing and spitting at us since he was hauled in here. He took a swipe at me. At me. In my ER.”

  “You also act like you own the place when you have a riled up predator fresh from a traumatic event. You heard the paramedics, sir. The only reason our Jane Doe reached the hospital alive was because he administered CPR until paramedics arrived, despite having been shot several times. The trauma induced his shift. Jane Doe’s virus levels are too low for a shift.”

  Several times? I’d only noticed my arm. Where else had I been shot?

  I couldn’t save Maxwell, but that Sharon had made it to the hospital alive eased some of the tension in my chest.

  Within minutes, the nurse’s injection kicked in, and it packed a harder punch that Sassy’s father did.

  When coherency returned, I’d been hooked up to machines again, someone had rigged a mask to fit over my muzzle, and I had several lines going into my foreleg. To add insult to injury, I wore a collar, and it was lashed down to an operating table to hold me in place, and my paws had been subjected to similar treatment to keep me still. I lashed my tail at the restraints and growled, which caught the attention of the green and white clad figures in the room.

  “I’m not moving the lycanthrope from this room,” the doctor announced. “It’s already heavily contaminated with the lycanthropy virus, he’s stable, and secure. Until we can neutralize the room and get someone here specialized with lycanthropes, there is zero chance I will put the other patients in this hospital at risk of infection.”

  While a prejudiced asshole, I’d deal with the annoying doctor and accept my humiliating state as a necessary payment for still breathing. I blinked and tried to force my eyes to focus, but my vision wavered despite my best efforts.

  “Sir? The police are here about the lycanthropes. They’re demanding to put an armed guard with our Jane Doe, and they claim they have IDs for both patients,” a man announced, and I focused on the green-clad figure, identifying him as a nurse or a doctor who’d ditched the white coat for more sensible wear. Like much of the room, his scrubs were stained with red.

  “Get out of those scrubs and spritz down with neutralizer, and no one who isn’t cleared goes beyond the door. We must keep the contagion contained.”

  Within five minutes, the police invaded the ER and disregarded the doctor’s orders to stay out of the room, and Joe accompanied them armed with his bag of medical supplies. “I sent Grover to the ICU ward to help with Miss Gray,” he announced. “Sassy is on the way. You heard about Maxwell?”

  Collared, obstructed with a mask I assumed was helping me breathe, and trussed to the table, all I could do was flatten my ears and stare at him.

  “There’s nothing you could have done for him, Aaron. The first bullet killed him instantly. The others only made sure of their mark. You’re going to blame yourself later, but you did everything just right. I’ve already heard the story from the paramedics and the cops who arrived at the scene first. Grover’s even better at trauma care than I am, and if he can’t stabilize her, no one can.” Joe looked me over, frowned, and turned to the hospital staff. “Why is he tied to the table?”

  “Who are you? What are you doing in my hospital? This is not an open clinic.”

  “I’m his primary care physician and a military field surgeon, and if you raise your voice to me one more time, I’ll have the police throw you out of your own hospital and put you under investigation for risking a patient’s life.” Joe’s cold delivery ushered in silence. “Why is he tied to the table?”

&
nbsp; “We didn’t know when he’d come out of sedation,” the doctor answered. “We are not equipped to handle an animal in here.”

  “What care did you give him?”

  “We removed four bullets and stopped bleeding at the injury locations. We aren’t sure what else we’re supposed to do with a cat.”

  “Chief? You want to get these folks questioned while I take care of Aaron? As soon as Sassy is here with his truck, we’ll relocate him to her father’s house and handle his treatments there. I’ll sign off for the waivers and liabilities. Get ahold of the CDC and get a proper medical team to back Grover up. You’ll also want to contact the local wolf packs and identify six to ten unmated male wolves willing to gamble that have her blood type. You need to boost her virus to get her through the operations, and it’s probable that one of the viruses will stick.”

  “Why not mated female wolves?”

  “If you can find them, bring them, but I wish you luck convincing their males to let them do the transfusions. Who knows? Maybe you can find six to ten who are willing and have the right blood type. But however it works out, Grover is going to need six to ten donors to rotate. Human blood isn’t going to cut it.”

  “How about Aaron? Will he need donors?”

  “The Chetty family already has donors lined up; his brother’s already handling the basic footwork to make sure everyone’s ready for him when we arrive. Sassy will do the first transfusion, and we’ll see where his blood pressure is at after that. I’m going to need a gurney and several nurses who aren’t chickenshits to prep him for the trip.”

  “I’ll help,” the nurse who’d handled my initial infection announced.

  “Good. You know how to neutralize this place?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Excellent. Once we have him loaded up in the truck, I’ve already requested the neutralizer you’ll need to detox your operating room. It’ll be out of commission for a few hours, but then you’ll be ready to go. Cleanup crew will handle the work, and your machines will be fine.” Joe grunted, put his hand under my chin, and lifted my head. “Who rigged this mask?”