Bite the Bullet

by L. A. Banks

  “It freaks you out the first time . . . but there’s nothing like watching the transition to make you think you’re having a psychotic break,” Fisher commented blandly. “Right, Doc?”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I tried to mentally prepare you as best I could, but some things defy description,” Doc Holland said in a weary tone. He looked at Hunter. “We’re gonna fix this, son.”

  Hunter nodded, but declined comment for the sake of multiple cardiac arrests.

  “He understood you,” Dr. Sanders said just above a whisper.

  “Max Hunter, meet Evelyn Sanders, Ira Lutz, and Michael Williams—Tulane’s finest in bioresearch, epidemiology, and surgery. They worked on your grandfather and so far have done a really fine job. My guys—that’s Clarissa—a whiz biochemist with second sight and in-field trauma medic training; Winters, a madman on computers with a little kinetic thing going on; and Bradley, satellite and radar man with special insight into the dark arts. You already met Woods and Fisher—and know Doc like family.” Sasha looked at Hunter with a plea in her eyes. “Please don’t speak, though, baby, or they’ll have to bring in a crash cart and we don’t have time for that.”

  “I . . . I . . . don’t understand?” Dr. Williams said, his eyes wild. “You’ve cracked the code on human to animal communications to this level? And what do you mean we worked on his grandfather?”

  “Michael,” Doc said, rubbing his palms down his face. “It will take many hours that we don’t have right now and many bourbons to sort this all out. Suffice to say that he understands everything you’re saying and you did work on his grandfather.”

  “You have to mean genetically his grandfather . . . That’s the human gene donor, correct?” Dr. Sanders persisted.

  “No, his actual grandfather,” Sasha shot back, growing testy. She looked at Hunter, clearly concerned that his patience was two seconds from ebbing.

  “Then is this specimen a Shadow creature wolf or a Werewolf?” Dr. Lutz wheezed.

  Unable to tolerate their ignorance any longer, Hunter spun on the Tulane staff and released a quick, snarling series of angry barks.

  “Okay, we need to get this process on the road,” Sasha said. “This man has been gracious enough to endure a photo op on the cardiac—”

  “What!” Xavier Holland shouted.

  “We gotta rebuild the store, it was part of a damage-control strategy, and they only got a piece of Hunter’s face in the pic,” Sasha said with a sigh. “We had to throw the public a bone.”

  “This is spinning way out of control, Trudeau,” Doc argued, nodding with Hunter who released a low growl.

  “Well, can you draw blood and take whatever samples you need so you can hit this man with antitoxin, so he can go up to ICU to see his grandfather?” Sasha looked around the group and then her gaze returned to Xavier Holland. “Hunter can feel it, I can feel it—something happened in ICU.”

  “There was an incident,” Doc said carefully, staring at Hunter and then Sasha. “A man tried to steal the amulet you’d placed on Silver Hawk. He didn’t make it. Somehow a piece of equipment the orderly touched had some sort of electrical discharge and the man went into instant cardiac arrest and could not be revived.”

  “And Silver Hawk?” Sasha said as Hunter began a low series of steady growls.

  “We don’t know how to explain it, but ever since he’s had that necklace on,” Dr. Williams said, glancing at his colleagues while keeping a steady eye on Hunter’s darkening mood, “his vital signs have been improving, his white blood cell count is going in the right direction . . . there’s nothing specific that we can point to as to why, but he’s markedly improved.”

  “How ’bout you draw that blood now, Rissa?” Sasha said, trying to hurry the process.

  “You, uh, sure, he’ll, uh, be okay with that?” Clarissa said, her hands shaking as she began prepping a blood drawing tray. “I mean he’s a gorgeous specimen. . . . I’ve never seen an animal so majestic.”

  “You don’t have to blow his head up to get him to sit still for a blood draw,” Sasha said, laughing. “Keep it up and he’ll sniff your crotch.”

  Clarissa held the tray but didn’t move forward when Hunter loped away from her with a disgruntled rumble. “I mean, he really is amazing, I’m not just saying that. I’ve never seen anything like him.”

  “You should see him in a pair of jeans and a thermal undershirt,” Sasha said with a wink. But then she let her breath out hard and put her hands on her hips, watching Hunter pace. “Oh, come on, you big baby, and get your ass over there so she can take a sample. The sooner you—”

  “I can do it,” Doc said, taking the tray from Clarissa. “His experience with needles hasn’t been positive over the years.”

  “Oh . . . wow . . . yeah . . .” Sasha said, as Hunter made a semicircle and went in the other direction. “Okay, okay, look—they’re just going to draw blood, won’t hit you with antitoxin until after you see Silver Hawk, all right?” She turned to face the Tulane staff. “You’re chief of surgery, Dr. Williams. You’re going to have to tell them whatever you need to tell them so I can bring Hunter up there in this form. Tell them the old man is in a coma and that his faithful companion might bring him out. But I can tell you this, Hunter will turn this hospital inside out if he can’t go see his grandfather real soon.”

  The three doctors from Tulane just stared at one another for a moment, words temporarily escaping them all. Dr. Michael Williams finally raked his fingers through the spiked mass that had once been immaculately barbered brunette hair.

  “You have got to be kidding me.”

  “I don’t give a shit, call Joseph Pratt,” Dr. Williams argued with the head of ICU.

  “You are not bringing some mangy, flea-ridden animal into a hospital ICU under any circumstances, Doctor! Pratt will lose his job as hospital president if one of these patients has an allergic reaction or an airborne infection impacts an immune system and kills someone. Are you insane, Williams? Not on my fucking watch, you won’t! We just had an incident up here that’s still under investigation—I don’t give a rat’s ass about whatever politics you’ve got going on in your climb to greatness, but this type of madness will have you practicing medicine in some small foreign country with a rain forest in the background and no government!”

  “Pratt gave me express instructions that I was to cooperate with this Homeland Security operation to the utmost of my ability—and helping that elderly eyewitness recover so that he can testify is in accordance with that.” He waved Sasha and Hunter forward and watched as the other doctor gasped.

  “Mother of God . . . what the fuck is that?”

  “The old man’s companion, who’s like a grandson to him, they tell me. We’re experimenting with new coma revival therapies. He’ll only be on the floor for a few minutes. I trust you can live with that.”

  Sasha hung back, watching Hunter slowly approach the bed and then lay his head gently beside Silver Hawk so as not to harm him by even a touch. It was the saddest thing she’d ever witnessed . . . a grandfather felled, a grandson trapped between two worlds, and yet a bond so strong that it had crossed miles and minds, all on the wind through a bit of silver-framed amber.

  New respect for whatever the Shadow packs termed the old ways entered her. The way of the wolf. As she continued to stare at the mute reunion, she agreed more reverently with Clarissa. Hunter was majestic, just like his grandfather. The genes bore out, no matter what else had tried to take up lodging within him.

  Watching them together, now physically close but in different dimensions . . . one locked in a coma and in human form, the other trapped in his wolf and achingly present, she wondered how she would face the inevitable day when Doc got sick.

  It was something she tried never to dwell on; Doc was the closest thing she’d had to a father. But the truth was, the man was already up in years. The kind of work he did was stressful, not to mention had an element of danger when not protected in the NORAD bubble, like he was now.
All it took was one lab catastrophe, one slip-up, or just a slip and fall in his own home—a regular occurrence for the elderly. Then what would she do when it was her time to sit shiva at that loved one’s bedside, and how would she deal with the other inevitable part of that process that she didn’t want to name right now?

  Sasha looked at the floor and watched it get blurry. Silver Hawk loved his grandson so much that he’d come to her in a Shadow vision to find and protect him, even while in a coma. Had even led her to Hunter while a sworn enemy—a Werewolf clan leader—was present. Damn. It had to be a sign that the old man also thought it was time for peace, time for an alliance . . . either that or the pull to his grandson superseded everything, even the future of the clan. She wondered if anybody had ever loved her that much, even Doc. That was some hard loving that went beyond the biological all the way down to the spiritual . . .

  Then again, she had family from here, Doc had told her long ago . . . and she’d seen her own mother and so many spirits from her family on her spirit walk with Hunter. She had to remember that, although those folks were gone, there were so many people who’d loved her—even before she was born, they’d loved her spirit. It was taking her a while to be able to comprehend that the spirit world was an extension of her current earthly reality. If only there was time to stay in New Orleans and to find those people, to learn from their stories, and to find out about where the seer gene came from. But time to learn more about her own life had never been an affordable luxury.

  Her attention jerked to Hunter as she clasped the amulet she wore and jogged over to the side of the bed. Hunter lifted his head slowly, easing from the bedside so as not to jostle Silver Hawk in the least.

  “Hunter,” she said as quietly as possible. “You have to let me put the amulet on you so we can see who tried to take it. What if it was a familiar—a Shadow familiar from one of the infected Shadows?” She gave the arguing physicians her back. “Right now, your nose is keener than mine. Fatigue has done us both in, but your wolf is here. What do you pick up?”

  She didn’t wait for his answer as she carefully removed the amulet from Silver Hawk and looped the long silver chain over Hunter’s head.

  “I’m not picking up a trail from an infected den . . .” Hunter whispered so low it sounded like a growl. He watched the already panicked medical staff back away. “We don’t have much time before they put us out, but it’s . . . very odd. The undead had lain with that man.”

  “Vampires sent a day familiar over here to get a Shadow amulet?” Sasha ruffled her hair up from the back of her neck. “Then that just confirms our hunches all along . . . even with regards to Crow Shadow.” She leaned over Silver Hawk’s body, holding her amulet with one hand and Hunter’s with the other. “He came to both of us while in a coma. That says to me that he’s strong, Hunter. He’s gone within to heal. He’s on an ultimate spirit walk where he can see things we’ve yet to comprehend, I bet . . . so, with the power of three, let’s heal his body and bring forth his knowledge.”

  “Lady, you’re gonna have to take the animal out of ICU,” hospital security said from down the hall.

  Sasha opened her eyes and opened her palm that clasped Hunter’s amulet, watching it glow white for a second and then slowly normalize.

  “Just be cool,” she told Hunter. “I think we did a lot of good for him and we definitely learned a lot.”

  “But we need more time,” Hunter said between his teeth.

  “Lady, we’re not going to tell you again . . . or . . . or . . . we’re going to have to call in the police.”

  “Steady,” she told Hunter. “The man, by rights, is just doing his job—and we can’t do anything in here that would harm any of these innocent people.” She waited until Hunter nodded and withdrew from the bedside. “Okay,” she called out and then stood. “Thank you. We’re out.”

  Hunter nudged his grandfather’s hand with his nose one last time, but was paralyzed in his tracks as the elderly fingertips fluttered on their own to try to caress his coat.

  Sasha swallowed hard and nodded. “I saw it.” She stroked Silver Hawk’s hair and softly kissed his forehead. “Now we just gotta get your grandson better.”

  “Pull the drape,” Doc told Woods. “Like I told you earlier, no matter what they hear, unless I call for a specific individual, keep the team on the other side of the curtain.” His eyes held Hunter’s and then he looked at Sasha. “He doesn’t want you in here, either—just patient and doctor.”

  “But if something goes wrong with the antitoxin . . .” she said quietly, her gaze leaving Doc Holland’s and fastening to Hunter’s.

  Hunter closed his eyes.

  “The man wants and deserves his privacy, Sasha. The trip back is going to be painful . . . probably on the order of a sickle cell episode. I’ve already explained this to the team while you both were visiting his grandfather. The outer door will be locked, Winters is posting ‘test in progress’ signage on the door, as we speak, and will be out there with an M-16 in full uniform.”

  She covered her mouth and touched Hunter’s side. “Oh shit, it’s gonna be really bad, isn’t it, Doc? Let me help . . . if it gets . . .”

  “No, Sasha. It’s his choice, and maybe you should wait outside. The other doctors are ready to help out if a limb . . . gets twisted in transformation. That’s why Williams has already scrubbed.”

  She glanced at the scalpel tray and the IV drip of saline going into Hunter’s forearm, then closed her eyes and stopped breathing for a moment. Every beep of his heart monitor felt like one of the scalpels from the tray was stabbing into her brain.

  “What you have to understand is that giving him antitoxin after this long could be fatal.” Doc Holland looked at Hunter. “He knows it and wants to try, but that’s the risk. His entire cellular structure—joints, and tendons, and the placement of internal organs, et cetera—have to shift within a system made sluggish by a viral infection we have yet to fully understand. Things that normally happen in a flash could morph and transition so slowly that the pain sends his body into shock, or leaves key arteries and veins blocked, starts hemorrhages. The list of what could possibly go wrong is infinite. So, please step on the other side of the curtain. The longer we delay, the harder this will be on him.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. We could have just done this first.” She kissed Hunter between his eyes and followed Doc’s request. Panic-stricken gazes joined with hers as she listened to Doc tap the side of a syringe. If she had only known . . . and what if she’d hit Hunter with the shot that was duct taped to her leg out in the park? Her gaze tore to Doc’s shadow, trying to see through the curtain to no avail but sensing that he was pushing the stopper down the tube at a slow, steady rate garnered from years of medical practice.

  And then came the wait. All sorts of scenarios ran through her mind. Hunter could reject, go into a convulsion, and come up off the table a full-blown problem that she, for the sake of the lives in the room, might have to blow away.

  Doc never said it, but it made sense why the door was locked with a Special Forces guy on the outside toting an M-16 with silver shells, one on the inside, and her. On the flip side, he might not change at all, it might be too late, and he could possibly be left as a man trapped in a wolf’s body forever. Those were the two extremes. Her mind was too fried to consider the hundreds of permutations in between, like him dying on the table as a half-mangled, bloody, transitioning mass of flesh. Or maybe winding up a half-human half-wolf deformity. She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around her waist and waited.

  The first scream made her pace. Staring at the curtain, she watched the outline of Hunter’s body arch and then slump. Doc’s frantic shadow made her bite her lip until she bloodied it. But seeing the shadows was nothing. It was hearing the bones snap and the sound of flesh ripping as Hunter’s voice rent the air in agonized wails.

  “Can’t they give him anesthesia?” Clarissa asked, rocking.

  Sasha squeezed her eyes shut tig
htly and shook her head no. “It’s a suppressant in Shadow systems. Screws up the cell split timing. The only thing in his arm is saline solution to keep him hydrated.”

  Winters dry heaved in a waste can as the outline of Hunter’s body showed the head of a wolf still connected to a man’s torso as his snout contorted to the sound of pleading moans and a succession of hard bone breaks.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Bradley whispered and dragged his fingers through his hair.

  Woods just closed his eyes and took slow breaths in through his nose. Dr. Lutz walked back and forth, methodically smoothing a palm over his scalp while Dr. Williams remained poised to rush in to assist. Dr. Sanders had found a stool, and she sat under the bright beams of fluorescent lights so quietly, so wide-eyed that she seemed like a hazel-eyed gecko sunning herself on a rock.

  The rapid hard breaks slowed, and Sasha turned away from the curtain. Facial structure and human jaw complete—but the realignment of his legs and hips and arms and shoulders . . . she fisted her hair to keep from crying out with him as the first hard snap rang out with his voice. Then the god-awful sound of his nails clawing at the bed, the IV crashing, and the gunking-squishing noise that came with his innards shifting made her cover her face.

  Her head jerked up at the same time Woods’s did.

  “He’s going to beg you to shoot him—don’t,” she said, standing and walking across the room. “Don’t you move, soldier, and that’s an order.”

  Chapter 21

  A massive wolf had gone behind the drape on a gurney—now stupefied doctors were standing over an unconscious human male body that was going into shock, and despite their incredulity, their job now was to save a human life. She couldn’t watch or listen anymore.

  “Woods,” she said quickly as Doc Holland rushed past the drape with a crash cart. “I want a man on ICU guarding Silver Hawk, one here.”

  “Where’re you going?”

  “After the scent trails that Vampire’s familiar left before it gets dark.”