Meaty snorted. “Get down the hall.”
* * *
I hovered outside room one. Gina was getting a report from the prior shift’s vet-RN, and their spotter was inside the room, holding a tranquilizer gun. I knew what my job would be for the rest of the night.
“Psst, Lynn—” I whispered, and the gun-holding nurse looked back at me. Her back slumped in relief.
“Thank God, and it’s about time.” She backed out of the room as I rummaged through the isolation cart outside the door, pulling on all my gear—a thin cotton smock, hair bonnet, gloves, and mask. Heat billowed out of the room, and I started sweating. It was going to be a long night.
I took the gun from her. She stretched and her back popped twice. I waved the rifle a bit into the interior of the room. “Is this really necessary?”
“Do you want to find out?” She stripped out of her gown and tossed it into the soiled linen cart. “The Domitor slows the change, but it’s not perfect. And every minute of the day the full moon gets nearer.”
“True.”
She caught me looking at her, instead of the patient. “Eyes on the prize there, Spence,” she said, pointing at her eyes then back into the room with two fingers. “Always keep him line-of-sight.”
I nodded quickly, and did what I was told.
* * *
From my position near the door, gun at my shoulder but barrel pointed down, I could hear the end of Gina’s report. In a way, I was relived to be holding the rifle—despite my poor track record in shooting things on Y4 and at the range, it was easier than managing eight separate IV drips. We were supporting him in every way possible, keeping his blood pressure up but not too high, tracking his insulin every hour, running in antibiotics that I didn’t even recognize the names of. It sounded like Winter had a lot more wrong with him than just a straight trauma.
And at the end of it, I heard the term LKA. I blinked, and looked harder at Winter. Sure enough, under the sheets, his left lower leg was gone, amputated below the knee. The accident had turned Karl Winter into a three-legged dog. It sounded like it ought to be the punch line of some joke, but I doubted Winter would find it funny when and if he woke.
There was the rustling of paper and the chart check behind me, and then the drawers of the metal isolation cart slamming as Gina pulled on her gear.
“I don’t suppose you got any range time in between now and the last time we did this.” Gina’s voice didn’t sound like she was kidding. She was in nurse mode now, and although we were something that almost passed for friends, I wouldn’t press things tonight.
“I was a little too busy to go through my allotment of bullets this month,” I admitted. Our jobs at Y4 came with access to ammo and free time at the range. We both knew I was an awful shot. “I’ll make up for it by standing close.”
“Sounds good,” Gina said, though I noticed the first thing she did was dial Winter’s sedation up.
I watched her check the lines and then check her patient. It was strange watching another nurse do her job while I was hampered by the gun. The nearer she got to him, the tighter my finger felt around the trigger.
“How is he?”
“Rough.” She shone a bright light into each of his eyes. “There’s some brain function—he’s initiating some breaths on his own, but the ventilator’s doing most of the work of breathing. It’s hard to say if there’s anybody home.”
“When will we know?”
Gina shrugged. “Full moon?”
“Oy.” I tried to imagine myself standing here, a rifle halfway up my shoulder, on and off for the next six nights. I’d wind up having a hunchback.
“They think the bleeding in his brain’s stopped at least.”
“Why’d they have to take his leg?”
“Were-limbs are hard as hell to reattach. Their stupid healing powers—it’s like working with superglue, and gluing your fingers together instead of your project. You stick the limb on, it adheres, but none of the blood vessels talk to one another on the inside, and then it gets infected and just falls off…” Gina’s voice drifted off as she leaned in, listening to him breathe. “It’s one thing if the patient’s awake and can control himself, slow it down. Entirely another if he’s out and he’s in shock.”
I waited till she took the stethoscope out of her ears to ask my questions. “Wait. I’m confused. Why didn’t he just heal himself up at the scene?”
“The brain injury stuff—I think that prevented him. The surprise, then the damage—who can say?” She gestured to her own head, then looped the stethoscope over one of the IV poles. “Plus, he’s old.”
“He doesn’t look that old.” Sure, he looked sixty, but that wasn’t that old nowadays. Hell, there were whole wings of County that were filled with people over seventy-two.
“Edie, he’s the oldest were I’ve ever seen alive.” She stripped off her gear and stepped outside. I walked backward and set my back against the doorjamb. My left arm was already aching from holding the rifle at half-mast.
“How old is he?”
“Fifty-eight.”
“My mom is fifty-eight. Fifty-eight is the new twenty.”
Gina snorted, which was nice because it let me know she still had a sense of humor. “Werewolves run down as they age. The metabolic processes their transformations require of them—it’s not easy running like that, always overhot. They live in dog years. Our No Info is way older than they usually get to be.”
“Oh! That reminds me—Meaty told me to tell you his name is Karl Winter.”
Behind me, I heard Gina suck air through her teeth. “No wonder he looks familiar. Shit.”
“Why? What?”
“He’s the werewolf king.”
CHAPTER NINE
“And I’m the Nutcracker,” I said. There was silence from behind me. “Hello, Gina, that was funny—”
Gina groaned. “He’s not only a werewolf pack leader—he’s the only pack leader in town. He calls it a coalition, but they’re not exactly a democracy.” She pulled out the doctor’s charts from his admit the day before.
“How do you know?”
“I’m the were-vet. Of course I know. Now I’ve got to double-check everything.” She flipped wildly through the charts, reading notes.
I’d taken care of someone who was related to a senator in my former nursing life, a fact that that patient managed to work into each and every conversation. Nothing like the threat of being sued by someone who actually knew lawyers to strike fear into the hearts of hospital employees. “But this guy’s No Info, right? So no one will know.”
“I give it forty-eight hours. The Deepest Snow pack leader doesn’t just go missing—”
“Okay then, you’ve only been his nurse for forty-five minutes. I think you’re safe so far.”
“You’d think, but I really like my license. Hang on.”
I was quiet while Gina reviewed her work, watching Winter breathe, his chest lift matching the corresponding line on the ventilator.
“Okay. I think we’re all up to date,” Gina said at last. “I don’t need to make any changes.”
“Good. Can I come out now?”
“Yeah, I think that’s best.” She looked up from her charting, and squinted into the room and our future. “I’d bet money that within a day there’ll be guards on his door.”
“Too bad for you I’m too smart to bet against you. Plus I’m poor.” I came out of the room, and she sealed the door, turning on the camera feeds. We could still look up at what was happening in the room—and hear things, as it turned out, when a pump beeped to warn it was running dry—while remaining safely outside the room.
“I’m looking forward to the end of tonight,” Gina said around three A.M.
“I’m going to be a cripple tomorrow.” I held up my right arm. “This is my mashed-potato-whipping hand.”
Gina snorted. “I keep forgetting that it’s Christmas.”
“Me too. I’m in denial.”
There was a
lull in our conversation while she wrote down Winter’s latest set of vitals. I stared at the monitor showing Winter’s sleeping form. “Brandon said he has something big to ask me tomorrow,” Gina said from behind me.
“Brandon?”
“The guy I’ve been dating, whom I don’t talk about, so people won’t judge.”
I glanced over my shoulder, and Gina was still charting, but also chewing on the inside of her lip. I tried to figure out why she’d be sharing information with me now, and it hit me like a hammer. “Oh, God. He’s a former patient, isn’t he?”
“No. His brother was.”
I wasn’t sure how I ought to take that news. Did she want me to be the blindly supportive friend? Or the wise friend who told her she knew better? “He’s not a vampire, is he?”
Gina snorted. “No. He’s a were-bear.”
There was another long pause between us. I decided to feel things out. “How long have you been dating him?”
“A while.”
“What do you think he’s going to ask?”
“I don’t know,” she said without looking up.
I couldn’t seriously endorse marriage, for myself or for just about anyone. But that probably said more about me and my hesitant attitude toward commitment—and the fact that I rarely bothered to learn the names of men who shared my bed. “Well, just because my track record’s been bleak doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try,” I said.
“Thanks. I think.” She stood up and shook herself, a little like a wet dog. “It’s on the hour. Ready to go?”
“As ready as I’m gonna be.” We both suited up.
* * *
“The thing is, when you were sleeping with a zombie it wasn’t particularly contagious,” Gina said as she shone a light into Winter’s eyes again, one at a time, in case the size of either pupil had changed. Bleeds in the head would apply pressure to the nerves in control of the pupils—a blown or uneven pupil meant a fresh bleed.
“I made sure he didn’t bite me,” I said sarcastically. To be honest, I didn’t know all the ins and outs of becoming a zombie. And Ti, my erstwhile boyfriend, had been the cursed kind of zombie, not a mindless ghoul. “I showed him my bra but not my brains. I think that was the trick.” I went around the room to stand opposite from her, so that she never blocked my shot. I’d actually shown him a lot more than my bra, but I didn’t want to embroil Gina in a TMI.
“Do you miss him?”
“I don’t appreciate being ditched.” No matter how much it might have been for my own good. Ti had rescued me at the end of my trial, and I knew he’d felt he’d been seen by too many people there, even before that, when he’d been out acquiring extra … parts. We’d walked through the hospital lobby looking like we’d been through a bloodbath, and a lot of the blood had been mine. I could understand why he felt like he needed to lay low for a while, but I didn’t like being left behind. Even though we hadn’t been together very long, him choosing to keep his cover over me hurt. Especially when he hadn’t made any promises about ever coming back.
I felt foolish about caring, and then feeling foolish made me feel angry again. That anger shone too brightly for me to think of very much else.
“With Brandon, it feels real. As close as I think it’s ever felt for me.” Gina walked away from Winter to put the flashlight down and scan the IV pumps. “But if I date him—if it goes farther than that—the Consortium will step in.”
I hadn’t realized our extracurricular activities were that closely monitored. By the Shadows, maybe. But the Consortium too? No. “Where were they when I was dating a zombie?”
She made a face. “I mean it a little different from dating—”
An intercom I didn’t know we had in the room turned on, and I heard Meaty’s voice over it. “Ladies, incoming.”
Gina’s tone went from familiar to professional in an instant. “I knew it.” She reached back and snatched the gun from me. “Go outside.”
“What? Protocol—”
Gina started sweeping me out with the butt of the rifle. “Go, fast, now.”
Frowning and not entirely sure I should listen to her, I stepped out of Winter’s room, gown and all. “Gina—” I protested again.
She shut the door, closing herself inside.
CHAPTER TEN
“Gina?” I beat on the door with one fist. The monitor set beside the door flickered off. “Are you kidding me?”
There were footsteps coming down the short hall. I pulled my mask up and hitched up my suit to sit down in the chair like I was in charge of whatever situation was going on inside the room in front of me. Just me, nursing no one in particular, in complete isolation gear, just sitting in the hall. Fuck this. I frowned at the open charts.
Someone addressed the back of my head. “Where is he?” I turned on my chair and saw a squat bald man wearing a bowling shirt underneath a black woolen peacoat. “Where? I know he’s here—”
And this was why Gina’d shoved me outside. My innocence would make me a better liar. “I don’t know who you’re talking about, sir.” I quickly folded paperwork and closed charts, so that no identifying information was showing.
“You know exactly who I’m talking about.” He reached into his coat, pulled out a phone, and typed a quick text with stubby fingers. “He’s here, and you’re keeping us from him.” When he was done texting, he looked up at me, eyes narrowed. “The longer you lie, the more there’ll be hell to pay.”
Awesome. Just awesome. I inhaled and exhaled, taking the part of myself that might have felt outrage and stuffing it into a separate mental box. He was entitled to his anger, just like we had every right to be cautious. “I’m sorry, sir. You’ll need to come back tomorrow, when the social worker’s here—”
“I cannot believe you’re keeping us from him.” He came nearer, looming. I pushed my chair back. Being right wasn’t always a guarantee that you wouldn’t get hit. Behind him, a man and a woman, clinging to each other, rounded the bend.
“Jorgen. Stop that at once,” the woman commanded, and he stepped back. I reached forward, grabbed everything off the desk, and set it into my lap. Then I pushed back again, out of swinging range.
The woman was older, blond going gray, wearing a navy pantsuit. Her arms were wrapped around the younger man, like he was supporting her. She looked around and moaned.
“Oh, he’s here, Jorgen—just as I was afraid of.” She reached out to the bald man, and he held an arm out toward her. Like a swinging monkey changing vines, she switched the men she leaned on, coming closer to me. “How is he? Is he okay? What do we know?”
“Nothing,” Jorgen spat at me. “She won’t even admit his presence. Despite the fact that I can smell him here.”
The younger man took a step forward. He was my age, wearing casual clothing: jeans, an army-green hoodie.
“What can you tell us?” he asked.
“Nothing.” There wasn’t much protecting me just now. Meaty was around the corner, Gina was still inside, and the Shadows weren’t known for being timely unless it suited them. I held all of Winter’s charting to my chest. “I’m sorry. I can’t say a word.”
As if she had no spine, the woman slid down from Jorgen to bring her eyes level with mine. “You have to save him. You have to do everything you can.” Her eyes were icy blue, rimmed with the red of tears, and she put her hand on my gowned knee. Her fingers knotted with restrained strength. “Everything. Just give him till the moon,” she pleaded.
The young man put his hand on her shoulder, until she stood up. “Jorgen, Helen—let’s go.”
“But she knows things—” Jorgen protested.
“I’m sure she does. But we’re stopping her from doing her job. If he is here, we don’t want that.” He cast a glance down at me, wrapping his arms protectively around the weeping woman. “Keep him safe—and alive.”
All that was in me wanted to nod, or comfort them, but I couldn’t. Officially, he wasn’t here—and beyond that, only foolish nurses promised
things they couldn’t guarantee. I wasn’t a were-vet, I had no ideas about his outcome—more good reasons why Gina was the one on the inside, not me.
Jorgen eyed the whole hallway with dismissal, then looked again at me. “We’ll be back,” he said. And then he howled. His form was human, so the howl was misshapen, a rough imitation of a howl. Helen seemed startled at this, and the young man surprised. Then they joined in, their howls more wolf-sounding, hers an alto, his a tenor, sliding together up and down an otherworldly scale. I’d never seen humans make those noises before—and remembered a camping trip from a long time ago, with my family, my brother, and me sitting around a fire, mocking wolves from afar, trying to join into their distant choir.
The wolves here closed their eyes as they howled, like they were praying, sincere. The howls reverberated up and down the short hallway after they stopped, their own echoes answering them.
When they were done, Jorgen hung his head. “He would have answered, if he could.”
Helen sobbed, and the young man pulled her closer. Conjoined in their sorrow, they walked back up the hall.
I waited thirty seconds, then knocked on the closed door. “Gina, get back out here.”
The monitor flicked on, and she stood in it, front and center. “Still in one piece?”
“No thanks to you, yes.”
The door to Winter’s were-corral opened. “Hey, I was the one in here with the sick werewolf.”
“You were the one with the tranquilizer rifle,” I said. She laughed and handed it back to me, pulling off her gown. “Did you see any of that?”
“Yeah. I made the cameras one-way. It was a regular telenovella out here.” She tossed her gown into the linen cart.
“Are all weres so … emotional?”
“Depends on the were, and the animal. Wolves? Yes. Cats? Not so much. Depends on the pack, too, and the family, and the percentage were, major, minor, bitten or born—”
“Okay, okay. Sorry I asked. What did you make of all that?”
“Makes me glad I won’t be the social worker here tomorrow morning—and that I have tomorrow night off.”
Edie Spence [02] Moonshifted Page 5