Far Too Young To Die: An Astraea Renata Novel

by Wayne, Douglas

  I reached in, careful not to cut myself on the mangled steel, and turned off the ignition. Call me Ms. Safety, but there is something about a running, upside down car, that doesn’t sound like a good idea.

  I gave the guy a quick once over while trying to figure the best way to get him out. For the most part, our victims are usually still in cars that are in decent shape. The only real tool we ever need to extract someone is Greg’s nifty ‘fingers of life’ trick we use to pull the doors off. This one, however, was going to be tricky.

  Even without the door in my way, there was still the matter of unbuckling him while hoping we didn’t cause him more harm when his body slams into the mangled roof. From there, we still had to pull him out over the shattered glass and get him on the stretcher and into Maybella.

  Greg rolled the stretcher behind me and set the brake before coming over to give me a hand. “I got this one,” he said as he crawled into the car. Once inside, he got to his knees and lifted his arm, unbuckling the seatbelt. Greg’s body jolted slightly as the weight of the driver landed on his shoulder. Carefully, Greg backed out while I rolled the stretcher into position, allowing him to roll the driver onto the bed with ease.

  Just down the street I noticed the flashing lights of an approaching emergency vehicle, telling me our time was just about up. In a rush, I strapped the driver in at the waist and we pushed him to the back of Maybella, where we team lifted him inside. I got in back with the mangled man and set the brake on the stretcher and Greg shut the door.

  Standard operating procedure.

  Once the patient is in the back of the ambulance, there is little Greg can do to help. His abilities are pretty much limited to enhancing his strength and manipulating the wind with little love on the healing front. It’s not really a surprise. Healing is a rare trait to see in a wizard. They are all about flashy fireballs and feats of illusion more than they are about things that affect spirit. Those spells usually fall into a witches wheelhouse.

  “Hold on tight,” Greg said as he slammed his door. “City fire is on top of us.”

  “Got it,” I said, taking my seat next to the shattered man and strapping myself in.

  In the bright light of the back of the ambulance, I finally got a good look at the driver. He is a younger man, about my age, with blood stained blond hair and patches of facial hair where the skin on his face wasn’t missing from the accident. His arms were a mangled mess of bone and muscle that looked more like hamburger than a human arm. His torso, though cut and scraped, was in fairly decent condition and his chest rose and fell shallowly, telling me he was still alive. From the waist down, minus the white powder from the airbag deployment, you wouldn’t have known he was even in an accident.

  Now that I was out of the sight of the public, I pulled the rubber gloves off and threw them onto the floor. Before you get sick to your stomach, understand that it is vital for me to be touching the victim for my magic to work. While latex is great for preventing the flow of body fluids between people, it is also great at blocking the flows of my healing magic. They are a true double edged sword in every sense of the word.

  It took some getting used to, but after a while I started looking at blood as less of a toxic substance and more of a simple hazard. One I circumvent by creating a field on my body, preventing potential contamination from a diseased victim. It’s a spell I put on myself, and Greg, while we make the trip to the scene so neither of us has to worry about the repercussions. Instead, we get to focus on getting the person out in the most efficient, if not humanitarian, way possible.

  I placed one hand on the man’s mangled head and the other around his crotch, since the damage from there below is minimal, allowing my flows to persist in the area between my hands. If his legs were also injured, I would prop one up allowing me to touch one, or both of his feet for maximum flow.

  I closed my eyes and started my chant. In my mind, I saw his shadowy spirit before me, struggling to hold onto life. In a healthy person, the spirit is a bright white or blue aura that moves along with the person. In an injured one, the spirit will be dull and weak, often showing up as small wisps that float around the chest. If the patient dies, those wisps float into the air and disappear, presumably to have its final destination sorted out by a power much greater than my own.

  In all these years, I’ve only lost one patient.

  I never planned to again.

  Of course, that meant this one had to cooperate, which he was, for now.

  I felt the flow of heat radiating from the tips of my fingers into the injured man which added a red hue to his aura as the heat made its way through his body. As the red entered his chest, his once stable aura flickered.

  “Shit,” I said as I opened my eyes.

  “Problem?” Greg asked, glancing back through the mirror.

  “Seizure.” I unstrapped myself from the back of the ambulance and stood up, placing both of my hands on the man’s chest. One of his internal organs was failing, but I was clueless which. My best guess had it being one inside the man’s chest, though there was a slight chance it was his brain. The way the car looked when we got there, I’d be greatly surprised if he didn’t at least have a moderate concussion.

  Taking a stab in the dark, I ripped off the man’s shirt and placed my hands on his bleeding chest, doing my best to avoid touching the parts of his exposed rib cage. I started a different chant, one that sent small bolts of electricity into the man’s chest to help with blood flow and tissue movement. Not enough that I’d risk stopping his heart, though I was more than capable of doing that if the need were to ever arise. Just enough to keep the man with me a few more moments.

  After a moment, his body stopped shaking violently, so I dropped the amount of electricity I had pumping into him, finally cutting it off about two minutes later.

  “Let’s try this again,” I said, this time focusing on the damaged area around his chest and head.

  I started my healing chant again, watching him this time through my normal eyes, though occasionally closing them to check on his spirit which was struggling to hold on. If I wasn’t able to finish this soon, we would lose him. Tonight was too good of a night to have us lose our second patient ever, not to mention the moon was too bright to make disposing of a body even remotely easy.

  I sped up my chant and doubled the amount of energy I sent through my fingertips, hoping it would work. To the uninformed, the sight of mending wounds would make you believe that the task was nearly done, but to those in the know, that is just the beginning. The outer wounds, while bad, weren’t so bad they’d cause his death alone unless they got infected between the accident scene and here. The wounds that were more important are the ones to the vital organs.

  While we stocked Maybella with as much top-of-the-line medical equipment we could afford, a CT scanner was something it will never have. As such, it is near impossible for us to know the full extent of the injuries. It made my job a little harder, but only in that it left me really tired at the end of the spell as I keep pushing energy into my patient until they wake up on their own.

  Greg stopped Maybella, turned her off, and came into the back to help after killing the dome light up front. He pulled back the curtain we installed between the front and back to keep light from escaping and took a seat behind the driver’s head.

  “You almost have it, Ast. Just a bit more,” he said, trying to encourage me.

  “Silence,” I said, glaring at him sharply before sending another blast of spirit into the man. Greg’s eyes widened, but he nodded and placed his hands on the driver’s shoulders. Standard procedure as well. Something you learn to add into your routine after being stabbed in the shoulder with a scalpel by a man believing you are trying to kill him. While true healing is helpful, it isn’t the most pleasant experience to live through. It’s almost like facing a firing squad who are all armed with paintball guns. You won’t die, but it will still hurt like hell.

  I closed my eyes to take a quick glance at the m
an’s spirit, noticing it had lightened considerably since the last time I’d checked, meaning he was coming around. Not wanting to overload his body with magic, I slowed the flow and reduced the amount of heat leaving my fingers. This was more to ease the level of pain when he finally came to than anything. I wasn’t sure if it really mattered, but it always felt like something I should do, just in case.

  The cuts on the man’s face slowly started to heal, and the blood started to fade, allowing me to see his actual face. He had a full blond goatee around his mouth, but the rest of his face was smooth and clean, almost looking like he’d shaved just before the crash. His nose was short, but rounded, making him look more like a model than a crash test dummy the longer I let my magic flow into him.

  After what felt like an eternity, the driver’s eyes darted open and he gasped for air. In a panic, both of his hands wrapped around mine and he ripped them away from his chest. He grunted as he tried to sit up, but Greg was still holding him down.

  “Where am I?” he asked, looking around the ambulance.

  “In the back of an ambulance parked behind an abandoned warehouse on 7th and Maple.”

  “Is this a joke?” he asked, looking over at me.

  “You should wait to hear the punch line,” I said, cracking a smile that the driver didn’t return.

  They never got that joke.

  I sighed and continued. “You were in a bad accident about an hour ago. Left on your own, for the real world paramedics to arrive, extract your mangled body from the wreckage, and get you in the back of an ambulance, you would have died long before reaching the hospital.”

  He looked down at his body and felt his chest, particularly focusing on the rips in his shirt. “I don’t look hurt.”

  “Look again,” Greg said, releasing his grip on the man’s shoulders. “Guess where all that blood on the bed came from.”

  The driver sat up, rubbed the bed, and examined his fist, which was coated with a layer of fresh blood. “But how?”

  “You know how some people get off on the thrill of bungee jumping or driving fast cars?”

  The man nodded.

  “Our thing is bringing people back from the brink of death.”

  “Eh, hers is. I’m actually in it for the fast driving,” Greg said with a smile.

  The man bent over and took in a deep breath. “You should’ve let me die.”

  I looked over at Greg, shocked. This was the first person I’d saved over the years that actually wanted to die. Did he crash his car on purpose, just as a means of suicide. If so, he might want to know it is a lot easier just to put a bullet in your skull. Less of a chance for someone to save him.

  “I don’t get it. You want to die?”

  He shook his head. “Not particularly.”

  “Then why…”

  “Someone wanted me dead. Sabotaged my car to make sure it looked like an accident. I have a good idea who did it. Once he finds out I’m alive, he’ll come after me again.” He looked over at me while I looked at him waiting for him to bust out in a laugh like the Joker. “Then he’ll go after you for saving me.”

  “Who?” I asked, but before he could answer he got up, kicked the rear doors open, and ran off into the darkness.

  “Well, that was strange,” I said, glancing over at Greg who was scratching his head.

  “Can’t help them all.” Greg walked to the back, shut the door, and went back up front and drove. I stayed back in the back most the way home trying to make sense of it all.

  - 3 -

  “I don’t get it,” I said wiping the blood off of my hands using a handful of sanitizing wipes I kept in the back just for these circumstances. “If you are going to kill someone, why would you sabotage his car?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Greg said, turning the car sharp enough to send me slamming into the passenger door since I had forgotten to put my seatbelt back on. “Personally, I’d just shoot you in the head and be done with it. Nice, clean, and easy.”

  “If I had to be so archaic,” I nodded. Personally, if I wanted someone dead, that meant they crossed an imaginary line where I believed you are not only a threat to me, but to others around me. If that was the case, I’d likely manipulate the bastard’s spirit and cause his heart to stop pumping, all the while watching the terror in his eyes as he felt his life force coming to an end. Right about the time he is about to go, I’d release my death grip on his heart before causing it to work in overdrive, forcibly pumping his blood through his veins and arteries at a rate that causes the capillaries to explode, causing him to bleed out ever so slowly. Of course, this is all hypothetical, not that I wouldn’t consider it if I ever caught some asshole trying to rape or molest someone.

  The only reason I could see someone trying to sabotage a vehicle was to keep the death discrete or to make it look like an accident. Whoever that man was, he looked far too young to be married making me believe a jilted lover probably wasn’t to blame. And he looked rather clean, which would almost rule out drug use if I didn’t know better. But, other than the wounds that were definitely caused by the accident, he didn’t have any of the telltale signs of a junkie. Hardened veins and visible track marks can be cured by my magic, but only after repetitive use. Generally, I try not to advertise my services to that crowd. But after a while, once you gain a reputation as a guardian angel, they come to you.

  “Did you catch his name?” Greg asked, breaking me out of my daze.

  “Didn’t have time to ask,” I said. I stared blankly out the window at the beautiful Georgia sky just trying to put the whole thing behind me. Then like a bolt of lightning striking a lonely tree in the middle of an open field, I remembered the holes in his jacket. “Be right back,” I said, darting into the back.

  I made my way to the back of the ambulance, trying my best to step around the blood splatters on the floor, not to mention trying to keep my now cleaned hands out of the mess. I’d left my aura on, like I always did until we had the ambulance cleaned knowing I’d probably end up with more on me by the end of the night, but I didn’t relish the thought of having to clean the blood from under my fingernails for the second time in one night.

  Resting on the floor, behind the blood soaked linens of our secondhand stretcher, I noticed a small ball of leather. The leather was dark, almost black, and the wallet was so full it had to be held shut by three different wide rubber bands. It was a stab in the dark to find it in the back. He was easily the seventh or eighth person who had lost their identification while in the back of Maybella. Even then, I doubted he would be the last.

  Out of instinct, I probed the wallet with my powers, looking for any traps or tricks that might have been placed upon it, to nail an unsuspecting pickpocket. As expected, the wallet was clean, so I removed the three bands and placed them on one of the few spots on the counter not covered with blood.

  As I opened the thing, I noticed it was loaded to the gills with paper. Sure, there was a small wad of twenties in the billfold portion of the leather, but it was surrounded by dozens of slips of paper. Mostly receipts for gas and food, all over the course of the last month. My best guess was the guy was a numbers junkie who watched his money come and go out of pure habit. A trait I wished I had when we first opened Olson’s, not that I had the patience to watch the books even half as close.

  On an inside pocket, there were nearly two dozen credit cards, all organized by color, though I suspected it was much deeper than that. I folded the panel of cards over, even though my piqued interest begged me to take a closer look.

  On the opposite panel, I finally found what I was looking for. A Georgia driver’s license bearing an actually nice picture of the man who had been in the back of Maybella just a few minutes ago with a sharp grin on his face. “His name is Aiden Wright,” I said, bringing the bulky wallet with me up to the front. “He’s listed as living at 338 East Thresher Lane.”

  “The other side of town,” Greg said. “What would bring him over on this side of town a
t this time of night.”

  “Doubt it was the night life.” Through the smoky exhaust and the smell of burnt rubber, I didn’t make out the scent of alcohol anywhere on the man. That didn’t mean he wasn’t into another poison, but I knew he definitely wasn’t drunk.

  “Maybe it’s not important. We should drop off the wallet with the police department and let them deliver it back to him.”

  I shrugged. Taking the police the wallets, or purses, of our patients a day or two after our miracle sessions was the normal business plan. It kept us from looking like the ones that caused the accident to begin with while taking any blame off our shoulders. “Maybe I should take this one back in person.” I glanced over at Greg, who was giving me a death stare with one eye while keeping the other on the road. “Don’t give me that look.”

  “Do I need to remind you who will be knocking on his front door first thing in the morning?”

  “No,” I said, returning my gaze to the quiet night sky. There is one downside to our otherwise heroic rescue mission. It is that there is absolutely nothing we can do with the car. Eventually the police, EMT, and firefighters show up and find the wrecked husk of a car without a single body inside, making the whole thing look like the driver has fled the scene.

  The first thing the police do is put out a bulletin directed at every hospital in a fifty mile radius, expecting that whoever had been in the mangled mess of steel we leave behind will end up at one eventually. When nobody does by the end of the night, they send an officer or two, just to scope things out.

  Generally, we try to keep our patients around for a little while, just to fill them in on what to expect. I find I’m not nearly half as nervous about things when I know what’s coming, so figure a little foresight couldn’t hurt. We collaborate a story about how they had been out drinking all night, but knew better than to drive home and had one of us call a cab. When they ask for proof and references, they give them our names, so the cops can verify the whole story which we do without question. In the rare case the police want to talk to the cab driver, we give them Bernie’s name and number, who is the type of person to never throw anyone under the bus.