by Jamie Davis
“Artur Torrence,” the vampire replied, smiling as well. “You must be the young human paramedic about whom I’ve heard so much. I was passing through your city on the way elsewhere to conduct some business and decided to stop in and see what James had going on here in Elk City.”
“I hope you’ve heard the good things,” Dean said. “You don’t want to believe everything you hear.”
“I have only heard good things about you,” Artur replied. “Though James was just mentioning something about a bit of trouble you were having. He also said that you were innocent of the charges leveled against you. I’m sure everything will resolve for you soon enough, one way or another.”
Did Dean see the man’s lips twitch in a smile there at the last part? He decided it was his imagination and responded politely. “From your lips to God’s ears, Artur,” Dean said. “I’d like this to resolve quickly, that is sure.”
Artur snorted. “I’m not sure God’s listening to anything from me, at least not for a very long time.” He glanced at his watch and back at Dean. “I’m afraid I must be going. The hour is late for me, and I have dinner waiting for me in my rooms. I had her selected especially for my stay here. Perhaps we shall see each other again, eh?”
“Absolutely,” Dean said. “I was heading down to the gym anyway. Enjoy your, uh, meal.” Dean winced inwardly at the awkwardness of the way he said it. He was sure that the meal in question walked and talked just like him. There was a consensual arrangement with some human donors who would let vampires and other Unusual blood drinkers consume directly from them for a healthy fee. Dean smiled at the other man, forcing himself not to think about it. Artur nodded and turned, continuing down the hallway, turning the corner and disappearing from sight. Dean watched him for a moment, then he shrugged and headed to the elevators to get his workout in and sort out his thoughts. He wondered if James had any other Unusual guests staying on the floor that he didn’t know about. The elevator arrived, and Dean stepped inside, still wondering about the possibility of neighbors he wasn’t aware of, and whether they too, knew about him.
———
Dean returned from his workout an hour later. The exercise on the circuit training equipment of the building’s gym had helped lighten his mood. Now he just needed a shower and to get cleaned up. He had to do some shopping. His old apartment was a crime scene now, and the police had confiscated his suitcase from his truck for evidence. He was going to need some more clothes before too long. He stepped off the elevator and started down the hallway to his apartment. Looking up, he was startled when he saw a young blonde woman staggering down the hallway towards him. She swayed and started to fall forward as he neared her. Dean reached out and caught her just in time as she fainted in his arms.
He lowered her gently to the ground, and as he did, he saw the bite marks on her neck and shoulder. They were fresh, red and ragged looking. Not the simple double pinprick marks he had seen with other vampire bites. These bites were more vicious, more like an attack than a willing feeding. The woman’s eye’s fluttered open as she lay there and she started to rise. Dean placed a hand gently on her shoulder and pressed her back down.
“Easy going there,” he said. “You need to rest for a little bit. You’ve lost a lot of blood. Who did this to you?” Dean thought he knew, but he asked anyway.
“I just need to get back to my room downstairs. I’ll be okay,” the woman replied. “I don’t want to be any trouble. I need this job.”
“You need an ambulance,” Dean said, pulling out his phone. “Let me call one for you and we can get you tended to. I’m Dean; I’m a paramedic, and you should get looked at in the hospital. What’s your name?”
“Codi, Codi Beck,” the woman said. “And you can’t call an ambulance. Ms. Teal wouldn’t like it. I’ll be alright. I just need to get some rest.”
“Celeste knows about this?” Dean knew Celeste was the vampire assistant to James. The redheaded southerner was charming and seemed kind enough. He found it hard to believe she would condone this behavior. He turned his attention back to his patient. “Do you always get drained like this when they feed off of you?”
“No, uh, this was different,” Codi admitted. She struggled again to sit up and failed. “Lord Torrence is an honored and influential guest of Mr. Lee. I don’t want to cause any trouble.” Her voice trailed off as her eyes rolled back and then closed as she slipped into unconsciousness.
Dean knew he should call 911, but decided to call someone else instead. He looked down at his phone, opened the contacts app, and flipped through them, selecting a name. He tapped it with his thumb to dial the number. The phone on the other end picked up on the second ring.
“Yes, Dean,” the smooth southern drawl on the other end said. “What can I do for you?”
“Celeste, you should probably come down to my floor,” Dean said. “There’s been an incident with one of your other guests and their dinner. I wanted to call an ambulance, but she insisted I don’t. Maybe you can help.”
“I’ll be right there,” Celeste replied. “Can you get her up and into your apartment? I can see you on the security monitor. You are close to your door.”
Dean looked up and noticed the small black domes in the ceiling of the hallway. He hadn’t paid attention to them before. “Uh, yeah. I think I can move her in there. Are you coming down?”
“I’m on my way now.”
Dean put his phone back in his pocket. Then he reached down and picked up Codi and carried her over to his door. She groaned a little when he lifted her up but then fell silent again. Her skin felt cool to the touch. She was going into shock. He needed to get her warmed up. Struggling a little to get his key card out, he waved it over the door’s panel and then opened it and went inside. He laid her down on the sofa and went into his bedroom and grabbed the blanket off the bed. She needed to be kept warm to reduce the effects of shock on her body. There was a tap at the door; then it opened, and he heard Celeste’s voice as she leaned over him to check on Codi.
“How is she?”
“She needs a hospital and at least two units of blood,” Dean replied. “She shouldn’t be here in my apartment.”
“This isn’t the first time something like this has happened,” Celeste said coming over to his side. “We are prepared for these things.” She set a large medical bag down next to him on the floor, not unlike the ones he used on the ambulance. She was also holding a small, ultra-compact heart monitor, which she placed on the coffee table next to the sofa.
Dean opened up the heart monitor and attached the leads to the sticky pads and attached them to his patient. He applied the blood pressure cuff and slid the pulse oximeter sensor over one finger. He cycled the machine to start taking vital signs and then unzipped the bag. Inside were IV supplies and tubing, fluid bags, and some bandages and dressings. He began prepping her arm to get an IV line in place to get her some fluids.
There was a tap at the door as he was finishing up. Celeste went over to answer, and he heard a murmured conversation. The door closed, and the vampire assistant returned holding something out to him.
“Here, Dean,” she said, holding out a bag of blood. “It’s O-negative, the universal donor type. It’s been screened and is safe to give her.”
“I’m just a paramedic,” Dean said. “I’m not licensed to give blood products.”
“You’re not a paramedic right now, Dean. You are suspended. You can do what you want,” Celeste said. She said it as a matter of fact, not to be mean. Celeste continued. “This is what she needs. You know it.”
Dean hesitated for a moment then took the bag from her. It was warmed already which should help, too. He read the label carefully, verifying that is was indeed O negative blood type. Then he took some more IV tubing out of the bag and spiked the bag before attaching the other end to replace the IV fluid tubing he had already flowing. The blood was better than straight fluids. He knew he needed to watch her carefully for adverse reactions from the blood. There should be none if the
blood had indeed been screened for her but sometimes things were mislabeled. Celeste brought over one of the barstool chairs from the kitchen area and took the bag from him to hang from the back of the chair to keep gravity flowing the blood from the bag into the patient. Dean cycled the monitor again to collect another set of vital signs and then looked up at Celeste.
“Your guest was a little rough on her,” he said. “Someone should have a conversation with him about how to treat people who volunteer to provide him with a meal.”
“This is a delicate situation, Dean,” Celeste said. “Artur Torrence is an old rival of James. Their relationship goes back centuries. To top it off, Artur is older than James, and there is a hierarchy that must be observed. Technically, James can’t tell him what to do, even in his own domain like Elk City.”
“And James let this guy visit as an honored guest?” Dean asked. “That’s ridiculous! He nearly killed this woman.”
“I’m sure James will have a word with him about it,” Celeste said. “But there’s not much he can do. He’s not even sure what Artur is doing here. He is not the type to just drop in. Artur is up to something, but James is not sure what. He is afraid it has to do with the unrest in Elk City. It could be a sign from James’ superiors that they are not confident in his ability to rule here.”
“So Artur is here to take over?” Dean looked down at his patient, still unconscious on the couch. “I’m not sure I want this guy running things around here. I don’t think it would be safe for people based on the way he treated Codi.”
“That is an understatement, Dean.” He waited for her to say more but she didn’t.
The two of them fell silent for a while. Dean kept monitoring Codi’s vital signs every five minutes or so and checking that blood was flowing smoothly. The bag was almost empty. Her color was getting better, and her blood pressure was coming up. When the blood bag fluid ran out, he detached it and reattached the plain saline solution and continued slowly giving her fluids. He was pretty sure she would survive this attack, and that was good. He didn’t have any garlic extract to counteract the effects of the vampire potentially turning her if she had died. That couldn’t happen unless she drank from him as well, but you never knew what went on in these types of situations. The paramedic turned his attention to dressing and bandaging the bites to her neck and shoulder while she slept.
Celeste watched him work. “You’re good at what you do, Dean. I’ve never seen you at your job, but you seem to know what you’re doing, and you do it well.”
“It’s all I’ve wanted to do for a long time, Celeste,” Dean replied. “Of course, I’m not going to be doing it much while I’m suspended. Who knows, Codi might be the last patient I ever care for.”
“I’m sure that is not the case. James has investigators of his own working on the case. Plus, your lawyer, Mansel Hood, is one of the best in the state. We’ll make sure you get through this and back on the ambulance. You just have to be patient.”
“I don’t think I have that kind of patience,” Dean snapped back. “I’ve got nothing to do while I’m waiting for the disposition of my case. I’ve been suspended, with pay at least, but suspended indefinitely nonetheless.”
“Well, maybe we can find something for you to do in the meantime?” Celeste proposed. “Let me talk to James. There are sometimes incidents like this one here in the Nightwing building. We always have different clients in town from James’ various businesses and partnerships. You could be our on-call medical assistance in the time frame it takes to get this all straightened out and we get you reinstated.”
Dean thought about it and knew that she was creating something here just for him. It was likely she did not really need it. It was a position offered just to keep him busy, but it would be something to do and keep his mind off his troubles. Plus he’d get a chance to keep his skills up and take care of people. “I guess I could do that. What would it entail?”
“I don’t know. Let me talk to James about it. I think we could set up an office for you downstairs on the second floor. Once down there, you could help check on people like Codi here to make sure they don’t go back to work until they meet the required rejuvenation of their blood levels. It would be only part-time, but it would be something to do.”
“I think I would like that,” Dean said. “Thank you.”
“No problem, Dean,” she replied. Celeste looked at Codi, resting peacefully on the sofa. “I assume you have her squared away?”
“Yes, I’ve got this. She just needs to rest,” Dean said. “I’ll sit with her until she wakes up and I will make sure she gets back to her room downstairs in one piece.”
“Excellent, then I’ll go and see what we need to do to get you set up in your new job.”
Chapter 57
Ashley called to check in with him at lunchtime. Dean was glad to hear from her. He told her about the patient on his couch and the conversation with Celeste. Ashley seemed alarmed when he told her about his encounter with the visiting vampire lord.
“Artur Torrence is in town?” she asked. “That’s not good news. He thrives on chaos and death. I’ve encountered him before in my travels over the years. He must be sensing some weakness in support for James at higher levels. I’ve seen him come in like this in the past and try to take over things during a political disruption in the community.”
“He’s not a very nice guy either,” Dean responded.
“You need to stay clear of him, Dean,” Ashley cautioned him. “He is very old-school and wouldn’t bat an eye at removing you from this earth if you get in his way. Because you and I are connected, there is some protection I can offer you, but it is not a certainty if he wants to do you harm.”
“I can tell what he thinks of humans, Ashley. I’ve seen the way he treats his meals. Don’t worry, I’m not going to cross him anytime soon. I just need to take care of the patients he leaves in his wake while he’s here.”
“Well that is good news at least,” the ER nurse said. “I was wondering what we could find for you to do while you had this forced time off. I didn’t want you lying around all day eating Cheetos while you waited for me to come home.”
“I don’t know; I think Cheeto dust is a good color on me.”
“That is something no woman wants to hear from her man, Dean.”
“I’m kidding!” he said, laughing. “I am glad I have something to do with my time, too. I’m not sure if it is legal since I’m suspended, but I don’t think my patients will be complaining to the medical board about it.”
“Have you had the news on at all this morning?” Ashley asked him.
“No, why?” He picked up the remote and put the local news station on the TV.
“There have been two more attacks since last night,” Ashley replied. “Both were related to recent ambulance calls from Unusuals in the community. One was an assault on the person who called 911. A black SUV pulled up on the street, and a group of men jumped out and beat and kicked the caller until they were unconscious. They are in the ICU now. The second attack was another firebombing of a residence where the ambulance had just been. No one was home since everyone inside rode to the hospital in the ambulance with the patient, so there were no injuries, thank goodness.”
“None of the Station U paramedics were hurt, were they?” Dean asked.
“No, but everyone is a little jumpy this morning,” Ashley replied. “There were also more threats turned in to the local police and online announcements with links to web pages attempting to expose Unusuals in the community. Some people are starting to pay attention and ask uncomfortable questions.”
Dean grabbed the remote and switched on the TV. A woman on the noon news was talking to another reporter on location somewhere within the city. They were covering the firebombing, as well as the assault in the daily report. This wasn’t the type of attention the Unusual community wanted. Dean knew it was going to have repercussions. Since the attacks seemed to be linked to the station U paramedics, it was likely
their unique patients were going to stop calling them for help. They would go back to what they used to do in the past, and try to take care of their medical problems on their own. It was not good for anyone concerned.
A groan from across the room distracted him from both the phone and the TV. Codi was waking up. He told Ashley he’d see her later and then crossed over to check on his patient. As he got there, she woke with a start, looking around in a panic.
“Easy, Codi. Easy,” he said. He pushed the button on the heart monitor to cycle the vital signs again. “You’re safe. Celeste and I brought you here to my place since it was close and I was able to get you some fluids and blood to replace what you lost. How do you feel?”
“I feel a little dizzy, woozy, like I’m not really awake,” Codi replied. “I guess I owe you a thank you?”
“We can worry about that later,” Dean said. “Let me take your blood pressure and other vitals again and then maybe we can see about getting you back down to your room, Okay?”
She nodded and Dean went about assessing her again. Her vitals were much better than when she had arrived. Once he had reviewed the readings, he unhooked her from the heart monitor and removed the blood pressure cuff and sensors. He took the IV out of her arm, applying a small adhesive bandage in its place, then checked the bandages he had put on her neck and shoulder. When he was done, he looked her over one more time.
“Let’s sit you up slowly, and see how you feel. Then you can stand up and see how that feels. If you feel alright after that, I’ll walk with you back downstairs to your apartment.”
Codi sat up and looked around the room. “This apartment is much nicer than mine downstairs. Maybe I could stay here a while longer?” She placed a hand on his knee and looked him in the eye.
“I don’t think my girlfriend would like that too much, Codi. Let’s just get you settled back in your apartment. Maybe I can check in on you later to make sure you’re alright.”
She sighed and nodded. He helped her stand up and then walked next to her, ready to support her if she started to fall. She was a little unsteady but able to walk on her own. Dean led the way to the door and took her to the elevator where she pushed the button for the third floor. When they got to her apartment, just the size of a small, poorly furnished hotel or single-person dorm room, he walked her inside and helped her sit on the bed.