Extreme Medical Services Box Set Vol 1 - 3

by Jamie Davis

  “But that means that we can tell where Gibbie is, right?” Dean said, holding back his rising excitement.

  “Maybe, Dean, maybe,” Rudy answered. “We have to take this slow. I’ve installed the spyware client on this phone, and I’ve got a team working to follow-up on the information I have so far. It can give a general GPS location and then we need to see if the phone can send video and audio of his surroundings, provided the phone is still on his person.”

  “If you have an approximate location, we should still go there and see what we can find,” Dean said.

  “I already have a few of my more discreet pack members following up on it. Let me find out more about what we are facing. Then we can know who and what we are going after. There’s no upside to just rushing in. That is how people get hurt, Dean.”

  “How long will it take to get your people in place?” Brynne asked.

  “They are on their way there now, but they have to take their time. It’s in the warehouse district, and there is not a lot of traffic down there this time of night. A car driving by at night would be noticed, so they need to be very careful how they approach the area.” Rudy looked at James. “I just wanted to give you a heads up, James. If we find Gibson, what do you want us to do? I heard they had silver chains on him. That will affect us, too. I don’t want to lose anyone else trying a rescue.”

  “Why can’t we just call the police?” Dean asked. “They aren’t allergic to silver.”

  “Think about that for a moment, Dean,” Rudy said. He paused before going on, letting that sink in. “If we involve the local police, we involve all the local authorities. That includes the leak we suspect is going on inside the dispatch and response system of the city. I think we are going to have to extricate the hostage ourselves without local help. Calling the police will only serve to alert them we are coming and give them the opportunity to foil our attempt – or worse.”

  Dean sat back in his chair. He hadn’t thought about that. He knew there was a leak inside headquarters somewhere. Since the events on the fire ground the previous evening, he now suspected it was deputy fire chief Compton. The bad news was that the chief could monitor police frequencies as well. If he was the leak and he overheard a police operation heading to the site of The Cause’s safe house, he could warn them to bug out, or prepare to repel the assault on their hideout.

  “Dean, at least we know more now than we did a few minutes ago,” Ashley said. “We were just saying we had nothing to act on. Now we have a possible location of The Cause, and that means for Gibbie, too. Be patient, it will work out.”

  “What did you tell Marian when you figured out what she had done?” Dean asked Rudy. “Does she know that what she did could help us?”

  “I told her that it was very fortunate, even though it was a violation of personal privacy,” Rudy said. “We lycans are an honorable people, Dean. I’ll not have sneaks and thieves in my pack. I impressed that on her. She was appropriately chastised over it.”

  “You should reward her, not punish her,” Dean exclaimed. “Sure, she overstepped her bounds and invaded Gibbie’s privacy, but when you look at what it enabled us to do, it turned out alright. We should teach her the right things to do, but encourage her to expand her skills in this area. It’s a useful skill, especially in today’s security conscious world.”

  “The ends don’t justify the means,” Rudy said. “At least not to me.” He shot a glance at James and Dean got the sense that he and his leader had had this discussion before.

  “I agree with Rudy that she took the wrong actions, and they worked out for us this time, mostly due to luck,” Brynne said. “I do think that we should talk with her and encourage her to develop these skills further. The world is changing and having an Unusual with this type of security and computer expertise could be a good thing. James, you have scholarships you give out to members of your community. You should think about sending her to a top-notch computer programming school. She could become a huge asset to you and the rest of the Unusual community.”

  “You may be right,” James said. “We will look into that when this all blows over. It could be a moot point if we don’t make it through this intact. I may not be in a position to award anyone a scholarship unless we catch a break. Let’s hope the information she enabled us to find works in our favor.” He looked up at second. “Keep us in the loop, Rudy. We’ll be here if you find out anything.”

  “Will do, boss,” the werewolf replied. “I’ll get you hourly updates by text message and call you directly if we find anything solid on Gibson’s whereabouts.” He nodded to the rest of the group, turned, and left them sitting over their dinner while he headed back down the hallway towards the elevators.

  Dean and the others looked around meeting each other’s eyes. The mood had changed. They had a solid lead, and things were not quite as hopeless as they were a few minutes before. There was a chance they’d get their abducted friend back. Dean started to eat with renewed vigor. He was hungry now, and he might need the extra energy if they ended up going on a rescue mission to retrieve Gibbie. He thought about what he might do if he encountered the attackers in person again. He wasn’t a violent person, but these guys needed to be stopped, and a little vigorous persuasion might go a long way to stopping the attacks and finding out who was controlling them from the top.

  They knew it was Artur on an unofficial level, but it would be much better if they were able to turn up proof of his involvement. That would force him to drop his plans, lest they be exposed to the higher Unusual leadership. Dean got the sense that, while they did turn a blind eye to some of what had been going on, if James came forward with direct evidence against Artur, he would be forced to back down and would be discredited. That was Dean’s goal. It wasn’t just to stop the attacks. It wasn’t just to discredit and expose Mike Farver and Chief Compton at Headquarters; he wanted to make sure that the one who was ultimately responsible was punished. If they proved Artur was at the heart of it, he wanted to hurt him as much as possible.

  Chapter 73

  Dean and Ashley left dinner feeling much better than when they had when they arrived an hour and a half earlier. As they stepped off on their floor, they laughed at a shared joke Dean brought up on the elevator. Their laughter stopped when they turned the corner of the hallway and saw Artur coming the other way.

  The vampire looked at them with a puzzled expression, then assumed a sly smile and said, “I am surprised to see you two in such good spirits. Surely there are things to be concerned about this evening that don't merit such elated behavior.”

  Dean knew the vampire lord was fishing for information. He wanted to know what they were up to in their efforts to counter him. Dean should have just passed the creature by without responding, but he could not resist taking a dig at the old vampire.

  “Artur, we’re on to you, you know. We will stop your efforts to destroy what we’ve started here.” Ashley laid a cautioning hand on his arm to stop him, but Dean kept going. “And when we get finished foiling your little plot here in Elk City, I am going to enjoy hunting you down and helping some friends of mine drive a stake through your heart.”

  The vampire’s eyes narrowed to slits, but the grin never left his face. He and Dean stood nose to nose in the hallway outside Dean’s apartment. Artur looked first at Dean and then turned his attention to Ashley. “Perhaps you should teach your trained puppy some manners towards his betters, Eldara. He needs a leash to keep him in line.”

  Dean lurched towards the vampire at the insult, but Ashley barred his way with her arm, demonstrating surprising strength as she stopped his advance without much effort at all. Dean stopped and looked at her. It was like he had run into a chest-high iron bar.

  She shot him a glance and said, “If you lay hands on him, Dean, my protection is negated. As long as you do not initiate violence against him, my aura extends over you. Remember that you are a healer, not a warrior.”

  Artur smirked at the exchange. Dean could see h
e thought he had won the encounter, and struck at the pair with more of his smug words. “It’s too bad your girlfriend’s protections can’t watch over everyone you care about, Mr. Flynn. If you are not careful, you might lose your entire little response team.” He finished with a wide grin, exposing his sharp, elongated canines. The grin abruptly disappeared with Ashley’s next words.

  “My sister sends her regards, vampire. I would think that you would steer well clear of any Eldara and her friends, considering how anxious she is to have words with you again.”

  All semblance of calm humor was wiped away from Artur’s face. Dean now saw something else in his eyes. Was it fear? He couldn’t be sure, but their adversary took a step backward before he stopped at the wall. His eyes darted up and down the hallway as if looking for something, or someone.

  “No,” Ashley said. “She’s not here. At least, not yet. She has another task to complete, but she wanted me to tell you that she hasn’t forgotten the Crimea, or Antietam, or Saigon for that matter. If I were you, I’d conclude my business here quickly. I don’t know how soon she will be finished with what she is doing, but I’m assured she will be coming here next.”

  Artur looked thoughtful for a moment. “You are telling the truth. I know you cannot lie, but why tell me this? Is it perhaps because you want me to hurry my plans for Elk City?” He paused and matched Ashley’s determined stare for a time before continuing with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I care not. My plans are all in place and will proceed with or without me at this point. I will be leaving town soon anyway. Nice try, Eldara.” He waggled his finger in the air at her, then moved past them in the hallway gliding towards the elevators.

  Dean watched him go and when the vampire turned the corner, started to say something, but Ashley laid a finger on her lips and shook her head. She took him by the hand and led him the rest of the way down the hallway to their adjacent apartments. Dean took out his keycard and unlocked his door. She pushed past him inside and pulled him in after her. Once the door was shut, she waived a hand in the air over it and then turned to him.

  “We can talk now, no one can hear us,” she announced. She looked squarely at Dean. There was anger in her eyes. “What were you thinking out there? You can’t take him in a straight up fight. Artur would tear you apart before I could do anything to stop him. My protection is very specific and peaceful in nature. Were he to attack you first, my lingering aura would cause him great injury. Even then he would destroy you with little thought if he wanted to. He knows he would heal eventually.”

  “I couldn’t let him just walk by without knowing what I want to do to him,” Dean argued. “He needs to know that I’m on to him, and I will hunt him down. That was not an idle threat.”

  “Men!” Ashley said, throwing her hands in the air and walking across the living room to the large window. She turned and glared at him. “I just told you that you aren’t powerful enough to stop him on your own. He is a very ancient vampire. James and Rudy together would be hard-pressed to best him, and the two of them are extremely powerful.”

  “But you could take him, right?” Dean asked.

  “I’ve told you, Dean. I’m a healer,” Ashley explained. “My powers give life; they don’t take it. I can defend myself, and to a limited extent, defend you from his attacks, but that is all.”

  “But he seemed very afraid of what your sister could do, would do to him.”

  “That is different,” Ashley said. “Ingrid is a warrior angel, a Valkyrie. Her powers are all about fighting and strength and war. She would defeat him handily, and make it look easy. That is why I invoked her here. I wanted him to think she was aware of where he was based on her previous encounter with him. It was enough to get him to back down.”

  “So, she’s not coming?” Dean asked.

  “Oh, she is coming now,” Ashley said with a laugh. “I told you. I invoked her. When I told him my sister sends her regards, it connected her to the conversation. I could feel her amusement as she sort of jumped in to overhear the conversation. Based on the response I could sense from her, she is definitely on her way. She has a very old score to settle with Artur.”

  “Well good, then she’ll take care of Artur for us,” Dean said.

  “No, Dean, we don’t want that. Ingrid brings a certain, uh, level of turmoil, shall we say. When she visits somewhere, it is usually because of a war and the chaos that war brings with it. She can be much more direct than I have to be under normal circumstances. No one notices when strange things happen in a war zone. When she gets here, it is going to take all my energy to keep her from razing the center of town trying to get to Artur.”

  “Oh,” Dean said. “I didn’t realize she had that kind of power. When will she get here?”

  “She’s somewhere in the Middle East right now,” Ashley said. “People have been fighting each other there for millennia, so she likes to hang out there. I did sense she is annoyed, so that means she has to finish some task there before she can leave to come here to renew her feud with Artur. My guess is it will be somewhere between a few days to a few weeks until she arrives. That means that we have that long to finish what needs to happen here before she gets here and really messes things up. Like I said, she is anything but subtle.”

  “And this is my fault?” Dean asked. “What did I do?”

  “You provoked Artur. That made me take steps to get him to back down,” the Eldara explained. “Now events are in motion that I have no control over and the future, which was cloudy already, is now so dark as to be invisible. You and James are going to be forced to make your decision early, maybe in the next two or three days. Beyond that, I can see nothing anymore.”

  Dean considered what she said. He was startled by her worry about the coming of her sister. It took a lot to get her to worry; in fact, through all of this going on since he had known her, he couldn’t remember her being truly worried about anything. Even so, he wasn’t sorry he provoked Artur to take direct action. If it got the vampire to step up his timetable by bringing Ashley’s sister into it, so be it. He wanted all of this to end in Elk City. He wanted things to go back to normal where he could just be a paramedic again. People he cared about were getting hurt. It had to stop.

  Dean met her stunning green eyes. “All I know, Ash, is that the sooner we get rid of Artur and The Cause, the sooner we can get people back to getting the help they need from the paramedics at Station U. Is that wrong?”

  “No, sweetie, it is never wrong to wish for things to be better than they are,” Ashley replied, her eyes softening with her smile. “I often forget that being human brings a sense of urgency of purpose that those of us with a longer life-view don’t have. It is one of the things I cherish about you all. You want to cram so much into your brief lifespan, to try and accomplish every potential task set in front of you. It is an admirable quality to have. Look, let’s get to bed and get some rest. That way we’ll be ready to see what we can do once Rudy and his security team have some information we can act on,” Ashley started to head into Dean’s bedroom.

  “I’m not that tired, Ash,” Dean said. “I slept all morning after last night’s course of events.”

  “Well, then,” she said, looking back over her shoulder with a smoldering glance. “I’ll just have to figure out a way to wear you out so you can sleep better.”

  ———

  Dean woke up to the sound of his phone buzzing on the nightstand. He was curled around Ashley in bed. He rolled over, careful not to jostle his sleeping partner. Picking up the phone he saw it was Celeste. He swiped the phone screen to answer.

  “Go for Dean,” he said, his voice cracking from lack of use.

  “Hi Dean, it’s Celeste,” the voice on the other end said in her characteristic southern drawl. “Rudy’s team thinks they’ve found Gibbie. He wanted me to let you know, in case you wanted to be in on the rescue.”

  “You bet I do,” Dean said, jumping out of bed and to his feet. “Where should I meet him?”


  “Rudy is waiting downstairs in the garage,” Celeste said. “He wants to leave quickly, can you get downstairs in ten minutes?”

  “Easily. In fact, tell him I’ll be there in five,” Dean said. He hung up and started to get dressed, pulling on pants and looking around for a shirt.

  Ashley stirred and rolled over, propping up on one elbow, watching him. “What is it?”

  “They think they found Gibbie,” Dean said. “Rudy is waiting downstairs for me. He asked me to go along on the rescue attempt.”

  “That sounds risky; please be careful,” Ashley said. “I can’t come along; I have to get ready for work. Text me as soon as you know anything. In fact, text me every hour or so, so that I know you’re alright.”

  “Got, it,” Dean said. He leaned over to grab a quick kiss from Ashley. She latched on to him and planted a sensuous kiss on him that left him breathless.

  “That is to make sure you know how much you have to live for,” Ashley said shaking a finger at him. “Don’t go doing anything stupid. Let Rudy’s goons take the chances. They regenerate.”

  “I’m perfectly happy to let them take the lead, Ash,” Dean said after catching his breath. “I’m going to consider myself tactical medical support. I fully plan on being back in this bed with you later tonight. Deal?”

  “Deal,” Ashley replied. “Alright, go and bring Gibbie back safely. I’ll be watching for your updates.”

  Dean left the room, grabbing his trauma and med bags, along with the heart monitor. He didn’t want to keep Rudy waiting. Gibbie was depending on them.

  Chapter 74

  Rudy was in the underground garage of the Nightwing building, sitting in a black Ford Expedition. The engine was idling, and the werewolf leader was on his phone as Dean approached. He loaded the medical bags in the back seat and climbed into the passenger side, buckling the seat belt as he settled in. He looked to Rudy, who held up a finger while he continued talking on the phone.