by Jasmine Walt
They reached the barrier of ice and sleet and she struggled to see, the ice bits stinging her face with sharp bites. She blinked, scrunched her face, tried to wipe her eyes with her sleeve, anything to keep her vision clear.
After what seemed like forever, in the distance, she finally spotted the shimmering, lacey sparkles surrounding her property. Can Red Spotted Dick get through that? Is it some kind of protection spell I never knew about? What a stupid thought. Magic against men with guns. Bah!
Her ghosts clung to her shoulders like streamers, waving behind like a cape ripped to pieces. Lungs heaving, muscles burning, she heard the whine of a snowmobile to her rear. Shit. Just a few more yards and we’re there. She crouched slightly, tucking her ski poles under her arms like a slalom downhill racer. The dogs raced ahead of her, the husky pausing now and then to look back. “Go!” she shouted.
The engine noise grew louder. Gunshot ripped through the sleet. A dog yipped and fell.
“Oh, no!” She and the husky zipped past the fallen form, red blood oozing into the white terrain. She fumbled for her gun, taking a couple wild, one-handed shots into the night in the direction of the gunshots, letting the ski pole dangle from her wrist. Unable to keep her balance, she fell onto her side. The husky yelped, jerked by the straps. She scrambled to her feet, replaced the skis and away they went. “Come on, Cecil, keep going.”
A gun was fired from the other direction.
“Fuck! We’re surrounded!” She poured every last ounce of strength into her still clumsy limbs, poling with her arms, pushing with her legs. From what she could tell, guns were blazing from every direction.
She raced toward the dome shaped force field filaments surrounding her property. “Come on,” she breathed. “Come on, you can do it.” She willed herself onward, imagining a riding crop slapping her flanks to get her across the finish line.
As her ski tips sailed through the shimmering filaments, a gunshot rang through the air. A horrid sensation sledgehammered into her back. She stumbled and slammed forward into the ground, her head striking something solid, right inside the sparkling, shimmering force field surrounding her property. So much for my twenty-four hours, she thought, before plunging into a black hole of unconsciousness from which she never wanted to emerge.
14
“Come on, woman. Come on. You can do this. You’re stronger than this. Stay with me. Come on. Stay right here.”
Confused and disoriented, Chia slid in and out of consciousness, one minute aware of being held by strong arms, the next, caught by agonizing, burning pain, like a fire blazing through her body, the next, drifting into a warm pool of bliss.
“This is nothing. Flesh wound. You’re stronger than this. You’ve survived worse. Stay with me.”
Each time she came to, she wanted to vomit. She wanted to say “I’m okay, let me up.” But then the nausea took over. Her left eye seemed to be swollen shut. Can’t be the ghosts, right? They haven’t bunched up in my eye, right? Maybe I’m about to die. That will suck. How will I protect the shifters if I’m dead? The arms seemed to rock her, as if she lay in a cradle.
“Stay with me,” the male said. “She’s gone into shock. Do something useful, mutt. Find her goddamned keys. And put some clothes on, for Christ’s sake.”
She was handed off from warm embrace to warm embrace, heard the slamming of doors, the roar of a truck engine, and then, felt the jostle and see-saw lurch of speeding along the road while being held tightly, wrapped by caring arms.
Sometime later, she awoke to the whirring of a helicopter, doors opening, and cold air hitting her face, accompanied by fierce rotor wash from wingtip vortices. My grandpa’s airfield. More strong arms hefted her body, she was placed on some sort of stretcher and found herself being air lifted, needles jabbed in her arms and hand, voices, talking, pulling her away from the darkness she sought.
Still enhanced with vamp energy, eyes closed, she found herself looking through her mind’s eye at the earth below. Like a movie, planet Earth appeared as a vibrant, throbbing, living entity. The trees below, caught in their winter slumber, were waiting for springtime to exhale—literally. Once they bloomed and let go their breath, they’d infuse the planet with oxygen.
The waters were pregnant with life, herring about to make their move to this region, dropping from the tip of the crescent moon according to the native peoples. Once they’d arrive, they’d spawn, lay millions of eggs, and nourish mammals, from the immense humpback whales, the sea lions, and other marine life, to the wolves and bears along the shore, eagles, cormorants, and other birds, and even the forest itself.
The whole incredible, intelligently designed system seemed brilliant, the way the herring roe fed life in and out of the waters, the way the animals and birds feasted on the spawn and fed the soil and the trees. Her resolve to protect and nourish, acting as steward to this slice of life known as Charming, grew even stronger in her drugged out, vamp-enhanced mind.
“You with us, Ms. Petit?” A friendly uniformed male’s face loomed over her.
“I’m here,” she said, weakly. The words came out slurred, like she’d been drinking. She felt a strong hand holding hers and looked over to see Cecil, staring at her anxiously, his glacier blue eyes flooded with worry. Her ghosts lay tucked all around her like small, see-through insulators. Man, this sucks.
The roaring of the chopper ceased, and again she was lifted, placed on another stretcher, and wheeled to an ambulance where still more questions and jabbing needles and soothing voices lulled her into a surreal, morphine fueled landscape. After that, she drifted, sailing through the sky in dreams of owl flight. And then, she slid from sight, into stillness and dark safety, oblivious to the world around her.
“Lil’ Summer. Wake up. Wake up for your dawg-man. Please.”
Chia blinked, wondering where she was. Her mind felt fuzzed with cobwebs of memory. She pushed through the silken strands, caught between dream and sleep, finally landing in a hospital bed in a dimly lit room. Her ghosts appeared unconscious, draped over the sheets like sleeping cats. A needle connected a tube to her hand, snaking up to a bag of clear liquid. Her shoulder had been bandaged and her arm propped up like some kind of table in a hard sling, and monitors surrounded her. Her mouth felt dry and papery. “Water,” she croaked.
The ghosts stirred from their slumber, shook, and drifted into the air like helium balloons.
Cecil, dressed in a nice dark blue and gold flannel shirt and Hung’s pants, his face haggard and lined with worry, trained his blue, blue eyes on her face. “You’re back. I’ve been worried.” He reached for a stainless steel pitcher and poured her a Dixie cup of water. “Here, lil’ Summer. Need help?”
“I don’t think…” She tried to push herself up with one arm. “Okay, maybe a little.”
“I think this bed sits up by itself.” He fumbled with a white gizmo, pressed it and the upper part of the bed slowly lifted.
She gratefully took the water, swishing it in her mouth before swallowing. “Thanks, dawg-man. More please. What time is it?”
“Oh, sometime in the afternoon,” he said as he refilled her tiny cup. “Maybe four. Haven’t paid much attention. Got impatient for you to wake up. You’ve been in and out for a while, now.”
“Crap. How long have we been here?”
“A while. The coast guard picked you up around midnight last night. Took them a while to get to Bewilderment where the closest trauma center’s located. It’s a level three.”
“Excuse me?” Chia winced at the stabbing pain in her shoulder, somewhat dulled by drugs.
“The trauma center. One of the nurses filled me in when we were…”
“Oh, sweet Jesus, if you tell me you screwed one of the nurses to get information…”
Cecil’s brow knit tight. “Hell, no, lil’ Summer! I’ve been by your side the whole time. The nurse and I made a date for whenever you’re better. What kind of a guy do you think I am?”
“Sorry.” Her head fell back agai
nst the pillow.
“The surgeon recently got back from fishing in Canada. You’re lucky, lil’ Summer. He’s the only surgeon in these parts.
“Yay, me,” she said, weakly. “What’s going to happen to my house? I heard Red Spotted Dick say they were going to set off explosions or something to let me know I’m in their sight line. Bastards.”
“Don’t you worry. We’ve got it covered. Your house is protected. Dog pack is going to stay and guard things. And…” He looked away from her, fiddling with the plastic gizmo. “Height okay? Need to go up more? Down? Comfortable?”
“And, what?”
Cecil chewed his lower lip.
“Come on, Cecil. I’m not in the place to figure things out or beg you to tell me things.”
“Well…” He swallowed. “I know you make a show of being all tough about Hung Durand, but the dude saved your life. And he’s going to watch for signs of…what do you call them? Red Spotted Dick?”
“Yeah. Crap. That’s going to make it harder to kill him. Now I’m going to owe him.”
“Don’t be so hard on him. It’s obvious he cares about you. He staunched the blood flow with his own shirt, radioed the coast guard, handed you off to me so I could hold you in the back seat while he drove to where the helo could pick you up.” His fingers worked the cord attached to the bed lift.
If her mind wasn’t so drugged, she might have felt cheered by this bit of news. “Driving what car?”
“Your Jeep. He drove. I held you in the back seat until we arrived at the place. He got you on the stretcher. Told me to stay with you and if I let you out of my sight, I’m a dead dog. I’d have stayed no matter what, lil’ Summer. I don’t need threats to know who my friends are.”
“You’re such a good pal, dawg-man. And Hung’s a…he’s a…he’s somewhat…” Her eyes fell shut. “What do they have me on? My eyelids feel like they’re weighted with sandbags.”
“Morphine cocktail drip. That’s what Annette told me. If you need to adjust it, you can use this. Here. This button right here.” Cecil’s face appeared anxious.
“Thanks, buddy,” she mumbled from her trance-like state. “Things have gotten really, really bad, haven’t they?” She opened her eyes to stare at him balefully.
“They have, true enough.” He chuckled. “Hung said you winged one of them with your wild shots. Probably Dick. Made him laugh. He said the chances of you getting a good shot off were one in a million. Said even he couldn’t get a good sight on them.”
“So he was the other gunner?”
“Seems so.”
“He sure seems to know my property well. It’s like he’s been there before…a lot.”
“He…” Again his eyes slid away from hers.
“Just say it, Cecil.” She blew out her breath wearily.
“He called to check on you. He doesn’t want you to know he called. I gave him my number before we took off with the coasties. Said Red and Dick are laying low. Hiding somewhere. Things got out of hand. They panicked. They didn’t intend to shoot you, at least that’s the word from Charming.”
“Hmmm.” Her eyelids fell shut again. How do people find out these kinds of things? “How long do I have to stay in here? What did they do to me?”
“They had to do surgery. You should let the doctor explain. He’ll be back in the morning. Or I could get Annette.”
“That would be great,” she murmured, halfway to sleep again. When Cecil left, she drifted away, surprised to hear voices a few minutes later. As before, she had to push through the sludge in her brain to focus. Her eyes opened, she blinked, and closed them.
“Ms. Petit,” a lovely young woman said.
“Mmm hmm,” she replied, attempting to pry open her eyelids once more.
“You’re an extremely lucky woman.”
“Define luck,” she mumbled. “I’ve been shot.”
“Better than dead. The bullets missed the lungs, missed the major arteries.”
“Bullets, plural?” Chia asked.
“Yes. You were hit twice.” She tapped the bandage. “Right here. That’s where one bullet entered and exited. The other got your scapula. That’s going to hurt for a while but you should regain most, if not all of your normal limb functions, with good physical therapy.”
“Good to know.” Chia smiled and let her eyelids fall. Too hard to keep them open.
“It’s a miracle that you weren’t hurt worse. I doubt a sharpshooter could hit a target so cleanly.”
“Uh huh,” Chia mumbled.
“Your head injury…that’s what we were most worried about. You have a concussion, true enough. Got a gash in your head where you fell on your ski tip and split your forehead. We stitched it up. Might leave a scar.”
“Uh huh.” She patted her bandaged head with her free arm. “Let me see what I look like.”
Cecil and Annette exchanged glances.
“Come on. Let me see.”
“I don’t…” Cecil began.
“We don’t…” the nurse added.
“Let me see my goddamned face. I want to see for myself what those assholes did to me. I intend payback.”
The nurse left and returned a few minutes later. She handed Chia a mirror.
Chia winced, regarding herself. Her left eye still somewhat swollen, a huge white bandage across her forehead, scrapes and scratches on her cheeks, her arm in a humungous sling, it strangely comforted her to see the damage done. Not as bad as I thought. And it fuels my need for revenge. “This bandage. It goes past my hairline. Did the slice go that far?”
“Yes,” said Annette, reaching for the mirror. “We had to alter your hair somewhat.” She smiled ruefully. “Shave if off in places.”
“That sucks. Pink frosted hair doesn’t come cheap.”
“It’s cheaper than a life. You could have nicked an artery, collapsed a lung…you could be dead now, Ms. Petit. Consider yourself lucky.”
“Oh, I do. Sort of. Real luck would have had me not shot at all. But…I’m good. And tired.” Satisfied with what she’d been told, she fell into darkness once more, soaring on soft, white, downy wings to the soft chatter of Annette and Cecil, planning their date, discussing her options, talking all manner of blah, de blah, blah.
15
As the red and white deHavilland Beaver bush plane approached the landing strip near Chia’s home, Cecil, outfitted with a voice-activated headset, like Chia, said for the thousandth time, “I sure hope nothing happens to you from flying. You sure can be stubborn.”
“Did you want to be transported to a trucker, who would have driven us to the harbor to take a pokey tugboat back to Charming? Or become a dog pulling a sled and show your nurse your true colors? Oh, and face the townspeople first thing?” She flashed him a dark look. “I only want to get home, not take the long, slow way home and face my public.”
“Yeah, but Annette said they strongly advise against flying after a concussion.”
“And I don’t care what Annette advises,” Chia scowled. While she’d been the “patient under observation,” the entirety of the last few days had hit her, hard. She’d slipped into a dark hole of depression and anger, ping ponging between the two until Cecil had stalked from the room in a rare, pissed off mood. And they’d been quibbling ever since.
She shifted in the small seat, attempting to get comfortable. They’d fitted her with a sturdy sling that crisscrossed along her back, holding her broken scapula in place, and bisected her front, making her boobs stick out. A large band, attached to the top straps, wrapped around her waist like a corset. No doubt a man made this device, she grumbled, once she’d been swathed in it. At least it beats the table-like sling. Before, I could have served beer using my arm as the serving tray with my dumb ghosts draped over like towels. She glared at them, as they circled the cockpit, pestering no one but her.
She had no idea what she’d be home to face. Guess I’ll have to deal with my indecision, first, she thought. And find out what’s happened since I’ve
been gone. She looked at Cecil, and narrowed her eyes. “Sorry. While you were off screwing Annette, I had loads of time on my hands to think. My thoughts drifted into the negative.”
“I didn’t simply screw her,” Cecil said, his voice a few decibels louder than needed.
The pilot let out a guffaw.
“We conversed, too. She told me what you should expect as you heal.”
“Why couldn’t she tell me?” Chia supposed she was taking out her bad mood on her buddy but it felt good to let it all out.
“You told her to get lost. You told me to get lost. Where was I supposed to sleep? What was I supposed to do? Sit on my hands until they decided on your release date? I think I’ve been more than a good friend to you these last few days.”
“You two were ridiculously goofy,” Chia said, rolling her eyes. “Oh, Cecil, I’m going to miss you,” she said in a high-pitched voice. “I’ll be back, Annette. Don’t worry, baby,” she countered in a low voice. She pinned him with her gaze. “You know you won’t be back, dawg-man. You’re a nomad, remember? You’re setting her up for heartbreak.”
Cecil’s forehead furrowed. “What’s got you into such a bitchy mood, huh? My business is my business.” His face brightened, as if his inner light bulb lit. “Oh,” he said, stretching out the word. “I’m the one who’s sorry, lil’ Summer. You have every right to be upset. This is about Hung, huh?”
Angry tears pricked at her eyes. “No,” she said, a little too quickly. “It’s about…it’s about everything. That news report…”
“Yeah,” Cecil said. “I should never have turned it on last night.”
“Yes, you should have. I need to know what we’re dealing with when we get home. I wouldn’t have been ready for such mass chaos.” She blew out her breath. “Frankly, I wish I’d violated my own rules and killed Dick. Whoever put him in the hospital I should give an award,” she said, swamped in self-pity. “I’m modifying that frigging self-defense rule. People need to defend themselves.