Frost Bite

by S A Magnusson

  More and more people appeared, a dozen. Two dozen.

  Power flashed, and light glowed along the street.

  Barden sank to his knees.

  It wasn’t a stretch to say Barden wasn’t going to be able to stay up for long. I released my flow of magic through the circle and raced over to him. When I did, his protection collapsed, and I reached for him. He rolled his head toward me, meeting my eyes. “Dr. Stone…”

  I looked around the street. There were others, and power began to surge around us, battering at me, leaving my skin taut. I didn’t know how much longer be able to withstand it, but the more I felt it, the more certain I was Barden had summoned his Dark Council mages.

  The only problem was, I couldn’t be sure if they were on time.

  “I need to get you to the hospital,” I said.

  “No hospitals.”

  “I’m sorry. In this, you don’t get to choose.” I threw his arm around my shoulders, making him help as I dragged him backward, away from the fighting. And it was fighting, though I had no idea how long it would last. Occasionally, blasts of light would surge, and each time it did, I turned my head away, afraid the brightness would blind me.

  Barden was heavy, and though I could see the distant lights of the hospital, I didn’t know if I’d be able to make it there with him.

  I didn’t dare either to pause or to turn back and ask for any of the others to help. They were distracted, and I didn’t know how long that distraction would take.

  Movement up ahead caught my attention. Two people were wandering, hand in hand. And they weren’t mages. They weren’t the paramilitary, either.

  “Help!”

  The couple paused, and then one of them broke off, running toward me.

  As I realized who it was, relief swept through me. “Brad. Listen, I’m sorry I’m disturbing your date, but my friend was hurt.”

  Brad slipped his arm around Barden on the other side, taking part of the weight off me. “What happened?”

  “It’s a long story, but he needs help.”

  “Who is he?”

  How was I supposed to answer that? Anything I might say would potentially reveal Barden in a way I didn’t want to. I couldn’t call him my friend, as that would come across as creepy and I knew exactly the way Brad would take it. The wrong kind of rumors would spread.

  “He’s my grandfather.”

  “What did you do to get your grandfather hurt?”

  “I said, I don’t know. We need to get into the hospital.”

  “You know, we could just call the ambulance.”

  “We’re right there,” I said.

  When we reached the woman Brad had been with, he motioned for all of us to keep going. Every so often, a flash of light flickered behind us, and I tried not to jump.

  “Jesus, Stone. I didn’t take you for someone who’d be afraid of a storm.”

  “Let’s just get there, shouldn’t we?”

  “I’m trying to, but your grandfather is heavy.”

  “We can talk about his weight loss needs… only get done with this. I’m sure he would love you to counsel him.”

  “I didn’t say he was fat. I said he was heavy.”

  “That’s kind of the same.”

  “It’s not the same thing, and—”

  “Are you ER docs all like this?” the woman asked.

  “Unfortunately, I’ve known him a long time,” I said.

  We reached the ambulance bay and two nurses came running out to help. Josh dragged a cart with them, and we quickly loaded Barden up on it, dragging him into the emergency room. Once inside, under the lights, Barden looked far paler than I’d expected. How much blood had he lost?

  Probably too much, and I didn’t know if it was even safe for him to get a transfusion. Would it make a difference with a magical user? Not only that but would a transfusion somehow take something away from him?

  I glanced over to Brad and he was helping the team to wheel Barden into one of the trauma rooms. As much as I’d taunted Roberts, he was a skilled trauma doc. He had done a fellowship here, serving the year before Kate, and would be the right person to help Barden.

  The nurses worked quickly, peeling back Barden’s coat, cutting it free with their trauma shears. I could already imagine how he might react when he came around.

  If he came around, I had to tell myself.

  “You can stay here, Stone, but you need to stay off to the side,” Roberts said.

  “I’m going to help.”

  “Not with family, you’re not. Besides, I’ve got this.”

  It was strange standing off the side of the trauma room, knowing that even though I might want to do something to help, Brad wasn’t going to let me. He was right. Barden was in good hands, and if anyone was going to handle this situation, it was him.

  Sliding off to the side, I tried to get a better view. I wanted to see the wound; I leaned forward when they got the skin exposed and frowned.

  I’d seen a wound like that before.

  It was a cross, similar to the wound which had killed the one vampire and maimed another. What was this about?

  Blood continued to pour from it, and the nurses trying to hold pressure weren’t able to do anything. It was almost as if whatever had hit him had acted as a blood thinner.

  What kind of weapon would do that?

  A weapon designed to hurt vampires, specifically.

  As I watched, it appeared as if all the life was flowing out from Barden, flowing out on the table, spilling around the nurses’ hands holding pressure, leaving it so there was nothing we could do for him. A sense of helplessness flooded over me. It was a sense that I hated, and left me raging against it, wanting to do something—anything—other than simply watch Barden as he bled out.

  “What the hell is this?” I spun around and saw Dr. Locks striding into the room, his prodigious belly leading the way. His eyes widened when he saw Roberts. “I thought you were off?”

  “I was off but came across an injury. We’re doing what we can, but…”

  “What happened?” Locks asked as he joined Roberts.

  As much as Locks annoyed me—and everyone in the ER, for that matter—he was smart. Nearly as smart as Kate, though I doubted she would ever make a claim like that about herself. She preferred to downplay her intelligence, something I’d always hated. I wanted her to embrace it, to take pride in her being the brilliant doc.

  “Trauma. Looks like a bullet, through and through, but not any type of caliber or weapon I’ve ever seen. And it’s bleeding. Can’t seem to get it to stop, though I’ve been working on it now for ten minutes or so.”

  “Do we know if he’s on blood thinners?”

  Robert glanced over to me. “It’s Dr. Stone’s grandfather. Do you know if he is on any blood thinners?”

  “I don’t think so. Then again, he’s pretty reserved about his medical history.”

  “You need to have a conversation with them, Stone,” Locks said. “Family members don’t like to have those tough discussions, but there comes a time when we all have to face that. Besides, with you in the medical field, you understand the importance of having those conversations.”

  “Keep him alive, and I will make sure I do,” I said.

  Roberts glanced over to me, warmth in his gaze, and I could tell he was trying to reassure me, but the longer I was here, the more I watched, the less certain I was that there would be anything we could do to help Barden.

  Was this how Kate had felt?

  I knew she had struggled with the fact that medicine had failed her from time to time, especially with some of the strange things she’d been experiencing. The difference between us was that she had access to the kind of magic allowing her to do things I couldn’t.

  That didn’t mean there wasn’t any magic within me.

  I walked around the table, taking Barden’s hand. I embraced that helplessness within me. This time, it wasn’t for myself. I was embracing helplessness in order to protect,
and the longer I did, the more I squeezed his hand, the more I could feel the life draining from him.

  “Don’t go like this,” I whispered. I pushed outward, letting that connection to my magic flow up from deep within me, and rather than doing anything with it, I simply sent it into Barden.

  There was no reason it should work. Had he had more time to work with me, an opportunity to help me understand the nature of my magic, I might have been able to learn a spell that would help. But right now, all I had was power and not even that much.

  The wand in my pocket grew colder.

  That felt like a bad sign.

  I continued to push more power and changed the direction.

  Rather than pushing through Barden, I pushed into the wand, trying to send that magic funneling into it, and from there, tracking it back toward him.

  I had no idea if it would work. I had no idea if it could work.

  I continued to stare at the wound, watching the blood seeping out from around the gauze, the nurses’ work pressing on his shoulder. I swallowed, forcing more and more of that power that flowed from deep within me outward, and strangely, something trembled within me.

  It was a deep sense, and with it came an awareness.

  Kate?

  I could almost believe she was there with me, but rather than her presence, for a moment I felt her power.

  I latched onto it. It bubbled up, flowing out of me, through the wand, and back into Barden.

  As I watched, the bleeding began to ease.

  “There we go,” someone said.

  They removed the soaked gauze and pressed again, but the bleeding had abated.

  The wand started to warm up, though that might just have been my imagination and may only have come from me holding onto it so tightly. I continued to squeeze Barden’s hand, fearing he was still dying, and fearing more that there was apparently nothing I could do for him.

  When x-ray came into the room, I had to release his hand, backing out and joining the others outside.

  Roberts turned to me. “He’s going to make it, Stone.”

  “I’ve been around the ER long enough to know that’s not certain, Brad.”

  “Yeah? I’ve been in enough traumas to recognize a steady heart rate and blood pressure. He might’ve been losing a lot of blood, but he’s tolerating it far better than I would’ve expected given his age. How old is he?”

  Probably in his nineties, but all I said was, “Seventy-two.”

  “Really? Damn. He looks pretty good for… Sorry about that. Anyway, he seems pretty tough. And once we get him stitched up, there’s no reason he can’t pull through this. The bleeding has stopped, I didn’t find any arterial injury, but will have vascular come down and take a look. He’s going to be okay.”

  I took a deep breath, nodding. A wound like that shouldn’t have bled nearly so much, and I could sense from Brad that he wanted to say something more, though what was there for him to say? Neither of us had the answer, and yet, I was closer to understanding the strangeness of what had taken place than he was.

  “Why don’t you go back into the lounge? I’ll give you a call once we have more information.”

  I looked past him, thinking I needed to stay with Barden, but at the same time, there was something else I needed to do. I needed answers as to the type of weapon used and didn’t think I’d be able to get those by sitting around and waiting.

  There was one place I could go, but did I dare go by myself?

  If I didn’t, it was possible others would end up hurt, something I wasn’t willing to risk.

  “That would be great. Thanks for everything you’ve done.”

  “You don’t have to thank me. It is my job, after all.”

  “Yeah, but I did sort of ruin your date.”

  “Nah. It wasn’t going that great anyway.”

  I grinned. “As in you weren’t going to get her into bed on the first date?”

  “Pretty much.” He clasped my shoulder. “Go sit down and rest. You’re not the doctor with this. I know how hard it is but let us do our job and you do yours.”

  19

  After leaving Roberts with Barden, I went to stand outside of the ER. Light from inside glowed softly, giving a little illumination beyond the borders of the door, enough that I found myself standing with my arms wrapped around my body, looking back inside and wondering if I had made a mistake.

  Should I even have brought Barden to this place?

  It hadn’t seemed as if Brad and the others’ interventions were the reason he had turned around. Instead, it was more likely it came from something else, possibly someone else.

  There was a connection between the attack on the vampires and the attack on Barden, and the only similarity was Barden believing he had been assaulted by the paramilitary.

  If it was true—and I could no longer take for granted that it wasn’t—then I needed to figure out why, and what I might be able to do to prevent it from happening again.

  Taking one last deep breath, I headed back into the ER. As I was making my way through, passing by the nurses’ desk, I paused. There was one way I could figure it out, but did I want to challenge Gillespie? I didn’t know enough about him, and certainly didn’t know whether he’d react poorly if I did, but of all the people likely to be involved in what was taking place, he was the one I needed to understand the most.

  I paused at the nurses’ station. “Do you have the resident schedule?” I asked one of the nurses. Tammy was experienced and had been around long enough that she looked at me with surprise, blinking her brown eyes for a moment before shrugging. “I didn’t think you cared which residents were working.”

  “I don’t,” I said quickly—maybe too quickly, “but I want to give one of the interns an update on a patient we were caring for. I don’t know when he’s supposed to be working again.”

  She pulled the schedule off the shelf and handed it over to me. I flipped through, looking to see if he had been working that day and if so, when he would’ve gotten off. Residents typically worked twelve-hour shifts, unlike attendings where we preferred to limit it to eight, and I didn’t know if he had worked recently. He was doing the ER schedule, so I should be able to find him, but couldn’t spot his name on the list.

  “Where is Gillespie’s name?”

  “I don’t know. That’s not the kind of thing I bother to keep track of,” Tammy said.

  “He’s been working here this week, but I don’t see his name on the schedule.”

  “Probably an oversight.”

  That was strange. The interns were in their second month, and as I flipped through it, I didn’t see any listing for Gillespie.

  Flipping forward through the schedule, I didn’t see others with it, either.

  “Do you have a list of the residents?”

  “It’s over there,” Tammy said, waving toward the cabinet.

  Cautiously, I headed over to the cabinet and looked at the pictures. Each year there were twelve residents. As I scanned the faces, I recognized several of the interns I had worked with, but none was Gillespie.

  “Shit,” I whispered.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing,” I said. I handed the schedule back and took a seat for a moment before jumping to my feet. There was no way he wasn’t an intern, was there?

  People didn’t just fake that. No way would it slip through.

  Then again, what was one more person in the frantic ER?

  Why?

  The answer came to easily. Gillespie had already told me why he was there and what he was after, and—hell—he’d even challenged me about why he was there, making me feel guilty about questioning him.

  And it turned out I had every reason to question him.

  Damn, but I still felt like a fool.

  I got to my feet, heading to the lounge. I needed to find a computer but all of them were occupied. There was a second-year resident I knew and had worked with, and I took a seat next to Jakob.

  “He
y.”

  He glanced up, pushing his glasses back on his sharp nose. “Hey, Dr. Stone. Is there an issue?”

  “No issues. I just wanted to ask your opinion about one of the interns.”

  “Listen, I don’t really want to get into that sort of thing. You know how it is. We have to work together often enough that—”

  “I understand how it is. I just want to know if you’ve had any experience working with Matt Gillespie.”

  “I’ve seen him around. He’s good. Never misses anything. Keeps his documentation accurate. Most of the attendings have enjoyed working with him.”

  He said the last with a hint of suspicion, and I ignored it. “Yeah. He’s been fine to work with.”

  “Then why are you asking me?”

  “I just heard a report he might have missed something with a patient, is all. I’m trying to gather all the information I can before bringing it to the rest of the attendings.”

  His eyes widened slightly, and he nodded quickly. “I haven’t heard anything, but I can ask some of the others in my year.”

  “Will you do that?”

  Jakob set up a little straighter, nodding, and turned back to his computer when I got up.

  I couldn’t believe what I was thinking.

  What I needed to do was find out if he was even an MD.

  What had he told me about himself?

  School—somewhere out east after the military. He came to the Midwest—and this residency in particular—because it was one of the best.

  All of that was believable. We did get residents from all over, so for him to make a statement like that, how could I think anything other than that it was the truth? It would be all too easy for someone to come in, claim they were a resident and tag along seeing patients. It was probably easy to get an ID badge, though if he was paramilitary as he said, I could see him having forged it as well, and if that was the case, then shouldn’t we have a record of it?

  I needed to know.

  The hospital kept a list of credentialed providers that would be harder to fake. There were background checks, proofs of education, other sorts of things I doubted anyone could easily falsify. I logged on, punching in his name. No record of a Gillespie.