Out of Nowhere (The Immortal Vagabond Healer Book 1)

by LeClerc, Patrick

  Out Of Nowhere

  Patrick LeClerc

  Firedance Books

  First published in the UK by Firedance Books in 2012.

  Copyright © 2012 Patrick LeClerc.

  The right of Patrick LeClerc to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cover design copyright © 2012 Rebecca Kemp.

  All rights reserved.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or commerce, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  ISBN: 978-1-909256-08-8

  Firedance Books

  firedancebooks.com

  Acknowledgements

  I’d like to thank Gary, for herding the cats and enduring my outbursts, Ray, Tim, Kevin, Steve, Ren, Louise, Janet and Julie, who suffered through the early drafts, and my lovely wife Rebecca who stayed with me even when I chose to add “writer” to a description that already included “short, angry and often fired.”

  Last, I’d like to thank the EMTs and Paramedics I’ve worked with, who inspired much of this story.

  Chapter 1

  THE HEAVY STEEL DOOR WASN’T LOCKED, but, like every utility room door I’d ever encountered, it was stuck. Grunting in pain, I pushed down on the handle with my good hand and slammed my shoulder into it. It yielded with a screech of protest and I staggered into the room, managing to close it before collapsing against the far wall. I sat on the floor with my back against the cool bricks. I couldn’t hear any sound of pursuit, but hearing anything over the blood pounding in my ears would have been a trick.

  My left wrist was broken, no doubt about that. Any pressure on the forearm brought waves of queasy grey pain. I’d also turned my right ankle in a spectacular tumble down an iron staircase. It would have been worse if the guy I’d been wrestling hadn’t broken my fall. I wasn’t sure if he was dead or just unconscious, but he was unlikely to come though the door any time soon. A few of my ribs were probably cracked, or at least bruised; I felt a cramping stab every time I tried to breathe deep. Other than that, a few cuts, scrapes and bruises, but nothing I couldn’t recover from. My lungs worked like a bellows. A shallow, painful, tentative bellows, maybe, but a bellows just the same.

  I’d managed to keep a grip on my pistol. I clutched the .45 in my uninjured right hand like a heroin addict clutching his next hit. The slide hadn’t locked back, so there was still a round in the chamber. How many left in the magazine I couldn’t say.

  I really wished I could. I replayed the last few minutes over and over and tried to count, but I couldn’t swear how many shots I’d fired. Certainly three. Maybe six. I argued with myself until it seemed too much like Dirty Harry, and gave it up as a bad job. I certainly wasn’t feeling lucky.

  There was a full magazine in the pocket of my jacket, but changing magazines would require me to move, which hurt, and a large part of me argued for just making do with whatever was left in the gun.

  My wiser if less kind self overruled that thought. It was possible that I was down to my last round, and if they burst—no, let’s be honest:—when they burst through that door, a single bullet wasn’t going to do the job.

  I steeled myself, remembering my training. It’s just pain. Pain is only sensation. Messages from the nerves, dispatches from the front. Like a cool breeze off the ocean or the smoky bite of a good whisky or the touch of a woman. A sensation to be savored, proof that life still beat in the breast. It was all in how you chose to interpret those tiny electric impulses. Take the pain. Let it wash over you and enjoy it just to spite it. You know what you need to do: just do it.

  I pressed the magazine release with my right hand, dropping the spent clip. My mind still rebelled at the thought of rummaging in my pocket with a broken left hand, so I engaged the safety, tucked the pistol under my arm and dug out the full magazine with my right hand. I slotted it clumsily into the butt of the weapon one-handed, then took the grip in my hand and pressed the magazine home on my knee, sighing in relief as I felt it click into place.

  Since I knew there was a round chambered, I didn’t have to try to operate the slide one-handed. I took aim at the door, resting my shooting arm on my raised right knee. I’d have preferred a two-handed grip, but having my injured wrist anywhere near the weapon when it recoiled didn’t bear thinking about. Now any attempt to move it elicited a twinge not unlike someone stepping gently on my left testicle.

  By the time I finished moving, my breathing was ragged, I was running with sweat and the world was fuzzy and grey through a haze of vertigo. Just my body’s way of letting my mind know that while it would follow orders, like the jaded, cynical old soldier it was, it wasn’t buying any of the Zen bullshit about pain that my oh-so-gullible brain was selling.

  I tried to slow and deepen my breathing, as much as the pain in my side would allow, and the dizziness and nausea ebbed enough that the world swam back into sharp focus.

  It was largely wasted on the room. It seemed to be a custodian’s office. Cheap desk, broken office chair with torn Pleather upholstery, an olive drab file cabinet covered in stickers—Harley Davidson, Teamsters, Aerosmith, Lynyrd Skynyrd and some Harry Crumb artwork—and a selection of mops, brooms, and cleaning supplies on a steel shelf against a wall. Posters of naked women, expensive cars, and naked women draped over expensive cars. Calendar six months out of date featuring a stunning blonde in a bikini holding a socket wrench. Holding it wrong.

  Yep. Definitely a janitor’s office.

  I concentrated my focus over the sights of my pistol, wondering if there had been some point during the past few days when I could have made a decision to avoid all this.

  I heard my pursuers creeping up to the door, like Sandberg’s fog, on little cat feet. I thumbed the safety off, blowing out a deep breath, calming myself for the confrontation.

  Had I been in a worse spot than this? I must have been. There was the time Cromwell’s cavalry had me cornered in that old stone barn. I had a musket ball in my leg and only a massive wheel-lock horse pistol.

  But at least that time I’d had room to move, things to work with, even if I had to count straw and lanterns. Tools that fit my innate underhandedness. Here there was only one way in or out, nowhere to hide. Not an ideal venue for a quick-thinking coward. More for a stalwart hero, full of stiff-upper-lip, diehard fatalism.

  A good place for a last stand, but I’ve never been a fan of last stands. I always like to think I have a few more stands in me.

  Lewie Puller would have liked it. Probably would have said how the setup saved us the trouble of going out and finding the sons of bitches. But he was a head case. And apparently bulletproof. I don’t ever remember seeing him take cover, but all through Central America and the Pacific and Korea he never got wounded. I didn’t feel comfortable in a uniform until it had mud and grass stains on it, and I still caught my share of incoming.

  I always got better though.

  I hoped I’d have the chance this time.

  I watched the door over the sights of the pistol, trying to control my breathing to reduce the rise and fall
of the muzzle. Soft footsteps approached the door.

  I concentrated on my sight picture, pushing all the pain and worry to the back of my mind. Wait for the target. Nothing exists but my target and me.

  Suddenly, a movement in the corner caught my eye. A twisting and morphing of the shadows into something...

  Solid?

  Chapter 2

  ‘PARAMEDIC 20,’ THE RADIO CRACKLED, ‘respond to 248 Broadway for the man down.’

  ‘Lovely,’ I muttered. ‘Try to drive slow so I can actually drink some of this hot.’

  ‘20, received. Broadway for the fall,’ Monique said into the mic. ‘You really think you need that fourth coffee?’

  ‘I’m old and tired,’ I said. ‘I need the caffeine to keep up with you.’ Maybe exaggerating a bit, but to a girl her age, thirty was old and tired.

  ‘In your dreams, old man.’ She shot me a wicked grin, a glitter in her eyes that said while she had the face of an angel, her mind was willing to entertain offers from the other team.

  It didn’t take long, maybe four ounces of coffee, before we pulled up on scene. The patient sat in a dirty snowbank on the sidewalk in front of a run-down boarding house known for cheap rooms, a relaxed attitude toward references, indifferent housekeeping and very good prices on heroin. He looked out of place, a well groomed white guy dressed Eurotrash chic in a black sweater, slim cut jeans and a black leather trench coat that suggested a career as a pimp or a Gestapo officer. His face was white as a sheet, a sheen of sweat on his forehead, his right foot turned at an unnatural angle. The engine crew was already on scene, three of America’s Heroes administering the ‘stare of life.’

  ‘Think that’s him?’ Nique asked as the crowd of firefighters all pointed at the man sprawled on the ground.

  ‘That’s why they paint fire trucks red and put all those lights on them,’ I answered. ‘So paramedics can find the patient.’

  Nique pulled the ambulance over and we got out.

  ‘Hey, guys,’ I addressed the lieutenant. ‘Watcha got?’

  ‘Thirty-two-year-old male subject, complainin’ of lower extremity ankle pain after experiencin’ a fall.’

  ‘As opposed to his upper extremity ankle?’ Nique whispered with a grin as she passed me on the way to get the cot.

  ‘I always listen to their report. Makes them feel loved.’ I smiled back, before turning to the lieutenant and pitching my voice appropriately for someone who’s spent twenty years with a bucket on his head next to a blaring siren. ‘Cool. I think we got it, you guys can clear up.’

  Due deference shown to the almighty Fire Department, I could now turn my attention to my patient. ‘Hello sir, I’m a paramedic. How you doing?’

  ‘I... I think I broke my ankle,’ he gasped. ‘I slipped off the curb and twisted it.’

  He had an accent, but I couldn’t quite place it. I’m usually good at that, but this guy’s stumped me. It sounded a little Eastern European, but it wasn’t Polish or Russian, and didn’t feel like Czech or Hungarian.

  ‘Is that all you hurt?’ I asked. ‘You didn’t hit your head or anything?’

  He shook his head, ‘No. Just my ankle.’

  I knelt, carefully removed an expensive Italian loafer and gently palpated the twisted limb. It was displaced, very swollen and clearly broken. I concentrated on the feel of the leg through my fingertips, extending my perception deep beneath the skin, sensing the jagged fragments of bone, the lacerated venules and capillaries oozing blood into the tissues, the inflamed flesh squeezing the nerves, frantic with messages of agony.

  ‘OK sir, I’m gonna have to wrap this up before we move you,’ I said calmly. ‘It’s probably going to hurt.’

  My partner was already walking up with a bath blanket, an ice pack and a roll of tape.

  I sent a small trickle of healing energy though my fingers, quieting the nerves a bit before we moved him. Not much, just enough to take the edge off. I wrapped a folded blanket around the joint, immobilizing it with some two inch tape. Better than trying to strap the thing to a rigid board.

  He held his reaction to a small grunt as we lifted him onto the cot. One of the firefighters tried to grab the patient’s shoulders for Nique, but it made me proud to see her step in his way, cutting him off while appearing not to notice. Looking like she did, she could have completed an entire EMS career without lifting anything over ten pounds, while three cops and an engine crew would watch me carry a burning piano down a spiral staircase without comment. I respected Monique because she never abused that power. She didn’t make a big issue of refusing help, she just did her job well and efficiently and flashed that smile at anyone who might be thinking about getting offended and they’d just melt.

  We got the patient in the truck and Nique got a quick set of vitals while I felt around his ankle. If we left it as is, he was looking at some serious surgery and about a half pound of hardware to fasten all the fragments together. ‘Hmmph,’ I commented.

  ‘BP’s 140 over 84, pulse is a hundred,’ Nique informed me. ‘Line and some morphine?’

  ‘Yeah, he’s real dislocated. I don’t feel any crepitus,’ I lied. ‘But I don’t have a pedal pulse. I’m gonna medicate and reduce it.’

  ‘You got it,’ she replied. Most partners would have questioned what I was suggesting, but we had built enough trust that we were beyond that; another reason I loved working with Nique. She quickly hung a bag of saline. ‘Toss me the narc keys and I’ll draw you up some Vitamin M.’

  I spoke calmly to the patient while I assembled my IV supplies. ‘Sir? I’m going to start an IV and give you some medicine for the pain. Are you allergic to anything? Any other medical problems?’

  ‘No,’ he replied as I tied a tourniquet around his arm and looked over it, shopping for veins. I swabbed a likely candidate with an alcohol pad.

  ‘You’re gonna feel a little pinch.’ I held the skin taut and slid the needle in, seeing the flash chamber fill nicely. He was young and healthy and had nice veins, so I didn’t have to cheat to guide the IV, but I did let a little energy through my fingers to take some of the sting out of it. I quickly hooked up the line, let it run to check it and taped it down.

  ‘Your morphine, sir.’ Nique handed me a syringe. ‘There’s ten milligrams in here.’

  ‘Cool. I’ll give him four, then reduce it. If I need more post reduction, I’ll let you know.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ she said. ‘Anything else I can do for you?’

  ‘Not unless you want to piss off your fiancé. Just a nice easy ride to the hospital.’

  ‘I could tell him you just asked me for a nice easy ride,’ she leered as she got into the driver’s seat.

  ‘He knows me better than that. I’d never ask for nice and easy.’

  I opened up the valve on the IV tubing and let it run as I slowly pushed the morphine, flushing four milligrams in over about a minute. ‘You might feel a little strange,’ I told the patient. ‘That’s normal, but if you start to feel sick, let me know.’

  I moved down to the foot of the cot. Keeping my balance like a sailor on a pitching deck, I knelt by his foot and unwrapped it. I laid my hands on either side of his ankle and concentrated.

  First, I just quieted the nerves, helping to take the edge off the pain. ‘This is gonna hurt, but the morphine will help, and I need to get the circulation back. Ready?’

  He nodded.

  I carefully rotated the foot back into its rightful alignment. I coaxed the bone shards into place, and knit the torn tendons and ligaments, but stopped short of fixing it completely, since after that fall and that pain, something had to look bad for the ER.

  I don’t know why I can do this, I just know that I can. I also learned early on that people distrust what they can’t understand, even a good thing they can’t understand, so I made sure never to fix anyone too much.

  Do that too often and the villagers with pitchforks and torches show up.

  ‘There we go,’ I said, and made a show of checking for
a pedal pulse. ‘Aaaand, we’re back. Damn, I’m good. How you feeling now, sir?’

  ‘Better... better,’ he replied, with a bit less grateful awe than I’m used to.

  I looked up from his foot and noticed something in his eyes, some hint of suspicion, like he knew something was wrong. Or not wrong enough.

  I felt that dry-mouthed falling sensation that comes when someone with a more aristocratic accent than you tells you to fix bayonets and advance across an open field toward some heavily armed and ill-disposed foreigners. To hide my concern, I kept up my banter. ‘Have you at the ER in two minutes. They do good work. Probably be in a cast or a brace for a few weeks. How’s the pain? Need any more morphine?’ Maybe he’d chalk up the suspicion to the drugs, or even forget it.

  ‘No, thank you. It is much better.’

  ‘You sure? I’m just gonna throw it out. Lotsa lucid kids in China would kill for this,’ I joked.

  ‘Again, no,’ he replied. ‘I prefer to keep a... clear head.’

  Something in his tone made my hackles rise.

  Was that the sound of a mob? Was that smoke?

  * * * *

  We dropped the patient at the ER and I tried to shake off my premonition. There’s a fine line between vigilance and paranoia. I reached for my rapidly cooling coffee.

  ‘P-20. Paramedic 20,’ the radio crackled. ‘Respond to 300 Haverhill St, outside in the alley for the stabbing. Ambulance 34 is on scene now. They’ll update.’

  ‘20,’ I answered. ‘300 Haverhill. Meet the BLS outside for the stabbing.’

  ‘Ambulance 34 is Katie and Tina today,’ said Nique. ‘So at least we have competent EMTs.’

  ‘If there aren’t too many uniforms around for Katie to keep her concentration.’

  Nique shrugged. ‘If it’s serious, she’ll focus. If it’s not, who cares?’

  ‘Fair enough,’ I said.

  We drove through the city toward the call, just around the corner from where we’d picked up our friend with the twisted ankle. ‘Busy part of town today,’ I observed.