by Sean Hayden
I turned and looked down at Tony's prone form. I felt relieved I hadn't killed him and a little sorry I hadn't. I resisted the urge to kick him in the head while he lay there, and sat down on an empty vegetable crate someone had left in the dark alley and waited for the boys in blue to show. I didn't have to wait for long either.
The first squad car showed at the end of the alley with lights on and sirens blaring. It echoed down the alley and really began to pierce my ears. Finally, after what seemed to be an eternity, the siren stopped and two cops got out of the car with their guns drawn. One sighted me as they walked slowly down the alley, and the other had his sights on the passed out form of Tony.
"Hands in the air where I can see them!"
"Relax officer, I'm FBI," I shouted back.
They didn't relax their grip or posture as they continued their way down the narrow alley, nor did I expect them to. If someone shouted FBI to me, I probably wouldn't relax until I saw some identification.
"You got any identification?" The cop moved close enough to see it. I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled my badge out. I held it up and the cop leaned in close enough to read it. I expected him to put his gun up, but he seemed unimpressed by my federal identification. I stood and he shifted his gun away from me finally and I walked over to the prone form of Tony.
"He got a little frisky, so I had to knock him out. Could you gentlemen please make sure he makes his way to a holding cell until I can get the reports together enough to file charges?"
"Yeah, we'll take care of him," the taller and older of the two said and turned toward me. "Are you all right agent?"
"Yes," I lied.
I turned toward the entrance of the alleyway and listened. I could hear more cars approaching as their sirens gave me a good measurement of their distance. They seemed loud, but not loud enough to expect them in less than a few minutes time. The two shining examples of Chicago's finest must have heard them too because I heard one of them mutter a mumbled, "Shit!" from behind me. I wondered what he meant, but before I could turn to ask, I felt the bullet hit me square in the back before I heard the report from the weapon. I looked down and actually watched my chest explode in bits of bone and a spray of red mist. "Fuck," I said as I collapsed to the disgusting alley floor.
Chapter 19
I woke with my chest on fire, and a hunger like I had never known before. I couldn't see anything, but smells assaulted me from every direction. I could smell my own blood, I could smell chlorine, and I could smell death all around me like a moldy wet blanket had been thrown over me. It turned out to be a good analogy, because as soon as I thought it, my sense of touch started working and I could feel the blanket or sheet covering me, keeping my eyes from seeing.
I brought my arm up from where it pressed against something cold at my side and pushed the shroud from my prone form. I should have left it where it lay. I looked down in horrid fascination and saw my breasts and skin had been peeled back like the skin of an orange and my ribs had been pulled back and held apart by some sort of metal contraption. I didn't know whether to scream for help or just start sobbing. I looked around the room in a state of panic and realized they had put me in the morgue. One wall of shiny corpse sized doors and the large manila tag tied to my toe had been a dead giveaway. No pun intended.
I took stock of my situation. I had heard of bad days. I had even had a few of them myself. Getting a decent vampire killed and my partner kidnapped certainly qualifies. Ever woken up in a morgue with your flesh peeled back and your ribs spread open with all your organs exposed? I might have just set a record and thought I should get a medal.
I raised my hand up off the cold morgue table and reached for the rib spreader. It felt cool to the touch and was covered in my blood, fantastic. I had no idea how the damn thing worked and I didn't want to cause any further damage to my ribs. Along the shaft of the cruel looking instrument lay what looked like the crank handle of a vice. I could do this. All I had to do is turn it, right? I gingerly grasped the handle and turned it a little to the right. I nearly screamed as I felt the contraption spread farther apart. I remembered the righty tighty lefty loosey mantra my aunt muttered every time she used a wrench around the house. Who would have thought it would apply to a rib spreader. Slowly I turned it to the left and felt the strain on my rib cage lessen immensely, whew.
I kept turning and turning and finally I could turn the device sideways and remove it from my chest, and now the fun part. I grabbed my ribs and pulled them together. I didn't know what else to do. I broke an antique ceramic bell once my aunt had been particularly fond of. She went to the store and bought a little bottle of superglue and made me fix it. The only manufacturing defect of superglue is the fact you have to sit there motionless for quite a while before the two sides bonded. This felt vaguely similar. The only difference is this time I prayed.
I sat motionless for the better part of five minutes. Trust me when I say it felt a lot longer. Finally I built up enough courage to let go and see if my body had enough strength to heal itself. My ribs didn't go "shproing" and pop back open so I took it as a good sign. Very, very, very carefully I grabbed the most predominant rib on either side of my chest and gave a little tug. Thanks be to the gods, they held. There are things nobody should have to do in their life, this being one of them.
Without trying to think about it too much I grabbed my peeled-back flesh and pulled it over my ribs like a blanket. Of course the medical examiner chose the exact moment to return from whatever he had been doing. I turned my head to look, hands covering my smallish breasts, when I saw his eyes roll back in his head as he fainted. My own head winced as I heard his hit the cold concrete floor with a sickening thud. I resisted the urge to rush over to him to make sure he wasn't dead from a heart attack. I had my own problems to deal with.
I realigned the flesh so it wouldn't heal crooked (you're a pretty girl, but your breasts look a little uneven). This time I didn't pray, just watched my flesh as it reknitted. If I ever had another press conference and somebody asked me what I thought my greatest vampiric ability is, I would have to indubitably say it's the healing. Not even a scar remained as my skin forced itself back together like melted plastic. I sighed with relief because I knew I would be okay. I might need a little therapy, but I would be okay.
The covering still hanging over my lower extremities felt wet and caked with blood. I really didn't want to have to use it to cover myself while I searched for something to wear. The medical examiner lay either dead or unconscious on the floor so I threw decorum out the window and tossed the sheet aside.
I swung my feet over the side of the table and let myself drop the remaining foot and a half to the cold floor. I felt a little jar in my chest which let me know I wasn't at a hundred percent. Then the hunger hit. I must have used the very last of my energies in healing. I had no idea how much time had passed, so I don't even know how long I had taken to even wake up from my "nap". I needed blood, and I needed it now.
I glanced around the room and found a cabinet. Of course somebody had locked it. Why would anyone lock anything in a morgue? I grunted at the stupidity of it and turned my hand. I felt the metal groan in protest and then snap. The door swung open and I hit pay dirt. Fresh linens for covering corpses, boxes of latex gloves, boxes of surgical masks, and an ample supply of hospital scrubs filled the shelves. I had hoped for just a blanket, but the medical scrubs had been a gift sent from the gods. They must keep spares in here in case they have to autopsy a particularly squirty dead person, happy me. I searched through the stack and found the smallest size. Apparently there aren't too many short, skinny medical examiners.
I slid the garments on and rolled up the pant legs so I wouldn't walk around looking like a kid in footy pajamas. Then I turned my attention to the prone examiner still unconscious on the floor. I needed blood, I needed it now, and he knew where I could get it. I raced over to him as fast as my exhausted body could get me there and knelt down by his head. I considered
slapping him awake, but my conscience reminded me he had already suffered one too many blows to the melon. I found a sink on the wall by the door so I stood and filled my hand with cool water from the faucet, returned and let it dribble down on the man's face.
He sputtered as his eyes shot open. He paled as his gaze locked onto my face and recognition made him almost faint again. He slid backwards across the floor to the wall behind him and slid up into a sitting position. He only wanted to put as much distance between him and me as humanly possible.
He stared at me in open horror and kept blathering phrases like, "Not possible," and, "Help me God.” I felt for his false sense of peril, but I needed blood.
"Doctor," I said in a firm tone to try and calm him. I must have failed miserably because I saw his skin pale even further. "I'm not going to harm you!"
"W-w-what?"
"I said, I'm not going to hurt you. I just need your help. I need lycanthrope blood," I stressed the lycanthrope so he knew I wasn't going to eat him. "Does this hospital stock any, please?"
"Y-y-yes," he said. He must have believed me because he turned a little less pasty.
"Could you please get it for me? I have absolutely no strength," I said. I made myself proud for not begging. I even added another, "Please," for good measure.
"How are you alive?" He made no motion to move.
"I will answer all your questions, but I have to eat doctor, now."
He nodded and I saw him steel himself against his fear and he rose and sped through the door. I did the only thing I could do. I lowered myself to the cool floor and waited. I focused on the humming of the overhead fluorescent lighting to try to distract myself from my own hunger. It wasn't working very well. It started to consume me from inside out. Luckily I didn't have long to suffer. I heard the doctor's rapid footfalls coming down the hallway at a pace an Olympic sprinter would have been proud of. His weren't the only ones either. I heard several other pairs behind him and what sounded like something on wheels following behind him.
He burst through the door and found my prone form not far away. He screeched to a halt only a foot away and knelt down beside me. I felt him press a cool bag into my hand and I brought it to my mouth like an apple. My fangs pierced the plastic and my mouth flooded with exactly what I needed. The blood felt too cold, but even at the extremely low temperature I felt heat return to my limbs, return to my face, and then it even creeped its way to my fingers and toes. I felt a thousand times better than I had moments before.
I tossed the first away and I felt a second press itself into my hand. I had enough sensibility to unplug the little stopper at the bottom of the bag and drink like a lady instead of a blood starved fledgling. The multitude of people flooded in through the door and I glanced up from my tasty snack. What I had heard on wheels looked like a compact hospital gurney being raced down the hallway. I didn't stop drinking as I felt hot human hands grasp my limbs and lift me off the floor onto the chemical smelling mattress. My day started to look a little brighter.
They pulled me out of the morgue and into the dimly lit hallway outside. I answered questions about my health as I went for my ride. I expected them to push me into an elevator and take me to the emergency room, but we stayed on the same floor and they ushered me farther into the recesses of the hospital. I saw a sign on the wall labeled supernatural ward and I realized why we hadn't gone for an elevator ride.
The medical examiner raced past us and opened the set of double doors leading into the ward and as we passed by he gave me a small smile. He must have felt really guilty for cracking my chest open. It wasn't until we had made it into a private room he started barking orders like a World War II general.
As it turned out he wasn't the medical examiner. He had the job of being the head of the supernatural treatment facility at the hospital. That’s why he had been performing my autopsy. His doctorate was in supernatural biology and medicine, lucky me. I had been brought in DOA with over seventy-five percent of my heart missing. When he opened my chest he had found it with little over 25 percent gone. I had nothing on the EEG at the time of my arrival so he had assumed it had been either a clerical error, or somebody had misjudged the extent of my wounds through the big gaping hole in my chest. The bones of my ribcage must have reknitted themselves while he had been searching for the doctor in the emergency room who had pronounced me dead, really dead, not just mostly dead.
He described in great detail the bloody mess my chest cavity had been and why he had gone on with the autopsy. He kept repeating he had no idea I would come back from such a wound. He had apparently been treating vampires and lycanthropes for many, many years and had never even thought such a thing could be possible and he felt very, very horrible. He either thought I would eat him, or worse sue him.
"Doctor…" I started as to inquire his name and he rewarded me with "Simms". "I can assure you I am quite an anomaly among my kind. My body is different in a few ways which remain unclear to even myself; you couldn't have known."
He gave me a smile and then a look of utter and complete disbelief as he hooked me up to an EEG and flipped the machine on. When I had subjected myself to medical testing in Quantico, I had been x-rayed, cat scanned, probed, and prodded, but I had never been hooked up to an EEG. I heard the blaring buzzer which told the medical staff I had moved beyond the realm of the living, but had no idea if it was normal.
I looked over at Doctor Simms and he stared at me like I had grown several extra appendages and shrugged. I didn't know what else to do. When he finally let himself believe I wasn't dead, or completely dead, he flipped the machine off and removed the little pads from my forehead. "Anomalies," he said with a smile.
"Yes, anomalies," I smiled back
"How are you feeling, Agent Ashlyn?"
"How did you know my name?"
"We have the remains of your suit jacket and shirt and the rest of your personal items over in the morgue. Your Special Agent in charge of the Chicago office is on his way to pick them up and identify your remains," he said with a smile to soften the irony of the situation.
"Uh oh, I guess I got some splainin to do, eh," I said in my very, very best Ricky Ricardo accent.
My wit earned me a smile from Simms while he moved around the room checking me over with various implementations of torture, I mean medicine. Finally he shrugged his shoulders and gave me a blank stare.
"I don't know what to tell you. By my reckoning you're perfectly fine. You shouldn't be, but you are. Most supes are a little different from each other in terms of treatment. I hate to admit it, but you are a complete mystery. What makes you so different?"
"I wish I knew, doctor," I lied through my teeth. I needed another doctor wanting to publish papers about me like I needed another hole in my head. I trusted the good doctor, but not with my secrets.
"I'd like to keep you for twenty-four hours for observation if you don't mind,"
"It depends, how long have I been here and what time is it?" My concerns had shifted from my hunger to Michaels. I needed to get to him and fast. If Cicero thought I wasn't going to be bothering him anymore, he would either let Michaels go, or kill him. I sincerely doubted it would be the former.
"They brought you in last night with the gaping chest wound; it's almost 6 p.m. now," he said after glancing at his wrist watch.
"Sundown is in a half hour. I'm sorry doctor, you have me till then."
For some reason it seemed as if he expected my answer. He sighed resignedly and continued filling out information on a chart he had started on me. I sat back in the bed and contemplated my next course of action. I needed to have a plan before Reese got here. At least he would be mightily surprised to see me up and walking.
"Well I might as well go tear up your death certificate and fill out your discharge papers," he said on his way out the door.
"Doctor, if it wasn't a matter of life and death, I'd stay," I lied to the kindly man.
"Sure."
I watched his back as he exi
ted the room and made his way down the hall. I lay back on the highly uncomfortable hospital mattress and did the only thing I could; wait. I closed my eyes and tried to picture the sun in my mind's eye. I could feel it hovering over the horizon, beginning its final descent and plunging the streets of Chicago into darkness. Less than half an hour separated me from saving Michaels, if he still lived. Please gods, let him be alive.
I debated turning on the small television to help pass the time, but as soon as I reached for the remote perched on the small table next to the bed I heard rapid footfalls emanating from the hallway as somebody approached my small room. I looked up to see a haggard and exhausted Reese enter my room and just stare at me like he saw a ghost. I offered up a tiny smile and a little shrug. I didn't know what else to do. I expected him to start yelling at me for being stupid enough to get shot and almost end up dead. What I didn't expect him to do is take a very large breath, sink to the floor and almost start crying.
"Reese, I'm okay," I offered meekly. I needed him, and I needed him with all his wits about him. "Apparently I'm a tough bugger to kill. I don't have a lot of time, sundown is in less than twenty minutes, and they have Michaels."
My information snapped him out of his reverie of gratitude to whatever gods the man prayed to. He quickly stood and made his way quickly to my bedside. "What are you talking about?"
"Didn't Thompson tell you?" As I said the words realization dawned on me. Reese hadn't heard or seen Thompson since last night. Thompson had to be the one who sold me and Michaels out to Cicero. Anger flooded my veins. I had really liked Thompson, and now I wanted to kill him. My hands gripped the metal rails of my hospital bed and I shrieked as I tore them from their welded fastenings and threw them against the wall.
"Ashlyn," Reese yelled to calm me down before I totally demolished the white washed hospital room.