Hired Luck

by Mel Todd

  The scent of her blood, the sight of her face with empty holes where eyes should have been, and the terror carved into her expression slammed back into me and I flinched. No, there was no way that was fake. I knew what death looked like. She'd been dead.

  Then why? Why nothing? The cops hadn't called again but still, I would have thought there would have been a news story. The fact that it there wasn't a story made my skin crawl even more. I read too many true crime books and it pointed towards a cover-up. The idea of covering up a murder made me want to call the news station immediately but that, I knew, would be the height of stupidity.

  You're used to small town life. This is the big city, maybe it isn't that big of a deal.

  The idea made me vaguely nauseous, that a death like that wouldn't be treated as important. I pushed the thought away; the cops had been too upset. Even Detective Stone had been on edge, though I didn't know about what.

  The question was, what now? Not my business, but I'd found her. I'd been the first person to see her death and try to do something, not that there was much I could do by that point.

  I gave a bitter laugh. I had to know. To get her name and send flowers to her grave if nothing else. I was off on Wednesday. Maybe I could swing by the police station and ask. While I doubted that they would give me much information, surely her name and where she was buried would be information they could share.

  I nodded, even knowing that wouldn't be enough to satisfy me. But I'd learned a long time ago, not all needs were satisfied. With that thought, I snuggled deeper and focused on lunch options. I'd probably have to give up and ask someone. Oh well, friendly they weren't, but hopefully they would answer this.

  Chapter 7

  There are always hierarchies in everything, be it jobs, society, or social groups. Merlins are often regarded with respect by other mages and with fear by non-mages. But while they can do great things at a fraction of the cost that a magician or wizard would pay, they still have limits. No matter what TV or movies shows us, the magic of a merlin is just as subtle and small as that of a hedgemage. ~ Magic Explained

  I'll give it a month. If it isn't better in a month, I'll go find another job.

  At that moment, I didn't know if I hated the shift or if I hated the people I worked with. I would never be a morning person.

  Screw it. I'll treat them like Sam treated everyone he pulled over. Polite but ready to shoot them if they started trouble.

  That I could do. Moving slow that morning, I'd made coffee just as shift started and we were hit with a call as I filled my cup, which meant I was stuck with Jorge before I could ask Lisa any questions. While Lisa wasn't friendly, she at least half smiled at me occasionally. I figured I could ask her more than the others.

  "Huh. Figured after last week you wouldn't show up today," Jorge said as he slid into the other side of the bus. "Thought for sure that drunk driver throwing up on you would have made you run for the hills. All you pretty little things can never handle it when it gets truly messy."

  "I guess I'll take it as a compliment that I'm a pretty young thing." I said it in a Southern drawl, putting a twang on the last word and making it "thang." But then I dropped it and gave him a look. "You did know I graduated from the internship program and was involved in the mass casualty in Rome, right?"

  His head jerked to look at me as the blush from my earlier words started to fade from his cheeks.

  "Wait, the band bus incident?"

  "Yes. I'm from that area so they called me up. I did my internship working as an EMT II for the Rockway Fire Department. I'm not going to say I've dealt with everything, but I've been exposed to a variety of things. And I'm still here." A bit of a challenge came out in that last statement and I lifted my chin a bit.

  "Hmmm," he said, glancing at me, but he didn't say anything else as we were pulling up to the call.

  As always, a moment of trepidation hit me as I stepped out of the bus, but those were getting shorter and shorter. I knew I wouldn't always succeed but my exposure to situations grew every day. So far nothing topped the guy who fell from the sky and pulverized pretty much every bone in his body. And the girl. Her picture flashed in my head again. Wednesday I'd go see about her, or at least ask if they had any info.

  Person stuck in a tree was a new call for me. Which meant as I slid out of the cab and looked around, I expected to see lots of tall trees. Maybe someone wedged in one, or at least someone stuck up a telephone pole. Instead we were surrounded by apartment buildings and strip malls. The area was mostly small apartment complexes, and while there were a few trees, they looked like mostly Magnolias, the young small ones, not the giants. Those could impale a herd of cows if they wanted.

  We looked around and Jorge hit his radio. "Dispatch, we're at the address. Can we get details?"

  "The caller sounds more than a bit intoxicated, but I would head to the back. I think that is where they said they were. They aren't responding to questions anymore, though the operator says he can still hear them."

  I tilted my head, listening and trying to trace something or anything down. "I think I hear something from back here." I hefted the bag up on my shoulder, and headed around the back of the apartment. As soon as I turned the corner, the sound of men and women yelling and shouting became clearer.

  "I thought you said you called 911? Where the hell are they?" a woman's voice all but screeched in panic. "He's going to die up there."

  I picked up my pace a bit. I had to find time to get to the gym. Skinny was one thing but these big bags were heavy. I pushed my way past a wall of hedges and slowed, looking at the throng of people all looking up. I cataloged it all in a snap glance. A grill in one corner, coolers full of beer, and a trash can that looked like it was working hard on being filled with beer cans. Then I followed their gaze up and blinked.

  "Well, that's different," I murmured.

  "Blasted drunk idiots," Jorge muttered and clicked his radio. "Dispatch you need to get a ladder truck out here asap and someone to figure out who owns the cell tower at this location. They're going to need to do repair work."

  Still shaking my head, I took a deep breath and moved forward, taking the lead. While Jorge was senior, there wasn't any need to wait for him—this one was obvious. "You called for assistance?" I pitched my voice to be heard over the chatter. Mrs. MacDowell's drama lessons came in helpful occasionally.

  "Oh finally. You've got to help him," a woman said, rushing over to meet us.

  "What's his name?" I asked, still trying to get a better view of the man stuck up the cell phone tower.

  "Oh, that's Charlie. Well Charles, but we call him Charlie. He's hurt." The woman kept babbling as I set down my bag. I glanced at Jorge quickly to make sure he'd watch it. People raided bags if they weren't watched. He nodded, still talking on the radio. I moved over toward the base of the cell tower. It was one of those fake tree towers with large metal spikes off of it. I peered up closer and saw Charlie had a climbing loop on him. It was probably what kept him up there instead of lying dead at the base.

  "He work some place that he climbs a lot?" I asked looking up at the limp body. Too far away to see details.

  "No. Damn fool bought it at a garage sale and wanted to prove how easy they were to use. He got his ass up there all right but then decided that was too easy and he was going to skip from one branchy thing to another. And well, he slipped and," she sighed and waved her hand.

  "Cori, I'm headed out to wave down the truck. Taking the bag with me. They should be here in a minute." I nodded at him and moved closer to the pole. Red caught my attention and I crouched down to inspect the significant amount of blood on the pole near the base. I looked closely and while it wasn't a huge amount, it was enough that it indicated either bleeding for a long time, or a short serious bleed.

  "How long has he been up there?"

  "About twenty minutes. But if you mean hurt and not talking to me?" She paused to shout up the pole, "You’re a stupid idiot Charlie Booth!" She signed
and looked back at me. "About eight? Ten maybe? When he fell and quit responding I think someone called you. I mean, you're here, right?"

  "How do you know him?" I kept my voice neutral but nothing I saw made me feel good about his chances if we didn't get up there fast.

  "I married the idiot." Her voice was exasperated but I could hear the worry in it. "He's a good man, but I swear when he and his friends start drinking… It's like watching people doing stupid things on videos, but they do it for real. At thirty-one, you’d have thought he’d have learned better by now." She chewed on her lip, her dirty blond hair escaping the ponytail and falling into her eyes. "He going to be okay?"

  The sound of a motor approaching from the opposite side saved me from needing to answer. While the side we came through had a hedge of bushes, they came through the thin trees on the other side as there was only an empty lot.

  Jorge came through the way we had, dragging the gurney with him. I watched them get the ladder set up with a basket attached. One of the firemen, the name Statton on his chest, walked over to me.

  "We need one of you to go up, but we've got an issue. That ladder is only rated for about three-fifty, four hundred if we push it. My smallest guy on this rig is pushing one-eighty, and the victim has to weight close to two hundred."

  I looked up at the man. I could see the beer belly from here and grunted, doing the math in my head.

  Jorge is easily one-ninety or more. There is no way he can go up.

  "I'll go. Even with my suit on I'm not breaking one thirty. But I'll need your guy’s help. At two hundred he's going to be too heavy for me to move by myself." I forced myself not to cringe as I said that physical strength was one of the major issues people had with female first responders.

  "I couldn't move him by myself if I went up," Jorge said making me feel better. "But you really don't want me up there. Anything much over three feet off the ground and I get vertigo. You'd be rescuing two people."

  Statton nodded. "Come on then, Munroe."

  I looked at him, confused for a second, then remembered that was my name on my chest. "Yeah, give me a second. I need to get a portable bag."

  For all the standoffishness at the station, Jorge worked with me quickly to create a light bag I could take with me, one that would hopefully let me stabilize Charlie until we got him down. Once I had that strapped around me, I headed over to the truck with Statton. Another man, helmet and jacket off, nodded at me.

  "Call me Matt. You ready? I'll climb first and you follow. I'll brace and we have a basket to slip him into that we can then lower down."

  What is it with me and baskets lately?

  I glanced at the contraption that hooked onto the ladder and nodded. They put me in a harness and showed me how to hook it, so when we got to the top, I could do it myself. If I slipped, I wouldn't get killed. In theory. I didn't mention how often things went wrong. Why tempt fate?

  "Lay on MacDuff," I said trying to build confidence.

  Matt laughed and flashed me a smile of bright white teeth. "And damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'"

  The correct response made me laugh and he smiled again. "English minor. Don't ask me why."

  I shook my head and let them help me up onto the truck. They had braced it and the ladder looked like it was at full extension to reach just beneath where Charlie hung.

  With one last check that I was following him, Matt started climbing. I let him get a few rungs above me and then followed. Going up the ladder was a mix of climbing and crawling with the ground getting further and further away.

  Huh, it doesn't bug me on rollercoasters, why is this so different?

  That little question kept me occupied and moving on automatic until my hand hit Matt's boot.

  "Up here. I'll move to the side. I've got a hold of one of the arrays and it’s relatively sturdy, but he looks in bad shape. You'd better move fast." His voice had lost the good humor. I let myself move my gaze from the ladder that represented safety and my only way down, to the person I was there to help. Charlie looked his age. His hair was a bit thinner than it had probably been at twenty; he had a belly that needed less beer and more walking, and a face with lines of pain. I reached over to check his pulse--thready but beating.

  "Move down a bit, I need to be higher up so I can get a good look."

  Matt nodded and in a move that would have seen me dead on the ground oh so far away from us, moved over me and down, leaving me up at the tip of the ladder with my patient.

  Okay, showtime, Munroe. Time to step up, this person is depending on you.

  I moved up and over and inspected Charlie. The woman on the ground said he'd been trying to skip between the things, antenna arrays maybe, and fell. The climbing loop had saved his life, but also made him fall. He’d fallen in between two of them, wedged hard. One leg had a bad break, as I could see the white of bone. He'd been in shorts and tennis shoes. He had a severe laceration on his scalp and if his shoulder wasn't dislocated, it was damn close from how it bulged outward.

  Leg first, that’s where the blood is coming from. Then address the rest.

  I shifted, feeling the ladder move as I leaned in a bit more. Getting a good look at the leg, I cringed. It looked like when he fell his leg twisted and caught. The fibula had fractured and stuck out the side of his leg, tearing a lot of muscle and veins. It hadn't been up high enough to get the femoral artery though, so blood loss but no bleed out. This we could deal with. It took a bit of twisting and precarious balancing but I got the inflatable brace on his leg. It would take a surgeon to get it aligned properly, but it shouldn't move or tear anymore. The laceration on his head was bleeding but other than surface damage I didn't see anything that worried me. Both of his eyes reacted, though he was still out, which for right now was a very good thing. If he woke up and struggled, we'd have an issue.

  I turned and looked down at the firefighter. "I've stabilized the biggest injury, but now we need to get him down. I can't lift him, but I think if we unhook him and pull on his shoulders, we can slide him into the basket." It would be tricky, and I kept having to breathe to keep myself from freaking out at the height, precarious position, and the craziness of what we were about to do.

  "Got it. Give me one minute." Matt reached and pulled the basket, hooking it to the cable that ran up the back of it as part of the retraction mechanism. He then locked it in place so it wouldn't move. "Let's do this." His smile back was encouraging and I tried to take some strength from it.

  With my harness hooked, I braced one leg on the tower and one on the ladder, trying so very hard not to think, just do it. Matt braced in a similar manner, looked at me and we lifted and got Charlie half into the basket as opposed to laying across the arrays. But the arrays still took most of his weight, with the climbing loop still fastened.

  Step one done. Now to step two.

  I reached out and unhooked his climbing loop. Charlie’s body shifted and slid down. His whole weight slammed into the ladder. It dropped downward, knocking the basket at an angle. Charlie's unsecured body started to slip out.

  Chapter 8

  Time is one of the branches of Chaos that is often misunderstood. Time mages cannot go back in time, nor can they travel like a superhero through time. Instead, they can control how they move through time, and in small areas rewind time to see what happened. Now Time mages are rare, but they excel at research and forensics. The cost to rewind time grows exponentially as the length of time increases. ~ Magic Explained

  Oh, by Merlin, no!

  The world stopped. I felt a chunk of my hair vaporize as Charlie hung suspended in midair. I reached to pull him back into the basket. How could I move when all around me everything froze? Even the leaves had quit moving. With a surge of effort, I heaved, trying to pull him back to the basket. It felt like I pulled him through thick sludgy oatmeal, but he moved and I got him back in. Then time snapped back into motion. I almost felt sick as Matt spun to look at me.

  "Thank Merlin, you're
fast. Let's get him secured." Together we worked to get Charlie strapped in and began the process of getting him back down to the ground. The world moved around me, but I was operating on automatic.

  I stopped time.

  The thought bounced and rattled around, breaking everything I thought I knew. A hedgie couldn't do that. Oh, you could be strong in time, but a hedge might be able to slow how fast a cup fell. Not stop everything around them. At least that was my understanding. The moment of time being suspended was still crystal clear in my mind.

  "Huh, you just might make it, Cori," Jorge said as we got Charlie strapped into the gurney. "I've never seen anyone react like that, and you kept your cool without blinking. Takes a certain type of person to do this job. You might make it after all."

  "Thanks," I managed to reply, but I had caught a glimpse of myself in the side view mirror. I could see the chunk missing in my normally smooth bob. The bob that almost never needed trimming.

  I'm a mage. But I can't be a mage.

  Even as Jorge talked through the rest of the shift telling people about my quick save, I couldn't get myself to believe or understand what had happened. I knew I needed to get tested. This was so wrong. But if I tested out high? How could I test out high? But a low rank couldn't have done that.

  The conflict between what I knew and what had happened kept me quiet and confused all day. I couldn't wait to get home to talk to Jo. See what she thought. Tomorrow I had to work, but I was off Monday: I could go and get tested then. Then I would know for sure.

  The idea of testing out high and starting over again made me want to cry. I didn't want to give up everything. I'd just finally gotten it. I huddled in the back corner of the bus on the way home, doing nothing but staring out the window. How could I be a mage? Especially an archmage. Maybe I had imagined it all.

  But the chunk of missing hair couldn't be denied. I kept touching it, feeling it. But is that what happened?