CHAPTER 28
A
car was stuck in the intersection, blocking traffic in every direction.
“No,” Louis said as a man got out of that car and walked away. “No. You can’t do that.”
Monty watched the man and instinctively braced himself. “Louis,
he’s trying to run from something
.”
Lightning struck the intersection, thunder shook everything on the street, and a gust of wind
shoved
the car out of the intersection as a sleigh raced by, heading for the hospital.
“Follow the sleigh.” Monty’s heart slammed against his chest. He could think of one person in the Courtyard who, if injured, would need human help. And if Meg Corbyn
was
in that sleigh, everyone in the hospital was at risk if the
terra indigene
reacted badly.
As if the blizzard wasn’t a bad enough reaction.
Louis didn’t ask questions. He turned right on Main Street and went after the sleigh, driving down a street that was suddenly cleared of all obstacles.
As they approached Lakeside Hospital, Monty pointed and said, “There.”
Nodding, Louis started to make the turn into the emergency-care entrance.
The sleigh was parked right in front of the emergency-care doors. The horses—one black and one white—tossed their heads and stamped their feet. Lightning cracked the sky while thunder shook the car right off the pavement. It ended up packed against the snow mounded beside the emergency-care entrance.
“Damn it,” Louis said softly, looking at the wall of snow against the driver’s side of the car. “You need backup?”
Monty pushed his door open. “Don’t know. You get the car out of the way of the ambulances first.”
“Right.”
Monty struggled to walk up the slight incline to the emergency-care doors, keeping his head down in an effort to see—and breathe. Whiteout conditions. Killer wind chill. And there, suddenly standing between him and the doors, were two females.
Not human,
he thought as they watched him approach.
Not Other in the way the shifters and vampires were Other. Elementals.
He swallowed fear and refused to think about which ones he was dealing with.
“I’m Lieutenant Montgomery. I’m a friend of Ms. Corbyn.” Maybe that was stretching the truth, but right now he’d stretch the truth until it broke if it got him inside so he could find out what happened.
“Our Meg is inside,” the white-haired one said.
“She’s hurt?”
“Yes.”
He heard the rage in her voice, her hatred for the human race.
“I would like to help.”
She stared at him with those inhuman eyes. Then she stepped aside. “Tell the monkeys that this storm will not end until Simon Wolfgard says our Meg will get well.”
Monty bolted inside, intending to grab anyone who might know where Meg Corbyn could be found. Seeing a nurse, he reached for his badge. Before he could say anything, he heard a yip, a startled yell, and an enraged voice roaring, “She needs human medicine, so we brought her here.
Now fix her!
”
Monty ran toward the commotion. He slammed into a fur-covered but otherwise naked Simon Wolfgard, breaking the Wolf’s clawed hold on a pale but angry doctor.
“Mr. Wolfgard!” Monty shouted. “Simon!”
Something wrong with the eyes,
Monty thought. More than being neither human nor Wolf in form.
Someone whimpered nearby. He glanced at another
terra indigene
who was crouched on the floor, cradling a blanket-wrapped Meg Corbyn.
“Mr. Wolfgard, let me talk to the doctor. Let me help,” he said firmly when Simon snarled at him. The Wolf didn’t lunge at any of them, so Monty took the doctor by the arm and led him a few steps away.
“I’m Lieutenant C. J. Montgomery, Lakeside Police Department.”
“Dr. Dominick Lorenzo. Look, Lieutenant, we’ve got ambulances fighting to get here with
people
who need our help. We can’t be indulging
them
just because—”
“Sir, I understand your feelings. But she’s human, and she’s their Liaison. They came
here
for help. Unless she gets the very best care you can provide, this city will never see another spring. I’m sorry to place this burden on you, but the lives of everyone in Lakeside are now in your hands.”
Lorenzo glanced toward the entrance. “You can’t know the storm won’t end.”
“Yes, sir, I can, because the fury driving this storm was standing outside this hospital a minute ago and told me flat-out that our lives depend on their Liaison getting well.”
“Gods above and below,” Lorenzo muttered. Squaring his shoulders, he strode back to where Simon Wolfgard stood trembling with rage.
“Do you know what happened to your friend?” he asked.
“She fell through the ice when she was running from the enemy,” Simon snarled.
“Most likely hypothermia, but we’ll make sure nothing else is going on,” Lorenzo said. “Let’s get her into the exam room at the end.”
Snatching Meg from the other
terra indigene
male, Simon followed Dr. Lorenzo. Monty followed them, and the other male trailed after him.
Monty half listened to Lorenzo’s rapid instructions to the nurses who were getting Meg out of her wet clothes. Before the doctor could close the exam-room door, Simon muscled in, leaving Monty with little choice except to go in with him and hold him away from the doctor and nurses.
Turning his face to give Meg that much privacy, he whispered to Simon, “What’s wrong with you? Are you sick?”
The question brought back some of the thinking intelligence in Wolfgard’s eyes. “I feel . . .
angry.
”
“Did you take anything before you started feeling angry?”
Any drugs?
Not likely, but it
was
possible Simon had ingested something without realizing it.
Simon shook his head, his eyes fixed on the people touching Meg.
Then a nurse sucked in a breath. Turning his head, Monty looked at Meg Corbyn’s bare arms and saw the evenly spaced scars—and the crosshatch of scars on her left arm. Answering the unspoken question in Lorenzo’s eyes, he said, “Yes, she’s a
cassandra sangue
.”
“Get more blankets and a heating pad,” Lorenzo said. When one of the nurses bolted, he tipped his head to indicate he wanted to talk to them out of the room.
“How long was she in the water?” he asked Simon.
“Not long. We heard Winter scream when Meg fell through the ice. We pulled her out.”
“And before that? Did you remove her coat before you brought her to the hospital?”
Simon shook his head. “No coat. No boots. She was running from the enemy.”
“How did you get here?”
“We came in the sleigh.”
Lorenzo didn’t look happy. “All right. We’ll start with external treatment; see if we get enough indication that we can bring her around that way. Now. That gash in her chin. I can close it without stitches, but only if you can leave the bandages alone. If you can’t, I’ll have to use stitches to make sure the gash stays closed and heals properly. But stitches puncture the skin, and that might cause her some mental distress, even in her present condition. Also, if I use stitches, the whole chin would no longer be viable for cutting.”
Simon’s eyes blazed red. He snarled, “Do you think we care about her because of her
skin
? She’s not property to us. She’s
Meg.
”
Monty held on to the Wolf, pushing him back from Lorenzo. “He has to tell you that, Simon. You’re standing in for Meg’s family, and it’s his duty to tell you so that you can decide what is best for her.”
Simon panted with the effort to control himself. “Fix her.”
“It would be best if you stayed out of the room while I tend to her.”
Feeling the objection in the way the Wolf’s muscles bunched, Monty said quickly, “If you give me your word that you’ll wait right here, I’ll go in and stand guard for you.”
He thought Lorenzo might object, but the doctor just waited with him for Simon’s answer.
A sharp nod. Wolfgard was panting and growling, so a nod was the best he could do to give permission.
The nurse arrived with blankets and a heating pad. Lorenzo and Monty followed her into the room. When Lorenzo closed the door, they all jumped at the howl that rose from the other side of the door.
“Can you keep him from doing that?” Lorenzo asked as he cleaned and closed the gash in Meg’s chin. “Scaring everyone in the emergency room isn’t going to help.”
“Let him stay in here with her. I think he’ll be calmer that way.” Monty glanced at the bed, then looked away. “You’ve dealt with blood prophets before?”
“I saw a few of them during my residency. Anytime the skin is punctured, it opens the girl to prophecy.”
“So if Ms. Corbyn needs stitches . . . ?”
“Only the gods know what she’s seeing right now because of the gash,” Lorenzo replied grimly. “Every stitch would only add to it.”
Monty leaned against the wall, feeling sick. He didn’t speak again until Lorenzo finished and the supplies were properly stowed away.
“Let him in,” Lorenzo said.
Simon leaped into the room the moment Monty opened the door. He stared at Meg. “She’s cold. She’s shivering!”
“That’s a good thing,” Lorenzo replied. “We’ll use the heating pad to warm up the blankets. We’ll keep her warm, keep watch on her heart rate and breathing.”
“Not so different from a Wolf,” Simon said quietly.
“I’m calling in my men,” Monty said, knowing he wouldn’t have anyone but Louis for backup until the storm ended. “One of them will be on guard at all times.”
“Is that necessary?” Lorenzo asked.
“Yes, sir, it is.”
Simon blinked. “Winter is outside.” He walked out of the room.
“I have to take care of other patients,” Lorenzo said. He looked toward the two nurses.
“I’ll keep an eye on Ms. Corbyn,” Monty said. “Your people are needed elsewhere.”
When Lorenzo and the nurses left, Monty noticed the Other who crouched against the wall outside the room. “I’m Lieutenant Montgomery. Can you tell me what happened in the Courtyard?”
“I know who you are,” the male replied wearily, pushing to his feet. “I’m Jester.” He walked into the exam room and closed the door. “I can tell you some of it.”
When Jester finished, Monty stepped out of the room and called his men. He couldn’t reach Kowalski, who had been trying to ski to the Courtyard, and hoped the man had found shelter somewhere. Debany and MacDonald were a few blocks from the hospital and were bringing in some injured citizens. When he reached Burke and gave a summary of what had happened, the captain agreed with the necessity for guards while the Liaison was in the hospital and an abduction attempt was still a possibility.
Sending Jester to fetch one of the plastic chairs from the waiting room, Monty stood by the bed. Was Meg’s breathing labored? Was she too pale?
He leaned down and said quietly, “Ms. Corbyn? You’re safe now. We’re going to keep you safe. But you have to help us. We all need you to get well.”
Her eyes fluttered open.
“Meg?”
“Cold.” Her voice was barely audible. “Cold.”
“We’ll get you warm.”
Her eyes closed.
A minute later, he heard Jester set down a chair by the door—and Simon Wolfgard returned, snow melting off the fur covering the mostly human body.
“She woke up for a moment,” Monty said.
Simon rushed to the side of the bed. “Meg? Meg!”
“I’ll let Dr. Lorenzo know she came around that much.” Leaving Simon and Jester to stand watch, Monty found the doctor and reported. Then he found Louis, who was trying to reach his own team. Finally, he found a vending machine, got a cup of coffee, and returned to the exam room to begin his shift of guard duty.
Still in human form, his clothes spattered with Hurricane’s blood, Jester curled up in a corner of the exam room, his head pressed to his knees. He whined softly for a few minutes, then drifted off to sleep.
Simon stood by the bed, watching Meg. He felt so confused, so . . .
angry.
He had a reason to be angry. The enemy had invaded the Courtyard, had destroyed buildings, had
killed
some of the
terra indigene
. And they had threatened Sam and tried to take Meg. Even so, this
angry
didn’t feel right, and the closer he was to human, the more he felt not right.
“Did you take anything before you started feeling angry?”
Monty had asked. The possible answer to the question made him uneasy, so he wasn’t going to think about it. Not now.
He glanced at the closed door. Meg was cold, shivering. The blankets weren’t helping. He knew what he would do for a member of his pack. He carefully got onto the narrow hospital bed, grumbling because it was barely wide enough for a single human. After fixing the covers over him and Meg, he shifted to Wolf and curled his tail over her feet.
Much better.
He stretched his neck, sniffing at the bandages that covered the gash in her chin. He didn’t like them. They shouldn’t be there. He wanted to pull them off and lick the wound. Lick and lick until it healed.
He drew back his head. He had promised to leave the bandages alone. He’d brought her here for human healing, so he mustn’t undo what the doctor had done.
Not so angry now. Not feeling so alone now with his body touching hers.
Winter outside in the sleigh, those cold, rage-filled eyes fixed on him when he came out to talk to her.
Winter nodded. Then she and Air drove off. And as he turned to go back inside, the wind died down and the snow stopped falling.
The door opened. Simon turned his head and bared his teeth, ready to spring up and attack. But it was Dr. Lorenzo, so he stayed where he was.
“I came in to check on Ms. Corbyn,” the doctor said. “I’ll check her pulse, then use a stethoscope to listen to her heart and lungs.” He touched her wrist and looked at his watch. Then he put the metal disk on her chest and appeared to be listening.