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Chapter Nineteen
Marcone and coency entrance to the hospital, and I had to hobble in alone It was hard, and I was tired, but I&039;d been hurt worse before It wasn&039;t like I wanted to do this every day or anything, but after a certain point of ridiculous discomfort, the pain all feels pretty ency roo and leaving a trail of bloody footprints behind you, it makes a certain i urney within a few seconds while the nurse exa," she reported after she cut away lanced at me almost in accusation "From the way you came in here, you&039;d think this almost killed you"
"Well," I said, "I&039;m kind of a wimp"
"Nasty," commented the burly orderly He produced a clipboard layered in forms and a ballpoint pen and handed them both to me "They&039;ll have to cut this out"
"We&039;ll let the doctor decide that," the nurse said "How did this happen, sir?"
"I have no clue," I said "I alking down the street and all of a sudden I thoughtwas on fire"
"You walked here?" she asked
"A helpful Boy Scout brought hed "Well, it&039;s been a slow day They should be able to see to you shortly"
"That&039;s super," I said "Because it hurts like hell"
"I can get you some Tylenol," the nurse said primly
"I don&039;t have a headache I have a four-inch piece of steel in "
She passed hed and took them
"Heh," the orderly said after she left "Don&039;t worry toowhen the doctor sees to you"
"With this kind of loving care, I probably won&039;t need it"
"Don&039;t be too hard on her," the orderly said "You should see what people try so that they can get to so"
"Yeah," I said "Hey, ?"
"Sure" He had brought a bowl of ice with his, which he started packing around"This should nu It ain&039;t a local, but it&039;s what I&039;ve got"
The ice didn&039;t actually burst into steah it felt like it should have The pain didn&039;t exactly lessen, but it did suddenly feel a littleI could talk to a couple of guys I knohile I was here," I said "They&039;re EMTs Gary Simmons and Jason Lamar"
The orderly lifted his eyebrows "Simmons and Lamar, sure They drive an ambulance"
"I know Are they around?"
"They were on shift last night," he said "But it&039;s the end of theshift I&039;ll ask"
"Appreciate it," I said "If Simmons is there, tell him a school buddy is here"
"Sure If I do that, though, you gotta do so for me and fill out these forms"
I eyed the clipboard and picked up the pen "Tell the doc to signout of rinned "I&039;ll do that"
He left me to fill in for to fill out since I didn&039;t have any kind of insurance One of these days, when I had the et some They say that when you pay for insurance you&039;re really buying peace of ht make me feel peaceful to think of howto lose onrun If I lived my whole life in the open, as I had been since I&039;d co with me for two or three centuries I wondered what the yearly markup would be for a two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old
A young doctor came in after I was finished with the forms, and true to the orderly&039;s prediction, he had to cut the shuriken out of ot a local, and the sudden cessation of pain was like a drug all by itself I fell asleep while he was cutting and woke up as he rapping"Though from the looks of your file I suppose you know that"
"Sure, Doc," I said "I know the drill Do you need to take theet the other kind?"
"They&039;ll dissolve," he said "But if you experience any swelling or fever, get in touch I&039; for the pain and some antibiotics"
"Follow all the printed instructions and be sure to take theeneral-slash-television-announcer voice
"Looks like you&039;ve done this as often as I have," he said He gestured to the steel tray where the bloodied shuriken lay "Did you want to keep the weapon?"
"Might as well I&039;ll have to get a souvenir in the gift shop otherwise"
"You sure you don&039;t want the police to look at it?" he said "They "
"I already told you guys it must have been soave ht If that&039;s the way you want it" He dropped the little weapon into aelevated That will ease the swelling Stay off of it for a couple of days, at least"
"No problem," I said
He shook his head "The orderly will be by in a n" He departed
A minute later there were footsteps outside the little alcove they&039;d putman drew the curtain aside He had skin almost as dark as my leather duster, and his hair had been cropped into a flat-top so precise that his barber must have used a level He was on the heavy side-not out of shape or ripped out, but sie and comfortable with it He wore an EMT&039;s jacket, and the na atcolor to have been in e"
"Army medic?" I asked
"Navy Marines" He folded his arms "What do you want?"
"My naed "But what do you want?"
I sat up My leg was still blissfully nuht"
He eyed me warily "What about it?"
"You were on the teaunshot victi exhale He looked up and down the row, then stepped into the little alcove and closed the curtain behind him He lowered his voice "So?"
"So I want you to tell me about it," I said
He shook his head "Look, I want to keep my job"
I lowered er that?"
"Maybe," he said He pulled open his jacket and then unbuttoned two buttons on his shirt He opened it enough to show me a Kevlar vest beneath it "See that? EMTs have to wear theers, that kind of thing We show up to try to save lives and people shoot at us"
"Must be tough," I said cautiously
He shook his head "I can handle it But a lot of people don&039;t And if it looks like you&039;re starting to crack under the pressure, they&039;ll pull you out Word gets around that I&039;s I&039;ve seen, they&039;ll have o
"Wait," I said I touched his aro unexpectedly grabbing forers to stay in the same shape "Look, Mr La to repeat it to anyone I&039;m not a reporter or-"
He paused "You&039;re the wizard," he said "Saw you on Larry Fowler once People say you&039;re crazy"
"Yeah," I said "So it isn&039;t as if they&039;d believe me, even if I did talk about you Which I won&039;t"
"You&039;re the one they arrested in the nursery a few years back," he said "You broke in during a blackout They found you in the middle of a wrecked room with all those babies"
I took a deep breath "Yeah"
Lamar was silent for a second Then he said, "You know that the year before, the SIDS rate there was the highest in the nation? They averaged one case every ten days No one could explain it"
"I didn&039;t know that," I said
"Since they arrested you there, they haven&039;t lost one," he said He turned back to host stories?"
He snorted out a breath through his nose "I don&039;t like any of this crap, man Why do you want me to tell you what I saw?"
"Because what you knowhurt"
He nodded, frowning "All right," he said after a ht now You understand ain To anyone Only reason I&039;ll tell you is that you helped those babies"
I nodded
He sat down on the edge of the gurney "We got the call around ht Headed over to Wacker The cops were there already Found this guy on the street, all busted up Two hits in the chest and two in the abdo
"We tried to stabilize him But there wasn&039;t much point to it Simmons and me both knew that But we tried It&039;s what you do, you know? He ake for it Scared as hell Screa us not to let hiirl to look after"
"What happened?"
"He died," Lamar said, his voice flat "I&039;ve seen it before Here in town In action while I was in the corps You get to where you can recognize death when he coether "We tried to resuscitate, but he was gone That&039;s when it happened"
"Go on"
"This woman shows up I don&039;t know fro over us looking down"
I leaned forward "What did she look like?"
"I don&039;t know," Laht? Like those people at Renaissance fairs Big old black robe with a hood over her head I didn&039;t see much of her face Just her chin and her throat She hite"
"What did you do?"
"I figured she was a nut You get the to a costu Hell, it&039;s almost Halloween She looks at me and tells me to back up and let her help him"
Howaround town last night? Kumori That would have been maybe forty-five minutes or an hour before I saw her at Bock&039;s
Lamar peered at my face "You know her," he said
"Not personally But yeah What did she do?"
His face grewthe stretcher Then she leaned down The robe and the hood fell over the" He licked his lips "And it got cold Ion the sidewalk and the stretcher and on our truck I swear to you, it happened"
"I believe it," I said
"And the victi to screaone, but I don&039;t kno to describe it He was holding on" His face twisted with a sickened expression "He was in agony, and he was stable It was like like he wasn&039;t being allowed to die
"So the woot less than an hour to save hione Like she was all in ination"
I shook ht in The docs patched hiot fresh blood into him He passed out about an hour later But hemoment
"That couldn&039;t have happened," he said then "I h some bad stuff But not like that He should have been dead Everything I know tells "
"Sometimes miracles happen," I said quietly
He shuddered "This wasn&039;t aMy skin tried to craay and hide" He shook his head "I don&039;t want to think about it"
"What about your partner?" I asked
"He drank himself under the table twenty minutes after our shift ended Hell, only reason I wasn&039;t with hi" He looked at ht," I said "Thank you"
"Sure"
"What are you going to do now?" I asked
"Gonna go find my own table" Lamar stood up and said, "Good luck,ot ht about what he&039;d had to say I got the prescriptions filled at the hospital pharmacy, called a cab, and told him to take me to Mike&039;s to pick up the Blue Beetle
I sat in the backseat with ht about what I&039;d learned Ku Laone out of her way to do it And whatever she&039;d done, it had been an extre to leave a ht explain why Ku the altercation with Cowl I had expected her to be nearly as strong as her partner, but when she tried to take the book froer than my own muscles and limbs
But the Kemmler Alumni Association was in toith some vicious coth for a stranger, rather than saving it for battling rival necro victim have been important to her plans in some way?
It didn&039;t track The victi for the outfit, and he certainly wasn&039;t going to be doing anything useful from his bed in intensive care
I had to consider the possibility that she&039;d been trying to do the right thing: using her power to help soht made me uncomfortable as hell I knew that the necroerous, and that if I wanted to survive a conflict with them, I would have to be ready to hit them fast and hard and without any doubts That&039;s easy when the ene, psychotic ed things It made her a person, and people are a hell of a lot harder for
Even worse, if she&039;d been acting altruistically, it would ht not be so wholly, inherently evil It had been used to preserve life, just as the ic I knew could be used either to protect or to destroy
I&039;d always considered the line between black ic and white to be sharp and clear But if that dark power could be employed in whatever fashion its wielder chose, that made it no different froation was supposed to make me certain of what needed to be done It was not supposed to confuse me even more
When I opened my eyes, thick clouds had covered the sun and painted the whole world in shades of grey
Chapter Twenty
It was past the ot the Blue Beetle from Mike&039;s and headed back to my apartment I tried to be wary of possible tails, but by then the local earing off and ain I don&039;t know if you&039;ve ever had a serious physical injury, but there&039;sthe a The pain carries with it a tax of bone-deep weariness that makes you want to crawl into a dark hole and hibernate
So when I say I tried to be wary, what I lance at my rearview mirror a couple of times whenever I had the presence of uys were restricting thehtly painted side-panel vans orfunny cars, I was perfectly safe
I got back to my place, disabled the wards, unlocked the door, and slipped inside Mister ca down the stairs at s I all but screamed "Stupid cat," I snarled
Mister wound around s in a pleased fashion, unconcerned with my opinion of him I limped inside and locked up behind me Mouse waited until Mister was bored with s and collect a few scratches behind his ears
"Hey, there," Thoreeted me quietly He sat in the chair by the fire, several candles lit on the end table beside it He had a book open Sword and shotgun rested near his hand He glanced atand rose, his face alarrimaced, tottered over to the couch, and plopped down on it "Sticks and stones et you a dozen stitches" I drew the ghoul&039;s weapon from my pocket by way of illustration and tossed it down on the coffee table "How&039;s Butters?"
"Fine," Thouy Made an awful racket with that polka thing of his for about half an hour, babbled for fortydinner I put him on the bed"
"He&039;s had a stressful day," I said