The Paramedic's Doom Read online

  “Can you hold his arm still long enough to let us inject him with something to calm him down.”

  “Just don’t stick me by accident.”

  Dean tried not to think about what could go wrong with his current plan but he didn’t know what else to do. Clearly, the darkness was magical in nature. Whoever or whatever this patient was, he somehow either controlled the light or created darkness.

  “Barry, bring me the sedative. Just come around the corner and walk straight ahead into the darkness. Go slow and follow my voice.”

  “I can’t see a thing, Dean,” his partner called out. “Where are you?”

  “Follow my voice. I’m waving my arm back and forth in your direction. Put a hand out in front of you until you feel it.”

  Dean slowly waved his arm back and forth sticking it out behind him. A few seconds later, he felt Barry’s hand brush against his. They grasped each other’s wrist and Barry moved up next to him.

  “Hand me the syringe,”

  Barry’s other hand pressed something against his wrist where he held onto Barry’s arm. Dean took the thin cylinder of the syringe from his partner.

  “Got it. How much?”

  “Ten milligrams. The cap is still on the needle, though I don’t know how you’re going to manage to do this in the dark.”

  “Carefully.”

  Barry let out a slight chuckle.

  “Just don’t stick yourself.”

  “Or me,” Gibbie added.

  “Gibbie,” Dean asked. “What’s he wearing?”

  “Just a t-shirt. It’s one of the things that drew my attention. It’s cold out tonight. He should be freezing. He’s not.”

  “Good, I can inject him right through the shirt. Hold him as still as you can.”

  “What are you doing?” the man’s frantic voice called out. “Stay away from me.”

  Dean felt Gibbie’s body move as the man’s struggling increased.

  “Easy, my friend, we just want to help you,” Dean said. He tried to sound soothing even though he felt just a little stressed.

  He reached around Gibbie and found the other man’s shoulder. Gripping the shoulder with one hand, Dean brought the capped syringe over with the other. He knew he was only getting one shot at this.

  He rested his wrists on the guy’s upper arm to stabilize them. Then he tipped the needle forward and jabbed it into the shoulder between his two hands. He pressed the plunger down injecting the medicine.

  Pulling the needle away, Dean pressed his hand holding the exposed syringe down on the ground at his side, while he waited for the medicine to work and calm the patient’s agitation. He didn’t want to move in the darkness with the sharp, bloody needle in his hand, so he kept it still at his side.

  It took about thirty seconds for the medication to start working. The first indication something was working was when the thick, black darkness began to fade. It was slow, but a few seconds later Dean started to see shapes moving next to him.

  As soon as the darkness had faded enough, Dean called back to Barry.

  “Bring up the med bag so I can put this syringe away in the sharps box.”

  “Got it. Be right back.”

  Dean turned his attention back to the patient struggling feebly now in Gibbie’s arms.

  The man had shoulder-length coal-black hair, unkempt and with that greasy sheen from not being washed in a while. Like most homeless, he reeked of sweat and far too long between showers. His bearded face’s expression had calmed some, but Dean could still see the panic in the man’s eyes as they shifted around, like they were trying to see everywhere at once.

  Barry arrived with the med bag. He’d unzipped the side pocket with the portable sharps box inside. Dean dropped the needle inside and slid the lid closed.

  He shifted around to the other side of Gibby to make room for his partner. He positioned himself in front of the patient, trying to meet his shifting gaze.

  “Sir, I’m Dean Flynn, I’m here to help you out. You were upset so I gave you some medicine to help you relax and talk with me. Can you tell me your name?”

  “Peeps call me Will,” the man answered, his words a little slurred now. His eyes had started to droop a little, too. The sedative effects of the med were working.

  “Is it alright if my partner takes your blood pressure?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Barry took a set of vitals while Dean kept up a running banter with the patient, trying to discern what had upset him.

  “Can you tell me why you were upset? We noticed you did something to the light.”

  “Did I? I’m sorry if I did. I don’t like to do that kind of thing in public. Humans don’t understand things like that.”

  Dean chuckled, “No they don’t, Will. We don’t mind, though, as long as we know you won’t do it again. We want to help you.”

  Will held up his hand and a soft white light appeared over it. There was no heat coming from it, just the glow of the white light hovering there over his hand.

  A thought popped into Dean’s head. The light and the name triggered a memory of something he’d read.

  “Are you a Will-O-the-Wisp, like in the legends? It’s cool if you are, I just wondered because I’ve never met a person like you before.”

  Will nodded, and waved his hand in the air, making the light bob up and down like it was dancing.

  “I like making the light do what I want. It’s especially fun at night when people see my lights and follow them. It’s not fun anymore. I saw him. I saw him knew who he was. He’s one of THEM. He didn’t see me because I hid myself and cloaked in darkness first, but I saw him.”

  “Who? Who’d you see, Will?”

  “The first horseman. He’s here. He would have killed me for sure if he’d seen me watching.” Will tapped the side of his head. “But I was too smart for that.”

  Gibbie shook his head and relaxed his grip on Will. He was no longer struggling at all. The medication and the conversation had settled him.

  “That’s not good,” Gibbie muttered under his breath.

  “You say something?” Dean asked.

  “I’ll tell you later,” the frumpy vampire said.

  Dean wanted an answer but Gibbie seemed distracted by something. He sat and stared off into space, his lips moving but saying nothing.

  Dean shrugged. Gibbie had a whole level of strange all his own.

  “Come on, Will,” Dean said. “We have a nice warm ambulance around the corner. Let’s go back there and get inside where it’s cozy. What do you say?”

  “You, you can do something about this, can’t you?” Will said.

  “I’d like to think so, Will. Let’s get you up and walk to the ambulance. Can you do that if Gibbie and I walk next to you?”

  “I think so. You made sure the horseman wasn’t around, right?”

  “I haven’t seen a horseman all day,” Dean said.

  Will smiled at that and walked with Dean and Gibbie back down the alley to the street and the ambulance. Barry grabbed the bag and steered the stretcher after them.

  High above, on the flat roof of the apartment building next to the alley, a cloaked figure watches the paramedics leave with their patient. With a flick of his pale wrist, the cloak closed around the man and then dissipated into the air like a tendril of smoke blown away by the breeze.

  Chapter 7

  Dean walked back down the ramp at the ambulance entrance of Elk City Medical Center, returning to his ambulance. He tapped a few last words on the tablet in his hand before he closed the screen with a swipe of a finger.

  Barry and Gibbie leaned up against the ambulance chatting.

  “Everything ready to go?” Dean asked.

  “Yep,” Barry said. He patted the vampire on the shoulder. “Gibbie here was a big help.”

  “I try to be.”

  Dean smiled and tucked the tablet under his arm.

  “Hey, what was all that cryptic talk back at the scene?” Dean asked. “You acted like what Will said made sense to you.”

  “Will-O-the-Wisps are hermits, vagrants. They usually keep to themselves, staying away from others. It’s because they have visions all the time. Usually, the visions mean nothing, but something clearly scared this one away from his seclusion, making me think his vision was something more than just a random hallucination.”

  “Why, Gibbie?” Barry asked. “Couldn’t it all just be the crazed ramblings of another homeless guy?”

  “It’s not just him,” Gibbie said. “You guys are looking for a sin-eater, then there was the reaction of the diamond merchant earlier, and now this mention of the horseman. Don’t you see?”

  “See what? Come on, Gibbie. Stop being cryptic and spit it out.”

  Gibbie waved his hands in the air as if trying to wipe something away then lifted his eyes, meeting Dean’s gaze.

  “Will mentioned the horsemen, Dean. He meant the four horsemen of the apocalypse, the ones predicted in the Book of Revelations in the Bible. The ones who come and signal the end of the world.”

  “So we’re looking for four bad guys on horseback?” Barry said. “That shouldn’t be too hard to spot here in the middle of Elk City.”

  Gibbie shook his head. “They don’t have to be riding horses. That is how they’ve been presented mythically in the past. The important part is their arrival signals the beginning of the end. The last battle is coming.” Gibbie stopped and laughed, a hint of nervous hysteria leaking into his mirth.

  “I’m probably just over-reacting, guys. Dean, you should go and talk to James about this. He’s been around a lot longer than me. Tell him what’s been going on. Tell him what Will told you and see what he says. I gotta go. There are things that need doing, just in case. I’ll see you around.”

 
Gibbie turned and started down the sidewalk next to the hospital.

  “Don’t you want a ride back to your van?” Dean asked, calling after his friend.

  “I’ll walk. I’ve got lots to think about.”

  Barry laughed watching Gibbie wander away down the street. “He’s so strange. Come on, let’s go. Maybe we’ll have time to pick up a snack on the way back to the station.”

  Dean spared a last glance at Gibbie’s back. The story of the four horsemen had spooked the vampire. While he was a creature of the night and an apex predator, Gibbie still had a lot of the personality from his human days a few hundred years before. That probably accounted for his skittishness about the myth of the end of the world coming.

  Climbing back into the ambulance, Dean started the engine and decided he’d definitely head over to see James and Brynne after work. He should probably heed Gibbie’s advice and see the ancient vampire lord of Elk City. Plus it would be nice to see Brynne outside of work while she was at home with James.

  * * *

  Dean headed for the elevator doors in the underground garage below the Nightwing building. He rubbed his eyes. The shift had been long with little rest. He and Barry ran one call after another all night only returning to the station to restock in between each run.

  Pressing the call button, he was surprised when the doors opened right away and Rudy stepped out, almost bumping into him.

  “Hey, Dean. Sorry about that. I didn’t see you.”

  “No worries. I’m in a bit of a daze. Long night.”

  “Me, too. Been putting out a lot of fires for the boss, lately.”

  Rudy referred to James, the vampire lord of Elk City, for whom he worked as the head of security as well as being the leader of the local werewolf pack.

  “Anything we should know about at Station U?”

  “Brynne’s got a handle on that. She’s back on as night supervisor in two days. She’ll have a full update then. Hopefully, we have a better idea of what’s making everyone so skittish by then.”

  “Yeah, hopefully. Have a good rest. I’ll envy you getting to bed before me.”

  “Ha, that’s what you think. My wife’s visiting her mother and her original pack in Pittsburgh this week. I’ve got to get the kids ready for school and drop them off before I get near anything resembling a bed.”

  “Good luck with that, then. See ya,” Dean said. He stepped into the elevator and stabbed the button marked “PH” for the penthouse. He swiped his access card enabling the elevator to travel to the upper, restricted floors. The doors closed and the elevator car started upwards.

  Dean wondered what sort of problems James was handling right now. The Unusual community was pretty peaceful most of the time here in Elk City. James ran a tight ship and kept his subjects happy for the most part. It concerned Dean to hear that might have changed.

  The door opened onto an entry hall with a table and two chairs. There were fresh flowers in a crystal vase on the table. Dean turned right and walked up to the double doors, ringing the bell.

  “Come in, Dean, it’s open,” a familiar woman’s voice called from inside the penthouse apartment.

  He pushed the door open and went inside.

  “Brynne? Is that you?”

  “In the living room, Dean,” Brynne Garvey answered.

  She’d been his training officer and mentor when he first started working as a paramedic. He missed working alongside her. She’d almost died when a crazy co-worker had shot her in a fit of jealous rage.

  Dean and James had decided changing her into a vampire was the only way to save her life. Now he only saw her when she came in to work as a shift supervisor on nights, and only when their schedules synced.

  Heading around the corner into the large central room and living area of the apartment, Dean smiled. Brynne, dressed in torn, faded blue jeans and a black Ronnie James Dio concert t-shirt, sat on the carpeted floor in the middle of the room.

  She had file folders spread all around her while she tapped away on her laptop. Dean could see the familiar screen of the patient care reporting software they used.

  Brynne glanced his way as he walked in.

  Dean pointed at the laptop and files spread around her. “You’re supposed to be off, aren’t you?”

  “I couldn’t rest, too much going on. So, I decided to get some work finished. This quality improvement stuff never ends. You guys are always messing up your reports.”

  Dean chuckled.

  “That’s why you get the big bucks, boss lady. Hey, is James here? I’d like to run something past both of you. It came up on a call earlier tonight.”

  “He and Celeste are tending to something downstairs. They should be back soon. Anything you want to talk about now?”

  “I’ll wait so I don’t have to repeat myself.”

  “Suit yourself. How’s Jaz? You too still resisting the urge to tie the knot and get it over with?”

  “Well…”

  Brynne looked up from her work and stared at Dean.

  “Shut up! You proposed to her, didn’t you.”

  “Well, not yet but it is in the plans.”

  Brynne shut the laptop and swung her legs around so she faced Dean.

  “Out with it. What’s the plan? How are you going to pop the question? I need details so I can make sure you don’t screw this up.”

  Dean felt like a brand new probie paramedic all over again under her intense scrutiny.

  “Well, I thought I’d take her out to dinner and then go for a walk in the park downtown. There’s a place by the lake there with a bridge overlooking the water. I thought I’d pop the question there.”

  “You have someone to be there to record the moment, don’t you?”

  “Why, are you volunteering?”

  “I could be persuaded to help out if you ask nicely.”

  “Ask what nicely?” James said. He came around the corner from the entry hall followed by his assistant Celeste Teal. James always looked impeccably dressed, even when he was wearing what most would call lay around the house clothes. His black jeans and his tight black t-shirt both looked like they’d been freshly pressed only moments before. It was one of a multitude of things that could annoy you about James if you let them.

  “Dean just told me he is planning to propose to Jaz.”

  “Congratulations, Dean,” Celeste said in her characteristic southern drawl. “She’s a lucky girl.”

  Celeste was a vampire, too, like James and Brynne. She’d been with James since he’d turned her sometime back around the Civil War. Dean wondered if that made her and Brynne something like sisters. He didn’t know much about that part of vampire subculture. He’d have to ask Gibbie when he got the chance. It wouldn’t be appropriate to ask here and now.

  “I feel like I’m the lucky one,” Dean said.

  “That is the key to a successful relationship, Dean,” the red-headed assistant said. “Keep it that way, and you two’ll last a long, long time.”

  “I don’t see you out and about with anyone special, Celeste. Are you sure you’re qualified to give me advice?”

  “Oh, honey, I was fighting off the boys long before you were born. I’ve seen the relationships over the years that worked and the ones that didn’t. Trust me. Treat her like you don’t deserve her and the two of you’ll last your whole lives.”

  “I’d listen to her, Dean,” James said. “Lord knows her love life is the most successful one around here. How many girlfriends have you had now, Celeste?”

  “Things are complicated for me, James. There aren’t as many lesbian vampires as you’d think. Most of them are turned by you men because they’re already dating you. It doesn’t leave that many for me and my fellow sisters on the other side of the fence.”

  “Sounds like a perfect excuse to have one fling after another,” James laughed. “But, hey, you do you.”

  Celeste grunted in exasperation and headed back to her offices in another part of the penthouse.

  “What brings you by, Dean,” James asked. “Was it to seek advice on your pending proposal?”

  “No, there are some things happening out there that I wanted to run past you. It seems that we’re both dealing with a little bit of upheaval lately and I wanted to compare notes, especially after talking with Rudy on my way in this morning.”

  Dean recounted the information about the sin eater being in town and also the incident with Will earlier that evening. He mentioned the vision of a horseman and what Will and Gibbie had said.