The Paramedic's Doom Read online

  James had been paying attention all along but at the mention of the horseman, he tensed and clenched his fist.

  “I knew it,” James muttered under his breath.

  “What?” Dean asked. “Am I missing something? You must know something. Tell me.”

  James stood and crossed the room to a metal carafe sitting on a hot plate on an ornate buffet table. He poured himself a mug full of fresh, warm blood from the carafe. He sipped while he stared across the apartment at nothing in particular.

  “Come on, James. We’ve been through too much together at this point for you to keep anything from me. You trust Brynne; you can trust me, too.”

  “I’d hoped the sin-eater was just passing through and stirring up trouble,” James said. He shook his head. “I guess that was just wishful thinking.”

  Brynne got up and walked over to James.

  “What is it?” She asked, laying a hand on his shoulder. “Tell us.”

  “If I’m correct, and it all adds up now. Gibbie’s right. The horseman your patient mentioned is likely to be one of THE Horsemen, though we call them the Agents of Chaos. They’re the ones foretold by dozens of mythologies including the Judeo/Christian mythos.”

  “You sound like you’ve seen these Agents of Chaos before.”

  James nodded. “I’ve seen what happens when they’ve come to visit earth before. The chaos and death they bring makes the shorter-lived humans at the time talk about it like it's the end of the world. That is how they got the reputation they have. Usually they are only able to manifest one or two of them at a time. If all four come through, that signals the coming of the final battle between good and evil. If that happens, the whole earth is doomed to become a battleground.”

  “I guess I should be happy it’s just hype then,” Dean said. “I’d hate to have it end up being the real end of the world.”

  “It depends on your definition, Dean,” James explained. “What if a plague struck us now with an effect like the black death that struck Europe in the middle ages. If one-third of the earth’s population died in a matter of a few years’ time, it would seem as if the world was ending, right?”

  “But modern medical science can treat the plague,” Brynne suggested. “It still crops up from time to time here in the U.S. But we take care of it and it’s limited to just a few people a year, usually in the southwestern states.

  “She’s right, James,” Dean continued. “The bubonic plague is easy to manage. It just requires a course of antibiotics. That type of disease wouldn’t be nearly as effective now.”

  “I don’t think you understand. Brynne, maybe you can help. Explain to Dean what would happen if a drug-resistant superbug version of the plague suddenly spread across the nation or the whole world.”

  Brynne’s brow creased as if lost in thought; then she looked at Dean.

  “He’s right, Dean.”

  “Why?”

  ”Think about it. If an antibiotic-resistant variety of the plague or any of a number of nasty bacterial infections were to spread rapidly across the world, imagine what it would be like. The hospitals would overflow. Government services would be taxed beyond their limits until they failed as the public servants also succumbed to the disease. Public order wouldn’t collapse everywhere but it would in many places here and around the world.”

  “And you think these horsemen are coming here, or might already be here?”

  “Unless we can stop them,” James said. “It will be like nothing we’ve ever seen in modern times.”

  “You said they came before,” Dean said. “What stopped them before?”

  “They were defeated in different ways in different ages. Sometimes it was enough to eliminate their agents on earth. In other times, it took whole armies to send them back to hell. It’s different each time.”

  “That’s not a lot of help,” Dean said.

  James shrugged.

  “It’s the end of the world, at least for that time. It doesn’t have to be a plague either, at least not in the traditional sense. There are four horsemen, each with their own bag of tricks to bring to play. They’ll each try their methods until one takes off.”

  Dean tried to remember what each horseman represented in the little he’d read about them.

  “Okay, so there’s war, and I guess plague or disease. What are the other two?”

  “The four are Death, Famine, War, and Plague,” James recited. “They have their own names and there are other interpretations of what they each represent, but that is a good way to remember them. The good news is, according to tradition, each one has an opponent, a human or Unusual champion, somewhere in the world. It is those four champions who must face of against each one of the Agents of Chaos, the four horsemen, in order to send all four of them back to the netherworld.”

  “So all we have to do is find these four champions and have them ready when the time comes to face them,” Dean proposed. “It’s like a vaccination. If we’re ready for them before they get here, then we can send them back before they have a chance to do any real damage.”

  Brynne shook her head.

  “They could be anywhere. We’d have to search the whole world for the right person or people to counter the horsemen. What if one of them is in the middle of China or something. It would be impossible to find them in time.”

  “I don’t think so,” Dean said after a thought came to him. “The higher powers don’t intervene directly anymore but they also don’t leave us totally undefended. We’ve seen that in the few demonic encounters we’ve had here. Help is always available; we just have to figure out how to use that help and who will provide it. I’d be willing to bet the four champions are closer than we think.”

  “You’re putting a lot of faith in the gods above, Dean,” James said. “In my experience, they leave us to sort out the mess on our own here on Earth.

  “You forget. I’ve met angels. So have you. There are heavenly forces at work as well as demonic.” Dean stopped and shook his head. He was tired from working all night. “I have to think on this more and I have to get some rest. Jaz is expecting me to be up in time to meet her for an early dinner before work, tonight.?”

  Brynne nodded. “Get some sleep. James and I will do what we can to find out more from here. We should be able to find out what the rest of the Unusuals here in Elk City are saying about this. Others may have seen or heard something.”

  “Good, see what you can find out and we’ll talk about it when you’re back on shift in a few days.”

  “We’ll all meet up again at the station in two days,” James said. “I’ll come, too. Let’s just hope nothing blows up between now and then.”

  Chapter 8

  Dean worried he’d have trouble sleeping with all the earlier talk of the end of the world with Brynne and James. Instead, he fell asleep almost immediately, as soon as he lay down in bed.

  It wasn’t a restful sleep, though. He had troubling dreams of his childhood. His mother cried and cried, and his younger self in the dream couldn’t figure out why. She didn’t listen to the young child standing next to her asking her what was wrong. She kept calling out a name over and over again. ‘Gabe,’ she repeated as if that was the answer to the question he asked.

  Dean woke with a start when his alarm went off. He sat at the edge of his bed for a long time, staring at the floor, trying to make sense of what he’d seen in the dream about his mother. He struggled with what he remembered. He could only see bits and pieces as if the dream were a picture made with colored sand running away through a sieve even as he tried to grasp its meaning.

  In the end, the only real image he remembered was his mother clutching her knees to her chest, rocking back and forth and calling out for someone named Gabe. It was such a vivid image; Dean wondered if it had really happened, memory lending definition to the dream somehow. If so, it had to be among the earliest of his memories. The child in his dream was only two or three years old.

  Shaking his head, Dean went into the shower to help clear the cobwebs from his head. He had Bill covering the first six hours of his shift tonight so he could take Jaz out for a date. He needed his wits about him if he was going to pull this off. Tonight was the big night.

  Jaz was naturally suspicious and he didn’t want her to suspect the proposal was coming. Everything had to work out perfectly if he was going to fool her. He loved her but she could be infuriatingly clever sometimes.

  The shower helped wake him up and relax him. Soon after, Dean stood looking at himself in the mirror. He wore his nicer bluejeans and a blue and white striped button-down shirt. His goal was to look nice but not so good that Jaz would think he’d done something special.

  That was also why he let her offer to pick him up. On the occasions when he’d wanted to make their dates special in the past, he’d insisted on driving. He hoped by letting her do the driving it would put her off and make her think this was just a regular date for them.

  Dean grabbed his keys off the table, along with the small box with the ring inside. He’d left a spare uniform at work the night before so he could change when he got there later without having to come back home first. As far as he could tell, everything should be ready.

  He mentally ticked off the list of preparations in his head one more time before he left the apartment over the Baxters’ garage and headed to the street. Jaz would be here any minute. Dean pulled the door shut behind him as Jaz pulled up out front and honked the horn twice.

  Dean waved and hurried down the stairs to the driveway. Mrs. Baxter was out gardening in the front yard. He waved at her, and she waved back.

  “Have fun on your date, Dean. Tell Jaz we said hello.”

  “Will do, Mrs. B. I’m working later tonight so I won’t be home until the morning. I’
ll mow the lawn for you tomorrow when I wake up in the afternoon, is that alright?”

  “That’s fine, dear. If you don’t get to it, Mr. Baxter can do it. He needs to get more exercise anyway.”

  “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry.”

  Mrs. Baxter smiled and went back to her gardening.

  Dean pulled open the door to the black SUV pulled up out front. Jaz sat behind the wheel, her blonde hair hanging down past her shoulders rather than pulled back in her usual ponytail. Maybe she did suspect something. She looked really nice.

  She wore a satiny lavender blouse and black jeans. The top hung down past her waist, probably so she could hide the holstered Glock he knew she always carried at the small of her back.

  “Hi honey,” Dean said as he climbed in. He leaned over and kissed her as he got situated and then buckled his seatbelt.

  “So, Dean, where are we going on this mystery date?”

  “I told you, just dinner out. I have to go to work later. It’s nothing special, I just hadn’t seen you in a while and thought it would be nice to catch up.”

  “So, I can pick the restaurant?”

  “Uh, no,” Dean stammered. “I got us reservations at Sabatani’s tonight.”

  “They’ve been booked up solid since they rebuild the place. How’d you get reservations there?”

  “It helps if you taught the owner his CERT first aid training. Plus he called and said he had a last minute cancellation tonight. He wondered if I’d want to use it before he opened it up. I figured it was better than my original plan of taking you to Hanks Diner.”

  “Well, let’s go then,” Jaz said, a big smile on her face. “I could use one of Kristof’s signature dinners.”

  Jaz pulled away and Dean hoped he’d managed to divert her attention from the special plans he had. She seemed to fall for it, at least for now.

  So far everything was going according to plan.

  * * *

  Dean sat back from the table and patted his stomach.

  “That’s it; I can’t eat another bite.”

  “Wimp,” Jaz said. She stabbed at his plate with her fork nabbing two of the cheese tortellini and popping them into her mouth.

  “I still don’t know how you can eat so much. It weird.”

  “Hunter genes. We have an increased metabolism. It gives us the ability to keep up with supernatural creatures we hunted over the years, but it also comes with the need to fuel up more frequently and with more food than normal.”

  “I guess it comes in handy in keeping that girlish figure.”

  “I haven’t heard you complaining,” Jaz said hiding her smile behind her wine as she took a sip from the glass.

  Dean held up his right hand as if taking an oath.

  “No complaints here at all. I swear.

  “Good, no woman likes complaints about how she looks.”

  Kristof, the owner of the restaurant, who happened to be a real live Djinn or genie, stopped by their table on his rounds checking on the patrons.

  “How was your dinner? Everything was good, I hope.”

  “Everything was excellent, Kristof,” Dean said. “Not that I’d expect any different. Thank you for thinking of us when you got that cancellation.”

  Kristof nodded.

  “I have always tried to support our first responders, especially the men and women of Station U.”

  “We greatly appreciate it,” Dean replied.

  “I still want you to let me hire Freddy away from you. Since he started cooking for you all, you don’t come in to see me as much as you used to.”

  “It’s not because of the food, I assure you. We can’t afford fine dining out all the time. Even with your discount, dinner here is still something your average public servant has to save up and use for a special occasion.”

  “That reminds me,” Jaz said. “Can you put our dinner on my business account? There’s no need for Dean to cover this, I’ll let him pay for dessert later.”

  “Not a problem at all, Miss Errington. I’ll make sure it is added to your regular bill.”

  Kristof left and Dean looked at Jaz. She had a satisfied grin on her face.

  “You have a tab at Sabatani’s now?”

  “I also have a regular reservation three nights a week for my out of town clients to hold dinner meetings. That’s the canceled opening you got, I suspect. It’s sweet of you to think to bring me here, though. I don’t usually get to partake of the dinners with clients. I let my account reps take care of that.”

  “Jaz, you’ve got to let me pay for some things. We talked about this.”

  “We did and I thought we left it with you understanding I make twenty times the money you make working for the city. You told me, again and again, you won’t leave there and take a job with me. Training tactical medics for my security teams is not a slack job just to keep my boyfriend busy, by the way. Just be smart and let me pay for the expensive dinners.”

  “My work for the city is important; you know that. I like taking care of my patients and I like the challenge it offers for me.”

  “Which is why I usually don’t say anything about it.” Jaz paused and leaned across the table the took Dean’s hand in hers. “Hey, I like the way you’re committed to your patients and the community as a whole. It’s one of the things I love most about you.”

  Dean gave her hands a gentle squeeze in return along with a smile acknowledging what she’d said. He leaned back and nodded to the door.

  “Shall we head out. I thought we could go for a stroll in the park before it got too late. There’s a concert of some sort planned for this evening. I saw a notification on it from the city in my email at work. It could be fun.”

  “You planned this date night, Dean,” Jaz said as she took the folded napkin from her lap and slid out of the booth. “I’ll follow your lead.”

  “Come on, then. I think the music is starting soon.”

  Dean and Jaz left the restaurant and, instead of retrieving their SUV, opted to walk the three blocks to the city’s commons, the main park situated in the center of Elk City.

  They soon reached the outskirts of the park and started on their way down one of the many paths there. In the distance, Dean heard the sound of a rock band’s driving bass and drum beat drifting through the trees. He couldn’t make out the song, though.

  Reaching out to take her hand, Dean led Jaz towards the music. It was located in the park’s central pavilion next to a small, man-made lake with several fountains in the center. He could hear the cover band well enough now to pick up the tunes from a few recent pop hits.

  Taking a branch in the path, Dean led her to a footbridge across the narrowest portion of the lake, opposite the pavilion on the far shore. Dean’s free hand patted the pocket of his jeans where he’d stuck the box with the ring. He’d caught himself checking for the ring so many times tonight; it was as if he was afraid it would somehow disappear if he didn’t keep checking for it.

  “You’re quiet,” Jaz said as they reached the center of the span.

  “I’m listening to the music. The band’s not that bad.”

  “I guess so,” Jaz said, shrugging. “I’ve heard better, though.”

  “I think it’s a local showcase and not a featured artist.”

  “In that case, I guess we should cut them some slack and hope they improve.”

  Dean laughed and Jaz joined him. She was right. The band was pretty terrible. They were butchering one of his favorite songs now.

  In the midst of his laughter, he wondered if maybe the choice of a musical backdrop for the proposal wasn’t such a good idea. He banished the thought as jitters and reached into his pocket to pull out the ring. Taking a deep breath, Dean prepared to kneel on the bridge’s decking.

  And then he stopped himself at the sound of Jaz’s stern whisper.

  She kept the smile on her face while she leaned in as if to kiss him and said, “Dean, don’t react. There’s someone else on the bridge behind you about ten yards away.”

  Dean almost turned and looked but managed to resist. He leaned in as well and kissed her.

  “It’s a public park, Jaz. There are bound to be people out and about.”

  “He didn’t walk out here. He just suddenly appeared, Dean. He definitely wasn’t there a few seconds ago.”