Lover Unbound

Chapter Eight

Two hours later Jane pushed the door to the Surgical Intensive Care Unit wide. She was packed up and ready to go home, her leather bag on her shoulder, car keys in her hand, her windbreaker on. But she wasn't leaving without seeing her gunshot patient first.

As she walked over to the nursing station, the woman on the other side of the counter looked up. "Hey, Dr. Whitcomb. Come to check on your admit?"

"Yeah, Shalonda. You know me-can't leave ' em alone. What room did you give him?"

"Number six. Faye's in with him, now making sure he's comfortable."

"See why I love you guys? Best SICU staff in town. By the way, has anyone come to see him? We find a next of kin?"

"I called the number on his medical record. Guy who answered said he'd lived in the apartment for the last ten years and had never heard of a Michael Klosnick. So the addy was a false one."

As Shalonda rolled her eyes, the two of them said at the same time, "Drug-related."

Jane shook her head. "I'm not surprised."

"Neither am I. Those tats on his face don't exactly play him as an insurance adjuster."

"Not unless he's pushing paper for a bunch of pro wrestlers."

Shalonda was laughing as Jane waved and headed down the corridor. Number six was all the way down on the right, and as she went she looked in on two other patients she'd operated on, one who'd had a perforated bowel from liposuction gone wrong and another who'd been impaled on a fence rail in a motorcycle accident.

SICU rooms were twenty by twenty square feet of all business. Each one was glass-fronted, with a curtain that could be pulled for privacy, and they were not the kind of digs that had a window or a Monet poster or a TV with Regis and Kelly on it. If you were well enough to worry about what you were watching on the tube, you didn't belong here. The only screens and pictures were from the monitoring equipment orbiting the bed.

When Jane got to six, Faye Montgomery, a real veteran, looked up from checking the patient's IV. "Evenin', Dr. Whitcomb."

"Faye, how are you?" Jane put her bag down and reached for the medical record that was in a pocket holder by the door.

"I'm good, and before you ask, he's stable. Which is amazing."

Jane nipped through the most recent stats. "No kidding."

She was about to close up the medical record when she frowned at the number on the left-hand corner. The ten-digit patient ID was thousands and thousands of numbers away from the ones given to new admits, and she checked the date the file had first been opened: 1974. Flipping through, she found two admits to the ED: one for a knife wound, the other for a drug overdose; '71 and '73 were the dates.

Ah, hell, she'd seen this before. Zeros and sevens could look alike when you wrote them fast. The hospital hadn't made the move to computerized records until late in 2003, and before that everything had been handwritten. This record had clearly been transcribed by data processors who misread what was there: instead of '01 and '03, the person had transcribed the date back into the seventies.

Except… the DOB didn't make sense. With the one listed, the patient would have been thirty-seven three decades ago.

She closed the folder and rested her palm on it. "We have to get better precision from that transcription service."

"I know. I noticed the same thing. Listen, you want some time alone with him?"

"Yeah, that'd be great."

Faye paused by the door. "Heard you were pretty awesome in the OR tonight."

Jane smiled a little. "The team was awesome. I just did my part. Hey, I forgot to tell Shalonda I'm taking UK in Spring Madness. Would you-"

"Yup. And before you ask, yes, she's Duke again this year."

"Good, we can abuse each other for another six weeks."

"That's why she picked 'em. Public service so the rest of us can watch you guys go at it. You two are such givers."

After Faye left, Jane pulled the privacy curtain into place and went over to the bedside. The patient's respiration was machine-driven through his intubation, and his oxygen levels were acceptable. Blood pressure was steady, although low. Heart rate was sluggish, and it read funny on the monitor, but then again, he had six chambers beating.

Christ, that heart of his.

She leaned over him and studied his facial features. Caucasian in derivation, most likely middle European. A looker, not that that was relevant, although the handsome thing was thrown off a little by those tattoos on his temple. She moved in closer to study the ink in his skin. She had to admit it was beautifully done, the intricate designs like Chinese characters and hieroglyphics combined. She figured the symbols must be gang-related, although he didn't seem like a boy to play at warfare; he was more fierce, like a soldier. Maybe the tats were a martial-arts thing?

When she glanced at the tube inserted in his mouth, she noticed something odd. With her thumb she pushed his upper lip back. His canines were very pronounced. Shockingly sharp.

Cosmetic, no doubt. People were doing all kinds of freaky stuff to their appearances these days, and he'd already marked up his face.

She lifted up the thin blanket that covered him. The wound dressing on the chest was fine, so she worked her way down his body, pushing the covers out of her way while she went. She inspected the stab wound's dressing, then palpated his abdominal area. As she gently pushed to feel his internal organs, she looked at the tattoos above his pubic area, then focused on the scars around his groin.

He'd been partially castrated.

Given the messy scarring, it hadn't been a surgical removal, more likely the result of an accident. Or at least, she hoped it had been accidental, because the only other explanation would be torture.

She stared at his face as she covered him up. On impulse, she put her hand on his forearm and squeezed. "You've led a hard-core life, haven't you."

"Yeah, but it's done me good."

Jane wheeled around. "Jesus, Manello. You scared me."

"Sorry. Just wanted to check in." The chief went around to the other side of the bed, his eyes going over the patient. "You know, I don't think he wouldn't have lived under someone else's knife."

"Have you seen the pictures?"

"Of his heart? Yeah. I want to send them to the boys at Columbia for a little look-see. You can ask them what they think when you're there."

She gave that one a pass. "His blood wouldn't type."

"Really?"

"If we can get his consent, I think we should do a total workup on him down to the chromosomes."

"Ah, yes, your second love. Genes."

Funny that he remembered. She'd probably mentioned only once how she'd almost ended up in genetics research.

With a junkie's rush, Jane pictured the inside of the patient, saw his heart in her hand, felt the organ in her grip as she saved his life. "He could present a fascinating clinical opportunity. God, I would love to study him. Or at least participate in studying him."

The soft beeping of the monitoring equipment seemed to swell in the silence between them until moments later some kind of awareness tickled the back of her neck. She glanced up. Manello was staring at her, his face grave, his thick jaw set, his brows down low.

"Manello?" She frowned. "Are you okay?"

"Don't go."

To avoid his eyes she looked down at the bedsheet that was folded once and tucked under her patient's arm. Idly she smoothed the white expanse-until it reminded her of something her mother had always done.

She stilled her hand. "You can get another surg-"

"Fuck the department. I don't want you to go because…" Manello pushed a hand through his thick dark hair. "Christ, Jane. I don't want you to go because I'd miss you like hell, and because I… shit, I need you, okay? I need you here. With me."

Jane blinked like an idiot. In the last four years there'd never been any suggestion that the man was attracted to her. Sure, they were tight and all. And she was the only one who could calm him down when he lost his temper. And okay, yeah, they talked about the inner workings of the hospital all the time, even after hours. And they ate together every night when they were on duty and… he'd told her about his family and she'd told him about hers…

Crap.

Yeah, but the man was the hottest property on hospital grounds. And she was about as feminine as… well, an operating table.

Certainly had as many curves as one.

"Come on, Jane, how clueless can you be? If you gave me a thin inch, I'd be inside your scrubs in the next heartbeat."

"Are you insane?" she breathed.

"No." His eyes grew heavy-lidded. "I'm very, very lucid."

In the face of that summer-night sultry expression, Jane's brain took a vacation. Just flew right out of her skull. "It wouldn't look right," she blurted.

"We'd be discreet."

"We fight." What the hell was coming out of her mouth?

"I know." He smiled, his full lips curving. "I like that. No one stands up to me but you."

She stared across the patient at him, still so dumbfounded she didn't know what to say. God, it had been so long since she'd had a man in her life. In her bed. In her head. So damned long. It had been years of coming home to her condo and showering alone and falling into bed alone and waking up alone and going to work alone. With both her parents gone she had no family, and with the hours she pulled at the hospital, she had no outside circle of friends. The only person she really talked to was… well, Manello.

As she looked at him now, it occurred to her that he truly was the reason she was leaving, though not just because he was standing in her way in the department. On some level she'd known this heart-to-heart was coming, and she'd wanted to run before it hit.

"Silence," Manello murmured, "is not a good thing right now. Unless you're trying to frame something like, 'Manny, I've loved you for years, let's go back to your place and spend the next four days horizontal.' "

"You're on tomorrow," she said automatically.

"I'd call in sick. Say I've got that flu. And as your chairman, I would order you to do the same." He leaned forward over the patient. "Don't go to Columbia tomorrow. Don't leave. Let's see how far we can take this."

Jane looked down and realized she was staring at Manny's hands… his strong, broad hands that had fixed so many hips and shoulders and knees, saving the careers and the happiness of so many athletes, professional and amateur alike. And he didn't just operate on the young and in shape. He had preserved the mobility of the elderly and the injured and the cancer-stricken as well, helping so many to continue to function with arms and legs.

She tried to imagine those hands on her skin.

"Manny…" she whispered. "This is crazy."

Across town, in the alley outside of ZeroSum, Phury rose from the motionless body of a ghost-white lesser. With his black dagger he'd opened up a yawning slice in the thing's neck, and glossy black blood was pumping out onto the slush-covered asphalt. His instinct was to stab the thing in the heart and poof it back to the Omega, but that was the old way. The new way was better.

Although it cost Butch. Dearly.

"This one's ready for you," Phury said, and stepped back.

Butch came forward, his boots crunching through icy puddles. His face was grim, his fangs elongated, his scent now carrying the baby-powder sweetness of their enemies. He had finished with the slayer he had fought with, done his special business, and now he would do it again.

The cop looked both motivated and in pain as he sank to his knees, planted his hands on either side of the lesser's pasty face, and leaned down. Opening his mouth, he positioned himself above the slayer's lips and began a long, slow inhale.

The lesser's eyes flared as a black mist rose out of its body and was sucked into Butch's lungs. There was no break in the inhale, no pause in the draw, just a steady stream of evil passing out of one vessel and into another. In the end, their enemy became nothing but gray ash, its body collapsing, then fragmenting into a fine dust that was carried away by the cold wind.

Butch sagged, then gave out altogether, falling to his side onto the alley's slushy road. Phury went over and reached his hand-

"Don't touch me." Butch's voice was a mere wheeze. "I'll make you sick."

"Let me-"

"No!" Butch shoved at the ground, pushing himself up. "Just gimme a minute."

Phury stood over the cop, guarding him and keeping an eye on the alley in case more came. "You want to go home? I'll go look for V."

"Fuck, no." The cop's hazel eyes lifted. "He's mine. I'm going to find him."

"Are you sure?"

Butch got up onto his feet, and though his body waved like a flag, he was nothing but green light. "Let's go."

As Phury fell into step with the guy and the two of them went down Trade Street, he didn't like the look on Butch's face. The cop had the loose-goose expression of someone whose blender was on frappé, but it didn't seem like he was going to quit unless he fell over.

And as the two of them scoured the urban armpit of Caldwell and came up with jack shit, the no-V situation clearly made Butch even sicker.

They were on the very fringes of downtown, all the way out by Redd Avenue, when Phury stopped. "We should turn back. I doubt he'd come out this far."

Butch stopped. Looked around. In a dull voice he said, "Hey, check it. This is Beth's old apartment building."

"We need to double back."

The cop shook his head and rubbed his chest. "We've got to keep going."

"Not saying we stop looking. But why would he be this far out? We're on the edge of residential land. Too many eyes for a fight, so he wouldn't come here looking for one."

"Phury, man, what if he got jacked? We haven't seen another lesser out tonight. What if something big went down, like they bagged him?"

"If he was conscious, that would be highly unlikely, given that hand of his. Helluva weapon, even if he got stripped of his daggers."

"What if he was knocked out?"

Before Phury could respond, the Channel Six News-Leader van tore by at a dead run. Two streets down its brakelights flared and the thing hung a louie.

All Phury could think was, Shit. News vans didn't show up in a rush like that because some old lady's cat was in a tree. Still, maybe it was just human shit, like a gang-related lead shower.

Trouble was, some horrible, crushing prescience told Phury that wasn't the case, so when Butch started walking in that direction, he went along. No words were spoken, which meant the cop was probably thinking exactly what he was: Please, God, let it be someone else's tragedy, not ours.

When they came up to where the TV van was parked, there was your typical crime convention, with two Caldwell Police Department cruisers parked at the entrance to Twentieth Avenue's dead-end alley. As a reporter stood spotlit and addressing a camera, men in uniform walked around within a circle of yellow tape, and kibitzers huddled together, drama-feeding and yakking.

The gust of wind barreling down the alley carried the smell of V's blood as well as the sweet baby-powder stench of lessers.

"Oh, God…" Butch's anguish rolled out into the cold night air, adding a sharp, shellaclike tang to the mix.

The cop lurched forward toward the tape, but Phury grabbed the guy's arm to stop him-only to blanch. The evil in Butch was so palpable, it shot up Phury's arm and landed in his gut, making his stomach roll.

He held on to his friend anyway.

"You stay the fuck back. You probably worked with some of those badges." When the cop opened his mouth, Phury talked right over him. "Pop your collar, pull your brim, and hold tight."

Butch tugged on his Red Sox hat and tucked his jaw in. "If he's dead-"

"Shut up and worry about keeping yourself on your feet." Which was going to be a challenge, because Butch was a ragged mess. Jesus… if V was dead, not only would that kill each and every one of the Brothers, but the cop had special problems. After he pulled that Dyson routine with the slayers, V was the only thing that could get the evil out of him.

"Go on, Butch. It's too much exposure for you. Go on now."

The cop walked off a couple yards and propped himself up against a parked car in the shadows. When it looked like the guy was going to stay there, Phury went over and joined the hangers-on at the edge of the yellow tape. Surveying the scene, the first thing he noticed were the residuals from where a lesser had been offed. Fortunately, the police weren't paying attention to them. They probably thought the glossy puddle was just oil spilled from a car and the scorched place leftover from a homeless person's makeshift fire. No, the badges were concentrating on the center of the scene, where Vishous had clearly lain in a pool of red blood.

Oh… God.

Phury glanced at the random human next to him. "What happened?"

The guy shrugged. "Gunshot. Some kind of fight."

A young kid dressed in rave clothes spoke up, all hyped out, like this was the coolest thing ever. "It was in the chest. I saw it happen, and I was the one who called nine-one-one." He waved his cell phone like it was a prize. "The police want me to stick around so they can interview me."

Phury looked over at him. "What went down?"

"God, you wouldn't have believed it. It was right outta The World's Most Shocking Moments Caught on Tape show. You know that show?"

"Yeah." Phury checked out the buildings on either side of the alley. No windows. This was probably the only witness. "So what happened?"

"Well, all's I was doing was walking down Trade. My friends ditched me at Screamer's and I got no ride, you know? Anyway, I'm walking and I see this bright flash of light up ahead. It was like a massive strobe thingy coming out of this alley. I walked a little faster, 'cause I wanted to see what was going down, and that's when I heard the gunshot. It was like a pop sound. Actually, I didn't even know it was a gunshot until I got here. You'd think it'd be louder-"

"When did you call nine-one-one?"

"Well, I waited a little bit, 'cause I figured someone would come running out of the alley and I didn't want to be shot. But, like, no one came, so I figured they'd disappeared out some back way or something. Then when I walked down here, I saw that there's no other way out. So maybe he shot himself, you know?"

"What the guy look like?"

"The vic?" The kid leaned in. "Vic is what the police call the victim. I heard 'em."

"Thanks for the clarification," Phury muttered. "So what did he look like?"

"Dark hair. With a goatee. Lot of leather. I stood over him while I called nine-one-one. He was bleeding, but alive."

"You didn't see anyone else?"

"Nope. Just the one. So, like, I'm going to get interviewed by the police. Like, for real. Did I tell you that?"

"Yeah, congratulations. You must be thrilled." Man, Phury totally had to resist popping the kid a fat lip.

"Hey, don't hate. This is cool stuff."

"Not for the guy who got shot, it isn't." Phury looked over the scene again. At least V wasn't in lesser hands, and he hadn't been dead at the scene. Chances were the slayer had shot V first, but the brother had still had enough strength to poof the bastard before passing out.

From the left, Phury heard a well-modulated voice: "This is Bethany Choi of the Channel Six NewsLeader team reporting live from the scene of another downtown shooting. According to police, the victim, Michael Klosnick-"

Michael Klosnick? Whatever, likely V had copped the lesser's ID and it had been found on him.

"-was taken to St. Francis Medical Center in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the chest…"

Okay, this was going to be a long night: Vishous injured. In human hands. And they had only four hours until daylight.

Rapid-evac time.

Phury dialed the compound while he walked back over to Butch. As the cell rang, he talked at the cop. "He's alive at St. Francis with a gunshot."

Butch sagged and said something that sound like, Praise God. "So we're going to get him out?"

"You got it." Why wasn't Wrath picking up? Come on, Wrath… pick up. "Shit… those goddamned surgeons must have gotten the surprise of their human lives when they opened him up-Wrath? We've got a situation."

Vishous came awake in an out-of-it body, becoming fully conscious, though he was trapped in a cage of comatose flesh and bones. Unable to move his arms or legs, and with his eyelids shut so tight it was like he'd been crying rubber cement, it appeared that his hearing was the only thing working: There was a conversation going on above him. Two voices. A female's and a male's, neither of which he recognized.

No, wait. He knew one of them. One of them had ordered him around. The female. But why?

And why the hell had he let her?

He listened to her talk without really following the words. Her cadence of speech was like a male's. Direct. Authoritative. Commanding.

Who was she? Who-

Her identity hit him like a slap, stunning some sense into him. The surgeon. The human surgeon. Jesus Christ, he was in a human hospital. He'd fallen into human hands after… Shit, what had happened?

Panic energized him… and got him exactly nowhere. His body was a slab of meat, and he had a feeling the tube down his throat meant a machine was working his lungs. Clearly they'd sedated the shit out of him.

Oh, God. How close to dawn was it? He needed to get the hell away from here. How was he going to-

His escape planning came to a crashing halt as his instincts fired up, took the wheel, grabbed control.

It wasn't the fighter in him coming out, though. It was all those possessive male impulses that had always been dormant, the ones he'd read about or heard about or seen in others, but had assumed he'd been born without. The trigger was a scent in the room, the scent of a male who wanted sex… with the female, with V's surgeon.

Mine.

The word came from out of nowhere and arrived with a matched set of urge-to-kill luggage. He was so outraged his eyes flipped open.

Turning his head, he saw a tall human woman with a short cap of blond hair. She wore rimless glasses, no makeup, no earrings. Her white coat read, JANE WHITCOMB, MD, CHIEF OF TRAUMA DIVISION in black cursive letters.

"Manny," she said, "this is crazy."

V shifted his stare to a dark-haired human male. The guy was also in a white coat, with his reading, MANUEL MANELLO, MD, CHAIRMAN, DEPARTMENT OF SURGERY at the right of the lapel.

"There's nothing crazy about it." The guy's voice was deep and demanding, his eyes way too fricking fixated on V's surgeon. "I know what I want. And I want you."

Mine, V thought Not yours, MINE.

"I can't not go down to Columbia tomorrow," she said. "Even if there were something between us, I'd still have to leave if I want to lead a department."

"Something between us." The bastard smiled. "Does that mean you'll think about it?"

"It?"

"Us."

V's upper lip pulled off his fangs. As he started to growl, that one word rolled around his brain, a grenade with the pin out: Mine.

"I don't know," V's surgeon said.

"That's not a no, is it. Jane? That is not a no."

"No… it isn't."

"Good." The human male glanced down at V and seemed surprised. "Someone's awake."

You'd better fucking believe it, V thought. And if you touch her, I'm going to bite your godforsaken arm off at the socket.