The Wrath of Angels - false start #1

CHAPTER 1


Michael Hsia needed coffee. He needed it now, he needed it strong, and he needed it badly. The problem, he thought, as he reluctantly poured himself another styrofoam cupful, was that this thin, watery stuff barely deserved the name. Why couldn't Dunn Brothers open up a shop here inside the hospital? A triple-shot of espresso was exactly what the doctor wanted to order. This emergency room had enough traffic passing through it to justify, not just a coffee shop, but its very own strip mall. Then again, the Hennepin County clientele wasn't exactly what you'd describe as upscale.

He fought off the urge to yawn, then tried, and failed, to stop himself from sneaking another glance at his watch. Ten after two - he'd been on call for eighteen hours, with another six to go before he could nab some desperately needed crash time. First, do no harm! Michael snorted bitterly. How grand it sounded. Hippocrates and all that. But how could you be sure not to do any harm when you could barely see straight?

He might have thought twice about going pre-med if he'd really known just how little sleep one managed to get as a resident. People talked about it, sure, and TV shows like ER showed their brave young doctors being dragged unwillingly from the break room every now and then, but no one ever told him about the way your body simply ached all the time. Even his brain seemed to hurt, and he never found himself thinking about big paychecks, late tee-times, or expensive sports cars anymore. These days, as he stumbled around the hospital like a zombie, his fantasies were about one thing, and one thing only. Sleep, wonderful sleep. He thought enviously of his classmates at Yale, most of whom would have finished their post-graduate work by now and were no doubt enjoying forty-hour workweeks, six-figure salaries, and eight-hour nights.

His pager buzzed. He groaned and downed the weak coffee in a single gulp, ignoring the burn that seared his insides from top to bottom. Crumpling the styrofoam in his left hand, he banked it off the wall into the lounge's overflowing wastebasket as he read the message on the little device's greenscreen. Curtain six, it blinked at him. Urgent, urgent, right, whatever. This was the emergency room. Everything was urgent.

I swear, I'm going in for plastic surgery, he vowed to himself as he threw himself headlong down the narrow staircase, the rusty, yellow-painted handrails barely keeping him upright. So you have to vacuum the fat off a few forty-something ladies on the lunch circuit every now and then, big deal. The money's good, there's lots of honeys looking to upsize on the topside, and best of all, you can sleep in your own doggone bed at night!

The entry hall was bustling, but a quick glance as he passed the main check-in room didn't seem to reveal anything out of the ordinary. Worried-looking mothers holding sick babies, teenagers who'd partied too hard and too dumb, and the inevitable gangbanger or two, sporting colors, bruises, and the summer's hottest accessory, a bored-looking cop attached at the wrist. Michael always wondered if the bruises came pre- or post-cop, but he knew better than to ask. The Hennipen County Medical Center, HCMC as it was usually called, wasn't South-Central Los Angeles, but it wasn't the innocent suburbs he'd grown up in either.

He saw the paramedics pushing a stretcher into the curtain where he himself was heading, and he increased his pace to catch up with them as he adroitly snapped on a pair of latex gloves. It was stupid, but the action always made him feel more like a real doctor.

"What's going on?" he asked, but before they could answer, he could already see there wasn't going to be much he could do for the poor guy they were carting in.

"Car fire on Ninety-four, under the Eleventh Avenue bridge. He must have hit the underpass and torched the car."

"And himself," Michael added unneccessarily.

The guy was unconscious, and if he was lucky, he wouldn't ever wake again. The terrible second- and third-degree burns that covered far too much of his uncovered flesh meant he was already doomed from infection, if not from the burns themselves, or whatever injuries he'd sustained in hitting the concrete bridge supports. The pale skin of his face, surprisingly, was mostly unburned, and stood out dramatically against the dark, ugly burns. He hadn't been a bad-looking guy, once upon a time. Almost like a poor girl's Brad Pitt, in a way.

Doctor Wrengler pushed the curtain aside a second later, accompanied by a nurse. A brief spasm of distaste crossed his pinched face as he took in the crash victim.

"Hmm. Is he still breathing?"

The shorter of the two paramedics shook his head.

"No. We were going to tube him, but his heart shut down just as we were wheeling him in here. Doesn't look good."

The doctor nodded and turned expectantly towards Michael.

"Well? Normally, we spring into action when a heartrate goes systolic. Can you offer an explanation for this team's lack of response to this man's crashing?"

"Um, I don't see that there's anything we can do for him, Doctor Wrengler. In my opinion, he's DOA."

"Unfortunately, you are absolutely right, Mr. Hsia." He gestured towards Michael's wrist. "Would you care to pronounce him?"

Michael frowned, and took a deep breath. Stating the time of death was no big deal, and it was well within the realm of his duties, of course, but it really wasn't something he was very comfortable with yet. It smacked too much of a godlike power over life and death, and it gave him the horrible feeling that he was tempting the Fates somehow by daring to tread upon their rightful domain.

"Ah, yes, Doctor, of course. Thank you." He reached out gingerly and felt for a pulse under the black, scabrous tissue, thankful to be wearing gloves. The bumpy, burned surface didn't even feel like flesh, and under it there were no signs of life to be found. He suppressed a shudder as he withdrew his hand, then consulted his silver Movado. It had been a graduation gift from his parents; they were so terribly proud to have a doctor in the family.

"Time of death, two eighteen."

He glanced at Doctor Wrengel, who nodded soberly.

"Well done, Mr. Hsia." The older man gestured to the nurses and paramedics, indicating that they were free to leave. "Why don't you come with me now. There's a young man with a broken leg in need of a splint, and perhaps you could lend a hand."

Michael nodded and did his best to look enthusiastic. Doctor Wrengel wouldn't be his first choice for a mentor, but he wasn't a bad guy despite his aloof demeanor, and he certainly knew his stuff cold. Besides, he was number two on the E.R. totem pole, and it surely couldn't hurt to stay on his good side. As Michael obediently followed the doctor through the curtain, he glanced back at the remains of the unfortunate man.

The lifeless remnants looked more alien than human, and a momentary stab of regret for his inability to help the man hit Michael without warning. I'm sorry, Brad, or whatever your name was. I really am sorry. But the feeling quickly faded as he firmly turned his thoughts toward his next patient. Sometimes there was nothing you could do, and there wasn't any point in dwelling on it when there were always more people in need of your attention, more people in need of your help.

Four hours later, he had completely forgotten about the car accident. He had watched in awe as Dr. Wrengel used the shock paddles to save the life of a grossly overweight woman who'd gone into cardiac arrest, held the hand of an old black man who had a childlike fear of needles, and cradled in his arms a tiny, squalling infant who'd been delivered by emergency caesarian. The joy of life, the depressing squalor of death...the emergency room was an emotional roller coaster, and if one minute you felt like you were flying, the next could bring you right back down to earth in a hurry. The adrenaline rush was unbelievable, and Michael was starting to understand how some doctors thrived on the never-ending excitement of the routine.

But this crazy up-and-down really wasn't his thing, and although he was learning invaluable lessons in this rotation, he wouldn't be sorry to put it all behind him in another six months. He could handle the stress, but he didn't enjoy it, although it surely helped in coping with the constant exhaustion. Right now, he wasn't even feeling tired, although he knew that the lack of sleep going to hit him like a starving cheetah when this second wind wore off.

A nurse stopped him, one of the older ladies, a friendly, heavyset woman. She glanced at his nametag.

"Michael, ah, I'm sorry, is it Seeya?"

"You're not even close, Mary," Michael shook his head, but he grinned pleasantly at her. "Shaw."

She grimaced, embarrassed.

"Well, I am sorry about that -"

He held up a hand.

"Don't even worry about it. Were you looking for me?"

"Actually, we're looking for the body of one of Doctor Wrengel's patients, the one who died in the single-car accident on Ninety-four. Lowanda said he was gone when she went to curtain six to bring him down to the morgue, but none of the other nurses know anything about him. The board said you were on with Wrengel."

Michael glanced down the hall. Admissions had slowed considerably after three, but things were starting to pick up again with the sunrise. The morning rush hour was always good for a daily fender bender or two, and even though the injuries were seldom serious, you still had to treat them.

"I'm sorry, Mary, but I have no idea. He didn't go anywhere by himself, I can tell you that much. We pronounced him around two."

"Gee, thanks," the rotund nurse snorted, but her annoyance wasn't directed at him. "Well, I'll just keep looking around. I guess somebody forgot to do their paperwork."

"Good luck," Michael called, but Mary was already stomping off towards the elevator.

Misplacing a body wasn't normal, but it happened sometimes. A hospital might be a hallowed grounds of life and death, but when it came to bureaucratic inefficiency, it was just like any other massive institution. Michael couldn't believe the amount of paperwork the HMO's were requiring of the doctors now. It defied belief. The thought of all those interminable forms stacking up every day was just one more reason to set his sights on getting into private practice.

Michael shrugged and dismissed the incident from his mind. A missing body wasn't his problem, after all, and he had more urgent concerns to consider. His energy was starting to flag again, and he remembered that he hadn't eaten anything in almost eight hours. He checked his watch. Good, the morning delivery would have arrived in the cafeteria by now, and the doughnuts would still be fresh if he got there soon enough.

"Oh, shut up, already," he ordered his growling stomach as he headed for the back stairs. "I'm working on it!"

The remainder of his shift passed without serious incident, but as always, it was the last two hours that were the hardest. By the time he was free to punch out, he felt as if he'd been on the receiving end of a beating. His eyes burned despite the switch he'd made earlier, from contacts to glasses, and his vision was starting to shift randomly in and out of focus.

"Go get some sleep," the receptionist called after him.

"You know, the thought had crossed my mind," he admitted as he shuffled out the door, into the bright morning sunlight. It was painful on his light-sensitive eyes, and he fumbled in his pockets for his prescription sunglasses before remembering he'd left them in the car.

His phone rang just as he slid gingerly into the seat of his Toyota MR-2. He'd forgotten to park in the shade, and the black leather seats were hot, hot, hot. He glanced at the number and saw it was Carina, his sort-of-but-not-quite girlfriend.

"Yeah?"

"Hey, what'cha doing?"

"I just got off. What's up with your own bad self?"

"No-thing"

She drew the word out playfully, flirtatiously, and he groaned silently to himself. Carina was a cutie, a half-Korean, half-Anglo hairdresser with lovely green eyes, a body to die for, and a singular inability to understand his status as a resident. She seemed to regard his habitual late nights as a sign that he was a really a party boy at heart, no matter how many horror stories he related from the ER.

Not that she didn't understand what it meant that he was a doctor. Oh yeah, he nodded his head, she understood that part perfectly well. It was almost instinctual with her. Like other attractive, but otherwise useless girls he'd met, she was a predator, moving from one upwardly-mobile guy to the next, always looking to jump up a step in the process. It was probably too harsh to call her a predator, though. She wasn't the man-eating kind, in fact, she was pretty sweet at heart, and she'd even shed a few genuine tears when she'd ditched her previous guy in his favor.

You can't blame a cat for hunting mice, and you couldn't blame a girl like Carina for her evolutionarily-correct behavior either. Beauty was her best asset, and she would have to be a fool not to use it. Fortunately, despite the best efforts of the HMO's, doctors still ranked highly on whatever list the social parasites of America were using to compare resumes, so Michael assumed he had a pretty good chance of holding on to her unless she met a divorced CEO or a professional basketball player somewhere along the way. That was if he wanted to keep her, of course, and he hadn't really settled that question in his mind yet. There was still a part of him that wanted to believe in true love, in romance, in the ecstatic union of soul and mind. What he had with Carina was nice, but it wasn't quite that.

He shrugged. What does love mean anyhow? He was starting to suspect that it was just a poetic way of describing physical attraction continued over time. Which was great, of course, but it struck him as being more of a blind roll of the dice than anything you could seriously work towards. Who knew what the future held in store? He remembered the first girl who'd ever said she was in love with him, that little blonde from the tennis club. What was her name? He couldn't remember now. But he could still remember the serious look on her face when she'd told him that. She'd been just as serious, three weeks later, in telling him she wasn't in love with him anymore.

"So, don't you want to know what I'm wearing?"

"Sure,"

Michael sighed. He knew where this was going. Normally, he'd be all for it, but right now, all he wanted to do was go home and crash for a decade or two.

"What are you wearing?"

"No-thing...."

"Hmmm, that does sound interesting," he said politely, before making a feeble attempt to avoid the inevitable. "I'm really tired, though. I need to get some sleep like you would not believe...."

"You can sleep here," she informed him. QED. And just like that, the discussion was over. "I'll run out to Caribou before you get here. Turtle mocha or regular?"

"Turtle." Michael gave in without further protest. Resistance was futile, and would only spark unnecessary repercussions. "Better have 'em moose it."

"All righty. Bye, baby!"

She made some vague kissing noises at him and hung up. He stared at his phone before flipping it shut, wondering just how it could be possible that after having left his bed so unwillingly some thirty-six hours before, he wasn't returning to it now.

Sleep, the final frontier. His body cried out for its black solace, as beautiful, and right now as inaccessible, as outer space. He groaned, and shifted the stick into first as he gunned the engine and roared out of the HCMC parking lot. It was going to be a long morning.


CHAPTER 2


Labor Day weekend was always a busy time, and this particular holiday was no exception. Just my luck to be on it again, Michael muttered to himself under his breath, watching anxiously as Doctor Roche probed at the jagged piece of automotive metal protruding from the injured woman's leg. This was the fourth multi-vehicle they'd seen already today, and it was only an hour after sunset. There would surely be more, especially after bar close when the drunks were out in force. The lady on whom they were working had seen the worst of it from this particular crash; her two children were fine, and her husband had only suffered a broken nose. The teenage idiot whose reckless driving had caused the crash had gotten off unscathed, naturally.

He shook his head. It wasn't fair, but if you had any lingering notions about the cosmic fairness of life, a stint in the emergency ward would take care of that soon enough.

"How's she look," the attending called, sticking his head inside the curtain.

"Hold on... just a second...." Doctor Roche peered closely at the clamp she'd just finished applying. "It's a little closer to the artery than I'd like, but as long as we keep an eye on her, she's not going to bleed out. Her heart rate looks good too, holding nice and steady. If they're free upstairs, we can start prepping her now."

"Excellent," the attending nodded. "Let's get to it."

Michael sighed, relieved to know that the young woman wasn't in serious danger. He'd seen the frightened look on her children's faces as the paramedics raced her from the ambulance to the trauma room, and he hoped never to know that kind of helpless fear. He wondered where the kids were now. Doctor Roche already had two more trauma patients waiting for her ministrations, but it would be nice if someone could find the little ones and let them know that their mother was going to be all right.

The thing was, if you could just manage to get your patient up to the surgeons in half-way decent shape, the odds were really on their side. The doctors at HCMC were fiercely proud of their patients survival record, and even in the case of a potentially life-threatening injury like this one, the odds of survival were pushing well past ninety-five percent these days. It shouldn't be too hard to find those kids, he told himself. Especially not if Dad's got his schnozz bandaged up already.

Michael had stripped off his gloves and was starting to head towards the waiting room when his pager began buzzing urgently. A second later, he heard the metallic crash of a stretcher being slammed against a door, and saw a pair of familiar blue uniforms rushing into the hall. Not needing to consult his pager, Michael ran towards the beleaguered team of paramedics, which was simultaneously trying to subdue their agitated patient while pushing the stretcher towards Trauma Two.

"What's wrong?"

"Gunshot wound," the lead medic shouted, barely ducking under a wild left hook. "Two to the chest, one to the abdomen!"

"You sure you counted right?" Michael yelled, and he jumped back, incredulous, as the wounded man lunged at him. He heard a ripping sound as the restraining belt began to give way. "What did they shoot him with, a squirt gun?"

"Just grab his arm, would you?"

Michael made a desperate grab for the first flailing limb that flashed past his face, and held on with grim resolve. The injured man was strong, impossibly so, especially considering that the wrist to which Michael was clinging with both hands was no thicker than his own. Was this what the police were talking about when they told their horror stories about PCP? The guy was strapped down, outnumbered three-to-one, and had three bullets in him, for Pete's sake, and yet Michael was left with the distinct impression that he was on the losing side.

Blood was running freely down the man's bare arm, and Michael could feel his grip starting to slip despite the rubber gloves.

"I can't hold him much longer!"

"Don't let - oof!"

The second paramedic, a muscular black man, grunted as a forceful kick launched him into the tiled wall. It only took him a second to regain his balance and return to the fray, but as he tried to grab onto the patient's thrashing legs, he stumbled. The weight of his body sent the stretcher over onto its side with a thunderous crash. Michael was hurled to the floor and his right hip was driven painfully into the painted concrete, but he stubbornly refused to release the man's arm.

Ignoring the lightning stabs of intense pain running up and down his side, he took advantage of a momentary flexing to jam his left elbow into the psycho's bicep, temporarily immobilizing the man's arm in a makeshift jujistu hold.

"Push this thing off me, Ben, you clumsy jerk! I can't get my foot out!"

The first paramedic, trapped under the stretcher, was screaming at his partner, but the black man ignored him as he continued to wrestle with the man's wildly kicking legs.

"Here comes the cavalry!" he cried triumphantly. "Just hold on!"

Michael looked up and was profoundly relieved to see Lawonda charging towards them like an angry mama hippo, a large syringe barely visible in her massive hand. She kneeled down with surprising agility, and made good use of her considerable bulk to pin the man's shoulder against the cart.

"You hold that arm steady, now," she told Michael as she hunted for a likely vein. "Don't let him move it on you."

Happily, the search didn't take her long, since the spidery lines bulging out of the man's lean arms bore a strong resemblance to a highway map. The giant nurse jabbed the needle home, and with practiced ease, sent a strong dose of Nebutol into the man's bloodstream.

"Have a nice nap, darling," she told the injured man, whose eyes, defiant to the last, fought to stay open. But the drug was stronger than even his superhuman willpower, and it was only seconds before Michael felt the arm in his grasp weaken and grow limp. When it had relaxed completely, he slumped back against the wall and shook his head in disbelief.

"Holy smokes, what's that guy on?"

"Who knows! Come on, we've got to get him up and into Two," Ben, the black paramedic, snapped, extending a hand to help him to his feet. "I don't think he's got very long. With the size of the entry wounds, I think we're looking at forty-caliber."

"I think I broke my ankle," the other paramedic announced to no one in particular, gasping as he pushed himself upright. He tested his left foot gingerly. "Son of a gun! I don't think I can walk on this."

Michael was rubbing his bruised hip, relieved to discover that he hadn't broken anything himself. Forty-caliber? There was no way. Nine millimeter, maybe, but forty? Forget it. If the guy could survive three rounds of forty and still go on to smack them around like that, then he could go ahead and walk himself into the operating room, as far as Michael was concerned.

"Michael, that's your name, right? Give us a hand here, will you?"

He was wincing as he bent down, but he pitched in without complaining to help Ben and Lowanda righten the stretcher. The floor was a mess, stained with the man's blood, as were Michael and the two paramedics. I sure hope this dude doesn't have hepatitis or AIDS, Michael thought, and he made a mental note to get himself tested in a few weeks. And doesn't that just make your day! He could just imagine how fun it would be to have that particular conversation with Carina.

"Steve, call the dispatcher and let them know you're out of commission, then get that ankle checked out." Ben slapped his injured partner on the shoulder. "I'll meet up with you as soon as we get this guy stabilized or whatever."

"Shouldn't be hard to find a doctor around here," Steve joked weakly, and that was the last that Michael saw of him as he helped Ben push the unconscious man towards Trauma Two. He glanced at the man's chest and winced. The odds looked to be with whatever.

"Blood type?" Lowanda was scribbling notes.

"We gave him three liters of O-Neg in the van. He's going through it in nothing flat, though. I don't think that little dustup helped things any."

Doctor Peters was already waiting for them behind the curtain, accompanied by Beth, one of the other residents, and a team of nurses. His jaw dropped as they entered.

"What on earth happened to you guys?"

Michael, like the others, ignored the question. He was still shocked by the realization that Ben had been right. The guy really had been hit by what looked to be a pair of at least forty-caliber bullets, maybe even three-fifty-seven. He hadn't been able to see the abdominal wound yet, or the exit wounds, of course, and he shuddered to think how large they must be. No wonder the guy had been going through the O-Neg so fast. His chances for survival had to be almost negligible, but then again, Michael didn't understand how the guy could still be alive in the first place.

"We had to sedate him," Ben explained to Doctor Peters. "Pulse ox is high, and his heart rate is surprisingly strong, considering how serious those wounds are."

"Doctor Peters!" One of the nurses interrupted the paramedic. "He's crashing!"

The doctor whirled around and began barking orders. The trauma room erupted into a flurry of activity, and Michael, seeing that he was only in the way, decided to go get himself cleaned up before he was summoned again. As he started to follow Ben out of the room, he looked back, and saw one of the nurses removing the oxygen mask from the man's face.

He froze. This face was not unknown to him. He had seen its broad cheekbones, square jawline, and pale, white skin before, and in this same building. It was twin to that of another man, the burn victim he himself had pronounced dead only a few weeks ago. The face of a man, he remembered suddenly, whose body had gone mysteriously missing from the morgue.

"He didn't leave here on his own," he remembered himself telling someone. Was it possible, maybe, that he had?

Then he laughed at himself. Don't be ridiculous. That's just stupid! Michael didn't remember being struck in the head during the violent struggle in the hallway, but the silly stream his consciousness was taking almost made him wonder if he'd been concussed.

He looked back at the sedated man, whose peaceful, relaxed features were in stark contrast to the frantic activity that surrounded him. His torso was fully exposed, his clothes having been cut away by the nurses, and it was obvious that he was unlikely to survive his injuries. But despite the blood still coursing from his wounds, it was also apparent that his unmarred skin had never known the terrible touch of fire.

It must be a brother, or a lookalike cousin, Michael concluded sadly. Perhaps even a twin. He felt sorry for the family, who would be forced to confront yet another tragic loss before enough time could have passed for them to become reconciled to the first. Bad things come in threes; he had heard that somewhere before. For this family's sake, he sincerely hoped it would not be true. They had obviously suffered enough.

"Security, to the reception desk... security, to the reception desk!"

The receptionist's voice sounded hurried, even alarmed, and Michael wondered what was going on up there. Nothing too serious, he hoped. Only a few weeks after he'd started his rotation here, a bereaved man who'd lost his wife in a car accident had threatened to shoot up the cafeteria, forcing the partial evacuation of the floor on that wing. That sort of thing didn't happen very often, thank goodness. He shrugged. It was probably nothing, but they sure could have used some security muscle on that last arrival.

He turned the corner, and found himself coming to a stop. Three men, two Anglos and an Asian, were walking down the hallway in his direction. They weren't hospital personnel, and they radiated a palpable sense of purpose. Of danger, even. He saw a nurse, hurrying past the men, turn her head and look suspiciously at them over her shoulder. Now I wonder, Michael found himself thinking, if that last page has anything to do with these guys. It wouldn't have surprised him. All three men were scruffy and unshaven, but hard. The Asian, in the middle, was the shortest, but he looked like he might be the leader. Michael wasn't quite sure, but his features appeared to have a Philippino cast.

They were coming closer to him now, and he saw that the Asian man was eyeing him closely too. The man said something to his leftmost companion, a tall guy with blond hair and acne-scarred cheeks, who nodded and picked up his pace. In a matter of seconds, he had passed Michael. The remaining two approached him, slowly. Michael stared back and folded his arms. The Asian, he saw, was wearing faded blue jeans and a large US Army surplus shirt that hung down almost to his knees, but failed to disguise a broad, muscular chest. His white companion was wearing a baggy black sweat suit with red trim and a Chicago Bulls cap pulled low over his eyes.

It suddenly occurred to him that the poor fit of their clothes might well be intentional. Both men were well over thirty, so it seemed hard to believe that they could be gangsters, although they obviously weren't your run-of-the-mill street people either.

He suppressed the urge to look back and see if the man behind him had turned the corner or not. You're the one who belongs here, he told himself firmly. You're a doctor, in a hospital, and you have nothing to be afraid of! Now just tell them that this is a restricted area, and escort them back to the reception desk.

Yeah, right. He looked down into the hard obsidian eyes of the Asian man, and his momentary resolve disappeared.

"Can I help you?" he finally said, his voice squeaking a little.

"It looks as if one of your patients may have given you a little trouble," the man commented, studying his face, and Michael saw wrinkles appear around the man's slanted eyes when he briefly smiled. Up close, the guy was older than he looked, at least forty, Michael thought.

"Oh, surgery can be pretty messy," Michael lied unconvincingly. His white coat was not only bloodstained, but torn in several places. "You'd be surprised."

Someone had put three shots into that pyschopath, and if this guy wasn't involved, then the folks who write the MCAT should probably go into a different line of work, because I'm too stupid for med school.

"We're looking for someone," the man glanced at his nametag, "Mr. Hsia." He pronounced Michael's name correctly. "You're obviously a very bright young man, so I won't bother to insult your intelligence by telling you that he's a friend, but it is extremely important that we find him right now. He's a man about six feet tall, with dark brown hair and a slender build. The reason he's here is that he's been shot, with two, or possibly three, rounds in the chest."

Michael swallowed hard.

"I'm sorry, sir, but it's against hospital policy to disclose any information about our patients, except to the next-of-kin."

Somehow, he didn't think taking refuge in bureaucratese had much chance of working with this particular gentleman, but there was something ruthless about the guy that made him want to avoid a flat refusal.

"I'm sorry to hear that, Mr. Hsia."

The man's tone was pleasant, but nevertheless, he reached out towards Michael with his right hand. Michael felt fingers closing around his elbow, and then he had the distinct impression that a bomb had gone off inside his arm. Everything went white for a moment, as the pain exploded from his arm and filled every atom of his being with the purest agony.

It only lasted for a second, but it was the longest second of Michael's life. When the pain abruptly vanished, he found himself on his knees, clutching at his left elbow. Little spark of multicolored lights danced like swirling fairies around his head as he tried to find his bearings. Nerves, he thought. This guy knows his nerves. Michael had only worked up to his green belt in at the Westchester Tae Kwan Do academy, but he knew that there were martial arts schools that made a science of studying how to use a human's nervous system against its owner. Apparently this guy was an honors graduate.

The Asian man shook his head and lightly placed his index finger behind Michael's jaw, just below his left ear.

"Unfortunately, we're in hurry, so I don't have the time to convince you of the justice of our cause." He softly tapped Michael's neck, once. It was the most delicate of threats. "So, I think you will come with me, and when we get to the right room, you will let me know."

And why would I do that? Michael wondered, as the man jerked him to his feet, without effort. Oh, well, now that would be why! He gasped as the man grasped his right arm and held it in such a way that they appeared to be walking arm-in-arm, two old buddies just out for a relaxing stroll down the corridors of the hospital. However, the man's right hand was poised threateningly around his elbow, while one finger of his left hand applied continuous pressure to the sensitive nerve in the middle of Michael's wrist. It hurt. It hurt quite a lot, actually.

The man marched him around the corner and back onto the corridor that led to the trauma rooms. There were ten of them, in all, and most were occupied. A panoply of sounds filtered out into the hallway as nurses called out statistics, doctors issued commands, and patients cried out in pain and confusion. The tall blond man who had been sent ahead was peering through the window of the room immediately adjacent to the one they seeking.

"It's hard to see..." the man complained. "There's too many people moving around in there, blocking my view. I can't really... wait a minute... no, it's a chick."

Michael held his breath as the blond guy moved on to the next window. The Asian, studying him closely, noticed his apprehension, and, without warning, increased the pressure on his wrist. Michael tried to drop to the floor, writhing and twisting his body as he tried desperately to get away, but his tormentor held him firmly and sent wave after furious wave of pain shooting up his arm.

"Is he in there?"

The man's voice seemed to echo through Michael's brain, as the fiery pain engulfing his wrist stretched his sense of time into what felt like an eternity of suffering. "Is that the room?"

Michael tried, but he couldn't hide his reaction. He was too weak, and the pain was far too great. He gave in, and nodded. A moment later, he found himself flying headlong towards the wall as the man abruptly hurled him aside. His vision flared red and he crumpled to the floor, stunned by the force of the impact.

"This is it," the Asian pointed to the door. "Let's do it."

Michael watched, his vision blurred, as from beneath his baggy shirt, the Asian withdrew a pair of what looked like oversized silver forks with an extra-long middle tine. The man in the Bulls cap produced two black pistols from his waistband, flicking the safeties off with his thumbs, while somewhat less adroitly, his blond companion readied a short-handled hatchet that had been secreted in his clothes. Michael groaned and tried to push himself upright, desperate to flee, but the effort was too much for him in his half-conscious state.

Do something, loser! Yell, scream, call out a warning! You can't just let them go in there and murder your patient!

Of course, the dude was already done for, he found himself rationalizing. There was no way anyone could survive those gunshots, especially not after losing that much blood. Even if he did warn the trauma team, what were they going to do, fend off three armed men with the shock paddles? No, the only thing that would come of it would be a bullet in his chest.

So Michael held his tongue, and he managed to find his feet just as the gunman kicked open the door. Run, you idiot! His instinct for self-preservation screamed at him. Get out!

"Don't nobody move!" the gunman in the doorway was shouting, as the other two men slipped past him. Michael heard Beth scream with alarm, and there was a loud wheeled clatter as someone lurched back into the heart machine.

What are you doing, you fool! Michael did his best to ignore his cowardly inner voice as he rushed towards the doorway. You're no hero!

Despite the gunman's lean frame he was alarmingly solid, Michael was surprised to discover, as he drove his shoulder into the man's back. Still, the man stumbled forward, knocked off balance by the unexpected attack, and he dropped one of his pistols as he plowed into a wide-eyed Dr. Peters. As both men went down, Michael leaped over them, seeing that the other two attackers were already bearing down upon their helpless victim. He lunged forward, trying to stop them, but they were beyond his reach.

Only Lowanda's considerable bulk stood between the killers and their object, but the black nurse, despite her size and stalwart nature, barely slowed them down. She made a clumsy grab for the Asian man's arm, but he slipped inside her reach and sank a fist into her soft stomach. The big nurse grunted and doubled over, and the short man dropped her to the ground with a wicked elbow to the side of her head. She fell heavily to the floor at Michael's feet, unconscious, just as the blond attacker lifted his hatchet in a powerful overhand swing.

The hatchet came down, but somehow, the dying man wasn't there. Incredibly, he had somehow managed to roll his body to one side, and the lethal metal blade bounced harmlessly off the stainless steel table with a resounding clang.

His would-be killer swore angrily.

"It's up!" he shouted a warning to his companions even as he brought the hatchet around again in a mighty two-handed blow aimed to decapitate.

It was at that very moment that Michael's vision changed. It was as if a filter was ripped violently away from his eyes, and what he saw now was not what he had been seeing only an instant before. The thing ducking under the arcing hatchet was very clearly not a man at all, but a terrible caricature of a man, an evil parody of humanity. There was an aura of darkness surrounding it, a shadowy glow that seemed to blur the very outlines of its body. The three wounds in its torso were easy to see, three red ragged holes that stood out starkly against the too-white flesh, but they were no longer bleeding.

Michael staggered backwards, his heroic intentions completely forgotten, replaced by a burning desire to be as far away from this place as possible. He could not remove his eyes from the thing, though, and so he saw how inhumanly fast it moved as it sent the blond man sprawling into the corner with a backhanded blow, then evaded two lunging thrusts of the Asian man's forks.

"You took me by surprise," the awful thing rasped. Its lips were a translucent purplish-blue. "My compliments. But persistance in these matters is fatal."

It slashed at the Asian's throat, but the short, stocky man managed to parry the blow with the weapon in his left hand. The monster howled, a deep bestial roar, and foul-smelling smoke spiraled up from where the metal had scored its arm.

Boom! There was a gunshot, followed in rapid succession by four more. Tiled fragments exploded from the far wall as the sharp reports echoed loudly in the small room, and Michael found himself diving headlong for the relative safety of the floor. A sharp pain in his ribs alerted him to the fact that he had landed on something hard, and he rolled onto his side to see what it was. It was the gunman's lost pistol. Not knowing what else to do, he grabbed it and pointed it in the general direction of the monster.

Except the thing wasn't there. As Michael looked around in confusion, he saw the five-hundred pound heart-monitoring machine go flying over the operating table and strike the gunman squarely in the shoulder. He screamed and went down, clutching at what was almost certainly a broken collarbone, if not worse. Where was it? Another object, smaller this time, flew across the room. Michael's brain did a quick computation, and he did not like the answer it came up with. Not one little bit.

He turned his head. As he feared, the deadly monster was behind him, only a few feet away, glaring contemptuously down at him. The eyes that met his were cruel, pitiless black orbs that did not betray the slightest semblance of anything human behind them.

"So, you can see me, can you? How unfortunate!"

It raised its arm, but before it could strike, something silvery flashed past Michael's head. The monster snarled as it was forced to dodge sideways to avoid the hurled fork-thing. The momentary distraction gave Michael just enough time to bring the pistol around, and then, for the first time his in life, he pulled the trigger of a gun.

The pistol jerked violently, and the unexpected kick stung his hand so badly that he nearly dropped it. But the projectile struck the monster squarely in the head, and the evil thing roared madly, clasping both its hands to its shattered face. Michael pulled the trigger again, and again, but his hand was shaking now and he missed both times. Then the Asian man had pushed past him and was stabbing at the thing like a madman. Michael saw him strike home at least twice, once in the thing's neck and once in its shoulder, but the monster managed to shove its furious assailant aside and fled out the door, trailing dark red smoke and howling in pain.

The Asian man made as if to pursue the thing, but then he seemed to think better of it and came to a stop. A nurse, curious about the commotion, poked her head into the room, but when the Asian pulled a gun from his shirt and waved it at her, she shrieked and fled in the direction of the main wing. Michael shrugged and hoped the guy wouldn't shoot anybody, meanwhile, there were people in need of his attention.

Lowanda was still unconscious, but she was breathing regularly and her pulse was steady, while Beth, Dr. Peters, and another nurse had apparently made good their escape amidst the chaos of the struggle. The blond guy with the hatchet hadn't been so fortunate. His eyes were open, but unseeing, and Michael could not find a pulse. Then he discovered why. A scalpel was buried in the man's heart, driven much deeper than one would have thought possible. Michael grimaced and turned away. The fourth nurse, Rodrigo, according to his nametag, was in better shape, though he was writhing on the floor and clutching at his bleeding thigh. Michael gently forced the man's hands away from the wound and saw that he had been hit by a richochet.

"You'll be okay," he assured the frightened man as he applied pressure to the bleeding. "Security will be here any second and then we'll get you taken care of. It doesn't look too bad, I'm sure it missed the artery."

"What happened?" Rodrigo moaned. "Oh, it hurts!"

"I don't know, I guess somebody didn't like our patient so much," Michael answered, patting the man's shoulder. "Just hang in there. You're going to be all right."

After getting a crude bandage in place on the man's thigh, he looked up to see how the older man was doing, but the Asian was already dragging his surviving companion out into the hallway. Michael wanted to call out to him, but he didn't know what to say. Thanks? It seemed inadequate, considering the guy had saved his life.... Actually, he really wanted to ask just what that monster was, and why no one had been able to see it. I mean, you'd think the medics would have noticed something wrong! Was it a vampire or was it some kind of zombie? He realized, with more than a little discomfort, that the whole Buffy concept might be just a little less silly than he'd always thought.

Shouts came from the hallway, security, he judged, based on the direction from which the voices carried. About time they got here! Geez, guys, think you could take a little longer? But he couldn't blame the security team for being cautious, when, in response to their shouted orders, two shots were fired; only warning shots, he hoped. Although he now found himself thinking of the fleeing men as the good guys, they did seem to have an alarmingly callous attitude towards collateral damage. He wondered if they might be military, but the notion didn't seem to fit. They were too old, for one thing, and they didn't have that clean-cut thing happening. Besides, with the way that creature could move, it seemed more like something the Pentagon would want to hire, not eliminate.

The silver fork thing caught his eye, lying there on the floor nearby, and Michael wondered what he should do with it. There was no way anyone was going to believe his story, and although the presence of the gun made a certain degree of sense, considering that the monster had been originally been logged in as a gunshot victim, the big fork looked more than a little weird. He picked it up and looked at it more closely. He couldn't be certain, but he suspected it might be made out of some kind of expensive silver alloy. It didn't look like stainless steel, and surely there was something funky in it for it to make that monster start smoking the way it had.

He wrinkled his nose. Phew, it still stank in here. A thought suddenly struck him, and after sneaking a look at Rodrigo, whose eyes, fortunately, were still screwed shut with pain, he carefully wiped his fingerprints off of the pistol. Whatever the official story turned out to be, proof that he'd fired a gun inside the hospital was not something he wanted to explain, or have on his record.

He slipped the big silver fork inside his knee-length coat and hoped that it wouldn't fall out before he could hide it in his locker. Remembering his pager, he sat down next to Rodrigo and began typing out a message to the reception desk.


CHAPTER 3


Michael ran a hand through his hair and unleashed another evil stare at the police inquisitor. He was tired, he was sore, and now he was thoroughly confused as well. It wasn't like he expected the police to simply ignore the fact that someone had tried to kill a patient right in the ER, but the questions they were asking just didn't make any sense.

"So, what you're saying in your statement here is that the body we found in the trauma room did not belong to the person who was brought in by the paramedic team."

Michael nodded curtly. Yes, that's what I told you about an hour ago, you jerk.

"And you're sure about that?" The investigator was as patient as the proverbial Sisyphean rock. "Absolutely sure."

"Yes, I am."

"What makes you so sure?"

Uh, maybe the fact that they're two completely different people? Tall, blond, and acne-faced versus not-so-tall, dark hair, and a complexion that an English girl who'd never seen the sun would envy? Stay calm, Michael told himself. Don't get mad. Don't get sarcastic. Just stick to the verifiable facts, and then the nice policeman will leave you alone and let you go home.

"All you have to do is look at paramedics' chart," he said, deciding to go with the safest, most easily proved explanation. "The guy who came in on the cart had three gunshot wounds, two of them in the chest. The other guy, the dead guy, was stuck with a scalpel through the heart. Just the scalpel, nothing else."

The policeman nodded. He was a clean-shaven Scandinavian with a big jaw and a weightlifter's build. He reached into a cream-colored file folder and withdrew a Polaroid.

"If that's true, then how do you explain this?" He handed over the photograph.

It was a picture of the blond guy, and judging from the disarray of the room in the background, it had been taken in Trauma Two. The man's fair coloring, sharp features, and scarred cheeks were unmistakable, but there was one very strange detail. Or two, if you wanted to be precise. In addition to the butt of the scalpel protruding from the left-center of the man's bare chest, there were two large perforations, one just below the left collarbone, the other underneath the right pectoral muscle. Both appeared to be entry wounds, precisely the size of a forty-caliber bullet.

Michael breathed in sharply, and his mind raced through the possibilities. None of them were good, and the worst of them promised to be very, very bad. The thought did not excite him at all; he'd always felt quite comfortable not knowing whatever unpleasant truths might be lurking out there. He hoped this was simply a minor matter of a police cover-up; perhaps they'd shot the first guy by accident and wanted to bury the evidence. Most police carried forty these days, after all.

The problem with that theory, of course, was that it did nothing to explain the whole monster thing. From the looks of it, either the hospital or the police were harboring some very dangerous, very explosive secrets, and if they wouldn't hesitate to mess with one dead body, he guessed that they probably wouldn't shirk at creating another one either.

"I guess there's really only one possible explanation," Michael said as he returned the Polaroid to the policeman. He felt sorry for the cop, if the guy was honestly searching for the truth, but Michael doubted that and he had no intention of saying anything that was going to put himself at risk.

"When those men burst into the room, I was knocked against the wall pretty hard, and I guess I was just too out of it to notice the gunshot wounds when I saw the guy later. I didn't have to look very closely to see that he was dead, I mean, that scalpel was a pretty obvious game over, if you know what I mean? I didn't get a very good look when the medics brought him in because they'd put an oxygen mask on him, and then afterwards, I had my hands full with keeping Rodrigo from bleeding to death. So I must have been mistaken; they're obviously the same guy."

His worst suspicions were confirmed when the policeman nodded, clearly satisfied with his explanation despite its massive contradictions with his original statement. The cop crossed out a few lines in his black leather notebook, quickly added a few more notes, then slipped his pen into its little compartment.

"That's really all we need from you today, Mr. Hsia." The big man nodded briskly and rose to his feet. "You're free to go, of course, and if we have any questions, we'll get in touch with you here at the hospital. Now I have to tell you, this case is going to be under investigation, so it would really be best if you didn't speak to anyone about what happened here today. I think you'll agree with me that having the media sensationalize this is in not the best interest of the public, or HCMC."

Michael nodded vigorously, and shook the policeman's hand with deferential gratitude.

"Well then, I guess I'll just go home and take a shower instead of holding that press conference I was planning," he joked. The cop only smiled patronizingly as Michael bade him goodbye. "Good luck with your investigation."

Michael didn't waste any time in getting to his locker. Fortunately, the silver fork fit into his oversized laptop case, although barely, he discovered as he laid it crossways on top of his old Micron. He didn't know what he was going to do with it, torn between the idea of keeping it as a souvenir and throwing it off the nearest bridge. Except for the bruise on his hip, he felt all right, especially since the PERSON RESPONSIBLE FOR SCHEDULE had removed him from the duty chart because of the police investigation.

He passed the crowded waiting room as he walked quickly towards the employee entrance, all too conscious of the weapon inside the case. He felt a little guilty about not helping out with the remainder of the Memorial onslaught, but he'd already put in a solid twelve-hour shift and he really needed time to relax, take it easy, and forget about the incident.

The parking lot lights were not particularly bright on this side of the large medical complex, and the moon was reduced to a mere sliver amid the stars. It must have been a nice day for picnics, Michael thought, wistfully recalling holidays spent playing tennis under blue skies and the hot summer sun. The fluorescent lights of the hospital were a poor substitute, by comparison. He hoped Carina had enjoyed herself at the baseball game she'd attended with her family.

The warm evening breeze was nice, though, especially as he walked out of the air-conditioned environment of HCMC. The hospital's thermostats, like most of the buildings in the area, were always set far too low. Was it a Minnesota thing or what? It was almost as if these crazy descendants of the Vikings missed their notorious subzero winters or something, and it seemed very strange when you had to put on a coat just to go indoors. Michael was quite happy to know that his rotation here was scheduled to end some time before the winter snows would be showing up with a vengeance.

He heard the soft tapping of rubber-soled shoes against the sidewalk just before feeling the presence of another person rushing towards him. Alarmed, he started to turn around, but his assailant was upon him before he'd seen more than a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. He gasped, and dropped his laptop as his arm was seized in a powerful grip, and he felt the jab of something hard pressing against the small of his back. He couldn't tell much about his assailant, except that he was tall and wearing dark clothing.

"Pick up the bag and come this way," the man whispered harshly. "Hurry up, you're in danger!"

Michael was already aware of that, even before he heard the click of the safety being removed from the gun at his back. This was so not his day! A wave of paralyzing terror gripped him for a second, and then it passed. Okay, stay cool, he told himself. If the guy was seriously intending to shoot you, he would have done it already.

"Where are you taking me?"

"To safety," his captor answered. "Now shut up and come along!"

He pushed Michael off of the sidewalk, towards a tall group of bushes that lay in a direction perpendicular to the parking lot. The gaps in the eight-foot bushes weren't quite wide enough for an adult, and with his arm pinned, Michael was helpless to prevent the ragged branches and needles from scratching his face. Son of a gun, but it stung! He ducked his head, and tried to concentrate on keeping his feet as the man continued to shove him quickly forward through the bushes and into a small wooded area that bordered the surrounding residential neighborhood.

Michael was short of breath by the time the man allowed him to come to a stop. It was hard to run when you were all hunched over, and having a gun pointing at your spine didn't help any. The man unexpectedly released his arm and Michael considered fleeing, but the trees blocked off most of what little light was available from the night sky and he was afraid that if he did try to run, he wouldn't make it ten feet before smacking facefirst into a tree.

He heard a clicking sound as the man withdrew the pistol from his back, and presumably, returned the safety to its non-firing position. The gesture didn't exactly make Michael feel at ease with the guy, but he did feel that their relationship had reached a new and friendlier plateau.

"Is it safe to assume that you're not going to shoot me?" he asked, trying to sound nonchalant. "I don't suppose I can just go now, can I?"

"Only if you want to die," the man answered unsympathetically. His voice sounded like he was from somewhere in the South. "Maybe you ain't figured it out yet, but I'm trying to save your life, right? Now hang on."

Michael heard him taking an object out of his pockets. It was a walkie-talkie, he realized a moment later when the other man began speaking into it.

"Got him," said his captor. "I don't think it saw us."

"Glad to hear it," a voice crackled from the receiver. "Did you get a visual?"

"Yeah, one Blue, under the vehicle on the driver side."

"Good work. We'll pick you up at Bravo. Jericho out."

Michael's captor didn't bother to respond, instead, he returned the little communications device to his pocket and drew his gun again. Michael, his eyes starting to adjust to the darkness, put his hands up automatically, but he put them down again when he saw the unexpected white flash of his captor's amused smile. The man was lean and tall, and he wore his long hair tied back in a ponytail.

"Seriously, I'm not going to hurt you, so just you relax." He held out his free hand. "We're going to go about three hundred feet thataway, and there's going to be a car waiting for us. Four-door Explorer, dark green. Don't mess around, just get in."

"And you want to hold hands because...."

"Because if I got to start shooting, I want to know where you are." He waved the gun. "This might not kill it, but it'll slow it down some. Enough, I hope."

"Might slow what, that, what did you call it? That Blue? What's that supposed to mean?"

The man chuckled mirthlessly.

"You saw one today, from what I hear. They's called Blues 'cos that's how they show up on the heatscope. Get it?"

Michael didn't get it. Not right away. Then he swore, as he realized the obvious implication. He had read enough Anne Rice novels, seen enough movies and TV shows like Blade and the X-Files, to know that no matter what happened now, his life was never going to be the same.


CHAPTER 4


The green Explorer was waiting for them less than fifty yards to their right as they burst from the darkness of the trees into the grassy expanse of the gentle embankment lining the suburban street. Michael was running as fast as he could, although he almost tumbled to the ground when his captor unexpectedly stopped and released his hand. He whipped his head around in a panic, thinking that the thing stalking them was upon them.

"You go on," the man instructed calmly, keeping his weapon trained on the forest. "They're waiting on you. I got it covered."

As Michael started to jog towards the street, it occurred to him that this was his opportunity to escape. His captor wasn't looking at him, and although someone had leaped out of the sports-utility vehicle and was holding the rear door open, the guy was too far away to have any chance of catching him if he decided to make a break for it. All he had to do was to run another few hundred yards along the street, and he'd reach the main entrance of the hospital. There was always a guard at the front gate there, and he doubted that they wanted him badly enough to risk chancing HCMC's security for a second time today.

"Hurry up, Mr. Hsia!" It wasn't a man, but a woman waiting outside the vehicle. As she urged him forward, she lifted a long weapon with a small searchlight attached and played the beam onto Michael's face. She had an English accent. "Get your skates on!"

That settled that question. The bright light shining in his eyes made his decision an easy one. He didn't think she would shoot him in the back, but he wasn't willing to bet his life on it either. And considering that these people obviously knew who he was, it seemed at least possible that they really were trying to save him from something. He broke into a trot, and upon reaching the Explorer, leaped obediently into the backseat without protest.

He recognized the driver immediately as their eyes met in the rear view mirror. It was the Asian man from earlier that day. The older man nodded coolly, then returned his attention to the man and the woman still outside. Michael's captor, seeing that the woman was now covering him, stopped his steady, backwards retreat and sprinted for the safety of the vehicle. He leaped inside, and the rifle-bearer slammed the door shut behind him, then jumped into the front seat herself.

"Well done, people," the Asian complimented the two of them as he drove the Explorer away from the curb, surprisingly, without haste. He glanced up in the mirror again. "Very nice. Mr. Hsia, I'm very sorry if we were abrupt with you, but I think you'll excuse us once you understand the alternatives."

Michael shrugged. If they were kidnappers, which he was now starting to doubt, they seemed to be pretty decent about it. The woman in the frontseat was even kind of cute, if you could look past the nasty scar that started at the base of her left eye and ran all the way down to her chin.

"That's all right. What are you, some kind of secret paramilitary? I just don't understand... well, I don't understand a lot of things, but I guess a good starting point would be to know why you're bushwhacking me and hauling me off at gunpoint."

He paused momentarily wondering if he should mention it. Oh, what the heck, he figured. Maybe it would score him some brownie points. "By the way, I've got your fork thing here in my bag, in case you were missing it."

The driver nodded. "Thank you very much, Mr. Hsia." He glanced over at the passenger seat. "That was considerate of you. Ai, why don't you explain the situation to our new friend."

"Right, it's like this," she began. Her accent wasn't English, he realized, but Australian. "That thing you saw today, it's real, all right? But the thing is, most people can't see them, they don't have the ability. We can, though, and so can you, mate. The problem is, they don't like to be seen, and once they know you can see them, they'll do just about anything to take you out. If we hadn't gotten to you first, you would have been dead before you'd gotten your car started. Seriously."

Michael nodded without accepting or dismissing her words. It sounded unusual, to say the least, but if what she and the other guy had told him was true, then they'd just done him a big favor. If they weren't telling the truth, then... what? He tried to think of a reason for them to be lying, but he couldn't come up with anything right off the top of his head.

"So what do you want from me?" he asked.

"Nothing," the Asian man answered. Again, he seemed to be the leader. "My orders are to bring you to Jeremiah, so we'd like you to stay alive. That's our first priority. I suspect your medical training could be invaluable, in time, but you won't be any good to us if you're dead."

Okay, maybe he wasn't the leader, Michael was forced to revise his thinking, but at least the man had a priority he could support wholeheartedly. He had always considered the continued survival of Dr. Michael Hsia to be number one on his list of goals in life.

"Who's Jeremiah?"

"A prophet," Jericho answered cryptically.

Michael waited for more information, but the Asian man didn't seem inclined to take the hint. Then a horrible thought occurred to him. "This isn't some kind of elaborate hazing ritual, is it? I mean, by the ER doctors or something?" Then he remembered the scalpel sticking out of the guy's chest. He was a doctor, and it was his job to know death when he saw it. That, certainly, had been all too real. "Oh, never mind, forget I even said that."

Michael looked out his window and despite its illegal smoke job he was able to see that they were driving through an intersection lined with a corridor of fast food restaurants. On his side, he could see the big brown hat of Arby's was planted firmly between a glowing set of Golden Arches and a Rocky Roccoco's pizza joint. Rocky's was good stuff, he thought, he could go for some of their wheat crust deep dish right about now. Everything appeared normal, everything was normal. Through the lighted windows, he could see young couples on dates and groups of teenagers escaped from their interminable family picnics happily eating and talking and laughing and just generally enjoying life. The familiar sight distressed him. What was he, of all people, doing in a truck filled with a group of psychopathic militiamen armed for the Dawn of the Dead?

"I know this will be very difficult for you," the woman said, and the compassion in her voice surprised him. "But you have to understand that the monsters really will do their best to hunt you down, and that's why you have to disappear. They have no respect for human life, none whatsoever. They won't hesitate to use your family, or your friends, or anyone that is close to you, if that will help them find you."

Michael didn't like the finality in her voice.

"Are you saying that I can't go back to my job? Or to my apartment? Come on, that's ridiculous! I mean, if you're going to tell me that these... these monsters or whatever are secretly ruling the world, I'm just not going to believe you. I don't buy any of those conspiracy theories, all that aliens and Federal Reserve and Trilateral Commission shadow government X-Files junk!"

"Nobody said they was ruling the world," the man sitting next to him answered. "You don't got to rule the world to kill a few folks such as you don't want seeing things they shouldn't."

"You can go back to your apartment," the Asian added. "That's where we're taking you, right now."

"You know where I live?"

"Eight thirty-four South France Avenue? Of course we do." The man tapped a little PDA that Michael hadn't noticed until now. "Your phone number is listed. Not that it matters, as we pulled all your records this afternoon before Jeremiah told us pick you up. Trojan Horses don't usually have social security numbers, or the occasional problem with their credit history."

"I sent the payment in, they just lost the stupid check," Michael retorted, still irritated with his car insurance company. But the man's comment about his phone number reminded him of something. Carina wouldn't be expecting him to call her yet, but she might be waiting at his place. She had a key, and he didn't know how he was going to explain this friendly band of terrorists to her, much less their weaponry.

Then again, knowing Carina, her only concern would be possible competition from the Australian woman, Ai. What was with those funky names anyhow? He opened up his case, slowly and carefully, quite mindful of the watchful gaze of the man sitting next to him.

"I'm supposed to call my girlfriend tonight after getting off work, and she might already be at my place now. Can I call her?"

"Does she have a cell phone?" the Asian asked.

"Yeah, that's what I was going to call."

"Dial the number and give me the phone. I will speak to her."

Michael scowled, but he didn't see any point in protesting. He pressed the speed dial and dutifully handed his little Ericsson over to the man.

"What's her name?"

"Carina, Carina Chau."

The man nodded and waited patiently, driving with one hand on the wheel. Carina must have answered herself, judging by how he began speaking.

"No, Miss Chau, this is not Michael. Yes, this is his telephone, which I am using with his permission. I'm calling from the hospital, Miss Chau, and Doctor Hsia would like you to know that he will be detained for some time. He's in surgery, and the operation is a complicated one which is likely to take two or three hours."

He paused, and put on the truck's blinker as he listened to Carina saying something. The guy was pretty smooth, Michael had to admit. Carina wouldn't suspect a thing.

"Are you at home, Miss Chau? No? Ah, your parent's house, I see. The reason for my asking is that Doctor Hsia wanted me to relay the message that he will meet you at your apartment..." he glanced at the dashboard clock... "around midnight. Thank you, Miss Chau. No, no trouble at all. A pleasant evening to you, Miss Chau. Goodbye."

He flipped the phone shut and handed it back to Michael.

"Are you really going to drop me off at her place, after... whatever you need to do at my apartment?" Michael asked hopefully.

"I'm afraid not," the driver told him, as he made another turn onto France Avenue, the street on which their destination was located. "As I said before, Jeremiah wants you. Once we arrive, you'll have ten minutes to collect whatever belongings you require, and then we're going to take you somewhere you will be safe. It won't be long before the creature lying in wait for you at the hospital gets impatient and decides to come looking for you. Your apartment will be where it will begin its search."

"But what am I supposed to do?" Michael had been working very hard at keeping his emotions under control, but this last piece of information was too much to accept calmly. "Just follow you? I mean, how am I supposed to live if I can't go to work, I can't go to my apartment, and I can't even call my girlfriend? I don't know who you are, and I don't even know what you are!"

The Asian simply stared at him for a long moment in the mirror, until Michael had calmed down enough to sit back and give the man a chance to respond.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Hsia, that we do not have the time to explain matters more fully right now. My name is Jericho. This is Ai, and the gentleman sitting beside you is known as Arad. Our little group has no name, and we are bound by no other ties than sheer necessity and the ability to see those that prey upon humanity. We have no purpose other than to stay alive, and to fight against the evil that only we can perceive."

"That sounds like a pretty lousy deal to me," Michael snorted. "Not real big on the whole quality of life thing, are you?"

"Life don't got much quality when you're six feet under." Arad drawled. "Nobody's saying you got to like it; that's why some call it the curse. You don't have to listen to Jericho. I seen folks who didn't."

"What happened to them"

"Was two of them. The lucky one, he just got hisself taken down."

"That was lucky?" Michael shook his head, and saw the Explorer was just pulling into the parking lot of his apartment complex. "What was so lucky about that?"

"He didn't get his wife and six of his neighbors kilt with him. The other guy, he did." Arad withdrew something from a canvas duffel bag at his feet and tossed it into Michael's lap. It was a navy blue windbreaker and a matching baseball cap, both emblazoned with the corporate logo of the old Northern States Power company, NSP.

"Put them on, and pull the cap down over your eyes."

"It's not only your life that's at stake here, Mr. Hsia," Ai explained gently, even as she flicked off the safety on her assault rifle. "We're trying to protect your girlfriend, your family, your friends, and even your neighbors."

The vehicle stopped, and Michael followed Arad out of the rear door on the passenger side. The laconic gunman slid his weapon into a shoulder holster and absently slipped onto his head an NSP cap that was identical to the one Michael was now wearing. Michael reached back into the vehicle, intending to retrieve his cell phone.

"Leave that," Jericho told him from behind the truck as he opened the rear double-doors. "Just grab the blue duffel bags on the floor. There's two of them. You pack your things in those. If something is particularly important to you, then you better bring it."

"Okay," Michael nodded, and he bundled the empty bags under his arm. They were old, constructed from canvas, and very sturdy. Then he did a double-take as he saw what Jericho had withdrawn from the back of the vehicle. "Hey, what are those for?"

The Asian man, also clad in NSP gear, was carrying two ten-gallon drums of gasoline, one in either hand. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged.

"To burn your apartment down, Mr. Hsia. The intention is to make it look like you're dead."

"What!" Michael put his hands on his hips and firmly shook his head. "You're not setting my place on fire! That's crazy! That's my stuff in there, all my clothes and everything, not to mention all the other people living in the building, who are all very nice people, for the most part! They don't deserve to have their homes burned down around them! Are you even going to warn them?"

Arad only grunted indifferently as he zipped up the blue windbreaker over the t-shirt he was wearing, but Ai, sitting crossways in the front seat, looked upset. She glanced at Jericho, who sighed and placed the metal containers down upon the pavement.

"Mr. Hsia, we are not monsters. Of course we will make sure the building is evacuated. While you're getting your things together and I'm preparing the apartment, Arad will go through the building and make sure that everyone is evacuated properly."

"Well, how are you going to do that?" Michael demanded.

"Gas leak, could blow any second." Arad said. He pointed to the logo on his baseball cap. "NSP says so, they'll get out fast. They still remember the Williams pipeline blast in these parts."

"But it's not even called NSP anymore," Michael protested weakly. He tried to remember what his utility bill looked like. It came in a light green envelope, that was all he could remember. "I think they changed their name or something."

"Whatever," Arad dismissed his objection with a wave of his hand. "You're not from around here, kid. The FBI or the CIA changes its name, you think people in Washington don't know who you're talking about? I don't think so. There any kids in there?"

"Girl and a boy on the first floor. Number three." Michael reluctantly answered the question. He was angry about being steamrolled, but then, he couldn't risk the children being harmed either. "There's a baby and two other kids on the top floor, in number two."

"If no one answers, break in the door," Jericho instructed Arad. "I'm not concerned with hiding our tracks. The more obvious we are, the better. Now, come with me, Mr. Hsia."

Michael's mind was in total turmoil from the anger, frustration, and fear battling for supremacy within him, to such an extent that he found that it was easier to simply stop thinking and do as he was told. He followed Jericho to the building's front door, and although he unlocked it with his key, he pettily refused to offer the older man any assistance in carrying the heavy drums up to his apartment on the second floor. It wasn't much of a protest, maybe, but there was no way he was going lend a hand in torching his own place!

Jericho didn't complain, though, and as Michael opened the apartment door, he heard Arad on the floor below, knocking on the Henson family's door.

A feeling of depression sank over him as he walked into the entryway. It wasn't the most impressive apartment in the world, but it was the first home he'd ever been able to call his very own. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchenette and a living room, all for the princely sum of six hundred bucks a month, plus utilities. He winced when his eyes fell on the the giant sixty-inch television screen sitting on the floor in the corner of the living room. Losing that was going to hurt in a big way. He'd had some good times in this little place, and he tried to seal its image in his mind as it was now, as he wished to remember it.

"The police are never going to buy it, you know," he informed Jericho. "They can tell if a fire was started deliberately."

The older man nodded.

"Yes, that's the idea. When word of arson gets around, those that are hunting you will believe that you were eliminated by others of their kind, and that the fire was set to cover the traces." He smiled grimly. "Fortunately, the evil we fight seldom operates on a cooperative basis, you see. Now get packing!"

Michael wrinkled his nose as Jericho twisted off the first container's cap and the familiar stink of gasoline filled his nostrils. Okay, where to start? Clothes, that was probably the top priority.

He rushed into his bedroom, and pulled his two best suits from the hangers, thrusting them roughly into the first duffel bag. He could always get them pressed later. His ties followed, all five of them, and his favorite pair of Bally shoes. Underwear was always key, and he dug deeply into his t-shirt drawer to find his long-treasured favorite, the green Dartmouth shirt that one of its more attractive half-milers had left with him after the last day of the Penn Relays. He sniffed at the shirt, but its magic had disappeared some time ago, along with her perfume.

Nevertheless, into the bag it went, along with two sweaters and an afghan that his grandmother had knitted for him when he was twelve. Next, he emptied the contents of his medicine cabinet, after first making sure that his spare pair of glasses were actually inside their storage case. Contact solution, check, toothbrush, check. The first bag was full, so he zipped it shut and hurried towards the office. He dropped the bag near the doorway as he passed through, and Jericho gave him a thumbs up as he finished emptying the first drum upon the curtains. The carpet was damp under Michael's feet, and he saw that the white couch was soaked with the sweetly-stinking liquid. The whole apartment reeked like a service station.

This would be the point at which you don't light a match, he told himself wryly. A certain exhilaration came upon him unexpectedly, the same sense of excitement that always came over him when he embarked upon something new. It was almost like going off to college again, only not quite as scary. It was strange, but he found the possibility of having his throat ripped open by an evil undead monster somehow less frightening than the prospect of going off to New Jersey without knowing a single soul had been.

He emptied his pictures, all two drawers full of them, into the second bag. His passport followed, and his checkbook, along with the wooden chess set he'd been given by his parents after their first trip to Europe. It was from Florence, if he recalled correctly, and he made sure to save the leather board as well. Scanning the walls, he decided to bring both of his framed diplomas, and sentiment caused him to grab Gray's Anatomy from the bookshelf despite its cumbersome size. He had over a hundred thousand dollars invested in those diplomas, and there was no way he was going to let them go up in smoke.

"Mr. Hsia, I believe it's time to go!"

As he turned to leave, a little picture on the bookshelf caught his eye. It was a framed three-by-five of himself and Carina, taken just three months ago at Easter time. She was wearing a broad-rimmed straw hat, a sleeveless floral print dress, and was smiling broadly, happily. His arm was around her slender, bare shoulders, and he too was smiling. They'd just come from an Easter brunch at the Anchorage, and he remembered the exact moment that the picture was taken because it was the first time that he'd ever found himself seriously considering the idea of marriage. He didn't love her, at least, he didn't think so, not really, but the idea that he might never see her again suddenly made him feel as if he was plunging into a great canyon.

His hand reached out uncertainly for the picture, then drew away again. How could this be happening to him? It wasn't right, and it certainly wasn't fair. Things like this didn't happen if you worked hard, got good grades, and got into Princeton, not to mention your first choice of medical school. They weren't supposed to happen!

"Mr. Hsia!"

His vision suddenly blurred by tears of grief and rage, Michael grabbed the picture and shoved it blindly into the bag. As he ran from the building, his shoulders weighed down by the canvas bags, he heard a vast whoosh behind him. It was the sound of his life being set on fire.

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