Though Wheeler hadn't been invited to the induction, he was on call that night. Once I informed Captain Shaw of the emergency Roddy and I rushed to the parking lot where the driver was already waiting. It was traditional that I meet Ariane that night after she spoke with the leaders of The Praetorian, but it wasn't necessary. We'd meet soon enough. Roddy jumped into the passenger seat and I climbed into the back. Wheeler pulled out of the main entrance and into the night.
"Roddy, what's going on?"
"It's Carl. I called to see when I could pick him up and the information desk told me he'd been moved to quarantine."
"What do you mean quarantine?"
"That's what they said. Wheeler, can't you go any faster?"
"Yes, sir!"
He pushed the pedal towards the floorboards and the van gathered speed. Much like New York City, Gorgon rarely slept. The streets of Tartarus were alive with taxis, livery cabs, Ubers, Lyfts, and the unwise drivers who chose to drive through midtown instead of around it. Wheeler wove through them all with practiced ease.
"Sirs, if the damage was spreading the night of the shooting... maybe it's contagious?"
Neither one of us had anything to say.
"Is it wise to head over there?" He asked as he stopped at a red light. "I mean, do the two of you want to risk getting infected?"
"Drive," Gates responded. Her eyes were beginning to darken, and the van was heating up.
"Sir."
We continued toward our destination and Wheeler had the common sense to keep his mouth shut.
The sanatorium that housed The Doc was located in a part of Tartarus known as Old Town. Because no historians can agree on exactly when Gorgon City was founded, most were content to imagine that the booming metropolis merely manifested out of thin air like magic. However the city began, it spread out from Old Town. Though not the literal heart of the city, I'd walked those streets and felt its pulse. Gorgon City was alive in many ways and the old neighborhood emanated with living energies. Those energies stretched their tendrils throughout the five boroughs. The Doc's sanatorium sat on the epicenter.
The edifice was officially a hospice and leper colony with facilities used to treat long-term patients suffering from all manner of chronic ailments. Those with nowhere else to go were brought to Saint Faustina's to be tended to by the Sisters of Mercy and the dedicated physicians who'd made their stay comfortable. Neither the sisterhood nor the authorities were aware of the hospital belowground where the creatures of the night came to be treated by the best preternatural doctors in the United States. The Doc sat right in the middle of House Bruce territory, but by the agreement of all five patriarchs, the five Houses of Gorgon acknowledged the facility as neutral ground. Even the authority thrones was limited within those walls.
Wheeler pulled into the rear parking lot, reserved for the staff and nuns of Saint Faustina's, and killed the engine. The nighttime guard would see the license plates and know who we were. Gates leaned forward and rested her head on the dashboard. I reached forward and placed a hand on her shoulder. Rodmilla was rarely emotional, but, when she allowed them to, those emotions ran deep. Whether she was in love with him or hated him, which depended heavily on the decade, there was nothing she felt for more deeply than Carlos Cano.
"It'll be okay," I said reassuringly. "No matter what it is, we'll pull through. The three of us always do."
"I keep jumping from being mad at him for letting himself get shot to being worried sick," she whispered. "I hate it and I can't seem to turn it off."
I gave her the only advice I could.
"Stop trying to fight it and let yourself feel. Ride the emotion and let it tire itself out."
"Sounds like a bull at the rodeo," Wheeler said.
Roddy looked up as if she'd forgotten he was there. "Keep quiet and stay in the van," she snapped as she jumped out.
I gave him an apologetic look and followed.
We walked through the parking lot dressed for a celebration, but the mood had sombered. We were both dreading what we might find. I looked to the overcast sky and saw something fly past the partially exposed moon. It was too small to be anything exotic, so I assumed it was a gargoyle on patrol. They made great sentries if you could afford their fees which mostly entailed a safe place to roost and a hearty supply of vegetable roots. I busied myself with trying to spot the creature again rather than think about Carl.
"How do you live like this?" Gates grumbled.
I brought my attention back down to terrestrial things and saw her wiping her eyes with her sleeve. Pink streaks trailed from the corners of her eyes.
"I've never known another way. I can lessen my emotional responses, keeping them at arms length for a time, but I've never been able to detach from them completely," I explained. "To be honest it seems like a lot sometimes."
"It's a cold cocoon that protects you from... from this." She turned away from me so I couldn't see her cry.
I wanted to remind her that I'd seen her at her lowest points. I was there when she had her breakdown in the 60s. I held her hand while she cried endlessly over never bearing a daughter. I sometimes forgot that though my peers could bury their emotions deep, those feelings still remained and occasionally resurfaced with a vengeance. Looping my arm in the crook of hers I pulled her along, drawing a surprised grunt from her lips.
"What are you doing?"
"Getting us inside before you drown me in tears."
"What? Michele, stop!"
"Not until you clean it up. I can't be seen with a self proclaimed Viking who can't stop weeping like a Scottish farm girl."
"I don't weep," she snapped, yanking her arm from mine. She glared at me, grief replaced by anger.
"My job's done."
I kept walking, not looking back. After a few moments she caught up to me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw she'd found her composure. She caught me looking and turned her nose up with a harrumph.
"You annoy me sometimes."
I couldn't help but laugh. She'd said that many times before.
The original sanatorium was a pair of old three story buildings joined together by a dilapidated skyway. The Gorgon Historical Society voted unanimously to protect the structure as a city landmark. So while the hospice underwent much needed innovations and additions the old complex was left untouched. Above ground it looked much like it had in the 1950s. Below ground were The Doc's facility. We reached the old building and ascended the stairs to the main entrance under the watchful eye of four elder gargoyles. Their age was evident from their size and the deep lines carved into their stone skin.
The security guard in the lobby was an old warlock named Fahad Sahar. Fahad and I were usually on good terms, though he'd grown wary of trying to lure me over to his coven long ago. Even when we weren't on good terms he was always hospitable.
"Evening, my friend," I said as Gates went over to the information desk.
"Yes. It is evening, sir." His tone was uncharacteristic of the usually bubbly man.
"Is everything okay?" I approached his security desk.
"Everything is alright, officer. Is there anything I can help you with?" He stared past me to the doors as if I wasn't there.
I studied him. He wore the same security uniform as the company that ran security for Saint Faustina's, but his cuffs were made of silver. His staff rested against the wall. He had no use for a baton, though I noticed he did keep the standard issue taser. On his pocket was a button which read: 'Remember Tyson!!' On the desk was an issue of The Howler, opened to an article chronicling the young man's life. Fahad's olive-colored skin and gray hair looked much the same as it had the last time I'd walked through those doors, but an invisible wall had grown between us.
I took the hint and took the stairs down to the basement level. A second security desk sat at the bottom, this one manned by an over-dweller with eyes like a husky and a shadow that had fox ears and nine tails. He stood as I approached, his eyes shifting towards a white color. I rolled up my sleeve to show him my throne tattoo. He seemed unimpressed.
"Visiting or a patient?" he asked, his voice all the more unsettling for its high pitch childlike tone.
"Visiting."
"Take a number. They'll call you to the desk when your number comes up."
The Doc had upped its security. I made a mental note to find out why.
I nodded and went through the doors behind him, pretending not to notice the faerie fire dancing behind me. I was hit immediately by the sound of a wailing child, it's shrieks sending peals of pain against my ears. An under-dweller tried in vain to quiet the horned baby. A group of lycanthrope gang members huddled in a corner nursing savage claw marks and bites, most likely from a turf war. Gremlin mafiosos paced back and forth, shouting into their phones in muckety, or high goblin... which term no one dared say to their face. One of their boss's made men had been shot and his chances of survival were uncertain.
I found Gates sitting across from an elf holding bloody rags to the side of his face. I sat in the seat beside her.
"They're packed tonight," she said as she looked at her numbered ticket.
"It gets like this as we draw closer to the full moon."
"I know..."
"Any idea how long we'll have to wait?"
"I don't know. She said we weren't priority. I'd like to yank her across the table and show her who's not priority."
"Let's not and say we did."
I patted her knee and looked around the waiting area. The place was full of people spanning the entirety of Gorgon's supernatural community. The city was a melting pot of clashing cultures both human and non-human. The Docs catered to us all.
"Do you see the way they look at us?" I asked absentmindedly. "It's just like Wheeler warned about the tension within the community and everyone is ignoring the signs."
"I've noticed it too. It's like they've lost their fear of us."
"It's not the fear, you can still sense that. It's the trust. They no longer trust us. We're no longer the enforcers of the laws that keep them safe, but instruments of oppression."
"Instruments of oppression... I don't like the way this is going."
"The question that troubles me is: were we ever anything else?"
Number 42
"That's us." She handed me the piece of paper with the number printed on one side.
"We didn't have to wait long at all."
The woman behind the information desk looked up at us, her eyes teal in turquoise marking her as one of the deep sea peoples. She wore tortoise shell glasses and a wig of straight hair over her bald head. Looking over the rims of her glasses she yawned and scratched her scalp. She slid the lenses up on the bridge of her nose, and typed a few words on her keyboard.
"Whom are you visiting?" she asked. Her voice was nasal and sprinkled with the accent of the Atlantic Shelf.
"Carlos Cano," Gates answered. "He was brought in four nights ago with a single gunshot wound to the shoulder."
"Single gunshot to the... shoulder." Her fingers skittered along the keyboard as she spoke, the colors from the computer monitor reflecting off her eyewear. "We have no patients currently admitted with GSW to the upper body. Maybe you're at the wron-"
"No, I spoke to you on the phone about an hour ago. I asked about Lieutenant Cano, and you said he had been moved from ICU to quarantine."
"Lieutenant Cano? Oh, I'm sorry. I searched the injury not the name, we have so few victims of gun violence at the moment I thought I was expedi... ting."
She accurately read the growing rage on Rodmilla's face and fell silent while her fingers did their job.
"Here we are. Lt. Cano admitted for suspected gunshot wound to the shoulder. The worsening of his condition has prompted his physician to upgrade his status and request the patient be isolated."
"What does that mean!"
"Roddy. Calm down." I addressed the receptionist, keeping my voice from carrying my own frustration. "Who is his physician, ma'am?"
"Dr. Noraa, sir."
I felt an instant glimmer of hope. Dr. Noraa was a great doctor who'd helped me on more than a dozen cases and was a regular go to by the thrones.
"Well, we need to see him!" Gates gripped the counter hard enough to make the wood groan.
The receptionist nodded too quickly and got on the phone. After a minute or two she hung up.
"The doctor will be with you in a moment. Please have a seat. He'll be up shortly... or don't sit. Can you please step aside so that I can... never mind."
Gates was having none of it. The teal-eyed receptionist grabbed the phone again and had a quick conversation in whispered tones. Five minutes later Dr. Aaron Noraa got off the elevator. He looked harried and perturbed.
"Dr. Noraa, it's good to see you again," I said as I took the lead. Gates was rearing for a fight and I thought it best if I acted as a buffer between her and Carl's doctor.
"Lieutenant Michele, Lieutenant Gates." He said as he handed the receptionist a pile of folders. "Right this way, please."
He led us back to the elevator and pressed the button for basement level 4. The doors closed behind us and my lips were moving before I could stop myself.
"What's going on with this place?"
Dr. Noraa studied me as if gauging whether my question was rhetorical or not. His square jaw was set, his eyes scanning my face from beneath his heavy ridged brow. He was a Pre-Man, one of vampirekind's natural enemies, born with an immunity to dominance and a knack for eluding our supernatural senses. In darker times he might have hunted us down under the protection of the sun and took our heads, but he was a modern man who'd taken the Hippocratic oath. He was a good man and it hurt a bit that even he was giving us such a cold welcome. After a long pregnant moment he turned back to the chart in his hand.
"Brewster," he finally said.
"There's that damned kids' name again," Roddy grumbled.
"He's not just some kid who thought he was above the law, Lieutenant Gates." He took a deep breath. "Tyson Brewster was a good kid who was doing everything society told him he needed to do to get out of the ghetto. Pulling himself up by his own bootstraps, so to speak. I see people in here everyday: shot, stabbed, bitten. A lot of these kids have no goals, no future, they just kill each other because the gangs or the packs tell them to. Kids like Tyson are rare.
It's what makes his murder so personal for a lot of us. He's the kind of young man we rally behind here."
"The kid was a hoodlum who attacked two officers." There was doubt in her words, but only someone that knew Rodmilla well could hear it.
"That isn't what Melissa Assilem is saying-"
"Assilem writes tabloid trash!"
"It isn't what witnesses are saying either."
The elevator dinged as we reached our floor. A punctuation to Noraa's words. Basement Level 4, quarantine and Isolation. An unnatural silence filled the air. Dr. Noraa led us down the hall, our steps muffled on the white marble tiles. Heavy security doors lined the hallway and thick glass windows looked into rooms filled with plastic-lined chambers and large incubators like something out of a science fiction movie. Pre-Men doctors tended to patients using diagnostic devices I couldn't begin to understand within the protective confines of hazmat suits.
He used a security ID to scan us through the last door in the hall which opened up into a wide office where doctors discussed their patients and poured over data on dry erase boards. Four were Pre-Men and one was an elf, the tattoos on his ear marking him a mage. They all looked up from their work as we entered, but didn't pay us any mind afterwards. Noraa led us to a corner where two boards supported photos, and x-rays. The rest was covered in scrawling handwriting. All of it was about Carl's condition.
"Lieutenant Cano came to us presenting as a gunshot victim. We treated him for silver, garlic, conventional acid, holy water, as well as lamia venom. Nothing has stopped the spread of his deterioration. However we've finally been able to slow it down by isolating him in stasis."
"What's causing this, Dr. Noraa?" I asked.
"Your guess is as good as mine. Look," the doctor moved around his desk to point at the visual aids on his board. "Muscle and tissue has dissolved, bone has degraded. We've entertained the idea of amputation but the damage has already spread to his chest and lower torso."
"What the fuck?" Rodmilla snapped, but even as her eyes sparked she pulled away, detaching from her emotions before they took control. "Doctor, tell us something."
Dr. Noraa studied her. Her outburst had startled him. I couldn't help but wonder what was going through his mind, his the minds of people who knew us. We thrones were their friends, their neighbors, their colleagues, and now we were the enemy. It added a foul note to an already miserable situation.
"Despite running a myriad of tests, we know barely anything about what afflicts Lieutenant Cano. We just don't have enough information." He consulted the chart sitting on his desk. "By all accounts he should have started the regeneration process by now... I'm left to question what little we do know. Are you sure the original wound was inflicted by a bullet?"
"That's what we were told." I looked to Gates for confirmation.
She nodded in agreement as she moved over to the board and examined the doctor's notes dispassionately.
"Then I need to see the gun that fired it."