Chapter 3
The shadow didn’t run so much as stalk forward. Its arms went out wide, preparing to lunge if I ran. I couldn’t outrun molasses, let alone a supernatural creature. The alien grabbed onto my wrist, and I stole a glance at the agony written across his face.
“Don’t die on me now.”
Other than an extra set of appendages, he didn’t appear to have any weapons. Scouring the ground for a weapon, I reached for a tire iron. It wasn’t nearly as impressive as the ten smoky blades attached to the shadow’s hands, but it would have to do.
“I’ll be right back.” Maybe.
My fingers tightened on the piece of metal.
If I could get close enough, perhaps duck under its hands and strike upward, I could impale the creature.
Leaning forward, I charged, preparing to stop short, hopefully out of reach of its hands.
A simple fake and misdirect, the thing couldn’t be that smart. Evil shadow monsters were dumb, right?
As I stopped short, hoping I gauged its striking distance correctly, it surprised me with a swift turn. With one arm stretched out, it batted at me, and into the air I sailed. Smacking asphalt, I rolled to my knees, praying it didn’t take up the chase.
Instead, the thing laughed.
It stopped when the back end of the ambulance slammed into it.
The crumpled body fell underneath a tire as Lei spun the wheel.
It’d have been a high-five moment, but she ruined it when she slammed the brakes and backed up to drive over it again.
She smiled through the passenger window, two thumbs raised high.
That smart ass probably waited until she could save the day.
I patted down my body, searching for anything poking in the wrong direction. Bruised ribs, maybe cracked, but otherwise I’d survive. Our patient might not be so lucky if we didn’t get him out of the war zone and into a hospital.
“Man down,” I yelled.
Lei jumped from the driver’s seat and, in a well-rehearsed manner, had the gurney out of the back.
We didn’t have time to secure the patient.
Based on the bruising, he had internal bleeding.
We skipped the collar. Lei raised the side of his body and I slid the board under his back.
We’d strap him in once we drove away, for now we lifted, putting him on the gurney.
“I’ve never seen him before,” Lei said.
“Me either.”
“Check the blood for acid.” I appreciated the advice. Last time it had eaten through my pants and left a nasty scar on my thigh.
We wheeled him to the ambulance, sliding him inside.
I jumped in the back and seconds later, Lei had us flying toward the hospital.
I had the alligator clip on his finger as I grabbed the cuff for blood pressure.
Supers with multiple limbs always posed a challenge, so it was down to picking the easiest arm to check his blood pressure.
The monitor went to work, spitting out numbers.
Hypoxic. That would explain the incoherent mumbles from the hero.
The constant starts and stops didn’t hinder me as I grabbed a needle and started an IV.
The moment I hit a vein, I grabbed the tape from the bar, securing the line.
Did he have a heart? Or multiple hearts?
Sometimes I longed to work on humans and their predictable organ placement.
I grabbed the scissors and pulled at the suit around his neck.
When I couldn’t pull it away from his body, I let out a low growl.
There were plenty of heroes with suits biologically attached to their bodies.
It served as protection of their secret identity, but it made my life difficult.
I hated difficult. As I applied the leads to his body, I hoped I could get a reading.
“Dammit,” I mumbled.
The numbers didn’t indicate Cushing’s triad.
It meant the alien’s physiology didn’t align with my equipment.
Unlike other trucks, we had tech onboard supplied from the heroes themselves.
I reached for the cubby with the Machinist’s nanobots.
I hated relying on their tech, but when conventional methods failed—
“It is time.” I nearly jumped at the sound of the alien’s voice. The deep bass almost sounded musical.
“Time for what?” It was a stupid question. I already knew the answer. The patient verbally acknowledged that he was ready to die. We only had minutes until we reached the hospital. As long as he was talking, he wasn’t dead, and everybody knew heroes liked a good monologue. Simple superhero logic.
“There is a darkness coming,” he muttered.
His hand reached out, all six fingers extended in my direction. For all the tools at my disposal, none of them could diagnose the problem. Alien physiology be damned. I wasn’t in the mood to lose another patient.
I grabbed his hand. His fingers wrapped about my knuckles, stronger than should be logical. He pulled me in close, his thin lips moving but not making a sound.
He finally spoke in a whisper. “It is you.”
“Me?” Delirium set in. Everything out of his mouth from this point on would be the result of his brain coping with his impending death.
“I can protect you from the darkness.”
His eyes narrowed, intensifying as he pulled my hand to his chest. The EKG slowed, his heart rate dropping. I tried to pull free, to get to the equipment, but he held fast. I tugged again, but his grip was absolute. At any second, I knew he was going to box.
“It comes.”
The suit under my hand separated, pulling away like oil and water. His skin underneath was covered in scars, an almost tribal pattern similar to Pe’a tattoos. They flared, burning away his suit until his entire body glowed.
“You okay back there?” Lei asked while swerving around the corner. “Xander? Man, you okay?”
All that remained of the alien’s suit was a spot of black the size of a quarter.
It moved down the center of his chest until it touched my thumb.
I pulled with all my might, nearly tearing him off the stretcher.
The black spot vanished underneath my hand.
Whatever he was doing, I wanted no part of it.
“It protects the worthy.”
The monitor stopped beeping. One continuous tone meant the alien’s hearts had stopped. His eyes shut, the muscles in his body relaxing. I pulled myself free, prepared to bring him back from the dead. There was no way I was repeating my last shift. He was going to make—
The black started at my fingertips. The veins along my hand and arm bulged, thick and black.
Had he infected me? Was I about to fall victim to the same fate?
I scratched at my hand as the black oozed outward, coating my skin.
Expanding, it shot up my arm, vanishing under my sleeve.
I couldn’t feel it moving, but seconds later my other hand was colored a flat black.
“What the hell?” The reflection in the storage door looked like me, but not. It had already coated my entire body.
“Holy shit,” Lei yelled.
I turned to see her leaning over the steering wheel staring up into the sky. Before I could ask what was going on, a blinding flash of light shot through the front window. As quickly as it appeared, the world returned to normal.
The ambulance jerked to one side as she spun the wheel. I caught my reflection—the black alien ooze gone. Had I imagined it? Lack of sleep had played tricks on medics, but I swore the alien had done something. Staring at the body on the table, he was now naked, his scars no longer shining.
The truck slowed until Lei put it in park. She rushed into the back, but there was no hurry. For the second time in two days, I had lost a hero before we reached the hospital. I slumped back in the seat, staring at the alien’s unmoving chest, the monitor continuing to taunt me.
I had failed.