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hit you with antitoxin until after you see Silver Hawk, all right?" She turned
to face the Tulane staff. "You're chief of sur-gery, Dr. Williams. You're
going to have to tell them what-ever you need to tell them so I can bring
Hunter up there in this form. Tell them the old man is in a coma and that his
faithful companion might bring him out. But I can tell you this, Hunter will
turn this hospital inside out if he can't go see his grandfather real soon."
The three doctors from Tulane just stared at one an-other for a moment, words
temporarily escaping them all. Dr. Michael Williams finally raked his fingers
through the spiked mass that had once been immaculately barbered brunette
hair.
"You have got to be kidding me."
~
"I don't give a shit, call Joseph Pratt," Dr. Williams ar-gued with the head
of ICU.
"You are not bringing some mangy, flea-ridden animal into a hospital ICU under
any circumstances, Doctor! Pratt will lose his job as hospital president if
one of these patients has an allergic reaction or an airborne infection
impacts an immune system and kills someone. Are you insane, Williams? Not on
my fucking watch, you won't! We just had an incident up here that's still
under investigation I don't give a rat's ass about whatever pol-itics you've
got going on in your climb to greatness, but this type of madness will have
you practicing medicine in some small foreign country with a rain forest in
the back-ground and no government!"
"Pratt gave me express instructions that I was to coop-erate with this
Homeland Security operation to the utmost of my ability and helping that
elderly eyewitness re-cover so that he can testify is in accordance with
that." He waved Sasha and Hunter forward and watched as the other doctor
gasped.
"Mother of God .. . what the fuck is that?"
"The old man's companion, who's like a grandson to him, they tell me. We're
experimenting with new coma revival therapies. He'll only be on the floor for
a few min-utes. I trust you can live with that."
~
Sasha hung back, watching Hunter slowly approach the bed and then lay his head
gently beside Silver Hawk so as not to harm him by even a touch. It was the
saddest thing she'd ever witnessed ... a grandfather felled, a grandson
trapped between two worlds, and yet a bond so strong that it had crossed miles
and minds, all on the wind through a bit of silver-framed amber.
New respect for whatever the Shadow packs termed the old ways entered her. The
way of the wolf. As she continued to stare at the mute reunion, she agreed
more reverently with Clarissa. Hunter was majestic, just like his grandfather.
The genes bore out, no matter what else had tried to take up lodging within
him.
Watching them together, now physically close but in different dimensions . . .
one locked in a coma and in hu-man form, the other trapped in his wolf and
achingly present, she wondered how she would face the inevitable day when Doc
got sick.
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It was something she tried never to dwell on; Doc was the closest thing she'd
had to a father. But the truth was, the man was already up in years. The kind
of work he did was stressful, not to mention had an element of danger when not
protected in the NORAD bubble, like he was now. All it took was one lab
catastrophe, one slip-up, or just a slip and fall in his own home a regular
occurrence for the elderly. Then what would she do when it was her time to sit
shiva at that loved one's bedside, and how would she deal with the other
inevitable part of that pro-cess that she didn't want to name right now?
Sasha looked at the floor and watched it get blurry. Sil-ver Hawk loved his
grandson so much that he'd come to her in a Shadow vision to find and protect
him, even while in a coma. Had even led her to Hunter while a sworn enemy a
Werewolf clan leader was present. Damn. It had to be a sign that the old man
also thought it was time for peace, time for an alliance ... either that or
the pull to his grandson superseded everything, even the future of the clan.
She wondered if anybody had ever loved her that much, even Doc. That was some
hard loving that went be-yond the biological all the way down to the
spiritual...
Then again, she had family from here, Doc had told her long ago ... and she'd
seen her own mother and so many spirits from her family on her spirit walk
with Hunter. She had to remember that, although those folks were gone, there
were so many people who'd loved her even before she was born, they'd loved
her spirit. It was taking her a while to be able to comprehend that the spirit
world was an extension of her current earthly reality. If only there was time
to stay in New Orleans and to find those people, to learn from their stories,
and to find out about where the seer gene came from. But time to learn more
about her own life had never been an affordable luxury.
Her attention jerked to Hunter as she clasped the amulet she wore and jogged
over to the side of the bed. Hunter lifted his head slowly, easing from the
bedside so as not to jostle Silver Hawk in the least.
"Hunter," she said as quietly as possible. "You have to let me put the amulet
on you so we can see who tried to take it. What if it was a familiar a Shadow
familiar from one of the infected Shadows?" She gave the arguing physicians
her back. "Right now, your nose is keener than mine. Fatigue has done us both
in, but your wolf is here. What do you pick up?"
She didn't wait for his answer as she carefully re-moved the amulet from
Silver Hawk and looped the long silver chain over Hunter's head.
"I'm not picking up a trail from an infected den ..." Hunter whispered so low
it sounded like a growl. He watched the already panicked medical staff back
away. "We don't have much time before they put us out, but it's. . . very odd.
The undead had lain with that man."
"Vampires sent a day familiar over here to get a Shadow amulet?" Sasha ruffled
her hair up from the back of her neck. "Then that just confirms our hunches
all along . . . even with regards to Crow Shadow." She leaned over Silver
Hawk's body, holding her amulet with one hand and Hunter's with the other. "He
came to both of us while in a coma. That says to me that he's strong, Hunter.
He's gone within to heal. He's on an ultimate spirit walk where he can see
things we've yet to comprehend, I bet. . .so, with the power of three, let's
heal his body and bring forth his knowledge."
~
"Lady, you're gonna have to take the animal out of ICU," hospital security
said from down the hall.
Sasha opened her eyes and opened her palm that clasped Hunter's amulet,
watching it glow white for a second and then slowly normalize.
"Just be cool," she told Hunter. "I think we did a lot of good for him and we
definitely learned a lot."
"But we need more time," Hunter said between his teeth. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]