Abithica (30 page)

Harriet Gordon was the no-nonsense type. A registered nurse, she’d also taken police training and a host of related courses during her thirty-plus years as an EMS driver and team leader. Truckers loved her, always popping off a horn salute or two when they drove by her station.

Nobody had to tell her she was picking up another overdose victim. That part came naturally, as Seattle was a hotbed of drugs and gangs. The main thing was to make sure her paramedic team followed all the required procedures even if the “accident victim” spit in their faces. That had already happened more than once.

The EMS station was a scant ten blocks from the call-in’s shop, but the back alley was too narrow for the van so she backed the vehicle up on the sidewalk and followed her team to the victim. One of the paramedics glanced up.

“Irregular pulse, respiration not registering, drug symptoms in spades. She’s close to going out.”

“Right. Harry, you and Angela go get the gurney and blankets.” She turned to the two men who stood in the shop’s rear doorway, addressing the one with the shaggy beard. “You’re the owner here, right? When did you find her?”

“We opened at six. I was back here ten minutes later.”

“And it went below freezing last night. Well, you did right with the coats. Thanks. We’ll take it from here.”

“She on drugs?” the shop owner asked.

“Half this city’s on drugs, my friend. Meth most likely, or Ruffies or GHB. Could be a lot of others, too, including the bootleg brands that are anything but what they’re made out to be. That type kills most of the time. However, she doesn’t appear to be a beggar, so the really cheap stuff isn’t what I’m seeing here.”

“She’s got something burned into her hand, an animal head with horns. Looks very recent. It’s all angry and red.”

“That would be the Legnas tattoo. I’ve seen a few. No telling what other damage they’ve done to her, but with that brand, as you call it, her chances of surviving are lower. A
lot
lower.”

“What’s a Legnas?”

“You don’t wanna know.”

* * *

Harriet watched the gurney disappear down the hospital corridor. Not quite seven in the morning, and one crisis down. There might be ten more before her typical day was done, or as few as two or three on the rarest of occasions.

The black woman doctor standing next to her was now charged with salvaging whatever was left of Jane Doe. “She’s a Legnas disciple, doctor,” Harriet offered. “They say you’re new to Seattle, but I’m guessing you already know that any involvement with Legnas gangs cuts her chances in half. Even if she came to her senses and wanted out… which won’t happen… they’ll hunt her down and kill her, along with anybody who tries to help her. If she makes it, she belongs to them now. If I were you, I’d keep a low profile—”

“Well, you’re
not
me. Your job is to stabilize the patients, not psychoanalyze their chances for survival. If there was any talk like that on the way here, Jane Doe here might have heard you even if she looked to be unconscious. We don’t need subconscious memories added into our already difficult equation, now, do we? I take it she had no ID on her?”

“Nothing.”

With that, the doctor marked her clipboard sheet a final time and turned to follow the gurney. Two steps later, she stopped and turned back. “Sorry to be so blunt, but it so happens I do know about the Legnas and their ways. We had them in St. Louis, too.”

* * *

“Lane!”

I cried his name for the umpteenth time, but my voice just wouldn’t work. He only stood there smiling, shrinking away into the fog beneath a huge arch that hadn’t been there moments earlier. Or had it? I’d seen that arch somewhere, maybe in pictures of St. Louis. Suddenly I was confused, shivering. Lane’s words kept repeating in my dream, about how he’d been looking for me his whole life and wouldn’t let me go. I could feel his arms around me, lifting me, warming away my chills, but people were talking and spoiling everything. I couldn’t see them, but they were saying things about me, calling me a jaindow, and then Lane disappeared altogether. There was nothing but fog and more fog, and then an awful sounding violin wailing up and down, over and over. The voices mixed in with the violin, and I felt really cold. Was somebody doing that to me, making me so cold? One kept repeating a word I’d never heard, legniz, and then I realized I was hurting everywhere, aching.

The wailing stopped and I tried to open my eyes, but nothing happened. Why wouldn’t they open? Of course! I’d done another switch… or was still doing it… and my new host was… why, of all things, my new host was lying on some sort of bed, covered with a blanket. People were talking right next to me, women. One sounded angry.

“
If there was any talk like that on the way here, Jane Doe here might have heard you even if she looked to be unconscious. We don’t need subconscious memories added into our already difficult equation, now, do we? I take it she had no ID on her?”

“Nothing.”

It’s yours now….

The voice came from my own head, but disappeared as quickly as it had come. Mine? What’s mine? Nothing was making sense. I’d just dreamt someone calling me a jaindow, but now I understood. They were saying Jane Doe. I tried once more to open my eyes and this time it worked. I was looking up at a black woman with beads in her hair, and I felt awful everywhere. The woman noticed me staring up at her. She leaned closer, looking startled. I felt her fingers on my wrist; she was taking my pulse and looking more surprised by the second.

“So you’ve decided to come back to us? I’m glad. You’re a tough one. Is there anybody I can call for you, sweetie? Anybody at all?”

Lane came to mind instantly, but so did words I’d just heard:
they’ll hunt her down and kill her, along with anybody who tries to help her.
It stopped me from saying his name out loud. Involving Lane would be an incredibly selfish thing to do, and besides, I no longer existed in his world. The fog had taken us from each other for all time.

My answer reached her as a whisper. “There’s nobody. I’m all alone.”

She leaned even closer. “None of us are ever alone, honey, not unless we want to be.”

By the time my thinking passed for something reasonably close to normal, I realized I was alone in a semi-private hospital room, surrounded by all sorts of instruments and monitors. Nothing seemed hooked up to me, though. As soon as I could manage, I checked both arms for signs of needles… those little round Band-aids… but there were none.

Nurses appeared in the room, glanced briefly at me while doing whatever it was they were doing, then left without a word. A man with a stethoscope hanging around his neck came in, checked my chart, poked me here and there, and also left without saying anything. No one asked the questions I’d been dreading. Just in case, I kept my eyes closed to tiny slits. Hopefully, they wouldn’t ask if they thought I was sleeping.

So I was Jane Doe until further notice, a piece of street trash? A real name would have been nice.

Dr. Marge Williams, the black woman who’d greeted the gurney, returned later in the day, checking on me five times in the first hour. I liked her. She smelled a little like peppermint mixed with eucalyptus, and her shoes made a squishing sound on the tiles, so I heard her approaching every time and was always “awake” when she entered.

“You’re turning me into quite the celebrity,” she said, smiling my way. “It seems I’m the only one lucky enough to catch you awake.” She sat on the edge of my bed. “How do you know it’s me when your eyes are closed?”

“Well, your shoes squish like they’re wet. I can hear you coming down the hall.”

She read my chart, clucking softly to herself. “You’re doing far better than I originally thought when I read your vital signs early this morning. By this time tomorrow they’ll have you moved to a different room.” She hung the chart back. “Okay, now just
how
are you doing it?”

“Doing what?” Her question surprised me.

“You, young lady, are by all indications a drug addict of some sort. I originally assumed meth, but now I’m suspicious of a mix. GHB comes to mind. You might know it only as ‘G.’ It has a bunch of street names. There are others, too. Date rape drug. Looks like water. Could also be white powder. Want to tell me about it?”

I stared at her. “G?”

“Georgia, or Home Boy, or Scoop, or Water, or Everclear. Also called Cherry Meth. Basically it’s degreasing solvent or floor stripper mixed with drain cleaner. Great stuff! Unfortunately a dose that’s right for someone yesterday can kill the same person today.”

“I can’t tell you anything. I don’t know anything about drugs.”

“Can you tell me how long you’ve been doing whatever you
have
been taking? It will help us. No? Well, you came in here dosed to the gills with whatever you’ve been on. If it was meth or anything similar, it was all but gone from your system two hours ago, so your body should be screaming for more. You should be in pain, or ache all over, or have tremors or nausea, or be running a fever. In short, you should be a total wreck. The EMS team thought you were close to being brain dead, so they had you on a respirator all the way here. You were actually comatose when they picked you up in an alley, you see, only you didn’t stay that way. You came out of it, but you were extremely borderline when they rolled you in here. That’s what can happen when you O.D., especially when you mix drugs with alcohol. So what gives?”

“Believe me, I feel like a wreck, and there’s lots of pain just like you say, but I’m ignoring everything.”

“You’re
ignoring
it?” She studied me for a long minute. “That makes you the toughest patient I’ve ever had, Ms. Doe.”

“Well, I don’t feel very tough, but this I can handle.”

“So we’re accustomed to lots of pain and torment, are we?” She stood, then looked down with an eyebrow arched. “I was wrong, then. It’s not just a case of being tough, but one of being able to shut down a complete nervous system, among other things. I’ll rephrase it to say you are unique, medically speaking, very unique indeed. You’re so unique that you cheated death this time, and so far I haven’t figured out why. I’ll be back in an hour to check on you again. Try and get some rest.”

I looked away and closed my eyes, trying not to think about Lane. Instead, I focused on the tantrum my new host body was throwing, thankful for the distraction. That pain would eventually pass. Its passing was something I could look forward to, but it told me I’d jumped from frying pan to fire, so to speak. Sydney wasn’t on drugs when I took over her life, at least not to the point of any withdrawal symptoms I could feel, but this host was different. She was an addict, or at least someone who’d overdosed and nearly died. Was my switch just in time to save her? Did my essence cling to life for her; maybe even bring her back from the brink?

When Dr. Williams returned it was to say she was leaving for the night, but that she’d be back in the morning. Then she startled me.

“I’ve posted two guards outside your door,” she said. “We aren’t expecting trouble, but we want to be prepared, just in case.”

“Guards? What trouble?”

She pointed at my hand. “Legnas. You run with a dangerous crowd, honey. From what we know about them, they don’t tolerate outside… shall we say… fraternization.”

“What’s a Leng-us,” I asked, staring at the angry mess on the back of my right hand. It was similar to the thing on Sydney’s hand. Why didn’t it hurt more than it did? Maybe there was so much other pain that I’d blocked it out with the rest?

Dr. Williams’s arched eyebrow reminded me of Faith. I looked quickly away, bracing for her next question. “Not what,” she corrected, “but who? You seem to be well acquainted with them. Why not fill me in.”

“I… I don’t remember anything before… before the sirens and feeling really cold.” It was a reasonable answer, even if my pulse had just begun to race.

“Interesting.” She patted my arm. “Lots of stuff you don’t know or can’t remember. Lots of other stuff you remember quite well. You’ve been scheduled for an MRI tomorrow morning. Are you claustrophobic?”

“Not that I… no, I’m not.”

“Good. I’ll stop in as soon as it’s finished. You’re sure you never heard of the Legnas before?”

“Not that I can recall, but…”

“But what?”

“What’s the date today?”

“The twenty-second of December,” she answered, very slowly.

“Do you have a newspaper?”

“Sure,” she nodded, still speaking slowly. Her eyes never left mine. “I’ll have one sent in.”

My question had obviously thrown her. I’d lost eight whole days while I floated, and now I seemed to be in Seattle, according to what I’d already heard in bits and pieces. Would Seattle newspapers make much of a robbery in Arizona, even if it was Interstate Bank?

“Can you also get me the papers from the past eight days?”

“What is it, honey? What are you looking for? Is it something I said?”

“Was there anything on the news about a bank robbery in Arizona? In Tucson?”

She glanced at my damaged hand, then back. She
knew
something.