Die For You (2 page)

“He's still with us. Not in good shape, but I think a blood exchange and some rest should do the trick.” He sounded so cool and sure, Gage wanted to punch the older man in the face. But then, it was Miner's job to stay calm in an emergency.

“You should get checked out at the hospital,” said Chris the Genius. “You both need further treatment for the poison, and you're going to require some iron and a transfusion yourself.”

“Fine. Great. Whatever. Let's get to it,” Gage dragged himself to his feet as the EMT's hauled Jensen onto the gurney. He followed them out of the alley to the open rear doors of the ambulance. “Are you taking him to Angels?”

Our Lady of Angels being the only hospital in the city that would treat vampires with any degree of professionalism. Most places in Northbrook—hell, anywhere in the state—treated Underkin like they were diseases, not patients. Angels treated both Underkin patients and hired professionals with the same respect they would show any human. They were also the only hospital in town that ran a 24/7 clinic for all comers.

“Be there in five,” replied Miner.

“I'll follow in the car.”

Newbie Chris looked concerned. “Sir, I don't know if you should drive. You can ride in the ambulance.”

“And leave my baby on the street? Screw that.” He didn't have a lot in this world besides his job and his partner, but his Dodge Challenger SRT8 392 with the custom grille and flat matte black paint job was his pride and joy. He lived in a rathole studio apartment on the edge of Undertown, ate cheap crap like most cops he knew—who weren't vampires—and didn't care much about the state of his clothes or other possessions, so what money he wasn't stashing away for retirement—forced or otherwise—went into his car.

No matter how worried he was about Jen, no way he was leaving the Charger in Undertown to get egged, spat on, stripped, or eaten down to the tires.

He slid into her welcoming pilot's seat, started her up, and took only a much smaller pleasure than usual in listening to her purr to life. Gage had to take a second to get himself together. The green EMT hadn't been all wrong when he said Gage wasn't in the best shape to drive. Adrenaline-fueled shakes and the weird lassitude from being both poisoned by the Mereg and drained by a vampire bite made him feel like he was on some kind of trippy drug. He breathed deep, squeezing his eyes shut and giving his head a shake to dissipate the sensation. Not much better, but good enough. He knew these streets like the veins on his… wrists, and he wasn't waiting any longer to see how Jen was doing.

The quick drive felt like forever, with a slice of eternity on top searching for a parking space. Guilt ate through him at worrying about his car and wasting all this time when he should have been standing by his partner's side. What if Jen died alone? What if he was in pain, and all he had around him were strangers, however well-meaning? What if Gage never got to say what had been simmering inside him for the six months they'd been partners?

He threw open the door and jumped out, realizing too late it was another mistake as the dizziness and the woggy vision hit again. Gage fell back against his car, fighting to will his symptoms to pass so he could move. They didn't clear completely, but he couldn't wait. He ran like a drunken speeder zombie toward the automatic ER doors and barely made it through before he dropped.

No better place to pass out, he thought as he failed in his battle to stay conscious. He could feel hands on him even as the world faded to black.

§ § §

Waking on an ER gurney hooked up to a bunch of machines and a couple of gigantic IV's did not help Gage feel any better. He felt like he'd gone ten rounds with a fanged elephant, and then had a particularly athletic orgy with a wrestling squad besides. Exhaustion gripped at him, but at least it felt more natural now, and less like he might not wake up if he let go.

He couldn't let go, not yet. He glanced around frantically, but was unable to see anything through the curtains that surrounded his little cubicle.

“Jensen? Jen?” he called, not bothering to shout. If his partner was at all conscious, he could hear Gage whisper from twenty yards away.

There was no answer.

“Nurse? Doctor? Candy striper?” he cried out, struggling to detach himself from all the gadgets and needles without opening a vein and spraying blood and other liquids all over the place. Apparently his activity upset one of the machines, because two nurses appeared like magic. One was a tall, rangy human guy about his age, the other a stunning woman with some Native American blood who had that slight gray-blue shimmer to her golden skin that identified her as a vampire.

Gage stopped struggling, knowing the two of them could easily hold him down and dope him up all over again if he didn't. He wanted information, not oblivion.

“Glad to see you're awake, Detective,” the lady said while the tall kid loomed over her shoulder. The vampire could probably just knock Gage out with a good bonk on the head, but then, she was a nurse, so probably wouldn't stoop to that. “What's all the fuss?”

“The fuss?” He tried not to sound as snide as he felt. “Is that my partner was half-dead… undead…er… he's a vampire, and he was poisoned. He was supposed to be brought in by ambulance right before I…”

The nurse smiled, a surprisingly warm and comforting expression. “Fell down and vomited all over my nice ER floor?”

“Yeah. Sorry about that. Look, I need to know how he is. Please.”

She gave him a look that teetered on the edge of quoting patient privacy regulations, which made his gut clench even harder. He was fairly sure he was Jensen's only emergency contact, and Gage might have even signed something giving him power of attorney over Jen's death and un-death decisions or something, but he didn't have any proof either way. Luckily, the nurse decided to take pity on Gage and tell him what he so desperately needed to know.

“He's going to be fine. His body rejected the poison precisely the way it should have. He had a serious case of the bleeds, but once we set him up with replacement and infusion unit, he crashed like a drunken sailor.”

Interesting metaphor. Gage didn't want to think about the bleeds, even if it was a “healthy” response for a vampire. They oozed red goop out of pretty much every hole, pore, and opening in their bodies, looking like a scene out of a high-tech, extra gory remake of Carrie with seizures thrown in for good measure.

If he could have or dared to move, Gage would have kicked himself for not being there. He might have been yakking his own guts out all the way, but dammit, he would have held on to his partner's hand while they suffered together.

The nurse scowled at him, either able to read his thoughts, or just his expression. You could never tell with vampires. “You couldn't have helped, and frankly, you're not in much better condition. Blood loss, some lingering effects of the poison, general cuts and bruises from the fight. And you lost a bit of skin from acid burns. They're minor injuries in the larger scheme of things, but they needed attention. Your partner was unconscious and specially sedated, so he didn't suffer. Stop worrying.”

Oh, and while he was at it, Gage could stop breathing, too. “Thank you, Nurse…”

“Call me Jessica. You know, you and your partner are very brave, very lucky, and very stupid. That combination tends to signify good cops for some reason. If you took out Mereg Demons, you've done a huge service to the city, if not a smart one. I'd like to thank you—and still wish that you'd be more careful in the future.”

She started to rise, but he grabbed her arm. Her skin had that cool, silken texture common to vampires, but after knowing Jen for so long, he found it more sexy than creepy. Even on a lady. “When can I see Je— Detective Holm?”

Nurse Jessica gave him a wink as she slid back the curtain to his right, revealing Jensen propped up on his own gurney, hooked to a machine that looked like something straight out of Frankenstein's lab. Gage recognized the replacement and infusion unit she had mentioned. Since vampires' circulation was so slow and unpredictable, especially when they were unconscious, vampire scientists had created a hybrid machine that combined the best of IV's, ventilators, and by-pass units able to force needed whole blood and medications into the vampire's tissues to assist whatever recovery was necessary.

It was a nasty-looking contraption, and combined with Jen's absolute stillness, weird pallor, and the damp sheen on his skin, Gage's stomach lurched with a whole new wave of fear and guilt. He couldn't drag his eyes away.

Nurse Jessica patted his hand. “He will be okay. And so will you,” She promised, and stepped out of the cubicle, closing the curtain so Gage and Jen were closed in their own little beeping, slurping, clinking world.

“You better goddamn well be okay, or I’ll throw you in a woodchipper,” he grumbled, then added, “asshole goddamn hero,” just for good measure. He so rarely got to use “The Lord’s” name in vain around his church-going vampire partner, he might as well take advantage.

§ § §

Gage could have sworn he only blinked, but when he opened his eyes, he was staring straight at the pleasant bulge in the crotch of Jensen’s very expensive, completely ruined jeans. He blinked again, forcing his weary gaze upward until he found his partner looking down at him, concern shadowing his green eyes. He looked slightly more corpse-like than usual, with that profoundly pale, blue-tinged skin, but his “normal” tone was starting to return as he flushed with new, clean blood.

“Nice to see you’re not deader,” Gage said, surprised to hear his voice come out in a dry rasp. Jensen pulled up a chair and poured water from a pitcher into a cup with a straw in it, then held it for his partner to take a sip.

“I think ‘more dead’ is the grammatically correct term. I’m all right. I’m more worried about you, although I have to return the sentiment about relative degrees of living. You seem to have held on to your usual one.”

Gage nodded and let go of the straw. Too much water would just get him barfing all over again, and nobody needed that right now. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here. I was… Jesus, I was more concerned about the goddamn car.”

Jensen gave him a half-hearted glare of reprimand even as he reached over to rest a hand on Gage’s forearm, the only place that didn’t seem to be stuck full of needles at the moment. “I’d be more concerned if you weren’t upset about that ridiculous gas hog. And don’t forget, God’s probably the only reason both of us aren’t the kind of dead that sticks. Don’t blame this on Him.”

Oy with the vampire religion. Gage was never even clear which God it was that Jensen believed in so fiercely—could the standard Judeo Christian one really be all up-with-the-undead? Wasn’t that only supposed to be his Son’s trick? Gage didn’t ask. Not his business.

“Right, sorry. Don’t mean to be offensive while I’m lying in an emergency room hopped up on all kinds of… I don’t even know what they gave me.”

Jensen got up and looked at the computerized record on the portable computer at the foot of the bed. He might be violating about a hundred privacy laws, but Jen wouldn’t worry about that. When it came to things he cared about, his morality could get as flexible as he felt necessary. He was also the best hacker Gage had ever heard of on this side of the law.

“Wow, they really did pump you full of stuff. Something to counteract the Mereg poison, the vampire blood, a painkiller, transfusion, a massive iron supplement… there’s medication here I don’t even recognize.”

“Goodie. So are they going to send me home with a freaking pharmacy?”

Jensen reclaimed his seat and Gage’s arm. “It doesn’t look like it. The doctor recommends a few days’ rest, lots of red meat and spinach, but that’s about it. You’re practically a miracle.”

Gage went all gooey inside and turned his arm over to claim the long, cool fingers of Jensen’s hand, giving them a squeeze. “It was you who put himself on the line to save my ass. Or I guess…neck.”

Jensen looked away. “Yeah. About that. When you’re feeling better, we should, uh… we’ll need to talk about any, um… lingering effects you might have.”

Oh for Chrissake. It wasn’t like they’d been making love in the alley when Jen bit him. Although that idea held a whole lot more appeal than it might once have, before he’d had a sampling of it. If that was a lingering effect, then he didn’t want to talk about it, he just wanted to feel it again. Along with other things.

“We don’t need to talk about anything, Dr. Phil. I’m good. You did what you had to do. I’ll deal. End chick flick.”

“Don’t be stupid. A vampire bite can be… unnerving for survivors.”

It was all Gage could do not to roll his eyes. Drama Queen Vampire Cop. Just what the world needed… and just exactly the man he loved.

“I do take it seriously. But not because I’m freaked out or afraid I’ll turn into a fang-junkie,” he said.

“That’s not what I’m worried about either. The fact is, being bitten, whether you’re treated or not, whatever the circumstances, it has… repercussions. Heightened senses. Hunger. Thirst. Sexual desire. I just don’t want any unusual, uh…attraction you might feel toward me to make you uncomfortable.”

“Attraction to… uncomfortable?” he stuttered. Really? Sure, Gage hadn’t exactly sang Jen love songs or fallen to his knees spouting sonnets or anything, but he didn’t think his affection and desire for him were exactly secrets either. Gage wasn’t really much of a closet kind of guy.

Or maybe this was Jensen’s way of letting him down easy. Maybe he didn’t want to cross that line any further than life or death circumstances had forced him to do tonight. Gage knew Jensen’s sexuality—as with most vampires—was pretty flexible, so it wasn’t a straight/gay thing. Maybe it was just Gage.

Shit.

Jensen shrugged it off, removing his hand from Gage’s with a friendly pat. “Look, we’re on medical leave until next week, department orders. You’re coming to my place out in Weatherfield to get some real rest, completely out of this dump.”

“Hey, this dump is my home, Bunnicula. And you’re beat. Just because you have more money than Bill Gates and don’t have to live here doesn’t make you better than anybody else.”