Dark Moonlighting (20 page)

“Hilarious,” I answered flatly. “I’d say I’m
sorry I had to do this, but I won’t patronize you with a lie. I
wanted you to bring a message back to him.”

“Yeah? What message might that be?” she
questioned.

“The garlic bomb to your face
was
the
message,” I explained to her as if talking to a child. “Your face
will mostly be healed before you see him again, but you can retell
the story nonetheless. Although, now that you bring it up, you can
mention that I said he should have recruited scholars instead of
the obtuse whores I’ve encountered so far.”

“Hey!” Kourtney said indignantly. “I’m not
fat!”

I rubbed my thumb and forefinger against the
bridge of my nose. “Obtuse means stupid, not fat.”

“Damn right I’m not fat,” she said. “Your
message isn’t going to matter though. He’s not going to leave you
alone. Not after what you did to him.”

“Oh, I have no doubt,” I said confidently.
“This was to let him know that I’m not running. I’m not afraid of
him. You think of him like a God, but he’s nothing compared to me.
He’s a
new
vampire. The vampire equivalent of an
infant.”

To emphasize my point, I reached my arm back
and punched Kourtney in her blistered face. She had not anticipated
the sudden attack, and she let out a shriek of pain as she fell to
the ground.

“Jesus Christ!”

I turned around to find the lead prosecutor
of the murder trial staring at me in shock. He dropped his
briefcase to the ground and covered the twenty feet between us in a
sprint. The other lawyer fell to the ground next to Kourtney and
attempted to inspect her injuries. For her part, the young vampire
rolled around and screamed in agony in order to elicit
sympathy.

“What is wrong with you?” the prosecutor
asked me.

“Uh,” I stammered.

“He came out of nowhere,” Kourtney screamed.
“He said I needed to confess to killing that woman. I begged him to
stop, but he threw some sort of acid in my face! Oh, the pain! The
pain!”

“Thank God I had to get some papers out of my
car,” the prosecutor said as he attempted to comfort the wounded
woman. “You’re done Nick,” he said to me with burning determination
in his eyes. “I’ll see that you’re disbarred for this. The next
trial you participate in is going to be your own!”

And that is how my career as a lawyer came to
an end.

Chapter Ten: Insert Amusing Chapter Title
Here

The prosecutor had been right when he said
that the next trial I would attend would be my own. However, that
trial was for murder rather than assault. The regenerative
properties of the vampire virus had healed most of Kourtney’s
blistering rash before the police arrived on the scene. Luckily the
cops were from a different precinct than the one where I worked, or
I would have been exposed right then and there. Kourtney had
refused to press charges and was quite insistent that the police
let the matter drop. Her master had big plans for me, and they
could not be executed if I was rotting behind a jail cell.

Caleb Hass had met me in the parking garage
even before the police arrived. He made it clear that although he
did not understand what was going on, he and the firm would have my
back no matter what. I, of course, knew what he really meant. I was
effectively fired from Hass, Fucht & Ruine. The disbarment
proceedings would take place later, but it was clear I would never
practice law in Starside again.

The encounter with the second of “the
master’s” harlots confirmed much of what I had already guessed
while filling in some of the holes. A man from my past had returned
to seek revenge. I knew exactly who that man was and, given what I
had done to him, understood that he would not stop. My crimes
against him made his vengeance justified, but I had no intention of
sitting back and letting it happen.

The trial proved that the four vampires had
been killing in Starside for over a year. That they had gone that
long without me noticing their presence proved that my opponent,
although clearly not his minions, was intelligent and patient. It
also showed that he was not content to simply kill me and be done
with it. Kourtney had stood trial and used my albino cover story to
screw with my head. She easily could have disappeared, but she had
gone through the trouble of taking the stand and defending
herself.

The fact that the four vampires had formed a
gang was unusual. Vampires are, for the most part, solitary
hunters. Most are so haunted by the guilt and shame of killing
other human beings that they try to avoid relationships with
anyone, including other vampires. My enemy must have picked his
compatriots for more than just their good looks. He would have had
to choose misanthropes or sociopaths. Even when infected with the
virus, few human beings can actively enjoy hunting and killing
their own species.

With this information, I found myself with a
new resolve. The mistakes I had made recently were in the past. It
was time to stop berating myself for my reckless body count and
start focusing on the real problem. My old nemesis had returned
with the goal of ruining my happy life. I was the happiest I had
been in centuries, and I was not about to go down without a
fight.

Before I began the search for my elusive
vampire foe, I decided to stop by the hospital. I waited anxiously
for the sun to set before driving to a flower shop and then to the
site of my third occupation. It was a slight risk since I did not
know how much my enemies knew about my life. They obviously knew I
was a lawyer, or had been until recently, and I had run one of them
down while wearing a police uniform. However, they might not have
known that I was a doctor as well. Regardless, I was not scheduled
to take a shift at the hospital that night anyway. The chances of
being ambushed were minimal. Before I could hunt down my enemy, I
wanted to remind myself why I needed to fight for my life in
Starside.

I entered the hospital through the ambulance
bay and found the emergency room to be filled with chaos. It was
standing room only, and I had to push my way through a sea of
unhappy patients. I saw Lara walking down the hall and headed for
her. I shouted her name, but she could not hear me over the noise.
She looked startled when I made it to her and managed to grab her
arm.

“Hey, Nick,” Lara said as she realized it was
me. “Who are the flowers for?”

“Algernon,” I joked. “Nah, they’re for
you.”

Lara was jostled as several of the walk-in
patients bumped past her. She took my hand and led me to a small
opening in the crowd near the nurse’s station.

“Thanks,” she yelled over the noise. Lara
took the bouquet, sniffed the roses half-heartedly and quickly set
them on top of the desk on the other side of the nurse’s station.
“Sorry, we’re a little backed up in here today.”

“That seems to be happening a lot lately,” I
shouted. “Every time I’m here there’s some sort of crisis going on.
What’s the problem this time?”

“Most of the staff is at Dr. Little’s
funeral,” Lara explained.

Dr. Robert Little, the hospital’s Chief of
Medicine, had lived for about six hours after I found him
unconscious in my office. The staff had worked valiantly to save
him, but in the end the food poisoning won the battle. He had been
an old man and the dehydration was simply too much. I would have
mentioned his passing sooner in the book but… well, I never liked
him. His death had no significant effect on the story.

“Right,” I said with a sorrowful shake of my
head. “I forgot that was today.” I checked my watch. “Little late
in the day to be having a funeral.”

“I thought that too,” she said with a shrug
of her shoulders. “I should probably get going. I’ve got a lot of
patients to work up.”

“Yeah, no problem,” I said in disappointment.
“I just wanted to talk to you about something if you had a
minute.”

“Ha!” Lara laughed as she motioned around
her. “I’ll be lucky if I get a break at all tonight,” she lamented.
She rubbed my shoulder briefly before saying, “Sorry you came all
the way down here. We’ll talk later.”

Lara turned and instantly disappeared into
the crowd of people. I was unhappy that I had not gotten to see
more of her, but I knew I had to get out of the E.R. as quickly as
possible. I needed to start my search for the vampires who had been
harassing me. If I got caught up in the latest in a series of
inexplicable emergency room calamities, I could be stuck at the
hospital for hours. I bolted for the door and grimaced when a hand
shot out to grab my arm.

“Dr. Whittier, thank God.”

I turned to find the sexiest of the E.R.
nurses sitting behind a small desk that faced the waiting area. She
drew the attention of male doctors and patients alike whenever she
walked the halls of the hospital. I was not immune to her good
looks, but it was still not incentive enough for me to learn her
name.

“Can you cover triage for me?” Sexy Nurse
begged. “Just for a few minutes? I need to use the bathroom.”

“I don’t know,” I said reluctantly. “I’m not
even supposed to be here today. Can’t you get—”

“Oh God!” Sexy Nurse screamed. She leaned
forward in her chair and wrapped an arm across her stomach. “I
think it was the chimichangas. Why did I let the girls talk me into
Mexican for lunch? Oh no! Here it comes!”

“Well, there goes all the fantasies I had
about her,” I muttered to myself.

I watched the formerly sexy nurse dart
towards the nearest bathroom. She used one hand to push through the
crowd while the other was pressed firmly against her backside. I
shuddered at the unpleasant mental image before turning back
towards the exit. A horde of patients, who were lined up in front
of the triage desk, stared back at me with sullen eyes.

“Goddamn Hippocratic Oath,” I sighed. I
pulled my hospital security badge out of my pocket and clipped it
to my shirt. I did not look like much of a doctor, but I had a
feeling the patients who had been waiting for hours would not care.
“Okay, what’s your problem?” I asked the first man in line.

The man extended his arm to reveal a nasty
looking burn. “My waterbed caught on fire,” he exclaimed.

“How ironic,” I said dispassionately. “Come
on back. We’ll get you patched up.”

The next person in line was a young white man
who was carrying a baby. “Now, I know my baby is only half Indian,
but I’m concerned that the dot on her forehead hasn’t come in
yet.”

I leaned forward and pretended to examine the
baby for a moment. “Well, here’s your problem. You’re an idiot. The
dot is decorative, not genetic. However, I am concerned for your
daughter as well. She has an incredibly stupid father, so I fear
she probably won’t grow up in the most intellectually stimulating
environment.”

“So they just paint it on?” the man asked,
ignoring my insults. “Jeez, I sure do feel stupid.”

“As well you should. You’ve wasted my time
and the time of the other patients in line who have real problems.
Perhaps you should have asked your wife before coming here, or
simply looked it up on the internet. Next in line please.”

The next patient was a young girl, probably
no more than sixteen years old. She barely made eye contact with me
as she approached the triage desk. She rubbed her arm sheepishly,
and she spoke so softly that I had to ask her to raise her
voice.

“Sorry,” the poor girl answered. “I said my
boyfriend just told me he has astigmatism. I… I think I should get
tested.”

“Astigmatism is a genetic condition that
causes blurry vision,” I said, making no attempt to hide my anger.
“It is in no way sexually transmitted. Honestly, do none of you
people have internet access? You are all a plague on this country’s
fragile health care system.”

I was forced to spend fifteen more minutes
with the unapologetic fools in line before I was relieved. The
formerly sexy nurse looked pale when she returned, but she assured
me that she would be fine. I was almost to the exit when two
paramedics pushed a patient on a stretcher through the ambulance
bay’s sliding door. I wanted to ignore them and keep going, but I
froze in place to watch the trio enter the emergency room. I cursed
loudly a moment later when Dr. Condo met the paramedics and the
patient. If it had been any other doctor I would have been
comfortable leaving it in their hands, but I knew the poor guy
being wheeled in had a much better chance of living if I
intervened. I threw my head back in frustration before pushing
through the crowd and into the first trauma room.

“Okay,” Dr. Condo was saying to the other
doctors and nurses in his trauma team. “I need a rib spreader, ten
packs of ice, fifteen units of type-specific blood, an old priest,
a new priest—”

“Condo, whatever you’re thinking is wrong,” I
interrupted as I approached the patient. “I’m in a hurry, so I’m
not going to bother humoring you. Whatever you’re doing, stop it.
What’s the story with this guy?”

“28-year-old, white male with some sort of…
muscular problem. He’s been having severe spasms every half an hour
or so according to the paramedics. I tried taking a history, but he
seems unable to speak. I think the diagnosis is pretty obvious.
It’s Fields’ disease,” Dr. Condo said confidently.

“Fields’ disease?” I shouted at him.
“Arguably the rarest disease on the planet? The disease that has
only two known cases worldwide? Are you kiddin’ me with this shit?
I don’t know what you’re planning on doing if it’s Fields’ disease
anyway. There’s no effective treatment last time I checked.”

“I have a theory that if I can lower his body
temperature by ten degrees and perform open heart massage while in
the presence of two spiritual—”

“I don’t have time for this,” I interrupted
as I checked my watch. “Can you promise me you’ll run a blood panel
like a normal doctor before you jump to the wild conclusion that
you need to crack this guy’s chest open?”