Lost (9 page)

The port
scanner I was running on the hospital tablet finished up about the
same time that I started investigating the phone next to my bed. It
was a power-over-Ethernet model, which meant that I was going to have
less difficulty tracking down the system that ran the phones than I'd
been worrying I might.

I took a deep
breath and dived into the toughest hack I'd ever attempted. Ash
hadn't really understood what he was asking when he'd suggested that
I crack a professional-grade system in no more than two or three
hours with two tablets and no advance legwork.

It took me
forty minutes to penetrate the network deeply enough to bring down
the mail servers. I knew there was no way I was going to get root
access to the mail system, so I didn't even try. Instead I started
suborning all of the desktop computers I could get my hands on.

It took me
three tries to figure out which antivirus program the hospital was
running, but once I guessed right I started loading up a Trojan horse
that convinced the users to enter the right set of keystrokes to turn
off their antivirus program. Once that happened, I loaded up another
virus which accessed each computer's mail client and started sending
emails consisting of varying numbers of random words out of a
dictionary to every user in their email address book.

It wasn't
anything I'd designed, I just downloaded it from one of the
better-known hacker sites and input a few key variables. It wouldn't
stop the IT department for long. Once they realized that they had
more than a dozen compromised computers they'd just manually turn
back on the antivirus software, but given the lateness of the hour
and the fact that the emails were just emails, without any kind of
malicious component, I was banking on the IT guys waiting to take
care of things until the normal day staff arrived.

By then the
email servers would be buried in such a large backlog of unsent mail
messages that any legitimate traffic would be queued up behind hours
of garbage. The police would still eventually get any email
notifications sent their way by the hospital, but I'd purchased us
several hours.

The phone
system was harder to deal with. I considered trying to bring it down
with some kind of denial-of-service attack, but that felt like the
kind of thing that would prompt a more immediate response from the IT
staff. Not only that, it wouldn't do anything about people's cell
phones and if I did cut the hospital off from all outside
communication then people might die as a result.

It took me
another hour and a half of furious effort to hack my way into the
phone system. Working under a time crunch was bad enough, but I also
had a nurse checking up on me every twenty minutes and she was
obviously becoming more suspicious of me each time she stopped by.

Our cover story
was that Kristin was my sister and Ash's wife, so I told the nurse
that I was corresponding with my parents, who were out of the country
and only able to communicate via email, but even I knew my excuse was
wearing thin.

Once I finally
found a way inside the hospital's phone system I rerouted all
outgoing calls to the police department over to the phone beside my
bed. I collapsed back against the pillows, exhausted, a couple of
minutes before the surgeon finished up with Kristin and came to find
us.

I heard him
talking to the nurse out in the hall and went out to meet them so
that we wouldn't wake Ash up. I knew Ash would probably be pissed
that I hadn't shaken him awake, but it served him right after dumping
such a difficult hack in my lap.

"Excuse
me, doctor. Is there any word on my sister? She's the redhead who was
attacked by the mountain lion."

"Yes, Mr.
Parks. She's out of surgery and seems to be stable. We had to redo a
couple of the sutures to make sure that she wouldn't have circulatory
issues later on, but I have to say that she's a lucky woman. I think
she's going to make a full recovery. The nurses said that you were
the one who sewed her up?"

I nodded and
tried for the right combination of relief combined with crushing
exhaustion. It wasn't hard, as that was exactly what I was feeling
once you filtered out an intense fear that Onyx or the Coun'hij were
going to show up at any minute.

"Yeah. I
was doing a surgical residency in Maine, but my parents got sick last
year and I had to take a leave of absence."

"Are you
planning on returning and finishing up your residency?"

"I'm not
sure. Before I left, the pressure was really getting to me. It's a
pretty sad state of affairs when the first thing you feel upon
hearing that your parents are severely sick is relief because you
know it will mean that you can get away from the hospital to do
something besides just sleeping for the first time in months."

He hadn't been
expecting that, I could tell by the way that he stopped to consider
his response. "For what it's worth, I think you should go back
and finish up. It wasn't that long ago that I was doing my residency;
I remember the pressure and you're right about it being brutal, but
it's also worth it in the end. You've got a real gift, I can't
imagine trying to sew someone up like that with nothing but an
interior dome light and a flashlight for illumination."

I mustered an
exhausted smile and nodded. "Thanks, I'm just glad that it looks
like she's going to be okay. Maybe you're right. I've been leaning
that way anyway if for no other reason than I'm not sure how else
I'll pay down my student loans. That's going to be hard enough on a
doctor's salary, I'm not sure it will even be possible on what I make
right now."

I turned to go,
but he stopped me with a hand on my arm.

"Mr.
Parks, what actually happened out there?"

"I'm
sorry?"

"Those
wounds weren't inflicted by a mountain lion. They were too deep. I'd
say that you and her husband did it to her, but you're obviously
hiding injuries yourself and he's got a couple of bruises that I'm
not sure your sister could have dished out even if she used a crowbar
on him. I've been doing this for long enough to know what the police
are going to think if I send this over without more information than
I have right now."

The gears
inside of my mind spun furiously for several seconds. I'd gone too
far in my attempt to bond with the good doctor. I'd figured that my
hacks would buy us the time we needed to get Kristin out of the
hospital, but if he was becoming personally invested in our situation
then he wouldn't just wait for the email backlog to clear out, he'd
call the cops himself.

"Honestly?
I'm not sure. It started out on four legs—at least I think that
was what I saw. It was just so fast. One second it was down close to
the ground and then it was tall. It knocked me down and was on top of
my sister before any of us could react. Her husband shot it with his
gun and it turned and ran away."

For a second
there was something in the backs of his eyes that told me I'd struck
some kind of nerve with my story, but it only lasted a split second
before his professional skepticism reasserted itself.

"Are you
trying to tell me that a monster of some kind did this to her?"

A laugh burst
out of me and I noticed in passing that it had a nice touch of
hysteria to it. "We're screwed. I knew someone would question
the wounds. I told him that there wasn't any way real doctors would
believe that a mountain lion could inflict wounds that deep, but we
didn't know what else to tell people. Saying that some kind of
monster did it is like asking to be committed, but he didn't want the
cops to know that he'd been carrying a weapon illegally.

"He's got
a permit back home, but it's no good for Louisiana. We weren't even
planning on stopping. The original plan was to just drive straight
through but my sister wanted to get some pictures so we decided to
stop and campout for one night…"

Doctor Hamilton
held up a hand to interrupt the flow of words. "Okay, the first
thing you need to do is calm down. Fortunately for you I'm inclined
to believe you. I did my residency down five minutes from the Mexican
border. These days it seems like the gangs down there are plenty
flush with guns, but a few years ago that wasn't the case. I've seen
my share of knife fights and I've never seen anything like this.

"You're a
big guy, you could probably take someone apart like this with a
sword, even a short one, but I'm not so sure you could do it with a
knife as short as this one would have had to have been. I know a guy
who does forensic work on cadavers for the FBI. We took extensive
pictures while we had your sister opened up."

"So you'll
send him the pictures and he may be able to prove that we didn't do
it?"

"Yeah,
it's not guaranteed, but it's a start and it gives me a reason to
wait to call the authorities. With any luck he'll come back with
something that will give the police enough of a pause once I do file
my report that they'll choose to just keep an eye on you until your
sister wakes up and can collaborate your story."

I reached out
and took his hand in both of mine, shaking it with the unbridled
relief of an innocent man learning he was going to dodge the electric
chair.

"Thank
you, Doctor Hamilton. I never in a million years thought we'd find
someone willing to give us the benefit of the doubt like this.
Between that and finding out that Kris is going to be okay, well, I
feel like the hall is spinning."

I let myself
sway a little, which prompted him to reach back out to steady me.

"Let's get
you back to your bed and look at those wounds."

I shook my head
as he guided me back into my room and helped me back down onto the
bed. "Can you please look in on my sister again and get those
photos sent off to your friend first? I'll be fine for a few more
minutes and it would mean a lot to know that she was still okay."

He gave me a
considering look, but nodded. "All right, but don't go anywhere.
I'm worried about your wounds and wouldn't want anything to happen to
you."

I gave him my
best honest face and relaxed back into the bed in an attempt to put
him at ease. He nodded to a familiar-looking blonde nurse as he left
my room and turned right to go check up on Kristin, cell phone
already out and dialing.

I still had
five minutes before my scheduled check-in with my nurse, so I offered
this nurse a wan smile in the hopes that she'd move on. It didn't
work.

She walked into
my room and looked down at her aluminum clipboard as she closed the
door. Alarm bells started going off inside of my head a split second
before she kicked Ash's feet off of the low table where he'd propped
them when he'd fallen asleep.

"It's
amazing that you've managed to survive this long on your own if this
is the kind of mess you typically make of things."

I expected Ash
to pull a knife on her. Dangerous people are always the most
unpredictable when waking up somewhere that isn't completely safe.
This seemed like the perfect situation to have Ash go off like a
crate of dynamite, only he didn't.

"Hi,
Celeste. It's nice to see you, too."

Ash didn't seem
surprised that the nurse in our room was ready to rip his head off,
but I rolled out of the bed and subtly lowered my center of gravity
into something that wasn't quite a crouch, ready to respond if things
heated up even more.

I opened my
mouth to ask what was going on, but before I got my question out the
nurse stepped forward and picked Ash up by the shirt collar, slamming
him against the wall with enough force that I wondered if there was
anyone in the next room over to hear the impact.

"You piece
of trash. Do you have any idea the mess you left behind when you left
here? Do you know what I had to do to keep your secret? You put me
through nine kinds of hell and never bothered to even call and tell
me that you'd survived. Then a few months ago you call and tell me
that some Ancient from south of the border is tearing through the
western half of the country and please can I figure out a way to stop
him before he kills you? Oh, and while I'm at it is there any way I
can arrange to keep the fact that you were my anonymous tipster
quiet? Don't you know that you're supposed to grow up to be less of
an ass rather than more of one?"

The surge of
energy coming off of her put to rest any question as to what we were
dealing with. To summon that kind of raw boiling energy she had to be
a shape shifter, and she wasn't just a wolf, she was one of the more
naturally powerful hybrids I'd ever come up against.

Ash was in
terrible danger. She'd positioned herself perfectly to rip his head
off with her claws if she shifted forms. I'd taken a step towards the
two of them when she grabbed him, but now I froze, not wanting to do
anything to push her over the edge into a transformation.

It wasn't until
I looked back over at Ash that I realized why he was still eerily
calm. Having Celeste kick his feet off of the table like that should
have sent the sports magazine on his lap tumbling to the ground. It
hadn't because he hadn't been asleep.

Something had
woken him up before she walked into the room and he'd anticipated her
actions, up to and including the fact that she was going to manhandle
him. Ash was calm because he still had a measure of control over the
situation.

The magazine
hadn't gone crashing to the floor, but more importantly the silenced
pistol underneath it hadn't ever left Ash's hand. It was now pressed
up against the nurse's chest, silencer and all.

"If it
helps, I'm sorry about the way things went down. There are some
things I'd probably do differently if I had it all to do over again,
but this is the last time you put your hands on me,
sis
. The
next time you put yourself in a position where you could kill me, I
won't hesitate to pull the trigger."