Burning Bright (22 page)

Petya pulled a knife, his grin feral. “There’s no one to interfere,
devochka
. This time, I’m going to fuck you bloody.”

Sasha swallowed.
Stay calm. Don’t let him rattle you.
He waited for the stocky Russian to make his move.
Kick the knee when he steps forward
. Petya’s other hand, though, was the one he should have been watching. The fist slammed into his face and he stumbled backward. Petya grabbed him and whipped him around to clamp him along his front, the Russian’s arm cutting off his air.

“Sasha!” Steve raced toward them.

Iosef stepped out from behind a tree and fired. Steve jolted but kept coming. Iosef fired several more times, not all of them hitting the enraged weretiger. Steve shifted form, the pale shape shredding his clothes and bounding forward. Iosef kept firing, but backed up.

Steve fell, blood soaking his fur.

“Got him,” Iosef told Petya smugly.

Sasha struggled against Petya, but couldn’t budge his arm. “Steve…”

“Get the tiger,” Petya ordered.

“What about the kid?”

“I’ll handle him. Go. They’re waiting.”

Sasha struggled against growing dizziness, trying to breathe. His heartbeat got louder and louder and he fought not to pass out.

Petya leaned his head forward and spoke into his ear. “I’m going to ass-fuck you, you queer. Let Harrison smell
that
.”

A high-pitched feline scream split the air and a jet-black shape crashed into them. Sasha recognized the feel of Felipe as the jaguar roared. Sasha hit the ground with the heavy weight of the cat partly on top of him. Felipe bit Petya’s arm and dragged him bodily away from Sasha.

Sasha managed to get his mobile phone open, hands shaking, and hit the speed dial for Neal. If he’d had to dial more numbers, he wouldn’t have been able to, his hands refused to obey him.

“Hey, babe. What’s—”

“They shot Steve. Felipe’s here, but I don’t know what to do. I don’t have a gun.”

“What? Where are you?”

“I’m…um…” Where were they? “At the park…Montrose, I think…I don’t know.”

“
Where
at the park? Where’s Steve?”

Petya and Felipe rolled over, and then Petya let out a piercing scream. It cut off in the middle and Sasha watched in horror as Felipe bit down on his throat, then tore it out with a spray of thick crimson.

“Oh, Gods…” He fell to his knees and threw up everything he’d ever planned to eat, ever. He kept retching long after anything came up, his eyes on the mess that used to be a man.

“Sasha.” Neal’s voice came out of the phone still clutched in his hand.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here.”

“What the fuck is going on?” The sound of his engine revved and the tires squealed. “Where in the park are you?”

Felipe walked up, his clothes shredded. “Is that Neal?” he asked Sasha.

Sasha nodded, shivering.

The Latino held his hand out for the phone. “
¿Jefe?
”

Sasha frowned. Felipe called Neal “boss”. He couldn’t focus on that, though. The blood on the grass fascinated him. He listened to a modulating whine for several moments without comprehension. “The police.” Sasha managed to stand, though dizziness swam through him. “Felipe. The police!”

“Calm down. It’s an ambulance; I called them. They’re my guys. Go sit down, Tigre. I’ll handle this.” He listened to the phone. “Yeah, I know that.” He turned away, still talking to Neal on Sasha’s phone.

Sasha wanted to argue with him, but his body had other plans. He sank to the grass against a tree, tremors running up and down his body. He couldn’t have moved if his life depended on it.

The ambulance drove up, its siren loud enough that it hurt his ears. The Charger shot into the parking lot behind it, and Neal leaped out. He put out a hand and vaulted the waist-high fence even before the paramedics could park. He came on at a run and fell to his knees by the big, pale shape on the grass.

“Steve-O. Jesus, man.”

The paramedics zoomed up and pushed Neal out of the way so they could examine the prone form on the grass. Neal watched them a moment and looked up. His eyes met Sasha’s, but Sasha couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

“Doc?”

Sasha wanted to talk, but his voice didn’t want to work. Neal hesitated, watching the paramedics work, and then rose.

He slowed as he came closer to Sasha, then crouched in front of him. His big hand warmed Sasha’s cheek. “You in there, babe?”

Was he “in there”? An ugly laugh came out of him, and Neal recoiled. Sasha managed to quiet his voice and stared at the big man.

“Can you stand?” Neal asked.

Sasha nodded, still not able to speak. If he opened his mouth, he’d start screaming and never stop.

Neal led him over to the ambulance. The huge, limp body of the tiger looked odd on the narrow gurney. Iosef disappeared with his car.

The paramedics debating dosage of pain meds broke through Sasha’s fog.

“I don’t know, a tiger’s bigger than one of us,” the younger one said.

“Just double it,” the other ordered.

The medics were guessing.

“No!” Sasha shouted.

“Doc?” Neal sounded startled.

“They’ll hurt him.” He pushed Neal away, but the big man misunderstood and tried to catch him. “Let me go. Gods damn, Neal, let me
go
.”

“All right, all right. Calm down, I’m on your side, remember?”

Sasha rushed to the gurney. “It’s calculated by
weight
, not by human body mass,” he snapped, grabbing the IV lead from the startled EMT. “Siberian tiger mass isn’t like jaguar.”

“I—”

Felipe interrupted in angry-sounding Spanish and the EMT fell silent, face white and offended. But he didn’t argue, so Sasha didn’t really care about his attitude. He slid the IV home in Steve’s body, working quickly.

“Doc?” Neal hovered nearby.

“I need a surgery,” Sasha growled. “Where can we take him?”

“The Factory?”

“No. I need a sterile environment if I’m going to get these bullets out. He was shot multiple times. If we had a
clinic
…” He broke off. Clinic.

Dr. Salisbury offered him
lab
space… He looked over to Felipe. “You have my phone?”

“Yeah, but—”

Sasha grabbed the mobile out of his hand, ignoring the smear of blood on it and hit the button for Salisbury’s office. He picked up on the second ring. “Doctor Salis—”

“Charles? Sasha Soskoff.”

“Sasha. It’s nice to—”

“Charles. I can’t explain, but I need your help.”

“Certainly. What can I do for you?”

“I need a surgery.”

“Are you okay?” the older man demanded sharply.

“I’m fine. But I have an injured tiger and I need a surgery suite.”

There was a short silence. “Come to my office. I have a lab down the hall you can use.”

“We’ll be there in…” he trailed off. “Felipe. How long does it take to get from here to Northwestern?”

“If we hit the cherry the whole way, thirty minutes tops,” one of the other jaguars answered.

Sasha got back on the phone. “Thirty minutes or less.”

“I hear a siren. Is everything all right?”

Sasha’s tears threatened and he stroked Steve’s unconscious muzzle. “Yes. I’ll be there.”

“Very well.”

He snapped the phone shut and looked at Neal. “Follow us.”

“Where will you be?”

“With him,” Sasha told him. He looked at Felipe. “Let’s go.”

“You heard the doc,” Felipe snapped. He added something in Spanish and the other jaguars moved with practiced efficiency.

Neal turned and loped to his car, and Sasha got in behind Steve.

“Hang on, big guy,” Sasha whispered, stroking Steve’s head.

Sasha gave directions as needed and they arrived after what seemed like an eternity. Dr. Salisbury actually stood outside and pointed to a narrow delivery driveway. As soon as the ambulance stopped, Sasha jumped down.

“It’s a tiger, you said?” Dr. Salisbury asked. He gasped as the doors opened and the four jaguars maneuvered the gurney with Steve out of the back. “My goodness, what a specimen.”

Sasha clamped his mouth shut on the retort “It’s not a specimen,” and directed the men to follow the older doctor inside. The lab turned out to be just inside and Dr. Salisbury had a heavy lab table all prepped and ready with task lighting and even an x-ray machine.

“I need the films as soon as possible,” Sasha ordered. “You, what’s your name?”

The jaguar looked at Felipe, who motioned impatiently for him to answer. “I’m Paco.” He sounded young, maybe twenty.

“What’s your training, Paco?”

“EMT One.”

“Any of you radiology techs?”

They shook their heads.

“I’ll do it,” Dr. Salisbury cut in. He moved to the machine and started prepping.

Neal jogged in and stopped, eyes wide. “Wow.”

“Stay back, please, Neal. Over there,” Sasha pointed. “I need all other non-medical people out of my operating room, please.
Now
, people.”

They moved. Paco and a buddy stayed.

“You. What’s your name?”

“Guillermo, sir.”

“Why are you here?”

Guillermo swallowed. “I’m in nursing school, sir.”

“Good. Stand there and do exactly what I tell you. Paco, you ever run a crash cart?”

Paco nodded, eyes wide.

“These monitors are very similar. Keep an eye on them and tell me if this needle gets below here,” he pointed.

Then he turned to Steve.
His patient
. He had to stay objective. The tiger lay on its right side, the blood still welling from several bullet holes.

“Are those bullet holes?” Dr. Salisbury asked.

Sasha nodded, anxious to begin but hobbled by the x-ray machine.

“Clear,” Dr. Salisbury told him.

He jumped forward and started his examination.

His mind kept trying to jibber at him that this was Steve, but he fell into a kind of zone that happened with some of his worst trauma patients. He found five bullet wounds, one all the way through the thick meat of Steve’s chest but the other four lodged in his chest cavity and abdomen. Dr. Salisbury got the films and slapped them up on the light display, confirming Sasha’s examination.

“All right. This one first.” Sasha pointed with a blood-smeared glove at the one lodged to the left of the heart. “That’s the one that’s causing the most damage. Agreed?”

“Yes,” Dr. Salisbury said absently. His voice came muffled from bending over Steve’s body and examining his chest. “There’s older scarring here, but no new injury. Just the ones you already found.”

“Guillermo, hand me the instrument tray. Hold it here.” He pointed. “Can you identify the instruments?”

Guillermo’s face fell. “No, sir.”

“Not a problem, Guillermo. Give me things as I ask for them, handle first. And be very careful of those blades, they’ll take your fingers off if you’re not careful.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You don’t have to call me sir, Guillermo.”

“Thank you, s…um. My nickname is Gio.”

Sasha looked up at that. “Mine’s Sasha. You ready?”

Gio nodded, swallowing bravely. “Yes.”

“That one,” Sasha pointed.

It took nearly an hour to get all four bullets out and dress the wounds. The scalpels, while perfectly sharp, didn’t seem to work with the lycanthrope’s natural metabolism.

“Dammit,” he snapped as the wound he worked on closed at the edges
again
. “These wounds are closing faster than I can get them sutured. I don’t want them to heal crooked, the change will—”

“Doc,” Neal interrupted.

Sasha glanced over at him and Neal shot him a warning look. “Um. Yeah. Nevermind.”

He finished finally and had Paco switch off the anesthesia. “Good job, gentlemen. He’s going to come out of it relatively soon.”

“I’ll stay with him,” Neal said. “You go clean up.”

“Bathroom?” Sasha asked Dr. Salisbury.

“I’ll take you.”

The older man said nothing, just held the door for Sasha. He led the way to the bathroom and ushered Sasha inside, then checked up and down the hall before closing and locking the door.

“Doctor Soskoff, I’d like an explanation.”

Sasha sighed and leaned against the sink, the blood spattering his arms and face starkly red in the harsh lighting. He really didn’t want to have this conversation, but…

“Sasha?”

Great. He
would
have to go and use his intimate name. He sighed. “Steve is a lycanthrope. A weretiger.”

“I take it he’s not a hereditary tiger.”

Sasha frowned. “How could you tell?”

“You didn’t use any extra precautions against lycanthropy. After seeing you in surgery, I think the Board of Directors has made a grave error in not hiring you. I’ve seldom seen such competence in the surgical theater.”

Sasha’s eyebrows disappeared toward the top of his head. “Thank you, sir.”

The older man smiled. “You called me Charles when you called.”

He flushed. “Sorry about that, I was distracted.”

“It’s not a problem. I’d say we have broken the social barriers to being on a first-name basis.” He hesitated. “
How
did you come to be involved with weretigers? And such a magnificent tiger. Siberians are enormous, I’ve never seen such an amazing animal up close. The zoo cannot get animals of that size.”

Sasha had a sudden image of Steve in a zoo cage and had to keep himself from laughing. “There’s some political trouble, and we were attacked.”

“You seem to make a habit of that,” Dr. Salisbury,
Charles
, noted wryly.

“Yeah.”

“Who is that? The tiger, I mean?”

“He’s…well, he’s my boyfriend.”

“Oh, I thought the large man who came in after you arrived was your lover.”

Sasha blushed. “They both are, actually.”

Charles gaped at him. “Such prosperity.”

He laughed outright. “I wish everyone was as understanding.”

“Son, I was gay before it was the new black.
Believe
me, I can relate.”

The man could have knocked Sasha over with a feather after that. “Um.”

Charles laughed softly. “Come. We should check on your patient. Can you keep him from shifting back while on university grounds?”