Crow's Curse Collection: Crow's Curse, #4

By Laura Bickle

Garnet Conners has the blood of the legendary Morrigan, and there's no wrath like that of an angry goddess. Turned into a vampire against her will, Garnet takes sides with the witches in a war against the vampires...and there will be blood.

 

Crow's Curse Collection contains the novellas Morrigan's Blood, Morrigan's Bite, and Morrigan's Bond. 

 

Morrigan's Blood

 

As a trauma surgeon, Garnet Conners sees more than her fair share of blood during the day. At night, she's steeped in dreams of a mysterious goddess who stalks battlefields in the company of crows. When one of her patients climbs off the operating table and disappears into the night, she finds herself caught in a war between legions of vampires and witches in Riverpointe.

 

Morrigan's Bite

 

Garnet had a beautiful life…and it was stolen from her when she was turned into a vampire. She now finds herself hiding out in the basement of a coven house governed by hostile witches, dreaming of an existence as Erzebet Bathory. Struggling with her vampiric urges, she despairs of ever returning to her former life. When her sister and friend go missing, Garnet knows she's being hunted by vampires who will stop at nothing to bring her back into their fold.

 

Morrigan's Bond

 

Victims of vampires are piling up at Garnet's morgue…including the body of the vampire who turned her, Merrel. Merrel has faked his own death to set into motion a plot to wrest control of Riverpointe's vampires from their queen. Garnet's previous incarnation fought Varya in the skies above World War II and was destroyed. If Garnet helps Merrel, he promises to move the vampires away from Riverpointe entirely, leaving Garnet and her lover, the warlock Sorin, in peace. If she refuses, the city and all its supernatural inhabitants will be devoured in flames. 
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Syrenka Publishing LLC
• Release date: Dec 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9798201274399

Laura Bickle

Laura Bickle grew up in rural Ohio, reading entirely too many comic books out loud to her favorite Wonder Woman doll. After graduating with an MA in Sociology–Criminology from Ohio State University and an MLIS in Library Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, she patrolled the stacks at the public library and worked with data systems in criminal justice. She now dreams up stories about the monsters under the stairs. Her work has been included in the ALA’s Amelia Bloomer Project 2013 reading list and the State Library of Ohio’s Choose to Read Ohio reading list for 2015-2016. More information about Laura’s work can be found at www.laurabickle.com.

Book preview

CROW’S CURSE COLLECTION

By Laura Bickle

Crow’s Curse Collection

Laura Bickle

Published by Syrenka Publishing

Copyright © 2020 Laura Bickle

Cover art by Danielle Fine

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any names, characters, places, and incidents referring to historical figures and events are used fictitiously and do not depict actual figures and events. In all other respects, any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.

Table of Contents

Morrigan’s Blood

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Morrigan’s Bite

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Morrigan’s Bond

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Novels by Laura Bickle

MORRIGAN’S BLOOD

Garnet has the blood of the legendary Morrigan – and legions of vampires and witches will go to war to possess that power.

As a trauma surgeon, Garnet Conners has seen more than her fair share of blood. But when one of her patients walks off the operating table and disappears into the night, she finds herself caught in a war between legions of vampires and witches in her city.

Garnet has dreamed of bloody battlefields for years – and a mysterious lover who controls a kingdom. In her waking life, Garnet is shocked to meet that man in a club. Merrel knows her from another life, a life in which she was the legendary Morrigan, goddess of death and war.

Garnet rejects the notion of magical incarnations altogether. But she falls in with Sorin, a handsome warlock who’s determined to protect the former bootlegger city of Riverpointe from a secret society of vampires. Haunted by crows and faced with undeniable proof of magic, Garnet scrambles to protect her career and loved ones from magical violence.

Abducted by vampires who seek to turn her into a vampire against her will, can Garnet seize the power of the legendary Morrigan to forge her own path in her embattled city? Or will she be forced to serve as a fearsome weapon in a deadly nocturnal war?

CHAPTER 1: TAKEN

Iwalked through twilight into the battlefield. The sun had vanished hours ago, and cold stars now glinted overhead. Fires guttered, and smoke rolled up in columns to the emerging stars. Bodies lay scattered upon the field, blood soaking into the dirt. I could smell it, rich and heady and sinking into the leaf mold, feeding the earth. Imperceptible to human ears, roots rustled underground, reaching for that sweet nourishment.

As I did.

I lifted my head to the sky. A cool autumn breeze brushed my face and tangled my red hair. Crows cawed in the gloom, spiraling out of the dark to light on my shoulders, to walk beside me in the trampled brown grasses. I picked my way over the dead and the almost-dead, pausing to bend and peer into the eyes of those who were slipping away. I could see the flicker of the encroaching Otherworld in their eyes, the horror of realizing that their lives were coming to an end. This place was my garden, and everything in it flowered to serve me.

I was a force of nature, stalking through this field, gazing upon the folly of men fighting over territory and riches. This was my milieu—the song of war and death. That power sang in me, and I was one with sky and land. Heady as this was, I still thought of the wives and children of these dead men cowering at home, their lives dependent upon the rash decisions of whichever nobleman claimed this patch of land over another. There was no justice for them; not even I could create that.

I paused before a banner trampled into the mud, gazing upon a fallen man in armor sprawled beside it. One of my crows hopped to his helmet and rapped on it with his beak, as if to see if the wearer of the suit was still within this world.

The man groaned. I smiled and knelt beside him. Lifting his visor, I stared down upon a blood-spattered face. My fingers trailed his cheek. I knew him; he was a young king, impetuous and not considered in his actions. His blue eyes followed my fingers, dazed.

You came, he said.

My king, I said. There was nothing else to say. My emotions were mixed: wistfulness, sadness, and hunger. He had once served me, and he still owed me.

It was as you foretold, he coughed. We lost.

I nodded, pulling the helmet from his head. Blood stuck his blond hair to the interior of the helmet, but I was gentle as I pulled it away. I cradled his head in my hands, exposing his neck to me.

And you will pay for that prophecy, I said. My mouth watered, smelling blood and fire. I bared fangs and sank them deep in his flesh. He thrashed, clanking in his armor, but I drank from him. His blood warmed my body, moving under my glasslike flesh and nourishing my cold marrow. I had tasted his blood before. This would be the last time, and I was sad to lose it, and him.

When I drained him dry, I sat back on my heels and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. One of my crows had disappeared inside his helmet, listening to its own echoing caws.

I savored this moment. There was something special about royal blood, about the warm richness of it, annihilating a celebrated bloodline. But the sorrow still weighed upon me. He was more than his blood. He had been more to me than that.

I stood and stretched, feeling warm and languid. I had taken dessert first, but there was still much more blood for me in the field beyond.

I waded into the remains of the field, listening for last screams and the thundering of terrified hearts. I hoped to forget that sorrow of losing the young king, to drown it in the delights spread before me.

Above me, a crow cawed, over and over into the dark. 

I AWOKE FROM THE DREAM with a gasp, lurching bolt upright in my cot in the hospital on-call room. The room was windowless and perfectly dark, except for the blue glimmer of my cell phone. It rang insistently, and I reached for it, fumbling as I answered.

This is Doctor Conners, I muttered.

Doc, this is the ER. We’ve got a trauma headed to operating room six. Patient’s male, early thirties, presenting with thoracic and head wounds. The surgical resident has stabilized him, and radiology will send his scans down.

Understood. Operating room six, I repeated, and hung up. I took a moment to collect myself, running my hands through my dark brown hair. I reached for the hair tie on my wrist to knot it up in a sloppy bun. Casting about for the light switch, I began to search for my shoes. The fluorescent light drove the remnants of the dream from my head, and I gathered my things and my thoughts.

I’d considered myself lucky so far this evening. It was nearly the end of my shift, and I hadn’t been called once. Not even for a car accident. I thought it was an unusually quiet shift for a Friday, but I didn’t dare say that aloud. Why jinx myself? But it looked as if my luck was about to change, and I was going to be elbow-deep in trauma.

I left the on-call room and plodded down the hallway, past the staff lounge. I rubbed at my cheek, where a bit of drool had dripped. I usually slept like shit, and I was not one of those people who slept prettily with their hands primly tucked under the pillow and blankets tucked in at the foot of the bed. I sprawled all over the bed, swore in my sleep, and sometimes woke up with my head under the pillows and the blankets hurled across the room. My roommates in college had once accused me of sleep-eating all the ice cream in the fridge. I had denied it until they showed me the empty cartons under my bed. For shits and giggles, I even had a sleep study done a few years ago. Nothing useful had come of that other than admonishments to avoid caffeine. Like that was going to happen.

I waved at a couple of the internal medicine residents hunched, vulturelike, over the stale contents of a pizza box. That box had been there since the beginning of my shift, and I wasn’t sure it was worth attacking. Residents, though, had cast-iron stomachs and would eat anything that wasn’t literally crawling away from them.

I snagged an iced coffee from the refrigerator and chugged it. The cool coffee chased from my head the bits of my weird dream. Dreaming in blood was par for the course for a surgeon, but my subconscious sure liked to dress it up in historical costumes recently. Usually, I dreamed of work, performing endless surgery in my sleep. Sometimes, I dreamed of operating on myself. Often, I dreamed of something going terribly wrong that was all my fault, and I struggled to save my patient. I would awake in a cold sweat, heart thudding. The dreams I’d been having lately, even with battlefields and war, were actually an improvement over those. In the new dreams, I felt powerful, not like a complete and utter failure who destroyed everything I touched. In those dreams, I was comfortable with death in a way that I could never be in my waking life. 

That disturbed me. I never wanted to be comfortable with death. 

I headed toward operating room six and rummaged through the nearby clean room. Stuffing my hair bun under a cap, I dressed in a surgical gown with too-large booties. The hospital’s supply ordering system seemed to assume that all surgeons were men and ordered protective equipment accordingly. I swam in most of it. I scrubbed in thoroughly, deciding I was done when my hands were lobster-red. I was nothing if not thorough. A nurse helped me glove up and tied a mask over my face. Nodding at her, I squared my shoulders and concentrated on getting into my zone. Eighties new wave, my favorite, already played in the operating room.

What have you got for me tonight, folks? I asked.

I backed through the doors of the operating theater, butt-first, gloved hands lifted before me to keep them clean. I took small steps, mindful not to lose traction. Those thin booties were slick, and I’d fallen on my ass on more than one occasion when I made sudden moves. Tonight, I was determined to get through surgery in an upright position and not have to scrub in twice.

One of the nurses read from notes on a computer terminal. This guy was found in the parking lot of a closed bowling alley. Speculation is that he took a trip or two through the pin setting machine and got badly torn up.

Well, that’s a first. I turned toward the operating room table. The light was so bright that hardly any shadows were cast in the room. They focused on the unholy mess on the middle of my table.

This. I’m supposed to fix this.

A man lay, unconscious, on the table. His chest was torn open, flaps of skin oozing onto wads of gauze and a paper sheet. His face was a mass of blood, now being daubed at with sponges. The anesthesiologist had found his mouth to thread a tube down, and someone had managed to get an IV started in one of his scraped-up arms.

My nose wrinkled under my mask. What do the X-rays show? How deep does the damage go? Did he get a CT?

A nurse clicked on a flatscreen monitor that displayed a carousel of CT images. I squinted at them, muttering dark oaths.

Radiologist says it looks like a lacerated pancreas, punctured lung, and two rib fractures, the nurse said. The image switched to the head, and he said: Also the bonus of a fractured orbital bone.

I stared at the CTs. Let’s start with that lung. We leave the pancreas, and call plastic surgery on that orbital bone. This guy’s going to need all the king’s horses and all the king’s men to put him back together again.

Will do.

I gazed down at the poor suffering bastard. I liked seeing the imaging, but I preferred to get a good visual with my own eyes on my patients. Sometimes X-rays and CTs didn’t tell me everything I needed to know about what to start sewing where. Something about seeing where the blood moved and pooled in an injured person gave me an idea of where to begin. The blood always led me to where I needed to direct my attention. Where it spurted required my immediate expertise. Where it clotted or moved lazily, I could wait a bit. When blood drained out of a limb and had left it white, I needed to add more. I noted with approval that he was already receiving a transfusion. As long as blood was moving, there was a chance for him

I frowned at his chest and touched the edges of the rends in his flesh with gloved fingers. Those were ragged and would have to be cut clean before I sewed him back up. I could see the edge of one of those protruding ribs, sticking up like a finger. I glanced over his limbs, counting the usual four. Hey, it pays to count. Count twice, cut once. I mentally cataloged bruises and scrapes, nothing that needed my immediate attention, though I flagged the palms of his hands to get a few stitches from the surgical resident. Looked like defensive wounds, like the guy had tried to fight the pin machine, but lost.

My eyes moved up to his face. One blackened eye was swollen shut. My fingers and gaze wandered over his scalp, checking for major wounds, when I spied a laceration at his throat.

I gently probed it with gloved hands. Some kind of puncture...the machine must have caught him near a seeping vein. It had nearly dried up, smelling rusty and not like the bright, coppery blood of his more critical wounds. It could still take a few extra stitches.

I stared down at the unfortunate guy’s oozing chest. Peeling back a flap of skin, I felt around for the collapsed lung. My finger quickly squished around and found the hole, and I extended my free hand for a scalpel. Time to get this party started...

...when the patient sat bolt upright on the table. His good eye was open, rolling.

I yanked my hands back and yelped at the anesthesiologist, Curt, what the actual hell?

The OR erupted in a flurry of activity. The anesthesiologist arrived at the patient’s side with a syringe, while nurses tried to push the patient back down.

But he was flailing, windmilling with his arms like a pro wrestler in the ring. The IV ripped out of his arm, and the line slashed back at the anesthesiologist, whipping across his face. The patient reached up and ripped the tube out of his throat. His foot caught an instrument tray, sending scalpels flying. His blood line yanked away, spewing crimson all over the floor.

I held my hands out, using my most calming voice. Not that I had a particularly calming voice; I was a surgeon. We don’t talk to patients. But I tried: You’re safe. I’m your doctor, Dr. Conners. If you just lie back, we’ll make you comfortable and—

The guy shrieked and launched himself off the table. The paper sheet tangled around his legs, and he grasped it around his waist as he put his shoulder down and aimed for the door. His shoulder hit me in the arm, and I slipped on my booties, landing on my ass on the tile floor. The patient launched through the swinging doors and disappeared down the hall.

I swore and ripped my booties off my sneakered feet. I clambered to my feet and punched the intercom at the door with my elbow. Security, code orange at OR 6. I couldn’t say: I’ve got a runner taking off down the hall. Please send somebody to stop him, because anyone listening to that would freak the hell out, and I would get a talking-to from HR.

I straight-armed the door and took off after the guy. I had no idea how the hell this man was still walking around. Those injuries should have flattened him, and he’d been anesthetized. I had graduated med school with Curt a few years ago, and knew him not to be a careless anesthesiologist who played on his phone in the OR.

The patient skidded down the hallway, landing at a dead end, where a window overlooked the parking lot. The sun had just set, and the sky was the violet color of a fresh bruise. I approached him slowly, like I was herding a feral cat. I tugged my mask down to try and give him a human face to look at.

Hey, it’s okay. It’s gonna be okay, I murmured soothingly. I wanted to keep him here until security arrived. If he got even further loose and hurt himself, that would be one obnoxiously long incident report. And an even more involved surgery after that.

No, no, he said, shaking his head. It’s not gonna be okay. The bloodsuckers found me...and the Lusine couldn’t protect me.

I don’t know who that is, I said, thinking that the guy had probably run afoul of some loan sharks. Maybe the mob? But you’re safe here. We can protect you.

No, he gasped, his face twisted in agony. No one can protect me. And no one can protect Emily.

He turned toward the window, backed up a few steps.

No, wait... I could see what he was trying to do, and I was helpless to stop it.

He rushed the window, aiming for it with his shoulder. All the latches on the hospital windows on patient floors were welded shut, but this wasn’t an area where conscious patients had access, and the window was not secured against suicide attempts. The glass buckled under his shoulder, the window crumpled away, and he pitched through in a hail of glass into the falling darkness.

I rushed to the window and stared down at the parking lot in horror. Three stories down, the patient sprawled on the parking lot blacktop, flattened like a bug under a shoe.

Curt had come up behind me. Oh, my god, Garnet...did he...

He jumped, I said, my heart in my mouth. I turned and ran to the stairwell, barking at him. Get a gurney and the ER team.

I burst into the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time. As I rounded the third curve, my path was blocked by a tall, dark-haired man in a brown velvet blazer and jeans. He was the type of guy that I might have liked to meet in my off-time—he had a kind of scholarly intensity in his hazel gaze and a bit of roguishness in the stubble that covered his sharp jaw.

Stand aside, I blurted. Emergency! As if my bloody gloves and surgical gown weren’t warning enough.

But he blocked my path, one hand on either stair rail, his long arms spanning the length of the stairwell. That man is dangerous, he growled softly.

That man is under my care, I announced, lifting my chin. I walked into the man, figuring that he would give way to my outstretched bloody gloves. Like a normal person would.

But he didn’t. My sticky gloves nearly mashed into the velvet of his jacket, and he didn’t flinch. This close, he smelled like old books and moss.

You can’t go down there, he said. His voice was soft, but insistent. 

My eyes narrowed. You don’t get to tell me where to go, I chirped petulantly. I ducked under his arm, darting out of his reach, and barreled down the steps the remaining way to ground level.

I rushed out into the parking lot and stopped short.

What the actual hell—

The patient peeled himself off the ground and crawled to his feet. He reminded me of a half-dead insect when he did so, shaking and rickety and dripping blood.

That’s impossible, I thought. There was no way that a human being could do that. I took two steps toward him...

...and a dozen people flitted out of the darkness, from the shadows beneath cars and behind shrubs. The overhead parking lot lights, haloed by moths, illuminated their long shadows on the pavement.

I breathed a sigh of relief. The squad was here and would get him stable, get him back to my OR.

But...my brow wrinkled. That wasn’t the squad. Nobody was in uniform. They converged on him as he turned, screaming.

Stop! I shouted.

Heads turned toward me. Their faces were moon-pale and glistening in the lamplight.

The man in the velvet jacket grabbed my arm, dragging me back. You want no part of this.

Don’t tell me what I want, I growled. I stomped on his instep and twisted my arm to break his grip at the weakest part, the thumb. I whirled and ran toward the fracas.

The shadowy people had plucked my patient off the pavement, clotting around him.

I yelled at them, the way I might yell at pigeons in the park who were eating my dropped French fries.

Overhead, the parking lot lights shattered, one by one, in a series of pops. Someone had a gun. I flinched back, shielding my face from flying shards of plastic with my hands, as I was suddenly plunged into darkness. I heard fighting, yelling, as if a gang war had broken out in front of me, roiling in the dark where no one could see.

Or at least, as dark as things could get in Riverpointe. Riverpointe was a decently sized city, and ambient light filtered back quickly from the freeway, headlights on the access road to the hospital, and the hospital’s helipad above.

As my vision adjusted, I realized I was alone. The people who were trying to abduct my patient, my patient...even that fascinating-smelling velvet guy...all were gone. 

Ambulance lights flashed at the end of the parking lot, approaching me. Behind me, I heard the hammering of footsteps on the stairwell. Security spilled out behind me, along with a few cops who’d been hanging out in the nurse’s lounge. The EMTs pulled up to the curb, and there were all of a sudden a couple dozen people churning in a uniformed cloud around me.

Where’d the guy go? a security guard asked me.

A moth that had once orbited the parking lot lights flitted down and smacked my face. I batted at it, grimacing.

I don’t know, I whispered, stunned. He was just...taken.

The moth landed on the ground on its back, wiggling.

With bloody fingers, I picked it up and placed it gently in a nearby shrub. Lights, voices, and radios crackled around me. Questions rose and fell, directed at me in a tide of inquiries I couldn’t answer. But I stared at the bloody moth, stained by my touch, as it sought a safe place among the churning shadows and light.

CHAPTER 2: BLAZE

T rust me. After the day I’ve had, I need to blow off a bit of steam.

I cradled the phone between my cheek and shoulder as I pinned up tendrils of my hair that had fallen loose from the knot on the top of my head. I never bothered to do much with my hair; it spent most of its life stuffed under a surgical cap at work or jammed into a bun in my off time. Even now, discussing plans to go out with my friend Kara, I couldn’t be bothered to put forth more than the minimum effort required.

I heard all about it from Curt. Seriously, if you need to decompress— Kara began. Kara understood. Kara was a radiologist at the hospital, and she knew how to roll with canceled plans more than most people did. But I’d been blowing my friends off in favor of work the last three weeks in a row, and I didn’t want to disappoint yet again. Even fellow friends in the medical field had limits for how much they’d indulge my batshit schedule.

I was rattled by the events earlier this evening, though I would never admit it. I’d never had a guy get up off my table before. I’d never had a patient try to kill himself. And get abducted, disappear...I shook my head. I’d only been an independently-working attending surgeon out of fellowship for two years. Weird things happened at hospitals, but this was beyond my frame of reference. I worried that I’d screwed up, did something wrong. I’d been turning the scene over and over in my mind, and I knew I was now suffering a good case of analysis paralysis.

Really, I want to go, I told her, deciding that getting out of my head was a good idea for now. After all that, I don’t think I want to sit at home and stew in front of the television. Besides, I’ve put sooooo much effort into getting ready. It would be a shame to waste all this glam on reruns. I winced when I said it. I had spent exactly three minutes getting ready to go out. Ten, if I included the time it took to get a shower.

Only if you’re sure.

I’m sure, I said. But no shop talk, okay? That was a big ask, I knew; our lives revolved around the hospital like tiny planetoids around a ferociously burning sun.

Kara gave a heavy sigh. You mean I can’t regale you with stories of the foreign objects I’ve found in bodies this week? I mean, there was a plastic lizard, even.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. No, dude. You do not want to get a knife monkey thinking about how the hell that happened. Because I won’t be able to stop thinking about how to get it out of wherever it crawled into. 

Okay. I heard Kara’s grin through the phone. I bet you’ll ask me after two drinks, though. That lizard and the pinecone...

Wait for me to ask.

Okay. See you at ten at...that new place? Silla’s?

Yep. See you then.

I hung up and stared at my phone. I had an hour. It would take a half-hour to get there if I called for a rideshare to pick me up. I lived within walking distance of the hospital, which was important to me, as I was often on call at odd hours and used the walk back to my apartment to decompress. I was the lowest surgeon on the totem pole, which meant I drew all the worst hours on the schedule. Usually, I didn’t mind the walk home, but this evening the security team had insisted on driving me in the security van. Since I was still jumping at shadows, I was grateful for that favor and made a mental note to drop a pizza off to security next time I went in. 

My thumbs flitted across the rideshare app interface as I paced through my sparsely furnished apartment. I had lived here for two years, but still hadn’t gotten much decorating accomplished. Heck, my saggy college couch still dominated in the living room. I was too focused on work to make that a priority. But I’d acquired the best bed I could afford for my bedroom and some decent linens; I slept like hell, and wanted to squeeze every last minute of proper rest out of my nest. Sinking into a fluffy cloud with a white noise machine soundtrack was my idea of a good weekend. Add some ice cream and reality television, and I was set.

I wandered to my closet and stared down at the shirt I was wearing. I was dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, but felt like I should make more of the effort I’d mentioned to Kara. Besides, the T-shirt had a stain on it. Ketchup, it looked like. I sniffed it. Might be soy sauce.

I dug around the rainbow sea of scrubs in my closet and found a violet silk halter top that I’d bought on a whim on my last vacation several years ago. It tied at my neck and below my bust, and a panel of ruffled fabric swept the waistband of my jeans. It was pretty wrinkled, but I put it on anyway, tying it closed and telling myself that I had to dress up every once in awhile, or I’d become permanently fused to my scrubs. It still fit, and that was what counted.

I stepped into a pair of comfortable sandals (who looks at feet, anyway?) and wandered into the bathroom to stare at my reflection critically in the mirror. The halter top was flattering on me; the draping emphasized my smallish bust, skimmed over my waist and showed off my sharp shoulders. I frowned when I saw my birthmark on my back shoulder. The size of two of my splayed hands linked together at the thumbs, it resembled a bird in outstretched in flight. I’d consulted with dermatologists and plastic surgeons, but nothing short of a skin graft was ever going to erase that from my body. I considered going back for my stained T-shirt, but decided against it. The halter was cute, and if we went dancing, I would get warm. In the dark, if anyone asked, I could lie and say it was some kind of cool tattoo. Right?

I stared at my reflection in the mirror and made a face. I dug around in a drawer for a crusty plum-colored lipstick and dabbed in on my lips. There. I looked better. Still a little pasty, though. I had a month of evening shifts to thank for that.

I rooted around in the drawer, where my treasure cache of beauty junk resided: some stretched out hair ties, a brush that hadn’t been cleaned in about a year, a bottle of expired sunblock, and a can of red hairspray from last Halloween. I shook it thoughtfully. On impulse, I uncapped it and sprayed a streak in my hair.

It didn’t work out as intended. I looked like I’d spray painted an uneven stripe in my hair. Like a red skunk or something. Grimacing, I tried to clean up the edges by widening the stripe. Muttering to myself, I kept messing with it until half my head was red. After that, I told myself that I had to continue or it would just look stupid. Stupider.

When I was finished, I drummed my fingers on my lower lip, smearing my lipstick. It was bold. Very, very bold. I wasn’t sure I wanted that kind of attention tonight. Maybe I still had time to wash it out, pin my hair up, and leave with wet hair...

The rideshare app dinged on my phone. My driver was here.

Damn.

I sighed, picking up my phone and swiping my keys from the kitchen table. Maybe, in the dark, it would look like I had a tattoo and I was a real redhead. I grabbed a jacket from a hook, a soft, draping wool jacket that I could retreat into if it got too chilly. I checked my pocket for my wallet.

I met the driver out in front of my building. I climbed into the backseat.

Hi, Garnet. I’m Nora, your chauffeur for the evening, my driver, a young woman with green hair and perfectly-winged eyeliner said. I see you’re going to Silla’s?

Yes, please, I said, settling back into the seat. I didn’t let the nape of my neck touch the upholstery; I wasn’t sure about the colorfastness of the spray.

Cute hair, the young woman said, popping her gum.

Thanks. My hand self-consciously slipped to my bun. I wasn’t sure about it.

Red is amazing on you, Nora nodded. She maneuvered them onto the freeway. Are you meeting friends at Silla’s?

Yeah, I said, watching the lights of the city spilling out around us like a jewel box. The hospital faded away, and the glassy skyscrapers of downtown came into view. Riverpointe was an old rust-belt city that had seen its ups and downs. Once upon a time, it had been a bootlegging town, cut through by two rivers at the city’s heart. Factories and docks along those rivers were now still, and the glass furnaces in the Glass District had been left to rust. But a vibrant arts scene had moved into its place, blocks of restored Victorian homes and art galleries slowly regenerating some areas of town. I had never given a whole lot of thought to the economy, as I was pretty sure that there would always be demand for people who worked with blood. And I counted on that demand to pay off my staggering student loans, which might get paid off by the time I was sixty. If I was lucky.

You should be careful down there, the driver said.

Mm? I said distractedly. I hadn’t been paying attention.

At Silla’s. I mean, the Glass District is a little sketchy after dark. Nora made a shifting motion with her hand that jingled her bracelets. But there are some weird ones who hang out at Silla’s.

What kind of weird? I asked. I automatically patted the pocket that contained my wallet.

Well, Nora said, her voice dropping a conspiratorial note. There are your garden variety kinksters, so anything you’re looking for, you can find.

Yeah, no. I’m not up for anything. I couldn’t imagine sharing my hard-won sleep with anything other than a pillow. I had priorities, and the sandman was my priority over any other men. I just want to hang out. Dance, maybe. Forget about work for a while.

Watch your drink, Nora said. One of my friends went there, passed out, and then woke up in the trunk of a car.

Oh, no. I leaned forward. Is your friend okay?

Yeah. He managed to find the emergency release, got out at a stoplight, and ran for all he was worth. He really got lucky.

Sounds like it. I frowned. I didn’t like thinking of Riverpointe as a dangerous city, but I was beginning to change my mind. I knew it was a hazard of my job to see the worst of things, but I didn’t much like hearing stories of abduction in my downtime. Heck, there were days when I didn’t even watch the news because work had been overwhelming. On those days, I crawled into bed and watched cartoons.

The car exited the freeway in a former industrial district near downtown. In decades past, Riverpointe had been the glass capital of North America, responsible for producing everything from milk bottles to electrical insulators. As plastic gradually eclipsed glass, the blast furnaces had been allowed to cool. A glass recycler was the current most significant glass industry in town, and there was a smattering of specialty makers, including a company that made windows and liquor bottles. Here, many of the side streets were still brick, and Nora drove slowly as the uneven surface rattled the car’s axles.

Nora stopped before a brick warehouse with a sign that scrawled Silla’s in pink neon on the front of the building. Half the brick of the building had been scorched black. I figured that this was one of the places that had been burned in the Glass Fire of 1932. A blast furnace lost containment, and there were stories of a river of molten glass that moved down the street. When I popped open the door, bits of glass dust glittered in between the bricks, embedded there forever. Strains of dance music echoed out to the street.

Nora leaned back and gave me a plain business card with her phone number on it. Call me if you need a ride, anytime. This is my full-time gig, so I’m usually available. And you know, I’m not scary, and I won’t put you in the trunk.

Thanks, I said, grinning, pocketing the card. I’ll give you a call later tonight.

I stepped out onto the glittering brick street and walked toward Silla’s. I pulled out my phone and started to text Kara when I spotted her standing with Curt in a leafy courtyard outside the building. She waved, and I walked over, grinning.

Kara threw both arms up in the air and waved. She had put a lot more effort into her going-out look than I had; she’d dressed up in a miniskirt, a sparkly top, and earrings that dusted her shoulders.

You came! she squealed and flung her arms around me.

I grinned. Hey, I should come out sometime, right? I thought back to the last time I’d been someplace other than my apartment or the hospital. Hmm. Two weeks ago, I’d gone to the dentist. I led an exciting life.

Curt, as usual, put no effort into his appearance. His lanky frame leaned against an ivy-covered wrought-iron fence, and he slouched in a t-shirt and jeans. He grinned when he saw me. I didn’t think that they were gonna let you out of there.

I rolled my eyes. Ugh. The forms. So many forms.

Kara crossed her arms. So, what the heck happened?

I grimaced. No shop talk, remember?

A guy crawled off Garnet’s OR table, flung himself through a window, and bounced. Or got bounced. I’m not real clear on that, Curt said.

Kara turned to him, her dark eyes wide. No. How did that happen? Did you screw up the anesthetic?

Curt held up his hands. No way! I put that dude under, all the way to Neverland. I have all the documentation. And witnesses. Which didn’t stop them from putting me on administrative leave. He looked away and jammed his hands in his pockets.

Oh, Curt. I backed away from my stance against shop talk. Getting put on admin leave was serious. I touched his arm. Are you all right?

He shrugged and screwed up his face. Eh. I mean, I could use the time off, but... he trailed off. He shook his head. The investigation will sort everything out.

I rubbed my brow. If Curt had gotten put on leave, I was pretty sure I’d be next. The hospital would find someone to blame. I was sure I ran through all my checklists, but... Doubt crept over me. What if I’d missed something? What if I’d screwed up and hurt that guy? What if he’d felt my hands groping his lungs? Jesus.

Who was that guy? Kara asked, her brow creased. Superman?

Curt shook his head. Police got his prints in the ER and were able to run them. The guy’s name is Boris Garman, thirty-two, a private investigator.

Interesting, I said. I wonder if he pissed somebody off.

Yeah, well, I’m not buying the theory that he got mangled in the machine at the bowling alley. Curt shook his head. I think, based on what you said, that he had people after him. And that they found him.

I suppressed a shudder. An awkward silence settled over our little group.

Kara chirped brightly. Let’s go get some drinks!

Yes, I agreed, and Curt nodded. We linked arms and headed for the door. I glanced up at the charred brick above the door. It looked as if a word had been scratched into the char. I craned my neck up to look, seeing the word Sanctuary scrawled above the lintel.

My thoughts traced back to Nora’s story about her friend. I hoped that this place would be safe. I wanted to step out of my everyday world and forget work, forget that horrible image of that man falling to the pavement. I tried to forget his ravings and the pale people who came for him. I wanted to forget the idea that this could somehow all have been a preventable mistake.

We crossed the threshold, and the scent of incense immediately struck me. It was a smell that I associated with the church I attended as a child. It had been easily a decade since I’d set foot in a church, but it stirred in me a soft sense of serenity. A pair of bouncers who were thick as trees flanked the interior of the door, so still that my gaze didn’t immediately register their presence. A thumping bass beat jingled thousands of glass beads suspended from the industrial ceiling by thin wires. Red and blue lights shone down through the beads, illuminating a dance floor, tables, and a polished bar at the far end of the room. The walls were painted with stylized images of angels and devils, entwined around each other in seductive embraces.

A hostess ushered us to a table near the dance floor. She had a fascinatingly long set of nails painted gold, and I had no idea how she was able to work like that. I stared down at my short-cropped naked nails that got scrubbed within an inch of their lives many times a day.

I glanced over at the dance floor. It was beginning to fill up with bodies gyrating to the beat. The people here were pretty—I saw a couple that might have been models, and I felt immediately self-conscious and a little older than I usually felt. I saw more that were just pretty weird, though—a dude dancing in a helmet and a woman wearing what looked like a pleated disco cape from the seventies. I tapped my toe against the polished cement floor in time with the music. I didn’t have time to keep up with music trends anymore, but I liked it.

What do you guys want to drink? Curt nearly shouted to be heard over the music. 

White Russian, Kara responded.

Some kind of red wine, I said. I wasn’t picky, but I was kind of a lightweight. Surprise me.

On it. Curt slipped away from the table to approach the packed bar.

I rested my elbows on the wobbly table and put my chin in my hands. I feel bad for Curt. It wasn’t his fault.

Kara extended her hands and shook my arms lightly. Stop. It sounds like one of those freak things that’s nobody’s fault. It’ll probably come out that the guy was high on a ton of drugs and that messed everything up.

Maybe, I admitted glumly. But it was my OR, and I felt to blame for anything bad that happened in it.

If he was coked out of his head, that could interfere with the anesthetic. There was a guy in the cardiac unit whose girlfriend slipped him some coke, Kara said. It took ten people from security to wrestle him down. Shit like that happens.

Curt returned and distributed drinks. I stared into my wine glass, as if some answers might be found there. On impulse, I downed about half of it. It wasn’t particularly good stuff; it tasted like watered-down Kool-Aid and stale cough drops that might have been stirred with a tree branch.

Look, Kara said. You were right. No shop talk tonight. She stood, grabbed my wrist, and dragged me out to the dance floor. I flung my jacket at Curt, who caught it and reached toward my drink to finish it off.

Kara and I melted into the gathering crowd. A thin striation of incense smoke swirled above the dance floor, and I gazed up to the ceiling, mesmerized by the glitter of the beads strung in constellations above us. The thump of the music was more powerful here, and it thundered against my chest as I danced. My eyes drifted closed as I let myself get lost in the music.

A hand landed on my shoulder, and I jumped. I opened my eyes to Kara, who inclined her head behind me with a twinkle in her eye.

She leaned forward to yell in my hear. "Check him out. Four o’clock."

I turned my head, trying to be casual, but failed. A man in black had sidled up behind me. He wasn’t touching me, not rude, but I could feel the warmth of his gaze on me. He reminded me of a guy from an eighties band, and something was charming about that: blonde hair that flopped into his eyes, black leather jacket, and a blue-eyed gaze that was both sharp and sultry at the same time. As he danced, I got a whiff of leather and cloves and something that reminded me of dark amber. There was something familiar about him, but I couldn’t place it.

He smiled at me, a brilliant smile that made me a little weak in the knees. Or maybe that was the wine. He leaned in and said, I’m Merrel. What’s your name?

Garnet, I said, hoping he heard me over the music.

He nodded and extended his hand to me. It was a curiously civilized gesture on a dance floor where more than one couple was getting tangled in sweat and pheromones. One woman was leading a man out on the dance floor by a rhinestone-encrusted leash.

I took his hand, and it was cool as glass.

I like your ink, he said, glancing at the back of my shoulder.

Oh. I ducked my head and blushed. It’s not ink. It’s a birthmark.

It’s really beautiful, he said, his eyes drifting to my shoulder. There was something odd in his expression. He seemed strangely fascinated by it. 

Um, thanks, I said. I glanced back for Kara. She was fading off the dance floor, giving me a wink that said she’d be watching from the table.

I turned back and smiled at Merrel. His dancing had slowed to match mine. I was never good at small talk, but I’d give it a try. I hear that this is an...interesting place. I glanced past him at a man coated in silver body paint, writhing on the dance floor like he’d been dipped in acid.

He glanced at the man. It can get interesting. It just depends on what you’re looking for.

I’m not interesting, I blurted. I then shook my head and blushed.

Oh, I disagree, he said. He extended his other hand. I put mine in his, and he twirled me, as if we were in a 1940s black and white film.

The music changed, slowed a bit. He held my hand, and I considered moving away and returning to my friends. I looked back at their table. Curt and Kara had fresh drinks. They caught me gazing at them and lifted their glasses in a toast.

I rolled my eyes and returned my attention to my dance partner. I surrendered my right hand to him and rested my left on his arm. His left arm circled my waist, and I got a stronger whiff of leather and cloves. There was something else, too, that I was surprised to smell...he smelled improbably like snow.

My mind raced, trying to find something to talk about. So...what do you do?

His voice came close to my ear, and I found that I could hear him effortlessly over the music. I’m a security consultant.

Ah. He had a job. That was a good sign. I was expecting a guy who looked like that to tell me that he was surfing on his ex-wife’s couch while trying to find himself a new sugar momma or something.

And you? he asked.

I work in medicine, I said, vaguely. People sometimes got weird if they found out I was a doctor. At parties and family gatherings, it was a surefire way to invite some random self-involved soul to show me their bunions.

Let me guess, he said, turning his intense blue gaze on me. If I guess correctly, do I get another dance?

Okay. I lifted my chin. I bet he thought I was a dental hygienist. Or maybe a dermatologist. Nobody ever said: ‘You look like a trauma surgeon.’

He gazed into my face, scrutinizing me with a smile playing on his lips. I bet you are where the action is. Maybe an emergency room. Maybe a surgical suite. I see you as being unafraid of blood.

I lifted my eyebrows. Not a bad guess. I’m a trauma surgeon. I immediately changed the subject. My work was my entire life, but I didn’t want to tell him that. And what does a security consultant do?

He gave a small shrug. It’s mostly boring. A lot of gathering data and running scenarios. Target hardening of buildings. Threat assessment.

I knew that I was getting a bunch of buzzwords. I lifted an eyebrow. My turn to guess. Ex-military or something?

I was in the military for a while, he said. But not anymore.

The music changed again, moving slower. He drew me closer, and I acquiesced. My cheek brushed the lapel of his jacket. I liked the feeling of having another person close to me. It had been a long time since I’d felt that spark of fascination, and I realize that I’d missed it.

Merrel’s fingers laced with mine, and he drew my hand to his chest. Dancing with him felt both innocent and intimate at the same time. My other hand slipped up around his neck, and his hand moved from my waist up to my bare back, his fingers brushing the ties of my halter top and the edge of my birthmark.

I glanced away for a moment, realizing that I could no longer see Kara and Curt. We’d moved farther into the crowd, toward the back of the warehouse. It was darker here, and I felt enveloped in the warmth of the crowd pulsing around me.

I looked up at him. A sense of familiarity tugged at the edge of my mind, and then it hit me.

He looked like the guy from my dream, the man in armor I’d killed. The guy whose blood I drank.

I stepped back, confused.

He reached for my shoulder, his brow furrowing. Hey. Are you okay?

Yeah, I just— I rubbed the back of my neck. It was just a dream. But this guy looked so much like him. I felt hot and a little sick, and my