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Familiar Faces

M arisol covered her yawn with her hand, noting her newly bandaged finger. As she headed back to the ER, the heightened adrenaline from earlier had faded and weighed down her limbs. So much for a break. She pushed through the double-doors into the main entryway to turbulent clashing and shouting, which stifled her second yawn.

Code frickin’ gray. A detective guy she recognized from Caz’s sentencing was in a typical third-shift kerfuffle. He, Dr. Foster, and an EMT struggled to strap a large patient with a bleeding head wound down. Another B’Lee overdose, by the look of it. Marisol picked a perfect time to return. “Here we go,” she muttered.

Right as the detective strapped one arm down, the patient swung at Dr. Foster, knocking her across the corridor into an empty hospital bed. Marisol grabbed a container from the nurse’s station and ran toward the fray.

With his giant paw, the patient pulled the detective by his tie, choking him. The security guard tried to pry the patient’s fingers from the tie, now a drum-tight string of silk. The patient swung his arm back, ready to strike the detective with a right hook. Marisol leaped, landed on the bed, jabbed the patient with a dose of naloxone—and another ER miracle!—crazed patient number infinity flopped onto the bed. She jumped down and strapped in the patient.

“Thanks, Novotny,” Dr. Foster murmured as she fixed her hair.

Marisol nodded. Since Dr. Foster expressed gratitude, maybe she could use this moment to demand her title and validating CT scans. Don’t forget who saved you from an assault and a malpractice suit, Marisol Novotny, RN.

“You’re my hero,” the detective said as he loosened the killer piece of menswear from his neck.

Marisol shrugged. She wanted to say, “No problem,” but was uncertain if it was true. Especially when the patient chattered like a small train.

Another doctor commandeered the gurney. “We’re taking him up to psych.”

Marisol helped the doctor and the EMT push the gurney to the elevators. She noticed the man in the tie trailed close behind them. Second by second, the patient’s mantra became clearer and louder. “Teeth and teeth and teeth and teeth.”

The EMT shook his head. “The antidote couldn’t wear off that fast.”

The doctor said, “B’Lee. Sometimes they hallucinate when they come down. Regardless, we need to do a blood draw to confirm. Go back to the emergency floor, nurse. We have it from here.”

As Marisol moved to head back to the ER, sandpaper-like fingers dug into her skin. Oh Lord, they were seconds from another code gray with a patient impervious to antidotes. The gurney rattled as the patient pulled against the straps. “Teeth and teeth and teeth and teeth!”

Marisol yanked her hand from the patient’s grip and backed away. “Why is he talking about teeth?” She rubbed the top of her hand because the patient’s touch burned like a brand. The doctor and the EMT’s continued silence fed her worry.

The elevator arrived with a ding! The doctor and EMT pushed the gurney onto it, though the patient’s flailing shook it off a smooth trajectory.

While the doctor entered a code to enter a secure floor, the gurney rattled, frantic and violent. The patient sobbed. “I swatted a fly because he ordered it.”

Marisol wanted those elevator doors to close and drown out his sobs, specifically, when they turned into shrieks. “The teeth! Rows of teeth! The Bloodsucker! He’s coming for me! He’s coming for you! He’s coming for the whole damn city! The Bloodsucker!”

The doors closed. Marisol could feel herself breathe again, but a sliver of fear lingered right under her ribs. Sure, the patient was crazy, but something about tonight made all of Shadowhaven’s fairy tales become real. She rubbed the hollow spot at her clavicle bone.

Marisol pivoted to walk back to the ER and jumped with a start as the detective wearing his loosened tie stood behind her. His black trench coat billowed in the HVAC breeze.

“What do you think got into him?” he asked.

Marisol’s body shivered, so she hugged herself. “Sounded like the Bloodsucker.” She rubbed her arms and said, “Maybe we should check his blood for parasites.”

The detective chuckled. “That’s Red Romano. Last of the Mob’s bosses. Seeing him wheeled off like that? Almost makes me want to sing ‘Danny Boy.’ Found him tied to a streetlight outside the precinct. It broke my heart to see the big guy stand there and bleed.”

From their brief interactions at court, she hadn’t noticed his voice, a broad working-class accent so gruff that it felt put on. But that strong jawline of his had her wishing she remembered his name. Started with a K? Kelley? Her nerves challenged her to rub the small area just above her sternum raw. “Tied up?” she asked .

“Yeah. This town’s crazy.” The detective straightened, growing taller. He grunted and held his side.

Marisol said, “You’re hurt.”

“Yeah. The bastard sucker-punched me after I untied him.”

“Would you let me look at it?” She reached toward his right side.

He stepped away. “I’m fine. Took up boxing in order to take punches.” The detective smiled. Charming crow’s feet surrounded his eyes colored with flecks of amber, floating in a sea of blue. No, his name was Qu… Qui…

Blue. Marisol thought of the blue eyes of the Patron Saint. She studied the detective longer. Towering height. Square jaw. Side injury. A build that could pack a punch. Suddenly the images of naked, well-defined muscles and a taped wound entered Marisol’s mind. She must be making a stupid face again because the detective raised an eyebrow and grinned.

The grin flexed into a grimace when he strained to reach into his back pocket. He drew out a beat-up business card. “If anyone comes looking for our crazed crime boss. You can leave a message at my desk.”

Marisol toyed with the card in her fingers. Detective Tobias Quinlan. Quinlan, that was his name! His wallet had dulled its corners. They started to walk to the main entrance of the ER. Marisol said, “You know, if you need to work on your boxing rhythm, you should stop by my dad’s boxing club. I usually work out there before heading here.”

“I haven’t spoken to ole Pete since… since…”

Marisol braced for the awkward mention of Caz’s sentencing, the orange jumpsuit-sporting elephant in the room.

“Since I arrested him for public intox back when I worked a beat.”

Oh. The other elephant in the room. As a cop, he probably had so many run-ins with Dad and her brother that the wide hospital hallway suddenly became a clown car of the unmentionable Novotny elephants. She was too much work, indeed. She held out the business card to return it. “Actually, I don’t know anything useful.”

“You could call about something else.” He pushed her hand carrying the card back. The moment his fingers bristled against hers, he jerked his touch away and scrubbed his hand through his salt and pepper hair. “God, I don’t know why I said that. If it helps, we dropped the charges.”

Marisol laughed at that shot of comfort. Life dropped nothing when it came to her family.

“Well, I’m gonna cut out before I mess this up anymore, Nurse Novotny.”

“Marisol,” she reminded him.

He repeated her name, and his face lit up. The dopey grin didn’t last long as Tobias gripped his side and hobbled out of the ER .

“Wait!” Marisol ran to the nurse’s station and reached into the mini refrigerator. She drew out an ice pack and wrapped it in paper towels before running it back to Tobias. “For your side.” She offered him the ice.

Tobias unbuttoned the bottom half of his dress shirt and tucked the cold pack through the opening. He backed out of the ER, his gaze never leaving Marisol’s direction until the automatic doors opened.

Heat rose to her cheeks. The Florence Nightingale effect gave her lots of luck tonight. She watched Tobias until he walked out of her sight down the sidewalk.

After she tucked the business card into her front pocket, Marisol headed to the old shopkeeper fresh from an orthopedic technician’s visit. He rested with his new cast up in a sling.

Marisol squeezed his hand, which prodded her bandaged knuckle, burning with her own memory of the Patron Saint. “Tell me about the Patron Saint again.”

“I thought no one heard me. I thought I was going to die. He was an angel.”

“He is,” she answered.

But as much as Hallmark moments like these kept her in the job, optimism was a foreign body attacked by an unexpected dread. Goodness sprang from luck, and luck should always be treated with suspicion, the dread warned, because the bad always accompanies the good.

Because if the Patron Saint was real, the Bloodsucker could be real as well.