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"Fine, I'll get it, but we move her first. I'll hold pressure on her, you pick her up, and then I'll run the IV as soon as we have somewhere to hang it from."

  I grunted an agreement as I cut the thread and then it was time to lift her into the car. There was so much blood that I almost couldn't believe she was still alive. The fading glow painted across her as red blood cells started dying was beyond eerie. It wasn't until my shaking got worse that I realized that a lot of the blood was mine.

  Ash set what I was pretty sure was a world record and had the IV run and a bag of saline hanging from the passenger seat in seconds.

  "I'm not sure I can do this last one, Ash. I'm starting to get lightheaded."

  "It's just one more set of stitches, Isaac, you can do it and then you can stop and tape yourself up. I'll be back in a minute."

  I wanted to argue with him, wanted to tell him that I was too far gone, but I couldn't seem to bring myself to say the words. I must have taken more damage in the fight than I'd realized, even this much blood loss shouldn't have impacted me this quickly.

  My whole world narrowed down to the needle, thread, and the hole that I needed to close up. The tremble in my hands made things worse, but Ash had left the interior light on and the better visibility helped compensate for the shake.

  Either all of the practice was taking effect already, or someone besides just Ash and I really wanted Kristin to live. The first stitch went in perfectly and the next one was almost as good. After what felt like forever I pulled the last stitch tight and tied it off.

  Ash stuck his head inside the car to check that I was done and then grabbed me by one arm and helped get me up into the back seat as he passed me a gigantic roll of medical tape.

  "That will have to be good enough. Get started on yourself before you lose any more blood. We have to get out of here before the fire draws the cops and more of Onyx's people."

  I stared dumbly at the tape for a second before looking around. "What fire?"

  "The one that is going to start in fifteen minutes when the time-delay fuses on the two incendiary grenades I jammed inside of their car go off."

  Ash threw the SUV into gear and took off like we were already being chased by the cops. I wanted to just lie down and close my eyes, but something told me that would be a very bad idea.

  I forced myself to start taping up the huge hole in my side. Ash looked back at me and frowned. "How much blood have you lost?"

  "Honestly, I have no idea, but it must have been a lot. I can't remember the last time I was this loopy."

  For some reason that struck me as being incredibly funny. I started to laugh, but that just pulled on the wound in my side and sent me down a dizzying spiral of pain. I managed to get a hand out and stop myself from falling over, but the motion pulled at something inside my chest and got me started coughing.

  "Isaac, you've got to work faster. I can't stop, and not just for Kristin. We've got to get out of this area or Onyx will find us."

  I sucked down a couple of big gasps of air to oxygenate my blood enough to keep me from passing out, and then nodded as I ripped off another big strip of tape and used it to hold the edges of my stomach wound closed.

  "I know. How long will it take us to get to the nearest hospital?"

  "I think I can get us there in twenty minutes, maybe a minute or two faster if everything goes perfectly."

  "You know that's the first place that Onyx will check, right?"

  "Yeah, I know. We don't have any other choice though. We've got to get some blood inside of Kristin and get her on oxygen or she'll never make it. Honestly, the way you're looking we probably need to get a bag of saline and some oxygen into you too."

  The image of Ash trying to sneak a canister of oxygen out of the hospital under his jacket struck me as being so funny that I nearly broke out into laughter again, but I'd learned my lesson the time before.

  "I'm not complaining, just trying to make sure you're working on a plan. I'm not going to be good for much of anything once we get there, so I can't bail you out this time."

  "Your vote of confidence is absolutely overwhelming, but yes, I'm working on it."

  "That's good then. I'm just going to close my eyes then."

  "Did you get yourself all taped up?"

  "I think so."

  I wasn't positive I had, but I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. Whatever I'd managed to get done was just going to have to be good enough.

  "Okay, hold on the best you can. I'll have us there soon. And, Isaac…"

  "Yeah?"

  "Thanks for taking care of Kristin and helping me keep things together."

  "No problem. You would have done the same for me if it had been Jess."

  "Yeah, yeah, I would have."

  Chapter 8

  Isaac Nazir

  River Parishes Hospital

  New Orleans, Louisiana

  I must have fallen asleep at some point. I came back to myself enough to be aware of my surroundings about two minutes before we arrived at the hospital.

  The relief in Ash's voice when I asked him how close we were was palpable. I stripped off what was left of my ha'bit and used it to wipe away the worst of the blood before I slipped my clothes back on.

  I rolled out of the vehicle as soon as Ash pulled up to the emergency room entrance, and the two of us carried Kristin inside of the hospital. It was like walking into a tidal wave. Within seconds of stepping inside the modern-looking, gray building we were surrounded by people in blue hospital scrubs, all of who were asking us what had happened as they took Kristin out of our arms and placed her on a bed.

  Ash handled things much better than I would have. He'd had the benefit of being able to plan out his story while I'd been passed out, but even so I couldn't have done as good of a job throwing everyone off of the truth.

  Within seconds he had everyone convinced that Kristin had been attacked by a mountain lion. It wasn't a perfect match to her wounds, not unless someone had run across a new breed of cat that had six-inch claws, but at that point the doctors were more concerned with getting Kristin into an operating room than with poking holes in Ash's story.

  He made sure that the surgeon knew that we'd stitched up the worst of the vascular damage, told one of the nurses that I was in shock and in need of some oxygen, and then disappeared back into the night.

  I tried to wave the nurse off—by that time I was feeling much steadier than I'd been in the car—but she was pretty insistent. In the end I decided not to fight her. Even shape shifters don't bounce back instantly from that kind of blood loss, so I figured it was only a matter of time before the adrenaline wore off and I'd be back to staggering around like a drunk.

  Ash showed back up to my room fifteen minutes later with all three bug-out bags.

  "I checked with a nurse on my way back in. They've got her in surgery. It will probably be another couple of hours before we know anything substantial, but from what I could hear from outside the operating room it sounded like they have her on oxygen and are transfusing blood."

  "Good, if she's made it this long then she'll be okay. Once they get her hematocrit and blood pressure back up then the only other thing to worry about is infection."

  "Yeah, if we can avoid Onyx's people long enough for the doctors to finish stabilizing her then she's got a good chance. One of the doctors was admiring your handiwork, by the way. Craziest thing I've ever seen. You can't run an IV, but you stitched her up like a pro."

  "I got lucky. You should see Donovan. He's better than most doctors with ten years of experience under their belts. He's the one who taught me how to sew up an artery like that. He insisted that we all learn what he called 'the basics of first aid.' With the constant low-level conflict between us and Brandon's pack we got lots of chances to practice our skills. It wasn't until I got quite a bit older that I realized that he'd essentially given us a residency as surgeons. I think that Alec realized how much more Donovan was teaching us than he was letting on, but Alec never said anyt
hing, never complained or let on that he knew."

  Ash nodded. "I can't say that I'm surprised about Alec or Donovan either one. Donovan is one of those rare treasures you don't come across very often. It says a lot about Alec's judgment that he's listened so closely to Donovan's advice for so many years."

  "Yeah, I guess you're right. It's hard to think of Donovan as being something unusual. He's just been there for as long as I can remember. He's…well, he's just Donovan."

  "That's a common tendency, but in my experience it's a dangerous way to think. It's all too easy to miss out on greatness when you do that. Just because you know someone doesn't mean that they can't be world-class at something. You wouldn't dream of saying that Thanatas or Jaldul were just Thanatas and Jaldul, but you think nothing of saying that about Alec."

  I was too tired to get really indignant over anything, but I could feel the faintest stirrings of unhappiness from my beast. It was the kind of early-warning system that I had to heed these days.

  "I saved your life and your girlfriend's life today. Can you just do me a favor and give the recriminations and sermons a rest for a few hours?"

  "Sure thing. Sorry, I guess trying to teach Kristin everything she needed to know over the last few months has me in lecture mode."

  We sat in silence for several minutes before I pulled the mask back off and turned off the oxygen.

  "So, did you come up with a plan or are we just screwed?"

  Ash pulled out a small black box and looked at it for a couple of seconds before stuffing it back into his pocket and turning back to me.

  "Just wanted to make sure that nobody's planted a bug in here. In answer to your question, some of both. By now I expect that our SUV is gone. I stripped the plates off of it and then turned it on, left the doors unlocked and walked away. We'll have to buy or steal something when it's time to leave, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem. I can boost most of the older cars in less than two minutes."

  "What about the police?"

  "I stripped the barrel out of my gun on the way here and tossed it in the bayou. I took care of Kristin's a few minutes ago. I wiped it down and then jammed it down into the grass with my foot. The police will search the scene of the fight and if they track us here they'll search us and any dumpsters, but they'll never think to take a metal detector out there and sweep the lawn."

  "Does that mean you're unarmed now?"

  Ash shook his head and tapped the magazine he had sitting in his lap. "Spare barrel. It's cheaper than just tossing the weapon and goes a long way towards making it so the police can't tie your weapon to the incident."

  "So there's nothing left to tie us to the fight then."

  "Some tire tracks, but we used a pseudonym when we purchased the SUV, so even if the police eventually track it down they won't have anything other than Kristin's DNA."

  "So we're the evidence then."

  "I'm afraid so. I'm not too worried about the cops coming at us from that direction though. Even if they find it tonight they won't do much with the crime scene before the sun comes up. The more urgent worry is that the hospital will call the precinct and let them know that they've got someone here who looks like she might be the victim of a stabbing or other violent crime."

  "So what's your brilliant plan there?"

  "You're my brilliant plan." Ash gestured at the black bags. "All of your favorite toys are in there. My bet is that nobody will call the police before the surgeons finish up with Kristin because they'll want to have the full story. If you can hack their email and phone system within the next couple of hours then the police won't know we were even here until we're long gone."

  "That's your big plan?"

  Ash shrugged. "I didn't have a lot to work with. Besides, you said it's easier to do this kind of thing from inside the facility."

  I closed my eyes and counted to ten.

  "Sure, it would be easier if I had access to one of the nurses' terminals. Working on their public wi-fi isn't going to be any easier than attacking from the outside."

  "I don't think it would be a good idea to go walking around in the hopes of sneaking some time on an unlocked terminal. I'm pretty sure that the nurses have instructions to keep an eye on us in case the doctors decide that we are accessories to some kind of crime."

  "You think?"

  The barest hint of a smile played at the edge of Ash's lips as he closed his eyes. "Be nice, Isaac, or I might not give you the present that I picked up for you just outside the gift shop."

  Before I could come up with a suitably biting response Ash pulled a tablet out from where he'd wedged it between the magazine and his gun.

  "The unlock code the nurse used is two-four-two-five. Hopefully that will help."

  "What are you going to be doing while I desperately try to save our bacon?"

  "I'm going to take a nap. If things go as badly as I think they might, then it might be a while before I'll get another chance to sleep."

  I almost said something cutting about him being a cold monster if he was really going to be able to sleep while his girlfriend was being operated on, but I thought better of it at the last second. Ash could be cold when the situation warranted it, but he was right. We didn't both need to be awake right now and if we were forced to make a run for it then sleep might get really hard to come by.

  I unlocked the nurse's tablet and breathed a silent sigh of relief when I saw that it was one of the operating systems that I was most familiar with. It only took me a couple of minutes to pull the file containing all of the encrypted passwords and transfer it over to my own tablet. I plugged my tablet in and then pulled up my decryption program and hoped that the hospital's IT staff was less paranoid than most.

  The decryption program was good—I'd written it myself when I'd found backdoors in both of the off-the-shelf programs that I'd downloaded five years ago—but if it had to brute-force its way to a solution by trying every possible combination then we'd be in for a really, really long wait. Our only hope was that the IT staff used something relatively easy to remember so that they didn't have to enter a long string of random characters each time they got a new batch of thirty or forty tablets that needed to be configured yesterday.

  While my tablet was beating on the password file, I grabbed the tablet Ash had lifted for me, pulled it out of the hospital-issue cover so that it wouldn't be quite so conspicuous, and started loading it up with all of my favorite utilities.

  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 th
e 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?"