Rick could hear it, feel the frail rise and fall beneath his palm. “Yes. Pulse is weak. Breathing’s shallow. He hit his head on marble—I don’t know if there’s a fracture, but there’s a lot of blood.”
“Can you tell me exactly where in the cemetery—”
“Main path, fifty yards in, near the old Harrow mausoleum.” His voice broke. “Justhurry. Please.”
“Help is on the way, sir. I need you to keep him still. Don’t move his neck. Apply pressure to the wound.”
“Already doing it.” Rick’s hand was soaked, crimson seeping between his fingers no matter how hard he pressed. “How long?”
“Units are two minutes out. Stay on the line—”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Rick’s throat tightened. He bent low over Frank, voice dropping to a whisper. “You hear that, buddy? Two minutes. Just hold on.”
The operator’s voice crackled through the phone, asking questions Rick barely heard. He gave mechanical answers—yes, still breathing; no, not responsive; yes, pupils are dilated—but his focus was on Frank’s face, ashen in the fog, blood still trickling from his temple despite the pressure.
Alone among the leaning stones, with the vampire’s warning crawling his spine, Rick cradled Frank in his arms. He’d lied to protect him. For years, he’d tried to keep him away from the evils of this cursed city. And still, the darkness had found a way to coil its tentacles around him.
Dammit, Frank. Why did you have to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong?
He bent low, brushing Frank’s cheek, clutching tighter, refusing to let go until the wail of sirens finally split the night.
(10:44 p.m.)
Rick had trailed the ambulance all the way across town, his Eldorado rumbling behind it like a hound too stubborn to lose the scent. The lights had painted the night in frantic red and yellow, streaking over the fog, bouncing off windows of shuttered storefronts and flickering neon. He never let the siren out of his sight, though every block brought the moon higher, tugging at him with its cold pull.
Now he paced the hospital corridor, shoes echoing against sterile linoleum. It was too bright in here. The light was merciless, humming from rows of fluorescent tubes, washing everything to bone-white. His lungs still held the stench of the graveyard, no matter how strong the antiseptic tang hung in the air. He’d rung the station, giving Riggs just enough to log the attack so the paperwork could wait until tomorrow—following alead, ambushed in the dark, the usual half-truths stitched into something that might pass for reality. Then he’d called Stella, lying over the phone as he tried to soften the blow. You didn’t tell a woman her husband nearly got gutted in a cemetery while you were shaking down a vampire.
Rick dragged a hand over his face, the heel of his palm grinding at his sockets. He leaned against the wall, shoulders tight, watching the blur of white coats and hushed voices pass him by: nurses gliding past with clipboards, doctors vanishing behind swinging doors, the smell of disinfectant burning sharp in his nostrils. A different kind of life-and-death rhythm than the streets, but no less relentless.
And still, through it all, his mind strayed where it shouldn’t. Ash’s mouth, soft and ripe with danger. That gaze, sharp enough to cut him open and tender enough to stitch him whole again in the same breath. He longed to press his lips there again, to taste the sweetness, to bury himself inside the heat of him until the world dissolved.
God. The thought steadied him in a way it shouldn’t have—pulse leveling, nerves smoothing, like the first drag off a cigarette. He exhaled slow, rubbing the ache from his jaw, trying to banish the thought even as it settled deeper into his bones. That was when he heard the sound of footsteps coming toward him, heels striking quick and urgent against the tiles.
Stella came fast down the hall, dark coat flung over her nightdress, her hair coiled into a hasty knot that left wisps tumbling around her head. She spotted him right away. Fear sharpened her fine features, and the hallway’s harsh light deepened the brown of her skin.
“Rick!” She was on him in a heartbeat, her small frame folding against his chest. He bent instinctively, engulfing her in his arms. The crown of her head barely reached his shoulder,and when she pulled back to search his face, her chin tilted high, her dark eyes locked on his. “How is he? What happened?”
He caught her arms gently, steadying her against his bulk. “He’s alive. Took a bad hit to the head, but he’s tough, Stella. He’s hanging on.”
She let out a tremor of breath, half relief, half dread. Her eyes shone but stayed dry, fighting the tears the way Frank always said she did. Strong woman. Stronger than most men Rick knew.
“The girls?” he asked softly.
“They’re home with my sister. I couldn’t drag them out here on a school night.”
Rick nodded. “What’d you tell them?” he asked, his voice low.
“That he got held up on the case. They didn’t push. But they’re not fools, Rick.”
He sighed, guilt pressing at his chest. A picture rose unbidden: the two girls sitting up in bed with their books and headphones, their faces caught between adolescence and womanhood, asking why their father wasn’t coming home. Stella smoothing their hair, lying as neatly as Rick had lied to her. Everybody lying, to keep the rot from spilling too far.
A door across the corridor swung open, and a doctor in a white coat approached with a clipboard in hand. Lean, middle-aged, his face etched with the wear of years spent under fluorescent light instead of the sun. His hair had surrendered to a salt-and-pepper gray that swept back from his temples in disciplined waves, lending him an air of experience. His gaze landed first on Rick, drawn there by habit, by presence, by the sheer size of him. “You’re the detective who brought the patient in?”
Rick gave a short nod. “That’s right. How’s he doing?”
The doctor adjusted his glasses, tone calm and measured. “Mr. Burton suffered a concussion and a dislocated shoulder. We’ve stabilized him, but we’ll be keeping him for observationfor at least forty-eight hours. There may be dizziness, headaches, some memory gaps. Nothing life-threatening, but he’ll need rest and to avoid any strain until he’s fully recovered.”
Rick let out a slow breath. “So he’s out of the woods.”
