Into the Night

copyright 2006 by Esther Mitchell  - Excerpted from SHADOW WALKER

    It was a ten-minute drive from her home in Kensington to the NNMC, and Jaye prayed no cops were out tonight as she sped toward the hospital.  The nagging sense that Trevor was alone and in need of help was her only companion as she raced to the facility.  She was on autopilot, with little awareness of her actions as she showed her ID to the guard at the NNMC’s gate, parked and locked her car, and headed toward the inpatient wards.  She was just at the door into the building when something in her peripheral vision stopped her in her tracks.  She turned, her eyes scanning the bushes beside the building and her brow furrowed.  What was out there?

    She shrugged when she saw nothing, but her skin prickled with awareness she didn’t want to acknowledge as she turned toward the door again.  A  whimper, followed by a moan, sent a chill through her that wracked Jaye to the core.  It sounded like an animal, and a man, in pain.  She spun around, and her eyes searched the bushes again, until she saw one move.

   Heart in her throat, praying that she was about to find a wounded dog, Jaye eased toward the bush.  Whatever she found there, she already knew she wasn’t ready for it.

   A warning growl faded into a whimper of pain and fear as her hand touched the bush, and she eased it aside, expecting an injured animal.  A dismayed gasp left her at what she found, instead.

   Trevor lay in a tight huddle between the bush and the wall.  The moonlight touched his dark, bare skin, and he shivered from the bitter winter cold.

   “Trevor!”  Immediately, she yanked off her warm trench coat, aware it still wouldn’t be enough if he’d been out here long.  She glanced up as the hospital door opened and an orderly stepped outside.

    “Hey!”

    He turned toward her, and Jaye barked out a single order.  “Get some blankets, stat!”

   She returned her attention to her patient.  There were no outward signs of trauma, which did nothing to explain why he was out here in the freezing cold and as bare as the day he was born.

   “Trevor?”  She laid a cautious hand on his shoulder, and felt the shudder that lunged through him.  “Trevor, can you hear me?”

   His only response was a low whine, and Jaye reassessed the situation with a muttered oath.  It was worse than first appearances.  Last time she found Trevor huddled in fright, he’d come around quickly, and he was still fully clothed.  But he was weak then, and they only just made it back to his room from the medical storage down the hall, taht time.  Clearly, his situation was deteriorating.  She didn’t want to know how, why, or where he lost his clothes, and his animal instincts were sharper now than his human ones.  There was no way she could count on his help getting him back to his room, and she certainly couldn’t do it herself.

   Resolutely, she reached over and pulled her cell phone from the pocket of her coat draped over Trevor’s broad shoulders.  He growled and yanked away, but she had her phone in hand, already.  Biting her lip, she punched the speed dial for Inpatient’s trauma unit.

  “Naval Medical Inpatient trauma ward.  Chief Petty Officer James speaking.”

   “Chief, this is Dr. Michaels.  I found our missing patient.  I need a gurney, and a couple of orderlies.”

   Lydia was a professional; Jaye had to give her that.  Though the other woman didn’t deal with psychiatric patients very often, she kept her curiosity to herself, and her focus on the patient’s care.  “I’ll call down and have ER get one out to you, ASAP, Ma’am.  Where are you?”

    “Right outside the lower entrance to building ten.”  Jaye clicked off the phone as the orderly she summoned earlier arrived, his arms loaded with blankets.

  “Thanks.”  She took them and turned to Trevor.  He still looked oblivious to her presence, or his own humanity, and only stirred enough to voice a warning growl as she replaced her coat with the warmer blankets.

   “Ma’am… Is he all right?”  The orderly’s worried voice reached her.

   “He will be,” she murmured, keeping her voice low and soothing as she stroked Trevor’s head gently.  She kept her eyes on him, aware that taking her gaze off this wild animal would be a mistake.  She only prayed her words were the truth as she again whispered, “He will be.”

This piece is excerpted from a Science Fiction Romance I’m working on, entitled Dead Men… 

Hope you enjoy!  As always, please leave comments and let me know what you think!

 ”The Lexus Chamber” - Excerpted from Dead Men…

copyright 2008 by Esther Mitchell

   At the Section docking hanger, Calli powered down her Flitter and unstrapped her helmet as she made her way into the nearly deserted facility.  She dropped the helmet on her desk and kept going toward the Lexus Chamber.

   “What are you doing back here?”

   Calli stopped as Bethanie stepped out of the lab, and her own brows lifted in mock surprise.  “I could ask you the same thing.”

   Bethanie grinned.  “I never left.  I’m running a hazardous chemical analysis that’s very sensitive.  I can’t leave until it’s done.  What’s your excuse?”

   “I had a breakthrough.”

   “More like a breakdown,” a new voice said, and Calli swung around to glare at Cade accusingly.

    “You followed me!”

    “Damn straight I did, darlin’.  You’re determined to kill yourself.”

    “Go to Hell!” She brushed past him to reach the Lexus Chamber.  If she was lucky, he wouldn’t follow her.  But, of course, she wasn’t that lucky.  She could hear his booted feet on the concrete floor behind her.  She ignored him, setting up for a direct jack-in that would allow her a straight free-dive into restricted space.  She had a name to find, and she didn’t have time to scour the Lexus for a back door.

   “Do you even know what you’re doing?”  Cade’s hand slapped over the power conduit, keeping her from plugging the jack in.

   She jerked back and glared at him again.  She sure as hell knew what she was doing, unlike him.

    “I’m working.”

    “Bullshit, angel.  You–”

    ”Like you’d know.”  She straightened then, her breath frozen in her lungs and her eyes wide as what he said finally registered.  Angel.  “What did you call me?”

    He frowned, as if replaying his words in his head, and she swore she caught the flicker of panic in his eyes, if only for an instant.

   “Nothing.  Calli, you haven’t worked this hard on a case in years, from what I’ve heard.”

   Her eyes narrowed.  “From who?”

   “Your brother.  The captain.  Hell, everyone.”  He gave her a strange look she couldn’t decipher.  “They all say you’re a workaholic, but that you’ve never taken a case personally, before.”

   She rolled her eyes.  “Who says it’s personal?”

   “Please.  You’ve been ready to go to the wall - Hell, you hacked an Earth Council facility - for this case.  I want to know why.  What makes this case different?”

  She glared at him, even as her suspicion meter pegged out.  Just how the hell did he know what she did in her home Lexus Chamber?

This segment is from an as-yet unpublished book in my Underground series.  This piece isn’t romantic, but it gives a deep look into one of the series’ important characters, and how he really feels about his job.

As always, please leave a comment to let me know what you think!  

“The Score” 

copyright 2007 by Esther Mitchell

   He told himself he was ready for this.  And he knew he was full of shit.  No one was ever ready to tangle with a dude like Terrence Walker.  One wrong move, one wild card in the mix, and it would all end in a bloodbath.  Matt Clipper sealed his lips in a grim line over the worried oath that pressed against his tongue as he primed his Colt Racer - a recent addition to street warfare, the weapon was a cross between a conventional handgun and a Super Taser - and double-checked that he had his backup.  He glanced into the rearview mirror of the Lincoln Continental.  “Y’all ready?”

     “Let’s roll.”  Snooks brandished his weapon with a grin just this side of sadistically gleeful, and Matt bit down on the wave of nausea that spiralled through him at the sight.  Similar anticipation preceded too many of his nightmares.  He resisted the urge to shudder.  He was getting way too old for this shit.  Problem was, he didn’t see how he was of any use to the Commandos if he left the streets behind.  He didn’t have Blade’s skills, or Jen’s brains, or Red’s background.  He had nothing to offer but what he learned out here, and the one thing Matt Clipper wasn’t was a leech.  So he did the only thing he knew how to do.  Even if it killed him.

    To combat the queasy uncertainty in the pit of his stomach, he pasted on his most cocky grin and reached for the driver side door.  He was about to put it on the line to get Big T to this meet-up.  The Man had best represent.

    “Let’s go.”

    Like a pack of wild animals, the gang-bangers piled out of the vehicle with none of the stealth or finesse Matt grew accustomed to as a Commando.  He winced inwardly, and triple-checked his weapons again.  He had a bad feeling this was about to go to Hell, and Jen would kill him if he got sloppy.  Hell, the voodoo woman would probably dig him up just to kill him again, if he got himself whacked.

   A snort of dark laughter nearly broke his lips, and he caught the wary look the kid beside him cast his way.  Rance stuck close to him since JT went down.  Poor kid wasn’t cut out for this life; too bad Matt didn’t know how to get him out.

   Matt’s gaze went to the building before them, and the scene was far too familiar.  Rundown and solitary among the empty lots that flanked it on three sides, this pre-World War Three tenement was where JT was murdered, and Matt’s fall into Hell began.  No one knew how much he hated every time he had to come back here.  The queasy sensation in his gut talked loud and clear.  When Matt Clipper checked out, it would be in a place just like this one; a building on the edge of forgotten.

    Damn.  He was dipping into the morbid, again.  That was a distraction he didn’t need.  Matt shook it off and cocked his weapon with a grin only he knew was forced.

     “Playtime.  Just remember, the Big Man wants T alive, or we’re in deep shit.”

     He wasn’t worried they’d fuck it up.  These boys might need some lessons in finesse when it came to assaults, but they were far from incompetent novices.  They had their own silent language, and while it didn’t have the sophistication he’d learned by hanging with Booters like Blade and Ace, he was comfortable with it.  These were streeters.  They knew the score.

    The gang fanned out to surround the front door, waiting for Matt’s signal.  He edged up to the door and listened intently.  The sound of an old building settling, and the drip of water somewhere in the distance, reached his ears.  No voices, no footsteps.  Relief wound through him.  No ambush; and that was good news to him.  He jerked his head toward the door, then eased it open to scoot inside cautiously.  The same couldn’t be said for his gang.

    Snooks barreled through the door like a maniac.  Damn it, was he high?  Matt couldn’t tell; he couldn’t see the other man’s eyes, but Snooks was sweating.  That was a bad sign.

    “Yo, Snooks, hold up a min-” His caution fell on deaf ears as Snooks took the stairs three at a time, disappearing into the upper levels of the old building.  There was a loud crash, and the Snooks’ voice echoed down the stairwell.

     “Prayer tone, muthafu-”  His words died in a spray of gunfire that lit up the stairwell and echoed off the tile walls.  Matt immediately dropped behind cover, his instincts honed to self-preservation by years of Commando missions.  He knew what that gunfire meant.

    “Damn it.”  Anger tightened his chest.  It wasn’t supposed to go down like this.  God damn it, Snooks knew better than to get high right before a hit.

    “Shit, dude!”  Rance dropped back as well, his face a shade between green and gray.  Kid was scared.  Smart.  “What was that?”

    “That,” Matt responded grimly, “was trouble.  Everyone, hang back.”

    With that quiet instruction, Matt started slowly up the stairs, forcing himself to draw even breaths as he went.  This was it.  He’d never told anyone, but he always knew he’d die alone.  And here he was, climbing into the lion’s den, alone.  Still, if he wanted this to go down without any higher of a body count, he had to go it solo.

    As he reached the first landing, Matt flipped his Racer to stun.  He didn’t want anyone going down for a permanent nap, least of all his mark.  The Man would never forgive him for that, and nor would anyone else.  Set to stun, the energy weapon would release a non-lethal electrical charge in a beam that would render the target unconscious.  He wanted Big T down, not out of the picture.  He had orders, after all.