Chapter 5

Matt Donner thought that he'd been prepared for anything when entering Station 12. He was sadly mistaken by what he did see. Blood was smeared on the walls. The overhead florescent lights were mostly smashed. Some of them flickered, and one lone bulb swung from its fixture casting eerie shadows on the walls.

Matt took point. Vivian and Dr. Glaser followed him, with Duncan MacLeod bringing up the rear. The room was one long tunnel lined on either side by old fashioned medical cots. Toward the end of the room Deirdre stood with her cloth hospital gown gapping in the back, exposing old scars and a gauze pad soaked through with blood.

Deirdre held one of the nurses, a blond woman, off of her feet, pressing a scalpel to the nurse's throat.

"Ce-ai făcut cu ea?"

Matt held up a hand. "Deirdre? Let her go."

The Slayer's head snapped around toward Matt, eyes glowing intensely, and growled low in warning. Dee cocked her head to one side, scenting the air. She looked at Matt, Vivian, and Dr. Glaser in turn and repeated her question.

"Ce-ai făcut cu ea?!"

"Doctor!" The nurse sputtered. "Help me! She woke up out of nowhere spouting gibberish. She wants to kill me!"

Deirdre threw aside the scalpel, allowing her claws to extend, cutting into the nurse's throat. "Ce-ai făcut cu ea?"

Matt huffed in frustration, "Just hang in there, Clementine! We'll take care of this." He turned to Duncan. "You're up MacLeod."

"Cu ce? Deirdre?" MacLeod spoke steadily as he slowly walked into the room. He gave Deirdre a wide berth. "Ce-a făcut cu ce?"

Deirdre's manic eyes swiveled to Duncan. For a second, it looked like she had never set eyes on the man before. Matt watched recognition break over her face. "Mac?"

MacLeod's worry shifted into a sad smile. "Yes, lassie. It's Duncan."

Deirdre turned from angry to pleading. Tears streamed down her eyes. "Au luat-o. Forța ei să-i dea înapoi!"

Matt saw the angry look flash across MacLeod's face. "MacLeod, would you care to translate?"

"She says you took something from her." Duncan growled. "She wants it back."

Matt raised an eyebrow. "Well do you think you can convince her to let Clementine go, and tell us what it is in English? Then we can negotiate?"

Vivian turned to Glaser. "Do you have any idea what she's talking about, Andrew?"

The doctor shook his head. "Vivian, we didn't remove anything from your daughter's person but shrapnel from her wounds."

"Da-l inapoi!" Deirdre screamed, attempting to crush Nurse Clementine's throat.

"I'd say your friend is running out of time." MacLeod observed coolly.

Matt grumbled. "We don't know what she's talking about! Dammit! Tell her we don't know."

"Ei spun că ei nu știu ce vrei să spui." MacLeod translated.

Deirdre screamed in rage. She began to lift Nurse Clementine off the ground by her throat. MacLeod raised an eyebrow. "It would appear, sheriff, that she does not believe you."

The next few moments happened quickly. Matt drew his gun. MacLeod stepped between him and Deirdre. Deirdre started screaming again, then she threw Clementine across the room. Finally getting a clear shot, Matt fired. He was aiming for Deirdre's leg, but Vivian caught his arm and the shot flew wide.

MacLeod stepped into it, taking the bullet squarely in the chest. Deirdre turned mid-attack to charge toward Matt Donner. But an emergency exit door burst open behind her. Suddenly, Tyler Creed was there. He caught Deirdre around the waist, and plunged a needle into her neck, delivering a shot of dark green liquid. Deirdre collapsed into Tyler's arms.

Crisis temporarily averted, Matt stared down at MacLeod's lifeless body. A bright eyed Vivian checked on Clementine, whose bell was pretty good, but was otherwise none the worse for the wear. She turned to Matt, bone tired. "She'll be okay. Nothing a few Tylenol won't fix. That's more than I can say for you, Matthew Donner, if you try to shoot my kid again."

"Duly noted." Matt acknowledged.

All the same, he advanced toward the Slayer, gun pointed at the ground. Tyler was cradling her. A red splotch was slowly spreading on her hospital gown just above the impalement wound. Matt supposed she must have popped her stitches when she threw the nurse.

Tyler growled as Matt approached. It wasn't the first time Tyler had growled at Matt, and it probably wouldn't be the last. But Matt recognized that growl, the low bass bone-rattling fury of it. Tyler was behaving like a predator protecting its mate. Matt hung back and listened.

Deirdre raised a bloody hand to Tyler's face, smiling a bloody smile. "Mulțumesc! Vă mulțumesc, mi Lup Roșu."

She lost consciousness after that. Matt shouted out to Glaser. "Doc, we could use a little help here!"

Glaser abandoned his search for MacLeod's pulse. He shook his head at the corpse. That was until MacLeod sat bolt upright, gasping for air. "Impossible!"

Mac shook his head. "No more than a town full of werewolves, doctor."

Several hours later, Deirdre was resting comfortably in a private room under heavy sedation and an armed guard. There were wolves from all over town dropping in to pay their respects. The Cates family took it in stride, alternating shifts at Deirdre's bedside with schmoozing and reassuring the various pack members that made appearances.

Luke was bone tired, but it was his turn to get coffee. He leaned his head against the cool plastic of the coffee vending machine. Normally, he loathed the stuff. The taste was too strong, and the smell was worse. But caffeine was a necessity now.

"Can I give you a hand with that?"

Luke swiveled, almost crushing the insulated cups in his hands against the newcomer's chest. "Richie, jesus!"

A sarcastic smile crossed the young immortal's face. "That's a new one. I've never had a guy say that to me."

Richie took two of the cups of coffee so Luke could field a third coming out of the machine. He tipped his head to look at Luke. "How you holding up, man?"

"Peachy!" Luke gave him a withering look. "My girlfriend's arm is busted up. Some of my best friends are dead. Others are hurt. My mom's a wreck, and my sister may not live through the night. And it's about 90% my fault. So you know, it's all champagne and Ferraris."

Richie's smile wavered. "Dee will be fine. She's survived a lot of things that would've killed most people."

"People like you?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Richie gasped. "I'm one of a kind."

Luke raised an eyebrow, so Richie quickly changed the subject. "Who's in with her now?"

"Tyler." Luke hissed. "He says that Deirdre asked him to watch her, in case she went Dark Side."

"She did." Richie replied. They started walking back toward the waiting room. "I was there. You don't seem to like the guy, huh?"

"Deirdre isn't the first Cates woman that Creed has latched onto. He's a slimeball, really. He was married to Ruby until she kicked his ass to the curb." Luke grumbled.

"Well, I don't know if you've noticed, but Dee can pretty much take care of herself." Richie shrugged. "At least, when she's on her feet."

Luke slowed to a shuffle as they walked. "Richie, you and Dee seem pretty close. Did you to ever, you know, hook up?"

"No, we've always been just friends."

"And your friend MacLeod, he and Dee were never…?"

"Mac? No, Mac is her teacher. That's not really part of his code." Richie paused, seeing the look in Luke's eyes. "What are you trying to ask me, man?"

Luke pulled Richie into an alcove, away from prying ears. "Okay, do you know anything about what happened to Dee in the last year?"

Richie's face closed off. "I know that she had a run-in with a pretty nasty curse in London, had to make a big sacrifice to save the life of a friend. Then Dee and Adam moved on to Paris. She and The Old Man were attacked in their flat and Dee was forced to run. A lot of people were looking for her for a long time. No one was able to find her until I saw Horus flying over Seacouver, and followed him here."

"Did Dee tell you if she was involved with anyone?" Luke pressed.

"Luke, buddy, what is this about?"

Luke took a deep breath. "You cannot breathe a word of this!" At Richie's nod, Luke continued. "Deirdre's doctor told me and Mom that she's been beat to shit over the last year, and at some point during the last few months…. she had a baby. Wolf females can usually only bear young to their mates. The ability to do so outside of a Mate Bond is rare. We call them Breeders. It's a trait that runs in families, and it makes her a target."

Richie slumped against the wall. "A baby?" Off Luke's look, he shook his head. "Don't look at me. My kind, we...can't have kids."

"I need to find out who the father was, Richie, so I can try to find her baby."

Richie stood for a moment, contemplating. His gaze became erratic, suddenly, shifting around the hallway. Luke scented a strong odor of ozone. He watched Richie's eyes lock onto a point down on the hallway's far end.

"Son of a bitch!" Richie cursed under his breath.

Adam Pierson was rounding the corner with another shorter man. The man had honey brown hair cropped short and heavy duty rain coat. Luke could smell the aggression coming off of Richie, who set the two cups he was holding aside on a window ledge.

"Rich?"

"You wanna know who knocked up your sister?" Richie seethed. He nodded toward the man walking with Adam "Look no further. Nick fuckin Boyle. That asshole bedded her, then left her to die."

If Luke hadn't been a wolf, he might not have been able to follow the quickness of Richie's movement. The redhead went off like a shot.

"Richie?" Adam raised an eyebrow at his quick approach.

Luke watched Richie blow past Adam, and take a swing at Nick Boyle. It was a good punch, and it landed upside Boyle's left cheek. But it was a lucky shot. Richie pulled back to swing again. Without a word, Boyle sidestepped the attack running Richie's head into the wall. Luke heard the crack of a breaking bone and saw blood streaming from Richie's nostrils. Luke saw red.

Adam was able to catch hold of Richie's arms as Boyle took up a defensive stance against the redhead, but neither of them saw Luke coming. All the terror and rage of the past few days welled up in him, and he let it fly. Boyle was a good fighter, but he was human. Nick countered Luke's onslaught of punches and kicks as well as he could, but he just wasn't fast enough. Before either of them knew it, Luke had Nick up against the wall with a series of body blows.

Luke was savoring the shocked look on Boyle's face as he readied his right fist for a knockout punch. The punch never landed. A hand caught Luke's fist barely an inch from Boyle's nose, and began to crush it. Nick and Luke's eyes swiveled to view a set of pissed off, glowing green ones.

"Quomodo audes?"

"Deirdre?"

Luke's brain barely noted Boyle's voice over the agony in his hand and his twin's furious eyes.

Deirdre snarled. At Vivian's insistence, she'd been dressed in hospital scrubs. Dee's skin was covered in sweat, like it took every ounce of strength she had to fight through the haze of drugs she'd been sedated with. A red patch was beginning to reform over her abdomen.

"Quomodo audes?"

"What?" Luke cried, falling to his knees as the pain in his hand traveled up his wrist and arm.

"She said 'How dare you?" Adam translated, somewhere off to Luke's left.

"Quomodo audes tangeret... quae me contingunt?"

"How dare you touch what belongs to me?" Adam continued to translate.

Not waiting for an answer, Deirdre pitched her brother backwards into the opposite wall. She was about to advance on him, when Boyle called out to her again.

"Deirdre!"

Dee huffed once more in warning at Luke. The hallway was filling on both sides with people. Tyler, Sophia, Vivian, Sheriff Donner, Ruby, even MacLeod came out to watch the show. Deirdre ignored them, even ignored her father. She spun around and walked straight up to Boyle. She put a hand on the wall on either side of his head, framing his face. Dee put her face up to Boyle's neck and inhaled deeply, scenting him.

"Nick?"

Deirdre's eyes seemed to clear for a second. Then she kissed Nick, hard and deep. It was the kind of kiss meant for the privacy of a bedroom, not the middle of a hospital corridor, under the gaze of strangers, while one may or may not be bleeding to death. Boyle did not object.

When the lovers came up for air, Deirdre caressed Nick's cheek. Her fingers were covered in blood from her stomach wound. They made little crimson trails down his cheeks. Dee spoke the first intelligible word in English that she had since falling in battle at the church.

"Mine!"

"Yes." Nick agreed automatically.

Deirdre's eyes lost their glow, rolling back in her head. He collapsed into Nick's arms and he slid to the ground. Nick cradled her while Adam reached out a hand to help Luke up. Deirdre's dad quipped while he brushed the boy off.

"Ah, Wolf Lake. It's good to be back! Never a dull moment in this town."