"The hat is down! I repeat the hat is down!" Thorne cried out. Glass shattering, metal pinging in Arackniss' bullet storm.
Satan only knows how he and Pentious managed to evade the first shot. The doctor put it down to the little spider's psychotic state. But it wasn't like they got out of there without casualties. Pentious' hat had taken a bullet, right in its eye. And Pentious in his panic, now had a laceration to his forehead from when he headbutted the front door. The pair of them were now cowering behind Pentious' Model-T.
"Nissy!" Pentious roared, "talk to me love."
Pentious stuck his head round the pockmarked Model-T, only to be met with an increased barrage of bullets. Pentious swung back round, narrowly avoiding a second death.
Tears welled in Pentious' eyes. He grabbed Thorne's shoulders.
"Do something," he sobbed.
"Like what?" Thorne asked, "He's too far away for me to hypnotise and I don't want to return fire."
"You're a psychiatrist!" The snake choaked, his fists balling up.
"Yeah, I could try talking him down, but I'm not going out there without a bullet-proof couch."
"Salvatoré!" A deep voice bellowed.
Thorne turned to the source and discovered Henroin, a couple of his lieutenants at his shoulder.
"Fottiti testa di cazzo balena," Arackniss roared, firing upon the new arrivals.
The group of spiders huddled with the cat and snake behind the car. One of the spider lieutenants turned to another.
"The fucker's gone mad. He wouldn't dare speak to the boss like that."
Henroin turned to the offender and snarled.
"Va' a farti fottere," he spat, "my son aint retarded."
He turned to Thorne.
"What are you doing?" The worry in the don's voice was palpable.
Thorne went to respond, but was distracted by a rumbling in his pocket. He retrieved his phone.
"Corvus?" he answered, "…yes, I know there are shots being registered at my location. Just send a red-banded ambulance… yes, a red one."
"What's a red-one?" Henroin inquired, unfazed by the bullets narrowly missing his head.
"You'll see soon enough." Was the doctor's reply.
The red-banded ambulance, rumbled and growled on its continuous track. A previous weapon of war from a more volatile section of the pentagram. Thorne had acquired it for a song, and had it decked out with armour plating, and as much medical equipment that could be crammed in. Thorne had designed it to enter combat zones and extract the injured, but given how many 'combat' zones there were in Pride alone, it wouldn't be cost effective to send them to every encounter. So, Thorne saved them for emergencies. The hospital board however, insisted on keeping it 'weapon ready' as they called it, never knew when returning fire would be necessary.
The ambo acted exactly as Thorne hoped, it distracted Arackniss, who now focussed his fire on that, rather than the remains of the Model-T everyone was cowering behind. Thorne remained on the phone with Corvus.
"Yes… fire when ready Corvus."
"What No!" Henroin roared, surging forward. But too late to stop the taser wires from shooting from the tank and planting themselves in Arackniss' chest.
Arackniss cried out before his body folded, crumpling to the ground as if his strings were cut.
"What the fuck was that?" Henroin demanded, turning to face the cat with a snarl.
"Well," Thorne began, "I know that it looked like I tased your son. But we were actually having hot sex."
Henroin deflated. He sighed.
"Now what?" He muttered.
"Now, the hospital." The cat said with a smile. "But I have a question. "Would you like to ride in the back or the front?"
Lawrence dabbed the beads of sweat on his forehead with the back of an un-gloved hand. His shift had only started 2 hours ago and he'd been; sworn at, spat at, urinated on, bled on, and vomited on. And on one occasion all at once. It was gonna be one of those days again. Busy. Patients everywhere, all of varying ailments and causes. Luckily no one had died. Thorne had told all the staff when they joined…
"You are not allowed to kill a guest in my house." Thorne whispered over Lawrence's shoulder.
"How did you?" Lawrence started, confused. He hadn't heard the doctor arrive. Turning around to face his employer. Thorne always knew what the staff were thinking, and feeling.
"You looked as if you were ruminating. Still considering a move to dermatology?"
Lawrence gave a tired smile, and stretched. These 2 hours had started to feel like 20. But this was the position Lawrence wanted. When Thorne turned up, dishevelled and broken almost a year ago he asked the imp to be his head A&E doctor. Now, as an imp, he had two choices, train to be a doctor and then be made to fetch and carry in another hospital, maybe work in dermatology if lucky. Or work with a new overlord, train to be a doctor and actually make a difference.
"What, and give up all this?" Lawrence asked, gesturing to the chaos behind him. A patient retching in the background.
"I have a case for you." Thorne smiled, gently rocking backwards and forwards in excitement.
Lawrence opened his mouth, but was interrupted by a muzzled snarling spider, strapped to a gurney. The imp gave a single nod, acknowledging the task.
"Arackniss," Thorne started, "Early 30s, sudden onset of psychosis, no apparent cause…"
"My son aint retarded!" Roared Henroin as he entered the foyer. Waiting patients scurrying out of his way.
"Psychosis, doesn't mean retarded. It means someone who is out of touch with reality." Lawrence answered.
Thorne beamed; Lawrence had learnt much during his time in A&E.
"Thoughts?" Asked the cat.
"Paralytic," the imp affirmed, "stick a flailer into an MRI and someone is going to lose an eye."
"What did you discover?" Thorne asked. Peering over the imp's shoulder at the results.
"Nothing," the imp snorted in annoyance, "no contusions, no masses."
"Meaning?" Henroin leant forward in his chair. Arackniss thrashing in the bed next to him. Still muzzled. The bedframe slamming into the wall as the spider squirmed.
"A chemical imbalance," Lawrence mused, "a drug?"
"That would be my guess," Thorne nodded, turning to his second, "suggestions?"
"Wait," Henroin stood, towering over the two doctors. "You're tellin' me, my son's high?"
"Or on something with a nasty side-effect." Thorne posited
"I'll fuckin' kill him," the exasperated scorpion sighed.
"While I understand the need to keep a child safe," Thorne insisted, trying to calm the giant ex mafioso, "can we put a pin in that?"
"This is all your fault!" Henroin roared at Pentious. The pair of them standing in the hospital's empty canteen. The patrons having made a run for it when Henroin made his entrance, revolver drawn.
"You low-class flapdoodle." Pentious spat, venom trickling from the corners of his mouth. "Did you ever think that you are responsible for how Nissy has ended up."
"Don't call him that!"
The pair squared off, both drawing their respective weapons.
A soft voice came from the shadows.
"The first to fire, will end up on my wall."
The two demons slowly lowered their weapons. Each of them eyeing the other. And both being a little nervous as to their host.
Thorne walked out from the shadows on the top of a dining table. Hands clasped behind his back.
"Instead of finding blame, why don't the two of you find your similarities instead of your differences."
The trio stood in silence.
"We both love Arackniss." Pentious muttered, his soft voice much louder in the silence of the canteen.
"Not the same way." Henroin snarled.
"True," Thorne nodded, "familial love is not the same as romantic love. But you still want the best for Arackniss don't you?"
The quarrelling demons said nothing, their silence screaming their agreement.
"Do you still need me to mediate? Or can the pair of you make your way to Arackniss' room without tearing each other to pieces?"
Arackniss was sleeping, finally. And after all that thrashing and squirming it was no wonder.
Henroin and Pentious sat motionless on either side of the bed, both keeping the silence from the canteen. The only noise being the occasional beeps from the heart monitor, strained whines from Henroin's chair as it attempted to deal with his bulk, and the brushes of Pentious' scales against the black shiny granite floor.
Henroin grunted, launching to his feet, a mangled unlit cigar clenched between his fangs.
"How much longer Doc?"
"About five minutes less then when you asked me five minutes ago."
The door banged open before Henroin could retort to Thorne's wisecrack. Molly and Angel stumbled in.
"Daddy," Molly wept, throwing herself round her father. "What's wrong with him?"
"Don't know sweetheart. But Thorne's working it out."
Angel looked panicked and approached his boyfriend.
"Any ideas Thorne?"
"Well, he's off the paralytic and his seizures have not returned, that eliminates all the deadly illnesses such as Huntington's. His psychosis makes me think schizophrenia, although spontaneous development is highly unlikely, given no family history of any mental illness…"
"You never asked," Arackniss croaked, shivering and blearily gazing round the room.
"Niss!" Molly cried, throwing herself from her father to her brother. Pentious not far behind.
Henroin just grunted in approval, but Thorne could see the corners of the scorpion's mouth twitching, and small tears catching at the corner of his eyes.
"…And the fact you're lucid," Thorne continued, "makes me think… an amphetamine-based stimulant. You're shivering, which indicates withdrawal from…"
The door swung open again, this time Lawrence stood there, with a grin, opened his mouth and…
"Ritalinic acid," Thorne smiled back.
Lawrence deflated, "how could you know that when I'm holding the…" Lawrence shrugged, "it's you, of course you know."
"What's that?" Angel asked.
"Ritalin," Thorne smiled, "just what every specialist needs on long assignments to keep them going."
"And the cure?" Molly asked, blinking back tears.
"Just let it pass through his system." Thorne stated matter-of-factly. Walking out of the room.
"What!" Henroin sputtered. Following Thorne to the reception desk.
"Just wait for it to pass," Thorne repeated, "might take a day or two. He can stay here till he recovers, in the meantime you can pay Persephone."
"Pay?" Henroin rumbled.
"Of course," Thorne confirmed beaming, "just because I'm dating Angel, doesn't mean that you get freebies."
The scorpion's face screwed up. He had to find a way of…
"You!" a female voice cried out.
Thorne and Henroin turned to the source, a talk, pink-skinned goat demoness.
Mayberry walked over to the demon doctor with a scowl, "You know what I promised to do if I ever saw you again."