Walking through another corridor strewn with bodies, Trubel willed herself to be numb. It didn't work. Hell, even Eve seemed shaken by the carnage in the Hadrian's Wall compound. Since hooking up with the organization, Trubel had mostly interacted with Chavez, Eve, and Meisner. She hadn't become close with the rank-and-file soldiers. At heart, she wasn't a "joiner". Still, these were people she had worked beside, sharing meals and jokes and a mission. She stepped over the bloody remains of the woman who had given her a haircut when she was first let out of her cell ("Don't let Harmon do it or you'll end up looking like G.I. Jane!"). Propped in the corner was a guy she'd filled in for once, so he could see his girlfriend on her birthday. His arm had been torn off and his throat ripped out. She hoped the latter happened before the former.
So far, they had found nobody alive. A few agents were out of the compound when Black Claw hit, and there might be some who hid or escaped. Meisner wouldn't be one of those. Dead or alive, he would either be where the fighting was worst, or where he could do the most good in terms of coordinating defense.
The door to the main control room was ajar. Trubel pushed it open and peered in, heart racing with dread. She recognized a colleague leaning against the far wall, clearly dead, and her peripheral vision detected bodies on the floor near the left wall. But her gaze was riveted to a form lying face down in the middle of the room. Oh God. Please be alive. Please. She wasn't sure whether she whispered it, or only screamed it inside her head.
"He's here," Eve announced to Nick and Hank, who were behind her. Trubel hurried to Meisner's side and dropped to the floor. "Meisner? Meisner!" she called.
No response. Though almost afraid to touch him, she carefully rolled him onto his back. If he was breathing at all, it was very shallow. There was blood . . . everywhere. It looked like it had been seeping from his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears, leaving streaks through his mustache and beard. His hands and clothes were bloody too, though Trubel couldn't see any serious entry wounds. Based on the blood spatter, he'd apparently crawled from the far corner of the room, over glass and other debris, which might account for some of the minor abrasions. His skin was ashen, with a blue tint around his mouth. He looked dead.
"No. No. No," Trubel whimpered. She lightly touched her boss' face. His eyelids fluttered.
Eve, who had been feeling for a pulse with one hand while the other hand hovered, fingers outstretched, a few inches above Meisner's chest, said, "He is alive." Then, meeting Trubel's gaze, she added in a slightly softer tone, "He won't be for much longer."
Eve explained, "He is cyanotic and his pulse is fast and weak." She held her hand above his throat and continued, "I think there was some kind of traumatic asphyxiation. He is breathing a little now, but inadequately. His body is shutting down."
"Rosalee . . . or a hospital?" Nick suggested.
"This is far beyond herbal cures. Brain damage has likely already started; by the time we get him to a hospital, it will be . . . severe. They could put him on life support, but he would not recover."
Trubel was listening, but her mind resisted processing what the other woman said. She looked down at her mentor. She knew it was childish, but she found it hard to think of him as someone who could die. As if to reinforce this notion, Meisner's eyes opened. At first there was no sense in them, but then they settled on her and she could feel that familiar strong personality. Blinking hard, she smiled and said something brilliant: "Hi."
This is the part where you're supposed to tell the injured person not to try to talk. Screw that, Trubel thought, I want as much evidence as possible that he's still here. Meisner's lips moved a little, but Trubel didn't think he was trying to say anything, just struggling to breathe a little deeper, which she was also in favor of. "That's it," she encouraged, "You're gonna be alright." When he seemed to be losing focus, she prodded, "Hey, hey – stay with me." It worked. Tired blue eyes met her own.
She snarled at Eve, "He didn't drag himself through broken glass so we could friggin' give up on him!"
"I didn't say we should give up," Eve responded, sounding as close to hurt as she ever did. Hank appeared next to her, handing her a dented-but-intact first aid kit. They had passed the medical bay, which Black Claw had strategically reduced to rubble. But it made sense that the attackers wouldn't have bothered to destroy every single medical kit; Hank must have gone to find one. Eve opened it, took out large syringe, and attached a formidable-looking needle. She pushed up Meisner's shirt, stabbed the needle into his chest, and drew red-tinted fluid into the syringe. Meisner didn't even flinch.
"Nick! The stick!" Trubel exclaimed, to blank stares all around. She elaborated, "We can use that magic stick you found in Germany to heal him!"
Nick's face lit up, but then he frowned, "Yeah, we can try it. But I don't have it with me, and by the time I get it here, it may be too late."
Eve said, "I don't know what kind of 'magic stick' you are talking about, but we can't stay here while you retrieve it. Black Claw may send a follow-up crew. We need to go someplace secure."
"Is it safe to move him?" Nick asked.
"Of course not," Trubel snapped, "But it's his best shot. I say we take it."
Eve nodded. "There may be functional oxygen tanks with the underwater gear, and I can re-start his heart when it stops along the way."
Trubel didn't like the "when" in that sentence, but she was happy to have a plan. Meisner's arm twitched. She took his hand in hers. He didn't seem much aware of that, but something like approval passed through his eyes when Trubel said decisively, "Let's go!"
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Trubel and Eve deposited Meisner on the bed in Nick's loft, and Trubel raced for the tunnel to get the stick.
Meisner had lost consciousness when she and Nick lifted him up from the floor of the compound, and he hadn't regained it since. Being suspended by his arms between them made his breathing even worse, so Nick put him over his shoulders in a fireman's carry. Trubel went with them to the car; Hank and Eve detoured for the oxygen and met them there. Trubel held Meisner's head and shoulders in her lap in the back seat, keeping him in a modified recovery-position, while Eve perched between the seats mcgyvering an oxygen mask out of an emergency respirator and a scuba tank. She explained that she would rather not intubate him, since she'd never done that on a human before. When Hank had asked whether it was different on humans versus wesen, Eve told them that the last person Juliette intubated was a poodle.
Nick and Hank got out near the precinct and Eve took over driving. They only had to stop once, when Trubel lost Meisner's pulse. Apparently Hexenbiests are great defibrillators.
Trubel made it back to the loft from the tunnel in record time. It was only as she unwrapped the stick that her apprehension toward the thing resurfaced. They really had no idea what they were dealing with. She had grown comfortable with the idea that wesen existed, that some wesen had unusual abilities, and that she was able to see things other people couldn't. None of this was especially supernatural; it just meant that nature was weirder than she previously thought. But a magical healing stick? That's straight out of Harry Potter. If she had a choice, she would stay as far away from magic as she could. She didn't have a choice.
She held the stick out to Eve, who turned it over in her hands and studied it intently. "So, uh, what do we do?" Trubel asked.
Eve replied, "I have never seen anything like this before. It is powerful. Probably dangerous. Did Nick tell you how to use it?"
Trubel shook her head. "He just said he was holding it, and Monroe's wound healed." When Eve went to hand the stick back to her, she drew back a little and said, "You're the witch—you do it."
Eve's lips quirked into one of her many non-expressions. "That would not be wise. It is a Grimm artifact. A Grimm should use it." She felt Meisner's carotid pulse and added, "Do it quickly."
Trubel accepted the stick back. Okay, since Nick did it by accident, there can't be much skill involved, right? He hadn't said anything about touching the stick to Monroe directly, just holding it while he touched the Blutbad. But Trubel figured she would cover all the bases. There was no specific wound to heal, yet Eve had said that the injuries may have started with strangulation. So, Trubel held the stick in her left hand and touched it to Meisner's neck, while at the same time, she placed her right hand over his heart. When nothing happened immediately, it occurred to her that direct physical contact might be necessary. She slid her right hand underneath his shirt. His skin felt cold and clammy.
She waited. Just as she was starting to feel like an idiot, she realized that she couldn't detect Meisner breathing at all. Dismayed, she looked over at Eve. But before she could say anything, Meisner inhaled in a sharp gasp and started coughing convulsively. Trubel helped him roll onto his side, where he proceeded to cough for several minutes, bringing up maybe half a liter of blood. Trubel smirked: hopefully Nick wasn't too attached to that pillowcase.
Grinning ear-to-ear, Trubel pulled a chair up next to the bed. Meisner was noticeably less cheerful than she was. He mumbled, "Ich habe getraumt . . . Wo . . . Wo sind wir hier?"
"I'm so happy to hear you talking," Trubel chuckled. "No idea what you just said."
Meisner sat up and looked around. Voice hoarse, he asked, "This is Burkhardt's place? What is going on?"
"Yep. Eve and I brought you here. What do you remember?"
"Black Claw hit us. Destroyed us . . ." He trailed off, lost in thought.
Meisner no longer looked like a corpse, but his color—what little could be seen beneath the blood—wasn't great. Taking his pulse, Eve asked, "How do you feel?"
"Okay."
"Care to elaborate?"
"Like I was run over by a truck."
Trubel laughed out loud at his interpretation of "okay". It wasn't that funny, but she was so giddy right now that she might laugh at just about anything.
Meisner smiled sheepishly, adding, "Well, maybe a not-so-big truck." He tried to get up, but couldn't quite get his feet under him. Trubel helped. Once standing, he swayed a little and said weakly, "I think I need to lie down."
Trubel eased him back down to the bed. Eve flipped the pillow to the less-gory side. He was out as soon as his head touched it.
"Should we be worried?" Trubel asked Eve, worrying.
"I don't think so," said Eve. "Your 'magic stick' appears to have done its job. His vitals are good and he seems cognitively intact. Extreme fatigue is a common side effect of mystical interventions, and he did lose a lot of blood. Let him sleep."
A short time later, Hank called with the news that Nick had been arrested for slugging Renard. Apparently his fury at his boss for coercing Adalind into taking Kelly then claiming the boy as his own, and for the deaths at HW (which, as far as Nick knew, might include Meisner), had boiled over. Not for the first time, Trubel wished Nick had taken her up on her prior offer to whack the Captain in the parking lot—would have saved them all a lot of hassle.
The four of them had agreed to keep Meisner's survival, if he lived, under wraps, and instead spread the story that he'd died along with the rest of HW. It would be safer for Meisner if Black Claw thought he was dead, and it could give their side a tactical advantage in the future. So, to avoid any chance of being overheard, when Hank asked, "How's that stick working out for you?" Trubel just replied, "As advertised. I've got no complaints."
After hanging up, Trubel explained the situation to Eve, concluding, "Hank's heading back here. Wu will keep an eye on things at the station. Black Claw seems to be trying to round us up one by one—we've gotta go get Monroe and Rosalee before they do."
Both women looked over toward the bed. Dealing with whatever their enemies might throw at Monroe and Rosalee could be a two-person job—might even be another trap. Though Hank would hopefully be here soon, Trubel didn't feel right leaving Meisner alone while incapacitated. She didn't have as much faith in the security of the loft as Nick did. After all, she'd found the place herself, and Black Claw could've gotten the location out of Adalind. They needed someplace where Meisner could hide out for a little while to recuperate, with someone they trusted, but off the Black Claw radar.
She knew just the place . . .
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Next up: Adalind. Please review!