Mask of Fire Read online

  “I’m a doctor. I don’t know what you do, but I can’t just ignore sick patients. Especially since I’ve worked up—”

  An explosion rocked the old castle.

  Barton grabbed Fire by her waist as debris began to fall from the ceiling and instinctively moved her to a corner where the ceiling would be a bit sturdier. They could hear the people rushing and screaming above them, but he kept his body blocking Fire safe behind him.

  “Something tells me you’re going to need her assistance now,” Barton yelled at the cleric who was abnormally calm among the chaos.

  Everyone else seemed to be in a frenzy running to protect patients and rush to the stairs. Others were calling to find out what happened. Barton rushed back to the security screen he’d located earlier. In flickering black and white the transport train sat with the last two cars engulfed in flames. The track that connected the island to the North now lay in the sea with twisted metal sticking up in a vain attempt to be saved. He watched as the track sunk into the bay. A second explosion rocked the other side of the castle and he knew they were trapped. Even with a third train to the Central Cities operational the risk was too great to place anyone in a car.

  “You might want to find all the former soldiers in your order,” Barton commanded one of the few panic stricken clerics. “And send them up for triage, my lover will be waiting for the wounded.”

  Chapter Four

  Abby stood with her hands balanced on Barton’s hips. She needed the body for balance. In three minutes she’d gone from demanding to care for patients to crouching in a corner unsure of what was happening. Wounded? Is that what Barton has said? Was she supposed to treat wounded? Wounded what?

  “Wha… wha… what’s going on?”

  “Fire,” Barton turned and looked into her fear stricken eyes. “What kind of doctor are you?”

  “Emergency, I work with urgent needs.”

  “Perfect, we have an emergency, expect traumas.”

  “We need another doctor. I can’t… I… multiple.”

  Her training was shot to hell. She needed to be in her hospital. She needed to know where things were. A real nurse. Damn, she missed Quinn; that woman could do anything. She must be at the Gala. What did she say she was going to wear… damn it, she couldn’t go until next year.

  “Weren’t you just demanding to stay with your patients?”

  “That was before I was in… was that a bomb? Are we in a… are we in the middle of a battle?” Her thoughts were disjointed and she was attempting to grasp at anything even if it was just Barton’s hips. Her head stayed bowed, and he kissed the crown of her head.

  “Fire,” he whispered. “Even without your mask I would have come up with that nickname. You have a spark inside. While annoying, like when you demand to stay traditional, it will help you through this. The clerics need your help with triage. Soldiers should be coming soon.”

  “What happened?” she asked as tears from stress filled her eyes.

  “They bombed two of the tracks to the island.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “I don’t know, but after you take care of these patients I’m damn well going to find out.”

  Screams echoed off the walls as Abby saw people being carried in with blood dripping from open wounds. The smell of burnt flesh mixed with the metallic scent from the blood overwhelmed her senses. A second wave arrived, some with clear amputations, but it was the man with a jagged piece of glass impaling his side that woke her from the daze.

  Turning to Barton, even the empty blackness caused by his mask wasn’t enough to break the connection they had. His very presence seemed to balance her and make her stand tall. It was as if he could pull the fear from her and discard it. Why couldn’t he have been there before she walked into testing for certification? With a small nod of his head Abby knew what she needed to do.

  “Get him to a surgical suite now,” she barked as she pushed Barton aside. He stayed on her hip. “I need two IV’s and an anesthetist. Do you have someone who can do that?”

  “Yes Doctor,” a cleric said as she and two others ran to the farthest room.

  A checklist ticked off in her head as she remembered her surgical rotation. They had trained staff among the clerics, but they weren’t who she needed. Barton stood behind her scanning the room. Her chest ached when his jaw tensed at the sight of rebels storming up toward the castle. He couldn’t leave her, not and put himself in danger. The thought of losing him mixed with the fear of surgery on her own triggered an emotion she’d never experienced. Tearing up her spine it spread across her skin, and she called for him before she could stop herself.

  “I need a surgical assistant.” Abby pulled on Barton’s arm. “I can talk you through it. They need all the medical staff out here. Can you assist me?”

  “I’m here to serve you in any possible way.”

  There were times when she wanted to smack the smirk off his lips. He was lucky they were both still wearing surgical masks so she couldn’t see his face fully. His focus turned sharply, and she saw a dark skinned man walking down the stairs holding pressure on what was left of a woman’s arm.

  “That’s the doctor from the train.” He ran to the man, spoke quickly to him, then pointed to her. The dark skinned man passed the woman off to a set of clerics.

  “What have you been seeing?” he asked with his blood covered bare torso.

  “Were you hurt?”

  “No,” he confessed. “I was in a station when the explosion happened.”

  “A cleric pulled me because of the fevers. One woman died. Were there sores on the men in your hospital?”

  “Sores? Not that I noted. Where are they?”

  “On men it’s around their hips.”

  “What is the presentation?”

  “Doctor,” a cleric called from the furthest room. “His pressure is dropping.”

  “I have a patient with a foreign object in his gut,” Abby apologized. “Can you run triage? There must be more doctors and nurses here. If a surgeon shows up send them to relieve me.”

  “Will do,” the doctor suddenly took in the mayhem as Abby took off with Barton to scrub.

  ****

  Barton scrubbed his fingernails with a brush to get out any dirt missed by the clerics during his last cleansing. He needed to keep his focus on Fire at this moment. It’s not like he could strap on a dozen weapons and take out this rebellion singlehanded. Besides, Fire’s blue eyes looked as if they were going to burst with tears but a minute ago. Once he agreed to help, she calmed. She needed him in this moment, and he would be there for her; not because it was his duty, but because she actually needed him.

  “Did you get images?” Fire asked the cleric as she ran water in the basin.

  “You didn’t tell us to.”

  “Right and you don’t have protocols for trauma care.”

  “Not really.”

  “Take them now. You have mobile imagers correct?”

  “Yes.”

  The cleric rushed from the room, and Fire began scrubbing up to her elbows.

  “Hopefully he hasn’t hit anything big. My surgical rotation wasn’t my favorite.”

  With the patient sedated Fire looked to the images on the screen. Barton watched as she sized up the damage and the best way to extract the foreign object. In the field he would have given the man a strap of leather to bite and yank, but then again they tended to have evac vehicles in bound within minutes of any injury. For the first time in a decade he missed his stupid communicator and the shit talk from the guys.

  Above them the ceiling trembled from the movement in the foyer, and a third explosion let them know they were fully trapped. Even the line to the Central City of Remaldy had been destroyed.

  “Someone will come for us won’t they? The armies?” Fire asked as she began to extract the shard. Her blue eyes pleaded with him to tell her she’d be safe.

  “At some point. The ones that aren’t here are in space monitoring for off plane
t attacks.”

  “What of the ones here? Couldn’t they—”

  “The male soldiers are all in loin cloths, the female ones…”

  “Right.” Fire returned to her analysis.

  Time, place, and opportunity. Barton had questioned everything in his life. Inside he felt the drive to war and fuck, but he was duty bound and suppressed the urges. Now with Fire his control was waning.

  Fear crept across Fire's face, and he wanted to pull her into his arms and cradle her. Strange to feel that way when women no longer wanted that from a man. Protection came from within, wasn't that what a woman had once told him? He believed she must have been a soldier the way she acted. Strong, confident... Not like Fire. Fire had a spark to her that told of the danger that could befall him if he dared to love her. It told of the way her touch could scorch him if she held on too tightly. Yet, he wanted the burn, the brand that could only come from a woman who loved him.

  But was he too late? Had her mark already been made?

  She looked at him as sweat beaded on her forehead. The skin between her eyes knitting together reminded him of his own frustrations.

  "Clamp," she called, and Barton came out of his head in time to pass her the instrument.

  The glass had been removed and now she was cutting off blood flow from a squirting vein. Her fingers glided inside the man's stomach, but her eyes were locked on his. There was a disconnect he hadn't felt from her before, and he knew although her eyes were locked on him, she might as well be blind. She was using her hands for sight.

  "Barton, I need you." No sweeter words had ever been said from such full lips. "Where my finger is I need you clamp then hold the vein so I can resect it and create a graft."

  Barton shook himself from his perverted thoughts and focused on the job at hand. Saving a life. Here he was with a belly open in front of him and blood gushing, and all he could think about was Fire and the feel of her skin. He followed her hand and clamped the second bleeder off.

  "This is it," she said. "I need your full focus."

  "You've got it."

  "I... I..." She began to stutter. He realized she did that right before she took a chance. Like she wasn’t as sure of herself once her decision was made.

  "Fire, I'm here for you."

  She seemed to calm at his words until she swiftly reached for a scissor-like tool and quickly snipped at the side of his face. A loud buzz came from his mask as it floated, then fell on the side of the patient. The cleric nurses gasped, but Fire took it in stride.

  "Tradition or not I need to know where your eyes are at to do this."

  ****

  Abby feared looking in Barton's eyes as much as she desired it. Perhaps because of the desire she knew the danger of knowing him intimately. The eyes could bind him to her for all eternity... Or push him away forever.

  For a moment Abby was no longer in a surgical suite wrist deep inside another human being’s gut. Barton’s eyes were golden. She’d known of women who bought contacts to have beautiful eyes as that, but she had never seen them in real life. But there they were, golden like the first level of a sunset staring back at her from above his surgical mask.

  “We good?” he asked.

  “Yes… I… I… I just needed to walk through the steps in my head.”

  Able to see Barton’s eyes she made the cut and used the graft she hoped wasn’t too old from the Island’s supplies. Releasing the two clamps the blood refilled the vein and she watched for bubbling. None. She breathed out in relief.

  “Can you close?” she asked the nurse.

  “Yes.”

  “Good, close, bring him to a room to recover. I’m sure we’ll need this room again in a minute.”

  She looked at the clock. Ten minutes. Only ten minutes had passed. It seemed like a lifetime, but when she scrubbed out and opened the door reality smacked her to the point she froze again.

  “Good, next up I need your opinion. I have a compound fracture or a chest wound,” the doctor she spoke to earlier called.

  “Have you found a surgeon or any other medical personnel yet?”

  “Why actually yes. The fracture is on a surgeon. It involves her femur and has arterial factors. I’ve been nervous moving her.” Abby looked at the woman whose bone was jutting out between her legs. She’d been struck from the side and the bone must have snapped under the pressure.

  “And the chest?”

  The doctor pointed behind her and she saw an open chest wound currently being packed. The patient’s head lolled to the side, and Abby had to make a decision she’d never had to before because her hospital was top of the line. She should be the one stabilizing for another doctor to care for.

  “I… I…” clutching her fingers into a fist she focused on the surgeon. “Send her in. Did they get images?”

  “Yes, I’ve forwarded them to the surgical suite.” The doctor came closer and mumbled. “Are you sure? That chest—”

  “I just had to graft using a five year old sample. There’s no bypass, barely any equipment. I’m not even sure if they have casting material for her leg after I reset the bone.”

  She could see the concern crossing his forehead and suddenly another buzz sounded as she snipped his mask away. At first he appeared shocked, then he shook his head in acknowledgement.

  “Do we have a way to get them off the Island?” Abby asked.

  “Not yet. They locked us down here until the Island’s secure. We still haven’t figured out who’s out there.”

  “What about the people upstairs? Did we get all the wounded?”

  “No, not by a long shot.”

  Abby snapped back to medical school. You can’t save them all. We don’t live forever. In comparison to the species we’ve encountered among the stars we have a fraction of their life span. Within a blink of an eye your patient’s life will expire.

  “Let’s save who we can then. As soon as that door opens send the next patient with a nurse who’s been treating them to give report. I’ll rotate out the nurses in there. Barton will be my only constant. When patients stop rolling in I’ll be out.”

  “Will do. I’m Dr. Roth, by the way.”

  Abby looked at Barton, then back to the doctor. “Stone, Dr. Stone.”

  With limited surgical equipment Abby might as well have been on her Army rotation. Strange how a planet with no real history of aggression against each other kept getting pulled into wars among planets in search of alliances. Why should they have to help in other’s wars to prevent wars in their own land? At least the other planets had allowed for their segregated units. Abby had spent a month keeping people patched together, but even then she had the luxury of an evac helicopter.

  Four hours and over two-dozen patients later Abby was eyeing the door in expectation as she held the wall up. When the door hadn’t moved in three minutes she slid down the wall and rested her arms on her knees. Across from her Barton rubbed his eyes, then slowly opened them again to flash her with gold.

  Releasing the knot from her scarf she released her hair and tried to come back to the day at hand. Her sweat covered surgical mask was the next to go. She needed five minutes where a war she had no idea about didn’t exist. It was as if she’d been dropped in the middle of the ocean and all she wanted was a minute on a floating log to rest.

  The slippers she’d put on her feet came off and she opened one eye to see Barton rubbing her right foot. His thumb pressed on the ball of her foot and she could have melted to the floor.

  “Firestone, what’s next?” Barton had added her surname an hour or so into surgery.

  “If I was at home I’d spend about seven hours dictating and charting what I just did, sadly I don’t think I could remember what I did to half the patients.”

  “Then? What do you girls in the South do?”

  “Slide into a warm bath with a glass of sweet wine and… a bath pillow.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “No.”

  “Not even a little boat to pla
y with?”

  Abby chuckled at his joke, then stilled when she heard the unyielding swish of the door.

  “Dr. Stone… I need you in the isolation ward.”

  Abby’s head lolled to the side as she eyeballed Dr. Roth.

  “We have an isolation ward?”

  ****

  “We’ve had three more crash from the fever,” Dr. Roth said as the three of them entered a larger cell that had been converted into a ward. Fire reached for a fresh surgical mask, only to have Dr. Roth stop her. “It’s not airborne. If it was everyone would be infected by now.”

  “Have any other emerged?”

  “Yes, six.”

  Barton looked at the people practically stacked on top of each other. Lethargic and moaning in pain, Fire and Dr. Roth began brainstorming when he heard a newscast from the other room, so he stepped into the hallway.

  The hallway wasn’t much better. Women huddled and crying on the other’s shoulders with gauzed wrapped around limbs, heads, and torsos. Marks from dirt and soot covered them, and he wondered if anyone was still alive upstairs.

  “News has come from Harvester’s Island that militants from the North have set off multiple explosions including ones disabling the train systems.” The female reporter began with views that had to be from Remaldy. All he could see were distant fires. “Due to the security risks we cannot give you aerial views. We did send news cameras only to have them be shot out of the air. At this time we have a video sent by a member of the cleric sect calling themselves the Ascendancy.”

  A camera, shaky at first, showed a cleric with their head down. Traditional taupe robing covered their face and body.

  “We are the Ascendancy come to bring forth a change in society.” The gravelly voice hit Barton instantly. Did the reporter say this was from the Island? “We shall destroy this Island and its restrictive traditions. The sexes shall no longer be separated. From this day forth we are returning to the way the Gods deemed we are to live. The Royal family has been taken hostage. They will be tried for crimes against all of Lextra. When found guilty the punishment shall fit the crime. We are not children or chattel to be commanded from a castle on a hill.”