Without them, it’s pretty tough to get anything done. Or see anything more than an arm’s length away. Seriously. I’d once mistaken a dressmaker’s mannequin for my girlfriend. Reading was all but impossible without them. Reading.
My great nightmare is to be stuck somewhere without them, trapped, peering at the sea of fuzzy things that couldn’t possibly be identified. When I’d been a kid, the first thing the bullies did, always, was knock my glasses off. Always. It was like they’d all had a sixth sense or something.
Then they would start having fun with me. That wasn’t a delight, either, but it was the not knowing what was coming that made it all worse.
Inside, that kid started screaming and wailing, but there was no time to indulge him. I had a problem to solve—and the Carpenters had given me the tools I needed to solve it.
For instance, they’d taught me that once things are this close, you don’t really get a lot done with your eyes when it comes to fighting. It was all speed and reflex and knowing where the enemy was and what he was doing by feel. I was sloppy and it took me a second, but I managed to lock the bum’s arm out straight. I kept it moving, got my body to twist at the right angle to put pressure on the shoulder joint, and brought him flat onto his face on the sidewalk with enough force to send stars flying into his vision and stun him.
It didn’t stun him much. “No hospital!” he screamed, thrashing. I fought to control the fear that was running through me. He was operating with more strength than he should have been, but it didn’t matter. Physics is physics, and his arm was one long lever that I had control of. He might have been bigger and stronger than me, and the way we were positioned that didn’t matter in the least. He fought for a few more seconds and then the burst of frenzy began to peter out. “No hospital! No hospital.” He shuddered and began to weep. His voice became a plea, rendered flat with despair. “No hospital. Please, please. No hospital.”
Then he went limp and made slow, regular rasping sounds.
I eased off the pressure and gave him his arm back. It fell limply to the sidewalk as he cried. “Buddy,” I said, “hey, it’s going to be all right. I’m Waldo. What’s your name?”
“Stan,” he said in a hollow voice.
“Hey, Stan,” I said. “Try not to worry. We’re going to get you taken care of.”
“You’re killing me,” he said. “You’re killing me.”
“Your pulse is erratic, your breathing is impaired, and your eyes are showing different levels of dilation, Stan. What are you on?”
“Nothing,” he said. “You’re killing me. Damn you.”
In a few minutes, the ambulance arrived. A few seconds later, someone tapped the side of my chest with my glasses and I put them back on. I looked up at an EMT, a blocky black guy named Lamar. I knew him. He was a solid guy.
“Thanks, man,” I said.
“You tackle this guy?” he asked. “Shoot. You ain’t no bigger than a chicken dinner.”
“But spicy,” I said. I gave him everything I had about Stan, and they got him checked, loaded up, and ready to head out to the ER in under four minutes.
“Hey, Lamar,” I said, as he was rolling the gurney.
“Yes, Examiner Mulder?”
“Scully was the ME,” I complained. “How come no one calls me Examiner Scully?”
“ ’Cause you ain’t a thinking man’s tart,” Lamar drawled. “What you need?”
“Where are you taking him?”
“St. Anthony’s.”
I nodded. “Is there anything, uh, odd happening over there lately?”
“Naw,” Lamar said, scratching his chin. “Not that I seen. But it’s only Tuesday.”
“Do me a favor,” I said. “Keep your eyes open.”
“Hell, Butters,” he said.
“Let me rephrase that,” I said. “Let me know if you see anything odd. It might be important.”
Lamar gave me a long look. I already had a reputation and history with supernatural weirdness, even before I met Harry Dresden and learned how scary the world really is. Lamar had gotten a few peeks at the Twilight Zone, too, over the years, and wanted nothing to do with it, because Lamar was pretty bright.
“We’ll see,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said. We shook hands and he left.
Michael came to stand next to me as the ambulance pulled away.
“You hear that?” I asked him.
“Most of it.”
“What do you think?”
He leaned on his cane and blew out a slow breath through his lips, frowning in thought.
“I think,” he said finally, “that you’re the Knight now, Waldo.”
“Somehow, I just knew you were going to say that,” I said. “It might be nothing. I mean, I suspect Stan was strung out on uppers and downers and God knows what else. And if some commuter had been the one to try to wake him, he might have strangled them. Maybe this was a low-level warm-up quest, you know? That might have been the whole thing right there.”
“Maybe,” Michael agreed, nodding. “What does your heart tell you?”
“My heart?” I asked. “I’m a doctor, Michael. My heart doesn’t tell me anything. It’s a muscle that pumps blood. My brain does all of that other stuff.”
Michael smiled. “What does your heart tell you?”
I sighed. I mean, sure, it could have been something really simple and easy—mathematically, that was possible. But everything I’d seen about the supernatural world told me that the Knights of the Cross were only sent into matters of life and death. And, like it or not, when I’d decided to keep the Sword of Faith, I’d decided to get myself involved in situations that would be scary and dangerous—and necessary—without actually knowing exactly what was going on, or why I was being sent.
I wasn’t really hero material. Even with my recent training, I was small and skinny and rumpled, and I’d never drunk from the fountain of youth. I was a mature, nerdy, Jewish medical examiner, not some kind of daring adventurer.
But I guess I was the guy who had been given the Sword, and Stan needed my help.
I nodded and said, “Let’s head back to your place.”
“Of course,” Michael said. “What are you going to do?”
“Get the rest of my stuff,” I said. “And then check up on Stan at St. Tony’s. Better safe than sorry.”
MICHAEL PULLED UP to the hospital in his solid, hardworking white pickup truck, and frowned. “God go with you, Waldo.”
“You still don’t like it, do you?” I asked him.
“The skull is a very dangerous object,” he said. “It doesn’t … understand love. It doesn’t understand faith.”
“That’s what we’re here for, right?” I asked him.
“It’s not for me,” Michael said, setting his jaw.
“You think I should take it on my first quest with me?” I asked.
“God Almighty, no,” Michael said.
“Just keep an eye on it until I get back.”
“If it fell into the wrong hands …”
“It won’t be my problem, because I’ll be all dead and stuff,” I said. “Michael, give me a break. I don’t need you rattling my confidence just now, right?”
He looked chagrined for a second and then nodded. “Of course. If you weren’t the right person, the Sword wouldn’t have come to you.”
“Unless it was an honest accident.”
Michael smiled. “I don’t believe in accidents.”
“I’d better get out. If God has any sense of humor at all, you’re going to get rear-ended any second now,” I said, and got out of the car. “I’ll call you when I know something.”
“God go with you,” Michael said, and pulled away, leaving me standing on the curb alone.
Just me.
Oy.
I took a deep breath, tried to imagine myself about two feet taller than I actually was, and walked quickly into the hospital.
MOVING AROUND A hospital without being noticed is pretty easy. You just wear a doctor’s white coat and scrubs and some comfortable shoes and walk like you know exactly where you’re going.
It also helps to have a doctor’s ID, and an actual MD, and to actually be a doctor who has sometimes worked there and to actually know exactly where you’re going.
I’m a doctor, dammit, not a spy.
“Patterson,” I said to a lanky ER nurse with a buzz cut and a lumberjack’s beard. “How’s my favorite druid?”