Dinah McCall - The Warrior

Once John had the man down and out, he gave in to the pain, leaning across the hood of the assailant’s car, bent double with the suffering.

That was how Alicia found him. The horror in her voice was evident as she arrived, out of breath and screaming.

“Oh my God, oh my God…You’re shot. He shot you. You need to sit down.” She started rifling through Dieter’s car, looking for his cell phone. She found it on the console and ran back to John’s side. “I’ll call for an ambulance. Oh…wait…I don’t know this address. What do I say?”

The pain in John’s leg had subsided to a dull throb. He pushed himself up from the car, took the phone from her hand and laid it on the hood, then grabbed her by the shoulders. “Stop. Look at me. I’m okay, see?”

“You’re not okay. You’re bleeding.” She yanked at his shirt, pulling it back so she could see the wound more clearly.

John gritted his teeth. Now it would come. He pulled away from her grasp, but she was still staring, her mouth agape.

Alicia could see where the bullet had gone in. Although the flesh looked red and swollen, the tear was almost shut. It didn’t make sense. She kept looking from the wound to John’s face and back to the wound again. Then he moved, and as he did, he put himself directly between her and the sun. Within seconds, Alicia’s view of him changed. All she could see was a dark silhouette, backlit by a halo of light. The skin on the back of her neck began to crawl as the thought went through her mind that John Nightwalker wasn’t human.

It was the only thing that made sense of what she had seen. He’d been shot. She’d seen him fall. The coppery scent of his blood was still strong in her nose, but the hole in his shoulder was almost closed. She looked down at his leg. The bloodstain on his jeans had quit spreading, too.

“How…?”

“It’s complicated.”

She wrapped her arms around herself and then took an unsteady step backward, staring at him in disbelief.

John had been there before, watching the looks on people’s faces, seeing the doubt, then the fear. Sometimes it bothered him. Sometimes it didn’t. Today was one of those didn’t-bother-him days, and besides, there were things yet to be done. He glanced down at Dieter’s unconscious body, then pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.

“Who are you calling?” Alicia asked, then got her answer when he began to talk.

“Hi, Carl, this is John Nightwalker again.”

“Hey, John. How you doin’?”

“Oh…okay, I guess—although I’ve had better days. Someone just broke into my property and took a couple of shots at me. Shot out a tire and my radiator, too.”

“For the love of Pete! You don’t say. Hang on. I’ll dispatch some help right out to you.”

John winced, then shifted the weight from his right leg to his left. “Thanks. I’ve got it under control, but I want to press charges. Could you send someone out to pick him up? Oh…you’ll also need a wrecker for his vehicle. I’ll be needing a wrecker, too, but I’ll call Shelby’s Garage down in Justice.”

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