Nancy Holder - Daughter of the Flames

And there is no way for me to know that. None.

Freaked, she moved away from the terminal as casually as she could, while Julius finished his intake procedures, put the bag in one of his lockers and slammed it shut. Then he returned to the cage window and started fiddling with the radio. “Do you like smooth jazz?” he asked without looking at her.

“Sure,” she said, although she hated it. Right now music was the furthest thing from her mind. A wave of vertigo made her wobbly. She felt as if she were standing under water and the air in her lungs was all the air she was going to get—so she’d better hang on to it.

Eye-level on the shelf to her left, she saw one of Yolanda’s lockers. The three-by-five card in the pocket showed a strip of turquoise tape—Cratty’s. She walked over to it. Touched it.

She heard his voice inside her head.

“Beating him down in the subway tunnel. Filthy skel, lowlife piece of crap, hold out on me? Me?”

Izzy jerked her hand away. She glanced at Julius, who took no notice. I am hearing things. I’m crazy.

She spotted another of Yolanda’s locker cards marked with Cratty’s turquoise tape, on the same wall but two-thirds of the way down. She stared at it for a long, hard minute.

Then she walked over and touched it.

Nothing. Nothing at all.

She touched the eye-level container for the second time.

Nothing there, either.

Hallucinations, she thought. Her heart thudded; she could feel the vein in her neck pulsing hard. I need some sleep and maybe I need to see a shrink again. I’m in trouble.

At a late lunch the next day, in a joint around the corner from work, Yolanda pushed a business card across the expanse of red-and-white-checked plastic tablecloth and said, “Just go see her. There is something terribly wrong with you. You look like you’re dying.” She grimaced. “Sorry if that’s a sore subject.”

“It’s okay, Yolanda.” Izzy reluctantly read the card. It was for Dr. Mingmei Wei, Yolanda’s Oriental medicine doctor. Yolanda swore by her. She also paid her out of pocket, because their Department health insurance wouldn’t cover her services.

“It’s your chi, ” Yolanda opined. “It’s out of whack. What she does is like feng shui, only for people. Psychic chiropractic. You need to get readjusted.”

“Does your priest know about this?” Izzy gibed.

“This is not funny. You are psychically ill.”

She indicated Izzy’s untouched barbecue-beef sandwich. “When’s the last time you ate a decent meal?” She gazed hard at Izzy. “Are you pregnant?”

Izzy burst out laughing. “Please. There’s only been one Immaculate Conception.”

“I didn’t think you were.” Yolanda stabbed her finger at the card. “But—”

Flames. Heat, smoke. Lungs…searing…

The image of her father’s red, sweaty face filled her mind.

She heard him gasping, coughing. “Izzy…Gino…”

“Oh, my God!” Izzy cried. She jumped to her feet. Her chair clattered to the tile floor. “My father’s in danger!”

“What?” Yolanda said, reaching out to her as she rose from her chair. “Izzy, wait!”

Izzy bolted and ran outside. A black cloud of thick, oily smoke billowed on the horizon. In her mind she saw her father, saw a hallway, saw rats and shapes moving in the flames.

I’m not asleep, she thought as she ran. I’m awake, and Big Vince is in that.

She flew toward the smoke, picking up speed until her feet were barely touching the ground. Her lungs burned but she kept going, weaving around pedestrians who yelled and jumped out of her way like missed targets in a shooting simulation. It was as if someone else was operating her body and she herself had no choice but to propel herself forward.

Images roared into her mind.

Flames…rats screeching down the halls. Shapes moving in the smoke. Officer Vincenzo DeMarco. Detective John Cratty.

And a semiauto pistol—a .9 mm Glock—in a closeup that filled her field of vision.

Pointed straight at her father’s head.

A voice. “Filthy cop, you’re gonna die; no one shakes me down.”

“Hit the floor!” she screamed out loud.

Then abruptly and without warning, her astonishing burst of energy left her. She staggered forward, swaying wildly left, then right; she smacked against the side of a brick-faced building and slid down it, pitching painfully onto her side.

She was dimly aware of people crowding around her, asking her if she was all right. Should they call an ambulance?

“Hey!” Yolanda caught up with her. She was carrying Izzy’s coat and purse. “Hijo de puta, did someone mug you?”

“I’m okay.” Izzy ground the words out. Yolanda put her arm around her waist, helping her to her feet.

“Are you loca? ” Yolanda said. She whistled and waved as a cab approached. The cab swerved to the curb.

“Come on, Iz,” Yolanda said, helping her to the cab.

The cabbie peered at them and frowned as his window rolled down.

“Go toward 108th,” Izzy told him as they got in. To Yolanda, she ordered, “Get my cell phone, and call my father. Number one on my speed dial.”

The cabbie shook his head. “No way. See that smoke? The cops have got it blocked off.”

“You have to go there!” Izzy yelled.

Yolanda squeezed Izzy’s hand as she opened up Izzy’s hobo bag with her other hand and dug around. “Easy, mi amor. We don’t know your father is in that building.”

“You need a cab or not?” the driver snapped.

Ignoring him, Yolanda found Izzy’s cell phone and pressed a couple of buttons. She put the phone to Izzy’s ear.

“Cratty, ten,” came a raspy, hoarse voice. “Ten” was the same as saying “over” on a police radio phone.

“This is Izzy,” Izzy announced, confused.

“It’s John, Izzy. We’re in an ambulance. Smoke inhalation. They’ve got him sucking some oxygen but it’s just a precaution. We’re going to the Metropolitan.”

“He wasn’t shot?” she asked, her voice shrill. “Tell me if he was shot!”

“No, Iz. No. Just smoke.” He sounded a little off. “Meet us at the Met.”

Located on First, it was the nearest hospital. It was where Pat had taken his Aided last night.

And her father was with the guy she had seen in visions, beating people and skimming drugs. Why was he with him? Had he tried to shoot him?

Izzy said neutrally, “Thanks. Tell him we’ll be there.”

Disconnecting, she said to the cabbie, “Take us to the Metropolitan.”

“You got it.” He screeched into the traffic.

She said to Yolanda. “Call in and explain. You’re taking me in because I’m injured.”

“Works for me, mi’jita, ” Yolanda said, biting her lower lip as she smoothed Izzy’s hair away from her wound. “Especially because it’s true.”

Izzy and Yolanda both knew the way to the ER entrance of the Metropolitan Medical Center. Anyone who worked for the NYPD in this part of town eventually found him or herself here, if not for a perp or a personal injury, then for someone close to them.

She half crawled out of the cab while Yolanda paid the driver. An ambulance sat in the dock as two men in scrubs burst out from the ER double doors, a gurney rattling between them.

John Cratty got out of the ambulance, appearing from behind the open back door of the rig. He was wearing kicker boots, jeans, a T-shirt, and a heavy dark brown leather jacket. His face was covered with soot, but he was walking under his own steam. He motioned to the two men, pointing back into the ambulance.

Within seconds, Izzy’s father was loaded onto the gurney.

“Big Vince!” Izzy cried, hurrying toward them while Yolanda worked to stay up with her.

Izzy saw the portable O2 bottle propped against his shoulder, the mask over his face. There were saline bags and a defib machine on the gurney with him—oh, God, had he had a heart attack?