Chapter 57

March 25, 2002 – 16:15

The Northerners' practice was nearly over. Coralis stood on the ground, her chin resting on the tip of her stick as she listened to her coach. Her pager went off. It was Stephanie. She figured she'd call her back when practice was over, as there were only 15 minutes left to it.

A few minutes later, Sebastian's phone vibrated. He looked at her, and her pager went off again.

"I'll go call her back, sounds like an emergency," whispered Sebastian in her ears.

She nodded. He came back 2 minutes later and raised his hand to signal the coach's attention.

"I'm sorry, coach, but I need to leave now, and so does Blue," said Sebastian.

She looked at him, suddenly worried, thinking something must have happened to Frank.

"Very well, we're almost done here anyway. Everything okay?"

"Yeah, if only bad guys only did their things when we're off work."

Sebastian turned around to walk toward the locker room, Coralis following closely behind me.

"What happened? Is Frank okay?"

"Trouble at Healing Moon. Stephanie said it's similar to the case you worked there the day she found out about you, but worse. She also said that her bosses can't reach out to the CMMA. Knowing we only had a practice today, she figured she'd try to call you directly."

"Mind to pass me your phone? I need to call Eva. I know I need to get one of those mobile phones and uh, I don't think I want to use my satellite phone to call her right now."

Sebastian pulled his phone out of his cloak and handed it to her as he pushed the locker room door to grab their stuff.

"Trust, I understand very well. I don't even want to use my hologram to reach out to Emery. Get yourself what humans call a burner phone."

"Erik and Henry told me the same thing," she said as she dialled Eva's number.

When done with her call, she handed back the phone to Sebastian and he called Emery.

"All right, so I go pick up Eva in Laval, and you head directly there to open up a portal for Emery. You guys check the wards and try to keep shit contained until we arrived."

"That's the plan."

They bumped fists while taking off and headed to where they needed to be. Emery was at CMMA headquarters in Winnipeg while he waited for Sebastian to call him back. In the meantime, while waiting for Sebastian to open up a portal to Healing Moon, he spoke to High Fay Ellya.

"I need to look into this, thanks for letting me know. When you get there, open a portal into a janitor closet that leads here. I'll reach out to Finnas and we'll meet you there. With everything going on, I want to personally have a look at this."

Healing Moon was at a very short flight distance from the flyball field. Sebastian quickly found a spot to land near the forest behind the clinic. He jumped off his stick, shrank it and slid it into his cloak pocket. He kept wanting to get a stick that he could turn into a keychain, so he could better blend in among the humans, but always forgot about it. He walked deeper into the forest and opened up a portal for Emery.

"Blue is picking up Eva and will meet us here. She wants us to make sure the mess is contained until they arrive and to check the wards."

"Tell me why again Blue is still an apprentice with the EBEE?" said Emery as they walked toward the clinic's front door. "I understand you two are primarily flyball players, but Blue should be a team leader."

"Well, she is my leader, no offence to you."

Meanwhile, Frank pulled into the Healing Moon parking lot. It was the first time he went to his sister's work and was glad he didn't get lost trying to find her workplace.

"Crap! I entirely forgot you were supposed to pick me up at work today," said Stephanie as he walked into the clinic.

Frank looked around and saw her friend Clarissa slowly walking to a door behind the reception desk covered in blood, holding onto another woman.

"What's going on?" he said just as Emma walked out of the emergency room.

Emma stopped in the middle of the lobby. Stephanie walked around the reception desk and looked at her boss.

"He's my brother, Frank. I told you my car broke down. I came here with Clarissa, but uh, he agreed to pick me up after work and I forgot to tell him to come later," said Stephanie, then turned to face her brother. "We're in the middle of a mess, like, Blue is on her way here."

"Seriously? What happened?"

Sebastian and Emery walked through the front entry.

"Frank? What in gods world are you doing here?" he looked at Stephanie and Emma. "Blue is on her way. We left the field together, but she had to pick up Eva. We only had one portal on us, and Agent Emery was coming from Winnipeg."

Jessica walked out of the emergency room, covered in blood.

"Is there a closet where I can open up a portal for two CMMA elders to come in later?" said Emery.

"Sure, I'll show you," said Jessica.

"All right, so before I go out there to check if your wards have been compromised, I wanna make sure the mess is contained until Blue and Eva arrive. Frank, Blue will have my head if something happens to you. I now remember Stephanie telling me about her car problems, you can leave with her now or I can drop her off at her place later if her boss still needs her."

"I just got here, I don't even know what's going on."

"Does he know about us?" said Emma, looking at Stephanie.

"Yes, he does."

"Last year, Agents Blue Thunder and Eva Suri came to investigate a case where a fay tried to summon the wolf out of a patient. They quickly resolved it. Today… I think we got something worse than that. Three patients presented similar behavioural symptoms, but worse, and we got three unconscious in the emergency room, including an employee," said Jessica.

"That's what Stephanie told me on the phone. Do you guys have a room that could be warded against any sort of intruders? Any other humans on the premises? Thankfully she and Frank know about us, but can't have anything happening to them"

 "No other humans in here at the moment. They can go in the security room or the staff room."

They went to the security room. Stephanie insisted she wanted to follow the action through security cameras. They warded the entire room and windows, checked the rooms their patients were and walked outside to check at the facility's wards.

"Does that happen often when you're at work?" asked Frank to his sister.

"Not that often, but it's the first time I need to be locked up and away from the action."

Sebastian and Emery walked back inside to guard the patients' room. Through the monitors, Frank and Stephanie saw Coralis and Eva appearing behind the facility and rushing inside. They followed them as they headed to the patients' rooms.

"Do you have sound available?" said Frank.

"I really don't know. I can usually follow what's going on live, but it's also the first time Sebastian gets here before Coralis does. Last time Sebastian came here for a case, patients were spitting out ghouls, it wasn't anywhere as bad."

They watched Stephanie's bosses unlock room 3B. Coralis and Eva rushed in and Jessica closed the door behind them as soon as Emma walked in, carrying a chain. Frank was studying the panel in front of him. He wanted to be able to hear what was going on and play with the cameras' movement.

"The chain my boss is carrying is made out of silver. If not mistaken, it is also coated in a wolfbane solution meant to weaken werewolves and lycans, well, most types of moon shifters," said Stephanie.

As soon as they walked into the room, Coralis and Eva quickly approached the patient. The clinic didn't know her name, so on file she was known as A. They quickly glance at each other and focused back on A as she charged on Coralis. Coralis quickly stepped out of the way, and Eva jumped on A, shifting into her wolf form mid-air, and landed on A's back, with teeth aiming for her collarbone muscles.

Eva remembered the last case where the infected werewolves had been contaminated through saliva, so she made sure that A couldn't bite back. Coralis spread her hands, to sense the energy surrounding A. She closed her eyes to add her own and wrapped A with a layer of air meant to restrain her.

Jessica approached her with a syringe filled with a sedative when she noticed that A couldn't move, and emptied it in her neck. A collapsed on the ground but was still awake. Her body was shaking, fur coming in and out of her arms and legs. Eva stepped away from her body and Coralis and Jessica flipped her on her back.

"When I got here, the woman holding the syringes compared this to something that happened last year. Is this what you saw?" said Frank, while watching the scene from the cameras.

"Not exactly. This is worse. Last year, I watched through the door's window with Clarissa. She was injured just before you arrived, so she is in the emergency room."