The warm, acrid smell of urine wafted up as he wet his pants, and the convulsions intensified, his limbs banging against the hardwood floor with enough force to split his skin.

When the seizure refused to abate after two minutes, the nurse scurried off to call an ambulance.

When it passed the five-minute mark, Jenny shot Mort full of sedatives and anticonvulsants. At ten minutes, Jenny was practically crying in despair, Shanna right there with her. They each had their full body weight on Mort, trying to pin his bloody hands and feet, but they could barely keep him down, Mort choking and gagging on his own blood, coughing out bits of his lips and tongue that he'd chewed off.

Twenty-three minutes later, when the ambulance finally arrived, the nurse and Shanna had to assist two burly paramedics to get Mort strapped to a gurney, where they finally jammed a rubber bit between his snapping jaws.

The ride to the hospital was a blur, Shanna physically and emotionally drained. She managed to call Clay, but got his voicemail and had to listen to his outgoing message of Clint Eastwood saying, "Go ahead...make my day. BEEEEP!"

She left a monotone message that Mort had had an accident. She was on her way to Blessed Crucifixion Hospital, and he'd have to pick her up there.

Then she wept.

Arriving in Durango two months ago, Shanna had thought she'd landed her dream job. Being paid--and extremely well--for pure research. While many of her contemporaries loved field work, Shanna got off on studying what others had found. She was an expert on the evolution of primates, and when the so-called "Dracula skull" had been discovered four months ago, she'd regarded it with the same blanket skepticism as the rest of her colleagues.

When Mortimer had hired her to research the Dracula skull, searching for its pedigree, she'd had no idea he'd actually bought the thing. For the past two months, Shanna had been poring over research materials, trying to make a case for a human skull with vampire teeth. Other primates had oversize canines, but within the Homo genus, from australopithecine to modern humans, evolution had reduced tooth size with every subsequent speciation. She'd followed various fossil trails, even the barest and flimsiest of leads, but kept coming back to that same conclusion.

Mort had taken her failures in stride, encouraging Shanna to follow historical and genealogical lines, even though that wasn't her expertise. Between bouts of sitting with Mort and enduring his endless stories, she had managed to find a few more leads. The latest and most promising dated back to the Middle Ages--the Wallachian Order of the Dragon and its founder, Oswald von Wolkenstein. Supposedly, Oswald had a son with severe birth defects, which might have included dental deformities. There was scant historical evidence to support that rumor, but when combined with some other facts about the era...

Mort jerked against his restraints, making the cart rattle. The paramedics had pumped enough drugs into him to kill an elephant, but the convulsions hadn't abated. Shanna wiped away another tear, wondering if she should have seen this coming.

How could he have done something so ghastly? Senile dementia? Reduced mental capacity because of the morphine? Or had the old man planned to bite himself all along?

The whine of the ambulance siren faded as the vehicle shuddered to a stop. An intern opened the rear doors and slid out the gurney with one of the paramedics. Jenny, Shanna, and the remaining paramedic stayed behind.

Jenny touched Shanna's hand. "You okay?" she asked.

Shanna nodded, regarding the older, shapely nurse.

"I've been doing this for a decade," Jenny said. "Never saw anything like that before. You did good."

Shanna took little comfort in her words, but she managed a weak smile. "Did I have a choice?"

"You could've fallen apart." Jenny looked around. "Deputy Dawg coming to pick you up?"

"His name is Clay."

"No offense. That's just what my ex used to call him. No love lost between those two, let me tell you."

"I had no idea."

"Before your time. Randall would drink too much in town, and I'd wind up bailing him out, seemed like every other week. Think Clay'll give me a lift back to Mort's? I need my car."

"I'm sure he will."

And then what? Shanna wondered. She'd been planning to break it off with Clay tonight. He was a good guy and they connected--really connected--on a visceral level. But once the heady rush of novelty waned, reality had set in. The more time they spent outside the bedroom, the more she realized how little they had in common.

But she felt so drained right now. She didn't know if she had the energy to tell him. Or was she just making an excuse?

Maybe. Because Clayton Theel was one of the good guys, and she knew he genuinely cared for her. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt him. But their heads were in such different places. The gun thing, for instance. Guns frightened the hell out of her. But Clay loved them--lived for them. If he wasn't shooting one, he was modifying one or inventing one. She could not take another gun show, and she might claw her own eyes out if she had to watch Dirty Harry or Unforgiven again.

"Son of a bitch."

Both women turned to the paramedic, who was squinting at his finger.

"What's wrong?" Jenny asked.

"I think the old bastard bit me."

Jenny

JENNY Bolton entered the ER through the automatic doors four steps behind the paramedics pushing Mortimer's gurney. Though Jenny knew she was tough, she hadn't yet steeled herself to Mortimer's eventual demise. Being a hospice nurse meant losing patients--it was how the story ended every time. Much as she tried not to get attached--and then have to deal with the inevitable depression when they passed--Jenny wound up admiring, and even liking, most of the terminal people she cared for.

Seeing Mort so near death, weeks before his diagnosed time, brought a lump to her throat. This lump was made even bigger by her uncomfortable surroundings.

Once upon a time, Jenny had worked in this facility, in this emergency room. She'd loved the job, and since Blessed Crucifixion was the only hospital within sixty miles, it had been her sole option for being a fulltime caregiver.

But last year she'd gotten into a disagreement with one of the holier-than-thou physicians on staff, and his lies and bullshit had led to her dismissal.

God, she hoped that prick Dr. Lanz wasn't working tonight.

"Dr. Lanz! Code blue!" the intercom blared.

Shit.

Jenny kept her head down as the six-foot, broad-shouldered Kurt Lanz, M.D. paraded past, looking every bit as self-important as the day he'd gotten her fired. She knew he would have her escorted out of the hospital if he spotted her.

While Lanz barked orders at his cringing staff, Jenny slunk over to a nearby house phone.

She reached for the handset, then paused.

Should I call him?

Her ex-husband, Randall, had left no fewer than thirty-eight messages on her cell phone since being admitted two days ago for a job-related injury. Her brain-deficient, former significant other--a lumberjack--had somehow managed to cut the back of his own leg with a chainsaw. She wondered if he'd been drinking on the job. He'd fallen into drinking far too much off the job. Drunk on the job seemed the natural next step. He'd sworn time and again that he was off the sauce, but he'd made many such promises during their marriage, only to relapse.

Aside from the occasional glimpse of his bright red Dodge Ram Hemi driving through town, she hadn't seen Randall since their divorce was made final two years ago. Jenny hadn't been responding to his messages, even though they were increasing in frequency and urgency. But now, stuck in the hospital with Randall only two floors above, she might as well bite the bullet.