My Story Sect. 03

When she arrived at Nico's flat she was greeted by an open door and the smell of warm roast beef and freshly baked bread. She walked in to find Nico and people she later found out to be his tenants from this and several other buildings enjoying lunch during a tenants meeting. Nico acknowledged her and waved her into the hall where they were all seated around a large oak trestle table. She had not noticed this room let alone the door to it last time she was here but his home was different. She sat in on the tail end of this meeting and just looked around this room at all the artifacts lining the walls. More family portraits some of which even depicted the men with women were placed in this room. It then dawned on her that with the exception of these paintings; there were no females present in any other painting she saw through out his home. Even the simple chairs she sat in reminded her of something she would see in an old Robin Hood movie. It amazed her the care that was taken in all these objects. Many fine far eastern tapestries adorned the walls while fine rugs lay here and there clearly of Persian or middle eastern origin. His family certainly did travel a lot.

After about 20 minutes the tenants meeting came to an end and Nicodaemus ushered his guests out and split most of the leftovers among them. The rest he first offered her and having already eaten she turned him down. He made himself one last hot roast beef sandwich and put the rest at least two pounds into a bowl. Once the last tenant left the door closed on it's own as it had done the previous week then Nico let out a banshee like shrill whistle. She then heard a loud thumping that turned into a galloping and from around a corner came a massive dog breed that she had never seen before. It had the height of a great dane or Irish wolfhound but the girth of a Neapolitan mastiff. He whistled again and two more similar dogs came tromping into the guest hall. Slightly smaller she correctly assumed they were females. They had huge broad heads with slight under bites and lots of slobber. The male was a light fawn colour with a black muzzle and closely cropped ears while the females were more of a red colour with natural floppy ears. Their paws were nearly as large as a dinner plates and they had five toes instead of four toes and a dewclaw. Although she thought better of being surprised after last week she could not help herself. "What are those?"

"They are dogges." Nico told her.

"I know they are dogs I meant what breed or mixture of breeds?" she rolled her eyes at what she thought was his clear attempt at sarcasm.

"No, they are not D-O-G-S, they are dogges, D-O-G-G-E-S."

"I feel kinda' silly her but I have never heard of a dogge before. Is it a German breed or Dutch maybe given the spelling?"

"No," Nico began his explanation. "This breed if you want to call it that predates all other dog breeds and in fact is no even Canis familiaris. Besides 7 other secluded breeders world wide and myself you will never see or hear of these animals except in very obscure old science books and some religious texts. What we call dogs today are a mixture of these guys here and earlier forms of Canis lupus and other spitz type species. These are the direct ancestors to the ancient mastiffs used by the Romans and the many other early civilizations during battles and for protection. Oddly though they are African in origin. As you know wolves can not bark but dogs can. The ability to bark comes from their "side of the family". These pups are nearly a year old and still have some growing to do."

"Pups?!? They are like three feet tall at their shoulders. My parents bred great danes and their largest make was only 38 inches at his shoulder."

"Yes the males top out at around 42-44 inches at their shoulder and females around 39 to 40 inches and weight 350 to 200 pounds respectively. Unlike many deep chested dog breeds, dogges do not have proportionately small hearts and have twice the lifespan of a typical mastiff style dog. Ok enough about Brutus and his girls lets go up to my lab and get to work.

Over the next few hours they ran first a DNA test to make sure they were the same species and began the insemination process once they confirmed it. Once more the chemistry and attraction between them was very apparent and each flirted with the other like to silly teenagers while they worked. They were almost naturally at ease with one another and even exchanged a few light friendly hits and taps at each other's jokes and lab pranks. It was early evening when they finished but being September it was still quite light out at 5 pm. He invited her out for a walk and suggested they walk the few blocks to Penn's Landing on the waterfront. She excitedly agreed and stated she could certainly use some fresh air after being at the zoo and in his lab most of the day.

Once down there they just sauntered along and walked past the ice rink, which would be opening again later in the fall season. The two just talked about all his animals and she was in awe at his extensive knowledge. Secretly and kind of humorously they each tried very hard to worm their ways into one another's mind. He bought her a pretzel and a chili dog at a street vendor and by now was not hiding his mutual feeling of enamoration with this lovely creature. He had blocked out the entire world around him except for her, noticing every line, every curve, and little beauty mark on her face and neck.

Instead of trying to look into her mind he was now looking into her eyes through the doorways to her soul. Her eyes creased as she began to laugh. She had spilled some chili from her mouth while taking a bite. She took off her top shit leaving her now in just a spaghetti strapped tank top. Nico then felt a slightly warm spray on his face. Gillian's expression quickly changed from happiness to shock then to fear and pain. Simultaneously a lot pop was heard. They both immediately realized what was happening, gunshots. While using all his mental abilities to study her and try to read her mind he had blocked out the rest of the world and did not know of the two rival punk drug dealers flanking them. How could he have been so careless?

While taking only a fraction of a second for each to realize what was happening it was already too late Gillian had been shot in the right shoulder, the large caliber bullet going right through her and almost grazing Nicodaemus. She fell into his arms and he immediately began to feel rage and attempted to take action despite the consequences. He lay her down next to him and reached out for the gunman in front of him. He and the assailant locked eyes and the gunman began to now shoot directly at Nico. Sploosh! Splat! Two bullets went right through Nico's chest and exited his back splattering blood on Gillian who was stable but losing blood and consciousness. Nicodaemus clenched his outstretched fist and the gunman fell to the ground and balked over in massive pain.

The rival to Nico's rear also began shooting. His bullets came from a slightly smaller caliber gun but pierced Nico's torso more rapidly. In front of her eyes Nico was being turned into a block of Swiss cheese as eight smaller bullets entered him but were not powerful enough to leave him. Nico spun around and this time Gillian was able to see what was happening. She could not believe he was still standing. As consciousness left her she saw clearly the large holes in Nico's chest through his light linen shirt. She saw the look of rage in his face as he glared at the second assailant. Just before she passed out she saw the second gunman's chest burst but heard no gunshot only saw Nico looking at him. In Gillians last moments of consciousness she felt Nico fall exhausted beside her and knew if she awoke he would not.

She woke to the sound of approaching sirens. Cops hopefully an ambulance she did not know. Her eyes began to flutter open as she wondered how long she had been unconscious. She raised her arm to look at her watch and realized it had been less than ten minutes. A man in the forming crowd asked if she was alright and she did not reply. Wait a minute, she had just lifted her arm, her right arm to see her watch. Before passing out she felt the bullet go through her and knew her right shoulder had been shattered. Although very sore and still bleeding it was by no means shattered and she, despite some pain, could move it quite well. She looked down at herself. Surely the hole had been much larger but maybe she was in shock. She then looked over to Nicodaemus as sense began to return to her.

His body lay dead on its side and slowly bleeding inches from her own wounded body. Through the crowd paramedics arrived to begin to administer first aid. "We have one male with one possibly two gunshot wounds to the chest and three to his back" the paramedic called over his radio. "Female victim appears to have an abrasion to her right shoulder or it could be blood from male victim."

Abbrasion! She had been shot! What an incompetent fool. Not only was he unable to count the number of holes in her partners back and chest he could not tell a gunshot from a big scratch! Before speaking her mind and yelling at this idiot she looked at her shoulder and saw he was right. There was no gunshot wound. Not even a hole remained and her bleeding had stopped. Amazed she looked over to Nico and saw the paramedic's count was correct maybe even high. Other paramedics began pouring through the crowd one carrying a defribulator. Two medic were about to rip Nico's shirt in preparation for cardiac resuscitation when his body spasmed. Every one including Gillian jumped back a little at this and Nico sucked in a deep breath of air. Gilian saw what happened she saw the bullets go through him she saw the holes felt him fall. Surely it was not her imagination that made her pass out she knew she felt the hot sting of lead penetrating her shoulder then exiting her upperchest.

"OH MY GOD!" exclaimed a newly arrived medic, "This man is alive we have to get him to a hospital! Ma'am are you ok do you want to accompany your boyfriend to the hospital?"

"Oh he is not my..." she stopped herself in mid sentence. Wow her boyfriend it was a nice thought in fact moments ago she thought of Nicodaemus as her partner had she not. "Yes please let me ride with him." She was helped into the back of the ambulance and told to look out as the stretcher was rolled in. In amazing speed he was hooked up to monitors and I.V.'s were started to deliver much-needed electrolytes and sugars.

"Hey I think this heart monitor is messed up. Man so is my blood pressure sleeve, Damn this stuff is useless."

"What are you complaining about now?" a second paramedic asked.

"All my equipment shows him being stable and having a very slow but steady heart rhythm and blood pressure." His temperature however was far above what any normal human could tolerate. At 112.3 degrees any human body would have shut down nine degrees ago not to mention the wounds he suffered to be in this ambulance.

"Open his shirt up and listen with your stethoscope and time it with a watch, here use mine." When they opened up his shirt they were once again amazed.