[author's note: Let's at least get him to a hospital. He's been bleeding for 10 weeks now]

Busted Seventh: a novel experiment
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Mitch tumbled into the back of the cab and immediately reached for his money clip. He peeled off a couple of bills, without looking at them, and handed them to the cabbie along with an explanation. “Look, I'm bleeding. The faster you can get me to an emergency room, the less likely I am to bleed all over your back seat.”

The cab driver seemed dubious, but quickly grabbed the offered money and nearly as quickly threw the car into drive.

Mitch sat rather uncomfortably in the back seat, half-laying down on his left side and keeping his injured shoulder away from the upholstery. No need to pass my misfortune along, he thought, and there was also a half formed thought that whatever might usually be found on a cab's seat would probably not be good for open wounds.

He took a minute to take a quick inventory. Ball point and notebook. Lighter. Cell phone. Napkin. Money clip, with $174. In the pockets of his jacket he found his passport, his wallet-- with all it's associated cards and receipts-- and the purple velvet bow tie. He checked the length of the bow tie, and along with a wadded napkin rigged a quick bandage over his shoulder. It's a shame I don't carry a handkerchief. When did those go out of style, I wonder?

He shook his head as if to clear cobwebs. I must already have lost a lot of blood.

And one last item: on the floor of the cab, where it had fallen from his hand when he fell into the cab, was about two and a half feet of narrow white ivory or bone. The shaft of the arrow he had been shot with. Mitch picked it up to examine it. It was smooth, for the most part, but even though he didn't see any engraving he could feel some sort of shallow carving along the shaft. The fletching was unusual, too, since the flights were carved from the same pale material, rather than the more typical feathers.

Typical? Hell, what's typical or usual about getting shot in the freakin' back with a cloth-yard arrow? Mitch thought. This isn't from your Ted Nugent fan at the local gun-and-tackle shop, this thing is a beast. I wouldn't be surprised if they'd needed a special compound bow

Mitch glanced out the window, and noted the driver was taking him straight down Cherry Street, probably to the University Hospital midtown. Fair enough he thought, and who do I know at the University or the Hospital? Besides Kate, that is.

##

He paid the driver and stumbled out of the cab. He had given up trying to apply direct pressure to the arrow wound, since it's location on his back made that almost impossible anyway. He managed to walk a more or less straight line through the automatic doors, and walked up to the desk at the far end of the waiting room.

“Can I help you?” a young receptionist asked without looking, before noting the pallor of Mitch's face, and the rather grim expression he wore on it. She stood and reached across the desk to help support the flagging Mitch.

“Yes.” Mitch replied. “I seem to have been shot in the back, and I was hoping you might have a doctor available.”

And then he passed out.

##

Still half asleep, Mitch thought he heard a voice. “Mitchell O'Connor O'Brien of Connaught. Seventh son of a seventh son. You have been called to serve.”

-- to be continued --