{"sf1_id":867424,"sf2_id":"P1Egy3Om","title":"Amber Silverblood: Chapter Fifty Nine","author":"ThisAdamGuy","words":1327,"posted_at":"2015-05-30T13:24:00.000Z","tags":["Action","Adventure","Betrayal","Demon","Fantasy","Gangs","Ghoul","Mage","Magic","Suspense","Transformation","Urban","Urban Fantasy","Warlock","Werewolf","gremlin","wizard"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/867424-amber-silverblood-chapter-fifty-nine","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/P1Egy3Om","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/94/f2/94f2e73a-e445-41c6-bed0-061a3590ac2e","description":"#63 of Amber Silverblood\n\nAmber goes out on a limb and decides to take Victor's advice. Could their really be a magic doctor hidden somewhere in her city?","content":"Chapter Fifty Nine\n\n\"What's wrong with her?\"\n\nI froze in the hallway, holding Kimberly with her head resting on my shoulder.\u0026nbsp; D.K. was sitting in his normal spot in the living room, a bottle of beer in his hand.\n\n\"It's nothing,\" I blurted out.\u0026nbsp; \"She... she fell down and hit her head on the wall.\u0026nbsp; I'm just taking her outside for some fresh air.\"\n\nD.K. shook his head.\u0026nbsp; \"Stupid brat.\u0026nbsp; Whatever.\"\n\nMy face burned, and I wanted to snap at him to shut up, but I held back.\u0026nbsp; Kimberly was hurt.\u0026nbsp; I didn't have time to fight with the alpha snot.\u0026nbsp; Giving him one more scathing glance, which he didn't even see since he was staring so intently at the television, I gently adjusted Kimberly in my arms and headed for the door.\n\nThe cold was back today, and I was glad I'd thought to wrap Kimberly up in a coat before leaving.\u0026nbsp; Not just because of the temperature, but because I could raise the hood and keep anybody I walked past from seeing her face.\u0026nbsp; So much had happened since that night at the funeral that I could hardly believe it had only been a couple of weeks ago.\u0026nbsp; Even if Kimberly's parents still thought she was dead, nobody would have forgotten the five year old girl's body that had been stolen.\u0026nbsp; Better to keep her out of sight, just to be safe.\n\nIt only took me ten minutes to get to Walnut Street, and I followed Victor's directions from there.\u0026nbsp; Walnut Street was in one of the older parts of town, and most of the shops were worn down, family run places.\u0026nbsp; The building on the corner, according to the sign, had once been a shoe repair shop, but the dust on the windows made it clear it hadn't been open in a long, long time.\n\n_He said it was an abandoned building,_ I thought, looking the place over.\u0026nbsp; It could have been a trick.\u0026nbsp; I mean, we're talking about Victor here.\u0026nbsp; Sending a hurt little girl to an empty building in hopes of finding a doctor sounded _exactly_ like something he would get a kick out of.\u0026nbsp; I couldn't give up now, though.\u0026nbsp; Telling myself the worst that could happen was that we wouldn't find a doctor inside, I shifted Kimberly to one arm and grabbed the doorknob.\u0026nbsp; It turned without any resistance, and I glanced both ways to make sure nobody was watching before darting inside, closing the door behind me.\n\nThe inside of the shop looked exactly as it had from the outside.\u0026nbsp; No furniture, cracked and warped floorboards, and a layer of dust an inch thick on everything.\u0026nbsp; I had hoped that the windows outside were just an illusion, and I'd find a bustling waiting room full of sick magical things inside.\u0026nbsp; Obviously that wasn't the case, but I walked the inside of the building anyway just to make sure.\u0026nbsp; It wasn't like I had anywhere else to turn, so I needed to make darn sure that Victor was lying before walking away.\n\nThere wasn't much to see, though.\u0026nbsp; Just a closed door on the far side of the room, a few graffiti tags on the walls, and some mouse droppings I was careful to avoid stepping on.\u0026nbsp; Absolutely nothing that could give me any kind of clue as to where to find a weredoctor.\u0026nbsp; With a groan, I leaned against the wall, being careful not to jostle Kimberly.\u0026nbsp; Great.\u0026nbsp; Just great.\u0026nbsp; Now what was I going to...\n\nA door on the far side of the room opened, and a homeless man dressed in a filthy coat stepped out of it.\u0026nbsp; I looked up at him and blinked in surprise-- there was a _door_ there?\u0026nbsp; For how long, exactly?\u0026nbsp; I thought back, and remembered, vaguely, my eyes passing right over it a few minutes before.\u0026nbsp; It hadn't seemed at all important, but now that it was open it was glaringly obvious.\n\nThe man and I stared at each other for a full minute.\u0026nbsp; He looked almost as surprised to see me as I was to see him.\u0026nbsp; Finally, he glanced back through the door he'd just come from and then back at me.\n\n\"You here to see the doc?\" he asked in a gruff voice.\n\nI nodded.\n\n\"He's in there,\" he jerked his head back through the open door.\u0026nbsp; \"Don't let the door close before you go in.\"\n\n\"Dr. Munse is in there?\" I asked, my head still spinning.\u0026nbsp; I had been so determined to find him.\u0026nbsp; How had I managed to overlook the door?\u0026nbsp; I stopped leaning on the wall and faced him.\u0026nbsp; \"Why can't I let it close?\"\n\n\"Magic,\" he replied, and let the door swing shut.\n\n\"What magic?\" I asked, shaking my head.\u0026nbsp; \"And... sorry, but where did you come from?\"\n\nThe man opened the door again, and I suddenly remembered.\u0026nbsp; He had never taken his hand off the knob.\n\n\"Magic,\" he said again.\u0026nbsp; \"Makes you forget about it if you're not touching it.\u0026nbsp; Keeps people out.\"\n\nHe raised a gloved fist, and coughed into it.\u0026nbsp; Then, taking his attention off of me, he reached into his coat and pulled out a small bottle of pills, which he dug around in and popped two into his mouth.\n\n\"Get going, then,\" he said, pushing the door open and walking away from it.\u0026nbsp; I ran for it, catching it before it could slam closed again.\n\n\"Thank you,\" I said over my shoulder, but the homeless man didn't even turn to look.\u0026nbsp; I did, however, catch a glimpse of the tip of a furry tail poking out from underneath his coat.\u0026nbsp; Oh yeah, we were definitely in the right place, then.\u0026nbsp; I turned to look through the doorway, and stepped inside.\n\nSuddenly, everything was different.\u0026nbsp; The floor underneath me was made of clean, polished tiles.\u0026nbsp; The walls were painted a very sterile shade of white, and I could smell alcohol in the air.\u0026nbsp; I was in a large room full of chairs.\u0026nbsp; Some of them were occupied, but I tried not to look too closely at them.\u0026nbsp; We were finally here, and the last thing I wanted now was to get thrown out for staring at an overly sensitive monster.\n\nI stopped in front of a sliding window, behind which sat some kind of... pink thing.\u0026nbsp; It had gigantic lips, which were painted red with lipstick, and three eyes which poked out of the top of its body on stalks.\u0026nbsp; It looked up from its computer, its twin tentacles somehow still typing with pinpoint accuracy.\n\n\"How can I help you?\"\n\n\"Oh, I, um,\" I stuttered, realizing I'd already broken my \"don't stare\" rule.\u0026nbsp; I pointed to Kimberly.\u0026nbsp; \"She got hit on the head and she won't wake up.\u0026nbsp; Could Dr. Munse, um...\"\n\n\"Sure, he can take a look at her,\" the pink thing said, wobbling its squash shaped body in what I assumed was a nod.\u0026nbsp; \"What're your names?\"\n\n\"Amber and Kimberly,\" I said.\n\n\"All right, he's got a lot of appointments already, so you'll just have to take a seat and wait.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" I said, pulling my eyes off of the monstrous secretary with some difficulty.\u0026nbsp; \"Thank you.\"\n\nI picked a corner of the waiting room where I wouldn't have to look directly at any of the other patients and sat down.\u0026nbsp; And then, just like the name implied, I waited.\n\n\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; NEXT TIME: Amber waits! \u0026nbsp;I mean, this is a doctor's office, so what do you expect?\u0026nbsp; It would take more than a little magic to make a doctor move quicker.\u0026nbsp; But hopefully he'll get to see them before Kimberly DIES... I'm kidding! Or am\n\nAUTHOR'S NOTE: BIG EDIT, GUYS! Sorry, but it completely slipped my mind to mention this earlier. If you want a chance to win a FREE physical copy of my book Staying Human, go check out my Facebook page Author Adam Bolander. Entries will begin on Monday, and continue till Friday. Be there, be not-getting-a-free-book.\n\n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"Amber Silverblood","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/864914-amber-silverblood-chapter-fifty-eight.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/870021-amber-silverblood-chapter-sixty.json"}}