Trifecta

by Pam Richter

  Then she remembered the waves crashing at Waikiki beach and being pushed repeatedly under them. She saw the woman's eyes had the same other-worldly look she had seen in the women who had attacked her on the beach. The pupils were enormous, distorting the woman's face into dementia.

  Demented or not, the woman seemed to understand exactly when Heather remembered who she was. She smiled at Heather, and with her thin lips spread and smashed against her teeth, the lips appeared thick and revealed small feral teeth. She looked totally insane to Heather and it was the last thing she saw.

  The woman placed the pillow she had been fluffing directly over Heather's face and pressed down firmly.

  * * *

  There was an enormous hassle when Nakamura got to Michelle's apartment building. First, the guard looked him up and down, noting the filthy torn clothing of a man who appeared to have lost a serious bar-room brawl, and refused to let him in when no one answered at Michelle's apartment.

  Nakamura walked back to his car and used the car phone to call the private guard he had placed in Michelle's hallway for a reference to enter the building, but there was no answer. The other guard he had posted to patrol the building did not answer his phone either. Nakamura walked around the building's perimeter searching for him. The man was gone.

  Nakamura paused, wondering what to do when he saw a car enter the underground parking garage. The gate rolled up and the car went through. He waited about five minutes until another car was entering and then snuck in under the gate. He waited until the last possible moment so the motorist wouldn't see him. He just made it, his stiff body rebelling so that he fell and had to crawl under crab-like. He barely made it through before the metal banged to the ground and he wrenched his sprained ankle, pulling it through with only millimeters to spare. He cursed and waited until the tenant that he followed in, whistling and jangling keys, was entering the building to act like he had just parked there too. He was finally inside.

  Something was ominously wrong here, he thought, as he made his way to Michelle's door. His own private security guards were missing. That loud breathing had been creepingly sinister over the phone lines to Michelle's apartment.

  He repeatedly rang and knocked to no avail. He seriously contemplated breaking down the door and was looking around for something big to ram it with. Then he remembered that Michelle and Heather had traded keys in case of emergency. He would go to the hospital and see if Heather had Michelle's key. She might have an idea where Michelle was, too.

  He felt like he was wasting too much precious time already and decided, hell with it, he would go out the fastest way. When Nakamura walked past the guard at the entrance the man started yelling, "Stop. Stop, right now. I'm calling the police."

  "Go ahead," Nakamura said. Make my day, he thought, and kept moving.

  The guard was still waving his arms and yelling like a maniac when Nakamura got in the car and screamed away, spreading rubber for twenty feet. He kept checking the rear view mirror for the law, but the idiot guard evidently hadn't called them. No wonder someone had been murdered there.

  When he got to Honolulu General Hospital's imposing Information Desk, the nurse stationed there took one look at him and gave him directions to the emergency room. When she finally understood he had come to see a patient, not as one himself, she told him severely that it was after visiting hours. He could call the patient, but he could not go up and see her at this time. The nurse gave him the hospital telephone prefix and the number to Heather's room. When he dialed there was no answer.

  He could feel the frowning countenance of the nurse watching his back suspiciously as he loitered at the telephones near the hospital entrance.

  At least now he had Heather's room number, Nakamura thought. He would wake her up. He waited until the desk nurse was busy with some charts and slunk quickly down a side hall. He had no idea where he was and the hospital was enormous. They had moved Heather's room from Intensive Care where she had been the night before. He followed confusing signs, loping quickly toward the Burn Center. Once he had passed the night nurse at the front desk, though, there were friendly janitors and orderlies who guided him, seemingly understanding his urgency.

  Heather's room had a window in the door and he peeked inside before entering to make sure she was decent. What he saw was a nurse bending over Heather. He decided to wait. Then he looked in again. The nurse's back was toward him and she was still bending over the bed, but what he had seen out of the corner of his eye, during that first glance, was one tiny frantic movement from the bed. His second look into the room caused him to slam inside, banging the door against the wall.

  The nurse turned her head, still bending over, but the room was small and Nakamura saw that Heather was now perfectly still under a pillow the nurse was holding over her face.

  "Hey," Nakamura yelled. "What're you doing?"

  "Therapy. Get out."

  Nakamura hauled the nurse back by the collar of her uniform so forcefully that she landed across the room and banged into the wall. He turned around and pulled the pillow up. Heather did not seem to be breathing. She was lying, white faced and totally still.

  Suddenly the woman pretending to be a nurse was on Nakamura's back, clawing for his face from behind, her legs gripping his hips frantically. He tried to twitch her off and tend to Heather, but the woman was tenacious. He had to peel her arms away. He realized she was really drugged up and dangerous when she repeatedly came back ferociously, teeth barred and nails hooked into claws. He had to be more rough than he wanted to be with a woman. Finally he slugged her in the jaw. Then he turned around again.

  Heather had not moved an inch and was so motionless she looked like a tiny doll lying in the hospital bed. He tried her pulse and felt nothing. He was too late! He looked for the bell to call a someone and couldn't find it. Shit, call buttons were always attached somewhere. He didn't have time to look.

  Nakamura quickly forced Heather's jaw open and cupped his hands around her mouth and nose, blowing inside forcefully.

  "Hey! Stop that."

  Nakamura jumped back in shock. Heather was looking up at him with big surprised eyes, taking in enormous gulps of air. "We have to stop meeting like this. I feel like 'Sleeping Beauty.'"

  Nakamura couldn't help smiling. "Actually, Michelle did the mouth-to-mouth last time. I'm the one who broke your ribs."

  Heather coughed a few times. "Oh. I think thanks are in order, anyway. For both times."

  "Faking?"

  Heather nodded and sat up, wincing, to look at the unconscious woman on the floor. "I can hold my breath a long time. Only chance was faking her out. Last time I saw her she was naked. Dancing in Omar's Witch's Circle."

  "I thought I recognized her."

  "You sure arrived at a lucky time." Heather was now panting deeply and quickly, seemingly swallowing up air.

  Nakamura nodded. He didn't particularly want to call the police, but couldn't think of any alternative. The woman had been trying to kill Heather.

  "I have to get out of here. Fast. She's obviously working for Omar. What happened to your face?"

  "My car exploded. A rather strange occurrence. So I got worried that Michelle might be in danger."

  Heather was busy throwing off the covers and moved to a sitting position on the side of the bed. She started pulling off a bandage that held the intravenous tube in place on her arm.

  "What are you doing?"

  "I'm going with you. Omar probably expects that little babe to report in," Heather said, nodding at the unconscious woman on the floor. "When she doesn't, he might try something else. Would you help me with this? I'm a little squeamish about needles."

  "You can't just walk out." Nakamura kept objecting as he helped remove the needle very gently, taking care to pull it out at the correct angle. "You have to rest. You've been badly hurt." Then it dawned on him exactly what she had planned.

  "Shh. Someone might peek in at any moment," Heather cautioned, nodding toward the window in t
he door. She hopped off the bed and bent over the unconscious woman. Even with the broken ribs, Heather had enough pain killer inside so that she hardly felt the twinges. She started stripping the nurse costume off the comatose white haired witch. "Help me. She's too heavy for me to turn over."

  The nurses uniform was enormous on Heather. It was much too long but she belted it snugly and was ready to go.

  Nakamura picked up the unconscious woman and placed her in the bed, covering her to the nose with sheets and blankets. Luckily she had blond hair. He looked at his handiwork with satisfaction until he noticed that the plastic bag on a metal stand was emptying at an alarming rate.

  He found the plastic tubing and pulled it up frantically over the side of the bed. Without the resistance of a human body, the needle was dripping liquid rapidly. No way was he going to try for a vein to stop the flow. He removed the covers again and used the plastic tubing to tie up her arms securely. That effectively stopped the flow from the needle. It would have to do.

  They exited the building without anyone making a comment; one limping, the other a little bent over and holding her side, each helping the other walk.

  CHAPTER 28

  Both Nakamura and Heather were struck dumb when they opened the door to Michelle's apartment. They didn't need to turn on the lights; the devastation was clear from the light spilling in from the hallway.

  It was a serendipitous situation both were speechless. Instead of exclaiming over the wreckage, they were able to hear strange guttural noises spewing from the bedroom. A rough, raspy, male sound.

  There were several loud, feline, screaming wails, like an animal in the throws of pain or extreme panic. It was so quiet in the next few moments they could hear hissing, spitting and growling. The man had the cat cornered.

  Then there was a loud yell.

  Heather glanced at Nakamura and saw him shaking his head, his finger over his mouth.

  "She might be in there," Heather whispered. Omar had taken Lucifer from Michelle just last night. Why was the cat back in her apartment?

  "I don't think so."

  "She loves that cat. We can't let him kill it."

  "He's going to take it to Omar."

  Heather nodded, understanding. It was the giant, Omar's minion in the bedroom, trying to catch Lucifer. All they had to do was follow him; he was never far from Omar.

  Heather and Nakamura had discussed the terrible suspicion that Omar might now have Michelle on the drive to the condominium. They went to Heather's apartment first so she could change out of the nursing costume. Then Heather had grabbed Michelle's key and they went to her apartment.

  Now, they heard Samson changing his tactics. His humming voice was deviously sweet and gutturally seductive. The dulcimer sounds went on and on. Heather and Nakamura looked at each other in wide eyed surprise. Samson had a beautiful baritone, even without a tongue.

  Heather had to clamp her hand over her mouth to keep from bursting into laughter. The giant might never catch the cat, who was undoubtedly smarter than the giant, and much faster. She glanced at Nakamura and saw him smiling.

  A loud, angry yell. The cat had scratched him again.

  They both backed out of the apartment silently and let the door close on the mess and the animals inside. Samson Stoker seemed more beast than human. They walked quickly and silently down the hallway to the stairwell and stood with the door slightly ajar, so they could follow the man when he finally caught Lucifer.

  Both figured they were in for a long wait. They were wrong. Samson was backing out of Michelle's apartment a few moments later. He was topless and held his shirt carefully away from his body. The cat, trapped inside, was trying desperately to escape. It appeared as though the shirt held many fanatic beasts with hundreds of limbs poking for a hole, as the cat noisily struggled.

  Heather and Nakamura looked at each other. The man would never take the shrieking, struggling cat up in the elevator. He might meet tenants who would wonder if he was torturing animals. They glanced back just once to see Samson trotting down the hallway toward the stairwell where they had hidden.

  "Up or down?" Heather whispered.

  "Up. We'll go in the next hall. Make sure he goes past."

  They started up the stairs.

  * * *

  Suzanne saw a huge nose in front of her eyes, with brown glistening hairs sprouting from the nostrils. The nose filled her visual field, horrifying her. It moved even closer and there were loud distorted noises she thought were words, but she couldn't tell for sure because they seemed horribly gibbered and senselessly loud.

  Her gaze roved below the nose and saw thick lips pulled back over hideously yellow fangs. The teeth were there to chew her up. Suzanne gave out a tiny shriek, threw herself out of the chair where she had been sleeping, and ran for the door. All she had in mind was getting away from the nose and horrible fangs, which she knew would snuffle her out and tear her apart. She did not realize hallucinations were distorting her vision and hearing; that she was in the agitated and delusional stage of drug withdrawal.

  Suzanne's legs collapsed on the way to the door and she crawled a few paces, staggered to her feet and out the door. The dumbfounded security guard, not feeling so cool himself, went after her.

  Suzanne reeled to the elevator and pushed the button. She glanced behind her and saw the guard slowly stalking her. She pressed the call button for the elevator repeatedly, but the damn thing wasn't coming. She panicked again and started racing down the hallway toward the stairs at the end of the hall.

  Heather and Nakamura were hurrying up the stairs to get in position to see where Samson went with the cat, when a girl pulled the door open above them and started racing past them down the stairs. She was crying hysterically. They both stopped and watched her blunder down. She seemed to be having trouble with her legs, as she almost fell a couple of times on the dangerous cement stairs. Then the door above them opened again.

  Nakamura saw the man he was paying to guard Michelle's apartment, hurrying after the frightened girl. The guard he had believed was protecting both Michelle and Heather's security had abandoned his post, and was scaring the poor frightened girl who had just run past. Nakamura grabbed him angrily and started giving him hell.

  "You asshole. You're supposed to be protecting people. Not running after young girls."

  Suddenly there was an inhumanly loud shrieking noise. It sounded like someone was being hideously tortured from down below them. Nakamura stopped yelling at the guard and started down the stairs, toward the noise, with Heather following.

  Suzanne had almost blundered right into Samson Stoker on the stairs. She was suddenly aware that the man who frightened her most in all the world was right in front of her. It was the brut who had raped her wearing demon horns and nothing else. And now he was almost naked, which caused her to suddenly recall the scene in detail, with the candle light, the incense and the chanting of witches in Omar's apartment. It was the horrifying giant who had painfully raped her before all those witches and Omar. He was positioned right in front of her.

  The sudden memory was puzzling. Surely if Omar had been there he would have stopped the rape, but the confusing though was gone as quickly as it had come. The loud screeching of the cat was making Suzanne more crazed. Her heart, which had been racing before, was now overburdened and galloped. She fell down half a flight of stairs, landing right at Samson Stoker's feet, in a dead faint.

  Nakamura and Heather were not far behind and saw the young girl fall down. She was not moving for a moment, then suddenly she started having convulsions, her muscles violently contracting and moving her further down the stairs, past Samson, who stood momentarily paralyzed in surprise.

  "Grab her," Nakamura yelled at the giant. "She's going to get hurt."

  Samson Stoker looked at him, shook his head contemptuously, and continued on up the stairs past them with the squalling cat. It was the first time Nakamura had seen the monster close up and he shuddered. Michelle had described Samson
when she had told him about her rape, but seeing him up close in the flesh was a wrenching experience. The thought that this man had handled and hurt Michelle so badly was disgusting and infuriating. Nakamura wanted to hit the guy. Just smash his fist into the big ugly face. But he wasn't stupid. The giant was at least six and a half feet tall and could probably kill him with one blow. Anyway, the poor girl on the stairs had to be taken care of, but Nakamura vowed revenge. He would hurt the ugly sonofabitch if it was the last thing he ever did.

  Suzanne had stopped moving and lay face down, draped over several stairs. She was totally still.

  Nakamura ran down and knelt beside her, lifting her arm to make sure she had a pulse. The girl was unconscious but breathing, and the convulsions seemed to have stopped.

  "It's one of Omar's witches," Heather said. She knelt down beside him looking at Suzanne's face. "She's one of the women who tried to kill me on the beach."

  Nakamura saw the security guard standing dumbly behind them.

  "Use your phone, dammit. Call for an ambulance and wait with the girl. I don't want you to carry her downstairs. She may be hurt. Just stay here with her. Got that?"

  The guard nodded and took out his cellular phone to dial 911.

  Nakamura and Heather started up the stairs again. It was easy to follow Samson. The cat was still screaming it's head off in terror, the sound echoing off the enclosed walls of the stairwell like a wailing banshee. They hurried up three more flights. Nakamura was squinting in pain from his sprained ankle. Heather was breathing hard, afraid she would injure herself more with the exertion.