Legends of the Damned: A Collection of Edgy Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels

by Lindsey R. Loucks

  Of course there was no way that the door would stay open. The fates would have to be in my favor far more than they had demonstrated in the last twenty-four hours. No. Whatever fates had been given charge of my destiny had some humility in mind, as well as raw exposure on par with a combat veteran.

  The first strike from the hellhound slammed Patient 888 directly into the closet. The blow elicited both a shriek from myself, as well as caused the doors to shudder open in recoil from the impact.

  Fortunately, the terror was now something that I would be able to experience first hand, as opposed to sitting helpless in the dark, like a child. The hellhound and I made eye contact. It was all I could do to maintain that eye contact, though I am proud to say, I didn’t tear away. I imagine my response was something more like a stubbornly bewildered victim, as opposed to a fierce warrior — but we all start somewhere. Lucky for me, there was an actual warrior positioned between myself and the beast, which meant that I still had some room to grow.

  With the closet door open, I was given front row seats for an arena styled battle between Patient 888, and a literal “Beast from Hell.” Armed with nothing more than a baseball bat, I couldn’t help but be impressed.

  The hellhound would lunge at him from the side, and he would jam the bat down the beast’s throat and push it into the ground. Of course, has the bat actually been able to fit down the throat, the beast would have been dead — but it was too fat on the stocky end. Had the bat been a proper weapon from a legitimate ‘arsenal’, the wolf would have likely been impaled by now, and the battle done. As it was, Patient 888 had nothing more at his disposal than a solid steel practice bat, and a hospital gown.

  I watched as he yanked the bat quickly out from the back of the beasts throat. The powerful jaws and teeth actually drew sparks from the surface of the bat. If it weren’t for the incredible strength of the fighter, the bat likely would have ended up with the same fate as the antique rifle in the study. As it was, the bat lived for another strike. Regardless of the weapon's status, powerful claws took a swipe out at the fighter’s feet. The attack brought him down to the ground even as he pulled the bat away from the beast’s throat.

  Instead of pouncing after him, the hellhound dove up and over the fallen fighter toward the closet. The beast came at me in slow motion, and I remember realizing that if I didn’t take some form of action, I was going to die. This would be the end of a very sad, and disappointing life path. Something inside of me reached out with the intent of making a claim. I was not going to stand by and let some nightmare spawn claim me. I would not be a bystander to my own demise if I could help it.

  I fired.

  It was a dangerous move, and I could have easily shot Patient 888. I didn’t think about that much, actually, and instead, pulled the trigger as many times as possible. Given that the gun was pointed in vaguely the right direction, I was satisfied to realize that the bullets did pierce through the body of the wolf. I could tell I had scored a number of successful hits. As the animal flew forward, there were slight movements in the wolf's body which indicated it had suffered an impact. I was off, in my aim though, and at least one of the three bullets hit the bat.

  Patient 888, being a more formidable warrior than I had given him credit for, had placed the bat upward at a sharp angle, in the center of the beast’s weight. I imagine, if I hadn’t gotten in there and fucked things up, the hound would have been launched above the closet, and my life would have been spared — no big deal. The bullets had hit both the hound, and the bat. The assault caused the beast to spiral out of control, fall down, and pin me, momentarily to the ground.

  The weight of the animal was crushing, and the smell was like dead fish soaked in gasoline. I opened my mouth, trying desperately to regain the wind that had been knocked out of me, and all I could do was inhale the scent of decay and destruction.

  In a moment, the beast was pulled off of me in a brilliant arc away from my body. I watched as the demon animal’s jaws snapped toward me; its claws dug into the hardwood floor, trying to secure its target. I swear I heard my name escaping its mouth once more in those same guttural noises.

  “GRrrooooOOMA!”

  In a Herculean effort, Patient 888 launched the beast into the wall. The launch broke the nightstand which had held the handgun into little more than kindling.

  “What do you want with her, Beast?” the man demanded. “What is the name of he who sent you?”

  The hellhound only repeated the name of its intended target — my name, again, and again.

  Patient 888 was on it with bare hands this time, wrestling it to the ground, and straddling its back with his own muscular frame. I heard another sickening crack, and realized with horror that Patient 888 had cracked the animal’s neck right there before me. As the hellhound began to dissipate into shadow beneath his body, I rushed from the closet.

  My brave protector had collapsed, on top of the splinters of a pretentious nightstand — blood flowing freely from his body.

  15

  Roma

  Bedsheets were the nearest thing on hand when I went to bind up his wounds. Of course, I didn’t have a very thorough idea about what to do, but at the clinic, they had given each of the attendant nurses a cursory knowledge in first aid. I knew enough to keep him from dying then and there on the floor, but beyond that — I knew I was way out of my league.

  I wanted so badly to ask him an endless chain of questions, but I knew now wasn’t the time to ask those questions. It took every ounce of strength in my will not to drown the poor man with demands and questions. As a matter of fact, the only reason I knew it wasn’t time to engage in that kind of questioning was because of the intense amount of blood.

  I had never seen so much blood come out of a human being. To be honest, it scared my mouth shut. He must have seen my internal struggle, because he kept repeating the same phrase over, and over.

  “It’s all right, mortal,” he said. “I’ll heal.”

  The last time he had survived the attack in the clinic, there had been an immediate correction of his wounds. He had been given a new lease on life immediately afterward, and all signs of physical damage had disappeared from his body. Now, in my room, all I saw was a wound on his arm that was too close to a main artery for my liking.

  He continued to repeat himself, over and over, but still he didn’t heal.

  I did some fast thinking, and made the bed sheet into a tourniquet using one of the more sizable splinters from the broken nightstand. When I was certain that it was secured, I put my fingers on his forehead for a moment, and then tried to give him a sense of comfort.

  “I’ll be right back,” I told him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  He didn’t respond, except to continue forward in his same mantric way, “I’ll heal… I’ll heal, mortal… I’ll heal.”

  I wasn’t certain, but soon more words came out of his mouth which sounded more like they might have been used in a mass. The image in my mind of the two demons back at the clinic came up, and I forced myself to remain present.

  With a sprint, I made my way to the kitchen. The whole house looked like a scene out of hell, or a war zone, but I didn’t care. The time for theatrics was over, and the time for worrying and anxiety had yet to begin.

  I had no idea why he saved me, or how he had even found me. I didn’t know what was going on, how he had trained to fight, or exactly what sort of nightmare he was saving me from. I was so far outside of my element in all of this that in order to continue to function, I had to let go, and reduce myself down to a functioning part within a whole.

  “Just like breathing,” I told myself, while grabbing a bottle of booze from above the fridge, and a sewing kit from the drawer near the telephone. “You don’t control your breath, that’s the job for the automatic nerve system. Trust in the central nerve system.”

  Useless, tangentially related facts which reminded me to continue to breathe were my mantra. Whether or not the man was actually something besi
des ‘mortal’, he sure looked like he was dying. The stove clicked to life, and I grabbed a pair of barbecue prongs from the island countertop. Thumb full of needles into the prongs, and the prongs into the fire, and soon enough I had glowing hot sewing needles and booze. I ran back to the master bedroom, carrying my prize, totally neglecting to turn the stove off as I did.

  When I got back, he was still muttering in Latin. His eyes were closed in pain. He was holding his wound with one hand, and performing an imaginary rosary with the other. The tourniquet had held, which, I have to say, gave me a boost of confidence in my first aid abilities.

  “You,” I began, feeling as though I should say something to direct his attention back into the present moment. “Have lost a lot of blood.”

  The obvious statement didn’t help either of us, but I did see his eyes twitch, so that was a plus. I poured alcohol over his wound, just below the tourniquet. I watched as his eyes winced in the pain of the bourbon, and then took a swig myself for good measure. Then, I pulled the longest needle out from the grip of the barbecue tongs, and got to work.

  My focus and ability to give stitches was higher than I thought. Dealing with the blood was kind of problematic, but he was a good sport about the whole thing. As a result, I didn’t have to feel like a sadist, stabbing needles into another person’s body. My satisfaction grew as I successfully pulled one stitch and then another, closed. The wounds, which had been ragged, and gushing blood were now manageable.

  What’s more is, the man’s heart was still beating.

  “I knew letting you die on my carpet was a bad idea,” I told him, again, lamely trying to break the tension of a difficult situation.

  “I’m sorry, I’m nervous,” I offered. “I just talk when I’m nervous. I have this feeling that if you actually died, you wouldn’t turn into shadow, and I’d probably end up really depressed. You’re all stitched up now, so we’ll get you to a hospital.”

  He had ignored me, up until that point, but once the “H-word” came out of my mouth, you can forget about it.

  “NO!” he yelled, his eyes opening wide. “NO! No hospitals. None. I will heal, mortal! … I will heal.”

  The outrage had been momentary. I knew someone who suffered from a lack of vitality when I saw one. He was hurt pretty bad, but if that strong of a reaction came out in response to the hospital, then I supposed it would be best not to take him against his will.

  More blood came out from my stitches, and then stopped. The defiant wound brought a scowl to my eyes, but ultimately he passed out and I felt the glow of victory.

  Then, there was a knock on the door in the hallway.

  “Miss, I’m from Animal Control… we received a call from this address, and I let myself it. Are you all right?”

  16

  Roma

  I rode with him to the hospital. Of course, Animal Control wouldn’t have it any other way. If I had been only a bit more confident in his chaotic response, I might have pushed to solve the problem of his being wounded in another way. Unfortunately, I was not nearly as clever, or resourceful as was necessary, and the Animal Control responder wouldn’t give me any morphine.

  Can’t say I didn’t try.

  When you’re unconscious, you don’t have much control over what other people do with your body. It took all of three minutes for the Animal Control responder to get an ambulance en route to the apartment. There was an emergency response vehicle close by. Both Patient 888, and myself were on our way to the hospital within fifteen minutes after I had finished my final stitches.

  I rode in the back of the ambulance, holding his hand, and growing increasingly worried that he was entirely unresponsive the whole way there. The EMTs in the response vehicle were busy checking his vitals. They were obviously concerned with him, though they had enough compassion not to push me away from his side. I’m not sure if the compassion was part of a measured, humanitarian response to the suffering of their patient, or if it was authentic. for all I know, what I interpreted as compassion could have been a mistake of oversight. Regardless, we arrived, and I was permitted to stay by his side the entire time.

  Convenience, or coincidence, Dale worked at the closest hospital to our apartment. I didn’t realize it until we pulled into the emergency room driveway, but suddenly, it seemed probable that I would end up finding Dale anyway. There was a moment of disappointment though, as I realized that I was not nearly as excited about that reality as I perhaps should have been.

  When we got there, Patient 888 was still unconscious. I hadn’t left his side for a moment. I was now beginning to see signs of irritation from the EMTs that may or may not have been there before. Perhaps I had been too preoccupied to notice, and they had been too polite to say something about it.

  The hallways were busy and reminded me of a crowded airport terminal for bodies between realms. In spite of the chaos which surrounded me, I had no trouble picking out Dale. He is a large figure, and it is difficult to miss him anywhere. Not to mention, he is one of the highest paid doctors in the ER. As a result, he is sort of obliged to walk around purposefully, between rooms, directing nurses here, and doctors there.

  Dale caught my eye, with a concerned look, and offered a brief word to the staff he was with. With Patient 888 still unconscious, Dale rushed over to the cart to express his concern.

  “Roma!” he exclaimed. “You didn’t call. Why didn’t you call?”

  I never thought about it.

  “Gosh, Dale,” I replied, “It happened so fast, all I could do was think about dialing 911.”

  “Well, you’re safe, I suppose that’s all that matters. Who is this? What happened?”

  I told him nearly everything, but filtered through a veil of believability. I had seen schizophrenics do the same thing when trying to avoid consequences for their misperceptions at the clinic. I was more than a bit unnerved to see myself performing the same self-deluding, song and dance for Dale. Especially since the man was supposed to be someone that I was in a deep kinship with.

  We were due to be married; wasn’t that enough?

  Apparently not.

  “So someone let this oversized dog in our house as some kind of prank--”

  Dale cut me off.

  “Your fifteen minutes of fame…” he cursed. “Now people will never let you down. How did he become involved?”

  He pointed at the unconscious patient, while nurses wheeled him down the hall — all of us in motion to save my savior.

  “He must have heard me crying from the street, because he broke in and saved me from the dog just in time.”

  “He broke in?” Dale’s eyes squinted.

  “Through the bedroom window.”

  “Those windows are soundproof, weather insulated, and worth thousands of…”

  Now it was my turn to glare.

  “Dale, he saved my life!”

  The words came out as more of a reprimand than a conversation, but the message got through well enough. I didn’t like reprimanding Dale in front of his colleagues, but he was so irritating at times — and then, I just couldn’t help myself.

  “I find that incredible…” I began, preparing to sink my teeth in and really let Dale have it. “That I could have nearly died, and that this… well this man, came to my rescue — and somehow that’s problematic for you?”

  Silence.

  I had just created the elephant in the room.

  “I’m sorry, but if you can’t realize that there is someone here who needs help, because they rescued me, then I don’t think you value me as much as you should. If that’s the case…”

  I was trying to loosen my ring, but it wouldn’t come off.

  I was furious, and there was nothing that would have made me feel any better at the moment except to hear that Patient 888 had made a complete recovery. I needed this paranormal shit storm my life had become in the last 24 hours to disappear. I wanted nothing more in my life, sweet, blissful, mundane, uninteresting peace… forever.

  Jus
t then, a nurse attending to my savior looked up at me with a sorrowful expression in her eyes. Then, she looked at Dale.

  The tirade stopped.

  “I’m sorry,” she began. “I can’t find a heartbeat. I’m afraid this man is dead.”

  The emergency room, for all of its lights and activity, fell deaf and silent in my mind. The color left my face, and my field of vision. I was prepared for a lot of things, but my attachment to a stranger…

  I wasn’t prepared for that.

  17

  Roma

  I collapsed into a bottomless pit of guilt. Everything was my fault. The same guy who I had depended on to carry the weight of my ranting was now carrying the weight of my life. I hadn’t thought of it before, but I had been relying on the man in the coma - Patient 888 - for months now, without even knowing his name.

  I had simply used him as a tool for my own psychological support and edification. There was no reason for me to believe that he should have cared, as most of that time, he was unconscious. Still, the fact that it was the same man that I had spoken with over the course of those lonely months at the clinic, and the man who had saved me twice in one day…

  Then to give your life…

  I fell silent for a moment, while the hospital cart cleared away. I suppose my mourning was evident. The other nurses gave me enough room so that I wouldn’t be immediately dumped into their mandatory paperwork machine.

  “Who is this person, how did you come to bring them in today, and so on.”

  Instead, I had a moment for reflection and grief. I spoiled that moment by crying and letting out a spill of emotionally unfiltered nonsense toward Dale — mostly for my benefit.

  “Dale, I lied to you… or, not really. I just didn’t tell you everything, because I thought you wouldn’t believe me.”