by Devin Hanson
I stopped dead in my tracks. Nope. Fuck that. I wanted nothing to do with anything that sounded like that. Even Sam hesitated. For a long moment, I thought he might give up and tell us to turn around. Then he straightened his back and settled the shotgun more firmly against his shoulder.
“Stop where you are!” Same shouted. “Or we will open fire!”
The man turned and hurried to an office door on the opposite side of the atrium. Sam tracked him with his shotgun, then lowered the weapon with a curse.
“There might be people in that office,” Lara said.
“Then we move.” Sam looked back at me. “You ready, Alex?”
“Fuck,” I muttered. Then, louder, “Sure.”
Across the atrium, the man was wrenching at the door handle. Then he gave up trying to overpower the lock and started beating on the sheet glass set into the door with his arms. The glass bonged like a drum under the impacts.
Sam once again led the way, jogging around the perimeter of the landing. As we went, the deep pounding of the man’s fists on the glass changed. Between one blow and the next, the impacts grew suddenly high-pitched, and then the glass shattered. An alarm shrieked in the empty quiet of the night, and we rounded the corner just as the man climbed through the destroyed door into the office.
“Damn it,” Lara muttered. “Okay. We’re going in. Alexandra, you stay here.”
“But, I really don’t think—”
“No way,” Lara shook her head. “This is not a discussion. You’re staying here, and that’s final. Sam, take the lead.”
Sam nodded, spared a glance for me, his expression unreadable, then he ducked through the door into the dark office, his shotgun raised once more.
I stood outside the office, my heart hammering in my throat, as Lara followed close behind Sam. In a moment, they had cleared the lobby and had pushed deeper into the office.
Leaving me alone.
Chapter Seven
What’s worse than chasing down a monster that can pull on the flesh of a dead human and wear it like an oversized puppet?
I found out the answer pretty quick: being left behind while my friends went on ahead to face the danger without me was the worst experience of my life. Every sound set me on edge. The rustle of the tree in the atrium as it blew in the breeze, the sound of distant traffic, even the thud of my heartbeat in my ears, tightened my nerves and made me twitch.
I started pacing, but the crunch of safety glass under my feet was too loud. I forced myself to stand still and listen. Lara might have ordered me to stay behind, but if they needed my help, I was going to be rushing in anyway, orders be damned.
Finally, the inevitable confrontation happened. Sam’s voice, hard with command: “Stop right there!”
I heard a snarl in response, then the coughing boom of Sam’s shotgun.
Lara: “On the ground, asshole!”
Another boom of the shotgun, then the flat crack-crack-crack of Lara’s handgun.
I startled forward, panic and fear tumbling together with the terror that despite my warnings, the two detectives had ignored everything I had advised and were about to die for it. The door to the lobby slammed open before I had the chance to climb through the destroyed front door.
The man—no. This was not a man any longer. The ghoul paused when it saw me. Its chest was a mess of mangled meat and the flesh of one thigh was torn to shreds. That much damage should have been flooded with blood, but beyond a bit of dark, glistening moisture, the meat of its wounds was clean. The ghoul’s head tipped to the side like a puzzled dog, then its mouth opened impossibly wide and it shrieked at me.
Fear had vanished, replaced with a white-knuckled fury. My hands came up, fists locked painfully tight around the grips of my tonfa. The long arms of the weapons lay along my forearms in the guard position. Deliberately, I placed my feet shoulder’s width apart and braced myself.
When I didn’t run, the ghoul straightened up and a grin stretched across its waxy features. It lunged forward, awkward with its ruined leg. I had the space of a snatched breath to brace myself as it climbed through the destroyed door, then it was on me.
It swung at me with the same powerful, overhead blows it had used to smash in the plate-glass door and I brought my tonfa up to intercept. The crushing force of the first swing almost drove me to the floor, but I heard the dry crack of the ghoul’s borrowed forearm snapping. Its hand flopped over my raised guard and nails scraped across my face.
I yelled in fear and revulsion and shoved back, lifting the ghoul off its feet and slamming it back into the wall behind it. I drove forward, swinging hard blows into the ribs and midsection. The tonfa were an extension of my arms, pivoting around in my hands and crashing into the ghoul, multiplying the force of every strike. Ribs cracked and splintered; when it raised its arms to defend itself, my furious, fear-driven hammering shattered both of its arms in two, three, four places. The ghoul sagged back against the wall. Its arms were broken in too many places for it to raise them.
“Alex!”
Sam’s voice from the doorway snapped my head around. I saw him leaning against the jamb, blood sheeting down the side of his face from a scalp wound. Then, in the moment of distraction, the ghoul lunged off the wall. Its shoulder caught me in the stomach, lifting me off the ground and carrying me backward.
I scrabbled at its back, tried to put together some sort of judo technique to shift my balance and regain my footing, but I couldn’t find any leverage. Then, before I had a chance to cry out, I felt the balcony railing hit the back of my knees and we both went tumbling over into open air.
My throat locked against a scream and my stomach dropped away. I flailed wildly, panic blinding me. I caught hold of a branch, but it was just the very tip. Leaves stripped away in my glove, then I crashed to the atrium paving stones.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. The ghoul lurched upright and stood over me, its arms dangling loose at its sides. My vision swam and darkness threatened to blot out everything. I clung to consciousness, willing my body to respond, to move, breathe, anything.
“I know your face,” it snarled. “I know your name, Alex. I’ll be coming for you, when you least expect it.” It kicked me in the ribs, then turned and limped for the lobby.
I watched it leave as far as my eyes could follow without being able to turn my head. Then, suddenly, the pain hit me. My chest burned like someone had just scrubbed out my lungs with steel wool. My entire right side felt like it was on fire. My head pounded, a splitting migraine combined with a brutal case of brain freeze.
Distantly, I was aware of Sam shouting at me, but his voice was garbled and his words meaningless. I don’t know how long I lay there in agony. Every second seemed to drag on for hours. When my lungs started working again, I dragged in my first breath in what felt like days. The cold air felt delicious and the darkness threatening to shut down my vision withdrew.
My view of the tree overhead was eclipsed and for a moment fear clutched cold talons into my chest. The ghoul was back to finish off what it had begun… no. It was just Sam. He knelt at my side and pressed his fingers into the hollow of my neck, feeling for a pulse.
“Sam,” I choked out.
“Shh, don’t try to move.”
“Can’t,” I groaned. A new fear washed over me. I couldn’t move. Was I paralyzed? My breath started coming faster as the fear turned into panic. The ghoul knew me now. If I was paralyzed, I might as well be dead. There was nothing that could stop the ghoul from finding me in whatever hospital I ended up in. It might take it weeks or months, but eventually it would walk in through the door and snuff out my life as if it were stepping on a bug.
“Can you feel this?”
Sudden pain surged up my arm and I gasped.
“Well, your back isn’t broken, but there might be spinal trauma. Don’t move, even if you think you might be able to.”
“What…” I swallowed, trying to clear my throat. “What… happened to arm?”
He wasn’t joking. Agony stabbed up my arm to my chest. I felt abused muscles protesting, and the sharp, sickening sensation of the ragged ends of bone grinding against each other. Then the pressure was gone and the level of pain dropped dramatically. I clenched my teeth against a sob and breathed hard through my nose. Now that the bone was set, I could feel a burning sensation start in my arm.
“There, that wasn’t too bad, right? Stay with me, Alex. Don’t fall asleep, whatever you do, all right? You’re losing a lot of blood, but I can’t move you to find where the wound is. What does it feel like? Is there a part that hurts?”
I choked out a laugh that had more than a little sob in it. “All. All hurts.” The burning sensation in my chest was subsiding, but it only seemed to emphasize the pain in my head and back.
Sam’s head snapped around, then I felt him put pressure against my legs. “Okay. I understand it hurts. But you have to stay still.”
Only then did I realized I had been shifting my legs in a desperate attempt to crawl away from the pain. The sob that ripped from my throat was one of relief, this time. With the realization that I could move came a memory from two months ago. The last time I had felt this burning pain had been when my broken hand had set itself and healed.
“Sam,” I rasped.
He leaned closer, his blue eyes bright. “I’m here, Alex.”
“Please,” I gritted out. “I need you.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“No. I need. Kiss me, Sam!”
Confusion creased his brow. “What?”
“Please. Kiss me.”
He pulled back a few inches, but I felt the first cautious stirrings of lust from him. “Now?”
“Please!” I couldn’t keep the desperation from my voice. The burning sensation was fading, but my limbs still felt unresponsive, numb and leaden. The energy I had received earlier in the night was all but gone.
Reluctantly, Sam leaned forward. “You’re sure?”
I let my eyes drift shut as he closed the last few inches separating us. His lips felt hot against mine and the stubble of his beard felt rough against my chin. I opened my mouth eagerly and breathed in the lingering scent of his aftershave. Lust stirred within Sam and I drank it in as our tongues touched. Sudden fires bloomed along my back and along my right side. I felt the recently set break in my arm shift as the bone knitted back together.
Sam pulled back and I sighed as the cold air chilled my wet lips. “Alex,” he said, his voice rough, “what is going on?”
I felt a pop in my neck and the leaden numbness in my limbs was suddenly flushed with aching pins and needles. The lust in Sam was growing. “Don’t stop,” I whispered.
He kissed me again, the cautious reserve of the first kiss slowly overtaken by a growing hunger. I kissed him back as best as I was able, whimpering into his mouth as the searing pain of my healing wounds flashed up and down my body. My muffled cries seemed to spur him on and his lips crushed hard against mine.
“Ahem.”
Sam jerked as if he had been stuck with a cattle prod and pulled back a few inches. Lara stood a dozen paces off, her arms crossed, a scowl on her face.
“Shit. Shit.” Sam scrambled back onto his heels and rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. His palms were covered in blood.
“What the hell is going on?” Lara demanded.
“Alex…”
“The ghoul pushed me off the balcony,” I finished for Sam. Gingerly I sat up. I felt drained, weary and weak, but that was lost in the swirling relief of not being paralyzed.
Lara tilted her head back to look up, then back down at me. “You’re injured?”
I looked down at the paving stones and saw for the first time that I was sitting in a pool of blood. I touched the back of my head and my hand came away damp with blood. My hair was a soggy tangle. “Yes?”
I didn’t feel injured. Besides some bruising and deep aches, I felt fine. I lifted my right hand and flexed it experimentally.
Sam stared at me, his eyes wide. “Your arm… I set it myself not a minute ago!” He looked to Lara for support. “She had a compound fracture in the right humerus. Spinal trauma… she couldn’t move…”
“So you kissed her?” Lara asked with biting sarcasm.
“That was my fault,” I said quickly. “Relief over being alive, it was just a reaction to stress. What happened in the office?”
Lara glared at us, disbelief clear on her face. My attempt at changing the subject seemed to work, though. “We interrupted the suspect before he could carry through with his attempt at arson.” She lifted a journal, identical to the one that had been burnt to the spine at the last crime scene. About half the pages were burnt, but there was a sizeable portion that remained intact.
“You really shouldn’t move,” Sam said worriedly as I climbed stiffly to my feet.
“I’ll be fine,” I assured him. I touched his hand. “Thanks,” I said softly.
“I don’t understand,” Sam said. His eyes locked onto mine, confusion and a thread of lingering lust plain on his face.
“If you’re able to walk, I’d say you’re very lucky,” Lara shook her head. “But Sam is right. Whether you feel okay or not, the fall could have caused damage that could turn fatal without treatment.”
“I think I’ll be all right,” I said, but I sat down on a bench at the base of the tree. I was feeling weak, and standing was almost more effort than I could handle right then. “I beat the ghoul pretty badly before it jumped us both over the edge. I wouldn’t be surprised if we find the body lying somewhere fairly close by.”
“Maybe.” Lara looked at me speculatively, “but that’s not a search you will be a part of. Detective Friday, please escort Ms. Ascher to the nearest hospital.”
Sam looked like he was going to argue, then ducked his head. “I’ll wait for backup to arrive first.”
“No need,” Lara nodded toward the foyer, where a pair of uniformed policemen were just now pushing their way through the foyer door into the atrium.
“Oh. Okay. You need a hand, Alex?”
I nodded, and with Sam’s help I got to my feet. I leaned pretty heavily on him as I limped toward the door. The two policemen gave me a look as we passed, but refrained from comment. Behind us, I heard Lara start giving them orders, directing them to secure the office building.
Sam stayed quiet until we made it back to the SUV. He cranked up the heater and got us rolling down the road, without the headlong rush of our inbound trip.
“I think I deserve some answers,” he said finally.
“Take me home,” I sighed. “I don’t need to go to the hospital.”
“You had a compound fracture and severe spinal trauma. Your back was probably broken, your skull cracked, along with who knows how many internal injuries. You don’t fall nearly fifty feet and walk away from it. Unless you can explain to me what is going on, we are going directly to the hospital.”
I shut my eyes and reclined my seat. “Fine.”
“Fine, what? Are you going to talk to me?”
I opened my eyes long enough to give Sam a sideways look. I could still feel the lust coming off of him. It was tamped down to a smolder, but I could tell he hadn’t forgotten our kiss. “Even better. I’ll show you.”
I intended to stay awake, but the vibration of the car, the warm air blowing over me, and my exhaustion dragged me under. The next thing I was aware of, I felt my hand being squeeze and a woke with a start.
“Wha—”
“Easy, Alex,” Sam said quickly. “Sorry to wake you, but we’re at your home.”
I sat up as Sam slowed down to park at the curb. “No, park in the back. I don’t want the neighbors to see a police vehicle parked out front. It would send the
wrong message.”
“You have neighbors?” Sam pulled away from the curb and took the side street next to the station where a parking lot was shielded from the street by a row of shrubs.
“The local HOA learned I was living here and came by to try and get me to pay dues. My lot wasn’t zoned as residential before David purchased it for me, so there’s no HOA clause written into the deed.”
Sam parked and I climbed stiffly out of the SUV. We walked to the front of the building, me leaning on the wall to help support myself and Sam hovering, ready to catch me if I fell.
“HOAs can be voracious,” Sam said.
“They don’t have a leg to stand on, and they know it. But now they’re just trying to make trouble for me any way they can. Miserable hags.” I let us in and led the way to the spacious living room, where I collapsed on the couch with a sigh.
“You’re tired,” Sam said, forcing himself not to be chivalrous, “but I want answers.”
“I promised you, and I’m not going to go back on my word.”
I sat up and peeled off my jacket. It was stuck to my skin in places where blood had dried, and I winced as it pulled at the fine hairs on my arms. The shirt I was wearing under the jacket was blotched with blood on the right side, and my arm was streaked with it all the way to the wrist. Sam winced as I tossed the jacket to the ground with a wet plop, then flinched away as I peeled my shirt off, leaving me wearing only my bra and pants.
“Woah, Alex, I didn’t mean…”
“Stop being a prude,” I grinned. “I want to show you.”
He turned back around reluctantly. “Okay. I’m looking.”
Lust surged again in Sam as I leaned forward. “You weren’t wrong. My arm was broken. See, the scarring?” I traced a fingertip over the knot of pink scar tissue high on my arm where the bone had punched through. Even with the dried blood on everything, it was clear to see.
Hesitantly, Sam reached out a hand and touched the scarring lightly with his fingertips. “I don’t understand.”
