“Nothing,” said Matt. “He’s the second kid to come from my town with that in the past few days.”
She glanced down at his badge again. “Oneka Falls? Oh! Because of the shootings?”
Matt shook his head. “No, because of the shooter. He also kidnapped these children.”
“Oh, my lands,” she said. “That’s terrible!”
“The first kid’s already up here—over to the psychiatric center.”
The nurse nodded. “That’s where little Benny will be headed when he’s done with his IV and we get his father’s permission.”
“Well, shit,” Matt muttered. “No chance he can talk to me? I’ve known him all his life.”
“I don’t see why not. Tell you what, let’s get his IV finished, and then you and I can take him up to visit his father.”
“Deal,” said Matt. “Is there a payphone I can use? I need to get in touch with my dispatcher.”
“Sure,” she smiled at Matt. “There’s a convenience room for law enforcement off the lobby. I’ll take you there.”
2
Owen smiled at the women in the lobby, allowing his true self to shine through. That was enough to make them look away. Both he and Brigitta were dirty and bare-foot. He’d left the rifle in the car, so he had to do something to keep people from throwing him out.
He walked up to the information desk. “I need a friend’s room number, please.”
The portly woman behind the desk raised her eyebrows. “Name?”
“Randy Fergusson.”
The woman turned to a rolodex and flipped through it. When she got to the end, she looked up at Owen, loosing an exaggerated sigh.
“Sorry, I thought you wanted my name.”
Her face pinched up like an old prune and she looked at him over her cat-eye glasses. “What’s your friend’s name?”
“Sorry.” Owen smiled at her, though he wanted to punch her in her fat face. “His name is…Joe, uh… No, it’s Jim.”
The woman huffed another sigh. “His last name?”
“Oh, uh…” Owen looked at Brigitta and raised his eye brows.
“If you don’t know, my love, neither do I,” she whispered.
“Uh… His last name is… Okay, this is embarrassing.” Owen plastered his best sheepish grin on his face. “I’ve forgotten his last name for the moment. He’s the town manager in Oneka Falls, so if you could—”
“This is Rochester, sir, not Oneka Falls. You can’t expect me to follow your town’s leadership.”
“Yeah, no. I don’t, I mean. I was wondering if you could—”
“Sir, if you don’t know your friend’s name, I can’t help you.” She turned in her squeaky chair and looked out the window.
Owen wanted to jump right across the desk and teach the fat bitch a lesson, but Brigitta’s cool palm rested on his forearm. “Do we have it in the car, my love?” She winked at him.
“Yeah,” Owen seethed. “In the car. Yeah, in the trunk.” He turned and stomped away from the information desk.
“Put on a damn pair of shoes while you are out there, hippy,” called the woman at the desk.
Owen stood up straight at her tone, but Brigitta pulled him toward the electric doors. “No scene, my love. Not until after.”
“Right,” Owen snapped. “After.” The way he said the word made it sound like a promise.
3
The pretty little nurse led him to the lobby, smiling and chattering away like a humming bird. Matt thought he’d have to ask for her number before he headed back home. He was watching the way her lips quirked when she smiled, and just happened to glance up at the man at the information desk. Their gazes locked for a moment. Matt grabbed the nurse’s shoulder and sent her spinning back into the hall that led to the ER. She squawked with surprise, but Matt was already moving, already pulling his 1911 and crouching for cover. “Freeze!” he boomed.
The fat lady behind the information desk looked at him with obvious distaste, but when her eyes tracked up to his gun, a bleat escaped her lips and her eyes went wide behind her cat-eye glasses.
4
Owen saw that chief fuck walk into the lobby, and their gazes locked for a moment. Then the dumb-fuck shouted “Freeze!” and Owen ducked down, the information desk between him and Chief Greshin. He looked around for Brigitta, but she was either invisible or gone. “Wish she’d teach me that teleport shit,” he muttered.
“What? What?” squawked the fat lady on the other side of the desk.
“Shut your fucking hole,” he said.
“Gray! Get out here where I can see you, hands up and empty. Do it now.”
“Aw, fuck you, Matt,” yelled Owen. “Not such a badass without your pals, are you? Let me tell you, son, there’s only one badass in this lobby, and he’s Force Recon.”
“Badass? You’re hardly that, Gray.”
The fucker was moving around, flanking him, Owen could tell by the sound of his voice. Owen slid around to the back side of the desk and yanked old cat-eyes clean out of her chair. She fell to the ground, landing on her side. “Oh, you fuck!” she screamed. “You broke my ever-loving hip, you bastard!”
“Good,” Owen snapped. “Maybe you’ll learn respect from that pain…if I let you live long enough to learn anything.” Where’s Greshin? What’s he doing? “Hey, Matt,” he yelled. “I got a friend down here with me. Her name’s… Well, to be honest, I don’t give a fuck. I think I broke her hip.”
“So she said,” said Greshin.
He sounded close. Owen swiveled his head back and forth, scanning each end of the desk and skimming across the top edge. “Don’t you fuck with me, Greshin. Do that, and this old bag is a dead motherfucker! You know I’ll do it.”
“Yeah, I do,” said the chief, sounding closer than ever.
“Good. Here’s what we’re going to do. You, drop that cannon and get the fuck back, and I might let this old bitch live.””
“No,” said Greshin, his voice cold.
“What? What do you mean, no? I told you I’ll kill her, Chief.” Greshin didn’t answer, and now Owen could hear his breathing. “Don’t think I won’t. You should know by now I don’t give a fuck. Not one.”
5
Matt squatted behind the folding panel set up behind the information desk. Gray sat on the floor on the other side of the panel.
“I’ll do it, Greshin!”
Matt duck-walked to the other end of the panel, and keeping his movements slow and careful, peered around the edge of the screen. Gray sat with his back to Matt, head turning back and forth, trying to keep all the edges of the desk in sight at the same time. Matt allowed himself a grim smile.
He cocked his arm back and threw the empty Coke bottle he’d grabbed out of a garbage can. It arced high over the top of the panel, and, as it soared overhead, Gray’s head snapped up to track it. Matt moved, exploding out from behind the panel, knocking the panel away with one hand, leveling the gun on Gray with the other.
Gray shrieked like a little girl on Halloween, and Matt fell on him, hammering Gray with the Colt, and slamming his hand down on the side of Gray’s head, pushing his face to the side and into the cold tile floor. He pressed the end of his 1911 into Gray’s throat, right under the bend in his jaw. He sat astride Gray, knees pinning Gray’s arms. He leaned forward, breath hissing in and out like a locomotive at full throttle. “Move,” he hissed. “Please.”
“You’d enjoy that, wouldn’t you? Well, I’m not going to give you the satis—”
“Then shut up,” Matt sneered. With a fast, savage strike, he pistol-whipped Gray across the face. He rolled Gray onto his stomach and cuffed him to the radiator that the folding panel was supposed to hide. He glanced at the big woman who worked the information desk. “You okay?”
“Sure, I enjoy lying on the ground and writhing in the dirt! No, I’m not okay. I think I broke my hip!”
“Help’s coming. Where’s the woman?”
“What woman?”
“T
he blonde. She was with this guy when I came in.”
“How should I know?”
“She ran toward the stairs,” said the red-headed nurse. “Are you okay?” Her eyes held Matt’s gaze, steady, calm.
Competent woman, Matt thought. I should get her number. I’m a fool if I don’t.
“No!” said the fat lady. “Why does everyone keep asking me that? Do I look okay?”
The nurse smiled at Matt and winked. “You know we have to ask you, Matilda. Where does it hurt, hon?”
“Call 911,” he said. “Get the local cops over here, and tell the dispatcher to contact Lieutenant Gregory at the Troop E barracks. He’ll want to be here.” He flashed her a smile and sprinted for the stairwell.
6
Jim Cartwright lay in his bed, trying not to move. Everything hurt when he moved, but if he kept still, it wasn’t so bad.
“Mr. Cartwright?”
Without moving his head, Jim looked toward the door. A sexy blonde nurse stood there. She had one of those funny little nurses’ hats on, and when she smiled, the hat waggled back and forth.
“Yes?” Jim said.
“Hello. I’m an ER nurse here, and I’ve been treating your son, Benjamin.”
“Benny,” said Jim. “He’s…he’s alive?”
“Well, of course, silly. We don’t treat the dead.”
“Oh, thank Christ!”
“No, thank an old man named Reginald Thorndike. He found your son in Thousand Acre Wood and led him out.”
“Old Reg Thorndike?”
“Yes,” the nurse smiled. “It is unfortunate.”
Jim snapped his head toward her, groaning at the burning pain in his gut. What is unfortunate about my son being alive?
“Oh, sorry!” she said with a self-deprecating laugh. “I mean, it’s unfortunate about Mr. Thorndike’s demise. Heart attack.”
Something’s off. This nurse is…wrong.
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” said the nurse, and her clothes and skin faded, revealing a rotting corpse.
Jim screamed.
7
A scream rent the air above him, and Matt poured on the speed, taking the steps three at a time. The scream sounded again as Matt passed the fourth-floor landing, and he skidded, mid-stride, to a stop. He hit the push-bar on the door and stepped into the hall. He looked both directions and drew his gun.
To his right, a few patients stuck their heads out into the hall, and to his left nurses did the same from the nurses’ station. “Which way?” he demanded. A nurse pointed, and Matt pounded up the hall, head twisting back and forth as he scanned the rooms on both sides.
The door to room 409 was closed—Jim Cartwright’s room. He kicked the door as hard as he could and burst into the room, trying to see everywhere, everything at once.
At first, he thought a blonde nurse was screwing Jim, but then the blood splattered everywhere registered. “Get the fuck off him!” he bellowed and leveled the gun on the nurse.
She glanced at him, and she was no longer a blonde nurse. She changed, she became a thing out of nightmare. Her black, rotting skin hung from her like clothes on a line, and blood dripped from her maw of a mouth. Instead of fingers, she had talons and they were buried in Jim’s throat. Her eyes dripped a viscous green goo—pus—over Jim’s face. “Too late,” she rasped.
He squeezed the trigger, the gun boomed, but instead of the bullet slamming into the thing on top of Jim, it shattered the window behind him. The thing had vanished.
Matt shuffled forward, thinking she’d dove off the side of the bed, but the space between the bed and the wall was empty. His eyes tracked up Jim’s body, noting the exposed organs, the ruptured blood vessels in a clinical, methodical way. “Well, fuck,” he muttered.
“Indeed,” hissed a voice in his ear, and pain erupted from his throat.
8
Owen came to, his head throbbing like a funny-car engine. He jerked his hands, and the cuffs bit into his wrists. The warm metal almost burned his skin. “Fucker cuffed me to a radiator?” he croaked.
He opened his eyes. Pandemonium ruled the hospital lobby. If he could get free of the goddamn cuffs, he would slip away in the confusion. He glanced down at the cuffs, hoping Greshin had forgotten to lock them. Pipe dream, he thought. Greshin has had a hard-on for me since I shot his pet, Witherson.
He gazed around the lobby, hoping something would leap out at him, a tool, someone he could manipulate. “Hey, this burns,” he yelled, but no one so much as glanced his way. “This is cruel and unusual punishment!” Again, no one batted an eyelash. “Fuckers,” he muttered.
He looked around again, and across the width of the lobby, he glimpsed blonde hair. She stood near the door, blood dripping from her fingers—Brigitta, his love. Their eyes locked, his pleading, hers sorrowful. He rattled the handcuffs, and she frowned, shaking her head.
Babe, get these cuffs off me and I can walk right out of here. I can—
No, my love. My father says this is how it must end. For now. There will—
Fuck that! Come on, babe! We can get away clean. We can—
Owen, my love, no. Father says things have gotten too far out of control, that strategic retreat is called for. You can understand that, can’t you?
Owen kept his mind still. Stopped the thoughts before she picked them up.
My love, the time will come again when we are together. Trust in that. We will be apart for a while, but we are meant to be together, and we will be again. Believe me.
Brigitta! Babe, no! Don’t leave me! Tears sprang into his eyes, and his throat burned as if he’d been eating live coals. “Please,” he sobbed.
Her face crumpled and she shook her head. I’m sorry, my love. Father requires us to make a sacrifice. But the rewards will be equal to the cost—more than equal. And, Owen, I took care of Jim Cartwright and Matt Greshin for you.
He stared at her, mind racing.
Yes, my love. I ripped their throats out with my bare hands. They suffered, my love, they suffered as much as I could make them suffer. She turned and walked out the front door. No one noticed her. No one except Owen Gray, tears and snot streaming down his face.
Brigitta!
Chapter 4
2007
1
“Jack? Jack! What’s happening?” Mike spun and faced the town hall. “Chaz, you leave him the fuck alone!” He took two steps toward Shamu before Benny caught him.
“No, Mike! That Chaz guy is a demon! You can’t do anything.”
“Yes, we can,” said Reid. “But not how you think.”
Mike jerked his arm out of Benny’s hand. “I can’t just stand here while he does whatever he wants to Jack.”
Reid turned his face up to him and rose to his feet. “Bullets don’t do enough damage. You might kill the thing after a while, but it won’t stay dead.”
“What?”
“No, the best way is to exsanguinate the beast, and then dissolve the body in a strong base. Back in Rochester, I use an industrial digester to get rid of their bodies. Once the body and blood are gone, they can’t come back.”
Mike put his hands up to the side of his head. “No, no. This isn’t happening.”
“If you insisted on using bullets, you’d need hard calibers and a lot more ammunition than those pistols hold. When I first learned how to kill them, I—” Reid snapped his mouth shut like he’d just realized what he was saying to two law enforcement officers.
Mike glanced over at Lewis, and the trooper’s expression mirrored what he was feeling. These two men were obviously insane. Psychotic. Delusional. They both belonged in Millvale.
“No, it’s not crazy, Mike,” said Benny.
When did I start thinking of him as ‘Benny?’ Mike wondered. But Benny or Toby or Tobias, he was rat-shit crazy.
“I’m not, though, not ‘rat-shit crazy,’ Mike. I pretended to be crazy for a long time because it was safer inside than out.”
Mike shook his head. Did I say that alo
ud? The part about rat-shit crazy? Benny chuckled and shook his head. Mike glanced at Reid, but the man was staring at Benny in rapt attention. Reid muttered something that sounded like “I can see it.”
“Mike, trust me here. Jack just told you that a man named Red Bortha took Shannon. Am I right?”
Mike nodded, face as hard and cold as ice.
“And he said someone named Herlequin is coming for her?”
Reid’s face blanched and his eyes went wide. He shook his head from side to side, faster and faster until Mike thought it would fly off.
“It’s okay, Toby,” Benny whispered. “It’s okay.”
Reid looked anything but okay.
“Red Bortha, he’s from around here, but who’s this Herlequin?”
“It’s a long story, and one we don’t have time for right now. Have I satisfied you as to the contents of your phone conversation with…What’s-his-name?”
“Jack. And, yes.”
“And could I have tapped into the airwaves? Overheard your call? Had a trained parakeet listen in and tell me those things?”
Mike shook his head.
“Then how did I do it?” Benny put his hand on Reid’s shoulder.
“I have no idea,” said Mike.
“He read your mind,” said Reid. “Or something. I don’t know what it is, but it comes from having survived Herlequin.” He shuddered and began to shiver.
“There’s that name again,” said Lewis.
“Yeah. I need to understand who this guy is,” said Mike.
“No time,” said Reid. “We can’t let Huh-herlequin get to her.”
Mike slapped his fist into his palm. “Well, how the fuck do you expect me to save her?”
“Just like I could read your thoughts, I can hear Shannon’s. I can take you to her, and Toby can see them, so he knows who is a good guy and who isn’t.”
“This isn’t cops and robbers,” said Lewis. “I’m not shooting anyone based on your say-so.”
“No. Don’t shoot anyone, either of you,” said Reid. He walked to the back of his little silver Honda and popped the trunk open. He pulled out a strange looking air rifle and grinned at them. “I’ll do the shooting.”
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