A Dark Night (Book One of The Grandor Descendant series) (34 page)

Chapter 22- A Stroll Through The Morgue
   

It wasn’t until around 2am in the morning that Ragon’s promise to return was fulfilled. It had taken Ari until around midnight to fall asleep.
The night sky had settled over the Brisbane Royal hospital, bringing with it large rain clouds form the sea. A few times the police man on guard at the front of her room had popped his head in to check on her. Each time she had pretended to be asleep, snoring loudly until she’d head the soft click of the door, telling her that he had resumed his post.

She had woken suddenly to a cool breeze against her cheeks. As she sat up in bed, the gentl
e whoosh of the curtains caught her attention and she narrowed her eyes at the open window, certain it had been closed previously.

“How are you feeling?” whispered Ragon, emerging from the shadows and moving over to her.

Ari beamed at him.

S
he wanted to say so much; to ask him to thank Clyde for what he had done, to tell Ragon that she was ok, ask how Crystal was, but all she managed to say, as she became lost in his deep green eyes, was, “Fine.”

In truth the wound which Sameth had inflicted
all those weeks ago, only bought her minimal discomfort. The doctor’s had seen to her pain relief, and she had been on a cocktail of drugs since her surgery. Thankfully these had finished when she had woken from her coma.

She was just about to sit up, when a second figure emerged from the night, climbing cat-like through the window and landing crouched on the hospital floor.

“Clyde,” breathed Ari, her smile widening.

“In the flesh,” said Clyde, “so to speak.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“It was nothing,” he replied, “just doing my civic duty.”

For a few moments the pair stared at Ari, as if afraid that any movement they made might break her.

“Do you know why?” Ragon began to say, apparently unable to finish his sentence.

“Why did Sameth attacked you?” said Clyde
, finishing Ragon’s sentence.

“For Kiara; he said that he was in love with her. He thought that by killing me she would finally see him
and not Ragon,” said Ari.

As Ari spoke
, she avoided looking Ragon in the eyes. She knew that hearing this would hurt him, but at the same time, she felt almost proud- proud that he had chosen her love, the love of a mortal, over Kiara. 

“We have to go, but I will come back
soon-” Ragon began to say, moving over to Ari and kissing her lightly on the forehead.

“Go
… go where?” she asked, reaching out to grab his hand.

Clyde and Ragon exchanged worried looks.

After a few moments of deafening silence, Clyde finally said, “The morgue,” just as Ragon glared at him.

“The morgue?”
said Ari.

“Clyde’s looking for a date,” said Ragon,
shaking his head and staring incredulously at Clyde.

Ari scoffed
; she was not an idiot. The injury had damaged her body, not her mind.

“Why are you going to the morgue,” she asked
again.

“To find out who is
killing all these other girls,” said Clyde.

“Clyde!” said Ragon, his voice raised to an angry whisper.

Clearly Ragon had not wanted Ari to know their plan.

“Those murders that officer Ryans told
me about?” said Ari, her face narrowed on Ragon, “all those girls that were the same age as me that were killed in Brisbane?”

Ragon looked down at his feet and nodded.

“And you weren’t going to tell me?” she asked.

“I thought I’d wait until
after we found out what we were dealing with,” said Ragon, his eyes narrowed at Clyde. “I didn’t want to-”

“You didn’t want to worry me,” Ari finished. “
But we know who attacked me.”

“Yes but…” said Clyde, taking a meaningful look at Ragon
before adding, “but it’s too stranger coincidence that ten other girls, the same age as you, have been killed also. Sameth wouldn’t have killed them also. Why would he?”

“You think someone else is after me?” said Ari.
“But why are they killing girl’s my age; why not just kill me? Unless they don’t know what I look like? But that doesn’t make sense. How would someone know how old I am but not who I am… And why would someone want me dead?”

At this both Clyde and Ragon looked away
, apparently angry that Ari had managed to deduce their rationale for wanting to investigate the murders in Brisbane.

“I’m coming with you,” she said, moving to the edge of her hospital bed and standing.

“No you’re not,” said Ragon, racing over to her and trying to place her back underneath the sheets.

“Look,” she said, brushing p
ast Ragon, “this is my life you’re talking about. If there is someone going around killing girls my age and you are worried about it, then I have a right to find out just as much as you do. If you think I am going to sit back and do nothing… then neither of you know me very well. Besides, I would be safer with you… both of you, than waiting here with a human guarding me.”

Ragon sighed, moving past Ari as his hand wrapped around the handle to the room’s door.

“I’ll lull the guard outside to keep watch and make sure no one comes in,” he said gruffly, and in a flash he was gone.

A few tense moments followed Ragon’s absence. Ari was staring up at Clyde, her lips twitching as she considered him.

“What?” he said uncomfortably. “You’re staring at me.”

Ari was about to look away but then her eyes widened, and she remembered the hurried whispers that he had spoken as he carried her to the hospital:
I am not going to let her die. I won’t make the same mistake twice
. Up until now the events following her attack were a blue, but now as she stared at Clyde she remembered, and there was something else. She licked her lips, and for a second tasted a coppery tang. Her hands raced to her mouth, her fingers gently tracing her lips and then she gasped.

“You…” she said, her voice trembling. “You fed me your blood. When I was dying… I remember.”

Clyde looked nervously around the room then rushed to her side. He knelt down next to her, his eyes searching hers.

“You remember that?” he asked.

Ari nodded. Suddenly she was fearful.

“But… does that mean? Am I becoming a vampire?”

Clyde reached out to touch her hand. She felt the frostiness of his touch instantly.

“No,” he said slowly. “I gave you my blood in case you were past being saved. But the doctors worked their miracles. A fledgling is only made if there is vampire blood in their system and they die. You never died.”     

Ari was still nodding her head, but then she stopped and said, “Thankyou; for saving me.”

“What are friends for?” he asked.

“When you were… when you were driving me to the hospital, I heard you say something,” said Ari, and she watched as Clyde’s face dropped and his hand reached involuntarily for his neck, where Ari knew a small silver locket hung. “You said you weren’t going to make the same mistake twice.”

Clyde stood and looked around the room mournfully.

He seemed to be wrestling with something, and after a moment finally said, “I don’t know what you think you heard, but-”

At that exact moment the door to Ari’s hospital room flung open and Ragon appeared. His cheeks were abnormally flushed, they were the kind of rouge that always followed his feeding, and he stared in bemusement at Ari and Clyde. Both looked a little wide eyed, but they shrugged it off casually.

“Ready?” asked Ragon.

“Always,” Clyde replied, not looking at Ari.  

The city morgue was not a large building.
Despite it being isolated from the main hospital, only by a long narrow corridor, it took an unusually long time for the trio to reach it. Ari couldn’t move fast without feeling a stabbing pain in her stomach, and so had to walk leisurely, with Clyde and Ragon impatient by her side. When finally Ari looked up and saw a large green door with the label ‘Morgue,’ she sighed in relief. For a few moments Clyde rummaged through his pockets, finally retrieving a credit card and a bobby pin.

“Seriously?”
asked Ragon, looking at the tools in Clyde’s hands.

“Do you
have a better idea?” Clyde hissed, now flicking the card between the door and scrambling the lock.

Ragon didn’t answer
, and Ari watched in amazement as the card slid between the lock and the door swung open.

They
had only just crossed the threshold, when a loud whaling signified that they had tripped an alarm. Hurriedly they looked around the entrance, searching for the source of the noise. The room was a dull green colour, with white walls and olive laminate flooring. A small water cooler, two old brown couches and a long green counter was all that occupied the waiting room, along with a wilted brown and yellowed palm tree in a large pot. Finally, after searching the entire waiting area, Ragon spotted a small red flashing light. He blurred over to it and pulled the alarm out, crushing it in his hands.  

Clyde looked disappointed at this.

“What?” Ragon asked, holding the remnants of the coroner’s security system in his hands, which was still omitting a dull robotic sound.

“If I had of known that there was an alarm, I wouldn’t have gone to all the effort of picking the lock,” he said, a small grin breaking his otherwise indifferent face.    

“We don’t have long,” said Ragon, indicating a door on their left.

The trio
quickly raced through it, entering a long, dark hallway.

There were no lights on, except for the green glow of a neon sign that read ‘exit’. Ari felt Ragon slip his hand into hers, and allowed him to direct her down the hallway. Finally they stopped in front of a white door. Ari squinted at sign in front of it- ‘Morgue - authorised personal only’.

Pushing the door
open, Ari noticed that there was a notable drop in temperature and shivered. The room itself was sterile looking. Two large metallic workbenches stood centre stage, with an instrument tray on either side. Along one of the walls were many rows of handles and Clyde moved over to them purposefully.

“Eny, meny, miny, mo,” he
said, moving to one of the handles, turning it, and pulling out a heavy draw on which a body lay.

Ari gasped, moved quickly to Ragon side and tried hard not to look at the
cadaver that was lying on the slab in front of her.

“You said you want
ed to be here,” said Clyde.

Ari gulped, moved over to one of the handles on the wall and pulled
, holding her breath. Before she could look down at the body however, Ragon had moved over to her, his hand against the handle, stopping Ari from opening it all the way.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said.

Ari nodded slowly. She watched as Ragon slid the draw shut and moved over to a filing cabinet near a small office desk.

“Well she looks to be mid-twenties,”
said Clyde, staring down at the body in front of him.

Ari looked over and saw that t
here was a large tarp that almost covered a girl’s body; Clyde had unzipped only the uppermost part, expose the girl’s face. The girl’s eyes were closed and her lips were a bluish purple colour, while her face was a dazzling white. Immediately Ari looked away. At the same time Ragon pulled out four or five files that he had found. Holding them in his hand, he moved over to Clyde. 

“What was that?”
asked Clyde, looking around the room dramatically.

Ragon responded immediately; quickly
he closed the draw containing the girl’s body and still cradling the files, dashed over to the door. From outside Ari could see a flashlight searching the along corridor.

“Shit,”
she whispered.

“Time to go,”
said Clyde.

But before Clyde
had made it halfway to the door, Ragon pull his collar tight, sending him flying backwards and into the centre of the room.

“We don’t have to kill them,” said Ragon, turning to look at Ari
who was nodding in agreement.

“What are you doing?” Clyde hissed, as Ragon began
opening draws at random. “If we don’t get out of here soon-”

But he was cut off speaking
when Ragon found what he was looking for.

In an
instant he moved over to Clyde and dragged him to the empty slab saying, “There’s no time… get in and keep quiet.”

Clyd
e looked horrified but the sighed and laid down on the empty slab. 

“This is undignified,”
Clyde’s muffled voice said from inside the morgue freezer after Ragon had closed it shit.