Dead Demon Walking (25 page)

“
But Jack, it won’t be the
same without you.” I pouted at him. “Come on, Jackie, just for me.
. . .”

“
What is
wrong
with you?” Mel
exclaimed.

“
I’m dead, like you.” I
smiled hugely. “I’m going to the other side. Don’t you want to come
with me? I know you stayed so you could be with me, but I’m
leaving. You don’t want to be alone again, do you?”

Jack looked at Mel. “She is out of her
mind.”

He walked up to me. “Hey, lady, wake
up!” And he punched me in the stomach.

***

My eyelids came apart as I took in a
whoop of air. I thought I’d died. Then I wished I had died. As I
lay on my back on the cold, hard floor, I hurt so bad as each
breath passed over razor blades to reach my lungs. I fumbled my
hand to my chest. A fist-sized section of armor was dented inward,
digging in me, crushing my ribs. My broken ribs by the feel of
them. The constriction refused to ease. I tried taking tiny breaths
but that didn’t help. Perhaps I bled under the armor; I felt
nothing but the pain.

I saw legs in bloodstained blue jeans,
then Shan crouched over me. He ran a fingernail caked with blood
along the edge of my turtleneck, feeling the metal collar. He made
a noise in his throat and smiled to show his pointed
teeth.

Then he was on me.

He lay atop me, chest crushing my
breasts, hip to hip, belly to belly, his legs along mine. He held
his face away from me, but close enough I smelled rancid breath.
His hair slithered over his shoulders to pool on my
neck.

I thought I hurt before, but this felt
far, far worse. I thought the armor would press my ribs through my
back to the floor. I thought my spine would break. My insides felt
like they had no option but to rupture.

“
Fight back,” he said. “I
want you to squirm.”

I lifted my hands to scrabble
uselessly at his arms. I couldn’t raise them higher to go for his
eyes. I dropped them at my sides. I wheezed frantically. I couldn’t
breathe.

He eased up from me a fraction. “No,
not yet. Stay a little longer.”

The pressure of his body was still too
great. A roaring in my head as I tried to blink away the black
spots which raced across my vision. I closed my eyes and
concentrated every atom of my being, the tiny reserve of strength
and lucidity left to me on my right hand, a hand I barely felt
anymore, inching it over my hip. My fingertips brushed the ridge
sewn on the edge of my pocket.

“
Where is my
daughter?”

“
Your . . . she isn’t your
daughter,” I rasped.

“
She is all that is left of
Elizabeth.”

I couldn’t tell him Maureen was dead,
she killed herself because of him. He would go berserk - berserker
- and I needed more time. I turned my wrist so I could slip my
fingers inside my pocket.

“
I protected Elizabeth with
my body when the temple came down upon us. I waited for my strength
to return so I could free her. When her father came I crawled away.
They did not see me. But their excavations brought what remained of
the temple down. A mountain of masonry crushed me. Do you know what
it is to lie entombed as your body heals, but lack the strength to
free yourself? Do you know what it is to starve for a century? No,
how could you?”

Fingers. Hand. Sleek
metal.

“
My people left me there to
die, even my son Teo-Papek. When I am finished here, I will find
every one and kill them.”

Teo-Papek - Jacob - must have known
Shan lay beneath the ruined temple. They can sense one another. Why
did he leave his father there?

Black behind my eyelids now. I
couldn’t breathe at all. I felt myself slipping free of my
body.

The terrible pressure eased as he sat
up to straddle my waist. I felt his nails on my neck just under my
chin. I fought to breathe, just one breath. I put everything into
sucking air the weight and texture of blancmange.

“
Open your eyes,” he
said.

I forced my lids apart to see his face
above me, as if hovering in a dark miasma. “Please,” I whispered.
“Please.”

Curl fingers on
grip.

“
I loved her,” he said as I
brought my hand up, put the barrel under his chin and fired both
chambers.

Shan fell away.

I dropped the Derringer, dimly heard
it clatter over the floor. I pulled in a breath which filled my
lungs. The pain made me want to scream. Thank God I couldn’t, I
would have strangled on it. I sucked in a microbe of air.
Another.

I tried to rise and agony pierced my
chest. I whimpered - it hurt so much. Gritting my teeth, I got over
on my hands and knees. I forced my knees to lock and take me up.
Sweat poured down my face.

I couldn’t see my Ruger. I inched over
the floor to where Royal’s Glock lay. I refused to look at him. If
I did, I would crumple and wait there for Shan to recover and
finish me. I couldn’t bend to get the pistol. I sank to my knees,
trying to keep my upper body erect.

As I picked up the Glock, I
saw Royal’s boots.
Don’t look.

Getting to my feet was harder this
time. Three steps and I stood over Shan. He lay on his face and I
thought the hole in his head would keep him down, but I emptied the
chamber into what was left of the back of his skull
anyway.

Spattered with blood and matter, I
stood over him swaying. Then I went to Royal.

I sank to my knees, and realized they
were sodden. In a daze, I saw I knelt in a puddle of blood. I
watched with horrified fascination as the edges creep over the
floor in an expanding pool from beneath Royal’s back.

He was conscious. He watched me with
eyes like fractured glass. His lips were gray. “I cannot move,
Tiff.”

“
Don’t try.”

His voice a mere wisp: “If I could
hold you. . . .”

So hard to stop my voice trembling.
“Don’t try that either.”

“
You are a
mess.”

I sat back on my heels. “Didn’t you
know? - all the rage in Bel-Athaer these days. As much as I’d enjoy
chatting about my latest fashion statement, I have to get someone
in here.” I didn’t want to leave him, but I must. “I won’t be long.
I promise.”

But I stayed there. I couldn’t look
away from his dull brown eyes, no shine or sparkle as they stared
in mine.

I roused, tearing my gaze from his. I
had to get help. And after that I would find something I could use
to cut off Dagka Shan’s head.

The doors opened with a bang as they
hammered into the wall.

“
Miss Banks, let us take
him,” Gareth said.

Demons pushing and pulling gurneys
swarmed into the factory. They removed the thin, inflexible tops of
each gurney and slid them beneath the fallen demons. From my knees,
I watched anxiously, afraid they would jostle Royal, but he barely
moved.

“
Come,” Gareth said,
extending his hand.

I moaned when he pulled me up, as the
crumpled metal dug deeper in my gut. I teetered on my feet. Gareth
went to put his arm around me, but I fended him off with my
hands.

I spared a quick glance at Shan, torn
between following Royal and fear the monster would rouse. Three
Gelpha stood over him with their pistols trained on his head. “What
about him?”

“
We called his brethren.
They will. . . .” He twisted on his heels. “They are
here.”

Five Dark Cousins glided through the
door, their movement so smooth they seemed to flow rather than
walk. Gia Sabato in figure-hugging black leather pants and
short-waisted jacket over a blood-red blouse, midnight hair in a
topknot, her pale face ghostly with those big, black eyes. Daven
Clare, as always dapper, wore matching mustard-colored jacket,
pants and waistcoat over a snowy-white shirt. I didn’t spare the
other three a glance, my gaze going back to Royal’s
face.

Gia stood by as Daven and the other
Cousins walked past to where Shan lay and surrounded him. I could
not see what they did, but when a Cousin in garb similar to a
military flight suit hoisted Shan on his shoulder, they had bound
him neck to ankles in heavy, copper-colored chain. A corner of my
mind vaguely wondered what could effectively shackle one of his
strength and viciousness.

The Cousins were gone with their
burden. A demon wheeled Royal’s gurney through the door. I took two
paces after him before Gareth got in front of me. “Wait here.
Someone will be back for you.”

I scrabbled at my sides. “I think it’s
my ribs. If this damn armor wasn’t digging into me. . .
.”

Gareth’s hands slid beneath my
sweater, one side then the other as he undid the clasps. I gasped
as the armor loosened. He slipped his fingers inside the neck of my
sweater and unclasped the shoulder buckles. The armor plates
clanged as they hit the floor.

Tears of relief dribbled over my lower
lashes. I smiled at him. “Can we go now?”

***

Walking was painful, but bearable now
the dented armor no longer put pressure on my abused ribs. I felt
as if I’d been kicked in the gut. By an ox.

Reaching the ground floor took less
time than descending; we must have taken a more direct route. I
have a vague memory of a cavernous chamber, corridors and stairs. I
concentrated on putting one foot before the other and taking in
shallow breaths. I almost bit through my lip pretending the steps
were not troublesome. No sirree. I’m fine. Just look at me
go.

The blood on my legs kept drawing my
eyes down. Royal’s blood glued my jeans to my knees and shins like
paste.

The House buzzed, all who left now
returned. Demons lined the corridors we walked, pressed to the
walls to allow us space in which to move.

Two demons with a gurney between them
sped toward us, but Gareth waved them away. “We are almost there,”
he told me.

An odor similar to camphor; the low
moan of an injured demon. The infirmary held ten beds, five on
either side of the room. Bright white recessed ceiling lights
dazzled my eyes when I looked at them directly and made
stainless-steel surfaces glow. Glass fronted cabinets, trolleys,
surgical instruments on trays, but not the life-support equipment
one sees in a hospital emergency unit. The smallness of the place
didn’t surprise me. How often would demons need medical
care?

Three demons on three beds and Royal
on the fourth. The other beds were empty. The other demons in our
small party were dead. A leaden numbness which had nothing to do
with my injury crept through my limbs. That anything could hurt
Royal never occurred to me.

A split second later, I didn’t know
why I leaned against the wall or how I got there. I think I blinked
in and out of consciousness, or reality.

“
Miss Banks?” I heard
Gareth say.

Blink.
Gia sat on a chair beside a hospital bed where an intravenous
blood drip fed into one of the injured demons, but not from a blood
bag hung from a hook; it came directly from the crook of her
arm.

She lofted one eyebrow at my
expression. “The least I could do.”

Gareth pushed a chair to me. I shook
my head. Standing was less painful.

“
Why you?”

“
Our blood is
powerful.”

About to ask for a better explanation,
I let the words die on my tongue. Powerful, indeed. Her blood saved
Rio Borrego, why he could walk away from Clarion General three days
after admission as a broken young man with a long road to recovery
ahead.

At the time, I told myself his wounds
and debilitation had not been life-threatening, I mistook his
condition when we found him in Vance’s rental. I tried very hard to
believe that.

My mind and heart fought. I
didn’t want her to touch Royal, but if she could save
him
. . . .

Blink.
Royal lay on his stomach. They had stripped off his shirt and
a white sheet covered him to the shoulders. A demon in white scrubs
straightened up on the other side of the bed. He’d put something
beneath the sheet to hold it away from Royal’s back.

“
Why aren’t you doing
anything for him?” I asked Gareth.

“
We can do little for such
a wound, but she. . . .”

Can heal broken bones,
repair ruptured organs, mend torn tissue.

I went to Royal. His head lay to one
side, his eyes closed. I took hold of the sheet.

Gareth’s hand came down on mine,
holding it in place. “No, you do not want to do that.”

I swallowed. No, I didn’t
want to see, but I
had
to see.

I pulled my hand free and lifted the
sheet. I wanted to scream, but the inhalation expanded my chest and
my sight dimmed from the pain.

Blink
. Gareth pressed me down in the chair at the end of Royal’s
bed. Gia was hooking herself to a catheter attached to Royal’s
inner wrist.
Our blood is powerful.
Could she make new flesh and muscle fill the hole
in Royal’s back below his shoulder blade? Could she repair a
shattered spine?