J.L. Doty - Dead Among Us 01 - When Dead Ain’t Dead Enough (7 page)

“My god!” the man said. “What’s this neighborhood coming to? There’s a fire station just a few blocks from here, and I know they have an ambulance and paramedics. Let’s get you to some help.”

He gripped Paul’s arm on the uninjured side and the old fellow was surprisingly strong. Paul leaned on him heavily as they staggered down the street, the midget running well ahead of them. There was something vaguely familiar about the man. His coal-black skin plucked the chord of a memory hidden somewhere within Paul, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t recall it.

They turned a corner and the fire station loomed halfway down the block. As they staggered toward it Paul said, “Thank you, Dayandalous,” though he couldn’t remember where he’d heard that name.

The man stopped in his tracks and looked at Paul carefully. “Very good, Paul,” he said. “That you remember anything is a real testament to your possibilities.”

Paul looked into the man’s face, and the streetlight reflected blood-red from his eyes. “We shall meet again, Paul,” the man said.

Paul squeezed his eyes shut, shook his head, and when he looked again the man was gone. He looked up the street, saw no sign of the fellow and decided he must’ve imagined the whole thing. He turned back toward the fire station and limped on, his left shoe making squishy noises, which seemed odd until he realized the shoe had filled with blood from the splinters in his leg.

As he approached the fire station the midget stepped into his path and stood blocking his way with his hands on his hips. “I’ll have to leave you now, young fellow. Just remember your mundane friends can’t be helping you in this. Oh, they can heal your wounds but they can’t heal your soul.”

Paul stepped around the little fellow, saying, “The last thing I need is riddles from some midget in a clown suit.”

“Midget!” the little fellow shouted. Somehow he’d gotten in front of Paul, though Paul hadn’t seen him move. He was just there, again with his hands on his hips. “Sure, I ain’t no midget, you daft fool. And I’ll have you know I prides meself on the cut of me attire, better than most. Few of the little people cuts a finer figure than Jim’Jiminie.”

Paul shook his head, decided the little fellow was another hallucination, stepped around him again and walked up to the front door of the fire station.

Katherine McGowan sat up groggily in bed, thinking it was still too early for the alarm, realized it was her phone ringing insistently. She had a full roster of patients due in the morning, and that was on her mind as she lifted the phone, put it to her ear and grumbled, “McGowan here.”

“Katherine,” her father said. She didn’t need him to say, “It’s your father.”

The clock showed a little past midnight, so she realized it must be something important. “Is something wrong? Are you hurt?”

“No! No! Well ya, something is wrong. But no, I’m not hurt. No one’s hurt. Well, there’s a young man I know, and I think he’s hurt, but Colleen and I are just fine.”

“Colleen’s in town?”

“Ya, she came to help me with something. And I need your help.”

If Colleen had come to town to help her father with something, it would be something arcane and very important. “What can I do to help?”

Her father spoke in a breathless rush. “A young friend of mine, name of Paul Conklin, we think he’s been hurt, probably assaulted. He’s probably going to wind up in an ER somewhere, either stagger into it on his own or riding in an ambulance. I’d like to know as soon as he shows up.”

“I don’t know that much about the city’s ERs.”

“But you’re a shrink. You know people.”

She’d tried for years to get him not to use the word
shrink
. But yes, as a psychiatrist, she did know people. She asked, “Where did this happen?”

“Far north end of Pacific Heights.”

She wracked her brains to dredge up what little she knew about ER locations. “Up at that end of town I think California Pacific and Saint Francis Memorial are the only facilities with twenty-four hour ERs, but I’ll have to confirm that. Let me make some calls. I can probably arrange to get a call if he checks into one of those facilities.”

“If you hear anything, call me right away.”

“I will, father.”

Katherine was well known at both hospitals. But it still took several phone calls to locate a neurology resident she knew at California Pacific, and a surgery resident she knew at Saint Francis, both of whom had pulled a night shift. They promised to spread the word to their ER staffs, so she went back to bed.

The windows on the second floor of the fire station were lit so someone must be up. Next to the giant garage doors for the big trucks was a normal sized house door. Paul leaned against it and pounded on it for a good two or three minutes, was still leaning against it when a large fellow opened it. Paul stumbled into his arms and collapsed.

“Carlyle, Baksh,” the fellow shouted, “get down here. This guy’s hurt.”

The fellow laid Paul gently down on a concrete floor as two of his station mates rushed up carrying large kits. They pulled on surgical gloves as they knelt down over him. “What happened, buddy?” the big guy asked.

As one of the paramedics started cutting away his shirt with scissors he grunted out, “Big guys, with guns  . . . and accents  . . . in my apartment.”

The other paramedic, who was busy attaching some sort of monitoring devices to Paul’s chest, looked up at the big guy and said, “Fucking home invasion.”

“Are you shot?”

Paul shook his head. “Not shot. Least I don’t think so. Blew the door off its hinges. Splinters  . . . in my leg  . . . my side.”

“Some in your face too. An inch higher and you’d’ a lost the eye.”

The big guy said, “Can’t believe it, fucking home invaders using explosives to blow doors now.”

“Not home invaders,” Paul said. “Russians  . . . wizards  . . . giant bat things  . . . a hippie with lightening.”

A crowd of their station mates had gathered, and Paul caught several of them sharing sidelong looks and raised eyebrows. One of the paramedics grumbled, “Probably concussion,” and Paul realized he’d better shut up.

They wouldn’t listen to him after that, clearly figured he wasn’t lucid due to a head injury. They trussed him up rather thoroughly, and with his head and neck in some sort of brace one of them said, “Ok, let’s roll him, check for exit wounds.”

They rolled him onto his side, prodded him a bit, and there was general agreement he hadn’t been shot. They bundled him into an ambulance and Paul lay back as the lights of the city rushed past, the horn blaring, the ambulance jerking and swerving about.

At the ER someone asked, “Call said GSW?”

“Looks like maybe not,” one of the paramedics said, “but you should check him anyway. And he’s not lucid. Probably head trauma.”

The ER staff poked and prodded at him, asked him to count fingers and other tests for lucidity. By the time the cops arrived they’d given him a sedative and the pain began to ebb.

“Ya,” one of the cops said. “We got the call earlier. You should see his place. Looks like a navy seal team took it apart.”

“He said something about Russians.”

“Fucking Russian Mafia,” the cop said. “Ass holes must be going into home invasions now.”

The cop leaned into Paul’s field of view. “Sorry, buddy, but we’ll probably never find the bastards. But you are one lucky stiff. Those fuckers are stone-cold killers.”

He was too stoned to really feel anything as they plucked all the splinters and stitched him up. A doctor told him he didn’t have a concussion, but they still wanted to keep him overnight for observation. They finished bandaging him up, wheeled him through a maze of halls and up an elevator, then parked his bed in a large ward. He drifted off into a hazy, drug-induced slumber.

Baalthelmass had learned much this night. As expected Its two minions had failed to devour this Lord. But It had learned this Lord was weak, even weaker than It had believed. He hadn’t demonstrated any defensive powers, even against such weak underlings, had instead fled into the night while his mortal companions disposed of the emergents. And, in fact, they’d only annihilated one with the usual methods, while something unknown had sent the other back to the Netherworld. It was that unknown that gave It pause.

Another test was called for. Another minion, but this time not the wasted, half-living, ravenous creatures with no experience on the Mortal Plane. No, this time It would send Its protégé, one much stronger than the others, one capable of casting a powerful glamour, of using caution and finesse, one perhaps even capable of devouring this Lord-of-the-Unliving, if it was resourceful. It would be a shame if Baalthelmass missed out on such a sumptuous feast, but if this Lord proved more resourceful than anticipated, better to let something else suffer annihilation, if it came to that.

Katherine got the call around 4:00 AM. Paul Conklin had apparently been the victim of a home invasion, had suffered some nasty injuries but nothing life threatening. He’d been brought in by paramedics and was resting comfortably.

She called her father, but only got his voice mail so she left a message with the details. This young man was apparently quite important to her father, and she couldn’t confirm that he’d gotten her message, so she decided to start the day early and check on the fellow herself. She took a quick shower, put on her makeup and a not-too-conservative Donna Karan business suit with the skirt cut just above the knees. She finished it off with some Prada four-inch heels; she knew she looked good in heels. She could check in on this Conklin fellow, probably run into her father at the hospital, get a bite to eat somewhere and be in her office long before her first appointment.

She loved driving the Jaguar. It was an extravagance, but she didn’t care, and after she parked it in the reserved parking at the hospital, she patted it on the hood like a pet and said, “Don’t miss me too much, darling.”

The night receptionist greeted her with a friendly smile. “Dr. McGowan, you’re up rather early. Or is it late for you?”

“Early,” Katherine said. She didn’t recognize the woman, couldn’t remember her name. To locate Conklin she needed a teensy lie. “One of my patients was brought into the ER a little earlier, was checked in for the night, name of Paul Conklin.”

The receptionist consulted her computer and said, “He’s on the fourth floor. You’ll have to ask the floor supervisor exactly where.”

One of the nurses on the fourth floor recognized Katherine and she repeated the lie that he was one of her patients. Without asking, the nurse handed her his chart and led her to a ward with twelve beds. It was a long, rectangular room, with six beds lined up along the left wall and six along the right. Ten of the beds were unoccupied, while privacy curtains hid the remaining two, “He’s in the last bed on the right,” the nurse said, then marched back to her station.

The night receptionist looked up from her book as the three men stepped into the lobby, an older fellow flanked by two younger, larger men, all wearing cheap, dark suits. The older fellow wore an outdated hat that would’ve been stylish in the fifties. The younger fellow on his left was an ugly blond with pock-marked cheeks, while the big fellow on his right had a bushy mustache that almost hid his square face. The younger men radiated a badass attitude like the thugs that hung out with her junkie nephew, and she took an immediate dislike to them.

The older fellow in the middle spoke in a thick accent of some kind. “We’re looking for Paul Conklin. I believe he was brought into emergency earlier this evening.”

She wasn’t going to give these fellows anything. “Sorry. We don’t release information to anyone but relatives. And you’ll have to wait for visiting hours.”

“But I am a relative,” the old fellow said. “Here, my card.”

He held out a business card. She reached out and took it, and as it touched her fingers they tingled slightly. She didn’t really need to look at it, because of course he was a relative. Since she’d looked up Conklin’s records for Dr. McGowan only ten minutes earlier, she didn’t need to do so again. “Mr. Conklin’s on the fourth floor. But you’ll have to wait for visiting hours. Only medical staff allowed this time of night.”

“But I am medical staff,” the fellow said in his thick accent. “Look again at my card.”

She didn’t need to look at his card, which still tingled in her fingers. Of course he was medical staff. She pointed down the hall. “The elevator’s that way, doctor.”

“Thank you,” he said kindly, reaching out and retrieving his card.

As they walked away he said to the two younger men, “See what you can do with a little finesse.”

Some minutes later she wondered why she was just sitting there staring at her hands as if she was holding something. She must’ve zoned out, one of those senior moments they told her would happen as she got older.

Chapter 4: In It Together

Katherine found Paul resting in a light, uneasy sleep. She’d assumed he was younger, but realized now that, like her, he was in his thirties. His light brown hair was a tousled mess at the moment, and beneath the bandages on his left cheek she thought he might be quite attractive. And there was something familiar about him, some memory that pulled at her so strongly she couldn’t brush it off as some vague recollection. She stared at him for quite a while, trying to resurrect the memory, and then it hit her: the shoe store! The Pradas! The ghost! A ghost that had clearly meant something to him and led him to her. And now she suspected it had done so quite purposefully.

Out of curiosity she decided to check out his aura. Like most practitioners of the arcane she normally suppressed such vision, much like selective hearing at a loud cocktail party: the background voices might be louder than the person you were listening to, but it took almost no effort to tune them out. The same was true of the
sight
; it was always there but controlled and suppressed. Otherwise it would interfere with simple mundane tasks like driving a car.

She focused on it now and saw the fellow’s aura blossom about him like the petals of a flower opening to the sun, filled with the indigo and violet of a strong practitioner of the arcane. But intertwined with his primary colors were streaks of black that moved and swirled within the other colors, and that frightened her a bit. The aura of a demon was wholly black, frequently with a halo of gray ash, and this was nothing like that. Nor did the black overlay his entire aura like that of someone truly evil; if that were the case the black would darken the other colors, and obscure them in some places. Instead, the dark streaks were tangled within the colors of his arcane abilities, woven throughout them like the intertwined strands of a thick rope, ever changing but always focused within them. No, he was no demon, and not evil, but she’d never before seen such black streaks, and that bothered her.

“You my doctor?”

His voice interrupted her thoughts. He’d spoken in a groggy, muddled croak, and she had to concentrate to close off the
sight
. Dim light from the hallway spilled through the open door at the far end of the ward, lighting the floor between the two rows of beds but leaving the beds in shadows. She’d pulled back the privacy curtain part way so she could see something of the fellow, and when she saw a faint glint she knew he’d opened his eyes. “No, I’m just checking on you for my father. He asked me to help find you. He’s worried about you.”

“Your father?” he asked, clearly unable to shake off the lethargy of the painkillers.

“Yes, I’m Katherine McGowan. I believe my father’s a friend of yours.”

That statement had the most startling effect on the fellow. His eyes shot open as if she’d just confessed to being a serial killer and at the same time given him a shot of adrenaline, and on the bed he scrambled away from her on his elbows as if her mere presence poisoned the air around him. That sometimes happened when a person returned to full consciousness from the haze induced by painkillers, especially if they were the victims of a violent attack.

Her cell phone started vibrating. She dug into her purse for a moment to find it. “Just a minute,” she said to Paul. “I’ll take this out in the hall.”

As she walked the length of the ward she looked over her shoulder, and he still sat watching her with wide, terrified eyes. The display on the cell phone told her it was her father calling. Out in the hall she flipped it open. “Hi father, it’s Katherine.”

“Wanted to thank you for finding young Conklin. Colleen and I are just pulling into the parking lot now.”

Katherine hadn’t seen Colleen in quite some time, and was looking forward to a little reunion. “I’ll come down and get you past the front desk.”

“You’re there?” he demanded fearfully, suddenly upset about something. “At the hospital?”

“Well  . . . yes. I thought—”

“Get away from him, now. Get out of there. He’s dangerous.”

“What do you mean dangerous. He looks anything but dangerous. He’s just—”

“He’s a rogue. Move, now.”

The young man didn’t seem like a rogue, though Katherine had to admit she didn’t know what a rogue looked like. “I’ll meet you in reception,” she hissed into her phone, then flipped it closed and started toward the elevators. She was half way there when the elevator doors opened and Vasily Karpov stepped out, flanked by two young men that made her think,
thug
. She and Karpov had never met so she thought he wouldn’t recognize her. But she knew him by reputation—not a nice reputation—so she raised Paul’s chart to hide her face, turned and pretended to study it as she walked away from the Russians. A few doors past the ward she ducked into a private room. Luckily it was unoccupied.

Trogmoressh’s master, Baalthelmass, was being kind. To give It such a boon was a gift beyond imagining: a Lord-of-the-Unliving, weak, injured, ready for the kill. Trogmoressh was young compared to Baalthelmass, had been summoned to the Mortal Plane by one of Its master’s thralls less than a hundred years ago, and Its master had immediately taken It on as a protégé. Without Baalthelmass’ guidance during the first days of Its emergence, It might’ve succumbed to the early need, the initial hunger that dominated every thought of a new, Tertius emergent. But Its master had fed It carefully, and now It was ready for bigger things.

It looked at Itself in the mirror. Well, not at Its true self, but rather the glamour It projected for the mortal cattle: a beautiful, young women. After a hundred years of feeding It had gained enough strength that It no longer needed to hide in some squalid ghetto. It could now conceal Its true nature while living in the middle of the feeding ground. Its wealth and power were growing, and It could even maintain the glamour with sufficient strength to fool some sorcerers, though only the weakest and only for a few moments. Another hundred years of feeding and building Its strength and It would walk among the mortal mages freely, as Baalthelmass did now.

Finding the Lord-of-the-Unliving was a fairly simple matter: take to the air, go to his apartment building, pick up the scent of his power and follow it, first to a fire station, then from there along a direct path to a hospital emergency room. Once there It stepped into the shadows across the street from the ER, adjusted Its glamour to that of an old woman, and It waited. Within minutes an ambulance pulled up and two paramedics, one male and one female, wheeled a patient into the ER. It needed to hear one of them speak, so It crossed the street and blended into a shadow near the ER entrance. Twenty minutes later the paramedics emerged from the ER, and as they replaced the equipment in the back of the ambulance they talked of getting a pizza for dinner. Then they climbed into the ambulance and drove away.

It adjusted Its glamour to that of the female paramedic, checked Its appearance carefully, then crossed the street and entered the ER.

“Back already, Jan?” one of the nurses called to It.

“Just need to pee,” It said in the female’s voice.

The nurse turned back to her work as It walked down the hall, chose the stairwell and stepped into it, adjusted Its glamour to that of a middle-aged woman in a dark, conservative skirt, a gray blouse and a white lab coat with a stethoscope around her neck. It shook out well-groomed, shoulder-length hair and examined Its image carefully for any flaws. It would have to check each floor for the scent of the Lord’s power, but that wouldn’t take long.

Pain medication always prevented Paul from sleeping deeply. It killed the pain and he could doze a bit, but it was a light, restless sleep, almost awake, almost asleep, both and yet neither. And when someone approached his bed and stood beside it, the almost-awake part of him realized it and struggled back to a modicum of alertness. He opened his eyes groggily and saw a pretty, young woman standing there, shoulder length auburn hair, dressed in a business suit that looked expensive, nice smile, a red blouse cut just a bit low with a black, lacy something showing above it. She held his chart in one hand, but was staring at him in an almost trancelike way. And there was something familiar about her. “You my doctor?” he asked.

She shook herself as if she had to make an effort to focus on him. She said something about her father that didn’t register. He grumbled a question at her and she said, “Yes. I’m Katherine McGowan. I believe my father’s a friend of yours.”

Katherine McGowan? McGowan? The name sounded familiar, and he had to think for a moment to place it: Walter McGowan, the old professor type who’d knocked on his door a week ago. Yes, now he remembered the fellow, the same fellow that showed up tonight in his apartment with Russian thugs with guns.
Their leader? His daughter? Shit!

A flush of adrenaline cleared his head instantly. She said something about her cell phone, dug in her purse for a moment and retrieved it, then turned and headed for the hall, her high heels clicking loudly on the linoleum floor. She must be calling them so they could come and finish the job. He had to get out, get away and escape.

Paul slipped carefully out of bed on the side away from the door. His stitches pulled painfully as he crouched down in its shadow. He had a groggy recollection of the nurse telling him his clothes were on a shelf under the bed, but the shelf was empty.

“Looking for these, ye daft fool?”

He maintained his crouch behind the bed as he turned toward the voice, found another midget in a clown suit: different midget, though not so different clown suit. This midget looked to be the same size as the one from earlier in the evening. It wore similarly outlandish clothing in similarly outlandish colors, but this one’s nose was an inverted ski jump, almost like a parrot’s beak, and it stood there holding Paul’s bundled clothes.

“He ain’t too quick, Boo’Diddle.”

Paul glanced over his shoulder, found the midget from the street near his apartment standing behind him. The other midget said, “It appears he ain’t, Jim’Jiminie.”

Paul hissed, “Give me my fucking clothes, god damn it. Those maniacs are coming after me.”

The midget named Boo’Diddle handed Paul his clothing, spoke around Paul to the other midget, “Looks like he’s finally catching on.”

Paul peeked up over the bed; the pretty, young women was gone. He crouched back down, started pulling on his blood-encrusted clothing, realized the paramedics and ER staff had cut his shirt and pants to shreds. He had to tie pieces off to make it all work, was thankful they hadn’t cut his belt in two. Without that he wouldn’t be able to keep the pants on. The midgets tried to assist, hindered him more than helped, but he finally managed it.

McGowan marched into the hospital’s reception with Colleen behind him. She’d put away her shadows since a shadow walking around on its own would raise a few eyebrows. Katherine would be down in a matter of seconds, and using her to get past the receptionist would be easier than spelling the woman. But as he approached her he sensed a faint hint of magic in the air.

“Good evening,” the receptionist said in a dreamy, not-there voice that seemed badly uncharacteristic of this apparently formidable woman. He glanced at Colleen and she raised an eyebrow, confirming she too sensed something out of place.

The slightest touch was all he needed to confirm his suspicions. He leaned forward, held out his hand and smiled his most charming, handsome-older-gentleman smile. “I’m Walter McGowan, Katherine’s father,” he said, trying to make it sound more like an invitation for a date.

The woman blushed, smiled at him and took his hand. “Of course, pleased to meet you, Mr. McGowan.”

The instant her hand touched his he could sense the residual of the spell. He turned to Colleen. “Shit! She’s already been spelled.”

Colleen said, “Karpov!”

Paul remained crouched as he stepped out from behind his bed. Light from the hallway spilled through the open door of the ward and lit up the floor between the beds on either side, leaving the beds themselves in shadowed darkness. Paul felt exposed and vulnerable as he stepped into the light and tiptoed carefully up the length of the ward, the two midgets tiptoeing behind him. He passed one bed, then another, keeping his eyes on the open entrance to the ward. He couldn’t see down the hallway to either side, so he was moving blind, and he’d almost reached the ward’s entrance when he heard voices in the hall coming his way. He looked about desperately but there was no place to hide, so he ducked into the shadows behind the nearest bed. He didn’t dare look up over the bed, but the smear of light on the floor of the ward suddenly filled with moving shadows. He heard a woman’s voice say, “He’s in the last bed on the right, doctor.”

A man answered in a thick Russian accent, “Thank you. You can return to your station.”

Paul’s heart started hammering in his chest and felt like it was climbing up into his throat. He tried to crouch even lower and hold his breath as the shadows on the floor started walking down the ward. The three Russians appeared in silhouette only a few feet from him, first the old fellow, then the ugly blond and finally Joe Stalin, the two thugs carefully screwing cylindrical silencers onto the end of semi-automatic pistols. If any of them glanced even a little to their left they’d see Paul easily and there’d be no escape. But Paul and the midgets had ducked into the shadows behind the first bed on the left, while the Russians were focused on his bed at the far end of the ward, so his luck held and they passed him by.