Out of the Black (42 page)

This thought led to a suspicion that never came to the point of realization before Shiva was surrounded by excruciating light, then final darkness.

The mostly unheard explosion blossomed around Ping as Roy's blade shattered shield, warp, and other defenses. It moved through the woman's brown's suit and the body it enclosed without resistance. Both parts of her body fell to the ground.

Across the room, Alex slumped forward onto all fours. He looked like a man who had just completed a triathlon after an all night drinking binge. He was laughing and crying, but mostly moaning in complete exhaustion, rolling his head from side to side on the floor near the burrito-wrapped Fed.

"Help me up." Rae said, trying to press up from the ground on one arm.

Ping moved to her quickly, lifting her by the elbow. She stood shakily for a moment, then e him a bloody smile. "Nice moves, karate man."

"You too." He said returning her smile.

"Didn't even see you moving 'till she was dead."

"Neither did she... had to wait until she was distracted." He said, snapping his sword back into its hilt.

"Admit it, you got the ninja mask at home." Rae said with a teasing smile.

"I'm Chinese, not Japanese."

"I thought you were Irish."

Ping's short bark of laughter caught him by surprise. He chucked Rae on the shoulder and looked to Alex. "That Kaspari lady wasn't so bad!" He shouted across the room.

Alex pulled his head up. His lips twisted into a tragic smile. "That wasn't Kaspari."

"Yeah," Ping shrugged, "Figured as much."

"Next to Kaspari, she was an amateur." Alex said, trying to get to his feet, but failing and rolling to his side.

"Swell." Ping looked at Anne, who was crouching on the floor examining her wounded hands. Ping moved to her side.

"You okay?"

She sniffed, "Yeah, wouldn't have really been a full day without a little crucifixion."

"Let me see." Ping said, holding out his hands. She straightened and held out her hands, palms up. He took her hands in his, looked at the wounds in the palms. "It's not as bad as it looks." He said with his most reassuring bedside manner. "Look at the bright side, we're in a hospital."

"Yeah, we'd all be dead if I still worked at Arby's."

This time his laughter caught both of them by surprise. It seemed incongruous in a scene of such violence and sorrow. "You're pretty funny for someone so covered in the blood of others." He gave her an inquisitive look.

She looked up, and their eyes met briefly. He found humor and strength in her face... and a lot of other people's blood. He smiled. She reminded him a bit of his mother, only bigger and redder.

She flexed her hands, "They'll heal." She said.

"Yeah, let's get something on them..."

"No, I mean they'll heal right now." She flipped her hands over. The backs held the same holes as the palms, but the flesh between had already closed. Ping did a double take, flipped her hands back over. Yep, he could actually see the wounds closing. Perhaps another five minutes and they'd be gone. "Wow."

She nodded. "Yeah. I may be one of Hell's evil minions, but there are some perks like an awesome medical plan."

Ping was confused. "Hell's minions?"

"Yeah, you know. Your vampire friend bit me, didn't I make that clear?"

"Vampire?" Ping gave her a dubious look, but then he got it. "Dek wasn't a vampire, he was more like a Replicant."

"You mean like in
Blade Runner
?"

"You know the movie?" Ping asked, pleasantly surprised.

"Yeah, but the director's cut is the only version worth seeing more than ten times."

"I think I love you." He laughed, she laughed, she blushed, he lapsed into an amused smile. She pulled her hands away self-consciously. She was now looking only at her shoes. She must be new to banter.

"Oh... I get the name now." She said from behind a sheltering hand and a painful looking blush. "Dek, like Deckard- I should have recognized the haircut."

Ping chuckled silently. "He was also a fan. Hey, you haven't been drinking anyone's blood, have you? Because that would be hilarious."

"I've thought about it a few times," she said, flexing her hands.

Behind her, the doctor stepped away from the monitor table where they'd been using a portable kit to get Hawthorne stabilized. "Ok. She's as ready as I can get her quickly... especially with all the distractions." He said, looking at the crater Alex had made in the wall. "Please be careful with her... and she'll need to keep the medkit on to monitor the shoulder."

After a few seconds of indecisive silence, the doctor spoke again, "So, now you can GET OUT OF MY OPERATING ROOM!"

Like a ragged exclamation point, gunfire from another part of the building punctuated his shout.

***

They'd taken the stairs, thinking to avoid unwanted attention.

They spiraled upward through the deserted stairwell. On the third floor, Derry rotated from point and was covering the door. His gray eyes scanned the hall through the small window set in the stairwell door at face level. As the others passed quickly behind him, a door was thrown open halfway down the hall. A shrieking woman in a nurse's uniform bolted into the hallway. She turned away from them, heading toward the elevator bank at the other end of the hall.

The woman's white uniform was spattered with blood, and the flash he caught of her face before she turned away was sheer, hopeless horror. "Hold it!" Derry hissed to his companions as they continued up the stairs behind him.

His hand was already on the door handle when a dark figure moved out of the still open door and sauntered after the woman. It was moving quickly, but easily, obviously enjoying the hunt.

Not being the kind of person to do a lot of thinking is situations such as these, Derry pushed through the door, bringing his assault gun up. "Hold it right there!" He shouted.

The dark man complied. He turned around slowly. Derry's first impression was of a Halloween mask. The mask was half werewolf, half flesh-eating zombie. The worst part though was the smile. The teeth were slanted toward the carnivorous end of the scale and covered with blood like the rest of the thing. But the teeth and blood weren't the worst part of the smile, which was stretched unnaturally wide, exposing seemingly all the teeth. The lips were cracked to accommodate the breadth of the grimace, the muscles of the face were taught and shivering.

"Whoa!" Derry said to himself. Hawthorne hadn't been kidding about being off in the weeds here. Well, he wasn't going to take any chances, he trained his aim on the thing's forehead... he hoped he wouldn't need silver bullets.

The sound of gunfire wasn't his. The creature was gone, replaced by the suspended ceiling above the hallway and a light that was just way too bright. There was no pain yet, but he had a distinct feeling that something was very wrong with body. With a monumental effort, his neck craned up a few degrees and the creature reentered his field of vision. It was standing much as before but now it held out a police-issue pistol. Quick draw.

Laughing as if at some dark and private joke, the thing turned and began walking in the direction of the fleeing nurse. Derry tried to raise his weapon, but it was no use. Blood and air gurgled from the wounds in his chest with each of his labored breaths.

He couldn't bring his weapon on target, but he pulled the trigger anyway, hoping to distract the thing from its prey. Maybe he could buy the nurse a few moments to complete her escape. Bullets blew through the floor and walls. The thing turned around, brought its pistol up.

Derry was still trying to bring his weapon on target when the gunfire sounded. The thing went down in a spray of dark aerosol as more holes than he could count opened in its jerking body.

Derry's head hit the floor with a whoosh of expelled breath. He angled his head so he could see the door to the stairs. Sure enough, there were Elena and Miranda, looking assertive. Miranda kept her weapon covering the hallway while Elena rushed to Derry's side.

"I said hold it!" She said, checking his wounds.

"When?" He smiled.

"Just now, back in the..." she broke off, noticing his smile.

"Sorry chief." He winced as she hit a sensitive spot.

"Well, this doesn't look that bad." She lied.

His laughter came out as wracking coughs. "Ow, chief."

Her hard face softened. It broke his heart to see it. Some people you just hate to see sad.

"We'll get you out of here..." She motioned for Miranda to come.

"Whoa, now. I'm three times your weight and you don't look like no ant."

"We'll find a stretcher, you idiot." Her smile was warm though the rest of her face was hard with expediency.

"Shot again, eh?" Miranda said, crouching near them, her weapon trained to cover the hall ahead.

"Everybody... knows that... zombies ain't supposed t'... be packin' heat." Derry gasped in four short bursts of words. His breath was getting short. And then it was gone.

"Derry!" Elena shouted from the deepening mists around him. Sorry boss, He thought. He was going to have to disappoint her.

A desperate scream came from down the hall. The blood-spattered nurse came bolting back around a corner, screaming with each exhale.

Miranda Todd could tell she was a bit tense because she almost shot the nurse reflexively when she burst around the corner. She glanced quickly at Elena, who was still staring at Derry. Her eyes seemed glazed.

"Boss?" No reply. "Boss!"

At last, Elena's eyes refocused. The nurse was rapidly approaching. Miranda could feel something bad coming, really bad. In the convex mirror at the corner, she could make out dark shapes, moving like syncopated sharks... this didn't look good for them. Keeping her weapon trained down the hallway, she glanced at Elena again. Her face was hardening. She was looking down the hallway too, but Miranda knew that look. "Elena!" oddhouted, hoping to shake her back to reality, "Kyle! Remember?"

Her words seemed to have the desired effect. The fury in Elena's eyes took a half step back. Life was back on the scale with vengeance. "Let's go." She said. They turned and fled, not far behind the screaming nurse.

At the stairwell, Miranda looked back. Nothing. Their pursuers hadn't yet rounded the corner. She quickly brought her glasses out and linked them to her gun's address. She then used the gun's sight to zoom in on the convex mirror at the corner. She was just in time to see the last few things move into an elevator. "I think they're heading up, boss."

Elena didn't think long. "We've gotta hurry. I've got a feeling we're going to see them again." As the door closed behind them, Elena spared another look at Derry's fallen form. This wasn't real. She'd see him again at work tomorrow, just like yesterday and the day before. Not real.

The door closed.

***

Two gurneys with two Feds on them, two cops pushing them, with Alex and Anne in the lead, they moved from the OR into the hallway. The surgeons and techs had partially revived Jeremy and were long gone, heading for the street.

"You still feel that disturbance in the Force?" Ping asked.

"Eh?" Alex said.

"You know, that feeling you've not felt since..." Ping said, laying on the irony, but Alex still didn't understand. "Is Kaspari still here?"

Alex nodded, "Oh, right. Nice joke, by the way... I'm just a bit distracted. Can't tell where Kaspari might be, but he's definitely here. Quite frankly, I'm surprised we're still alive if what she said is true." He looked sideways at Anne. "I'm putting most of my energy into hiding us, but I can't believe it's gonna work with Kaspari."

"Well, lets not stick around to test that theory." Rae said as they arrived at the elevator bank. Anne pushed the down call-button.

Seconds later, the first elevator arrived, but the signal light indicated that it was going up. The doors slid slowly aside.

***

As they passed the landing for the fourth floor, four people in scrubs came barreling down the stairs. Two were still wearing white surgical smocks that were stained with blood.

The blood registered as odd to Elena, though it took her a second to understand why. Only triage nurses and doctors would be treating patients outside of hermetically sealed operating beds, but these folks definitely weren't coming from the first-floor ER.

To say the medical types were concerned with personal safety was a bit of an understatement. Every face was deformed by fear, every eye locked on the two women's weapons. By the taint in the air, Elena surmised that one of them had a bladder control problem.

As the two groups rounded the spirals of the stairs to face one another, they both stopped. One out of fear, the other out of curiosity. The hospital staff tried to flatten themselves against the wall, hoping that the heavily armed women would just pass by.

They were in a hurry, but Elena decided to invest a few seconds in information gathering. "What's the trouble?"

"You tell me!" One of the sme barreli men said with a tinge of desperation in his voice. He seemed to be relieved to be talking... probably a surgeon.

"What's with the blood?" Miranda gestured with her weapon.

There was a moment of indecision, filled with tension and exchanged glances. Finally, the only woman moaned. "We don't even know them... don't care what's going on! Please, just let us go!"

Elena lowered the barrel of her weapon and presented her FBI badge. "Don't worry, we're the good guys. Where's the trouble?"

"OR-3." The surgeon said, "But you
do not
want to go there!"

Miranda and Elena exchanged a glance. They both knew that was Kyle's operating room. "We can take care of ourselves." Elena gave her weapon an unconscious shake.

The woman shook her head, seemingly ready to laugh and cry. "No. You can't."

"What's up there?" Miranda asked.

"Corpses. Lots of corpses." One of the men said.

"Cops, monsters, witches..." the surgeon said.

"And one really scary phlebotomist," the woman added with a confused shake of her head, "I didn't see that coming at all."