Riverwatch (35 page)

She lifted her head and looked around, discovering that Damon’s gun lay just inches from her. Damon himself lay crumbled on the floor a few feet away, a brilliant crimson stain spreading across the floor around him.

Blake was raising his weapon for another strike, looking more than anything as if he intended to cleave Damon’s head from his body with that one, simple stroke.

It only took an instant for all of this to register in Katelynn’s mind.

Then she reacted.

As Blake advanced the last few steps and raised his sword high over his head, Katelynn lunged out and grasped Damon’s pistol.

Blake started the downstroke of his sword.

As if in slow motion, Katelynn watched the sword cutting through the air, watched as her own arm raised the weapon and pointed it in Blake’s direction.

She had just a fleeting instant to pray and then she pulled the trigger.

The shot took Blake high in the chest for the second time that night, throwing him backward several feet. The sword spun through the air, off to one side.

Katelynn barely noticed.

She was too busy pulling the barrel down in line with Blake and firing again.

And again.

The second shot opened a red wound in his stomach.

The third flung him violently backward off his feet to lie unmoving on the floor.

She inched forward, keeping the gun on him, until she was close enough to see that he was no longer breathing.

Satisfied the son of a bitch wasn’t going to get up again, she turned her attention to the wound in her leg. It was bleeding freely, but not heavily, and she clamped her hand tightly to it while using the other to strip off her belt. She wrapped the belt around her leg just above the wound and cinched it tight. The pain was intense, but she was relieved to see that the wound wasn’t spraying blood the way it might have been had the bullet struck a major artery.

She glanced around for Sam, but didn’t see him or the Nightshade any longer. She then turned her attention to Damon alone.

He hadn’t moved since he’d fallen.

When she dragged herself over to him, she discovered he was alive but unconscious. From the amount of blood staining the floor, however, he might not stay that way for long.

Katelynn stripped off her sodden sweatshirt and was wadding it up to use as a compress when Damon opened his eyes.

"Katelynn," he gurgled, blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth.

That wasn’t a good sign, she knew.

"Easy, Sheriff. It’s okay." She rolled him onto his side and pressed the sweatshirt against the wound in his back where it quickly became saturated with blood.

She rolled him face-up, his weight causing the sweatshirt to become a makeshift compress on the wound.

Her actions had sent pain flaring up her leg, and she was forced to stop a moment in an effort to fight off the gray haze that was threatening to overwhelm her.

Once she had her equilibrium back, she tore the bottom half of her shirt free and pressed it against the wound on Damon’s stomach. It, too, was instantly soaked with blood, but it would have to do. She had nothing else to stop the bleeding. The Sheriff’s hand moved to hold the bandage in place, causing Katelynn to look up at his face. His eyes were open but free of pain; he was obviously in shock. He maintained enough control, however, to nod toward the door behind her.

"Sam went on alone," he choked out.

Fear seized Katelynn’s heart in its stony grip.

Damon indicated the radio on his belt with a feeble motion. "Call for back-up. Then follow Sam." He appeared to want to say more, but choked on his own blood and had to turn away to cough it free. That motion alone exhausted him. He slumped back down, barely conscious.

Katelynn didn’t think he would make it until help arrived.

She took the radio from his belt and pressed the switch. "Hello? Hello? This is Katelynn Riley. The Sheriff has been stabbed and needs medical help. We’re at the University, in Keating Hall."

Questioning voices came back over the air, but Katelynn ignored them. She didn’t have time to answer any of their questions; Sam could be dying now as well. She had to try to help him. Taking up Damon’s gun, she left him lying there on the floor and started making her way toward the door.

Inch by painful inch, she closed in on her destination.

*** ***

Sam had been as confused by Damon’s actions as Katelynn, but he’d kept his eyes firmly on the Nightshade and was in a position to see the beast back toward the door on the far side of the room at the moment of Hudson Blake’s arrival. It was as if the two were working in tandem and the beast had just left the unpleasant duty to his subordinate.

After all they’d been through, the Nightshade’s dismissal only served to send Sam’s anger past the boiling point.

He knew Katelynn and Damon were in trouble, knew that if he didn’t do something to help them they probably wouldn’t survive, but he also knew he could not let the beast escape. This time, he chose to act.

He shoved one hand into the pack he was carrying. One part of his mind flashed on the utter insanity involved in attacking a beast of such bloodthirsty savagery with nothing more powerful than glass jars filled with a mixture of gasoline and powdered soap flakes, while the other cocked his arm and hurled the jar at Moloch’s rapidly retreating form.

Sam’s aim was true.

The jar struck Moloch on the wide expanse of his right wing as he was turning away through the door on the other side of the room. The glass broke under the impact, spraying the beast with the gelatinous mixture within.

Sam already had another jar in hand when the beast stopped and turned its attention back in his direction.

Sam immediately threw the second jar, then watched in dismay, as it smashed harmlessly against the stone arch of the doorway and the beast disappeared from sight.

Without taking time to think, Sam took off after the Nightshade. He’d crossed the room and was reaching for the door when his ears were filled with the explosive echoes of a gunshot. A sharp cry of pain followed immediately thereafter.

Sam knew the author of that cry.

Katelynn.

For just a moment, he almost stopped. Almost looked back to see what had happened, to discern what had caused his friend to cry out in pain. But Moloch had disappeared through the door ahead of him, and Sam knew that if he didn’t catch up with the beast they very well might lose him.

He couldn’t allow that to happen.

"God forgive me," he whispered in anguish as he pushed his way through the door without stopping, never once looking back.

Stepping through the door, Sam found himself in the room that formed the base of the clock tower. The walls rose high into the darkness, where somewhere up above the clock and bellworks had once hung. They were long gone now, he knew, victims of the ravages of time and lack of money. The stone walls had been designed with great archways to provide access to the roof proper and to let the sound of the bells free of the chamber. From where he stood Sam could see through several of these arches.

Moloch was nowhere in sight.

The room itself was fairly large. Sam estimated it to be around fifty feet square. Moloch could not have crossed it that quickly.

Which meant he had to have gone upward.

As the thought occurred to him a warm breeze danced across his skin, and Sam’s response was near instantaneous.

With reflexes boosted high with fear-induced adrenaline, Sam threw himself diagonally forward, slamming his body violently into the stone flooring underfoot, his right arm outstretched in an effort to protect the mason jar clutched in that hand. Seconds later the Nightshade’s deadly talons raked the air where he’d been standing milliseconds before.

Giving forth a loud piercing cry, the beast disappeared into the darkness.

Sam scrambled to his feet, using his other hand to pull the roadside flare from his pocket.

The Nightshade will try again, he thought, and this time I’ll be ready.

The attack came only seconds later.

This time Sam knew what was coming, and heard the shrill whistle in the air as Moloch’s body dropped from high above.

Sam waited, his body tense with anticipation.

Now he could see the dark form above, growing larger with each passing second as the distance between them lessened.

Still, he waited.

Sam could imagine those claws, stretched out, ready to sink into his skin. Instead of running, he simply raised his arms closer to one another and triggered the flare he held in his left hand.

Then he thrust its burning end into the open mouth of the mason jar he held in his hand.

The mixture inside ignited lightning-quick and flames shot up out of the jar’s mouth.

Cocking his arm, knowing death was only scant feet away, Sam heaved the bottle with all his might directly at the beast.

The bottle struck the Nightshade in the middle of its chest, shattering the glass and spreading the burning mixture across its flesh.

Screaming in surprise and pain, the beast was diverted from its attack, crashing clumsily into the stone floor.

Sam yanked the last bottle from his pack.

The creature was less than six feet away. Its hide was awash in flame, the mixture sticking to its skin and igniting what was left from Sam’s first attack. It screamed again in rage and pain, and then slowly began to climb to its feet.

"Die, damn you! Die!" Sam screamed.

Using the flare as an igniter again, he threw the last bottle.

His luck held, the bottle struck the beast across the side of the head and it collapsed, its body now covered with a raging fire.

Sam heard a cry behind him, and turned to see Katelynn crawling through the doorway. He rushed to her side but before he could ask her what had happened to her and Damon, Katelynn pointed over his shoulder and gasped, "Look!"

Chapter Forty-two: Inferno

Somehow, the beast had climbed to its feet.

Katelynn and Sam watched in fascinated horror as the Nightshade took one step toward the roof’s edge, then another.

And another.

The flames were burning fiercely now, the homemade napalm smeared across most of the creature’s torso. The frantic beating of its wings simply fanned the flames, adding to its own destruction.

But they could see that it wasn’t burning quickly enough.

While the heat was intense, the fire had not spread to the rest of the creature’s body, burning only where the gasoline mixture had soaked into the skin. With its supernatural healing, Moloch would survive the burns if he found some way of putting out the flames before they consumed him.

The beast took a fourth step.

A fifth.

Each step bringing him closer to freedom.

Crouched against the far wall, using his body to shield Katelynn from the heat, Sam realized what the creature was going to do. Once it reached the edge of the roof, it would launch itself into the open air. While the wind of its flight might fan the flames, it would also allow the beast to reach the lake on the other side of campus. Once there, it could plunge beneath the lake’s surface, extinguishing the flames and finding a place to hide. There it would have the safety to gather its strength and slowly heal itself.

Sam knew he could not allow that to happen; they’d gotten two chances at the beast. They would not get a third.

He had to act now.

The creature’s agonized shrieks of pain echoed off the room’s stone walls; nearly deafening in their intensity. Sam pulled Katelynn’s head closer to his own and put his lips next to her ear so she could hear him over the noise.

"Take care of Damon."

Before she could react, he sprinted across the room at full speed directly at the tall burning figure that was just reaching the edge of the roof.

Halfway in shock from the pain of her broken leg, it took a moment for Katelynn to realize what Sam was doing.

When she did, she screamed in horror. "Sam! Noooo!"

It was too late to stop him, and deep inside she knew it.

At the edge of the roof, the Nightshade spread its wings wide, preparing to cast itself off the rooftop and escape.

Sam was only a step or two behind it, and with one, great wordless scream of rage and despair he launched himself at the beast.

In that moment, just before his body collided with the burning form of the beast, Sam realized something.

It was okay to be afraid.

Fear is what makes us all human. It is fear that allows us to rise above ourselves, to reach that much further and that much higher, to strive to achieve just that little bit more. If we had succumbed to our fears, man would never have made it past the Ice Age. There is too much to be afraid of in our lives; fear of ourselves, fear of others, fear of our emotions and our lack thereof, fear of every action we might take every day of our lives. We rise above that and we move forward, facing our fears with a sense of courage that lives within us all, waiting for the chance to be let out.

As Sam’s body closed the distance that separated him from the beast’s burning form, he was very, very afraid.

But that was okay.

I guess I’m not as much a coward as I thought, he mused to himself as his body crashed into Moloch’s, the momentum taking them both over the edge of the roof. The intense heat of the flames against his flesh only caused him to lock his arms that much tighter around the body of his enemy, effectively pinning the creature’s wings against its sides.

As they dropped over the edge and the ground rushed up to meet them, over the shriek of the creature and his own wordless cries of rage, Sam thought he heard Katelynn call his name.

In the second before he and the Nightshade crashed to the ground, Sam whispered a single word.

"Goodbye."

Epilogue

Two weeks later.

Glendale Hospital Intensive Care Unit.

Damon was resting in bed watching television when Katelynn knocked on the open door to his room.

"Come on in," he said, a genuine smile crossing his face, the first in days.

Katelynn crossed the room on her crutches and settled into the chair next to the bed. She was tired; the last two weeks had been a blur of activity as the police and several different agencies worked to understand just what had happened here over the last several months. With Sam dead and Damon in ICU, she had been their primary source of information.