Soul Thief (Blue Light Series) (34 page)

In the days that followed Doug became stronger. There were things in
his immediate past that he could not recall and his frustration over just what they were had begun to swell into something monstrous. His last clear memory was of being shot. He remembered Annie and him being driven from their home; he remembered the terrible confrontation with De Roché and his fight with Annie on the beach and their subsequent reconciliation. He remembered the dinner party, getting drunk and wandering into the forest behind De Roché manor and the things he had seen there. He vaguely remembered Rachael’s funeral and some incident that had occurred there, but he could not remember exactly what it was.

Like a nagging tic at the center of his psyche it remained, insisting that time was short and that he must recall th
e event soon. But it was no use; try as he might his spent mind would not focus. So he lived those days in recovery, talking to Lucy about his childhood and the terrible things he’d been witness to.

“
You can’t imagine how it made me feel to see those people die,” Doug told Lucy. “Strangers, friends, my parents. Murdered, all of them. And for what? But worse, to know that Tommy and Savannah were still . . . alive somewhere and calling out to me.”

It was the third day
of Doug’s reemergence into the world of the living and during those days Lucy held vigil for hours at a time at his bedside. She was a comforting presence, but deep in Doug’s heart he felt a growing unease with this woman that both disturbed and tantalized him. His initial impression that she was somehow familiar would not go away.

“Do you honestly believe that those kids are still alive, Doug?”

It was a long time before Doug could reply to Lucy’s inquiry. He had mulled that question over in his mind a million times, but had never been able to come to a reasonable conclusion. “No,” he said finally. “Not in the way we think of being alive. But there might still be a chance for that little girl . . .” He hesitated, not sure if he was remembering things correctly. Not even sure if what he’d seen had been real. But when he remembered a little girl named Ariel and her pleading voice he knew that it was.

“You’re talking about the incident in
New Hampshire on the morning you and Annie had to run for your lives.”

Doug sighed. “So that was real, huh?”

“The feds tried to keep it hush for as long as possible but we had people on the inside.”

“I don’t know why they call out to me,” Doug said. “I can’t help them. I’ve never been able to help them. Why does he take children? Why does he kill everyone else and take the little ones?
”

“
We just don’t know,” Lucy replied simply.

“When the children talk to me they tell me they’re in a dark place
they call The House of Bones. Do you know if that place is real?”

Lucy nodded earnestly. “We think it is. We’ve been trying to find it but it’s complicated. The
Collector is a supernatural being. He exists on a separate plane of existence from the rest of us. He manages to cross over long enough to do the things he does but doesn’t stay here. We believe it’s possible that his House of Bones doesn’t reside on our plane.”

“So how do we stop him?”

“My organization has been trying to figure that out for centuries. Maybe you can help.”

“Me? How?”

“Well, the fact that these children call out to you and that you hear them makes me believe that you are somehow closer to his plane than the rest of us. And from what you’ve told me there seems to be some sort of special connection between you and this latest child, Ariel.”

“
I can’t imagine what it is. I don’t even know her.”

“True, but I think that through her, your connection to
something important is more tangible.”

Doug lay back against his pillows with a weary sigh. “I just don’t understand why I’m cursed with such terrible sight.”

“I think it’s about the future, Doug. I think you’re somehow tapped into the future through this creature.”

“But I’m not capable of seeing the future,” Doug said.

Lucy frowned. “I think you are, Doug. What about the plane crash?”

Doug was silent for a long moment
as he stared at Lucy. “Okay,” he said. “But that doesn’t explain my parents and all the other things that happened. Those incidents happened as I was seeing them.”

“Maybe not, Doug. Maybe you were seeing them just before they occurred. Tell me you’ve never considered that.”

“I honestly haven’t, but if it’s true . . .” Doug’s voice trailed off and Lucy saw the pain in his eyes.

“No, Doug, you were a child. You could not have prevented any of it from happening. Don’t go there.”

Doug stared at Lucy as that nagging tic in the dim recesses of his memory again tried to surface, some long lost knowledge or familiarity was trying to surface, and although Doug sensed that it was gaining in strength he was still unable to grasp it. And just like that the fragment fluttered away like dark confetti, leaving him with a dull headache and more questions than answers.

“What’s going to happen when the authorities finally get their hands on me?” Doug asked. “They think I’m a terrorist.”

“They’re not going to touch you,” Lucy said.

“You don’t know that.”

“They think you’re dead.”

“
You
know I’m alive. The nurse and doctor know I’m alive. How many others? Come on, tell me.” Doug had raised himself slightly up off his pillows. “How do I know I’m safe in this hospital?”

“You’re not strong enough for this, Doug.”

He sank wearily back down feeling angry and confused, his sunken and rheumy eyes gazing out at Lucy from a drawn and pallid face. Outside, the light of day was already fading. How long had they been talking? Surely not more than a few hours. Everything seemed somehow distorted and Doug felt a strange sense of vertigo, like he was only partially back from some terrible place. “But I need to know why this is all happening,” he said.

“And you will. Please trust me; right now you need rest more than anything else.” Lucy rose to leave.

Doug put his hand out and gripped Lucy’s wrist, holding her, looking her directly in the eye.
Could
he trust her? There was that veil of doubt again threatening to turn into a solid wall. Who was she really? Where had she come from? What did she want from him? This woman he hardly knew suddenly had all this power over him and he sensed that she was enjoying it. No one had ever had this much control over him and the realization of it gave him claustrophobia. He wanted to bolt from the bed and run for his life, but he forced himself to stay calm. He knew that he must if he was going to heal and get out of this nightmare alive.

Lucy put a comforting hand atop Doug’s. “I don’t know what I can say that will set your mind at ease.”

“How about the truth?” he said.

Lucy
stared back at him unflinching. “I’ve been as straight with you as I can be, Doug, and that
is
the truth.”

Doug gave a weary sigh. She’d just given him another evasive answer
, but what was the use? “I’ve gone through my life thinking I was somehow responsible for . . . everything,” Doug said. “And there’s still some part of me that believes I caused it all. I’ve spent my life since then trying to be normal, trying to rebuild my self worth, running from those who would use me for their own ends. Hear me. I won’t be manipulated. I won’t be used.”

“I won’t use you, Doug. I promise I’ll never do that. You’re a good and kind man and you deserve to be happy.”

“That’s what Rick Jennings always said. If it hadn’t been for him I don’t know if I’d have even gotten through it.”

“Rick Jennings is your friend, the police lieutenant from
Portland, right?” Something in Lucy’s tone put Doug on guard.

“He’s my best friend,” Doug said. “He saved my life after
mom and dad died. I owe him everything. I need to call him, let him know I’m okay.”

“No, Doug, you can’t. You’re dead, remember?”

A terrible sense of frustration rose in Doug. “It’s killing me that they think that, that my death is causing them pain.”

“I know, but it’s best right now. Please, you have to trust me.”

Trust me! Trust me! Trust me!
It was her mantra and his prison. But at the moment he felt too tired, too drained to do anything else.

Lucy pulled away. “You’re exhausted,” she said, an embarrassed, almost apologetic smile on her face. “You need rest. I’m sorry I upset you.”

Doug looked in her eyes and again a strange feeling of déjà vu tried to surface, but it was gone in an instant, leaving him tired and frustrated. He settled back into his pillows. “Tomorrow I’ll be stronger,” he said. And to himself;
tomorrow I’ll remember everything.

At that moment Dr.
Parsons appeared above him, a round happy face with inquisitive eyes behind small oval, wire framed glasses. “Are you upsetting my patient?” he said to Lucy with a touch of rancor in his voice.

Dr.
Parsons leaned down, examining Doug.

“I’m fine,” Doug said. “Just tired.”

“You won’t be running any marathons for a few weeks, I’m afraid,” Parsons said. Looking now at Lucy, he said, “I insist you let him rest. He still has a lot of healing to do.”

“I was just leaving,” Lucy said. “I’ll come back in the morning
.  We’ll get you through this. I promise.” She touched Doug tenderly on the arm before turning and walking from the room.

“Sure,” Doug said to no one
in particular, as he began a rapid descent into oblivion. The lights were suddenly and mysteriously extinguished and everything around him began fading to black. “I’ll get through this,” he whispered to himself. “I need my strength. I have to get out of this place and find Annie.”

When Doug slept there were no dreams. Or if there were he slept too securely to remember them. His absence was empty, in fact, of all thoughts and
images, all reason and purpose, as though whatever lived inside his heart was secret even from him.

During the nights that followed
, the woman religiously came to him. She would stand by his bed and watch him sleep, sometimes for long stretches of time. After a while she would turn his bed covers down, unfasten his night shirt and place the object over his heart, holding it there, sometimes for hours, feeling his heartbeat quicken beneath her hand, feeling the intense, almost unbearable heat of the object as it went about its business of healing.

In those moments, while the electric surges of his heartbeat coursed up through her arm and into her own body, it was hard for her to remain impartial, difficult for her to continue on with the façade and not admit that she was hopelessly in love with this gifted and tortured man. It was even more difficult not to admit that she’d always been in love with him, that everything she’d done in her life had been done for him.

She would carefully watch his reaction to her touches and caresses, trying to judge, through his body language, the emotions he might be experiencing. After a time her eyes and her hand would drift down his body to his most private places, and knowing that he was a vital man in his prime who had needs, she was not surprised when her ministrations began to bear fruit. When the urge to kiss him there, to caress him with her hands and mouth, to surrender herself wholly to him became overpowering, she would stop and pull away, knowing in her heart that what she was doing was wrong, that he was not reacting to her touches on a personal level, but on some deep subconscious level that had nothing to do with her. She would retrieve the object then and leave his bedside, guilt ridden and filled with frustration.

As time passed and the healing process progressed and there was no longer any need for the object, her night
ly visits became less frequent until she had almost entirely weaned herself—not of her feelings for the man, no, that was not possible—but for her nearly uncontrollable urges to take advantage of him at his most vulnerable. Her duty was clear, she was to remain impartial, emotionally detached; she knew these things, of course, understood them implicitly, she’d taken vows to uphold these principles at all costs. Just the same, she was weak, a flesh and blood being with strong emotions, and a small flame of an idea began to make its way into her thoughts; a way that she might be able to save face and still have what she most yearned for.

Doug was dreaming of his mother. Since her death he had dreamed of her often, so he was not surprised that her memory was once again a part of his subconscious self. What did surprise him was the nature of the dream. She was standing on the front porch of their new house—a house he had never seen, let alone lived in, but in the years following his parent’s death had conjured in splendid detail so many times that it became real in his heart—and she was calling to him as he rode away on his bicycle.

“Doug,”
she called,
“You didn’t forget to put the object around your neck, did you? Remember, it will help to protect you, keep you safe.”

Her words nearly jolted Doug from his sleep, for it was in that instant, after
six weeks in a coma and nearly another two weeks of recovery which had included hours of conversation with Lucy Ferguson and other staff members, that—thanks to his long dead mother—he finally remembered the object. Why had he not remembered it sooner? Furthermore, why hadn’t Lucy or another staff member mentioned it? Perhaps because it was gone before Lucy found him shot on the airport restroom floor? No, impossible. It was in his jacket pocket wrapped in a soft scrap of flannel cloth. Maybe they had found it and assumed it was nothing and simply discarded it. Or perhaps it was in a drawer or cupboard with his wallet, or maybe it was still in his jacket pocket and the jacket was hanging in a closet somewhere. But the jacket would have had bloody holes in it from the gunshot wounds and they might have thrown it away. The thought caused dread to settle in Doug’s sleeping heart.

But Doug wasn’t just remembering the
object.
Suddenly he was remembering everything; the dying man who’d given it to him and the incident surrounding it. The Brotherhood of the Order. That’s the organization the man had said he belonged to. It was the same organization Lucy claimed to work for. Nearly two weeks of conversation with her and she hadn’t let him in on that little secret. There was something terribly wrong here. 

“Doug, wake up. You must hurry.”
It was his mother again and she sounded frightened, her voice filled with hoarse urgency.
“You must put the object around your neck before it’s too late.”

Doug
jolted awake, a cold sweat engulfing him. He no longer heard his mother calling to him, but now he could hear other sounds: a chorus of strident voices. He opened his eyes and stared. It was nighttime. There was no question about that. There were no lights on in his room, only the open door, where from beyond, dim illumination spilled in. He heard a muffled scream—a woman’s scream—and a clatter of noise that sounded like a tray of instruments crashing to the floor. He looked around him at all the tubes and monitors, wondering if he could survive without them. His question was answered as moot at the sound of a determined male voice demanding, “
What room?”
There was no doubt that its intent was menacing. Doug rolled over, the movement ripping the IV needle from his left arm. The explosion of pain in his chest was excruciating. He nearly screamed. He pulled tape and needle from his right arm and sat up, throwing his legs over the side of the bed. They felt like two chunks of dead cordwood. The room began to spin wildly. He tried to ignore the sensation, grasping the edge of the mattress firmly with both hands, easing himself to his feet, forcing himself to breathe evenly. His weak legs trembled beneath him and he wondered if he was able to take even a single step. Another loud voice followed by a moan of agony spurred him into nearly impossible action. He took one, then two steps. In the dim light spilling in from the corridor he spied a wheelchair against the wall behind the door. He took three more shaky steps, turned and fell into it. Footsteps pounded in the corridor, and he heard two male voices. Using the strength in his arms, he wheeled back to the bed, hastily pulled the covers down, inserted the pillows and re-covered the bed, making it look vaguely like a person might be lying beneath the covers. He ripped a needle from one of the tubes and quickly wheeled back behind the open door, fisting the needle as one would a knife.

A shadow fell across the threshold, then a second. He raised the hand that held the needle, keenly aware of his chances of survival if these intruders meant him harm. The shadows were unmoving for a long moment. Doug froze, barely breathing. His heart pounded madly in his chest. He wondered if the intruders would hear it. His upper body was wrapped tightly in bandages and he could feel the vague mutterings of pain as the drugs from the
IV began to wear off.

One of the intruders stepped silently into the room. From Doug’s vantage behind the door he could see the man’s back. He wore a trench coat and a pair of black shoes. His hair was short and gray, neatly trimmed around the ears. Doug knew the look. He’d seen guys like these before. These were some sort of government guys, federal agents; no doubt about that. The phrase ‘
Men in Black’
rose in his consciousness. Making the connection jolted him like an electric shock.
Jesus,
he thought.
It’s true? The government thinks I’m a terrorist and they’ve come for me.
He held the needle high, ready to plunge it into the man’s back if necessary. A fine film of sweat covered him. He tried not to breathe, but the pain was worsening and he was weakening. His heart hammered in his ears.

The man raised his right arm. In it he held a gun with an attached silencer sleeve. It was aimed at Doug’s bed.

“What are you doing?” The second man—the one who’d remained in the corridor—the one Doug hadn’t yet seen—said in an urgent whisper.

“You’ll see.”

“Boss Man said to kill him only if necessary. He would prefer him alive. It’s the object he wants.”

“I know what he said.” The man promptly pulled the gun’s trigger three times in quick succession. The gunshots, although silenced, seemed loud in the closed space of the room. Three small black holes appeared in the bed sheet. Doug stopped breathing.

“Are you crazy, Rusty? They’ll crucify us for this.”

The man named Rusty took three quick steps toward the bed, reached down and ripped the sheet off. Doug held the needle high, his legs tensed; he was ready to spring from the chair.

Close by came the cacophonous wailing of approaching sirens.

Rusty gave a sinister laugh. “See,” he said, pointing at the bed. “He’s been moved. They knew we were coming. God knows where the artifact is.”

“Our orders were to find that artifact,” the man in the hall said. “Get moving. I’ll stand guard.”

Rusty rifled quickly through the drawers of the stand next to the bed
, and then he ducked into the closet. “It’s not here,” he said. “The woman must have it.”

“That’s what
Boss Man was afraid of,” the second man said. “Somebody tipped her off and she got McArthur out of here.”

The building’s fire alarm went off with ear-piercing dissonance only adding to the cacophonic din of the approaching emergency vehicles.

“We’re too late,” the second man said. “The locals can’t find us here. Come on, let’s move.”

Rusty turned
from the closet door and stopped abruptly, looking directly at Doug. Some instinct that Doug was totally unaware of until that moment caused something in his mind to bear down with painful pressure. He stared the man directly in the eyes, unblinking until something gave way in his brain and a constellation of stars exploded across his vision. The pain was blinding. Rusty’s face went slack.

“What the hell are you waiting for?” the second man said. “Let’s go!”

Rusty did not answer. He walked briskly past Doug, through the door and out of the room. Doug fell back into the chair, his head nearly splitting with intense agony, his body trembling. Finally he began to breathe again. He heard running footsteps retreating in the distance. When he thought it was safe he wheeled himself around the door and out into the corridor. He felt wetness on his mouth and realized that his nose was bleeding. He wiped the blood off with the sleeve of his night shirt, looking up and then down the corridor. The coast seemed to be clear. There was a nurse’s station not far to his left so he wheeled toward it. Behind the counter he found Donna Sanchez on the floor among a spilled tray of instruments. Her head was canted unnaturally to the side and her lifeless eyes stared out at him. There was no doubt that her neck was broken. Nevertheless, Doug slid out of the chair and checked her pulse.

“
Bastards!” he said. He eased himself back into the chair and wheeled toward a medicine cabinet on the far wall, ripped it open and rifled through it until he found what he was looking for; several hermetically-sealed syringes and a bottle of morphine. He put the stuff in his lap and wheeled back around the counter toward the elevator. The fire alarm stopped abruptly, leaving a vacuum inside the hospital corridor that was at once claustrophobic and eerie. The sirens were warbling louder now, approaching with a swiftness that made Doug realize he had to get away before they found him. He wasn’t safe anywhere.

He stopped in front of the elevator door, seeing that he was on the fourth floor. The elevator was moving up toward
s him. Doug knew now that he could not trust anyone. The men who had been sent to capture or kill him were almost certainly agents of the United States Government, and they would stop at nothing to get what they wanted. They’d killed that woman in cold blood. He knew that if local authorities found him they would blame him for the murder. He was, after all, supposed to be dead, the victim of a horrendous plane crash, a suspect in the disaster. But the government knew he was alive. They’d set him up for some reason. If they caught him he would disappear into a black hole. There was some sort of conspiracy afoot that he had no understanding of. He must find out what it was, and the only way of doing so was to be free. He wheeled frantically toward the stairwell and blasted through the exit door. He listened for footsteps, but above the wailing of the sirens he could hear nothing. Tucking the syringes and the morphine in the pocket of his night shirt he eased himself out of the chair. His legs felt stronger now but he suspected he was running on adrenaline, and his strength would probably be short-lived. He tried not to think about what awesome power had caused that man to look directly at him and not know he was there. He remembered clearly what the man in the corridor had said just before he’d looked at the man in his room:
Our orders were to find that artifact at all costs.
Doug reached his hand up to his neck, feeling for an object that wasn’t there.
Of course it’s not there, you idiot.
You were shot. You were in a coma for six weeks. It was in your jacket pocket instead of around your neck where it should have been.
He remembered the dream of his mother and realized that it had most probably saved his life, and how the memories had come rushing back on him like a tidal wave. He remembered everything now: the dying man that had passed him the object and the words he had spoken. Now the artifact was gone. Dear God, it was lost, maybe forever. It had been entrusted to him and he’d screwed up and lost it. He looked back toward the room, knowing he could not risk going back up that corridor. He felt terrible. But how the government knew about it, and what they wanted with it, he could not even venture a guess. Had those men actually been agents of the U.S. Government, or something else entirely? Who was the person they had referred to as ‘Boss Man’? He suddenly realized that there were way too many questions and not nearly enough answers, and asking them now was only succeeding in hurting his brain, and probably putting his life in further jeopardy. As his predicament came into sharp focus, panic began to seize him. He stifled it, knowing that survival depended on him keeping a rational face on his situation. He knew that there was no time to ponder any of this now. He had to get out of the hospital if he expected to survive.

Holding onto the metal banister he eased himself down the lighted stairwell on shaky legs. The outside walls appeared to be made of tinted glass and beyond there was nothing but darkness. He wondered if they were out there watching his careful descent, ready to grab him as soon as he stepped through the door. But he couldn’t think about that. He had to move. After he had descended three floors he began to wonder why he had not encountered another living soul. At the bottom he had two choices. He could turn left and go into the hospital’s ground floor, or he could turn right and leave by the exit door. If he left the hospital where would he go? He had no idea where
Whitehall, Virginia was. He had no money, no clothes and he was still badly injured. Nevertheless, the choice was a simple one: freedom. He blasted out through the exit door and found himself on a walkway bordered closely by blossoming rhododendrons. He was obviously at a back entrance because there was no activity out here and the distant parking lot appeared empty. The night was dark. There was no moon, and the stars were brilliantly-cut diamonds set against the black curtain of night. He estimated the temperature to be somewhere around 40 degrees. It was still spring and even in Virginia the night air felt chilled. He was wet from sweat, shivering madly and his ass was hanging out of the night shirt. He realized that he had to find clothing and shelter soon or he would be in deep shit.

It appeared that Donna Sanchez, the now dead nurse, had been telling the truth when she’d
said he was at a university hospital, for he could see campus-like buildings in the distance. The hour was probably late for there were few lights in the windows. Some of these buildings he knew would be dormitories, sorority and frat houses. Perhaps he could find clothing or shelter among them. He reached the end of the walkway and set off across a deserted parking area on shaky legs. But he soon had to stop. The pain inside him was now excruciating. He took one of the syringes from his pocket and removed the sterile package that encased it. From his other pocket he extracted the vial of morphine, inserted the needle into the nipple and pulled back several CCs of the pain-killing drug.