Touching Evil (21 page)

Goddamn it. What would Greg think? What would he want?

He'd want to help. He'd want to get more information. He'd want to
... Oh, fuck. Fuck a duck. Artie flew back down the stairs, nearly
slamming Duke in the door in his haste. Greg had gone to the bastard's
apartment.

He'd bet his life on it.

Chapter Fifteen

Fuckers.

He'll kill them all. The pregnant cunt. The blond fucker. All of them.

Trying to trick him. Trying to fool him. Trying to make him believe that imposter was Greg.

It isn't going to be this way.

It isn't.

He squeals up to his apartment complex, and runs up the door, heart pounding. The tape on the door's broken. Who...

Oh.

Oh, he knows that voice. He does.

He weighs the pistol in his hand, slips the safety off. He doesn't want to kill Greg. He doesn't. But he will. He's ready to.

There are two options. Cooperate or die.

He'd taken peyote when he was an undergrad, and the dull swirling of color and heat and sound had been like this.

The red light blinked, over and over, the soft sound of splashing
and laughing and murmuring a strange constant companion. Greg groaned,
shifted, frowning as he tried to move, tried to remember where he was.

What he'd touched.

God.

He shifted his hands, eyes flying open as a scream rocketed through his head. Pain. Pain. Oh, God. Oh. No.

It was too much, too much to contain and he convulsed, hands tugging at the bonds, eyes rolling in his head.

He felt the sting in his arm distantly, the heat there sliding through him, relaxing his muscles.

"That's right, Dr. Pearsall, don't struggle, you'll hurt yourself.
Just relax while I pack." Pack? Pack what? He didn't understand. "Your
filthy little detective fucked everything up for us. Everything."

Artie wasn't filthy. He hated ties, but he was very clean. He vacuumed twice a week to get rid of Duke's hair.

"I had wanted you to teach me. They said no one understood anatomy
like you did. No one. But you wouldn't speak to me. So, I spoke with a
friend who shared similar interests, and we went to speak with you, and
look what you made us do." Greg frowned, trying to follow along, trying
to remember how to think.

To breathe.

Oh.

Man.

Breathing was good.

Dimly he came to realize the red light was the same one from his
visions, exactly the same, along with the dripping and the ... oh, God.
Yes, now he knew.

Leah. Oh, God. Make this mean Artie got Leah. "Not ... not helping you."

The little bastard picked up a scalpel, plopped it in a bag. "Yes, you will. You were made for this. You were made for me."

Made for him. No, that would be the ... the thing. The one he was
collecting for. The thought made him gag. And that made the asshole
laugh.

He shook his head, swallowed hard. Okay. Okay. What would Artie do?

Oh, man. Artie.

Artie'd never fucking find him here.

Just about the time he thought that, the little shit happily packing away stopped moving, head tilting.

Now, if he'd gone from picking up things to transmitting them, Greg was fucked.

"Stop moaning, Doctor. Did you hear that?" A gun. That was a gun, not a scalpel. Leah's gun.

"Hear what?" He didn't hear a goddamn thing. He didn't think. Fuck.
He took a deep breath, threw his head back and hollered. "He's got a
gu-u-u-u-u-u-u-un
!"

There. Nobody was going to hear anything now.

The gun in question smacked across the side of his face. He thought
something in his cheek cracked. The echo was still ringing when someone
cursed viciously and things crashed down off the little table set up
with surgical tools.

Little traces of things started seeping in past the main song of
"ow" and "fuck" and "gag." Greg thought that the kindest thing anyone
could do was shoot out that fucking blinky light.

The pop-pop of gunfire finally focused him, everything else flying
out of his head as he strained to hear above the ringing in his ears.

The light started swinging, then screams started, low and furious,
Jerry's hand landing on his leg, his bare hand. "No. No. Don't touch
me. Don't touch me. Get off. Get off!"

He kicked out, horror and hysteria and a vague blackness soaking into him, feet connecting against Jerry with a thud.

The hand went away, Jerry's shouting all he could hear, and then a
great, bearlike roar. He jerked, tugged, eyes dropping closed, the
whole thing simply too much to bear, to understand.

When all of the echoes ended there was a hand on him again, just
lightly touching his leg. It was not Jerry's hand. He pulled away,
whimpering a little, confused. Come on, Greg. Open your eyes. You're
not dead yet. Open your eyes.

"Greg. Babe." It seemed so far away, that voice.

"Artie. He has a gun. He has a gun. Artie." His eyes rolled, and he started shaking.

"Not anymore, babe. It's okay. It's okay now." Artie touched him
again, this time holding him still. "You're gonna hurt yourself."

"I can't. I have to." Shit. Stop. Breathe. Whatever he'd been given
kept him from fighting, kept him from having any strength. Muscle
relaxant. He knew about those. They gave them to him in hospitals when
he couldn't cope.

"Greg." Rough palms landed on either side of his face, Artie holding
him, looking into his eyes. "You have to stop fighting so I can untie
you. Tell me you understand."

"Artie." Oh, God. It was him. Really. "Leah? You found Leah?"

"She's safe. Her and the rugrat both." Artie had a trickle of blood
running down his face, his expression one big grimace. He was wearing a
tie. It was up under his right ear.

"Good. You hate ties." Greg loved the man so much it hurt. "I need out of this chair."

"I do. I'm getting there. Hold still, babe." Artie called him babe a
lot. It was cute. He'd seen Artie call Duke babe once by mistake. It
had ended in blood. Blood. Artie had blood on him.

"Artie?" He moved away from the touch, frowned, trying to understand. "You're hurt? He hurt you?"

"It's not all mine, babe. I ... You'd better be careful what you
touch. There's his blood kinda everywhere." Artie grimaced suddenly,
turning away, his shoulders heaving.

He slid right out of the chair without the support of the detective or his own muscles and onto the floor with a splash.

He discovered he might have a limit to how much he could take in.

"Greg? Greg..." Artie seemed even farther away, but couldn't be
because Artie was lifting Greg like a rag doll, hauling him down some
sort of tunnel.

His head rolled and he thought he'd just keep Artie, now. Especially when they left that fucking blinky light behind.

"Just a little more, love. God knows, the uniforms should be here
soon. And our guy isn't going anywhere." Somewhere in that statement
was something he should be upset about.

"Uniforms. You broke your arm when you were eight on a bicycle and you didn't cry and your father brought you ice cream."

"I did. And now I have a hole in that same arm, babe. Can you walk just a little more?" Was he walking now? He wasn't sure.

"He gave me a shot." He kept trying to think about walking, trying to get the feet-legs-hips thing working.

"What was it, Greg? I know you can tell if you think hard." Oh, Artie had such faith in him. That rang
loud
.

"Muscle relaxant. He ... he knew. He knew about the hospital. They
gave me Flexeril and Demerol." Made him feel melted and loosey-goosey.

"Okay." He could see light now. Real light. Not the red blinky. "Do you need to go to the doctor, Greg? I need to know."

"I ... I can't. I can't. I can't." He knew he should. He knew, but he simply couldn't.

"Okay. It's okay. We can have an EMT look at us both, all right?
Someone will have to make the report." Now there was a flashing red
light again, but it was outside.

"What is with the fucking red lights!" He really, really was tired of this whole day.

"Those are ambulance lights, babe." Oh, he knew that voice. The tone. The humor. The lunatic thing.

"Don't. Don't treat me like I'm crazy." He wasn't crazy. He wasn't. He was tired. Sick. Homeless. "I'm not crazy!"

"I know that!" Artie snarled it, grabbing his upper arms and shaking him. "You almost died!"

Greg simply lost it, the edges of reality and not blurring and fading away as he flailed and shattered into a million pieces.

Enough.

He had had enough.

Chapter Sixteen

Artie was fucking exhausted. He'd fought taking Greg to the
hospital, leaving Greg with Alice and Mitch at his place while he went
in for the standard gunshot exam, and then on to being drilled on the
discharging of his own firearm. Over and over and over again.

He'd been patched up, cleaned off, and given leave with pay for a week. At least.

When he came back, though, Leah would be on short hours. They'd decided that was best. He hated it, but there it was.

His door looked almost ominous when he stopped outside it. His arm
throbbed, and his ribs hurt, and he was afraid to try to close his eyes
and sleep ... afraid of what he'd see.

Artie took a deep breath and put his key in the lock, heading in.

The sound Duke made was three parts fury and one part rage, the yowl
warning him before sixteen pounds of furious Siamese tackled him at the
door.

Mitch looked over from the dining room table where he was dealing cards. "Detective. You're home."

Ah, Mitch. Mr. Obvious.

"Shit! Duke, come on, man. I'm injured." His hands got scratched to
hell as he reached down to pry Duke off him, dangling the suddenly dead
kitty weight. "Don't everyone help me at once."

"Artie, dear. I adore you, but that cat is demon possessed." Alice
came out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel. "He's bitten
Mitch twice and howled at Dr. Nyguen when he came to see Greg. Would
you like some tea?"

"Yeah. They won't let me have a beer. They shot me full of stuff."
Where was Greg? He had to be there. Artie wandered in, still holding
Duke, fingers petting automatically.

"Well, I hope you didn't drive. Mitch, help Artie get settled on the
sofa, love?" Alice just pottered, heading back into to the kitchen.

"I..." he stuttered, looking at Mitch like a deer in the headlights. "I need to see Greg."

Mitch shook his head. "Greg's sleeping, Artie. Dr. Nyguen gave him stuff and told us to leave him alone."

"I won't touch him. I won't even get close enough to disturb his
fucking brainwaves. I just need to see him." Plopping Duke on the
couch, he headed for the bedroom, reeling a little.

"Uh. Alice? Love?" Mitch sort of ... fluttered behind him.

"Let it be, Mitch. Artie won't hurt him. Come reach teacups for me."

Did he have teacups?

Greg was wrapped up on his bed like a mummy, a white sheet cocooning
and swaddling Greg like a papoose or something. All Artie could see was
Greg's face, bruised and swollen on one side.

He swallowed hard, moving just far enough into the room to see
Greg's chest rising and falling, moving all that bedding. Oh. Oh, thank
God.

"Artie." Greg's eyes were still closed, but that was his name, slurred and lost.

"Right here, babe. Right here. It's all fine. Sleep." God, he loved that man. So much.

"Love you. Come to bed, Artie. Duke is hungry."

"Do you think Alice will give him tea and cakes?" Artie shrugged
carefully out of his coat, his arm stabbing at him, feeling like Duke
was clawing out from the inside. Shoes, shirt, pants ... his stupid tie
was in the trash. Artie crawled on the bed.

"I hope not. I fucking hate that tea."

"I don't think I have teacups. Do you think they might have been
here when I moved in?" Oh. Greg. Against him. Artie nuzzled the poor
bruised cheek so lightly even Duke would be proud.

"Maybe. The doctor promised I wouldn't dream."

"You're not dreaming, babe." Okay, he was babbling, he could see why it would seem dreamlike. "I'm right here. Can you feel me?"

"Yeah. Inside me. Like a good drug. Is Leah's baby okay?"

"So far so good. They want her to take it easy." They wanted him to,
also. He knew now what Greg felt like with the crazy talking.

"Are you in trouble? At work? Because of me?" Greg managed to roll over, pressing against him.

"No. They're just very careful around the guy with the loose cannon." He sighed, his eyes sliding closed.

"Oh." Greg sighed, too, breath moving the hair at his temple. "No dreams, Artie."

"No. We'll guard each other's backs." No dreams. Please, God. Just let them rest.

Just for one night.

Greg opened his eyes when Alice entered the room and Artie sat up, flailing, reaching for the bedside table.

"Easy. Easy. I just wanted to tell you we're going home. Greg needs
his medicine." Alice looked tired, worn. "I'm going to open the store."

"I need to pee. Help me out of this." God, his voice sounded like he'd gargled sandpaper.

Artie blinked, staring down at him, then at Alice. "Where ... what?"

"It's okay. Should I leave Mitch? He can help. Make tea."

"God no. Just unwrap me."

Artie finally looked at him, comprehension dawning. "Oh. Hey, babe.
Hey, Alice." Like an archaeologist unwrapping a mummy, Artie started
getting him loose.

"Hey." He tried to help, wiggling some, trying to not freak out about being trapped.

"It's okay, babe," Artie said, tongue sticking out as he worked. If he focused on that, it was kind of cute and distracting.

"How's your arm?" He could feel the urge to float away, to just close his eyes and drift.

"Kinda sore." Artie peered into his face. "You okay? Do you need something?"

"Just a little floaty. What did they give me?"

Alice sighed. "Baclofen and Flexeril with a shot of Demerol and Phenergan. You went down hard."