Waking Nightmares (30 page)
Authors: Christopher Golden
His father turned on him, snarling, holding the IV stand like a baseball bat. His eyes had turned black as tar, and at their centers were pinpoints of bright light like distant stars. Norm Dunne stared at his son as if he had nursed a hatred for him all of his life.
“For the goddess,” his father said, black fluid dribbling from his lips, turning his voice into a wet growl.
Then his father lunged, cocking the IV stand.
Tommy got the hell out. He hurled himself backward, turning to flee the room. He hurtled into the corridor, slamming into a young nurse, who staggered back and crashed into the opposite wall. Off balance, Tommy careened across the hall and lost his footing, went sprawling into an empty gurney, then pushed off and bolted.
But he had lost precious seconds.
“Mr. Dunne, what are you—” the nurse began.
And then she screamed, and the IV stand swept down toward her. Every ounce of sense Tommy had ever had told him to run, but he couldn’t let his father do to the nurse what he’d done to the old man. He reversed direction, threw out an arm, and stopped the IV stand as it came down. Twisting it around, he held on with both hands, using it as a bar to shove his father back. As a teenager, he had wondered how much stronger he would have to grow, and how much older his father would have to get, before he would be able to take his old man.
Tommy hadn’t gotten there yet.
Norm yanked the IV stand toward him with one hand, and with the other he smashed a fist into Tommy’s face, breaking his nose and splitting his lip. Norm tore the IV stand from his grasp and hit him again, this time with such force that the blow drove Tommy to his knees.
“Dad, please,” Tommy said, looking up at his father’s black, pinpoint eyes. “Stop.”
Norm grabbed a fistful of his son’s hair, hoisted Tommy off the floor, and hit him again. And again. Blood flowed from Tommy’s nose and mouth. He could taste the copper tang of it on his tongue. Blackness swam in at the edges of his vision. When his father picked him up by his shirt and belt, Tommy could not fight back.
His father hurled him into the wall. Something cracked inside Tommy Dunne, and he slammed down on top of the gurney in the hall, then tumbled off it and hit the linoleum. His eyes flickered open and closed and he saw a pool of his own blood forming around him. He heard shouting and retreating feet, and he thought his father must be running.
He killed me,
Tommy thought.
My dad killed me.
Tommy thought.
My dad killed me.
And then he slid into oblivion.
KEOMANY
watched as Octavian scanned the jammed visitor parking lot at Hawthorne Union Hospital for a second or two, then turned up the drive reserved for ambulances and other emergency vehicles. He drove onto the grass alongside that lane and killed the engine.
watched as Octavian scanned the jammed visitor parking lot at Hawthorne Union Hospital for a second or two, then turned up the drive reserved for ambulances and other emergency vehicles. He drove onto the grass alongside that lane and killed the engine.
“You’re just going to park on the hospital lawn?” Keomany asked as he popped open his door and began to climb out into the rain.
Octavian glanced back inside at her. “Daybreak hasn’t given us much of a reprieve. No more wasting time.” He gave her a mischievous grin. “Besides, I think most of the town’s a little too busy to worry about towing my car.”
He swung the door shut.
In the backseat, Charlotte snickered. “I know I was, like,
made
to hate him. But I totally want him,” she said, in a just-us-girls conspiratorial tone that made Keomany wince. “The swagger just gets me, y’know?”
made
to hate him. But I totally want him,” she said, in a just-us-girls conspiratorial tone that made Keomany wince. “The swagger just gets me, y’know?”
Keomany opened her door, glancing into the backseat. “Again, he’s in a relationship.”
Charlotte smiled, fangs glinting in the gloom of the car. “He’s been around practically since the Dark Ages. My guess is he’s had a lot of relationships and outlived them all.”
“Listen—” Keomany snapped.
“Please, don’t lecture me,” Charlotte said, rolling her eyes. “The guy’s yummy. Let’s not pretend being around him doesn’t get you buzzing in all the right places. If you’re not going to act on it, that’s fine. All the more for me.”
The vampire girl opened her door and plunged into the storm with inhuman swiftness, leaving the door hanging open. Keomany climbed out, shut both doors, and started after her. She didn’t want to seem like she was chasing Charlotte, but the hot rain felt so slick and viscous on her skin that she ran just to be out of it.
Ahead of her, she saw Octavian stride through the sliding glass doors of the emergency room with Charlotte in pursuit, her red hair bright even in the gray rain. The whole town had been infected by chaos, but Keomany knew now that it was the way the infection spread and created blossoms of discord and madness that was the true threat. She had faith in Octavian, and in herself. They could stop this. Gaea lingered just out of her reach, yearning to cleanse the contagion from this place. All could be healed again. Unless their efforts were undermined by small blossoms of chaos that grew so close they could bloom unnoticed. The wild, savage streak in the vampire girl had been augmented and intensified by the dark energies threaded through the town, churning in the chaos storm. This wasn’t the time for the kind of mischief she seemed to delight in stirring up, but like the blood thirst that gnawed at her, she could fight the urge only if she wished to, and even then, for only so long.
The doors shushed closed behind Charlotte, and Keomany ran even faster after her.
OCTAVIAN
could feel the chaos around him now, its dark energy prickling his skin and making the small hairs stand up on the back of his neck. It touched him, coated his skin with a layer of filth just as unpleasant as the hot rain outside. The miasma of chaos was intangible and invisible, existing only on some etheric plane, but he felt it just the same, and it had been growing worse with every passing moment since the sun had come up. Keomany had predicted that they would have two or three days before the dark energies swirling in Hawthorne hit critical mass, reaching their full power and potentially destroying the entire town and all of its people. Instead, it had been not quite twenty-four hours since Keomany had first sensed the disturbance here, and Octavian could feel the power building. The air crackled with it. He still believed that the daylight—beyond the veil of the storm or not—would have a tempering influence on the evil festering here. But by nightfall, all hell would surely break loose.
could feel the chaos around him now, its dark energy prickling his skin and making the small hairs stand up on the back of his neck. It touched him, coated his skin with a layer of filth just as unpleasant as the hot rain outside. The miasma of chaos was intangible and invisible, existing only on some etheric plane, but he felt it just the same, and it had been growing worse with every passing moment since the sun had come up. Keomany had predicted that they would have two or three days before the dark energies swirling in Hawthorne hit critical mass, reaching their full power and potentially destroying the entire town and all of its people. Instead, it had been not quite twenty-four hours since Keomany had first sensed the disturbance here, and Octavian could feel the power building. The air crackled with it. He still believed that the daylight—beyond the veil of the storm or not—would have a tempering influence on the evil festering here. But by nightfall, all hell would surely break loose.
The emergency room hummed with the voices of a throng of people, most of whom had sustained bloody injuries overnight. There were broken limbs and gashed faces and two men who looked like they had beaten each other half to death and then come to the hospital together. A middle-aged Asian woman vomited noisily into a paper bag while her daughter tried to comfort her and held her hair away from her face. The woman had blood and snot dripping from her nose and tried to catch her breath between bouts of retching. She wasn’t the only one who looked sick, like some kind of poison had gotten inside her. Octavian realized that was precisely what had happened.
Closing his eyes, he tuned out the cacophony of voices around him—all those people waiting for help, knowing there were dozens inside already being treated—and reached down within himself. At the core of himself burned a magic that he nurtured every day. Of all of the sorcery he had learned in the thousand years he had spent in Hell, this was the greatest—to find within himself the magic that had lain dormant in humanity for thousands of years, and ignite it, and make it grow and become his own second nature. So much of what he could do now—not the spellcraft but the instinctive magic, the combat sorcery, came from that core. And something else.
Octavian smiled, because it felt good. Very, very good. Golden light shimmered at the tips of his fingers and sparked along his palms. An unseen wind danced around him and rustled his clothes and hair, and he could see the golden light misting in front of his eyes, spilling out of them.
“Be well,” he whispered, and the words were the courier.
The magic flashed up and spread across the ceiling, falling like gold dust. It slid through the cracks beneath the doors into the treatment area and the open window of the receptionist’s desk and he watched it go, exhaling.
The Asian woman stopped vomiting. She took several deep breaths, eyes wide, as though she expected another round of convulsive retching any second, but none came. Even her pallor seemed less sickly. Some people tried to brush the gold dust from their clothes and skin, but it vanished like snowflakes melting as they landed on warm pavement. Several had noticed him and now turned to stare, some with fear and others with wonder. Octavian hated to make a spectacle, but if he could not purge all of Hawthorne so easily, the least he could do was help cleanse the dark chaos poison from this handful of people.
The wounded were still wounded. They still bled. They were still in pain. But those who had been ill, he had made well.
“What did you just do?” a voice asked from behind him.
Octavian turned to see Keomany and Charlotte side by side, staring at him. He would have smiled and dismissed his actions with some offhanded remark, but off to their right, in a corner by the door, a uniformed police officer—darkly handsome, perhaps Italian or Greek—had drawn his gun and held it in both hands, aimed at Octavian’s chest.
“Damn good question,” the cop said. “I’d like an answer. What the hell was that?”
Keomany shuffled aside. Charlotte swore but managed not to reveal her fangs, and Octavian was grateful of that.
Octavian lifted his hands to show he meant no harm. “My name is Peter Octavian. Last night, my friends and I were working with Chief Kramer and some of your fellow officers to fight the magic that’s attacking your town. The chief asked us to meet him here.”
The cop looked doubtful, but his gun wavered. At least one member of the Hawthorne police force had been killed last night, and Octavian suspected that there might be more than one. Octavian saw the fear and grief in him and knew that he must have seen awful things overnight and might now be worried about the people he loved. Men in such circumstances could do foolish things.
Keomany took a step toward Octavian, raising her hands as well in a placating gesture. “Officer, I know it’s been a long night and it doesn’t seem like it’s getting any better. But we’re here to help.”
“You’re supposed to meet Chief Kramer here?” the cop asked slowly.
Octavian nodded. “We are. Check in. You’ll find out that we’re telling the truth.”
The cop glanced over at the people who had been sick, many of whom were standing, looking around in bewilderment as though they were only waiting for the standoff to end so that they could go home. But it was clear they were better.
At length, the cop nodded and pulled out his phone, then seemed to remember it wasn’t working and grabbed a hand radio from his belt instead. Bursts of static erupted from it intermittently, but he managed to have a short, muttered conversation, and when it ended he holstered his weapon.
“Come with me,” he told Octavian and Keomany, with a curious appraising glance at Charlotte. “The chief’s up in the psych unit.”
“I imagine there was a lot of trouble there last night,” Octavian said, as they all fell in behind the cop, whose name badge he now saw read
TAGLIATELLI
.
TAGLIATELLI
.
Officer Tagliatelli would have been a poor poker player. His expression turned grim, and Octavian knew that they had lost at least one officer to violence in the psych unit. But then Tagliatelli’s eyes lit up with confusion and curiosity, and he knew it was not the violence that had brought Chief Kramer to that particular wing of the hospital this morning.
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