Number of the Beast (Paladin Cycle, Book One) (40 page)

“
Relax, buddy. At least
Sheriff Bowden let you come to the hospital instead of locking you
up. Let’s be optimistic here.”

In the corner of the waiting room, he
heard Carmen on the phone giving Scooter the run down.

Pausing, Shane clasped his
hands on top of his head. “I wanted to kill that freak.” He
remembered the invisible wall, soft and spongy. And how his fist
was diverted. “But I couldn’t touch him. Something wouldn’t let me
touch him. It was seriously fucked up.”

The kid acted strange, and
like he knew him, like they were long lost friends. Something about
him didn’t sit well with Shane. And his demeanor. Cool, calm, and
collected. Wasn’t too often Shane met someone, especially young,
that weren’t afraid of him. Shane had seen that same behavior in
hardened soldiers in the Middle East—guys who’d lived through IEDs
and ambushes, men who weren’t afraid to grab a bull by its horns
and spit in its face when it snorted.

Who is that punk and where
the hell did he come from? Did he have some sort of twisted crush
on her? Had he been stalking her and for how long? And what’d he
mean by calling me his ‘twin warrior’? That fucking freaky
mind-trip he gave me when we touched...

Carmen closed her cell and
hurried over to him and Birch. “Any word? Is she
alright?”

Birch frowned and shook
his head. “Nothing yet.”

Carmen folded her arms
around Shane and patted his back. Shane fought the urge to recoil
from her touch. He didn’t want to be comforted. He just wanted to
be pissed off.

But she squeezed him tighter and he
found himself wrapping his arms around her, burying his face in her
hair, hiding the anguish and tears threatening to overcome
him.

“
Amy Rae Wintry.” A doctor
with salt and pepper speckled hair and a five o’clock shadow called
from in front of the double doors.

Shane released Carmen and
rushed toward the doctor. “Is she okay?”

“
Yes.” The doctor smiled.
“She’s perfectly fine. All vitals are good but she’s in a catatonic
state and we’re not sure why. It may be psychological, her body’s
way of defending her mind from a traumatic event.”

“
Will she wake up soon?”
Shane asked.

The doctor’s smile faded.
“I cannot say for certain. But in most cases like this, it only
last a few hours.”

Shane sighed. “Okay.
Everything’s going to be okay. She’ll recover. She’s a tough
cookie.”

“
There is one thing,” the
doctor said. “There’s a stone embedded in her chest. We attempted
to remove it but it caused too much biological stress and induced a
seizure.”

“
What is it?”

The doctor tilted his
head. “I’m not sure, but my guess is that it’s organic. I scraped a
sample off the surface of the stone and sent it to the lab for
testing.” The doctor shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like
it. It seems to be surgically embedded into her skin.” A concerned
expression panned the doctor’s face, and he lowered his voice. “I
realize this is going to sound strange, but the only thing that
comes to mind when I see that stone is that’s is like some sort of
satanic ritual.”

An uncontrollable shudder
took Shane from head to toe. “When can I see her?”

Carmen pushed herself in
front of Shane. She eyed the doctor. “What about the
baby?”

The doctor lifted a brow.
“What baby?”

# # #

Isaac clawed at the soil, dragging his
burnt hide over the bramble littered ground. He sucked in a painful
gulp of hot air. His hand, his arm, his whole damn body was
blackened. His lungs struggled to inflate. Legs, charred to the
bone, scraped painfully across the dirt. Sloughs of flesh fell away
with every inch he crawled.

And what about his genitals? A shiver
slithered through him.

He collapsed. The Narkush
faded from its vibrant crimson color to a pathetic translucent
pink. Isaac pressed his bleeding lips against the cool soil. A few
yards away he heard shuffling feet and voices.

Humans
. They were scouring the
woods. What would they do if they found him?

Even in his current state Isaac
readied his brittle claws, believing he could kill at least one or
two of the humans before they delivered death onto him.

Or would they transport him to a
hospital to attend to his wounds? A sneer pulled at his split and
blistered lips. He’d certainly prefer death before allowing human
mortals to save him.

He only needed to get back to the
mansion.

Isaac grunted and
instantly regretted doing so when his throat, chest and abdomen
imploded with excruciating tightness, and what felt like one of his
internal organs burst.

He kept motionless for
several long hours listening to the humans trampling through the
woods, and praying to Galmoria not to die. Nightfall shielded him
and the path he’d left behind when he drug himself the last few
yards. A few times a spotlight glided by but never caught him
directly in the beam.

His smoldered remains blended well
with the soil and darkness. Even if they had found him, they’d
probably mistake him for a charred log.

Fading in and out of
consciousness, he struggled to keep his moans silent. When the
humans finally disappeared, the sounds of the forest echoed.
Hissing insects. Chirping crickets. An owl hooted.

So he moaned. Loud and
desperate.

He listened to that owl
for a long while. Then the bird burst through the canopy and left
in a flurry of hoots.

Crunching noise.

The noise got closer. A growl
followed, like that of a bull or a boar.

Two eyes, like shards of red-hot
diamonds, peeked through the dark trees. The pungent scent of
brimstone followed.

A black dog, larger than a
truck, approached him. Its head lowered and it picked Isaac up in
its massive maw. He felt the warmth of its breath and tongue
beneath him. The comforting firmness of its teeth gently cradled
his burnt body. And its warm jellied saliva anointed his burnt
flesh.

As the hound carried him
out of the woods, Isaac closed his eyes and thought peaceful
thoughts, knowing that the hound was his offspring, spawned as a
result of his dominating of Galmoria. A gift from his
mother.

And the pup would save his
life.

Shane paced within the
tight confines of the snack room that featured nothing more
than a Coca-Cola machine with a dimmed light, and a tiny table
with a grease-coated microwave. Doctor Midgard said he could see
Amy soon. Her room number was 156. She was just a short walk
away.

The doc also promised to do a
pregnancy test.

Shane had shook his head
at the doctor, silently telling him the test was a waste of time.
Amy wasn’t pregnant. Crazy? Maybe. After all, she had conversations
with his sister’s ghost and imaginary men.

But she wasn’t
pregnant.

Was she?

Dr. Midgard told him they’d run the
test just to be certain because the doctor himself needed to know
if he was caring for one or two lives.

Walking a ditch into the beige tiles
of the tight room wasn’t much better than sitting in one of the
hard chairs in the waiting room. But at least he was moving and,
his blood was pumping, hot and fast.

The face of the freaky fuck in the
green leather pants flashed in his mind. Who the hell was he? Had
he made the lights bounce in his mind? Or was Shane suffering from
PTSD?

Too much shit!

Amy missing.

Amy hurt.

A strange jewel stuck in
her skin.

Satanic ritual?

And a boy that seemed so familiar to
Shane…more like a brother than Scooter, his own blood.

More like a brother than the soldiers
he fought beside in Iraq.

Some seriously fucked up
shit.

Birch and Carmen followed
him like baby birds following their mother, or hunters trailing a
rabid dog, readying to put it out of its fuckin’ misery. “I
should’ve never took that job in Pecos.” His fists clenched tight
by his side. “I should’ve found a job here. Could’ve been a
mechanic...or something. Anything. Could’ve worked for the highway.
I could’ve picked up dead chickens at the Vallez farms.” He sighed.
“Should’ve been around more often...”

Birch snorted. “Don’t do this. Don’t
take the path of self-blame. Not of this was your
fault.”

“
She needed me here and I
wasn’t around.” Shane stared blankly at the dimmed Coca-Cola
machine, fingers flexing. “Who was that crazy sunuvabitch guy? I
want to know who the hell he was and why the fuck he was stalking
her.”  

Standing in the threshold
between the snack room and waiting room, Carmen cleared her throat.
“I’m going to play devil’s advocate and suggest that maybe that guy
wasn’t talking all bullshit. He did bring Amy out of the woods and
I...”

With large strides, Shane
crossed the room. He peered down at her. “Was Atticus a good fuck,
sweetheart?”

Carmen grimaced. “I didn’t
fuck him! But I was with him and we saw some freaky shit—hundreds
of birds started dropping snakes and turtles—and
Atticus—”

Shane punched the Coke
machine. The glass cracked diagonally from bottom to top. “Fuck
Atticus! Don’t even use that name in front of me.”

“
Amy needs you,” Carmen
said. “Let’s just go see her.”

“
She doesn’t need me. She
needs someone to hold her hand and tell her everything is going to
be alright. And that’s not me. I just can’t do that right
now.”

Carmen got in his face.
“None of us want to go in there and see her broken body, and we all
want to find the deranged creep who’s responsible. But Amy is
what’s most important right now and she needs us. And she needs us
to keep it fucking together.” She jabbed a finger into his chest.
“So man the fuck up, grow a set and get your ass in that hospital
room, where you belong.”

Visions flipped through
Shane’s mind, like an old fashioned slide show, but at high speed.
Amy beneath him, writhing with pleasure as he made sweet love to
her. Birch and him on bikes, speeding down the trails surrounding
Sacred Oaks. His vision blurred, mind fogged with incoherent
thoughts. Amy had asked him to pick up a gallon of milk and he had
forgotten all about it. Did he feed Alamo? He needed to get to the
junkyard and find a carburetor for the Jalopy.

Birch placed a hand on Shane’s
shoulder.

Shane spun and rushed Birch against
the rutted cement wall.

“
You need to fight?” Birch
asked. “Get it out of your system.”

Shane sneered.

Birch’s lips twitched with a smirk.
“Carmen’s right. Get it together, Baker.”  

Carmen stepped behind him. “You can’t
keep taking this out on us or yourself.”

Shane released his grip on Birch’s
collar.

“
I can do whatever the
fuck I want to fucking do.”

A shuffling noise caused them all to
glance back.

The automatic doors slid
open, revealing a dark parking lot. Abe, the crazy fuck, dressed in
a charcoal gray trench coat and a floppy hat, stepped into the
hospital and toward the vending machine. He inserted several coins
and made a selection. A package of crackers dropped.
 

With a dull expression, Abe opened the
bag. “That there Beast finally caught up to her, eh?”
 

Shane opened his mouth, but Carmen
silenced him with a raised hand. “I got it,” she said and turned to
Abe. “You heard what happened to Amy?”

Shane grumbled. “I guess you heard
about all this through some talking bush or puddle of mud
shit?”

Abe said, “Done heard it
over the scanner while skinnin’ a fat possum for
supper.”

“
What did you say about a
Beast finally catching Amy?” Carmen asked.

“
Just more bullshit.”
Shane snorted. “Old man’s been flinging bullshit his whole
life.”

Abe stuffed two crackers
in his mouth and munched. “She’d done said was a Beast gettin’
after her. I don’t doubt it either. Not after that there strange
one brought me the knife in my vision.” Abe pocketed the empty
cracker wrapper. “I’d figure it was meant for her. I figured right,
too, didn’t I?” His lips formed a cocky sneer. He turned to mosey
out the way he’d come.

“
Who’s Atticus?” Shane
hollered.   

Abe paused at the automatic doors that
led to the parking lot. He glanced over his left shoulder, his dark
eyes peering at Shane from between the brim of his floppy, old hat
and the gray of his beard. “Fuck if I know.”  

“
Somebody better start
making some sense here,” Shane said. “I’m sick of all this
devil-worshiping satanic cult, cursed woods
mumbo-bullshit.”

“
I hate to say this,”
Carmen began, “but I might have to side with Abe on this one. Amy
might not be crazy and there may actually be something after
her.”