Orphan of Mythcorp (38 page)

Arm still numb, I wandered back into the
other room. Everyone was gathered around my father, and some
blasted machine was warbling.

I rushed over to them. “What’s going on?”

“
Something dire is happening,” Faustus
shrugged. “It was always this way around Knox. We couldn’t go more
than a few hours without something—”

“
What’s happening to him?” I asked.
“Why is he convulsing like that?”

“
Hold on, let me check the manual,”
Faustus patted his pockets. “Oh that’s right, I forgot to bring
my
Unfreezing the Dead for Dummies
book.”

Silence followed this remark for a few ticks.
Then a familiar voice said from the door: ‘It’s ischemia.” I’d
thought Kana had locked it, but apparently she’d been too busy
polishing her blasted swords. We turned to discover the source of
the voice.

“
Sanson?” Izzy and I gasped. “What
are
you
doing
here?”

“
Later,” waving his hand. “I recognize
the symptoms,” he held his backpack out before him as he approached
us in a rigid, funky shuffle. “He is suffering from ischemia; it
means he has inadequate blood circulation. It’s depriving his
tissues of oxygen and nutrients. He’ll die in minutes. He will die
. . . unless you promise to protect me. I know how to save
him.”

I rushed forward, ignoring my bruises and
buggered knee and the spooks hovering just behind the zombie. When
I reached him, Sanson stood stiffly, backpack thrust forward. “You
know about my hypogun?” he asked. I nodded, hoping he wasn’t making
a glib reference to our encounter in the tool shed.

“
Good. Inject Knox with it. The nanites
should kick-start his system and . . . oh, just do it.”

Once I’d loaded the hypogun with Sanson’s
guidance, I toddled over to my convulsing father, set the cane down
on the gurney beside my father’s right hand. Kana and Faustus
traded looks before passing them onto me, no doubt wondering if I
knew what I was doing, trusting Sanson. I shrugged.

“
Hold his arm still,” I commanded Kana.
The little woman obliged and I set the silver fanned nozzle against
the cold flesh of my father’s forearm. Pulled the
trigger.

For a few ticks, nothing, then his jitters
began to recede in stages: jitters to flutters, flutters to
fiddles, fiddles to squirms, squirms to twitch’s until at last he
lay still.

“
I got a pulse,” Faustus whispered, his
fingers on my father’s neck. “Slow and steady.”

The machines stopped their beeping. I turned
to Sanson, relaxing. “Thank you.”

“
Yeah,” Kana put in, hands clasped.
“That was a mother-humping close call.”

“
Yep,” Faustus added, “we have a lot of
close calls. In the movies they call that suspense. Think about it.
If Sanson had walked in here like two minutes earlier, we all
would’ve stared at him and been like, ‘too late,’ or ‘Get him!’ But
instead, he arrived just in the nick—”

“
We get it,” I said. “But not
everything is like the movies.”

“
Admittedly, it’s probably got a lot to
do with my insane good luck,” boasted Faustus.

Sanson was silent and motionless. I glanced
back at Izzy.

“
He’s seizing up,” she surmised. “He
needs his medication.” She reached up, ripped the empty gun from my
hand and hobbled over to Sanson. You couldn’t help but pity her and
fall in lust with her as she struggled to manipulate the crutches
and hold the gun in her tiny hands.

At the zombie’s feet she loaded the gun with
a vial of meds, and grabbed Sanson’s outstretched arm. Once she’d
yanked his arm down sufficiently, Izzy pressed the nozzle against
his exposed wrist. With a hiss that sounded like the production of
a hickey, she injected him. When Izzy released his arm, it remained
where it was. If he hadn’t been so pale and buggered looking, it
might have been funny. I considered posing him inappropriately,
just for kicks.

As the others waited for the resident zombie
to reactivate, I fled to the bathroom for another round of dry
heaves. Drained and dehydrated, I rejoined the group in time to
observe Sanson’s fingers beginning to twitch. In mockery of my
father’s transition, Sanson pulled a reverse-Knox, evolving from
finger twitches all the way up to a full bodied jiggle in the span
of a minute.

Calm and limber now, he stared at us and we
stared back.

I dropped into a chair to stew in my
withdrawals while Sanson explained what he was doing here.

“
Kana,” I said when Sanson was
finished. “Would you close the door and maybe even make sure it’s
locked this time?”

“
No problem,” she headed for the door
with a smirk. “Mister Sarcasm.”

The smirk—and all other levity—drained out of
the lab as Ash stepped through the open doorway. He was not
alone.

Kana froze about a few feet away to my right,
about ten feet from Ash and his no doubt Mesmerized cop victim, who
had his gun trained on Kana. The temperature in the room plummeted,
masking the stench of my father’s recovery but augmenting the funk
of my own sweat and breath. No one moved until Ash turned his head
sideways to peer at Sanson, standing between him and Kana.

“
Charlie,” in a whisper. When combined
with his cocked head, Ash gave a fine rendition of a crow, the
creepiest and most sinister of birds, sure as sure. “I told you
what would happen to those who chose not to stand with
me.”

“
You’re too late,” Sanson did not even
bother turning his head to look at Ash. In that moment, seeing
Sanson toss such an insult at the littlest Morai, I began to warm
up to the zombie. “I’m going to tell them what Nimrod is really
doing here.”

Ash sighed. The officer’s aim did not deviate
from Kana’s head, but his hands were shaking and his peepers were
mimicking a tennis ball in a whiz-bang tournament. Ash noticed my
father. He seemed put-out by Knox’s presence, silent and conked out
though it was. His lips curled, and he spoke clearly to the
officer; a Mesmer if I ever hear one.

“
Officer Graham, please kill that
man.”

The officer trembled. His aim slowly shifted
from Kana’s noggin over to the gurney where we’d laid my
father.

“
Wait,” I pleaded. But I couldn’t even
run interference; I’d left my cane by Knox.

The officers’ hands and arms quivered, sweat
dribbled down his face. Beside him, Ash gazed up into the officer’s
peepers, set his hand up on the officers’ shuddering right bicep,
and emitted the words: “Kill that man, or I will make you shoot
your foot.”

“
Ash,” I gasped. “The hell you
doing?”

Out of the corner of his mouth Faustus
whispered “In the movies, this is where the baddie always shows his
true colors.”

Ash ignored both of us.

The officer swallowed, and closed his eyes.
Ash stepped to the side a smidge and, just as the officer pulled
the trigger, alarms blared. We all jumped, covered our ears against
the echoes of the crack and the sudden electronic cries. I didn’t
want to look. I didn’t want it to end. I’d never even had a chance
to speak to my father.

“
Damn I’m good!” Faustus cheered. His
exclamation was as startling as the alarms.

My peepers opened. I braved a look over at
the gingersnap. He was whipping his hand through the air like one
trying to swat an annoying mosquito. With the alarms still droning
on, he lifted his switchblade from my father’s body on the gurney,
where it had apparently fallen. Not fallen—as I realized when
Faustus pointed out a dimple in its handle, a smoking ping that
looked the size and shape of a bullet tip.

“
Give it up. Lady Luck’s on our side
today,” Faustus taunted Ash, brimming with so much pride that his
freckles seemed to sparkle.

Ash inhaled slowly, and then turned to the
officer. “Again.”

You could barely hear him over the alarms,
but his stance and airs were dead giveaways. I pitied the officer,
who was trembling and looked on the verge of tears, but who raised
his gun again anyway. Sanson, just behind the officer, was digging
in his backpack while watching Ash.

Even Faustus lost his gumption as the gun was
retrained on my father. Across from him Kana readjusted her feet,
as if preparing to leap into the path of the bullet.

As the alarms died, our breathing took up the
silence.

“
They should’ve killed you when they
killed your mother!” I screamed at Ash. “You’re filth, you know
that? Rip out his tongue, Kana!”

Ash was seething now, a refreshing though
holy-moly sight. “Shoot them,” he ordered the trembling officer.
“Shoot them all! I’m—”

He never got the chance to finish.

Purple lightning scythed across the room and
struck the officer. The old cop jerked backwards, landed on his
back. The impact did not conk him out; he writhed and moaned as Ash
stood gawking. The Morai shifted his gaze from the officer to the
other side of the room, to the source of the slam-bang energy.

I too followed his gaze, as did the Mythicons
and spooks.

My father was sitting up on his elbows, his
old cane-sword in his right hand, finger hovering over the no-no
button. He was shaking; sitting up was obviously a struggle, but it
didn’t prevent him from procuring a grin and aiming it at Ash. The
thawed eyebrows over his dark sunken eyes lifted to indicate
something behind the littlest Morai.

Ash swiveled. Behind him stood the officer,
recovered—and wearing a pair of chem-shades.

“
What are you doing?” Ash demanded of
the officer. “I told you to shoot them.”

The officer marched right up to Ash, not even
slowing as the Morai performed his Mesmer. Their bodies two feet
apart now, the officer leaned forward: “No,” and he slammed his gun
across Ash’s face. Blood did not spurt out like it does in the
movies, but it did begin to trickle out of the corner of Ash’s
mouth.

He crumpled under the assault. On his knees
he held his face, blood dribbling through clenched fingers. He
looked up at the officer towering over him, and quivered. But Ash
was a quick study. His gaze swept past Sanson—who’d procured the
chem-shades from his bag—and landed on Kana. “Take that sword
and—”

“
Don’t let him speak!” I warned. It
wasn’t necessary. Kana had already zipped over to the Morai. Her
hands clamped over his mouth and peepers. I exhaled as if I’d been
holding my breath for ages. “Faustus, the door.”

The gingersnap waded through the filth over
to the door, scooting past the officer. Once Faustus had slammed
the door shut, he locked it and nestled a chair underneath the
chrome handle. No more uninvited guests. The med-lab went quiet as
we took in the set changes. Ash struggled, but with his peepers and
tongue out of commission thanks to Kana’s quick reflexes and
awesome strength, he was apparently helpless.

I slid off my chair. With hands shaking, legs
wobbling, and gut rumbling, I made my way over to my father, who’d
resumed his motionless flat-on-his-back position. “He’s not—” I
asked Izzy, who was fussing over him.

“
No,” she said, slipping one of the
heating blankets back over his chest. “He’s not dead. He’s just
out. The strain was too much. He’ll be fine though, I think.” She
too had a case of the shakes, but milder than mine. She gazed into
my peepers. I returned the look, as if to say, ‘Yup that all really
did just happen.’

“
We need to leave,” she said. “Nimrod
and the other Morai may be busy right now, but once they realize
Ash isn’t coming back, they’re going to come looking for
us.”

“
She’s right,” said the officer. “And
Ash found you guys awful quick.”

“
Good point,” Faustus agreed. So, the
gingersnap found a roll of white medical tape, wound it around
Ash’s mouth and hands and peepers, and then led us to a door
leading out of the lab and into a smaller room—an office with a
view of the plaza in front of Mythcorp.

It was a struggle, but I was managing not to
filch that B-drop as we marched into the somewhat safer office.
Ahead of me Kana carried Knox. It looked ridiculous; his legs and
upper body spilling out of her arms. But she wasn’t struggling.

“
Who pulled the fire alarm do you
think?” I asked her.

She grinned. “Malthus, I’d bet.”

* * *

It’s been an hour since I and my gloomy band
of misfits fled the med-lab for the sanctuary of this freezing
office. Sanson has filled in all the gaps in our knowledge of Ash’s
endeavors. It’s been enlightening and depressing.

Thanks in part to Izzy’s ministering, my
father is now awake. He is shivering with a blanket around his
shoulders as he sits in front of the large bullet-proof window,
staring out at the police cars and fire trucks gathering around
Mythcorp out there in the dark. Izzy is keeping him upright, and as
I limp closer, I can hear her whispering things to him. Kana, who
was my fathers’ girlfriend back during the War, is sitting off to
the side. It looks as if she’s nursing a grudge.

I don’t want to interrupt. That’s what I tell
myself, anyway. If I were being brutally honest, I would say that I
am afraid to meet my father, especially in the state I am in.

“
How’re we doing?” Knox asks Faustus in
a post-laryngitis hoarse voice.

The gingersnap shrugs. “About the same as
always.”

“
That bad, huh?” Knox
responds.

Chuckling at their little
Star Wars
cribbing scene, Faustus
heads back to the side office to keep an eye on Ash.