Urban Witch (Urban Witch Series - Book 1)

by R. L. Giddings

  Chapter 13

  I was in the process of nodding off, my heading snapping upright every time it happened, when a young nurse appeared at the door.

  “Sister would like a word,” she said before disappearing again.

  When I pushed myself up out of the chair my back gave a wail of complaint. I’d injured it as a teenager and it was always the first thing to go when I felt tired. According to my watch it was half past two in the morning. There was nobody in the corridor which was now a good deal darker than I remembered. They must have switched over to some energy saving setting. I was reminded of just how hungry I was as I made my way to the nurses’ station where Liv was just hanging up the phone.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She regarded me for a moment as if I were a complete stranger, blinked and looked again, “Very odd. Someone on reception ringing up to say that there’s an intruder in the building.”

  “This building or the hospital buildings?”

  “Don’t know. That’s all they said.”

  “Try ringing them back?”

  She tipped her head to one side and punched in the number. Millie’s spell must have been fading. She didn’t look like a woman getting a regular shot of endorphins.

  After a few moments she said, “They’re engaged.”

  That made sense. They’d be ringing round all the other wards trying to alert them to the danger.

  “Don’t give up. If you can’t get through then try the front desk,” my mind was whirling. I took out my phone and realised that I didn’t have a number to contact the police downstairs. Marcus had been dealing with them so I rang him.

  The phone rang for a long time before he answered.

  “Hi, Bronte.”

  His voice was low, with a delicate undercurrent of excitement.

  “We’ve just had a call to say that there’s an intruder.”

  “Damn right. Did you not hear it?”

  “I didn’t hear anything. Where are you?”

  “Ground floor. They’re targeting the police.”

  My heart leapt in my chest. Targeting? I suddenly felt vulnerable. “I thought they were sending an armed unit.”

  “They did. Didn’t you hear the shooting?”

  “Shooting?”

  “Never mind. We’re two men down. Though there might be a third. I’m pretty sure he’s …” in the background cacophonous voices echoed down a long corridor. “I’m dealing with that now. Hospital this size you’d think I’d be able to find a doctor.”

  “What about the others? What about Terence?”

  “I don’t know where Terence is. I’ve been trying to contact him but he’s not responding. I’ve sent a couple of guys up to you. They’re going to sit with you ‘til help arrives.”

  I was confused. “You want me to let them in?”

  “Absolutely not. Don’t open that door until I get there.”

  “What about Terence.”

  There was a definite pause.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  Then the line went dead.

  I went directly to the nurse’s station and stood behind it. They had to have a closed-circuit TV somewhere to monitor the door but I couldn’t find it. It was only when I turned that I spotted it: right in front of me.

  There were two pictures: one showing an elongated view of the corridor and a smaller one in the corner showing a close-up view of whoever was at the door. From my angle it looked like a single police officer wearing a baseball cap. Only he was facing away from the camera so I couldn’t see his face

  He said there’d be two.

  Liv was out the back, looking through the fridge.

  “How many nurses on the ward?”

  “With me – four.”

  “Okay. There’s been some shooting downstairs. The police are camped outside our door so I need you to take your nurses off into one of the rooms and lock the door.”

  “What about the sub-wards?”

  “Do what you can but I don’t think they’re in any real danger. They’re coming after Helena.”

  Liv thought about arguing and then decided against it. I saw her shoulders slump. “I thought you said that everything was under control.”

  “I don’t know what else to tell you,” I admitted. “The police are here now so everything should be fine. But, just in case …”

  “Alright,” she looked me straight in the eye, all traces of the spell gone. “I’m trusting you to protect everyone on this ward. Everyone.”

  “You have my word. Now, do you have a room where you can …” I nearly said “hide” but thought better of it. “Do you have a room where you can lay-low?”

  “Room 9. It’s the only one that’s free but it’s at the far end of this corridor,” she was walking away from me clapping her hands. “Ladies!”

  Then I had an idea.

  “Liv. Just one more thing. Helena had a bag with her when she came in. Any idea where it got put?”

  The colour had left her cheeks. She pointed to the office behind the work station. “There’s a white board in the there. It’s got the patients’ names with the number of their locker. Keys are underneath.”

  That was when the lights went out.

  *

  I stayed where I was not wanting to injure myself stumbling around in the darkness. Everything was completely black. Not even a glimmer of light.

  Thirty seconds later - though it felt much longer - the back-up generator hummed into life and the emergency lighting came on. The ward was washed with an ugly green light which drained the place of what little colour it possessed. It was also an inferior system, substituting an eight strip lighting system for three smaller, less powerful ones.

  But it was better than nothing.

  The shadows, even around the nurses’ station, had darkened dramatically. I leaned across to check the monitor and wasn’t too surprised to find it was now completely blank. And, if the closed circuit TV system was out, how was I supposed to keep an eye on what was happening outside. For that matter, how would I operate the buzzer on the door? Would that be covered by the back-up generator?

  Lights were flashing on the desk as some of the patients started calling for assistance. There was no panic yet. For the time being we could all pretend that this was just another stage as the ward closed down for the night. Most of the patients were already asleep and I wanted to keep it that way.

  I started back up the corridor and thought, at first, that the light was playing tricks on me. The shadows around the main door were slanted in an odd way. I leaned over to one side to try and make sense of it which was when I realised what I was actually looking at.

  The main door was ajar.

  But that wasn’t right. You couldn’t open the door without pressing the buzzer.

  The power failure. That must have opened it.

  I ran back down the corridor and pushed the door shut but there was no corresponding “click” as it closed. The door kissed the door frame and then started to swing open again. The locking mechanism was useless.

  There must have been some fail-safe device which automatically opened the door in the event of the main electricity supply failing. It made sense: you didn’t want to be locked inside if there was an electrical fire. If the flames didn’t get you the smoke probably would.

  It felt like I’d been punched in the gut. I tried to close it manually but the locking mechanism was frozen. I swung the door open to get a better look at it, only to be confronted by two wild eyed police officers.

  “Oh my God! I’d forgotten you were here.”

  In the ghost light I saw that they were both armed with sub-machine guns.

  “Back inside,” one of them waved me away.

  “The door won’t lock!” I worked the door handle as evidence.

  The other one turned on me, “Just get back inside.” He pulled the door closed.

  Now, I needed to barricade the door and I didn’t have much time. Whatever it was
that was coming after Helena was already in the building. But then, what about Marcus and Terence? What were they doing?

  Then, in rapid succession, three shots sounded from the other side of the door.

  Instinct took over and I ran, covering my ears as a burst of automatic fire rent the air bringing a fine film of dust down from the ceiling.

  My phone started to ring, its tone muted as if it were held under-water. I pressed myself into an alcove before answering it.

  “What is it?” I shouted.

  “Bronte!” there was relief in Marcus’ voice. “Have they seen anything?”

  “I’m not sure. There are two officers up here but the door won’t lock. Where are you?”

  “I’m on the floor directly beneath you on the stairwell. Kinsella’s orders. He doesn’t want me wandering up there getting my arse shot off.”

  “Terence?”

  “The other stairwell. The lifts are supposedly out-of order so I don’t know how they’re moving around. We’re a bit stretched down here if I’m honest.”

  The door was starting to swing open. I needed to set up some kind of barricade. It didn’t feel safe.

  The silence was unnerving. The air felt as though it was vibrating after the tumult of the gunfire and I was scared to leave my alcove for fear they might start up again.

  I’d so far heard nothing in response from the intruder and I wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or not. Had they shot it? Was it all over?

  “What’s happening?” Marcus said. “Have they got it?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing’s moving in the corridor.”

  “Do you think I should come up there? Take a look?”

  “Don’t be bloody stupid. Do as you’re told for once.”

  “I can’t work out how it got past us.”

  “All the ward spells were properly in place?”

  “Far as I can tell. But I’m worried about Terence now. I’ve got to go.”

  There was a strained quality to his voice. He was just as frightened as I was and not surprisingly. He was completely exposed. All I had to do was sit tight and I’d be alright. It had to be nearly over - the awful, pounding gunfire had stopped.

  My thoughts turned once again to Helena’s hand-bag.

  I looked around for something to barricade the door with. Everything was either mounted on wheels or looked very expensive.

  Then my eyes alighted on the lockers themselves. Sixteen of them made from sheet metal. They’d only be of limited use if I just stood them flat across the door-arch because they’d just fall over if pushed hard enough.

  But if I wedged them against the doors end first I reckoned they might hold for a while. The lockers were self-standing and I explored around the back for some kind of hand-hold but, in the end, I didn’t need it. By locking my shoulder against the unit I thought that I should be able to start manoeuvring them into position.

  The next thing, the whole ward was illuminated by the flashes of gunfire from the corridor. The noise at such close proximity was devastating, the lockers quivering under the onslaught. All I could think about was protecting my ears.

  The officers appeared to be firing in sequence, taking it in turns to fire short, thundering bursts down the corridor. The whole thing was seamless, with no obvious pauses for re-loading. Looking back, this probably only went on for maybe thirty seconds but it felt like much longer. I couldn’t imagine how much damage they’d inflicted on whatever it was at the other end of the corridor.

  The sound of the gunfire must have given me a real shot of adrenalin because when I grabbed the lockers I wasn’t messing about. I ploughed into them, using the strength in my back and legs, ignoring the way that the corners cut into my shoulder. The unit jolted forward once then twice before I’d built up enough power but for the last few feet it simply slid into place flush against the doors.

  It wouldn’t hold out for very long but it was the best I could do in the circumstances.

  Even with the door properly shut, I wasn’t prepared for another burst of gunfire and I fell to my knees, my hands covering my ears. This volley of shots was much more ragged and erratic than the controlled bursts I’d heard earlier. It sounded frantic.

  The firing stopped just as quickly as it had started and, for a moment, all that could be heard was the sound of masonry giving way further down the corridor. I couldn’t believe that anything could have survived that. The noise itself was immense, almost a physical thing, pushing a fine cloud of dust under the door.

  Then someone was screaming. There were words in there too, begging, imploring, discordant. It was overwhelmingly awful. The sound of a mind slipping completely into hysteria. My whole body went rigid, my hands shaking uncontrollably.

  The screaming ended with a harsh cracking sound, like a young tree being broken in two. When the silence re-asserted itself I realised that I’d been clenching my teeth so tightly against the onslaught that the muscles in my neck ached.

  I wanted to help them. To give them some kind of solace no matter how small. Standing there doing nothing felt like the worst kind of betrayal. But things had moved on. I had to think about the women still on the ward.

  I didn’t want to think about what it was that had silenced the policemen but I had a pretty good idea what it was and it wasn’t dissimilar to what I’d seen in action the previous night. I just hoped that, whatever it was, the policemen’s efforts had been enough to see it off. I didn’t care about whether it was dead or alive so long as it wasn’t still coming after us.

  There was the sound of movement beyond the door. Quiet, measured, remorseless. In its way, it was just as awful as what had gone before. It wasn’t over. What we were experiencing was just a brief pause in the proceedings before it all started again, in deadly earnest.

  I weaved around the nurse’s station into the little room behind. The hook below the number 2 was empty but then I realised that each key had a key ring, the corresponding room number written on it in ball-point pen. I unhooked each one in turn until I found it. Someone had hung it on the wrong hook.

  I needed to arm myself against whatever was coming through that door. It transpired that my best hope of doing that lay inside Helena’s hand-bag.

  I stepped out of the room into the nurse’s station and started with shock when I saw the faces of the women watching me. There were four of them, all patients, all reminding me of ungainly corpses under the coarse lights.

  “Back into your rooms, ladies,” I wafted my arms at them. They didn’t seem to register my presence immediately but eventually, with a kind of bovine acceptance, they started to drift back to their ward.

  I walked over to the lockers but, before I could get started, something impacted against the door and I jumped, dropping the key in the process.

  I scooped up the key just as the door was struck twice in quick succession. I didn’t have much time.

  I ran up to the lockers, selecting the key and inserted into locker Number 8.

  The next time that the door was hit I heard the splintering of wood. The lockers lurched and started to tip backwards. They would have gone over completely if the top hadn’t snagged against some shelving. Feverishly, I turned the key and opened the door.

  I had most of my lower arm inside when the next onslaught came. The impact threw me to one side but I persevered. Inside I found a plastic bag containing some clothes and then my fingers closed around the strap of Helena’s hand bag.

  I started yanking at it in an effort to get it through the hole. It was a tight fit but, eventually, I managed to pull it clear, tipping the lockers so far forward that they over balanced, hitting the floor hard.

  My time was up. I just hoped that it had all been worth it.

  I stepped beneath the closest strip-light and opened the bag.

  A purse, several sets of keys, a thin block of wood with the number 28 carved into it, various hair-bands, tampons, a zip-lock bag containing a passport and then, right at the bottom, acting as ball
ast: a Smith and Wesson revolver with an ornate wooden handle.

  Bingo!

  Carefully, I removed the gun, testing its weight in my hand. I’d never been so pleased to hold something in my life.

  “Bronte done good,” I told myself.

  I didn’t know what to do about the other women on the ward. It would have been nice to try and re-assure them but then I wasn’t too sure of how this was all going to turn out myself. Hopefully, whatever was out there would ignore the patients and the staff. It had to have been incredibly focussed on Helena to pursue her halfway across London. I was just hoping that the gun would give me enough of an edge to frighten it away. I’d given up on the idea of killing it after the way it had scythed through the officers on duty; though they had been firing conventional ammunition.

  I, on the other hand, had the element of surprise. And six silver bullets. That, of course, supposed that the creature belonged to some category of shape-shifter. If it didn’t then we were all out of luck.

  The ward was now silent again and, as I moved through it, the patients that I could see were either sitting up on their beds or standing, peering out through the glass panels.

  I decided to check on Helena. There was very little I could do for her. There were so many lines and monitors that it would have be impossible to move her.

  Instead, I went into Room 3.

  The sound of splintering wood helped me to focus.

  Let your prey come to you, Ma Birch was always saying. Sit quiet and let them do all the work.

  I left my door slightly ajar so that I would have a clear view of anything coming down the corridor. I was going to need both hands to fire the gun with any level of accuracy; I didn’t want to be fiddling with the door handle as well.

  I’d done some shooting at a friend’s farm once but that had been a very civilised affair with shotguns and drinks afterwards. I’d been shown how to fire the gun by a friend’s brother. I’d quite fancied him at the time but couldn’t remember his name now.

  I’d never fired a pistol though. All these concerns kept me from thinking about what it was that I was actually about to face.