The Corruption Within
Page 22
I checked my progress and saw I was only a couple feet from the end of the aisle. I redoubled my effort and pulled Kayla around the corner. As I did I saw the demon scramble to its feet and rush Gabe, swinging at him with its long, vicious claws. One claw raked Gabe across the chest, and he jumped back in pain.
The last thing I saw before turning the corner was Achimasiz leaping on Gabe like a lion on a gazelle. I pulled Kayla to the end of the shelf and propped her back against it. I crouched beside her to make sure she was still breathing as well as to catch my breath. Dragging an unconscious person, even someone as small as Kayla, is exhausting, especially when you’re out of shape and just had your ass kicked twice.
I still couldn’t hear anything, but I could feel the tremors in the floor indicating the ferocity of the fight. “Veikr! We have to help!” I shouted. I knew revealing Veikr’s presence to Gabe could lead to some serious problems down the road, but doing nothing could lead to Gabe’s death. And if Gabe died, there was nothing left to keep the demon from killing the rest of us.
Veikr said nothing, and after a moment I cursed and gave up on him. There was nothing I could do without Veikr’s help, and running out there would likely be as much of a distraction for Gabe as it would be any help. I stood back up and looked down at Kayla. If I could not help Gabe, then the only thing I could do was get her as far from the monster as possible. I knew I could drag her out of the building, but there was no way I would be able to drag her down the alley.
I grabbed her by one arm and pulled her chest against my good shoulder. Then I slid my arm underneath her thighs and adjusted my body so my center of gravity was as close to her as possible. I bent and then lifted, taking most of her weight with my lower back, exactly as you shouldn’t. I was able to jerk and grunt her most of the way onto my shoulder, lifting her high enough to rest some of her weight on the shelf. Then I slid my shoulder down till it was under her waist, leaned back so she flopped over me, and cursed my way to standing up.
I felt a sudden jolt of impact though the floor and noticed movement out of the corner of my eye. When I looked up, I saw the shelving I had been thrown over was leaning precariously away from me. Almost in slow motion, the shelf moved past the point of no return and began tumbling toward the next shelf over. The entire building seemed to shake when one shelf crashed into the other and sent it toppling as well.
Fortunately, the shelves were falling away from us, but that much weight moving that chaotically was not something I wanted to be near. I ran toward the exit. My run lasted maybe three feet before the pain from jostling my dislocated shoulder nearly sent Kayla and me to the floor. I forced myself to swallow the bile rising in my throat and walked as quickly as I could toward the exit. A moment later I was enveloped in a huge cloud of dust kicked up from the falling shelves.
I made it outside the warehouse, and the rush of colors and sounds hit me like a brick wall. I tried to shake the confusion loose from my head and look down both ends of the alley to figure out the best direction to run. To my right was the rear bumper of Gabe’s truck. I started plodding in that direction, hoping his keys might be in it.
By the time I made it to his truck, every muscle in my body ached, my shirt was soaked with sweat, and I could barely catch my breath. Carefully balancing Kayla on my shoulder, I opened the truck’s tailgate and laid Kayla down as gently as possible. I tried to walk around to the driver-side door, but my body had pushed as far as it could, and I collapsed.
I lay on the ground panting, my head dizzy with pain. I could hear things crashing from inside the warehouse. I was simultaneously grateful for the confirmation that Gabe was still alive and fighting and scared that the fight was still going. I leaned against the truck, trying to will myself to get up, to either return to the warehouse and try to help Gabe or climb in the truck and drive Kayla to safety. Either would have been better than lying there like a whipped dog, but I just couldn’t make myself do anything.
I was too tired. Too hurt. Scared for too long. And my will was not strong enough to force my body to do anything. I listened to the sounds of a good man fighting for his life while lying beside a strong woman fighting for her soul, and I could do nothing. I could do nothing but lie there and cry.
After a couple minutes, I noticed the night had quieted to the city’s normal dull roar. The fighting in the warehouse had stopped. My heart began to race, and hope battled for a place in my mind. At any moment either an angel or a demon was going to come walking out of the warehouse, and I knew that whichever one did not was likely to be dead.
I had to get up and into the truck. I had already wasted so much time. I had to be ready to run if it was Achimasiz that walked out that door. I tried to push myself to my feet, but the movement felt like a knife in my chest, and all I could manage was to twist enough to not cover myself as I began to retch.
A cold, sickly feeling crawled up my spine. I wiped vomit off my chin and forced myself to look to the warehouse door, but I already knew what was there. The demon stood in the doorway, chest heaving, its sword held loosely in one hand. Gabe had hurt it. Even in the dim light of the alley, I could see gashes and tears in its flesh, but its hulking form looked just as menacing.
Achimasiz turned and looked at me, its blank face incapable of showing emotion, but the way it rolled its shoulders and tilted its head showed a casual sense of malicious joy. It began walking toward us, slowly, either because of its wounds or from the sheer joy of intimidation.
“Veikr! Help!” I yelled.
“You should have listened to me, Vessel,” he said in calm detachment. “It is too late now.”
“Please!” I begged. “You’ve got to do something!”
“I can still give you power to run, if you so choose. It is possible Achimasiz will be so enthralled with the capture of your friend that he may not chase you for a time, but it is likely that you will die.”
Achimasiz continued his deliberate pace.
“You will die too,” I said.
“This is true,” he conceded. “But I shall be reborn. It may take me an age to find your reality again, but I will return.”
“Veikr, please! I can’t leave Kayla! You promised to help her,” I pleaded.
“I lied, Vessel. If you do not run, you will die,” he said with an icy chill in his voice.
“You pathetic little nothing,” I sneered.
I reached my hand behind me to grab hold of the truck and try to pull myself up. The movement sent enough pain through my body to make me scream. I clenched my teeth tight and tried again, fighting the nausea and dizziness, and worked my way up to my knees. I pulled on the truck again, cursing as I forced myself to my feet.
“Run, Vessel. It is your only chance,” Veikr said.
I ignored him and turned to face Achimasiz. I took a slow, painful step to place myself between the demon and my friend and stood swaying on my feet. It continued crossing the few remaining feet between us until it stood towering over me. I clenched the fist of my good hand and waited.
In the movies when the good guy faces down the bad guy, he gives a speech or at least a snide, pithy one-liner. I didn’t. There was no threat I could offer, no deal I could make, and I was too tired and scared to think of anything sarcastic. I just hoped I could get a single, futile punch in before the monster cut me in half.
The demon raised its giant sword almost lazily above its head. I tensed my muscles to dive at him the instant he started his swing. And I hoped, in the back of my mind, that whatever judge evaluated humans in the afterlife would look on my death as an act good enough to outweigh all the bad I had done before.
I saw the twitch in the monster’s shoulder as it started its swing and began pushing my muscles to leap. In a moment of too-late clarity, I realized the fault in my logic. My body, at its best, was slower than the monster, and there was no way I could reach it before its sword reached me. I would not even get my single strike in.
A yell, ferocious enough to be considered a
roar, bellowed from the warehouse doorway. The demon and I both stopped mid-motion and looked. Gabe, still fully encased in an angel body, was rushing toward us. One of his wings was hanging at a weird angle and there was a thick gash down one of his sides, but still he moved with a speed that could not be described as anything less than supernatural.
Angel-Gabe impacted Achimasiz with such force that the concussion threw me back into the truck. Gabe lifted the demon off its feet, carried it several yards and, using his shoulder, drove it into the ground. Gabe went careening off the demon and crashed into the wall of Kayla’s apartment building.
I tried to stand, but my body refused to respond. I lay on my side and watched as both Gabe and Achimasiz struggled to their feet. The two faced each, both hunched and breathing heavily. “Give it up. Free yourself from this demon,” Gabe growled.
Achimasiz roared and sprung at Gabe, sword lifted high above its head. Gabe stepped forward to meet the rush, his sword held out to his side. At the last possible instant, Gabe moved a half step to the side, allowing the demon’s blade to slide right past his shoulder and into the pavement. Gabe’s sword, on the other hand, never moved, and Achimasiz’s momentum carried its body into the blade.
The demon roared in pain and anger as a fount of black, sticky fluid gushed all over the concrete. One of its legs lay grotesquely on the ground. Achimasiz turned toward Gabe and reached out with a vile, clawed hand. Gabe raised his sword over his shoulder, then swung in a flat, vicious arc. The blade sliced through the demon’s neck as if it wasn’t even there.
Black, putrid blood spurted into the air as the demon’s head went flying. The monster’s body slumped to the ground in a heap. Then, as I watched, the demon’s body melted into the same inky substance as its blood and seeped into the ground. All that remained was the body of a long, ratty-haired man with an angular face. It was the man I had seen Gabe attack in an alley, and he was not breathing.
Angel-Gabe stood over the man for several minutes, taking deep, calming breaths. He leaned down and placed his fingers on the man’s throat, checking for a pulse.
I don’t know how long it took, but as the adrenaline left my body, I began to tremble and became irresistibly exhausted. I fought to keep my eyes open, but they got heavier and heavier.
I must have drifted off, because I woke a few minutes later to Gabe, just regular, old, human Gabe, leaning over me. “You all right, kid?” he asked gently.
“How’s Kayla?” I asked weakly.
He gave me a gentle smile. “She’ll be okay. Don’t you worry. I think the police are on the way, and an ambulance won’t be far behind them.”
He groaned as he gingerly lowered himself to the ground beside me and leaned his back against the truck. I groaned and pushed myself up to a seated position as well. I looked at my friend and said, “Gabe, I …” I started to choke up and lost my voice.
Gabe lifted a quieting hand. “Just relax. We will have plenty of time to talk later. Just rest for now.”
I smiled a half smile and said, “Yeah, that sounds really good.” Then my eyes closed of their own volition and the world went blissfully black.
Chapter 22
◆◆◆
A concussion, a dislocated shoulder, three cracked ribs, and a myriad of scrapes, scratches, and bruises. Everything hurt, and the doctors didn’t want to give me any of the good drugs, but what they had given me was enough to at least take the edge off. My shoulder was just a little sore now that it had been put back in place, and my head had taken on the role of most significant pain.
I lay in the hospital bed the next morning, trying not to think of the inevitable medical bills, or the events of the night before, or the unpleasant conversations sure to come. I had just finished eating the bland cafeteria breakfast and started flipping through mind-numbing daytime television when the first of the unpleasant conversations began.
Officer Tilley stepped into the room with all the arrogance and contempt afforded by her position. Lark came in after her, looking smug as always. From the looks on their faces, I could tell I was not going to enjoy the next several minutes, and I let out an internal groan.
“How are you feeling, Mr. Petterson?” Tilley asked.
“I’m fine, thanks.”
“We would like to ask you a few questions, if that’s all right with you.”
“And if I say no?” I asked.
Lark huffed. “We can always drag your scrawny ass downtown and have you answer questions there.”
I’m not really the bravest of people, nor am I always sharp-witted enough to come back with timely sarcasm. But I had just survived an attack from a literal demon. I was feeling salty and grumpy. And, like I’ve said, I don’t like bullies. “Downtown?” I asked with as much snark as I could muster. “Lark, we’re already downtown. Where exactly are you going to take me? Do you take all of your idioms from nineties detective shows or just the vaguely threatening stuff?”
Lark’s lip curled up in a sneer. “Listen here, you punk”—and then, realizing what he was saying, he cut himself off. I gave him the largest, smarmiest smile I could manage. Tilley reached out and put a hand on Lark’s arm before he could say anything else.
“No one is going to drag anyone anywhere,” she said. “But we do have some serious questions for you, Mr. Petterson, that will need to be answered. There is a lot to be accounted for from last night.”
I sighed. “Fine. Let’s get it over with.”
“Thank you,” she said diplomatically. “Can you tell me what happened?”
I had known at some point I was going to have to talk to the cops. People had been hurt, including one killed, plus what I imagined was a costly amount of property had been damaged. I knew I would have to answer a lot of questions, but I also knew I could not tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Who was going to believe that story?
The cops were going to question Kayla and Gabe as well, if they had not already, and I was sure neither of them would want to talk about spirits and risk being sent to a mental hospital. Which meant all three of us were going to lie, and since we hadn’t had time to come up with a story together, the odds were that we would lie differently. Which would only make the cops more suspicious.
I wasn’t cynical enough to believe that the cops would suspect Kayla after all she had been through, but Gabe and I certainly wouldn’t be above suspicion. Me with my criminal record, and Gabe—well, Gabe because I had specifically implicated him.
So I told Tilley the whitewashed version of the story I had spent all morning formulating. How I had gone to check on Kayla’s apartment and seen the front door kicked in. How I heard commotion coming from the back alley and followed it into the open warehouse door. How I saw the long-haired man attacking Kayla and tried to intervene. How the stranger had beat the crap out of me, and how Kayla and I barely escaped the warehouse. I told her I saw Gabe pull into the alley just before I passed out and that I didn’t wake up until I was in the hospital.
Tilley took notes in her little notebook as I told my story. She sat quietly for a moment, going over her notes, and the silence made my nerves jittery. It was a terribly crafted story, and I knew it.
After letting me stew in my anxiety for a couple minutes, Tilley said, “You’re sure that’s what happened, Mr. Petterson?”
“Uh, yeah. Positive.”
“That leaves a lot of unanswered questions. For instance, how did the shelves get overturned?”
“Shelves?” I asked stupidly.
“Yes, the shelves in the warehouse. Those things had to weigh a thousand pounds each. Certainly more than could be knocked over in a simple street fight.”
“Oh,” I said casually, rubbing my chin. “I don’t know. They started falling while Kayla and I were running. I didn’t see what knocked them over.”
“No?” she asked suspiciously. “Do you have a guess?”
“Oh, no ma’am. I’m sure your investigation will figure it out though.”
“We already spoke to your friend Kayla, Mr. Petterson. Her version of last night differed in some key ways.”
“Oh, yeah? How’s that?” I asked. Lark scoffed, and Tilley just cocked an eyebrow at me, obviously not wanting to tip her hand. “Well,” I continued, “the doctor said I have a concussion. I guess my memory isn’t as clear as I thought.”
“Hmm,” she said. “Tell me again why you showed up at Mrs. Johansson’s apartment.”
Until that point I had never heard Kayla’s last name, but I didn’t want to give Tilley another reason to suspect my motives for being there. I mean, who would be so concerned about someone when you didn’t even know their last name? “I just wanted to check on her,” I said.
“And what time was that?” Tilley said, checking her notes.
She continued questioning me for another thirty minutes or so, asking the same questions in different ways. I kept my answers vague and played dumb as much as I could. I knew details would give an investigator seams to pry at until the story cracked and eventually crumbled, so I played extra dumb and chalked as much up to memory loss as possible.
Eventually the two officers got frustrated enough with my vague answers that they stood to leave. “Maybe we will come back to go over all this again when your brain is a little less foggy,” Lark said, the accusation evident in his tone. He turned and walked out the door.