by Gregory Ashe
At some point during the night, something had crawled into Cian’s mouth and died. This thing—a puffy, gauzy white animal, maybe a bit like a cross between a mouse and a sheep—left Cian’s mouth packed with cotton and the taste of dirty laundry. He shifted, trying to get more comfortable, and heard a metallic jangle. Something held his wrist in place.
Concern drifted at the edge of thought. There was something else too. Something heavy and warm and itchy as a wool blanket. It pressed down on Cian’s brain, suffocating the glimmer of concern.
Sleep seemed like a very good idea.
When he tried to turn on his other side, though, Cian heard another metallic ring, and then the same sense of frustration.
He wanted to sleep on his side.
Opening his eyes was an uphill battle. First, a glimpse of white. Then steel. Yellowed tile.
It was all very interesting, but sleep was calling.
The guttering spark of concern, though, refused to go out. Cian tried again.
A white and steel bed. A small room. Sunlight through a window, the lower third covered in frost. On the opposite wall, a framed cross-stitch of yellow flowers. Sunflowers. Maybe.
Cian thought that he might get up and check what kind of flowers they were, but the metallic jangle interrupted him again.
Handcuffs. On both wrists. Chaining him to the metal bed frame.
Outrage might have been an appropriate response. Or fear. But instead, Cian noticed the pain in his side, and the heaviness settling on his brain, white like snow. He decided that he might as well close his eyes again. And so he did.
When he woke next, the weight had lifted from his brain, although it felt like someone had packed his head with cottonwood puffs. Harsh cleaners filled the air, and the smell of someone who needed a bath—Cian himself, he guessed—and the scent of something like canned gravy.
Cian’s eyes popped open.
The same white and yellow room. The same mysterious yellow flowers. The same handcuffs.
But now a man sat in a chair next to the bed. He wore a long, rumpled coat with a stain on the left breast, a dark suit with frayed trouser cuffs, and a tie that had been loosened and looked like it was keeping company with the first stain’s twin. His eyes were small, dark, and hard. Ferret eyes, set into a face with heavy jowls and an even heavier shadow of a beard. He looked like the kind of man Cian wanted to punch on sight—the kind who liked badges and ranks and authority. The kind who wouldn’t mind pushing you around, if he could get away with it.
“Cian Shea,” he said. He had a voice like a rusted gutter.
“Who the hell are you? And where am I?”
“My name is Captain Irving Harper. I’m with the United States Army Criminal Investigation Division. I’m placing you under arrest for the murder of Lieutenant Harley Dunn. As soon as you are fit for travel, you will be transported to Jefferson Barracks for court-martial.” The man stood, pushed the chair against the wall, and started for the door. He looked back. “By all reports, Harley Dunn was your friend.”
“Go to hell,” Cian said.
No expression crossed the heavy jowls. Harper left the room, and Cian sank back onto the bed, staring at the cross-stitched yellow flowers, and trying to ignore the pain growing in his side.
“You’re sure?” Irene said, looking at the starchy white bulk of First Baptist Hospital.
Patrick shrugged and pulled his hat down lower as another blast of freezing air struck them.
Irene didn’t feel the cold. “I suppose there’s only one way to know.”
“Irene,” Patrick said. He pointed with a gloved hand at a pair of men seated on a truck’s tailgate at the next street corner. They wore respectable clothes, but they were large men, and neither looked like the kind who had much trouble with his conscience.
“You know them? Are they from the Patch?”
“I know them. The Whelan brothers. I don’t know their first names. They’re mean. They worked for Seamus, and now they work for Byrne.”
“And they’re here for Cian.”
As though on cue, the two men stood and started walking towards the hospital.
“Damn,” Irene said.
“Go,” Patrick said. “I’ll see if I can’t slow them for a few minutes.”
She smiled her thanks, squeezed Patrick’s hand, and hurried towards the white building. Before the next block, she outpaced the Whelan brothers, and as she crossed the street Irene heard Patrick say, “Afternoon, boys. What are you doing in this part of town?”
If the Whelan brothers gave an answer, Irene didn’t hear it. A car lumbered behind her, the sound of its engine swallowing up everything else, and Irene entered the hospital without looking back. The hospital itself was nothing unremarkable. A mixture of scents hung in the air, creating a miasma Irene had never experience before but identified on instinct: illness. One part emptied bowels, one part closed-up air, one part despair.
Against the far wall, a woman with her hair in iron curls sat at a desk, listening to an elderly man. The woman’s eyes flicked to Irene. Those eyes reminded Irene of Miss Hannerley, one of Irene’s most formidable teachers. When the woman turned her attention back to the man, Irene slipped through one of the side doors and started her search.
She owed Cian this much, at least.
The night before had become a long blur. Her entry into the apartment, searching for information about the box, holding Cian at gunpoint. Irene wasn’t proud of that last part. Twice now Cian had saved her life, and both times she had treated him poorly. Last night, just when everything seemed to be going so well, the world had fallen to pieces again. Harry Witte showing up had been bad. But then—the apartment collapsing, Cian throwing her to safety, their flight from the building.
And the alley. That was where her memory became a smear of gray and green and the taste of rotting garbage. She couldn’t recall what had happened. Bits and pieces—something dropping from above, Cian shoving her out of the way, the feel of the revolver kicking in her hands.
Then Cian, on the ground, bleeding. And a bulldog-faced man who had arrived, cuffed Cian, and loaded him into a truck.
The next hallway was full of doctors and nurses moving in coordinated steps. Somewhere in the building, someone was screaming. Irene changed her course, checking another hallway of patients, most sleeping or reading the afternoon away. At the next corridor, Irene saw a stairwell, and she took the steps up to the next floor.
If only she had stopped the man from taking Cian. That was where things had truly gone wrong. Cian had been injured trying to save Irene. She thought of the thing moving in the darkness. She had shot at it. It had kept coming. And Irene was fairly certain she would have died if not for Cian Shea.
All of which left her with a bitter taste in her mouth.
At the time, though, she had been caught in the same paralyzing fear that blurred her memories. As the man had loaded Cian into the truck, panic had finally settled into Irene’s legs, and she ran.
That was twice, too, that she had proved herself a coward. She would not do so again.
The next floor was less crowded, with long stretches of patient rooms. The scent of urine was stronger here, and the plaster was chipped, the corners of the halls caked with grime. The men and women in the hospital beds watched her silently. They shared the look of men and women crushed by hard days that had lengthened into hard years.
Twice Irene saw nurses moving down the hall in their white uniforms, and twice she ducked into nearby rooms. The second time, she was certain the nurse had seen her, but the woman passed the room with slumped shoulders, not sparing the doorway a second glance. Irene traded gazes with the man in the bed—a wiry figure who seemed to be nothing more than skin and bone and scraggly white hair. He had soiled himself, staining the sheets and filling the air with the scent of his waste. Irene flushed and slipped out into the hallway. She paused in the next stairwell, wiped burning eyes, and hid her face in the sleeve of her fur coat. She still saw the
old man’s eyes, though.
After a minute, though, she went up again. Up, because she had to get out of this place. Seeing Kerry Patch, with its poor and its hungry and its homeless, had been one thing. Seeing this—
Irene walked faster.
On the third floor, she paused at the sound of footsteps outside the stairwell. When the sound passed, she slipped through the door. A man built like an oven trudged down the hall, his back to Irene. He wore a long gray coat and a suit, the cuffs of his trousers visibly frayed. Irene headed in the opposite direction.
The doors along the hall opened onto more of the same patient wards, and Irene moved as fast as she dared, not letting herself dwell on what she saw. The smell was thicker here, though, and she couldn’t seem to draw a decent breath. She loosened the collar of her coat. She fanned herself with one hand. Something was burning inside her. Her stomach. Her heart.
Because there were just so many of them. How was it possible?
At the end of the hall, a heavier door was set into a reinforced frame. A narrow window broke the thick wood. Irene stretched up on tip toes and looked through the glass.
Cian lay in a hospital bed. The handcuffs on his wrists were visible.
His hair was messier than ever.
Irene tried the handle. Locked. She opened her clutch, pulled out a spare bobby pin, and fiddled with the lock. It took her a few solid minutes, but then the lock gave a pop, and the door opened. Irene stepped inside and shut the door.
Cian was sprawled out like a sleeping bear, making the hospital bed look far too small for him, and he was wearing only a thin cotton gown. Irene felt her cheeks heat. On a man of Cian’s size—and build, for that matter—the gown left relatively little to the imagination.
Irene had a good imagination.
“Cian,” she said, crossing the room and taking his hand. “Cian, you have to wake up.”
He sat straight up, eyes flashing open, and said, “What in the hell?”
“You weren’t asleep.”
“No. What are you doing here?”
“Getting you out of here.”
“Getting me out of here? What do you think this is? A murder-mystery on the radio?”
“Do you want to get out of here?” Irene asked. “Or do you want to stay? Perhaps you enjoy the new wardrobe.”
Red climbed into Cian’s cheeks, almost dark enough to match his hair, but he managed to keep from looking down at the gown.
With a smirk, Irene started working on the handcuffs.
The first opened easily enough. Cian rubbed his wrist. Then, while Irene worked on the second set of cuffs, he reached down—obviously hoping that she wouldn’t notice—and tugged down the hem of the gown.
Irene’s smirk grew.
Footsteps came from the hallway.
“Irene.”
“I hear.”
The steps came closer.
Cian shifted on the bed. “Leave it, Irene. Get out of here fast.”
“They’re too close,” Irene said. “Besides, I don’t think you want a visit from the Whelan brothers when you’re all tied up.”
“Damn. The Whelan boys?”
Irene shushed him. “Let me focus.”
The second handcuff clicked free as the door opened. Irene straightened, her hand diving into her clutch for the revolver, but as she turned around she froze.
The man had a gun aimed at Irene. He shut the door without looking away from her, fixing her in place with hard, dark eyes that were set deep in his face. And it was a hard face. Stone, but the kind of stone Michelangelo never would have worked with. Roadside stone, pitted and scarred. He wore a dark suit and a hat, and the clothes had been fine once. A businessman on rough times. Or, perhaps, simply the slow settle into middle age that many men made, with the clothes following.
The gun seemed connected to an invisible hook in Irene’s stomach.
“You,” Cian said. “You were there. You killed Seamus—”
Before Cian could finish, the man swung the pistol towards Cian. Irene dragged her revolver free, knowing it was too late.
The door crashed into the man, knocking him forward a step. As he fell, the man flung his arm up and fired. The clap of the shot rang in Irene’s ears, and chips of plaster dropped from the ceiling, but Irene pulled the revolver and fired anyway. Only one shot, and it went awry, knocking a cross-stitch of yellow irises from the wall. Before she could fire again, Cian grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back.
The first Whelan brother pushed his way through the door, but the man had already turned and fired. The round caught the closest Whelan in the gut, knocking him back into his brother and sending them both into the hall. Shouts came from deeper in the hospital, and the man in the suit swore. He darted out of the room, firing twice more.
Irene’s fingers were cold and numb as she held the revolver steady.
“Irene,” Cian said.
“We need to go.”
He nodded. “Can you—”
It took her a moment to realize he needed help. She slid the revolver into a coat pocket, put Cian’s arm across her shoulder, and helped him to his feet. She might as well have tried to pick up the First Baptist Hospital itself. The man weighed a ton, and every inch of him was muscle. Irene knew that first hand. She could feel the lines of his body through the gown.
Somehow, Cian got to his feet, but he stumbled on the first step and stopped. When Irene looked up at him, he shook his head. He was white as a sheet.
“Sorry to ruin your plan,” he said.
“No. You’re coming with me.”
“I can’t,” Cian said. She could feel his leg, pressed against hers, trembling.
A hand knocked on the still-open door, and a moment later, Harry Witte poked his head into the room.
“Going somewhere?” he asked.
“Harry?” Irene said. “What are you doing here?”
Cian, on the other hand, bristled. He almost growled.
If Harry noticed Cian, though, he didn’t show it. He stepped through the door. One shoe left a bloody footprint as he crossed the room. He took Irene’s place supporting Cian and said, “I brought transportation, but I’m afraid there’s a bit of a jam.” Then he urged Cian forward a step. Cian grunted, and dislike mingled with pain on his face, but he took one step. And then another.
“That’s right,” Harry said. “You’re doing great.”
This time, Cian really did growl, but Harry only laughed.
To Irene, it seemed to take an eternity for the two men to reach the doorway, but it must have been only a few minutes. At Harry’s gesture, she passed through the door first, and then she saw the jam he had mentioned. Both of the Whelan brothers were slumped across the length of the hallway. Beyond them waited a wheelchair.
Irene grabbed the closest Whelan brother’s leg. She dragged him clear of the path to the wheelchair. Red soaked the man’s shirt and coat and left a smear across the yellowed tile.
Dead, her brain told her.
Not stopping to think about that word, Irene hauled the other Whelan brother out of Cian’s way. Harry helped Cian into the wheelchair. Irene waited for a protest from Cian, some sort of disparaging comment, but he settled into the chair without a word. His face was the color of old linen. His eyes were closed.
“You’ll have to carry that,” Harry said, nodding to a pile of folded clothing next to the wheelchair. On top of the clothes sat a large pistol that Irene recognized. Cian’s.
She scooped up the clothes.
Harry pushed the wheelchair. Cian’s head bobbed with the uneven tiling. The clothes in Irene’s arms barely weighed anything.
As they reached an intersection, a group of orderlies came into view. At the front was a man dressed in police blues, holding a nightstick. He came to a stop, pulled a revolver from its holster, and took aim.
“Show me your hands,” he said.
Harry slowed the wheelchair and raised his hands. “Officer, the man you want—”
/> “Down on the floor,” the policeman said. “You too, miss.”
Irene left her revolver in her pocket. She got down to her knees.
“Buddy,” the policeman said to Harry, “I already told you to get down on the floor.”
Harry stood there, hands raised. Then he said something that sounded like a word but wasn’t. Irene almost recognized the sound. Harry flipped his hands up.
The policeman and the orderlies flew backwards, bouncing across the tile like dust before a vigorous broom. Wind howled in Irene’s ears, flapped her coat, twisted between her legs. The group of men struck the far wall in a jumble of bodies. For another moment, the wind continued to shriek, and then it vanished as quickly as it had come.
Harry gripped the wheelchair again, turned to look at Irene, who was still kneeling, and said, “To the left, I think. Don’t you?”
Then he grinned, turned left, and started running down the next hallway.
Irene scrambled to her feet and ran after him, pushing wind-tangled hair out of her face.
What in God’s name had just happened?
Settled onto a sofa in Harry’s apartment, Cian tried to get comfortable. He shifted, wincing at the pain in his side, and tried to free himself from the heavy blanket. Sweat popped out in hot, stinging sparks across his face. He was hot. Damned hot. Thirsty too. Irene had left a tray of tea on the nightstand, and the thought of drinking it sent a wave of nausea through Cian. With a last kick, he dislodged the blanket. Lukewarm air drifted over bare legs and toes.
Frost on the window mocked him.
For a minute, Cian stared at the window. The heat made his thoughts muddier than the Mississippi. He knew, from Irene’s vocal—and voluble—remonstrations, that he was not supposed to get off the sofa. She would be furious if she found him walking about.
On the other hand, he was pretty sure that if he didn’t open that window, he would burn to death.
It took two tries to leverage himself to his feet. The pain wasn’t as bad this time. His whole left side felt like it’d been torn open, packed with coals, and stitched shut again. Cian was half-surprised that the skin wasn’t red hot through the thin cotton undershirt he wore. He probed the bandages with one hand as he used the back of an armchair to make his way towards the window. Puffy flesh, scorching hot.