by Lincoln Cole
The priest had gotten in his way for the last time. Finally, Jeremy could have his revenge. He reached out mentally, planning to seize control over the priest and force him to commit suicide. Maybe he would have him gouge out his own eyes. After all, this was the man who so heinously murdered his father, and he needed to be punished for what he had —
“Jeremy,” Megyn whispered, grabbing his arm. Her grip was weak, and it broke his concentration.
He turned to her just in time to see her slump to her knees. Her mouth was open and she looked disoriented, and she was holding her hand to her shoulder, pressing it against the dirty sweater. She started to fall backward toward the ground.
“Megyn!” he cried out, reaching to catch her. She stumbled but he caught her wrist and pulled her close to him. He could feel something wet streaming down her back.
He held his hand in the light coming from the hospital behind him. Even in the dim light could see that it was blood.
“Jeremy…” she muttered, eyes blurry.
“No, no, no!” he muttered, squeezing her close to him. The bullet had gone through her shoulder and clear through, and blood was coming out both holes.
She started closing her eyes, her breath coming in shallow gasps.
“No,” he said, shaking her. “Stay with me.”
Suddenly something whizzed past his head. He turned and saw the priest staring at him, gun aimed at him. The dart had missed him by only inches, but if it had hit he had no doubt he would be slumped over, too.
Jeremy cursed, lashing out mentally. This time, it wasn’t to control the priest, it was to hurt him. Jeremy had never really tried using his abilities just to damage before. It felt too imprecise, and he preferred just taking control.
The visceral attack, though, felt good. The priest staggered, dropping his gun and clutching his skull. He collapsed to the ground, writhing in agony, and Jeremy bared his teeth.
The satisfaction was short lived, though. Jeremy turned his attention back to Megyn and saw that she was barely conscious. She was slipping away from him.
He disliked many things about her, but the thought of losing her was as painful as anything Jeremy had ever experienced. She was the only one he had left after Leopold was taken away. If he could have taken back all of the hurtful and horrible things he’d said and thought about her over the years, he would have.
He would have given anything just to save her.
“Come on,” he said, slinging her arm over his shoulder and dragging her back into the hospital. Megyn tried to walk with him, but she was more dead weight than actual help.
“Where are we going…?” she whispered.
“Inside,” he said. “Stay awake, sis. Just stay with me.”
He didn’t miss the irony that he was carrying her back into the hospital, but everyone who could have helped her was already outside fighting
◆◆◆
It took Niccolo a long while to recover from Jeremy’s mental attack. His mind was fuzzy and unfocused, similar to the after-effects of what he had experienced the first time Jeremy invaded his thoughts.
That was where the similarity ended, though. This time Jeremy hadn’t controlled him, he had simply tried to hurt him. He had been successful, too, because Niccolo could barely even keep his focus long enough to stand back up. He shook his head to clear his thoughts, but it did no good. It was like the hangover from drinking at least three bottles of red wine.
He looked around, trying to get his bearings. Arthur leaned against a nearby car and was unconscious. Downed officers bled in the street while others fired at the civilians. It was mayhem, chaotic and horrific.
An overturned car burned off to his left and a police car was emitting a high-pitched whine from his right. The thrown car wrapped around a light pole, its windshield so cracked as to be opaque.
Jeremy and the little girl, though, were gone. He checked his gun and saw that he had one shot left.
Only one.
Niccolo staggered to his feet and over to where Jeremy had been standing. He saw a trail of little red droplets leading back toward the emergency room entrance of the hospital.
“Arthur,” he said, collapsing to a knee and crawling over to where his friend was lying. “Arthur, get up.”
The hunter didn’t budge. Niccolo shook him, but there was no effect.
He was on his own.
“Alright,” he mumbled, climbing back to his feet. “Here goes nothing.”
He followed the blood trail into the hospital.
◆◆◆
“The signal is dead.”
“You’re kidding me? We lost the uplink?”
“Looks like.”
“Of all the times it could lose connection, this has to be the night. At least tell me you’re still recording.”
“All of it. Do you want me to check if we can get it back online?”
“No. We’re the only ones here. Just get the footage and we’ll upload all of this tonight.”
Desiree breathed a sigh of relief. Her plan had worked and the connection was severed. No signal was getting out of this parking lot.
The van was locked, so she climbed onto the roof. The dish was her target. No exposed wires, but Arthur’s knife was sharp: she had simply hacked away at it until she got to the core wiring of the dish. Then, she had simply cut things until she was confident it wouldn’t work anymore.
She heard gunshots and screams of pain, and the blonde reporter and her cameraman barely seemed to care. So jaded as to be disturbing as they simply stood there recording the violence and punctuating it with little reporter snippets of information.
Desiree crept away from the van and circled back around to the parking lot. People were lying on the ground, bleeding or dead. Only a few people were still fighting at all, and they looked exhausted. Broken glass and fragments of cars littered the area and the area was lit by police lights and a car fire.
It was a warzone and the smell of death was everywhere. She could smell burning gunpowder and hear the cries of the wounded. She scanned the area for Niccolo and Arthur and saw the hunter leaning up against a car near the center of the violence. She also saw what looked like Niccolo staggering into the hospital, though he was out of sight before she could verify it was him.
She crept through the parking lot to where Arthur was lying and knelt in front of him. He was unconscious and had hit his head pretty hard.
“Arthur,” she said, tapping him. “Wake up.”
No response. She searched around for something that would help and saw a nearby ambulance. An unconscious – or dead – man was hanging out of the back of the vehicle but it was otherwise empty.
Desiree moved over to it and gingerly stepped around the man to climb inside. She started digging around. She hadn’t used the salts before but knew from a friend how –
Something touched her leg and she screamed. She jerked sideways, crashing into the ambulance equipment and falling painfully onto the cart. The man she had thought was dead was still alive.
Barely, but alive.
“Please,” he muttered, crawling toward her. “Please help me.”
“I will,” she promised. “But right now I need to help a friend…”
He grabbed the bottom of her shirt. “Please…I don’t want to die alone…”
Desiree felt herself crying. He closed his eyes and was barely breathing. She gently extricated herself from his grip and took a step back. He was still breathing, but barely, as he slipped back into unconsciousness.
She brushed the tears away, dug in the equipment, and found the little pack of salts.
Everything was terrible, but Desiree understood terrible. She had lived through terrible her entire life, so she could handle this.
The only path was forward.
She climbed out of the ambulance past the dying man and rushed back over to Arthur. She waved the pack under his nose and he came back to reality with a gasp, eyes going wide. He grabbed her arm, steadying himself.
“What…what the hell…?”
“Relax,” she said, making soothing noises. “Take a breath.”
Arthur blinked and shook his head. “What the hell happened?”
“No clue,” she said. “But I’m pretty sure this wasn’t the plan.”
He sat up. “Where’s Niccolo? Jeremy?”
“I think Niccolo went inside the hospital. No clue where Jeremy is.”
“Who started the fire?”
“The car?” she asked, smoke pouring out the front doors. “Oh.”
“Help me up,” Arthur said, climbing to his feet. “Did you stop the broadcast?”
“It’s taken care of. They are still recording, but nothing is going out from here.”
“Good. We can handle the rest. I’ll go find Niccolo. You help settle things out here if you can.”
He winced as he stood up, clutching his side.
“Will you be alright?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “But there’s no other choice. Just do your best.”
“OK.”
Arthur picked up his tranquilizer gun, tucked it into his belt, and then headed into the hospital. Desiree watched him go and then turned back to the riot happening around her.
She had no idea where to even start trying to fix this mess.
◆◆◆
Niccolo moved into the emergency department, following the blood droplets. They headed off to the left down a hallway.
“Jeremy!” Niccolo shouted, moving after the boy and the injured girl. It was almost like there was ... smoke? “Stop running! She needs help.”
He could smell something burning from up ahead and there was a little bit of smoke in the air. He heard gunshots from up ahead, a scream, and then a door slammed shut around a corner. He hurried forward to the corner, afraid of what he would find.
When he rounded it he saw two swat members in the hallway, one clutching his stomach and the other his leg. Used shotguns lay on the ground around them and neither of them were paying attention to him.
Niccolo saw bloody handprints smeared around a nearby door. He rushed over to it and saw that the droplet trail led down toward the basement. Alarm lights were blinking in the stairwell, disorienting him further.
“Jeremy!” he shouted, heading down the cement stairs after the kids. His mind was still muddled and he had to cling on the railing to keep his balance.
He coughed. It was coming from down below, billowing up in little clouds.
He covered his face with his shirt and kept going down the stairs, following the trail of blood. He only had one shot in his tranquilizer gun.
He staggered to the doorway at the bottom. Smoke was pouring out around the cracks, and he saw more blood on the handle.
The metal was warm to the touch but the fire wasn’t very strong yet. Niccolo pulled the door open using the sleeve of his coat. A huge cloud of smoke billowed out past him, and he ducked low to the ground.
Inside was a large room full of barrels and machinery.
That fuel, Niccolo saw, was stored in plastic barrels stacked through the room. One of those barrels had been knocked over and cut, and the fuel inside was on fire.
Off to the right he saw two forms moving through the smoke, staying low to the ground. One was leaning on the other and he knew it was Jeremy and the little girl. They were about fifteen feet in front of him.
“Jeremy,” he shouted, coughing. “Stop this madness! There is nowhere to go!”
The two forms stopped moving and one turned back.
“I didn’t do this!” Jeremy shouted. “This wasn’t me.”
“She’s hurt because of you!” Niccolo yelled back. He raised his tranquilizer gun to fire, but just at that moment the flames burned through another nearby plastic barrel. The fuel splashed out, igniting quickly as the fire spread.
Another barrel followed suit, and then another, and within seconds the flames had tripled in size and scale. Niccolo pulled the trigger, but he could barely see anything through the smoke and couldn’t be sure if he hit Jeremy or not.
He could have sworn, for only a second, that he saw two other forms in the smoke near the children, but they were gone just as fast, hidden in the smoke. His eyes must have been playing tricks on him.
He crawled further into the room, moving forward. He stayed low, covering his mouth with the neckline of his shirt, and struggled just to stay conscious. He reached something through the smoke as his hand fell upon a leg. He felt around the area and found the little girl on the ground, unconscious but alive.
Jeremy, though, he didn’t find. He circled the area, trying to peer through the smoke, but it was impossible to see anything.
He grabbed the unconscious girl and dragged her back through the smoke. His breathing was shallow and weak. He made it back to the stairs and started crawling his way up, coughing with every step.
His vision clouded, but he pushed on, struggling to stay awake. They were almost out, only a few stairs left to go. A little farther … a little farther …
Everything went black.
◆◆◆
Desiree ripped open another gauze pack and handed it to the paramedic. They were running out of supplies, but the injuries were endless. Everything was still chaotic, but something had changed. No one was fighting anymore, and the civilians had blank looks in their eyes as they tried to understand what was happening.
Doctors and nurses in scrubs and lab coats milled around in confusion, splattered in blood and practically delirious. Some of them jumped back into action the way they had trained, saving lives, but it was clear that there would be more dead people than living by the time all of this was sorted out.
She heard the sounds of a tire squealing off to the right and saw a vehicle tear out from the side of the hospital. It was a white paneled van, and it was in one hell of a hurry. She watched it go, frowning, and then turned her attention back to helping the paramedic.
Arthur was carrying Niccolo over his shoulder and the girl under his arm, grimacing in pain. He brought them both over to where Desiree and the paramedic were, and wordlessly the man started working on her.
“What happened to Niccolo?” Desiree asked.
“Smoke inhalation,” Arthur explained. “He’ll be fine.”
“Jeremy?”
“No sign of him. What happened out here?”
“A lot, but it looks like the fighting is over. “Now it is just time to pick up the pieces.”
Arthur sat down next to her, surveying the devastation. Fire trucks could be heard in the distance.
“I suppose, then, that it’s time to get back to work. There’s a lot to clean up.”
Epilogue
Niccolo came back to reality gasping and sputtering. He coughed, and it felt like he was hacking up an entire lung. His entire body was riddled with pain and his mind was hazy. He sat up too quickly and that was followed by another long fit of coughing that lasted a full thirty seconds.
He felt a hand patting him on the back, helping to clear his airways. He glanced around, somewhat panicked, and saw that Arthur was standing next to him. They were outside of the hospital, no longer in the basement where he last remembered being.
“Breathe,” Arthur said, speaking softly. “Just breathe.”
The coughing fit finally subsided, and Niccolo fell back. He was laid out on a hospital gurney in the back of an ambulance, though he had no clue how he’d gotten there.
The smell of smoke and ash hung in the air and it looked like daylight outside. He wracked his memories, trying to piece it all together. The last thing he remembered was crawling up the staircase, carrying the unconscious girl. There were clouds of smoke and he was near the exit, but he was almost positive he hadn’t made it.
“What happened?”
“I got the crap kicked out of me,” Arthur said with a laugh. “Pretty sure I broke a rib. Maybe two.”
“I mean to me. How did I get back up here?”
“When I woke up, I
saw you running into the hospital like a bat out of hell so I went in after you. Found you on the stairs leading to the basement, passed out. I dragged you out.”
“What about the girl? Is she alright?”
“The paramedic thinks so, but it’s impossible to know just yet. She is en route to another hospital about an hour away for surgery. She lost a lot of blood and went into shock from the bullet, but they are trying to stabilize her. The firefighters are still clearing the building, but most of the fuel already burnt itself out.”
“What about the demons? Jeremy’s army?”
“They just stopped,” Arthur said, speaking quietly now. He glanced around to make sure no one was eavesdropping on them. “When I got you back up here everyone was done attacking each other and just trying to fix things up. All of the civilians are in custody, and none of them seem to remember what they did. Seven dead in total and no one seems to know what actually happened here.”
“Jeremy,” Niccolo said, letting out a sigh. “Without Jeremy, the demons couldn’t hold onto the vessels.
“I didn’t find him. Was he down there with you?”
“He’s dead. He was in the basement with the flames, and there’s no way he made it out alive.”
Arthur was silent for a moment. “Are you certain he’s dead?”
“He was in the basement with us. There’s no way he got out of those flames and smoke.”
“That settles it, then.”
“The Vatican isn’t going to be happy.”
“We saved one of the children, and if my guess is correct we saved the right one. I think she is redeemable. With Jeremy… I’m not so sure.”
“What about the recording equipment? They were recording all of this, weren’t they? The cars, the fight, everything?”
“They were live streaming things as they happened. At least, they thought they were. Desiree broke their satellite uplink, so as far as anyone outside this parking lot knows the connection dropped with all of the major networks before anything went down. As for the recordings, government officials are going to seize the tapes and send them to the Vatican.”