Addictive Paranormal Reads Halloween Box Set

by Nana Malone

  Without another word, Lucifer pulled the key out of the failsafe device, sank back into his chair, and grabbed his drink, downing it in a single gulp. Behind him, the sound of seven blast doors slamming shut accentuated his words like a drum solo at a rock concert. He held out the glass and another immediately appeared in his hand, his minions well trained after 5,500 years to keep their leader plied with alcohol after a mission went south.

  “I do hope you sealed up the entrance to that complex so the Coalition Forces don’t find it,” Lucifer's eyes glazed over as the scotch hit his system. “The last thing we want is whatever technology they were building that fooled you getting into human hands.”

  With a grunt for an answer, Azrael broke protocol and teleported directly out of Lucifer’s throne room, depositing the unworthy scumbag he’d reaped for murdering his wounded friend at the gateway to the Dreamtime, where all non-Agent infected sentient souls were supposed to go until She-who-is decided to send them back, whether they were worthy in his mind of rebirth or not. It was not his place to judge.

  “Get in there,” Azrael hissed. “Before I change my mind.”

  No sooner had the Taliban disappeared through the veil than Azrael teleported to where Elisabeth was getting baptized by fire her first week out of boot camp, patching together soldiers injured chasing Taliban into caves. This mission would go down as one in which there were no Coalition casualties. Because of the Armistice, the real story of how many good men had given their lives chasing a ghost through the elaborate subterranean complex Moloch’s agents had been building as a staging area would never be told.

  Perhaps he should have stayed on the primate planet?

  * * * * *

  Chapter 31

  O death, where is thy sting?

  O grave, where is thy victory?

  The sting of death is sin;

  And the strength of sin is the law.

  1 Corinthians 15:55-56

  Earth - AD March, 2002

  Paktia PRT, Gardez, Afghanistan

  A low shudder vibrated the flimsy tent as a slow-flying AC-130U “Spooky” flew overhead. Bottles and vials tossed onto makeshift carts rattled as the converted C-130 Hercules turned gunship moved towards the Shahi-Kot Valley where the U.S. 10th Mountain Division and Australian Special Air Service Regiment were pinned down in the ‘kill box.’ Or as the heavy casualties coming into the triage tent from the I-87 who'd been pinned down earlier called the long, narrow valley surrounded by Taliban and Al Quaida, “Hell’s Halfpipe.”

  “Clamp!” Elisabeth shouted over the din, pressing down on the brachial artery spurting blood out from underneath the arm of the Afghan National Army soldier. Grabbing one from the translator, who wasn’t even a nurse, Elisabeth pressed into the bullet wound and fished for pieces of the severed artery.

  The man moaned something unintelligible to Elisabeth, whose Pashto after less than four months in Afghanistan was limited to ‘my name is Elisabeth’ and ‘you’re going to be okay.’ She skipped the second sentence. Such reassurances were not appropriate under the circumstances.

  “He said he wants a male doctor,” Kadima said in English that would have been perfect except for a light accent that was neither Canadian nor Pashto. “He does not wish to die at the hands of a woman.”

  “Tell him too bad,” Elisabeth snapped, grabbing some gauze to mop up blood on the soldiers arm. “It’s me … or my black friend whenever he decides to make his next appearance.”

  Kadima opened her mouth, and then shut it again. No doubt she had no idea who Elisabeth referred to. While Elisabeth refused to bow to the traditions of the country, flaunting her blonde hair, Kadima demurely wore the long sleeves and khimar expected of a Muslim woman over her Canadian uniform. Elisabeth hadn’t worked with Kadima long enough to know if she even was Muslim, or simply took her role as translator seriously.

  Kadima paraphrased something to the soldier that Elisabeth was certain was not an exact translation. The soldier closed his eyes, his expression grim, and nodded affirmation. Whatever the translator had told him, the soldier understood the not-even-yet-a-full-fledged-nurse jamming a needle full of a general anesthetic into his arm was all he would get.

  Off in the distance, the AC-130U Spooky could be heard circling the valley where the 10th Mountain Division was pinned down. Unlike the faster, more powerful F-18 and F-16 jets, once darkness fell, the modified cargo plane with its four turboprops could fly in circles and repeatedly hit the same position without dropping out of the sky, giving them a chance to airlift wounded troops out of the kill box.

  “I don’t suppose it’s too much to ask to have a real doctor come over and help?” Elisabeth muttered aloud, glancing up to where the trauma team frantically worked to save the lives of two U.S. soldiers from the I-87. She glanced down at the Afghan soldier who’d broken out in a cold sweat. Shock. He’d lost a lot of blood.

  “I could go ask them for you?” Kadima offered. When she was nervous, her accent became heavier. Like the USA, Canada was a nation of immigrants. Elisabeth couldn’t quite place where Kadima was originally from. Not Afghanistan.

  “Don’t bother,” Elisabeth didn't bother to make eye contact. “I was ‘unofficially’ briefed my first day in Afghanistan. Coalition forces get top priority when triaging patients, not the locals. Why do you think they have me doing surgery? If we wait for them to get around to treating him, he’ll be dead!”

  “Tell me what you need me to do to help,” Kadima said, her voice even and calm. “I’m a translator, not a nurse, but I’ve received basic medic training. I’m not totally useless.”

  “Talk to him,” Elisabeth chewed her lower lip as she fished in the gunshot wound to figure out where, exactly, this guy's artery had been hit. “Ask him questions. Something to keep him here. Is he married? I don’t even know his name!”

  Kadima asked a series of questions which Elisabeth understood only a little. His name. His family. What village he was from. Even though Elisabeth couldn’t comprehend much of what he said, Kadima needed to ask the same question several times to get a coherent answer, another sign of shock.

  “His name is Mahboobullah,” Kadima said. “He’s from Herat. He has a wife and three daughters.”

  “Mahboobullah,” Elisabeth made eye contact with the dark-skinned man. “I’ll do my best to make sure you get back to your family. Okay?”

  Kadima translated. Mahboobullah muttered his assent. The look he gave her now was not one of contempt, but a frightened man who simply wished to live.

  “He understands,” Kadima said. “I told him you are a great doctor in your country. I told him you are his best chance to save his life.”

  “I’m not a doctor,” Elisabeth hissed, no longer looking at either of them as she fished back into the wound, searching for the severed artery so she had a prayer of stitching it back together. “Heck … I won’t even officially be licensed as a nurse until I take my exam.”

  “This is a war zone in a third-world country,” Kadima said softly. “You are the closest thing to a real western doctor he’s ever seen. Even licensed doctors from his own country don’t match your training. It does no harm to let him believe you have a chance of saving his life.”

  The bloody artery finally came into view. “Got it! Kadima … this thing is too fine to suture. Could you please thread those needles for me?”

  “Right away!” Kadima moved to a tray with various bloody medical implements scattered on it to find the requested items.

  The Afghan soldier slid into unconsciousness. Elisabeth pressed a bloodied, gloved hand upon the base of his neck and noted the presence of an erratic, weak pulse. Still alive. She heard exclamations from the adjacent gurney as the trauma surgeon pieced the American soldier back together. All around her, other nurses were doing as she was doing, trying to keep the lower-priority wounded alive until the real doctors were free to attend to them.

  Elisabeth knew a thing or two about being dead last on other peoples' priority lists
. Ever since the day she’d gotten here, it had struck Elisabeth how stoic and accepting of being on the shit end of the stick the people of Afghanistan were.

  “Somebody screwed the pooch on this mission,” Elisabeth grabbed a needle and began to stitch the artery she had pulled towards the surface back together. “And I thought it couldn’t get any worse than the clusterfuck at Tora Bora!”

  “I thought there were only supposed to be 200 Taliban in that valley?” Kadima asked. “We’re way undermanned for the casualties we’re getting.”

  “They now estimate 1,000 well-trained Al Quaida insurgents armed with mortars and RPG’s,” Elisabeth replied. “And they’re not running away as expected. They’re dug in and are fighting.”

  “Hell’s Halfpipe,” Kadima said. “Fitting name for a long, skinny valley surrounded by mountains with guns pointed at you. Somebody’s going to catch hell for dropping the I-87th right into the kill box.”

  “Sponge?” Elisabeth nodded at the table with the bloody surgical sponges. Nurse … or no nurse … Kadima was all she had. She was more competent than some of the other nurses who wrung their hands in dismay, one sobbing as she pulled a sheet over the head of an Afghan soldier. Kadima dabbed the place Elisabeth stitched so she could see what she was doing.

  If Kadima thought this was bad, she should have been at Tora Bora. Elisabeth’s first week on the job straight out of boot camp and they dropped her into the middle of that mess. The one that would go down in infamy as the mission that let Osama Bin Laden get away!

  “It appears the bleeding is slowing down,” Kadima said as she dabbed. “That’s a relief.”

  “No … it’s not,” Elisabeth said. “I’m nowhere near done. Exsanguination. He’s not bleeding because he’s nearly bled out. Any minute now, his heart will stop because he doesn’t have enough blood left in his body to pump. Pulse?”

  “Oh,” Kadima said softly, feeling his neck. “I see.”

  To her credit, Kadima didn’t even pause as she dabbed at the now-trickle of blood as Elisabeth worked. Stitch-by-stitch, Elisabeth sewed the severed brachial artery back together and shoved it back into his arm, stitching the muscle and skin above and then packing it with gauze. If he lived, it would be ugly as hell and limit the mobility in his arm, a lifelong reminder that a greenhorn had patched his arm back together and not a real doctor.

  “C’mon, Mahboobullah,” Elisabeth crooned as she finished looking over his less life-threatening, but still serious injuries. “Stay with me here, buddy. Okay? Got to get you back to that wife and three daughters.”

  Mahboobullah didn’t answer. He’d been unconscious for quite some time. There was no spare heart monitor available to read how he was doing, but Elisabeth could tell by the bluish cast to his lips and chalk-white skin, despite the weak, erratic heartbeat, that Mahboobullah’s chances of survival were slim.

  Elisabeth wasn’t in the mood to lose any more patients today. She’d lost one a few hours ago, an Afghan with his guts blown open with no chance whatsoever of surviving even if the trauma surgeon got to him. Elisabeth had gotten the unpleasant task of marking a black ‘X’ on his forehead and then worked on him anyway, terror in his eyes as he had slowly slipped from this world.

  Why the hell couldn’t her black man have showed up to kill that one? A quick, painless death like he’d given to Nancy would have been a mercy! Probably too busy... God only knew how many men were out there dying right this moment? Theirs. Ours. The low rumble of a bat-winged B-1 bomber flying overhead to drop its payload into the mountains reminded her of just how many more were likely to die before Operation Anaconda was done.

  Elisabeth glanced up. The AC-130U Spooky could still be heard blasting shot after shot at wherever the Taliban had dug into where they shot, in turn, at the 10th Mountain Division. The other patients were paired off with nurses or, in two instances, a doctor. There was no one else at the door. For now… She could stay with her patient a few more minutes.

  “Maybe you should go help one of them?” Elisabeth suggested. She checked the patient's dog-tags and hooked up an IV with a pint of O-positive blood, nodding towards where two other student nurses were being yelled at by a wounded Afghani soldier for lord-only-knows-what. Probably for being female. Stupid misogynistic notions! “This guy’s out cold.”

  “Yes,” Kadima excused herself. She gave Elisabeth a grim smile which did not go all the way to her eyes and headed over to assist the others.

  “Stay with me,” Elisabeth wrapped her hand around Mahboobullah’s. “You got that wife and kids to think of. Trust me. You don’t want to leave them behind. I know a thing or two about being left behind.”

  She was the last person he’d wanted to have work on him, a woman in a country where females were chattel and men were gods, but at least he’d accepted her after her translator had made it clear he didn’t have another option. Unlike the idiot three gurneys down who the efficient Kadima was trying to calm down. Elisabeth hummed the old German prayer Oma had taught her to make skinned knees feel better and chase away the monster-under-the-bed.

  Lord, Thy death and passion give

  Strength and comfort in my need.

  Ev'ry hour while here I live,

  On Thy love my soul shall feed.

  Thou didst death for me endure,

  And I shun all thoughts impure;

  Thinking on Thy bitter pains,

  Hushed in prayer my heart remains.[2]

  The chop-chop-chop of Chinook helicopters rattled the tent as they flew overhead towards the Shahi-Koht Valley to extract the wounded. Her time with this patient was short. Within 20 minutes the trauma unit would be flooded with more wounded. She was exhausted. Protocol said she should take these few moments and get some rest. Just a catnap. God only knew when she’d get a chance to take another one? But this guy hovered betwixt and between. If she left him, he’d slip into that dark night and be gone. She’d just put in too goddamned much work stitching the guy back together to let that happen.

  The minutes ticked by, her hand in his. Slowly, the blood dripped into his body, replenishing some of what he’d lost. Three gurneys down, Kadima got the situation under control with the recalcitrant Afghani soldier, coaxing him to submit to examination by two female nurses. The guy must not be that badly wounded or he’d have buckled like Mahboobullah had. They all made a big show of being big, powerful Tarzans. Right up until the point they had a boo-boo too big for Cheetah to make go away, and then they all wanted Jane to come fix it for them.

  Tired. So tired. All she wanted to do was sleep…

  The hair stood up on the back of her neck. HE was here.

  “Malak al-Maut,” Mahboobullah muttered fitfully, his hand weakly tightening on hers. “Malak al-Maut.”

  “Tell him no,” Elisabeth bent down to her patient’s ear. “Your artery has been repaired. Your blood is being replenished. You have a chance to live if your will is strong enough. Think of your daughters. What will happen to them if you leave them?”

  “Malak al-Maut,” Mahboobullah murmured, and then uttered a string of words which Elisabeth understood only a little. His daughters. He was worried about the same thing she was. A widow with three daughters in a country where females were viewed as burdens had dim prospects.

  Elisabeth turned to where she sensed HE stood. He never spoke or showed himself, but ever since he’d reappeared after a long absence, he visited her at least twice a day. Sometimes patients would tell her they spoke to him. He appeared intrigued she could defeat him. She fought hardest to save her patient's lives when he did come, willing her own life-force into their bodies to save them, if such a thing was even possible.

  “Why weren’t you here earlier today when you could have done some good?” Elisabeth accused, exhaustion lacing her voice. “This guy has a chance. Please. Can’t you just leave him alone?”

  “Malak al-Maut?” Kadima came up beside her, gesturing to her head, her heart and her lips as she looked at the exact same spot Elisabeth looked
at. “You honor us with your presence.”

  “You can see him?”

  “I can feel him,” Kadima said, unafraid. “The same as you. Although once he let me see him. We are old friends, he and I.”

  “You can’t have him!” Elisabeth stepped between invisible black man and her patient, arms crossed in defiance. “I won’t let you. He is mine!”

  The trauma doctors shot curious glances in her direction from where they were finishing up the American soldier, apparently still alive. Elisabeth ignored them. Let them think she was nuts! Less than four months in the field and already her ‘save’ rate of the hopeless cases was four times that of the trauma surgeons.

  Mahboobullah muttered behind her. Kadima rushed to his side and spoke back and forth to him. She glanced at Elisabeth, as though not sure of what the Afghani soldier was telling her, and then in the direction they knew the black man stood.

  “Mahboobullah said the Angel of Death is not here for him,” Kadima said, her expression puzzled. “He’s here for you. Are you unwell?”

  “No,” Elisabeth said curtly. “He’s been visiting me ever since my parents died when I was nine. He took them from me. And then he took my foster mother, too. He is the bane of my existence.”

  “Elisabeth,” Kadima's expression was confused. “Azrael is one of the holiest archangels in Islam. He does not cause death unless you are evil. He helps the souls of the worthy depart the body when it is time to leave and safeguards them until they get to paradise. He once saved my life.”

  “I hate him,” Elisabeth spat. “He’s taken everyone I’ve ever loved!”

  Mahboobullah muttered some more, and stirred. Kadima spoke to him and then translated.

  “Mahboobullah is dangerously close to losing his grip on his body, Elisabeth,” Kadima coaxed. “That’s why he can see him. Please … Azrael told him you could help him hang onto his mortal shell so he can return to his wife and daughters. For some reason, Malak al-Maut thinks you have the power to defeat him. He encourages you to do so now.”