He tried to conjure up a worse scenario to find himself in and couldn’t.
The man looked healthy enough. The blood around his nose seemed to be superficial, and when he examined the nose itself, it didn’t appear to be even broken. Just badly bruised.
What the hell had happened to him? He had no idea. Had someone punched him and knocked him out and then placed him on the bed? It didn’t seem likely. However, there was no telling. The woman wasn’t talking, and she didn’t offer any insights.
She spent the minutes inside the hotel room searching the room for exits and hiding places and all sorts of other things that he had no idea. He wasn’t allowed to open the drapes or go near the windows. He wasn’t allowed to use his phone. All he could do was treat the patient.
Singh saw that the man with the symbols on his face was breathing quicker now. His chest was rising and falling more rapidly. Singh pressed the stethoscope to the man’s chest and heard his heart beating wildly.
“Hey, uh…Dr. Foster?”
Nyah moved soundlessly to the opposite edge of the bed.
“His heart rate, his breathing. They’re accelerating.”
Haden’s face was twitching now. Grimacing.
Nyah looked on helplessly.
“Keep monitoring him.”
Singh slipped a blood pressure cuff from his medical bag and slipped the cuff around the man’s bicep. He hated the feel of his skin. It felt like worms were crawling beneath his flesh. He felt dirty just touching it.
What the hell is that? How is that normal? Who are these people?
26
“We had a deal, Olivia,” Haden said.
“Did we?”
“The location of the girl and then you get me.”
“But I’ve already got you.” She replied, smiling. “All those years wasting time and energy and countless agents looking for you and after all that you show up at my door and walk straight into the trap. You can’t make this stuff up.”
“Tell me where she is at least, and let Moses go.”
She was already shaking her head.
“Moses. You. No one is going anywhere.” She said. “But take comfort in the fact that the little girl, Charlotte?”
Hearing this thing, this blood singer utter the little girl’s name felt wrong on so many levels.
“She’s already dead.”
She’s already dead.
The words hit Haden like a sledgehammer, knocking the air out of his lungs and turning his knees to water.
No.
The Blood Singer watched the news wash over him.
“You came here with this ingenious idea to trick me and escape with the location of the precious little girl, and she was already dead.” Olivia laughed, her small blood-stained teeth flashing in the dim light.
“Pathetic.”
No.
“That’s not right,” Haden said weakly. “He buried her alive.”
“Did he?” she said. “On your knees, Haden.”
“Wait.”
But the goons that had been keeping themselves to the dark corners made themselves known now. One on each side. Haden found his wrists pinned in their iron grip. Boots kicked out his knees from behind, and he slammed painfully onto the stone floor.
“Haden,” Moses said.
Haden shook his head, “It’s all right.”
Olivia turned to Moses, her red eyes flashing.
“Something you want to say, boy?”
Moses stared back at her, defiant.
“You of all people really should have seen this coming. You lead him straight into a trap. Not much of a little helper, are you?”
“He never listens,” Moses said.
Olivia licked her lips.
“I’m going to enjoy this,” she said.
27
Singh watched as the man’s body grew rigid. Every muscle in his body, wire tight and clenched.
“What’s happening?” he asked Nyah who was standing over the bed looking as perplexed as he.
“Is this normal?”
“No.”
“What is it?”
For the first time, Singh saw an emotion flicker across the woman’s smooth face. It was gone in a fraction of a second, but he saw it.
Fear.
“The Blood Singer.” She said.
Haden’s hands hooked into claws and tore through the top sheet of the bed. His mouth opened and Singh saw the man’s teeth for the first time. He stumbled backward, sweat breaking out over his body in a thick greasy layer. Haden’s mouth opened impossibly wide, and Singh saw that it was filled with jagged teeth.
Singh thought of shark week and whispered a prayer he hadn’t said aloud since elementary school.
“Get back over here.” Nyah snapped. “Now.”
Singh took a shaky step back toward the bed where the man’s muscles were straining. But it wasn’t just his muscles it was the veins beneath. They were standing out against his flesh and growing thicker as if something was increasing his blood pressure to the point of bursting as if an unseen force was squeezing him. He stepped to the bed and removed the blood pressure cuff. He didn’t need that to see the man was going to have an embolism or full on aneurysm soon.
“We have to get his blood pressure down.”
“How?”
“I…I have some drugs, but I don’t…”
The man’s body was trembling now. His mouth full of shark teeth snapping and opening. A scream exploded from his throat sounding like an animal roar as a spear of frozen blood erupted from the palms of both his hands, straight up into the air.
28
Moses couldn’t watch. Haden was on his knees with his hands splayed out in front of him. Sharp spikes of blood were sticking straight up from his hands. There was nothing he could do. Nothing. He wanted to run and scream and kick the Blood Singer in the face, but he was a witness. A helpless observer. The two goons stood just next to Haden enjoying the show, small smiles on their faces.
Haden was screaming.
The Blood Singer had slipped into her position directly across from him with her own hands on the floor. Her red eyes rolled back into her head. Haden screamed again as he dragged his right hand back toward his body. Moses couldn’t even imagine how much that hurt. The blood spear was growing, cutting slowly through the flesh of his hand. Like a wounded animal Haden tried to curl his damaged limb into himself as if pulling them away from the Blood Singer could protect him.
Moses wished he could end it.
Haden’s hand continued to inch closer to his body. Moses watched as the veins in Edna’s fat neck began pulsing against her moist pink flesh. Her veins were bulging, flaring out like a tire ready to blow. Still, Haden’s right hand edged toward his crotch, dragging that blood spear with him.
What was he doing?
Moses figured it out a split second before it happened and had just enough time to smile. Haden had hidden Freddy’s gun in the one place even a Blood Singer’s henchmen wouldn’t look. An old lady’s underwear.
BOOM!
Gunfire shattered the silence, and the first bullet hit Olivia in her left shoulder and blew her skinny ass backward where she rolled and tumbled, landing in a squealing heap.
The singing stopped, and Haden was released.
He dropped instantly to the floor and onto his back, his gun firing first at the goon to his left. The man’s surprised face twisted toward the ground and a second later was erased in a red mist.
The goon on the right had just enough time to pull his weapon before Haden shot him twice in the chest, knocking him backward.
“Moses!” Haden screamed, “Follow her!”
Olivia was scrambling away crablike across the stone floor, slipping to her feet and running headlong for the door.
Haden, climbed to his feet, blood spilling from his hands. His heart was beating like a hummingbird on cocaine. He wasn’t going to last long. His vision swam in front of him and was growing dark.
“
Follow her!” he yelled.
Haden saw the little bitch running for a door at the far side and fired once, missing her by a good two feet. He aimed again, breathing slowly and hit her her low in the back. She pitched forward as the door opened. Another goon materialized in the doorway, but by then Haden was five feet away. Haden fired once, and the goon grabbed his throat as he stumbled backward disappearing into the darkness.
Olivia lay shaking and convulsing at Haden’s feet. She saw him and started to sing, furious and fast, her lips moving over small bloodstained teeth.
Haden dragged her by her hair out of the room and into the hall that led back to the alley exit.
She screamed, and he could feel the veins in his arms rising to the surface again. He dropped all of Edna’s three hundred pounds onto her chest and smiled as he heard the Blood Singer’s ribs crack.
Blood exploded out of her mouth in a rush, and her singing stopped.
“Where did he take her?” Haden screamed.
More goons were coming. Boots pounded on the stone floor getting closer as raised voices shouted orders.
“Haden,” Moses said. “We gotta go.”
Haden grabbed Olivia’s throat with both of his hands bringing her face up to his.
“Where, Olivia! Tell me!”
Olivia’s mouth opened, and blood and drool spilled out. She was smiling.
“Already … dead.” She croaked.
“Where did he take her?” Haden yelled, Edna’s voice taking on a different pitch. Deeper. Darker.
He watched Olivia’s expression change as she witnessed the true nature of the Reaper.
Jagged fangs sprouted from Edna’s mouth. The darkness flooded her eyes.
“Answer me!” Haden commanded.
“Home!” the Blood Singer screamed, “He took her home!”
Haden’s eyes flicked to the doorway as three heavily armed henchmen flooded the gap, machine guns raised.
A moment later twenty-seven bullets ripped through Edna Walton’s body throwing her back and away from the Blood Singer to crumble into a bloody heap against the wall.
29
Haden’s solid black eyes snapped open, and Dr. Singh cried out in surprise. Immediately Haden’s skin began to clear as the words and symbols, and strange characters retreated from his flesh. Singh continued to wrap Haden’s hands as blood poured from the wounds. He watched in amazement as the man’s colouring changed from writhing obsidian to ivory. His black eyes cleared to an icy grey-blue. His mouth closed and his teeth returned to normal, retracting to God knows where.
Haden convulsed and shook for a moment. A second later his eyes blinked and stared straight at Singh.
“Hey…” Haden said.
Singh barked out a laugh.
“Hello, sir.”
Haden seemed confused as he stared around the hotel room. Nyah stood next to the bed.
He pulled his hands away from Singh, who was still trying to stop the bleeding.
“We have to go,” Haden said, swinging his legs out of bed.
“Let him stitch you up first,” Nyah replied.
“No time.”
Haden pulled away and stood up at the edge of the bed and swooned, swaying on his feet for a second before Nyah caught him and sat him back down on the bed.
“You did lose a lot of blood,” Singh added.
Haden smiled up at Nyah.
“You’re pretty.”
Nyah turned to Singh and nodded who broke out his kit and started an IV for the lost fluids.
Nyah turned to Moses and winked. “She’s pretty.”
“What the hell is this?” Nyah asked Moses. “Is he for real?”
Dr. Singh followed Nyah’s irritated gaze and found nothing but empty space.
“Ask him,” Moses said.
“I’m asking you.” She snapped. “I’m supposed to be involved in all decisions where he could potentially die.”
“I know, but you weren’t here,” Moses replied.
“Then you don’t go!” She said. “Did you learn anything at least?”
Moses shook his head.
Nyah whipped her gaze back to Haden who still looked way too pale.
“She wouldn’t tell you anything?”
“She said the kid was already dead.”
Haden pushed the doctor away and handed a roll of tape and bandages to Singh.
“Tape them,” Haden said and shooed away his objections.
“You need at least, twenty stitches, on each hand.”
“No time.”
Singh did what he was told and wrapped both of the man’s hands in an inch of gauze and a ton of tape. When he was finished Singh helped Haden up off the bed, and together they moved toward the door.
“I’m going, and I’m taking this guy with me,” Haden said. “I like him.”
“Where are we going?” Nyah asked.
“Haden, she said she was already dead,” Moses told him.
“I know where he took her,” Haden said and stumbled toward the door to the suite, dragging the IV solution bag behind him.
Nyah snagged the bag from the floor and picked it up.
“At least put it in your pocket.”
Dr. Singh still stood by the bed. Hoping they would forget about him.
“Let’s go doc,” Haden said.
“But…”
“Really?” Haden said, cutting him off. “You don’t want to see how this ends?”
30
The Walton family home was a burnt husk sitting on ten acres of farmland. As the beige Camry bumped over the rutted drive Haden saw that the house, had it ever been finished, would have been a real stunner. Two stories, a wrap around porch and large floor to ceiling windows. It was breathtaking.
Nyah pulled up through the natural driveway and parked. Haden stumbled out of the car, the IV bag nearly empty. He squeezed it like a tube of toothpaste and then ripped it out from his arm before Singh could get to him.
Singh winced as blood spit from the entry point on his arm. Haden handed him the bag and climbed the crumbling front steps into the house.
“What makes you think she meant this place?” Nyah asked.
“He loved this place. He was building it for them. This was their home.” Haden replied. “If anywhere he would want his daughter to be kept here.”
The second story of the home was destroyed, and there was nowhere to hide inside save for the unfinished basement, but all it had in it was six inches of rainwater.
“Haden,” Moses began, but Haden was already moving from the house into the backyard. The backyard was never finished either. It stood muddy and dark and rugged. Criss-crossed with tire tracks and footprints.
“Didn’t she say there was a pool?”
“Who?” Nyah asked.
“Edna.”
“Who’s Edna?” Nyah asked confused.
“She did,” Moses confirmed.
Haden stared at the smooth backyard to a section off to the left where the ground looked recently disturbed.
“She’s in the pool.”
Haden ran to the patch of ground where tire tracks disappeared into the ground. Nyah and the doctor followed suit.
Haden didn’t know where to start, and there were no shovels, but he didn’t see any heavy equipment, so he hoped she was buried close to the top. Haden’s bandages ripped clean off, and he began losing blood again, but still, he dug and so did Nyah and Singh. Ripping out handfuls of dirt and kicking at the ground hoping for that telltale sound. Haden’s bloody hands hit metal, and he dusted it aside, and there was the Jaguar logo.
She’s already dead.
The Blood Singer’s voice buzzed through his head again like a hive of bees.
She’s already dead.
Nyah was the first to the clear away the back window of the car. It was pitched forward in the hole and buried under three feet of earth. Just enough to squeeze the air out of the space. Nyah pulled a small metal tool from somewhere in her clothes and pressed i
t to the window. The safety glass instantly shattered into a blizzard of tiny pieces.
Nyah slipped inside the confines of the Jaguar that smelled of vomit and leather. The little girl was huddled on the floor of the vehicle behind the driver’s seat. Nyah slipped an arm under her and lifted her up to Singh. Together Singh and Haden carried her to a flat patch of ground and Singh listened to her heart. She wasn’t breathing. He began CPR with precision, as Haden sat back, resting his bleeding hands on his legs, his lips whispering something Moses couldn’t hear.
Nyah crawled out of the car and stood over the girl.
Moses looked on worried as usual.
Again the doctor listened to the little girls breathing, pressing his ear to her pale lips. Again he started the CPR.
Please. Haden prayed. Please.
He thought of Freddy, the monster who could bury his daughter and leave her for dead. He thought of the way his body looked after the Blood Singer had her way with him and wished he had been alive for it.
He thought of his mother sitting on the floor of the shitty motel so many years ago, pointing her pistol at his chest, her finger curling around the trigger.
Please…
Haden crawled across the ground to stare down at the little girl. Her skin was the colour of chalk, her lips pale blue. Sweat poured off of Dr. Singh as he continued his compressions. Suddenly he stopped and listened to the child’s chest, his eyes briefly flicking to Nyah before starting the compressions again.
She’s already dead…
Epilogue
Dr. Singh awoke just before midnight. He sat up and found himself in the back seat of his Volvo. For a moment he thought that the whole experience with the mysterious Dr. Foster had been just a dream brought on by too many late nights, too little sleep and too many microwave burritos. It was only after he saw that his hands were still covered in dried blood that he knew the truth.
He checked the front seats and found he was alone. His head whipped around, searching out the windows, scanning the empty parking lot. He was back at the hospital.
The Blood Singer_A Haden Church Supernatural Thriller Page 10