Grave Beginnings (The Grave Report, Book 1)

by Virdi, R. R

  While Ortiz was still fixated on the scene outside, I threw the now lassoed hose around her waist, pulling it tight until it constricted around her midsection.

  She turned her head to look at me, her face thoroughly perplexed as she shouted, “what in the hell?”

  That’s when I pushed her out the window….

  …It sounds bad when you say it aloud but trust me, it was a good idea at the time!

  “Hold on to the hose,” I shouted as the tumbled from the window and down to towards the ground.

  She screamed a string of obscenities, I think some were directed at me but I wasn’t sure, I think it was safe to assume that though, I did just push her out a window.

  I held on tightly to the hose, working to ensure that it didn’t unravel to its full length but rather one that would allow her to reach the ground safely. I didn’t want her smacking into the pavement below because that would really get me in trouble. Once I was certain that she was safely on the ground, which I got confirmation of via her continued swearing at me, I pondered my next move.

  “Great,” I grunted as I gave a few forceful tugs on the heavy hose, while the hose could take my weight, I wasn’t so sure that the fastenings that held the hose into the wall fixture could. I didn’t really have a choice however, the room around me was deteriorating and I would soon go along with it. I didn’t bother tying the hose around myself, I wasn’t sure if this was going to work so I didn’t want to stuck in it if I didn’t have to. I took a firm grip and sat on the windowsill, climbing out backwards so I could rappel myself down the building.

  That was the great thing about my body hopping experiences, I was once inside an Army Ranger, so I knew all manner of helpful techniques.

  I began traversing the building wall, actively trying to navigate away from windows and anything that might lead me into contact with more fire. After making it halfway down the second story but still a bit off from the first, something really unfair happened. One moment there was a great deal of tension on the hose due to my weight and the next, well the tension was gone and the hose was no longer taut. There was also the unmistakable sensation of falling as everything rushed upwards whilst I tumbled down. I was still holding onto the hose, well, the now severed hose. I didn’t really know how it happened, only that now I was holding onto half a hose as I fell.

  I should’ve been screaming, I know I yelped but I should’ve kept on yelping but I didn’t. More than anything, I just swore, loudly I might add for all the good it woulda done me.

  So I tumbled and swore my way to the ground, I heard the splat/crunch, when I hit, that was the only way to describe the sound. The kind of sound you make when you fall from a building while swearing and crash to the ground with a rubbery fire hose is distinct, it’s a sonata of pain. All I know is that I landed sort of on my already injured side and a bit of my back when hit the ground, there were obscured blurry images of people and lights over me, it went black pretty much immediately after that.

  Chapter Twelve

  I felt a pair of soft hands gently cupping my right hand, the one that had been punctured with glass and burned. It was a delicate yet firm and rather comforting grip. I groaned as I opened my eyes, bright lights flooded everything and I instantly shut my eyes tight in reaction. I gingerly opened them again, giving them time to get adjusted to the lighting. I was soon able to get a good look at my surroundings, the walls were a light salmon color, there was golden brown wooden paneling of sorts decorating the walls, it gave the place a warm look. I was lying on a rather comfortable and plush bed, several thick pillows underneath me and a thick white blanket atop. There were a series of tubes and wires connected and inserted in me.

  “Nice to see you up,” said a soft feminine voice.

  I looked over to my right, to the woman who was gently squeezing my hand. She sat in a simple wooden chair with a thin padding covered in navy blue upholstery. Her dark brown eyes looked worried and there was a tired look on her face, made sense, we had both gone without sleep for…however long it had been up to this point, I wasn’t sure at the moment. Her chestnut brown hair looked disheveled, I was more surprised that it wasn’t singed.

  “Hospital?” I asked hoarsely, my throat was dry but my body didn’t seem to be in as bad as shape as I feared it would be. I must’ve healed quite a bit while resting; they do say sleep is oh so important.

  She nodded.

  I flexed my left hand and rolled my shoulders a bit in bed, there was a pang of pain along with the sensation of pins and needles. Yes, I had been healing while sleeping and still was, good, I needed to be fit to move soon.

  Agent Ortiz brought a glass of water to mouth and I sipped, slowly, really slowly, I knew better than to guzzle away and thus choke. I didn’t jump out of a fiery building and survive an encounter with a group of hellish creatures only to die now from a glass of water.

  She gave me a moment to slowly hydrate myself before asking, “how are you feeling?”

  “Like I fell out of a burning building and onto pavement, you?” I grumbled.

  “Like I was pushed out of a burning building by a maniac,” she retorted, a small smile playing across her face.

  “Yeah,” I said a bit gutturally, my throat was still somewhat dry, “sorry about that.” I apologized.

  She didn’t say anything but instead looked down at the multicolored floor, it was a mixture of red, green, black and blue tiling, it gave the place a bright look.

  I didn’t need to have any sort of powers whatsoever to know something was wrong, so I asked.

  “The fire department’s still checking the place out,” she started, “you’ll be happy to know that the entire place wasn’t burnt down,” she continued.

  “But?” I asked, fearing her response.

  “But,” she said chewing her lip, “but there were a few deaths, some people didn’t make it out,” she finished, a melancholy look overcoming her beautiful features.

  I felt the heat rising in my face, feeling angry and a fair bit guilty as well, those people died because of the Elemental, no, the Ifrit. That monster was out to get me and any other innocent people it could out of sheer spite but it attacked the hotel because of me. Those people died because I was there, my stomach was feeling queasy, sick and it wasn’t from any injury or the painkillers they were administering.

  Ortiz was somehow able to read my thoughts it seemed, she gave another reassuring firm squeeze and said, “Norman, those people, it wasn’t your fault.”

  I turned my head to look away, I wasn’t used to this, I always worked alone and avoided people for this reason. In all of my cases I had never once before gotten anyone else involved. It was a cold hard approach but it spared me in a way from news like this, I didn’t know how to handle all of this, it was a first for me. Sure I had worked with other creatures before, sometimes with a person too but never this closely. And never did I get someone like Agent Ortiz involved in something like this, but now I had and everything that happened was all on me.

  I decided to change the subject, “the feds,” I asked bit roughly, my throat sore, “they involved yet?”

  “No,” she replied, “fire department’s still combing the building, trying to determine the cause and its source, looking for remains.”

  I rose from the bed, using my elbows and forearms for support myself but felt a hand be placed on my chest, gently pushing me back down.

  “Nah uh, you’re staying here Norman,” said Agent Ortiz in a calm and yet strangely firm tone that left no room for argument. But then again, this is me, like hell if I wasn’t going to argue!

  I brushed her hand asides and propped myself back up, yanking off the series of wires, monitors and what not that were all connected to me.

  “You just fell out of a building!” she exclaimed.

  I ignored her for the moment, shaking my head vigorously to clear out some of the medicinal cobwebs that had recently been placed there. Things like painkillers and drugs don’t really affect me
all that well, mostly I don’t need them. I’m a soul inhabiting someone else’s body, drugs affect that person’s body and mind, not mine. I’m a different consciousness that just so happens to be in stuffed into another person.

  Of course, I do happen to feel a great deal of the pain inflicted upon this and any other body I inhabit, which it totally unfair. I have my theories on why that may be; whoever’s pulling my strings finds it highly amusing. My many lives are run by some cosmically empowered asshole.

  Point being, I was much better shape than Agent Ortiz thought I was and I was going to make that abundantly clear. I righted myself until I was sitting at a ninety degree angle, stripping those little suction cup things off my chest and tossing them off the side of the bed.

  “You’re insane, you just fell out of a building, you’re lucky you’re still alive!” She continued.

  “Come on,” I said, ignoring her comment, “let’s go,” I added as I gingerly stepped out of the bed.

  She shook her head in disbelief, “you don’t get it do you? You’re going to kill yourself like this, I think you should do a stint in a mental institution after this.”

  I shrugged nonchalantly, “it’s been suggested many times to me.”

  She sat there in shock, watching me flex my hands, roll my shoulders and go through a few stretches to see just how much of Norman’s body had recovered. “You’re…. okay?” she said in a confused tone.

  I nodded, technically I wasn’t entirely better, there was some general stiffness and pain in some regions of Norman’s body but I could still function.

  “How?” she asked, stupefied.

  “I’ll tell you about it over dinner…breakfast?” I said uncertainly, “what time is it?” I asked.

  “A little after one in the morning,” she replied.

  Damn, I thought, I had been out for a while and time was a slippin’ away. I still had a bit of time left but I was starting to push it. I needed to hurry before more time passed, as I didn’t want to exactly start a confrontation with a magical ancient creature during daylight hours. Better to keep this fight in the dark, lest more people like Agent Ortiz get involved in my world. I would have to step things up and fast.

  I began walking towards the door when Ortiz cleared her throat rather pointedly. I turned to look at her and found he staring rather intently at my backsides; she looked up at me and raised an eyebrow. Right, I thought, I was in a hospital…they had dressed me in a gown, the ones you have to tie up and apparently, well someone had forgotten to tie up my backsides. So, there I was struttin’ away with Norman’s rear end thoroughly exposed.

  “You might want to put on some pants there Norman,” she said with a bit of a snicker, “no need to walk around and give some poor old ladies in here a heart attack.”

  I snorted when I replied, “only old ladies huh? No federal agents find it an amusing sight?” I asked.

  She shrugged, “I took an appreciative glance, it’s not like you men don’t do the same.”

  She had me there.

  “In a bag in the bathroom,” she said, apparently reading my mind before I had even spoken.

  I nodded a thanks, cinched up the back of the gown and hobbled into the bathroom, Ortiz’s laughter filling up the room behind me. Once in there, I found the clothes I had been wearing all stuffed rather unceremoniously into a plastic bag, hanging from a small towel rack. I undid the small knot on the bag and began pulling my clothes out of it, stepping out of the gown and starting to dress.

  “Ugh,” I grunted after taking a look at my shirt, it was covered in soot, sweat stains, singe marks and dust from the debris. But beggars can’t be choosers so I slipped it on, suppressing a hygienic concerned shiver as I did. The pants weren’t any better but I slipped them on as well, couldn’t be running through the mean streets of New York with my borrowed ass hanging out and on the line. I didn’t bother changing the socks though, sure they were a bit ridiculous, what, with being purple and embossed with those anti slip grippy things in the shape of dog paws that all hospital socks have. None of that mattered, why, because they were clean. So I tossed Norman’s old socks in the nearby trash, slipped into his shoes and stepped out of the bathroom to a concerned Agent Ortiz.

  “Are you sure you want to leave Norman? You really shouldn’t be moving, you can’t be moving,” she said, placing considerable emphasis on can’t.

  “I promised,” I replied simply.

  “What? You…promised?” she said, clearly confused as to what I referring to.

  “Yeah,” I said, cracking my stiff neck with a groan before speaking again, “I promised back in the hotel that we’d talk after we got out of there.” I gestured to our brightly colored and comforting surroundings, “we’re out of there so, guess it’s time to make good on my promise,” I said stepping towards the door. I looked back over my shoulder and asked, “you coming?”

  She gave a small snort, “sure, what the hell, after everything I’ve seen and been through today, a little food…” she paused to yawn, “and some more coffee would be a nice change of pace.”

  I gestured out the room door and gave an exaggerated bow, “well then, this way Agent Ortiz,” finishing with a flourish of my hands.

  She rolled her eyes and as she walked passed me she stopped to say, “you know, it’s customary that when a man takes a woman out for food…” she let the sentence hang in the air for a minute. When she spoke again, her eyes were twinkling and I could see her resisting the urge to smile, “to not look completely like shit.” She finished and then walked out without so much as uttering another syllable.

  I snorted and followed her out, leaving the brightly colored hospital room behind. I quickly fell in step right behind her, trying to look straight ahead and not at the people who were staring at me as I walked past. I got a series of odd looks and garnered a few gasps as well, not surprising. Here I was walking through a hospital with tattered, torn, singed and dirty clothes like I just escaped a burning building…well I did but they didn’t know that. I was more surprised that some nurse didn’t run up to me and pretty much restrain me, forbidding me to leave the hospitals care until they were certain I was a-okay. But then, they were probably busy with all of the other people who had escaped the building fire as well.

  “So where are we going?” asked Ortiz, breaking my chain of thoughts.

  “Huh?”

  “Where. Are. We. Going?” she said much slower, carefully enunciating each word as if I were a small child.

  I gave an indifferent shrug, “no idea,” I said, “whatever’s open at this time.”

  She scoffed and muttered under breath but in a way so I could hear it, “men,” she said more as a curse, “doesn’t even have an idea on where to take a lady.”

  I laughed, which set her off and then we were both just laughing rather loudly and a bit too improperly given our surroundings but we just didn’t care at the moment. It felt good to just laugh given what we had both gone through, there’s something rejuvenating about laughter. Laughter heals a great deal of pain, it really does. I’ve traveled the world, mingled and tangled with all manner of supernatural things.

  Take my word for it.

  We continued walking, laughing and drawing stares until we left the hospital grounds and hoped back into Agent Ortiz’s car. The laughing soon faded away into dead silence, neither of us really knew what to say, we had both just been through so much. So we sat in silence as she drove, watching the many lights and buildings of New York pass by like a scrolling marquee.

  “So,” said Agent Ortiz, breaking the long moment of silence I had been somewhat enjoying.

  “So,” I replied rather simply.

  “When we get to this diner, what exactly is off limits for me to ask?”

  I shrugged, “what makes you think anything is off limits?” I asked.

  “Don’t give me that,” she began, “we both know you haven’t been entirely honest or upfront with me from the start.”

  I tried to
protest but she took her right hand off the wheel and held up, motioning for me to be quiet, I was. Damn, I really needed to learn how women did that.

  “I’m not saying that I have a problem with it per se, I get it,” she said.

  “You…get it?” I replied in a thoroughly confused manner, I had no idea what she thought she got…say that five times fast.

  “Yeah Norman, I get it,” I repeated, “after sampling a bit of your world today,” she continued, shaking her in disbelief, “I get where you’re coming from.”

  “No…” I began, “no you really don’t Agent Ortiz.”

  “Fair enough,” she replied, “but I understand you not wanting to share everything or wanting to be completely open and honest.”

  “And…” I began a bit hesitantly, “you’re okay with that?” I asked.

  “Oh God no!” she exclaimed.

  Great I thought, she’s never gonna let this go.

  As if she could read my mind, she verified my assertion, “I’m never going to let this go Norman.” She said.

  I sighed on the inside, it was the kind sigh you do when you give up on some things, like that the federal agent on your tail will hopefully give up her relentless pursuit of you and all things supernatural, that kind of sigh.

  “But,” she added, “I’m going to give you time, I know it can’t be easy be to trust people in your line of work.”

  “No it really isn’t,” I replied, “hell,” I added, “there are some monsters I trust more than people.” I instantly regretted saying that.

  “Gee thanks Norman, you really know how to make a woman feel special,” she joked; I could tell she really wasn’t upset.

  “I didn’t mean you,” I said somewhat apologetically.

  “I know,” she with a smile, “but still, would it kill you to extend a little trust to the woman who saved your life?” she asked.