by R H Frye
When Donovan was only a few steps from the corner that he would need to turn to enter the emergency room doors, the doors were flung open from inside and an odd trio of people emerged from the hospital. The same young woman that Donovan had spotted earlier was leading the way. A young man was pushing a patient in a wheelchair just behind the young lady, but it was the patient that captured the officer’s full attention. The patient was wearing ill-fitting clothing that had obviously never been intended for his frame, but that was a minor thing compared to the damage that was showing on all of his exposed skin. This man obviously needed further medical care, so why were the two young people removing him from the hospital? Donovan’s hand closed around the grip of his pistol and he said, “Hey, hold it right there.”
The young lady spun about in alarmed surprise, and she was so obviously afraid that her face was nearly a comic book caricature of fright. The young man wrestled the wheelchair to a halt and turned partially to face the voice that had interrupted their flight. But the faces of both youngsters faded into the background as the man in the wheelchair turned his face towards Donovan. Icy blue eyes regarded the officer where he stood giving his commands and Donovan could feel the evil and anger radiating from those eyes.
The next few moments were seared into Donovan’s memories for the rest of his life.
With a painful motion that only served to fuel his anger, Maraydel raised his arm to gesture at the policeman. He began to mutter in the same strange tongue that Danny had heard him use before and sparks began to dance across the seared fingertips of his hand before coalescing into a ball of electric blue energy in the palm of his hand. As Maraydel raised the hand in what appeared to be a throwing gesture, Danny realized he was about to watch a policeman die.
Something in Danny snapped, and as Maraydel’s arm began to fly forward, he leapt between the policeman and the magus. The ball of electricity meant for the policeman struck Danny directly in the center of the back, and he felt himself lifted from his feet and hurled through the air. He was dimly aware of narrowly missing the officer as he sailed by the man to land on the hood of a Ford Mustang where it was parked in the parking lot.
Donovan stood in momentary shock at what he had just witnessed, and the hesitation nearly cost him his life. The brave young man that had just flown by him was lying on the red hood of the Mustang with smoke rising from his clothing. He turned back towards the apparent source of the electricity that had sent the young man flying just in time to see the man in the chair raising his arm once more. He leapt to his left and placed the brick corner of the hospital between himself and his unknown assailant. Just as he reached the cover of the building, his hair stood on end, a smell of ozone filled the air, and shards of shattered brick exploded from the corner where he had just taken cover.
Carol was rooted in place as a mixture of emotions overrode her brains commands to do something. Anger, despair, misery, terror, and hatred all warred within her mind. She was snapped from her paralysis by the sight of something that she would never have deemed possible only a few days before.
To her right, across the sidewalk from where the policeman had approached, a crow flapped its way to earth. To see one of the black birds approach so closely at any time would have been strange, but to have one land so nearby when balls of lightning were being tossed around was unimaginable. Her surprise became outright astonishment as she continued watching the bird, because before her eyes it began to change. The form of the bird expanded and flowed into a new form, and suddenly the shape of the man that had escaped from her master in the woods was standing on the lawn behind the magus.
Maraydel had not seen the arrival of the crow, so when he turned to Carol with an order on his lips, he was surprised to see her staring in open-mouthed astonishment at something behind him. The wheelchair was unfamiliar to him, and he was not yet sufficiently recovered for the effort that it would take to wrestle the chair around, so he cast his mind behind him instead. And finally, Maraydel knew what it was to be truly afraid.
John Raintree had been so consumed with the task of getting to the hospital that he had given little thought to figuring out what to do when he got there. He certainly had not expected to see his enemy hurling lighting at people from the sidewalk outside the emergency room. He was still learning the extent of his powers and had never tried to use them offensively before, so he was somewhat at a loss regarding how to proceed. His hesitation gave Maraydel the time he needed.
“Move you idiot. Turn me to see him.” Maraydel reinforced the words with his powerful mind, and Carol was powerless to resist. Tears of frustration and sadness coursed down her face, but she was compelled by the force of Maraydel’s will, so she dashed behind his wheelchair and spun it around to face John.
John saw what was coming with barely a second to spare. As soon as Maraydel’s eyes fixed on him, the magus was again raising his arm to throw more lightning. John reached out to the world around him and as the lightning was released the ground between the two enemies heaved upwards. Where a moment before there had been a well-manicured lawn, a wall of grassy earth stood at shoulder height between the two bitter foes and the lightning splashed harmlessly against that wall. The rapid rearrangement of the soil in the area caused the ground to heave beneath his feet, and John was tumbled to his back behind the defensive fortification that he had so hastily erected.
Mike Donovan risked a glance around the corner and saw Carol dragging the wheelchair backwards down the sidewalk. He started to yell for the pair to stop where they were, but memories of what had happened the last time he tried that stilled his tongue. Instead he braced himself against the building and aimed carefully at the figure seated in the wheelchair. The distance was rapidly increasing, and he knew that if he wanted a decent shot, he had to fire immediately so he paused his breathing and squeezed the trigger.
Blood sprayed from Maraydel’s left shoulder and Carol winced in pain as she felt a fiery line traced across her side.
Donovan growled in frustration as he realized that his shot had been too high and had missed the heart. His frustration turned to sudden fear as the eyes of the madman in the wheelchair settled once more on his face. Donovan ducked further behind the corner as another blast of lightning flew past his head and plowed into his police cruiser. The lightning left bright spots dancing in his vision, and he knew that he would never be able to see well enough to take another shot in time, so he decided that discretion was the better part of valor. He flattened himself on the ground and hoped that the next bolt would not burn him where he hid.
John rolled to his feet as he saw the blast of lightning blow past the corner of the building where he had heard the shot ring out. He looked over the earthen barrier he had created and saw Maraydel and Carol still struggling towards the parking lot. Blood was flowing from the wizard’s shoulder, but his eyes were still vitally blue and alive. Carol was in obvious pain, but her wound seemed to be giving her little trouble as she quickly rolled the wheelchair away from the hospital.
When Maraydel saw the shaman looking over the top of the barrier at him, he knew that he needed to get away. The raw power that he was handling was too exhausting for his damaged body to handle for long, and he knew that soon he would be defenseless, so he cast a spell that he had rarely ever needed to use.
Before John’s eyes, a wall of fire appeared and roared towards him. He ducked back behind the barrier that he had made, and the fire roared across the top of the barrier to splash harmlessly from the brick wall of the hospital behind him. An inferno raged overhead, and the heat made sweat appear on his skin, but the fire never touched him.
For long moments the fire raged overhead. Finally, it ceased. John took a quick mental inventory of himself and waited for another moment to be sure the fire had really passed. Finally, he pushed himself to his feet and looked over the barrier again.
The grass of the lawn where the battle had raged was gone. Only a fine gray ash remained where the grass had been, and
the earth beneath was blackened and cracked. John was relieved to see that the fire had been directed mostly at him, and the grass near the corner where his unknown ally had been firing was only yellowed instead of burned completely away. John turned his eyes back to the parking lot where Maraydel had been, but he was unsurprised to see that he and his helper were nowhere to be seen. His eyes continued to take in the devastation before him for a long moment until his gaze settled on the smoking figure of the young man that had saved the policeman. He was afraid of what he would find, but he forced himself to run to the young man’s aid. Maraydel would have to wait for another day.
When John reached the young man’s side, he was surprised to find that he was alive and even moaning weakly. Danny’s shirt was burned through in several places on his back and the soles of his sneakers both had large holes where the electricity had arced through his body and into the ground below. As Danny began to struggle weakly to turn over, John placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder and told him, “Shh. Lie still. We’ll get you some help, but for now, lie still.”
“Carol. I have to help…” Danny’s words trailed away into another moan of pain, and John was afraid that the young man was going to injure himself further, so he did the only thing he could think of to do. John sent a soothing energy down his arm to the hand that was on Danny’s shoulder. He felt the energy tingle as it left his palm and poured into the young man, and he quieted and lapsed into a restful sleep.
John’s attention was pulled away from Danny by a sharp tap on his shoulder. He turned to see a police officer standing in a grass-stained uniform behind him. The officer’s hair was standing on end and he kept blinking tears away from his obviously irritated eyes.
“Is he alive?” The officer obviously had more questions, but John was pleased to see that the man had a good sense of his priorities.
“He seems to be, but we need to get him some help. I’ll stay here with him if you’ll run inside and get a doctor.” The officer seemed on the verge of saying something, but he glanced at the parking lot behind John and something there seemed to sway him to go along with John for the moment. He turned on his heel and trotted towards the emergency room.
John turned back towards Danny and the parking lot and quickly understood the officer’s sudden helpfulness. Two news vans were screeching to a halt behind the Mustang and reporters with cameramen were jumping from their vehicles to move towards him.
John thought briefly of turning into a crow again and flying away, but he shook his head, sighed, and waited to meet the scrutiny of the media monster. One thing was certain. There was absolutely no way he could tell the truth to these reporters.
Chapter 17
Maraydel only barely managed to restrain himself from hitting Carol.
For the past hour, Carol had been maintaining a constant litany of despair and hatred. “You killed him. I can’t believe you killed him you son of a bitch.” Tears streamed down her face and she often seemed on the verge of losing control of their stolen car. Maraydel was too busy healing his damaged body to spare much attention for the young woman’s complaints, but her constant, quiet muttering kept distracting him from his efforts.
Maraydel stopped healing himself long enough to pay attention to their situation for a moment. He was startled to realize that the two of them were drawing curious stares and even the occasional blaring horn from the other motorists on the road. Apparently Carol’s driving was inept enough to cause people to pay attention to them, and Maraydel knew that it was only a matter of time until the authorities would once again be paying unwanted attention to them. He was physically and mentally exhausted from the strain of his battle with the shaman, and he was very tired of feeling like a hunted animal. Finally, his frustration erupted from him in a single word. “Enough!”
Carol stopped talking immediately and stared fearfully in Maraydel’s direction. Unfortunately, paying attention to the magus only served to make her driving even more erratic, and their stolen car began at once to drift into the wrong lane.
Maraydel saw their vehicle once again causing problems and snapped, “Dammit woman, pay attention to the road!” Carol’s eyes once more fastened onto the road ahead and she swerved back into the center of her own lane. The Mercedes beside her blared its horn, and the driver could be seen waving the middle finger of his right hand in Carol’s direction. In a somewhat calmer voice Maraydel continued, “You will stop this incessant whining and you will pay attention to what you are doing. I have work to do, and I can’t do it with your constant distractions.”
Carol hesitated to ask a question, but she needed a destination. “Where do you want me to take you?” They had been traveling east on Interstate 40 down through the mountains of North Carolina since they left the hospital in such a rush, and at first, simply traveling had been enough. Now that their flight had lost some of its urgency, she needed to know their destination.
Maraydel was momentarily at a loss for words. He had given no thought to their destination. Instead, his attention had been focused solely on healing, but he realized that he would need somewhere private to finish regaining his strength. After a moment’s thought, he realized that he lacked the knowledge to make an intelligent decision about where to go in this modern world, so he sent his thoughts once more into Carol’s head. The young woman winced when she felt his touch in her mind, but she stayed focused on her driving and surrendered to the evil sensation of having her memories ransacked.
After what seemed an interminable amount of time, Carol finally felt Maraydel withdraw his thoughts from her mind. “We’re going to your parent’s house.” The words sent chills down Carol’s spine and she started to protest, but before she could Maraydel explained his decision. “You know your parents are gone to the ocean for a week. Their absence will give me time to heal. Do not argue with me. Now pay attention to your driving and leave me be.”
Carol realized kept her mouth closed and drove. She realized that Maraydel was right. Her parents were in fact gone for the week, and hopefully she could have the magus away from their house before they returned. If not, she knew that the consequences for her family would be dire, so she resolved to do everything in her power to help him heal as quickly as possible.
“Look, I said no comment. Now get out of my face.”
John shoved by the latest in a long line of pushy reporters and finally managed to reach the doors to the emergency room. He had managed to run interference with the reporters long enough for the emergency medical personnel in the nearby waiting room to rush outside and gather up Danny. But as the doctors and nurses were moving Danny inside, word of the commotion must have spread to the other reporters that were camped out at the main entrance to the hospital, and a swarm of news vans had arrived to spill out their payloads of gleeful gossips. These reporters and cameramen had made a beeline towards the emergency room doors, and John had been forced to fight his way through the crowd to reach the emergency room.
As John shoved his way into the admitting area of the emergency room, he was relieved to hear the police officer from the battle outside calling into his mobile radio for men to repulse the tide of reporters that was threatening to overrun the emergency room.
When Donovan saw John slip through the doors, he rapidly finished firing orders into his radio and yelled to John. “Hey, I need to talk to you.” John nodded in acknowledgement and waved down the hallway to an area that was not as swamped by reporters. Donovan picked up on John’s hand signals and nodded in agreement before turning to address the reporters. “Listen to me! I’m going to make a statement, so be quiet!” Donovan’s commanding police officer’s voice finally penetrated the uproar, and the noise from the crowd faded to a dull murmur instead of a multitude of shouted questions.
When he was satisfied with the noise level in the crowd, Donovan began to speak. “Y’all have about one minute to clear out of here before my officers get here. This is an emergency room, and the way you’ve got the doors jammed up, there�
��s no way an ambulance could get a patient in here right now, so if you don’t leave, you’ll be arrested for reckless endangerment.” A multitude of protests began to be heard from the reporters, so Donovan added an enticement to his words. “If you’ll all go back to the main entrance and make sure that people can come and go as they please, I’ll come out and give you an official statement concerning everything that’s happened here…just as soon as I figure it all out myself.”
Donovan’s words were punctuated by the arrival of two officers down the nearest hallway. Somewhat reassured that they would not be shut out of a juicy story, and mindful of Donovan’s threats to have them all arrested, the reporters and cameramen began to make their disorderly way through the emergency room doors and back to the parking lot. The two officers that had just arrived remained to be certain that the reporters were going to clear the doors and allow arriving ambulances a place to offload. Meanwhile, Donovan headed down the hallway that John had indicated to look for the man that he was certain had played some part in his survival of the terrifying ordeal behind the hospital.
John had considered slipping away into the depths of the hospital while the officer was busy addressing the crowd of reporters, but the thought had occurred to him that having a police officer for a friend amid this mess would probably be a good thing, so he was waiting in an empty examining room for Donovan to move in his direction. He was peeking out through the drawn curtain of the examining room, and when Donovan approached his location, he leaned out long enough to get the officer’s attention. John stepped away from the curtain as Donovan brushed aside the curtain to step into the examining room.