“Why don’t you pray for Fish now?” she asked. “I’ll pray with you if you like.”
HIS
Fortunately, Fish could figure out his way to the barn, even in the dark. He spoke only to give Donna directions. The tension in the car was palpable.
As they turned down the driveway, he broke the silence. “Pull over into the trees. Let’s go in on foot.”
Donna brought the car to a stop and turned off the engine. They got out, and started down the dirt road that led to the house and barn. As they came closer, they could see lights ahead. A car’s lights, and several smaller flashing lights.
“They’re up there now,” Donna whispered.
He gripped her arm. “Look, Donna, I want to make one thing clear. The most important thing at this point is to save Rose. I’ll see if I can get the antidote. When I give it to you, your job is to get back to the car as fast as you can. Wait three minutes for me, and if there’s no sign of my coming, you drive back and get that antidote to Paul. Everything depends on that. I’ll get back on my own, however I can. You understand me?”
“I understand,” she said, taking a deep breath. He looked at her critically, but she seemed resolved and steady.
“Good. Now, stay behind me and stay out of sight. Don’t go into the barn—just wait outside for me.”
He bent low and walked quickly forward across the field. He heard Donna following behind him. The ground was a bit wet, and mostly broken hay stubble and new grass. There was no camouflage here except the darkness. He circled around the building warily, watching and listening. There was a car parked outside, its headlights shining into the open barn doors. Inside, two figures were moving around and talking.
There was a curse from Dr. Prosser. The wind blew, and now Fish caught the strong scent of gasoline. “You’re lucky they were storing fuel here anyhow, the country fools. Get that ladder up and show me where those boxes are. Everything has to burn.”
Stealthily, Fish moved along the outside of the barn until he could see inside the doors. The ladder was propped against the loft again, and Dr. Prosser’s legs were vanishing up it. Dr. Murray was following.
As soon as both doctors had climbed the ladder, he quietly stole inside and moved to the other ladder, the one bolted to the wall. Looking over his shoulder, he could see the two doctors bent over the boxes.
Swiftly, he climbed the ladder and stepped onto the loft, crouching behind the hay bales. Inch by inch, he made his way towards the two women. Dr. Prosser had her back to him. She was kneeling down, pushing aside files and frowning. The pockets of her trench coat lay loosely trailing on the ground beside her.
Close enough now, Fish gauged the situation, then reached stealthily into her pocket. His hand closed on several glass vials and without breathing, he withdrew them and slid his hand back to his side.
There was no mistaking the labels: Digibind. The antidote. Taking a deep breath, he moved back towards the wall ladder.
A cell phone bleated. Dr. Prosser swore. “That’s yours. Go outside if you need to. The signal’s so bad out here.”
Fish pressed himself down on the floor as Dr. Murray climbed skittishly down the ladder while her cell phone continued to ring. He didn’t dare to try to get down now.
But just to his left was a window on a hinge, which had helpfully swung open in the wind. Making sure he was still hidden from Dr. Prosser, Fish rose and looked out the window.
He could hear Dr. Murray talking below to his right. Out to his left, he made out the faint light shape of Donna, hunched down and waiting for him.
Silently, he took out his handkerchief, wrapped the bottles in them, and knotted it tightly around them to make a compact ball. He waited while Dr. Murray talked angrily into her phone. He could tell from the bits of conversation he overheard that Gracton Hall had discovered they had been invaded. Great. Now I have even less time.
Finally, Dr. Murray closed her phone and hurried back into the barn. Fish chose this moment: he signaled with his hand, and saw Donna look up. Swiftly he tossed the ball to her. She reached out and caught it. A moment later she was backing away into the darkness, getting to her feet, and running for the car.
Now, he had to get out of the barn somehow, and his problem was compounded by Dr. Murray, who instead of climbing back up the ladder, stood on the barn floor and called up, “The guards think there’s a prowler at the facility.”
“A prowler? What does that mean? Rose’s crazy boyfriend who escaped from the cops?”
“I wouldn’t think he’d have risked that much.”
“Well, someone who knows something is over there. Call back and have them check on the girl. Then get Barnes and send him over to keep a lid on things. We’ve got to make sure the police don’t hear about this. And get your people to nab that prowler. If he is the boyfriend, we can drug him and send him to your crematorium in the cellar.”
Fish looked out the window. He could see the roof of the adjoining tool shed. Thinking quickly, he climbed out of the window, managing to get completely through without making a sound. The shed roof creaked slightly beneath him, but he was relieved it was sturdy. Quietly, he made his way to the edge. Now he lowered himself down and dropped down from the top of the shed.
He hadn’t had time to look beneath him when he dropped. His foot hit something metal and he slipped off balance, twisted, and fell, his leg caught. Something in his foot snapped and he cried out in surprise, despite himself.
Shakily, raising himself on his elbows, he realized his foot had gotten trapped in a piece of an old combine. He tried to move it but couldn’t without searing pain. Reaching forward, he grabbed the metal frame, pulled himself up, and managed to remove his damaged foot, but even that maneuver was fiercely excruciating. He hobbled forward on one foot, dragging the other, but realized that running—or moving at anything more than a crawl—was impossible. Quickly, he dropped to the ground and crawled forward on his elbows, keeping to the shadows.
Donna, go, go, he prayed. If he could at least hide, he would be safe.
But then two legs blocked his way, and he looked up to see Dr. Murray.
Hers
There was another surge of noise and movement outside on the stairs. Once again they stilled themselves, anxiously listening. Rose breathed another prayer. Suppose it were Fish, trying to get through? But the noise died into silence once again.
Kateri exhaled softly, but no one spoke. The stillness continued, but the lack of sound became more ominous. All three of them were poised, on edge, apprehensive.
There was an ominous pause, then more violent movement, followed by shouts, and what sounded like a woman’s shriek, far off, then the sounds died into a low murmur of voices. No more movement. A standstill had been reached.
Then they heard faint footsteps on the stairs and lightly, a faint knock. The door opened.
“James! What’s going on?” Kateri asked.
Rose heard them crouching beside her. James was still trying to catch his breath.
“I’ll talk fast,” he said. “Leroy’s captured and the police are coming. I don’t know how much you guys saw. When Leroy and I were moving the guards Leroy had knocked out, another guard came in. When Leroy rushed him, one guy pulled out a weapon. I’d never seen anything like this. There was a buzz, and these two metal snake things flew out at Leroy, wrapped around him, and he screamed and dropped to the ground like a stone. I lost it, but Alex kept his head. Leroy was out cold, and the guy who shot him yanked him down the stairs and handcuffed him. Other techs and guards came and started dragging Leroy away.”
“We heard,” Paul said.
“Then they went to rush us. But when the guys started coming, Alex pulled out his sword, which freaked everyone out. The guy had reset his stun gun and fired at him, but Alex jumped over the railing and they missed. When the guy came at him a second time, Alex dodged the snakes and they hit the metal banister. Fortunately I wasn’t touching it, but one of the other nurses was and got sho
cked out. The snakes wrapped around the banister, and Alex slashed them with his sword and cut off the heads. This surprised the guard, and Alex was able to get him off balance, knock the gun out of his hand, and put him at sword point.
“Someone said, ‘Put down that sword or we’ll call the police.’ And Alex told him to go right ahead. He said, ‘We’ll trade—your guy for our guy.’ But no one budged. The nurse said again, ‘We’ll call the police unless you release him.’ And Alex said, ‘Fine with me,’ and he had me take the guy’s handcuffs and handcuff him. So Alex is standing on the landing with his sword, guarding him. He told me to go up and tell you quick and come back. So the police are coming, we think.”
“Right,” Paul said. “Do they know we have Rose up here?”
“I don’t think so,” James said.
“What about Fish?” Kateri said. “The police are never going to let him through, if they get here before him.”
“At least he has Donna with him,” Paul said.
“Yeah,” James said with a deep breath. “All right. I’m out of here.”
“God be with you,” Kateri breathed. After he had left, so quietly that Rose didn’t even hear the door shut, Kateri said in appreciative surprise, “Alex is good.”
“The best,” Paul said. “I really hope Leroy’s all right. The after-effects of stun guns are pretty nasty, from what I hear. But at least it’s better than being shot.”
“Which is what might happen now,” Kateri said grimly. “Let’s hope the police aren’t trigger-happy tonight. Sorry, I just don’t have a lot of confidence in some of the cops around here. Personal experience. I’m going to go stand by the door, okay?”
“Okay. Pray that antidote gets here before they do.”
HIS
Dr. Murray fell back, breathing hard in surprise, watching him. He tried to get to his feet, wondering why she didn’t cry out. Was she intending to let him go? Well, he wasn’t going to argue. Warily he started inching away on his hands and knees, being careful not to jog his ankle.
“Madelyn!” Dr. Prosser yelled suddenly, emerging from the barn. “Where are you?” She swept her flashlight over the field and caught him in its beams before spotting her comrade.
“What have we here?” she said menacingly, coming forward. A sound came to his ears faintly on the wind—an engine starting, a car pulling away into the darkness. He didn’t flinch. The doctors apparently didn’t hear it, and he was grateful.
“What’s he doing here?” Dr. Prosser demanded.
“He can’t move—he’s broken his ankle,” Dr. Murray said. “I saw him fall.”
“Good,” Dr. Prosser said approvingly. “We can take care of him here. Off-site is better.” She began to close in on him warily.
He crouched, pulling out the wooden knife, and wondered if she had a gun. Probably not, or she would have taken it out already. It seemed they had come here to destroy evidence, and hadn’t been expecting trouble.
There were no pretenses left. The situation had passed from verbal sparring and legal maneuvers to brute survival, at least as far as Dr. Prosser was concerned. And she had the advantage. Cold inside, he readied himself. He could guess it was a losing proposition to fight the tall, hefty woman when he had already broken his ankle, but he wasn’t about to give in without a struggle.
She loomed over him, and he moved up to shield his broken ankle and darted forward, stabbing with the wooden knife. He made contact with her thigh and she yelled in wrathful surprise and pain, and she fell back. But only momentarily—she came forward again, this time leaping on him. Rolling to his side, he barely eluded her crushing weight and lunged back in time to stab again, this time in the back of her knee, where the tissue was soft.
Now, she scuttled away, enraged in her pain. He was making her angrier, but if he managed to wound her badly enough, he might be able to get away. Getting his grip on the yawara, he steadied himself and prepared to attack again.
Once more they closed in on each other, and although she got a hold on his neck, he jabbed at her again and again in the armpits and stomach until she let go. Then gritting his teeth, he attacked, trying to pin her down, but she wrenched herself away and got free of him.
That was the problem—she could easily keep out of his range and he couldn’t get away from her as quickly as he would have liked. For a moment, he regretted that he hadn’t taken Alex’s sword. This was a situation where it would have been useful to know more sword fighting. He crouched again, catching his breath and waiting, the yawara brandished.
But she seemed to have recovered from her blind rage and now sidled around him, breathing hard. He kept his eyes locked on hers, watching for her next move. Then suddenly, she grabbed at something on the ground and raised a long, heavy stick over her head.
It was a hoe. She brought it down towards his leg viciously and he scrambled out of the way barely in time. The sharp rusty head buried itself in the ground and snapped off when she tried to yank it out. He snatched at the metal head, but she slammed the staff down at his hand and he shied away. She came after him now, the staff crashing on the ground behind him. He couldn’t reach her with his wooden knife, as she was out of range. In desperation, he seized the end of the stick as she thrust the broken metal point at him, slashing his chest. Relentlessly, he kept his grip and attempted to yank it away from her. She almost lost her balance, but then tightened her grip, swept it away from him and cracked him hard on the right shoulder, sending him to the ground.
She was in on him then, this time going for his arms instead of his throat. She pinned one of his arms, and tried to grab his yawara, but he switched hands and thrashed around, trying to break her grip. Then she got her foot on his broken ankle.
The blank curtain of pain fell abruptly, screaming up at him and derailing all his movements. Blindly, he felt her grasping his weapon arm by the elbow and he used his last free movement to hurl the yawara away into the darkness. He didn’t want it being used against him.
Apparently, she didn’t want him to pass out, because she released his foot as she twisted his arms into a pain hold, clenching his elbows and wrists together in her big hands. Then, finding him aware, she snarled in enjoyment and started to deliberately joggle the broken joint with her toe, seeming to relish his groans. Through the blur of pain, he made out someone crying out, “Stop it! Stop it!”
It was Dr. Murray. “That’s not necessary,” she was saying.
“Necessary? Of course it’s not,” Dr. Prosser said. “Quit sniveling, Murray, and go get me something to tie him up with.”
She put more of her weight on his ankle and the blur quickly became a storm. He gasped, trying to fight her, uselessly, until after what seemed an agony of minutes, she quit her game. In the fading tempest, he could barely make out her features hovering above him.
“Wouldn’t it have been easier to just go to jail with the policemen?” she whispered. “Your choice.”
Hers
She was beginning to feel much worse—she began sweating and she could feel her body shaking. Paul continued doing acupressure points and held her hand. “Come on, Rose, hang in there,” she could hear him saying above her, and she fought to keep conscious. She now had the barest sensation of holding onto his hand, but that was more feeling in her limbs than she’d had in months.
There was an abrupt knock on the door and Kateri opened it. It was Alex, holding out his sword.
“Traded places with James,” he said, “Gave him the stun gun. Figured I should hide the lethal weapon before—hey!” There was a sudden storm of movement below and James and another man yelled momentarily, and were silent.
Alex cursed, dropped the sword on the steps, and vanished, but Kateri held the door open watching.
“They just stunned James somehow,” Kateri relayed tensely. “Alex is fighting them off.”
“You are not taking him,” Alex’s voice came fiercely up the stairwell.
“What’s going on?” Paul demanded, holding onto R
ose’s hand.
“They’re fighting over James,” Kateri said. “Alex has him by the arms.”
“You’re going to break your buddy’s wrists if you keep this up,” they heard one man’s voice warn.
“No, you’re the one who’s going to break his wrists,” Alex said.
Then there was another outburst and Alex came up the steps, panting hard.
“They got him,” he said, his voice defeated.
“You tried as hard as you could,” Kateri said.
“Why aren’t the police here yet?”
Then there was an angry voice in the stairwell below, a new voice. “How dare you call the police without permission?”
A female voice insisted. “But they had a sword and—”
“I’ll see that you’re penalized for insubordination,” the man’s voice said coldly.
“That’s Dr. Barnes from the hospital, head surgeon,” Kateri said. Rose had thought she vaguely recognized his voice as well.
The door to the stairwell slammed, and Rose could hear the surgeon’s angry tones clearly.
“Now you two are going to get that guy down from there, and you’re going to put him and whoever else is up there down into the basement, before the police get here.”
“Why’s that so important, doctor?” Alex called down.
Ignoring him, the doctor continued impatiently, “—I don’t care what you have to do to him. Go!”
“Alex—” Paul cut in.
“No, Paul,” Alex said. “Stay there.”Rose could hear the swiftly-approaching thunder of footsteps surging up the steps.
“Lock the door, Kat,” Alex said softly.
Kateri stifled her protests, closed the door, and locked it as Alex’s assailants charged towards him. The door shook, trembling with blow after blow from the battle on the other side.
HIS
Dr. Prosser had dropped him on the ground, and he fell on his hands and knees. Fish was bouncing between consciousness and unconsciousness, but somehow he managed to sit and hold his ankle. Then he did the most minimally practical act that occurred to him in those bizarre circumstances: he took his shoe off of his swollen foot, peeled off the sock, and tried to settle it in a more comfortable position. His other ankle, the sound one, was also sore from being trampled on, so he peeled off that shoe and sock as well. As though he were back in his bedroom at home, he rolled up the socks and thrust them into his shoes, while biting his lip and attempting to pull his tattered psyche back together.