Night Terrors (Sarah Beauhall Book 4) (7 page)

“Really?”

“Hey, I thought I was going into the CIA. I had no idea all this dragon bullshit existed.”

They stood there a minute, quietly. He was looking at his feet again and she watched him.

“Okay, we’ll call you,” she said, holding out her hand.

He fumbled with his bag, shuffling it to his other hand and held up the now crumpled business card. “We can arrange a meeting anytime you want,” he said, smiling. “Gottschalk will want things to be secure and obfuscated.”

“Oh, we’re all over that,” she said, taking the card. “Let me make some calls and we’ll get back with you.”

He looked relieved, grabbed his pack to his chest and stepped back toward the door. “Crazy running into you. I really was looking in on Mrs. Danby’s rabbits.”

Katie waved at him as he hurried down the hallway and out the door at the end. She glanced down at the card. Crazy days.

She shut her classroom door and went back to her desk, dropping the card in a coffee mug she kept pencils in and sat down, rubbing her temples. There was headache building and she needed to either get some painkillers in her, or find a nap somewhere.

Instead she opened the drawer to her desk and pulled out her mother’s diary once again. She stroked the cover, thinking. That was a lot of coincidence right there. He seemed harmless, but seriously … She should go down the hall to Mrs. Danby’s room, see if she was still around. The thought made her forehead ache. Better to sit here a minute, close her eyes and think.

For a few moments just having her eyes closed seemed to be helping. Then she felt a pulse from the diary. A tiny throb that barely registered against her finger tips. She cracked her eyes and looked around. She had a ground floor classroom, so anyone could be snooping out in the bushes. Better to take this someplace away from prying eyes.

She looked to the back of her classroom and saw the small bathroom. All the kindergarten classes had one. The little ones didn’t always have time to make it down the hall.

The door shut quietly behind her as she flicked on the light. There was no sound in here. She lowered the lid on the toilet and sat down, caressing the book. Her mother’s book. This held secrets of her mother that no one knew. Would it lead her to find her missing parents? God the pain of missing them was stronger these days.

Taking a deep breath, she began to sing the little ditty Sarah had found among Nidhogg’s books. The discordant song that made her teeth ache and her nose bleed.

She sang quietly while tracing the edge of the diary. Her ears popped and the bathroom door began to vibrate. She finished the song through one time and picked it up again from the beginning. Along the spine edge of the book, runes began to glow with dull purple light.

By the time she’d finished the four stanza tune a second time, blood dripped from her nose. It caught her by surprise. The fat drop struck the diary cover and a bell sounded inside the small room—a noise so loud her ears rang for a moment. In her hands, the book shook once, as if giving a little sigh.

Instead of staunching her flowing nose, she leaned closer and sang the song again, letting the drops strike the book like the thrumming call of funeral bells. Her head swam and her vision blurred.

After the seventh drop, the book shuddered and a seam appeared along the edge opposite the spine. For an instant it flashed with a deep purple explosion and the sound of chains striking the floor echoed within the bathroom. The book rattled for another second and then lay still—the runes fading like the afterimage of a flash bulb. She opened the book, placed her hand on the first page and tried to focus. A spasm ran up her arm and the dark voice in her head rose in exultation.

Her head pounded and the floor rose up to meet her. The book tumbled from her hands as she struck the linoleum. She could feel the blood running down her face before she lost all feeling. The light faded and the ringing in the room grew louder. Somewhere in the distance she heard calling voices and slamming doors.

The last thought that flitted through her mind was the first words scrawled on the page in her mother’s handwriting.

“You’re dying, Katie love. The draught will be your doom.”

Nine

I was in the back of the studio at Flight Test working on
Cheerleaders of the Apocalypse
with Jones and Carnes, my two volunteer lieutenants.
Grandma
Jones was a retired nurse who enjoyed being out with creative types rather than become one of those crazy cat ladies or hoarders.
Cry-Baby
Carnes was a twenty-year-old trust-fund baby who never had to lift a finger, so instead of being bored, he poured his ample free time into Flight Test. They were a good pair, she helped him see reality by taking him along on her forays into the homeless shelters and food banks that filled the rest of their days.

I’d been pretty rough on them during the shooting of
Elvis Versus the Goblins
, but they’d managed to see past my ass-hattery and stay on the movie. They were good people, better than I deserved some days.

We were working on costuming with the cheerleader brigade. Imagine a dozen well-endowed extras prancing around in low-cut sweaters and too short mini-skirts. Carnes was loving it, but Jones complained that these girls would catch their death of cold. I just couldn’t imagine wanting to fight mutants in this type of outfit. It was so beyond silly it was offensive, but that’s what the script called for, and Carl Tuttle, the director said it would increase sales. If Jennifer McDowell, our fearless co-leader and director of photography hadn’t approved things, I’d have probably punched Carl for being such a pig.

Jones and Carnes had been with us on every movie Flight Test had done—all the way back to
Blood Brother One
, which had sold about twenty copies, if you didn’t count the ones the actors picked up to preserve for when they got famous. I hadn’t even been around for that, but JJ had. Joseph (JJ) Montgomery was the meal-ticket—our star actor, and he knew it.

JJ had been going through his lines, really kicking it for about the last hour. As much as it pained me to admit, the guy had major talent. And his personality was morphing. I don’t know if he was smoking something other than cigarettes, but since the end of
Elvis Versus the Goblins
he’d started acting differently—nearly human. There
was
this girl, Wendy Lawson. The guy was smitten in the worst way. He usually chased strippers and the like, but since meeting Wendy he’d flipped. Honestly, I think it was love. I had no idea how they met, but while my life was going seventeen kinds of crazy, he’d met this hot young college chick and they’d co-written the movie we were now working on. It was nuts.

It rankled me exactly how good the script was. JJ may be a total whore, but he had a way with dialog that sang. When he delivered his lines in practice I was blown away. The young women we’d hired to play the cheerleaders for this film nearly all swooned when JJ was working.

It made me want to vomit a little. Just a little. Carl, the overall brainchild of Flight Test movie studio had mentioned he thought that this would be JJ’s last movie. Jennifer was working the Wendy angle, digging for confirmation. It was more of a hunch, but we were small time. JJ was growing into an actor that would eventually catch Hollywood’s attention. Whether he left on his own or someone came and took him away, he would not be stinking up this Podunk little outfit for much longer.

So Jones, Carnes, and I had our hands full of gotchas and hooters for the better part of the hour that JJ was dazzling the crew with his work. We could hear the rehearsal, but not really see what was going on.

Then all hell broke loose. There was this moment, right at five-thirty where a wave of energy broke over me—like something brushed my soul. It was magic, I knew it by the taste.

I looked up, turning to face the actors, when JJ made a gargling sound and fell to the floor.

“Shit!” Carl swore and dropped his clipboard onto the floor. “Beauhall,” he called.

I was on my feet and half way across the sound stage before he took his second breath. He looked terrified.

“Call 911,” he ordered. “Beauhall?”

“Here, boss.” I skidded to a halt next to him and looked down. JJ was flopping around on the floor, convulsing. Blood was running from his mouth, nose, eyes, and ears.

I dropped to my knees and grabbed his head, cupping both sides with my hands and bracing it between my knees to prevent him from bashing his brains out. There was a lot of blood.

People were standing around us, watching like our species was born to do, mesmerized by pain and blood.

“Scatter,” Cry-baby Carnes called, pushing through the crowd. Grandma Jones followed closely behind him.

“I’m a nurse,” Jones called, squatting beside JJ. She didn’t touch him, but watched as he convulsed, his feet drumming on the wooden floor.

“Don’t touch any blood,” Jones called to those around us. Everyone stepped back. Not me, of course, I was already holding his head steady. My hands were covered in blood.

“Ambulance is on the way,” Nathan called from the back of the crowd. Nathan was our security guard. Good kid. Three tours in Afghanistan and a heart of gold.

Three and a half minutes. That’s what it took for the EMTs to roll in with a stretcher. JJ convulsed the entire time. The crowd just stood there, watching. Several people were crying, and I think someone threw up. The whole world had narrowed down to this young, arrogant man whose life was leaking out of him for no apparent reason.

Then the crowd parted and two EMTs materialized beside me.

“Don’t move,” the first one said to me. He was gruff but gave me a quick smile. “We’ll take care of things,” he said again. “Just keep his head steady.”

His partner, a young red-headed guy with a face full of freckles and green, green eyes was cutting JJ’s sleeve open to expose his arm.

The ginger kid shot JJ with something that caused the convulsions to lessen and you could feel the tension in the room drop a few notches.

He’d lost a lot of blood, but he was breathing. The gruff guy was getting vitals while Ginger started an IV. Once the IV was in, they scooped JJ onto a body-board, got him onto the stretcher, and out the door. They were in and out in under three minutes.

I sat there while they disappeared. I couldn’t move.

The whole time I’d been holding his head I could hear him screaming. Not out loud, but in my head. There was something deeply magical about all this. I couldn’t tell if it was an actual attack or some external catalyst that had triggered this reaction in him. Whatever the hell had swept over the room, JJ was the only one affected.

A second ambulance showed up, as well as two senior fire and rescue folks who began asking all sorts of questions and cordoned off the studio. They checked each and every one of us to make sure no one else was affected, then they began testing the area for contaminants. I could’ve told them it was no use. The thing that had triggered JJ’s seizure was long gone, a ripple in the fabric of reality that had washed over us all like a shockwave.

That’s what it was, I realized. A shockwave. Somewhere, a magical explosion of sorts had happened. Now I just needed to know where the epicenter was. I couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to be near ground zero. JJ’s head may have exploded.

“As soon as the emergency folks clear everyone, send them home,” Carl said to Nathan. “I need to find Jennifer.”

“You got it, boss,” Nathan said. He put his arm over Clyde’s shoulder. “Come on, big guy. Let’s see about the hospital.”

“Harborview ,” Grandma Jones said, standing and placing a hand on my shoulder. They’ll chopper him in. He’s lost too much blood. “

“Holy Jesus,” Clyde said.

I looked up at him, caught by the sheer terror and despair in those two words. Clyde was one of those bearded and tattered men, mid-fifties, rough around the edges, but knew more about camera work than anyone I’d ever met. Of course, I was only twenty-eight. He and JJ were best friends, a relationship I never could figure out.

“We should call Wendy,” Clyde said. “She’ll want to go to the hospital.”

“You can use the phone out at the security desk,” Nathan said, steering the dazed man.

The room cleared and I just sat there and tried to find the thread of that wave, concentrated on the feeling that had passed over me. I wanted to burn it into my mind. I bet if I had Gram I could pinpoint the disturbance. As it was, I was afraid that if I moved I’d lose it altogether.

No one bothered me, no one asked me anything. I was an island of pain and concentration amid a maelstrom of chaos. Eventually the pins and needles grew strong enough to drown out the thread. It was definitely south of us, but I had no clear idea where. This was not my area of expertise. I was sensitive to magic, but to pinpoint it and follow it, that was beyond me.

When I was done, Grandma Jones helped me to my feet and back into the locker rooms. I ducked into the shower and hosed all the blood off me. I’d been in this situation more times than I like to remember. I bundled the soaked jeans into a garbage bag. My first inclination was to burn them. Maybe I’d take them out to Black Briar.

By the time I got back into the soundstage, Jones and Carnes were the only two left. They’d been mopping up, using a lot of bleach by the smell of the place.

Carl and Jennifer were closed up in his office. I could see them talking through the big window. Time to head out.

I thanked my lieutenants for all the help and sent them on their way with a promise to call once we figured out when we’d work again. With JJ in the hospital, we were out of commission. We’d been working this film for a few months. Shooting live for six weeks. Six weeks with JJ in the lead role. With him down, we either started from scratch, or gave him time to recover. I wasn’t betting on a swift recovery—Hell, I just hoped he lived.

I walked back to the props cage and grabbed my personal kit. Jai Li might still be over at Circle Q with Julie, Mary, and Mrs. Sorenson. They did some part-time babysitting for us when Katie’s and my schedule wouldn’t work out to keep her. I tapped on the office window and waved at Carl and Jennifer, pantomiming leaving. Jennifer gave me the universal hand signal for “I’ll call you.”