Night Terrors (Sarah Beauhall Book 4) (8 page)

The parking lot was nearly deserted by the time I hit fresh air. Nathan stood there waiting. He wouldn’t let any of us be here after dark without him. Good kid. I waved at him from my truck and watched as he settled back against the wall by the exit door. He’d stay until Carl and Jennifer left.

Katie didn’t answer her phone. Since I didn’t have any messages, I called Julie to let her know what was going on out at Flight Test. She said they could keep Jai Li until Katie came. Not sure what good I’d be, but I thought it best if I went over to see how JJ was doing. Carl and Wendy needed the support, if nothing else.

I expect Katie was on her way out to pick up Jai Li; it was still pretty early. She put in a lot of hours outside of the typical school day. I called her again, but it went straight to voicemail. I left a quick message about JJ and Jai Li. She must be in with one of her peers or something. Not like her to ignore my calls.

Good chance we wouldn’t have any work for a few days with JJ out and things in flux. I hated that, damn it. Disruptions to the cash flow were less now that I was living with Katie, but old habits were hard to break, old worries too familiar a friend.

The whole way to Seattle the anxiety rode high in my chest. We’d had five months of almost normal. What crazy shit were we facing this time?

Ten

Clyde and Wendy were already in the waiting room outside the ICU by the time I’d found my way through the maze of corridors at Harborview. I collapsed onto the vinyl couch on the other side of Wendy and patted her arm.

“You doing okay?” I asked.

She turned and hugged me, burying her face in my shoulder. I stared at Clyde who looked down at his hands. I’d never seen him look so lost.

When Wendy had gotten herself collected a little, she let go of me and sat back, wiping her face. “Tha … Thanks for coming,” she stammered, taking in halting breaths. “JJ always said you were good people.”

Clyde’s eyebrows shot to the top of his head, but didn’t look up. He just studied his hands like he was hoping to find something new.

JJ thought I was good people? When had that changed? There was definitely something odd about his behavior. Was Wendy that strong an influence on him?

“What happened?” she asked.

“He was going over his lines, rehearsing, you know?”

She watched me, desperate for it to make sense.

“Then he just collapsed.”

She touched her face, staring off into the vague distance.

“Blood started coming out of his mouth, nose, ears …” I trailed off. “His eyes.”

Clyde grimaced and took her hand. She squeezed his in both of hers and rested her head on his shoulder with her eyes closed.

“It was horrible,” Clyde whispered.

We sat there for a few minutes before the doctors came out to let us know that JJ was stable. They were doing everything they could for him.

So we waited.

It was going on nine when Clyde offered to go down and get us coffee. I could tell he was agitated with waiting. Didn’t blame him. Wendy and I sat there in silence. Misery loves company, at least the pain can’t overwhelm you with someone sitting with you.

She got up to go to the bathroom and I watched her. She was young, maybe twenty-one, but carried herself well. I was already impressed with her ability to write screenplays. Couldn’t say I liked her taste in guys, though. JJ had always been arrogant and egotistical on a scale that rivaled his real world standing as a B-movie front-man. Maybe he’d changed. Didn’t jive with my world view, but I’ve been wrong before.

When Clyde got back with the coffees he had Jennifer and Carl in tow. They came and sat with us. Carl said something quiet to Wendy, who hugged him, then he slid over to sit with Clyde and me across the room while Jennifer sat with her and chatted. She and Jennifer had been working pretty closely on the script together. Jennifer was closer to her than any of the rest of us, with possible exception of Clyde.

When it was clear that JJ was stable and his condition wasn’t likely to change in the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours, I begged off to head home.

Wendy hugged me again before I left, thanking me again for coming. That girl was too good for JJ.

As I was climbing into the truck my cell phone buzzed. I looked down and saw that it was Jimmy. Not that ten-thirty was late for Jimmy, but why was he calling?

“Hey, Jim. What’s shaking?”

“Sarah, where are you?” It was Deidre. “We’re on our way to Valley Medical. Katie’s in trouble.”

A shudder ran through me. Not again. “What happened?” I asked, resting my head on the steering wheel.

“Blood loss we know,” Deidre said, her voice stoic. “Janitor found her in the bathroom off her classroom. Lot of blood. Thought maybe she’d been attacked.”

Attacked? That was nuts. I resisted the urge to start swearing. What the hell was going on? She should’ve been done hours ago. “Any idea how bad? Is she conscious?”

“No,” Deidre said. I was beginning to hear the strain in her voice. “Jimmy’s driving a little wild at the moment—”

That was directed at him.

“—but we should be there within the next twenty minutes. You in Everett?”

“Seattle, Harborview Hospital.”

“What? Why? Are you okay? You weren’t attacked as well? Were you?”

“Yes, no, I’m fine. No, I wasn’t attacked. It’s one of the actors. He collapsed, started hemorrhaging pretty bad. There was a lot of blood.”

The phone went silent and I could hear Jimmy swearing in the background.

“Lots of blood?” Deidre asked. “That a coincidence?”

“Not one I like,” I said, starting my truck. “I need to call a couple of folks, but I’ll meet you in Renton in twenty minutes or so.”

“Drive careful,” she said, and disconnected the line.

I called Melanie and left her a message. She was most likely on shift, but she’d want to know about Katie.

Then I called Circle Q.

Julie answered. “Sarah?”

“It’s Katie,” I said, turning onto James Street. “She collapsed at school—might have been attacked, no one is sure yet. Jimmy and Deidre are on their way to Valley General.”

“Damn,” she said, “hang on.” I heard her close a door. “They do good work there. Go on, we’ll keep Jai Li overnight.”

“Thanks,” I said. “This is just fucked up.” I gunned it and skated through two very deep yellow lights and turned onto Sixth Avenue. I got caught in a row of traffic to the onramp for I-5.

“Something funny’s going on,” Julie said. “Jai Li’s been drawing some odd pictures tonight. I think she knew something was wrong. Started around five-thirty. See if that lines up.”

I reached over the back of the seat and pulled Gram’s case up into the front with me. If there was something funny going on, something that Jai Li picked up from the ether, I may be needing Gram. “Funny how?”

Traffic was just not moving, so I swung around and hit the HOV lane. I’d deal with a ticket another time.

“She was just drawing lots of pictures of Katie and that actor fellow you work with. Kept crying while she was doing it. Took Edith twenty minutes to get her to stop.”

Holy mother … I tightened my grip on the steering wheel and pushed the gas pedal to the floor. “JJ’s in the hospital,” I said, the willies creeping up my spine. “He collapsed around five-thirty.”

“I don’t like it,” Julie said. “See to Katie.”

Damn straight. “Watch Jai Li,” I said, weaving around an eighteen-wheeler. Somewhere behind me there was the squeal of brakes and the honking of horns. Sue me. “Call me if she does anything else strange. And tell her I’m safe. That I’m going to get Katie, okay?”

Julie’s voice softened. “I’ll tell her. You just watch yourself. I need to go tell Mary and Edith. It’s going to be a long night. Think I’ll get out my shotgun.”

“I’ll call you when I know something for sure.”

“No matter how late,” she said.

I cut over onto the break-down lane and drove around the line of cars merging with I-90. This was too much bullshit. There was another call I had to make and I hated to do it. But if this was as fucking strange as it sounded, I needed some expert advice.

The phone only rang once when Qindra answered.

“What have you done now?” she asked. “Nidhogg is freaking out. I need to deal with this. I’ll call you when I can.”

“It wasn’t me,” I said, hating the defensiveness in my voice. Usually it was me, or actions related to me. Not like I went looking for trouble.

There were angry voices in the background and someone screamed.

Qindra’s voice rose, shouting something I couldn’t really understand. Not sure what language it was, but it had a lot of consonants.

Then the phone went dead.

Eleven

Katie was stable when I got to Valley Medical Center but they had her in ICU with stage four Hypovolemia. Fancy talk for shock and coma from sudden blood loss, which they estimated was just over three pints. They had her on an intravenous drip trying to get her blood pressure to stabilize, but adding too much fluid too fast could damage the brain, or so the doc said. Something about permissive hypotension.

I’d have Melanie explain it all to me in English later. Right now, I was freaked that Katie hadn’t regained consciousness. That really worried the doctors. The blood loss and associated symptoms were manageable. Shock was the current worry, as well as figuring out just what the hell had happened.

Fortunately, there was no signs she’d been assaulted. There was a question as to why she had been found in the bathroom. The seat was down and she’d been completely dressed—no collapsing mid-pee or anything.

I wish either Melanie or Qindra would call me back. I needed answers.

Jimmy paced while Deidre rolled her chair back and forth, talking to fill the quiet. I sat on vinyl cushions combating a serious case of déjà vu.

Something didn’t add up. Around midnight I called Julie to fill her in.

“Jai Li has been bouncing off the walls,” Julie said when I called. “She’s drawn a dragon now, and a blonde guy with a funky stringed instrument. We looked it up, it’s a double necked lute called a chitarrone. Somehow that lute and the dragon are connected and they’re tied in with JJ and Katie.”

Wait, I knew a guy who played a chitarrone—Cassidy Aloysius Stone of the Harpers. We’d met the Harpers back in October when all that mess with the mead came up.

That was interesting. Was that a connection? What else had happened then? Maybe I needed to contact Frederick Sawyer and see what he knew about things. He’d gotten a sample of that mead. Nidhogg’s had been destroyed or so Qindra figured, when the house in Chumstick burned down at Christmas. The final two had gone to Memphis and Dublin, so I doubted
they
were connected. On the other hand, we really didn’t know anything about Mr. Stone, nor the rest of his band. Seemed like nice enough folks. Who knew what secrets they were harboring. I’d be calling him next. Katie had his number at home somewhere. I’d have to dig it out.

I rubbed my eyes. Not enough pieces to the puzzle. Besides, what did that have to do with either Katie or JJ?

“Tell Jai Li we love her and will come get her as soon as we can,” I said, finally. I was too damned tired to think.

“She asked about Nidhogg,” Julie whispered. “Said the dragon was angry about something.” There was a long pause. “Sarah, how does she know Nidhogg’s angry?”

My stomach was in knots. All I’d had to eat in the last twelve hours had been coffee. I needed something on my stomach or I was gonna hurl.

“I called Qindra,” I said, turning away from the waiting room. Didn’t want Jimmy getting his panties in a wad. “Nidhogg was going a little nuts. Qindra was dealing with it, but she hasn’t called back yet.”

“When is this going to end, Sarah?” Julie asked. “When is too much?”

What could I say? I didn’t have any answers for her. “I don’t know.”

We let it hang there for a long time. I stared out onto the highway, letting the lights from the traffic hold my attention.

“Would you feel safer at Black Briar?” I asked finally.

Julie laughed an angry bark. “Hell no, we’re not bolting. Mary has her hunting rifle out and I’ve got the shotgun. Edith is keeping Jai Li calm. No way we’re letting a little fear drive us off the farm.”

I smiled. House full of tough women. “I stand corrected,” I said. “No one better to watch Jai Li for us.”

“Be careful,” she said. “I’ll text if Jai Li has any new brain waves. Otherwise call in the morning.”

I hung up and stared at the traffic a bit longer. What other enemies were out there? How was this related? Who else did we know who had ties to this shit?

Skella.

I called her and filled her in. Surprised to find her in Bellingham. She was hanging out with a group of college kids up there. The news about Katie and JJ didn’t make Skella happy. She agreed to help if she could and I promised to call when I had more news.

Then I called Rolph and let him in on the situation. He didn’t have any advice either, but the more eyes and ears we had on the ground, the better I thought we’d be. I told him to hug Juanita for me and left him to his family. It scared me how vulnerable we all were—especially the young ones, and Juanita was due any time now.

Deidre patted me on the knee when I sat back down again. Jimmy had gone off to get coffee. I told her about Jai Li and we lapsed into that silence that overcomes people in waiting rooms. The sheer volume of silence becomes too heavy a burden to carry.

So we waited. And oh, how I loved to wait.

Twelve

The doctors came out again around two in the morning. Katie was stable. They were feeling much better about her condition, as the aspects of shock seemed to be lessening. They were going to keep her in ICU for the immediate future, however. I shook the doctor’s hand, thanked him, and let him move on.

Jimmy sat with his hands in his lap, wringing them to keep from punching something. He looked just like Clyde from earlier in the night. A lifetime ago.

Deidre was making noises about staying for the duration, but I could tell she was flagging. She’d been making excellent progress with her physical therapy over the last year. The wheelchair was second nature to her now. But she didn’t have the stamina she used to. By three I pulled Jimmy aside and convinced him to take her home. I offered our apartment, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Wanted her in her own bed.