Number of the Beast (Paladin Cycle, Book One) (39 page)

Shane nodded. He approached Birch’s
car but never took the gun off the bastard.

Carmen stepped toward him.
She cautiously extended her hand out. “C’mon, Shane...don’t do
anything crazy, please. Hand me the gun and we’ll wait for the
police together. You, me and Birch.”

Shane inhaled and exhaled a deep
breath. He grabbed Carmen by the shoulder and shoved her
away.

Shane leaned over Amy’s
motionless body in the backseat. With an ear pressed against her
chest, he listened. Her heart thumped but it was faint. He felt
something hot and hard against his cheek. Some sort of redish stone
was glued to her chest. It suddenly glowed bright as if somebody
hit a switch and Amy’s body lurched.

“
Shit! What the fuck?” He
ducked out of the car. “Where’d this weird stone come
from?”

Carmen shrugged. “What
stone?”

Shane lifted his chin,
gesturing toward the psycho that hurt Amy. “You give her
this?”

The guy shook his head. “I
gave her nothing.”

With a punch to the roof,
he ducked back into the car. Shane kissed Amy’s forehead, her
cheek, the bridge of her nose and those sweet, sweet
lips.

Nothing. Not a moan or even a fuckin’
twitch.

With sweaty hands, he
framed her face. “Open your eyes, baby.” He picked a leaf and a
twig from her hair. “Snap out of it!”

“
Is she okay?” Carmen
asked.

“
Call an ambulance.” Shane
kissed Amy on the lips. “Please, babe. Look at me.” He let his
forehead fall against her forehead. “I’ll kill him. I swear to God,
I’ll kill him.” Straightening, he handed the gun to Birch. “I’m
gonna kill him, but I’m gonna do it with my fist.”

When Birch took the gun,
Carmen put a hand on Shane’s shoulder. “It wasn’t him.”

Shane brushed her hand
away. “Carmen, if you’re gonna keep defending this psycho-asshole
then you fuck the hell off, you goddamn whore!”

Birch took Carmen by the wrist. He
dragged her to the other side of the car.

Shane snickered. “Try not
to fuck Birch while I’m beating this bitch to death.”

As Shane walked away,
Carmen said to Birch, “It’s a good thing he gave you the
gun.”

Cool night air caressed
Shane’s bare chest as he tossed his shirt to the ground. Casting a
glance over his shoulder, he caught Birch’s gaze. “No matter what
happens, you two don’t interfere. We clear?”

“
Got it, chief,” Birch
said.

“
You’re making a mistake,”
Carmen said, tears running down her cheek, but she maintained a
steady voice.

Taking a defensive stance,
fists in front of his face and body, Shane waggled his fingers.
“Let’s do this.”

The guy faced Shane. “I
mean no harm to any of you. I come for the Beast only.”

“
She’s not a beast, she’s
a woman, you crazy fuck.”

“
She’s not the Beast that
I seek.”

“
Well, I’m all the fucking
beast you’re getting.” Shane took long fast strides toward
him.

“
I won’t hurt you,” the
guy said.

“
But you have no problem
hurting a woman?”

Shane drove forward, intending to
pummel his face.

A soft, invisible wall bounced him
backwards.

“
Sonuvabitch. What the
hell?”

The guy remained standing
without wavering in his position.  

Shane charged faster this
time, and speared his fist forward. At the moment before impact his
body and fist were diverted to the right.

“
I can’t hit this
sonuvabitch!” Shane bellowed.  

“
We cannot harm one
another,” the guy said. “It is impossible.”

“
What the hell are you
talking about?” Shane stood, fists at his side.

The psycho extended his
arm out. “Take my hand.”

Shane clenched his teeth.
“My pleasure, asshole.” Shane clasped the outstretched
hand.

Multi-colored sparks exploded inside
his head, showering his mind with a billion rapid images; and a
sensation like a thousand tiny tendrils of lava rooted through his
brain, down his spine, igniting his blood.

Atticus let go of his
hand.

Atticus...his Twin
warrior.

“
What the fuck is a ‘twin
warrior’?” Shane roared. “And how the fuck do I know your
name?”

“
Because the stars have
chosen us to slay the Beasts together.”

The low wailing of a siren grew
closer.

Atticus bore unblinking
eyes into Shane’s, causing Shane a moment of uneasiness. “It is
imperative that Amy returns with me. And you as well.”

Shane
shook his head and took a step back.
This
is some straight up freaky bullshit here.

“
I don’t know who—or
what—you are, but I ain’t goin’ anywhere with you and Amy
sure-in-the-hell ain’t goin’ anywhere with you.”

First the headlights
beamed through the darkness before the black and white squad car
parked behind Amy’s sedan where Amy rested in the
backseat.

“
You boys break it up,”
Sheriff Bowden hollered. The broad man shuffled in front of his
cruiser before he advanced on them with steady strides. “Put your
hands up and step away from one another.” His fingers flexed around
the holstered .357. ”We don’t want this to get nasty.”

Shane glanced at the
Atticus, Carmen and Birch then at the Sheriff. “C’mon Rodney, just
shoot this fucking asshole...goddamn, man, he messed Amy up. Fucker
hurt her. Just fucking shoot him, Rodney!”

“
Son, from the vantage
point I got here you better start addressing me as Sheriff
Bowden.”

Shane laughed in hysteria.
Bent over, hands braced on his knees, he cackled like a drunk
maniac. “Fuck all of you! Fuck!”

He’d always prided himself
on being rational, practical even, but sanity and reality were
sadly slipping away. He thought of asking Bowden for a ride to the
nuthouse. A rage like nothing he’d felt before seethed inside him.
A feeling so overwhelming, so intense, almost a tangible barrel of
force bloating in his gut. Why couldn’t he touch that
freak?

An ambulance raced toward them, lights
flashing, siren howling.

Shane stopped laughing, and he snapped
his attention toward the car.

Birch cautiously
approached him. “You want to go to jail or to the hospital with
Amy?”

Sheriff Bowden shambled
around the shoulder of the road. “Somebody ‘round here is gonna
explain to me what the devil is going on. All you kids smoking
dope?”

Carmen pointed at Atticus.
“He might know.”

Shane snatched the pistol from the
waist band of Birch’s jeans, and leveled the gun at the
bastard.

The noise around him muted. Nothing
existed at that moment. Nothing and nobody.

Except Shane.

A loaded gun.

And the freak he was going to blow
away.

The gun bucked in his hands. One
bullet. Two bullet. Three bullets. Clean through Atticus’ face,
obliterating his skull, showering teeth onto the ground.

Sheriff Bowden’s .357
thundered.

Once.

And Shane slammed face
first into the dirt.

Shane shook his head, he
was still standing...Atticus stood before him.

“
Put the gun down, Baker!”
Sheriff Bowden shouted.

Fingers trembling, Shane
dropped it.

He sobbed as Birch and
Carmen cradled him from either side.

Denial will consume
you.

The river flows one way.
Dare you swim upstream? But perhaps if you swim against the
current, it will take you to a paradise the naysayers lacked the
foresight to envision.

And if you bend to the
will of others, the consequences may eat you alive. Be wary of the
barracudas that will chase you down stream.

For if you swim with the
rest of the fish, you may very well live to see another day and be
revered by your fellow swim mates, but at what cost?

Ignore the masses who
command you to act within the confines of societal acceptance. For
their reasons are selfish and without common sense.

Question the motives of
those who ask you to abandon your tendencies. Trust in who you are
and in those who revere you as you are. Be wary of those who ask
you to alter your thinking or behavior.

Or...

Denial will consume
you.

~Rourn

# # #

Atticus had found his twin. And his
twin tried to kill him.

He couldn’t blame Shane for not
recognizing their cosmic connection, since until now he hadn’t
known of it either. Nobody had.

Not even the Templars.

The cosmic forces must have a sense of
humor.

Atticus sat in the
backseat of the sheriff’s car. Blue lights flashed against the dark
sky. Healers—paramedics, he corrected—carefully removed Amy’s
unconscious body from the back of the car, placed her on a gurney
and rolled her away.

With his head hung,
Atticus had surrendered. The Beast had fled. Amy had been injured.
And Shane almost got himself killed by the sheriff. There was no
reason to put up any resistance. He would cooperate with the
authorities as much as he could.  

Something else weighed
heavy on his mind. There had been a dead woman at the feet of the
Beast. Had it been the female Geminus? Why had she been
slain?

Where is
the Beast now?
In a burst of flames the
Geminus had fled into the woodlands, but Atticus’ instinct told him
the Geminus was far from defeated.

Where had that fireball
come from? Amy herself? Perhaps she’d drawn from the incredible
power stored inside the babe in her very own womb.

 
Or maybe the hideous
dark man that was adorned with heads and bones conjured forth the
flaming skull. But who are what was that being?

Something had protected
Amy; that was all Atticus knew for certain.

The sheriff entered the
vehicle. He shifted to drive. “Son, I don’t know what in tarnation
happened out here tonight, but we’re gonna have to take you down to
the station for questioning.”

The vehicle pulled away from the
scene.

“
Did you find a burnt
body?” Atticus asked.

The man glanced at him in
the rearview mirror. “No. Will we find one?”

“
The Beast,” Atticus said,
“he was set aflame.”

“
You’d do well to be
forthcoming with whatever information and involvement you
had.”

The dark woods blurred
past the window. “There is also a woman’s body in the woods,”
Atticus said. “She is the missing female from the recent murdered
family.”

# # #

“
Slow down,” Birch said,
gripping the dashboard. “Or we’re gonna need an ambulance to come
pick us up.”

Shane’s foot remained hard on the gas
pedal, and he barely let up when making turns.

His phone dinged, indicating he had a
text. A message from Scooter.

What time will u be home?
Can u pick up pizza? And can I have the truck tomorrow?

Shane stifled a groan. He
tossed a look to Carmen sandwiched between him and Birch. “You mind
catching Scooter up on everything?” Shane said, dropping the phone
in Carmen’s lap.

“
Can he stay at the Vallez
plantation tonight?” The plantation was two hundred acres
surrounding a four-story plantation home where fifteen of Carmen’s
closest relatives lived and worked the family farm. “I just don’t
want him being alone.”

“
I need a lift to Roxy’s
to get my car.” Carmen rested her head on Shane’s shoulder.
“Whatever you and Amy need, I’m here for you guys. I’ll even
forgive your recent assholeness.”

Shane nodded, swallowing a lump rising
in his throat.

Town lights shined. Paved
streets weaved through downtown Buckeye.

Buckeye Memorial Hospital
sprawled over a few dozen grassy acres. A circle drive led to the
emergency entrance where the ambulance unloaded Amy and rushed her
into the building.

Shane reached the sliding
glass doors right as the gurney vanished around a corner. Inside,
his boots thudded down the tiled hallway. Birch and Carmen trailed
closely behind.

A man in a white coat
blocked Shane’s path. “Hold it, mister.” He held a hand
up.

Shane stepped to the side.
“Move.”

The man moved to block
Shane. “You’re not permitted beyond this area. We will notify you
when we know anything.”

Birch tugged on his
shoulder “Come on, dude. I’ll wait with you.”

Shane shoved his hand
away. In the waiting room, he paced back and forth. “What did that
punk do to her? She was unresponsive, but she didn’t look beat up.
And what was that fucking stone? This is some messed up
shit.”