Number of the Beast (Paladin Cycle, Book One) (42 page)

She was in a hospital bed.

Opening her mouth, she
called for Carmen but her dry throat muffled her voice. She took in
a deep breath to try again. Carmen slid from the end of the bed and
took her hand. With furrowed brows and a deep scowl of concern, she
said, “Amy?”

Amy tried to smile but her
skin felt heavy on her face just as her body felt on the bed. She
looked around the room for familiarity.

Carmen asked, “Do you
remember what happened?”

Amy shook her head.

Carmen smiled, but the gesture seemed
forced. She was never good at masking her emotions, one of the
things Amy loved most about her.

Amy opened her mouth again. Through a
dry throat, she muttered, “Carmen.”

Carmen held a plastic cup of water to
Amy’s lips.

Amy savored the ice cold
fluid on her tongue and throat. “Thank you.”

Carmen patted the blankets over Amy’s
legs. “I’ll get the doctor.”

Before Carmen could take a step, Amy
grabbed her wrist. “Shane?”

With a small shrug, she said, “He’s
detained at the moment.”

Amy shook her head. Her gaze drifted
to the corner of the room at a plant. Purple flowers spilled over
the sides of the ceramic pot.

Carmen sighed. “I promise he’ll be by
later.”

She must have seen disappointment in
Amy’s face, disappointment Amy hadn’t realized she even felt. Shane
had a good reason for not being here. She read the trepidation in
Carmen’s face and stifled a groan. Hopefully Shane’s absence had
nothing to do with being drunk, indecent exposure or a jail
cell.

As Carmen left the room to
find a doctor, Amy tried to recall how she’d ended up in the
hospital. Last she’d remembered, she was at Roxy’s, about to wait
on the strange, young fellow in green leather pants. And then
commotion. Something had happened but she could only see glimpses
of the highway, trees, and birds.

Lots of birds.

And snakes!

Then she woke up here in the
hospital.

She heard a light knock
and glanced to the doorway. A short middle-aged man stood in the
threshold. He was dressed in beige slacks, a striped shirt and
loose tie. He held a clipboard to his chest as he
approached.

Carmen stood at the end of the bed as
the doctor checked Amy’s heart monitor.

“
Are you in any pain?” he
asked.

Amy shook her head. “What happened to
me?”

Carmen and the doctor exchanged a
quick look. He turned back to Amy and smiled. “That’s an excellent
question. We were hoping you could tell us.”

Tears pricked at the back of Amy’s
eyes. She looked to Carmen, hoping Carmen knew
something.

The doctor said, “It is likely your
memory will return. Try not to worry yourself. The good news is
that you are in excellent physical shape.”

“
And the bad news?” Amy
asked.

The doctor sat on the side of the bed.
He reached for the lapels of Amy’s hospital gown. Amy resisted a
cringe and nodded at the doctor to continue his examination. He
smiled and gently lowered the neckline of her gown, stopping short
of revealing her breasts.

A light shimmered and Amy
looked at her own chest. A gasp took her breath as she saw a
reddish stone embedded into her skin. She sat up. Using her hands
she opened her gown further, all modesty gone. With a shaky finger,
she touched the stone. A blistering sting bit at her fingertips.
She jerked her hand away, letting out a cry.

Looking
up, she frowned at the doctor, then at Carmen.
“What is it?”

The doctor said, “We just don’t
know.”

# # #

His head thick with haze,
Shane opened his eyes. He lay on a stiff mattress. Crisp, thin
hospital sheets covered his legs. No one else appeared to be in the
dark hospital room. How long had he been out of commission? Where
was Amy? Was she okay? Hadn’t the doctor said that she’d be
fine?

How could he have lost it like that?
The woman he loved lay critically wounded while he pitched a fit
like a snot-nosed child. Shane ran a hand down his face, mind still
bleary from the tranq.

He tore the blood pressure cuff from
his arm and swung his legs over the side of the bed. The obnoxious
fumes of disinfectant seeped and bled from the hospital walls and
the odor made Shane want to whisk Amy home and get this whole damn
day behind them. He strode down the hospital corridor. The taunting
stench followed.

He came to an intersection
of winding hallways. As he scanned for a sign pointing toward ICU,
he spotted Birch and Abe sitting in the waiting room.

Birch approached. “Sensei
Baker need to think happy thoughts and Amy-girl be just fine.” He
clasped praying hands beneath his chin.

Shane allowed himself a
smile, before turning and heading for room 156.

Freya jumped on the game table then
pounced on Scooter, knocking the phone from his grip and to the
floor. He scrambled and put to his ear. “Zack? You still
there?”

“
Swear on your
soul!”

A beep resounded. Call waiting. “Gotta
go. Another call. Might be news about Amy.”

“
Swear on your goddamn
soul!”

Unnerved by Zack’s throaty tone and
talk of Scooter’s soul, he hung up and picked up the other call.
“Hello?”

“
Amy’s alright,” Shane
said. “Thought you’d want to know.”

Somewhere outside, Alamo barked. A
long whiny howl.

“
Yeah,” Scooter said.
“Thanks. That’s great news.”

Alamo howled again.

And again.

Three howls.

“
Be home soon,” Shane
said.

According to Amy’s superstitious
beliefs, three howls from a dog means a death is imminent. “Yeah.
Yeah. Good.”

“
You okay?”

“
Yeah, I’m
fine.”

# # #

When Shane entered Amy’s
room Carmen was standing next to the bed. Seeing the fresh tear
stains on her cheeks caused an uncomfortable lump in his throat; it
was a familiar lump that he’d known a few times before, back while
he was in the desert when he watched grown ass soldiers lose their
wits.

He folded his arms over his
chest.

Carmen wiped at the corner
of her eye, her lower lip quivering. “She’s going to be fine. I
know she is.”

He gave a curt nod toward
the door. “I need the room.”

She tried to smile, but it
didn’t hold. Carmen threw her arms around him, her warm face buried
into his shoulder. “I used to constantly warn that crazy ass girl
about you. I told her you were going to love and leave her. She was
going to end up another notch in your belt.” Carmen pulled away.
She wiped fresh tears from her eyes. “But I was wrong. I know how
much you love her. And I damn well know how much that girl loves
you.”

Shane inhaled. “Look, bubbletits, I
really need you to get the fuck out of here with all this sappy
shit.”

Carmen gave him a playful slug on one
shoulder. “No problem, cockbrain.”

After Carmen left, Shane
crossed the room and stood over Amy. A teardrop escaped his eye and
rolled halfway down his cheek. “I’m here, baby.”

Amy’s eyes fluttered. She
groggily spoke, “Shane...you’re Shane...”

“
I’m here.”

“
I-I want to go home.” Her
eyes opened wider.

“
They’re going to bring in
a specialist next week to reexamine the abnormality on your chest,
but ‘til then I’m free to get you the fuck home, babe.”

Sitting on the bed, Shane
swallowed hard, pushing that lingering knot further into his gut.
“I’m going to fix you the biggest bowl of mac’ n’ cheese with all
the fixings. Even real bacon.”

Amy pushed herself further
up into the bed. “That sounds perfect.”

He took her face in his hands and
tapped his forehead against hers. “I love you. God, I love
you.”

Tears sprung from Amy’s
eyes.

He said, “I’m going to
treasure every single moment of our lives together, and cherish
every random gift you give me, and I’ll never, ever, ever get tired
of your quirky superstitions; and you know, when I get you back
home I’m going to arrange my boots under the bed right next to your
shoes.” Shane wiped tears from his face with the tail of his shirt.
“I’m sorry, baby. I’m not good at this…stuff.”

She smiled. “You’re doing
great.”

“
I just want to get us
back home and get back to a normal life. At least more normal than
these last couple days have been. We’re going to put all this
behind us.” Shane leaned over the bed and kissed her
lips.

“
Nothing will be the same
as it was,” Amy said. “Our new lives are ahead of us.”

Elder Cai rested his hands upon the
stone parapet of the Tower of Tribulations and met the gaze of the
crescent moon hanging over the New Mexico desert. He tugged gulps
of brandy from the flagon hanging around his neck. The lavender
liquid scorched a somewhat painful but pleasant trail down his
throat.

“
Elder,” came a stern
voice from behind.

Elder Cai stared at the moon and took
another swig before turning to meet the Prefect and his rigid
stance. “You summoned me here in this devilish hour, Cauldrick so
get on with it.” A frigid desert breeze sifted through his long
hair. Somewhere in the distant hills of Red Rock Bluff the mournful
whines of a coyote crawled through the canyon walls.

Prefect Cauldrick’s
blood-red robe flapped as he strode across the gray stone tiles.
“It appears my reservations concerning your pupil were
unfortunately correct.”

Elder Cai looked to the sky, before
pinning Cauldrick with an annoyed glare. “Elaborate.”

“
Atticus has been arrested
and placed in the custody of the Buckeye authorities. The Templars
fear the Beast still lives, and has mated with the Female. And we
still have no knowledge of the location of its lair.”

“
Get him released and let
the warrior finish his mission. The decision is most
simple.”

Prefect shook his head and
met Elder Cai’s gaze with cold green pupils. “Manipulation of the
legal system would violate the Templar’s ethic codes.” He threw up
his hands. “Atticus was to find the Beast. He failed. Now we will
send in the Aconites to end the Beast. All of this will finally be
behind us.”

“
All of it is before us.
It has yet to begin.”

Prefect Cauldrick scowled. “You speak
nonsense and I lack the patience. Your pupil, your precious Twin
warrior has obviously gone rogue.”

Cai
laughed, deep and long. “
My
Twin warrior? I have not always been alone in my
confidence in him as one of the prophesized
warriors.”

“
Your faith in Atticus is
misplaced and unwarranted. You stand alone where he is concerned. I
have to think about the people.”

“
From the pulpit? I
thought we were Paladins, not Politicians.”

“
This is
the 21
^st
century. Crude
swords are no match to the almighty pen.”

“
Tell me, Prefect.” He
sipped from his flask. “How does it feel, leading the flock to the
wolf’s den?”

Cauldrick lifted his chin
and turned on his heel, his long robe swaying about his nimble
legs. As he neared the stone stairs, a gust of wind spiraled from
the sky. The air wrapped around Cauldrick’s frail body,
constricting him much like the coil of an Amazonian
snake.

As he struggled to get
free, Elder Cai forced himself to call back the gust he’d summoned.
He had let his emotions escape him. Frustrated with his impetuous
behavior, Elder Cai sighed. With the speed of its assault, the wind
retreated.

“
Atticus must be freed
from incarceration!”

Cauldrick turned toward Elder Cai.
With long, confident strides, he approached, a scowl on his aged
face. “Atticus is a mockery. To the outsiders, he has foretold of
the Beast and the Paladins and of the Order.”

“
And who gives a blistered
dillo’s tail? It is without reason that we hide in the sands of New
Mexico and the jungles of New Guinea and the mountains around the
world. The world deserves to know of the evil that is defeated with
every rise and set of the sun.” Elder Cai gave a flick of his hand,
a gesture of dismissal. “You arrogant, naive fool!”

Prefect Cauldrick shook his head. The
rigidness of his posture relaxed. A look of empathy reached his
eyes. “The decision of the Order is final.”

“
What will happen to
Atticus? Will the Court allow the outside to pass judgment on
him?”

“
The Court will deny the
validity of Atticus’ claims as a Paladin knight. We fear his sanity
is not his own.”