A Terrible Fall of Angels (Zaniel Havelock #1)(16)

A look of hatred snarled across Cookson’s face. “I guess I don’t need muscles after all.” He lifted the nurse upward by a handful of his uniform. It made the blood pump faster and cut off his air. The only thing that saved him was the cloth tearing so that Gonzales fell back to the floor, gasping for air and choking, but this time there was blood on his lips. What had the demon done to him to make him cough blood?

Paulson said, “Let me save him.”

I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or the demon. The demon replied first. “Why should I let you save him?”

“He has a family.”

Mark’s face gave him a look of almost pity. “You really don’t understand what I am, do you, Doctor?”

“You can’t appeal to his better nature, Doctor; demons don’t have one,” I said.

“Mark, if you’re in there, Gonzales’s son is only eight. Do you want him to grow up without a father?” The comment showed he’d been paying attention while I talked to the kid. He’d noticed what I’d noticed—that Mark seemed to still be in there.

“We don’t care,” the demon said.

Then the body kept talking. “Of course, he has a family, he’s tall and good looking, exotic. I bet he dated around and fucked everything in sight before he married someone beautiful.” The voice was still deeper than the thin body, but the tone and whine of the words didn’t sound the same. Mark was in there all right, but he wasn’t a sympathetic ear. Heaven help Gonzales.

“Let me treat his wound and then you’ll have two hostages,” Paulson said.

“Sure,” demonic Mark said.

“The more the merrier, Doctor, just cross the wards and come on in,” the demon said. The fact that they were using the same body to talk didn’t seem to faze the doctor any more than it did me. Apparently, we’d both seen similar shows before.

“No, Doctor,” I said.

“I will not tell his wife and child that I stood here and watched him die and did nothing.”

Gonzales’s eyes fluttered, his hand slipping away from his wound as he passed out from blood loss. We were out of time. I looked down the barrel of my FN 509 and steadied my breath. Things seemed to slow down as if I had all the time in the world to aim at center body mass. The hospital gown was too baggy around him to aim anywhere else, and I wasn’t confident enough for a head shot. The head moves a lot more than the chest.

Paulson didn’t beg for Mark Cookson’s life this time.

Demon Mark said, “You wouldn’t shoot an innocent college kid.”

I didn’t bother to answer because there was nothing left to say. I didn’t even look up at his face as I aimed at his chest. I just squeezed the trigger. The demon couldn’t pass the wards, but bullets could.





CHAPTER NINE




I got two shots into the chest before he started to fall. The only sound I could hear after the shots was the blood in my own ears, or maybe it’s something else; whatever the sound is, it’s what’s left after the rest of your hearing goes away for a while.

I saw Paulson out of the corner of my eye rushing toward the room and the wounded, but I shouted at him, not sure he’d hear me, so it was probably more scream than yell: “No! Not yet!”

I glanced at him just enough to see him looking at me with wide eyes. He was pale, but he nodded, letting me know he’d heard me. I went back to staring at the room and the two men on the floor. Cookson’s body had fallen backward against the bed and then slid to the side of it. His pale, thin legs were tangled up in the large hospital gown so I couldn’t see much of his body. The gown was big enough and he was small enough that his breathing might not have been that easy to see. I couldn’t even see if he was bleeding from here; there was already too much blood on the floor from Gonzales. I would have to get up on the target before I could be sure he—it—was dead.

The energy of the wards sat across the open doorway like an invisible sheet except this sheet vibrated with energy, but it wasn’t meant to keep me out. I stepped through and didn’t even hesitate as the warm rush of it passed over my skin. I’d stepped through stronger wards than this on the job; I was still impressed that it had contained the demon.

I stared down my gun at the body. There was blood where the two bullets had entered the body but none out the back. He looked even smaller and less finished from this angle, as if I’d shot a child. I swallowed hard, and my eyes burned, which was stupid. I’d had no choice. I kept the barrel of the gun steady on the body as I pushed it with the toe of my shoe. Why not kneel and check for a pulse? Because if the demon was faking, I didn’t want to be that close to its hands. The body rolled in that boneless, empty way that no living person can fake. I didn’t need to check a pulse to know that Mark Cookson was dead.

“He’s dead, save Gonzales,” I said. I repeated it louder to make sure that Paulson heard me. He and Nurse Prescott came in with another nurse whose name I never got. I moved into the hallway to give them room to work. My part was done; I’d taken a life so they could save one. I prayed that they would be able to save Gonzales, because if he died, too, then it was all for nothing.

I felt movement down the hallway like the brush of angel wings felt before they’re seen. I aimed down the hallway and it was Charleston with his own gun out and pointed at the floor. I aimed my gun in a safe direction as I saw the hospital security in uniform at his back, and uniformed police. The tightness in my gut eased, because with Charleston I knew I had serious backup. The rest of the men and one female uniform were unknowns. You hope every cop you meet is good backup, but you never know until the bad thing happens, and then they either rise or fall.