Dreamscape (34 page)

Thorpe spun around. Hundreds of creatures crowded the darkened arena. Jeers and cheers echoed within the hardened cavern walls. His assessment wasn’t good. The odds of walking out of here diminished greatly. Time had run out. His thoughts ran to his children, his aunt, but, like Ramona, he had come to the understanding of what he must do.

Ramona said not a word. Her hands sparked, not at Surmoas, but over his head, to the temple itself. Pieces of the ceiling broke off; rocks fell on top of his head. He cried out in pain and flung himself at her. She flicked her hand toward the ceiling again, sending pieces of jagged rocks down upon the creatures. Then another. Ceiling debris crumbled over them all.

Surmoas ran his claws against Ramona’s torso. Knocking her down, he recoiled his bloodied claw. Ramona clutched her side. Blood oozed out. Thorpe ran out of the shadows as Surmoas attacked once more.

“No,” he screamed with outstretched hands.

In that instant, a light exploded from him, sending a barrier repelling Surmoas’s attack. Surmoas reeled, falling amongst the throngs of unholy beings. The temple shook. The ground trembled. Ramona lost her footing, falling backwards. Thorpe caught her in his arms. Surmoas regained his footing. Ramona leaned against Thorpe. She flung both hands out toward the portal. The walls exploded in a white flash, showering broken fragments down upon all. The temple’s ceiling collapsed around them. Panic ensued as a stampede exited. Shrieks, screams, and cries joined the darkness. Flames blew up, and lava seeped along the ground.

Ramona collapsed. Thorpe wrapped his arms around her, his one thought to protect her, to keep her from the horrors around them. A light surrounded the two, guarding them from harm. He pulled her tighter to him, felt the warmth of her life flooding out of her. In the next moment, he experienced pull, a fervent pull. Winds blew, sweeping them away in a swirl of gusts.

The winds ended and flung them spiraling out of control. They landed hard against a wall. Thorpe couldn’t focus. He fought losing consciousness. A voice spoke. He couldn’t understand it for a moment. It became clearer.

“Get them out of here,” Jackson’s voice yelled.

Thorpe made out Jackson standing over him, motioning to get the inhabitants of the room out. Commotion. His heart sank as he looked up. Something escaped out with Thorpe and Ramona and the creature stood before them.

A loud bellow exploded in the air, and the form that had been pulled through expanded, a giant filling the whole of the foyer. Red eyes bulging, mammoth sized arms extended, he stood on his hoof-like feet, legs so long that he crouched down at his knees. Leathery hide covered the creature’s skull.

“Who dares?” The beast drew himself to full height and extended his arms, demolishing everything in its path. Dry wall fell, two by four flung down. Thorpe threw himself over Ramona, shielding her from the debris. Jackson took refuge behind the cellar door. Scrambled against the wall, Jackson reached for his gun. He clicked off the safety. He stepped from behind the door, gun pointing.

Surmoas let out a wicked roar of laughter. “Your bullets have no effect on me.”

“And you have no one to jump,” Jackson said calmly. He eyed him only momentarily before positioning himself for a clear shot. He aimed his gun at DeNair’s head, shooting without another moment’s thought, dead on through the temple. As quickly as the demon appeared, he spun around, exploding as his soul descended back into the dark abyss. Jackson stared down at the dead body. Thorpe stared, too, at the look of sheer terror etched onto DeNair’s face.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Police vehicles lined the area. The promise of a storm had dissipated leaving clear skies. A crowd gathered. A second ambulance turned in readiness to drive off. The EMTs moved forward with the stretcher, Ramona strapped on. Blood had spilled everywhere. Ramona’s blood.

“We need to stop the bleeding. Radio ahead. Tell South Weymouth we’re thirty minutes out,” the EMT yelled to his driver as they loaded her in the back.

“You don’t want to kill her,” Jackson said, standing in their doorway of the ambulance. “She’s going to Boston City. There’s a med-flight helicopter on its way out. It’s to meet you at the Shaw’s parking lot.”

Jackson slammed the door. He said a silent prayer for Ramona. He’d sent her, made her take this course of action. She’d told him he didn’t know what he asked her to do. Looking face to face with Surmoas left no doubt what he had asked of her. Logically, he told himself it had to be done. He had to be stopped.

FBI members flocked in. The forensic team wanted to start collecting evidence, but looked confused, unsure where to begin. The condo lay in shambles, unstable. The body of Henry DeNair lay where it had fallen. Thorpe sat on the couch, looking down at his hands—hands covered with Ramona’s blood. He sat no more than five feet from the man that eluded capture for years, kidnapping, torturing, killing. There would be no more killing, no more wondering. They had him. There had been no escape for DeNair, not here, nor where his soul belonged.

* * * *

Flesh of Surmoas plastered what was left of the walls. Red skin clung to the ceilings, windows. Montgomery sighed, not certain how to handle the cleanup. He needed time to assess the situation. He’d been there, seen everything, yet he had trouble believing. He understood well Jackson’s shot, but how the hell could he write on paper a justification of shooting a comatose man? He would have to find an inventive truth.

Montgomery turned to Jackson. “Go. I’ll take care of the cleanup. I have to come up with some logical conclusion to the situation. I’m not even going to try to understand what happened, but we got him. I’ll meet up with you. Get what you can out of Thorpe. Hopefully the girl will make it.”

“Come on. We’ll head to the hospital. I had her med-flighted into City. Hopefully, she’s well on her way. Let’s go. We’ve done all we can here.”

* * * *

The afternoon sun had dissipated from the evening sky. Night had descended, and the moon would materialize soon. Thorpe stood in the surgical waiting room. Jackson sat with Montgomery on the row of chairs against the walls. Jeffrey and Norah Dills sat to themselves. Norah held her head in her hands. Miriam had Leila—they’d all decided it best for Leila.

Ramona’s prognosis hadn’t been promising when she arrived. Massive bleeding. They’d pumped four units of blood in her before she got to surgery. By the time Thorpe and Jackson arrived, her prospect of surviving had improved. They’d halted the bleeding, but her heart had stopped twice. They weren’t sure of permanent brain damage or whether she would wake up.

Thorpe sat away from everyone, not talking. He watched Jackson talk with Montgomery. Thorpe didn’t care how Jackson explained the damage to the condo or the shooting. He couldn’t even talk to Jackson about what happened, not yet. Everything happened so fast; so much so he hadn’t had time to understand what had occurred.

“Do you want the truth or not?” Jackson asked Montgomery.

Thorpe didn’t want to think about that. He worried, felt as if time stood still. He should have reacted before. He should have kept her from harm. He didn’t know…. He stood up and stared out the window. A hand rested on his shoulder.

“Everything’s set on our end, Thorpe,” Jackson said. “I’m going to go back to the office with Montgomery. There are a million things we have to get through, most I have to take care of personally. The doctors have been instructed to give us updates.” Jackson hesitated. “I’m not deserting her, Thorpe. She’s going to be okay. You know she will.”

Thorpe nodded. He wasn’t so sure. Jackson hadn’t seen what she’d done, had stood against. He turned back to staring out the window. He felt the whole of his world crashing down upon him, and outside this window life carried on, didn’t slow down. All the evidence could be seen right before his eyes, cars speeding by, people going out on the town, going to work, heading home, airplanes overhead taking passengers to their destination points. Life wouldn’t wait on him to move forward. S0 why did it feel as if time stood still for him?

Silence fell over the room, broken with the appearance of members of the surgical team. A nurse dressed in scrubs stood with the doctor by her side. The doctor called the small group together and described the extent of Ramona’s injuries. But the most important bit of information Thorpe had been frightened to hear, yet was anxious to know. The words echoed within the room. Norah broke down and cried.

The doctor held his surgery cap in his hands. Tired, but happy, he smiled as he reiterated his words. “Her wounds were extensive, but I expect a full recovery.”

Thorpe walked up slowly to the group crowded around the doctor. “She’s going to be okay?”

“We were worried about brain damage from the extensive blood loss, but she’s awake and alert. I believe she should make a complete recovery,” he acknowledged again, confident.

“She’s asking for you,” she said. Her smile expanded; relief in her face for the hard work it had taken to save a life. “She wants to see you, but you can only have a few moments.”

Thorpe breathed a sigh of relief. He tried to suppress his emotions and followed the nurse into the recovery room.

Ramona lay on her back, IV lines, ECG hooked up to her fragile body. She’d lost her coloring, replaced with a pasty white. She looked so helpless, fighting to find words.

“Doug,” she whispered.

“Ssh.” Thorpe bent over her and reached for her hand. Squeezing it slightly, he then caressed her forehead. “Leila’s fine. We haven’t told her. Don’t worry about anything. It’s over. It’s over.”

“You saved me?”

He nodded. “I’m not sure how, but I don’t think I did such a bad job.”

She smiled weakly. Their gazes locked. He wanted to take her back in his arms, hold her. He felt relieved, free. She saw within him.

“That’s probably enough. She needs her rest,” the nurse came back.

He kissed Ramona, lingering for a moment. Her hand reached for his, clinging to it. He didn’t move. The nurse waited patiently until Ramona’s eyes closed. He gave her another kiss and left, spirits high.

* * * *

Thorpe had driven in for the last two days. Work had given him the week off. Ramona had been moved out of ICU that morning and improved every day. At least that had been good news. Cindy and the kids were coming home tomorrow. His lawyer had put him on edge. He didn’t like what he’d heard. Irritation bloomed at the situation he didn’t want to deal with.

“I’m just advising you. It’s my job, Doug. Cindy is out for your blood. I don’t understand it. She’s screaming about you flaunting that woman around.”

“I told you. She helped solve a case, a major one, I might add. She almost died. Cindy thinks I’m having a wild, passionate affair with someone in a hospital bed.”

“It’s perception. I’m telling you, she’s livid for whatever reason. Stay away from that woman, Doug. At least until it’s signed on the dotted line and you’re technically a free man.”

He didn’t have any intention of listening to his lawyer. He didn’t feel he’d done anything wrong. He certainly had no intentions of abandoning Ramona. His reasoning lay with the fact that Cindy went on vacation with her lover. But as his lawyer reminded him, it had been a safety issue because of his job.

He knocked lightly on the door before he entered. The room was listed as a semi-private, but Ramona had no roommate nor was she likely to get one because of the prominence of the case. A small plant sat on the windowsill. The moment he walked in he regretted not having flowers. He should have brought flowers.

Ramona’s eyes lit up upon his entrance. Color flowed once again in her cheeks. Her hair fell around her shoulders, and the few scratches left on her face and forehead had healed well. Thorpe hesitated like a school boy. She scooted over on her bed inviting him to sit.

“I’m so much better. The doctor says I just need to regain a little strength,” she said. She stared into his eyes for a moment then broke the eye contact. “We need to talk.”

“Talk. We can talk about anything you want,” Thorpe said, taken back by the tone in her voice.

She reached for his hands, grasped hold of them tightly. “There’s so much…I want you to understand, but I don’t understand everything.”

“To say the least, it’s a lot to comprehend,” he said, his eyes staring at hers. “For starters, what did we do? I know DeNair’s dead, but that’s not what you were after.”

She said nothing, pressed her lips together.

He swallowed hard. “Ramona, you can’t hold back now. You can’t tell me I’m not in this. That we’re not in this together. I want, no, need to understand.”

Deliberate in her manner, she nodded. “There’s a place I need to take you, but not until the time is right. It will give you guidance. Not that you’ll want to hear everything you’ll learn, but as I’ve been taught it is our purpose. As for the jump, there are portals. I tried to close the one that Surmoas used to possess DeNair. I’m not sure I closed it permanently, but hopefully it will slow the demons down and strand the ones that already possess.”