Falling into Forever (26 page)

“Step outside, sir,” commanded Officer Marion Scott.

“Certainly,” Callahan said. But in doing so, he whipped the door aside and lunged at the young officer, shoving the chloroform-soaked rag into Marion's face. As the officer's knees buckled beneath him, Callahan caught the man in his arms and dragged him backward through the front door. He briefly looked up and down the deserted street, searching for any witnesses.

“Strip him,” Callahan told Kraven, who had been standing quietly in the shadows. “He'll be out for hours.”

“And if he wakes?” Kraven asked, stepping from behind the curtains toward the officer's limp body.

“He will not,” answered Callahan, unbuttoning the officer's uniform shirt. “Don't worry. I've done this before a time or two. Now put these on,” he told Kraven and handed him the shirt and pants of the police uniform.

They fit Kraven as if they were his own. “Excellent. We may pull this off yet,” Callahan mused. “Don't forget this,” he said, handing him the officer's holster.

“I don't need a gun,” Kraven said, inspecting himself in the framed mirror hanging above the fireplace across the room.

“It's not for you,” explained Callahan. “It's for her,” he said, nodding at Alexandra as Kraven strapped the belt around his waist. “I have no doubt that she would use it, if the need should arise.”

“She's so cold,” Kraven said, kneeling beside Alexandra. “She's soaked from the rain. She's shaking,” he said, hovering over the sofa.

“I'll be back in a moment,” said Callahan. “I have an idea.”

While Callahan disappeared up the staircase, Kraven bent over Alexandra. She was still unconscious. “I'm sorry,” he whispered. “I should have sent that beast to hell when I had the chance.”

“Wipe her down with these,” Callahan said, panting and waving an armful of towels in the air while he stumbled down the staircase. “I'm concerned the shape shifter will try to follow you,” he advised, soaking the rain from Alexandra's cold skin. “But these towels will hold her scent. The towels should keep the beast close while you leave with her.”

“What are you planning?” Kraven asked.

“The hour is getting late. Take the girl to the hospital, where she will be safe. We can lure the shape shifter back here and most assuredly can resolve this issue,” Callahan said, smiling.

“And him?” Kraven asked, nudging the toe of his boot against Marion on the floor.

“Hmm,” Callahan grumbled. “Let him rest in the attic.”

Upstairs, Kraven laid out a sleeping bag for the unconscious officer, while Callahan checked the pulse rate in his neck. They locked the attic door and left him alone in a chloroform daze. “He looks quite comfortable,” Callahan said to Kraven as they walked back downstairs. “Now for the hard part,” he said, his hand gripping a duffel bag.

The wolf trotted again toward the cemetery wall. He paced as if ashamed at his cowardly retreat. Hidden behind a row of headstones, he glided back and forth, watching Callahan's porch. He had seen a man in uniform walk inside the house, while a black car idled in the driveway. The wolf sniffed the wet ground.

The front door of the house opened. A man in a police uniform walked outside, a duffel bag in hands, and opened one of the back doors of the police car.

The wolf's ears perked up as the engine revved, and his nose twitched as puffs of exhaust smoke escaped the muffler.

When the black car pulled out of the driveway, the wolf lifted his front paws to the top of the cemetery wall. Sitting back on his haunches, he raised his wet nose to the air. The girl's scent was still close, but not as strong. It trailed from the direction of the car, but it also lingered around the quiet house.

Kraven followed the road directions he had gotten from Callahan. In only a few right turns, they would be at the hospital.

Alexandra, in the big duffel bag on the backseat, moaned. “Help me,” she wept in her sleep, her wounds bleeding through the canvas bag. Kraven pressed the accelerator harder with his boot.

Callahan had been watching them leave. As the red taillights disappeared into the rain and fog, he heard the wolf howl from behind the cemetery wall. His heart raced with anticipation.

Drawing the curtains shut, he searched for his cell atop the fireplace mantle across the room. He picked up the towels and flashlight from the floor by the sofa. Then his fingers typed in a phone number on the keys. Hitting the call button with his thumb, he shoved the phone to his ear and listened patiently for three rings.

“Hallo?” answered a voice deep as a Scottish loch.

Callahan crept toward the window and pulled the curtain aside. His fingers fumbled with the window lock while he balanced the phone between his shoulder and cheek.

“Callahan here,” he said. Loosening the latch under his thumb, he slid the glass pane up from the wide, wooden windowsill.

“Aye,” acknowledged the voice on the other end of the line.

Spreading the towels across the windowsill under the raised window, Callahan took a deep breath and knelt to the floor, hiding his body behind the curtains. His eyes focused on the low, stone wall across the street. “Please accept my apologies, sir,” he said. “A most unforeseen event has kept me from reporting to you until now.”

“Go on, then,” spoke the Scot. “What have you to say?”

“Frost did not lie about his suspicions. The school is rife with activity. My readings are off the charts,” Callahan explained.

“The Order would like a strict accounting soon of your investigation, Callahan. You know we do not invest our resources unless there is profitable reward.”

“I've found a girl,” said Callahan, breathing heavier.

Another howl, closer than the last one, echoed from the cemetery.

“She appears to be a soul reader.”

“Is that all you're having to say, then?” asked the Scot, raising his voice into Callahan's ear.

“She is being hunted. A shape shifter has been tracking her, but he is no match for us.”

“What are you meaning by ‘us'?” hissed the voice.

Callahan turned his back to the window, assuring himself that the bottle of chloroform still stood within reach on a table in the foyer. “Did I say ‘us'”? What I mean is that the girl has powerful friends willing to protect her.” “Who might those friends be, exactly?”

“Friends that do not want to see her wronged,” Callahan insisted, choking back the name Kraven from his lips.

A set of headlights flashed on Alexandra's Jeep and slowed in front of his driveway.

“And there is something else.”

“Yes, Callahan, I do hope there is more.”

“She wears a medallion,” Callahan said as he glanced at his ring. “It bears the symbol of the dragon.”

“Now that is a most interesting bit of information. You have spoken to her about this?”

“Briefly only. As you see, this other problem has arisen.”

“Aye, the shape shifter. This girl sounds as if she has powerful enemies as well as friends. I trust you know what to do with the creature.”

“I will capture him, of course, unless his destruction becomes absolutely necessary.”

“Agreed, Callahan, but be hasty with your next report. This girl intrigues me,” said the voice. Then the line disconnected.

“Kraven,” Callahan said aloud, now that the Scot couldn't hear, “would intrigue you as well. But that's my secret for now,” he chuckled. “No use having too many cooks.”

Swiping the curtains over the window, Callahan retreated to the foyer. He heard two car doors slam and two sets of footsteps shuffle up the wooden porch steps.

“Go back to the car, Taylor.” Benjamin said.

“Nope,” shouted Taylor. The heavy thud of her metal crutches shook the rotting steps. “That's Alex's Jeep, and we're not leaving here without her.”

With a heavy fist, Benjamin pounded the wooden door while Callahan hovered against the other side in silence.

“I know you're in there, Callahan,” shrieked Taylor. “Open the door.”

With a sigh, Callahan unlocked the deadbolt and cracked open the door. “Good evening,” he greeted his students. “This is a surprise. How in heavens did you find me?”

Taylor was not without comment. “Ben, here, is a total computer geek, and apparently Collinsworth needs to spend more of our insane tuition on beefing up its internet security. It's scary how simple it is for people to find anything they want online these days.” Lifting her crutch past his hips, Taylor shoved the door aside. “Now tell me where she is, or I'm calling the police.”

My dear,
Callahan thought to himself,
if you only knew.
They cannot help Alexandra.

“Calm down,” said Benjamin. “I'm sure he has a good explanation.”

“Please come in,” said Callahan, stepping aside while Taylor maneuvered her crutches over the threshold. “The power is out, so watch your step,” he warned as her crutch knocked into Alexandra's book bag lying abandoned on the foyer floor.

“Alex?” screamed Taylor into the dark hallway. “Where are you?”

There was no reply.

“Callahan, you need to tell us where she is,” said Benjamin, picking Alexandra's book bag from the floor. “She told Taylor she was here.”

“What have you done with her?” Taylor demanded, hobbling past Callahan, the spike of her metal crutches echoing against the parquet floor.

“She is not here now,” explained Callahan.

Taylor opened the bathroom door under the staircase.

“But she is in safe hands, I assure you,” he said.

“Where is she?” commanded Benjamin.

“At the hospital,” explained Callahan. “She had a spot of auto trouble, and I happened to be in the area.”

“Lucky her,” said Taylor sarcastically. “What does that have to do with my best friend being in the hospital?”

Callahan hesitated before he answered. “She . . . fell again and hit her head.”

“Why didn't you stay with her at the hospital?” Benjamin asked, still gripping Alexandra's book bag tightly in his hands.

“They sent me home because I am not family,” he fibbed. “She'll be fine, I assure you,” Callahan insisted. “Your friend is a very special girl,” he said, smiling. “Now I need to ask you something, Miss Woodward. What do you know of your friend's necklace?”

Taylor slammed the bathroom door and shuffled up to Callahan. “Why?” she barked sharply in his face.

From the dark trees in the cemetery, another howl echoed through the night. Bolting the front door, Callahan motioned his guests toward the living room next to the foyer.

“Tell me where she got the medallion, Miss Woodward.”

Taylor sank into the sofa's deep cushions and crossed her arms. “It's a gift from her father,” she said, scowling. “No big deal, except he's been dead for two years, and the package only showed up last week at her grandmother's house. We were there for a couple of days to get some sun at the beach before classes started.”

Callahan nodded his head and stepped toward the sofa. Pulling back the curtain, he stared toward the cemetery as damp air poured in from the raised window.

“It's cold in here,” she complained.

“Let me get that,” Benjamin said, shutting the glass pane.

“I need you to tell me everything that happened,” said Callahan. “And then, when you are done, we will go to the hospital to check on her. I know she'll be so glad to see the two of you.”

Taylor began telling every detail about the trip to Peyton Manor. Everything that happened spilled from her pouting lips: the medallion, Alexandra's near-drowning, the voodoo doll, and the journal in the attic. Callahan listened carefully to every offered detail.

“An old journal,” he mused. “Hand me that satchel,” Callahan insisted, and Benjamin retrieved Alexandra's book bag from the foyer.

Rummaging through the textbooks and candy wrappers, Callahan found Joseph Peyton's journal hidden inside an interior pocket, its cover smudged with stale cracker crumbs. Shaking away the remnants of Alexandra's snacks, Callahan skimmed the ranting entries on the tattered, yellowed pages.

“Goodness!” he exclaimed, his eyes feasting on a charcoal sketch in the middle of the book. Across the opening of a cave, a dragon's head snarled at him. In the drawing, beneath the mouth of the cave, there was one word, written in large script across the entire bottom of the page:

Demon

Closing the journal's leather binding, Callahan came to the conclusion that the wolf had been sent for something.

“So Callahan,” said Taylor, nudging his shoulder with the tip of her metal crutch. “What is it?”

“I do believe that Alexandra brought back more than a sunburn with her from your vacation,” said Callahan, gripping the journal tightly in his hands.

Out in the cemetery, the wolf sniffed the air, impatient at the dissipating scent. He clawed at the ground in frustration. His eyes focused on the curtains as they rustled behind the window.

20
Reunion

Counting the quarters in her hand for the lobby's vending machine, the hospital's fourth-floor night nurse shuffled toward the elevator. Hitting the down arrow on the wall, she juggled the change between her hands and tapped her foot impatiently on the hallway's slick linoleum floor.

“Come on,” she muttered aloud to the closed elevator doors. “What's taking you so long?” she complained, pounding the down button again with a determined fist.

The squeak of a footstep behind her back startled her, and her quarters dropped and scattered across the floor.

“Who's there?” she asked, kneeling to pick up the change. Her eyes darted quickly from door to door along the dim hallway. “Hello?” she called out, listening for another footfall.