Graveyard Shift (20 page)

Chapter 25

“Beware when the great God

lets loose a thinker on this planet.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

“This is the stupidest idea you’ve ever had,” Josie rasped as my shoulder cracked into her hip for the second time.

You would think hospital closets would be larger, or at least big enough to hold a piece or two of their bulky equipment. This one could make a mop bucket claustroph
obic. Thankfully, we would only have to suffer for a few more minutes.

I kneeled down and peeked through the keyhole again to make sure Winston was staying put under the hosp
ital bed. His valiant tiger and company were piled into a believable lump under the sheets that also hid the IVs still attached to his arm.

“This better work,” I mumbled to myself. The m
oment of truth was creeping silently closer. Over-anticipation had sent a rush order of adrenaline through me, bringing on an acute case of the Chihuahua shakes and a tingling sensation that took over my knees.

“Maybe Grim’s announcement worked.” Kevin tugged at the neck of his robe, trying to conjure even the slightest breeze to relive the unbearable heat three smashed bodies created in such a tiny space. “Maybe everyone thinks we’ve already got the soul and the d
emons gave up. Maybe—”

“Shhh,” I hissed.

Soft and sneaky footsteps echoed down the hall and stopped just outside Winston’s door. I peeked through the keyhole again and watched Winston curl himself into a tight ball, pulling completely out of view. Good.

The door clicked open and a young nurse stepped i
nside, carrying a lunch tray.

“Well?” Josie asked.

“Shhh.” I squeezed her leg. The possessed mailman had heard us just fine. I didn’t want to take that kind of risk again.

Nurse might have been an overstatement. This girl looked like she was barely out of high school. A reddish-brown pony tail bobbed between the straps of her protective paper mask, and I felt a pinch of shame that I hadn’t bot
hered asking Winston what he was dying from. Not that I had to worry about catching it.

“Lunch is served.” The nurse placed the tray on the bedside table and gently stroked the heap on the bed, noti
cing right away that the unusually squishy form was not Winston.

“Winston?” She yanked back the blanket and clutched the front of her kitty-cat scrubs with a gasp. “No.”

“It’s okay, Karen. I’m right here.” Winston sprang out from under the bed, IV cords trailing behind him like a dog chain. I closed my eyes. Crap. Guess I should have told him about possession. Too late now.

Karen’s eyes welled up as she helped Winston climb back in bed, scol
ding him for scaring the daylights out of her. “I thought I was going to die, just die!” she wailed through the paper mask.

“I’m sorry.” Winston dropped his head with a sens
ible amount of guilt. “It was just a joke.”

“I can’t take this closet anymore, and we only have, what, four minutes?” Josie glared down at her watch in the dim light.

“She doesn’t look possessed to me,” Kevin sighed.

I tilted my head up to look at him. “Did the mai
lman?”

He shrugged and folded his arms, accidentally ra
mming an elbow into Josie’s back.

“Damn it!” she hissed, tensing her shoulders and casting the blaming gri
mace at me instead of Kevin. “It’s nearly time, Lana. Let’s just step out there and see if she can see us or not. Anything’s gotta be better than staying in here. Unless you and Kevin have some sort of sick bet going to see who can give me the most bruises today.”

I bit my lip and squinted at the wall clock through the key hole again. Two minutes to go. It didn’t get much closer than this. “Fine. Get ready.”

The door popped open and we tumbled out of the closet like a mountain of garbage bags in our black cowls. Josie scrambled to her feet and jerked her bow up, aiming it directly into Nurse Karen’s face. She didn’t even flinch.

“Are we good?” Kevin asked, holding his scythe above his head like an action figure in mid-swing. I nodded. He and Josie lowered their weapons.

“Have you been playing in the closet, Winston?” Karen walked right past me and pushed the closet door shut. “You really shouldn’t be doing that. What if you pulled out an IV or something?”

“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.” Winston pressed his lips together and blinked at me, giving his head a quick jerk up at the clock behind him. It was time. Any second now.

I went to stand by the bed and rested my hand on his shoulder, ready to bolt the second his soul was ready. Karen stood on the other side of the bed, dutifully reading the machines and making neat little checks on her clipboard, humming to herself all the while. When she finished, she tugged down her mask and smiled at Winston, resting her own hand on his other shoulder.

I wasn’t the only one disturbed by the weirdness of otherworldly symmetry. Winston rolled his shoulders and stru
ggled not to look up at me in front of Karen.

“Lana? Everything okay?” Josie stepped up behind the nurse, leaning around her to see what was going on.

Karen’s eyes shot up and froze on mine with a familiar disdain. The room filled with a static tension, fading the electric hum of machines until my own panicked heartbeat was the only sound I could hear. Karen reached into the pocket of her kitty-cat scrubs and in one fluid movement yanked out a syringe and plunged it into Josie’s stomach without even turning around.

“Josie!” Kevin dropped to his knees to catch her fall. She slumped into his arms, twitching and wide-eyed. Her mouth gaped open in shock as she reached down, clumsily hunting for the source of her pain with shaking hands.

“Get her out of here!” I screamed at Kevin. He swallowed and cast a nervous glance up at the nurse.

“Now!” I reached under my robe and grasped the handle of my new axe.

Kevin reached into his pocket to find his coin before he and Josie vanished. I wasn’t sure what was in the syringe, but Grim would know what to do.

“What’s going on?” Winston gave up his ruse and turned to look at me. Not a good idea.

Karen’s eyes bulged excitedly, and she finally tore her gaze off of me long enough to look down at her patient.

“You can see her?” she breathed. “Then you’re the one. Finally, my job is almost complete. Now if you could just die.” Her fingers slid up his shoulder and wrapped around his neck.

“Think again, bitch.” I jerked my axe free, slicing through the back of my robe, and swung at her like a lumberjack. Her free hand reached up and caught the handle right under the blade, spotting my vision with splashes of white agony as my shoulders tried to disconnect from their sockets.

“I’m not one of those demons you’re used to swatting away like flies.” Karen laughed, high and long with a silky stream of satisfaction.

Winston struggled in her grasp, sprawling his little hands out until he found the buzzer beside his bed. He smashed his fist into the button over and over, signaling a faint alarm in the nurse’s station across the hall.

“You little brat,” Karen hissed and lifted him out of the bed by the neck. “Why aren’t you dead yet?” She flung him across the room and into the far wall, spraying the co
llage of dinosaur posters with blood as the IVs ripped free from his arms.

With Winston out of the bed, I had a clear shot at the possessed nurse. I took it. My foot connected with her stomach and she dropped the head of my axe with a soggy grunt and staggered back a step. I lifted the axe again, ignoring the burning sensation running through my shou
lders, and rushed another wild swing at her.

Instead of trying to stop the blade again, she recoiled within an inch of losing her head and gave the handle of my axe a quick push in the direction it was already going, sending me spinning like a top. Her knees lodged b
etween my shoulder blades as she slammed me down on the hospital floor and tangled a hand in my hair to jerk my head back. My axe clattered noisily away from me.

“Thought you could fool Seth with your little sho
pping spree, did you? Well, you didn’t fool me,” she hissed as she loosed her grip in my hair long enough to crush my face into the cold linoleum. She jerked my head back again and leaned in closer, invoking the intimate sort of terror reserved for serial killers. “Your time’s up little reaper. And I doubt Grim will be erecting any monuments in your honor.” She rocked back on her heels, giddy with victory.

Blood leaked from my lips and sprayed across the floor as I rasped, willing my throat to work despite the twisted angle of my neck. She dropped my head back to the floor, shooting sharp lines across my vision as she stepped around me and kneeled down with one hand still mangled in my hair.

“I tell you what,” she sighed. “Seth and I will drink to you tonight. That should be honor enough for a lowly reaper. Don’t you think?” She smiled and the silvery edge of a blade came in to view as she lifted my head, exposing my neck.

I managed a strained smirk, giving her a moment’s pause. A moment was all I needed.

“I’d tell you to rot in Hell, but I have a feeling you’ve been doing that for most of your pathetic life,” I spat at her.

Her face scrunched up and pulsed with a ghostly light. It was like watching a soul try to fit back into their body. It never quite works. Foggy features pressed through Karen’s skin, giving her a hologram likeness, until I finally recognized the glowering goddess Wosyet. She had manip
ulated a human into invoking her.

“I had hoped you would learn some humility before I ended your worthless existence,” she sighed and lifted her dagger.

A sharp howl vibrated through the hospital room just as the handle of my axe rammed into my hip. I rolled my head to find where my salvation had come from. Coreen sprang out from under Winston’s hospital bed and pummeled into Wosyet, sending the startled goddess-in-nurse-skin smashing into the food cart. Mashed potatoes and peas rained down on her as she shrieked with rage. Coreen chomped down on her arm, jerking the hologramic Wosyet out of the nurse’s body.

Saul pressed his wet snout against my cheek and nudged me with a distressed whimper. I reached for the axe with trembling hands and pushed myself up on my knees. My legs didn’t want to work just yet.

Wosyet squealed at Coreen, waving her free arm around chaotically until she remembered her dagger. She plunged the blade into Coreen’s neck.

“No!” I fumbled with the axe, straining to lift it over my head, and flung it with all I had. The blade squished through her chest, just inside her shoulder, almost severing her arm and pinning her to the wall. Her dagger clanked to the floor.

“Wosyet,” I whispered. So that was how Seth and Caim always knew where to find us. I stood and jerked the axe free, watching her slide to the floor.

“That was a cheap shot,” she hissed.

I raised the axe again.

“You can’t kill me,” she tried to laugh, but ended up choking on the blood running over her lips and into a pool on the hospital floor. “I’m a goddess.”

I smiled at her and snorted. “Not anymore.” I forced the axe down harder this time. The double blade sliced through her neck, rendering her head airborne. Coreen fell back on her hind legs and with steely jaws, snatched the head by a cluster of fuzzy braids. Her tail thumped the floor like a sledgehammer. The wound Wosyet had made with her dagger was already healing, leaving a single smear of tacky blood down her shaggy spine.

My legs gave out and I slumped back to my knees, shaking. Sunlight filtered through the window and glistened off the puddle forming around Wosyet’s lifeless body. At least the human’s wouldn’t notice.

Coreen pranced over to me and dropped the head in my lap, giving me an anxious whine and bouncing on her paws like I was stalling a prized game of fetch. I sighed and stared down at Wosyet’s twisted face, frozen somewhere between smug and confused.

I pulled a canvas sack from my robe and picked her up by one dangling braid. I wasn’t sure what I would do with the head yet, but I’d figure that out later. Her glazed eyes stared out at nothin
gness as her mouth mechanically opened and closed like she had more to say. I was done listening. I dropped her into the sack and fastened it to the belt under my robe. Coreen gave a frustrated grunt, while Saul lapped the blood off my face. I twisted away from him and tried to stand.