Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
T he back of Demetrius’s head hurt. He moaned a bit and turned his head. Even furrowing his forehead hurt. And why was the side of his head sticky?
“It looks like he’s awake.”
It sounded a bit like Cody, and a sizzle of excitement went through him, like a signal flare shot from his lonely and aching heart. His lips were dry and stuck together, and he could only manage to say, “Co?”
“Oh, tulip trees, it’s so good to see you awake.”
He knew that voice and phrasing for sure, and turned his head toward Amelia as he forced his eyes open. Bright lights overhead made him squint. Amelia’s familiar face hung over him, her eyes watery and mouth tight with concern.
“Hi,” Demetrius croaked. He turned his head the other way, looking between faces. “Cody?”
A man he didn’t know stepped in and smiled down at him. He wore a headband with two big eyeballs on springs that swayed with every movement. “Sorry, no. I’m Winston, your nurse. How do you feel?”
“Headache.” Demetrius looked around, suddenly realizing where he was. “Am I…? Hospital?”
“Yes. You got a solid conk on the head when you fell,” Amelia said.
“Fell?” Memories slowly flitted back to him. Behind the Hollow Leg. The vampire attacking that cook, then going after Amelia. “Are you…? Did it bite… ?”
“Eileen and I gave him a good drenching with, well…” She glanced over at Winston who was busy entering notes into a computer on a wheeled standing desk. “With our special water, and he ran off. The young man who was being attacked was brought in with you. I don’t know what’s become of him.”
“He’s still down in the ER,” Winston said. “Sounds like you were in the right place at the right time. You probably saved his life.” He hit a button on the laptop and looked at Demetrius. The eyeballs jiggled back and forth, and Demetrius frowned. Winston grinned and pointed to his headband. “Happy Halloween. We can’t go crazy with full costumes, but we can do little things like this.” He approached and looked at something on the side of Demetrius’s head. As Winston made adjustments, Demetrius realized a large bandage was taped there.
“I’ll get you some pain killers for the headache. Doesn’t look like a concussion, but you should take it easy the next couple of days.”
If only that were possible. Demetrius smiled and said, “Thanks. I’ll try.”
Winston left the room, and Amelia sat in the chair right next to his bed. “Dave and Oliver were close by when we called them, and they met up with us. Dave drove the car back to Eileen’s and I rode in the ambulance with you.”
“Ambulance. Wow.” Demetrius pushed up in the bed and paused to let his brain catch up. “Okay. So, where are we at?”
Amelia frowned, then gave him a shaky smile. “We’re at Parson’s Hollow Memorial, dear. You were knocked unconscious last night.”
Frustration simmered within him, but Demetrius pushed it down. “I know where I am. I meant where are we at with finding Cody?”
“Oh, okay.” Amelia looked relieved, but then sad, and she sank back in the chair. Demetrius could see the exhaustion in her face. All of this was taking a toll on her. On all of them, to be honest. But Amelia and Eileen were in their seventies, and even though they were still feisty enough to hose down a vampire with holy water, they were going to have to rest.
“We’re no further than we were before, I’m afraid. Eileen, Dave, Oliver, and Clarabell went back out to patrol and try to find more vampires to question. But I think the vampires are on to the plan, because they were much more slippery. I’ve kept in touch with Otis who’s parked himself in Isaac Wilkerson’s basement, and he says there’s been no chatter on the police scanner about Cody or the others.”
“Damn.” A large clock with hands hung on the wall at the foot of his bed and Demetrius frowned. “Is that clock right?”
Amelia tapped the step counter on her wrist, looked at the clock, then back at him. “I’m afraid it is. It’s nine thirty in the morning.”
“We lost the whole night?” Demetrius said.
“Dear, you had no choice,” Amelia said, reaching out to touch his hand. “You were unconscious.”
Winston returned with pills and some water in a Styrofoam cup, the big eyeballs bouncing in time with his steps. After Demetrius swallowed the pills with a long, grateful drink of water, he said, “I need to check myself out as soon as possible, please.”
Winston looked to Amelia, then back at Demetrius. “I’ll need to get the doctor’s sign off on that.”
“If you could. I have to get out of here as soon as I can.”
“All right. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
“Do you think that’s wise?” Amelia said.
“I have no choice. We have to figure out where they are. Zenona’s been gone two days now, and I refuse to lose Cody to some uppity vampire who thinks he can just move into our town and take it over. I don’t care how old he is or who he’s met.”
As he spoke, Demetrius felt a ball of heat grow inside his chest, spreading into his limbs and along his spine. It helped to energize him, and he slid his feet off the side of the bed and sat on the edge. A slight disorientation surged through him, and he braced himself on the mattress and closed his eyes.
“Demetrius?”
“I’m okay. Just need a minute.” He took a breath, then another. That helped clear his mind somewhat, and he opened his eyes and gave her a tight smile. “I’m good.”
It took an excruciatingly long time for him to convince the doctor to release him. Amelia promised to keep an eye on him for the next few days, which Demetrius had to work to resist an eye roll. He was thirty-three years old, for God’s sake. As Demetrius waited for the paperwork, he used the bathroom. His reflection surprised him: a large bandage on the side of his head, clumps of dried blood in his short hair, and streaks of it down the side of his face. The bandage shone bright white under the bathroom light. He pulled off his t-shirt before setting to work on the bandage. He carefully peeled away the medical tape, wincing and hissing quietly as it yanked out hairs. He didn’t have many to lose, so he hoped it left some of the hair on that side of his head. When it finally came away, he tried to inspect the cut on his scalp with little luck, but from what he could see of it, it wasn’t that bad. A smaller bandage would work. Pouring some liquid from a small body wash on a rough washcloth, he used it to scrub the dried blood from the side of his head and face, cleaned the back of his neck, and his chest and armpits.
By the time he’d pulled on his shirt again and stepped out of the bathroom, his papers were ready. Winston applied a much smaller bandage over his cut, gave him a printed sheet of instructions to care for it, then told him to take it easy.
“I will.”
“I’ll call for a wheelchair to take you downstairs,” Winston said, then pointed in his face. “It’s policy. So, wait here.”
“All right.”
Amelia left to arrange for someone to pick them up, telling him she would meet him in the lobby. Demetrius felt a twinge of guilt as he watched her leave the room. She had to be exhausted.
He was too antsy to sit for long, so he paced a bit, then poked his head out into the hall just as Winston went into another room a few doors away. Demetrius strolled casually down the hall, quickening his pace as he passed the room Winston had entered. The elevators were at the end of the hall directly ahead of him, but when he was still a good distance away, the doors parted and out stepped John Burnwell. He could hear Cody’s voice in his head saying “John the Bastard,” and it made him smile.
Demetrius slowed to a stop. Was John there to visit him? How had he heard he was in the hospital? And why the hell would he pay him a visit anyway? John didn’t really like either of them.
John stomped forward, not even looking Demetrius’s way. He kept his eyes fixed on a room a short distance from the elevator. Demetrius felt relieved. He was here to see someone else, not him. Demetrius started moving again, checking behind him to make sure Winston was nowhere in sight. He paused just outside the room John was in to listen. He could hear John speaking to a woman. Her voice was weak, nearly overpowered by John’s gruff statements, but Demetrius could make out some of what she was saying. She was worried about the cost of her care, and John repeatedly told her to stop thinking about it and focus on getting well. Demetrius recalled hearing that John’s wife had been diagnosed with cancer, and figured something must have happened requiring her to be hospitalized.
“Oh, Johnny boy, you know that’s not how this works. There’s no getting well with this.”
Demetrius smiled slightly at the name, but leaned in a bit to hear better.
“There’s always hope.”
“I don’t know how you keep so positive,” she said.
A door opened behind him, and Demetrius saw Winston hurry out of a room a short distance away, eyeballs springing wildly on top of his head before he ducked into another room. Time to go.
Demetrius hurried past the room where John was visiting his wife. He jabbed the elevator call button then stepped to one side, keeping watch down the hall. If Winston came looking for him, he needed to be ready to head for the stairs.
As he was thinking he should just take the stairs, no matter how exhausted he felt, the elevator arrived. A few people exited, and he quickly ducked in and stepped to the side, out of sight of the hallway. He hit the button for the lobby and held down the one to close the doors. When they eventually thumped shut, he sagged back against the wall. The car descended just one floor, and he shifted to a back corner, hoping there weren’t too many people getting on.
The doors opened and a man rushed in, bringing with him a wave of sour body odor. He wore a hospital gown and, when he turned to frantically jab at the close door button, Demetrius could see sagging briefs beneath that had turned gray from age and washings. He was panting as he continued to jab the button.
“Close, close, close, close,” the man said. “Demons beneath us. Demons beneath us.”
“Hey!” someone shouted from the hallway. “Mr. McMillan, stop!”
Recognition and fear burned through Demetrius as the doors slid shut. Mr. McMillan slouched in the opposite corner of the car, turning wide and terrified eyes on Demetrius.
“You!” the man shouted, pointing a trembling finger at him. “I know you!”
“Hi, Pete.” Demetrius’s heart pounded, and his throat had gone dry. He retreated to the opposite corner of the car and tried to smile. “Yes, you know me. I’m Demetrius. We work together.”
Shrieky Pete nodded several times. “We do. So, you know! You saw. You’ve seen them, too. They’re below us. Demons are below us.”
“They are, huh?” Demetrius glanced at the floors counting down and tried to will the elevator to move faster.
Pete took a step closer, and Demetrius shrank back, pressing his back to the wall. He looked down at Pete’s bare, dirty feet, then back up into his face. Shrieky Pete’s eyes shifted back and forth, and his thinning hair stood up in multiple spots around his head. He hadn’t shaved for days, and his beard was coming in white.
“Beneath us,” Pete said, his voice a little quieter. “Right beneath our feet.” He looked down at his bare feet, then jerked his head up. After a moment of silence, he burst into song, belting out one of his Christian tunes in a terribly off-key voice.
The doors opened and Pete rushed out, still singing and startling a number of people waiting for the elevator. Demetrius let out a slow, shaky breath before exiting the car himself. Pete was running down the hall, the back of his gown flapping open to reveal an even better view of his sagging briefs. His tuneless singing echoed off the tiles as a couple of security guards pursued him.
“This town,” Demetrius said, shaking his head.
“What was all that commotion about?” Amelia asked as she came up beside him. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. That was actually a co-worker of ours. His name is Pete McMillan. He was the one they found in the truck after Spiffy was… Well, after what happened to Spiffy.”
“Oh. That poor man. Did he have some kind of breakdown?”
Demetrius took her arm and started them moving toward the main doors. “Well, Pete’s always been unique. Cody calls him Shrieky Pete because he rides his motorcycle through town blasting Christian music from one of those Bluetooth boomboxes.”
“That’s him? That was Shrieky Pete?” Amelia stopped and looked off down the hall where Pete had disappeared. “I do hope they can provide him help.”
“Me, too. He was shouting about demons beneath our feet in the elevator. My guess is seeing Xavier caused some kind of break.”
“I can only imagine how it had felt for someone already struggling.”
Outside, the sun was bright and the air crisp. It truly felt like Halloween, and it frightened him more than he cared to admit. They had to find Cody and the others before sunset. He had a terrible feeling Xavier and Aldrik had something big planned for Halloween night.
A Chrysler Sebring pulled up to the curb a few minutes later, Otis behind the wheel. Demetrius got in the backseat and Amelia settled in the front.
“How’re you feeling, Demetrius?” Otis asked, giving him a smile in the rear view mirror.
“I’m tired and have a bit of a headache, but otherwise okay. Thanks for the pick up.”
“My pleasure.” Otis reached over to give Amelia’s thigh an affectionate pat before he pulled out of the drive and turned toward town. “Where to?”
Amelia turned in her seat to look back at him. “Why don’t we take you back home so you can clean up, and we can have the others meet us there?”
“That sounds good,” Demetrius said. “Thanks.”
As Otis navigated the familiar streets of town, Demetrius looked at the businesses and homes they passed. He wondered if Cody was being held in one of them, and how they were going to figure out which one and save him. Because if he knew anything at all, Demetrius knew he wasn’t at all ready to lose the love of his life. Not even close.