Chapter Eight
Mark Cookson’s fragile-looking body dragged the much larger Gonzales into sight of the door.
The bigger man was holding his hand against the side of his neck, trying to stop fresh blood that was welling crimson around his fingers.
He was a nurse, he knew how to hold pressure on a wound; that meant that the wound wasn’t going to be stopped by just the pressure of a hand.
We had minutes to get him more medical help or he was going to bleed to death in front of us. Heaven help us.
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.