pressure, poke at exposed viscera and bone. He didn't lay down any diamonds; no surprise there. What surprised him was how few drew spades. Despite the damage, most of the victims were holding on by their splintered fingertips.
Once, at home, his crew had been called a hundred miles out to help with a town a twister had chainsawed through. There had been this much mess, then, but the sorting was mostly done by the time they'd arrived. 'Hey, friend,' one of the local paramedics had said to him, 'let me show you a card trick.'
Doc was aware that as he walked, and made decisions, Mr. Patrise's other people had become very quiet around him. As they did, he could hear the soft hum of moaning from those who couldn't move but weren't yet gone.
Mr. Patrise was standing quite still at one side of the chamber, McCain still his armed shadow. Doc said, 'Do we have any backup coming?'
'Everyone here knows some first aid. All will follow your directions. I would not expect anything beyond that.'
Doc flipped a heart, more from hope than honesty, and got a couple of people working, just to break the silence and stillness. 'Then most of these people are gonna die. Maybe all of them.' Doc paused, swallowed hard, fought down the urge to vomit again. 'Don't mean to be rude, sir, but that's it.'
'Understood, Hallow. What do you propose to do?'
Yea, Doc thought, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death, I shall fear no evil, for somebody put me in charge. Then he pushed himself to think for real, and he knew what the true decision was.
It was something the fire guys talked about, late on call; always about themselves, because-well, you were allowed to decide for yourself. Suppose a wall collapses, and Vm rice pudding south of the sternum. You won '/ make me live like that, right?
You know, if I was gonna be stuck in a wheelchair… if I lost my eyes… my right hand… my nuts…
Somehow it never got to the last word, the action verb. Now and then somebody'd say 'Save th' last bullet for yerself,' in a John Wayne drawl. Every ambulance, and most of the fire trucks, had a pistol, against regulations. They were always generic name-brand revolvers, the kind everybody had in a bedroom drawer. Easy to drop in a creek, no hard questions.
'It's like this,' Doc said at last. 'If we do nothing, they'll die. If we move them, most of them will die anyway. If somehow we manage to patch one or two together-what'll be left of them?'
Quietly, just above the rumble of the dying, Mr. Patrise said, 'I asked you what you could do, and I accept your answer.'
'Okay.' Doc ran a hand over his bag. 'Morphine would work, but we'd be wasting it. I don't think they'll even feel bullets.'
'You heard, Lincoln?'
'Sir.' McCain handed the Tommy gun to Mr. Patrise and drew one of his. 45s.
'I can do it, sir,' Doc said, and immediately wondered if it sounded as stupid to the others as it did to himself.
'It is not your job to do so,' Patrise said, with a lack of intensity that seemed somehow kind. 'And you work for me. Go home now.' His eyes were just black in the unholy light. 'I will see you out. Lincoln, you will wait for me.'
Doc followed the small man into the iron-framed street. Patrise said, 'You are not to go home alone. Do you understand that? Take Cloudhunter with you.'
Doc nodded. 'He's hurt a little. I should fix that.'
'Very good. Lincoln is slightly hurt as well; if you will wait at your car, I will send him out.'
'Sure. I'm not-oh. We left Ginny at the theater-I mean, it wasn't too far from her place, but-'
'If you wish to visit her, by all means do.'
'No. No, I'd be-I just-'
'My people are under my protection, Hallow. But I will make certain.' He turned, stood silhouetted in the red doorway. 'I appreciate the difficulty of what you had to do tonight. You understand that I won't apologize for it.'
Quicker than he could think, Doc said, 'Will you tell them I'm sorry?'
'I will,' Patrise said, and was gone.
Doc forced himself to turn around and walk to the car. It was a relief to patch up Cloud's cheek. McCain had a shallow gash almost the whole length of his left thigh. Doc cut away his trouser leg, dressed and bandaged it with McCain sitting in the Triumph's passenger seat. McCain held a pistol ready all through the operation, then said thanks and went back to the building.
Doc and Cloud piled into the car, drove into the dark.
'Cloud… what was that place? What was it fori'
'They were drawing power for magic. A great deal of power.'
'From the people?'
'Life is a great source.'
Doc was quiet a moment. 'Do you know who they were?'
'A gang of humans. Whisper would not have dared do such a thing to Ellyllon.'
'Whisper?'
'His name is Whisper Who Dares the Word of Words in Darkness. He is quite insane… though perhaps that is obvious. I do not say it to separate him from my kind. We are not human, but… we are not all like him.'
'I know that, Cloud.'
Doc drove into the garage. Jesse shook his head over the state of the Triumph's ragtop, and pointed out a spattering of shot scars in the trunk lid. Doc hadn't noticed.
Lisa, in the telephone room, told Doc that Ginny had called, wanting to be called back no matter how late. 'I'll put it through to your room,' she said.
The phone was ringing when he got there. 'Hello.'
'Are you all right, Doc? There was a rumor about some big shooting.'
'Yeah. W'e're all okay. Lincoln and Cloud got scratched, but they're fine.'
'You're sure?'
'All the noise was over when we got there.' He found suddenly that he really did want to see her, hold her close; wanted to Then he wondered if he would ever be able to want anything again. 'Look, I'm probably going to have to Stay in the rest of the weekend, but-could I see you next Friday?'
'Yes.'
'We'll do something. Think about what you'd like to do.'
She didn't answer at once. Doe wondered how he sounded to her. Finally she said, 'I will. Doe. Good night.'
He went downstairs and had the kitchen make him a plain hot eggnog-no brandy, no sleeping powder. He didn't want to wake up abruptly, sometime in the dark small hours. He got a book from the library, a Rafael Sabatini swashbuckler with brave, kind heroes and the certain promise of a happy ending.
Sometime after midnight the lights flared and died. He wasn't sleepy yet, so lit the hurricanes and kept reading. Sometime after three he jerked awake from a doze, doused the lights and crawled into bed; it didn't work. He lit a lamp again, picked up the book.
At five-thirty, still as dark as midnight, he went downstairs again in his robe and slippers to get some food. The dining room was candlelit. A silver coffee service was on the table, a blue flame keeping it hot. Fay was there, sitting back with a cup cradled in her hands, her feet propped up on the seat of another chair.
She turned, saw him, started to sit up straight. Doc raised his hands. 'No,' he said, 'it's all right, stay right there,' and tried to put it into gestures.
She smiled, resumed her position, pointed at the coffee, an empty chair nearby. He poured, sat.
Fay pointed at him. She held up her index fingers, brought them together, made a cradle-rocking motion with her arms, pointed at him again. Doc thought. She knew who his girlfriend was, certainly-then he got it. Do you have a family?
He held up the parent fingers, brought them together, pointed at himself, spread his empty hands. She nodded, tapped her chest. Same with me. Then she held up the fingers again, slowly folded them over.
