The Runes of the Earth

In a rush, Linden scanned the lobby past the shoulders of the officers, but she saw no sign of Sara Clint.

Helplessly she wondered how her patients were reacting to gunshots and turmoil.

Just inside the door, nearly at her feet, Bill Coty sprawled in his life’s blood. He still wore his navy-blue Security uniform, with his walkie-talkie and his nightstick attached to his belt. A splash of blood obscured the useless silver of his badge. But a small holster at his belt was empty.

In one slack hand, he held a can of Mace: the only real weapon sanctioned by County Hospital’s insurance. Apparently Roger had not given him time to use it.

Strands of his white hair showed through the wreckage of his head. Roger’s bullet had smashed in his left temple. The exit wound in the back of his skull was an atrocity of brains and bone. A dark trickle across his cheek underscored the dismay in his sightless eyes.

Instinctively Linden dropped to her knees beside him; reached out as if she believed that the touch of her hands would somehow bring him back to life. But the sheriff stopped her.

“Don’t touch him!” Lytton barked. “Forensics hasn’t been here yet.”

As if there could be any doubt about the cause of death.

Briefly Linden covered her face as if she could not bear the sight of Bill’s lifeless form. Almost at once, however, she dropped her hands; and as she did so her trembling fell away as if one aspect of her ordinary mortality had sloughed from her. The crisis was upon her now: it smelled of copper and ashes. Grimly she rose to her feet to meet it.

Bill had been shot so long ago that most of his blood had already dried. How much time had passed? Half an hour? An hour?

How much of a head start did Roger have?

“Dr. Avery,” growled Barton Lytton when she faced him. “It’s about time.”

He was a blunt, fleshy man with a gift for seeming bigger than he actually was. In fact, he stood no taller than Linden herself; yet he appeared to loom over her. No doubt that contributed to his incessant re-election: people thought of him as dominant, effective, despite his real stature. Typically he wore mirrored aviator sunglasses, but now they were shoved into the breast pocket of his khaki shirt opposite his badge. Various heavy objects dragged at his belt-a radio, a cell phone, handcuffs, Mace, a handgun the size of a tinker’s anvil, spare clips-making his paunch appear larger than it was.

“I-” Linden began. She wanted to say, I tried to warn you. But the look in his eyes, haunted and raging, closed her throat. They were the eyes of a man in trouble, out of his depth, with no one to blame but himself. Roughly she swallowed some of her anger. “I came as soon as I could.”

“Dr. Avery!” When she spoke, Harry Gund left the reception desk to push his way through the clustered officers. “Thank God you’re here. I’ve done everything I can, but we need you.

“This is real bad, Dr. Avery,” he told her earnestly.

“Harry,” Lytton muttered: a warning.

Harry ignored the sheriff. Ordinarily he was deferential in the face of authority; but now his need to exonerate himself overshadowed his timidity.

“We couldn’t stop him.” His voice trembled with the aftereffects of dismay and shock. “We tried-Avis and me-but we couldn’t. I didn’t let him in. He rang the doorbell, used the intercom. He was smiling, and he sounded just as reasonable as could be. But I remembered your orders”- which he must have heard from Sara- “and didn’t let him in.”

“Harry,” Sheriff Lytton rasped again. He reached out a thick hand to silence the orderly.

Linden interrupted the sheriff. “He was here. You weren’t. Let him tell it.”

Lytton dropped his hand. His shoulders appeared to slump as if she had made him smaller.

A moment of gratitude flashed in Harry’s eyes.

“I tried to stop him,” he repeated. “But he had this gun, this huge gun. He shot the lock.

“I yelled for help. Then I tried to get behind the desk so I could use the phone. But he pointed his gun at me. If I did anything, he was going to shoot me.

“He kept smiling like we’re friends or something.”

Linden listened carefully, setting her own thoughts and her secret knowledge aside. Roger had to be stopped. He’s in my mind, Joan had once told Thomas Covenant, and I can’t get him out. He hates you.

“Then Bill Coty came in.” Harry’s tension mounted as he continued. “He wasn’t supposed to be here. He’s off duty, isn’t he? But he had his Mace, and he held it up like it could stop bullets. He told him to put the gun down.”

The harm that Roger could do was incalculable.

“Avis was there,” Harry said, trembling now. “And Mrs. Clint. They must’ve heard me yelling.” Or the sound of Roger’s handgun. “Avis wanted to do something, you know what he’s like, but she made him stay where he was.

“Bill was scared, you could see that, but he kept telling him to put the gun down, put the gun down. He just smiled and smiled, and I thought he wasn’t going to do anything, but all at once he pointed the gun at Bill and fired, and Bill went down like someone kicked him in the head.”

Linden closed her eyes slowly, held them shut for a moment to contain her regret. She had told Bill that Roger was not dangerous.

Harry was saying, “That’s when Avis ran at him, even though Mrs. Clint was yelling at him to stop. Avis tried to tackle him, but he just turned and hit him with the gun, hit him so hard his head bounced.”

Deliberately she opened her eyes again.

Behind Harry, Sheriff Lytton waited with badly concealed impatience. His officers listened as if they were stunned, although they must have heard Harry’s story earlier.

Where had Roger acquired such murderous skills?

“Avis fell down,” Harry said, shaking. “He had blood all over him.

“Then he wasn’t here anymore. I didn’t even see where he went, but he took Mrs. Clint with him. He made her go.

“I called the sheriff right away, right away. I was going to call you, too, but I had to take care of Avis “

Belatedly Linden noticed another pool of blood off to the side of Bill’s body. Drying smears marked the front and sleeves of Harry’s pale-green orderly’s uniform. He must have taken Avis’ head in his arms, cradled the big man like a brother.

“He kept bleeding-” Harry’s voice shivered on the verge of hysteria. “I couldn’t make it stop. I called Emergency, I told them stat, Avis was dying, I couldn’t look at Bill but I thought he was already dead.

“I did everything I could, Doctor.” His eyes implored Linden to tell him that he was not to blame. “Honest, I did.”

His appeal touched her, but she had no room for it.

At the back of the lobby, Maxine released herself from Ernie’s arms. Moving between the silent officers, she came forward to stand beside Harry, place a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Her kind face regarded him sadly.

The officers began to shift their feet and look around as if they were rousing themselves from a trance.

“Dr. Panger has Avis in surgery,” Maxine told Linden. “He may have bone splinters in his brain.”

Linden nodded an acknowledgment-Curt Panger was more than competent-but she was not done with Harry. “Did you see him leave?” she asked quietly.

“Oh, yes,” Harry answered. “Right after I called Emergency. He had Joan, and Mrs. Clint. Joan went with him like she wanted to go, but he had to keep his gun pointed at Mrs. Clint. I hid behind the desk so he didn’t see me.”

Lytton cleared his throat fiercely. “He has a hostage, Dr. Avery.” His voice seemed to grate against his teeth. “We’re wasting time here. I need to talk to you.”

Linden turned her attention to him at last. “And I need to talk to you.” The fact that Roger had taken a hostage meant that he was not finished yet. If he had simply wanted his mother, a hostage would only slow him down.