Widow Town (33 page)

The doctor’s eyes shone, not a trace of color was visible around the
black holes that had once been his pupils.

“
Let’s take a walk, shall we?”

“Where?”

“Downstairs. I’m sure you’ve located Siri and the other women are held up with her in the room if I’m correct. I’m guessing you also have some sort of signal to tell them it’s you before you enter, so let’s go round them up and get back down to the business you so rudely interrupted us from.”

A flicker of movement over Barder’s shoulder drew Gray’s attention but he looked bac
k at the doctor’s face quickly.

“
One question for you, Vincent.”

“Yes?”

“You retain all the knowledge of your medical training even when you’re your true self, right?”

“Yes, why?”

“Just wondering.”

A large shape dar
kened the doorway behind Barder.

He sensed it and tried to spin,
bringing up the tranquilizer, but a massive hand caught its barrel and stopped its motion.

Danzig glowered down at the doctor for a split second before sending a fist into the side of his head. Barder fell as if heart
-shot and lay spread-eagle on the cement, a line of blood drooling from his open mouth. Danzig spun the tranquilizer around and aimed it at the doctor’s limp form.

“Dan no!
” Gray yelled, rushing forward.

Danzig raised his eyes from sighting down the barrel and squinted at him.

“Why the hell not?”

“Siri’s about to give birth and this sack of shit is the o
nly one qualified to help her.”

Danzig stared at the back of Barder’s head and Gray almost expected him to fire the tranq anyway, but after a moment th
e giant lowered it to his side.

“Holy shit,
Dan, I thought you were dead.”

Danzig’s eyes watered for a split second and then he began to cough. Big ratcheting coughs that rumbled up from deep within him. He bent over from the exertion and finally hacked out a globule of m
ucus the same color as the air.

“Fucking smoke. My lungs are on fire. I was holding back that cough for the last twenty minutes. You h
aven’t seen my mask, have you?”

“No. They took the rounds out of my pistol too. The only reason they didn’t lock up the Snippers was because I don’t think they knew what they were. You still didn’t answer me. How the hell did you take a shotgun blast to the back and not have your gu
ts hanging out the other side?”

Danzig managed a small grin and opened his coverall. Beneath was a black, mesh-like shirt that glinted in the dim light.
Gray moved closer and put his fingers on the clothing. It wasn’t cloth at all. The shirt consisted of miniscule links of dark steel, like a fishing net, yet infinitely smaller and more finely woven.

“I’ll be damned,” Gray said.

“It’s the prototype I took off the wall in my shop the other day. Mixture of tungsten carbide and titanium. Flexes like clothing but becomes solid in a microsecond when hit with a high-velocity projectile. Turns into a shield. Nothing short of an armor-piercing round can get through.”

Danzig tapped his chest once and the shirt jingled. The giant smiled.

Gray threw an arm over the other man’s shoulders and hugged him before drawing away.

“Unbelievable,” Gray said.

“Still hurt like hell and knocked me out. But don’t go getting all misty on me.”

Danzig began to cough again, the ragged hackings so raw it made Gray wince.

“Let’s get this bastard downstairs and wake him up so he can help Siri, and we’ll see if we can’t find your mask.”

Danzig managed to nod and grabbed ahold of Barder’s arm, hauling him off the floor as if he weighed no more than a sack of flour. Gray
pressed a hand to his throbbing side, his palm became warm and sticky at once. He moved to the man door and peered out into the gloom.

The sky was on fire. A red haze boiling into orange coated the horizon from end to end. The trees quaked and wavered before its light, worshippers before their alien god finally arriving from some other world. The wind blew in revolt against the flames, but they were coming
. There would be no stopping the fire.

He
turned to find Danzig standing near the hatch holding Barder over one shoulder like a child.

“Let’s go,” Gray said.

After knocking twice, Gray slid the card over the electronic eye and opened the door.

Lynn was ready, off to one side holding his knife in white fingers, her face a rictus of strain. When she saw him and then Danzig close behind, she visibly sagged and came forward, closing her eyes as she leaned into him.

“Told you I’d be back,” he said.

“No you didn’t.”

“Sorry to get your hopes up.”

She laughed and released him, turning to Danzig as he set the doctor down. She pecked him on the cheek, standing on her tiptoes to do so.

“Gray said you were dead.”

“You know him, full of shit,” Danzig rumbled.

“Darrin?” Lynn asked, turning back
to Gray.

“Taken care of.”

“So what are we doing with him?”

“He’s
going to deliver Siri’s baby.”

Rachel looked up from where she sat, holding Siri’s hand. Joslyn stared at him from across the room
cradling both the small boys.

Lynn took a step back. “What? No. Absolutely not.”

“Lynn, there’s no other choice. What if there’s a problem with the baby? We could lose it and Siri.”

She
shook her head. “You want to have the monster that brought her here, held her against her will, deliver her baby? Screw that, Mac.”

“He’s all we have. The fire’s too close to leave now an
d the baby’s closer than that.”

Barder groaned from where he lay on the floor. His arm waved weakly and he licked his blood
-sodden lips with an equally red tongue.

“We ask Siri,” Lynn finally said, looking at the awakening doctor. “We do whatever she says.” Her gaze left no room for argument and when he looked at Rachel and Joslyn their faces mirrored Lynn’s.

“Okay.”

He moved to Siri’s bedside and knelt, putting a hand on her wrist. Her eyes had been squeezed shut but she opened them when he touched her.

“Siri, you have to make a decision. Barder is here and he’s under our control. Now we can lock him in another cell or we can have him help deliver the baby, it’s your call.”

Siri looked around the room, her gaze finding each of them as they watched her. Her face crumpled as another contraction washed over her and she held Gray’s hand, nearly crushing his fingers into a single digit. She panted, blowing lungfuls of air out that made her sweat-soaked hair sway
like a dark curtain in a draft.

“I want my baby to live. He helps, but if he does anything, you kill him.” She held his gaze for a moment and then
gritted her teeth, bearing down before releasing a short cry.

Gray stood and moved to where Barder stirred. He flipped the doctor over with one toe of his boot. Vertigo consumed him for a span of seconds and it was as if the room were being
tossed end over end. His feet were light and then heavy on the floor, simultaneously losing and gaining gravity, over and over. A hand fell on his shoulder, steady and sure and Danzig was there, close beside him.

“You need to sit down, Ma
c, you’ve lost a lot of blood.”

“I’m okay.”

“Bullshit.”

The room was
gray, tinged with black at its corners, like his house after the fire. Ashes and char.

He was falling.

Danzig caught him and eased him to a sitting position in the corner of the room and someone was taking the key card from his pocket. Lynn’s face was there and then gone, words floating back to him as if through a thick fog in early morning when the sun hadn’t had a chance to burn it away. There was a long buzzing drone and then the sound of wind blowing through a partially open door. The static crackling of burning things. An inferno raging, devouring the world. The flames were on him, he was burning, his side was on fire.

Gray opened his eyes and saw Lynn’s face and the ceiling beyond. His back was pressed against cold cement and the bullet wound
felt as if a hot coal had been shoved inside. He hissed and tried to sit up.

“Relax, I’m putting a coagulant gel on it. It was lea
king blood and you passed out.”

A high keening came from the far side of the room and he searched Lynn’s face for an answer.

“She’s having it right now. Barder’s delivering it.”

“H
ow long have I been out?”

“Ten minutes, maybe. I just gave you a shot of
erythropoietin. Barder told me it would boost red blood cell production and I made him take a shot of it first to make sure it wasn’t harmful.”

“Get me up.”

“Mac, no—”

“Up.”

He got an arm beneath himself and levered into a sitting position with Lynn’s help. His head spun for a sickening span and then slowed and stopped. His vision doubled and then melded together which caused his stomach to leap for the back of his throat, but he swallowed, taking deep breaths as Siri cried out again.

Barder was at the end of the bed, his hands between Siri’s legs. Her lower half was covered with a stained sheet and a large stainless steel pan sat on the floor full of soapy water that steamed into the air. Danzig stood two feet behind the doctor, the tranquilizer gun pointed at the center of his back.
Siri’s upper body was propped on four pillows, her cheeks two blazing points of red that made Gray think of the fire above. Rachel and Joslyn held each of Siri’s hands in their own, their voices low, speaking encouraging words to the laboring woman. In the furthest corner the two young boys sat side by side, miraculously giggling as they took turns trying to tickle one another.

“Okay Siri, I want you to breath for just a second and don’t push,” Barder said, his face a mask of concentra
tion. “The head is almost out.”

Siri breathed in puffs, inhaling only after every fourth exhale. Her face twisted and her head fell back as another cry escaped her and bec
ame a full scream at its end.

“Good, good. Okay
, now—” Barder paused and scooted closer to the bed.

“No funny shit or you’re dead,” Danzig growled, prodding the doctor in th
e back with the tranq’s barrel.

“The cord is around
its neck, I have to free it,” Barder replied.

Gray managed to get his feet beneath him and accepted a bottle of water Lynn held out. He drank, pouring the liquid down his throat so fast he didn’t know if he’d actually taken time to swallow.

Danzig looked over Barder’s shoulder and then flicked his eyes to Gray’s. He nodded once and then stepped back to give the doctor room. Siri breathed faster, moaning in closer and closer intervals.

“There,” Barder said, sitting back on his heels. “Pu
sh now, Siri, hard as you can.”

Siri’s hands were claws, gripping the other women, her knuckles like pearls in the light. She took a deep breath and then held it and tipped forward until she sat almost upright, finally letting a cry come out between her teeth that brought the hairs up on Gray’s neck. Barder worked beneath the sheet, pausing every so often to wipe a bead of sweat from his forehead. The gloves he wore shone wetly and the fing
ertips were tainted with blood.

“Come on, Siri, again. Push, harder
this time, we’re almost there.”

Gray moved closer to Danzig, his legs gaining more and more feeling as the walked. Lynn stood by his side, her shoulder pressed against his arm. Beneath the sheet the baby’s head was fully visible as well as one shoulder. A ropy length of umbilical hung down in a fleshy U. As Siri strained the other shoulder appeared and the baby slid out of
her in a single slick movement.

Barder’s hands caught it with delicate finesse Gray was sure only surgeons possessed. Quickly he began to work mucus free of the infant’s mouth and nose by gently stroking its neck and throat in opposite direction
s. One of the baby’s arms, beet red and shining, stretched out, flailing as if it were asking for help.

There was a moment of complete silence in the room as everyone waited, balance
d upon the sound they strained to hear.

A blob of viscous fluid fell free of the newborn’s mouth and it let out a clucking cough that coalesced into a shaking cry. Its arms flailed, quivering in mo
vement common only to new life.

“It’s a boy,” Barder said, looking down at
the tiny body he held. “A boy.”

A beat went by and Gray tensed, noticing Danzig raise the tranquilizer to
the side of the doctor’s neck.

“
Give him to Siri,” Danzig said.

Barder remained motionless for a second and then looked up, his gaze taking them all in as if
he’d forgotten they were there.

“I will but first I need to cut the umbilical. Some
one hand me the plastic clamp.”

Lynn stepped forward to a small tray resting beside the still steaming disinfectant bowl. She plucked a short, plastic wrapped item from it and opened it, taking care to not touch the clamp directly. Barder placed the instrument around the glistening cord an inch from the infant’s stomach and clicked it shut as
the tiny boy continued to wail.

“Don’t you cry, little one,” Barder sang almost beneath his breath as he stretched the c
ord out straight beyond the clamp. “There’s no reason to pout, a miracle inside your mommy and now the doctor brought you out.”

“Don’
t you sing to him you sick fuck.” Gray said stepping forward. “Don’t you dare.”

Barder glanced at him and then looked back at the child in his arms. A shor
t smile flitted across his lips and was gone. He turned and grasped a clean sheet from the table beside the bed and wrapped the squalling boy in its folds.

“Give him to me,” Siri said in a breathless voice. She could barely raise her arms but she d
id so, reaching for the bundle.

“He’ll need to be cleaned, and someone else can do that,
but the cord needs to be cut.”

“We can cut it, give him to Rachel,” Gray said.

“What are you going to use? There’s nothing sterile in this room.”

“We’ll wash my knife, now give the baby to Rachel or I’ll kill you where you stand.” Gray reached his hand out and Danzig placed the tranq in it without a word, the sig
ht never leaving Barder’s head.

“Okay, okay. We all need to calm down here, I mean we just experienced a miracle.”

“Now,” Gray said.

Lynn knelt by the pan of sudsy water and began to wash the knife’s blade as Rachel came forward, her eyes and hands steady but her movements
unsure, as if she were approaching the open door of a lion’s cage. Barder smiled at her and offered the baby out, the newborn’s aching cries growing louder. Rachel reached for him.

Barder yanked the baby back to his chest and kicked the bowl of hot water.

Lynn screamed as the scalding liquid splashed up her arm and onto her face. Water spattered Gray and Danzig, stinging droplets burning more than Gray guessed they would. Rachel and Joslyn cried out and the little boys in the corner began to yell for their mothers. Amidst the chaos Gray heard one sound that made his stomach plunge.

The knife clattered to the f
loor in front of Barder’s feet.

Gray
tried to secure a shot, but the doctor moved with the same liquid grace he’d displayed earlier, scooping the knife from the floor as he’d caught the baby from Siri’s womb. With a short flick of his wrist, he cut the infant’s cord and slid the blade to the child’s throat. Oblivious to the danger, the boy continued to wail.

“No!” Siri yelled from the bed, and tried to rise, the umbilical still trailing from between her legs
.

“Drop it, Barder!” Gray said, keeping the tranq’s bead on the man’s face while eyeing his exposed legs.

“Ah, I wouldn’t, Sheriff. You try to shoot me and I stab him, and you don’t want two children’s deaths on your conscience.” Barder grinned, and shifted his gaze to everyone in the room. “That goes for all of you. No one make a move or the little one’s dead.”

Siri a
nd the children sobbed. Lynn picked herself off the ground and wiped her face free of the water, the skin where it had splashed an angry red. Barder edged toward the door, his eyes flicking to each of them in turn. A fevered rictus pulled his features into something hideous and Gray could see the doctor was enjoying himself.

“Now it’s time to disappear, folks. It’s been real fun, but my welcome’s
worn out in this town so to speak.”

“There’s a forest fire outside, where the hell do you think you’re going to go?” Gray said
, still following the other man’s movements with the tranq.

“I’ll figu
re something out, I always do.”

“You won’t make the county line before I cut you down,” Gray said.

“I can see you mean that, Sheriff, but I have resources stocked away just for an occasion such as this and I’ll be fine.” Barder hefted the baby and readjusted his hold on the knife. “Actually, we’ll be fine.”