Umbel (Terminal Trilogy #3)

9: Preparations for the main event

The hall wound into predictability, each hall tuning to another one and featuring rows of identical doors. The lights began to dim as I turned into maybe the tenth identical hall, and around the twentieth, the lights were black and the ceiling had collapsed.

The killer could have gone through any of the hundred doors. I stopped being a dog. This was going to be a pain. I opened the nearest door, found a dusty bed and nothing else, and closed it. The next one had the same results. Jesus Christ.

I heard something crash behind me then, and I turned around to see a man wearing one of those suspicious ski masks. Probably the guy then. I shifted back and barred my teeth. Was I going to kill this guy? Guess so. He had killed enough. The morals of the situation were totally on my side.

I jumped towards him and just went for the kill, right towards the throat, claws out, mouth open. Fairly casual about it until the asshole stabbed me in the stomach- I don't even know where he got the knife, I was too busy being stabbed. I fell to the floor, vision dark, and he pulled his knife out with a little jerky movement that expanded the cut.

I writhed around on the floor, kicking my legs about wildly. I could probably still get up and give chase- hellhound bodies were notoriously vague about their limits- but I kind of preferred to avoid that pain. I lay on the floor, black blood pouring very slowly out of my cut, and let my vision darken.

I woke up what felt like a second later as a human in a pool of blood. I got up slowly, but a sudden jab in my stomach caused me to fall to my knees again. Breathing hard, I held a hand to my stomach. I was definitely bleeding, and too light headed to trust myself with walking. Wounds on hellhounds rarely transferred to the human body- usually there would just be a mark on my skin that would fade after a few weeks. An actual open wound shouldn't be too bad, but I was reluctant to actually open my shirt and check.

My head was whirring. I shifted back into my hellhound state- it was the only way I could trust myself to walk. My wound still hurt, and even slowly bled, but I was able to move very carefully through the halls. I wasn't quite sure what I was hoping for- the killer had no doubt fled down here, and had probably gone and finished the job in the couch room. Pine was no doubt dead, and I was fine with that, but the kids and Micky- Well, they had only been knocked out before. Probably intentionally. But I thought it best if I worked through my grieving early and thought of them as dead.

No one was going to be able to help me for a very long time. And I couldn't fit through the maintenance hatch while I was a wolf. Was I going to die? Was that possible? I guess anything is possible, but seriously, was I really going to die?

It never seemed like a possibility to me, death. Even when it came to me. Even when it came to my family. It never seemed like anyone was really going to be dead, let alone me.

I tumbled down another set of halls. I can easily explain why I was still moving forward with the possibility of death hanging so close in my mind. There was still a chance- a very good chance, actually- that I was going to be completely fine. There was another good chance that if I died here, no one would find my body for a good long time. If I crawled a bit closer to the entrance I could at least get a funeral.

I had lost the ability to tell time, so all I could call it was 'later' when I came to the end of the endless halls. The goal having been reached, I collapsed on the floor, human again. My vision blurred and my eyes seemed crossed. I did my best to shake off my dizziness and sit up.

Something smelled like a fire. I coughed a few times, purging some blood from my throat. I heard someone talking and I decided to assume I'd be fine- but that didn't exactly cure me of my ails. I edged to the door, blood soaking my pants, and weakly called out a word that had started as a 'hey' and ended as a painful croak.