Angel of Fire - Requiem of Lost Souls - Book Two

Setting A Monster Free

"You always say the first words that come to your mind. That's what I mean by a filter."

I gave him a curt nod. "If I did, I had it removed."

"I can tell." He looked hurt. “Well, what's up with yours?”

My breath hitched in surprise. “Mine?”

Frowning, he added, “Yeah, your hair looks like something nested in it.”

I took my left hand off the wheel to point momentarily at my head. “This here is what we call a hairstyle,” I explained carefully as if talking to a child. In some ways I was. “Besides, the way you wear your hair says a lot about a person.”

“What does mine say about me?”

“That you're a control freak," I sputtered.

This time he looked insulted. But only for a second.

Curious, I just had to ask. “Why, what do you think mine says about me?”

“That your crazy.”

I pretended to be offended. “Did you just call me crazy?”

He nodded emphatically. “Just so you're aware, you being crazy doesn't bother me. It's how much you enjoy it that makes you dangerous.”

“I can accept that,” I replied, stealing his thunder. “Besides, being aware that I'm crazy really just means I'm not crazy by default.” He didn't seem to be getting the point, so I added, “Crazy people don't know they're crazy. I know I'm crazy, and that's the difference. Isn't that crazy?”

“It's something alright,” he admitted, tossing me a lop-sided grin. “What does that make me then?”

I pulled the Fury into a parking space at the Kalamazoo Psychiatric Hospital, lips curling mischievously as I got out of the car. “It makes you crazy by association.”

 Thomas walked around to the drivers side door, eyes scanning the mile long stretch of hospital grounds. “Which way do we go?”

“I don't remember.”

That robbed the smile from his face. “Try,” he ordered, voice unusually harsh.

“What if I don't want to?” I snapped.

He raised a finger, pointing it at his head. “Chaos, this is my serious face.”

I returned the gesture, waving my hand vaguely. “This is my I-don't-give-a-crap face.”

Clenching a square jaw, I watched his anger fade to puzzlement, followed by pure undiluted distress. What I didn't know was why.

“Don't lie to me, Chaos, and pretend you don't know where the Doctor is.”

 I folded my arms across my chest stubbornly. “Can't do that without telling another lie.”

His piercing hazel eyes never left mine, the color shifting to a pale blue like the ocean, but just as unfathomable.

I made a disgusted noise, throwing my arms in the air. “Fine, you win. Happy now?”

Reluctantly, I abandoned our less than jovial conversation to concentrate on finding the hidden opening to the bomb shelter. Everything looked different in the daylight. Zeroing in on a building that seemed curiously out of place, I found the same metal utility door marked with the warning signs purposefully intended to keep people out. I slid it open and followed the long corridor with Thomas in tow, until we reached the blast door. Gripping the round metal wheel again, I turned it clockwise and waited for it to swing freely open. Once at the end of another long corridor, we swung a sharp left, went through the supply closet, followed by the showers, and ended up at the old-fashioned elevator with the industrial sized doors hanging wide open.

"Hmmm, that's weird," I noted, cocking my head to one side.

Thomas stared at me confused. "What's weird?"

"The doors to the elevator are open."

Furrowing his brow, he said, "And that's a problem because..." When I didn't answer right away, he added, "Are you trying to pretend you don't know how to operate an elevator?"

I shook my head, face grim. "No. This is me telling you that these doors were shut when I left. Either that, or I'm just losing my mind."

"I vote for the second part," he chuckled.

"Shut up, and get in."

Noticing a weathered yellow diagram barely clinging to the gray wall, I searched for the infirmary and made a mental note of the level. Thomas followed me into the industrial metal box. I punched level five with my fist, waiting for the doors to close. Gradually descending straight into the pit of hell, the doors finally yawned open with a ping.

Exiting, I located another diagram and followed the pipe lined corridors – ears buzzing from the eerie sound of the overhead fluorescent lighting. My stomach did a flip-flop when I found the door to my prison cell...no, scratch that...Doctor Drool's prison cell.

Fingers drumming on the silver metal door, I paused and turned to Thomas. “Are you sure you want to do this?” I was a fool if I thought an ex-angel was going to change his mind.

He nodded, jaw clenched with determination in a failed attempt to hide the sadness behind his hazel eyes. For the briefest of moments I glimpsed the ragged edges of torment, almost as if he were the one reliving how it felt to be drained of blood – drop by excruciating drop – waiting in vain to be saved by an angel that never came until it was too late.

I took a deep breath in preparation to come face to face with the man responsible for killing me, knowing full well that just this once the tormented had become the tormentor.

The smile that spread across my face as a result felt weird, even to me.

“Just remember, it looks worse than it is,” I cautioned, picturing the way I'd hooked Doctor Drool up to the machine, careful to use as many IV needles and tubes as he'd grotesquely used on me. The only difference of course was the fact that his blood wasn't continuously being pumped out of him.

The shiny metal door opened with a metallic swishing sound as the bottom sliced across the highly polished steel floor.

I glanced over at the silver operating table and screamed.

Drool was gone and the infirmary, or what was left of it anyway, looked as if someone, uh...make that something had smashed everything in the room. I turned and gasped, eyes bulging as I stared at the perfect outline of a fist sunk deeply into the steel wall beside the door. I could practically fit my entire head in the gaping hole.

"We have to find him," Thomas insisted, shooting me a look of careful rage. "Where do you think he went?"

It suddenly dawned on me that Thomas had an ulterior motive for making me bring him here. I also knew it didn't have anything to do with freeing the Doctor. Just like he'd taken great pleasure in terrorizing the in-crowd, Thomas intended to make Drool pay for hurting me. And, judging by the venomous look in his eyes, he intended to make him pay dearly.

I would've happily stood back and let him...if things hadn't just become that much more dangerous.

"We're no longer going to be searching for Doctor Drool." Fear written all over my face, I recalled what had happened to Vycandor after he drank my blood. "We're going to be searching for a monster the size of the Incredible Hulk."

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