Colm dragged Marcus' limp body into the house. As he pulled Marcus up the front walk he continued checking over his shoulder to see if Marcus had been followed. Once they were safely inside he locked the door and pulled Marcus into the living room.
Marcus was bleeding profusely and in the dim light Colm couldn't tell where all the blood was coming from. Colm looked around the room, searching for something that could help him. He listed off the contents of the room in his mind one by one as he saw them, hoping that some sort of inspiration would strike. Sofa, china, broken lamp...
"Shitfuck...motherfuckSHITSHIT!" Colm screamed at the top of his lungs. He looked down at Marcus and realized that right now the person who he needed to save was the one person in the world he had always counted on in crisis situations. He needed an idea - but his idea man was bleeding out on the living room floor. Colm grabbed Marcus by the shoulders and propped him up against the couch. Once Marcus was upright Colm slapped him across the face and yelled, "Marky! Fuck man, wake up! Marcus!"
Colm slapped Marcus again, this time much harder, and Marcus' eyes fluttered open. Marcus groaned and slid to the side, almost falling over again. Colm held Marcus up, leaned in close and said, "Marcus. Hey. Wake up Marky. I need your help, you're hurt bad, who can I call?"
Marcus shook his head slowly from side to side and said, "Uhrm... Call Grace. She can. She's on my phone."
Colm searched through all of Marcus' pockets searching for his cell phone. Finally he found a small pocket on the inside of Marcus' jacket that was bulging with a solid object inside. Colm opened the pocket and pulled out a small cell phone.
"Just push the button on the side and... No, wait," Marcus' head lolled backwards and Colm gave him a shake. Marcus straightened his head and said, "Hold the phone up for me. Okay, press and hold that big black button," the phone beeped and Marcus managed to strain out the words, "Dial Grace," before slumping forwards again. Colm knew he couldn't risk roughing Marcus up any more so he hoped that the phone dialed correctly.
Colm held the phone to his ear and waited. The first ring seemed to take an eternity. After three rings a message picked up and a delicate voice said, "Hello! This is Grace, leave a message after the beep!"
The phone beeped and Colm said, "Grace, Marcus is hurt, I need you to... Shit. What's this thing..." Colm trailed off as he tried to figure out how to answer an incoming call while still on another. He saw a small green icon on the screen - it had a little quivering phone on it. He tapped it and a woman said, "Hey, Marcus, you rang?"
Colm sputtered out, "Is this Grace?"
The voice on the other end grew tense. She said, "Who is this? Is this 555-1337?"
"Grace, my name is Colm, I'm a friend of Marky's. He's hurt, he said for me to call you. I need you to come quick, I don't know what to do!"
There was a short pause while Grace tried to comprehend what she had just heard. Then Grace just said, "I'm coming to you, what's the address there?"
Colm let out a deep sigh. It felt as if he had been holding his breath since Marcus dropped onto the front walkway. He gasped out the address and finished with, "How long until you get here?"
Grace replied calmly, "I'm going to be a while. I need you to calm down, Colm. Take three really deep breaths. Right now. Do it, long, slow breaths, I want to hear them."
A flash of anger passed through Colm, who was this girl to be telling him what to do? "Marcus told me to call this girl, she must know what she's talking about," he thought. Colm inhaled a long, slow breath. He let it out in a short exhale that was almost a cough.
From the other end of the line Grace said, "Good, now let the next one out slow."
Colm did as she instructed and as he did the pounding in his ears subsided a bit and his hands began to steady. He took a third breath and said, "Okay. Okay. That's better, what do I do now?"
Grace said, "Okay, everything's going to be fine. What's wrong with Marcus?"
Colm said, "He's hurt, I think he's shot. There's a lot of blood. His ear is half torn off by something, too."
"I need you to find out where he's bleeding from. Take his clothes off, cut them off if you have to. I'm on my cell, so I can talk you through it as I drive. Start with where the most blood is."
"Okay, there's blood all down his left sleeve. I'm taking off his coat now." Colm fumbled with it, trying to pull the jacket off Marcus' limp form. He tried to twist Marcus out of the jacket but was afraid he would hurt Marcus in doing so. He swore under his breath and ran to the kitchen to get a pair of scissors.
Grace heard the rattling of metal and asked, "What's going on, Colm. Keep talking to me, I need to know what's happening."
"I can't get his fucking jacket off," he snapped," I'm just gettin' some scissors."
"Okay, good. I'm almost at my car, there's going to be a click, but I'm not going anywhere." Grace got into her car and turned on the BlueTooth communication with her cell phone. When Grace had gone out to buy a new car after six months working at Doctor Marcus Coburn's office he had insisted she get one with BlueTooth in it. He had said that he expected her to be available almost twenty-four hours a day, and he didn't want her getting into any accidents because he had called her while she was driving.
There was a soft beep inside the car and she turned up the car's speakers so she could hear. She set her phone down on the centre console and said, "Colm, you still there?"
"Yeah, I am," he said, "I've got his shirt off. His arm's hurt pretty bad. Lots of blood."
"Okay, I need you to take a strip from his jacket and hold it tight to the wound. That should slow the bleeding until I get there."
Colm set the cell phone down and tore into the jacket. He jerked at the sleeve until the stitches stretched and tore. He pressed the torn sleeve firmly to Marcus' arm. Once he had a hand firmly over the wound he picked up the phone again and said, "Okay, I've got something on the wound, what now?" Colm could hear traffic noises in the background.
Grace replied, "Keep pressure on it, make sure you keep him warm, he may be going into shock. I'll be there in about ten minutes."
Colm quickly snatched a blanket off the back of the sofa and used it to cover Marcus. He spread the blanket quickly, not wanting to leave the pressure off Marcus' wound for too long. He gripped Marcus' arm again, pressing the torn strip of sleeve against the wound. Marcus had begun to shiver a bit, and he moaned faintly when Colm pressed against the wound.
Colm propped the cell phone against his ear with his shoulder so he could use two hands to hold the makeshift bandage. He asked, "Is that it?"
Grace replied, "That's it for him. You need to keep breathing nice and slow, you're no good to anyone if you panic. Call me back if anything changes."
"Alright," replied Colm. Marcus' ear seemed to have stopped bleeding on its own now, and it didn't look nearly as bad as it had when he had first seen it, a chunk was definitely missing from near the top of the ear, but it was a fairly small one.
Colm tensed up as he thought about somebody being so angry at his best friend that they would try to shoot him in the head. Colm wanted to get out there and start breaking bones. He had been a terrible friend and an even worse brother, but it felt as if the world was giving him another chance.
His sister's spirit had formed earlier in the day, a solid figure shimmering in the kitchen, and screamed in terror. Colm had only been able to communicate with her twice since moving into the house, and both times she had been mostly incoherent, spouting gibberish about "the union", and "shattering echoes". This last time she had been so focused Colm had almost thought she was alive again. She had appeared, screaming, and shouted, "Marcus is going to die, it's a trap! You need to tell him! He needs to leave!" Emma had disappeared as quickly as she had come, leaving palpable echoes of sadness and panic in her wake.
Colm had called Marcus immediately, and when he told him it was a trap Marcus had just hung up on him. The next time he saw Marcus he was bleeding on the pavement in front of the house.
Over the next ten minutes Marcus' breathing seemed to get stronger, and he began to warm up a bit. He was stronger than most people expected, as Colm had discovered during their years spent brawling together. When Grace finally rang the doorbell Colm was completely calm. He yelled, "Come in, the door is open!"
Colm heard footsteps in the hall. Colm cocked his head to the side and stained to listen. Something was strange about the footsteps, they came in an irregular pattern, a soft step followed by a tap and a thump. There was no urgency in the pace, either, it was slow and methodical. Step, tap, thump.... Step, tap, thump. Colm knew the sounds of this house, he had heard all types of people walk through it, but never anything quite like this. He leaned Marcus down beside the sofa and moved towards the doorway. Colm crouched next to the door and called into the room, "Grace, we're just in the living room." Colm grabbed the base of a solid lamp from a table just inside the door and waited. The steps continued towards him, Step, tap, thump. Step, tap, thump. Step, tap, thump, creak. Colm knew that creak all too well, it had earned him a thrashing from his father once when he tried to sneak down the hallway to escape being grounded.
He spun around the corner and launched himself into the air, bowling over the man who stood in the hallway. The man fell backwards painfully, smacking his head against the wall before crashing onto his side. Colm stood over the man for a second, confused. A bearded man lay on his side, a crutch lay a few feet away from where he had fallen. He didn't seem to be any sort of threat, but why had he not identified himself? Why was he in Colm's house?
Colm stammered, "Sorry about that guy. Who are you? What are you doing in my house?"
The man moaned in pain and rolled onto his back. As he did Colm caught a flash of silver in the man's hand.
Gun!
Colm threw himself to one side and glanced off the hallway wall as the man pulled the trigger. The shot bit into the wall beside him, spraying slivers of wood. Colm used his momentum to carry himself down towards his attacker. He fell forward, raising the arm that held the lamp as he did. He brought his arm downwards in a swift motion and the lamp hit the man in the side of the head just before Colm dropped solidly onto him.
The man let out a grunt as the wind was knocked out of him. He tried to raise the gun again but Colm swatted it away with his left hand while he brought his right arm upwards to deliver another blow with the lamp. In the heartbeat before he brought the lamp down a voice cried out, "Stop!"
Colm looked up and saw two women in the doorway. Colm used his left hand to pin down the invader's right arm and kept the lamp raised above his head like a wrecking ball, ready to drop and tear this man from life at a moment's notice. Colm looked at them and said, "Somebody better give me a fuckin' good reason right now why I shouldn't just smash this guy's fuckin' brains in."
The girl on the left said, "Colm, it's me, Grace. That man is a police officer, he thinks Marcus is a murderer. Put down the lamp, but hold him there."
Colm looked down at the man, he didn't look like a cop, he looked like a biker on crystal meth. His eyes were bloodshot, his beard was wild and unkempt. His clothes were dirty and torn, and he smelled of old sweat and stale smoke. But the woman in the doorway was definitely Grace. Her voice had the same calm tone he had heard on the phone, the same melodic sing-song quality. Colm lowered the lamp and reached over and scooped up the gun. He rolled off the man and rose to his feet.
He pointed the gun down the hallway not really in any specific direction, it was more of a general threat. He said, "And who the hell are you?" He gestured to the right with the gun at the other girl in the doorway.
She said, "I'm Bella, I'm here with that guy."
"You a cop, too?" Colm asked.
"Nah," Bella responded, "I'm just his driver. It's a long story."
Colm glare at her and said, "Right. You'll have a lot of time to tell me about it, I guess, because nobody's going anywhere until I know what the fuck is going on here. Help your boy up, then, and everyone get your asses into the living room." Colm nodded backwards over his shoulder to indicate where the living room was.
He walked backwards into the living room,keeping the gun trained on the group as he did. Grace and Bella helped Lloyd to his feet and followed Colm into the living room. Colm backed up until he felt his shoulders touch the wall behind him and then he motioned the gun towards the love seat. "You two," he said, "sit on the love seat. Grace, you have a look at Marky, he's over by the couch there."
Grace rushed over to Marcus' side and peeled away the blood soaked strip of jacket. She looked up at Colm and said, "I need some rags and some water. I also had a first aid kit, but I dropped it by the front door."
Okay, you can go get that stuff, but the other two need to stay here. Grace looked as if she were about to object but the hardness of Colm's gaze told her she had better let this one go. She turned to Bella and said, "I need you to keep pressure on this arm until I get back. Colm, where can I find towels?"
Colm said, "It's all in the kitchen. There's a tall cupboard by the back door that has all that stuff in it."
Grace nodded and dashed out the door. Colm could hear banging and crashing noises from in the Kitchen as Grace dug through the closet for the supplies she needed. When she came back in she had an ice cream pail filled with hot water, an arm full of towels, and a first aid kit about the size of a large purse.
She knelt beside Marcus and went quickly to work. She used the towels to start mopping up the blood from around the wound. She opened the kit and got out a small bottle. She twisted off the cap and poured some of the clear liquid onto the wound on Marcus' arm. The she wiped it away ad took a closer look at his arm. She raise he head and said, "I think we're lucky. It seems to have just grazed the bone and gone out the other side." She prodded at it and massaged near the wound a bit more and added, "I can't feel the bullet anywhere, and the bone doesn't seem broken. I'm going to stitch him up."
Grace quickly and calmly retrieved a needle and thread from the first aid kit. The thread looked like fishing line, it was blue and sturdy. Grace's fingers moved with a will of their own, deftly threading the needle and passing it through the skin by the wound in three quick motions. Marcus groaned loudly and shifted. His eyes fluttered for a second and then he was still again. Grace turned to Bella and said, "I need you to hold his arm, I'm going to do the other side, and he's waking up."
Bella gripped his arm by the wrist and held it to the ground while Grace went back to work. She put fur stitches in the wound on the other side of his arm where the bullet had exited. The skin was red and swollen, and Grace moved more slowly on this side, trying to pull the skin together from an awkward angle. Once she was finished she washed the wound again with antiseptic and then pulled a roll of bandages from inside the first aid kit. She wound the bandage tightly around Marcus' arm.
Finally she wiped away the blood from Marcus' face and cleaned the wound on his ear with antiseptic. She pulled a small square of gauze from the kit and used medical tape to hold the bandage to the side of Marcus' head. She was just putting on the last strip of tape when Marcus groaned and said, "Grace? What are you doing here?"
Grace leaned in and put her hand on Marcus' head and said, "Just here to finish up some paperwork, Doctor Coburn, why don't you get some rest?"
Marcus closed his eyes again and said, "Mmm... Yeah. It's been a long day, I'm going to just have a bit of nap."
Colm's arm was started to waver, he had been holding the gun straight out in front of himself the entire time. He let it fall a bit so that his arm hung at his side, his arm bent at a ninety degree angle so that the gun was still trained on Lloyd's head. "All right," Colm's voice was grim, "now that Marcus is going to be okay I need somebody to start talking before this gun gets any heavier and I feel I need to lighten it by a few bullets."
Lloyd growled, "Your friend Marcus broke into a house earlier and killed a man. I went to his office to arrest him. When I got there he wasn't around so I got Grace here to tell me where he'd gone."
"And you," Colm blurted out, "just fucking told this maniac where Marky was?" Colm glared accusingly at Grace.
Grace didn't back down from his gaze. Instead she fired back, "He flashed his badge and said he needed to talk to Marcus about an urgent matter. I knew Marcus was working with the police on some case, so I gave him the address to the Kulas house. Not everyone just smashes cops in the head with a lamp when they come walking in."
Lloyd added, "When I got there your friend was covered in blood and was attacking a woman. There were two bodies laying on the driveway already. I shot him to save her. When he got away I called for an ambulance to the Kulas house. I was going to wait there but Miss Kulas said she knew where he was going. She gave me this address and said he was headed here to hook up with his accomplice and get out of the country."
"Right," said Colm, "and you just bought that load of shit." Colm shook his head, "Nothing fits. Marcus isn't a killer."
Grace was slowly nodding her head, "I think I know what happened. Marcus told me about that family, he said their daughter was possessed. She came into the office a couple times and all sorts of terrible things happened. Maybe something at that house made him do it. Whatever it was, we need to go back and find out."
Colm nodded his head and said, "Yeah, that's it. We'll get this sorted right out. Let's go." He waved the gun in Lloyd and Bella's direction.
Bella glanced at Lloyd and said, "No. He's not going anywhere. He's too badly beat up. He's been pushing himself too far already. I'll go with you."
Lloyd cocked an eyebrow up and said, "You're not my mother. I need to see this for myself. I need to find out who killed David. I'll have plenty of time to rest and heal when this is over, but right now I have a job to do."
Bella huffed and said, "Fine."
Colm said, "Yeah, he comes with us. There's no fucking way I'm leaving here with Marcus. Lets go, we'll take your car, I'll ride in the back."
"We didn't come in a car," said Bella, "we came in a tow truck. No back seat."
Grace looked at Colm and saw that his hand was shaking. His face was getting red. He was clenching his jaw and his shoulders were tense. Tensions were nearing the breaking point, Grace knew she had to remove the gun from the equation somehow. She said, "You can take my car. I'll give Bella the keys, she can drive. But Colm, you need to give me the gun. You can easily overpower Lloyd in his state, and I don't want anyone else getting shot. I'm almost out of bandages."
Colm looked down at the gun in his hand. He gripped it a bit tighter, the muscles in his forearm flexed. Right now the gun felt like safety, but Colm also didn't want to kill anyone. All he wanted to do was make sure that Marcus was safe. Colm took a deep breath and his gaze wandered from Lloyd back to Grace. "Alright," he muttered, "but if either of these two assholes come back in here without me, shoot them right in the face and don't ask questions."
Colm walked over to Grace and handed her the gun. As she took it she flicked on the safety and then pointed it at Lloyd. She needed to keep up appearances for Colm's sake.
As soon as he saw that he was covered he took Grace's keys and said, "Alright, lets go."
Bella got up and helped Lloyd off the love seat. Lloyd threw his good arm over Bella's shoulder and the two of them walked together out into the hallway. Bella propped Lloyd against the wall and picked his crutch up and handed it back to him. The two of them walked side by side out to Grace's car with Colm following closely behind.
Once they got out into the yard Colm pressed the button on the keys and a car nearby chirped, it's alarm activating. Colm realized that in her hurry to get inside Grace had probably forgotten to turn on her car alarm so he pressed the button again to disable the alarm and open the car. The three of them got into the car, Lloyd and Bella in the front and Colm sitting just behind the passenger seat. Colm handed the keys to Bella and she started the car. Within minutes they were on their way back to the Kulas residence.