Hell's Detective

Chapter Forty-one- Don't You Cry

The day Bloomsbury's father was possessed, she thought it was the worst pain she would ever experience in her life.

She was wrong.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw his face, heard his voice. There was something inside of her, something dark and groaning, clawing at her, dragging her down to somewhere she knew she could never return.

Her fault, her fault, her fault.

Someone rapped on the door.

She frowned. Briar and Binkley were with the patients, and Zadrian had left to help Follows. She stood up and opened the peephole, peered through.

Empty eyes stared back at her. Demon.

"Mornin', love," he croaked. He grinned, revealing a row of dirty teeth. "Care to open up?"

She slammed the peephole shut, pelted down the corridor to the patients' ward. They knew they were here. How the hell did they know they were here? She almost crashed into Binkley, who only just managed to keep himself, and the multitudes of papers he was clinging to, upright.

"Bloomsbury?" Briar asked carefully. He'd been like that ever since her father's death. Everyone had. Treating her like she was made of glass and might shatter into a million pieces at any moment. Everyone except Follows. It was funny, the only person she felt really understood her was a complete stranger. He knew that sense of failure, guilt. He'd looked into her father's eyes as the life drained out of them, and he was sure he'd seen, just as she had, that flicker of accusation, that one horrible question.

Why did you do this to me?

It was the only thing that bonded them together, that shared thing growing inside of them, threatening to devour them whole...and yet it was the closest she had ever felt with anyone in the world. How screwed up was that?

"What on earth's the matter?" Briar said as a few of the patients snarled at her from their cells.

"They're here," she almost choked out. "Dozens of them, possessed people. I don't know how, but they're here."

The squeal of metal resonated through the entire corridor, then a sudden 'bang!' as if an explosion was going off. The door. They'd ripped the door off its hinges.

Briar was the first to react. "Lord have mercy," he whispered.

Binkley's papers fell to the ground. "What do we do?" he cried. "What the hell do we do?!"

Bloomsbury felt sorry for him. He was still just a kid. He wasn't ready for this sort of life. He sure as hell didn't deserve it.

Fists pounded on the door behind them, and faces twisted in horrible, manic grins that somehow didn't look quite right on a human's face peered through the glass like demented children.

"They're not coming in," Bloomsbury whispered over the pounding in her chest. "Why aren't they coming in?"

"I don't think they can," Briar said.

Binkley laughed suddenly, a mixture of triumph and relief. "It's the door. A metre of solid iron. Ha! Try getting past that!"

An alarm wailed, and the room lit up with a searing red glow.

"What's happening?" Bloomsbury asked, even though she knew she didn't want to know the answer.

"I believe they've found the control panel," Briar said quietly, the voice of a man who has lost all hope.

Tears she hadn't even realized she'd shed streamed down Bloomsbury's face. She knew what was coming.

All at once, like the start of an orchestra, the doors swung open, and hissing, leering possessed patients stalked out. They were coming from all sides, advancing slowly, in unison like some deformed army. Bloomsbury took a step back, her back hitting Binkley's.

"Bloomsbury, Binkley," Briar said, by some great feat managing to keep his voice steady. Red light bounced off his face. "It has been an honour and a privilege."

Suddenly, the whole building rocketed as if it had been struck by a meteor. Lights flickered, doors crashed against their frames. The demons growled, low and feral, like animals ready to pounce.

"What's that?" Binkley dared to whisper.

"The angels are coming," Bloomsbury said. She knew it must be true. Something exploded inside of her, something white hot that burned away the monster and filled her to the tips of her fingers with warmth.

Hope.

It was too late, of course. They wouldn't save them. But somehow their lives didn't matter anymore. And as Bloomsbury looked into those snarling faces, and that little voice in the back of her head told her this was the end, her eyes fell on Briar and Binkley, and she thought of all the things she never said to them, how grateful she was to them, that they were her best friends. Her only friends.

All the things they would never know.

And she knew there was no one she would rather spend the last moments of her life with.

So, as the Demons lunged, for the first time in her life, she wasn't afraid.

Because she was with her family.

****

Sally clung to Fresler as they huddled in the corner of the nursing room. Screams and snarls and howling laughter leaked down from upstairs.

Allan held them both, sucked in a breath. He was trying to be strong. He was always trying to be strong, but he was never very good at it.

"They're coming, aren't they?" she whispered.

"I love you," he said, which wasn't really an answer. But it would do, she supposed. Then he kissed her. It was soft and warm and said the thing neither could bring themselves to say. It said goodbye.

He stood, rummaged around the equipment table until he found a scalpel. It was probably the first time he'd ever held a weapon in his life. He wouldn't even go pig hunting with his brothers. He went to the door, braced himself.

Sally stroked Frelser's hair. He opened a tired eye, sniffed a little. A tiny hand wrestled its way out of the blanket, gripped her finger. Slipped.

She smiled as a tear dribbled down her nose and splashed onto his cheek. His face screwed up like a prune, and she shushed him.

Don't cry. Please don't cry.

"Jesus loves me, this I know," she sang to him softly. "For the bible tells me so."

There was a crash from the other corridor. Allan gripped the scalpel a little tighter.

They were coming.

"Little ones to him belong." Her voice cracked, and she choked back a sob. "They are weak, but he is strong."

A hand burst through the glass, wrapped around Allan's tie, and yanked him into the wall. His head bounced back with a sharp 'smack!', and he sank to the floor, blood trickling down his forehead.

Frelser was wide awake now. His eyes rolled into the back of his head as he clawed weakly at her arms, trying to see what was going on.

"Look at me," she whispered. He did. And in that moment, she realized something. She loved him. More than anything else in the entire world. And nothing could take that away from her. "Yes, Jesus loves me," she murmured. "Yes, Jesus loves me."

He stared at her with his bright blue eyes, and the door groaned, then rocketed forward. A man stood before them with a knife in his hand and empty, empty eyes.

"The bible tells me so."