Marker of Faith

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 29

"Hey, you guys still with me?" Minerva snapped her fingers and sighed at the wide-eyed expressions of the men in front of her. "You probably need another minute, get your brains around this mess."

Minerva glistened with sweat, and long hair framed her face in a coppery halo enhanced by candlelight. She was tall and stout, a bigger woman who carried it well. She looked like a warrior, and despite the horror and carnage around her, she was breathtaking.

Minerva stood up and gazed at the dead man piled in the middle of the floor. She put her hand over a pendant -- a silver pentacle, dangling down into her cleavage.

"Poor, stupid bastard," she said quickly, wiping away a tear as she clutched the pendant tighter. John coughed, a little grunt following the sound from his bruised rib cage, and she crouched down next to him. His hands were still bleeding and Minerva gently lifted them to inspect the wounds. She turned them over, smiling as she traced the lines in his palms as if reading secrets in a diary.

"Are you guys all right?" Minerva asked, tenderly touching John's cheek.

"Do we look all right?" Roddy snapped as he struggled to stand up. Rattle stirred next to him on the floor, moaning as he tried to sit himself up. The old man hissed in pain as he grabbed the piece of wood jutting out of his leg and tried to work it free.

"Fuck a duck, that hurts! Pull it out!" Rattle yelled.

"No, wait," John said quickly, crawling over to get a better look at the injury. "You could do more damage; bleed out. We need to get you to a hospital."

"No hospitals, Five-oh." Rattle finally managed to sit up. He was pasty, with little drops of pain sweat speckling his forehead. His voice was shaky, barely a whisper, as he tried to speak. "No way, man. Roddy, aren't you some kind of doctor?"

Roddy was covered in blood, covered in gashes and cuts from the glass shards and splinters of the exploded door, and it amplified the shock on his face as he quickly shook his head back and forth.

"Old man, that was Med school. I work on dead people now. That shit on your leg is beyond me. John's right...you need a hospital."

Minerva peeked over John's shoulder at Rattle's wound, at the blood pooling on the floor around Rattle's leg, and winced. "That's a nasty one, all right."

"I said no hospitals!" Rattle rasped, grabbing the blood-slicked wooden shard with both hands. He moaned as he worked the piece back and forth, finally screaming as it popped out with a perverse slurp. A crimson jet spurted from the ragged flesh and Rattle collapsed back onto the floor, gasping for breath.

"Oh shit, oh shit, man! Old man, no!" Roddy squealed as he lurched backwards out of the spray. 

Rattle dropped the wood and it rolled out of the circle, leaving a wet, red trail on the floor. His blood-drenched fingers twitched and spasmed, drumming out a scattered beat on the floor like a demented tap dance on top of a grave.

John yanked off his jacket and wadded it up on Rattle's leg, compressing the wound to try and staunch the blood flow. Rattle cried out, covering his mouth with his hands as his eyes rolled up into their sockets. The old man took a long, shuddering breath then passed out. John pushed down harder, blood from his own wounds running down his hands and mixing with Rattle's, and he looked up at the ceiling, trying to calm himself while he pressed with all his weight.

"John, what the fuck are we gonna do? We need to get him out of here," Roddy said, scooting closer to Rattle to check the old man's pulse, which was surprisingly strong and steady considering how serious the injury. "He shouldn't have done that."