Part 40 (1/2)

61. STEPHANIE GETS INTO DONOVAN'S BRAIN I knew after he finished with me, he would start on Stephanie. I knew also that there wouldn't be a thing I could do to stop him.

Not that I was having much luck stopping this.

The thought of Stephanie forced me to my feet. Broken and bleeding, the least I could do was keep him occupied. Give her time to flee.

He stood well back while I propped my legs under me like a newborn calf, wobbly and wet and trying not to stumble.

Stephanie said, ”For G.o.d's sake, stop it. You're killing him.”

Startled by the nearness of her voice, Donovan relaxed his martial arts stance for a moment and turned toward her. ”Baby, you haven't seen a thing.”

”Leave him alone, you big creep.”

”Your boyfriend broke my hand. It'll be a while before I'm through with him.”

Their brief exchange distracted Donovan long enough for me to run at him, head down, building up speed.

I tackled him just above the knees. My thought was that he'd go over backward, but it was like hitting a wall. If I'd had any teeth left, I might have sunk them into his thigh, but there was only wind and fluid where my choppers had been.

And then, without warning, he toppled over and I was on top of him, my fists moving like a blur of jackhammers. Or so I wanted to think.

Eventually one of my blows found the family jewels. Donovan yowled and curled into a fetal position.

Stephanie took a step toward us. ”No,” I said. ”Stay back.”

He rolled over and grasped me with both meaty hands, tearing at my clothes. The hospital top ripped apart. I might as well have been wrestling a gorilla-one of those big boys turning truck tires into pretzels behind the gla.s.s at Woodland Park Zoo.

Somehow he got one arm around my neck, and his grip grew tighter. We struggled, rolling across the floor, cras.h.i.+ng into the desk, knocking over a chair, rolling across the room to the vault.

When he tightened his arm around my neck, the pain became unendurable.

It was a strangely intimate position, his breath warm and moist on my face, the blood from his nose trickling into my eye. I could feel the warmth of his arm around my neck. Could hear his heartbeat thumping on my back as he slowly closed off my airway.

He cinched his arm tighter, crus.h.i.+ng my windpipe a quarter inch at a time. After some moments of this, he loosened his grip enough for me to get a s.n.a.t.c.h of air. He didn't want me to die too quickly.

We were on the floor, my eyes bulging, face itchy, limbs shuddering like a dying wildebeest. Big cats didn't kill their prey by ripping them apart. Not like you'd think. They clamped their jaws on the victim's throat and waited while the kicking victim exhausted the air in its lungs. It was revolting to watch, but not nearly as revolting as when you were doing the kicking and shuddering yourself.

”Run, Steph,” I gasped.

As I began to black out, a shadow pa.s.sed over us. For a moment I entertained a feeble thought that Stephanie was going to stab the b.a.s.t.a.r.d with the hypodermic she'd been holding. Or that she'd located his gun and was moving closer so she could put a slug into his brain stem.

Instead, she stabbed me. Hard.

In the b.u.t.tocks. The needle went in so deep, I swear it hit bone. Despite the fact that I was on the brink of death, it hurt like h.e.l.l.

A moment after the pain in my b.u.t.t subsided, Donovan screamed.

Realizing his grip had slackened, I wrenched myself out of his arms and rolled free. Climbed to my feet.

My neck was so stiff I could only turn a few degrees in either direction, and even that produced pain. I'd never had a broken neck, but if pain was any indication, I had one now. Along with the broken jaw.

On the floor, Donovan whimpered. Strange to hear him actually whimper. It was easy to see why. Stephanie had buried the syringe in his right temple. It was hanging there like an errant dart.

When Donovan grabbed the syringe and yanked it out, the needle broke off in his skull.

He looked up at Stephanie, his pale eyes burning, and for the first time since I'd met him, his tone of voice actually sounded menacing. ”I'm going to keep you alive, doc. I'm going to keep you alive all night.”

By now I was at the desk searching for a weapon. I was clutching a pen when he grabbed me from behind, knocked me down, got hold of my scrubs, and, as I kicked at him, pulled one pant leg off, then the other. The cloth caught on my foot and he dragged me across the room by the pants.

Once clear of the mess around the desk, he stood over me like a big-time professional wrestler, The Chemist, arms held high. Then he fell on me. It was almost in slow motion. And there wasn't a d.a.m.n thing I could do to stop him. I had only enough time to raise the pen before he landed on me like a sack of steer manure.

Oddly, his weight sagged. It took a moment for me to realize what happened.

I pushed him off and rolled across the floor.

His breathing was heavy and ragged.

Propping himself upright on the floor, he peered about the room with one eye. The pen was protruding from his other eyeball, a good four inches of it buried in his socket. He hadn't quite figured it out yet. I was finding it difficult to believe, myself.

When he began crawling toward me, I noticed a trickle of clear fluid dribbling down his cheek.

”Stop right there,” I said. ”It's over.”

”Not b.l.o.o.d.y likely. I'm gonna tie your guts around your neck and use 'em for a choker,” he whispered, reaching for me.

A single Bible lay on the floor between us. I grabbed it with both hands and hit him in the face with the flat of it.

The blow drove the pen in, so that now only the tip showed.

”Shouldn't have done that,” he said, toppling over sideways. He stopped breathing for a while and then started again.

I turned to Stephanie. ”You think he's going to make it?”

”I've seen people take that much trauma to the brain and live.”

We stood on either side, watching his chest heave.

My own breathing was rapid and shallow, my voice hoa.r.s.e, my pulped mouth dripping blood and saliva. Two fingers of my left hand were beginning to stiffen at unnatural angles. Several of my remaining teeth teetered back and forth when I ran my tongue over them. No matter. After tomorrow only a numbskull would feed me solid food.

”Why'd you stick me me?”

”I had to give you the antidote.”

”You have the antidote?”

”I found it in the vault while you were in the shower. Right before I heard him coming.”

”Couldn't you have used a smaller needle?”