Continuing the story of Patient #307. - Parce
Mauler thought he was going to vomit. He sat with his knees to his chest, staring at his hands, trying to ignore the smell. The steaming river of Megatropolis waste churned less than ten feet away from him, and its stench mingled with the acrid iron scent of the blood on his claws. Blood that wasn’t his.
He leaned forward to kneel as his stomach finally heaved. Then he wiped his mouth and coughed.
“What is wrong with you?”
Mauler looked up, still gasping. Ponder stood at the edge of the coastal cliff, facing toward the ocean with his hands clasped behind his back, watching the sunrise. The puppet turned his head just enough to set one eye on Mauler. “Do not tell me you have lost your nerve already.”
“We…” Mauler searched for words. “Broke promise.”
Ponder groaned. “How many times have we gone over that, Mauler? Healer does not have the knowledge that we do. He has no idea how dire his situation is about to be. Do you want him to live through this? How about Dreamer?”
Mauler didn’t answer.
Ponder turned around and started pacing toward the beast. “Brother, we are long past being able to afford sentimentality. Healer meant well, but he did not know what was coming.” He bent down and grabbed Mauler’s face with one hand. “What is more important to you? Healer’s safety or you keeping some insipid promise?”
“Healer.”
“Exactly. Do not condemn yourself over this. The Chugg Corporation and its lackeys are dishonorable men who prey on the good nature of others. If we are to fight them effectively, we must stoop to their level at times. Give no further thought to Wilter. He would have happily thrown every other sheep in the world over that cliff behind me.”
“So would you.”
“I would do it for Healer. Wilter would do it to save his own skin. That is the difference. Healer is the best of them. And they are all better off without Wilter.”
“Pigs will know we killed.”
“Of course they will. We are simply playing the game by the rules they set. They forced us to choose between Healer’s safety and keeping our cover. We chose.”
“Maybe chose wrong.”
Ponder stood up. “Bleeding Karkus, listen to you. You sound like Tenber. Is that what this is about? Do you think Tenber was right and we should have let Chugg destroy what Healer has built? Look at yourself. How pitiful you are. Now imagine it was Healer’s blood on your hands instead of Wilter’s. Would you feel better about that?”
“No.”
“Then look at me, Mauler, and listen carefully.” Ponder grabbed a fistful of hair on top of Mauler’s head and forced him to make eye contact. “Tenber is not even from this world. All he cares about is hunting his demon. He will use you, me, and everyone else he has to in order to achieve that goal, and he will cast us aside when he is done. Pay no mind to anything Tenber said. He merely thought our attachment to Healer may be an impediment to his own agenda. Do you think Healer is an obstacle?”
“No.”
“No. He is not. Because of who Healer is, because of what he did for us, because of what he represents, I will put him above all. And so will you.” Ponder gave Mauler’s head a sharp shake. “Rid your mind of doubts. Otherwise, we will fail at that critical moment when we must combine into Render. Do you understand me?”
Mauler sighed. “Yes. What now?”
Ponder released his grip and ran his wooden fingers through Mauler’s fur. “Now… we wait. We have made our move. Chugg must counter with power and haste if he wishes to keep order. Stay here and rest if you like. He will call us out before the day is through. And I will answer.”
I had the nightmare for the first time in almost a year. Probably because that night was the deepest sleep I’d had in about that long.
In my dream, I was in the front yard. I looked back to see my clinic towering into the night sky, with the Charlie Chugg sign leering down at me. His smile widened until it contorted his face into a horror mask. Then his mouth opened, and down his throat was a cavern flickering with molten lava like the tunnel where I had found Karkus.
A wave of fire rushed out of his mouth, washing down the front of the clinic and setting my whole building ablaze. The Charlie Chugg sign was consumed by the flames he was still gleefully puking onto my home.
I thought of Dreamer sleeping in my bed upstairs, and I panicked. I ran forward, but a ball of fire spewed out of the window and ate up the balcony before spreading to the front porch. I tried to get around to the back, but I was suddenly trapped in a ring of flames on the grass.
The walls of the clinic fell down to reveal my old house. It was on fire too, belching a column of black smoke that covered the sky and blotted out the stars. Caper was flying through the smoke, calling out for me. Then he dropped out of the air and landed on the grass in front of me, gasping and gagging on smoke until he wasn’t breathing anymore. I ran to his side and tried to turn him over, but then he was gone and the only thing I held in my forelegs was a bare sheep skull with Dreamer’s purple eyes staring out of the sockets.
I screamed. But then it wasn’t me screaming, it was coming from behind me. I turned around and Ponder and Mauler were standing in the flames, reaching for me with arms that were turning into blackened stumps.
Something splashed on my back and burned through my skin. At first I thought it was the fire, but when I turned again there was my father. He was reeling from a glob of acid that had hit him in the shoulder. Acid that had been spit on him by Entomber.
There the monster was, in the ring of fire with us. He looked like a gut sac pulled whole from a butchered animal, with his innards held together by a film of mucus. Eyes would squirt out from between the folds of intestines and press against the inside of the sac sometimes. Bones stuck out here and there, mostly curved ribs that undulated like the legs of a centipede as he pulled himself along. The front was a shapeless mouth with a jagged ring of teeth. And on top of the mouth was a sheep skull, like a mask or a decoy head.
The last time I’d seen the real Entomber, he had been wearing my father’s horned skull for his trophy. This Entomber in my nightmare didn’t have it yet, but he had the one with Dreamer’s eyes still in it. I wanted to turn away, but I couldn’t.
Entomber reversed his own digestive tract, unfolding his esophagus and stomach and intestines into an inside-out tentacle that reached for my father and shot more acid out the hole at the end. As they battled, I was suddenly separated from them. I was young again, terrified, helplessly watching the mad spectacle from outside the ring of fire.
Entomber had looked invincible the night he killed my father. I tried to hold on to my real memories—to the time I had witnessed Ponder and Mauler, combined into their Render form, beating Entomber to the point he’d been forced to take Dreamer hostage to save his own hide. I wasn’t afraid of Entomber anymore after seeing that. But that memory was distant and hazy compared to the images in front of me now.
The fight replayed just the way I’d seen it in real life. The gut-tentacle wrapped around my father’s head. But the old ram was too strong to be dragged into Entomber’s gullet so easily. He pulled back, and as the tentacle was forced out, something came with it. A dark red organ that throbbed like a heart. Entomber let go and withdrew his tentacle, probably to protect that organ. Then he let loose a huge blast of acid aimed at my father.
Time froze at that moment. Even the flames stopped moving. The acid glob hung in midair, a fraction of a second from splashing in Old-Timer’s face. This was the final blow that had allowed Entomber to consume my father. But with the moment frozen, I could see things I hadn’t before. My father was in his last instant of having eyes, and they weren’t even on his enemy.
They were on me.
I studied his face. There was no anger or fear or even sadness. There was only a certain satisfaction, almost a smugness about his look. As if he knew, even though he was about to lose this fight, he had already won.
I opened my eyes and I was back in my bedroom. Dreamer was next to me, alive and well, holding my chin with her hoof. Her eyes were glowing, but it was fading.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
I blinked. “What for?”
“You were having a nightmare. I tried to ease it. I think I actually made it worse before I got it under control.”
I rubbed my face. “It’s fine. I’m used to bad dreams.”
“Well, if I have anything to say about it, you’ll start to have some good ones.” She kissed my cheek and scratched me behind the ear. “It’s true, you know.”
“What is?”
“Your father knew he had won as long as he got you to safety. He knew he was sick, and he knew his own life was about to end. But he put all his faith in you.”
I sighed. “I’m not so sure about that. You didn’t know much of him when he was alive. He seemed to think I did everything wrong.”
“He knew what you are,” said Dreamer. “And what you’d do. He wanted you to be smart about it.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Besides, I just disavowed him on live TV. What kind of son does that make me?”
“Considering what’s really going on here, I think he’d understand.” Dreamer climbed out of the bed. “Come on. You need to eat something before opening time.”
Neither of us bothered to go out on the lawn to force ourselves to eat grass. We ate oats and drank coffee in the kitchen instead. I left her sitting at the little table while I opened the place up. I unrolled the window shutters, unbolted the doors, and turned on the wall-mounted TV.
That’s when I heard the news. It was a special bulletin interrupting the usual channel. Mayor Wilter was dead and the killer had gone out of his way to make it messy. I say “he” because I knew exactly who had done this. We both did. I exchanged a look with Dreamer. Neither of us had any words. I had no tears to shed for Wilter, of course. My first and only thought was there are going to be consequences.
The sound of the front door made me jump. I spun around to see Swifter letting himself in.
He stopped in the doorway. “You good?”
“Yeah. Sorry.” I gestured over my shoulder at the TV. “Just the news this morning has got us on edge.”
“It’s horrible.” Swifter came in and set his pack down at his exercise corner. He started unfolding the floor mats. “There are guard dogs everywhere. No one can go in or out of Fleece City. They have the whole square roped off. They didn’t want to let me out of University either.”
“Wow,” I said. “How did you make it in?”
“Well, Specter showed up first thing in the morning at the courtyard. He was, like, demanding to talk to Caper. So the owl comes out and starts arguing with him. They’re squawking at each other, Specter is saying Caper had something to do with the murder, Caper’s saying Specter is trying to buy his way back to Chugg, blah blah blah.”
“Sounds about right.”
“They’re so loud that the dogs outside the gates cover their ears and eventually they leave. I took the chance to sneak out the gate. Then I couldn’t get a cab and I wanted to stay away from Fleece City, so I had to take the long way around on foot. That’s why I’m late.”
“Oh.” I glanced at the wall clock. “I didn’t even notice.”
Swifter shrugged. “Not that it makes much difference. If the city’s locked down, most of our patients probably won’t be here today.”
“They shouldn’t punish your patients for this,” said Dreamer.
Swifter nodded to her.
“Well, maybe I can do something about that,” I said. Leaving them in the gym, I left myself into Gobb’s—my—office and picked up the phone. I dialed Fleece City Hall first. No one answered, so I tried Chugg Bank & Trust.
“Hello?” said the receptionist.
“Good morning. It’s Healer from Whole Hogs. I need to speak with Mr. Slog.”
“One moment.”
The bank manager picked up right away. “What?”
“Morning, Mr. Slog. It’s Healer. I need your help with something.”
He groaned. “I’m waiting on an important call. Make it quick, will you?”
“Can you do anything about the lockdown? My patients need to be able to come to the clinic for their treatment.”
“No can do. There’s an investigation.”
“Yeah, I heard. Sorry about Wilter.”
“Thanks. Is that it?”
“Look, you have all the financials. You can prove who’s got business at the clinic and who doesn’t. Can you get them cleared to come over here? Or is this entire thing coming to a halt until the investigation is done?”
Slog paused. “I got another call coming in. Don’t go anywhere.” He hung up without waiting for an answer.
Swifter looked into the office from across the gym. I shrugged at him. I sat there tapping my hoof on the desk for about two minutes before the phone rang again.
I snatched it up. “Whole Hogs, this is Healer.”
“Good news,” said Slog. “Your patients can go after all.”
I thanked him, but I didn’t like his tone.
The day went on almost completely the same as any other, with just one difference—Gobb never showed up. Thankfully, we didn’t have to turn away his patients. Dreamer offered to speak with them and use her power on them if they wanted. Most of them were keen to have a session without medication, and they warmed up to Dreamer right away. I was so thrilled I even called Whisper’s home to see if she would like a follow-up session one-on-one with Dreamer. Her mother happily agreed.
The whole time, though, I had a terrible feeling in my gut. As I ran around taking care of patients and introducing them to Dreamer, I kept looking at her for confirmation. She felt it too.
It was mid-morning, the busiest time of day for Whole Hogs, when they hit us. Swifter was walking his exercise group out onto the front porch, then they all screamed and ran back inside and slammed the door. That got everyone else’s attention.
I excused myself from my patient and pushed through the panicking sheep to get to Swifter. “What’s going on?”
He turned to me and all the color had drained out of his face. “Entomber’s out there.”
I ran halfway up the steps and whistled until all the chattering sheep looked at me. “Everyone, it’s alright. I prepared for this. He can’t get in. I’m going to talk to him.” On my way up to my room, I heard more footsteps on the stairs. By the time I had reached the balcony door, Dreamer had caught up with me.
“You said he can’t get in?” she asked.
“No. Well, at least not with his acid. Stay here.” I opened the sliding door and went out onto the balcony, all the way along the side so I could see the front yard.
Sure enough, there he was. The creature that had haunted my nightmares. My memory of him hadn’t dulled at all—he looked exactly the way he did in my dream from last night. The only difference was that the skull he wore now was my father’s.
I stood up on my hind legs and leaned over the rail. “What do you want?”
An eyeball stuck out of the side of Entomber’s body and looked up at me. “Don’t bother. We’re past the point of negotiation.”
I had seen my father pop one of those eyes, and Ponder and Mauler in their combined Render form had taken another. Not for the first time, I wondered how many eyes he had left in there. “I didn’t kill the mayor, Entomber.”
“But you know who did. And you harbored them before.”
“You won’t find them here. Try University.”
“We did.” Entomber opened his mouth and fired a glob of acid. But I was ready for that. I ducked back behind the corner of the house and it splashed between the slats of the balcony railing.
“Hey, idiot,” I called around the corner. “That wood is treated and the bricks are coated. You won’t get inside this building.”
“Perhaps not,” he said. “Awfully strange for an innocent sheep to insulate his home against acid.”
“The Megatropolis puts out a lot of pollution these days,” I said. At least that was the excuse I had used to justify the expense to Swifter.
“Or you were expecting this day.” Entomber moved around to the side of the house and shot another glob. By then I had already gone back inside and closed the sliding door. Dreamer flinched as the yellow slime splattered across the glass.
The lights cut off and I heard the TV in the gym go silent. A fresh round of panic went through the group downstairs. Then Entomber’s gut-tentacle slithered over the rail and pounded on the sliding door, getting a startled shriek out of Dreamer.
“I won’t leave,” Entomber shouted. “How long can all those sheep stay in there, Healer? The first one out dies.”
I knew he wasn’t bluffing. I headed out into the hall, pointing at the closet as I passed by. “Get in there and stay there.”
Dreamer followed me downstairs instead. “What are you doing?”
“They cut off the power!” Swifter said. Even he was starting to panic.
“Probably the water, too,” I said. I turned to the kitchen. Whisper was the one nearest to the sink, so I told her to try it. She jiggled the faucet handle and nothing came out. She shook her head with a look on her face like she had failed me somehow.
“It’s fine,” I said, raising my voice so everyone in the gym could hear me. “You can wait him out in here if you have to. I have a few gallons in reserve.” I didn’t mention that there wasn’t near enough to sustain the twenty or so sheep in here for more than a day. I had prepared for a siege against myself and one or two others, but not this many. Eventually someone was going to get uncomfortable enough to make a break for it, and—
—I’d thought I had at least a few hours to think things over before that happened, but not with this crowd. They were freaking out.
“I have nothing to do with it!” one of the older patients yelled as he ran for the front door. “He’ll let me go! I didn’t do anything!”
The second the door was cracked, a jet of acid sprayed through the gap. The patient staggered backward and howled in pain, and Entomber’s tentacle entered the room to even more screams. Swifter and I hit the door with our shoulders at the same time, slamming it on the appendage. Entomber let out a gurgling screech as the door bounced out of the frame, and the instant he yanked his tentacle back we both shoved again and heard the door click home. Swifter threw the bolt and then leaned against the door, breathing hard.
I went to the patient and sat down to examine him. The acid had hit him in the foreleg. Thankfully, it was just a small drop, and it left a wound about as big around as a coin. The rest of the acid had left smoldering holes in the floor and wall beside the door.
“Just heal it,” said the patient.
“I can’t,” I said. “Not the way it is. I’ve tried. We need to clean the acid and dead cells out of it first. A fine time not to have running water.”
Dreamer showed up at my side with a few bottles of drinking water from the kitchen.
“That’s great,” I said. “Get him washed up and then put a bandage on that.”
“Sure thing.” She went to work pouring water over the wound.
The patient looked at the damage to my floor, then to the girl washing his foreleg with our extremely limited supply of water, then to me. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“It’s fine. You didn’t know how serious he was.” I glanced at his leg. “Can you walk?”
“Yeah. I think so.”
“Good.” I stood up.
Dreamer glared at me. “Where are you going?”
“Out there.”
She stopped what she was doing. “You can’t! We’re not going to give him what he wants.”
“This is what he wants,” I said, gesturing at the patient. “He wants us to cower in here until we give in out of desperation or make a mistake and let him break in. I’m not going to let him have that. I’m going out to meet him.”
“You can’t fight Entomber.”
“Maybe not. But I can give you all a chance to escape.” I raised my voice again. “Everyone, listen. I’m going to head out the back door and draw him around that way. While his attention is on me, everyone run out the front door. Quarry sheep, follow Dreamer to the train station. Everyone else follow Swifter back to Fleece City. Got it?”
They didn’t sound enthusiastic, but they agreed. I looked at Dreamer, who didn’t look happy with me at all, and then at Swifter to see if he was ready.
He was still against the door, shaking. I walked over prodded his shoulder with my hoof.
“Hey,” I said. “You with us?”
He nodded, not looking at me. I turned him to face me—I had to be a little rough because of our size difference.
“I need you to lead these people out of here,” I said. “So get it together and be ready to open this door. Got it?”
He nodded again, still not making eye contact with me. I left him there and crossed the gym to the glass door at the back. I was reaching for the lock when Dreamer grabbed my foreleg.
“Don’t do this,” she said. “We need you. I need you.”
I touched her cheek. “Remember what Arghast said last night? I would see my father when I needed it most. That was the gift you gave me. This is that time. I need to do what he would have done. Now get these patients out of here. I love you.”
She was starting to cry as I unlatched the door, but she obeyed and locked it behind me once I was outside. I swallowed a lump in my throat and stepped out onto the grass.
“Enough of this,” I called out. “I’m right here, Entomber.”
The beast slithered around the corner of the house. I kept my eyes on him and sidestepped further away from the back door so I’d have room to dodge in any direction. He didn’t attack right away; he probably suspected a trap.
My heart was racing and my guts were up in my chest. I was highly aware of my limbs and face, like they anticipated being melted off. I had seen what he could do. But I fought the urge to run.
“Brave,” he said. “But a needless sacrifice. Look at them.”
I didn’t look away from him.
Entomber growled. “I will spare you a moment to turn to them, because I want you to understand your failure.”
I did as he said and flicked my eyes toward the glass door. Sure enough, none of them had run away. Even Dreamer was still watching.
“I’ve eaten lots of sheep just like you, sheep who fancied themselves heroes,” said Entomber. “You all have one thing in common: you underestimate the cowardice of the rest. I’m going to kill you now, Healer, but I just wanted you to know that your life or death won’t make any difference to the rest of them.”
I knew it, but I wasn’t going to let it show. I was determined not to give him any satisfaction. He opened his mouth and fired a glob of acid. I dodged that one and the next, moving toward him in a zigzag pattern as I had seen others do. I had no idea what I would do when I reached him. Even if I hadn’t lost my ability to attack, I had no teeth or horns. But I was going to try anyway.
Entomber extended an eye off to the side and it tracked me as I ran. He opened his mouth and then I knew he was going to hit me with acid before I could get close enough to hit him. I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed forward anyway.
Instead of a splash, I heard a roar. I opened my eyes and what I saw brought me to a hard stop.
Entomber was thrashing around, pulling at an iron hook embedded in the side of his mouth like he was an incredibly ugly trophy fish. That hook was at the end of a rope that trailed up over my head. I followed it with my eyes, even though I knew in an instant what I’d see at the other end.
Ponder was standing on the awning above the back door, gripping the rope with both hands and yanking Entomber off balance. I should have been relieved that I wasn’t being dissolved to death, but right then all I felt was dread. I had heard about what Ponder had done to himself, but this was the first time I’d seen him in person since he had surrendered to the Megatropolis.
The wood of his body was stained with dark streaks of something I wasn’t sure I wanted to know about. The stains made sharp contrasts in the grain along his limbs and chest. He had gone from four hooks on ropes to two, but those two ropes were grafted into his back. The rope not attached to Entomber was coiled around Ponder’s left arm. His multifaceted glass eyes went between magenta and orange.
At first, I noticed that his eyes looked dull, like the gloss of them had been scratched out. But then he jumped down onto the grass and I could see that his entire body was covered in some kind of transparent matte coating. Even the ropes and hooks had this stuff on there.
Ponder walked in a wide semicircle, keeping the rope taut and forcing Entomber to turn away from the clinic.
“So the traitor shows himself,” Entomber said. “You didn’t bring your lap dog?” When Ponder didn’t answer, Entomber darted forward, putting slack in the rope, and vomited a huge spray of acid all over Ponder’s face and chest. He yelled and collapsed forward into the grass.
I gasped. I was about to run to Ponder, but then I heard the sliding door open behind me.
“Healer, get in here!” Dreamer yelled.
With Ponder down, Entomber spit the hook out on the grass. Then the monster’s eye swiveled around to target me. “That takes care of that. Where were we?”
I braced myself. When Entomber turned toward me, I backed up and circled around to keep the open back door out of his field of view. I wondered how far he would let me lure him away from the clinic. I stayed light on my feet, remembering what Shiver had taught me, and managed to dodge two more shots of acid. Entomber let out a roar and then flung his tentacle at me. It wrapped around my chest and dragged me off my feet.
Ponder landed on Entomber’s back. The hook in his right hand tore out the jelly eye while his empty left hand grabbed the gut-tentacle. Entomber’s roar turned into a shriek. He bucked forward and tossed Ponder to the ground, but Ponder wrapped the tentacle around his forearm and held on. I managed to stand back up and grind my hooves into the dirt.
Aside from the steam coming off Ponder’s face, there was no sign he’d been hit by any acid. The matte coating was melting off in a few places, but by and large it had shielded his body from the attack. I remembered what he had said in his letter about modifying his body for a purpose. Now I knew what that purpose was.
“I’m blind!” Entomber screamed. “I’ll kill you both!” He thrashed back and forth, slamming Ponder into the grass and spraying drops of acid that landed way too close to me. I pulled as hard as I could. Ponder did too, but even working together we didn’t have the raw strength my father did.
Ponder tried to get leverage by pushing his feet against the ground or Entomber, but the monster wouldn’t hold still long enough. Ponder’s foot slipped along the surface of Entomber’s membranous body and accidentally kicked my father’s skull off of him. The next time Entomber bucked, he smashed Ponder’s head right down on top of the skull and shattered it.
Ponder was stunned by the blow, and he landed on the ground with his left arm still tangled in the gut tentacle. Entomber was in a frenzy. He yanked his tentacle in and got hold of Ponder’s arm with his mouth. He jerked Ponder around like a mad dog and then swallowed the arm. I pulled back as hard as I could. I tried to yell out for Ponder to come to his senses, but I couldn’t get any air from the pressure of the tentacle around my chest.
Entomber swallowed Ponder whole. All of the puppet vanished down the monster’s gullet except for the hook still stabbed into the dead eyeball. And the tentacle was still winding back into Entomber’s mouth. I pulled, but I was being dragged in too.
Dreamer came running out and wrapped her forelegs around my neck, adding her weight to mine. I tried to shove her away but I couldn’t break her grip. She’d left the door open and I could see Swifter and some of the patients standing on the back porch, frozen with shock.
Dreamer’s efforts, while appreciated on my part, didn’t do any good. Entomber kept pulling us in. But suddenly the pressure was gone and I fell backward with Dreamer landing on top of me. I gasped for breath and got back to my feet, getting between her and the monster.
Entomber was choking and spluttering. The tentacle slashed at the ground as he rolled and writhed. Then the membrane around his organs changed from translucent to dark red. With a scream, he flipped over on his back. An iron hook punched through the sac from the inside and tore a gash, spilling blood and guts on the lawn.
Ponder stood up from inside the rip he had made. The plastic coating had burned off. Chunks of his wooden body were missing at the chest and arms, and the wounds put off yellow steam. The blood had soaked into the grain and stained him dark red, like wine, highlighting that unnatural glow of his eyes. The bandage around the bottom of his face was gone and I saw his mouth for the first time—just a horizontal slit below his nose. The ropes were gone. The hook in his right hand had a chunk of dripping red flesh impaled on it. The meat was still moving and I realized it was Entomber’s heart.
Without looking at us, Ponder knelt down to pull his other hook out of the dead monster’s eye. He used one hook to shuck the red organ off the other hook and then started walking toward the front of the house. “Chugg will retaliate,” he said over his shoulder, “and we will be ready for them.”
“Wait,” I said. But he ignored me.
“Ponder, don’t go,” Dreamer pleaded. “What did they do to you? Let us help you.”
He stopped. With the other sheep still watching from the back door, the two of us walked up to him. He turned to us and hung both his hooks over one shoulder.
“I am beyond help,” Ponder said without sound, his voice only in our heads. “All that matter is that I destroy the enemy.”
“That’s not true,” Dreamer answered in the same way. “We still care about you. Even after what you’ve done. Let us in. Healer and I have learned something that can help you stop being angry.” Her eyes glowed. Then the violet of her eyes spread into his.
“So that is how you do it,” Ponder said. “Such a simple mechanism. Perhaps if I…”
The orange-red glow of his own eyes penetrated through the violet and then spread into Dreamer’s eyes instead. Her face screwed up and her cheeks flushed.
“Hey,” I said. “Ponder, what are you doing to her?”
“I am… not harming her.”
“Stop it!” I yelled. I reared up on my hind legs and shoved Ponder in the chest. He stumbled backward and the connection broke. Both of their eyes went back to normal. Dreamer fell on her side, staring at nothing. I ran to her and cradled her head. Ponder started walking away.
“What did you do to her?” I shouted.
“Nothing. She tried to read my mind. I merely read hers instead.” Ponder knelt down in front of the fragments of my father’s skull lying next to Entomber’s mangled corpse. He sifted through the pieces and stood up with a fragment in each hand.
“So obvious,” he said. “The answer was here all this time.”
“Put those down,” I said. “I’m going to bury him here.”
Ponder stared at me for a long time. He glanced toward the city, like he was thinking about walking off with the pieces he had picked up. But then he approached me instead.
“Bury what you must,” he said, “but hold onto these. You may need them. I know where I can find more… just one place in all of this world.” He held out his hands. In his palms were the broken tips of my father’s horns. One of them was a curved eight-inch dagger, but the other was just a shard about two inches long.
I glared at him until he dropped the pieces on the grass. He turned away and started walking toward the fenceline.
“Where are you going?” I demanded.
“Out of sight. I will wait for Chugg to make their move. You will see in time that I have done the right thing today.” He pointed to Entomber’s corpse. “Burn that to ashes.” Then he left, and he did not turn around no matter what else I said to him.
I turned my attention back to Dreamer. She stared off into space. Every now and then she muttered so quietly I couldn’t hear her. I tried to get her to come around but nothing worked.
Swifter came up to us. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t very helpful. I could have done more.”
“It’s fine,” I said.
“No, it’s not. Next time, I’m going to be brave.”
I glanced at him. “Just help me get her inside, would you?”
“Sure thing.” He knelt down and scooped her onto his back. At my direction, he carried her upstairs and set her down on my bed. Then we headed back down to address the patients.
“I wish I didn’t have to do this,” I said, “but we’re going to have to close for the time being. It’s too dangerous to let you be here while the Chugg Corporation thinks we’re involved with whatever is going on.”
“They attacked us,” one of the patients said. “Whether you’re involved or not. They treated us like we were guilty.”
“That’s right,” another one said. “You protected us and they didn’t.”
“We’ll figure it out,” said Swifter. “But we don’t want to put anyone else in danger. Everyone needs to go home while they can.”
Whisper and her mother were the first to bid us goodbye and leave. The rest followed. Swifter and I watched from the door.
“Well, brother, it was good while it lasted,” I said. “There’s no way Chugg will let Whole Hogs keep going now. It’s out in the open. Will you tell Caper what happened here?”
Swifter looked nervous. “Oh, I… wasn’t planning on leaving.”
“Really?”
“Well, it’s my business too, right? I know it’s your house and everything, but I want to stay and ride this out with you. If that’s OK.”
I shook his hoof. “Of course it is.”
I checked on Dreamer and wet her forehead with a cloth while Swifter took some chemicals outside and lit Entomber’s body on fire. She wasn’t stirring at all. I wanted to be nearby in case she woke up, but I also wanted to watch Entomber burn, so I went out onto the balcony.
I set the two horn tips on the railing, idly carving scratches in the wood with the small one while I looked at the flames. The sun worked its way over to my left and the sky darkened. Swifter sat out there and tended the fire the whole time. I wondered what he was thinking about.
I also wondered what Ponder had meant by “the answer.” I felt an odd mix of anger and gratitude toward him. He had put Dreamer in this state, but he had also saved us from Entomber and avenged my father. He had also said he would be on hand to deal with whatever Chugg threw at us next.
I didn’t have any more time to think about it. Movement at the corner of my vision caught my full attention. I squinted and barely managed to see a dark shape lurking at the edge of the firelight. It was a shape I recognized, low to the ground and slithering around the blades of grass.
I ran downstairs and out the front door just as the black shape reached the front walk. Then I could see its ragged shape and the dark steam coming off of it.
“Healer…” The voice was rasping and weak.
“Tenber!” I said. “What happened to you?”
“Chugg… knew…”
“It’s OK,” I said. “Just come inside.”
“Need shade… no light.”
“Don’t worry about that. We don’t have any light here.” I brought him into the darkened house and then guided him up the stairs. Then I opened the hall closet. “Here. This will be the safest place where I can be nearby both you and Dreamer.” For good measure, I stepped up onto the shelf to take the lightbulb out of the ceiling just in case the power came back on for whatever reason.
Tenber slid into the closet. “What happened… to Dreamer?”
“Don’t worry about it. Rest here and we’ll talk later.” I shut the door and headed back downstairs to close the front door. But when I got to the doorway, there was another dark figure headed down the front walk. One I really didn’t feel like dealing with right then.
“Healer,” said Shiver, “I know she’s here.”