Chapter 8
Spes Quod Fides

A heat, a flame

A candle on the sea of change

An idle way, a thought, a day

A stranger on a strange highway.

Windwalker

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Sirius followed Harry onto the ground floor, his thoughts diverted towards the dead man. He had ruffled the Raven like nothing before. Sirius had experienced nothing like it, he had always taken his inability to speak as normal, frustrating but normal. His nature divided equally between his high intelligence and wild avian instinct. Sirius had never before spoken in conversation to another, limited to gestures within the capability of his bird form. He WAS a bird and the need to converse was not and had never been a requirement in his genetic makeup, although his all too human brain was often frustrated by his inability to do so. It was only now with his fear and shock ebbing away that the event had taken new meaning and understanding. On retrospect it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to speak but his animal side revolted at the possibility. Such was the nature within himself and his current obsession.

The fact of spoken thought became secondary as he took in the conversation he had just been party too. The dead man had but briefly interrupted time, an impossible singularity, yet also Sirius thought of the fog that which had enveloped him, when Harry had vanished and the female cop had appeared. Then it seemed like time had wandered from his grasp, but now with the recent example, suggesting to it as potential fact, he second guessed it. Maybe the dead man had obscured time then too? Who was the dead man? and why was he different and yet the same to the ghosts? Why these endless strings of never answered questions? They were like tree's in a forest obscuring his path, keeping him trapped within a compound of no borders, no ending in sight. Sirius was the sort to like order yet all he had come across was chaos. He just hoped that the answers he sort, were close to revelation.

'A watcher waits while the witness writes, neither as one 'til all is done.'

This was apparently the main message the deceased had to impart to him but it was obscure at best to Sirius. A watcher, a witness were they not the same? Yet the final part, 'til all is done' spoke otherwise. The dead man had imparted this to him, seemingly of utmost importance, and made the bird wonder if he was either one or the other of those. Technically he was a watcher, watching Harry on his terror travels and yet also a witness to the degradation and fear the man had to face. Yet the saying suggested he or another could not be both until the end, which rattled his brain further. Either through the natural conclusion of his adventure or the finality of death, Sirius was sure he would know partial answers to at least the important questions. Asking why was just another road to nowhere. Sirius was already following one, a path where answers came along only when you reached them, in the end he decided he would just have to follow the trail to discover them.

Harry destroyed another walking zombie. This one a male doctor wrapped in his white coat. The axe he held splitting apart the zombie's shoulder in a shower of blood which stained the sterilised opal of the cloth. The body twitched and groaned before it fell and Harry walked over its corpse before it's convulsions had even stilled. The sickly shade of green on his skin receding, as after each death Harry became more desensitized to each act of murder.

Sirius back on track to his usual audacious self, trailed after Harry. Behind him, the walls whispered in unified voice. Begging, pleading, suffering. A choral of despair and withered hope. Within the unknown voices a ethereal figure hugged close to the shadows, watching the two trespassers. No sound came from the lips of this one, silent like Judas when he revealed the identity of Christ. As if speech held a darkened quality in a moment where a betrayal was sealed with a kiss. Words meant nothing, were but a false medium when life was wrought with change. It watched, biding itself within the shroud of voice and emptiness. An apostle, Judas, Jesus or the men who took away the Christ child, which place he took was not known. It watched for a time more, until both man and beast parted beyond its eye line, then the ghost disappeared deeper and deeper into the shadows until full darkness consumed it. The voices of lost souls following in it's wake, as if on the tail of a comet. Harry and Sirius entirely unaware of the voices or man.

Another white garbed victim wobbled into view when Harry turned the corner, its legs responding badly. Harry barely fazed now swiped out with his weapon of choice decapitating the zombie with impossible ease, blood spilling in a fountain from the exposed stump before the rest of the body followed the cranium and tumbled to the floor. Sirius to his chagrin was splattered with some of the risen blood and almost gave away his location to Harry when an indignant cry threatened to spring full throttle from his voice box. His sable, feathered body now tinged with crimson streaks. If Harry saw the state of him while Harry himself was in a state, the resultant fall out would be catastrophic for Sirius. Drops of blood was nothing to being splattered dramatically across the walls. He kept his silence.

Harry briefly scanned each room on the first floor, degradation as evident on the walls and floor as the rest of the Hospital. Things replaced former items and the place barely looked as it had been. Another tablet was left abandoned in one room and in another the banging of an unknown assailant sped up Harry's eagerness to depart it. Sirius followed behind as always but a growing sense of unease gripped his beating heart. A whiff of scent behind him jerked his head in worry but only the shadows and the continued rusted theme were evident. Yet something seemed subtly reordered from what he could recall. A cold chill parted through his body. Frustration at his nerves began to whelm. The derelict zombie hospital was worse then the school. He never felt a presence in his wake there, yet here, there was. All things appeared more there, more real then before and he had the growing feeling of a second shadow trailing behind with ever increasing insistence. And there was the constant image of that sitting corpse imbedding into his memory. There was far more company here then Sirius was happy with.

Another doctor and another door stood in Harry's way. He grabbed down on the handle of the door after disposing of the doctor and found with little surprise the sound of the lock barring his way. However the sound of footsteps behind that door riveted him. Sirius still staring warily at his back traded his attention sharply, something sounded odd with those steps. The look of mild interest on Harry increasing his own. It was not the shuffle of ill used feet that symbolised the zombies but rather the sharp tap of receding feet at the rattling of the door. Whatever lay behind it was not keen to face whoever lay beyond, namely Harry. The zombies craved the tearing flesh so it seemed unlikely to be one of them. Perhaps, Sirius thought, it could be the dim Doctor Kauffmann, as he was the previous occupant to this particular room. He could very well have made his way back here and locked himself away from the walking, flesh dropping zombies

"Hello? Is someone in there?"

Not a single reply was forth coming. Only an endless silence. Harry shrugged non-commitment and turned away, not having time or the inclination to examine further but Sirius was intrigued. His eyes trailed Harry as he walked away whilst his mind was opening itself to previously disregarded options. In a twinkling of an eye he made a rash and sudden decision. He would try to fly through it as he had done when first entering the Hospital all that time ago, it would be a brief look and Harry would not get far. Praying for it to work and thinking no more about it he flew straight at the door.

Preparing his body for a painful impact Sirius was thankful when no such thing occurred. Only the briefest vision of the doors innards surfaced before him when he caught sight of a desk from the other side. The faintest of cries reached his ears as he pulled himself short and there before him with wide eyes was a very living looking person.

Sirius landed awkwardly on the nearest surface and stared without conscience at the occupant, a woman wearing the recognisable uniform of a nurse, the same as the ones the other dead ones wore. However this nurse looked far more alive then her compatriots and with no visible lump on her back. Fascination eclipsed caution and care and he stared harder taking in all the details of the woman insuring he had not been mistaken in assuming her harmlessness. She stepped back, tipping into a desk behind her and wincing. Two bright red dots of pain marked her unnaturally white pallor, making her appear like a clown with pancake makeup spread laboriously across her face, red paint added to emphasize her features. Long brown hair clung watery to her skin and partially covered her bulging orbs.

Harry was on the move and Sirius knew that he had little time to ponder this woman. She was currently reverting further away from him and almost literally crawling under the desk she had jimmied. Note one, she was alive, one of the few Sirius had seen so far but like the others he felt no compulsion to stay with her, Harry was the key. She was for the moment safely locked away from the evils, note two and note three she creeped him out. Something was not right about her, it could have been that she had appeared as if by magic after the town turned or something else entirely, he could not be sure. Harry may not have been easily defined as alive but Sirius felt at ease with him despite the growing insanity. She, this nurse defied his emotions.

Sirius doubted she would leave here and he had to catch Harry before he got too far. By now she had hidden herself completely under the desk, as if that offered protection he thought sagely. She was locked in and out of the way, the safest place for her and he had to move, his interest sated to the point he wished to leave post haste.. Her bug eyes followed him as he attempted to return through the door and the relief he felt at passing to the other side caught him by surprise. With no time to ponder he zoomed down the hall barely concentrating or worrying now as he past more doors in search of his link to the town. A new exhilaration filled him as the former obstacles were now nothing to him, Sirius a little guilty relished his new found freedom now all he needed to do was to find Harry again.

A pulsing homing beacon spread warmth into his blood, far more comforting then the loud siren that accompanied any change to the town. That unusual relationship that bound him to Harry had another a secret it seemed.

That foreboding sense of being followed also arose within him and unable to resist he turned to look behind him. Shadows, blood, the usual but the feeling of being watched grew with every breath he took. He sped up his search for Harry but still that creepiness trailed behind with increasing vigour.

Sirius found himself down another long corridor curiously marked with strange symbols on the walls these inspiring more dread then the other ones had. Suddenly with no warning his throat constricted on him. He squawked with one final deep breath and plummeted ungraciously to the ground. His feet collapsing beneath him as he tumbled onto the hard floor surface in a ruffle of feathers. Even without the exertion of breath for flying the feeling of constriction did not ease, in fact it grew with increasing pain.

Sirius writhed and panted as his throat began to collapse to a pinhole. One foot tripped over the other as he twisted in desperation to wrestle the invisible hand that held him with a firm grip. Unbelievably more pressure began to assert itself on his windpipe, the squeezing the very life out of him. Sirius increased his frantic struggle to try and dislodge whatever was eager to choke him, his body heaving and shuddering as though in a fit. Pain a rare almost unknown sensation scaring him beyond all reason.

Revealing themselves from the darkness, two yellow eyes watched, greedily and smugly taking in the scene. In the blackening of his sight Sirius caught the intelligent gaze and felt the pressure renew to greater pain. In his jumbled mind he recognised those eyes, he had seen them before. Certainly not human though. The iris stretching long ways, flecked with green and reflecting a dark mirth that bore into him. A predator enjoying the final throws of its victim.

In a burst of insight Sirius knew whose eyes they belonged to. It was the cat from the school. The demonic creature had followed him here, had more then likely searched him for this purpose alone. How the creature was able to hurt him in such a way beyond his current situation but he did know in his dying thoughts was that the creature was evil incarnate. The little doubt he had of it evaporating into dust.

All of a sudden the constriction eased a little and Sirius gasped of what air he could, acutely aware it may be his last. He opened his weary eyes and saw the cat had shifted. It now sat crouched almost eyeball to eyeball with him and he felt sure he could see a burning fire in its gaze. Sirius felt his heart thumping hard in expectancy of any increase of choking and the closeness of the feline. A whiff of brimstone and rotting flesh greeted him and the cats skull also began to look more and more skull like only the eyes clear and full of rancour. Flesh appeared to shrink on its already skinny body. The mouth changed into a malformed grin, human like, the teeth held there looking far sharper then what they should be.

Sirius in his mind began a mantra in a language he did not know, taking him by surprise for he could not recall ever having heard it. A new pressure built in him but not from the resultant choking, in fact to him it felt warm and comforting, a blanket on a cold night. The cats look altered subtly to include mild concern in its plethora of emotions. Sirius had some how untapped another closed door of his soul and whatever it was had disturbed the cat. Encouraged despite his weakened state, Sirius concentrated all he had to that little fire burning within him. The cat swirled its tail in agitation, now more then mildly worried.

The mantra he repeated, began to gain a life of its own, working without his need to aid it. The inner being of his soul, for the first time taking full control of him. Sirius felt like he now was looking through a tunnel, absconded into somewhere deep within his own mind. What he did see form his distant vantage brought encouragement. The cat had retreated from his form, its cruel grin gone, in replacement horror. Sirius was sure he saw something new in the cat, another shape within the one it already held. Sirius tried to see what other image was there but before he could a blinding light crossed his sight and the world turned to complete and utter darkness.