1"He's pretty much terminal. I'd give him a couple days, give or take." Hook said unsatisfied and grimly. "Get him to a nearby room and hook him up with A type blood and morphine. We're gonna try not to let this boat sink." Hook exited the room along with all but one nurse, who momentarily scurried into the nearby office that was attached to the room. I felt a cold chill run down my neck, a distinguished chin rest about my shoulder and fingers digging into the skin below both my clavicles.
"Awe. Isn't that sweet. Lil Short timer here found herself a mentally incompetent lunatic. What you going to do with him?" Paul taunted, tugging at the bandage wraps at his eyes, revealing two, empty, lifeless eye sockets. "Skull fucking might be a little messy." He laughed. I turned around to confront him and furrowed my eyebrows.
"Watch and learn, Short timer." He approached the boy's bedside, brutally wrapped his ice cold hands around Jason's neck and squeezed. Jason's breathing was faint, hoarse and choppy, his chest barely rising, he began turning a slight shade of red. I jerked my head around to stare at the heart monitor which had abruptly went from irregular beats to an ongoing moan.
"Stop!" I screamed at Paul and tried to pry his hands away from Jason's neck. "Dammit, stop!" I screamed again. Paul was laughing and with one hand I swung at his face. I clipped him right below the eye before he managed to grab both wrists and tackle me to the floor, pinning my sides down with his boney kneecaps and thighs. The monitor began to record his heart beat like it was prior to Paul's attack.
"You're really becoming a pain in the ass." He gently brushed my hair away from my pale face and tucked it behind my ear. I thrust the heel of my hand up towards his chin to break his jaw and get him to shut up, but he caught it in mid-air and observed the dog-head.
"I knew I couldn't leave you alone." He muttered, tracing the burn with his index finger. "You're going to have a hell of a time here, now that you are marked twice. Now I have to try harder to keep the bastard away from you." He hoisted himself from the floor and jerked me up with him.
"You have got to learn your place here, Short-timer." He sneered, turning away from me and drumming his fingers on the metal stretcher frame. "Let's give Anubis a little visit, shall we?" Paul smirked and cracked his knuckles hardily. I swallowed hard before he managed to whisked me through the tiled wall. Once again, I wandered aimlessly through Sweden Borgian Space, accompanied by Paul and the feeling of angst. Waves of light advanced across the dark hallway as the continuous static of the radio dulled my senses and inflamed my headache. Dim lights flickered on and off overhead and accented spiderwebs that lined the hallway. Another earthquake plagued the solid cement beneath us and convulsed uncontrollably for several minutes. Paul seemed unaffected by it all. Looming ahead in the darkness, a large specimen on all fours approached the two of us. It was huge, the size of a gigantic dog, but yet, it had an elongated snout and a large tail that trailed behind it.
"Anubis." Paul greeted the creature with a slight sense of hatred tainting his words. The creature bowed it's head and began to morph; fur becoming flesh, and snout, becoming the long, pale face of the boy Anubis that I recognized.
"Paul." The slender, lanky, leather clad boy responded.
"I assume you've already met Short timer here."
"Yes, in fact I have met your young companion. You really shouldn't just leave your toys laying around, someone could come and snatch them up." He said, coyly.
"Yes, well, just goes to prove that you can't trust Egyptian Gods to leave their filthy hands off of your own property." He hissed; his top lip curling back, baring cat-like fangs. I took several steps back, getting the feeling that this wasn't going to end pleasantly. Paul grasped my waist and for a second time, pulled me close enough to feel the stale cold nip at my cheekbones.
"I marked her; therefore, I own her."
"Well, I guess we BOTH marked her, therefore we BOTH own her. Gotta face the facts, Gate Keeper. Doesn't pay to be cocky." Anubis' eyes placidly looked over the young Paul and with some strange feeling, they seemed to laugh obnoxiously, knowing that they had caught Paul in his own game. Paul's head hung low, but through the curly black bangs he still continued to stare at Anubis and scowl.
"Sorry, Paul. I can't always play fair. Besides, look at her, she's barely capable of facing you, let alone laughing in the face of innocent, dying patients."
"She'll learn." He stated through pursed lips.
"Just watch your back, you meddling little migrane." Anubis once again morphed into his animal state, ushered a low growl and a vicious snort, and sauntered away, disappearing into shadow.
"Time to show you the ropes kid." Once again I was thrust through the wall, into a small, secluded hospital room. The light overhead was extremely bright; it hurt just to open my eyes. Across the room in one of those elevated hospital beds, a young adult male , about early twenties lay helplessly, each extremity of his body badly deformed. He struggled to breathe, his lips were chapped so badly that he could barely open them. His dark, mysterious eyes were blood shot and completely filmed over with tears and crust. His breathing was low and very throaty; hoarse.
"What the Hell are we doing here?" I questioned. A wide grin spread across Paul's face and he evilly snickered and sighed. He walked to the side of the bed and peered over the side into the young man's concrete eyes, staring blankly up into Paul's endless pits.
"So, how's life?" Paul breathed into his ear and laughed. Since the man couldn't move, all he did was follow Paul's eye contact; wide-eyed. Paul circled the bed like a hawk ready to dodge down onto it's prey.
"Livin' life on the edge? Must be hard to watch time pass before your eyes while your sittin' here, rottin' in this hospital bed." He continued to talk to the gentleman, a huge, sinister smile spread across his face. He slapped the patients face hard and issued a hardy laugh. The man's Adam's apple quivered as he tried to issue somewhat of a scream, but his vocal chords were completely shot and useless.
"Too numb to feel anything? Welcome to Hell." Paul looked over his shoulder at me and signaled with his chin to approach. I was helpless and frightened, and thought of resisting, but I knew it wasn't worth it, so did what I was told. He wrapped both arms around my shoulders, grasped my hand brutally from it's place on my rising chest and placed it, fingers down onto the man's chest.
"Put pressure on it Short Timer." Paul hissed in my ear. I hesitated, but after being prodded painfully in the lower back by his pelvis, pushed down slightly on the sternum. The chest cavity collapsed as I put enough pressure on my finger tips, and each of our entwined, but splayed fingers began to sink deep into the flesh. I felt the blood percolate between each, spread finger and was still forced to sink my fingertips deeper into the chest of the patient.
Blood bubbled to the surface where the man's bare chest was and began flowing over his emaciated sides and staining the stiff, white bed sheets. Soon, the tips of my fingers ruptured a heart valve and pierced through several layers of heart tissue. The thin, muscle fibers stretched as they caught between my fingers and tore away from the main organ. Blood spattered from the deep, menacing hole and dark sheets of red, chunky blood left lines of the uncomfortable, suffocating fluid trickling down my upper arms. Paul's maniacal laughter reverberated off the tiled walls and echoed down the hospital corridor, tainting the quiet silence with an unwelcome shiver of fear, and the quiet hum of yet another flat line heart monitor.
Paul's wrists relaxed and his fist enveloped mine as he struggled to pull it from the tar-like clot. My hands were caked in curdled blood, yet still drenched in fresh blood. I stared up into the eyes of my captor, and swallowed. He clutched in his right hand a towel and scoured the blood from the palm and the back of his hand. I just stood, staring at the red matter as it traced the lines that carved their way around my palm.
"Short Timer." Paul spoke to get my attention then launched the dampened cloth in my direction. I caught it and just stared at him for a moment, then patted dry the wet and then scrubbed away at the remaining. He dug his nails into my wrist and reeled me in to talk face to face.
"Short Timer, look. This is what it means to be in between. All of us, including that little bitch Mary have a duty to fill here in Sweden Borgian space. Do you understand, Short timer? Do you understand what the Hell this means now?" I didn't understand. I was far from understanding, but I nodded and pulled myself loose from his grip, unable to look him in the eye. I'm sure he saw me as a scared rat, wet, ashamed and petrified, just thinking of what could occur next.
He got behind me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders.
"Kid, I think you've got what it takes. I see that. Something that damnable gatekeeper can't. He wants to USE you. He doesn't want to help. He's a sucker. A hustler. You got that? Mary's a slave to him. He's going to use her as collateral."
"You don't know that. He has more brains and heart then YOU ever would. He's here to be a beacon to lost souls. You're just here to be that shadow that blocks the way." I felt more cold breath seep below my shirt collar.
"Don't be a smart ass, miss. It can get you into a lot of trouble here."
I lay back on the opposite wall, arms crossed across my chest, staring up into Paul Morlock's empty, lifeless eyes with an incomplete, but notable hatred. He was persuasive, probably something he happened to perfect before even death. He wasn't the beacon, but he wasn't shadow either. There was more history to this hospital then anyone would be able to retell, a lot of history from BOTH parties. The hospitals history ran deep.