"What's Mona's room number?" she asked as they made their way to the elevator that would carry them from the seventh floor to the lobby.

"Room 19," he replied with a smirk.

Mariella laughed. "Nineteen. Of course. Why did I even ask?" As the doors closed behind them and Paul pressed the button, she asked, "Will they hurt her?"

"Not if they value their hides," he replied grimly. As they exited the elevator moments later, they were suddenly confronted by Blondi, the security guard's dog, who was growling menacingly deep in his throat.

"Blondi?" Mariella said, surprised. "Hey, don't you remember me?" The dog responded with one sharp bark, teeth snapping mere inches from Mariella's hand.

"Get out of the way, fleabag," Paul growled back, throwing a short burst of energy at the floor near the animal's paws. Blondi ran away with a terrified yelp.

"I thought you couldn't do that outside of the Old Kingdom," Ella said, shaken, clinging to him.

"I couldn't," he agreed, more confused than ever. "Something's changed; I don't know what. I should know, but I don't." He pulled away from her, crying out and slamming his fists against the wall in frustration.

"Paul," she said, laying a hand on his shoulder, relieved when he stilled. "Paul, maybe this is what we've been waiting for. Maybe you can go with me."

"No, Ella, that I would know," he replied, his head against his forearm as he leaned against the wall. "But this... I didn't get the memo." He chuckled wryly.

She clasped his hand and he didn't stop her. "Come on," she said gently. "The sooner I do this, the sooner you'll be free."

He straightened up and said, "Well, let's get on with it, then," feigning that he was in a hurry when the truth was he was rue to let her go.

As they moved toward the exit, they suddenly heard a clamor of laughing voices, finding themselves face to face with the same people that had been fighting against them as they returned from their pre-dawn celebration. Upon seeing Paul, the merry crew was shocked into silence.

"The Boy," Abel said.

"The Bad Boy," Christa agreed.

"And the Lost Girl," Abel added, looking directly at Mariella.

"I thought you said he'd been cancelled," Dr. Draper said reproachfully to Mrs. Druse.

"I thought you said he was hideous," Nat Rickman remarked to Draper, eyeing Paul with a small but appreciative smile. Her husband, Peter, shot her a half-jealous half-horrified glance, but said nothing. Mrs. Druse, meanwhile, kept opening and closing her mouth in disbelief.

"Get out of our way, short-timers," Paul said menacingly. "This doesn't concern you."

"The hell it doesn't," Dr. Hook protested, making his way forward from the back of the group with a suffocating sense of déjà vu.

"You had your chance," Paul shot back, sounding pleased with the chance to wreak some havoc on the meddlesome do-gooders that had caused him so much trouble of late. He started to laugh, having decided that the best place to start was with the feebs. He lifted his arm, fully intending to blast them into oblivion.

"No!" Mariella cried out, seeing whom he meant to harm. Abel and Christa were the two beings most similar to herself that she had ever known, not feeble-minded in any real sense, and she could not stand by and let Paul hurt them. She threw herself between him and them without a second thought, taking the full brunt of the blast that Paul released before he could stop himself.

"No!" Paul shouted in anguish. "No, no, no! Ella!" He dropped to his knees beside her, appalled by what he'd done, but even more shocked that she was still alive. "Ella, come on. Stay with me," he ordered her, as if making it an order would force her to obey. His nose was filled with the scent of charred clothing and charred flesh. His hands were drenched with her blood as he held her. "Don't go," he said, nearly begging.

"Paul. Someone's there. Do you see them?" she said softly, wide-eyed. "No!" she protested, obviously talking to someone that only she could see. "Let go of me. I want to stay with Paul. Paul!" Her tone changed again as she called to him. "Paul, help me! Paul!" One moment she was calling his name, and the next... she was gone.

Paul screamed, his anguished cry reverberating through the building and sounding more like the howl of a savage beast than anything else. He picked up Mariella's limp body and slung her over his shoulder, oblivious to both the blood and the weight.

"You'll pay for this, short-timers!" he shouted, then disappeared, whether to the Old Kingdom or some other Where, they did not know. They did know one thing, though. What they'd done had backfired. Paul still existed. Their next encounter would surely be worse because Paul himself was worse.

Much. Much. Worse.

Welcome to Number Nineteen Opopanax Road, where nothing's okay in the Kingdom... and the Dead will never be at rest.


[Originally written for KettTurtonFan. First published online August 14, 2004.

To be Continued in Part 2: The Path's End. All Kingdom Hospital/Dark Tower Saga characters and elements are the intellectual property of Stephen King and/or Lars Von Trier.]