Authors: Katherine Kurtz,Scott MacMillan
Gradually Drummond became aware that he was not dead. He could feel a hot tingling spread through his body, and his wounds began to throb and itch as they closed up and the bleeding stopped. Despite his light-headedness, he found himself being propelled back into consciousness, almost as if some other being was willing him to wake from his dreamless black sleep.
Just as the elevator reached the executive parking level, Drummond became fully aware of what Kluge had done. Wiping the back of one hand across his blood-smeared mouth, Drummond pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, propping himself up with de Beq's sword, just as the door opened.
"Ah, Captain Drummond." It was Berringer who spoke, a pistol held to the head of a very compliant Brian Stillman, the fingers of his other hand locked in the tangle of Stillman's thick shock of curls. "Things are a bit tense here, so if you could just make it to my car under your own power, I'd appreciate it."
Drummond blinked, trying to make his eyes focus better and also comprehend what was happening.
"Where's my car?" he asked.
"Your friend has removed it from the crime scene. Whoever rented that blue Saab," he nodded toward the vehicle Eberle had driven into the parking lot, "will probably get the blame for the mess."
In a flash, Drummond understood what Berringer and Eberle were doing—though why and how Berringer was involved, Drummond had no idea. But whatever the motivation, he realized that any hope of escape lay in following Berringer's instructions. Dragging his sword behind him, he trudged wearily to the silver Granada and climbed in the passenger side, clutching the sword to his chest. Behind him, Berringer returned his full attention to his prisoner.
"I'd really like to kill you," he said conversationally. "I really would. But that would leave one too many bodies, so I won't." He raised his pistol and brought it down quick and hard against the side of Stillman's head. Stillman gasped as bone crunched, and he sagged to his knees.
"Good-bye," Berringer said, disentangling his fingers from Stillman's hair and letting him slump onto his hands and knees. "The police should be here in about fifteen minutes. I'd suggest that you be out of here by then, or you may have to answer some rather awkward questions."
With that, Berringer trotted back to his car and got in, driving off into the night with Drummond sitting silent and still a little dazed next to him. Finally, after they had been driving for more than an hour, Drummond spoke.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
"Rome."
"Why?" Drummond asked, for it made no sense.
"Because you'll be safe there," Berringer said. "As safe as in heaven."
The orderly in the starched white lab coat stood by impassively as the team of doctors worked frantically to revive the patient on the table before them. Finally, with the last of the IVs in place in the patient's neck, one of the doctors applied two paddles to the patient's motionless chest and called, "Clear." As everyone stepped back, a jolt of electricity shot through the body, causing it to arch several inches off the table. On the oscilliscope, where moments before only a flat line had appeared, the line spiked, indicating the first faint beat of the heart.
The orderly adjusted his eye-patch and stepped forward to get a better view of the spiking line on the scope. Satisfied that the heart was beating, he pulled up his sleeve and drew a scalpel across his wrist. As the blood welled up, he placed his wrist to the mouth of the unconscious man on the table.
"Drink,
Hochmeister
," Baumann said. And as he spoke, the electronic pulse on the oscilliscope grew stronger.
Katherine Kurtz has been writing fantasy for well over 25 years. She is married and lives in a renovated castle in the south of Ireland.