Ed Gorman: Serpent's kiss

With no warning whatsoever, she began crying very softly, and then sobbing so hard that her entire body shook

Her mother was up from her chair in moments, and then sitting next to the girl and holding her with great tenderness.

"Please," Kathleen Fane said, "I think it's time you both leave."

While there was no malice in the woman's tone, there was certainly steel. This was not a request; it was an absolute command.

"I'm sorry if I made you mad back there."

"You got pretty intense."

"I just had to know about his stomach."

"I got the message."

"I'm sorry."

"I was just concerned about Marie."

Emily Lindstrom's voice softened. "The poor girl. She'll probably never really get over it."

Chris was headed back to the station. The harsh wind was blowing litter across the lighted drive of a service station. At a 7-Eleven people were getting knocked around by the same wind as they tried to run to their cars. For a moment Chris felt snug and warm inside her car, even if it was rocking slightly with every other gust.

And that was when, over the rock station that Chris was playing low in the background, they first heard about the killings at Hastings House.

"Two, perhaps as many as three employees of the mental facility have been killed tonight. This is all the information we have right now. But please stay tuned. We'll be updating this story every few minutes."

"To repeat-"

Emily snapped off the radio. "He went back to the hospital."

"But why? I thought he was trying to escape."

"There's only one reason I can think of."

"What's that?"

Emily Lindstrom said, "He wants to get into the tower."

For the second time tonight, O'Sullivan saw a section of the city turned into a kind of hell by the lights of emergency vehicles.

Hastings House had always had a quiet dignity for O'Sullivan-if you ever went crazy, this was clearly the place for them to take you-but tonight the dignity was being trampled by cops and reporters and onlookers roaming around the grounds, and by patients standing in heavily barred windows.

From the way the officials were running around, it was clear that they had no idea where Dobyns was.

Near the rear, at the entrance to the underground parking garage, an ambulance attendant was just closing the back doors on his boxy vehicle, three bodies having been set inside five minutes ago.

"Hey, O'Sullivan."

A cop named Schultz came up. In his grey suit and fashionably greasy hair (what was with everybody wanting to look like Jerry Lewis all of a sudden?), Schultz looked to be on the same diet O'Sullivan was-pancakes and malts.

"Nice gut you've got there," Schultz said, beating him to it.

"Yeah, like I didn't notice yours or anything," O'Sullivan said.

"So I've put on a few pounds."

"A few. Right."

"I quit smoking anyway."

"I don't even have that excuse," O'Sullivan said.

The four redbrick buildings that made up the new section of I lastings House had always reminded O'Sullivan of the small liberal arts college he'd gone to, spending four and a half years of wasted time pleading with WASP princesses for just a glimpse of the treasure between their legs.

"The way I get it," Schultz said, "the guy who stiffed the three staffers in the garage is the same guy who escaped from here the other night. Why the hell would he want to come back here?"

O'Sullivan shrugged. "You think he's still here?"

"Probably. There are a lot of places to hide."

"Why wouldn't he run away?"

"The police shrink thinks he probably came back here to turn himself in but then one of the guards spooked him so he killed these three guys."

O'Sullivan felt no temptation whatsoever to mention anything about cults or serpents that slithered inside the human body.

Schultz would never let him forget it.

"You still going out with Candy?" O'Sullivan said.

"Huh-uh."

"How come?"

"Let's just say that Candy wasn't exactly the most faithful woman I've ever known."

"I hear you. That's how my first wife was. I'm just glad she was hittin' on all these guys before AIDS showed up."

Somebody shouted Schultz's name. Then he was gone and O'Sullivan was thinking of what Schultz had said about Dobyns: He was probably still around here somewhere.

For the first time that evening O'Sullivan raised his eyes to the black sky that was streaked with misty moonlight and racing grey clouds.

The tower appeared medieval and almost majestic against the night sky.

As they pulled into the parking lot of Hastings House, Emily said, "I'm going up to the tower."

"What?"

"It's the only way I can convince him to turn himself over."

"But he'll kill you."

"No, he won't."

Chris shook her head. "I don't know how you can be so sure of that."

"The incantation."

Chris pulled the car into a parking space and shut off the engine. Before her, the grounds of Hastings House flashed with lights from the various emergency vehicles. Uniformed men and women with bullhorns and flashlights ran around the grounds. In one corner stood four men wearing flak jackets and holding rifles. This was obviously a SWAT team.

Their leader was talking with somebody over a walkie-talkie. The men looked very military.

"Then let me go with you," Chris said.

"No," Emily said. "I don't want you to risk your life for me." She looked at Chris with her luminous eyes and sombre beautiful face. "I need to do this for my brother, Chris, I really do."

"So you get up there and then what?"

"I ask him to come with me."

"And if he refuses?"

"He won't refuse. He's desperate. It's worth a try."

"It's so dangerous."

"If I can get him to come with me, it will save a lot of lives. The police may think they'll have an easy time of capturing him, but they won't."

Chris nodded to the SWAT team standing on the shadowy grounds in front of them. "What if they already know he's in the tower?"

"They don't. As far as they know, nobody has ever used the tower. They think it's strictly for decorative purposes."

"Emily-"

But as Chris spoke, Emily's hand was already on the door handle, pressing downward.

"I'm scared for you, Emily," Chris said.

"Don't be," Emily said. "Be happy for me. This is what I've been waiting for ever since my brother escaped from here that night."

Chris took her hand. "Just be careful."

Emily smiled her sad smile. "You be careful, too." And then she started out of the car.

"Wait a minute," Chris said.

"What?"

"I didn't think of this before. How're you going to get up into the tower?"

"My brother told me the route."

"You're sure he's up there?"

Emily smiled again. "Positive." She patted Chris's hand. "Now I've really got to be going."

Dobyns's hands and arms were soaked with blood as he ran up the winding stairs leading to the tower.

In any structure that has been closed to light and warmth as long as the tower had, a dankness sets in. In Dobyns's case, this meant that his sinuses erupted.

As he felt his way up the wall, wishing he could see better, wishing he did not still hear the sounds of the security men as they'd died, he began sneezing violently.

Maybe I need to buy a little Dristan tonight, he thought. Stop in at my favourite neighbourhood pharmacy and have them fix me up.

Deep within his bowels, the snake moved, turning, shifting.

Below him now, somewhere at the bottom of the stairs, he heard the wooden partition covering the window being pushed back. The window was how he got in and out of the tower. Who else knew how to slide the partition back and forth?

His eyes searched the darkness below, uselessly.

He stood absolutely still, listening.