Scott Sigler - Nocturnal - A Novel

He felt blood sheeting down his face. His Nikes slapped lightly against wet sidewalk as he sprinted toward Van Ness Avenue.

Bryan ran south on Van Ness, the six lanes of sporadic 3:00 A.M. traffic moving along on his right. What few pedestrians there were got the hell out of his way — a black-clad, sprinting man with a Sig Sauer in his hand and blood streaming from his forehead didn’t exactly court conversation.

Despite his pain, his legs worked just fine. Long, loping steps threw him along. Everything whipped by so fast. As soon as this was over, he’d puke his guts out, he promised himself, but for now he had to ignore everything and get to that kid.

Bryan planted at Geary and turned left, momentum actually curving him off the sidewalk and into the road before he corrected. He heard sirens approaching — probably patrol cars already responding to Pookie’s call. The sound echoed through the nighttime city-canyons.

Bryan didn’t know where to go, so he kept running. He crossed Polk Street, dodging a car as he moved from sidewalk to blacktop then sidewalk again. Building walls shot by on his left, parked cars on his right.

Movement from above …

A burning body sailing off a rooftop four stories above. It blazed orange against the black night sky, a flailing comet trailing a tongue of fire that smashed into a white van, deeply denting the roof. Another flash of motion from up there, but whatever it was

[snake-man]

slipped out of sight behind the roof’s edge.

Bryan ran to the van and jumped. He found himself on top of the deeply dented, smashed-in roof — the man was facedown, small flames licking at his blackened clothes. Bryan whipped off his jacket and covered him, patting him down, snuffing out the flames. The man moaned.

“Hold on, buddy. I got ya.”

The sirens grew louder.

Bryan realized the man’s jacket — where it wasn’t blackened and melted — was crimson and gold.

BoyCo gear.

It wasn’t a man, it was a boy … the boy from his dream. Hurt, but not dead.

Bryan pulled out his cell and hit the two-way button.

Bee-boop: “Pookie, you there?”

Boo-beep: “I’m here.” He sounded out of breath. “I’m a block and a half away, I see you.”

Bryan looked down Geary. He saw Pookie running toward him.

Bee-boop: “Get an ambulance.”

Bryan slid the phone back in his pocket. Streetlights reflected off of the blood slowly pooling around the wounded kid, wet-red smearing the van’s white paint.

“Just take it easy,” Bryan said. “I’m a cop. Help is on the way.” He didn’t want to move the boy, but broken bones or an injured spinal column didn’t matter if Bryan couldn’t find the wound and stop the bleeding. “I’m going to roll you over. I’ll do it slow, but it’ll hurt. Did someone throw you off the roof?”

“Jumped,” the boy said, his words muffled because his face rested against the van roof. “Had to … get away.”

“Get away from who?”

“Devil,” the boy said. “Dragon.”

Bryan rolled the boy over. Wide, frightened eyes stared out from a face covered with third-degree burns. Swollen blisters — some shiny-white, some raw-red — clustered on his cheeks, his nose, his mouth, his forehead, on almost every bit of exposed skin. His eyebrows and eyelids were gone, as was most of the hair at his temples and on top of his head. Blackened clothes — the jacket and what looked like a football jersey — had melted onto him. A small but steady pulsing of blood bubbled up from the boy’s abdomen.

Bryan moved to apply pressure, but something on the boy’s face froze him in place. A bit of red hair on the boy’s lip, a bit more on his chin … the remnants of a scraggly goatee. Most of it had burned away, but enough remained for Bryan to see the blistered face anew. A small part of him knew this was Jay Parlar. A bigger part of him, the part that took over, it recognized something else entirely.

That part recognized the prey from his dream.

One womb, motherfucker .

A wave of hatred instantly bubbled up and boiled over into blinding, murderous rage. Bryan stood and straddled the kid, his feet balancing on the dented, blood-streaked white metal.

He reached to his shoulder holster, pulled his pistol, then pointed the barrel right between the boy’s eyes.

A charred hand rose up, palm out, as if flesh and bone would stop a bullet.

“You’re a bully,” Bryan said. “I’m going to kill you.”

The boy’s oozing lips struggled to form words. “Please, no.” He didn’t even have the energy to fight for his life.

Bryan thumbed back the P226’s hammer until it clicked. “Long live the king, asshole.”

The boy’s eyes widened. “That’s what the devil said.”

Bryan leaned in. He rested the muzzle against the boy’s forehead. The boy squeezed his eyes tight.

“Bryan! Put it down, now!”

Pookie’s voice. Pookie’s screaming voice. Bryan blinked, looked down to the sidewalk. Pookie … his chest, heaving … his gun, drawn … his feet, spread in a shooter’s stance.

Why the hell is my partner aiming at ME?

“ Drop it , Bryan! Drop it right fucking now or I will put you down!”

Bryan’s rage evaporated into the cool night air. There was something in his hands. He looked. He was holding his gun, pressing the barrel against the forehead of a badly wounded sixteen-year-old boy.

Bryan decocked the Sig Sauer, then slowly slid the weapon into his shoulder holster. The gun’s muzzle left an indented ring on the scorched, blistered forehead. The last of the boy’s energy seemed to fade away like a long, final breath — he closed his eyes.

He didn’t move.

Pookie scrambled onto the van’s hood, then up onto the now-crowded roof. The boy’s abdomen no longer pulsed blood.

Pookie grabbed the boy’s wrist, feeling for a pulse. “Nothing, shit .” He looked up at Bryan. “What the fuck were you doing , man?”

Bryan didn’t answer.

Pookie turned back to the boy. Left palm on the back of his right hand, Pookie started chest compressions. Bryan’s gaze drifted toward the buildings on the other side of Geary Street, at heads and bodies silhouetted in lit-up apartment windows. People were watching.

As Pookie pumped, he again looked at Bryan. “Were you going to kill this kid?”

Bryan blinked a few times, trying to collect his thoughts, then the impact of Pookie’s words hit home.

“No,” Bryan said. “He fell, he was on fire … I put out the flames. I didn’t touch him!”

Pookie’s hands kept pumping. “Didn’t touch him except for putting your fucking gun against his forehead, right ? And I saw you. I saw you jump up on this van. Eight feet up and you landed standing? How the hell did you do that?”

What the fuck was Pookie talking about? Bryan couldn’t do that. No one could.

The fever swept over him again, hotter than before, as if it was furious at being ignored and wanted payback. The aches pinched his joints, his muscles. His face felt wet and sticky. He touched his fingertips to his forehead — they came back covered in blood.

Pookie kept pumping, his arms straight, his hands on the boy’s sternum. He stopped to press his fingers against the boy’s neck.

Bryan waited, hoping Pookie would feel something there, but Pookie’s shaking head told him otherwise.

“Still no pulse.” Pookie returned to chest compressions.

The oncoming sirens screamed louder. Couldn’t be long now. Bryan watched Pookie try to save the boy. Maybe this was still the dream. Maybe if Bryan had given first aid right away instead of putting a gun in the boy’s face, the boy would still be alive.