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From Fayetteville west, then north to the border of Ft Bragg the ambulance had an uneasy police escort of first one car, then two following through the heavy night-time traffic. The driver glanced in his rearview mirror and his eyeballs tried to fall out of his head.
"Jeeeee-zus," he yelled. "Must go back there for miles."
Hanks looked at the shadow standing close enough to the dying body to touch it. He glanced out the rear windows and shook his head.
At the first thinning in the heavy traffic a cruiser belted ahead, lights screaming, siren wailing. It spun on the road, rear tires smoking on the wet pavement until it jerked to a stop facing the oncoming ambulance.
The driver slowed. With a snarl of flashing white teeth, Hanks reached though the doorway between them and grabbed the man by the back of his hairy, sweaty neck.
"Bud McAlester," he shouted, "you just step on it."
"But it's the cops," the driver yelled, wincing at the thick fingers biting hard into his neck. With a grunt he wrenched his neck free.
"Nobody," Hanks snapped, "but no-body, has the right to stop an ambulance on an emergency run. Got it? Not even God. Boy, I'm telling you now, if this kid dies on us, I'm having you up on murder charges. Get a move on, now."
"Murder?"
The man exchanged looks with his partner. The woman nodded with far more assurance than she felt.
"Our asses are on the line one way or another, Bud. You think some cop is gonna stick up for us if the kid dies?" She snorted and shook her head so hard the short curls on her head bounced. "Not on your life, not if it's the fault of another cop."
The ambulance shot ahead.
He cursed, waved his gun. The patrolman from Fayetteville leaped aside and tumbled over the hood of his cruiser. He landed safely on the far side and jumped up to stare in angry disbelief at the mess the ambulance had made of the front left corner of his car.
The ambulance lost a piece of its left fender in a rending, squealing crunch. The van rocked wildly, the driver fought to gain control again, and then they were streaking down the highway.
Hanks looked back, teeth flashing. "Here's one who's going to have an aching ass once his captain got through with him." He winked at the paramedic who snorted a short laugh and they resumed patching the worse parts of Benny's flesh.
Benny whooped and crowed with laughter. Man, but this was great! Were the cops POed!
He squatted behind the doctor and paramedic. Benny cast admiring looks over the tight bottom of the petite woman. Sensing Benny's thoughts and catching an edge to his desires, his body stirred.
The woman scowled. "The kid must be having a wet dream." She chuckled, nodding at the body's reaction to her touches on the wounds. "I bet he was a real stud."
"A what?" Benny snapped into a stiff, angry stance. He winced and his body was suddenly hot with shame. Any action under the sheet deflated faster than a lead balloon.
Turning slightly, Hanks threw him a nasty grin and hissed in a low growl, "Get back in your body, kid. This ain't no time to be fooling around." Hanks let his features slice through the mask of flesh he wore.
Benny gaped in shock. "You're the dude with the face like a Mack truck," he blurted. "You're-"
Lightening cracked outside the ambulance. The vehicle rocked violently from the strike. Benny felt himself falling, floating slowly into his flesh.
The bloody mouth gaped wide. The single eye jutted from Benny's head as the vocal cords shrilled. Pain. Nothing but screaming pain. Every nerve, every bone and muscle cringed and shuddered in pain. The entire world was one raw, fly-blown wound.
Hanks lay an oxygen mask over Benny's face. Benny's mind faded in and out, knowing nothing but death sitting on his chest. He begged, pleaded with it to take him in his few lucid moments and was mocked by the giant who wore a doctor's garments.
Benny wanted to rise up and rip the giant's head from his massive shoulders that to white coat struggled to contain. His hands gripped into fists, ready to pound, to crush the man. His body struggled faintly against the restrains.
Hank's voice came soothing into his mind. Benny tried to free himself from his body, to fly away to the
dohi:yi, the quiet place and a aggrieving Hanks didn't dare to let him go. Benny would die if he didn't stay in his flesh at this time. The body was too torn and battered to continue on with only the soul to give it the will to live.
"Stay with us, kid," Hanks whispered, working franticly to keep the heart pumping. Benny's eye fluttered open, blood-shot and stark with hate. It closed and Benny uttered a small moan.
The heartbeat slowed. It became faint and erratic.
"No," Hanks bellowed. He thumped his fist on Benny's chest and glanced at the monitor. A flat line mocked his eyes. The paramedic shoved him aside, producing a dripping needle as if by magic.
Giving the body a small, apologetic smile, she pressed the tip into the flesh and down into Benny's stilled heart. The line on the monitor peaked a few times then gave a tired beep before it flattened into a sullen monotone. A shadowy, dank thing, clung to Benny's chest, growing in strength and shape as it fed on Benny's life.
Owl smiled coldly at Hanks. The doctor was near tears in despair.
"Come on, kid. Please?"
Another few and Benny would be beyond him.
Hanks shook his head and raised his face to the Veil. What would a human do? He flashed a sudden smile and leaned over Benny. "Hey, kid? Your mom still selling it to the C/Os in the Women's Reformatory? I hear she was pretty good."
The paramedic loosened the restrains from the body to begin electronic therapy. Hanks continued whispering dirty little things he knew about Anna, Benny, and Carl into Benny unhearing ears.
The blood-shot eye exploded open. Hanks grunted as a bloodied hand shot up, wrapping itself around the columnar throat of the doctor.
"Shut . . . it, you friggin scuds."
The hand wilted back to the gurney and the eye shut again, but the monitor gave a lonely little beep, then another, and was soon peaking at a regular if weak beat.
The paramedic's jaw dropped and she backed away from the pair of them, her eyes wide and protruding.
Encasing the wrecked and mangled hand in his, Hanks could barely stop from laughing. "You're gonna make it, kid. In style, a rider to the bitter end. Like, yo."
By the gate house at Fort Bragg the ambulance hit a bump, a small stone in the road or perhaps a branch that had blown in during the storm. Benny's darkened world of merciful incoherence came to life with a scream. Tears washed down the raw, gravel-pitted flesh.
In his mind he shouted, "Ah, Carl . . . Papa Bear," his voice weak and uncertain, "It's all my fault, Papa Bear. My fault you're dead-" A shadow hissed from the dark recesses of Benny's soul. A splinter of bone twisted deep in his spine and Benny shrieked.
The world ground to a halt. Two Swords reached out and snapped the shadow from Benny's flesh.
The driver presented his ID and gave a brief description of the night's run, adding, "The kid is a marine recruit, private, and these jerks want him." He motioned at the cruisers screaming to a halt behind them. Police clambered out of their cars and shouted at the driver.
"They had me a time or two down in County." The private's face darkened. He stepped away and jerked his head at the road. "Move it." The ambulance streaked on to the base. He stepped into the road. Rifle at arms, he smiled unpleasantly at the first cruiser that plowed to a stop before him.
It was like moving through heavy, energized waters. It renewed him, took away the dark miasma of pain and the guilt that lay so thick on Benny. He was pulled up through the darkness of this world into the bright light and clean air of the
dohi:yi, heaven.
The first thing he saw was a man who had saved him from death and destruction of the soul many years before.
"Hey, Aga:Wya," Benny screamed and splashed water at the man.
The Sun Wolf grinned and gave Benny a lazy wave and the sign for the Eagle-Mother's peace. He felt the tremors of pain reaching from the dream world of Earth up, into Benny's spirit-body and he shoved them away. Nothing from the dream-time, the nightmare-time most former dreamers called it, was allowed in this, the place of peace and love beyond the flesh.
"Where you been, bro-wolf?" Benny grinned to show he wasn't angry with God for abandoning him. He stuck out a hand and let the tall, lean person of the Wolf haul him up, water running off his body and over the sun warmed Red-rock. He looked around. The dream world was made exactly like this. Only a copy of it, but no yan:ki B/S ruined the beauty of this place.
He looked back at the Sun Wolf. Tears stung his eyes.
"I was there, man," came the quiet reply, "waiting on you."
A pained smile stretched the deep coppery features. "I was with you, Wolf's Cub. Always," he said to Benny disbelief. "I swore I would never leave you, Bro, and I never did. A man's word is his bond,
he:wa?" He shook Benny's hand and with great reluctance he released it.
"I was there, li'l bro-wolf, with you in the Manse. There with you in prison under the Witless no Protection crap." A sly grin creased the lean face. "When you, your mom, and Carl-the-Bear were sitting in that restaurant stuffing your faces with Philly beef-&-cheese hoagies, I had two. When was the last time you had one?" He chuckled as the wolf in Benny's stomach growled. "What's it been? A year now, bro-wolf, hain'a. Up at the Walnut Street Tavern. The waitress was bored, the kid who tried to rob you, but Anna fed him, like she always does, and brought to me a new street warrior. Eastern Pen was in no wise like this place." His gaze wandered around, and he smiled at the black willows growing on the island in the river and the birds singing war songs in them. "But I was in there, with you, even after you turned on me, kid, and let that old man die without the honor of a life-song to follow him here."
Benny flushed. He looked away, down through the waters of the Little-Black River, called the Lehigh by the
ani:yan:ki, and stared at his body and the tubes and wires running from it.
"I did sing for him," he said quietly. The Wolf said nothing and Benny shook his head, unable to go back, to rectify the wrong he had done to that simple old man.
The Wolf touched Benny's shoulder. "Dohi:yi. Peace, Wolf's Cub. It's over and the Old-One is here and he's happy. He kind of adopted you, you know. Like we all do." The Wolf laughed at that and Benny flushed angrily.
He stopped abruptly and said, "Man, I'm hungry. How about you, kid?"
"Bro-wolf Aga:Wya, last time I had a hoagie was when I signed the dotted line up at the recruiter's in Wilkes-Barre."
Putting two fingers in his mouth, the Wolf whistled sharply.
Benny swallowed heavily and spat into the pristine waters of the Little-Black River. Hoagies thick with melted cheese and rare roast beef appeared on a wooden platter that rested on the hands of the prettiest spirit Benny had ever seen.
"Nice, huh?" the Wolf said, looking at the hoagies. The peppers lacing through the cheese were so hot the cheese was smoking.
"Yeah, beautiful." Benny winked at the petite spirit. She snorted at him and set the platter on the Rock.
"I meant the food, dude." Sun-wolf shook his head at the bloody juices oozing from Benny's hoagie. "Gross. But for you, the way you like it. Me, I don't eat 'em till they stop mooing." He took a large bite from his sandwich. His eyes studied Benny.
Benny took his hoagie and stared down at his body. He sat it back on the platter. Benny looked up. "Been a while, I guess, since I thought of you . . . Since Philly, I mean, and the Pen." He scowled in thought. "I . . . I don't remember seeing you there. In Philly."
Benny shook his head and refused to let any tears fall.
"Were you there? With me all the time?"
He wanted to believe, yet so much evil happened since, he couldn't see it.
"I was with you every trip, Wolf's Cub. I was always beside you in every fight, in every problem, in every happy moment. Like I told you when you were four and you agreed to be one of mine, we are inseparable. Word!" He held up a hand.
Benny closed his mouth on the heated accusations his wanted to make to his oldest and one-time closest friend and he waited, growing distant and bitter.
"I have never left you alone to face anything, kid. Especially times like these," he concluded softly.
A man's word is his bond, rang loud and iron-hard through Benny's head. He nodded, reluctant to admit most of his problems had been of his own making. Benny glanced through the dark laughing waters at his body.
A Warrior-guardian signed a greeting to the Wolf, then to Benny. "He means it, kid. Wolf-dude sticks closer than a bad hair cut." He nodded and his golden mohawk floated in the cool, sparkling breeze that trailed up through the gorge.
Benny noted he wasn't the big ugly one that always chased him from the quiet place, the outer part of the
dohi:yi, and he felt relief.
The Guardian dropped into an easy rice-paddy squat, his sword trilled a greeting at the Wolf's sword, the macana Word-of-god. He chuckled, made a small, helpless gesture with his hands. "Believe me, little bro-wolf, Big Bro-wolf is hard to shake. We, ah, all got times we wanna, too." He snorted. A flock of birds in the forest across the river squawked in alarm and swooped away.
The Sun Wolf grinned, his face stained with a deepening tint. He reached through the waters and adjusted a tube. Benny's body twitched and settled in a deeper calm.
"I was there, Benny, but you weren't looking."
Benny closed his eyes and his body choked.
"Want I should call it all off, little bro-wolf?"
Benny drifted upwards. He stared at a tiny cloud in an otherwise
flawless azure sky. "Nah," he said, "I was just thinking about Carl." Benny twisted to face the Wolf. "He didn't make it, did he?" Benny asked softly. "I mean, I thought I saw them, the tormenters, take him and Leda." The look on the Wolf's face told Benny he hadn't imagined it. "He loved you, Bro-wolf." Looking down at his body, he saw the left side of his face flush and streaked with tears. His voice hardened. "Why did Carl have to die?"
The bandages on his face were soaked with tears. His gaze drew up, stared at the Wolf.
Turning away to hide the moisture in his eyes, the Wolf shook his head. "You." It was said so quietly Benny had to lean forward to hear. "He did it for you, Benny." He glanced up and let Benny see the truth written on his face.
Benny screamed a denial. It echoed down the gorge through the Forest of the Sun and out to shake the stars with his rage.
A dozen cruisers plowed to a stop at the gates. The guards smiled politely and demanded to see IDs. Each policeman was forced to give his reason for entering the base at that time of night.
"There's a war on, sir," a guard told one enraged policeman. "May I see that badge again, Sir? I think I better check it against what we have on the computer."
"Screw off," the red-faced sergeant bellowed. "I'm in hot pursuit. You military punks are supposed to assist us." He shoved the accelerator to the floor and ripped out after the ambulance.
A faint grin on his face, the private sighted down his rifle and blew a hole in the left rear tire of the cruiser. The cruiser piled into a ditch and a guard raced to arrest the police in the car.
With a smile, the guard turned, his finger light on the trigger and shouted, "Next."
Benny was shoved into the E-ward of the hospital. A long, sleek car followed the cruisers. In the back, sunk deep into the plush cushions, Harshaw smiled politely and tried not to show his desire for the elegant woman sitting across from him sipping a glass of ginger ale and Tigh's '96.
She smiled, seeing the hunger in his eyes and let just a little more leg show.
"I am so very pleased to see dear Governor Giorgio was willing to work with me on this."
Cindy took another sip.
"Huh?" The man tore his gaze from her thighs and blinked rapidly. "Oh, yes, ma'am, our pleasure. The work is so very important, ain't- Isn't it?" He gave her a painful smile and hoped she hadn't noticed the slip. "I have the order all ready, ma'am. We're to pick up your ward, one Benjamin Wya Grey, at the hospital. No way of course they can refuse us, this being a military situation and Grey's cooperation needed for the war effort and all."
"It was very sweet of him, joining the Marines." Cindy allowed her head to slip back to the cushions. She closed her eyes to keep from seeing the calculating lust building in the man. He thought to try to gain something from her out of this. Perhaps he had actually believed she would follow through on her promise to bed him. If so, the man was no politician.
"Stupid, rather, don't you think, Mrs. VanTur?" The man uttered a scornful laugh. "It put him right in your hands. To say the very least, the boy wasn't exactly running to you, was he?"
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