fragment from chapter 7

Just as proof that I am actually sometimes writing, here is a little bit of chapter seven . . . remember please that Blood Rain is in it’s first draft.

About ten minutes later, I was seated on the ambulance bumper, numbly sipping a paper cup of steaming coffee and wrapped in a rough wool blanket. The EMT had checked me out and satisfied herself that I wasn’t the source of the blood on my hands and my clothes. She told me to stay warm and sit tight. I was deep inside my own ruminations about what I had experienced, so I didn’t notice Dougherty until he was standing right in front of me.

He had his cop-face on, brittle as wax, and less expressive. Uh oh, that means he’s really freaked out.

He squatted down near me. “Hey Suzi-Q, how are you feeling?”

My mind reeled with potential answers but I wasn’t sure where to start. He looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

“I heard the emerg call on my radio in the car, and remembered that you were coming here tonight for Josh’s game. I also remembered that this was Braydon’s school, too.”

I nodded and sipped the weak coffee.

“Here’s what the patrol officers told me: the red-headed kid says he was in the stall doing his thing and he could hear Braydon washing his hands at the sink. He heard another person come into the bathroom. Apparently Braydon said something like “fuck, no, lemme alone, get off me”. After that the kid says he heard only gurgling sounds and the sound of the glass breaking. He says he was so scared, he just froze in the stall and didn’t really know what to do”.

“Yes,” I said quietly.

“Then he says you came running in, yelled at him to call 911 and started trying to hold Braydon’s throat closed”.

I nodded again.

He leaned closer to me, and lowered his voice. “And I think you did some magic to try to stop him from dying or something, and now you’re all fucked up and spaced out”.

Tears welled up in my eyes. I blinked them away, and nodded.

“I opened the gateway without a circle, and there were some spirits who wanted to . . . interfere a bit”.

 

“You’ve never done that before?”

 

I shook my head.

 

“So we’re both in unknown territory right now.”

 

I started to cry, silent tear drops rolling down my cheeks. One splashed into the now-cold coffee.

 

“Aw, fuck, Suzi, don’t do that!” Dougherty exclaimed. “Where the fuck is Star and the rest of them? Have you seen them?” He looked around as he spoke.

I felt my cell vibrate in my pocket. Perhaps it had been vibrating for a while and I hadn’t noticed? I pulled it out of my pocket and peered at the small display. Yep. 20 text messages from Star, all some variation on whre r u?

“It’s her,” I said, gesturing with the phone. I pressed ‘reply’ to her last text.

Outside nr ambulance. My thumbs flew over my phone tiny on-screen keyboard.

Thnx gods! Whts happng?

Come find me, I’ll tell u then. 

A few minutes later Star had located us. I was still spaced and numb, and oddly preoccupied by the whirling bowl of hard stars above us in the inky night sky.