Obsidian Butterfly

All I did know was that I could feel the darkness pressing like a hand about to crush us all. It was a heaviness in the air like before a thunderstorm, but worse, closer, harder to breathe through. Something bad was coming, and it was tied to the darkness. I wasn't able to convince Doctor Evans that his patients were dead, but my urgency must have been persuasive because he did give permission for the two officers that were already at the hospital to guard inside the room instead of out. The only proof I had that there were cops inside the room was a hat lying on one of the chairs outside the door.

I wanted to go into the room myself, but by the time I got suited up in gown and mask it would be full dark. It was that close, like a trembling line. So I stood in the hall and pretended that I was okay with it, because there was nothing else I could do.

Since Officer Rigby and Bernardo were new, they got the standard lecture about not shooting inside an oxygen atmosphere. It would be bad, though it wouldn't explode, which is what I thought it would have done. It would be the flash fire to end all flash fires, turning the room into a lower circle of hell for the few moments it took to use up all the oxygen or fuel in the room. But it wouldn't explode in a shower of glass and plaster. Nothing too dramatic, just deadly.

Rigby asked, "And if they try to eat us, what are we supposed to do? Spit on them?"

"I don't know," Evans said. "All I can tell you is what you shouldn't do, and you shouldn't fire a gun into a room full of oxygen."

Bernardo drew a knife from somewhere. He hadn't bent down near his boot, which meant it was a different knife, and one the werewolf in the bar had missed. He held the blade up to the light, letting it gleam. "You cut them."

Darkness fell like a lead curtain, almost clanging in my head like the roll of thunder. I waited for the door to the room to open. I waited for the screaming to start because that's what I was expecting. Nothing happened. Then pressure that had been building for hours vanished. It was as if something swallowed it up. I was just suddenly standing in the hallway feeling light empty, better. I didn't understand the change, and I don't like what I don't understand.

We all waited for a few tense heartbeats, then I couldn't stand it. I spilled a knife into my own hand and reached for the door. The door swung outward. I jumped back. The male nurse that I'd been introduced to earlier paused the door staring at the naked blade in my hand.

He never took his eyes off me, but he talked to Evans. "Doctor, the patients are quiet, quieter than they've been all day. The police officers are wanting know if they can step out of the room for a while."

"The survivors are quieter than they've been all day?" I asked.

Ben the nurse nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

I took two steps back from the door, and let out the tension in my body in a long breath.

"Well, Ms. Blake?" Evans asked. "Can the officers come out?"

I shrugged and looked at Ramirez. "Ask him. He's ranking officer on sit. But truthfully, I guess so. Whatever I've been feeling seemed to fade when darkness fell. I don't understand it." I slid the knife back into its sheath. "I guess there's not going to be a fight."

"You sound disappointed," Bernardo said. His knife had vanished to wherever he'd gotten it from.

I shook my head. "Not disappointed, just confused. I felt a great deal of power building for hours, and it just vanished. That much power doesn't just vanish. It went somewhere. Apparently, not into the survivors, but it's off somewhere tonight doing something."

"Any ideas what it's doing and where?" Ramirez asked.

I shook my head. "Not really."

He turned to the doctor. "Tell the men they can come outside."

Ben the nurse looked to Doctor Evans for confirmation. Evans nodded. The nurse ducked back inside, the door closing slowly behind him.

Evans turned to me. "Well, Ms. Blake, looks like you hurried over here for nothing."

I shrugged. "I thought we'd be ass deep in man-eating corpses by now." I smiled. "It's nice to be wrong once in a while."

We all smiled at each other. The tension spilled out of all of us. Bernardo gave that nervous laugh you sometimes give when the emergency is over, or the bullet passed you by.

"I'm very glad you were wrong, this time, Ms. Blake," Evans said.

"Me, too," I said.

"Me, three," Bernardo said.

"I'm happy, too," Ramirez said, "but it is disappointing to find out you're not perfect."

"If you don't know I'm not perfect after forty-eight hours of working with me on a police investigation, then you are not paying attention."

"I'm paying attention," Ramirez, said, "close attention." There was a weight to his gaze, an intensity to his words that made me want to squirm. In trying not to squirm I caught Bernardo's eyes. He was smiling at me, enjoying my discomfort. Glad someone was.

"If you were wrong about this, you may be wrong about them being dead," Evans said.

I nodded. "Maybe."

"You admit you may be wrong, just like that?" Evans seemed surprised.

"This is magic, not math, Doctor Evans. There are very few hard and fast rules. There are even fewer rules the way I do it. Sometimes I think two and two is going to add up to five, and I'm right. Sometimes all you get is four. If it lowers the body count, I don't mind being wrong."

The door opened, and two men came out dressed in Albuquerque uniforms. They'd headed for the door as soon as Ben the nurse told them they could go. I didn't blame them one bit.

Their eyes looked haunted. The tallest one was blond and built all of squares. Broad shoulders, thick waist, heavy legs, not fat, just solid, strong. His partner was shorter and almost completely bald except for a ring of brown curls low on his head. Apparently, it was his hat sitting in the chair by the door.

Doctor Evans said, "Excuse me." He moved past them into the room.

The short one said, "He can have it."

The blond looked at me, eyes narrowing, not friendly. "Well, if it isn't the wicked witch of the Midwest. I hear we have you to thank for us sitting in there for the last hour."

I didn't recognize him, but apparently he knew me on sight. "I suggested it, yes."

The blond moved closer, using his size to intimidate me, or he tried. Size just isn't as impressive as most men think it is. "Maybe Marks was right about you."

Ah hah. He must have been one of the officers on site when Marks kicked me out. I felt Ramirez start to move up, probably to step between us. I put my hand on his shoulder. "It's all right."

Ramirez didn't move back the step he'd taken, but at least he didn't move forward. It was probably the best I would get out of him. But it meant that I was sandwiched between the two men. The blond's eyes flicked to Ramirez behind me. The look on his face was enough. He wanted a fight and didn't really care who it was with.

He was glaring at Ramirez now, and I could almost feel the testosterone rising on every side. Enough testosterone to get the officer in trouble, maybe suspended when all he needed was to blow off some steam. He was trying to cleanse himself of the horrors in that room.

Both his partner and Bernardo were staying back. I didn't know what the partner was doing, but Bernardo was enjoying the show.

"You must have been one of the officers that helped Marks throw me out," I said. I was looking way up at the man, and he was looking over me at Ramirez.

It took him a second to blink and look at me. He frowned at me, and it was a good frown. I bet it made a lot of bad guys run like hell.

His partner came up behind him. "Yeah, Jarman and I were both there." The partner sounded calm, and I think worried about his partner. Good partners look after more than just your physical health.