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“I had me some pizza at the house I was going to rob, Jesus. I don’t think that I’ll be in trouble for being there, what with me not being able to take anything. I’m gonna sue them, you see. Then I’ll be as rich as my son, who is not really my son. I have a daughter who is not my daughter too.” Curt giggled at what he was thinking. “I had me a pillowcase full of crap when that kid screamed loud enough to wake the dead. You’d think that the old fuckers would have died from it rather than pull out a mother fucking shotgun and tear into my ass. My private parts are going to be nasty after this. I hope I can find someone to go down on me after this. Might have to put that on my list of things to sue the old geezer for.”
He dozed off and on, trying to remember what he’d been doing and why he was in such an uncomfortable bed. Finally giving up, there was another loud noise and then he saw the cop again with Jesus. This was one fucked up dream he was having.
Chapter 8
Bryson woke to the phone ringing. He hadn’t given out his new number to anyone but the family, so he sat up in bed when Joel said his name. His first thought was his sister. That Curt had gotten her.
“Are you listening?” Bryson told Joel that he was now. “Good. Curt has been taken to the hospital. He’s in surgery. Since the hospital knows that you and I are related, they called me when they didn’t know how to get in touch with you. They want you to come down there, please. He’s in surgery, like I said, but they need to talk to next of kin.”
“Do you know what happened to him.” Joel laughed. “It’s that bad? Do I even want to know?” A smile tugged at his own mouth when Joel laughed harder. “This has got to be good.”
“He was caught robbing
a house over on Mantel Street. Mr. Manning is in his eighties, I think. Anyway, they had their granddaughter spending the night with him and his wife. Curt went into the little girl’s room, looking for shit to hock, when she saw him. Of course, the kid has a pair of lungs on her that sounds like a bull horn at a crowd. You should hear her singing at the plays they put on at—” Bryson heard Mercy tell Joel to get to the fucking point. “Right. Anyway, he has an ass full of buckshot, and his privates are shot to hell as well.”
“He robbed someone and got shot?” He felt his own laughter burble up from his throat. “He was shot by an eighty year old man when his granddaughter screamed? I do hope to Christ this is true. If so, then I hope someone recorded it all. I’d love to see this.”
“Curt was slipping and sliding around their kitchen trying to get away from Mr. Manning with his ass hanging out of his shot up pants, and his balls too. I guess once he got outside, Curt was shot again, this time in the back of his legs. I have no idea how he made it back to the hotel where he’s staying, but that was where the police found him. The fucker could set off an airport scanner, he’s so full of lead.” Both of them were laughing so hard now that Bryson was glad that he could lay back. His ribs felt like they were being crushed, they were so unused to laughing this hard. “That little granddaughter, about six or so I guess, she was yelling at Grandda to pop him again, begging him to shoot him full of lead. There Curt was, on the ground, with his nuts leaving enough DNA that Jimmy told me that it was like he was a fountain in the yard, just sprouting blood.”
“Oh my god, you have to stop.” Joel said that Curt had been in the bath when Jimmy caught up with him. “A bath? I bet that was a lovely color. Do you suppose Curt thought he could just get away and no one would see his ass hanging out and report it?”
“He kept saying that…. Oh Christ, Bryson, he told Jimmy that he cut himself shaving.” The last word had been said with so much laughter in it that Bryson could almost see his friend rolling on the floor with it. As it was, Bryson rolled over and fell on the floor himself. “He cut himself shaving? What a fucking moron. I swear to you, Bryson, I wish that I could have been there for the entire event. I might not ever be able to look at the man in the face again.”
Bryson didn’t think that he’d ever be able to do that either. Getting up quietly so as not to wake Blaze, he was downstairs in the kitchen when she came into the room with him. After kissing her on the mouth, Bryson told her what he was doing.
“I know the Mannings. He’s about eighty-seven. His wife is a year older. Christ, I would love to have been there. I’d have been egging him on myself.” She decided to go with him, but she couldn’t stay long. “I have to meet Mercy downtown about some paperwork that needs to be filed. I’ll meet you for lunch someplace. The guy won’t be able to get himself out of this one. You know that, don’t you?”
“I do. I have some things I need to get taken care of downtown too. Then Dawn needs me to go with her to have her name changed. There isn’t a birth record of her that we can find.” Blaze said to give her a day or two and she’d have one there. “Why do you think that it wasn’t filed? Or did Curt have something to do with that?”
“Witches didn’t adapt well to human ways, so there might not be one there at all. I’ll take care that it’s in her real name too.” Bryson thanked her and they left for the hospital. They were driving to the hospital in separate cars so they could go do their business afterwards, so Blaze reached out to him. Did you call the hospital?
I did. He was still in surgery when I told them we were coming in, but was about to be moved to recovery. They told me also that he might have to have some rehabilitation when this is all finished. The nurse didn’t say why, but I have a feeling that it’s more serious than I thought. Blaze said that it was just what he deserved. I agree. And I’m going to try my best not to laugh at him when I see what happened to him. He just doesn’t mean anything to me anymore. I’ve also called Dawn. She told me that she’s not coming in. She might later, but not today.
I don’t blame her. He might not be her father, but he did think about selling her to someone for a debt that he incurred. The nerve of some people. Bryson agreed with her as they arrived at the hospital. “All right. Let’s go and see what sort of mess he’s gotten himself into this time.”
They walked hand in hand up to the surgical unit. There must not have been much going on, because there wasn’t much in the way of staff around. Just as he was going to ask at the desk how Curt was doing, Blaze pulled him back against the wall and pressed her body up against his. He started to tell her that now wasn’t the time when three very large muscular men walked by him. They didn’t bother walking up to the counter as he’d been about to do, but nodded once at the women there and moved on down the hallway.
Blaze told him not to move. Afraid now, he did just as she asked him to do. Before he could figure out what was going on, a blast of hot air took his breath away. Piper, as her phoenix, stood in the hall where the three man had been. There wasn’t even a smudge on the floor where they’d been standing.
The women at the desk were gone too, but it was because Blaze must have done something to them to take them to the floor. They were being pressed down by magic, Bryson supposed, as there wasn’t anyone or anything touching them that he could see.
“Call the police, then wait five minutes and call security.” Nodding, he pulled out his cell phone. “Tell them only that Piper is here and where we are.”
“All right.”
He was as scared as he’d ever been, but made the call. As soon as he told the person that answered the phone that Piper was there, he could hear the fear in their voice as well. But the man was calm.
“Do we need to come there with vests on?” He told him no, as far as he was concerned things were taken care of. “All right, Lord Bryson. We’ll be there in less than five minutes.”
After hanging up, he asked if both Piper, who’d shifted back to her human self, and Blaze were all right. Both women nodded at him, and Piper smiled. He didn’t think that the smile was meant to calm, so he looked at Blaze.
“We’re going to have to talk to your sister.” He asked if she’d done this. “Yes. Not directly, but she called the people who Curt owed money to, and they were more than willing to take care of this. Those men would have killed everyone in that operating and recovery room.”
Bryson stared at where the men had been. When Piper turned his head to face her, she told him not to think about it. He thought he was going to be sick. Bryson told her that.
“No, you’re not. Look into my eyes, Bryson. Just look.” He did and saw it—saw what would have happened if the men she’d killed had entered the operating room. “See what she would have caused to happen.”
The men entered with their guns out, firing. A spray of bullets hit not only the three nurses in the room and the surgeon, but the equipment as well. Moving into the recovery room, they pulled Curt off the gurney and to the floor. His screams, begging them to allow him more time, were echoing throughout the room even as all three of the men shot him, each with a single bullet to the back of his head. When the oxygen tank was hit Bryson felt the heat of the explosion as if it had really blown. The aftermath of it tore out a great hole in the side of the building. All the people, including himself and Blaze, were blown from the building. The others were dead, including the three men.
