Whiskey Witches, F.J. Blooding [ap literature book list .TXT] 📗

It didn’t take long after that for the pain to hit, hard. It didn’t help having Balnore’s knee digging into her abdomen. She tapped him on the leg.

He rose, his eyes narrowed as he watched her.

She put her head on the cold concrete. Her left hand rose to gingerly touch her upper right arm, but stopped when pain flared through her lower left side. She bled from at least three locations. One on the upper right arm, another on her lower left side and one on her—

Why hadn’t her hip hurt until she’d actually seen the darned thing? She touched her hip and pressed down on it, taking the pain from an almost dull, pulsating ache to a sharp-as-needles almost itch. Not much better.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

She sought out Balnore. She didn’t have the energy to fight him. She found Lucius. Sweat dripped from his face and his blue silk shirt was drenched. She swallowed. “What the hell happened to you?”

“I saved your fucking life, love. Be thankful.” Lucius slurred his words.

Balnore stepped into view. “We have wounded.”

“I’ll call it in.” Paige said, pulling her phone off her belt and tried not to wince. “How many injured? How many—” She used the desk to haul herself to her feet with a groaning grunt. “—dead?”

Balnore knelt on the floor in the middle of the room. “Check for yourself.”

It was time to stop being a baby. She wasn’t badly wounded. Others weren’t doing so well.

She walked around the floor, getting a count of the dead and wounded as she dialed.

“White.”

“Whiskey. I’m at the old paper mill outside St. Francisville. We need ambulances.”

“Plural? What happened?”

“Followed a lead. Found Sven. Mass casualty incident. I count…” She paused to look at the silent man at her feet, her heart heavy with guilt. “Six dead. Ten gunshot victims, at least four critically injured.”

A woman Paige had thought was dead due to the amount of blood on the concrete beneath her turned on her side.

“Make that five critically injured.”

White said something at the same time the woman on the floor reached out. “Help me.”

“I am.” Paige limped toward the woman and knelt. She took off her top shirt, and pressed the cloth to the woman’s bleeding abdomen. “White, how long ‘till help arrives?”

“Five minutes.”

“Great, thanks.” Paige stashed her phone in her pocket and used both hands to apply pressure, capturing the woman’s gaze. “You’re doing great. Everything’s going to be fine.”

“I know what you—” The woman’s eyes closed. She blinked them open and smiled tightly. “I know what you did for me. For all of us. Thank you.”

Paige frowned. “You need to stop talking. Conserve your strength.”

The woman’s bloody hand gripped Paige’s wrist. “You saved me. I am…I am free now.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“I know what it was.” The woman’s eyes seemed to brighten. “You removed that thing out of me.”

Paige looked away. She’d made all this possible.

The woman smiled, her fingers losing some of their strength. “Go with God.”

Paige let out a quick breath.

“He walks beside you,” the woman said. Her eyes drifted closed. Her fingers twitched once, twice and slid to the floor.

Paige looked up the ceiling fighting the reality of the moment. The brutal truth. She’d known these hosts were human, that some might die. Going in, they were faceless, nameless. In here, they spoke, had families, friends, lives.

Sirens sounded in the distance.

Paige shook herself and stood painfully. “Dexx? Dexx.”

“Over here,” Balnore shouted.

A man whimpered.

Another cried out for help.

People called to one another as those who weren’t hurt as bad pulled themselves out of their dazed states and started helping each other.

“The ambulance is on the way,” Paige shouted. “Be calm and patient. They’re almost here.” She limped around the bodies, and evaded the clawing hands of those desperate.

Dexx lay on the floor, one foot propped up, his arms and shoulders tight. He gasped loudly, his body jerking with every breath.

Paige hurried to his side and knelt down. “What’s wrong?”

“He had the wind knocked out of him.”

Paige looked up at Bal. “Wind knocked out of him? This is worse than a bit of wind.”

“He fell from a pretty good distance, Peanut.” Bal’s eyes softened. “How are the others?”

“One more dead. Four critically injured.”

“Then go look after them until the medics show up. I’ve got Dexx.”

Dexx’s mouth opened. His body jerked with another loud breath. His feet flailed on the floor before he closed his eyes.

“Peanut,” Balnore said. “You can’t do anything for him.”

That wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

“Get Lucius out of here and go deal with your people.”

My people. She let out a breath as an instant wave of dread entered her chest. Brian was going to want to know why there were so many dead people in his town. Shit.

She went to the desk, but Lucius was already gone. She spun, her side aching with the movement. “Lucius?” she called. “Luce.”

No answer, just a smear of blood along the wall that disappeared out the door.

Paige went to the door as the sirens closed in.

A red and white box truck plowed into the parking lot, lights going. Two men jumped out of the cab and one out of the back. The driver walked over to her. “Are you injured?”

“Not bad.” She changed direction and led them into the mill. “Detective Paige Whiskey, Denver. The scene is clear. Everyone injured was shot. There are four critically wounded.”

The medics ran to attend the others.

“Where were you shot?” the first medic asked.

“I’m standing,” she said, her eyes glued to the bodies littering the floor.

The man nodded and hopped into a run toward the nearest victim. He shouted questions to his partners and talked into the mic on his shoulder. They had it under control.

“Whiskey,” Brian called from the door.

The shine of headlights hit her in the face when she looked at him.

“What in the hell happened here?”

She moved to meet him half-way. “Followed a lead that turned into a trap, sir.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You don’t say.”

“Sven was here.”

“You didn’t call it in.”

Paige shrugged. “Demons. Did you want your guys or New Roads facing that?”

“I see your point, but, damn it, Paige. We’ve got protocol for this for a reason. Why so many dead?”

“Possessed. They were shooting at us, as forensics will prove. We defended ourselves.”

“That’s Mrs. Gardner. When I was sixteen, she was my English teacher.”

Paige rubbed her forehead with her good hand.

“And that over there? That’s Bob. He’s our mechanic. He just installed the new brakes on my wife’s car last week. And that over there? That’s Ray. He and his wife are on the church committee.”

“Sir—”

“Do not ‘sir’ me!” He pressed his fingertips into his closed eyelids. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to snap. How the hell do I explain this?”

“I don’t know.”

Brian’s jaw clenched as he folded his arms over his chest.

The paramedics wheeled a man out on a stretcher, calling to another person on the floor.

Brian’s nails went white with the pressure he was applying to his arm. “This has got to stop, Detective. The body count is higher than it’s ever been in this parish. You have no idea how to bring Sven in.”

“We think we discovered a way to kill him.”

“You think. Right. And kill. Not try. Not jail. Kill.”

“Unless you know of a better way to deal with demons.”

“No. I don’t.”

“Well, unfortunately, this is it.”

Brian stared