Unsympathetic Magic - Laura Resnick [9]
“Hey, are you okay?” I said, my voice still breathless.
He moaned pathetically.
“Did they bite you?” I asked. “Or scratch you?”
Dangerous shit, indeed!
He said, “Unnng . . .”
“Jesus, what the hell are those things?” I said. “Do you know?”
“Ba . . . ka . . .”
“What?” I said.
“Ba . . . ka . . .” he said faintly.
The disjointed syllables meant nothing to me. They probably meant nothing, period. And that wasn’t important right now, I realized. “Are you hurt?”
In response, he moaned again.
“My name is Esther Diamond,” I said, trying to sound much calmer than I felt. “Can you tell me yours?”
He was a black man, tall and well-built, with a neatly trimmed beard. He looked very ill and smelled weird, but he was wearing a well-cut tuxedo, though it was a little worse for wear after his struggle.
“Your name,” I said. “Tell me your name.”
He seemed so dazed, I was afraid he might not know his name. But then he said, “Da . . .”
“Da?”
“Dari . . . Darius.”
“Darius! Excellent,” I said encouragingly. “Darius what?”
“Mmm . . . Ph . . . Phelps.”
“Okay, Darius Phelps.” Since he seemed unable to tell me whether he was hurt, I said, “I’m going to check you for injuries now. All right?”
He neither protested nor agreed. After a moment, I started my search for injuries in the obvious place: the arm that the greenish gargoyle had been attacking with such ferocity while I fought its companion.
I also stopped my investigation there, since I immediately saw that the hand had been torn off the wrist and was hanging by just a thin shred of flesh.
I gave a choked scream of horror. Then I tried to get control of myself so as not to alarm the wounded man.
I steeled myself to look again . . . and saw that the hand was moving. I uttered a sharp cry of shock and threw myself backward, flinching away from the active appendage.
Darius grunted, evidently wondering what was wrong.
I heard myself panting with panic and revulsion. My hands were shaking. My heart was pounding frantically.
Calm down, I told myself, unwilling to look at Darius’ dismembered appendage again. It’s just a spasm or something. Like a chicken running around without its head.
I needed to get help for this man. Right away!
I reached for my cell phone so I could call 911 . . . which was when I realized that my phone was in my purse, and my purse was in the clutches of a demented gargoyle.
“Shit!” I said.
No reaction from Darius. I checked to see if he was still conscious. His eyes were half-open, his dazed expression unchanged. I thought he must be in shock.
I tried to pull myself together and think.
My first thought was to go find a hospital or a police station.
I was already on my feet before I realized that wasn’t a practical plan.
“No. A phone,” I muttered. “I need a phone.”
I turned to Darius and forced myself to speak calmly. Or at least, I tried; I probably sounded as confused and scared as I felt.
“Darius,” I said loudly, “I’ve got to find a phone so that I can call for help. I won’t go far. And as soon as I find a phone, I’ll be right back by your side. In the meantime, don’t try to move. That’s very important, all right? Don’t move.”
Darius moaned pathetically again, which I interpreted as acknowledgment of my instructions. I repeated that I’d be right back as soon as I found a phone.
Then I tried ringing the doorbells of a couple of nearby row houses. No one answered in the first one. In the second house, a resident shouted down from the second floor that he was calling the police.
“Yes!” I shouted back. “Call the police! A man has been hurt out here!”
“Get away from this house!” he shouted back. Which convinced me that he might not call for help after all. I rang his doorbell a few more times. No response.
Then I heard a siren wailing. It sounded like it was only a block or two away. I followed the noise, moving as fast as I could