Phantoms

holding a gun.
    Bryce stepped away from the window, reaching for his own revolver. Too late, he realized he wasn’t in uniform, wasn’t wearing a sidearm. He had an off-duty snubnose .38 in an ankle holster; he stooped to get it.
    But Kale had seen him. The gun in Kale’s hand snapped up, barked once, twice, three times in rapid succession.
    Bryce felt a sledgehammer hit him high and on the left side, and pain flashed across his entire chest. As he crumpled to the floor, he heard the killer’s gun roar three more times.
     
    “ Drop it!” Tal shouted, and Jenny saw Jeeter, and another shot ricocheted off the bed rail and must have gone through the ceiling because a couple of squares of acoustic tile fell down.
    Crouching, Tal fired two rounds. The first shot took Jeeter in the left thigh. The second struck him in the gut, lifted him, and threw him backwards, into the corner, where he landed in a spray of blood. He didn’t move.
    Tal said, “What the hell? ”
    Jenny cried for Lisa and scrambled on all fours around the bed, wondering if her sister was alive.
     
    Kale had been sick for a couple of hours. He was running a fever. His eyes burned and felt grainy. It had come on him suddenly. He had a headache, too, and standing there at the foot of the boy’s bed, he began to feel nauseated. His legs became weak. He didn’t understand; he was supposed to be protected, invincible. Of course, maybe Lucifer was impatient with him for waiting five days before leaving the caves. Maybe this illness was a warning to get on with His work. The symptoms would probably vanish the moment the boy was dead. Yeah. That was probably what would happen. Kale grinned at the comatose child, began to raise his revolver, and winced as a cramp twisted his guts.
    Then he saw movement in the shadows. Swung away from the bed. A man. Coming at him. Hammond. Kale opened fire, squeezing off six rounds, taking no chances. He was dizzy, and his vision was blurry, and his arm felt weak, and he could hardly keep a grip on the gun; even in those close quarters, he couldn’t trust his aim.
    Hammond went down hard, and lay very still.
    Although the light was dim, and although Kale’s eyes wouldn’t focus properly, he could see spots of blood on the wall and floor.
    Laughing happily, wondering when the illness would leave him now that he’d completed one of the tasks Lucifer had given him, Kale weaved toward the body, intending to deliver the coup de grвce . Even if Hammond was stone-cold dead, Kale wanted to put a bullet in that snide, smug face, wanted to mess it up real good.
    Then he would deal with the boy.
    That was what Lucifer wanted. Five deaths. Hammond, the boy, Whitman, Dr. Paige, and the girl.
    He reached Hammond, started to bend down to him—
    —and the sheriff moved. His hand was lightning quick. He snatched a gun from an ankle holster, and before Kale could respond, there was a muzzle flash.
    Kale was hit. He stumbled, fell. His revolver flew out of his hand. He heard it clang against the leg of one of the beds.
    This can’t be happening, he told himself. I’m protected. No one can harm me.
     
    * * *
     
    Lisa was alive. When she’d fallen behind the bed, she hadn’t been shot; she’d just been diving for cover. Jenny held her tightly.
    Tal was crouched over Gene Terr. The gang leader was dead, a gaping hole in his chest.
    A crowd had gathered: nurses, nurses’ aides, a couple of doctors, a patient or two in bathrobe and slippers.
    A red-haired orderly hurried up. He looked shell-shocked. “There’s been a shooting on the second floor, too!”
    “Bryce,” Jenny said, and a cold blade of fear pierced her.
    “What’s going on here?” Tal said.
    Jenny ran for the exit door at the end of the hall, slammed through it, went down the stairs two at a time. Tal caught up with her by the time she reached the bottom of the second flight. He pulled open the door, and they rushed out into the second-floor corridor.
    Another crowd had gathered outside Timmy’s room. Her heart beating twenty to the dozen, Jenny rammed through the onlookers.
    A body was on the floor. A nurse stooped beside it.
    Jenny thought it was Bryce. Then she saw him in a chair. Another nurse was cutting the shirt away from his shoulder. He was just wounded.
    Bryce forced a smile. “Better be careful, Doc. If you always arrive on the scene this soon, they’ll start calling you an ambulance chaser.”
    She wept. She couldn’t help it. She had never