Vessel: The Demontouched Saga (Book 4) by Douglas Wayne Page B

you.”
    “What’s wrong with her?”
    “She was in an accident this morning,” he said. “It was all over the news.”
    “Why didn’t you call me earlier?”
    “I didn’t know it was her,” he said. “You couldn’t even make out the car on TV.”
    “Is she alive?”
    “The officer wouldn’t tell me, but the lady on channel two said she was stable.”
    “Thanks,” I say, hanging up the phone as I tried to hold it together.
    I walked back over to the table and gathered my belongings.
    “Are you leaving already?” she said, puzzled.
    “I have personal issues to attend to back home,” I said, wiping a tear from my eye. “Allen Jones should be here tomorrow to finish up.”
    The rest of my time at her place was quiet. She had no questions, and I didn’t want to talk. I was thankful for that fact as I don’t think I could have held back the torrent if I had to say anything else.
    Once I sat in the car, however. All bets were off.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
    - 9 -
     
     
     
     
     
    I jolt upright from the nightmare with sweat pouring down my face. After wiping my head with my cover I look around the room.
    In the corner I see Ralph, shaking slightly as he moans in his sleep.
    “You OK over there?” I say, trying to sit up. My legs fail to move, however as they’re strapped to the table using a pair of small orange ratchet straps. “Who the hell would do something like this?”
    “I would,” Uriel says, entering the basement. “It was the only way I knew to stop you from leaving.”
    “It’s not like I could go far,” I say, pointing down at my leg.
    “No, but I know you too well,” she sits down on a large stool next to me. “You would have tried.”
    I smile at her. “Yeah, I would have.” I was going to.
    “Are you here to finish healing my leg?” I say.
    “It will be a few days before that,” she says. “That one requires too much attention.”
    I look over at Ralph. “How’s he doing?”
    “He is stable now. Though he may never walk again.”
    “You can’t heal that?”
    She shakes her head. “I told you. I have my limits.” She takes my hand when I lie back down. “I’ve only met one angel who could bring someone back from that.”
    “Zeke?”
    She nods.
    I close my eyes, failing to stop the tears that are fighting their way through. “I wish he was here,” I say.
    “Me too,” she says, caressing my cheek. “Now that he’s stable, I’ll finish your leg next. It should be easier now that the doctor has set the bone.”
    I look down at my leg, noticing it is splinted on both sides with a fresh bandage on top of it.
    “How long have I been out?”
    “Two days,” she says. “You’ve been in and out, but never longer than a minute or two.”
    “Nal and Sara take off for Ralph’s camp yet?”
    “They left this morning,” she says. “Let’s not talk about them though. Let’s talk about you.”
    “I’m OK,” I say. “If it wasn’t for a broken leg, I’d be in top shape.”
    She smiles. “I need to know. What attacked you guys back at the power plant?”
    “Three large dogs. About the size of a house.”
    She holds her hand to her mouth. “Did they do anything weird?”
    “Like melt through the fence? Or spit lava?”
    “They must have a portal open somewhere.”
    “A portal?” I say. “You mean like the one Tamiel closed?”
    She nods. “But a smaller one. If they opened one that large, there would have been more than three.”
    “What were those things, anyways?”
    “Hell-hounds,” she says. “A better question is who let them roam free.”
    “I always thought they would be smaller. Like a chihuahua.”
    She laughs. “I wish.” She reaches down and grabs my angel blade off the floor. “Did you kill them with this?”
    I nod. “Stabbed them in the head.”
    “Good,” she says. “We never found a weakness in our battles with them. The ones we took out fell because we damaged them faster than they could heal.”
    “I’m not sure how