about it?" Holder didn't need this. Surely someone else could handle it? Where was Agostini when he was actually needed?
"I can't explain." Emery was growing pedantic. "You should see for yourself."
A huge lump rose up and lodged itself in Holder's throat. No sounds would pass.
"I can attend to Mr Olsen for you if you wish, Doctor." Jackovitz was already pulling on a pair of surgical gloves. The smile had mutated to a leer. "Nurse Calloway can assist."
Holder went blank. Then he nodded and pushed his way out of cubicle nine to stumble after the Sister in a daze.
There was blood on the pillow-case of cubicle five also. This, from a slash across the girl's cheek. And at the very instant Holder entered, a red stain spread through the sheet where it dipped between the patient's thighs.
He frowned at Sister Emery. "What the hell is happening here?"
The Sister was staring at the sheet. She turned wearing a dumb look and merely blinked at the Doctor.
2
Scavengers Vallande had called them. They ran upright on two legs, waved two arms. All brandished weapons - clubs, sticks, spears, swords. But the screams and roars they emitted were more bestial than human. Faces were hard to see because of the dirt and hair. Only the eyes shone - fires in the depths of Hades.
Mireille's breath had caught in her throat. The automatic reaction was to turn and run back the way they'd come. Bad move: there was nothing but desolation behind. No sign of the other initiates, nor the old guy. Not even the noisy obnoxious draff. All gone. It had taken only a quick glance to confirm that freedom of choice was an illusion like any other in this nightmarish world of Lonfay.
She managed to gasp out: "Over there!" LaRoche was stumbling hesitantly, seemed to be in a trance. She dragged him towards a strange outcrop of rocks, crystalline in formation. What interested her more than mere composition was the sheer face and height - protection for their backs, at least. "For Christ's sake!" Her mouth was bone dry, dusty. She spat. "Wake up, or we're dead!"
The leading scavenger was almost on them. More were right behind him. Too many for them to handle, even if LaRoche got his act into gear. Fear gripped her and she panicked, rushed for the mass of rags and hair, slashing wildly with both sabrettes, her mouth stretched wide, overflowing with obscenities.
The startled individual went down screaming, one arm completely severed at the elbow, the other hanging off at the shoulder. Mireille gasped in amazement at what she'd done. Whack, whack, take that, Mac! Jesus! Then more were coming and regrets had to be put on hold.
A spear-point glanced off her arm, sliced through the flesh in passing. She was too busy hacking to feel much. "LaRoche!" she yelled. A club missed her body by inches. "Help me!"
LaRoche's eyes were unmoving. Just the lids were blinking. He hadn't drawn breath for over thirty seconds, couldn't remember how. All he knew was that he was having the worst nightmare of his life and was positive he was going to die in it.
Searing pain burned his cheek. He gasped, slapped a hand to it, examined the palm. Blood! His blood! Then his back was against a hard surface. Shuffling sideways next, he was feeling his way with his bare feet as he fended off an attacker with random slashes of his sabrette.
Mireille was yelling, barbaric and frenzied; butchering anything that moved. Her own momentum hurled her against the rockface. She slid down it raking skin from an elbow. A sudden movement and a flash invaded the periphery of her vision. She jerked upright, flung herself in the opposite direction. Sparks flew as an axe-head ricocheted off the rock a whisker from her shoulder. A shower of flying chips stung her cheek. Her teeth were gritted, grinning. Hissing.
LaRoche couldn't identify with the expression. Surely she couldn't be enjoying this? He wasn't, just felt sick. The weight of the heavy weapon was dragging his arm lower with each swing and he knew he didn't have much more to give. A shadow crowded him. He cowered instinctively, put up the sabrette to shield himself as the lumbering savage tripped and sprawled. They fell, LaRoche underneath.
Gagging, struggling, fighting for room to move, air to breathe beneath a foul-smelling bundle of filthy rags and disease-ridden flesh. No response. His attacker was motionless like a carcass of rotten meat. LaRoche struggled, wormed his way free, rolling the scavenger onto his back in the process. The eyes were wild and staring, the mouth agape, a trickle of blood staining the lips before disappearing into a tangle of matted facial hair. LaRoche's sabrette lay across him, the back-spikes buried in his chest.
As he struggled to his feet, LaRoche noticed a wound of his own on his inner thigh. It fed a river of blood snaking its way down his leg. He couldn't feel a thing: too much mental anguish to be aware of physical pain. All he knew was that he wanted to run, to be free of the killing, the prospect of death, this entire bizarre fantasy. But even when he blinked hard and sincerely, it kept on coming.
His hands grasped something - a pole, he thought. The attacking scavenger was holding it across his chest, trying to shove it up against his throat and he was starting to choke. Tightening his grip, he pushed back, could feel a softness beneath the rags of the creature's clothing. A woman's breasts? He stared into the face. It was dirt-encrusted, the black hair matted and crawling, breath fetid, features a blur. But he had no doubt it was female.
The realisation shocked him. He didn't know why he'd assumed the attacking scavengers were all male. To be otherwise didn't seem right, put him at a disadvantage. Fighting a woman seemed wrong somehow. Until he inhaled deeply and found he could smell her. Not just her breath, but her body, everything! Then the bile rose in his throat again and revulsion overcame chivalry. He thrust the putrid individual away, held onto the pole, discovered that he had full control of it.
She was at his feet, snarling and spitting. He swung at the face with one end of the pole, only noticed it had a sharp point when the female's mouth became a red slash and gushed blood.
Stepping over her, he ran at a concentration of scavengers, took to jabbing and swinging the spear. He was a man at war with himself, blind to the suffering he was inflicting, seeing his victims merely as abstract symbols of an unbearable internal pain which had to be defeated at all costs. To hell with principles!
By then, Mireille's adversaries were backing off. She'd been shuffling along the cliff face, concerned only for the frontal attack, had reached the end of the crystal outcrop without realising. Aware she was falling, she jerked through a hasty backward roll and was on her feet ready to defend. Two seconds gone, maybe three.
Time enough. Too long, really. But the attack never came. Scavengers were there alright - threatening, yelling, brandishing weapons - but for some reason they appeared reluctant to advance into the narrow canyon in which she found herself. She snarled at them, swung a sabrette. They lurched back.
Then she remembered LaRoche. Oh, Jesus! He was out there on his own! She charged, slashing with first one sabrette then the other. A fearsome display, no doubt, which had more of an effect than was reasonable to expect. The scavengers at the mouth of the canyon, however, were suitably impressed. They turned tail and ran. The unexplained show of panic spread and Mireille found herself outside still slashing and yelling, but no enemy even close.
LaRoche was a few metres along the rockface battling a crowd of ragged individuals. For someone who abhorred violence, he was giving a better than average impersonation of a man born to kill. His attackers knew it. They were having to stumble over and around his victims while
