That evening, Grace was too tired after her day’s rounds to think about cooking, so Nathan called Cosimo’s and ordered pepperoni pizzas. When the pizzas arrived, Denver and his friend Stu took theirs up to his bedroom so that they could listen to death/grind CDs, while Nathan and Grace ate theirs sprawled on the living room couch, in front of the television.
‘What’s going to happen to your phoenix project now that Ron’s dead?’ asked Grace.
Nathan chewed and swallowed. ‘I’m not sure. For the moment, I’m going to try to carry on as normal. I’ll probably have to produce a new budget presentation for the board, but once they see evidence of what the phoenix stem cells can do, I don’t think I’ll have any trouble at all in getting them to approve more funding. Doctor Berman says that he’ll give me his unqualified endorsement.’
‘But what about the phoenix attacking Ron like that? I mean that could happen again, and somebody else could get burned.’
‘Torchy was being protective, that’s all. He saw Ron going for Kavita, and he wanted to stop him from hurting her. I don’t think that kind of situation is ever likely to arise again.’
Grace finished her pizza and wiped her mouth on a paper napkin. ‘All the same, darling, you don’t know how Torchy turned himself into pure flame like that, and until you do—’
Nathan said, ‘Don’t worry. I’m determined to find out how he does it, and what it is that triggers him off. It’s crucial that we know. After all, it could be the key to how he can recreate himself, and how his stem cells can regenerate people’s burns. Kavita went back to the lab tonight to take more readings, and I’ll be running some more comprehensive tests tomorrow.’
He had told Grace that he had been interviewed by the police after Ron Kasabian’s death, but he had not yet told her that he had been also been interviewed by the same detectives after the death of Eduardo Delgado at Temple University Hospital, and why. He didn’t want to frighten her by telling her what had happened when Theodor Zauber had visited him at the hospital, and the threats that Zauber had made against him and his family.
‘The gargoyle is now a living creature, ja? And like all living creatures, it will do anything to survive. Just as you will. Just as your wife and your son will.’
He hoped that Theodor Zauber had been bluffing, but if he was anything like his father, Nathan knew that his threat was serious. He had urged one of his gargoyles to smash an innocent man to pieces, after all, just to prove what they were capable of, and to prove that he had no conscience about ordering them to do it.
‘How about a nightcap?’ he suggested, picking up their pizza plates.
‘A glass of that Merlot would be good,’ said Grace.
Nathan went through to the kitchen and took two glasses out of the hutch. He was just about to pour them two glasses of red wine when he heard a thunderous crash from upstairs, and the explosive sound of a window breaking. The impact was so violent that the entire house shook, and a row of side plates rolled off the shelf on top of the hutch, one after the other, and shattered on the floor.
The crash was immediately followed by a hideous screeching sound, like a train jamming its emergency brakes on, only shriller and louder.
Nathan hurtled out of the kitchen and collided with Grace, who was coming into the kitchen to find him.
‘What was that?’ she gasped. ‘Something’s hit the house!’
‘Dad!’ screamed Denver, from his bedroom. ‘Dad, come quick!’
‘Stay here!’ Nathan told Grace, and bounded up the staircase. He was only halfway up when there was another crash, even louder than the first, and the house jolted so much that he had to grip the banister rail to stop himself from losing his footing.
‘Dad!’ Denver called out, and this time his voice was shrill with panic. ‘Dad! There’s something trying to get in here! Stu’s been hurt real bad!’
Nathan ran across the landing and along the corridor to Denver’s bedroom. When he threw open the door he could hardly believe his eyes. The entire window had been smashed in, including the frame, and the carpet and bed were strewn with sparkling fragments of glass and broken pieces of glazing bars. Part of the wall on the left-hand side of the window had been ripped away, too, and the torn wallpaper was flapping in the wind.
Outside, the trees were thrashing as if they were trying to uproot themselves in terror. The street lights were flickering through the leaves so that everything in Denver’s bedroom seemed to jump and jerk like a scene from an old Charlie Chaplin movie.
Denver was crouched down behind his bed, while Stu was lying on his back with a large triangle of glass sticking out of his right thigh. His jeans were flooded in bright red blood, and he was shivering with shock.
‘What the hell happened?’ asked Nathan, kneeling down beside him.
‘Something crashed in through the window!’ Denver told him, so frightened that he was almost screaming. ‘It was like a monster or something! It crashed in through the window and there was glass flying everywhere! Then it came crashing in again, and I thought it was going to bite me!’
Nathan said, ‘Go downstairs, call nine-one-one for an ambulance, right now.’
Stu groaned, and tried to sit up, but Nathan pushed him gently back down again and took off his thick-lensed eyeglasses. ‘Just lie still, Stu. I’m going to take out this piece of glass and see how bad you’re bleeding. I won’t hurt you, I promise.’
Denver hesitated at the door, but Nathan told him, ‘Go! Call nine-one-one!’ and he went.
Nathan took hold of the thick brown woolen throw from Denver’s bed and used it as an impromptu glove. He gripped the triangular piece of glass in Stu’s thigh and carefully drew it out. Then he unfastened Stu’s belt and tugged his jeans down to his knees. There was a diagonal slit high up in the inside of Stu’s skinny white thigh, about seven inches long, which was pumping out blood like the mouth of a harpooned fish. Nathan guessed that the glass had cut his femoral artery, and that he was in imminent danger of bleeding out.
Grace appeared in the doorway. ‘Denver just told me that Stu’s been hurt. He’s called for an ambulance.’
‘A damn great piece of glass went into his leg,’ said Nathan. ‘Quick – hand me that towel.’
Grace took the white hand-towel from the ring beside Denver’s washbasin, and folded it up. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘I’ll do this. Press the heel of your hand into the crease of his groin – that’s it, just there – as hard as you can.’
She wrestled Stu’s jeans right off, and then she held the towel firmly against his wound. Meanwhile, Nathan knelt down next to him, positioned the heel of his hand over the pressure point at the top of his leg, and leaned forward with all of his weight, so that he would restrict the pumping of blood through his femoral artery. Stu said, ‘Ow!’ and tried to struggle out from under him, but he was already growing weaker, and Nathan held him firmly against the floor.
‘God, I hope those paramedics get here soon,’ said Grace. The hand towel she was using as a pressure bandage was already soaked bright red, and she tugged the bottom sheet from Denver’s bed and bundled it up so that she could press it down on top of the towel.
‘What the hell happened here?’ she asked Nathan, looking across at the shattered bedroom window. ‘It looks like a bomb went off.’
‘I have a pretty good idea,’ Nathan told her. ‘But first let’s make sure this kid doesn’t die on us.’
Denver came to the bedroom door and stood watching them for a while. ‘He’s going to be OK, isn’t he?’
‘Sure,’ said Nathan, even though Stu’s face was white now and his lips were pale blue. The blood from his femoral artery was creeping inexorably into the sheet and by the look on Grace’s face Nathan could tell that she was beginning to think that they had lost him.
‘He can’t die,’ said Denver.
Nathan heard the scribbling of an ambulance siren. ‘Go down and let the paramedics in, OK? Tell them what’s happened. Tell them that Stu has a severed artery in his right leg and that he’s bleeding bad.’
‘Should I tell them about the monster?’
Grace looked up sharply and said, ‘What monster?’
‘The monster that bust in through the window,’ said Denver. ‘It was like some kind of dragon or something.’
‘Don’t say anything about the monster,’ Nathan told him. ‘It’ll only confuse them. Just tell them about Stu, OK?’
‘OK,’ said Denver, doubtfully, and disappeared downstairs again.
‘What monster?’ Grace demanded. ‘What is he talking about, for Christ’s sake?’
Nathan said, ‘I’ll tell you later, I promise. All I care about right now is saving Stu.’
A few seconds later, two paramedics came running up the stairs, a thin blonde woman and a young Korean. The woman took over from Grace, applying a fresh dressing to Stu’s thigh, while the young man fitted an oxygen mask over Stu’s face and then ran down again to fetch a stretcher. Nathan stayed where he was, keeping up the pressure on Stu’s artery. The pale blue carpet all around was soggy with blood.
It took another ten minutes before the bleeding appeared to slow down. The woman paramedic wrapped Stu’s thigh in another dressing, and then she and her companion lifted Stu on to the stretcher and carried him downstairs.
‘Which ER are you taking him to?’ asked Nathan, as the young man closed the ambulance doors.
‘Albert Einstein Medical Center. You know how to get there?’
‘Sure. Yes. We’ll see you there. Please – take care of him.’