Red Right Hand by Levi Black Page B

didn’t like the Master crap, but Daniel was able to move and seemed to be better, so I let it lie.
    For now.
    We caught up to the Man in Black at the entrance of the hospital. He stood, staring at the doorway, both hands deep in the pockets of his coat. We stopped just behind him.
    I hate hospitals. I hate them with the hatred. They suck. I haven’t been to one since I got out of one. Just being on the sidewalk I could feel it, on the edge of my mind. A therapist once urged me to go to a hospital, just to try and deal with my phobia. “Face your fears; you’ll be stronger for it,” she used to say.
    I found a new therapist.
    Now I wished I had at least given her advice a chance. Already my chest felt tight, lungs stuffed with cotton like a cheap cigarette filter, hard to drag air through.
    My hand clenched and unclenched. Pain twinged along the edges of the symbol cut into my palm, giving me something to focus on, something to help me stay outside my own head. I pushed away from my physical reaction and studied the waiting room on the other side of the doors. Empty.
    Totally and completely empty, not one soul in sight.
    Hospitals are never empty. Even at that time of night they had people. Patients, family members, nurses, orderlies, doctors all hustling and bustling, doing things and going places. The waiting rooms might not be full in the middle of the night, but they would never be empty.
    The creeps climbed my spine.
    â€œWhere is everybody?” My voice shook. Just a little.
    The Man in Black didn’t look at me, still studying the door like a raven studying a carcass. “They have probably been taken.”
    â€œTaken? By what?”
    â€œBy the thing we have come here hunting.”
    Cryptic much?
    â€œYou don’t know what we’re here to stop?”
    â€œThis place is warded. That is why Ashtoreth’s gift could only take us this far.” He leaned forward, tilting slightly at the waist. Dark eyes closed as he drew a long sniff through his bladed nose. He held it for a moment then snorted it out. His jaw opened, jagged shark teeth pulling apart in strings of saliva. That long, scabrous tongue rolled out between them, flopping against his chin, forked and too long. A jerk of his head lapped it up against the air.
    It crackled black sparks as it brushed a barrier I couldn’t see.
    That tongue zipped back into his mouth like a kid’s party favor. His throat worked, savoring the taste for a long moment. Dark eyes glittered when he looked down at me. “You are in for a treat tonight, Acolyte.”
    I don’t like the sound of that.
    â€œWhat does that mean?”
    He smiled but didn’t answer.
    Damn him.
    His left hand came out of the pocket of his coat holding something. He held it out to me. “Here, Acolyte.”
    It was a stick.
    â€œWhat is that?”
    â€œIt is your weapon.”
    I took it from him carefully, keeping my fingers away from his. The stick was twice as long as my hand and made of gnarled, rough-barked wood burned black to hard charcoal on one end. It was heavy, heavier than it looked. Heavier than it should have been.
    â€œUmmm, am I going to be fighting leprechauns or pixies? This is a pretty dainty club.”
    The Man in Black pulled his red right hand from his pocket. Reaching over, he touched the end of the stick with a skinless fingertip.
    A gout of fire burst from the weapon.
    Heat blasted my face, singing my eyebrows and scorching my cheeks.
    I dropped the stick with a curse.
    The flame guttered out as it clattered to the concrete at my feet. My face felt tight. The scent of burnt hair filled my nostrils, all I could smell. My burnt hair.
    â€œWhat the hell!”
    Amusement twitched the Man in Black’s eyebrow up. “That is the fire that Prometheus stole. You should be more careful with it.”
    Daniel bent and picked up the stick, holding it carefully between his fingertips. He didn’t say