This isn't real, she thought. People don't just wake up one morning able to seal up bullet holes in their friends just by wanting it to happen. Something is going on here, something weirder than anything I've ever heard of in my entire life. . . .
She heard a choked noise behind her and turned. Liane was still standing there, visibly trembling, making odd gasping sounds like she couldn't get enough air to breathe. Without saying a word, she ran for the door, flinging it open. The noise of the street outside was deafening in the deathly silence of the store.
"Liane, wait!" Kayla shouted. Not even glancing back at her, Liane ran through the doorway and out into the street.
Kayla tried to get up and follow her, but another tide of dizziness washed over her. She slumped back against the magazine rack.
" . . . help me . . ." a weak voice whispered, very close to her. " . . . please . . ."
She looked around for the source of the voice, then realized, with a tiny start of fear, who it was. She stared at the gunman, lying on the blood-stained floor not quite three feet away from her. "W-what?"
"Heal me," he whispered, his face contorted with pain. "I know you can do it, I saw you help the boy. Please."
She edged away from him, shaking her head. He grabbed for her hand, pulling her close. "Please . . ." His face was very pale, his lip bleeding where he'd bitten it in pain. He placed her hand on his chest, rising and falling with each painful breath, against the torn flesh and warm wet blood.
He killed those two people, she thought. And he nearly killed Billy. And he would've killed me and Liane, too, but now . . .
Now his eyes were human again, not smiling inhumanly at something she couldn't see or understand. She could feel her hands tingling again, that strange feeling like something was going to happen.
I should help Billy, he's still hurting, his leg is still bleeding. I shouldn't help this guy, even if he is dying. . . . She could feel, somehow, the sensation that his life was fading away in front of her eyes.
This time she called it to her, that strange cold blue fire, and felt it wreathe around her hands and flow down through her fingertips. The man made a faint noise, something between a whimper and a moan, as the light coursed over his chest. She worked slowly and methodically, drawing the bullet out and sealing the wound shut. It was easier this time, in a way, though she could feel the exhaustion and dizziness pulling at her, a wave of darkness threatening at the edges of her mind. She fought it off for as long as she could, trying to concentrate on the man's wounds, but everything was moving too fast, whirling around her. . . .
No crowd had gathered in the convenience store parking lot yet. Thank God for small favors, Officer Dale Walker thought, drawing his service revolver and gesturing to his partner. She nodded, her pistol already out and ready, and edged closer to the door. He moved in quickly, gun held at waist height, covering the entrance to the QuickStart. Anne followed him in a moment later. He stepped over the bodies lying near the doorway, pushed the rifle away from the unconscious man in the long coat, then carefully bent to pick it up by the strap. Anne slipped past him, the petite red-haired woman checking through the rest of the store to make sure there was no one else in the building. He glanced behind the long counter: one motionless body, not a threat. She rejoined him at the entrance. "All clear, Dale," she reported, and hearing that there were no immediate dangers, he took a genuine look at the bodies for the first time.
"Damn." The woman was obviously dead. The young man behind the counter must have died almost instantly—a bullet had caught him in the throat. He had a surprised look frozen on his face, a look he'd carry with him to the city morgue.
A few feet away, Anne Houston knelt next to the man in the leather coat, touching his throat for a pulse. Two kids were sprawled on the floor beside him. Walker swallowed painfully; the kids couldn't have been older than fifteen, maybe sixteen. Too young to be caught up in whatever had happened here tonight.
He crouched down next to the kids, checking them quickly. Both were covered with blood, and the boy . . . there was a wound in the boy's leg and a bullet hole in the boy's jacket, and a lot of blood stains, but no apparent wound there. That doesn't make any sense, he thought. Maybe the kid moved after the first shot, fell into his own blood from the other wound, but it's unlikely. . . .
He pushed that thought aside, concentrating on his work. The leg wound was bad but not life-threatening, and could wait until EMS arrived on the scene in a couple minutes. He turned to the girl, hearing the sirens as the ambulance pulled up in the parking lot outside.
As he leaned over her, the girl opened her eyes, blinking up at him. "You'll be all right," he said, smiling reassuringly. She looked up at him, dazed and uncomprehending.