Blood Memories

"I can't do it," Wade said. "I'm used to knowing exactly what they're thinking. A normal psychologist would be accustomed to relying on instinct, on judgment calls. I'm not."

"I hear you two have been hanging out together a lot."

"Yes, we have… we have some things in common."

"You two? Like what?"

"I don't know. We both like football."

"Yeah, right."

"Just think about what I said, Cap, okay?"

McNickel took the advice under consideration, but Dominick always played the role of the perfect cop, so nothing came of it.

Years passed and little changed. On the morning of March 2, 2008, Wade and Dominick were riding around at the end of a night shift with a rookie trainee. The shift had been boring and uneventful. They were almost ready to call it a night and get some breakfast when a female voice on the radio asked them to check out a noise disturbance. The rookie acknowledged the call, and Dominick rolled his eyes.

"Great, I'm starving, and we get to call a halt to a beer blast. Now, in New York, nobody would even notice. They got noise twenty-four hours a day."

Wade smiled.

They pulled up in front of an old Tudor-style home to the sound of classical music screaming out the windows.

"Jesus Christ, what is that?" Dominick growled.

"Tchaikovsky," Wade answered with mock snobbery. "Francesca da Rimini."

"Oh, thank you so much. Now I can die happy. No wonder the neighbors are complaining."

All three got out of the car, but it was the rookie's job to handle the situation. As they walked up the lawn, a half-dressed man burst out the front door and onto the porch.

Before anyone could react or even blink, Dom had his gun out and aimed. That's another thing Dominick was always good for. As the man on the porch half turned before leaping off, Wade thought he saw dried blood in his hair and on his back. The whole world seemed frozen in a single moment. Wade's feet wouldn't move.

The man on the porch leapt off, crying out something none of them ever understood. On instinct, Wade reached out into his mind, looking for anything that might help. Then the impossible happened.

Fire from right in front of him lit up the morning sky. Flames burst from every pore of the man's skin, as if someone had dumped gasoline all over him and pitched a lit cigarette.

But Wade didn't smell any gas.

Then the pain hit him. His knees buckled.

"Dominick!"

Every muscle, every sinew of his body was being ripped open and left to bleed on the grass. All the separate little cords of his brain were exploding in an ugly mass. Pictures of a thousand deaths, a thousand lives lost, poured through him, and he was powerless to stop the visions.

He felt hands on his shoulders, holding him up off the grass.

"Call for help!" somebody yelled.

Then he felt her. The mind was feminine. He knew that from the first second of contact.

Pain.

Loss.

Terror.

Help me, he projected.

Then she was gone.

Incredibly strong hands lifted him and carried him through a doorway.

"Dom?"

Wade was four inches taller but twenty pounds lighter than his friend. Dominick laid him down on a couch as if he were a puppy.

"Wade, wake up."

Wade sobbed once and grabbed his own head.

"Stop it!" Dominick's voice cut through the echoing pain. "I don't know what to do."

"She's in here."

"Who's in here?"

"There's a woman in here, somewhere. Listen to me."

For an answer, Dominick grabbed his shirt collar. "It was him. That guy who ripped the white sweater. It's him. I saw his face. He's everywhere. I can't even think in here. You've gotta wake up!"

The agony in Wade's head began to clear at the panic in Dominick's voice. As he opened his eyes, the first things he noticed were coarse black hairs on the back of a hand grasping his shirt. Then he took in a pair of china-blue eyes on the brink of hysteria.

"Get out, Dom," he whispered. "You should get out of here."

If Wade had been Dominick, he simply would have picked his friend up and carried him outside. But he wasn't. The ache in his head still lingered. He didn't know what to do.

"I need some water," he whispered. "And look for a woman. She's here. Where is that rookie?"

"I don't know. Are you awake?"

"Yeah, don't touch anything. Go outside and call for backup."

"It's him, Wade. The one they wouldn't believe me about. But he looked the same. Exactly the same as fifteen years ago."

"Do you see a woman?"

"No, why do you keep asking that?"

"She's here. She felt it."

"Felt what?"

"When that man died… it hurt."

It more than hurt, but he couldn't explain it. Dominick's eyes hadn't cleared yet. Something about the room had him nearly hyper-ventilating.

"Get me outside," Wade said. "I can't think in here."

Dominick dragged him outside. The porch seemed aged and faded, waiting to crumble like a yellow leaf in November. They moved past it and sat on the weed-filled grass, staring at the burning spot on the lawn.

"Do you smell gasoline?" Wade asked.

"No. Did you pick anything out of his head?"

"I didn't have time."

"It's him. It's the same guy."