Dragon Gate by Gary Jonas

we’ll need to leave the room.”
    “That was one pill, and it happened that fast?” one doctor asked.
    “It’s a higher dose than we’d use on a regular patient, so it worked faster than normal, but I’ll cover all of this momentarily. If you’ll all go to the waiting area, I’ll be right with you.”
    Nobody wanted to leave, so Kelly stepped in and started guiding the first few doctors toward the door. “Waiting room. Now. Mr. Farmer deserves some time with his wife.”
    They hesitantly left the room, casting glances back at the patient as they filed out.
    As soon as they were gone, I grabbed Graham and spun him around. “What the fuck is that thing? And how did it get there?” I pointed at the curtain.
    The curtain parted and the thing stepped out, but now it looked perfectly human.
    “That thing is my uncle. Lucas, meet Jonathan Shade.”
    “Hello, Lucas,” Mr. Farmer said. He clearly recognized him.
    “Hi, Carl. How’s your head?”
    “Feels better now, thanks.”
    Lucas stood six foot four and looked like he ate trains for breakfast. No, make that brains for breakfast. I wondered how the hell he’d even fit into that cabinet.
    “You’re with DGI?” Lucas asked.
    “No.”
    “DGI hired him. He’s independent,” Graham said. “Can you explain the situation to him? I have to finish talking with the doctors.”
    “I’m going with you,” Kelly said, though she tossed me a look that told me she wanted an update as soon as possible.
    “Of course,” Graham said.
    As they left, an old woman entered the room. “Carl,” she said. “It’s so nice to see you.”
    “Dana! Come here.”
    Lucas glanced at them then nodded toward the curtain covering the sliding glass door. “Let’s take this outside.”
    “Let’s,” I said.
    “I smell a fight brewing,” Brand said.
    “We’re not going to fight,” Lucas said as he pulled the curtains aside. He opened the door and stepped into the great outdoors.
    Brand, Rayna, and I followed, leaving Carl and Dana to catch up.
    I closed the door behind us and made sure Rayna was safely between Brand and me before I faced Lucas.
    “Let me start by telling you I entered the room through the cabinet. It’s a false facing, as you may have surmised. We have a hidden hallway behind the Alzheimer’s rooms.”
    “I figured,” I said, even though I hadn’t. “So what the hell are you?”
    “He’s my uncle. He’s a good man,” Rayna said.
    “Bullshit.” I jammed a finger into Lucas’s chest. “You were eating Carl’s brain!”
    “What the fuck?” Brand said.
    “Exactly,” I said.
    “It’s not like that,” Lucas said.
    “Spill it.”
    He sighed. “I wasn’t eating his brain. I was eating the Lewy bodies that invaded his brain. They block his ability to think, and we can feed on that.”
    “That’s disgusting,” Brand said.
    “It allows our Alzheimer’s patients to communicate clearly with their families before they pass away. It gives the families closure. There are no drawbacks here.”
    “No drawbacks? Your tongue was inside that man’s brain!”
    “Removing the disease.”
    “At what cost?”
    “In case you hadn’t noticed, he’s dying. He gets breathing treatments every thirty minutes or he can’t draw enough breath to survive. He’s got two, maybe three days left. I’m helping him and his family. You think he could be talking to Dana right now without my help?”
    “But feeding on their disease?”
    “We only do that with terminal patients. That’s why we’re gearing up for the clinical trials on Didracomine. We’re covering all the costs ourselves, and Graham is going to offer some of the doctors a nice salary to help with the pilot program. Obviously we can’t be there to handle each patient ourselves, so we’re trying to isolate the chemical balance and distill it into a medication. If we can get the mixture right, those pills could save countless lives.”
    “How?”
    “If we can reverse the effects