Category: Creative Writing

The Thing That Lives Behind Her Eyes

This is a companion piece to Blank, though it can be read independently.

~

It was a misty, chilly, miserable day, and the Donovans Four, blanket-bundled, sat in a row with their backs to the radiator. Its warmth was anemic, but it was better than nothing — certainly better than either bedroom, both of which might as well have been meat-lockers.

They were safe enough for now, given Da was gone; whether he was at the pub or some half-arsed attempt at a job was anyone’s guess, but it didn’t really matter. He wasn’t home, and Mam was actually making breakfast — proper breakfast, sausage and eggs the quartet had lifted from the local VG. Mam never asked where they got half the things they brought home, and Lorna suspected she didn’t want to know.

The scent of frying sausage was wonderful; it overlay, for now, the odor of stale cigarettes, cheap whiskey, and general sourness that had permeated the home as long as Lorna could remember. She had no name for the sourness, and none of her siblings did, either — it was something unique to their house, its genesis lurking somewhere beneath the threadbare carpet. Shiv was convinced it was some kind of exotic mold found nowhere else in the world. Lorna neither knew nor cared; unpleasant though it was, it was the smell of home.

She picked at a bit of frayed, plastic thread that had come loose from the edges of a hole in the carpet. What the original color had been was a mystery, because fifteen years’ worth of stains had turned it into a strange, blobby patchwork in shades of brown and grey, dotted all over with penny-sized burns. Da had a nasty habit of passing out on the sofa with a lit fag in his hand, and Lorna was fairly sure that one day he’d burn the house down like that. She could only hope he’d not wake up when it happened.

Mam hummed a little as she cooked, and Lorna watched her curiously. Like them, Mam rarely dared make noise when Da was home — she was a gaunt ginger ghost, pale and hollow-eyed, but at times there were glimpses of who she maybe ought to have been. Who she might actually be, if only Da would do them all a favor and drop dead.

You could make sure of that, you know.

The thought had crossed Lorna’s mind so often it had left grooves. Yes, she could indeed make sure of that, and on one exceptionally dark night, she very nearly had. It was so, so tempting, but not tempting enough to turn her into a murderer at ten years old. The cleaver had been huge in her tiny hand, which had not shaken as she regarded the useless lump of humanity that was theoretically her father.

No, she countered. No, that’s not me.

The answering thought was hard and ice-cold: Yet.

She shook herself. Right now there was sausage, there was her Mam acting like an actual mam, and her siblings all in a row. They sat as they always did, with Pat on one end and her on the other, with Shiv ready to grab Mick and run if she had to. It was instinct, and it had served them well so far.

“Come on over here, the lot’v you.” Mam’s voice was soft, and her accent softer; she hadn’t grown up in Dublin, though she never spoke of her childhood. “Come on and get this while it’s hot.”

They needed no second urging. In this house, you snatched your food and you ate it in a hurry, unless some of it could be saved for later. Whatever was left would get hidden in an ancient plastic shopping bag beneath Lorna or Shiv’s mattress.

The sausages were greasy, and so hot it burned their fingers, but there was no point in bothering with utensils if you didn’t need them. Meals were an uncertainty in the Donovan household, and hot meals even more so. There wasn’t really time to savor.

For some reason, Mam always looked terribly sad when they fell on their food like wolves. None of them understood it, and dismissed it as one of the many incomprehensible vagaries of adults in general, and their mother in particular.

Scrambled eggs did need forks, but they still gobbled their portion — and it was a good thing they did, because the telltale creak of the porch heralded the arrival of their much-hated father.

He came in stinking so badly of booze that the reek reached the kitchen long before he did, red-eyed, his complexion an odd but familiar shade of grey. Da wasn’t a large man — Mam was actually a touch taller — but he was so much bigger than his children that he didn’t need to be in order to be a threat. Lorna hated that they all looked so much like him, though not nearly so much as she hated the man himself.

As ever, all of them tensed. A trace of sick, liquid fear traveled through Lorna’s gut — not for herself, but for her mam. For Pat, the eejit, who insisted on taking the brunt of their father’s wrath no matter what anyone said to him.

“Save me any’v that?” he asked. He might have been half off his face, but his hazel eyes were sharp as knives, assessing and searching for any sign of weakness.

In point of fact, nobody had saved any for him; the last portion should have been their mam’s, but of course the wretched woman would give it over to this worthless gobshite without a word of protest. Why? Why? Sometimes Lorna wanted to shake her mother, to scream until something like sense pierced whatever fog shrouded Mam’s mind. What little light had entered her blue, blue eyes always went out when Da came home, and yet she never just fucking left.

“Of course, Niall.” Mam’s voice was quiet with defeat.

A surge of molten rage passed through Lorna, from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes. Jesus fuck, Mam, WHY?! WHY DO YOU ALWAYS BLOODY DO THIS? Someday, the words would actually leave her throat, but for now she was silent, while loathing seethed and bubbled within her mind like some kind of boiling poison.

Da said nothing at first, but something ugly and cruel passed over his expression, so minute that somebody less hyper-aware than his daughter wouldn’t have caught it. “No you didn’t,” he said. “You were going to eat that all, and leave a working man to starve.”

Lorna wasn’t quite sure who snorted at that, but somebody did, and it wasn’t her. Working man, my arse, she thought. Working at ruining your liver, maybe. 

For such a small, ossified man, her father could move remarkably fast — he was across the kitchen with jarring speed, but before his hand could connect with his wife’s face, Lorna plowed into him like the world’s tiniest rugby player. She was small enough that the crown of her head barely reached his ribs, but that just meant his stomach bore the brunt of the impact. 

Had he been sober, it might have done fuck-all; as it was, it sent him staggering back out of the kitchen. This time, his slap actually landed, so hard with the side of Lorna’s head that for the briefest of moments, dark stars bloomed behind her eyes. Some dim part of her registered the pain, but in that instant the white heat of her wrath kept it a distant irrelevance.

He hit her again, harder — hard enough to drive her backward, and nearly knock her off her feet. It only fed the hatred-laced fury that surged through her veins, through her mind with all the force and heat of magma. Mam might not have a spine, but Lorna bloody well did — oh, she’d pay for this later, but she didn’t care. Not now, when the resignation of her mother’s voice still rang in her ears. 

Fuck you and the horse you fucked in on, you walking skip fire. The thoughts were there, and mostly in order, but all that left her throat was a snarl that bordered on inhuman. Her ears would not make sense of whatever idiocy spewing from her da’s mouth, because it was as irrelevant as he was. Eyes sharpened by rage bent on his face with a malice so intense it felt as though it might rend her apart.

So fixated was she that she didn’t — couldn’t — dodge the next thing that connected. It wasn’t his hand, it was the heavy glass ashtray that sat atop the scratched and ancient kitchen table, and it struck her temple with such force that it blinded her for half a breath. Ash rained down through her hair, and with it the warm wetness of blood. That hurt, so much so that it lanced down her neck even as it exploded through her head.

She faltered one step, then two; her vision dimmed to a faded grey as consciousness fought and barely won. Her head throbbed in time with the thunder of her pulse, and it sent nausea churning in her stomach.

Her next uneven, agonized breath sent a blessed chill into her veins. It woke now, the thing behind her eyes, a leviathan dormant no more. Lorna herself never remembered what it did when it stirred, but it never forgot. Its malign, proto-awareness never forgot a thing.

Lorna — and everyone else — assumed the Blank was a form of mindless rage so intense there was no room for rationality, but that was not quite accurate. The Blank passed through the valley of wrath, into some strange serenity on the other side. Unlike Lorna, it was, in an odd way, at peace — at peace with what it meant to do, untroubled by things like guilt or hesitance. It saw the fear that rose in her father’s eyes, an echo of the terror he’d felt of his own green-eyed father. It wasn’t rational — not with how tiny his daughter was, how much weaker — but it was a relic of which he would likely never be rid.

The Blank could take no satisfaction in it, for the Blank took no satisfaction in anything. He froze, if only for an instant, and that was enough for it.

It had no weapon near to hand save the ashtray, but that would work. Her da was fast, but it was faster; the ashtray was honestly too big for her small hands, but no matter. It was only in them for a moment before the Blank hurled it at his face with the speed of a striking snake.

Had he been sober, he likely could have dodged, or at least fended it off. He was very far from sober, however, which meant the ashtray made full contact with his face. The Blank was not really much stronger than Lorna herself, but the thing was heavy enough to make up for the relative lack of force. Something went snap, but it was scarcely audible over his sudden bellow. 

There was blood — so much blood — but the Blank watched it with dispassion. It would dye the carpet, as it had several times and several places before now, and there it would stay, testament to Niall Donovan’s inability to learn.

It never spoke, the Blank, for it didn’t need to. Once upon a time it had witnessed its own reflection — its eyes were black, iris swallowed whole by pupils blown wide. That stare seemed to be enough, and indeed Lorna’s hapless father half-walked, half-stumbled out into the misty morning.

Someday, when the opportunity came, the Blank would kill him. Someday, when the time was right and the circumstances such that he would stand no chance of defending himself. Until then, it abided.

~

This one was somewhat grueling to write, but write it I did.

The Curse of M: Chapter Two

Chapter one maybe found here: The Curse of M

~

Lorna’s return to consciousness was a gradual, grudging thing, as though her body instinctively knew that she wouldn’t like what she found when she woke up.

She felt boneless, and more than a little floaty. It took her a moment to realize she was cruising a wave of very strong painkillers, and several more to remember why she’d need them. Damn.

At least she was warm now, and dry, lying on a somewhat uncomfortable bed. It smelled like a hospital, harsh disinfectant and floor wax, the air a little stale. How did she get here? Where was here?

Gingerly she opened her eyes, blinking as her vision swam. Above her were speckled ceiling tiles and an annoyingly harsh fluorescent light. Yep, hospital. Her mouth was cottony, her throat even more so, and she could feel a large patch of gauze on her forehead. A blood-pressure cuff banded snug around her left arm, and there was something plastic attached to the index finger of her right hand.

“You’re either made of iron, very lucky, or both.”

She blinked, and managed to turn her head. A tall woman in pale blue medical scrubs stood in the doorway — she was maybe Lorna’s age, her fair hair pulled back in a ponytail. “What?” Lorna asked, or tried to; all her dry throat could produce was a rasp.

The nurse filled a paper cup with water, and eased the bed up so she could actually drink it. “You went right through the windshield of your car. You were unconscious a full two days before you got here.”

The water hit her tongue like a blessing, cool and soothing all the way down to her stomach. Something about that statement didn’t make sense, but her fuzzy brain couldn’t immediately work out what. She’d been running from the Men in Grey, she’d wrecked her van —

“Shit,” she whispered. “There was a man with me, in the wreck. Is he okay?”

The nurse’s face went blank for a moment, and Lorna could actually see her trying to line up all those syllables into coherent speech. “He’s here, too,” she said, after a moment. “He was in pretty bad shape, but he’ll recover.”

“Where is here?” The surroundings screamed ‘hospital’, but the nurse’s mind said ‘Institute’. Where had the two days between the accident and now gone? Why hadn’t she been in hospital the whole time?

“You’re somewhere safe.”

Well, that was a non-answer if she’d ever heard one. It didn’t help that the woman’s thoughts didn’t match her words — her mouth said safety, but her mind didn’t agree. She was deeply uneasy, and again there was that word, ‘Institute’. There was nothing at all happy about it.

“Can I use the toilet?” Lorna asked. She had no idea what else to say, and she really did need to wee.

“Of course.” The nurse sounded almost relieved. “Let me get you unhooked.”

Lorna’s vision wavered when she sat up, and she had to shut her eyes while she was disentangled from what seemed like far too much plastic tubing. Balance was even harder to find; for a moment she had to lean against the bed, the tile floor cold beneath her bare feet. For the first time, she registered what she was wearing — soft grey trousers like pajama pants, far too long for her, and a grey T-shirt that was equally huge. It felt unsettlingly like a prison uniform.

Her stumbling walk to the bathroom would have been embarrassing if she hadn’t been too drugged to care. It was like hospital bathrooms everywhere, dull and impersonal and smelling even more harshly of disinfectant. She fetched up against the counter, leaning on it heavily while her equilibrium fought to restore itself again.

Unsurprisingly, the reflection she confronted was horrible. There was in fact a large white square of gauze stuck to her forehead; it had a number of scrapes and bruises to keep it company, and she’d chipped her left eye tooth. Her normally olive complexion was ashy, her upper lip split and swollen, her hair a wild tangle of black and grey. She looked…well, like she’d gone flying through a windscreen. You’re lucky you didn’t break your bloody neck, she thought muzzily. She realized, dimly, that all of this was going to hurt like an absolute bastard later, but for now the happy, floaty feeling kept her numb in body as well as mind.

Just imagine if Mairead could see you now. You’d never hear the end of it. She’d looked just as bad after the wreck that had led to her first meeting her half-sister, though at least this time she didn’t have a broken leg. Small mercies.

She couldn’t slam the lid on that thought quite fast enough. Grief welled up around the edges, and spread like dark water through her mind. I’m sorry, Mairead. I’m sorry I ran, but you’d’ve just suffered with me. Her sister wouldn’t have thrown her out for being Cursed — of that, Lorna was entirely certain — but the government had been pondering martial law by the time she’d recovered from the fever. She’d had to get out while she still could, but what this must be doing to Mairead… 

Guilt stabbed at her, and she shut her eyes, hard. Lorna owed Mairead everything she had, everything she’d become — Mairead, and Gran, and Big Jamie, and all of Baile, tiny as it was. It was home, and if she wasn’t careful, the pain of leaving it might swamp her entirely. She wanted to go back — wanted it so badly she could literally taste it — but that could never happen. Not unless she killed her Curse, and if anyone knew how to do that, it wasn’t her.

Jesus fuck, I am so sorry. No. No, not now. There was no time for the burn in her eyes, or the lump in her throat; at least the morphine dulled the edge that would otherwise have cut her to the heart. 

Wanting things is stupid, Lorna. You won’t get them, so don’t waste your time. That voice was older, colder, but still very much hers, and she hated it. “Oh, fuck off,” she hissed. Rallying herself wasn’t easy, especially given her mental glue, but she had to do it, so she did it.

Her business was more or less easily taken care of, and after she’d washed her hands, she sucked down several more cups of water. It cleared some of the glue from her mouth, if not her mind. This whole situation was a lot more fucked than it appeared on the surface, but her brain was still riding too steep on morphine for her to work out why.

The nurse rapped on the door. “You okay in there?”

Lorna cleared her throat. “Yeah. Out in a second.” A bit steadier on her feet, she actually managed to walk a straight line on her way out. Suck it, field sobriety test. 

“I brought you a hairbrush,” the nurse said, surprisingly kindly. “Let’s get that taken care of, and then do you think you could handle eating in the cafeteria?”

Lorna didn’t need to be able to read her mind to know she thought that was a terrible idea. Somebody’s making her ask that, she realized, and a vague tendril of unease pierced the opiate-fog. The thought of food was vaguely nauseating, but if she could get out of this room, she might be able to figure out just where the hell she actually was.

“Sure,” she said, hauling herself back up onto the bed. “Can I see my friend, too?” She was ashamed, now, that she didn’t know his name.

The nurse frowned. “Maybe later. He’s asleep now, anyway.”

Somehow, that did not fill Lorna with confidence. Something else she needed to investigate, if she could…once it no longer felt like the top of her skull was about to sail away if she moved wrong. Great.

Her fingers were still too stiff and clumsy to undo her long braid herself — the nurse had to help her, as if she were a child. At least she could handle the brush on her own, and she did, using the action to mask her attempts to actively read the nurse’s mind. It was, of course, worse than useless — she’d never been able to control her telepathy at the best of times, and her drug-addled brain really wasn’t in any condition to even try.

 — too soon, she shouldn’t be up yet  —

A jumble of images were all that accompanied the thought: bland hallways, flat, featureless scrubland, and uniformed men who looked suspiciously like prison guards. Well, hell. It was so at odds with the pleasant, hazy warmth that suffused her that the dissonance was almost too much.

Stop it, she scolded herself. Yes, her situation probably sucked more than she was yet aware of, but she was never going to get out of here with that attitude. 

Her balance was steadier when she stood again, and she fought to clear her head. Though her stomach roiled once more, she firmly tamped down her nausea — orders or not, the nurse wasn’t likely to let her out if she sicked up before she even reached the door.

Two men waited outside it: big, burly, expressionless men. Though they too wore hospital scrubs, their entire bearing shouted ‘prison guard’. Well, damn. Sometimes I hate being right.

The nurse frowned. “Is this really necessary?”

“Yes,” the guard on the right said flatly. Someone must have told him the circumstances of her capture. That wasn’t going to make her life any easier.

“‘S all right,” she said; she tried to enunciate, and probably failed. “Not like I could do much right now anyway.” Which was very true; right now she was every bit as innocuous as she looked. Nobody was going to feel threatened by a tiny woman who looked like she’d been tossed off a cliff.

Both guards looked at her so suspiciously that she almost laughed, but they said nothing. She noted that they consciously matched her slow gait, their posture tense as they watched her like a pair of hawks, and she fought a grimace. Most definitely prison guards.

The hallway was as bland and nondescript as the recovery room: flat white walls, pale, speckled tile floor, and fluorescent ceiling lights that buzzed erratically. Whatever this place was, it looked like a hospital, and even her bleary mind was obscurely worried by that.

Her head spun a little, but she refused to let it slow her down — her own stint in prison had taught her never to show weakness to guards or fellow inmates, no matter how awful she felt. That was a great way to get shanked. So she stayed grimly silent, letting her captors’ thoughts flow through her mind in frustratingly incomplete waves.

Yet again there was that word, ‘Institute’. To the nurse it had been unsettling; the man on the right was indifferent, but the one on the left attached an almost sadistic glee to it. The glee was tempered, however, by the fact that he was unable to physically harm the — inmates? Well, that was an even worse sign. His mind only made Lorna feel more ill.

When they reached a window, she paused. It was covered in metal grillwork, and it looked out on a landscape as desolate as the one she’d seen in the nurse’s head: flat scrubland, tinted red by the light of a bloody sunset. There were no trees, or even other buildings — just a fence, chain-link topped with razor wire, and woven through with heavy cables she suspected were electrified.

The guard on the right nudged her. “Move it, lady,” he said, his tone obviously bored.

“Fuck off,” Lorna said automatically, as she approached the window. Oh hell, where are we? Was she even in the States anymore? The nurse and guards all had American accents, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. The sight of all that desolate nothing made her heart sink, even though her head still swum.

“I said move.” He made the very grave mistake of grabbing her shoulder, trying to drag her away.

If Lorna had been sober, she might not have done it — or at least, not done it so drastically. She drove her elbow into his ribcage as hard as she could — hard enough to actually drive him backward, his breath exhaling in a surprised whoosh. She rounded on him before he could recover, socking him in the jaw with all the force she could muster. His lip split where it mashed against his teeth, turning his pained grimace bloody.

He bellowed, trying to grab her hair even as the other guard caught her arm. That one took a foot to the groin, and ouch, that was a mistake — Lorna wasn’t nearly flexible enough to be trying to kick that high, and even through the painkillers she felt something strain at the back of her thigh. Oh, fuck absolutely everything…. If she could feel that while still so very doped, she was going to hate the entire world later.

Guard number two fell to his knees, but to give him credit, he didn’t drop entirely. He grabbed her ankle, but she used his grip as leverage to kick his face with her other foot. Barefoot, she didn’t do nearly as much damage as she could have otherwise, but it was enough to break his nose with an audible snap.

Guard number one, swearing like a sailor, managed to get her into a choke-hold — tight, but not strangling. He wore too much smelly aftershave, and the stink of it assailed Lorna’s sinuses like a solid force. It made her scowl as she gripped his arm, planted her feet on his thighs, and threw herself forward. It was sloppy, and she knew she’d hurt like a bastard later, but it worked — he fell with her, crashing headlong into the wall and losing his grip on her in the process.

She scrabbled away on all fours, wincing when her knees hit the tile, and took off like a fleeing drunk. Her stomach roiled again, and she almost lost all the water she’d just drank. She slammed into the wall herself, and only vaguely registered anything like actual pain as she used it to guide herself in something like a straight line.

Now what? Pure adrenaline propelled her forward, but she had no idea where she was going — she couldn’t have, not knowing where she was to begin with. What little of her mind remained her own was too focused on running to bother wondering about a destination, or what she would do when she got there. It was the running, however unsteady, that mattered. I just wish the floor would stop moving…

 — goddamn bitch  —

 — just embarrassing  —

 — break her arm for that  —

Well, shit. The hallway branched into a T ahead, and she staggered right, still using the wall for support. She’d rather not have her arms broken, thank you very much. I need a hostage. What she would do with one, or how to take one in the first place, were not answers her much-abused brain was willing to provide. Lacking that, she needed a hiding place, but no convenient closets appeared.

She could feel people ahead of her — a lot of people, a full-on crowd whose minds were a sea of nervousness. That was far from heartening, but maybe she could disappear into it. And maybe someone could tell her just what this place actually was, and where.

Her right leg almost gave out under her, but the distant, thudding gait of her pursuers spurred her on. She skidded at the next corner, stumbling so badly she actually ran into the opposite wall with a heavy thud. That, she thought dimly, is going to hurt like hell later. Oooops. In spite of everything, a giggle rose in her throat.

Somebody else caught her before she could actually collapse — two someones, a man and a woman who both wore inmate garb.

“Easy,” the man said, carefully steadying her. His accent was Scottish, though he looked East Indian. He seemed to be about her age, and he was incredibly tall — six-five at a guess. She couldn’t sort his thoughts out from the maelstrom, but his expression was kind enough.

“You look like you were hit by bus,” the woman said. Hers was an accent Lorna couldn’t place — Swedish? Norwegian? Something Scandinavian. She certainly looked Nordic enough: tall, blonde, and blue-eyed, with a face an angel would have envied. Her mind was distinguishable only because she wasn’t thinking in English; it was a truly fascinating garble that momentarily stole the entirety of Lorna’s attention.

“Close enough,” Lorna said. She shivered, and glanced around the corner. Creeping anxiety tinged her high in the most unwelcome way possible, and kicked her nausea up a notch. “Could we maybe move a bit? Only there’s some right pissed off people after me.”

The woman gave her the blank look she was all too familiar with, but the man, miracle of miracles, actually seemed to understand her.

“I’m not sure I want to know,” he said, guiding her further into the group. It was clustered around a pair of blue metal doors, waiting…well, a little like cattle, Lorna thought uneasily. Quite a few of them looked unnaturally placid, and she wondered if they were drugged. Maybe there’s more than enough to go around, she thought, and blinked hard.

“I want to know,” the woman said, giving Lorna a frank appraisal. It was almost creepy.

Lorna grimaced, casting another nervous glance behind her. She couldn’t see past the rest of the group, but it also meant her pursuers couldn’t see her. “I might’ve broken a couple noses,” she said. “And maybe a kneecap. I know they were after me — dunno why they’ve not caught me yet.”

Her companions exchanged a sober glance, which didn’t help the nerves that broke ever more strongly through the fog. “It’s possible they were told not to,” the man said. “The doctor who runs this place might want to see what you’ll do next. Sometimes he likes to give us enough metaphorical rope to hang ourselves.”

Before she could ask what the hell that meant, the doors opened. Watching the group move through them made the cattle analogy seem more apt, though there were a fair number of people who didn’t look doped to the eyeballs. Lorna herself felt her high ebbing, and she was already regretting it — the pain the drugs had kept at bay was creeping back, starting with her left shoulder. Because apparently this day wasn’t horrible enough already.

The room they entered was obviously a cafeteria. Long and wide, its walls were smooth grey concrete, unpainted and unadorned, with surprisingly large windows. The dying sunlight they let in stained everything golden-red, but it didn’t make the drab surroundings any prettier. The tables were long, unpainted steel, their benches probably attached and bolted to the floor. Christ, even the cafeteria in gaol hadn’t been this bland.

It hadn’t been this cold, either; Lorna shivered as she joined the queue that seemed to form automatically. Small though she was, cold normally didn’t bother her — Ireland wasn’t exactly the tropics, after all — but her clothes were thin and her feet were bare, and even the artificial warmth of opiates couldn’t combat it. She unbraided her hair, letting it fall heavy over her back and shoulders — not many people seemed to realize it, but long hair could be as good as a blanket against a chill. Sure, she probably looked like Cousin It with a face, but she was marginally warmer.

Her male companion eyed her, but no sooner had he opened his mouth than she cut him off.

“If you make some crack about the Addams Family, I swear I’ll kick you.”

The blonde woman choked on a laugh, and he held his hands up in a placating gesture.

“Good. Now that that’s out’v the way, I’m Lorna. I’d say I was pleased to meet you, but in this place I’d be a fucking liar.” And I’d be even more of one if I didn’t say I want some more… She’d got clean years ago, and had had Mairead keep hold of the hydrocodone she sometimes had to take for cramps. No, she didn’t think she’d abuse it, but better safe than sorry.

Heh. Safe. Sorry. She wasn’t safe, and she was sure she’d be really sorry sooner or later. Really, really sorry.

Again the woman gave her a blank stare, and she sighed. This was going to get old really fast.

Once again, though, the man didn’t miss a beat. “I’m Ratiri,” he said. “And likewise. This is Katje, who doesn’t always understand English.”

“That was English?” Katje muttered. “You could fool me. You look cold.” Without any warning, she wrapped her arm around Lorna’s shoulders, plastering her at her side. “And bony.”

Lorna stiffened. Even her family knew better  than to touch her without warning, and she’d just been glomped on by a complete stranger. It took every ounce of willpower she had not to sock Katje in the face.

Ratiri groaned, and pried Katje away. “Ignore her. She has no sense of personal space. Or tact. Or modesty. It’s best to just think of her as a total savage.”

Katje made a wordless protest, but Lorna laughed. It was a shaky, nervous sound, but it also acted as something of a focus. It helped that her head was weirdly quiet in here; with this number of people, her mind ought to be a mess of foreign thoughts, but it just…wasn’t. Was it because so many of them were drugged, or because she was? She didn’t know, but she wasn’t going to question it. She had too many other questions to be getting on with.

Though the line moved slowly, they were close enough to the deli that she could smell food. Somehow, though she was still slightly nauseated, her stomach managed to growl, reminding her that it had been days since she’d actually eaten. Her misfiring nerves weren’t helping her nausea, either; though Ratiri and Katje both seemed to think she’d be left alone, she still expected her guards/victims to burst in, looking for vengeance. What kind of person would just leave her to a crowd, after something like that? This doctor — and she really didn’t like the feeling that either of her new friends attached to that word — had to be a right strange one.

She was quiet as they collected metal trays and plastic cutlery from one end of the buffet line, again letting the collective, alien thoughts wash through her mind. Sometimes, it was easier not to fight it, and she’d wished more than once that she knew how to meditate. Her bruised hands grabbed things automatically — lasagna that actually smelled good, a small, remarkably fresh salad, and a cup of apple juice. At least the food here might not be so bad, she thought — not that she planned to stick around long enough to get used to it. Out, away, and then…well, ‘then’ didn’t matter. Until she was out, there would be no ‘then.’

“Where are we?” she asked abruptly. They’d reached the end of the line, and Ratiri beckoned her to follow him to a far table.

“I don’t know,” he said, “and I’m not sure anyone else does, either, except the staff. My guess is either Alaska or northern Canada.”

“No one is awake when they come here,” Katje added. “I think that is on purpose.” She deposited her tray on the table, and sat in one enviously graceful movement. “Were you?”

Lorna shook her head, and winced. Maybe it was the cold, but the drugs were wearing off even faster, and all sorts of pain was making itself ever more insistently known. “I just woke up. Thought I was in a real hospital at first.”

“Oh, it’s a real hospital,” Ratiri said, as he sat beside her. “Of a sort. God knows they do enough tests.”

Lorna glanced around. Though there was conversation, it was muted, uneasy, people hunched over their trays. “They’re all Cursed, aren’t they?” she asked, though she thought she already knew the answer. “We’re all Cursed.”

Ratiri nodded, but neither he nor Katje said a thing.

That didn’t make sense. Well, it did — of course the Men in Grey would be stashing their captives somewhere — but…why were they all still here?

She ate a forkful of the lasagna, wincing when the sauce hit her split lip. It really was surprisingly good, though. “I know some’v them are drugged,” she said slowly, “so there’s not much chance they’d run, but what about everyone else? Are the staff like us? I’d think a big enough group’v Cursed could break their way out, guards or no.” Guards, electric fence, wasteland…atomic winter, she thought, and wondered why she did. 

“There’s nowhere to run to,” Ratiri said quietly. “Not unless you wanted to die in the wilderness. So far as I can gather, the only way out is by air, and it would take an actual, coordinated uprising to do it. And not many here would dare try.”

Personally, Lorna didn’t think getting lost in the wilderness would be too bad — but then, she didn’t exactly have much experience with the great outdoors. Homelessness didn’t count. She didn’t buy the ‘too afraid’ excuse, either: there were some nasty Curses out there. In a group, just how many normal people could withstand them? Shit, fear of that idea was why they’d been hunted down in the first place. Sure, her telepathy was useless, but there were people who could walk through walls, could create fire — hell, she’d heard of a few Cursed who had caused earthquakes. Neither Ratiri nor Katje seemed like sheep, but they also seemed to dread the very word escape.

Some of her dubiousness must have shown on her face. “You have not met man who run this place yet,” Katje said. “He is…some of us think he is not human.”

Isn’t that melodramatic, Lorna thought sourly. If her two victims hadn’t come for her yet, they probably weren’t going to, and her fuzzy fear was joined by irritation — at this place, the cold, her mounting pain, and especially at herself, for getting caught in the first place. “Last I checked, aliens hadn’t landed when the Curses started. Is he one’v us?”

“He’s a telepath,” Ratiri said. “We can’t plan anything without him finding out. Some of us tried.”

Lorna twitched. A telepath? Another one? She hadn’t met another like herself, and she didn’t want to. Especially not one who could control himself. She’d read enough science fiction in prison to know that never ended well. “And what happened?”

“They disappear,” Katje said grimly, and popped a whole cherry tomato in her mouth.

Lorna looked at Ratiri. “Does she always sound this dramatic?”

“She’s practically turned it into an art form. She’s right, though. And, while I’ve only met the doctor once, I never want to do it again. He’s human, but he’s…wrong.” He shuddered, staring down at his food. “He didn’t ask questions. He just sifted through my mind, and I could feel him doing it. He might be Cursed, might be one of us, but to him we’re test subjects. Once he’s in your mind, he can control you. He just…takes you over.”

Well, that was more than a little alarming. Dammit. “So he what, plays Mengele with us? Fucking brilliant.” She should be scared. She was scared, but she was also sore, tired, annoyed, and once again nauseated. She shoved her tray away, pressing the heels of her hands to her temples. The drone of passing thoughts might be bearable now, but it was still…wearing.

Neither responded. They didn’t need to.

Ratiri raised his hand, but hesitated. “I can do something about your pain,” he said, a little awkwardly. “May I?”

Lorna looked at him more than a little askance. Sure, he seemed nice enough, but she’d just met him. Still, she was feeling steadily more awful. “How?”

He seemed to read her expression with disturbing ease. “I don’t need to touch you,” he said. “I just need to pick at your aura.”

My aura? she thought. Sounded a bit New Age, but at this point, she’d take what she could get. “Go for it,” she said, trying to mask her hesitancy.

Privately, she thought it looked a bit ridiculous, him picking at something she couldn’t see, but she couldn’t argue with the results. Both pain and nausea faded to tolerable levels, though her buzz unfortunately went with it. Still, she’d take the trade-off.

“Is that your Curse?” she asked. “Because if so, it’s a lot more’v a gift.”

For the first time, he smiled. “I’d say so too, if it hadn’t got me caught. Do you mind if I ask what yours is?”

She scowled. “Telepathy, and it’s fucking’ useless. I can’t shut it off, but I can’t control it, either. I just get snips and bits’v things from everyone around me. All it does is give me a headache.”

It took a moment, but Katje choked on a tomato — the first ungraceful thing Lorna had seen her do. “That,” she said, red-faced and wheezing, “is bad. Very bad. He will want to be seeing you.”

No need to ask who he was. Katje really did seem a bit of a melodramatic sort, though; whoever ran this place probably was an arsehole and a half, but Lorna wouldn’t put it past Katje to exaggerate. True, Ratiri seemed much calmer, and he was downright scared as well, but this was the twenty-first goddamn century, not bloody Auschwitz.

And if this doctor truly was some kind of monster, if he was so interested in her telepathy…well, Lorna could be extremely annoying if she wanted to. If she was too aggravating to deal with, he might just give up. More than once in her life, she’d been so annoying that people gave her what she wanted just so she’d go away.

The real thing she had to focus on was how to get out of here. It would probably take awhile to work out the logistics of a viable escape plan, but she didn’t buy the idea of it being impossible. She doubted the others would, either, if they weren’t so damn terrified.

She jumped when a loud clatter broke the quiet. Someone a table over had flung their dinner-tray, and she swung around to scan the room. Her gaze fell on a trio of young men — very young, in their early twenties at most. They must have just arrived, because they wore street clothes, rather than the prison-uniform: baggy jeans and hooded sweatshirts, none of which looked like they’d seen the inside of a washing machine any time recently.

Something in her went cold when she saw the tattoo one sported on his neck. It was a Russian prison tattoo, a knife with an ornate handle, and it signified that he’d killed someone while in prison. One of her old cellmates had three skulls on the knuckles of her right hand — Tatiana, her name had been, a downright crazy Russian woman who had killed her cheating husband, his mistress, and the brother that tried to intervene. She’d explained the long and detailed history of Russian prison tattooing to Lorna, and had been baffled when Lorna didn’t want one herself. This was not going to end well.

“Why do you sit here?” he demanded. His English was very accented, though still intelligible. “I know what you are, what we are. Why are you cattle?”

Oh, for Christ’s sake, Lorna thought despairingly, not here. Not yet. She wished she could actually use her Curse to communicate with him, but no, of course not. God forbid it be of any use to her.

Nobody said anything, which seemed to serve only in pissing him off. “Pathetic. We are gods. They are — are ants. Why do you not walk out?”

He had the right attitude, at least. She could use his help, if he’d shut up and quit drawing attention to himself. “Nyet,” she said, wracking her brain for what Russian Tatiana had taught her. The woman had taken Lorna on as some bastardized combination of daughter and protégé, and Lorna had let her, because she didn’t want to get shanked. It had certainly been an education. “Podozhdite. Poka ne.” Wait. Not yet. God only knew what it sounded like, with her own heavy accent, but she had to try.

He turned his head, blinking at her. “Vy govorite po-russki?“

Okay, at least she knew that one. “Nemnogo.” A little. A very, very little, she thought. “My dolzhny pogovorit’ pozzhe.” She meant to say ‘we must talk later’, and she hoped she was close enough.

He rattled off something in Russian far too rapid for her to understand, and she shook her head. “Pozzhe,” she reiterated. Later. “Kogda my znayem bol’she.” When they knew more…if they knew more.

He actually paused, and she hoped she was getting through to him. Come on, kid, she willed. I can use you. All of you. Just don’t be a bunch of flipping gobshites.

That fragile hope was not to last. One of the others grabbed the table one-handed, and actually ripped the bolts out of the floor with a tearing screech. He lifted the entire thing over his head, and hurled it at the buffet line.

Even some of the more drugged-up inmates shrieked at that, trying to duck when the table crashed into the counter, shattering the glass sneeze-guard. The sound echoed off the high walls, nearly deafening after so much quiet.

Katje, wiser than she looked, dove under their table. Lorna knew that if she had any sense, she’d do the same, but she was close to despair.

“Nyet, you bloody moron!” she cried, even as her heart sank. “You’ll get us all put in lockdown. You know that word, right? Where we’re stuck like bugs in a goddamn bottle?”

He gave her a look of total incomprehension — but then, so did Ratiri, so it was likely a problem of her accent rather than his English proficiency. He shouted at her in Russian, and she shouted right back, in a bastard mix of English, Russian, and Irish. Some small part of her knew she wasn’t helping matters in the slightest, but logic had gone out the window. They’d obviously been in prison before — they had to know this was doomed to end badly.

Fortunately for Ratiri, she evaded his attempts to restrain her when she hauled herself off the bench. More than ever did she wish there was anything at all useful about her Curse — if she’d been able to properly use her damn telepathy, maybe she could actually convince them to just hang on a while. She couldn’t understand the idiot kid, and she highly doubted he understood her, but she couldn’t stop. She never had been able to, once her temper got going, no matter how disastrous the outcome.

“Will you give over and sit down, before you get us all locked up? You’re right, we need out, but for Christ’s sake your timing’s fucking’ awful. Just. Wait.“

With what little rational mind she had left, Lorna wondered where the guards were. They should have come running the moment the table flew — were they too stupid to head off a riot before it started, or were they waiting to see what happened? She hoped it was the former, because the latter idea was too ominous to contemplate.

He screamed something else unintelligible, and she stalked toward him, yelling right back. The man with the knife tattoo suddenly found himself being the only reasonable one when his other companion joined in.

The poor bastard grabbed both his friends, holding them back. “What even are your words?” he demanded.

She answered in broken Russian and fractured English, hoping he’d understand, and that no one else would. “You are right. We need to escape. But trying to cause a riot won’t work, and now all four of us stand out. Sit down, shut up, and wait until we have an actual goddamn opportunity. Christ, I know you’ve been in prison before,” she added in English. “You ought to know how this works.”

“What are you, a predatel’?” the man on his right sneered.

Predatel’. Traitor. Snitch. “Do I look like a goddamn snitch? Fuck you in the ear!” Lorna didn’t hit him, but it was a near thing. They’d blown it, and she knew it — all of them, herself included. They were going to wind up separated, and never be let near one another again.

He ducked his comrade’s arm and shoved her, and now she did punch him. It hurt like a bastard — apparently Ratiri’s aura-thing had a short half-life — but he rocked backward.

As if some unseen thread had snapped, what seemed like half the cafeteria weighed in. In reality it was only a few people, but that was more than enough.

Ratiri merely tried to restrain the man on the left, but Katje socked him right in the jaw. To Lorna’s surprise, it was a decent hit. Whatever else Katje was, she knew how to throw a punch.

Ratiri winced, pulling the man backward and pushing him out of the way with unfortunate mildness. He was not, Lorna swiftly realized, a fighter by nature, which wasn’t going to do him any favors now. He might be giant-sized, but anyone who had been in prison longer than a week knew how to spot the weak link, and he was it.

The man she’d first hit made a grab for her hair, and earned himself a forehead to the face. Pain exploded through her head, shockingly intense, enough to momentarily send her vision grey. She staggered, kicking him in the knee on sheer accident, and ran into a complete stranger — a middle-aged Hispanic man. He righted her balance with surprising gentleness, right before punching her attacker so hard he fell over backward. Hell, maybe we’ll get a riot after all.

The cafeteria doors slammed shut with an almost majestic thud, and the room abruptly fell silent and still. It had to — quite suddenly, Lorna found she couldn’t move, and it didn’t look like anyone else could, either. What in flying fuck? Stark terror flooded her veins, warring with her anger and what little was left of her high in such a way that she was almost sick again.

Someone was moving, though; a heavy, measured tread across the concrete floor. Lorna, who had been stuck in place facing away from the door, couldn’t see who or what it belonged to, which just made it worse — she hated having a threat at her back, and it made her shoulder blades itch. Something in her stomach quivered, but she couldn’t be sure if it was fear, nausea, or some horrible combo of the two.

“I am going to release you all. You will stay still, you will behave, and you will tell me exactly what is going on here.” It was a male voice, deep, mostly American, but with a slight shift she couldn’t identify.

In spite of everything, she almost wanted to snort. It was pretty damn obvious what was going on; either that was a rhetorical statement, or the questioner was a moron.

The strange, invisible lock that held her immobile abruptly vanished, and she wasn’t the only one who sucked in a deep breath of relief. She turned, and had to peer around the third Russian to see anything.

They were faced with an extremely tall man — Ratiri’s height at least — who regarded them like they were an exhibit at a zoo. He didn’t look much older than Lorna herself: late thirties or early forties at most, though there were threads of grey through his blond hair. While his height made him imposing, there was nothing in his appearance that could explain the level of gut-wrenching fear the sight of him inspired. If he was the doctor Ratiri and Katje had mentioned, she took it all back: there was something about him straight out of the Uncanny Valley. It took everything in her power not scarper, because nope. All aboard the Nope Train. It squeezed at her chest like a vice, like a band around her heart, and bile so far up her throat that she actually had to swallow it back.

His eyes raked the crowd, and they were the palest, coldest eyes she’d ever seen. She half expected them to glow red, like he was a bloody Terminator. “Well?”

No one spoke. Lorna doubted anyone was able to, but the silence was excruciating. It reminded her far too much of being called up before her old primary school’s bastard of a headmaster, which probably had a lot to do with what she did next.

“He started it,” she said, pointing at the bloody-faced, belligerent Russian kid. Technically his friend had, but Lorna actually halfway liked that one, so his mate could take the fall.

Those ungodly laser eyes fixated on her, and she wished she hadn’t spoken. One of his pale eyebrows arched. “Did he? Young man, step forward.”

The kid obviously didn’t want to, but someone behind him actually shoved him. He shot Lorna an extremely dirty look, which she returned full force. 

The man stepped forward, giving the boy a thorough, downright chilling, and wholly unimpressed once-over. Despite her self-imposed lifelong training against showing weakness, she couldn’t help but shuffle away; she was stubborn, not suicidal. 

“Strength,” the man/doctor/whoever said, flatly. “Dull. Dull, and more trouble than you are worth.” He reached out with a truly disturbing lack of expression, caught the boy’s throat, and squeezed. Somehow, with one hand, he snapped the kid’s neck like a pencil.

At this point in her life, it took a hell of a lot to genuinely horrify Lorna, but that was more than enough. Blind instinct made her rear backward, and she wasn’t the only one — as if some spell had been lifted, the crowd erupted into chaos, every damn one of them fleeing for whatever cover could be found.

Lorna herself practically dove under one of the tables, thwacking her head as she did so; if she hadn’t started out with a concussion, she probably had one now. Dark stars bloomed behind her eyes, and she only staved off actual unconsciousness by sheer force of will. Ratiri had mentioned telepathy, but he’d said nothing about that sort of strength, and even through the pain, she wondered if the bastard had multiple Curses. Jesus, is that even possible? If it was, she’d never heard of it.

The boy’s body hit the floor with a thud that was almost nauseating, and guilt joined the lump of leaden fear lodged in her gut. If she hadn’t said anything — but then, that terrifying man would surely have killed someone. Not that that knowledge helped: she was still the one who had chosen his victim.

The bastard turned, searching. He managed no more than that, though, because a moment later, every window on the eastern side of the room shattered. No, not shattered — they practically imploded, shards of safety glass filling the air like glittering hail.

Frigid air blasted in, momentarily knocking all the breath out of Lorna. Some wild part of her remembered the exploding streetlights, the drunken collapse of a roof that ought to have weathered the storm, and she realized with dawning horror that she was somehow the one doing this.

Stop it, she thought, but her mind was so besieged by panic that she couldn’t have done it, even if she’d known how. Not all the pain in her head came from hitting it. She clapped her hands over her ears, as if that would somehow do any good, and shivered from shock and revulsion as much as from the cold. Christ, this was like one long nightmare that only got worse.

The overhead lights exploded, one by one, and the western windows cracked into a crazed mosaic. At this rate she’d bring down the roof in no time, and then what? Just how much worse could this get?

It was the wrong thing to wonder. A hand grabbed Lorna’s hair, right at the crown of her head, and used it to drag her out of her hiding place. Of course she had to bash both knees on the bench as she went, adding two new sources of hurt — as if she didn’t already have enough. If she’d been in any shape, she’d have lashed out with her fists, but she was so disoriented and cold and ill that all she could do was stagger.

When she found her balance, more or less, she found herself faced with that terrifying doctor. She always felt short compared to most of the adult world, but he made her feel positively miniscule, and it didn’t help that he was looking at her with a dreadful, detached curiosity. Motherfucker.

At least he released her hair, leaving her to rub at her scalp with bruised fingers smeared with someone else’s blood. He was bleeding, too, she saw: something had cut his temple, and the wound bled as only head wounds could. If it bothered him, he gave no sign at all, which somehow made it worse.

“Stop that,” he ordered, almost casually, as if all the glass in the cafeteria wasn’t shattering around him.

Unfortunately, the western windows chose that moment to implode. Lorna instinctively tried to duck, but his hand shot out with unnerving speed and snatched her hair again.

“I can’t!” she cried — two words even her accent couldn’t mangle. 

He tilted his head to one side, that horrible, clinical curiosity intensifying. “You really mean that, don’t you?”

She didn’t bother responding, because really, what could she say? Her every instinct was telling her to run, even if she had to let him tear out half her hair to do it.

He didn’t give her a chance. He touched her forehead with his other hand, and darkness sucked her down like quicksand.

~

The book itself can be found on Amazon; it’s enrolled in Kindle Unlimited, should anyone want to take a free look.

Fever II

The long-deferred second part of Fever (You Set My Soul on Fire). Ironically, while I myself have been ill, I haven’t had any fevers.

 

Gerald Hansen

 

Secrecy. Secrecy was safety, or so Gerald’s mother had said. It was why their family had survived so long. (If she was to be believed, it had been a gift much like his own that kept his granddad from getting lynched. The man had lived into his seventies, though he inconveniently died before he could teach Gerald much at all.)

In all honesty, secrecy hadn’t exactly been hard. They lived in a world where damn near everyone would turn their own mind inside out to rationalize away something that ought to be impossible, and his gift wasn’t exactly flashy. There were times it utterly sucked, but it was as invisible as any gift could be. Nobody was likely to wonder why his presence lightened the mood in a room, or why he had a better bedside manner than anybody else in the hospital.

No, it hadn’t been hard, but now each new case of fever added a pebble to the stony weight of dread in his chest. The idea that people could just…could just wake up with a gift went against everything Mama had ever told him, but what the hell were the odds it would be anything else? If she hadn’t died of cancer the year before, he would have interrogated her.

His tiny apartment was stifling as he paced the living-room, heavy with Louisiana air so humid he felt like he could grab a handful and wring it out if he tried hard enough. The AC had choked to death on god only knew what, because apparently his day hadn’t been bad enough. Sweat trickled in rivulets down his face, his back, but that dread was a cold thing — a chunk of ice in his soul, if not his body.

Somebody had come for the blonde girl today. He hadn’t known her name, because she’d been brought in with no ID, but he doubted she was very far north of twenty, skinny as a rake and just as tall. She was burning, just like all the others, her freckled face so red she’d barely looked human, and her fever-glazed eyes didn’t seem to take in him or anything around her.

He’d been so sure she’d die, but the fever broke: by the next day, she’d been lucid, if exhausted. She’d also started a very tiny, very localized rainstorm in the bathroom, and within twenty minute she was just…gone. Men came and took her away, despite the protests of himself and other staff members — men in grey suits, with a complete lack of what anyone might call an expression.

Secrecy.

Secrecy. Hiding in plain sight. Gerald had done it all his life, and he could damn well keep doing it. Empathy didn’t do anything tangible, and he’d been taught to control it for as long as he’d been able to speak. He was safe. He was safe.

So why was he so afraid?

He stood still, and stared out the window. There had been less traffic since the fever took hold, which meant less exhaust to foul the breathless, sodden air. He had no reason to be afraid, and yet afraid he was, because instinct told him those men in grey wouldn’t care that he wasn’t like the others — if they clocked him for what he was, he was screwed, but dammit, they wouldn’t.

Isolation, he thought. He needed to get out of the city — he needed to get out of the country, if he could, and find somewhere in the middle of nowhere. The epidemic had to end sooner or later, so he could go without leaving the hospital in the lurch.

Still sweating, he took his laptop into the bathroom; it was the closest thing to a cool space in the entire apartment. If the wifi decided to cooperate, he could start making a list of potential places.

Secrecy. 

Safety.

He had an hour before he needed to leave for work, and he was damn well going to use it.

 

~

 

Unsurprisingly, Gerald found the wards still busy as a termite mound. The alcohol scent of disinfectant was overpowered by the general, rotten-onion-odor of sweat and sickness; the medical staff were all used to it, but any patients lucid enough to register it wrinkled their noses.

So far as he was concerned, the smell was worth it just for the wonderful coolness of a functioning air conditioner. He’d showered before he left for work, but such was the humidity that he felt like he’d swum across the parking lot. His sweat would dry soon enough, which was more than could be said for their poor patients. More rooms had been crowded with extra beds and cots with each passing day, and this morning was no different. At this rate, they’d run out, and god only knew how they’d find more of either.

Saline, he thought, as he wove his way through the hallways. The quiet hubbub of voices was strangely soothing, and it made a very odd counterpoint to the sick-stink. What were they going to do, when they ran out of saline? In the height of their delirium, the patients were incapable of drinking on their own; if the saline ran dry, they might start seeing actual fatalities. The fact that they  hadn’t yet bordered on miraculous, but that couldn’t be counted on to last.

The crowd parted, and a brief ripple of silence fell — it followed a pair of men in grey, who between them carried a stretcher bearing a semiconscious young man. They looked at no one, and nobody dared question them. 

Heart in his throat, Gerald did his best to relax as they passed. Once again, he reminded himself that nothing about him stood out. True, the white staff outnumbered the black, but he was hardly alone, and he was physically…average. Average height, average build, his haircut short and unmemorable. 

Still, he held his breath until they passed, and forced himself to project an air of calmness as he began his round. The room that had held the blonde girl was now occupied by three people, red-faced and soaked with sweat, in various states of semiconsciousness. 

If this damn fever continued its mathematical rate of acceleration, the men in grey would find themselves overwhelmed — if they hadn’t already. What would they do, if everyone eventually came down with it? What did they do when one of them did? Gerald was fairly sure he didn’t actually want to know.

Secrecy. Safety. Two words, a mantra, eventually followed by a third: escape. He just had to weather this, and bide his time, and get the hell out of anything resembling a city.

 

~

 

Geezer

 

The man with no name sat at the back of the bar, nursing his third beer.

He was a regular fixture, and he had been for the last year; he’d stay until he felt it was time to move on. He never knew when the itch to travel might strike, but it might be safest if he did soon.

“You gonna finish that thing?”

Faded blue eyes tracked to the barman’s. He was young — maybe mid twenties — but a good kid. He’d given Geezer a place to stay in exchange for odd jobs, and hadn’t even mentioned anything about the twin scarred ruinations Geezer called hands. If the kid made certain he had jobs that didn’t need fine motor skills, nobody needed to say anything.

“Workin’ on it. Helluva thing going on out there.” He jerked his head at the TV, which had been muted all day. Sound wasn’t really needed, given the text that crawled across the bottom of the screen. Every channel had it, and no two seemed to say anything like the same thing.

“I read on the internet it’s some government program that fucked up,” the kid said. “Like, some virus they made to destabilize a population.”

Geezer snorted. “If they did, it worked,” he said. He wasn’t about to tell the kid — or anyone else — that he damn well knew better. Oh, he didn’t know the real cause, but he knew what it wasn’t, and it wasn’t that.

He stared down at the foamy depths of his beer, golden in the sunlight that slanted through the windows. “Kid, if you get the fever, don’t go anywhere, you hear me? And don’t take anybody to a hospital or doctor or anyone like that. Ain’t safe.”

“The hell? Why not?” 

There was a very odd note in the kid’s voice that made Geezer look up. “Think about it. Government didn’t do this, but they’re sure as shit gonna overreact to it. It’s not just the fever, it’s what follows.”

The kid snorted, but there was doubt written beneath the impressive sunburn on his face. “What, the curses? You don’t — I mean, you don’t really believe that, do you?”

Yeah, there was real fear in the kid’s brown eyes — fear that made him seem a good ten years younger. For the first time that day, Geezer took a good, hard look at the kid — his red face, the sweat on his forehead. Yeah, it was kind of hot in the bar (air conditioner gone to shit, and the part they needed wouldn’t be there until next week), but…dammit.

“You’re sick, aren’t you?”

The kid looked away, and shrugged his bony shoulders. “I’ve felt better.” Hands that weren’t quite steady polished a glass that was in no need of it. “Probably nothing to worry about.”

Geezer’s eyebrows rose, and he sighed. Fuck everything. “Kid, you shut this place right now. If we get you home and resting, maybe it won’t be so bad.” He didn’t believe that for a moment, and he doubted the kid did, either but it was something to say.

The kid’s apartment was directly over the bar; once he’d locked everything up and flipped the sign to Closed, it didn’t exactly take long to get there and get him settled. The place had been an utter sty when Geezer first took up residence on the couch, but it was organized with military precision now. Sure, the collection of DVDs sat on a shelf made out of a board held up by two cinder blocks, and a square of milk crates covered in plywood passed for the coffee-table, but it was tidy.

“Go on, kid. I’m not much of a nurse, but I’m the best you got. If somebody comes asking after the bar, I’ll just tell ’em you shut it to keep the sickness out.”

The kid actually did as he was told, and Geezer settled himself on the sofa. An ashtray (made from a hubcap) took up one corner of the coffee-table, and he dragged it over before he tapped a cigarette out of the crumpled pack in his pocket. It would be a few days before he’d need to go get more, and by then the kid ought to be past the worst of it.

A flick of Geezer’s battered Zippo lit the cigarette, and the smell of lighter fluid joined the sharpness of the smoke. If the kid was lucky, he’d wake up with something he could hide, and nobody needed to be any the wiser. He had a sister, but Geezer didn’t dare call her for fear she’d give something away, by accident or on purpose. She didn’t ever need to know, either.

He propped his feet on the coffee-table. It might be that he was only delaying the inevitable, but it might not, either. His last prophecy-seizure had showed him a world that seemed to be at least half-ass okay; unfortunately he had no way of knowing when that would be. So often, the shit he saw didn’t make any sense until it had already happened.

Would they get him, the Men in Grey? He had no way of knowing that, either, because the only future he never saw was his own. Logically, the answer was no; they were taking away everyone who’d been sick, and he wasn’t going to catch that fever. He’d been born with the sort of curse it was inflicting on so many — if he didn’t have some kind of immunity, he’d be very surprised. Nobody looked twice at a broken-down old vet.

Not yet.

This wouldn’t stop with the fever. Geezer knew that much, at least; somehow, at some point, the fucking MiG would find a way to clock the cursed even if it didn’t show. This wasn’t the sort of place they’d pay attention to, though, and the kid was like him in one way: he was beneath the notice of anybody who supposedly mattered. There was an upside to being the kind of person society didn’t care about — when shit hit the fan, nobody thought about you, so long as you weren’t an idiot who drew attention to yourself. Flying under the radar wasn’t too hard when people tried not to look at you, either out of fear you’ll attack them or beg for change.

Get something invisible, kid. Hell, get invisibility, if that’s even a thing. Geezer didn’t know just how many different curses there might be, but they were probably going to find out soon enough.

Fucking wonderful.

 

~

 

Raoul von Rached

 

For the first time in decades, Von Rached found something well and truly interesting.

He had always known that others like himself existed, rare though they were. As he understood it, magic ran in families, or had once done; so far as he had been able to discover, both sides of his family were now long dead. Even the aristocracy in the normal world had an unfortunate habit of inbreeding itself to extinction, and among his kind there were even fewer of those to go around. If they had been at all like his mother, it was no real loss.

This fever, however…

Von Rached was not about to bother with the news, or even the CDC feeds he should not technically have access to. No, he sought the man who was supposedly some combination of superior and handler, as if anyone could actually control him. Letting them believe that made his life less annoying, so he allowed it.

Andrew Crupps lived alone, in an expensive flat in an upscale neighborhood of America’s capital city. It was exactly what one would expect of a civil servant devoid of any real imagination or creativity: pure white carpet, flat white walls adorned here and there with bland watercolors for which he had no doubt paid a fortune. Even the sofa was off-white. The occasional splash of color — a replica Ming vase with an artificial fern, a Persian rug in red and gold — only offset the sterility.

The man himself had no idea his home had been invaded until there was quite suddenly a Von Rached in his kitchen, where there had been no Von Rached a moment before. He jumped, swore, and dropped a jar of marinara sauce that shattered upon impact with the (white, of course) tile floor. The resultant mess looked remarkably like blood.

“I— I didn’t hear you knock.” Crupps swallowed, but rallied himself. He was a tall man, and reasonably fit for his forty-odd years — not normally someone who was easily unsettled, but just now he was pale as his anemic flat. 

Von Rached arched an eyebrow. “I didn’t bother,” he said. “It hardly matters — you won’t remember this anyway. Hold still, Andrew, and this will be over much sooner.”

He stepped over the mess and broken glass, while the wide-eyed Crupps fought an urge to flee and just barely won. “This really isn’t — you should make an appointment…” The words trailed off, and he went both still and calm, his mind wrapped in an artificial haze of serenity. It made it extremely easy for Von Rached to enter it, and look about as he pleased.

Every mind he had ever inspected was different, but there was one thing they seemed to have in common: some manner of inner landscape. The person themself was often entirely unaware of it, but it was blatant enough to Von Rached.

Crupps’, naturally, was very like the sort of office in which he worked, and very nearly as impersonal as his home. His mind was tidy enough that Von Rached didn’t need to rummage for long before he found what he sought.

The human memory, he had found, could be an incredibly peculiar thing. Crupps’ conscious powers of recall were nothing remarkable, but the things he stored below the surface of his mind were far more complete. A mental file labeled ‘fever’ revealed a great many things the man himself likely would not have known he could retain, though the language was somewhat…less than professional.

Morbidity rate 30%?

Fatality rate, 0. How?

Alteration rate from fever: 100%

Known alterations thus far (terminology subject to change):

 

  • Pyrokinesis (fire)
  • Transmutation (conversion of objects to other objects?)
  • Flight (note: calling it ‘Superman Syndrome’ was overruled)
  • Chloropathy (plant manipulation of some sort)
  • Aura manipulation (how very New Age)
  • Clairsentience (reading the history of…everything. Note: subjects prone to suicide)
  • Aquakinesis (water. Note: calling it ‘Aquaman Syndrome’ overruled)

 

Von Rached was somewhat disappointed that there were no telepaths among that number, but it was early days yet. While he had suspected the fever inevitably lead to the acquisition of an ability, it was useful to have confirmation that it was so thus far. 

Transmission vector unknown. 

Subject commonality…apparently nonexistent.

Recommended course of action: pray.

Well, that was hardly useful. Von Rached could study this, once given funds and facilities. If anyone could divine the true source of the fever and its effects, it was him.

Crupps was the key, and thus it was Crupps he would use. The man would forget Von Rached had invaded both his flat and his mind, but on the morrow he would convince everyone who would listen that it was imperative to study this phenomenon — and that only one person was qualified to do so.

Yes, things were about to get far more interesting.

Fever (You Set My Soul on Fire)

Later — not very much later at all — the world would agree on one single thing: it began with the fever. Everything that followed — the wonderful, the terrible, and the seemingly impossible — had its roots in the pandemic that defied all logic or explanation.

 

Ratiri Duncan

 

Ratiri couldn’t remember having ever been this sick.

He’d been a healthy child; the worst he’d ever dealt with was a bad case of strep throat when he was twelve. As an adult, there had been one, maybe two bouts of true influenza, but otherwise he’d been blessed with the same rude health his father had possessed (before the poor man’s angry, alcohol-abused liver turned cancerous, at least).

Now, though…it was fortunate he’d literally fallen ill at work, because he lived alone. The fever had felled him as abruptly as it had all its other victims, but fortunately for him, another doctor had broken his fall. It hadn’t been nearly as fortunate for her, who, being much shorter, had been knocked over like a tenpin.

Things went fuzzy after that. He had a dim awareness of a line in his arm, and his vision occasionally focused on a bag of saline that shone with dark, diamond-purity under the dimmed fluorescent lights. The steady blip of the monitor told him his heart rate was decent, but he couldn’t focus on it — or anything else — for long. In his moments of borderline delirium, he wondered if someone had filled his joints with rusty razors when he wasn’t looking.

Dimly, he registered the rustle of a shifted curtain, the metal hooks whispering over the rod. Ratiri had to blink a few times, because the brighter light from the hallway stabbed straight into his brain.

“It’s all right, Ratiri. I’ve just got more acetaminophen.” The soft, Estuary accent belonged to Angie Cohen, his fellow on the pediatric ward. She sounded beyond weary, and he was coherent enough to wonder when she’d last slept — and why she was bothering with the acetaminophen. Nothing they’d yet found had managed to mitigate the fever in the least, but apparently they had to feel like they were doing something.

Ratiri swallowed, but his throat was on fire, and he found it would produce no sound. At least she injected the medicine into his line, rather than try to make him take it orally. She was too pale, and the smudges of exhaustion beneath her eyes were so dark they looked like bruises. A faint aura, pale and clear as the saline, limned her, and he wondered if a migraine was about to punch him. It was welcome to try; by now, he doubted he could feel any worse.

Angie ran the thermometer over his forehead, the plastic cool and smooth against his skin. Her eyes widened when she read it, and she somehow managed to pale even further. “You hang in there, Ratiri,” she said, and there was a distinct tremor in her voice.

He had little choice but to do just that, struggling to curl up on the narrow hospital bed. It was too short for him; he stood a full six-foot-six, and his feet dangled no matter what he did. The thin hospital blankets were nowhere near enough, and the gown might as well have been made of paper, because he was so, so cold.

Consciousness took a brief holiday; when it returned, he hoped it had enjoyed the trip, because he certainly wished it had stayed there. How long it had been gone, he didn’t know, but he’d gained no real rest. His limbs were still heavy with exhaustion, and neither thought nor vision would focus.

A nurse appeared at his side, but her voice was unfamiliar. It didn’t really matter, for it wasn’t much time before his mind gave up; this time, when darkness took him, it kept him.

 

~

 

When awareness returned to Ratiri, it did it in slow degrees. He was no longer freezing, he realized, and the agony in his joints was gone — the fever had broken. It had broken, and he was still alive, which he’d probably be grateful for once he no longer had a catheter.

Opening his eyes took a great deal of effort, and he wasn’t sure the result was worth it; his vision swam, and refused to settle. God, how long had he been unconscious? Given the catheter, it had to have been at least a day. When he’d gone under, nobody who’d had the fever had yet come out of it — though at least nobody had died, so far as he knew.

“Somebody’s come back to the land of the living.”

Angie entered his view, fuzzy and indistinct. Ratiri blinked a few times, but his eyes didn’t clear — if anything, his vision worsened. He could make out a few of her features, sure, but she was surrounded by a faint light of shifting green and blue. It was lovely, really, even if there were threads of grey in it. It wasn’t like any migraine aura he’d ever heard of (or experienced, for that matter), and there was a distinctive lack of headache.

Silent migraine, he thought, but there was no conviction behind it. Instead he tried to speak, and failed entirely.

“You just stay put.” The head of his bed raised, and Angie pressed a plastic cup of ice chips into his hand, which felt so weak he could scarcely hold it. “You gave us a bloody scare, Ratiri Duncan — even more than all the others.”

He managed to get an ice chip in his mouth without dropping the cup, which he counted a win. Its chill was a blessing against his tongue, and it soothed his dry throat enough to let him form actual words. “How many died?” Jesus, he sounded like someone had taken his vocal cords and given them a good scrubdown with lye.

“That’s the thing,” she said, even as she fussed with the empty bag of saline, “we haven’t lost anyone. I don’t know if it’s the same everywhere, but we haven’t had a single fatality.”

Ratiri’s vision might be bolloxed, but there was nothing at all wrong with his hearing. Angie’s tone was one he recognized all too well: gratitude and unease in equal measure. It was the tone only used for inexplicable recovery, because ignorance of the cause meant they didn’t dare hope that it would last. All too often, it didn’t.

“Complications?” he asked, around a second piece of ice. The shimmering light remained, even as his eyes finally decided to do their job. “Neurological?” It occurred to him that he might well have had a stroke, especially if his fever had been high enough.

Angie winced. “Um, you might say that. Sort of. Look, Ratiri, you just stay here, and if any men in suits show up and ask you questions, crazy questions…just say no, all right? You were extremely sick and you’ll be a long while in getting well. That’s all anybody needs to know.”

She hustled out before he could say a thing. Just what the hell had that been? Angie wasn’t a nervous one, though she was probably still exhausted. Crazy questions…it wasn’t like he could answer anything that might be asked. Of his illness, he honestly knew nothing.

He set the plastic up on the tray beside his bed, and stared at the ceiling. The fluorescents were dimmed, which was just as well; he didn’t want to know what full brightness would have done to his eyes. The fingers of both hands wiggled easily, as did his toes, and he could raise and lower both arms and legs. He could even touch his nose with each index finger, which gave him some hope that there hadn’t been any stroke. If it was an aneurysm, he’d be dead.

Okay, probably not a stroke. What else? The brain was an extremely complex organ, and it regularly demonstrated some new way in which something could go wrong. Ratiri was too tired to even attempt to sort it out.

There came a knock at the door. “Doctor Duncan, are you awake?”

Ratiri blinked, hard. “I am,” he said. “Technically.”

Without waiting for permission, a man in a tidy suit pushed the curtain back. A small man, trim and fit, with something that seemed to be a mobile in his right hand. Behind him was a second, just as tidy, though rather taller and broader. And both of them bore outlines of shimmering light.

Ratiri blinked again, but the auras remained — paler than Angie’s, colder, and both as grey as their suits. Oh damn, something really had gone wrong…

“We just need to ask you a few questions,” the smaller man said. His accent was hard, clipped, and so aggressively RP that it was obviously not his natural accent. There was nothing at all menacing about him; he seemed, honestly, rather fussy.

“I’ll try to answer them,” Ratiri said, “but I’ve literally only just woken up five minutes ago.” The ice might have soothed his throat, but his voice sounded no better.

“This won’t take long.” Although there was a plastic chair not far from the bed, neither man sat. “Have you noticed any changes?”

“Changes in what?” Ratiri asked. “I feel like it wouldn’t take more than a breeze to knock me over.” The lights still shimmered, but he had enough wherewithal to say nothing. He wouldn’t have said anything even without Angie’s bizarre order, because he really wanted these two to go away.

The men looked at one another. “We’ll come back later,” the smaller one said. “Meantime, get some rest.”

The pair were gone so swiftly that Ratiri honestly wondered if he’d hallucinated the entire encounter. Obviously he needed more sleep.

 

~

 

Lorna Donovan

 

Lorna had steadfastly refused to go to her sister’s when the fever hit, because she hadn’t thought it would be anything serious. 

At first, it wasn’t; she took her paracetamol, drank plenty of herbal tea, and curled up on the sofa to watch cat videos on YouTube. Sure, it was unpleasant, but nothing to fuss over.

Then day two hit.

When she woke on the second day, she was not, at first, certain she’d actually woken at all. She was freezing, clammy with sweat, and her mind and her eyes felt so heavy that she couldn’t move. The light dimmed and brightened at seemingly arbitrary intervals, which was oddly irritating.

Movement wasn’t to be thought of, until her bladder grew too insistent to ignore. It took every ounce of strength she had to leave her soft (if sweaty) bed and haul herself to the toilet, leaning against the wall for balance. The seat felt like it had been carved out of ice, but she was pretty sure her piss was close to boiling. 

When she’d had her wee, it took her a moment to summon enough energy to drag herself to the sink. She had a dim idea that brushing her teeth might make her feel a little better — until she caught sight of her reflection, and staggered backward.

It was no real surprise that her face was red, but Christ on an actual bloody bike, there were blisters around her mouth. She leaned heavily against the counter as her blurry eyes tried to inspect them — they were little bumps, hard and white, painful when she touched one. 

Yeah, nope. Apparently her brain decided that was all a bit much, because her vision fuzzed grey, and she found herself on the floor before she could even register the vertigo. Awareness wandered away, and left her just conscious enough to realize how fucking much her joints hurt, even apart from her collapse. Just…fuck.

Eventually, something like actual thought pierced her muzzy brain: Jesus, Fun Size. Three words, and odd ones, but they sounded like Mairead. Trust her sister to come make sure she wasn’t dead, because god bloody forbid she use the telephone like a normal person.

Strong hands — cold hands — lifted Lorna off the floor, as easily as though she were a child. Given Mairead was pushing six feet and Lorna herself hadn’t even cleared five, it was no wonder, really.

She tried to say something, but her brain wouldn’t even supply actual words. There was fear now, churning through her mind like shards of glass in oatmeal. Cold fear, dark and heavy—

— why didn’t you come to my house dammit you little eejit —

I didn’t need to, Lorna thought, but the words wouldn’t reach her throat. Not then I didn’t—

Abruptly, she found herself back on her bed, on top of the sweat-soaked duvet. A fleeting thought of laundry passed through her mind, gone as swiftly as it came.

— Doc Barry’s going to skin her —

Mairead was gone, and Lorna had just enough time to wonder if she’d been there at all before her sister’s voice floated through the door. Something about fevers and eejits and could the doc come out to the cottage, or should they drag Lorna straight to the clinic? 

No. No, she didn’t want to — she couldn’t leave her cottage, her home, her safety zone. It was just a fever, just a bleeding stupid fever that wasn’t enough to knock her down, because nothing ever knocked her down, not like this—

“I’ll get her together before you get here.”

You. Who? Who’s you? 

“No,” Lorna managed, somehow. No, I’m not going anywhere and you can’t fucking make me it’s not safe. “Stay.”

Something in her mind shifted, because suddenly she saw herself through Mairead’s eyes — a tiny woman in an ancient, oversized Judas Priest T-shirt, long dark hair a sweaty tangle and eyes glassy with a fever that might just be broiling her brain. Oh shit, was that really what she looked like? Was that really her? No, that wasn’t her, she wasn’t Mairead and she couldn’t see things like that—

Her mind checked out at that point, and didn’t find its way back until she was laid out on a gurney — an actual gurney, was that really necessary? She’d be fine. She’d be fine, if only everyone would leave her alone.

— hospital — 

“No point.” Doc Barry’s voice, heavy with the tones of Limerick. “Busy —” nope, there went Lorna’s awareness again.

“The blisters—”

 “— saline…everything we can.”

God, no more fear, no more. Christ, how was she to handle it if it pressed in from all sides? How could she stand it, how could she even fucking breathe —

— there she was again, but not through Mairead’s eyes. She could see Mairead too, her face milk-white beneath her freckles. Jesus, she didn’t need to look so scared, everything would be all right once Lorna was done baking like a Sunday roast.

More fear, more cold, but now she was inside again. Somewhere along the way her shirt and shorts were replaced with soft dry cotton, and now there was a little thread of relief, of hope. She’d hold onto that, so long as she was cognizant enough to hold onto anything at all.

 

~

 

“Mam, I think she’s waking up.” Was that Niamh, the younger niece?

“Good. It’s about time I was able to give out at her for being so stubborn.”

Before she’d even opened her eyes, Lorna smiled. It was tired, but it was a smile nonetheless, because she was warm and dry and no longer felt like someone had shoved razors anywhere razors shouldn’t go (which was pretty much everywhere, but she couldn’t think of a better metaphor). “Had to try.”

“Try to give me heart failure, more like.” Mairead’s face was as weary as her voice, pale and pinched with worry. “You’re staying with us, and I won’t have any argument. Jesus, Fun Size, you had a fucking seizure, your fever was that high.”

Lorna blinked up at her. “I what?”

Mairead rolled her eyes. “Seizure, Lorna. Apparently they can happen when your temperature’s gone over forty-one degrees.”

“Doc Barry says you’re lucky to be alive,” Niamh added. The girl was her mother in miniature, freckled and violently ginger.

“Hush, you. Go on out and tell your brothers and sister.” Mairead shooed her away, shaking her head.

Oh, good Jesus… Lorna fought the urge to draw her blanket up over her head, because there was too much going on in it. Seizure, her sister said, but along with it came an echo of terror Lorna herself was too exhausted to feel. Tangled among it were things like almost lost you and eejit and god don’t you dare ever do that again you little shit —

That thought was so complete, and it sounded so very Mairead that Lorna was laughing before she knew what she was doing. She’d often heard echoes of her gran at the back of her thoughts, but Mairead was a new one. 

“You can come up with better than ‘little shit,’” she said. Her throat felt like she’d swallowed a load of asphalt and then sicked it right back up, but at least she could speak. Sort of.

“Oh, trust me, I will,” her sister said, and paused just a moment before shaking her head. “Doc ought to release you by the end’v the day, if you can manage to not die.”

Lorna stuck her tongue out, because she was an adult. Honest. She had a driving license to prove it, somewhere.

“Mature. Don’t move.”

Since moving didn’t seem at all appealing, Lorna actually did as she was told. Recuperating at Mairead’s wouldn’t be bad at all, even if there were a lot more people than she was used to living with — the bed in the spare room was nice enough, and there were two magnificently fluffy cats to keep her company. (Mairead had made the mistake of letting the kids name the kittens, and as a result the poor things were called Godzilla and Mothra.)

The cold’s outside, she thought, and so’s the rain. The room lacked a window, so she had no idea if it was raining or not, but it was Ireland — the balance of probability tilted toward ‘yes.’ She was warm and dry and at least no longer sick, even if she did feel like she’d been tossed off a cliff into the sea and dragged back in a fishing net.

— glue those cats to her if it’ll keep her in one place — the thought was accompanied by mental images of the cats, Lorna, the spare room, and a roll of duct tape, all jumbled together. If the fever had gone and fried her brain to the point of hallucinating, she was going to be very annoyed…eventually. For now, she’d settle for some tea, if somebody would be nice enough to give her one.

Niamh snuck back in through the door, with her siblings at her heels. The four of them ranged in age from ten to sixteen, and had spent four years being enabled in mischief by their surprise aunt. None of them had known Lorna existed until she was twenty-eight, and vice versa; she’d come to her sister’s home only after the wreck that killed her Liam, and left her with no one.

Kevin, youngest of the quartet, sat on the end of her bed. He was still a little lad, sandy-haired like his da, and he looked at her with an expression that suggested he didn’t quite believe she was really alive.

“Come on, I can’t look that bad,” she said — but no sooner had she spoken than she caught an image of herself, a fleeting picture from his perspective. She looked absolutely terrible, ashy-grey and hollow-cheeked. How long had she been ill? Surely she didn’t look that bad—

Kevin blinked, and Lorna’s own vision went momentarily dark. Dread and disbelief churned in her chest — disbelief, because there was no way she was actually seeing anything through her nephew’s eyes, and dread for no logical reason at all. She was just tired, that was all. Some rest and tea and she’d be right again, back home in her cottage and at work in the pub. Christ, how the hell were Big Jamie and Michael handling it, being down a bartender?

Don’t get used to it. This thought was wholly hers, pulled from somewhere in the depths of pure instinct. Be ready. She had a terrible, irrational, and totally inescapable fear that her life was about to get much, much worse.

 

~

 

Kajte DaVries

 

Fortunately, Katje’s client had gone before she started to feel really ill. She’d woken with a cold, and called Adlar to cancel their appointment — there was no point in getting him sick as well, and she hardly looked her best right now. 

Adlar, bless him, had come to her flat anyway, but only to bring her soup and tea. “You rest,” he said, “and you call if you get worse. I mean it.” He was such an earnest man, and he had no family himself — the classic driven businessman who hit his thirties and realized that while he had plenty of money, he had no close people in his life. Katje had taken him on because really, he just needed to figure out how to talk to a woman and he could get an actual girlfriend. He wouldn’t be the first contract she’d taken for that very reason, and he would surely not be the last.

“You’re sweet,” she said. “I would ask you in, but I am afraid to breathe on you.” Her voice had shifted from sultry to hoarse.

“I would rather you rest,” he repeated. “And I mean it — call me. If I’m at work, I can still send someone.”

She waved him away with a promise and an air kiss, and retreated into the warmth of her flat. Any sensible escort kept an appealing flat, but hers was actually homey — no animal print fabrics or anything like that, and furniture that was comfortable rather than showy. 

The soup smelled wonderful — minestrone, if she wasn’t mistaken — so she’d shuffled her slipper-clad feet into the kitchen. Few of her clients ever got to see the huge, fluffy, soft, and entirely unsexy red bathrobe she was currently swathed in, but she was alone and she was going to be comfy, god dammit. 

Shivering, she pried the lid off the glass container — this hadn’t come from any supermarket, that much was certain — and actually managed to eat the better part of a bowl before she wanted to do nothing more than crawl into bed.

Once she’d tidied her kitchen, she did just that. The robe might be unsexy, but it was nothing compared to the flannel pajamas she wore beneath it — they were thick, soft, warm, and a hideous pink-and-green plaid that really shouldn’t exist.

Admittedly, her bedroom was somewhat more in line with what one might expect from someone in her profession: lots of silk and dramatic lighting, but the satin sheets had been banished in favor of flannel, and the mattress was like a cloud. (It ought to be, given she’d spent two thousand euro on it.) Her achy, fevery body snuggled down into a nest of sheets and satin duvet, and she fell asleep before she could feel any worse.

 

~

 

“Katje. Katje. Katje, wake up now.”

Katje groaned, and cringed at the pain in her throat. Oh god, why should she wake up? She felt absolutely horrible — she hadn’t been this sick since she was a little girl, and caught a dose of tonsillitis that had ended in an emergency tonsillectomy. Who was here — who was bothering her?

Something plastic rolled over her forehead, and she was dimly aware of a beep. “Katje, can you hear me?”

The voice, she realized, was familiar — Liesje. Liesje, her client — Liesje the doctor, whose family had no idea she was a lesbian. Who had called her? A number of Katje’s current clients were friends with former ones — she tended to find them by referral — but how was she here? Why was she here? Shouldn’t she be at the hospital?

“Katje—”

“Yes, I hear you.” Katje’s voice gave out at ‘you’, but still. Speech had happened. She was so cold and so tired, and why did anyone have to bother her? She must look awful right now.

“Katje, I need you to sit up. I need to listen to your heart.”

“You wouldn’t answer the phone.” Adlar, his voice not entirely steady. Maybe he had called Liesje — she was one of the few people who had a spare key to the flat. “You wouldn’t answer the phone, or the door, and I was worried.”

“He was not the only one,” Liesje muttered. 

Whatever had or hadn’t happened, she needed to pee. Badly. “Bathroom,” she croaked. “Bathroom now, heart later.” She didn’t care if it was about to explode, so long as she got to pee.

Liesje helped her to her feet, and she tried not to think about just how much mystique she was probably losing in this state. The tile floor was cold beneath her bare feet, but she managed to take care of the necessities and even wash her face (no moisturizers, though, because she just did not have the energy. She already looked like Death left out in the rain for three days; moisturizer wasn’t going to do a damn thing.) 

“Katje, I think you need to go to the hospital.” Liesje’s pale face swam before Katje’s eyes. “Your fever is very high.”

“What if it’s the fever?” Adlar’s voice was low, heavy with anger and worry. “Liesje, if they’re in the hospital —”

Whatever he said next was a mystery, for Katje’s consciousness slipped a little. Sitting upright was just too much effort, and she slumped against Liesje. The woman’s skin was so soft, and smelled very faintly of rose water. Artificial scents weren’t allowed in hospital, but rose water, Liesje had once told her, reminded her of a favorite, long-deceased grandmother.

“And if she seizes? Adlar, I have nothing here — no magnesium, no saline—”

Again, sound faded, and Katje was dimly aware that someone was taking her frigid, sweaty top off. It was only a pity she was in no condition at all to appreciate it.

“You know what will happen if she’s got something,” Adlar hissed. “Something obvious.”

Katje scowled. She didn’t have any diseases, thank you very much — she was very careful about that. The air was so chilly against her skin, but one or both of them wiped at her body with damp cloths. They were even chillier, but it felt better than stale sweat.

“Help me with the tub, then. Her fever must come down somehow, and then she needs to drink. Go, fill it with lukewarm water.”

An absolutely frigid metal circle pressed against her chest, and it took a moment for her unsteady mind to realize it was a stethoscope. Liesje had something of a kink for them, and they could be surprisingly fun if you got creative. There was definitely nothing enjoyable about it now, however.

“Yes, I know this is no fun,” Liesje said, “and it will be even less fun soon, but we have to get your fever down somehow.”

What the hell does that mean? Katje didn’t have the energy to ask aloud, or even to help when Adlar took her trousers off. She had a hazy, dim annoyance that she hadn’t shaved her legs in two days, but she didn’t care and she doubted they did, either.

Somehow both of her clients got her onto her feet again — not exactly easy, given she was quite a bit taller than Liesje, and nearly of a height with Adlar — and brought her, stumbling, into the bathroom. She had no idea what they meant to do until she found herself lowered, feet-first, into a tub of water that felt as frigid as an Arctic sea.

Katje tensed, and jerked away — at least, she tried to. Liesje caught her before she could climb out of the tub. 

“Katje, I know this must feel awful, but you need it. Your temperature is over forty degrees.”

“Forty?” Surely that couldn’t be right — not when she felt so terribly cold, half-submerged now in the icy water. “Why is this so —”

She couldn’t finish the question. She couldn’t even fight Liesje’s gentle but incredibly firm hold on her shoulders.

“It’s not cold, Katje, it just feels like it because your fever is so high. Five minutes and we will take you out.”

A hand — Adlar’s, she thought — brushed the tangled, sweat-sticky hair back from her forehead, only to snatch itself away a moment later. She was vaguely aware of a startled hiss.

“God, Liesje, she’s burning.”

“Hence the bath.” Katje fancied she could hear the poor woman rolling her eyes. “Get some panadol, if she has any. It’s better than nothing.”

Perhaps he went, or perhaps he did not; Katje was too distracted by the sudden rush of chilly water through her hair to notice. Liesje’s soft hand smoothed it over her forehead, and her face.

“I know this will be hard, but Katje, when we take you out, you need to drink water — as much as you can. Keep sipping, even if you aren’t thirsty.”

Thought of eating or drinking anything at all was almost too much to bear, given the pain in her throat, but Katje was in no condition to argue. She was just pathetically grateful to be brought out of the tub, limp as a noodle and helpless as a baby. Somehow, she found herself dried and dressed in clean pajamas, soft cotton that was nowhere near warm enough. She shivered so hard she was sure her bones would break apart, but Adlar caught her before she could burrow back under her duvet.

“No,” he said, and she suddenly had a glass of water pressed into her left hand. “Take this, Katje and drink.”

Her throat was so sore that she could barely swallow the pills, and sipping at the water was pure torment. When unconsciousness took her again, it was a mercy.

 

~

 

How long she slept, she didn’t know, but Katje woke feeling much less awful. Exhausted, wrung-out, but at least she no longer wished she was dead. 

A trip to the bathroom made things even nicer, though her reflection looked like absolute hell. Once she actually felt like a human, it would be time for some serious self-care.

When she stumbled her way back out into her bedroom, she found Rien beside her bed. Liesje or Adlar must have called him, because he worked from home and could most easily stay with her. He was no longer her client — he’d graduated from the Katje Academy of Women 101 — but they’d stayed in touch.

“You should eat,” he said, “and rest.” His expression was calm, but he was pale, and even tired as she was, she did not miss the strain in his voice. 

“I’m not hungry,” she said, though even as she spoke she realized that wasn’t true — her stomach gurgled audibly even as he helped her out to the sitting-room, and got her settled on the sofa with a fuzzy red blanket.

“Of course you aren’t,” he said, and she doubted she imagined the relief in his tone. “Some broth, at least, and toast if you can manage it. I will change your bed.”

Somehow, food happened before she could say a word, and she even managed to eat some of it before she fell asleep again, curled in a ball on the sofa.

When she woke once more, she found Liesje beside her, tension written in her every line. “Katje, when you feel better, you need to go,” the woman said, low and urgent. “You have a passport, yes?”

Katje nodded, but her abused, half-cooked brain refused to fully comprehend any of that.

“Go, then. Go to Canada — get far away from Europe. We’ve all pooled money for you to stay somewhere, until things blow over.”

“What things?” The words were almost lost in a yawn. “Liesje, what in fuck are you talking about?”

The woman looked at Rien, who looked back with an expression Katje didn’t like at all. It wasn’t just worried — there was actual fear in his hazel eyes.

“Things are happening to people who had the fever,” Liesje said. “Strange things. I don’t know why, but I do know men have come and taken all the patients away, even when they’re better. Nobody knows where they go, not even the families. If they know you had it, even now you’re over it…”

“They started shooting people,” Rien added. “The news suppressed it, but I’ve heard things online. You’ll be safe in Canada, until things…stabilize.”

Katje’s eyes flickered from one to the other, and dread coiled cold within her.

 

~

 

Three countries, three illnesses, and three people as yet unknown to one another. One man whose vision is filled with auras delicate as an aurora, one woman whose mind is no longer her own, and another woman still in ignorance of the curse bestowed upon her spirit, legacy of that strange sickness. None yet with any inkling of what awaits, of the hideous trials that lay ahead of them.

The fever is only the beginning. 

 

~

 

This story is the first of a pair, both of which precede The Curse of M (first chapter may be found here.) The fever is indeed only the beginning.

The Curse of M

June, 2012

Lorna shivered, hugging her coat closer about her, and glanced uneasily upward. The sky was grey, heavy with leaden clouds that hung dark and sullen over the expanse of Puget Sound. The water churned, frothing into whitecaps as fitful winds gusted from the west. She’d already been kicked out of two corners at the Pike Place Market, and lost half a day’s money; panhandling in Seattle was a lot harder than it looked, especially since she was far from the only one with a guitar. 

City’s too damn weird, she thought, and not for the first time. How was she to stand a chance against the girl asking for someone to make her dreams of a cheeseburger come true? Or, worse, the one with the sign that read, ‘Ninjas killed my family, need money for kung fu lessons’? If she’d realized Seattle was so full of eccentrics, she would have gone somewhere else. It was too hard to stand out enough to attract enough notice.

She made it undercover before the rain started in earnest, clutching her guitar case close. On weekdays, she’d found, the Market was actually possible to navigate without having to kick people; at half an inch shy of five feet tall, Lorna would often get literally stepped on in crowds. The guitar case helped — it was a little over half as tall as she was, and she could use it like a shield against jostling.

There was a restaurant near the main entrance, an old-fashioned place with prices reasonable enough to allow her a sandwich and a cup of tea. She’d been in the States two months now, long enough to properly get the hang of American currency — and to discover life here was nearly as expensive as it was in Ireland. She wormed her way toward it now, shivering again as the wind picked up.

 — damn weather  —

 — weird  —

 — windows are down  —

 — great, the basement will flood again  —

 — something smells good  —

 — oh God, what did I just step in  —

Lorna winced, pressing her free hand to her temple. She knew there was nothing to be done for it — God knew she’d tried — and it was almost enough to drive her back to drink. Why the fuck did it have to be this one? Oh, it wasn’t a flashy Curse, not something that would get her caught (or shot) on sight, but at times it felt like her brain was being squeezed. A dull headache lurked at the edges of her mind, just waiting for the right moment descend on her like the bricks beneath her boots.

Unfortunately, she needed a crowd if she were to successfully panhandle, so she had no choice but to suck it up and deal with it. If she was lucky, food would stave it off until she could get to her bus and lay down for a while.

It was the fever that had preceded the Curses – a fever and a cough, like the worst case of flu a person could imagine. It swept across the globe in less than a week, and the only reason it hadn’t been called the pandemic from hell was that a relatively small percentage of people actually caught it. It would have wound up nothing more than a footnote, if not for what followed. Where the virus went, magic followed, and it did so with a vengeance – whether anyone liked it or not. So far nobody, especially the Cursed, did.

The restaurant, she found, was busy, but not as jammed as she’d feared. It was big, with a high ceiling, worn hardwood floors, and large plate-glass windows looking out over Puget Sound. The water was even choppier now, the sky alarmingly dark. Fat raindrops, wind-borne, splatted against the glass, and she sighed. There was no way she was heading back to her bus until this cleared up.

She’d been in here often enough that the hostess knew her by sight, and directed her to the counter with a wordless wave. A number of scents drifted to her from the kitchen beyond, all delicious, and her stomach growled like the thunder outside as she clambered up onto one of the tall barstools, carefully leaning her guitar beside her. 

The aroma reminded her, achingly, of Jamie’s — of the pub and the life she’d left behind with it. Grease, coffee, baked ham, a sweet mingling of fruit pies…all that was missing was the beer. What the village must have thought of her abrupt flight didn’t bear considering; every time she let any thought of it creep in, an acidic pit formed within her stomach. She owed them all so much, but she’d fled like a thief in the night, and hadn’t dared contact even her sister. It wasn’t safe, and not only for Lorna herself.

“Haven’t kicked you out yet, huh?”

Lorna glanced at the man beside her, and gave a tired grin. He was an older man, perhaps in his sixties, with a face weather-lined and a shaggy mop of salt-and-pepper hair. She didn’t know his name, and hadn’t given him hers, but he’d been her semi-companion at lunch for the last week. Tending bar, she’d learned to read people well enough, and the weariness in his faded eyes was not wholly from age. At times they bore the same hunted, harried expression she’d seen in her own reflection — if he wasn’t Cursed himself, she’d be very, very surprised.

“Not yet,” she said. “Only a matter’v time before they get sick’v us both, though.” And Jesus, where will I go then? Portland? San Diego? 

The approaching waitress snorted. “Nobody’ll boot you, as long as you keep buying stuff. Same as yesterday?”

Lorna nodded, and flinched when a clap of thunder broke right overhead. It was so close and so loud that it rattled the old man’s mug on the counter. As if on cue, the wind picked up, misting the windows with a fine spray of salt water.

“Is this what you call normal around here?” she asked, when the waitress returned with a mug of hot water and a tea bag. (American tea; Lorna would never get used to it. Who put the bag in the cup? Honestly.)

The woman frowned, her expression blank until she translated what was likely a garble to her — Lorna’s Dublin accent was so thick that she’d been asked, more than once, if she spoke English. It had stopped being amusing after the first three times. “Not until recently,” she said. “People keep trying to blame it on climate change, but if you ask me, it’s got something to do with all the Curses floating around. Whatever they even are. Seems like every time there’s a storm, more people get dragged off. It’s like the storms out them as Cursed, or something.”

Lorna didn’t choke, but it was a near thing. She felt the old man freeze beside her, and a jolt of his dread hit her in the solar plexus like a half-brick in a sock. “You’ve got the Men in Grey here?” she asked. Christ, she’d thought it was safe, even if just for now — there hadn’t been any reports of them this far west, last time she’d checked the news (four days ago. Shit.)

The waitress sighed. “Is there anywhere that doesn’t? Hang on, hon, I think your order’s up.”

Lorna glanced at the old man. She didn’t need her useless telepathy to know what he was thinking. While she didn’t know where he stayed, she’d been living out of an ancient VW Bus, and she’d be an absolute shit if she didn’t at least give him a ride somewhere safer. And where the hell do you think that might even be? a nasty little voice whispered, from somewhere within her growing headache. You’re out of West, Lorna.

Oh, piss off. That voice had grown ever more insistent in the last week, no matter how creatively she swore at it. There were times it felt like it wasn’t even hers.

When her sandwich arrived, she ate half of it in three large bites, grabbing a takeaway box for the rest. “Come on,” she said quietly. “That’s got to be our cue. I’ve got a bus in a car park up the hill, and I’m thinking it’d be best if we weren’t visible for a while.”

She hopped off the stool and snatched up her guitar case, ignoring his startled look. He seemed poised to question her, but she forestalled it with a glare. They could hash out her motives later. Lorna dropped a twenty off at the hostess’ station — more than her tab, and certainly more than she could afford — and shoved the old man out in front of her.

“You’re taller,” she explained, when he glanced over his shoulder at her. “People’ll actually get out’v your way.”

They hadn’t even made it back to the Market proper when somebody screamed. It was more than a mere cry of alarm; there was real fear in it, and a frision of worry passed through Lorna. Pain and shock from God knew how many people slapped her like a physical thing, momentarily stealing her breath. Something came crashing down, something far too close — not the roof, but at least one stall.

 — Tricia says there’s two more in here  —

 — got the main entrance covered  —

 — the hell do we always have to catch them in this weather  —

Lorna swore in Irish, and prodded her pseudo-friend in the back with her guitar case. “Go,” she said; she had to stand on her tiptoes to at least try to hiss into his ear. “We’ve got company at the entrance, so we’ve got to weasel our way out the back. Don’t run unless somebody else does.” Cold though the wind was, she was sweating, her mouth dry and pulse racing. Nobody actually knew what happened to the Cursed when they got caught, but there were whispers, and none of them were good.

Her quasi-friend halted so abruptly that she slammed into his back, and got a face full of damp, slightly smelly wool. She swore again, wiping her face on her equally damp sleeve, and peered around his arm.

Shit.

Nobody knew just what the Men in Grey were, who they worked for or what they really did. All anybody did know was that where they went, the Cursed disappeared — the Cursed, and anyone who tried to intervene. Not that there were many of those. They were, as the name suggested, men in bland grey suits, often fitted with earpieces and sunglasses, like bad impersonations of Secret Service agents. On the surface they were so cliché that it could be difficult taking them seriously at first, which was probably the point, but they’d gained one hell of a reputation.

Now what? Lorna wondered, a little wildly. If she’d been alone, she would have ooched her way through the crowd and run like buggery, her height for once an advantage, but she wasn’t alone. Rationally, she probably didn’t have much to fear, since both she and her almost-mate looked as normal as anyone else, but somehow, the Men in Grey always seemed to know. Maybe there was no real hope of blending in.

Lightning flashed, so brightly that even undercover, the strobe-glare was momentarily blinding. Lorna blinked, disoriented, and on instinct she shoved her companion to the left. Sunglasses, or no, the MiG would be as temporarily blinded as everyone else, and she meant to use that to disappear into the heavier part of the crowd.

“Pushy, aren’t you?” her companion asked, just before a clap of thunder actually rattled the roof.

Lorna wasn’t the only one who jumped, and she certainly wasn’t the only one who swore. “Oh, you’ve not seen pushy yet,” she said, though if his ears were ringing as badly as hers, he might not have heard her. “What in hell’ve we got ahead’v us?” she asked, louder, once again right into his ear.

He half-turned. “Booth blew over,” he said. “Think it landed on a couple people.” If he was at all afraid, he certainly wasn’t showing it; only the grim set of his mouth betrayed any worry at all. God did she envy him.

A surge of terror not her own crashed into her mind like a brick — terror, and a pain so intense it almost made her ill. She caught a glimpse of one of the grey-suited bastards through someone else’s eyes, the dull, phantom thump of what was probably a punch to the kidneys echoing through her back. Oh god dammit, OW.

Before she could do or say a thing, another booth went crashing down — from the discordant jangling, she’d wager it was one of the jewelry-stalls. More screams, and far more swearing, and suddenly the tide of the crowd turned against them, a stampede headed for the relative shelter near the entrance. Even her companion, tall though he was, couldn’t stand against it — he was the one who ran into her now, forced backward by sheer press of numbers.

Lorna staggered, losing her grip on her takeaway bag and nearly dropping her guitar. Her back still ached with someone else’s pain, the bright afterspots of the lightning still danced before her eyes, and she was well and truly fed up. She’d never let anyone shove her around back home, and she didn’t intend to start now.

“Blow this,” she said, the words practically a snarl. She turned, ready to kick whoever was nearest her out of her way  —

 — and found herself face-to-chest with one of the MiG.

“Shit,” she breathed, heart lurching in her throat. She kicked anyway, even harder than she’d intended. Her boots, one of the few things she’d brought from Ireland, were steel-toed, and she heard the crack of his kneecap even over the panicked din.

He dropped like a lead balloon, and actually howled. Real professional there, mate, she though. Rather than flee, she went right over him, seizing her almost-friend’s coat with her free hand.

“Well, damn,” he said, half admiring. She didn’t miss the rather vicious kick he delivered himself.

In spite of her mounting rage, Lorna laughed. It was a slightly hysterical laugh, but it felt good nonetheless.

“Let’s blow this Popsicle stand,” he said. “I need a weapon.”

She blinked, stumbling when someone bumped her shoulder. “A weapon?”

He didn’t respond, but he did try to pat down the prone Man in Grey, who was now also sporting a bloody head wound. To her companion’s obvious disappointment, the MiG didn’t seem to have a gun on him.

Not that it really mattered — they both got knocked away from him, separated by a thundering herd of schoolchildren who must have been on a class trip. Lorna lost sight of him, and cringed when she accidentally whacked a kid with her guitar case. She was little enough that she could probably squeeze her way out among them, but she couldn’t just leave her almost-friend, who was rapidly losing the ‘almost’ status.

She struggled back toward him as gingerly as she could, trying not to smack any more children. The wind had whipped the Sound into such a frenzy that she actually tasted salt on her lips, her face chilled by the frigid spray. If this kept up, the Men in Grey might be the least of their problems. Did America get hurricanes on the west coast? She didn’t think so, but there was a first time for everything.

No sooner had she cleared the gaggle of kids than someone else grabbed her, a large hand clamping onto her left shoulder like a vice. It was another MiG, his suit damp and rumpled, and his expression was downright murderous.

Undignified though it was, Lorna screamed, and swung her guitar case around. It smacked him in the chest, hard enough to break his grip and send him staggering. She cringed at the thought of what it must be doing to the guitar itself, but that could be worried about later. If she had a later. Don’t let this be how I die. I’m not going out like this. 

The man flailed, and she hit him again, using the case as a monstrous, awkward club. She didn’t even hit many other people, because the press of the crowd lessened as it lumbered onward — much of it toward the restaurant.

“Will — you — leave — off!” she cried, and hit him square in the jaw. Persistent bastard, she’d give him that, but the weight of the guitar and her own relentless assault drove him back. Men. Bloody grabby, pushy, grasping men — she’d had more than enough of them for one lifetime, thanks so fucking much.

She jumped when a salmon went sailing overhead, smacking him full in the face. For a moment she paused, blinking, but only a moment — it was an odd sort of distraction, but she’d use it. Back she scrabbled, hunting her lost companion.

Another fish went flying over her head, this one shedding chunks of crushed ice. Somebody was raiding one of the fish stalls, hurling salmon like stinky, slimy missiles. They weren’t aiming, either — the fish hit whoever and whatever happened to be in the way, which only added to the chaos. She wished she’d thought of it first.

Her boots slipped on the wet, ice-strewn pavement, and she almost crashed into the now-lopsided display. Her new best friend, it seemed, was the salmon-bomber; he’d hurled half the fish already, and had another in his hand when she grabbed his sleeve.

“C’mon, Red Baron,” she said. She had to shout to be heard. “I think we’d best be off.”

He didn’t get a chance to retort — the entire roof groaned as it tilted sideways, water sluicing down onto everyone unfortunate enough to be in the way. Lorna instinctively ducked, though there was no real point; she wound up soaked anyway. With a growl and a curse, she took off across the treacherous pavement, dragging her companion with a strength that always surprised people. She was vaguely aware that he was still slapping people with a fish, wielding the salmon like a smelly cudgel. Jesus, what was he, before the Curses? 

Another unfortunate MiG got a face full of salmon, and a pointy elbow to the rib cage immediately after. Unlike the others, he didn’t go down so easily — Lorna had to slam her forehead into his nose and knee him in the groin. Of course his nose spouted blood like a fountain, spraying over her hair and face, stinging in her eyes and temporarily washing her vision red.

Lorna swore, ignoring the screams that erupted at the sight of so much blood. Wiping her face on her sleeve did nothing but spread it around, and she gave up when they staggered out into the storm. The rain would take care of it on its own.

It was bucketing now, the wind blowing it almost horizontal: fat, heavy drops that felt hard as marbles. It slipped beneath the collar of her coat, turned the hems of her too-long jeans into wet shackles.

At least her boots had a little more traction, and she used it as she bodily dragged her fish-wielding friend away from the crowd. There were so many alien thoughts in her head that she gave up trying to think herself, relying on instinct as she fled the scene of…well, it wasn’t her crime, but it was a crime, all right. They just had to reach her damn bus, which was up a somewhat nasty hill. What they would do after that didn’t matter.

Overhead, a streetlight shattered, the bulb going off like a small glass bomb. Christ, was someone shooting at them? She didn’t dare pause to check — if there was a sniper, she could only pray the rain would fuck up his aim.

Her friend stumbled behind her, and for a horrible moment she thought he’d been shot, but no — the gale-force wind had literally ripped his fishy weapon from his hand. He cursed, but didn’t try to retrieve it — fortunately, because Lorna would have hauled him along like a sack if he’d tried. She’d be damned if she’d drop her guitar, though: it made a more effective weapon than a salmon.

Lightning forked overhead, a brief, brilliant filigree against the blackness of the clouds, followed by a clap of thunder that rattled her jaw. A stray thought hit her: was one of the Cursed doing this? Was there another one out there — one who could muck with the weather? There were, she knew, Cursed that could do that, though they rarely did it on purpose. Half the reason people were so afraid of the Cursed was because so many of them couldn’t actually control their Curses, which occasionally had lethal consequences to anyone around them.

Her legs burned as she hauled arse up the hill, though not nearly so much as her lungs — sheer lack of money had forced her to quit smoking when she reached America, but it had only been two months. She was panting like a dog on a hot day, now as furious with herself as she was with everything else. Not so long ago, she could have made a run like this without breaking a sweat, but she was sure as hell sweating now, and not only from adrenaline.

“I’m too old for this shite,” she muttered, though she shouldn’t be — she was only thirty-three, for Christ’s sake. She had no excuse for being this out-of-shape, but the only real exercise she got was shifting beer-barrels.

Her friend, it seemed, didn’t share her problem: he kept up with her easily, and might have outpaced her if he’d let himself. That was even more embarrassing, since he had to be at least twice her age.

Another streetlight blew, and another — if there was a sniper, he had piss-poor aim. If nothing else, they had that in their favor, however dire the situation might be.

 — up ahead, going up the hill  —

 — pay for that  —

Oh, no. No. Lorna’s fists itched to hit someone, to sock at least one of the twats in the jaw, but the desire wasn’t strong enough to make her want to actually have to confront any of them. She scanned the street as best she could through the deluge, but her eyes were still blurry and stinging from her unfortunate blood shower. 

 — see them. Wish I could just shoot them both  —

 — get a promotion for this  —

Lorna snarled, white-hot rage crowding out anything else her mind might cough up, singing in her veins like sweet music. This she could use; anger and her were old friends, and it kept her going, smashing hesitation and indecision into bits before either could even try to take hold. Her grip on her companion’s hand tightened until she felt the bones creak, but if he made any sound of pain or protest, she didn’t hear it.

She felt them before she saw them — two Men in Grey came pelting toward them from the right. They looked like drowned rats, but one of them was armed with what looked, to Lorna’s blurry eyes, like a taser.

Once again, sheer instinct took over. She released her companion’s hand and swung the guitar case in a wide, clumsy arc. It was completely graceless, but it worked — the heavy end caught the man full in the face, knocking him back into the second.

Lorna hit him again, but this time the handle broke. The case went flying, but so did her attacker, dropping his taser. Unfortunately, it cracked into a dozen pieces when it hit the pavement. She’d get no use out of it. Admit it, she thought, you’d probably just zap yourself if you tried.

The second man scrambled to his feet with a glower, but the guitar itself cracked him upside the head. Her friend must have pried the case open when she wasn’t looking, and his second swing hit so hard the neck snapped in half.

In spite of everything, Lorna winced at the death of her poor instrument. Priorities, she told herself, fumbling through her coat pockets. Her fingers were chilled to the point of numbness, but they found her keys nonetheless. She yanked on her companion’s sleeve, and shoved them into his hand.

“Green van,” she said. “Stomp the accelerator or it won’t start.”

He pushed his sodden hair out of his eyes, staring at her. “What the hell are you gonna do?”

“You’re faster than me. Go, will you? I’ll catch up.”

She struggled after him, bent nearly double against the wind. Even unencumbered by the guitar, her sodden clothes, all too big, might as well have been lead weights. Neither of the men behind her was in any condition to give chase, fortunately, and if there were others, Lorna couldn’t sense them. While she was running on adrenaline, she’d crash soon enough, and she wanted to be well away before she did.

When she finally made it to the car park, she found her friend swearing at the bus. The engine coughed and shuddered as he pressed the gas, but it refused to turn over. He’d left the driver’s-side door open, so of course half the interior was soaked.

“Shove over,” she said, actually shoving him for emphasis. His clamber over the gearshift was far from graceful, and he swore like a sailor when his foot got stuck between the console and the dashboard.

“Welcome to the circus,” Lorna muttered, wrenching the door shut. Now that she wasn’t running, she was chilled through, her temper growing fouler by the second. “Come on, come on.”

The engine coughed again, and roared to life when she floored the accelerator. Even yet she hadn’t quite got the hang of American cars, or at least not of this monstrosity – from her perspective, everything was on the wrong side — and she fumbled with the gearshift before she got it into reverse. The tires, nearly bald, squealed and slipped on the wet pavement, sending the entire bus lurching to the right.

“You actually drive this thing?” he asked, and gripped the dashboard.

“More or less. Live in it, too.” She winced as the undercarriage scraped the curb. “What are you doing?”

He was, in fact, rifling through the pockets of his huge overcoat. “Grabbed this off one of the goons,” he replied. From some inner pocket, he produced an actual bloody handgun. “Not much, but it’s loaded.”

Lorna snorted in disbelief. “When did you manage that? And just what is it with you Americans and guns?” She’d never even touched one herself, but she had a hazy idea that there was more to it than just pointing and pulling the trigger. Recoil, or something like that.

He did something that made the gun go click. “I’ll give you the lecture later. Will this thing actually make it up this hill?”

“Oi, no insulting my ride.” She leaned forward to wipe the condensation off the windshield, but all she did was smear it around. The ancient windscreen wipers didn’t do her any favors, either.

A stray thought hit her brain — not words, but an image. Somebody was very nearby, and they were looking right at her bus.

 — there you are  —

“Oh, shite.” A fresh burst of adrenaline filled her veins as she stomped the gas again. The engine protested when she slammed it straight into fourth gear, peeling up the hill with another screech of tires. “Is that thing loaded? ‘Cause I think we might need it in a minute.”

“Well, fuck.” The window squeaked as he rolled it down, and rain immediately blasted in. “Where?”

“Don’t know. Close, somewhere ahead’v us on the left.” Lorna’s heart was in her throat again, anger joining the adrenaline in a red-hot wave.

“Head right at the stop sign. If we can reach the freeway, we’re golden.”

Yeah, if, she thought. The intersection was momentarily empty, and she prayed she wouldn’t hit anyone who might be approaching.

The bus shuddered again when she turned hard right, and for a second she was afraid it would tip over. What was that bloody game her nephew played — Grand Theft Auto? It was a lot less fun in reality.

There weren’t any cars, but there was, at the next intersection, a police barricade. She had no space to pull a U-turn, even if she thought the bus could handle it. The thing looked unmanned, so she kept the accelerator floored.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

“Hang on.”

“To what? My own ass?”

Lorna didn’t answer, because there was no answer to be given. The wooden barrier splintered apart when she hit it — whatever else might be said of her bus, it was sturdy as a tank — and she gave a triumphant laugh. “Pog mo thoíne, jacknob. Shut the damn window, will you? I think you can put the gun away.”

“What does that mean?” he asked, struggling with the window. The icy blast of rain couldn’t be helping his grip.

“‘Kiss my ass’.” It was amazing, really, what you could get away with saying in America; she’d yet to find a single person who spoke a word of Irish. More than once in her panhandling, she’d sung songs made up entirely of curses, and nobody knew the difference.

 — ran the damn barrier. Are they even worth it  —

“Oh, come on,” she growled. “They just don’t quit, do they?”

She didn’t get to finish the sentence. The front tires blew with a deep, explosive, echoing boom. The bus pitched forward, back tires actually lifting off the pavement, and Lorna’s stomach lurched with it.

The steering wheel refused to respond — the bus careened wildly, spinning what felt like a hundred and eighty degrees. Lorna barely had time to recognize the second crash, and less time to register pain, before she flew at the windscreen and everything went black.

 

~

This is the first chapter of the first book in the M series. The rest can be found on Amazon; it can be read for free with the Kindle app. The series itself is dark urban fantasy, in which magic returned to Earth and promptly punched it in the metaphorical face. Within it are a hefty number of disasters both natural and magical, human nature at its best and worst, and unstoppable forces meeting immovable objects — along with a side-order of humor. Among humanity, there are no absolutes; society can surprise even the most cynical.

Sleepless

The dead don’t sleep, no matter how much they wish they could.

Fun Fact: I actually saw a woman get struck by lightning on a Seattle pier as a kid. (It was a little bolt, and it hit her umbrella, so the worst it did was make her jump.) We all decided it was time to get inside. This is related to Death After Life, though it stands on its own. The first in Sharley’s stories is Sanitarium, but all of them are designed to be read independently.

 ~

One o’clock on a wild, windy Seattle morning, and Sharley couldn’t sleep. She never would again.

Sitting still was not always possible at night, so she wandered. There was nothing in the darkness more dangerous than she was; she had nothing at all to fear, though anyone who accosted her sure as hell did.

Out she went, into the rain and wind. Heat and cold were matters of indifference to her now, so she wore only a T-shirt and jeans so old they were soft as cotton. The rain on her skin was wonderful, because she felt it — the chill made her feel, for the moment at least, something close to alive. The heavy drops were hard as stones, soaking shirt and hair in minutes, wicking up from the hems of her jeans. Wind carded through her sodden hair, fresh and ever-so-slightly salty, for she was not far from the shores of Puget Sound.

Here, for now, she was free. Alone, there were none to stare; her pallor and the scars of the wounds that killed her could attract no notice if there was no one to see them. She really doubted any of them saw her for what she really was (because everyone knew that dead was dead, and it wasn’t as though she decayed in any way), but so many of them seemed, subconsciously at least, to register what she wasn’t. The older she got, the harder it was to act like them, or to understand why she should.

Lightning split the sky, and Sharley laughed aloud in unfettered delight. Thunderstorms were a rarity in Seattle, but she felt just as much power in them now as she had when she still lived. The resultant thunder was so deep and so loud that it shuddered all through her, a brief, fleeting facsimile of the heartbeat she no longer had. Breathing was a conscious effort that wasn’t worth it unless she spoke, but now breathe she did. It was bracing, brisk, and probably other words starting with ‘b’, though she couldn’t remember any. The rain on her face stood in for the tears she was unable to shed, cold and clean and pure.

Another flash, and another rumble of thunder, and Sharley turned her face skyward as the ghost of static danced over her bloodless skin. She thought of Frankenstein, of galvanism, and her bare feet carried her out to the shoreline, to the piers. In places she had to all but wade, for the drains, clogged with brilliant autumn leaves, had no hope in such a downpour. The streetlights glowed with golden halos, so bright against the blackened sky.

Flash. Flash. Veins of jagged silver darted from cloud to cloud, nearly overhead, and the thunder sent a remembrance of adrenaline surging through her useless veins. The wind wound around her like a caress, so powerful and so, so alive. Beneath her feet, the water buffeted the supports of Pier 56, the Sound stirred to surging whitecaps as far as she could see. Oh, she needed to get out of the city — she needed to get back to the mountains, away from the prying eyes of the living.

A bolt of lightning as delicate as filigree shot down, and struck her right on the brow, and for a moment — one beautiful, ephemeral, wonderful moment — her heart beat. Her nerves sparked as they had when she lived, and for that one instant she felt the true chill of the rain and wind. For that single, transient, fully involuntary breath, she was alive. The rain-tears on her face were beautiful, not sorrowful.

Yes, she needed to go. This was not her world anymore; should anyone see her out here, she would have much explaining to do, and she had no wish to. There would be more storms — more stolen seconds of life. This was a world of so much beauty, but she could no longer share it with the living.

A change was coming — of that she was entirely certain — but unless she was much mistaken, it was yet years away. Until then, she would be a phantom in the mountains, save for the tiny snatches of impermanent life. Perhaps, someday, she might live again — or perhaps she might pass on, and go wherever it was people went in death.

Until then, she would watch for storms.

Dark Passenger

If you’re going to steal a bus at eleven at night, make sure there’s nothing on it first.

Sequel to Blank, though it can be read independently. It has its own sequel, Five Finger Discount: A (Pre) Halloween Tale, though it too can be read independently.

~

Eleven at night, and it was still hotter than hell.

Dublin wasn’t a city known for scorching heat waves, but the last week had broken all records. It had topped out at thirty-six degrees that day, and even the wind off the sea hadn’t been enough to dispel it. Its inhabitants weren’t built to handle such heat: they’d crowded into any shop that had air conditioning, or sat panting in whatever shade they could find. Almost every shop in the city had run out of bagged ice two days ago, and there wasn’t an electric fan to be had.

Lorna and the rest of the crew had spent the day splashing around in the River Liffey, deepening their already terrible sunburns. The warehouse they called home might as well have been a sauna, and no public bath would have dreamt of admitting the lot of them. The gang currently consisted of fourteen people, ranging in age from thirteen to twenty, dirty and disreputable but largely harmless. Calling them a ‘gang’ was a bit harsh, really; they were a collection of runaways, either orphans who’d fled foster care or kids like herself, who’d jumped ship from biological family not worth knowing. Every so often Social Services would make a halfhearted attempt to collect them, but it never stuck, and few wanted to deal with a pack of repeat juvenile offenders.

They’d trouped back home at dark, sopping wet and hungry. ‘Home’ was, at the moment, an abandoned warehouse that they shared with an older, rather more serious gang, for whom they ran occasional errands in exchange for a little spare cash. It was a symbiotic relationship: their housemates kept the truly dangerous criminals away, and in return they did all sorts of minor smuggling.

The warehouse was empty when they got there, and still sweltering. The ancient, wheezing icebox had both sandwiches and beer, though, and they clambered out onto the roof to eat and watch the sunset. A haze of bitter dust rendered it almost hellish, tinting everything beneath it in shades of sepia and shadow. To Lorna it looked like the dying of some great red eye — an effect helped along by the half-joint she’d just finished. It never did take much to addle her head; at fourteen, she stood only four foot ten, and weighed about ninety pounds on a good week. She looked so much younger than her actual age that she was the favorite drug-mule out of the entire crew. It also meant a single beer could get her completely and utterly plastered.

She’d sat quiet a long while, cross-legged on rough shingles that continued to radiate heat long after the sun had dipped below the horizon. It was still so hot in the warehouse that sleep wasn’t to be thought of for some hours yet, and her sunburn had started to itch like a mad bastard.

“I’m bored,” she said eventually, cracking her bare toes. The light pollution of the city kept the night sky from looking like anything special, and she wasn’t a creature who could sit idle for long.

“Christ help us,” Orla muttered. She was a few years older than Lorna, tall and a bit mannish, and her shock of sun-bleached hair only made her face look even redder. “You’re so off your face I doubt you can even walk. I’ll not fish you out’v the river if you fall in again.”

Lorna scowled, but managed to stand on her second try, and even succeeded in walking in a more or less straight line. “Then don’t come with me.” Inspiration struck as her balance fought to reorient itself. “I’m after a bus.”

“A bus?” That was Shane, the gang’s leader, looking at her thoughtfully. At twenty he was the oldest of them — taller than Orla, covered in home-done tattoos, with a mane of brown hair that hadn’t seen a pair of shears in all the time she’d known him.

“A bus,” she repeated, shoving the hair out of her eyes. It was mostly dry by now, and incredibly tangled. “They’ll all be back in the yard by now, and I want one.”

“You want to nick a city bus?” Orla asked. “Why?”

“Why not? Have you got anything else to be doing tonight?”

“I haven’t,” she admitted. “But Lorna, that’s mental. You’re mental.”

“You say that like it’s news,” Shane muttered, and Lorna shot him a scowl. “I’ll go, if only to stop you driving into a light-pole.”

“Not like her feet’d reach the pedals anyway,” somebody else snickered — it had to be Maureen, the little shit. “If Shane’s going, I’m going.”

“Me, too,” Kevin piped in. He wasn’t much taller than Lorna herself, and she didn’t know how old he was — nobody knew much at all about Kevin, except maybe Shane. He was a quiet one, who didn’t often speak unless he thought it absolutely necessary, and he occasionally had violent seizures — epilepsy, Shane said, and nothing any of them could do would induce him to see a doctor. They didn’t happen often, but when they did he was sick and silent for days afterward. He wiped his hands on his damp, manky jeans, and stood.

It went all around like that, until eventually Orla gave in as well. “If I wind up in gaol because’v this, I’ll shave your head,” she threatened. It was her standard threat, one she’d never tried to make good on — mostly because the last person who had gone after Lorna’s hair had nearly lost a finger.

“Let’s do this,” Lorna grinned, and somehow made it down the fire escape without falling and breaking her neck. The pavement was gritty under her bare feet, even now faintly warm, and she cast an automatic glance around at the shadowy forecourt. Their housemates weren’t back yet; the entire place was empty, but she felt watched.

Lay off the weed, she thought. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation, but it was…wrong. Alien. Nights like this, when everything around here was so deserted, she always half expected to see a pack of zombies lurching out of the darkness. She’d snuck into the cinema four times to watch Day of the Dead, despite — or perhaps because of — the nightmares it gave her. She’d actually made plans with Shane, just in case they really did wind up in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

No, this wasn’t scary like that, but it was…strange. She couldn’t write it off on her current state, though she’d like to. There — there in the shadows — what was it? It was too big to be a cat, the wrong shape to be a person, and it remained even once she’d blinked, lurking against the wall of the warehouse opposite.

It wasn’t something she could bring up to the others. She’d had some fantastically bad reactions to drugs before, and if Shane thought she was going off her head, he wouldn’t let her go anywhere. He could be worse than ever her mam had been, when Mam had still been alive.

So she kept quiet, and none of the others seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary. They laughed and grumbled and occasionally belched as food and Guinness formed their lethal, gassy combination. Only once did she glance back as they made their way to the street — but the thing was still there.

“Don’t watch it.”

To her surprise, that was Kevin, who had fallen back beside her. His hands were stuffed in his pockets, his posture slouched, but there was tension in his thin shoulders. His hazel eyes were bright in the glow of the streetlamp, bright and unnerving. “I mean it. Don’t. Bad enough you’ve seen it once already.”

She blinked at him, confused. “I haven’t,” she said, almost whispering. “What is it?”

“A bad sign,” was all he would say. “It’s a good thing we’re out for a bit. Someone’s for it tonight.”

Well, that wasn’t half baffling. Kevin made her nervous at times, and she normally didn’t know the meaning of the word. He refused to say anything more, and eventually she gave up and migrated to one side of the herd.

The street was dead empty this late, and their footfalls and laughter echoed loud in the quiet of the night. There wasn’t even a hint of a breeze — damn rare for Dublin at any time, and that too made her nervous.

Fuck it, she thought, shoving it relentlessly out of her mind as they approached the bus yard.

All of Dublin’s buses came from this single spot, lined up in neat rows behind a chain-link fence topped with concertina wire. The lock was a heavy Yale bastard that held a short, heavy length of chain together around the door, but it did no good when bolt-cutters took care of the fence itself so very easily. Shane carried a miniature pair wherever he went, on an old, tarnished brass key-ring along with all sorts of other bits of metal not strictly legal.

One by one they crawled through the hole he cut, stage-whispering and laughing. As Lorna had expected, once she’d got them going they all bought into the spirit of the thing; they usually did, sooner or later, even if it was often against what passed for their better judgment. She wasn’t the only one who’d been drinking, after all, and she’d smoked a lot less grass than most of them. It hit her faster, but it was all but guaranteed it would hit them harder eventually.

“Pick a bus, any bus,” Shane said, and she scrutinized them closely, as if there were any actual difference.

“That one,” she said eventually, and held out her hand for Shane’s larceny-ring. He’d taught all of them how to pick locks, and since this was her idea, she was the one who’d be leaving the fingerprints. It took more jimmying than it should have, simply because there was too much alcohol in her system for her hands to work properly, but eventually they all wound up in the big, slightly smelly vehicle.

It took her nearly twenty minutes to figure out how to hot-wire the damn thing. That was yet another skill Shane had taught them, but a city bus was rather different than a car. She zapped herself several times, and set the headlamps flickering on and off for a good five minutes before she actually got the thing started.

“How the hell d’you plan on getting this beast out’v here?” Maureen demanded, while Lorna fumbled with the seat. True to her irritating mate’s prediction, she could scarcely see over the dash if she stretched enough to make her feet reach the pedals, but she wasn’t about to let on.

“Easy,” she said, fumbling with the gearshift. In theory she could drive a manual, but once again, a manual and a bus weren’t the same thing. She wasn’t about to give over on the whole idea, though — Maureen would never let her live it down. And she especially didn’t want to go back to the warehouse just yet. “Watch.”

The bus shuddered like an epileptic drunk, and she nearly crashed into the one opposite while trying to turn. The wheel was so big she couldn’t reach the far side of it, and it took a few mad course-corrections before she got her aim.

“You’re not—” Maureen started, but before she could finish the sentence, Lorna had gunned the accelerator and rammed right through the fence. It came apart with a tearing shriek of metal, odd bits scratching along the sides with the teeth-grating sound of nails down a chalkboard. Half the crew cried out in horror; the other half cheered.

“Well, now we’re bloody well screwed,” Orla said, but she was laughing — yep, the weed had kicked in for her too, finally. “And where d’you plan on going with this thing?”

“Let’s hit the south M7,” Lorna grinned. “Bet this thing’s never been on a real road trip before.”

“And what’ll we do when the cops catch us?” Maureen asked, with withering sarcasm.

“Outrun them,” Lorna said, as though it were obvious. “Pity it’s not America; we could get in a shoot-out.” The Guarda didn’t carry guns, and the mental picture of them whacking at a bus with their truncheons made her laugh so hard she almost ran off the road.

“Hit the radio, will you?” Orla said, slipping sideways on her seat and almost falling out of it.

“Have buses got radios?” somebody else asked — Mick, from the sound of it, though he was so plastered he was barely intelligible.

“This one has.” Lorna fumbled with the dial, and caught some screeching English metal band. She cranked the volume as high as it would go as they pulled out onto the motorway.

They had it to themselves at this time of night, and she gunned the accelerator as fast as she could, occasionally swerving as the big vehicle fought her control. Underneath her slightly drunken exultation was a faint sense of relief — whatever she’d seen near the warehouse was dropping ever farther behind them. She didn’t even know what it was, but her every instinct told her it was a thing you’d do best to outrun. Even now her shoulder blades itched, and not just from her sunburn.

She caught sight of Kevin in the rear-view mirror. He must be as relieved as she was, but he didn’t show it; he rarely showed anything that might be going on in his brain. Some of the others thought him weird in the head, but they thought that of her, too. Aside from Shane, he was the only one who went in much for reading: he could probably have qualified for his Leaving Certificate already if he’d stayed in school. 

Like her, he’d fled an abusive household, but she thought it was a damn shame he’d wound up having to stay with them. She was perfectly happy with her life, but Kevin could do so much more, if he’d be given the chance. Like Shane, Lorna was far more observant than she let on, and she hoped he’d get his chance. He wasn’t cut out for this life, and it had only been bad luck he’d been born into the situation he’d left behind.

The bus fought her again, and she turned her attention, such as it was, back to the road. She never felt more alive than she did while doing something completely idiotic, and this was one of the stupidest things she’d come up with in a long while. She had no idea where they’d ditch the bus, nor how they were to get home, but she didn’t care and it seemed nobody else did, either. They were all masters of living in the present; if you weren’t, with the kind of life they led, you’d go mad. Planning for the future wasn’t a good idea when you slept rough in a warehouse every night. You had to take things as they came, deal with what was immediately in front of you.

The highway flew by, the rumble of the big diesel engine mingling with the music. Christ, they’d about left Dublin now; she had to get off the motorway soon, or they’d wind up in bloody Kildare. And she didn’t want to leave the bus where it would be found so easily.

They were coming up on a bridge over the Liffey when she made the mistake of glancing in the rearview mirror again, and what she saw made her lose all grip on the wheel.

It wasn’t just her laughing gang back there now. Somehow they’d acquired another passenger — a dark passenger, a figure little more than a shadow that barely showed up in the darkness of the interior. Though she could see no eyes, she could feel them, watching her with an intensity that twisted her gut. There was nothing malevolent in them, nothing evil, but they definitely weren’t the eyes of anything human.

And this time, she wasn’t the only one that saw it. Maureen let out an ungodly shriek, scrambling toward the front of the bus, and then every last bloody one of the others joined in, panic sobering them up more effectively than a bucket of cold water. It was no wonder she lost control of the wheel entirely then, and the bus lurched, swerved, and plowed straight into the guardrail at the side of the bridge.

Metal screeched on metal as the rail tried valiantly to do its job, but it had been built for cars, not something as heavy and ungainly as a city bus. They crashed right through it, and for a gut-churning instant they were airborne. More than an instant; it felt like a small eternity before the thing nosedived into the river, and the panic became outright hysteria.

They all made a mad scramble for the emergency door at the back, tripping over the seats and one another as the bus swiftly became a vertical obstacle-course. Shane made a fumbling grab for the emergency lever — which proved to be a massive tactical error. Water surged in, knocking half of them backward, but they were still near enough to the surface that they broke free of the suction — even Lorna, who could barely so much as dog-paddle.

She broke the surface spluttering, and did a frantic head-count. She couldn’t tell if they were all there, but the thing that had been with them wasn’t. The best swimmers struck out for the shore, but the Liffey’s currents were strong here, and even they were having a hard time of it. Lorna would have gone under entirely if it weren’t for Shane, who grabbed her long, tangled hair and dragged her after him. Between the chill of the water and the adrenaline in her system she barely registered the pain, and did what she could to keep up with him before he could tear all her hair out by the roots.

She coughed and wheezed when she found the rocky bank beneath her hands, and tried to clear the water from her eyes enough to see just what the hell was going on. Nearly all of them had made it out by now, on one side of the river or the other, too shocked to comprehend what had just happened. Lorna definitely wasn’t hot now; the water had chilled her to the bone, and she would probably have stayed rooted to the spot if Shane hadn’t got hold of her hand and literally pulled her up the bank. It was steep here, hard going, but eventually they reached the motorway and its wrecked guardrail.

The pavement there was warm, at least, heating up the soles of her feet, and she continued to cough up what felt like half the river. As soon as she’d got it all up she started wringing out her hair on auto-pilot, her brain still refusing to comprehend… anything, really. Those who had climbed the other bank ran toward them, looking more like terrified children than fearless, happy-go-lucky teenagers.

“Did you see that?” Maureen managed, right before puking up everything that had been in her stomach. The sight made Lorna lose what was left of her dinner, too, and she grimaced at the bile that burned her throat. “What in mother fuck was it?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to.” Even under her sunburn Orla had gone nearly as pale as her hair, her eyes wide and wild. “I about shat myself down there.”

It wasn’t funny, but they laughed anyway, mostly because it was laugh or go completely barking mad. In a way it was almost a relief to find they’d all seen it, though it also meant none of them could write it off as a drug-induced hallucination. Lorna wondered if it was selfish, to be glad the others shared her shock, and decided it wasn’t: she couldn’t imagine any of them would be sorry they weren’t bearing it alone.

“It missed.”

The words were a whisper very near Lorna’s ear, and she jumped. Somehow Kevin had all but materialized beside her. He was speaking only to her, with an urgency that frightened her even more than the crash. “I thought it was after somebody at the warehouse, but I was wrong.”

“What in flippin’ hell are you talking about?” she demanded, just as quietly.

He looked at her very strangely, shoving water-darkened hair back from his forehead. “Death,” he said, as though it ought to have been obvious. “You watched your mam die in the hospital, Lorna. You had to’ve seen it then.”

She hadn’t. That… that thing was hardly something a person could forget, even after doing as many drugs as she had. Yes, she’d watched Mam die — her and her brothers and sister had been crowded around their mother’s bed, too stunned to comprehend that Da had finally hit her too hard. He’d been gone in gaol by then, the four of them wards of the state, and so far as she knew not a one of them had seen anything strange. She hadn’t seen any of them in years: her sister had stayed in her foster-home even after Da got released, her eldest brother was in gaol himself, and nobody knew where John had got to. She could hardly ask any of them now.

“I didn’t,” she insisted. “When would you have?”

“The accident that killed my father,” he said. “I saw it come for him. It was after one’v us tonight, and I haven’t got a clue in hell why we’re all still here. You watch them, Lorna,” he said, low and fierce. “They’ll forget. They’ll all forget, by the time we get home. Not a one’v them will know how any’ve it happened. They might not even remember crashing.”

“Why?” she whispered. “How could you know that?”

“I’ve seen it happen before,” he said, and now there was a desolation in his tone she’d never heard from anyone, ever.

“Then how d’you know I’ll remember?”

Again there was a strangeness in his eyes, a distance she didn’t like at all, as though he were looking into some private hell. “You’re marked, Lorna Donovan,” he said. “Right here.”

He touched her forehead, and she recoiled. She wanted to call him daft, say he’d had one too many before they left, but in the very bedrock of her soul she knew better. They’d all known for a long while now that Kevin was… different, but she’d never let herself wonder why, or how.

“Get off it,” she croaked, hardly aware of what left her mouth. “I’m not gonna die.”

“No,” he said, looking at her with an intense, almost bewildered curiosity, “you’re not. Not yet, and I don’t know why that is. You should have, right here.” He paused, more faraway than ever. “Maybe it didn’t miss,” he murmured. “Maybe it let you go.”

She shuddered, and fought an urge to sick up again. She didn’t want to believe it, any of it, but her beleaguered mind refused to deny his bizarre pronouncement.

“A storm’s coming for you, Lorna,” he said. “Not for a long time yet, but it is. It’s coming for all’ve us, but it’ll hit you first.”

“You’re off your nut,” she said uneasily. “How in bloody fuck would you know any’ve that?”

He was quiet a long, long time, ignoring all the others, who were too busy swearing to notice either of them. “Dunno if I should tell you this,” he said. “I guess I ought to, given what’ll come. Those seizures’v mine… I see things. Things about all’ve us, but you… you’ve eighteen years before everything goes to hell for you. Be careful.”

She stared at him, no longer aware of the chill in her limbs. If he’d been talking about Shane she might have believed it, but she wasn’t like either of them. There was nothing special about her, nothing to distinguish her from the hundreds of other homeless people that roamed the city. Like many, she was just a short kid who drank more than was healthy, who did stupidly lunatic things just because she could — no, he had to be wrong. 

Lorna was nothing, and she was perfectly happy being nothing, glad for the utter anonymity of her life. She did as she pleased, with no grown-up to yap at her about grades or clothes or the company she kept, nobody to demand she try to be anything special. That anonymity and ordinariness was something she thrived on, and she couldn’t imagine anyone or anything caring enough to bother sending her life to hell. She was a quintessential background-dweller, for fuck’s sake, the kind of kid nobody looked twice at, and she liked it that way.

“If you can see so much, how do I dodge it?” she asked, wishing she didn’t feel compelled to humor him, to rise to that insane statement.

“You can’t,” he said, and he looked more desolate than ever. “None of us can. What’s coming is something nobody on the planet can escape.”

Christ, wasn’t that an even worse idea. Where did he come up with this shite? Could epilepsy make someone hallucinate? She had no idea, but it was an easier thought to live with than actually believing him. “Come on,” she said. “We’ve a fuck’ve a long walk ahead’ve us.”

She turned and moved away before he could say anything, walking a little ahead of the group and trying not to think. Maybe she’d stay quiet a while after this, stick to the warehouse so no one had cause to notice her, but some fundamental instinct warned her that wouldn’t work. It believed Kevin, even if what rational mind she had refused to.

He’s barking, she told herself. He has to be.

But in one thing, at least, he was very right. Even with the group a ways behind her, she could feel the easing of their tension, the wane of what was extremely understandable terror. When she dared look behind her she could see they were still shaken up, but some of them were laughing, telling one another they’d have a grand story for their housemates.

“Least we don’t have to worry about anyone finding fingerprints,” Orla said, grinning and shaking out her wet hair. The warm night air was already drying it, and errant wisps floated around her head like a pale corona. “Might take them ages to even dredge the thing up.”

“Dunno what in fuck Lorna could’ve hit,” Mick slurred, weaving along in the weirdly graceful almost-dance of the extremely drunk.

“Probably nothing,” Maureen muttered. “Knew she wouldn’t be able to see what she was doing. Lucky none’v us copped it back there.”

A sharp glance at Kevin made Lorna shiver. He wasn’t surprised, not at all, and his hazel eyes looked incredibly old in his young face. It disturbed her beyond words, and she looked away, concentrating only on putting one bare foot in front of the other. Her mind deliberately tuned itself out as she trudged, shutting it down the only defense she had. When they got back, she was going to drink herself stupid for the rest of the week.

Pale dawn was tinting the eastern horizon by the time they got home, the air already heating up again. The day would be another scorcher, but she had no desire to go swimming again. Hell, she’d gladly avoid rivers for the rest of her life, after that.

When she staggered through the door she found their housemates asleep — or passed out — all over their half of the warehouse. She grabbed a beer from the icebox and downed it in three large gulps, letting the alcoholic buzz dampen what few coherent thoughts remained to her. She got halfway through another before she passed out herself, and if she dreamt, she didn’t remember it.

 

~

 

Lorna woke up in the morning with a raging hangover, and got up long enough to down two aspirin and about a gallon of water. Kevin was nowhere to be seen, thank God, nor were any of the others but Shane. They must all have gone down to the river again, though how they could have done so after the previous night, she didn’t know. She was hot and sweaty and her head felt absolutely foul, but she’d stick to stealing her shower from the hydrant outside.

When she woke again the sun had made its way west — she’d lost most of the day, but she didn’t mind. She sat up on her cot and rubbed her sleep-grained eyes, and found Shane was still there. He’d probably stuck around to make sure she didn’t vomit and choke to death in her sleep, but now he was out himself, sprawled in an ancient armchair with a half-finished beer in his hand.

Not bothering to wake him, she staggered out into the forecourt and twisted the loosened bolt off the hydrant. The spray did more for her aching head than any amount of aspirin could, and she let it sluice away the sweat and grit from her skin. Some more water and a little hair of the dog and she’d be fine — physically, at least. It was going to take a little more effort to banish Kevin’s cryptic prophecy, but they still had plenty of grass.

When she went back inside, she found Shane more or less awake. He’d pried open the rest of the windows, in a futile attempt at circulating the stale, musty air. He raised his Guinness bottle in a sardonic toast.

“Last time I ever let you drive anything,” he said. “What in bloody Christ did you swerve for?”

Lorna stared at him. She’d hoped Kevin was wrong, that she’d misheard him, but no — Shane really didn’t remember. “Cat,” she said inanely — it was a pathetic excuse and she knew it; there was no way a cat would make it that far out onto the motorway.

He snorted. “If I’d known you’d got into the mushrooms before we left, I never would’ve let you anywhere near a bus. You’re too much’v a lightweight to go on as you do.”

There was an almost brotherly concern in his tone, and she fought a sigh. He probably wouldn’t let her out of his sight more than five minutes for the next two weeks. She knew Shane thought her half cracked, but now she was inclined to agree with him. “Sure I don’t think I’ll be trying that ever again,” she said, flopping onto her cot.

“We made the news,” he said, a little proudly. They had an ancient television in one corner of the warehouse, its rabbit-ears turned into a couple sails of tinfoil. It only got one channel, but just now it was one too many. She really didn’t need to know that. “They’re saying it was the IRA.”

Now she was the one who snorted. “They think the IRA would bother nicking and crashing a bloody bus in Dublin? Must be a damn slow news day.”

“I think they’re sick’v talking about the heat,” he said, and she let the sheer normalcy of his voice wash over her. “There’s only so many ways to say the weathermen haven’t got a clue.”

“Ought to do an update on that woman who knits jumpers out’v cat hair,” she snorted, for want of anything better to say. Yeah, things could even out now, she was sure. They had to. The lot of them would go back to being cheerful reprobates, and they need never mention last night again. Maybe, with enough effort, she could forget everything Kevin had said to her, could banish it with all the other things  she’d determinedly excised from her memory. God knew she had enough practice at it.

She picked at her hair with a brush while Shane grumbled, patiently teasing out the knots and snarls as best she could. The light filtering through the high windows turned ever redder, and when deep purpling shadows started gathering in the corners, the rest came home.

They were dripping wet again, happy and hungry and evidently as selectively amnesiac as Shane. All of them but Kevin, and when he looked at her, she refused to look back. Part of her felt rotten for leaving him alone, for being unable to talk to him about the mad things he’d told her last night, but she just couldn’t. Not now, and perhaps not ever. All she could do was live, and hope like hell he was wrong. 

Blank

Someday, Pat was sure, the thing that lived behind Lorna’s eyes would take over and never let her go, but it was not going to be this day.

The Donovan family have their roots in The M Universe, though their stories can be read independently. Has a sequel, Dark Passenger.

~

I’ve now posted all the Sharley stories that have been lurking on my hard drive for months. This one follows the Donovan family, and fair warning — there be child abuse and mild gore ahead.

~

Pat hurt, but that was nothing new. The pain that traveled in rolling waves up and down his back was, by now, something he’d felt so often it wasn’t worth the bother of crying. Which was a good thing, honestly; if any of them did cry at a belting, Da just hit them all the harder to make them stop. Which even Pat recognized was completely stupid, but his da just liked any excuse he had to hit people.

It was hot, at least by Dublin standards, and beads of sweat ran down his face as he tried to sit still. Their tiny bathroom was stuffy as a coffin, the glare of the single bare bulb harsh in the speckled mirror. He sat on the toilet, while his tiny sister did what she could. Though she only had seven years to his eleven, she could be bloody fucking pushy about some things, and it wasn’t worth the effort of fighting her.

Besides, if she didn’t take care of his injuries, nobody would.

“Someday I’ll kill him, y’know,” Lorna said. She was careful with the washcloth, or as careful as she could be. It was threadbare, and the faint, rusty stains from the last time Da had had a go at Pat were still there. No amount of washing ever fully got them out.

“Lorna, you shouldn’t say shit like that.” Pat hated the wobble in his voice, but at least Da wasn’t likely to hear it; once he’d got tired of beating his son bloody, he’d got into the jumped-up paint thinner he called whiskey; if he wasn’t three sheets to the wind by now, he was probably close. “You don’t mean it.”

Her tone chilled him. “Don’t I?”

He struggled to turn and look at her. Jesus she was tiny — all the Donovans were, and some gobshite at school had called them midgets until Siobhan had a go at him with a half-brick. Lorna’s eyes were still her own, at least; her words might stir heavy dread in his gut, but right now, it seemed, he didn’t need to be afraid. He just needed to be careful. “Lorna, will you give over?” he asked. “For me and Shiv and Mick, if nothing else? Da’ll drink himself to death long before any’v us grow up. His liver’s probably forming a union with his kidneys, and they’ll all go on strike soon enough.”

As he’d hoped it would, that drew a smile from her. “Okay. But I’m not done here, so turn around. There aren’t enough sticking plasters, but there’s still the pillowcase.” That too was forever stained, because it was their go-to for when his back was in too terrible a state. “And fuck, just think — we can all go have a wee on his grave every week. Like going to Mass, but with more piss and less incense.” They’d all only ever been to Mass once, when Mam got a wild hair, and none of them had understood the point. Sitting still was crap at the best of times, and all the more so when they had to listen to someone else. (Unsurprisingly, all the Donovans were utter pants at school, not that they cared.)

Turn he did, while Lorna cleaned his cuts and gouges with almost exaggerated care. Sometimes Pat wished he shared her anger, for all he knew it would get her into trouble she couldn’t get out of one of these days — if nothing else, her rage and hatred of their da kept her warm on cold nights. And while that rat fucker smacked all his children around just because they existed, even he was sometimes leery of Lorna — leery of the thing that lived behind her eyes. Once, when he’d been almost took off his face to even speak, he’d let slip that his own da had had it, too. And the thought of an adult with that thing was so fucking terrifying Pat didn’t even want to think about it.

 

~

 

By the time everything was patched up, Da was long since passed out on the sofa. A cigarette had burnt down into a long line of ash on the manky carpet, and Pat realized that someday one of those things wouldn’t burn out, and instead the whole place would go up like a torch. He hoped Da would be inside when it did.

Lorna hustled him into his and Mick’s room, where they found the poor lad (only three, but he already knew to hide when his da got going) wedged wide-eyed between the battered dresser and the bunk-bed. Da didn’t hit him much yet — he was probably just smart enough to realize accidentally killing a toddler would get him sent down for good — but any kid would hide when someone like their da went on a tear.

“C’mon, Mick, it’s all right.” Lorna tugged him out of his hiding-spot, and she and Pat shoved the dresser in front of the door. Da wasn’t getting in unless he went at the door with a hatchet, and he’d have to find the fucking thing first (Shiv had hidden it under the house, with all the spiders). “Pat, go lay down.”

He rolled his eyes, but did as he was told. The mattress was lumpy, the sheets and duvet third-hand and threadbare, but it was all clean…more or less. They all did their best to get everything washed once a week, even if that did mean scrubbing it in the tub (the washing machine worked when it felt like it, which wasn’t very often). His back burned, but his eyes no longer did; Da might be the human equivalent of diarrhea, but the Donovan kids took care of each other. Pat knew his siblings loved him, even if none of them ever really said it out loud. Words were cheap and empty; actions mattered.

The window creaked and groaned as it was forced open, and he looked up to see Shiv squeezing her way inside. Her face was shiny with sweat, and her breathing was ragged — she must have been running. “Here,” she said. “Nicked this from the corner shop.” From her pockets she produced some visibly-melting chocolate bars, and then pulled an entire (somewhat squashed) box of custard creams out from the front of her shirt. 

“How the fuck d’you always get in and out and not get caught?” Lorna asked, even as her sister tore into the box. “They won’t let me out’v their sight now, and you look as much like a Donovan as the rest’v us.”

“Back door,” Shiv said, and tossed a biscuit at Lorna. Of course she missed, but it wasn’t like they didn’t all eat things that had fallen on the floor all the time, and sod the five-second rule. “It’s unlocked in the evening because Dai likes to go out back and smoke. Here, Pat, have one’v these.” Although Siobhan was nine, she looked no older than Lorna; the only real difference was that her eyes were hazel rather than green. It wasn’t any wonder people were always mistaking them for twins.

Pat nibbled the biscuit, savoring it. Sweets tasted all the sweeter when they were nicked, though he couldn’t have said why. “Thanks, Shiv.”

“Let me guess,” she said darkly, “Mam’s lying down, is she?” None of them were quite sure if their mam took drugs, or if their da drugged her, or both, but often when she had a lie-in, it was hard to rouse her. It also meant she wasn’t around to protect any of them — not that it did any good even when she was. Da just beat the tar out of her, too.

“Yeah,” Lorna said. “Lucky her.” 

Pat shut his eyes. It was over, for now; Da was like the moon, because his temper waxed and waned. He’d be on a downswing now for a while, and if they were lucky, he wouldn’t come home at night. It was better for everyone when he pissed his wages away at the pub, because at least he was gone. The four of them lived in hope that someday he’d piss off the wrong person, and then he’d be nobody’s problem ever again.

 

~

 

The sun shone all the next week, and the four of them took full advantage of it: they were out from dawn until dark, though once in a while they’d check in with Mam if she was awake. 

Pat had, over the course of several years, nicked enough bits to build himself and his sisters a bike each — he’d stolen a chain here, a frame there, and wheels wherever he could find them. The results looked like something out of Frankenstein, but they worked, and Mick was small enough that he could cling on to Pat’s back like a monkey. It meant they could go further, out to shops where they weren’t known; they managed to nick so much that they had extra to hide under the loose floorboard in Lorna and Shiv’s room. (Da could never be trusted not to trash their rooms, but he didn’t know about the floorboard, so they hid anything actually worth having in a plastic garbage sack attached to a nail. It had plenty of spiders to keep it company.)

Things weren’t just okay, they were good. When it was the four of them away from that fucking house, out under a summer sky, it was almost possible to pretend none of the bad shite would happen again. They were safe with each other, as they rode on streets that smelled like tar and motor oil, and all the overgrown gardens in the neighborhood added the smell of sun-baked grass. It was summer, and summer meant freedom.

The seventh evening, they sat in the weeds and grass of the Dooleys’ old house (it had been abandoned when John Dooley died and Maire took the kids away, but of course nobody ever got round to doing something sensible, like tear it down), while the sun made its way westward. Shiv had taught herself how to whistle with a blade of grass, and had done her best to play some ungodly pop tune until Lorna threw a dandelion at her.

“Here, Mick, I got you something,” Siobhan said, even as she threw a dandelion right back. “I think somebody left them in the comic shop.” She produced a little cloth bag (that really shouldn’t have fit in her pocket, but she was clever like that) and handed it to her little brother, who still had the red stain of a Popsicle around his mouth.

“What is it?” He was so innocent, little Mick — he hadn’t been around long enough to be really afraid of anything, and Da just about ignored his existence. Thought that he’d someday wind up like the rest of them was almost too damn painful, so Pat ignored it.

“Open it, you eejit,” Siobhan said.

Mick’s tiny fingers were careful as he untied the string (which was so frayed it looked like it would give up the ghost at any moment), and even more careful when he reached into the bag. Pat didn’t know where he’d learned to be like that, since Christ knew the rest of them were usually about as gentle as bulls on a good day. His eyes lit up, and his face broke into a grin that damn near went from ear to ear. “Marbles!” He’d always wanted a set, since he knew that was what the Big Kids did at school at recess. He might not go to school yet, but fuck if he wasn’t going to be ready when he did.

“We’ll teach you how to play,” Siobhan said. “These ones are your own, so you can stop nicking mine and Lorna’s. School won’t let Lorna play anymore anyway.”

The Lorna in question rolled her eyes. “It’s not my fault Jamie fucking Connelly stole my aggie,” she said. “I had to lamp him.”

“Lorna, you hit him in the face with a rock,” Siobhan said, and rolled her eyes. “You knocked out two’v his teeth.”

“And I kept them,” Lorna said. “I just wish I could stick one in a marble.”

Mick might as well have been deaf, he was so oblivious. These were really nice marbles, an actual matching set with what looked like ribbons of glass in the middle — some red, yellow, and orange, and others blue, green, and purple. 

“That bag needs a better string,” Pat said. “If it falls under the house, I’m not going to crawl in after it.” Unlike his sisters, he wasn’t exactly afraid of spiders, but the things that lived under the house gave even him the creeps. He was pretty sure one of them was a mutant, because he’d swear it was the size of his hand.

“Eh, there’s got to be a broken shoelace somewhere,” Lorna said. “Mick, we just have to play when Da’s not home. You can’t let him know you’ve got these, okay? They’re just yours. Nobody else needs to know.” It was sometimes hard to make Mick understand that Da wasn’t above breaking something just so nobody else could have it. A three-year-old didn’t have much concept of the fact that sometimes, a person was such a piece of shite that they had fun tormenting someone who’d done them no harm. 

“’Kay.” The marbles glittered like water in the sunlight, clear and pure, just like Mick.

 

~

 

Of course, everything had to go to shit that night.

Normally, Da would’ve been well under by the time they got home — if not actually passed out, at least so locked out of his bin that he’d do nothing but stare at the TV, oblivious. Tonight, though, he was wide-fucking-awake, though his eyes were so red he was nowhere near sober. He looked so much like all of his children that it was downright creepy — same coloring, same features, same hazel eyes as three out of the four — and though he wasn’t a large man, he didn’t need to be, when his kids were so small.

“Mick, go around back,” Siobhan whispered, before they’d even got to the door. “Stay outside. We’ll let you in through the window when it’s safe.”

The poor lad looked ready to cry, but he was still a Donovan — off he went, melting into the shadows along the side of the house. Even at three, he could be quiet as a cat.

Pat squared his shoulders, but dread curdled in his stomach like sour milk as he stepped through the door. He shouldn’t flinch — he wouldn’t flinch — but when Da had that ugly expression, it was just a matter of time before the belt came off. If he was in a really shit mood, he hit with the buckle-end.

“The fuck’ve you lot been?” Da demanded. His voice was raspy with drink and probably a solid pack of fags, and the stink of whiskey was so thick on his breath it was almost like a physical thing. The mix of it with whatever greasy shite he’d had for dinner was almost enough to make Pat sick.

“Out,” Pat said. “Out’v the way.” It was a long, long shot, but sometimes, if he made it sound like they were doing something for Da’s benefit, things might not end in a thrashing.

No such luck, apparently — the back of Da’s hand hit his cheek with surprising speed for somebody so hammered, so fast and so hard it sent Pat staggering before he could help it. Pain exploded through the entire left side of his face, and he’d swear he felt one of his molars crack. 

Siobhan snatched his arm, and tried to pull him away before Da could right his balance enough to go in for another swing. It just sent them both slamming into the ancient coffee-table when another smack landed. Whatever Da was yelling was totally unintelligible, but it wasn’t like it actually mattered — his temper was up, and that was that. It’d be the belt if they couldn’t get back outside, but pissed though he was, Da knew how to block an exit.

Pat tried to get up, but the hit to his temple had rung his head so hard than nausea roiled through him. Wet heat trickled down through his hair, along his jaw and even into his ear—

In the space of a few seconds, Da’s bellowing shifted notes — deep rage rose to high, screeching pain. Something hit the wall with a force the dented the Sheetrock, and the stink of burnt hair, skin, and grease slapped Pat every bit as hard as his da had just done.

He and Shiv somehow scrambled out of the way — barely —  before Da actually fell on the coffee-table. He might be a small man, but he went down like a sack of bricks, and the impact sent the whole thing listing left. It didn’t quite collapse, though the wood creaked and splintered.

The blood in Pat’s ear gave his hearing a weird, underwater quality, and he stumbled again when Shiv hauled him all the way upright. Even with his balance shot to hell, he was ready to leg it and deal with the consequences later. Ready, that was, until he spotted his little sister, and the bottom seemed to drop out of his stomach.

None of them really knew what it was, the thing that lived behind Lorna’s eyes. They’d always just called it the Blank, because Christ fucking knew it described her expression well enough when it had hold of her. There was nothing — no anger, no fear, no anything at all. Her eyes were black, iris swallowed so wholly by pupil that no trace of green remained, cold as space and just as inhuman. It took only a moment to realize she’d thrown the pan, grease and all, at their da; the pan missed, but the grease hadn’t. No fucking wonder he was screaming bloody murder.

Shit.

Pat had enough wits to keep his mouth shut, and so did Shiv. Lorna had never hurt any of her siblings when she went blank, but that didn’t mean they were anxious to catch her attention. Good bloody Jesus, what was wrong with her, his tiny sister? What in her was so broken that she’d even have that thing — be that thing? She was so small she shouldn’t be threatening to anyone; even Da could grab her and throw her one-handed. Somehow, though, her size wasn’t reassuring at all, because the thing behind her eyes was so horrifyingly alien.

Da hadn’t noticed yet, and no fucking wonder: he had an ugly burn all up the length of his left forearm, shiny with grease and stinking so much like cooked meat that Pat was again very nearly sick. The sharp, bitter reek of scorched hair told him Da had more than one burn on his head, too. Somehow, the man staggered to his feet, though his balance was so awful he almost fell right back onto the coffee-table. His expression was so ugly, so full of rage and hatred in a face so purple he surely ought to have burst a blood vessel by now.

Pat shoved Shiv backward, but there wasn’t any real need — they weren’t the targets of Da’s anger anymore. Fuck, Da didn’t even seem to see them; they might as well not have existed for all the mind he paid them. With a wordless snarl, he turned and tripped but somehow kept his feet.

No sooner had he than Pat all but threw Siobhan out the front door, safe away. If she had even half the brain God gave a fucking turnip, she’d get Mick and scarper back to the Dooley place. Da wouldn’t find them there even if he did somehow manage to take more than five steps without landing on his arse, which wasn’t bloody likely.

His infuriated growling cut off so abruptly Pat at first wondered if he’d blacked out, but no: he’d spotted Lorna, still motionless, still blank, her little hands bloody and blistered at her sides. If Grandda really had also had the Blank, it was no fucking wonder even little Lorna would give him pause — if Da ever had nightmares, they were probably about flat green eyes, and a fury so intense you could break the world on the strength of it. He’d been Lorna’s size once, hard as it was to imagine, faced with an adult who’d think nothing at all of — well, of hitting someone with a pan full of hot grease.

Pat weighed the merit of telling his da to get the fuck away, and decided it wasn’t worth it. There was no chance, anyway; no sooner had the thought occurred than Lorna moved. Good bloody Jesus, even that was wrong: Lorna was as clumsy as any kid her age, but when she was Blank, she was as fast and silent and agile as a fucking snake.

Too late, he saw the fork gripped in her left hand, though not so late as Da, who didn’t notice a goddamn thing until he quite suddenly had the thing sticking out the back of his hand. He didn’t even have time to yell before Lorna’s teeth joined it, tearing at the burned, blistered skin like a rabid dog. Even now she made no sound, though Da more than fucking made up for it by screeching like a rook in a blender. The sound tore through Pat’s head like a hacksaw, ringing through his ears and straight into his brain—

He was nearly knocked off his feet when Da lurched backward, right into him; even as it was, he stumbled straight into the wall with such force it knocked the breath right out of his lungs. For a moment his vision greyed, then fuzzed, and his world narrowed into a desperate search for oxygen that didn’t seem anywhere to be found. Fresh pain flared in his head, jagging all down his neck in waves as red as the blood that clogged his ear — as the blood that spurted from his da’s hand.

Somehow, Da managed to break her grip — he kicked her away like she was some kind of wild animal, which probably wasn’t that far off the mark. Pat couldn’t take any satisfaction in the sheer, naked horror on his face, because the Blank was still high in Lorna’s eyes, her little teeth smeared with blood. The kick didn’t seem to have hurt her at all, but then, it wouldn’t — she never did feel anything while the Blank had hold of her.

At least two of Da’s brain cells must have been firing, because he had the sense to leg it into his and Mam’s room. Pat wasn’t about to stick around long enough to see what sort of weapon he might stalk back out with, either, but he couldn’t well go and leave Lorna.

“Fun Size, I really need you to come off it,” he said, and he wasn’t at all ashamed of the tremor in his voice. “We’ve got to go. Come on now, Shiv and Mick’ll be waiting.” He hated that he feared her, that he could be afraid of one of the few people in the world he knew actually loved him. The day might come where she attacked one of them, and it wasn’t a thought he could bear. “Come on, Lorna. Mick’s still got his marbles, and if Shiv hasn’t got the food out’v your room, I’ll throw a boot at her. Please, Lorna.”

Something in his sister’s expression cleared, just a fraction — the haze of rage lifted from her eyes, but she still wasn’t the one at home yet. That always took a while, though that came sooner if they were safe somewhere, safe away from Da and everything to do with him.

“That’s it,” Pat said, more than a little desperately. “I mean it, Lorna — let’s go.” Carefully, oh so carefully, he took her hand, and grimaced when a blister burst beneath his fingers. “We’ll get you cleaned up and eat the rest’v the custard creams, and if you want we can go see if there’s any way into the shop. I know you always wanted to try to crawl through a vent.”

To his utter relief, she followed when he tugged her hand, out into the summer night. It had cooled in a hurry once the sun went down, but chill never bothered any of them very much. Out here the air was fresh, more or less, with no whiskey or grease or copper-salty blood. Out here they were safe, and he wondered, not for the first time, if it wouldn’t be better if they all just…ran away. It didn’t matter where, because anyplace was better than here.

“I’ll kill him,” Lorna said, and he couldn’t be certain if it was her or the Blank speaking. The words were dreamy, her soft, flat tone so horrible a contrast with the gore on her face and the ice in her eyes. 

Dread squeezed Pat’s heart, because he believed her. Someday she’d do it, and the Blank might never let go of her again. “Yeah, well, it won’t be today,” he said, as they passed silent through the long grass beside the house. If he’d believed in any sort of god, he might have prayed for his sister, but he doubted any god could help her even if there was one. Something in her was so broken he didn’t think anything in any world could fix her. “Not today.”

Sanitarium

Some minds defy even a telepath.

Sharley, Von Rached, and everything to do with them have their roots in The M Universe, though this series of stories stands on its own. This one has a sequel, Alien Soul.

~

Von Rached was bored.

That was a rather difficult feat to accomplish, really; his curiosity was boundless, often to his patients’ detriment. However, the novelty of America had worn off, and he’d all but exhausted this facility’s supply of interesting cases. Though he had a large measure of autonomy here, his freedom was not as absolute as it had been in Germany: he had, for now, to make sure his test subjects stayed alive. His position remained too new for him to utterly disregard his superiors — unless he wished to suborn the mind of every single one of them, which would be a waste of his time and energy.

The dawn was clear and grey and crystal-pure when he left his apartment. He hadn’t slept last night, despite the rather heroic dose of morphine he’d taken, but the drug did temporarily soothe his restiveness. It meant he could appreciate the light breeze, the mingled scent of dewy grass and damp asphalt as he strode down the sidewalk. This early there were few cars on the road, which meant less eye-searing exhaust. He’d seen more cars in his first year in America than in the first three decades of the twentieth century in Germany. While he owned one himself, he only used it in foul weather, preferring to walk outside when it was fine. He saw little enough fresh air when he was working.

The walk was long, and the sun had crested the horizon by the time he reached the facility. The night-nurse, pale and exhausted, gave him a perfunctory greeting, and handed him a sheaf of papers.

“We took in a new patient last night,” she said. “She won’t give her name — won’t speak, in fact. Good luck with her.” She shuffled away from him unconsciously, as most people tended to do, though he’d never yet given any of them concrete reason to want to. Von Rached was a self-admitted monster, but he didn’t make a habit of terrorizing his subordinates.

“Thank you,” he said. “Now go home. You look ready to fall over at any moment.”

Off she scurried, and he flipped through the paperwork. Female, approximately six feet tall, approximately one hundred forty pounds, age approximately thirty… 

They got absolutely nowhere with her, did they? he thought. Well, no patient, no matter how combative, was a match for his telekinesis. Whoever this mystery woman was, she wouldn’t remain a mystery for long. They’d locked her in room 114, which was one of the padded cells. At least she had nothing to use as a weapon in there.

The woman was sitting in the left corner, he found, and she didn’t squint when the lights kicked on. They hadn’t even managed to get her into a straitjacket, which told him nobody had successfully drugged her. She was still in her street clothes — faded Levi’s and a man’s work shirt, stained with blood he strongly doubted was hers.

She said nothing when he entered, nor did she move. Her eyes, bright and razor-sharp, didn’t match — sectoral heterochromia, in both. Interesting. One was a mix of blue and green; the other, so dark it was nearly black, had a segment of brown so bright it looked orange. Her hair was a long tangle of dark auburn, but what was truly peculiar was her scent. Von Rached had an exceptional sense of smell, and this strange woman smelled like metal and lightning.

“I am certain you have a name,” he said, shutting the door, “and I am equally certain you will not willingly tell me. You need not make this difficult on yourself.”

Silence. She only watched him, ever more wary as the seconds passed — she couldn’t know what he was, but she clearly realized he was dangerous. Hmm.

Von Rached sat on the padded floor in front of her, cataloging her reaction. Even seated, he suspected the approximation of her height to be accurate, but he had a good five inches on her. Those odd eyes flickered up over his head, and she actually scowled faintly — it would seem she disliked people taller than her.

“You’re older than you look,” she said, tilting her head as she regarded him. Her voice was hoarse; her accent, though faint, suggested Alabama roots.

It took a great deal to surprise Von Rached, but that did it. She was right; he was a good twenty years older than he appeared, but she had no reason to suspect it. “And why would you think that?”

She blinked, and gave him the barest hint of a very dry smile. It was a ghost of an expression, fleeting, but it was there. “Because you are.” She offered no more than that — she truly seemed to be one of those patients, who made extracting even the slightest information like pulling teeth. Unfortunately for her, she was in for a surprise.

He brushed at her mind, very gently. Diving straight into a person’s thoughts was often a bad idea, since it could damage the patient and render them useless. Telepathy, unlike telekinesis, was an art form, a process that should not be rushed. And he was extremely intrigued by what he found.

Though she was no telepath, her mind tried to resist him. Oh, it didn’t work, but the attempt was there, and it was entirely unconscious. There was something vaguely unpleasant about it, too; touching her mind was rather like dipping his fingers in slime, and that too was thus far unheard-of. Who was this woman?

Sharley. He found her name, even as she twitched, pressing herself hard into the corner — could she actually feel his mental intrusion?

“Knock it off,” she growled, eyes wide: yes, she felt it.

“No,” Von Rached said flatly. “I will take whatever I wish from your mind, Sharley. You are my patient until I deem otherwise.”

Sharley went still — very still, so much so that she didn’t seem even to breathe. Her expression held all the animation of a statue as her eyes again flickered over him. “No,” she said, “I’m your lab rat. We all are. You think you want immortality.” Again there was a ghost-flicker of a smile. “You shouldn’t.”

He knew there was no point in asking how she knew that. He crept deeper into her mind, searching, and met even more resistance — he might as well have been wading through mental glue. No two minds were alike, but he’d never seen one like hers: there were many dark patches, places where memory was not merely repressed, but somehow excised entirely. Did she somehow run up against another telepath? His kind were, he knew, very rare; the only other he’d known in his entire life was his mother.

Sharley hit him, or tried to; his telekinesis caught her arm before her fist could connect. She made no sound, however, even when he squeezed her wrist so hard the bones ground together.

“You,” he said, “are an extraordinarily strange creature, Sharley—” yes, there was her last name “—Corwin. Tell me, when did you last encounter a telepath?”

Once more he received only silence in response, and he fought the urge to sigh. His telekinetic grip tightened on her wrist, though he was careful not to actually break it, but still she sat noiseless. To his increasing exasperation, she just stared, and sat utterly motionless.

“Well, Corwin, I did give you the chance to make this easy on yourself,” he said, and grabbed her other wrist — physically, this time.

Never in his life had Von Rached come so close to recoiling. For some reason, actually touching her was unspeakably distasteful; if he’d thought contact with her mind was bad, it had nothing on contact with her skin. And from the dark triumph far back in her eyes, it seemed she knew it.

Every instinct he possessed warned him to let go, but he had a job to do. Touching a subject made it easier to read their mind, however unpleasant it might be. Her skin was significantly cooler than average, so much so that it almost felt like touching a corpse, and the sensation was a nasty distraction he didn’t need.

To his disappointment, physical contact did not make her thoughts much easier to sort. Never had he seen a mental landscape so strange, or so scarred; the black patches remained dark, like nothing so much as gaping holes leading to an abyss that bore exploration. Her memories churned together, far more difficult to sift through even than the maddest of his other patients.

The earth of her landscape was barren, strewn with sharp black rock that looked like obsidian. The sky was a dim, dull red, scattered with clouds like smudges of rust and charcoal. There was no sun to be seen, but the air was hot and desert-dry, and smelled rather like Sharley herself — copper and lightning, with the bittersweet sharpness of petrichor. There were trees in the distance, half-dead firs gone russet and brown, but whatever lay beyond them was lost in darkness.

“Get out.”

That was not a thought — or at least, not a thought of Sharley’s. It was a voice — a young adult male, accent indefinable.

“I will leave when I please,” Von Rached said. “Who are you?”

“His name’s Jimmy,” another voice piped up, female and childlike. “I’m Layla, and we mean it — get out. You don’t wanna be in here.”

Yes, he very much did, though holding her wrist was swiftly becoming ever more unpleasant. He could find no signs of another telepath’s interference, but something had burned those holes in her mind, and he was damn well going to find out what.

Searing pain tore through him — a shocking jackhammer that hit right between the eyes. It wasn’t enough to drive him out, but it so startled him that it was a damn near thing. It had been a very, very long time since anything had hurt this much, and he hunted for the source with avid curiosity. He didn’t think it was a conscious defense, but the very fact of its existence shouldn’t be possible. This woman was no telepath, whatever she might be, but she fought as though she was.

He dug deeper, though it grew more difficult with every passing moment. Whatever alien presence lurked within her mind was attacking with a vengeance he had to admire, inconvenient though it was —

Quite suddenly, he found he’d come back to himself, his connection to her mind abruptly severed. The pain lingered, but Von Rached hardly cared; Sharley had somehow managed to kick him out of her head entirely. How? It was fascinating — maddening, but fascinating.

She watched him with an expression that was entirely unreadable. His mental invasion must have hurt, but one would never know it by looking at her. Only the hammering of her pulse beneath his fingers gave her away.

He released her wrist, and fought an urge to grimace in revulsion. “You and I, Corwin, are going to have a great deal of fun,” he said.

She arched an eyebrow, though otherwise her expression remained unchanged. “Somehow I doubt that.”

~

In the months that followed, Von Rached was anything but bored. He hadn’t, in fact, enjoyed himself this much in years.

Corwin, he discovered, had a truly monstrous tolerance for pain. She also had a great deal of scar tissue — long, jagged lines that twisted around her arms, gouging deep across her shoulder blades. They had to be around fifteen years old, white and faded, but the wounds that left them ought to have killed her — the blood loss would have been catastrophic, and clearly none of them had been sutured.

Try though he did, he couldn’t locate the source of the injuries within her mind, either. She offered no information aloud, no matter what sort of torture he put her through — never had he met anyone who could remain so silent. All she did was watch, to the point that he was soon the only one who would work with her. There was something so unnatural about her that he didn’t wonder why, either.

He’d learned in short order that if he didn’t want to keep her in place with his telekinesis, he had to strap her down — and he had to do it very securely, because she was unusually strong, despite the fact that she was downright rawboned.

While she rarely spoke, the voices he had discovered within her mind more than made up for it. There were, in fact, four of them, two male and two female, and they had astonishingly well-developed personalities. Von Rached slowly came to realize that they were not the bi-products of psychosis, though they could easily drive one to it. It was certainly impossible to shut them up.

They were in fine form on this blistering August day. The air conditioning, still quite new, rarely worked, and as a result the entire building was sweltering. Corwin didn’t seem to care, and Von Rached had long ago learned to ignore his own discomfort; no mere heat wave was going to slow him down. The voices, however, seemed determined to try — especially once they found out what he meant to do.

Reading Corwin’s mind was all too often an exercise in frustration, and was therefore a task he wasn’t willing to attempt every day. He’d tried drugging her, but thus far her body had either reacted too oddly to the drugs, or not at all — her metabolism was ferocious, and burned through what ought to have been near-lethal doses of sedatives. Finally he’d started brewing his own chemical cocktails, but even they had yet to have the desired effect. This time, though, he thought he was onto a winner.

He let her sit up today, shackled to a chair that was in turn bolted to the floor. Though the window was open, it did little to cool the room; what breeze came through it was like something out of an oven, smelling of hot asphalt and parched grass. Corwin, however, didn’t seem capable of sweating, and ignored it as she seemed to ignore all else. Her eyes tracked him as he moved to and fro, assembling ampoules and hypodermic needles on a steel tray.

“Now, Corwin,” he said, filling a needle with a viscous blue fluid, “you will talk to me sooner or later.”

Corwin, predictably, said nothing, but one of her voices sighed. It was the other male, Kurt, who sounded somewhat younger than Jimmy, and who seemed more than a little sociopathic. “Why?” he muttered. “She doesn’t have anything worth saying. Sharley’s crazy — we should know. We keep her that way.”

“Not helping, Kurt,” Layla said. Given how incessantly she chattered, Von Rached didn’t wonder much at Corwin’s instability. Anyone would go mad if they had to endure it all day, every day. “You really should just give up, Vonny. Sharley’s like a rock, and you can’t drag anything out of a stone.”

“I do not plan to drag anything,” he said. As ever, he approached Corwin carefully — bound or not, he didn’t trust her. 

She glared when he injected her left arm, and the force of it was palpable. “Clearly that approach is ineffective.”

He drew up a folding chair while he waited for the drug to do its work, and sat facing her. Her glare fixed on the top of his head, and he didn’t bother fighting a smirk; Corwin did indeed hate people who were taller than her, though he had yet to divine why. He kept quiet, preferring to let the voices chatter at him and one another.

“You know what’ll happen if you fuck up and kill Sharley, right?” Kurt circled him, rather like an invisible and exceptionally obnoxious shark. “You’ll be stuck with us. Forever.”

“Ew, no thanks,” Jimmy said. “I don’t want to be stuck with this tool.”

“You two are so insensitive,” the fourth one said severely. Her name, Von Rached had been amused to discover, was Sinsemilla, and she seemed to be the closest thing the group had to a leader. “And you are not remotely helping. There will be no being trapped with him forever, because nothing will happen to Sharley.” The threat in her tone was not at all veiled.

“Not forever,” Corwin said. “Never forever. Humans can’t find immortality and still be human.” Her eyes had glazed over, and now they wandered the room, her gaze for once not locked on him. “You won’t find it. You don’t find it.”

“Sharley,” Sinsemilla warned.

“Tell me why you believe you know so much about me,” Von Rached prompted.

Corwin actually laughed. It was a hoarse, rusty, broken sound, and there was no humor to be found in it. “I see what you were, and what you are, and I almost feel sorry for all the things you might become.”

Her head lolled to one side, her eyes tracking back to him, and their expression somehow managed to be both sly and bitter. “You were born in 1898,” she said, in a voice far sharper. “Your middle name is Hermann, which, let’s face it, is awful. When you were eighteen you killed your mother and tripped off to med school, but you might have waited until you were twenty-five, just to see what would happen to her. You also could have driven her insane when you were twelve, which really wouldn’t have ended well and you must have known it, because you didn’t do it.”

There was something unsettling in hearing the facts of his history laid out by someone who had no business knowing them. Nobody knew he’d killed his mother, so how on Earth could Corwin? He leaned forward, and rested his elbows on his knees. “What do you mean, you see?” he asked. Interestingly, she actually was sweating now — a faint sheen on her forehead — and her cheeks were flushed, as if with fever.

She snorted. “I thought you were supposed to be a genius,” she said. “I see. What was and what is, what might be and what could have been, and d’you have any idea what that’s like? I could show you, if you wanted to lose your mind.” Her eyes left him again, wandering to the golden square of sunshine on the wall beside her. She was silent a moment, and Von Rached allowed it; if he pushed too hard she’d clam up, drugs or no drugs.

There were, he knew, precogs out there — people who could see the future. He’d dealt with one during the War, and that experience meant he knew that Corwin was no more a precog than she was a telepath. Precogs saw only the future; the past was barred to them.

“A storm’s coming for you, doctor,” she said at last, still staring at the wall. “Not for a long time yet, but with that serum of yours, you’ll still be plenty young enough to see it. Your world and mine, and they both might die, and I can’t warn anyone, I can’t. If you knew, you’d try to do things different, and there’s already so many potentialities and oh shit it hurts.”

Incredibly, there were tears in her eyes when she looked at him again. “You spoiled bastard, you have no idea how lucky you are. You’re powerful and whole and totally human, and you’ve never known want in your life, have you? Everything you want, you get, and it doesn’t even take much effort. You think you know so much, but you’ve never really earned a damn thing. You and your telepathy — you just go in people’s heads and play ’til you get what you want.”

“Sharley, stop,” Sinsemilla said.

“Why?” Corwin snarled. “I never say anything, and it’s my damn turn. He gets away with everything right now, but all accounts balance, Vonny. The interest will catch up to you, and you’ll be the one who hurts.” The sweat ran in rivulets down her face now, which was so flushed he worried for her blood pressure.

“I want to go home,” she said. Her voice broke on the last word. “It isn’t much, but it’s better than here. I miss the wind and the lightning and the dead, and you have no right — no right — to keep me here, you bastard.” 

Her hands, as scarred as her arms, clenched into fists, knuckles whitening. “You can’t do worse to me than’s already been done. You’re human and mortal and I was born with my brain in pieces, and someday you’ll know what that’s like, and I hope I’m there to laugh.” Her voice was downright savage, even hoarser due to such unaccustomed use. She had always seemed subtly alien, but there was nothing subtle about it now. The electric-petrichor scent of her had somehow intensified, and it was almost enough to make him draw away. Corwin might be the most intriguing subject Von Rached had ever found, but she also unnerved him to a degree that nothing and no one ever had before.

Corwin shut her eyes, her head falling forward, hair obscuring her face. “You’d best get your tests in while you can, doctor,” she said. “I think I’m gonna die soon. I dunno how or why or even exactly when, but I will, and I know your damn stubborn brain won’t take this in, but being able to die is a good thing.” 

She peered at him through the curtain of her hair. “People don’t ever seem to realize just what eternity really means. Imagine how bored you’d get after a thousand years. How bored were you, before I came along?”

That struck a chord. However, he’d only been bored by this facility. The world itself still had endless possibilities. “Why do you think you will die soon?”

Corwin laughed again, raising her head. “Do you really not listen? What is, what was, what might be and might have been, doctor, but also what could be. What will be is somewhere in there, too, if I can ever find it, but sometimes I just know. You’re being deliberately dense.”

Von Rached would have been insulted if that hadn’t been exactly what she wanted. She seemed determined to make no sense, and she was close to succeeding. His patience was wearing dangerously thin. The drug had certainly loosened her tongue; perhaps it had loosened her mind as well. Steeling himself, he reached out and touched her forehead.

To his surprise, Corwin didn’t fight him, physically or mentally. He didn’t know if she was unwilling or unable, and he didn’t care. This time he sought not the past, but the present — he wanted to know just what it was she saw, and how, and why.

Seeing through another’s eyes was normally almost effortless. As with everything about Corwin, however, it was rather difficult, and latching onto her vision took time. And when he had, for the first time in his life, he almost wished he’d failed. He quite suddenly understood what she truly meant when she said ‘it hurts’. The pain was far from excruciating, but it settled in his chest like a lead weight, and creeped through his limbs.

He saw himself, but not as he was — or rather, not only as he was. Overlaying his seated form was the ghost-image of a small boy, with an expression solemn but also slightly devious. Another was himself at eighteen, already near his full height, pale eyes sharp and filled with arrogant superiority — was this really how he had looked to others? It was only a wonder no one had tried to punch him.

But there was another Von Rached, this one surely from the future — he appeared perhaps forty, which meant he had to be much older. His blond hair had mixed with pale grey, and there was a truly vicious scar on his neck: it looked very much like someone had tried to tear his throat out with their teeth. Who on Earth could have managed that? He couldn’t imagine anyone dodging his telekinesis so effectively.

He tried to force Corwin to see it, and only succeeded in sending a spike of pain lancing straight into his head. Corwin barely seemed to notice; no wonder she endured his torture so well, if this was the way she felt all the time. Something metallic and astringent coated the back of his throat, bitter on his tongue, stinging in his sinuses — storm-scent. With it came the arid heat of her mental landscape, wrapping around his mind like a shroud, binding him—

Von Rached broke away, snatching his hand from her forehead with almost unseemly haste. He didn’t know just what had attempted to trap him in Corwin’s mind, but he was quite sure it was not the woman herself.

Her drill-bit eyes bored into him when he sat back, and he’d swear she was trying to read whatever passed for his soul. She’d bitten through her lip, and her teeth, when she smiled at him, were smeared with red.

“I keep telling you you don’t want in my head, doctor,” she said. “Even I don’t know if you’ll get stuck there. I don’t wanna find out, and I doubt you do, either.” Again there was a sick sort of triumph in her gaze.

Von Rached was not a violent man, but in that moment he could have hit her. He could have broken her neck, if only to stop her staring with those bright, mad, inhuman eyes.

For she could not be truly human, no matter what her biological makeup. Something fully alien lived within her mind, lurking behind her eyes, and he could not deny to himself that it unsettled him. Never in all his life had anything done so, but for the first time, he really wondered what sort of viper he’d let into his facility. This was meant to be a sanitarium for the mad, at least on paper; it was not supposed to house humanoid abominations. There had to be a reason that touching her felt so very wrong, and he could think of few others. It was as though she was some sort of toxin given female form, her very presence a poison.

He didn’t hit her, tempting though it was. He did, after all, have standards to maintain, even if everything else seemed utterly wrong. “If I release you, Corwin, will you behave yourself?”

She arched an eyebrow, and gave him another bloody smile. “You mean, will I attack you? No. I think you’ll get enough of that later.”

Perhaps she was right. Some morbid part of him actually looked forward to it.

He unlocked her shackles, and she stood, a trifle unsteadily. Though she was five inches shorter than him, she seemed taller than she actually was — and even now, she stared.

“You shouldn’t have done that, doctor,” Sinsemilla said. She sounded shaken. “Stirring Sharley’s mind really isn’t a good idea. Even we’re not sure what might come to the surface.”

She was probably right. It likely wasn’t safe to continue doing so, but Von Rached didn’t care. However dangerous this creature might be, he could not pass up the opportunity to study her, for however long she remained in his custody. Somehow, he did not think he would be able to hold her forever.

Alien Soul

Take one sadistic telepath, one humanoid abomination, Woodstock, and some snarky not-quite-hallucinations. Shake, stir.

Sequel to Sanitarium.

~

 

Even with her quasi-foresight, Sharley hadn’t had nearly enough idea what she was getting herself into.

Three days of peace and music, the flyer said. Fair enough. The couple she’d been traveling with the last year had wanted to go to this concert at Woodstock, and she hadn’t seen any timelines where something went disastrously wrong, so she saw no reason not to.

But if I saw any potentiality with a crowd this huge, I would’ve damn well stayed in San Francisco.

The trip cross-country in their pair of wheezing VW buses had been something of a nightmare all on its own, but she couldn’t say she’d minded too much; Sharley only felt anything close to at peace when she was traveling, and she’d kept both buses in decent enough repair that Andy and Turquoise’s only broke down once. They camped under the stars at night, little Marty safe in her arms — her daughter wasn’t yet four years old, and she guarded the girl like a mother bear. Her father had been shipped off to Vietnam and walked into a bullet two days later: Marty was the only tie to Earth that Sharley had. Thought of taking her into a crowd of half a million people was almost more than she could bear.

The only future she could never see was her own, and by extension, Marty’s. That blindness made her perpetually uneasy, and she didn’t dare let it cloud her judgment, which was already so often impaired as it was. While she couldn’t see her future, her intuition still worked just fine, and right now it was poking her with a metaphorical stick.

She glanced at Marty, seated oblivious in the passenger’s seat. The girl’s blonde bangs were damp with sweat, sticking to her sunburned face, but she didn’t seem to mind at all. Her mismatched eyes were round as she stared at the press of cars, and she was practically vibrating with excitement.

“Take your cue from her,” Layla said; she hovered unseen behind Sharley, and temporarily unheard by Marty. “She’s enjoying herself.”

“It will be fine, Sharley,” Sinsemilla added. “You know you have more time than this.”

Sharley didn’t know that, but she was fairly sure she wasn’t meant to die yet. What she was less certain of was Marty’s fate — but it wouldn’t do to dwell on it now. The situation was what it was, and there was no backing out now — literally. Her bus was hemmed in by hundreds of other cars, all of them sweltering and sticky with humidity. The scent of gasoline mingled with the aroma of a staggering amount of marijuana, which she hoped would keep the crowd at least somewhat mellow.

Turquoise certainly seemed stoned enough, when she rapped on the car door. She was a tiny woman with skin the color of dry earth — her curly back hair was a wild mess, and her dark eyes were distinctly bloodshot. “Andy’s gonna dig out the barbecue,” she said. “Looks like we’ll be sittin’ here a while. Got some beer and lemonade that’s still mostly cold.”

“Lemonade!” Marty cried, and Sharley couldn’t help but smile. The kid was still young enough to be delighted by the simplest things, and Sharley wanted to keep her that way as long as she could.

They were both glad enough to get out of the van, though she had to shut her eyes for a moment. A large part of why she avoided crowds was the fact that such a huge number of potentialities could easily be overwhelming.

“Beer?” Turquoise asked. Her voice was laced with sympathy.

Sharley nodded. Neither of her companions knew the source of her oddities, but they didn’t care, which was not something she often found on Earth. They — and most of the other hippies she’d met — just accepted that she was weird, and left it at that. Even after five years, that was still rather novel.

Things were bearable when she opened her eyes, and when Turquoise pressed a can of lukewarm beer into her hand, she chugged it in three long swallows. Alcohol, like so much else, didn’t affect her as it did most people, but it took the edge off.

She looked at Marty, who was sipping a bottle of lemonade and ardently people-watching. Mercifully, she hadn’t inherited her mother’s curse; she was as close to normal as a child of this counterculture could be. That was a blessing Sharley would never cease to be thankful for.

“Andy’s fighting with the awning,” Marty said. “You maybe better go help him.”

I just bet he is. If he was anywhere near as stoned as Turquoise, it was only a wonder they hadn’t wrecked their bus. She tossed her empty can into the plastic garbage bag in her own bus, and went to help mitigate the damage.

It wasn’t as bad as she’d feared, though she still had to shoo Andy away. The awning was really just a huge piece of tie-dyed canvas that sat on four rickety poles, and it had a tendency to collapse in anything more than a slight breeze. At least the air was still, if oppressively muggy. Now that she was out of the van, the raw onion stench of sweat joined the panoply of aromas, along with the far more welcome scent of cooking meat.

She could hear music in the distance, though it was difficult to make out over the din of so many people. So long as she didn’t look at them, she actually found the sound surprisingly soothing.

She pulled the lawn chairs out of her van, and sat in the shade with Marty on her lap, nursing a second beer. The atmosphere too was a pleasant surprise; her unsettled intuition took a temporary vacation. The freshly-dyed, violent blue of her hair earned only passing glances and a few smiles — she couldn’t quite remember why she’d agreed to let Turquoise loose on her hair, but she kind of liked the result, and Marty loved it. That alone would have been enough to make her keep it. Her height and her scars meant she was used to being stared at anyway.

“Mama, can we explore?” Marty asked, between sips of lemonade.

“After dinner. You stick close when we do.”

Marty rolled her eyes. “Yes, Mama.” Sharley knew she was probably overprotective, but that was only because she also knew what sort of dangers the world held. She’d seen too many of them, past and future, to risk her daughter’s safety through carelessness. Once Marty had some food in her, she’d be a little less eager to tear off into the unknown.

~

The sun was dying a bloody death on the western horizon, and Von Rached was fascinated. Slightly annoyed, but fascinated.

The counterculture had intrigued him since its inception. It was a novelty, and novelties were a rarity to him. It meant he had to rub shoulders with the (often literally) great unwashed, but it was a small price to pay for something so very interesting. The scent of smoke and sweat and God knew what else was a thing he could have done without, but he’d smelled worse.

He had to step carefully, so as not to trod on anyone — normally he wouldn’t have bothered, but he viewed this whole concert as a type of experiment, and one had to be careful with an experiment lest the results be tainted.

He flitted in and out of dozens of minds as he approached the stage, brushing them only long enough to gather surface thoughts. The music was not at all to his taste, but it faded into a background drone as he continued his mental exploration. Very rarely had he encountered such an atmosphere; in his experience, crowds this large were powder kegs, but this one was remarkably relaxed.

The vast quantities of marijuana likely have much to do with that, he thought, a trifle sourly.

The minds of stoners could be surprisingly interesting. Physically they might be unmotivated, but the dull thoughts of an ordinary person could become either comical or pseudo-philosophical under the influence of cannabis. Unlike those on mushrooms or acid, they could mostly maintain linear mental cohesion, and quite often thought they were far more intelligent and insightful than was actually the case. It made them vastly entertaining.

The crowd nearest the stage was on its feet, though few were dancing. Most swayed in place with the ponderous, thoughtful slowness of the profoundly drunk and/or stoned. Von Rached considered implanting a sudden phobia, just to see what would happen, when his mind brushed up against something at once alien and disturbingly familiar.

He halted, and scanned the crowd. Oh, he knew that mind — in his seventy-one years on Earth, he’d never felt another like it. He hadn’t aged since Sharley saw him last, though it had been sixteen years; he still looked not far past the age of thirty. Should she see him here, she wouldn’t be able to help recognizing him. And that was not a complication he felt like dealing with.

She was tall enough that he spotted her easily, standing perhaps a dozen yards away. Someone had dyed her hair an obnoxious shade of blue, but he was startled to see that she too had changed very little; he’d thought her in her twenties when she arrived in his experimental facility in 1954, but she didn’t seem to have aged much more than five.

Even more surprisingly, there was a child in her arms — a little blonde girl who couldn’t be more than five herself. Actually touching Sharley had been horrifying for all who had to do it when she was in his facility, but the child didn’t seem to mind at all. Her facial features echoed Sharley’s to an extent that made Von Rached she was the woman’s biological daughter, and the thought made him shudder. The girl’s father must have been as much of an unnatural monstrosity as her mother, if he could stand touching her intimately enough to father a child in the first place.

Curious though he was, he didn’t dare press further into Sharley’s mind. Somehow, the woman had always felt it when he did, to his eternal frustration.

Even now, he refused to fully admit to himself that Sharley made him nervous, though given the circumstances of her escape, he knew he had every right to be.

She really had looked very little different than she did now. Her hair hadn’t been blue then; it was a deep auburn, wild and tangled, but the eyes had been the same, such a bizarre example of sectoral heterochromia — Technicolor eyes, one of his nurses had called them. She was so tall and so strong it often took three or four nurses to subdue her, and as a result they usually kept her heavily drugged.

He’d thought she was on that afternoon, that warm afternoon in mid-spring, and so hadn’t bothered restraining her. She’d leaned on her elbows on the exam table and watched him as he set about arranging his tools, mostly consisting of more drugs — she always watched, but rarely ever spoke, unless it was to whisper to those voices of hers. Hazy sunlight filled the room with gold, but it seemed to have no effect on her.

“Now, Corwin, this shouldn’t hurt if you cooperate,” he said. He faced her now with a hypodermic in his hand — he always said that, and she never did, but he had to offer the opportunity for her to make his life easier.

To that she said nothing — just watched him with those bright, half-mad eyes. Her silence so unnerved the rest of the staff that few of them would work with her, even when she was drugged, because no matter how much they gave her, her sharp eyes never lost their focus. One nurse had once confided it felt like Sharley was trying to read her mind, which had amused him to no end — he didn’t know what Corwin was, but a telepath she was not.

She tensed to spring when he approached, and with a tinge of irritation he held her fast with his telekinesis, tying a cord around her upper arm so he could insert the needle. The woman didn’t have an ounce of fat on her — she was all wiry muscle, and rawboned though she was, she was strong as a man her height. He paused, as he often did, to examine her scars — they’d been much more prominent then, deep and twisted and ugly, some pink and some white, and as they’d obviously never seen stitches he still wondered how she hadn’t bled to death when she received them. No matter what he said or did to her, he couldn’t get her to divulge how she’d got them, either — the woman could stay maddeningly silent through torture like nobody else he’d ever met, and he wondered very much how. What had happened to her, to give her that ability?

The drug made her relax quite against her will, but he didn’t let up his telekinetic hold on her, not yet. He hadn’t tried this one on her before, and he hoped it might make it easier to read her fractured mind. All these attempts had been fascinating in part because they were so frustrating, but he meant to succeed today.

“I wouldn’t, Doctor,” she said, surprising him — it was always surprising when she actually spoke, though her speech was somewhat slurred thanks to the drugs. “You’re waking it up. I can feel it, in here.” She tried to move her hand to touch her temple, but of course she couldn’t.

He set aside the needle. “Waking what up?” he asked. “What is it you have in your head, Corwin?”

She shut her eyes. “It. The thing, the — leviathan. The Stranger. It started talking to me again yesterday.”

Whatever it was, it was clearly distressing her, which intrigued him greatly — an agitated Corwin was an interesting thing indeed. From the sound of it, it must be another voice — perhaps one of the things she called Transients.

“It’s been asleep for ages — don’t make it wake up, please.”

Now that was really interesting. She’d never, ever pleaded with him before, no matter what he did to her — and he’d done some very painful things, mental and physical. What on Earth could be scaring her so badly?

Only one way to find out. He stripped off his gloves and laid a hand on either side of her face — she was the only person he’d ever met who he had to physically touch to enter their mind — and stepped right in.

As usual, it was like walking into a Hall of Mirrors with every pane cracked or broken. Each was like a window of memory, but the images they showed switched and shifted with such bewildering rapidity he could focus on none of them. Such a dark place, Sharley’s mind, filled with huge patches of blank shadow completely void of memory, and even after a year he’d brought no light to them. Whatever had been there was gone, burned away by those voices of hers, likely to protect what little sanity she had left — and wasn’t that fascinating, that they both could and would do that. She’d been committed for schizophrenia, but she was no more schizophrenic than she was telepathic.

“Get out, Vonny.” That was Layla, one of the main four, a soft sweet child-voice, and she actually sounded afraid. “Get out and let Sharley out — seriously, don’t wake it up.”

“We mean it. Don’t.” To Von Rached’s surprise, that one was Kurt — Kurt the juvenile sociopath. He often tormented Sharley himself, but did his best to make sure nobody else did. Yet right now even he sounded frightened. “We might not be able to put it back to sleep.”

That was only impetus for Von Rached to dive deeper, or what he hoped was deeper — with Sharley’s mind one could never be sure; she’d actually managed to trick him into stumbling out a few times, though he doubted she did it consciously. Whatever powers she had — and he still didn’t know if she had a proper ability or not — she had no control over them whatsoever.

She managed to do it this time, too, to his immense irritation, but this time was different — this time something seemed to forcibly grab him and hurl him out, and when his eyes focused on her he saw sheer, naked terror in her face.

“Oh, you idiot,” she whispered, “you complete goddamn idiot— ”

Then, even as he watched, she…changed. Not physically; physically she was the same scarred Sharley, but her very presence seemed to shift, her expression smoothing into something like nothing he’d ever seen — every trace of humanity, of Sharley, had left it, and the eyes that watched him now belonged to a creature wholly alien.

“They warned you, Doctor,” she said. Even her voice was different — it was still Sharley’s, still rusty and faintly Southern, but the intonation was as void of humanity as her expression.

And then she moved.

She shouldn’t have been able to — Von Rached hadn’t released his hold on her — but she did, broke his hold like it was nothing, and that came closer to startling him than anything ever had in his life. One scarred hand shot up and seized him by the throat, long fingers digging so hard they almost ripped out his trachea, and jerked him toward her until they were practically nose-to-nose. “You should never have caught us, Doctor,” she said. There was a truly terrible sanity in those odd eyes, as bereft of emotion as a statue’s.

His reaction was instantaneous, instinctive — he hit her so hard he heard a rib snap, but not even a flicker of pain crossed her face, and she hurtled him from her with that surprising strength, so hard he crashed into the counter and sent all his instruments flying. Still there was  no pain nor humanity in her expression when she sat up, an unexpected monster in a plain white hospital gown. He tried to catch her with his telekinesis, to pin her against the wall—

—and failed. Failed utterly.

She stood, advancing on him, and her stride was as terrible as the sanity in her eyes, her every movement as completely alien as her expression. This wasn’t a simple case of split personality — this was some other entity entirely, some creature that had taken complete and total possession of her. She shouldn’t have been able to do that — nothing was immune to his telekinesis. Nothing, apparently, but whatever this thing was.

Anyone else likely would have been terrified, but Von Rached was completely and utterly fascinated. Even if his telekinesis didn’t work on this creature, he was still much stronger than Sharley — from the feel of her grip on his neck, the thing did not augment her strength, even if he did make her quite insensible to pain.

“What are you?” he asked. Tall though Sharley was, he had a good five inches on her, and she stood close enough that he had to look straight down at her.

“She calls me the Stranger,” she said — or rather, it said through her, “and you have hurt us for the last time, Doctor.” It regarded him quizzically, as though trying to read him. “But we must not kill you yet. There is something you must do, years from now. Your path will cross ours again.”

At the time he’d had no idea what that meant, and had been much too intrigued in that moment to analyze it right away. “Are you part of her?” he asked, almost hypnotized by those odd alien eyes.

“Yes. And there is something we must give you, Doctor, though neither you nor she will remember it.”

She placed her hands on his face — very cold hands; her body temperature always had been remarkably low — and for some reason even he couldn’t fathom, he actually let her. He came to regret it a moment later, when pain and darkness exploded in his head, black stars going nova within his mind. To this day he had no idea what it did, nor how long it lasted — even yet its promise held, and he remembered nothing after that darkness took him utterly.

He came to a good forty-five minutes later, sprawled on the cold tile, his head pounding like a jackhammer. Corwin lay not far away, her eyes open but completely vacant, her breathing shallow and far too quick.

“Now you’ve done it,” Kurt said, though he still sounded more afraid than angry, and Von Rached wondered that he could hear the voice though he was not in Sharley’s head. “Nice job breaking it, moron.”

“What did it mean?” he asked, kneeling beside her.

“How the hell should I know? I don’t want to know. Sharley probably won’t even know. I wouldn’t try to dig in her head to find out, either, if I was you.” And Von Rached, though he would never admit it, had no intention of trying — not until he was ready to meet that thing again.

He hauled himself to his feet, filling a syringe with one of his stronger sedatives, and when he’d injected it her eyes closed, her breathing evening out. Oh, that bore testing — lots of testing, though preferably when she was restrained. He managed to pick her up and get her back on the exam table — good grief, she really was deceptively heavy for one so thin — and stared at her for a long while, calculating.

Finally he got himself some morphine for the headache, and checked on her ribs. To his surprise, none of them seemed to be actually broken despite the snap he’d heard — she healed remarkably fast, he knew, but not that fast. It made him wonder if that wasn’t part of why those scars hadn’t made her bleed out.

He took her wrist, timing her pulse, and paused to examine some of the scars. Whatever had given them to her had tried valiantly to slice her to ribbons, and when he touched one with a bare finger it filled him with a very primal revulsion. Sharley hated being touched, and it seemed she had a gift for making people hate to touch her in return. Just now it almost made his skin crawl.

He shook his head, which already hurt less, and donned his gloves again. They would have continued the next day, but the next day she was gone, simply vanished from her room like smoke, and until just now he’d had no idea what had become of her.

A normal person — a sane person — would fear her, but Von Rached couldn’t take it that far. She was fascinating and alien and unnerving, and she was the only person on the planet who was possibly capable of actually killing him, but he hated her too much to fear her. Hatred was normally something he disdained as a waste of energy, but she had earned it and then some.

He ought to kill her, before she had a chance to notice him. Whatever alien soul inhabited her body, she was more or less human — she bled and she breathed, and he could easily disrupt both without even touching her.

That would, however, leave the child, who he could not kill. Von Rached was a monster, but even he had limits — or rather, he had standards, and spilling blood without purpose offended him. Killing Sharley was a matter of practicality — the woman was, after all, very dangerous — but there would be no justifying the murder of her daughter. Von Rached certainly didn’t want the child, but surely if her father was actually around, he’d be with them now. Not that he could imagine a man voluntarily staying near Sharley anyway.

The decision was taken out of his hands when she looked right at him, and went, if possible, even more still. Her little daughter looked as well, and he saw that she had her mother’s odd eyes. Though he couldn’t hear the girl speak over the music, he knew she was asking Sharley who he was.

 Damn it. He would not avoid her out of lingering uneasiness. She was hardly likely to attempt to murder him in front of her daughter, and he was morbidly curious. While he had rarely managed to force her to speak in the sanitarium, perhaps she would be more forthcoming now that their balance of power had shifted to a more equal footing — she wasn’t a prisoner anymore. She knew why he hadn’t aged; he wanted to know why she hadn’t, either. In the sanitarium, she’d been convinced she’d die soon, but he wondered now just what her definition of ‘soon’ actually was.

He approached with a small amount of care, knowing she might well bolt. She did not, however, and when he reached her, she arched an eyebrow.

“All right,” she said, almost shouting to be heard over the music, “I might see a lotta things coming, but I sure as hell didn’t see this. What’re you doing here?” Her voice was somewhat less hoarse than he remembered, which made him suspect she used it more often now.

“Research,” he said dryly. “Walk with me.”

Her gaze turned wary. “Why?”

“Why not? I will go deaf if I stand here much longer, and I cannot imagine it could be good for your child’s ears.”

“Leave her outta it,” Sharley said, but she actually followed as he worked his way through the crowd. Perhaps she was as curious as he — though it was far more likely she’d rather keep him in front of her than wonder where he had gone. Corwin might be deeply unstable, but she was not stupid.

“Does she have a name?” he asked, when he could actually hear himself speak.

“Yes,” Sharley said, “and you don’t get to know it. Stay out of her head.”

Von Rached was genuinely offended. “She is a child,” he said. “Her mind is still far too fragile to be read. Keep her name, if you must. Why have you not aged?”

She actually snorted. “You’ve gotten any less blunt, have you? Time doesn’t pass at the same rate everywhere. Sometimes and somewheres it’s a lot slower. For some.”

That was a frustrating (and semi-nonsensical) non-answer, but it was also very Sharley. He likely wasn’t going to get a better one. Experience had cured him of any desire to root around in her mind for a more satisfying explanation, too. He didn’t press, and she offered no further information — she simply walked beside him in silence, cradling her equally silent daughter as she picked her barefoot way around camping blankets and the occasional prone body. He had no idea how she could retain her odd aura of stillness even when she was moving, but somehow she did, and it was unsettling because it was so very unnatural. Even with the myriad smells of smoke and food and sweat, her copper-lightning scent was vivid, and wholly at odds with her surroundings.

“Petrichor,” he said, stepping around a puddle of vomit.

“What?” she asked.

“Petrichor,” he repeated. “It is what you smell like — dry earth after rain. A desert thunderstorm.”

“You’re weird, Vonny,” Layla said.

“And goddamn creepy,” Kurt added. “Seriously, who the hell says something like that?”

“Him, obviously,” Jimmy said. “You’re not gonna try to skin Sharley and turn her into a person suit, are you? Because that would seriously put a damper on our weekend.”

Ah, the voices. Von Rached had tried to forget how maddening they were, with no success. He hadn’t intended to answer them, but Sharley spared him from further prodding by bursting out laughing.

The sound very nearly startled him. She’d laughed only once in the two years she’d spent in his sanitarium, and it had been bitter and broken — nothing at all like it sounded now. Sharley was happy, more or less, and somehow that was the truly disturbing thing. Before, she had seemed mad but mostly human; somehow, happiness made her seem more alien than ever.

“Give it up, Doctor,” she said, stroking her still-silent daughter’s hair. “I don’t rightly know what I am — you’ll never figure it out.”

Von Rached disagreed, but there was no point in saying so. Sooner or later he would divine what she was, with or without her help — preferably without it. Spending too much time in her company was draining, even now.

“Mama, is he the one Kurt calls Doctor von Assface?” the little girl asked. Her eyes were round as she stared at him, their intensity very much her mother’s — yet she seemed quite human. There was nothing at all unnatural about this child, and that made even less sense.

Now it was the voices who laughed — all four of them. Sharley at least kept a straight face. “He is,” she said. “And Kurt, I told you not to talk like that around her. She doesn’t need to be picking up your bad habits.”

 So the child hears the voices, too. Von Rached had so very many questions, and he knew she likely wouldn’t answer a single one of them.

Full night had fallen, and with it, the music. The heat was still brutal, but that too would wane. The field was dotted with lanterns, each like a glowing eye in the dark, and the scent of marijuana had actually grown worse. He would not have thought that possible. While Sharley could not actually keep him from following her back to her campsite, it wasn’t worth the scene she would cause.

“How much longer will you be here?” he asked. He did not mean the festival.

She shut her eyes for a moment. “I don’t know,” she said. “Not long, I think. I have a place for the ones who need it,” she added, which he took to mean she had a home for her daughter. Oddly, he was relieved by that — he might hate the mother, but he had no cause to hate the child, who had done nothing to him. Sharley clearly loved the girl, and vice versa, which was one of the few things Von Rached truly could not understand: his own mother had been as emotionally divorced from him as she was physically divorced from his father. That had suited him just fine, but it also meant there was a gap in his comprehension of the world, and one of the few other things he bothered hating was not knowing something.

Sharley, of course, was watching him, her eyes keen as ever even in the shadows. “You’ll understand better someday,” she said, stroking her daughter’s hair again. “Sort of. In your own warped way.”

“Do you see more of my future?” he asked.

“Your potentialities are narrowing,” she replied. “There aren’t half so many now.” She paused, and he was certain she was debating with herself how much to tell him. For once, it seemed the voices had no counsel to give her, because they actually stayed quiet. “You’re gonna fuck up, Doctor,” she said. “And you’re gonna do it bad. The storm’s still coming for you, but you’re the one that causes it. You’re an arrogant bastard, Von Rached, and the entire world’s gonna pay for it when you bite off more than you can chew.”

He was honestly surprised she’d told him even that much — surprised, and suspicious. She would not have done so without reason, but he sensed no lie in her tone.

Sharley set her daughter down before he could speak. “I can’t let you remember this, Doctor,” she said. “It wasn’t supposed to happen. You won’t meet up with me again for a long while yet.”

Von Rached arched an eyebrow. “You are not a telepath, Sharley,” he said. “You cannot take my memories.” Daughter or no daughter, he was perfectly willing to hurt her if she tried something stupid.

Sharley shut her eyes. “I can.”

The intonation of those two simple words made him freeze, if only for an instant. “Stranger,” he said. The smart thing to do would be to back away, to run, but Von Rached was not a man who ran from anything, no matter how alien or dangerous. Whatever the Stranger was, it had only beaten him the last time because it had caught him unaware — he had never encountered anything like it before. Though he still didn’t know what it was, he knew now what it could do.

“Do not fight me, Doctor,” it said. “You are not the only one who will suffer if you do. Sharley would not forgive me for it, but there is much I have done already that she will never forgive.”

“You told me once you could not kill me,” he said, ruthlessly tamping down his instinctive horror. When Sharley’s eyes opened, they might as well have been made of glass, for all the life behind them. He cursed his visceral revulsion — the primitive, ungovernable part of his brain that told him in no uncertain terms to flee. Sharley herself seemed inhuman, but this thing, this creature, was an intolerable abomination. He didn’t seize her with his telekinesis, but he held it between them like a shield — it would slow the Stranger down, if nothing else.

“And I cannot,” it said. “I cannot kill you. Run from me, and I will remove anyone you put between us.”

It was the wrong thing to say. It was a thing Von Rached would have paid to witness, and the Stranger was offering it for free. He would not run, but perhaps, just this once, he would retreat — and very happily see what came of it.

“Don’t do it,” the little girl said, glaring at him with her mother’s gimlet stare. “And Stranger, don’t make Mama sad. How come all grown-ups are dumbasses?”

One of the voices choked on a laugh, while another sighed. The Stranger didn’t react at all, but that wasn’t tremendously surprising. It extended Sharley’s right hand, fingers brushing the telekinetic barrier, and sighed.

“Oh, Doctor,” it said. “I do not need to touch you to do what I must.”

It was the only warning Von Rached was to receive. Pain hit him, but only briefly; it shifted into a burning sensation in his mind that was more irritating than anything else. He tried to give her a telekinetic shove, but found he was incapable of doing a thing — blackness crept over his vision, and he knew no more.

~

The Stranger didn’t bother trying to catch Von Rached when he fell. Sharley wouldn’t have. Though it also didn’t kick him, and that she might have done. He was a threat that the Stranger wished it could remove, but it understood the future far better than Sharley. He was to be the cause of much misery, but if he did not do it, someone else would, and things would be much worse for it. At least he was capable of cleaning up his own mess, and would actually have the motivation to want to.

For now, the Stranger would return to sleep, and allow Sharley to enjoy what time she had left.

~

Sharley blinked, and fought a groan. Von Rached, she saw, had collapsed, and was surrounded by well-meaning hippies — something he’d be thrilled about when he woke up, she was sure.

“He’ll be fine,” she said, picking up Marty. “He just needs to sleep it off.” I hope so, anyway. She didn’t actually know for certain what the Stranger had done to him, but it would not have truly harmed him. Unfortunately.

She and Marty made their way back to their bus before anyone could think to stop them. The voices were strangely quiet — but then, they often had little to say after the Stranger made an appearance. Sharley was able to enjoy the cooling night air in peace, Marty half-asleep in her arms. Now that she knew Von Rached was here, the voices could keep an eye on him, so she need not run into him again. They wouldn’t have to bow out early.

In spite of it all, Sharley smiled. Von Rached aside, she was happier here than she had been on Earth since she was a very small child. If this life was to end soon, at least she would go out with a smile.

~

Followed by The Storm-Dark Sea

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