The Awakening s-1 Page 12

  A fat rat scuttled by, barely missing his right shoe.

  Glistening with evening dew, a web stretched from brick to brick. The black stain looked like oil.

  Or blood.

  Luther bent to touch it, but stopped before making contact. A foul stench reached him, rank enough to make his stomach flinch. With one hand he covered his mouth and nose, and with the other, he shone the penlight.

  The black stain trailed away toward a large metal garbage container, and beside that, what looked like… guts, bones, intestines.

  Forgetting the smell, Luther shot to his feet and dropped his hand. The narrow beam of light bounced around as he moved closer and closer.

  So many possibilities worked through his brain that it took him a moment to recognize the remains as discards from the butcher next door.

  Damn dog. So that's what he'd wanted to protect, why his mouth had been bloody?

  There was nothing here. No one.

  Luther had no reason to be so suspicious. He let out a breath and headed back for the street.

  Maybe if his thoughts hadn't veered to Gaby, remembering how she slung that heavy mop, her obstinate attitude and her take-charge manner, things might have gone differently.

  He might have had a chance.

  But he did have Gaby on his mind, and because of that, he heard the odd wet, scraping, dragging noise a moment too late. He turned and barely had time to catch sight of the nightmarish apparition pitching toward him. The odor intensified.

  The body, missing an eye, dragging one useless leg, drenched in a gel-like substance, moaned a complaint, an entreaty, and fell toward him.

  Shocked and sickened, Luther lurched to the side, hit the brick wall, and scuttled back into the alley to avoid the grasping arms. "Fuck."

  It reached for him again, slavering from a gaping maw that might have been a mouth, and he stumbled away, unwilling to be touched. "Hang on," he said to the malodorous creature. "Just… hang on."

  He jerked his radio free to call for help—and something solid hit against his temple. Pain ruptured, bowing his back, blocking his vision. "Oh shit."

  As he slipped down, down, down, he realized his error and cursed his own stupidity. He had one single moment of cognizance, one second to know he'd failed not only himself, but Gaby, too.

  And then cold blackness snuffed out all thought.

  Gaby pulled the chain hanging from the low ceiling in the basement. The bare light fixture clicked, but no light came on.

  A prickling of unease raised the short hairs on her neck.

  She dropped the bag of blood-soaked rags and, using the dim light from the stairs, looked around. Casting thick shadows, the mismatched washer and dryer were to her right, connected to a laundry tub. Piled high with discarded clothes that Morty never wore anymore, a rickety table sat to her left.

  A subtle shift in the air assaulted her, and Gaby looked above the table at the small slider window.

  Wide open.

  Things came together in a snap. How the perpetrator had gotten in with the bucket of blood, and earlier, the dead carcass. Had the person left? Or had he been around when Gaby sent Luther to the butcher?

  What if… ?

  The pain seized her suddenly, clutching Gaby in a suffocating lock.

  It was so severe that it dropped her against the moldy wall with a groan of agony. "Oh no." Not here, not now, with Mort only a few feet away. No, it had never happened this way before.

  It couldn't happen now.

  But she had no means to stop it. What usually crept up on her with adequate warning now struck with blinding trauma. Weakness pervaded and she slid down the wall until her tush connected with the dingy, dank concrete floor.

  "Gaby?" Mort called down the stairs.

  Go away, she screamed silently, but she knew he wouldn't, and she couldn't find the breath to tell him to.

  He slunk down the steps in nervous trepidation. "Gaby, you still down here?" When he spotted her, he froze on the bottom step. Voice shaking, he asked, "Hey. What are you doing?"

  When she couldn't reply, he hurried to her side. "Gaby, are you all right?"

  "Yeah." The word emerged as a gasp of agony. Summoning lost reserves, she squeezed her eyes shut and slowly straightened, crawling her way up the wall until she had her feet under. Her stomach burned and her muscles knotted. "I have to go."

  "What?" Mort fluttered around her as she tested the strength in her legs. "Gaby, no, you're hurt, or, or something. Let me call an ambulance. Let me…"

  At his sudden silence. Gaby got her eyes open. The pain was so strong she could barely see, but she sensed Mort's fear. Fuck. "Go upstairs, Mort."

  An audible swallow broke the silence. "What's wrong with you?" he whispered.

  She couldn't speak, couldn't explain. Seldom had the calling taken her so viciously. It crippled with its measure of urgency, driving her to haste.

  Something was very, very wrong. "Go to your apartment, Goddamn it!"

  He turned and ran up the stairs, leaving Gaby free to do what she must.

  She stumbled up behind him, went through the door and outside into the sizzling evening air. Free of Mort's scrutiny, she allowed the summons to guide her down the block toward where Luther had left…

  And realization hit her.

  Luther.

  The moment the thought exploded in her brain, she understood the extreme urgency, the grinding pain.

  Luther was in trouble.

  Chapter Ten

  With a cry of denial at the inevitable, Gaby gave the summons free rein. If someone saw her, fuck it. This was no time for subterfuge, not with Luther at risk.

  Strength surged through her body. Her legs took over, racing her through the night, past two drugged whores, a homeless man passed out on the sidewalk. She went between parked cat's, down an alley… and there it was, blinding in its dominance, crawling black and blistering red, popping and crackling.

  Through the veiling hues of evil, trouble, and illness, Gaby made out the piles of refuse and the pipe on the ground. She smelled the acrid scent of evil as it raped her nostrils and her brain.

  And she saw the large slumped body, partially draped over plastic garbage bags and cardboard boxes. Blood oozed from a head wound. A rat investigated.

  She recognized the clothes. Luther. Lying so still and bloody and…

  No. Not dead, Gaby silently screamed.

  "Not that," she whimpered.

  He groaned, one hand twitching, and so much relief flooded her system that for once, she could see clearly. Even with the auras dancing in frenetic discourse, Gaby knew that she wasn't too late—and that she was being used.

  The cardboard box rustled, revealing her target, filling her with glee…

  "Gaby?"

  She whirled around, and there stood Mort.

  Before she could deal with him, he looked beyond her—and fell back in revulsion.

  Gaby didn't need to know what he saw. She knew it wouldn't be pretty.

  "Go home, Mort." She couldn't waste time seeing if he obeyed.

  She faced the discarnate.

  This one stunk of fear and sickness. Naked, it lumbered toward her, giant tumors bulging around the middle, the breasts, and under the throat. The growths pulsed with a life of their own, like a heartbeat, like living masses of sickness.

  As old as the other one, but smaller, this evil mewled, stretched its toothless mouth wide, and vociferated in ear-splitting measure.

  Closer and closer it got—until, with divine help, Gaby saw what others couldn't.

  This being had once been selfish and manipulative enough to poison three husbands to death. Each time she profited from her murders. Each time she took satisfaction in the suffering she caused.

  Pure evil. Rank with it. Alive with it.

  Rightfully, the torments of hell waged on her cumbersome body in the form of unsightly and life-draining tumors. She deserved no less, but had also been given a life sentence of loneliness. Like the firs
t evil, this body had been without friend or family.

  Unfortunately for her, she hadn't been content to suffer her misery alone.

  Behind her, lying in his own blood, Luther gave evidence of further misdeeds. Evil bitch.

  Gaby didn't back step at the ghoulish approach. Luther needed medical attention, and the sooner she dispatched the ghoul, the sooner he could get it.

  Smiling in relish, Gaby slid the knife free of the sheath. The naked being fell forward, and Gaby went with the momentum, rolling to the ground and in the process sinking the knife deep in several key places, twisting in the stomach, grinding it across the throat, and lastly cutting through the perineum. One sharp turn of her blade—and the body began bleeding out.

  Gaby pushed to her knees and shoved the nude form away. Her skin crawled in revulsion, her stomach heaved.

  And another form appeared, this one missing half a face. The jaw was gone, one eye eaten away. Purplish welts and scabbed lumps covered the upper body. It came forward, dragging one useless appendage that might have been a leg in better times.

  Through her perception, Gaby knew that early abuse had depraved this soul, but that couldn't play into Gaby's actions. The abused often went on to abuse. Someone had to stop the cycle.

  She would be the one.

  A hard kick took out the only stationary knee, and the body slumped to the ground. Gaby half turned and kicked again, driving the vision to its back. Another kick and the body went as flat as something so crippled could.

  This soul had perpetuated a different kind of evil. It had robbed people of their livelihoods through fraud, stealing their homes and their life savings. And yep, like the others, it had spent its time alone, without visitors, without caring or concern from any other living soul.

  Appropriate.

  Satisfied, Gaby raised her foot—and stomped it down hard on the throat.

  Life drifted away.

  "Gaby?"

  Oh shit. No time now to puke.

  An awful fear rang in Mort's voice.

  Had he seen it all?

  Why the hell hadn't he gone back as she'd told him to?

  "Gaby, do you hear the sirens?" Above the fear, Mort's tone was oddly gentle. "We need to go. I think Luther must've called in for help before he got hurt."

  Sirens? Yes, in the deepest recesses of her mind, she did hear them.

  Proving an unrecognized courage, Mort carefully took her arm. "Please, Gaby. We have to go now."

  "Luther…" It was an odd thing for her to concern herself with a victim. That wasn't her job, never had been, and she didn't really know what to do about it.

  "The sirens are coming for him, I'm sure of it. See his radio out there beside him? He'll be okay."

  Yeah, Mort was probably right. But first…

  She covered her mouth and ran from the alley to hurl. A garbage can, already filled with vomit, likely from the drunk she'd passed, served as good a place as any.

  Mort stood beside her, impatient but stoic. When her head cleared, he again took her arm. "We have to get rid of these clothes. And you'll need to hide that knife somewhere just in case anyone saw you."

  "The knife stays with me." Confused and sick, Gaby focused on him, "Just what the hell are you doing?"

  "Helping you." He looked around to make sure no one noticed them, then started her on her way. "It's okay, Gaby."

  Okay? How the hell could anything ever be okay? "Yeah? I'd like to know why you think so."

  He put an arm around her, and a small smile appeared on his sallow face. "Because I finally understand. That's why."

  Rubbery knees refused to support her. Churning acid continually tried to forge a path from her stomach out her mouth. She wanted to cry—but wouldn't.

  "You should get away from me, Morty."

  "With those creepy things running around? Forget it. It's safer by you."

  He couldn't start thinking of her as his hero. "You're dumber than I thought, Mort."

  "I know."

  She pierced him with her gaze, but he only looked around, worried and nervous. "We should probably get going."

  The enervating effect of the kill waned, but she remained shaky and sick at her stomach. "If you stick by me, and either of us is seen, you're fucked."

  "It'd be tough to explain, that's for sure." He peered down a dark alley, then turned back toward her. "Come on. If we go home this way, we're less likely to be seen by the cops."

  No one in his right mind traveled the area along the back alleys.

  Not if he wanted to live.

  "Fine."

  Together, they ventured along the rough brick wall to the very back of the narrow way, then traversed a low concrete wall. A skinny lane stretched along the backs of closed or empty businesses. This time of night, with only the muted drone of street noises out front and the occasional scratching of creatures that feasted off refuse, each footstep echoed a hollowed heartbeat.

  More buildings, in worse decrepit shape, lurked behind the lane. Ahead of them, yellowed rats' eyes gleamed; druggies shot up; in the worst of the structures, homeless camped out.

  It'd be easy to get cornered. It'd be easy for someone to hurt Mort.

  If he was alone.

  Determined to protect him, Gaby got herself together and took the lead. "Try to be quiet." Obsidian darkness swallowed the sight of doorways and blanketed all sound. Moonlight couldn't find its way between the tall block walls and shingled roofs.

  They'd walked in silence for several minutes when Mort asked, his voice shivering, "Do you think more of those things are out here?"

  "No." Broken glass crunched under her feet, nearly penetrating her flimsy soles. Something squishy found its way into the sandal and between her toes. With every nerve in her body drawn painfully taut, Gaby continued on. "But there are worse things."

  "Worse than those freaks?"

  Enraged beyond rational reason, she turned on Mort and slammed him into the nearest brick wall. "They're people" she said from between her teeth. She choked on her impotence, the impossibility of the situation. "Damaged, sick, broken by the foulest disease. But still humans who, if they weren't already tainted by a mangled past, would need our help."

  "All right, Gaby."

  The soft plea of his voice worked better than a sharp blow. She released him to rub the heels of her palms against her burning eye sockets. Salty tears would ease the pain. And make it worse. "They're sick."

  Mort's hand touched her shoulder. "I know, and I'm sorry."

  She shook her head and slapped away his hand. "Christ, don't apologize to me when I'm the one attacking you!"

  "You've been through a lot."

  So had he.

  Because of her.

  Unbearable. It was all becoming so unbearable.

  She turned and started on her way again. But now that he'd touched her with his sympathy, she couldn't contain herself. So low that she could barely hear herself, she whispered, "I've fought monsters, Mort."

  "I know."

  He had no idea. "The problem now is that…" How to word it? "I killed, and yet, it wasn't the monster I killed. There's a creature, a real fiend, creating these beings and somehow forcing them to act. Or…" As she recalled the first evil being, the way he'd looked at that child, the mingling of pain and lust in his eyes, her thoughts tried to sort it out. "Maybe they're just being allowed to act. Maybe the pain of the sickness has distorted their brains, unleashing something they'd once buried."

  "I don't know what you mean, Gaby."

  She didn't want to stop again. Whether he comprehended or not, talking eased the conflagration of emotions.

  And so she talked on. "Some beings, some… afflictions, can bury their black ways. In the next life, they can't escape retribution, but for this world it helps them survive, to avoid arrest and conviction. No true corruption can ever be fully sequestered, so pain, sickness, can bring out those dormant propensities."

  "You think the people you… dealt with tonight, had hidd
en evil?"

  "I know they did. So did that grisly specter that Luther found a few days ago."

  "Luther said the body was mangled."

  "Yeah."

  "That was you?"

  She heard no denouncement from him, only curiosity.

  "When I'm in the zone, I can't control it. I do what feels right, what I can do, and sometimes it's so bad that the body isn't recognizable."

  "You're talking about when that strange thing happens to you?"

  When her features contort. The reality of that struck another blow, but Gaby fended it off. So she wasn't as different from the bane of immorality as she'd thought. She'd deal with that as she'd dealt with everything else—the best way she knew how. "I thought that I'd removed the evil, but that was just a creature made by the evil. This isn't something I've dealt with before. I don't know where the next one might be—"

  "You're sure there'll be more?"

  Gaby nodded. "I don't know where they originate, and that's the key. But there are more."

  Though she didn't know how to reassure him, she could feel Mort's fear. "I have to find the maker. I have to find the core of the degeneration."

  Mort sidled closer to her, so close she could feel his nervous breath on her nape. "Do you know how to do that? How to hunt it?"

  "Not really. I've never had to before. Usually I'm sent to the evil. I don't understand why I'm not being sent now."

  Mort fell silent, but not for long. "Maybe the person doing all this is confused, and if he doesn't know what he's going to do, how could you know?"

  She said only, "God would know." The raw edge of an exposed, broken pipe gouged the tender flesh above her elbow. Her skin tore; warm blood spilled.

  The injury burned, but not enough to distract her. "Careful." She guided Mort around the obstruction, then used her sleeve to mop away the blood.

  "Thanks." Mort bumped into her twice before they found another companionable rhythm. "Gaby? Is it at all possible that the people you killed aren't evil? I mean, they were messed up for sure. But maybe they weren't as evil as you're talking about."