by B. T. Alive
“I want you to know this, Summer,” said Alice. “I want you to understand your power. An ordinary shifter, like our esteemed sheriff, all he can do is to tune into some other specific kind of organism; in his case, a bloodhound. Werewolves, selkies, dryads, they’re all one-offs. They have a natural affinity for just the one other organism. Halfies are even less talented—fauns, centaurs, mermaids—they can’t even shift all the way. And they get stuck. Now, Fiona here…” She smiled over at the powerful woman still whimpering on the floor. “She’s a step up. She’s versatile. But even she’s no match for her brother. A true Tuner is so sensitive that they can change the resonance for another organism.”
“That’s how he heals,” I ventured.
“Yes,” said Alice, with a begrudging bit of encouragement that, I hate to say it, felt good. “And it’s also why, the second he loses focus,” she continued, “he starts tuning in himself to whatever fields are resonating nearby. Sensitivity has a price.”
“That’s what I mean,” I said. “He started turning into a bird… and a bush…”
Alice chuckled. “I can imagine. The greater the gift, the harder the fall.” She squinted down at Cade, who was still on his knee in that froofy living room as if bound in invisible chains, panting, resisting the terror she was hammering at his mind. “But the thing is,” she said, “trying to get in his head right now is wearing me out. That’s the beauty of Disruptors, Summer. You break people’s connections to their own morphic fields. You make ordinary people lose their memories. You make Cade lose his hold on his humanity. You make everyone… malleable.”
Cade grimaced. His bulging eyes turned towards me, pleading.
“Do it,” Alice said. “Now.”
“No,” I whispered.
“Okay,” Alice said. “Wrong answer.”
She cocked her head away from me, towards Fiona.
Behind me, Fiona’s moaning abruptly cut short.
Instead, she growled.
I twisted to look at Fiona, and then I shrieked and lunged up from my chair. I stumbled across the living room, staggering around Cade, trying to get to the dining room, a doorway, anywhere.
But with a guttural rasp and a streak that flashed through my vision, Fiona surged and towered in the doorway, blocking my escape.
She had become a demon of wrath.
Chapter 40
The capillaries in her eyes had burst; they were beyond bloodshot, gleaming full red. Her face was stretching, still staying human but twisting and cracking into bone-set rage, a face that could only howl, and her muscles were bulging and straining her torn flannel. Her long curls flared behind her head, standing out in all directions like an electric cloud of snakes, and her fingernails peeled and split as her bones pierced out into claws.
Her red eyes devoured me. She flung her arms wide, sinking her bone claws into the wooden doorframe on either side. A faint gray mist slid from the wood in a cloud of captive cells, and around the exposed flesh and bone of her fingertips, the mist formed into talons, lightning fast, black and hard and lethal.
From behind me, Alice spoke, her voice horribly calm. “You’ve been living in this cozy little dream world, Summer, but believe me, we have your precious Shield nearly cracked. When we come, you don’t want to be trusting to unicorns and rainbows. Out here in the wide world, there be dragons.”
Fiona threw back her head and howled with rage.
She brandished her six-inch talons, and lurched towards me with slow, savoring steps.
“You tried to steal my brother,” she rasped. “I have no one else. You wanted me all alone.”
“Please,” I whispered.
But behind me, Cade roared.
“Fiona! Stop!” he yelled, his voice wrenched and strangled, and then he was lumbering past me, every step a battle, putting himself between me and the monster of rage. He stood there and faced her, head bowed and legs planted as if he were standing against a hurricane wind.
“This isn’t you! She’s making you feel this!” he ground out. “You’ll always be my sister! You know that!”
Fiona halted, but she pointed at Cade with outstretched claws. “You want to leave me,” she rasped. “Like Mom.”
“Never!” he gasped. “But you can’t hurt her or you’ll kill me too.”
“Cade, don’t—” I whispered.
“It’s true, Summer,” he said. “I’ve tried living without you now. Not going to happen.”
“Get out of my way!” Fiona shrieked.
“Don’t make me do this!” Cade yelled. He clenched both fists, and groaned, and his neck started to thicken and his muscles bulged and his skin began to harden like scales.
And Fiona lunged and clawed him in the face.
He fell like a tree. He smashed down with a massive thud, and then rolled to one side, the blood spurting and staining the carpet from the jagged wounds on his cheek and neck. His eyes were staring and he looked dead.
Then he gasped, and gurgled, and tried to wrench himself back up.
But Alice thundered, “SLEEP!”
And he collapsed, flat on his back, his eyes shut and his face smeared red and glistening.
I lost it.
I screamed and whirled around and rushed towards Alice. She looked up, surprised, and I realized that all I had to do was zap her.
But then the panic hit.
My legs clenched and I fell, my knees hitting hard. I twisted and landed on my back, staring up and shaking, convulsing, paralyzed with terror.
Alice rose from her chair. As she came over, I realized that I’d tripped and fallen into the corner space between a couch and an easy chair. I was trapped and looking up between them like the walls of a pit.
A few feet away, Alice stopped and stood over me, looking down.
She smiled.
Chapter 41
“I expected more from you, Summer,” Alice said. “You’ve been using your power to manipulate people your entire life. I’m just giving you the chance to do it smart. Be part of a team. Trust me, the benefits far outweigh the costs. Besides, do you want to be calling the shots, or…”
She turned, and Fiona suddenly lurched into view. Flat on my back, I hadn’t even seen her coming, but now she towered over me and raised her taloned hands.
“… or not?” Alice said.
She squinted at Fiona, and the wrath goddess shrieked an ear-splitting howl of terror and clapped both hands to her head. She writhed, moaning through clenched teeth, and then she fell back and crouched on the floor, rocking and cradling her head, helpless.
Alice watched her, her lips twitching. “I’ve missed this,” she murmured.
Then she turned towards me.
“I hate to see you all submissive down there,” she said. “I really was hoping we could be colleagues. Puppets are easy.” She flicked Fiona a contemptuous glance. “I’m standing here trying to convince you to choose this yourself, but whenever I feel like it, she’s waiting in the wings to clean up this whole mess.”
I was still shaking so hard that I could barely follow what she was saying.
“Wha-what?” I stammered. “Clean…?”
“I mean kill people, Summer,” Alice said, irritated, with an impatient gesture at the unconscious women all around us. “Elaine is a useful persona, and I want to ensure she’s not entangled in any murder case. I considered making Lee do the honors, going on a ‘rampage’ here tonight and killing all her guests in a final murder-suicide paroxysm of jealousy. Even our idiot sheriff would take the hint that she was guilty. But Fiona here will do nicely instead.”
“But…” I gasped.
Alice sighed. “Listen, Summer. You’ve forced my hand. You’re leaving with me, tonight, willingly or not. I can knock you unconscious just as easily as the others. When you wake up, a long way from Wonder Springs, I’m sure you’ll find your Great-Uncle Vincent far more… persuasive.”
She chuckled an eerie girlish chuckle, and I felt a fresh panic that I knew was all my own.
&nb
sp; “All right, I’ll admit it,” she said. “I’m selfish. I’ve been cooped up and isolated in this loathsome town for too many years, and you’re my ticket out of here. A new recruit. And I’ve been looking forward to working with you, seeing you bloom. I’m giving you the holy grail here, Summer, but you’re pushing it away for a soda. I can teach you how to feel however you want, whenever you want. How many times do I have to prove it? Look…”
She raised her hand over me, and the panic vanished in an instant.
Instead, I flooded with an ache for Cade.
My blood rushed, everywhere… my heart was pounding and my chest was panting and my arms and thighs went deliciously weak and I couldn’t even get up, I just rolled on my side enough to glimpse him between the furniture, lying on the carpet like a wide, soft bed. He had lost his battle morph, reverted to his normal muscles and soft skin, but he still seemed enormously strong and virile and perfect, with even the wounds in his face and the dripping blood a tonic to slake my lust.
In all my months of wanting him, I’d never felt like this. Part of me was yielding, succumbing to delight. But part of me was distant, troubled… and that part noticed the air near my skin start to crackle, like the air before a storm.
Oh crud, I thought. I’m going to freaking zap him across the room.
So then I fought it. But the feelings kept pounding, wave after wave.
“Like it?” Alice said. She was smirking, eyeing Cade herself. “Of course, he might not turn out to be all you’d hoped. And when that happens, you can make it all… stop.”
She flicked her wrist, and Cade was utterly revolting.
He seemed to disintegrate into a thousand tiny flaws, wrinkles and weaknesses and shabby bits of mediocre male. His cheek was sagging, his gaping mouth was dripping at the corner with saliva, his face was demolished by the marks of his defeat. My whole body shuddered with aversion.
“You see?” said Alice. “And both of you go on your merry way. No harm, no foul. The world’s your candy store.”
The revulsion passed, and I lay there, drained.
“That’s… fake,” I managed to say.
“No it is not,” Alice said, turning on me with a fierce glare. “That is what happens constantly, Summer. People are just clueless.”
“He’s not… he’s not just some sex object…” I said.
“Everyone is an object,” Alice hissed. “What do you think you are to the world? A vending machine. And I don’t just mean sex. I’m sure you have cravings much deeper…”
She waved her hand over me, like a gentle caress.
And then came the worst.
I felt loved.
I was flooded with sweetness, safety, warmth… I knew in my bones that it was unconditional, that I was worthy, that I could be only delight to my grateful devoted mother, who would never ever leave me in a million years…. and all this dream of exile had been a passing phantom nightmare, and I was loved and wanted and home. Forever.
I was crying. I had never known until that very moment that I’d been hunting this all my life. Oh, God.
And as I lay there weeping, my eyes tight shut, softly Alice spoke.
“Why should you have to live without that, Summer? Why go through life trying to pry it out of other needy people, who are just as deprived as you? For every ounce of pleasure that anyone ever gives you, there’s always a pound of pain. Of course you zap everyone. Of course you’re terrified. You should be. Hell is other people. Even Cade here, you know deep down that one day he’ll leave you. Hurt you. He already did.”
“Please stop,” I whispered.
“Why?” she said, and I gasped as the mother-love surged to an acute new high. She crouched, closing in, keeping just far enough away that I couldn’t lunge to touch her. Not that I could even move anymore. “You think you’re so much better than me?” she said. “We’re the same, Summer. Two lonely women who are honest enough to admit that everyone, everyone hurts.”
“I know,” I whispered.
And I did. It was true.
But then, through the tunnel of the furniture on either side of me, and beyond the crouching Alice filling my frame of vision, I glimpsed Tina.
She was still unconscious on the couch, sleeping through it all like a baby. Tina was a baby, innocent and helpless. She would have had all kinds of rebuttals to Alice, but that was because she’d lucked out so spectacularly to land in a loving family. She thought she loved everybody, but she’d grown up in a greenhouse, tended and cared for, while the rest of us were dying on the tundra. She had no idea what it was like to be alone.
But then I wondered what must have happened to Alice.
She was willing to inflict anything on anyone. Anything. Like she said, of course I was terrified of people. People like her, people who would make me feel shame and self-hatred and humiliation and whatever else they chose. People who would eat my soul.
And then I thought… well…
Here I was, collapsed on the floor, about as emotionally flayed and violated as I’d ever been. Alice had done her worst.
But I was still here. Uneaten.
“I”… some kind of secret self, some awareness, some core, that persisted through all these storms of feelings. Hiding, silent, but still present… present with all these people that I desired and feared, that I clung to and zapped away… present even now, with Alice crouching at my feet.
And they were present too. Alice had somewhere her own secret core, present and real behind all feeling.
And then, beneath the onslaught of Alice’s attack, beneath my craving for pleasure and my jolting away from pain, beneath everything, I wanted that presence. I wanted to just be. A self among selves. An equal among equals.
“What are you thinking?” Alice said, her voice low and cold.
But I didn’t say anything. I just looked.
I guess you could say that I tried to see her real self. But it didn’t feel like that, it felt more like unbolting your front door, creaking it open and blinking straight into the sun.
There was one sudden moment of existential terror, a voice inside shrieking, if you open this now, she might really get in.
And I thought, yes, and I might get out.
I think I did. I had never quite realized that to meet someone’s gaze, to just look, to open up to that moment and truly be present, without any distraction shields of words or thoughts, is also to let yourself be seen. The door can only really be opened from both sides.
My chest warmed, and some invisible hot energy that I should probably call love radiated out from me, like a conic blast. I felt scared, and humbled, but mainly… connected.
Because Alice was looking back.
She looked stunned. Bewildered. But then, as I stayed, as I didn’t turn away, her wrinkled, hard face slowly went soft. A hint of her young beauty shimmered in her eyes and cheeks, a warmth and a hope that had lain long dormant.
In that moment, I felt more present and one with this woman than I had ever felt with anyone in my life. We both had let our guard down. At last.
“I never knew,” she murmured.
But then her face distorted with pain.
She shrieked, a terrifying banshee wail that curdled to my bones. She clutched her head and writhed.
“What? What is it?” I cried.
But her baleful glare stared daggers of betrayal.
“The Shield,” she spat. “You tricked me.”
“What are you talking about?” I said.
But then I realized… she’d let her guard down. She’d stopped her nonstop shielding. And now the secret broadcast that protected Wonder Springs was causing her some kind of torment.
“Get your shields back up!” I said. “Protect yourself!”
“I can’t, now now,” she moaned. “God, I’ll kill you for this.”
But she staggered to her feet and lurched back toward the kitchen, howling that she had to escape.
“Alice, wait!” I yelled. I clambered up and ran
after her, tripping around Cade. “Alice!”
I rushed into the kitchen. The back door was swinging wide, slamming against the outside wall. I plunged through the portal onto the shaking deck, out into the night and the storm, but I was too late. With a final scream, Alice smashed through the old railing and leapt over the side.
“Alice! No!” I called. I ran to the edge.
She was swimming, battling against the raging current to get away from Wonder Springs. Foam boiled around her as she struggled through the dark waters, splashing and fighting the waves like one possessed.
But even as I watched, she sank down into the black.
Chapter 42
Slowly I stumbled back into the living room. My legs felt like lead.
Around the circle of couches and chairs, the women were stirring. Fiona was sitting on the floor, dazed, studying her talons with amazed and sad eyes that had nearly cleared back to normal.
On the couches, Tina woke up first, and when our eyes met, the rush of love that passed between us made that moment with Alice seem almost trite.
“Summer,” she said. “What happened?”
But I couldn’t speak. I was looking at all those other women… Rhonda, Glynis, Frannie, even poor sad miserable Lee… and I felt present to them too. I was here, really here. Present with them and not afraid.
Then Fiona snapped up a glare at me, and it was a harsh stab of fear, and aggression, and confusion. It felt bad… but for the first time ever, it was like I didn’t try to shield it out. I kind of… absorbed it. It happened, but it passed through. Then it was gone, and I was still here.
It must have shown in my face, because Fiona looked surprised. But then she turned and saw Cade, and she shrieked and covered her mouth.
His face and neck were badly wounded, torn with long, deep, jagged cuts. One had slashed high, crossing an eye that was nearly swollen shut. But he didn’t seem to be in pain; he was lying there with his eyes closed, breathing softly, a calm, enchanted prince.
I knelt down beside him and the love, just, was. I had never known before how frightened I’d been. I had always thought of love as this dangerous, rogue force lurking inside me, but now it was like… air. All around, everywhere, as natural as breath. He was so beautiful to me. Warmth radiated from my chest, and he stirred in his sleep, as if answering. And it just felt right to lean in close and join him in a kiss.