Furies- Thus Spoke

by O'Brian Gunn

But instead, the tip of Theodore’s tongue slithers across his thin lips and tastes the air, tastes at the woman’s exposed belly. Golden. Soft. Toned. He snatches his gaze away and something seems to crack in his ravenous eyes. They droop with sudden guilt. He exits the train, across the platform, and up the steps to the streets above.

  The vigilante follows.

  He can almost feel Theodore’s hunger as the man meanders down the sidewalk. A woman raises an arm to hail a cab, causing her jacket to lift and expose a small roll of plumpness around her thick middle. Theodore’s fingers curl at his side.

  He slides up next to Theodore.

  “’Ey there, Teddy. How are ya this mornin’?” His Puerto Rican accent rolls thick from his tongue.

  Theodore glances over at him, glances behind him, glances back. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

  “Nah. I’m sure if you did, you’d be runnin’ right now.” A smirk blossoms on his face.

  “Should I be...running?” Theodore calmly slides his hand in his pocket, newspaper smashed underneath his arm.

  “Take your hand out of your pocket, Teddy.”

  “Stop calling me Teddy and back the hell up, spic. I’ve got—”

  “A small blade in your right pocket, a dagger at your left hip, and a scalpel taped to your left wrist.”

  Theodore stumbles.

  “Keep walkin’.” The vigilante doesn’t bother to look at him as pedestrians stream oblivious around them.

  Theodore keeps walking.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Mmph.” The man winces. “Better not let your neighbors hear you spoutin’ off words like that, may not invite you to their cookouts anymore. Tell me, how do they feel about having a recently released felon holed up next door?”

  Theodore’s expression dissolves. “How do you know that?”

  “Can find out all kinds o’ interestin’ things with a blazin’ fast Internet connection.” The vigilante leans closer. “You still have the urge? The urge to slice into a woman’s stomach as she screams? I can see it crawlin’ around in your eyes, gnawin’ at your fingers. ’S like an addiction.”

  “I got help for it in prison.”

  The vigilante scoffs. “’Parently, not enough.” His eyes flick across the passing people. “Think all o’ your counselin’ would do you good if these streets were empty, if the sun wasn’t up to shine light on what you’re itchin’ to do?”

  “What do you want?”

  “I just want to talk is all.” The vigilante shrugs. “People think that when you do bad things, spend a few years in the pen with therapy and all that you come back a better person.”

  “Some people do.”

  Shrug. “And some people don’t. Which are you?”

  Theodore pauses on the sidewalk and is silent. Dominion City breathes, lives, and pulses around them.

  “You’ll never be healed. Don’t care what those optimistic counselors told you. Truth is, you’re tainted and you’ll always be tainted no matter how many steps you take; twelve, twenty, a hundred.”

  Theodore starts to makes a move.

  The vigilante grips the man’s shoulder, leans close as if to whisper sweet everythings in his ear, and eases a hidden needle right into Theodore’s throbbing jugular. “This is Tina, Teddy. Don’t worry, she’ll make it all go down easy, you might even enjoy this part.”

  Theodore’s spike of shock is blown away by a euphoric rush as his eyes slither shut. Head tilts as spine seems to soften to jelly, muscles uncoil with langor, and a pleased little moan puffs out.

  “Just remember, I’m doing you a favor.” The vigilante slaps him on the shoulder and jogs away.

  Squeeeeeeel

  A snort of exhaust stains the air as a bus skids to a stop, brakes smoking.

  The vigilante turns back and stares at the vicious red smear formerly known as Theodore Gordon.

  The blood-spattered newspaper that was tucked underneath Theodore’s arm flutters on the breeze,.

  The vigilante snatches a page from the air.

  “GENETICISTS ATTEMPT TO DISCOVER THE ORIGINS OF ALPHA-OMEGAS”

  The vigilante looks again at the bloody remains of Theodore. Bloody. Blood.

  Blood.

  It seems to sing.

  The vigilante is known as Noir.

  “You think you’re an angel.”

  The patient opens her mouth and instantly deletes the response about to come flying from it. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “That’s what it sounds like to me.” The therapist waits for her patient to respond, studying her and watching the collage of emotions smear across her face.

  “I’m just saying that...” She exhales, composing herself before continuing. “There are two—” She averts her eyes “—entities trying to take over my body.”

  “An angel and a demon?”

  “Yes.” She drops the word on the air with the weight of a feather. “They whisper things in my, my mind. Horrible things. Wonderful things.”

  The therapist folds her hands on her lap. “I believe this may very well be an extreme manifestation of your super-ego and your id, although I don’t know why at your age you would have an incident like this.”

  The patient shakes her head. “No, no, it’s...it’s more than that.”

  “Please, explain.”

  The patient frowns. “I tell you and I’ll wind up in a straightjacket and a room with foam walls.”

  “I’m here to help you. Let me do that.”

  The patient looks in her therapist’s eyes, looks at the faint images of falling feathers swaying lazily back and forth in her vision. “The angel calls herself Seraph; she only comes out in the day. She tells me that I can heal the sick, that I need to protect those who can’t protect themselves...that I’m a guardian or something.” Her eyes go distant, and a lazy smile curls her mouth. “She makes me feel as if she’s who I was meant to be.”

  “And the other personality? The demon?”

  The patient’s eyes go hollow along with her face. “The Dragoness…she comes out at night. When she does, I want to do things. Things like...tear someone’s throat out with my bare hands.” Her fingers curl. “I can—I can feel her underneath my skin like a snake pushing its way out. She stands in a field of blood, skulls, and snakes, beckoning me.”

  Tick-tock

  Tick-tock

  “Do you ever have any time to yourself? Are these voices, these entities, ever silent?”

  “It’s silent only in the moments after the last ray of the sun drops over the horizon and again right before the sun breaks across the sky. The night comes and sometimes I...” She lifts her head and her brow is creased. “I think my nails are longer, sharper. I’m stronger at night.”

  The therapist’s eyes flicker to her patient’s clenched hands.

  “Do you think there’s a reason you should be hearing these voices? Is there a monumental decision you’re having trouble with? Anything that’s plaguing your thoughts?”

  The patient shakes her head. “I don’t know what’s going on in my head. I’m afraid that I might hurt someone.”

  “You have to remember that no matter what you think, you are in absolute complete control of yourself.”

  “Have you ever heard of anything like this? Anything this extreme, I mean?”

  The therapist’s pen scribbles. “Not quite like this, no. But everyone’s mind works differently.” She looks up. “Is Seraph saying anything right now?”

  The patient’s mouth is slightly agape as she looks away, listening. She looks back at her therapist. “She’s telling me that your baby boy is hungry. You should eat some more peanut butter, he seems to like that.” Her smile hangs crooked now.

  The therapist’s eyes widen before she schools her face, smoothing a palm over her nearly flat stomach. She looks down at her pad and scribbles a few needless notes. “How do you feel about going on medication?”

  The patient’s name is Bisset Torres.

  T
he activation of a person’s Alpha-Omega gene seems to occur under irregular circumstances. Research shows that activation can happen at birth, during puberty, and, at times, even upon a person’s death.

  So far, scientists have not been able to decipher just what triggers the activation of an A-O gene, nor have they been able to determine how to deactivate it, essentially blocking an A-O from utilizing his or her abilities.

  Noir glances up from the computer screen, curls a finger over his lip, and roves his eyes around the computer lab.

  The woman at the printer.

  The man with glasses staring at the computer screen.

  The little girl clutching the hand of the woman at the front desk.

  The older man with a backpack tucking a book onto the shelf and ambling his way toward that bathroom moments before a teenaged boy slides the exact same book out, flipping to the middle and reading the note between the pages. He crumples the note and heads to the bathroom with anxious movements.

  Noir’s eyebrows twitch.

  He clicks a series of Xs and collapses the overlapping windows, waiting a handful of beats before walking to the restroom. The cobalt blue tiles stare back as yellow liquid splashes against white porcelain. He shakes, stuffs, zips, and flushes before washing his hands. The ever-so-delicate sound of a zipper after he shuts off the faucet.

  In two blinks he is in front of the handicapped stall with two clumped shadows stretching together across the floor, his foot lashes out at the door. Metal protests, but breaks and the door bangs open on the teenaged boy with money in his hand and the man with the backpack who quickly stuffs the gun he’s holding back into the depths of the pack. “The fuck, man! What you doing?”

  Noir grabs the man by the shirt and hauls him out of the stall, backhanding him across the mouth. “Gettin’ here just in time, by the looks of it.” He shoves him back against the row of urinals.

  “The hell is wrong with y—”

  Noir responds with another blow to the jaw. It spins the man around and slams his cheek against the hard metal handle of a urinal. Water cascades down, the activated drain gobbles it up. Noir slams a kick into his stomach and a gout of blood spews from the man’s mouth.

  He pummels poetry across the man’s body, hammering staggered lines of frustration and fury into flesh, bone, and muscle.

  Noir stands over him, one boot in a spatter of blood, hands seized into fists covered in crimson and cuts. The man glances past his assailant. Noir follows his eyes.

  The teenaged boy looks out from the stall.

  “He was helping me out, dude. I need a gun to protect myself.”

  “I’mma need you to bounce, lil’ man.” Noir glances down and to the right.

  The uncertain shuffle of sneakers. “If I leave here without that g—”

  “BOUNCE!

  The boy complies with haste.

  Noir turns just as the bleeding man on the floor swings the backpack at his head. The world shatters in shards of light and rushing gyrations as the bulky contents spark stars and agony in his skull. He sways to the side, muffled mind briefly contemplating the arms of unconscious oblivion to escape the pain. A wavering eternity passes before Noir is able to peels his eyes open.

  And sees that the man has fled.

  He leans against the sink, breathes and stares at his bruised and beaten reflection. Fingers curl into a bloody fist, but they do not careen into the mirror like he wants them to.

  More blood. But no song this time.

  Not this time.

  Maggie lifts her glass and smiles as Adam watches her across the table.

  “What’re you grinning about over there?”

  He leans forward in response to his wife’s question and wipes a drop of water from her mouth with the pad of his thumb, the movement sensuous and slow. “The beautiful woman on the other side of the table, of course.” He rubs a finger over his thumb.

  “Of course.”

  “This is quite an elegant restaurant.” He surveys the room, golden candlelight dappling his face.

  “I hadn’t noticed. The way you look in that suit...” She breathes deep.

  He chuckles softly and reaches across the table to take her hand. “Whatever it takes to please you.”

  She rolls her lips over her teeth and bites on them gently, right dimple crinkling her cheek. “So, what’d you do last night? Save any lives, or did you spend it giving directions to tourists?”

  He leans back a bit, fingers still curled around hers. “I spent some time learning how to fly, which isn’t very subtle when you’re burning with silver flames. I did more bobbing in the air than I did soaring.” He chuckles. “After that, I ministered to a man who was about to take his life; he’s actually coming to church on Sunday. Then I headed over to Mercurmont and helped the police out with a nasty drug raid. They wanted me to stay and answer some questions, but…” He pinches his eyebrows up and gives a small shake of his head.

  “Not sure if you’re ready to go fully public?”

  “I really don’t. I’ve asked God about it, but I feel like He’s telling me that I have to decide on my own. With a neighborhood as bad as Mercurmont, I think it would do both the police and the citizens good to know someone like me is out there.”

  His wife cradles her chin in her palm. “Did you pray to God about revealing to the church your...your transformation?”

  It grabs his attention. “I didn’t really have to. I felt so moved to share it that—”

  She slowly takes her hand from his. “You didn’t feel moved to tell me first?” The mirth evaporates from her face. “Your wife.”

  “Maggie, I—”

  “Brother Kensie?”

  Their bubble falls around their ears as a young man walks up to the table with a wide smile. “Thought that was you.” He holds his hand out.

  Adam stands and shakes with an immediate pleasant smile. “Brother Harold, wonderful to see you. How are you?”

  “Good, good.” He clasps his hands behind him as he turns to Maggie. “A blessing to see you, Sister Kensie.”

  She beams warmly. “Likewise.”

  The two men begin to chat and five minutes pass before Brother Harold bids them good night.

  Adam slides down into his seat with the remnants of a shared laugh on his face. “Brother Harold should take his act on stage. Just the idea of a Christian comedian is funny enough.”

  Maggie sits with her legs crossed and her index fingernail rubbing at her lower lip. She looks away and sighs.

  Adam sobers. “Sorry, angel, you were saying something?”

  She turns her head and glares at him with glaciers glittering in her gaze.

  “Nothing, Adam.”

  The sun sits solemn between the IBEE Bank Building and the Crown Tower, showering downtown Dominion City in shine and shadows.

  Bisset steps into both as she exists in neither.

  She shakes her head in an attempt to rattle the twirling ivory feathers from her vision. “Please, leave me alone.” She grits her teeth. “Why won’t you leave me in peace?”

  “I can’t, Bisset.” The voice is like honey, heavy with compulsion.

  “Why not?” She looks away as the man walking towards her glances at her.

  “I can’t leave until your quickening is complete, until your spiritual development has reached its coda.” The voice pulses through her mind. “You don’t know what you’re capable of, Bisset Torres. I do. The power to heal, mend, and restore sparks at the tips of your fingers. All you have to do is shatter the barrier and use it.”

  She runs a hand through her thick brown curls. “Going to go home and swallow half the bottle of whatever Dr. Garret prescribed me. This is getting out of—”

  A woman’s hand pulses dark purple as she walks by. She grimaces, clutches her palm, and begins to massage it.

  “—hand.” Bisset pauses and watches her. An old man passes by with a slight hobble. His spine glows purple, his left leg throbbing with a sick mauve. A girl swee
ps by with a rotted black core, her face pinched and her eyes distant. A Welsh Corgi trots by with a matrix of violet motes eating at his stomach.

  Bisset sees them all, feels them all. “Why are—What is this, why are you showing me this?”

  “I reveal nothing. What you see is what you allow yourself to see. The suffering, the decay. It resonates down to your marrow as if the afflictions were your own.” The voice pauses. “You can heal them, Bisset. But only if you allow yourself.”

  She shakes her head and resumes her walk. “I don’t know any of these people, so—”

  “You don’t have to. You’re all siblings in this existence, as you are in every existence, visible and invisible.”

  “—why would I take them into my arms, my crazy, deluded arms, and heal them? For all I know, they don’t want to be healed. Maybe they enjoy being in pain, makes them feel alive. You ever stop long enough in your divine meditations to think about that?”

  Silence.

  “I don’t hear you responding.”

  The retort is gentle. “You’ve lost your way, you all have. Suffering is a part of the human experience, true, but unending suffering was not meant to be woven into the pattern. Your physical suffering shifts to spiritual suffering just as your spiritual suffering gnaws at your physical body. You and others like you can ease the agony.”

  Bisset swallows. “What are you?”

  She feels the entity falter. “I...I can’t remember.”

  Bisset snorts. “Just what I need, a malfunctioning psychosis .”

  “But I do know you’re not suffering from a mental disorder. People who have been set aside to do great things in the world often confuse their charge with insanity because it makes it easier to deal with. But in reality, it only corrodes the path you’ve been chosen to walk, causes you to hesitate and your steps to tremble.”

  “Causes me to slam my palms on the sides of my head to try to knock the jabbering voices out.”

  She accidentally bumps against someone.

  “Excuse me, I’m sorry.” Her forearm tingles where they touched.

  The man looks at her. “It’s fine.” His brow furrows as he rolls his shoulder. He shows a flash of a grin. “Have a good day.” He walks on.