“I know you’re in there, Lili. I want to talk to you.”
Her lip curled, and the voice that came out echoed, almost overlapping itself, like many voices speaking at once.
“We are aswang.”
“I want to speak to Lili.”
“Lili is aswang.” The voices sent chills up my back, but I tried not to betray my response.
“Lili Banta is a doctor. She’s a healer. Whatever is speaking to me now, you are not Lili. But she is still in there. I know it.”
Those brown eyes blinked once, slowly, then again several times in rapid succession. A tremor seemed to shake the creature’s body, starting at the head and working its way down.
When it spoke again, Lili’s voice came out of the misshapen mouth. “Scott. Oh, God. What have I done?”
I moved toward her, my arms held out, but stopped myself. No telling how long Lili could keep control. I didn’t want to be too close if the aswang returned.
I worked to keep my voice steady, my tone professional, but my anxiety leaked through. “Tell me everything you know. What can we do to help you? To defeat this thing? How can we cure the children who have been infected?”
A sob hiccoughed from her throat. “I don’t know. I don’t think it’s even possible.”
“It’s going to be okay, Lili. We can fight this. I know we can.” I paused. “We’ll do it together, Lili.” I repeated her name, as if doing so would anchor her to herself, to the person she was rather than the monster she had become.
“It’s…I am…like a Filipino vampire. I am aswang.” She closed her eyes.
“What does that mean, Lili?”
When her eyes opened again, I knew I had lost her. That multivalent voice, like nails on a chalkboard, responded to my question, tumbling over itself. “We are aswang. We are the way. We open the door. We prepare for the arrival.”
Open the door.
Prepare for the arrival.
Christ.
This wasn’t an infection.
It was a fucking invasion.
# # #
“We know that those blue portals are connected to the Dallas case.” It wasn’t a question, but Iverson nodded anyway.
I paced up and down the hall in front of him. After the aswang’s pronouncement, I had slowly retreated across the floor then stood up without ever taking my eyes off the creature. Lili was still in there, and I was determined to get her back.
First, though, I needed to share this new information with Iverson.
He was less surprised than I had been at the revelation, nodding thoughtfully as I walked him through my thought processes. “Yep,” he said, his deep Texas twang drawing the word out into several syllables. “I think the vampires have been coming through from somewhere else for years.”
“Why the change now? Why only vampires before? What’s changed?” I punctuated each question with a turn, pacing out a triangle.
“I don’t think anything’s changed. We’ve had monster legends for years. What if…” He trailed off for a moment, eyebrows drawing down, and then continued. “What if a few of them have been coming through for years, the source of our legends and monster stories?”
I stopped, struck still by the idea. “And eight years ago, when the vampires showed up?”
“An advance force, maybe.”
Shaking my head, I continued my pacing. “I don’t get it. Vamps can change people into vampires. But it’s not a virus, not a bug that anyone has been able to find. Yet this thing that has Lili, that has infected these kids, it is some kind of disease.”
Will joined us at the end of my comment. “But it’s not like any disease we’ve seen before. It’s something new.”
Iverson pinched the bridge of his nose. “So maybe something from the other side of that portal?”
“Maybe. That other world would almost certainly include different microbes, different viruses.” Will shrugged. “Maybe different rules altogether.”
“How much does any of this really matter?” Iverson asked. “How much do we need to know to wipe it out?”
“As much as we possibly can.” I was certain of this. “We might not use everything we know right now, but someone else might be able to use the information later.”
“Then let’s make a plan.” Will sounded determined, but there were lines around his mouth and eyes that hadn’t been there before, and I was reminded that he and Lili had been a couple in medical school. He had called her in on this case, too. He had to be feeling some level of responsibility, or possibly even guilt, for the horrific direction this had taken.
Susan moved down the hallway toward us.
“Any word from the outside world?” I asked.
“I checked the news on one of the rooms’ TVs. It’s being reported as an outbreak of a disease of unknown origin, and new patients are being diverted to other hospitals.”
“Close enough to the truth,” I said, and Will snorted.
# # #
When he spoke again, Iverson’s voice was carefully controlled. “If Dr. Banta is the source of whatever this disease is, then we’ve already been exposed, right?”
Shit. Did I need to tell Will Manning exactly how exposed I had been?
I’d been more than exposed.
“I need you to run a blood test on me,” I said abruptly, turning to face the doctor.
Staring at me through narrowed eyes, Manning tilted his head slightly to one side. “If it’s bloodborne, we probably shouldn’t risk a draw. And I don’t want anyone out of at least the basic protective gear, no matter what we guess about all of this.”
“I know. But it’s necessary.” I held his gaze with my own for a long, silent moment, the sound of my own breathing harsh inside my paper mask.
“I see.” Manning’s voice was entirely flat, but I was certain from the look in his eyes that he did, in fact, see exactly what I meant. Iverson glanced back and forth between us, catching every nuance, even as his practiced detective’s stare gave nothing away. He, too, realized the implications of my statement.
Manning’s nostrils flared, enough to let me know that he was angry on some level, but trying not to show it. “We’ve still got an open bed in room twelve. Let’s do this there.” When Susan Yi started to follow us, Manning waved her away. “I’ve got this. Check on the children, please.”
Stripping out of the paper gown sent a frisson of anxiety through me, even though I knew I couldn’t be more exposed in the hospital to whatever it was Lili was carrying than I had been in bed with her a few hours ago. His mouth tight, Manning wrapped a stretchy tourniquet around my arm, then jabbed a vein with, I felt, unnecessary glee. When he popped the collection tube onto the hub above the needle and released the tourniquet to let the blood flow into the tiny container, he finally met my gaze.
“This isn’t her fault.” His voice was harsh.
I broke eye contact, preferring to watch the blood fill the container, spurting in time to the beat of my heart. “I know.”
Then, perversely, he continued, “Do you think she knew?”
“Not consciously.”
“Unconsciously?” Manning changed vials efficiently to fill a second tube with blood.
I turned my free hand up uncertainly. “Maybe? Hell, I don’t know. Maybe we can ask…her. It. That thing.” Dropping my hand back into my lap, I closed my eyes briefly. “Lili.”
“That thing is not Lili,” Manning said fiercely as he dropped the second vial into the small plastic bin on the tray beside us. He pressed a cotton ball against my arm as he slid the needle out. “Hold this,” he instructed, and then smoothed a Band-Aid over the tiny wound.
For the first time, Iverson spoke from his spot beside the door. “Scott’s right. We need to ask this…Lili-creature…for more information.”
“Not until I’ve run a couple of tests.” Manning picked up the bin. “Wait here.”
When he was gone, Iverson stared at me for a long, silent moment.
Finally, when I
’d had enough of his quiet scrutiny, I said, “Spit it out, man. Whatever it is, just say it.”
Iverson simply shook his head. “Don’t have to. You know all the reasons that was a bad idea.”
“It’s not like she was a witness or suspect. We’re colleagues.”
With a shrug, Iverson leaned his head out the door to check the corridor for anyone approaching. Certain we wouldn’t be interrupted anytime soon, he turned his attention back to me. “How did you get picked up by the vamps on Halloween?”
Now my mouth tightened. “Dammit, Iverson.”
“How?”
I sighed. “Some woman snagged me as I was coming out my door. She did some mind control thing and I went with her.”
“Willingly?”
“As willingly as possible for someone under some kind of compulsion.” I ground my words out through gritted teeth.
“And that’s my point exactly.”
“That I’m easily hypnotized?” I couldn’t even force a laugh.
“No.” Iverson took a step closer to me, leaning in to make sure he had my full attention. “That we don’t know what these monsters can do. Sure, there were legends about vamps’ mind-control abilities, but until last October, when one of our own survived it, we didn’t know that it was real.”
Leaning my elbows on my knees, I pushed the heels of my hands into my eyes until I saw stars. “Ah, hell.”
“Exactly.” Sure that he’d gotten his point across, Iverson backed off a bit, once again moving to lean against the wall. “We know almost nothing about whatever it is that showed up in our world less than a decade ago.” He hit the last few words hard. “If this is a new kind of monster, we need every hand on deck. And you put yourself in danger.”
“She was on our team.” I could hear the desperation in my voice.
“Yeah, and now she’s got fucking wings.”
I cringed at the venom in the detective’s voice. A moment later, while I was still searching for any answer at all, Will Manning strode through the door. “You’re clean,” he announced.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
The doctor shrugged. “That whatever this is didn’t infect you. Unfortunately, that’s probably all it tells us.”
That it’s not sexually transmitted.
At least not when she’s in her Lili-shape.
The thought made me shudder.
“Any chance we could get out of these paper suits?” Iverson asked.
“Not quite yet.” Manning sounded legitimately regretful.
I didn’t want to say what I knew I needed to do next. Not out loud. But I had to, so I drew in a deep breath and spoke. “We need to go talk to her more.”
Both men turned grim faces my direction, but first Iverson, and then Manning nodded.
“Think he needs to suit back up?” Iverson asked Manning, jerking his chin in my direction.
The doctor’s gaze was assessing. “Probably not. He’s already been exposed.”
“Lili might be able to spread the contagion in one form but not the other.” Something else I didn’t want to say aloud.
Manning shrugged. “Your call.”
Whatever this illness was, I didn’t want to contract it.
On some level, though—someplace deeper than conscious thought—I knew that I could be the one to reach Lili inside that creature.
But only if I could see her, touch her, meet her face to face.
Even if her face was currently attached to a body that had wings.
I stood, rolling my shirtsleeve back down over the Band-Aid. “Let’s go, then.”
A child’s scream from the hall jerked our attention back to the rest of the hospital, and we were all three moving before I spoke. “Where did the nurse go?”
At the other end of the hallway, Kenny screamed and fought against Susan and Felicity, trying to pull away from them to go back into the room, blue light erupting from new places on his body as he struggled to get back to the monster that had infected him.
We weren’t going to get there in time.
Chapter 33
Lili
Our silent calls to our acolyte grew stronger with every passing moment.
Come to us, come to us.
The vessel—the boy, Kenny, she whispered to us, as if his name mattered—would return to us. To deny him would be to kill him.
Even now, his screams sang to us, and we could feel the power within him erupting to strengthen the gateway.
When the door flew open, the two females—Susan and Felicity—both tried to hold him back, but as the portal drew strength from him, he could draw from it, at least momentarily, and he pulled away from them, stumbling into the chamber where I guarded the passage between worlds.
The nurse followed behind, entering the room carrying the ax, and we knew she would again stand between us and the children. That she had come to kill us.
Shoving the vessel behind her with one hand, even as he fought against her, she braced herself against us.
Foolish human.
The men rushed in behind them, none of them quick enough to stop us.
The woman was easily dispatched—one step forward and a single, strong swipe of one clawed hand sliced across her throat, turning her anticipatory scream into a bubbling gurgle.
I sniffed. Her blood was of no use to us.
But the children were power.
We drew in a breath to take them, as well…and I was able to shove the aswang back down into the recesses of my mind. The sight of Susan’s body, sprawled across the floor in front of me with a puddle of darkening blood around it, kept me focused.
No one else would die on my behalf.
I could push the aswang out of my mind, if not out of my body.
If I concentrated, I could draw my wings in, crouch on the floor, the claws of my feet scraping against the cold tile floor. Carefully, I turned my head far enough to see the men heading toward me.
“Wait,” I called out. “It’s me, Lili.”
Kenny wailed, the sound one of unutterable loss. That, more than anything else, seemed to stop the three men.
“Take him out,” Iverson ordered Felicity, but when she tried, his sobs grew more desperate.
“It hurts to leave,” he whimpered.
“It will kill him to be gone too long,” I said. “He has to stay here until we can close down this gate.” My voice croaked out of an unfamiliar throat, ugly and harsh.
Scott jumped when I spoke, but he nodded. “Lili?” he asked, peering at me as if hoping to see something in my eyes that he recognized.
“For now.” I tried to modulate my tone, but it was all I could do to form words in this form.
As an aswang.
I peered into the mirror across the room from me, seeing in it a monstrous shape: my face, drawn longer, harder, sharper. Fangs and red-rimmed eyes.
“Kenny, step back. You can stay on the bed. Don’t stand any closer than you have to. Felicity, get out of here.” Iverson’s tone was more police officer than kind uncle, but Felicity spoke up against him.
“I’m staying with Kenny in case he needs help.” Her uncle held her defiant gaze for a long moment, and then nodded. “You stay back, too.”
The detective turned his attention to me. “Is that really you?” Iverson kept his distance, but tilted his head a little to examine my face more closely. “What’s going on?”
“It’s me.” My voice, so different from my usual human tones, grated on my ears. “All of this. It’s my fault. Inang tried to tell me. It’s how our family is cursed—we carry the aswang into this world.”
If I’d had tear ducts, I would have cried. Instead, I simply took a few deep breaths. If I stayed perfectly still, my head held high, I couldn’t see my own body out of my peripheral vision.
“Into this world?” Iverson had adopted his detective’s tone again. Oddly, I felt grateful—as long as he sounded professional, I could hold it together, not let them take over again.
Let us in.
Their voices pushed against the barrier in my mind. They had a stronger hold in this form.
No. They couldn’t get through again.
“They come from that other world—the one across the portal,” I said.
“Those monsters heading toward us now?” Will asked.
“The ones the monsters carry,” I said. “They come across in microscopic form, as viruses and parasites, then infect hosts, who infect others in turn.”
“Like vampires?” Iverson took a step forward. “You’re telling me vampires really are a fucking virus?”
I nodded. “And werewolves and zombies and all the monsters you can imagine.” My voice dropped to a harsh whisper. “And the aswang.”
“Why didn’t we know this? Why didn’t the doctors know this?” He threw an accusatory glance at Will.
“Don’t look at me,” Will said. “I haven’t done any vampire research. Anyway, none of the research suggested either a virus or a parasite.”
“It wouldn’t,” I said. “They’re not your normal viruses—they’re intelligent. They hide when threatened.” With one clawed hand, I indicated my own body. “They’re shapeshifters.”
“And the blue light?” Scott gestured toward Kenny, who was huddled back into the bed, tears running down his face.
“Basic biology. They need a way to get across the void to new worlds. So a way evolved.”
Across, across, across.
A shiver ran down my back, across my wings. I shook the voices away, shoved them back down. “We have to hurry. I don’t know how much longer I can stay in control. Iverson, do you remember any of the symbols from the crime scenes in Dallas?”
“I’ll never forget them. What should I do?” He snagged another scalpel from the tray and took a step toward me.
“Not me,” I said. “Kenny. Changing one of the cuts to a symbol will focus the power.”
“Won’t that allow them to come across more quickly?” Frustration welled up inside me at the skepticism on Iverson’s face.
“Yes,” I said. “But it will also allow us to shut down the portal more quickly. Will you help me?”
Until this point, Felicity had remained silent, watching us all with those blue eyes so like her uncle’s. But as Iverson took a step toward the boy, Felicity flung herself across him. “No, Uncle Henry. Please don’t,” she begged.
Bloodborne (Night Shift Book 2) Page 15