The Cure

by JG Faherty

  Tendrils of black lightning emerged from the side hallway and wrapped themselves around the men before they knew what was happening. The slithering lightning split into twisting vines that snaked across the guards’ bodies and burrowed into their ears, mouths and noses. Miniature supernovas of red exploded within the lines of energy. At the same time, the two men collapsed to the ground, their legs and arms contorting in ways human limbs were never meant to move.

  The sound of snapping bones filled the air and the grotesque St. Vitus dance came to an end as the men went still. A moment later, both bodies collapsed into themselves, deflating like empty balloons.

  The storm winds picked up again and filled the halls with a roaring sound. Dark-gray fog rolled into the corridor, a ground-level thundercloud inside of which black and red lightning flashed in all directions.

  Death marched down the hall in search of its next victim.

  Chapter Eleven

  John didn’t understand what was happening at first. He’d seen Del and two other men coming at him and he’d automatically ducked back around the corner.

  Straight into Leah’s oncoming path.

  There’d been no time to think. He’d sprinted for the closest door and dashed inside. Slammed the door closed and then backed across the empty room. The opaque window in the door obscured his view, but not so much that he couldn’t see the hall grow dark. Flashes of weird lightning had splashed the glass with red and howling winds rattled the door in its frame.

  At one point, something that looked like a snake made of negative energy slipped under the door and rose up, waving back and forth like an ebon cobra from another world. It had paused for a moment—a moment in which John was sure he was about to die—and then retreated back under the door.

  Agonized screams reached John’s ears over the shrieking winds. Del? His men? John found he had no regret for their dying. They deserved it for what they’d done, what they’d planned on doing.

  His lack of remorse surprised him. He’d always believed that vigilantism was a poor substitute for the law. Criminals taking out other criminals didn’t help the system in the long run; it just made it harder to maintain order.

  But the retribution Leah was raining down…there was something primal about it. As if Nature herself was pissed off and had decided to do a little cleansing.

  And what if that cleansing includes you?

  The question came up out of nowhere. John didn’t want to believe Leah could ever hurt him. She’d had multiple opportunities, and so far he was still alive. Which made him think maybe there was still enough of the real Leah inside the she-demon roaming the halls.

  Except, on all those occasions, she’d been distracted by other targets. Maybe she was just going after the worst offenders first.

  It did seem like the presence of something—of what? evil? past sins?—attracted her like a magnet. And where did that leave a person who’d basically led a good life but wasn’t by any stretch perfect? Last on the list? Or would she leave him and go out into the world, a hurricane of destruction, killing anyone with some type of darkness in their soul?

  Was she simply a greater evil than all others, or was she the hand of God, come down to clean the world?

  In the end, what she was wouldn’t matter. Not to the people outside the building. They’d see her as a threat and deal with her. Do whatever it took to stop her.

  Or destroy her.

  “Can’t let that happen.”

  John got to his feet. Leah deserved a chance to be normal again. If that was even possible. Which meant he had to be there in case she needed his help. He owed her his life several times over. He wasn’t going to let her die because of saving him.

  “Okay, God. Let’s see if I’m right, that she’s not going to suck the life out of me.”

  His hand shook as he grabbed the doorknob.

  If he was wrong, he was going to wish she’d never cured him.

  A heavy wind pulled the door from John’s hand the moment he cracked it open. Glass shattered as it slammed against the wall. Although whatever was happening was out of sight around the corner, the effects of Leah’s supernatural form were evident in the gale-force gusts that swirled through the halls and the flashes of red light in the other corridor.

  Someone cried out for help. It didn’t sound like Leah, but John broke into a run anyhow, the instinct to provide assistance a part of him after so many years as a cop. He rounded the corner and found the hallway blocked by a roiling cloud of black mist. Reddish lightning flashed inside it, illuminating a vaguely human form that he knew had to be Leah. Dark tendrils of energy—like the ones he’d seen before, but larger now—whipped back and forth and all around, making him think of a wounded octopus. As the hellish nimbus churned the air, John caught a glimpse of two men on the other side.

  Men who were writhing on the floor like they’d been plugged into the world’s largest electrical socket. The absolute terror on their faces made John glad he couldn’t see what new changes had happened to Leah.

  He didn’t want to know what she looked like, what she’d turned into. He just wanted to make sure she stayed safe. And if there was no chance of her becoming human again, he wanted to make sure he escaped to let someone know about the imminent danger she represented.

  One of the night-black tendrils separated from the others and slowly extended in John’s direction. He remembered how fast they’d moved before. In contrast to those lightning-fast strikes, this one seemed to be toying with him. Or trying to make up its mind about what to do. Then it rose up a few feet and John knew it was about to attack.

  Except before it could, the hallway filled with the metallic chatter of heavy automatic gunfire, large machine pistols, or possibly MACs or HKs. The living storm cloud blocked most of his view, but he saw shadowy figures moving toward where the two men now lay motionless on the floor.

  Something zipped past him like a wasp on steroids. Belatedly, John realized he should’ve hit the ground when the shooting started. Machine pistols packed more than enough punch to tear through a person and kill anyone unlucky enough to be behind the intended target.

  So why hadn’t he been hit?

  Sparkles of light caught his attention. Tiny fireworks were exploding around the edges of the churning cloud that surrounded Leah. He remembered the way the other men had shot at her with no effect.

  The safest place to be is right behind her.

  John darted forward, positioning himself directly behind the center of the dark mass. He kept one eye on the weaving tentacles as he stayed in step with Leah’s protective shield, which was slowly advancing on the men attacking her.

  More of the tentacles formed and shot forward.

  A second later the gunfire took on a disjointed rhythm and then stopped. Somebody screamed a long, drawn-out wail that was quickly joined by others. Just as quickly, they all ended.

  In the resulting silence the sound of John’s breathing and the blood pounding in his ears seemed like cannon fire. The cloud ceased its forward movement and dissipated slightly, allowing him a view of a pale, human-shaped object in the center.

  An object that was rotating around to face him.

  Later, John would thank all the gods in the universe that he never got a clear look at Leah in that moment. He believed with all his soul that seeing her face would have assuredly stopped his heart, like a modern Medusa. Even obscured by layers of gray and black, it was too much to bear, so inhuman that her previous dead-looking countenance was pleasant by comparison.

  John fell to his knees as sharp pains coursed through his guts. His bowels threatened to release and he squeezed his eyes closed, petrified the cloud would part and her lethal gaze would melt him on the spot.

  A terrible sound filled his head, a cross between insane laughter and the growl of a prehistoric beast. Teeth clenched and body shaking, he waited for the cold
touch of a tendril on his neck, a teasing stroke before it wrapped around him and drank the life from his body.

  When several heartbeats passed, and then several more, with nothing happening, he carefully opened his eyes.

  And found Leah lying unconscious on the floor.

  Chapter Twelve

  Leah opened her eyes and found ghostly faces hovering over her. Three of them, their features blurred to the point where they almost disappeared into the background of gray and white. Smaller shapes moved within the orbs and sounds reached her, timed with the movements.

  The faces are speaking, her brain told her. She tried to understand the words, but her hearing was working as poorly as her vision.

  One of the faces moved closer.

  “Aya. Aya. AYA. C...n...you...ear me?”

  Leah wanted to shout at the face to speak more clearly, but when she tried, her lips refused to move. The rest of her seemed paralyzed as well. That worried her. Had she been in an accident? Broken her back or neck? She closed her eyes and tried to focus on her body. See if she could sense what was wrong.

  Something sharp jabbed her in the arm and her eyes popped open of their own accord. The face staring at her was a bit clearer now. Familiar.

  John?

  She still couldn’t speak his name, but he seemed to sense she was aware of his presence.

  “Leah. You’re okay now. Everything will be fine.”

  Feeling began to return, a pins-and-needles tingling like her foot had fallen asleep, only instead of her foot it was her entire body. She tried again to move, and this time her arm rose up. She reached for John, desperate to feel his touch, to have him comfort her and take the fear away.

  He glanced at her hand and backed away.

  Why? she wanted to ask him. What’s wrong? She felt hurt, betrayed, sad and other things that she couldn’t express, even to herself. Because it was too hard to think about them.

  And she was getting sleepy.

  She closed her eyes, unaware of the tears sliding down her cheeks.

  Images filled the darkness, a hundred different movies playing on a hundred different screens that surrounded her. No matter which direction Leah looked, dozens of movies played in endless loops.

  A man on his knees begging for his life.

  A wild-haired demoness floating in a black cloud.

  Desiccated mummies crawling across the ground.

  John bleeding to death on the floor.

  Cement and plaster exploding in a strange hallway.

  The face of a dead woman who looked like—

  No! That’s impossible. I’m not dead. Just dreaming. My eyes were open. I saw…

  John.

  Had she seen him? Was he still next to her? She pushed at the darkness, trying to force it back. Trying to sense the outside world.

  Sounds.

  Beeping. Voices.

  I’m here! she screamed, but the voice was only in her head. Was she awake or still dreaming? Or in a coma? Did people in comas imagine they were conscious?

  Maybe I’m blind. Sudden fear motivated her. She concentrated on her eyes. Feeling them. Moving them.

  Opening them.

  Straining like she was lifting a heavy weight, she forced her eyelids to rise. Nothing happened at first, and then a pale strip of gray appeared. The strip turned into a small window, and then a larger one. The gray evolved into something brighter, almost white. Shapes appeared. At the same time, the voices and beeps grew clearer.

  “—hear me? Leah? Can you hear me?”

  “John?” Attempting to speak was an automatic reaction to hearing him. The word came out as more of a whispered croak.

  “Hold on,” a second voice said. A woman. A hand appeared with a Styrofoam cup. A straw poked out of a plastic lid. It drew closer and Leah eagerly moved to meet it.

  Cool liquid touched her tongue and throat, a magic elixir that washed away the dry, scaly feeling from her mouth, moistened the arid tunnel that was her throat, and poured energy into her body with each sip.

  The cup pulled away, leaving Leah feeling unsatisfied but a thousand times better.

  “That’s enough for now. You can have more in a few minutes.” The woman stepped away and began fiddling with a machine next to the bed.

  Woman. Machine. Bed. She’s a nurse. I’m in the hospital.

  “John?” She turned to the side, afraid she’d hallucinated seeing him before. Memories—real or imagined, she couldn’t be sure—jostled each other in her head. John on the floor, dying. John turning away from her when she needed him.

  John cowering on the ground?

  “I’m here.” His hand patted hers, and she clutched at it. Real. Solid. Warm. “How are you feeling?”

  Leah thought for a moment before answering. How was she feeling? Weak, but her strength was returning. Confused. Tired, the kind of tired that comes from mental exhaustion rather than physical exertion or lack of sleep. But, otherwise, she felt…okay.

  “All right, I guess. I… How did I get here? What happened? I remember…I saw you…they…”

  “Shot me. But you cured me. Again. I think I’m losing count of how many times that is now.” He gave her a ghost of his usual sunny smile that triggered a twinge of guilt in her chest. He had to be as exhausted as she was.

  Whatever had happened, he’d undoubtedly been right there with her, just like he’d been there for her all along. He was the one who’d been shot, poisoned and who knew what else. And yet she was the one in the hospital bed, while he watched over her.

  “It’s me who owes you. I was the one who got you in all this mess, and you’re the one who pulled me out of it. Or tried to. I guess I should have listened more.”

  Continuing as if he hadn’t heard her, John asked, “So seeing me get shot. That’s the last thing you remember?”

  Leah bit her lip as she tried to make sense of the image and memory snippets that were flashing in random fashion through her thoughts. “Del…he ordered them to do it. We watched on the computer… I begged him to let me help you—”

  “We?” John interrupted. “We who?”

  “The other men,” she said, as the scene cleared up in her head. “The ones who came to see what I could do. To buy me. Six of them.”

  “Dressed real nice, but tough looking? Some of them were foreigners?”

  Leah nodded. From the way he’d said it, she had the feeling he’d seen them. But when?

  “Yes. And then Del had his men lead everyone down to the room where you were. And…” She stopped as a new memory popped to the surface.

  A mummy lying across her, a dead thing that somehow looked familiar…

  “Leah?”

  “There was an explosion. In the hall. Someone was pointing a gun at me… Tal Nova! That’s who it was. But he didn’t shoot me. He…I…I think I did something to him.”

  She looked at John and saw something in his eyes, something she’d never seen there before. Not fear. Not sympathy, either. Something she couldn’t identify, but she knew it wasn’t good.

  “John. You know something. Tell me.”

  He stared at her for a minute, his lack of expression betraying the fact that he had bad news for her. Then he sighed, and she recognized the emotion filling his brown eyes.

  Pity.

  With another sigh, he started speaking.

  Leah waited until she was positive John wasn’t returning before letting her tears spill out. She wasn’t sure what had her crying worse—losing John, knowing she was the cause of his leaving or finding out she was a monster, something no longer human.

  She lay on her side, clutching one of the thin, almost-useless hospital pillows to her chest. It was almost too much to comprehend. She wanted to just close her eyes and sink into dark oblivion. Return to her coma-like state and never wake up. Except now she k
new even that would offer no respite from the hell her life had become. John’s words—awful enough on their own—had acted like magnets on her broken memories, rounding them up and piecing them together until the whole picture became clear inside her head.

  Drawing the death out of John and replacing it with her own life force.

  Sucking Tal Nova’s essence from him until only a husk remained.

  Becoming something other than herself, the opposite of herself, a thing that delivered death instead of life.

  Killing the men who’d held her hostage, who’d attacked her.

  And worst of all, enjoying it.

  Most of the previous day was still fuzzy, but parts she remembered were more than enough to let her know she’d turned into a freak. A monster. She’d sensed John hadn’t told her everything, either. He’d been vague about describing what she looked like when he encountered her in the hall. But she’d seen how his face turned pale, how his hands trembled in his lap.

  Whatever he’d seen—whatever she’d been—it hadn’t just frightened him.

  It had terrified him.

  Which was why she shouldn’t have been surprised at his response when she said that the one silver lining was they didn’t have to worry about Tal Nova or Del anymore, and after she was released from the hospital they could go back to the way things were.

  “I don’t know, Leah… I…I need to think about things. After what’s happened, what I’ve seen…I need to process it. I think I’m going to take some vacation time. Get away. Clear my head.”

  He’d left right after that. No goodbye. No “I love you, we’ll work this out”. Just there one minute and gone the next.

  Leaving her alone.

  Alone.

  The beep-beep of her monitor and the hushed swoosh of the IV drip—glucose to rehydrate her—emphasized the quiet of the room, which in turn underscored the fact that she had no one. No one to hold her hand. No one to take her home and have a glass of wine with. No one to help her celebrate surviving a horrible ordeal…

  Of course not. Who could be with you? You’re the embodiment of Death. You suck the life out of people. You hold the Power to Cure or Kill. And who knows if you have any ability to control it. Why should John want to be with you when you might drain him dry, turn him into a mummy creature, because you let yourself get tired or you Cured the wrong animal?