The Curse of M

by Stevie Barry

  With what little rational mind she had left, Lorna wondered where the guards were. They should have come running the moment the table flew -- were they too stupid to head off a riot before it started, or were they waiting to see what happened? She hoped it was the former, because the latter idea was too ominous to contemplate.

  He screamed something else unintelligible, and she stalked toward him, yelling right back. The man with the knife tattoo suddenly found himself being the only reasonable one when his other companion joined in.

  The poor bastard grabbed both his friends, holding them back. "What even are your words?" he demanded.

  She answered in broken Russian and fractured English, hoping he'd understand, and that no one else would. "You are right. We need to escape. But trying to cause a riot won't work, and now all four of us stand out. Sit down, shut up, and wait until we have an actual goddamn opportunity. Christ, I know you've been in prison before," she added in English. "You ought to know how this works."

  "What are you, a predatel'?" the man on his right sneered.

  Predatel'. Traitor. Snitch. "Do I look like a goddamn snitch? Fuck you in the ear!" Lorna didn't hit him, but it was a near thing. They'd blown it, and she knew it -- all of them, herself included. They were going to wind up separated, and never be let near one another again.

  He ducked his comrade's arm and shoved her, and now she did punch him. It hurt like a bastard -- apparently Ratiri's aura-thing had a short half-life -- but he rocked backward.

  As if some unseen thread had snapped, what seemed like half the cafeteria weighed in. In reality it was only a few people, but that was more than enough.

  Ratiri merely tried to restrain the man on the left, but Katje socked him right in the jaw. To Lorna's surprise, it was a decent hit. Whatever else Katje was, she knew how to throw a punch.

  Ratiri winced, pulling the man backward and pushing him out of the way with unfortunate mildness. He was not, Lorna swiftly realized, a fighter by nature, which wasn't going to do him any favors now. He might be giant-sized, but anyone who had been in prison longer than a week knew how to spot the weak link, and he was it.

  The man she'd first hit made a grab for her hair, and earned himself a forehead to the face. Pain exploded through her head, shockingly intense, enough to momentarily send her vision grey. She staggered, kicking him in the knee on sheer accident, and ran into a complete stranger -- a middle-aged Hispanic man. He righted her balance with surprising gentleness, right before punching her attacker so hard he fell over backward. Maybe they'd get their riot after all.

  The cafeteria doors slammed shut with an almost majestic thud, and the room abruptly fell silent and still. It had to -- quite suddenly, Lorna found she couldn't move, and it didn't look like anyone else could, either. What in flying fuck? Stark terror flooded her veins, warring with her anger in such a way that she was almost sick again.

  Someone was moving, though; a heavy, measured tread across the concrete floor. Lorna, who had been stuck in place facing away from the door, couldn't see who or what it belonged to, which just made it worse -- she hated having a threat at her back, and it made her shoulder blades itch.

  "I am going to release you all. You will stay still, you will behave, and you will tell me exactly what is going on here." It was a male voice, deep, mostly American, but with a slight shift she couldn't identify.

  In spite of everything, she almost wanted to snort. It was pretty damn obvious what was going on; either that was a rhetorical statement, or the questioner was a moron.

  The strange, invisible lock that held her immobile abruptly vanished, and she wasn't the only one who sucked in a deep breath of relief. She turned, and had to peer around the third Russian to see anything.

  They were faced with an extremely tall man -- Ratiri's height at least -- who regarded them like they were an exhibit at a zoo. He didn't look much older than Lorna herself: late thirties or early forties at most, though there were threads of grey through his blond hair. While his height made him imposing, there was nothing in his appearance that could explain the level of gut-wrenching fear the sight of him inspired. If he was the doctor Ratiri and Katje had mentioned, she took it all back: there was something about him straight out of the Uncanny Valley.

  His eyes raked the crowd, and they were the palest, coldest eyes she'd ever seen. She half expected them to glow red, like he was a bloody Terminator. "Well?"

  No one spoke. Lorna doubted anyone was able to, but the silence was excruciating. She felt like a child called before the world's worst headmaster, which probably had a lot to do with what she did next.

  "He started it," she said, pointing at the bloody-faced, belligerent Russian kid. Technically his friend had, but Lorna actually halfway liked that one, so his mate could take the fall.

  Those ungodly laser eyes fixated on her, and she wished she hadn't spoken. One of his pale eyebrows arched. "Did he? Young man, step forward."

  The kid obviously didn't want to, but someone behind him actually shoved him. He shot Lorna an extremely dirty look, which she returned full force.

  The man stepped forward, giving the boy a thorough, downright chilling, and wholly unimpressed once-over. Despite her self-imposed lifelong training against showing more weakness than she could help, she couldn't help but shuffle away; she was stubborn, not suicidal.

  "Strength," the man/doctor/whoever said, flatly. "Dull. Dull, and more trouble than you are worth." He reached out with a truly disturbing lack of expression, caught the boy's throat, and squeezed. Somehow, with one hand, he snapped the kid's neck like a pencil.

  At this point in her life, it took a hell of a lot to genuinely horrify Lorna, but that was more than enough. Blind instinct made her rear backward, and she wasn't the only one -- as if some spell had been lifted, the crowd erupted into chaos, every damn one of them fleeing for whatever cover could be found.

  Lorna herself practically dove under one of the tables, thwacking her head as she did so; if she hadn't started out with a concussion, she probably had one now. Dark stars bloomed behind her eyes, and she only staved off actual unconsciousness by sheer force of will. Ratiri had mentioned telepathy, but he'd said nothing about that sort of strength, and even through the pain, she wondered if the bastard had multiple Curses. Was that even possible? If it was, she'd never heard of it.

  The boy's body hit the floor with a thud that was almost nauseating, and guilt joined the horrible cocktail of her emotions. If she hadn't said anything -- but then, that terrifying man would surely have killed someone. Not that that knowledge helped: she was still the one who had chosen his victim.

  The bastard turned, searching. He managed no more than that, though, because a moment later, every window on the eastern side of the room shattered. No, not shattered -- they practically imploded, shards of safety glass filling the air like glittering hail.

  Frigid air blasted in, momentarily knocking all the breath out of Lorna. Some wild part of her remembered the exploding streetlights, the drunken collapse of a roof that ought to have weathered the storm, and she realized with dawning horror that she was somehow the one doing this.

  Stop it, she thought, but her mind was so besieged by everyone else's fear that she couldn't have done it, even if she'd known how. Not all the pain in her head came from hitting it. She clapped her hands over her ears, as if that would somehow do any good, and shivered from shock and revulsion as much as from the cold. Christ, this was like one long nightmare that only got worse.

  The overhead lights exploded, one by one, and the western windows cracked into a crazed mosaic. At this rate she'd bring down the roof in no time, and then what? Just how much worse could this get?

  It was the wrong thing to wonder. A hand grabbed Lorna's hair, right at the crown of her head, and used it to drag her out of her hiding place. Of course she had to bash both knees on the bench as she went, adding two new sources of hurt -- as if she didn't already have enough. If she'd been in any shape, she'd have lashed out with her
fists, but she was so disoriented and cold and ill that all she could do was stagger.

  When she found her balance, more or less, she found herself faced with that terrifying doctor. She always felt short compared to most of the adult world, but he made her feel positively miniscule, and it didn't help that he was looking at her with a dreadful, detached curiosity. Motherfucker.

  At least he released her hair, leaving her to rub at her scalp with bruised fingers smeared with someone else's blood. He was bleeding, too, she saw: something had cut his temple, and the wound bled as only head wounds could. If it bothered him, he gave no sign at all, which somehow made it worse.

  "Stop that," he ordered, almost casually, as if all the glass in the cafeteria wasn't shattering around him.

  Unfortunately, the western windows chose that moment to implode. Lorna instinctively tried to duck, but his hand shot out with unnerving speed and snatched her hair again.

  "I can't!" she cried, two words even her accent couldn't mangle.

  He tilted his head to one side, that horrible, clinical curiosity intensifying. "You really mean that, don't you?"

  She didn't bother responding, because really, what could she say? Her every instinct was telling her to run, even if she had to let him tear out half her hair to do it.

  He didn't give her a chance. He touched her forehead with his other hand, and darkness sucked her down like quicksand.

  Chapter Three

  The first thing Lorna became aware of was how warm she was. It was pleasant, like sun on a summer afternoon, suffusing her to her very fingertips.

  It was also wrong. She'd done enough drugs to be sure she'd been shot full of morphine and something probably illegal, if the fuzziness in her head was any indication. Straight painkillers didn't do this to her, and hadn't for years.

  The next thing she realized was that she was sitting up, more or less, in a comfortable armchair that was far too big for her. Opening her eyes wasn't an effort she was yet ready to make, but she noted the smells around her: citrus-scented furniture polish, a touch of leather from the armchair, and vague traces of an incense she couldn't identify. None of it added up to anything she remembered.

  "I know you are awake, Donovan. Open your eyes."

  "Sod off," she said automatically, and even those two words were almost more than she could manage.

  "Open your eyes, Donovan."

  This time there was a note of command even she couldn't ignore. She did it, but her vision swam so much she didn't think there had been any point. It took almost a full minute for it to even come close to focusing, and she didn't like what she saw.

  "Well, shit," she muttered, mostly to herself. Just how the hell did he know her name? How long had she been unconscious this time?

  The doctor arched an eyebrow. His nametag, she noted, read Von Ratched. "Profane, aren't you?" he said. There was something incredibly odd about his eyes, though it took her a moment to work out what. They were the palest grey she'd ever seen, and they refracted the low light of his desk lamp like an animal's. "You do know what they say about profanity, don't you?"

  "Yeah," she muttered. "It's a crutch for the inarticulate motherfucker."

  His other eyebrow went up, and she'd swear he almost smiled. Somehow, that wasn't comforting. "Close enough." He stared at her a long while in silence, appraising, and she found herself wondering if the man ever blinked. Even in her drugged state Lorna recognized the air of tightly-coiled energy that surrounded him like some kind of electrical current, and wondered, a little blearily, if she was going to die in here.

  "I am afraid I don't know what to do with you, Donovan," he said at last. "As you are now, you're a danger to yourself and everyone around you, but I cannot drug you like this forever. Your body would not be able to handle it."

  She didn't respond, and he didn't seem to expect her to. She found herself looking at the tidy white bandage at his right temple -- she'd done that, hadn't she? Even if she didn't know how? In an odd way, it was comforting to know this disturbing man could be hurt.

  "My superiors would probably be happier if I killed you, but I could never do that. You are the only one like me I've ever found."

  That statement didn't frighten so much as bewilder her, until her drug-addled brain kicked something relevant into her consciousness: she couldn't hear his thoughts. Shit, he really was a telepath.

  “In all my life I've never found another telepath,” he said. “It's why I must keep you alive, even if I do not yet know how to control you."

  "You're absolute shite at being reassuring," Lorna mumbled. God, she was beginning to feel awful; she hadn't had a reaction to drugs this nasty since she'd been a teenager. Everything was rocking slightly, and the glow of the lamp dimmed and brightened at odd intervals. Only the hazy warmth remained constant, and even it was beginning to feel unpleasant. What in hell did he give her?

  "You would not know the name," he said, standing, and she scowled. Sure, she halfway read minds all the time, but she couldn't help it. Bastard had no such excuse.

  He circled the desk and came to stand beside her chair, still looking at her very strangely. There was a curiosity in those pale eyes that was close to unholy. She'd never seen anything like it -- it was horrible, yet almost hypnotic. Was this what a rodent felt like when it faced a snake? It almost felt like she was drowning, like something was trying to invade her soul --

  "Stop it," Lorna hissed. Her legs refused to function when she tried to get up, though, and she landed shoulder-first on the carpet. A vague approximation of pain jagged through her, and she choked on her half-drawn breath. The world spun into grey, and for one terrible moment she thought she'd pass out.

  Von Ratched laughed, and it was a decidedly unpleasant sound. "You felt that," he said, a weird, subtle trace of delight in his voice.

  "'Course I felt it," she snarled, grabbing the edge of the desk and trying valiantly to haul herself to her feet. "Stay out'v my head."

  The floor lurched beneath her, and he caught her arm before she could fall again. He wore gloves, she noted muzzily, heavier than surgical gloves, of some material she couldn't identify. His fingers were almost unnaturally long, and even in her current state she could feel the strength behind them.

  This day just keeps getting better and better, she thought wildly, and when everything stopped spinning she found herself back in the chair, Von Ratched leaning over her with a hand on either armrest.

  "No," he said flatly, all humor gone from those awful eyes. Lorna briefly debated throwing up on him, since she was sure she was going to throw up on something, but her stomach lost its mutiny. "I do not let you live out of altruism, Donovan," he went on. "If I want in your mind, in I will go. Don't fight me and it will not hurt."

  Not that you'd care if it did, she thought, shutting her eyes in an attempt to keep the world still.

  "You are right," he said. "I would not. If anything I do harms you, you have no one but yourself to blame."

  She glared at him, infuriated as well as sick and horrified. If he was going to be like that, she'd think in Irish from now on, and he could go to hell. She might not be able to move without falling over, but she'd be damned if she'd let him walk all over her. He sounded American; odds were good he wouldn't know such an obscure language.

  He arched an eyebrow again, and just like that, his dark amusement was back. For such a carefully-controlled man, he seemed awfully mercurial. "Stubborn," he said. "We will see what might be done about that." He raised his right hand and touched the bandage on her forehead, which felt unpleasantly damp. She couldn't say she was surprised when he frowned at it.

  He rose, and this time she didn't try to get up. No point in landing in a heap again. "I will need to look at that," he said. "However, I must first do something about your hair. Hold still."

  "Don't you dare cut my hair!" she said, and because she'd thought it in Irish, she said it in Irish. Dammit, this was too hard to maintain while she was so high. "Scissors," she tried ag
ain, in English. "No. No bloody way."

  She heard him sigh as he opened a drawer. "I am not going to cut your hair off, Donovan. If you are always this adamant when you are drugged, I definitely cannot keep you in this state."

  He grabbed the snarled mess of her hair and pulled it over the chair's high back, giving it a warning tug to tell her to stay put. She did, but not because of that implied threat; she just couldn't bring herself to move.

  To her considerable surprise, instead of scissors she felt the gentle tug of a brush, far down at the ends of her hair. What the hell was he doing?

  "I can do that, you know," she said, trying not to cringe at the fact that this cretin was touching her.

  "Sit still," he said. "This will only take longer if you struggle."

  Didn't that sound utterly wrong. Lorna clenched her hands, fighting an inexplicable sense of utter horror. Why was she so unnerved by this? He was just brushing her hair, for God's sake. Except…she realized it was a calculated effort to unsettle her.

  An tInneal Mallachtaí, she thought, trying not to rise to his bait, however bizarrely sickening this was. She'd heard skin could crawl, but she'd never experienced it herself before.

  "And what does that mean?" he asked.

  "May the devil eat your mother," she growled. "Are you done yet?"

  He laughed, and it took every ounce of effort she had not to completely cringe away. "No," he said. "Please, keep edifying me about Irish cursing while I work."

  Asshole, she thought.

  "That's not Irish."

  "Fuck you."

  "I’m certain you can be more creative than that."

  That did it. Lorna staggered drunkenly to her feet, pulling as far away as his grip on her hair would allow. She was furious, disgusted, more than a little sick, and completely at the end of what short tether she had. She opened her mouth to yell at him, but before she could say a thing, the desk-lamp exploded.

  She let out a horribly undignified shriek and tried to duck, but once again Von Ratched's grip on her hair kept her from managing it very well. Several picture frames flew off the wall, one hitting her, smashing right across her back. Oh, hell, not again --