The Curse of M

by Stevie Barry

  He expected her to scream, to rage, or even to laugh in his face. Honestly, he was surprised she hadn't tried to attack him yet, hadn't lost her mind along with her temper.

  But Lorna did none of those things. Instead she sighed, and stood, tossing aside the blanket she'd had wrapped around her shoulders. The wolf stood as well, but sat back down when she gestured. "I'd very much like to see you try," she said, and the lack of menace in her tone somehow made it worse. There was a dreadful sort of anticipation in it instead, an undercurrent of dark glee, and Von Ratched wondered just what his little broken Lorna had turned into. The firelight gilded the silver in her long braid, made her skin look eerily smooth. Yes, there was something inhuman about her, some alien tranquility beneath her anger. She'd issued him a blatant challenge, and there wasn't a hint of bravado in it.

  Once again, he found he didn't know what to say. Never before in his life had he been so truly unnerved -- it gave even his natural arrogance pause.

  "How did you escape?" he asked, after a long silence.

  Lorna's smile was downright unsettling. "The Lady," she said. "You're not the most powerful force in the world, Doctor, however much you don't want to admit it."

  He felt her gathering power -- surprisingly large amount of power, drawing it from some inner well that hadn't existed before. No, he thought, it was always there. She just didn't know it. "Stop," he said. "You cannot hurt me, Lorna, not truly. And I will not let you live with what I have done to you." The words were hollow, foolish, but there were all he had.

  She didn't stop. Instead she laughed, musical and strangely chilling. "Can't I?" she said. "I've grown, Von Ratched. And sure God, I'll not be the one who dies here tonight."

  Her last words were a snarl, punctuated by the tearing crack of the tree beside him. Snow puffed off the splintering branches, temporarily blinding him, and only his near-superhuman reflexes saved him from impalement when the entire thing exploded.

  It did so with a deafening roar, splinters stinging against his face as he took cover behind a fallen log. The sound split the silence like a thunderclap, the whirling dance of powdery snow frosting his hair and coat. Good God, just what was he facing?

  Von Ratched's telekinesis fended off the rest of the debris, and without thinking he hurled it all at Lorna. His telekinetic shield kept him from inhaling wood pulp, but it actually took him a moment to regain his bearings.

  Fortunately, he managed it just in time to avoid being crushed by another tree, hurling it in Lorna's general direction. This was the kind of confrontation he despised, brute strength without finesse, but she was in her element -- he was fighting her on her terms, not his.

  The thought enraged him, filling him with a level of wrath he'd only known the night he'd raped and nearly killed her. How dare she attack him so? He was warm enough now, in spite of the snow that had crept beneath the collar of his coat, heated by the sheer force of his fury. He knew now what Lorna must feel, when she was in the full grip of her rage: his blood sang in his veins, adrenaline lacing his anger with a weird sort of euphoria. All he wanted to do was kill, and kill he would.

  Another tree exploded, and another, torn apart from the inside out. One of them was Lorna's work, but the other was his, a distraction that let Von Ratched circle behind her. He knew how blind her wrath could make her, how single-mindedly she would focus, and he fully intended to use that against her.

  Which was why he was completely surprised when she hit him full in the chest with a burning branch. The force of it almost drove the air from his lungs, his nose filling with the stench of burnt cloth, and he could barely focus enough to lash out at her with his telekinesis.

  It flung her away, but she rebounded with surprising agility for one so injured. I the hellish light of her scattered fire, she looked like a small avenging Fate, a green-eyed angel of death hell-bent on retribution. It would have chilled him if he hadn't been so enraged. The mingled smoke and steam of melted snow made him cough, but he ignored it. He had to get close enough to grab her -- whatever force of magic she'd gained, his physical strength was still far superior to hers. He'd get his hands on her and break her neck, and this nightmare would be over.

  That was easier said than done, though. She danced away from him as though her leg wasn't injured at all, her teeth bared in a smile coated with blood from a split lip. She was a demon in human form, her eyes burning bright as the fire -- a feral creature, and all the more dangerous for it.

  Von Ratched lashed out, catching her in a telekinetic hold. Enough is enough, he thought, willing to snap her neck from a distance if he had to.

  He never got the chance. Lorna fought his hold -- fought it, and broke it. He felt its rending like a physical force, and it sent a bolt of ice down his spine. Only once in his very long life had anything ever torn itself free of his telekinesis, and Lorna certainly shouldn't be able to.

  But that shock was nothing to what came next. She lashed out in turn, seizing him, and he actually had to fight to throw it off. Oh, she'd found her potential, his Lorna -- she'd tapped a well of strength even he hadn't known she'd possessed.

  His shock must have betrayed itself, for she laughed. It was the most chilling sound he'd ever heard, for there was madness in it, a note of something close to insanity. He had to kill her, because the thought of letting her loose on the world was not to be borne.

  Without warning he lunged at her, his fingers closing around her too-bony shoulders as he knocked her onto her back. No matter how fierce or strong Lorna ways, he still outweighed her by at least ninety pounds, all of which was muscle. She'd grown outright gaunt in the last weeks, her cheeks hollow, her neck so slender he only needed one hand to start choking the life out of her. He knew he likely had mere moments before her instinctive telekinesis loosed itself on him -- he had to crush her trachea now, while he had the chance.

  The thought barely had time to flit through his mind before a horrible, throbbing pain exploded through the whole right side of his body. It was so intense and so sudden that his hold on Lorna loosened, and she threw him off her with unnatural strength.

  Warm wetness spread along his ribcage, and when Von Ratched's eyes opened, he saw Lorna stagger to her feet, a bloody knife clenched in her right hand. She was coughing horribly, gasping for breath he was surprised she could draw at all.

  She went very still, staring at him. The madness in her eyes cleared, and she caught him in a telekinetic hold he was too stunned to fight. He was bleeding badly -- he could feel it, smell it, the stench of hot copper mingling with the scent of smoke.

  "It's a shame we have to die, my dear," she croaked, sounding like she quoted something, "but no one's getting out'v here this time."

  She swayed a little on her feet, her grip weakening, and Von Ratched snapped it and lashed it back at her quick as a blink. Lorna staggered again, hissing in pain, his blood loss had left him too dizzy to follow up with a fatal attack. Perhaps she was right -- perhaps they would both die here, would end the conflict they'd been locked in since they met.

  He struggled to his feet through sheer force of will, his head spinning, but he didn't reach out for her. He couldn't, and not just because of his wounds. All he could do was stare at Lorna, for her bloody, soot-streaked face was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, so lovely it arrested him where he stood. His rage and bloodlust drained as he watched her watching him, leaving only exhaustion and pain. Her hair had come loose from its braid, a wild mass of black and a silver stained red-gold, that in his blurred vision glowed like a corona. She was beautiful and terrible and so very, very alive, and all his will to kill her wasn't enough to make him try.

  How had he ever thought he'd loved her, before? What he'd thought to be love paled at what he felt now, now that he saw in her an avenging angel, a creature so far above him as to be untouchable. He knew the blood loss was affecting him, but that was not the cause of his strange new perception of her.

  Lorna too stood frozen, looking startlingly conf
licted. Logically Von Ratched should use that hesitation, should turn it against her, but he couldn't. He couldn't bring himself to even move.

  That refusal cost him. White-hot agony exploded through his leg, and he heard the crack as her telekinesis snapped his left shin. He fell before he could help it, clenching his teeth against a cry.

  His vision went momentarily grey, and when his eyes focused again, he saw Lorna beside him, looking down at him with an expression he couldn't read.

  "I'm not meant to kill you," she said, her abused voice barely above a whisper. "Your death doesn't lie in my hands, so I'm told. Whatever fate lies ahead'v you, it's not mine to decide."

  She turned away before Von Ratched could speak, and her retreating form was the last thing he saw before his vision tunneled into darkness.

  ----

  Lorna's pain had been forced into a tiny container at the back of her mind. Her throat hurt like a bastard, but even that pain was muted. It could cripple her later, when she wasn't trying not to die.

  She didn't know why Von Ratched paused, but damn if she wasn't going to use it. He was such a stubborn bastard that his knife wound alone shouldn't have slowed him down, yet he paused, and stared at her like he'd never seen her before. She really didn't want to speculate what might be going on in that fractured head of his.

  Kill him, she ordered herself. He's practically offering his head on a silver platter. Do it.

  It was only common sense, but Lorna couldn't move. Doubt nagged at her, cold as the snow beneath her feet. It warned her away, and at first she didn't know why. Not until the Lady's words echoed in her head.

  What you do will determine what you are to become. What the hell did that mean? If she killed Von Ratched now, with this power of hers, would she become a monster like him?

  Yes.

  The thought felt alien. It sounded like the Lady, not her, and it was not what she wanted to hear. How could she let him live? How could she risk loosing him on the world again? He'd done so much damage already, and now she was supposed to leave him with the chance to do more? She might risk becoming a monster, but Von Ratched unquestionably was one.

  He'd stayed still, while doubt and fury warred in her mind. The firelight made his eyes glow in a way that was downright demonic, his face was a filthy mask of soot and sweat and blood -- he looked so far from anything like his normal self that he seemed a different person. For the first time since Lorna had met him, there was no trace of anything predatory in his expression. He looked almost…stricken, and she realized that the cruelest thing she could do was let him live. She'd broken him as he hadn't managed to break her, whether he knew it yet or not.

  No, she couldn't kill him, but that didn't mean she couldn't slow him down -- nor could she deny nature the chance to finish him off for her. If he was truly meant to live, if he truly wanted to, he'd fight his way free no matter what. She wouldn't leave him the ability to follow her, but she'd leave him a slight chance of survival.

  She lashed out with her telekinesis and snapped his right shin, and couldn't suppress a vicious little smile when he went down. Lorna had to give him grudging credit for not screaming; even she couldn't have stayed silent through that, but Von Ratched hardly made a sound.

  She spoke to him, but she was hardly aware of what she said. Honestly, she wasn't sure he'd even heard her, given how fast he blacked out.

  For a long while she stood and watched him, while the pounding of her heart slowed and her sweat began to chill. Her throat burned, and without the rush of adrenaline the ache in her leg and shoulder crept back. Her left arm hurt like a motherfucker, too, and when she went to move it, fiery pain shot from her wrist to her shoulder. Christ, had the bastard broken it?

  That's all I need, she thought dimly. Her thoughts had grown very fuzzy, distant, as though her mind was wandering away from her abused body. Lorna couldn't blame it -- she wondered, just as dimly, if she was going into shock.

  When she stepped forward, agony wracked her from her neck to her toes, and she couldn’t help but cry out. Yes, the fucker had broken her arm, and the fire in her right side told her he'd probably cracked a few of her ribs, too.

  With a cry that was as much anger as pain, she reached to break both his feet, just because she could. She had no choice but to move forward like this -- let him have to drag himself back to his goddamn helicopter.

  If she'd known what she was doing, Lorna would have taken the thing herself, but she had next to no clue how to pilot anything, helicopter or otherwise. She did think about raiding it for supplies, but the thought of using anything of his left her vaguely nauseated.

  She swayed on her feet, her vision fuzzing. Whatever she did, she couldn't stay here, but the loss of her adrenaline high left her exhausted as well as hurting. The thought of walking was more than she could bear.

  A faint whine snapped her out of her trance. Her wolf had crept back to her, picking its way through the debris, and Lorna blinked. Until now, she hadn't properly registered the extent of the devastation she and Von Ratched had caused -- between them, they'd felled trees for maybe a quarter of a mile around them, an uneven circle of death. Some of the dryer bits had been set alight by her scattered fire, though the snow kept it from spreading. It looked like the impact of a missile strike.

  "Jesus," she muttered, and winced at the pain in her throat.

  Her wolf nuzzled her hand again, and Lorna leaned against it. No, walking was out of the question, but she'd ridden wolves before. If she was lucky, she'd pass out before her shock wore off, and could force her to actually think about what had just happened.

  She collapsed onto the wolf's back, hissing as pain telegraphed through what felt like every nerve in her body. True consciousness didn't last long, but she wasn't fortunate enough to pass out entirely, either. Her world faded to murky grey, her mind shutting down to the point where even her physical agony dulled. It was something akin to a trance, and she sank into it full willing.

  And she stayed that way until the wolf stopped. When coherence returned, she found she was too cold to feel any real pain, her entire body numb. Her mouth tasted like old blood, and she had frost -- actual frost -- in her hair.

  It took her eyes a moment to focus, and when they did, she found the sky streaked gold with the dawn. Once again, all around her was silent and still, as tranquil as though her battle with Von Ratched had never happened.

  Lorna had no idea how far they'd gone, she and her wolf, and she couldn't summon the energy to wonder what she was to do now. Most of her supplies had been buried in the wreck she'd left behind; she had only the knife, still caked with Von Ratched's blood.

  The wolf whined, and she raised her head, blinking the frost from her eyelashes.

  At first, she thought she must be hallucinating. Not ten feet from her stood a building, long and low and slope-roofed. She had no idea what it was, and she didn't care -- it was shelter, and with any luck it would have medical supplies.

  Her limbs flatly refused to cooperate when she tried to stand, dumping her ingloriously into the snow. The impact woke all her hurts with a vengeance, the pain so intense and all-consuming that she almost passed out again.

  "Motherfucker," she ground out through her teeth. Her vision swam, black sparkles dancing before her eyes, and she had to roll over to dry-heave into the snow. There was too little in her stomach to bring up, but not for want of trying.

  She had to cling to the wolf to rise, and it was all she could do to limp her way to the door. Summoning enough telekinesis to break the lock took far longer than it should have, and she almost fell over again when it gave.

  The interior was dark and chilly, but she found a switch that turned on actual electric lights. It was a Spartan little place, she found, this outer room containing rows of bunks and nothing more.

  Her wolf followed her inside, and when she'd shut the door and collapsed onto a bunk, it lay on the floor beside her. Lorna was out like a light again not thirty seconds later.

 
; ----

  Katje was in conference with Miranda when the office phone rang. Miranda, absorbed in the pile of paperwork Katje had handed her, hit speakerphone without lifting the receiver. "What?" she asked irritably.

  "We have a break-in at the Fourth Canadian base." Julifer's voice, though distorted by the speaker, sounded confused.

  "Von Ratched?" Miranda demanded, her head snapping up.

  "No. It's a woman and a wolf."

  Katje went rigid. "What does she look like?"

  Julifer sighed. "Hell, at the moment. Little woman, long hair, looks like she got in the mother of all bar fights."

  "Lorna," Katje breathed. It had to be Lorna -- how many other people were likely to match that description, in that place?

  "Go get her," Miranda ordered. "Alert Medical."

  "Carefully," Katje added. "Scaring Lorna is a good way to get bones broken. Fuck it," she said, standing. "I will go with you. She knows me."

  She hurried out of Miranda's office, cursing the labyrinth that was the DMA. Even finding the medical team took what felt like eternity, and then it was a half-hour tram ride to get even close to the right Door. Maybe she should have brought Ratiri, but if Lorna was that badly off, it was probably best he not see her right away.

  Heart pounding, throat desert-dry, Katje ran after the team, hoping to God Lorna wouldn't be dead before they got there. Two weeks in the wilderness couldn't have been good for her, especially after being shot, and it sounded like something had attacked her on top of it all. Woman had to be made of the same old shoe-leather as Geezer.

  Julifer had said there was a wolf, but she hadn't mentioned that it was the size of a small pony. It sat beside Lorna like a monstrous guard-dog, its teeth bared ever so slightly.

  Lorna laid a hand on its head, blinking. "For the love'v Christ, tell me you're the good guys." She sounded absolutely horrible, like her vocal cords had been replaced with sandpaper.

  "You look like you got in a fight with a bear," Katje said, and then, because this was Lorna, she added, "Did you?"