The Awakening s-1

by L. L. Foster

  He deserved no less for the dirty trick he'd pulled on her.

  "Since you're being so agreeable, cop, you might as well find out where the indigent cancer patients are sent when they don't have family to look out for them. It's probably a government facility of some sort. You know the type—looks pretty on the outside, but inside it not only lacks proper care but also borders on abuse and neglect. Sort of like the old-folks' homes that are forever getting busted."

  Luther started to speak, and Gaby slashed a hand through the air, silencing him.

  "After that, you can make damn sure that a just-deceased patient by the name of Ms. Davies is properly put to rest."

  Going as high as the bandage on his head would allow, Luther's brows lifted. "Let me guess. You're worried about a zombie now?"

  Maintaining her grip on his shirt, Gaby jerked him down closer to her. He winced in pain, but she'd already used up her meager well of sympathy on him.

  "No, you smart-ass. I'm worried about a doctor clever enough to make it look like someone has died when she hasn't."

  Abrupt comprehension honed Luther's features. Finally, finally, he put stock in what she said.

  His brows crunched back down. "Dr. Marton?"

  "You really do have a problem remembering that no-questions rule, huh?"

  "Fuck your rule. Why do you suspect Dr. Marton?"

  "He treats cancer patients."

  "So?"

  Now that he was riled, Gaby relaxed a little. "I don't know of anything specific, but I imagine there are all types of drugs that could cause the illusion of death. Then maybe that same doctor could have the body moved—"

  "Jesus."

  "—to a place where he can let the cancer take over. Maybe even cultivate it."

  Luther stared at her as if she'd grown two heads. "Why on earth would anyone, but especially a doctor, do something that gruesome?"

  "How should I know? There are sick fucks everywhere—but maybe a doctor with a twisted mind would do it for science or some such shit." For emphasis, to make sure that he got the whole picture, Gaby went up on her toes so that their noses almost touched. "Think about it, Luther. What else would explain these strange tumors you described?"

  Luther's mouth opened in shock, and then closed again. "I don't know. But Gaby… what you're suggesting, well… You're serious about this?"

  "Yup, sorry, cop, but I am. Whether or not you believe me, whether you do anything about it or not, that's totally up to you. I don't have the time or the inclination to try to convince you."

  She released him with a shove, but took only one step before coming back around and shoving her face up to his again. "And by the way, it was pretty damn cruel of you to make me sexually aware of stuff when I can't do jack shit about it. I don't know what you were thinking, but let me tell you, it flat-out sucks."

  Her charge tipped his composure. His voice dropped and his harsh appearance softened. "Gaby—"

  Now that she'd had her say, no way in hell would she stick around to discuss it with him. "Come on, Mort. Get a move on."

  With a long stride and fast feet, she made her way down the corridor, not caring if Mort followed or not, and sure as certain not about to look back to see Luther's reaction.

  He was cruel.

  Cruel, and confusing, and now in the middle of trying to expose a madman bent on unleashing monsters demented from cancerous afflictions on the unsuspecting public, she couldn't stop thinking about sex.

  With Luther.

  She wasn't at all certain exactly how it'd work, but she knew it'd probably be real nice. Maybe the nicest thing to ever happen to her miserable life.

  The painful truth was, she'd never know for sure.

  She couldn't know.

  Paladins didn't have sex. They obeyed God's command. And so far, God hadn't told her to do the nasty with a detective, and definitely not with Luther Cross. Somehow, Gaby didn't think He ever would.

  And that was the crudest truth of all.

  Chapter Twelve

  "Gaby?"

  Anger kept her stewing in silence.

  Anger at cancer for being so ugly, so devastating; at Luther for making her curious about things; at God, for making her who she was.

  And at herself, for being too weak to change her untenable circumstances.

  But she wasn't angry at Mort, so as they exited the air-conditioned hospital and walked out into the balmy night, she swallowed her ire and gave in to him. "What is it?"

  "Why were you so upset in the hospital?"

  "It's a long story, Mort, but I've known cancer and the damage it does. Being around it, feeling all that malignant evil just makes me ill."

  "You felt evil there?"

  Through the impenetrable darkness. Gaby gaped at him. "How could you not feel it?"

  They reached his beat-up, aged sedan and got inside. Mort started the engine, but didn't drive away. Tall security lamps sent elongated fingers of light through the windshield. Gaby could just see the faint outline of Mort's smile.

  "I guess I couldn't feel anything bad because I felt so much good stuff instead."

  Good stuff? Had he flipped? "What the hell are you talking about now? Everyone in there has both feet in the friggin' grave. Jesus, Mort, they're all dying."

  "Not the people who cared for them. They were alive and busy and they all sounded so concerned for that poor Ms. Davies." His hands flexed on the steering wheel. "That can't be an easy job, Gaby."

  It'd be more of a hell than what she already did. "I couldn't do it."

  "Me, either. Those people are angels."

  Angels on earth? Maybe. She'd never really concerned herself with them. Her purpose centered on evil, not good. "That's my point. It's depressing."

  "But they give comfort and hope—"

  "Hope for what? A quicker death? A less painful death? Doesn't matter, they're still dead." Why the hell did he want to argue this with her? "I could smell it. The only thing that smelled worse was antiseptic."

  "I thought it smelled sterile, to protect the patients from germs." He put the car in gear and pulled out of his parking spot. "I'll tell you what. It smelled a whole lot better than that carcass that got hung in the foyer, or the blood on the stairs. It smelled better than the garbage cans that sit in the sun and bake." He glanced her way. "It smells better than the basement we use to clean our laundry."

  Propping her feet on the dash and slumping into her seat, Gaby considered his words—and had to agree. "I guess you're right."

  Her concession must've given him courage, because Mort didn't let it go there. "But you picked up on more than the people dying, the nurses, and the smells of the place, didn't you. Gaby?"

  She was just tired enough, just fed up enough, to say, "Yeah."

  "You know someone there is doing something evil, huh?"

  "Someone is always doing something evil, Mort. It's the way of the world. Get used to it."

  "But like you said, some stuff is normal evil, and some isn't. When you change, it's to make you better able to deal with the abnormal stuff, huh?" This time, he didn't even give her time to reply. "In the alley, when you fought those… things. You were awesome. Like an avenging angel. Even in movies, I haven't seen anyone move like that. And you didn't look so much like you. It was… well, not weird, so don't get offended again. Just sort of amazing."

  Gaby groaned. All her life, she'd assumed if anyone knew the truth of her, they'd call her a freak.

  Instead, Mort damn near idolized her.

  "There are no superheroes, Mort."

  "You saved Luther. You saved that poor girl from more humiliation and worse. Against you, no one stands a chance, not a rapist and not a ghoul."

  "Those things after Luther weren't ghouls. They were evil people punished by God, and tormented by a human. Odds are they didn't even know what they were doing. So much suffering would have to affect someone mentally."

  "They were attacking Luther!"

  "I don't know about that. Neither
of them was agile enough or strong enough to do any damage to a big man like him."

  "He was hit in the head. Hurt."

  "Yeah, but did they do it? I dunno." She put her head back and watched passing shadows out the window. "The one thing had a useless leg. It was there, but the appendage didn't work, so if anything, that would have slowed him down. And that woman… her throat had been eaten away with disease. She only wanted help." Gaby closed her eyes. "Unfortunately for all of us, she was beyond help, in life and death."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Her body was too deteriorated with disease to ever recover. And her past was too tainted for her to get any type of afterlife. God wouldn't have—"

  Catching herself, Gaby clamped her lips together.

  Too late; Mort caught her misstep. "God wouldn't have what?"

  He wouldn't have sent Gaby to demolish the creature if she'd had any redemption at all. "Nothing."

  "Did He send you after her?"

  She kept her lips firmly sealed. Anything she said would only make it worse. She'd turned into a damned blabbermouth and that just wouldn't do.

  "I saw you, Gaby. I know something happened to you. That's why I followed you. After I saw what you did, well, I want to keep helping."

  "You've done enough. But… thanks."

  "Could you maybe do an exorcism?"

  The absurdity of that almost brought a laugh from the humorless well of her soul. "No."

  "But if evil possesses those beings, then maybe an exorcism could—"

  "It's not like that, Mort. I wish it were that easy. Evil doesn't come from hell to possess people. It is people. Some people, anyway."

  He drove on in silence, rendering Gaby rigid with guilt for stifling his small hope.

  Then it struck her, what she wanted to do next. Mort would feel useful, and she could gain more clues. "Hey."

  He glanced at her.

  "Feel like a drive?"

  "Uh… I am driving."

  "Yeah, but not in the direction I want." She instructed him toward the section of town where she destroyed the first creature. Rather than go the usual route, she took him past the abandoned Cancer Research Center that she remembered was visible from the road. The broad face of the building stood as an eerie specter in the darkness.

  Mort shivered. "Now that feels creepy."

  "I know," She opened her door. "You want to help, Mort?"

  His uneasy gaze went past her to look again at that imposing structure. "Yeah."

  "Then I need you to stay here, with the doors locked and the engine running. No, don't argue."

  He closed his mouth against the automatic protests.

  "If anyone shows up, anyone suspicious, drive away, but only go around the block and then come back. If you aren't here when I come back out of the woods, I'll hide and wait for you, okay?"

  "This isn't a very nice part of town."

  So much for him playing sidekick. "No shit, but you'll be safe enough. I promise."

  Big eyes turned to her. "You'd feel it if anyone tried to hurt me?"

  Hell, she honestly didn't know. It came down to that contrast of commonplace evil versus the deviant, preternatural evil. If a bully came after Mort, a drug dealer or a punk from a gang, that'd be an everyday type of crime, and she might not have a clue. "Look, just keep the doors locked and pay attention, and nothing can hurt you, right?"

  His bony shoulders straightened. "Right. I'll be here, Gaby. I won't let you down."

  She did not want him to take any stupid chances. "Stow the melodrama and keep alert. I'll be back in fifteen minutes." She slammed the door, waited while Mort secured all the locks, and then faced the anomalistic presence that hid in aged brick and mortar.

  This, she decided, was where the core of malevolence issued forth. She would find her answers here.

  Uneasily, Gaby moved forward. She remembered that the research hospital hid the smaller buildings behind it, especially the isolation hospital. That's where the auras had been most frenetic and disjointed, as if many discontented souls had coalesced into one excruciating, violent emanation.

  She felt it now.

  Drawing her. Pulling her in.

  Being receptive to the energy of others had its drawbacks; Gaby sensed it wasn't only evil spirits at play. The emanations could also be coming from those who had led desperately unhappy lives—or those who faced terrible deaths.

  The grip of so many forces had the ability to bleed her of her own resources. In the normal course of things, she'd withdraw from the area, from the person or people depleting her.

  But this wasn't normal.

  This was her mission, not God's. She wasn't His conduit, as was usually the case when she faced evil, and that alone made it exceedingly dangerous. If she didn't fight the allure, it might consume her. And if that happened, who would look after Mort?

  Who would protect Luther?

  Uncaring whether curious eyes might notice, Gaby withdrew her knife. Having it in her hand amped up her courage. High weeds and prickly scrub shrubs knicked the skin on her feet and snagged in her jeans. Gaby pressed forward, past the looming structure, into the woods, and beyond.

  With each step, her heart beat harder and faster until it pained her. "Fuck," she whispered, just to hear her own voice. "Fuck, fuck, fuck. Who are you?"

  Far ahead, she saw a faint illumination through the shrouding woods.

  Fear evaporated in the face of discovery.

  Hunkering down behind a broken tree trunk, Gaby watched. Weaving with the cadence of footsteps, the light shifted, dimmed, and grew brighter.

  Ah. Someone carried a flashlight and the uneven ground made the light bounce and shudder. Who? And why be in the woods this late at night?

  Sounds reached her attuned ears, footsteps, crunching leaves, soft crooning.

  She also heard great suffering.

  Then… coercion. And joy.

  Horror at those combined murmurings kept Gaby still. She saw it all as a human, and hated the view. Why did God do this to her? Why now, and why with this particular wickedness?

  There were no answers, and she strained her ears to hear more. A small brook, relaxing in its monotone flow. Bubbling. Gurgling…

  Choking.

  Comprehension brought Gaby to her feet. No! That wasn't water; it was… spittle. Life.

  Being crushed out of another.

  Unthinking of her own possible peril, of where to go or what to do, Gaby charged forward. She tripped over fallen branches and rocks, rushed back to her feet only to be snagged in dead foliage and grabbed by thorny weeds. She fought wildly to free herself.

  All in vain.

  With the first thundering rush of her footsteps, the light went out and the woods fell dead silent.

  Oh please. She searched, but there was nothing, no life and no death and no noise, movement, or light of any kind.

  It was so silent that she knew it wasn't natural. The night breathed and shifted; it made its presence known. But not tonight. This night was utterly still.

  She couldn't do anything about it. Not in the darkness, alone.

  In the daylight, she'd come back.

  In the daylight, she'd make someone, or something, very sorry.

  Defeat left a bitter taste in her mouth and filled her heart with heavy stones. Her weakness had allowed someone to die.

  Someone to murder.

  She found Mort where she'd left him, and he was so relieved to see her that at first he asked no questions. Anxious to be out of the area, he just drove.

  It wasn't until a few minutes later when they'd reached the apartment that he said, "Well?"

  "Nothing," she lied. "A dead end." She wouldn't take Mort back there with her. She wouldn't involve him. Never again. Her skin still crawled with the taint of iniquitous depravity. She would destroy the evil, but she'd do so while protecting Mort, whatever it took.

  It struck Gaby that she'd once thought her life complicated, when in fact, it was absurdly simple. But now
, the more she interacted with regular, normal people, the more twisted and gnarled it made her life, and she feared she'd never get it unraveled again.

  One thing was certain: having a friend was a real pain in the ass.

  Midafternoon on the next day, Gaby found Luther on a basketball court. A much smaller bandage had replaced the wrapping around his head.

  Hell of a way for a man with a concussion to behave, Gaby thought. He didn't exert himself overly, but he didn't sit on the sidelines either.

  Rather than call out to him, she sat cross-legged on the lawn beneath the shade of a tall tree, and just observed. He played with a bunch of inner-city kids in a rainbow of colors: ebony, pink, beige, brown, caramel. Boys and girls. Some barefoot, most stick-thin. They looked to be around nine or ten.

  They enjoyed themselves.

  So did Luther.

  It felt odd to see someone so carefree and happy, someone who knew about the cancer, and the malevolence, and the doctor…

  Had he even checked into it all, as she'd asked?

  Or had he blown off her directions to play instead? That is, if you could call civic duty on a hot afternoon "play."

  Gaby looked up at the blistering sun. It had to be eighty-five, which was cooler than they'd had lately, but under a cloudless sky was still hot enough to roast. The blacktop court would amplify the heat. A concussion would amplify the discomfort.

  Luther didn't seem to mind.

  He looked good in dirty white sneakers, gray sweatpants.

  and nothing else. Gaby had seen men without shirts before, but none like Luther. He had a naturally strong body, not muscles carved in a gym. Sweat gleamed on his sleek shoulders and darkened his chest hair. Gaby visually followed the path of that hair as it narrowed to a line running down his abdomen to his navel, and into his sweats.

  He turned, feigned a shot, and then allowed a kid to steal the ball from him.

  Her heart skipped at the sight of his smile.

  Hands on his knees, head hanging and blond hair sweaty, he called it quits. "That's it, kids. I'm beat. You've done me in."

  A chorus of complaints rang out, but Luther just straightened on a laugh, ruffled hair, patted backs, and walked to a bench to get a towel. Another cop, this one a shapely female, took his place.