Wild Thing

by L. J. Kendall

  Yet moments later, chaos flared like migraine lightning across the whole scene. There was a presence nearby, wild with disorder.

  Disten stood and turned, sensing it, feeling it draw toward him. Something about it felt… linked to the girl? Affected by the girl?

  As he approached, it stilled, then drifted closer, before suddenly flaring again, jerking away; then, it too was gone. Fled?

  Disten stood unmoving for a minute, considering the bodies. Useless. The… spirit? Had it been the spirit of the girl? It had felt very different, however. Far more ordered. Would it return?

  The bodies were checked; searching for CIDs, clues…. Nothing.

  Distant sirens wailed their ever-present cries through the night sky. Wind plucked at the jacket.

  There was nothing more to be found, or done, here.

  At last, Disten walked back along the route traversed earlier. The hospital should still be able to provide at least one useful subject.

  Chapter 48

  Leeth had disappeared soon after dinner. Now Harmon sought her out, though he wasn't entirely sure why, himself. He did want to talk to her. But more than that, a faint unease prickled at him. Something about her distracted air during dinner…

  Carefully Percepting while he opened the door to her bedroom – he'd learned the importance of quickly locating her in the dark – Harmon looked about cautiously.

  Strange. She wasn't in sight. He stepped back a little and fully opened his mind's eye to the flooding input of the Imaginal realm, twisting the well-learned detection pattern into existence to cast the spell.

  Still no result. Odd. She must be shielded. No doubt outside, beyond the inner Barrier, prowling the grounds in the dark.

  The thought of going out there to look for her was… unappealing, somehow.

  A horrible thought sent him racing back to his office, but tapping into the video feed from Godsson's cell showed the inmate simply muttering and pacing. Alone. Of course.

  He even visited Godsson, but the man was no help. If anything, he was worse than usual, rubbing his hands together and nodding as if he knew the answers to Harmon's question about where she was.

  'Sara will be in my service soon enough, Alex,' he had smiled, beatifically. 'Although you and She have tempted her, when she is Perfect, she will be free. All will be freed.'

  There was something unnerving about those words. Hurrying from the cells, he resumed his search in earnest.

  In the cold outside, glad of his long coat, he stood just beyond the Institute's inner Barrier. But recasting the simple detection spell still produced no result. Now he was truly worried. That implied she was neither within the inner barrier, nor within the outer. She must be shielded.

  She couldn't have left the Institute – she would have been unable to get out undetected. Weren't there cameras, or something?

  Had she fallen, knocked herself unconscious, perhaps? No: the detection spell would still have given him a distance and direction. She had to be shielded from the magic somehow. Oh, hell. Had she been digging a tunnel, and the earth collapsed on top of her? Magic could not penetrate the earth. And digging a tunnel was just the sort of bizarrely stupid escapade she would dream up.

  She could be trapped, suffocating to death.

  Lights from the Institute cast a wan illumination across the cold and dewy lawn as he flung himself free of his body. If the earth had collapsed, he should be able to sense that disturbance from the Imaginal.

  Beside him, the brain-hurting Barrier englobed and hid the main building. His spirit darted away, scouring the ground.

  But still he failed to locate her.

  Hours had passed now since their evening meal. He could do a full Sending, of course, but he would need an hour just to refresh the ritual circle for the location spell. He called the security officer.

  'Shanahan, have you seen Sara? I can't seem to find her. Is she out wandering in the grounds again?'

  'No, Doc. Everybody's inside. Here, I'll check.'

  Harmon tried to stay unconcerned as his co-worker queried his network.

  'No. She went outside earlier, but came back about an hour and a half ago.' He could hear the grimace in Shanahan's voice. 'Though she's given the system the slip once or twice. You want me to run a full search?'

  'No. It's probably easier for me. No need to activate all the systems,' and file a report tomorrow.

  Shanahan didn't sound concerned. 'Okay. But ping me if you change your mind, Doc.'

  'Certainly.'

  Annoyed by the cold of his now-damp coat, he strode through the dark to the little-used Rituals block. The small circle there, set up for clairvoyance, should be adequate. Abruptly he stopped and reversed his path. First, he'd need something of Leeth's. Hair from her hairbrush.

  He was cursing under his breath by the time he finally returned to the rituals area with the necessary material. Damn the girl. It would be after midnight before he'd locate her, now.

  The ritual ceremony was tediously complex, and required his full attention, despite his chafing certainty that something had happened to her.

  Finally, Harmon felt the Imaginal link form, the initial surge of relief followed by a wave of shock as he sensed it snake far away into the night. Far beyond the walls enclosing the grounds. How had she gotten out? And undetected? Shaking his head, he cast the clairvoyance spell down the connection.

  His breath hissed out in dismay at the midnight scene of distant menace.

  Hands clenching and unclenching, wishing he could hear what was being said, he watched the two youths and the mutants closing around her. Couldn't she see what they planned?

  It wasn't clear what started the fight, but he groaned in dismay as the bad situation worsened. He watched with shocked pleasure as she disposed of the ogre threatening her. But then his joy vanished at the speed of her second attacker, armed with a knife. In the half-dark, he watched in confusion as her attacker toppled sideways off her body, clutching his stomach, and Leeth rolled the other way, onto her hands and knees. He saw her breathe in, great racking breaths. What had she done?

  Where was she?

  Abruptly, another figure moved forwards into the range of his spell. The youth held a gun! He caught a glimpse of the boy's face, twisted in an ugly snarl of rage, spitting angry words at her.

  In cold dismay, he watched as Leeth suddenly exploded toward him, while the boy's arm lifted and the gun fired!

  He cursed vividly as the two collided – and both went down. Cold dread shot down his spine as she lay, feebly moving, on the ground.

  'No!' He screamed, nearly losing control of his spell. 'Sara! Get up!' he shouted futilely. 'Leeth! You stupid girl!'

  He forced himself to breathe slowly. Gradually he calmed.

  Clearly, she was in New Francisco. And if he could find her within sixty minutes, he could probably heal her. That was the time limit. Cell death could be reversed up until one hour had elapsed. So he had read.

  But where was she? He couldn't shift the clairvoyance spell, since it was focused on her. Try to track her Imaginally? It would be confusing, but probably his best chance.

  His attention snagged on a new figure, thin, who edged shakily forward, fearfully checking each of the bodies. Hadn't one of the youths fled, when the fight started? It straightened up and stood hugging itself for a few seconds, then darted forwards, grabbed up something from the ground, the gun perhaps, then scrabbled around for something else a little distance away. Finally, the thin youth ran off out of the range of his spell, into the night.

  Harmon let out his breath.

  With an effort, he manipulated his viewpoint until he was looking upwards toward the New Francisco skyline. Then cursed himself for stupidity as he realized that, of course, it was much too far away to be inside the limited sphere of vision which the clairvoyance spell provided.

  The Institute did have a vehicle. But the laser range-finder unit had developed a fault months ago, so he couldn't trust its auto-drive. Nor could
he manually drive and follow an astral link at the same time. Sweating from the effort required to maintain concentration on his spells, he ordered a cab, maximum priority. At this point, cost didn't matter.

  The Sending had served its purpose, allowing him to link a clairvoyance spell to her. But already that linkage was fading. He knew what that meant.

  Stepping delicately through the ritual circle, he carefully released the Sending while holding the link from the spell. One less thing to concentrate on.

  From outside the barrier of the circle, he lay down on the cold floor. Now would come the hardest part: holding just enough awareness of his body to keep the clairvoyance running, while setting his spirit free. He had never tried to do this before. But it should, theoretically, be possible.

  He eased his spirit from his body.

  For a moment he felt the magic slipping from his grasp, but the image of Leeth's still body seemed to focus his concentration wonderfully. Then he was racing through the night, his astral form following the tenuous thread of his spell.

  Seconds later, he hovered Imaginally over Leeth's still figure: she was dying. If only it were possible to cast spells while astrally projecting! Or to link anything more substantial than sensory input to a Sending. Like a healing spell. He had to fight down a wave of desperation, then began furiously searching for any clue to her location. Only to stop abruptly as a curtain of vast space descended on him. Something approached on the physical plane, its aura cold, hard, and utterly dark.

  It seemed to be bipedal. An android? Something about it seemed robotic.

  Its aura both repelled and fascinated him, radiating a sense of order as compelling as the gravitational pull of a black hole. But strangely hard to “see.” There were no twining, shifting patterns of desire and potential. No flares of hunger or emotion. Just the impression of readiness, like some complex coiled trap.

  He looked at Leeth's body, surprised by how calmly he could observe it now. He had drifted toward the unsettling presence, he noted, feeling a strong desire to be closer. What an elegant simplicity it had! His Imaginal surroundings seemed to be fading in a curious way, though. Becoming harder to sense, losing their meaning.

  It was the thing. Its structure is infectious, he suddenly realized! The knowledge simply appeared in his mind. He glided backwards, abruptly certain that in spirit form he was dreadfully exposed, vulnerable. He dare not come into contact. He backed further away.

  It simply stood, and he had the impression that the head moved, examining the small scene of carnage before it. Only seconds had passed since its arrival. Then it stilled, while Leeth's blood continued to drain onto the street of the slum.

  Panic brushed against him, but muffled, distant.

  The thing approached Leeth's prone body. Harmon was powerless to do anything except watch. The figure bent down, and he guessed it had made light.

  Seeing it and Leeth together made a horrible kind of symmetry, like seeing a positive and negative image of the same thing. He was suddenly intensely aware of Leeth as a flesh and blood animal. Himself, too.

  Was it a machine? But it couldn't be: only the living held auras.

  Backing further away, his surroundings snapped back into normality. It felt like he had just emerged from a dark, frozen cave. But the relief was short-lived, as panic slammed into him again with full force.

  He sensed the strange construct lose interest in Leeth and at that instant become aware of him, aware of his Imaginal form. But Harmon was already leaving, scanning for landmarks and cursing his way back to his body. He hoped the cab was on its way.

  It was going to be close.

  Harmon jumped from the cab, the driver obviously glad to see the last of him – clearly spooked once he'd realized his fare was a mage who was slipping in and out of his body as he located the thing he searched for.

  He was still cursing quietly as he stalked down the street, hoping he had correctly pinpointed her location. The grubby, depressing but wide alley seemed to echo what he had seen from his astral scouting; and the chain-link fence looked familiar from the clairvoyance. Fortunately, the road was deserted. The moon had risen, now, above the buildings. By its light, plastic bags pressed like white faces against the mesh of the fence, wind fluttering their edges and curling coldly under his still-damp coat.

  He came to the scene of carnage at last, although the bodies had been disturbed from how he'd last seen them. All had been rolled onto their backs, jackets opened and pockets emptied. Apparently scavengers had already picked the bodies clean, yet none had felt inclined to call the city-cops. He spared only a second or two scanning for the strange figure he'd sensed earlier.

  Whatever it had been, it was gone now.

  He ran toward Sara, his shoes sticky against the ground as he reached her. There seemed to be blood everywhere. Just like last time.

  Awkwardly, he crouched down to avoid soiling his overcoat, and reached out to touch her still body. No pulse, and already her skin was cooling. He felt his hands shaking; his heart thudding so hard it was a physical pain. Desperately, he shaped the healing spell and wove it through the small, bloodied form.

  The seconds ticked away, one by grudging one. Had it been too long? For a moment he had the peculiar sensation the spell resisted being cast. He sharpened his concentration, focusing the strange effort of will necessary in any spell-casting, forcing the panic away. Thoughts rolled through his mind in a curiously detached way, making him feel like an observer in his own head. He stared blankly north toward the distant streetlights, where background traffic rushed back and forth, oblivious to the small drama.

  He knew of one person brought back to life an hour after dying. The Journal of Metaphysical Practice, June, ’46. But there had been a strong emotional attachment in that case. He had no such attachment to Leeth. Merely a certain fondness.

  The seconds crawled past. In the dark, he couldn't see whether the gunshot wound was healing.

  Live, damn you!

  Suddenly, he felt the flow of willed-change shatter some intangible blockage, and seconds later a shiver ran through her. A little later she convulsed. He felt her heart start. Still he poured the healing into her. Suddenly her chest struggled, rose, a tortured wheeze as she clawed in air, then she was breathing again. He continued infusing her with the pattern of her own health, felt cells awaken and tissue knit together. Her eyes flickered open. Focused on his. For some reason, his eyes began to water.

  'Keepie,' she sighed. Then closed her eyes, smiling, as if soaking in a warm glow spreading from his touch. The surge of relief that flooded over him almost broke his concentration.

  From that moment on, the healing was scarcely harder than normal, though it took far longer. In mere minutes, she was uninjured, and sitting up. He turned on the light in his wristcomm, and by its wan glow saw that her head hung down, not looking at him.

  'Sometimes, Wild Thing, I don't know what to do with you!'

  Still she didn't look up.

  He reached out, lifted her chin. 'Sara, what on earth were you doing?'

  Her eyes reluctantly met his. She was scowling, with that expression that made her look so young.

  'Who's “Sara”?' she demanded.

  He blinked.

  'Sara,' he began, 'is a young lady who runs off without telling anyone where she's going, and then very nearly gets herself killed!' Her mouth opened to reply. 'And it's only by sheer luck I found you soon enough to still be able to heal you!'

  'I….' She looked down again.

  'Yes? I can see I've been sadly mistaken about how much you've really grown up. Obviously I've been giving you more responsibility than you can deal with.' He was breathing hard.

  Her mouth tightened in a stubborn line, and she wrenched herself out of his grip. Standing up, she turned her back on him. Suddenly, though, the tension drained out of her stance and she trotted over to one of the bodies, squatting down beside it to study it.

  His jaw worked in disbelieving fury. I just save
d her life, and she turns her back on me and walks away?

  He watched her reach out a hand to the body; gently push the head to one side. She stood, staring down.

  'Uncle.' Her voice sounded strange. 'How did I do that?'

  He scowled, but moved over to join her. Squinting in the dark, he aimed the small square of illumination of his wristcomm where she was pointing, then drew in his breath.

  The man's throat was slashed across. Four deep parallel wounds, half severing the neck.

  Remembering, he headed back to the bodies of her other attackers. Held the dim light over the stomach of the Altered. It looked similar – multiple deep horizontal slash wounds. He mentally played back what he had seen of the fight.

  'I don't know,' he answered slowly. Shifting his senses to the Imaginal, he studied her, carefully; took her hands and examined them closely. Especially her fingernails and fingertips. But in the end he was no wiser. 'All I know is that somehow, you did indeed do this.' He had the impression she was smiling.

  'I did pretty good, Keepie, didn't I?'

  'Yes, Leeth. You almost survived on your own, without my help,' he said, with enough sarcasm for even her to detect.

  There was a pregnant silence.

  'That's why I need lessons.'

  'I will be happy to teach you, Leeth. Though I warn you, the study of magic is difficult and slow, and you will need-'

  But she had started giggling, even putting out one shaky hand, begging him to stop. 'Why-ever did you think I meant magic, Keepie? I meant kung fu!'

  He stared at her, nonplussed, dazed by the depth of her unawareness. It appeared she was unconscious of the fact that, whatever she had done here tonight, it had involved magic. Somehow. He frowned.

  He stared at her in the dark, across the two bodies. Surely he had told her she had Unfolded. Hadn't he? Wind gusted around them and he saw her shiver, then at last look away. Rolling her shoulders, she plucked at her dress. 'Yuk! It's all sticky.'