Lethal Cure

by S A Gardner

  We turned a corner. Alien noises funneled from the corridor. Desolation and derangement curdling into sound.

  Ayesha. Oh God.

  Something acrid flooded my mouth. Blood. Answering anguish. My teeth in my tongue barely stopping an answering howl.

  Focus, dammit! “Did you get the patients out of here?”

  “Couldn’t!” Lucia panted. “Doug was at the exit. I took them back to my room. I have no idea if I got everyone.”

  One way to make sure that this wasn’t an issue. Remove the threat. “Listen to me, Lucia. I want you all in one place. Get them all and run to IC, barricade it.”

  She stamped her foot. “No! I came for you because you’re the leader, so you can decide what to do. Now you have a plan, we can all help, get your back.”

  “Lucia, you’re the only fighter among them. The others know nothing about defending themselves against a berserk attacker. They’d only become more victims and get in my way. I can’t worry about them while trying to contain the others. I need you to protect them and Matt and Juan and Mercedes.”

  She growled her objection. My grip on her arm tightened to silence her. “You’re bleeding profusely. Get Savvy or Al to patch you up, start you on fluid replacement.”

  She shook her head, her stubborn selflessness acting up. “It’s superficial. I can last until we take care of the others.”

  “For God’s sake, Lucia. Do as you’re told.” Damian’s same words to me, so many times. Did I frustrate him like this? No wonder I drove him to extremes. Weird to think that now. I shoved her ahead. “Get patched up. When this is over I’ll need you more than ever. If they’re gone like Matt, and we’re the only two left standing, you’ll be all I have left!”

  She shuddered, agitation turning the hazel-brown of her eyes muddy black. Then she nodded. Ayesha’s ranting was coming nearer. Lucia’s room was through the other way. From there to IC, it took her out of Ayesha’s path.

  No telling if it would keep her out of the others’. No telling how many more of us would fall before it was over. Victims to either the phantom affliction, or its earlier victims.

  I grabbed Lucia’s arm as she turned away, snatched open my front-pack, shoved two dart guns in her hands. “If anyone else starts acting up, just shoot them. If you feel anything weird, call Damian first, then do it to yourself.”

  “What about you? What if you succumb, too?”

  “I don’t plan on going crazy until I take care of the others. If you’re the one left standing, you know what to do.”

  Then I went to hunt down my friends.

  Fifteen

  Five. Six now with Matt. My limbs and heart and backbone.

  I’d gone after each of them. Ayesha had been even worse than Matt. Ishmael—I still retched to remember how vacant and violent he’d been. And the others… Unendurable, seeing them that way.

  I shot them down on sight, each one on the first try. Until I shot Fadel, and Doug descended on me out of nowhere, as calm as ever—and almost gouged my neck out with his teeth. I broke his arm in the struggle when he wouldn’t let go, emptied of soul and coherence, bound on his macabre objective.

  They lay sedated in a row in IC. Absent, sabotaged. No clue as to how or who or why. No reason to hope they’d ever be back.

  The first twenty-four hours, we’d struggled to stabilize them, as we had Matt. Nothing had registered but the need to stop them from plunging into a vicious cycle of complications that would damage their vital systems beyond repair.

  Others around me had been perceived only as tools to extend my functions, other sets of needed arms and eyes. Mental processes beyond those concerned with medical methods and intervention had hovered at the periphery of my mind, in stasis.

  I’d gone through more than I was equipped to feel, the responsibility of fighting for them, the possibility of making a mistake that would only kill them faster depleting my sanity and stamina. We’d expended all measures, done all we could.

  Then investigations started coming in. With more dead ends.

  Mutant was unalterable. Further reactions just destroyed its structure and deactivated it. The drug hadn’t been the answer.

  Sir Ashton’s reports on Matt’s CSF and blood samples were the first to come. Then Damian’s. Our lab joined their opinions almost down to the last decimal in all values. No poisons, no infectious agents. Matt should be awake and active. I doubted the others’ samples would be any different. I still took one sample after another.

  Then numbness came.

  Numbness was good. General anesthesia for the soul, for the love and need and fear and all that weakened. Once I was cold and no longer felt the bludgeoning emotions, my processing powers surged back.

  Their collective affliction was a catastrophe. It was also my first solid clue.

  All I had to do was ask the right questions, follow the thread back to its origin. Why did Matt fall first? Why did the others follow simultaneously? And why only them?

  If this wasn’t the beginning and we’d all succumb one after another, if this illness hadn’t been infectious all the time and we weren’t already too late, there was one answer to each question.

  To answer why Matt first, assuming they’d been exposed to whatever it was at the same time, I could only theorize that his phenomenal exertion during our white-slavery bust was what had led to his accelerated manifestation.

  As to why them and only them, I had to take exposure to Matt out of the equation, since we’d all been exposed. No, those six had one thing in common. Something they shared that none of the rest of us did. Their covert vaccination mission in the tugurios, the refugee camps for internally displaced people on the outskirts of Bogotá, Colombia.

  Since then, they hadn’t been all together, not once. I’d double-checked. So the opportunity for them to get infected or poisoned en masse had been absent since Colombia. The idea of someone picking them off one by one didn’t gel, either. From the way five of them had developed symptoms simultaneously, they had to have been infected at the same time.

  Problem here was, they’d been in Colombia two months ago.

  So even if we solved the opportunity and the method angles, what would take so long to manifest?

  I had theories. Well thought out, detailed, logical. Insubstantial. And the only ones I had.

  It was time to reach out to all my resources. Starting with the one who’d helped us set up the Colombian mission, who had gotten us all the supplies we’d needed through his extensive influence in black markets and smuggling rackets.

  Dad.

  Sixteen

  “You think you can see that lunatic?” The missing link between boar and hippo—with heartfelt apologies to both noble species for the unfair metaphor—guffawed. “You gotta be kiddin’ me!”

  Stained teeth chomped at a sticky, misshapen doughnut to the rhythm of his snorts, jelly oozing out and glopping on his blue prison-guard shirt. Lucky thing I’d barfed earlier. At least now I was immune.

  I struggled to inject more schoolgirl primness in my stance, my expression. “I assure you, sir, I do have an appointment, so if you’ll please check it out.”

  “I ain’t checkin’ nothin’, sweetcakes. That nut’s in solitary.” Again? “He ain’t coming out anytime this winter. And he sure ain’t receiving no visitors where he is.”

  As if visits weze in abundance when Dad wasn’t locked up in solitary confinement.

  Seven years since he’d been taken from me and caged. For the first two years, I’d been there every visiting day, palm-to-palm across the communicating glass, heart breaking at being unable to bury myself in his arms, feverishly checking him for the injuries I feared a convicted cop would sustain on the inside. Then he’d set up his operation and I’d set up mine. I started missing visits, and he was in solitary more often than not.

  Then, in an effort to break up his control over the network of vigilantes he’d formed on the inside, he’d been bounced to three different maximum-security prisons. T
hen came the last two years—and that last warden.

  He’d stormed into the prison crying reform, holding press conferences, pledging that the wave of unprecedented prison violence and soaring mortality rates was at an end. He’d cracked down on Dad, limiting his contact with other prisoners to nil, taking away his activities and cutting off his communications with the outside world. Dad had managed to thwart all these efforts, to expand his operation. What he hadn’t been able to get around yet was the rescinding of his visitation rights. My visitation rights.

  Two years. I hadn’t seen him even once, had heard his voice only six times. It made me mad. Made me ache. A constant, permeating ache that stained my existence.

  He’d told me he’d been working on a solution through his most trusted contacts on the outside, men he’d saved in prison from fates far worse than death, who now would die for him. Last night, his top aide on the outside, Rafael, had told me the plan was in place, had given me the props I needed. But, hell, this gem about Dad being in solitary again hadn’t come up. What had he done this time? Had to have been something—terminal. Again.

  Couldn’t wait to find out.

  First I had to see him. Had to get around this lowlife.

  Malicious pleasure quivered on the guard’s corpulent cheeks. But it was his leer that almost persuaded my empty stomach to another uprising. “So, you say you’re here to interview that bruiser, huh? I’m new, just this week, but I did hear how he manages to get special treatment around here. Wouldn’t mind getting me some myself.”

  Down, Calista. Got to reign in my vicious vibes. Slugs like him turned vicious when exposed to female disgust. It held up the mirror they lived avoiding, and they would go to any lengths to punish those who shoved it in their faces. Small-fry or not, he was the one stationed in the prison’s visitation appointment office right now. I had no idea how long he’d be here. Antagonize him and he might mess up my chances of seeing Dad today. Or for two more years.

  Not an option. For my friends. Or my mental health.

  I leaned closer, giving him a good look at the press ID Dad had arranged for me. Just another of the dozens of identities his far-reaching connections had manufactured for me and my team on demand. Putting on my best unwitting expression, I toyed with the auburn wig’s bangs, breathed, “You want to have a biography written, too, sir? I’m sure your experiences here would be worth telling. Once you’ve been here longer, of course. Maybe we can discuss particulars, with your warden’s permission of course, after I’m done with Mr. St. James’s story.”

  His inanimate blue eyes jerked wider. “You an author?”

  Got him on that one, huh? I shook my head. “Just a ghostwriter. I put the facts together into an exciting read.”

  Still wondered how Dad knew they’d let his autobiographer in, when they wouldn’t allow his daughter. The daughter who blinked out of existence the moment she stepped out of the prison walls.

  Maybe he’d promised the warden a piece of the action. And to only reveal his exploits up until he’d been convicted of forty eight murder-one charges—murders of psychotic criminals who’d slipped through cracks in the justice system, from child rapists to serial killers. No doubt he’d promised to leave out his post-conviction activities. The scope of which even I had no full knowledge.

  So, according to Rafael, this was going to be the first of several regular meetings. Whatever regular meant. I hated that I was going in as a professional who’d be forced to sit across from him, pretending detachment and taking notes, and not the daughter who had the right to let my love and longing show.

  I hated the two years without Dad far more. Sure was in no position to have a preference. Shades of beggars and choosers!

  My artificially golden gaze now poured more innocent entreaty over the slimeball who was stopping me from having even that much of my dad. “So, sir, you will check?”

  Uncertainty wavered in his eyes as his opinion of me shifted from possible lay to possible gain. He slurped stickiness off his fingers, wiped the surplus on his bursting trousers, picked up the phone and reported my presence.

  My lenses almost popped out at the metamorphosis. Slimeball heaved up to his feet, hobbling ahead of me at maximum plodding speed, conciliatory smiles and apologies slopping off his over-fleshed lips all the considerable way to my destination.

  The waiting room to the warden’s office, no less.

  Dad must have talked big business with the guy. Sure hoped he had the plan fleshed out. The first clue to the publishing world and writing books didn’t feature among my tricks.

  The guard’s shambling footsteps receded outside as he returned to his station. Then silence. Weird.

  The warden’s office was segregated in a separate building, but we hadn’t met anyone on the way. His assistant’s desk was empty. The guard hadn’t even taken my ID in to him for verification.

  I heard a door open inside the office. Voices buzzed inside. Male. Deep, calm. Impatience mushroomed inside me.

  Cool it. Conjure up some good behavior.

  Good behavior. Yeah. Nice pun, in a prison.

  There was no chance even the best behavior could get Dad out any earlier than the fourth decade of the 21st century. Not that he knew the meaning of the term. Even as a cop, he’d always gone for bad behavior. The worst, with the deserving. And boy, had he been effective.

  Fact remained I couldn’t antagonize the people holding the key to his cell, his home for the duration, and to our link.

  Slow, powerful footsteps counted down the last seconds before the confrontation with his keeper. I forced my features into a whatever-you-want-me-to-be-I’m-it expression, my body language into I’m-harmless mode.

  The door snapped open, and everything inside me sat up.

  The blast of recognition hit first. Silence filled my ears, a brutal compression of vacuum, emptying my heart, stopping my vital functions.

  Dad.

  His form crowded my awareness. As he did the door frame. Vigor leapt off him, slamming into me. It was all there. The overwhelming presence, the enveloping charisma. The out-and-out connection. Dad. The one who’d infused me with my essence, the only one who shared it, on more levels that I’d ever fathom.

  The force of him, the sheer magnitude of his love and focus kept me upright. Couldn’t understand—couldn’t believe he was here, not behind bars or behind a glass wall—here! Nothing but air and a few steps between us.

  He opened his arms.

  And I was there. Buried deep and safe and uncaring of what I was revealing. Crushed, carried, cradled.

  Burrow deeper, hide in his embrace forever. Hide him, spirit him away, never let him out of your reach again.

  Dad…

  Moistness filled my mouth, his nearness, his every nuance permeating me. I’d withered without it all, gone mad with the futility and the injustice.

  I haven’t touched you in seven years.

  “Calista—my baby…” His voice resounded in my head, flooding me with everything unrestrained and unconquerable.

  I’d thought I knew weeping. When Clara died, when Dad was taken away, when Mom left, when Jake was lost, then found, then murdered by my hands, then Damian and Matt and the others…

  I never knew it was possible to lose all these fluids and remain conscious!

  “So where are you hiding the tear tanks?”

  Had he said…? He sure had.

  And I burst out laughing. “Oh, Dad…” I bit back the word. Yeah, sure, do be discreet now. After my Guinness Record’s breaking tear marathon, anyone listening in had to be brain-dead not to know who I was.

  But Dad didn’t seem worried. I took my cues from him. Always had. Always would.

  I wobbled after him to a black chesterfield couch. He sat down and I leaped onto his lap, curled up. He made that deep sound that always made me feel invincible in his protection. He seemed as big now as he’d seemed to me as a child. I took after my mother in size and looks. Not in character or tendencies. Not an ounce
. Beneath the skin she’d bequeathed on me, I belonged to him, mind and soul. And between us, we’d almost broken her.

  Did he ever wish things had been different?

  Oh God. My friends. The reason I was here. I couldn’t afford to wallow in being with him. Not now. Even if there would be no later. I spilled off his lap. “Dad—how long do we have?”

  He smiled down at me. Something inside me burst into song. “As much as we need. Relax, sweetheart.”

  “Really? In that case…” I dove back into his embrace.

  He chuckled as I reached out and traced his face and head and shoulders with trembling hands, absorbing his feel, storing up his closeness. He hadn’t changed one bit in the past seven years. The same juggernaut who’d made me the proudest girl in existence to have him for a father. A fearless warrior like those inhabiting the legends I grew up devouring. Unique, noble, mesmerizing—lethal.

  And boy, did he look the part! Apart from the silver that had replaced most of the raven shock of hair he kept mowed, the deepening grooves that made him even harder hitting, he didn’t look anywhere near fifty-seven.

  No doubt about it. Perfect nutrition and exercise regimen. And a hell of a healthy mental condition, too. Offing criminals sure agreed with him. I sighed.

  “You look fantastic, Dad.”

  He contained my heavily made-up cheek in his large palm, and I could see him examining my bruises. Even their healing state and my disguise couldn’t hide them from his knowledge of me. And of violence. The darkest night eyes he’d passed down to me, our only physical resemblance, blazed over the one I’d gotten saving Juan and Mercedes.

  “You don’t. Who did this?”

  The memory flashed. My arm lashing out in a sure, final arc. Blood spraying my neck, already cooling. I shrugged. “I don’t know. Someone dead.”

  “Good.” He smiled. If smiles could kill, that one had. Then he smiled for real. The transition from feral to fatherly clogged up my insides again. He took my head to his chest, my sob right into his heart. “I didn’t know missing like that was possible.”