Turned

by David Bussell

  ‘I thought they were helping me get Neil back on his feet,’ I stammered, ‘but they were just using me. No wonder Gen didn’t want me taking this stick off her.’ I threw it to the ground and crushed it under my heel. ‘Lauden was right.’

  ‘Who’s Lauden?’

  ‘I’ll kill them,’ I said, ignoring her question as the brand grew hot in my fist. ‘I’ll kill them both.’

  ‘Abbey, listen to yourself, you’re talking about killing angels.’

  She went to put her hand on my arm again but I shoved her back. ‘Get away from me, bitch.’

  Was she with them too? Was she in on this?

  Stella stepped away from me, hands held up in surrender. ‘You’re making a big mistake. Don’t do this. This isn’t what you do.’

  ‘You don’t know me.’

  ‘Yes, I do. I know the angels made you into a weapon, just like the Coven did to me.’

  I didn’t care to hear her little spit and rags story again. I went to push by her, but she snagged hold of my sleeve. ‘Abbey, listen to me – just because they turned you into a weapon, doesn't mean you have to act like one.’

  I shouldered her aside and headed for the door. My fists were two red murder balls. Stella was right, the angels had made me into a weapon... and this weapon was about to backfire.

  24

  I burst into the gas tower like a bullet from a gun.

  I saw no sign of the angels on the ground floor, so I pounded my way upstairs, knuckles white, jaw set. When I kicked open the door to my sleeping chamber I found Gen, sat by Neil’s bedside.

  ‘Abbey, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘You’re about to be,’ I told her.

  But she wasn’t apologising. Not like that anyway. She was sorry for Neil.

  ‘We did everything we could,’ she said, folding her hands in her lap and hanging her head, ‘but he didn’t make it.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I cried, rushing to Neil’s side, refusing to face the truth.

  But the truth didn’t care.

  Neil’s head laid sideways on the pillow, facing away from me. I took him in my hands and turned his face to mine. His eyes were closed, his lips blue. ‘Neil?’ He wasn’t breathing.

  I clawed back his sheets and put my hand to his heart. It had stopped beating.

  I heard Gen’s voice behind me. ‘One minute he was with me, the next he was just… gone. If it helps, I don’t think he was in any pain.’ She sounded far away, as though she were at the end of an impossibly long tunnel.

  Somehow, amongst all of the thoughts boiling inside my head, I remembered my First Aid training. ‘Did you try CPR?’ I screamed, loud the first time, louder the second.

  When the question returned a blank-eyed stare I went to work, placing the heel of my hand on Neil’s breastbone and pumping down with all of my weight. I kept going, sweat pricking my face, tears streaming from my eyes as I delivered one compression after another, desperate for him to recover, for his eyes to open, for a breath to slide out from between those pale blue lips.

  ‘It’s not working,’ said Gen.

  ‘I can see that,’ I shouted back.

  I lifted Neil’s eyelids and saw two glass marbles. He was going to need more than just oxygen. I drew the dagger from its sheath and Gen pulled away from me. But it wasn’t for her. Not yet anyway.

  I drew a red line across the palm of my left hand and made a fist over Neil’s face, squeezing a trickle of blood into his open mouth. The blood ran into his throat until it welled up over his lips and streamed down his hollow cheeks onto the pillow beneath. I massaged his throat in a bid to get him to swallow, but his body stayed still and cold. I drew back from him, the room quiet now save for the sound of my teeth grinding and the pitter patter of blood on the room’s wooden floor.

  I swept a hand down Neil’s face, closing his eyes, then turned to Gen with so much hate radiating from me it’s a wonder I wasn’t giving off steam. ‘You did this,’ I hissed.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You killed Neil.’

  She backed away, hands out in defence. ‘Abbey, you don’t know what you’re saying—’

  ‘Oh, I know. I know you sent me on a fucking wild goose chase while you killed my boyfriend.’

  ‘I already told you what happened—’

  ‘Yeah, you did. You told me dry-eyed and cold as a fish.’

  ‘That’s just who I am, Abbey. It doesn’t mean I don’t care.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me! You wanted Neil out of the picture right from the start. Right from the moment he was bitten.’

  Gen threw up her arms. ‘So what if I did?’ She stopped backing away and squared her shoulders. ‘Yes, I believe our mission is bigger than a single person, I’ve made no secret of that. It doesn’t mean I killed your boyfriend.’

  As she stood there, thin-lipped and furious, I remembered the hug she’d given me back in The Crypt after I put down that tank. That Judas kiss. I’d saved her life, and in return, she’d taken Neil’s.

  ‘He was getting better,’ I said. ‘The vampire blood was making him strong. He would have lived forever, but you poisoned him.’

  I pulled the dagger from its sheath.

  ‘What are you planning on doing with that?’ Gen asked.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Listen, you’re upset, you’re not thinking straight. If I’d wanted to kill Neil, why would I have done it now? I could have executed him any time you left this tower.’

  ‘No, you couldn’t. You needed his death to look natural so I’d carry on doing your dirty work. You needed me to hate vampires more than anything. Except now I know better. Now I know who the real enemy is.’

  ‘You need to calm down and think for a minute.’

  ‘Oh yeah? You know what I’m thinking? I’m thinking it’s pretty fucking suss that you wanted to hang on to that flash drive so badly.’

  ‘To keep it safe. Why else would I care?’

  ‘Stop playing innocent with me, Gen, I saw what was on the drive. Not the cure, just a shopping list of Clan Captains.’

  Gen faltered. ‘That’s not right… I… I did my job...’

  ‘Liar. You’re lying. And you know what the worst part is? You did it for nothing.’ I pointed to Neil’s body with the tip of my knife. ‘Neil’s dead and the drive’s destroyed. Now no one gets what they want. No one gets anything.’

  ‘Abbey, do you really think I’d kill an innocent man? I’m an angel.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re an angel. The angel of death.’ I started towards her.

  ‘Put the dagger down,’ she demanded, dropping into a fighting stance, legs bent, arms up. ‘Right now.’

  I swung the knife at the ground and planted it in a floorboard beside my foot with a decisive thwang. ‘You think I need this to fight you? I’m going to murder you with my bare hands.’

  The rage came out of me faster than a spout of magma and twice as destructive.

  Gen whipped out her morning star to defend herself, but I took it from her, snapped it over my knee, and tossed the broken halves east and west.

  Suddenly my fist was slamming into her face.

  She stumbled away from me, rubbing her jaw, eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I spat back, ‘you won’t.’

  The brand flared bright and my blood hummed in my veins. There was a frozen moment of stand-off, then we dived back at each other.

  I came down on her knee and her leg buckled, sending her crashing to the ground. Before she could right herself, I stepped in and gave her a taste of shoe leather, stamping on her hard with the heel of a Doc Marten.

  Gen looked up at me, her bottom lip split in two. She gobbed a blotch of blue angel blood on the ground, along with half a molar. ‘So, that’s how it’s going to be, is it?’

  It was. Not a ballet. Not a polite exchange of ideas. This was going to be messy: a grindhouse rampage of shattered bones and broken teeth and
popped eyeballs. I was going to make Gen suffer. For what she’d done to me. For what she’d done to Neil.

  I felt another swell of anger and went at her again. She looked unsteady on her feet as I charged at her, but she was only baiting me. The moment I arrived within attack range, she came to life, sweeping me in the side of the head with a lightning-fast roundhouse kick.

  I reeled backwards, my ear throbbing from the blow, flash bulbs popping behind my eyes. While I was busy regaining my balance, Gen pressed the attack, launching off her back foot and firing a knee into my gut. The blow sunk in, knocking the wind out of me, then the floor came up and kicked me in the face.

  ‘Stay down,’ Gen insisted, circling me like a boxer as I laid on the ground.

  But I wasn’t done yet. Not by a long shot.

  I bounced to my feet, lashed out, and drove my fist into Gen’s face with a blunt crack.

  She staggered backwards, nose bent out of shape, twin streams of blue blood pouring from her nostrils. Scowling, she pinched the bridge of her nose and set the cartilage back in place. ‘Enough,’ she growled.

  Instead of coming at me with a kick this time, she came dirty.

  Using the scant daylight in the room—which amounted to little more than a few mote-laden sunbeams lancing through the cracks in the tower wall— she used her powers to make the rays solid. Four flaming javelins hovered before her. That was a new trick. I’d seen her create walls out of light before, but never weapons.

  The spears came at me. I dived to avoid them, but one caught me in the shoulder, threw me to the other side of the room, and pinned me to the tower’s curved metal wall.

  The spear burned as it held me there, making my flesh sizzle, making me scream.

  ‘Are you finished?’ she asked, panting from exertion.

  Red-hot pain throbbed in synch with the jackrabbit beat of my heart. I screamed until my breath whined in my throat, but I wouldn’t give in, wouldn’t relent.

  ‘I’m going to kill you,’ I promised, eyes watering.

  Gen held the flaming spear in place, nailing me to the wall like a framed picture as she summoned another javelin. ‘Please, Abbey. Don’t make me do this...’

  I barely heard her. Instead, I channelled the pain she was feeding me, channelled the fury, turned it into fuel, turned it into power.

  The gas tower began to shake. Dust drifted down from the roof. The walls began to bow outwards, causing rivets to fall loose and cracks to appear between the metal panels. The whole structure groaned like a sinking battleship.

  Gen pedalled backwards, eyes darting all around, her spare spear winking out of existence. ‘What’s happening? What are you doing?’

  I smiled with bloody teeth and showed her the brand on my palm, which shone bright as a cluster of stars. ‘I’m ending this.’

  Blinding blue fire erupted from my palm, making Gen recoil even further. I didn’t know what I was doing exactly—much less how I was doing it—all I knew was that it felt right. Felt good. I reached for the javelin piercing my shoulder, wrapped my hand around its shaft, and felt fury’s dial turn up to eleven.

  The blue fire enveloped the yellow flames of Gen’s spear, then consumed it, swallowing it whole, drinking it down until there was nothing left.

  Before Gen could make sense of what I’d done, I cannonballed at her, dived for her waist and took her down. She sat up, trying to lever herself off the ground, but I bounced her skull off the floor with a head butt. I straddled her torso, pinning her arms to her side, then pounded her in the face with a hammerblow fist. More angel blood slicked her chin, but I felt no mercy.

  I punched her again.

  And again.

  I punched her until I felt parts of her skull sliding around under her skin.

  I raised a shaking fist over my head, ready to punch a hole through her head and into the floorboards beneath—

  ‘Abbey!’ cried a voice over my shoulder.

  I turned to see Viz framing the doorway, propped on his ivory-handled walking stick, a look of pure horror on his face. ‘What are you doing?’ His eyes flicked to Gen, then to Neil.

  Inexplicably, I felt guilty. Like I’d been caught doing something awful rather than avenging my boyfriend’s murder and giving his killer the justice she so rightly deserved.

  One of his killers.

  I clambered to my feet and recalled the dagger. In a flash, it dislodged from the floor and delivered itself to my hand.

  ‘You were supposed to be the Nightstalker,’ the old man quavered. ‘How could I have been so wrong?’

  I flicked the dagger, turning it into a sword, and went to finish the job I’d started.

  Viz threw out his hands and sunlight flooded into the chamber, drawn by his power, streaming in through the extra rips I’d torn in the tower’s wall. The rays came together as one, coalescing into a single, solid column of light that came at me like a battering ram.

  Crunch.

  The ram punched me through the wall of the tower and left me in the dirt a floor below. I felt like I’d been run into by a lorry. My ribs were in pieces. I felt something warm running down my front and realised it was my own blood. My head rolled to one side and I saw a shard of glass embedded in the earth beside me; the mirror from my sideboard, the one that had sat by my wash bowl. I saw my reflection in the glass, my face freckled with blue blood. Angel blood. No, not an angel. The Patron Saint of Bullshit.

  Groggily propping myself up on my elbows, I looked back to the tower to see Viz watching me through the hole in its punctured wall. He drew a slim blade from his walking cane and leapt twenty feet to the ground, landing like a cat.

  ‘Leave this place and do not come back,’ he boomed.

  I was in no state to fight. I’d have to give the brand time to heal my injuries if I was going to stand any chance of defeating him, so I forced myself up on trembling legs, turned the sword back into a dagger, and sheathed its blade.

  ‘This isn’t over! This is really fucking far from being over,’ I said as I hobbled away, picking my way through the wreckage and stomping on the embers of a partnership burned.

  25

  In an upside-down world where angels are evil, the creature of the night is your friend.

  The afternoon had already bled into evening by the time I arrived at the address on the card. The card Lauden had given me back at The Beehive. He was right. I’d been playing for the wrong side from the very start. The fact that the angels were on the side of God didn’t make them righteous. God caused floods, slaughtered children, burned down cities. God was no friend of mine. Since when had I been devout anyway? Since when had I had faith in The Lord Almighty? My arse hadn’t warmed a church pew since Sunday school.

  The address Lauden had given me was a Hyde Park mansion with an immaculately landscaped front garden the size of a football pitch. It looked like a bucolic country estate that had been picked up by a UFO’s tractor beam and inexplicably set down in the inner city. A set of wrought iron gates protected the mansion’s entrance, eight feet tall and made of twisted black rods. The gates opened electronically from inside the big house, but I was in no mood to announce myself.

  I grabbed an iron bar in each hand and wrenched them apart with ease. I had my strength back. My ribs were good, and except for a pain in one knee that had left me with a slight limp, my wounds were pretty much mended. It wouldn’t be long before I returned to the gas tower.

  I stepped between the warped gate and crunched down the long gravel path to the mansion’s front door. Immediately, two lunks appeared from a guard house that was so comically small they looked like clowns evacuating a prop car. The guards were thirteen-feet tall stacked end-to-end, with necks so thick you could chop meat on them. They drew batons from side holsters as they beelined for me, looking like two hams with eyes.

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ said a voice from the mansion’s stately porch. It was Lauden, lit by an antique gas lamp. He shooed the guards away, and I joined him on the front ste
ps. ‘It’s good to see you,’ he said.

  ‘You were right,’ I told him. ‘About the angels.’

  His expression turned suddenly grave. ‘Come in,’ he said, leading me into his home.

  The mansion was the size of the Vatican and just as opulent; all rich, polished woods, ornate ceiling roses, and hand-woven rugs. It absolutely oozed class. This was the residence of a Crown Prince. The kind of place that would take a small army of servants to keep clean, despite most of its rooms never being used.

  ‘Don't let the henchmen fool you,’ said Lauden, guiding me to the drawing room, ‘I'm not a Bond villain.’

  He turned to me, smiling, and saw that I was in no mood for jokes. ‘Sorry. Please, take a seat. Can I get you a drink?’

  I shook my head. Regardless, Lauden nodded to a butler hovering next to a grand piano, and moments later, a tray of tea was set down next to me. I sat down in a leather armchair facing Lauden.

  He waited until we were alone. ‘What did they do?’ he asked.

  I could hardly bear to say it but somehow I formed the words. ‘They killed Neil.’

  ‘But… I thought you were trying to cure him? I thought they were?’

  ‘So did I. But they never wanted to, not really.’ Tears stung my eyes.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Abbey. I am so, so sorry.’

  He leaned forward in his chair and took my hands in his. Without hesitation, I pulled him towards me and wrapped my arms around his neck, burrowing into his body. Tears sprang forth like water from a dam, spilling down my face, soaking the collar of his cardigan. Sensing my need to be held, he enveloped me, hugging me tight, one hand on my upper back, the other around my waist. This wasn’t the hug of someone performing a perfunctory gesture. This wasn’t the rigid, robotic clinch of a casual acquaintance fulfilling some mandated social etiquette. Lauden’s touch made the room warmer somehow. Made my future seem a little less bleak. This was no vampire. No cold-blooded monster. This was a friend. This was everything the angels weren’t, and if I’d only listened to him when I had the chance, Neil might still be alive.