by R. R. Virdi
“Liar. You get off on making people suffer. It gets your pasty rocks off!” I shot back.
“True. Fine, not so quick. But look at them now. Suffering because of you. You don't honestly believe they are here on their own whim, do you?”
“They made a choice! They wanted to help. They're good people.” I thrashed in the creature's grip.
“Really? You believe that? At any time you could have removed them from your search. Did they force themselves into it...or did you allow them to? I read their minds, remember? They urged, they argued, but you could have easily withheld information. You could have left them in the dark and proceeded without them. You didn't. You involved them, turned to them for help, guidance, asked favors of them. Subtly so. It was craftier manipulation than anything I have ever done.”
He was lying. That's what phages do. Lie. They twist your mind and the facts.
“Answer me. Could you have spared them this?”
Icicles pierced my skull and forced me to answer. “Yes!”
Oh, hell. Oh, hell. The phage was right. I could've pushed Ortiz away. I tried to at first, but part of me wanted her help. It was just like with the Ifrit. Only now, if she died, there wasn't any way to bring her back. Lizzie. She was just a kid. How in the name of heaven and hell did I think it was okay to get a kid involved in this?
“You murdered them.” I could hear the heat in the phage’s voice. The damp feeling in my brain grew colder and wetter.
Everything became heavy. The air felt like a lead blanket falling to snuff me out. I've dealt with death a lot. It's not a new experience for me, and, now, it was rather comforting. Too many people had died on my watch. This was easier. All I had to do was lay there. It would be over soon. The serpents moving through my skull flared in activity, pulsating.
Oh crap, I realized. I've been whammied! “Rawgh!” I flailed, trying to free my hand. The bellow was replaced by a high pitched scream as the bones in my wrist failed. Heat, the uncomfortable, painful sort, filled the joint as the stake was yanked from it. My hand dislocated at the wrist from the violence in which the phage pulled the weapon away. Gus' lips peeled into a sneer as the phage tossed the wood aside, letting it clatter near Ortiz's feet.
“Figured it out, hmm?” Gus asked.
“Get out of my head!”
“Why would I do that? We're back where I have the power and your ghost friends cannot intervene. They're too terrified of facing me here. This is my domain. A house of fear. Even they can feel it here. Would you like a taste?”
“How about I give you a taste of my foot up—” The phage cut me off. Myrk spilled from its mouth and tendrils. The toxin invaded me.
I shook my head as the foul stuff entered my body. The weight came off my arms and the creature stood above me. I may have been free, but moving was out of the question. The Myrk began its work a bit too quickly for my tastes. Images swirled, distorting reality and imagination. I was able to make out the phage as it stepped past me. Rolling onto my stomach, I watched as he approached Lizzie.
The monster gave Lizzie a sharp tug. She shrieked as the creature hauled her by her hair. It shoved her toward me with a callous thrust of its hand.
I gurgled an incoherent stream of obscenities. The only clear bit was, “Leave her alone.”
I was ignored. Go figure.
Myrk obscured my thoughts and my grasp of what was real. I felt myself slipping into a dreamlike state. Lizzie was only an arm’s length away but seemed to be pulling away from me somehow. Her eyes opened, pupils dilating, whites trembling in terror. The phage went to work. Its strand-like limbs wrapped themselves around her face. Lizzie's body jerked as the appendages made contact.
“You're going to watch as I make her suffer through the worst her mind has to offer. Then when she's all but spent...I’ll finish her.”
Something expanded in my stomach. A primordial wave of anger filled me up. When it was too much to keep contained, I let it out. The scream must've been heard through the entire building. “Let her go!” I bellowed, trying to inch forward. My senses left me, switched out for what the phage wanted me to see.
Lizzie lay broken and twisted on the ground. The extra padding of fat in her cheeks was now gone. Emaciated, gaunt, like a wet cloth wrung dry. Her eyes lost the childlike brightness they’d had earlier. They were a hollow gray, the sort that comes with bleak weather. Her skin was devoid of that unique complexion of hers. A wine-colored syrup bled out from her eyes, mouth and ears, congealing on the floor.
You might as well have ripped my heart out. It would've hurt a helluva lot less.
“Ortiz?” I screamed through the vision. The phage was not going to have the satisfaction of turning Vincent Graves into a crying pansy. “Ortiz?” I called again. “Please!”
“She can't hear you,” Gus answered through my imaginings.
“Can it! Ortiz!” I shifted my neck so I could see her. Ortiz's chest was rising faster. Her breathing quickened. Maybe I was getting through. “Ortiz, come on. Fight it. I don't know what this thing is doing to you, but fight it. You can beat this mind game crap. You're too hotheaded, too stubborn for this shit. Come on!”
The Myrk tried to cloud my head with more images. I fought back. A pinpoint piercing pain erupted in my tongue. I tasted copper. I winced as I bit harder. “Ortiz.” I tried to speak clearly with my impaired tongue. “Ortiz, listen to me!” I snapped. Her head jolted for a fraction of a second, but I saw it. That was enough.
“Charles?” Her words slurred like she’d had a heavy night of drinking.
“That's right. Me. Annoying, smart ass, insufferable and ever-so-awesome me!”
She groaned.
I tried not to take it personally.
“Listen to me. You've been whammied by the phage.” Her eyes fluttered and she looked like she was about to nod back off. “Listen!” I screamed. “You wanted to know why I do this, how I do this. About always feeling outmatched and outclassed. Well, I am. We are. In this life you always are, but so what? Against the supernatural, you’re always fighting out of your weight class. What matters is that you fight, because what else is there to do? We don't curl up into balls and bitch; we fight! Ortiz!”
“She. Can't. Hear. You,” Gus repeated. “But little Elizabeth can. She can hear you trying and failing. Would you like to hear her?” The phage gripped her head tighter. She screamed. God, was it awful. Hearing a child make a noise like that—someone pretty much took a power drill to my ears.
“Ortiz, we fight to keep freaks like this at bay, ganking them whenever we can. Yes, this world is scary. You think knowing about it helps. Well, it does, but it also makes things worse. I know tons and, hell, I'm terrified by what I know—about what's out there. But so what? It's not about being afraid for ourselves. It's about being afraid for others, and fighting for them. It's about keeping monsters from hurting people—hurting children! Ortiz, it's about putting your fear in a place where it works for you, not against you!” I continued, helping myself as much as I aimed to help her with my words. I don't know where they came from. All I knew was that they were true.
And that if I didn't do something, Lizzie, Ortiz and I were going to die.
“Silence!” The phage gave Lizzie another shake. She yelped once again.
“If I don't kill you, Ortiz will!”
The threat passed idly by the phage's ears. It remained keen on tormenting Lizzie. I was watching the live-action version of the image the phage had forced me to see before. Lizzie's complexion was losing its youthful glow. A shade of yellow associated with illness began to seep in. Her cheeks lost their mass. It didn't look so much like Lizzie was dying so much as she was aging.
There's a kind of anger that comes from somewhere bone-deep inside you. It’s the kind people are afraid to let out. It's the sort that threatens to tear you apart at the seams. Your body becomes the housing for a crematorium-level fire. Kept inside, it's the type of thing that'll consume you. So there's only one thing to do.
Let it out.
So I did.
“Ortiz!” I barked, my voice harsh enough to strip paint from metal. “Snap out of it, right now! You want to play in my world, get involved and be the hero? Well toughen up, sister, because this life is hard. People count on you. They depend on you all the damn time and you can't let them down. It's not an option. You think because you're having a rough time inside your head right now that you're—what—excused? Fuck that! You're not. You wanna act tough in front of me, then fine; show me! Show me!” I screamed.
“Cute,” Gus chimed in.
“Shut it, Skeletor. You think you're this terrifying boogey monster that should be feared. You're not. Your kind may have survived the collapse of Babylon—”
“We caused it!” Gus seethed. Even the phage paused from its torment of Lizzie.
I sneered. “Of course you did. Insects always cause the infestation. Congrats; you weren't exterminated. Know what that makes you? A cockroach. A pest. A dirty little bug scuttling around for whatever scraps of food it can find! You're filth; you're—”
The side of my skull exploded in pain. Something went crack, either the ground or me. Smart money was on both. I could see the phage towering above me, one hand cocked for another blow, the other wrapped in Lizzie's hair.
My body shook as I tried laughing through the coughs. “Touched a nerve, pasty?” I arched as a shockwave went through the broad of my back. The phage could seriously throw a punch.
“Shut up!” Gus ordered. Each word was punctuated with another strike to my body.
Violence is never the key to good communication.
The bits of my body that weren't broken or dislocated ached like I had gone bungee jumping without the harness. Getting up was out of the question, and fighting the phage was laughable at best.
“Damnit, Camilla Ortiz, get up! If you don't put on your big girl pants right now, a little girl is going to die! And you know what? It's not going to be on the phage. It's not going to be on me. It's going to be on you!” My insides stung spouting the lie, but I didn't know what else to say. Fingers dug into my throat, cutting off any further reply. I tried anyways. “Blurkh!” My feet were still anchored to the ground as the phage lifted me to waist height solely by my neck. Three of the phage's tendrils remained free. Guess what it decided to do with them? I gurgled and beat my feet as the first limb wound its way over my face. Coldness spread through that half of my face. A slow paralysis worked to lull me back into the phage's nightmares.
Fear is many things. A killer of the mind and function according to some. A necessity to others. Fear is the grindstone that turns a dull edge into one of diamond hardness. Fear is the poison that erodes resolve. And fear is not without a killer of its own.
Hope.
It's that little root protruding from the rocks on the cliff face you're dangling from. Not much of a thing, but it's all you have to reach for, and you grab it. It's that tiny piece of vegetation that keeps you from falling.
I looked out of the corner of my eyes to the spot where Camilla Ortiz had been. I smiled and clung to hope.
My smile was torn from me as the phage's fingers tightened across my voice box. Pounding my fists against the creature's arm was no good. It was like beating on steel railings with a stick. Struggling was too difficult. I let my arms fall to my sides and forced out a weak laugh.
“What's so funny?” Gus sneered.
Another laugh left my lungs. Well, it was more like a death wheeze trying to be a laugh. It's the intent that counts.
“Nothin',” I managed to rasp. “I was just wondering...what happened to Ortiz?”
Gus never had the chance to answer. It sounded like someone drove over a rotting melon. There was a wet squelch of a noise as the phage's body jerked. Its fingers loosened their grip around my throat. Catching myself as I fell, I looked up to see a jagged crown of wood burst through the phage's chest.
“Boo,” whispered Ortiz. In one swift motion, she pulled the stake from the monster's chest and sent it plunging into the side of its throat. The phage lost all composure, like a rag doll with no one holding it. The monster crumpled to the ground. Another body followed the monster's fall and I rushed to catch her.
“Lizzie!” I shouted through a couple of coughs. My joints and muscles screamed as I cradled her in my arms.
It didn’t matter. I would heal. I always heal. I pushed every bit of pain as far down as I could, blinking through the few tears.
I shook Lizzie as I looked at Ortiz. I placed an ear to her mouth and sucked in a breath through my teeth. “She's not breathing!”
Ortiz fell into a crouch by my side. The stake left her grip and her hands eased their way under mine to support Lizzie. I lowered Lizzie to the ground. We slipped our hands out from beneath her and went to work.
I pinched her nose shut and inhaled, hoping this was all I needed to do. I exhaled, forcing the proper amount of breath into her. An image of a young woman in a pastel gown swam before me.
Not again! I inhaled a second time. Please let this work. I breathed into Lizzie. First the Ifrit and Marsha. Now the phage and Lizzie. I wasn't going to let a monster take another person. Not like this.
“Her heart's still beating,” said Ortiz.
“Damnit!” I snapped. “The hell's going on here?” There was no reason for Lizzie's lack of breathing. The phage certainly hadn't finished its job on her. She was still alive...for now. Hands fell on my shoulders and squeezed tight for a moment.
“Charles, move over,” Ortiz urged in a voice too soft for the situation before us.
Huffing out a breath, I pushed myself to my feet and crossed the short distance to the phage's body. Its pale skin looked like ash. It had dried to the point where it had cracked. Bits of tissue looked like they were being eroded away by invisible waves. I took hold of the phage’s mangled throat and shook the creature. “What did you do to her?” I knew I'd get no answer. I squeezed harder. My fingers were wound tight into a fist with dust slipping between them. The phage's neck crumbled like centuries’ old paper. The rest of its body followed.
I sighed. “Of course.”
Sharp, dry coughing prompted me to turn. Lizzie's body shook. She shook! “Lizzie!” I scrambled over to her. “Ortiz, what'd you do?”
“I just kept breathing?” She shrugged.
I bowed my head. “Thank you.”
Lizzie made the sort of sound you'd expect a child to make when forcing them to eat their vegetables. “Yeeackh!” she retched. The bile was water-like in consistency, tinged with strings of black-syrupy gunk. She wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist. “Why does my mouth taste like grape cold medicine?”
I couldn't help it. I lost it. I fell back to the floor. A pang went through my ribs as I burst into laughter. Ortiz joined me. It's moments like that, after a terrible ordeal, where laughter truly helps. It's one of the purest things in the world. Laughter heals a lot, even the troubles of the paranormal world at times.
Moments later, the cool tingling like that of an alcohol swab washed over a small area on my forearm. I glanced at the spot to see my tattoo lose its clarity until nothing was left. With a sigh of relief, I hobbled over to Lizzie. I pressed one of my hands to my aching ribs. “Come on.” I smiled and extended a hand. It felt good when I took her hand in mine, hauling Lizzie to her feet. Even with my ribs and wrist lighting up in pain, I didn't bat an eye. I held my smile through it all.
I could feel the warmth of Ortiz's breath on my ear when she whispered. “Is she going to be fine?”
My voice was louder and harsher than it should've been. “Yes.” I could feel Ortiz's eyes widening as she took a step back. Looking at Lizzie, I told her, “You're going to be fine.” I flashed her the largest and goofiest grin I could manage. Lizzie's smile wasn't quite as wide or full as it had been before, but I took it. “Ortiz,” I said, “what about you? You good?”
She bit her lip but didn't answer.
I kept my voice neutral wh
en I said, “You were out for an hour. Both of you were, you know that?”
“That long?” There was a hint of disbelief in her voice.
“After we started walloping the phage, it bounced to the Neravene.” I paused for a moment when Ortiz shuddered. “You two, and maybe the entire asylum, were under the phage's influence while we were there.”
“What about now?”
I shrugged. “I don't know. Not really, at any rate. But Ortiz, an hour...an hour under that monster's influence can dredge up your worst fears and memories. What did you see?”
“What I needed to.” The tone in which she said it sent the message. I didn't pry any further.
“Well, I’m glad you came out of it.”
“Thanks.” She flashed a quick smile. “And thanks for what you said. For all of it.”
“Heard that, huh? Hey!” I rubbed my arm where her elbow had struck. “The heck was that for?”
“I heard all of it.” A challenging light gleamed in her eyes. “Put on your big girl pants?” She arched an eyebrow.
“Glad you did.” I smirked before my arm throbbed again. Ortiz grinned. “Come on. Let's get out of the creepy basement of doom.”
“Charles.” Ortiz nodded in the direction of a slumped form. “What about Katherine?”
“I don't know—” I started, my hands clenching on their own. People and monsters aren't as different as some would like to make out. I've met my fair share of monstrous people. I've also met a handful of supernatural beings that showed a great deal more humanity than many people.
Katherine Robinson was manipulated by a real monster, but that didn't excuse what she did. On some level, no matter how far down, Katherine knew she was involved in the deaths of innocent people. Maybe she thought she was doing it for her long-lost, twisted son. Whatever. Wrong is wrong.
At least, I'd like to think it is. Nothing is ever so cut and dry with the paranormal, and certainly not with people.
“She's dead.” I moved to leave the room.
Lizzie settled the matter for us. “We should carry her out,” she said as if it were obviously the right—and only—thing to do.