The Awakening

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.

As she passed Luther, he said, "Thanks, Ann. I appreciate it."

"No problem, sweetheart. This is my chance to prove I'm more than a pretty face."

"I never doubted it."

Gaby took in the exchange with a scowl. The woman flirted with him, but Luther took it in stride.

Without seeing Gaby, he used the towel to dry his chest and shoulders and started in her direction. Arm raised, he rubbed the back of his neck and Gaby could see his armpit, the bulge of an impressive biceps, and…

A gold cross hanging around his neck.

She was on her feet before he reached her.

He drew up short. "Gaby?" After glancing around to see if anyone had noticed her, he moved closer. "What are you doing here?"

She snatched up the cross hanging from the short chain. "What the hell is this?"

The backs of her fingers touched against his damp, heated chest. She felt his body hair, crisp but also soft. She could smell him—man and sweat and… Luther. Her heart thumped harder.

Sneering, she said, "You're kidding, right? You think this will help anything?"

He studied her, and without her realizing it, he'd curled his big hand over hers. "Come here, Gaby." He pulled her hand from his cross and led her away from the basketball court to the other side of the street. "Sit down."

The hell she would. "Don't give me orders."

He eyed her. "Are you pissed for any particular reason, or just as a way of life?"

Damn it. She hadn't been pissed. Not until she saw the woman with him. And the cross.

But mostly the woman.

Not that she'd ever tell him so. If she did, she'd really feel like a moron.

Changing the subject from her mood to his bling seemed a good idea. "That's nothing more than an icon, you know. It's not going to ward off evil."

"It was a gift from my grandmother, who has since passed away. I loved her, so I wear it."

How dare he continue to sound so levelheaded and calm in the face of her growing ire? "That's all there is to it?"

"I'm not worried about vampires, if that's what you mean."

Her shoulders straightened, but still she felt about two feet tall. "Sorry."

"Wow." A smile teased his firm mouth. "You almost said that like you meant it."

Pressing her fingers under her sunglasses, Gaby rubbed at her eyes. "Look, I didn't hunt you down to argue with you."

"Could have fooled me." He slung the towel around his neck, "How did you hunt me down?"

"I went to the station, and was told it was your day off. I asked if anyone knew where I could find you, and someone sitting in there—not a cop, but someone else—"

"Gary Webb? Twenty-one-year-old kid with too much energy?"

"Maybe. He told me to check here."

"All right. And you hunted me down because… ?"

Gaby looked around the area. "Is there someplace I can buy you a Coke?"

"No." He folded his arms over his chest. "But I can buy you one if you feel like walking a block."

"I can walk."

In strained and silent agreement, she went with Luther to his car where he stowed the towel and then dug out a white T-shirt and slipped it on. He finger-combed his sweaty hair away from his face and retrieved his sunglasses. "Ready?"

"Sure." They started down the street.

At a convenience store, he went inside, and Gaby followed. There was no air conditioning, but a squeaky fan stirred the humid air, offering a modicum of relief.

"Get what you want," he told her, so she chose a cola and a candy bar. He grabbed a sport drink and two traveler's packs of aspirin.

"Head still hurting?"

"A little. I'm fine." But he opened both packs and popped them into his mouth, washing them down with the cold green drink.

"You were probably supposed to take it easy today, huh?"

"I had other things to do besides taking it easy." He paid and they went back outside. "This way."

There were no benches nearby, so he led her to a grassy spot beneath a tree, and together they sat.

With each passing second, Gaby felt more like an idiot. The man had barely had time to sleep, much less do as she'd asked. And he was hurt, so probably shouldn't have done anything at all anyway.

Luther stared at her, waiting.

"I wanted to talk to you for a couple of reasons. I was going to tell you how I cut my arm—"

"Let's start with that."

She shook her head. "In a minute." She indulged in a long drink of her cold soda, and then on impulse she stretched out on her back in the grass. "I guess you've been too laid up to check into the hospital stuff like I asked, huh?"

He stretched out too, but on his side, propping himself up on an elbow so he could watch her. "Actually, I did that before I left the hospital."

She turned her head toward him. "Really?" Wow, so maybe he'd listened to her after all.

"They've lost twenty patients over the last two years."

"Is that a lot?"

"Not according to them. Not for the cancer ward."

Gaby put an arm behind her head and stared up at the sky. "Doctors usually visit more than one hospital. Check the other ones that Dr. Marton goes to, too."

"Okay."

She scrutinized him. "Did you check on that place where the indigent patients go?"

"I got an address, but I haven't been there yet. I did some research, though, and nothing fishy turned up."

Gaby nodded. "Visit it anyway."

"I planned to."

He was so agreeable, so easy, that somehow the words just slipped out. "I stabbed a man last night."

In the middle of taking another drink, Luther halted. He didn't blink. He didn't say anything. He just froze.

Gaby rolled her lips in, worked the words around in her mind, and then plunged on. "He'll live, I think. Without giving my name, I called the cops so they could take him to a hospital or whatever. You'll probably hear about it at the station, and I didn't want you to start suspecting me of anything."

Plus she figured half-truths would throw him off a more dangerous course of supposition. And she had some questions for him, questions that Mort had refused to answer.

Still Luther said nothing.

His silence spurred her to say more. "See, Mort and I were out and about… just walking. He was sort of shook up after that blood in the stairwell and even after we cleaned it, the smell was awful, so we took in some fresh air." She'd already cued Mort, and if Luther questioned him, he damn well better lie convincingly.

"When we were heading home, we saw this man assaulting a girl in an alley."

"A hooker?"

Gaby gave him a sharp look. "Does it matter?"

"Not to me. But I want details."

After taking off her sunglasses, Gaby turned her face toward Luther. "She might have been a hooker, but she was still a kid and the guy was forcing her."

"And?"

"I stopped him."

Luther sat the sport drink aside. "With your knife?"

She nodded. "I told him if he ever hurt her again, I'd castrate him."

Small muscles flexed in Luther's face, taking him from fear to anger to rage and back again. "Where did you stab him, Gaby?"

"In the shoulder. I threw my knife first, to stop him." She felt compelled to honesty. "I have very good aim."

A big breath expanded Luther's already impressive chest.

"But then he tried to charge me, so I sort of pulled it out of him and put it to his balls and told him what would happen if he didn't change his ways."

Luther twitched.

Gaby felt the need to rush through the rest of her explanation. "He was making her do stuff to him, Luther. Really ugly stuff. She was crying and she was sort of beat up—"

"Where is she now?"

That his first thought would be concern for the girl warmed Gaby. More than ever, she saw the white aura surrounding him. "I don't know. She ran off after I stopped the attack."

Luther fell to his back. "I don't fucking believe this."

"I didn't tell the cops who I am and I don't think that guy will, either."

"If he lived."

"Well, yeah. But I think he will. I mean, sure, he was bleeding a lot and everything, but it was just a shoulder wound."

"Unless you nicked something else."

Did he have to sound so morbid? "I guess."

"I'll ask around about the incident. I can find out who was on call last night, see how the man fared after your unique sense of justice."

Gaby didn't like the accusation in his tone. "He deserved it, Luther."

"From what you said, I'm sure he did. But you should have called the police, not taken it on yourself to deal with him."

"By the time the cops got there, who knows what else he might have done to that poor girl?"

"Who knows what he might have done to you, Gaby, if your aim had faltered a little. Did you ever think of that?"

"No, because my aim doesn't falter."

He muttered several steaming curses before saying, "I can't believe you're bragging about this."

He looked really put out, ready to shut down on her, but tough. She had questions and he most likely had answers. Mort sure as hell hadn't wanted to talk to her about it. "I suppose now isn't a very good time to ask you stuff?"

To her surprise, he put an arm over his eyes and appeared to relax. He took two deep breaths and let out the last one in a long, slow exhalation. "All right. What stuff?"

Well, that was better. Calmer anyway. "The man had the woman on her knees and he kept pushing her face into his crotch."

Luther froze again.

"It was like he was screwing her, but not where he should be."

"Gaby," Luther choked out. "Shush."

"I know there's a lot of deviant stuff out there and that men pay women to do a lot of weird things. But like I told you, I don't watch television, and whenever I hear music playing on the street, I don't really pay much attention to the words. I don't really know what's normal and what isn't. What that guy did didn't look normal, but I wanted to know—"

"Give me a minute here, okay?"

"Just tell me what he was doing and if it's acceptable or not. The girl sure didn't seem to think so. She hated it. Hell, he'd had to beat her up to make her do it."

"I don't believe this."

"The thing is, Mort was upset that she was hurt, but he didn't seem confused about what the jerk did or anything."

In one swift movement, Luther was over her. Now he looked angry. "Are you playing with me?"

Flat on her back? In the sun? In the middle of the community?

"No." His blond hair, still damp from his exertions, went wavy in places. That seemed very at odds with such a rugged male. "I never have time for playing. You should know that by now."

"Don't start with the confusing talk, Gaby. I want a straight answer." His hands gripped her shoulders. "You honestly don't know what oral sex is?"

"Oral sex," She supposed that sounded right for what she'd seen. It was definitely sex of some sort. "You want plain speaking? Fine. I've seen the prostitutes jerk guys off. I've seen them bend over stuff and let Johns do them from the back, like a dog."

Luther's eyes widened a little more with every word she spoke.

"I've even seen them—"

His hand smashed over her mouth. "Jesus, woman." Additional heat darkened his high cheekbones. "Do you spend all your time watching hookers at work?"

He'd silenced her, so she shrugged. She'd have a tough time avoiding seeing it where she lived. Every time she stepped out of the apartment, the whores were there, sometimes doing their business in a parked car, sometimes in an alley.

Sometimes in plain sight, if that's what the John wanted.

Luther's hand shifted. His fingers touched her mouth. Lightly. Caressing. With one finger, he parted her lips.

"Gaby, I want to kiss you."

Could have fooled her. "You look more like you want to strangle me."

"That too." He continued touching her mouth. "Do you think it'd be okay if I kissed you?"

She had to think about it. It wouldn't be smart, would in fact be idiotic—"Yeah."

Luther bent down, hesitated, then came closer. He brushed his mouth over hers. He didn't do much, just hovered there, teasing her. His mouth barely touching hers.

Gaby felt his hot breath as it accelerated. She felt his building tension and her own anticipation.

Then she felt Luther's absence.

She opened her eyes and saw him sitting up beside her. She waited, and he looked down at her with accusation, need, and so much more. "You are one dangerous little girl, Gabrielle Cody."