The Awakening

Chapter Three

A chaotic inferno of rich colors—bloody red, darkest brown, and writhing black—danced frenetically before her. The turbulence of the twisting hues indicated pain and fear, but not just pain and fear from the hapless victim. Such an explosion of color could only emanate from more than one person.

Where? Where?

Standing near a putrid Dumpster ripe with the stench of rot, feeding maggots, and refuse, she saw the sobbing child. Narrow arms stretched out, trying to fend off a nightmare of hideous features.

With the plethora of enraged colors indicating many things, Gaby tried to clear her vision, to better see through the auras to the physical features of the attacker. But still she saw… things she didn't quite comprehend or believe.

Sure, monsters existed. She knew it because she'd sent plenty of them to hell. But to the world, they looked like everyone else. They looked normal. Only with her divine talent did she see an exterior that matched their rotted souls.

But this time, she saw more.

She saw teratoid deformities. Gruesome. Inhuman. Sickening…

Revulsion raced up her spine as she stared in slack-jawed distaste at the target. Yes, she'd been summoned to this… this… whatever it might be.

Tall, but obviously old with a hunching posture that nearly bent the emaciated body in half. Bowed legs seemed inadequate to support the frame, and gnarled hands sported short, fattened fingers that gave the appearance of mittens.

Gaby swallowed convulsively. Aged, wrinkled skin bunched and puckered on the cheek and forehead, making room for a violation of odd fleshy protrusions. Except for the quivering, gelatinous blobs of vein-riddled, dimpled flesh that clung to the side of its head, the form appeared human.

A wail of sheer terror snapped up Gaby's attention. She looked beyond the creature and focused on the little boy.

Did he see the figure the same as she did? Did he realize that which tried to defile him wasn't human? Did that poor little boy comprehend the demon in the guise of a barely human form?

Visually as well as mentally, Gaby was accustomed to perceiving the truth. But this little boy wouldn't be.

How could he bear the sight of the awful dastard?

Kids and animals generated much pity. They were so sweet and pure, they couldn't comprehend the brutal depravity often heaped upon them.

Sounds passed Gaby's ears: needy, gulping whimpers mixed with unintelligible pleas, and finally helpless mewling. In her present state, the words were indecipherable, but she understood the appeal.

The kid, who couldn't have been more than eight or nine, begged for help and a justice that only she could give. He was hurt and horrified, but evil hadn't gotten what it wanted.

Not yet.

It only toyed with the boy, frightening him, setting him up, weakening him with raw terror. She still had time.

Thank you, God.

Pain meant less than nothing to her when faced with saving a child. She would not let him down. She would not let herself down.

Bigger and stronger with purpose, Gaby slid her knife free of the sheath. Razor-edged steel on weathered leather emerged with a lethal hiss, bolstering her, empowering her. Steps metered and sure, she approached the scene, placing herself center stage, gaining sudden attention.

With a shock of displeasure, evil's face knotted and gnarled. The clumps of live flesh, covered in a glossy sheen, jiggled and flushed with ripening fury. The weight of the grotesque appendages kept the semihuman form off-kilter, listing to the side, adding to the loathsome image.

It released its grip on the trembling boy.

The child looked at Gaby, and even through the haze, she saw the awful anguish that would haunt him for all of his years.

He'd met the bogeyman, and he would never forget.

Gaby inhaled a painful, shuddering breath—and accepted the truth: She was on time, and yet, sadly… she wasn't.

"Go." She didn't hear her own voice; she never could, not when duty dominated her every sense. Most normal humans would have wanted to console the child, to reassure him.

That wasn't her job.

She didn't know shit about consolation.

But destruction… oh yeah. That she knew.

All her senses stayed tuned to the wicked face of corruption. As if the apparition felt confusion at her interference, or maybe over its own inclinations, bright violet and dark indigo churned together. The monster hesitated before taking a step toward her.

Oh yeah, Gaby thought, come to me.

And the colors mutated.

Bursts of blood red erupted, broken only by black holes boring through the crimson. This demon suffered excruciating pain and physical imbalance.

Gaby didn't soften an inch.

Because of her present insight, Gaby knew that the soul of this enmity had devoured many children. To her mind, it deserved to suffer. Without her intervention, it might have gone on to ruin other innocents. But now, finally, it had erred.

It came within Gaby's reach.

God wanted it gone, and she'd damn well see to it—gladly.

The boy back-stepped on weak, clumsy legs, faltering, shuddering, removing himself from her peripheral vision. Gaby allowed herself to be drawn into the evil, to understand it and experience it.

The better to destroy it.

"Go," she screamed one last time, and the boy turned in a stumbling rush, sobbing hard, fleeing as fast as he could. The vulgar, monstrous head turned to watch as its prey got away.

"No," Gaby taunted with certainty, "you won't ever touch him." Though fever burned through her, evaporating the sweat on her skin, her fingers were icy-tight on the bone handle of the lethal blade. "You're mine, you malformed bastard. All mine."

Quite often, demons were too stupid to be afraid. This trigger proved no different. Wailing its fury at her interference, deceived by her slim stature and the blank stare of her hollow eyes, the aged apparition crashed toward her.

Like great globs of brain tissue exposed to the elements, the excess flesh swung around the face. Pale eyes watery with age or tears displayed a bone-deep hatred. Parted on a fierce cry, wrinkled lips exposed toothless gums.

One bony limb lifted, creating an arc of blistering red and smoldering gray, intent on striking her.

Perfect.

In a straight, well-aimed strike, Gaby slashed with her knife, using the momentum of the attack to aid her. The finely honed edge penetrated the chest wall with ease. Gaby stuck her knife long and deep through loose, buttery flesh, until it deflected off a brittle rib.

The demon staggered, bent—and Gaby severed the windpipe, turning the shriek of pain and surprise into a repugnant gurgle.

She could have stopped there.

She should have stopped; it would have been less messy.

But when in the zone, Gaby lacked control. And when it came to the abuse of children, she considered mere death a feeble cop-out. For as long as the creature gasped for air, for as long as it could feel the slashing of her wrath. Gaby would administer her own fitting punishment.

Teeth bared in the grisly semblance of a smile, she hacked again, sinking deep into a blackened heart that accepted her blade like a stick through a marshmallow, soft and squishy.

Easy.

Satisfying.

Determined to give as much as she could, Gaby twisted the blade and wrenched it back out, doing as much damage on her exit as she'd done on the thrust.

Uncaring of the writhing, incoherent pleas and the chubby, dwarfed hands that batted at her in futile defense, Gaby gouged into wet, twisted guts, into those awful, bulbous growths on the head.

The body stilled, all movement ceasing, and still she used both hands, her breath coming in grunts as she sawed through organs and muscle.

Even in the afterlife, this malevolence would never again menace a child. When the coppery taste of blood polluted her mouth, Gaby finally stopped. She smelled the tang of the blood, felt the sting of it in her eyes.

The blood and gore was… everywhere. Bits and pieces of flesh, skin and bone, splattered and spilled on the ground, on the remains of the body… and on her.

Gasping, Gaby took a hasty, appalled step backward. She gagged, spat, and swiped an arm across her eyes and mouth.

Silenced by the violence of her own acts, she waited for the ease that followed a kill. Nothing moved but her rapidly pumping heartbeat and the bellowing of her chest as she sucked in stale, hot air. Anxious for the return of sanity, she closed her eyes.

But the relief didn't come.

Alarm clung to her; pain prodded and pulled.

What the hell was happening ?

Abruptly, she whiffed it in the air, the rancid scent of immorality. Accepting the prickling of fresh alarm, Gaby tried to prepare her depleted body.

Somewhere near to her, a presence lurked. The colors flowing in and around the area shifted with ominous overtones, all shades faded and greasy in deceptive connation, moving with the speed of a turbulent river, too fast for her to decipher. She sensed another's gleeful satisfaction and dawning perception, a perception that perhaps matched her own.

Blinding pain ripped a groan from her soul that she couldn't silence.

The knife, now slick with blood, almost slipped from her numbed fingers. She clung to it, bracing her feet apart to stay upright, to stay alert.

Whatever stalked her, she had to defend herself.

No one else would.

Thankfully, no sooner did Gaby have the thought than the alarm began receding, sliding away until only her thrumming grief remained.

She searched the area, searched her own senses, but could detect nothing. Slowly, through a lessening of misery that told her all was now well. Gaby came back to herself.

Whatever had plagued her, whatever had watched her, was now gone.

Nausea rolled over her. Her vision cleared and the brilliance faded, dissolving into the air until only the drab, washed-out colors of patchy grass, scorched trees and hazy sky remained. They were a dull contrast to the rich hues of auras.

They were the real world. If only she never again had to leave it.

A breeze tickled over her, reviving her.

Gaby didn't want to look. She hated looking, but facing the destruction had become an inexorable tangibility for her, a penance she forced herself to pay, no matter the cost.

Eyes burning, body taut with trepidation, she lifted her lashes.

Her knees buckled and she dropped down hard.

The man whose head barely remained attached to his neck, lying in a dark pool of his own body secretions, in no way resembled the demon she'd just destroyed.

Deformed yes, although now, thanks to her, most of the deformities were gone, hacked off, no longer a part of his body. He looked…

He looked like someone's grandpa. Someone's murdered, mutilated grandpa.

All but decapitated.

Hand shaking, Gaby reached out to smooth his gray, disheveled hair, clumpy with blood, gore, and the remnants of chunky flesh and displaced muscle. She nudged his skull over, putting it more in line with his shoulders. Grizzled eyebrows framed soulless eyes, frozen with the horror she had delivered so skillfully.

She guessed his age somewhere in the mid-seventies.

His destroyed body was so gaunt as to be cadaverous. Had his deformities affected him mentally, turning him into a monster, robbing his body of strength, his mind of conscience?

No. She remembered her certainty of his past misdeeds. Perhaps the body had caught up to the soul. Life would be so much easier if all monsters looked like monsters.

But she knew that would never be.

Gaby looked at his hands, now red with his own blood. His fingers were short and blunt. There were no nails. Just discoid tips.

By accident, or had some disease eaten away at him?

An invisible fist squeezed at Gaby's heart and she wanted to howl, to deny that she, Gabrielle Cody, had butchered him in so many places that meat hung from his body, and only bones held him together.

He would never hurt anyone again.

No one, except her.

Regardless of what she knew him to be, despite the fact that she'd saved a child, probably many children, she would never be able to forget him.

She never forgot any of them.

They became part of her, in some ways adding to her strength, in other ways tearing her down until she felt like nothing at all.

As she did now.

Only moments ago, rage had guided her; now a pervasive weakness sent quivers rippling up and down her spine. She gagged, still tasting the blood, identifying the scent as it baked on the hot asphalt beneath the blistering sun. A fly buzzed close, landing on the man's exposed intestines.

Gaby heaved—and lost control. Hot loamy spew regurgitated out her nose and mouth.

Ah, shit.

Swallowing convulsively, she fought back the last of the bile until the spasms receded. She hated puking, and not just because it left evidence behind. Hands braced on the rusted metal of the Dumpster, she drew deep, slow breaths, calming her mind with thoughts of other things, quieter times, until her belly quit trying to crawl up her throat and out of her nose.

When she could breathe again, she straightened and curled her hands around her aching middle.

Fucking eggs Morty had forced on her didn't want to stay down. She might never eat eggs again.

Knowing she couldn't linger, she dragged a bandanna from her back pocket and, keeping her back turned toward the body, scrubbed the blood from her face and hands, up to her elbows. There wasn't a damn thing she could do about her ruined shirt. At least it was dark—a deliberate choice because it made it harder to detect the blood on her walk home.

And thinking of her walk… she had to get to it, shaking limbs or no, nausea or no.

She couldn't rest.

Couldn't indulge pity for herself or her victim.

Couldn't change her life, or the curse that haunted her.

Couldn't deny who and what she was: God's minion. For better or worse.

No one else would see that man as a demon. No one else would know that she'd done humanity a favor. They'd see his disfigured body and label her as the monster.

If he knew the truth, Detective Cross would try to arrest her, locking her away so that evil had free rein. She didn't want to fight with Cross. She didn't want to have to hurt him.

Blind fools, all of them.

Closing her eyes, she said a quick prayer, crossed herself, and thanked God for guiding her, for putting her there in enough time to keep that child safe.

She asked forgiveness for her weaknesses and her guilt, and she asked for the courage to continue doing what she must, just as Father Mullond had instructed her to do.

With that complete, Gaby dragged both sides of her big knife over the dead man's sleeve to clean it. She replaced it in her sheath and made sure her T-shirt covered it.

Mentally calculating her location, she decided to head for the nearest gas station. She needed water in a bad way—both to drink and to wash.

Putting her shoulders back made her feel stronger. She started out of the lot—and heard footsteps approaching. Her heart shot into her throat and without even thinking about it, she sought cover behind the brick building.

Darting one quick, cautious glance around the corner, she spotted Detective Luther Cross methodically picking his way up the incline toward the factory.

Son of a bitch.

Had he followed her? But how? Why?

To minimize her chances at getting lost, she wanted to return the same way she'd come. But Cross effectively removed that option. By the second, he drew nearer. She looked over her shoulder, seeing the carnage of the demon's body in all its gruesome display. She saw the Dumpster filled with rot, and beside it, her own vomit.

A telling scene.

It wouldn't take a genius to put it all together. If she got herself arrested, who would do her work?

Think, Gaby. Do something.

Her frantic, searching gaze fell on the path the boy had taken when he'd left her. Though she hadn't been able to focus on him at the time, her subconscious now supplied her with the image of him stumbling into a cluster of trees that overgrew the property.

Gaby didn't waste another second. She ran. And this time, running hurt like hell. Without the summons to guide her, to make her movements sinuous and economic, she stumbled in her flip-flops. Twigs and stones nicked her toes. Her lungs labored and her sluggish limbs refused to help. Once safely buried in a thicker cover of trees, she paused to look back.

Through the leaves and limbs, she could barely see Detective Luther Cross standing over the body and cursing a blue streak while scanning the area. Gaby watched him with narrow eyes and burning annoyance.

Why did he have to interfere?

And why did an almost ethereal white veil drift gently around him?

The detective was a good man, but not good enough to divine her purpose. Not good enough to be trusted by God. He'd arrest, condemn, and lock her away without a moment's hesitation.

Just once, Gaby wished someone would trust in her the way Father Mullond had.

Cross pulled out his cell phone and punched in a call, barking into the phone while walking a wide circle around the area, careful not to disturb the evidence.

Making no sound, Gaby slunk away, farther and farther into the woods. God must have been guiding her, because no twigs snapped. No leaves crunched. When she was far enough from Cross that he couldn't hear her, she began running again, as fast and hard as she could push her drained body.

Within minutes, the whole area would be swarming with cops. She didn't intend to be anywhere around when they got there.

As Gaby skulked deeper and deeper into the dank woods, itchy sweat, earthly grit, and the stench of fear coated her skin. She stumbled along until her lungs burned and her thighs felt leaden. She didn't dare stop. Cops could be tenacious, and she knew they'd be looking everywhere for their supposed murderer.

Frustration clouded her eyes, but she'd long ago given up on crying. Anyway, cursing made her feel better than crying did, and she gave in to the urge to voice her discontent.

After several lurid, coarse words, her foot caught on a broken piece of concrete. With a grunt of surprise, she pitched forward and landed on all fours.

A mere inch from her nose, a stone slab crawling with wild ivy and multilegged insects rose up from the earth.

She'd almost cracked her head open.

So close to the unforgiving stone, Gaby couldn't quite read the stamped letters. They blurred into unrecognizable gibberish until she cautiously levered herself away. Dead branches from a thorny bush cut into her palms and knees. A broken twig gouged her upper arm.

She barely noticed.

The marker sat crookedly upright on the weedy ground, an eerie specter of past life. Filled with a deviant trepidation, Gaby stripped away the knotted, entwined vines and read aloud, "Mulhauser County Isolation Hospital."

A hospital?

In the middle of the woods?

But a quick look around assured her that the area hadn't always been wooded. The abandoned building was the victim of neglect. "Erected AD 1850 by the Board of Chosen Freeholders of Mulhauser County."

Not since Father died had she been anywhere near a hospital. Her heart stuttered in familiar rage.

The cold stone boldly displayed the names of a director, supervisor, medical advisor, architect, and assistant. Eyes narrowed, Gaby whispered aloud, "Cancer Research Center."

Sound and sight receded. Seconds stretched into a Ml minute. Memories overtook her mind, playing in rapid, clicking succession with the jarring clarity of a movie reel.

Father Mullond growing ill.

Losing weight.

Losing strength.

Losing his sanity.

Medicines and medical treatment had only robbed him of his dignity and multiplied his suffering. She remembered all the clerics praying to no avail.

She remembered her useless tears, which hadn't changed a thing.

Most of all, she recalled the tragic, yet merciful end that had taken too long to arrive. By the time God claimed him, Father had become a wasted, shriveled being, hollow in body and mind, in no way resembling the powerful man he'd once been.

With a shock, Gaby sucked in a gasping breath and fought off a recurrence of the nausea. She wouldn't think about those awful days, and weeks, and months. She wouldn't think about the year when her world had crashed down around her, when the only friend she'd ever known had been tortured by nature—by the very God she worked so hard to appease.

She wouldn't think about being alone in a life plagued by evil forces that only she could see.

"Screw this." Using the marker for leverage, Gaby pulled herself to her feet. Bloody fingerprints remained on the stone as she peered around, at last seeing through the woods to the forsaken hospital lurking within.

Staring at the building, she sneered, "So it looks big and imposing? It's also dead and empty and… nothing at all."

Covered in abundant plant life, cut off from human traffic, few people would remember this place or even see it. Life would buzz around it, never once making notice of the atrocious structure.

"If things get critical," Gaby whispered, "this just might be the perfect place to hide."