Red Right Hand Page 11

  “I think he’s okay,” I told Daniel.

  The next second he was beside us. Not kneeling. No, he stood, impossibly tall, his coat whispering around him in tattered tendrils.

  I wish he would quit doing that.

  “Stand, minion. I am not done yet, and I have need of thee.”

  “Back off him! He’s injured.” The snarl hurt my face.

  Nyarlathotep’s face flushed dark. Magick crackled, dripping off his red right hand. “Acolyte.”

  I tensed, my body tight with anger, with the desire, the need, to protect Daniel. A thought sent a spark of magick down my arm. I felt it as a relief, an ease of pressure in my skin as pent-up energy gushed forward and into the firebrand. It was intuitive, as natural as breathing. My palm hurt, the torc buzzed my throat, and the stick lit like a torch, the flame an eye-searing acetylene blue.

  I rose into a crouch, holding my weapon between us. “Back. Off.”

  “You threaten me, Acolyte?” The Man in Black slid back, his sword held ready to swing. “Bold.” Magick dripped off his hand and ran down the sword in trickles of etheric energy, making the sticky gore on the blade sizzle. It spattered onto the ground, eating holes in the tile like acid. “But I will teach you your place. There is a price to pay for defiance.”

  I stayed crouched, making myself a smaller target and reserving power for when I attacked. I fell back on all the years of martial arts I had taken, training relentlessly so I would never be helpless again. Kenpo, jujitsu, tae kwon do, Muay Thai, wushu; I blended all of them to give me the skill set best suited to my physical abilities. Sensei Laura always drilled home: Run if you can, but sometimes you must fight. If you must fight, then fight to kill.

  Daniel was worth fighting for, even though, deep down, an ice-cold knot of certainty said the Man in Black would kill me for trying. I could make him pay for the privilege, but he would kill me just the same.

  We stared at each other. I felt the ripple of heat from the firebrand and Daniel behind me as I looked into the black-pit eyes of a chaos god. He didn’t move, save for the sizzle-drop of magick from his sword and the anxious fluttering of his still-living coat. Tension stretched between us.

  Who would break the stalemate?

  Who would make the first move?

  Who would strike first?

  Maniacal laughter rang across the room, ending the standoff before we could find out.

  The Man in Black looked over my head, past me. “We will finish this at a later time, Acolyte.”

  I could feel something against my back, a pressure like a hot, dry wind from a gulch of death. It made the back of my scalp itch and crawl as though it were alive. The symbol cut into my palm burned fiercely.

  From the corner of my eye, I watched Daniel sit up, facing behind me. He scrambled to his feet, eyes wide. “Charlie, you need to turn around.”

  I rose and turned and my stomach clenched in a fist of dread.

  23

  MASON STOOD IN the center of the ward.

  Completely naked.

  The fire had burned away his scrubs, leaving him bare-skinned and nude except for the amulet that lay on his chest. The fire had also scorched away every hair from every follicle, leaving him bald, slick looking, alien without the markers of hair and eyebrows all humans shared. I looked; I had to, my eyes drawn inexorably downward, pulled the same way they’d been with Ashtoreth.

  He wasn’t human between his legs.

  What hung there was a maze of serpentine appendages, twisted and contorted, a balloon of intestine in the hands of a psychotic clown.

  Horror congealed in the pit of my stomach.

  A scalpel glittered in Mason’s hand. He’d used it to carve his own skin with a sigil that looked eerily like the one on my palm. Blood sheeted down his hairless body, pooling in the hollows and dips, running from the arcane symbol sliced into his chest. Arms out, hips and shoulders loose-jointed, he began to dance in place, eyes wild and swirling in their sockets.

  Daniel spoke beside me. “Why is he acting like a marionette in the hands of an epileptic?”

  I shrugged and looked over at the Man in Black.

  The chaos god also shrugged. “He casts a working.”

  “You’re using words like we know what they mean again,” I said.

  He sighed. Did I test his patience? If so, good. “The dance he performs will gather magick to power a spell.”

  I thought about it. “Why can’t I feel anything? Ever since you gave me this”—I held up my Mark—“whenever hoodoo voodoo happens, I can feel it inside me. I feel nothing right now.”

  The Man in Black didn’t answer. Instead, he thrust his sword toward Mason.

  The magick running down the blade flung itself off, stretching and flying through the air. It crashed against some invisible barrier around the priest in a sputtering of electric blue sorcery. The flash washed my eyesight with the vision of writhing magick, strands of it twisting like a bed of snakes. It lasted only a split second, and then it was gone, marring my ability to see with black, spotty ghost images.

  “Well, that failed spectacularly.” I didn’t try to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

  The Man in Black shrugged. “He is warded. It will open when he finishes the ritual and releases the magick. Then he will be vulnerable once more.”

  “Can’t you break the ward?”

  “My coat will not have the strength until it recovers.”

  I felt the song of the coat tickle the edge of my brain. It felt like the whimper of a beat dog. I shook my head to clear it.

  Daniel moved to my left, the side without the still-burning firebrand. He looked over at Nyarlathotep. “What do we do next?”

  “We see what spell he is casting, and then we respond accordingly.”

  Daniel nodded. “I’ll find a weapon.”

  He moved away, and I watched him. His movement had a stilted, halting quality, as if he suffered pain from an old injury. I’d watched him a lot in the last few months as we’d gotten to know each other. Normally, he moved with the grace of a former athlete who still kept in shape, every action fluid and easy. That was broken now. His movements were stiff, slower than they had been.

  The rustle of Nyarlathotep’s coat as he stepped close drew my eye away from Daniel.

  The Man in Black’s voice was low, nearly a murmur when he spoke. “I see concern in your eyes for him.”

  I bristled at his intimate tone. “Yeah, so?”

  “It is … interesting that you care so much for him.”

  “One of us has to.”

  One sharply sculpted eyebrow arched. “I care for those who worship me, Acolyte.”

  Then you must hate me.

  What I said was: “He doesn’t really worship you. That’s just your magick brainwashing. He’s a Christian. That’s why he stood up to you earlier.”

  “Oh, Acolyte, you are so naive.” His mouth twitched, amusement glittering in those midnight eyes. “He does truly worship the Christ, but he risked my wrath over you.”

  For me?

  “What do you mean?”

  “His feelings for you are the strength he draws from to slip my yoke.”

  I said nothing, my eyes sliding over to Daniel. He pulled the bags off another IV pole.

  “He will not survive whatever occurs next without my protection. He will be the lamb to this slaughter.” The Man in Black’s voice slithered into my head, insidiously rubbing across my brain like rough velvet. “Stop fighting me at every turn, and I will grant that protection.”

  Son of a bitch.

  “Send him away, and I’ll cooperate without a fuss,” I counteroffered.

  He chuckled. “And lose my bargaining chip? I think not. Besides, Acolyte, you would not want me to send him anywhere I can take him. The gibbering horrors there would break his mind and flay his soul.” He shook his head. “He stays with us and fights, you behave, and he lives through this. That is the only bargain on the table.”

  I felt just a
s trapped as I had been before. I had no choice, not really, not one that mattered. I either agreed and kept Daniel safe for now, or I left him on his own.

  I felt my lip curl.

  Manipulative son of a bitch.

  My words came through gritted teeth. “If you let him get hurt, I will turn on you like a rabid dog.”

  “I would expect nothing less from you, Charlotte Tristan Moore.” He smiled. “Nothing less indeed.”

  “Stop using my full name.”

  Daniel came back holding a four-foot section of IV pole in his hands. His color had improved, and his movements were steadier. He wasn’t back to normal, but he looked better.

  His eyes slid from me to the Man in Black and back to me. “What were you two talking about?”

  The Man in Black didn’t say anything.

  “Strategy,” I said.

  “We have a plan?”

  “Not as such. Stay close, and be careful.”

  He hefted the steel pole, the look on his face determined, brows drawn and his lips set in a hard line. “I’ll be right here beside you.”

  “I can take care of myself. You stay near your Master.”

  He shook his head, making his shaggy bangs sweep back and forth over his intense green eyes. “He can take care of himself. I’ll watch your back.”

  He would get himself killed worrying about me. I needed him to stay close to the Man in Black. I didn’t like it, but it was his best chance for surviving whatever came next.

  And something was coming.

  Mason had stopped cutting himself and was now gesturing wildly, gore covered hands jerking through the air. The blood from his body lifted, suspended in front of him. It swirled and congealed into a ball of liquid crimson. The air inside his circle of protection crackled with magick that I could now feel like a pulse against my skin.

  We didn’t have long.

  I pushed Daniel, making him step sideways. “Stay. With. Him.”

  Before he could protest again, the air around Mason split like a lightning strike, and a rush of magick spilled out into the room.

  The spell buzzed in my eyes, and I watched it arc from the ball of blood in front of Mason. It sizzled into the bodies on the beds around the room. They began to thrash, plastic and metal restraints banging against bedrails in a cacophony. Banging and clanging, crashing metal on metal. The beds jittered, skewing sideways like slow-motion car wrecks. The air tasted metallic and sour on the back of my tongue.

  I leaned toward Daniel, near shouting over the noise. “Did you see that?”

  His eyes were wide. “I see the octopenis man with no clothes and the spinning disco ball of blood. Is that what you’re talking about?”

  “He does not have the Sight, Acolyte. He only sees the natural.” The Man in Black’s voice rang clear over the din, more inside my head than out. “Prepare yourself. The moment is almost at hand.”

  The bodies stopped thrashing as if a plug had been pulled.

  An avalanche of silence fell, pulling at my eardrums like a vacuum after the assault of noise a second ago. Then a sound I had never heard before began to build. It was a … my mind groped for the right word … a groaning. The sound of something being pulled to the breaking point. The sound of birthing. It made me look at the people in the beds. They weren’t moving, but their stomachs were. Their skin pulsed, undulating like air bladders being inflated and deflated. They expanded, stretching, ripping free of the clothing over them. Each one swelled, road-mapped with throbbing dark blue veins. Every palpitation drew another groan from the body it ripped through, a horrible sound that pulsed through the room, crashing into my mind like an ocean tide. All the patients’ stomachs were now the size of young children crouching over their bodies.

  Mason whipped his hands apart and stepped through the ball of enchanted blood. It broke like a bubble, splattering across the tile floor. He screamed across the ward at us. “Now you will see the coming of the glory of Yar Shogura. Bask in his presence, join his unholy flesh, and know the peace of consumption!”

  The stomachs ruptured in a shower of gore that rained across the room.

  24

  I TURNED AWAY as hot ichor splattered down on me. It hit like hailstones, striking hard and drenching me from head to toe. My eyes were closed against it, but I sputtered as it ran down my face. I could hear sizzling where it fell on the flame of the firebrand in my hand. I’d stopped concentrating, and the flame had died down to merely a lick of fire, but it still burned, the ichor crackling and popping against it.

  It smelled foul: a sour vegetation stink mixed with the meaty scent of decomposition. It clogged my nostrils, shutting them tight. Desperately I wiped my face, trying to clear the goo away.

  The sight I opened my eyes to made me forget about the stench.

  The tumors had burst free from their belly-prisons and were crawling across the floor.

  They stumped along, pulling themselves in trails toward Mason. Some rolled, some lurched, some wriggled, but all of them moved. They were different shapes, different sizes. Here, one with tiny claw-tipped limbs hooked the tile and dragged itself forward. There, one with a row of jagged teeth swirling through its discolored flesh buzzed and hopped. Another trailed a length of hair behind it that spread over the floor like a ratty blanket.

  As they met in front of Mason they bumped together, quivering as they rubbed against one another. Two tumors rose, pressing hard against each other until their membranes slipped, allowing the cancerous flesh of one to run and pour into the other. Others joined, metastasizing, growing into a monstrosity. The conjoined masses made a wall of tumorous flesh that throbbed and glistened. The pieces I had seen in the tumors slid through the mass of diseased flesh, swimming into place until they formed a new mass covered in mouths and eyes with two long, slender limbs hooked with claws designed for pulling prey in close. The mouths chewed even though they were empty, a continuous rumination on invisible cud.

  “What the hell is that?” Daniel sounded hushed, awestruck.

  “That,” the Man in Black lifted his sword, “is the thing we have come to kill.” He looked over at me. His voice echoed inside my mind.

  Remember our bargain, Acolyte.

  I nodded sharply and followed the chaos god into battle against the Cancer God.

  As we drew near, Mason began to laugh again. It was hard to hear over the wet, squelching, suctioning sound that came from the hideous mass of his god as it shuffled forward. The Man in Black stepped in front of it. The Cancer God towered over him, looming in an avalanche of carcinoma waiting to break and fall in a crushing wave. Nyarlathotep looked up serenely as he swung the sword in an almost lazy arc, the razor edge twinkling in the overhead light.

  It took forever for the blade to strike.

  It bit deep, the diseased flesh parting in a spill of fluid. The sword slipped straight through like quicksilver, not dragging, pausing, or catching. The flesh of the Cancer God didn’t resist, merely parted around the blade and slapped together on the other side like wet lunch meat being stacked.

  The Cancer God towered over me. My mind split in two. One part of me felt small, weak, and powerless in the face of such a monstrosity. It was the part that had been damaged so long ago, the broken part that never healed, just got pushed down. She made my knees go weak and my blood run cold with her fear.

  The other part of me, her sister born in the same moment, was tired of that feeling. She held a storm of anger, white-hot with wrath. She pushed magick down my arm, through the symbol cut into my palm, and into the firebrand.

  A four-foot conflagration jolted out of the weapon.

  The Cancer God howled at me with dozens of mouths and lunged, falling toward me, wanting to crush me beneath it and absorb me into itself.

  Twisting with my hips, I drove the cremation-hot blade of fire deep into one of the open mouths.

  It slid in, the flesh around the fire bubbling, melting into a boil that spilled out and around the firebrand I held. The other mo
uths screamed, and the whole mass of Yar Shogura lurched to pull itself away.

  My mind went blank, reverting to my training, and I lunged after it, pressing my advantage. I sawed my arm back and forth, swirling the blade inside the Cancer God. I pulled up, leaning into it, dragging the fire-blade through diseased flesh. I managed to cut upward until the flame-sword ripped free, making me stumble, nearly falling on the slime-covered floor.

  The Cancer God recoiled. The wound channel didn’t close. It gaped, cauterized and sealed. I had drawn back to strike again when the Man in Black called to me.

  “Acolyte.”

  I looked quickly, not wanting to take my eyes off the retreating Cancer God. The Man in Black had become a blur of darkness. His coat roiled around him, slapping against the Cancer God, holding the monstrosity back while its master wove a web of razor-sharp steel. The Man in Black leaned left, stretching long over his own leg, and sliced viciously.

  A piece of Yar Shogura plopped onto the floor.

  Daniel darted in, spearing it with the steel pole as it tried to crawl back to its host. A gout of brackish fluid pumped out, through the hollow pole, and over his shoulder. Arms straining, he pulled the chunk of living meat across the floor, dragging it away from the host. It quivered and strained, a fish on a hook, shaking and jerking, trying to free itself.

  I ran over. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Burn it,” Daniel yelled over the sucking noise of the Cancer God moving along the floor. He picked the tumor up with the pole, holding it out like spitted meat to be cooked.

  I swung the firebrand, bathing the tumor chunk in flame. The fire crackled along its lumpy surface, and it began to sizzle and pop, releasing a hissing scream. I’d heard that sound before. Lobsters make that sound when dropped live in boiling water. High-pitched and horrible, it made me feel bad.

  Then I remembered.

  This was cancer.

  This thing I burned and tried to kill, was the embodiment of the most evil disease I’d ever seen. It had taken the life of a person, its host, using them up as its food. It ate them away a cell at a time, stealing their life in tiny increments. This thing had choked the life out of my grandmother. It haunted me and my mother, waiting in our DNA to bear diseased fruit that would rot our lives away.