Chapter 31; Healing
The apartment was quiet, and dark. The curtains were drawn on all the windows and the air had a stale quality to it. Used tissues overflowed a small trash can beside the couch and dirty dishes littered the coffee table. The spot of blood on the floor had been cleaned up, but there was still a reddish-brown tinge there.
A woman in a flowing cloak, with hood and veil, appeared before the new, re-enforced door. She looked at the four different locks and shook her head, her boots treading soundlessly on the tile as she moved towards the couch. She saw Skye there. Skye was sleeping, but it wasn’t a restful sleep. Her beautiful face was set with worry and her hands were clenched about a picture she held against her.
The woman tossed back her hood and unhooked her veil, then knelt and touched light fingers to Skye’s brow.
“Rest. All will be well.”
Skye’s features relaxed and her breath deepened. The woman took the picture and gazed at it with a tiny smile. It was a picture of Skye’s husband. With a sigh, she set it on the table and stood, moving to the hall and into Alexa’s room.
She was also asleep, shivering as though cold.
The Ancient raised Alexa’s gown and the bandage in order to see the marks on her belly.
“You poor dear. He’s caught you in the middle, hasn’t he? He didn’t know you can’t gift a seer.” She lowered both bandage and gown gently. “I can’t remove his marks on you without taking your gift also. They’ve become tied together, which is unfortunate, but perhaps for the best with what is to come.” Her fingers pushed a few strands of hair from Alexa’s face. “No more premonitions; no more confusion.”
Now she touched the girl’s forehead.
“Heal. Sleep.” There was no need to speak the arcane language she thought in, for her touch was magic enough to cleanse. She couldn’t take the memories of the attack from Alexa, but she could take this painful state from her and restore the girl’s sanity.
As she turned to go, the door opened.
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“Alexa, who are you talking to...” Skye stopped and stared at the creature beside the bed. It looked human, but the eyes were white, the face so beautiful that Skye almost couldn’t bear to look upon it. She stared, unable to stop or look away.
“You see your inner self reflected upon my face Skye. Your own goodness is staring back at you. This is the reason all of us, even our...men remain veiled and hooded.”
The voice was low and warm, sliding along her body like a tender caress. Questions formed in Skye’s mind, yet her lips were unable to form them.
“I should have put you under deeper; you need the rest.” The Ancient smiled. “I wanted to help Alexa though. She’ll heal properly now; I’ve removed the taint of the halfling. When she wakes, you’ll see the difference.”
“W-who are you?” Heat wrapped about Skye, hugged her and eased the aching weariness from her limbs.
“Their gifter. Jack and Riddick. I gifted them.”
“Why?”
A soft laugh left the woman’s lips. “The less you know, the better, inquisitive one. As for your man...he will heal as well.”
“The doctors want me to take him off life support.”
“And you can. I promise you.” Stretching out her hand, she touched Skye’s forehead.
Skye blinked. The woman was gone.
Or was she?
Alexa slept peacefully, the lines of strain gone from her face.
A tinkling laugh echoed behind Skye and she whirled. The heat about her slowly faded.
“I will care for them as though they were my own.”
Skye jumped, but the sense of another person was gone. She was alone with Alexa. A chill took her suddenly, goose bumps rising on her arms.
She’d met an Ancient and lived without being changed by it.
Or had she? The creature had touched her.
She should have been comforted by it’s assurances, but wasn’t.
What about Jack and Riddick?
How changed were they by that creatures touch?
The Ancient would care for them, yet why did that thought terrify her? Why was she so afraid she’d never see either of them again?
Chapter 32; Twins
The outside of the merc ship was calm. The hull had once been gray and the name in lettering on the side, but now only a few lines of paint remained.
The inside was trashed.
There were deep gauges in the inner walls, light fixtures smashed, torn
from the ceilings and walls. Blood streaked the panels and the only room
not torn to pieces was the cockpit.
Carolyn screamed in rage, hands pulling at a corner of steel inner wall,
nails breaking and tearing. She couldn't take her rage out on those humans,
so she took it out on the ship. Sweat dripped from her body in rivulets
to the floor. Baring her teeth, she gave an animalistic growl and punched
a keypad. Sparks flew and the circuits shorted out.
An alarm began to sound, Carolyn turning towards the cockpit, flecks of foamy spittle dribbling down her chin.
There was a ship coming.
She smiled.
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"She's alive. Ready med bay."
The voice of his commander was tinny through the connection and Marc glanced about the docking bay. It looked like everyone was there waiting to have a look at the woman from the merc ship.
They'd identified the ship as the Evelyn Rae, a merc vessel that had landed on T2 a few years earlier. The merc ship was tethered to theirs, a corridor extending out for men to board it. The boarding party, wearing protective gear, had made jokes at first about the inside looking like an animal had gotten loose. Then, they'd found the woman. There were no life signs, yet she was breathing.
For a moment, Marc thought about all the undead creatures in the books Alexa loved to read, then shook his head. There were no such things as supernatural or preternatural monsters. All fiction. He punched controls at his station and waited. The woman was carried in on a stretcher, but that was all he could see before men closed around her.
Silence suddenly descended, cold creeping through the crowd of men like a fog, numbing them. Marc's hands began to ache from the cold and he looked up.
The crowd was thinning, splashes and splats of flesh and blood making a widening puddle on the floor. No one moved a muscle. Men made barely there grunts of pain. Blood trickled across the floor towards Marc, touching the toes of his boots even as he used the last of his willpower to move towards the door. He moved in slow motion, backing away because he didn't want to turn his back on the woman.
He saw her then, saw her clearly in all of her terrible beauty. Her skin
was so pale that it seemed translucent, her lips redder than the blood that
she was spilling and her white eyes....
Her eyes fixed upon him as her hands ripped the throat out of their pilot
Dixon. She grinned and reached for another man, long nails slashing him,
drawing blood in spurts.
The door to the hall was stubborn, not opening, and Marc slammed his palm on the pad again and again as the woman came to him. The world began to tilt, the edges of his vision darkening until it all went black.
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He woke slowly, pain stabbing at his eyes. Marc couldn't think why his eyes would hurt; then he noticed his throat felt raw, as though he'd been screaming for hours. Despite the pain, he opened his eyes and viewed the ship through a purplish cast. His wrists were shackled above his head and his shirt was gone. The muscles in his arms spasmed, jumped and clenched tightly, and he dragged himself up a little to ease them.
He could hear screams in the air, the screams that his training unit should have made as the woman had moved from man to man, reducing each one to lumps of raw bloody flesh and shook his head. They were phantom screams and not real. His head felt like someone was beating on it.
Why hadn't she killed him with the rest of the men?
"Oh good, you're awake."
Cool fingers traced his features, touching his forehead, cheeks, jaw and mouth, caressing softly. Marc jerked away, ran his tongue along cracked, dry lips. "Who the fuck are you lady?" His voice didn't sound like his own.
"I'm Carolyn." She said as though it explained everything, and laughed, voice tinkling in an unpleasantly grating way. "You sound like him now. I took the liberty of altering your vocal chords. I can't have her knowing the difference until I have him."
"What...?" The alien coldness of her skin repulsed him, made his stomach turn over.
"Hold still." Carolyn placed her hands palm down on his cheeks and spoke in a voice so soft he could barely make out any words.
Light flared from her palms and Marc screamed as the bones in his head shifted. Tears fell from his eyes and he gasped for breath.
"Just a little reconstruction, Marc. Voice, eyes...had to change the placement slightly." She sat back with a thoughtful expression. "Where shall I mark you though? I don't know where she marked him, so...I'll have to improvise." Her hand lashed out, cutting his chest, her voice again speaking soft words.
Pain surged through Mark like an electric shock, his body jerking taut and then lax several times. It was brief, ebbing quickly, yet he felt his body was no longer his own. He was no longer himself. His senses sharpened and everything seemed too clear, images too detailed. "What have you done to me?" He muttered thickly.
"You're mine now, Marc. I made you as she made him. And her." She ran her hand across his chest. "When I'm through with you, she won't even know the difference." Leaning down, she ran her tongue up his stomach, tasting the panic and terror on his skin.
Marc jerked. It was only saliva she left on his chest, so why did he feel
so dirty? "Who? Who are you talking about?" His tongue was thick
in his mouth. Was he even getting the words out?
The woman released his restraints and settled on the floor, placing his
head in her lap. "Why Riddick, of course. And Jack. Little Jack all
grown up and lovelier than I ever could have imagined."
Her fingers rubbed his temples, soothing. The copper scent of blood stung his nostrils and bit down the back of his throat. "Jack? You know Jack?" It was an effort to speak, his eyes staring up at her white, blank ones.
"From a long while back. I've seen the picture you carry of her, Marc. She's become beautiful, yes?"
The terror began to drift away into nothingness. "Yes, she is."
"You want her?"
Despite his revulsion of the woman, he nodded. "Yes." She's not yours! His mind reminded him, but he pushed the thought away.
"Do you want her more than any woman you've ever known?"
"Yes." He calmed.
"I can give her to you, Marc."
"She's Riddick's." Remember that....
"Is she?" Carolyn stroked her fingers over his face. "She'll be my gift to you. But only if you're loyal. Only then."
"What do I have to do?"
"I thought you'd never ask."
A slim part of him fought her hold; fought the cold taking over inside him. The rest accepted and listened.