by Trudi Jaye
I place the bottle on the table next to the box, and pull out another, and another. They’re all slightly different, either in shape or color, with different kinds of lids, and some of them hum discordantly in my hands like the disks. Others seem dormant.
The vibrations from the sound machine in the next room cause the bottles on the table to tremble and jump against each other. The little tinkling noises are like a tune the fairies might play. I hum along, weaving my song into the sound of the delicate music.
There’s a loud thump from the other room and all the bottles jump in tinkling unison. The little green bottle closest to the edge of the table wobbles as if it’s going to fall. As I reach out to steady it, my hand knocks another of the little bottles on its side and sets it rolling uncontrollably down the table. It’s over the edge before I can stop it. The bottle hits the stone floor and the glass shatters immediately into a thousand pieces.
I let out a squeak and jump back, trying not to get broken glass on me. A glowing blue mist rises out of the bottle, clearly some kind of residue from whatever was once inside it.
But as I watch, the mist thickens and drifts toward me. I lean forward and sniff; there’s a pleasant sweet and minty scent. The mist creates pretty swirling patterns in the air, but not following any air movements that I can feel. I wait, curious what will happen, but keeping my distance.
It seems innocuous, and I’m pretty sure it’s not going to hurt me. It seems to be just dancing in the air. Unable to help myself, I slowly reach out with a fingertip and touch the closest tendril of the glowing blue fog.
For a moment it slides along my skin, smooth and silky, like the fur on a week-old kitten. I’m hypnotized by the patterns of the blue mist. I gaze in fascination as it spins and swirls in a diaphanous dance up my arm toward my shoulder. As it coils around my neck, whirling round and round like a silken scarf, some part of me realizes this isn’t good, but I can’t seem to take action. I watch numbly as it dances around my neck, barely visible. The mist is tiny, ephemeral, the total mass no bigger than an apple. It shouldn’t be able to affect me like this.
Then suddenly, without warning, the glowing blue mist covers my face and I breathe it in with a shocked gasp, absorbing the blue particles through my nose, eyes, and mouth. I think some even went in through my ears. It tastes of blue spearmint and cotton candy.
A terrible prickly sensation fills me up, like I’ve swallowed a dozen hedgehogs. Everything goes blurry, and then sparks fly in the air around me. I’m full and empty at the same time. I have a thousand fire ants crawling along my body, fighting with the hedgehogs, nipping and clawing at my skin.
I moan and hold my hands to my face, pulling off my glasses and trying to stop the burning inside my brain that’s making my eyes water and my stomach churn. What the hell was in that mist? Was it some kind of toxin or drug? Is this a hallucinogenic reaction?
Or was it poison? Am I about to die?
My legs wobble, and suddenly they can’t support my weight. I lean heavily on the wooden table and manage to stay upright by lowering to a crouch and propping myself against the sturdy wooden leg. My glasses clatter to the floor next to me.
My head is spinning and the world around me isn’t working the way it should. It’s all strange and fuzzy, like a mosquito net has been thrown over my body. I shake my head, trying to clear it.
And then I feel it.
Something is crawling around inside me. Not the hedgehogs. Not the fire ants.
Something else.
I let out another moan, and then my whole body gives up.
I collapse to the floor, right on top of the broken shards of glass. Little needles of pain flare along my body as pieces of glass pierce my bare skin. I try to move, to get up off the scattered glass fragments, but my body won’t respond, and I lie there, limp and unmoving.
I’m staring helplessly up at the ceiling when someone appears in the doorway—big and dark with green eyes blazing and movement so swift I blink to make sure I’m not hallucinating. He crouches beside me and picks me up from the glass, carefully shaking out the pieces that have fallen into my clothing.
Then he strides back out the door, his boots crunching over the broken shards.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the Professor, still absorbed in his experiment. He hasn’t even noticed I’m being kidnapped out of the lab.
I can’t speak. I can’t yell. I can only watch as the stranger carries me out the door, up the stairs, and along the corridor.
9
Inside, I’m screaming and kicking and fighting.
I’m yelling at the top of my voice, Murder, fire, help!
But none of it is working. My body and mouth are still and silent as I lie limp in the stranger’s arms, almost as if I’m an accomplice in this abduction.
It’s hard to think, because there’s also something crawling through my mind, pushing at my consciousness, clouding my senses. It’s like I’m seeing everything through a filtered lens, two steps back from where I usually view everything.
I don’t know who the stranger is, or why he’s abducting me.
From what I can work out, he’s tall and broad. He’s also strong, carrying me like I don’t weigh a thing against his hard-muscled chest. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him before, but given that I’m without my glasses and everything is blurry, who knows. I narrow my eyes and squint up at him. It’s hard to be sure, but he seems dark haired and kind of shaggy looking, like he’s a few weeks overdue on a haircut. I can’t see his eyes, but I remember the flash of them I got in the lab—a green like nothing else I’ve seen, vibrant and bright, blazing with heat.
My head lolls to one side, too heavy to hold up. I hear someone moan—me—and he glances down, his dark eyebrows together in a scowl that’s directed at me. Now that I think about it, his body seems tense and he’s radiating anger like he’s a hot pot on an old stove.
Why’s he so angry? He’s the one who’s abducting me, kidnapping me right out in the open from my place of work. I’ve read about this kind of thing happening, but I never thought it would happen to me. One terrible event per lifetime, surely? Two at the most?
Haven’t I paid my dues?
Moments later we’re outside in the bright sunshine. He strides over to a picnic table under the shade of a tree and dumps me down on the bench seat. My limp body lies awkwardly on the wooden slats. I still can’t move a muscle, not even to glare.
“Just lie there for a moment,” he says gruffly.
I look up at him, seeing everything with an odd hazy filter. What happened to me back there? What’s happening to me now? I don’t understand any of it. Is he kidnapping me? Why have we stopped? And why can’t I move?
A strange bubbling feeling hits me hard, and my eyes roll in my head. Then suddenly I’m surrounded by emotion, dancing and flitting about inside me. Not just one, but all the emotions—happy, sad, angry, worried, elated, scared—all at once. Pushing at me, filling me up, making me feel like I’m going to burst.
It gets stronger and stronger until I’m gasping for breath. It’s too much. There’s no way I can deal with all this inside me at once. I can’t move, but I feel my own panic rising, and soon it takes over, surpassing the other emotions.
My heart is frantically pounding against my rib cage, begging to be let out, and I jerk and tremble against the wooden bench. The world goes hazy, and I hear someone moaning.
Then everything goes black.
I wake to darkness, and for a moment I panic again, thinking that hours have gone by. Then I realize my eyelids are shut; not just shut, but lying heavy across my eyes, like they’re trying to protect me from what I might see if I open them.
What could be out there? What are my eyes trying to protect me from? For a moment I hesitate, and then I slowly open them.
Bright light hits my irises, and I blink a few times, trying to force my eyes to adjust. The stranger is hovering over me, his face a blurry mass. Intense sunlight hits me from ever
ywhere else, causing needle-sized darts of pain through my irises and into my brain. I rub my eyelids, but it doesn’t help. I really wish I had my glasses.
On the plus side, everything is calm inside my head now; my mind seems to be my own again. And I can move—although the act of getting my hand to my face feels like I should win an Olympic medal for the effort involved.
“What happened to her?” asks a woman dressed like a student in jeans and a T-shirt, approaching the stranger.
“I’m not sure. I found her like this.” His voice is a growl, and the hairs on the back of my neck rise in response. He’s wearing jeans as well, but something about him has me convinced he’s not a student. I’m not even sure he could pass for a lecturer.
“You didn’t do this to her, did you?” asks the woman. For a moment, my heart lifts. She’s going to intervene. She’s going to stop the stranger from kidnapping me. I try to let her know with my eyes that I’m grateful.
“Of course not.” His voice is grim and dark, and the woman takes an instinctive step backward. I can make out her long red hair and a pale face, but that’s about it.
“You should take her to a doctor,” she says with a nod in my direction. “There’s one on campus.”
The stranger nods. “Thanks. I’ll take her when she’s feeling a little better.”
The woman hesitates for another few seconds. “I have to go. I’ve got class.”
My elation sinks back down into my body.
The stranger grasps my arm, pulling it away from my face. I wince up at him, trying to force my eyes to suddenly see without glasses, just so I can figure out what this guy actually looks like. How am I supposed to pick him out in a lineup if I can’t see him?
“If I don’t act quickly, you might be in serious trouble,” he says sternly.
I don’t understand at first. Is he threatening me? I try to open my mouth, trying to say something, anything, but I can’t think what.
“You’ve been possessed by a demon. You’re glowing blue.”
I blink. That’s not what I was expecting him to say. I try to look at my body, to see if he’s right, but my head is too heavy. It was a demon that did this to me? The color of the mist, the way it forced its way in… It clicks into place.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to process what he’s saying. I only just learned to call them demons last night, and now he’s saying there’s one in my body?
How is that even possible? They’re enormous, almost twice my size. How could something like that fit inside me? Why would it even want to get inside me?
Can it hurt me?
That last thought leaves me breathless. I try to sit up, to move my legs, to do anything other than lie here like a lump of cement. I need to get this demon out of me. My arms move, flapping uselessly around my head.
I must look like I’m panicking, because the stranger steps closer and leans forward until he’s looking straight down at me. It feels as if the heat emanating off his body is burning my skin, and it makes me want to squirm away from him. It also sends a strange shiver of awareness down my body, like I’m recognizing something long forgotten.
Who is this guy? Why is he here? Even more importantly, why is he so sure it’s a demon? I can’t see his expression clearly, but it’s like he’s looking for something in my face. Maybe for the demon to leap out of my mouth and attack him? Is that what they do when they possess people?
I make a strange strangled noise.
“It’s okay, it’s the early stages. You’re fine for now,” he says curtly. The words for now hang ominously in the air. He moves away again and I let out a relieved breath.
I try to calm my thoughts and consider what he’s said. There was a blue mist, sure. But it was only tiny—surely too small for a demon? They’re big and scary, even I know that.
Except…what if there are different sized demons? It’s a thought that’s never occurred to me before, and I take out the idea, checking it from all angles.
What if I really was taken over by a demon? What’s going to happen to me if that’s true? Is the demon in charge? I try not to think of every demon possession movie I’ve ever seen, but it’s not easy. My breath is coming faster and faster, and I have to clench my hands into tight fists to battle the dread that’s fighting to surface.
But even in the middle of my rising panic, a bubbling elation rolls over me, mixed with joy and excitement, and I know it’s not my own. Whatever’s inside me is following my thoughts.
Don’t get any ideas, I think furiously. I’m still in charge here.
Suddenly I’m sitting up, my arms swinging about like I’m a crazy person, and I’m grinning like a loon.
Stop that!
The stranger glares at me. “What are you doing?” he says in a low voice.
I wish I could answer him. I wish I could do anything other than exactly what the demon is making me do.
Point proven, the demon lets me go, and I flop back to the picnic table, banging my head on the wood. My heart is racing, and I’m sweating like I’ve just run a marathon.
The demon has more control over my body than I do.
I shudder. A demon. One of the beasts I’ve been hunting.
I want to yell, “Get it out!” Preferably at the top of my voice, using every ounce of breath in my lungs. But I stay where I am, not moving.
“I have to make a call. I’ll be right back.” The stranger pulls a mobile phone from his back pocket and walks toward a large Jeep parked on the road nearby, making a call as he goes. Instead of a kidnapper, in that moment, he feels more like a lifeline. I try to move, to call out, tell him not to leave me here alone with a demon. My body turns slightly onto its side, and I moan.
It’s progress at least.
The stranger, having opened the Jeep door and grabbed something from inside it, comes back toward me, still on the phone. He’s now wearing mirrored aviator sunglasses. “She moved,” he says to someone on the other end. He nods and says, “Okay, I will.” Then he hangs up.
What’s he going to do? I watch him closely.
He comes to stand closer to the bench. “I know how to control the demon for a while. You might not like it, but it has to be done.” He pulls something out of his pocket. “You’re just lucky I keep one in the car.”
For a moment, I don’t understand what it is. And then I recognize the small rectangular device in his hand.
It’s a Taser.
For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, I’m standing at the wrong end of a dude with a Taser.
Inside, I scream like I’ve never screamed before.
10
It isn’t so bad the second time.
I repeat the words to myself as my back arches and my whole body shudders and shakes from the painful electricity running through every nerve ending. The demon is taking the brunt of it, and somehow, through the sharp, burning pain that’s making me want to crawl out of my skin, I manage to take back control of my body.
The demon disappears, and I let out a shuddering breath. The painful effects of the Taser are something I can bear if it means I can move my own arms and legs again.
I shift my head and peer up at the stranger standing rigidly next to me, the offending Taser still in his hand. The aftershocks are still running through my body, and I keep jerking and twitching, just like I did last night. He might have just saved me from the demon, but he used to a Taser to do it. That puts him on a par with Harold the security guard in my books.
“Who—” I swallow over my dry throat. “Who… the hell… are you?”
He takes a small step back, looking down at me as if he’s surprised. Then he clears his throat. “I’m Blade.” His words are short and gruff. It’s like he’s angry with me, and that annoys me even more. I’m not the one who did the Tasering.
“Is that… your superhero name?”
He frowns. “My surname.”
“What… were you… doing in the lab?” My voice is still scratchy, but I’m deter
mined to understand what the hell is going on.
“I heard a strange noise, and I came to investigate. I saw you collapse.”
I squint up at him, trying to figure out what’s wrong with what he’s saying. Ah, yes. “You couldn’t have heard the Professor’s experiment. It was too high a frequency.” I don’t mention that it makes the hair on my neck stand on end. Most people don’t have that reaction.
His eyes narrow, and he tips his head ever so slightly to one side, as if considering what I said. “I heard something. I don’t know what it was.” He shrugs. “Perhaps it was something else.”
“No one ever visits us in the basement,” I say suspiciously. I wiggle my toes and then move my legs, bending my knees. Despite the residual pain, I’m relieved to have the demon out of me. I hold up my arms and then bring them down, using them to push myself up to sitting. It feels good to be in control again.
“Would you prefer that I didn’t find you?” he says. “The demon would have taken over your body for good.”
The thought of the demon still being inside me, moving me about against my will, makes me hesitate. He’s right, I should be more grateful. “I’m sorry. I’m glad you came along, so you could Taser me back to health.” I touch the Taser point still stuck into my shoulder, through my clothes. I still remember how much it hurt to get the other probes out last night.
“I’ll pull them out,” he says, reaching toward me.
I jerk away, glaring up at him. Turns out I’m still a little sore about being Tasered again. “Don’t touch me. I’ll do it.”
We had to do all our own medicine at the compound—survivalists are a suspicious lot. And since I left, I’ve stitched myself up a couple of times. I really would rather do it myself.
He steps back, his hands held high, palms facing me. “Just pull it sharply, don’t let the barbs stay in the skin.”
