Furies- Thus Spoke

by O'Brian Gunn

  The gun directly to Giorgio’s left wavers and the woman holding it shuffles her stance.

  “But Jay, you were the one who suggested that she shirk her duties to—” He slips his glasses back on. “Well, let’s not air all your filthy laundry.” He takes the umbrella back in his hand. “Linda, if you will.”

  Linda adjusts the aim of her gun in a silky twist and fires off a single shot just as Jay goes to swivel his gun on her.

  Now there are four men and women with guns aimed at him. Water collects in Jay’s ear canal as he dies listening to the patter of rain.

  Giorgio slides out of the van, walks, and kneels at the corpse, turning it over on its back. The slack lips slide open and water collects in the mouth. Giorgio wraps his hands around the head, bows his own head...and looks up. “Am I the only person here who prefers not to have guns trained on him while he dines?”

  Damon swipes a hand down.

  The guns are lowered.

  Giorgio bows his head again and feels the death essence growing inside Jay’s dead body, feels it surging and rolling over the last vestiges of life fading from blood vessels, muscles, and organs. Death blossoms, blood begins to cool, and the heart slowly, reluctantly deflates one last time.

  Giorgio strokes Jay’s face, mindless of those watching him. The sensation of rain pattering on his hand and death tingling languidly on his fingers brings back euphoric narcotic memories. His eyes slip shut. Slowly, he siphons the diaphanous sludge from the corpse, delighting in the sensation trilling through him as thinning skin is repaired, slackened muscles inflate, and his lips become full and flushed.

  Death brings life.

  Jay’s corpse withers to flaps of skin and brittle bone. Rain beats flat on desiccated flesh.

  “That’s amazing.” Damon grips his umbrella tighter.

  “That’s life.” Giorgio stands.

  “So, shall we stand here in the rain and riddle you with bullets, fists, and feet until you stay down, or should we just cut your head off?” He slips Giorgio a smile.

  “You’d better bring your absolute best if you test me...unless you’re ready to die.” Giorgio slicks a hand through his sodden hair. “But how about I give you a new test subject instead?”

  Head full of ideas that you couldn’t conceive.

  FADE OUT

  Mercurmont

  “See?”

  He rolls his hand over to his palm, flexing his fingers.

  The girl who looks like him squints her eyes and runs her fingers over the patterns of lines, whorls, and DNA etchings.

  “I don’t see anything, Mal.”

  He points at the faint red line running down his index finger. “Right there. I sliced my finger open yesterday, and now it’s completely healed.”

  She drops his hand. “That doesn’t mean you’re an A-O.” She relaxes back against the park bench, shielding her eyes against the sun while looking out at the children scampering across the playground.

  “How else could I have healed that quickly, Val?”

  Shrug. “You’re at an age where your body is starting to change, maybe your immune system is changing, too.”

  “Changing into something superhuman.” He curls his fingers closed into a fist.

  His sister shakes her head. “You and your overactive imagination. You need to become a writer or something instead of a stock broker.”

  Mal goes quiet, the cloud rolling across the sun mirroring the once across his face. “Jim wouldn’t like that.”

  She reaches for the bottle of soda next to her, unscrews the cap, and takes a quick sip. “He’s our stepdad, he doesn’t have a syllable of a say whatsoever in how you should live your life. Just because he’s a stockbroker doesn’t mean you have to be one.” She dabs at her mouth with the back of her wrist. “Have you seen him when he comes home? He looks like hell. Hair all rumpled, slacks wrinkled, funk of coffee on his breath.” She shakes her head. “You want to look like that in fifteen years?”

  It’s Mal’s turn to shrug. “He’s shown me some of his books, he’s even taken me to the office a few times. It’s not...it’s not that bad.” He scratches the back of his neck.

  Val looks at him. “I’ve known you longer than he has. You had that same expression on your face when you were eleven and mom dressed you in that ugly plaid sweater and you said you loved it.”

  “No, really I—”

  “Can’t sit here.”

  Val and Mal turn and see a tall young man with his arms crossed over his large chest. Veins wind the flesh-colored tree trunks peeking out from his sleeveless shirt. Another young man of the same size stands at his right with a crooked grin on his acne-dappled face.

  “It’s okay if you skip a day, Phineas.” Mal bobs his knee.

  A smile ripples and bubbles across a pock-marked face.

  “Shut the fuck up, Chris.” Phineas slaps a large palm into the young man’s chest. He scowls back at the twins. “I told you to call me Phin.” He looks Mal up and down. “Little sand nigger.” He turns his attention to Val. His expression turns licentious. “’Ey, Val, when you gon’ let me hit it?”

  She grabs her bottle and messenger bag and stands. “Let’s go, little brother.”

  Phin slides in front of her, hands up close her chest. “Whoa whoa whoa, you can stay.”

  Val glares. “You just called my brother a sand nig—” She clamps her mouth shut over the word. “You’ll have sex with a girl of color, tell all of your friends you tapped a black or brown ass, but you won’t date a girl with thick lips, a big ass, one who wears an abaya or a niqab, or skin that isn’t the same pale-ass color as yours.” She puts a hand up and steps away.

  Large fingers capture her wrist. “Bring your big brown ass back here.”

  A small fist pops Phin under the chin, knocking his head back. Phin’s eyes widen on Mal. His lips part, revealing bloodied teeth. “You fuckin’ crazy, camel jockey?”

  Chris’s eyes swivel back and forth between the two.

  “Touch my sister again and I’ll kill you.” Mal’s fist clenches. “I’m not gonna let you pick on me anymore, I’m different now.”

  “You’re still a nigg—”

  “STOP CALLING ME THAT!” Indignant rage wraps him tight, making his body quiver and quake. “I just found out I’m an Alpha-Omega.”

  Chris and Phin stare at him, look at each other and laugh.

  Mal steps forward, fists raised.

  “Mal, don’t!” Val reaches forward too late.

  Mal punches Phin in the stomach...and draws his fist back as agony ricochets through the bones in his arm. He looks up and his vision is eclipsed by a careening fist.

  B A M !

  The blow spins him around and knocks a tooth loose. He spits out blood and stands up. “Keep hitting me, I’ll heal.” Phin kicks him in the belly, forcing air and blood from Mal’s mouth. “I’ll...heal.” He collapses on his knees.

  Val raises her fists, but doesn’t go two steps before Chris grabs her wrists and forces them down at her sides. Her anger translates into incoherent curses and snarls.

  “Still gonna heal, nigger-boy?” Phin rams his knee into Mal’s chin, knocking him on his back. Blood spatters the verdant grass. A blow to the skull. “How ‘bout that? That gonna heal up, too?”

  “I’m an Alpha-Omeg—AH!” Mal folds himself into a ball as Phin kicks him in the back. “I’ll heal. I’ll heal. I’ll hHUUU!” Bones break.

  “Mal, get up!” Val tries to break free.

  The steel toes of a large boot make brutal contact with the bleeding boy’s head. One, two, three, four times.

  Mal Nix does not heal.

  Mal Nix is not an Alpha-Omega.

  Mal Nix dies two hours later at Kindred Hospital during surgery.

  EPISODE ELEVEN: On The Verge of Greatness

  Part 2

  The setting sun slides luminescent fingers over the surface of the emerald dome, eliciting shimmering shards of light against the sprawling background of open blu
e sky and swaying grasses.

  The beauty is lost on the four figures staring up at the swirling configuration.

  “I got a question.” Noir scratches at his shaved scalp, wrinkling his lips.

  Three sets of eyes settle on him.

  “The fuck are we doin’ all of this for again?” He crosses his arms over his chest and paces. “Just ‘cause you have superpowers doesn’t mean you have to be a super...anything. You can just be super-normal.” He stops pacing, flings his arm out. “Why aren’t we being super-normal?”

  Perry looks back at the massive dome. “If a helpful suggestion isn’t coming out of your mouth, please keep it closed.” He stares intently at Leo.

  Leo blinks at him. “I’m a biochemist.”

  “But can’t you—”

  “I’m a biochemist.”

  “No one else here—”

  “Is incapable of analyzing, hypothesizing, or experimenting.”

  Perry holds a hand out. “This isn’t a test tube filled with mystery chemical X. This...thing just swallowed an entire community, it’s not something to hypothesize around with.”

  Bisset walks up and puts a hand on the dome.

  The others stop, caution, protest, and freak out.

  She finds that the dome is unyielding and slick. Her brow furrows.

  “What?” Leo studies the ripples rolling from where her hand touches emerald.

  “It feels like oil mixed with water poured over marble.”

  “So basically a slicky-sticky force field?” Noir rubs at his chin. “Leo?”

  The biochemist shakes his head. “Is anyone keeping score of how many times my powers have saved our asses?”

  “The same powers that were given to you by a gene you hate?” Perry kicks at a clump of grass and dirt.

  Pause. “How did you know that?”

  Shared stares. “Not a detective on account of how I can sniff out clues with my big nose.”

  “I don’t—” Leo’s lips seal. He incoherently mumbles something to himself before stepping towards the immense emerald jewel. He looks up...and up...and up.

  “Maybe you can punch a hole in the thing or something? Can you alter the shape of your fields?” Bisset tucks a curl behind her ear.

  “I’ll try.” He holds his hands up and closes his eyes. The air shivers, shimmers, and swirls. Silver-blue colors the air, forming itself into the shape of a large arrowhead over Leo’s body. Fingers flick. Force flies.

  K E E R R R S H H H Z Z Z !

  A cataclysmic coruscation of colors, emerald smashing silver tumbling over a blue blaze. The dome flows and falters before repairing itself. Leo shapes another arrowhead field. The coloring is more vivid, the shape denser. A grunt flies from his mouth along with the construction. The very ground quakes, the air blinks in the wake of emerald lightning and skeins of silver-blue. A small fissure splits the dome, giving way to a slice of backyard and a swimming pool before emerald light quickly flows over the imperfection.

  Leo wavers back on quivering legs before plopping down in the grass, sweat staining his brow, his chest heaving. “I think my head may explode if I try to make a stronger one.”

  Perry opens his mouth, words cut off by a sudden blaze of platinum streaking across the sky. The flames surrounding Sovereign are snuffed out and Adam falls the remaining six feet to the ground, running forward a few steps before standing before them.

  Crickets chirp in the field.

  Adam looks at the blank faces, lingering a moment on Bisset’s.

  “‘Sup, dude. Glad you found us.” Noir jerks his head up in greeting.

  “The Lord and Seraph’s light led me here.” Adam flicks his gaze at the emerald dome. He looks at Perry who looks at him. “I want to repent for what I said earlier, I spoke out in anger. Now, that doesn’t mean that I condone your lifestyle, but I shouldn’t have—”

  Perry holds up his hand. “We can talk about your skewed and staggeringly obsolete sense of the world later. Right now, we need to punch a hole through this damn thing and get inside.” He drops his hand. “How strong are you?”

  “I haven’t really had the chance to test the extremes of my strength.”

  “That changes today.” Perry looks back at the dome. “I think if you fly at this thing immediately after Leo fires another force field, we may be able to get through.”

  “Guess we know who wears the spandex in this family.” Noir takes a cigarette from the crumpled pack in the back pocket of his pants and lights up.

  Leo picks himself up. “I think I’ve got one more in me. Adam, you should fly in behind my field and the rest of us will stand behind you. If this works, we’re going to have to move quickly before the tear repairs itself.”

  “Ascension!” Platinum ignites the air.

  They form up behind Leo and Sovereign as another arrowhead glitters into existence. The force field blasts forward, rustling blades of grass in its wake. It collides with emerald, the explosion of light mixing with the platinum luster of Sovereign as he blurs forward with his fists stretched out before him.

  K E E R R R S H H H Z Z—K R A C K !

  A large section of the dome shatters inward like green glass. Sovereign soars inside Thornebriar. Bisset catches Leo as he collapses and hustles him through the tear. Perry slips through and Noir blasts forward in a sudden blurring burst of super speed just as the vacuum is sealed.

  Needles click. The room smells gently of flowery perfumes and musk. The cushion of the chair is cracked and bleeds stuffing. Death essence laces the air.

  Giorgio looks around at the circle of elderly women with needles and yarn in hand, looping and sliding needle and thread together as quilts, scarves, and sweaters slither out from quivering yet deft fingers. The woman closest to Giorgio smiles at him, eyes twinkling behind her bifocals. He turns his head at the sudden flutter of laughter emanating from the corner. White-haired heads bend back in a chord of mirth, thighs are patted by soft, wrinkled hands.

  Giorgio hardly feels the smile that slowly slips its way across his lips.

  Damon grins as he steps into the room. His hands pat and embrace, his lips whisper and pull, his eyes crinkle and twinkle. He is a fabrication made flesh that walks over to Giorgio and claps him on the arm. “How’re you holding up?”

  “I’m overcome with a need to knit something painfully cute, but other than that, I’m fine.”

  Damon pushes his glasses up and turns to the room. “Ladies, I hate to stop you in the middle of your work, but it’s time for swim class. Gotta keep those youthful bodies in shape.”

  Supple laughter coats the air. The women gather their needles and material and shuffle out the door. Giorgio jerks and looks behind him at the winking woman covering her mouth with her heavily wrinkled hands. She flutters her fingers at him as she closes the door.

  “She pinched your butt, didn’t she?”

  “How did you know?”

  “That’s Mrs. Bishop. She may be old, but she has the sex drive of a twenty-year old. Can’t tell you how many nights we’ve caught her sneaking into a man’s room. It’s gotten so bad that we can’t even allow her to meet new male residents.”

  “Feisty little gray fox.”

  “Quite.”

  “May I ask you something, Damon?”

  Damon looks at him.

  “Why the hell does your organization have its laboratory in a nursing home?”

  He leads them across the room, tapping the folder in his hand against his thigh. “In the event that we have a security breach, we don’t want to make it easy for the intruder or intruders to find what they are looking for, thereby giving us ample time to hunt them down and kill them, cordially, of course.”

  “Of course.” Giorgio sniffs.

  “Libera Mentis Machina spent years and several large bank accounts creating Thornebriar. A majority of the people who live here also work here and are aware of our existence.”

  Giorgio follows him down a hallway. “But why masquerade as a suburban
community? Surely not so you look legitimate.”

  An elderly man in pajama bottoms and a cardigan is being pushed in a wheelchair, a tank of oxygen strapped to the back of his chair. Giorgio pauses and follows him with his eyes.

  “What?”

  Giorgio lowers his voice. “That man is going to die today. I can feel the death essence pouring from him.”

  Damon watches Giorgio watching the man with a starved look in his golden-green eyes. “You don’t need to feed, do you?”

  He turns back. “No, but if I did, I’d know where to go.” He gestures for Damon to continue down the hall. “How many residents pass away each day?”

  “That’s what we’re going to talk about.” Damon slips into the room on the right, waits for Giorgio to step in and closes the door behind them.

  “We’re here to talk about how many old people die?”

  Damon walks to the projector in the room, opens the folder, and takes out a clear sheet with an image stamped on it. “Mmm, not quite.” He walks over and closes the blinds and shuts off the light.

  Darkness pervades.

  A window of light. A whirling hum. A portrait of enlarged cells, black and glowing bright. One cell burns brighter than the rest.

  “Giorgio, meet your murderer.” He points at the brightest cell. “This is your Alpha-Omega gene.”

  “The one that killed me and brought me back to life.”

  An eye scrunches. “For all intents and purposes, you’re still dead. Your A-O gene is the only thing that’s animating you right now. That, and the death essence you absorb.”

  He switches slides.

  “As you already know, extreme heat and cold and the rays of the sun at high noon corrupt what we’re calling the necro-cellular regeneration process. When this happens, any death essence you’ve absorbed attacks your body and causes you to decompose.”

  Giorgio sits silently.

  Damon switches slides, this one of a brain. Black strands lace the outer edges.

  “When we performed the CAT scan, we found that certain sections of your brain are inactive. It looks like your A-O gene was unable to reboot them upon your...redeath.”