Limbo's Child

by Jonah Hewitt

  Tim didn’t like getting aggressive with women but this had to stop. “Cut it out already!!” Tim grabbed her and pushed her away. “GEEZ! What’s up with you, lady?!!”

  She staggered, stepped back and looked at Tim incredulously, panting through clenched teeth.

  “WHAT ARE YOU?!!” she bellowed at him, throwing her arms in the air in frustration.

  “What?” Tim asked, utterly confused.

  “You’re no vampire that’s for certain! What are YOU?! Are you some new half-dead abomination Moríro cooked up?! Or did that wretched Sicilian butcher stitch a pile of cadaver meat around a living heart?!”

  “Um…” Tim didn’t really know what to say to this, “I’m just Tim, the orderly from Wilkes-Barre.”

  “UNNGH!” the woman groaned and paced furiously in a tight circle.

  “OF COURSE!! YOU’RE MORTAL!!”

  “Um…yeah?” Tim said uncertainly. Was this lady nuts or what?!

  “How very clever of Moríro, because my powers don’t work on mortals!!” She was furious. The woman stormed off to the other side of the room and began frantically searching for something while muttering to herself. “When you can’t kill someone with a rapier!! You send around some lackey…WITH A LOG!!” she screamed indignantly while rummaging around. She found an old IV stand and began unscrewing the top part.

  “Um…are you ok, lady?” Tim approached cautiously. This lady was seriously psycho, but Tim couldn’t help but feel a little worried about her. He must have scared her more than he thought.

  “I will be in a few minutes,” she said in a false sing-songy way, “AS SOON AS YOU’RE DEAD!!” Tim was right behind her when she suddenly spun around. The top of the IV stand connected with Tim’s head.

  “Ugh!” The metal bar dug deep into Tim’s temple and he went down on all fours. Sucker punched again!! He raised a hand to the wound only to have the second blow hit the back of his hand, HARD. “AAARGH!” The third blow hit between the neck and the shoulder blade. “OW!!” He fell flat on the ground with that one. Blood was streaming into his eyes and his left eye was swelling shut. He blinked his eyes to clear the blood from them, but she hit him repeatedly over the head and shoulders and continued screaming.

  “FIRST! I’m going to KILL YOU!! THEN!! I’m going to bring your lousy carcass back to life so I can kill you AGAIN!! WITH!! MY!! POWERS!!” she hit him repeated shouting each word with defiance after each new blow. “I’M GOING TO TURN YOU INTO A ZOMBIE AND MAKE YOU SHOVE YOURSELF INTO A CHIPPER SHREDDER!!” Tim was losing consciousness rapidly. He was only spared total oblivion because she was so angry she wasn’t taking the time to carefully aim each blow. Tim looked up one last time through bloody eyes as she raised the IV stand up with both hands for the final blow. Tim was certain he was about to die. She screamed in rage and yanked down on the metal bar, only it didn’t move.

  She turned around. It was Miles. He looked absolutely horrendous. His face was covered in bad scratches and a few deep gashes and his jeans jacket was totally shredded. He had grabbed the IV stand and stopped it just in time to save Tim’s life.

  “YOU!” she screamed. She was a bit surprised to see him alive. “Why aren’t you DEAD?!!” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You, I can hurt.” She let go of the IV stand with one hand and delivered a backhand to Miles’ midsection. Instead of the impotent blows that had fallen on Tim, this one went off like a small explosion.

  Miles was thrown back ten feet and into the far wall. He crashed to the floor. Miles grabbed his middle and rolled onto his knees. He could barely move. She threw down the IV stand and walked towards Miles dusting off her hands.

  “My, my, my…aren’t you the tough one! Where did Moríro dig you up?! You two aren’t exactly top shelf, but he didn’t just find you on the street corner did he? Are you one of Hokharty’s slaves?! Is that old mummy still ordering you bloodsuckers around?”

  Miles jumped up and charged directly at her. In the small space, she didn’t have room to dodge. He slammed her into the opposite wall and pinned her there with his shoulder.

  “Ungh!” she groaned and writhed in pain, but it didn’t last long. She brought both hands together and hammered Miles with them, smashing him to the floor. Then she kicked him in the ribs and sent him flying across the room where he stopped hard against the wall and slid down in a heap. She charged across the room, transforming as she went into the dark, longhaired specter with hollow eyes. Miles leapt straight up a mere fraction of a second before she struck. He clung to the ceiling like an animal and she passed right through the wall behind him like a ghost. Miles dropped to all fours, a cloud of blackness gathering around him. He was becoming more dog-like by the second. He turned around in a circle like an animal. He could smell her, sense her somewhere just beyond his sight. She wasn’t gone, not yet.

  The phantom burst from the opposite wall and crashed into him. Even though it was insubstantial to everything else, it hit Miles as solid as a brick wall. The two tumbled into a side room, clawing and tearing at each other. Miles broke free and jumped around the room trying to avoid the phantom, finally crashing through a solid wall to escape her. She was right on top of him, but he rolled over on to his back and gave her a savage kick to the head. It connected. She screeched like an eagle. She only hesitated a moment though before she swiped back sending Miles rolling down the hall and crashing into another wall like a puppy that she had just batted away.

  The dark cloud surrounding Miles disappeared. He wasn’t the dog-monster anymore but looked very much like a broken and battered teenager lying in a pile on the floor. Miles struggled to get up, but he just slipped and fell forward again.

  “I just don’t understand you, vampire,” she said at last. Miles looked back. The bird-like phantom was turning back into its human form. “Why aren’t you dead yet?!”

  He had no idea what this strange woman was talking about, but for the moment, he was just happy she was talking instead of kicking his butt up and down the hall.

  “Him, I get.” She folded her arms and tossed her head over her shoulder to indicate the fallen body of Tim. Tim was a lifeless lump on the ground behind her. “It makes sense to send a mortal, someone immune to the power of a necromancer’s blood. But you.” She pointed at him with one finger. “You’re no ordinary vampire, that’s for sure, but I can’t figure out what’s different about you. You should be dead, but you just refuse to stay down, don’t you?” The woman walked forward, bent over and grabbed Miles by his red hair. “Who are YOU?” She yanked his head back. “Who sent you?! Was it Moríro?! It doesn’t seem like his style.”

  “I don…don’ know what the bloody heck you’re talking about,” Miles said weakly.

  “Did Hokharty send you to get the girl?!!”

  Miles said nothing, but she must have guessed the truth by the venomous look he gave her.

  “Hmmph. If that mummy thinks he can go back on our…” but she didn’t finish. She just let go of his hair with a violent push, got up and walked away.

  “Nice try, bloodsucker, but the girl is mine, and if Hokharty wants her he will have to come get her himself.” She reached down and picked up a large piece of splintered wood from the debris. “It’s not fire-tempered white oak,” she said with a satisfied smile, “but it will do.”

  Amanda was relishing this moment of victory. Miles watched helplessly as the woman raised the splintered two by four over her head to pierce his heart, but then she stopped and her eyes got extremely wide. Just as she was about to bring the makeshift stake down, she heard something behind her…a heartbeat. She turned around desperately, but it was too late. The metal IV stand crashed down hard on the crown of her head. She collapsed, unconscious on the floor like a rag doll, right before Miles.

  Miles looked up. Tim was holding the same IV stand she had been beating him with. His left temple was bleeding and the left eye was a big, purple mass, completely swollen shut.

  “Who IS this psycho?!!” Tim dropped the IV stand to the floor w
ith a clang.

  “Bloody heck,” Miles breathed a sigh of relief.

  Tim reached down and helped Miles to his feet. Miles groaned in pain. He gingerly took off his shredded denim jacket and used it to mop the dirt and blood off his face. He handed it to Tim who did the same. Once finished, Tim tried to hand it back, but Miles just shook his head and Tim tossed it to the side. Miles looked down at the unconscious woman with short hair breathing shallowly. She looked utterly harmless now.

  “Is she a vampire?” Tim finally asked.

  “I dunno what the bloody heck she is, but she is sure as St. Columkille no vampire.”

  “How in the heck did she know about Hokharty?!” Tim agonized while pressing his hand against the swollen eye.

  “I dunno,” Miles said holding his ribs and straining to stand upright.

  “Hey, dude, why didn’t you tell me you could turn into a monster…dog…thing? I didn’t know you could do that.”

  “Um…neider did I. That’s the bloody first time it e’er ‘appened.”

  Tim turned his head to look at him with the one good eye. “Dude…weird.”

  “Um…yeah,” Miles said stupidly, but inside his mind he was struggling to come to terms with it as well.

  Miles stared at the woman in amazement. She looked so helpless now it was hard to believe she was a monster about to kill him mere moments ago. He suddenly saw flashes of sunlit wheat fields and a woman with long, dark hair slowly dying under some kind of flowering tree. He squeezed his eyes shut and the vision was gone.

  “C’mon.” Tim tapped Miles on the upper arm to get his attention. “We gotta go find that girl before Schuyler has a fit,” Tim said as he started back down the hall.

  Miles limply followed and shook his head. “I think we got bigger problems than Sky’s fits.”

  Lucy decided to get off the elevator at the second floor rather than risk being seen in the lobby. She scrambled down the hall trying to avoid attention along the way. Even then there were a few “Hey!’s” and “You shouldn’t be here!’s” along the way, but she just ignored them and kept moving. She found her way to a stairwell that eventually led outside and to the parking garage. She burst through the last door and felt the rush of night air. Finally! She was outside! She didn’t dare go back inside, not after what she had seen. But she didn’t know where she was compared to the park where she had promised to meet Yo-yo either. So she just started running around the building hoping she would find it eventually. That was her only motivation now – saving Yo-yo. She hadn’t realized that Amanda didn’t know about Yo-yo and she was terrified she would get to him before she would. At least Amanda didn’t know where Yo-yo was. If anything happened to Yo-yo, she would never forgive herself.

  Whatever that THING was back upstairs it sure as heck wasn’t a lawyer and she wasn’t even sure she was human. She may have known a lot about Lucy, but she didn’t know everything. Lucy didn’t know if she believed her about the whole necromancer thing, either, but something was up with her mother, for sure. Some things may have been true but she knew she wasn’t right about everything. It wasn’t Schuyler who was the vampire at all! It was those other two creeps from the lobby!! Sky was suspicious of those two all along. But what were they doing there?! Who sent them? Still, Amanda was wrong about Sky. Sky was just a nice kid, a really nice, gorgeous kid in a gift shop, not that it mattered much. She doubted she would ever see him again, but it would be nice to have someone to protect her right now. No more thinking about that. She had to help herself. But if Amanda was wrong about Sky, she could be wrong about a lot of stuff. All the more reason to get away from here and start finding answers. Whatever happened now, she had to get to Yo-yo and get them both to safety before that witch showed up again.

  Amanda groaned and struggled to get up from the floor but couldn’t. She felt very weak and tired. She reached up and felt the massive goose egg on her throbbing head. She couldn’t believe she was so stupid as to turn her back on the mortal. She got up on her hands and knees but fell back down again. A pain racked her midsection and she instantly curled up into the fetal position and held her middle. That wasn’t from the fall; that was something else…something familiar. Cancer! The cancer was back! Her whole body was frail and weak again. There was something else, something missing.

  “Amarantha!” Amanda screamed and reached out as if she were reaching out to grab someone but no one was there. Amanda looked down at the broken glass she was laying on. She could see the reflection of her own eyes. They were completely brown with not a trace of grey. Amarantha was gone. The connection between them had been broken somehow. Amanda was trembling with fear. Her lower lip quivered, she was on the verge of tears. Amarantha had left her and now she was going to die alone after all. It was all over. She was dying, dying here alone among the rubble.

  “No…no…No!” she thought to herself. This couldn’t be the end. Think Amanda. Stop and get control of yourself. Think! It was hard to think with this ringing in her ears. What were the words?

  “A-Amaran…Amarantha, come.” she said barely above a whisper.

  Nothing happened. Then she thought…something’s missing. Using all her strength she reached up and felt the back of her head. She looked at the fingers. There was a faint trace of blood. Not much at all. Would it do? Was it enough?!

  She said the words again, “A-Amarantha, come.”

  Still nothing. She almost broke into tears again. She choked them back and bit her lip and summoned every last ounce of will she had.

  “AMARANTHA, COME!!” she yelled at last before sinking to the floor, utterly spent.

  The body of Amanda Tipping lay there silently for a moment, completely still as if dead, then the eyes sprang open. They were solid, cold grey. The frame of Amanda Tipping instantly shot up and stood. She reached down and found the amber glasses and put them on as she walked to the stairwell with a determined pace. She brushed the dirt from her front, straightened her jacket and smoothed back her hair as she went. With each step, the stern and formidable Amanda reappeared, her face brimming with cold fury. As she walked she spoke to the voice inside her head, which had returned.

  “You might have warned me that getting knocked out would separate us!” she muttered to herself bitterly. “I KNOW we have to get the girl!” she suddenly bellowed as she kicked the stair door open violently and went right on screaming to the voice in her head, “I don’t care if you spent the last 300 years in Hell!! STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO DO!!”

  “Where. On. Earth. Have. You. Been?!” Schuyler was chewing on his lollipop so hard he would probably be pulling plastic chips out of his fangs for weeks. Miles and Tim timidly limped up to the Impala Schuyler was leaning on.

  Schuyler stood up from leaning on the Impala and took the lollipop out of his mouth to gape at the state the two of them were in. Tim had one hand pressed against his temple while the other pinched the bridge of his nose. He held his head back to prevent a runaway nosebleed that had developed on the short trip back. Miles wasn’t bleeding, but he looked like he had lost a fight with a pack of rather nasty alley cats.

  “You two look like hamburger,” he said at last, genuinely perplexed, “Puh-leez don’t tell me that this little girl did this to you. Because if she did, I swear I will NEVER let you live it down.”

  Tim and Miles looked at each other sheepishly.

  “We got ambushed,” Miles finally said a bit defensively.

  “By what? A hockey team on a fleet of riding mowers?!”

  Miles sighed, “NO! It was the bloody lawyer!”

  “Y’know that chick in glasses from the gift shop?” Tim tried to explain.

  Schuyler just stared at them. “Are you freaking kidding me?!” He was so angry his voice got squeaky.

  “Dude, she was seriously psycho,” Tim offered helpfully.

  Schuyler looked unimpressed. “Psycho?!” Schuyler retorted. “She’s a buck -“O”-five if she’s an ounce! What did she do? Threaten to sue you?!”

&nbs
p; “Dude,” Tim tried to explain, “She turned into this scary vulture-phantom thing.”

  Schuyler blinked in disbelief.

  Tim decided to keep talking, but Miles wished he hadn’t. “Oh…and Miles turned into a dog.”

  Schuyler started gritting his teeth so loud it sounded like a car engine that couldn’t get started.

  “Well he did!” Tim interjected.

  Miles rolled his eyes. Tim’s candor wasn’t helping right now.

  Schuyler finally lost the remaining shreds of his composure. “WHERE’S THE GIRL NOW?!”

  Miles bit the bullet first. “I dunno. She got away.”

  “Got away?! Are you two kidding me? What happened to the plan? What happened to scaring her?!” Schuyler said indignantly.

  “Oh, we bloody well scared ‘er, alright,” Miles said guiltily as he thought of the poor girl’s face the first time she saw him.

  “Then how’d she get away? What’s the problem?” Schuyler demanded.

  “The problem was the bloody lawyer.” Miles stretched his neck and rubbed his scalp where the woman had grabbed him by the hair. It still felt a bit loose.

  “Are you kidding me?! I set this whole thing up perfectly for you two! I told you she was heading upstairs with the chick in the glasses didn’t I?” Sky pointed his lollipop at them both in an accusatory fashion. “How in the heck could even you two losers screw this up?!”

  Miles flexed his neck and popped his jaw back into joint. He was tired of Schuyler dressing them down. “LOOK, Sky! She wasn’t some bloody ordinary lawyer, OK?! She ‘ad powers! She could transform into…heck I bloody dunno what it was, but she could walk through walls!!…and she had this bloody wicked power to…” Miles was at a loss to explain it. He finally settled simply on “Hurt ya jus’ by touchin’ ya.” It sounded even crazier when he said it.