The Long Chain

by Dan Willis

It passed so close to his ear that he felt the wind from it. He turned as it hit behind him with a solid-sounding thunk.

  The blond thug lay, staring at the kukri’s handle that was now sticking out of his chest. A rattling wheeze came out of his mouth as he tried to keep breathing. His eyes started to glaze over, but he raised his pistol toward Lilith with dogged determination.

  Alex moved.

  Launching himself off the workbench he was using as a support, he tackled Lilith just as the gun went off. He anticipated the slug hitting him in the back, but it missed entirely. What Alex didn’t miss was the broken glass that littered the floor.

  He landed hard, sliding across the floor as the shards tore holes in his suit and his flesh.

  “Ow,” he grunted, unable to move with Lilith still on top of him.

  “Are you all right?” he asked as Lilith looked down at him from where he held her. The murderous light was gone from her eyes and she gave him a look that reminded him so much of Jessica that he shivered.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” she said. “He couldn’t have hurt me.”

  Alex raised an eyebrow at that and opened his arms so she could stand up.

  ‘What? Do bullets bounce off you?”

  She smiled and Alex saw some of the madness return.

  “No, silly,” she said. “But I heal really fast.”

  She got up and her face went from smiling to cross.

  “Unlike you,” she added.

  Alex looked down and found himself bleeding from a number of small wounds. Most of it was minor and he’d have a devil of a time fixing his suit, even with mending runes. The problem was the large chunk of glass sticking out of his leg.

  He reached for it, but Lilith slapped his hand away.

  “Don’t touch it,” she said. “You’ll only make it worse.”

  She picked her way carefully over to where the blond thug lay dead, and tore a strip off the front of his suit. The fabric was cheap; still, Alex doubted he could have torn it, yet Lilith made it look easy. He remembered the story about the girl at Columbia who had thrown a desk out of a window. Whatever Dr. Kellin’s potion was doing to her, it had given Lilith enough strength to take a burly man’s head off, then roll up the body in a rug and hide it.

  Once she was done, Lilith yanked the kukri free of the dead man and came back to Alex. He was very grateful when she set the knife down on the floor before turning to him.

  “Give me your handkerchief and hold still,” she said, wrapping the torn strip of suit around his leg. She packed the area around the shard with the handkerchief and held it in place with the strip of suit. “Now don’t go walking on that until you see Iggy.”

  She grinned at him and wrinkled her nose. It would have been adorable except for the flecks of blood still clinging to her cheeks.

  “Aren’t you a doctor?” he asked, trying to sit up against the overturned table without cutting himself further.

  Lilith cocked her head and laughed.

  “That’s Andy,” she said.

  From somewhere above, Alex heard a door slam. In the confusion of the fight, he’d forgotten about Connie Torres. Lilith looked up at the ceiling, then down at the bloody knife on the floor.

  “The police are on their way,” Alex said. “Do you know how many more people are in the house?”

  She smiled at him, half-warm, half-crazy, then looked around at the dead men.

  “These are his day minions,” she said. “He’s got a night crew too. Three more.” Her hand dropped to the hilt of the kukri and Alex reached out, taking her arm.

  “We need to stay put,” he said. “Let the police have Torres and his men when they get here.”

  Lilith’s eyes softened and her smile turned down.

  “Aww,” she said, patting him on the cheek. “You don’t want me to get any more blood on my hands...or is it Jessica’s hands?”

  She gave him a look that was both hungry and extremely disconcerting, coming from a thirteen-year-old.

  “Let the police do their jobs,” he said. “They get irritable when someone else takes care of the bad guys. Besides,” he said, nodding toward the cot where Charles Grier was still lying. “Someone needs to make sure he’s okay.”

  Lilith smiled her sweet smile again.

  “He’s fine,” she said. “Andy gave him something to make him sleep. He’ll be out for hours.”

  “You don’t have to kill Torres,” Alex said.

  She pinched his cheek in the manner of a proud grandmother to a toddler.

  “You’re so sweet,” she said. “I know I don’t have to kill Connie.” She smiled and the madness returned to her face. “I just really, really want to.”

  She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, then she picked up the knife and headed for the door where Connie Torres had disappeared.

  28

  The Cost of Victory

  Alex gritted his teeth and pulled himself up onto one of the heavy lab tables. Bits of glass stung his hip and leg as they bit into his flesh. Eventually, he got his good leg under him, grinding the glass shards into tiny fragments with his shoe.

  He stayed there for a moment, collecting himself as blood oozed from a dozen minor wounds on his legs and back. Tentatively, he put weight on his injured leg. It hurt, but it would hold him well enough.

  Alex knew the flat-faced thug had a gun, but he didn’t want to look at the bloody mess that remained of his body, so he turned to the blond man instead. His .38 was still in his hand, and Alex limped over and pulled it from his dead grasp. He hefted it, feeling a small measure of comfort in its weight.

  Turning toward the door where Torres — and more recently Lilith — had vanished, he walked unsteadily across the room. It took him a minute to climb the wooden steps to the little platform that had been put in to accommodate old Torres’ wheelchair, and his leg ached with every step. He could feel the wet blood running down his leg, but he’d have to deal with that later.

  Beyond the door at the back of the platform was a long hallway paneled with dark wood and hung with pictures. As Alex limped along, he saw images of Torres with all manner of famous people, actors, athletes, singers, and senators. There were even a few with presidents in them. Unlike the pictures kept by Burnham or Dr. Kellin, none of the pictures seemed to be of friends, just the kind of people a wealthy, ambitious man might use to advance himself.

  Alex paused to look at one particular picture with Torres standing next to the King of England. The sight distracted him, but he still managed to catch sight of movement in the reflective glass covering the picture.

  The floor creaked behind him and Alex knew there wasn’t time to turn. He lunged sideways, gasping as he was forced to put weight on his bad leg. A pudgy, colored man stepped forward with a short club in his hand, swinging right for Alex’s skull. He hadn’t expected Alex to move, so his aim was off, but he still managed to rap Alex on his back.

  Grunting in pain, Alex turned, and bringing his borrowed .38 to bear, he fired twice at point blank range. The man staggered back but kept his grip on the club. Shock and then anger played across his dark face, and he drew back the club again.

  “Stop,” Alex said, aiming the pistol at the man’s heart.

  He didn’t stop, and Alex put two more rounds into him. This time he fell forward, slamming into Alex and driving him into the wall. Pictures rained down as Alex’s head bounced painfully off the paneling and before he knew what was happening, he found himself sitting on the floor with the colored man staring up at him from lifeless eyes.

  Beyond the dead man, Alex could make out an opening in the wall. It was a concealed door he’d missed, being too preoccupied with the pictures.

  The mistake that had nearly cost him his life.

  Stupid.

  Alex was still looking at the opening when a second shadow appeared. Alex raised the gun and pulled the trigger, but the cylinder clicked empty.

  “I told you to stay put,” Lilith said, emerging from the da
rk beyond the opening with a half-smile. “What would you have done if I was one of Connie’s men?”

  “I’d have thought of something,” Alex said, still a bit groggy from hitting his head.

  Lilith stepped over the dead man.

  “Try to stay out of trouble till I get back,” she said, moving past Alex. As she went, she reached out and began dragging the tip of the kukri along the paneling, gouging a long line in the wood.

  “Where are you, Connie?” she called as she went. “Don’t you want to play with me?”

  She’d pitched her voice higher than normal, making her sound even more like a little girl. It sent shivers up Alex’s spine.

  He had more than half a mind to leave Torres and his men to their fate. His leg was still bleeding, and his head hurt from slamming into the wall, but he knew that somewhere under Lilith’s murderous exterior was Jessica. The image of her came, unbidden, to his mind, standing by the gate to the back yard of the shop in her green scarf, just as she’d been when he first met her. He had to keep Lilith from destroying herself and Jessica in the process.

  Pushing the broken picture frames and shattered glass away from him, Alex rolled onto his good leg. Using the wall for support, he pushed up into a standing position.

  Or he tried to.

  No sooner had he gotten up than a wave of dizziness washed over him and he slid back down the wall and into a sitting position. His vision went in and out for a few minutes and he was vaguely aware of gunshots coming from somewhere above him.

  “Come on,” he said through clenched teeth. “Pull yourself together.”

  After another minute, his vision finally stopped swimming around and focused. A picture lay on the floor and he forced himself to look at it, to see the people in it and the background. It was Torres standing next to a stunningly beautiful blonde woman. She reminded Alex of Carole Lombard. They stood in a theater, up on the stage with the house in the background. Torres was clearly taken with her, but she seemed to be posing for the picture on suffrage.

  As the picture finally moved into focus and his mind cleared, Alex took a deep breath and leaned against the wall. Gathering himself, he began to push himself upward again.

  “Stop that at once,” Dr. Kellin’s voice interrupted.

  Alex slid back down, turning to look at the end of the hall. Dr. Kellin stood there, leaning against the wall. She was breathing heavily, and she struggled to pull on a man’s button-up shirt. Alex could see her brassiere and her torso, including what appeared to be several bullet wounds. As he watched, the wounds rippled and shrank, closing until they spat out the expended slugs, sending them clattering to the floor. Alex had seen that kind of magic repair before, but only with powerful, and expensive, healing potions.

  “Hi-ya Doc,” Alex said, forcing a smile to his lips. “Just the person I wanted to see. I’ve got this little problem with my leg.”

  “Shut up,” she snapped at him, moving slowly down the hall as she fumbled with the shirt buttons. When she reached Alex, she squatted down to look at his leg. She prodded the makeshift bandage and Alex grunted, trying to ignore the pain by focusing on Kellin’s mis-buttoned shirt. “Stupid girl,” she muttered.

  “Isn’t she...you?”

  Kellin’s face twisted into a mask of disgust, but only for a second before she looked down, unable to meet his gaze.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” she insisted.

  Alex chuckled at that.

  “Yeah,” he scoffed. “You were doing just fine when I showed up.”

  “I didn’t…” She took a deep breath then looked back up at him. “I didn’t want you to know the truth,” she said. “About Jessica. About me.”

  “You figured with my dwindling life energy we wouldn’t have to have this conversation?” Alex guessed.

  “Something like that,” she admitted.

  “What about your life energy?”

  Her eyes grew sad as she looked at him, but she didn’t answer.

  “You’ve been sacrificing your own life to power your transformation,” he said. “Buying time to finish your polio cure. How much of your life do you have left?”

  “You always were too smart for your own good,” she said with half a smile. “How did you know?”

  “Jessica has red hair,” Alex said. “Just like you did when you were young. But Lilith’s hair is white, like mine. It’s a symptom of spending your life energy. I bet you only burn a little when you’re Jessica, but Lilith has all that power, all that strength.” He nodded to Dr. Kellin’s shirt and the wounds behind it. “The ability to heal. You must really burn through it when you’re her. So how much is left?”

  “Almost none at all,” she said without hesitation.

  Alex thought he was prepared for that answer, but it still hit him hard. It wasn’t just the doc who had been condemned with that statement, it was Jessica too.

  “This will have to come out,” she said, pointing to the shard of glass that still stuck out of Alex’s leg. Her usual brusque professional manner had returned. It was almost if she hadn’t just told him she was dying. “Come on,” she said, standing and offering him a hand up.

  She helped Alex limp back to the lab and had him sit on one of the worktables.

  “I don’t have my usual potions,” she said, producing a sealed vial from her bag. “But this will close the wound and keep it from bleeding.”

  Being careful not to disturb the glass shard, Dr. Kellin unwound the bandage and removed the handkerchief. Immediately the wound began seeping blood, so she gently pulled out the glass and poured a stinging powder into the hole from the little vial.

  Alex grunted in pain, clamping his jaw shut. After a few minutes, the pain began to subside, and he could breathe normally again.

  “Thanks,” he said, swinging his legs off the side of the table so he could sit properly.

  Dr. Kellin had moved to the back of the room where Charles Grier was still sleeping peacefully in his cot. She bent down and retrieved a green medical bag like the kind Alex kept his kit in, then returned.

  “I’m going to need your help, Alex,” she said, digging around in the kit until she found a white leather case. She opened it, taking a large syringe from it and laying it on the table.

  “I wouldn’t be any good with that,” he said.

  “That isn’t what I’ll need help with,” she said. Picking up the needle, she held it facing toward her and in an almost casual manner, pressed it into the crook of her left arm.

  Alex winced but Dr. Kellin didn’t even flinch. She pulled out the plunger until the syringe was full of dark red blood, then she withdrew it.

  “I need you to take this to Dr. Miles Phillips,” she said, squirting the blood into a glass vial. “You’ll find him at the Chadwick Sanatorium in Albany.” She jammed a rubber stopper into the top of the vial, then repeated the process with a second one. “This one is for my daughter, Linda,” she said, pressing the first vial into Alex’s hand. “Dr. Philips will know what to do.”

  Alex dropped the vial into his shirt pocket.

  “All right,” he said. “Now take it easy. As soon as Danny gets here, we’ll head up to Albany together.”

  Dr. Kellin picked up the second vial.

  “Put this one in your icebox,” she said, ignoring him. “Keep it cold. If the cure works on Linda, Dr. Phillips can use this one to try to synthesize a general cure.”

  “And if the cure doesn’t work on Linda?”

  “Then this is a second chance,” she said.

  Alex took the second vial and added it to his pocket with the first.

  “Is Torres…” he began without thinking.

  “Dead,” Dr. Kellin said. She leaned heavily against the table and Alex felt like a heel. “As I told you, the potion lowers inhibitions.”

  “You’ll get no judgement from me,” Alex said, sliding off the table to stand beside her, his injured leg stinging. “But if he’s gone, we don’t really have to wait for the cops. Let’s get
going, right now. I’ll smooth it over with Danny later.”

  She turned and suddenly sagged against him. Alex stumbled back as her weight suddenly came down on his injured leg, and he was forced to lay her on the floor or risk falling.

  “Come on, Doc,” he said, cradling her against him. “Don’t do this now.”

  She opened her eyes and looked up at him.

  “You were right about Lilith,” she said. “She drained my life energy. I don’t have any left.”

  Alex thought desperately.

  “The rejuvenator,” he said.

  “It won’t help,” she said, reaching up to touch his face. “At this point it wouldn’t even give me five minutes. I fought the good fight, Alex, but my time is up.”

  Alex wanted to say something, but what was there to say?

  “I don’t regret it,” she said, then locked eyes with him. “Any of it.”

  Alex nodded, not sure what else to do.

  “A parent would do anything for their kid,” he said, remembering Leslie’s words.

  “That’s not what I meant. Well, not all of it, anyway. The potion, it—”

  “Lowers inhibitions,” he finished.

  “No,” she said, her voice gentle. “It gave me a gift. We...I...got to love again. I got to love you.”

  Alex took her hand in his and squeezed it.

  “I do, you know,” she said, her voice getting frail. “I love you.”

  “I love you too, Andrea,” he said, and meant it.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” she said, her eyes getting a far-away look. “You were supposed to go first. Then you’d never know what...what a horrible person I am.”

  She was smiling, as if she spoke in jest, but Alex could tell the smile was an attempt to hide the truth of those words from herself.

  “You spent your own life to save your daughter,” he said softly. “And you came here to try to save Charles Grier. You are a good person, Andrea.”

  “Thank you, Alex,” she said, slurring her words slightly. “Would it be okay if I waited for you? You know, on the other side?”

  “Of course,” Alex said with a mirthless chuckle. “I have a feeling you won’t be waiting long.”