The Curse of M
Page 43
"What?" she asked.
"I wondered what you'd done to whatever had knocked you about."
Lorna laughed -- a real laugh, that contained a trace of pain but not bitterness. She winced almost immediately, but Ratiri knew she would be all right, in the end.
Realistically, that would take a while -- he knew that, even if she didn't want to acknowledge it. But he'd be right there with her, to deal with whatever hormonal rages she went through, whatever nightmares she might have. He had his own share of those, and having her near would help him, too. Much as he loathed most of what had gone on in the Institute, he couldn't be sorry he'd been there, because if he hadn't, he wouldn't have found Lorna. She was obstinate, mercurial, and almost totally lacking in patience, but she was also the warmest, most caring person he'd ever met.
And just now she did look like a battered, bruised, triumphant angel. Her sun-weathered skin and the crow's-feet beside her eyes enhanced the effect, rather than detracting from it -- they made her real, not like some distant figure in a painting. She wasn't magazine material, but she was all the more lovely for it.
"What?" she asked, and he realized he'd been staring.
"Nothing," he said, kissing her cheek. "Just reminding myself that you're real. You're gorgeous, do you know that?"
Lorna snorted, and quirked an eyebrow. "You've got some rose-colored glasses there, allanah."
Maybe she was right -- maybe he was the only one who would see her as he did. He'd seen facets of her he doubted anyone else ever had, and some selfish part of him was glad she'd shown them only to him. "Don't knock yourself. I'll finish cleaning your aura, and you should get some more sleep. I'll be here, if you have nightmares."
She smiled at him again. It was a weary smile, tinged with grief, but it was there nonetheless. Ratiri would do everything he could to wipe away that grief, however long it took.
----
Miranda was not happy about being told Von Ratched was still alive, but she didn't seem surprised, either.
"Even if Lorna had cut his head off, I wouldn't have trusted him to stay dead," she said, pouring Geezer a glass of Scotch. "Fucker's like the Highlander, without the sword."
"Huh?" Geezer said, sipping the burning liquor. The fumes alone were enough to clear his sinuses.
"Never mind," Miranda sighed. "I'm beginning to wonder if he even can die."
"He bleeds," Geezer said. "He's tougher than hell, but he's still only a man. I have to wonder…have you seen the Lady?" he added, apropos of nothing.
Miranda, naturally, rolled with it. "We all have, at one point or another. Why?"
"She helped Lorna escape, right? Maybe she did the same for Von Ratched."
Miranda paused, staring at him, before she knocked back the rest of her drink. "Why would she do that? In all of our history, she's never directly interfered. It's why it surprised the hell outta me when Lorna said she'd been helped out."
"You're not gonna like this," Geezer said. "I don't like it, but…maybe we'll need him later. Something's causing all these normal people to wake up Gifted, which from what you said's never happened before. There's gotta be a reason, right?"
"I wish you hadn't said that," she said, pouring herself another drink. The woman must have had a stomach like a steel tank -- she'd drunk the better part of that fifth of whiskey by herself. "Trust me, I've thought of that. If you're right, whatever's coming has to be worse than anything in our recorded history, and our records go back more than two thousand years. The oldest ones hint that the DMA's been around a lot longer even than that. What I really don't like is the thought that we might need a monster like Von Ratched."
You're not the only one, he thought. "If I see anything about it, I'll let you know. Are you sure I'm the only precog?"
"For now. You're the first one we've found in two hundred years that didn't commit suicide really young. We call these powers gifts, but some of them really are more like curses. People like you, people with powers they can't turn off, usually don't live very long."
She paused. "This stays between you and me," she said sternly. "There's a good chance that people like your buddies, the ones who acquired their gifts as adults, might not live as long. We're seeing hints of it already -- the mortality rate among the older Acquireds is seriously skewed compared to the statistics of older normals. We still don't really know why, but the numbers are there."
"How come you don't know why?"
"Genetically, we're no different from the normals. Whatever difference there might be between the natural-borns and the Acquireds -- we haven't found it yet. I'm not sure it can be found."
"I so did not need to hear that," Geezer muttered, gulping the rest of his drink.
Miranda poured him another. "I didn't, either. Doesn't help that the Acquireds don't have tells like the rest of us."
"Huh?"
"Well, we don't all have them, but for some reason, certain Gifts come with physical tells. Weather-manipulators are all redheads, no matter what race they are. People with verbal compulsion, like me, are all blue-eyed -- which, again, that doesn't vary by race. We just tell someone what to do in the right way, and they do it. The few telepaths we've found -- and there aren't many, since it's always been pretty damn rare -- have eyes like Von Ratched -- and the aura-readers like Ratiri, which are even more rare, have all been albino. Acquiring a Gift doesn't seem to change a person's appearance at all, so we can't tell who's got what just by looking."
Geezer was quiet a while, and eventually he chugged his drink in two long swallows. The pleasant buzz of alcohol dulled his worry a little, though not by much. "I wasn't naïve enough to think our troubles would be over when we escaped the Institute, but Jesus fucking Christ. If we can't spot our own kind, maybe the normals are right to be scared of us."
"Some of us can," Miranda said. "Von Ratched had to have had at least one finder working for him, or he never would have caught you all. We've got a few, but not enough."
"I'm still too sober to deal with this shit. Gimme another."
Miranda filled his glass, and chugged what was left straight out of the bottle. "Come to the U.N. with us," she said. "You and Gerald are the only ones who can rein in Katje. God, I didn't realize how tenacious she can be. Woman's got no fear of anything."
"Yes she does -- she just doesn't show it. I'll keep an eye on her."
"Somebody has to," Miranda snorted. "We're gonna need all the luck and carefulness in the world to pull this one off."
----
Von Ratched had known things would get worse for him, but that made it no easier to bear.
His nearest bolt-hole was so far away he barely had enough fuel to get there. Morphine dulled his pain for a while, but by the time he landed he was in agony again.
Once again he had to crawl to get inside, and it hurt so much he almost blacked out. How had he come to this? Him? Never in his life had he been so soundly, thoroughly beaten.
This bolt-hole was yet another concrete room, built in the side of a hill. It held the requisite food and medical supplies, and a kerosene heater that warmed the chilly stone soon enough. Several Coleman lanterns made it as bright as any operating room, and, after another dose of morphine, he set about dealing with his legs.
Getting his boots off was an ordeal, and he wound up having to cut his pants apart. At least Lorna had broken his shins rather than his femurs, and the breaks were clean enough. He'd be trapped here for weeks, but it could be much worse. Snapping the bones back into place was far from pleasant, and splinting them even less so, but they should heal cleanly if he was careful.
The wound at his side was another story. It had opened again while he flew, in spite of the bandage he'd wrapped around his abdomen. It really ought to receive more care than a basic suturing, but there was nothing more he could do out here. He would have to take antibiotics, and be very careful for a while.
Von Ratched scowled, but the wheels in his mind were turning as he worked. He needed more information abo
ut the outside world -- he had to know just how much havoc magic was wreaking on it. At least, he thought grimly, I have plenty of time to listen. He had a satellite radio and knowledge of the military bands -- he'd know all the things they didn't want the civilian population to hear. And once he knew…well, then he would go from there.
You should have killed me when you had the chance, Lorna. Why hadn't she? She certainly had every reason to, and it had looked like she wanted to. What had changed -- what had happened to her, to make her spare him?
He snipped the end off the last suture, troubled. She'd been so very different, strong in a way he'd ever seen in another human, with that strange serenity beneath her rage. Whenever he did make his move, she was going to present a formidable obstacle.
And oddly, he found he liked the idea. Anger him though she did, Von Ratched was weirdly proud of her. She'd tapped her potential -- God, had she ever -- and though she opposed him rather than standing beside him, he was morbidly curious about what she would do.
He wouldn't hunt her down, though she would likely fear the possibility. He wouldn't now kill her, even if he could, because she fascinated him in a whole new way. Never in his life had anyone come even close to rivaling him in power, but she certainly did. If she allied herself with those against him, as she doubtless would, she'd provide the first real challenge he had ever known.
Lorna would never love him, and Von Ratched was no longer delusional enough to believe she ever could have, but she was akin to him, whether she liked it or not. They'd meet again someday -- on his terms, not hers. Until then he would plan, and build his own silent empire. Realistically, it would take years, but that would give the world enough time to lull itself into complacency.
Yes, Lorna, you should have killed me. In time, I will destroy everything you hold dear.
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