Jenny Plague-Bringer: (Jenny Pox #4)

by J. Bryan

  “I am doing something with my life,” Esmeralda told him.

  “What, putting make-up on dead people?”

  “I like dead people. They tell interesting stories.”

  “Don’t you want an interesting life?” Tommy asked. “Instead of just watching what dead people did with their time?”

  “If you want to go off and be an assassin or whatever they want, that’s your choice. Staying here and living my own life, that’s mine.” Esmeralda trembled, feeling fear tinged with hope. Maybe he would go. Maybe this was finally it. He made her feel protected, but also miserable. Without him, she would be vulnerable and free.

  “Then maybe I’ll go without you,” he growled, narrowing his eyes. “Maybe you’ll never see me again.”

  Esmeralda stared back at him, feeling the war inside herself between the part of her that craved him and shivered at his touch, and the smarter part, the one that knew he would only destroy her life if they stayed together.

  “You don’t have anything to say?” he asked.

  Esmeralda sighed and folded her arms. “You need someone to order you around, don’t you, Tommy? Somebody in command, like Ashleigh, always telling you what to do. I give you your freedom to be anything you want to be, and all you do is piss yourself away.”

  He glowered at her, his jaw grinding inside his cheek. He looked like a mad dog.

  “So you think I’m worthless. Anything else?” he snarled.

  “I did not say that.”

  “You basically did.”

  “I have to work, Tommy.” Esmeralda started for the door.

  “I might not be here when you get back,” he called after her.

  Esmeralda resisted the temptation to turn around and say anything. She walked out the door, closed it firmly behind her, and started down the concrete stairwell.

  When she returned from work that evening, Tommy and his clothes were gone. So was the gold 1908 Indian-head coin he’d given her when they’d first met as children. She didn’t know if he was keeping it as a reminder of her, or taking it away to show her that they were finished.

  Either way, at least her mother would be pleased to hear that Tommy was gone. Maybe she would start talking to Esmeralda again.

  Chapter Twenty

  Jenny awoke the day after Christmas to find Seth sitting up in bed, staring at her with a very serious look on his face. Bad sign. He usually slept much later than Jenny. She wondered if he remembered—

  “Are you really pregnant?” he asked.

  Jenny hesitated. “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She pushed her blankets off, then lifted up her nightdress and threw it on the floor. She took his hand and placed it on her swollen belly.

  “Feel that?”

  His eyes widened. “How pregnant are you?”

  “Between four and five months, is my best guess. You haven’t noticed me getting bigger?”

  “A little, but I thought it was all the, you know, cheeses and chocolates and heavy French sauces...”

  “You thought I was getting fat.”

  “I wasn’t going to say anything. Four months? Have you been to a doctor? Why haven’t you said anything?”

  “I told you why. I can’t have children, they almost always miscarry. The few times that hasn’t happened, the baby dies on the way out. They can’t handle my poxy birth canal.”

  “Okay...but isn’t there another way, where they take the baby right out?”

  “A C-section,” Jenny said. “I’ve thought about it, but it’s very rare that my baby even lives long enough to try that.”

  “But it’s possible,” Seth said.

  “I don’t know. The technology’s never been there before.” She shook her head. One bad thing about having so many past-life memories was that she tended think of her present options as being limited by her past experience. “We could try, but it still probably won’t be safe enough...”

  “But I’ll be there,” Seth said. “If the baby needs healing, I can do it.” He stroked her stomach, and Jenny felt the warm glow of his healing touch, passing right through her and into the baby. The baby stirred in response, and feeling it move nearly broke her heart. “He’s not going to die if I can do anything about it.”

  “Or she,” Jenny said. “Or...it’s better not to think of it as ‘he’ or ‘she.’”

  “Can’t the doctors tell by now?”

  “I guess they could. That’s not my point, Seth. You’re getting your hopes up, but I have lifetimes of experience showing me it’s hopeless. It’s better to just accept that.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I might not have all your memories, but I know we can change. We’re not stuck with what happened in the past. Jenny, I think we can make it work.”

  Jenny dared to consider whether he might be right.

  “If the baby doesn’t survive, you’re going to hate me,” she said.

  “No, I won’t.”

  “But you’ll realize that being with me isn’t the best thing for you. You could be with someone else and have a much easier, happier life. Someone like...” Mariella.

  “Someone like who?” Seth asked. “It doesn’t matter. I love you, Jenny. I always will. And I want to have this child with you.” He took her hands.

  “Seth...” Jenny suddenly found herself sobbing, and she buried her face in his shoulder. “Stupid pregnant hormones.”

  “Even your hormones are pregnant?”

  “Yep.” She looked up at him. “Do you mean it? You want to try?”

  “I want to try.” Seth put an arm around her and kissed her. “We’re going to make it work.”

  “I love you so much.” Jenny put her arms around his neck and leaned against his chest. His hand remained on her hip, a river of golden warmth flowing through her flesh and deep into her womb.

  * * *

  In the evening, they met Mariella at one of the wooden Christmas villages that sprang up all over Paris during December, as if bands of Santa’s elves had emigrated from the North Pole like itinerant gypsies setting up camps in the city. Instead of gypsy tents, the villages were made of wooden chalets that looked as if they’d been transported from some enchanted place high in the Alps.

  Christmas carols played everywhere, naturally, and the chalets offered a dazzling array of colorful merchandise, from chocolates and Christmas candies to wine, caviar, and artisan cheeses. They sold holiday decorations and handmade toys, clothes, and organic cosmetics.

  Jenny, Seth, and Mariella walked slowly down the Champs-Elysees, looking over the cheerful scene. Jenny and Mariella were both heavily bundled against the cold, Mariella to avoid getting lost in flashes of the future from everybody in the crowd, Jenny to avoid killing anyone. Jenny and Seth drank hot cider, while Mariella drank a cup of hot wine.

  “You should do yoga,” Mariella was telling Jenny. “My sister Stefania did it every day her last two pregnancies, and she said they went much easier than the first.”

  “I don’t know. A yoga class?” Jenny asked. “That’s kind of risky for me, all those people in workout clothes.”

  “I will show you,” Mariella said. “In your own home. I am a black belt in yoga.”

  “I didn’t know they gave black belts for that,” Seth said.

  “It is only a joke. But I can teach you, Jenny.”

  “It can’t hurt,” Jenny said. “It’ll give me something to do besides watch Seth play that Walking Dead video game.”

  “I’m going to beat that game one day,” Seth said. “Watch.”

  “I’m sure you will, Seth,” Jenny told him.

  “Here.” Seth stepped toward a booth and picked up a plush rabbit, stitched together from several kinds of material to create a quilt pattern. “We should get this for him. Or her.”

  “We can probably find some cute Christmas clothes here, too,” Mariella said. “So you’ll be ready next year.”

  “Enough!” Jenny said. “We don’t even know...” Jenny decided she didn�
��t want to say We don’t even know whether the baby will live, so she fell quiet.

  “We have to prepare, Jenny,” Seth said. “We have to believe. And I’m buying this wittle wabbit.” He paid the toymaker.

  Jenny shook her head. She didn’t need the pressure.

  “So, lunch,” Seth said. “Are chocolate-covered waffles okay with everyone?”

  “Ugh. Baguette for me,” Jenny said.

  “I’ll just have a soup,” Mariella told him, nodding at a chalet that sold both soup and baguettes.

  “You two stalk a place to sit. I’ll be right back.” Seth headed toward the food vendors.

  Mariella approached a wooden bench with carved, cartoony reindeer heads for its arms. Three teenage boys sat there, drinking wine and joking with each other, but the beautiful, smiling Italian girl quickly caught their attention. She spoke with them in French, explaining that her friend was pregnant and needed to sit.

  The boys fell over themselves to do what she asked. Mariella waved Jenny over, and the two of them sat down. Mariella thanked the group of boys and waved good-bye, and they reluctantly trudged away.

  “Being pregnant does have some advantages,” Mariella told her. “You should enjoy them.”

  “They didn’t move because I was pregnant, they moved because you’re pretty,” Jenny said.

  “Boys can be shallow. That’s something else worth taking advantage of.”

  Jenny laughed and shook her head.

  Mariella’s smile faded, and a hard look came into her eyes. “So. You and I were roommates at a Nazi death camp.”

  “You could say that,” Jenny said.

  “You gave me the worst dreams last night. Swastikas, fire, screaming, execution chambers...”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It isn’t your fault.” Mariella paused, as if thinking something over. “Juliana. Mia. These names did feel very familiar, when you said them. So I was Sicilian? Have I just been bumming around Italy since the Renaissance? Or maybe the Roman Empire? Don’t I get to travel?”

  “I’m sure you do,” Jenny said.

  “Is it possible that I could remember my past lives, as you do?”

  “Anything’s possible.”

  “What is it like, all those memories?” Mariella asked. “It must be like a thousand voices in your head.”

  Jenny laughed again. “Not exactly. It’s more like...Have you ever had something happen, maybe you taste something or hear a song, and then suddenly you remember a moment from your past that you’d completely forgotten? Like a childhood moment you haven’t thought about in years?”

  “Yes, I know what you mean!”

  “It’s like that, when you remember your past lives. Only lots and lots and lots of that. You really can’t remember everything at once. Just like you can’t remember your entire lifetime all at once. You have to focus. And also...”

  “Also what?” Mariella was leaning forward, a hand on Jenny’s arm, intently soaking up every wood.

  “Also, most of it’s not good.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “It’s warfare, murder, deception,” Jenny said. “That’s what our kind love. The human race are just pawns to us. When you find out all the evil you’ve done in the past...it’s just not good. It’s hard to separate yourself from that. You have to learn that you can change, and not let your past trap you.”

  “Warfare, murder, and deception,” Seth repeated, arriving with their food. “Is that near the cheese chalet?”

  “More like the merry-go-round,” Jenny said. “Over and over again, life after life.”

  “Oh, sorry, didn’t know we were having a heavy talk.” Seth sat down next to Jenny, scrunching her in the middle between him and Mariella. He passed out their food, which smelled delicious, fresh-baked bread and warm tomato bisque to fend off the cold.

  “Apparently, I’ve been giving Mariella nightmares,” Jenny said.

  “Oh, you, too?” Seth asked Mariella, and Jenny nudged him playfully. “No, seriously,” he said. “All these jumbled memories from the past. I keep dreaming about them, but they don’t make any sense. Like nothing happens in order, it’s just random scenes. Real horror-movie stuff, too.”

  “I guess I’m helping you remember,” Jenny said. “Mariella, can you see anything else about Seth’s future yet?”

  “I’ll look.” Mariella slipped off a glove and reached across Jenny’s lap to take Seth’s wrist. She looked deep into Seth’s eyes. Seth made faces back at her. “Stop it!” Mariella snickered, and she closed her eyes instead. “He’s there. Taking Seth into the dark. Everything’s still confused, covered in a fog...But the danger is there. He’s coming.”

  “How soon?” Jenny asked.

  “I still can’t tell.”

  “Should we stock up on guns? What do we do?” Seth asked.

  “I don’t think we can buy guns in France,” Jenny said.

  “That’s too bad. In South Carolina, you could practically buy them at the gas station.”

  “I can’t say what to do,” Mariella told him. “We can better prepare if we know more about him. We all need Jenny’s memories.” Mariella looked at her. “Jenny. Did you not say that someone helped you remember your past lives?”

  “Alexander,” Jenny said.

  “Could you not do this for us? For Seth and me? So that we can all be prepared?”

  “I don’t know. We ate these mushrooms, psychoactive mushrooms. He guided me. I couldn’t do that now, with the...baby.”

  “But Seth and I could.” Mariella had a pleading look in her eye. “And you could guide us without taking them.”

  “I could try, but I could mess it all up,” Jenny said. “Besides, where are we going to get magic mushrooms around here?”

  “I am an art student,” Mariella said, which made Seth laugh. “Tell me what these mushrooms looked like, and I’ll see what I can do.”

  “It’s risky,” Jenny said. She thought about it for a minute. “But so is knowing that General Kranzler is coming for us, and not doing anything about it.”

  “General who?” Seth asked.

  “Gruppenführer Kranzler,” Jenny said. “A general in the Nazi S.S. Yep. I’m pretty sure that’s who’s after us. The question is: what does he want this time?”

  “What did he want last time?” Seth asked.

  “Supernormals. That’s what he called us. He thought we were on the front edge of human evolution. He thought our powers came from our DNA.”

  “But they don’t?” Mariella asked.

  “They’re in our souls, not our bodies,” Jenny said. “But, like everyone else, Kranzler tried to fit us into his own myths. In the ancient world, it was easy, because everyone believed gods and demigods were everywhere, so we fit right in. By the Middle Ages, we had to watch out for witch trials. But the Nazis were crazy about eugenics—I mean, they were crazy about a lot of things, but that was their biggest obsession. So they saw us in terms of biology and evolution, instead of anything supernatural.”

  “But supernatural is more correct?” Mariella asked.

  “Definitely,” Jenny said. “So they got more frustrated the more they studied and tested us...”

  “I remember!” Mariella sat up as if she’d been zapped with electricity, and she gripped Jenny’s hand tight. “I remember...oh, the poor goats.”

  “The poor goats,” Jenny agreed.

  “What goats? I think I saw some marshmallow goats at one of the candy chalets,” Seth said.

  “Maybe we should let Mariella tell you,” Jenny said.

  “I don’t know that I could remember it all correctly,” Mariella told her.

  “I’ll help. We’ll start by telling Seth what happened after we met. Just tell what you remember, and I’ll fill in the rest.”

  Mariella drank her hot wine, then closed her eyes and concentrated.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Mia, Juliana’s new roommate, showed her around the girls’ dormitory area. The double doors
at the end of the hall led to a “community room” with comfortable chairs, a radio, a record player, and sewing supplies. A side door there opened to their group bathroom.

  They ate in a military-style mess hall, located down a long hall and up a flight of stairs. The little buildings up top, it turned out, were just doorways into different areas of a vast underground complex with many levels. The walls were rock or concrete, and the carpeting and cheery colors didn’t reach beyond the girls’ dormitory.

  The diners fell into easily recognizable groups. The S.S. in their black uniforms took the largest table at the center. Scientists and doctors sat along one side of the room, while nurses and secretaries took the table near the front. Test subjects like Juliana and Mia sat at the back.

  The food tonight was German, lots of sausages, cheese, and pickled vegetables, with dark beer to drink. Juliana and Mia shared a long table with the others from her hall. Alise sat at the head, excitedly introducing Juliana to everyone. She wasn’t shy about discussing their supernormal abilities, either.

  The girls included Vilja, a Swedish girl with extremely pale skin and white-blond hair, who claimed to see “energy spirits,” which apparently included angels, demons, ghosts, gnomes, and fairies. A Polish girl named Roza, whose face was framed by a thick braid on each side, had what Alise called “far-sight,” the ability to see distant events as they happened. There was a small Slavic girl, Evelina, with very dark eyes and short black hair, who sat apart at the end of the table and didn’t even look up from her food when Alise introduced her.

  “And what does she do?” Roza asked, pointing at Juliana.

  “Her touch spreads the plague,” Alise said in a loud whisper, as if confiding a secret to the entire room. All the girls leaned back from Juliana.

  Thanks so much, Alise, Juliana thought, but she nodded.

  “It’s true,” Juliana said. “You’re perfectly safe as long as you don’t touch me.”

  “I don’t think we will forget!” Roza said, looking disgusted.

  The conversation was difficult, everyone trying to speak in a patois of German, which they’d been studying since they arrived, and English, and their own native languages. Juliana gathered that they’d each been recruited by agents of the Evolution Congress, which included scientists, businessmen, and politicians from all over the Western world. Evelina, the Slavic girl, did not speak at all, and Juliana wondered whether she was shy or was just having language difficulties.