Bloodback

by Darby Harn

  Everything teases the Myriad. Everything demands my attention. My resistance. I sit in the chair by the window, staring out on the gleaming checkerboard of the city as Abi hums through a medley of animated musical numbers.

  “You’re not saying anything,” she says.

  “Sorry.”

  “Do you want to watch some TV? There’s like a billion channels. And pay per view. There’s porn, I looked.”

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  Her fingers slide into the opening in her bathrobe. “Or do you just want to watch?”

  I stop trying to solve the puzzle of the city. “Watch?”

  Her hand eases between her legs. “Come here.”

  This sound murmurs out of her. Soft. Desperate. Her back arches. Her fingers sink. Her breath quickens. Her pulse intensifies, ba-dumm, ba-dumm, ba-dumm, magnetic as the energy radiating out of her. The lights. The city. The world.

  I clear my throat. “I’m going to run a bath.”

  Her eyes open, ballistae targeted straight up at the ceiling. “I’m trying to make this work for us.”

  “I just have a lot on my mind. I’m sorry. And I don’t feel comfortable here. I feel like he’s watching.”

  Abi closes her robe. “Ok.”

  “See if you can find a musical or something. “

  “Musical? I had no idea you were so kinky.”

  “We can just get in bed and relax. Do you mind if I unplug some of this stuff we’re not using? And unscrew the light bulbs. Maybe the clock, too.”

  “Ok… want to order some food? Maybe some cookies? You know what, I’m just going to run this bill up.” Abi stretches across the bed and picks up the phone on the nightstand. “Hey, Chad. The showerhead was the bomb, thanks. So, what’s the cookie situation? Mm-hmm. Uh huh. Ok. Here’s what I’m thinking…”

  The room darkens behind me, until all that’s left is the snowy pallor of the television. The frustrated burl of energy on the bed. I want to go back out there and tear her robe off. Bend her over the side of the bed. Lance her heart with this lure of light inside me, and pluck her life right out of her body.

  Maybe a cold shower is what I need.

  I strip out of these clothes as the water runs. Months now, I’ve been whatever I am. A hybrid. Amalgam. Synthesis. And still, I’m not quite used to the flare of light whenever I undress. My body is my body, same as it was the day of my transformation, and yet it’s completely alien. Strands of fractal energy course deep beneath my skin, like snakes through water. They leap at my reflection. Tendrils of crimson light pat the bathroom mirror, confused, and then recede back to my heart. Bleeding Jesus.

  I don’t even recognize myself.

  Who am I? A frightened young woman. The faceless, nameless Ever. A BPPD officer the alien had acquired back in 1968. An alien warrior from a world called Destos. A million faces flicker in the light of the Myriad. A million identities. A million souls, all of whom I see through. I want to be them. I want to be me. I want to be everything. The light of the television. The sun. Abi’s smile. I can become all of those things. But I can never be them, not really. They’re masks, I can take on and off. Same as this one I wear now. I’ve never truly been at home in my skin. I’ll never be in anyone else’s. My fate always to be between. Always seeing. Never being.

  Energy snaps against the mirror again. Abi creases inside the door, her silhouette etched in the light of the television.

  “You’re so beautiful,” she says.

  I cross my arm across my chest, like somehow that’s going to hold back the storm inside me. “Abi, don’t.”

  She blubbers her lips. “I thought things were different.”

  “They are. I am. You don’t understand.”

  “Then tell me.”

  “I’ve been trying to tell you,” I say.

  “And you keep repeating yourself, like I’m going to just go, ‘Yeah, that makes sense.’ But it doesn’t. You can do this, Kitsie. You just don’t want to. You did this shit before, with the buoy thing or whatever it was. You could open it, you just didn’t want to because then you’d have to deal with it.”

  I bite my lip. “I’m dealing with a lot, Abi.”

  “What you want to.” She sniffs. “That night when you changed. You came to my apartment. You almost killed me. That thing did, anyways. But you controlled it. You’ve been in control since the start. You can do this.”

  “I want to, Abi.”

  “Ok. Then, do it.” She unties her robe. It falls to the floor and she’s as naked as I am. The both of us bathed in red. “Kiss me. Make love to me. Get some of your living back.”

  I turn away. “I’m sorry.”

  She sighs. “I used to think you were just shy, or maybe just you, but since this happened… I think on some level you’re ok with it, because you don’t have to connect with people now at all. You don’t have to solve anything. You can just keep working on problems and that way you always have something to fix.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Abi ties her robe back on. “Is this how you’re holding on, or something? Like you’re afraid you’ve changed so much, or you’re not you, and so you just kind of be this extra you.”

  “That’s a lot of pronouns, Abi.”

  “So, the answer is yes, then.”

  I wish she could see as Blind Tiger does; I wish Abi could see through my eyes, and see the truth. Then all these words, too big to leave my throat, they’d be unnecessary. I wouldn’t ever have to say, or explain, or justify. I could just be, and she’d know. This want. This fear. This fucking whiplash. The silence grows unbearable and Abi drifts back to the door.

  “Let’s just go back to bed, then,” she says. “Watch something. I’ll find a movie. Is that what you want?”

  I grab her sash. “I want you.”

  “I refer back to my previous comments and stuff.”

  Manic fingers of light twist up inside me. “I want you so much. I want to make sense. I want to be that light that I am with you. I want to be that warmth that I am with you.”

  “Kit…”

  “And then I don’t, because… even if it wasn’t for this…” I claw at the facsimile of my skin, backlit by the Myriad. “I’d still be this way. I was like this, before I changed.”

  “Hey, I didn’t mean that.”

  “It’s true. I was all this want and feeling and emotion and I didn’t know how to process it. I didn’t know how to conduct any of it without overloading the system.” I cover my mouth. God. What am I saying. “I don’t know how to get any of it out. I have all this love. I have love to give, Abi. You don’t know.”

  “I do. Hey. I know.”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t.”

  “Give it to me. Kit. All of it. I’m right here.”

  “But I’m not here. I’m not here. I’m trying to plug every leak in the city. I’m trying to ignore the voice in my head that wants me to drain every living thing on Earth like a battery. After the battle, I thought I was in control. I’m the alien. The alien is me. But that’s the problem. I’m the alien. The alien acquires things. I can fight it. I can deny it. But that’s what it is. That’s who I am, Abi. I just want to take everything. And so I’m afraid. I’m afraid I’ll destroy you. The both of us.”

  “Destroy me,” Abi says.

  “What?”

  “Burn me up. Make me new.”

  “Abi…”

  Her lips tease mine. “We can get back our lives, Kit. We can have living again. We can be new, both of us.”

  My hand jitters over her cheek. One touch. One small gesture of affection, and I will change us forever. Either we live as no one as lived, life and death together, or I consume her, and carry her with me forever, among all my guilts. This want. This need. It’s bent me out of shape. My eyes glow ruby in the bathroom mirror. Look at me. Look what I’ve done to myself.

  I withdraw from her. “I’m sorry.”

  Her hands claw through her hair. “It
’s ok.”

  “Baby, I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s ok. I understand, Kitsie. I do. I know what it’s like to fight this force inside you.” Abi leans against the counter, her hands shaking. Her whole body. “This thing that isn’t you, but… you can’t really control it.”

  I think I’ve known this, since we were working in the lab at the tower. She always had a drink in her hand. I cataloged it, but never gave it any thought like a million other things, all my focus somewhere up in the clouds with Valene. Last few months it’s been everywhere else but Abi. I’ve just made this worse. The craziness. Uncertainty. Birds in the apartment.

  Christ. I’m my mother.

  “Abi…” I reach for her. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  She smiles. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her put so much effort into it. “I want to tell you everything.”

  I grab a bit of her robe. “I haven’t been there for you.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I know, but I also know this is all weighing on you.”

  “This has been since I was young. This thing in you…”

  As afraid as I am for her, at the same time, I’m kind of relieved. Strange as that is. Abi does understand. Inside of her, just as in me, is this insatiable monster. Or I don’t know. Maybe it’s different. But it’s both something we fight.

  I close my arms around her shoulders, careful no part of me is touching her. “It’s going to be ok.”

  “It feels like being… buried.” Abi teeters in my arms. Baby girl. We find each other in the mirror. The obscured light of the Myriad leaves Abi’s face half in shadow. “Like dying. But then you come back. You come back to it, every time.”

  “I’m sorry. I know I can’t understand with the drinking, but I’m here. You can talk to me about anything.”

  Shadows of light creep across Abi’s pained expression. “Drinking?”

  “You have a problem. Don’t you?”

  She nods. “Yeah. I do.”

  “Let me help.”

  She drifts from me a little. “I’ll go to a meeting tomorrow. I was thinking about it anyways. I looked one up online. It’s close to here.”

  “Oh. You go to meetings? Back home?”

  “There’s one at the tower,” Abi says, wiping her face on the sleeve of her robe. “Every Wednesday.”

  I bite my lip. “I didn’t know.”

  “I didn’t want you to. You deal with so much.”

  “But you’re important me. I’m going to be here for you. I’m going to make this right. I’ll make this work.”

  Her sigh pushes us apart. “This is nothing you can fix.”

  I flinch. “I know that, Abi.”

  “Do you remember? The day you came in to work, and the protestors had all spit in your hair? It was the first time you really talked to me. I kept trying to get your attention, and I know, you’re… I love how important things are to you. How much you want to help other people. I never had anything growing up. I didn’t have friends. Any other family. I think I got sort of, expressive, to generate some interest, but… I’m not interesting. I’m not like a genius, or hot, or anything like that. I’m not really good at anything, except getting things done really fast, because somehow that will make a difference to the people I’m trying to impress. And that’s all they want from you. Quiet efficiency. A shadow that doesn’t move until they do.”

  I shake my head. “Your parents?”

  “Duh,” Abi says, with a quick smile.

  “You’re smart, Abi. You’re beautiful.”

  “I’m not anything, except in love with you. Like it hurts and stuff. We work. We’re easy. If you just let me in. That’s all you have to do. Let me in. The rest will just happen, Kit.”

  I reach for her again. “Let me come to this meeting with you tomorrow. Can I come? Or is there something else I can do?”

  “You want to fix me,” Abi says.

  “You’re twisting this all around.”

  “I want to just to tell you.”

  “You can.”

  Her voice breaks. “I want to tell you the truth.”

  I hold on to the robe, loose and shifting every time she moves. “Abi, you can tell me anything.”

  She searches the mirror, like she’s looking for something. “I want to. I want to be broken with you. But you always have to have something or someone to fix. That way you never have to stop, and work on yourself.”

  I let go of her. I pick up my clothes off the floor. I hold them in my hands, like I try and hold back the embarrassment and humiliation at sharing so much of my pain and having it thrown back at me. I don’t know what just happened. I’m listening. I’m trying to listen. I don’t know what to do, but what I always do when I can’t make it work. I leave, Abi in the dark.

  Eight

  Dense fog shrouds the lake and what should be a grand view from Blind Tiger’s penthouse apartment. Buildings form and dissolve before I get any sense of their shape. The sun flares, illuminating the expansive, lavish apartment, but then withers just as fast, leaving me in cold, gray confusion.

  Boshi’s heels clack against the hardwood floors. “He’ll be another minute. He’s with a client.”

  I leave the window. “At seven in the morning?”

  “The Responder of Chicago has many demands on his time.”

  “So do I.”

  “I’d think you’d want to draw this out,” Boshi says, walking through the open floor of the apartment into the kitchen. She takes an orange from the massive fridge and starts peeling it at the sink. “Get a couple nights out of this.”

  This bitch. I head for the door. “He can email me.”

  Just then, Blind Tiger comes into the apartment. “Kitsie, where are you going? Why do you look so tired? I can guess. Didn’t get much sleep last night, I take it?”

  I rub my neck, imagining Abi’s fingers, her lips, her warmth so ready and I don’t know how I spent the night without it, but I did. Eight hours at the gaming tables, watching. Calculating odds. Exploring different outcomes.

  House always wins.

  “Can we make this quick?” I say. “I have to get back.”

  “Or maybe you slept on the wrong side of the bed.” He goes into the kitchen. Boshi hands him the peeled orange slices. Anwar leans against the island. “Mmm. That’s good.”

  I drift back to him. “Are you wearing a cape?”

  “Anything less is uncivilized,” he says, and shrugs the black cape off his shoulders. He rests it over a stool at the island. “I apologize for my lateness, Kitsie. It was a long night for me, too. I have some information for you. Boshi.”

  Boshi touches her PEAL. All the windows tint. Digital files manifest on the glass, as if the windows are monitors.

  “What is this?” I say.

  Anwar takes his time with the orange slices. “I did some digging. You mentioned Lamar was emaciated. That got me thinking. I’ve investigated a few incidents over the years, most of them on the South Side. Over into Gary, though it’s out of my jurisdiction. People who were found dead in just such a way. Nothing improper was ever found in the autopsies, but loved ones insisted the emaciation was sudden. Happened overnight.”

  My hand glides across the glass as I swipe through documents and pictures from the Chicago Police Department. All of them feature victims with extreme emaciation, but the coroner’s reports were inconclusive. I grind my fingers into the back of my neck. There have been at least twelve incidents in the Chicago area, mostly on the South Side, some going back twenty years.

  This is a serial killer. An Empowered one.

  Blind Tiger sucks the juice off the end of his thumb. “Aren’t you glad you stayed?”

  Maybe Lamar isn’t as specific a target as I thought. And maybe there have been other victims in Break Pointe over the same period, but we just don’t know. How many people go missing in The Derelicts? How many bodies are the ruins coffin to? And if it is an Empowered, someone at GP, then any inci
dent reports could easily be falsified, or done away with altogether.

  “If this emaciation occurs overnight, they have to be sapping the victim’s energy,” I say.

  He nods. “No Empowered on record has such power.”

  “What about government agents? Covert operators?”

  He shrugs. “You and The Uniform seem to be friends. Maybe you could ask him if he has any life sucking comrades.”

  “I doubt I could get a message to him in the stockade.”

  Anwar smiles. “And I doubt his punishment for helping you is so severe. Most likely they have him shoveling shit on some backwater assignment in the desert or arctic. That probably rules out any special forces as our suspect. Whoever this is, they’re local. They could be unregistered,” Anwar says, but he doesn’t sound as if he believes it. I don’t, either. Unregistered Empowered are scarce and if found, usually across the border in Canada or Mexico. “That leaves only one other option.”

  Fear blooms in me like the tentative sun outside. The killer drains energy. Outside of some Empowered we don’t know about, the only being capable of doing that is The Ever.

  Me.

  “Given the dates involved, you’re clearly not a suspect,” Blind Tiger says. “But could there be other aliens?”

  Eight other Ever stalk time and space. Each collects energy to transmit back to the ship, though that link severed when it crashed in Break Pointe. I don’t think they know where it is.

  I don’t think they can get here.

  “We were the only Ever aboard the ship when it crashed.”

  Anwar squints. “’We?’”

  I bite my lip. “Figure of speech.”

  “Can it reproduce?”

  “No – "

  Wait. I found the Myriad inside a kind of crystalline cocoon. The cocoon was empty. What came out of that shell?

  “I don’t know,” I say.