The Cure. Part 23

Instead, she'd been knocked senseless, unconscious just long enough to make her too late to save him.

She knelt on the frigid cement, staring at his face. He looked too serene. Death shouldn't look that calm. He'd died waiting for her to save him, waiting for the miracle inside her, the miracle that never came.

Were his last thoughts that I let him down?

Guilt gnawed at her insides, a vicious, starving animal that wanted to swallow her whole. He'd trusted her, counted on her, depended on her.

She'd betrayed that trust. Not on purpose, but purpose didn't matter. Only results mattered.

And the result was she'd failed when it mattered most.

"Oh, John, I'm so sorry."

Leah reached down and paused.

He's only been dead a few minutes.

The room couldn't be much more than forty degrees.

The brain stays viable longer in the cold...

Leah slammed her hands down on John's chest before the logical part of her brain could force her to consider the possible consequences.

The agony that raced into her was so much worse than anything she'd ever felt before. It was beyond pain, a misery so profound that just being aware was pure torment. It was Death, a wave of darkness both fiery hot and icy cold at the same time, a river of dry ice pouring through her veins and stopping her heart. Writhing fingers of sorrow and despair tore into her brains with claws made of acid, until she couldn't take it any longer.

She closed her eyes and let it consume her.

Life! It filled every vessel in John's body, stuffed his cells to overflowing. There were no words to describe the feeling, but he knew it for what it was.

Life.

A b.u.t.ter-yellow sun rose in his brain, casting warmth and goodness over everything. He recognized Leah's power immediately, similar to the other times he'd felt it, but so much stronger. He imagined it was how plants felt each morning when the first rays of sun touched them, triggering the creation of energy, turning on the machine of growth.

The pure ecstasy of it coursed through him, wakening his arms, his legs, his fingers, his individual hairs. His heart started up, strong and proud. No faltering, no hesitations. He wondered if it had stopped, and if that meant he'd died. And if he'd died, where had he been?

He didn't care.

His lungs woke and he drew in a deep breath. Breathing meant life, not afterlife, which was fine by him. He inhaled again, savoring each distinct aroma. Smoke. Dust. Rotten meat.

Leah.

It was her. A scent that was part apple shampoo, part body wash and part sweat. The same odors that had filled his nose the previous night, as they'd lain together after making love.

She was there, and it had to be her power he felt bringing him back to life. John opened his eyes.

And wondered if he was in h.e.l.l.

Leah crouched over him, only it wasn't Leah. The Leah he knew was gone, replaced by a walking corpse from a horror movie. Her skin was bluish gray, her eyes a deathly milky white. Her hair fell in limp strands around her shoulders. Her mouth gaped wide, frozen in a soundless scream. Waves of terrible cold radiated from her, cold and something else, something that physically repelled him. It was nothing he could see or touch, but it was there.

As a cop he'd trained himself to trust his instincts. And those instincts were telling him to run the f.u.c.k away.

Leah stared at him with her dead eyes and he shrank back, trying to put s.p.a.ce between them. His repulsion grew worse. He felt defiled by her gaze, as if just being near her was contaminating his soul.

She reached out with one hand and his bladder released.

This is it. I'm going to die.

There would be no coming back if she touched him. No miracle to save him.

Her hand grew closer and he felt the corruption and freezing cold rippling down from it. Burning him from the inside out.

Two men in combat gear appeared in the doorway. One of them shouted and raised his gun. Fired at Leah.

The bullets punched holes in her side, holes that sealed themselves an instant later. Leah turned and looked at the men.

The one who'd pulled the trigger cried out as blood sprayed out from two gaping wounds under his ribs. The other soldier turned and ran.

Leah stood up and headed for the door.

John watched her leave, torn between thinking he should follow her and wanting to get as far away from her as possible. Out in the hallway someone screamed and then went silent, his cry cut off in the middle.

Someone else is dead.

At some basic level John understood that anyone near Leah was in danger of dying a horrible death. Just like he understood she was no longer completely human, that she'd changed, succ.u.mbed to-or been taken over by-the dark part of her power.

She'd become Death incarnate.

Except she's also Leah. Not on the surface, maybe not even consciously, but Leah is still in there. She cured me. That means...

A sickening thought surfaced. Leah had cured him. Which meant she'd taken his wound into herself, just like the other times. But she'd never changed before. So why now?

What was different?

He'd been shot. That much he remembered. Close range. Right in the stomach. But he'd been shot before and she'd cured it. More than once. So it wasn't being shot that was different.

Did I die?

He'd wondered that same thing while in the throes of her cure. If it was true and she'd tried to cure him anyhow...

It meant she'd taken all his death into herself.

And what Leah took in, she had to release.

"Jesus Christ." Once the idea of it appeared in his mind, it seemed so right he couldn't consider any other possibility. It would be so like Leah to try something like that, even knowing what it could do to her.

Except she'd probably only expected to die. Maybe even hoped for it, considering her frame of mind the last few days.

She'd have never expected to turn into a monster.

Another scream somewhere in the building, farther away.

She's going to kill them all. And then what? What happens if she still has death to release afterwards? Or worse, if she releases it all and there are still some of Del's men left?

They would kill her.

I can't let that happen.

As much as his mind rebelled against doing it, John got up and made his way to the door.

He had to be there for her when she needed him.

Just like she'd been there for him.

Chapter Ten.

The moment the attack started, Del McCormick knew he was in trouble. Based on the reactions of his invited guests-anger, fear-none of them was responsible. Which left only one person.

Tal Nova.

And from the sound of things, he'd come with a G.o.dd.a.m.n army. Del's men were well trained and well armed, but they wouldn't stand a chance against what sounded like concussion grenades and explosives.

Time to cut my losses.

A firm believer in being prepared, Del had an emergency escape plan. "Just in case", as he liked to say. He veered down a side hall, no longer concerned about making enemies of the powerful men he'd convinced to attend the demonstration, no longer caring about Dr. Leah DeGarmo and her powers.

Only one thing mattered, and that was staying alive and safe. He could always figure out another way to get the good doctor away from Tal Nova and set up his auction somewhere else.

Things he couldn't do if he was dead.

Two of his guards followed him, which he a.s.sumed was out of self-preservation, rather than a desire to protect him. Whatever. If they were still with him by the time he left the building, fine. If not, too bad for them. At the end of the hall, he veered right, then ducked into the first door he came to. He'd spent some time checking out the old meat-processing plant before bringing DeGarmo in and setting up the different rooms. Each wing of the plant now had one room set aside for emergencies.

Like the other three serving the same purpose, this room contained nothing but a wooden crate with a dirty tarp thrown over it. Del tore the tarp away and opened the lid, revealing an a.s.sortment of handguns, a briefcase that contained several IDs and some cash, and three hand grenades.

After grabbing the briefcase, two guns and a grenade, Del told the guards to take what they wanted.

"You're gonna need them before we get out of here," he said, heading for the hall again. By the time they caught up with him, he was several doors down.

His strategy was to make his way through several side hallways to one of the stairwells leading down to the bas.e.m.e.nt. In the bas.e.m.e.nt was an access tunnel that led to another abandoned warehouse next door, which had also been owned by the same company. They shared maintenance functions, such as the boiler room and electrical plant.

The perfect escape route since Nova wouldn't know about the tunnel.

Something exploded a few halls away and Del increased his pace. There was still a good ways to go before he reached the bas.e.m.e.nt, and Nova's men were moving fast.

Maybe they'll find DeGarmo and just leave.

He mentally crossed his fingers as he ran.

John cringed as he came across two more corpses. Like several others he'd seen, it looked like all the liquid had been sucked out of them, leaving behind dry husks, the skin stretched tightly over bone and mouths open in silent screams. He'd seen two types of bodies while trying to catch up with Leah. The ones like these, which he called the mummies. And the ones that had died more conventional-although equally gruesome-deaths. Bodies blown apart. Limbs missing.

Following Leah's path was too easy. Even if you couldn't hear the gunshots and screams, the dead bodies she left in her wake littered the hallways like morbid breadcrumbs left by a deadly Gretel. The ones with the bullet holes in them, he a.s.sumed, had tried to shoot her. He had no idea how she mummified the others-he had his suspicions, but they were too terrible to contemplate for very long-and he hoped he never had the chance to find out.

Although he feared he would.

He turned a corner at a full run and ended up falling as tried to stop himself. A small group of men stood fifteen feet away, guns pointed at the demonic ent.i.ty occupying Leah DeGarmo. She looked worse than before, terrifying and yet somehow beautiful, in the way that a tornado or hurricane is frighteningly beautiful, even as it destroys a neighborhood. Her hair and clothes whipped back and forth as if she was standing in the center of a vortex. Or was transforming into a fury of nature.

John shouted for the men not to shoot, but they paid no attention to his warnings. Three of the six opened fire, their guns filling the hallway with explosive reports. Leah's body jerked back and forth as the slugs tore through her.

Pressed to the floor to avoid the gunfire, John cringed, knowing what was coming next.

The three men who'd fired screamed in unison as bullet holes appeared in their chests and limbs. Blood flew in all directions, splattering their two companions and the walls around them. The three mortally wounded men fell to the floor.

Leaving the other two standing there while Leah walked toward them.

"Run!" John shouted at them, but they didn't move. As Leah drew closer, the supernatural wind whirling around her touched the two men, ruffling their s.h.i.+rts and hair, and somehow freezing them in place.

Leah ignored them as she pa.s.sed, but her dark powers didn't. Their eyes went wide and their mouths fell open, whether from pain or terror, John couldn't tell. Then the most awful thing he'd ever seen took place. Their bodies began to shrink inside their clothes, fat and muscle disappearing magically from beneath their skin, which tightened and hardened at the same time. Their eyes first bulged out and then shriveled in their sockets.

By the time Leah was past them, the two men were nothing but stick figures wrapped in flesh-colored jerky.

They tumbled over in her wake.

John's stomach clenched. Just as he'd feared, he'd learned how the mummies came to be.

He got to his feet and continued after Leah, this time careful to keep half a hallway between them. A s.h.i.+fting, smoky-black aura appeared around her, pulsating in a weird rhythm that made John think of the ripples running down the sides of a moray eel as it slid between pieces of coral.

She continued moving down the hallways, walking in a slow but steady fas.h.i.+on. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to her path. She never paused when she reached intersecting halls. Sometimes she continued straight. Other times she would turn left or right. Rarely would she go more than a few hundred feet before encountering more armed men.

None of them survived her pa.s.sing.

On one occasion, she stopped after crossing a junction and turned around. John froze, certain she'd decided to suck the life out of him as she'd done to so many of the others. But she merely turned down one of the side corridors. After pausing to calm himself and say a quick prayer for being spared, John went after her.

The hall turned out to be a dead end. A half-dozen men were crowded against a set of double doors that refused to open. Two of the men were pounding at the lock bars, while the others jostled with each other, trying to use their companions as human s.h.i.+elds against the advancing Angel of Death that was Leah.

John was about to shout a warning to them until he noticed something about the men was off. They had the hard-looking faces of career criminals, but they wore expensive designer clothes and carried no weapons. Then he understood.

Those are the men who came to bid on Leah. And possibly me.

Rather than continuing forward, John stepped back and watched from around the corner as Leah drew closer to the group.

Heavy winds buffeted the men. The two at the doors increased their efforts, kicking the unyielding metal and slamming their bodies against the lock bars. The other four cowered together, hands raised and faces turned away from Leah. Although he couldn't hear them, John saw their mouths moving as they cried for mercy.