Division Zero: Thrall (41 page)

irsten’s eyes opened with a mild stab of pain as thick eye-crumbles failed to keep them sealed. The reason for her sudden consciousness became apparent as sixty-some pounds of terrified boy shook her via a two-fisted grip of her pink pajama top. At a subconscious level, she remembered him being unaffected by Theodore’s presence. Obvious fear on his face meant one of two things: either he had a nightmare, or something more dangerous than a perverted ghost was nearby. Clarity came to her mind, and with it came an explanation for why she could not breathe. Evan sat on her chest.

“Mom,” he whispered, “there’s a monster in the bathroom.”

She clasped his hands, extricating his fingers from her shirt. At this point, nightmare or actual monster was up for debate. “Okay, I’ll check.”

He scooted around behind her as she sat up. She slipped out of bed and grumbled at the clock. Her body protested the tease of only five hours sleep as she plodded over to the bathroom door and pulled it open.

Amid a swirl of black vapor, a humanoid figure glared at her with bright white eyes. Its skin had the sheen of polished black leather, muscles angular and thin. Insectoid mandibles opened, peeling skin away from a more human-like set of silver teeth concealed by the flaps. Rather than feet, its legs ended in sharpened bone spurs; in the hollow of where intestines should be, several infant-faced serpents writhed, each as big around as a forearm. White skin striated with dark veins stretched, dripping dark violet ichor as the demonic cherubs snarled.

Kirsten had about enough time to blink before it raised two three-fingered hands in a shoving gesture. Telekinetic force slammed into her, hurling her off her feet and out into the living room. She smacked into the wall above the bed, falling face-first into the Comforgel pad as Evan scrambled out of the way, screaming.

The impact knocked her senseless. Her mind shouted at her to move, but the muscles did not listen. Evan’s continuous howl moved from right to left in a circle, followed by hissing and the scraping of chitin.

“Mom!”

His shriek pulled her through the full-body pain. Pushing up from the bed, she gathered her feet under her as the creature hauled Evan into the air upside down by his right ankle. He focused his own astral power at the mass of serpents, which wavered about in their effort to bite him. The creature stepped away as Kirsten staggered toward it, drawing back its free hand to plunge claws into Evan’s exposed belly.

“No!” Kirsten roared. She wrapped her mental energy around the abyssal’s essence and shoved with all of her desperation.

The demon blurred into a streak of black, rocketing into the wall as if hit by a nonexistent PubTran bus moving near a hundred miles an hour. Solid again at the point of impact, black gunk spattered out of its mouth. Evan fell to all fours and scrambled to his feet. The creature slid to the ground. Its head crunched around to face her, eyes narrowing.

Evan skidded to a halt on his heels, backing away from her and diverted to the bathroom. Confused by the fearful look he gave her, Kirsten felt hurt for an instant before she spun at a moving shadow. The sheet loomed over her from behind, wraith-like, and engulfed her. She screamed with anger as it dragged her onto the bed, coiling around her in a boa’s embrace.

Cloth covered her head, tightening around her neck as it crushed her legs together and squeezed the air from her chest. Kirsten squirmed, forcing one hand up to her throat to fight the twisting linens for air.

Heavy thuds moved past her, bone spurs stabbing carpet-covered concrete. The light slap of Evan’s feet on the bathroom floor punctuated his continued screams. She thrashed, losing a second or two to panic before her training took over.
The sheet isn’t physical.
Psionic energy burst forth as she called Evan’s name in her mind. The sheet billowed out to a sphere around her, trembled, and popped like a bubble fluttering to the bed. She flung it off just as a tremendous
boom
reverberated out of the bathroom, followed by an uneasy child’s squeal.

“Evan!” Kirsten shouted, leaping off the bed as she called the lash.

The sheet whipped out, tightening around her ankle as soon as her foot hit the floor. Kirsten caught a flash glimpse of the creature smashing its fists against the shower tube, causing the glimmer of an astral blockade to glint in the plastic. Her rush of pride that Evan had managed to do that gave way to anger at the beast threatening him. She flung the lash forward as the sheet yanked her leg out from under her; the tip of the energy stream fell short as the cloth serpent hauled her backward. Thunderous pounding continued in the bathroom, the noise as though cannons fired.

Kirsten clawed at the rug, trying to pull herself away. She rolled onto her back, swiping the lash through the bedclothes. The sense of a tiny oblivion burst through the room, and the sheet ceased moving. She kicked it off her leg and sprang upright, turning to find the large demon right behind her. An involuntary scream flew from her throat as she jumped back, tripping over the bed and landing on her back. It descended on her, clawed hands pinning her arms, puncturing her skin while its intestine-serpents unwound. The size of babies, the malformed faces of five little old men hovered over her. Tiny lips twisted into sinister grins, revealing blackened gums studded with rotting teeth. They wavered about as each nudged the others away in an effort to get a closer look at her.

They screamed all at once and lunged forth to devour her.

Kirsten cringed away, feeling nothing but a faint awareness of slime running over her neck. Weight no longer held her down; claws no longer pierced her arms. Her head rolled straight, gaze fixed upon the ceiling. Calm overtook her, as if everything now made perfect sense. She knew exactly what needed to be done.

“No, no, no!” screamed Evan. “Stupid machine.”

Now soaking wet in his pajamas, he pressed his face into the tube wall trying to see into the bedroom. It was quiet there, but he did not trust the sound as much as he did the feeling in his gut. A shadow changed; Kirsten sat up, pivoted, and planted her feet on the carpet.

“Did you kill it?” he yelled, to no response.

Her hand grasped the E-90, lifting it from the nightstand and caressing it as she held it to her chest. A heel turn pointed her at the bathroom. Evan backed into the other side of the tube, squinting at the assault of soap-laden water drenching him. Something didn’t feel right.

“Stupid shower came on.” He grumbled, banging his elbow on the console twice.

Kirsten stepped into the light, a bruise around her right ankle visible under the pink leg of her pajamas. Her sleeves darkened crimson from midway between wrist and elbow, blood trailed over the E-90 and dripped on the tile floor.

Pat… pat… pat…

He stared at her face, at the horrible, evil, murderous grin. The weapon lifted; jet-black eyes sighted over it as the laser pointed right at him. It wasn’t Kirsten.

Pat… pat… pat…

“Mommy!” he screamed, slapping his hands on the tube. “The demon got you!”

She got super-squeezy every time he called her Mommy. He hoped it would be enough to snap her out of it. The weapon trembled. He remembered her saying she could never hurt him. Evan stood his ground, getting angry at the creature for attacking his
real
mother.

“Mommy!” He roared, as much as a nine-year-old can roar. A wave of psionic energy flew out of him, trying to knock the bad thing out of her.

Kirsten blinked; something hot, tears perhaps, ran down her cheeks. One second she was lying on the bed with those horrible little faces hovering over her. Now she was standing―with a gun pointed at Evan. Her breath sputtered in an erratic gasp as she forced her arm down. Evan smiled and pointed at the mass of blackness exuding out of her like sweat.

“Behind you!”

She whirled. The abyssal slid into the bedroom, dragging itself along in a forearm crawl. The sudden ejection from a possessed host seemed to leave it crippled. Kirsten tapped all of her rage and her horror at what the creature almost made her do. The lash traced outward into a tendril of flickering energy. A twist of her arm coiled it, projecting it into a downstroke she raked through the slinking abyssal. It howled; a deep bass roar accompanied by a cacophony of tiny infant-like screams before it exploded in a cloud of inky fog.

The sense of obliteration came over her, the headache which so often followed a hard mind blast close on its heels. She fell to her knees and went over forward. Bloody hands clutched at the tile; the sight of red ignited fires in her arms where claws had pierced. A rush of warm, humid air hit her from behind. Evan emerged from the tube through shimmering flecks of light from the dissipating blockade.

“You’re bleeding,” he said.

Kirsten crawled around to face him, sitting back on her heels. He looked miserable, soaked and dripping in his wet pajamas. Such guilt came over her, she cried.

“You said you couldn’t hurt me. I knew you wouldn’t.” He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek.

She pulled him into her lap, cradling him water and all, and mumbled apologies into his hair.

“Mom?”

“ Yeah?” She sniffled, and raised her head to look him in the eye. “Yes?”