Jenny Plague-Bringer: (Jenny Pox #4) (46 page)

He quivered where he stood, opening and closing his fists.  He had an urge to charge
in there, scream at his cousin, and maybe put his Luger to Barrett’s head and shower
his brains all over the wall. 
No
, Niklaus thought
. I won’t start with his head.

Before he could do anything, the door to the conjugal room opened. 
Gruppenführer
Kranzler was there, arms crossed, eyes looking coldly at Alise and the foreign man. 
Niklaus froze where he was, wondering how Kranzler would react to seeing Barrett on
top of his best aide.

Kranzler just watched for a minute, while Alise and Barrett continued on, faster and
louder, wrapped in their own world.

“It’s a useless effort,” Kranzler finally said, startling the two on the bed. “She’s
as barren as a rock in the desert.  Trust me.”

Barrett paused, sweating and catching his breath.  He looked from Kranzler to Alise.
“Doesn’t feel useless to me,” he finally said.

Kranzler glared at Alise for another long moment, and Niklaus recognized the expression. 
Jealousy.  So she’d been fucking Kranzler, too.  Niklaus wanted to punch his fist
through the wall. 

Finally, Kranzler snarled, “You may continue entertaining our guest, Alise.” He slammed
the door as he left.  Barrett looked down at Alise.

“Keep going.  I’ll show that ugly bastard who’s barren,” Alise hissed.

Barrett started up again, and Alise soon clenched her eyes and screamed in pleasure
again as his oversized cock slid in and out of her.

Niklaus felt a shining, glittering hate for his cousin Alise, recognizing that she
had no real love for him at all.  She was only using him.  She wanted to get pregnant,
and she didn’t seem too picky who the father might be.

He stalked away down the hidden passage, the sound of Alise’s high-pitched cries following
after him, mocking him.

Instead of bursting in on them, he paced up and down the male residential corridor. 
He should be relieved, he told himself.  He should never have thought of Alise that
way in the first place, never fantasized about her, never given in...She had brought
out the worst in him, as she always did.

Someone else had been on his mind, in every way Alise’s opposite, small, quiet, looking
as fragile as Niklaus often felt on the inside.  Evelina, the Slavic girl who could
speak to the dead.

The next day, he went down to the cellblock to visit her.  He’d been fascinated by
her since the day he and Alise had moved her down, maybe because she seemed so innocent
and harmless next to Alise.  He had strange feelings toward Evelina, and attraction
was the smallest part of it.  He felt the need to protect her, and to make life a
little easier for her.

He had resisted his feelings while he and Alise were intimate together, but now that
he understood Alise didn’t truly care for him, he grew emboldened enough to go and
speak to Evelina.

He knocked on the closed panel in her door, then waited a moment, working up his nerve,
before he opened the panel and looked at her through the barred window.

She sat on her bed, looking back at him and waiting.

“Hello,” he said.

She raised an eyebrow, but didn’t reply.

“How are you?” he asked.

She glanced around at her concrete cell. “How should I answer that?”

“I don’t know.”

She watched him expectantly, her eyes dark and vibrant. 

“I brought you...there was Bavarian chocolate on our last supply train,” Niklaus said.
“Not much, but S.S. men all got some.  I saved a little.  Would you like it?” He held
up a square of chocolate wrapped in tin foil, offering it through the bars.

“Why are you giving me that?” She remained on her bunk.

“Come on.  Take it.”

“Is that an order?”  She slowly stood and walked toward him, her eyes full of suspicion. 
She unwrapped it, revealing the rich chocolate, and her eyes widened. “Is it poisoned?”

“Why would I poison it?”

“To kill me?”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“Am I supposed to trust you?” Evelina asked.

Niklaus sighed and thought about it. “If you were going to die...wouldn’t it be better
to die by chocolate poisoning instead of a firing squad?”

“This is true.” She looked at the chocolate but made no move to eat it. “Why would
you give me this?”

“I just...feel I should help you,” Niklaus admitted. “Is there anything else I can
do?”

“Yes.  Unlock the door and let me go home.”

“I can’t.  I’m sorry.  I wish I could.”

“You can’t?  You’re standing outside my door.  You’re even wearing an S.S. uniform. 
I think you could get me out of here if you tried.”

“They would kill me,” Niklaus said.

“Maybe you’ll get lucky and they’ll use chocolate.” Evelina gave him a thin smile.

“Are you going to taste it or not?”

“What’s the hurry?  I have days and days to pass.” She placed it on the wobbly bookshelf
that held her clothes, which now consisted only of the cheap, plain gray dresses and
slippers the Nazis had issued her.

“Saving it for later.” He nodded. “That’s smart.”

Evelina shrugged.

“Can I bring you anything else?”

“Besides a key to my door?” Evelina glanced around her cell. “I have nothing to do
here.  Can you bring me something to read?”

“What would you like?”

“Novels, newspapers, magazines, it doesn’t matter!  Just anything to keep my mind
busy.”

“I can do that.” He smiled at her, but she didn’t return it.

“And more chocolate,” she added. “If it isn’t poisoned.”

Seth stood over the young man on the table.  He was Hispanic, around Seth’s age, a
veteran of the Iraq War.  His name was Frederico, and his left leg was missing from
the knee down.  Seth couldn’t stop himself from thinking of the day he’d met Jenny.  
Everett Lawson had run over Jenny’s dog with his red truck that had the stupid flame
decals on the sides.  Seth had stopped to heal the dog, and in the process grown back
the dog’s leg, which had been missing for months or years.  That was how Jenny had
discovered Seth’s power, and how Seth had really discovered Jenny.  He smiled for
a moment at the memory.

“Can you do it?” General Kilpatrick asked from the window above, looking down on Seth,
Frederico, and the researchers and guards within the big concrete lab.

“I can do it, but I won’t be up for golf afterward,” Seth said.  He’d resisted all
of Mariella’s attempts to flip him and make him cooperate with Ward, laced with not-very-subtle
hints that Seth might be welcomed into Mariella’s bed if he did.  Today, though, Ward
had played a dirty trick on him.

ASTRIA had brought in a pool of severely wounded war veterans, amputees and others
with injuries that couldn’t be fixed by medical science.  One of Ward’s assistants,
a thuggish-looking guy named Buchanan, had brought a digital tablet down to Seth’s
cell and held it up to the window, showing him all the wounded who’d been brought
with the promise of a new, experimental kind of medicine that could fully heal them. 
The veterans, mostly young men and women his age, were waiting anxiously, their faces
showing faint glimmers of hope under masks of grim resignation.

Seth knew he’d feel guilty if he sent them away without helping, so he’d agree to
call a truce with Ward long enough to heal them.  It had been a difficult decision
for Seth, because he knew that his cooperation was exactly what Ward wanted, but he
decided that he couldn’t turn down the chance to help these people.  He still wore
an orange jumpsuit, and he would still be returned to his cell afterward.  It had
been interesting to finally leave the cell, though, and see how much the base had
changed since last time around.  More computers, fewer swastikas, white tile instead
of concrete.  Some of the guards wore specially designed biohazard armor, complete
with air filters and oxygen bottles, to protect them against those with a paranormal
touch.

Now, Frederico looked up at Seth from the stretcher, looking confused.

“Nobody explained what you’re going to do.  It’s not another surgery?” Frederico asked.
“I don’t see any equipment.”

“I can’t really explain it myself,” Seth told him. “Everybody ready?” Without waiting
for an answer, he took a deep breath and lay both hands on the young man’s leg stump. 
He closed his eyes and pushed the healing energy into him to speed things along.

Seth felt it draining out of him, weakening him.  He opened his eyes to see Frederico
gaping at the sight of his leg.  Long, thin tentacles grew out from his knee.  Two
of them stiffened like wires, forming the framework of his tibia and fibula, finally
meeting to form a sketchy framework, the little bones of Frederico’s new ankle.  Others
lashed around the bone, forming muscle and tendon. 

Frederico crossed himself and whispered a rapid “Our Father” in Spanish.

Seth grew weaker and weaker as the bones and muscles thickened and the new foot formed
itself from thin air.  It wasn’t exactly thin air, Seth knew.  All the fat on Seth’s
body was already gone, leaving fine details of his own veins and muscles visible under
his skin.  His muscle tissue was starting to burn away, too, but he held on and kept
healing.

Less than a minute later, the young man’s new leg was complete, and Seth collapsed
onto the tiled floor.  Two guards hurried over to lift him up.

“How?” Frederico spoke in an awed whisper, wiggling his toes.  The new leg didn’t
match the other one perfectly, because the new skin was baby-soft and hairless.  Frederico
stared at it, his eyes huge. “How is this possible?  You didn’t do anything!  Are
you touched by God?” Frederico gaped at Seth.

“Urggh, food,” Seth mumbled, half-unconscious. “Take me to food.”

The guards and a lab tech helped him into a wheelchair.  Seth’s head nodded forward
as they rolled away.  He heard Frederico’s voice, shouting his thanks again and again,
somewhere behind him like a distant echo.

* * *

“I want to see Juliana,” Sebastian insisted. “Take me to her, right now!”

He stood in the hallway of the male dormitory, arms crossed, blocking Niklaus in his
room as Niklaus was trying to get out.

“Move aside,” Niklaus said. “Or do you want me to move you?”

Sebastian just stared at him, his eyes burning.  It had been two days since Alise
separated him from Mia, and she hadn’t touched him since.  The spell of her power
had finally worn off, leaving him furious and worried sick about Juliana, whom he’d
hadn’t seen in weeks.  He’d been like a drug addict, thinking of nothing but his next
dose.  Looking back, he could see how Alise had manipulated him, doing her best to
make him forget about Juliana, reassuring him that she was doing well whenever he
remembered to ask, then dosing him hard so that his mind was full of empty bliss for
hours.

Now he was awake.  He was himself again, and he needed to find Juliana.  He felt sick
for the way he’d spent his time, the power that Alise wielded over him.  Her ability
had turned out to be far more dangerous than Sebastian had ever expected.

“Juliana,” Sebastian said. “Now, Niklaus.”

Niklaus stepped closer, until he was only inches from Sebastian. “Last warning.”

Sebastian didn’t move. “Now,” he said again.

Niklaus punched him in the face, sending him staggering back into the hall, drops
of blood falling from his nose.  Sebastian quickly healed and recovered, and he lunged
at Niklaus, hitting him in the stomach.  He knew better than to punch anyone in the
face, or anywhere there was bare skin, because Sebastian’s fist was accompanied by
a burst of healing energy that sort of made his punch pointless.

Niklaus doubled over with Sebastian’s fist in his solar plexus, but then lunged forward,
slamming Sebastian against the far wall of the corridor.  Sebastian tried to bring
his elbow down on Niklaus’ head, but Niklaus twisted free and then began pummeling
him.  With each impact, Sebastian felt his courage wane and fear grow inside him. 
He fought back as best as he could, hitting Niklaus in the chest and stomach and sending
him staggering back for a moment, then Niklaus came back with an uppercut to his jaw,
filling Sebastian’s head with exploding stars.

Niklaus shoved him against the wall and clutched his throat, filling him with fear. 
Niklaus leaned in close again, his gray eyes burning, his teeth bared in a smile.

For a moment, Sebastian saw through the human mask of Niklaus to the monster behind
it, a thing the size of a great mountain, made of rock and bone, a thousand horns
on its massive dinosaur-skull head, dark fire burning deep inside its bony eye sockets. 
It made an ear-shattering inhuman screech, loud enough to tear worlds apart. 
The fear-giver
.

Then he was trembling and useless, staring into Niklaus’ eyes.

“You made a mistake,” Niklaus whispered. “Let’s get you into a cell downstairs.”