Jenny Plague-Bringer: (Jenny Pox #4) (50 page)

One S.S. guard caught a bullet to the chest, and another was shot in the arm while
reaching for his pistol, then in the leg.  The third guard, apparently smarter than
his co-workers, had ducked behind the desk, gas mask in hand.  Scattered plague spores
landed on the wounded guard’s face and neck, conjuring bloody lesions, as he dropped
out of sight behind the desk.

Sebastian and Juliana continued running toward the desk, then ducked and squatted
in front of it.

“This is your last chance!” Seth shouted in German. “Come out or die!” He winked at
Juliana, then stood and pointed his pistols over the desk.  Nothing happened, so he
jumped up on the desk and walked across it.

Bullets fired up at him, and one caught him through the leg.  Sebastian toppled to
the desk, pulling the triggers on both his pistols, but they were empty. 

Juliana stood in time to see Seth growl and leap on the Nazi guard in the gas mask,
who waved a smoking pistol of his own.  Juliana ducked as he fired it wildly.  She
crawled around the desk, and found Seth had pinned the Nazi with his legs and stripped
off his gas mask, and was now beating the guard’s head with the butt of an empty pistol,
drawing blood from his nose and jaw.

Juliana touched the guard’s head, killing him fast.  She looked toward the guard who’d
only been wounded, but he was curled up in convulsions.  She killed him, too.  Seth
dropped his empty gun and took two more pistols from the dead S.S. guards.

“Everyone must have heard that,” Sebastian said. “It’s probably still echoing in Kranzler’s
office.  They’re all coming for us.”

“Then let’s prepare to kill all of them.”  Juliana opened the door to the maternity
hall.  They found Mia in one of the spacious bedrooms, sprawled on a quilted bedspread
on a queen-sized bed, next to an empty bassinet with a teddy bear dressed like a German
soldier.  Her stomach had grown much larger.  Her eyelids barely lifted as she saw
them, and she gave a drowsy smile.

“My friends,” Mia said in a drugged voice, half-heartedly waving one hand without
raising it from the bed. “I love you both so much.”

“We’re leaving,” Juliana said. “Get moving.”

“Leaving?  No...Why?”

“We have to escape,” Sebastian said. “Can you get up?”

“Hmm, yeah.” Mia’s eyes closed.  She was deep in Alise-induced ecstasy.

“We have to go now!” Juliana took her by the shoulders.  Mia’s dress had shifted,
leaving one shoulder bare, and Juliana accidentally burned her with her touch.  Blisters
welled up on Mia’s shoulder and neck, and she hissed and pulled away.  She sat up,
rubbing the infected area and scowling at Juliana, as if the pain had woken her. 
Then a flash of recognition crossed her eyes.

“Juliana!” Mia looked from her to Sebastian, then touched her swollen stomach. “Oh,
God.  What have I done?  Oh, God, Juliana, I’m sorry...I....” She started to weep,
covering her eyes. “I’m an awful person.”

A shrill, clanging alarm echoed through the entire base at a deafening volume.

“They’re coming for us,” Juliana said. “We have to go.  They could be here any second.” 
The barracks and armory were in the southeast quadrant of the base, while the cellblock
and dormitories were on the southwest quadrant, not far away.

Mia nodded and pushed herself to her feet, ignoring Sebastian’s offered hand. “I’m
ready.”

They hurried out along the corridor, Juliana and Sebastian side by side, Mia protected
behind them.

“They could already be waiting for us outside that door,” Juliana said.

“Let’s go out shooting, then,” Seth said.

“Wait, I can look.” Mia grabbed Sebastian’s arm and closed her eyes. “Not yet, there
won’t be anyone out there.  But a lot of them are coming, we’re going to have trouble.”

Juliana opened the door and led the way out.

“The stairs to the exit are just one level up,” Sebastian said, angling toward the
stairwell.

“But there are probably more guards on that exit than any other,” Juliana said. “In
case we try to escape.  I think we should cut across to the administrative area and
use that exit.  It’ll be less protected against us escaping.”

“But the stairs are right there!” Sebastian argued.

“No, I think she is being smart,” Mia said. “They would expect us to try and leave
the same way we entered.”

“I’m going up the stairs!” Sebastian insisted, tucking one pistol in the back of his
pants. He grabbed Mia’s hand, startling her.

“You’ll die up there,” she said quickly.

“Just checking.” He let go of her hand. “So we go right through the center of the
base, through the labs, towards the offices and apartments of the people in charge. 
Is that actually our plan?”

“Yes.” Juliana began to run.  He hurried just behind her, trying to catch up.

Mia took Sebastian hand’s as they ran.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Keeping us alive.” Mia gripped him tighter as they approached the door to the central
corridor. “Two guards coming through there in a second!  Juliana, watch out!” She
ducked, pulling Sebastian to the floor with her.

Juliana turned against the wall by the door, tucking herself out of sight as the door
opened and two S.S. guards bolted through it, their pistols drawn.  Juliana stepped
out behind them and exhaled a cloud of her plague, and it ate into the backs of their
heads.

On the floor, Sebastian raised his pistols in case he needed to shoot them anyway,
but the two S.S. men crashed to the floor with the back halves of their skulls eaten
away.

Sebastian stood, and Mia stood behind him and embraced him.  She lifted his shirt
and pressed her hands against his stomach.

“Stop cuddling!” Juliana shouted.

“I’m healing,” Mia said. “Some of your...whatever that was hit me.  How did you do
that?”

“I just imagine that I’d like to see everyone in the room dead,” Juliana replied. 
She looked closer and saw the small, dark sores fading from Mia’s hands and arms.

She turned and ran through the door, momentarily indifferent to whether they followed
her or not, feeling a flash of hate for both of them.  Even though Alise had entranced
them, Juliana couldn’t help how she felt.

At the moment, all she wanted to do was kill.  She ran up the central corridor of
the base, hoping to see Kranzler or Alise, the plague boiling and blistering all over
her.

“There is a guard station ahead!” Mia warned, clasping hands with Sebastian as they
ran, trying to catch up with Juliana. “Juliana, be careful!”

Juliana realized she’d miscalculated.  She was accustomed to moving one level below
where they were, and she’d expected to reach the wide corridor between the big concrete
laboratory rooms.  Instead, on this level, they were approaching the observation deck
from which Kranzler and Wichtmann had watched the experiments. 

She stopped and turned.  With the alarm clanging and echoing, there was no point in
whispering. “Mia, how many of them?  Where?”

Mia closed her eyes and explained the layout of the guard station next to the large
double doors to the observation deck, and predicted where each guard would be sitting.
“I keep seeing us getting killed here,” Mia added.

They spoke quickly to work out their attack.  Juliana went first, blowing out the
thickest, darkest cloud she could muster, taking out the guards who hadn’t put on
their gas masks.  She fell flat on the floor and rolled aside, making herself as small
and difficult a target as possible.  The cold darkness inside, the thing driving her
forward despite her pain and exhaustion, seemed to know all about fighting, as if
she carried the experience of many battles inside her.

Two of the guards had already strapped on their masks, so Sebastian had to shoot them. 
He rounded the corner after Juliana, knowing exactly where to point his pistols, killing
the guards before they had time to see him and register that he was there.  Mia followed,
touching Sebastian’s neck.

“We’re safe for a minute,” Mia announced. “Then the guards from the barracks are going
to come up behind us, with gas masks and machine guns.”

“Then we’re going to charge through these doors onto the observation deck,” Juliana
told her.

Mia squeezed Sebastian’s hand again. “Nobody there is wearing gas masks.”

“Good.” Juliana smiled, then approached the double doors and flung them open.

The observation deck was in a panic, people shouting questions at each other, talking
on phones, trying to find out what was happening.  Heads turned at the sight of Juliana
in her bloody dress—scientists, typing pool ladies, and a cluster of S.S. officers
at the center of the room.  Frightened whispers spread as it became clear that the
guards outside had been defeated.

Juliana spotted Kranzler standing behind his desk, smoking a cigar and glaring at
her, flanked by more S.S. officers.

“What do you want?” Kranzler growled, not appearing particularly shocked that she’d
managed to escape the cellblock.

“I want to go home,” Juliana said. “But you’ll come after me if I leave.  Won’t you?”

“You’re free to leave,” Kranzler told her. “No one will stop you.  I’ll give the order.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“It’s the truth.” Kranzler sat down at a desk in front of a pile of paperwork. “Go
ahead.”

Juliana looked at the frightened faces in the room.  The S.S. men had their hands
on their pistols, waiting for Kranzler’s order.

She walked deeper into the room, watching people shuffle back from her on either side,
bumping against the windows overlooking the labs.  Kranzler’s Nazi officers stood
where they were, watching her closely.

Juliana was badly tempted to look back over her shoulder and see what Sebastian and
Mia might be doing, but she didn’t want to spoil the impression that she was alone.

“Why did you do this, Kranzler?” Juliana asked. “All of this?”

“You must know by now.” Kranzler indulged in his cigar, smiled as he exhaled. “To
identify surpernormal humans, those far ahead on the evolutionary curve.  To study
them.  To breed them.  To improve the human race.”

“Is that what you’re trying to do?” Juliana slowed her approach, expecting the S.S.
officer to start firing at any moment. “And what did you learn about me?”

“The same as the others who have true powers,” Kranzler said. “Sebastian, Mia...It
transfers through touch.  It is not biological or chemical in nature.  It defies all
known physics.” He looked her over. “You and I might have more in common than you
know.  We should be on the same side.  We should work together for the advancement
of the human race.  The Reich will raise up humanity, purify our race of all impurities,
and push us forward into the future.  You could be a powerful tool in the Fuehrer’s
arsenal, Juliana.  The other supernormals are amusing, sometimes useful.  But you...yes,
you are like a goddess of death.  Your power shows great potential.”

Juliana stopped in place, chewing her lips, as if considering it.  “Do you mean this? 
Even though I’ve killed some of your guards?”

“Your remarkable ability to kill is precisely what I admire.  You would be lavishly
rewarded.  No more prison cells or dormitories for you.  Your value is far beyond
that.”

“I do have a question,
Gruppenführer
,” she said. “Alise used her power on me, though she cannot touch me.” Juliana wished
Alise were in the room, but there was no sign of her or Niklaus. “She was able to
form strange pink spores and blow them through the air.  Do you think I could do that? 
Would you know?”

“That’s exactly what I believe.” He stood, approaching her now, a broad-shouldered
man who towered over her, with a swastika on his black sleeve. “With time...with help
and training from me...you could be far more powerful.  You could destroy armies. 
Let me guide you.  Let me be your teacher.  I have a great knowledge about it, drawn
from my own personal experience.” He stared at her carefully. “As I said, we are more
similar than you think.  Like you, I have a supernormal touch.”

Juliana watched him raise his hand and open it.  She decided it wasn’t worth the risk
of waiting to find out what it might be, if he was telling the truth.  If he did have
a supernatural power, she would deny him the chance to use it against her.

She exhaled the dense plague she’d been building up inside her.  After using it so
often, she was developing better control over the airborne plague.  She imagined one
of the endless flocks of blackbirds she’d seen as she traveled the South with the
carnival, a river of cawing black shapes that flowed from horizon to horizon.  The
first time she’d seen one, she’d stood mesmerized as countless thousands of them crossed
the sky.  The flock had taken almost an hour to pass.

She directed her plague like the river of blackbirds, swirling around the heads of
Kranzler and the other officers, attacking their eyes first.  They drew their pistols
automatically, screaming in pain, and a few fired blindly in her direction.

The Nazi officers howled and covered their red, rotting faces with swollen, ulcerous
hands.  The plague flowed thicker around them, streams of it burrowing bloody tunnels
into their faces and chest.  Kranzler and the other officers fell dead, their faces
eaten open all the way to their throats.