The Girl in the Box 01 - Alone (22 page)

Ariadne and Dr. Perugini exchanged a look. “If you say so,” Dr. Perugini said with an air of patronization. She reached for me again, Ariadne a step behind her. “I need you to sit down and relax…”

Old Man Winter took two long strides from where he stood at the side of Wolfe’s body and landed a long arm on the shoulders of Dr. Perugini and Ariadne. “Don’t…” he mumbled in quiet warning, “…touch her.”

They both looked at him in surprise, but Perugini’s turned to annoyance. “She’s injured. I need to get her back to the Directorate and treat her wounds.”

Old Man Winter did not budge. “She’ll be fine. Do not touch her without heavy gloves.” His gaze fell over me again, and he turned back to where the agents stood around the body of Wolfe.

“Or what?” Perugini spat at him. “She’s hurt, she’s delusional, Erich! She’s just been through a ridiculous level of trauma – you can’t possibly think she killed this maniac by touching him.” She looked after him, and he hesitated, and the chill of the cold air from the window filled the room, swirling around him as though it were embracing a very old friend. “Erich?” she asked again, note of disbelief filling her voice. “You don’t actually believe her?”

He stared down at Wolfe for a long moment before he answered. “Certainly I believe her,” he replied. His cold blue eyes swept back to Dr. Perugini, then to Ariadne, finally coming to rest on me. “It is as she said. She touched him, and he likely screamed and begged for his life, and she killed him with her hands. With her touch.”

I felt a chill unrelated to the broken window as my eyes followed Old Man Winter’s down to the corpse of Wolfe, the scariest maniac I’d ever heard of, dead, helpless, on the floor – the way I’d made him. I looked back up and the biting fear ate at me, doubts, horror, still swirling in my brain, which was rocketing at a mile a second. “What…am…I?” I croaked out at him.

“What am I?” I asked again, stronger this time. He did not answer me, instead turning away after gesturing at Wolfe’s body as he swept up the stairs. Dr. Perugini reached for my elbow and I brushed her off, knocking her aside.

“WHAT AM I?” I howled at him as he retreated.

A voice, deathly familiar, prickled at the back of my mind, instilling a sense of calm that came from deep inside, an answer to a question that was asked and answered somewhere in the depths of me.

Soul eater
, it said in a raspy, whispering voice.

Succubus.

“You’re what would be known in mythology as a succubus,” Dr. Sessions said in a voice pitched with excitement. We were back at the Directorate hours later. I had let Ariadne and Dr. Perugini coax me upstairs and into a waiting car after my question was answered from within. Although I was familiar with the myth of succubi, I knew that the answer hadn’t come from me. And that left another question that I was sure I could answer, but didn’t want to.

After a visit to the medical unit to make sure I was all right, Ariadne had asked me to see Dr. Sessions. I’d agreed. So there I sat, clad once more in a long sleeved turtleneck, jeans, and with a pair of heavy mittens they’d rummaged for me, on his examination table, him keeping an arm’s length away while he talked.

“I thought that succubi…uh…” I blushed as I thought about having to ask the doctor the question that was on my mind. Ariadne and Dr. Perugini were both in the lab as well, hovering in the background. Perugini, in particular, looked as though she was ready to level Dr. Sessions, staring at him from across the room through half-slitted eyes. “…slept with men in order to steal their souls.”

Dr. Sessions smiled, which at the present moment didn’t creep me out as much as it might have a week ago. “No. Well,” he rescinded, “you could, I suppose, but all that’s necessary is the touch of your skin. You touch someone with your bare hands, or your face – anything involving flesh to flesh contact, and they’ll start to feel the effects of your power.”

“Mom knew,” I said in a low whisper. “That’s why she had rule #4.”

“Excuse me?” Sessions looked at me.

“My mom,” I explained. “She had a rule that I wasn’t allowed to wander around the house without being fully dressed, down to having on gloves at all times. I assumed that it was because we had to be ready to run at a moment’s notice.”

“Yes, your mother likely knew,” he agreed, turning back to some printouts of the data he’d accumulated on me through our testing. “She was probably the source of your power; I suspect she was a succubus as well. It’s very rare, of course; most of our data on succubi is apocryphal – in fact, there’s only one in our records known to be alive.” He chirruped with a twitter of excitement. “Well, three now, I suppose, counting you and your mother.”

“How…do I kill someone by touching them?” I asked, still in disbelief.

“Looking for a scientific explanation?” He shrugged, still an air of whimsical amusement, as though he were so excited by the prospect of a new subject for study that he failed to realize that I might be feeling something other than what he was. “I can’t explain it without studying the effect in more detail. Of course, we brought Wolfe’s body back for study—” he pointed to a white sheet on a nearby table, covering a monstrous corpse—“which should be just a wealth of information. Since this is the first chance anyone’s had to study a confirmed victim of a succubus, it’s really a pioneering step…”

Victim. His words drifted past me after that, and as he kept talking, I thought about Wolfe as a victim. Wolfe had never been a victim of anything in his life until I came along. He made victims; he wasn’t one. Until now.

Now he was my first.

“…so I’ll be studying him. Of course there are tests I’ll be wanting to run on you as time goes by, and hopefully we can get to the bottom of the root physiological causes of your power.” Sessions clapped his hands together and looked at me with unsuppressed glee. “It’s very exciting, isn’t it?”

I cast a look back at Wolfe, still hidden under the sheet. “Thrilling.”

It is thrilling, isn’t it…

I ignored the voice in my head and turned back to Dr. Sessions. “A question about succubi…aren’t they supposed to drain the souls of their victims?”

He entertained a high, giggly laugh. “Yes, according to anecdotes, incubi – the male counterpart of your type of meta – and succubi steal the souls of their victims, but of course they also are reported to do it through sexual contact, which is not what happened in this case.” He pushed his glasses up on his nose, suddenly disheveled. “Right?”

A wave of revulsion passed over me. “I grabbed him around the throat, Doc.”

“Oh, okay, that’s what I thought.” He recovered and shifted back to glee. “I think it doubtful you ‘stole his soul’,” Sessions said with a scornful laugh. “Bear in mind that also in the mythological descriptions is the idea that a succubus or incubus comes to their victim in their dreams, which is,” he said with another giggle, “absolutely preposterous.”

I stared back at him. “Right.”

“I think you can see the myth and reality when it comes to meta-humans is somewhat divergent.” He smiled. “Any other questions? Very good, then. Well, you get back to recovering under Dr. Perugini’s able ministrations and I’ll give you a call as soon as I have anything of interest to report.”

“Doctor,” I said as I stood. “This power…” He stared back at me, curious as to what I was going to ask. “Does this mean I’m never going to be able to touch anyone…ever?”

“Through heavy clothing you can. We’ll need to do some study, but I suspect that there’s a certain thickness of material that will prevent bleedthrough of your powers.” He adjusted his glasses once more.

“I meant with my skin.” My mouth was dry, but I didn’t need a drink.

Well…no, I…I think not,” he stuttered. “We’ll research the effect further, but it seems that if you killed Wolfe with your touch, then it will have the same effect on anyone else you happen to be in contact with.” He seemed satisfied with his answer until he looked over my shoulder. I turned in time to see Dr. Perugini shaking her head in disgust and Sessions amended, “But…we need to do more research to be certain.”

Dr. Perugini made a rattling sound of annoyance in her throat and reached up to place her hand on my back, avoiding touching the skin. Ariadne walked next to me and we descended into the underground tunnel back to the HQ building.

“So,” Ariadne began, “now that Wolfe is out of the picture, have you given any thought to your next move?”

“Not really.”

“You could stay here,” Ariadne answered, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go,” I replied, “so I suppose I will for now.”

“I meant long-term,” she corrected. “Our facilities and resources for meta-humans are unparalleled. We can help you learn how to control and harness your power.”

Control and harness, two words that mean they’d like to make you their willing slave…

“Can we please focus on getting her to the point where she’s no longer badly wounded before we start talking about anything else?” Dr. Perugini’s irritation finally broke loose, causing Ariadne to do as the doctor ordered. Parting ways with us at the medical unit, Ariadne promised to stop by again later to check on me. Dr. Perugini walked me back to my bed, filling the air with florid Italian curses. I doubt she realized I knew them.

“Rest,” Perugini commanded before she disappeared into her office. I lay back, resting my head on the pillow following the doctor’s exhortation, and glanced around the medical unit. The curtains were down and the bay was empty.

They want to own you…they want to make you their property…run while you can…

“I can’t yet,” I said, voice no higher than a whisper. “I need answers.”

They don’t want to give you answers; they want you to work for them, to…kill for them.

I snorted, staring into the steel wall opposite my bed. “Let me ask you something…where’s my mom?”

I don’t know. And if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.

“You’re lying.”

“Excuse me?”

I looked up, startled. Dr. Perugini had appeared from her office door and crossed the bay. “Who were you talking to?”

I tried to keep my expression blank. “Myself. Bad habit, I’m afraid. It’s what happens,” I said with a light chuckle, “when you have no one but Mom to talk to for years and years.”

“Ah,” she said. Her face bore discomfort and I could tell she felt sorry for me. “Here you go; something to dull the pain.” She dropped two pills into my outstretched hand and reached to the side table where a pitcher of water sat, poured me a glass and handed it over. She watched as I dropped the pills in my mouth and drank half a glass. “Anything else I can do for you?”

“No,” I said.

“You’ll be healed by tomorrow. Nasty marks on your neck should all be gone by then. Skull fracture too; it’s already almost knitted together.”

“Thank you.” I mouthed the words, not sure if I really meant them. I felt a sudden urge to hit her, to beat her bloody and then slam her head in the door until she stopped moving, and then…

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Dr. Perugini looked at me, eyes searching mine.

I looked at the blank steel plating that covered the wall across from my bed, the shiny, reflective surface, then looked back at her with a practiced smile. “I’m fine. Just a little tired, that’s all. And my head hurts. It’s been a long day.”

“Of course. I’ll leave you alone. Just call out if you need anything.” With a smile, she turned and went back into her office, closing the door behind her.

You wanted to do it, to beat her, to kill her…

“No, I didn’t,” I whispered, softer this time.

You did; I felt it; you’re coming around to my way of thinking…

“No.” I stared at the wall, and I could see just the faintest image of myself. “Tell me where my mother is.”

Told you. Don’t know…and I wouldn’t tell you if I did.

Somewhere in her office, Dr. Perugini must have hit the light switch, because the medical unit was bathed in darkness, broken only by the faint light of instrument panels. I looked back at the steel, mirrored surface across from me and my face was gone, replaced by black eyes and teeth that looked unusually sharp; predatory, even. I smiled, and my voice came out harsher, lower and more rasping than usual.

“We’ll see about that…Wolfe.”