ARC: Cracked (2 page)

He continues dreamily. “I couldn’t help it, she just…” He shivers, then his attention switches back to me. “I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to.” His hands open and close, turning from claw to fist and back again. “It’s too strong.” He looks to me for understanding.

And I do understand. I understand better than he could ever possibly imagine. Because, for me, it’s more than power. I eat souls. Without them, I die.

Of course, that doesn’t explain why I so love to collect them. I run a finger down Samson’s cheek and he squeaks. Mom never understood the monstrous darkness that craves the kill. She wanted my need to eat souls to be like my need to eat vegetables. Necessary, but not desirable.

Samson, this foul piece of slime, understands me better than she ever did. But unlike him, at least I’m ashamed of my wickedness – when I’m not reveling in it. Like a dog wallowing in a mud pool, I love the glop and splash of ick. It’s not until after, when the stink dries stiff and itchy that I regret it. Other wicked things, like Samson, don’t feel the guilt. They don’t have a memory-mom tsking and shaking her head.

Instead, they have me.

I suspect they never really feel guilt, but I make sure they drown in regret. Red, sticky regret.

So Samson’s right, I am like him. But unfortunately for him, hypocrisy is the least of my many sins. He thinks our shared trait will make me like him, but it only makes me hate myself.

I lean in until mere inches separate us and close my eyes. I feel him tremble and inhale the intoxicating cocktail of fear and blood and I’m flooded with a hot joy. He moves and my eyes snap open, freezing him in place. “You’re right. I am like you.” I breathe, then shake my head very slowly, holding his eyes. “But that doesn’t help you any.”

His eyes widen and his mouth opens and closes wordlessly. I let him have one more moment of life, spent in panicked realization.

Then the Hunger howls through my veins, sweeping everything up in its frenzied tide. I jerk him from the corner, popping him free like a hermit crab from its shell, and he comes apart in my hands. So easily. Imagine a child at their first birthday.

He is the cake.

I hear myself laughing, screeching, cackling. The world is red hot and pulsing. On fire.

His soul erupts from his carcass, a roiling grey gas, like a thundercloud. The Hunger roars and I dive for the soul. It pours through me, sparkling and beautiful, filling me, stretching me, until it feels as though my skin can’t contain it. I arch my back, my arms wide. I am a canyon surrounding a river of beauty.

The water recedes and I am left a bubbling mess of contentment, burbling with victory.

As I stand among the wreckage, frothing with delight, drunk on a sweet soul, I catch a flicker out of the corner of my eye – the horrified face of the ghost girl as she slips away through the wall.

Her eyes, once again, filled with tears.

I leave behind a mess, the walls painted in a style reminiscent of Jackson Pollock. Red, grey, black, brown.

Mostly red.

I prefer a more neo-Impressionistic style myself – Seurat, Signac! – but my medium has its limitations. Usually I try to be a little tidier – mustn’t see my face on the news (especially with this haircut). But this is not a place that wants an investigation and I like the message only a rearranged corpse can deliver (Picasso!). Well, a corpse and a message written in blood – just in case I was too subtle:

I am watching
.

Underneath it, I prop a little love note to the administration letting them know I know where the bodies are buried – in at least one case, literally. They won’t be calling anyone.

I’m soul-drunk. The world’s too bright; I feel too strong. A soul doesn’t sit heavy in the gut, but bubbles through the veins like champagne, tingling the nerve endings. For at least an hour it cocoons my brain in cotton, protecting it from the talons of shame and worry. Later they’ll dive back down and dig in their beaks, but for now they can only circle uselessly above. I laugh and sneer, able to forget for now that they’ll have their revenge.

I stroll down the corridor and the flickering fluorescents celebrate my passing, humming in praise. I spin, bow and hum along. Bloody footprints trail; bloody fingers smear the walls. I reach the door to the stairwell and spin, heading back the way I’d come. I’m in no hurry, because Gideon won’t be. He’s a good wingman and wouldn’t want to interrupt Samson’s fun.

Which is exactly what I want to discuss.

I reach a locked doorknob and I snap it off, then the next. Most of the inhabitants won’t run far – they were sent to an insane asylum for a reason, after all. But they have the opportunity and, if they get far enough away, they might end up at a different facility, one with a different philosophy.

Some I leave in their cages. Even an animal rights activist wouldn’t loose a tiger.

I’m swollen with the sweetness of Samson’s dark soul, filled with it. Strong with it. It has been too long since I fed the Hunger. Like anyone on a diet, I’ve found that complete abstention never works – it just leads to poor decision-making later. Of course, my binges don’t result in weight gain, but rather indiscriminate homicide. I’d say the stakes are higher, but then a Twinkie would no doubt disagree.

Hinges creak behind me; then I hear the pitter-pat of bare feet as someone flees, away from me – their savior.

Come back, we can be friends!

A door slams. Guess not. Ah, well, Spider-Man didn’t have any friends either.

Creak-creak, pitter-pat. Another escape.

Come now, Gideon, investigate!

I prance, I dance on the gritty floor. Vengeance is sweet, sweet music. I spin, arms outstretched. The walls pass by in a blur of grey-white-grey-white-grey.

Then, suddenly, a spot of black enters my spinning vision – a figure at the door. The nurse has arrived! I stop and hiss.

Not Gideon – times three. Three strangers stand at the end of the hall.

And they are hissing back.

TWO

Humans don’t hiss. Well, except trashy girls fighting over equally trashy men. But grown men, respectable in black suits, do not hiss at their enemies. I blink and shake my head, trying to clear the fuzzy soul-drunk and, when I open my eyes the strangers are still there, though there’s no hissing. Maybe it was a disapproving hiss, a what-are-you-doing-out-of-your-cage? hiss. Maybe I imagined it, the soul-drunk playing with my mind to turn this into a fight. It’s a violent thing, the soul-drunk.

The three men stand at the end of the long hallway, in front of the stairs leading down to the ground floor. Respectable-looking men in neat suits with tidily trimmed hair – modern, urban men, incongruous in this dark and dirty dwelling for the insane. The one on the left is short with puffy, soft-dough cheeks, while the one on the right is tall and hawkish. The one in the center has the pitted face of an acne survivor, but is otherwise middle-aged unmemorable. The grey expanse of the narrow hallway separates their skin from my claws and my feet from the exit.

“What are you doing here?” asks the man in the middle. He straightens and tugs his suit smooth.

Yes – I, the girl with the ridiculous haircut and blood-splashed nightgown – am the one who doesn’t belong in the insane asylum.

“Have you been reassigned?” he continues. “Why wasn’t I made aware of this?”

Um. I straighten out of my own crouch.

“Did zi-Ben send you?” Hawkish asks.

Who?

“Is this some kind of joke?” demands Puffy.

That zi-Ben – he’s such a kidder.

“And what on earth have you been doing?” demands the one in the middle.

Better not answer that, though they’ll probably notice soon enough. No way to hide it. I eye the three of them, considering. They’ll need a lesson in discretion before I go
.
Not a lethal lesson. Mom wouldn’t like that.

But, if there’s a fight… accidents happen
. The Hunger hums.

The leader’s still ranting. “I don’t know where you’ve come from, but we’re near the Templars here. You tripped every alarm we set – if they have any of their own…”

Right, the Templars… who? Not that it matters.

“I told zi-Ben we could handle it,” he continues, shaking his head. “Even while helping in The Search… I mean we have Skype – this isn’t the dark ages any more. The asylum practically runs itself, anyway. We don’t need some junior associate in here screwing things up!” He waves at me.

Do I look corporate? Maybe they belong here more than I thought.

Puffy swipes a finger through a blood smear I left on the wall and licks it.

Holy crap. Maybe they do belong here.

At the taste of the blood, a shocked look comes over his face – mirroring the shock on mine no doubt. But I’m trying to hide my confusion, so maybe he doesn’t notice. He’s been largely quiet, but now he explodes.

“This is… this is – did you eat Samson?” Puffy ends in a bellow. “I’ve been working on him for months. I almost had his soul, I was this friggin’ close!” Pinched fingers, red face. “All these easy vics around and you eat Samson! Unbelievable! Not to mention, who am I going to get to work the damn midnight shift?”

I’ve never been caught “eating” people before, but somehow I imagined a different reaction. For the barest moment the world sharpens and something tingles in my mind, a worry trying to work its way through the cotton.

But worries are for people who can’t pull grown men apart with their bare hands.

Puffy storms forward and I drop back down and hiss again. He draws up short and they share meaningful glances.

“What did you say your name was?” The leader again, his eyes narrowed.

Should I lie? But what would be the point? Even if I leave them alive (
I will, Mom, really!
), they would be foolish to follow me once they know what I can do.

“Meda,” I say and they exchange glances again.

“Zi-Meda or hal-Meda?” the middle one asks slowly.

Hmmm… fifty-fifty chance to get this one right. “Zi,” I say. Judging by the way they all just bared their teeth, that was the wrong answer. I’m pretty sure they just figured out zi-Ben didn’t send me. It looks like we are going to fight after all.
Sorry, Mom, I tried
.

Did you?
Her voice drifts across my mind.

Yes!
I can almost see her arms cross and hear her foot begin to tap. I can’t see her expression. Time has washed it away.
Fine, no.

I really wish she was still alive. I can’t lie to a memory.

“Zi-Ben didn’t send you, did he?” Suspicion confirmed. “Who did you say you are?”

Your death, strange human. I mean, your injury. No murder, just a little maiming. So I can leave. Maiming’s not so bad.

They crouch themselves, mimicking my stance, spreading out across the narrow hallway. They creep forward in smooth, slithery steps. That’s fine, I like my food delivered – especially when I don’t need to tip the driver.

Not food, foe. I’m not going to kill them. Really.

Here piggy, piggy, piggy
.

They come closer. I could attack them from here, but they can’t reach me yet. Not with little human leaps, not from there. Closer they come, their footsteps so quiet I almost can’t hear them over the growl in my throat. Come in, come in, closer. I will leap over. Maybe a leap and a few swipes. Just a few! Just to mess up those suits, that hair. Let them know
what
was here,
what
they escaped. It’s rather humanitarian of me, helping them to count their blessings. Appreciate what they have – like their heads. Too many people take them for granted.

I crouch even lower as they approach, while rising on the balls of my feet. Ready to leap, ready to dive over. Ready to show these fools that they do not control me. I am not some weak little human. I am unique, special. Powerful in a way they could never anticipate. In fact, I’ve never felt more powerful. Samson’s fresh soul must have been extra strong.

They move in. Twelve feet, ten feet, eight. Their teeth show through snarls and the narrow hallway vibrates with the sound of our enmity. Their fingers curve like claws, just like mine. Do they mock me? I hope so. Deflated arrogance fits beautifully on a plate of defeat.

They’re close.

Six feet. I leap, perfectly measured, towards the gap between their heads and the drop ceiling. In the dance of death I am a ballerina, a leaping lady. I want to see the widening eyes, the shock, the awe. I look down and instead see a fist and an explosion of red.

I hear a crunch, a chorus of cackles.

I fly backwards and slam into the wall, then collapse, face first, to the floor, gasping. I can’t catch my breath. I push myself on to my back, blinking the confused clouds from my eyes.

How…?
My boggled mind clings to the word with a death grip.
How?
I’m one of a kind. Mom said I was special. But evidence to the contrary stands over me, burbling with wicked giggles, erupting with maniacal cackles.

My prey doesn’t cackle,
I
cackle.

Instead, I lie in a pool of my own deflated arrogance and a horrible sneaking suspicion dawns.

They are like me.
Like me
.

“What was
that
? Did you just try to
jump
over us?” The leader’s jeering voice cuts into my confusion, and I focus on his face. “And you’re only a halfling? ‘Zi’, my ass.” He howls with laughter.

They’re also assholes. I leap to my feet with a growl, but unfortunately my knees are a little wobbly and I stagger, setting off another round of loud guffaws.

Puffy bends over, trying to catch his breath but Hawkish catches his eye and makes like he’s going to dive, giving a girlish little jump, and Puffy loses it again.

My eyes narrow.

“Oooooh, don’t make her mad!” the leader gasps around his laughter.

Rage replaces thought, carried to my brain in an effervescent stream, and I dive at his fat mouth. Quick as lightning, he side-steps and slams me into the wall, without even the slightest pause in his laughter. Hawkish claps him on the back, holding his stomach as the mirth bubbles forth.