Tormented (24 page)

Before he could fold back into himself, Anselmo spoke, captivating his attention once more. “Doctor,” he said, bold and loud, “I find I have gone without worthwhile female company for entirely too long. Perhaps you might find it in your tender mercy to aid my plight?”

There was no mistaking the woman’s response. Her face went from somewhat neutral to surprise to sheerest loathing in the space of seconds. The tautness of her jawline, the puckering of her lips in disgust, the jerk of her head in revulsion at the sight of Anselmo—they would have been obvious to anyone. Once more, Benjamin felt the shame he had cradled to his bosom in secret blossoming out, threatening to steal all his courage and make him run from the room in tears.

“Anselmo,” the doctor said, clearly clamping down on all those emotions she’d let play across her face moments before. “It is such a strange thing to see you here, so far from Firenze or Roma. You seem … different, since last we met. Perhaps a touch out of place.”

“I belong everywhere I go,” Anselmo said, striding deeper into the room as though he owned it.

“Especially that jail cell you were in for a couple years,” the black man said from his place on the gurney. “That was a real good fit for you.”

Anselmo chuckled softly, but his laugh sounded rough and raspy, much like every noise he made. “I find it appalling that Mr. Treston did not find time to make the introductions between us. You are Augustus, yes?”

“He knows my name,” Augustus said, “I think I’m flattered. Especially since you decided to break my back without even saying hello this morning.”

“My quarrel is not with you,” Anselmo said, waving a hand at the man on the bed. “It is with Treston. We have a long history, he and I, one that needs to come to an end. Soon.”

“He is not here, Anselmo,” the doctor said.

“Oh, I know this,” Anselmo said. “He has gone to visit the childhood home of my new friend here.” He waved broadly to encompass Benjamin, who suddenly founding himself wishing he could simply melt away. “Have you met Benjamin Cunningham?”

“Only a couple seconds before your fist made my acquaintance,” Augustus said. He was lying still on the bed, as though he couldn’t move, covered to his armpits by a sheet, and with a cervical collar on his neck. Good grief, was he actually paralyzed? Benjamin saw his fingers twitch, answering that question: apparently not.

“Regrettable,” Anselmo said, “but necessary. I needed to have a conversation—and a confrontation—with Treston. Those who get between us will inevitably be harmed.”

“Am I between the two of you?” the doctor asked coldly.

“My dear,” Anselmo said, and his blackened lips parted to show his teeth, “you and I should be alone, always, with no other man anywhere near us whilst we—”

The doors behind Benjamin whooshed open and before he could turn to see what they brought, a shadow flew over his head and dropped squarely on Anselmo, like a pillar of darkness ripped straight from a storm cloud. It took a moment for Benjamin to realize by the flashes of green here and there that it was dirt, pure and black, ripped from the earth with its roots and in sufficient volume to fill a dump truck.

The dirt moved as though it had a life of its own, descending on Anselmo in a great flow. Benjamin watched, shocked, seeing the darkness turned brown and black by the overhead lighting as it swallowed Anselmo whole. It moved like a worm, undulating, a six-foot tall worm that stood on its ends and—

A hand punched out the side of the dirt as Benjamin cried out in shock and took a step back. Another hand came out the other side with a hard punch that sent specks of detritus and wet earth across the clean, blue floor of the medical unit. It took Anselmo almost a full minute of warring with the black soil before he finally broke free with a flexing of his muscles in pure strength, shattering the last of it across the floor as though it were shards of glass.

He stood there, adjusting himself, brushing his suit off, dusting the remainder from the folds of his scarred skin, and then, finally, he looked up to Benjamin and tossed him something approaching a wink.

Cool. Calm. Uncaring.

What a man.

“Now,” Anselmo said, “where were we?”

Colin Hay’s “Waiting For My Real Life To Begin” was playing softly in the background when I awoke to bars in front of my face, and the smug, handsome face of Zebulon Darwin was right there in front of me, squatting so he could look me in the eye as I stirred back to wakefulness.

“Morning, Sleeping Beauty,” he said.

“I’ll say this for you sucker-punching islander hillbillies,” I said, pushing up to all fours. Apparently he’d deposited me unceremoniously on my face in the cell, “at least you’ve got good taste in music. I’ve got this one on my own playlist.” I got up and stretched, listening to my back pop softly as I realigned my spine. “Also, even though you just called me a beauty, you’re still an ass.”

“And you are awfully big for your britches,” he said, rising to his feet and towering over me, the sturdy metal bars between us. The sound of the wind came howling from somewhere outside the stone walls of the jail. I was in a room that was all cells, about six of them, with the only visible exit behind Mr. Z, who was clearly the sheriff from
Wayward Pines
. The book, not the show. I haven’t seen the show.

“Is that a remark on the shape of my ass?” I asked, ready to rip the bars off the cage I was in so I could stuff them up his nose. “Because you don’t have to be a hater just because you’re not all about that bass—”

“Just stop,” he said, looking suddenly disgusted. “How did I know you were going to be one of those people that just goes on and on, energized by the sound of her own voice and infinitely amused by her own self-indulgent quips?”

“Because you’ve seen me on TV …?”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m charging you with disturbing the peace—”

“Yeah, well I’d charge you with being a total prick—”

“—and assaulting an officer of the law—”

“—which I also am, and you punched me first, knuckle-dragger—”

“WILL YOU JUST QUIT IT?!” He waved his arms in the air like he’d lost his shit, teeth bared and gritted.

“Probably not,” I muttered under my breath. “I never did know when to quit.”

“You’re in jail, idiot,” he said, “quit now. It’s a dignified time to do so. It’s actually past it, but you’re only damaging your case by continuing to be so damned insolent.”

“Is insolence a crime now?” I asked. “Is that something I’m going to get charged with, too?”

“I’m not going to sit here and listen to this,” he said, turning away from me and heading for the door.

“Are you sure?” I asked. “I get funnier with time. Or maybe people just lose the will to fight my particular brand of humor and give up all hope of—” He slammed the door behind him. “Finally. Thought he’d never leave.”

I put my hands on the bars and started to pull. As far as idiots went, I had the lawman pegged for a big one. He’d stuck a meta in what was pretty clearly a human jail, which—since I presumed he was a meta himself—was something he damned well should have known better than to do.

Then I tugged on the bars for five minutes without any success and started to wonder if maybe the idiot in our relationship was the person standing inside my cell, breathing hard from the exertion of trying to bend bars that had zero give.

“Sonofa,” I muttered. “FML.”

“Doesn’t that mean—” A voice came from behind me, causing me to jump into the air a good foot or three.

“Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” I shouted, shaking my hands in front of me out of sheer surprise. I came down and whirled so fast I slammed my back into the bars. There was nothing but shadows behind me, and I blinked, wondering what the hell was going on. Was this the voice? The ghost? Had they been warning me all along to “Get out!” because, in fact, this place was an evil trap put together by my enemies—

Before I could follow that thought to its crazy paranoid conclusion, my eyes locked on the windowsill about seven feet up the wall to my left. It was open a little, and the voice was coming from there. I stepped closer, tentative, and spoke toward it. “Who is that?”

A hand snaked into the cell, but all I could see was a watch on the wrist. It looked familiar. “Jake,” I said.

“None other,” he said from outside. “I, uh … heard you had a rough time tonight?”

“Did you?” I asked snottily. “Did your wife tell you that she knocked me out with a cheap shot?”

“She did mention that,” Jake said, and he almost sounded sorry. “Said you looked like you were about to kill Z.”

“I wasn’t going to kill him,” I said, sullen. “I wasn’t even going to beat him stupid. Because he already is stupid.”

“You got into a bar fight,” Jake said, surprisingly free of judgment.

“Something weird is going on in this town,” I said. “And Z? He’s no ordinary guy.” I cracked my jaw and massaged the side of it. “Also, your wife? Hits like … harder than most of the villains I’ve tangled with. Yeeouch.”

“There’s a reason I don’t cross her,” Jake said, withdrawing his hand. I could still hear the howling of the wind outside the window, and the draft coming from that inch or two of opening was wicked cold.

“Are you standing out in a mini-blizzard?” I asked, easing closer to the window.

“It’s a little snowy still, yeah,” Jake said. “Hasn’t really let up. The good news is that I was able to pack some of the snow together to stand on. It’s really accumulating out here.”

“Marvelous,” I said, “maybe by the time it all thaws out, I’ll be done serving my sentence.” I stared at the window. “Unless you came to bust me out.”

“Nothing so bold as that, I’m afraid,” Jake said. “I don’t think you deserved this, though.”

“Well, thanks for the moral support,” I sighed. “But I don’t think that’s going to do me much good.”

There was a pained silence. “I’ve got to go,” Jake said.

“Thanks for stopping by,” I said in resignation.

“You going to be all right?”

I took a moment to unpack the curious mix of feelings swirling around me. The answer came naturally. “I saved the world when I was eighteen and for the last few months I’ve been dealing with the fact that everyone in the world hates me. I think I can spend some time in jail without coming to pieces. It’s not exactly my first time being a prisoner.”

“Okay,” Jake said, and he sounded a little sad about it. He reached his hand in again and waved, the light catching his watch, a golden one that still looked vaguely familiar. “Take care of yourself, Sienna.” He hesitated. “It’ll all be all right.” I waited to see if he said anything else, but he didn’t. I heard the sound of snow crunching as he walked away.

I placed my back against the stone wall of the jail and tried to decide what to do. I had none of my other souls or their powers, which would have gotten me out of here in an instant, and I had no idea when—or if—they’d be back. There was a telepath mucking with my life, and something strange was going on with this town and its lawman. He might even have been the one responsible.

My head sagged, heavy with the weight of utter despair. “I’ll be fine,” I said, more to reassure myself than because there was anyone around to hear it. “I will.”

But I didn’t believe it for a minute.

“You were about to chill out,” the lady doctor said in response to Anselmo’s question, and then she took a long, metal cylinder that was smoking out of its end and threw its contents squarely into Anselmo’s face.

Benjamin just stood there, stunned, as it all seemed to play out in slow motion. The stuff she threw looked like liquid as it left the steaming cylinder, which was almost the size of the helium tanks he’d seen used to fill balloons.

This one, though, had a hazardous materials warning plastered on its side.

oh

dear

The liquid hit Anselmo as he was turning to look at the doctor. He did not dodge it, did not see it coming in time. He was still partially covered in the last of the dirt, which clung to his ridged and marred skin. The liquid splashed him in the face like she’d thrown a bucket of water. Anselmo flinched, closing his eyes as it hit.

For a moment, he seemed like he’d be fine, like everything was totally normal and he’d just had a good bucket thrown over him in a water fight, that was all.

The first hints of ice crawled across his skin a moment later as the doctor followed her attack by spitting on him in pure fury. White frost dripped slowly down Anselmo’s face as if he were freezing from the inside out. His eyes crusted over, partially opened, and his hands crusted into place with harsh crystals over them even as his body staggered, his mouth frozen open without a scream emerging. His lips were stuck in that horrible rictus, like—

The doctor carried through with her metal cylinder and hit Anselmo squarely in the cheek. Benjamin watched in fascination and horror as the man’s face—

shattered

broke

glass out of a window

light catching it in a million sparkly shiny pieces

diamonds in the light

casting rainbows

Anselmo spun to the ground and landed on his hands. That glasslike sound of shattering filled the air again and this time a scream filled the air, a horrible, awful, tormented scream of utter pain burst—

out of his

his

ohmygod

he doesn’t have a

where is his

—from the remains of Anselmo’s face.

Benjamin barely kept back a scream of his own, the light in the room going yellow as he watched in complete horror what was going on in front of him, powerless to—

to stop

this will stop

they’re just like the rest

i’ll stop it

BURN THEM

A rush of black soil, reconstituted from where it had been broken aside, swept Anselmo forward like a tidal wave. The Italian hit Benjamin squarely in the legs and took him along, the dirt reaching out and laying its filthiness—

ew

ugh

ahhhh

dirt

—all over him. They flooded out the door and hit the opposite wall hard, Benjamin’s breath leaving him in the rush.