Fury. Rebecca Lim

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СКАЧАТЬ for that knot, that kernel, that Irina’s soul has been reduced to.

       Where is it?

      Luc tore me free. There must be some disjuncture, a loose seam, a clue.

      And then I chance upon something … like notes written in living blood, in cellular walls and electrolytes. The signature of my brethren is here: elegant, luminous, their intentions joining together like plain song to create a safe harbour for me within another living being. I read their haste; and then I read the work of another — one whose touch had once made me feel like I was the most beautiful thing in creation — rendered here in hatred and fury and spite.

      And then I find it … a seam, a thread, a clue. So tiny I almost missed it.

      I follow it back to its source, and the pattern and energy of her is there. So compressed and distorted it’s a wonder I could find her at all.

      Mercy! I seem to hear a desperate voice echoing all around me, though I have no ears to hear, am nothing but pure, directed energy. Hurry.

      I take that tiny fray and tug at it, unravelling it further and further, letting it stream out behind me like an unfurling ribbon as I follow the linkages, the switchbacks, the false trails, the complex broken pattern that Irina’s soul was cast into. Smoothing, untwisting, laying bare, so that the flame might be relit, so that the soul might return.

      Pressure begins to build, a vast electrical storm, and I feel everything that Irina is convulse as if her body were a building being shaken to its foundations. I feel her soul struggling in mine. I hear the sounds that are torn out of her, as if she is being tortured. Possession. In this moment, I could truly be classed as demon. She does not want me here, she feels me like a burning presence that must be cast out. I can’t begin to tell you how wrong this feels.

      Mercy! I hear it again, the voice disembodied, desperate. Please. Quickly.

      I can’t wait to go, can’t wait to get out. There’s a sensation of abrupt coalescence, and I’m flung out of Irina’s body. For the very last time.

      I come to on the floor beside Irina’s bed and turn to see Gia across the room, her back braced against the closed bedroom door. It’s clear from her strained expression that someone’s trying to open it from the outside. The warning voice I’d heard was hers.

      She looks at me, white-faced, with wide, desperate eyes. ‘Do something,’ she hisses, indicating the telltale gleam coming off my skin. ‘Can’t hold it much longer.’

      ‘Open this door!’ a man roars. ‘Open it at once!’

      And this time, the door jumps open an inch or two before Gia slams it shut again, pushing back with every ounce of strength in her slender frame.

      The pounding and rattling intensify. ‘Mercy,’ she pleads.

      It feels as if it takes forever to extinguish the glow, but it can’t be more than a few seconds because I’m suddenly standing at the foot of Irina’s bed and the surface of my hands, the ends of my curling hair, my clothing, of me, is matte and dull once more. I give Gia a nod. She takes a deep breath and pushes away from the door, which bursts open immediately. One of the suits — tall, dark-haired, overweight, red-faced — thrusts through the knot of concerned people at the entrance.

      ‘What are you doing to her?’ he demands, trying to see around me to the bed. ‘We heard the most terrible sounds. As if you were trying to kill her.’

      ‘Like the animale,’ the nurse says with a shudder, entering the room behind him.

      ‘Old Russian remedy,’ Gia improvises smoothly. ‘Quite the eye-opener.’

      ‘Like the prayer,’ I say in my girlish Russian accent, fluttering my eyelashes a little. ‘Only with the growling.’

      ‘Don’t forget the screaming,’ Gia drawls, and only I can tell how truly shaken she still is. ‘The screaming’s integral to the whole cure. The louder, the better. We all joined in actually, it was quite cathartic. That’s what you heard.’

      ‘Dio! Miss Irina,’ the nurse cries out suddenly, ‘you are awake!’

      ‘She’s awake?’ the man exclaims.

      I turn to see the nurse with her hands clasped together against her lips, and Irina drenched in sweat, her eyes wide with shock. Her arms and legs are stretched out and rigid, hands curled into claws upon the rumpled mattress, her blanket and top sheet a crumpled heap of fabric on the far side of the room. The red marks of her own nails are on her neck. She reminds me a little bit of me, that time I woke in Carmen’s body. There’s a wild look in her eyes that I recognise.

      ‘Give her a leetle time,’ I say casually in my heavy Russian accent. ‘Then she will be — how you say — as good as new.’

      I look down at the fingernails of one hand, like a ditz, as if I’m bored. But I’m almost as shaken as Gia is. I think I just pulled off bringing a captive soul back to the surface, the same way Gabriel himself might have done with me. And Irina might be suffering her own set of adjustment issues right now, but she’s struggling to sit up, she’s trying to speak. And, in my book, that’s got to be better than one rung above dead.

      ‘No, really, what did you do to her?’ the man demands. He scrabbles in his jacket pocket for his mobile and starts dialling, as the nurse scoops up the bedding and smooths it back over Irina’s body.

      ‘All she did,’ Gia says crisply, grabbing me by the arm and walking me away, ‘is remind Irina of how good it feels to be alive.’

      I can’t help looking back over my shoulder at Irina, and she suddenly rolls her head and eyes in my direction, raises one long, thin, pointing finger at me accusingly.

      ‘You …’ she gargles.

      Gia pulls me out the door. ‘Irina was convulsing, foaming at the mouth,’ she mutters, ‘clawing at her skin. And her eyes …’ She swallows hard. ‘And the sounds! God. It was like something out of a horror film except it was all real. I almost passed out.’ She stares into my face, crossing her arms tightly. ‘One day, you’re going to have to sit me down, buy me a beer and explain to me what I just saw.’

      ‘It’s because she was fighting me,’ I reply into her haunted eyes. ‘Two sentient souls suddenly sharing one body. It’s never going to be pretty unless something … gives.’

      Gia shudders and says fervently, ‘Let nothing like you ever come after me that way. Please.’

      It’s no comfort, but I say, ‘The sooner we get out of here, the less likely you’ll ever hear from any of us again. What happened at the Galleria was an … aberration.’

      ‘Let’s hope it stays that way.’ Gia’s eyes are troubled as she adds, ‘Now a deal’s a deal, and, by God, you delivered and then some. Tell me what you need and I’ll make it happen.’

      We’re at her open bedroom door now, and I see Ryan’s sleeping form on the bed, his head thrown back carelessly, his dark hair spilling across the pillow, blankets rumpled down to his waist. As if he feels my eyes on him, he shifts in his sleep, mumbling some word I can’t catch.

      Dottore СКАЧАТЬ