The girl burned just as bright. But she wasn’t supposed to get an astral body. She could just die.
“Akllana’chikni’pai!” Terkun’shuks’pai’s voice was filled with urgency. “You must help her, now! Before the tentacles take control!”
“What are they?” Akllana’chikni’pai demanded.
“Negative energy,” said Terkun’shuks’pai. “They must not be allowed to control her, or all will be lost. Hurry!”
She didn’t have time to ask what he meant, didn’t have time to think about it. She could feel the panic coming off him. Acting purely on instinct, she gave the girl’s spirit the same shove into her new body as Terkun’shuks’pai had given the boy. Akllana’chikni’pai followed her in.
She could understand Terkun’shuks’pai’s desire to save the boy. If Terkun’shuks’pai would want to save one person on Earth before he cut it off from the astral plane, it would be this one.
Inside the girl’s body, the negative energy had already established itself. It was arranged in complex strands, looping back on itself as if trying to create a stable matrix in which to exist. Negative energy generally lashed out at everything around those who produced it, causing an indiscriminate chain reaction. Once fear or hate was unleashed, it was difficult to stop.
But this was different. The negative energy that bombarded the girl was now woven with weaker, yet incredibly complex strands of positive energy to guide it into more stable form.
Had humans developed the ability to tame negative emotions since the last time she’d been on Earth?
Impossible. It must be the girl herself, her own unique, bright burning energy enabling her to control the darkness within her. What would happen if that negative energy were released from the weaves Scarlett’s spirit had harnessed it with?
Akllana’chikni’pai pushed inside the girl’s spirit with some care. She’d had enough experience working with humans that she could have broken through more quickly but doing so might have unlocked the negative energy bound up in the girl.
Akllana’chikni’pai. Is the girl all right?
She is, she answered, but the negative energy has woven itself through her body.
You must contain it. You can’t let it control her psyche. It will destroy her and everyone in the room.
Can you help?
I cannot. The negative energy is after the boy as well and he does not have control of his body yet.
Is everything all right?
I… I am exhausted.
For Terkun’shuks’pai to admit any kind of weakness was rare. She bit back irrational resentment at his failure. Should we stop it? Should we let them die?
No! If we do not do this now, we may never have the chance again. Break the girl free of the negative energy!
First admitting weakness, then expressing concern about events that were happening on a merely physical level, which should have been completely under his control.
He must truly value the boy.
I will, she answered. Akllana’chikni’pai gently pushed the girl’s spirit out of her mortal body and set it to the side.
The girl’s spirit watched in shock. I look dead.
Akllana’chikni’pai smiled. You are dead, she told the girl.
Watching the girl’s reaction soon brought back memories of Earth, thousands of their years ago. Unpleasant memories.
The new body was ready. Akllana’chikni’pai focused her energy, connecting it to the new body, and pushed her energy, as well as her awareness, through the connection.
The body settled around her, heavy and lifeless.
Her energy was not bringing it to life. The negative energy was holding tightly to it, forcing it to remain dead while it struggled to find the girl’s spirit.
Akllana’chikni’pai burned brighter, expending more of her energy than she had planned, trying to destroy the negative energy that encased the girl. Still, there was no response. The body only settled more heavily around her, sealing her off completely from the aetheric planes.
Terkun’shuks’pai!
But he did not answer, or could not. She was alone.
Frantic, she pulled her remaining energy back to her core identity. The most important thing was that she keep the negative energy contained. It must not be released. Not now.
The negative energy reached out, grabbed the girl’s spirit, and pulled it back into the body. Akllana’chikni’pai cursed and fought, trying to push the girl out. Now was not the time to be distracted with the girl’s panic.
But it was too late. The girl flowed into Akllana’chikni’pai, and, inevitably, part of Akllana’chikni’pai flowed into the girl. Scarlett. Then the negative energy engulfed them both.
And started weaving itself into her.
Akllana’chikni’pai, trapped inside a body that felt like stone, screamed.
The astral being kicked Scarlett’s ass out of her own body without warning.
Bitch.
But Scarlett had seen it coming. She was just an obstacle in the way of whatever astral-plane politics was going on. Why should this so-called friend of Terry’s give a shit about some lower life form? No point getting angry about it. She couldn’t do anything that might screw up the plan to save Pax.
Scarlett looked down at herself for a moment. The new body was leaking white goop, just like Pax’s had, but it also had black energy weaving in and out of it. In about a second it was covered with medical professionals trying to get her heart started up again. Jesus. It was like watching a classroom full of new students practicing on a mannequin. How could they even remotely believe they were working on human bodies? They were on autopilot from all the adrenaline, probably. Not really thinking.
The astral bitch had kicked Scarlett to the curb, but Scarlett was still tied to her new body by some kind of string that was frayed in the middle. No, it was two strings—one white, one black, trying to tie themselves together but failing to do so. Scarlett could feel waves of pissed-off panic radiating out of the body as the astral bitch struggled to make the body live.
Then the black string and the white one intertwined, and Scarlett flowed down into her new body.
Once she was inside, it felt like the whole body was trying to resist her control. Probably the astral bitch was trying to kick her out again.
Jesus, lady, she thought. Why you gotta be so fucking rude? I have to live here, too, you know.
There was no answer.
Scarlett forced the body to blink, one slow millimeter at a time.
When her lids clicked together, it felt like she’d had to topple over a small building. The next blink was easier: as if the first building had crashed into the next, helping knock it over. She was starting a chain reaction. She focused on breathing, then on sitting up. Each action she took was easier than the last, moving her more toward normal. Some fool had made the body with eyelids, but not with any way to see out of the blank marbles behind them. Idiots.
But she was able to hear, and some kind of fight was going on in the room. Pax was shouting. Everybody was shouting. At least a dozen people must be in here, even more than there had been before.
These astral beings had fucked up. They weren’t as perfect as Pax had thought they were. Pax always saw the best parts of people—or at least the most logical parts—and, considering what a horrible, illogical person Scarlett was at heart, she’d rather he kept it that way. Let him be naïve.
Scarlett was just going to have to protect him from them. From everyone.
She grabbed onto the noise from the shouting and the beeping and the panic and the fighting and forced the sounds to show her what was going on. If bats could do it, so could she. It didn’t make sense. She made it work anyway. That was the benefit of being so illogical. Her whole life, nothing had really made
sense, but she had made it work anyway.
Another blink, and she could see.
Aaaand she could see via every surface of her body that wasn’t covered by clothing. Jesus, Scarlett. Overdo it much? It made her feel dizzy. But at least she could see.
Pax was shoving people away from the bed. Julie was lying on top of the blankets. She looked… she looked fucking dead.
Someone shoved Scarlett back onto the floor and pounded her chest. They were starting another round of compressions.
“I think she’s coming back to us!” the overenthusiastic nurse kneeling above her shouted. Well, good for him. She didn’t have time to put up with his dipshit heroics.
She brought up her arms in a self-defense move that was supposed to be used against chokeholds, intending to knock his arms aside. Instead, she slammed into his arms with a sickening crunch. The guy screamed, pulling back his arms, which now flopped at crazy angles. A bone jutted out of one, revealing a yellow membrane through the torn skin; the wound began spurting blood.
Great. Nobody told me I was going to have super strength. A little bit of a warning would have been nice.
Pax shouted. “Stop fucking around and help my mom!”
Scarlett had never heard him that pissed before. He always claimed not to be that close to Julie, but he had totally gone into defensive mode over her. He was freaking out, pushing everyone away from the bed now, even the people who were trying to help his mom.
“Pax!” she yelled at him. “Get it under control!”
He didn’t seem to hear her. He bent over Julie’s bed with his arms outstretched.
The air around him seemed to shimmer. The beeping of the monitors got quieter and then stopped completely. Thank God. The lights went dim; even the sunshine coming in through the window seemed to turn down a notch.
Around Pax the shimmering intensified, turning into a sphere of bright blue light. The sphere shoved the doctors away from the bed and made the ends of the sheet flutter. It looked like some kind of shield. One of the nurses, squinting one eye shut and holding her hand out at arm’s length, touched it with one finger. The shield sparked, sending her stumbling backward.
The shield filled the doorway. Anxious faces looked through it into the room. A guy with a clipboard tried to poke it with the clipboard and was thrown out of view.
Every time someone touched Pax’s shield, sparks lit up and they were knocked away—but the shield got a little dimmer for a second. If the staff attacked all at once, they might be able to take it down.
Scarlett got up, trying to move carefully. It was hard. It was like her body was a puppet, and the strings weren’t quite tight yet. “Pax,” she called toward the shield. “You gotta let them help her.”
But Pax ignored her. He was still bending over his mom on the bed, his hands hovering over her chest. He was locking his fingers together, one hand over the other, and positioning them over her chest. Getting ready to do compressions.
Not yet knowing about his super strength.
No, Pax!
She shoved the doctors and nurses aside and clawed at the force field. The shield dimmed almost to darkness as it shot out blinding sparks. But she wasn’t going to make it through in time.
Pax’s hands came down.
She closed her eyes. It didn’t help. She could still see what was happening on the bed.
It was horrible. Too horrible to think about.
The room went black and her skin went cold as Pax drained the energy from the room. The shield burned even brighter, casting a blue glow over the room.
No, Pax. No.
She wanted to break down in tears, but this body didn’t know how. Pax’s shield expanded, pushing her away from the bed, and she stumbled. When she put out her hands to steady herself, sparks shot out of her fingertips. A haze rose over her hands, like heat off a hot asphalt road.
Pax howled.
The doctors and nurses were circling closer. Screaming. Horrified. Murderer.
“Stay back!” Scarlett shouted. “Just stay away from them! He’s gonna… he’s gonna fix it, okay?”
For a second, they hesitated.
But one of them had to open his mouth. “He killed her.”
Scarlett clenched her hands. The sparks shooting out of her fingers increased. She clenched her hands tighter to try to keep the energy from escaping. Calm. She had to stay calm.
“Shut up,” she said. She’d meant to be nicer.
“He killed Dr. Black!”
And the guy pushed her.
That was it.
Scarlett swung one hand through the air. A hazy ball of sparks and heat flew out of her hand and slammed into the man, knocking him into the wall. He bounced off and crashed into one of the chairs.
Her teeth chattered. Oh, no. She wanted to apologize, but just now it would be a bad idea. “Just shut your mouth and stay the fuck away. Give him some time. He just needs some time.”
She should have known it wasn’t going to work. To them she was just a… a kid. They weren’t going to listen to her. Why should they? They were doctors.
But she couldn’t let them interrupt Pax. Not now.
Unfortunately, in pushing the doctor away from her, she’d made herself a target, and now everyone was glaring at her. Couldn’t they see they’d forced her to attack?
She held her hands out in front of her. They were shimmering with heat.
A couple of big nurses moved to the sides of the room, trying to sneak up behind her. The rest of the staff, five of them, formed a group in front of her. They were going to rush her all at once.
What she really wanted to do was curl up in a ball and cry. She should just let them try to crash through that supercharged force field and see what happened.
It’d probably kill them.
If she lashed out at them, she’d probably kill them.
If only… if only they would just stop… and listen….
She lowered her arms. The two big nurses grabbed her by the arms…
They pulled away, shouting and staring at their hands. Blisters were coming up on the thick skin of their palms. She’d burned them.
Of course she’d burned them. The tiles under her feet were melting. The ceiling panels above her were turning dark gray. The air was shimmering around her. Couldn’t they see? No. They were too sure of what they already knew to see anything else.
On the bed, Julie’s ruined, splintered chest arched upward and fell back again. Pax held his hands over her. His face was intense with concentration.
He was keeping her alive somehow.
And in horrible pain. Behind the force field, Julie’s face looked gray. But her muscles were so tight her neck looked like it was being pulled upward on cords. Her mouth stretched so wide it looked like her jaw was going to dislocate. Her open eyes gaped without seeing anything but horror.
Let her go. But even if she screamed it, Pax wouldn’t hear her.
The only thing she knew was she couldn’t let him get distracted. Not now.
Damn it. Where were those astral fucks when you needed them?
One of the doctors retreated back into the corner and took out her cell phone. Someone with some sense. Too bad Scarlett wasn’t ready to let anyone else know what was going on. Scarlett pointed at the cell phone with one finger—her hand wasn’t just shimmering with heat now, it was on fire—and the phone crackled and exploded in the woman’s hands and then started melting onto the floor. The battery pack burned next to her nursing shoes. The woman stared at her bleeding hand for a few seconds and then screamed.
Scarlett realized it was useless: The staff in the hallway had probably already called the cops. Or the fucking National Guard. And why not? The room looked like a war zone.
Mostly she felt h
orrified at herself. This had all spiraled out of control. She was supposed to be saving Pax, not unleashing World War III.
But another part of her didn’t care. It felt the fire burning on her hands—felt the fire, but not any pain—and was crazy to try it out. To find out what might happen if she… if she stepped into the power that was hers now.
She glanced over at Pax again, afraid he’d somehow heard that last thought. He couldn’t think badly of her. He just couldn’t.
But he was still working on Julie, gesturing at her while she twitched on the bed. His dead, yet still suffering, mom. Maybe he didn’t know what Scarlett had done yet. Who she really was.
“Stay away from him,” she said, pointing her shaking finger at the people still standing in the room, “or I’ll hurt you.”
It wasn’t a threat. It was a warning.
The doctor with the cell phone rushed at her. Still screaming.
With a stiff arm, Scarlett pointed toward the woman’s feet.
Don’t lose control. Don’t lose control.
Scarlett released a tiny amount of the sparking, burning energy in her hand.
The floor exploded, throwing tile everywhere.
The doctor was punched backward into the wall so hard she stuck there. A second later, she flopped forward, her arms and legs dangling limply over the seat of a chair.
Oh, shit.
What had Scarlett done?
She felt a sick bubble of laughter coming up from inside her. She tried to swallow it. A single, tiny giggle escaped.
“I warned you,” she told the people still upright and moving. Her lips were twitching, trying to grin. But she wasn’t actually talking. She was mentally projecting her thoughts out loud. She hoped—
“—that I’m not losing control,” she said. Out loud.
Now that was just hilarious.
She laughed without opening her mouth. The sound echoed around the room. Her body was shaking, trying to mimic the way a real person would laugh, but it was all in her head.