Morgan
Jacket pocket. Check. Something hard and cold met my fingers. A vial. A simple vial made of black plastic. So small. How could something so devastatingly powerful reside in such a small space?
I guess size doesn’t matter after all.
A wave of dizziness swept over me as the Vigor started to fade around the edges.
“Put that back, Olivier,” the Voice said equably. “Don’t make me stop you.”
I stood, running the cold bottle over my steaming forehead, the sensation almost as pleasurable as an orgasm. “Oh, why don’t you shut up?”
“Olivier!”
“Go pound sand.”
A hand like granite with joints clamped around my ankle, squeezing, and the world went white as bones shattered like glass.
A voice like crushed gravel rattling in a tin box came from Julian. “You should have listened, little meat puppet.” Eyes black as sin stared out from a familiar yet distorted face. The face of a demon pressing through Julian’s flesh.
Oh shit …
The Julian demon smiled with a thousand needle teeth, a grisly grin of hate and dark joy that I could feel even through the world of agony in my ankle.
I raised the 9 and pulled the trigger. One black eye exploded in a shower of dark fluid that spattered the carpeting, hissing and sizzling. The hard hand let go of my leg and I scrambled away, a Healing bursting from between my teeth.
Tearing pain like the mother of all ulcers speared my gut as Backlash took me, but my ankle writhed and set itself so I was able to stumble to my feet. The open doorway beckoned.
Before I staggered out of the suite, I stole a look behind me. Big mistake. The thing that had been Julian was on its hands and knees, ready to rise, its eye already whole. It gave me a look as it slowly gathered itself and I could feel its power, the unimaginable evil and spite. This was no mere demon, not just a cancer on the world. What shone through the thin tissue of what used to be Julian’s flesh was the essence of one of the original fallen angels who had followed Lucifer to the Abyss. A Duke of Hell, the Devil’s right hand.
The cold of the vial was matched by the ice that ran through my bowels and down to the soles of my feet. With horror at my back and fear fueling my feet, I attempted a run down the hallway toward my companions, toward some semblance of safety. Water needed to be freed and if I could throw the vial out the window, it would shatter on the concrete below and the Primal would be released to run into the storm drains and eventually out to sea.
Good plan; too bad I felt too much like a pile of refried crap to outrun the awful thing that pursued me. I could feel its attention on me, its repulsive regard. My shoulder hit the wall as I stumbled and my vision clouded as more of the Vigor receded, leaving me weaker, more prone to the ravages of Backlash.
I made it to the elevators before my Strength gave out and fatigue attacked, forcing me to my knees.
“OLIVIER!” The shout shook the hallway and I felt impossibly heavy footsteps draw close. It came to me then that I should’ve found a sink in the suite and poured the Primal out, but I hadn’t been thinking that far ahead.
Nothing to do but go for it; I used Strength then vomited blood onto the elevator doors as nails raked my stomach. Getting to my feet was a no go, so I stuck my fingers into the crack of the elevator doors and pulled. I guess I used too much force because the doors slammed open, revealing the darkness of the shaft before me.
“Morgan!” cried Mike from the end of the hall. Good … alive and away from Boris. That made me happy, but I was too tired to appreciate it much. He seemed alarmed for some reason. A hard footstep from behind told me why. My chickens had come home and roosting wasn’t on their psychopathic minds.
Who wants to live forever anyway? I bet Cain would say it ain’t so hot.
I pitched forward into the darkness.