The First Evil Ch. 06

It was different world than the one I'd closed them on. If I'd thought waking in the hospital had been amazing this was phenomenal. Spectacular colors shimmered from every surface, even the iridescent puddles under the dumpsters held their own unique beauty. It was indescribable.

I try to shake myself from the vanilla sky moment I'm having by looking at the monster, but I don't see a monster. Oh the creature was still there but somehow it wasn't quite as, well, monstrous as it had seemed before. No more evil than a regular wolf is. I mean, it didn't seem less dangerous just more normal as if the existence of a creature like this one isn't as incomprehensible anymore. Bright amber eyes larger than my fists focused on me and there was a cognition there that had been absent before we'd exchanged blood. Before my power crackled around me like the threat of lightning. The stare was intent, intense. As if it, was trying to tell me something. I don't think Timmy's fallen down a well so I was going to need a little bit more information before I knew what that something was.

I made another leap of faith and loosened my claws over the wound I'd made on its chest and could almost see the flesh knitting back together. I'm glad I decided to stop fighting before I noticed that. Talk about a psych-out. One of my self-defense teachers once told me nothing ends the fight quicker than hopelessness. I can't think of anything more poisonous to hope than not even being able to keep your attacker injured.

The wolf sat back on its haunches and stared at me. I guess we were going to trust each other. It was so perfectly still I knew it was trying to seem non-threatening. I took a step toward the mouth of the alley. It shook both of its heads then using its nose, nudged me back to where I had been before sitting back down and staring at me. Ok I'm drawing a blank. Can't leave. I looked down at myself, my scrubs coated in blood and sticking to me wetly. Definitely can't stay.

The red blood seemed to sparkle up at me from my clothes but I noticed there didn't seem to be any on my skin. I ran my hands over my face, then through my hair which was dry and free of any conspicuous sticky spots that might indicate that less than ten minutes ago I had been drenched in the stuff. I think I might know what that might be about but I have more pressing concerns right this moment.

"This all would be significantly easier if we could talk or if you could at least understand me," both heads nodded, one moving up and down very precisely the other more enthusiastically.

"No way. Really?" more nodding. Wow, to say this' unexpected is the understatement of the decade.

"So you'll just nod or shake your heads and we'll figure this thing out as well as we can with yes and no questions?" more nods. It's odd that the surrealisticness of this moment would stand out amongst all the others from tonight.

"Ok then." I thought about what I wanted to know and how to go about getting that information quickly within my limitations. I don't think I've ever been in a situation where asking the right question was more important.

"Did someone send you to take me somewhere?"

Yes.

"Does that person want to hurt me?"

Yes.

"Are you allowed to let me leave here if you can't get me back there?"

No.

"Are you allowed to kill me?"

No.

"Are reinforcements coming here to see why you haven't brought me back yet?"

No. Yes.

"Maybe?"

Yes.

"Are they tracking me?"

Yes.

"Are they tracking you?"

Yes.

"Can we stop them from tracking us?" they paused and seemed to have a silent conversation with each other before turning back to me with wariness shining in their eyes.

Yes. The nods were much slower this time as if they were reluctant to answer this question. It was the first time they'd hesitated which made me feel somewhat wary too.

"Is it something I have to do or something you have to do? One nod for me two nods for you?"

Yes.

Yes. Yes.

"It's something we all have to do together?"

Yes.

"Can you show me what needs to be done?" again they seemed to be speaking to each other. Grey pink light began to fill the alley and the sounds of the city slowly waking trickled by in the whir of street sweepers and the dry hush of brooms over concrete. The wolf pushed slowly to its feet, moving very carefully toward me. I felt myself stiffen ready for an attack and they stopped. I didn't realize till then how much I had relaxed my guard during our "conversation".

"Are you going to attack me?"

No.

"Is this going to hurt?"

Yes.

"Are there any alternatives that will stop you from trying to take me somewhere I don't want to go or having someone else track me down to try and do it?"

No.

"I knew you were going to say that. Let's get it over with then, whatever you're going to do. I don't want someone to catch me out here talking to a giant monster," at the slightly offended looks I was now getting I felt compelled to add, " No offense but we're talking about human perceptions here." They seemed to accept that and almost before I could blink they were again directly in front of me.

They'd moved faster than I could see, the wind from it just now rushing over my face. It took me quite some effort to remain still and keep breathing easily, trying not to give away how scared I suddenly was. A warm nose nuzzled each of my arms, getting under my elbows until I held both arms out before me palms facing up. Moving very slowly, obviously, to discourage me from bolting a paw bigger than my face drew a long sharp claw over my wrists. A thick line of blood that began to drip over almost immediately. Each head bent to the wrist closest to them and lapped up the blood, long pink tongues wrapping up my forearm.

It's the weirdest sensation I've ever felt. Small sting from the cut then warm rough wet tongue that should have hurt but instead spread warmth up my entire arm. I could feel the beginnings of power stirring but not from me this time. Almost before they began it was over. They sat back and used the same claw to reopen the gash in their chest. Guess it's my turn now.

I wish I could say that I was hesitant, that the idea of voluntarily drinking blood from an open wound was repugnant on any level. But the sweet rich smell of their blood washed over me and knowing I was being asked to drink it just pushed me over the ledge. I lapped greedily since there was no way to wrap lips or fangs around the furred expanse of muscle before me and suck like I wanted to. I could feel the power building again and I braced for more of what had happened before. Instead our combined power wrapped energy around us all. I could see, with my naked eye, their two separate but similar auras twining together, trapped into this body. Around that body was a different power that seemed to be subjugating their own, controlling them or at least all that made them more than human. Don't ask me how I even knew they were more than human.

My aura began to spread out from me instinctively pushing back that other energy and replacing it with my own. Through the connection we both had to the wolves I sensed surprise and then smug satisfaction from that other being. As if my trying to take the wolves was unexpected but welcome. There was a new resistance now and I knew that if I wasn't strong enough, that the other aura could and would engulf me too. Then I'd be under its control just as they were. There is no fear from the being at the other end of the line, no doubt about the outcome that it would be in their favor.

Which really just pissed me off.

In the last twenty-four hours I've died, had an out of body experience, been resurrected as a supernatural being and thrown a monster the length of a school bus around an alley like it was a tennis ball. I remembered all the pain from the two huge influxes of power I'd taken in because this being had decided to send a monster after me and got more pissed. I'm not an expert but I'd bet that the amount of power I've gained in the last six hours or so is not a trifling thing to be ignored and brushed aside as no threat.

I visualized all that power now, moving down into me from the sky, up from the earth, filing me, surrounding me till my aura shone like the bat signal into the sky. I pictured it washing away all other ties from the wolves, wrapping them up with me and surrounding them completely.

Their back bowed and their eyes opened wide with shock. Nothing was left of what connected them to anyone else only a strong bond between my power and theirs. I realized that a blood exchange is just that without the intent to bind. Well apparently my intent had been clear as the sound of a bell because I could see how tightly we were bound. It looked to me even worse than what I had just freed them from.

I could sort of sense things about them now, bits of information and personality coloring the energy floating between us. Like how I now knew that they were brothers who were almost a perfect complement to each other. Compliment being another way of saying exact opposite. There was more information there, waiting. But I could still feel the other being hovering near, searching for a weakness or an opening to slip back into us. I wasn't about to appease my curiosity when all of our lives or at least our freewill may be at stake. One thing I was getting pretty strongly from both of them was a strong desire to stay free from whatever is still lurking about. Glad we're finally on the same team.

I snagged that seeking tendril of power and held tight even when I felt power building on the other end to try and make me let go. It felt like holding the end of a lightning bolt, equally as real and intangible to the senses. Although it felt more like it should hurt that actually causing me any pain. I felt the hovering blood hunger change then. I wasn't a vampire, or at least I'm not just a vampire and whatever I am now wants power. However I can get it.

I felt the moment of panic when the other felt the tidal wave of its power hit mine and just get swallowed away. No dueling back and forth in a lengthy game of one-up-manship, I don't have time for that. Besides, the rush of more power was filling me up with that warm tingly feeling. Like a heated blanket over too cold skin. It was good but it skated that line between pleasure and pain so closely that I could have gotten very distracted if I let myself.

She, and now having tasted that much of her power I'm sure it's a she, was definitely going to take this badly. I really debated whether I should take the time to follow the trail of energy back to her. To try and end this for good right here and now before she attacks me in my sleep, but I just don't know enough about all this metaphysical stuff to be sure I can win on her turf. And even though I won the battle over the brothers, if we didn't get a move on, her army was going to win her the war.

I looked back at the wolf, wolves, and saw all our energy swirling together. It was really quite beautiful. My energy moving through theirs in twisting patterns of color. It took me a moment to notice that were gradually sorting out into two distinct auras with mine marbling through each of theirs. It was doing what I'd wanted it to do without my conscious thought, bonding us without restriction on their will. Not infringing on their personalities or drawing on mine. Cool. I thought of how the woman had trapped the boys, kept them unchanging and static. What might that feel like for the people it was being inflicted on? And I'd been having attacks about losing control.

I got the briefest thought that they wished they could be like they had been. Obviously not my thought. Strongly felt thoughts of theirs kept popping up in my mind like hearing an echo from the other end of a cave. There was a new pressure building now. I felt like they were thinking at me really hard, hoping I would hear them. I tried to reciprocate, thinking back at them.

How were you? Happiness and relief filled me that I knew wasn't my own.

Separate. Two.

What?! Weren't you always like this? Together how you are now. I guess I'd been thinking that they were conjoined twins and that the control had been about them staying wolves. The grotesque cruelty they were describing... I felt nauseous.

No. Once so long ago it seems like dream we were two, twins, but separate men. Different men. We fell in battle and this is how our enemy punished us.

Oh God. Tears stung my eyes. To be trapped like that. I had no words. No way to comprehend the violation. I didn't know what I could do to fix this but it had just jumped to the top of my list. I now regretted not going after that witch. Even the slimmest chance of victory was worth avenging this... obscenity. A tear landed on the back of my hand in a warm splash distracting me from the black spiral of my thoughts. I looked down and saw a drop of blood. I raised trembling fingertips to my cheeks and looked at them. Dark red blood stained the tips. I was crying tears of blood for the twin warriors that had been turned into a single monster.

It only took the briefest thought about wanting them to be separate and my power just rose and began to pull their energy apart. It was getting easier to wield, my power. It wanted to do and be what I needed. There weren't't complicated spells and rituals necessary to shape it. It was like my will manifest as action. If the situation wasn't so dire I might have played with it, tested it out and seen what my current limitations are. This is too important for that. I couldn't fuck up and leave those boys as they are or worse. I have to get it more than right the very first time.

I could see that as their energies were segregated their bodies began to pull apart like soft clay sculptures that had been pressed together. But it was taking more effort and concentration from me to continue making progress. My power really did want to give me what I wanted, I just had to know with concrete surety what that is. Everything I'd ever learned in an anatomy class was blending with all the extraneous knowledge I've gleaned just from being friends with a doctor and running through my mind at a mile a minute.

Maybe it's my control issues but I know I'd feel more certain that I wasn't about to screw up and turn them inside out if I could have more direct control of what's happening. I remembered that feeling of becoming the wind of my own making and then I was among the paisley swirls of color moving intricately over around and trough the twins.

The artist in me couldn't help but use what I know about the hows and whys and make it into the whats. How the sixth and seventh vertebrae form the nape of the neck. How the odd short bottom ribs and the butterfly of the hip bones create the waist. The unbelievable complexity of hands and feet. I have long believed the human body to be the most masterful bit of engineering ever. Anyone who's ever doubted the existence of a higher power hasn't ever studied the human circulatory system.

They were stuck now in some amorphous place with two separate torsos only connected at the hip and leg. Not quite as monstrous as they had been but not quite as structurally sound as they had been either. I was inside them where their hips met I could see the muscles straining as they waited for me to push them that last little bit apart. I was a little stuck on how, I was staring at a single bone and the energy was so tightly woven I didn't see how there had ever been two.

Helplessness began to creep into my mind. I mentally shook my hands out. If I understood more about power and magic maybe this wouldn't be so hard. I could have known tons by now if I hadn't been keeping my head so far down that I'd buried it in the sand. I'd always known there was more to my condition than could possibly be explained by medical science alone. I'd just wanted peace. Maybe I should have taken the blue pill, chosen the easy way out when I'd been offered it. I had kind of surprised myself that I hadn't.

I remembered my reason for not just moving on like I'd planned. That guy who'd been ignored, abandoned, made a spectacle of, his only reward for doing a good deed. Unlike before, I can help now. "STOP freaking out. Figure out what will help," I yelled at myself. Breath.

I went into one twin and then began to pull all of his energy toward me like I was a magnet. I visualized the energy forming the joint of the hip with the femur leading from it down to the patella and the knee. It felt like I formed his leg almost from scratch and left the other leg behind for the other twin. I hope he wouldn't end up with two left feet literally. Exhaustion began to tug at me and I wasn't sure if I had it in me to mentally form all the delicate interlocking bones of the foot and ankle without giving him a club foot. No. Not good enough to try and fail. I'm still breathing and conscious so how can I truly say I've given it my all. These men deserve nothing less than someone's all after what they'd been through. Someone should try and put things right.

It took almost everything I had but at last I was looking down at five complete toes. Triumph flowed through me faintly but couldn't seem to really reach me. It felt like unconsciousness was looming over me but worse and I realized the danger of this form is not that you could die but that you could just dissipate and fade away like you never were. I was here in an act of will and only my will is containing my consciousness outside of my body. I thought of my body now, as I had before, from my senses out and thankfully after a long struggle I opened my eyes and saw what I had freed.

They both looked like rescued drowning victims, soaked all over and heaving thick breaths through raw sounding throats. Ropes of wavy hair coiled over their fingers, over the debris of the alley floor and down their backs past their hips. The pale pre-dawn light hadn't really penetrated the alley yet but their hair seemed to be the color of polished pewter. I would have thought they were elderly except for the bodies revealed through the hair. Maybe the color is the result of stress, they had certainly been through that. Their faces were still averted, staring at the ground and hidden behind a curtain of tangled hair. I wondered if their faces would show the same ravages, if it was a ravage at all. Natural steel grey hair color isn't the oddest thing I've seen tonight.

Olive toned skin showed on their arms and legs, carved with a relief of scars that told their own brutal story of unimaginable suffering. I could already tell they were each big tall men even from their hunched position. Wiry lean muscles stretched sparsely over long limbs and broad shoulders. It looked like they hadn't eaten properly in years but had somehow managed to stay fit in spite of that. Now that their breathing was starting to even out, I could see that the outline of each vertebra and rib hadn't been caused by either the huge contractions of their diaphragms or the crouched positions they were forcing their trembling bodies into. I knew the signs of overt starvation. I'd be surprised if they ate even every other day.

In such perfect unison it made me blink they flowed backward so they were kneeling. I was still a little dizzy from before and the synchronic movement made me feel like I was seeing double so I focused on the street behind them. It wasn't helping me that they were naked, even with hands resting modestly in each of their laps.

Despite their muscles trembling and twitching like derby winners, their innate grace was astounding. I wondered briefly what their lives had been like before their...ordeal. Not a truly adequate word to describe what had happened to them but I couldn't dwell on it enough to define it better right now. Maybe later we'd do the group therapy thing. Now, danger hadn't really passed it had just switched lanes.