Meg narrowed her eyes and said, “Let go of me, Sirus.”
His eyes flashed with doubt as she flung her will directly into his mind. He immediately let go of her throat and stepped back toward the door, but stopped. He looked away and when he looked back Meg was staring into a face that was neither Sirus nor Gideon. She reached with her empath thoughts and saw this alter’s color was black, just black. Sirus’ yellow and Gideon’s red were small splotches surrounded by the blackness.
“You stay the hell away from us,” a voice growled in a thick Southern accent.
“Who—who are you?” Meg’s question hung in the air as she watched this alter reach down to retrieve a knife from his boot.
“I have no name.” He played with the razor’s edge of the blade with his thumb.
Meg was trying desperately to figure out what to do.
“What is your role in the system?” she managed to ask.
“I am the memory keeper, bitch.”
“Why have you never come out before?”
“I only take over when we’re about to do something the others are too chicken-shit to handle. I take care of matters and hold the memories so everyone else can live happily ever after.”
“That doesn’t seem fair,” Meg was backing away from the dark alter, frantically trying to think of her options.
“Nothing’s fair inside here,” he shrugged. “So, let’s get this over with. You stay away from Gideon and Sirus or I’ll get to come out and play.”
“But Gideon came to me.” She said in a too soft voice.
“Then let’s make it harder for him to do that.” With the speed of a viper, the alter swung the blade high above his head and slammed it into his own thigh.
Chapter 64 Reproachful Eyes
“Three weeks? I only have enough for three weeks? That’s unacceptable! Why wasn’t more harvested? Answer me!” The Director was about to crawl out of his skin, literally.
“Sir, the blood can only be kept for three weeks, maximum. We had found there was severe breakdown of the cellular structure and thus the curative element past that date. We had developed a routine of harvesting as fast as her body created.”
“So you’re telling me in three weeks my—allergy,” he chose his words carefully, “will be back in full force?”
“Unless we retrieve the source,” the lead scientist suggested delicately.
“That’s just not good enough,” the Director snarled. “Put yourself and your sharpest minds on the task of isolating the curative factor in the blood and duplicating it artificially. Make this happen or you’ll personally learn what it feels like to walk around peeled of your skin.” Williams spat into the phone and angrily jabbed the touch screen to disconnect the call.
As he did, a bloody smear was left in his wake.
“Now, where were we, Gemi Johnson?” The woman’s dark eyes were wide with terror, though the neuromuscular-blocking drug he used on her had rendered her helpless. Her body was paralyzed, but she was completely aware of what was happening to her. As the sick scientist worked, he was careful to explain and show as though teaching an anatomy class.
He was working on something to do with her hands. The poor girl who had just been asking for handouts at the gas station by the airport wished to God she would just die. But the sick doctor had started an IV, heart rate and blood pressure monitor.
“You see, my dear,” he explained to the formerly destitute, currently forsaken woman, “I want my toy alive and well—not so well, I suppose.” He had chuckled at his own humor.
“Let me tell you a story, Gemi,” he began, his black beady eyes utterly focused behind his surgical telescope lenses as he worked.
“You see, my dear. There once was a little boy who adored his mother, but nothing he did ever pleased her. The only time he saw her smile was when she had a drink in her hand. Men flocked to her side at functions and would hang on her every word. The boy would hear her laughter as it trilled beautifully above the throng of voices. And as much as the woman reveled in her high-powered socialite world, she equally loathed her duties as a mother to the weasel of a boy to which she gave birth.
“You see, Gemi, the mother was breathtakingly exquisite. Her skin,” he paused grabbing another instrument from just out of his horrified victim’s view, “was alabaster white and her eyes were dark like a velvet night sky. When she smiled, they would scrunch up beautifully at the corners, making her look distinctly feline and regal.” Thoroughly engaged in his motionless audience, the doctor continued.
Gemi watched as he moved on to the other side of her body, presumably to work on her other hand. Gemi was terrified beyond comprehension and started to imagine the smell of strawberries, fueling the macabre nightmare the sick man was creating with her as the centerpiece.