The Awakening

washed-out colors of patchy grass, scorched trees and hazy sky remained. They were a dull contrast to the rich hues of auras.

They were the real world. If only she never again had to leave it.

A breeze tickled over her, reviving her.

Gaby didn't want to look. She hated looking, but facing the destruction had become an inexorable tangibility for her, a penance she forced herself to pay, no matter the cost.

Eyes burning, body taut with trepidation, she lifted her lashes.

Her knees buckled and she dropped down hard.

The man whose head barely remained attached to his neck, lying in a dark pool of his own body secretions, in no way resembled the demon she'd just destroyed.

Deformed yes, although now, thanks to her, most of the deformities were gone, hacked off, no longer a part of his body. He looked…

He looked like someone's grandpa. Someone's murdered, mutilated grandpa.

All but decapitated.

Hand shaking, Gaby reached out to smooth his gray, disheveled hair, clumpy with blood, gore, and the remnants of chunky flesh and displaced muscle. She nudged his skull over, putting it more in line with his shoulders. Grizzled eyebrows framed soulless eyes, frozen with the horror she had delivered so skillfully.

She guessed his age somewhere in the mid-seventies.

His destroyed body was so gaunt as to be cadaverous. Had his deformities affected him mentally, turning him into a monster, robbing his body of strength, his mind of conscience?

No. She remembered her certainty of his past misdeeds. Perhaps the body had caught up to the soul. Life would be so much easier if all monsters looked like monsters.

But she knew that would never be.

Gaby looked at his hands, now red with his own blood. His fingers were short and blunt. There were no nails. Just discoid tips.

By accident, or had some disease eaten away at him?

An invisible fist squeezed at Gaby's heart and she wanted to howl, to deny that she, Gabrielle Cody, had butchered him in so many places that meat hung from his body, and only bones held him together.

He would never hurt anyone again.

No one, except her.

Regardless of what she knew him to be, despite the fact that she'd saved a child, probably many children, she would never be able to forget him.

She never forgot any of them.

They became part of her, in some ways adding to her strength, in other ways tearing her down until she felt like nothing at all.

As she did now.

Only moments ago, rage had guided her; now a pervasive weakness sent quivers rippling up and down her spine. She gagged, still tasting the blood, identifying the scent as it baked on the hot asphalt beneath the blistering sun. A fly buzzed close, landing on the man's exposed intestines.

Gaby heaved—and lost control. Hot loamy spew regurgitated out her nose and mouth.

Ah, shit.

Swallowing convulsively, she fought back the last of the bile until the spasms receded. She hated puking, and not just because it left evidence behind. Hands braced on the rusted metal of the Dumpster, she drew deep, slow breaths, calming her mind with thoughts of other things, quieter times, until her belly quit trying to crawl up her throat and out of her nose.

When she could breathe again, she straightened and curled her hands around her aching middle.

Fucking eggs Morty had forced on her didn't want to stay down. She might never eat eggs again.

Knowing she couldn't linger, she dragged a bandanna from her back pocket and, keeping her back turned toward the body, scrubbed the blood from her face and hands, up to her elbows. There wasn't a damn thing she could do about her ruined shirt. At least it was dark—a deliberate choice because it made it harder to detect the blood on her walk home.

And thinking of her walk… she had to get to it, shaking limbs or no, nausea or no.

She couldn't rest.

Couldn't indulge pity for herself or her victim.

Couldn't change her life, or the curse that haunted her.

Couldn't deny who and what she was: God's minion. For better or worse.

No one else would see that man as a demon. No one else would know that she'd done humanity a favor. They'd see his disfigured body and label her as the monster.

If he knew the truth, Detective Cross would try to arrest her, locking her away so that evil had free rein. She didn't want to fight with Cross. She didn't want to have to hurt him.

Blind fools, all of them.

Closing her eyes, she said a quick prayer, crossed herself, and thanked God for guiding her, for putting her there in enough time to keep that child safe.

She asked forgiveness for her weaknesses and her guilt, and she asked for the courage to continue doing what she must, just as Father Mullond had instructed her to do.

With that complete, Gaby dragged both sides of her big knife over the dead man's sleeve to clean it. She replaced it in her sheath and made sure her T-shirt covered it.

Mentally calculating her location, she decided to head for the nearest gas station. She needed water in a bad way—both to drink and to wash.

Putting her shoulders back made her feel stronger. She started out of the lot—and heard footsteps approaching. Her heart shot into her throat and without even thinking about it, she sought cover behind the brick building.

Darting one quick, cautious glance around the corner, she spotted Detective Luther Cross methodically picking his way up the incline toward the factory.

Son of a bitch.

Had he followed her? But how? Why?

To minimize her chances at getting lost, she wanted to return the same way she'd come. But Cross effectively removed that option. By the second, he drew nearer. She looked over her shoulder, seeing the carnage of the demon's body in all its gruesome display. She saw the Dumpster filled with rot, and beside it, her own vomit.

A telling scene.

It wouldn't take a genius to put it all together. If she got herself arrested, who would do her work?

Think, Gaby. Do something.

Her frantic, searching gaze fell on the path the boy had taken when he'd left her. Though she hadn't been able to focus on him at the time, her subconscious now supplied her with the image of him stumbling into a cluster of trees that overgrew the property.

Gaby didn't waste another second. She ran. And this time, running hurt like hell. Without the summons to guide her, to make her movements sinuous and economic, she stumbled in her flip-flops. Twigs and stones nicked her toes. Her lungs labored and her sluggish limbs refused to help. Once safely buried in a thicker cover of trees, she paused to look back.

Through the leaves and limbs, she could barely see Detective Luther Cross standing over the body and cursing a blue streak while scanning the area. Gaby watched him with narrow eyes and burning annoyance.

Why did he have to interfere?

And why did an almost ethereal white veil drift gently around him?

The detective was a good man, but not good enough to divine her purpose. Not good enough to be trusted by God. He'd arrest, condemn, and lock her away without a moment's hesitation.

Just once, Gaby wished someone would trust in her the way Father Mullond had.

Cross pulled out his cell phone and punched in a call, barking into the phone while walking a wide circle around the area, careful not to disturb the evidence.