Disclaimer: I do not own any characters and/or situations from either Blade 2 or Shivers/They Came from Within.
Summary: Carolyn gets first-hand experience of the infected, while Reinhardt winds up in a dangerous situation.
Parasitic
Chapter 4–Meeting
Reinhardt crashed through the door at the bottom of the stairwell and emerged in the lobby. He scanned the place–nobody home. Cromwell had given him the slip somehow. And now that he had a chance to think about it, standing there staring at the empty lobby, he realized that his partner wasn't going to strand him on the island after all. Reinhardt was the one who had the diamonds, so unless the other vampire wanted Golden hunting him down and killing him, he couldn't leave the island without getting them back.
But he might be giving Cromwell too much credit; the other people he'd seen who'd been infected with this disease or whatever it was, Lutz and the blonde chick, hadn't been what he'd call rational. Just to be on the safe side, Reinhardt headed outside for the dock to disable the other boats on the island. He had the keys to their Cigarette boat, and he knew Cromwell didn't have the mechanical know-how to hotwire it. Whatever was happening on Peachbloom Island had nothing to do with him, and he didn't want the annoyance of anyone chasing him when he decided to leave.
You could do that right now, his mind whispered. You've got the diamonds and the boat. Fuck Cromwell. Let him explain to Golden why he fell down on the job. But if he did that, he ran the risk of his partner getting caught due to his recent craziness and ratting out both him and Golden, so he knew he either had to drag Cromwell back to New York or kill him here. Of the two options, he preferred the latter. Golden might give him a hard time about it, but the diamonds ought to sweeten his disposition. Besides, if they didn't, he'd just leave. He had no attachments in New York, or anywhere for that matter. Safety lay in isolation.
Shaking off that moment of reflection, Reinhardt moved toward the boat dock, quick and silent, one with the darkness.
OOOOOOO
Nicole's heels rang out on the marble floor as she half-dragged Carolyn into the hallway. The woman's perfect nails bit into the soft flesh on the underside of her arm. "Take it easy," she said, trying to free herself from the painful grip. "I can walk on my own."
"In a bit. We want to help you. Help." When she turned her head toward Nicole, she saw drops of blood clinging to her lips, darker than the pale pink of her lipstick.
"Wait a minute. You're bleeding. Are you hurt?" The redhead paid no attention, other than to tighten her grip. They reached the door before Carolyn dug her heels in and stopped. In the few seconds since she'd noticed the bleeding, it had become a thin brook flowing onto her perfectly ironed white blouse. "Hold it, hold it! You need medical attention and all you're worried about is the shortwave? Dr. Corby's upstairs, restrained. It can wait a few minutes."
Her tongue came out and swept away the blood. "I bit my lip. It's nothing. The shortwave is in here." Nicole's voice took on a note of frenzy that seemed inappropriate for the smooth unruffled professional she had been earlier. Something felt wrong, the way something had felt wrong outside Dr. Corby's apartment. Nicole reached past her to grab the handle of the closed door. "In here. Right in here," she muttered as it opened. Blackness beyond–the lights were out.
Nicole shoved Carolyn toward the door, but she twisted and used the other woman's grip on her arm to swing her into the room first. Her high heels gave her no purchase on the floor, while Carolyn's feet were bare. If anything...unpleasant awaited, Nicole would encounter it before she did. The lights came on then, blinding, and time slowed way down as Carolyn processed what she was seeing.
At least half a dozen people, maybe more, had been hidden inside what looked like the employee break room. She didn't see a shortwave radio anywhere. Two couches sagged against the wall, their dingy teal pointing up the dull beige paint job on the walls, and a coffee maker sat at the end of one of the couches. The coffeepot itself lay in shards on the floor, hot coffee forming a lake on the linoleum. No windows here to look outside, the only thing breaking up the monotony was a framed poster of the motivational variety that companies liked, a picture of a river breaking against rocks with the caption, "Success means bypassing resistance." Discarded clothing had been scattered about the room, A white satin bra lay at the edge of the spilled coffee, soaking up the liquid. The people who had hidden in the darkness were all partially or completely naked, their mouths stained with blood. As Nicole tumbled through the door, the restraint they had imposed on themselves evaporated and the room filled with their grunts and lunatic giggles as they fell on her.
Carolyn's brain absorbed all this detail in the few seconds that she went unnoticed. But Nicole had not released the hold on her arm when she fell and dragged Carolyn down into the room with her. Before the maddened people in the room could grab her, she wrenched herself free, feeling the long nails rend her skin, knowing it was the least of the injuries she might sustain in this room. The reason why they had gone crazy was irrelevant now; her only concern was escape. She tried to scramble for the door on her knees, but Nicole's flailing leg kicked it shut. A quick glance from the corner of her eye revealed a woman and two men crawling over the redhead, fingers ripping at her clothes to caress the flesh beneath, Nicole moaning in ecstasy as the woman lowered her head and flicked her tongue out to tease her clit, while one of the naked men took her nipple in his mouth and the other slid his cock into her mouth for her to suck, the four people blending together into a writhing, protoplasmic mass. But the people remaining–five of them, her mind registered, three men and two women–converged on her.
OOOOOOO
Reinhardt closed the engine cover on the last boat and walked back toward Peachbloom Towers, wiping the oil from his hands on the expensive black linen slacks he wore. Deader than yesterday's racing form, he thought as he entered the deserted lobby. He didn't bother concealing his blade-gun now, because if he was right nobody on this island except for him cared about anything besides fucking and infecting people with whatever it was that made that slime trail from Lutz to the heating vent. If Cromwell hadn't been so goddamn stupid and Golden had put him in charge instead of that half-blood, things would have gone smoothly and he wouldn't have to deal with this clusterfuck right now.
It was eerie, the silent, empty lobby, bathed in the yellow light from the crystal chandeliers above. Made him think of The Shining, in fact. He almost wished some crazy with an ax would come along, so he could blow him away and things would get back to normal. Reinhardt needed to call Golden and fill him in on current events, but the gangster's desire to make the robbery look as if it had been committed by human thieves had robbed him of the phone lines. And even if he'd been able to call, help from Atlanta would not have shown up. Standard policy in Golden's organization said: if you can't handle it, fuck you. But he knew without arrogance that he could handle this.
According to the research he'd done on his own, Peachbloom Towers had a total of 753 residents, all human, not counting the people who worked in the shops and restaurants and commuted to the island. The numbers might be more in his favor because a lot of people had left the island for Thanksgiving, but he had a bad feeling that getting off this hunk of dirt might be a tougher job than he thought. What he needed was an edge. Cromwell had brought a duffel bag with equipment in it, burglar's tools they intended to abandon at the scene, but now he saw a need for them. As far as he knew, the bag remained in Lutz's apartment. But before Reinhardt went upstairs after it, he detoured to the guard post to get the two remaining revolvers off the dead guards. He didn't know whether the crazies had enough rationality to use guns, but leaving armament lying around went against his principles. He needed something to deal with the humans, because the silver bullets in his blade-gun had Cromwell's name all over them.
OOOOOOO
Carolyn closed everything out but the people approaching her. Multiple assailants in a closed space–not the best situation, but maybe she could handle it. If none of them had any training, or the discipline to use it, she might make it out of here. Then she could think about what all this meant.
With a scream she launched a kick at the knee of the man closest to her, connecting solidly and shattering his kneecap. The man hit the floor, face twisted in agony, his cry of pain harmonizing with her shriek. Another man grabbed at her, laughing and drooling, and she landed a reverse punch to his face, breaking his nose, then swept his legs out from under him with a kick. A woman tried to circle around behind her and cut her off from the door, but Carolyn jumped to her feet and crumpled her with a roundhouse kick to the midsection. Two left, but they seemed more cautious now, seeing what had happened to their buddies. The man and woman looked at each other, seeming to communicate without words, then they moved to bracket her. If she attacked one, the other could move in, no trouble. She needed something to even up the odds. Then she saw the broken coffeepot on the floor and dove for it, seizing the intact handle and spout. Jagged pieces of glass still adhered to the plastic. This put her farther from the door, but now she had a weapon. Nicole and the other three didn't seem to notice the fight happening, too caught up in the cascade of orgasms. Even the men? The scientist part of her mind tried to observe their actions, but the warrior shut it down. Later she could analyze and theorize, when she was safe.
But that lapse in attention cost her, because the woman lunged at her with a speed she hadn't expected and slammed her against the wall, her hands clawing at Carolyn's clothes, trying to expose her body, gasping with need and effort. Something moved inside her mouth–her tongue? No, couldn't be, wrong color, the movements off, and then something–some thing–emerged from the woman's mouth in a hemorrhage, the segments of its body sliding out onto her chin, the section that must be its head weaving, as if it were looking for something. For her.
The woman hadn't secured her hands, and Carolyn lashed out with the remains of the pot, skewering the thing only half out of the woman's mouth and driving a glass shard deep into her face. Her howl of pain echoed in the room as Carolyn jerked the improvised weapon free and charged the man, who hesitated for an instant. Leaping into the air, she drove a double kick into his chest and stomach before he fell and she landed on the ground. One of the men pleasuring Nicole took note of this and lifted his head, but she had already reached the door and jerked it open. The four tried to pull themselves together long enough to deal with this development, but she slammed the door before they even had the chance to stand.
Carolyn raced down the hallway toward the elevators, but she didn't plan to use any of them. They were death traps, places the infected could swarm someone. No, she was searching for something else. All the shops and restaurants along the corridor to the elevator were deserted, the lights on, their contents and furnishings in disarray. Jesus, Corby had done it after all. He'd infected people with some parasite that turned them into retarded sex maniacs. How the hell had this happened? More important, what could be done about it? No, later, later, the warrior told her. Now you need a real weapon.
Kaya was an expensive Japanese restaurant on the main floor of Peachbloom Towers that she'd noticed on her way to the elevator earlier. It had the subdued elegance of an upscale restaurant, but the ambience came from the decor, with real rice paper walls inside for the private dining rooms, and–yes! Moving swiftly to one of the walls in the main dining room, she grabbed a chair and stood on it, her fingers just brushing a sheathed sword. She just hoped it was real and not a decoration. The weight seemed right, though. With a hiss of steel Carolyn pulled the katana free of its sheath and relief washed through her. It was real. She was armed. She didn't have to rely exclusively on her body now. Shaking with adrenalin, she went back toward the front of the restaurant, but shrank back as she caught a dark figure moving in her peripheral vision. Maybe the shadows would hide her.
OOOOOOO
A woman's scream had drawn Reinhardt outside the guard post. It was the first sign of life he'd witnessed since coming back inside from the boat dock. Pain in the voice, but also a terrible, wordless need. He figured she was a crazy, but reached out with his senses to confirm it. And how–a bunch of crazies nearby. Good thing he'd heard that scream or he might have walked right into them. Tucking the blade-gun into its holster and one of the guard's revolvers into his jacket pocket, he put the other .38 in the waistband of his pants and started walking toward the room he thought was the source of the sound, trying his best to keep his footsteps silent on the marble floor. He wanted to see what was going on before he started killing people.
The ding that sounded from behind him made him spin. The steel doors slid open to reveal a woman and a little boy. Reinhardt assumed the boy was her son. But the mother's tongue was down the kid's throat and he didn't have on a shirt, his hands lost under her skirt. Crazies. Did he even have enough ammo in the two guns to handle them all? He needed to get back to Lutz's apartment; the jeweler had a small arsenal hidden in his apartment, and it looked like he was going to need all the firepower he could get. Then the woman raised her head and looked at him with the same crazy eyes as the blonde chick. The son's head turned in tandem with hers and the crazy just screamed out of his eyes. Sometimes it's like that with parents, he wanted to tell the boy. Sometimes they try to eat you alive. But he had no time as they came out of the elevator, leaving footprints in the blood that covered its floor. Something squirmed inside the woman's throat and Reinhardt knew it was the same as what had been in Lutz. He also knew there was no way in hell she or her freak kid was going to infect him. He'd kill everybody in this building before letting that happen. He went for the gun in his waistband, but before he could draw he heard sound behind him.
A woman was running toward him, her feet bare, a sword in her hand, long hair flying behind her. It was the girl he'd noticed earlier in the lobby, the one with the gorgeous legs. Was she a crazy? Seemed a shame to kill her, but as she got closer he noticed her scent. Normal. Human. So there was one other person in this place besides him who wasn't a crazy. Not that he needed anybody else to help out, but it meant that the crazies weren't as unstoppable as they seemed. If a human could stay normal...Wait. Did she think he was a crazy? He might have to kill her even if she wasn't hosting one of those slimy things. His hand closed around the gun before he realized what she was screaming at him.
"Run, mister!"
Air brushed over him as she passed, putting herself between him and the mother-son duo, her katana raised and ready. The two broke into a run and, without hesitation, the dark-haired woman swung her sword in three fast, deadly arcs. Blood sprayed across the walls, the floor, and her as the two crazies collapsed at her feet, dead. Reinhardt had the gun in his hand, leveled at her, when she turned toward him. Gore covered her clothes and arterial spray had painted a stripe across her face, right temple to the hinge of her jaw on the left, making her skin look like chalk. Or maybe that was just shock. She blinked at him and he saw her eyes were blue-green. Pretty. And then she spoke, saying the words that he had never in his life expected to hear from anyone.
"Mister, are you all right?"