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CHILDREN OF INFINITY
by
Disclaimer:
For disclaimers, please see the prologue
Chapter Two
Elizabeth started onto the first floor hall and then, losing her nerve, turned back towards the stairs for the fifth time, feeling a bit like a stalker. She had made it a point to find out Logan's class schedule, and she knew Logan's last class ended a half hour ago. Logan always returned to her room at the end of the day and usually stayed there until dinnertime "This is crazy," Elizabeth muttered under her breath. "She's just some... girl. It's not like the ground is gonna open up and swallow me if I do or don't talk to her." She turned back to the entrance leading to the first floor hall and glared at it. "And obviously she's got some serious issues going on there?" She whistled softly and made the universal sign for 'crazy'. "I mean, she's been going out of her way to not see me despite the fact she walks by my fricking table in the cafeteria every single day. How insane is that? Right? It's not like we even said more than twenty-five words to each other. She's gotta be, like, some major nut job."
Elizabeth lowered herself down onto the bottom step and sighed heavily. So in light of all this, why does it bother me so much? Would it be so bad if we never spoke again? A sharp, aching pang of in her chest answered that question. We have absolutely nothing in common. She's a Christian, for Pete's sake. I'm pagan! It's probably a sin for her to even breathe oxygen in a space I've previously occupied. Yet despite all that, Elizabeth glanced at the door once again, I want so very badly to be her friend.
She grabbed the top of the banister and pulled herself to a standing position. Taking a deep breath, Elizabeth clenched her jaws tightly against fear and walked through the entrance and out into the hall. Turning immediately to her left, she was facing Logan's door. She raised her fist to rap on the door and stopped just short. Her heart accelerated madly and she closed her eyes, fearing she was about to lose her nerve.
Swallowing her terror, she brought her hand up again, hesitated only a moment and then knocked softly on the door. The door swung open and she found Logan standing there, staring at her with an expression of shock and incredulity.
Elizabeth wasn't sure what came over her, but suddenly to her abject horror, she just burst into tears.
Logan stared at her for a stunned moment and then instinctively pulled the woman into her arms and held her close. A brief glance over Elizabeth's head gave her a glimpse of one of the Asian woman's friends from 107 quickly slipping back into her own room.
Getting them inside the room before they could draw an audience, Logan closed the door behind them and leaned against it as the girl in her arms attempted to recover her composure.
"I'm sorry, Logan," Elizabeth sniffled. She couldn't even bear to look up at her. "You must think me a nut case. I don't know what came over me." Feeling it safe to do so, Logan put the young woman away from her gently and gazed down upon her with genuine concern.
"Are you alright? Has anyone hurt you? Have you gotten sad news?" Logan threw a barrage of worried questions at her, determined to figure out what had caused the young woman such upset. She had heard the term before but now she knew it to be true. There were some people who were stunningly beautiful in sorrow. Elizabeth Wu was such a person.
When violet eyes looked up at her in unguarded pain, Logan backed away abruptly, sucking in a sharp breath. She stepped away from the girl and moved across the room to the small mini-fridge, bracing her hand on top of the appliance to calm her nerves.
Closing her eyes, she abruptly pulled the refrigerator door open. She grabbed a cola from the appliance and shut the door back, turning her attention and a bright smile onto her guest. "I thought you might like a drink." Logan offered the cola to the girl after she had popped the tab for her and dutifully tossed the tab into the bucket. Elizabeth stared at the offered soda as though it were a foreign object. "Elizabeth?" Elizabeth couldn't catch up with the sudden settling of Logan's tumultuous emotions.
"Huh?" Elizabeth looked up into calm features and blinked in confusion. "Oh. Um, thanks." She accepted the soda and was seated after Logan gestured to her sit on the bed. She stared down at the cola in her hand for a long awkward moment, aware that Logan was now sitting in her desk chair a few feet away. She felt saddened by the distance. "I'm sorry, Logan. I don't even know why I came here," she offered lamely and peered up at the girl. "You probably think I'm a total spaz."
"Why were you crying?" Logan asked in gentle concern.
"I don't know." Elizabeth smiled nervously, embarrassed at having to admit that and mortified at having cried at all in front of the girl. "I was really nervous that you might not want to talk to me." She began rambling on nervously, "and it took me so long to get up the nerve to knock on your door, and I knocked and suddenly you were there and I don't know what happened." She bit her bottom lip and looked as if she might cry again. Logan quickly moved over to the bed, taking the girl's empty hand in one of her own much larger ones.
"Why were you scared to talk to me?" she asked incredulously.
"Because you never look at me." At Logan's frown, Elizabeth sighed. "In the cafeteria," she explained. "You always walk right past my table as if I don't exist and I don't know why it does, but it hurts me."
"I'm sorry." The taller girl dropped Elizabeth's hand as if it had scorched her. "I'm not really good with people." Logan explained in a rushed voice. Her troubled gaze focused on her closed drapes. "I just… didn't know what to say, and you were always with your friends, and I didn't want to trip up and sound like a dork or something and it's not as if I have much to say and I never imagined you wanting to talk to me again or why you might want to." Logan eyes widened as she realized she had just rambled. "Whew," she added for comical effect. They both laughed.
"You're very funny."
"Not really. It's just something I do when I get nervous." She smiled. "I don't think my mother found it very funny at all."
"What's her name?"
"Whose …" Logan brow furrowed confused by the request,"…name?"
"Your mother's, silly." She squeezed Logan's hand and then released it. She took a sip of the cold drink and wrinkled her nose slightly as the bubbles fizzed in her sinuses.
"Shirley. Her name was Shirley."
"I'm so sorry, Logan." She hastened with the apology when she noted that Logan had referred to her mother in the past tense. "Did she pass recently?"
"A few months ago."
"Oh, Goddess!"
Her mother's death four months prior had come as a shock and Logan had felt sorrow and guilt at feeling little more than relief at the woman's passing. But her mother had had not made it easy for the young woman to love her and Logan had found it harder and harder to ignore the anger she had felt towards the woman. Bereft at knowing she would never have the opportunity to win the woman's approval, Logan sold the farm, not wanting to remain attached to the bitter and painful memories associated with it. She had intended never to return to that small town. Neither it nor the people in it would be missed. The sale from the farm, along with the scholarship, ensured that she would not have to. "Goddess, I'm sorry." Elizabeth exhaled again apologetically. Logan shrugged. She didn't want to discuss her mother.
"Why do you say that?" Logan's face scrunched up slightly in a frown and she sat back further on the bed, folding her legs Indian style and positioning herself to face the other woman fully. "That goddess thing, what's with that?"
Caught off guard by the question, Elizabeth stammered. "I, uh…" ‘Oh boy.' She took a deep breath, waiting for the usual response to what she would say. "I'm referring to my deities. God and Goddess. I experience the Creator as having both male and female aspects and that is how they are manifested to me." She noted the wide-eyed stare and her heart sank. "Anyway," she concluded, "I say Goddess more often because I tend to feel closer to the feminine aspect of the deity you might refer to as God." Logan smiled softly and nodded in acceptance.
"Sounds interesting."
"It doesn't upset you?" Elizabeth stared at her.
"No. Not really." Logan shrugged, unable to explain why Elizabeth's religious beliefs didn't bother her. "I often think that God chooses to manifest in ways that he knows will reach the individual heart. If he," she smiled ruefully and added "or she, if you prefer," she waggled her brows playfully, evoking a giggle from her new friend, "is truly all powerful, all knowing, and all things at once then how can my truths about God cancel out your truths about him or vice versa?" When she was done speaking, she was caught off guard by sparkling violet regarding her with genuine warmth and something that seem to go much more deeper than friendship.
"Can we be friends, Logan?" The earnest question stunned her and she merely nodded her head at first, unable to find her voice.
"I'd like that, Elizabeth." She finally whispered the hopeful response, then averted her gaze bashfully. "I'm not very good at it, though. I've never had friends." She chanced a glance at the young woman and found Elizabeth nodding at her with understanding.
"Don't worry," Elizabeth giggled. "I've only had friends for two years now," she rolled her eyes with mock exasperation, "and I'm still getting the hang of it." They shared a chuckle over that. Logan expression suddenly turned serious as Elizabeth's friends were brought up. "Well, don't worry," Elizabeth assured, "It's really not that hard."
"No, it's just …" Logan faltered, fairly certain that the worst way to begin a friendship was by telling the person you were becoming acquainted with that you thought their present friends were judgmental snobs. But she knew she had not been imagining the hateful looks she received from the group when Elizabeth was not present.
"What is it, Logan?" Elizabeth encouraged softly. The expression of fear on Logan's face vanished to be replaced by a mild look of curiosity.
"Tell me about your friends." Logan forced a smile.
"You can meet them tonight." Elizabeth smiled enthusiastically. "At dinner." She added hoping Logan would accept the invitation. There was no mistaking the look of panic that flashed across the young black woman's face. The fear Elizabeth glimpsed in the sable eyes reminded her of the wild feral look a cat gets when cornered.
"Uh, no," Logan answered quickly. "I have a few errands to run in town. It'll be late when I get back."
"Oh, okay." Elizabeth hid her disappointment behind a smile. She knew the girl was lying but she understood. It wasn't easy meeting people for the first time. ‘Besides,' a new thought cheered her up ‘it would be nice getting to know Logan one on one for a while.' Her smiled broadened much to Logan's relief. Logan had been afraid her rejection to joining the group for dinner would put the girl off.
It had been just that simple. A knock on the door and Logan had answered it, and gained a friend. It would have been perfect but Elizabeth's friends didn't take to Logan as well as the Asian had. And as weeks drew into months and months into the next semester, Logan knew that was not going to change.
Ordinarily it wouldn't have bothered her. She had many years experience in turning the other cheek but this time it seemed she couldn't shake off the teasing as she had done before. The dark current stirring under the skin was like a gray funnel swirling into a torrent Logan feared she'd not be able to control.
**********************
"So, Birche..." Philip turned his brooding gaze to the girl."After all this time, we still don't know much about you?" Logan was absently shoveling uneaten food about her plate. The cafeteria was her least favorite place and Philip Hessing was her least favorite person. Logan tried to pretend she hadn't heard him. She was agitated. She was always agitated when she found herself alone with Elizabeth's friends. "Helloooo!" He waved a hand rudely in front of her face. ‘Christ! It's hardly been five minutes since I sat down.' She felt a brief flicker of anger and quelled it. Instead, she looked up at him patiently. "You're like into this Bible stuff, right?" he asked, not bothering to conceal his disgust. "You know, the fire and brimstone, we'll all burn in hell type thing."
"We're not all going to burn in hell," she deadpanned.
"Seems rather odd, don't you think, for you to be hanging out with our Beth." Logan hid her grimace at the nickname. She knew how much Elizabeth hated it. "After all, given what you people preach, aren't you committing some huge sin? I mean, don't you preach 'suffer a Witch not to live'?"
"Maybe she wants to convert her," Victoria chuckled.
"She wants to do something to her all right." Leslie smirked at her comment and then jumped at the light kick to shin from Alex. She glanced sheepishly at her roommate, and pouted at the warning look in Alex's eyes.
"I like Elizabeth," Logan answered frankly. "She's a good friend. I don't judge anything she does or what she believes."
"You see …" Logan cut him off with a look.
Keeping her face devoid of expression, she shook her head. She was not going to discuss her friendship with Elizabeth. "I'm not going to argue religion with you, Hessing." Philip grinned at her snidely, and Logan knew he wasn't going to let things go.
"So what's your major?" She stared at him blankly for a moment, trying to determine how her major could be of any importance to him. "Excuse me," he huffed impatiently, "you do have one, don't you?" Snickers from their other table companions drew a heated blush to Logan's cheek.
"Electronics and Engineering," she mumbled.
"Really?" He mused, sneering at her. His lips quirked into a nasty smile. "Seems a bit of a stretch from what I'm told is your specialty." Logan stared at him dumbly. "I thought religion was your strong suit." Victoria giggled. "Healing and miracles."
"It's not my major," Logan responded flatly.
"But it was your major at Corpus," he persisted.
"Yes. I was studying religion. I changed my mind," she answered through clenched teeth. "So?"
"Well, Electronics and Engineering - that's a big fucking skip from religion."
"Perhaps she's lost her faith," Victoria supplied snidely. "I mean after all, holy work doesn't pay very well, does it Darlin'?" Victoria wrinkled her nose up at that. "And with everyone calling you a freak and all..." Her eyes narrowed cruelly. "Seems to me you're getting no side benefits for it, at least not from the looks of those cheap jeans."
"Guys." Alex looked back and forth from Philip and Victoria to Logan's troubled features. "Maybe you should just drop this."
"Is that it?" Philip smiled coyly, ignoring Alex's warning. "You lose your faith?"
"Not really." She looked at him with an expression that left no doubt that she was not going to say anything else on the matter.
"Well then, tell me, Ms. Miracle Worker, how does one acquire healing skills?
"Usually through about eight or more years of medical schooling," Logan deadpanned, evoking a sharp laugh from Leslie.
"Don't fuck around with me, Birche," Philip hissed threateningly. "You know exactly what I mean! What are you? A saint? Some kind of freak? Or a fake like the rest of the Sunday morning healing prophets? Trying to establish a following while you're young - is that it?"
"Philip, don't," Alex snapped angrily.
"Why?" He glared at Alex furiously. "We've heard about what she supposedly does. Jesus H. It's not like this is a huge fucking school. I wanna know the same thing you all do!" He was bellowing now, drawing all attention to their table. "I want to know if you are a fake!" He glared at Logan and before anyone could stop him, Philip Hessing jumped from his seat, grabbed up his steak knife and slashed deeply into his palm. A collection of gasps went up but no one seemed to have the will-power to move or scream as his blood puddled to the floor. "Fuck!" he yelped and gritted his teeth. "That fucking hurts!" The rest of his dinner companions were on their feet and rushing towards him to survey the damage. Logan stood up slowly, meeting his angry glare.
"Are you crazy?" Leslie snapped at him furiously. Victoria was grabbing at napkins and trying desperately to wrap the cut hand with it but Philip wrenched his hands from her with a violent tug. Logan merely stared at him in shock; the voices of those around her had been drowned out by the sound of his blood spattering to the floor. He was approaching her and shouting angry words at Logan that she couldn't hear. Suddenly he was there, directly in front of her, shoving his hand into her face and splattering her with his blood.
Her breath caught in her throat as the scent of fresh blood embedded itself in her nostrils, driving like a spike straight through to some primal region of her brain. She grabbed the wrist of the butchered hand in a surprising show of brute strength. She glared up into his eyes and was satisfied when he flinched in momentary fear. She placed her palm over the cut and hissed in discomfort as heat left her body to penetrate the wounded area.
"Thou art healed, brother!" she sneered at him viciously. "Go and sin no more." She released his hand to the sound of collective gasps and the sudden loud buzz of murmuring filling the cafeteria as everyone realized that not only had the bleeding stopped but the wound was gone as well as all evidence of blood. "Did that satisfy your curiosity?" she asked him in a strangled whisper.
"Let it go, Phil," Alex whispered, eyeing the tall girl curiously and with a suspicion she had not felt before. She placed a hand to the young man's chest. Logan needn't look around to know the stares she was receiving. She had gotten them all her life and now it seemed she always would.
She spotted the Asian rounding the corner. A small frown of curiosity creased Elizabeth's forehead as she noted the tension in the air. Elizabeth's eyes settled on the stance of her old friends and from the way they stood she couldn't tell if they were threatening Logan, or what was going on. She set her tray on the table. "Hey." She forced a cheery smile. She could feel waves of pain, anguish, and fury radiating from the tall, black woman. She turned to Logan slowly, and placed a gentle hand to the young woman's cheek. "Hey," she whispered softly.
Logan's sable eyes settled on her own, searching the violet orbs. Elizabeth would never forget that look of helpless vulnerability. It wasn't what she saw that threw the young Asian, but what she sensed from the woman and the sensation felt as tangible as stone; a shadow, violent and menacing, wrestling angrily against the bars of a cage, screaming and shrieking with fury. Yet looking further, more deeply into the solemn eyes, Elizabeth found only a fragility that made her heart rage to gather Logan into her arms.
"I have to go." Logan's voice was raw with emotion but she was not about to satisfy Philip Hessing with her tears. She turned away from the table leaving, Elizabeth to stare impotently at her back.
"What the fuck happened?" Elizabeth hissed angrily as she turned on her friends.
"Ask her," Philip spat out viciously. "She's your goddamned freak!"
"One of you did something," she accused but none of them would meet her face and only sat back down to their uneaten meals, eyeing each other conspiratorially. "Damnit, she wouldn't have run off like that for nothing."
"Fuck it!" Philip hissed angrily at her. "And fuck her if she can't take a joke." Victoria wasn't sure why that should be so funny but the horror of what Philip had done to himself and the way Logan had just made it go away and then that silly comment, go and sin no more. … She just started laughing and was soon followed by the others. "She'll get over it, Elizabeth," Philip snickered to himself. "And if she doesn't…"
"Well, fuck her," Victoria volunteered, "if she can't take a joke."
Elizabeth debated whether or not to go after her friend but she was afraid that doing so would make the others feel she was coddling the girl. As it was, she had been enduring their nasty little remarks about the nature of their friendship. Elizabeth met the others' gazes questioningly but they only shrugged and resumed eating. ‘Maybe it was just a misunderstanding.' She closed her eyes for a moment against the pounding headache that was threatening.
She was getting them more often and it was interfering with her ability to read the intent of others. At the moment she felt as vulnerable as Logan had looked earlier. Her eyes strayed to the exit door; the need to follow behind her tall friend was overwhelming. She wanted to hold her, to make everything all right for her, to promise her that nothing in the world would ever hurt her, that she would protect her … ‘right, like she would ever need my protection.' But there was a small insistent voice inside the Asian telling her that Logan needed just that. Elizabeth lowered her gaze to her plate and ate her meal.
***************************
"Strange days are at hand, Ian." Carl Unger's voice was unusually soft and calm. Ian watched the pacing man's back curiously, his eyes widening as Carl sang a few notes from an old song. "Oh the tiiiiimes; they are a chaaannging." Carl paused in his cathartic pacing to face Ian Porter, who sat quietly, eyeing him with suspicion. "Oh," Carl's brilliant blue eyes sparkled. "Can't you feel it?" His voice was hushed but filled with a strange exuberance. "I can feel it," he answered himself, "like a gray cloud gathering and hovering before the storm." He thrust his arms out and spun around, evoking a gasp of shock from Ian.
"There's a hunger out there, among men, women, and children, Ian; so very different from the hunger of before. This is like a starvation for knowledge, for things best left unknown. People are trying to figure out what's in the dark, trying to draw back the veil of reality, everyone channeling, kids doddering about with their Ouija boards." Carl smiled malevolently. "It's all beginning so innocently enough. So worried about matters in other realms that they can't even see the shadows in their own worlds." He laughed then, softly and musically and Ian smiled. He always did when Carl found humor in anything other than him. "Oh, but aren't they in for a surprise?"
"How is that?" Ian sighed, knowing well the futility of trying to keep up with the man's puzzles.
"Because while they are busy trying to conjure up all manners of horrors from the Otherrealm, I'll be busy awakening of the worlds greatest nightmare, right here on this very campus."
"Are you sure Birche is the…"
"Birche is exactly where I want her."
"What about her little Asian friend? That Wu girl."
"What about her?" Carl stared at the Dean impatiently.
"Well she's …" Ian faltered. "I don't quite know what to make of her." He frowned slightly. "She's not like the others. You have noticed that, haven't you?" He threw the accusation at Carl smugly. "She's not controllable like the others. Wherever Wu draws her source of power from, it's not the same place as most of these students."
"So?" Carl waited his frustration growing.
"She could prove a bigger influence over Birche than you might like," Ian suggested. "Might be a good idea to get rid of her."
"Are you really that stupid, Ian?" Carl sighed heavily. "Because if you are, I regret ever having assisted in your making." He stopped his pacing and stared at the Dean. "Elizabeth Wu may have been an unforeseen variance in my little plan but I think she's working out quite nicely."
"But…"
"As I said, Ian, Birche is exactly where I want her."
************************
Logan was running, running hard trying to get away from the strange ringing in her head, from the face of her brother looming before her. ‘No! I'm not like him! I'm not! I'm not bad! But the blood was so… oh, God.' She stopped running and leaned against a tree, panting hard and trying to catch her breath. The smell of blood was overwhelming her senses. "Please, don't let me be like that." She closed her eyes as the last time she'd seen her brother assailed her memory. Blood had been everywhere; her nostrils had twitched under the assault of the smell. William had looked up at her helplessly with the lifeless corpse in his hands. His child like voice had broken her heart. "I'm bad Logan, I'm bad. I'm sorry, Logan. I'm sorry. I don't wanna be bad. I'm so sorry, Logan." Tears had streaked his cheek as he had tried to understand why he couldn't be a good boy, as he so badly wanted. Logan had shut her mind off to the horror of what he had done and had pushed his last victim out of his hands. She had gathered his hulking, sobbing form into her arms and he had collapsed against her allowing her to lower them both to the ground.
"It's okay, Will, I'm here and I love you."
"Angel Logan, you're the Angel; help me."
"Don't worry, my William, I'll take care of you. I'll take care of everything." Under the weight of that bitter memory, Logan slid down the tree to sit against it. ‘I'm not like that. I'm not. I heal people. I heal people! I don't hurt them!'
Unnoticed, a curtain parted. A figure in a distant window peered down across the campus lawn at the disconsolate student. A satisfied grin spread across a pale face and broke into a soft laughter. "Oh my poor Logan, don't worry; I'll be there for you. I always have been and I'll ease the pain soon. Very soon."
*************************
Logan shoved her hands deeply into her pockets. She surprised herself by staying on in school through the summer session. She hadn't needn't to take the extra courses but Elizabeth had begged. With the campus being nearly deserted it had seemed like a cool idea but Logan wasn't so sure now. She was just glad it was approaching late August and the regular fall semester would begin soon.
Logan pressed her arms tightly to her sides as though trying to ward off a chill. Still unable to find her misplaced sunglasses, she kept her head lowered so that her eyes were shielded from the sun. This caused her shoulders to hunch upwards; very much the picture of exhausted defeat. She knew that it was either Victoria or Leslie responsible for the missing glasses. They had displayed unusual interest upon learning of her eyes' sensitivity to the sun. It wasn't the first prank they had pulled on her, unbeknownst to Elizabeth, who didn't quite seem to see the extent of her friends' dislike of Logan.
Logan's attempts to fit had been met with jarring barbs concerning her beliefs or the fact that any item in her wardrobe cost less than a hundred and fifty bucks. It wasn't just Elizabeth's friends, it was everything, the whole school. Eyes seemed to be on her everywhere. She felt as though she was in one great big lab and she was the test subject.
The dark circles under her eyes gave testament to nights of broken sleep and unavoidable nightmares. Nightmares in which she was the boogeyman.
She had nearly forgotten the presence of the girl walking beside her until a warm hand pressed into the center of her back, nearly causing Logan to jump. "I'm sorry." Elizabeth spoke softly. "I didn't mean to startle you. You just seemed so lost all of a sudden and I..." Logan cast the girl a sideward glance and shrugged. Her only solace and comfort was the continually growing friendship between herself and her present companion.
"S'okay, Eli." She turned her eyes back to watching her own footfalls, missing Elizabeth's gush at the use of the nickname. Logan had taken to calling taken to calling Elizabeth that after noticing how much the young woman hated when the rest of the group called her Beth. And since it seemed everyone was determined to shorten the woman's name, Eli seemed an attractive substitute. Elizabeth loved it and the others grudgingly gave in to calling her that as well. "You know me." Logan forced a laugh. "I'm just not used to people touching me."
The only person other than Elizabeth that Logan had ever allowed to touch her physically had been William. Even Shirley Birche's rare pats of obligatory affection had been shied away from. William had been special. Her big brother who'd had big needs; special needs that included a lot of attention. Logan had never begrudged him that attention. She had showered her brother with affection. With her, William had been like a plant stretching and reaching for the sun. She had been his warmth. She had been his protector. Logan swallowed hard against a sob that threatened as the memory of him surfaced. She had been his angel. He would often call her his Angel of Mercy. In the end ... she had been his Angel of Death. Their mother hadn't even mourned his passing. Shirley Birche had been afraid of her son.
Born only minutes apart, as tall as Logan herself was, William Junior had grown into nearly a giant. The birthing, her mother had told her years later, should have been fairly easy. Everything had been routine. The Doctors had said that Logan herself had nearly crawled out of the womb; but William, poor William had needed help. Born oxygen deprived, he had nearly suffocated.
It would still be years later when Logan would hear the whispers of adults behind closed doors about how her twin had been born with tiny handprints around his throat. Her tiny handprints. He had never developed normally like other kids. While he grew and matured physically along with his peers, eventually surpassing them in size, his mind had remained that of a child; at times a very dangerous child. But he and Logan had understood each other. Theirs had been the often unspoken language of twins. It had been in that language he had pleaded with her for help on his last night on earth.
"Don't wanna be bad, Logan. Don't wanna be bad anymore. Be the Angel, please. Please. Mercy." He had wept like a baby in her arms, pleading for her help. "Please, mercy. You gotta be the Angel. Please."
"Don't worry, my William, I'll take care of you. I'll take care of everything." In the end it had been so easy. Taking a life should never be so easy.
Elizabeth was swept up in the emotional torrent pouring from Logan. Disjointed images she couldn't understand of two people sobbing and holding each other. Pain, such unbearable pain ... and something unspeakable. Something Logan was mentally crouching from in the dark corners of her mind. Something she feared would leap out of the shadows to grab her.
Logan stopped abruptly and cast a sharp side-glance at her quiet companion. Without a word she changed direction and Elizabeth wasted no time in following, quickening her pace so that once again she fell in step beside the woman. ‘She wants to show me something,' Elizabeth thought to herself. She reached out the invisible tendrils of her mind to touch her statuesque companion but found only darkness there and she shrank back from it almost physically.
They pressed on, walking in silence into the forest area just off the campus. Elizabeth was beginning to think they would never stop that Logan would just keep walking until she dropped from exhaustion and Elizabeth knew she would follow.
Logan stopped suddenly and Elizabeth, who had fallen just a little behind her, nearly collided with that strong, tense back. Thick foliage, brush and trees surrounded them. It was eerily quiet. There were no little creatures scampering about to escape from the intruders. Logan removed her hands from her pockets and turned to look at her friend. Her sable eyes were softly illuminated and Elizabeth wasn't sure if she was seeing a trick of scattered sunlight filtering in through openings between tree leaves.
"Do you believe in destiny, Eli?" Logan's throaty voice was slightly hypnotic and Elizabeth felt her heartbeat accelerate at the sound of it. She couldn't verbalize an answer so she merely nodded. "Do you believe a person could be born with two possible destinies, Eli; destinies at the extreme opposite ends of the spectrum?" Logan approached her slowly, holding a violet gaze, which locked onto her own. When they stood toe-to-toe, Logan gazed down into darkening purple and whispered, "Do you believe that one act, one deed, one event can move you firmly and forever from one path onto the other? And that no matter what you do to get back to the original path, you just can't? Or no matter how hard you work to escape the new route, that you can become completely trapped with events unfolding about you to which you have no control ... events that capture you in a web designed to bring that second destiny to you. Have you ever thought of that?"
"Logan, I..." Elizabeth began and faltered as now golden irises burned into her own eyes. "I don't know," she breathed. "I always prefer to think that we shape our own destiny." Logan smiled sadly down at her.
"That's a luxury, graced only to the majority. But to others like myself…" She gave her friend a meaningful and knowing look, "and like you," she added, "We are not so graced. We are born with destinies shaped, designed, and mapped out for us. And we travel along courses that mold us into what we are to become. We are helpless in this ... Each event in our lives is designed to bring about the desired responses, reactions and emotions from us." She was whispering now. " We're like characters in a novel and though we struggle to right ourselves to be who we desire to be, we are consumed by the very natures born into us."
"I don't want to believe that." Eli swallowed as tears stung her eyes and Logan nodded sadly, understanding. She looked so young to Elizabeth then, like child on the verge of losing innocence yet struggling so earnestly to hold onto it and Elizabeth for the first time experienced heartbreak. She wanted to leave, to run back to her dorm and escape into the sleep where her own nightmares awaited her.
"I want to show you something," Logan whispered in a frightened childlike voice. "They think they know who I am but nobody knows. I don't even know." She sobbed softly and then breathed in sharply, effectively halting any other sounds of weeping that might have escaped. "I think my brother knew." She looked down at the ground, tormented by some dark memory. "But he died." Her voice was venomously bitter. "He died before he could tell me."
"Logan, maybe we should go back now," Elizabeth whispered softly, her fear imprisoning her. She was afraid of this stranger Logan had become. Logan stepped closer to Elizabeth, their bodies almost touching as she looked down into frightened violet pupils. She placed a gentle hand on the smaller woman's shoulder and lightly squeezed it to convey comfort.
"I won't hurt you," Logan whispered softly, capturing the fearful violet gaze with an assuring smile. "I won't hurt you, Eli." Elizabeth's heart was squeezed as she found herself caught up in the gentleness with which Logan had spoken those words. Those eyes, although a strange luminescent gold, still had that familiar softness in their gaze that she knew Logan reserved only for her. She thought of all the times she'd witnessed small examples of Logan's incredible strength, but how when the statuesque girl touched her it was always with the utmost care and tenderness; the same tenderness that had just been present in her voice. And Elizabeth found herself overcome with that same desire to weep as she had that first time she had knocked on Logan's door.
Looking up into those expectant luminescent pools, she felt as if they were trapped in a movie and the next moment between them would be a kiss. The energy between them was so tangible that Elizabeth wondered if she could reach out and clutch it and even whether she should.
She was trapped in the moment and she wanted to remain right there in that moment with Logan. It was the most perfect instant in her whole life as she felt the edges of awareness coming into focus and a veil being lifted from her face. But Logan's hands dropped from her shoulder and her eyes became sad again. Elizabeth wanted scream at whatever thoughts there were in her friend's mind that were now intruding on Elizabeth's burgeoning discovery.
Logan's voice was heavy with sorrow when next she spoke. "Someone has to be strong enough to..." she stopped then, her eyes becoming distant. "Watch," she told Elizabeth gently. Elizabeth blinked away the trance she had been under, nodded, and then stepped back from her friend in order to recover her equilibrium. "Watch," Logan spoke again. Elizabeth smiled shyly but encouragingly at the taller young woman.
Logan squatted near Elizabeth's feet. She placed a hand on the ground and Elizabeth waited, holding her breath as the thick foliage began to move about them. Logan merely remained quiet, her eyes peering into one spot as tiny heads peered out from their hiding places. Lizards, rats, mice and other small creatures surrounded them and Logan smiled whimsically.
Elizabeth grinned and was awed by what she was witnessing. Logan's eyes glanced up sharply in the distance and she nodded once. Elizabeth eyes widened and she stifled a giggle as a raccoon ran quickly from the dense wooded area beyond them and scampered up Logan's shoulder. Logan stood and peered down into Eli's warm gaze.
"You have a gift," she told Logan softly. Logan nodded but the sadness in her eyes remained and Elizabeth could not fathom it.
"Yes, I can heal as well. That's what I've done most of my childhood is heal people." Elizabeth nodded, aware of Logan's remarkable ability to heal others. She was also aware that this same gift of healing was what ostracized Logan from her childhood peers. "Now watch," Logan whispered. She lifted the raccoon from her shoulders and it twittered at her in displeasure. Logan shushed him gently and in one swift movement snapped his neck. Elizabeth screamed in horror and would have run but she was rooted to the spot, her eyes widening as she stared up at her friend.
"Why did you…?"
"Shh," Logan whispered softly. She held the limp animal in her hands and Elizabeth watched in disbelief as it began to stir. She gasped and leapt back as it sat up suddenly, scampering back up Logan's shoulder. Too overcome with wonder to be frightened, Elizabeth approached slowly, her mouth agape.
"Goddess! You do have a gift! Logan! You just raised the dead!"
"Did I?" Logan asked softly. "Look at him." Elizabeth looked more closely at the small animal and was unnerved to find it staring back at her with dead black eyes. She leapt back once more and it followed her movement closely, like a predator waiting for the perfect moment to pounce.
"Is it alive?" she whispered.
"You tell me," Logan spoke distantly. "Is it alive, or is it ... something else?"
Elizabeth stared at her friend for a long time, unable to answer that question.
"Who am I, Elizabeth?" Her voice, soft and forlorn, was punctuated by a profound sadness in sable eyes that seemed to age her youthful face. She released the ghoul-like raccoon and it scampered off leaving Elizabeth revolted that such a thing now existed. "Don't worry, he won't hurt anything, except to eat." Logan assured her. "I've told him not to ... not to do bad things."
"Maybe we should get back to the dorm, Logan." Elizabeth felt chilled and she couldn't shake the feeling that somehow, something terrible was going to happen.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have told you. I just thought that because you …"
"No, I'm glad you shared this with me, Logan. I know this took an awful amount of courage and trust for you to do so. And I'm honored. I'm your friend, Logan. I will always be there for you when you need me." She took the woman's hand in her own and squeezed it gently before releasing it from her clasp. "Now, let's get back. I've got some major tests in the morning."
"Passing up on the meeting tonight?" Logan tried to hide the hopefulness in her voice. She enjoyed each moment in Elizabeth's presence and she knew Elizabeth meant well and wanted to include Logan in her social life, but Elizabeth's friends unnerved her. Alex and Leslie seemed okay at first but then suddenly after a few months they had made an abrupt change. They were not quite as vicious as Philip and Victoria but they were often cold when Elizabeth wasn't looking, staring at her with calculating looks and hard glares that unsettled the young transfer.
"Of course," Elizabeth responded, ignorant of Logan's disappointment.
"Oh, then I'll walk with you over to the chapel."
"I'm afraid I'll have to meet you there." Elizabeth gave her friend's arm and affectionate squeeze. "I'll be heading straight from the Business Lab."
"Okay," Logan murmured. Instinct told her to avoid Elizabeth's group but it was so important to Elizabeth that she and her friends get along that she couldn't stand to let the young woman down. "I'll see you there." She forced a smile and tried to keep it plastered to her face as she and her friend went their separate ways.
Elizabeth felt a little guilty for the lie, but Logan's revelation had thrown her for a loop and she needed time to get herself together. She darted up the stairs to her floor and into her room. Grabbing down several reference books, she tossed them onto the bed. Despite having been terribly frightened by what she had witnessed, she had every intention of helping her friend. She would start with research. Lying on the bed and gathering one of the heavy books to her, she began leafing through it while muttering, "healing properties and raising the dead," under her breath. "Just a few hours," she whispered to herself. "That's all I need. And then I can be there for her."
Elizabeth felt a slight shiver as she recalled Logan's hypnotic words about fate and destiny. "Just a few hours," she glanced at the clock, ignoring the mad hammering in her heart. "I can't deal with this right now." She tossed the book away.
"Do you believe that one act, one deed, one event can move you firmly and forever from one path onto the other? That no matter what you do to get back to the original path, you just can't? Or how hard you work to escape the new route that you can become completely trapped with events unfolding about you to which you have no control ... events that capture you in a web designed to bring that second destiny to you?"
"Not now," she whispered to the image of Logan in her mind. "Please. I'll be there for you but not right now." She had to ease her own aches first. She stared up at the poster of Vincent and Catherine and closed her eyes against the pain in her chest. ‘Goddess. I've been such an idiot,' she belittled herself. ‘How could I not have realized what was happening?' She let her gaze return to the poster. ‘It seems I‘ve found my beast after all.' The thought was laced with bitterness. She would have cried but it hurt too much. ‘I've been falling in love with her this whole time and I never knew it. I never knew it.'
"They think they know who I am. Nobody knows."
"I'm so sorry Logan," Elizabeth closed her eyes as a strange, heavy sleep began to claim her. She shivered as she felt that somehow she was doing the wrong thing and that she was failing her friend. But suddenly she was just so tired. It was just a few hours. "Just a few hours."
********************
Someone should have been there to protect her. ‘I should have been there. If I had Philip would never have said those ugly things to her and chased her out into the dark.' "We've got to find her."
The front door to the chapel blew open, startling them all. A gust of wind followed by a torrent of rain swirled into the building and surrounded the five before dying down abruptly. "There's no need." Logan stepped through the door and it closed on its own behind her. She stepped from the foyer into the sanctuary, her movement synchronous with a loud clap of thunder and a flash of lightning. The inner sanctuary door slammed shut behind her and the sound of the bolt sliding hard into the locking mechanism echoed loudly, reaching all of their ears. Sensing a threat, Alex and Leslie took up position to Elizabeth's left and Philip and his fiancée Victoria to the right. It was apparent that something was terribly wrong.
"Logan," Elizabeth breathed the name out with relief and sorrow. "I'm so sorry." Sixth sense kept Elizabeth from approaching her friend too suddenly and embracing Logan as she so desperately wanted to do. The very posture of the woman warned her that indeed something more terrible than the Gammas' attack had taken place.
"No apologies necessary." Logan's smile was chilling. "Actually, I owe you each a debt of gratitude." Her eyes moved from Elizabeth to the other four who were standing with defensive postures. "In fact, I'm glad you are all here. So that I can show you my appreciation."
"Logan." Elizabeth approached her friend cautiously, her senses assaulted by the angry energy Logan radiated. "Logan, are you alright?" She raised a hand to touch the jagged scar on the side of the young woman's face and found her wrist captured by a painful grip. She gasped as much from surprise at Logan's strength as from the pain shooting up her right arm. "Logan, you're hurting me."
"I know," Logan whispered softly, her voice taking on a seductive quality. "So don't pretend Daddy's Little Girl doesn't like it." Elizabeth flinched, startled and disturbed at the intrusion into her memories. "I have no quarrel with you Eli," Logan warned her gently. "For you, I have a special gift." She shoved the young woman aside roughly. "But first …" she turned her attention to the rest of the group now standing at the front of the chapel facing her. "…Let me thank the rest of you for ... showing me the light." She bared sharpened fangs and sprang forward.
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Prologue | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3