Marcus waited on the bottom floor stairs that led up to his apartment, certain the police would arrive at any moment. After breaking into a private facility, stealing company property, and literally killing a man, there was no chance they wouldn’t. That was even considering the damage he’d done activating the combat drone. Still, he waited.
His DNA was in the system. He’d been arrested and processed on several occasions for drunken brawls and even petty theft in his teens. There was no way he hadn’t left any trace of himself at the scene. He’d bled all over that office. Still, he waited.
Midday came, and someone did show up, but not who he’d expected.
A delivery driver walked up to him and gestured to the stairs. “Umm…sorry, can I get passed?” She asked nervously. He looked up at her, and then down at himself. There were splashes of dark fluid all over his black hoodie and canvas pants, and he still had on what were essentially steel MMA gloves. He must have been quite the sight.
“Sorry, yeah.” Marcus’ voice came out just above a whisper, and he stood up to let her by.
She climbed to the second floor, but when she didn’t stop he got concerned. On the third floor she knocked on his door…and it opened.
“Thank you so much.”
His stomach dropped at the sound. The soft tone and English accent would never leave his mind. Why was she in his apartment? He gave the delivery driver a tired smile and a little nod as she hurried back down the stairs and hopped in her car.
It seemed the police were not coming. His eyes flicked back up to where his apartment and Ophelia waited. The police were somehow his preferred outcome, and not just because that was the result he’d mentally prepared himself for. If he walked through that door, there was genuinely no telling what could happen.
He couldn’t just sit on the stairs forever.
Sighing, Marcus climbed the stairs to his apartment.
Outside of grabbing some clothes on the first night back from his sojourn through the woods, he’d not been back here. He pulled the keys from his pocket but found the door unlocked. When he pushed it open, a sharp crack landed across his cheek and jaw.
He didn’t flinch, but blinked hard a few times as a tear rolled down the side of his face from the pain of the impact. He looked down at her, her bloodshot eyes staring back up at him in utter fury. Normally so put together, her hair was up in a lazy bun, strands flying in all directions, and she wore one of his hoodies like armor.
“It’s been five days.” Her voice started out brittle, but slowly rose into a growl. “Five days since you’ve been back, and we had to hear it from Morris Fucking McGinty!”
Marcus opened his mouth. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say, but she wasn’t interested, regardless. She spun around, leaving him in the open doorway behind her as she huffed and threw herself on the couch.
“Sorry…” Marcus murmured as he stepped into his apartment and peered around the place. It was spotless, except for one kitchen chair sitting in the walkway facing the front door with a stack of takeout boxes towering nearby as if she were using them to keep time.
She’d waited here. Of course she had. Could he be a bigger coward?
“How long have you been staying here?” Marcus asked, trying to will his feet to push further into the apartment, but they would not.
“Do not speak to me. I am so cross with you…I could…” she growled, staring into the blank television.
Marcus’ eyebrows popped up for a moment and he gnawed at his lip, but otherwise did as asked. He glanced down at his feet again, and finally urged them on to limp toward his bedroom.
“You’ve got some nerve, you know!” she snapped at him. “After everything that happened in London? You would think a girl would have a chance to talk to you before you go jumping out of a window like some kind of…” She’d hopped back up to her feet to yell at him some more until she noticed his gait and cocked her head slightly. “You’re limping…is that blood?”
“I’m fine, I just need a shower.” Marcus avoided her gaze, his fingers kneading at his thigh.
“Let me see it.” She didn’t wait for a response, grabbing his hand which garnered another wince and hiss of pain. She frowned at him, turned over her hand to see the purple discoloration between the gauntlet straps. Deftly pulling the straps off, she tossed the gauntlet onto the couch and stared down at the red and purple circle that broke off in spindly veins down his wrist.
“Marcus, what is this?”
“It’s nothing. I just need to clean it.” He tried to pull his hand away, but she slapped his forearm and dragged him to the couch.
“What happened? This doesn’t look good.” She hurried around the couch and grabbed her bag before sitting down beside him. “Did someone do this to you? Is it the same on your leg?”
He averted his gaze from hers again, looking at the coffee table. “I don’t know. I haven’t looked at the leg yet.”
Ophelia dug around in her bag for a minute before sighing. “I don’t have anything to clean this. I need to call Calliope, I’m sure…”
“No!” He bit his lip, realizing late that his interruption may have been a little too forceful. He couldn’t let Calliope see him like this. It would break her, and that would break him. “Its fine. I’ve got some weird goop she gave me in the bathroom. Should clean it up fine.”
The heat from her glare was nearly as sweltering as the contracts burning blood had been. After a few seconds, she got up, moved to his bathroom, and started rummaging around. She came back with a jar from Callie’s shop labeled Whisperbalm. “Drop your pants?” She said flatly, standing over him.
“Yeah, its gonna be a little more of a process than that.”
“Why?”
Marcus sighed and reached up, pulling the collars of his hoodie and t-shirt back to reveal the jumpsuit, green runes still glowing faintly.
She didn’t speak, and stood uncomfortably still for a long moment before she roughly snatched his hand and started to spread the cool brown goo onto his hand. It stung something fierce when it entered the wound, but the cold sensation soon overwhelmed the pain.
“Strip.” He started to argue with her, but she grabbed him by the chin and forced him to look up at her. The unwavering glare he was met with was something he’d never seen from her before. It was chilling. “Now.”
Marcus just nodded. He stood up gingerly and started peeling off sweat and blood-stained clothes. Ophelia gasped as he pulled the jumpsuit below his knees. He did a double take to make sure he still had his boxer briefs on before realizing the wound was the cause.
Rather than perfectly circular like he’d expected from whatever weird tendril had pierced him, the entry was jagged and had torn a chunk of flesh away. The purple-red discoloration had already spread all the way up his thigh and down his calf, following his veins like a map.
“You’ve just been walking around on this?” Her eyes remained locked on his leg, mouth agape. “Marcus, this is not good. What did this to you?”
He glanced down at the top of her head and chewed on his lip for a moment. She didn’t need the details. There was no point in making her an accessory to his crimes. “It’s a long story.”
“A long…” She looked up from his thigh, locking eyes with him. Her face turned red and her whole body started to shake and she finally let out a guttural yell. “A long story!?” She launched the jar of goop at him, which bounced off his chest and rolled onto the floor.
Marcus took a deep breath and bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. He could feel her about to tear into him, but his brain was not working fast enough to supply him with the correct response.
“Why are you being such an asshole right now? Just tell me what happened so I can help you!”
“I don’t deserve your help!” Marcus snapped, surging to his feet and doing his best to ignore the blinding pain that shot from his thigh through his core. He wavered, but didn’t fall as his arm shot out, pointing to the door. “Just get the fuck out of here!” His breaths came out in pants suddenly, blood pumping through his body, reigniting the blinding pain.
Ophelia’s rage filled eyes softened, then filled with tears. His stomach dropped out from under him as she looked down at her feet and shook her head.
“It looks like blood magic.” She whispered to her tennis shoes while grabbing her bag off the couch. “If it was, you need to find a witch that can cleanse it as soon as possible. There’s a reason it’s illegal.”
Head tilted, eyes locked on the floor in front of her, she turned and left his apartment.
Marcus folded in on himself as he fell back onto the couch. Why had he done that? She was just trying to help him, and he’d pushed her away. Did he deserve her help? Maybe not. He’d personally killed two men and been the cause of who knew how many others. His fingers tangled into his hair, tugging hard to keep the scream from leaving his mouth.
He threw his bad leg forward, placed his heel on his coffee table, and slammed his fist into his thigh. Another dose of searing pain shot through him, but he did it again and again. Anything to stop his mind from racing. His eyes landed on the whisperbalm container after the fourth or fifth strike, as his vision started to blur.
Marcus woke to a dull throbbing pain that matched the tempo of his heart. He groaned and slowly, painfully, sat up. How long had he been out? The sharp stabbing pain had stopped, but now it felt like his body had been dipped in a vat of capsaicin. He reached down to grab the little jug beneath the table but froze when he saw his hand.
The localized discoloration had spread up his forearm, following his veins and threatening his elbow. He slowly stood, looking down at his midsection where the purple had pushed up into his belly and fully encased his leg in terrifying squiggles.
Marcus abandoned the jar and threw his body across the couch to lay down, one hand resting on his stomach where his skin stung the most. Maybe this was it. He could just lay here. Wallow in the pain until it ultimately killed him. Maybe that was exactly what he deserved? Was this the Fates’ joke? No jail time, just his life.
He could go to a clinic. This wasn’t a garden variety illness, but they probably had some kind of magical healer there, right? Then the questions would come. God, he’d come to hate answering questions.
The smart thing would be to call Calliope. She’d have him fixed up in no time. That would be like walking into his own interrogation. A frown crossed his lips at the thought. If she wasn’t already bursting through the door, that meant Ophelia hadn’t told her he was here…or whatever this was on him was spreading faster than he thought.
He’d heard of hedge witches in the city, but he didn’t know where he could find them. Trusting them to pull out whatever magical nonsense was coursing through his veins felt a little suspect.
Exhaustion nearly took him again when he felt something cold crawling up his leg. He swiped at it with his hand, expecting a bug but finding nothing. He groaned and pushed himself to a seated position, checking the immediate area for whatever critter might have been invading his personal space. Nothing between the cushions or on the coffee table. Hell, he’d even gone so far as to get up and lift the edge of the couch to check beneath.
Then he felt it again.
On his stomach this time. He swallowed hard and looked down. Veins bulged and convulsed against his skin, squirming like worms and leaving trails of cool skin wherever they touched.
“Nope…fuck that.” Marcus limped around, pulled on his hoodie and pants, grabbed his keys and was out the door. Halfway out of the parking lot, the adrenaline of some kind of alien chest burster about to erupt from his body dumped, and the pain returned.
Worse.
He needed to get to a hospital. Immediately. His vision blurred, white lines on the road blended together. His fingers refused to grip the wheel. Sirens sounded as he slammed his foot down on the gas pedal.