Idle Hands Ch. 04

Josh leaned his head and shoulders out the window, his sandy hair whipping around his ears. The gun in his hand barked, jerking his hands back. Once, then twice more in rapid succession. A howl of rage and pain sounded from behind them, and the loathsome figure pinwheeled away.

Just in time. Honking the horn desperately, Jeremy ran a red light, avoiding two cars crossing in front of them only by slaloming in a long, terrifying s-curve that nearly resulted in them t-boning a tractor trailer that was pulling out of a warehouse. Muttering curses under his breath like prayers, Jeremy juked into the oncoming lane, shoved the accelerator to the floor, and pulled around the huge vehicle just before he could run down a group of day-tripping motorcyclists.

"Any sign of him?" he panted as he took the right-hand turn onto 63rd Street, a trail of angry shouts and raised middle fingers in their wake.

"Not yet," Josh answered. "I got him in the hand or wrist, I think. Broke his grip on the trailer right when he was going to peel off another strip."

"You did," Althea answered with Rachel's voice. "But that didn't incapacitate him. Demon-spawn heal quickly. Beheading is the preferred method of killing them."

"Now you tell me," Josh cracked. "And me without my favorite choppin' ax." From behind came a snort of laughter, then Rachel leaned forward to kiss him on the neck.

"Before we all get killed, we might as well introduce ourselves," she said.

"Of course," Yasna replied with mock gravity. "When we die and go to paradise, we should be on first-name terms."

"I'm Rachel Wainwright. That's Jeremy Edwards driving the truck. Beside you is my husband, Joshua Sunderman, and my daughter Sarah is back here with me. In the trailer we have my son Alex and his girlfriend Maria Ochoa. And of course, Althea Carpenter inside my head."

"Pleased to meet you all." The words sounded hopelessly inane. "Doctor Yasna Marafi, Chief of Surgeons at the University of Chicago Medical Center."

"Any idea where he is, Althea?" Jeremy asked. His hands were bone-white where they clenched the wheel as they barreled up 63^rd Street. Less than a mile ahead, Yasna could see the overpass and the streaming lights of cars on the expressway.

"Not behind us," came the rich voice from behind them. It sounded slightly uncertain. Doing nearly sixty, the truck blew through a green light at Martin Luther King Drive.

When the attack came, it was so swift and from a direction so unexpected Yasna could do little more than gasp. From their left, in the dim, dank darkness of the Norfolk and Southern train depot, came a flickering shadow. The truck rocked under the assault, and Yasna could see Kincaid's horrible form clinging to the trailer like a massive four-legged tick. Splay-legged, its arms and legs bunched with muscle, it crawled towards them.

"What is it doing?"

"Probably intends to kill Jeremy and wreck the truck and then kill us all at its leisure," Rachel said. "Maybe you shouldn't have shot him, Josh," she giggled hysterically. "All you did was make him mad."

Dressed in the tattered remnants of its suit, the demon-spawn crawled towards them. It leaped, crossing the gap between the trailer and the truck as easily as she jumped across cracks in the sidewalk when she was a little girl.

"Down, Sarah," Rachel said. Seconds later, a taloned fist crashed through the back window, spraying them all with shards of glass. Yasna yelped with pain as a piece glanced off the back of her hand, drawing blood. Josh wheeled in his seat, firing his gun through the window. She thought she saw Kincaid hit, but if he was, he shrugged off the wounds with contemptuous ease.

His clawed hands reached through the window, groping for Jeremy. He hunched forward in his seat, his hands frozen to the wheel like a sea-captain lashed to the mast. "You want me?" he screamed, his voice taut with terror. "Come and get me, you fucking bastard! I'm right here! Come on!"

Through the screams and howling wind and the din of the attack, Yasna thought she could hear the grotesque chuckle of the beast. It withdrew from the back window. One hand gripped the frame of the cab of the truck, ready to swing around and rip open the driver's-side door.

As it pivoted, Jeremy's lips moved in an unvoiced prayer. He pressed the pedal to the floor, and the truck leaped forward as if it had been stung. Shouting incoherently, he jerked the wheel to the left, bringing the truck speeding past the concrete abutments which held up the Ross Avenue overpass.

Splat!

Even superhuman strength was no match for physics. The track brushed by the abutment doing nearly seventy miles an hour. Taken utterly by surprise, Kincaid had time for no more than a hoarse shout of fear before the pillar peeled him off the truck like a fingernail flicking away an orange seed. Yasna looked in the side mirror, but could see little more than a flailing, tumbling pile of bloody rags receding in the distance.

"Well," Jeremy said, his voice satisfied. "That's the end of that."

"Ummm...no, Jeremy. It isn't," Rachel's weak voice replied from behind them. As Yasna turned, she struggled back into her seat from her place on the floor. Her daughter, whom she had protected with her own body, followed. Shards of glass glittered in her dark hair like spangled diamonds.

"What? Are you kidding me? Nothing human could survive that."

"No. Nothing human could."

It took only a second for the import of her words to strike home. "Oh." Chastened, Jeremy turned away, slowing down so he could take the exit to the expressway.

"So, Dad," came Sarah's weak voice from behind them. "Did you get the optional insurance when you rented the trailer?"

*****

They pulled into the driveway of the house forty-five minutes later. Josh exited the truck, brushing glass shards away from his suit jacket, and gaped at the trailer. It looked like someone had gone after it with a butcher knife the size of a lamppost. Shredded metal hung off of it in strips and huge holes were punched in the sides.

Alex! Maria! Althea!

He rushed to the back and pulled up the door, afraid of what he might see inside. His son knelt at Althea's side, looked up briefly, then back at the bed. "Hey, Pop," he said carelessly. "Help me and Maria get her out of here, huh?"

"Interesting ride home?" he asked, trying to match his son's nonchalant attitude.

Alex shrugged. "I've had worse."

"Like hell you have." Maria said flatly, and Josh jumped. He didn't think he had ever heard the sweet-tempered Latina curse before. "Gunshots and squealing tires and people screaming bloody murder." She paused for a beat. "Reminds me of prom night at my high school."

Josh shouted with laughter, and even Alex gave a weak grin. Working together, they wrestled the bed out of the trailer and up the steps. They were stymied at the front door, however, as it was too narrow to wheel the bed through. Alex solved the impasse by the simply lifting Althea's body up and carrying her into the house.

"Where to, Mom?" he asked.

She pointed him to one of the spare rooms on the ground floor. "In there. Your father set it up earlier this evening." She looked around at the rest of them. "I know we've all just been through one hell of an experience," she said. "No pun intended." She waited until the rueful chuckles died away. "But we don't have time to waste. Kincaid was injured badly, but not killed. And the demon-spawn are the next closest thing to immortal that we are ever likely to see. Once he recovers he will not hesitate to attack us. Our only shield is Althea. So our best bet at safety is to restore her to her body.

"Go and clean up. If you were hurt, peroxide and band-aids are in the medicine cupboards."

"I've got my medical bag if you have a serious injury," Yasna put in helpfully, showing the item in question.

Rachel nodded her thanks. "Everyone showers. If you are a man, shave. Put on something clean and comfortable. Yasna, come on upstairs with me. I'll get you something to wear. Everyone else, back down here in thirty minutes. Go."

*****

"Do you really know what you are getting yourself into?" Rachel asked her as she led Yasna up the back stairs.

She felt her lips quirk in an unmeant smile. "Probably not. But that doesn't matter. I saw the face of evil at the hospital tonight, Rachel. It would kill you, me, Althea, and everyone else in the wide green world, and even that would not satisfy it. That sort of evil must be opposed. No matter the cost. Even if it's my own life."

Rachel nodded soberly. "I know what you mean," she said. "What I did before I met Althea, it just doesn't mean as much as it did. I used to be a lawyer. Still am a lawyer, I suppose, though I'm not actively practicing any more."

A spark of humor manifested. "Why?" She let her voice take on a teasing tone. "Weren't you any good at it?" She stopped, surprised at her rudeness. "I'm sorry. That was...unpardonable. Especially after you and your family put themselves at risk for me."

"Forget it." Despite her blunt words, Rachel's face was kind. She led her into a sumptuous bathroom. Yasna paused at the threshold, comparing it to the tiny closet of a bathroom she had in her condo in Hyde Park. "Make yourself at home. I'm going to find some clean clothes for you." She eyed her body critically, holding Yasna's surgical scrubs away from her body. She nodded. "We're about the same size, though you're a bit taller. And if you stopped hunching your shoulders, it would make your tits look bigger. But that's not my business. For now.

"So," she said as she stepped out of the room. The door stayed open, an invitation to gossip. "What's your story? Althea can read a lot about a person just by touching them. So we got a bit out of you when we met earlier today. You're originally from Iran?"

She shook her head as she disrobed. She cast a longing look at the sunken tub, but then opened the door to the walk-in shower. A quick turn of the handle had blessedly hot water pouring out of the nozzle overhead. She left the door open so they could talk, reminded of long weekends with her girlfriends, years ago. When they would stay up all night, exchanging stories and dreams of their futures.

And sometimes, more than that.

"My family is, not me," she said. "My father was a doctor. When the Ayatollah took power, back in the seventies, he took my mother and fled the country. America was welcoming, at least for a while." She tried not to let bitterness cloud her voice. She stepped into the shower, sighing as the warm water caressed her skin, washing away the stink of fear. "I was born after they settled here."

"Husband? Children?" Rachel's voice was carefully neutral.

"None," she replied shortly. She lathered her body with scented soap, trying not to imagine it was Althea's hands spreading it across her eager flesh. "Please, understand. My father was a good man, and no reactionary. But the move to America broke something inside him. He held onto the old ways, because he could not adapt. Back home-" she cut herself off and laughed. "Listen to me! I still speak as he did! Back home, he was a learned man. An educated man. But here...he could not speak the language. He was mocked as an immigrant. He! Who held a degree from the Tehran University of Medical Sciences! He was forced to find work as a janitor. Then as a cab driver.

"So when I graduated from medical school, following in his footsteps, he was very proud. But he also tried to make a marriage for me. A young Iranian man of good family, who had fled just as we did." Why not tell the truth, you coward? You opened your soul to him. Told him in what direction your desires led. And he ignored you. "I...agreed. It was a mistake. We did not suit each other. Or rather, I did not suit him. He wanted a...a traditional wife. Like his mother. And I, who had been raised in Chicago, not Tehran or Isfahan or Meshhad, was not traditional. At all. We divorced three years ago." She rinsed off the soap and stepped out of the shower, only to meet a smiling Rachel, holding a towel between her spread arms. She wrapped it around her and led her to her bedroom, where she presented her with a choice of clean clothing, mostly loose t-shirts and cut-off jogging shorts.

"I have to warn you," she said, as Yasna slipped into a pair of sheer white panties, "our efforts to heal Althea might be a little...disturbing. She is a being who gets her power through sex, after all."

Yasna smiled as she shrugged her way into a cotton t-shirt, the soft fabric of the clean cloth wonderfully cool on her skin. She tried to ignore the way Rachel's eyes lingered on her, the look frankly appreciative. She glanced away, embarrassed at the attention. "Well, I doubt that you have some sort of virgin sacrifice planned. Do you?"

Rachel laughed. "No. We don't. There being a complete lack of virgins in this household. A circumstance I do not find at all distressing. Despite some people's insistence to the contrary, I have never thought that virginity is a desirable trait. At least after I deflowered my husband," she grinned. "One benefit of being a man's first lover," she continued, as Yasna bound her hair back with a scrunchie, "is that you have the opportunity to shape him as you like."

She stripped down to bare skin, oblivious to Yasna's widening eyes, and took her place in the shower.

"Come on in so I don't have to shout," she called. Yasna followed her, sitting on the lip of the bathtub.

"So I have to ask, because someone is bound to eventually. What is your..." her voice trailed off, oddly hesitant.

"My religious affiliation? I am a Muslim, of course, as were my parents before me."

"And your sect? Or am I being rude?" She closed her eyes as she lathered her face. Yasna eyed her hungrily, taking in the proud swells of her white breasts, the coral-pink nipples that jutted out perkily from their centers. When Rachel rinsed her face and looked at her, she dropped her eyes, flushing with shame.

Perhaps she is different. Perhaps she will not judge me.

And Althea. Oh, Althea. If the tales they tell about you are true...

She shook off the thought. "We were Shia. I still am Shia, I suppose, although I am not active in my mosque." She tried to explain the tangled history of Islam to this gorgeous woman. "Shia are the followers of the Prophet's nephew, Ali. We split off from the Sunni after the Prophet's death."

"All right," Rachel nodded, soaping her legs. "And are there subdivisions within the Shia? Are they...you...more moderate than the Sunni? Or less?"

"Broadly, more moderate, I suppose." She shrugged. "There are divisions within the Sunni. And the Shia. Splinter groups and different interpretations of the Prophet's words. But there are radical Sunni. And Shia. Just like Christians have radical fringes of Catholicism and Protestantism. I could explain the subdivisions of Islam, but I doubt you'd understand without having the necessary background. It would be like a Christian trying to explain the difference between an Episcopalian and a Methodist to me."

Rachel laughed, the sound delightfully cheerful. "I've been a Christian my whole life, more or less, and I don't understand it. Although I will admit the last several weeks have made me more of a believer." She stepped out of the shower, taking the towel Yasna offered her with murmured thanks. As she dried off, Josh entered the bathroom, stripped unselfconsciously, and took her place in the shower.

"Starting to get a little crowded in here," he said cheerfully. "Good thing this place has a big hot-water heater. Rachel, have you shown Yasna her room?"

"My room? I'm not staying here."

"Well, of course you are," Rachel said, speaking to her as if she were a not-terribly-bright child. "Do you think we'd drive you home and leave you alone with Kincaid running around off his leash? That's assuming," she continued, "that he has one, which I do not believe for a second. He found Althea. Which means he knows who her doctor is. Which means that your home is not safe for you until he is dead."

"Don't worry," Josh said, industriously lathering his crotch. Yasna turned her face politely away. "We have plenty of room here. Two guest bedrooms here on the second floor. And the couch in the basement opens into a bed. Or, if you're a glutton for punishment, you can sleep on the couch downstairs. I've done that more than once when Rachel was pissed at me."

Rachel blushed becomingly, the blood showing pink under her fair skin. "Josh!" she scolded. "It's been years since that happened."

"Only because we were divorced. I am sure that if I had been living here it would have happened a few more times." He stepped out of the shower and looked in the mirror, a towel draped negligently around his lean hips. Rachel caught her glance and smiled. "Do you really think I have to shave?" he asked, fingering the blond stubble on his cheeks.

"Yes," Rachel said firmly, making him sigh. With a put-upon groan he began to lather his face and scrape off his bristles.

"How are the kids doing?" Rachel asked.

"All right," he answered. "Alex has Althea ready to go. He and Maria are taking care of Sarah. No, not that way," he said as Rachel raised her eyebrows curiously. "Try to keep your mind out of the gutter, Venus. Sarah was pretty shaken up by the whole thing. I don't think she truly believed until she saw that thing in the hospital coming after us. You might want to have a talk with her later."

"I will."

"Good." He wiped the remnants of shaving lotion from his face, eying it with a suspicious frown. He sighed. "How did I get so old?" He touched his temples. In the bright light of the bathroom, Yasna could see delicate threads of silver running through his hair.

Rachel took his hand in hers, leaning up to kiss his cheek. The gesture was so simple in its expression of love Yasna had to look away, her eyes stinging with unshed tears. "You are just as beautiful to me now as you were the night I met you," she whispered softly. "Are you ready to do this?"

"I-L-L," he murmured, so low Yasna could barely hear.

"I-N-I," Rachel answered.

*****

They gathered in the spare room on the ground floor. Some standing, some sitting, some leaning uncomfortably against the walls. In the middle of the room, Althea's nude body lay on a low wooden platform, no more than waist high, cushioned by a down comforter. Her head was propped up by a pair of pillows, reminding Yasna uncomfortably of funerals she had attended. In defiance of her morbid thoughts, Althea's golden skin seemed to glow in the dim light.

To Yasna's eyes, she no longer looked like she was sleeping. Instead, it seemed that she was waiting.

Rachel cleared her throat, bringing their attention to her. "It's time. What we do here tonight may make you uncomfortable. Althea and I do not ask that you take part if you are unwilling." She took a deep breath. "Thanks to our efforts, Althea has regained much of her power. It should be sufficient to allow her to move back to her body. But she has been away from it for some time. Longer than she ever has before.

"We must remind her body of the joy to be had in sex. Make it again the willing vessel of her spirit. Also, the transfer is going to take an incredible amount of power. To help cushion the drain, Althea has asked me to...to..."

She closed her eyes, speaking as if she couldn't believe what she was saying. "We're going to have ourselves a nice little orgy in here, and if anyone laughs at me, so help me God I will punch you right in the face!"

"Orgy?" Sarah asked weakly. Beside her, Jeremy swallowed, his larynx bobbing jerkily.