"Helping you." He looked around to make sure no one noticed them, then started her on her way. "It's okay, Gaby."
Okay? How the hell could anything ever be okay? "Yeah? I'd like to know why you think so."
He put an arm around her, and a small smile appeared on his sallow face. "Because I finally understand. That's why."
Rubbery knees refused to support her. Churning acid continually tried to forge a path from her stomach out her mouth. She wanted to cry—but wouldn't.
"You should get away from me, Morty."
"With those creepy things running around? Forget it. It's safer by you."
He couldn't start thinking of her as his hero. "You're dumber than I thought, Mort."
"I know."
She pierced him with her gaze, but he only looked around, worried and nervous. "We should probably get going."
The enervating effect of the kill waned, but she remained shaky and sick at her stomach. "If you stick by me, and either of us is seen, you're fucked."
"It'd be tough to explain, that's for sure." He peered down a dark alley, then turned back toward her. "Come on. If we go home this way, we're less likely to be seen by the cops."
No one in his right mind traveled the area along the back alleys.
Not if he wanted to live.
"Fine."
Together, they ventured along the rough brick wall to the very back of the narrow way, then traversed a low concrete wall. A skinny lane stretched along the backs of closed or empty businesses. This time of night, with only the muted drone of street noises out front and the occasional scratching of creatures that feasted off refuse, each footstep echoed a hollowed heartbeat.
More buildings, in worse decrepit shape, lurked behind the lane. Ahead of them, yellowed rats' eyes gleamed; druggies shot up; in the worst of the structures, homeless camped out.
It'd be easy to get cornered. It'd be easy for someone to hurt Mort.
If he was alone.
Determined to protect him, Gaby got herself together and took the lead. "Try to be quiet." Obsidian darkness swallowed the sight of doorways and blanketed all sound. Moonlight couldn't find its way between the tall block walls and shingled roofs.
They'd walked in silence for several minutes when Mort asked, his voice shivering, "Do you think more of those things are out here?"
"No." Broken glass crunched under her feet, nearly penetrating her flimsy soles. Something squishy found its way into the sandal and between her toes. With every nerve in her body drawn painfully taut, Gaby continued on. "But there are worse things."
"Worse than those freaks?"
Enraged beyond rational reason, she turned on Mort and slammed him into the nearest brick wall. "They're people" she said from between her teeth. She choked on her impotence, the impossibility of the situation. "Damaged, sick, broken by the foulest disease. But still humans who, if they weren't already tainted by a mangled past, would need our help."
"All right, Gaby."
The soft plea of his voice worked better than a sharp blow. She released him to rub the heels of her palms against her burning eye sockets. Salty tears would ease the pain. And make it worse. "They're sick."
Mort's hand touched her shoulder. "I know, and I'm sorry."
She shook her head and slapped away his hand. "Christ, don't apologize to me when I'm the one attacking you!"
"You've been through a lot."
So had he.
Because of her.
Unbearable. It was all becoming so unbearable.
She turned and started on her way again. But now that he'd touched her with his sympathy, she couldn't contain herself. So low that she could barely hear herself, she whispered, "I've fought monsters, Mort."
"I know."
He had no idea. "The problem now is that…" How to word it? "I killed, and yet, it wasn't the monster I killed. There's a creature, a real fiend, creating these beings and somehow forcing them to act. Or…" As she recalled the first evil being, the way he'd looked at that child, the mingling of pain and lust in his eyes, her thoughts tried to sort it out. "Maybe they're just being allowed to act. Maybe the pain of the sickness has distorted their brains, unleashing something they'd once buried."
"I don't know what you mean, Gaby."
She didn't want to stop again. Whether he comprehended or not, talking eased the conflagration of emotions.
And so she talked on. "Some beings, some… afflictions, can bury their black ways. In the next life, they can't escape retribution, but for this world it helps them survive, to avoid arrest and conviction. No true corruption can ever be fully sequestered, so pain, sickness, can bring out those dormant propensities."
"You think the people you… dealt with tonight, had hidden evil?"
"I know they did. So did that grisly specter that Luther found a few days ago."
"Luther said the body was mangled."
"Yeah."
"That was you?"
She heard no denouncement from him, only curiosity.
"When I'm in the zone, I can't control it. I do what feels right, what I can do, and sometimes it's so bad that the body isn't recognizable."
"You're talking about when that strange thing happens to you?"
When her features contort. The reality of that struck another blow, but Gaby fended it off. So she wasn't as different from the bane of immorality as she'd thought. She'd deal with that as she'd dealt with everything else—the best way she knew how. "I thought that I'd removed the evil, but that was just a creature made by the evil. This isn't something I've dealt with before. I don't know where the next one might be—"
"You're sure there'll be more?"
Gaby nodded. "I don't know where they originate, and that's the key. But there are more."
Though she didn't know how to reassure him, she could feel Mort's fear. "I have to find the maker. I have to find the core of the degeneration."
Mort sidled closer to her, so close she could feel his nervous breath on her nape. "Do you know how to do that? How to hunt it?"
"Not really. I've never had to before. Usually I'm sent to the evil. I don't understand why I'm not being sent now."
Mort fell silent, but not for long. "Maybe the person doing all this is confused, and if he doesn't know what he's going to do, how could you know?"
She said only, "God would know." The raw edge of an exposed, broken pipe gouged the tender flesh above her elbow. Her skin tore; warm blood spilled.
The injury burned, but not enough to distract her. "Careful." She guided Mort around the obstruction, then used her sleeve to mop away the blood.
"Thanks." Mort bumped into her twice before they found another companionable rhythm. "Gaby? Is it at all possible that the people you killed aren't evil? I mean, they were messed up for sure. But maybe they weren't as evil as you're talking about."
"They were." Her thoughts wandered back through time. "Once, when I was younger—"
"You're young now."
If you went by experience, she was older than anybody should ever be. "I was in my late teens, I think, living in this rundown apartment. A woman next door to me killed her husband, and I didn't know it."
"But I thought…"
"I know. You think I'm some superhero or some such crazy shit. But I'm not, Mort, so don't get yourself confused. That woman? She shot her husband for cheating on her. I overheard her telling the police that he'd come home drunk, and he told her she was looking old, that she turned him off. He told her he'd been fooling around with a younger woman. So she got their old thirty-eight pistol and she shot him in the head."
"A woman scorned, huh?"
"I stood there, stunned because I hadn't realized anything was happening. There'd been no pain, no calling. Later I realized it was because what happened was normal."