A Touch Morbid
A Touch
Morbid
LEAH CLIFFORD
To my parents, Noreen and Scot Clifford—I lucked out being your kid
Her feet go down to death;
her steps take hold on hell
.
—PROVERBS 5:5
CHAPTER 1
W
hen the kitten broke out of the shadows in front of Gabe, he’d thought it was another rat until he heard the pathetic mewling. It darted for his leg, fearlessly sliding against the stained jeans Gabe wore. He reached down without thinking, pinched the black fur of its scruff, and lifted it.
The kitten dangled, a tight casing of fur stretched over bones. It let out another pitiful cry. Gabe cupped his hand and plopped the tiny back end of the kitten into it.
“Helpless little thing, aren’t you?” he said quietly. It twitched its bent whiskers. Gabe squatted, resting on his boot heels. Behind his ribs, the evil took hold, liquid nitrogen spreading frost down his arms. He could feel it, like ice crystals forming under his skin. It crept into his fingers.
A trickle of shame slid between his shoulder blades, but he knew the feeling wouldn’t win.
One flick of the wrist
. A slight twist and he would feel much better.
“I’ll be so quick.” Gabe slid his hand down the kitten’s neck, the sharp spine below the surface grating against his palm.
Under his fingers, the damaged thing seemed to rumble suddenly to life. He felt it even through the icy numbness.
“Are you purring?” he asked it. It bumped a pink nose into his palm, rattling with pleasure.
He could feed it. The thought popped into his head. A whole new possibility suddenly there. A hollow ache rippled through him, his fingers warming, the coldness receding.
The kitten’s matted tail curled around his wrist.
“You,” he told it, “are making a mistake. You should run. This won’t end well.” Still, he stood with a wince, cradling the kitten.
He carried the thing back home, to the random apartment. The kitten mewed again as he climbed to the security door. “Almost there.”
Inside, the decrepit elevator groaned as it rose, really a gated cage on cords. Gabe kept his fingers clear of the metal until it came to a stop. He juggled the kitten and eased the grate open. The carpet in the hallway was beyond threadbare, stained and cigarette burned. A light flickered dully from down near the stairwell.
The kitten was still and silent in his arm as he unlocked the door. Clicking the light on, he unzipped his coat.
“Mi casa es su casa,”
he said, dropping the kitten to the gouged hardwood. It sniffed curiously, then sat looking up at him as if waiting.
Gabe squeezed his hands into fists.
“It’ll pass,” he mumbled, more to himself than to the furry creature below. “I can learn to control this, right? Not so hard.” The last words came out more a question than anything else.
The kitten poked warily around the efficiency.
“I can resist. This time will be different,” Gabe said, wandering to the kitchen. The refrigerator was nearly bare—a few ancient take-out boxes he was afraid to open, and a slew of lunch meat containers close to expiring. He pulled the freshest one out, snapped it open, and dropped a hunk of shaved turkey to the tiles. The kitten pounced, sucking the meat down in airy gulps. Gabe tossed the rest of the package on the floor and licked his fingers.
He let out a slow breath, wishing there was a couch to flop onto, a TV to channel surf for distractions.
The mattress in the corner lay atop a box spring, but the bed had no frame. He slunk onto it, listening to the kitten chomp down the last bits of turkey.
In the beginning, the first days after he’d spoken his sins aloud and become one of the Fallen, his memories were murky. He remembered little of the first week, and something deep inside wasn’t sure he wanted that to change. When he had snapped out of his haze, he’d found a card in his pocket, folded up tight, curled around a key. Scrawled in his own handwriting was a note.
You look great in black,
it had said,
but make sure it’s a temporary trend. Never good for more than a season. Go here. Fight the urges. Remember what Az said
. The address to the apartment had been below.
No one had bothered him about rent. There had been a stocked pantry, a few thousand dollars rolled up and tucked into the medicine cabinet. Things had come back to him in the quiet darkness, slowly at first and then more frequently as time passed. A name, out-of-focus faces, best forgotten for their safety. But he still had no idea what the note meant. No idea what Az had said or what he was supposed to be doing.
A week passed. Then another. Nights in Polaroid snapshots. A dark club. Back rooms. Offers. He led the mortals astray, feasted on the hatred in their eyes when he turned them down. Left them wicked and unwanted.
Most times.
Lately, he’d locked himself in. Prayed to wake up alone and in his own bed. He drifted off, hoping this was one of those nights.
Kristen
. Gabe slammed against the floor. His eyes darted around the shell of the apartment even as he shielded them from the sunlight slanting in through the blinds, trying to find the person who’d spoken. The room was empty.
“Kristen?” Her name broke on his lips. Dust sparkled through the light.
He curled his legs underneath him on the hard floor.
The apartment was so cold. He forced himself up and to the thermostat. The heat was on, turned up to seventy-eight. He pressed the button, the numbers rising, rising, but his mind caught hold of something else. A flicker of warmth inside himself.
“She’s alone,” he said to the empty room, his eyes focused beyond the cracked paint on the wall, the yellowed stain reaching down from the ceiling. “‘With all the old nocturnal smells that cross and cross across her brain.’”
He could see her, the vision of her strengthening as the words leaked from him. Her alone and sick, two years ago. Dark hair in long tangled waves, desperate eyes. She’d been so damaged before he’d healed her. She’d been the first Sider he’d talked to and had told him what little she knew of her kind. They’d helped each other, their friendship growing strong. He’d been the only person she’d trusted.
And what’s become of you without me?
he thought. Her lips moved in mute, his name trembling across them.
“Kristen,” he whispered again, and the spell broke.
Gabe closed his eyes. No. It was best not to think of those who used to consider him a friend. Kristen, Az, Eden. He was too dangerous, someone to keep locked in and hidden away where he couldn’t hurt anyone.
A draft slid over his shoulders. He followed it across the floor to the other side of the room and swore softly. When he sighed, he could see his breath.
Sometime in the night, he’d awoken. The window was open.