The Bird and the Garden 3: The Final Adventure

Chapter 21: Dark Intentions

Jack took a step back, dropping the empty syringe on the ground, crushing the glass under his boot. "You do not have very much time left, mom ami," he cooed in his soft voice. "You'll turn into one of them, soon enough... Maybe monsieur Rojo could help..."

Something hot trickled down her face. Her hand brushed her cheek, terror gripping her chest when she saw red. Her eyes were bleeding. With a choked cry, she threw the door open and staggered down the halls. Jack sighed, holding up his hand.

"Restez ici, tout le monde," he ordered calmly. And with his smile widening, he followed after the slave. She'd lead him right to Rojo's office, and he couldn't wait to see the expression the Cardinal would give.

Jack was completely aware of the Timelines, and he fully intended to use the knowledge as he saw fit.

The slave child stumbled down the halls, trying to get away from the Ripper. Her hand trailed against the wall for support, coughing with the sickness the Blood brought. Her lungs burned with each cough, her head growing hotter and hotter, until it felt like her brain would melt. Her face burned, her skin growing pale. Blood dripped from her eyes and her nose, leaving a trail. Jack knelt down, trailing his finger through the small pools. He suckled on his fingertip, ecstasy flickering in his calm eyes.

Slop, slop...

The slave looked back at her hand, a gurgled shriek escaping her quivering lips. Her arm was changing. It was melting, turning into something else. She pushed her legs harder, blood squirting from beneath her toenails with each ragged, desperate breath. Her legs expanded, the flesh growing over the nails of her toes. With nowhere for the blood to go, it swelled in her feet like grotesque balloons, threatening to pop at any second.

She couldn't see out of her right eye. With an intense pain that nearly brought her to her knees, her eye melted from her skull. Behind her, Jack chuckled.

"Mademoiselle... Verde made one miscalculation in her experiments," he cooed. "The Blessed can vary. It doesn't matter, so long as you have it. But taking it in different ways yields different results..."

She could see Rojo's door. Just a little closer. Her arm melted into her stomach, her intestines unravelling inside her body to coil around her organs, constricting them like a serpent. With a pained, watery yelp, her teeth began to quiver in her gums. They were moving.

"You see," Jack continued. "The First of the Blessed, monsieur Vao, consumed the Blood orally... It leaves him looking human, but inside his head he is among the Blessed... Physical mutation, however... You turn into one of them... It depends on how much you take... The younger they are, the less Blood it takes to become Blessed by the Dark God... Verde thought that as long as you have it in your body, you'll transform."

Her fingers melted together like a mitten when she grabbed the door handle, struggling to turn it. She could feel the syringe pressing into where her neck used to be. From the eyes that grew on her back, she could see Jack slowly pressing the button.

The Blood seeped into her destroyed body, slowly becoming... Addicting. Wheezing, she pushed the door open.

Rojo groaned, rubbing his face with his big hands. "Oh for the love of... What no..." He trailed off when he looked up, his jaw falling open in utter horror. He didn't know what he was looking at. It was impossible to describe.

The fleshy, pulsating thing trembled and quivered, dozens of eyes staring back at him. And from its three mouths, it spoke in a gravelly, wet voice. Yet it was familiar; the thing used to be the slave who he had spoken to only moments ago.