Rue opened her eyes. The first thing she heard was the beeping of heart rate monitors and then the smell of spirit thickened in the air. Immediately, she knew she was still stuck in the hospital of horrors. She sat up on her hospital bed. The smell of coffee drew her gaze to a shadow and then she saw him.
Someone was sitting on a chair just across her bed, concealed in the cover of a darkness created by ward dividers.
Her heart raced so loud that she could hear it throbbing upon the walls of her chest. The figure did not move and neither did she. Minutes passed. Rue sprang from the bed with spring steel quickness, reaching for a used syringe in the garbage bin.
A boy jumped from the shadow.
"I swear to God, if you come any closer, I'm going to poke this syringe into your eye." Rue clenched her teeth to seem like she really meant it.
The boy raised his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay," he said and stepped backwards.
Rue studied him carefully. He was tall with broad shoulders and most importantly, he wasn't covered in black vapours nor has any creepy tentacles. He was just a normal boy, wearing a black biker's jacket with a hoodie concealing most of his head.
"Take it down," she ordered.
After the events of last night, she had to be sure.
"What?"
"You know what I mean," Rue pointed the syringe at his left eye.
He pulled down his hoodie slowly, revealing a dark spiky hair. For a moment, he looked like one of those bad boys weed peddlers in her school. His eyes were grey and seemed to stare deep into one's soul.
"Satisfied?" he dropped his hands.
Rue lowered her hand slowly, but still held tight to the syringe. "What do you want?"
He walked slowly to the window and stared straight into the golden spread of morning sunlight over the tall greens of Serpent's Creek.
"I'm here to help you?"
"I don't need any help," she said, "and even if I did, not one from a total stranger. You best come up with a better excuse or you will be leaving here with a syringe stuck in your eye"
He turned around quickly and faced her. "Feisty," a bold smile formed on his face, "I like you already."
"The County Sheriff is in the next room waiting for them to give the go ahead to interrogate you. What are going to tell them, Rue Baker? That a fiendish creature attacked you and killed four nurses last night? That you thought it was your shadow walking around and killing people again? No one's gonna believe that, in fact you would be given a one-way ticket to Crack Hill's loony bin."
Rue froze. Moments passed and she sat on the bed slowly. "How . . . how did you know about me?"
"That's not important," he came forward and held her shoulders, his grey eyes staring straight into hers, "and you were right. It wasn't yours that killed all those people last night, it was a Familiar summoned by Ajax, the leader of a rival Coven."
"What?"
"I'm going to tell you all about it, about us, about our kind, but we must leave now," he said.
"No," Rue pulled away from his grip, "tell me everything now if you want me to come with you."
Two knocks hammered on the door.
Rue went silent and shared a glance with the boy. He walked to the ward divider and hid behind it.
"Open the door," he whispered, "but be careful."
Her fingers wrapped around the doorknob. It was cold. She opened the door to a priest in all black cassock and a cross hanging from a rosary around his neck.
"Rue Baker," the priest called, pressing a bible to his chest.
"Yes," she answered half-surprised, "who are you?"
The priest shoved past the half open door and entered the room. His eyes circled around the ward, searching every corner intently.
"Who are you?" Rue repeated.
"That's not important." the priest answered immediately. "What's important is that I can help you."
Rue felt a sudden wave of chill spread over her body. It wouldn't require an expert to put it all together. The priest's tone and the atmosphere of the room suggested only one thing, the events of last night have put her in mortal danger.
"Why me?" her lips trembled.
She shifted to the side of the hospital bed to be closer to the syringe she had left on it. The priest walked to one end of the wall and stared at it strangely. His eyes lingered on it as if it held some unknown importance.
"I know everything about you, Rue Barker. I know at age eleven, you put your little brother in a coma. The hospital ruled it an accident, but we both know what happened."
Her heart began to drum faster and faster. Anxiety crept upon her and she felt the warmth of sweat licking her pale skin.
"Who are you? No one knows about that except me and my parents."
A moment of uncomfortable silence descended in the ward.
"It was an accident," Rue continued, "I didn't know what was going to happen. I had no control."
"Exactly!" the Priest bellowed. He pulled out a short silver blade hidden in the pages of his bible and cleaned it gently on the arm of his cloth. "Your kind is nothing but a sickness in this town and the world at large. Forgive me for what I must do."
Rue pointed the syringe at him. She went behind her hospital bed and pulled it up to fall on its side to act as a barrier between them.
"What do you want from me?" she cried.
"I want you to die!" the Priest charged towards her.
The ward dividers came crashing down and the boy jumped from behind. The Priest turned and swung his blade at him. It cut through the surface of his jacket, slicing the flesh on the boy's arm. He screamed and halted. Smoke poured out of his wound like vapour from dry ice.
"Be careful, Rue, don't let him cut you with the silver," he yelled.
"Two," the Priest's lips parted in a smile, "the Watch will be happy when I bring them your heads."
The Priest jumped over the barrier. His cold fingers tightened around Rue's throat. She dug the syringe into the side of his neck only to realize her weapon was only an instrument of brief pain. The Priest pulled it from his neck, beads of blood forming around the wound. He squeezed harder, tightening his grip around her throat.
Rue fought hard to breathe.
She scratched and clawed at him, but he was far stronger. Life escaped her with each strained breath. Her energy was waning. She felt an uncanny wave resonate through her body. It was an odd feeling that made her heart seemed too big in her chest. She could feel it pressing upon her rib cage. Rue remained still. She knew it was her diabolical half fighting to be free. Her Dark Passenger protected her. It loved her in a sick way. She felt it again, just like it surfaced when her little brother had tried to suffocate her in his attempt to free her from darkness.
For the first time, Rue gave in willingly. She surrendered her body to the seduction of its malevolent power.
Her eyes turned black as a moonless midnight sky. It came forth from her like a shadow with a form of darkness and trails of black smoke escaping its gaunt figure. It moved so fast, beyond track of the keenest eyes, and possessed the Priest.
The clergy's fingers loosened around Rue's throat and she fell on the floor.
"No . . . no . . . no,"
He staggered towards the boy, holding his neck as if trying hard to breathe. His fingers dug into the flesh of his throat, clawing down. Blood streamed down the side of his eyes, his nose, and ears. In an instant, his hair grew to a pale milky colour. His skin shrunk and shrivelled liked the limbs of an old woman. Bones snapped and broke at his joints.
"You . . . you think you are . . . free," he stammered holding his neck in pain, "they . . . they will only send another. They will . . . send . . . him."
"Who?" the boy knelt beside him.
The Priest dropped his hands and collapsed on the floor. Blood pooled around his lifeless body. Rue walked slowly towards the boy with eyes still blackened. Her shadowy fiend parted from the corpse on the floor and turned its formless face to the boy. It crept towards him.
"It is me, Rue," he bellowed, "I'm on your side."