Jenny Plague-Bringer: (Jenny Pox #4) (39 page)

“That’s me.”

“I’m Dr. Andrea Parker.  I’m an OBG, and I’m here strictly to check on your baby.”

Jenny didn’t say anything.  She wasn’t sure how to take this situation, but obviously
she couldn’t trust anyone here.

“We would like to come into your cell and do an ultrasound,” the doctor said. “Is
that all right with you?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“I don’t know why you would turn down prenatal care.”

“Because I’m a prisoner here?  Because the general is a psychopath?  Believe me, I
know him from way back,” Jenny said.

The doctor looked around the cell where Jenny now lived. “Look, I don’t fully know
the situation, and I understand you don’t want to be here.  I also know a bit about
your...unusual circumstances.  For the sake of your baby, I strongly urge you to let
me help you.”

“Why would Kranzler care about my baby?” Jenny asked.

“Who?”

“Whatever his name is now.  General Ward Kilpatrick.  Is he trying to breed more of
us again?”

“I...don’t know what you’re talking about.  I was brought in to focus on you.  I had
to sign multiple confidentiality agreements under threat of God knows what.  But your
case does interest me.”

“Where did you work before this?” Jenny asked.

“Yale University, most recently.  And I move around the country, several research
hospitals.  I specialize in unborn children with severely ill mothers.”

Jenny nodded.  That sounded promising, but she still wasn’t sold. “What did the general
tell you?  Why did he bring you here?”

“I told you why, Jennifer.  To care for your baby.  If that doesn’t make sense to
you, you’ll have to discuss it with him.  We’ve brought an ultrasound machine. Don’t
you want to make sure your pregnancy is progressing well?  Don’t you want to see your
baby, and learn whether you’re having a boy or a girl?”

Jenny didn’t know what to think.  In their last life, Kranzler had been obsessed with
breeding those who had a supernatural touch, some kind of Nazi eugenics thing.  In
this life, maybe he was just curious about her pregnancy with her pox, and probably
saw Jenny’s baby as a future test subject for himself. She knew that the baby did
need care, and she was dying to know whether the baby was well or not.

“Okay,” Jenny said. “We’ll do it.  Just don’t try to hurt me, or...”

“Lie back on your bed and don’t move,” one of the guards instructed.  Jenny did as
she was told.  They would shackle her first thing.  In the couple of weeks she’d been
here, they’d started letting her wander around her cell, but if anyone came in, she
had to submit to being chained down again.

The four guards passed through the outer door to her cell, then the inner door.  They
approached her cautiously, but she didn’t give them any trouble as they cuffed her
wrists and ankles.  They stood aside as Dr. Parker entered, followed by the other
man in the hazmat suit with the medical markings.  Apparently he was some kind of
technician, because he set up the equipment cart next to Jenny’s bed.

“Just relax, Jennifer,” the doctor said, smiling slightly behind her clear face shield.
“I’ll have to lift your hospital gown.”

Jenny glanced at the four guards in black armor, all of them male.  Dr. Parker followed
her gaze, then said, “We need the four of you to look away.”

“Sorry, doc,” one of the men said, his voice coming from an electronic speaker on
the front of his mask. “We have to keep our eyes on her anytime someone is in the
cell.  Specific orders.”

Dr. Parker sighed, then moved to block their view with her own body.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered to Jenny as she raised the hem of the gown up to Jenny’s
breasts, revealing her pale, swollen belly.  She squirted some kind of shockingly
cold gel onto Jenny’s belly, and Jenny hissed a little. “The gel can feel a bit chilly,”
the doctor warned her, a few seconds too late.

“It does,” Jenny said.

“This is the transducer.” The doctor held up a plastic wand about the size of a flashlight,
but flat and wide at the end. “This will take an ultrasound image of your baby, which
we’ll see here.” She gestured toward a small monitor.

Jenny’s heart raced, and the beeping heart monitor announced it to everyone.  She
was finally going to see her baby.  For a moment, she almost forgot about being a
prisoner.

The doctor pressed the transducer against Jenny’s belly and moved it back and forth. 
Jenny watched, first excited, then frustrated as meaningless gray and black blobs
filled the monitor, appearing and disappearing.

“I don’t see anything,” Jenny said.

“One second.” The doctor moved the transducer again, then gestured at roundish blobs
on the monitor. “You see?  There’s the head, the curve of the back...”

Jenny blinked.  It was like an optical illusion—one moment, it was just shifting blots. 
The next, it was obviously a baby, the head curled inward toward the chest, legs tucked
up toward the belly.

“Oh!” Jenny said.  She bit down and forced herself not to cry, knowing her captors
were watching.  It was almost impossible, because the grainy image was ripping her
heart open.  Then it turned over, swimming like a little fish, and Jenny gasped again.

“Looks like she’s awake,” the doctor said.

“She?  It’s a girl?”

“That’s right.”

“Does she look...is she...healthy?”

“Head to body ratio is good, spine developing correctly...and there, can you see that?”
The doctor pointed to a pulsing shape near the center of the baby-blob. “She’s got
a strong heartbeat.”

“That’s her heart?” Jenny asked.  She heard her voice breaking and cursed herself. 
She had to keep up a tough shell and prevent Ward from seeing her feelings.  The more
love and concern she showed for her unborn child, the more control he would think
he had over her.  Better if everyone thought she was a monster.

“She looks good,” the doctor said. “She’s on the small end of the scale, but so are
you.”

Jenny fought the urge to tell the doctor everything—how she needed a C-section for
the delivery, and she needed Seth standing right beside her.  She told herself there
would be time for that.  If she started begging for things now, then Ward would have
immediate leverage.

“When is this thing going to be out of me, anyway?” Jenny asked. “I’m sick of carrying
it around already.”

The doctor’s eyes widened. “This thing?  You mean the baby girl?”

“Whatever.  I never wanted to get pregnant in the first place.” Jenny scowled. “Now
I’m stuck with this stupid baby.  I hate it already.  Can you do a quick abortion
while you’re here?”

The doctor gave her a look of loathing. “It’s far too late!  You only have eighteen
weeks left.  Expect to deliver at the end of May.”

“That’s going to take forever.  Hey, can I get any painkillers out of this?  Morphine,
maybe?  My feet and back are starting to hurt.” Jenny winked. “Anything with opiates
would be awesome.”

The doctor just shook her head. “You need to keep yourself healthy.  It’s not the
baby’s fault that you didn’t want her.  You have to give her a fair start in life.”

“Oh, sure.  Just tell the general that I need to go for a long jog in the woods every
day.  And tell him to let me out of this place while you’re at it.  And bring me some
fucking cigarettes and a bottle of vodka.  Not the cheap stuff, either.”

“You can’t have any of that,” the doctor said, backing away.  “I don’t know how you
got here, Jennifer, but I’m starting to think that keeping you locked up might be
the best thing for the baby.  Let’s go.”

The technician wheeled the cart as he and the doctor left.  When they were outside
the airlock, the four guards unlocked Jenny’s cuffs and backed out, one by one, their
stun guns pointed at her.

Everything was wrong, Jenny thought.  Seth should have been here, and they should
have been at a normal doctor’s office.  She’d demanded to see him every day, and had
been denied, but now she really needed him.  She lay on her bed and clutched a pillow.

They were at the same base as last time, with the same general in charge, but now
they were caged and monitored with modern technology.  It would be hard to escape.

Only one thing was better: Ashleigh was dead, and so there was no love-charmer, no
version of Alise here to play tricks on her.  If anyone played mind games this time,
it would be Jenny.

* * *

Juliana stood in the lab, looking down at the man with the torture scars strapped
to the hospital gurney.

“Are you sure it’s okay?” she asked Alise, the only other person in the lab.  Kranzler
and the scientists would be watching from the dark windows above, but Jenny wasn’t
thinking about them at all.  She could only think of Alise, beautiful Alise, and doing
whatever would please her.

“Everything’s fine.” Alise smiled and, happily, breathed out another cloud of pink
spores, which felt delicious on Juliana’s arms and neck.  Alise had greeted Juliana
with a dose of it that morning and walked her to the lab, and Juliana had been craving
more.  She wished she could touch Alise—she could only imagine what it would be like
in the girl’s arms, her touch full of warmth and love.

“You should send him to Sebastian when I’m done,” Juliana said, dazed. “Sebastian
can heal him.”

“I’ll take care of it.” Alise winked. “Go ahead.  It’ll be good, I promise.  I love
you, Juliana.  I wouldn’t make you do anything wicked.”

“I love you, too, Alise,” Juliana confessed.  Then she reached out her hands and placed
them on the man on the table—who was, as Alise had pointed out, a convicted criminal
who had hurt people.

The man howled as dark blisters and sores ruptured all over his body, radiating out
from where her hands touched his bare shoulders.  The man went into convulsions, gagging
out pink foamy saliva while his tongue swelled and bled.   

In less than a minute, it was all over, the man lying still and leaking dark blood
from dozens of lesions, his head misshapen.

“You have to get Sebastian now,” Juliana whispered to Alise. “Like you promised.”

“I told you, I’ll take care of everything,” Alise said. “Come on, let’s get out of
the way.  I have some catalogs if you feel like shopping!” Alise blew another cloud
of pink spores at her, and Juliana shivered in delight.

“Anything you want to do is fine with me.” Juliana beamed at her while they left the
lab.  She was already forgetting all about the dead man on the table behind them.

The next morning, an hour before sunrise, Juliana woke in her bed shaking and drenched
in freezing sweat.  Alise’s spell had worn off, and she understood that she’d killed
a man in cold blood.  Alise had thoroughly enchanted her with her dangerous power,
the one that made people mindlessly obedient to her.

Juliana sobbed as the full impact of what she’d done slammed into her.  She’d spent
her life avoiding everyone as much as possible, trying to keep the demon plague trapped
inside her while it was eager to flow out and infect others.  She’d never killed anyone
when it wasn’t self-defense...except for her mother at birth.  Now she’d taken another
innocent life, and she could never undo it.  The idea that the scientists would have
brought Sebastian in after her was a lie—they wanted to study the dead man to understand
her powers, and healing him immediately would have made the entire test pointless.

Juliana clutched her pillow tight.  She looked across the dim room at Mia, sleeping
soundly.  How could she ever face her friend again?  How could she ever face anyone
again?  Juliana felt she deserved to die for what she’d done.

She’d wanted to leave before Alise had ensorceled her—now she would insist on it. 
She promised herself she would never fall under Alise’s spell again. 

A guard appeared at the narrow window in the steel door to Seth’s cell. “You have
a visitor,” the man’s voice said over the intercom. “She’s eager to see you.”

Seth stood up and started for the door, but the guard ordered him to sit back down. 
Seth returned to the edge of his bed.  It had been a long, slow day, broken only by
the arrival of breakfast (toast and canned pineapple) and lunch (toast and beans). 
The guards slid his food trays through a very narrow panel at the bottom of the door,
shoving it deep inside his cell with something like a broomstick.  Seth always had
to catch his tray before it hit the wall and spilled all over his floor. 

The days were otherwise extremely long and slow—he kept refusing to cooperate with
the secretive government agency that had captured them, and in return he had nothing
to read, no television, nothing to do except sit in his cell and wait for nothing
to happen.  His only diversion was looking through all of his new past-life memories,
learning about times he’d lived in nineteenth-century London, in the Italian Renaissance,
the Middle Ages.  He’d often been cast as a kind of sorcerer or witch doctor.  He’d
also spent a number of lives as a nearly invincible warrior, leading armies into conquest,
quickly recovering from countless arrow and sword wounds, which his men naturally
saw as a sign of divine favor, spurring them on to fight harder.