Wesley Snipes - Talon of God

When the doors opened again, the view was very different. Spooky as it had been, at least the trashed mansion had been recognizably human. By contrast, the hallway in front of them now looked like some kind of alien prison with its harsh overhead lights, smooth concrete floor, and—worst of all—what appeared to be glass-fronted, steel-barred cells running down either side. With the lights off, Lauryn couldn’t actually see what the cells contained. She was trying to decide if that was a blessing or a curse when Korigan moved to grab her hair again.

Desperate to avoid the pain, she put up her hands in surrender and walked forward on her own, staying as close to the lit center of the wide hallway as possible. On either side, she could hear the things inside the darkened cells, a terrifying mix of pained moans and horrible, inhuman buzzing. If she looked hard enough, she could even see them moving in the dark—hands pressing against the glass walls, masses writhing—so she didn’t look. This, she realized, must be the zoo Korigan had mentioned. It was even more horrible than she’d imagined, so she tried to focus on other things, keeping her eyes straight ahead as Korigan walked her down the middle of the dark hall, her terrified mind clinging to the psalm her father had always made her recite whenever she’d admitted to being afraid. The one that had given her strength the last time she met Korigan.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

Korigan jerked her hair, making her gasp in pain. “I didn’t permit you to speak.”

Lauryn hadn’t realized she was speaking, but the words wouldn’t stop.

I will fear no evil, for you are with me.

“What did I just say?” he snarled, shoving her so hard she stumbled. When he reached down to yank her back up, though, he froze, eyes wide with terror. Above his leather glove, the flesh of his wrist was rotting before their eyes, the gray skin flaking off in huge chunks to reveal the bone underneath. It was a horrifying sight, and for long heartbeat, they were both struck dumb before Korigan grabbed his sleeve and tugged it down, hiding the flesh from view.

“Go,” he snarled, clutching his decaying arm to his side. “Hurry.”

Lauryn didn’t want to do anything he said, but she also wanted to escape this awful place, so she obeyed, picking up the pace as the two of them rushed through the rest of the dark, cell-lined passage to the doorway at the end. Here, the hall opened up into a much larger room. Normally, that would have made Lauryn happy. She wasn’t exactly claustrophobic, but she’d never enjoyed small underground spaces, and anything should have felt like paradise after that horrible hallway. But even though this place was almost airy by comparison to the prison corridor, it was definitely not an improvement.

They had entered what was clearly a lab, but it was like no medical laboratory Lauryn had ever seen. Some of the machines were the same, but interspersed between them were horrible devices that looked like a cross between a mad scientist’s creations and sacrificial altars. Recently used ones, given the astonishing amount of blood that coated their surfaces.

A day ago, any one of them would have been enough to make Lauryn freeze in terror. Now, though, given all the other hell she’d walked through to get here, she just turned away in disgust, scanning the bloody room for the reason Korigan had brought her here.

He was easy to find. In the whole giant room, there was only one person to be seen: a handsome older man in an unspeakably expensive tux standing in the middle of the lab with his back to them, his hands clasped at his sides as he stared into what could only be described as a pure black cube.

“Welcome back, Victor.”

Lauryn jerked back. She knew the voice, of course. She wasn’t even surprised to discover that Christopher St. Luke sounded exactly the same in person as he did on television. What she wasn’t prepared for was what happened when he turned around, revealing a shirt front and white tie that were every bit as blood soaked as the rest of the room. There was blood on his face as well, painting a joker’s smile across the smooth shaved line of his neatly trimmed beard as he flashed Lauryn a hungry grin.

“And you’ve brought a gift.”

The sight of his bloody teeth was enough to make her gag. If Korigan hadn’t still been holding her by her hair, she would have bolted right then and there. But even as she felt herself starting to crack, the memory of her father spoke clearer than ever.

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

“I told you to stop that,” Korigan said threateningly, but St. Luke held up his hand.

“Let her recite her poetry,” he said dismissively. “It has no power here. I’m far more interested in where you acquired that .”

“I thought you would be,” Korigan said, holding Talon’s sword up in front of him like a prize. “The girl got it from her God warrior boyfriend when your man Lincoln Black tricked the idiot into trading his life for hers. A bad move on his part, since I got her in the end.” He chuckled. “So sad. All that sacrifice for nothing.”

“So I see,” St. Luke said, holding out his hand. “Give her here. And the sword. Quickly.”

Korigan’s gloved fingers tightened on Lauryn’s shoulder. “No.”

St. Luke arched a blood-splattered eyebrow. “No?”

“I did what you wanted,” Korigan said. “I tied this city up and put it on the railroad tracks, exactly as ordered.”

“And you have been paid handsomely for it,” St. Luke said. “Everything you asked, I gave: money, power—”

“What good is all that when I look like this?” Korigan spat, pointing at his face.

“Whatever do you mean?” St. Luke asked innocently. “You’ve never looked better.” He grinned at the decaying flesh that now covered half of the police chief’s face. “Your true nature is showing through at last, Victor Korigan. Rotten on the outside as you are on the inside.”

The police chief sneered. “Save your lies for your crazies,” he said, yanking Lauryn back into his chest. “Our previous business is concluded. This is a new deal. You and Black have been obsessed with that drifter who calls himself Talon ever since you heard he was in town. This girl is his prize. I’ll give her to you, and the sword, but in return, I want the antidote.”

St. Luke looked surprised. “Antidote? To what?”

Korigan’s rotting face turned savage. “Don’t play stupid with me, old man. I know you built yourself a way out of this mess. Give it to me. Undo this —” he pointed at his rotted face “—and I’ll give you the doctor girl that warrior of yours gave everything to save. We’ll both get what we want, and then we can end this business cleanly like professionals.”

“Ah, yes,” St. Luke said wistfully. “Business. It’s always business with you, Korigan. But what you don’t understand is that, for me, this situation has never been anything but personal. Tonight is my victory. The payoff of many, many years’ hard work.” He paused there, flashing Korigan a smug grin. “Why would I ever build a way out of that?”

“Stop lying,” Korigan said, though he no longer sounded so sure. “No one’s crazy enough to infect an entire city without making an antidote!”

“Come now, Victor. You can’t have it both ways,” St. Luke said with a laugh. “You thought I was crazy enough to give you my fortune in return for less than forty-eight hours’ worth of work. You can’t then turn around and insist I’m sane enough to build a way out.”

By the time he finished, Korigan didn’t seem to know what to think. He just stood there staring at St. Luke with a look of bewildered horror. Then, with an unearthly howl of rage, he shoved Lauryn away. “You crazy bastard!” he screamed. “You knew this would happen!”