The Mark
Leaving his daughter in her crib, Don Walters moved quickly to his bedroom and woke his sleeping wife. Her face was angry at the interruption – it had been his hour to get up and feed the baby – but this was important.
“They got to her,” he said once Cherie was mostly alert, and his words got her the rest of the way.
“What!” She sat straight up in bed, the long nightdress she wore twisting around her body. “When?”
“I don't know,” he said quietly. “When I checked on her before midnight, she was fine, but the marks are on her now. I heard her crying and figured she was hungry.”
“Dammit!” Cherie rose, the dress sticking to her as she moved. It wasn't warm, but he could see the sweat beading on her, see the pressure she was under rise. He felt the same way, but his body had never been much for moisture. Instead, his hands were locked in tight balls that he had to force himself to periodically unclench or risk serious injury. He'd always been able to localize his frustration, something that came in handy in the short term, but could be problematic over time.
“Alright, alright,” his wife said, pacing around the room. “What exactly does this mean for us? Let's go through it, let's figure it out.”
Don sighed. He'd known this would be her response, even though they both knew exactly what it meant. This was how Cherie worked, no matter the situation. Building their house, choosing their car or deciding what to do after their daughter was marked by the undead – all required a thorough examination before action could be taken.
“Fine,” he said, standing. “I'm guessing it was a Gharwal, since the door doesn’t have any char on it and the window is still locked. The thing could have phased in and phased out while I was in the washroom.”
“Gharwal,” Cherie said, “right. But why use such a high-end creature? That's going to set them back quite a bit.”
He nodded. “Sure, it'll cost them, and I doubt the Fang will be sending out anyone tonight to mark another innocent, but you know as well as I do they lack females in their ranks. A single strong, healthy girl baby is worth at least ten boys, and we both know that Jenny is stronger than anything they've run across recently.”
His wife growled, and he could see her shoulders tense. They'd made the choice to have Jenny genetically enhanced after months of discussion, and were sure they'd be able to keep her safe. Of course, that was before the Gharwals had started showing up, and by that time it was too late – Cherie was already pregnant and the treatment had been completed. He'd been skeptical, anyway, that such an undead could exist, until he saw one at work phase right through a door, grab a woman, and disappear. The office hadn't been using its force-shield until that incident, citing increasing energy costs, but the thing had been running non-stop ever since.
“So, our girl represents the ultimate temptation for these bastards,” Cherie said through clenched teeth, “and you're sure about the markings? They couldn't have been something else?”
Don shook his head. There was no mistaking the five evenly-spaced cuts on his daughter's tiny wrists, and the rancid smell that accompanied the visit of a Gharwal. By the time he'd reached her room, the thing was long gone and the cuts had nearly healed; he was lucky he'd seen them, or he never would have known.
“So where does that leave us? What can we do for her?”
He took a deep breath. “Nothing.” He wanted to say something else, anything else, but that was the simple truth. Researchers had been hard at work to find a way to reverse the marking, to remove whatever it was the undead could do to children, but they'd had no luck. His daughter was infected, now, and at some point before puberty, what the Gharwal had given her would become active. She'd have to fight it on her own, and if she won, she'd be purged and immune from anything else the undead wanted to throw at her. If she lost...Don couldn't finish the thought.
“Are we just supposed to wait?” Cherie wailed. “And hope our daughter doesn't die? Doesn't kill us in the process?”
“No,” he said softly, moving to embrace his wife, “we have to pay attention, watch for the signs. If we see her starting to lose coordination or having fits of uncontrolled anger, we'll know her time is coming. At that point, we'll make her as comfortable as we can and let her fight it off. She's strong, Cherie – we made her that way. She'll beat this thing, and then she'll never be in danger from those freaks again.” It was tough to sound confident, but somehow he pulled it off, somehow he made it believable. He knew the stats – girls especially had a low rate of success against the mark, and emerging research suggested that genetic enhancement actually made the mark more potent, not less. If Jenny had to fight the thing after she was a year or two old, her chances of coming out the other side as herself were less than thirty percent.
Holding back the rest of what he wanted to say, he led Cherie down the hall to Jenny's room. It had taken some doing to arrange for the Fang to send a Gharwal, and for them to have no idea that he'd supplied the information. His daughter would always be a target, and he needed to know she'd be safe. Better she fight her battles at home, with the greatest chance of success and two loving parents.
She was strong. She had to be. She would survive.
- D
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