A Talespin fanfic by Lizzy Spencer (KarmaCat) Page 9

 
 

        "Let me see her," Shere said to a morgue director. Orly was waiting in the lobby with the chauffeurs.
        "I don't think that's a good idea-" the young bear began.
        Shere, completely spent and frustrated, picked the young bear up by the collar and slammed him up against the wall. "Let me see my daughter," he seethed.
        "Um , okay, sir..." He released the bear and he opened the door, and suddenly Shere found himself in a cold sea of blue cloth body bags.
        "This one, sir," the bear said, pointing to one, indistinguishable from the rest of them. He placed his hand on the zipper. "Are you sure?" he asked Shere.
        "Yes," he replied, even though he knew he wasn't. Nothing could ever prepare him for something like that.
        The bear sighed and unzipped the bag only so far that her face was showing, as was hospital policy. All Shere really needed to see was the white hair.
        And he did.
        He swallowed and asked the bear, '"The car that hit her. The driver had a heart attack, you say?"
        "Yes," he replied. "He's over there." The bear pointed but Shere didn't look.
        "Thank you," he whispered.
 

        Shere left the morgue and stopped at a bathroom. He went in, saw that no one was there, and locked the door behind him.
        Ten minutes passed and he exited, heading back up to the lobby to meet Orly.
        An hour later two janitors stopped by.
        One of them gasped. "What the heck happened in here?" he asked.
        The bathroom had been completely destroyed.

  
        Orly sat on a couch in the lobby next to a sympathetic chauffeur wearing a black suit. She recognized him as James's father, and even though she barely knew him, she was suddenly confiding everything in him.
        But she could tell that he understood. The rest of the chauffeurs and hired staff who had, for some reason, come along on this trip, milled about by the door looking as if their existence had no point.
        Orly tapped James's father, whose name was Richard, on the sleeve. "What are they doing here?" she asked
        But her question was answered for her.
        It had only been three hours since the accident, and the first reporter had already arrived.
        "Can you tell me anything about the unfortunate incident this morning regarding Sarabi Khan?" he asked, the cameraman's camera flashing. The rest of the staff formed a barrier around the door and said that Mr. Khan had no comment. Another reporter stepped in, then another. Right before Orly's traumatized eyes, a horde of camera flashing, inquiring reporters were buzzing about the doorway.
        "Orly! There's Orly Khan back there!" one of them said. The cameras raised, en masse, over the black clad panther's shoulders in order to snap pictures of her.
        Orly rose from her seat.
        'What are you doing, Miss Khan?" Roger asked. "I think your father would want you to stay put."
        "It's okay," she said, and approached the press.
        "Miss Khan..." Roger stressed.
        She ducked underneath the security guard's arms and faced the flashes. She felt one of them grab her shoulder and say, "Miss Khan, you should go back inside."
        "Get your hands off me," she snapped.
        The reporters shoved microphones in her face. "Orly, do you have anything to say?"
        She absently wiped her nose.
        "Whose blood is that on your dress, Orly?"
        Another guard grabbed her shoulder and told her to go inside.
        "Do you have any comment regarding your sister, Orly?"
        Her eyes narrowed.        "Sarabi's dead," she spat. "Leave us alone."
        The reporters gasped at the news and started to quiz her more, but a sudden thundering force came through, pushing Orly in it's wake.
        "Orly, don't talk to them," she heard her father's voice thundering behind her. She felt her chest heave with relief at the knowledge that this powerful man stood at her side.
        "Mr. Khan! Mr. Khan! Do you have anything to say about your daughter's death?"
        He stopped for a moment, stunned that they knew of it, but them kept pushing  the squirming Orly towards the limousine that awaited them. The reporters shoved against the bodyguards and Orly could barely see anything through the mixture of black suits, inquisitive faces, and flashes.
        Orly stumbled and tripped and her father picked her up. On the way up a reporter broke through and shoved a microphone in her face. Orly heard a tremendous smacking sound, and her father yelling, "Get away from her!"
        The reporter stumbled back against the crowd. His nose was bleeding. Finally they reached the car and Shere almost threw Orly inside, got in himself, and slammed the door against the paparazzi, who were now banging on the windows and trying to yell questions. Shere was still instinctively shielding his daughter until they drove away.
        "My God," Orly mumbled against here father's arm.
        "Are you all right, my dear?" he asked.
        "As good as can be expected."
        He sighed. "I know. Carlotta, take us home!" he called to the driver.
        She gave a little salute to show that she understood. Orly broke from her father's grasp and leaned against the window, watching the now darkening city of Cape Suzette flash by before her eyes, which were filling with tears. "Papa," she whispered.
        "Yes, Orly?" Shere never took his eyes off his daughter. He never would again.
        "It's just you and me now, isn't it?"
        He put his arm around his daughter and pulled her close, resting his chin against the top of her head. And in a voice racked with pain he could barely hide from anyone, especially not his most empathic daughter, he replied, "It's just you and me now."
 

 
        Back at the hospital, the bodyguards were still trying to fend off the press, who were now trying to get inside in order to speak with the doctors. One even went so far as to fake a leg injury to get in.
        The bloody nosed tiger whom Shere had punched away from Orly came to the front. He was short and skinny. "Hey, I'm bleedin' here! Let me in, will ya'? I'm bleedin here!"
        Just as a guard was about to refuse him, they entire scene was suddenly filled with a blindingly bright white light.
        "Hey!" someone yelled. "Turn off yer' derned flashes, guys!"
        "It's not the cameras..." someone else replied.
        The tremendous light remained for a few seconds, throwing the crowd into mass confusion. "I can't see anything!"
        But just as soon as it came, it flashed away, blowing the hospital doors open in its wake. The great glowing ball flew into the hospital, knocking over a nurse, and dashed out of sight, going down the stairwell, down.....
        "What in blue hairy blazes was that?" asked a bodyguard incredulously, frozen in a locked position with a reporter.
        The bleeding tiger's eyes widened.
        "Bright light strike and come alive....." he whispered in awe. "It couldn't be....."
 
 

 
        Sarabi had no idea where she was. Everything was blinding her.
        "There now," said the voice. That damned voice again.
        Sarabi felt the sensation of soft hands fluttering all about her. She tried to brush them away but could not even see her own striped body in this whiteness.
        "How strange," she said, keeping herself calm.
        "How cold you are, young one," said the voice.
        "Who ARE you?' she asked.
        '"We are the Entity. You have been forced onto this plane so that you may receive the basis of your power. The rest will be supplied by your consort in the near future," it answered serenely. The voice was distinctly female. Sarabi felt a strange sensation, as if a thin electric membrane were being pulled down over her head.
        "What? What are you talking about?" Sarabi tried to brush away the hands she felt. "Where's my father?"
        "You will confuse him greatly."
        She stopped for a moment. "What?'
        'You will confuse yourself greatly. But all will be well, Sarabi. You will come into what you were meant to be." The voice gave a tired sigh. "We will be with you."
        "Leave me alone!" Sarabi ordered.
        The voice ignored her. "You will be shocked back into corporeal life now. It will only take a moment."
        "Wha-?"
        And her body suddenly reeled with tremendous pain.
 

 
        One of the blue body bags arched and cried out in agony, a noise that echoed through the entire morgue floor. Claws clicked and forced their way through, rapidly tearing the bag to shreds and revealing a panicked Sarabi inside, breathing hard and confused.
        She looked around, her head pounding. She looked at the blue sacks not realizing what they were. She looked down at herself, and, realizing she was naked, used the remnants of the sack to cover herself. She turned up her nose. The sack was soaked through with blood, but it couldn't have been her blood, for she had no wounds. It was cold in that room. Her head was pounding, pounding, pounding like a jackhammer.
        She shoved the palm of her hand into her eyeball, emitting a low groan of pain, wanting to rip her hair out.
        Her hair-
        She suddenly realized where she was.
        "Oh...oh God..."
        But not why.
        She gently stepped down from the cold table she had lain upon. The floor shocked her feet. "Morgue," she whispered, terrified. 'Why am I in the morgue?"
        Her legs felt limp like jelly, unused. She tried to take a few steps and tumbled to the floor, her white hair cascading around her shoulders. Sarabi picked herself up once more, balancing against the smooth metal slabs where the bodies had been lain. She tried her best to avoid touching them.
        She limped her way across the room. There was a hospital worker in an adjacent room who appeared to be cleaning something. She was listening to a phonograph and dancing around, using the mop handle as a partner. She could not hear anything that went on in the morgue room.
        Of course, usually, there wasn't much to hear.
        Sarabi's throat was sore. "I'm...I'm not dead! Why am I in here?"
        "You were dead. We brought you back. It was the only way."
        She whipped around, almost falling over. "Who said that?"
        "Your work is just beginning. You have ignored yourself for too long."
        "Who's in here? Leave me alone!" She backed up against the wall.
        "You will have the sight soon. A warning."
        "What-?" She looked about, terrified, extending her claws. "Wait a second. This is a dream, isn't it? A weird dream, yes, but a dream. That's all. I'll just wake myself up and everything will be fine," she whispered.
        She drew her fore claw against the fur on her arm, leaving a red cut.
        She closed her eyes.
        She opened them.
        She was still in the morgue.
        "Oh no...."
        Sarabi ran towards the room where the hospital worker was and flew through the door, adrenaline pumping through her system. The worker had barely enough time to turn before she was pinned against the wall by a wide-eyed, white-haired tigress dressed in blue rags.
        The worker, a bear, gasped for breath, her heart skipping every other beat.
        "Why...did you put me...with the dead people?" Sarabi hissed at her face.
        "Uh-uh-uh...all I saw was a flash! I thought it was the faulty track lighting!" The bear shrieked,  momentarily fought against Sarabi's grasp, and then fainted.
        Sarabi let the bear fold to the ground, looked down at her for a moment. She wore a blue lab coat which Sarabi put on, discarding her rags.
        And Sarabi Genesis Khan arose from the morgue.
 
 

        She stumbled through the bleak white hallway. "Phone," she said, "I need a phone. When father hears about this he'll pitch a galactic fit. Of all the blistering incompetence!"
        She used the wall to help her walk until she finally found herself by a line-out red phone. She held the receiver to her mouth, feeling as if she had barely enough energy to dial.
        The phone rang. Sarabi leaned against the wall, her head still pounding.
        Two rings. "Yes?" her father asked. Sarabi almost jumped at the tone of his voice. He sounded almost dead.
        "Father?"
        There was a pause.
        "Who is this?"
        "Father, it's me, Sarabi."
        Another pause. "I don't know who you are or how you came across this number, but I swear by-"
        "Father! I'm in the hospital! They had in me in morgue, for bright's sake! Will you please come pick me up? It's me, Sarabi, your daughter!"
        "Sarabi is dead. Haven't you heard?" His voice was touched with anger.
        She gave an exasperated groan. "Why does everyone think I'm dead? I just don't understand this! Father, don't you recognize my voi-"
        "You are a truly sick individual, whomever you are. I'm having this call traced. Good-bye."
        Dial tone.
        "Father? Hello? Father?" She hung up the phone and her head resumed pounding.
        "Someone is going to pay for this," she muttered. 'I don't know who, but someone is going to PAY."
 
 

        Orly hadn't left her father's side the entire day. He sat at the desk and she sat on it. It seemed the natural thing to do. She felt that if she were to separate from him, one of them would crack under all the pressure. And she was deeply afraid it would be him.
        They had already gotten a prank call. Only five hours since they had gotten home from the hospital, and ALREADY a prank call. It put Orly into quite a state. "Someone is pretending to be Sarabi? Who could be that cruel?"
        "The world is full of strange people, Orly," he replied.
        "I'm never going outside again. I'm going to stay here with you," she whispered, hugging his neck.
        He twisted a stainless steel pocketknife in his hand. He knew he had to think of funeral arrangements but couldn't bear to. He could hardly bear to keep himself composed. He couldn't stop thinking of August, and now this? Why his daughter? Why did they have to take his daughter, the little genus, the one who was to inherit his company and carry on his legacy? And just as she was on the verge of womanhood?
        And then he looked at Orly and deep inside himself, he knew he would have been worse off had it been her. That girl had become his keeper, in an odd way. Little loving thing that she was. There was so much of August in her....
        But that made the loss of Sarabi no easier. Not by far.
        The LOSS of Sarabi....he hated the very phrase.
        Shere mindlessly dug his pocketknife into his desk.
        No, he thought to himself, putting the knife into a drawer. It's not going to be another endless month of that. Not again. Not while Orly can watch you.
        Orly complacently nibbled on one of her claws, her knees drawn up to her chest. Her saggy old army boots were on his desk, and he didn't care. He loved those boots. He loved his daughter. He looked upon her and wanted to hold her. In fact, he just wanted to make her part of him, so he would never have to worry about losing her as he had lost the other two most important women in his life.
        Why this, he wondered, why now? He had a brief flash of his wife so many years before, one night, when she was curled spent and sighing against his chest; he had thought at that moment that, by far, he was the most contented man on Earth in that he had his arms around this pure and beautiful angel of a woman. She had briefly mumbled something about never having felt so beautiful in her life, and she pressed her body against his and fell asleep. And Shere just watched her sleep. And he remembered that when she talked to a person she loved, she would lean in close with her hand lightly upon the forearm and her eyes sparkling; Shere remembered the first time she had done that to him, at some nameless restaurant, and that he felt as if he could have taken her right there on the table in front of everybody. With a sudden inter meddling of thoughts, his wife suddenly became little Sarabi, two years old, trying to learn to walk. He bent down and took her two little hands and she frowned at him when he did, as if to say, "I can DO this by myself, Father!" Her hands were so light and chubby them, but so insistent; when she found she couldn't keep herself up she gripped her father's forefingers and conceded to let him help her. She liked to fold paper animals and kept her blue eyes burning on them until she did it right, so Orly could play "farm" with them. She liked to sit by the picture window and gaze out over the rooftops and Shere would hold her on his lap and tell her that they were all hers, all of them, and she would nod in understanding.
        But now none of those gleaming rooftops would ever be hers, because Sarabi was lying cold and dead, zipped inside a sack, on the bottom floor of Cape Suzette General. And August was dissolved at the bottom of the ocean so far from his touch.
        Suddenly a little faceless assistant of his ran in looking panicked.
        "Mr. Khan, um, Mr. Khan, oh hello Miss Orly-"
        "Hi Robert," Orly whispered in reply.
        "Mr. Khan, that-"
        "Speak, Robert. Clearly." Why was it that all his employees had stuttering problems?
        "Of course, Mr. Khan. Um, you know that call you wanted traced?"
        "Yes? What of it?"
        "Um, we traced it."
        "And...?"
        "It was coming from the hospital, sir. The bottom floor. The morgue floor, sir."
        Orly's jaw dropped.
        Shere Khan stood at his desk, looked down upon the cowering assistant, and rumbled, "WHAT did you say?"