Lost Souls in the Hunting Ground - Part one (cont)
Penelope Hill
McFarlane considered the two of us with a scornful smile and a mocking bow.
"Enjoy," he suggested, deliberately employing contemporary vernacular, and he left - laughing. I heard the sound of a lock tumbling into place behind him, then his footsteps retreating up the stairs. Light steps, mere whispers in the night; they'd have not registered with any but the most acute of senses. My senses. The sharpened awareness of the predator, alert for the merest hint of prey.
Not that I had any need to go hunting.
No need at all.
My friend waited until the last hint of my master's presence had been swallowed by the night before he let out a long breath and relaxed back against the support of the wall.
"Jeezus," he gasped, "but he is scary."
So am I, Al ...
He was trying to recover a little of his more usual confidence, the hint of humour in his words a weapon he employed with typical style. And a certain level of success, I might add. I was too wound up to pay attention to such details.
"What the hell," I growled at him, "are you doing here?"
"Ah-" He struggled for an answer and didn't manage to come up with one. "I - uh, don't exactly remember..."
It was a discomforted admission. Having made it, he levered himself upright with an effort and took half a step in my direction. I jerked my head up and glowered at him angrily.
"Don't you dare come any closer," I spat, fighting down my reaction to his presence. He looked startled, but spread his hands placatingly and stepped back again. It didn't help much, but I forced myself to relax anyway. "Just stay there," I ordered tightly. "Please..."
"Sure, kid. If that's what you want?"
What I wanted was unthinkable; the hunger tore at me. His warmth tore at me. "I want you out of here," I muttered. "Out of my reach, and out of his, and - why in god's name did you have to come back?"
He was watching me with anxious confusion; my sudden outburst creased his features into wounded distress. "Oh god," he breathed after a moment, sinking down the wall into a dejected reflection of the huddle from which I considered him. "I really screwed up, didn't I."
Not a question; a realisation. One that hurt.
"Yeah," I agreed softly. "He was right, Al. You were just - too late."
He winced - with guilt, and I regretted my words almost immediately. They weren't meant as accusation, but they'd sure sounded like it.
"I should have figured," he muttered, self depreciation in every syllable. "I should have remembered, god damn it."
"Swiss cheesed, huh?" I made my enquiry sympathetic; I knew what that was like. He looked away with a hint of reluctant embarrassment.
"Kinda. I guess." He thought about it a moment longer. "I haven't had time to think - that would explain it, I suppose..." He rested his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands and stared disconsolately at the nearest painting. A rather excellent Eighteenth Century portrayal of what looked like the Judgement of Paris; it certainly featured three very voluptuous women in a state of undress. In other circumstances I suspect he'd have been more than admiring of its subject matter. As it was he simply sighed. With feeling. "Sam," he asked slowly, "was it you that always said my hormones will be the death of me one day?"
It seemed an odd thing to ask, right there and then, but it appeared to be a perfectly serious question. "Probably," I tried to joke. "Why?"
"Because," he sighed a second time, "you were right." His eyes had been fixed on Venus; they darted briefly in my direction and then away again. " I wasn't late, Sam. I've been here over an hour."
Over an hour...?
How long had I spent huddled into my misery? How long before that had I struggled and fought against my fate? How long had it taken me to die?
There were other issues here, of course there were; what chance would he have stood against McFarlane even if he had been there to come to my aid? But that wasn't the thought that troubled him. He'd been here over an hour, and yet had made no obvious effort to help me...
It was my turn to stare, focused on his discomforted presence, pushing away the hunger that gnawed at me so as to concentrate on the riddle of events instead. An hour. An hour ago he had Leaped back, no doubt intending to intervene before I was dragged into the dark.
So what got in the way?
A huge chunk of Swiss cheese for a start. Leaping plays strange tricks with the memory, as I well knew. He'd have arrived confused - and then something had distracted him...
I rewound time inside my head, playing back the progress of the evening, trying to work out exactly when that would have placed him in my company-
- and after a moment I began to laugh. A little hysterically, perhaps, but genuine laughter all the same.
Just over an hour back I had dropped a decidedly drunk Joe Hallam into the arms of a very relaxed - and seductive - Ditzy Dix.
"It's not funny, Sam," he protested with a growl.
"Oh, yes it is," I insisted, seizing the amusement, using it to reassert my self-control, distracting myself from the stir of need and want that hammered at me. "I hope she was worth it, Al. I really do."
He glowered at me, a sideways, cut it out, kind of glower. "Maybe," he muttered tightly, half under his breath.
Maybe? She keeps you busy for nearly an hour and only rates a maybe? I was dying down here, you know...
Only he probably hadn't known, not to begin with. Not until later, perhaps not even until the moment he heard McFarlane speak, until the echo of past terrors unlocked his comprehension of where he was and what he had come to do.
That's how the Leaps work, right? Things come back a piece at a time; sometimes when they're needed, occasionally thrown up like flotsam on a stranded beach - but never whole. And never all at once.
Which made the risk he had taken even more foolhardy; a slender chance reduced to none at all by the vagaries of time.
I'd been angry at him for being there. I was still scared for him. But the fact that he was there gave me one more reason to fight, one more incentive to hold on to my sense of self.
Even if it added - as McFarlane knew it would - to the true horror of my inevitable defeat.
What do they say about a gift? That it's the thought that counts?
I wondered what kind of odds Ziggy had offered him on all the other alternatives. If there'd been any alternatives. Even if there'd been any time to discuss the point...
I stopped laughing. It was still funny - in a wonderfully ironic kind of way - but he didn't think so. He was feeling guilty as hell. It was written right through him.
"If it's any consolation," I offered quietly, "I don't think that hour would have made any difference. If you'd got here as you'd probably planned then he'd have killed you - or worse."
Made you watch as he killed me, perhaps.
"There's a worse?" The question was suspicious, the same anxious wariness with which he always approached the supernatural. He believed. Of course he did. And I - who'd laughed at his agitations in other circumstances - turned away from him with an inner shiver of comprehension.
Much worse, Al. Now there's me...
I've never been one for superstition; the tales that inspired my childhood were ones of future possibilities, not old terrors. Not for me the anxieties of gullible children afraid to walk past deserted houses late at night. I was out counting the stars. And I was raised to believe in a prosaic god - one that ordered the universe in forthright terms, rather than the spiritually gothic world that had coloured Al's upbringing.
But even so I could understand the horror of what I fought to contain. It ripped through me like a thousand needles of ice, savaged my guts and stabbed at my senses.
"Oh, god ..." I muttered, a sigh of quiet despair. "Al - you gotta get out of here. He - wasn't joking. He intends me to kill you. And I'm going to. Sooner or later I'm going to have to..."
Unless ...
There was a spark of hope, flickering somewhere in the mire of my despondency. I seized on it, a bitter, savage thought that rose to the surface of my mind with sudden clarity.
"Unless you kill me first..."
I lifted my head, finding him watching me with distraught consideration. I could almost feel the confusion of emotion with which he battled - a conflict of anxiety and bewilderment, underwritten with a hint of fear. I didn't blame him for being scared - he had every right to be scared - and then I saw his expression tighten down into an aggrieved frown.
"Ohh, no," he breathed, leaning back against the wall and shaking his head. "No way, Sam. No way, you hear me? I did not come here to stick a goddamn stake through your heart. His maybe. But not yours."
I didn't want to hear it.
"It's the only answer, Al. You want to save me? Then save me from myself."
Save yourself ...
I'll give him credit - he thought about it. Thought about it very carefully. He even cast a glance around the treasures that surrounded us, seeking method as well as motive; his eyes narrowed in calculation - and then he leaned back, folded his arms and glared at me. Hard.
"It's not like you to give up so easily, Sam," he announced. I returned his glare with one equally intense.
Easily? You don't know what I'm fighting here.
"Meaning you don't have the guts," I accused tightly, intending the words to sound scornful, hoping to spur him into reactive action. All I got was a lifted eyebrow - evidence of mild astonishment - and then the twitch of a small smile.
"Meaning nothing of the sort," he told me firmly. "Sam - if I have to, I will, okay? Trust me on that. I just can't accept that's the only solution right now."
The hunger cramped at me, a shiver of pain that reached all the way to my soul. Even so I had to crack a brief smile. Usually it's me insisting there has to be another way ....
"Accept it," I growled. "Al, you don't get it, do you? I'm dead. He killed me - made me - what he made me. And I need-"
Oh god, I need...
"You're not a monster, Sam. Not yet."
Yes. Yes, I am.
"You can't say that ..."
He threw me a patient look. "Listen, kid," he said firmly. "If you were past saving would we be having this argument? He-" His thumb jerked upward in undefined direction, indicating McFarlane, indicating the root cause of our situation, "probably wants you think that way, right? Hell, it probably wouldn't matter to him which of us hits the deck down here. If I killed you - if I could kill you, seeing you're saying how you're already dead - then he'd still win, wouldn't he? I know I screwed up - jeez, I did that bigtime - but we ain't lost yet, and like I said, you don't give up that easily. There's a way, Sam. There has to be. We just have to figure it out."
Figure it out...?
He was right, and he was wrong. McFarlane hadn't won. Not yet. But he was going to. Once the hunger grew too strong for me to fight, once the inevitable became undeniable. The only way to stop a cascade of dominoes is to take out the one that triggers the fall.
"This isn't a problem in logistics, Al," I muttered, pressing myself deeper into my huddle, torn by the emptiness, racked with impossible thirst. "This is war, god damn it. And I'm on the casualty list. Taken by the enemy."
"Being a POW don't automatically turn you into a collaborator," he pointed out softly; his words jerked my head up again, to stare at him over the distance.
How much of that do you remember here and now...?
"No retreat, no surrender?" I questioned, somewhat bitterly. "It's a little late for that. He stole my soul, Al. Took everything. Ripped me to pieces; drained me dry. Then he forced it back on me - just enough to give me shape. His shape. I'm an empty husk, clinging to the edge of the pit - and I can't hang on much longer. I don't have the strength any more."
I lost ground even as I spoke; the desire surged up inside me, yearning toward his presence, sharpening my sense of his life. So close...
He shuffled disconcertedly, no doubt reacting to the look in my eyes, to the snarl of the hunger as it surfaced on my face. I jerked my head away, clenching tight fists and shuddering; my words had scared him - no, I had scared him.
I could hear the sudden pounding of his heart...
"Okay," he acknowledged, taking a careful breath. "But you haven't let go yet, have you?"
"No." I spoke with tight anger, fought the pain with it.
I will not give in to this.
There was still some comfort left in the lie...
"Wait a minute," Al muttered, seizing on an unexpected thought, colliding with a sudden inspiration. "Who said you had to?"
I choked down what might have been a snort of hysterical laughter.
I don't have a lot of choice here, Al...
"No-" he protested, irked by my reaction. "Look - he isn't consumed by this - whatever it is - is he? He's in control. So it must be possible to - to-" His voice trailed off as he analysed where his thoughts were taking him. I was way ahead of him already.
In the beginning there is the hunger. Always there is the hunger. Feed it and it will repay you with power. Answer the beast and you will not become one. Deny it - and it will make you its own. This is the riddle and the legacy. Monsters we are, lest monsters we become...
The predator has no need to hunt when his hunger has been satiated. The only way to still this pain was to feed it.
I knew that. But to feed it was to accept his domination. To become what he was. Because to feed was abomination...
"He can't kill all his victims," Al was considering thoughtfully. "Otherwise he'd leave a trail of corpses so thick he'd never function in normal society. So he must have some way of taking what he wants without anyone saying anything. A way of controlling those he picks out..."
I want to be free, Dixie had said in her note.
Oh, Dix...
Had she been his prisoner, a sweet feast he had savoured a mouthful at a time? Had he chained her spirit and stolen her soul piece by piece? Or had that been Chris, recruited to his master's cause much as I had been?
Was that why she'd driven Joe away from her?
"And if that's the case," Al was concluding with a shiver of discomforted realisation, "then you don't have to kill at all..."
Oh, nooo ...
I retreated with horror from the implications he had clearly identified.
"Sam-" he began to say, recognising a solution, prepared to offer it to me without understanding all it implied. "If you had the strength, you could go on fighting him, couldn't you?"
I couldn't ...
Couldn't feed the beast, not deliberately, not with intent.
This isn't a transfusion we're talking about here.
It's rape ...
"Forget it," I demanded hotly. "You don't know what you're saying. Al - I can barely control this. I couldn't just - I'd probably still kill you, damn it. Even if I - it hurts, can't you understand that? I couldn't do that..."
Not to you. Not to anyone.
That was the darkness into which McFarlane wished to pitch me; a comprehension of the horror I had become, a creature of pain and terror and domination...
"It's gonna hurt whenever you do it, kid." My friend was wrestling with his own consternation, weighing it against what he saw as necessity, against the alternatives that held equal terror. "But he wants you to kill me, remember? Or me you... He knows you can fight him. And you can choose. Choose not to kill. Not to let him win. This way we both get a chance."
The hunger burned inside me, tempted me, demanded of me.
Embrace it, something whispered deep inside me. Accept the power, become the beast...
"No," I whimpered, beset by demons, torn by denial. "I won't. I won't."
"Sam..." His insistence was beginning to annoy me. Couldn't he just take no for an answer? I jerked my head up to glare at him across the space between us, and the need cramped in my guts, tugged at me with savagery. I didn't need the light to see my friend; I could sense his presence like a siren warmth, could taste the musk of his life in the air.
Oh, god ...
I couldn't go on fighting this forever. There was a mist hovering over my senses, demanding co-operation, demanding surrender.
I will not give in to this ...
But I would be overwhelmed. I knew I was going to drown in the ocean of darkness which had engulfed me. The longer I held out, the stronger the hunger would become, filling me with emptiness, clouding my thoughts, darkening my resolve.
How long do I have before I lose control?
How long before the mist descended utterly? How long before I lost all rationality, before the hunger became the beast, and I its empty vessel?
And when that happened? He'd said he'd kill me if he had to - and I guessed he'd try, given no other options - but I'd faced McFarlane, and knew his strength. Against the demon that possessed me, even my friend's stubborn determination would be a poor defence.
So - how long do you have left to live, Al?
I didn't want to face the question, let alone contemplate the answer. But I had to. He was offering me an alternative. A chance. But, oh, such a slender one...
I don't remember getting to my feet. Willpower had held me huddled in my chosen refuge, but willpower was no longer enough. I was drawn across that open space like a moth drawn to a flame, each step a scream of protest inside my mind.
"Changed your mind, Sam?" The question was light, but the words were wary.
No, I wanted to say, wanting to deny the thoughts that fluttered inside my head, the need that was devouring me. But every step took me closer to his death, and to go on fighting that course was to destroy the both of us.
He was right. We had a chance. I just had to accept it as one.
"Maybe."
I came to a halt less than a pace from his side. The essence of his life filled my perceptions, dizzied my soul. I was so cold, and he was so warm...
"I can't do this," I denied with sudden force, turning away, shaking with self-horror. "Al, I-"
"You can, Sam." He got to his feet, moving closer. It was all I could do not to turn on him, not to succumb to the need that taunted me. I could feel his presence, hear the soft intake of his breath and each and every beat of his heart. "You have to." His hand touched my shoulder, a gentle contact that seared me like fire. I shuddered and pulled away, not wanting to look at him, knowing that to do so might be to lose control completely.
How long has it been, Al? How long have you been no more than light and shadow to me, a phantom I could not touch, an image without substance? You should have stayed that way. You would have been safe, secure in the future, unreachable...
"Do you want me to kill you?" I demanded hotly. "Do you?"
"I want you to survive, Sam." The answer was soft, his voice controlled. I don't know why he bothered; I knew how scared he was. I could almost taste it. He was trembling, inside and out. But he wasn't trying to run away...
Go, I wanted to scream. Run. Hide. That's what you want to do, isn't it? I am meant to be your death. Your damnation...
"By taking your life?" The effort echoed in my voice. "Stealing your soul...?"
"That's what he wants," Al reminded me quietly. "So that he can own yours. But-" He paused to swallow against the tightness in his throat and my hands clenched in distraught reaction. He really was scared, but he was facing it. Facing it for my sake. "You can't steal what's offered freely. As a gift."
Don't try to fight me with logic, damn you Calavicci. This isn't a logical situation...
Only he was right. That was what made the whole thing so impossible.
Al had taken a deep breath. "If you do what he wants - kill me the way he intends - he's gonna win, Sam. And I'd hate for that to happen."
He'd come back to save me. Been prepared to risk his life to save me...
But your soul? I can't ask that of you, Al. I can't.
So did I want McFarlane to win? Of course I didn't. The thought abhorred me. What he'd done to me abhorred me.
"You're running out of time, kid."
The reminder sent a shudder through me. He was so close. So close.
"You really want me to do this?" I had to be sure. Had to know. "Like I said - I still might kill you. I don't know if I can control it."
"Saamm..." The exasperation in that single word turned my heart over. We'd gone past the arguments, hadn't we? It wasn't really a matter of rational decision. If I had to make that choice, which would it be? To let my friend drown in the darkness, to die at his hands without hope - or freely offer my life, my soul for his redemption?
It wasn't a choice at all, really.
But it took guts to see the truth of that.
No greater love hath any man than this...
I turned slowly, meeting his eyes with reluctance. I could read the anxiety that lay within them, feel the apprehension that tightened his breath; his heart was pounding like a drum, but he found me the ghost of a smile.
Waiting for my decision with patient sympathy.
"I wish we had Ziggy's odds on this," I tried to joke. He quirked another half-smile, making a show of patting at Joe's pockets and ending it with an apologetic spread of empty hands.
"Sorry, kid," he breathed. "Guess we're on our own for this one."
Abandoned in the past, balanced on a turning point between what might be and what could be...
I knew I was dead - by all measures beyond hope, a cold corpse condemned to an unnatural and monstrous unlife. But looking into his eyes, conscious of his faith in me - that understanding of my fate faltered. If I had to exist this way, why should I do so on my master's terms?
Why should I be damned for my master's corrupt pleasures?
The inevitable was deniable. Fate could be changed.
Hadn't I done just that each and every time I'd Leaped?
But - dear god, if only there were any other way but this...
The hunger surged up inside me with ice-cold fire, but this time I let it come, using it rather than fighting it. "You'd better sit down," I said softly, knowing better than to reach for him, knowing that I must control every moment of what was to come, or it would control me. He did as I suggested, resting his back against the drapes, watching me warily as he did so. I waited while he settled, watched as he thoughtfully - deliberately - unfastened the top two buttons of his wide collared shirt. The need was screaming in every fibre of my being, heightening my senses to an almost untenable pitch; the light that cradled us both was soft and diffuse, yet in my eyes his presence blazed like a torch, outshining every other treasure in the room.
So much warmth, so much life.
I hungered for it. I needed it. To fill the cold emptiness that yawned inside me.
There was a part of me that was howling now, demanding the desecration of violence, the release of instant gratification. I knew that all I had to do was reach down right there and I could rip out his throat, burying myself in the heat of his heart while I feasted on the pain of his dying scream...
I shuddered, fighting the impulse, recognising its madness, and where it came from. Slowly, my own heart insisted, recalling my downfall, the subtle seduction ripped apart by the pain of McFarlane's theft. He had taken without concern for me, only for his own pleasures. He'd wanted me to know what he did to me, how he possessed me, made me his with callous corruption. I'd fought him. Fought hard, but to no avail. He'd ensnared my will, yet had not clouded my mind; a premeditated violation which it had amused him to administer. A total theft of self, which he had taken and corrupted and returned with deliberate cruelty. And it was the act of violation he now wished me to repeat, to bring me forever under his dominion.
I will not surrender to his will.
Even if I had to satisfy the hunger of his curse.
The emptiness yearned for the warmth of my friend's existence, for the intimate pulse of his life; I sank to my knees beside him, my hand hesitating in its reach-
- and he laughed. Uneasily, sure, but with genuine amusement.
"You know," he observed wryly, "from the look on your face, Sam, anyone would think you were as nervous as a virgin on her wedding night..."
Oh, Al - do you have to?
But it was the best thing he could have said, because it cut through my fear, reassured me more than all the protestations in the world might have done. I found myself cracking a smile.
"How would you know?" I asked, completing my reach, gently running my fingers down the curve of his exposed throat, seeking the impact of pulse so close beneath the skin.
Your wrist would have sufficed, you lummox...
Only it wouldn't have done, not really, not then. There was a confidence implied in that offer of intimacy - a confidence in me that helped focus what I had to do. "I'll be as gentle as I can..."
Please - forgive me for what I'm about to do.
God forgive me...
He tipped his head back so that it rested against embroidered cloth, bracing himself there while he fought to calm the racing of his heart, the tightness of his breath. "Listen to the boy scout," he accused with scornful affection. "That line went out with the ark, kid."
I dipped my head to follow my hand, feeling the surge and vitality of the feast that waited beneath my fingers. Inside I was quivering with the need, fighting every inch to turn the threat of savagery into the most gentle of touches. He didn't even feel the caress of my thumbnail, the action that sliced deep to let the dark nectar of his life well free.
I hadn't even known I could do that...
"I meant it," I breathed, soft words against the tremble of his skin. The scent of blood filled my entire being, rich, seductive, irresistible...
"I know," he answered, his voice husky despite his determination. "I trust ya, kiddo."
Trust me?
The hunger consumed me with inner pain. I was a vessel of ice, an empty husk, devoured by need.
And he was incandescence - liquid fire.
I hesitated even there, every fibre of my existence screaming for release, my senses swimming with the impact of his warmth, his vitality.
If there were any other way...
That first slow oozing of crimson I had released welled over the barrier of my thumb, and I intercepted it without thinking, an instinctive dart of the tongue. What little remained to the rational part of my mind anticipated salt and metallic warmth. I could probably quote chemical composition, detail fluid structure and the inevitable metabolic reaction on exposure to air. Blood is blood, right?
Wrong.
It was ecstasy.
How can I describe the sensation, the taste of a man's life, the essence of his soul? The most full bodied wine, the sweetest honey, the spiciest sauce - they would be bland in comparison, flavourless and uninspiring. This, this was the true nectar of the gods, the richest elixir, the wellspring of creation. McFarlane's dark spirit had been acid fire, a burning agony that choked and devoured me even as I craved it; but this...
I felt my victim flinch as I began to feed, but I could not stop. Not there, not then. I was drowning myself in his brilliance, in the depth of his experiences, in the sheer truth of his being. I could taste every nuance, every emotion, the echoes of old fears and deeper feelings, even the anxious love which had brought us to this moment. He didn't fight me - and I would have tasted it if he had, the relish of his resistance a bitterness I never want to savour - rather he relaxed into my need, curling an almost protective arm around me, a gesture that cradled the two of us together.
I could have drunk forever and never have had enough.
What sacrilege, what waste - to take this glory by force, to taint its richness with fear and pain...
I was getting high on the intoxication of life itself, filling myself with its pleasures and its mysteries. There was no existence in my world but the silken smoothness of the wine that suffused my entire self, the cloak of another's warmth that I drew about my chilled shoulders, the strong and certain drumbeat of his heart-
- that faltered and slowed and began to fade...
I broke the contact with a gasp, coming to my senses barely in time.
Oh, god...
McFarlane had tumbled me down that slope, pushed me kicking and screaming into the dark until I had reached in desperation for the release of death in preference to his pain. And then he had pulled me back, screaming just as desperately as he dragged me from the light, from the path that should have no return. From the peace that passeth all understanding...
Al's face was pale; his eyes were closed and his expression strangely serene. Almost, it had to be said, blissful.
Have I taken too much? Have I drunk too deep?
He still lived. The flame of his life still flickered under my hands, still burned with a luminescence that stirred the cold craving in my heart. But it was a quiet flame now, a gentle blaze compared to the inferno in which I had immersed myself. The hunger inside me yearned toward it, and I locked it away, chained it with the strength I had taken, had made my own.
Never satiated, never satisfied...
I could sense the need, but it no longer threatened me, no longer tore me apart.
Not for this little while, at least.
I licked the last of the blood from my lips, savouring every drop as I did so. Each the quintessential echo of an intricate and seasoned soul...
"Al?" I murmured his name, wondering if he would hear me. He stirred with reluctance, opening eyes that blinked and struggled to focus.
"Sam?" He sounded groggy, disorientated; the word took effort.
"Still here," I assured him, the doctor in me reaching to check his pulse, wondering that there was nothing more than a pale mark on his throat rather than the gaping wound I expected. "Still me," I added, with a pained smile. "Just."
The rhythm of his heart was unnaturally slow, as if driven by some vast and ancient pendulum that counted out each second of his life. I didn't need the touch of my hand to measure it. I could feel it.
That isn't right ...
I'd taken - what? More blood than he could spare, I suspected. His heart should be labouring after the theft, struggling to pump what remained; shock should follow, a shivering shock as threatening as its cause. Maybe that was still to come. But right now his metabolism seemed to have slowed right down, almost symptomatic of trance.
"How do you feel?" I asked warily. He had to think about his answer.
"Distanced," he said at last, then found me a deliberated grin. "Drained?"
My answering smile was involuntary. It shouldn't have been funny. Wasn't funny. It was just the way he said it...
Acceptance, forgiveness, understanding - all rolled up in one ironic word. He followed it with an attempt to sit up, and clearly found the action inadvisable, sinking back against the wall with a disconcerted expression on his face.
"Whoa," he breathed shakily. "Who put the world in a spin?"
"Easy-" I reacted with alarm, reaching to steady him. He leaned into the support with decided relief. "Just rest up for a moment," I suggested anxiously. The world was coming back to him in pieces; I could sense the shivering weakness that slowly crept in to replace what I had taken.
I did drink too deep...
So deep I had left him dazed and debilitated, not just fatigued but utterly exhausted. I had absorbed his strength, an osmosis of soul that had filled my existence with vital fire; I could feel it, white-hot and empowering, a heady gift, the liquor of life...
"You okay, Sam?" he asked, concern in his eyes, effort in his voice. I didn't know how to answer him.
Okay? I'm a monster, a cursed thing, a creature of desperate darkness.
And I feel like a god, drunk on the glory of my sacrifices...
"I don't know," I said, settling for honesty. "More in control, I guess. For now, at least." I got to my feet, pacing away in the cluttered space. I felt unsettled, undirected.
Feed it and it will repay you with power...
Strength and energy surged through me; I felt as if I could take on the world. Could possess the world. Every sense was sharp and certain, every moment of my being electric. And I understood. This - this was the true temptation to which McFarlane had succumbed; the rush of life, the sensation of godhead...
Like a seductive drug the beast promises to repay its devotees with generosity. With exhilaration. With wonders... Until, perhaps, that becomes the only way to feel. Until the hold of the darkness is complete and, unless its victim accepts his damnation, embraces it, the taste of stolen life becomes a bitter addiction indeed.
Brilliant with vitality, yet laced with fear, laden with pain...
"Yeah?" Al's voice sounded relieved. "Hey - I thought you said it hurt, kid."
"It did." I turned back toward him with surprise. "Didn't it?"
He grinned. "Nope. At least - not much anyway. No more than-" His grin got a little wider. "Forget it," he decided. "I think you had to be there."
I had been; sharing the gift of life, not stealing it. Vintage wine, McFarlane had mocked, anticipating the taste of death.
He'd never know the true savour of a man's soul. Not freely given without restraint...
I found myself by the hidden door, and pushed aside the draperies to try the discreet handle. It was still locked - of course it was - and I let my hand slide away. Somewhere out in the city the demon would be hunting, feeding his appetites with sadistic pleasures, taking as he desired, savouring his victim's terrors.
And some time soon, he was going to come home...
Anger ignited inside me, savage anger at the whole situation, at the way the deck was stacked against me. I couldn't face McFarlane; he owned my soul. Or thought he did. He'd left me to be consumed by his curse, to embrace damnation as he had done. He'd thought to return to triumph, to my hatred and my submission. He'd wanted me to kill.
So what would he do when he discovered that I had not done so? How would he express his anger and his disappointment?
All I've done is delay the inevitable. What chance do I have against him? He'll come home and find us...
I stepped back from the locked door, swung round and kicked out, hard, packing all my anger and some of the fire that filled me into the blow. The wood splintered under the impact with satisfying response.
"Sam?" Al's anxious question followed the savage sound and I loped back to his side, reaching down to lift him to his feet in one easy, effortless motion. I'd braced myself for his weight, and found I had no need to do so; I picked him up as if he were as light as air.
"We're leaving," I announced. He gave me one of those frowns that says 'you sure you know what you're doing, Sam?', then sighed.
"Okay," was all he said. I'd half-expected him to argue, but how could he? I had all his determination...
We emerged into the mirrored room, the multiplicity of reflections confusing; where I walked, my friend lagging wearily at my heels, Chris Kneally stalked around me with a pale Joe Hallam dogging his image.
Al paused for a moment to consider the face that wasn't his own, adopting a haunted smile as he did so. I half-smiled to myself, knowing exactly what he was thinking. It used to be one of the hardest things I had to deal with on a Leap - that moment when, knowing who you are, you come face to face with someone else entirely.
I got used to it, eventually. Now I worry more about the day I will have to face myself again...
A thought struck me, and I asked the resultant question with caution, conscious that I should, perhaps, have asked it earlier. "Al," I queried softly, "just how Swiss cheesed are you? I mean - you remembered me, right?"
He threw me a startled look, then grinned. "Yeah," he agreed distantly. "Wanna know something weird? You're about the only thing I remember for certain, Sam. You - and your Leaping around, and a few bits and pieces from before... Not a lot else." The grin became a little strained. "Not even my last name..."
"Calavicci," I supplied helpfully. He took a moment to think about it.
"Yeah? Oh, yeah. That's right..." The comprehension didn't help a lot; if anything it brought a furrow of concern to his features. "Calavicci," he muttered to himself, half under his breath. "Lieutenant, US Navy, four one two-"
If I'd had warmth of my own in my veins, then my blood would have run cold right there and then. Name, rank and serial number - but not the exalted rank he was entitled to. More likely the one he'd actually held in 1971- the first time around.
And in 1971 he'd still been an unwilling guest of the VietCong...
"We have to get out of here," I announced firmly, hoping to interrupt the tangle of thoughts that were leading him straight into a lurking minefield. Some things - as I well knew - were best not recalled out of context. "Before you-know-who comes back."
He went a little white, abandoning half-glimpsed conundrums to refocus on current jeopardy. I half regretted the reminder, but it was necessary. I suspect he'd been still partially adrift in that distanced perspective which the assuaging of my need had given him, but the memory of McFarlane was more than enough to tip him firmly back to reality.
"Where do you think he went, Sam?" he asked warily. I shrugged.
"I don't know," I admitted, heading for the outer door and the music room beyond. My senses were at full alert, reading the world around me with heightened clarity. The entire building seemed deserted; it felt deserted, an empty shell, filled with the lingering chill of its owner's essence. And beyond that - I shuddered and hurriedly shut the sensation away. The hunger had stirred within me, reacting to the pulse of life that surged and danced across the city.
New York, New York...
A rich and tempting hunting ground...
"Let's just get away from his neighbourhood, shall we?" I suggested, leading the way into the carpeted passageways and toward the central elevators. Al followed me, his body tense with expectation, the adrenaline inspired by our situation cutting through his fatigue and putting his senses on red alert.
Self-deceptive effort; I was the one exalted, intoxicated by his life. He was shaking; weary to the bone, trying to hide the fact, and lacking even the focus to do that successfully.
If I don't get him somewhere safe, and soon, he's gonna keel over on me...
I had no real plan - just a vague idea of getting the two of us out of McFarlane's reach, of finding somewhere to hide, somewhere he could rest and I could consider my options. Those few I might have left to me...
I even had the audacity to hope that - once Chris and Joe were safely delivered from the demon's domain - I might Leap. We might Leap.
And if I Leap, then the nightmare will be over...
I should have known it would never turn out to be that simple.
The elevator doors were shut fast, the buttons that should summon them dark and unresponsive. An inner shiver of alarm arose at the discovery; why would McFarlane have shut off the elevator power?
And where was he...?
I strode across to the service door, the one that led into the central stairwell and gave access to the freight elevator beside it. The door was fastened by a locking bar, one that should have shifted at the merest touch, but instead failed to move at all. Something inside me snarled at the sense of entrapment; something primeval, something given shape by the beast, yet given strength by the fire which it had craved. I reached down and ripped the mechanism free almost without thinking about it. With my bare hands. Al leaned against the wall and watched me do it; afterward he levered himself up and gave me a look that held wary respect.
"I'm glad you're on my side, Sam," he muttered as I held the door open for him to pass. I grinned; mostly in embarrassment.
"Yeah, well," I allowed, "I'm not entirely myself today..."
He quirked a small grin of his own in return, then looked down the stairwell and groaned.
"You do realise we're thirteen storeys up?" he asked, not really expecting me to answer.
"Fourteen," I corrected promptly. The glance he threw me was pained; normally I'd have chivvied him about his laziness, but right then I knew how weary he felt. Knew exactly.
I could read his essence with surety, could measure his warmth and the way his presence echoed the richness I had been privileged to taste. If I concentrated I could even hear the soft beat of his heart...
Two hearts. My head swivelled round, identifying the closeness of another human being before her voice dropped into the echo of the stairwell.
"Joe? Chris? Is that you?"
"Dix?" Al's head went up, and then he was pushing past me, back into the ornate hallway, driven by concern and a touch of guilt.
I went after him, equally concerned. I'd almost forgotten who we were supposed to be; it was Sam Beckett whom McFarlane wanted to complete his collection, not Chris Kneally. He and Joe Hallam were safe, unreachable in the Waiting Room while Al and I played out this masquerade. But Dixie was still vulnerable, still part of the play, a bit player who should have made an exit hours ago.
She practically threw herself into Al's arms, expressing a relief so palpable it almost knocked me backward.
Boy, has she got it bad...
Bad for Joe Hallam, that was - at that moment her love was fierce enough for me to read with clarity, an uncomplicated emotion that would never rise to dramatic passion but held a decided sweetness all the same. I took a moment to regain my equilibrium, thrown by my unexpected empathy and stirred by appetites that had nothing to do with physical lust.
Honeyed warmth, sweetened by desire...
The hunger howled inside its cage. I slapped it down with determination.
"Hey, baby." Al's reaction was less esoteric, more human - and very much in keeping with the man I knew so well. Her presence affected him despite his fatigue; not - as I might once have thought - habitual lechery, but a genuinely sensual response. "I thought I told you to go home-?"
"I tried," she protested. "But all the exits from the parking levels were locked up, and there was no one in the supervisor's office on the first floor, and when I came back up here the elevators went out on me, and I couldn't find anyone to help me... Where did you go, Joe? I've been looking for you everywhere."
She sounded scared. She was scared, an anxious, unspecific fear, one she might not even be completely aware of. Al glanced in my direction and sighed softly.
"I went to find - Chris." He remembered my adoptive name just in time. Dix followed the line of his glance and found me an affectionate smile.
"Looks like you found him," she half-joked. "Most of him, anyway. Hey, Chris-" Her hand encompassed my half-dressed state with a gesture of almost ritual exasperation. "I know you're into making radical statements, but really... Couldn't you behave yourself for one evening?" Her features creased into a mild frown. "You've not been taking something, have you?" she asked suspiciously. "You look a little spaced out... Come to that," she added, leaning back in my friend's embrace to consider him a little closer, "so do you, Joe." Her frown deepened into wary misgiving. "What's going on around here, anyway? Where did Cameron go? And just why did you want me to go home without you?"
Oh Dix...
There wasn't time to explain - and even if we did, she'd think both of us mad, or worse.
Al tightened his hold on her; leaned his head into her shoulder with weary sufferance. "Dix," he murmured. "Sweet, Ditzy, Dix. Just trust us, okay? Cameron McFarlane is not what he seems, and we gotta get outta here."
"Joe?" Her reaction was alarmed. So was mine. He sounded so exhausted...
"Joe?" I echoed, reaching for his shoulder, wishing I had some way to give back the fire that filled my existence. He pulled himself together with an effort, turning to offer me a wry smile.
"I'm okay, kid," he lied with masterly dissemblance. "Let's make ourselves scarce, huh?"
"You got it," I agreed, glancing down the hallway, aware of something hovering at the edges of my perceptions. A sense of urgency perhaps.
Or was it a sense of impending doom?
Dixie scurried into the stairwell, reacting to the directed push that Al followed up with an encouraging slap to her butt. "Hey," she remonstrated, more with laughter than with protest. "You watch where you're putting your hands, Joe Hallam."
"Any time," he growled suggestively, earning himself a grimace of exasperation from me. This was neither the time, nor the place...
On the other hand, it was a reassuring exchange, and not just because it was the reaction Dix was expecting. If Al still had energy for that kind of flippancy then maybe I hadn't done as much harm as I'd thought.
You've always been my anchor, haven't you, Al? On each and every Leap, the one thing I could depend upon. The voice that kept me sane...
Somehow McFarlane had become aware of that: perhaps he had taunted and terrorised my friend so as to bring him here, had wanted to lure him within his reach for one very simple reason.
As long as he lived, as long as he had faith in me, I would be free.
I followed the two of them into the dimly lit stairwell, the cement floor washed with the impact of light that streamed through the open doorway. The ornate curve of the stairs slid up into darkness above us - and down into equal pitch below.
A darkness that welled with a sense of menacing chill, an inky shadow that held almost fluid substance.
And I could feel him, somewhere close, watching...
"It's awfully dark down there," Dix observed, peering over the banisters with a shiver.
"Yeah," Al agreed, reactive unease tightening his voice. He glanced in my direction. "This place is being refurbished, right? Any bets that losing the power to the elevators killed the lights in here too...?"
I didn't bother to answer that; I knew that this was no power failure, no mere coincidence. This was his building, his domain, and the hunter had been laying snares of terror for his next victim.
Playing with her, like a cat stalking a mouse.
Always one step ahead...
I really could feel him by then, a lurking presence in deserted spaces. Cold and arrogant. Confident in his assurance of mastery. Filled with my fire, subsisting on stolen richness.
Where are you?
Close.
That much I was sure of...
"Floods," Al was saying with sudden inspiration, pushing Dixie back into the gallery corridors. "All we have to do is pick up one of the spot floods, sweetheart. They're battery driven. We'll have plenty of light..."
He was hurrying her, anxious to get her away from McFarlane's reach, unaware of the demon's proximity. I hesitated in the hallway, my steps faltering as I tried to pinpoint that sense of shadow, tried to identify just where my master waited, among all the empty recesses of his lair.
This is all part of his game...
A game we couldn't possibly win.
How long? my heart insisted, breaking against the comprehension of events. How long do we have left?
How long before the darkness devours us all?
Lost Souls in the Hunting Ground. Part One. Disclaimer:This story has been written for love rather than profit and is not intended to violate any copyrights held by Donald P Bellasario, Bellasarius Productions, or any other holders of Quantum Leap trademarks or copyrights.
© 1996 by AAA Press. Written and reproduced by Penelope Hill. Artwork by Joan Jobson
Next Chapter