Lost Souls in the Hunting Ground - Part one (cont)
Penelope Hill
I paused as I reached the workshop doorway, finding Dix scrabbling among the clutter of equipment and Al leaning his weight against the support of a nearby workbench. Two unwitting fireflies, their light flickering against encroaching darkness. One bright and brilliant, still untouched by event, and the other dimmed with weariness.
Dimmed - yet somehow not diminished. At least I could be certain that the slaking of my need had left no darkness on his soul.
"Don't take too long," I advised, glancing back into the passageway before I moved into the room. Al's head jerked round in alarm at the sound of my voice, the reaction sliding into heartfelt relief as soon he realised it was me.
"You trying to give me a heart attack, kid?" he accused, only half in jest. I answered his words with a quiet smile; Dixie looked up from her scrabbling and frowned.
"There's something going on here," she accused worriedly. "Joe, you're as jumpy as if someone had dropped you back in the DMZ." Her analogy deepened the frown into outright anxiety. "It's not that, is it? You promised me you were over that..."
I saw the puzzlement crease his features: over what? his mind clearly questioned. Then it registered - and his face went from being simply pale to stark white.
Dix moved before I could, dropping the spotlight, reaching to catch at his shoulders, her expression and her words contrite.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean - oh, Joe, don't think about it. Please..."
I forced myself to stay where I was, realising that my instinctively supportive reaction would just confuse her further, but inside I silently echoed the plea.
Don't think about it, Al. It was a long time ago.
The moment of recollection was brief; Al found her a chagrined smile from somewhere, then turned it into a reproachful frown instead. "We ain't got time for thinking, sweetheart," he admonished, lifting her hand from his shoulder as he did so. "Just pick up the spot and we can get outta here, pronto."
"Okay," she sighed, buffing his cheek with her knuckles as she moved to obey. He half-turned to throw me a wry glance - and his expression froze a second time.
A cold presence swirled behind me, a chill shadow; I hadn't heard his footsteps, had not registered his approach; I'd been blinded by the light of Dix's anxiety, focusing too much on immediate concerns...
"Leaving me so soon?" McFarlane enquired silkily, his hand dropping to my shoulder with possessive certainty. "But the night is still so young..."
Terror imploded inside me; a cold terror that nailed me to the spot. In panicked desperation I gathered up the fire that sustained me and locked it away deep inside myself, fearing that he would sense it and take it from me, defiling the gift and giving me nothing to hold on to at all.
I was left cold and shaking. I should have struck out, should have seized him and restrained him, giving them a chance, a moment to get away. But all I did - all I could do right then - was turn my head and meet my master's eyes.
Anger boiled in their depths; an anger backed by irritation. He tugged at my soul as it were a leash, sharply, confident of my obedience. I fought him, but all he did was find a cold smile for my helpless snarl of resistance.
Too little, too late. He secured me with chains of ice, tight bonds that encased my will, enslaved me to his. 'Be still,' his glance commanded, and my body obeyed, while my soul howled in protest...
"Dix," Al was saying, backing away from the vampire's smile, hauling her to her feet and pulling her with him, "when I tell you to run, you run, okay? Don't stop, don't slow down, and whatever you do - don't look back..."
"What?" I heard her question, not quite believing what she heard. "Joe - it's just Cameron..."
She might as well have said it's just Beelzebub. The prince of lies. Master of darkness.
Lord of illusions...
"Don't listen to him, Dixie," McFarlane purred, his hand sliding down my bare arm with a possessive caress, the bracelets I wore jingling at his touch. "He's not who you think he is. He's deceiving you. Hiding behind Joe's shape for his own purposes. Fooling you; taking advantage of your innocence. You gave a stranger your sweetest gift, and you had no idea..."
His voice was soft; it invited trust, implied solicitous sympathy. I saw Al suppress a wince - and Dix threw him a confused glance. One that held the beginnings of doubt.
A twisted truth makes the best possible lie.
"Joe?" she questioned, taking the barest of paces away from him.
Don't listen to him, Dix, I wanted to shout, but my voice was dumb. I fought for it, only to wound myself against the barbed wire of his mastery, my weakened and defiled soul struggling feebly inside the curl of his iron grip.
"That's very clever, McFarlane," Al growled softly. His hand reached out to catch at Dixie's wrist. "Just do what I say, willya Dix? Trust me." The barest of uneasy smiles tugged at his lips. "Please? Pretty please?"
My master had taken a step or two closer; there was a distinct and urgent desperation in the last two words. Dixie's frown of bewilderment deepened even further.
"Well, I guess-" she began, then gasped with alarm. McFarlane had lost patience with the situation. He dropped his masks with a snarl, using her hesitation to dart forward with unnatural speed and catch at her other wrist. He pulled - a sharp jerk of savage strength that tumbled her straight toward him. Toward a hand curved to strike, toward cold eyes filled with the expectation of a quick and easy kill.
Noooo...!
I struggled and I fought against unseen restraints, a struggle as futile as the one I had pursued before my death. The fire I had taken stirred in my heart and I pushed it away in panic, wanting to still its whispers before he sensed its flame. I thought I had nothing that I could use against him. That there was nothing that was mine that he had not possessed.
Dear god...
Let me help them. Please, let me help them-!
No answers came to my desperate prayer, no release from the chains that held my soul in thrall. I could do no more than watch as the drama played out in front of me.
Al's response was immediate, one probably born more of instinctive reaction than of rational thought. He threw himself between the two of them, reaching to break the tentative hold the demon had on her, pushing her attacker back with an impact that might have been spectacularly effective - had he not given most of his strength to me.
They collided; a confusion of three bodies from which Dix re-emerged - or perhaps was pushed, it was hard to tell which - and which produced an inhuman growl of anger from McFarlane's throat.
"Run!" Al's voice hollered above the sound of it, a command that brooked no arguments. Dixie took off like a frightened rabbit, her eyes wide and her sudden terror palpable enough for me to taste.
Oh, jeezus...
I saw McFarlane straighten up and throw the source of his impediment sideways; straight into the unyielding surface of the wall. My instinctive wince emerged as no more than the barest shiver; under the surface of my unmoving obedience I was screaming with frustration, still fighting and struggling with anguished effort.
Run, Dix. Run as far and as fast as you can. Don't fear the darkness. Just run until you can run no more...
The vampire took three steps after his fleeing victim, then drew himself to a halt with an unpleasant smile. "Scamper away, little mouse," he called after her. "Run all you wish. You will not escape me..." He glanced across at me, and the smile widened into confident decision. "I have other business to attend to first."
Oh my god ...
It was the sudden cruel amusement in his eyes that frightened me the most. He was angry with me, and he intended to punish me for failing to submit to his desires.
"Did you really think you could cheat your fate?" he taunted softly. "You're strong, Sam. Stronger than I thought you might be. But not strong enough..."
He turned and stepped back, reaching down into the tangle of tumbled equipment with a casual hand. His fingers clenched, and he lifted; dragging Al's dazed figure out of the debris, picking him up to slam his shoulders hard against the jagged surface of the Chinese dragons where they hung on the wall.
Don't. Please, don't...
Pointless protest. I could feel the scattered impact of my friend's pain, sensing his desperate struggle for equilibrium, for the strength he no longer possessed.
"Perhaps I should be flattered," McFarlane considered, holding him at arms' length, turning to throw me a thoughtful glance. "Perhaps I am meant to believe that you intended this. That you had the strength of will to leave me the last - and sweetest - taste..."
He knew. Knew that I had fed the beast, and had done so without the need to kill.
So even that was meaningless sacrifice.
You should have destroyed me, Al. While you had the chance.
I promise you - no, I swear - that I won't submit to him. I'll find some way to destroy him. Whatever it takes. However long it takes, I'll find a way...
I was fooling myself with bitter, unfulfillable pledges, salving my bleeding soul with the pretence of lies. Wasn't that the promise he had made, the promise that had brought him here to die?
I'll get you out of this, I swear I will. I don't know how, but I will...
"So I will accept your gift, my child." McFarlane's words were mocking; he turned back toward his victim, who was struggling with little effect, and his smile became one of anticipation. "And afterward? Afterward I may let you taste his death upon my lips..."
"Don't listen to him, Sam." Al's growl was tight, his voice and his situation filled with desperation. "He don't own you yet..."
But he does...
Doesn't he?
"Such foolish faith," the vampire marvelled, reaching his free hand to turn his captive's face toward him. "Did the embrace of the beast teach you nothing of what we are? Let me show you the truth of it..."
No, I reacted with inner horror, recognising what he intended.
For god's sake, Al, don't look into his eyes...
Too late for a warning, even if I'd been able to voice it. Their eyes met - and the one-sided struggle shifted from mere physical confrontation to a deeper conflict, a direct assault upon a man's soul.
Not an easy conquest for the demon, despite his surety of power. The man he sought to subdue possessed a fierceness of spirit that few could match. Or rather he had - before I had taken the heat of it, before I had drunk so deeply from the well of his existence. The determination, the stubborn resolve, even the courage of his heart - they would still be there to armour him. But not the strength.
I had all of that...
McFarlane had played with me; danced me to the edge of the precipice, taunting me with anticipation of horror, with the possibilities of corruption. I had been forced to the very brink of the abyss and he had left me clinging to its crumbling rim.
He tipped Al straight into the pit.
Hard: an impact of terror intended to savage its recipient with nightmare made manifest. I felt the surge of fear that rose in my friend, could sense his whimpering retreat from the assault. He'd always had a superstitious soul, raised as he had been by those whose view of the unseen world would have been uncompromising and definite. For him evil had power, and the devil directed form - and the embodiment of both held him pinned, mocking his futile struggle and anticipating the satisfaction of his inevitable surrender.
I will be gentle, the demon had said to me, a tantalising lie. There was nothing gentle in the hand that clawed through shirt and skin alike, exposing the vulnerability of a man's throat, freeing the richness of his life...
The scent of blood stirred the beast within, set it howling and struggling within the cage I had created. Anger surged through me, adding to its frenzy. How dare he? How dare he so callously waste and defile the glory of this man's life...?
The anger clenched my fists in frustration, urged a snarl of protest from my throat; I saw my master smile, so secure in his conquest that he allowed himself the pleasure of savouring my pain. He half-turned in my direction, briefly breaking that anguished contact - and in that moment, beleaguered, drowning, my friend's eyes sought my own.
I'm sorry, Sam, was the simple message in that look. Not an appeal for aid he knew I would offer if only I could, not even accusation of the root cause that had brought the both of us to this moment. Just an apology for having failed me.
It felt like a knife in my heart.
Oh god, Al. I'm the one who should be sorry.
I'd taken his strength; no matter that he had insisted on it. It was the only thing left to me now.
The sacrament of friendship; a gift of redemption offered without regret.
The one thing I owned that McFarlane had not yet touched.
Dear god, why hadn't I realised...?
I reached for it, immersed myself in it, in the fire of another man's life, in the heady intoxication it offered me. The heat of it filled my echoing soul, surging up against the chains of ice that held me motionless.
If you had the strength you could go on fighting him, couldn't you?
But was it enough?
It had to be enough...
McFarlane turned back, his lips parting for the final strike; Al closed his eyes and whimpered softly, like a cowed wolf-
- and my hands were groping behind me in desperation, seeking something, anything, with which to give myself an edge. They discarded scattered brushes, slid over pencils and paperwork, and finally closed on a curve of leather and cold steel.
On the hilt of a Union cavalry sabre, right where its Confederate liberator had left it earlier in the day.
Yesss!
The sword slid from its scabbard with eagerness; I followed its impetus, springing forward with directed speed. I was inspired by fury, filled with hate and passion, liberated from the frustration of my chains to wreak the vengeance I desired.
And boy, did I desire vengeance...
He heard me; his head jerked back, and he turned with lightning speed, releasing his hold on his victim as he did so. Al's limp form slid downward, into an abandoned heap, leaving McFarlane standing alone.
Just as I desired. He turned into my lunge, the force of it fuelled by my anger, by the sight of blood on his lips. The blade went deep; through silk and skin and ribs and muscle.
Straight into his accursed heart.
He screamed, the sound of a fiend from hell. A long piercing shriek of pain and anger and startlement. His hands groped for the blade as he staggered backward from the blow, and I tugged the steel free with a wrench. Blood followed it, a thick, dark liquor that oozed with sluggish reluctance from the wound.
"No..." he denied, a cry of disbelief. "You can't..."
I could. I struck a second time, a slashing blow that cut from breast to hip.
And he still did not go down.
Instead he gathered himself and reached for me, his eyes burning with fury, one hand pressed to the gaping wound in his abdomen, the other clawed out to strike.
"You are mine," he hissed, his voice cracked with pain, blood bubbling from between his lips as he spoke. "And you will pay for that..."
Oh, jeezus...
I stepped back in alarm, the sword lifted between us like a talisman as I fought to resist the captivity of will he struggled to re-impose.
No. No way...
I kicked out, a blow backed with unnatural strength and a level of panic. It tipped him sideways, into the workbench, cracking bone and twisting his body into a parody of its previous grace. He crumpled to the floor, hugging in his gaping guts and growling.
"A thousand years," he snarled, dragging himself up with his free hand and crawling toward me like some obscene spider. "I will make you suffer for a thousand years."
The ice was crackling at the edges of my soul, fingers of iron digging into my resolve, the sword point dropping slowly toward the floor...
I was slipping.
Dragged back into darkness.
Tumbling toward the pit.
If I fell now, I would fall forever...
"No," I whispered, reaching for the last of the fire, using it to drive away the shadows. Our eyes met - and the impact of his presence shattered against my own.
Anchored in glory. Armed with righteousness. Defended by faith.
Freed by willing sacrifice...
I lifted the sabre a third time, swinging it down and across with all the strength I could muster.
The blade cut deep into dead flesh, through skin, through muscle, and through bone. It lifted McFarlane's head clean from his shoulders and tumbled it over and over, leaving his body to writhe and twist and contort in spasmed reaction.
And - finally - to lie still.
The darkness of his mastery dissipated slowly from my heart, leaving bleakness, leaving the beast, howling soft triumph at his dissolution.
My soul was my own again.
But not my life.
Not my mortality.
That seemed forever beyond my reach...
I let the sword slide from numbed fingers, staring down at the sprawled corpse. Old blood clotted in the wounds, thick and encrusted, as if the man had died days before.
Years before.
The scent of death hung heavy in the air.
A scent counterpointed by the faintest flicker of life, by the merest hint of brilliance...
"Al?"
I stepped over the lifeless body, abandoning the horror of it for more immediate concerns. My friend lay huddled at the intersection of wall and floor, shivering with reaction, each breath a laboured effort.
The flicker of his life was little more than a feeble spark struggling for existence, a concentration of his entire self condensed into one fragile flame.
God in heaven, what did he do to him...?
"Sheesh, Sam," he gasped softly as I reached for him, his voice almost too faint to catch. "I know you're good at pulling things from the fire at the last minute, but ... this- !"
"I'm sorry," I said, cracking an involuntary smile, hearing the intended humour behind the rebuke.
Still in there fighting, Al?
I never should have doubted it.
"I'll try not to cut it so close next time," I promised. I meant it, too.
As if there would ever be a next time ...
"Yeah," he noted distantly. "Sure..."
I slid an arm around his shoulders to support him, recognising his utter fatigue, knowing how helpless he was, and how much he would hate it, had he strength and energy to spare for such frustrations. The wounds on his throat were shallow savagery; the vampire had wanted to savour his feast, rather than delight in the passions of precipitate murder.
A sadistic desire which had undoubtedly saved his life in the end.
Just.
I winced at the thought, wishing I had warmth to offer his shaking frame. Wishing - as I had done before - that I had some way to return the gift he had given me.
How hard did the demon strike?
How deep are the wounds I cannot see?
"All right," a voice announced with resolution from the doorway. "Nobody move."
I looked up. Dixie stood in the doorway to the workshop, both hands curled firmly around the menacing shape of a handgun. Her heart was beating nineteen to the dozen, and her whole body was trembling, but she was there, fiercely protective, written with determination.
Oh, Dix...
"Ain't she something?" Al breathed, every word a note of admiration.
"Yeah," I agreed softly, watching as she advanced warily into the room, seeing her eyes go wide as she took in the situation. "Dix," I began to call, intending some explanation, some way that she might make sense of apparent senselessness-
- but as her name left my mouth, I sensed something take hold of my company, the shiver of a shift in time seizing him.
Seizing me.
And we Leaped.
Together.
Into the spaces between eternity ...
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
Onto Part Two