Better the Devil You Know ...
Part 2
Penelope Hill
Sarah's clear relief at his return was quickly shattered by the sight of the elegant figure that swept into the room behind him. The singer's face was drawn with concern and a hint of exhaustion; a match to Cutter's own if he had but known it, his mind and body tensed by an anxious flight in the dark.
Kogi eyed the American woman with distant amusement before stalking past her to study the object of their common concern. Covered by a single sheet, Bon Chance tossed fitfully on his bed, muttering broken phrases in a variety of languages. French predominated, but every now and then a word or two of English, or something more obscure would drift from his lips. His eyes were open but unfocused. Kogi waved her hand across them thoughtfully, but elicited no response beyond his continual restlessness.
"How is he?" Cutter asked Sarah, his voice low. She shrugged.
"There was another fit," she sighed, "just after you left, and then a third, about an hour ago. He couldn't breath, and - " Her shiver eliminated the need for description. "I thought he was dying."
"He is," Kogi announced pointedly, pulling off her gloves and passing them to an attentive Todo. Sarah gave her a resentful glare.
Quickly Cutter pulled his fellow American to one side. "She has an antidote. She thinks it will work."
"Thinks?" Sarah half turned back towards the group around the bed and he caught her shoulders to keep her attention.
"Now listen. Its a chance, understand? Without it he's a dead man for sure. It might take a week or more, but this thing kills. Eventually." His eyes carried an echo of the tales Kogi had 'entertained' him with on the return trip. "This stuff she's brought accelerates the poison rather than counteracting it ... no, wait," he insisted as her eyes widened at what this appeared to imply. "The victims of the devil's kiss usually die of their own exhaustion. They just - burn out. By forcing the pace, condensing the effect, its possible get the poison to run its course before the victim's metabolism gives up on him. That's the theory anyway."
She shook her head in sheer disbelief. "That's crazy, Jake. Isn't it?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. I do know that if we don't do anything he's going to die - slowly and unpleasantly. He's fighting for his life, Sarah, and unless we force the battle early he's not going to have the strength to win."
She leant against him for a moment of comfort before straightening her shoulder's and settling determination back onto her face. "It's not going to be easy, Jake. He's in such distress ... Koko said it would be kinder to kill him now."
Cutter grimaced, remembering the earlier confrontation. "I'll talk to Koko," he said. "You go get some sleep. You need it," he insisted at her hesitation. "This isn't going to be over in a few hours - maybe not even in a few days. I'll stay with him tonight, and then we can spell each other - You, me, Corky, Gushie - we'll manage, but we won't help him by wasting our own strengths worrying about it."
She nodded reluctantly, casting an anxious glance behind her at the shadowed bed. "I'll try," she promised. "But I don't know if I'll sleep."
The pilot watched her leave before moving to stand beside his delirious friend and watch the woman who examined him with interest.
"This is quite fascinating," Kogi remarked, laying an elegant hand to the Frenchman's cheek and studying his unfocused gaze. "His mind is quite unconnected. One moment he speaks as if he conducted a battle, the next he curses men dying where they stand, and then he pleads in words of love - or hate. Its hard to say, exactly."
Bon Chance's muttering dropped into murmured tones. His voice became cajoling, then pained; he swore in recognisable English, pleaded in the same tongue for a man to hold firm, then slipped into an angry stream of Arabic before returning to the muttered French that pleaded and cursed and argued and denied in uncertain patterns.
"You see what I mean? I daresay if you listened long enough you would learn the name of every woman he ever bedded. That's if he can remember them all."
Cutter, who had heard Monique's name in among the broken phrases, frowned impatiently. "I didn't bring you here to enjoy this," he reminded her. ""What about this counteragent?"
"All in good time," she responded distantly, running her hand down the line of the prone man's arm to rest her fingers on the bandages that bound his wrists together. "Was this your idea?"
The American grimaced. "The fits are violent ones," he defended tightly. "Its so he doesn't hurt himself."
She nodded sagely. "Eminently sensible. Well, Monsieur Magistrate," she addressed the oblivious figure before her mockingly, "bound for once by friendship, rather than enmity. How would your enemies care to see you brought so low? Which is worse I wonder - losing your life, or your dignity? No matter," she smiled, "there are worse things to suffer in hell I hear. But then you'd know that," she added sweetly, reaching once again to turn the unseeing gaze towards her. "Having spent time as the Devil's guest before."
"Kogi," Cutter warned her cautiously. She looked up at him and laughed softly.
"My dear Jake," she breathed, favouring him with an indulgent smile, "so protective. You know nothing about him, you know: nothing at all. And yet - " She laughed again, shaking her head with amusement. "Maybe that is why he is so fond of you. I hope so. Perhaps you might not be so loyal if you knew ... no, that tale is only rumour after all. He might tell you, if he ever sees fit. If he lives," she added thoughtfully.
The pilot winced, directing his growing anger into the curled tightness of his fist, and feeling the nails bite into his palm. "Isn't that what you're here for?" he growled.
"Ah, yes," she said, reaching into the bag on her lap. "So it is." Her hands reappeared, cradling a small velvet case from which she extracted a long thorn like quill and a small bottle. Carefully she uncorked the dark glass container, laying the stopper back inside the velvet case with precise fingers. The quill slid into its depths, emerged glistening with liquid darkness. Kogi considered it while she restoppered the glass and laid it back into its container, a disconcerting smile on her lips; then she ran a careful finger up the Frenchman's arm from wrist to elbow, pushing back the silk sleeve as she did so. A moments pause, the smile quirked into an amused grin, and the quill slid into the white flesh just above the joint. Cutter flinched in spite of himself, and Bon Chance shivered in his delirium, a gasp of reaction on his lips. For an instant he surfaced from the unfocused world that held him; his eyes rested with recognition on the American's anxious face, then slid back into the glaze of fever, the half spoken name swallowed incomplete.
Kogi paused as she withdrew the quill, watching the bead of blood that welled after it. "I wonder if he knows?" she pondered. "Is he aware of what he endures?"
"I hope not," the pilot responded with a shudder, shaken by that brief flicker of comprehension in his friend's face. He remembered how Corky had shaken with pain after the snake bite on Lagoda, and how helpless he had felt then. "But if he is, I hope he doesn't remember."
The princess smiled, indulgently. "You are a loyal friend, Jake. But you would be quite amazed at what a man can survive, if he is forced to." She dropped the bloodied quill into the case and closed it with a snap. Her hand reached out, caught the sweated cheek so that she could study the man's glazed eyes. "He knows." Gently, almost absently, she brought her hand down until her fingers tangled in the strip of silk at Bon Chance's throat. "I wonder ...?"
Cutter reached across and caught her wrist before she could do anything else. "Gushie should have your room ready by now," he said firmly, his eyes challenging. "Perhaps you should check everything is to your satisfaction."
She met his gaze with studied concentration, then smiled and withdrew her hand as if the thought had been both idle and unimportant. "Yes," she breathed. "Perhaps I should. Good night, Jake." Her smile widened a little. "And you, Bon Chance. Sleep well. If you can." She laughed, rose to her feet and swept from the room, leaving the American with a protective hand to his friend's shoulder and an anxious look in his eyes.
The evening dragged from dusk into darkness. For Cutter it was to a harrowing vigil, not helped by the brief moments of lucidity that stole over his patient; moments that brought only an awareness of pain and changed the fevered muttering to a low, tight throated moan. The pilot was never sure if the awareness extended beyond the clutching fingers of the poison his friend endured, but he spoke to him anyway, reassuring murmurs despite his own inner tensions. He could tell the exact point when the Frenchman slipped from semi-fever to semi-consciousness; his previously restless frame would spasm into rigid tension as the impact of pain registered, a movement accompanied by an indrawn breath half sob, half alarm. At such times Cutter's attention would focus abruptly and he would move from chair to bedside, anxiety clutching in his guts. It was in those moments that it was possible to press sugared water between dry lips and be certain it was swallowed. Not enough, perhaps, to counter the dehydrating sweat of his fever, but better than nothing at all. After that the anxiety would tighten its grip; he would force himself to offer comforting words while his heart anticipated the inevitable. Each period of waking would end the same way; in violent spasm, the reflexive fit twisting and jerking the prone form as if the man fought to tear himself apart. There was nothing his patient attendant could do but hold him down and keep him from choking while the inner savagery wrestled itself back into oblivious fever. That it became easier to do so as the night progressed was no comfort; it merely indicated the manner in which the victim's strength was being eaten away piece by piece.
It was a long night. By the end of it Cutter was drained and exhausted although his relief at Gushie's appearance with the rise of the sun was tempered by the realisation that, while he could seek the respite of slumber, his patient still tossed and muttered in fitful restlessness. The opening door laid a shaft of early sunlight past the room's dividing screen and across the Frenchman's unfocused eyes. He flinched, as if physically struck, crying out in unspecified alarm. The pilot moved swiftly to interpose his shadow and allowed himself a sigh of relief as the disturbed man quietened again. Briefly Bon Chance muttered the American's name, one plea among many, and Cutter laid his hand gently to the fevered shoulder, wondering, as he did so, if the man knew that he was there.
From harrowing vigil to the escape of sleep was only a few short steps. He had not expected to find it, his thoughts haunted by the previous hours, but his physical need was greater than his anxiety could combat and he tumbled into a deep and dreamless slumber. He had no accounting of the passage of time until a cold wet nose insinuated its way into his consciousness. Blearily he pushed Jack away and blinked through sawdust laced eyes at the angle of the sun through the shutters. His short rest had become a matter of several hours; it was past midday by his reckoning.
A return to wakefulness brought back the realisation of the past twenty four hour's events. He scrambled up, shrugging into his shirt and pants, splashed tepid water over his face and headed for the door with bothering to shave. Outside life was a startlement of normality: men worked at the quayside and moved in the village, just as they always did. A dog barked at some distant disturbance and the sound of the village women chattering as they worked drifted up with a hint of laughter. He paused, disconcerted by the unchanged pattern.
"Jake?"
He turned at the query, to find Koko Lehar coming along the veranda towards him. Suddenly the vague disquiet that he might have dreamed the event of the night before were banished with vengeance. Koko's face was pale and anxious, his slouch hat a shapeless mass in unsettled hands. He'd added an open necked blue shirt to the previous days outfit of bare feet and ragged pants, and there was a plain silver crucifix hanging at his chest.
"Hi, Koko," Cutter found him a friendly grin that elicited only a wary half smile in return. "Were you looking for me?"
Lehar shook his head. "I - didn't know what to do. I - " He hesitated, not wanting to meet the American's eyes, then crumpled his normally unconcerned features into a frown of determination. "They say in the village that I am the instrument of the curse," he blurted out. "That the devil kept my hand from his kiss in return for my bringing it here. I don't want Bon Chance to die, Jake. I didn't know the kiss was in my net, I swear I didn't. I made no bargains with anyone. I - "
Cutter halted his anxious tirade with a friendly hand to his shoulder. "It's not your fault, Koko. Don't blame yourself. And for god's sake don't pay any attention to the superstitious rot they dream up in the village."
"But the price of the devil's kiss is always a life," the native insisted. "Always. When he dies they will say that I killed him - that I bargained his life in exchange for mine. Don't you see? I was the one who should have paid. They say that if your don't pay the devil the price of your life he will take your soul instead ..."
The American sighed softly. "It's got nothing to do with the devil, Koko. You caught a poisonous urchin in your net, that's all. You didn't sign away your soul in blood, and you didn't - dammit, you idiot," he snapped as the man's face stayed crumpled with guilt, "do you really think I'd be standing here talking to you like this if I thought you'd done it deliberately?"
Koko shook his head slowly.
"Well then. The only devil on Boragora right now is female and half Japanese. I'm the one making the bargains. Kogi brought us an antidote - and Louie is not going to die, understand? Not if I can help it. Your devil will have to get his price from somebody else, because I'm not about to let him collect on a debt he isn't owed. Besides, " he added with a flippant grin, thinking to emphasis how ridiculous the whole idea had to be, "Louie and the devil are old acquaintances - and if there is any debt between them I'd lay money on Satan owing him, not the other way round. They say he spent time on Devil's Island you know."
He clapped the native on the shoulder with a reassuring smile and strode along the veranda towards the Frenchman's suite. Koko watched him go, his strong hands crushing the forgotten hat even further.
"I know," he murmured, so low that the departing pilot couldn't hear him. "Which mean's that when he dies, my unknowing treachery will have forfeited him his life, and let the devil unlawfully steal his soul ..."
It was late in the afternoon when Corky relieved Sarah of her watch over the fevered figure, allowing the singer to slip down to the bar and help Gushie with his preparations for the coming evening. Life had to go on, despite everything, or perhaps even because of everything. Bon Chance was no better, weakened by his interminable struggle and wrecked with reaction; he lay and shivered, neither awake, nor asleep, drowning in his own nightmares and unaware of the vigil they kept over him.
Cutter gave her a hand as she worked, seeking occupation in preference to brooding and leaving Kogi in majestic dominance of the main room where she held court with condescending ease. The few locals that appeared as the afternoon progressed did so with subdued enthusiasm and gravitated to the corners of the room, where they discussed the pervious day's events in low and uncomfortable tones. There was far too much superstitious talk for Cutter's liking. The Reverend Tenboom was having a hard time convincing the islanders that there was no truth in the talk of a curse, partly because he wasn't totally convinced himself. He had paid a brief visit to the sickroom earlier in the day and emerged muttering to himself, clearly upset. He'd avoided Kogi's speculative smile, appropriated a bottle of schnapps from behind the bar and disappeared back into his church, which had been receiving a lot more attentive visits than usual.
Into this sullen and strained atmosphere the sound of the shot was a startlement of thunder. Unmistakably the sound of a gun its very suddenness concealed its direction of origin. Todo sprang to his feet, his hand on his sword hilt and his eyes scanning the small crowd suspiciously. They in turn were casting anxious glances in all directions.
Cutter placed it first, moving from his table to stare out into the evening lit square. A small group of figures were gathering at the dockside; cursing he ran out to investigate, Jack at his heels, and pushed his way through to see what had caught their attention.
Koko Lehar lay sprawled at the bottom of his boat, the gun still resting in his hand. His eyes were open, but they were glazed and unfocused. He had put the bullet quite neatly through his temple and his face was strangely at peace.
"Mein gott," the voice of the Reverend murmured from behind Cutter's shoulder. "Whatever would have made him ...?"
The pilot shuddered, closing his eyes in brief pain and realisation. A casual remark came back to haunt him with a vengeance. 'Your devil will have to get his price from someone else ...' He'd never meant for this to happen, never seen that the man's guilt might drive him to this.
"Okay," he announced, directing the crowd down the dock. "Show's over. The devil's got his due. Go home, all of you. You wanted someone to die, and now someone has." The words were bitter, laced with a hint of personal guilt. He'd had no time to listen to the man's fears, dismissed his anxiety as unimportant at the time ...
"It is said the devil's kiss always costs at least one life," Tenboom said thoughtfully. Perhaps this one will be enough, yah?"
Cutter moved back to join him, staring down at the sprawled corpse and thinking of another man who still fought to live. "I hope so reverend. I really hope so."
Koko's unexpected suicide sent a ripple of shock around the village, followed by a slew of rumours that ranged from the speculation that he might have touched the devil's kiss after all, to the wildly imaginative story that the devil had appeared to him and taunted him with his treachery until he had agreed to exchange his life for that of his victim.
Cutter tried not to pay too much attention to any of them, despite his nagging conviction that the last was not so far from the truth - at least as far as Koko had seen it. He concentrated instead on dealing with one day at a time, condensing the needs of every day existence between harrowing nights of vigil at his friend's side. Kogi had suggested a second dose of her 'counteragent' and had administered it twenty fours after the first; the result had served only to heighten the fever and shorten the time between the fits. By the morning the pilot was physically drained and exhausted and his patient drenched in sweat and blood: sweat that shivered out of him too quickly to be replaced by snatched moments in which he was lucid enough to swallow, and blood that oozed from beneath bonds that held him for safety and yet rubbed raw against flesh bruised by its own internal violence. Bon Chance raved and fought, unheeding of his company or circumstance, locked in a tight prison of fever and pain; heedless too of his ebbing strength which, as the third day wore on, reduced his moments of violence to anguished struggle in which he no longer screamed but merely gasped for breath like a landed fish. His delirium grew weaker too, the earlier comprehension of his words blurred into distant muttering, pronunciation slurred and language lost in a throat raw with use and a mouth swollen from growing dehydration.
In some ways it was a relief, but his slide into weakness took with it the certainty of hope. Kogi joined Cutter's watch late on the third evening and considered his patient with a calculating eye.
"He has a remarkable resilience," she remarked, reaching to turn the Frenchman's head so that she could study his unfocused gaze. Cutter merely growled, an unhappy response. He did not like the amusement the Princess found in the situation, nor the pleasure she gained from witnessing his own reaction to it. He would have preferred that she kept away but he could not, in all honesty, deny her the right to witness the progress of the conflict she had come to help fight.
"Truly, my dear Jake," she assured him, delicately wiping her fingers on the corner of the pillow. "I didn't expect him to last this long."
"What?" The American's reaction was half outrage, half stunned disbelief. Kogi smiled sweetly at his expression.
"There is no direct anti-venom for the devil's kiss," she reminded him with amusement. "I told you that three days ago. Only an agent that combines with it, offering a chance - a possibility. One that, I have to admit, kills more than it cures - but far more mercifully than the single poison alone."
He was too startled to be angry with her, too drained emotionally for his reaction to be anything but numbed. "You call this - merciful?"
"Most certainly," she said, her expression almost pitying. "If death follows this it comes within accountable time. The devil's kiss draws this kind of death beyond days and into weeks." She smiled, somehow playful, taking pleasure in the look that chased across his face. "It lets go, Jake. It gives its victims time to draw breath - before the next onslaught drags them back into darkness. Not once, but many times."
He shuddered, suddenly picturing it; this same fever of violence, but subtly spread with moments of hope. Like a mouse cornered by a playful cat a victim would be released to savour the chance of mercy, only to be pulled back into captivity, again and again; until a man would shiver with the anticipation of coming pain and the knowledge of his own destruction would truly spin him into inevitable madness ... "And this?" he demanded, wondering what else she had failed to tell him, had left unsaid to taunt him with his own expectations.
She shrugged. "As I said - it condenses the effect. Allows the fight to be a little fairer, while the combatant has strength left to sustain the struggle. And then," she added with a strangely sympathetic glance at the figure that lay between them, "it does avoid the matter of the subject witnessing his own dissolution ... Kill or cure," she considered pensively. "It depends - on the man." Beside her Bon Chance stirred fitfully, his face drawn, his skin greyed, and his eyes clouded.
"Then how many have been 'cured'?" He had to ask, watching her, not the man beneath his hand. Her lips pursed in consideration, her hand paused, uncharacteristically gentle on an oblivious shoulder; then she turned to meet the American's eyes with unreadable intent.
"None that I know of," she told him softly.
He took it like a blow. Two laboured days of hope struck from under him with honest words. He sank to the edge of the bed and briefly closed his eyes. "Oh god," he breathed, a cold hand clutching at his heart.
"There is always a first time for everything," Kogi remarked lightly from behind him. He turned back to her, a cold fury burning in his eyes, his sense of having betrayed the trust he was so freely given eating at him with pounding anger.
"You let me think - " he started slowly, each word an effort to formulate. "Damn you! Damn you and your smile! What kind of sick pleasure have you had from this? Why didn't you send me home to help him choose the manner of his death, not force him to - to this?"
She seemed unconcerned at his anger, almost amused. "Because I believe in giving someone who deserves a chance, the chance they deserve. Jake - believe me. If I had truly thought the result was inevitable then I would have lied to you. I would have sent you back with a far more efficient poison than this one. As it is - he should be dead, and he is not. Bon Chance can be a very stubborn man - and he has survived before where others succumbed to circumstance. Despite what you may believe of me I have no reason to garner pleasure from the prolonging of his death - only in giving him the chance for life." She smiled speculatively, her eyes briefly distant. "Not that this hasn't been - entertaining. But if I wished him gone I would have found a far more fitting end for him a long time ago. Besides - perhaps the legend of the devil's kiss has some truth in it. It would be a shame, would it not, for that young fisherman's sacrifice to have been totally in vain?"
Cutter had no words to answer her. She had taken his hope and dashed it into pieces, only to smooth the cracks together with subtle words he had no way to confirm or deny. He grasped at the fragile chance she was offering and curled it tight into his soul. He had to believe - or else he was better finishing things here and now.
Between them the Frenchman stirred, drawing in a rigid breath, precursor to yet another inner tremor of reaction. The American reacted almost automatically, reaching for the glass of sugared water that waited for such moments. For a scarce moment his friend's eyes flickered with recognition, focused with the hint of a half smile, then he was lost again in the tightness of pain, shivering, each outward breath a low moan.
Cutter's heart turned over with helpless frustration, and he looked up from his gentle ministrations to stare bleakly at Kogi's quiet smile.
"Oh, Jake," she breathed, her voice almost affectionate in her knowing resignation, "does it matter? You couldn't do it anyway. You don't have the strength. Let him live - if he can. Every hour he fights now will be a step away from death, not towards it."
The pilot shivered. She was right. He could not kill his friend - not while the barest chance remained, and perhaps not even then. She saw it as a weakness, and perhaps it was. Bon Chance himself would have had no hesitation - once he was certain there was no other way. "Is there nothing else we can do for him?"
She shook her head with certainty, rising to leave, then paused and turned back with a thoughtful smile. "You could always pray," she suggested, then was gone, into the night, a hint of laughter in the air she left behind.
Cutter looked down at the man in his arms and grimaced wryly, an expression without humour in it. Pray? He'd been doing nothing but for days.
Rationality returned slowly; there were strange periods of lucidity in which he became aware of his surroundings and his company, yet had no control over the shivering violence of his body; other moments when he lay and muttered, an endless murmur of pain and distress; his mind wandered as if in a fever, eliciting memories of times he would prefer to forget, and he would cry out, an incomprehensible mixture of languages laced with names to which he could no longer give faces. Gradually the times of awareness grew longer, bringing him to world in which he seemed to inhabit a body that was not his own. There was pain; the pain of a self abused by its own violence, in torn muscles and bruised flesh, in wrists raw against the padding with which he had been secured for his own safety; the pain too of the pounding in his head and the twisting in his guts. Pain and effort, a body weakened by lack of nourishment and the constant expenditure of energy. Yet for much of the time it was a distant awareness that haunted him, a state neither dreaming nor awake, in which the voices that spoke over him were distorted and the faces they matched were blurred and unfocused.
Time, and memory, faded in and out, disjointed and ungraspable. Sometimes he would wake, in the dark, whole and himself, to know that the space between one breath and the next would be a lifetime; else the murmur of concern that chased around him would spin past while his body twisted and fought in a manner entirely unconnected to his sense of self. At such times he would wish to weep, betrayed by flesh no longer his to control, forced to endure until dissolution took him again into the reassurance of darkness and the absence of everything. The nightmare might only have lasted moments, but it wrapped him in years, each agonising fight to reach reality dragged from his grasp and sent spinning into insanity.
Finally he woke, cold and sweated at the same time, his body aching, his strength drained. He lay and shivered, counting each breath, and listened to the murmur of his heart. The room was dim; he had some vague recollection of screaming at the impact of sunlight, but the moment, and the reason for it, was lost in a haze of distance. He stared at the unfocusing ceiling for what seemed to be a long time. He had no inclination to move, nor could he have done so if he had wished, since he lay secured at wrist and ankle, bound by ties of care and concern against the savage violence of his own madness. Madness. That was it. A poison that had separated self and soul from the familiar parameters of reality, invoking involuntary reaction from a body abandoned to mindless direction. A madness that might yet seize him again, he realised, resisting a distant impulse to protest the restraint. He had no strength to move in any case, what little he had left to his exhausted frame directed towards the effort of drawing breath.
A hand, gentle and unobtrusive, reached to wipe the sweat from his face, the cloth it held cool and reassuring. He was not alone. Carefully he turned his head the barest fraction, focusing on the face that leaned above him, and allowed himself the faintest smile of recognition. "Sarah?" he whispered, the barest of breaths from a throat raw and dry. She paused in her ministrations, staring at her patient with an expression that was half hope and half expectant fear.
"Louie?' Her query was tentative. How many times had he whispered her name in the mutterings of his raving? How often had he half woken to lucidity, only to lose it again in the twist of his inner torment? He didn't know. He didn't want to know. He was tired, and yet could not force the desire to slip into sleep. Even that seemed to be an effort that was beyond him.
"How long?" he mouthed instead, his voice a whisper of dust. Her expression quirked into wry remembrance as she abandoned the dampness of the cloth to reach instead for some unseen goal behind him.
"Five days," she murmured gently, watching his reaction with care. She retrieved her hand, bent to lift his head, and the water she gave him was sweet in the desert of his mouth. The answer drifted into his mind and registered with an inner shiver. Five days, to rave and fight, and wrestle with nightmares, while others endured the uncertainty of his spasms.
"I'm sorry." The words were a wave of pain and humiliation, an understanding of the necessity of care his friends would have had forced upon them. She frowned at him, affection mingled in with impatience as she considered his face.
"Don't be an idiot," she scolded pertly. "You didn't have a lot of choice in the matter." Her smile was meant to be reassuring; her hand went, briefly, to the fabric that bound his wrists, then fell away, the anxiety in her eyes betraying her inner concern. "I daren't," she whispered, her expression twisting into hesitant pain. "Not yet. Please understand," she reached to touch his shoulder, "its for your own good ..."
"Je connais." He closed his eyes and breathed his acceptance with a sigh. "I remember some of it ..."
He heard her indrawn breath as a sob, an echo of sympathy and helplessness long endured. He needed to sleep now; wanted to, drifting away from the ache and the pain, swallowed by exhaustion.
When he woke again - a slow drift up from distant dreams that only echoed half forgotten nightmares - it was to focus on another, no less familiar face, lined with evidence of an exhaustion that seemed to match the inner weariness that possessed him. He lay unmoving for a while, considering his friend with idle attention, what little strength he had directed at the slow pleasure of drawing breath. He still hurt; an ever present pulse of pain that rose and fell with the effort of his heart, counterpointed by more insistent notes that muttered protest at the barest movement. He was cold too, a shivering cold that his body lacked strength to shiver for, numbing sensation into the narrow corridor between inner pain and the awareness of breath. It seemed unimportant somehow; he lay content in the prison of his own helplessness and savoured the realisation of simply being alive.
Cutter's attention was focused on Jack, the pilot conversing in low tones with the dog as it perched on his master's knees. Jack, in turn, was thoughtfully awake, his one eye a gleam of light reflected from the shadowed bedside lamp. The sound of the man's voice was an unfocused murmur that the waking man let wash over him without attempting to isolate its meaning; it was interrupted by a quiet whuff of realisation from Jack, who sat up and leant forward, his stump of a tail wagging violently. The pilot looked down at him in surprise, then across, to the object of his attention, letting the animal slide from his arms as he recognised comprehension in the eyes that watched him.
"Louie?" he breathed, an unconscious echo of the singer's reaction, the matching look half hopeful, half fearfully expectant. It elicited an attempt at a wry smile.
"Bon soir, mon ami," the Frenchman tried to say. The words were no more than a raw croak and a breath of effort. Cutter was out of his chair in seconds.
"Don't try to talk," he advised, his hand reaching for the water jug and refilling the waiting glass. Bon Chance tried to lift his head to watch him; the determination was there, but not the strength to meet it. Even that little effort made the room swim in front of him. "Don't try to do anything," the pilot corrected with concern. He slid his arm under unresisting shoulders, lifting his friend's head so that he could drink from the proffered glass, pacing it so that the man could concentrate on the effort of breath between each sip and swallow.
The water was warm and sweet, a hint of saltiness swirling in it; what ever it contained it was nectar that cut through the sand that choked his throat. He savoured each drop, despite the protest of screaming muscles that objected as they moved against the curve of the supporting arm. Every shift, every breath, raised a stab of lancing pain across his shoulders; it shivered through him to be swallowed by the pit of numbness that started somewhere in his chest. He couldn't even feel his hands, let alone consider moving them; the liquid slid into his throat and then was lost to sensation, as if he only existed in the tight agony of head and shoulders that lay cradled against the other man's warmth.
He drank, and then drank again, his body crying out for the water it so badly needed. Cutter watched him anxiously, letting him drink in measured sips until even that small effort was too much. Bon Chance closed his eyes briefly as a wave of dizziness swept over him, and shivered involuntarily. "Merci," he breathed, lips barely moving around the word, the air that carried it tearing at the rawness of his throat. The pilot's grip tightened the barest fraction at the impact of the unconscious spasm; his sudden transmission of tension, even fear, puzzled his patient, who opened tired eyes and found tight expectation in his friend's expression. "I am cold," he wanted to say; his mouth moved, but the sound was no more than a quiet gasp. He took a breath, tried again, suddenly needing to counter the anxiety in the American's eyes. "Cold," he managed, aided by a second shiver that rippled through him. It was accompanied by a wave of pain as muscles reacted to its passage; it sparked an echo of a distant memory and spasmed his shoulder's into rigid expectation of a overwhelming agony that did not come. Instead the pain inside him pulsed once and then sank back into nagging persistence. He forced himself to relax, an effort that left him sweated, and felt the arm beneath him follow suit as its owner realised that the threatened violence was not going to come.
"Okay," Cutter breathed in clear relief, sliding his arm away and lowering his patient back to the pillows. "Cold I can do something about." He took a step down the length of the bed, paused, then looked back with a moment of doubt. The wry smile he found watching him took no effort; it triggered a tug of indecision in his blue eyes. "What the hell," he decided abruptly. "You're too weak for it to make any difference anyway."
He reached across and unloosened the fabric that bound hand and foot, wincing a little as the action uncovered the damage it concealed. The figure under his hands drew in a shudder of pain at even his gentlest touch and he muttered apologies as he worked, concerned to replace blood and sweat stained bandages with a separate clean strip over each injury. Once that was done he slipped across the room, returning with a clean sheet and a light blanket that he tucked in around the still shivering shoulders. The room was warm enough, but the man's strength was gone; five days without food, scarce water and constant activity had extracted an exacting toll.
"You know," the American said softly, staring down at his friend with patient affection, "you really had us worried for a while there. Don't you ever do this to me again, do you hear? Don't answer that," he added quickly as Bon Chance started to open his mouth. "Just save your strength." Somewhere at his feet Jack barked a quiet agreement, two short sharp sounds that made his master smile.
The Frenchman carried that smile back into sleep, letting darkness wash over him with familiar caress.
Daylight formed his next perception; an impression of shuttered sun cut by a sudden and darker shadow as a figure moved at his side. He opened wary eyes, reluctant to return to his world of helpless endurance. The throb of pain had dimmed a little, but movement reawoke the sharper mementoes of his ordeal and his senses were distanced by exhaustion and inner weariness. Somehow he wasn't surprised to recognise Kogi's carefully painted features; she was watching him with studied intent.
"Your highness," he breathed, his voice a cracked parody of his normal cultured tones. "Forgive me if I do not get up."
The involuntary smile was one of genuine amusement; she lifted her head to share it with the figure on the other side of him. "Well, well," she said lightly, "our miracle awakes. Welcome back, Bon Chance. You are forgiven - this time," she added with a deep throated laugh.
A hand touched his shoulder, drawing his eyes and his attention; Cutter's stance was protective, alert and wary of the woman opposite him. "Now do you believe me?" the pilot's voice challenged, the question ending with a quick glance of concern in his friend's direction. The princess nodded regally.
"I never doubted you, Jake. I just wished to see for myself." She leant forward to stare down at the drawn face among the pillows, her eyes subtly superior. "And now I have," she murmured. Her smile was amused, her look speculative. "So you live, monsieur Magistrate. Which makes you a very rare man indeed. A very stubborn one too, I'd say. Too stubborn to die when you ought to." She laughed lightly. "I shall dine well on the tale of the man who could not be killed by a kiss - not a woman's, not the devil's - nor the Guillotine's, " she added calculatingly, watching his eyes.
He heard Cutter draw in an angry breath, caught back with an effort, but all he did was smile. "No one will believe you," he found the breath to say. "A woman's kiss is always fatal."
She laughed. A warm, amused laugh of quiet delight. "Ah, Bon Chance," she acknowledged, still chuckling, "the devil wouldn't have kept you for long, would he? No wonder he let you live - you'd be too much of a handful in hell." She laughed again, at her own joke, eyeing Cutter's annoyance as she did so. "But I can't say I'm sorry," she said. "The Marivella's would be very dull without you - and someone has to keep an eye on Jake here. He won't let me do it."
"We should let him rest," Cutter said with icy quiet. The princess looked across at him with an assumed innocence that fooled nobody.
"I was just about to suggest the same thing," she said sweetly. "Or do you really think I would spoil all that hard work just for the sake of a few words? Rest well, monsieur. It has been - " She smiled, predatorily. "Interesting."
She blew Cutter the barest kiss as she turned to go. "Don't forget, Jake," she murmured. "Hong Kong. In two weeks. I shall be waiting."
"I'll be there," the pilot growled, his shoulder's set until she finally left, the door closing behind her with firm intent. He sighed, softly, a release of tension and smiled down at the man under his hand. "I'm sorry about that," he muttered. "She insisted - and, well, she did help save your life."
"Am I alive then?" he questioned with an effort of breath. "I do not feel as if I am."
"You will," Cutter grinned with affection, sliding onto the edge of the bed and reaching for the water glass. "Just give it a little time. Here," he offered, wincing as the man tensed with pain in his arms and then settled into the proffered support with a sigh, "drink this, and I'll see about getting you something to eat. You must be starving. You know," he continued conversationally, "you look terrible. And that beard is just going to have to go."
It went two days later, Bon Chance finally feeling recovered enough to sit up for an hour and tackle the job himself. Sarah watched him anxiously as she supported the mirror on the edge of the bed. He was still desperately weak, and each careful stroke of the open razor was a studied effort, but he completed the job without mishap, closing the savage blade with a snap and turning to regard her with a twinkle of amusement and a slightly more recognisable smile.
"Now you look more like yourself," she approved brightly. He eyed his image in the reflective surface, finding the face that stared back a gaunt and pale echo of what he might have expected, and allowed himself a wry grin. Five days of practical starvation had served to reduce him to a shadow of himself; his normally lean and carefully compact frame had had little in the way of spare flesh and his ordeal had marked him deeply.
"I haven't looked this bad in years," he decided, shaking his head and considering her admonishingly. "Not since ..." He caught back what he might have been about to say and then laughed softly. "From Devil's Island to the devil's kiss," he murmured, giving his image another quizzical glance. "It feels like a life time," he sighed, "but you don't forget." He shivered, a reaction she echoed, struck by the sudden bleakness in his tone. "You keep the scars too," he added pensively, turning his hand to study the mark that was left on his palm. Where the urchin's spine had penetrated there was a sharply defined pattern, a small star shaped wound, healing now into the dark pink of an old injury but clearly there to stay. Next to it the rawness of his wrist was an angry memory. Those wounds too were healing, although the remnants of his recent ordeal could be read in every careful move he made; moves that woke abused muscle and bruised flesh. Sarah laid the mirror at the foot of the bed and plumped up the pillows so that he could lean back against them. Even two days after he had fought free of the fever he was still weak, and he exhausted easily.
He smiled at her careful attentions, not adverse to a little pampering when the situation demanded it. "I could get used to this," he said, a note of tease in his voice. She pouted at him huffily.
"If you want a permanent slave," she told him tartly, "you'll have to advertise. My contract is purely two songs sets four nights a week. Everything else," she added, sweeping the shaving equipment off the bed and onto the dresser, "can be considered purely temporary."
"But much appreciated," he acknowledged gently, this time the words sincere. She turned in slight surprise.
"Well, if you put it that way..." Her face softened into a smile. "I have to look after you, you know. Where else would I find an employer with such an understanding attitude?"
"Or with such an ability to turn a deaf ear?" Cutter's voice enquired from behind the room divider. A moment later the man himself appeared, his arms encumbered with a largish box.
"Jake!" Sarah dived across the room to greet him with a hug, a gesture he was forced to return one handed as he balanced his burden on the end of the bed. "What do you mean - a deaf ear?"
"Ah - " Cutter suddenly realised that might not have been the ideal choice of words. He found Bon Chance was watching him with amused expectation. "Perhaps I should have said a blind eye. That is," he gulped as Jack growled with annoyance at his feet, "good at looking the other way ... oh, what the hell. You know what I meant."
The Frenchman laughed softly, a sound to cheer both of them. "Mon dieu, Jake," he said, "I see I shall have to get up sooner than later. You sound like you may need help."
"You stay right there," the pilot ordered briskly, untangling himself from Sarah's arms and bringing the box to his friend's side. "You're supposed to be resting - hey, you shaved."
"Give the man a coconut," Sarah groaned. "What have you got, anyway?"
Cutter grinned. "Present from the Governor," he announced, lifting a bottle from the depths of the box. "Tagataya was buzzing with rumours and all sorts. I had to seek refuge in Government House just to get away from the crowds. And of course, the Governor just had to ask after his favourite reprobate ..."
"Armagnac," Bon Chance noted with appreciation. "I am honoured."
"Naw," the pilot dropped the box onto the bedspread and perched beside it. "He was scared witless he'd have to find someone to replace you ..."
Amusement glittered in the depths of the Frenchman's eyes. "Perhaps I should tender him my resignation - on grounds of ill health," he suggested thoughtfully. The two Americans exchanged a grin.
"You have a cruel streak in you, Louie," Sarah said, trying to sound disapproving and failing miserably. The man concerned tipped his head back against the pillows and chuckled softly.
"I just like to be sure I am appreciated ..." he said. Cutter laughed.
"Oh, you're appreciated all right. They may not approve of you, but they sure as hell appreciate you. Believe me."
"What else have you got there?" the singer demanded, trying to peer into the box. The pilot waved her back.
"This and that, " he allowed mysteriously, then winked at her. "Actually," he went on, reaching into the package, "I have scoured the Marivellas for the means of keeping a recuperating invalid entertained while we keep an eye on his business."
"I am ruined," Bon Chance declared, rolling his eyes ceilingwards. Sarah stifled a laugh.
"Three novels," Cutter extracted the books with a flourish. "One obscure French something or other, one a minor classic of questionable literature - also in French," he quickly pointed out as a frown crept into Sarah's expression. "The third a somewhat battered detective novel published in New York last year. I'll borrow that myself when you've read it - it looks quite good, and I want to work out the murderer before Corky blurts it out in conversation. What else? Oh yeah -" He grimaced. "Three months accumulation of Colonial administrative and legislative change ..." He produced two hefty bound volumes and the Frenchman groaned.
"I doubt that I am well enough for that yet," he announced, and the pilot gave him a sympathetic grin.
"I don't think I'd ever feel well enough for that," Sarah remarked, poking at a corner of one volume with a doubtful look. "That's not entertainment, its torture."
"I shall have a relapse," Bon Chance decided.
"Don't you dare," Cutter shot back. "I've only just got Kogi back to Matuka, and I still have to fly her to Hong Kong the week after next ... Next time I need her help quite so desperately she's going to bargain for a lot more than one flight."
"Two," the singer pointed out archly, still unhappy with the arrangement, despite understanding the necessity for it.
Her fellow American ignored the note in her voice and tipped the remaining contents of his box onto the bed. "The chocolates are Australian, not Swiss, and the magazines are three months out of date," he said, "but I did my best."
His friend laughed softly. "You work miracles, mon ami. There could have been one more thing ..."
"You name it."
The Frenchman considered the ceiling pensively. "Blonde," he decided. "Five two, five three, mid thirties - a woman of the world. French, or Italian perhaps, but I'm not fussy ..."
"Louie!" Sarah's indignation could be measured on the Richter scale. "Now I know you're feeling better." Her expression was scandalised. "Really."
Bon Chance managed to assume an innocently wounded look, despite the laugh in his eyes. "Sarah," he chided. "I was merely in search of some friendly conversation ..."
"Your kind of conversation would get you arrested in New England," she said tartly. Cutter smothered a laugh with difficulty and she rounded on him. "Don't you encourage him, either. He needs rest - not riot."
"I know," the pilot protested, trying to sound hurt but unable to resist the smile in the recuperating man's direction. "I haven't forgotten. No blonde, Louie. Its absolutely out - for a least a week," he added with a wink. Sarah snorted indignantly and flounced away to tidy the contents of the dresser, deliberately ignoring both of them.
Bon Chance laughed, then sighed, closing his eyes as effort caught up with him. "I do not like to admit it," he breathed tiredly, "but she may be right. Even ordinary conversation gets a little much after a while."
The singer turned with a slightly knowing 'I told you so' expression on her face, only to lose it as she realised how drawn he looked. "We'll go," she offered considerately. "Jake can bring you lunch later."
"Yeah." Cutter slipped to his feet. his eyes concerned, and began to pack the pieces back into the box. "You get some sleep."
"I have done nothing but sleep for two days," the French accent protested distantly. "Sleep and be treated as if I were made of china. Jake - " he commanded, opening his eyes to fix the man in question challengingly. "What are you protecting me from?"
Pilot and singer exchanged glances. "Well," Cutter breathed, then stopped. Bon Chance eyed him expectantly.
"I had thought it might be Kogi," he murmured, "but you have answered my questions concerning her honestly enough. She was well entertained for her time and trouble, which was only to be expected. I would say that I owe her my life, except that I know better where the debt lies, mon ami. This is something else. Something you have not thought me ready to hear."
Again the two Americans exchanged a glance. Cutter slowly moved back to sit at the edge of the bed. "It was the rumours in the village," he considered carefully. "There seems to a lot of superstition where the devil's kiss is concerned."
"That the devil's claws will only relinquish their hold for the angel of death?" The Frenchman nodded sagely. "I would expect that kind of talk. They may have been right - but for another devil we knew, n'est ce pas?"
The pilot looked away, unable to look the man in the eye while he imparted the rest of it. His voice seemed to come from a long way away. "They were right - or think they were. The devil's debt was paid, Louie. Paid in fear and guilt and ignorance." His hand clenched angrily around a handful of bedclothes. "Koko - took his own life, five days ago. He stole your gun to do it."
"Mon dieu," the horror breathed out of the Frenchman with involuntary pain. "Koko?" Realisation and understanding closed over his face and, reflexively, he lifted his hand and crossed himself, an appeal to a higher authority whose judgement on the matter would be final. "At least one life," he whispered with a shiver. "One way or another the devil gets his due."
'Don't," Sarah begged, reaching to catch his hand. "It's bad enough them saying it. He thought he'd killed you. He couldn't live with the fact, that's all."
He nodded sadly, finding her an accepting smile. "C'est la vie," he said. "C'est la mort." His hand tightened over hers; not a strong grip yet, but stronger than it had been the day before. "Mais ce n'est pas justice."
"Who's to say," Cutter considered bleakly. "Koko clearly thought it was. Word in the village makes it a fair exchange. He was just another fisherman - losing you would have meant far too many changes around here."
"That," Bon Chance said tightly, "is not justice. Just human nature. Better the devil you know, n'est ce pas?"
"Yeah," the pilot sighed. "But you can't blame them for that. Its over, Louie. Let it lie."
"Oui." The response was a little bleak. "I'm tired," the man realised with a sigh. "Go on, get out of here. Both of you. Let an old man get some sleep."
"Louie," Sarah said, giving his hand an affectionate squeeze before relinquishing it. "The day you can call yourself an old man is the day I become a grandmother. Mind you," she added playfully, "it'll have to be old age that kills you. Nothing else is having much success ..."
"Come on," Cutter growled in mock irritation, rising to his feet and dragging her away. "You were the one insisting the man be allowed to rest. Hey," he added, throwing a knowing wink as a farewell as he guided her towards the door, "if you're going to be a grandmother, doesn't that mean you have to become a mother first ...?"
Their voices faded into muffled distance, abruptly reduced by the closing of the door behind them. Sarah's retort was clearly a lively one; the resultant laughter echoed through the hotel. Left alone Bon Chance sighed, lifting his hand to reconsider the healing mark that nestled in his palm. An involuntary shiver ran through him and he tensed, relaxing only as the sharpness of its impact faded. The devil only released his hold for the angel of death ... He saw no reason to burden his friends with the realisation he had come to face. Let Cutter think the matter ended; he would regain his strength, and with it conceal the moments in which he would be tested. No one need ever know that he might carry the echo of the devil's kiss for the rest of his life ...
Return to Part 1 ...
Return to the Monkey Bar
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 Tales of the Gold Monkey trademarks or copyrights.
© 1999 by Penelope Hill