An ill wind
The yellow glare of the electric light shone down on the figure at the desk with steady indifference, reflecting off the shuffle of papers that lay spread across the desktop and filling the corners of the cluttered room with shadows. The man was writing. The scratch of his pen and the occasional stir of paper were the only sounds that could be heard, except for the distant and ever-present whisper of the surf as it brushed the night beaches in the near distance. Occasionally he would pause and sigh, checking and rechecking the words he wrote against those that marched in ordered fashion over earlier documents; then he would return to the current pages, shaking his head as he did so.
A noise beyond the confines of the office drew his attention; he looked up and frowned distantly at the figure in the wheelchair that appeared in the opening doorway.
"It’s late," the newcomer announced, only half entering the room. "I’ve finished locking up out there. Isn’t it about time you called it a night?"
Bon Chance Louie, Magistrate De Justice for one quarter of the French Mandate of the Maravellas and owner of the renowned (or perhaps infamous) Monkey Bar Hotel on Boragora, rubbed a tired hand around the back of his neck and smiled wearily. "Probably," he agreed, "but then I would only have to come back to it in the morning. You go ahead," he suggested. "I won’t be long."
His friend eyed him suspiciously. He had been Major Domo in the hotel since the events that had brought the two of them to the islands, and the Frenchman’s companion for some time before that; he probably knew the man better than any other might have a right to claim. He certainly knew when it was better not to argue with him. "All right," he said eventually, shrugging his shoulders with resignation. "Here’s the evening’s take to go in the safe. I’ll kill the lights out there if you want, but I can leave the upper landing."
"Non." Bon Chance shook his head, watching as the turn of the wheels brought the other man in front of his desk. The bag his friend deposited was clearly heavy; the change within chinked as it hit the wooden surface. "I’ll manage. The generator might not. Go to bed, Gushie. It’s been a long day."
His Major Domo nodded, considering the exhausted lines of his comrade’s face. "You all right?"
His answer was a wry smile. "I have the corpse of a guest who died in very strange circumstances lying in my kitchen chill cabinet, a hotel room ripped into nothing more than tatters over my head, an autopsy report to compile which makes very little sense - and a small fortune in ancient gold sat in my safe." He laughed at the expression that chased across Gushie’s features. "Sometimes," he confided thoughtfully, "I wonder if we might not have been better off accepting that offer in Macau."
"It had its attractions." The wheelchair turned, preparatory to leaving, and its owner grinned. "But I prefer the current neighbourhood. It’s never dull."
"Mmm." Bon Chance waved him away and bent back to his paperwork with a sigh. Gushie threw him a final anxious glance and left, leaving the office door slightly ajar. Shortly afterwards the light in the outer room flicked out, leaving the Frenchman alone with his concentration.
It was another hour before he put his pen down again; pushing the papers away to stretch and rub at the bleariness behind his eyes. The report was not an easy one to compose, the words he had found somehow failing to match the startled memories of the night before. The scream of terror that had drawn him from his preparation for bed; the anxious crowd of guests and residents that it had pulled onto the outer veranda; Jake Cutter hammering at the locked door from behind which the sounds of battle sprang; the pilot and his burly mechanic shouldering into the room, and then ... He turned back the pages and studied the neat lines of French he had placed there. It had not, he had concluded early, been a pleasant way for anyone to die. His autopsy had only served to emphasise the fact, the painstaking examination of the corpse adding yet more mystery to the growing puzzle. Apart from the corpse, the room had been empty, its inner door as firmly locked as the outer one. Its inhabitant had been badly beaten, his body bruised and broken, as if he had been caught up in a whirlwind and buffeted to exhaustion at every turn. That would have been bad enough; but the man had died of fright, his heart taken by a massive seizure, his face etched with some unearthly terror. The room around him had been smashed and devastated, his possessions scattered and tumbled in the ruins of the furniture - yet three carved pieces of solid gold still lay clasped in the dead man’s hands, his fingers curved over them as if they, and they alone, could have warded off whatever fate it was that befell him.
Bon Chance was not, by nature, a superstitious man, yet even he had had cause to cross himself at the conclusions his mind had leapt to. No-one could have entered, or left, the damaged room in the time between the scream and the discovery without being seen by half the inhabitants of the hotel. Nothing seemed to have been stolen. The event carried all the hallmarks of those locked room murders with which mystery writers loved to confound and confuse their readers - except this was real life, not fiction and the look on the man’s face had been enough to put the fear of unholy things into the hardest heart.
He allowed himself a sigh of tired frustration. Ghost stories had little impact under the warmth of the tropical sun, and he had searched all day for an alternative solution to the story of the man’s death. All to no avail. No-one knew the victim at all; he had arrived on the supply ship from the Solomons two days before, had kept himself to himself most of the time, and had intimated that he was merely waiting to catch the eastbound Clipper when it arrived in just over a week’s time. His name meant nothing to anyone, and no-one had admitted knowledge of the intricate gold carvings they had found in his fear-frozen hands. It was, Bon Chance suspected, going to be one of those mysteries that would never be solved - he certainly wasn’t going to do so tonight.
Easing his tired frame out of the chair, the shape of which he was beginning to assume, he reached across the desk and retrieved the dark leather bag that sat on its outer edge. The weight of the cash within was reassuring. It had not been a good night for business, since gossip and superstition had kept many of the locals from their regular attendance, but he didn’t think the downturn would last for very long.
The spin of the safe’s lock was smooth and certain under his practised hand. He had paid a lot for the security it represented on an island where buildings did not possess stone walls and few people locked their doors. There were only two places he considered more secure - one was the village strongbox that stayed firmly guarded by the duty constable in the island’s official colonial office, and the other was the padlocked box that lay beneath the floorboards under his own bed, and that only because nobody else knew about it. The inhabitants of Boragora were not, on the whole, particularly untrustworthy, but the passing trade was another matter entirely, and Bon Chance was a cautious man. The safe was a precaution he hadn’t stinted on.
The bag dropped comfortably into the space normally reserved for it, and he paused to extract several bundles of notes in order to transfer them to the main cash box. The keys to that were, like the combination of the safe, kept only by Gushie and himself, and he jangled the length of the key chain as he pulled it from his waistcoat pocket. The accumulation of cash implied the need for another trip to the bank at Tagataya - a time consuming chore only made easier by the availability of transport. He made a mental note to speak to Cutter about the matter in the morning and slid the locked box back onto the shelf. Above it lay the enigmatic gold pieces he had prised free of the dead man’s grip some eighteen or nineteen hours previously. They glinted in the spill of light from the overhead lamp and he reached for the largest with a mixture of curiosity and resignation.
Three pieces, each half the size of the previous one, all shaped by intricate carving that let them interlock, one inside the other. The largest was small enough to lie in the palm of his hand, its smooth outer surface a stark contrast to the complicated interior. Pictographs and hieroglyphs crawled across every inch of it, interspersed with incised lines in an unintelligible patterning. For all its compactness, it was heavy - combined with the other two pieces, the whole structure formed a solid sphere of gold some seven or eight centimetres across - and it appeared extremely old. Sarah White, the hotel’s current chanteuse, had ventured that the work appeared to be of Aztec origin and, since her father had been an accredited archaeologist, the Frenchman was more than ready to accept the suggestion. The purpose of such a set of artefacts had proved beyond any of them, however - this latest consideration offered no more clues than his first sight of the dark gold had done.
Thinking of that, he lifted the middle piece and slotted it into the carved recess within the bowl in his hands. It could match in several ways, he noted curiously, lifting and turning it several times to check how it worked. The workmanship was quite remarkable; he reached abstractedly for the final piece as he studied the intricate fit.
As he slid the last part into the structure, it seemed almost as if the gold grabbed at it, just as a magnet snatched at steel. The final shape felt odd beneath his fingers, cold and disturbingly fluid, despite the firmness of the interlocking shapes. It had taken quite an effort to separate them at their first examination; now the pieces were firmly locked, no matter how he pulled or twisted. Perhaps the multiple match of the inner piece had been a misleading illusion and he had somehow managed to jam it in the wrong position. Perhaps, he realised, stifling a sudden desire to yawn, he was just too tired to solve the puzzle for a second time. A cold breeze ruffled across his shoulders, drawing his attention away from the matter. It would wait until morning, he thought, dropping the completed sphere onto the topmost shelf in the safe and firmly closing the door on it. It would all wait until the morning.
He lifted himself back to his feet with an effort, and the draft of air whispered past him again, lifting the topmost of the papers off his desk and scattering them on the floor. He cursed quietly, glancing at the window as he moved to retrieve them. He wasn’t expecting a change in the weather, but the Pacific wasn’t exactly renowned for its predictability, and a good sharp squall would serve to clear some of the accumulated heaviness from the island air. The breeze ruffled across the desk again, spilling yet more of the report onto the floor.
At that moment, the light went out.
His second curse was more colourful than the first. He straightened carefully, re-orientating himself in the sudden onslaught of darkness, and tried to remember where he had left the office candles the last time the generator had failed on him. The unreliability of the machine’s performance was becoming a positive nuisance and he made another mental note concerning the need to order the part Corky had suggested they might need. This late at night, the failure was only a minor annoyance rather than a major mishap, but it put paid to any possibility he might have had to finish his report before the morning.
Distantly, the door creaked. Another rustle of wind tugged at his shirt sleeves, reminding him that his jacket was still draped over the back of his chair. He shivered, then berated himself for responding to the triggers of dark and cold. He was quite alone, and he should be familiar enough with the office layout to negotiate it in the dark. The unexpected chill was just the result of letting the matter of the dead man prey on his mind. He was tired, and he should have sought the sanctuary of sleep when Gushie had suggested it instead of forcing himself to work on regardless. Running his hand through his hair, he reached out to collect his jacket and make his way to the door.
Something slammed into him, hard, lifting him off his feet and spinning him sideways into the desk. The breath went out of him with a gasp of startled pain, driven out by the impact. Paper scattered around him, lifted by a whistle of wind, but he scarcely had time to notice it before he was struck again, this time from another angle. Caught unawares, he tumbled into the waiting bookshelves, his senses reeling.
It was as if he had been engulfed in a sudden torrent of water, each impact buffering at him, twisting and turning like unpredictable currents and eddies. He fought, unsuccessfully, to anchor himself. The unseen force pulled him again, this way and then that, driving him into unforgiving furniture and walls. He could not catch his breath; nor did he have time to counter each hammer-driven blow. The whirlwind twisted round him, tugging and tossing him as if he were no more than a rag; books and papers shared his tumbling, striking at him so that he raised his hands about his head in a vain attempt to protect himself. He fell, hard, against something that splintered and broke beneath his weight, and his unseen assailant slammed him firmly into the waiting floor.
Pain, already a numbing companion, shot through him as he was crushed against the unyielding boards. His shoulder twisted, and something snapped in his arm, driving white hot agony through the miasma of his senses. He might have screamed, but there was no air in his lungs to answer the demand. As the tumble of displaced books and files bombarded him, he crawled determinedly away, hugging the reassurance of the floor, seeking refuge, or escape, no longer aware of where he was or what direction he might be facing. Somewhere behind him he could hear the sound of distant wings, growing louder against the tumult of air that still surrounded him - heavy, ponderous wings, driving the hurricane before them, carrying the scent of things long dead and the ice of another world. Something was coming - something that had killed a man with the sheer terror of its presence, something that spawned this infernal storm. Something old and dark and filled with a fell power ...
His hand met shaped wood in the darkness and he identified his location with confused surprise. He was no longer in the office - he had crawled out onto the landing beyond, the balustrade that barred his progress the one that overlooked the bar. Stubbornly he seized the support the structure offered, using his undamaged arm to lift himself to his feet, and turned to meet whatever fate might offer.
Darkness enfolded him, a shadow deeper than the simple absence of light. In its depth, two scarlet flames burned and yet illuminated nothing. Terror rose unbidden in his throat and his heart pounded to be free of his breast; somewhere close he could hear his parrot screaming, on and on, in anger and fear. His mouth was too dry to force a sound; the barest whimper escaped his lips. Massive claws dragged on the wooden flooring; wings rustled with an unfeatherlike clatter as the thing approached.
He pressed himself back against the balustrade, indifferent to pain beside the terror that overwhelmed him. He was drenched in it, swallowed up by it, his sweat cold against his skin so that ice trickled down his spine. Still the presence came closer, ancient and possessed of brooding power. He raised his head with dogged determination. He wasn’t afraid of death, only of going into the dark dishonourably. This ancient fear was driving him beyond his capacity to reason, but something deep inside him demanded that he meet its eyes as determinedly as he would those of any foe. He looked up, and met the dark fire in the darkness, eyes that were not meant to be faced by a mortal man, and knew, with horrifying clarity that, in that one act, he had given it what it wanted the most.
Cold and darkness flowed into him, the impact of something reaching for his soul, devouring him from the inside out, possessing him, tearing himself from himself. With one final effort of will he fought to be free ...
And the twisted balustrade at his back gave way, pitching him down and away, tilting him into a warmer darkness, the gentle embrace of total oblivion.
My nightmares are, on the whole, the kind that reflect the hidden fears and anxieties of my everyday life. Dreams of being helpless as my friends are taken from me by events beyond my control; images of failure or arriving that vital second late on the scene. Those are the kind of things that haunt me generally, and I cope with them as most men cope with nightmares born of their own concerns. The deeper sort of fear, the kind written beyond rational interpretation, never seemed to disturb my sleep as a rule. That night was to prove a cold exception; in that one night and the long hours that followed it I was to learn what true fear really was, and my dreams would never be quite the same again ...
Jake Cutter was never able to say afterwards exactly what it was that woke him. One moment he drifted in a dreamless slumber, warm and secure; the next he was awake and alert, straining his senses for the barest sound, his skin a sheen of cold sweat and his heart beating unnaturally fast. Moonlight patterned through the half-open shutters of his room, wrapping everything in a silvered haze, and Jack was bolt upright at the end of the bed, his ears pricked and his hackles raised.
Cutter sat up cautiously, darting tense glances around the confines of his room. Nothing moved and nothing materialised out of the semi-darkness to startle or alarm him. If it hadn’t been for the dog, quivering with inner alarm, he would have dismissed the matter and turned back to sleep. As it was, he slid carefully from under the covers and reached for the shirt that lay casually across a nearby chair. The night seemed silent, but he stood and listened a while longer, jerking his head round as the distant sound of something breaking filtered up through wooden floor and walls. After the disturbances of the night before, his reactions were taut and jumpy - for a moment or two he couldn’t place the direction of the sound.
Jack jumped down and began to scrabble at the inner door, whining a little as he did so. His master strode across and opened it, expecting the dog to lead him to the trouble. Instead, the one eyed animal stayed where he was and began to growl, low and anxiously. "Jack?" Cutter queried, starting to crouch down as he did so. "What’s the matt ...? His words were swallowed abruptly as the sound of a terrified screech rang from the lower confines of the bar - the frightened, panic-stricken sound of a tethered bird as it struggled to be free. There was no more time for questions. The pilot paused only long enough to retrieve his gun from the top drawer in which it was concealed before plunging through the now open door into the darkened corridor beyond.
The parrot’s distress pierced the night with insistent urgency, but he’d barely reached the top of the inner flight of stairs when the unmistakable sound of splintering wood ripped up from below. A blast of cold, almost icy, air swept into him as he drew to a halt, the open space of the bar a dark and echoing abyss at his feet. The parrot continued to squawk, over and over, but no other sound followed the ominous crack that had greeted his arrival.
"What’s going on?" Sarah materialised beside him, a shifting shadow in the dark. The sound of other disturbed guests moving to their doors muttered behind her.
"I don’t know. Stay there." He stepped cautiously onto the top step, wrinkling his nose at the odd scent that drifted up from below - a cold and dank smell, reminiscent of hidden caves and old tombs. The singer, a little more practically, reached to test the light switch beside her. It clicked once and nothing seemed to happen in response, so she waggled it a couple of times just in case.
Abruptly the main lights flickered into existence, dazzling the both of them and reducing the anguished sound of the parrot to a more tolerable twitter of anxiety. Jack's warm presence slipped past his knee and pattered away down the stairs. Cutter blinked, focusing first on the half-closed shutters that led to the billiard room and finding nothing to alarm him there - then Sarah gasped in quiet horror. He turned his head seeking the cause of his companion’s reaction, and froze, the image before him unthinkable and yet unquestionably real.
Where there had been the familiar parade of the lower balustrade leading along the edge of the bottom landing towards the office door, now there was nothing but open space, the wood cracked and twisted away from its supports at either end. Between the main pillar and the office wall, the centre upright had been cracked at its base, leaving a jagged stump nestled like a broken tooth at the landing’s edge. Across the dark floor boards that led into the office beyond there lay a scatter of paper, strewn like confetti, some of it still drifting to rest in the open doorway. The door itself hung at an unnatural angle, tipped away from one hinge. And below ...
Cutter stirred himself into action even as his heart pounded to a halt. He flew down the stairs two at a time, his breath tight in his throat. The ruins of the broken balustrade lay twisted at the foot of the lower stairs, a forest of splintered wood through which Jack was picking his way with exaggerated care. Sprawled amidst the disaster lay a single still figure, a splash of white against the polished wood floor.
The dog reached him first. A warm, insistent nose pushed at the unmoving shoulder, eliciting no obvious response, so Jack sat down and whuffed imperiously until his master thundered down to join him, the singer following less precipitously in his wake. The pilot drew to a halt among the detritus, hunkering down to reach out a hand to the fallen man, and then stopped. The night before, in worryingly similar circumstances, he had reached to turn over a dead man and met a look that did not belong on a human face. He didn’t want to see that look again, most especially on the face of a friend.
Instead he forced himself to consider the way in which the man was laying, knowing the danger of moving the victim of a bad accident before determining the extent of the damage. The Frenchman lay half on his side, back towards the descent of the stairs, his crooked right arm cradling the weight of his head. The other arm was sprawled out, palm turn towards the ceiling, past the place where Cutter crouched. Carefully the pilot reached down and wrapped his fingers around the elegant wrist, searching for a pulse. Bon Chance’s hand was cold to the touch, but the American let out a slow breath of relief as he identified the soft insistence of life beneath the skin.
"Is he ...?" Sarah was asking fearfully from behind him. Jack barked once, a short sharp sound of denial.
"No," Cutter agreed, reaching for the man’s shoulder. Gently he tilted him onto his back, using one hand to cradle the unconscious weight of the injured man’s head as he did so. It was a risk, since even that short a fall could break a man’s neck in the wrong circumstances, but he had to see his friend’s face, had to reassure himself that the sudden memory of the dead man the night before was simply that, and not a premonition of history repeating itself.
Bon Chance’s skin was pale, drained of colour despite a dark line of bruising below his temple. As the pilot turned him over, a low groan escaped his lips; there was blood at the corner of his mouth. Abruptly, his eyes flickered open, staring and empty of recognition. His body convulsed in a reactive effort to continue its escape. Cutter restrained him anxiously.
"It’s all right," he insisted. "Don’t move; just relax. Everything’s okay."
The tension lingered a moment longer; then Louie did as he was commanded, letting the air out of his lungs in a slow shudder and closing his eyes as he did so. When they opened a second time, it was with pained and bleary perception. "Jake?" he breathed. "Oh, mon dieu ..."
"Lie still," the pilot ordered firmly, half turning to share a relieved but anxious glance with the woman at his shoulder. Sarah’s’ face was equally concerned. She moved round to crouch on the other side of the injured man, staring down at him with worried eyes. As she did so, he found the barest of smiles to acknowledge her presence before a wince of pain shot across his features. He gasped once, a quiet note of realisation, and then his eyes fluttered shut, the tension in his shoulders melting away under Cutter’s hands.
"Damn," the pilot muttered, realising that the man had slid back into unconsciousness. "Go get Corky, will you, Sarah? I’m going to need some help here."
She nodded, shivering a little in the flimsiness of her dressing gown. "Why is it so cold in here?" she asked, moving away without expecting an answer. Cutter was wondering that himself. The injured man’s skin was decidedly icy to the touch and the pilot’s breath was gathering in a little cloud of vapour before it dissipated into the air.
"Jake?" Gushie’s voice drifted out of the back room, followed by the man himself. "What’s going ... oh, my god." He wheeled over to join the crouching American, looking down at the unconscious figure beside him with horror. "What happened?"
"I don’t know." Gently, Cutter began to run his hands over the still form at his side, trying to identify the extent of any injuries he might find. The sprawl of the right arm seemed to lie at an unnatural angle and he winced as he felt the distorted line of the lower limb bones. Other than that, the damage appeared minor, although he couldn’t be entirely certain. The bruising on the man’s temple looked nasty, and despite his failure to find any broken ribs, the trickle of blood that had spilled from the man’s mouth was disquieting. "Someone - or something - attacked him, I guess. Probably the same something that killed our friend yesterday. But as to what - or who - I couldn’t say. Maybe he can tell us, later."
Gushie looked up at the splintered balustrade and shuddered. "What kind of man, or thing for that matter, could do that?" he asked worriedly. "And why?"
The pilot shrugged. "I’m not entirely sure I want to find out," he admitted. "You want to see if you can find his medical bag in that mess up there?"
The other man shook his head abstractedly. "It’s out back. He was conducting an autopsy this morning."
"Yeah." The acknowledgement was slightly surprised. "Well, you’d better get it anyway - and see if there’s anyone in the hotel who can use it. I don’t think he’s up to playing doctor right now."
Gushie nodded and wheeled away, casting an anxious glance behind him as he did so. Sarah reappeared in the outer doorway, a bleary-eyed Corky at her heels. The mechanic was shrugging into a set of grubby overalls, half walking, half hopping as he kicked into his shoes and muttering about the need to wake him at such an unspecified hour. He’d obviously slept right through the disturbance, and he halted halfway through the swing doors to stare in total bemusement at the scattered damage that waited for him within.
"Gee," he managed, blinking a little at the sight of his fellow American crouched barefoot in among the splintered wood. His amiable face creased into horrified alarm as he registered the silent figure his friend attended.
"How is he?" Sarah asked, moving to stand behind Cutter’s shoulder.
"I’m not sure. At the very least he’s going to have a terrified headache in the morning. Still," he sighed, leaning back on his heels and staring up at the gaping hole torn in the line of the balustrade, "it could have been his neck, "it could have been worse - he might have broken his neck."
"Just by falling that little distance?" Corky stuttered, his eyes wide. The pilot turned to consider his mechanic grimly.
"I don’t think he fell," he announced in bleak tones. "I think he was pushed."
Gushie returned soon after Sarah, an equally bleary guest in tow. He was a burly Australian, currently a purchasing agent for a chemicals company but who'd admitted to serving as a medical corpsman during the Great War. He took one look at the unconscious man, frowned thoughtfully at the broken railing, and then crouched down beside the pilot to examine the problem more closely.
As the newcomer’s broad hands repeated the careful exploration that the pilot had attempted earlier, Bon Chance woke briefly for a second time. He shifted as probing fingers disturbed the unnatural angle of his arm and stirred his senses to a perception of distant pain. Sarah’s anxious smile awaited him as his eyes flickered open; he fought hard to focus on it, but without success. Cutter leaned across her shoulder and told their patient he had to rest. "Take it easy, Louie," he advised, "don’t try to do anything - just go back to sleep. We’ll take care of everything."
Bon Chance struggled against the surging darkness, trying to remember why it was so important that he do so; there was something he had to say, something he had to warn his friends about. He was cold and shivering. The hammer in his skull drove the words from his mind as he grasped desperately for memories that refused to be recalled. Only the barest groan escaped from the dryness of his throat. He breathed deeper, searching for the breath to speak; the action triggered the protest of bruised lungs and the slight movement of his head added the spin of violent nausea. Defeated, he let go, sliding back into the welcoming arms of a darkness beyond sleep. It held him for a long time.
The ex-corpsman frowned at the convulsive cough that dragged his patient back into oblivion, leaning forward to check the pattern of the unconscious man’s breathing. The buttons on the Frenchman’s waistcoat had been torn open by whatever had befallen him and the Australian unfastened the shirt beneath to run an exploratory hand down the line of abused ribs. "If I didn’t know better," he observed as he reached to lift the black bag off Gushie’s lap, "I’d swear this fellow had a run in with a concussion grenade." He jerked his head in the direction of the office door. "I thought you said he’d said he’d just slipped off the landing or something. It’s more like he tumbled down half a dozen flights of stairs before he took that little drop - he’s turning black and blue."
"We don’t know what happened," Cutter said softly. "This was where I found him."
"Uh-huh." The conscripted ‘doctor’ threw him a sceptical glance. "Well, why don’t you find a trestle top or something to lift him onto, and maybe we can make him a little more comfortable somewhere else."
Bristling slightly at the sarcastic note in the man’s voice, the pilot rose to his feet and waved Corky towards the entrance to the back rooms. It didn’t take them long to find something suitable to use as a makeshift stretcher and shortly afterwards Bon Chance was being placed carefully into his own bed, his broken arm realigned and strapped. They padded the bedding around him to provide support, the Australian quickly identifying that the blood in his mouth probably pointed toward internal as well as external bruising and that he should be spared as much movement as possible. The dark mark on his temple was the most worrying thing; but there was nothing more the temporarily appointed doctor could do. He spoke briefly about concussion, advising rest and a little tender care; then he returned to the warmth of the bed he’d paid for, leaving the more permanent residents of the hotel to consider what they should do next.
Cutter perched himself on the end of his friend’s bed, watching the unconscious man with perturbed eyes. "You’d better get back to bed," he said as Sarah placed a comforting hand to his shoulder. "I don’t think we’ll know any more until he wakes up."
"I won’t sleep," she told him, and he found her a weary smile.
"Try," he suggested gently. "I don’t think anything else is going to happen tonight. You too," he ordered in Corky’s direction. "Please, Sarah," he went on as she hesitated. "Jack and I will stay here for a while. There really isn’t anything more you can do."
"All right," she agreed slowly. "I am a little cold. Jake ..." She paused on her way to the door, and he turned to consider her anxious face. "I think - I hate to admit this, but I’m scared. What if ...?"
He went to her, gathering her up in a comforting hug. "It’s okay," he said as she leant into him. "Really, it’s okay. I don’t know what’s going on around here, but I’m sure in hell going to find out. Now," he went on, tipping her head up by lifting her chin with his finger, "you get back to bed, catch some sleep, and there’ll be one bright and cheery face to greet Louie in the morning. Okay?"
She nodded, squaring her shoulders with assumed determination. "Okay." She stepped away, moving towards the door.
"Don’t let the bedbugs bite," he called after her, and she froze in the act of reaching for the door handle, taking a deep breath that might have concealed a sudden sob.
"For god’s sake," she said, turning back with a peculiar expression on her face, "don’t let Louie hear you say that!" Her voice cracked on the final word and, hurriedly, she slipped away, closing the door behind her as she went. Cutter let out a slow breath. He was feeling a little shaky himself, and his determined reassurances were backed only by confusion and a sense of helplessness. The reiteration of their private joke had been unfortunate habit, its tag line only serving to remind them both that the current situation was neither normal nor comfortable. Bon Chance was as much a part of life on Boragora as breathing; an attack against him was like an attack on their entire community.
Gushie hovered anxiously at one side of the bed, torn between his reluctance to leave and his sense of duty. "I ought to go, Jake," he said, his voice strained. "Someone should do something about that mess downstairs before the guests start stirring."
"Yeah," the pilot acknowledged wearily. "I guess they should. Look - clear the stairs, but don’t go in the office, okay? I think I’d like to take a good look in there before anybody touches anything."
The man in the chair thought it over, glancing again at Louie’s pale face before he spoke. "I think we can manage that," he decided. "I’ll need the day’s float from the safe before the morning’s out, but I’ll make do in the meantime." He turned to leave, then looked back anxiously. "He is going to be all right, isn’t he?"
"Sure." Cutter strode across to hold open the inner door so that the smaller man could manoeuvre through it. "He’s tough, remember? And he’s got guardian angels that work overtime."
Gushie looked up as he passed under the pilot’s arm and smiled wryly. "One of them called Jake," he muttered, almost under his breath. Cutter found himself echoing the smile.
"Get outta here."
"Ah - Jake?" Corky was still standing by the outer door, his broad face creased into lines of concern. "I - uh, that is, Jack’s a little worried, you know? About what might be going on, and I - uh - not that we believe in ghosts, or anything like that, but - well ..."
"Corky." The pilot shook his head, amused in spite of the situation. "Why don’t you sit down over there and help me keep an eye on things for a while?"
"Really, Jake?" The mechanic sidled across to the indicated chair and perched himself on the edge of it. "Is that okay? I mean ... well, Jack’s kinda scared and I thought ..." Jack took the opportunity to bark once, with dismissive disdain, and Corky flapped a none too surreptitious hand at him. "Cut that out," he hissed. "You’re not helping any."
Cutter suppressed the instinct to laugh. He knew that Corky’s reaction to disconcerting things was the desire to drown his fears in drink, a solution that was neither practical nor desirable. He didn’t blame any of them for being uneasy about the events of the past two nights, but he was certain there would be a reasonable explanation and if there wasn’t, then they’d just have to cope with it as best they could.
He snagged a second chair from the reception area of the suite and brought it across to sit himself at the bedside. Bon Chance was pale and grey in the harsh electric light. The bruises on his face were darkening into angry shadows and he looked old and drawn, as if he’d aged considerably in the space of a few hours. Carefully, Cutter reached out to check the pace of the man’s pulse, curling his fingers around the wrist of the undamaged arm. His friend’s skin was ice cold despite the slow insistence of his heartbeat.
"Dammit," the pilot muttered, sharing his concern with the wary mechanic on the other side of the bed. "What happened to you, Louie? What did you see down there?"
Return to the Monkey
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