An ill wind - Part Two
"I don’t remember." The French accent was strained, his voice a mere shadow of its normal certainty. "I don’t remember anything."
"It’s okay." Cutter was trying to sound reassuring as he studied the haunted anxiety in his companion’s eyes. Bon Chance had finally drifted back to full awareness several hours after his fall; he had woken confused and disorientated from a nightmare that had left him drenched in a cold sweat. The pilot, half asleep in his adopted chair, had jerked upright at the gasp of alarm, sufficiently startled to tip Jack off his knee and onto the floor. The dog had barked indignantly, which had woken Corky and, after a brief word to soothe their disconcerted patient, the American had sent the mechanic in search of coffee while he perched on the side of the mattress and tried to find out what had happened.
The injured man was bewildered by the situation he had returned to, a matter not assisted by the insistent and nauseous headache that blurred his vision and made it difficult to think. Cutter had tried to explain recent events in terse and dismissive terms, failing dismally in his attempt not to sound as worried as he felt; he had made light of the extent of the injuries, an attempt to be cheerful that had fooled neither the speaker nor his listener. Bon Chance was too knowledgeable to distract by casual words and too aware of his inner pain to be deceived by reassurances. The pilot’s blithe manner had slowly dried into an awkward silence under his friend’s sceptical scrutiny, and in the end he’d taken the bull by the horns and told him the entire story, from the moment of his being jerked from sleep to the enlistment of the helpful Antipodean.
At the end of it, Louie had suppressed an involuntary shudder, tipping his spinning head back into the pillow and closing his eyes. His last clear memory, he announced, belonged with bidding Gushie good night. Beyond that there was nothing; nothing but a blurred darkness that his mind refused to enter. To do so was to send his heart pounding and heighten the pain in his head to screaming pitch. Cutter watched him struggle for breath and equilibrium, and leaned forward in alarm.
"Take it easy," the pilot suggested, reaching to place a calming hand on his comrade’s undamaged shoulder. "It’ll wait. You’re going to be okay, you know?"
"Non," he heard his weary voice insist. "There was something - a danger, a ... mon dieu!" He winced as fire flamed inside his skull. Bile rose in his throat and his stomach heaved in protest as his senses span away from him. Cutter’s hand tightened its grip, the touch somehow helping to anchor his awareness. He drew in a slow, shuddering breath and fought to be still again.
When he re-opened his eyes, it was to meet tight anxiety in blue depths, and he quirked an involuntary smile at the man’s expression. "Thinking appears to be a bad move, mon ami. Do you mind if I avoid it for a while?"
"No," Cutter agreed, letting a flicker of relief show in his face. "Take all the time you want, Louie." He leant back, withdrawing his hand as he did so. "You need to rest. Perhaps I should go."
"Not yet," Bon Chance requested, the suggestion raising an inexplicable tug of fear in his heart. "I - I don’t think I want to be alone." The admission startled both himself and his audience; the pilot stared at him in consternation. From somewhere on the floor, Jack barked once and then leapt lithely onto the bed. Cutter reached out and fondled the animal’s ear abstractedly.
"Okay," he said after a moment. "I don’t have to leave. Corky’ll be back with the coffee any minute. But you should get back to sleep ... are you all right?"
The question didn’t concern the Frenchman’s physical state - the pilot knew that only too well. It was asked in response to the fleeting flicker of terror that had passed across his friend’s face, and it was a question the man concerned couldn’t honestly answer.
"I don’t know," he breathed, closing his eyes again with resignation. "I hurt, Jake. I hurt in places I didn’t know could hurt. My head is spinning and I feel as if I am on fire." His voice tailed off as the strength to speak deserted him. "I burn, inside and out."
Cutter’s hand closed over his. There was a brief silence and then the American said, very quietly, "I’ll get you another blanket. You feel ice cold to me."
It was a similar sense of chill that the pilot found waiting for him in the ruins of the office later; a discomforting clamminess that denied the rising warmth of the day. He paused in the doorway, having shifted the slatted door on its broken hinge, and started into the room with a growing sense of disquiet. Paper lay everywhere, torn from books and scattered haphazardly across the disarray of furniture. The bookcase was practically empty, and the chairs had been idly tossed to lie at chaotic angles in among the debris. Even the desk had been pushed to one side, the casual table that had stood beside it nothing more than a splintered wreck under the litter of pages.
It took an effort to go in, the colder air sucking around him as he did so tasting of mildew and old stone. Inside, the sense of desolate destruction was worse, a brooding weight that made the skin between his shoulders crawl. He tried to follow the line of the disturbance as he picked his way through the wreckage, finding no pattern to begin with. It was only as he reached the waiting safe and looked back towards the beckoning safety of the door that he began to recognise the swirling lines of the vortex that had written its destructive path across the contents of the room. It had begun where he now stood, its core scouring splinters from the bare wood at his feet; from there it had struck outwards, carrying everything with it - Bon Chance included, Cutter realised bleakly. He remembered the swirling damage in the hotel room just above him and shuddered, thinking of their mysterious visitor and the manner of his death - some natural phenomenon perhaps, a freak whirlwind whipped into being by circumstances that had somehow repeated themselves? Or something darker, summoned and destructive ... some malevolent spirit that had struck, and struck again, with intent?
Angry with himself for his line of speculation, Cutter bent to the business at hand. He was getting as bad as Corky, seeing ghosts at every turn. There had to be a more rational explanation than that. It was just that he couldn’t quite put his finger on one.
The metal of the safe chilled his fingers as he spun his way through the combination that Gushie had given him. The final tumbler clicked into place and he had to pull hard to separate the reluctant door from the kiss of its surround. His hands seemed equally reluctant to reach inside - the sensation of plunging his fingers into congealing grease came to mind. The leather bag that contained the float felt clammy and coated with mould. He lifted it free of the safe and studied it in puzzlement; it looked both clean and dry.
Light flared off the golden sphere that rested on the shelf above the now vacated spot, and a faint rustle of wind lifted some of the papers at his feet. His immediate task complete, Cutter simply closed the heavy door and spun the combination without considering what else lay within. His mind was on other things, and his attention was caught by the sight of what appeared to be Bon Chance’s abandoned jacket lying tossed beneath a sprawl of maps and documents. His first thought was to retrieve it, but as he bent to lift the fabric free he found the piece he had hold of simply coming away in his hand. The jacket had been reduced to tatters, somehow ripped to shreds without losing its original shape.
A cold shiver of disquiet rippled across the pilot’s shoulders. He let the flutter of white material drift from his hand and strode quickly from the room, firmly closing the door behind him.
Below, in the main area of the bar, Gushie looked up at him with concern. "Jake? Are you okay?"
"Yeah," Cutter responded, not entirely sure of the fact. "Just all that damage ... it’s disheartening, you know? We’re going to need a damn good carpenter, for a start."
"Or a carpenter’s priest, perhaps?" The gently accented voice of the Reverend Willie Tenboom dropped into the quiet warmth of the late evening. The man himself was standing in the outer doorway to the bar, his hat clenched in his hands. "May I speak to you, Jake?" He glanced across at the other occupants of the main room, and moved closer to the figure in the wheelchair, looking up at the pilot as he did so. "Somewhere ... more privately?"
Cutter repeated the man’s glance as he considered the small gaggle of guests and lunchtime drinkers who conversed in subdued tones around the room. "Does it concern this?" he queried softly, tilting his head in the vague direction of the office door.
Tenboom shifted uncomfortably, turning the hat in his hands round and round. His blue eyes were anxious behind the circles of glass that fronted them. "Yah - I think so. I heard ..." Again he shot a doubtful glance at the customers. "That is, I was wondering ..."
The pilot hefted the leather bag down into Gushie’s lap and jerked his thumb up the line of the inner stairs. "You’d better come up," he suggested. "Are you going to manage okay?" he added in the chairbound man’s direction.
"With this I will." Gushie turned to wheel away, then paused and looked back at the anxious pastor. He might have been about to say something, but then he shook his head wearily and pushed down on the waiting wheel rims, rolling himself back to work. The Reverend watched him for a moment, then set his shoulders and started the climb up the stairs, waiting for Cutter to join him at the lower landing.
"Go up and in through Louie’s door," the pilot directed, waving the man ahead of him. "Sarah’s sitting with him at the moment."
Tenboom nodded, climbing the steps with easy strides. "Will he mind?" he asked. "My intrusion?" He came to a sudden halt, turning back towards the figure at his heels. "He is ... all right, is he not?"
Cutter didn’t answer immediately. He prodded his finger upwards with a determined gesture, and his companion resumed his ascent, his anxious face taking on lines of wary concern. "Ask him yourself," the pilot decided from behind him.
Inside the Frenchman’s suite, the shutters were almost closed, creating a shadowed coolness that countered the warmth of the day outside. Sarah Stickney-White sat at the injured man’s bedside, her hands curled around a coffee cup. Jack sprawled on the counterpane, one ear pricking up lazily as his master opened the door. Bon Chance himself was propped up against his pillows, his face pale in the dimness, the dark bruising on his temple lying on his skin like a stain. His damaged arm was tucked at his waist, and the dark silk smoking jacket that draped his shoulders added emphasis to the unnatural pallor of his features.
He glanced across as the door opened - a slow, careful movement that didn’t stir the pounding in his skull overmuch -and relaxed as he identified both his visitors. "Reverend," he acknowledged in neutral tones that still betrayed the effort it took him.
"Mein gott!" Tenboom breathed as he moved across to stare at the occupant of the bed. "Are you all right?"
"I live," Louie answered wryly, wincing as Jack sat up and barked once in answer to the same question. "Jack, mon ami," he requested gently, "remember my headache, s’il tu plait?" The dog tilted his head sideways considering the man with one good eye, then huffed softly and settled down again, resting his chin on his paws. Sarah fought down a grin.
"This is good, yah?" Tenboom decided, after frowning at the animal on the bed. "That you live .. not the headache. That is not good." His face crumpled into confused distress. "Nor the reasons for it, I think." He half turned, including the pilot and the singer in his consideration. "There is something evil stirring on this island, mein freunds. Something that does not belong here. It has already cast a dark shadow over us - and it will destroy us all if it is not stopped."
Cutter threw a puzzled glance in Sarah’s direction, and she answered it with a wary shrug. Bon Chance shivered, staring down into the coffee cup he was nursing. "Yesterday," he remarked softly, "I would have told you not to be foolish over such matters. Today ... today I do not know what to say. But if you know anything of this matter, then tell us - for I do not think that last night was the end of it."
"Nein," Tenboom agreed slowly. "I am only a lowly pastor," he said. "I know very little of evil - true evil. My time is spent with the foolishness of an innocent people; I try to keep their feet on the path, and protect them from the corruption of wickedness. I do not even understand the motivations of evil men ... how can I contend with something that may come from the very pit itself?"
"Reverend." Cutter rubbed his hand along the tense muscles in his neck. "We’re willing to listen to suggestions."
"Yah." The tall pastor sighed, turning his hat in his hands and staring at the floor. He looked distinctly uncomfortable, like a man who had entered an amateur boxing contest and found himself pitted against the champion of the world. "The day before yesterday," he began, "a man came to me in my chapel - an anxious and confused man, filled with expectation and not a little fear. He asked me many questions ... and I am afraid I could answer very few of them."
"So?" the pilot prompted.
"So," Tenboom swallowed, considering the figure in the bed as he spoke, "yesterday I heard that he was dead - murdered, here in the hotel."
Bon Chance’s eyes narrowed into a dubious frown. "You spoke to our mysterious guest the day before he died ... and did not come to tell me after his death?"
"Nein." The pastor shuffled uneasily. "I did not think you would listen to me. I did not believe him," he emphasised, glancing between Sarah and Cutter so as to include them in his plea. "I was praying for his poor, deluded soul. I thought there would be no more to the matter ... and then, this morning, when I heard ..." He shook his head with anxious contrition. "Mein gott, I knew I should have acted, but I did not know how. This is beyond me, believe me. I should have warned him, begged him not to do what he proposed." His face dropped into embarrassed guilt beyond the circles of glass. "I did not think he was serious. I offered him empty comfort instead of stern advice, and he thanked me. Thanked me! I let him walk away to seek damnation, and the darkness that took him may yet swallow us all."
"I think," Cutter announced, moving to lean his weight against the nearby dresser, "that you’d better take this one from the top. What exactly did this guy say to you - and, for that matter, what made you change your mind about believing him this morning? Why not yesterday, after we found him?"
Tenboom managed to look even more uncomfortable as he shifted from one foot to another. "Yesterday I did not want to accept what believing him would mean. This morning I decided I had to - because faith, not disbelief, is the only true protection against the evil one. I was ... afraid," he admitted, swallowing hard and refusing to meet anybody’s eyes. "I thought that it would end with his death. I was wrong." He forced himself to focus on the Frenchman’s pale face as its owner watched him doubtful. "I am sorry. If I had spoken before ..."
Bon Chance shook his head - slowly, because any other kind of movement had proved itself inadvisable - and sighed softly. "When I hear your story, I suspect I shall understand the reasons for your hesitation," he said. "But you should have come to me anyway - there is more to the matter of a man’s death than whether you found him believable or not."
"Yah," the pastor agreed sorrowfully. "I suppose so. I did not fully understand what he was trying to tell me," he explained. "He said that he had obtained a great secret, a power imprisoned many centuries ago by men who commanded it to work miracles. He felt that he had studied it long enough to master it, but was afraid that - by doing so - he imperilled his soul. The power had been used to wreak evil deeds, he said, and then something about the legend demanding a price of some sort. I did not understand what he meant, since I did not think there was any substance to his tale."
Sarah shivered uncomfortably. "I’ve heard of legends about things like that," she said. "Dad used to laugh at them, but I was never sure."
"Most legends have some basis in truth," Cutter observed. "Although it’s not usually the part that involves the supernatural."
"Nein," Tenboom agreed gloomily. "This one seemed very garbled. Something about a dark spirit, and blood sacrifices, and loosing the anger in the wind ... it all sounded so ridiculous. I told him that playing with something you didn’t understand was not a good idea, and that things with an evil reputation were probably best left alone, but he insisted that it was something he had to do. Something he had to prove, or verify, or ... I didn’t follow his argument." He stared at his feet discomfortedly. "I wanted to be rid of him and I did not listen all that closely. He asked if it was all right to use dark forces to accomplish good things - whether by doing so you damned yourself or redeemed whatever it was that was tainted by the dark. I said something about it depending on both the nature of the forces and the deeds involved, and he thanked me and went away. I was busy," he defended guiltily, "and it did not seem important at the time."
"Loosing the anger in the wind ..." Cutter murmured, recalling the vortex of destruction he had seen, both the previous night in the dead man’s room and only moments ago in the office.
Sarah shivered again, as if a cold hand had run icy fingers down her spine. "Don’t," she said. "I’m sure there’s an easier explanation than that. He was probably trying to sell you something."
Tenboom shook his head in wary denial. "I do not think so. I wish he had been."
"Whatever it was he sought to achieve," Bon Chance said quietly, "he did not do so. He died of terror, not triumph."
"This is crazy," Cutter decided, a little angrily. "Ghosts can’t kill people - well," he amended, "maybe they can frighten a man to death, but they sure can’t beast him black and blue first. Whatever, or whoever, is behind these attacks has a definite physical presence."
"Could a man cause so much damage in such a short space of time?" the pastor asked, pitching his appeal to the injured man beside him.
Louie’s expression was thoughtful. "I don’t know," he admitted slowly. "I wish I could remember ... but I have suffered at the hands of others in my time, and the only occasion I remember feeling this way before was the day I agreed to face Il Diablo in the bull ring. That black beast had already killed six men before I chanced the dance at his side." He paused, caught by the sudden recollection. "He was the only bull I ever had to kill ... and he nearly took me with him."
Sarah turned to consider him with a surprised look, but Cutter was still worrying over the implications of Tenboom’s story and interrupted before she could frame the query that sprang to mind. "It doesn’t have to be a man," he said, "just something with a more natural explanation. A freak weather effect, perhaps ... something like ball lightning. That can do some pretty peculiar things."
"Perhaps," the lanky pastor said doubtfully. "I am not a very holy man, Jake. I do my best in the eyes of my God, and I know that this is beyond me. But I know the presence of evil, and I feel it, here in the hotel."
"No," Cutter decided firmly, "there has to be another explanation. There has to be. Besides," he laughed, "lightning might be known to strike twice in places, but never three times in a row. It probably won’t happen again."
"Whatever you say, Jake," Tenboom acknowledged uncomfortably. "But don’t say I didn’t warn you."
The day drifted to a calm and unruffled close, the warmth of the afternoon lingering on into the dusk. The bar remained unusually quiet, most of the few guests that the hotel currently housed choosing to retire soon after the evening meal. One or two of the braver locals dropped by for a drink, but their conversation was subdued and speculative. Cutter tried hard to ignore their mutterings, as much as he tried to ignore the sense of gloomy presence that seemed to ooze from under the closed office door. He had not gone back in since his visit earlier in the day, putting off the moment time and time again. By nightfall, of course, it had grown too dark to discover anything new and he was able to delay the necessity until the return of the sun in the morning. Gushie had an anxious look as he wheeled about his work; the atmosphere of unease and disquiet had begun to penetrate even the most obtuse of the guests, and there was talk of finding alternative accommodation or cutting visits short. There was nothing definite that anyone could put his or her finger on, but there was something unsettling in the air and as the night drew on it settled heavily over everything.
Bon Chance braved curious stares and muttered whispers to come down for dinner, a move which earned him a variety of disapprovals from equally varied sources. The compact Australian who had proved such a willing Samaritan in the early hours wandered over, looked his erstwhile patient up and down, and shook his head in mild disbelief. Cutter was more verbal in his protests, while Gushie was quietly scandalised. Sarah, much to everyone’s surprise, was far more sympathetic.
"Leave him be," she said with quiet exasperation, shifting a nearby chair so that the man in question could sink carefully into it. "He’s entitled to want company if he feels up to it."
"He should be resting," the pilot repeated, dropping into a chair opposite his friend and considering him with concern.
The Frenchman sighed. "I cannot rest," he explained reluctantly, shifting his bruised frame into a more comfortable spot. "I feel as if there is something important that I have forgotten to do or say, and it will not let me sleep. Besides," he added with a hint of his more normal warmth, "I have to keep an eye on things around here, you know."
"I can manage," Gushie insisted, momentarily ruffled. Bon Chance found him a knowing smile and the man’s indignation collapsed as he realised he was being teased. "Well, I can," he repeated, a little abashed. "Jake’s right - you didn’t need to come down."
"Did I not?" the French accented voice questioned slowly. Louie's face creased into brief perplexity. "I felt sure ... no matter," he decided briskly. "I am here now, and I am not going to climb those stairs again for at least an hour." His smile was directed at Sarah, who nodded her approval firmly.
"I should think not," she said. "You need to eat, at least - you didn’t want anything for lunch."
The look he assumed was wry. "I’m not certain I want anything now," he considered, "but a little white bread might soak up some of the coffee you’ve all been pouring into me today."
Cutter laughed. "It seemed like a good idea at the time. What do you say, Gushie?"
"One fresh baguette, a little cream cheese, and a cup of chocolat au lait, coming up."
Bon Chance eyed his friend with amusement. "You always do know how to spoil me, don’t you?" he said, and Gushie grinned.
"I have my reasons," he declared as he turned to wheel away. The look that passed between the two of them was a knowing one, and the Frenchman’s eyes were briefly shadowed as he watched the compact figure manoeuvre his way towards the kitchens.
"Can I get you a drink?" Cutter was suggesting brightly.
Bon Chance turned back to him in mild astonishment. "Mon Dieu, Jake," he reacted with disbelief, "are you serious?!" His uninjured arm lifted so that he briefly touched the darkened bruise at his temple. "I undoubtedly have a concussion," he pointed out. "It does not mix with alcohol at all. Your company will do," he concluded softly. "But I may hold you to that offer later."
"You bet." The pilot slid to his feet, glancing at his other companions as he did so, "but I’m still down for a beer. Sarah? Corky?"
The overall-clad mechanic, who had been fidgeting a little uncomfortably and glancing at the office door every now and again, perked up immediately. "Sure, Jake - whatever you say." Somewhere beside him, Jack barked twice in quick succession, so that Cutter was laughing as he made his way to the bar.
The evening drifted on. Few customers materialised out of the gathering night, but no-one complained about it. Sarah trotted out a tried and tested melody, but her heart wasn’t in it somehow and the smattering of applause at the end of it was more polite than appreciative. She smiled wanly at Corky as he reached to lift his second beer of the night off the piano top. "I think I’ll stop while I’m ahead," she considered, leaning against the instrument and glancing round the less than crowded room. "Somehow I’m not in the mood for Gershwin."
Corky shrugged, and idly ran the fingers of his free hand over the ivory keys. "I guess nobody is," he decided, sipping at the beer and watching her over the rim of the glass as he did so. "How ‘bout this?" He replaced the half-full glass on the polished top and turned his full attention to the keyboard in front of him. His pudgy fingers flexed, and then began to play a slightly mournful ditty, mostly in the lower register. Sarah frowned as she half-recognised the melody line.
"Mozart?" she hazarded.
The musician shook his head. "Nope. It’s ... ah, it’s ..."
"Chopin," Gushie supplied as he wheeled past. "Or trying to be. I don’t think our piano was ever meant to be a concert grand."
She laughed and patted Corky on the shoulder as she swept way. "Pay no attention," she advised. "It suits the mood of the evening." Her steps took her back to the table where Cutter sat in admiring silence, watching her walk towards him. Bon Chance, on his opposite side, was frowning slightly at the effect of someone trying to play an approximation of a classical composer on a honky-tonk piano. He winced as the mechanic hit a sour chord, and sighed, turning to share his martyred expression with the singer.
"If we had customers," he remarked with resignation, "that would probably guarantee their early departure."
"I don’t know," Cutter said, reaching for his beer and hitching his foot under a chair so that it would be in the right place for Sarah to drop into it. "People pay a fortune to listen to this kind of thing, don’t they?"
"In a concern hall," Louie replied, "Oui. On a reasonable instrument - oui." He winced a second time as the metallic notes strangled yet another melodic line. "But here and now ..." He tailed off, his attention distracted by something he might have seen behind Cutter’s shoulder. The pilot, unaware of anything untoward, was turning to Sarah with a conspiratorial grin. A cool breeze drifted across the table and ruffled his hair.
"It makes a change from French ‘art’ songs," the pilot was saying, and the singer was laughing at him. Almost unnoticed for a moment or two, Louie rose slowly to his feet, his eyes fixed on the shadows that gathered in the stairwell, a look close to terror settling on his face. As Cutter registered the movement, even as he responded with concern and not a little alarm, a sudden torrent of wind slammed into the side of the table, tipping it up and over with alarming force. The pilot was thrown backwards. Sarah screamed.
And the lights went out.
The jangling sound of the piano came to an abrupt halt. Voices were raised in alarm and concern as the few people who still remained in the bar room reacted to the unexpected event. Jack barked, then began to growl low and unhappily. In the general mutter of confusion, Bon Chance’s words were clear and unmistakable.
"Get out!" he cried, a command that brooked no argument. "Everybody get out of here. Now!" His last word was accompanied by the sound of shattering glass as an unseen hand reached out and swept an entire line of bottles off a shelf behind the bar. There was a beat of startled silence, and then a flurry of movement as the various villagers and guests began to stampede for the door. Another crash accelerated their panic; bottles and glasses were sent flying as tables toppled and chairs scattered under the impact of another howl of wind. Cutter had been dazed by the first attack; he found himself on his hands and knees, buffeted first by the evacuating customers, and then by a tumble of furniture. He heard Sarah call his name and turned in time to see an alarmed Corky stagger away from the piano. In the near darkness it was hard to see exactly what had happened, but it looked as if some invisible brawler had reached to tip the whole instrument onto its side. Piano wires jangled discordantly as it toppled to the floor, and the mechanic backed away with a terror-stricken look on his face.
"Corky!" Cutter called above the impossible roar of the wind in his ears, "Get Sarah out of here!"
She was struggling to reach him, and almost resisted the hand that caught at her arm and pulled her away. Almost; but a buffet of wind propelled her and the terrified piano player towards the distant security of the door, and she went with it, her expression anxious and alarmed. The pilot, sure of his friend’s commitment to her safety, let himself be tumbled into a corner by the attack of the air, rolling to his feet and knees and turning to try to make sense of the sudden chaos.
Bon Chance was slowly backing along the length of the bar, his eyes firmly riveted on the door that now swung open above Cutter’s head - the office door. Out of it, a numbing river of cold was flowing, spilling down from the broken balustrade to pool across the damage-strewn floor. Around the white-clad Frenchman, havoc was dancing. The fists of unseen giants were slamming into the bar and tearing into the rest of the room. Glass and freed liquor shattered into the air with each blow, and the mirrors were cracking one by one as his slow retreat took him past them. Somewhere in the semi-darkness, Gushie’s voice spoke the man’s name. Bon Chance didn’t shift his gaze. "Get out of here, Gushie." His lips barely moved, but the words were clear. "Go. Now. Don’t look back. Merci di Dieu, don’t look back." A broken table shuttled across the floor, crashing into a pillar and splintering into pieces. "Go," Louie begged, his voice tight with terror. "Jake - take him away! Save yourselves."
Over the howl of the wind, Cutter began to hear the beat of wings - old wings, heavy and laboured - wings of leather and metal, carrying the weight of eternity. He didn’t understand what was going on, but the sound awoke a cold terror within him that brought his heart into his throat. His head turned, first this way, then that - the promise of the open door was only a few bare steps away. Moonlight was streaming down into the plaza, even if it couldn’t penetrate the thickening gloom within the room. On the other side of him, Bon Chance had drawn to a halt, shivering as the wind whipped around him, his only support the as yet unmoved strength of the bar itself. Whatever it was that was coming, the pilot realised with growing horror, it was coming back to finish what it had started the night before. Gushie was a shadowed outline in the doorway now, hesitating as he looked back. "Get out," Louie growled, half anger, half cry of pain - and the wheelchair went, almost as if the words had held as much of a physical impetus as the anger that swirled around its chosen victim.
Darkness congealed behind the pilot’s shoulders. He started to turn, but a strangled cry of terror halted the action as swiftly as it had begun. "Non!" Bon Chance insisted, pinned in his place like a fly held in a spider’s web. "Don’t look in its eyes, mon ami - don’t look. Just go."
Heavy claws scraped on the wood behind him; the floor creaked under a weight it had never been designed to bear. Something vast and terrifying launched itself over his head, dragging the darkness with it. Shadowed wings unfurled, engulfing the last of the light, and from within the immensity of its presence, a single talonned limb reached confidently for its helpless prey.
Something snapped inside Jake Cutter, something that undamned the barriers that had held him rigid and terrified, releasing a flow of adrenaline that washed through him with white hot anger. Louie had recognised his peril, had allowed himself to be caught so that others could escape, and it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right that he should be so casually devoured, without cause, without reason. Rationality was a long way from the pilot’s mind as he powered forward with determination. He had no chance of wrestling with this creature from an unknown hell, but he wasn’t going to let his friend be taken without some kind of a fight. His impetus carried him into the shadow - and straight through it, a numbing absence that denied him air, and light, and warmth. Something screamed, distantly - with anger, not pain - and then he was on the other side, his determination punching him through the nothingness whilst his lungs burned from cold and his heart hammered its way into his jacket pocket. He was in time to see claws close inside their victim’s chest - he didn’t stop as the white-clad figure convulsed at their impact; he barrelled straight on, wrapping his friend in his arms as his weight drove the two of them away from the darkness and what it contained. The claws snatched through them both, knives of ice that stabbed deep. He fought the pull of its grip, feeling the strength that fought to drag his companion back ... then something tore and gave, and he was staggering away, an unresisting weight in his arms - staggering towards the siren safety of the open air, a scream of frustration and anger piercing the night behind him.
He didn’t look back. Somehow he managed to carry both of them through the doorway out into the strangely bright night. A crowd edged the open square, distant and unsupportive as he drew to a shaking halt. It hadn’t followed him. That was the first thing he registered as he stood there, drawing in the precious taste of air in his lungs; the second was the ominous sense of chill that wrapped the man who shared his freedom. Bon Chance was whiter than his suit, shivering with reaction and labouring for breath. The pilot hesitated, then tensed as the sound of angry destruction rose behind him. Determinedly he guided his dazed companion across the moonlit ground. The crowd parted in front of them, forming a narrow corridor to the only place they had left to go.
Return to the Monkey
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