An ill wind - Part Three
Inside the tiny chapel, the Reverend Tenboom was a flustered figure in a nightshirt, lighting candles to illuminate the prayers of those who had sought sanctuary there. He turned as the door opened yet again, a nervous half smile of welcome on his lips; it froze as he recognised, despite their state, the men who entered. Cutter’s hair was dishevelled and his face was stark. Beside him, Bon Chance was a shell-shocked casualty, his clothing ripped and torn, the white fabric stained and spattered by blood and other things. The small congregation drew away in alarm as the pilot half-guided, half-carried his friend towards the altar, but Tenboom took one look and dragged across a bench so that Cutter could drop the Frenchman to the support of a seat beneath the simple wooden cross.
"Mein Gott," the pastor muttered as he moved out of the man’s way. "What ...?"
"I don’t know." The American’s voice was strained. "God ... I think it wanted his soul. It wouldn’t let go. It reached right inside of him ..." Cutter was shaking with reaction, and he found that he was crying, although he didn’t know why. "He’s so cold ..."
"Yah, Jake. Yah." Tenboom wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but he knew better than to stop and question the matter. He reached to move the distraught pilot to one side, crouching to examine the figure in front of his altar. Bon Chance was shivering violently and gasping for breath, his eyes unfocused and his face stark white beside the livid bruising on his cheeks. The pastor recoiled a little as his hand brushed the man’s skin - it was as cold as ice to the touch.
"Please," Cutter breathed in a pained voice. "Please God, let him be okay ..."
Behind them both the outer door to the chapel creaked open. The pilot turned, and then Sarah was holding him, the warmth of her body a welcome reminder of life and existence. "Oh, Jake," she said. "When I realised you hadn’t come out with the rest of us ... are you all right?" she realised, reacting to the chill of his skin and the uncontrollable shiver that still haunted him. "You’re cold as ice - are you hurt?" Her hand reached to brush a mark on his cheek. "You’re bleeding. There was glass flying all over the place - Jack was covered in it." Her laugh was a little nervous and clearly forced. "Louie’s going to have to pay a fortune in compensation, you know ..." Her voice tailed off as he moved aside to let her see. Tenboom was gently brushing shards of glass from the ruin of Louie’s suit as the man quivered savagely. Bon Chance had wrapped his free arm tightly over the other and was hunched down, eyes closed, chest heaving as he struggled for control. His lips were moving, but he made no sound as he fought some internal battle, his head shifting this way and that as if seeking escape and never quite finding it. "Oh no," she breathed, her expression dropping into anxious horror.
The pilot’s arms encircled her reflexively, but the easy phrases of reassurance refused to form on his lips - the memory of what he’d just been through was too strong, too overwhelming, to be banished by meaningless words. "It’s shock," Tenboom considered doubtfully. "I think. What happened, Jake? What is happening?"
"I don’t know." Even the American’s voice was shaken, his normally confident tones reduced to uncertain strain. "God help me, but I don’t know. One minute we were sharing a simple conversation, and the next ... all hell broke loose around us. It ... came back for him, I guess. Something like that. Whatever it is, it makes its presence felt."
The door opened yet again, this time allowing Corky to help manoeuvre Gushie and his chair up the steps and into the building. The rest of Tenboom’s gathered congregation moved aside to let them pass - none of them had made more than a brier murmur of disquiet since the pilot’s arrival, but every single face in the room was anxious and disturbed. Gushie had Jack on his lap. The dog was shivering and whined a little as Corky reached to retrieve him. Cutter met his mechanic’s eyes as the wheelchair drew to a halt beside the crouching pastor. For once in his life, Corky was both stone cold sober and completely aware of what was going on. He was also totally terrified. "Gee, Jake," he said, attempting to sound as if this sort of thing happened every day, "it sounds like you left a herd of buffalo back in the bar. Seems like everything’s being smashed to pieces."
"Let’s hope that’s all it can do," the American heard himself saying. "Last night it didn’t get further than the office door." Sarah shuddered in his arms as he said it - the thought of whatever it was being loose in the village wasn’t an appealing one.
"Why?" Gushie demanded, curling his hands in his lap with frustration and anguish. "Why, Jake? What did it want?"
"I don’t know," Cutter found himself repeating helplessly. "But somehow I don’t think it got it. At least," he amended, looking down at the figure beside him, "not all of it."
"I shall challenge the dark spirit that desires the heart, and with it put an end to my enemies, though it cost me my soul ..." Tenboom spoke softly as he took the blankets from the hands of the native girl he had sent back to his rooms to fetch them.
Cutter looked across at him sharply. "If that’s meant to be a comforting scripture, Rev ..."
"Nein," the pastor shook his head, passing the pilot the warmth of a blanket and turning back to drape the other over the shoulders of the injured man. "That is what he said to me. I remember now. He spoke of drawing the spirit into himself so that he could wield its power, but that if he failed it would not rest until it had devoured him heart and soul."
"Don’t," Sarah begged from the security of her fellow American’s arms, but Cutter frowned with sudden comprehension.
"Heart and soul? Reverend ... that ‘thing’ back there has no substance to it. I dived right through it. It was like ... like ..." he failed to find a suitable comparison and shrugged helplessly. "Anyway, it had hold of him, somehow. I tore him away ... Gushie, didn’t Louie say our dead friend of two days ago died of a heart attack?"
The man in the wheelchair nodded slowly. "He said he died of fright, but I guess that’s what he meant, really. The guy was a real mess, inside and out."
"He failed," Tenboom realised bleakly. "He paid his price. But we knew that. Why did it return again? What did Bon Chance do to make it angry with him?"
Corky glanced down at the animal in his arms and shuddered. "Something like that don’t need no excuse," he muttered. "It was just mad enough not to go away." Jack barked once, sharply, drawing a number of eyes in his direction.
"There’s more to it than that," the pilot sighed. "He - whoever he was - tried to summon it in his room. If it was just hanging around looking for its next meal, why didn’t it start there the following night? Louie was in the office yesterday, and it came from the office today. There has to be something he did, something that disturbed this thing a second time."
"Maybe it’s just a light sleeper," Sarah suggested tightly. "This isn’t helping any. It’s out there, and it’s not going to go away - at least, not until it gets what it wants."
Gushie shuddered in his turn, reaching out a hand to touch the distressed figure beside him with a wary, helpless gesture. Bon Chance flinched at the touch, then seemed to rally a little, opening eyes that focused on nothing at all. "Jake?" his voice questioned with a note of panic. Cutter let go of Sarah and took one step closer to lay his hand on his friend’s shoulder. The touch elicited a flinch of reaction before Louie relaxed under the reassuring grip.
"I’m here," the pilot said gently, sharing the concerned look that passed between the pastor and the man in the wheelchair. Tenboom reached a wary hand to wave it carefully in front of his Magistrate’s unfocused gaze. Bon Chance didn’t react at all.
"So cold," he murmured instead, unaware of the realisation that rippled around the room. Cutter looked up and frowned at the small group of natives and customers who were witness to the man’s distress. "Cold," the voice continued, a bare whisper between numbed lips. "Nothing but shadows ..." The speaker tensed suddenly, finally realising the implications of his situation. "Mon Dieu," he gasped, groping to catch at Cutter’s supporting hand and twisting his head round in a desperate search for his friend. "Where are you?"
"Right here," the American repeated firmly, tightening his grip as he did so and crouching a little to bring himself on a level with his friend’s bewildered face. Bon Chance’s normally warm and expressive eyes were lifeless and clouded. The hand that clasped so desperately at his own was ice cold. "It’s okay" Cutter found himself saying, although it wasn’t and couldn’t possibly be. "Just take it easy."
Gushie reached to touch the man a second time, hesitant and careful. It brought the sightless eyes slewing round in wary response. "Louie?" the small man queried gently, identifying himself with the sound of his voice.
The Frenchman’s shoulders slumped with weary acceptance and his hand slipped from Cutter’s touch to grope instead for the hand of his questioner. "It is not the shadows," he realised with a haggard expression. "C’est moi. I cannot see."
Tenboom shuffled the small group of them into his back room, aware of the scrutiny of those who had sought sanctuary in the chapel and unwilling to turn them away simply for the sake of privacy. Bon Chance let Cutter lead him, trusting him without hesitation as he was guided to the safety of a waiting chair. He sank into the welcome support with relief. He was still shaking slightly, and the pilot wasn’t surprised - the trauma of their encounter in the bar was still vividly fresh and he hadn’t yet regained total sensation in his fingertips. How much more had it affected its intended victim, and what else had it dragged from him over and above his sight?
Tenboom sent one of his congregation to brew tea, and another to fetch fresh water so that Cutter could clean the blood from his face. Sarah dabbed at the irritating cut half-heartedly, her attention distracted by the silent Frenchman who sat withdrawn and pale while Gushie offered him similar aid. The spray of glass had left a pattern of splinters that needed careful removal. "This is no way to treat the good stock," the small man muttered as he wiped the residue of spattered spirits from his friend’s cheek and chin. Louie’s hand intercepted Gushie’s as it wandered down to his throat and the strip of silk that bound it.
"Leave it," he said wearily, leaning back into the chair with exaggerated care. "We can replace the stock, Gushie - you know that."
"Yeah," his companion answered, "but what would be the point if you weren’t there to complain about it?"
The question brought the hint of a wry smile to pale lips. Bon Chance reached to regain the attentive hand, clasping it firmly and with affection. "You would find someone else to mother if you had to," he said softly. "Perhaps you should have done so a long time ago. I’m sorry, Gushie." His head turned, clouded eyes seeking the man’s face even though they couldn’t read the expression that sat there. "Sometimes I take you too much for granted."
"Never," his friend replied, his voice oddly cracked. "That’s one of the reasons I stay around."
Tenboom bustled back into the room carrying a tray of cups and a large pot of tea, which he proceeded to serve. Corky started to frown but changed the look to one of surprised relief when he was passed an open bottle of beer rather than one of the battered cups. Cutter glanced at the exchange, but simply smiled a little and let it pass. This wasn’t the night to deny the man his own kind of sanctuary. "It is all quiet out there now," Tenboom remarked as he handed Sarah the welcome hot tea. "Not a sound for the last half hour, they say. Of course," he added, "nobody has gone to look, but all the same ..."
"Doesn’t mean a thing," the pilot realised heavily. "It’s been quiet all day, remember?"
"It’s waiting," Bon Chance announced, the warmth of the cup cradled against his chest, the liquid within untouched. "The longer it is free, the stronger it becomes. When it is ready, it will stir again."
Sarah shuddered, as much at the resignation in his voice as for the words themselves. "What then?" she asked, addressing the company generally. "How do we stop it?"
"Give it what it wants," the quiet accent suggested. "Perhaps it will go away."
"What?!" Both Cutter and the Reverend turned toward the speaker in startled horror. Beside him, Gushie swallowed hard. "I don’t like that idea either," he blurted out, "but - damnit, Jake, he knew it was coming for him, he waited for it! You thought that would be enough, didn’t you? That it would save the rest of us. What if ...?"
"No!" Cutter interrupted him angrily. "That isn’t the answer. It can’t be. I won’t consider it." His expression softened as he considered Gushie’s anxious face. "I know what you’re trying to say," he went on in a more reasonable tone, "but that’s a price I don’t think anyone should have to pay - even for the people they love. That thing crawled straight out of hell, Gushie, and I won’t let it take anyone without a fight, I promise you."
"Hell is a long way from Boragora," Tenboom observed warily. "And demons are not easy to banish, you know."
"Isn’t that more your line of work, Reverend?" Sarah asked cautiously.
The pastor shook his head. "Nein, mein leibchin. I know nothing of bell, book and candle."
"Exorcism?" Cutter turned the idea over in his mind. "Exorcise what?"
"They exorcised a haunted house back home," Corky volunteered.
"How?"
The mechanic shrugged. "I don’t remember," he admitted with a wince.
Cutter frowned at him. "That’s a lot of help," he growled.
"I think they burned it down. I think. Or it may have burned down afterwards ..." He trailed off doubtfully.
"I am not," Gushie announced firmly, his hand reaching to rest on his companion’s arm, "burning down the Monkey Bar. Except as a last resort," he added, which drew a quirk of wry reaction from Louie’s otherwise haggard face.
Cutter grinned without humour. "Somehow I don’t think that would help," he said. "The hotel isn’t haunted, exactly. There must be something more precise this thing focuses on - if we could work out what that is, destroying it might do the trick."
"Sure," Sarah breathed cynically. "That’s a big if, isn’t it? Since we don’t know what stirred it up in the first place."
"But we do," Cutter realised, sharing the thought with Tenboom’s thoughtful look. "Our John Doe did the stirring - woke it up, set it free - or whatever. There must be something we’ve overlooked about what happened after that. Something that recentered it in the office, rather than where it was summoned the first time around." He stepped across to crouch at Bon Chance’s side, his expression tightening as he confronted the emptiness of the man’s eyes. "Louie," he asked gently, "I know we’ve gone over this before, but is there anything you can remember about last night - anything that might help?"
The man took a long time to answer, as if it were becoming harder and harder to focus his mind as well as his vision. When he did, he spoke with a visible effort, fighting to keep the memory clear enough to make sense. "I was working on my report," he recalled slowly. "And Gushie came in with the evening’s take ... I don’t remember," he muttered angrily. "I can’t ..."
"It’s okay," Cutter reached to reassure him, perversely glad his friend couldn’t see the distressed reaction that flickered across all of his audience’s faces. Bon Chance was a man who, as a rule, kept tight control of himself, a rock that was rarely stirred to more than occasional impatience when beset by troubles that would break a lesser soul altogether. This gradual disintegration was painful to watch. The man fought something within himself that none of them - not even Cutter, who’d felt the demon’s claws strike through him - could truly comprehend. It wasn’t physical injury that draped him in darkness or robbed him of his own warmth.
"Jake," Gushie recalled with sudden puzzlement, "didn’t you say you had to get the float out of the safe this morning?"
"Yeah."
"Well ... the float was in the same bag that I put the takings in. So it must have been put there after I left last night."
The pilot seized on that, worrying at the thought like a dog with a bone. "You must’ve left your report," he stated hesitantly, "gone over to the safe ... something about the safe," he went on slowly, unable to isolate the answer he sought.
Sarah gave a sudden gasp. "The gold!" she exclaimed. "Those weird Aztec pieces ... remember?"
"Mais oui," Bon Chance murmured with bewildered comprehension. "After we discussed the matter I secured the pieces in the safe. They must still be there."
"Of course." Cutter pushed himself to his feet and grinned round at the gathered company with relieved triumph. "That has to be it. Louie, you took the pieces out of the dead man’s hands and took them apart ... and then you put them in the safe. That’s where the focus is - that’s why you were a target."
Sarah’s face went white. "But we all handled those pieces, Jake - you, me, even Corky took a look at them!"
"Yeah," the mechanic agreed nervously. "That’s right. They were like those puzzle boxes the Chinese make."
"Then all of you could be in danger," Tenboom said worriedly, "if that is what makes it react."
Gushie frowned, trying to fir the possibilities together. "I’ve heard stories," he said, "about spirit guardians placed in tombs which will hunt down and destroy anyone who disturbs what they protect."
"Mmm." The pilot shook his head abstractedly, wrestling with the clues he’d gathered so far. "I don’t think it’s that, exactly." He paced up and down, enumerating the points they’d identified. "Our John Doe must’ve carried those pieces for a while. He brought them here, and he spoke to the Reverend about ‘waking’ something. It couldn’t be just an angry guardian, because he wasn’t trying to escape it ..."
"No," Tenboom agreed. "He wanted to control whatever it was he had."
"So," Cutter ploughed on, ticking the items off on his fingers as he spoke, "the night before last, he did something that woke up our unwelcome visitor ..."
"And died," Sarah pointed out.
" ... and got more than he expected, at a guess. Then last night it manifested a second time and attacked, because ... because ... because what?" The American threw his hands wide in frustration as he collided yet again with pure speculation. Bon Chance shook his head with weary despair, unable to penetrate the fog that had engulfed his memories of the event. "Damnit," Cutter growled, "I never even considered them this morning. They were just sat on the upper shelf in the safe, all locked together the way ... the way ..." Comprehension dawned with blinding force and he hammered the heel of his hand into his forehead as everything tumbled into place. "You put them back together," he exclaimed, dropping down beside the drawn Frenchman, who was beginning to frown with matching realisation. "It’s a key," Cutter went on. "A key and a lock, all in one. Keeping that thing in ... or out ... and once someone hits the right combination ..."
"All hell is let loose," Tenboom finished for him.
"Exactly."
"So all we have to do," Gushie said, "is push the genie back into the bottle ... and lock the door on it again."
"As easy as that?" Sarah drawled, unimpressed. "Walk back into the bar and say ‘excuse me - do you mind just popping back wherever you came from, while I take this little gold puzzle apart’? Have you considered that the reason it might be so angry is because it doesn’t like being locked away?"
Corky nodded gloomily. "Like the big hungry tiger I saw locked up in ... in ... Nanking, wasn’t it? I wouldn’t have liked to be there if it ever got out."
"This isn’t exactly a tiger," Cutter said, but his tone was doubtful. "Maybe I could ... sneak in, or something."
"Maybe pigs can fly," Sarah muttered while Tenboom shook his head resolutely.
"Nein," he decided. "That would be simple suicide. If this thing is as dangerous as you imply, then it would probably tear you apart as soon as it realised what you were after." He glanced at the afflicted Frenchman before he plunged on. "From what our visitor said," he continued, lowering his voice although he knew his entire audience couldn’t help but hear, "it strikes straight to the soul of a man first." Again his eyes flitted to the drawn face of the man already a victim of what they discussed. "You do not know what this might mean." A deep breath, and then the words he was afraid to say tumbled out because someone had to say them and he was the most qualified in the room. "Such a wound may not heal. Ever. And what if it strikes hard enough to kill? It may be that a soul so taken must share the hell its devourer occupies ... and if not, then at the very least it would be utterly destroyed. This is beyond me," he admitted anxiously, "but I know that to face that thing directly is not something a man should choose to do."
Gushie’s face had drawn into lines of stark horror at the pastor’s words. His solicitous glance towards his friend became one of apprehensive dread. "Never heal?" he echoed.
Bon Chance stirred with deliberate effort, reaching out his undamaged hand to catch at the smaller man’s hand and encircle it tightly with his own. "There are casualties in every war," he observed sagely. "The trick is to consider tactics that keep them to a minimum. The Reverend is right, Jake - to face that thing alone would not be good strategy. In fact, it would be better if you did not face it at all."
Cutter moved across to join him, his face reflecting his own reaction to the implications of Tenboom’s speech. He’d acted by instinct back in the bar, reaching to tear his imperilled friend from the darkness that threatened him.; it hadn’t occurred to him until now that that very act might in itself have added to the hurt his friend now endured. "It has to be stopped," he said gently. "It could hurt a lot of people."
"I know." Louie was shivering beneath his gathered determination; still he spoke with firm decision. "The best way to catch a tiger, Corky, is to offer it a tethered goat. Preferably a wounded one."
"No!" both Sarah and Gushie chorused with horror. Pastor and pilot exchanged a glance, and then Jack barked twice, one sharp sound after another. "That’s crazy," the singer affirmed, the indignation in her voice an alternative to hysteria. "Stupid, even. Jake, you can’t even consider letting him ..."
"I won’t let you," Gushie hissed through gritted teeth, his free hand closing over the ice-filled fingers that held his. "I swear I won’t."
Cutter took a deep breath. "I hate to admit this," he said slowly, "but I think he’s right."
It was rising towards dawn as two figures moved across the open square towards the gaping doorways of the deserted hotel. One was tall and gangly, his glasses pushed up on his nose, his fair hair being slicked back with a nervous hand. The other was slightly shorter, dark haired and leanly proportioned. He walked cautiously, each step a hesitant pace as he was led towards their goal. Tenboom guided his companion with a hand to his uninjured elbow; the pastor was nervous and glanced anxiously from side to side. Bon Chance looked downwards, his sightless eyes fixed on nothing at all.
Tenboom had volunteered for the duty of guide and protector, announcing in response to their puzzled glances that he was, after all, a soldier - of the Lord, he'd added hastily. Corky had another, equally important, part to play in their plan, and all five men had flatly refused to even consider Sarah as a part of it. Gushie had been overruled by the Frenchman’s insistence, and had been left in dejected anxiety to keep watch with the singer from outside the chapel doors. No other figure appeared to stir among the buildings in the village, nor was there any sign of life about the docks and quays; only Jack crept in front of the cautious party of two, his stub of a tail tucked under him, his head low.
The hotel was a silent wall of darkness in the dissipating night. Not a light gleamed from its interior; instead, an unnatural chill drifted from its unshuttered windows to pool out across the veranda. Tenboom swallowed hard as he felt the clammy touch wrap his ankles, but Bon Chance smiled softly in the gloom and drew them both to a halt. "This is far enough," he murmured. "We must give Jake as much time as possible, n’est ce pas?"
"Yeah," the pastor acknowledged nervously, glancing along the line of the wall towards the corner where he knew the pilot would be making his way. It wasn’t possible to see the office windows from the front of the structure, a peculiar quirk of the building that made people think it had only two straight stories rather than the two and a half it actually possessed. Somewhere in the darkness, Cutter would be creeping, Corky at his heels, ready to scramble up into the deserted rooms and into the creature’s current lair. If it took the bait, that was. Tenboom was partially hoping that it wouldn’t. He had no real desire to face this undefinable thing that had already killed one man and deeply wounded a second. He turned back to study his companion in the dimness. Bon Chance was still shivering inside his shirt sleeves, a reaction he’d not been able to shrug off since his last encounter with his enemy. Worriedly, the pastor wondered just how much the man could endure. He’d been badly weakened by the physical attack the night before, in addition to whatever unseen damage he now fought to overcome.
"Remember," the French accented voice warned quietly, "do not meet its eyes. Turn your back and we will walk away slowly, drawing it after us ... and, Reverend ...?"
"Yah?"
"When I tell you to - run as if the devil himself was on your heels."
Tenboom needed no advice on that front - he nodded vigorously in response before he remembered the man couldn’t see him. "I will," he said, swallowing against the tightness in his throat once again.
"And don’t look back - don’t even think about it."
Again the pastor nodded animatedly, then realised what he was being told. "You are telling me to leave you," he accused.
Bon Chance allowed himself a small smile. "Mais oui," he agreed softly. "Only fools and heroes sacrifice themselves needlessly - I would not say this to Jake, or Sarah, and most certainly not to Gushie, but ... I have been feeling my life drain out of me with every breath, and I know my time is limited. I will spend what coin remains in me as best I can, Reverend. I will fight to keep this thing from my friends for as long as I am able. Run, and don’t look back." Again the small smile quirked the lips beneath the dark moustache. "You can pray for me if you wish, but don’t look back."
Tenboom tugged at his dog collar uncomfortably, glancing over his shoulder at the night-shrouded shape that was his chapel. "Yah," he said, after a struggle to decide what words might be appropriate. "I will pray .... that Jake succeeds!"
Jack began to growl, low and anxious, drawing their attention. The dog was backing off the veranda, quivering and crouching low to the ground. A flurry of cold wind whipped around him and ruffled the pastor’s jacket. Bon Chance lifted his head slowly, staring with unfocused vision into the gloom beyond the hotel doors. "It comes," he murmured, the tremor in his voice betraying the terror that ate at him. Tenboom wiped at the sudden sweat that dripped over his glasses, swallowed hard, and deliberately turned his back on the gaping doorway. Wind tugged at him as he did so, unpredictable gusts that lifted handfuls of grit from the ground and showered both of them with sand.
Jack turned and ran. The pastor watched him go, a small streak of panic heading back towards the chapel. His shoulders crawled as he heard the distant beat of leathery wings join the rising howl of the wind. Step by step, the two men moved away, a slow dance of enticement that lured a river of ice and darkness out under the dawn-touched sky. The power of the wind grew in savagery, threatening to buffet the pastor off his feet. Ice trickled down his spine in place of sweat; he dared not even turn his head to glance at his companion. The Frenchman’s pace was slowing, dragging reluctantly as if fighting a force that pulled in the opposite direction. Something vast and overwhelming moved into the square, clawed feet grating on wood and then on dust and compact soil. Bon Chance’s step faltered, then drew to a total halt.
"Run!" he commanded, the words as much a scream as anything else. Tenboom’s grip on his arm slid away as yet another impact of wind sliced between them. The pastor barely hesitated before he began to run, but he didn’t get very far - a hammer of cold air struck him across the shoulder blades, toppling him forward and down into the waiting ground. Another rolled him over and over while he fought for anchorage. Dust blinded him as he crawled away from the rain of solid blows, no longer aware of direction, just the need to escape. He impacted with something that enveloped him with restraining pressure and he fought it, desperate to escape. Abruptly, the air was rent with a sudden scream of startled rage, a sound ripped from a throat that had never been, and never would be, human. The force of the wind died, and the sound of the creature’s wings gathered up into a roar of movement that was suddenly and decisively cut, leaving an echoing silence that made the man wonder if he’d gone deaf.
Carefully, he lifted his head, identifying that he’d been tumbled close to the beach and was tangled in a pile of discarded netting. The early light was beginning to spill across the village rooftops and the mountains beyond. Because of it, he could see the lone figure, still standing in the centre of the square. His relieved smile died as quickly as it had arrived: even as he watched, the man swayed and went down, almost exactly the way a marionette might if all its strings were suddenly cut all at once.
Cutter fumbled at the window shutters, trying to unlatch them from the outside: not an easy task, especially balanced on Corky’s anxious shoulders and conscious of the way that cold air seeped unnaturally from the room behind them. His ears were straining for some sign that their diversion was proving successful; the hotel seemed as quiet as a grave. He heard Jack beginning to growl at roughly the moment that the window swung open under his hand; the frame rammed into his shoulder and he bit back a curse.
It took only a moment to scramble up into the deserted office, although it felt uncomfortably like sliding into a dead fish. The air was bitterly cold and clammy, and it held a definite scent of decay that wrinkled his nose with unpleasant reaction. He took a moment to give Corky a thumbs-up before turning his attention to the safe, pulling on the heavy gloves he had borrowed as he did so. He’d remembered the way the metal of the safe had felt ice cold earlier in the day and was taking no chances. The bemused shark fisherman he’d woken had waved him at the gloves he used for hauling in the lines and shrugged his shoulders, watching his visitor leave in total incomprehension. Cutter was hoping he would be able to return the borrowed gloves with both thanks and an explanation; he’d had no time to offer either.
The safe was a looming shadow in the darkness and he felt, rather than saw, his way to the waiting lock. Gushie had repeated the combination several times so that the pilot could fix it in his head, and Cutter muttered it to himself as he bent to work. The metal was so cold it burned, even through the heavy linen, and he worked both quickly and cautiously, hating each pause to ensure the tumblers had fallen into place before moving on to the next. The sound of angry air was filtering in from outside by now, and memories of his earlier encounter with the thing that his friends now faced forced him to work that little quicker. Abruptly the last number was set and he was pulling on the handle, feeling the tug of other forces hold the door back, welding the match between metal and metal. His face grimaced with the effort it required, his shoulders tense for the moment when their enemy realised it had been decoyed away. When the door gave way, he staggered back, driven by his own exertion. He froze at that point, convinced it would have been alerted to his presence, but the howl outside continued to grow and he shook himself and bent back to work.
The gold was where it had been left, a smooth globe of ice beneath his touch. In the dimness it appeared to have no seam or break in it at all, and a rising panic slid into Cutter’s throat. They had been assuming that it was still possible to unlock this key; for a moment it seemed impossible that it had ever been in three separate parts at all. He forced himself to relax and took the gold across to the window, seeking what little light there might be. He could hear the sound of the creature itself now, old and massive as it dragged itself across the floor and out into the dying night; his mind recalled its presence with vivid insistence. "Just a few more minutes, Louie," he breathed as his fingers worked at the object in his hands. "Just a few more ..." Something rustled around him, the barest attention to his presence, and it spurred his efforts into desperate strength. The gold shifted within his hands, shifted and slid, suddenly dropping into three distinct shapes with a sense of disintegration. Somewhere, something screamed, angry and savage. The vague rustle of wind gathered into a directed attack. It slammed into him like a torrent of water pouring, not to destroy him, but back into whatever place had spawned it. The hate and anger it drew with it were palpable, and left him sick and shaking as the last of it drained into nothingness.
The gold was three inert pieces in his hands, no colder than the late night air could make them, and the silence in the office was the natural silence of the pre-dawn day, settling over the island like a blanket. Weak and drained, he walked back to the window and grinned down at the man who waited below. Corky looked back with an expression of utter relief. "Is it over?" he called up, and Cutter stared at the ancient work in his hands and frowned. It felt like it was over, but as long as the key remained useable, the creature it secured would be waiting - waiting for the unwitting to reassemble its method of escape so that it could strike again.
"I don’t know," he admitted, carefully placing each piece in a different pocket, just in case. "I’ll meet you round the front."
"Right." The white flash of the mechanic’s overalls disappeared from beneath him and he turned to cross the wreckage of the office and make his way out into the main room beyond.
The bar was a disaster area. Broken glass lay everywhere, much of it spawned by the destruction of the mirrors. By some minor miracle, the monkeys seemed mostly unharmed, but to make up for it the furniture was little more than scattered matchwood. The piano was a pile of junk in the middle of the room, and it was topped by the blades of one of the fans where they had been torn from their mounting in the ceiling. Cutter looked up and sighed. The damage was repairable, albeit costly, and the flow of warmth from the outer air was beginning to revive his spirits a little. Dawn was coming, and soon the sun would drive the last of the chill from the place; he started to smile as he stepped carefully down the damage staircase and headed towards the door. For all its power and terror, the creature hadn’t been so hard to out-think. A hot pot of coffee and a few hours’ sleep, he considered, and it would be as if it had never happened.
The smile died, along with the thought, as he stepped out into the open. The Reverend Tenboom was crouched in the middle of the square, Corky leaning at his shoulder, while Sarah was running to join them, her face alarmed. In front of the two men, the sprawled figure of Boragora’s resident magistrate lay ominously still. Cutter’s heart sank to his boots. He closed the last of the distance in a few short strides and crouched down to join the gathered group, expectation hammering at him. Tenboom looked up, his face haunted.
"He told me to run. He vanted to give you as much time as possible ..."
"It’s okay," Cutter responded abstractedly, pulling off the heavy gloves and reaching to touch the silent figure, just as he’d done the night before. There was a pulse, slow and faint beneath the chill of the man’s skin. The pilot breathed a silent prayer of thanks, one that died on his lips as he gently turned his friend over. Bon Chance’s eyes were open and staring - the eyes of a dead man, empty and lifeless. His face was slack and vacuous - his body lived; but nobody was at home.
"Damnit!" Cutter cursed angrily, fighting a sudden desire to take the guilty gold pieces from his pockets and sling them into the sea. His victory was hollow - it had achieved nothing and it had cost them more than he would have been prepared to pay. Death he could have coped with, a cold grief they could have faced and accepted. This - this non-existence - this was more than he could bear. He bent his head and wept, unashamedly, overwhelmed by recent experiences and shaken by things over which he had no control.
"Another?" Sarah enquired solicitously, lifting the whisky bottle in preparation for pouring. Cutter shook his head, placing his hand over the rim of the glass. He’d had enough, and it hadn’t helped one little bit. The whisky had been salvaged from the wreckage, a minor miracle among the devastation, and they sat on the veranda watching the dawn come up and sharing it because there was nothing else they could do. Corky looked hopeful, but Sarah ignored the way in which he shuffled his glass forward, her eyes fixed anxiously on the pilot and his drawn expression. "You did everything you could," she said for the umpteenth time, a statement backed by Jack, who barked twice, although rather unenthusiastically.
"I know. It doesn’t make it any easier. I should never have let him be the bait. There must have been some other way ..."
"You did, because there wasn’t," she stated firmly. "He knew what he was doing; he knew the risks. He wanted to do it because that thing had to be stopped - and it was."
"Huh." Cutter reached into his pocket and laid the three pieces of gold on the table, gleaming in the light from the rising sun. "Stopped, yes. Destroyed? I don’t think so. This is crazy, you do realise, don’t you? A perfect stranger comes to town, stirs all of this up, and doesn’t even have the decency to stick around to witness the consequences of his idiocy. The hotel half destroyed, the entire village terrorised, and Louie ..." His voice broke on the name, the realisation of what he had been about to admit. He reached roughly for the bottle and poured another slug into his glass, downing it with savage speed.
"I don’t understand any of this," Corky sighed, watching the last of the spirit vanish in front of him. "Why should it try to kill whoever let it out? You’d have thought it would be grateful."
"Demons aren’t grateful," Sarah announced, frowning at the pilot’s uncharacteristic mood. "They just are. This one worst than most, I guess." She poked carefully at the nearest golden object, her face wary. "I just wish there was some way of ensuring nobody ever lets this particular one out again."
"There is," Cutter said, after a moment’s silence. "We can destroy the gold."
"Just like that?" The singer was sceptical. "How? You throw it in the sea and somebody’s bound to find it. Things like this are always the ones that turn up again."
Cutter shook his head, reaching to finish the contents of his glass and rising to his feet as he did so. "Not the sea," he said firmly. "Somewhere more certain than that. Somewhere that will keep this particular demon warm for the rest of its unnatural life."
"Where?"
"Sofri," he announced, jerking his thumb in the vague direction of the volcano. "That lava level may have dropped considerably since the eruption, but I bet there’s enough left to give this a welcome reception. If I can fly close enough to the crater ..."
"Jake, you’re drunk, and you’ve missed out on a night’s sleep. This is just crazy talk - you’re in no fit state to fly!"
"Doesn’t matter," he said, suddenly determined to carry through this strange whim. "I just have to do it. End this thing altogether."
The singer stared at him open mouthed while he gathered up the gleaming pieces and turned to make his way down to the dock. He’d taken several steps in that direction before she gathered her determination and flew after him, falling in beside his determined stride with an equally determined frown. "Jake Cutter," she announced, "you are the most stubborn, stupid, irresponsible, crazy lunkhead that I have ever known; and I’m coming with you. So I don’t know what that makes me."
He drew to a halt and turned to stare at her. "You’re what?"
"Coming with you," she repeated firmly, grabbing at his arm and hustling him forward. "There’s no way you’re going to be able to fly the Goose and toss those things with any accuracy; and if you want to be sure they go into the crater and not just end up lying on cold rock ..."
"Okay," he agreed, after a moment’s struggle. "We do this together. Jack!" he called back over his shoulder. "Stay with Corky - we won’t be long."
Corky watched as the two figures hauled the Goose into the dock and climbed aboard. Jack pattered over and sat at his feet, and the mechanic sighed, reaching for the empty whisky bottle; then he looked down at the dog and sighed a second time. "I could really murder a beer," he said mournfully, glancing back up as the sound of the engines revving into life drifted across the morning air. "Do you know what’s going on?" Jack barked twice; short, sharp comments on things he had no control over. "Well, that’s okay then," Corky allowed, climbing to his feet. "Let’s go see if we can find some more unbroken bottles back there."
Cutter may have been drunk, but he was still a good enough pilot to lift the Grumman out of the water and turn it in towards the rising land. Sarah nursed the separated gold pieces carefully, watching as Boragora rolled beneath the wings of the plane. She stifled a yawn as the familiar curve of the volcano swung under them; she had been up all night, and events had exhausted her. Once this is over, she thought to herself, I’m going to go to bed and sleep for a week. Only, she realised after she’d thought it, it would never be over - not while the wounds of the dark night past still remained. She’d watched as Cutter and Tenboom had carried the oblivious Frenchman to the comfort of his room, helpless to do any more than stand and hover as they settled him in his bed. There had been no recognition in those empty eyes, no voluntary movement, or even the barest sound from his slack lips; the bruised and wounded body had looked old and shrunken from within, its vital spirit torn from it, the man absent in all ways but the physical one. Gushie had spoken unenthusiastically of calling the hospital on Tagataya, but Tenboom had shaken his head with despondent acceptance. There would be no doctor in the world who could cure what ailed their friend, he’d said. Only time, and perhaps god himself, could make a difference. Maybe that was why Cutter had taken on this crazy notion to destroy the cause of everything; he was still blaming himself for letting Louie talk him into using him in the first place. Sarah wasn’t sure just how much that final encounter had contributed to its victim’s current state - he’d been ebbing away from them since the very first attack. It was as if the later conflict had only accelerated an inevitable result. Her skin crawled as she shifted the carved pieces in her hands: so seemingly innocent, yet concealing such terror within them.
The Goose tilted sideways, banked into a turn. She reached for the side window and tugged it open, feeling the strength of the wind unleashed into the cockpit as she did so. Cutter’s knuckles whitened on the rudder bar as the air jerked at his shirt and jacket; this was no supernatural force, but even so it sent shivers of memory down his spine.
The gold was heavy. Sarah was careful as she manoeuvred the first piece into the narrow opening. She held it there as they dropped even lower towards the confines of the cone, the scent of sulphur and smoke reminding her how close she had once come to tumbling into its fiery death herself. Determinedly, she opened her fingers, and the first of the intricate carvings dropped away, glinting in the early sunlight as it fell, only to be swallowed up by the waiting fire.
"One," she announced, turning to her companion with a grin. He grunted and banked the plane a second time.
The second fell just as easily as the first, a slow tumble to destruction among smoke and flame. The remaining piece felt oddly warm as she lifted it, growing hotter even as she brought it to the window.
"Jake," she warned urgently, "this is getting too hot to hold - can you turn a little quicker?"
He glanced at her with concern and pushed the plane into a steeper dive, its wings barely avoiding a close brush with the rising inner slope of the cone. There wasn’t much room to manoeuvre in among the rising thermals above the lava pit, and he wrestled to bring them back on course as Sarah juggled the remaining artefact from hand to hand. It was beginning to glow.
"Now!" he called as he twisted the Goose practically onto its side. She lifted the gold, and then let go, seeing it tumble, just like the rest, down into the bubbling morass below.
A fist of air thrust up at them with sudden violence, tipping the plane into a tumble and wrapping it in searing heat. A cry, something akin to terrified pain and absolute exultation, echoed and re-echoed through the sky. Cutter fought desperately for control while Sarah, unable to do anything more, watched with awe-struck horror as something rose out of the furnace into which they fell. It was vast, made of light and fire - something too bright to focus on, too beautiful to bear. It rose on wings of flame and it sang with a thousand voices; the thunder of it rolled across the land and set the trees shaking.
For an instant it hung there, burning brighter than the sun, its wings reaching to catch the air and lift it higher, its crest unfurled like the banners of heaven as it trumpeted its freedom; then it was gone, the light dying away, the wind it left behind fitful and gusting. Cutter wrestled with the rudder as they were buffeted from side to side, finally regaining control barely feet from the ground. He lifted them back into clear sky and sat there shaking as they powered towards the open sea.
"What the hell was that?" he gasped, finally recovering enough to ask the question. Sarah shook her head in mute bewilderment: hell was not the word she would have chosen to describe the experience. It had been more like being engulfed in ecstasy. She was drenched in sweat and her heart was hammering very fast; she had no breath to speak. "What did we do?" Cutter went on, his voice small and filled with doubt.
"Let it go," she managed to say, although with little conviction. The sensation they had just endured had very little in common with the dark presence they had sought to destroy.
"I hope not," the pilot answered grimly. He turned the nose of the plane back towards the village and groped in his pocket for a cigar stub. If he’d been drunk when he took off, he was now cold sober and bone weary. They had endured a mystery worthy of the islands, he considered, and might never know the true nature of whatever it had been that they had fought, but he hoped that that last overwhelming manifestation had also been the last. He had no strength left to fight again.
The Goose’s paintwork had been stripped in uneven patches, leaving it peeling and incomplete. In places, bare metal gleamed through, in others dark flakes of heat seared wood were all that remained of her jaunty colour scheme. The two of them staggered out of the hatch and secured the plane, Cutter wincing as he registered the damage.
"Corky’s gonna kill me," he muttered, sweeping crumbled dust from the edge of the wing. Sarah nodded in tired agreement.
"It’ll wait," she said. "I’ll give you a hand tomorrow. It’s just the paint, Jake - it could have been a lot worse."
"I guess," he sighed and turned towards the shore, draping a friendly arm over her shoulders so that they walked together back towards the hotel. People were stirring now, drifting to gather in small groups and stare at the Monkey Bar while muttering in low voices. Cutter let them talk, too tired to combat the rumour and speculation he could hear beginning around him. At the entrance to the bar, he hesitated, his body suddenly tense as he recalled what lay within. Then he stepped firmly forward.
Inside, Gushie was supervising a small team intent on salvaging what they could from the wreckage. It didn’t look like it was going to be much. Corky stood beside the wreck of the piano, Jack at his heels, shaking his head in quiet despair. "Beyond recovery?" Cutter asked as they drew level with him. The mechanic jumped at the familiar voice.
"Yeah, I guess so," he decided.
"Like a lot of things," the pilot added gloomily, glancing around the room.
"Yeah," Corky echoed, knowing what he referred to. "I guess so."
The three of them stood in indecisive silence for a while, letting the industrious figures bustle around them. The sound of broken glass being swept up finally stirred Cutter enough to turn away. He started to make his way towards the upper floor, his footsteps dragging and his shoulders slumped. Gushie paused to watch him go, his own face drawn and haggard in the early morning light.
As the pilot started up the inner staircase, he looked up, a natural gesture that placed his destination finally in his mind. His eyes flicked to the top of the stairs and then back to the absence of a banister, his foot raised to take the first step. At that moment he froze, his mind recalling what he had just seen. His head lifted, his breath held in sheer disbelief, and then he was climbing the staircase two steps at a time, delight powering him upwards at a speed he would have denied possible only a moment before.
"Louie!" he exclaimed, forgetting himself sufficiently to clasp at the man’s shoulders with enthusiasm. Bon Chance submitted to the embrace with a wry smile, then winced.
"Doucement," he requested softly. "I have bruises in places I didn’t know could be bruised, n’est ce pas?"
Cutter let go as if he’d been burned. "I’m sorry," he stuttered. "Are you okay? I mean, we thought ... that is, I was sure ..." He took a deep breath and attempted to calm himself, an effort his friend observed with amusement. "How do you feel?"
"Displaced," the Frenchman decided thoughtfully. "A little battered, and ... older by several centuries, I suspect. But alive," he smiled, "which is quite good enough for the time being."
Below, the work had come to an abrupt halt, all of the occupants of the room staring upwards with varying degrees of delight and astonishment. Bon Chance caught at Cutter’s arm to steady himself and leant out to consider them in return. "I take it that you are not here to stare at the scenery?" he remarked brightly. "Gushie, I want all of this cleared out of here by this evening - otherwise we will have people thinking I’ve been letting Jake here get out of hand again. Bring me up a stock reckoning when you have one, will you? We may have to put the prices up for a couple of days."
The groan that greeted this statement was backed with a hint of laughter. The workers drifted back to their tasks with a will, and Gushie wheeled across to look up at his employer with a relieved smile. "I’ll be up as soon as I’m through down here," he called. "Do you want anything?"
Bon Chance considered the request, glancing across to where Sarah had decided to hug Corky with a burst of enthusiasm. "Non," he said after a moment, "except perhaps a cup of your excellent chocolait, mon ami?"
"On its way," Gushie grinned. Cutter found he was beaming inanely, and forced himself to stop smiling.
"You should be back in bed," he said, and almost immediately fought down a yawn.
"So should you, by the look of it," his friend murmured. "Is it over, Jake? Are we free?"
The pilot shrugged. "I don’t know," he admitted. "I think so. What happened to you?"
Bon Chance shivered visibly. "I am not sure," he said slowly, turning to walk back along the upper corridor as Jake waved him away from the work below. "I was ... somewhere, dark and cold. Trapped and unable to move or breath for what seemed like a lifetime. Then ..." He paused, trying to put recent experience into words and finding them inadequate. "Something tore the darkness apart; something that burned away all the cold and the anger and the need that held me there. I was on fire, and the fire was mine ..." His voice tailed off, and he shared his bewilderment with Cutter’s anxious consideration, their eyes meeting in common awareness of an experience that couldn’t be defined. "I woke, and I was in my own bed, and I ached like the devil, and ... here I am." He shrugged, a little lopsidedly as he favoured his injured arm.
"Then I guess it’s over." Cutter leant on the door into the man’s suite, pushing it open and gesturing his companion through it. "I suppose we’ll never really know what happened." He grinned, relief winning through his tiredness. "Unless dead men can talk, right?"
"Oh mon dieu," Bon Chance remembered with sudden horror. "How am I going to finish my report?"
"Simple - death by cause, or causes, unknown. One more mystery of the islands, Louie."
"Oui," the Frenchman sighed, stepping under Cutter’s arm with weary steps; then he paused and turned back. "Jake," he called softly as the man made to move away. The pilot paused, looking back with a questioning smile. "Merci," Louie breathed. "From the bottom of my soul, merci."
"Any time," Cutter said flippantly. "Just promise me something, will ya?"
"Name it, mon ami"
"Next time - just leave the gold where it is, okay?"
He was rewarded by the sound of that familiar laugh, a chuckle of amusement that was a reassurance in a way that nothing else could be. He tipped the peak of his cap back in friendly salute and turned his steps to his bed, knowing that once again all was right with his personal piece of paradise.
Right, that was, until there was a next time.
Which, of course, there would be ...
Return to the Monkey
Bar