Cat backed away from him until she was brought up short by one of the longstones. She sidled along the rough surface of the standing stone, eyes downcast, but watching Rick close in on her all the same. Now he was a half-dozen paces away. Now five. Her head pounded. A sibilant whisper that grew from somewhere inside her mocked her.
Meet his gaze, it said, and it will all be over. Peace will come then. In the end. Peace will come.
No! she told it.
Rick lunged for her and she darted under his arm. His hand came down, snagging her hair as she passed him, bringing her up short. She fell in a tumble, head lifted from the ground as he held her up by the hair. Pain seared through her skull. She flailed her arms. One wild blow caught him in the crotch.
He let go of her hair and she rolled free. He bent over in a half crouch. When he straightened, the fire in his eyes had grown. He shouted something at her, but it was lost in the wailing roar of the shadow creatures that encircled the hilltop.
He took a step toward her and she couldn't move. She watched him come, willing herself to get up, to fight, but she just wasn't strong enough. Only the eyes she refused to meet. She had that much strength left. She focused on his chest, watching it grow larger in her vision, step by terrifying step. Then he stopped and something blossomed in the center of his chest.
A knife hilt protruded there. Fresh blood ran down his shirt, joining old stains. Cat could only stare. Nothing really registered for her yet. Rick looked down at the knife, his eyes going blank. He lifted a hand to pluck weakly at the weapon, then pitched onto his side. Cat watched him fall, but she still couldn't move. In a moment he'd get up. The unfocused eyes would grow clear and center on her again, drawing her down and down….
She flinched as a hand touched her shoulder. Slowly she turned to find Toby standing behind her.
"I wasn't sure," he said. "Not at first. Didn't know if he was friend or foe. Then, when I did know, you were too close to him to give me a clear throw. Mistress Cat?"
"Is he… is he dead?"
Toby nodded.
"Then it's over… isn't it?"
"Ah…"
She followed his gaze. All around the hill, just beyond the perimeter guarded by the standing stones, the creatures stood, silent and watchful. A hundred black shadow shapes, motionlessly eerie. Their eyes reflected the same light that had been in her attacker's eyes, only in them it appeared older somehow. More evil.
"There's so many…." she murmured.
Toby nodded grimly. He bent to retrieve his knife. It would do little against such a horde, but it was all they had. His hand froze halfway.
"Mistress Cat?"
The body was gone. Only the knife remained on the grass.
"Oh, God." The words escaped Cat in a rush.
Gingerly, Toby reached for his weapon. He prodded it with a finger. When nothing happened, he picked it up turned it over in his hand. If he hadn't seen the man, his attack… seen him fall… Had they been fighting a phantom? But there was blood on the knife's blade, still glistening, wet. There had to have been someone there.
"How…?" he began, then shook his head.
He plunged the knife into the ground to clean the blade. Cat moved closer to him. The circle of shadow shapes tightened until there was no clear way through them— if there ever had been. Here and there a slit mouth opened in the parody of a grin. The creatures appeared to be waiting.
"What do we do now?" Toby asked.
Cat shook her head. Fear tightened everything inside of her. "I don't know," she whispered.
Lysistratus reached the car just as the last spark of life sped from Rick. He stared down at the man's slack features. How had she killed him? What was there inside her that had such power? Her dreams were strong, but dreams didn't kill.
He rolled Rick's body aside and pulled Cat up so that she lay lengthwise on the car seat, her head close to where he stood. For long moments he studied her. Pain lanced his side from his reopened wound. He was somewhat light-headed. What he needed was the woman's dreaming strengths to ease his pain. He needed it now, before he got any weaker.
Hands spread, he reached down to cup her face, then hesitated. She had drawn Rick down into herself and killed him there. That spoke of something inside her that lay in wait for him. A danger that he couldn't ignore.
Be careful, he told himself. But her scent filled his nostrils, her very proximity seeped into his every pore….
He was stronger than Rick could ever have been. He was old, perhaps the last of his kind. No longer mortal. No longer human. Except for physical violence, humankind had no defense against him.
He reached forward again and unbuttoned her shirt. Her skin was warm to the touch, her breasts soft as he closed his hands around them. At the instant of contact he had a momentary sensation of seeing her through myriad pairs of eyes. The power of contact broadened to encompass sight and smell and sound. He was inside her, she inside him. The rush that filled him as he tightened his grip on her made him dizzy.
Dimly he heard the sound of a car entering the garage, but he was already sinking into the sweet balm of her dreaming. The world around him lost meaning. Only her dreaming strengths existed. Filling him. Pouring into him. She was his. Finally, she was his.
* * *
Peter stepped on the brakes.
"There!" Tiddy Mun cried, pointing a trembling finger.
The cab's headbeams caught the shape of a man hunched over the open door of a car, too intent on whatever he was doing to pay them any mind. Cat! Fear for her went through Peter like a banshee's wail. The man had her.
He jumped out of the car and started for them at a run, pausing when he realized that he was empty-handed. Turning, he almost bowled Tiddy Mun over. The little man handed over Ben's baseball bat, his hands shaking. Peter glanced back at the cab. Becki leaned against her window, oblivious to her surroundings. Ben was stumbling from the backseat.
Turning, Peter started forward again, weapon in hand.
Cat staggered, fell to her knees. Instantly Toby was beside her, putting an arm around her shoulders.
"Mistress Cat! What—"
Her hands went to her stomach, ran up to her neck, down again, tearing at her sweater.
"I… I'm burning… inside…."
She pushed away from him and fell forward, fingers, digging convulsively into the earth. Toby dropped his knife and took hold of her shoulders, trying to turn her over. A chill draft struck his cheek and he turned to look at the shadow creatures. To his horror they were dissolving, one by one, swirling like dust devils as they rushed into the area that had been protected by the standing stones. The wind of their passing was cold and clammy on his skin. Ice formed in the marrow of his bones.
"Burning!" Cat shrieked.
He took hold of her hand. Her fingers tightened like a vise around his. Her skin was hot with an intense fever. Ice and fire: the dervish whirling of the shadow creatures as they spun into a frozen wind that passed between him and Cat… the heat of her skin as fierce as though she really were burning up from inside…
Her voice was no more than a ragged moan now. "Burning… the fire…"
Something consumed her. Toby gathered her up in his arms and held her close. He felt so helpless. If there was only something he could do! By now half the shadow creatures had vanished— vanished inside of her, Toby realized in shock. A cold that burned. The remaining creatures surrounded them, dancing once more, so close that they brushed against him.
The stones had kept them out before— why not now? By the stars, why not now?
Because, he understood suddenly, she had allowed them in.
The shadowy smoothness of the creatures' touch made Toby cringe. His limbs grew leaden and cold. The shadows danced more slowly now, in a ritual movement rather than their earlier wild caperings. One reached for Cat. Toby hugged her closer, to no avail.
Like the others had, the thing dissolved, passing through clothes and flesh until it was inside her. Torn betwee
n wanting to help and needing to push her away from him, Toby forced himself to hold on. Low gibberings started up once again, and he wasn't sure if they came from the creatures or himself. Another came close, reached for Cat, then froze.
Peter hauled the man out of the car and slammed him into the side of a nearby station wagon. He caught one glimpse of Cat— lying still… so still— then he turned to face the parasite. Lysistratus had hit the car with the side of his head. His eyes were unfocused, his step uncertain. Peter swung the bat and caught him with a glancing blow.
The parasite went down, hitting the ground like a dead weight. Peter bent over him, the bat raised for another blow. Lysistratus's eyes snapped open, sought Peter's gaze, trapped it.
The bat spilled from suddenly numbed fingers to clatter on the concrete. Peter took a step back and Lysistratus rose smoothly to his feet. Cat's dreaming strengths, stolen and firing him, kept the parasite from toppling over. His head rang, but her sweetness eased the pain. She filled him, her psyche as rich and golden as the legendary wine of the gods.
He moved for Peter, hands outstretched to cup his face, then sensed Tiddy Mun's attack. The gnome came at him in the shape of a big tomcat. Lysistratus remembered cats…
He met it face on. The cat tore at his hands and wrists, trying for his eyes, spitting and hissing. Lysistratus ignored the runnels it cut in his flesh. Grabbing it by a shoulder, he flung it at a concrete support.
The cat struck the pillar with a dull thud, landed on the hood of a car. The cold metal seared it. It tumbled to the ground and the smell of burning flesh and fur filled the air. On the pavement the cat became a little man and lay very still.
Lysistratus turned to face Peter once more. The woman's dreaming was everything he'd imagined it would be. It made the wound in his side seem like nothing. The deep scratches on his hands and wrists were a joke. How could he have waited so long to take the full power of what she carried inside her? He had the strength of a thousand in him now.
His eyes blazed with power, but Peter knew enough not to look into them this time. He dove for the bat, tearing long scrapes from his skin on the rough pavement. Lysistratus glided toward him before he could regain the weapon. The parasite caught his hair and pulled him away from the bat. A second hand found purchase on Peter's shirt.
Lifting him from the ground, Lysistratus's eyes bored into Peter. They demanded that Peter face him. Peter shook his head, trying to free himself of the need to look, to be lost again, but a darkness came washing up through him, primal and absolute….
"No!"
Lysistratus turned, dropping Peter to the ground. Peter fell in a limp bundle of limbs. Ben faced the parasite. He was half blind with tears, the bat in his hands.
"I won't let you hurt anybody else!" Ben roared.
Lysistratus moved forward and Ben swung the bat. The parasite lifted an arm to ward off the blow, but it struck true. The two bones of his forearm snapped under the impact. The arm hung useless. Pain seared through him until Cat's stolen strengths swallowed it.
Before he could raise his other arm, before he could step in and grasp his enemy's flesh, trap his will and suck him empty, the bat was up again, swinging for his head. The blow cracked the temporal bone of his skull. He spun back against Rick's car, falling in a twisted sprawl of outspread limbs. One hand snagged in Cat's hair. The fingers scrabbled to make contact with her skin.
Ben stepped forward. He was horrified at the damage he'd done, but more determined than ever to finish the monster off, once and for all. He lifted the bat, hesitated when Lysistratus's eyes snapped open once again, their gaze locking onto his. Fire ran through Ben like a knife.
There's no way it can live with that kind of damage, Ben thought numbly. One half of the parasite's head was matted with blood, the skull obviously cracked. It couldn't live through that.
But the gaze gripped his, the will leapt forth to grapple with his. The bat fell from nerveless fingers for a second time, and Ben toppled to the ground to lie near Peter's unconscious form.
Toby held Cat in the crook of one arm, beating at the shadow shapes with the other. They reached for her, many of them at once, three and four joints to each gnarled finger. The wind stirred the tattered tissue on their heads that passed for hair. Their features became individual, and as they did, the sameness of their eyes appeared all the more horrifying. It was as though one being watched him through many pairs of eyes.
They tugged and pulled at him, but he only gripped Cat tighter. His shirt was wet and cold against his sweaty skin, his hair plastered to his forehead. He shrugged off the grasping fingers with stiff movements, but knew he couldn't last much longer. Talons were beginning to form at the ends of their fingers. They snagged in his shirt, pierced his skin. There were so many of them— and all those eyes watching him with the same expression, slit mouths gaping and grinning.
Abruptly Cat trembled in his arms, where she'd lain as still as death before. As he looked at her, she pushed him away with a sudden strength. She screamed and her body bucked spasmodically. A cloudy gas rushed forth from her mouth, swirling and taking shape in the air between them.
Toby moaned as something began to materialize in the midst of that ragged cloud. It gathered vapor about it like a cloak, solidified. The suggestion of glittering blue eyes— like azure lights blazing in ice— pierced Toby to his soul, numbing the last of the fight left in him.
Cat lay still, her features white. The apparition, now complete, drew the remaining shadow creatures into it. One by one it swallowed their dark lanky shapes, its own body becoming more corporeal with each of the creatures that it drew into itself. At last it stood alone, tall and handsome. The grass withered at its feet. The hilltop grew darker, as though the stars themselves withdrew their light from where he stood. But the Otherworld shape of Lysistratus burned with its own inner light.
Finally the parasite understood Cat's strength, the power of her dreaming. Unlike the ghostly lies that most humans realized in their sleep, her dreams took her to a realm, the very foundations of which were the stuff of dreams. Little wonder that what he stole from her fulfilled his needs so completely. Here the world itself would feed him. Here he would never lack for sustenance.
He glanced at the guardian longstones. They had protected her from his tracking senses. They would have kept her safe if he hadn't come to this world through her. And what a world!
His gaze went to her still form. She stirred under its power. His voice drew her awareness back to the hilltop. Bleakly she looked up at his tall form and knew his power. She felt ravaged. Drained. Pain thudded behind her temples. She was like a shell with nothing of herself left inside, no her left anymore— or so little that it hid in a dark corner of her soul, skittering and frail.
"Don't you want me?" Lysistratus asked her mockingly.
Her gaze lifted to meet his. God help her, but she did.
She knew who he was immediately. Compared to him she felt like a child. He was the invader, but he ruled simply by his presence. He stood on Redcap Hill as though it had always belonged to him. He was power incarnate, and he exuded a magnetic attraction that couldn't be denied. Beside him even Mynfel would be overshadowed, would be no more than a pale reflection of his radiant strength— strength he had stolen, but it was no less real because of that. No less his to command.
The other man, the one she'd drawn down with her, through her… he'd been bad enough. But he was nothing compared to what she faced now. It wasn't just the power— knowing the parasite could play her like a puppet, knowing he could lay the Otherworld to waste. It was knowing, sickly, that some part of her wanted to go to him, to feel his touch, to give herself to him.
"Come to me," Lysistratus said.
His power pierced her. His will slipped inside her, meeting no resistance. Dazed, she forced herself up. She got as far as her hands and knees, but couldn't rise any farther. A small part of her remembered the vision in Mynfel's pool. Her terror then was a joke compared to what paral
yzed her now. She would welcome those branched antlers weighting down her brow, if having them endowed her with enough power to break the hold her mocking captor held her with.
But that vision had been a sham. What did it matter if her secret name twinned Mynfel's? It proved nothing. Meant nothing.
Bound to the parasite's will, she had to obey him. She began to crawl in his direction. Her hand landed on Toby's knife. She gripped it reflexively, closed her fingers around the sharp blade and opened a deep slash in her palm. The knife fell free, and she stared numbly at the blood welling from her hand. She watched it drop and soak into the earth. She didn't even feel the pain.
Lysistratus drew her in like a hooked fish. He had her so completely overpowered that eye contact was no longer necessary. She moved forward again, setting her bloodied palm down on the earth to pull herself along. As the open wound ground into the dirt, a sudden shock went through her, stealing the last of her ebbing strengths.
She sprawled forward on the ground, her mind ablaze with a kaleidoscope of sound and images that twisted and churned in a maddening blur. Incongruously, tattered remnants of the real world made themselves be known. Words leapt through the maelstrom— words torn from the pages of the books that she'd spent the better part of her life immersed in.
A rotund figure, narrow-framed glasses in the midst of a frizz of charcoal-gray hair… a high-pitched voice crying over the droning sound of a harmonium… Alien Ginsberg's primal Howl… speaking of a generation destroyed by madness….
Cold fire ran up her hand. Her head was too heavy to lift. She sensed Lysistratus standing directly over her.
Blake's 'Mad Song': "Like a fiend in a cloud, with howling glee…."
The ground heaved under her.
Toby, forgotten, his sanity spilling from him in a rush, watched golden-green sparks leap from the craggy tips of the standing stones. When his gaze alit on Cat, his jaw went slack.
"No future!" Sid Vicious fronting the Pistols… the crash of discordant music warring with his angry voice. "No future…."
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