[Oxrun Station] The Bloodwind

by Charles L. Grant

  "It's like you told me once, about your paints," she said, quietly, not wanting to disturb the quarry's soft singing.

  "What?"

  She grinned. "Sorry. What I mean is—you're always telling me how involved you get in your work, how the paints sometimes feel as if they're alive, directing the brush to the right places. Like you don't even have to think about it."

  "Rare," he said, making her realize then his frown was merely a squinting against the snowglare. "It doesn't happen very often."

  "Oh, not with me," she said. "Not with me. Once I get the stone the way I want it, once it's checked out for flaws and I can really see what I'm going to do in there . . . well, it's like there's blood there in veins no one can see but me. When it's all done it's almost alive, figuratively. If it isn't, it's just stone. And it looks like just stone. And it sits there like a lump, just waiting for me to smash it."

  As she'd spoken she'd begun to lean forward, and the slight downward slope of the seat soon had her slipping until she gripped the broad armrests and yanked herself back.

  "You think that dumb bear's alive then?"

  She laughed. "To tell you the truth, there are days when I wonder. I'm just glad he can't talk."

  "Ah hah," he said, slipping behind the throne and peering over its top at her, making her twist and crane to see his grinning face. "You tell secrets to it, do you?"

  "Everything. No holds barred."

  He crossed his forearms on the top and rested his chin on it. "Y'know, Oliver told me once there are people who believe, who used to believe that stone has a life force just like trees and grass and people. I think he was going to try to make a statue of you and ravish it at night."

  She stuck out her tongue at him. "He has Harriet, and dozens of other nymphs, my dear. He certainly doesn't need a woman almost twice his age."

  "Ah, but he's mad about you, you know. He really is."

  "Greg, please."

  "No, I mean it. You should hear him and Ben arguing about the right way to get into—''

  She scooped up some snow and tossed it at him, slid off the seat and hurried around it. He was laughing, brushing the snow from his collar and hair. His smile drained with the mirth in his eyes, however, when he saw her standing there, hands on her hips.

  "What do you have against Oliver and Ben?" she asked. "It seems that all you're doing lately is running them down. It isn't fair. It really isn't fair."

  The day was spoiled. The serenity of the quarry had been shattered by his unthinking jibes: If he'd only been sober last night, if he'd only been there when Harriet had come crying to her, maybe he wouldn't feel quite so ... so damned superior.

  "Hey, Pat, wait a minute."

  From mirth to confusion to sullen anger.

  "No. No, I'm not going to wait a minute. I want to know what they've done to you that you're so mean to them now. As I recall, you couldn't get enough of their company last year. Whenever they weren't talking or working with me they were having coffee in the Union with you. Now, all of a sudden, they're my enemies, they're against me, they're using me . . . what the hell's going on, Greg?"

  He straightened, his gloved hands bunched into fists. "Nothing," he said flatly, "is going on, Pat. I told you last week not to give them so much credit, and I mean it. They're kids. I don't care how old they are, they're kids."

  "Shit," she said, turning Upslope toward the car so she wouldn't have to look at him. "Crap. Bull. What's the matter, was Oliver or Ben making time with that . . . that Susan Haslet or Abbey Wagner? Were they cutting you out of something, Greg?"

  And as soon as she said it she bit hard on her lower lip, spinning around to apologize and seeing that an apology would do her no good at all. He stared at her as if she'd struck him, his eyes without expression. Then he started toward the car along the wind-cleared road, pausing at the higher level to look back at her.

  "You coming?"

  He made it sound as if nothing would displease him more, and her rage boiled through her shame just long enough for her to shake her head and give him her back. She heard him leaving without even trying to get her to change her mind, heard the VW sputter to life and the rear tires whine until they found purchase as he U-turned and drove back into the forest.

  The sound of the engine lasted for quite a long time.

  And when it was finally buried by the relentless press of silence she reached up a hand and brushed a tear from her cheek. What she had done had been spiteful, petty jealousy, damned close to ghoulish. Greg loved her, and she had struck out at him when he'd hit too close to home with his criticisms of the trio. Too close. Much too close for her to think of any effective denial, hitting out instead like the child she'd thought she'd left behind decades ago.

  She punched at the air.

  She kicked at the snow the wind hadn't been able to dislodge.

  She walked back to the boulder throne and leaned hard against it, staring across the quarry until her gaze finally sidled to the place where she'd discovered the stone for Homer. She wished she had him now, if only to crack over Greg's head.

  "Hell."

  The two of them. What a hell of a pair. Both so frightened of each other they couldn't have a simple conversation without either shying away or turning to sarcasm. If one of them didn't say "I love you" damned quick, the next time they met they might do permanent damage. But the way he'd acted today, she'd be damned if she'd be the first.

  Then, to the quarry: "Did you hear that? Did you hear what I just said?" She kicked the throne in disgust. "Damn, I sound just like him."

  It occurred to her then not to finish his statuette; then to finish it and give it to him anyway, just to see the look on his face.

  It also occurred to her that she'd better calm down before she did or said anything that would drive him away. That she didn't want.

  She slumped onto the seat again and stared glumly at the far wall. She had certainly done it this time. All he'd been trying to do was caution her against too deep an involvement, and she'd turned on him as if he'd accused her of murder. As usual, she'd reacted strongly to any hint of weakness in herself, a weakness she knew was there but couldn't tolerate showing to others.

  Like bragging, for god's sake, about fearlessly climbing halfway down the quarry wall to get the stone that became Homer. What had happened was far less flattering—she'd been walking along the edge and peering down into the dark water for signs of life, for hints of fish, when her foot had slipped and she'd fallen. Luckily, the ledge had been there, jutting nine feet at an upward angle over the pit—nine feet out and six feet wide. She landed on her rump, and once the pain and the dying-fear had passed, she'd seen the crack in the wall, and she'd seen the stone. Two large halves that, with the aid of a rope from the car, she'd hauled up after wrapping them in an old burlap sack. The one half had been Homer's grey-white; the other, Greg's, was the same, only the grey was slightly darker. That one she had given to him in hopes he would try some sculpting of his own, but when she'd initially had the notion for Homer's twin she'd managed to wheedle it back from him without explaining why. Had almost despaired when he'd told her he'd given it to Ben.

  But Ben apparently hadn't taken it. They found it at his workspace in her Fine Arts studio, and so anxious was she to begin work on Greg's gift she'd had no compunctions at all about taking it without asking. It had been one of those I'll-talk-to-him-tomorrow things, when tomorrow never comes, and Ben had never mentioned it and she only remembered it whenever she was here at the quarry.

  Here at the quarry, trying to work up enough energy to start the walk home.

  Her anger rekindled.

  Idiot! Didn't he know she could freeze to death before she reached the nearest farmhouse? What did it matter that she only had to follow the road downhill; my god, it would be dark before she broke from the forest, and suppose there was no one home? Suppose there was another storm tonight? She scanned the sky quickly, her nervousness rising until she convinced herself the haze to the sou
th was only the weak sun's discoloration, not a forming cloudbank.

  Enough, she ordered then. Enough. Take it easy. And get off your ass before it freezes to the rock.

  She leaned forward to stand. Stopped when she saw a band of powdery snow trail off the quarry's rim. It scattered and swirled, was followed by another on the opposite wall. A third. A fourth. As if the ground were tilting and dumping its load.

  Then she felt the wind.

  And heard the deep-throated grumbling.

  14

  EARTHQUAKE, she thought; but when her concentration shifted briefly to her hands, her feet, she could feel no vibrations through the stone, the ground. A glance to the sky, and the blue had hazed over; a glance to the woods on either side of the quarry, and the trees were immobile.

  She wanted to move, to get off the throne and start running up the road. Maybe Greg had cooled down and was turning back. Maybe there was a truck coming up the trail, a farmer or some kids out for some illegal hunting. And maybe it was simply a stone shifting under pressure of the cold.

  The wind flicked like the tip of a whip against her cheek, and it took her a moment to realize its direction.

  South; from across the mouth of the quarry and directly into her face.

  The snowtails fell more strongly, slipping from between cracks and shrubs, falling toward the covered ice. White waterfalls now that began to swerve away from the ice as if repelled, sweeping toward the center and billowing upward again, twisting, writhing, shaping themselves into a funnel that climbed slowly toward the haze. Pouring from all sides, and lifting from the bottorn, until the black surface was clear, reflecting nothing of the turmoil above it and allowing her to see nothing below.

  She was mesmerized.

  She knew it was a phenomenon of the wind, of the shape of the quarry, of the powdery substance of the snow, and despite the subaural grumbling she was intrigued, wondering how high the fattening pillar would rise before either it collapsed under its own spinning weight or the wind finally shifted direction. It was now midway to the top, and still the snow fed it. She looked down to her feet and saw the flakes shifting away from her, curling around her heels to ride for the edge, saw patterns of white streaming around the sides of the throne, moving so rapidly she had a moment's illusion the stone was traveling backward. She closed her eyes, opened them quickly, and saw that the revolving pillar had begun to change color.

  Fascination died.

  There were flecks now in the white, flecks of deep red that blurred into a pink too much like watered blood. She shrank back, pulling one leg up protectively, pushing herself with her hands until she was almost standing.

  Deep red. Deeper.

  And the grumbling grew louder.

  The pillar rose higher. She thought for a panicked moment of cinema effects, twisted spires of flame that yielded no heat and cowed the actors just the same.

  But this was cold. A dull and lifeless cold shading from white to red without benefit of the sun, without a fire nearby. Her other leg drew up and she was crouching, trying to watch the snowfall and the funnel simultaneously. She grew dizzy. Her lips dried, her eyes burned, but when she lifted a hand as if to ward off the vision she realized it wasn't the snow that had turned red, it was something inside the spiraling fury, something lifting itself ponderously from beneath the black ice.

  A movement contrary to the pillar's spin, a flash of dark red that caught her eye and was lost before she could follow it.

  Mesmerized; drawing her legs and arms closer inward, kneeling and hugging herself, until a second flashing movement galvanized her. She did not cry out (though she thought she heard a scream), and she did not scream (though she thought she heard herself cry out); she launched herself over the throne's left armrest and landed with her back to the quarry, on her knees and slipping toward the edge. Her hands grasped at the frozen ground, claws searching for purchase, while her back strained and her legs fought to bring up her feet. Slipping again, and her right foot came up against a stone. She used it. Without thinking she let all her weight rest against it, suddenly straightened her leg, and flew several feet in the air before she landed on hands and knees, crawling frantically, legs pulling up almost to her waist until she was up on her toes, on her fingers, up on her feet and racing for the crest.

  The wind ignored her. It grumbled and shrieked behind her, magnified by the quarry's throat, smothering her bird-weak prayers and sending daggers of pain into her ears.

  At the top, turning and not wanting to turn, seeing the pillar rise above the quarry, seeing within it a creature deep red still masked by the white. Yet it was there. She could see it. She could see . . . something ... an arm, a tentacle, a limb of some sort thrashing about as if seeking a way to smash through whatever held it. A flare, then. An eye. The vague outline of a head turning like a beacon; turning, stopping, and she knew it had seen her.

  It bellowed.

  Whatever head it had, whatever throat it had, it raised the one and stretched the other and it bellowed its challenge, unmistakable and enraged. Immediately, the snow lifted from the ground and blinded her, made her windmill her arms as her boot came down on a patch of ice. She stumbled forward, sideways, and fell. Sprawled. The snow climbing over her, insects of ice that slipped down her collar and into her ears, into her eyes, past her clenched lips and into her mouth. She tumbled, slid, tumbled again the full hundred yards down to the trail. An elbow cracked viciously against the ground and she screamed, feeling the numbness climb to her shoulder; her forehead glanced off a rock, and there were more colors than white, none of them red, burning Catherine wheels through her vision until she cried again; her knee; her back; and the snow swarmed around her, no longer soft, no longer gentle, striking her like pebbles even after she regained her feet and started running again.

  The trail rose, and she sobbed. She was heading in the wrong direction. She turned helplessly, looked back once over her shoulder and saw something . . . red . . . climbing over the crest.

  It bellowed.

  It challenged.

  She flung herself forward, only half-thinking that the snow-cloud meant to stop her could also hide her for a while. And immediately the thought came, the snow settled. Like dust, ghost-dust, it drifted out of the sky and back to the ground, and she swerved off the trail and raced toward the woodland. Out of the open, she thought; get out of the open. It made no difference that a thing that size would snap the trees to pieces, like so many brittle bones; if she were out of the open there would at least be the slim chance of safety, the smallest hope of escape. Anything else would be unthinkable, and deadly.

  The sheds blurred past her, and behind the last one in the row she stumbled over something buried beneath the white. She fell heavily, her mouth filling with snow that stung her cracked lips, her shoulder striking the rear wall to black her out for a moment. And when she awoke her face was pressed hard against the rough, gapping wood, and one hand was thrown up to blot out the sky, the other pushing against the shed to bring herself to her feet.

  Die, she thought; oh god, I don't want to die.

  She listened for the space of a dozen heartbeats, a dozen shuddering breaths.

  And heard nothing, not even the rasp of air in her lungs.

  Quickly, then, she shifted position into a crouch. Blinked snowglare and pain from her eyes and scanned the area immediately around her. Pine saplings weighted and bent. A rock breeching the crusted white. Twenty yards, she estimated, between herself and the trees. But she did not run.

  She listened.

  And heard nothing. Not even the wind.

  Her hands dipped into her pockets, clenched around several hard lumps she pulled out absently. Once again she'd managed to bring pieces of Homer's duplicate with her, and she tossed them aside angrily, did not see them land when a second thought turned her gaze.

  There was an impulse, then, short-lived and futile—to scrabble through the snow to find the stones again. David and Goliath. Parts of her she shouldn'
t lose, parts of her now lost forever.

  Calm she told herself sternly when she felt herself slipping. Damn, Pat, be calm or we're dead. We're dead.

  There was a mask of perspiration gleaming on her face, an ice-river slithering slowly down her spine. Though she clenched her jaw as best she could, her teeth chattered uncontrollably, and her left knee jumped spasmodically until she clamped a hand on it and held it there tightly. Lifted it, waited, then brought the hand to her mouth and bit down on a knuckle. It was then she realized she had been holding her breath, and she slipped it out in white spurts, breathing through mouth and making her teeth ache. She swallowed, and winced at the sandpaper that had abruptly lined her throat.

  She thought she could taste the warm salt of blood.

  The woods, silent; the sky, lowering.

  The shed creaked under the weight of its snow, and she held her breath again, staring at the nearest plank as if it were ready to split open and spill the creature into her lap.

  The woods, silent.

  In a moment so swiftly passing it was gone as soon as she noted, she could feel every inch of her skin pressing damply to her clothing: her breasts to her shirt, her stomach to the waistband, thighs to her jeans, calves to her boots, toes so cold they felt nothing at all. It was as though she were suddenly naked, and she moved a few inches to kill the sensation before it overwhelmed her.

  Then she listened, and heard nothing.

  Gone. Oh my god, it's gone. It has to be gone. Please; please let it be gone.

  Yet she dared not move. If it was just waiting, somewhere out there waiting, it would see her the moment she broke into the open. It wouldn't hurt to wait herself. To rest. To think. But she felt as if all logic circuits in her mind had shorted out, had consumed themselves in sudden explosions of sparks that denied her the reason she needed to know what was happening. Because what was happening, of course, wasn't real. It couldn't be real. She couldn't have had a silly fight with Gregory and elected to walk home in the middle of winter through the middle of a forest with ninety feet of damned snow on the ground. And she couldn't have been sitting on that stupid thing she called a throne, muttering to herself and feeling sorry for herself. And she certainly hadn't seen the snow suddenly drift off the edges of the quarry and form itself into a tornado-like barrier around a deep-red, blood-red, nightred creature that just rose from the ice like some stage trick on Broadway. She hadn't felt the wind. She hadn't heard the grumbling, or the shrieking, or the bellowing that was a challenge. She knew she hadn't, because it couldn't have happened.