Wild Thing

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Wild Thing Page 24

by L. J. Kendall


  She laughed: almost a deep, coughing growl. He felt cold as her eyes fixed on his. Her other hand reached out, somehow guided surely to the small box of steel ball-bearings that were the device's ammunition. Abruptly, he wondered how he could possibly have watched the thing's demonstration, yet claim he had not understood he supplied her with a lethal weapon.

  She was making him nervous. 'Sara, I hope-' He shifted his perception to the Imaginal and his voice cracked. Her aura boiled. He'd never seen anything like it.

  It was happening!

  She was starting to Unfold, right here in the Institute. Following the archetype of the Huntress. With a lethal weapon in her hands.

  With dismay, he realized he suddenly had no idea what she might do. 'I hope I don't have to impress upon you how important it is not to use this weapon in or too near the Institute. It must be our secret.'

  In answer she only cocked her head to one side. 'I'm going out hunting,' she declared, and stalked silently from the room.

  He slumped in a sudden release of tension: laughed, shakily. At any rate, he needn't have worried so much about her losing touch with the role for which he had prepared her. She had slipped back into it like a shark beneath water.

  He eased back into his seat, eager to observe what promised to be her so long awaited Unfolding. Centering himself he slipped down inside, finally leaving his body. He would follow her Imaginally until she'd left the building, at least as far as the barriers – and make sure she wasn't going to attack any of the Institute personnel.

  He wondered what she would kill.

  Chapter 37

  Outside, Sara stalked through her Jungle, but it was a jungle strangely changed. She felt strange, too. So strange. Her head ached; her mouth was dry; and the light was much too strong. The colors glowed so brightly they hurt her eyes. And the liquid ball of hot pressure was still building in her chest. It felt like something was squeezing the breath from her; like her skin was stretched too tightly over her body.

  She didn't like it. She felt like she might explode.

  The trees were filled with birds, somehow squawking and shrieking straight into her ears. It was unnatural, too much. She had only two anchor points in the cauldron broiling her: the cool, firm grip of the weapon in her hand, and the knowledge that she held the power to kill.

  She held onto those two truths as the world beat upon her with such intensity she felt physically sick. At last, though, she held an adult's weapon. She clung to the thought.

  The sound of the wind, of creaking branches and rustling leaves, all pressed in against her, so close that she spun around, suddenly sure that the forest had somehow come alive, stretched out and swallowed her.

  She half-wished She would appear. She'd tear Her into little tiny pieces.

  But the noise just kept pounding her, trying to drown her. She focused on the sounds from the tree she now stood beneath, a pigeon cooing in an absurdly booming voice. As if it had perched right against her ear. The volume of it frightened her a little. She couldn't get away from it. She scanned the branches to locate the source of the horribly loud sound. And as she did, it was like a holo contrast-control had just been turned all the way up – another shape suddenly resolved itself from the deeper darkness of the tree, hidden deep inside a bower of branches and leaves, that moments before had been darkly impenetrable. The weapon sat heavy in her hand. She raised it, sighted, her other hand slipping a ball bearing into its pouch and drawing the spring smoothly back. It was an owl she aimed at, she suddenly knew. Its eyes blinked open in the deep shade of its retreat.

  She tasted its imminent death while color, sound, and smells seemed once more to pile up in waves against her. She imagined her uncle's voice whispering to her: Kill! Kill! Yet somehow, the taste was wrong, the victim wrong. Too unsuspecting, perhaps? Too unaware? She didn't understand, but felt it would be an insult to… something… to make the owl her first victim. Deeply wrong.

  She snarled in frustration.

  A moment later, the cooing ceased in a painfully-loud thrashing of wings: the pigeon that had been tormenting her, scared into sudden flight. A fat bird, it hadn't even left the branches of the tree as she spun, sighted, and with a curious certainty that she could not miss – that her sling bullet must hit, or had already hit – loosed.

  Its head literally exploded, and the bird's flight collapsed into a plunging fall. The sight of her success tore a cry of joy from her, shocking through her with a totally unexpected surge of relief, of release, her whole self shuddering with the missile's impact.

  The small body plummeted to the ground, striking one branch after another on the way down in a series of sickening thuds, before thumping into a bush at the foot of the tree. To lie unmoving.

  Sound and color drained abruptly back to their normal levels. Though she wanted to collapse to the ground as the sensation of release burned through every nerve, she locked her legs stiffly apart and struggled to contain the shocking pleasure, resisting as she strained to fight it down; panting with effort as she fought her own body for control. A part of her felt horror, dismayed that the death had felt so good. It shouldn't feel good. Not like that.

  She would not give in to it.

  For a full minute she stood trembling on the brink of some dreadful cliff before she felt able to trust her limbs again. At last, still shaky, she tucked the grip of her weapon into the waist of her shorts and moved over to her fallen prey, plucking it from the tangles of the shrub.

  A fat gray pigeon, made both still and ugly by its violent death. It lay warm in her hands, blood still oozing from its neck. It looked pathetic. She felt sad, somehow. She had ended its life. That fact was dreadfully real; dreadfully final. Some distant part of her, some tiny spark, seemed to be trying to whisper to her, to warn her; but the whisper was silent: a mere breath. It made her think of an old man, for some reason. But the wisp of memory slid away.

  She looked up, gazing past the small body, her unblinking eyes focused on infinity. Mentally she pictured a small soul winging its way Elsewhere, and offered it a silent acknowledgment.

  Wetness on her cheeks brought her back to herself, and she brushed in surprise at the trickles of moisture.

  She turned, crossing the lawn to head back to the Institute. But as she reached the edge of the gravel area, she hesitated, filled with a sudden reluctance – a feeling she should be outside, not in. Spinning on her heels, she ran into the woods.

  -

  Harmon's astral form circled the powerful Warding around the Institute's buildings.

  He watched her sense her prey, and kill it. With a single shot. Saw her aura flare, Unfolding at last – only to watch her fight it down.

  Furious, he watched her trudge toward the front steps, before turning back and racing out through the barrier, beyond his view.

  What foolish game was this?

  Long minutes later, the Institute's barrier flared in a Borealis display as she returned through the Ward. What…? The shimmering curtain closed up behind her almost like wings furling.

  The Ward had reacted to Sara as if she were almost a threat.

  The “almost”… it made no sense. None.

  And he saw she had felt that interaction, too, as she stumbled at that instant, nearly dropping the dying ember cradled in her hands. He moved beside her to observe her as she stood, pushing one hand gingerly through the barrier, clearly puzzled.

  Spinning around, she brushed past his spirit form.

  And her touch hurt.

  Impossible. Reflexively, he flashed backwards, to the front doors. On the lawn below, Sara moved now as if in the dark, one arm stretched out, trying to locate the thing she had brushed against. Him. Somehow she had touched his spirit. And hurt it.

  That should not be possible. Not without both a focused effort of will, and full awareness of what she did. Not from a clearly accidental contact.

  Had she Unfolded? If so, into what? He could not categorize the shape of her aura: not as that of a mage,
nor as a shaman.

  Her aura had changed, though. It looked… calmer. More self-contained.

  Deeper.

  Finally she turned, stalking up the stairs to the entry doors where he hovered. With a thought, he returned to his body.

  When his office door opened he looked up, took in the plump little body she carried and her drained expression, and quickly shifted his perception back to the Imaginal. Her aura had settled into patterns so different from her usual that he barely recognized it. For one thing, the livid, charged tendrils he attributed to the influence of the beep and scope seemed shrunken. Somehow quiet. And the rest of it had altered in subtle ways. Simpler, clearer. Stronger, too. As though he were looking at some familiar bay's shore after a violent storm had reshaped its outlines.

  She had approached, standing now before him with the bird held in both hands, the PowerShot poking from the waist of her tight shorts. Her eyes gazed steadily into his, waiting for him to acknowledge her kill. She was not offering it to him.

  He rose and came around the desk, forcing aside distaste as he reached out and touched the bloody neck. 'I see your first hunt was successful, Sara. I'm very proud of you.'

  He saw the unexpected praise warm her – softening her, a little, into vulnerability. She looked shyly down at the small body for a second, before gazing back up into his eyes.

  Harmon felt he could almost see the shape of her future stretching ahead, and chose his words with care. His voice sank, low and solemn as he spoke in more formal tones.

  'Up until now, little one, you have been playing children's games. But this is real, now. You have made your first kill.'

  She nodded her acceptance, eyes not leaving his. Remembering his script, he dabbed a finger into the creature's blood. With it, he marked her forehead, then each cheek. Her eyes shone.

  As he anointed her, he spoke. 'With this blood, I mark you and Name you.'

  He paused, and in more normal tones, explained. 'Now that you are truly a hunter you have earned a new name: your adult name. I am sure you will like it,' he Suggested.

  Her eyes narrowed. She frowned, shaking her head, and he saw the spell shatter, broken by her unconscious resistance.

  A minor victory for her, but it struck Harmon with all the shock of a slap in the face. She looked a little confused – hardly aware of this piece of psychic byplay. Mentally gritting his teeth, he focused his attention – indeed made it all but obvious what he was doing as he recast the spell. But he felt he needed more.

  Reaching out to her, he laid his right hand gently on her arm. The physical contact, so rarely made, seemed to put her suddenly off-balance. Her eyes widened slightly as she looked up into his. He tried again.

  'Yes, I am sure you will like your new name.'

  He held the Imaginal pattern of the spell inside himself, letting it swell as he channeled extra force into it before releasing it and directing it over her. It seemed to tear at him this time as it passed from him to her, and he panted with the effort of controlling the flow. This time, though, he felt the spell take root.

  She nodded, fractionally.

  'I name you Leeth!'

  Her eyes closed as she accepted her new name.

  He could almost read her thought – so right. She smiled.

  With his hand still holding her arm, the silence lengthened. Suddenly, he was acutely conscious of the touch. Her body language told him she also was all too aware of the contact. He watched her aura, strands now pulsing and swelling. Sexual tension vibrated in the air between them. He mentally retreated once more to the safety of the script he had prepared all those days ago.

  'Now we shall feast you.'

  She opened her eyes and grinned. Leeth grinned. Satisfaction and pride suddenly bubbled over into delight. In very much her old way, she whispered intensely, 'Oh, yes, Keepie, yes! Let's feast!'

  Together, they plucked it. He let her dress it, with a small but wickedly sharp knife, her eyes shining at the implied trust. Together, they prepared it. Cooked it, together. And together celebrated the Feast of Becoming.

  Engrossed in their shared work, she didn't notice as he cast and slipped the mindmeld spell over her with exquisite delicacy.

  Parts of the meal verged on the indigestible due to the cooks' lack of knowledge; but parts were wonderful – though he had to smile at her discovery that real flesh tended to stick between one's teeth, not at all like soyburger.

  But as the meal progressed, the tension that had discharged earlier crept back and began to build. Her fever grew. He retreated further down the link as her senses began flooding her so strongly they started to overwhelm her. He had even allowed her a glass of red wine. He was quite pleased at her doubtful reaction. He sensed her appreciation of the full flavors, smooth and tart at the same time. He held his breath as she noted the unpleasantly bitter aftertaste. Relaxed as she thought nothing more of it.

  She even drank it all, to please him.

  He had dimmed the light earlier. As the small meal progressed, Sara's eyes – no, Leeth's eyes – seemed to grow larger and larger, until they were brimming dark pools. Desire seemed to move like some submarine behemoth beneath their surface. He shook himself mentally at the foolishness of the simile. Yet in a very real way, she made him nervous. The current he tapped, he suspected, ran very deep indeed.

  After drinking all her wine, from the tall, slender glass he'd set out, she seemed unable to leave its stem alone, her fingers sliding up and down it. Harmon noted the flush of her cheeks. Her movements had slowed, smoothed. No longer bird-quick and jumpy. A feline sensuality instead surfaced, as she twirled the glass stem between thumb and finger. With her other hand, she ran a finger around the rim; stroked down the side; cupped the gently curved shape in the palm of her hand. She seemed to find the contact strangely intimate, strongly pleasurable. He continued his retreat, finally dropping the link lest her senses swamp him. Nor did he wish to risk reawakening her stubborn resistance at this critical juncture.

  He watched as she shifted in her seat, crossing one subtly muscled, copper-bronzed leg over the other. Then slid it forward and back, purely for the pleasure of feeling one silkily curved calf whisper against the other, he knew.

  Her eyes had half closed, he noted, the upper lids drooping down as she fell headlong into the enticement of her own senses. He watched, enraptured, as the drug took hold.

  His intimate knowledge of her gestures and habits made him hypersensitive to her every action; made perfectly clear the meaning of each departure from her normal body language. So when the fingers of her right hand trailed casually up the smooth length of her forearm, he imagined it was his own hand generating the sensuous pleasure that triggered and then prolonged her self-caress. When she idly placed one hand on the underside of her breast, and then oh so slowly, let her fingers trail up over that curve and then down into the valley and up the other side, and her mouth opened in a small “O”, he knew she relished delicious sensations that flowed beneath her outwardly calm exterior.

  He almost smiled. The drugs would make this so easy.

  Mentally, he drew back, musing. Analyzing. A perceptive stranger would, at best, have thought she was flirting. A less observant stranger would have noticed nothing at all. Sara – no Leeth, dammit – Leeth herself was unaware of how clearly she was signaling to him. She assumed the slight movements caused by shifting her legs would pass unnoticed. Did not realize he drank it in and correctly interpreted it – knowing she relished the surreptitious nudging of thigh against thigh… and all the other, more subtle pressures and touches.

  He smiled, amused. She thought she was arousing and pleasuring herself secretly. Right in front of him. For him, however, knowing her to be ignorant of his awareness, he had not only the thrill of watching her arouse herself, and the anticipation of what would come, but also the illicit thrill of the voyeur watching from the shadows, safe in his own secrecy.

  And now for the next step.

  He gestured at the music console
across the room. Softly, the notes of his first selection seeped into the background of the room. He decided to skip the various interludes. Another gesture jumped it straight to the heart of the sequence – a shallow modern piece, but one with a pounding bass undercurrent and a primitive, even savage, rhythm.

  Leeth's eyes slitted in pleasure, acknowledging it with the merest nod and a widening of her already wicked smile. On a whim, he shifted his senses to the Imaginal plane. What he saw was enough to reawaken his clinical interest: the thickly twining ribbons were noticeably tumescing, in driving pulses that matched the beat of the music. They twisted and throbbed suggestively, penetrating and threading the other parts of her aura. He found the movements engrossing: they compelled attention. He watched as the patterns and colors associated with the higher mental processes dimmed and diffused, while the simpler and more fundamental patterns became steadily more urgent and dominant.

  At that moment, a contraction seemed to pass through the branches of her Imaginal form. Simultaneously, their intensity deepened. And now, the rest of the pattern seemed to be opening up. He watched, fascinated, struggling to formulate the concepts that would explain what he was seeing. It was as though parts of her aura were, were… reaching out.

  With a start, he realized her aura was flowering, opening out toward him. He snapped out of his rapt daze. Leeth stretched, cat-like, and prepared to get up.

  With the speed of desperation, he gestured at the console of the Yamaha CyberSound, jumping ahead right to the climax of the final piece he'd chosen. The music faded into stillness. In the charged pause before the new selection started, Leeth uncoiled from her seat and stood, staring at him hungrily. There was even a predatory gleam to her eyes, he fancied. A shock ran through him, as her movement triggered a proto-memory of a disturbing dream he'd once had.

 

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