by David Wiltse
She would not hear him unless he wanted her to, and then it would be too late.
Closer she came, only a few steps left, but a little off course. That meant nothing, he would strike her in the side rather than the front, or wait until he heard her go past him, then hit her in the back. She didn't need to come right into his lap, just close enough. She was almost there now… but she had stopped.
Pegeen paused. Her nerves were screaming with tension. He had to be close, she was very near him now, must be, but he sent no more clues.
The only human sounds were her own. She felt as if every step now was in a minefield, things could explode on her at any time.
She wanted to run, to turn and run and hide herself somewhere in the darkness, cowering, pulling her knees to her chest and waiting until someone else did something, someone else took care of it.
She held her breath, straining to hear. Then came the scream.
"He has a knife!" Aural yelled.
Swann turned, startled by the sound, amazed that he had been almost atop the girl the whole time. He reached out, touched only stone, then swung back to face the agent, who came towards him in a rush. Swann struck, hitting up, felt the knife strike bone. Something swished past his face, missing, and he struck again. The agent gasped and fell away from him, landing hard on the stone.
Swann lifted the blade to stab again and heard the tinkle of chain just fractionally before he felt Aural's hands grasping at him, locating him, then clawing upwards towards his face.
He turned his head, flew at her with his elbow, then kicked her legs.
She cried out in pain but kept after him until he clubbed her with his fist, hitting her several times, then kicking her off balance until she fell. Swann turned back to the agent, feeling for her with his foot on the rocky floor. She tried to scrabble away from him but he had her now.
He knelt and lifted the knife.
There was a sound, more of a sense, of something rushing at him very fast, and Swann turned and lashed out wildly with the knife, trying to fend it off. The knife caught flesh, ripped, and he heard a grunt as the momentum of the thing took it roaring past him.
Swann snapped on his headlamp and saw Becker, who had raced several yards past, turn and blink at the light.
A gash of blood was welling up across his forehead. In the instant Swann also took in the woman agent who was lying beneath him, her arms crossed to ward off another blow, and Aural, also down, a few feet to one side.
For a second, everything seemed frozen in time, then Becker came up on all fours, snarling. Swann screamed and ran towards the tunnel.
In the receding light of Swann's headlamp, Becker knelt beside Pegeen, his hands searching for her wounds.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"Get him," Pegeen said.
Becker put a flashlight in her hand. Swann had reached the tunnel; the light all but disappeared as it burrowed into the long hole in the night.
"You'll need it," Pegeen said, pushing the flashlight back.
"No, I won't," Becker said and he rose and ran towards the point of light still coming from the tunnel. Pegeen followed him with her flashlight beam and saw him dive into the darkness of the rock before she turned the light back on herself and the young woman next to her.
Aural was sitting up and staring with amazement.
"Damn," she said.
"Are you all right?" Pegeen asked, wondering at the same time if she was all right herself. She had been stabbed in the hip and the armpit, she realized, but neither blow would kill her.
"Honey," Aural said, "I ain't felt this good in weeks.
Who was that?"
"A federal agent."
"Is he going to catch him?"
"Oh, yes," Pegeen said. "He'll catch him."
"Will he kill him?"
Pegeen let the question hang although she thought the answer was yes.
"Sure looked like he was going to kill him," Aural continued. "Prettiest sight I ever saw."
Pegeen hitched her way across the surface towards Aural, testing the extent of her injuries.
"You're all right. You're safe now," Pegeen said.
Pegeen played the light down onto Aural's legs and gasped. Aural began to laugh and continued, unable to stop herself, and peal after peal of released hysteria echoed through the cavern.
Swann knew that Becker was behind him, but there was nothing he could do. The tunnel was too narrow to turn around; there was no way to bring the knife into play.
Every once in a while Becker would grab at Swann's foot and Swann would gasp and crawl with renewed panic.
Becker would laugh.
"Don't look back," Becker taunted. "Something's behind you."
Swann would burst forward with increased effort, and then when he slowed again, giving in to exhaustion, Becker's voice would whisper at him again like a parent teasing a child. "Going to… get you," he would say, then touch Swann on the foot.
As Swann jerked forward desperately, Becker's laughter filled the tunnel, so loud Swann could feel it pressing on him.
When they finally emerged into the bat chamber, Swann stumbled towards the mat of guano, then turned, slashing with the knife, but Becker was standing well back, out of range of the weapon, mocking Swann's futile attempts with a cruel grin.
"Go %away!" Swann cried, his voice cracking with tears. "Go away!"
Becker grinned, waiting.
Swann slashed the air again, lunging forward, and Becker glided away like a gymnast, at ease, enjoying the exercise.:'I'll kill you," Swann said.
'Do you think so?" He sounded calm, genuinely interested. "Or will I kill you?"
The blood from Becker's wound ran down the side of his face, giving his features a ghoulish cast in the yellow light of the lamp.
Swann didn't understand why Becker didn't attack. He could take away the knife in an instant, they both knew it.:'What do you want?" he demanded.
"There's no rush," Becker said. "It will all come clear to you in time."
Swann realized then that Becker would kill him, wanted to kill him, and was savoring the anticipation.
"I surrender," Swann said.
Becker only grinned and shook his head.
"I give up," Swann insisted. He threw the knife into the guano.
"Not an option," said Becker.
"you're an FBI agent. I give myself up to you. You have to take me into custody."
Becker's eyes danced with pleasure. Swann began to whimper.
"What do you want?" he cried.
"What did you want, Swann? What did you come down here for?":'Please," Swann begged. "Please." 'You said I had a reputation, remember? That's the reason you got in touch with me, that's the reason you pulled me into this in the first place. What did I have a reputation for, Swann?"
"They said you were-"
"What? They said I was what? Don't say 'fair,' nobody told you I was fair. What did they really say about me, Swann?"
"They said you were… worse."
"Worse?"
"Worse than they were."
"Worse than they were? Worse than the psychos like you? Well, if I were, they wouldn't be able to tell you, would they? They'd be dead.
But they weren't all dead, were they?"
Swann inched back towards the path through the guano.
"Were they?" Becker screamed. The bats roused at the noise and sent forth a squeal of their own. Several clumps and clusters broke loose from their roosts and swooped in panicked flight around the chamber before replanting themselves among the others.
Swann bent, cringing from the bats.
"No, they weren't all dead," he whimpered, trying to placate Becker with his voice.
"No," said Becker. "I didn't kill all of them. Just some of them…
Some dead; some not dead… Which one are you, Swann?"
"Not dead. Not dead."
"I warned you, Swann. I told you I never wanted to hear about you again … but here you are." Becker
grinned wolfishly. He spoke in a taunting singsong. "Here we are together. Alone at last."
Becker slowly turned his palms upward, flexing his fingers. "Aren't you glad you brought me out of retirement?"
"Sweet Jesus," Swann prayed. "Put mercy in his heart."
Becker stepped towards Swann. "Are you ready?" His voice was a whisper.
Swann turned and ran towards the path in the guano.
He was several yards in before Becker hit him, lifting him with the force of the assault and plunging him face first into the shit. Swann struggled but Becker forced him down and down, his weight on Swann's back, his hands pushing his face deeper and deeper into the ooze.
Swann struggled because his body demanded it but his mind knew he was already dead. At the end he thought he was back in his cell with Cooper, the giant's body forcing itself upon him.
Pegeen found Becker sitting on the floor of the bat chamber with Swann's body lying at his feet. Pegeen had seen her cat look like that, a dead bird between its paws, looking to her for approval and feeling proud of itself.
As Aural crawled out of the golf sack in which Pegeen had dragged her through the tunnel, the dead bird twitched-Swann groaned and shifted his leg.
"I thought he was dead," said Pegeen.
"So did he," said Becker.
Aural struggled to her feet and looked down at Swann's prostrate form.
"Thought sure you'd kill him," she said to Becker, disappointed.
Becker shrugged. "Thought I would, too. If he would have died a little easier, I guess I would have."
"Are you all right?" Pegeen asked.
Becker grinned and in the light of the flashlight Pegeen could see that his spirits had lifted and his mood had changed completely. Where during the past several days he had been a man sunk into the darkness of his soul, he was now boyish, charming, a man at peace with himself For how long? she wondered. When will he turn into the werewolf again? What will trigger it? Will there be a warning? Thank God, she thought, surprising herself with the sudden understanding and relief she felt, thank God I won't be with him to find out. He says he loves Deputy Assistant Director Crist? Let her deal with him, and she has my sympathy.
As Pegeen and Becker conferred about the best way to get both Aural and Swann above ground, they heard a sudden whoosh of energy behind them. A brilliant light flared up in the cavern and they turned to see Swann ablaze. Aural stood over him, the can of lighter fluid still in one hand, the cigarette lighter in the other.
Pegeen moved forward to extinguish the flames, but Becker grabbed her and held her back.
"You'll only burn yourself," he said, his voice whispering in her ear.
Pegeen struggled until she noticed the look on Aural's face. The tortured woman regarded the fire at her feet with the beatific smile of a saint. Aural's lips moved, and it took Pegeen a moment to realize that she was singing, her voice barely audible over the roar of the flames and the squeals of the bats.
Karen watched the press conference on television. Both Hatcher and Congressman Beggs were in top form, each deferring to the other, each sharing credit magnanimously with the dedicated men and women of law enforcement in general and the Bureau in particular, yet each managing to make himself appear the true hero of the hour. It was a masterful performance in Washington hypocrisy, simultaneously humble and self-serving. Karen had only a superficial interest in Beggs, but she kept a canny eye on Hatcher's demeanor. He held for her the same disgusted fascination she might have for a snake slithering up a greased flagpole. The man's ability to climb, no matter what the obstacle, was extraordinary. She sensed with suppressed horror that she was looking at the next Deputy Director of the FBI, the man just below the political appointee, the man who ran the show.
The two men gave a compressed and sanitized version of the case. Karen had already read the immediate action reports as well. They had been faxed to her the night before. She knew everything there was to know about the case-except the truth, and she could only get that from Becker.
Becker arrived back in Clamden after a day-long session with Dr. Gold, who had ultimately thrown his hands in the air, despairing of any real progress. "I can't do anything for you by myself, John, you have to cooperate.
You have to want to get at the root of it yourself."
Becker had grinned in a way that made Gold uncomfortable. "I don't want to root it out," he said. "I've decided to keep it."
"Despite all the pain it causes you?"
"The pain comes from trying to repress it."
"That's not true, John. You know it's not."
Becker had continued to grin at him. "Well, you know best, Doc. It says so right on your diploma."
Gold sighed. Becker had always been difficult, too smart for jargon, too perceptive for banalities, and completely lacking in the respectful awe so necessary in the doctor-patient relationship. They had become, after years of contention, grudging friends, affectionate adversaries.
Gold had not cured him and knew he could not and, worse, realized that Becker knew the same. Some conditions were not curable; they could only be contained, and then only at a very high price. Gold feared that Becker was weary of paying the price.
"So what do we do?" Gold asked. "Will you come for more sessions?"
"Do you see any point in it?" Becker asked.
Gold hesitated. There was no point in lying, not to Becker, there was no hope of fooling him.
"I hope you'll keep coming," he said.
"We'll see," Becker said, rising. "Don't look so glum, Doc. There's one good side to this."
"And what's that?"
"Hatcher will be so pleased."
Becker and Karen made love before they discussed anything, each trying to rediscover in the other the passion, the magic attraction that had brought them together in the first place. It had never resided just in their bodies, of course, but that is where they looked for it.
"How was it?" Karen asked when they had lain quietly in the dark for several minutes, each lost in his or her own thoughts.
"You read the reports," Becker said.
"But how was it, John? Are you all right?"
"Fine," he said. "No problem."
"How did you… was it as bad as you thought it would be?"
Becker was silent.
"I'm out of Serial," Karen said. "Hatcher put me back into Kidnapping this morning."
Becker turned to look at her.
"You okay with that?" he asked.
She touched his cheek. "Thank you," she said.
"For what?"
Karen smiled. "Do you really think I don't know what you're up to or why you do the things you do?"
"You do, do you?"
"I know all about you," Karen said, smiling.
Becker grinned. "You think you know all about me?"
"I know what I want to know about," Karen said.
"And if I don't want to know, I don't ask."
How wise, Becker thought. How lucky I am.
He took her in his arms again and held her wordlessly, his embrace asking for forgiveness at the same time that it expressed his gratitude.
"I'm coming back to work," he said finally.
"You don't have to," she said.
"Yes, I do. I can't keep fighting it-I'm too tired."
But Becker did not feel tired. By giving up his resistance to the pull of his desires, he had unleashed great energy within himself. He felt liberated and invigorated. By submitting to his nature, he had freed himself, he thought. A wolf is a wolf, and cannot be happy as a domestic dog.
"Will you be all right?"
Becker pulled her tighter in his arms, fighting an urge to howl. "I think I can handle it," he said.
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