He had given his name as Charles Landon, an art dealer and transplant from across the pond. He had caught them on their way to the elevators after dinner, and initiated conversation. Once Vera pressed their floor button, he had pretended to reside on the same deck. They had talked throughout the elevator ride and he had accompanied them down the hall, and when they reached their door he had conversed with them for another five minutes.
And in that time, he had learned a wealth of information. The name of their male dinner companion was Eric Milius… or at least that was what he had told them. The female was Ginny Bowman. “Eric” had been described by the old man as a “jack of all trades” (which Alexander took to mean as “itinerant”). He and Ginny had only just met, on board the Rapture when the old couple had asked the lone woman to dine with them. After that, Eric and Ginny had quickly hit it off.
The fogies had been quite complimentary of Eric. Perhaps the only thing about him that didn’t fit the profile was his seeming amiability. Nonetheless, he had now jumped to the top of Alexander’s candidate list. And there he would stay until the hunter could rule him out.
He took another sip of scotch and glanced at his Movado. It was just now twelve PM.
Outside there was a light drizzle. He had worn a hooded coat, which seemed not at all out of place, and he had been very fortunate in securing a room—using a Network-generated false ID, though a different one from that which he booked the cruise under—that would be perfectly suited to his needs. There was only one camera in the restaurant/bar area here, and it was aimed behind the bar itself. He rather doubted the waitress would remember him, and if she did, she could give only a generic description, of a tall man with dark hair, dark eyes, and a smooth mocha complexion. Yes, Alexander felt that there was very little to be concerned about.
“Found you!”
He looked up to see the cow, removing her voluminous coat and hanging it over the wooden chair. Alexander stood and pulled out the chair for her while she squeezed her rotund backside into it.
“I could not be more delighted. We shall dine presently, but in the meanwhile…”
Alexander sat and indicated a glass of brandy on the table.
“I took the liberty of ordering you a drink.”
***
By lunch time, Ginny and Brandon had made their way to Liarsville, a trail camp recreated to appear as it had during the gold rush. Lunch was included with the admission, and for Brandon it was certainly the highlight of the trip: fire-cooked salmon (which he would have been happy to eat raw), chicken, rice, beans, cornbread. He had gorged himself until he was, as Papa would have said, “burstin’ at the seams.”
Following the meal they were treated to a tour of the tent city, and given an explanation for its name by a cute brunette dressed as a dance-hall girl. The camp was called Liarsville because journalists from all over the world came to Skagway during the gold rush to write about the monumental undertaking. However, none of them wanted to make the harrowing journey through White Pass to the Canadian border and then on to the Yukon River. Without first-hand information to report, they did the next best thing: sat around and made shit up.
Brandon thought about Ginny, and the undeniable feelings he had for her, and the enormous lie that hung over them. He had been honest with her about a great many things, except the single most important one, and it was gnawing at him. But why should it? By this time tomorrow he would either be in Juneau or making ready to leave and not look back. So why did he care if she knew the truth or not?
He couldn’t explain it, but he couldn’t deny it either. It weighed heavily because it sabotaged the time they shared now. If he truly had feelings for this woman, how could he spend his final hours with her under false pretenses? But how exactly did someone go about informing another person that they were a lycanthrope? Werewolf. You might as well say it. If you can’t even utter that word to yourself, how can you convince someone else?
And what if he did convince her? What exactly would that accomplish?
This is stupid. You’re almost home free. Don’t fuck it up now by leaving a loose end that can come back to bite you in the ass later on.
Something else was worrying him as well—last night after the nightmare-memory, he had stood at the sliding glass door looking out, and he had thought about the killing, and the first time he had met Celine. He had become lost in his thoughts and when he had come out of it… he had been standing outside on the balcony, the door closed behind him.
And he had no idea how he had gotten there.
He was losing time. It might have been thirty seconds; it might have been a few minutes. He simply didn’t know. Add to that the episodes with his hearing and sense of smell and it was enough to freak him the fuck out. There was no full moon, so he was still sure he wouldn’t change, but what if he was becoming something in between? What if the line separating man and wolf was growing thin, even in daylight, even when the moon was not whole?
First thing in the morning when they had stopped by his cabin for him to change clothes, he had taken another pill. And so far, he felt normal. Hopefully the extra pill would fix whatever was going wrong with him. It would work. It had to work. He would take the whole damn bottle if he had to.
He would do whatever it took to keep the beast at bay.
Chapter Seven
Marie Harris was floating through an inscrutable void.
Detached, weightless, she was only vaguely aware of her earthly existence. Slowly, thoughts and recollections began to manifest: that handsome man… Harlan. So polite, so well-groomed and handsome. There was a… meeting. She had sat down with him. She had drunk from a glass of brandy. She had ordered food. She had talked and then… then it all started to fall away, like fragments from a shattered glass. She struggled to remember.
Open your eyes.
No. She wanted to stay here. Perhaps she was alone in the void, but she sensed that nothing could harm her. It was calm, peaceful. Untethered… like floating in water (thirsty, heavens but she was thirsty!). Bit by bit, she became more aware of her body. Water, yes, there was warm water. She could feel it now, moving ever so slightly against her skin. Part of her was above the water surrounding her legs; she could feel cold air raising gooseflesh. Reluctantly, she navigated her way out of the void, back to reality.
She opened her eyes.
There was a shower nozzle. Close tile walls. She was propped up in a tub, her head and shoulders lying against the wall opposite the faucet. A strange torpor pervaded the entirety of her body. Not an absence of feeling—she could feel the cold air more acutely now—but an absence of mobility. She willed her muscles to obey, but they would not respond. It was all she could do to incline her head enough to see… she was naked. Her large breasts lay flaccid to either side of her chest, nipples erect in the cold. The water line was up to her privates. There were… there were tubes in her arms. She frowned.
This can’t be real.
Tubes, connected to butterfly IV needles in the crooks of both elbows. Blood—her blood—was draining from her arms into plastic bags. Her left arm was hanging outside the tub; her right dangled, the hand resting on her thigh, the bag lying in the water between her legs. It looked as if her blood had just begun to drain into both bags. What in Jesus’s name is happening? Her eyes became very wide and she tried to scream but found that she had no voice. She couldn’t feel her tongue.
“To market, to market, to buy a fat pig. Home again, home again, jiggety jig…”
She could turn her head and move her eyes only slightly, just enough to see Harlan, sitting in a chair facing the tub. He, too, was naked, his… thing hanging limply onto the wooden seat, balls plopped behind it. There was scarring from his left shoulder down and across his chest, four raised runnels of flesh.
“I slipped a specialized sedative into your brandy. Not the so called ‘date rape drug’ but similar. Once it took effect I had to move rather quickly, while you were still able to walk. I’m sure you ca
n appreciate my disinclination to carry you, especially up a flight of stairs. You are a frightfully obese behemoth of a woman, after all.”
She tried again to scream, to struggle. She might as well have been straining against wet cement. Her breath was labored; mucus was caking under her nostrils and above her lip.
Harlan leaned forward, elbows on his knees, fingers interlaced. “If you harbor any concerns regarding your virtue, rest assured there is no cause for alarm. Not on that front at least. You see, it’s not my sort of thing to take advantage of women, under the influence or not. Truth be told I never cared much for women at all, or men for that matter.”
A thin, pathetic moan escaped her throat.
Dear Jesus, hallowed be thy name. Deliver me from this evil. I’ll do anything you ask, Lord, anything; just spare me, please, God, spare me—
“In addition to what you initially ingested, you’ve been given drugs that will make any sort of movement difficult. I’ve given you sedatives that are akin to what some butchers use for animals prior to slaughter, with a few key differences. I also gave you something to clear up a bit of the fog, as it’s decidedly preferable to me that you be lucid for what’s to come. Oh, I also injected your tongue with Novocain. Our conversation will be a trifle one-sided, but we do have, I’d say, twenty minutes or so. By now you’ve noted the blood bags and status of the exsanguination process. Took a bit of time to find the veins, but persistence is key.”
He smiled and threw up his hands.
“Where shall we jump off, then? You were keen to know everything about me. It’s a long story, I’m afraid, longer than we—well, you—have time for, dear, but I can offer you the abridged version…”
She looked down to the bags. One was a third full now. The other was slightly below that. How much blood was in a person? How much could be drained before… Oh God save me, sweet baby Jesus help me help me help me…
Harlan stood, clasped his hands behind him, and began pacing in a semicircle back and forth behind the chair.
“My father was a British Consul General in Mainland China when I was born. My mother was from Sri Lanka. I had a sister named Elspeth. She and I had our difficulties, I’m afraid, and I ended her life. Not, however, in the way I would have liked.”
He stopped pacing for a moment, facing the wall, lost in thought. He turned. His uncircumcised thingy had begun to extend and lift. Harlan came over to look at the bags. He knelt down and reached to the floor and produced another, empty blood bag, with a tube and butterfly needle at the end.
No, no no no no…
He positioned himself near her waist, placed the bag between her calves, then leaned over the edge of the tub and began pulling at the skin on the inside of her leg, a few inches from her lady bits.
“After Elspeth’s demise I became quite fascinated with death…”
She was getting very cold now, not just the chill against her skin but a numbing cold that permeated her body inside and out.
Harlan jabbed the needle into her leg. White hot pain shot through the core of her. Another mewling sound emanated from her open mouth.
“Nope, not quite.” Another jab, another lance of searing pain. Then another. “Ah! Yes, there we have it.”
Marie looked down. Blood was flowing slowly now into the tube from her leg.
I don’t want to die. I’ve been a good woman, haven’t I, Lord? What awful thing have I done in my life to deserve this?
Harlan stood, his dirty thing fully extended now, arcing upward. He resumed pacing.
“We had a bird at one point in time. I squirted it with lighter fluid, set it on fire and watched it flit about the cage. Like a phoenix. Overall, though, unsatisfying; not at all what I was looking for. At the age of thirteen an epiphany struck! I happened upon a cat that had been attacked, presumably by another feline. I had heard the screeching. It was mostly eviscerated. Couldn’t move. I watched it twitch for quite a long time, utterly spellbound. Then I grasped it by the neck, and observed as its life simply faded away. The thrill was stupendous. Electrifying. Not only did I experience an erection, but, most importantly, my first orgasm. The moment of ejaculation coincided with the moment of the cat’s expiration.”
Marie looked down. The two bags attached to her arms were over halfway full now. I don’t deserve this I don’t fucking deserve this! Do you hear me, Jesus, god dammit, you make this stop just make it fucking stop!
Harlan returned to the chair and sat down, his penis pointing straight upward.
“‘Climax.’ Quite apropos, isn’t it? Sexual release and death are more closely intertwined than most can imagine. A digression. I apologize. Let’s see, then: for a time we moved around quite a lot. Many different countries and cultures. I attended the finest schools, though Father and I never really got on. I spent a great deal of time with my Mum during my teenaged years and then I struck out on my own. Father and I spoke on and off again, but finally came to a kind of… understanding. He knew I wasn’t an ordinary lad, and he accepted that. Finding outlets for my particular compulsion proved difficult. At least at first. For a time the military provided grist for the mill.”
He reached down. There was a scraping sound and then a large, sharpened hook came into her view. The overhead light gleamed off of the polished metal.
Oh fuck, oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck…
“It was my father who stumbled onto the Network. You see, Marie…”
Harlan leaned in very close. She could smell the scotch on his breath.
“There are dark and loathsome shadows stretching across the face of the world. Beasts masquerading as human. It falls to me to transcend so that the whole of humanity might be spared. Those who do not rise above will be as sheep. You are such a creature, weak and ineffectual but not altogether useless.”
Marie tried desperately to shake her head. She begged him with her eyes not to go on. It wasn’t too late. She hadn’t lost too much blood yet.
Harlan sat up, moved down a bit, laid the hook on her belly, and placed one hand on either side of the tub. He swung his left leg up and over, and pulled the right one in; he lowered himself until he was straddling her calves.
“Before giving yourself to the cause, however, you will provide me with the fulfillment I require. You’re going to feel everything. There is a key component in anesthesia, called an analgesic. It provides relief from pain. As you may have already surmised, I did not include such a component in the drugs I gave you.”
With his right hand he lifted the hook off of her stomach and placed the tip on her solar plexus. The metal was frigid against her skin. With his left hand he grasped his filthy penis and began stroking it.
Oh God, oh Jesus where are you? Where have you been all my life? This isn’t right it isn’t fair. Fuck you! Fuck you!
“To market, to market, to buy a fat hog...”
There was a puncture just under her breastbone. Marie squealed and clamped down and without even knowing it, bit off the tip of her tongue. She squeezed her eyes shut. His voice came as if from a great distance.
“Home again, home again, jiggety jog.”
Next came a tugging at her skin just above the belly, followed by caustic lightning bolts of pain. Marie squeezed her eyes tighter and she tried desperately, though unsuccessfully, to cast herself once again into the inscrutable void.
Chapter Eight
After leaving Liarsville, Ginny and Brandon had taken a bus trip up through White Pass, one leg of the six-hundred-mile route out of Skagway used by prospectors during the gold rush. At that time Canada required each miner to haul a literal ton of supplies through the pass and on to the Yukon before they could stake any claims. Three thousand horses died during the journey into the mountains, and rather than bury them, the prospectors simply left the horses where they lay or dumped them over the cliffs. The route itself became known as Dead Horse Trail. Many gold-seekers, starving and insane in the midst of their trek, resorted to eating the equine remains just to stay alive.
Near the turn of the century, one hundred and ten miles of track were laid through the pass for a narrow gauge railroad. Though several diesel locomotives were now used, the White Pass and Yukon Route railroad boasted eighty restored replica and passenger coaches and two steam locomotives.
After riding the bus up, Ginny and Brandon were now taking the train back down through the pass. And what an amazing journey it had been: granite walls whipping by on either side, pristine waterfalls, trestles, bridges, tunnels, and some of the most incredible scenery Ginny had ever experienced. She loved to walk out onto the shifting train platform and pretend that she had traveled back in time, back to the days of bustles and dance halls and rugged cowboys bent on taming the wild frontier.
They had taken in the breathtaking scenery, and would soon be reaching the Skagway terminal. There was a thick covering of snow throughout the pass; it fell lazily outside the windows. They sat facing each other in one of the rear-most coaches, whiling away the final minutes with a game of truth or dare.
Ginny had already dared Brandon to sing “Love Me Tender” in his best Elvis voice, which he did, much to her amusement, and to his own embarrassment. The performance garnered more than one disapproving look from fellow passengers, which made Ginny laugh all the more.
He won’t be winning a Grammy any time soon.
“Okay, your turn,” he said. “Truth or dare?”
She leaned forward. “Truth.”
“If you could have one thing, the one thing you desire most, what would it be?”
“Hm, good one…” Ginny considered for a long moment. “I’d have to say… a healthy, long-term relationship. My longest so far was five years, with a guy who talked down to me and then left me for some bimbo he’d been having sex with while we were together, the lying bastard. Anyway, I want a good, long, healthy relationship because that would lead me to the second thing I want most of all.”
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