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Chapter Five

Amid searing light, he was in darkness.

And pain. So much that the shadows in his mind drew back enough to allow in consciousness . . .

. . . realization . . .

. . . and horror.

Everything around him was in flames. They crackled and roared in obscene greed, flames that must surely consume him if he did not quickly do something.

The darkness that had fallen upon him withdrew as swiftly as it had come, and Richard became aware that he could not move. He tried to turn and see what held him. The effort made his whole body scream, and the blackness at the edge of his vision crept close once more.

He lay facedown on bare earth. He could see his arms. They were bloodied but free. Something pinned his legs. He pushed at the ground, ignoring the agony, and tried once more to turn. Succeeded.

Where the old house had been was now a rumbling, roaring bonfire. Thick rivers of smoke, blacker than the night sky, spiraled high to blot out the stars. The heat hammered against his exposed skin, worse than the sun.

The great logs had been thrown around like matchsticks by the unholy blast. Some lay in jumbled heaps of devilish architecture, others stood upright embedded in the ground like giant nails.

And one huge timber lay across his legs. And it was on fire. He smelled burning flesh and knew it was his own.

He scrabbled at the earth beneath him, digging, clawing frantically for freedom. His hands tore and bled from the sharp stones; he lost several fingernails, ripped from the root. This was what an animal felt as it chewed off one of its own limbs to escape a trap. He dug faster, then twisted his body back and forth until at last something gave way.

The heat grew unbearable as the tinder-dry log that held him burned more rapidly, but at last his legs were coming clear. At least one of them must have been broken, yet still he pushed and pulled for his freedom. Then suddenly he slid out from under the log, dragging himself from the fiery trap.

But flames licked insidiously up his legs; he slapped them out with bare and bleeding hands. Unable to walk, he clawed his way over the baking earth, until the stinging smoke was not so hot in his straining lungs, then collapsed.

He could do nothing for what seemed a very long time. His world had become hell, and he one of the damned souls in eternal torment.

Keeping still, he tried to take stock of his injuries. Something was embedded in his back like a knife, whether wood or iron he knew not. He could feel the wet trail of his own blood running down from the wound. One of his legs was broken, as he had surmised, the thigh bone jutting out through his flesh, ghastly white in the light from the burning wreckage. He was gouged raw with shrapnel and splinters. Hearing was impossible; blood trickled from his ears, from his shattered eardrums. And he was badly burned. The lower front of his broken leg was black and charred, and his reddened hands sprouted ugly white blisters.

Never had Richard known such a wounding, not even in the plane crash. Had he been any closer to the blast or been a normal human, he'd be dead. He could yet die. That he still breathed was hopeful, but he needed time to heal.

And fresh blood. Lots of it.

But from where? This place was truly isolated. He doubted that the explosion, massive as it was, had been noticed by any other than the small animals in the surrounding fields.

The horses.

He could not hear them, but saw their panicked milling in the nearby corral. Distance from the house and the barn's tin roof had spared them from the blast and fire.

Animal blood was not good for him. Sabra had warned him from the very first of the dangers of drinking it, of it being much the same peril as seawater to a parched human, but in a desperate situation it would do. The wretched stuff would keep him alive and give him some strength, though it would not be pleasant.

But before he could even think of doing anything else, whatever was impaled in his back would have to come out. It was worse than his leg and still bleeding freely.

He reached gingerly around and felt behind him. His burned fingers touched something hard projecting from a low angle between his ribs, but he couldn't tell what it was. Slowly, agonizingly, he inched the missile from his flesh. It had punctured a lung; he felt rather than heard the bubbling hiss of escaping air with each breath. Black mist whirled about him, threatening to engulf him. He had to pause between each effort, recover, then brace for the next. The only thing worse than pulling it out was leaving the damned thing in. A fit of coughing seized him. He spat blood and kept working.

He had no idea how long the removal took, only that it was a long time, and that every moment was agony. Finally, with a desperate exertion, it slipped free. Richard caved flat with a groan and stayed that way for a while.

When the black mist cleared somewhat he dragged the artifact around to see. It was one of the iron hinges that had held the front door of the house in place, half a yard in length. A third of it was covered with his blood.

He let it drop in the dust. Or rather mud. The ground where he lay was soaked crimson.

He tried to get up and failed. His broken leg. He'd have to set it before the healing could begin or be crippled for the rest of his life. He turned over and lightly touched the end of the broken bone, and immediately arched back, again in agony, biting off his cry. That was no good. It would have to be quick, this straightening of the bone. He'd have to gather every atom of will and force himself through the ordeal. Icy sweat stung his eyes, and he realized that his arms were shaking.

Dear Goddess, give me strength.

Unable to walk or even crawl, he dragged himself once more, covering the infinite distance to the corral and one of its fence posts. Panting and chilled with encroaching shock, he hooked the heel of his useless leg against the post, positioned his good foot over the instep, and made ready to push.

Don't let me pass out before it's over. 

He moved quickly, before he could think too much about it. He pushed hard, stretching the break apart, and then reached down and shoved the bone back into the flesh of his leg, so that the two ends were level with each other. They ground back into place and held.

He could not hear himself, but knew that he screamed throughout the whole procedure, an animal's scream that cut through the roar of the fire, the scream of a wolf caught in a cruel steel trap. Then he fell back, gasping and soaked with sweat, white with shock, hardly able to move.

But move he must.

Richard was pitifully weak; he'd never been so feeble and sick, and every moment's delay stripped more strength and blood from his body. All he wanted was rest, just to close his eyes and sleep, to get away from the dreadful pain that racked his existence. Yet if he slept now in this enervated state he might never wake again. Then the rising sun would surely finish him off.

He used the fence to pull himself up. Had to lean on it. The black mist hovered close, drifting across his eyes. He dared not give in to it.

But he was so tired. So hurt . . .

He clung to the wood, praying for the temptation to pass.

Blackness and rest. A few moments of it would help. He could be healing while—

No. To give in was to lose all.

He limped one step, two, and nearly fell. He held to the fence like a drowning man.

Just a little more strength, I beg you.

Two more steps was all he could manage.

Someone would find him like this in the morning, arms draped over the crosspiece, head down, legs sagging. The sun would complete the job begun by the fire.

No . . . please . . . help me . . .  

Then he felt it. The surging return of a sometime enemy, sometime friend.

Dazed and unsteady, yet overpowering, relentless in its hunger, it pushed back the blackness with a defiant snarl.

His beast was awake.

Thus it was his red-eyed master that made him raise up and struggle on along the fence line to the gate, to the horses. He had to feed from them or die; it was as simple as that, and the thing inside him would not permit him to stop.

At last, after what seemed an age, he made it to the gate of the corral, and reached over to release the latch. The horses, already panicked by the explosion and fire did not need the threat of his presence to seek escape. The instant there was an opening one of them took it, and the rest followed. He lunged forward to grasp a halter, but their stampede knocked him and the gate away from their flight.

He swung helpless, tears of frustration sheeting his eyes as he tried to hold on. His head throbbed with insidious pain, his vision swam. The darkness at the edge of his mind grew, threatening to overcome even the blood of Annwyn's Hounds. He swayed against the fence, fighting the oncoming faint.

Then through the numbness in his ears, he made out a sound. It seemed very distant, as though coming to him muffled by many layers of padded cloth. There was a thumping and stamping from within the stable and the high-pitched squeal of a frightened animal. Using the fence to keep weight off his bad leg, he edged his way into the smoke-filled building, peering into the dim depths. It was the pony, yet secure in its stall, lovingly cared for with plaited mane and neatly trimmed tail, but clearly filled with fear. Foam flecked its mouth, and sweat darkened its neck and flanks.

Richard hobbled and hopped to it as best he could, but getting close was difficult. The animal kicked out sporadically against the side of the stall. The whites of its eyes showed, and it would not be still. Richard's presence did nothing to help, for as it sensed his opening of the low door behind it, the animal plunged and bucked against its restraints.

Grasping the side of the stall for support, Richard eased around until at last he could take the pony's halter in hand and look the animal in the eye. Summoning his dwindling strength, he willed it to calmness. Most, if not all, creatures were telepathic in one way or another and could be influenced by him if he worked at it. Quiet thoughts, soothing words could overcome the most basic instincts. In moments the pony stopped fighting and came forward, nuzzling his head against him. They might have been in some wildflower meadow on a cool summer evening—that was the picture Richard had tried to project. The pony stretched out its neck, resting its head on Richard's shoulder, and he held it as if in a lover's embrace. Then as gently as he could so as not to disturb the fragile bond he'd made, Richard sank to the stable floor.

He spoke softly, patting the animal to keep it motionless. The veins in its neck were too deep within the flesh for him to reach, so he sought those running just beneath the skin on one leg. The hide was tough as he cut into it, but the bounty would be great.

He buried his fangs deep . . . and fed.

The taste was strange, thick, almost metallic. He dimly remembered that he'd fed so before in another wild and desperate time long ago. When was that? What had happened to him then? No matter. Nothing mattered except the restoration of his life.

The blood welled its way into his mouth, and he drank, greedy and starved, holding on desperately to the pony as the first wave of inner warmth crashed through him. He felt a sweet lightness take him, whether from the ecstasy of feeding or because of his wounds, he knew not. Pounding through his body was the thump of the creature's heart, and he felt his own strengthen as it struggled to match the rhythm, to catch that life.

A glow such as he'd not known since his youth in the sun heated his belly like the most potent wine. It spread out to his limbs; there was a delicious heat gathered at the break in his leg, and a lovely cool tingling at his burns.

The healing. Praise the Goddess and the beast within.

He drank—more than he could have safely taken from a human, but the animal could spare it.

He drank—long and deeply, more than was needed to achieve recovery.

He drank—until the thick blood seemed to go solid in his throat.

And he could not bring himself to tear away.

Not until the dizziness set in and became too much. He choked on his next swallow. His grip loosened, and he fell away coughing, blood bubbling from his nose and mouth as he did, his face a mask of red.

For the briefest time, he could do nothing. He lay helpless in the straw, his head lolling on one outflung arm, feeling the animal's strong life-force coursing through his veins. He found his eyes irresistibly drawn to a small pool of blood on a bare patch of flooring directly below his face. It had dribbled from his lips, and seemed to be taking on the most fascinating and hypnotic shapes, starting as a head in profile. Then it became three, one large and two small. Then it became a gun, held in a large hand.

How curious it all was. Richard moved a little so as to get a better angle on the picture, when it abruptly changed and became a gaping mouth, screaming. He could hear the screaming. It was Stephanie.

He thrashed himself upright, trying to find her.

The floor. The scream came from that gaping mouth on the floor.

With an immense effort of will, he wrenched his gaze away, and forced himself to ignore the sound until it faded. When it was gone, he looked down at the blood again and found there was no shape in it at all; it was simply a few drops of spilled redness, and he rubbed that away with one swipe of his hand.

The animal blood was healing him, but at a price.

The pony was recovered from his thrall now, and beginning to stir about once more. Richard reached up and loosened the halter rope. The animal backed away from him and wheeled eagerly toward the barn's open door.

"I thank you, good friend," he whispered as it went skittering out into the safety of the night.

He rested just long enough to decide he could try standing. He had to get to his car before things got any worse. If he could make it home, there was fresh human blood there, enough to flush this lesser nectar from his system.

Surprisingly, his feet held him, but only just. He could not put weight on his leg, but at least it did not blind him with pain each time he moved. On the way out he grabbed up a discarded garden hoe and used it as a cane.

Limping to the open door, he saw that the flames were dimmer now. The full force of the blaze was past, and with its passing the smoking destruction became brutally clear.

Of the house, there was simply nothing left but unidentifiable black lumps and thin remnants of the inside walls amid shards of the collapsed roof. The fieldstone chimney still stood, defiantly pointing skyward, and water jetted up from a ruptured pipe somewhere. Incongruously, the stove stood where it always had, seemingly unscathed, its door open as if expecting a meal to cook. The staunch old house was burned to a complete ruin. Flakes of charred paper flew about haphazardly like obscene snow in the updraft of the leftover heat. The master bedroom and its ephemeral contents were gone, the three bodies buried in a mountain of rubble from the blast.

A wave of nausea passed over him. He'd seen death too many times before to allow himself to react to it in such a manner even under these circumstances. It had to be the alien blood doing this to him, setting him to an uncontrollable shuddering. He had to get back to his car, to New Karnak so he could feed on human blood and fully heal. Then, by all that was holy, by the sacred groves of Avalon, by the Goddess herself, he would find who was responsible. He would avenge those deaths, and his vengeance would be beyond terrible.

He staggered toward his car, lurching like a drunkard. The animal blood was having a bad effect on him mentally, even as it restored him physically. His vision swam, and he saw all manner of strange, distorted things. Shadows leapt out at him, assuming impish shapes before dissolving to nothing. Sounds ebbed and flowed in his ears. Voices rang and mumbled with dire warnings in a language he couldn't quite understand. Then his legs abruptly gave way, and the ground floated up gracefully to meet him. Sweat sprang out on his forehead like spring rain. He lay shaking, his fingers scratching impotently at the hard earth, teeth clenched tight so as not to bite his tongue.

It will pass, it must pass.

He felt so tired. His body ached everywhere, and his knitting wounds screamed at him angrily. He tried to shout back at them, but couldn't seem to draw in enough breath. He rolled onto his back and saw the moon, quite new, smiling down at him. Then all at once, it wasn't the moon, but the pale, pock-marked face of his long-dead father Montague grinning at him through broken and discolored teeth. And his voice came clear across the night air.

"What ails thee, Richard? Disappointed you didn't kill me after all?"

That awful night so long, so very long ago, came back to him in haunting detail. He could see it all, his father's face and his brother's distorted with hatred for him and with fear of him. He felt the sharpness of his father's dagger once more and heard his laugh, and tears from the betrayal sprang again fresh to Richard's eyes. But as suddenly as it had come, the vision whipped away, and he knew that the pain was not some long ago wound, but the healing at work, his life renewing itself, the miracle of Sabra's dark gift.

With a grunt, he rolled over onto his knees, and pushed himself upright. Where had that damned hoe gotten to? His leg hurt like hell, and now fresh new pain intruded from one of his burned hands.

He could see them clearly in the pitiless moonlight. Charred skin hung down in papery shreds, and several nails were missing, but beneath was the bright redness of new growth. Then he saw something else. The whole surface of his left hand seemed to be moving, alive. It was covered with what seemed like millions of furiously moving black dots. Ants. Fire ants. He remembered Stephanie speaking often of them. Yet another South American import doomed to create suffering and misery. They were tiny, voracious and mean, with a bite out of all proportion to their size. He looked down at where he'd fallen, and saw a bowling-ball-size mound, its top crushed by his hand. Streams of the angry insects poured out, each one bent on avenging the destruction of their home.

He desperately tried to brush them off, but they seemed to be sticking to him, and all he succeeded in doing was transferring them to his other hand where the rabid biting began anew. Hard red bumps were already evident where the poison had gone in. The pain from them was intense, and Richard groaned aloud at this new suffering. He'd have to wash them off somehow.

He looked around at the destruction, then spied the pump house. It had been out of range of the blast and stood untouched. He'd shown it to Stephanie, explaining that it had been the core of the original water supply for some long vanished homesteader. Within was a large iron hand pump, set imperiously on the wooden cover of a deep well, with a single iron pipe disappearing into the depths below. It squeaked in seeming irritation as he proudly showed her that it still worked. At one time it had stood in the open, as its rusted state attested, until someone had sensibly built a shed around it and the mechanized pump for the well. Richard suggested that the old one be removed and the well closed up for good, but Stephanie resisted, insisting on keeping it exactly as it was.

"You never know when we might need it."

She picked up a rock, and moving a slat of the well's wood cap aside, dropped it into the darkness. They waited a very long time for the splash, and when it came it was from a long way below them.

"No children in here," he pronounced.

Then she quickly hugged him in the sun-streaked darkness, and kissed his ear.

"Thank you, Richard, for everything. Thank you."

The memory had stopped him in his tracks with its vividness, all his pain relegated to no importance by the vision. A lump, hard as coal and twice as black, pushed up into his throat and his breath suddenly came in sobbing gasps.

Why? Why? 

The ants brought him back to the present with their incessant biting, and quick as he could, he limped to the pump house. The latch was placed high on the door, well out of reach of small hands. He hit it and stumbled in.

It was cool inside, the iron of the pump cold against his hand. For a second he leaned forward and rested his cheek against the metal, thanking the Goddess for its soothing touch, then hastened to work it.

The thing still squeaked, but the water gushed out strongly, rust-colored at first, then clear. He washed the ants away, then leaned forward and put his head under the icy flow. The cold was intense, a deep-within-the-earth cold, and he nearly pulled away. It was very close to being free-running water.

The uncontrollable shaking took hold of him once again, and he had to stop. He could no longer see. Hot tears streamed down his face as he thought of Stephanie and sobs racked him deep. There was too much pain. His heart would surely break from it. Then his pain gained expression, and he cried all his grief to the mocking moon, the uncaring stillness, the laughing stars.

Your fault, Richard d'Orleans, they told him. You cannot die, so others must. Your fault. 

They were right. He'd caused his mother's death, and countless others since. And now Stephanie and the girls. Probably Luis and Michael, too. They hadn't been in the house, but must have been caught elsewhere and likely killed first. Luis had done unsavory things in his past, but he would never leave Stephanie in danger if he knew of it. He did love her and his children.

The whole family was gone, and it was all Richard's fault. He'd done something wrong, missed some telling detail, made some simple mistake, and she'd died as a result. She that he had loved . . . did still love. More blood on his already encrusted hands.

The tears drained his remaining strength, and he slumped against the rough wood side of the shed. Again, nausea took hold of him, and he bent double as though cramping from hunger. The walls swam outward away from him, losing their form and substance, then snapped back into place again. He could hear voices, angry, scared. Stephanie's, pleading it seemed, begging, then becoming a scream. He could hear a man's low rumble and children crying. Richard shook his head trying to clear them out. It was all in his mind, an illusion. None of it was real. It was the damned animal blood giving him this waking nightmare.

Then the pain returned. His fingers had swollen to twice their normal size and throbbed horribly. Small dents marked where his nails were growing back, but the ache was as bad as having them torn out, was worse in a way, since he wasn't distracted this time.

The broken leg was mending; he could feel the two pieces of bone literally knitting together with a kind of deep internal itch. He held his hands clear of himself and marked their slow progress back to normalcy. The burns had been washed away with the ants; the new skin felt too tight, but that would pass.

All he wanted to do was sleep, to hide in that blessed darkness from all that had happened in the last . . . how long? He had no idea. It seemed like an eternity and a split second all at once. He had to rest and seriously considered the possibility of giving in to the need. He was safe from the sun in here, and would likely remain unconscious through the day. By then the blood would have done its healing and worked through him. At sunset he could hurry home and replenish himself—

No good. Sooner or later someone would notice the smoke in the morning sky and call the fire department. They were justifiably paranoid about wildfires down here. The last thing he wanted was to be noticed by the local authorities.

But he could rest for a few hours. Just a little while would help immeasurably.

As he thought through the possibilities, his gaze fell upon a pile of rags in one corner of the shed. There was something odd about them, about their shape . . .

Then his muzzy senses cleared for a second, and in a cold moment of realization he knew he was not alone. He could feel another presence in here with him. Despite the pain of his wounds, despite his awful reaction to the animal blood, he was suddenly poised and alert, ready for anything. He listened, straining to the utmost to catch the slightest sound. Then it all broke down and the black mists rolled in once more over his mind. His vision blurred; his senses wandered.

He groaned in frustration. He was trying too hard. The more effort he put into it, the more quickly it evaded him. This was no hallucination, but something real and vitally important.

Just let it come.

He waited and stared until the pile of rags gradually assumed a recognizable shape. A human shape. A child.

It was Michael. He was alive.

The boy was hunched across from Richard in the corner, his face turned to the wall, his arms over his head. He made no sound and did not move, yet Richard could now hear the reassuring flutter of his little heart and his soft breathing.

"Michael . . . ?"

There was no reply. The boy did not stir.

Hurts forgotten, Richard eased himself to his knees and tried again. "Michael . . . it's Uncle Richard. Remember? Uncle Richard."

Still no response. Richard crawled toward him slowly. For a terrible moment he doubted his senses, the boy was so still. Had the damned animal blood done this too, blurred his perception into hoping for the impossible, played another trick on him? But it was not so. Now that he was close, it was clear that Michael was indeed real.

Relief nearly made him fall down again. It did make him sob, but he fought that back.

"Everything's all right, Michael. It's Uncle Richard. No one can hurt you now."

Richard reached out and put his hand on the boy's shoulder, then pulled him close. The boy twitched beneath the touch. Then in an instant he was up and fighting, twisting and turning in blind terror, whimpering incoherently. Such was his sudden fear-filled strength that he nearly got away. Richard held him as gently as he could, not feeling the kicks and blows, the scratches, as the terrified child fought for his life against some monstrous enemy. Then as suddenly as the fighting had started, it stopped, and the little body fell slack against him, shaking in reaction. Richard held him tight, rocking, stroking the sweat-tangled white-blond hair.

Dear Goddess, what had the boy witnessed that had done this to him? 

"It's all right now, Michael. Nothing can hurt you now. Nothing can hurt you now. It's all right." He crooned the mantra over and over again.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the shaking subsided, the ragged breathing calmed. There were no sobs of release yet; Richard would have felt them. Michael made no sound at all. Richard relaxed his hold, and the boy fell back, his head supported by Richard's arm. Then Richard saw his eyes, and his blood ran cold at the sight. They were bright shining blue—and quite empty. They were like the eyes of a corpse, blank, staring, dead, but in a living body.

Ah, Michael, what did you see? 

He had to get them away as soon as possible. The boy needed help. He was deep in shock at the very least, and for all that he was, Richard was no doctor. Then yet another wave of reaction hit him, and he sank down groaning, stomach cramped, vision blurred. Michael lay in his arms like a stone, motionless, heavy. Darkness crept in at the edges of Richard's sight, and he fought it for the boy's sake and his own.

He heard cruel laughter, as though someone outside knew the futility of his efforts. It sounded like his long-perished father.

Then Montague himself appeared in the doorway, not in his dotage as Richard had last seen him, but as a fit young man in his prime. He was tall as a tree, wearing battle armor, and holding a sword.

"What ails thee, boy?" he demanded.

"Go hence," Richard told him in a tongue he'd not spoken in centuries. His tone was astonishingly normal and tinged with annoyance. "You are not real. Leave us in peace."

"I'll leave thee dead, coward," the apparition replied. " 'Tis the only peace left to thee." Montague's sword flashed high, somehow unencumbered by the confines of the shed, and swung down decisively.

In spite of himself Richard flinched in reaction and thought the child in his arms did the same. Montague's ghostly blade cut harmlessly through Richard's body, leaving behind only cold trails. Mere illusion, but for all that still damned unpleasant to simply sit and endure. "Get thee hence! I'll give you no more sport. Thou art dead, gone to dust, and forgot by all."

Montague paused, laughing. "Not all. Here do I live and always will." He bent and pressed one mailed finger firmly on the exact center of Richard's forehead.

Dear Goddess, I felt that! 

Then Montague melted away to nothing, only his laughter lingering behind.

Sickened, Richard rubbed the spot where he'd been touched. He could still feel the pressure of hard metal links scratching against his flesh in the exact spot where Elena and Seraphina had been—

Leave. Leave now, while you can.

He wanted to, more than anything, but his body was not cooperating. It was as though his father's touch had sucked away all his remaining strength. Richard needed rest, but had no desire to surrender again to his subconscious at this particular moment. Who knew what other monsters might be lurking there?

I'll just stay awake and keep watch, then. He'd done that often enough through countless other nights.

Michael's eyes were closed now, and his head lay against Richard's chest. How comforting it was to simply hold him, to feel his intense little life warm against his own. So young he was, so vulnerable.

Despite his resolve Richard's lids grew heavier with every passing second, until his valiant fight was lost, and sleep swept over him, irresistible as a riptide at full moon, and carried him away. His head drooped forward to rest on the boy's, his breathing slowed and became regular, and his pain was finally, mercifully drowned by slumber.

Then came the nightmares.

Colors, sounds, merged and divided. The borders of his reality were torn down, mixed up in some hellish brew and thrown back up again, haphazard, all wrong.

Shapes flew by like carrion birds, close enough that the breeze from their passing ruffled his hair, yet never touched him. He grabbed at them, but his hands returned empty. One came directly at him, not a bird but some . . . thing . . . grinning, and Richard threw his arms up instinctively to protect himself, only to feel whatever it was pass all around him, through him, cold and laughing, like Montague with his sword.

Richard stood alone in some vast emptiness, buffeted by an unforgiving hot wind. He spread his arms wide and tried to face into it, but it kept shifting direction. Then slowly, like a wheel stopping its spin, the whirling colors and shapes began to settle and coalesce into something recognizable. Richard found himself in a house, familiar to him, but not his own.

It was the log house, the house that was now destroyed. Fully restored in his dream, but there was something not quite right in his perception of it. The ceiling seemed unnaturally high, the rooms longer and wider. Everything was so much larger than it should be.

He lay on his bed. He knew it was his though he'd never slept in it. There were posters on the walls, movie posters. Whatever actor it was that had last played Batman glared seriously at him from one, and a blonde supermodel unnervingly like a young Brigitte Bardot simpered at him from another. He sat up and looked around. Clothes were scattered everywhere, and toys. Mommy had told him to clean things up before he could play, but the lure of his brand new Spiderman comic was too much for him. He could sneak a few minutes and break off the instant he heard her coming down the hall and pretend to have been cleaning all along. She'd never know. He smiled to himself and settled in to read.

Then voices cut through his stolen pleasure. One belonged to his mother; he couldn't make out the other. She sounded scared, her tone high and cracked with strain. He'd never heard her sound like that before, not even when she argued with Daddy. She was shouting something, and it scared him. He had to find out what was happening, what was wrong.

He rounded a corner in the huge hall, hugging close to the wall, cautious of being seen. The voices were coming from Mommy's bedroom. His sisters were there too; he could hear them crying, but it was not their usual kind of fussing. They were afraid, so much so that it made his chest hurt hard, as though he wanted to cry himself.

There was another corner. He could see golden light from the big bedroom spilling around it. He didn't want to go there. Something horrible was there. Then suddenly his mother's words rang clear:

"No! For God's sake! You can't, not my babies, you can't, you can't—NOOO!"

She made an awful scream, and a balloon popped somewhere, scaring him, making him jump. It was a big balloon, because it made a big noise, and the air rang with the sound. Now his sisters shrieked like little animals, and two more balloons popped, the explosions echoing toward him.

Then all the noise stopped, and no more followed.

He shivered in the hall. Confused, afraid. He tried to call out, but couldn't make himself speak.

Who had blown up balloons? It wasn't Christmas or a birthday. There'd be trouble for bursting them. Daddy didn't like that. He hated any kind of sudden, loud sounds.

It was too quiet, something awful had happened. He didn't want to see it, but he had to. Maybe Mommy needed help. He moved forward. Then he peered around the corner, and he could see. Mommy was sitting in a chair. Her head was down on her chest. Maybe she was asleep. She must have spilled something because the front of her blouse was all stained . . . red.

His heart raced and his breath came short. He knew the stain was blood. He'd seen blood before, lots of it that time when he split his toe at day camp, and had to go to the hospital in an ambulance, and bled all down the hall. But this was much more. This was real bad. This was much worse than any of that.

His sisters were lying on the floor against the wall, and they were bleeding too from spots on their foreheads. Neither of them cried. But they always cried when they got hurt. Always. Now they just looked asleep, like Mommy.

Tears slid silently down his face and he started to rock gently from foot to foot. Wetness gathered at his crotch. What had happened to them and why? Was it still there? Would it come for him?

Then there was a gun. It was huge, black. It seemed to fill every space of the room, fill all of his world, as it slowly turned to point at him. The hole at the end of the barrel threatened to swallow him. Someone was speaking, but he didn't know who. All he could see was the gun; there was nothing else.

The finger on the trigger tensed, and the hammer began to move. He could see it clearly, hear the mechanism start its unholy journey.

"Adios to you too, you little bastard."

He should run, shouldn't he? Or maybe he should stay with Mommy. He tried to look at her but could not tear his gaze from the gun.

The hammer slid farther back on its inevitable journey, and then plunged forward. There was flame and a flash, the explosion crashing though the quiet, bursting through his ears, sending his mind spinning. He heard something fizz past him and thud into the wall behind. The gun had been jerked to one side at the last instant. Mommy had pushed it away.

She was on her feet now, weakly struggling with the gun, and the man who held it was hitting her and swearing at her, and through all this her hoarse terrified voice pierced through his own fear.

"Run, Michael, run, run, runrunrun—!"

He ran for his life away from the scene. He barely heard the last balloon pop, cutting off his mother's shout. He tore through the house and out of the front door.

Bright morning light greeted him, nearly blinded him. He just ran and ran. He did not need to hear the man start after him to know he was there.

He ran across the bare front yard toward the beginnings of the mesquite scrub. Their fluffy-looking green concealed an endless number of long thorns. He ducked low, darting beneath the branches. The big man could not easily follow him here. The trees closed fast behind him and opened wide ahead into protecting darkness. He could hide there.

He ran straight into it, into the long dark tunnel that stretched endlessly before him.

He would be safe forever and ever if he could get to the end of the tunnel. He knew that.

He would be safe if only he could reach its end . . . if only he could . . .

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Contents
Framed

Back | Next
Contents

Chapter Five

Amid searing light, he was in darkness.

And pain. So much that the shadows in his mind drew back enough to allow in consciousness . . .

. . . realization . . .

. . . and horror.

Everything around him was in flames. They crackled and roared in obscene greed, flames that must surely consume him if he did not quickly do something.

The darkness that had fallen upon him withdrew as swiftly as it had come, and Richard became aware that he could not move. He tried to turn and see what held him. The effort made his whole body scream, and the blackness at the edge of his vision crept close once more.

He lay facedown on bare earth. He could see his arms. They were bloodied but free. Something pinned his legs. He pushed at the ground, ignoring the agony, and tried once more to turn. Succeeded.

Where the old house had been was now a rumbling, roaring bonfire. Thick rivers of smoke, blacker than the night sky, spiraled high to blot out the stars. The heat hammered against his exposed skin, worse than the sun.

The great logs had been thrown around like matchsticks by the unholy blast. Some lay in jumbled heaps of devilish architecture, others stood upright embedded in the ground like giant nails.

And one huge timber lay across his legs. And it was on fire. He smelled burning flesh and knew it was his own.

He scrabbled at the earth beneath him, digging, clawing frantically for freedom. His hands tore and bled from the sharp stones; he lost several fingernails, ripped from the root. This was what an animal felt as it chewed off one of its own limbs to escape a trap. He dug faster, then twisted his body back and forth until at last something gave way.

The heat grew unbearable as the tinder-dry log that held him burned more rapidly, but at last his legs were coming clear. At least one of them must have been broken, yet still he pushed and pulled for his freedom. Then suddenly he slid out from under the log, dragging himself from the fiery trap.

But flames licked insidiously up his legs; he slapped them out with bare and bleeding hands. Unable to walk, he clawed his way over the baking earth, until the stinging smoke was not so hot in his straining lungs, then collapsed.

He could do nothing for what seemed a very long time. His world had become hell, and he one of the damned souls in eternal torment.

Keeping still, he tried to take stock of his injuries. Something was embedded in his back like a knife, whether wood or iron he knew not. He could feel the wet trail of his own blood running down from the wound. One of his legs was broken, as he had surmised, the thigh bone jutting out through his flesh, ghastly white in the light from the burning wreckage. He was gouged raw with shrapnel and splinters. Hearing was impossible; blood trickled from his ears, from his shattered eardrums. And he was badly burned. The lower front of his broken leg was black and charred, and his reddened hands sprouted ugly white blisters.

Never had Richard known such a wounding, not even in the plane crash. Had he been any closer to the blast or been a normal human, he'd be dead. He could yet die. That he still breathed was hopeful, but he needed time to heal.

And fresh blood. Lots of it.

But from where? This place was truly isolated. He doubted that the explosion, massive as it was, had been noticed by any other than the small animals in the surrounding fields.

The horses.

He could not hear them, but saw their panicked milling in the nearby corral. Distance from the house and the barn's tin roof had spared them from the blast and fire.

Animal blood was not good for him. Sabra had warned him from the very first of the dangers of drinking it, of it being much the same peril as seawater to a parched human, but in a desperate situation it would do. The wretched stuff would keep him alive and give him some strength, though it would not be pleasant.

But before he could even think of doing anything else, whatever was impaled in his back would have to come out. It was worse than his leg and still bleeding freely.

He reached gingerly around and felt behind him. His burned fingers touched something hard projecting from a low angle between his ribs, but he couldn't tell what it was. Slowly, agonizingly, he inched the missile from his flesh. It had punctured a lung; he felt rather than heard the bubbling hiss of escaping air with each breath. Black mist whirled about him, threatening to engulf him. He had to pause between each effort, recover, then brace for the next. The only thing worse than pulling it out was leaving the damned thing in. A fit of coughing seized him. He spat blood and kept working.

He had no idea how long the removal took, only that it was a long time, and that every moment was agony. Finally, with a desperate exertion, it slipped free. Richard caved flat with a groan and stayed that way for a while.

When the black mist cleared somewhat he dragged the artifact around to see. It was one of the iron hinges that had held the front door of the house in place, half a yard in length. A third of it was covered with his blood.

He let it drop in the dust. Or rather mud. The ground where he lay was soaked crimson.

He tried to get up and failed. His broken leg. He'd have to set it before the healing could begin or be crippled for the rest of his life. He turned over and lightly touched the end of the broken bone, and immediately arched back, again in agony, biting off his cry. That was no good. It would have to be quick, this straightening of the bone. He'd have to gather every atom of will and force himself through the ordeal. Icy sweat stung his eyes, and he realized that his arms were shaking.

Dear Goddess, give me strength.

Unable to walk or even crawl, he dragged himself once more, covering the infinite distance to the corral and one of its fence posts. Panting and chilled with encroaching shock, he hooked the heel of his useless leg against the post, positioned his good foot over the instep, and made ready to push.

Don't let me pass out before it's over. 

He moved quickly, before he could think too much about it. He pushed hard, stretching the break apart, and then reached down and shoved the bone back into the flesh of his leg, so that the two ends were level with each other. They ground back into place and held.

He could not hear himself, but knew that he screamed throughout the whole procedure, an animal's scream that cut through the roar of the fire, the scream of a wolf caught in a cruel steel trap. Then he fell back, gasping and soaked with sweat, white with shock, hardly able to move.

But move he must.

Richard was pitifully weak; he'd never been so feeble and sick, and every moment's delay stripped more strength and blood from his body. All he wanted was rest, just to close his eyes and sleep, to get away from the dreadful pain that racked his existence. Yet if he slept now in this enervated state he might never wake again. Then the rising sun would surely finish him off.

He used the fence to pull himself up. Had to lean on it. The black mist hovered close, drifting across his eyes. He dared not give in to it.

But he was so tired. So hurt . . .

He clung to the wood, praying for the temptation to pass.

Blackness and rest. A few moments of it would help. He could be healing while—

No. To give in was to lose all.

He limped one step, two, and nearly fell. He held to the fence like a drowning man.

Just a little more strength, I beg you.

Two more steps was all he could manage.

Someone would find him like this in the morning, arms draped over the crosspiece, head down, legs sagging. The sun would complete the job begun by the fire.

No . . . please . . . help me . . .  

Then he felt it. The surging return of a sometime enemy, sometime friend.

Dazed and unsteady, yet overpowering, relentless in its hunger, it pushed back the blackness with a defiant snarl.

His beast was awake.

Thus it was his red-eyed master that made him raise up and struggle on along the fence line to the gate, to the horses. He had to feed from them or die; it was as simple as that, and the thing inside him would not permit him to stop.

At last, after what seemed an age, he made it to the gate of the corral, and reached over to release the latch. The horses, already panicked by the explosion and fire did not need the threat of his presence to seek escape. The instant there was an opening one of them took it, and the rest followed. He lunged forward to grasp a halter, but their stampede knocked him and the gate away from their flight.

He swung helpless, tears of frustration sheeting his eyes as he tried to hold on. His head throbbed with insidious pain, his vision swam. The darkness at the edge of his mind grew, threatening to overcome even the blood of Annwyn's Hounds. He swayed against the fence, fighting the oncoming faint.

Then through the numbness in his ears, he made out a sound. It seemed very distant, as though coming to him muffled by many layers of padded cloth. There was a thumping and stamping from within the stable and the high-pitched squeal of a frightened animal. Using the fence to keep weight off his bad leg, he edged his way into the smoke-filled building, peering into the dim depths. It was the pony, yet secure in its stall, lovingly cared for with plaited mane and neatly trimmed tail, but clearly filled with fear. Foam flecked its mouth, and sweat darkened its neck and flanks.

Richard hobbled and hopped to it as best he could, but getting close was difficult. The animal kicked out sporadically against the side of the stall. The whites of its eyes showed, and it would not be still. Richard's presence did nothing to help, for as it sensed his opening of the low door behind it, the animal plunged and bucked against its restraints.

Grasping the side of the stall for support, Richard eased around until at last he could take the pony's halter in hand and look the animal in the eye. Summoning his dwindling strength, he willed it to calmness. Most, if not all, creatures were telepathic in one way or another and could be influenced by him if he worked at it. Quiet thoughts, soothing words could overcome the most basic instincts. In moments the pony stopped fighting and came forward, nuzzling his head against him. They might have been in some wildflower meadow on a cool summer evening—that was the picture Richard had tried to project. The pony stretched out its neck, resting its head on Richard's shoulder, and he held it as if in a lover's embrace. Then as gently as he could so as not to disturb the fragile bond he'd made, Richard sank to the stable floor.

He spoke softly, patting the animal to keep it motionless. The veins in its neck were too deep within the flesh for him to reach, so he sought those running just beneath the skin on one leg. The hide was tough as he cut into it, but the bounty would be great.

He buried his fangs deep . . . and fed.

The taste was strange, thick, almost metallic. He dimly remembered that he'd fed so before in another wild and desperate time long ago. When was that? What had happened to him then? No matter. Nothing mattered except the restoration of his life.

The blood welled its way into his mouth, and he drank, greedy and starved, holding on desperately to the pony as the first wave of inner warmth crashed through him. He felt a sweet lightness take him, whether from the ecstasy of feeding or because of his wounds, he knew not. Pounding through his body was the thump of the creature's heart, and he felt his own strengthen as it struggled to match the rhythm, to catch that life.

A glow such as he'd not known since his youth in the sun heated his belly like the most potent wine. It spread out to his limbs; there was a delicious heat gathered at the break in his leg, and a lovely cool tingling at his burns.

The healing. Praise the Goddess and the beast within.

He drank—more than he could have safely taken from a human, but the animal could spare it.

He drank—long and deeply, more than was needed to achieve recovery.

He drank—until the thick blood seemed to go solid in his throat.

And he could not bring himself to tear away.

Not until the dizziness set in and became too much. He choked on his next swallow. His grip loosened, and he fell away coughing, blood bubbling from his nose and mouth as he did, his face a mask of red.

For the briefest time, he could do nothing. He lay helpless in the straw, his head lolling on one outflung arm, feeling the animal's strong life-force coursing through his veins. He found his eyes irresistibly drawn to a small pool of blood on a bare patch of flooring directly below his face. It had dribbled from his lips, and seemed to be taking on the most fascinating and hypnotic shapes, starting as a head in profile. Then it became three, one large and two small. Then it became a gun, held in a large hand.

How curious it all was. Richard moved a little so as to get a better angle on the picture, when it abruptly changed and became a gaping mouth, screaming. He could hear the screaming. It was Stephanie.

He thrashed himself upright, trying to find her.

The floor. The scream came from that gaping mouth on the floor.

With an immense effort of will, he wrenched his gaze away, and forced himself to ignore the sound until it faded. When it was gone, he looked down at the blood again and found there was no shape in it at all; it was simply a few drops of spilled redness, and he rubbed that away with one swipe of his hand.

The animal blood was healing him, but at a price.

The pony was recovered from his thrall now, and beginning to stir about once more. Richard reached up and loosened the halter rope. The animal backed away from him and wheeled eagerly toward the barn's open door.

"I thank you, good friend," he whispered as it went skittering out into the safety of the night.

He rested just long enough to decide he could try standing. He had to get to his car before things got any worse. If he could make it home, there was fresh human blood there, enough to flush this lesser nectar from his system.

Surprisingly, his feet held him, but only just. He could not put weight on his leg, but at least it did not blind him with pain each time he moved. On the way out he grabbed up a discarded garden hoe and used it as a cane.

Limping to the open door, he saw that the flames were dimmer now. The full force of the blaze was past, and with its passing the smoking destruction became brutally clear.

Of the house, there was simply nothing left but unidentifiable black lumps and thin remnants of the inside walls amid shards of the collapsed roof. The fieldstone chimney still stood, defiantly pointing skyward, and water jetted up from a ruptured pipe somewhere. Incongruously, the stove stood where it always had, seemingly unscathed, its door open as if expecting a meal to cook. The staunch old house was burned to a complete ruin. Flakes of charred paper flew about haphazardly like obscene snow in the updraft of the leftover heat. The master bedroom and its ephemeral contents were gone, the three bodies buried in a mountain of rubble from the blast.

A wave of nausea passed over him. He'd seen death too many times before to allow himself to react to it in such a manner even under these circumstances. It had to be the alien blood doing this to him, setting him to an uncontrollable shuddering. He had to get back to his car, to New Karnak so he could feed on human blood and fully heal. Then, by all that was holy, by the sacred groves of Avalon, by the Goddess herself, he would find who was responsible. He would avenge those deaths, and his vengeance would be beyond terrible.

He staggered toward his car, lurching like a drunkard. The animal blood was having a bad effect on him mentally, even as it restored him physically. His vision swam, and he saw all manner of strange, distorted things. Shadows leapt out at him, assuming impish shapes before dissolving to nothing. Sounds ebbed and flowed in his ears. Voices rang and mumbled with dire warnings in a language he couldn't quite understand. Then his legs abruptly gave way, and the ground floated up gracefully to meet him. Sweat sprang out on his forehead like spring rain. He lay shaking, his fingers scratching impotently at the hard earth, teeth clenched tight so as not to bite his tongue.

It will pass, it must pass.

He felt so tired. His body ached everywhere, and his knitting wounds screamed at him angrily. He tried to shout back at them, but couldn't seem to draw in enough breath. He rolled onto his back and saw the moon, quite new, smiling down at him. Then all at once, it wasn't the moon, but the pale, pock-marked face of his long-dead father Montague grinning at him through broken and discolored teeth. And his voice came clear across the night air.

"What ails thee, Richard? Disappointed you didn't kill me after all?"

That awful night so long, so very long ago, came back to him in haunting detail. He could see it all, his father's face and his brother's distorted with hatred for him and with fear of him. He felt the sharpness of his father's dagger once more and heard his laugh, and tears from the betrayal sprang again fresh to Richard's eyes. But as suddenly as it had come, the vision whipped away, and he knew that the pain was not some long ago wound, but the healing at work, his life renewing itself, the miracle of Sabra's dark gift.

With a grunt, he rolled over onto his knees, and pushed himself upright. Where had that damned hoe gotten to? His leg hurt like hell, and now fresh new pain intruded from one of his burned hands.

He could see them clearly in the pitiless moonlight. Charred skin hung down in papery shreds, and several nails were missing, but beneath was the bright redness of new growth. Then he saw something else. The whole surface of his left hand seemed to be moving, alive. It was covered with what seemed like millions of furiously moving black dots. Ants. Fire ants. He remembered Stephanie speaking often of them. Yet another South American import doomed to create suffering and misery. They were tiny, voracious and mean, with a bite out of all proportion to their size. He looked down at where he'd fallen, and saw a bowling-ball-size mound, its top crushed by his hand. Streams of the angry insects poured out, each one bent on avenging the destruction of their home.

He desperately tried to brush them off, but they seemed to be sticking to him, and all he succeeded in doing was transferring them to his other hand where the rabid biting began anew. Hard red bumps were already evident where the poison had gone in. The pain from them was intense, and Richard groaned aloud at this new suffering. He'd have to wash them off somehow.

He looked around at the destruction, then spied the pump house. It had been out of range of the blast and stood untouched. He'd shown it to Stephanie, explaining that it had been the core of the original water supply for some long vanished homesteader. Within was a large iron hand pump, set imperiously on the wooden cover of a deep well, with a single iron pipe disappearing into the depths below. It squeaked in seeming irritation as he proudly showed her that it still worked. At one time it had stood in the open, as its rusted state attested, until someone had sensibly built a shed around it and the mechanized pump for the well. Richard suggested that the old one be removed and the well closed up for good, but Stephanie resisted, insisting on keeping it exactly as it was.

"You never know when we might need it."

She picked up a rock, and moving a slat of the well's wood cap aside, dropped it into the darkness. They waited a very long time for the splash, and when it came it was from a long way below them.

"No children in here," he pronounced.

Then she quickly hugged him in the sun-streaked darkness, and kissed his ear.

"Thank you, Richard, for everything. Thank you."

The memory had stopped him in his tracks with its vividness, all his pain relegated to no importance by the vision. A lump, hard as coal and twice as black, pushed up into his throat and his breath suddenly came in sobbing gasps.

Why? Why? 

The ants brought him back to the present with their incessant biting, and quick as he could, he limped to the pump house. The latch was placed high on the door, well out of reach of small hands. He hit it and stumbled in.

It was cool inside, the iron of the pump cold against his hand. For a second he leaned forward and rested his cheek against the metal, thanking the Goddess for its soothing touch, then hastened to work it.

The thing still squeaked, but the water gushed out strongly, rust-colored at first, then clear. He washed the ants away, then leaned forward and put his head under the icy flow. The cold was intense, a deep-within-the-earth cold, and he nearly pulled away. It was very close to being free-running water.

The uncontrollable shaking took hold of him once again, and he had to stop. He could no longer see. Hot tears streamed down his face as he thought of Stephanie and sobs racked him deep. There was too much pain. His heart would surely break from it. Then his pain gained expression, and he cried all his grief to the mocking moon, the uncaring stillness, the laughing stars.

Your fault, Richard d'Orleans, they told him. You cannot die, so others must. Your fault. 

They were right. He'd caused his mother's death, and countless others since. And now Stephanie and the girls. Probably Luis and Michael, too. They hadn't been in the house, but must have been caught elsewhere and likely killed first. Luis had done unsavory things in his past, but he would never leave Stephanie in danger if he knew of it. He did love her and his children.

The whole family was gone, and it was all Richard's fault. He'd done something wrong, missed some telling detail, made some simple mistake, and she'd died as a result. She that he had loved . . . did still love. More blood on his already encrusted hands.

The tears drained his remaining strength, and he slumped against the rough wood side of the shed. Again, nausea took hold of him, and he bent double as though cramping from hunger. The walls swam outward away from him, losing their form and substance, then snapped back into place again. He could hear voices, angry, scared. Stephanie's, pleading it seemed, begging, then becoming a scream. He could hear a man's low rumble and children crying. Richard shook his head trying to clear them out. It was all in his mind, an illusion. None of it was real. It was the damned animal blood giving him this waking nightmare.

Then the pain returned. His fingers had swollen to twice their normal size and throbbed horribly. Small dents marked where his nails were growing back, but the ache was as bad as having them torn out, was worse in a way, since he wasn't distracted this time.

The broken leg was mending; he could feel the two pieces of bone literally knitting together with a kind of deep internal itch. He held his hands clear of himself and marked their slow progress back to normalcy. The burns had been washed away with the ants; the new skin felt too tight, but that would pass.

All he wanted to do was sleep, to hide in that blessed darkness from all that had happened in the last . . . how long? He had no idea. It seemed like an eternity and a split second all at once. He had to rest and seriously considered the possibility of giving in to the need. He was safe from the sun in here, and would likely remain unconscious through the day. By then the blood would have done its healing and worked through him. At sunset he could hurry home and replenish himself—

No good. Sooner or later someone would notice the smoke in the morning sky and call the fire department. They were justifiably paranoid about wildfires down here. The last thing he wanted was to be noticed by the local authorities.

But he could rest for a few hours. Just a little while would help immeasurably.

As he thought through the possibilities, his gaze fell upon a pile of rags in one corner of the shed. There was something odd about them, about their shape . . .

Then his muzzy senses cleared for a second, and in a cold moment of realization he knew he was not alone. He could feel another presence in here with him. Despite the pain of his wounds, despite his awful reaction to the animal blood, he was suddenly poised and alert, ready for anything. He listened, straining to the utmost to catch the slightest sound. Then it all broke down and the black mists rolled in once more over his mind. His vision blurred; his senses wandered.

He groaned in frustration. He was trying too hard. The more effort he put into it, the more quickly it evaded him. This was no hallucination, but something real and vitally important.

Just let it come.

He waited and stared until the pile of rags gradually assumed a recognizable shape. A human shape. A child.

It was Michael. He was alive.

The boy was hunched across from Richard in the corner, his face turned to the wall, his arms over his head. He made no sound and did not move, yet Richard could now hear the reassuring flutter of his little heart and his soft breathing.

"Michael . . . ?"

There was no reply. The boy did not stir.

Hurts forgotten, Richard eased himself to his knees and tried again. "Michael . . . it's Uncle Richard. Remember? Uncle Richard."

Still no response. Richard crawled toward him slowly. For a terrible moment he doubted his senses, the boy was so still. Had the damned animal blood done this too, blurred his perception into hoping for the impossible, played another trick on him? But it was not so. Now that he was close, it was clear that Michael was indeed real.

Relief nearly made him fall down again. It did make him sob, but he fought that back.

"Everything's all right, Michael. It's Uncle Richard. No one can hurt you now."

Richard reached out and put his hand on the boy's shoulder, then pulled him close. The boy twitched beneath the touch. Then in an instant he was up and fighting, twisting and turning in blind terror, whimpering incoherently. Such was his sudden fear-filled strength that he nearly got away. Richard held him as gently as he could, not feeling the kicks and blows, the scratches, as the terrified child fought for his life against some monstrous enemy. Then as suddenly as the fighting had started, it stopped, and the little body fell slack against him, shaking in reaction. Richard held him tight, rocking, stroking the sweat-tangled white-blond hair.

Dear Goddess, what had the boy witnessed that had done this to him? 

"It's all right now, Michael. Nothing can hurt you now. Nothing can hurt you now. It's all right." He crooned the mantra over and over again.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the shaking subsided, the ragged breathing calmed. There were no sobs of release yet; Richard would have felt them. Michael made no sound at all. Richard relaxed his hold, and the boy fell back, his head supported by Richard's arm. Then Richard saw his eyes, and his blood ran cold at the sight. They were bright shining blue—and quite empty. They were like the eyes of a corpse, blank, staring, dead, but in a living body.

Ah, Michael, what did you see? 

He had to get them away as soon as possible. The boy needed help. He was deep in shock at the very least, and for all that he was, Richard was no doctor. Then yet another wave of reaction hit him, and he sank down groaning, stomach cramped, vision blurred. Michael lay in his arms like a stone, motionless, heavy. Darkness crept in at the edges of Richard's sight, and he fought it for the boy's sake and his own.

He heard cruel laughter, as though someone outside knew the futility of his efforts. It sounded like his long-perished father.

Then Montague himself appeared in the doorway, not in his dotage as Richard had last seen him, but as a fit young man in his prime. He was tall as a tree, wearing battle armor, and holding a sword.

"What ails thee, boy?" he demanded.

"Go hence," Richard told him in a tongue he'd not spoken in centuries. His tone was astonishingly normal and tinged with annoyance. "You are not real. Leave us in peace."

"I'll leave thee dead, coward," the apparition replied. " 'Tis the only peace left to thee." Montague's sword flashed high, somehow unencumbered by the confines of the shed, and swung down decisively.

In spite of himself Richard flinched in reaction and thought the child in his arms did the same. Montague's ghostly blade cut harmlessly through Richard's body, leaving behind only cold trails. Mere illusion, but for all that still damned unpleasant to simply sit and endure. "Get thee hence! I'll give you no more sport. Thou art dead, gone to dust, and forgot by all."

Montague paused, laughing. "Not all. Here do I live and always will." He bent and pressed one mailed finger firmly on the exact center of Richard's forehead.

Dear Goddess, I felt that! 

Then Montague melted away to nothing, only his laughter lingering behind.

Sickened, Richard rubbed the spot where he'd been touched. He could still feel the pressure of hard metal links scratching against his flesh in the exact spot where Elena and Seraphina had been—

Leave. Leave now, while you can.

He wanted to, more than anything, but his body was not cooperating. It was as though his father's touch had sucked away all his remaining strength. Richard needed rest, but had no desire to surrender again to his subconscious at this particular moment. Who knew what other monsters might be lurking there?

I'll just stay awake and keep watch, then. He'd done that often enough through countless other nights.

Michael's eyes were closed now, and his head lay against Richard's chest. How comforting it was to simply hold him, to feel his intense little life warm against his own. So young he was, so vulnerable.

Despite his resolve Richard's lids grew heavier with every passing second, until his valiant fight was lost, and sleep swept over him, irresistible as a riptide at full moon, and carried him away. His head drooped forward to rest on the boy's, his breathing slowed and became regular, and his pain was finally, mercifully drowned by slumber.

Then came the nightmares.

Colors, sounds, merged and divided. The borders of his reality were torn down, mixed up in some hellish brew and thrown back up again, haphazard, all wrong.

Shapes flew by like carrion birds, close enough that the breeze from their passing ruffled his hair, yet never touched him. He grabbed at them, but his hands returned empty. One came directly at him, not a bird but some . . . thing . . . grinning, and Richard threw his arms up instinctively to protect himself, only to feel whatever it was pass all around him, through him, cold and laughing, like Montague with his sword.

Richard stood alone in some vast emptiness, buffeted by an unforgiving hot wind. He spread his arms wide and tried to face into it, but it kept shifting direction. Then slowly, like a wheel stopping its spin, the whirling colors and shapes began to settle and coalesce into something recognizable. Richard found himself in a house, familiar to him, but not his own.

It was the log house, the house that was now destroyed. Fully restored in his dream, but there was something not quite right in his perception of it. The ceiling seemed unnaturally high, the rooms longer and wider. Everything was so much larger than it should be.

He lay on his bed. He knew it was his though he'd never slept in it. There were posters on the walls, movie posters. Whatever actor it was that had last played Batman glared seriously at him from one, and a blonde supermodel unnervingly like a young Brigitte Bardot simpered at him from another. He sat up and looked around. Clothes were scattered everywhere, and toys. Mommy had told him to clean things up before he could play, but the lure of his brand new Spiderman comic was too much for him. He could sneak a few minutes and break off the instant he heard her coming down the hall and pretend to have been cleaning all along. She'd never know. He smiled to himself and settled in to read.

Then voices cut through his stolen pleasure. One belonged to his mother; he couldn't make out the other. She sounded scared, her tone high and cracked with strain. He'd never heard her sound like that before, not even when she argued with Daddy. She was shouting something, and it scared him. He had to find out what was happening, what was wrong.

He rounded a corner in the huge hall, hugging close to the wall, cautious of being seen. The voices were coming from Mommy's bedroom. His sisters were there too; he could hear them crying, but it was not their usual kind of fussing. They were afraid, so much so that it made his chest hurt hard, as though he wanted to cry himself.

There was another corner. He could see golden light from the big bedroom spilling around it. He didn't want to go there. Something horrible was there. Then suddenly his mother's words rang clear:

"No! For God's sake! You can't, not my babies, you can't, you can't—NOOO!"

She made an awful scream, and a balloon popped somewhere, scaring him, making him jump. It was a big balloon, because it made a big noise, and the air rang with the sound. Now his sisters shrieked like little animals, and two more balloons popped, the explosions echoing toward him.

Then all the noise stopped, and no more followed.

He shivered in the hall. Confused, afraid. He tried to call out, but couldn't make himself speak.

Who had blown up balloons? It wasn't Christmas or a birthday. There'd be trouble for bursting them. Daddy didn't like that. He hated any kind of sudden, loud sounds.

It was too quiet, something awful had happened. He didn't want to see it, but he had to. Maybe Mommy needed help. He moved forward. Then he peered around the corner, and he could see. Mommy was sitting in a chair. Her head was down on her chest. Maybe she was asleep. She must have spilled something because the front of her blouse was all stained . . . red.

His heart raced and his breath came short. He knew the stain was blood. He'd seen blood before, lots of it that time when he split his toe at day camp, and had to go to the hospital in an ambulance, and bled all down the hall. But this was much more. This was real bad. This was much worse than any of that.

His sisters were lying on the floor against the wall, and they were bleeding too from spots on their foreheads. Neither of them cried. But they always cried when they got hurt. Always. Now they just looked asleep, like Mommy.

Tears slid silently down his face and he started to rock gently from foot to foot. Wetness gathered at his crotch. What had happened to them and why? Was it still there? Would it come for him?

Then there was a gun. It was huge, black. It seemed to fill every space of the room, fill all of his world, as it slowly turned to point at him. The hole at the end of the barrel threatened to swallow him. Someone was speaking, but he didn't know who. All he could see was the gun; there was nothing else.

The finger on the trigger tensed, and the hammer began to move. He could see it clearly, hear the mechanism start its unholy journey.

"Adios to you too, you little bastard."

He should run, shouldn't he? Or maybe he should stay with Mommy. He tried to look at her but could not tear his gaze from the gun.

The hammer slid farther back on its inevitable journey, and then plunged forward. There was flame and a flash, the explosion crashing though the quiet, bursting through his ears, sending his mind spinning. He heard something fizz past him and thud into the wall behind. The gun had been jerked to one side at the last instant. Mommy had pushed it away.

She was on her feet now, weakly struggling with the gun, and the man who held it was hitting her and swearing at her, and through all this her hoarse terrified voice pierced through his own fear.

"Run, Michael, run, run, runrunrun—!"

He ran for his life away from the scene. He barely heard the last balloon pop, cutting off his mother's shout. He tore through the house and out of the front door.

Bright morning light greeted him, nearly blinded him. He just ran and ran. He did not need to hear the man start after him to know he was there.

He ran across the bare front yard toward the beginnings of the mesquite scrub. Their fluffy-looking green concealed an endless number of long thorns. He ducked low, darting beneath the branches. The big man could not easily follow him here. The trees closed fast behind him and opened wide ahead into protecting darkness. He could hide there.

He ran straight into it, into the long dark tunnel that stretched endlessly before him.

He would be safe forever and ever if he could get to the end of the tunnel. He knew that.

He would be safe if only he could reach its end . . . if only he could . . .

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