“You brought no torch of your own, sir,” he said at last. I grunted. Why should I tell him of my witchsight-to say nothing of the fact that I was a werewolf who in my alternate species had no need of flashlights? “Well, you shall take mine back,” he continued. “The way were perilous otherwise.”
That I knew. An ordinary human would blunder off the trail, even in bright moonlight. It was a dim, nearly obliterated path, and the land was gnarled and full of shadows. If he then got excited, the man would stumble around lost till dawn—or, quite probably, go off a precipice and smash his skull.
“I will call for it tomorrow evening.” Maledicto sighed happily. “Ali, sir, ’tis rare good you’ve come. New-wedded folk are aye overflowingly full of love, and Cybelita has long been as parched as Amaris.”
“Your sister?” I asked.
“Yes. Would you care to meet her this eventide?”
“No.”
Silence fell again. We dipped into a gut-black ravine, rounded a crag, and could no more see the lodge. Nothing but the dim sheen of waters, the moonglow opposite, the suddenly very far and cold stars, lit that country. I saw the broken walls of the Fortaleza almost over my head, crowning their clifflike teeth in a jaw. Maledicto and I might have been the last living creatures on Midgard.
He stopped. His flashlight snapped out. “Good night, Senor Matuchek!” he cried. His laughter rang evil and beautiful.
“What?” I blinked bewildered into the murk that had clamped on me. “What the hell do you mean? We’re not at the castle yet!”
“Nay. Proceed thither if thou wilst. And if thou canst.”
I heard his feet start back down the path. They didn’t crunch the gravel any more. They were soft and rapid, like the feet of a bounding animal.
Back toward the lodge.
A moment I stood as if cast in lead. I could hear the faintest movement of air, rustling dry sagebrush, the ocean. Then my heartbeat shook all other noises out of me.
“Ginny!” I screamed.
I whirled and raced after him. My toes caught a rock, I pitched over, bloodied my hands with the fall. I staggered up, the bluffs and gullies flung my curses back at me, I went stumbling down a slope and through brush and cactus.
Again my foot snagged on something and I fell. This time I cracked my head against a boulder. The impact wasn’t serious, but pain speared through me, lights burst, and for a minute or two I lay half-stunned.
And I felt a new presence in the night.
And through the hopeless aloneness that streamed from it and into my heart and marrow, I felt wire-taut expectation.
—success in my grasp, this third time-both of them, he dead and she corrupted, afterward broken by remorse-safety from the threat that can be seen: over them like a storm cloud as that certain moment draws nigh safety at last—
And the thought jagged more dreadfully sharp than any pain: Maledicto couldn’t affect her by himself, not that strongly anyhow, not overcoming the love and, pride and decency of her . . . no, the Tempter hasp worked in person on my girl—
I did not know what evil was intended. But in flash, the vision of her alone with Maledicto burned me free of everything else, of hurt, weakness, sense and even for a while the memory of a sneering Observer. I howled forth my rage and desperation, sprang erect, and ran.
That was sheer berserkergang. I didn’t consciously notice what I was doing. Doubtless this had been planned, so I’d fall over a cliff to my death. But half-animal instincts and reflexes—I suppose—guarded me.
Presently I’d exhausted my wind and had to stop and gasp a while. That forced pause gave my sanity a chance to take over.
Glaring around, I saw neither castle nor lodge. I’d lost my way.
XVI
My gaze swept down the slope to the drop-off. The sea was a wan glimmer beyond. More of my wits came back. Maledicto had adroitly removed me from the scene, perhaps murdered me: if I were the untrained unspecial Homo sapiens he assumed. But I had a little more in reserve than he knew, such as witch-sight. I mumbled the formula and felt the retinal changes. At once I could see for miles. The view was blurred, of course; the human eyeball can’t focus infrared wavelengths very well; but I could recognize landmarks. I set a general course and made for home.
With nightmare slowness. Maledicto had gone faster than human.
Nearly full, the moon broke over the hills.
The change was on me before I had overtly willed it. I didn’t stop to undress, bundle my clothes and carry them in my mouth. My wolf-jaws ripped everything to rags except the elastic-banded shorts, and I went shadow-swift over the mountainside. If you think a giant bobtailed wolf in shorts is ridiculous, you’re probably right; but it didn’t occur to me just then.
I couldn’t see as far with lupine eyes. However, I could smell my own trail, in bruised vegetation, vivid as a cry. I found the path and drank another scent. Now I knew what the undertone of Maledicto’s odor had been.
Demon.
I’d never caught that exact whiff before, and my wolf brain wasn’t up to wondering about his species. Nor did it wonder what he desired of Ginny. There was only room in my narrow skull for hate, and for hurrying.
The lodge came into view. I sprang onto the patio. No one was about. But the master bedroom faced the sea, its window open to the moonbeams. I went through in a leap.
He had her in his arms. She was still pressing him away, resisting, but her eyes were closed and her strength faded. “No,” she whispered. “No, help, don’t, Amaris, Amaris, Amaris.” Her hands moved to his throat, slid to his neck, drew his face to hers. They swayed downward together in the gloom.
I howled, once, and sank my teeth in him.
His blood did not taste human. It was like liquor, it burned and sang within me. I dared not bite him again. Another such draught and I might lie doglike at his feet, begging him to stroke me. I willed myself human.
The flow of transformation took no longer than he needed to release Ginny and turn around. Despite his surprise, he didn’t snarl back at me. A shaft of moonlight caught his faerie visage, blazed gold in his eyes, and he was laughing.
My fist smashed forward with my weight behind it. Poor, slow man-flesh, how shall it fight the quicksilver life of Air and Darkness? Maledicto flickered aside. He simply wasn’t there. I caromed into a wall and fell down, my knuckles one crumple of anguish.
His laughter belied above me. “And this puling thing should deserve as lively a wench as thee? Say but the word, Virginia, and I will whip him to his kennel.”
“Steve . . .” She huddled back in a corner, not coming to me. I reeled onto my feet. Maledicto grinned, put an arm about Ginny’s waist, drew her to him. She shuddered, again trying to pull away. He kissed her, and she made a broken sound and the motions of resistance started again to become motions of love. I charged. Maledicto shoved with his free hand. I went down, hard. He set a foot on my head and held me.
“I’d liefer not break thy bones,” he said, “but if thou’rt not so gentle as to respect the lady’s wishes—”
“Wishes?” Ginny broke from him. “God in Heaven!” she wailed. “Get out!”
Maledicto chuckled. “I must needs flee the holy names, if a victim of mine invoke them in full sincerity,” he murmured. “And yet thou seest that I remain here. Thine inmost desire is to me, Virginia.”
She snatched a vase and hurled it at him. He fielded it expertly dropped it to shatter on me, and went to the window. “Oh, aye, this time the spell has been broken,” he said. “Have no fear, though. At a more propitious hour, I shall return.”
There was a moment’s rippling, and he had gone over the sill. I crawled after him. The patio lay white and bare in the moonlight.