Chapter 1    table of contents  

I remember waking cold, wet, shaking all over. And pain. Confusion. Something horrible lurked just beneath the surface of my mind, looming toward realization. Something so horrible that I wouldn’t be able to...

It hit me suddenly. Pendergast, intent on freeing me, trying to accomplish that and watch all the doors and corners at the same time. Me, seeing the approaching danger but able to make only unintelligible sounds through the gag. But it was enough to alert him, and I saw him hesitate for a split second, making the choice to cut my last binding before whirling to save himself. A fatal sacrifice. Not at all surprising, given what I had come to know about him.

I saw the gun being raised, saw Pendergast, rushing low in desperation, toward the point-blank powder burn that would surround the wound that would kill him. I do not remember thinking anything at that point, but I lurched from the chair, watching my right hand snatch a brick from the ramshackle fireplace and hail Mary it toward the assailant. My legs were numb and I started to fall. I heard the gun go off and a hoarse cry. A body thumped to the floor, echoing my own fall. I tried to raise my head enough to see him, tried to call out, but could manage only a whispered, “Pen...Penny...” Then nothing.

That’s all I remembered. Where I was and who had brought me there, I did not know. Just cold, shaking, and pain, but the physical pain paled before the horrible memory and the smothering realization that I had loved him. Numb again, in a different way, and not caring. I made myself a fleeting promise that was also a prayer, feeling myself going. Huge gray flowers suddenly bloomed before my eyes and I lost consciousness.

***


Writing this is like returning to that room, to that pain. I do not wish to, and do so only because I know I must, as I must return also to each of the fourteen days that preceeded waking in that room; days of cruelty and captivity that I have mostly blacked out. I must try to remember it all if I am to know the secret. I shall write more each day, as much as I can bear. That’s it for today.

***


Hands, busy at me, at my buttons and snaps and the zipper of my jeans. The tickle of wet clothing, pulled across my skin and away. Even colder now. The frigid air settles onto my exposed body like an eager, long-dead lover. My nipples tingle with rigidity. My teeth chatter in my head. I feel my jeans start sliding down and try to grab them, my hands too numb to know, for a moment, if I succeeded or not. Then I feel the jeans leave my feet, stripped away, and a pang of loss and helplessness tears a sob from my throat. I begin to thrash.

Someone is saying my name. “Cat...Cat!” Hoarse whispers.

Just like before. Busy hands, taking, helplessness. I swing my own hand and connect with flesh, hear a soft grunt. I swing again and my hand is caught in midair in a steel trap that quickly loosens to just enough pressure to contain me. The hoarse whisper resumes. “Cat, open your eyes. You are all right. Cat...you’re all right. Open your eyes and see.”

I have never been so afraid. I knew I’d taken all I could take, that if I opened my eyes and found myself back there, with him, I would die or go mad. A quick prayer for death skimmed across my mind. Better to die than to open my eyes, see the horror, and then die. I had thought myself ready for death before, but this was true longing. Total surrender. I stopped struggling and squeezed my eyes as tightly shut as I could.

An exasperated sigh. “No time for this. I’m truly sorry, but you’re freezing. And so am I.”

Something familiar about the voice, but not in its current hoarse, whispery state. I had no time to consider it because both my hands were suddenly caught together in a strong grip and I felt something happening to my legs. Something seemed to drape first one foot and calf, then the other. I began to squirm. Some lightweight material worked its way up first one thigh, then the other. Covered flesh warmed minutely and still-bare flesh seemed to crawl in anticipation. I was being redressed!

My eyes flew open to behold a white-blond head, turned away from me, hair raised in spiky icicles that glimmered in the dimness. More ice adorned the broad black shoulders, some cracking and sliding off with the hurried arm movements. A frigid hand slid under my ass and raised my hips roughly and I stiffened, a yell blossoming into and almost out of my mouth before the material was yanked up my hips and I was lowered. An icicle glance, and I recognized Pendergast looming over my nearly naked body.

I yelped. I think it was joy. Maybe just shock. Maybe fear that I really had lost my mind. It came out sounding like, “Oh!”

Laser stare of the pale blue eyes. “Help me. Longjohns have to be the worst possible clothing for trying to dress an unconscious and/or flailing person by oneself.”

A frigid arm slid around my back and lifted me again. “Put your arm in here.”

I remember being so frozen with shock and joy that I couldn’t breathe, let alone put my arm anywhere. But then his brisk manner and obvious confidence gave me strength, as it always had, and I managed to slip my fist into the stretchy sleeve. I was still shaking almost hard enough to make it impossible. My other arm was harder to control and I watched, fascinated, as Pendergast’s hand chased my own momentarily before capturing it and poking it into the other sleeve. A low but heartfelt “whew.” Then his hands were at my stomach, fumbling, and I realized that he, too, was shaking so hard he couldn’t find the zipper or whatever closed the red, clingy garment in front.

I forced my frozen jaw to move. “Let me. Take care of yourself.”

He saw that I really was back and maybe capable of finding the zipper as quickly as he could. He nodded curtly and was gone so suddenly that he seemed to wink out like a light. I fumbled now, feeling a hard ring but unable to grasp it, finally hooking a finger into it and pulling toward my face. The zipper slid up almost to my throat. I tried to force it higher for a little more warmth and couldn’t. My eyes began exploring my surroundings, and I saw Pendergast across the room, kneeling. A poof as though a ghost gasped, and meager light danced. He moved and I saw it was a fireplace, but the fire was very small. He fanned it for a moment, glanced at me, and began stripping off his own frozen garments, quickly baring a body that shone like his hair shone in the filtered light, like a white marble statue, well-defined musculature working and trembling in the cold. He stepped into his own red garment, quickly pulled it up, and zipped it. He used a discarded white garment to rub briskly and fleetingly at the ice in his hair. Then he turned, grabbed a worn horse blanket from a corner, and strode toward me. I realized that I was on some sort of small cot covered with the thinnest suggestion of a mattress. I started to speak but was too startled when he rolled onto the bed, spread the horse blanket over both of us, and took me in his arms.

Chapter 2    table of contents  

The first thing I felt was shock at how cold he felt through the longjohns. I was freezing and his flesh felt colder than mine. His slim, muscular body was vibrating like a tuning fork. My natural tendencies rushed to the surface and all I could think of was how to help him. I began rubbing his arms briskly, then thought of frostbite and stopped, frustrated. Finally I just fitted my body to his as best I could and held him. I didn’t have a lot of body heat to share, but I willed what I did have into him. I pressed closer, suddenly remembering something I had witnessed a few weeks after meeting him.

We had worked a case involving the kidnapping of a young woman in quite an unusual manner. We were getting all the unusual cases, the ones involving more than the usual rote or protocols. Pendergast had gotten a rep for cracking the strange cases, the unbelievable; for asking kooky questions; for expressing questionable opinions and possibilities. He began to be known as Mulder. Enter me, a forensic pathologist interested in profiling, willing to work wherever and with whomever, and it was almost an afterthought that I would become his Scully. I don’t think he’d ever seen the show, but he knew who Mulder and Scully were the way he seemed to know everything else. I realized this one night while we huddled behind a row of garbage cans on stakeout. I heard a strange noise, a sort of hiss-pop, and glanced at him, whispering, “What’s out there?”

He had turned luminous silver eyes on me, one eyebrow raised and tongue firmly in cheek, and replied, “Why the truth, doctor. The truth is out there.” His lips had twitched minutely before he turned to peer around the cans again. I never did find out what the noise was and, to tell the truth, I was too busy trying to suppress a snort of laughter to care. That night stands out in my memory because it was the first time I began to see the real Pendergast, not just the legend who turned heads when he strode obliviously through FBI buildings or the dragon who’d campaigned strenuously against being assigned a partner, if only temporary, part-time, and for teaching purposes. He’d continued to awe and amaze me on a regular basis, but he no longer scared me.

Anyway, we finally found the girl, and I provided cover as Pendergast pulled her from the hole where she’d been for nearly two weeks. She came up sobbing, reaching out to him, and when her feet found solid purchase she’d clutched at him madly, throwing her arms about him. An unnameable expression flitted across his fine features; sort of a mixture of repulsion and terror, and his body had stiffened perceptibly, before, with an obvious effort, he’d put his arms around her, offering the comfort she needed. I saw the cost to him and admired him anew for his strength, wondering if anyone ever touched him. I thought perhaps he would’ve been the loneliest person I’d ever known, had he not been so comfortable with himself. It seemed as though, even when surrounded by a group of people hanging onto his every word, he was alone.

Now I held him tighter, hoping he wasn’t steeling himself to my touch, so desperate for a little warmth that he had to force himself to touch me. I found myself automatically pulling back a little at this thought, and pressed into him again. I thought the action must be warming him, because it seemed to make me colder. A sudden pain hit my back and I sucked air through my teeth.

“C-Cat.” He was speaking into my neck. His breath sent a shiver spiraling down through me. “Th-there is something we can do. A way to get w-warm.”

I felt my eyebrows climb. Surely he wasn’t suggesting... Then I knew it didn’t matter. Hearing his stuttering vulnerability at that moment, I would’ve done anything he asked. I probably would’ve at any moment. I waited.

Chapter 3    table of contents  

Strangeness of situation hit me suddenly and it occurred to me that there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this. I was dreaming, or hallucinating from shock and malnutrition. Either Pendergast had never shown up at all or he had shown up and been killed, and I was still captive. The correct scenario depended upon the point at which I’d begun to hallucinate. I decided that believing myself to be here freezing with Pendergast was infinitely preferable to either alternative, and decided to just go with it. What else could I do?

We were lying on our sides, arms about one another, and his weight was pinching my inner elbow. I shifted and he seemed to sense the problem and raised himself enough for me to move my arm up under his neck. Very considerate for an illusion. His arms stayed around my waist, hands on my back, icy through the thin material. We lay face to face, still shaking, staring at one another, and for the first time I noticed a mark near his right temple, a bloody abrasion. I palpated the area, relieved to find no obvious fracture. He winced and turned his face away slightly.

“What happened here?” I asked my considerate illusion.

“D-doctor, I will tell you everything in d-due time. But right now, we need to get warm. Tell me, where is your worst physical pain at this moment?”

My lower back throbbed in answer, and I pressed into him as though fleeing the pain. “My back.” My mind’s eye tried to conjure a vision of what had happened to my back and I blanked it out. “My lower back.”

“Very well.” His hands moved to the area and just having them there seemed to lessen the throbbing. He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath that ratcheted in and out as he trembled. Another. Another. His face smoothed, minute lines of stress disappearing even as I noticed them. His shaking subsided subtly.

Meditation, I thought, not surprised. I’d been to his apartment at the Dakota once, on a hurried stopover to pick up some needed information. He’d led the way back through far more rooms than seemed possible, given the dimensions of the building, and we’d passed many closed doors. I’d glanced into one that was open and seen the nearest thing to a sensory deprivation chamber I ever expect to see outside a laboratory. There were no windows. The large room was painted totally black, and would’ve seemed only dark if not for one pendant light that glowed softly over a fiber mat in the middle of the floor. I’d nodded to myself, thinking that meditation would go a long way toward explaining his usually placid exterior and seemingly calm interior. After awhile, I’d known that the calmness didn’t always come easily and had come to suspect that, for Pendergast, meditation was more of a necessity than a choice.

His hands seemed to be getting warmer. His palms. Where they lay against my lower back, heat began to bloom, making me shiver harder momentarily before a relaxing warmth began to spread outward from where he touched me. I felt myself settling into the mattress, pulling away from him a little, and he felt it, too, and pulled me gently back against him. I took a breath and he anticipated my question and whispered, “Shhhh...relax...”

His heat chased cold chills through me and I shuddered as they peaked and disappeared. Breathing more deeply and slowly, he moved his hands apart, one higher toward my head and one lower, cupping my buttocks in such a way that his palm radiated heat directly onto my perineum. Warmth grew between his spread hands like hot oil trailing up and down my spine. He took another deep breath and opened his eyes, considering me silently for a time, apparently satisfied with what he saw.

“How do you feel, doctor?” His voice was the drowsy drawl of a thoroughly mint-juleped old scoundrel lounging in the Louisiana summer sun. His eyes, lashes lowered to half mast, glimmered a warmer blue.

I opened my mouth and nothing came out. My eyelids drooped and I had to jerk myself back from the edge of a doze. I recovered to see him smiling slightly.

“What the hell was that?” The question was meant to be humorous, the delivery, incredulous. What came out was my own mint julep murmur.

“I’ll show you.” He shifted slightly. “Put your hands on me. Here...”

Chapter 4    table of contents  

He indicated the abrasion on his forehead. “Just cup your hand over it, doctor.” He touched the other side of his face. And your other hand here, if you will.”

I hesitated.

He waited.

I reached up to do as he asked. My hands slowed as they neared his face and I found myself watching for that pitiable expression I’d seen before when he was unexpectedly touched. I laid a light hand on the side of his face away from the abrasion. He didn’t flinch. I let out breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding and cupped my other hand over the wound, as instructed.

His eyes slipped closed. “Very good, doctor. You have hot hands. You’re a natural.”

I had no idea what he meant. At that moment, in that freezing little room, I had hot nothing. Then he took a shaky breath and the tip of his tongue slipped out, wetting his lips. His eyes fluttered open and the silvery gaze penetrated me like...suddenly I did have something hot. I squirmed a little and tried to put on my professional doctor face, feeling a flush creeping up my neck. I started to speak and had to swallow first. “Wh-what do I do now?”

“Just maintain your position, if you please.” His eyes closed again and something in his face seemed to loosen a little. I realized he must have been in quite a lot of pain and I hoped that somehow I was helping him as he’d just helped me. But I’d seen him master pain before, and I wondered why he was having me do whatever I was doing instead of just taking care of it himself.

“Because you need to know what I’m doing to you,” he murmured. “Because this technique generates a feeling of warmth and is much more powerful when done by one to another. And because I...”

I knew he was unnaturally intuitive, but I believe that was the first time he actually seemed to read my mind. It wouldn’t be the last.

His eyes opened. “As you may have studied, if your training included any complementary, or alternative, techniques, the body is thought by some to be surrounded by another body, one composed of energy. The main energy centers are called chakras, from the Hindi. They are located in the crown of the head, the pineal gland area, the throat area, and the heart area, to name a few. And the hands.”

He paused for a moment and seemed to be evaluating my reaction. Apparently satisfied, he continued: “What I just did, and what you are doing now, is channeling energy via that pathway through the power of your intent.”

I was delighted in the way that only learning something new and worthwhile from a trustworthy source can delight me. It must have showed in my eyes, because his lips curved into a slight smile. I was delighted, but still mystified. “Something like biofeedback?”

“Yes, something like that.”

“But I’m not intending anything like that. I didn’t even know it was happening.”

“But you do have the desire to comfort me, to take away my pain. That is your nature. It’s automatic. Of course, knowing what you are doing and concentrating on it increases the flow, as does deep breathing.”

His eyes slipped closed again, the shadow of a smile still upon his lips, and I knew he must be feeling what I’d felt a moment ago; the relaxing warmth that seemed to make pain evaporate. It occurred to me that the first thing anyone did when injured was to grab the affected part.

“Do—do you feel it?”

“Yes, of course. The energy is usually felt as heat.” He paused, eyes closed, lips parted slightly, and I suddenly remembered the promise I’d made to myself, the promise that was also a prayer. A bargain. But I told myself that this was not the time. Let him relax, get warm.

“In Asia this practice is called reiki. In Polynesia, huna. In the Christian Bible, it was called the laying on of hands. It is also called healing touch.”

I had heard of healing touch. It was done by many of the nurses in the medical facilities where I’d trained. I’d always thought it was a type of massage, and had never had time, or taken the time, to learn more about it. Perhaps if I worked with living patients I would’ve investigated it. I would certainly do so now.

His eyes opened. “How is your back?”

I took a reading. “Much better. Hardly hurts at all.”

“Do you have other areas of pain?”

I smiled ruefully. “I guess you could say I hurt all over more than anywhere else.”

“I understand completely.”

He looked weary suddenly, more exhausted than I’d ever seen him, and I wondered how far he’d carried me. Come to think of it, I wondered about a lot of things.

“Can we talk while we do this?” I asked.

“Yes, and I imagine you have plenty of questions. But first...” He raised himself a little, took my hand, and directed it back underneath his body. “Would you be so kind as to lay hands on my root chakra. I am quite susceptible to the cold, and I believe my core temperature is still low.”

I was hugging him, my head under his chin, my hands on his lower back. “Where is it?”

“Lower, doctor.”

I moved down a little.

“Lower.”

My hands slid lightly over his rump, taut under the soft material, to cup his buttocks as he had cupped mine.

“That’s the area.” He shuddered slightly against me. “Where do you need my hands?”

I bit my lower lip. A list of possible answers occurred to me, the last one a very heartfelt everywhere, but as much as I wanted him, what I wanted for him was more important. “Just relax for now. Let me help you.”

A soft sigh. Aloysius Pendergast relaxed in my arms.

Chapter 5    table of contents  

In the silence I noticed that our small shared space had warmed up a bit, but he was still very cold. Too cold. What had he said? Intent, and deep breathing. I concentrated on making my breaths as long and deep as possible, exhaling slowly, as he had done. I imagined energy as glowing white light, flowing down my arms and through my hands into him.

“Yesss...” It was a soft, sibilant whisper in the now nearly dark room. “Give me more...” His voice faded away as his breathing deepened, approaching the slow rhythms of exhausted sleep. He shuddered again and I remembered how it had felt, the heat of his hands chasing the chill from my own body.

Suddenly I wanted to see him, had to see him, in the last glow of the dying day. I eased my head from his chest, stretching to keep my hands in position as I angled my face back, finally looking up into his. He appeared much younger in repose, and the soft bangs falling over his forehead, the innocent set of his mouth, gave him the appearance of a tired altar boy, or perhaps an angel, or a saint complete with his own corona of white. I thought of how it had felt to think I’d lost him forever, and of the promise I’d made to myself. Involuntarily, my face moved toward his, my eyes on his lips. My heart swelled with love as my eyes closed...

Oh, knock it off, Cat!

It was my own voice in my head, my own derisive, defensive voice, so much like my mother’s, the way I heard it every time I began to feel strong emotion for someone, only way more upset than usual. My eyes flew open.

You’re thirty-five years old and you’ve just spent two weeks being abused by a man who looked a lot like this one—was related to this one by blood—and here you are swooning. Hell, he even favors Jason a little, and you know how that little soiree ended, but you’re acting like a lovesick virgin who’s never seen a penis! You’ve dissected a penis, for God’s sake!

But it wasn’t like that, not like the rare but mundane attraction I felt for someone from time to time. He was different, so strong, so excellent and brave, such a good, kind man—

Yeah, right, a saint. You’ve seen this saint kill people with his bare hands, sometimes growling like an animal while he did it.

Yeah, but they all deserved it.

Be that as it may (a favorite saying of my mother’s that had always driven me particularly batshit), he’s still pretty damned scary to me.

For the first time I was able to picture this hurt, frightened, mistrustful part of myself sitting separate from the rest of me; separate from the part of me that longed to give up the cynicism and believe that something wonderful could happen. I resolved to keep her separate until she gave up and died of neglect. Looking at him sleeping in my arms, I knew I could do it.

Then I remembered again the way his face had contorted momentarily and the way his body had stiffened when touched, and I wondered if he could do it, too.

Chapter 6    table of contents  

I dreamed I was sleeping in a refrigerator. Then I woke up and knew it was only a dream; a refrigerator would’ve been warmer.

The cot beside me was empty. I raised up and tried to look around but it was too dark. I sensed movement nearby and shrank back, but it was only Pendergast. “Your eyes will become accustomed to the darkness in a few minutes, doctor. I’m afraid there is nothing here with which to b-build a fire, and everything outside is too wet. Some of our garments are d-drying quite well and should be useable soon.”

His voice moved around as he spoke and I wondered how he could see anything at all. It was as black as a tomb. And he was stuttering again.

“How long have you b-been up?” He wasn’t the only one stuttering.

“I haven’t b-been up long, and I shall b-be up no longer.”

I felt him nudge the bed, then something floated down onto the thin blanket that covered me. “Your b-blouse, doctor. Being the thinnest of our garments, it is d-dry enough to b-be used now, on t-t-top of the b-b-blanket.”

He was getting colder.

“Get in here before you freeze up completely.” I lifted the blanket and he somehow managed to insert himself underneath it with such fluidity and grace that, had the cot been water, it wouldn’t have rippled once.

We lay shivering side by side in silence for a moment, then came a quiet hiss in the darkness. “I hate cold weather.”

The complaint was so uncharacteristic that I was unable to restrain a surprise snort of laughter. I felt him looking at me and wondered again how the hell he could see anything. I still couldn’t.

He moved slightly. “Since my distress doesn’t disturb you overmuch, perhaps you would care to warm my hands for me.”

Icy fingers were suddenly planted around my neck.

“Oh, GOD!” I sat straight up in the bed, floundering to get away. He hung on like grim death, not hurting me, but making sure every millimeter of his long frigid hands lay perfectly flat against my already chilled skin. We struggled, kicking our meager cover to the floor in the process.

Finally, his hands left my throat and he caught my arm, pulling me back. “Now that we’ve generated a little heat, we should conserve it. Come back to—lie back down, doctor.”

Perhaps he was somewhat discomfited by the intimacy of our situation.

I lay back down and he spread the blanket over us again. “You know,” I said, “if you thought aerobics were called for, you could’ve just said so.”

A soft sound that might’ve been a polite snicker. I felt him turn toward me.

“Come here, Cat. Assume the position.”

Once again lying shivering in one another’s arms, I asked, “Where are we?”

“In a cabin, if it can be described as such, about four miles north of where you were held.”

“What about—what happened to—”

“I’m not sure. You scored a hit with the brick that provided a momentary distraction, allowing me to reach him. He fired and grazed my forehead. I retaliated. He lost the gun and disappeared a moment later. I know he is injured but not how badly. Since I was experiencing blurred vision and dizziness, I elected to leave rather than go looking for him.”

“How’d you know this cabin was here?”

“I didn’t. But I came upon the rutted earth of an old sawmill road and followed it, hoping some shelter had survived the years.”

I imagined him hurrying through the woods for miles, feeling for the old road with his feet, knowing that at any moment his brother might put a bullet in his back. And carrying me. With blurred vision. And dizziness.

His brother. Certain sounds, sensations, and tastes came to mind too quickly for me to ignore and I shuddered with a curious mixture of feelings I did not want to dissect. “Do you think he’ll follow us?”

“Most assuredly. But not tonight.” He took a deep breath and I felt his palms begin to warm against my back. “We’re having quite a blizzard outside, and he hates the cold, too.”

“Blizzard?” Okay. Hurrying through the woods for miles, feeling for the old road with his feet, knowing that at any moment his brother might put a bullet in his back. And carrying me. With blurred vision. And dizziness. Through a blizzard. I shook my head in awe. “Agent Pendergast, you really are incredible.”

“What I am is incredibly chilled, doctor. I will be glad to answer all of your questions, but I would prefer to do so with your hot little hands on me. The root chakra. If you please.”

Chapter 7    table of contents  

It occurs to me that, though I had been working with Pendergast for about three months when I was abducted, I had learned most of what I knew about him in the week before it happened, and then only of necessity. He had asked to see me on a Sunday when we had not planned to work and had stopped by my apartment at a prearranged time. He had told me about his brother, Diogenes, and that I might be in danger. He had offered to send me away for a while. London, Paris, anywhere I wanted to go.

I had grinned up at him and said, “London, Paris, anywhere? Are you that rich?”

And he had said simply, “Yes.”

If only I had taken him up on it, I might still be vacationing instead of sitting in this institution. Oh, it’s cushy, sure, but it’s still a nuthouse. Bad form for a physician, but who cares, it’s not like I’m playing doctor now, even on dead folks.

All this after I thought I’d coped so well with what happened to me, that it hadn’t even been that bad, really. It didn’t seem bad because I was not remembering most of it. When those memories did start pressuring to come out, that’s when I started to rock and roll. It felt like I was Medusa trying to keep all the snakes inside my head, with them hissing and spitting and writhing.

The second time Pendergast fell asleep, I learned there were snakes in his head, too. Of course at that time I hadn’t confronted my own yet. Now that I have begun to do so, I cannot imagine the act of will he subconsciously exerts to keep them there.

***


It was so very strange. A man and woman, who’d been working together but are only somewhat accustomed to one another, suddenly forced into the most personal of circumstances. Just lying about under the covers (such as they were), jawing about little things like healing touch and the weather and the possibility that his deranged brother would soon be pursuing us through the frozen forest, waving a gun in one hand and perhaps a scimitar in the other.

But we didn’t have to worry about that for a while. Not with the snow still coming down and a foot or so already on the ground, according to Pendergast. So he had plenty of time to start playing amateur shrink, to pick my brain. He didn’t like it when I started picking back.

***


Once again I let my hands roam down his back to the curves of his buttocks, this time watching his face, easier to do now that my eyes had adjusted and he was so close. It remained impassive as usual except for a slight pupil dilation and darkening of eye color. His silver-blue eyes, softly luminous in the dark, drew me in like candles draw a moth, and I had to look away, as though to be sure I was positioned correctly.

I began the breathing and imagery, trying to send more. Already I was beginning to detect a slight warmth in my palms, almost as though I held a very light, very warm egg, when I tried harder. He must’ve detected it, too, because he began to get that sleepy, canary-fed cat look about him again, and the shaking began to subside. Meanwhile his hands were hot against my lower back and bottom, warming and relaxing me. There is a definite calming, relaxing effect in energy transference.

He blinked sleepy eyes and said, “Splendid, doctor.”

“You, too,” I breathed.

“Do you have other questions?”

My mind a perfect blank, I blinked back at him. “About what?”

A tiny frown line, thin as a spider’s leg, appeared between the luminous eyes. “About what happened. About events that transpired while you were...away. About anything.”

“Um...how did you find me?”

Another tiny frown line appeared at one corner of his mouth. He looked as though he had perhaps bitten into a slightly rancid French chocolate. “Diogenes always makes sure I can find him.”

He waited. I had no more questions, preferring to just quietly enjoy my cocoon with its big built-in beautiful white Monarch. I blinked again. Where had that come from?

He was watching me closely, most of the sleepiness gone now. “Doctor?”

“Agent?”

“Are you quite all right?”

“Are you really that white?”

Beat.

“I beg your pardon?”

A kind of mad glee suffused me. “White, white, like a big cold white Sno-cone with coconut sprinkles and two bright little sugar sparklies for eyes! And I’m gonna eat...you...UP.” I squeezed his butt and shot forward, clamping my lips and teeth on the side of his neck. I didn’t hurt him, though. Didn’t want to damage my Sno-cone.

Pendergast jerked like a speared fish. A little yelp of surprise actually escaped his lips, the first and last one I’ve ever heard. Meanwhile, I was busy, smooching as many square inches of Sno-cone neck as I could reach.

His hand left my bottom and grasped my proximal shoulder.

“Oh, noooo!” I crowed. “The Vulcan neck pinch!”

I stiffened and went limp and he rolled me away from him as far as he could, which, on that cot, was about two inches.

“Doctor!” His voice was raised a hair beyond normal speaking tones; a Pendergastrian bellow.

I stopped faking unconsciousness and looked up at him. “You know, you do remind me of Mr. Spock. A lot.” I smiled what felt like a normal smile but was apparently not as normal as I would’ve liked. He didn’t lessen his hold on me.

“I will accept that statement as a compliment.”

“Well, don’t get too cocky. You also remind me a lot of Hannibal Lecter.”

He studied me. “Doctor, did my brother give you any...preparations?”

“’Preparations’? What a strange word. Sounds like drugs you make yourself.”

“That is one of his favorite diversions.”

Quick mental flash of a needle entering my bruised, tourniqueted arm. Suppressed even more quickly. “Nope, not a one.”

“Right.”

Suddenly I was in bed alone. Silence but for the quiet moan of storm wind outside. At least the dump must’ve had thick walls. I raised up onto an elbow, trying to look around. “Mr. Spock? Come in, Spock.”

He returned as quickly as he’d gone, sliding neatly under the covers, grasping and turning my arm. A thin beam of light appeared, searching my inner elbow. I tried to jerk away. “Dammit, Spock, I’m a doctor, not a pincushion!”

He held me fast and, a second later, the light stopped accusingly on a large bruise over a vein, still a nice midnight blue. A black pinpoint in the center seemed larger than it should’ve been. “Still reusing the same vein,” he mused. “And recently.” A trace of anger crept into his voice. “Probably for the entire two week period.”

He felt my pulse, my forehead; turned the pinlight to my eyes, flicking it back and forth professionally, and finally, off. We sat in silence for a moment. Then, “We must get you to a hospital as soon as possible. I can see no obvious signs of infection or d-degeneration, but these are certainly less than optimal circumstances for evaluation.”

I gazed up at him. “I just love it when you talk that Spock stuff. You’re getting cold again. Come to bed.”

He snapped his fingers in my face. I didn’t blink. He arranged the covers about us and settled down facing me, quivering slightly from the outing to his suit coat. I assumed the position, then snuggled my face into his neck

He took a deep, cleansing breath that trembled only a little on the exhale, then spoke softly into the darkness. “F-fascinating.”

***


I awoke suddenly some unknown time later, as though to a disturbing noise. It was quiet in the cabin but for his soft breath. Suddenly everything that I’d said and done came back to me in a mortifying flood and I turned my face into the pillow, moaning softly. Had I really squeezed his ass and battened on his neck like a dehydrated vampire? Oh my God. But it had seemed like such a good idea at the time. What had that crazy bastard given me?

Pendergast stirred slightly and mumbled. I froze, praying he would not wake up yet. I didn’t know how I would ever face him again.

“Blood.”

The whisper slipped from him, colder than the air into which it fell. Somewhere a thousand geese marched over my grave. “Oh, Diogenes. So much...blood...”

Outside, the wind moaned like a grieving ghost, and I wondered if Diogenes was out there in the freezing dark, slinking around, a man-shaped pocket of even colder and darker space. Pendergast moaned in his sleep, the lament of a lost and injured child. A sound like a sob escaped him and his muscles flexed, arms tightening painfully around me. “Please...”

I didn’t know what to do, whether to wake him from his misery or let him alone and hope the dream would dissipate and allow him some much-needed rest. Then, with a low growl, he crushed me to him in such a suffocating and painful move that the choice was made for me. I couldn’t breathe. I began to struggle, pushing with my free hand, the other one trapped helplessly beneath him.

He released me suddenly, then just as quickly touched me again, anxiously. “Cat. Cat, are you injured?”

I took a shaky breath. “No. I’m fine.”

A relieved sigh. Then, “I’m sorry. I had hoped I no longer...” His voice trailed off into the darkness, forlorn.

“If you are prone to...nightmares, it would be very surprising if you didn’t have one, under the circumstances,” I offered.

A faint smile. “You’re back.” The smile disappeared. “It’s worse than nightmares, doctor. So much worse that I sleep alone in an empty room behind a locked door.” His icy eyes searched mine. “I told you that so you will take me seriously when I tell you this: Don’t let me hurt you.”

Chapter 8    table of contents  

“Don’t let me hurt you.”

I’ve just spent two weeks with his demented brother, we’ve escaped to freaking Outer Siberia, and now he’s telling me he’s crazy, too. Won’t somebody shoot me dead.

His head moved slightly and an expression of sad offense flitted across his features. “I am sorry, doctor.”

This mind reading thing sucked.

My heart went out to him. I hadn’t meant the cynical thoughts. Wait a minute. Did I really think he’d—? Oh, never mind that now. “I’m not afraid of you, Pen. You would never—”

“You know nothing about me, doctor.” His eyes moved restlessly, finally settling on the faint impression of a nearby window I could now barely make out as the world outside grew whiter. “Or what I have done. How could you possibly know what I might do?”

“I know that I feel safer with you than I’ve ever felt.”

A small, rueful smile. “That only means that I have perfected my art.”

“What—?”

“For the remainder of our time together, I shall not sleep. We must endeavor to leave here as soon as possible, but it may still be several days before we dare venture out. Unless—” he evaluated me closely. “—you begin showing signs of decompensation and we have no choice but to leave before it’s prudent to do so.”

“Decom—what do you think D—he gave me?” I couldn’t bear to say the name. I didn’t know then that it was because I’d been forced to scream it nearly every night for two weeks. “And you’re exhausted already. You have to sleep.”

Now it was my turn to look away and I was surprised and angry to realize that I was looking through a film of tears. Somehow this reminded me of my dog, Bansai, who, after I’d come down with a strange, undiagnosable, and ever worsening partial paralysis of the right leg, had begun to display the same symptoms, getting worse and worse as I got better. Finally I was well and she could not walk at all. I had lugged her sixty-plus pounds around for two months, but finally I’d had to return to work and there was no one to care for her when I wasn’t there. She’d barked and cried constantly for me when I left her with friends. Seeing her misery, I had to give up and let her go, and I guess it had been the right thing to do. But I still felt like shit about it. No one would ever tell me that my dog hadn’t somehow empathically taken my affliction from me. I did not want to see anyone else I loved suffer for me. I would rather feel pain myself.

He put a long fingertip under my chin and turned my face toward him. “Your very kind nature, doctor, is undoubtedly the primary reason you are still among the living, and I commend you for it. But do you think I would not suffer even more if I hurt you? Do you find me such a barbarian?”

Several questions occurred to me, but I could only shake my head.

“Here’s what we’ll do.” He had become brisk again. “You will remain awake while I indulge in ten minutes of deep meditation, which is as refreshing as several hours’ sleep. Then I will have no problem staying awake.”

“You can’t do that! Sleep is necessary for—”

“I assure you, doctor, I’ve done it before. I shall be fine.” He got up and went to his jacket, removed something, glided back, and handed me a very expensive watch with a lighted dial. He settled himself comfortably onto his back. “Ten minutes on the clock, doctor. Then you must do whatever it takes to awaken me. I should respond to my name and a touch, but I am, as you say, a little tired. Awaken me at once if you begin to feel uncomfortable or sleepy.” He closed his eyes, then opened them again. “Or a little too happy. But if that happens again, I’m sure I’ll be the first to know.”

“All right.”

He studied me a moment, a smile playing about his lips. “You’re not thinking of letting me rest longer than ten minutes, are you doctor?”

Of course I was. “Of course I’m not.”

“I would not advise it.” His eyes moved to the window again and I couldn’t help but glance nervously that way, too. Seeing that his point had been taken, he rested his head, closed his eyes, and simply went away.

Total silence. He didn’t even seem to be breathing. I looked at the watch again. Three-thirty in the morning. Glanced at the window, still only a faint whitish square. I wondered how deep the snow was now, wondered how many small furry or feathered bodies curled or hunched in dens or nests around us, counting on snow to defeat the predators this night, as we were. Looked back at Pendergast. Could he really make it on meditation alone? Was it really that restful? I leaned over him, enjoying this opportunity to languidly memorize his features. I remembered again my promise to myself. If one were timid, this would be the perfect time to keep it. But how far under was he, really?

I brushed my hair back so it wouldn’t tickle his nose and leaned in close. Whispered softly. “Pen?”

Nothing.

“Pen?” Still whispering, a little louder.

Nada.

I leaned so close that the tips of our noses actually brushed. Stage whispered, “Pendergast!”

Zilch.

I don’t think I could’ve stopped myself had he awakened. Our lips were too close. Remembering how it had felt to believe him dead, I drew a shaky breath and brought my lips to his, surprised by their softness and warmth. I lingered as long as I dared, whispered, “I love you so,” and forced myself to move away. Looked at the watch. Seven minutes to go.

***


Pendergast sat cross-legged by his waterfall, hands on his knees, thumbs meeting index fingers in small circles, eyes closed, but he could still see the river, the waterfall, and the green pastures beyond. He listened to the water, enjoying his special place of peace for a moment before going deeper. He looked up, smiling, into blue sky and white fluffy clouds. He saw a dove and, as he lingered quietly, it swooped down, grazed his lips with a soft wing, and flew away.

***

Chapter 9    table of contents  

At 3:45, I decided to wake him up. Anything over an extra five minutes would probably assure me a short but exasperating sermon. The silence was so great that I found it hard to break. A word spoken in a normal tone would echo in that silence like a gunshot. I leaned over and nudged him, murmuring, “Pendergast. Time to, er, wake up. Hey, Pen.”

Nothing. I might as well have been nudging a photograph.

I shook his shoulder and made myself say it louder. “Pendergast!”

His eyes opened suddenly, staring at the ceiling, then flicking to me. “Five extra minutes, doctor? Just couldn’t resist, could you?”

I opened my mouth to ask the obvious question, then decided I’d probably never understand the answer anyway and I was too cold to care. It was getting colder in the cabin. And would get even colder before daybreak, probably. I shivered, just thinking about it. He turned onto his side facing me. “How is your back?”

“It’s hurting again. And I’m cold.”

“I’m a little chilly myself. Time for some warm-up therapy.”

This time we both hesitated before assuming the position, like two shy teenagers trying to figure out the mechanics of a first kiss. Before, we’d been so cold we just threw ourselves into it without thinking about it. Premeditation made us shy. We should be getting less bashful, not more so. I wondered if my enthusiastic butt squeeze and smoochfest had anything to do with his reticence. Duh.

“You are colder,” he murmured into my ear, when we finally got settled. “Have you been out from under the covers?”

“No.” Just long enough to steal a kiss. I felt myself blushing and said the first thing that popped into my mind: “Where did you get these longjohns, anyway?”

“They were here, along with the blanket. Unfortunately, that’s all that was here, except for a few old empty beer cans and a bucket with a hole in the bottom.”

“Sounds like hunters use this cabin.”

“Perhaps.”

His hands, hot on the small of my back, moved to my shoulder blades. Long fingers spread, expanding the zone. I gave an involuntary moan of pleasure and the hands were gone suddenly.

“Does that hurt?”

“No, of course not. Put your hands back where they were.” He did, gingerly. “Why would you think it hurt?”

“Because you are covered with...potentially painful areas.”

“I am?”

He drew back to look into my face. “Yes, you are. You said you hurt all over, doctor. Why are you surprised?”

“Anyone who doesn’t get out much and then makes an unplanned five mile hike into the wilderness is going to hurt all over.”

“Indeed.” He studied me. “It strikes me that you are very calm for a woman who’s been through what you have.”

“Why wouldn’t I be calm? It’s over now.”

“Just like that.”

“Yep. Just like that.” I tried to hide my face under his chin but he pulled back a little more and tucked it down.

“How do you feel, doctor?”

“Not too bad. A little sore here and there but the backache’s the worst of it.”

“No, Cat. How do you feel about what happened?”

“Well, as vacations go, I wouldn’t recommend it. The hotel sucked and the tour guide was hell to get along with.”

He did not smile. His cool gray-blue gaze never wavered. He waited.

“What do you want me to say, Pen? It was bad.”

“Bad?”

I didn’t answer.

“You don’t remember it, do you?”

“No, I don’t. And I don’t want to!” I began to cry and it made me mad. “There, now I’m blubbering like a good little victim. Is that what you wanted?”

“No, Cat.” His voice was so sad. “I only want you to have the best possible chance to heal.”

“Chance to heal? I’m not badly hurt. And psychologically, it couldn’t have been worse than the death of my mother or the end of my marriage. I’m just achy and tired. It’s not like I was tortured.”

Pain darkened his luminous eyes. It scared me.

“It’s not like I was tortured, right, Pen? Right?”

“Cat...”

I threw back the blanket and yanked down my zipper, trying to look at myself. I could only make out shadows against the dim white of my skin. They could’ve been abrasions or cuts or bites or bruises or all of the above. And there were so many of them, all over my breasts and belly, as far down as I could see. I peeled the longjohns off my arms, covered with more shadows. I started to pull them off my legs and he took my hands in his, stopping me.

“Cat, don’t. You’re getting cold.”

“I have to see!” I struggled to pull free.

“I saw.” He waited until I stopped struggling. “I saw, and I’ll tell you if you insist. But first, let’s get you warm.”

I realized I was sitting there topless but I was too numb to care. I fell back and lay there looking up at him.

He made an effort to smile. “I believe we are, as they say, back to square one.”

This time the arm that he slid under my shoulders wasn’t frigid, just cold. Again he helped me into the long knit sleeves, then eased me back down and reached for the zipper ring. Closed his fingers around it. Hesitated. His eyes traveled slowly from the ring to my breasts to my lips. I felt his gaze like cool fire. Finally our eyes met.

I blinked and felt a single tear melt down my cheek. I believe he started to reach for it, or for me. Then something in my eyes or in his heart stopped him, and he released the ring and drew back.

He spoke in a husky tone I’d never heard before. “Perhaps you’d better do that, doctor.”

He got up and was lost in the darkness. I pulled the ring up under my chin and turned on my side, facing away.

Chapter 10    table of contents  

“I’m going to add my shirt to our cover.” I hadn’t heard him approach the cot. Something light settled onto me.

I felt him get back into bed but, feeling strangely like a blown fuse with no connections to anything, I didn’t move or speak. He laid his hands lightly on my back, which grew warm under his touch. Perhaps he thought me asleep. It felt wonderful, but I couldn’t enjoy it knowing he was still cold. I turned toward him and we embraced again, beginning the transfer without speaking. This time it seemed to take even longer for his tremors to subside, and I wondered about hypothermia.

Finally I took a deep breath and opened my eyes to find him watching me, as though expecting what was coming. I had tried to resist, but couldn’t. I had to know. “What did he do to me, Pen?”

A hand left my back and gently tucked a stray curl behind my ear. He laid his palm against my cheek, shaking his head slightly in a silent plea. I remained quiet as his hand moved to the top of my head, then around to the back of my neck, stroking, seeking to calm. But I had to know. “Tell me.”

“Not now. Later.”

“Now.”

He wet his lips and swallowed. I had never seen him so discomfited. Or was it apprehension? Was it so terrible that he feared having a suddenly psychotic woman to deal with? I knew this was not the perfect time or place, but I had to know. “You promised.”

I waited.

“Diogenes is a connoisseur of pain. Inflicting it, and receiving it. He enjoys it. He feeds on it. His goal is to inflict as much pain as possible while doing the least actual bodily damage, in order to preserve his victim. He is a master of the shallow cut, the pressure point. The suck bite.”

Suck bites. They were made by sucking in a mouthful of flesh, then biting into it. A sort of hickey with teeth marks. I had seen them on the victims of sexual predators.

“Oh, no.” An icy abyss was growing around my heart that no amount of energy could dissipate. “No, he didn’t.”

“You bear such marks, Cat. In the usual areas.”

Visions of cold blue flesh filled my mind, bitten breasts, thighs, buttocks. Always on the bodies of rape victims. Pendergast was telling me I had been raped.

I closed my eyes, saw a face, an aquiline, regal face with blazing, mocking eyes, and murmured, “Heterochromia iridium.”

“Yes.” Pendergast’s voice seemed far away.

The face in my mind’s eye spoke, the tone both cajoling and threatening, almost playful. “Tell me, Cat!” A sharp pain took my breath away. Another. Another. Like being lashed with a tiny flaming whip. Or perhaps a razor blade. “Tell me!”

My own voice replied, “Please—”

“Tell me!” A lingering flash of agony.

“Do it to me, Diogenes, please do it to me, please do me, just don’t hurt me anym—”

A raw gasp and pain at the back of my neck snapped me back. Pendergast’s fist had snapped closed in my hair, his stricken face inches from my own. I had spoken aloud.

“I guess, technically, it wasn’t rape,” I told him in a dead monotone, “since I begged for it.”

He closed his eyes, his face a momentary kaleidoscope of pain and anger. They opened in a prism of tears, quickly blinked away. He released my hair and drew me so close I could feel the stunned pounding of his heart. We trembled together, from chill and shock.

“I am so sorry, dearest,” he murmured brokenly. “So sorry.”

Chapter 11    table of contents  

The combination of atrocious memories, unwanted knowledge, and profound regret and sorrow for Pendergast’s pain must have been too much for me. My mind spun like a pinwheel suddenly in a blur of voices and colors and sensations that felt as though my entire body whirled, about to fly off the cot. I clutched at his broad shoulders in panic.

“What is it, Cat?” His face was anxious, paler than ever. By this time, he must’ve felt like he rode his own manic calliope in some weird circus of hell.

For me, the cold dark cabin and it’s attending fear and pain faded away to a receeding point of light, like switching off an old TV, then bloomed brightly again, like the sun appearing from behind storm clouds. I saw Pendergast, brave, beautiful, and oh, so close, and that’s all I saw. I did not see the expression of sorrow and confusion that must’ve been on his face. I felt like a four-year-old must feel when, lost in a terrifying acre of quickly moving, alien legs, her father’s loving countenance suddenly kneels before her, smiling that all is well again. Safe and ready to play.

“Hey, Axel!”

His eyes opened a little wider and I remember that he swallowed, composing his face quickly, obviously trying to conceal his own feelings to better allow me what my mind obviously felt it needed to survive another few minutes. When he spoke, his voice only shook a little. “Hello, Cat.”

“Axel, Axel.” I grinned mischievously at him, waiting.

He flashed a ghost of his own rarely seen grin. “Now, Cat, you know you are not to call me Axel.”

I had called him Axel one good-humored day when, seeing the initials that preceeded his surname, I had asked what the blazes all those letters stood for, especially the X, and he’d refused to tell me, muttering something about a need-to-know basis. I’d threatened to call him Axel in front of everyone and inquired if all big-city FBI agents were so confounded mysterious, or maybe just big-city men in general. He’d spiked that eyebrow and tossed a “Welcome to the jungle, doctor,” over his shoulder as he strode away, forcing me to trot to catch up.

“Axxxxxxxx-ellllllllllllll.”

He watched me closely, obviously at a loss. I was acting like a four-year-old but feeling very much like a woman; a woman who’d ingested a healthy hit of Xtasy and found herself happily abed with her fondest fantasy. Like a loquacious drunk whose tongue is hinged in the middle and loose at both ends, I said whatever popped into my tiny array of working brain cells.

“Okay, I won’t call you Axel, but it’ll cost you. Cause I really love calling you Axel.”

“What is the price of your silence?”

“A kiss.” I beamed at him.

“Indeed.”

“Indeed, yeah!”

He regarded me silently, his face impassive, but I imagine he was torn between being glad I was no longer speaking in that dead monotone and wishing I’d just shut the hell up. It must’ve been like babysitting the world’s most obnoxious kid in an igloo while ill with the flu.

“Very well.” He leaned to me and kissed me softly on the forehead. “You have your kiss. Now you must keep your bargain.”

“That was not a kiss!”

“It most certainly was. Now it’s time for your nap, young lady.” Thinking perhaps that treating me like the child I was acting like might work.

“I’m not sleepy, and that was not a kiss.”

“I’ll tell you my first name if you promise not to call me Axel. And to take your nap.” He must’ve been truly desperate.

“You gotta deal, Axel. What is it?”

“It’s...Aloysius.”

“Oh!” How wonderful! And how appropriate! “Aloysius. Rhymes with delicious. Now give me my kiss, Delicious Aloysius.”

“You promised to take your nap.”

“I lied.”

“And I already gave you a kiss.”

“That was not a kiss. This is a kiss.” I slid my arms around his neck and kissed his mouth, and this time it was not a furtive hummingbird kiss. This time I had packed a lunch. I increased the pressure gradually, loving the taste of him on my tongue, flicking softly against the soft but firm barrier of his lips.

I felt his breath catch in his throat. His lips stiffened minutely and he moved a hand to gently push me away. I turned slightly and his hand found my breast instead, and held it gently. I moaned into his mouth and pressed into him and he was kissing me suddenly, hungrily, taking control of me as surely as he did everything else. He tasted me, exploring my lips masterfully, and I felt him hardening and molded myself to him. His hand left my breast and I felt my zipper inching southward.

Chapter 12    table of contents  

Then he was gone, with a quiet gasp that might almost have been a sob. Somewhere across the room in the darkness, a door opened, letting in a scream of frigid wind and night, and slammed shut.

Oh, no! I couldn’t be alone. Fear tightened my skin like shrink wrap. At any moment I expected Diogenes’ flaming touch in the dark. Brought down from my flashback high in crash mode, I screamed, “Pendergast! Please, Pen, don’t leave me alone!”

“You’re not alone.” His voice came from the darkness near the door.

I sobbed, for my own fear and weakness and for him. He couldn’t even leave the room for a moment when he needed to. How sick he must be of me.

“Cat.” His voice, now beside the bed, was gentle. “I’m right here, Cat.”

“No. I’d probably flash freeze, anyway.” He sat on the edge of the cot. “You do understand why I stopped, don’t you? Not because I wanted to.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does matter. You’re not yourself, Cat. I cannot take advantage of that. I am not my brother.”

“I know that. Pen, you must be freezing. Please come back to bed.”

He didn’t move voluntarily, but I felt him starting to tremble. In a moment, it shook the whole cot.

“Pen, please, cover up. I’ll get up for a while, okay?” I started to do so. He had to get warm.

“No.” His hand on my arm stopped me. “Your health is already in peril, Cat. I won’t have you getting a chill. We will both lie down, and you will sleep. You have nothing to fear from me.”

“I’m not afraid of you!” I wanted to say that maybe I was being more myself when I kissed him, not less. That I didn’t have to be whacked out on Diogenes’ truth serum, or whatever it was, to want him. But I couldn’t quite do it.

“Good. Then let’s get warm so you can get some rest. You’ve lost weight and are most likely dehydrated as well.”

Again, we lay in bed together face to face, embracing. His eyes were closed, his face as serene as silk. I felt like a stewpot about to boil over.

I whispered, “I wish I could turn my feelings off as easily as you do.”

Silver eyes gleamed softly in the dark. “It’s not a matter of turning them off, Cat. It’s choosing to ignore them. Control. Control is vital.” He stopped as though debating with himself, then: “Something happened to me as a boy that I believe changed my natural tendencies. Perhaps darkened them. I do not seem to have the filters others have. Thoughts occur to me—sometimes the most horrible, cruel desires—but I choose not to act on those thoughts. I choose to follow my better nature. Usually.”

“But someone like D—your brother chooses to act on the cruel thoughts.”

A heavy sigh. “I don’t believe he has a choice. He has no other thoughts to act on.”

Control. I thought about the uniform way he dressed, the cultured way he spoke. The pains he took to be proper and polite. The courtly manner he possessed. The way he could change in a split second from courtly to lethal. I’d said I felt safe with him and he’d replied, “That only means that I’ve perfected my art.”

The feral shine of his eyes. The things I’d seen him do. The things I’d heard about him. It was well known that many of his arrests didn’t make it to jail, much less trial. Early in my training with Pendergast, I’d spent an afternoon doing a file search with Vincent D’Agosta, who sometimes worked with us. Pen had somewhere else to be. We’d taken a break from eyestrain and Vinnie had started talking about some of his exploits with Pen. That he admired and respected him was obvious. That he understood him not at all was just as obvious. “He can be the warmest, most caring, or coldest, most deadly person you’ll ever meet,” he’d said. “And without even changing the expression on his face.” I hadn’t understood it then. I thought I did now.

Control. Always in control. Except that he was so afraid of hurting someone that he slept alone in a locked room.

The savage passion lurking just beneath the genteel surface.

I remembered the rawness of it, and trembled not with cold, but desire.

Chapter 13    table of contents  

He mistook my trembling for chills and pulled me closer, one hand on the small of my back, the other at my bottom, like we hadn’t just gone off like two rockets a few minutes ago, or more like he was determined to ignore that we had. I couldn’t ignore it, though. I wondered how I could’ve just remembered what happened with Diogenes and still be so turned on. It didn’t make sense. Unless there was something else I wasn’t remembering yet. I tried to think of something to talk about.

“Pen?”

“You demanded my first name and now you’re not going to use it?” His low voice in my ear sent shivers down my neck.

“I didn’t think you wanted me to.”

“It’s funny, but after I finally give in, I really don’t mind it.”

I wondered if we were still talking about the name. “Aloysius,” I said, trying it out.

“Hmm?”

“You said that my kind nature was probably the main reason I’m still alive, or something like that. What did you mean?”

“I’m really not sure we should discuss anything else until we get out of here, doctor. The results could be most unpleasant.”

“Surely the worst revelation has been made.”

He appeared to think about it. “All right. Diogenes usually doesn’t have such long-term relationships. No one else—that I know of—has remained in his company for two entire weeks, unless he had some special purpose for them.”

“Maybe his purpose for me was to lure you.”

“Perhaps. But he could’ve killed you anyway. I would not have known and would still have come. No, he wanted to keep you around. Sadists love innocents, doctor. Innocents are so much more fun to defile.”

After what he’d said about his own cruel desires, I wondered if he understood his brother a little too well. “You think I’m innocent?”

“Delightfully so.”

Pique gave me the nerve to say, “How can you say that when I just attacked you?”

“That is precisely why I can say it. The manner in which you attacked me. Under the influence of a drug surely designed to release the heaviest of inhibitions and bring out the rawest aspects of personality, you became not a seductress but a mischievous child, demanding only my first name. And a kiss.”

“I wanted more than a kiss, Aloysius.”

“You became a child of mind, doctor. Your body was still that of a woman.”

“But he doesn’t know me, doesn’t know what I’m like.”

“I assure you, he knows. Can you tell me how he abducted you? If,” he hastened to add, “you can do so without becoming too upset.”

“He approached me in a wheelchair. He said I looked like a kind person, and wondered if I might help him up the ramp in the parking garage.” I started to remember the handsome, open face, the ready smile, and stopped, shuddering.

Pen gathered me to him more closely, rubbing my back gently, and I went on. “He said he was weak from chemotherapy and had trouble pushing himself up the ramp.”

“He knew you would go with him. He had probably been watching you for some time and had seen a kind, happy, charmingly impish woman who wouldn’t give a second thought to helping some poor guy in a deserted parking garage.”

“So he pegged me for a patsy. Correctly, too.” I sighed. “I’ve always been one.”

“If you mean that you’ve always been kind, unassuming, and somewhat naïve, I’m sure you’re right. I don’t mean that as an insult, Cat. We often perceive our own traits in others. Liars assume others are lying to them. Cheating husbands suspect their wives of having affairs. And the converse; kind, honest people expect others to behave that way. One of the saddest truths about this world is that they are often disappointed.”

“Why does he want to hurt you?” I asked.

This time he was quiet so long I thought maybe he had gone to sleep. Finally, he spoke, his voice low and strained. “Because I deserve it.”

Chapter 14    table of contents  

His words hurt me because I knew he had to be hurting to have said them. “Please don’t say that! I’m sure it’s not true.”

“It is true.” There was an angry edge to his voice now. “Need I keep reminding you, doctor, that you know nothing about me.”

“I wish you wouldn’t, because it’s not true. You just told me all about myself. How did you know those things? We’ve spent time together nearly every day for months. You got to know me. Don’t you think I got to know you, at least a little?”

“Sometimes people see what they want to see...or what others mean for them to see.”

“So now you’re saying that you’re a big fake? I know you’re not perfect, Pen! You’re persnickety as an old she-cat, ludicrously secretive, and you have a hell of a temper, no matter how well you hide it most of the time. But you’re also considerate and kind, and I don’t believe for one minute that you would ever do anything to hurt anyone unless you had to. It wouldn’t be hard to have to hurt your brother. He seems to be a hurt-or-be-hurt kind of guy.” I was getting more and more angry with him for not understanding how wonderful he was. “You talk about control, and you have more of it than anyone I’ve ever known. So if you’re always in control, and you wouldn’t hurt anyone on purpose, what could you possibly have done to deserve being hurt?”

He took a long, slow breath. “Diogenes was not always as you describe him.”

“Well, bully for him. If he was a late bloomer, he’s made outstanding progress.” Too late, I realized that maybe I shouldn’t have ignored the husky flatness in his voice

A muscle worked in his cheek. Then something changed in his eyes. Perhaps they darkened just a little. A new, somehow strange little light gleamed in their depths. “You refer to the progress he’s made with regard to murder, doctor. But you don’t know just how prolific he is. If you’re going to elucidate his behavior, let me enlighten you. I am aware of over three hundred individuals my dear brother has tortured, murdered, and mutilated. Assuming each of those people had just five family members and two good friends who were devastated by what happened, that’s over two thousand lives he has taken or ruined. And those are just the ones I know about, doctor. We won’t go into the sociological impact; the effects on the moods and behaviors of thousands of strangers who read about his atrocities in the newspapers or heard about them on the news, and how the results of those effects may have eventually impacted even more. If he continues his work he may conceivably alter the collective consciousness all by himself. You’re right, doctor. He has made outstanding progress, and continues to do so. And the man you believe to be so considerate and kind, and man you’re in bed with, is directly responsible for it all. I may as well have wounded you myself. Still feel safe, doctor?”

His eyes glittered. In one lithe movement, he sprang from the bed and disappeared into the darkness. I heard a growl and a resounding crash, then another.

Chapter 15    table of contents  

I huddled on the cot and listened to him taking the cabin apart. That’s what it sounded like he was doing. Later I saw the huge oaken table he’d been throwing around. At the end of his tantrum (and I still can’t believe I am using that word in connection with Pendergast), it lay legless, its massive, thick-hewn top cleaved into several pieces. I heard that, too, a series of quick rending cracking sounds as he chopped it to pieces with his bare hands and feet.

Sudden silence.

My eyes searched the darkness around me anxiously. I still wasn’t afraid of him, exactly, but I was beginning to get a little nervous.

“I rest my case, doctor.” His weary voice came out of the dark near the window. “We often perceive our own traits in others. I’ve spoken about the possibility of you decompensating, about how you are not yourself. A classic case of the pot calling the kettle black, as it were.”

“Pen...Aloysius...” I tried to think of something to say that would be a balm to him or at least break the tension. Finally I had to settle for the truth. “I don’t know what is eating at you and making you so miserable. I don’t know why you are saying terrible things about yourself. I only know that I want to help somehow...in any way I can...please, let me help you. There must be a way I can help you. I love you so much, Pen.”

And, just that undramatically, the cat jumped out of the proverbial bag.

He coalesced slowly, like a vampire from mist, at the bedside. I expected to feel embarrassed, or at some sort of disadvantage. All I felt was relief that my secret was finally out. Secret? I’m not exactly Old Stoneface here. Surely he had known before I did.

I took his hand slowly, turned it palm up and kissed it, looking into his pale, pale face and those beautiful, lambent eyes. “Please, just let me help you. There must be something I can do.”

He touched my face, smoothed my hair. “You’re already doing it.”

Tears stung my eyes. “You’re not Superman, darling. But you’re very, very special, because you try so hard.” Encouraged by a ghost of a smile, I continued. “And because you often succeed so admirably.”

The smile grew a little. “Well, doctor, I may not be Superman, but I do believe you are Wonder Woman. In addition to your sweet and much appreciated confession, you’ve managed to keep me warm most of the night. In a number of interesting ways.”

Chapter 16    table of contents  

I think that, with my admission of love and my offer to help, he began to trust me a little. At least we were a little more comfortable with one another.

The cabin continued to grow colder as the minutes counted down toward dawn. Even with the exercise he’d just performed, it wasn’t long before he began to shiver again. Once more, we lay close, arms about one another.

For once I had nothing to say. I had said it all, and it had been accepted, if not echoed. Now he was the one who seemed to need to talk. I thought what a strange place this was to be exorcising demons—not a shrink’s office, not a church, but a ramshackle snowed-in cabin in the middle of nowhere.

“I had a chance to kill him about a year ago. I couldn’t do it.” His eyes met mine and flicked away, as though ashamed of what he would say next. “So now I am twice guilty of the crimes he has committed since. Of the brutal murders of my fiancée and my ward in Egypt. And of what he did to you.”

Tears burned my eyes. “Pen—”

“No, Cat, let me talk. Let me get some of it out. If I don’t...” He glanced in the direction of the destroyed table. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Genius and insanity run in the Pendergast family in equal measure. Diogenes always had the former. Perhaps he would never have acquired the latter had I not...”

His eyes took on a haunted cast, and I wondered what could’ve been terrible enough to make such a brave man look that way. I was wondering if he wanted me to ask when he continued. “I have admitted what I did once, to one man, out of the purest necessity, but I fear I shall never again be able to speak of it. And I fear that if I never speak of it, I will never be rid of it—not that I deserve to be rid of it.”

I held my breath, sensing his great need to talk and how horribly difficult it was for him to do so, and so very afraid he would stop. A fine sheen of perspiration shone on his forehead with the effort of his words. I knew suddenly that I would gladly go through everything that had happened again just to reach this point and be able to provide some comfort for this exceptional, and exceptionally sorrowful, man.

“It’s just—I fear I will lose my capacity to function, to do what little good I can to atone for what I and my ancestors have done. It worked for Jean Valjean.” He smiled wanly. “But I feel myself going, Cat. I feel my mind...and what’s left of my heart...disintegrating. I can’t stop it. How does one bear the responsibility for so much suffering?”

I thought it a rhetorical question, but he was looking at me seriously, waiting. “If your heart were in trouble, you wouldn’t be asking the question,” I said carefully. “And you can spare more mind than most of us possess on our best day.”

Chapter 17    table of contents  

I opened my eyes to gray daylight. Pendergast was nowhere to be seen, but finally I was able to get a look at where we’d spent the long, harrowing night. Not much to look at.

It was one large room consisting of an old brick fireplace, the cot, one small window, and one door to the outside. Along the wall by the fireplace was a sheet of wet-looking sticks and leaves. In the corner farthest from me, the remains of a thick wooden tabletop lay scattered in several pieces. The biggest piece canted against the wall, holding another piece against it, and I realized the table had once been part of the cabin itself, a built-in. More of a counter than a table. Apparently when Pendergast had ripped it away from the wall, part of the wall had come with it. He’d propped the board against the hole it had left in the wall to shut out the snow.

I decided to try my legs and regretted it immediately. When I stood up, the room began to swim around me. I hung on to the wall and some of the dizziness passed. The window beckoned. I made my slow way over to it and looked out on a world of soft white. It was still snowing lightly. The view was just too cold to appreciate and I was about to turn away when a splash of color pulled me back and I saw Pendergast approaching through knee-deep snow. He was wearing his black suit and carrying a bucket. His pale skin and hair against the white snow made it seem as though the suit walked empty, a bucket floating along beside it. Whoa.

He opened the door and stepped noiselessly through it, apparently pleased to see me up. “Good morning, Cat.”

“Morning. I’m surprised that suit’s dry.”

“It’s not. Not completely. And not even as completely as it was when I ventured out.” He brushed snow off his shoulders and his legs, which were pretty much caked from the knees down.

“Bummer. What’s in the bucket?”

“Breakfast buffet. Let’s see.” The now familiar half-smile played around his lips and, now that he was closer, I could see that the cold had kissed them pinker. Pale roses bloomed in his cheeks. “We have a choice of scrambled snow or snow over easy with a side order of snow. And to drink...snow.”

“Ummmm, hard choice, but I think I’ll have...”

“Snow,” we said together, and smiled, the long night behind us. It was still horribly cold and still snowing, but at least we could see.

“I didn’t find any water, but snow is very accommodating. Put it in your mouth and it turns into anything you want, as long as it’s water.”

“You’re quite the comedian this morning,” I told him, just happy to see him smiling.

“Just call me Shecky Pendergast.” He reached into his jacket and produced a slender instrument that looked a little like a slimmed-down Swiss army knife. He extracted a spoon from between other accoutrements and handed it to me, along with the bucket. “Le petit déjeuner, Madame.”

I stuck the spoon into the snow and took a mouthful. It was wonderful. I hadn’t realized how dry my mouth was. He was probably right about dehydration. I dug in again.

“I believe the etiquette is explicit for snow-eating in longjohns, doctor. If you please...” He indicated the cot and I sat, reaching for another spoonful, already beginning to shiver. He wrapped the horse blanket around me. “Take it easy, Cat. Not too fast. And whatever you do, don’t get the cot wet.”

“Can we make a fire now?”

“Not a good idea. Diogenes will be watching, and we’re only a few miles from him. The snow has covered the old tracks I followed to get here and that will buy us some time. Also, he will not be eager to come out in this weather. But if he sees smoke, the temptation may be too great, and our location all too obvious.”

My face must’ve betrayed my disappointment. He continued. “Don’t worry. If we made it through last night without a fire, we can surely make it through today. It’s warming up a little. And we can make a fire tonight, if it’s cloudy enough. I’ve laid by some kindling to dry.”

“Okay, sure.” But I couldn’t bring myself to take another mouthful of snow without getting warmed up. I held out the bucket, which had a quarter-sized hole in the bottom. “Take this out before it melts on the floor, okay? It’s damp enough in here. I’ll have some more later. I don’t think we have to worry about wasting it.”

“It does seem to be in abundant supply.” He set the bucket outside the door and approached the cot, stripping off the suit. I could see him shaking. “Doctor, I fear I would only make you colder if I touched you now. You t-take the blanket and I’ll p-p-pursue some solo warming efforts before joining you.”

“Okay.” I curled up in the blanket and watched something I was sure no other creature had ever been privy to. Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast, clad only in black socks and red longjohns, performing jumping jacks.

After maybe a hundred of those, he began doing some poses I recognized as yoga, starting with simple balances and stretches that didn’t look all that hard to do, had he merely struck the pose and moved on. Instead he held each pose an impossible time, the effort bringing his musculature to its full awesome definition. The poses became more and more difficult and convoluted, the effect on his slim body more and more obvious. By the time he finished and slid under the blanket with me, he actually felt as warm as though he’d been running a marathon or basking in a hot tub. When he held out his arms, I snuggled gratefully into them, asking, “Why haven’t you been doing that all along?”

“Up until now the energy sufficed quite nicely, and you are not able to pursue physical paths at this time.”

“I couldn’t pursue what you just did at any time.”

“Of course you could. It just takes practice. I find it more effective and uplifting than other forms of exercise.” He paused. “If you wish, I’ll teach you some of the basic asanas. Then you can decide if you wish to continue.”

“Okay. But you’ll be dealing with someone whose idea of exercise consists of running her mouth, jumping to conclusions, and bending the rules.”

“I like that last one.”

“I thought you would. Seriously, Pen, I would like to try it, and to learn some type of martial art. I don’t ever want to feel helpless again.” My voice broke and there I went again with the tears. It seemed crying would be my new career.

“Shhhh.” He soothed and held and warmed me, and if I hadn’t loved him before, I would’ve been head-over-heels as one of his more difficult asanas now. “I’ll help you get started in both, but first we’ve got to get you nourished. There’s nothing out there. No water. No berries or nuts. I did see rabbit tracks but was too cold by that time to follow them. At some point today, I expect to make his acquaintance.”

“Pen, you can’t go back out there! You’re going to end up with frostbite. People can make it on water for weeks, if need be, and we have plenty of that. Food is not a necessity.”

“Not for me, doctor, but you look as though you’ve already lost at least ten pounds.”

I remembered that I’d been totally naked when I’d awakened here and knew he’d stripped off my wet clothes and examined my body for injuries. At this point, he knew me physically better than I did.

He continued, “I suspect you’ve already been living on very diminished rations for two weeks. You’re getting weak. You need sustenance.”

“Not if it’s going to cost you a limb. I’m not exactly skin and bones. I can lose a lot more without wasting away to nothing.”

“You’re not exactly zaftig either, Cat. You’re a physician. You know that your electrolytes are very likely already out of balance. You are reacting to the remnants of a designer drug that your body is still trying to metabolize.” His eyes darkened. “You have lost some blood; how much we cannot determine. You need to eat.”

“I don’t even know if I could eat. My stomach might rebel.”

“You need something nutritious but easy to digest. I am reminded of Cayce’s recommendation for beef juice for the convalescent.”

“Too bad we’re fresh out of beef juice.”

“Yes,” he said thoughtfully, “but something else may suffice.”

Chapter 18    table of contents  

When we looked outside a little later, it was snowing hard again. Pendergast looked somewhat deflated; no rabbit tracks to follow now, and no self-respecting rabbit would be out in this. Ditto anything else, from the looks of it. Nothing but a curtain of white.

He brought another bucket of snow, and together we finished off most of it. He made polite dinner-table conversation, asking me questions about my background (the answers to most I got the feeling he already knew) and more personal questions about my choices and plans (the answers to which I wasn’t sure he cared about, but if not, he was considerate enough to fake it). We had never spent so much time together and I had never thought about what it would be like. I would find myself wishing for a Trivial Pursuit game to pass the time and then think, why? He’d kick your ass in about two minutes. Perhaps a deck of cards, something that left more to chance than knowledge, would be better. A moot point anyway, since no such distractions were likely to come waltzing out of the forest.

Still, since I was fascinated with everything he did or knew or thought, and he was interested in learning everything there was to know about everything, including medicine, we didn’t lack for something to talk about.

And thus we spent the day, sometimes resting in bed, staying warm; sometimes moving about the cabin, stretching, peering out the window like inmates. It was a short day, the snow and cloud cover making for an early dusk. When it became so dim in the room that it was hard to see the corners, he got up, used his penlight to inspect the chimney, and started arranging kindling in the fireplace.

“All right, a fire!” I joined him, watching.

“Yes, a fire. The weather is keeping us without food but it’s also making it possible to have a fire without the smoke being seen.” He stepped out the door and returned shaking his head. “The wood I collected on the porch is not dry.”

He walked directly to what was left of the table. None of the pieces were small enough to fit into the fireplace. He selected the smallest piece and tested its weight, looking around the room, finally moving back to the fireplace. There were a few loose bricks lying on the hearth and he arranged them into two uniform stacks about two feet apart, resting the piece of table across them and eyeing his work critically.

“Not quite high enough,” he murmured, and wrested a couple more loose bricks from the hearth.

He fell to his knees beside his creation and glanced at me. “Please move back, Cat, as far as you can.”

I did so, not realizing what was coming, and watched him still himself, then lash into a sudden blur of movement. In a microsecond, his hand had slashed down and through the thick board, which fell between the bricks in two pieces. He picked them up and repositioned one across the bricks, glancing at me. “Sorry to be so melodramatic, but sometimes pieces do tend to fly.”

I closed my mouth and nodded. I do not think of myself as an aficionado of the macho or as having anything approaching a groupie mentality, but I had never in my life seen anything remotely as sexy as him kneeling there, nonchalantly doing the impossible, with nothing to say about it except, “‘Sorry to be so melodramatic.’” I wanted my hands on him so bad that I put them behind me and leaned, squishing them between my butt and the wall. Even more, I wanted his strong, board-breaking hands on me.

Again he grew still, lashed out, and broke the board, making it look as easy as snapping a potato chip that was too big to fit into the dip bowl. Soon he had a pile of wood, which he arranged as artfully as he’d arranged the kindling.

“H—” I had to clear my throat and start over. “How will you get the fire started? Friction?”

A smile touched his eyes. “Really, doctor, it isn’t the Middle Ages.” He glided to his suit jacket, reached into one of the many pockets, and produced a gold lighter. “Would you care to do the honors?”

Chapter 19    table of contents  

I cannot begin to describe how wonderful it was to have a fire. I don’t think I realized how cold and stiff I was until I started to really warm up and loosen up.

We took the mattress off the cot and put it in front of the fireplace. Pendergast brought in another bucket of snow and we lay on our stomachs facing the fire, eating snow and basking in the warmth. He’d brought some of the wood he’d collected inside and now he put it closer to the fire, so it could be drying out and we could keep the fire going. Before long the cabin had warmed up nicely and I had to pee for the first time since our little adventure started. I must’ve been dehydrated.

Our clothes were finally dry, but I hated to get dressed just to go pee. How best to go about it? The longjohns had no trap doors, so I pulled them down to my waist and then put on my blouse, jeans, and boots. He insisted I wear his suit jacket, which seemed very heavy, probably from all the pockets and paraphernalia. So much trouble to go to just to pee! I resolved to slow down on eating the snow. I opened the door and Pendergast was right behind me, wearing his suit pants and holding the blanket around his shoulders.

I stopped and closed the door, looking at him. “Wait a minute, where are you going?”

“I’m going with you. You have no business out there alone.”

“But I’m going to pee.”

“Maybe I have to pee, as you so colloquially put it, also. We might as well go together. It is very dark and very cold out there, doctor. I suggest you stay on the porch.”

How romantic.

I opened the door and the wind hit me and I decided the porch was a good idea. I went left. Pendergast went right. The porch was not enclosed but only roofed, and snow had blown in almost everywhere. I squatted and glanced his way. He was not peeing, but keeping an eye on the woods. I glanced into the darkness and put it in high gear, relieved to finish and hurry back inside.

We both stripped back down to the longjohns, hanging our clothes back on wall nails to dry again. Wet snow had been blowing onto the porch and, let’s face it, the longjohns were just way more comfortable.

Pendergast put more wood on the fire and settled back in front of it. I started to sit down beside him and a dizzy spell hit me. If he hadn’t caught me, I would’ve fallen on my ass. He guided me to the floor and looked at me closely. “You need nourishment, Cat, but I’m afraid it will be hard to come by until morning, and maybe not then if this snow keeps up. Unfortunately, I believe it’s dangerous for you to wait that long.”

“Looks like I have no choice. I’ll be okay.”

“You do have a choice, but before I tell you what it is, I want you to consider this. The time may come soon for us to leave here. We need to do so as soon as possible. We may have to do so under attack. If you are too weak to walk, I’ll have to carry you, and we have no idea how far it is to civilization.”

I nodded, not knowing what to say. I felt bad enough that he’d had to carry me so far already.

“There’s a chance,” he went on, “that morning may find the snow gone, the sun out, and plenty of food to be had. But that is far from certain. Even if we do eat tomorrow, it would behoove you to get something in your stomach tonight and start rebuilding your strength as soon as possible.”

“Okay,” I said. “But I warn you, if you’re thinking of digging up worms or something, I know there’s no way I can get ’em down.”

“No, no worms. A far more natural and nutritious medium, something you have every day already if you eat animal products. A medium that the people of some cultures imbibe on a daily basis and credit for their well-being.”

I looked at him blankly.

“Blood, Cat. I’m talking about blood.”

Chapter 20    table of contents  

“Blood?” I waited for him to laugh and say I’d heard wrong. He nodded instead. “Where is this blood going to come from?”

“From me. I can assure you that I am healthy. There is nothing for you to worry about.”

“Oh.” Now we were getting into weird territory. “How do you propose to...give me this blood?”

“Since we have no containers, it will have to come straight from the source.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute. You’re proposing that I bite you and suck your blood like a vampire?”

“I don’t believe biting will be necessary.” He held up the slim utensil we’d been using for the snow and switched the spoon for a short, wickedly sharp-looking little blade. “Unless it’s just your thing.”

I could see the logic in what he said. I just couldn’t believe he’d had the gall to say it. I shook my head slowly at the wonder of it all. What a Twilight Zone conversation. “Pen, I just don’t think I could do that.”

“Couldn’t do it physically, or emotionally?”

“Either one. Especially considering...what has been done to me.”

“I don’t think you have a choice, unless you want to endanger our chances of getting home. I realize it will be hard for you, but I believe we can make it easier.” He turned toward me and took my hands in his. “It will be nothing like what was done to you, because it’s my choice. It’s what I want. Do you trust me, Cat?”

“Of course.” I felt his dual nature in his hands, at once soft and strong, gentle and lethal.

“Look at me, Cat.” His pale hair, falling over his high forehead, softened his face, and firelight played upon the planes of his cheeks and in the depths of his silvery eyes. “Do you trust me?”

This time, rather than answering automatically, I thought about it. About him. He was a man to whom nothing was unimportant, left to chance, or taken for granted. His was a designed, intentional life, led with a level of intensity and responsibility that most people never attained, or tried to, and built at once upon total autonomy and selflessness. I knew there was pain in his past, more than enough to have justified, for some, the surrender to whatever depths they wished to sink. To maintain such commitment in the shadow of such pain required unimaginable integrity.

People reacted to Pendergast on a visceral level. If they hurt other people, they knew instinctively that he would do whatever it took to stop them. If they were in danger, they knew he would sacrifice himself, if need be, to save them. Like I knew that now. The man had already given me the jacket from his back and was now offering the blood from his veins.

Once again, I turned his palm up and kissed it, watching the contact darken his eyes. “I trust you, Aloysius.”

“Do you love me?”

The question surprised me. I would’ve expected him to avoid that subject. “Yes, I told you.”

“But you were not yourself when you told me.” His eyes searched mine. “Before all this happened, before two weeks ago...did you love me then?”

“Yes.”

“And sitting here at this moment...do you love me?”

“There is no doubt.”

“And do you want me?”

I thought that sometimes integrity could really slow things down. I looked into his eyes. “More than oxygen.”

He smiled. “Cat, Cat...you do have a way with words. Come here.”

He eased me back onto the mattress and lay beside me, holding me as he had so many times since I’d awakened in this cabin. But this time the air was thick with a different intention, and it became slightly hard to breathe. Long fingers stroked my hair, wisping it back behind my ear; then soft lips touched my lobe and moved lower, to my neck, kissing it softly again and again, from ear to shoulder, leaving electric tingles in their wake that grew stronger and radiated downward. I gasped, and his lips moved to my mouth, gentle this time, and unhurried; soft pressure, then quick, light, delightful licks that parted my lips and lit a fire in them that quickly engulfed my body.

He pulled back and looked down at me, the familiar half-smile playing about his lips. “Are you doing all right, Cat?”

“Are you kidding, Pen?” I was so breathless I could barely get it out.

“Just making sure. If you want me to stop at any time, just say so.”

The silence was deafening.

His hand moved to the ring of my zipper. This time when it started down, it didn’t stop until it reached the end of the zipper and my garment was parted down to my waist, both inner breasts bared. He bent his shining head and kissed the skin between them, nuzzled each in turn.

My body had now developed a mind of its own, and I inadvertently turned just enough to bring my left breast to his lips, pressing it against his face through the knit. He kissed the center and I cried out, part of me aghast to be so out of control so early, part of me overjoyed by it. He used both hands to finish parting the garment, exposing both breasts completely, kissing each in turn before settling his lips on one and his fingers on the other. My hips began moving in small, rhythmic, undulations and I moaned, on the verge of orgasm.

He stopped immediately, returning to my lips, kissing me senseless again before murmuring, “Will you make love to me now, Cat? Return what I have given?”

I couldn’t speak, so in answer I raised my head, kissing him, pressing against him as I sat up. He lay back and looked up at me with those incredibly intense eyes, now mostly dark pupil ringed by slate blue. I leaned forward and kissed each delicate lid, then his brow, his cheeks, his hairline; kissed everywhere but his lips, enjoying the anticipation of their sweetness. Finally I gave them their due, licking lightly while my fingers traced the pulses in his neck. Lips followed fingers downward and I covered the succulent skin with kisses.

“Yes, Cat...kiss me there...harder...” I lingered on the side of his neck, wanting nothing more out of life than to please him. “Harder Cat...harder...there...”

I sucked at his pale, sweet skin, sweeter suddenly as a warm coppery taste bloomed in my mouth. I started to raise my head and he laid cool fingers against my cheek. “Please, Cat...don’t stop...” His hands went to my breasts, kneading delicately, tracing my nipples, and I moaned and sucked harder again, his touch spurring me to keep going.

“Now here...” He pulled down his own zipper and directed me to his chest and I licked his nipples, sucked them, until a fine film of perspiration coated his skin. I moved over him and lowered myself against him, and felt him like a long, hot stone through the soft knit material he wore. I whimpered and reached for him but he caught my wrist in his long fingers. “Not yet, dearest. Not yet. Kiss me here again...” and I kissed his chest between his nipples. “Harder...harder, Cat...” I sucked at his skin, again tasting the bloom of warm copper.

“This is what I want, Cat.” His hand moved suddenly beside my face and I opened my eyes and saw blood running freely from a cut just above the nipple of his left breast. My eyes widened in shock and met his and he repeated, “It’s what I want, Cat...kiss me there.” I hesitated and felt his hand moving between my legs, stroking. His gaze held mine. “Give me what I want, Cat. Please, kiss me...there.” With his other hand, he directed me to the cut on his breast.

I kissed it, licked it, accustomed now to the warm coppery taste of his blood. As he urged me on with his body and words and hands, I drank from him.

Chapter 21    table of contents  

I have never liked the taste of blood. But like everything else about Aloysius, his blood was different. Special. At first taste, it was a warm, metallic glint in my mouth, but as it flowed across my tongue to the back of my throat, it seemed to grow sweeter, headier. I believe I may have taken in about 30 cc, about an ounce. Surely no more than that. But it seemed to rejuvenate me somehow, making me hunger for more of him, as his selfless giving made me hunger to give to him.

As his blood finally clotted and stopped flowing, I licked the area clean and looked to him, as a child looks to a parent, for approval and instruction. His eyes were closed, but opened when he sensed my gaze. He smiled and I kissed him, knowing he was tasting his blood in my mouth. He did not seem to mind.

I tugged at his garment, pulling it off his shoulders and down his back, running my fingertips over the exquisite muscle tone of his chest. I kissed his flat belly, enjoying the contrast of soft skin and the hard musculature just beneath, hearing his breathing deepen and quicken as I moved lower. He whispered my name, whether to encourage me or to stop me I didn’t know or care. I began touching him through the cloth in case it was the latter. I didn’t want to stop. I wanted more of him and I wanted to please him. Raining kisses down as far as I could, I gave another tug on the red knit, hoping he would raise his hips and allow me to slide it off. He didn’t.

I reached for him again and he caught my hand. There was need in his eyes, but also something else...unease. Control was so important to him. I suddenly realized that he had given me momentary dominance only to better manipulate me into taking the blood, and, though a little disappointed that my freedom was over, I loved him for yet another sacrifice.

I forced myself to sit back on my heels. I turned his hand in mine, kissed the palm, and looked into his eyes. “As you wish. I love you, darling.” I waited. If control meant that much to him, I would respect his wishes, but I prayed he would not reject me.

He rose and embraced me, raining kisses on my lips and neck, easing me down onto my back. He was trembling with need, as I was. Once again he kissed and licked my lips, my neck, my breasts, until I pleaded for release. Only then did he ease my own garment down and off, kissing my belly. He parted my legs and kissed my inner thighs. Then I felt his tongue at my center. Half a second from orgasm, I touched his soft, shining hair. “No, please, darling...I want you inside me...inside me when I come. Please...”

He raised his head, feral eyes shining, and I was reminded of a jungle cat, perhaps surprised at feed. Color bloomed in his cheeks. His lips, usually so pale, appeared almost rose pink. Holding my gaze, he moved up on me until our bodies met at the hips, and I felt him against my thigh, heavy and hard. I reached for him but he stopped me. “Wait, Cat...just a minute.” Smiling slightly. “I need a break.” His eyes and heat and the tremor in his muscles belied his calm demeanor, and I thrilled at his excitement, perhaps more than at my own, a little goofy with happiness.

“Why, darling?” I pretended innocence. “Why do you need a break?”

White teeth flashed in a momentary grin. “Because I don’t want this to be over yet, and I’m about to erupt like an overheated volcano.”

I had never before felt the need to burst with passion and laugh at the same time, but his admission and the ease with which he made it delighted me. Something in his eyes told me that he appreciated my loving joy on his behalf, and he murmured, “My middle name is Vesuvius.”

“Aloysius Vesuvius Pendergast,” I giggled, and then he was laughing, too, laughing and kissing my neck, and then he stopped laughing and was inside me, in one smooth motion, and the size of him hurt a little, but it was a good hurt, so good, and I clung to him as he began to move within me, looking up into eyes that both darkened and gleamed, and he pushed harder, and harder, watching me, gauging me. He brought both my hands to the floor behind my head, holding them fast in one of his, and the sight of me helpless beneath him quickened his desire and his movements. All playfulness was gone now. His strange eyes bored into mine, glittering.

He bent his head to my breast suddenly, sucking hard, teeth scraping, and I cried out in ecstasy. His mouth left my breast and I felt his lips on my neck and I wanted more suddenly, wanted his teeth there, and again he seemed to read my mind, biting me not quite hard enough to draw blood. The rest of the world ceased to exist. My universe was reduced to this man, his strong arms, the taste of his mouth, the faint animal musk of his sweat, the steel of him inside me. I became total sensation, arching against him, keening like a small animal, and, as I spasmed around him and felt him coming, too, I saw his lips pull back from his teeth and heard the low growl that marked his own release.

Chapter 22    table of contents  

I awoke some time later to the feel of his lips on the back of my neck. I lay facing the fire, which he’d apparently fed recently, watching it spit sparks that flared in brief, arcing trajectories, then winked out; a microcosm of shooting stars. I wanted to speak, to let him know I was awake, but all that came out was, “Ummmmm....”

“Cat.” A soft whisper.

I answered in kind. “Yes, darling.”

“You’re very special. Very kind.”

“Thank you, Aloysius.”

“Do not thank me for your own attributes. I had nothing to do with cultivating them. You did that yourself.”

“You have cultivated many of your own. You, too, are kind, and very generous.”

His hand stroked me from shoulder to hip. His lips returned to the back of my neck, softly. His breath created pleasant little chills that peaked my nipples.

“I want you again, Cat.”

Those five little words did more for me than hours of foreplay ever had with anyone else. I turned over to find him sitting cross-legged. He smiled and patted his thighs. “Come sit on my lap.”

I straddled him, wrapping my legs around his slim waist, drinking in his sleepy eyes and more relaxed smile. He looked younger, less burdened somehow, and I was so glad. I realized suddenly that, just being around him nearly every day, I’d grown accustomed to a certain aura of competence and self-confidence, even danger, that permeated his space, but now I realized that to be in his presence was also to be touched, however slightly, by a vapor of hurt sadness. Some of that sadness seemed to have dissipated, at least for a while, and my relief for him was evidence of my love. I kissed him lightly and laid my head against his chest, comforted by his strong, steady heartbeat.

He stroked my hair. “Are you up for something new?”

I raised my head and met his eyes. “Anything you want.”

His smile brightened slightly in acknowledgement. “Some believe that, in physical union, humans approach the knowledge of oneness with all things more so than at any other time, Cat. They believe that the greatest source of energy in the universe is sexual, and that sex is sacred; that one can merge ecstatically with one’s partner and, through him or her, attain spiritual growth and...healing.”

I didn’t miss the hesitation, the way he seemed almost fearful of even saying the word. “Sounds interesting. Have you experienced it that way?”

“No. I had not found anyone with whom I wished to embark upon such an experiment, until now.”

I could only kiss him, my sudden tears telling him everything I couldn’t.

“My knowledge is purely theoretical and, I admit, incomplete, but it will get us started. Perhaps we can fill in the gaps. We have all night.”

“Aloysius...” I wanted to convey feelings that mere words could never express, but they were a start. I decided to try. “You are the most...excellent man, the most excellent person, I could ever imagine knowing. The most deserving. You say there are things about you that I don’t know, and I’m sure that’s true. None of us makes it through life without hurting someone, no matter how hard we try not to. But I have personally seen you do things that should’ve made up for anything else you might have done, and no matter what you say, darling, I cannot believe that you have ever hurt an innocent person intentionally. Yet there’s so much pain in you...”

I took his hands and kissed them, waiting until I could speak again. When I thought I could, I looked into his eyes, using the love in my own to punctuate my words. “I would do anything to rid you of that pain, Aloysius. I would do anything.” My voice broke and I felt more tears slide down my cheeks. Oh, how sexy, especially the snotty nose that would soon follow if I didn’t dry up.

His own eyes brightened suddenly and he clasped me to him, resting (hiding?) his face in my neck. When he spoke, his voice was husky. “Cat, you are a healer, in every sense of the word. I have had much to master and many reasons for not pursuing companionship. Actually, I have maintained celibacy for...for a long time.” He leaned back, his eyes searching mine. “But I believe you may be strong enough...”

A few deep breaths. “Let us begin.”

Chapter 23    table of contents  

“Relax, dearest...just relax and breathe. In Tantric yoga, the eyes are the primary organ of lovemaking. You nourish your soul with the light in your lover’s eyes. Look into my eyes, and breathe.”

Sitting so close, lost immediately in his silver gaze, I found myself unconsciously matching his rhythm, harmonizing my breaths to his slow, deep ones. After a few minutes, I began to feel light-headed and a little surreal. I had never experienced such intimacy. It was as though we shared one body.

“Our energies are aligned, Cat.” His voice, so soft and mellifluous, seemed to caress my body. “Now we alternate breaths, beginning to share energy ...” I continued to breathe as before, but he now skipped an inhalation, starting his cycle as I exhaled. The effect was like pulling warm taffy back and forth between us. I began to feel both energized and more relaxed than I’d ever been, as though I floated free within my body.

He began trailing light kisses across my brow, then my face and neck and shoulders, his long, sensitive fingers sometimes preceding and sometimes following his lips, his touch feather light. I began to breath harder. He murmured, “Resist the urge to breathe quickly. All you need do is stay relaxed, and tell me what you need. Tell me what you want, Cat.”

I tried to control my breathing, to match it again to his. “I want...your mouth on my breasts. And I want to touch you.”

He leaned me back and gave me what I asked for, strong hands supporting my back while his lips touched me everywhere from neck to belly; fleeting kisses, butterfly wings just brushing my increasingly sensitive skin. I concentrated on trying to maintain deep, even breaths. I didn’t know exactly where this was going, but I hoped it would be a long trip. I had never experienced anything even remotely like it.

He kissed his way back to my lips and pulled back slightly. “Look at me, Cat. Into my eyes.”

I realized I had let my eyes slip closed in ecstasy. The impact of meeting his gaze again was as great as if he had thrust suddenly into me, and I felt it in all the right places, throbbing deliciously. I fought to control my breath, watching him do the same. Finally we breathed in sync again, smiling.

“Aloysius...this is so wonderful.”

“Even more so than I expected, Cat. If you still want to touch me, please...” He waited.

I began as he had begun with me, kissing his face and neck and shoulders, lingering nowhere, caressing his back, keeping my touch as light as my kisses. I caressed his stomach and abdomen, then reached down between us and, holding his gaze, closed my hand on him, watching him struggle to maintain long, slow breaths. His hand moved to my sex, long fingers opening and stroking, and as one, we leaned forward and kissed. Never had I felt so exquisitely sensitive to every touch, every texture and breath. My nipples touched his chest and he crushed me to him, then, with a moan, made himself let go and breathe. We rested for a moment, leaning on one another, not moving.

“Let’s go to the next level,” he whispered.

“Oh, God,” I said. “What’s the next level?”

“This,” he said, and, silver gaze once more holding mine, entered me slightly.

I gasped, my pelvis automatically thrusting forward.

“No, Cat.” He spoke through gritted teeth. I felt him tense. He closed his eyes for a moment, trembling, then opened them and smiled. “It must be gradual. I should’ve prepared you, but I really wasn’t sure I’d make it this far.”

“What do I do?” I tried to be still, tried to breathe slowly. What sweet torture this was.

“Actually, you may have all the orgasms you want.”

“Oh, that’s good to know,” I whispered, eyes trying to close, the throb in my center increasing exponentially with every second he remained inside me.

“It is I who must learn to control orgasm, to prolong this moment as long as possible. But I’m afraid that, as a novice, that will be impossible if you...”

I moved slightly, letting him slip out. “Damn.”

He made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “I see you are committed to my education.”

“Only because you are, and because you think it will be beneficial.”

“I do. But I do not wish to torture you, dearest.”

He bent me backward, kissing my breasts, and I was so near the edge that, though he had stopped stroking me, I crested suddenly, overwhelmingly, in a different way than ever before. It was as though my entire body climaxed, the sensation quaking through me from loins to finger and toe tips, and it went on and on. Instead of reaching a certain intensity and slacking off, it gained in strength, building unbearably as he sucked my nipples. I heard myself cry out, then again, and he finally took his mouth from my breasts, probably saving my life, and just held me close. We rested against one another.

I wondered what would happen next. He answered my unspoken question. “Theoretically, the male should, with practice, become able to have multiple “dry” orgasms by tensing the pubococcygeal muscles at the right time. In this way, he avoids ejaculation, and sex can continue indefinitely, allowing for much more energy transference, expanded consciousness, and far more intimacy and trust.”

One word stood out more than the others, and I breathed it against his neck. “Indefinitely...”

“Yes.” After a few minutes, he murmured, “Let’s try that again.”

Again he entered me, thrusting slowly, his eyes on mine, his hands on my breasts, my thighs. “Kiss me,” he instructed in a shaky whisper, and I did, slipping my tongue into his mouth to lick at his lips and tongue and teeth. I caressed his thighs, his nipples, until he tensed suddenly, pulling back to gasp a deep breath and hold it. His glittering eyes slipped closed. His lips parted, and his head fell back as his hands grasped mine hard enough to hurt. After a moment, he opened his eyes and smiled. With his tussled hair and shining eyes, he looked a little like a small boy on Christmas morning. “How about that, Cat? It works.”

We made love all night and, at the end, he made another small cut, this one over his right breast, and I drank from him again, continuing to kiss and lick him after the blood was gone. This time he did not stop my searching hands and lips. He didn’t stop me when I moved over him and sank down onto him. He let me make love to him, and this time he came into me, and this time he whispered, “Oh, Cat, I do love you.”

It was the happiest, most fulfilling time of my life. It would not last long.

***


The next morning we dressed to go pee. The snow seemed to be winding down at last, but it was deep, an inch or two past my knees. We ventured off the porch, ate a little snow, threw a few snowballs at one another, and rushed back inside to enjoy the fading heat from our last fire, which he’d extinguished shortly before dawn. We were standing by the fireplace, lost in a kiss, when a dry voice spoke from the doorway.

“Ave, frater.”

Chapter 24    table of contents  

We spun to face the voice as one, but Aloysius had stepped forward and pushed me behind him before I even realized who it was. Then I saw the blazing, mismatched eyes, the mocking smirk, and I knew. Diogenes.

He stepped into the cabin, closing the door behind him, pointing a handgun at us. His eyes moved back and forth between us, then settled on his brother. “I see you, too, are susceptible to the good doctor’s charms, brother. Aren’t you glad I saved some for you?”

Then, to me, “And allow me to congratulate you, doctor. My brother’s libido has been, shall we say, somewhat diminished since the unfortunate loss of his wife. And that was so long ago! He must’ve been positively bursting with...exuberance. And his usual righteousness, of course. Why, it must’ve been like copulating with Jesus himself! Tell me, doctor, did you speak in tongues? Display stigmata? Or at least light up and pay off in silver dollars?”

Feeling those wildly intelligent, mad eyes on me unhinged my knees, and I had to lean on Aloysius to keep upright. I was paralyzed with terror. Things Diogenes had done to me flashed across my consciousness in strange, whirling vignettes, complete with total sensory input. I smelled and tasted him, felt his weight on me, his teeth breaking my skin. Felt him inside me.

“Diogenes.” Aloysius’s voice was low and strained. “Let her go. You’ve done your worst to her. I’m the one you want to hurt, not her.”

“My worst? My dear Aloysius, you have no idea what constitutes my worst, but I can assure you, I haven’t done it yet. Certainly not to Cat.” His eyes sparked with sudden cruelty. “I must admit I came close with Constance...and perhaps closer with Viola... but I’m still perfecting my art. I’m sure I haven’t reached my full potential yet. Though I’ve certainly come a long way from the clumsy mess I made of Helen.”

Aloysius jerked minutely. His head lowered slowly. He raised his eyes to his brother’s. The effect was that of some deadly breed of attack dog getting set to leap. “You.” It was a strangled whisper. “I suspected but...”

“Of course it was me,” Diogenes said softly, almost kindly. “It’s always been me. Ever since that day in the basement, it’s always been me.”

Aloysius’s shoulders slumped. “Diogenes...I only recently realized...remembered...what happened.”

Diogenes shook his head slowly, incredulous. “Surely you don’t expect me to believe that.”

“It’s true. I had blocked it out. Because I didn’t mean for it to happen, Diogenes. I didn’t mean for it to happen, and the guilt and shame were so great, I couldn’t bear it. I never meant for you to be harmed...and I never apologized because I didn’t remember what happened.”

“And now you do.”

“Yes. I sought expert assistance, in order to stop you. He convinced me that I was repressing something and, with his help, I was able to...remember.”

“Tell me what you remember.” His eyes gleamed.

“Forcing you into the...forcing you in. Then the sounds...the slamming door...your screams...”

“My screams?”

“Yes, your horrible screams, and then the shot...” Whatever he was reliving was so horrible that Aloysius could hardly bear it. It was evident in his hesitant voice, his half-closed eyes, his stooped posture. He looked like a man who’d been kicked in the gut. “I’m sorry, Diogenes. Despite everything else...everything you’ve done...I’m so very sorry. Please believe me.”

“I believe you, brother. I’ve always suspected that you didn’t remember all of what happened that day. And I certainly don’t blame you for what happened. If you’d known the danger, you would’ve let me go in alone.”

“What...what do you mean?”

“I mean that you don’t remember as much as you think you do. You remember my screams, the slamming door. But you don’t remember which side of the door you were on. You were in the pit with me.”

***


I had no idea what they were talking about. I still don’t know any more than what I’ve related above. But whatever happened must’ve been horrendous in the extreme. Just speaking about it, Aloysius was aging before my eyes. Diogenes, on the other hand, seemed to be thriving on the conversation. It was clear that he had dropped a bomb on his brother, and had enjoyed it.

I could only stand there, waiting for the inevitable end of conversation and the beginning of carnage.

***


“I...was...” Aloysius’s voice died into a whisper.

“Of course. You don’t really believe you would’ve let me do something you didn’t. Of course you went in, also.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Diogenes shrugged. “Suit yourself. It’s the truth.”

“It cannot be. I’m not...”

“Insane?” Diogenes laughed. “That’s debatable.”

“Out of control. Not like you, Diogenes, and you know what I mean. If what you say is true, why am I not like you?”

Diogenes took a step closer. “Perhaps because of all your training...you had already started training your mind in the mundane, robotic bliss of meditation and whatever else that old shaman taught you. Perhaps because, when we both reached for the gun, I grabbed it first. Perhaps because you didn’t relive that horror every time you closed your eyes. How I’ve hated you for that, for just being able to sleep...I used to watch you sleep. Did you know that?”

“No.”

“As I grew older, I really didn’t mind it so much, the way my mind constantly returned to those images...I grew fond of them, actually. I slept like a baby, comforted by dreams of destruction. But hatred gets in the blood. Hatred is habit-forming. Hatred is actually very enjoyable. It gives one a reason to get up in the morning.

“So all these years...you’ve hated me because I didn’t remember.”

“Because you didn’t remember, and because you think me so far beneath you. At least I live authentically. I don’t pretend to conform to some high moral standard. I hate because it’s what I do. I kill because it’s what I am. Because I like it. As do you, brother.”

“No, I...”

“Of course you do. You just can’t bear to face it, so you murder under the guise of a respectable FBI agent, ridding the world of scum, as you once murdered under the guise of a dutiful soldier.”

“I am not like you, Diogenes.”

“But you aren’t as you were before it happened. You aren’t exactly pristine.”

“I know that.”

“No, frater, I don’t believe you do. But before this day is over, you will.”

Chapter 25    table of contents  

I lay on cold stone, so exhausted that it felt like a feather bed. The windowless room was large, the walls mortared rock. There were old red stains on the floor, and on the makeshift bed. I was dressed in my jeans and shirt, but my hands and feet were tied spread-eagled to the stone with what felt like leather straps. I was alone.

Diogenes had controlled us by making it clear that, if Aloysius gave him trouble, he would shoot me, and vice versa. Then he had marched us back to the place where I’d been held captive, through about four miles of deep snow. I had simply fallen down after maybe two miles, unable to get up again, and Aloysius had picked me up and carried me the rest of the way, murmuring at one point, “Try not to worry, dearest. He won’t hurt you as he did before. He has something far more bizarre in mind, probably some complicated plot that will take some time to execute. We have some time.”

When we’d finally arrived, Diogenes had forced me to tie Aloysius to a chair in another room. Then he’d affixed me to my stone bed, taking time for only a few teasing kisses and threats that I was too tired and heartsick to respond to. When I failed to display the fear response that he craved, he had left me alone. Despite my terror, I’d been so tired that I had finally dozed off. I had no way of knowing how long I slept, but judging from the soreness of my body upon awakening, it must have been several hours.

Now I started to the sound of a key turning in a rusty lock. The door swung open and Diogenes entered, pushing Aloysius, still dressed in his black suit, in a wheelchair. An IV bag hung on an attached pole, dripping clear liquid into an arm vein. Some sort of portable machine hung on the back of the chair. Plastic tubing coiled from the machine to Aloysius’s mouth. He sat still as death, silver eyes wide open, only his chest rising and falling in time with the sighing of the machine. A ventilator?

I tried to scream at Diogenes but all that came out was a raspy whisper. “What have you done to him?”

“I only showed him a movie, doctor. The images we were talking about at the cabin. I realize you’re woefully uninformed of the particulars, but trust me, it’s really an unforgettable film. Or it should be, the second time around.” He was busy untying

Aloysius’s arms and legs where they were strapped to the chair, taking out the IV. He looked insufferably pleased with himself. “He’s wide awake. Of course, he wouldn’t have watched if not for the succinylcholine. Makes it quite impossible to even blink, much less close the eyes. Unfortunately, it also paralyzes the muscles necessary for respiration, hence the ventilator.”

He checked his watch, then took hold of the plastic tubing. “Time to come off the machine, brother. Sorry I don’t have time for a proper weaning, as I believe it’s called. Succinylcholine is metabolized very quickly.”

He gave the tubing a yank. It jerked out of Aloysius’s open mouth. The last forced breath came back behind it as a strangled cough. Tears welled in his eyes and spilled down his cheeks. His face began to darken, turning first a dusky red, then beginning to border on blue.

Diogenes smiled. “Quite the chameleon, isn’t he?”

I pulled furiously at my bonds. They didn’t give an inch. “You’re killing him, you bastard!”

“Nonsense. He’s tougher than he looks.” He studied his brother’s wide eyes and steadily darkening face. “Much tougher. All these years, doctor, I have been striking at him through others. Hurting those he cared about, leaving him alive to suffer more. But that was all wasted energy. He was never happy, but he was able to function. Not nearly as miserable as I wanted him to be. Then I realized! I believe there’s only one thing that really frightens him. Only one thing he really couldn’t bear to lose. His mind.”

Diogenes laid something on Aloysius’s lap and winked at me. “And that’s where my little film comes in. I can personally attest to its effectiveness, and I know from recent...clinical trials...what the images combined with a little chemical potentiation can do.”

He strode to the door and turned for one last look at his brother. “In a moment, the last dose of succinylcholine will wear off, doctor. He will be able to move and mad as a hatter. Just for sport, I added some extra sexual footage. I believe you’re in for an interesting afternoon. I’d love to stay and watch, but voyeurism was never my thing. Like watching someone else eat ice cream, it’s just too frustrating. I will, however, check back in on you tonight, though I don’t imagine you’ll be here then.”

He laughed, exited, and closed the door behind him. I heard the key turn and looked back at Aloysius.

He blinked. Took a gasping breath, coughed it out. Another. The duskiness disappeared, and his normal pale color began returning to his cheeks. But no light of recognition, or cognizance, returned to his eyes. They remained wide, luminously feral, and blank, staring straight ahead.

“Aloysius?”

Slowly, his eyes moved around the room, finally finding me where I lay, tied to the stone table. He started to rise, then looked down and took something from his lap. When he stood up I saw what it was. He held a dagger in his right hand. He stared at it as though mesmerized, and I wondered how many scenes in Diogenes’ film had featured a similar weapon.

He turned his blank gaze on me again. Took a step forward. Another. The hungry look in his eyes, the cruel smile beginning to curve his lips, were not characteristic of Aloysius. His expression was more reminiscent of his brother’s. Finally, after all his warnings and all my denials, I was afraid of him.

I struggled, feeling the cords cutting into my skin, feeling the first trickles of blood running down my forearms. His eyes locked onto the blood and he loomed over me, raising the knife.

Chapter 26    table of contents  

There was still no recognition at all in his eyes. He could’ve been any man, anywhere, evaluating a juicy steak, deciding where to carve off his first bite. I could not believe this was the sweet, selfless man I’d come to love.

“Aloysius?”

His eyes snapped to my face, his gaze cold and penetrating. Then it wandered down my neck to my breasts, my belly, and lower, settling for a long beat on my pelvis. The knife flashed in his hand and a button flew from my blouse, then another. I bit back a scream, afraid to move, as my blouse opened down the front. Another quick slash and my bra came apart, baring my breasts to him. He licked his lips and bent over me and I tried to cringe away, but he buried a hand in my hair and held me fast, his strange smile and burning eyes inches away. I closed my eyes, unable to bear the look on his face, and felt his breath on my face, my lips, my neck. He seemed to be inhaling my scent like an animal. Suddenly he touched his lips to my neck, slid them down to the neckline of my blouse, back up to my ear. “Oh, baby,” he murmured, in a husky, breathless voice not his own that made my skin crawl. “You’re gonna taste so good. So good...”

I closed my eyes, terrified, but they flew open again at the feel of the knife sawing through fabric at my shoulder. He was cutting my bra strap and sleeve. He repeated the action on the other side, took hold of my blouse and bra, and, with one strong yank, bared me to the waist. He threw the clothing into a corner and grabbed the waistband of my jeans with one hand, using the knife on it with the other. I felt the point of the knife against my skin, then felt it penetrate slightly, a thin burning line being drawn down my thigh, as though with a laser. He cut the material all the way down the leg, then the other side, yanked the jeans out from under me, and threw them.

“Warm,” he said, out of the blue. He stood stock still for a moment, then, apparently responding to a voice only he could hear, repeated, “Yes, very warm.” He giggled. “Warm, storm, form, decorum.”

He wandered away toward the door and I held my breath, hoping he’d manage to leave the room. He tried the door and found it locked. “Prick,” he muttered, and slammed his palm into it so hard that the echo in the large, bare room sounded like a thunderclap. “Well, iambic pentameter versus the periodic chart of the elements, of course. Where did you go to school?”

He turned back toward me, studying me seriously, and for a moment I thought he was himself again. That impression vanished with his next words: “Yeah, Mulder was all about finding his sister and the truth and all that jazz. Personally, I think he just wanted to fuck Scully’s brains out.”

My mouth fell open and he glided toward me like a black snake. “Hold that thought, woman!”

My lips snapped shut and I tried my best to levitate off the table. He reached me and bent over slowly, his face again inches from mine. “You’re so pretty,” he breathed. The pitch of his voice was now higher, like that of a child. “So pretty and...soft. I like you.”

“I—I like you, too.” I could barely get the words out, but forced myself. Perhaps I could reach him somehow, or at least keep his attention away from the dagger, still clutched in his hand.

“Really?” He grinned like a small boy, then his face fell. “Most people don’t.”

“I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t.”

“Because I’m so baaaaaaaad.” He drew the word out in a way that made the small hairs on the back of my neck stand up, sending chills down my back. “I do bad things.”

“That’s hard to believe. You seem so nice.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I’m not nice.” Tears welled in his eyes. “I killed my brother.”

For a moment I could only stare at him. Then curiosity prompted me to say, “Who told you that?”

“My mother. Father, too.” The tears overflowed and ran freely down his cheeks and he fisted them away, the dagger still clutched in his hand. “They say I killed Diogenes, and they punish me all the time.”

“What...what do they do to you?”

“They make me alone.”

“You mean they leave you alone?”

“Yes. They make me stay in my room alone, after school. No supper, no TV, no radio, no books. Nobody to play with.” His innocent, sad eyes met mine. “They tell me to think about what I did, and I do. I think about it and I pretend it never happened. Maybe someday I’ll pretend hard enough and it’ll be true.”

I felt tears sting my own eyes. “Maybe so.”

“Diogenes was always mother’s favorite,” he said sadly. “He gets to sleep with her when father’s not here.”

“He does?”

“Yes, and one night? I snuck out of my room and hid and watched them. She gave him treats. She—she kissed him.” More tears.

“Oh, Aloysius, I’m so sorry.”

“He kissed her, too. He did this to her.” He leaned over and put his mouth to my breast.

“Oh, my God.” So Diogenes had been sexually abused, too. I wondered if Aloysius had been in that particular pit, also, and had succeeded in blocking it out.

He raised his head. “Do you want to see my room?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, c’mon.” He headed for the door.

Maybe if I could get free, we could get out of this room. If we could beat the lock. If he stayed in his current persona. If the dagger didn’t remind him...

“Aloysius...I can’t get up. My arms and feet are tied.”

“Oh, okay.” He took it in stride in a way that made me wonder just what all he had seen as a child. “I wish you could see my room, though. I have a secret friend in there. His name is Incitatus. I’m teaching him tricks. Maybe you could live in there and be my other secret friend.”

“If I can get loose, I can see your room. Maybe you can untie me.” I was afraid to suggest the knife, afraid for him to notice what it was. So far he’d been holding it like it was a pencil or a breadstick or any other innocuous object, even when he’d rubbed his eyes. But if he realized what he held, he might remember why he held it.

“I’ll try.” He laid the knife aside and began working at the knots. It took a while, but he finally succeeded in getting both my hands free. We worked together on my feet. Soon they were also free, and I slid off the stone table.

“All right!” A flicker of joy in his sad eyes. “Let’s go.” He took my hand like any small boy and led me to the door, tried it. “It’s locked.”

“Let me try.” I thought how ironic it was that I was standing here with a man to whom a lock was usually a mere suggestion, and it would be up to me to get us out of here.

I tried the knob and found it solid. No wiggle at all. Began looking around on the floor for anything slender enough to enter the keyhole. Spotted something about the right size a few feet away, bent to get it.

And felt his hands on my hips, his arms sliding around me, his erection pressing against me from behind. “Hold that thought, woman.” The husky voice again. “Better yet...get on your knees.”

Chapter 27    table of contents  

He pressed me against the door from behind, apparently loath to loosen his grip long enough for me to sink to the floor. His hands moved to my breasts and down my ribs and belly to my thighs. At the same time, his mouth moved down my back, tracing the curve of my spine, then my buttocks, licking and nipping. He spun me around and clamped his mouth on my sex, tongue working, and I looked down into the silver fire of his eyes, gazing up at me fixedly, the gaze of a snake fastened on some small, helpless prey.

He finally stood, iron hand pressing down on the top of my head. I sank to my knees, that surreal, foggy feeling taking hold again. Things were happening so fast, so unpredictably, every smidgeon of hope dashed immediately by some insane change or development. Hands that had warmed and soothed me, made me feel safer than I ever had, now belonged to an alien. Dizziness hit me suddenly and I grabbed for something, clutching his hand. I realized he didn’t have the dagger now, but that didn’t mean anything—I’d seen him break bone-hard boards with his bare hands. He didn’t need a weapon, he was a weapon.

I looked up at his cold smile, still clutching his hand, and began to cry out of sheer desolation. To feel so alone with him in the room was unbelievable. I whispered, “Aloysius, please come back to me.”

He hesitated, lighting a fire of hope.

“It’s Cat, Aloysius. Please remember me...”

His other hand had moved to the zipper of his pants. Now it paused. He stared at me, his laser eyes more intense than ever, lips parted in concentration. “Cat?”

“Yes! It’s Cat! You remember, don’t you?”

“I had a cat once. Or was it a mouse...?” He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. Someone crucified it.” His eyes lit up. “Now there’s an idea. Stand up, woman, we’ve got work to do.”

He jerked me to my feet and pushed me back against the door, holding my arms out and up, planting a thigh between mine, spreading my legs. “If I had a hammer...” he sang, in a beautiful soft baritone. “But I don’t. Too bad. It’d give a whole new meaning to getting nailed.” He snickered.

His slim body was hot, too hot. Whether it was the drugs or the madness, I had no idea. The planks of the door dug into my back as he pressed against me, grinding his hips against mine. He was gasping, getting more out of control by the second, and I thought that Diogenes was right...this is what Aloysius had feared more than anything else, being out of control. Perhaps he’d somehow known his potential. Suddenly he brought my hands together behind my back, grasping both of them in one of his, hurting them, using his other hand to explore my body roughly, squeezing and pinching, then moving between my legs, under my panties, and inside me. “Ummm, tight...so hot and wet...you want it bad, don’t you...” His voice was unrecognizably husky now, his breath coming so hard he could barely speak.

He lifted me suddenly, boosting me up over his shoulder, one hand working frenetically at my panties, stripping them down and off. He slid me down his body and forced my legs around him, crushing me against the door again, and kissed me, exploring my lips, then my mouth, so savagely I could barely breathe, one hand rubbing and thrusting between my legs; then lifting me higher to suck and bite at my breasts, breathing now in quick guttural moans. I heard a zipper and a moment later he slid me down his body and impaled me, steel-cord arms wrapping around to move me to his liking, as easily as one lifts and bounces a child. Despite my fear, I was on fire for him suddenly, for his strength and need and the hard, muscular feel of him, and when he came a second later, teeth fastened in my neck, growling like an animal, I screamed my own pleasure.

He grew still, but I could feel his heart pounding. Still panting, he drew back and looked into my face, licking bloody lips, eyes moving hungrily to my neck, where I could feel stinging pain and warm wetness. He put his mouth to the wound, tongue working at it, sucking. I moaned in pain, but he didn’t stop until he’d drained the wound of blood. Then he pulled back again, smiling a cruel smile, a Diogenes smile. “Your blood is as succulent as your cunt, woman. And I’ll have more of both.”

Chapter 28    table of contents  

He carried me back across the room to the stone bed and set me down on it. I glanced at the dagger, still resting where he’d laid it, and moved my hand slowly toward it. I’m still not sure if I meant to knock it out of sight or pick it up, but I never got the chance to do either. His hand came down over mine, then moved to the knife and picked it up. He held it up between us, eyeing the keen blade, and smiled at me. “’The tongue, like a sharp knife...kills without drawing blood.’ But that wouldn’t be any fun, would it?”

Suddenly his hand was around the back of my neck, the knife cold against my throat. “You are so warm, so alive. But I could loose the essence of you with one small rent, and watch it flow, and bathe in its sweet scent and texture...”

I felt the knife penetrate my flesh, and it was at once cold and hot. I tried to jerk away, but he held me fast, carving carefully, the blade just barely parting my skin, barely drawing blood. He searched my eyes, murmuring, “Beautiful, so beautiful, the eyes of death. If I look into your eyes, will I see what you see? I’ve been waiting so long to see it...”

I could not bear the dementia in his lovely eyes, those eyes that were usually so clear and calm and certain. I saw my death in them instead and closed my own eyes, hoping he’d make it quick. I knew that, even had I been able to grab the dagger, I couldn’t have used it. I knew I couldn’t hurt him, even to save myself. I just didn’t have it in me. I raised my face to his, baring my throat, thinking that the dagger was very sharp, that it didn’t hurt too much, that it would be over quickly. Then I realized that I wanted to try to speak to him one last time, to say what was in my heart. I thought, if I could do that, I could let go in peace.

I opened my eyes and looked up at him, thinking how strange it was that he could look the same after changing so much, wondering what he’d been through that had precipitated such change, wondering if he’d ever be himself again. Surely that integrity, that generosity, couldn’t be eclipsed completely. I was afraid to hope that I could reach him. I only wanted to say what I needed to say.

“Aloysius.”

His eyes narrowed in surprise, as though hearing his name from the lips of a stranger. He took the knife from my flesh, but kept it to my throat, saying nothing.

“Aloysius, I just want to say...I know you don’t remember me...” Almost defeated by that knowledge and by his cold stare, I faltered, but forced myself to go on. “My name is Cat. I was your partner for a while...you’re an FBI agent; I don’t know if you...”

What a waste. Did he even know his past? But I wasn’t doing this for his benefit; it was for my own peace, so I continued. “Anyway, I just want to tell you that, no matter what happens, I love you, Aloysius...I will always love you. I hope you...I hope you’ll be... okay.”

What a sad, wasted little speech. Rather than making me feel better, it just made me feel the chasm between us, and the chasm between the Aloysius who held a knife to my throat and the man he had been, all the more keenly.

“How do you know my name?” he asked suspiciously.

My heart flew suddenly, hope flaring bright again. “You told me.”

He raised an eyebrow, the gesture so characteristic that it brought tears to my eyes. “I never tell anyone my name.”

“You told me so I would stop calling you Axel.”

“Axel...” He gazed at the far wall for a moment, then murmured, “Now, Cat, you know you are not to call me Axel.”

Oh, my God, had he remembered?

“That’s what you said before! Remember the cabin? Remember the healing touch? Your hands made me so warm. I love your hands. Remember making love by the fireplace?”

He closed his eyes.

“Remember giving me the blood to dr—?”

His eyes snapped open and locked onto my neck. “Blood.”

“No, darling, you gave me blood because I was weak, you made me drink from you because you wanted to help me—”

“You made me love you, I didn’t wanna do it, I didn’t wanna do it....” He sang the words softly, looking into my eyes. The slight echo in the vast, empty room gave his voice a haunted, dreamy quality that sent chills through me.

I froze, forcing myself not to think, not to hope again.

“You made me love you, and all the time you knew it...I guess you always knew it.” His gaze dropped once again to my bloody neck and he reached for me.

“Give me, give me, give me, give me what I cry for...” He positioned my right arm and tied the leather strap back around it. Then my left arm. “You know you got the brand of kisses that I’d die for...” Moved to my feet, tying them wide apart again. “You know you made me love you...”



“You Made Me Love You,” Words by Joseph McCarthy, music by Jimmy Monaco, 1913.

Aloysius quotes from Buddha.

Chapter 29    table of contents  

He stretched out on the stone slab beside me, propped on one elbow, his free hand, clutching the knife, resting on my stomach. I lay still, staring up at him, waiting. He stared back. Finally, I could take it no longer, and asked shakily, “What are you going to do?”

“What am I going to do? I guess that depends mainly on you.”

“What do you mean, depends on me?”

“On what I hear, and what I see. On what you say and what you do. Everything depends on you.”

Hmmm? Maybe I could manufacture an opportunity, and see if he was really doing what I thought he was doing, at the same time. “Okay, if everything depends on what I say, untie me and let me go.”

He looked shocked. “Untie you and let you go? But that would spoil the game, you know. And then I’d be here all alone, with no smoke signal, fax, or phone. I’d be so lonely, so bummed out. I’d be depressed, without a doubt.”

Yep, he was really doing it. Disorganized schizophrenics sometimes rhymed words. Most of them weren’t this good at it; didn’t speak in complete rhyming sentences. But this was Aloysius. He was better at everything than anyone else; he’d be better at being crazy than anyone else. I had no idea how to respond to him.

He continued without stopping for breath. “No pretty one to touch or hold; no one to warm me. I’d be cold. Just the way it used to be, when no one cared at all for me.”

Despite the circumstances, my heart broke for him. “I care for you, Aloysius. I love you.”

“Everything depends on you. You say you love me. If it’s true, indulge me in my one small fetish. Don’t be bashful or coquettish.”

I was afraid to ask, but I had to know. “What’s your fetish?”

A faint tinge of pink grew in his cheeks. “Embarrassing is my request, but I crave it badly nonetheless. It isn’t much that I require. Vellicative touch is my desire.”

“Vellicative?”

“As part of the constabulary, you should improve vocabulary.”

Now that was just rude. “Name one other agent who would know what vellicative means!”

He nodded sadly. “English skills have been forsaken. Your point, madam is well-taken.”

“Okay, so tell me what it means.”

“To vellicate; to cause to itch, or move with spasmodic convulsions. Twitch!”

“Are you saying you want to be tickled?” His cheeks got a little pinker. “Don’t look so stupefied, dear Cat. There are worse fetishes than that.”

Surely I was hallucinating. All the fear and pain and weirdness, all the ups and downs and reversals, hit me at once, and I began to laugh, first softly, then uncontrollably. I’d been on the Pendergast roller coaster for going on three weeks now, and it was a helluva ride. Wheeeeeeeee!

Aloysius stood up beside the bed, highly offended. Nose tilted at the ceiling, he declared, “I hardly thought you’d be so rude. What I suggested was not lewd! If you think it so bizarre, it only shows how staid you are!”

Aloysius Pendergast calling anyone else staid! It was too much. I snickered and giggled, snorted and hee-hawed. I couldn’t stop. Tears, not entirely of mirth, ran down my face. Through them, I saw his face turning pinker and pinker, bordering on red. His eyes glittered like silver Christmas tree lights. White teeth flashed in a sudden snarl and, though I didn’t even see him move, he was on top of me suddenly, straddling me, nose to nose. His long hands gripped my arms painfully. His usually honeyed voice was a furious roar.

“I asked for what I need from you because you said you cared! Untrue! You’re not an angel, you’re a witch! Don’t laugh at me, you little bitch!”

Chapter 30    table of contents  

I stopped laughing so suddenly it left an echo in the room. I stopped breathing, too. He was so furious, and so close...just one quick move of his powerful hand was all it would take... He trembled, on the verge of making that move, and I waited, petrified. Finally he relaxed minutely, but his eyes still blazed, his hands still bruised my arms.

“Aloysius, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that...it’s just that I’m out of control with fear...for me, and for you.”

“You need feel no fear for me. I’ve confirmed my destiny. For years I’ve known there’d never be a normal life or love for me.” His grip on my arms loosened as he spoke; his face also loosened, some of the anger and madness dissolving. “I need communion for a while. Just a touch to make me smile.” Moisture welled in his eyes.

And I thought I was on a roller coaster. If the real Aloysius was still in there, and now it seemed he must be, I could not imagine the horror he must be enduring, watching himself, or how much he must fear and dread his next barbaric action. I slowly raised my head and kissed his cheek. “Untie me and I’ll touch you, darling. Any way you want.”

He looked at my bound hands. “I do not know why I did that. I fear that I’m irreparable, Cat.” He untied me quickly.

“If you were irreparable, you would have no fear.” I couldn’t help hoping desperately again. I wanted to mention the film, to find out more about it, to ask if he thought he’d been able to deflect at least some of the harmful effects in any way, but I was afraid to.

Moving slowly, I touched him, resting my hands on his shoulders, sliding them down his chest. He seemed to relax a little more. I thought about healing touch. Maybe it would help now. I tried to breathe deeply, to imagine the energy transfer, and began to feel a little heat in my palms. I slid my hands around him, onto his back, hugging him. He sighed and nuzzled my neck. He kissed it lightly; then his warm lips moved to my ear, murmuring, “I think endorphins may dispel the rage that’s taking me to hell. Just in case it is the key, please try it, Cat. Please tickle me.”

Maybe he was right. Endorphins were powerful mood changers, and were released by, among other things, laughter. It made sense. It was worth a try. I slid my hands back to his ribs, my own best tickle spots, and began working my fingers over them lightly, watching him. His serious, moist eyes widened. An expression almost of pain flitted across his aquiline features. Then his lips twitched, once, twice. A smile began to play around his lips, that wonderful smile I hadn’t seen in so long, and, encouraged, I wiggled my fingers faster. The smile reached his eyes and they glowed a brighter blue. Flash of white teeth. He laughed under his breath and squirmed. “What torture this, sweet and distressing. But now there can be no digressing. Even if I beg for rest, you must complete this crucial test.”

I redoubled my efforts. He rolled off me, onto his side, beginning to really laugh now, softly, then with greater force as I kept tickling. He drew into a fetal position, holding his sides to block my wiggling fingers, but not trying too hard, and I thought that, like a child, he must both loathe and enjoy being tickled, or I’d have two broken arms by now. I dug into his underarms and he shouted, laughing wildly now, hair disheveled, face pink, eyes brilliant, white teeth flashing. It was a sight to behold.

He tried to catch his breath to cop a plea. “Oh, no, oh, stop, oh, please, oh...damn!” And back into gales of laughter. I went for the lower, inguinal regions of his flat belly, tickling through his suit pants, then slipping my hands inside the pants and finding bare, goose-bumpy flesh to torture. Back to his sides, his armpits. He was breathless now, still laughing helplessly but barely making a sound, and I wondered how long I must keep this up and how long he could endure it.

Finally, he caught my hands and just lay there panting, gazing at the ceiling, a few stray giggles still escaping his lips. He finally took a deep breath and relaxed, closing his eyes. I sat frozen, waiting. After a while, he opened his eyes and said, “I am not myself; this may never be finished. But the bloodlust that was driving me has...somewhat diminished.”

I threw my arms around him, felt the pressure as he hugged me back. He raised up, easing me back onto the slab, and looked down at me, at my nakedness, my carved throat and bruises, at the look in my eyes, and his own eyes filled. “Oh, Cat, what have I done to you...what have I done...” I waited for the rest of the rhyme. It didn’t come. Perhaps that impulse had faded away as well, or perhaps he was simply too shocked to fulfill it. He took his hands from me, looking at them like they belonged to someone else. They were sticky with my blood. The look in his eyes was so dark, so full of self-loathing, that it scared me.

“Aloysius, I’m okay. You didn’t really hurt me.”

“I remember what I did, what I said. Everything.” Now he wouldn’t meet my eyes at all. “I am so very sorry, and so very ashamed. There is no way I will ever be able to make it up to you.”

“Please, darling, look at me...it wasn’t your fault! I know that. And it could’ve been a lot worse. Don’t blame yourself for something that was out of your control.” His lack of eye contact and seeming inability to touch me scared me worse than anything else had. After all we’d been through, I was going to lose him to shame. “Please, Aloysius...don’t shut me out now that you’re well again.”

“I am not well.” His face was so pale it looked translucent. “I am merely more able to control the impulses.” He glanced at me, then away, as though afraid even looking at me would bring the madness back. “I fear they are still present.”

“But if you can control them, we can get out of here and you can get help.”

“We can get out of here, and I can try to get help, but it will be the work of a lifetime, if there is any help to be had at all. I’m sure I’ll have to try to heal myself.” He sighed. “That’s the only real healing that ever occurs, anyway, with anyone.”

I thought about how it must be, to have mastered all he had mastered only to have to start from scratch on something like this. And he was right. It was totally unprecedented, and modern medicine did not do well with unprecedented. He’d very likely have to find a way to help himself. But, “Surely your skills will help you. The ancient techniques you’ve learned will help you.”

“I don’t know. I could not help but watch Diogenes’ atrocity, but I did block it as best I could.” He smiled ironically and gestured to me. “You see how well it worked.”

“But it did work! I’m still alive, and relatively unharmed.”

“I was able to stop just short of... But that’s not good enough, Cat. If I cannot maintain control, if I cannot stop myself from hurting you, or anyone...” His eyes moved involuntarily to the dagger where it lay forgotten on the slab.

A sound at the door, as a small wooden panel was slid from the other side. I saw a shadow out there, and thought of rescue, until I heard the clipped, dry voice. “That’s my brother; sooooo predictably and nauseatingly altruistic. He never has any fun! Though for a while there, he put on quite the matinee. Let me save you from your conscience, frater...”

A click, and sounds, such as I’d never heard. Moans, screams, animal cries and growls, wet crunching, insane laughter. And behind it all, a shrill continuous note intermingled with a deep resonant vibration that set my teeth on edge and made me ache inside. Somehow I knew that I was also perceiving other sounds, outside the range of normal hearing. They built images in my mind, horrible images of carnage. I shook my head desperately, as though trying to dislodge a swarm of bees.

The effect on Aloysius was even more immediate and profound. He grabbed the sides of his head. His face contorted into a mask of pain, then fear; then something like anticipation. He looked down at me and I recognized that look.

I tried to roll away, to escape off the table, and he grabbed me by the hair, throwing me onto my back, once again straddling me, gripping my arms. The horrible sounds changed slightly to include the horrible screams of dozens of women. They sounded like they were being flayed alive, and I wondered what video had accompanied this sound track. The screams seemed to invigorate Aloysius. He moved my arms so that his knees pinned them beside me. I was totally incapacitated, but he grinned cruelly and gave another yank on my hair, just for the pleasure of it. My scream joined the others.

His hands went around my neck, thumbs pressing my trachea, not very hard—I knew he could collapse it and kill me with one jolt from his powerful fingers—just hard enough to cut my air off. I gazed up into his alien eyes until my vision grew so dim I couldn’t see him anymore; then I closed my own eyes, just thankful that it would soon be over. But it was not going to be that easy. He let up and I took a reflexive, gasping breath. His hands were still around my neck. He obviously intended to choke me again, probably over and over.

“Alo...” I tried to speak and coughed weakly instead, sure suddenly that my efforts would bring his thumbs crushing back down, but he seemed to be enjoying my discomfort too much to disturb me. “Aloysius...you were winning...you were better...please don’t let him do this to you again...please don’t...”

No change at all. He seemed to be waiting for me to recover enough to make it safe to partially choke me again.

Suddenly I was angry, more exquisitely angry than I’d ever been, at Aloysius, at Diogenes, at myself, at the whole cruel, uncaring world. Again determined to have my say, I found the strength to shout. “How dare you do this to me? After all your work, all your studies and effort, that fucking lunatic outside that door can push your buttons by just...pushing a button? You, who are brilliant enough to realize a way to help yourself through something as simple as being tickled and laughing your ass off! Who knows all about so many things and something about everything! Who could’ve ended up just like your brother—”

From outside the door, “Fucking lunatic was accurate, doctor, as you well know, but there’s no need to hammer on it.”

I yelled at the door. “Shut up, asshole!” Turned back to Aloysius. “You could’ve ended up just like him, yet you’ve become his polar opposite. Where he kills, you save. Where he hates, you love. Where he hurts, you heal. All the work you’ve done, and I know it couldn’t have been easy. Then he comes along and, in one afternoon, undoes it all and turns you into him.”

Aloysius’s face was changing. The lustful, bloodthirsty glow was fading into pallor. Some of his earlier shame lowered his eyes and diffused his cruel grin. His hands remained at my throat, but they did not press or pinch. As I gasped for breath to continue my tirade, he actually nodded almost imperceptibly, and murmured, “It’s working.”

“Working, hell, this isn’t an experiment, this is the truth!” I was completely out of control now. I would like to think I didn’t know what I was saying, but I did. I was just so terrified and spent that I didn’t care, and the sounds were still affecting me, too. What I said next was not the truth, will never be the truth, and I will regret it until the day I die. I said, “I hate you, Aloysius Pendergast. I hate you worse than your crazy brother, because at least he’s honest about what he is. As he said, at least he lives authentically. You act so saintly, quite the savior, but all you need is one excuse and the real you comes out.”

I was crying now, crying and shouting and trying my best to wriggle enough to throw him off me and off the table. If Aloysius could be said to be temporarily insane, I believe the same could be said for me. I tell myself that the pain of loss was so great I couldn’t bear it, so I became angry as a defense mechanism. Perhaps it’s even true. But it doesn’t excuse what I said. Nothing will ever excuse that. I continued, “And I had to fall in love with you! I would’ve been better off staying with your brother! At least he’s consistent!”

His expression was changing at an alarming rate. From shameful attention, to disbelief, to pain. His hands started to leave my throat. From outside the door, the volume increased and the repulsive sounds grew louder, then louder still, and, eyes flaming, he grabbed for me again. I screamed, my tirade done, my last speech made, knowing this time there would be no reprieve.

His hands once more grasped my throat, but it was different this time. He seemed to be fighting it, almost as though his hands moved with their own murderous intent. With obvious effort, he pulled them from my throat, forcing them to his thighs. His eyes bored into mine desperately. He moved enough to free my arms, started to lift his weight from me, and I heard a shout from beyond the door as the sounds intensified again. Once more, he reached in my direction, but this time his hand paused, then shot out over my head to grasp the dagger. It wavered toward my throat and he gritted his teeth in concentration, and it moved away from me.

He looked into my eyes and I heard his voice one final time: “Say how I loved you, speak me fair in death.” Caught one fleeting glimpse of the dagger as he reversed it and plunged it into his chest. Heard myself wailing, more shouting from the doorway. Then nothing.




*** Aloysius quotes from “The Merchant of Venice.”

Chapter 31    table of contents  

The next thing I remember is hands, touching me briskly, covering me with something light and starchy. Lifting me. Smoothness against my back. Moving sensation. I tried to grasp at something, to hold on.

“She’s coming around. Set her down. Easy!”

Sinking sensation. Stillness. I opened my eyes and saw faces looking down into mine. Men. I didn’t know them. I began to struggle against the straps that held me down.

“Hey, hey, take it easy, everything’s fine now. Hey...” Strong, warm hands clasped mine and held them. White smile in a brown face. Friendly Comforting. I grew still and allowed him to place my hands on my stomach, covering them gently with his own. “You’re gonna be just fine, honey.”

I tried to speak and seemed to have no voice for a moment. My throat felt sore and raw. I forced words through it anyway. “Aloysius...where’s Aloysius?”

The dark, smiling eyes grew confused. “Who’s Aloysius, baby?”

A man who’d been standing over us knelt quickly and said something in the black man’s ear. I watched the dark eyes sharpen and glance quickly beyond me. Fleeting grimace. Then the eyes were on my face again, soft again. He smiled again. But this time it was phony and placating. I started to turn my head, to look where he had looked, and he stopped me with a touch, turning my face back toward him.

“Don’t worry about Aloysius, honey. Go back to sleep now. We’re taking you to a hospital. Everything’s gonna be fine.”

“No!” Suddenly I remembered everything. “Aloysius! Aloysius! Please, I’m a doctor, please let me go to him...” I felt a small, hot prick in my arm. “Please, let me help him...”

Vinnie D’Agosta’s face loomed over me. “Cat, there’s a doctor working on him now, a doctor and paramedics. They’re doing all they can.” He looked sick. “Try to...take it easy.”

“Aloysius...” The floating sensation began to return. “Please...” I tried, but couldn’t keep my eyes open any more. As they closed, I felt myself being lifted again, carried. The rocking motion added to the sudden lightness in my mind.

***


I’ve been hospitalized ever since, one night for neurological observation, the rest of the time because they say I have suicidal ideations and will probably hurt myself if I am alone. They are right. I was transferred to this cushy behavioral health center, where I talk to doctors every day. They want to know about the audio tape, about how it made me feel, whether or not I have had any lasting effects from it. I lie and say no. I just want to be left alone.

D’Agosta came to see me on the third day. He explained how he’d had to initiate the search from the point where Proctor had dropped Aloysius off when he’d gone looking for me. How there had been so many square miles of forest to search that it had taken them a couple of days to find Diogenes’ hideout. How they’d finally come upon the old mill and heard the unearthly racket emanating from it.

I cried then, and Vinnie held me. He said, “He wanted to die rather than hurt you. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, I know.”

“Why don’t you lie down for a while? Maybe you can sleep a little.” He took my arm and helped me up.

I stood for a moment, looking out the window at the bright day. It had snowed the night before. The center was bordered by woods and, for a moment, I thought I saw Aloysius in his black suit, coming out of the woods carrying a bucket of snow. I remembered eating the snow with him, and how cold we’d been, and how warm we’d become. How warm he’d become. “Oh, Vinnie, it hurts so bad.”

“I know.” His voice broke. “But it’ll get better, honey. It’ll get better. Come on.”

He put me to bed and sat with me, rubbing my back and shoulders as I cried, until I finally fell asleep. It took a long time.

***


I didn’t know if I would ever take up this account again. Didn’t know if there’d be anything else to say; if anything would ever change for me. I kept the pages, just in case, but with no real hope.

Then I awoke during the night about two months later. Someone was sitting on the edge of my bed. I could make out only a man’s silhouette, and I cringed away from it, closing my eyes tightly, whimpering. A hand reached out, caressing my face lightly, and a familiar soft voice spoke out of the darkness. “You’re all right, Cat. You’re all right. Open your eyes and see.”

I opened my eyes and the man moved so the glow from an outside light fell on his face. His beautiful, pale face. I saw the sad smile, the lambent silver eyes, and my hand flew to my cheek, pinching. Quick as a cat, he plucked my hand from my face, capturing it in his own long, slender hand. “It’s me, dearest. It’s Aloysius.” His face betrayed an uncharacteristic uncertainty, an uneasiness I’d never seen in him. “I’m...better now. I hope you’re not afraid of me, or...too angry with me...”

I had prayed for this moment, but couldn’t believe it was really happening, that he was really here. I reached out with my other hand and touched his face, then threw myself into his arms. He caught me to him and I felt the familiar hard, slender body, felt his strong, reassuring heartbeat. I whispered, “They let you go?”

“In a manner of speaking. They’ve done all they can for me, Cat. It’s up to me now.” He stroked my hair. “I could benefit from the assistance of a good doctor, though.”

I kissed him, then forced myself to pull away. “Let’s go.”

***


We’ve been here at the lake for six months. I’m still trying to remember the secret. Aloysius hypnotizes me every few days and we try, but so far we have been unsuccessful in ferreting it out of my subconscious. We go for long walks in the woods with Gandhi, the old stray tom who adopted us, and just live quietly, glad to be alive and together.

Every day we meditate and do other special mental exercises designed with the help of a Tibetan Master. Aloysius no longer wears, or even owns, a black suit. These days he wears warm turtlenecks and, taking a cue from me, faded denim. I am making good progress with my yoga and martial arts training. We bypass the small village near our place and shop in the nearest major city, in disguise. I am still working on learning the language. My memory is not what it used to be.

It’s been about eight months since that horrible time. Every night I lie in bed beside Aloysius, wondering if it will be this night. Knowing he is wondering the same thing.

Diogenes got out that day, you see. He was gone when D’Agosta and his men broke into the mill and found us; he had vanished into the snowy forest like a wraith. No sign of him has surfaced.

But I remember a whisper, like a snake slithering into my ear. A whisper, just before he left me to work on his brother and return with a killer. He’d licked my cheek, then spoken directly into my ear: “If by some chance you escape me, dearest Cat, know that I will find you. I will see you again. Look for me when...” and he’d given a clue. A clue that I can’t remember.

That is the puzzle we keep trying to solve. Our efforts grow more determined every day, for we know Diogenes well. About certain things, he always keeps his word, and we are sure he’ll keep it this time. It’s been eight months already, and we expect him any time now. We expect him to show up with some daring new plan or a new variation on the old one. We have made our home as secure as possible, but Diogenes is too clever to be thwarted by security. He will find a way in and the battle will begin again. If we survive it, we may return to some semblance of our old lives, but we like our lives the way they are now. I don’t know that we could live or work in a city, anyway. We find that loud music or irritating noise of any kind tends to make us both a little...cranky.

As long as his demented, genius brother lives, no one close to Aloysius will ever be safe. But I could more easily give up breathing than give up the feeling of his strong arms around me, or give up the joy I feel when even the smallest, saddest smile touches his lips.

I will not leave him. We will face his brother, and whatever else the future holds, together.

***


The end...

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