"Finn—"
"Hey, friend. The lady is my wife."
Finn spoke softly.
The kid backed off. "Hey, sorry, should have realized… I'm outta here!"
As good as his words, he spun around and disappeared into the crowd. "You know, I was okay, I could have handled him."
Finn leaned against the bar, looking out over the crowd. "Who can tell in this group?" The words should have been light, offhand. There was an underlying grate and menace. He seemed fierce, larger than life, with that same, strange, dangerous appeal.
Yes, go for it, rage, take that prowess and tear them apart…
The thought was shocking to Megan. She took a huge swallow of her beer.
He turned dangerous eyes on her. She felt something like an absurd jungle pleasure. Yes, the beast was hers. A beast indeed, but that was okay, as long as he was her beast.
"Did you order me one?"
"One what?"
"A beer?"
"No, here, take this, I'll get another."
"Thanks, there's something off on one of the speakers. Hey, Joseph and Morwenna are here. They've ordered food again for after our next set."
"Great!"
He disappeared. She ordered another beer. She felt as if she were being watched.
She was.
The man in costume who had helped her detangle her hair from the prop monster the night before was at the end of the bar. He lifted a glass to her. She smiled uneasily, lifted the bottle of beer she had just received, and slipped from her bar stool.
People stopped her—none she'd ever recognize again—as she headed back to the stage. She chatted, thanked them, acknowledged their compliments, and hurried back to Finn.
Later, they ate with Morwenna and Joseph. Conversation was casual.
The night came to an end.
They didn't linger. Finn was in a hurry to get back to Huntington House. They found a parking spot with near miraculous ease. She lay down while he hit the shower. She'd meant to take one herself when he came out.
She fell fast asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow.
It began with the darkness, and the strange blue light that began to penetrate through it. There was fog and for a moment, she thought she'd had a blackout, and that she was still on the stage. It was cold, icy cold, but she shouldn't have felt the chill so deeply, not when she was wearing one of the black capes over the gown with its draping sleeves. But, she realized, she had shed the gown, and that was why she was so cold, the breeze and the blue fog were slipping between the fold, wrapping around her.
She was embarrassed, as if she had walked into one of her own worst nightmares. The fear of the performer, being on stage, and realizing that she had forgotten her clothing. But it was all right.
She wondered if they had agreed that night to perform for a nudist colony, because she could vaguely see the audience. They were hazy forms, indistinguishable in the blue fog, faceless, with only bits and pieces of their visages visible. Now and then, she could see floating toothy, blood red smiles; she could see eyes here and there, staring at her. They all seemed to be red as well, rimmed with fire, and yet, of course, they couldn't be. Eyes were blue, or brown, green, even hazel.
Sometimes they had exceptional color, and could even be described as azure, turquoise, or gold.
But they never really burned, as if they were red…
What she could see was that they were all wearing cloaks or capes as well. All were cowled, but the breeze would come now and then, lifting a hem, shifting an opening, and she could see the flesh. So, of course, it was all right, because they were all the same.
She struggled, thinking she must be dreaming because it wasn't all right at all; she would never appear anywhere without being fully clothed. They didn't even dress suggestively.
She thought she was supposed to be singing; she could vaguely hear music, but it didn't sound like anything Finn had written, nor any of the cover songs that they did. He would be angry, looking at her the way that he had earlier, but she still stood there in silence, because no matter how she tried, she couldn't recognize the music. Someone was singing for her, she thought, because it was as if she could vaguely hear words.
Maybe it was the crowd, trying to get her started; they seemed to be pushing closer and closer to the stage. There was something law-lying and ominous in the music; she didn't like it, didn't like the feeling of discomfort… unease… and then the fear that it began to create within her. Nothing sudden, just a feeling that seemed to sweep through her limbs. The crowd was pushing too close.
They weren't singing; they were chanting. Something like a church song, only it wasn't really church music at all, not with the haunting menace that seemed to be at its base…
She started to back away. She would knock into the equipment, she thought. Finn would think she was mad, having stage fright at this point. He would have to understand.
He hadn't understood about the nightmare. He had pretended to, but…
She turned, desperate to reach him, to get behind him, because the black-cowled spectators were coming too close, they were grasping at her, trying to touch her…
She screamed as fingers reached out, wrenching away her cloak.
"Perfect," someone said, not a compliment, but a cool, disaffected assessment.
"A few bruises," came another intonation.
"Chant!" came a firm voice.
The noise level grew. How she could have ever thought that it was music was beyond her then.
The words were rising in a singsong but there was a harshness to them. She couldn't recognize any of the sounds.
" The time is coming…"
"Now!"
"No!" she cried out loud herself, and she turned at last. She had to get behind Finn.
But Finn wasn't there. She wasn't on a stage at all; she was in the woods.
The crowd began to part, leaving way for someone to break through.
She felt the breeze, a shadow of darkness. There was grass around her…
And little protruding stones.
Then she saw him… it… the reason the crowd had parted. Walking toward her, not walking. . .
sliding toward her. And she saw that it was the creature, the marble creature from the cemetery.
The face was horrible, terrifying… a satyr's face, long and lean, pointed chin, horned head... and yet, it was familiar. It was leering, ogling, laughing… so amused. There was something about it, about the eyes… that were hypnotic. She'd been so cold. Those eyes touched her, raked over her, seemed to burn her flesh. She had never been more frightened in her life… or more lured. She wanted to run, to flee… and she wanted to be touched.
It moved on cloven hoofs, not feet at all. That was why the strange gait as it came. It breathed something like fire, and that was why the sudden warmth. But she stood, aware that her cloak was gone, and she lifted her chin, because she could feel its heat, its gaze, brushing over her flesh, and the warmth within her grew until she was ready to fall upon her knees, accept whatever odious dictates the creature gave, as long as it touched her in truth. She could feel it more and more, and her thighs burned, liquid rushed through her, just knowing that the creature was coming was making her feel a raw excitement, a longing, a desire to He before it, parted, naked…
The face, the face, so familiar!
Then, it was upon her, and the hands or hooves that touched her flesh were brutal, painful. There was a scent of death and decay around the creature. She started to scream, but too late, it was on her, and she was pinned to the ground, and it was in her, and she was fighting, but to no avail, for his power was tremendous, his invasion complete, ripping, tearing and then she knew what she recognized in the face…
"Finn!"
She awakened abruptly, only to find out that all of it hadn't been a dream, or a nightmare.
He was over her, teeth gritted, features strained, body convulsed.
His eyes…
For a moment, it seemed that his eyes gleamed like fire.
She screamed.
Chapter 8
A second later, a hand clamped over her mouth. She heard Finn's voice, quite normal, and incredibly annoyed.
"Megan!"
There was a moment in which it didn't matter in the least, in which she lay enshrouded between a world of wakefulness and sleep, lost somewhere between the conscious and real and the tricks of darkness and subconscious.
"Megan!"
He repeated her name. She started; a trembling swept through her. She felt the bed, her husband's form.
She knew where she was, exactly, and that once again, she'd experienced a nightmare so real and terrifying that she'd been desperate to wake…
To escape.
Shaken, but released from the tentacles of fear the dream had wrapped around her, she gasped out a sigh of relief. She was still trembling. For a moment, he was still with her, at her side, holding her tensely.
Thoughts ripped through her mind at lightning speed.
She had just been dreaming!
Part of the dream had been grounded in fact. They'd been making love. They were both bathed in a damp sheen of sweat. She was shaking; he was as rigid as a steel pipe.
"I had another awful dream! What a nightmare," she breathed.
"Well, hold tight," he muttered irritably. "The nightmare may be just beginning. Fallon could come knocking at the door any second now."
Finn rose. She needed to curl into him; it seemed that he needed to be far away from her.
The room was dark except for the thin trail of light beaming out from the bathroom. She could see the agility and sleekness of his form as he moved about, going for a robe, impatiently shrugging into it.
He dug through his things, then stepped out on the balcony.
Megan waited several seconds. She saw the flare of his lighter. Finn was resorting to cigarettes frequently now, when he had cut down to smoking only on occasion. She held very still for a minute, trying to recall each phase of the dream, but once she had awakened, it had all slipped away. In the dream, though…
Something evil had been after her. It was because she had listened to Andy Markham. She had gone out to the strange "unhallowed" cemetery to meet him, which she never should have done, and she had listened to him again, and had nightmares. A psychologist would sniff at her, and point-blankly explain the reasons for her absurd dreams.