"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 gra.s.s 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.
So now Finn was out on the balcony, disgusted with her again, smoking.
She gnawed on her lower lip, feeling a flare of her own temper. It was his fault just as much as her own. She didn"t understand what was with him lately. He was so rough... and still, she had to admit, that no matter what... he was still exciting.
Previous Top NextMegan rose as well and slipped into a robe. She walked out on the balcony. Finn was standing by the rail, looking out over it.
"Look, I"m sorry I screamed."
"Hey," he murmured with a shrug, not looking at her. "You had a dream."
"Horrible. I can"t even remember it now. But there was this awful thing attacking me."
"Great. You"re dreaming while we"re making love. I hadn"t a clue you were even asleep. You looked straight at me half a dozen times."
"I couldn"t have," she protested.
"Megan, you did."
"Then I"ve started sleeping with my eyes wide open."
"And imagining that I"m an "awful thing" attacking you." He looked at her at last. His eyes were distant He was distant. Cool, aloof.
"What a surprise. Fallon hasn"t shown up yet."
"Apparently, I didn"t scream that loudly."
"Either that, or he"s decided that you"re a hopeless, abused woman."
"Finn, stop it."
She could see that his jaw was locked. It took him a minute to speak again, then his words surprised her. "We should leave."
"Leave? We"re a huge success. We"ve sold hundreds of CDs in two days. We"ve had national news coverage."
"Right. But look what"s happening to us."
She frowned, feeling a little ripple of fear, but it was all so absurd. They"d be idiots to give in to it. "We can"t leave. You don"t just walk out on a job like that."
"If it"s costing us our marriage, yes, we do."
"Working here isn"t costing us our marriage!" she protested. She shook her head vehemently. "We"re the only ones who can cost us our marriage. It would help if you didn"t suddenly consider yourself to be the Marquis de Sade."
"What?" The word was sharp, fast, and furious.
"Finn, you"re... you"re just getting too rough! Like a conquering barbarian or something. I told you-"
"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!" he said angrily. "You dream that you"re being attacked by "an awful thing"-your words, not mine- but it"s me, I"m being too rough."
"You don"t even remember the other night-"
"Yeah, and you were asleep through it all tonight."
She fell silent, then turned sharply and walked back into the bedroom. He followed her. "Megan, we should leave."
She stood still for a long moment. She couldn"t help but recall how old Andy Markham had terrified her in the woods. Bac-Dal wants you.And then there had been Morwenna"s concern, when she"d done her "reading." There"s something... I don"t know, something bad. Did... Finn ever hurt you? I mean, really. There were the rumors of violence... it looks like something terrible in the future. A horrible danger, and it"s as if it comes from... Finn.
She"d been irritated with her cousin. Rumor. All rumor, and everyone playing into it.
They should leave. Yes. They should have!
Right. Ruin their careers over old myths and legends and a crazy old man who liked to tell stories.
She spun on Finn. "You"re saying we should leave. You don"t believe in ghosts. The whole thing with Wiccans or witches or ghosts, spooks, goblins, whatever, is pure rot. But despite that, you think that we should take a chance on never getting work again-or getting really decent work again-because I, sorry-and I am sorry!-have had a few nightmares?" She was amazed at the scorn in her voice.
"Whatever, Megan. I agree, it would suck to walk out. But it might be the best thing. When we"re here... you"re very strange."
She was strange?
She bit her lip, startled by the sudden flash of tears that threatened to spill from her eyes.
"Megan... this is all very strange, don"t you think?"
"Yeah. And maybe it"s..."
"Maybe it"s what?"
She hesitated. "Maybe it has to do with our breakup," she said quietly. "We could go home... and find out that nothing was any better."
She saw the flash of anger in his eyes. "I never hurt you, Megan. I never would."
"I didn"t say that you did. At least, not physically. Maybe... I don"t know, maybe beneath the words we say to one another, we"re still lacking trust or something. The point is, I"m not acting any more strangely than you are!"
"I don"t remember acting strangely at home, or in the Keys," he said. "And I haven"t been acting strangely. You"re the one waking up screaming."
"That"s right. You don"t bother to wake up," she murmured.
"What?"
"Finn, we"re going to see this gig out," she said quietly. "If we were to walk out... well, what we did would surely make the news.
We wouldn"t be taken seriously. Maybe really big names could get away with it. Or people without any kind of a track record at all. But walking out would hurt our reputation badly. And in time, you"d really resent me. So... if I walk out on anything, it will be you... for the time that we"re here."
She was startled by her own words. She hadn"t really meant them that way, but as she listened to her own voice, she didn"t know how to stop. Or explain.
And when she finished speaking, he was dead still. Straight, tense as a bowstring, features in a deadlock. He turned his back on her and walked out on the balcony.
She stood still for a long moment, then fled after him, determined to explain herself. To suggest that, since she seemed plagued by the ridiculous nightmares, she should sleep at Morwenna"s or something, and therefore, no one could ever accuse him of hurting her in the night.
But when she reached the balcony, he was gone. She stood staring out at the moonlit night. It was crazy. He had jumped the little wrought iron fence in the chilly darkness, and gone walking around with bare feet and nothing but a bathrobe.
"Finn?" she called his name softly, but there was no answer. "Finn!" she called more loudly, and still no answer.
"You didn"t understand!" she murmured miserably out loud. But still, there was no one to hear, and no one to reply.
She stood on the balcony for a long, long time, until the chill of the night seemed to seep into her bones, and she was shivering so violently she had to go back in.
There, she paced by the bed. She alternated between being terribly hurt, and then angry. At last, she gave out, and wrapped in the bathrobe and the blankets, she lay back down. The tears that had earlier stung her eyes must have flooded over because her cheeks were damp.
How long had he been gone? How could he be out there in nothing but a bathrobe?
As last, still alternating between a growing fury and a deep, knifing pain, she drifted to sleep.
And did not dream again.
Megan was gone.
She had been there when he had come back in at last, cursing himself for having been the biggest idiot in the world. But now...
peering at the bedside clock he could see that it was nearly eleven. And Megan was up.
He rolled out of bed and walked toward the bathroom. "Meg?" He hadn"t really needed to call out; the room had felt empty. He knew, as well, that she wasn"t out on the balcony, and he doubted that she was in Huntington House at all.
Last night had been a maneuver of sheer stupidity. And yet...
Walking away-even crawling over the iron railing and sc.r.a.ping the family package-had seemed right. He"d needed to get away.
Into the cold night air, barefoot, barely dressed. He"d felt an unreasoning sense of anger growing. Albeit, a lot of it was due to the fact that she hadn"t been awake. Impossible. Or worse. She couldn"t have fallen asleep in the middle of their lovemaking. That would surely be one of the worst affronts to man, ever. And then, imagining, or dreaming, that he was some kind of a terrible thing.