Phantom of the Wind (8 page)

“Then lie down and I will curl up beside you to soothe you, Kenni,” Munchkin declared.

With the wet towel still around her, Kendall stretched out on the bed. As soon as she pulled her pillow to her, the Elfinish was pressed tightly to Kendall’s stomach, purring gently.

“I love you, Munch,” Kendall said.

“Just as it should be, of course,” Munchkin agreed. “I do—well—care for you as well, humanoid. You have some qualities that are acceptable.”

As Kendall fell asleep, the Elfinish lay awake staring across the room, her preternatural awareness drifted past the titanium walls of her companion’s quarters and down the long, stench-filled corridors where the smells of humanoids was a disgusting miasma that sorely tried the feline’s sensibilities. Her gift took her up the elevator shaft—where she stopped now and again to inspect something that caught her eye—and into the place where she had been only once in the two years she’d known the healer.

There was the fool called Parks and the partially intelligent one called Andrews. A third man was standing at a shiny glassed-in contraption toward which Munchkin sent her astral spirit.

“They’re chomping at the bit to get him back,” the third man said.

“Doc isn’t going to agree to that until she’s sure Quinn is healed, Captain.”

Munchkin stared up at the third man and found she did not like either his odor or his aura. He was a shifty person and when she delved into his psyche, found he hated felines and was allergic to them. Knowing this was one of the reasons the third man had not come to her humanoid’s quarters to introduce himself to the Elfinish who ruled there, Munchkin deigned to ignore the man, finding him both beneath contempt for his dislike of her species and unworthy even of passing thought.

It was the man lying beneath the glass who concerned Munchkin and she levitated her spirit until she could get a good look at the man who had broken her humanoid’s heart and who was causing her such grief even now.

My, my, my
, Munchkin thought as she looked down at the man Kenni called the Phantom. He was not bad as humanoids went. Long, dark eyelashes fanned his cheeks and without doubt, he would be considered extremely handsome to members of his species—female and male alike. With glossy, thick black hair that curled at his forehead and at the nape of his neck, he was swarthy and hard-muscled and his joystick was long and quite well-proportioned for that of a humanoid male. While preferring the spines of her male companions, which point backward to rake the walls of her vagina during copulation, the cock she was viewing would surely be of great delight to a humanoid female. She inspected his hands and found the fingers long and tapering, good for a sufficient scratch behind furry ears. His legs were muscular with a nice abundance of hair as was his chest. She settled down on that wide expanse and rubbed her face back and forth across the thick pelt of hair on his chest, releasing familiarization pheromones to mark him as one of hers. Even in her astral state, she left behind a marker that was significant only to her.

So this was the one who held Kenni’s soul in his hands?
Munchkin thought as she stared at the humanoid male. He had hurt her companion deeply, but he was the one suffering now. She could read his sleep thoughts easily and the dream images filling his mind were overflowing with such deep, consuming desire and stark need it sent a tremor of embarrassment through the Elfinish. Finely tuned to humanoid emotion, Munchkin learned things while watching his dreams that Kendall should know. After another few moments of intercepting the sorrowful mind wanderings of the male, Munchkin could take no more bombardment of grieving and hopped off his chest to streak back to her companion’s side, fleeing rapidly through the ship as though the hounds of hell were nipping at her delicate paws.

Once more in the roost she ruled, the Elfinish melded into her physical body and sat there on Kendall’s bed brooding. She had to find a way to get the two lovers together again without the threat of death looming in the background.

Chapter Three

0132 CMT

Kendall was faring no better than Quinn in the dream department. She was thrashing so badly in her troubled sleep the Elfinish was forced to hop down and vacate the room, leaving her humanoid to cope with the nightmare on her own.

Whimpers came from Kendall’s throat to accompany her along her disturbing journey through slumber’s shadowy confines. Bright crimson streaks of spilled blood splashed over the dark gray landscape and thick, gripping black tar sucked at her feet as she tried to run from the advancing horrors. The shrill, piercing cries of raptors punctuated the slow, steady thump-thump-thump of a deep bass drum keeping cadence to the progress of whatever unknown entity lumbered after her. Bitter cold wound its way into her bones—chilling her and making her teeth chatter. Naked, defenseless, completely alone in her bad dream, she could feel hot, rancid air between her shoulders but she dared not look back for fear of what she’d see.

Somewhere in the distance she could hear Quinn calling to her. He sounded lost, hopelessly lost, and devoid of any expectation that she would come to him. He had been caught by the darkness, was now a prisoner of the Abyss. There was no future for Rory Quinn and his past was being methodically erased by the persistent entity trailing behind Kendall. Though she strove to reach him, she knew it was already too late. He was lost to her, nothing more than a specter on the horizon of hell.

“Quinn!” she cried out, her head whipping from side to side on the mattress.

“Kendall, help me!”

Overhead, thick, black branches glistening with some alien luminosity formed a canopy over her as she plodded through the tar clinging to her feet. Vultures perched on the skeletal limbs and grinned down at her, their long necks bobbing as if in agreement to whatever beast crept closer to her from behind. Twisting, turning, parasitic vines snaked down from the rottenness of the branches to pluck at her hair, slide across her face and pluck at her arms. A giant crimson moth swooped down to drop something malodorous on Kendall’s body and the substance hardened, became living threads from which she struggled to break free as it formed a cocoon around her. She could feel it squeezing the air from her lungs, winding tighter and tighter, restricting her movements, choking off her own cries for help.

“Kendall!”

Quinn’s voice was growing weaker and farther away. The harder she worked to reach him, the thicker the tar became, the tighter the cocoon pressed. With one final attempt, she managed to break free of the wrapping and found herself on a high, dark hill in a blisteringly cold wind that whipped at her body and threatened to push her backward off the incline.

Looking down to the valley far below her, she could see thousands upon thousands of people looking back at her. Their mouths were opening and closing, their faces twisted in anger but no sound came forth. They were pointing at her and from their fingertips drops of blood fell.

“They’ve his blood on their hands,” a voice thundered from the heavens, and Kendall slowly turned her head to the left.

Quinn was crucified to a gnarled oak. Its nightmarish, charred limbs held the Phantom’s body spread-eagled as vines wound around and around his arms and legs ever tighter. One thick vine lashed his throat to the twisted trunk and crisscrossed his chest, creepers sinking barbed suckers into his flesh to torment him as he writhed in pain. Above him the sky was boiling with red waves of clouds that sped quickly across the heavens. At his bare feet, kindling was being piled stick upon stick by a little girl whose clothing was soaked with river water.

The thump-thump-thump grew louder. It drew nearer and Kendall spun around to see two cybots marching in perfect step toward the twisted oak. Each was carrying a blazing torch in its hands.

“They have orders to incinerate Rory Quinn,” the voice boomed out of the vermin heavens.

“Kendall, forgive me!” she heard the Phantom beg.

He was struggling to turn his head toward her as the vines worked to strangle him.

“I love you,” he said. “I will always love you.”

Thump-thump-thump. The constructs were lumbering closer. The torches sizzled, whipped by the wind to fiery beacons of death.

“I will always love you.”

The tar that surrounded her feet caught fire and spread like an ocean wave toward the tree to which Quinn was bound. The wind pushed the flames closer and closer until it rushed up the gnarled oak and fanned out to every black, slimy branch.

“I will always love you!”

Flames folded inward, upward, downward, and washed over the Phantom with a roar that drowned out his agonized cry.

* * * * *

0338 CMT

“
No
!” Kendall screamed, struggling to sit up, thrashing at the towel wrapping her body. She tore mindlessly at the fabric, ripping it with a frantic strength born in her nightmare, twisting off the bed to land on the floor.

Free of the constriction of the towel, she stumbled back and hit the wall so hard she slid down it, waving her hands at the images that still came at her. Her mouth open—dragging in labored breaths—and her heart pounding so fiercely she could hear its beat in her ears, she sat there shivering from head to toe, her arms wrapped around her raised knees. A keening sound came from her very soul and when the pale, furry body rubbed up against her thigh, she screamed again as though touched by a roaring flame and kicked out her leg.

“It’s all right,” Munchkin said, moving back out of the humanoid’s range lest she strike out again. “It was just a dream.”

Gasping for breath, covered with sweat, Kendall curled up into a ball and began sobbing so fiercely the Elfinish grew alarmed. The feline didn’t know how to help her companion. Such emotions were alien to her species. Pleasure, frustration and affection she understood. Jealousy, vengefulness, sadness at the loss of something for which she had affection and even killing anger were not beyond her comprehension, but this overwhelming grief, this all-encompassing sorrow was beyond her feline ability to appreciate. Anguish and misery were things with which she did not know how to deal.

“Should I summon the man who smells like garlic?” Munchkin asked, unable to remember the name of the humanoid, but she knew he dealt with matters of the emotions.

Kendall was trapped in her despair and unable to answer the Elfinish. Pain was driving through her in spikes of guilt and need and remorse. All the anxiety she had been enduring all this time finally took its toll and let go with a snap, the band of emotions breaking and releasing a torrent of tears that had no tap with which to turn them off. To her, it felt as though she were drowning in a tidal wave of sorrow.

“Kenni, tell me what you need,” Munchkin pleaded, irritated by the whine in her voice. She crept a bit closer, reaching out a clawless paw to tap her companion’s hip. “What can I do?”

The dream had been so real. It had seemed so genuine, as though it were actually happening. She could hear the sizzle of the fire, the crack of the wood as the blaze caught it, see the flames racing up the branches and onto Quinn. She could actually smell the horror of his flesh burning and that—alone—brought a terror to her heart that threatened to stop its beat.

“I can’t let this happen,” she whispered, her teeth chattering.

“What, dearling?” Munchkin asked in a soothing tone.

“I have to stop it,” Kendall said. “Even if I die in the trying, I have to stop them from hurting him anymore.”

Munchkin crept closer still until she could insinuate her large head under her companion’s elbow, flicking out her rough little tongue to abrade Kendall’s bare flesh, knowing that would garner the humanoid’s attention.

“Munch, don’t,” Kendall said, moving her thigh out of the Elfinish’s reach.

“Are you at yourself now?” Munchkin asked, and grunted in a most undignified way when her companion scooped her up and buried her face in the patchy clumps that was Elfinish fur. Resigning herself to the show of affection, Munchkin clamped her sharp little teeth together and endured.

“I have to get him to tell me where his ship is,” Kendall said, thinking aloud. “They have to come get him.”

“The ghost ship is just off the starboard beam,” Munchkin squeaked, irritated even more at hearing herself speak that way.

Kendall held the feline away from her. “How do you know?”

“I went to take a look at this marvel of humanoid sensuality you have been carrying on about since I made this my home,” Munchkin replied. “He was dreaming too.”

“Who let you out of the apartment?” Kendall demanded, anger flashing across her face.

Munchkin sighed with annoyance. “I projected my way to him. Do you never listen to anything I tell you?”

“He was dreaming?” Kendall asked. “What was he dreaming?”

“He was conversing with other humanoids,” Munchkin replied, squirming to be put down. Once Kendall released her, she shook her body from head to tail then extended her rear right leg straight out behind her in a series of three quick jabs that she’d explained to Kendall were called diddits. Diddits were a feline way of saying “fuck you”, she educated her companion.

“Who were the other men?”

Munchkin rolled her eyes. “Now how would I know?”

“Describe them.”

“One was tall, rather stately, black eyes, grayish hair worn in a tail at his neck. He had power about him. There was a long scar on the right side of his face.”