Chapter 24
Sharp stone masses reaching skyward, their feet emitting low groans of tectonic activity, these mountains cared little for any small drama played upon their flanks.
Shadows accumulated in every hollow, painted the eastron face of every tree, rock, and rise.
Dusk was an indigo-strengthening hour away, collecting ever more quickly at lower elevations.
Masses of aspens drew away in shaded spots; spruce, pine, and fir were more than happy to spread in their stead.
And a wanderer had found a road. More precisely, he had stumbled across a pair of small shacks at the bottom of a steep incline.
Between them, two armatures barred entry to a rising stripe of pavement.
Inside the shacks a quartet of mortal males sat and yawned, desultorily glancing out the windows at odd intervals.
Dressed in matching uniforms, a strange badge upon their breasts—an X in a jagged circle, no symbol Jonathan knew or cared about—they also bore ungainly modern rifles, slightly different than the variations carried by mortal deer-hunters during his madness.
Guards. Which seemed an encouraging sign, though it took him a short while to decide against draining them dry. He must be subtle in his stalking; he settled for passing unseen and following the road.
The treeline was some distance above, and this passageway obviously laid at great expense.
It was well-kept, prior frost-heaves and cracks assiduously patched; mounting in switchbacks, it seemed to be traveling in the correct direction.
Instinct tugged at him, seeking to draw him in a straight line across its zigzags, but he hesitated as twilight thickened.
Two shining, oversized black vehicles had already passed, skittering downhill like frightened insects.
His finely tuned senses discerned fear upon the occupants, an emotion quite divorced from reasonable appreciation of any wilderness dangers.
He could have halted both automobiles and fed upon their contents, but again, instinct halted him.
It was necessary to catch his greater prize unaware.
Jonathan. Simone. One name guttered like a candle, drawn away down a long dark hall as the fractures threatened.
It took a great deal of concentration to remember larger considerations; however, the other name beat under his strong, ageless pulse, a blade driven deep enough to reach the animal crouching at the very bottom of his soul’s well.
The madness whispered, taunted, stole what it could while his attention turned outward as a wary predator’s must, but it could not touch the bond—even so new and fresh, the tie was indissoluble.
Simone. Simone. Simone.
So he loped easily through the forest a stone’s throw from the road, at a pace even a mortal would find reasonably comfortable.
Wildlife clearly disliked this area, since all trails were old or overlaid with the heavy reek of caution; wolf or bear, deer or coyote kept their distance.
So did any smaller beast, even the most foolhardy or flighty.
Interesting. His own scent held close as a wrapped mantle, he passed like a burning shadow through tangled undergrowth, between pillared trees, across bare rock or thin soil.
The sun touched horizon as the road crested a rise; the paved ribbon hesitated, then dove straight into the mountainside.
A cunningly concealed entrance, though a thick reek of petroleum exhaust hung in a simmering haze, fooling no creature with a halfway sensitive nose. It had to be what he sought—or did it?
Mortals did strange things as a matter of course, and the hills could be honeycombed with their secrets—not to mention older, fouler things.
There was no hint of a familiar shining scent-thread drawing him to his leman.
Where was she? Alone, vulnerable in a fledgling’s daylight torpor, lost in a hive of mortals…
A thrill dark and fragrant as unwatered wine shot through his limbs.
While he lingered, studying the opening, the great eye of day had finished its downward passage.
The call of a fledgling he had fed deep—and willingly—tugged at his veins, an exquisite glassy thrill, and the pull was no longer attenuated by great distance.
The golden rope was before him, and it led into the mountain.
He did not hesitate. The wanderer burst into mistform and raced for the carefully screened aperture.
A vast cave housed a different forest, this time of concrete pillars.
A fleet of heavy black metal chariots stood among the stone trunks; for a moment time folded upon itself and he was with his beautiful leman as she searched for a vehicle to her liking.
But there was no wind moaning through the upper reaches of an open structure, no reek of mortal urine, and most importantly, no hint of her gorgeous, mouthwatering fragrance.
Each car was alike, parked in serried rows; half reeked of petrol, the others held a drowsing electrical readiness.
Tucked along one side of the cavern was a fluorescent lit gallery with a sign overhead shouting FUEL - CHARGING STATION; he gave a single glance at the letters, noting irregularities of spacing, and moved on.
At the rear, a bank of steel doors led to six mechanical lifts, half of which breathed softly with activity above, lurking in the bulk of the mountain.
To the right, a set of different metal doors loomed, both bearing round glass portholes. A powerful animal stink lingered in that direction.
Hermetically sealed, the doors trembled as mistform pressed against them.
A metallic click as he found a hidden switch with the same invisible pressure used for laying seals or denying electronic eyes, and steel slid aside.
Passageways divided and re-formed around him, and he could feel the blood-pull from above.
She was alive, and somewhere overhead.
The walls drew away as he poured through another slowly opening door, mistform turning heavy and visible as a greenish fog. The stink was massive, titanic, and a chorus of babble engulfed him.
Cages. Rank upon rank of containers to every side, aisles and stacks stretching toward distant walls.
The stink of terror and captivity vied with the effluvia of imperfect cleansing, a bright hot hungry panting of starvation and mute terror.
They had not been fed in some while—perhaps their captors had other concerns—and the beasts were growing desperate.
Now he knew why wildlife avoided these environs. Not only did the soft pink bipeds with their cruel machines and incomprehensible weapons linger here, but also the horror of durance, the invisible fume of baffled, uncomprehending fear. The wanderer hesitated.
Things had been done to these creatures. This was an abattoir, but worse, it was also a torture hall.
Some animals, small or large, huddled trembling in the back corners of their cages.
Others showed their teeth or howled. A few watched unblinking, hopeless yet waiting for any chance, no matter how small, to strike back at their tormentors.
All, all longed for escape, though most did not believe it possible.
And they reminded him, in some foggy way, of a pair of lovely wide forest-eyes, a fall of cedarbark hair. Not this way, she had choked, pleading without hope of mercy. Not like this.
A momentary flexing of his will, a signal sent along branching galvano-electric paths.
Heavy thunks and buzzes sounded, wire-woven doors swinging open, glass hatches raising, soft puffs as pneumatics engaged.
Not only that, but the doors he had passed along the way opened as well, their controls overridden.
The wanderer’s scent belled forth, spreading from the greenish fog in a haze of chemical communication. Go, it said. Leave. Now.
A scurrying, a scrabbling, a fresh clamor. Even those who had been maimed or mutilated, even those upon the verge of expiring from fatal despair gained a sudden burst of energy, knowing something far older and more terrifying than the mortals had passed by, was issuing a command.
The wanderer floated. Shapes slithered, jogged, dragged, fluttered, hopped along the aisles, a river of fur and teeth, feathers and scales, all seeking egress.
There were even four mangled simian forms, screeching and showing their fangs as they moved in a tight pack; a single rail-thin wolf, its fur matted and singed with caustic burns, stopped near the entrance to this chambre des horreurs and looked back over its scorched shoulder, showing its own canines.
In the flat goldgreen glare of its gaze was no gratitude, nor any ruth.
It merely wished to make certain of unpursuit, or perhaps it was swearing vengeance.
Do not worry, the wanderer thought, a moment of sudden clarity amid the hail of fractures spreading through the rest of his consciousness. What they have done shall be avenged.
The wolf lifted its tail and rejoined the flow of cringing, creeping creatures given a new lease upon life. The wanderer sent out one last pulse, making certain every cage was empty and every door upon this level open, the way to the outside clearly marked, then returned to his own hunt.
His prize remained, waiting in this warren. All else he found would be crushed.
Somewhere above, an irritating noise began to blare. An alarm of some kind, triggered by his actions or another event.
Simone. Mistform thinned, and the wanderer had indeed forgotten his own newly acquired name.
No matter. He did not need it.