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Part 6
“Dan, are you nuts?” Christine demanded sharply. “Hold still,” she hissed, shoving at the Gellboar with her gun. “Dan, you can’t do that.”
“I have to,” he quavered, shoulders heaving as if he held back tears. “This is my daughter we’re talking about. She’ll die if I don’t.”
“You’re not thinking clearly. Look, Dan, we’ve captured the creature who’s responsible for her illness. All we have to do is call the police —”
“Now you’re crazy,” he retorted with shrill desperation. “Look at me!”
That gave her pause, as if she had somehow forgotten he was wearing pantyhose and a red satin dress.
Casually, as if she believed herself already triumphant, the Gellboar turned to remind Christine, “That would be most unwise. I, too, have forbidden knowledge. If I am accused, there is no reason I should not retaliate.”
“You won’t if you’re dead,” she barked, but even Dan could tell she didn’t mean it. And he didn’t have time to waste arguing.
“Look, I appreciate your help, but you’ve got to get out of the way.” Christine frowned dauntingly. “I’ll stand the risk, if that’s what it takes to save my daughter. It’s my fault she’s so sick. I have to make it right.”
“That’s a bunch of bull! You’re…”
“I know what I’m doing,” he insisted, hoping she would pick up the subtle message.
A low wail interrupted them. Dan turned to see Grace huddled against the head of her bed, as far from the tense tableau as she could get. Her eyes were dazed with interrupted sleep, the thin face striped with vertical tracks of tears. A soft doll was crushed against her chest.
A single step and Dan knelt beside the bed. “Grace, honey, it’s me. It’s Daddy. I’m here.”
He tried to take her in his arms, but she struggled and shrieked, panting with exertion her gaunt frame was not prepared to sustain. Her eyes remained fixed on the Gellboar. Seeing Daddy wear a dress and the strange woman with the gun didn’t frighten her, but the monstrous presence was just too much.
“It’s okay. You’re okay,” he murmured urgently, shifting his body to shield her from the sight. All that got him was a clout from a flailing arm. He rocked back momentarily, rubbing his chin, and reluctantly raised his wand. The sleep spell washed over her, and she fell back with a choked gasp. As her frantic pants gave way to even, deep breathing, Dan eased his daughter down gently.
“I’m sorry, darling,” he murmured.
“Allow me,” said a cold, grainy voice.
Dan tensed as the Gellboar leaned past him, but she merely touched Grace’s temple with a forefinger. The hand was humanlike, except there weren’t enough fingers and a cluster of tentacles curled purposefully against the wrist. Dan felt a flare of psais which quickly faded. He elbowed his enemy back and covered his daughter gently.
There was no need to fake a tremor in his voice as he stood. “Let’s get this over with,” he announced to no one in particular.
“Dan,” Christine started again.
“Shut up.”
He pushed past her and her arguments. The Gellboar’s heavy tread and Christine’s lighter steps followed him into the kitchen. The parchment was still in his purse on the sofa. He had to sign it before the creature noticed his revisions. Dan yanked the document out and whirled, slapping it onto the kitchen counter. Quickly he applied the marker to the stiff sheet.
A moment later he felt a strong tingling, as if he had lost circulation all over his body. Dizzy, he leaned on the counter. The sensation localized as a throbbing ache on the back of his left hand. Dan felt a momentary nausea as he realized what he’d done. The Gellboar was at his elbow again, and he shoved the page at her.
“There,” he said hoarsely. “Now get out.”
The creature took the sheet with an insouciance that made his blood boil. Her inhuman eyes gleamed with… what? Satisfaction? Contempt? Dan saw no mercy, at any rate. She carefully folded the parchment and slid it into the trench coat’s inside vest pocket. The door swung open and then shut. Just like that, she was gone.
Dan leaned on the counter for a moment longer, staring at the door. He absently rubbed the back of his hand, where the pain had died to a nagging itch. Under his fingers, he now saw, was a written mark, one of the runes on the alien creature’s sheet. The blunt lines were the vivid color of a new scab.
Beside him, Christine stood half-dressed, with her arms folded and the pistol lying over the crook of her elbow. She gave him a long, hard stare.
“What are you smiling about?”
* * *
While Christine was in the living room, finishing her change of clothes, Dan retreated to his bedroom to do the same. Tired as he was, he longed to wear his own pants, to put on a man’s shirt with the buttons on the right side. It was even more of a relief to get out of the lingerie. The padding, which created the illusion of a female form, was hot and sticky with sweat. The wig caught painfully in his natural hair as he yanked it off.
Dan wadded up the whole outfit and stuffed it into a plastic shopping bag. This he shoved on the upper shelf in his closet as far back as it would go. But he still felt the weight of cosmetics on his skin, clinging like the static in the dress. He hurried into the bathroom, and was jarred by his image in the mirror.
Even with his natural hair, a dark crew cut, he might have been looking at Marilyn. He hadn’t realized how much he patterned his stage persona on her, but it was true. He wore her clothes, did his makeup and wig just like her. It was as if, somehow, he was trying to keep Marilyn alive.
Dan could no longer meet his own gaze in the mirror. He looked instead to the rust-stained bowl of his sink and twisted the knob to turn on the water. In the coldest possible spray, he scrubbed until he felt breathless. With a towel pressed to his face, he slumped down on the toilet seat.
Everything was off tonight, his whole life turned upside-down. It was as if the interior landscape of his grief and fear distorted the mundane world around him. The unpleasant realities he had become immured to were suddenly intolerable.
His head pounded and his eyes burned, but Dan did not cry. He would not cry. Grace needed him. He had to keep going for her sake. He had let Marilyn down, failed to protect her from the monster that sapped her vitality. He couldn’t stand it if he blew it again.
There was a shuffle outside the bathroom door, and a fast, hard tapping. “You okay in there?” Christine asked from the other side of the door.
“Suck it up, Dan,” he said to himself, and stood. Aloud, he answered, “Fine.”
“Then get out here.”
A narrow silver band sat on the counter above the sink, just where he left it when he went to work. He slipped the cold weight onto his finger. With the towel draped over his shoulders, Dan joined Christine in the kitchen. It felt strange to be bare-faced, wearing men’s clothes and his own hair. He could see her pale eyes roving, taking in the details of his altered appearance. As for Christine, she had completed her transformation from glittering performer into everyday citizen by putting on a pair of blue jeans and tucking in the tails of her shirt. Her pale hair was pulled into a long braid, neat and tight.
She must have gone through his cupboards, because a pair of plastic juice glasses sat on the rickety card table in the kitchen. Ice glinted within them. An elderly folding chair creaked as Dan sat down. Christine casually drew a flask from her hip pocket and poured an amber liquid into one of the cups.
“Want some?” she offered crisply.
“No thanks.” He pushed the glass away.
Since Marilyn died, Dan was no stranger to drink. But being a cross-dresser meant never losing self-control, so he also had a good sense for when not to drink. Besides, his stomach still felt sour. Across the table, pale eyes narrowed.
“So this is it,” Christine said in the same flat, unfriendly drawl she had used earlier.
“What is what?” he asked.
“This is it,” she repeated. “The monster wins. You take the life link, it eats you up and makes more monsters. Then you die. The end.”
Dan stared at his left hand, where the dark sigil branded him as the Gellboar’s meat. He covered the mark with his right hand.
“It’s not the end.”
“Then what?” she demanded.
Dan shut his lips firmly. From his bedroom window he had seen the red glare of a neon sign, a brewer’s logo of fire. The sign stood in the heart of an alien enclave called Styggold. It was only about ten blocks away, an easy walk for the Gellboar. Trains ran night and day from Styggold Station, so it was too late to find his enemy there. She could be anywhere by now, and the life link would operate no matter where she went.
But, Dan thought with dark satisfaction, the Gellboar had accepted the contract without seeing that he’d added a clause. That meant this link wasn’t limited just to psais. Dan could cast any spell he wanted through the link, and the Gellboar’s magical defenses would not protect it. He just needed time to think up a fitting punishment for all it had done. One curse might not be enough.
To be continued…
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Wyrmflight 