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Duncan MacLeod walked out of the boat house and onto the small dock where the skiff was slapping idly against one of the piers, bucking almost playfully against the hawser which kept it 'prisoned at the bay shore. Some part of his consciousness remained aware that none of this was real, but across the salt sea bay, he saw the island, perfect in every detail and he knew that, should he board this boat and go there, the cabin would be accurate to the last mote of dust.
His real flesh lay beside Malak in his wide bed on the top floor of the dojo. Cassandra had cautioned him not to dwell on what was actual and what was dream, but just to let the dream take him where it would. Still, Duncan's skill as a warrior worked against him, the need for an essential and physical truth upon which to base his actions. He sat his pretend butt down on the weathered boards and wrapped his arms around his shins, resting his chin on his knees and taking in the view.Adam and Cassandra and Grace would be watching over them both, Duncan and Malak, but the MacLeod son of the Highlands would be taking this journey entirely alone. He was here, this "here," wherever this was, to meet again with Marak's--what?--spirit, the part of Dr. Palmer which remained with his brother Malak after Dr. Palmer had died. Duncan knew this wasn't a Quickening between Marak, Palmer, and Malak, Ram, but it was his only experiential reference to the phenomenon of diminishment and it was close enough for a spare understanding of the process.
Duncan had been in this--place?--once briefly before, with the witch, Cassandra. He had gotten Marak's, Palmer's, the spirit's promise to consider letting Malak go free. Duncan had returned to this--realm?--to receive the answer and to bring Malak, Ram, out of--
Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod still found it nigh onto impossible to think of this place by the name it was given, by Adam, by Cassandra, even by the woman who was chained at its center. He really could not make himself call it "Hell."
Not that the environs weren't hellish enough. It was just so different from what he had expected. Yes, there were demons here, but they were the many hundreds of spirits of Ram's people who had died so tragically six months earlier, with only Ram, herself, left to hold their many souls. They weren't really demons, just shape-changers, affecting the various facets, physically, of their self-mourning.
Yes, the last time he'd been--here?--Duncan had seen Ram, in Malak's body, torn and devoured most hideously by these not-demons...but...
Duncan supposed it was the way everything seemed like Seacouver and the surrounding area, even including this bay and island which were his sanctuary and comfort from the rest of the world. No fiery lakes here, no screams of the damned, though he had to admit he'd done some fairly serious screaming upon his return from the first journey here. Or so they told him.
Duncan was sure they had exaggerated.
The main thing that was so wonderful about saltwater, Sweet Lucille would always say, was that it smelled like fish sweat. Duncan breathed in the aroma and wondered when, or if, Dr. Palmer's ghost would make his appearance at the salt sea inlet lake, or whether he was going to have to walk all the way back to the pretend Seacouver, some eighty pretend miles away.
He felt cadaverous fingers graze the back of his neck. Duncan dove forward, feet and hands, and twisted around, quick as thought. "Ram!"
The grey eyes narrowed and she lowered slowly to kneeling, measuring him carefully, a strange, smirking smile beneath the hawkish nose. Sitting back on her heels, she straightened her lean arms and stretched her graceful hands along her thighs. Her jeans and T-shirt were clean and fit her well, but her feet, appropriate to the dead, were bare.
"So," Ram began. Her voice's usual huskiness had grown gritty, the soft fog turned to harsh smoke. "Is that supposed to be a, 'I have been here long enough to fear your touch,' reaction, or just simple surprise because you've only just arrived."
"It's Duncan, Ram," he settled back to sitting.
"Of course it is," Ram leaned forward, stretching her back in a long arc and yawning.
"I've come to free you," Duncan said.
Her head snapped up, "That's rather a chestnut, wouldn't you say? And you started so well, too, just the right amount of disorientation and vague anxiousness. The flex, relax, flex of that left deltoid was a bit over the top, though."
"What are you talking about Ram? I said I have come to save you," Duncan could hardly follow the meaning, let alone the motivation of her strange pronouncement.
"Well, yes," Ram mused, rolling to one side of her heels and leaning over her arm, "there is something to be said about building consistency when one is striving for that authentic touch, but really, Duncan," she said his name with a rolling derision, "I can hardly be expected to applaud that old canard about the knight in shining armor, rescuing the fair maid--well, two out of four anyway. It isn't as if I hadn't heard it hundreds of times." Ram's head swiveled side to side, but the cold eyes never left him. "it isn't as if I haven't believed it on more than one ocassion...but even an old fool learns, Duncan, even an old fool."
Duncan was struck silent, trying to gauge if there was something to understand here, or if Ram were only mad, made crazy by this long agony.
"Niiiiiice," Ram spoke like a serpent, "Very nice save! Is it Boëdvir or Marak? Marak I think," she commented.
"Duncan, Duncan MacLeod," he said his name as if it were a sounding talisman.
"Oh, don't fuss, Duncan," Ram licked her dry upper lip, "I will still play with you. Go on, I promise to be less critical." Ram stretched her legs out in front of her and settled back on her elbows.
"Play?" Duncan couldn't think what she was talking about.
"Oh, yes," Ram purred, "Whoever, you are deliciously clever. All right then, if you come here as Duncan MacLeod, then I shall inform you as I would him...as I have, I remind you, a good twenty, if not forty, times before."
"Well, new, bright, virgin to Hell, Duncan, Duncan," she began. "Hell has an ebb and flow, a pattern, if you will, like this water splash, splashing up under the dock upon which we sit. Time of rest and times of agony...and in between times of confusion--Play. This would be the last. Some thing you think you know, some one, or some where, leads you into an opening of your heart or soul or being, a seduction of the spirit, you could call it, but it really proves to be a foreplay to torture."
"You think I mean to hurt you?" Duncan asked.
Ram's lips curled in a very ugly and distorted smile, "No, of course not, Duncan. It is not as if you ever hurt me, or raped me, or beat me, or even nearly killed me with that abomination you begot on me. None of those things are true, are they? Why ever would I believe you capable of causing me pain?"
"Believe me, whoever you are, if you were the actual MacLeod, I would thank you for being such fine practice for living in Hell." Ram's statement for all it was so dark and poisonous was said quite matter-of-factly, as if it were no more, nor no less, than an intriguing bit of information.
Ram continued on, "But since you are not, and since I promised to play, I will say: why no, Duncan, you could never hurt me. What did you say? Ah, yes, you love me. And it is only some other, Duncan fetch who has so tormented me that I now distrust the name and form alone of the one I see before me. There, now it is your turn. Tell me how you come to be here, to--to save me."
Duncan began to understand all that Adam and Cassandra had tried to tell him about Hell and the abandonment of all Hope, and how Ram's escape itself might prove to be worse than an illusion. Nothing she had said was untrue, but he shuddered to think by what specific mechanism his assault on her had found its mirror in Hell. Perhaps he could make the simple truth as convincing as this evil and perfect lie which stretched around them more real than the world.
"We have tended your body in the fourth floor of my dojo on Cambie Street," Duncan began.
Her eyebrows rose, "Lovely details those. That empty floor below the loft--exquisite touch, entirely believable."
"We keep you shackled--"
"Well, that's certainly rude," she commented.
"Adam says it keeps you from--he calls it 'iron cladding.'"
"Clever boy," she said this in a way that made Duncan wonder if shadows of them all had so beaten her down in this place, she would never want to even look at them again. God knew Adam had been enough of a trial to her without Hell's exaggerations.
He skipped the actual time Malak had been in the dojo. Duncan surmised Ram would never believe given her expanded temporal perceptions this side of the Styx. "In the past few days, we have gathered together a group of people who might help with your rescue..."
Ram sat up, looked right, then left, and shrugged.
"They are in the dojo watching over us," Duncan tried to make it sound as if they would come riding over the hill if need be.
"And who, pray tell," Ram asked, "Are these stalwart heroes?"
"Three Immortals: Cassandra and Grace and, of course, Adam," Duncan wondered if he should mention this last.
"Dear boy."
"...and three mortals: Dr. Lindsey and Sweet Lucille and Joe Dawson," he lingered just a little on this last name.
The granite hardness of her features melted almost imperceptibly and she stared straight into his eyes for a very long time. Then the door slammed down again, "Quite a little troop there, Duncan. Reads like a dungeons and dragons game: The Witch, The Virtue, The Fool, The Healer, The Priestess, and The Wizard. And of course," Ram added lightly, "The Warrior. How many hit points for confounding The Dragon?"
As if he would be winning any of them at this rate, Duncan thought. "Cassandra brought me here earlier," he started in again.
"Here?" Ram leaned towards him, her nostrils flared.
Sniff away, drake, he thought. I am not lying. "I was at Joe's bar, looking through a crack in the front door when they harried you down the street and tore you apart. Excuse me, tore Malak apart."
Duncan looked up to gauge her reaction. She was gone!
"We are the same," a sunny baritone sounded behind him.
"Malak!" Duncan turned around.
"C'est moi!" Malak warbled. "Go on with your tale, Duncan. This is marvelous fun!"
"What is the matter with Ram?" Duncan asked.
Malak reached up, made a circle to indicate Duncan should turn around, then he started to message Duncan's temples. MacLeod did not mean to, but he flinched.
"It is all right, Duncan," Malak said softly, "Relax, you have not been in Hell long enough to find all pleasure hurtful, just long enough to jump at first. Here, how is that? Headache better?"
"Yes," Duncan did not want to make any sense out of what Malak was saying.
"We are the same, Duncan," Ram's voice again, her fingers at his temples.
"The same," Set repeated and laid her twisted left hand over his heart.
"Now," Ram walked around to sit in front of Duncan again. "Please go on."
Duncan glanced around behind him, but he and Ram were alone on the dock.
"I could be Malak again, if you like," Ram offered.
"No," Duncan wondered that his headache wasn't starting all over again. "After the--um--at River Road--well, Cassandra and I spoke with Marak and he said he would consider freeing you."
Ram began to rise. "And you were doing so well up till then, Duncan. Off to the next torment. What today? Oh," Ram took one breath in and let it out slowly, "the Kite."
Duncan pushed up, "What's wrong now?"
"You over-played your rescue story," Ram sighed. "It was almost believable until then, Marak."
"Ram!"
"All right," Ram smiled.
Duncan could not remember what he ever found to like in that expression.
"Why did Marak consider such a preposterous thing?" She asked.
"He said he would speak to the others about a pardon for you in exchange for your setting them free from here, the way that you freed my Quickenings. Up there," Duncan pointed across the road from the boathouse towards the clearing.
Ram clapped her hands together in glee, but her expression never changed, "Oh, fantastic, what a glorious twist! Superb, Marak, superb. Well done. Well done, indeed."
Duncan looked down on Ram, trying to overcome the urge to shake her. "It was save you or kill you, Ram. We opted for the former."
Her hands stilled. "Kill me?" Her steel eyes calibrated his worth, ounce by ounce. "There you have gone again and overplayed. Pity. Well, okay, how were you going to kill me?" She asked the question as if she did not expect an answer.
Duncan thought a moment. "I don't know, Ram. I guess we assumed...beheading? I guess we never really seriously considered it at all, we just kept thinking it would be the last resort, but we never thought about how--"
Ram watched him in amazement. "Come and play with me again, another time, Duncan. You are very, very good at this...far more artistry than forgery...I am impressed. Exceedingly so. Yes, most excellent, Duncan, highly consistent, subtly played. Thank you," she said nodding her head in agreement with her assessment of him.
"Oh, yes," she continued nodding. "Most enjoyable."
Duncan couldn't see any whisper of enjoyment on her face anywhere. It was as if she were merely pronouncing a corpse as "jolly," instead of "dead."
As if Ram couldn't enjoy anything anymore.
"Duncan?" the warm, deep voice called his name softly near his left ear. A soft palm and long fingers worried tenderly down his neck and across the slope of his shoulder.
"Duncan?" it called again and MacLeod felt the hot breath at his left temple, the feather-brush whisper of the lips, just contacting the skin there, a lush shadow kiss against the side of his face.
"Please, Duncan, try," the lips lifted away and a warm cheek pressed against his own. He felt strong arms wrap around him, felt his breath go out under the loving assault of that encircling grasp.
"Wake up, Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod."
Even asleep, Duncan heard the urgency, the concern, creep into the gentle tones.
"If I splash you with coffee again," the voice warned, teasingly, anxiously, "you won't like it."
Having reached the end of any extra rest he might have gained through slothful inattention, Duncan gave up the lax and luxurious respite of abject somnolence and opened his eyes to the stinging rays of late morning in his dojo loft. Duncan rolled leftward in the long arms that held him, "Adam?"
The only answer to his question was a profound, windy sigh of relief and Adam's forehead buried in his shoulder.
"Thank God," Adam said, finally, as he released the Highlander and pushed away, embarrassed, to the far edge of the bed. "I thought we had won back Ram at the cost of losing you."
"It's over?" Duncan tried to reorient. He could almost remember...no, not anything specific, just an overbearing dread and fear and...nothing. "What happened, Adam?"
Adam shook his head, "We will have time to talk about that later, Duncan. We will have the time," the way he said this second time emphasized his real fear that there would be no more time between them ever again.
Duncan stretched his arm over his head. "Where is Ram?"
"Joe took her home," Adam answered. "The girls went along with Lucille to her penthouse. They said they'd had quite enough of your spare bachelor's digs," Adam chuckled and pushed up to standing. "Here," he threw a robe at Duncan. "I'll go draw your bath, M'Lord. And then I'll see what I can do about a brunch while you're soaking."
"Don't bother," Duncan reached forward and retrieved the terry robe, his oldest and most favorite. As if Adam knew. Probably did. They were getting closer than twins, any more. It was funny how this didn't vex him at all, Duncan thought. Adam's friendship, while a bother on many levels, never seemed at all confining or uncomfortable. He doubted Adam could say the same, being most of his long life the prototypic Lone Ranger. "I'll take a shower and then I'll help you with lunch."
"Really, Duncan," Adam's whole long frame went suddenly flouncy, "you have absolutely no sense of the finer things."
"Good to see the hearing didn't squash your style, Darling," MacLeod's voice bottomed out on the last word, when it should have risen. The effect was somehow more masculine than most of the things he said normally.
Adam just shook his head, green eyes rolling heavenward, "Don't even try it, Darling, you haven't the flare."
Duncan laughed, "I surrender, Old Man. Excuse me while I take a manly shower, then. I'll leave the bubble baths to your own fancy self."
Duncan paused at the bathroom door. "Is Ram all right?"
"Remarkably so, Duncan," Adam answered as he began to change the bed linens. "I swear that woman is invulnerable. I keep looking for the red 'S' and the blue tights."
"And I wouldn't wake up, but everybody left anyway?" This didn't sound like Anne, who must have come with Joe this morning. This didn't sound like Grace. It didn't even really sound like Cassandra, though she had already technically abandoned him because she feared Hell. He couldn't really fault that as being anything but the best of judgment.
Adam's head bowed down, "I lied to them. I said you were all right. I--forgive me, Duncan. I thought if you could not return from Hell, then I would--I would," there was no power in him to say the thing aloud. "I just didn't want them here trying to stop me--um--to stop me. You understand?"
"Oh, Adam," Duncan walked around the bed and gathered in the Old Man, completely ignoring Adam's protestations and struggles.
Adam's lank body stopped struggling finally and slumped against the Highlander. "You really don't know how cruel this is," he said cryptically, his long nose buried in the fuzzy terry of the robe's shoulder.
Duncan's broad hands cupped over Adam's bony shoulders and he pushed him out in front of him. "What do mean, cruel, Adam?"
Adam wouldn't even look at him. He pulled away and started to stride past the Scot. Duncan put his arm out to stop him. "Before the hearing, I really didn't understand, but I do now. I meant to lie, it's not like I haven't been lying about my sexuality all my life. it's not like it was any difficulty to manufacture that whole tale about the pathetic queer who loved the gorgeous, married straight man."
"Adam, I am so sorry."
Adam pushed Duncan's arm down. "Imagine my surprise, then..." he walked towards the couch away from his perplexed friend.
Duncan felt the tension between them, almost more acutely than the--was that only a day ago?-- previous morning when they'd bashed each other so thoroughly. That, he had understood, this was different, if no less intense. "What is it, Adam?" he thought it better not to turn around and add his direct attentions to whatever was vexing the Old Man.
"Don't ever do that 'touch your belt buckle' thing again," Adam said.
Think, Duncan. What is the Old Man going on about? Duncan picked up where Adam had left off making the bed. He had shamed him in front of the women. But how? They surely could not have known what it meant. And Adam's tones were more warning than ire. Warning? He meant to lie. He had lied. Imagine his surprise? His surprise at what? Duncan dropped the pillow. "It occurred to you that the lies you told were true?"
"Oh, you're nothing if not clever, Duncan, Dear," the acid words floated up from the other side of the couch back where Adam had lounged his body down, only his feet showing, crossed over the window side arm.
"But you said you weren't gay," Duncan was thoroughly confused.
"Imagine my surprise," Adam said almost tearfully.
Duncan stalked the couch and leaned over the back. "What do you want?" he asked as simply and calmly as he could. Adam rolled over on his left side away from Duncan.
"I want to leave," Adam said finally. "No, Duncan, I have to leave. This is killing me."
"And if you stay?"
"Not an option, friend," Adam rolled all the way over, onto the floor and levered himself up to standing, making himself look at MacLeod, tearing his eyes up from the tie at the Scot's waist. "I can see you are going to be all right now. It is time I leave."
"Yes," Duncan cocked his head, "I can see where it would have made everything simpler just to kill me."
Adam's right eyebrow crawled up his forehead. "It might have done at that," he looked--as Lucille often said: "fit to spit."
"What do you want?" Duncan asked again. I am saying all that I can say, Adam, he thought. The rest is up to you. Hear what I am saying, Old Man. Hear all the times I have said, in all the ways that I have said it, that you mean life to me, and everything else, only details. Hear me, Adam, please.
Adam dug his long fingers into his back jeans pockets and stared into the sunny window light, standing in perfect profile, looking like the sun itself caressed his face, Duncan thought. Then he thought, Wait. If you press this, he will run ever faster and farther away.
"I don't know what I want," he lolled his head back on his long neck and arched his back. "Or I know and I cannot say. Or I am entirely mistaken about any of this. It all could be true, or none of it. I can't be sure of anything anymore. Maybe I was only feeling possessive because the hearing and Malak and your new wife have fairly moved me right out of your life. Maybe I just, just..." Adam straightened back up and lifted his hands out of his pockets, where they floated, almost of their own volition, through the mote rays before him like a brace of doves. "Maybe it just hurt so very badly when I thought you were lost, that all I wanted to do was go back to winter at the Villancourt's and make proper love to you, something far different from that other self-loathing lust that has no care for any other person but me."
How could it surprise him that it had come to this? Duncan wondered. How could either of us suppose our love wouldn't, of its own stubborn, and undeniable self, eventually find us here, in this loft in these magic sparkling waves of light and dust stars? Where else would we be, but here?
Duncan walked up behind Adam and turned him around. This time, Adam, he thought, here in this cloud of light and warmth, and I, just newly returned from Hell. This time, Adam, hear me. "What do you want?"
"You," Adam replied.
Duncan untied the cord at his waist and uncovered his heart to his friend, "Good answer." He drew the long torso towards him, relishing the different textures of canvas and soft, worn sweater, fuzzy, rock hard jaw, and soft, velvet cheek, all spread over Duncan's naked skin like a tactical array of pure delights. He nuzzled into the long neck, just beneath the ear and played there, lipping the lobe, tasting the nape. "Excellent answer," Duncan murmured. There would never be another moment like this instant, a magic, smiling pancake, perfect moment. He could not help but linger.
Duncan felt Adam's hands grip round his wrists and lead them behind Duncan's back as Adam's breath came hot and quick against his shoulder. The move was simply done, but the unexpected strength of it took Duncan's breath and he felt suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, giddy.
Until the white teeth met through the margin of his left trapezius and his legs buckled beneath him. Duncan's arms attempted to straighten out to catch him, but they were tied behind him, so tightly he could not free them. Maybe Adam misread his own passions for Duncan's. "I really don't..." he began.
"Oh, Darling," the unctuous tones set Duncan's scalp to tingling, "I am all too aware you don't, but you will after this."
"Adam, this isn't funny!" Duncan started to pull his legs under him to rise, but a very large foot planted in the middle of his back and pushed him flat on his stomach. A hand wound through his tangled dark curls and pulled Duncan's head back so far he thought his neck would disjoint.
"Well, funny or not, Duncan," Adam ripped up the back of the terry robe. "I am certainly amused."
Duncan had never been in this particular situation, but he'd been in enough hopeless similar instances to have garnered, through the many years of his life, if not a defense, at least an effective approach. When it became clear he was overpowered, when all his strength and agility couldn't get him even to his side, he made himself still and willed his whole body to relax. With a silent apology to the flesh that had brought him through these many centuries, Duncan left his body to fend for itself.
He still felt the blows, still experienced the humiliating assault, but as an objective observer, his soul and mind far from this evil place, this evil thing.
And this must be how Ram gets through Hell, was his first thought. Surely that's what this was. Adam would not do this thing to him. They might make love some day. They might even play at that rougher language the Old Man craved. They might hurt each other through stubbornness or stupidity, beat each other to death in anger from time to time, but not this...
Duncan scrambled frantically in his mind, even as he lay still as death beneath Adam's hideous violation. He sorted and remembered and destroyed all the false feelings that this seemingly "perfect" moment had displayed to him. Adam never told him he was gay. Adam never said he wanted him. Adam never said he would leave. Adam never suffered by the truth in the lie of his testimony.
But even as he sorted through the falsehoods with great diligence and acuity, still he found himself increasingly confused. Because these lies were partly true....and the truths were all partly lies.
And the more he considered this, the more uncertain Duncan became, until at last he rejected everything he knew and thought he knew about Adam, vowing to himself only that he would learn all that again some future time when he was well away from this place and free.
It was over at last and Duncan returned to his torn, bleeding flesh, easing back into it like an ill-fitting suit. His hands had come free during his struggles. Both arms were so badly sprained, he could hardly move his right beneath him to push back on his side, but the belly down posture was just too painful in every aspect. Duncan somehow manage the roll to his side only to find Adam, not Adam, sitting on the floor beside him, his jeans still unzipped, laughing at him.
"Well," said the Adam-thing with dry derision, "You certainly were a game not worth the candling. Pathetic. And I'll bet you do not yet really understand this place."
"There is nothing to understand," Duncan mumbled. The whole side of his face that had been against the floor was rapidly swelling, closing his eye and numbing his mouth.
"Well, sometime when you are bored, then, Dearest Duncan, Dahhhhrling, consider this: You, and only you, made all of this up, myself included. I do not know what you will come to think of this..." Adam zipped up his fly, "but I am definitely not flattered." The Adam thing's voice lingered in the loft long after his form had fled, dissolving into the gold afternoon rays of Duncan's favorite window.
When he got back, Duncan thought, he would board that window up.
Or paint it black, at the very least.
Duncan spent a long time soaking in the tub after that. He did not care that the water was unreal. He did not care that he usually showered. What else for the aprés-pseudo-assault but a pseudo-bubble bath? Especially if you were hurt so badly you couldn't stand. He ignored the phone, jangling every several minutes. Who knew his number? It must certainly be unlisted, unless there was a Red Pages, he hadn't heard about.
The aching soon eased, the sharp pain withdrew, and his flesh forgave Duncan his betrayal.
The tenth time the phone went off, Duncan pushed up on his arms and swung over the edge of the tub, padding and dripping his way out the bathroom. "Hello?"
"Hello," a nasal, disinterested female voice said, "This is Dr. Palmer's office. We are calling to confirm your evening appointment with Dr. Palmer at the east side of Stanley Park duck pond, sundown."
"And just when does the sun go down in...?" Duncan heard the line go dead before he even finished the question, or had a chance to ask another one about whether Hell had public transportation or not.
It didn't. Dressed in slacks and a loose V-neck camel's hair sweater, a soft pair of shoes and his coat over his shoulder, Duncan set off walking north and west toward the other corner of Couver. This would give him time to think, to review his offer to Dr. Palmer. Somehow he couldn't bring himself to think about the interlude with Adam, couldn't even give it its proper name...just something that had happened--had not happened--. No. It meant nothing, wasn't worth the distraction it caused him. Just Hell. Things like that happen here. What did he expect?
But Duncan MacLeod did not lack for the bravery that kept some portion of his consciousness completely aware and awake and awash with the many truths that had been revealed to him in that seemingly perfect moment, probably more perfect than he could presently comprehend.
He wasn't going to make it to Stanley if he didn't pay closer attention, Duncan chided himself. He centered his weight as two shadows came out of the alley to his right. Dropping his coat, he picked up an orange crate from the trash, kicked out a length of wood slat and braced for their attack. Worked for vampires, Duncan reasoned. Why not demons?
The first one, dark as the back side of the void, swooped out of the alley in a striking, raptorous dive, right onto Duncan's spike and rolled away, howling and slavering like a rabid wolf. Which left the Highlander unarmed for the second strike by the demon's assistant, also winged, the color of an old penny. This second thing, a sort of wyvern, just legs and wings, no arms, came after Duncan, taloned paws outstretched, unsheathed. Duncan dropped to the sidewalk, hoping to get beneath the claws, but the beaste was too agile and the steel hooks of its talons connected deep into Duncan's shoulders and upper back.
The pain, crushing and tearing and slicing, slowed the Highlander's attempt to rise, that and the dreadful weight of the creature, screaming above him in roaring, murderous tones. Duncan's flesh found its own frenzy, its own new fear about being pinned on its belly, and drove his strong legs under him and made his wounded shoulders find what strength remained in them to grab for the scaled neck.
Then the serpentine head fell on the ground in front of Duncan, spilling its blood, or whatever, on the cement and he felt the creature go slack and release him, tumbling sideways off him with a thud that shook the ground.
"You," Duncan looked up to accuse his third assailant.
"Duncan," Adam said cheerily, "I thought you'd be happy to see me, you sorry Scottish stepson. Is that any way to greet the strikingly handsome hero who just saved your venerable ass?"
"Right," Duncan mumbled, jerking back when the graceful hands reached for him.
"Oh," said Adam, pulling a rag from the trash and wiping his blade of the vitriolic blood. "I see, and from the looks of it you've had some prior meeting with a fetch. Do you want to talk about it?"
Duncan grabbed a lamp-post at the sidewalk's edge and climbed up to vertical. Ram might find these conversations interesting, even--what had she said?--enjoyable, but he did not. As soon as he could, Duncan picked up his coat and started again towards Stanley. He would never make it by sundown.
"Ichor," Adam bounced up behind him.
"What?" Duncan kept walking. Leave me alone. I can't bear to look at you, to hear you, to...
Adam's long legs passed up the Scot, turned back and stood in his way. "This green icky stuff. Isn't it neat?"
"Oh, f'ing marvelous, you faggot! Get out of my way!" Duncan tucked his shoulders and pushed straight through the lank form before him.
"Okay," the man's voice followed him down the road. "Then I guess you wouldn't want to be accepting a ride to Stanley in my none-too-masculine Volvo then."
Duncan stopped. That would be Hell, just the place to make you beg for the one thing you did not want. "I am sorry for what I said," Duncan wondered why he didn't just bend over while he was at it. "I was in a lot of pain and I didn't mean it, Adam." Duncan tried to keep the goal in mind, not so much any more because it meant Ram's freedom, but more because he really needed this to be over soon. He wanted some time off by himself to sort this out. Bora, bora, maybe.
"And you won't make it to Stanley by sundown if the queer doesn't drive you there," Adam added conveying his sympathy even while he twisted it to seem as if he did not care at all.
It would be a long time before he felt good about the Old Man again, Duncan thought, sliding into the passenger seat of Adam's decrepit car, and awaiting the worse.
"Buckle up," Adam said as he turned away from the curb and gunned the engine north.
"Right," Mac snorted, "God forbid I die and go to Hell."
"It hasn't taken you very long here to start sounding like me," Adam commented as he ran the red lights and skidded through the turns. Seemed there was no traffic in Hell.
Funny, Duncan mused. If anything he would have thought gridlock for Hell. Maybe this was an off-day.
"What happened, Duncan?" Adam pointedly watched the empty road, for which Duncan was supremely grateful.
"How long till we get to the park?" Duncan ignored the question, trying to organize his thoughts around what he would tell Marak, Dr. Palmer.
"I hurt you?" Adam put no emotional weight whatsoever into the question, but the words did that anyway.
He is trying to get me to admit my defeat, Duncan thought. Or he is drawing me in, to open myself for the next assault. Well, Old Man, I am not going to roll over on command.
"Oh, damnation, Duncan! What happened?"
"It's almost sundown," Duncan said peering out the dirty window. "Marak won't be happy that one of his minion made me late for the appointment."
The Volvo screeched to a halt.
"We aren't there yet," Duncan complained.
"We are as far as we get, until you at least pretend to talk to me," Adam turned sideways in his seat and reached for Duncan.
Duncan's entire frame went rigid of its own accord. "Please don't," he said.
Adam's face seemed to register genuine shock. "How bad is it?"
"Look you, whoever you are, just get me to Stanley."
"You must love me," Adam said quietly as he sped on to their destination. "Or I could not be used so effectively against you, Duncan. I am sorry that happened. Really."
"Don't even start, you pathetic pervert," Duncan snapped. "Either fuck me again or get me to Stanley, but don't say another word!"
Adam grabbed the steering wheel so hard that the plastic moaned and crackled beneath his hands. He could not have said anything at all, even without Duncan's admonition to be silent.
"So," Adam began the conversation while they waited on the eastern bank of the duck pond, "Why don't you humor me and tell me about it while we wait."
"You want those reasons in alphabetical order?" Duncan wanted to take off the tattered, bloodied sweater which had grown dry and crusted, but he didn't dare so near Adam. He knew the sweater would not save him another assault, but he had to think that something would or could. He was not ready to abandon all hope, not ready to surrender to this place."
Adam shifted his position seated on the wet grass. "I raped you?"
Duncan paid no attention whatsoever. Adam the Real would not come to this place. He surveyed the park, perfect in every detail, rising moon, pungent summer smells, cut wet grass, the slightly brackish water of the duck pond. Just above and behind them, up the gentle rise, sat the canvas billboard where they scrawled the schedules for the summer events at the park or the zoo. A single spot lit the pale canvas but he couldn't read the schedule. This is Hell, he reminded himself. Probably didn't want to know the schedule anyway. Not like he was going to bring the kids.
"Duncan," Adam laced his hands behind his neck, "What happened? You are not going to be any help to me or to Ram unless you stand against this first battle and at least face the enemy."
"You said nothing could make you come...here," Duncan added quickly.
"I would say the answer must be the same, both to your actual question and your innuendo. You were obviously in distress, I felt guilty that you were here alone. I knew how awful that could be, so I laid down beside you on your wide, soft bed, and voila," Adam unlaced his hands and bowed over his lap, "I am at your service, Lord MacLeod." Adam sighed, "I was too foolish to even consider that I might be the very cause for your distress. It simply did not occur to me that I could be so important to you."
"You aren't the Real Adam," Duncan stared up at the billboard, thinking maybe Marak had left him a message there. No, just the canvas stretched and laced between the square metal frame.
"It doesn't matter. What matters is that you deal with this, here and now, or we'll all be spending eternity in this delightful burg. Whoever I am, Duncan, you are at stake here, and by derivation, being you are the hero designate, the whole campaign is at stake."
"If it will shut you up," Duncan said. "Adam told me we had saved Ram, that everyone else had gone home. He made them go, while he waited behind at the loft to see if I would wake up or not. Adam didn't actually say it, but it was clear he meant to kill me if I couldn't come back. Then Adam said he had to leave, because I was recovered." Duncan stopped at that point of narrative and gazed back up the hill at the sign. The memory of that tenderness between them had begun to insinuate itself again. It was about to open him as surely as the wyvern's claws had done.
"What are you staring at?" Adam asked.
Duncan pointed up to the sign, "Do you read anything there?"
Adam looked up the hill. "Oh," he said, "there is nothing on the sign, Duncan, except a poor excuse for you to avoid..."
"It's none of your damn business, Adam Piersen!"
"And it's all of your damn business, Duncan MacLeod!" Adam stood up, towering over him in the gathering darkness.
"Adam was very uncomfortable about the trial, about our friendship. He thought he might be gay," Duncan cast about for a way to describe. "He stood there in the sunlight, so alone. The illumination was like the sparkles that dust becomes when it's stirred in the light, swirling around him, setting Adam apart. I felt sorrow and fear and--" Duncan put his hands over his heart, "I just felt for him."
Duncan let the moment recreate itself despite his certain knowledge this was dangerous. "All I could do was ask him what he wanted. I must have said it--I don't know--three times at least. I couldn't-- I needed Adam to make the first move. I was screaming inside, praying Adam would hear me. All I could do was wait...and ask Adam what he wanted," Duncan felt clammy beads of sweat, like blood, beading on his brow and upper lip.
"Adam said just the one word for an answer," Duncan was glad to be nearly finished with this, "He said, 'you.' That he wanted me. And we stood there in the sunlight," Duncan shook his head and laughed, "I remember. I thought to myself that this was one of those perfect moments, like Malak's pancakes--" Duncan shrugged.
"Oh, but it was, Duncan," Adam said softly. "Do you not know that Hell is the repository of Truth."
"Adam is gay?" Duncan wrapped himself in his arms. For Hell, this place had cold nights.
"Maybe he is, but no, Duncan, your experience, your Hell, your Truth. Not mine. Not his," Adam brought his coat over and wrapped it around him. "Any Hope left?" he asked.
Duncan replied, "Sure."
"Any Faith?" Adam asked.
"I suppose," Duncan answered.
"Well," Adam's long arms captured him over the coat and he waited until Duncan stopped shaking and cursing. Then Adam put his mouth near Duncan's ear, "Duncan, most of what you went through, most of what has wounded you so, is not any complexity of my sexuality, but rather of yours. We are as close together as we may be and not be lovers. But we are not lovers. Wonderful as that might be, we are neither of us ready for that step, if we ever will be. Try as we might, one, or both, of us would, in effect, be raped."
"Am I gay?" Duncan relaxed into the hug.
"Does that even sound like a Greater Truth?"
"No," Duncan wanted to believe this was Adam holding him. But this shade was right. Even that did not matter. "Love is a killing thing," he said, "and it is a dying thing. It cannot be killed. It cannot die. As much as it is the creation and the resurrection, Love is also the opposite. Because there is no greater pleasure, there is no greater pain. Because there is no greater blessing, there is no greater damnation."
"You may be here," Duncan continued. "Or not. Still you would be more dangerous to me than any other being in Creation. Because of me, because of all you have made me, just by being...because of what you have given me."
"And what would that be, Duncan?"
Duncan thought for a moment, running through all the things, both good and bad, which Adam meant to him, trying to ken which was the most important, "Uncertainty."
This was met by silence.
"I know that doesn't sound like--" Duncan began to explain.
"No," Adam said, "No, Duncan, I understand. I am just stunned, amazed. You do well, Highlander, very well, indeed!"
Duncan felt the lean arms wrap tighter around him. I am alive, he thought. And the pain and the pleasure, the vast uncertainty, all serve to remind. If I only endure, then I will not forget. And I will not be forgotten. Then something suddenly occurred to him. "If you are Adam, then how do you know this is really me?"
"Well, if you aren't," Adam answered, "You are such an exquisite forgery it can hardly matter."
"You don't really know though, do you?"
"No, Duncan. I just choose to believe and that makes it true. By Faith alone, you are."
Duncan thought about this, "Then I choose to believe also that you are Adam."
Adam exhaled noisily, "Then I shall have to be as good an Adam as it is in me to be, just in the name of your Faith, if for no other reason. And just in time for company..." he added, releasing Duncan and offering him a hand up.
Dr. Mark Palmer was walking off the footbridge towards them. "Duncan MacLeod and Methos," he greeted them, "So glad you came," he offered his very large hands to them both. Neither man accepted. The Bear seemed not to notice their lapse in the basic courtesies, it was, after all, Hell.
"The witch declined, I see," Palmer added.
"What has been decided?" Duncan asked.
"Right to the point," Palmer commented approvingly, "Brave Lad. It seems we are given leave to try. If Brother Malak is still fit to send us to Last Gate, then he may be redeemed and forgiven the sentence." The Bear started up the rise.
"Good," Duncan couldn't believe it was going to be this easy. He followed the Bear.
Adam stepped up on Duncan's left side, positioning himself as Shield as the three men walked up the hill to where the blank canvas flapped in the light breeze. "Be careful, Duncan," he warned.
"I do not make this Hell, Duncan," the Bear's deep voice floated on the same zephyr which slapped the sign like a sail.
"I know," Duncan said. "But your King commands it, nonetheless. And it is only by Official Pardon that Ram will stop making this Hell."
"Malak, Ram, may not yet be--" Palmer chose his words so carefully, he ran out of them.
"Sane?" Adam supplied, ignoring Duncan's rough elbow in his side.
"Yes," Palmer agreed, "Ram may not believe this. It will all depend on--"
"If she has any Faith left after so long in Hell?" Duncan supplied.
The Bear looked Duncan up and down, clearly amazed, "Yes."
"Take me to Ram," Duncan ordered. "Or to Malak, whichever."
"I have," Palmer replied.
Duncan looked around. They were standing at the top of the rise with a good view of the sloping field east of the pond. The trees were at least twenty strides distant. There was no one but the three of them in the immediate area. "What kind of a trick is this, Marak?"
"The sign," Adam said in a most peculiar tone.
Duncan walked beyond the sign. There was no one behind it.
"Behind you," Adam said, "the sign."
"You said that before," Duncan snapped.
"Turn around, Duncan."
Duncan looked back at the canvas. Standing on the other side from the single spotlight, the silhouette of a man was clear against the pale canvas that wasn't canvas at all but the peeled and stretched flaying of Malak's own skin, laced to the square metal framework, attached only at his back. The extremities were lashed, wrist and ankles, to the corners of the frame.
It was so unfathomable, Duncan had the impression that Malak had opened his eyes. But how could they be otherwise, with his face stripped off and stretched somewhere far above and behind his head? The muscles were everywhere visible, drying in the breeze, as was the skin, shrinking against the lacing's, drawing tight as a drum.
"Hold him," Duncan said to both men, "Adam, give me your sword."
Adam looked at him, questioning. He handed over the bright golden blade.
"We could dither with trying to unlace him," Duncan began, "but for time and mercy's sake, I will cut the ankle and wrist ties only and then finish the flaying."
"Yes," the Bear agreed with the sensible plan. He stepped forward and placed his paws around the man's waist.
The muscles writhed beneath the grasp and Malak screamed, a moaning, lowing, scaling disharmony which drove Adam to his knees, gagging.
Duncan would have wished the luxury to go to his friend and comfort him, but Hell was not about comfort. He focused on the task, hurried along by the awful sounds that Malak made in his extremity.
The arms' falling weight tore them from their last connection to the skin. Duncan skillfully and quickly sliced through the last remaining connection at the back and the legs. The body fell forward into the Bear's great arms, a bloody mass in continual, agonized motion, like a larval form prematurely stripped from its cocoon.
"I will take him down to the water," Palmer said, adjusting his purchase on the slippery, writhing flesh. "When he is whole, we will begin." Then he turned away from Duncan and bore his brother down the gentle slope to the pond.
Which left Duncan to get himself and Adam down from this hideous place, away from the nauseous slap and snap of Malak's hide in the hellish wind.
Duncan arrived at the pond edge just as Marak delivered--Ram, yes it was Ram--from the lucent water. He pounded his knees down beside the Bear and took her from his great arms.
"Ram, Ram," Duncan called, not really expecting a response this soon, but needing to express his hope, his faith, in more than silence.
Adam hung back from the two men crouched by the pond, standing in the shadows. He threw Duncan's coat at the Highlander's back.
"Thank you, Adam," Duncan reached behind him and brought the long coat around to wrap around Ram's pale, cool body. "Come here, Old Man, she won't bite."
"Oh, I would not wager large amounts," Adam moved not an inch.
"I know you cannot help," Duncan said softly, "But you still can be part of this. You have earned it."
"What do you mean?" Adam's curiosity drew him forward.
"Three more steps and I'll tell you," Duncan pronounced, never looking at him.
The Bear started laughing, "You are too cunning by half, MacLeod."
"Well, I take no credit," Duncan commented, sorting the wet tangles away from Ram's face. "I have had many brave and wise and wondrous teachers in my life, and life itself, when I am not too thick to listen." Ram began to stir, to fuss. He shifted her in his lap, lifting her upper body to sitting. "Ram?" he called her name again, but it was still too soon. Ram's head sagged back against his shoulder and she slept.
Duncan reached his hand up behind him. Adam's hand slid into his. "Nice you decided to join us," Duncan said, "You won't be going into this with me, will you?"
"No," Adam replied. "I cannot come unless she bids me. You alone may go to that place. You alone will win her faith back, or no one at all, Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod."
"I am still going to believe it is you," Duncan declared. "I am still going to believe that my dear friend, Adam, a person I love, is standing beside me, with all the hope he owns, to give me the grace to succeed at this."
"I envy him," Adam said. He curled his long body down at Duncan's back and braced his own back there. "In his honor, then, I will stand your Shield, Lord."
"But how did you know?" the Bear whispered sideways to Duncan.
Adam pushed hard against Duncan's back. "It's a secret," Duncan said.
"Ram," Duncan felt her grey gaze focus on him.
"Duncan, is it?" Ram's voice had not changed from their first conversation, the same even tones, the tired and listless phrasings, despite the energy of the words.
"Oh, Ram," Duncan held her over his heart, "Help me do this. Help me, please. I don't have any power here. No sword, no strength, no wit to win your faith in me. I cannot even say you should trust me. Look at where that has led you in the past...even to this place. Help me."
Ram pulled her arm out from under the coat and draped it over his shoulder, looking up at his face. "And what," she sighed softly, "am I to help you with?"
"Help me get out of here," Duncan might have bitten off his tongue just then. Why had he said this cowardly thing?
"Why?" she asked, pulling up to sitting.
"I am so afraid," Duncan couldn't imagine what was wrong with him. Why couldn't he say he was there to save her, to free the Danae?
"How am I to do that, Duncan?" Ram asked.
"When you took the Dark Quickening from me," Duncan began, but he couldn't finish. He had never fared so badly in battle before. He set her down on the ground before him and started to rise. "I am sorry, Ram. There should have been another to do this. I am certainly not equal to it. I cannot convince you with my cleverness. I am not clever. I cannot tell you I won't hurt you. I have hurt you badly. I cannot say you should trust me when I cannot trust myself. I am too afraid and too miserable here to make you a champion. Please forgive me, Ram. It was cruel of me to offer you hope, when I had none of my own."
Ram offered him her pale, slender hand. "And if you had said anything else at all, Duncan, I would never believe. You are either the perfect Lie or the blessed Truth. I choose the latter, Duncan. Come with me, be my back. We have a very long farewell to say."
"You are going to do it?" Duncan asked.
"We are doing it already, Brother," Ram replied, "Look."
Across the bridge, they came, in a--what? flock, herd, exaltation--yes, in an exaltation of angels, great galleon sail wings furled respectfully, clothed in light so searing as to make staring impossible.
As they came around the water's edge, they slowed and, one-by-one, came forward, bowed and turned and walked up the hill to the place where the awful Kite had stood, now a visible rent in the fabric of this place, a great, black tear with stars beyond. As they passed through, each Danaan flared up briefly, lighting the entire hillside and then winked out like a dying star.
Through the hundreds of sendings, Duncan held Ram's hand, standing her back while the Adam stood his. It was, in seeming, a simple act, but, in the actual, Duncan felt the diminishment, like a reverse Quickening, as if he were teetering on the brink of a vast emotional verge. At the end, both he and Ram were shaking visibly with fear and fatigue and unfathomable loss.
Duncan was grateful for the one at his back, Adam's avatar. He knew he would have been unequal to this by himself. Then it was done. All the angels gone through the rent.
Then Adam unwound his long legs and stood, patting Duncan's shoulders and speaking the words that the other Danae had uttered before him. He leaned over Duncan and touched both their hands.
In clear English, Adam added, "Be pardoned, Malak Setan'm. Be King. Be Protectorate."
Duncan fought everything in him to remain where he was as the dear, lanky form strolled up the hill and disappeared in a glorious blaze. He made himself watch the whole process. It was the only honor he had left to give to this man who had proven there was charity even in Hell itself.....even here.
Then there was only the Bear left. Marak, Mark Palmer, stood up and Duncan held his breath.
"Well," the Bear said, "I'm not going."
Ram's long neck curved as she tipped her head up towards him. "Do you know what you are asking, Marak?"
The Bear nodded.
"You know how I am now?" Ram asked again. Palmer nodded again, and she continued, "Why?"
"Mary," he said for his entire explanation of the thing. It was his name for Hope. She was his hope and his faith and his love. Without any other words, all of this was clearly said within the two notes of her name.
"I will be as kind to you as I can be, Brother," Ram said.
"Duncan!" she called his name out.
Duncan came back from his own ruminations about his son. Marak was gone and the park was fading around him, melting and smudging and darkening.
"A splendid rescue, fair Knight," Ram smiled.
As Duncan dropped off into sleep, he wondered when, if ever, he was going to get used to that very disturbing expression.
Joseph Dawson was supposed to pick up Lucille and the MacLeod family on his way to the dojo, but it was just sunrise and no one would be up in Sweet Lucille's penthouse apartment at the Couver Towers. Joseph Dawson was supposed to call before he came, but it was just six-thirty, and he didn't want to disturb the troops at the dojo so early on this very special day. Joseph Dawson was supposed to be in bed still, but...
He suspected something was wrong. He would not be surprised if they'd attempted the rescue already and just hadn't called until they could make the bad news as palatable as possible. Joe Dawson did not exactly feel anything so specific as all that. He just felt he had to go and he had to go now, not later.
And the reason for that would be revealed when he got there. The closer Joe got to Cambie Street, the more foolish he felt, barging in on Duncan and Adam, Grace and Cassandra, for no reason. Well, for no reason he could identify, anyway. Joe passed the alleyway, did a U-turn, came back and...
Aw, what the hell. He drove in, shut down the customized car they'd bought him when Set was in the hospital. Joe let himself in with his key and made his way to the cage lift. He keyed in the combination and waited. The elevator made enough noise to wake the dead and Joe wondered if he should call up, but the lift arrived faster than he could make it to the office and the phone, and his cellular didn't like the lower floors of this thick building, something about the pipes.
Joe moved to the back of the lift so as not to get skewered by any rudely awakened Immies and watched the floors go by outside the cage. The empty floor on four about toppled him. Malak was moved or dead or both. He was right to come. Something had happened. He would have been far happier to be made a silly old fool, but that was almost never the case with one of these hunches.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath as the fifth floor descended before the cage.
And then he smiled and his beard bristled up over his dimples. The scene displayed before him, as he quietly pulled the cage door sideways, was almost too serene to believe. An adult Hallmark card titled "Early morning after a late night." Duncan lay propped on his side on his wide bed with Adam lying beside him, a yard of Piersen arm flopped protectively over the Highlander's snoring torso, both men fully clothed with their shoes still on. Cass was lying on the rug at the foot of the bed, her head in Grace's lap. Grace like a portrait of a recumbent angel, sat on the floor with her left arm artfully outstretched along the end of the bed, her head leaned over on her arm, with the innocence of a child sleeping.
Dawson saw all this in an instant, because he was used to being observant, but none of these held his attention longer, for in the foreground, draped on the couch facing him, the knuckle of her right hand in her mouth and her long fingers curled over her prominent nose, was Ram. They had succeeded in bringing her back from hell.
Joe might have howled, except he did not want to disturb their rest. God knew they must be exhausted. As quietly as he could manage, Joe walked over to the thick plank coffee table directly in front of the couch and levered himself down, setting his cane underneath. He shouldn't wake her, but he could not keep himself from touching her face.
He leaned forward and combed the dark curls away from her forehead. No scar, she really wasn't Set come back, but after Malak, that seemed unimportant. He had told her he would know her if she came back as a toaster. He would know her. He would love her. The rest was just details.
Ram stirred under his touch and murmured something. Then the bright silver eyes shot open and she vaulted over the back of the couch away from him and fell, thud, to the floor.
Joe just waited as first one, and then the other, slender hand appeared over the back of the couch, and then her face, like the sun rising. "Good morning, Ram," he greeted her.
"Is it?" Ram blinked her eyes clear and pulled herself up. She searched the apartment, inch-by-inch it seemed, waiting for something, absolute in her assessment and vigilance. Then her shoulders relaxed and she strode over to the kitchen island and around to the frig where she opened the freezer and took out an ice tray. As Joe watched, she popped out the ice on the island counter and went digging in the drawers for a plastic bag and the cupboards for a thick coffee mug.
She held up each cube to the window and inspected it, all sides, then she picked four and placed them in the plastic bag. Putting the dishrag over the bag, Ram began to pound it with the side of the mug, cracking the ice, and making a grand racket. None of the sleepers even stirred.
When Ram was satisfied that the ice had been sufficiently subdued, she picked up the bag of chips and poured them into the cup she'd used for pounding. Placing her left hand over the top of the cup, she turned it upside down, spilling out all the water, leaving just the ice. Then she righted the cup and pulled a small handful of ice out and popped it in her mouth, testing it on her palate like a wine, or some milk that might or might not have gone by.
Joe watched fascinated, but not understanding the intricate ritual.
"No salt," she said, then, "Not sand. What a marvelous gift for my anniversary."
She was tired, Joe thought. She wasn't making any sense.
Tucking the cup in her left hand and eating the ice as if it were the best popcorn ever, she walked over to the window by the kitchen table and leaned her cheek against the glass, as if the meager warmth of the sunrise were a cascading spa of healing waters.
Joe didn't want to worry, but Ram was really off the beam here.
She just stood there bare lean legs beneath one of MacLeod's white T-shirts, leaning against the sunny window and chewing on the ice, in some transportation of ecstasy which Joe could in no way understand.
But Joe was more or less used to the incomprehensibility of his wife. He knew it was best just to wait. Even Chaos sorted itself out, given enough time. Then he saw her eyes close, heard her breathing slow, watched her legs slack beneath her and she sank, sound asleep, to the hardwood floor. The cup and the ice went flying.
Adam came awake suddenly, stood up on the bed, leaped over Grace and Cassandra, hit one of the ice chips and went skidding, all flailing arms and legs, smack into the back of the couch, where he completed his "assisted" ninety-degree turn and made his way more carefully to his mother's side.
"What happened?" he asked softly as he returned to the couch with Ram in his arms.
"I don't know," Joe shrugged, "She was just leaning against the window, watching the sun and chewing on," he looked around them on the floor, "that ice, and the next thing I knew."
Adam started to laugh, "Oh, she is such a lizard!"
Joe wondered if he went out and came back in would any of this make sense. He shook his head.
"Oh," Adam coughed. "I guess Duncan hasn't had that talk with you yet."
"About what, Adam?"
"Oh, I don't know, in between things," Adam lifted Ram off his lap and rearranged her on the couch so she wouldn't snore quite so loudly.
"In between?" Joe prompted.
"Yes--do you want some coffee?" Adam started picking up ice and cup shards on his way to make some.
"In between what, Adam," Joe asked again.
Adam cleaned up the mess Ram had left on the counter and pulled down the coffee can. "What? Oh, like in between Ram and Set and Malak...things like that. Haven't you ever wondered?" He measured out the coffee and pulled on the cold water to fill the pot.
"Adam, I have wondered so many things of late. Is Ram all right now?"
Adam stared a moment. Joe could almost see the wheels whirring round just beneath his forehead. "Oh," he said finally, "You mean because she's asleep. No, just sleep, Joe. She is very tired and the warm window acted like a sun-heated rock with..."
"...a lizard. I see what you meant," Joe chuckled. He reached out again and stroked her hair. Ram snuggled into his touch like a house cat.
There was more to it than the metaphor, though, Adam thought. What could it hurt to prolong Joe's ignorance? Obviously Duncan hadn't thought the time right yet and he'd had six full months to think about how to explain this to the Watcher. Coffee, Adam thought, rubbing his eyes and yawning.
Coffee first, then we'll see if my wits kick in...
...and then we'll talk about all the complexities of Chaos returned from Hell.
Doubtless, there would be a few to go around.
Adam didn't imagine he'd have any reason to be bored for another decade, minimum.
"Here," Adam set a coffee down on the table next to Joe and sat himself down next to the Watcher.
"Thanks," Joe acknowledged him and returned to rubbing Ram's back. She'd rolled over at some point while Adam made the coffee and woke up. Her face was buried in the pillows and the couch back, her sinuous spine rolled a little, like a skiff in a quiet sea, under Joe's hands.
Adam knew this was a "son thing." He couldn't very well begrudge his own mother any pleasure that was left to her after Hell's numbing chill. After all, Ram was married to this man. But he was seriously disturbed, irrationally so, Adam had to admit, by the easy, mindless way that her flesh responded to the Watcher's touch, even though she was sound asleep. "Can you stop that," he heard himself saying.
Joe looked over at him and stopped petting Ram. He reached for the coffee with his right hand, but his left drifted back to the woman on the couch, finding its way to her short, dark mane, stroking absently through the curls as if drawn there by some ephemeral magnetism. Ram's fingers stretched open, out of their fists and then curled again.
Adam looked elsewhere. His reaction surprised him, though if he thought about it to any degree, he could feel himself getting nauseous with rage. "I suppose we could decide what to do from here," he said, staring at the Highlander, sprawled on top of the covers, and the two women draped on the floor. "Duncan will wake in the next hour or so. I better think about breakfast. Grace and Cass will want to go to Lucille's and be tended to the luxuries they have surely earned. I doubt Duncan will be in any shape to drive, and he will certainly want to see the children. I'm a little concerned about leaving you here alone with Ram."
"I hope you aren't going to suggest shackling her," Joe's hand went right on smoothing Ram's scalp.
Adam wondered that she didn't purr. "No, I don't think that's going to be necessary," Adam paused, "You do know she thinks you're not real?"
"She knows me," Joe stared at Adam as if his statement were absurd. "I know her. What are you talking about?"
How does one explain Hell? Adam wondered. "Wake her up. Ask her," he suggested.
"Ram," Joe called softly, pulling his hand down to her shoulder, "Ram, wake up Darlin'."
Honey bunches, Sweetums, Adam thought. Sheesh, why did this bother him so much? It was just silliness.
Ram stretched her length out straight on the couch, rolled back towards them, and pushed up sleepily, running her long, pale fingers through her hair in an exact mimicry of Joe's fondlings. Adam couldn't watch her do this, not with that dreamy, far-off expression on face. It was all too obscene.
"Yes?" Ram's alto floated tonelessly through the loft. Pushing her arms over her head, she extended her spine, threw back her head, and yawned.
"Ram?" Joe leaned forward and settled both hands on her knees, waiting for her attention. "Do you think I am real?"
"What kind of game is this?" Ram asked, reaching for his whiskers and giving them a gentle tug.
"I don't know," Joe laughed as their foreheads touched, "Adam made me ask."
God, they were like two conspiring children, gleefully misbehaving together, shutting out the entire world around them. Adam sat watching from the outside, feeling a thousand miles away.
Ram let go of his beard and stroked his chin, back and forth, with her nose. "Of course you're not, Silly Wizard, we've played that game to death. I told you it didn't matter."
Joe pulled back, aghast. "Ram!"
"All right, if you want to, I'll play," she grinned, it was a terrible travesty of her smile, crooked and palsied along one side, like Set after the accident. "Just a minute," she said, "I'll be right back and we can play any way you want."
Ram bounced off the couch and slid sideways by him. Back to the refrigerator. Back to the ice tray, sticking her index finger through every ice crust of the tray Adam had refilled and put back. Then she got the second tray and started inspecting the cubes as before. When she had the ones she wanted, a new mug appeared and, pound, crunch, pound, she hit and rolled it over the bag and the rag and the cubes, making a new mug of ice chips.
"Why is she doing that?" Joe asked Adam.
"She's thirsty," Adam replied.
"Why doesn't she just drink something?"
"Ask her," Adam knew it wouldn't help if he explained. Joe would never believe him.
Ram rejoined them, sitting on the couch arm, her bare feet on the seat, and the mug balanced on her knees. She started shoveling the ice in and chewing noisily, mmm-mmming and making a mess down her front.
"Ram," Joe started to ask her about the ice, but changed his mind, "Why wouldn't I be real?"
Ram swallowed carefully, "Ask him." She pointed at Adam.
"Ram!" Joe did not mean to be angry, but his rising fear made him shout.
"Well," she snorted, "If you are not going to be civil, then I won't play, after all." With this Ram got up, walked to the lift, set the mug on the floor and began playing with the digital lock on the gate.
"Where are you going, Ram?" Adam was up like a shot.
And across the room, Duncan struggled groggily off the bed and staggered toward the lift.
Ram read the advances of the two men, made some quick tactical decisions, picked up the mug and threw the ice directly at Adam's face. Then she dashed by him in the split-second delay, hit the thick table, by Joe, with her right foot and leaped the couch to a standup landing on the other side, right in front of Grace and Cass, awake and flattened against the end of the bed in each other's arms.
Duncan wheeled towards her, "Do not hurt them, Ram! They mean you no harm!"
Ram waited just long enough to draw him closer and then cleared the two women, bounced off the bed to the left, and disappeared behind the bathroom door. Click, went the lock.
"Stay with them!" Duncan called to Adam, indicating the two frazzled Powers by the bed. Then he charged the window by the bed's head, ripped up the sash and climbed out onto the fire escape, disappearing from sight.
But not sound. There followed a caterwaul and screech, thuds and umphs and grunts of a full-bore battle. "You see what I meant about leaving her alone with you?" Adam had the bad grace to comment to Joe.
Duncan climbed back in through the window with Ram in his arms, kicking and cursing. He might have been grateful that Hell hadn't dampened her spirits.
He might have been more grateful if Hell hadn't dampened his own. As it was, even with his greater size and strength, with her arms pinned at her side, facing away from him, it was almost more than he could do just to hold her.
Duncan dropped to sitting on the bed's side and tried to talk Ram out of this. "Look, I know you have no way of knowing whether I mean you harm or not, but I could have so easily bashed your thick little head out on the 'stoop' when you tripped...and I didn't."
"That hardly recommends you, Sheep brain."
"Ram, don't you remember? You sent the Danae on through Last Gate! You are free!"
"How do you know that isn't just one of your phantasms, like Adam's raping you? That felt real didn't it?"
Oh, he wished she hadn't said that. Duncan saw Adam out of the corner of his eye. The Old Man did not take this revelation well. "Shut up!" he said, and even Grace did not reprove him his very bad manners. "And stop kicking me!"
"As you wish," Ram hissed. Her feet stopped and her whole frame relaxed.
Joe retrieved his cane and walked towards the bed, arriving there just as Ram threw her back into a rapid reverse arc and drove the crown of her head into Duncan's nose, breaking it.
Joe sat down beside them on the bed, despite Adam's hovering and tugging and protestations.
"Be still," was all Joe said, but it was Wizard's magic all the same.
Ram stopped fighting. Duncan cautiously moved his hands to her upper arms and lifted her off his lap between himself and the Watcher on the side of the bed.
Adam had a most peculiar reaction. Why should she have such a loving, compelling master, someone to take the weight of the world for her? Why should she have this "Honey bunches, lovee, petting thingee" with this man, when so many had no one? So many, namely him. He wasn't jealous for her. He was jealous of her. This marriage of souls shone too bright a light on his own singularity. Even in Hell, you had this, Adam thought, even in Hell, and I with no one in the bright, living world. Though even as he thought this, he was ashamed at his own churlishness.
"Ram," Joe sighed. "I do not know what this is about, but I want you to be still, I am here."
Every muscle in Ram's body went slack, but her grey gaze never left the Wizard. She was waiting.
Joe leaned forward to kiss her. Ram's eyes closed.
"Oh, my God!" Joe drew his head back and reached his hand up, reflexively to her chest.
"Don't touch her!" Adam shifted Joe sideways away from Ram and then went to get towels and...whatever.
"What is it?" Joe pleaded, "Tell me, Ram, what happened?" He couldn't take his eyes off her face, her torn lip. God, he hadn't even touched her! It looked like he'd nearly bitten her lip off! And the bubbling blood that soaked the front of chest through the T-shirt all the way to her lap! What had happened?
Ram collapsed quietly backward on the bed and died. The bleeding slowed and stopped.
Joe lowered his head into his hands, shaking. "What did I do?"
Adam let Duncan and Grace tend the mess. He sent Cassandra to start something for breakfast, probably the only time in her life she would be glad to accomodate such a request.
Adam sat himself down by the Watcher, on the side away from the bloody corpse that Ram had become. "It isn't your fault, Joe. That's just the way it is with Hell."
Joe lifted his head and stared, "How what is?"
"It's complicated, but the simple explanation is Ram's been seeing someone, your fetch, your double, in Hell. The double-goer, doppelganger, has been the mirror of you, but in the end of each encounter he has hurt and killed her. What you're seeing here is just post-traumatic stress syndrome with the twist that Ram can, like Malak did, manifest the injury conceived in the mind."
Joe considered this for a moment, "Do you mean to say that every time she let me get close to her, I tore her apart?"
"Yes," Adam said, a little too happily for the situation. "That's exactly it."
Joe seemed to sink in on himself. "How could she just continue to let me get close? How could she bear for me to touch her? How, if it only meant she would be hurt so badly, again and again?" He began to weep. Great, shiny tears rolled down his cheeks and lost themselves in his beard. He shook his head. "How could she still love me even when she thinks it isn't me but some copy. Jesus!"
This is why I have no one, Adam suddenly realized. Nothing is worth that.
Ram pushed back up with Duncan's assistance.
Joe forced himself to look at her, though his neck would hardly turn his head to do so.
Ram scrambled to kneeling beside him. "Joe! Oh, Joe!"
Joe froze. She was going to hurt him and he deserved it. Be still, be still, be still.
With great awe and reverence, Ram reached out her right hand and touched below his left eye with just the tips of her index and middle fingers. Her touch was light as moth wings, her eyes as bright and wondering as pure revelation. She brought the wet fingers back to her face. She stared at the drops there, then brushed them lightly over her top lip, then sucked them softly onto her tongue.
"What are you doing here, Joe? How did you come to this awful place?"
"I wish I could have come to you, Ram," Joe answered, "but I could not. So Duncan brought you back. You are pardoned. I can't remember if that is salvation or redemption," he closed his eyes tightly and pressed his lips together to keep from openly sobbing.
Ram smiled. They were going to have to work on that expression, Joe thought, but he was grateful for it nonetheless. "How do you know I am real?"
Ram made a short sound like a cough or a strangled laugh, "Tears are the first thing you lose in Hell, Joe. Your tears made you real." She reached her arms for his shoulders and he drew back.
"How can you still love me, Ram? It makes no sense. You should despise me for what has happened to you," Joe took a kleenex which Duncan handed across Ram to him.
Adam could not help but see Duncan watching his reaction to what Joe was saying. Do you hate me now, Duncan? he thought.
"Oh, Joe," Ram grabbed him roughly and straddled his lap, kneeling, his head between her hands, "Don't you know that you are all my gladness? Can't you see that even your shadow would be dear to me? Isn't it possible that, thinking I would never see you again, even a false Joe would be comfort to me, no matter what else that entailed? Won't you believe that I love you?"
Joe was glad when she buried his mouth beneath her own, and he didn't have to try an intelligible answer, though the answer that he made was more than understandable.
Adam looked up to find Duncan still staring at him. Damn it, what do you want of me? he wondered. Can't you see I am not, and never will be, brave enough to have this blessed thing.
This love.