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  Everyone was. She wanted this so very much. So Alex wanted it for her. She was too beautiful and too talented not to have recognition. He would be content to stay on the sidelines and bask in her radiance.

  As long as she was happy. That was what mattered.

  There was a lull in conversation and the lights went down in front. He perked up, focusing his attention to the slightly raised dais where the band played. The lazy strains of ‘Sentimental Journey’

  poured out into the room. There was a spattering of applause. Then Victoria came out and the clapping grew. She was a vision in a floor length beaded dress.

  Low cut and tight sleeved, her glorious hair in a sequined net at the base of her neck. The whole room went silent at her first note, all of them floating along on the waves of her silk and satin voice. He drifted with the rest. She gave the room little time to catch its breath, immediately moving on to ‘My Blue Heaven’. After another half dozen songs, including the new Clooney song she’d been listening to last night, she finished up the set to a standing ovation. The band played on after she gracefully walked off the stage.

  People congratulated her as she passed, men kissed her hand. She worked her way through the tables and the greetings towards him. A rising star, that found it in her heart to love a man whose only great talent in life was flying the plane that he had been shot down in. She climbed the stairs to the balcony and beamed down at him.

  “I was good, wasn’t I?” She leaned down and pressed her cheek against his.

  “You were fantastic, Vicky.”

  “Come down with me and talk to Mr. Williams.” She was beaming at him, her face alight with excitement.

  “Are you sure?” He looked past her to the sea of black clad men and glittering women. “I don’t want to mess things up for you.”

  “Silly.” She poked him with one long nailed finger. “You could never do that.

  Come down with me.”

  They went down to sit at the table with Mr. Williams from Hollywood and his entourage of beautiful women and powerful men. Victoria got compliments and encouragement, while he found himself the subject of curious stares.

  Someone asked him a few conciliatory questions about the war and his service and he answered blandly, the standard answers to the standard questions. They were not interested in him, they were interested in Victoria. He was excess baggage. He was a young man with haunted eyes, who looked out of place in the suit the Flamingo required all its patrons wear. He was here because Victoria wanted it. And they were catering to Victoria.

  The talk went past him. They spoke of contracts and screen tests and things that held little interest to him. He sat staring at Victoria and seeing the cresting waves of an unfriendly ocean. Remembering the sound the Zeros made when you played chicken with them. The sputter of torrents as they spat forth hot lead. Victoria caught his arm and brought him out of it – she was grinning at him, talking rapid fire.

  The tail end of it sunk in. Tomorrow she was going to meet with Mr. Williams again and look over a contract. She asked his opinion, eyes expectant. He lied and told her everything sounded fine. He had heard very little of the details.

  They took a cab home, and climbed the steps to her apartment. She chattered a while about what she was going to wear tomorrow, how she would do her hair, and he sat and watched her. Finally she put on her best nightgown and her flowing robe, silk and lace against her creamy skin, that made him forget about everything but her. She unfastened his suspenders and unbuttoned his shirt, her long fingers trailing across the skin of his chest. She let her lips follow where her fingers led. They fell back on the bed, melding together. Crisp white cotton sheets and tasseled crocheted coverlet bunching beneath them. She healed him.

  She always healed him, even when the injuries were self-inflicted. It was the way with them. He dreamed of nightmares and the horrors he had experienced and seen.

  She dreamed of saving souls with her light. God, his soul needed saving, and if his deity was a mortal woman, then let heaven look down in jealousy, for he would have it no other way.

  They lay together afterward, her cheek against his chest, her hair fanning out over his skin.

  “Victoria Morgan,” she experimented. “That sounds better than Victoria McFadden. It’ll make a better stage name.”

  “Stage name?” he said with a sniff.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” she chided him for his sensitivity. “If I get this contract and I marry you, I’ll be the happiest woman in the world.”

  They lay in silence for a while more, then she ventured. “When you’re better, when your shoulder is all knit, what do you think you’ll do? What do you want to do?”

  After a long pause, he shrugged under her. “I don’t know. I’ll find something.”

  “I know you will,” she whispered, tightening her arms around him. Then she rose suddenly with a wild grin. “I’m hungry, are you hungry?”

  She grabbed her robe and fumbled for the lamp by the bed, but froze halfway to it as something crashed in the living room.

  Light flared from under the crack of the door for a second, then went out. Victoria whispered his name, but Alex was already up, reflexes trained to quick response. He pulled on his pants and hurriedly searched for something he might use as a weapon.

  He settled for the long necked bottle of wine they had finished up after getting home.

  “Stay,” he whispered, pushing her back down on the bed. He heard the swish of silk that told of her hurriedly donning her robe.

  Another noise from the living room and she let out a small frightened yelp. He could not control the start he made himself. Something was moving, something heavy shuffling across the floor.

  It was right outside the bedroom door, he was certain of it. He crept forward, his bottle gripped in white-knuckled fingers.

  He reached out for the door knob with his other hand. Closed his fingers over the cold brass and suddenly had it ripped from his grasp as the door was torn outwards against the protesting shriek of hinges that were not made to open in that direction.

  He stumbled forward with it, half into the living room. The only light was the scant illumination of the moon coming in from the lacy curtained window. All it did was serve to outline something that crouched in the center of the floor, no more than a few steps from him. At first he had the wild thought that it was a piece of furniture. Victoria’s mammoth china press somehow moved to the center of the floor.

  It was too tall and broad to be anything else. It was the only thing his mind could comprehend, until it moved. It shifted with the creaking of leather and bone and Alex felt the childish urge to scream and run back into the bed room where it could not see him. It was so like a demon out of childhood imagination, some great shadowed form in the corner of a room that young minds convinced themselves was a monster laying in wait for their slightest move. But this was moving. The boards under it protested at its weight, and the moon light hinted at something that was neither human or animal form.

  Something gnarled and broad that had the ponderous movement of heavy flesh and muscle. He thought he heard the rasping scratch of breath. A deep, low growl emanated from the mountain of shadow before him.

  A piercing scream startled him. He whirled, knowing instinctively that Victoria stood behind him. Her presence, the danger she was in set him into motion.

  “Back,” he yelled, throwing the bottle with all his might at the shape and darting back, to shove her back into the bed room.

  The fire escape outside the bedroom window. He jumped the bed, fumbling with the window, tearing it upwards and grasping for Victoria. She was shaking and sobbing, tensed even against him. He pushed her over the sill, forcing her out in a tumbled mass of silk and limbs and threw his own leg over the sill to follow.

  There was a roar in his ears that sounded vaguely like the engine roar of his nightmares, but he was awake and this out-lash of sound breathed hot breath and specks of saliva on his back. An arm larger b
y far than his leg wrapped about his neck, pulling him back. He went through the air and hit the wall just by the bed, sliding down in a weak-kneed puddle, his head spinning from the impact.

  “Run, Vicky!” he shouted hoarsely.

  “Run.” He heard her call his name, then something, several somethings smaller than the initial shape flashed past his vision and scurried over the window sill.

  She cried out. He forced his muscles into action and tried to gain his feet. Something blocked the view of the window. He looked up and caught the faint glint of yellow eyes, then an impossibly hard fist lashed out and slammed him back against the wall. Everything left him then. He was back to the insistent hum of machine gun fire and the never ending crash of waves.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Part Two

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  It was cold. The cold was an unusual aspect of the dream. He was usually sweating and sticky, fighting to keep the mosquitoes from feeding off his lifeblood.

  It was also quiet, save for the low whistle of wind. It was not the quiet of the tropics, for no insistent crickets chirped or night birds sang, no engines marred the perfection of the silence. Not even the car engines that one could never get away from in the city. Very slowly, he opened his eyes. A slit at first, looking under his lashes at what appeared to be flat gray stone, then he moved his head somewhat and looked at more stone. Stone that slanted upwards at sharp angles, decorated here and there with patches of irregular snow.

  Snow and stone. Quiet and cold. He lay for a while trying to associate these conditions with the last place he remembered. Victoria’s apartment on the lower east side of Kansas city. Kansas city, as far as he knew, had very little in the way of snow-bound cliffs. Which only left him the conclusion that he was dreaming. The first non-war related dream he’d had since coming home. He was not totally displeased with the change, just confused.

  “It’s awake.” A gravely voice interrupted the perfection of the silence.

  “The bakatu is awake.”

  Alex twisted his neck, peering behind him and was doubly assured that he was indeed in the midst of a dream. A very strange little creature squatted beside him.

  He might call it a man, if he wanted to stretch the description. It looked more like a collection of hairy slabs of flesh improperly pieced together. Its head was large and singularly atrocious. Brows that made the most primitive of cave men seem intellectual, overshadowed small, glinting black eyes. There were no whites to those eyes, no gleam of humanity. The nose was nothing more than an afterthought of flesh slapped in the center of the off-balance face, and the lips were fleshy slabs that hardly hid the sharp, yellowed teeth beneath them. Bristly black hair grew in tufts indiscriminately about the face and head, and what portions of the body uncovered by leather and rags also seemed abundantly blessed with clots of fur. The shoulders were broad in comparison to the spindly legs and bony knees that poked out of holes in the leggings. The hands were huge and large knuckled, the nails sharp and long, well coated in dirt. All in all it was a very gruesome little man, for even squatting, Alex guessed that he could not have topped five feet. This was most certainly not the thing encountered in Victoria’s apartment.

  “Who are you?” Alex asked, playing along with the dream. The shaggy brows drew together and it reached out one hand to prod him in the shoulder.

  “Shut up, bakatu.” The little man looked over his shoulder. “It talks.”

  Alex followed the gaze. Two dark-skinned, wizened little creatures crouched by a fire. Hairless, wrinkled scalps topped faces, that if not more normally formed, were at least as hideously frightening as the thing sitting by him.

  Sharp, pointed teeth bristled from beneath their drawn lips. Their clothing consisted mainly of wide leather belts and loincloths. They were stout creatures that stood only marginally taller than the misshapen little man.

  “Cut out its tongue,” one suggested, cackling. “Bakatu tongue soup sounds good for supper.”

  “Never ate bakatu before,” the thing next to him mused, scratching at something that scurried through the hair on its head.

  “They eat themselves and never leave a scrap for strangers.”

  The two dark creatures hissed in what could have been laughter among themselves. Alex felt his hackles rise.

  This was not turning into a pleasant dream. He pushed himself up to a sitting position, leaning on has hands. His head throbbed abysmally, his mouth was painfully dry.

  “What are you?” he asked again.

  “Where am I?”

  “Don’t listen well, does it?” the little man observed to his companions. “Maybe we won’t eat it, maybe we’ll eat its female.”

  Alex stared at him blankly. The creature bared its teeth and waved a hand to Alex’s right. There was a pile of cream silk crumpled in the shadow of two overhanging rocks. Alex gaped, then swung his gaze back to the little man unbelievingly before scrambling over on hands and knees to the form.

  Victoria was cold. Her skin was chill and flaccid, her lips slightly blue. There was a bruise on her cheek and her hair was tangled in disarray about her face and shoulders. He grabbed her face in his hands, bringing his own close, praying for the telling hint of breath. She breathed lightly. Just a tickle of air on his cheek, and he grasped her up to his chest in relief, murmuring her name Victoria had not formerly been a part of his nightmares. That she was here now sent alarms rushing though his mind.

  “What have you done to her?” he demanded, not bothering to let her go or turn to the creatures.

  The little man shuffled over, reaching out to lift a strand of Victoria’s hair. Alex slapped his hand away.

  “What do you think?” the thing said with a leer.

  Alex gasped at him, a strangling fury rising. “You bastard….”

  The yellow grin widened.

  “Personally, I’d have nothing to do with a Bakatu female. If a female don’t have fur, what good is she, I say.”

  “Bashru. What you doing?” A rumbling voice bounced off the rocks and the little man started, glancing around nervously. A great form moved up a trail that led down from the rocky grotto they occupied.

  Alex’s eyes widened. It was almost as wide as he was tall, and twice his height. A small head balanced precariously atop the massive shoulders.

  It looked vaguely porcine about the face and ears. It carried with it an ax a good five feet long. With every lumbering step it took, the leather armor it wore creaked and the great bones beneath the ample padding of flesh and muscle seemed to crack. It was a familiar noise. It brought back the shadowed shape in the darkness of Victoria’s apartment. Alex gaped, shocked silent, holding Victoria closer, as if his puny arms might be some protection against that.

  It stood over him, its shadow a complete blanket. The little man scurried past it and crouched a little bit away from the other two creatures, glaring at the giant’s back.

  For a long moment it stared down at them, then finally it spoke, its voice a rumbling, grating of vocal chords.

  “You don’t do what Zakknr says first time and….” He slapped one fist into the palm of the other. The crack made Alex jump. His eyes practically bugged from their sockets. “….you disobey second time and I break female.” He made a twisting, wrenching motion with those unbelievably large hands. “You understand?”

  When Alex only stared incomprehensibly, the thing, this Zakknr drew in a deep breath and roared at him.

  “You understand, bakatu?!!”

  Alex jerked back, huddling against the rock, hugging Victoria so tight that he probably cut off her breathing. He nodded shakily and Zakknr shook his head once in satisfaction, then lumbered over to the fire.

  Alex continued to watch him warily, slowly relaxing his grip on Victoria. The little man, after a while wondered back over, sitting on a rock and staring at them.

  Alex tried to ignore him, looking down at Victoria’s face, brushing her hair back and lightly caressing the bruise on her cheek.


  Her breathing was regular now and deep.

  Her warmth against his chest took away some of the cold. He did not have his shirt, just the pants he had hastily thrown on when Zakknr had invaded their living room. She was little better, with only a night gown and thin silk robe. He chanced a glance back up and the little man was still staring.

  “What do you want?” Alex ground out, low enough so the words did not carry to the fire.

  “Ogres aren’t very pleasant, hmmm?” the creature remarked.

  Alex glanced past him to the fire. An ogre? He laughed a bit hysterically. “And what are you? A troll?”

  The hideous face twisted with surprising dexterity. “Troll. Paauughh! I be a spriggan and proud of it. Better than any goblin or ogre, that be fer sure.”

  Insulted, the spriggan moved off, turning its back on him. That was fine. Its front was discernibly unsettling. Alex rubbed his cheek against Victoria’s hair, craving her softness and warmth. She stirred slightly. He whispered her name and she turned in his arms, burrowing her cheek against his chest.

  “I’m cold,” she murmured, still hazy with sleep.

  He tightened his arms. “Me too, but it’s okay. It’s just a dream.”

  “A dream?” She blinked up at him, her lashes were black slashes against her pale skin. She smiled slightly. “What do you mean, love?”

  “This just isn’t real. I’ll wake up soon and everything will be all right.” He hoped so. He truly hoped so.

  Her brows drew and she made to turn. He held her close. “You don’t want to see,” he assured her.