"Don't," she said frantically.
He shook off her grip, and with an upward press of his thumb, the instrument began to hum, pulsating in his palm, which had begun to tremble slightly without assistance. The bristles quivered and so did his stomach.
He had grown beyond fear of man and death. But this, this perversity of nature, left him chilled. He instinctively threw down what had to be an illusion. The object landed in the porcelain sink and gyrated against a round gold circle. It was then that he noticed the spigot had an attachment that he pulled up and down; as he did so the gold circle went up and down too. It acted as a cork, he realized, but he'd never seen a cork such as this.
"Noble? Noble, look—" He shook off her frantic grip on his wrist and went to the tub. He repeated the motions, amazed, stunned by what his eyes insisted was true but his reason insisted was not.
Sweeping his gaze to what he had first thought an exotic chair with a slop jar housed in the seat, he saw that it also had a suspicious lever.
"Why didn't I notice that before?" he asked himself aloud. Then to Lori, he said decisively, "I've allowed you to distract me too much as it is. Move away."
She tried to block him and he thrust her aside, intent on confronting the throne in this delusive setting. He took a lurching step and his bare foot bumped the pile of devices he had thought to be aids for arousal.
"Noble, please, you have to listen to me—"
"Listen to you? To what shall I be listening? An hallucination? Yes. Yes, that's what you are." Dear God, please let all of this be exactly that. Let him be trapped in a bizarre delirium that had him fabricating the array of objects slithering like vipers around his feet, suddenly bearing no resemblance to sexual bed toys.
That he had allowed her to put these foreign perversities on him... he shuddered.
Noble swiped at his arm where she had put the cuff, feeling as if he had been violated by an obscenity of nature. Searching for something, anything that might give him a sense of reality, he spied his gun. With a desperate urgency, he bent to retrieve it. Only to encounter Lori's boot stamping down on the familiar metal before he could claim it.
"My gun," he snarled at her. "Remove your foot from my gun."
"I'm sorry, Noble. But I can't let you have your gun. Please, sit down, catch your breath, and try to relax while I explain everything as best I can."
"Explain everything?" he challenged, his eyes wild and wary. "Yes, please do. Explain this." He kicked aside the tools of her nightmarish trade. Everything about him, even time, seemed to expand and contract while he struggled for a sense of balance. Whether it was seconds or hours, he didn't know, but at last he slammed his hand down on the lever attached to the ornate slop jar.
No slop jar had a hole in the bottom of it. No slop jar made a sucking noise and contained a swirling pool of water that disappeared then re-surged as if by magic.
"And explain this." He raced back to the sink, but his feet seemed to be moving in slow motion, taking forever to get him to the elongated stained-glass fixture above the basin.
When he struck his fist against it, not only did the overlong light beneath shine too brightly to be a dull, flickering bulb, but the fixture itself lacked the properties of glass. The casing was too thin and had a texture unknown to him. It was attached to a wall, which was made of an equally strange substance. No paper covered the wood. In fact there was no wood to be seen at all.
He put his fist through a thin, glossy white... he had no idea what this enigma was doing passing for a wall. Noble quickly jerked away from it and put his palm to the light source that could be no more real than the burning sensation it elicited. No, he couldn't really be burned. No more than he could bleed—though blood appeared to spurt from the opposite palm he slammed against the trick fixture until it shattered.
"You're bleeding. Let me look at that and—"
"Get away from me," he snapped. Knocking her hand away, he quickly retrieved the gun left on the floor. Training it on her, he said in a lethal whisper, "stay where you are, you demon of the dark, seducing me with your feminine wiles. I know where I must be. I am either trapped in a nightmare or I'm in hell. Whichever it is, leave me be."
Backing out of the room, Noble tried to ignore her pleas that were so distressed, so absolutely human, he felt more threatened than ever. He made his way quickly down the corridor and a flight of stairs. His surroundings should have been askew, wavering and insubstantial, not possessing the solidity of a hardwood floor that supported his racing feet.
And why wasn't her voice calling after him a haunting echo instead of a desperate cry of his name as he found himself in what appeared to be a parlor not so unlike his own.
With his eyes darting around the room, Noble saw several strange items illuminated by a lamp. He didn't bother to investigate. Instead, he hurried toward the curtains. Jerking them back, he prepared to plummet headfirst through the enormous window, praying the jolt would awaken him and he'd be in his own parlor, not this house of horrors he was desperate to escape.
Just before he lunged, two bright lights appeared. They looked like monstrous eyes glowing in the dark, streaking in his direction. And attached to those eyes was a lumbering carcass he could liken only to a roaring dragon.
A nightmare within, a nightmare without. Noble threw himself to the side, away from the window, as if dodging a bullet.
How gladly he would take it. At least bullets were real.
His hip collided with a huge black box. Rounding the newest anomaly in this otherworldly place, Noble pointed his gun at it.
Cautiously, he scanned an assortment of buttons. He reached for the flat black button marked on.
"Noble, no!"
He ignored her imaginary voice and slapped aside her phantom grip trying to stay his hand.
Noble pressed the button. The big black box lit up and he saw the impossible. A woman with nothing on except for the briefest of attire covering her breasts, her maidenhood.
Her voice spilled out with anger and fear, as if she were speaking to him, not the menacing man who was also inside the box leering at her.
"Sail your ship wherever you like, you bastard. Just don't ever try to drop your anchor in this port again." And then the man shoved her to what appeared to be white sand. With an evil smile he said, "such a shame you found out the reason I ever dropped it in the first place. Sorry, babe, but you know too much. You're dead."
Appalled by what he witnessed, Noble took aim at the bastard who began to strangle the helpless woman.
"No!" Lori shouted as Noble shot the despicable man.
Glass and sparks flew out where the people had been, popping and hissing noises replacing their voices.
And then, silence. Absolute silence. Except for the pounding beat of his heart, filling his ears and all but drowning out the wheeze of Lori's labored panting.
Even with the distance of several yards between them, he could see her shaking.
Her voice trembled even more as she said, very slowly, "please, Noble. Put... down... the gun."
He threw it across the room and advanced on her with a menace equal to hers.
Clamping her shoulders, he glared at her with a rage he clung to. Rage was familiar; this fear he felt, fear of the unknown, was not familiar, and he loathed it.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
"Like I said, I—I'm Lori. Lori Morgan."
"Demon or angel?" When her mouth moved but no words emerged, he shook her. "This is hell, isn't it?"
"No! No, you're not in hell. You're in Juneau."
"Close enough." He ridiculed her sad attempt at humor with a harsh bark of laughter. And then he shook her again while he dug his fingers into what felt to be flesh, soft and real and more dream than nightmare. Lowering his face until his nose nearly met hers, he said, "you will tell me the truth. Am I dead? Or am I only dreaming that I am?"
"You—you're not dead. But... you were. See, it's like this. You went to sleep and then you woke up. Say, ab
out a hundred years later?"
Impossible. Giving himself up to the delirium or dream or death or whatever this perverse thing was, Noble played along with her.
"And just who should I have to thank for my journey into this netherworld of curious absurdities?"
Lori paused, then said, "me."
Noble glowered at this angel of destruction, obviously sent to make him pay for the past sins he wasn't in the least bit sorry for.
"Tell you what, why don't I make a fire?" She smiled uncertainly then turned in the direction of a fireplace. Trusting her intent no more than he did his surroundings, Noble grabbed her back, pulled her against him.
He studied her wide-eyed, unblinking gaze. He lowered his own to the swell of her breasts, which heaved up and down against his chest in time to her strident panting. And then he brought his attention to her mouth. Open. Her lips veritably quivered.
She was frightened. Of him. Could it be that she was... human?
Demons could lie, but a human response could not.
Bent on finding out the truth of her humanity or lack of it, he bit carefully into her quivering bottom lip, poised to pull away should a forked tongue lick out at him.
When she whimpered softly rather than hissed, he tested the softness of her lips, inside and out.
For a certainty, they possessed a luscious, giving texture he was beginning to believe he had not imagined before, nor was he imagining now. Just to be sure, he crushed her lips with his, thrust his tongue inside her mouth, explored every nook and cranny within while her own tongue timidly swept over and around his.
It was a search for lies and truths he was after, not words. He was a master at twisting them to cast doubt on what was true and belief in what was not. The answers he gleaned from her response were too needfully raw to be anything but human and unquestionably honest.
From her hesitant then aggressive return of his kiss, to her palms that no longer pushed him away but clenched into his back, she left him with little doubt that this was indeed real. And even what small doubt remained vanished with the feel of her nails biting into his shirt and streaking a path so feverish he would likely bear her marks despite the protection of fabric.
Noble broke away. Horrified, amazed, by the realization that he was not delusional, he was not trapped in a nightmare, nor was he in hell. He was in a pocket of time outside his own, in a place beyond dreams or the wildest of waking imaginings.
"You're real," he whispered as Lori reluctantly released her hold. Glancing about the room, then shutting his eyes against it, he said what had to be true but what he couldn't believe. "All of this, it's real."
"Yes," she answered him unevenly. "It is real, Noble. All of it. You're not dreaming and you're not in hell. You're alive and so am I."
Still fighting disbelief, he stared at her. A woman. But not just any woman. A stunning and very much alive woman who was trying very hard not to cry while she traced her swollen lips with a shaking fingertip.
"I know it's a lot to absorb, but try to understand as much as you can. You were buried alive in an avalanche and the snow piled up for many years before a stretch of unusually warm winters thawed the crevasse enough that I found you under just a few inches of ice. Some friends helped me dig you out and bring you to my home. With incredible luck and certainly God's will, you breathed again with the kiss of life. I gave it to you, Noble. Please don't hold that against me."
How fragile, how strong she was, standing there with her heart in her clear blue eyes, brimming with unshed tears.
"I'd like to forgive you, but I'm not sure that I can. This is not heaven. This is not hell. You have consigned me to purgatory—a place neither here nor there."
"But you are here," she insisted. "Here with me."
Noble let go a disparaging chuckle. As long as he could laugh at his fate, then perhaps he would not disgrace himself by weeping—something he had not done since he was a boy, cowering in a closet while he watched a nightmare unfold, one even worse than this atrocity.
Chapter 6
"Is something wrong with the soup, Noble?"
"Of course not. It's very good." He forced himself to swallow another spoonful, as he had the few others he had politely eaten. He didn't really taste it, his taste buds having gone the way of the rest of his senses. Numb.
"Here, let me warm that up for you." She took his bowl, went to a box, performed some sort of magic trick with it, and perhaps a minute later returned. "Careful, it's hot."
The rising steam seemed more a witch's brew bubbling in a kettle after the hocus-pocus Lori had worked on it. He turned his attention to the tabletop and his gaze settled on a spoon. A spoon. Never had he believed that something so ordinary, so blessedly familiar, would give him a sense of reassurance.
"You need to eat, Noble." Taking up the spoon, she filled it and urged it to his lips. He gripped her wrist and raised his eyes to hers.
"Don't." He abruptly stood and said with forced calm, "I am fully capable of feeding myself, thank you. Being one of the few things I can manage without assistance, I would appreciate you not robbing me of that much self-sufficiency."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to insult you or—or..."
Noble waved away her apology and began to stalk the kitchen's length. He forced himself to confront the various oddities, proving to the lot of them, as well as himself, that he was not afraid of the strange powers they possessed.
When he pushed down a lever and began to run a finger beneath the small whirring piece of silver, Lori cried out, "don't touch that! You'll cut yourself!" The next moment she was there, banging open a cabinet door and pulling out a can that she placed beneath the device.
"It's a can opener," she explained. "This is how it works. See?" Grabbing another can, she offered it to him with a strained smile. "Want to try it?"
In truth, he did. But not with Lori watching. He had made a fool of himself enough times this night to last him for the rest of his unnatural life.
"No. Thank you." He turned and she caught his bandaged hand. Her touch was comforting, that of a sympathetic friend. The sight of her stirred him in purely male places and would surely warm his heart if his pride allowed it.
"Look, Noble," she said, breaking the taut silence.
"I know you're confused and upset, and I can understand that—"
"Can you? Can you really understand what it's like to be stripped of everything that ever composed your existence?" Before he could stop himself, he gripped her shoulders. "Can you?"
With satisfaction he saw her tight swallow. Intimidating a woman, what a reprehensible thing to do, but at the moment he took comfort in exerting even this lowly show of control.
"When... when my husband died, I felt a lot like you might be feeling now." The sympathy in her voice was mirrored in her eyes. Tempted as he was to accept her tender offering, he clung instead to a more familiar succor: anger.
Anger he understood. It was anger, not sympathy, that he had championed against adversity.
"So, you understand, do you? How very reassuring," he replied with a mocking chuckle. "After all, how many humans could lose a loved one and liken it to being reborn in a place and time where they have no friends, no money, no home? Oh yes, dear lady, how truly fortunate I am that you understand. Because I do not understand anything except this—I do not wish to be here."
She flinched at the lash of his voice, but her gaze was steady and soft. Damn her. Couldn't she at least give him anger for anger, give him that bit of a refuge to hide himself in until he could reclaim his scattered senses?
"Unfortunately, Noble, wishing won't change anything," she said gently but firmly. "You're here. I'm here. And whether you like it or not, we're in this together. I'm the only friend you've got. Don't turn me away."
"Turn you away?" he sneered. "How could I possibly do that? After all, without you I cannot even see to my most basic of needs." Noble let go of her shoulder and flicked the front side of his pants. "I suppose that I owe yo
u a belated thank-you for saving me from these breeches with teeth."
"I said I was sorry, didn't I? If I'd realized you'd never seen, never worked a zipper before, I would have—"
"Done it for me before I screamed for your help?" Remembering the humiliation of having Lori free him while he gritted his teeth against the pain was even worse than the lingering smarting of his flesh—minus a small thatch of hair.
"Next time you'll know how to do it yourself," she assured him. "Just like the next time you turn on the television—that is, the one I have left—"
"I will replace what I destroyed," he informed her. "I do have some bit of gold with me. Not much, but there should be ample to compensate you."
"But I don't want your money."
"No more than I want your beggar's treatment of me."
"Beg-beggar's treatment of you!"
"Call it what you wish, but I am dependent upon your goodwill." He thumped a finger to his chest. "I am a man. I take pride in being the master of my own destiny. Therefore, I can hardly call this state of breathing, and stumbling about as if I've suddenly been rendered blind, living. What you have given me is not life —it is a nightmare beyond belief."
She jabbed a finger of her own to his chest. "Do you know how lucky you are to be alive? Damn lucky. How many people cheat the grim reaper and get a second chance to enjoy all that life has to offer? Not many, Noble. Not many. And those who do usually consider themselves blessed to smell a flower again, to see a rainbow or a baby's smile. They even give thanks for the simple pleasure of tasting a hot bowl of soup."
"Have you ever considered taking to the stage?" He stared at her finger then lifted her hand and dropped it with the delicate disdain reserved for a soiled handkerchief. "Given your impassioned delivery of that moving little speech, I do believe you've missed your true calling."
He smiled. Politely. Her jaw worked back and forth. My, but he was beginning to enjoy himself. Perhaps Lori was right and he might yet be glad for this second chance at life.
"Know what? I should've left you on ice. Lord knows it wasn't any colder than you are."
Mallory Rush - [Outlawsand Heroes 02] Page 5
