Dark Duets

by Christopher Golden

  He went ahead of her toward the green light. Around him were shadow-shapes, not the ruins she’d seen in the headlights of the limo but something else. And distance. It wasn’t merely light, it was a place. Once inside it, he turned about and held out a hand to her.

  “Come,” he said.

  Stacey looked from his golden eyes to the proffered hand. Her heart lurched in her chest. The fingers were wrong.

  So wrong. . .

  They were iron-dark, and all along the back of his hand and down his wrist the skin rose and rippled into dozens of tiny mounds, as if something was pushing from underneath. Then it tore as the needle-sharp tips of small spines thrust outward. Each barb curled out from a knot of gristle, like roses rising from malformed stems.

  She watched her own arm extend to take that terrible hand.

  Please . . . please . . . please. . .

  She could hear her inner voice, her inner howls, but she could not act.

  No . . . it wasn’t that. She had no will to act, no desire. Those howls were an enraged echo of the Stacey who used to claim ownership of this body.

  Was that Stacey gone? Was she dead?

  Her hand reached for his, and she took a small step forward, toward the creature who, second by second, was changing. The mottling of his skin ran up his ironlike arm, under dissolving clothes, and erupted all over his throat and cheeks and face. His smiling lips thinned, the mouth widened into an ophidian leer.

  The scream she needed to scream burned in her chest.

  The owner of the golden eyes chuckled, an ugly noise that was painful to hear.

  He said, “Now.”

  He didn’t say it to her. It wasn’t a demand for her to do anything, but her eyes widened and her mouth fell open as the night changed, and the green burned away her world.

  The man—if it was ever a man—stood revealed as something entirely inhuman. Huge and bulky, with skin like that of a diseased toad stretched over muscles undulating in strange arrangements.

  His eyes remained that compelling molten gold. And despite the utter horror of what he had revealed himself to be, Stacey had but to look into those eyes to know that she was still a slave. Still lost. Still haplessly willing.

  The man—the thing— turned away as if dismissing her; but that only pulled her harder. He cut her one last glance over his shoulder, and then the green light took him.

  He was gone.

  Just . . . gone. But the light waited for her.

  Finally, the scream that could not find release burst out of her.

  Not from fear. Not in horror at his grotesque body or the impossibility of what was happening to her.

  No, she screamed because the creature intended to destroy her and she could not help but follow.

  Arms outstretched, she ran straight at the light.

  “No!”

  The bellow came from the shadows, and Stacey turned to see a wild figure emerge from the darkness, running at her with the speed and ferocity of a wolf. He was tall, slim as a sword blade, with glossy black hair whipping in the night breeze. One hand was empty, but in the other he held something—was it a gun? A knife?

  Still screaming, he leaped at her, wrapped his arms around her, crushed her to his chest as he fell. They landed together with a bone-rattling thud, but the newcomer turned as they hit, taking the brunt of the fall, the spin of their bodies sloughing off the shock of impact. As they rolled away from the light he opened his arms and she spilled out and away from him. Then he was up cat-quick and he flung himself toward the wall of shimmering green light. He raised the thing in his hand and plunged it down as if he meant to reach into the light and smash or stab the man who’d brought her here. But instead, as the object made contact, the green light disappeared.

  The stranger ripped his arm back and forth, slashing at the light, destroying more of it with each swipe.

  No, she thought as a splinter of clarity jabbed through the strange muzziness in her thoughts. She cried, “Wait, what are you doing? You’re closing it!”

  He dropped to one knee and with a last vicious swipe sealed the night. The shimmering green light shivered and went out, plunging the clearing into darkness.

  4

  Stacey sat up slowly.

  It was like coming out of a dream. Or a coma. Her body felt new to her, as if it was something she’d never owned before.

  The newcomer stood a few yards away, his back to her, his hands loose at his sides, the object still clutched in one fist. The limo lights splashed over him obliquely. He sighed and his shoulders sagged for a moment, then he took the object—which she could now see was a piece of smooth gray rock a bit larger than the palm of his hand—and slid it into a leather pouch on his belt. As it vanished from sight, Stacey saw that its face was covered with complex patterns of strange design.

  The man had dark shaggy hair. He wore a light gray jacket over a torn army-khaki T-shirt, old jeans, and lace-up boots. He turned. She took in the thin hair above his forehead, the beard that was maybe a week old. Her mind seemed to be swirling, confused in its attempt to reconcile being here with being at the club, where she knew she must be.

  Then he turned and looked past her to the limousine.

  “Skinwalker,” he said in a terse, eager whisper and broke into a run. Straight at her.

  Stacey screamed and flung herself backward, crossing her arms in front of her to try and ward off another of this night’s horrors. But he shot past her, heading straight for the limousine. Too late its engine turned over and started. The door she had emerged from still hung open and the man dove through it as the limo lurched forward. The door swung shut and the limousine rolled maybe ten yards before it braked to a stop again and there was a flash of red from inside. The engine kept running.

  The door opened again and the man climbed out. He held something in his arms, a bundle that, as he came nearer, she saw was her clothes. Only then did she realize she was naked in the middle of a field. And it was cold. She crossed her hands over her breasts.

  The man didn’t seem affected by her nudity. He held out her clothing as if holding out a gift. Her slingbacks dangled by their straps from two of his fingers.

  “You should probably change in the vehicle,” he said. His voice was soft, the accent strange. Irish, but with Scottish overtones. And something else. A strange quality she couldn’t quite identify.

  “I . . . ,” she began and faltered. “I don’t . . .”

  “You have to hurry.” His eyes shifted past her to where the light had been. “They’ll open the portal again in a moment, and he won’t be alone this time.”

  He took her by the arm and directed her back to the limo. There was none of the warmth or magnetism of the other man. In fact his grip hurt a little, enough to get her moving. She tried to pull away, but his hand was like a vise.

  “You’re hurting me.”

  His answer was a short, hard laugh. “What do you think they’ll do?”

  He held the door to let her climb in and slammed it behind her. Her mind was still sorting out a hundred questions, but she remained too rattled to ask any of them.

  Then she saw the driver. Still upright at the wheel.

  Stacey began to say something to him, to plead for help or an answer, but as she bent forward she froze in absolute horror.

  The driver was dead.

  More than dead . . . he looked like a corpse that had been rotting for weeks, maybe months. Stacey’s mouth worked in a silent attempt to make some kind of rational sound, to react in some proper way to this, but that was impossible. She’d expected to see blood everywhere, but there was nothing—nothing to explain that strange explosion of red she’d glimpsed.

  The driver’s door opened suddenly, and the stranger grabbed hold of the corpse and yanked it out. The neck made a cracking noise and the head dangled loosely. The man got in. He looked back at her. His was not an unpleasant face, but his sharp blue eyes were the saddest she’d ever seen—until they abruptly burned green. It wa
s a moment before she realized they were reflecting a flare of light, and she glanced around.

  “Damn it,” he whispered tightly.

  As he’d predicted, the bright green oval had reappeared. Stacey stared at it with a mind that felt like it was fracturing. Even though she’d seen one like it only a minute ago, seeing this new one form out of nowhere was somehow worse. It promised something, some secret she knew she didn’t want to hear.

  Through the tinted window of the limo, she made out strange, rough shapes moving within the light.

  Moving toward her.

  “Hold on,” growled the stranger as he slammed the door and put the car in gear.

  Stacey stared at the green light and saw an impossible shape begin to emerge. All spikes and knobs, with massive shoulders packed with muscle.

  “Oh, God! Something’s coming through!”

  The man stomped down on the gas. The limo pawed at the dirt like a maddened bull, then sprang forward with a roar of tires that left a cloud of dust behind them. He kept accelerating until they reached the main road, and then the vehicle squealed onto the pavement.

  The green became a tiny thing seen between trees and then was gone.

  5

  They drove in silence awhile, and she wasn’t prepared when the wave of shock finally slammed into her. Without realizing, she was abruptly gasping, panting, her heart racing. She thought she might be sick, rolled down the window, and stuck her head out into the cold wind. Her eyes watered and she broke into sobs. She reeled her head back in, found him watching her in the rearview mirror. He hadn’t closed the driver’s compartment panel.

  The recognition of her fear exhausted her. She lay back against the seat and stared at nothing. She still hadn’t put on her clothes, and how ridiculous was it that they didn’t seem to matter? She tried to explain to herself what had happened to her, to Carrie sitting unconscious in a puddle of oil.

  Her right shoulder blade itched and she scratched at it. The silence was becoming oppressive.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  He shrugged out of his jacket and it thrust it at her. “Cover yourself.”

  “Where are we going?” she repeated, leaning on each word.

  “Somewhere safe.”

  Stacey covered herself as best she could with the jacket, shivering with cold and the terror that trembled beneath her skin. “Not back to the club then.”

  “D’ye not know how far from there you are?”

  “Um . . . a long way?” she ventured.

  He gave a short, bitter laugh. “Not as long as it could have been.”

  “My roommate’s at the club. I left her.”

  “She’ll be fine. They didn’t select her. But not the club, no. Nor tae your flat.”

  His accent really was odd. It wasn’t Irish at all, she decided. It sounded somehow old, unevolved, like maybe he lived out on the Orkneys or somewhere else isolated. She couldn’t place it.

  “Why did you interfere?” She didn’t mean for it to sound accusatory that way. The part of her that had acknowledged her lifetime of subjugation seemed to be speaking, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “Be happy I did, lass.”

  “No . . . Why? Tell me.”

  At least a mile passed before he answered. “It’s a very long story. Just know for now that I’m going to keep them from taking you.”

  “Why?” she asked, leaning forward. “What are you, the Lone Ranger?”

  “I don’t know who that is.”

  “Right. Naw, you wouldn’t.”

  Another silent mile, then, “You sound angry that I didn’t let him have you.”

  “I . . .” She couldn’t figure out how to answer him, but he interrupted.

  “Try to understand; they’re good at hearing that in you, that sort of need. It’s not your fault, any of it.”

  “What’s not my fault?” She climbed across the center table to the seats behind him, stuck her head through the open barrier. “Who in hell are you?”

  “Who out of hell, not in,” he said bitterly. “The one who escaped but came back like the tide again and again.”

  “Oh, great. Riddles. I’ve stepped into the Twilight Zone, and you’re feeding me riddles? What are you, Gollum?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Well . . . who are you, then?”

  He thought about that for a moment. “Rhymer,” he replied, though she didn’t know if that was his name or some form of behavioral explanation.

  “Do you know what’s going on?”

  “Aye, I do.” His voice and face were sad.

  “Why is this happening to me?” she asked, and her voice suddenly dwindled to something smaller, more vulnerable. “Why do these people want to hurt me? Did I do something wrong or—?”

  “No,” he said firmly, “it isn’t your fault that the Yvag singled you out.”

  “Yvag? Is that his name?”

  “It’s what he is.”

  She huddled behind the jacket, eyes huge. “I saw that, didn’t I? I mean . . . all that stuff back there, and him changing. It really happened, didn’t it?”

  Rhymer nodded.

  Tears broke from her eyes. “That man—”

  “Wasn’t a man,” he finished.

  “What was he?”

  He considered the question. “They’re what you’d call elves.”

  Despite her tears, a single bark of laughter escaped her. “Wait, what? I’m sorry, but did you say . . . elves?”

  “Aye.”

  “As in the little sods making toys for Father Christmas?”

  “Hardly.” He glanced sidelong at her, the smile still in place. “Sounds so cute and cuddly, doesn’t it? Little wee elves.”

  “The night before Halloween and I got picked up in a club by an elf?”

  “Aye.”

  “What did he slip into my drink?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then I’m crazy? Is that it? I’ve gone barking mad?”

  “I know it all feels a bit mad,” he admitted. “But it’s true. Like it or not, this is the real world.”

  “How?”

  “Like I said, there’s a long story.”

  She reached to scratch her shoulder again.

  “You might not want to do that,” he told her, “or it could start bleeding.”

  “What could?” she asked, wide-eyed. She pushed her shoulder forward and tried to see her back. Was there something there? She glanced around for her purse, a compact. It wasn’t here. Probably back at the club. Great, her ID, credit card. Looking up then, she realized that the ceiling of the rear section of the limo was mirrored. She could guess why. There was probably a highway club that only did it in limos. She looked around till she located the bank of switches, flicked them until she’d ignited lights surrounding the mirror. Now she could see her naked self clearly, curled up on the seat, her dirty soles tucked under her. On her back there was definitely some kind of mark. It looked angry, infected maybe.

  “What the hell?” she demanded.

  “It’s a sigil. He marked you. Why you cannae go back tae your flat, nor anywhere close. They’re going to track you by that no matter where—”

  But by then her hysteria had hit the ceiling. “Track me? What do you mean, track me? How did this happen?” Her voice quavered and tears stung her eyes. “Mister, what are you talking about?”

  He sighed and gripped the wheel. “Ten centuries and you’d think I’d be better at this,” he said to himself. “Look, lass. The short version—which isn’t going to make sense tae ye—is that you’ve become the chosen teind, which translates for the Yvag as their tithe to hell.”

  “Whoa . . . wait. Hell?”

  “Aye.”

  “As in . . . hell?”

  “Aye.”

  “Actual hell? Not just hell but hell hell?”

  “The same.”

  “I think I need to scream.”

  “You might at that,” he said, either not getting her joke or
not considering it one. “The Yvag have chosen you, marked you with their sigil, and that means that until they get their hands on you again, they’re going to be extremely unhappy, not to mention panicked, because if they don’t get you back for their ceremony, then that princeling who snatched you has to take your place in the ritual.”

  “Good. Fuck him.”

  “I couldnae agree more.”

  “Wait . . . princeling?”

  “Aye, he is powerful among them. He has great charisma, lass. They all have it, but few wield it with his level of power.”

  “ ‘Charisma’?” she echoed.

  “Aye. Tae humans that’s just a gift of attraction, something to sell cars with, but for the Yvag, it’s one of their most powerful weapons. They can make you lay bare your throat for the knife and thank them while they cut.”

  She thought about all of the absurd things she had done, including stripping naked without a thought, and shivered.

  Rhymer sighed. “Had I brought him down tonight it would have crushed them.”

  “For good?”

  “No . . . but it would weaken them for many years to come. Ah well. Meantime, I recommend you switch off those lights before we pass this articulated lorry, else you’re going tae give the driver a heart attack. You might want to put your clothes back on, too, as we’ll be pulling off the road in a minute. At least your shoes.”

  “Oh, God.”

  Everything that was happening was jumbled inside Stacey’s head, and she knew, on some level, that she should be reacting better than she was. She also knew with perfect clarity that she was teetering on the edge of some dangerous level of shock. There were too many bizarre and impossible things happening, and despite tears and gooseflesh, she was taking this all too calmly. Her lack of ordinary reaction to it terrified her.

  Her nudity, oddly, did not. And it damn well should have. She didn’t even like wearing low-cut blouses.