Magus

by R H Frye

  Long minutes passed as the two young lovers held each other safe in the comfort of their arms, and for a time Maraydel’s suffering form was left unattended where it had fallen.

  When Danny’s tears at last began to slow, he forced himself to raise his red-rimmed eyes to meet Carol’s. He pursed his lips to again ask her forgiveness, but Carol stopped him with a finger to his lips and a small shake of her head. “I love you Danny. I know it wasn’t your fault. I knew it when it was happening. I don’t know how we woke him up, but I know you could never hurt me. So, there’s nothing to forgive.” As she finished speaking, she leaned forward to kiss the kind, handsome face of the man that she loved.

  Danny was able to finally relax a bit as some good belatedly arrived to beat back the darkness of the last two days. He pulled Carol gently towards him and wrapped her in his arms. Soon the hot passion of youth overtook them, and the kiss changed from tender and loving to passionate.

  Carol’s hands dropped to Danny’s waist as his hands gently but urgently roamed her body. She could still feel Maraydel’s cruel, defiling touch on her skin, but she desperately wanted to replace it with something loving and good. She pulled away from the kiss to focus her attention on his stubborn belt, but Danny cupped her chin loosely in his hand and turned her head back towards his face. “Honey, are you sure? I mean…” his words trailed off to silence as he glanced uneasily at her bruised and battered body.

  Carol took Danny’s face in her hands and leaned forward to briefly repeat the passionate kiss they had shared. When she leaned away from Danny again, she looked in his eyes and said, “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.” Having answered his question, Carol returned her attention to his reluctant belt. After a brief, interminable struggle, the belt gave way and she proceeded to divest him of the last of his clothes. When his nudity was a match for her own, she stood and pulled him up onto the bed beside her. Nature took over at that point and granted them both the release they so desperately needed after the terror and misery of their weekend.

  When at last their needs were sated, they fell into a dreamless sleep in each other’s arms…and completely ignored the wounded monster lying on the floor of their room.

  Chapter 8

  John snapped awake as dawn’s first light crept through the curtains of the window by the bed. For one panicked moment he could not remember how he had come to be where he was, but his panic was quickly banished as his eyes focused on the lovely face of the redhead sleeping beside him. His breathing slowed as the dream that had abruptly awakened him was banished by delightful memories of the previous evening and night.

  John stretched, and the movement caused his body to remind him painfully of the full bladder that is always the result of a long night’s sleep. He ignored the feeling for a few moments but was eventually forced to slip from beneath the well-formed arm of his new lover to stand naked and shivering on the hardwood floor of her bedroom. The mountain chill had crept into Sarah’s house in the night, and the cold caused his bladder to cramp even more strongly than before, so he hurried through her bathroom door and quickly raised the toilet seat before relieving himself.

  When he was finished, John lowered the toilet seat, rinsed and dried his hands, and moved quickly to return to the bed and the warm woman that was sleeping peacefully in it. He snuggled up to Sarah’s warm body and slipped an arm around her waist, but the chill of his hands caused her to gasp and look sleepily over her shoulder. “Your hands are cold,” she grumbled as she tucked her arm over his before drifting quickly back into sleep. John grinned impishly as he moved his cold hand towards the sensitive spots on her chest. Soon, Sarah’s breathing had changed from the slow rhythm of deep sleep to a pace that was more urgent. After a few minutes of such teasing, she opened her eyes and asked, “Again?” with a look that was both pleased and slightly startled. When John slowly nodded his reply, she turned to welcome him into her arms…

  As Sarah returned from her own trip to the bathroom, she was disappointed (and somewhat amused at her own disappointment) to see that John was slowly pulling on his clothes. “You’re not leaving yet, are you? I was going to make us some breakfast,” Sarah offered hopefully. She did not like the thought of ever letting John out of her sight again.

  “Well, no. Not yet anyway. But we can’t just stay in bed all day, as much as I want to. If nothing else, I’ve got to call and let my foreman know that I’m going to be away for a few more days. And I’ve got to go back into town to see an old man at a shop there. I told him I’d be back yesterday.” John did not want to leave Sarah either, but he knew that certain situations would probably only grow worse if he did not attend to them.

  “I’ll be glad to stay for breakfast. After that…well, do you want to ride with me to town?” The invitation was out almost before he thought it through, but it just felt right. For some reason, he knew that Sarah’s fate and his were inextricably entwined.

  Sarah’s face lit up with a smile as she said, “Oh, John, I’d love to. I’ll go make us some breakfast…well, I will as soon as I get dressed anyway.”

  “Good.” John felt an answering smile on his own face and was amazed at how happy he was with this woman. “Do you mind if I get a shower while you cook? I’ll clean up the kitchen after we eat, and you can freshen up then, if that sounds okay to you?”

  “Sure,” Sarah said as she leaned over to give John a brief, steamy kiss before grabbing a long tee shirt, pulling it on, and heading towards the kitchen. John stood staring after her for a moment, admiring the way the shirt hinted at the shape beneath it. At length, he shook himself from his reverie and stripped his clothes off before stepping into the bathroom to take a shower.

  Sarah heard the shower start running as she scrambled to make them breakfast. She briefly considered making pancakes or French toast, but she decided that those dishes were a little too much trouble, so she finally settled on bacon, eggs, grits, and toast. She soon had the bacon sizzling merrily away in her frying pan, several eggs were scrambled in a bowl waiting to be fried, slices of bread were browning in the oven, and the grits were cooking in a pot. She leaned back against the counter as she waited for the bacon to brown before frying the eggs, and she used the time to reflect over the radical changes that had occurred in her life in less than a day.

  After only a moment’s contemplation, she was forced to accept that she was falling in love. She tried to dismiss the idea as nothing more than a silly crush brought about by an intense situation followed by the best physical love of her life, but she knew that what she was feeling was more than just a passing fancy. She had been involved in whirlwind romances and one-night stands several times during her partying days, but she knew that this was more. Perhaps because of the bond they had shared during her reading of John, or perhaps because of some force that had drawn them together, Sarah knew that she would follow wherever John lead, no matter the danger, fear, or sorrow that such a path might bring. As crazy as it seemed (and she would have laughed if anyone had told her that she could fall for a man so quickly), she truly loved John and would do anything for him. The realization settled her emotions and allowed her to return her attention to the bacon before it could burn.

  Sarah was loading two plates with bacon, scrambled eggs, and grits as John entered the kitchen. He wrapped his arms around Sarah’s waist and leaned over her shoulder to kiss her on the cheek before turning his attention to the food on the plates. “Wow! You didn’t have to do all that. I’d have been satisfied with a bowl of cereal. That looks great!”

  “It wasn’t any trouble,” Sarah answered, smiling because of the compliment. “Besides, for some reason, I’m really hungry this morning.”

  “Yeah, me too. I wonder why?” John and Sarah both grinned sheepishly at one another. They stood together for a moment, enjoying the closeness of their bodies. Sarah finally broke the silence as she turned to give John a soft kiss and quietly told him, “I really enjoyed last night.”

  “Me too,”
John replied quietly as they shared another look of wonder and happiness.

  Sarah broke the silence again. “So…are we going to eat this before it gets cold, or what?” John took his plate and waited for Sarah to lead the way to the living room. As they sat on the sofa and started to eat their breakfast, Sarah found the remote control for the television and turned on the morning news. They ate quietly and absorbed the sports stories that were playing at the end of the program. (The Braves were off to another good start. The Panthers were rushing to resign players from the miracle team that won their second trip to the Super Bowl.)

  John and Sarah exchanged small talk as they ate their breakfast. Each was intensely interested in the other, and their complete absorption with the conversation almost caused them to miss the lead-in to the bizarre story that began the news of the following hour. “…We’ve learned that the man in question was rushed to the emergency room of St. Joseph’s Hospital in Asheville. Hospital officials refused to speculate on the cause of the man’s condition but were able to confirm that he had suffered severe burns over at least ninety per cent of his body. A spokesman for the Asheville Police Department confirmed that the man was found in a room at the Holiday Inn but had no comment when questioned about the circumstances surrounding the incident. An anonymous source at the hotel stated that there were no signs of fire near the injured man, and wild rumors of some sort of occult activity were numerous among witnesses on the scene. The officials at St. Joseph’s confirmed that the man’s condition was critical, and police are asking anyone that has any information that may shed light on this investigation to come forward. We’ll keep you posted on any new developments in this bizarre case, but for now the odds of the man’s survival seem slim…”

  Sarah found the remote and lowered the volume on the television as the next story was introduced. She stared at the screen thoughtfully for a few minutes before turning to look at John, but he was still staring thoughtfully at the television in an unintentional mimicry of her pose. “John, do you think…” She left the question hanging unfinished between them.

  “I don’t know, Sarah. I really don’t know.”

  “Was that…Maray…umm, was that the man you met in the woods?” Sarah barely stopped herself from completing the name that had caused the confrontation of the past evening. “Did what happened here somehow…I don’t know…lash back at him?”

  “I wish I knew.” John considered the problem for a moment before an idea blossomed in his mind. “But I think I know a way we can find out. Get a shower while I clean up the kitchen, and we’ll go see what we can find out, okay?” Sarah hesitated briefly, questions forming in her mind, but she decided not to waste time and hurried off to take a shower.

  John began to clean the dishes while unanswered questions passed rapidly through his own mind. Could it be Maraydel that was lying near death in the hospital in Asheville? Did the force that passed through John when he confronted the shadowy creature somehow cross the distance between Sarah’s house in Cherokee and the hotel in Asheville to strike at the master behind the creature? Would he be endangering himself and Sarah if he investigated the burn victim at the hospital?

  John was reasonably sure that he could find out some things about the victim without revealing his identity; however, he knew of no way to hide the origin of his phone call. This was the reason he had asked Sarah to hurry and take a shower. He had an idea that should make the call reasonably untraceable, but he could not try it from her house. So, he busied himself setting her kitchen to rights while he waited for her to get ready. In only a few minutes, he had the dishwasher going and the stove cleaned, so he headed back to the bedroom to check on Sarah’s progress.

  Sarah was dressed when John entered the bedroom, although her hair was still lying damp on her shoulders. She decided that he had already seen her in disarray, so there was little point in taking time to put on makeup and fix her hair. Instead, she pulled her hair back in to a ponytail and turned to John. “Okay, give me a kiss, and I’m ready to go.” Without saying a word, John rewarded her with a warm, soft kiss before pulling away and waving for her to precede him out the bedroom door. She led the way out of the house, and after stopping to lock the front door, they both climbed into John’s truck and left for town.

  Chapter 9

  Danny was driving on Highway 321 into Hickory, North Carolina when a chill swept through him. For one horrible moment, he thought he would lose control of the car and slam into the vehicles that were stopping for the red light in front of him. At the last possible second, he managed to regain control of himself enough to jam his foot onto the brake pedal. The tires of the stolen car squealed in angry protest at such treatment as the car shuddered to a stop inches from the bumper of the truck in front of them. Curious drivers were staring at Danny and Carol, and the driver of the truck in front of them was shaking his head in angry relief over not being struck by their car. Danny could only sit in stunned silence until the first wave of the terrible sensations that had swept through him began to abate slightly.

  The car was an old Dodge Shadow. Danny had stolen it from a service station near the hotel when the car’s owner was good enough to leave the engine running as he ran inside to make what he probably thought would be a quick stop. Danny felt somewhat ashamed about stealing the car, but he considered that his need was more urgent than the driver’s just then.

  When the chilling feelings that had prompted his reckless stop had subsided to a manageable level, Danny turned to Carol and saw her crying beside him in the passenger seat of their stolen car. She turned to meet his eyes, and a hopeless expression was clear on her face. “Oh God, Danny, he’s awake,” she whispered. “I don’t know how, but somehow, he’s awake…and he’s furious.”

  Danny’s gaze lingered over the face of his young lover for a moment, and all he could do was nod his curt acceptance of her words. A horn sounded from behind them, so he quickly returned his attention to driving and noticed that traffic was speeding away from him. He hurried to drive through the intersection while scanning the area with his eyes for any policemen that may have noticed his inappropriate driving. After a few moments passed without sirens or blue lights, he accepted that they had been lucky and had escaped the notice of the authorities, at least for the immediate future.

  When Danny glanced over at Carol again, he was saddened to see that tears were rolling steadily down her face. “What are we going to do?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I know he’s awake. I felt it, too. And I know he’s furious. But I don’t think he’s capable of doing anything about it right now. I think the pain he’s feeling is keeping him from hurting us, for now at least.” As he said the words, Danny knew them to be true. He still had no idea how it was possible for the two of them to know something about someone that was miles away in the mountains, but he had to accept that he did know, and he knew he had to try to do something about their situation…before the monster in question regained control of the dark powers that he wielded against them.

  “Danny, what are we going to do?” Carol’s voice contained a rising note of hysteria that Danny did not like, and he could tell that she was on the edge of losing control of her emotions. He knew the terror she was feeling, and he realized the terrible things that had been done to her, but he also knew that he had to help her hang onto her sanity long enough to find help. The last thing that would help either of them was for Carol to fall to pieces, so he hurried to pull into the nearest service station in order to have a chance to calm her fears.

  Danny pulled the car to a stop and turned to pull Carol into his embrace. She began to sob quietly into his shoulder, and he felt his anger rise inside once more because of the suffering she had endured. He again vowed quietly to himself that he would find a way to make Maraydel pay. “Shh, Baby, it’s okay. We’ll be okay. We’re going to beat this bastard. Do you hear me? We’ll find a way. I promise you, we’ll find a way. Okay?” He could feel her begin to relax a little, so he pulled bac
k to look into her eyes again. “Carol, I need you to help me. We can beat him, but it’s going to take both of us. Are you with me?”

  Carol held Danny’s gaze for a moment. Her heart filled with love for him, and she allowed herself to hope that they could find a way through the hell that their lives had become. She reached up to brush the tears away from her face, took a deep breath, and said, “So what are we going to do?”

  “Well, we can’t go home, obviously,” Danny replied. “I mean, our parents aren’t expecting us this soon, and how would they be able to help us anyway? I mean I love my dad, but he’s not exactly a wizard or anything. And my mom would probably have us in church begging for an exorcism or something.”

  Carol actually laughed at the mental images that Danny’s words had provoked. “Yeah, I can hear my mom now. ‘So, you expect me to believe all this? What kind of drugs did you take anyway?’ So no, we can’t go to our parents about this. But who?”

  Danny thought for a moment when a memory finally surfaced. “Wait a minute. We do know one guy that stood up to…Him.” Danny knew without being able to explain it that saying the name would be dangerous.

  “Do you mean that guy in the clearing?” Carol’s memories of her return to life were blurry at best, but she knew that Maraydel had been involved in a confrontation immediately after his return…and that the outcome had been a lot different than the one he wanted. “How would we find him? And would he even help us if he knew how we were involved with…Him?”

  “I don’t know. But I don’t have any other ideas, do you? Besides, maybe we can head back to Cherokee and find him there. And like I said, I don’t know what else to do.”