by Cassie Power
So, he was rather jaded now. Pretty, which once would have been more than enough to turn his head, meant very little to him now. Not that Meredith Seaford wasn’t good looking. She was, even for people now. Her skin was very clear and her hair was long and lustrous. Even in the lamp light her eyes gleamed a bit, as she tried to hide the fear that hit her each time the cabin shook in the wind.
What attracted him to her most was her mind.
He smiled, looking at her, not shaking his head.
Her voice was firm, trying to be mellow, but not making it totally, due to stress.
“Great, so we don’t get the tales of the road side ghost? That’s too bad. I actually know that one is pretty harmless. The White Lady… That one is, too. A ghost that shows up in a lot of different locations. Probably not a ghost, but a common visual distortion that a lot of people have in certain conditions. Basically, it’s an eye condition, not a haunting.” There was certainty to her words. Assurance that what she thought on that particular legend.
It was probably close to being right, too.
Dan smiled at her and nodded about the whole thing, his hand being taken again as the world growled and shook at them, the wind picking up in a gust. Meredith moved in a bit, her breath coming a little faster than it had been.
He let his voice deepen a bit, hoping it wouldn’t bother her. It was an effort to fake speaking in higher tones all the time. Not outside of what he could do, but if they were going to be friends, she needed to get used to him being what he really was, not an act that he was putting forward to make her feel better constantly.
“That’s my take on it. Unlike the hitchhiker stories. That’s probably human caused. People catching a ride and then getting out without being noticed when the driver is distracted. It can seem like magic, if you’re careful.” It was a trick that he’d learned a long time before. It was a lot harder to pull off on the blinding ice of the North. That meant he was pretty good at it, when he wanted to be. The trick was just leaving when the other person was distracted. It didn’t take magic or anything to make it work.
It would be harder up North now, no doubt, with so much of the upper world melting each summer and fall. That, the melting up there, leaving so few places to hide, that would be the reason for the southern movement now. If it was happening. That couldn’t be allowed. Releasing the nomads on this beautiful and innocent world would be a crime on a level that he couldn’t even imagine. The death toll…
Well, Dan wasn’t totally certain that some of the others, those of his own tribe, who had sworn to protect the people of the southern lands from their own kind, might not have taken to hunting on occasion, themselves. That wasn’t the way of this place. When they’d migrated, all that time before, they’d sworn to each other to keep the others contained.
The thing there was that he hadn’t heard from most of them for oh so long. Tens of thousands of people vanished each year from around the world as well. Most were just those that left their homes, without others knowing how to find them. That left a lot to have died, and many to simply vanish into nothing. It could have been that it wasn’t his old friends. That hope was what kept him going, day to day.
Part of why he had teams out hunting for things was due to that. The desire to prove to himself that his own kind hadn’t turned back into the monsters that they’d once been. It wasn’t that hard to resist, not needing to go to extremes to survive any longer. You didn’t need to kill your fellows to survive in a world filled with snack cakes and McDonald’s on every corner. Even the thrill of the hunt, of the chase, wasn’t enough to drive them that way.
Which didn’t mean old habits couldn’t come back. The years had been kind to him, having time to invest and learn the ways of his new home. It had left him rich. Powerful in the only way that truly mattered now. He had resources. Ones that he’d gladly share with the others, if they ever returned.
His own fear came, then. It was a slow, dark thing, compared to what the woman next to him was going through. He’d lived through a hundred storms that were like this before. More than that, with nothing but snow and ice to burrow into for protection. There was no great sense that this one would do anything to stop him, or even cause him great discomfort.
No, Dan was afraid, in a light way, that this situation wasn’t some new nomad from his old lands of ice and eternity, but was one of his own. One of his tribe, that had become feral and wild. Possibly having gone insane, which happened to their people over time. When you gained enough years, no mind could hold it all.
The fear wasn’t that he might have to kill a friend. In the end that was what his kind did. When they perished it was almost always at the hands of one of their own. Age wasn’t a factor of note and they didn’t die from disease. Accident could take them, but they were strong and hearty. Though they could die if they weren’t careful. Plane crashes, car accidents, gunshot wounds… Those things would all take them now. So, they could, and probably did, die. More now than before, at a bet.
In a way, he had to pray that this was either a wild nomad, or a phantom. A trick that the data played on him. Seeming to line up, but just being a coincidence. That last one would be the best and most likely, case.
Otherwise he was going to be facing either a strange tribe from the north, or one of his own. People that had been soaking in the world around them for so long that they might well have adapted to modern weapons and tricks. That would make things a thousand times harder. Being tricky and clever was hard to deal with. Wisdom would be too much to bear.
Shaking his head Dan forced a smile. It really was probably nothing. More than that, he had a lovely woman with him, alone, for the first time in a decade. One that was starting to find him interesting, as long as he didn’t ruin that by saying foolish things.
“We’re good here. This cabin was built to last through a lot more than this.” That was true. The walls were thick and built of solid logs of wood. It could fail, but wouldn’t. Not that day.
Meredith jumped and ended up a little closer to him. Her body smelled warm. Delicious. A bit like perfume and cocoa. Of sugar and something chemically floral. That would be whatever she’d washed her hair with. It was alluring and clean, both at the same time.
It was so tempting to reach back to her. To touch her arm. Her leg. To lean in and kiss her, there in the dark provided by the lamplight. Taking a deep breath, he leaned in suddenly, not totally meaning to. He meant to whisper to her, to keep speaking, about the occult and how reality was different than the legends and stories of the southern lands.
It was a bit of a shock then as their lips touched instead. It was him doing it, but she definitely did it back. There was warmth in it. He pulled back, only to find that he really didn’t want to lose the contact with this fascinating woman. Not yet. So, he let his lips soften and gently nibbled hers in turn. Carefully, making certain that she wanted him. Not that it wasn’t plain.
Her fear mixed with desire as the world shook, and she pushed in toward him. Passion grew, but he forced himself to pull back. It wasn’t time for this. It wasn’t fair, to either of them, to push into things that would reshape the way they interacted so forcefully. Not when they had to work together.
It was hard to resist, regardless. In a very real way he felt drawn to her. Like this, and only this, was the right thing to do.
Settling back, he cleared his throat.
“Well. That was fun. I should check the fire.” He tried to seem nervous about it, or even bored. It came out being deep, rumbling and filled with desire. Confidence, too.
He knew that she’d keep going if he wanted. Which he did desire, strongly. Doing that just wouldn’t be fair to her. The situation wasn’t right. He told himself that, even as the woodstove whistled and moaned at them. That was burning along just fine, having been built up to a level where very little could put it out now. A flame with enough fuel didn’t die easily.
Which was part of the problem in the moment. The passion building was created
from sticks and twigs. He liked her mind, and her body, but those were just the surface things. He didn’t really know her yet. Not as more than someone he got bi-annual reports on. For her part, he was just some man that had shown up a few hours before. Hopefully his looks were good enough, but there was nothing more than that to build on yet.
Not that the tiny flame they had wasn’t still kindling nicely. He ached for her already. Not just in sexual response, either. Deep inside of him, something very primal stirred. Wanting to claim this woman for himself. To make her his. The one who, in all the world, belonged with him. Always.
Which got him to move to the real fire, and pretend to work for a bit, moving logs around slightly with his fingers. It was blazingly hot, but there were always places that could be touched without doing harm to yourself. It took care, and some practice, but he had that. Mastering fire had been one of the first things that he’d done in the southern lands, so long ago.
When he moved back he sat close to her.
“I… Don’t want to move too fast.” His voice was a bit too thick to his own ears. Slower than it should have been. Driven to that by lust, which he wasn’t hiding very well. She took his hand and held it in her own.
It was so little. Soft, and smooth.
“We can… You know. Do things? If you want?” Her voice was tentative and gentle. It was also very clear that she meant it.
If not for the right reasons, yet.
For one thing, she was still jumping every time a gust came. Still, he didn’t let go of her hand, and managed to shake his head.
“That doesn’t match up with the whole going slow thing I was hinting at. Believe it or not, I actually like to get to know the women that I’m doing things with before I do them. Not that I don’t want to, but I’m almost certain that I heard about not rushing into things as a good idea at some point in my life.” He moved toward her a bit, not even meaning to, and kissed her again.
Then he forced himself to pull back, and decided that going with honesty was the best course with Meredith. She was too intelligent and sensible not to understand the basic idea anyway.
Though it was tempting to just take her offer, and use that as a stepping stone. Not building anything, just using the fuel up too early.
She laughed. It was real enough, if a bit nervous sounding.
“I know. I’m pretty sure that’s what I normally do. I mean, I’m not really a one night stand person. Not that I’ve never… But not really, you know?”
He did, as contradictory as it sounded. She was saying, honestly, that she had done that kind of thing, and would, with him. She also didn’t want him to think less of her for having been with other men in the past. They were both too old not to have been with others, however.
That didn’t mean that her cultural upbringing wouldn’t shine through at the moment. In fact, if he pushed her on the idea, she would have lied to him about it, not even thinking about it too much. Even someone as modern and strong as she was would have tried to assure her new potential mate that she was relatively untouched. Pure, and that any children they had would be his.
Which was a thing that didn’t matter to him. His people, the old tribe, hadn’t worked that way at all. They had mates, but didn’t associate children with sex. The bonds that drew one to another went deeper than the flesh. So even now, all this time later, he couldn’t really care who she’d been with before. He wanted her.
If there was another man, then a part of him would call for him to fight for her. To drive off, or even kill, the competition. To send a shard of bone blade into his heart, then take his head before the other could stand again to continue the battle.
There was no one however. Just them. The reason he was being good with her had nothing to do with that possibility. Just that he wanted her to really know him first. Which wasn’t a thing he was going to explain right then. Possibly not for years, if that was something that they had time for. The longer she knew him as the nice and helpful man he seemed, the easier it would be for her to understand that he was also more, and different, than that.
Shaking himself so subtly she probably didn’t realize it was happening, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The sound of it was hidden in the wind.
“I’m not that kind really, either. Not if I really like someone.” He laughed then, realizing how that sounds. “Not, mind, that I’m saying I do, yet. We should talk about other things. For instance, what parts of your job do you think are touching on real things? Not all of it seems to be, but what do I know? I just get to sit back and see the edited footage from time to time.”
Actually, he saw all of it, all of the time, including the raw stuff. That was Danson Meeres however, not Dan, the role he played at the moment.
Meredith scooted a tiny bit closer, as if seeking warmth, and pressed her body against his side. They’d kissed, which even if they were moving slower than seemed reasonable to him at the moment, due to his own statements, it seemed fair enough to him. Too tempting by far, but he simply put an arm around her, so that she could feel a bit safer.
Her voice was conversational, since whispering was nearly out, given the noise.
“Most of it seems to be a lot different than anyone is willing to admit. People clearly see ghosts and even hear them. We can’t really find them when we go to study the idea though, can we? That makes me wonder why so many millions of people encounter that kind of thing. Is it mental? Environmental contaminants? Electromagnetic influences on the brain?” There was a pause as the windows rattled hard enough that they seemed ready to break. Then she went on, shaking ever so softly. “Alien abductions are the same kind of thing. People really think it’s happening to them. Millions of them each year. Even if it’s not really, it would make sense to study it, just given the numbers. Plus, a lot of these things seem to overlap. Like with Bigfoot and seeing strange lights in the same areas. That goes the other way around too, at times. People see Bigfoot walking in, or out of, UFOs.”
Dan got the idea, which was one that he’d had too, over the years. The one that told him that it was possible that a single phenomenon was behind the various tales that people made up to explain the strange things they encountered.
It wasn’t all his own kind either. There were things that were similar that way, at times. When people spoke of seeing a man, or woman, change their shape into a bear or wolf, that was almost always one of his tribe. Well, or imagination. That happened of course. Sasquatch could be just a different way to describe one form that they took when they changed. Their hunting form. The exact proportions were off, but that was due to how people forced their minds to see what they could understand.
Which was what his new friend was talking about, after a fashion.
“Right. There’s an overlap. That probably means that people are being caused to see things by one singular kind of event, even if they spread it out over a wider basis in their heads.”
That got a smile and nod from the woman, her long, rather straight, hair shining in the light from the lamp on the floor.
“Exactly my thought. I just wish I could get someone to try and fund some research on that part of things. Even if it’s just a mental artifact that a lot of people have in common, it would be worth learning about. I should send a memo to your grandfather about it. It isn’t that sexy of an idea, is it? Not like his nomad set-up. Then… Really, that isn’t all that supernatural, is it? Some kind of tribe of hunters that goes after other humans. We know that it’s happened in other places around the world. The idea that they’d last that long without being noticed openly is hard to imagine, but we aren’t perfect. Especially if they did it carefully, living among us. That would probably work, if they moved around enough. Hence the nomad thing… Right.”
There was a nod, but the topic wasn’t scaring her. The storm was, but she was relaxing more now that they were touching. The idea of cannibal hunters wasn’t real to her. That wasn’t a thing that she could imagine as being real.
Which was right, given her world. Not that there weren’t very regular people from that society that ate human flesh. The FBI when pinned down on it had admitted that there were probably close to a thousand people in the U.S. that did that kind of thing. That was a guess, of course, but probably closer than not. It didn’t show up in the news very often, and when it did, the people were looked at as mentally ill, and only that. Most of them probably did have problems, but some were simply raised to do that kind of thing.
It was, of course, evil.
That was why he had to stop it from happening, when he could. To act as a guardian for the people of his land.
Danson had been born in the northern world, but the old habits had been mainly fought back by the time he was old enough to remember anything. As a small child, his tribe had taken to eating only animals. That and plants. It had started the move to the warmer world, where that kind of thing was easier to manage. So, he’d never learned to eat other people to survive. Not that he hadn’t possibly been fed human meat when he was very young. It was just something that he couldn’t remember.
That, following the herds, had them moving down into Europe and later some of them migrated to the west, since they liked to explore new places. They’d run into their own kind even in North America, being who and what they were. Those groups hadn’t come around to living peacefully with their neighbors yet. Like some of the other kinds of old people. So, he’d been raised to contain them.
All of that was information he kept to himself. There wasn’t a law or rule against telling others, but short of changing shape in front of her, Meredith wouldn’t believe him. Doing that right now, as frightened and stressed as she already was would have pushed her to the edge of sanity. So, he just held her, and nodded.
Her body was tiny, compared to his. Warm, and just the right hint of soft. Desire for her ran over and through him, which he had to distract himself from. It wasn’t an easy thing to manage. She was lovely, and willing in the moment. Honestly, he wasn’t even truly certain why he wasn’t taking her up on things. It mainly came down to the fact that he wanted her to tremble in pleasure at his touch, not in fear of the world around them. Both might have worked well enough, but not for someone so special.
