The stalking, p.17
The Stalking, page 17
Rosie may not have known what was going on, but she had intuited the danger, and that sense of growing danger was slowly driving her crazy . . .
'I'm sorry, Rosie -'
'Never mind sorry! Just leave us alone, Dan. Let us alone. I want to live my life with my husband and my child, without haunting, without the feeling of being watched, without having Bill wake up screaming at night, and talking about fences being blasted by unseen people, and bricks thrown across gardens. We have the right to our own lives! You 're destroying us/'
Her voice had risen to an hysterical screech, her face red with fury, tears squeezing from her eyes. She started to sob, and to shake violently, and Dan wrapped his arms around her, and although she struggled for a moment she finally let her resistance go, and wept against his chest.
'Okay Rosie, I get the message. When Bill comes along here later I'll not let him go through the gates. I'll leave you alone until this mess is sorted out.'
As if she had suddenly sensed something appalling about Brady, Rosemary jerked away from him, wrapped lift arms around herself and stood trembling, staring up at her brother. 'I'm going out of my mind, Dan. With worry, with fear. . . I'm sorry for you. I truly am. For Alison. . . you know how I feel. . . but you're a dead man. I don't know what happened to you, what part of you was destroyed by grief, or the beating you received, or what. Hut you're dead to me, Dan. Bill thought you were dead when he found you. But I know it for a fact. You're cold. Ice cold. If we stay around you, we'll be cold too. I'm not having that . . .'
'I understand, Rosie. Go home. We'll talk on the phone -'
She almost screamed the word, almost burst a blood vessel with the power and energy of what she screeched at him: 'Nothing! Nothing! Leave! Us! ALONE!'
And she pushed roughly past him and into her car, which skidded away down the road, swaying dangerously before it straightened up and vanished into the distance.
14
* * *
That evening, Andrew Haddingham visited the house, bringing two boxes of much needed food supplies, his shotgun, and a box half full of cartridges. Brady was grateful for the loan of the gun. His brother-in-law, too, had promised to obtain a shotgun for him. The extra defence might have been impractically physical, but was nevertheless reassuring.
Haddingham stayed to eat. While he was there he inspected, and was duly impressed and confused by, the psychic defences around Brook's Corner. Ellen explained them as Brady cooked the light supper. While they ate there was a strained silence, and afterwards, digesting their meal in cosy silence, Brady sensed a tension in the air, a vague form of discomfort. He thought he detected it in Ellen too, a restlessness that made the meeting with Haddingham less pleasurable than it should have been. Brady couldn't understand it, and at first assumed that they were being targeted. Something inside him told him that that was not the case.
Haddingham, too, could feel the unease, and with his usual gracious charm he excused himself, at about seven-thirty, and made his way home. Brady and Ellen then tackled the nightly routine of changing the beds around.
Ellen had already explained in detail the need to avoid routine; Brady regularly changed his clothes, bathed, and never sat in the same chair too long. Each night, with Ellen's help, he changed the position of his bed through ninety degrees. Tonight he would change rooms, stripping the beds totally for the wash, he taking Dominick's room where Ellen had been sleeping, and she taking Marianna's. By this regularly altered routine there could be no buildup of static energy from their individual auras, a magnetism that could attract psychic substance from outside and which would help the focussing of any attacking mind.
It was as they stripped the sheets in the main bedroom that their fingers touched, just briefly, and although they were well used to physical contact in moments of danger or great tension, this touch was different. Brady felt as if an electric shock had been pulsed through his body. He ulmost jerked his hand back from that tentative contact, and glanced at Ellen. Her eyes were lowered, her face clearly blushing. A second later she looked up and met his gaze, and Brady was instantly aware of what had been passing between them earlier in the evening.
It had perhaps been creeping up on them for a day or two, a growing awareness of each other, not as two threatened individuals, building a defence together, but as attractive and mutually attracted opposites.
Brady laughed nervously. 'I wondered if this would happen.'
'If what would happen?'
'That I'd start to want you.'
Ellen gathered the crumpled undersheet into her arms, pressing it into a compact ball. She stood there, almost protecting herself from Brady, but looking at him with a soft intensity. 'You're thinking of Alison.'
Brady wasn't sure whether that was true or not. (xrtainly, in the last few moments, he had been half aware of the last sexual encounter with Alison, but Ellen was implying that he was concerned with a sense of betrayal, and that wasn't true.
'Not really. Are you thinking of Michael?'
Ellen laughed softly, an almost tired affirmation. 'I t hink of Michael all the time. But I have no considerations about letting him down. To start worrying about betrayal, now, would be a ridiculous form of self-denial. I may be a crazy lady, Dan, but I have an ordinary woman's needs, and I have started to want you.'
Brady took the bundled sheet from her, and placed it on the bed. He had intended to reach out for Ellen and kiss her, but in the event they ended hugging each other closely, patting each other on the back, more as if they were reassuring each other than making a pass. 'Is it loneliness doing this?' Brady said.
'Don't question things so much. Loneliness perhaps; frustration perhaps. But desire as well.' She leaned back, still holding him, and stared up at him, smiling. 'I desire you, Dan. I feel it very strongly.'
'Me too,' he said helplessly, conscious of the inadequacy of that childishly nervous assertion. 'You've been smelling good these last couple of days.' When Ellen laughed, saying, 'What are you implying?' Brady laughed too, holding the woman closer to him.
'I didn't mean it that way. I meant. . . I'm becoming conscious of you . . .'
'I knew what you meant,' she said softly, and reached up a little so that he could kiss her gently on the lips. The kiss was tentative to begin with, then exploratory, lips parting, tongues touching with more and more determination. Brady felt at once aroused, yet unable to respond. He became embarrassed when his body failed to take note of his desire and his hot, awkward flush interfered with the intimacy of the moment. He disengaged, stepped back, and smiled. 'We'd better finish making up the beds.'
'Bed,' she corrected. 'Just one from now on.'
They opted to remain in the main room, turned the double-bed through ninety degrees and made it up with crisp, fresh sheets. The silence that hung between them was excited and anticipatory. Brady worried about his socks, which he hadn't changed since working in his garden shoes that morning; Ellen continually glanced at herself in the bedroom mirror, and made fleeting passes at her hair, pulling it back from her face as if she were concerned not to look too unkempt.
She needn't have worried. Brady, having relinquished that defensiveness of mind that had prevented him from assessing Ellen Bancroft fully as a woman, found the American quite gorgeous, her tanned skin and dark features making her at once sultry and erotic. Her hands were small and delicate, and the touch of her fingers had already sent various shivers and tingles through his body; lie anticipated her more arousing touch with impatience.
He voiced the only doubt he had held in reserve. 'Are you sure that . . . well, that to have sex together won't weaken us? It will take our attention away from more dangerous issues.'
'More dangerous?' Ellen looked mischievous. 'You mean, sex with me is dangerous, but not as dangerous as psychic attack?'
'You know what I mean!'
'Yes. I know what you mean. Don't worry, Dan. It's quite the opposite. Sex will strengthen us, because it will strengthen our individual auras. The act of love, emotionally committed and physically enthusiastic, may tire the muscles, but it strengthens the body incredibly. One literally basks in an afterglow of sex, you've heard that cliched expression. Two people who make love vigorously strengthen their aura for up to seven or eight hours. It induces confidence, inner well-being. You must have experienced that sensation.'
Brady was slightly alarmed. 'You're being very clinical.'
'I don't mean to be. I'm sorry,' she looked genuinely upset, frowning as she said, 'I meant what I said about desire, about fancying you. I really do, Dan. But I don't think we can - or should - do anything without understanding the consequences.'
'You're quite right. I'm just nervous, Ellen, that's all. I'm not one of your gay philanderers - that's the English "gay". I'm not used to starting new relationships. It took me six months to turn an affair with one of my lab assistants from the "hand-holding, eye-gazing, talking-about-it" stage to the first sexual encounter.'
English isn't the word for it!' said Ellen, with mock horror. 'That's positively Victorian!' Brady smiled. Ellen went on, 'Don't worry, Dan. It's a useful byproduct of sex that we will strengthen our auras. I'm not going to suggest that we couple each time someone attacks us psychically. Oh God, can you imagine?' Brady could, and he laughed as she laughed: 'Humping away furiously, elementals gathered in a big circle, struggling to get in. Uh uh!' She walked back to Brady and took his hands in hers, leaned up and kissed his lips. Her breath was warm and sweet. 'I need this, and I need you. I want you very much.'
Brady turned on the bedside lamp, then undressed quickly. He found time to dart to the bathroom and wash both his feet in cold water, just to be on the safe side. As he padded quickly back to the bedroom Ellen passed him, on her way to the loo. She still wore her underclothes and Brady glanced back at her, liking her body very much, its slimness, the muscles looking strong in her legs, her breasts fuller than he had thought. He became conscious of his stocky waist, his belly not exactly trim and flat. But he darted under the sheets and waited for her. When she came back to the room she was naked, and smelled faintly of sex. She climbed beneath the sheets and they cuddled for a moment, chilled by the cold bathroom. Brady's fingers found the small scar on her back, and the mole on her left hip. Her fingers prodded his stomach, and gently stroked his nipples.
It was fun, he thought, those first few minutes of exploring a new body. 'I think I'm nervous,' he said with slight embarrassment. 'I'm not tumescent.'
'You're not what?' she said, with a smirk. 'God, you English! And you call me "clinical".' Her hand moved down his stomach and her fingers gently wrapped around his flaccid penis. At once he started to arouse, but his distracted thoughts, and the tension he felt at this first encounter, effectively blocked him from a total rigidity. Her fingers played expertly with him as they kissed more deeply, and he stroked and pressed her hard-tipped breasts.
'I'm not going to make it,' he said suddenly as he pulled away from her. Her hand remained on him as he frowned. 'Sorry,' he said, and was startled as she said the word 'sorry' in total unison with him. She chuckled. 'I knew you were going to say it. Michael always . . . oh, sorry!' she broke off quickly, realizing how inappropriate she had been about to be. Brady laughed and prodded her chest with his forefinger. 'You Americans!' he teased.
'Lie back.'
He did as he had been bidden and Ellen's head disappeared beneath the sheets. Her mouth on him was warm and firm, her teeth a gently nipping sensation, and after a moment he threw back the sheets and held her head, moving her up and down along his member, thrilled at the sight of what she was doing. He was ready for her in seconds, and when she straightened up again, and reached her arms around his neck, he moved on top of her, guided by her. She requested, and required no foreplay from him. She was moistly ready for him and they took each other vigorously and noisily for nearly ten minutes before they came in unison and lay still again, fingers entwined, heads touching, but faces turned away from each other.
Brady woke abruptly at 3.13 in the morning. He had been violently dreaming, and in the dream had been running through the streets, the sound of his footfall a regular and echoing thud. As he came awake, and alert, so that thudding sound persisted for a few seconds before dying away.
Ellen was sitting bolt upright beside him. In the dimness Brady could see that her eyes were wide with shock. 'Did you hear something?' he said.
'That sound,' she said. 'Like thudding footsteps. That's it, like the ringing bells.'
'The Stalker.'
'Quick,' she said, swinging her legs out of the bed.
We've got to light the braziers.' She struggled into her towelling robe, but Brady didn't bother with clothing. He ran naked down the stairs and to the back door of the house. The cold air hit him hard, but he ignored it, running into the garden with the lighter he had bought for just this purpose. He went along the line setting the powdered herbs smouldering, and in two or three minutes had managed to light every brazier. The clear air became tainted with the acrid odour of the incense. Against the half moon Brady could see the trickles of dark smoke rising into the night.
'Put something on!' Ellen called from the back door. She stood there, huddled in her robe, staring into the darkness.
'I'm not cold,' Brady called back. It was a lie, and yet it wasn't. His skin was cold, yes, but he himself felt hot, angry. He prowled around the edge of the mazon, close to the house, his eyes keen for the slightest movement. 'Where are you?' he muttered loudly, and then raised his voice to shout, 'Where are you, dammit? Show yourself!'
'Dan! Don't be a fool.' Ellen's voice was not persuasive enough.
'I'm going to face it, Ellen. I want it to know who it's up against.'
He heard movement at the bottom of the garden, and ran lithely and lightly towards it, staying within the zona mandragora. As he followed the sound he knew that his words of a moment ago had been irrational and arrogant. Yes something within him was determined not to be subdued, or scared, by the psychic creature that was being projected against him. He knew, perhaps by instinct, that he had to start to face the attacker.
'Shout at the devil,' he said to himself, repeating a cliche he had read or learned as a child.
Beyond the Talisman Wall, something glowed.
It was an area of brightness that dissipated as fast as it formed. It moved along the rough track, and vanished behind the trees. In the half light of the moon, these trees were eerie outlines against the broken cloud.
It struck from the east, with a great wailing shriek and an explosion of wood and brick that showered Brady with splinters of stone and bark and made him cover his eyes. He felt blood on his skin where the jagged fragments of brick had lacerated his flesh. Above the awful howling of the elemental, he could hear Ellen's furious, frantic screaming for him to return to the house.
But Brady, acting on an impulse drawn more from foolhardiness than courage, stood his ground. Before him, the oak where Willie Crinkleleaf had his home was twisted and thrashed by unseen forces. Its upper branches waved madly; its bark split with an agonized groaning sound, but the great tree remained upright. Brick fragments blew at him, and the ground below his feet vibrated and seemed almost to ripple.
Two glowing balls of light appeared on the garden side of the wall and literally flew in opposite directions, hugging the mirrored brick, and at times bobbing up and down and darting towards him, as if trying to break through the unseen barrier of iron and clay. The balls of light coalesced again and formed a burning cross, that began to turn, and became a gigantic Catherine wheel. Light, like plasma, flew in all directions. Some of it appeared to land on Brady's skin, but it neither burned nor persisted. The spinning wheel of flame changed again, this time into a writhing man-like shape, features indistinct, its visual qualities fading until it was merely a half-glimpsed night-shadow, moving rapidly alongside the wall. Brady raced in pursuit.
The stench of the burning herbs was pungent and irritating. Brady knocked over one of the smoking braziers. He stumbled, grabbed for it, but failed to prevent it spilling its smouldering contents.
The elemental moved towards him there. The wind that struck him forcibly in the face was cold and stank like a rotting corpse, making him gag. He stood his ground, pale bodied, goose-pimpled, nude against the naked power of his assailant's mind.
'Who are you?' he screamed, searching the writhing smoke-like form for some sign of a face, some hint of the evil behind the psychic substance.
'WHO ARE YOU? SHOW YOURSELF.'
And with a great shriek, like a carrion bird, the Stalker came at him, through the magnetic zone of iron and clay, towering above him, reaching hands towards him. He was struck on the face by a shard of brick flung by the wind. He staggered backwards, fetching up hard and cold against the wall of the house. The garden before him seemed empty, but the brazier that had fallen was buckled and twisted and finally flung aside. He watched as the turf within the zona magnetica was ravaged, earth and grass scattered about, and one of the clay gargoyles finally uprooted and crushed to powder in mid-air. 'Who are you?' shrieked Brady, and stepped back towards it, tripping on the cut edge of turf where he had fashioned one of the complex mazes.
The wind blew all around him. The moon went in behind a bank of dark cloud, and there was a sudden, startling silence. The wind dropped away and the garden was still. Brady stepped out of the lee of the house and into the zona mandragora, walking towards the wall. Beneath his feet the ground was cold and littered with jagged fragments of brick which hurt him badly as he stepped upon them.
When he reached the wall he began to slap his hand, palm upwards, against the painted surface. Harder and harder he struck the wall, his mouth drawn back in a grimace of anger and frustration, the tears squeezing from his eyes as he repeated over and over, in rhythm with his steady, painful striking, 'Who. Are. You? Who. Are. You?'
Ellen sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the dishevelled, bleeding man before her. Brady was still shaking. His face was white, save where it was smeared with blood and several dark streaks of grime. He had at least twenty cuts on his body, one of them, on his stomach, bleeding very badly. The blood had drenched his dark pubic hair.
