Once. Part 22

He should have been used to such queer sights by now, for hadn't he already seen a thing that was half-faery, half-hedgehog, and another that had shrubbery growing from its head and back? He'd been allowed a peep into a different dimension and nothing more should have surprised him. Even so, when he saw four tiny imps sitting astride a swift-moving gra.s.s-snake close by he could not help but wonder what else awaited him. The imps waved and went on their merry way, the one at the front holding a little twig which he used to tap either side of the green snake's head, evidently his way of steering the reptile. More laughter when the one nearest the tail fell off as the snake swiftly changed direction to avoid coming too close to Thom.

Many of the undines had now emerged from the lake to sit in a semicircle around Thom, although they remained at a distance; others preferred to sit in the shallows and watch from there. They were all beautiful, he noticed, each one in her own way, their faces generally wan in the sunshine, their bodies slender and supple. Whether naked or wearing the flimsy dresses and skirts, each one was incredibly erotic -and exotic - to Thom's eyes and it was almost impossible to subdue the stirring of his loins. He tried to cover his literally growing embarra.s.sment by leaning forward from the tree trunk and resting his wrists on his knees. Even so, one or two of the nearest undines tried to smother their giggles with slender hands as they watched him coyly from the corners of their eyes.

Jennet scolded them with a look.

Fl.u.s.tered, Thom said: Tell me about the undines, Jennet. Are you one of them?'

'Yes, Thom, I'm an undine and so was Bethan.'

'She ... she lived in the lake?' He was shaking his head disbelievingly even as he asked the question.

'She came from the lake. It was over there...' she

pointed '... by the willow that your father first set eyes on her.' 'And this is where she returned/ Thom said grimly.

This is where she died.'

Were there - are there - others like my mother? Undines or faeries posing as humans?'

'Not posing, Thom. a.s.suming the ident.i.ties of humans. There is no pretence involved. But to answer your question, yes, there are several of us walking your Earth at this moment. Usually they are very discreet, but one in particular has already drawn too much attention to herself. She's quite famous?'

'Oh yeah? Who might that someone be?'

'She's an Icelandic singer. You humans think her a little eccentric, but in truth, she acts the way she does because she is still confused. She hasn't adapted yet, though she will in time. Meanwhile, most of you find her singing very strange; but persevere, eventually it will make sense to you.'

A green-silver-blue spark drifted between them and poised in the air in front of Thom. He could discern no regular shape to it, no form at all, and it surprised him by suddenly streaking off and vanishing completely before it had gone five yards. Another appeared, this one red and gold in appearance, a tiny fiery star that behaved in exactly the same manner as the previous one, although zooming off and disappearing in a different direction. Thom looked at Jennet quizzically.

'Little spirits,' she explained as yet another, and then another loomed before them. These were mainly purple and silver-white, although other fainter colours seemed to flare in their auroras. They're curious about you. It's not often that humans are allowed time to focus on them, so consider yourself privileged.

Sometimes the eyes of your kind might catch their reflections, but rarely will they be seen properly unless by people who have very sensitive intuitions.'

"fou mean psychics?'

She shrugged. 'We have no special word for them. To us they're just humans who see more clearly.'

'And these ... these things?'

'I told you, spirits, elementals. They are part of everything, the hidden life-force of all that exists. Their energies have wonderful powers.'

The three pulsing lights disappeared as abruptly as their precursors. But almost immediately a whole galaxy of similarly brilliant coruscations took their place, creating a glittering nebula between them. Thom had to squint against their combined glow, but he saw that they all comprised the same shades of light, twinkling blues to mauve and indigo, their nuclei a dazzling white that emitted streaks of its own essence into the halo of colours. Thom's shoulders. .h.i.t the broad tree trunk behind him as he backed off.

'Don't be afraid, Thom.'

He heard her voice, her image hazy behind the shifting nebula. They're here for you. They're healers.'

Thom drew his feet up, pressing his spine even harder into the rough bark at his back. For some reason he was nervous of these dancing lights for, although other small faeries had eventually graduated into human-like figures, these remained dazzling little stars with no obvious form and therefore utterly alien to him, possessing nothing he could relate to as a human himself. Why were they here for him?

'Jennet, I...'

'Hush, now. Relax and let them do their work. Her bad magic is strong, Thom, because she comes from a long line of evil women.'

'Nell Quick is just a woman,' he insisted.

'Haven't you learned anything?'

His question came out of fear. 'Why should you care? Why are you concerned for me?'

She moved slightly so that now he could see her beyond the fainter fringes of the cl.u.s.ter. 'For Bethan's sake,' she said. 'And for ours.'

Like movie s.p.a.ceships veering off to attack, the tiny stars arced towards him, each one taking its own graceful route, gliding forward to weave across his face and raised hands. They touched his bare skin, probes with no bite, scouting first before targeting. He felt their rays of light on the surface of his flesh, small beams of warmth that tickled, the soft heat sinking into him, disturbing his skin without hurting or even irritating. Some zoomed across his forehead and temples, peculiarly brushing without actually touching, while others reached his bare left arm to travel its length, down and then up, a constant traffic of energizing pa.s.ses, their ethereal force entering his flesh, journeying with his bloodstream to be carried around his entire system.

He felt faint; he felt his body had been invaded by alien but friendly micro-organisms; and after a few seconds he felt a strength galvanizing every tissue, sinew and muscle. His blood seemed to rush through him with its vivifying cargo and he could almost feel its beat as it flowed in steady heart-governed shifts.

The faintness soon left him as his body began to respond to the infusion.

It was miraculous. It was wonderful. It was a drug-free high that made him want to cry out with the pleasure it brought. His left arm was no longer numbed, his leg no longer ached. His chest swelled with the euphoria and, when he opened his eyes, for he had closed them in his joy, he saw that the water nymphs had moved even closer and were now joined by other imps and faeries, some of whom watched him intently, while others played and frolicked regardless of his presence. Several small animals had left the denser part of the woods to come closer and two roe deer were drinking from the lake itself.

He returned his attention to Jennet and when he

searched her lovely and bewitching eyes, they were slightly hooded, as if she, herself had become tired.

But Thom had mistaken the look she was giving him, for when she touched his upper arm he felt apalpable frisson between them, a charge that seemed to run through his limbs, his body, his heart, and rather than being unpleasant, it was exciting, arousing, a kind of tingling shiver that was stronger than before travelling with it. It was not weariness he saw in her, but uninhibited s.e.xual hunger. Jennet had sensed his body's reaction to the micro-probes that coursed through him, instilling an energy he had rarely experienced. All sensations were heightened and he felt undeniably sensual.

As she sat on her heels by his side, Thom found it increasingly impossible to ignore her nakedness beneath the flimsy, translucent garment she wore, the delicate b.r.e.a.s.t.s and soft curve of her belly, the white unblemished flesh of her thighs, creating urges in him that were physically difficult to disguise. Oh G.o.d, he thought, embarra.s.sed that his arousal was as transparent as her shift. He raised his knees higher to hide his swelling, his bare heels digging into the soft moss.

'Jennet..." he began to say, but suddenly she was leaning forward and brushing her lips against his cheek.

'So many questions, Thom, and all to be answered in time. How do you feel now?'

'Uh ... I feel wonderful,' he replied, which was true enough but not quite all.

Then let's walk on and talk further.'

She skipped to her feet and reached for him. Taking her hand and relishing the excitement of her touch again, he rose awkwardly. He shoved his fists into his jeans pocket, a weak attempt to camouflage the impudent bulge alongside. He felt ridiculously healthy and he prayed it would last. As they walked around the fringes of the peaceful lake, the

other undines watching, some waving, his mind focused on the things Jennet had told him so far and he was soon lost in thought again.

'I used to think Bethan was the most beautiful undine I'd ever seen,' she said as they walked through the long gra.s.s that ran down to the very edge of the lake. 'Of course, I was only a faery-child, but even I could appreciate true beauty and wisdom. The undines wept when she left them and they mourned when she returned to us only to pa.s.s over into the next realm.'

Thom felt anger, confusion. 'But why did she have to die? And why did she leave me? I had no one else, no father, no relatives at all, and only one friend.'

'She had no choice. It's the way.'

'Not for humans, it isn't. We stick by our children mostly.'

'She had become almost human. We always do when we fall in love with your kind. Our magic slowly weakens as we begin to live as humans, although the powers never leave us entirely. Some magic remains but these amount to little more than the ability to create love potions, cures, ointments - nothing truly extraordinary.'

Birds nesting in boughs overhead sang of their approach; a red fox with an odd scar blemishing its smallrascally face loped across their path, pausing only to look and bark crossly at them before going on its way.

'Goodbye, Rumbo,' she called after it.

The fox has a name?'

The animals we know all have names, how else would we address them? Rumbo was his name when he was a dog, then a squirrel. The name has travelled with him.'

There was already too much for Thom to consider without pondering over the apparent several lives of animals and reincarnation. 'So Bethan left me because my father had abandoned us both,' Thom said, dredges of bitterness clear in his tone.

Jennet stopped. Tour father died. It was his death that

meant Bethan had to leave also. Just your love, a child's love, couldn't sustain her.'

'I never knew.' Thom was shaking his head. 'She never told me what happened to him. I just a.s.sumed he'd gone away before I was born.'

'Are you sure she didn't tell you about him, Thom?'

Tm sure. I would've remembered.'

*You forgot everything else.'

'But not that. If she'd spoken of my father, I would have remembered.' He said the words deliberately, s.p.a.cing them out.

Then I don't understand. I'm sure Bethan had her reasons, though.'

'Yeah, he was no good. He ran out on us, but she was never mean-spirited enough to put it that way.

Funnily enough, I don't ever remember asking about him as I grew older. I think he just didn't play any part in my thinking or existence.'

She took him by the hand. 'It's time you knew, Thom. Let me show you something that might help you understand.'

A NASTY ACCIDENT.

KATY SCREAMED. This was not what she wanted, .what she'd expected. The woman seemed crazed now, a wild thing taken by a perverse l.u.s.t. Their lovemaking had been glorious, Katy could not deny that, and she, herself, had taken just as much a part as Nell, although initially the older woman had been the seducer. Katy had experienced sensations that she hadn't thought possible, certainly not between two women and rarely, she thought, possible between a man and a woman. The coupling had left her faint and she had lain exhausted on the bed, her T-shirt dishevelled above her tender b.r.e.a.s.t.s, an ache in her fulfilled loins that was not unpleasant. But satiated, she had began to feel shame, a guilt that nagged at her like some Catholic harpy, insisting that she had not just sinned but had sinned unnaturally. Stupid, foolish thinking, she knew, but years of s.e.xual conformity and commonplace propriety were not so easy to dismiss. She had enjoyed it, though, she told herself, she had loved every illicit second.

While it was happening. Now that the incredible yearnings were gone, the intense desire satisfied (more so than it had ever been with any man) she was left only self-recrimination. She had come to Little Bracken to see Thom Kindred; it was the appointed time for his physiotherapy, exercises that eventually would mend him, would bring him back to the man he obviously had once been. Her interest in him was more than professional, she had no problem in admitting that; but this morning, when she had met the dark-haired woman, something - something she honestly believed was alien to her despite the single, and to her, singular experience all those years ago - had unleashed otherwise unfamiliar feelings in her. She had felt an overwhelming s.e.xual pa.s.sion and had willingly submitted to Nell's advances. It couldn't be so, she wasn't... she wasn't that way ... it was an aberration, a deviation, and now she was left ashamed and ... frightened.

The woman, Nell, had changed horrendously. There was madness in those black eyes of hers! Perhaps she, Katy, would not have felt such mortification if the woman had shown some tenderness afterwards, some gentle caring, lying together and holding each other. It was what Katy needed, for s.e.x was never just an act to her, it always meant something more, something fine.

Now this strange wild-haired woman, who at this moment personified Katy's vision of Rochester's mad Creole wife, escaped from her dungeon to wreak havoc on all and everything before her, knelt on the bed between Katy's naked spread legs, her hand closed in a tight fist, bringing it down, closer and closer, a lunatic's grin besmirching her stunning face.

Katy's realized what the other woman was about to do, for she had already treated her roughly, pushing her back down against the pillows when she had tried to rise, Nell's hand hard against her forehead, fingers clawed into her hair. The therapist had protested and received a vicious slap

across the mouth for the trouble; she tasted blood from a split lip and Nell's eyes only gleamed all the more. It was as if having submitted to the woman's seduction and indeed, taking a more than willing part in the loveplay, Nell considered Katy to be her chattel, her 'b.i.t.c.h', there only to receive whatever was dealt her. Well, Katy was n.o.body's harlot and was not about to let her body be defiled in the abhorrent way Nell Quick intended: it had been abused enough in their frenzied lovemaking.

As the clenched fist approached her exposed v.a.g.i.n.a, its move slow and deliberate, Katy bent one kneeand kicked out at the other woman. The blow took Nell by surprise, almost knocking her off the end of the bed, and before she could recover, the therapist was scrambling to her own knees, one hand unconsciously yanking down the T-shirt still shrugged up over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Despite being a little overweight, Katy Budd was a fit girl, her very profession seeing to that (working with the generally unhealthy or infirm tended to make you more aware of your own body's condition), but there was something about this woman that truly frightened her. She had already felt Nell's strength and now she was witness to the crazed evil in her expression.

Nell had o.r.g.a.s.med with Katy, but that was not the end of the carnality for her: no, her demands far exceeded a single climax. Perhaps it was her nature always to want more, perhaps her s.e.xual drive was insatiable; but more likely it was because of Nell's malign persuasion, her wish to hurt others and sometimes, when the mood was on her, be hurt herself. Whatever the reason, she was disappointed that Thom Kindred had not returned to find them both, herself and his little blonde-haired darling, in his bed making love. That might have altered his stupidly innocent but oh-so-beguiling expression, that might even have tempted him to join in the fun. The disappointment, charged with frustration, made Nell lunge back at the girl, who was on the

edge of the bed, catching her flushed cheek with long fingernails, raking thin bloodied trails across the flesh.

Katy screamed. Loudly. It was the shock as much as the fear.

She fell to her knees on the floor, her own hand immediately seeking out the wound to her cheek. She did not wait to examine her fingertips for signs of blood, but tried to get to her feet. Now the offending hand was grabbing her shoulder, pulling her back so that her spine dented the edge of the mattress. Nell beat at her face, smacking her cheeks and temples, tugging at her hair so that she was unable to rise.

'Leave me alone!' she managed to shout, but the attack was merciless and she could hear the other woman laughing, a horrible cackling sound. 'Please!' Katy wailed.

She felt her b.r.e.a.s.t.s being violated, cruel hands rubbing them, slapping them, pulling at the nipples that extended once more, this time because of manipulation rather than excitement. Then a hand tugged at her pubis, pulling the light hair there, drawing out some so that she screeched with the pain of it. Fingers dug deep between her parted thighs, this time no pa.s.sion to them, exploration turning to excavation as the fingers plunged inside her. The violation caused Katy's anger momentarily to outweigh the fright, and she turned and struck back at her a.s.sailant who, only minutes before, had been her lover.

Nell was shocked, for the blow smashed into her nose, a splodge of blood jetting out to spoil her upper lip and tip of her chin. She gave a startled shriek, but immediately went after the girl again. Katy had stolen the moment to push herself off the bed and reach for the grey joggers she had so carelessly left just inside the bedroom door.

The dark-haired woman was swift of movement even though stunned by the punch and as she bent to retrieve the tracksuit leggings, Katy felt the rush behind her. She managed to straighten before she struck the door-frame and

again she cried out, tears spoiling her already impaired vision. She found herself spun around, as it her pursuer wished to beat her face, but she felt warm moist lips against her own and tasted another's blood in her mouth. Then sharp teeth were biting her lower lip as she writhed in the woman's iron grip, trying to push her a.s.sailant away, trying to push herself away. Nell was ruthless, though, pinning her against the door-frame with an energy that terrified Katy.