A Blood Moon Rising

-1-

The horn screamed in the black and ignited a pain in his skull that seemed exquisite until the floodlights thrust through his suddenly open eyes like a pair of blades smashed into his brain. The metal slab that he slept upon rolled back and he tumbled to his feet. The horn's volume diminished and changed in its tone, the light's intensity abated until it reflected off the aluminum walls with just enough fervor to maintain a small, sharp ache behind his eyes. The horn's final note slipped into silence as a dying howl. The small taunt it represented was his only evidence that he was not captive of a machine but of a human mind.

A panel slid back in the middle of the floor to this right. Inside was a small amount of paper. He gained access to his sanitary facility three times each day. After a set period of time, he counted about two minutes, water sprayed from the ceiling. At first it had a slightly sour smell that dissipated after a moment. Whatever it was, the room retained its sterile aroma day after day.

How many days? He wondered if his tormenters realized that, cold as the water was, the moments when it rolled over his body were the only ones when he could think of the world outside and his life in it. If that world was still there. He could be on a space ship headed somewhere. The thought was ridiculous, and he dismissed it before terror arose with the consideration. The conditions of his confinement convinced him that they wanted to twist his mind. He fought back with the only resource he had at his disposal, cold reason. He refused to consider what might be beyond the room, except to remind himself that it was malevolent, no matter what motivated it to hold him in his tin room. He tried to focus on the best moments of his life to remind himself of the good things in a life that still existed somewhere outside. The past few months might have become a nightmare, but the years before were good. He realized at a certain point that his method was an effective form of resistance. Cold reason suggested he would not survive his captivity. At certain moments, he hope he would not. A life subject to the force that had tossed him into the sealed captive's room would be a nightmare. It was another consideration he determined not to indulge.

How many days? Light and darkness meant nothing. The periods changed regularly. If they meant to fool him on that account, they had failed. His sleep cycle was regular as clockwork. If they meant to disorient him, though, he realized that they had succeeded partially. He wasn't certain of the time, but as he drew his hand across his face he could guess he had been captive for just under two weeks. He had grown a beard for the first time almost a year before. It took two weeks to turn from stubble to something resembling whiskers. He was almost there again.

The water stopped. Small panels opened in the wall at his left in 10 columns. Air blasted in to expel the water. He turned slowly, allowing the flow to dry him. An existence without clothing, particularly one in metal room, was chilly enough that he allowed the air to have its drying effect. The air ceased and the panel closed. The air channels precisely fit the openings that lead to them. He no longer rushed to see if he could spy something beyond the room through through some crack or kink.The last of the water trickled into the open waste basin, and the panel slid shut. Maybe he was in Japan. But no. His captors understood him too intimately to be from a completely foreign culture. The light flashed bright again, firing the pain in his head again. Time to walk. He paced the room in a circle and the light diminished. After some period of time, the light would flash again, and he would begin a period of calesthentics. He required a few painful minutes of his first conscious hour in captivity to fully understand what his captors intended in the exercise period. Then the slab would reemerge to a third of its full extension, and he would sit and rest. Later he would walk again, although he would not repeat the calesthentics. Then he would rest, walk, rest, walk then sleep. His captors undestood him. He had no need for food, not now, but he could feel the hunger growing. What would occur when it was time for the hunger to demand satisfaction?

-2-

The yearning grew more insistent. Whatever the conditions forced upon him, whatever result his captors hoped to achieve, the hunger carried a weight that helped him resist. The hunger was not a manipulation, nothing imposed. The hunger rose from within, although it was a natural desire. Yet it was not foreign. The being that abided, the shadow cast through him that sometimes was no more than a flicker, a the darkening shadow of trembling, crooked twig troubling his spirit. Yet the hunger arose from the shadow and grew as it filled his soul and finally overcame his reason. Not yet, but not too long a time away. He wondered how much his captors really knew. Were they just well financed voyeurs? Did they think they could condition the hunger out of him? Certainly, they made no attempt to feed him. He might like to eat now. Food might not satisfy the hunger that possessed him now, but old, human instinct urged him to eat.

Feed, starve, it hardly mattered. If they thought they could starve the hunger out of him, they did not know enough. Would they loose him on some victim they wanted destroyed? The though was disturbing. If he detected the intention to use him as a weapon, he was bound to oppose them. His defiance was likely to be in vain, but if he off some resistance, he must try.

If.

Was he simply the subject of an experiment, or was he being called to account for what he was compelled to do? Those were explanations that appealed most to his imagination, although neither felt right. In either case, he felt certain that those presences beyond the walls would have communicated, for ethical reasons or at least to judge the exact effect of their actions. Was he in hell? He did not believe in hell, although perhaps he could be persuaded.

Would they allow the hunger to reach is awful manifestation? Why wait? Perhaps their ethics did not allow them to kill him until the hunger took form. Perhaps, if they could not kill a human being, they might feel less remorse about slaughtering a monster.

He wondered if they knew his senses were becoming sharper. He had detected sound, very faint but real, emanating occasionally from behind one of the wall panels, one of those separated by the air get apertures. Now, he understood where the door was, although any visible sign of it had been hidden. He caught a whiff of aroma in the air as well. The scent was the first thing that had surprised him since soon after his arrival. Incense, like the kind they used to sanctify the alter at church services he had attended as a boy. He was sure he was right, although he first doubted. Incense. Where was he?

-3-

Something had changed. He awoke to silence. He tried to rise amidst soft light, but his head swam. He lay back down, gathered himself and rose. Nausea rumbled through his gut. He slipped his feet over the edge of the slab and rose slowly. The slab remained in place. He took tentative steps and was gratified that the nausea become no worse. Something else stirred, however, an animal rage that was at least partly human. He had been drugged. A gas had been pumped into the room as he slept. An impression remained with him, a sour smell. He was not certain if it remained as a dispersed presence in the room or his memory, but he was sure it was not a product of his imagination. Certainly, no one could have slipped in, not with his senses heightened and attuned. He walked directly to the panel he knew to be the door and slammed his shoulder into it. The sound echoed slightly, although he recognized that most people would not have heard the dull reverberation. He slammed his shoulder in again and again. The sound seemed to have a shape: a passage behind the door of about the same dimensions as the portal itself. Eyes he felt upon his whipped his rage into a frenzyAgain and again he through himself into the door, harder and harder, grunting louder each time as he worked to increase the blow's force. He harbored no illusion that the door would yield to his onslaught. He has seen the little bandage cover the hinge of his arm. They had some new knowledge of him and he wanted more knowledge of them. He knew more about the door, but he wasn't after knowledge of his physical surrounding as much as the character of his captors and their intent.

The room went black. They wanted to calm him, calm him like they calmed wild animals captured in nature shows, by immersing him in darkness. He hammered away with his shoulder. He should have become exhausted already, he would have it was a week earlier, but now he was rife with a carnal rage, so pure that it resembled cold purpose.

Then, as if in a spasm, he ceased. He took four precise steps to gain the side of where the deployed slab should be and reached down. It was there. He lay down on the stiff plastic material. He had learned. He had learned that experiment was part of his captors' purpose. They wanted to understand his condition. He knew that the panel he had attacked did, indeed, allow passage in and out of the chamber. Finally, he learned that they could and would gas him. He turned to face the wall, placing his nose against the paper-thin gap between the slab and the surrounding wall. He could feel a slight movement of air. The room had to be ventilated or he would have suffocated long since. He rolled onto his back again. No use giving away tricks, after all. They might gas him again any time. He awaited the slightly sour aroma, grasping it so firmly in his memory that it might even wake him in sleep.

-4-

The cycle resumed: darkness, water, walking, rest. Boredom was a constant. Yet, the boredom was not languid or even fretful. Now, it was electric. He strained to control his impatience. The desire to endlessly pound the door panel battled his determination not to surrender his self control to his tormentors. The pressure was increasing. He recognized that that his captors where changing the cycles of light and darkness, of exercise and even bathing. They were doing everything they could to confuse his sense of time and date. His beard was getting longer now and he no longer could accurately gauge the passage of days by its growth. He recognized, though, that time was arriving at a critical point. The length of day and night might warp under the malice of his captors, but nothing could lull the creature rising in him. Did they think they could trickl the beast? Fools. Arrogant, damned, deranged fools. At moments, he welcomed the advent of the beast. He wished to speed time, rush to the moment when the beast would make its appearance. Then the horrors that ushered in that moment returned to his mind. One vile element of the captivity was that it had forced memory upon him. In his sterile presence, memories became more acute, including recollection of the beast's advent. The recollection was becoming  his captivity was becoming more potent the closer to the moment he must relive it.

He controlled himself. He lay quietly in the darkness, stood as the water flushed over him and as the jets of air dried him. He walked in the exercise sessions, rested in the intervals. He lay quietly in the darkness, but as fitful sleep approached, he turned his face to the thin gap between the sleeping palette and the wall. He waited, listening when awake. When silence descended on his mind, he counted on another, eternally restless presence that paced within, testing the air even when he could not. It might stir him at the right moment. It might become useful. He waited for an opportunity that he feared might come too late. The presence was livid within him, pacing the ramparts of his soul, gathering its full strength to overleap them and take possession, to unleash chaos. He knew that the moment was near when he would no longer be master of his own soul, and he was certain that the moment would attend whatever destiny his captors intended for him.

When the exercise sessions came, he paced faster with a natural grace and feet stroking the floor in light, easy strides as if he was swimming across it rather that walking. If he was walking, as a measured jog had become his preferred method of movement. Doing calisthenics, too, he exercised swiftly but with smooth, exacting motions that demonstrated the fluid power of his body. Why hide it? They must have some idea of what wold come. Let them have a hint of it. Let them worry. Let them act prematurely. Let them make a mistake. He was prepared for his chance.

-5-

The walls rang. They echoed a powerful thud sounded well away from the room that contained him. He sat on the half surface of his bed, serving as the bench where he was permitted to rest between exercise periods. He rolled off and under the bench jamming his nose and mouth against the slight separation between the surface and the wall. Almost as he did so, the surface snapped back into the wall. A panel slipped into place, but he could draw something of the draft emerging from behind it. The fans that pumped air into the room revved up at least to the point where he could just hear the whirring of their blades. He detected the sour scent, so slight and subtle that most people would never have noticed it. His captors were driving gas into the room.

He could hear muffled shouts. They traveled across some a distance. Two sharp bangs followed. A gunshot rang out after, the report of a pistol. Two burst of automatic gunfire followed, then more shouting, another bang. The sound of a large motor suddenly activated growled near at hand, and the panel in the wall finally raised.

A figure rushed into the room. He stood to meet it, but his head swam, whether from the gas or the excitement, he couldn't say. Yet, he gained his feet in a single movement and held his balance. The figure was dressed in black from head to stocking hat. It's face was covered in a black mask. Eyes were the only feature bared, gleaming red, around a stony black pupil. The eyes seem exposed less by necessity and more by virtue of their awful power. They hate they glared was something more than emotional and almost a physical presence. The eyes caught at something in this creature's soul, but they could not shake a captive who saw freedom suddenly available. Rage roared through him in a wave, and he focused all the power he could muster, his own and the fury of the black animal within, as a lunge into the narrow center of the figure that approached.

His condition must have surprised the figure, but his opponent was barely swayed. Rather, with hands so strong they seemed mechanical, the figure added a great force to the momentum that carried him forward. He found himself in the air, flying toward the wall, but the raw raged that had pulsed through him had cleared his mind. He turned, twisted, struck flat against the wall and gathered himself up. As the figure turned in pursuit, he realized that his opponent had give him an advantage, He was closer to the door. He leaped at the oncoming figure again, but this time he rolled and struck its legs. His opponent had rushed forward unbalanced in a rush to prevent an escape and stumbled over him, tumbling into the floor and wall. The way to the door was clear.

He rushed through the door, but the same powerful hands grabbed his shoulders. He tried to twist away as violently as he could, but the grip held. The weight of a body fell onto his back. He threw himself backward, jerking his head back violently, and he felt to connect with hard and soft tissue. The hands swiftly shifted positions and gripped his throat, tearing at his larynx. The blow had some effect, though. The weight shifted from his back for a moment and the grip suddenly weakened. He twisted and wrenched himself forward. He was free. He turned on his attacker, but a brilliant light filled the room and a percussion sounded as a searing pain through is ears and in his brain. For a moment his mind spun and wavered, but as it cleared, he saw that the entire far wall of his cell had lifted open, and he glimpsed the black figure fleeing as a sharper darkness melding into a broader one. Then the wall slammed shut.

He turned unsteadily. Figures had gathered. Two were police, fully outfitted in body armor and carrying automatic rifles. One was an emergency medical technician. Yet it was the two figures they flanked who caught his attention. One was a man of medium height, who wore a black beard and was dressed in some antique priest's habit. The other was taller, straight, thin but muscular in build with a rectangular open face and pale blue eyes that somehow remained prominent in his face despite the poor light filtering over his shoulder. The man's straight posture suggested both power and control. Yet, something else focused his attention on the tall man. Something cunning and wild danced between the kindness of those eyes. It was something that he recognized. The man stepped forward to shake his had.

"I'm Jack Cagan," the man said.

As he extended a hand, he said, "My name is Harper, Brian Harper."

"You're free, Mr. Harper."

"Just Brian."

"Whichever way, you're free."

"Just like that?"

Cagan nodded.

Harper sighed in relief and annoyance.

"I do have a few questions," he said.

"I thought you might, and I have a proposition for you, which you are free to accept or reject."

Harper nodded.

"We have a safe waiting area just through this way while we take a few minutes to finish securing the building. The fellows with the guns are here to guard you, but if you you want to leave, they won't stop you. They'll lead you to the waiting area."

"You aren't coming?"

"Myself and Father Constantinos need to help secure things. We'll be along in just a little while."

The party stepped through a short dark corridor to a brightly lit hallway in what looked to be a medical facility.

"Just that way," Cagan pointed, but he and the priest went in the opposite direction.

"Mr. Harper," one of the policemen said, gesturing down the hall.

"I'd like to look you over quick," the EMT said. She was about his age, the olive skin of her slender face surrounded by light brown subtly highlighted hair. Her brown eyes were deep and fixed on him. Very attractive, Harper thought. Was she supposed to help win his cooperation, he wondered. Still, and all, Harper considered, his prospects were looking up. Not to mention that he still had at least another day to get somewhere safe, for himself and for people.

-6-

The EMT smiled as she put the cuff on Harper's arm. She looked embarrassed. Okay, that's more than an act, he reconned. He smiled back and held out his hand rather than his arm.

"I'm Brian," he said.

"Martina," she said, shaking his hand firmly, then hurrying to get the cuff attached. Harper felt something stir. Martina said, "Oh!" as if she noticed. The moment dawned when he realized he was completely naked.

Harper sighed as the two cops at the door chuckled. A tremor of anger helped steady him. He shot the cops a look and turned to Martina.

"I'm sorry," Harper said. "They took away my clothes a very long time ago. After awhile, you stop thinking about them."

Martina smiled and her eyes grew soft with what seemed genuine sympathy.

"That's okay. You get a fair amount of naked in my line of work. And sometimes, it's a lot more crazy."

"Would you like pants?" one of the cops said.

"That's a question you could have asked in the hall," Harper said.

"Get the victim to a safe location first," the other cop said in defense of his partner, although his eye suggested he was just as amused as his colleague. "Everything else comes second. Even pants."

"Billy," the first cop called down the hall. "I know you got sweats in the kit there. You wanna bring a pair down here."

"If you want to wait for the pants to do the examination, I understand," Harper said to Martina.

"No," she replied. "This makes things easier. Like, I already know you're not shot anywhere."

The cop reached to Harper from what distance he could maintain, and handed him a pair of black sweat pants.

"Now, you're supposed to say, 'Just through the heart,'" the cop told Harper.

Harper shook his head no, looking at Martina who also shook her head then nodded, affirming his judgement.

"Did that ever work for you?" Harper said to the cop who was returning to his doorside post.

"Once, but it was four o'clock in the morning, so the female must have been gassed."

The cops seemed okay. Even the mild derision seemed ordinary emotion, not an artiface. They didn't like him, particularly. Or they were trying to warn Martina off him. Whatever the case, they didn't seem to be hiding anything. Nor did Martina, who was finishing her examination and putting her stethescope, as the final items, into her instrument case.

"Well, you seem to be in remarkably good health, as far as I see. It's more like you were training rather than held captive."

"They made me exercise for a long time, hours every day I think."

Martina paused, then said quietly, "Don't worry about anything. I've worked with these guys before. You have to have special clearance. We deal with some wacky people, strange genetic diseases. That's how we classify them, the cases, I mean. Anyway, you seem fine, and they'll treat you good."

"Thank you," Harper said.

Martina picked up her instrument case and nodded her goodbye.

"Will I see you around?" Harper asked.

"I guess that depends where you live."

"Small place. Vitters. Know it? No, guess not. Lake Placid is the closest town anybody has ever heard of unless they're from the area."

"That's way up state, I guess. I've never been north of Albany, at least not in New York."

"Wait, where are we? I guess I should have asked that right away. That gas must have gotten to me more than..."

"Brooklyn. What gas?"

"They gassed me once, to examine me, I think. They just tried it again when you people came busting in."

"You didn't say anything about any gas. I've got to find Cagan."

Martina hurried out of the room, Harper instinctively followed. The first cop slipped out but the other, but the other stood firm in the doorway.

"Could you please remain inside until the building is secured," he said. Harper paused, and the cop slipped through the door pulling it shut behind him.

Harper stopped just outside the ark the opening door might describe. The door was heavy, enough so the cops might not think their voices could be heard behind it. Harper could here From behind the door, he could followed the muffled voice of the cop who had given him the sweats: "Like I wanna be playing nursemaid to this guy."

"You believe this guy," the other cop said, quiet no longer. "They bust him out of his cage and he starts acting like he's the star of the psycho ward."

"Don't," his partner said. "Start with stuff like that, and they'll bust you out of this detail."

"I'm not sure I want to be in it."

"Brother, after this, you have nowhere to go but intelligence, and you won't get overtime like you get here over there. They'll keep you stuck in an office reading reports so they can keep an eye on you."

"They're real serious about this detail. But, come on. What do they think I'll say."

"You say what they told you to say. These guys belong to a wolf cult. It started in Eastern Europe."

"You see that guy. What the fuck is up with him? It was like he was restraining himself. He's grinning and joking, and you feel as if he might jump half the room to get at you."

"They do their thing on the full moon, remember. The ecstacy ceremony."

"I still say that they're doing it, not performing in it."

"Don't say that, either. The Orthodox are involved with them, and they scream if anybody cast aspersions, get it."

"I'd rather be interrogating this guy than baby sitting him. Somebody popped off a shot at us. I don't like that. I mean, what the fuck is this place?"

"Don't ask so many questions."

"And what about the other assholes. Porphyria. I looked that up. And the Catholics got them fixed up as a damn charity. Is that a joke the priests snicker over?"

"Hey, I'm Catholic," the pants bearer said.

"And so, you buy it cuz your Catholic."

"Look, I've been on this detail longer than you. And the things I've seen...well, I've seen weirder stuff than you have. Believe me. At least so far. Okay, it's all creepy, and strange, and it never ends up in the papers, so something is going on, and I don't want to know what it is. If the people we deal with are something more than what the official line says, I don't fuckin' want to know about it. I wanna finish my 20, turn all that fat overtime into a nice retirement check and find a place to enjoy my golden years without the fuckin' nightmares."

"Where's that gonna be?"

"If I can figure out how, fuckin' Mars."

"I'm not scared of these guys."

"Well, then you're ignoring enough to get by. Just, one thing: Don't let them send you to Staten Island."

"What is all this shit about Staten Island?"

"You don't want to deal with that crew. The charity set won't let those guys over the Varrazano. Which suits me. I'll drive 40 miles out of my way to take the George Washington so I don't have to drive through Staten Island. Even in broad daylight."

"What the fuck..."

"What the fuck? Don't let them send you to Staten Island. Now, I'm getting the creeps. Let's just guard out the request for your friend in there to stick around."

The cops fell silent. Harper shook his head, thinking: What have I gotten into? In a pulse of frustration, he wanted to cry out: Where the fuck is my sweatshirt? He restrained himself, although he had begun to feel a chill.

In an effort at distraction, Harper reviewed his surroundings. The room was a small medical examining room. Was this where the took him when he was unconscious or did they satisfy their curiosity in his cell. Harper felt himself grown anxious, annoyed, finally angry. He tried the door, but it was locked. So much for leaving when he liked. They couldn't keep him in. Harper grabbed the door handle and hauled back from to arm's length. He didn't plan any vain effort. He planed on tearing the door off its hinges.

A soft, firm voice pierced the door. It said, "Mind stepping back a bit."

Harper paused, then turned to locate a camera, but he didn't see one. He released the door. It opened slowly, and Cagan slipped through the door grinning.

He answered a question before Harper could ask it, saying, "I think you're getting yourself a bit worked up. I heard you panting. I've got good ears, too."

"Yeah, well maybe your good ears reminded you that things have been a little stressful for me lately. I don't appreciate getting locked in a room."

"Sorry about that," Cagan said. "Even in extraordinary situations, cops are cops. Maybe even more so in extraordinary sitations. They fall back on their training. But, first, I need to ask a question. Martina."

The door open, and Martina walked through. She smiled but looked tense just the same.

"The gas, did you catch an odor, a little sour with a bit of carmel or vanilla mixed in."

"Yeah," Harper said. "That was it."

"It's alright," Cagan said, turning to Martina to repeat himself.

"What does it mean?" Harper said, already feeling some relief as the tension left Martina's expression.

"I know what they used on you. It's got a special little kick to it to make sure you are completely, and I mean, in all facets, knocked out."

"Hmmph," Harper grunted. He wished they would speak plainly, but he could hardly expose his secret with assurance that Cagan would take him seriously. The man was hard to read. Cagan assumed a calm air that the intensity of his eyes only just betrayed. Harper couldn't quite nail down their color. They seem blue at times, green or hazel at others, as if they shifted with his expression. When he turned to Martina, she locked Cagan's eyes with a fixed expression, even if she did not look at him as warmly as she did Harper.

"Do you need to give him a last look?" Cagan asked and broke Martina's attention with a nod toward Harper. She smiled Harper, glanced back at Cagan to question his meaning but was met with a Cheshire grin.

"I think he's be fine," Martina said and smiled at Harper. "I'm glad you're getting out of here."

Harper nodded and said, "Thanks. Though I could use a shirt."

The door flipped open and a black swear shirt came flying through.

"This will impress the ladies," a voice said as the door swung shut.

Harper held open the shirt. The front was emblazoned with yellow letters: NYPD.

Harper held the sweat shirt up for Martina to appreciate.

"Naturally," Harper said.

"Not that I want to criticize your fashion sense," Martina said, "but I I've seen that look before."

"Yeah," Harper grunted.

"Anyway," Cagan said, "if you want to trade style notes, Brian here will be staying with us at the monastery in Astoria."

"Ho, wait, I'm going home."

Cagan fixed his gaze on Harper.

"You are free to do so," Cagan said, "but I wouldn't recommend it. We didn't get all the staff here, and they are well financed and have a network that exceeds what was housed in this facility. And they took you near your home, which means they have scouted it and very well may be able to snatch you again before the FBI has had time to properly secure it. Give us a chance to chase them off your scent."

"Who? If you know who they are, why don't you just arrest them. You can do that. You're a cop, right."

Cagan shook his head, saying, "I'm only a consultant..."

"The why am I talking..."

"Listen!" Cagan said sharply and his eyes seemed a particularly icy shade of blue. "We got there about a day before what we think were big plans for you. You need to be somewhere safe for about 48 hours before you make your next move. No one will stop you if you insist on going, but it would be foolhardy. We can't arrest them because we barely know whose involved. It's an elaborate network. We're tapped into it, but the members keep moving. They're well financed, and they have protection from some powerful interests. They far from invulnerable, though. Give the feds a couple of days, and they're make more arrests, but, and must importantly, the fed will have blown up their whole scheme. The people we're talking about won't take a stupid risk over a scheme that blew up in their face. The only problem we have now is keeping you away from them until they have no chance to redeem their effort. So, spend a couple of nights in the monastery."

Harper now answered sharply, saying, "I don't feel safe in a monastery. I don't feel safe about what is outside or what is inside."

"You'll be safe in this monastery. It has some special features."

Cagan turned to Martina and said, "Could you excuse us? I have to discuss somethings with Brian in private."

"Goodbye," Martina said, raising an open hand. "Maybe I'll see you again in better circumstances."

"I.." Harper didn't quite know what might be appropriate to say. Then Martina was gone past the door.

"She's got the call of the wild, so don't worry about her coming back" Cagan said after the door shut, and he began drawing closer to Harper. He leaned forward and said quietly in his ear. "This monastery has cop security outside and monk security inside that's even better. And it has facilities where you can change safely. And so can I."

Cagan paused, then said, The wolf's moon's coming, and wolfmen need to stick together."

Cagan looked at Harper, who saw a restless shadow behind the man's strange eyes.

"We can stick together a wall or so apart, for particular safety."

Cagan drew back and Harper appraised him.

"The monks have a whole hog roasting for you right now," Cagan said.

Harper looked away in thought, then said to Cagan, "Alright. Alright. Whatever horrible destiny I'm in for, I'm holding you to deliver that hog. I'm getting..peckish."

Cagan chuckled.

"Then off we go," he said, tapping a fist on the door, which swung open to receive them.

-6-

Inside the gate, Harper entered a different world. He was unfamiliar with the architecture, but it had a look that suggested Byzantium, at different points ornate and spare. To Harper's surprise, the monastery was set in a neighborhood of family homes and small apartment buildings. He expected some quite corner, perhaps a park or maybe a little island. When he said something to that effect in the car, Cagan shook his head and laughed.

"Did you think we'd be sharing space on Riker's? It's not a prison," Cagan said.

Two priests whose garments continued to suggest gowns to Harper sat in the car's front seat, he and Cagan in the back. One was the slight man with the wide smile who had accompanied Cagan previously. The other was younger, taller and thickly built. He had a calm, meaty face behind a thick black beard, but his jaw as set hard and solid. The younger priest had a wide forehead that Harper thought he might drive through the windshield if he took the notion.

The car pulled up to a gallery directly before an arch that led to a heavy wooden door. The big priest sprang out of his door to pull open Harper's. He looked intently back to the main entranceway and turned to Harper only after a pair of priests emerged to secured it. They also appeared young and remarkably fit. Harper felt tension he had kept at bay begin to creep back onto his mind. He looked at Cagan, standing beside the car. Cagan smiled slightly and nodded. Harper shrugged, wondering how adept Cagan was at reading his mood. As he stepped aside to let the priest close the car door, Harper adopted the shadow of a smile Cagan wore. He asked himself: Is he reading me or is he bluffing? The big priest led the party through the arch and pulled the heavy door open with too little effort.

My God, Harper articulated in his mind, the door actually creaks. Isn't this fucking ominous?

As they entered the dark corridor beyond, Cagan said, "They'll set you up in a room for tonight. Its not much, but their beds are comfortable. No sleeping on plank boards or anything like that. They'll get you a radio if you like. You have to keep it low, and that's about the only concession to modern entertainment they make."

"That's modern?" Harper scoffed.

"I'm sure we could arrange a nice monastic chant, if you prefer."

Harper shook his head, "The radio is good enough."

They continued down the corridor. Harper wondered if the electric was sconces might give way to candles. He shook his head abruptly. This is my reality now? he asked himself. Cagan walked beside him. Tall. Harper was reminded of an actor but couldn't recall the man's name. Everything was out of place. His life was out of place. For how many months? Was it a year? Harper felt disjointed, as if he had fallen out of time. The walls were creamy in color. The beams that supported the walls were a heavy brown. As he passed each, he felt as if his descent into...what?...was deeper.

"Did you ever wish you were somewhere else?" Harper said, turning to Cagan. He smiled, as if it were a joke.

Cagan looked at him, his odd eyes mute.

"Often,"Cagan responded, then he added. "But here we are."

They stood before a heave door that was of the same constitution as the beams above them.


"Let's get this man a radio," Cagan said.

"Let's," Harper echoed.

The small priest said, "Immediately."

A larger priest hurried down the hall as the rest of the group halted.

"This is where you rest for tonight," the small priest said. "I an Father Demitriev. I am also Frank."

Harper smiled.

"You can call me either," Father Demitriev said. "Either is fine. I like to be called Frank sometimes. Only my brother calls me that now. My sisters call me Father Demetriev. I tried to get my first nephew to call me Uncle Frank, but my sister wouldn't allow it, and my brother has no children yet. I wonder if he would let his son call me Uncle Frank."

The small priest smiled. Harper turned to Cagan. Harper smiled, too, shaking his head not about family affairs but at the atmosphere. He was not physically moving, but he felt his descent continue.

"Could you give me a moment with Brian, please," Cagan said.

Father Demitriev let a moment of disappointment show on his face quickly covered with another of his warm smiles. He joined the other robed men as they made off slowly down the hall.

"I know the surroundings are strange, but they are safe," Cagan said.

"It's all a dream anyway," Harper muttered. "I'll wake up in a moment."

"It seemed like a bad dream to me at first and for a long time, what I remember of my first months under the curse."

"So, what is is this particular experience we're sharing here? A dream within a dream?"

Cagan chuckled.

"Not a dream, altogether," Cagam said. "Not altogether a nightmare. I can help you with that."

"I don't need help," Harper said quickly. "I need to...I need to sleep, but I can't. That's why I'm worked up. I just need a normal sleep."

"Get it while you can," Cagan said.

"And stop being so damn cryptic,' Harper said.

Cagan took a long breath.

"Always sounds silly when you talk about it," Cagan said,. "Especially when you are asking a clerk for handcuffs and wondering about how seriously they were constructed. Worry that you might just shake them off your wrists like water."

"Don't act like you know what's going on with me," Harper said, slamming his shoulder into a door that gave way easily.

"I don't know if you're ready to discuss what comes next," Cagan said. "If not now, we have to do it tomorrow morning."

"Then we do it in the morning," Harper said, adding as he shut the door. "My nightmares are pretty well stoked already."

The echo of the door reverberated through the little room and crawled up Harper's spine. The room contained a twin bed with a grey coverlet , a small nightstand and a chest of drawers. Harper strode over, pulled open each drawer in the chest, then the single drawer on the night stand. Each was empty, revealing only unfinished pine wood. He slammed each of the drawers closed. Harper threw himself of the bed. It was old, solid and sagging. Someone rapt on the door. Harper threw himself up, thinking: This Cagan! Harper determined to give this nemissis a piece of his mind. He yanked open the door. A silhouette confronted him. The form was embellised by a long bear. Not Cagan. Harper saw a radio thrust his way. The white rectangular casing and the long, black electrical chord dangling from it suggested it was decades old.

"Your radio," the monkish sihouette announed.

Harper snatched the radio. He thought about saying: Thank you. The impulse died immediately, and he slammed the door shut again.

Harper set the radio on the nightstand, looked for a moment at the dangling chord and fell into bed. Music might be a comfort, but he did not desire comfort but lay still in his turmoil. Harper felt a throbbing in his bones and tried to dismiss it as imagination. He felt a chill and his skin crawled, and the sensation continued long after it ought to have failed. Tomorrow night. Was what he was experiencing just his mind playing tricks or was the transformation already beginning? Harper felt vaguely ill, but strong, as if a fever plagued but energized him at the same time. Why must he suffer this madness? The madness was one without delusion and more of a torment. He only could remember the first moments of his transformation clearly, but the vague recollections tortured him. The pain was intense. He thought of himself as torn from inside out. He steeled himself against the thought. Foolish to consider. He lunged at the radio, plugged it in. The radio murmured at him, pointlessly quiet. He thought to turn it up, to torment the monks around him, to defy Cagan, but the act seemed so useless he turned back to the bed and lay still upon it. What have I done? he asked himself. What have I done to deserve this? He lay for what seemed like hours, but he refused to look at the clock. Perhaps a moment's sleep would suffice if he didn't realize it's real brevity.

If true sleep ever visited him, Harper never felt it. Rather, he dozed. The strange dreams that visited before his transformation possessed him. The phantasms began mundanely. He walked down a familiar street. He visited a familiar house, his house, but strange company inhabited the construction. Here waited people he ought to know but did not. They knew him, and they reminded of things he ought to remember but could not. Or the familiar house had rooms he suddenly discovered, dark rooms he never knew existed. In them, strange forces tore at his body. Or entities emerged to pursue him, entities that raged at him, forces he struggled to fight against, that he could battle if only he could remember how. Harper stood on the lawn of his childhood home in absolute calm. He had come there from some calamity, but he was home. Everything was still. No sound emanated, not of a bird or a car or even of the breeze rustling in the trees. He was in place, but the place lacked the resonance that made it more than an arrangement of common matter. Harper was alone as if his existence was singular. The place was correct, his physical relationship with it was correct, yet his connection to it was missing. His sister was standing in the picture window that dominated the facade of the house. She gazed at him, expressionless. Instantly, something snatcher her away, so quickly and completely that he could not say in what direction she disappeared. A burst of emotion wrenched through him. Pursue her! it commanded. Save her! But he remained fixed. Unable to act, uncertainty thwarted his intent. Something remained in the window, a misty remnant, though not of his sister. Harper knew he beheld the dregs of whatever had snatcher her away. The dross condensed into a visage. Was it a face he recalled?  He knew this apparition. He was a moment from recognizing it.

A knock on the door sent flying up in the bed, so violently that, sitting, he almost tumbled off onto the floor. The door opened a bit and Cagan's head appeared.

"Hello," Cagan said. "It's morning. The monks are at breakfast. Can I come in?"

Harper sat frozen in place. Cagan entered the room.

"I'm not particularly hungry," he said, with a familiarity that sent loathing coursing through Harper from his gut through his entire being. "My guess is you aren't either."

"Get out," Harper said.

Cagan bowed slightly.

"Alright," Cagan said. "But in a couple of hours, we'll need to speak with the abbot. We have to discuss what we'll do next. We only have a short time here, a short time when we'll be safe here. We have to make plans."

"Just get out," Harper aid.

"Alright," Cagan said, stepping back to the door. "One of the monks will come to invite you to the meeting."

Cagan slipped through the door saying, "It's important. What happens next is important to you, and to the rest of us here. Even to people you haven't met yet."

"Please just get out."

Cagan paused, then stepped out of the room, closing the heavy door behind him.

Harper felt as trapped as he had in the white room, as trapped as he had when his bed was a metal slab. This time, Harper told himself, I will escape.