"When she started to talk," the thing laughed, shattering Albert's left arm at the elbow, "you wanted her so badly. But you never believed you could actually have her."

Concentrating, Albert was able to reform his body, but only for as long as his opponent allowed it. While he wiped at the sweat running down his forehead, half of it water, half of it tiny gla.s.s beads, the Linda thing took the moment to finish its thought.

"You don't have the belief in you to get rid of me, sweetheart, and that's what's going to make this so much fun."

"Fun?" asked Albert, confused. "What's going to be so much fun?"

"Why, us - darling."

Before he could react, the thing was behind him, its all-too familiar arms encircling his chest. The touch jarred too many memories, splitting him, rending him - making him ache for his ex-wife the way a starving man yearns for food. The feel of her was fire; crisping skin, sweat that tasted like bacon - alluring, forbidden, salty - delicious. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s came against his back in exactly the way he remembered; the heat of her breath curled across his neck, into his ear. He had been so long without female contact - any female contact - let alone hers, that his body surrendered to the touch involuntarily. Craving it; luxuriating against it - simply, pitifully, longing for it to never end.

"You're my dog, Albert," the thing whispered. "You may fight against me, but I've got you." The young man struggled against the all-too-pleasant hold binding him. The arms held him securely while their owner whispered; "Poor boy - you just don't understand yet, do you? You can't resist me. No matter how many pains you endure, how many trials you turn back, I can always think up more. You don't have any way to resist me. You don't have any faith in anything, sweetheart. And, without faith, I can't be driven away."

Chuckling, its voice a mad t.i.tter swirling the dust about his head in never-ending spirals, the creature shifted its grip and suddenly drove its hands into Albert's sides. Pulling organs free from his body, it tossed them casually over its shoulder, saying; "And, even if you could ever drive me out of your head, what would it gain you? You sad, stupid man..."

Albert sagged, tiring from the pain, the endlessness of it - the futility of it - hurt too much, so terribly much he simply had to rest. As he gasped, struggling desperately to marshal his thoughts, the red-handed thing above him sighed, dribbling spittle into Albert's face as it said; "After all, if you ever get me to run from you, where do you think I'll go?" The demon let him go then did a little dance, spinning itself madly as it screeched, "I'll just go back into Debbie."

The taunting voice grew louder as Albert pushed himself toward his scattered bits. Beside itself with laughter, the Linda thing watched with amus.e.m.e.nt as its victim labored to reconst.i.tute himself. Stretching its body out to its fullest, the creature cooed; "Face it, sweetie, you've got no chance. Not you or your little b.i.t.c.h."

Albert glowered, summoning every bit of resentment he had ever felt toward his ex-wife. Every hurt, every scorn, every bit of meanness that festered within him. If his enemy wanted to play those rules, he told himself - okay, fine - he could accommodate it.

"You wh.o.r.e..."

He muttered the words, staring for a moment, taking in once more the face that haunted him. Then he spun away and used the image to focus, shielding himself in familiar armor. Without warning, Albert threw himself upward, flashing backward across the dusty plane at the Linda thing. The creature dodged his efforts, but he turned in mid-air and followed its path. His life over, shattered by despair, he approached the monster's taunts with all he had.

Wrapping all the hurt he had within him around his fists, Albert burst with a dark brilliance which collapsed its way through all barriers and knocked the demon onto its back. His eyes wild with the flash of a thousand moments in time racing forward to a single instance, he slammed the laughing monstrosity across the jaw repeatedly; split open its mouth, broke its nose - closed one eye. The creature t.i.ttered as it said, "I bet you've wanted to do this for a long time."

"Not as much as I do..."

Both Albert and the Linda thing turned toward the new voice. Hands made of lightning and fire grabbed up the creature, squeezing its insides into jelly.

"You made my mommy leave me!"

The shape of Linda Harper disappeared, replaced by a noxious form, a repulsive creature comprised of a squat, flaccid body animated by long, angular hind legs. Its eyes were a frightened yellow hue, bulbous sacs filled with a red liquid which sloshed freely inside them. As the monstrous thing bellowed, its voice echoing raggedly across the dreamplane, the blazing hands tore it into smaller and smaller shreds, finally incinerating the bits when they were too tiny to grasp.

Albert Harper watched as his daughter dispatched the last sc.r.a.ps of their foe. Smiling, he attempted to rise to his feet. Finding he could not, he tried to speak. No words came forth, however, and he collapsed in a broken heap, all the fight gone from him.

Silent, but content.

"Well, look who's awake."

Albert blinked. The room was only dimly lit, but even the single, shaded bulb was more than he could take. Feebly placing a hand over his eyes, he croaked: "Wha - what, what happened?"

"Shhhhhhhhh," answered Knight. "Don't try to talk. You rest. I'll explain." Albert nodded weakly. He could just make out the figure of Madame Raniella somewhere in the background behind the professor. His body hurt so fiercely, he felt that the only thing keeping him from screaming was the simple fact his voice could barely work.

"If you're thinking you were sent into something all the facts, it's true," Knight said. "Why this thing chose to bring you suffering, as I said before, there's no way for us to know. But, once you stepped onto the dreamplane, I was certain it would leave Debbie's mind to get at you."

"So ... what'd that accomplish?"

"After Raniella led you to it, she abandoned you to face the demon alone. While you held it off, we repeated the same procedure with Debbie."

"I, I don't..."

"Albert, please, don't try to talk. You'll only injure yourself further. Anyway, the rest is simple. Remember, with the demon no longer blocking Debbie's higher functions, she could think as clearly as anyone else."

"Your Debbie," Madame Raniella said, "once that horror left your mind for hers, she could think as clearly as anyone. It took me but a few minutes to inform her as to what was happening. She knows who you are, Albert Harper, and all that you have done for her."

"You have to understand, Al," Knight said softly. "She's always known what you were doing for her, or at least, half her mind has. The demon sat at the juncture between those sections of the mind where knowledge's stored and where it's utilized. The block removed, she could suddenly make sense of all she's learned over the years."

Albert blinked, the pain from the effort nearly unbearable. Although his encounter had left him with no actual physical damage, his nerve endings were afire, all his muscles bruised. As he pieced together what Knight had told him, he whispered.

"You mean..."

"I mean, there's someone here who wants to say *h.e.l.lo.'"

And then, the professor and his companion stepped away from each other to allow Debbie access to the room. Heading for her father's bed at a run, she threw herself through the air, arms outstretched, hair flying wildly, eyes ablaze with happiness as she screamed: "Daddy!"

With some 60 books under his belt, author C. J. Henderson, creator of supernatural detective Teddy London and, now occult investigator Piers Knight, welcomes all to come to

www.cjhenderson.com, to comment on his story here, and to read others which he posts for the enjoyment of all.

Museum curator Piers Knight is a quiet fellow who likes good food, quiet evenings with a pot of tea and a good book, and being left alone by all the world. While usually well fed and well read, he rarely gets more that a week or two to himself before Fate, Destiny, or some other joker comes knocking at his door, bringing him all manner of bothers.

Running Wild: An Outcast Season Story.

by Rachel Caine.

As mountains go, Albuquerque's Sandia Peak was not especially tall; the great mountain ranges of the world were not much intimidated by it, I would imagine. Still, it had a certain austere, ragged beauty. Time and friction hadn't yet smoothed the jagged edges of its peaks and ridges, although the desert had clothed them in green, tough scrub brush to blur the raw cutting surfaces. It had been a long, difficult climb to the summit, even for someone as agile, strong and long-limbed as me, and with as little fear of death or injury.

I had not been born human. It was still difficult to truly understand fragility, after so many millennia spent as a Djinn, a spirit of fire and power, immortal and untouchable. But oddly, being Djinn had proved to be the ultimate vulnerability. It takes only a stronger, more determined Djinn to rip away all your power, your fire, your existence, and trap you in a form like this.

A human form.

It had not been my choice to become human, but I have made my peace with it, in most ways. I no longer flinch when touched, or experience uncontrollable flares of fury when I clash with others. Perhaps that is all I can ask from this experience - a teaching, finally, of patience.

I might have wished for a less direct method of instruction.

I had come up here, to this deserted and quiet place, to listen to the earth around me. Connected as I was to Luis Rocha, a Warden who wielded power through the rock, the living things grounded in it, I could feel the slow, steady heartbeat of the world as clearly as I sensed the smaller, faster pumping of the heart within my body.

And I could feel where shadows had fallen, in this sunlit and unforgiving place.

I reached in my pack and brought out the news stories I'd printed from Luis's computer. There'd been a string of odd disappearances in this part of the mountains - three female hikers over the past few months, yet no bodies found. Traces of them had been discovered in the form of torn clothing, along with abandoned tents and gear. Added to that, there had been two undeniable deaths, but not of women - of men, lone male hikers torn to pieces by some savage animal. Mountain lion, it had been speculated. Possibly a bear. The corpses had been too deteriorated to be certain, or so the official stories claimed.

I wondered.

It was, in fact, no affair of mine at all, and it had merely been an excuse to indulge my wish for solitude. I was more than prepared to forget the dead and missing hikers and spend the rest of the day - and the night - admiring the hush and whisper of the wilderness.

I did not get that chance.

The first warning came as a scrabbling fall of stones far down the trail, then a muttered curse in Spanish that carried clearly in the thin air. Then more rattling rocks, thumps, more cursing.

Eventually Luis, my Warden partner, came into view, puffing and sweating up the steep, treacherous trail. Reaching the ledge where I sat, he heaved in a deep breath, and collapsed in a heap at my side. "Holy c.r.a.p," he said, and took out a bottle of water, most of which he downed in a desperate gulp, then dumped the rest over his sweat-soaked head. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and blotted his face with the sleeveless shirt he wore. I cast him a quick look, then went back to my contemplation of the view. Not that Luis was unpleasant to look at; he was, in fact, quite lovely, for a human. Tall, strong, with black hair and skin the color of caramel. Flame tattoos licked up both arms in still-life flickers. "Madre, woman, I'm an Earth Warden and even with all that connection to the Earth this is a crazy hard climb. You could slow down a little."

"I didn't ask you to follow," I told him. I was, however, not surprised that he had. Luis didn't like to let me stray too far, claiming that I was a magnet for trouble. That might have had some credence, actually; I did seem to draw attention to myself far too much for safety. Djinn arrogance. I couldn't seem to shake it, even in human form.

"Too d.a.m.n bad," he said. "You don't get to go off roaming by yourself anymore. Where you go, I go. Just ... not so fast. And maybe not so graceful."

I raised my eyebrows, but said nothing. The truth was, it pleased me in an obscure way that he had followed. There was a kind of solid peace that radiated from him, a sense of controlled and focused power.

In a Djinn, that would have been very attractive. I was not quite yet ready to believe there was anything that could make a mere human - even a Warden - attractive.

And yet.

Luis finished his water and stowed the bottle. He was still breathing hard and shining with sweat. I took out a bottle from my own pack and handed it over. Luis made a moan of indecent longing and reached for it, which made me smile. "I really love you right now," he said, and then thought about it for a second. "Evil b.i.t.c.h."

That made me smile more. I rested my chin on my crossed arms and looked out across the world, bathed in clean fresh sunlight. Below us, humans toiled and polluted, loved and created, hated and destroyed. Up here, it was almost like being a Djinn again, a creature above the earth, yet completely a part of it. I could feel the slow, sure heartbeat of the Mother herself.

"Energy bar?" Luis, ever practical, was rooting in his backpack for food. I held out my hand, and he pa.s.sed one of the wrapped bars over. It tasted like flavored sawdust, but it would serve. I was not overly concerned with the needs of my body just now. "So, why'd we haul our a.s.ses all the way up here, anyway?"

I hadn't asked him to come along, and I wasn't feeling particularly cooperative. "Perhaps I like the view."

He gave me a filthy look. "You'd better not go with that one. There's a tram, chica. You know, you get in it, it hauls a.s.s up the mountain all on its own without all the sweating and muscle cramps."

I couldn't explain it to him at first, and then I slowly said, "I needed to feel my feet on the ground. I needed to sense the earth around me. I needed - order, in all of the chaos."

That made him pause. He squinted, wiped sweat from his forehead, and took another drink of water before nodding. "Yeah, okay," he said. "I got that. Hate it, but I got it. So. Better now?"

"In time," I said.

"Because it's going to take us about the same number of hours getting down off this rock, and I don't want to try it in the dark. Going to get cold, too." He eyed me at an oblique angle. "Ca.s.s. Half an hour, then we got to go, okay?"

"If you're that worried, maybe we should start back now," I said, and stood up. He held up his hands in surrender.

"Okay, okay, I confess, I'm done in, Survival Girl. Give me half an hour. I need to rehydrate, or you'll be watching my body as it bounces down the side of the mountain."

I snorted, but sank back down into a crouch. It was a very still day, little breeze. He was right; as the sun drifted toward its western horizon, I could feel the heat leaving the air. It would stay in the rocks a while longer, but by full night, it would be cold and clear.

"You ready to tell me why we're really out here?" he asked me. I gazed at him a long moment, and a random whisper of wind came out of the chasm below us and blew pale hair back from my face. I'd taken the pink highlights out of it, leaving it puffball white. My skin remained pale, as pale as any human I had ever seen. I was - exotic.

Luis called me beautiful, but I did not feel beautiful. I felt ... lost. Better, in the wilderness, but still disconnected. Drifting.

"There were reports of something out here," I said. "Some - thing that comes out at dusk. There have been disappearances, a few deaths."

"Accidents?"

"Perhaps. Or animals." Or something else. There was an old, unusual feel to this place, a wildness I had not felt in many places - not since the humans had civilized the world so thoroughly. "I don't know."

Luis frowned and looked around, at the scrub brush, and the deeper shadows of the pine forest just below us. "Maybe a mountain lion," he said. "We're in their territory."

"Maybe."

"But you don't think so."

I shrugged. I had no evidence; in fact, I had nothing more than instinct, a whisper of something that could not even be defined as suspicion.

Restlessness, likely enough. Our lives had been difficult lately. My first Warden partner, Manny Rocha, had been shot down in a senseless act of violence, along with his wife, and neither I nor Luis had reconciled our emotions. Luis had blamed me, and I had blamed myself; neither of us was right, or wrong. But trust was, at times, a thin shadow between us. I preferred not to shine a bright light on it.

"Okay," Luis said, sounding equal parts disappointed and annoyed. "Give me another fifteen minutes. I've got to work some of these d.a.m.n cramps out."

I sat silent as he rubbed his calf muscles - which were indeed cramping, I could see the muscles jumping under his skin - and watched the wind whip through the trees below, bending them first one way, then another. If I listened carefully I could hear the voices of tourists brought up from the tram; they never ventured far from the safe, patrolled paths, so there was no danger of them making this final, perilous ascent and disturbing us. They'd buy their cheap souvenirs, take photographs, and leave as they had come.

"It's the journey," I whispered to myself.

"What?"

"Your age seems to value the destination so highly. All this fast travel, transporting from one spot to the next, rushing without experiencing. Recording to see later, at a distance. I don't understand it. Why do you choose to live so - disconnected?"

It was Luis's turn to be silent. He shrugged and kept working on his muscles. After a moment, I reached over and placed a hand over his leg, feeling the tense jump of the tissues beneath, and he took in a startled breath.

I took power from him. It felt like hot, golden sunlight moving through my body, and then I directed it out again, through my pale fingertips. Refined by the core of me, the part that was still and would always be Djinn, the power sank in deep, healing, soothing, restoring. "So odd that human Wardens can't heal themselves," I said. "That must be annoying."

"Not really," he said. Luis was now bracing himself, both hands rigid on the stone behind him, and his voice came out strained and soft. "I'd rather give than receive, anyway." His face was flushed now, and his breath came shallow and quick.

I took my hand away. He flopped back full length on the stone and put a forearm over his eyes to block out the sun, and to prevent me from seeing his expression. I didn't need to. There were certain ... complications to this arrangement between us. Healing, whether applied from him to me, or from me to him, still touched on human nerves in a way that was either painful or extraordinarily s.e.xual.

I suspected the latter, in this case. Which meant that it was better to be up and moving, quickly, before he could suspect I felt the distant echo from him. Before it could affect me, and build between us like supernatural feedback. I stood, grabbed my pack and gathered up the empty water bottles. As I did, Luis took the arm away from his eyes and looked at me, squinting into the sunlight. I offered him a hand, and he took it to pull himself upright, testing his legs carefully before dropping my hand and stepping well away. I watched him, still hyper-aware of his presence; that was the lingering effect of the healing, I knew, but there was something else in it as well.

He glanced up at me as he shrugged on his backpack, eyebrows raised in challenge.

I shook my head, and started for the trail head.

The trail down was certainly no easier than it had been on the climb up; in fact, it took considerably more care, now that I was more aware of the failing afternoon light, and Luis's presence. I did not care to see him hurt on my behalf.

We were well into the shadows and premature evening of the trees when the first howl came, rising and falling in an eerie cadence. More than one beast. A chorus of them. I stopped, panting and wiping sweat from my face, and looked at Luis, who had gone very still. The sound grew, hushing birds and normal forest noise, and then faded away.

"I freaking hate it when you're right," he said. "Just so you know."

I wasn't fond of the fact myself, at this moment. "Wolves?"