999_ Twenty-Nine Original Tales of Horror and Suspense - Al Sarrantonio [105]
“I take it, then, we’re on a foxhunt of our own,” I said as I pulled abreast of her. I was so close I could breathe in her lovely scent.
“Oh, no. I would never be after anything so beautiful as a fox.” When she shook her head her hair moved in the most provocative way. “We’re after the beast.”
“What beast?”
“You know perfectly well, William, so don’t play me.” She gave me a sharp look. I saw a flinty edge inside the gorgeous emeralds of her eyes and my heart turned over. Doctor, the oxygen! Stat! “The beast of beasts,” she went on, oblivious to the arrow protruding from my heart. “There is only one so hideous, so needing of being hunted.”
“Look, I admit to being more than slightly confused. I mean, just moments ago I was lying in a back alley of Paris with my friend’s blood—”
“So you think of Vav as a friend? Curious. You only knew her a very short while.”
“I’m a good judge of character,” I replied somewhat angrily. “If you aren’t also a friend of hers, you’d better declare it now.”
She laughed. “My goodness, how quickly you jump to her defense.” Close to me now, she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek and I heard those birds chirping in my head, the ones you see in the cartoons flying around Sylvester’s head when Tweety has hit him a good one with a hammer. “Vav and I were like sisters. Closer, even, if you can imagine. Like two pieces of the same pie.”
“I miss her.”
“I’m hardly surprised,” she said. “You were on your way to an exhibition of paintings. It’s important you get there.” She nodded as if to herself. “Absolutely vital, one might say.”
“You mean you know how to get me back to Paris?”
“That wouldn’t be wise, now would it? Besides, there’s no need.” She was posting a bit so I could keep pace. Her back was straight, her shoulders squared. She had about her that almost flagrant tomboy look I find irresistible. I imagined her striding through the forest like Diana, the mythical huntress, thighs flexing, muscles cording as she notched an arrow onto her bowstring, pulling it taut as her prey came into range. “The exhibition just went up in the Manor House. We’ll get there as soon as we can. But first, we must see the hunt to its inevitable conclusion.”
“If it’s inevitable, why bother with it?” I said. “Why not just head straight for the Manor?”
Her brow furrowed. “One might as well ask why not exhale without inhaling first. It simply cannot be done. Laws of the universe, you know.”
“These are the same laws that allow me to move from New York to Paris to the Charnwood Forest in the blink of an eye? Or to allow an exhibition of paintings in Paris to be here now?”
“Just so.” She was oblivious to my irony. In fact, she appeared relieved. “I’m so pleased you and I are on the same page.”
I groaned. A page of what strange book? I wondered.
“Don’t worry,” she called. “I’ll get you where you need to go. Trust me, William.”
I felt a tiny chill play against my spine, for that was just what Vav had said. At that moment, I made a decision. Spurring my horse on, I leaned over toward her. So far as I could determine, playing by the rules, odd though they might be, had done me no good at all. All change! I grabbed her reins and drew her off the trodden path.
“What are you doing?” she said, alarmed.
“To the Manor, wherever that is,” I said. “Let the others handle the beast.”
“What others?” We were side by side now, our thighs touching. “William, we’re the only ones on this hunt.”
“So much the better,” I said. “No one will miss us when we don’t go on.”
“You don’t understand.”
I leaned in until I was close enough to smell her hair. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
She licked her lips. At the fall of night her eyes were like cabochon jewels. For an instant I found myself wondering idly, crazily, if she was as blind as Vav.
“We must run the beast to ground,” she said. “Otherwise, it will never let us get to the Manor House.”
“Why?”
“William—” There