• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Too late for that.”

I turned and ran from the room. I held the knife in front of me, but I was sweating so profusely the hilt felt loose and slippery in my grip.

“Oh, God,” I moaned in despair, “what is going to happen to me?” There was nobody to protect me, nobody to save me. Vav was dead, so was Gimel, and this one, this Daleth, was of no use at all. She had already proved that she couldn’t stand up to the beast. That left me and only me.

You can no longer run away, she had said. To hell with that. I flew down the staircase and hurtled to the front door. It wouldn’t open no matter how hard I pulled and pushed. I ran into the living room, ripped aside the heavy drapes and tried to open the window. It wouldn’t budge. I looked at the storm-swept night outside and found even that preferable to remaining here. In a fit of rage, I picked up a chair and threw it at the window. I gaped in astonishment as the chair bounced off the pane of glass. I beat at the glass with my fists to no avail. Daleth was right, I couldn’t run away.

This is your last chance, she had said. Did that mean I had blown my first two chances in Paris and Leicestershire? Chances at what?

“Hey!” I yelled at no one and everything. How could I play the game when I didn’t know the rules or the object? “Dammit, this isn’t fair!”

“Of course it’s not fair,” Daleth said, coming into the room. She seemed to have regained a good measure of her strength. “Whatever is?”

“But you know what this is about!” I shouted.

“I know everything.”

“Then, for the love of God, why won’t you tell me?”

She came close to me and I turned my head so I wouldn’t have to see the horribly maimed side of her face. “Won’t you look at me, William?” she said softly. “Don’t you find me beautiful?”

She was beautiful, at least most of her. But what the beast had done to her had altered her forever. “Don’t make me answer that.”

“But it’s an important question. Vital, one might say.” Why did each termagant keep repeating what the others had said? How was it even possible? She kept moving to try to bring her left side into my line of sight, and I kept turning with her. “Don’t you think it deserves an answer?”

“Don’t do this, I beg you.”

“You must answer, William. In your heart you know you must.” She was right. “You were beautiful, once,” I blurted out. “But not now.”

She was circling me like a hyena scenting the death throes. “Now you have no interest in me.”

“I didn’t say that.”

Nipping at me like a termagant knowing her job was almost done. “Now you won’t protect me.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth!” I screamed.

She spread her arms wide. “Time to make your stand, William.”

“How can I when I don’t even know what I’m fighting for.”

“Oh, you know.” She leaned in as she whispered. “It’s your soul, William. Your very soul.”

“Then I was right. I am dead!”

“No. Death is easy. This isn’t.” Now she was right up against me and I didn’t even bother to turn aside. I stared at both sides of her, the beautiful and the horribly disfigured. And now something began to take shape in my mind. Something terribly, intimately familiar. “You know this beast, William. You know it very, very well. As I said, this is where you make your stand.”

“But you said it couldn’t be defeated.”

“No.” She gave me a penetrating look. “I said it can’t be killed.”

“Wait a minute. What are you saying?” Something familiar here—emotions or possibly a certain dynamic, I didn’t know for sure—had triggered a memory I had long suppressed. I had misled myself; a long time ago I had told one person about the bottomless pit inside myself because in the frenzy of detonating teenage hormones it had become unbearable to keep it to myself. “You … it …” And then I knew. I knew it all. She saw it on my face and she smiled. It was a beautiful smile, a magnificent smile, a smile for the ages. “You and Vav and Gimel, you’re all one, aren’t you?”

She nodded. “Just different aspects.”

I just stood, staring, unable to make a move.

“Go on, then,” she whispered. “Time for you to root out the beast.”

“I don’t want to