Voracious - Alice Henderson [67]
Swimming through frigid waters toward a Viking longboat, the seamen unaware, backs turned, climbing silently over the rail, and then sinking into warm, delicious flesh …
Stumbling, drunken, from a pyramid in the Mayan jungle, the hiss of a volcanic vent nearby filling the air with a foul, sulfurous smell …
Dragged in a net behind a Roman chariot, a spear painfully jammed between the ribs, gasping for a breath, mouth full of dirt and blood …
Standing on the balcony of a sangha in mountainous Ti-bet, silent snow cascading down, a flurry of flakes dusting stone railings and worn steps, ancient trees …
Staggering alone across the vast sands of the Sahara, lips cracked and bleeding, mouth parched, eyes searing …
Fighting with a lion over a water hole in the Kalahari, snarling and snapping, the lion lashing out, claws biting deep …
Standing outside an ancient Sumerian city, at the edge of a great void, a black opening in the earth, standing transfixed, staring. Then something moving in there, glistening, sinewy, writhing down there in the darkness, then rushing up, up—
Gasping, the creature flung her hands to the side. Madeline lay still, heart pounding, her mind stumbling over the images, her eyes unable to open. “Oh, gods,” he croaked. “So far back … even I’d forgotten.”
Her eyes fluttered and opened. For a minute she couldn’t fix on him, her focus swimming. Then the blur dissipated, and she saw him, still straddling her, his head in his hands. He looked completely human now, still in the ranger’s clothes, and he appeared—she couldn’t believe it—stunned. Upset. Vulnerable, even.
“I don’t think I’ll kill you after all,” he said, taking his hands away from his face.
Heat hit her. The meadow was completely on fire. The reek of gasoline filled the air. The burning car was still intact on the road, but it was utterly consumed in flames and would explode any second.
“The car,” she mumbled, spitting out a blade of grass. She could hear the roar of the fire over their labored breathing. Firelight flickered on the granite walls to both sides. She struggled to throw him off. “It’s going to go up!”
Coming out of his daze, the creature snapped his head to the road and then turned back to her, his now-human hands gripping her shoulders. She twisted beneath him, trying to get out. A bright flash lit up the sky, followed by a deafening explosion. A concussive blast knocked him off her. She threw her hands up over her head as a rain of debris came down: bits of colored lenses, seat springs, a spark plug. When it stopped, she peered out. The creature lay a few feet away, groaning. Blood dripped from a head wound. Quiet crackling followed the cacophony. She looked back at the car. Flames shot from it, alighting on more of the meadow. The summer had been hot and dry, and the grass went up amazingly fast.
For a second she was five again, watching immobilized as a golden fire roared toward her. She had been on a picnic with her family in the woods, and a hot piece of metal had fallen from the exhaust pipe of their car and set the woods on fire. Her father had jumped up, grabbed a metal rake out of the car, and tried to control the flames by raking leaves and pine needles away, exposing earth. She’d stared on in horror, the flames dancing closer and closer while her father screamed at her to get back. She had, while her mother raced forward to stamp at flames. They’d put it out then. Everything had been okay.
But now flames crawled and spat, drawing ever closer. She got to her feet. The entire expanse of the meadow was ablaze, reaching from one granite cliff clear across to the other.
Blocked from the road, her only choice was to run farther into the meadow. The creature still lay injured, groaning, trying to rise. She ran a little way before stopping in front of a thick branch. If she hit him now, while he was down, maybe she could knock him unconscious. Since she couldn’t kill him, it was her best bet. Quickly she ran