Tenth Man

by Tamara Sheehan

Chapter 19

[Tenth Man has been withdrawn at the author’s request.]

Saul could see concrete colors. He could see the light that filtered down steps into the space he Toven was in. Light glaring off puddles and shiny tiles. He was in some building, windowless and lit with a cold white light. He saw Toven as Toven remembered himself, from outside his body.

He became aware of his limbs; his shoulders tight, the swelling of bruises that stiffened his hands, his arms. He sought for but could not find the even that brought him here; Toven’s memory was a jumbled mass of train cars and walking, of concrete, night, rain, a dark-haired lover, of running, of a burning in his lungs. He became aware of his position. He was on the concrete, half-sitting, half-lying.

Cool stickiness, something wet was tangled in his stiffening hands. Following Toven’s eyes along a blackened puddle, he saw dark hair in clumps, saw the torn flesh of a face, eyes bulging and yellowed like wax. Eyes that had so recently been pleading. There was blood in his hands, on his clothes. He heard screaming, retching, saw the man from Dong May’s standing impassive and blood covered, watching.

Back, it must be before this, go back. He pushed through the memory, felt Toven shift as if to move away from him, but he gripped the smaller man by the shoulders to prevent him. He fumbled around for the memory that preceded this. Found the night before, gentle embrace of the dark-haired man, satisfaction, pleasure. Toven squirmed, radiating embarrassment.

“Patience,” Saul whispered; he was no voyeur. He leafed through other memories. He touched a memory and felt Toven jerk away.

“Not that.”

“That’s the one I want.”

It was easy. He pulled open Toven’s mind like a clamshell and saw the memory as if reflected in a broken mirror.

He had been running, over the yellow streets of Shier, toward the dark safety of the sewers. Rain made the cobbles shiny and black and slick with oil. He skidded, turned a corner, could feel the sewers pulling at him as if he had a magnet in his gut. And then as in a dream, he realized with sickening certainty that something was missing.

He scrambled to a stop at the edge of the road where the shadows met the paving, where the yellow streetlamps couldn’t penetrate the gloom. There, the heaps of boxes, the garbage provided shelter. He waited and the waiting seemed to stretch out forever.

He trembled. All the adrenaline that had given him the burst of speed seemed to be bleeding out of his limbs. He crouched, scuttling crabwise along the pavement, letting his back scrape against the rough stucco of a building, ignoring the much that was sticking to his shoes.

Clutching at the cobbles, he pulled himself forward and peered around the building. He could see two men, one of them tall and slight. Ian Underhill wore the same jacket Saul had seen him wearing.

He stood over the other with a strange attitude, as a man encountering something a long time lost to him; one hand extended to prevent escape, the other clutching a handhold provided by the man’s hair.

The man he held was still struggling, his head jerking this way and that, eyes wide and searching frantically. Saul was awash with Toven’s fear, felt his own body begin to shake in sympathy. He began to move forward as Toven got to his feet, walking back the way he had come, into danger.

There was something terrible about Ian, his body radiated miasma like a bad smell. Something about his presence nauseated Saul even as he watched the memory unfold. His long body was sinuous and white, even his eyes, were pale and wide, like something unaccustomed to light. He seemed a creature of caverns and night, not a man to be found standing on the street.

Saul’s eyes followed Toven, disregarding his squirming captive.

“Your papa’s been worried about you,” Ian said, drawing the other man to his feet with a strength impossible from such narrow limbs. “He said I’m to bring you home.” He looked at his captive as if seeing him for the first time. “But you know, I don’t believe he said anything about you.”

“Let him go.” Toven’s voice was young, arrogant as one certain of quick obedience.

Ian smiled a pale, lazy smile that bared his teeth. “It’s not a game of catch and release, Toven. Your father sent me because he knew I’d teach you a lesson, and I will.” He kept his eyes on Toven even as he began to squeeze the other man’s neck. The man gasped, uttered a short, broken cry, and clawed at Ian’s arm.

Toven felt the stirrings of genuine fear. He stepped forward, desperate to intervene. “Stop it.”

He could hear the dark-haired man’s frantic breathing rasping past the obstruction of Ian’s hand. The man was scrabbling at Ian, pushing him, struggling to break the grip. Saul realized someone was holding Toven, became aware of pressure on his arms, the smell of others.

“Let him go!”

“I’m not hunting for sport, Toven.” Ian spoke slowly, smiling. Saul felt certain it was sport, but of a different kind. “I came for you and you ran and now I’m hungry. I need to be fed.”

“Stop!”

Something struck him across the mouth, tearing his lips. He coughed, spraying blood and spittle. His eyes stung.

“You keep quiet. Know what the Shier would do if they knew you were here, you manky little half-breed? You’d be glad it was only me.” Ian’s eyes flashed. He glanced around him, saw a grey door standing slightly open. “Mbeki, in here.”

They dragged him down the short stairs, and the light illuminated puddles with a sunset glare. He heard himself shouting, felt the pain of strained muscles, of bruises inflicted on his arms. He saw Ian dragging the dark-haired man by the hair, pulling him into the dense darkness. He heard the strangled cries, his kicking.

A pulse of power like the thud of a drumbeat in hit Toven’s gut. Someone screamed, a sound that dissolved into a wet spluttering. The drumming of heels on the concrete, the silence that followed the death of a million nerve endings.

When Ian emerged from the shadows he was draggig the dark-haired man behind like some spoiled, obstinate child. Blood had splattered his shirt and jacket, splashed up so that his face was hung with strings of gore.

“Let him go.” Ian waved his hand lazily, dropping the corpse behind him as he walked. Almost drunken, smiling, he cupped Toven’s chin in his hand. “Thanks for that. Very nice.”

Suddenly Toven was free, was kneeling in the blood that came from his lover’s wounds, was cradling his head, hands tangled in the blood soaked hair. He was weeping, retching, screaming, until Ian and Mbeki grew tired of the noise. They pulled him to his feet and propelled him back into the street.

When Saul opened his eyes he found himself kneeling, a mimicry of Toven’s attitude in the memory. His stomach ached, a throbbing headache set his teeth on edge. Toven was standing over him, as pale as Ian in the memory. Saul touched his own face, breathed through the screen of his hands.

“What is he?” he whispered when he could command his voice.

“Ian?” Toven’s voice was hollow and defeated. “Incubus.” He did not see Toven’s expression he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to see anything but the darkness under his hands. “Ian is a devourer.”

He had gorged on the new power, eaten his fill of other’s memories, of their minds. But Toven’s memories were full of sickness and disease, as appalling to him as they were scarring to Toven. He felt as if the miasma of the incubus had covered him in oil, clogged up his mouth and nose like the stink of garbage in the alley. It was as if he’d been eating all the rot and corruption of the city, filled himself to bursting on it. He wanted to vomit it all.

“Oh my god,” he whispered over and over until Toven brought him to his feet.

Proceed to chapter 20...