For the Dead Travel Fast

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He woke feverish, cotton-mouthed. Alone. The car was a tomb, parked and silent, the windows sealed tight. The darkness was so close it was like a blanket muffling his awareness.

His body was strange, hot. Stretched taut, as if his skin was a drum pulled too tight over the frame of his bones, and the beat of his heart was slow and ominous, a war rhythm.

Castle lifted his aching head to peer through the windshield. There was a moon, sand. The car was parked on an overlook, the beach below, and standing with her hair whipping in the wind was his wife.

Castle opened the door; she turned her head partially to watch him but backed up a step. The moon made her eyes seem black, and he was discomfited, averted his gaze.

Soft susurration in the dark, an eternal murmuring of waves. He cast his eyes to the ocean, the endlessness, and found his legs so unsteady that he had to grip the door frame. The wind came off the water in half-humid gusts, with sudden drops in temperature that made him nervous.

It did not feelright.

On the waves, the yellow-white of the moon's reflection looked like unnatural animals in the surf.

"Hamptons?" he rasped.

"Not the ocean," she answered. Looked at him, her body held still. "Lake Erie, Ohio."

He was surprised; portions of the night were missing. Perhaps large portions. "How far… four hundred miles?"

"Almost five," she murmured.

"Ohio," he croaked. The air was both fetid and cool, mephitic and then contrarily clean. He took a deep breath but caught something that made him dizzy, made him sink back onto the seat, bowing his head.

She didn't move. "How do you feel?"

She asked like she already knew. "My head is killing me."

"… And?"

"Thirsty," he rasped.

"There's Gatorade in the front seat."

He looked up at her. She had a… shine about her, from the moon, the night. But she was stiff, holding one elbow against her stomach. "You're hurt." His pulse pounded behind his skull and he groaned, rubbing circles in his temples. "What's happened. I'm…"

"Drink the Gatorade, Castle."

He grunted, confused by her demeanor. Standoffish. The wind whipped against the vehicle and made it rock, and then suddenly shifted again, bringing the scent of pure clean relief with it, and he inhaled deeply.

It steadied him.

He reached between the front seats and rustled in the plastic bag for the promised Gatorade. He had a vague sensation of deja vu as he pried off the lid, a weird feeling that echoed in the slow thud of his heartbeat.

The Gatorade helped immensely. The ache in his head dulled, dropped into background noise. The heat emanating from his body and tightening his skin was still just as fierce, but he'd drunk the whole bottle before he knew it, sinking into the seat, shaking now, his hands in tremors. "What's wrong with me?"

"Nothing that isn't... out of the norm. So to speak."

He opened his eyes. She had stepped towards the open car door, still gripping her elbow. He caught a whiff of the putrid air and flinched, put a hand up over his eyes. "I don't know what's… Lake Erie stinks."

"It's not the lake." Her voice sounded weird. Strained. "It's me."

His hand dropped; he stared at her. "What?"

"Drink another Gatorade. We have two more."

"What?" His eyes raced over her form, more visible now that she was out of the direct delusion of moonlight. "You're soaked in blood," he gasped, sitting forward. "Kate!"

"Drink the Gatorade. Castle. Please."

"You need help. You need a doctor," he growled, flinched when she came closer. The shudder went through his body so violently that he had to grip the headrest of the driver's seat to keep from pitching sideways.

"I need you. A certain version of you. You're the only one who can help me right now. But to do that, you need fluids. You're thirsty."

He blinked. Looked over at her. She had stepped back from the car, gripping her elbow—her shoulder was…

He reached for the Gatorade in the front seat and grimaced at the flavor, but twisted the cap off, certain only that whatever the hell was wrong with her, this was step one. He always had stupidly gone along with her stubborn.

The wind had shifted again; he smelled the ocean—no, the lake. Faintly a sense of dead fish, but even that was a natural odor in the way of things, of rocks beat by waves into granular sand, of the sun baking the high tide mark dry once more, of driftwood and wet and living things. It helped too.

He had finished the Gatorade without realizing it, and he stared at the empty bottle in his hand.

And then suddenly the rot of death was there, and he jerked back only to find Kate crowding into the backseat with him.

She was clammy, sweat slicked her forehead, her neck, but she was ice cold. "Kate," he rasped, gathering her at his side even though the stench was terrific. "Your shoulder." Her face was blanched, her lips barely moved.

"I need you to—to tear it open and clean it."

"Tear what open?" he said, dread filling his guts.

Her hand touched his neck, fingers sticky with blood, tainted, wrong. He shuddered, had to work to keep himself still, to not jostle her. She was slight and trembling beside him, her breath coming in ragged low tones. "With your teeth."

"No." Wrong, it was wrong—

"I know I said not to. But this is an emergency."

"I don't—understand. I don't… I can't do that. It smells wrong." Smell? Why had he said that? "I mean. That's... wrong," he finished weakly.

"Which is why I need you to. She was poisoned. Deranged. I don't… exactly know. My knowledge isn't as extensive as it should be, and we will correct that, together, but right now, I'm about thirty seconds from passing out and I need you to listen to me. Not question me."

Panic scrabbled in his guts.

She gripped his arm. "Use your teeth—you know how, instinctively, you've already done it—rake your teeth across my shoulder cross-wise, and then again, an X, tearing open the two bite marks she made in my shoulder."

Those were bite marks. He sucked in a shallow breath. "Like a snake bite. Survival guide says. Make an X with a clean blade. Suck out the poison."

"Yes," she rasped. She was leaning heavily against him. His chest was bare; he had no idea where his shirt was, but his skin was so molten she seemed unable to detach herself. Listing harder against him now. "But. You can't drink from me. Use your tongue. On the wounds. Just your tongue after. So it will heal."

He stared at her. "My tongue." There was a roaring in his head. A crashing of surreal nightmare and fantasy, and he didn't know what was true.

She opened her fist on his chest, fingers brushing his skin. "Like this. You did with this. You'll know."

He glanced down, into the cup of her palm, and saw an angry red scar across the base of her thumb, a faint pink high water mark where she had bled.

And it came back to him then, the intensity of her thumb against his tongue, nipping her into his mouth, the need.

The taste.

Castle shuddered. "Kate?" He felt sick, he felt excited; he didn't think it was right. How could this be right? "What the hell am I supposed to do?"

"Don't drink." Her eyes were heavy-lidded, her head bowing to his chest. "If you drink, you'll kill me."

"Kate!"

She was unconscious. Out cold.

The two ragged puncture wounds in her shoulder welled with a black-red blood that carried the scent of death.

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