Okay, this is the last chapter I have done. I'll try to get one written up shortly, but it'll probably we a while before its posted here. I'm sorry guys, Thanks to all of you for the great comments, I really appreciate them!
Molly
Chapter Fifteen
She felt the breath on her back a moment before the hand secured over her slender
arm. He wrenched her backwards, colliding her body against his, and a steel blade
balanced the light near her throat. Sarah peered behind her, but only saw a single hand,
flawless, brandishing the weapon. His breath smelled like rotting fish, as it drifted over
her.
"Thought you got away, didn't you?!" he demanded, jerked the knife in further so
that it dug against her smooth flesh.
Sarah swallowed, her throat working against the blade carefully. When she didn't
answer he tightened his hold on her and then led her, keeping the knife in close proximity,
down the staircase. The scene from moments earlier had vanished, leaving nothing but a
typical farmhouse.
"Mimi... TOBY!!!" Sarah screamed. Brian grabbed hold of both her arms and
hurtled her against the banister, where she struck and crumpled to the stairs, slipping
down a few before catching herself again. She looked up at her husband and shuddered.
Maybe agreeing to the Dark King had been a better option.
"The one you should be worried about is yourself," Brian stated calmly as he ran
his hand over her head.
For a moment she was quiet, speechless, feeling his fingers brushing along her
scalp like when they had been newlyweds. Then he clenched her hair, forcing her head
back and her chin up, so that she looked into his eyes. His silvery-blue eyes that seemed
so close to white that she could have almost mistaken him for a demon.
He clicked his tongue and tilted his head to the side, his brows going up in mock
concern. With a long sigh Brian touched the whetted blade to either of her pale cheeks,
letting it bury itself deep enough to spring crimson trail over her skin. Sarah cringed
away, and his hand in her hair tightened.
"Shouldn't have fucked with me," he whispered, deadly in the SnowBlind.
Sarah sniffed back the tears that had sparked in her eyes from the sudden pain
flaring in her cheeks. She tried to wipe the flow of blood, and Brian's boot connected
with her arm. Another flash of white agony.
She hitched in a short breath and then, not thinking twice, kicked blindly out
towards Brian. The sole of her shoe connected firmly with his kneecap, that buckled
under the force of the impact. Brian, losing his balance, slunk almost gracefully to the
stairs and toppled the rest of the way down... like the picture and the frame had done
earlier.
"I will FUCK with you! Leave me alone!" Sarah screamed, pressing her hands
into the blood on her cheeks. She wiped it carelessly on her jeans and then hurried herself
down the stairs.
Brian was rising, but the way he shook his head assured Sarah that she had time.
Time enough to run again. He looked up at her as she jumped past him. In an undying
thirst for revenge he swung the blade at her again, nicking her shoe, but doing no real
damage. Sarah just rushed into the living room, and stopped immediately.
"Jareth!" she remarked, breathlessly.
He sat in the middle of the uncomfortable couch, gazing at Sarah with something
resembling interest and amusement. He flashed her a toothy grin and brought his hands
together firmly. "Well now, what shall you do?" he asked, smiling all the more at her
sudden look back towards the floundering husband.
She had been strong long enough, and had faced more trials in one life than many
others could ever make it through in ten. Sarah staggered towards the King, who looked
decidedly less regal than he had earlier. He was pale, and his black satin was exchanged
for a faded white, that hung on his bones as if he had suddenly aged.
*Where the hell are Mimi and Toby?* Sarah thought belatedly as she looked over
the emptiness. From some vague part of her mind she could feel them, knew they were
alive. Maybe tied up.
"Kill him," Sarah stated, her voice cool as ice as she leveled Jareth with her dead
eyes. Blank and naked eyes, devoid of the luster of childhood and innocence.
Jareth quirked one elegant eyebrow in response and reached over to take the
leather gloves from atop the cofeetable. With slow precision he slipped first one on and
then the other, and finally acknowledged Sarah again. "Now, why should I do that?" he
asked, looking behind Sarah to note Brian's progress in gathering himself back together.
"God, Jareth, please!" Sarah also looked at him, just as Brian lunged out with the
blade. He skidded to one side and struck the wall, falling over again. Brian curse, and
Jareth smirked as he urged Sarah on with a slight nod of his head. "Whatever... whatever
you want you can have. Please!"
"But what if there is nothing more I want of you?" he inquired, rising from the sofa
as elegantly as a swan awash in milky feathers. Sarah seemed blank at the question and
then approached him until they were so near he could smell the beads of sweat across her
brow.
"Bullshit! Don't you care, Jareth? Don't you fucking...," she trailed off as his
reached out to hold her chin in his hand. The leather of his gloves sent shivers across
Sarah's spine. Shivers she didn't like.
"Sarah!" Brian slurred, he was propping himself against the TV, staring at her
intensely, and Jareth merely smiled back at him.
"Care, Sarah?" he asked, brushing his thumb over her trembling lips. Jareth
looked into her eyes as if looking directly into her soul. Then, grinning sardonically he
dropped her chin and turned to walk back to the sofa, "At one time I did, I wanted you,
and I've had you. And now, he can have you."
Jareth gestured towards Brian and then grinned all the more. Frantically Sarah
looked backwards, and noticed her husband charging for her, his knife held out with
precision. Sarah leapt back, and felt the blade slice through the front of her silk shirt. A
fine slit spread open, revealing her flat stomach beneath.
Brian turned again, only slightly slower than his natural speed. He grinned, very
similar to Jareth's, and then slowly stalked towards her, beckoning her closer with his
finger. "Darling, Baby, Lover.... come to Daddy," he whispered, spreading out his arms
for her.
"Get away from me!" Sarah screamed shrilly, her voice snapping as she backed
away, back towards the stairs.
She paused, her heel slipping in a wet puddle. Briefly she looked to her side and
noticed the front door. *A door, a way out* Sarah looked around herself, and reached
for a vase that rested on an ornate stand. Brian snickered as she brandished the vase over
her head.
"You can't win," Brian assured her.
"Shut up!" Sarah demanded. She hurled the vase at him, and he dropped the knife.
*The knife, the fucking knife, where did it go? Oh god, where is it?*
Brian lunged for her as she bent to the ground, searching the smooth floor for the
glinting metal. He hurled her back, and against the nearest wall. A shudder, and a few
more pictures fell, shattering, to the ground. Sarah cringed, her ears thrumming from the
impact. She struggled back towards her husband, bringing her balled fists down hard into
the middle of his back.
"Shit!" Brian yelped, folding over as his weak back sparked like fireworks with
pained nerve endings.
Sarah scuttled over the ground, tossing throw pillows away, towards Brian. He
was muttering to himself. Sarah turned, saw him rising, and immediately leapt to her feet.
"GET AWAY!" Sarah yelled, stepped down, squarely on the arch of his foot. Once more
he was incapacitated in pain.
For a fleeting moment Sarah looked at Jareth, and he merely blinked. His cold
acceptance singed her deeply and she rushed for the door. "You'll die out there," he
whispered.
Briefly Sarah wondered why Brian hadn't seen Jareth. Why he had been so
violently attacking her when he saw another man in the house. But then, few things made
sense anymore. It was, after all, very possibly magic. Sarah grabbed the door handle and
jerked it open, briefly wallowing in a sea of snow that spilled in around her. An intense
cold numbed her immediately.
"I'll die in here," Sarah hissed, and then plunged into the white abyss that yearned
to swallow her up.
Jareth rose from his seat, and passed by Brian, swearing as he rushed to the door
to stand in the entryway and look for her. The man never noticed the King, not once.
Jareth hesitated to look at the once handsome face of Sarah's husband and then shook his
head. The cold wouldn't hurt him, not now. He lifted himself easily into it, and breached
the weather.
Sarah was crawling down the drive, near the old barn. The snow had slowed, just
enough so that he could see her, but that meant also that Brian could follow much easier.
Jareth looked and wasn't surprised to see the ass leaping out, after his wife. Murder was
in the air.
*My dark, secret angel. Where have you gone?*
Sarah started at the rich voice floating into her mind, as she drug herself to her
feet, holding the frame of the barn. She looked back, just barely noticing the outline of the
King in the storm. Why he had braved the weather was beyond her, but it didn't matter
either. All that mattered was getting into the barn. Sarah pulled the sliding door open and
sneaked inside, instantly overwhelmed with the smell of old animals, long since gone, and
hay.
*My prince of death, my solitude and my solace. My love and death, and vile
cursed potion. Why have you forsaken me?*
Sarah's thoughts were as mournful as any great tragedy. She slipped in the slick
hay, falling, face-first. She bustled through it, towards the ladder she had noticed against
the far wall. Ladders always led to a way out, didn't they?
And, just as she had reached the middle of the rickety ladder, both doors suddenly
burst open. Sarah jerked her head around, watching the figure in the middle of the spray
of snow (almost like a spray of the sea). She then, fearful for her life all over again,
hurried her way to the loft, where the hay spilled down to the first floor.
"Sarah," it was Jareth, walking into the barn, leaving it wide open for Brian. He
wanted her dead too. She huddled down nearer the hay.
The only sound was her struggled breaths, rushing in and out her lungs with little
meek squeaks. Sarah buried her face in the hay, bidding herself to be silent. Below she
could hear Jareth walking the length of the barn, searching for her in the piles of hay, the
old stalls, or every dark corner.
"I can't help but think that, should you die, I would suffer some great deal of
pain," he admitted, pausing in the very center of the barn. Outside Sarah could imagine
Brian growing nearer, but she couldn't help but find her curiosity sparked with Jareth's
comment.
"You see, my dear, we are one... whether you admit it or not. Sarah, show
yourself!" Jareth demanded.
*Its a lie*
The thought flew immediately to Jareth and at once he fixed his gaze on her hiding
spot. He had located her. But, as he had spoken earlier, there was no need to give her
away. Jareth paused there, looking to where she would be, and then backed away into the
shadows. Brian had grown near.
"Come into me, Sarah," Jareth said, though his words were clearly in Sarah's mind
alone.
She lifted her head slightly, and noted a dark shadow down below. Brian. His
uneven steps echoed up to her. Sarah slunk down deeper, shivering. What choice did she
have anymore?
*KILL HIM!*
Jareth smirked, walking out from the shadows into which he had hidden. His pale
white figure became a blanched mark against the darkness of the barn. And Brian gasped.
Sarah heard him gasp and then shriek like a girl. Below Sarah felt such intense evil
pouring out, and she curled herself into a ball.
Brian screamed and the Goblin King laughed.
*I have played this game enough, Sarah. I'll take the beast, but you have now
given yourself to me. Come to me, Sarah.*
The blood hung stale and metallic in the air, in the dismal barn. But Sarah rose
from her hiding place, feeling Jareth's words hanging in her mind. And suddenly, there
were candles across the barn, and she was on a staircase.
And Jareth was holding a goblet at the foot of the stairs, filled with wine... blood
red.
Molly
Chapter Fifteen
She felt the breath on her back a moment before the hand secured over her slender
arm. He wrenched her backwards, colliding her body against his, and a steel blade
balanced the light near her throat. Sarah peered behind her, but only saw a single hand,
flawless, brandishing the weapon. His breath smelled like rotting fish, as it drifted over
her.
"Thought you got away, didn't you?!" he demanded, jerked the knife in further so
that it dug against her smooth flesh.
Sarah swallowed, her throat working against the blade carefully. When she didn't
answer he tightened his hold on her and then led her, keeping the knife in close proximity,
down the staircase. The scene from moments earlier had vanished, leaving nothing but a
typical farmhouse.
"Mimi... TOBY!!!" Sarah screamed. Brian grabbed hold of both her arms and
hurtled her against the banister, where she struck and crumpled to the stairs, slipping
down a few before catching herself again. She looked up at her husband and shuddered.
Maybe agreeing to the Dark King had been a better option.
"The one you should be worried about is yourself," Brian stated calmly as he ran
his hand over her head.
For a moment she was quiet, speechless, feeling his fingers brushing along her
scalp like when they had been newlyweds. Then he clenched her hair, forcing her head
back and her chin up, so that she looked into his eyes. His silvery-blue eyes that seemed
so close to white that she could have almost mistaken him for a demon.
He clicked his tongue and tilted his head to the side, his brows going up in mock
concern. With a long sigh Brian touched the whetted blade to either of her pale cheeks,
letting it bury itself deep enough to spring crimson trail over her skin. Sarah cringed
away, and his hand in her hair tightened.
"Shouldn't have fucked with me," he whispered, deadly in the SnowBlind.
Sarah sniffed back the tears that had sparked in her eyes from the sudden pain
flaring in her cheeks. She tried to wipe the flow of blood, and Brian's boot connected
with her arm. Another flash of white agony.
She hitched in a short breath and then, not thinking twice, kicked blindly out
towards Brian. The sole of her shoe connected firmly with his kneecap, that buckled
under the force of the impact. Brian, losing his balance, slunk almost gracefully to the
stairs and toppled the rest of the way down... like the picture and the frame had done
earlier.
"I will FUCK with you! Leave me alone!" Sarah screamed, pressing her hands
into the blood on her cheeks. She wiped it carelessly on her jeans and then hurried herself
down the stairs.
Brian was rising, but the way he shook his head assured Sarah that she had time.
Time enough to run again. He looked up at her as she jumped past him. In an undying
thirst for revenge he swung the blade at her again, nicking her shoe, but doing no real
damage. Sarah just rushed into the living room, and stopped immediately.
"Jareth!" she remarked, breathlessly.
He sat in the middle of the uncomfortable couch, gazing at Sarah with something
resembling interest and amusement. He flashed her a toothy grin and brought his hands
together firmly. "Well now, what shall you do?" he asked, smiling all the more at her
sudden look back towards the floundering husband.
She had been strong long enough, and had faced more trials in one life than many
others could ever make it through in ten. Sarah staggered towards the King, who looked
decidedly less regal than he had earlier. He was pale, and his black satin was exchanged
for a faded white, that hung on his bones as if he had suddenly aged.
*Where the hell are Mimi and Toby?* Sarah thought belatedly as she looked over
the emptiness. From some vague part of her mind she could feel them, knew they were
alive. Maybe tied up.
"Kill him," Sarah stated, her voice cool as ice as she leveled Jareth with her dead
eyes. Blank and naked eyes, devoid of the luster of childhood and innocence.
Jareth quirked one elegant eyebrow in response and reached over to take the
leather gloves from atop the cofeetable. With slow precision he slipped first one on and
then the other, and finally acknowledged Sarah again. "Now, why should I do that?" he
asked, looking behind Sarah to note Brian's progress in gathering himself back together.
"God, Jareth, please!" Sarah also looked at him, just as Brian lunged out with the
blade. He skidded to one side and struck the wall, falling over again. Brian curse, and
Jareth smirked as he urged Sarah on with a slight nod of his head. "Whatever... whatever
you want you can have. Please!"
"But what if there is nothing more I want of you?" he inquired, rising from the sofa
as elegantly as a swan awash in milky feathers. Sarah seemed blank at the question and
then approached him until they were so near he could smell the beads of sweat across her
brow.
"Bullshit! Don't you care, Jareth? Don't you fucking...," she trailed off as his
reached out to hold her chin in his hand. The leather of his gloves sent shivers across
Sarah's spine. Shivers she didn't like.
"Sarah!" Brian slurred, he was propping himself against the TV, staring at her
intensely, and Jareth merely smiled back at him.
"Care, Sarah?" he asked, brushing his thumb over her trembling lips. Jareth
looked into her eyes as if looking directly into her soul. Then, grinning sardonically he
dropped her chin and turned to walk back to the sofa, "At one time I did, I wanted you,
and I've had you. And now, he can have you."
Jareth gestured towards Brian and then grinned all the more. Frantically Sarah
looked backwards, and noticed her husband charging for her, his knife held out with
precision. Sarah leapt back, and felt the blade slice through the front of her silk shirt. A
fine slit spread open, revealing her flat stomach beneath.
Brian turned again, only slightly slower than his natural speed. He grinned, very
similar to Jareth's, and then slowly stalked towards her, beckoning her closer with his
finger. "Darling, Baby, Lover.... come to Daddy," he whispered, spreading out his arms
for her.
"Get away from me!" Sarah screamed shrilly, her voice snapping as she backed
away, back towards the stairs.
She paused, her heel slipping in a wet puddle. Briefly she looked to her side and
noticed the front door. *A door, a way out* Sarah looked around herself, and reached
for a vase that rested on an ornate stand. Brian snickered as she brandished the vase over
her head.
"You can't win," Brian assured her.
"Shut up!" Sarah demanded. She hurled the vase at him, and he dropped the knife.
*The knife, the fucking knife, where did it go? Oh god, where is it?*
Brian lunged for her as she bent to the ground, searching the smooth floor for the
glinting metal. He hurled her back, and against the nearest wall. A shudder, and a few
more pictures fell, shattering, to the ground. Sarah cringed, her ears thrumming from the
impact. She struggled back towards her husband, bringing her balled fists down hard into
the middle of his back.
"Shit!" Brian yelped, folding over as his weak back sparked like fireworks with
pained nerve endings.
Sarah scuttled over the ground, tossing throw pillows away, towards Brian. He
was muttering to himself. Sarah turned, saw him rising, and immediately leapt to her feet.
"GET AWAY!" Sarah yelled, stepped down, squarely on the arch of his foot. Once more
he was incapacitated in pain.
For a fleeting moment Sarah looked at Jareth, and he merely blinked. His cold
acceptance singed her deeply and she rushed for the door. "You'll die out there," he
whispered.
Briefly Sarah wondered why Brian hadn't seen Jareth. Why he had been so
violently attacking her when he saw another man in the house. But then, few things made
sense anymore. It was, after all, very possibly magic. Sarah grabbed the door handle and
jerked it open, briefly wallowing in a sea of snow that spilled in around her. An intense
cold numbed her immediately.
"I'll die in here," Sarah hissed, and then plunged into the white abyss that yearned
to swallow her up.
Jareth rose from his seat, and passed by Brian, swearing as he rushed to the door
to stand in the entryway and look for her. The man never noticed the King, not once.
Jareth hesitated to look at the once handsome face of Sarah's husband and then shook his
head. The cold wouldn't hurt him, not now. He lifted himself easily into it, and breached
the weather.
Sarah was crawling down the drive, near the old barn. The snow had slowed, just
enough so that he could see her, but that meant also that Brian could follow much easier.
Jareth looked and wasn't surprised to see the ass leaping out, after his wife. Murder was
in the air.
*My dark, secret angel. Where have you gone?*
Sarah started at the rich voice floating into her mind, as she drug herself to her
feet, holding the frame of the barn. She looked back, just barely noticing the outline of the
King in the storm. Why he had braved the weather was beyond her, but it didn't matter
either. All that mattered was getting into the barn. Sarah pulled the sliding door open and
sneaked inside, instantly overwhelmed with the smell of old animals, long since gone, and
hay.
*My prince of death, my solitude and my solace. My love and death, and vile
cursed potion. Why have you forsaken me?*
Sarah's thoughts were as mournful as any great tragedy. She slipped in the slick
hay, falling, face-first. She bustled through it, towards the ladder she had noticed against
the far wall. Ladders always led to a way out, didn't they?
And, just as she had reached the middle of the rickety ladder, both doors suddenly
burst open. Sarah jerked her head around, watching the figure in the middle of the spray
of snow (almost like a spray of the sea). She then, fearful for her life all over again,
hurried her way to the loft, where the hay spilled down to the first floor.
"Sarah," it was Jareth, walking into the barn, leaving it wide open for Brian. He
wanted her dead too. She huddled down nearer the hay.
The only sound was her struggled breaths, rushing in and out her lungs with little
meek squeaks. Sarah buried her face in the hay, bidding herself to be silent. Below she
could hear Jareth walking the length of the barn, searching for her in the piles of hay, the
old stalls, or every dark corner.
"I can't help but think that, should you die, I would suffer some great deal of
pain," he admitted, pausing in the very center of the barn. Outside Sarah could imagine
Brian growing nearer, but she couldn't help but find her curiosity sparked with Jareth's
comment.
"You see, my dear, we are one... whether you admit it or not. Sarah, show
yourself!" Jareth demanded.
*Its a lie*
The thought flew immediately to Jareth and at once he fixed his gaze on her hiding
spot. He had located her. But, as he had spoken earlier, there was no need to give her
away. Jareth paused there, looking to where she would be, and then backed away into the
shadows. Brian had grown near.
"Come into me, Sarah," Jareth said, though his words were clearly in Sarah's mind
alone.
She lifted her head slightly, and noted a dark shadow down below. Brian. His
uneven steps echoed up to her. Sarah slunk down deeper, shivering. What choice did she
have anymore?
*KILL HIM!*
Jareth smirked, walking out from the shadows into which he had hidden. His pale
white figure became a blanched mark against the darkness of the barn. And Brian gasped.
Sarah heard him gasp and then shriek like a girl. Below Sarah felt such intense evil
pouring out, and she curled herself into a ball.
Brian screamed and the Goblin King laughed.
*I have played this game enough, Sarah. I'll take the beast, but you have now
given yourself to me. Come to me, Sarah.*
The blood hung stale and metallic in the air, in the dismal barn. But Sarah rose
from her hiding place, feeling Jareth's words hanging in her mind. And suddenly, there
were candles across the barn, and she was on a staircase.
And Jareth was holding a goblet at the foot of the stairs, filled with wine... blood
red.