Chapter Two

Renee let Howlyn draw her in closer, shifting her feet for a firmer stance and hoping he thought she was giving in. He caught her eyes and she smiled at him, putting some heat in it, seeing the sudden flare of awareness in his eyes.

She leant back to bring him leaning forward. Advance and retreat, move and counter move, even now when she could still feel his lips warm against the inside of her wrist.

He moved to close the distance between her, she waited one second, two, three, pull. He was in the middle of a step, one foot off the floor, off balance when she closed her fingers around his wrist and tugged him forward hard enough to send him falling.

She was falling too, falling fast, bringing her leg up as she fell back and using the momentum of both of them as she hit him in the stomach with her foot and rolled back, propelling him over her head and into the cell behind her.

She twisted to her feet and ran to the control panel, her fingers punching in the codes automatically. The barrier flashed into place with a satisfying pop.

Howlyn was getting to his feet faster than she'd thought he would. Through the barrier, their eyes met.

And Renee was off, feet making no sound on the alien floor, her arms moving, her legs a blur, her mind in chaos. Howlyn did that to her, mixed her up. When she looked into his eyes she could swear that the sky was purple and mean it. That scared the hell out of her.

Renee ran.

She wanted to run straight towards the portal but that would be suicide. Howlyn could easily outrun her in a sprinting contest – he was made to run. It was easy to picture his not-too-distant ancestors hunting across the dark forests of some other world, their prey running just as she was running now: heart in mouth, instinct driven. And there would be blood on the flowers and on the grass.

No, there was no chance that she could outrun him. If she ran in zig zags she might be able to confuse him, maybe even lose him for a while.

Renee ran through corridor after empty corridor, past console after console, until as she was passing a console it spoke to her.

"Renee." It said in Howlyn's voice and it was Howlyn's face on the monitor, managing to look down on her from a height of about four feet off the floor. The sound of her name in his voice hit her like a sharp blow to the solar plexus, stealing her breath and slowing her feet. Despite the urgent shrieking protests of her mind she found herself stopping in front of the console, drawn to it as if his voice was a chain around her throat.

Renee rested her arms on the surface of the console and stared down at him. "Howlyn." she said, in a voice that sounded tired even to her.

He smiled, one of his heart stopping smiles with his head tilted and his mouth slightly open and his black eyes watching her like he was wondering how she'd taste.

"Stop running…" he said in that lilting tone she thought of as his snake-charmer voice - slow and languid and dangerous as hell. "I want you. And you want me. I won't let you go."

"Why not?" Renee said. She heard the desperate tone in her voice and forced a lighter note. "It's like the old saying says. If you want something let it go. If it doesn't come back, it was never really yours." As she spoke she was edging slowly back, moving away from the console and towards the next corner.

Howlyn's growl rumbled through the speakers. Renee saw anger catch fire in his eyes and shivered, grateful for the distance between them. It was so easy to make him angry and in his anger she saw a greater threat than lust, an old and bloody urge that wanted to bring her down one way… or the other.



She moved farther back, meters away from the console by now, almost around the next corner. His eyes followed her, but he didn't speak. Just watched her in that angry stifling silence.

"C'mon, try it." she goaded him with a challenging smile. "Let me go. I dare you. See how far I run." Then she was off again, running towards the corner, feeling his eyes hot on her back.

And turned the corner to a long corridor lined with consoles, every one of them wearing Howlyn's face and smiling at her.

"You've got to be kidding me." Renee said under her breath. She started down the corridor, not running now but walking quickly. It was unreasonable to feel nervous about walking past the consoles. They weren't Howlyn, they weren't going to attack her. They were just his eyes and his ears and his voice.

Why did he look so calm? She didn't like it.

"The time for running is over," the nearest Howlyn said with that undercurrent in his voice that made her think of dark things done in dark places.

He sounded almost sorry for her, like a parent explaining to a child that they were too big to go on the teacups ride at the fair. The light caught his eyes and she hastily corrected herself – like a cat, pitying the mouse trapped in its claws.

"Let's agree to disagree on that one, okay?" Renee said. The consoles rolled on in front of her.. As she half-ran, half-walked past them there were always three consoles in sight: one falling away, one just ahead and one in the distance showing Howlyn in miniature.

It was disconcerting, dizzying, Howlyns all around her, surrounding her, penning her in. She walked faster.

"How many times," Howlyn said, still with that cruel pity in his voice, "have I let you go? You always come back to me."

"You're taking that saying too literally," Renee said over her shoulder to the nearest console. "I don't come back to you. I come back to kill you. Big difference." One Howlyn fell away and was replaced with another, like a row of dominos falling, like motion under a strobe light, flashes of his mobile mouth now curving, now arching, now fully stretched into a feral grin.

"You can lie to yourself, Renee…" He turned away from the camera, dark shadow falling to hide his face. "But not to me. Not now. I can still taste your heartbeat on my tongue."

She could feel it too, a flutter in her throat. It's fear, she told herself. "It's hate." she told him.

How long was this goddamned corridor anyway? She broke into a jog, unwilling to run with him watching her. If she ran when he wasn't chasing her it would look like she was afraid of him. She didn't want him to think that. She didn't want it to be true.

His laugh came from the shadow, rich and dark and mocking. "Hate me, Renee. Fight me. Come to me with all your weapons. I'll enjoy taking them from you."

Renee smiled thinly. "Thanks for the invite, but I think I'll pass. Me and my weapons are both leaving." A shadow-cloaked Howlyn fell away, an identical one rearing up to take its place. Why the hell would anyone need this many consoles?

"You can try." Howlyn said, and she got the feeling he was laughing at her. She didn't like not being able to see his face. There was something nagging at her. She speeded up. The consoles started to fall away faster, one just like the other. She thought she saw the end of the corridor in the distance ahead.

"I don't see you doing anything to stop me," Renee said, her breath coming fast now as she ran. Something was still bothering her. She didn't see him doing anything to stop her. She didn't – see him. She stopped so suddenly she almost fell and looked back. A hundred consoles, all showing the same view. No change. No movement.

"Son of a bitch," she said with disbelief, smacking her fist down on the console as hard as she could. The painful sound echoed through the corridor.

Then Renee was running in earnest, ignoring the burning in her lungs. She'd broken a bone in her hand when she hit the console and the pain hit her every time she took a jarring step, a streak of agony that was no more than she deserved.

Stupid, she told herself. She should have noticed when Howlyn moved into the shadows, should have noticed when she could no longer see his face. How long had it been since she'd seen him move? How long since he switched the image to a tape?

How long had he been coming for her?

"Stupid," she said savagely between gulps of air. A mistake like that could have gotten her killed, might still get her caught. What was wrong with her?

Now that she knew he was after her she could feel him pacing her through the hallways. It was nothing she could put a name to; it was an animal's instinctive awareness of danger that lifted the hairs on her neck and made her heart beat faster.

Renee ran and felt him run, felt the air displaced by his body stir against her skin as eddies stirred by the passage of a shark gliding through dark water. She felt him drawing closer, sensed triumph on the edge of his mind.

She saw the portal ahead.

She put on a burst of speed, her mind emptying of all thoughts except the need to go faster. The pain in her hand was a gray nothing on the edge of her consciousness. She knew without knowing how she knew that even a pause now would be fatal. She might fall beneath his claws or into his eyes, but it was death either way.

Pain blurred into speed blurred into space and she was standing in the portal, her hand poised above the controls when Howlyn caught up with her. He stopped as soon as he saw her and she stopped too, her hand stopped midway through its motion by the instant and overwhelming impact of him.

It was like a shock of cold water, not something she could ever be prepared for. Like coming back to the mountains after years spent in the plains and feeling a heart stopping moment of Oh. I'd forgotten. This is what it's like. The sudden knowing that her memories were watered down, as pale and unreal as a candle stood next to the sun.

Howlyn was as still as she was and she had the sudden wild thought that maybe she had the same effect on him. But that couldn't be true, her mind said, sealing the idea away behind iron walls. He was perverse, wanted what he couldn't have, a little boy straining to reach a bottle marked Poison just because it was tucked away on the highest shelf.

"You've hurt yourself," Howlyn said, breaking the silence, the odd harmonics in his voice hushed so that he sounded almost human. His eyes were on her hand, curled like a small hurt animal by her side.

"It'll heal." Renee said. She thought with disgust that she sounded like she was trying to reassure someone who cared about her. Howlyn was probably sorry that he hadn't broken her hand himself. "Come to say goodbye?" She made the words unpleasant and was pleased when he responded with an equally mocking smile.

"So it would seem," he said. The odd harmonics were back with a vengeance, coating the words like thick soft fur.

She heard in that growl what he didn't say, that if he'd been a few seconds quicker, if she'd spent a few moments more talking to his photograph, they wouldn't be saying goodbye. There was regret there and anticipation for the next time. Renee felt it too, that stab of eagerness for the next battle, and recognized it as the same fatal impulse that drew a moth to a flame.

She wasn't sure why she was still there, not pressing the buttons, except that… he wasn't chasing her or threatening her. He was just standing there. Watching her. It was ridiculous to think that it would be rude to portal out without saying anything, but she had to reluctantly admit that that was what was stopping her. Damn manners.

"Well, goodbye then." Renee said, cringing at the sound of her own voice, awkward and halting as if she was saying goodbye at the end of a blind date.

The knowing laughter in his smile made her want to launch herself at his throat, broken hand and all. Oh god, she was going red. This was too much. She stabbed at the console.

"Until next time, Re-"

Howlyn disappeared in a storm of light that blinded her and sent her back to the public portal she'd started from. It was still dark out, she noticed, mildly disorientated as always by the timeless feeling aboard the mothership. She could only have been up there a couple of hours. She rubbed a hand over her eyes and began undoing the modifications she'd made to the portal. All she wanted to do was fall asleep, on the sidewalk if necessary.

She made it back to the lair on dragging feet and fell into bed fully dressed, the landing jolting her injured hand badly and sending a wave of pain that tore at the edges of her vision and swallowed her whole, dragging her down into black unconsciousness.

She didn't dream.