Chapter 12

The sounds of the swamp receded until there was silence, time stretching until each second seemed like a millennium. Starsky froze where he was on the ground. Papa Noir had found him and he didn't know whether to be relieved that his "protector" was there, or whether to turn tail and run. The voice in his head was still there, warm and velvety seductive but now edged with something else. Malice? Or was it fear? Something Starsky hadn't heard up until now. As the voice got louder and more insistent, the pains in the brunet's body became more intense. He shook, his bones chattering as the fever took him and shook him. His guts seemed to be on fire and he saw the world through a scarlet veil of pain.

The shoes at his side didn't move but finally the brunet forced himself to look up. The black face with its red teeth smiled down at him, although the voice seemed unfamiliar.

'Are you sick?'

'You know I am.'

'Are you lost?'

Starsky backed up, not wanting to look into those hypnotic black eyes again. He still had enough of his wits about him to know that if he was to look into Papa's eyes one more time he would be lost forever, and Hutch along with him. Only the thought of the blond, bleeding and unconscious drove Starsky on and he stared resolutely at the ground, swallowing down the fear that threatened to swamp him. He was a streetwise cop, running the roughest of zones in the heart of Bay City. He'd faced down machine gun wielding flakes, madmen with bombs, knife throwing hoodlums and he'd never once flinched. He'd survived torture and incarceration in Vietnam. He'd even survived being poisoned and had laughed about it later. Why was it then that a single man could instil such fear into a being?

'Get the hell away from me' he ground out. 'Leave me alone. I...oh gods...' Another pain assaulted him, this time tightening like a band around his chest as the voice inside his head soothed him and taunted him at one and the same time.

'This would never have happened Mon Cher. I would never have hurt you if you hadn't left with the blond one. Come back to me. Return to me and I will make it go away. You need rest Mon Cher. Rest with me. Come back to me.'

Starsky clutched at his head, shaking it slowly from side to side. 'Nooo. Get the fuck away from me. Not listenin'...not listenin' to ya. Noo.'

The shoes next to him moved and Starsky flinched trying to back away from the inevitable. A hand touched his back but instead of a searing pain, the hand seemed to bring with it cool and calm. Another one of Papa's tricks! Starsky backed away, still refusing to look up into those malevolent eyes.

'Let me help you.'

'You won't help. You killed Hutch. He's...he's not dead. Not dead. He's... I won't tell ya. Never. Won't tell. He's hurt. Bad. But he aint dead. You didn't...you won't kill...he's...'

Again the hand touched him as the shoes moved. Papa Noir seemed to be kneeling next to him and Starsky closed his eyes tight. It was a trick. He'd seen it a thousand times. He'd seen it in 'Nam. A good guard and a bad guard. Treat the prisoner mean and then send in someone with a small kindness. Odds were that eventually the prisoner would talk. But not Starsky. He wouldn't talk. He wouldn't look. Papa wouldn't trick him that easily.

The hand moved up his back until he could feel cool fingers brushing his face.

'You're hurting. Let me help.'

The voice sounded different now. It wasn't inside his head any more, although there was a distant shout of surprise and anger. It surprised the brunet and he paid attention to the voice at his side. How could Papa be inside his head and by his side as well? Was it another trick?

'Back off' Starsky ground out.

'I only want to help. I won't hurt you.' This time, the hand touched his face and held his chin, pulling his head around until he felt he was on eye level with evil.

'Nooo' Starsky moaned, feeling his iron will seeping away. 'Noo, I...'

'I won't hurt you. I promise.' The voice sounded so sweet, so innocent that in surprise, the cop's eyes opened and he looked directly into the eyes of a woman. She smiled at him and stroked the matted curls away from his forehead, but as she looked into the handsome man's deep, troubled indigo eyes she saw someone else lurking in the darkness. As she looked she saw a black face, red teeth grinning at her and she hissed and turned away.

'You need help' the woman said simply. 'Will you let me?'

Starsky rubbed his hands over his eyes. It was a trick. Papa Noir was using mind tricks again and he was gonna fight him all the way.

'You're not real' he said.

'I'm here to help, if you'll let me.'

'No...'s a trick. Back off.'

'Are you in pain?' the woman asked although she could see the truth from the man's sweat slick face and the lines engraved into his olive toned skin.

Starsky looked harder at the woman. Before he'd seen the body but there was an overlying image of Papa Noir and he'd been convinced that the shaman had found him and was about to take him back to the barn. Now, Starsky looked harder at the face next to him. The woman held still whilst the brunet's eyes seemed to take in every detail of her face. Starsky saw a sweet, oval face, devoid of any makeup. Hair the colour of a chestnut framed the face and fell in a heavy curtain down the woman's back to her waist. Her eyes were the colour of the forest, deep, deep green with flecks of gold glinting in the growing morning light and her smile, when she relaxed, felt to Starsky as though he'd been wrapped in a mink blanket.

How could this be Papa Noir? Surely even the evil witch doctor couldn't be so adept at hiding his true self. This woman seemed to radiate good and Starsky relaxed marginally.

As he looked up at her face, the pains in his chest returned and an angry voice sounded in his head again. 'Come back to me, Mon Cher. Ignore the temptress, she is nothing. You belong to me and I will have my servant back. Return now.' The pains redoubled and Starsky clutched at his head and chest, not knowing which hurt the most. He was hurt, he was scared and he felt as though he was losing his mind. The brunet let out a long, agonised groan and bowed his head to the ground, rocking himself backwards and forwards to try to get some relief. The woman shuffled closer.

'You need help' she said. 'Let me. Let me help you. Let me take away some of your pain.' She put her arms around Starsky's body and helped him kneel upright. She held Starsky's face between her cool hands and looked directly into his eyes.

This time, Starsky didn't flinch. There was something about the woman's gaze that was so different from Papa Noir's. Whereas looking into the shaman's eyes had felt as though he was about to fall down into a bottomless pit, this woman's eyes held light, and freedom and hope. Gently, she rubbed at Starsky's temples with her thumbs, massaging at the tight muscles and when she saw that the brunet had stilled a little, she let go with one hand and started to describe complicated and beautiful patterns in the air in front of Starsky's face. Her hand seemed to take on a life of it's own as it danced it's elegant, mystical dance in front of her patient. At the same time, she seemed to be whispering words, soft and almost inaudible, her face intent on her work.

Starsky watched her hand, feeling the other on his temple, easing away the pain and the tension whilst inside his head, Papa Noir's voice screamed at him to listen and to ignore the woman. The brunet swallowed, trying hard to ignore the voice. It sounded desperate and angry and the more the woman muttered her words over Starsky, the louder the voice got until it filled his head with noise, like listening to a fire alarm going off inside his head. The noise was intolerable and Starsky moaned again, unable to keep quiet.

'Hurts...' he mumbled. 'Make it stop.'

The woman leaned close to him until he could feel her breath on his face. 'You've been bespelled. Let me help you.' Without pausing, she leaned in and kissed Starsky softly on the lips. Her mouth tasted like wine and strawberries and cotton candy and instantly the voice inside his head stopped, stunned by the touch. The woman drew away long enough to look into Starsky's eyes.

'Trust me' she said softly and kissed him again, this time harder and more insistently so that despite his pain, Starsky's body reacted and he reached for her slender waist. Papa Noir gave one final screech of anger, sending another whiplash of pain through the brunet's guts and then Starsky felt only silence as the world spun around him and he felt the soft, wet ground come up to meet him.

A stiff, wide leather collar encircled his neck, the chain on the D ring at the front pulled taunt and fastened to the chair in front of him. Starsky was knelt on the hard floor of the barn, secured to Papa Noir's chair by his neck as the witch doctor ran his hands through Starsky's curls. With his hands tied firmly behind his back, the brunet had no chance to fend off the queue of men lining up to take pleasure from him. As Papa watched, another unknown man paid the shaman a $20 bill and unzipped his pants. Starsky tried to back away, sickened as the man advanced on him and forced himself into the cop's mouth. In his head, Starsky screamed as the violations continued. Another man came up behind him. This time a $100 changed hands and the brunet felt hands haul him to his feet and start to tear at his jeans. Rough hands stripped him as he fought and kicked and for his troubles Starsky received the slash of a whip across his back. His spine bowed and he let out a yell of anger and pain.

The yell tailed off into a moan of forlornness and the hand in his curls continued to stroke. Starsky screamed again and tried to pull away but his body felt heavy and his head ached viciously.

'No more...get the fuck away...no...please' he moaned, angry at himself for the pleading in his voice. 'Noooo.'

'Sssh cher...sssh,'

'Not your cher...let me...killed hutch...no, not killed. Hutch...HUTCHHHHHH' Starsky tried to twist his head away from the hand stroking his hair. The hand was gentle, caressing him more than causing pain, but he was still in the grip of the witch doctor and Papa Noir was as slippery as an eel.

'It's ok, you're safe. Sssh, try not to fret.'

Papa's voice seemed to have changed. It held a sweet note to it and the hand did not seem to be the hand of a man. The facts slowly penetrated Starsky's brain so that eventually the nightmares receded and he brunet stopped his thrashing. Cautiously, Starsky opened his eyes, dreading the sight of the barn and the line of men all waiting to pay for the privilege of demeaning him. Instead, when he did peep out from beneath his eyelashes, Starsky saw the same woman he'd seen in the swamp.

She smiled at him. 'It was a nightmare. A projection of the Black One's thoughts. You're safe now, for a while.'

Starsky closed his eyes feeling tired but also relieved. 'Black One?' he whispered.

'You might know him by Papa Noir? I saw him, in your eyes. You've met him already.'

'Uh huh. Bastard. He...there was this freaky...'

'He bespelled you. He wants you – to own you. You must have angered him some.'

Weakly Starsky snorted. 'Ya think?'

'You should sleep. It will help you regain some strength. I can only keep him out of your head for a while. After that, you'll need to fight him yourself.'

Starsky closed his eyes. 'Who are you?' he asked, his voice weak and husky and his body betraying him by tugging him back towards sleep.

'A friend. Rest. Here, drink this, it will help.' The woman held a cup of a hot liquid to Starsky's lips. The brunet smelled liquorice and molasses with overtones of mud and leaves. His nose wrinkled but he took a sip.

'What is it? It tastes gross.'

'A tea. It'll help you to close your mind to the Black One and it'll also help you rest.'

'I can't rest. Hutch. I need to get back to Hutch.'

'Who's Hutch? You called for him in your fever.'

'My partner...Hutch. He's hurt. Bad. Papa Noir... cut him up. He's...he's...' Starsky felt the first tendrils of sleep curl around him. Telling the woman about Hutch was important – more important than fighting the witch doctor. Hutch was dying and he needed to get back to him.

The brunet started to struggle out of the bed he found himself in. The woman held him down. 'Where are you going?'

'Can't rest...Hutch' Starsky whispered, the soporific effects of the tea beginning to claim him.

'I'll find him. I'll help.'

'How? You don't know him. Tried to help...I tried to...' Starsky mumbled, fighting the effects of the tea.

The woman leaned over Starsky and placed her hands on either side of his face. 'Look at me and think of him' she ordered, staring deep into the stormy indigo pools and Starsky did as he'd been told, the memory of Hutch, weak and close to death burning a hole in his soul.

'A blond man, bleeding, but still alive' the woman said softly as she let go of Starsky and sat back. 'I saw him in your eyes. Don't worry. I'll find him, but you must rest. You'll need your strength to fight the Black One. Sleep now and let me find your Hutch.'

Starsky closed his eyes, so weary he could hardly breathe.

'Who are you?' he mumbled tiredly.

In reply, the woman kissed him on the forehead and stood up. 'Just someone who wants to help. My name is Michelle.'