Kristin was barely in the ground.
But there it was. He couldn't deny it any more than he could stop it.
Eleanor's face haunted him. The emerald eyes under their long dark lashes. The rich brown hair. Even the ghostly pallor. She seemed as if she came from another world-perhaps because she had-and he feared for her entry into his. He wanted to protect her, to guide her, to save her.
The bunk itself was as silent and black as any grave.
He remembered his first sight of her, entombed in the ice.
And then coming upon her, frightened and alone, in the abandoned church. But she had not cowered. There was a spirit in her that had never been extinguished, despite everything she had endured.
What was it she played on the piano in the rec hall? Oh, yes, that sad old ballad-”Barbara Allen.” The plaintive notes tumbled through his head.
The curtains at the foot of the bed stirred.
He remembered the blush in her cheek when he had sat down beside her on the bench. The rustle of her dress, with its billowing sleeves. The tapered toes of her black shoes, touching the pedals.
The mattress sagged… as if it were accepting some other burden.
He thought of her scent, soapy but delicate… and the aroma seemed to envelop him now.
He thought of her voice… soft, refined, accented…
And then, out of the pitch black, he heard it.
“Michael…”
Had he just imagined that? The wind wailed outside.
But then he felt a warm breath on his cheek, and a hand touched his chest, as gently as a bird alighting on a branch.
“I can't bear it anymore,” she said.
He didn't move a muscle.
“I can't bear being so alone.”
She was lying on top of the blanket, but he could feel the shape of her body, pressing against his. How on earth had she…
“Michael… say my name.”
He wet his lips, and whispered, “Eleanor.”
“Again.”
He said it again, and he heard her sob. The sound nearly broke his own heart.
He turned toward her, and lifted his hand to her face in the darkness. He found a trickle of tears… and he kissed them. Her skin was cold, but the tears were hot.
She burrowed closer, and he could feel her breath-shallow and hurried-on his neck.
“You did want me to come to you… didn't you?”
“Yes,” he murmured, “yes, I did…”
And then he found her lips. They were soft and pliant… but cold. He longed to warm them. He kissed her harder, and held her close. But the blanket was so coarse, and it came between them.
He shoved it down, and his hands groped in the dark for her body. She was slim as a sapling and wearing only a slip of some kind… something as sheer as a sheet, and as easily dispensed with.
God, how good it felt to touch her. He ran his hand up her naked side, and she shivered. She was still so cold, but her skin was so smooth. He felt the knob of her hip, the flat plain of her stomach-the flesh quivering at his touch-then the soft swell of her breast. The nipple hardened like a button under his fingers.
“Michael…” She sighed, her lips against his throat.
“Eleanor…”
He felt her teeth nibble at his skin.
“Forgive me,” she whispered.
Before he could ask why, he felt the teeth sink into his throat like ice-cold pincers. A hot wet stream-his blood? — coursed down his neck, and he tried to cry out. But he strangled on the sound of his own scream, and he kicked out hard, to free himself from the bedclothes. His hands pushed at her, and kept pushing…
The bed curtains screeched back.
He could see her, rearing back, naked, with his blood on her lips, her eyes blazing…
Bright light shone in his face.
He pushed again, to throw her from the bunk…
And a voice was crying, “Michael! For God's sake, Michael… wake up! Wake up.”
His hands were still pushing, but someone had grabbed hold of them.
“It's me! It's Darryl!”
He stared out from his upper berth.
The lights were on. Darryl was hanging on to his hands.
“You're having a nightmare.”
Michael's heart was hammering in his chest, but his hands stopped flailing.
“The mother of all fucking nightmares, I'd say,” Darryl added, as Michael started to subside.
Michael's breath slowed. He glanced down. The sheet and blanket were twisted around his legs. The pillow was on the floor. He felt the side of his neck. It was damp, but when he looked at his fingertips, they were only covered with sweat.
“You're lucky I came back,” Darryl said. “You might have given yourself a heart attack.”
“Bad dream,” Michael said, his voice hoarse. “Guess I was having a bad dream.”
“No kidding.” Darryl blew out a heavy breath, then turned to take off his wristwatch and laid it on the nightstand. “What the hell was it about?”
“I don't remember,” Michael replied, though he could recall every detail.
“You forgot it already?”
Michael dropped his head back onto the pillow and stared numbly at the ceiling. “Yeah.”
“For the record, I thought I heard you say Eleanor.”
“Huh.”
“But I'll never tell.” Darryl grabbed his towel off the hook on the door, and said, “Back in five. No matter what, do not go back to sleep.”
Michael lay there, alone again, waiting for his heart to slow down and the last of the panic to pass… and seeing, in his mind's eye, Eleanor's long brown hair tumbling down over her pale white breasts, and her wet red lips, still open and wanting more…
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
December 23, 10:30 p.m.
“I'm thirsty,” Sinclair said loudly, and Franklin got up off the crate he was sitting on, picked up the paper cup with the straw, and held it out to him.
Sinclair, whose hands were cuffed, sucked through the straw, greedily. His throat was parched, but no amount of water, he knew, would ever quench it. He was sitting up on the edge of the cot. Ranged around him in the storeroom were mechanical devices the size of blacking boxes, capable of sporadically emitting waves of heat, even though they were supplied with no coal or gas source that he could detect.
It was truly an age of wonders.
There was a nagging pain in the back of his head, where the bullet fragment had grazed his skull, but he was otherwise intact. Around his left ankle he wore an improvised shackle, a chain looped through a pipe on the wall and clamped with a padlock. The room was stacked with boxes, and on the floor off to one side he noted a broad russet stain, which could only have been caused by blood. Was this where prisoners were normally taken for interrogation, or worse?
He had tried to engage his guard in conversation, but beyond learning his name-Franklin-it had proved hopeless; he wore something in his ears, connected by a string, and buried his face in a gazette with a half-naked
