Riverwatch

Chapter Twenty-One: Confrontation

Later that night

Gabriel lay quietly in his room, thinking about the past. Once he’d been young and powerful, but that time had long since faded into dust. His end was approaching, he knew that, and in certain ways he welcomed it. He lifted one frail hand and stared at it, remembering how it had appeared long ago, smooth and strong, a power to be reckoned with, not liver-spotted and weak as it was now. The years had, at last, taken their toll on his physical form.

His mind was as sharp as ever, though, and he decided to make use of its powers one last time before he moved on from this place. Settling back against his pillows, he gathered his strength and with a sharp mental shove cast his consciousness out beyond the walls of the facility in which he lay to the crisp, clean air of the summer night. While the Na’Karat might have the physical power to fly, Gabriel’s kind flew in other, truer ways, and he wouldn’t have traded it for the world.

He soared above the buildings, reveling in his freedom, then swooped down toward the forest floor below. As he did so, a rabbit jumped out of the undergrowth and stopped to feed on a patch of clover.

What would it be like to exist as you do, my little fellow? he asked it silently. To have no responsibilities, no worries, to sleep at night without the burden of suffocating doubts that plague you like a leprous disease rotting you away from the inside out? What would it be like, to think only of the present moment, with no thought or consideration to the future or the past?

The rabbit stiffened suddenly, as if sensing his presence and with a sudden burst of speed it spun to the right and disappeared into the undergrowth.

Gabriel watched it go, following its passage into the woods by listening for the tiny thump of its heart. He wished his furry friend good fortune, and then sent his presence soaring high above the ground to view the world once more in the fashion of his youth, before the coming of man and the war that destroyed his people.

Once his "eyes" had seen enough, he returned to his body and lay there in the darkness of his room, waiting.

Instead of concentrating on the confrontation he knew would soon occur, his thoughts drifted.

An image of a woman formed in his mind. She was beautiful, a golden-haired goddess with eyes of emerald green and cherry red lips.

Ah, Mira, my beautiful Mira! How long has it been? he thought sadly. His heart ached for her just as it had in ages past, when they had walked hand in hand beneath the golden spires of their fair city. He loved her as strongly as he had in the days of his youth. If anything, that devotion had grown stronger with the passage of time, until he felt close to bursting with his longing for her. He could remember her face as clearly now as if he’d seen it only yesterday; he could trace its soft, gentle curves in the air with his eyes and feel the heat of her breath on his lips. He knew it wouldn’t be long before they were reunited, and he secretly longed for his journey through the ages to be over so that he could join her in the afterworld.

Gabriel watched the ticking hands of the clock, and wished they’d move faster.

Eventually he drifted off to sleep.

He awoke a short while later, and knew immediately that he was no longer alone.

The sliding glass doors to his balcony hung open, the stiff breeze coming through causing the curtains to billow out into the night.

At the base of his bed stood the Nightshade.

They stared at each other.

To Gabriel, the beast was as foul as the day he had locked it away beneath the earth. The Elder was dismayed to see that it looked as powerful as it had on that long ago night, as if sealing it off from reality had let it gather strength in some mysterious fashion instead of crippling it as he’d intended when he’d created its prison. The beast’s muscles rippled beneath its hide, and its eyes gleamed with cunning intelligence.

Gabriel was suddenly worried that he had waited too long.

There was no way Sam and his friends would be able to defeat it if it was as strong as he feared.

Moloch stared at the Elder. Rage and hatred rose in him like a rain-swollen river. Here was the one who had pursued him through the ages. Here was the one who had sought to imprison him forever without shape or substance in a timeless void deep beneath the earth.

Here was his enemy.

The beast almost laughed. The Elder was nothing more than a pathetic husk of what he’d once been, and certainly no match for Moloch’s own powers. Killing him won’t be an effort, it will be a favor.

Gabriel broke the silence, speaking in the old tongue.

"You will regret coming here." He kept his voice firm, but suspected that the beast had already seen his dismay at the other’s apparent strength. He would give no more away than he had to, however.

"I think not."

The Nightshade’s voice was thicker, more guttural than he remembered, and Gabriel found himself wondering if it had sustained some permanent damage from its confinement.

"You will not succeed. The humans are stronger now, more able to face the challenges that life lays at their feet. They will use their technology to destroy you."

Moloch laughed. "I have not been idle since my release. I have watched the cattle. I have seen what they are capable of. I have also learned that they do not believe in anything besides that which they can lay their hands upon. They have forgotten the past and rely too much on the future. I will show them what it means again to be hunted and they will once again remember their fear."

Gabriel had been gathering his strength during the beast’s speech. As the final syllables were falling from its mouth, Gabriel lashed out with the force of his mind in a vicious mental attack.

The Nightshade stumbled under the sudden onslaught. He had been caught off guard, unsuspecting, and the Elder’s mental barrage began to knock down his internal defenses, threatening to kill him with sheer force of will. He was actually forced backward, away from the bed, by the power of the attack.

Gabriel realized that he had the upper hand, and threw more of his reserves in behind the attack, hoping to overwhelm the beast and destroy it before it had a chance to retaliate.

The end was not to be that easy, however.

The beast quickly regained control, snapping its shields into place, protecting itself, locking out the power of the attack. Gabriel tried vainly for several long moments to breach the shields, but to no avail.

At last, exhausted, he was forced to drop the assault.

Shaking his head, Moloch stepped back over to the bed and stared at Gabriel anew. It did not look damaged in any way by the attack, and despair washed through Gabriel for the first time in many years. He had to face the truth; he was no longer a match for the beast.

Unless Sam and his friends could destroy it, the Nightshade was going to win.

*** ***

Katelynn was in the library, reading, when it happened. One moment she was engrossed in the record of life in the 1700s, the next, the world seemed to shrink inward on her, a black haze obscuring her sight. She fought to remain conscious, but it was too late.

She lost herself in the darkness.

When she came to again, she was no longer in the library.

She stood in Gabriel’s room at the nursing home. He was sitting upright in bed, staring at her standing at its foot, an expression of fear and revulsion on his face. He was obviously exhausted, but he seemed to summon his strength as she watched, as if preparing for a confrontation.

Katelynn did not understand what was going on.

What she doing here?

Gabriel watched the Nightshade recover from his attack. The beasts’ tongue flicked out over its teeth, and the Elder knew the end was near. He had exhausted his strength in that last-ditch effort to destroy the Nightshade, and knew he would not survive long at the creature’s hands. That Moloch intended to make him suffer as long as possible was entirely too clear.

Gabriel had no intention of allowing that to happen.

As the beast stalked closer, Gabriel summoned what little strength he had left. He did not have the energy to project another attack at the beast, but there was another way out, one he’d longed to use for centuries.

Moloch moved closer, coming around the side of his bed.

This close, Gabriel could smell the stink of its fetid breath, and hear the rasp of claws on the linoleum floor.

The beast’s long forked tongue flicked out, tasting the air, searching for the fear that should have been coming off its opponent in waves.

Gabriel waited patiently, letting the beast think it had won, letting it gloat in its success, for by doing so he gained another moment to prepare.

He had to be certain he had the strength to succeed with his plan. If he did not, he would be too weak to do anything more. He would be helpless in the hands of his ancient enemy.

He did not want that to happen.

Not even for a few seconds.

Katelynn moved closer to the bed, and glanced down as her hands found the safety rail. She was shocked by what she saw. Her hands had changed; had become hideous. They were scaled like a lizard and a dark gray-green in color. Each one had four fingers; three rising together from the top of the palm, the fourth opposing them, much like the talons of a bird. Each finger, in turn, had four swollen, misshapen knuckles the size of walnuts, topped with long inwardly curving claws that shone like ivory in the room’s dim light.

Katelynn’s mind whirled at a frantic pace, trying to explain what her eyes were seeing. Then, like a dash of ice-cold water thrown in her face, her subconscious dragged from its depths the memory of her other dreams, making her accept what was happening.

With a small gasp of horror, she understood.

She was no longer in her own body, but had somehow been transported inside something else and was looking out through their eyes instead of her own!

While she could feel her madly accelerated heartbeat, she could also feel that of the creature in whose body she rode, a heartbeat that was deeper and more powerful than her own, one that beat a much slower rate.

If she concentrated, as she did now, she could dimly perceive the other’s thoughts as well.

A wave of hatred so vile that it made her want to retch rolled out of the form she was inhabiting. That Gabriel knew her in this form was beyond a doubt; there was hatred and recognition in his eyes. As her mind struggled with a thousand questions, she felt herself speak, the voice in her ears like crushed gravel

"Time to die old fool," she said.

Leaning close, Moloch opened his mouth to reveal the many rows of scalpel sharp teeth.

Using the last of his strength, Gabriel reached deep inside his body and simply ordered his heart to stop.

He died with a smile on his face, knowing he’d cheated the Nightshade out of the final victory.

Katelynn felt her mouth stretching impossibly wide, felt her tongue flickering across the tips of monstrously long teeth as sharp as surgeon’s knives as she leaned closer to Gabriel.

Noooo! she cried mentally, but was helpless to stop the sudden descent of those awful fangs.

As the teeth ripped mercilessly into the fragile flesh of the old man’s neck, Katelynn’s mind mercifully found the strength to flee and she came to herself again, lying on the floor beside the table she’d been working on in the library. A long shrill scream was bursting from her lips. She felt someone grasping her limbs, and fearing that whatever it was had followed her, she thrashed wildly; terrified that she was about to die.

A sudden pain flared on her right cheek, bringing her back to reality. The middle-aged librarian who had administered the slap was crouched beside her, one hand in the air in preparation of delivering a second slap should it prove necessary. Two students were pinning her arms and legs to the floor. The lips of the one at her feet were red and rapidly swelling, and Katelynn realized with shocked sympathy that she must have kicked him in the face during her struggles.

"Settle down," the older woman said. "You’ve had some kind of an attack. Just lie still for a moment. The health team is on its way." The woman smiled at her, but Katelynn could recognize the woman’s fear and apprehension.

Probably thinks I’m ready for the psycho ward, Katelynn thought to herself.

With growing dismay she realized that the woman could be right.

Suddenly, she desperately wanted to get out of there, and assuring her rescuers that she was fine, got to her feet, quickly gathered her books and went out into the night, ignoring their protests.

Her nightmares from previous evenings crowded in on her, spurring her fear. She knew that they were more than simple nightmares now, knew that the connection she had made while in that twilight realm had followed her into the real world.

Lord only knew what might happen next.

As he realized that his enemy had taken his own life before he could enact his vengeance, Moloch lost control. He tore into the fresh corpse, ripping the limbs from the body in his frenzy; delighting in the way his claws sliced into the weak flesh as if it were butter. He shrieked his rage and frustration, uncaring if any of the humans heard him now. If they were foolish enough to investigate, then he would tear them apart as well.

Later, once his anger was spent and the corpse was barely recognizable as having once been human, Moloch left the way that he had entered; leaving the sliding glass doors open behind him as he soared off the balcony into the night.

As he returned to his roost, slipping easily through the night’s inky blackness, he pondered the evening’s events.

Just before he had killed the Elder, he’d felt the presence of another being there in the room with them.

Yet he was positive the room had been empty with the exception of the Elder and himself.

So how did he explain the sensation that someone had been watching them? Or the scream he had heard as his teeth had ripped out the old fool’s throat?

He didn’t know.

But he was determined to find out.

For now though, he could wait. With his hunger sated, Moloch felt heavy, bloated, full. The quiet oblivion of sleep and his own sweet dreams beckoned to him. He decided he would rest before he sought the answers to those questions.

After all, with his oldest enemy now dead, what did he have to fear? He was once again ruler of the night, and nothing stood in his way. The human fools would again learn to fear the darkness, and he would rule over them in his rightful place as King.

And, oh, how much fun he was going to have, the beast thought gleefully as he winged his way home.