David Wiltse - Into The Fire

"Oh, Christ. Oh, Christ," she muttered with every step, unaware that her silent mantra was escaping her lips. In front of her, Becker seemed terribly amused and she thought she heard him chuckle once or twice.

"Just think how badly Swann must have wanted to get in here," Becker said in a whisper.

And how badly you want to get in after him, Pegeen finished the thought.

Still, she was grateful that he was leading her, taking long, sweeping steps, pushing much of the guano out of her way like the prow of a ship.

The stuff didn't appear to be clinging as much as she had feared, only the surface layer was moist, the rest as dry as sunbaked pellets.

When his flashlight picked out the dimensions of a wall in front of them, Becker stopped and turned to Pegeen.

"There's a tunnel ahead of us, according to the chart," he said, his voice hushed. "It looks narrow, we may have to crawl. We'll do it without lights-we don't want anything shining into the main cavern."

"Without lights?"

"You're not afraid of the dark, are you?"

"No more than most sensible people. How do we know where we're going?"

"The chart shows it to be pretty much a straight line.

Just keep going forward."

"What if the chart is wrong?" Pegeen hissed. "What if there's a dropoff or something in there that Browne didn't bother to put on the chart?"

"If I fall out of sight, you'll know it's time to stop."

"You won't be in sight-we're not using lights."

"Use your imagination, Haddad. You'll be fine."

"Are you going to call me Haddad now? Are we back to that? If we are, would you mind if we just kept going a little further before we continue this discussion?"

"Why?"

"Because I'm standing up to my navel in bat shit and I don't want to be insulted at the same time."

Becker shined his light directly in her face until she pushed the flashlight away.

"You mean last night?" he asked.

"Duh."

"Last night was indescribable. You saved my sanity, I don't think I would have made it until morning."

"Could we not talk about it right here? Could we maybe find a nice sewer to sit in first?"

Becker looked down at the guano rising to his belt as if he had forgotten it entirely.

"It's dry," he said as if he didn't understand her objections.

Pegeen sighed. "Just get me to the tunnel. Please."

"When we get to the chamber, if he hears us he'll probably douse his own light. Don't use your weapon because you'll only pinpoint yourself and he may be armed.

"I won't be able to see and I won't be able to shoot.

What am I supposed to do?"

"Whatever I tell you."

"How do we find this son of a bitch in the dark?"

"I'll find him," Becker said.

"Great. How?"

Becker paused. When he spoke, she heard a smile in his voice. It was not a friendly smile.

"I'll find him by his fear," Becker said.

Swann was moaning now to a methodical rhythm, interspersing little yips like a child's bleats that came with every inward breath. The sound was monotonous and metronomic and Aural wondered if it came now from some source other than pain. It was almost a genteel snore, and in the dim candlelight that illuminated him from a distance she could not see clearly if he was asleep or awake.

He hadn't moved in several minutes and both hands were still clasped upon his face. The candle had burned down several inches since he had moved across the cavern, and Aural estimated that it must have been at least an hour.

She had tried to time it at first, using the tick of her water clock, but his moans were too loud at first for her to keep track and then it didn't seem to matter anyway. Time had long since lost any meaning.

There was no way to measure the length of a torture session-each seemed to last an infinity, and minutes and seconds and hours signified nothing at all. Progress was marked by inches as he burned his way slowly across her flesh, cigarette by cigarette, and by candles that glowed and melted and shrank and guttered into darkness only to be replaced by another.

And by pain, endless pain. There was no way to measure the quantity of her agony, but still it was distinguished by a surprising variety. Some things hurt differently than others, some pains lasted so long that she could nearly ignore them and regard them as background, some were so intense she could only scream her way through them.

Aural shivered and huddled her arms against her chest.

It was the first time in days that she had had the leisure to notice the cold. Her legs seemed ablaze but her torso was chilled. She had been shaking with the cold for several minutes and hadn't even noticed.

Another way to die, she thought. I could freeze to death before he kills me.

The rhythm of his breathing changed and she realized that he was actually falling asleep. When she was sure he was out, she would make her move. She would need at least several minutes to make her way to the tunnel, moving backwards on her hands and heels. Once in the tunnel she had no idea how far or fast she could go, but at least she would be trying. It would be something she could do for herself One hand slipped off his face and into his lap, then moments later, the other hand fell away. His head moved back slightly in reaction to finding itself unsupported, then stopped in position. After another few moments the head drooped lower, bounced back up, drooped lower still, bounced again as he nodded deeper and deeper into sleep.

Aural waited for his head to come to rest on his chest.

One more drop, maybe two.

Swann's head slumped all the way to his chest, then sprang back violently and he woke up crying out in pain as if the final fall had reactivated his injury.

"My eye!" he called, as if he expected someone to respond, as if he expected her to help him. "Please, Jesus, please! "

And then Aural realized that she could help and she smiled to herself because she felt for the first time. as if she had a real weapon.

Despite her pain and her condition and her shackles, she realized that he had given her power.

She waited until he was momentarily quiet, and then she spoke to him, keeping her voice low but intense.

"I can help you," she said.

It brought him to silence. He listened for a moment as if he expected her to repeat it.

"What did you say?"

"I can help you," Aural repeated.

She could see him peering at her through the cracks between his fingers.

"How?" he asked cautiously.

"You know how."

He brought his hands to his lap and grasped the knife, suspecting a trick.

"How?" he repeated.

"I can heal you," Aural said. She hoped it was her stage voice but it sounded cracked and wounded to her ear.

Again he was quiet, studying her for deception, then a shiver of pain coursed through him again and he tilted his head and gave a moan like a whinnying horse.

When his spasm passed, Aural said, "You know I can do it. You have seen me heal. You have seen the divine power of Jesus Christ move through me.

I have the power."

"Yes," he said. "I've seen you do it."

"God be praised," she said, trying to project strength which she did not feel.

'Amen.

"He works through me." She lifted her hands, already forced into a prayerful attitude by the cuffs, and held them in the air, fingertips touching. "He has given me the hands to do his work."

"I hurt so much," he said.

"Jesus never gives us more than we can bear," she said.

She smiled at him, summoning up the smile of beatitude, the smile that stiffed hearts and eased consciences and made miracles seem not only possible but within the order of things. She smiled at Swann her own sweet promise of love and forgiveness, of redemption and deliverance. It was the reason he had chosen her in the first place-the sign of virginal divinity that he always looked for and then somehow forgot in the vileness of his actions when the beast that dwelled in his chest stiffed and took him within its tentacles. But that was not the true Swann, it was the beast. The true Swann loved God and his holy son and yearned for goodness and yearned now most of all for release from his pain.