Adult-FanFiction.org : Anime

Annals of Fear II	By : DeathNoteFangirl Category: Death Note > Yaoi-Male/Male > Mello/Matt Views: 5803 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note and I do not make any money from these writings

Chapter List
- 38
- 39
- 40
I

Deontic stood against one of the tables. She was surrounded by dead equipment and blank screens.   The wind pummelled the windows and the great ocean roared outside.    She was quite alone in the darkness.    Though she knew it was stupid to be alone, Valerie had needed those stitches.   Deontic had packed her off in a taxi shortly before the electricity blew.

She waited, fists clutching the table edge on either side of her body.   Five minutes passed and nothing came back on.   Out there, house alarms were screaming their protest all over the river valley and hillside.   She occasionally peered out of the window, but distant Aberystwyth was black.   Even the lighthouse no longer cast its searching light.   She took several deep breaths and waited.   The electricity did not come back on.

Deontic reasoned it out, though she wished that Matt was here.   He understood such things with an ease and thoroughness that would have been useful here.    The town would receive its energy from the National Grid.   Any number of things would disrupt that, though usually not for long.    Had there been a second surge?   She didn't recall anything even trying to splutter into life.   That would have been a transformer redirecting electricity, in such a failure event as this, from another sub-station.   Perhaps one from a neighbouring town.   Maybe that had overwhelmed the transformer, prolonging the power cut.

It was all explicable, without involving the supernatural.   They had covered it on Physics.   Such a thing had happened, in a much bigger scale, only a few years ago.   A power plant, in Manhattan, New York, had shorted, which caused the grid to try and re-route from further afield.   A chain reaction of transformers being overwhelmed had occurred.   At the height of the outage, much of the north-eastern United States, from Detroit, Cleveland and Toledo, as well as New York state itself, had been completely devoid of electrical power.    People had panicked. They had blamed terrorists.   It had turned out to be a simple flaw in the grid system. Compared to that, a power cut in a Welsh seaside town was nothing.

Deontic calmly stepped away from the window.   None of this explained the lighthouse going down.   That had its own electricity supply.    She took out her mobile 'phone and inspected it.   It did not light up.   It took several long seconds staring, trying to hold it into the moonlight, to determine that the battery in it was completely dead.   She systematically surveyed every piece of machinery and gadget in that small room.    They were all uselessly defunct.   She eventually stepped out of the hub and made her way down to her car.   In the glove compartment was a torch. She switched it on. There was no illumination.   She experimentally turned her key in the ignition.   Her car did not attempt to spark into life.

She considered leaving, but common sense stated that, whatever was happening up there - whoever was running, or otherwise trying to survive against the manor house's phenomena - would eventually try to communicate with her.   They would reach her on foot or, if the electricity resumed, via any number of telephonic means.   She should wait.   She could be a necessary link.

She just wished that she didn't have to do it alone.

II

It was eerie out in the streets.   Valerie had initially sat in the back-seat of the taxi cab, holding tissue over the bleeding bridge of her nose.    The cab-driver had cursed over the sudden dying of his engine, then looked in abject surprise, as he realised that he wasn't alone.   He was out of the taxi now, talking with other drivers and the people spilling, in ones and twos, from houses.   There was talk, and dismissal, of alien spaceships coming down and disrupting life on Earth.   A couple of students, from the University of Aberystwyth, were having a loud, drunken discussion about the magnetism of their own planet and how it was overdue a switch in poles.

Despite the bizarreness of the situation, there was a kind of camaraderie out on the seaside streets.   Valerie felt distant from it, sitting in the taxi, so stepped out to join them.    Patrons spilled from a pub over the road, as the licensee decided that the power cut was going on too long to remain open.   Conversations in Welsh and English went on too loudly.   Young people dancing in the middle of ordinarily busy streets.   The traffic all at a standstill.   All with engines that would not work.

"Don't you go flooding it!"   A middle-aged Welshman yelled back at his wife, as he crossed towards the station.   She sat still in the driving seat, continually turning over her engine.   It didn't make a sound.

A group of students staggered around a corner.   One of the females was carrying a carved pumpkin; its grimacing grin lit from within by candlelight.   It was the only source of light around, but for the moon.   Valerie glanced up.   The moon was going behind a cloud again.   The sky was deeply overcast.   It barely got a chance to illuminate them at all.   Nevertheless their night vision was kicking in, for what it was worth.

"Whole town gone down, is it?"   Someone called from behind her.

"Looks like it."   Came the reply.    The endless comparisons of 'phone networks and other apparatus went on.   "Nothing to see over by the front or in the town."

A young man bemoaned the fact that his pint glass was now empty.   His companion roared with laughter.   "Go ask Billy Tafern if you can refill the old thing. The glass you stole from his pub."   More laughter.

Beside them, a teenager looked up from his stationary moped.   "Gav!"   He yelled.   A blond man, apparently Gavin, turned around further up the road.   "Mae rhywberth yn bod gyda'r batri."     Valerie spoke no Welsh, but the boy's plaintive call had been met with mirth and derision from those who could.   "Allwch chi alw Mam mi?"

"Dim."   Gavin returned.   The teenager with the moped looked so lost, particularly under the catcalls of his fellows, that Valerie was glad for that.   "Dim batri ffonio."

Valerie's eyes were watering badly, both with the injury and the fierce chill wind.   She wandered over to the taxi driver.   "Excuse me, how far away is the hospital from here?"

"Not far from here."   He peered at her face and shrugged apologetically.   "Walking, is it?"   He glanced into his cab and bit his lip.   The meter was blank.   "Tell you what, cariad, no charge to here."   He didn't have much choice in the matter, but Valerie was still touched by the kindness.   She was feeling quite isolated, even in the midst of what would undoubtedly be considered 'an experience' later on.    "Go right up there, Poplar Row, then turn you left onto..."   He said something in Welsh.   Valerie blinked. He carried on giving directions, but half of the street names never lodged in her brain, even as they passed through her ears.

Then suddenly a woman, practically at Valerie's shoulder, gave out a large gasp.   "Oh no. Hospital!   What will they be doing with no electricity?   Incubators and stuff?"

"They have a back up generator."   Someone informed her sagely.

The same woman stared at Valerie's face.   "Oh you poor thing!   Look at her.   Wants to get up the hospital, she does."   Valerie smiled acknowledgement of the sentiment, but began hunting in her handbag for a pen and paper.   She was going to need these directions written down.    The woman patted her arm.   "Just you wait there, my lovely."   Then she took off down the street.   Valerie shivered.   Blood and mucus were running down the back of her throat.   It kept making her cough.   It ensured that a film of water was almost permanently blurring her vision.    "Daffy!"   She heard the woman calling further along the street. "Come by here.   Quickly!"    Valerie ignored them, until the woman was close by again.   Then she heard, "Damsel in distress. Charm offensive now."

Valerie looked up.   A few rapid blinks cleared her sight long enough to see the man on the pushbike.    He was in his mid-thirties, reasonably good looking and smiling at her.   His Welsh accent was as thick as the woman's, who had delivered him to her.   "Hop on, cariad.   Hospital now, is it?   Just call me your local, friendly ambiwlans."   He patted the single seat.   It looked hard and narrow.   A sport's pushbike.   He was evidently planning to stand up, as he pedalled.

Valerie debated turning him down, but she was lost and she was hurting.   She gave him what she hoped was a grateful smile, but her facial muscles resisted in agony.    "Thank you." She gushed.    She moved forward and was helped onto the saddle by his female friend.    A problem immediately presented itself. She couldn't hold on, while simultaneously retaining the padding on her nose.   The woman helpfully provided a scarf.   It would end up bloody, but she would listen to none of Valerie's polite protests. "Thank you."   Valerie eventually managed to sit again and, without any further warning, they were shooting off, at speed, through the darkened side-streets of Aberystwyth.

Vehicles were everywhere.   Some seemingly parked, but others obviously abandoned in the middle of the roads.   They passed plenty of people, mostly all filled with the bonhomie of the bizarre occasion.    More locals than tourists, to judge by the accents, but a large percentage of students too.   The soft glow of candlelight shone from several windows.   The pumpkins showed up extremely well.   It was almost exciting.

A swift, punishing few minutes later, Daffy stopped the pushbike halfway up a hill.   He wasn't even out of breath; no sheen of sweat on his face.   "Doesn't look good, does it?"   He stated, pointing.   Valerie followed the direction of his finger.   There was an ambulance stranded at the turning into the carpark.    It straddled both lanes of traffic. It had patently lost power, just as it was entering the hospital grounds.    Not that it mattered in terms of the other vehicles around it. They were stationary too.   "Not good at all."

Valerie wiped her eyes against their streaming and took a good look around.   What she had taken to be a large industrial site, in darkness due to night-time's closure, was actually Bronglais Hospital.    No lights illuminated its windows.   No movement in its carparks.   "Oh gosh."

They were silent for a few seconds.   Then Daffy added, "Generators, they'll have, keeping the intensive care alive.   Conserving energy, see?   None of those lights, when they need to keeping the old ventilators going."   He sounded like he was trying to convince himself.   "Bound to be."

Valerie dared not answer.   She felt anyway like she was about to start choking on the fluids dripping down her throat.   But the coldness that she felt had nothing to do with the chill of that relentless sea air.   Daffy pushed off again and took them sailing down into the carpark, right up to the entrance of Accident and Emergency.    There they paused at the kerbside and looked into shadowed corridors and a desk with candles burning upon it.   She blinked some more and saw fully the chaos within.   There was no sound.   That's what struck her.   No sirens; no humming of the powerhouse; no intercom voices; no clicking of keyboards; no television or information screen spoken word guides.    Just the yelling of the infuriated and the moaning cries of those in pain.   She watched the moving pool of weak light that was the single triage nurse, wandering through like Florence Nightingale, with a tealight balanced on a plastic intray.

Daffy turned slowly to glance at her, then quickly back to stare into that startling scene. "Cachi!"   He said, with feeling.   Even having no Welsh at all, Valerie caught the sentiment and knew that he had spoken for them both.

"Yes." She said and slid off the bike.

III

Mello felt slightly happier, now that Matt had finally consented to have his arms cleaned and wrapped with padded gauze.   The cuts were reasonably deep and the very fact of them hung as an atmosphere between the couple.    Mello hadn't asked if they were self-inflicted.   They obviously were.   Matt didn't volunteer the information either. Whatever temporary relief, from his own mind and emotion, the cutting had alleviated earlier, was balanced now by mortification.    Matt didn't want to face Mello with them.   He had tried to administer his own first aid, in the shadows by the sink.   But Mello wanted to be there.   Partially out of guilt that he had been absent before, when Matt had felt the need to do this to himself.

Mello tried to keep the mood light.    He uttered occasional overly carefree comments; then winked, when Matt's lowered gaze briefly flickered up to gauge Mello's expression. But the net effect was a dense awkwardness, that left them both feeling uneasy.     Once the wounds were both bandaged, out of sight, Mello pulled his husband into a hug.   Matt reacted stiffly, just letting it happen to him.    Mello kissed his ear.   "I'm sorry I wasn't there.   It must have been bad, for you to do this now."

"Yes."   Matt conceded.   Then almost immediately added, "But, at least, I didn't just curl up and blart like a baby."

Mello jolted in his arms, then remained very still.    It was, by far, the coldest cuddle ever to have existed between them.    "I'm sorry, baby."   Mello replied, at length.    "I lost it a bit out there.   I wasn't what...."

Hal interrupted by striding into the room.   "Will any of these do?"   Their one saving grace, throughout the discomfort of being confronted with Matt's self-mutilation, was that Hal had not been there to witness it.    Mello knew that Matt would have gone out bleeding to death, rather than allow Hal to see more than she could guess.   It had been his idea to send the American woman on a search of the farmhouse, looking for warm clothing.    "There's a whole wardrobe up there full of men's clothing.   I found a couple of coats, hat, scarf, gloves."

"We already have gloves." Mello stood up, pulling down upon himself the glamour of the self-confident, in control general.   It took more effort to do than he cared to admit, even to himself.    A low-level stratum of flight or fight panic lay just below the surface of his cocksure attitude.   Beneath that was an even deeper fear.   Mello felt like he was internally holding his breath; for fear that the convection currents of inhaling would stir that cesspit of feeling into something too overwhelming to handle.

It had to do with his Catholicism and the certainty of everlasting torment.   That felt all too real right now.   In a way that it never usually did.   It was not a belief nor a concept. It was not a theology open to academic interrogation or applications of faith.   It could not be pushed to one side, without consideration, as something that might happen one day, if he was right.   Instead, the reality of Hell seemed as a membrane away.   Something tangible.   Something close.   Something as near to his world as that table, that sink and the suspicion in his husband's eyes.   Mello was walking in the absolute certainty that something demonic could, at any instant, rear up and bodily grasp him. He was pushing this assault on his psyche down for Matt.

Mello feared for his own mental health.   Not necessarily for his belief in Hell, but for the virulence that the idea of Hell had for him right now.   If he had any choices (had he ever had any choices?), he would be rushing now to the nearest Catholic church.   He would be confessing his sins and performing penance.   He would take Holy Communion.   If he had to drive a priest out of bed and up to the altar, at gunpoint, if need be, to enact the transubstantiation and administer the rites.   He felt weak inside at the notion that that might not be enough.

A lifetime surrendered to the strictest monastery might not be enough.   He wanted to give himself to God down to the last atom of his being.   His mind took him on a flight to Rome.   Into Vatican City, to break into the foundations until he reached the crypt of St Peter Himself.   Then Mello found that he had the will and the inclination to blow himself up.   Something powerfully explosive, that would obliterate his flesh and bones, and would sear the very chemical elements that made him into those sacred stones.    Instead, Mello smirked at Hal and held his hand against Matt's back, so that he could feel his husband's heartbeat deep inside.

Matt stepped away, sifting through the clothing laid on the table, like this was a jumble sale.   Mello followed, maintaining the physical contact with his husband.    A rogue section of Mello's mind was working out a strategy for getting to the Vatican.   For getting past the Swiss guard.    It was countered with a secondary piece of reasoning, into which Mello was injecting all of his conscious support.   That he was thinking just like all of the other victims of that song.   That's what they did, in their own way, without either his imagination nor his genius.    Dead girls in synagogues.   Crucified boys in churches.   Mello refused to be a statistic.    He didn't survive Gorskica or Kira to fall in a much lesser case.   Self-preservation must see him push away his own instinct.   Deny St Peter, even though every sinew strained in incredulity against his logic.

Mello realised that he had been staring into space.   He focused upon Hal's worried face, as she silently surveyed them both.   Mello watched Matt pick at the two coats on offer.   There was a lacklustre expression on the redhead's face.   Mr Roberts had been a pensioner; an ex-farmer, bred to the rural fashions of West Wales.   His wardrobe was hardly cyberpunk.   Mello took the coat that looked warmest and draped it over his husband's shoulders.   He was rewarded with a flash of emerald, as Matt noticed him.   Mello turned Matt around, until he was facing him, then laid both hands on his husband's shoulders.   "On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it."

Matt blinked behind the goggles.   The thought arrived, far too late for Mello's liking, that his beautiful man was feeling as he, himself, did.   Only inside his own personal Hell, whatever that could be.    Oubliette, abandonment, neglect, divorce, loss of Mello probably.   Mello continued smiling.   Evaluating his husband.   Guessing his mind.   Fear that his whole web of lies and intrigue would collapse and bite him in the ass, possibly.   Mello frowned, wondering where that had come from.    Sometimes his brain did that to him, threw up conclusions so fast that he hadn't had time to catch the hypothesis and evidence.   They were usually correct.    He was, after all, a polymath genius.   And, he reminded himself, currently a highly paranoid one, under the influence of a supernatural force, Hell-bent on his suicide.

Hal shifted nervously by the backdoor.   "Maybe it would be better if I just went alone."

Matt pushed his goggles onto his head, trapping the long fringe beneath it.   It was a peculiar thing for him to do, Mello mused. The boy who always hid, even in peacetime. Perfecting the art of not being seen, so that it didn't matter when no-one saw him. Mello became transfixed by Matt's eyes.   Unnaturally large, stunningly green.   Gorgeous in a way that was above sexual. Ethereal.   Spiritual.   It could be a religion in its own right, staring into Matt's eyes.    Mello gasped.   His heart thundering; the pheromones bouncing between them.   "Mail."

"Don't leave me alone up here."   Matt spoke so softly that Hal scowled, straining to hear what was being said.

Mello leaned in with a kiss. "As if I could."   He winked, as he drew back.   "It's alright now, Mail.   I'm back.   No need," Mello turned his husband around.   His arm around Matt's shoulders, he took them both at a stride to Hal's side, "to worry about a thing.   This is my show.   See me blaze my trail of glory."

Hal blocked their way.   "We're only going to the top of the slope, so we can see what's happening."   She stated it with all the commanding authority of a former Secret Service agent.    "If I believe that Fenian is in the manor house, then I will be duty-bound to stop you."

Mello rolled his eyes.    "Oh Hal.   Poor Hal."   He leaned forward and grasped the door-handle, ready to turn it.    "I'm not going to take Fenian out.   He raised the challenge. I saw the challenge.   I will beat the challenge."

"By shooting him?"   Hal countered, still standing in their path, even though Matt had given her a sly smile, as he pulled his goggles back over his eyes.   Or, perhaps, Hal was there because of that smile.    She sounded a little more firm, as she looked back at the blond and snapped, "Mello?"

"Tell me, Hal, did I shoot Near when I had the chance?"   His tone was sneering.    "When you led me right into his presence, with that little charade with the gun?"   He saw her sharp intake of breath. "We both know that you could have disarmed me.    President's bodyguard; super-trained killing machine that you are."    He saw the way her shoulders straightened, square, hiding her true feelings.    "Yes, we were all under pressure and you had had a week to learn how charming I am."   Mello licked his lips.   "'There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men'."   He caught Matt's puzzled frown and laughed.   "Oh Hal.   I think you understood the rules better then than now.   We have confused you.   You've had too much exposure to us Wammy prodigies to make any sense of us anymore.   But you knew then."   Mello nodded, smiling.   "And your instinct was so much sounder for it."

Hal rolled her eyes.   "Stop patronising me, Mello.   You didn't kill Near because you thought that you might one day need him."

"You're wrong."   Mello replied, lightly, popping almost the last square of his chocolate bar into his mouth.   "There are rules, you know."

"Hollow killed people."   Hal argued.   She was still maintaining her composure, but Mello could see the conflict within.

"Hollow cheated."   Mello chomped on his chocolate, grinning.   "And it would have been no victory at all."   He felt Matt give a barely perceptible, involuntary shudder.   Mello deduced that they were treading on territory too raw for his husband to be thinking about.   Matt's inner demons.   More worldly, but as vicious as Mello's own.   Mello airily shepherded the debate back on track.   "It's pieces on a chessboard, Hal.   Surely you saw that in Near's finger-puppets."   He let his hand glide across Matt's shoulders.   Fingertips grazed the back of his neck, his palm momentarily cupping the collar, as it slid along.   "Imagine this, Hal. Imagine that you want to be the chess grandmaster.   Not a chess grandmaster, but the one.   You want to be Garry Kasparov.   You want to be synonymous with your field of expertise.   You want to be the name that people think first, when that field is mentioned."

Hal snorted in exasperation.   "I get this, Mello!   You all want to be L."

"No you don't."   Mello smirked. "You think that it's anarchy.   But it's not.   You want to be the chess grandmaster.   Do you set up a chessboard and then shoot Garry Kasparov?"   He waited a nanosecond, before answering his own question.   "No. You sit down with him and you play chess.   You win when you've out-thought, out-manoeuvred, decisively and victoriously defeated your opponent, in the sphere of battle."   He licked the very last square of chocolate, musing on his metaphor.   "Ok, I grant you this.   A few pawns might get killed along the way.    But you jealously guard and utilise your knights, sacrificing them only as a last resort; because,"   Mello flicked back his hair, pressing down the back door-handle, as he camped it up, in attitude, gesture and tone, "the queen can never die."

Hal moved back.   Mello opened the door.   The cold night blasted them, bringing with it the faint acrid scent of burning.   It was mixed in with the seaweed, salty smell of the sea wind, but Hal had been right. It was there.    It could have come from anywhere. Mello's hand slipped down, so he could entwine his fingers with Matt's.    He towed his husband out and across the farmyard, leaving Hal to hurriedly lock the house and then dash after them.    Anxiety was in her eyes, under a veneer of professional calm. She still managed a sassy look in Mello's direction, as she drew level with him.   "You didn't kill Near, because you needed him to live with the knowledge that he was beaten."

"I beat him, and Fenian too, when they and those in the know acknowledge the fact."     Mello knew when he had last felt like this.   It was in the Mafia.   Applying Watari trained intelligence to a world more ugly and gruesome than even he had been prepared for.    Cocooning his shivering soul in layers of self-righteous belief in the necessity of his actions, until he'd become convinced by his own justifications.    Living the mask that he'd worn to survive.    Suppressing, then denying, then inwardly ridiculing his own terrified core.   Only now, with hindsight, could he see how that rose conspicuously to the surface, like geysers from a super-volcano, in the crosses and icons that adorned his clothes.   In the shrines that he made, with outward humour and derision, in every hideout and Family estate.   "Any thug can kill.    There's no great skill in pulling a trigger."

Hal raised her eyebrows.   That was a statement that belied all of the hours that they both must have spent in target practice.   But she got the point.   "Why can't you work together?"

Mello frowned.    They were clear of the farmyard now, climbing up a steep slope.   Matt was already slowing.   "Perhaps you missed the point of the system.   Did you think it was about altruism and justice?"

Hal glanced sharply at him.   Matt turned his back to the wind and started having a coughing fit.    It sounded bronchial.   He was hacking fit to expel half his lungs in the process.    Mello waited, used to this.   He had no doubt that, ferocious wind overpowering lighter flames notwithstanding, Matt would conclude his choking by having a cigarette.   There was no rhyme or reason to it.   Mello never mentioned the blatant lack of intuitiveness in Matt's actions.   However, he had once overheard a conversation, conducted over Ventrilo.   Matt's debilitating coughing fit had nearly cost him a boss fight, but for the fact that his party had covered him in-game.    But the people behind the avatars had heard him.   They'd also clocked the audible click of the lighter and the obvious inhalations of smoke thereon.    Some American teenage girl had called him on his shit.   Mello had listened, with his back to the speakers, to hear the answer to the question that he would never ask himself.   Matt had muttered something about a new layer of cigarette tar keeping the crap down, thus stopping him coughing.   It was nicotine junkie bullshit and that had been stated very loudly by the female gamer over the speakers.    Matt had stopped replying to her. Mello had vaguely wondered if that girl realised that Matt would never again acknowledge her existence on this planet.

"That sounds bad."   Hal said now.

Mello interjected.   "You haven't answered my question."    Beside him, Matt spat into the grass, wiped his mouth, then breathlessly stood up.    True to form, he attempted to light a cigarette.    "Did you think that Wammy's House is about altruism and justice?"

"It's my understanding that it's about opportunity."   Hal glanced restlessly towards the brow of the slope.   She was worried about her charges.   The bodyguard and Secret Service agent impatient with hanging around to facilitate nicotine junkies.   "Mr Wammy wanting to provide the opportunity for a first class education and training, for those who would have otherwise just been lost in the system." She turned back to Matt.   She was possibly going to comment on his futile attempts to shield his lighter long enough to ignite a cigarette.   She actually opened her mouth to say something.

Mello laughed, speaking before she could.   "I do love Americans."

Hal gave him a questioning look, but recognised a diversion when she heard one.   "Well, you lived there long enough."   She gestured towards the hill.   "Shall we get going?"

"I love your blind optimism and your unfaltering national belief, even in the face of all of the evidence."   Mello fixed her with a piercing stare, fascination rife in his attention.   It was a feline swipe to see if his potential mouse would take the bait.   Hal remained silent, but her stance betrayed her irritation.    Mello judged that that was more about their incessant delays, than his subject matter.    "The Land of the Free, propelled into world leadership on foundations of slavery.    Where all people are born equal, but, until earlier this year, gays may not declare their sexuality, if they wish to enter the military; and if they wish to legally marry their partner, they must go to Mexico."    He smiled, as Hal gave him a withering look.   "Because Mexico City is far more liberal than California. Gay people can even adopt children there."

"Mello."   Hal turned on him in exasperation.   "What?" She gave him a sweeping glance, then rolled her eyes.   She gestured her impatience and made to speak again.

Mello cut her off, declaring grandly, "The Land of Justice and Fair Trials.   Despite state sanctioned extraordinary rendition, which allows suspects to be abducted from the streets and tortured for information, in nations that your government gives lip-service to condemning.   All the time using the information gained from torture, then calling it intelligence."    Mello cocked his head to one side, barely blinking.   "Then, when one of the brave victims tried to bring it to court, your president vetoed it.    He said that, though it was done under the previous administration and is therefore nothing whatsoever to do with the current one, he cannot allow a fair trial.    The evidence and witnesses called would constitute a breach of national security."

Their eyes were locked in stares.   Mello continued smiling.   Hal regarded him with some disdain.   "I know what you're trying to do.   I don't know why, but I know what.    I'm not playing this game, Mello."    She looked away and took a step up the slope. Then she swung back to regard him again.   "And do not think that I'm not playing because I'm not proud of my country.   America has a lot of flaws, but which country doesn't?    I am still proud to be American."   She surveyed him coolly. "I'm not playing because you're obviously being a jerk."

"The Champion of Democracy.   A country which, acting unilaterally, deliberately stirred the embers of social unrest in a foreign country; then, by extending pressure, as well as strategically manipulating NATO and the World Bank, all but forced it into an inevitable civil war.    Precipitating it by refusing to recognise the nation state, until it had fragmented into republics."   Mello's eyes had darkened.   There was a dangerous edge to his aura now, though he didn't seem to have shifted or otherwise altered his expression.

Matt raised his head suddenly and gave up on trying to get a light.   He turned around to face the elements, holding his unlit cigarette in his hand.   "I'm ready now."

Mello hadn't finished.    He rasped out, "A country which, incidentally, had the largest Communist standing army in Europe at the time; and which, united, stood between America and access to the Caspian Sea.    But it's all ok now.   Because the little republics aren't dangerous anymore and they have lots of McDonald's restaurants.   While America gets to visit its oil pipelines, from its new ports in the Caspian Sea."

"What?" Hal had managed to remain silent until now.    Her back and forth glances between Matt and the top of the hill communicated well enough her priorities.     "Mello, you're being a douche.    But I stand by what I said.    America has flaws, but so have other countries.    America wouldn't have such a large population, if other countries were perfect."   He made to talk, but she pressed on, raising her voice a touch, to ensure that she had the right to continue.   "And we were the only nation state with the balls to create a task force, specifically to deal with Kira. I know, because I was in it."    She watched Mello's smile grow broader. "Don't you say a word about the SPK.    We were there at the end!"   Her eyes narrowed.   "And even you had to come to America.   Even you, Mello."

Mello inclined his head.   "I concede that America has the best criminal underworld.    Even Russia couldn't compare.   None of the African states could touch you."    He started off up the hill, then thought about it.   "Had. Past tense. Had." He pursed his lips. "And Japan had a task force too."

Hal kept her head down.   She was just glad to be climbing.   The steepness tugged at both Mello and Hal's thigh muscles, despite their respective fitness.   It tore at Matt's.    However, the vantage point wasn't far.    Hal reached it first and stood there surveying the darkness below.   Mello was delayed by Matt's second coughing fit, just three paces from the top.   He made it as soon as he did by guiding his choking husband those last few steps.   By way of welcome, Hal blandly commented, "The manor isn't on fire."

The manor house looked deserted, but for the Land Rover parked outside.    Hal and Mello both stood staring down, trying to tease out stories from its squat blackness.   Whenever the moon went behind a cloud, as it frequently did, the whole building practically disappeared.   Matt finally straightened and looked too.   From the sea to the mountains, the land lay without lights.   The entire of the Ysytwyth Valley, as far as the trees and their mountain allowed the view, was in darkness.   Mello reached automatically for his chocolate bar, but it was all gone.   He straightened and asked, with forceful confidence, "Matt. Thoughts."

Matt looked from one horizon to the next.   Then gave his report.   "It's fucking freezing."

Hal was huddled into her winter coat.   "Maybe they've gone.    I know the Land Rover is still there, but if Fenian was injured, then they've left in the ambulance."

Mello shook his head.   "If it even came.."   He paused, pondering it.   "Yes, it would have come. Deontic would have sent it.   She has no reason not to and she's the sort of person who would send it."    He sniffed.   "Fenian and Kiana would have gone in that.   Century would have had the keys to the Land Rover."   A smile flickered across his features.   "The Land Rover doesn't work.   But we can still break into it and get my helmet out."    He took a step down the slope.    Hal opened her mouth to call him back, but Mello had already stopped.   "And the ambulance would have gone dead, while it was parked here.   But it's not here now."

Matt ducked behind Mello's body and embarked on another vain attempt to spark a light.   If anything, the wind here was stronger.   Nevertheless, Mello turned and used his hands, as a windbreak.   It made no difference at all.    Hal stood stoically, a couple of steps apart.    "I'm going to go down there and take a look.   I would appreciate it if you pair stayed up here."   She started to walk down, with little bouncing steps, as the path's steep descent tried to force her to run.    She was soon flanked by her companions, two paces behind, holding hands.   "I really would rather you stayed up there."

"You did very well."   Mello replied.   "You hardly rose to my provocation at all."

She kept her vision trained on the house.   "Please don't start again.   It's not intellectual sparring, Mello. It's more like a three year old attention seeking."

"No." Mello's gaze was still scanning the scenery, but he allowed it to linger on the back of her head.   "It had a purpose and it served that purpose.    Brilliantly."   She didn't respond.   "I saw a weakness and I exploited it."

Hal sighed.   They were nearly at the foot of the slope.     It was difficult to see the opening in the drystone wall, that would allow them access to the yard behind the stables.     Hal headed, instead, towards the yew tree, which could clearly be discerned.   They could follow the wall from there to get in.    As they reached it, Hal glanced at Mello.   "My patriotism isn't a weakness."   She turned.   The smell of burning was much stronger here, yet with no obvious source.

"It's enough."   Mello grinned.   "You persist in missing the object of the game."

"Which game, Mello?"

Hal turned in a slow circle, trying to locate the fire.    She was startled by Mello leaping onto the wall, right beside her, and then jumping down on the other side.   "Which one have you got?"   Mello called back, crouching down to inspect the roots of the yew tree.    Hal glanced at Matt.   He had finally succeeded in getting a cigarette lit, but his triumph appeared short-lived.   He was standing now, utterly immobile.   His gaze was fixed onto the wall, where Mello had gone over.    Mello stood.   "Why do you think we went after Kira, Hal?"

Hal raised a hand, emphatically signalling for him to stop.   "Before you go any further there, may I remind you that I lost someone very dear," she paused, but continued in the same steady tone, "someone very special, to Kira."

"Oh?"   Mello smiled at her from over the drystone wall.   "Snap.   Is this a competition?   I lost two special, dear people; plus my childhood; plus my innocence; plus my sanity; plus, albeit temporarily, my Mail; plus my good looks; and my," Mello leap-frogged back over the wall and took Matt's hand.   The redhead relaxed,   "eternal soul to the flames of damnation.   Do I win?"

"Why are you being such a jerk at the moment?"

Mello stepped behind Matt, then gathered him into his arms.    "I don't know.   Mail, why am I being such a jerk to Hal at the moment?"

Matt leaned against his husband, his back moulded into Mello's chest.    He exhaled smoke with every sign of enjoyment.    He replied precisely, softly, "It started with you explaining why you aren't going to kill Fenian."    He took another drag.   "Then it escalated."

Mello's teeth grazed over the tip of Matt's right ear.   He had to nuzzle into the thick, red hair to find it.    He hissed out, "Have I told you recently that you're fucking gorgeous, guapo?   You sexy bastard."

The corners of Matt's mouth twitched.   "Define recently."

Hal trudged past them, following the grey-white contours of the drystone wall.    Her body language emitted the clear communication that she had had enough of procrastination.    Even so, she still felt the need to justify herself as she walked by. "I can definitely smell burning."

"Hal."   Matt spoke in such low tones, that she had to stop.   Mello might be heard across a courtyard, but Matt required proximity.    "On your 11th birthday, you were asked how you wanted to celebrate it."   Hal retraced a couple of steps.   The wind was carrying his words away.    "You opted to go to the cinema to see an R rated movie.    It was a little old for you and your parents weren't sure.   But you begged and they gave in."   He took a long drag on his cigarette.   Mello was smirking over his shoulder, watching Hal.   Hal gestured helplessness.   She couldn't remember the birthday in question. Before she could query its relevance, Matt went on.   "You went for the simple reason that it would give you kudos at school.   None of the other kids had the excuse of a birthday as leverage to see the movie.   But it was the biggest thing out at the time.   It was in all of the papers."

Hal shook her head.   "I'm sorry Matt.   I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You will."   Matt stated, with unwavering certainty.   "It changed your life.   Not because it pointed the way to a career, but because it made you one of the cool kids.   Having parents who would take you.   Being able to say, first hand, that you had seen it.   It made you seem just that little bit more mature than the other kids, though, of course, you weren't."    He inhaled smoke, but talked through its exhalation.   "That seed grew into people treating you as a little older, a little wiser.   It was the foundation of your confidence now.    That's how it changed your life."

Hal looked utterly puzzled.   "I honestly can't remember.    My 11th birthday was a long time ago."    She looked around her, then back at them.   They were waiting.   "I'm sorry. Remember I'm not the genius here. I'm just the mere mortal.   How is this relevant?"

"Good answer."   Mello appraised, absently.   His main focus appeared to be kissing and sucking along Matt's jugular.

Hal watched them.   "I can't tell what's important here or if you're both just being assholes."

Mello raised his head again and smiled.   "Assume the latter, with me."    In his arms, Matt sniggered, his gaze never leaving Hal. Mello resumed his attention.

She started to move away.    Matt called after her, though she still had to return and have it repeated, before she heard it properly.     Matt had finished his cigarette.    He told her, "You've still got the movie in your collection.    You think you like it now because of certain parallels which, though not exact, are enough for some identification to take place.    When you consciously muse upon that, you feel a little guilty.    But amused guilty.    Not least because the protagonist is a Baltic genius and you have to make do with a Slav."    Matt leaned his head further backwards, resting it more onto Mello's shoulder now, than against the side of his cheek.   Mello had, for the briefest moment, stopped sucking Matt's throat, though his lips remained.   Hal, in watching, never knew about that pause.    Mello carried on, but his kisses now were slower and his suckling barely raised a love-bite at all.    He was deep in thought, though only Matt had discerned that.

Hal shuffled uncomfortably.   "I haven't got any Baltic films."   She seemed pained.   They all knew that she would have walked away by now, if it had been Mello, not Matt, talking.     Matt rarely spoke in public.   She had also read his file and knew that he had issues concerning authority figures ignoring him.   Hal remained, trying not to fidget too openly, in her zest to be away from them and inspecting the property.    "It might help if you told me the name of the movie."

"No."   Matt returned, with barely a pause.   He lifted his head up, in order to view her better.   "Because you've since assigned false meaning to it.   It will colour your perception."   He shook out another cigarette, but didn't light it.   "The actual truth is that you didn't really follow it very well, the first time that you saw it, at the cinema."

"Theater."   Mello corrected.   "American English when you're conversing with Halle please, Mailito."

Matt turned his head so his face was less than an inch from Mello's.    Mello smiled and kissed him.   Matt whispered, "I don't like Mailito."

"I know."   Mello replied, mildly.   Matt frowned, but repositioned himself to watch Hal again.    Mello wasn't finished.   He kissed up to Matt's ear, then murmured into it.   "But I've worked out what film it is and you're lucky I'm not calling you It Matters.   Bitch."

Hal wrapped her arms tightly about herself, stamping a little to prompt some feeling back into her icy feet.   "Are we done now?"   She glanced first at Mello, then at Matt.   Neither immediately answered.   "Ok."   Hal shuffled, with all indication of moving away. "I'm so done here.   I'm going to have a look around."

Matt let her go four paces, before continuing.   She returned.   "The important thing then was not the film itself.   It was the fact of seeing the film.   You were much too young to see it, but your parents took you anyway, because you asked.   There's power in that.   The knowledge of power, in negotiating some growing space, right on the cusp of puberty.   Before you can extend your boundaries, you first have to know that they're there.   This incident gave you that."   Matt smiled, watchful.   "And the aforementioned popularity, at school, allowed you to sail through puberty with your self-esteem intact.   Not a mean feat.   Not to mention that it made you feel good, during a key development period, when feeling good can be awfully confusing."   Matt squirmed slightly, as Mello's hand, hitherto hidden between them, snaked suddenly over Matt's shoulder.    He was cuddled backwards, into the tight embrace.    "Those two facts together gave you the confidence to become the adult that you are.   That's how important that film, on your 11th birthday, was to you."

Hal had a distant gaze.   They both saw the moment of illumination strike.   "Shit!   You're talking about 'Silence of the Lambs'!"   She gestured, dismissively.   "Jeez!   Way to overstate things.   It's a good movie.   But Clarice is FBI and I never was. Plus we come from totally different backgrounds and have different motivations."   She rolled her eyes.   "Just because we're both blonde and..." Her eyes met Mello's and she realised the rest of what Matt had been implying.    "I certainly don't associate Mello with Hannibal Lecter!"   She looked back at Matt.   "Do you?"    Matt just smirked.   Hal grimaced. "Oh! I see. That's why he's been eating your neck!"    She shook her head and traipsed off across the sheep grass.    Her hand trailed along the drystone wall and, within a few feet, she was lost from view.

Mello breathed a half-laugh.   Matt glanced at him.   Mello straightened and watched the wall, looking for signs of Hal's continuing presence.    He quietly informed Matt, "I wasn't.   I was just leaving my mark."    He traced a finger over one of the love-bites.   "The bottle is still there."

"Stating the obvious much?"   Matt replied, blankly.

"Where did all that shit about Hal come from?"

Matt shrugged.   "It's obvious."

"How can it be obvious, when you've just made it all up?"   Mello prodded Matt until he stood upright, then took his hand and began walking with him.   They went just a short distance back the way they'd come, but much further along, until they were nearly parallel with the gate.   "Can you actually see a thing, Mail?"

"Nope."

"Take the goggles off then."    Mello's hand rose almost immediately.   His fingers touched Matt's lips.   The redhead fell silent before he'd had a chance to respond.    Mello's own night vision had adjusted very well.   He was watching Hal returning to the spot where she had left them. She was silhouetted very well against the sky, despite the overcast night.    But they were against the mountain and therefore practically invisible.   Mello murmured, into Matt's ear, "Such a schoolgirl error."

Matt huddled into Mello for warmth, though the biking leather just felt cold.   He whispered, "If we're going to hide from Hal, why did we follow her down the hill?"

"We're not hiding from Hal."   Mello smiled.   "She's right there."   He surveyed the outline of her.   "She's very good though. She hasn't called out once."   His hand jabbed out to capture Matt's, just as the redhead was about to attempt to light a cigarette. "Mail."

"You said we weren't hiding."   Matt resisted Mello's attempts to extract the lighter from his fingers. "I won't light up."

Mello nodded, "Ok, just a quick one then.   I have a plan, but I need to get to the chalet, before I come back up here.   How can that happen, Mail?   Without me leaving you alone, I mean."

"I'll walk down the mountain. I'm not walking the fuck back up it again."

Mello looked pensive.   "What are the chances of Fenian and Century fucking off home, without swinging by the chalets first?"

"Probably high."

Mello grimaced.   "I was hoping to do this the easy way.   Going to be a bastard, if we have to trawl all over to Galway to hunt Fenian down.   Hate taking people on, when it's their own turf."    He watched Hal start to walk in their direction and hissed urgently. "She's coming.   Quickly then.   Bullet points.   Need to visit the chalet.   Need a face to face with Century, Fenian and Kiana.   Don't want to have to kidnap Siân. She'll talk my fucking...."

Hal yelled suddenly, "Mello!   Here!"

Mello's stomach turned.   His fingers tightened around Matt's bicep.   Outwardly, he was calm, maybe even seemingly bemused. Inwardly, he was resisting the urge to flee.   Because Hal's call had come from behind them, over the drystone wall and halfway down the track.   But the black silhouette of her was still approaching, from the opposite direction.    It was almost upon them, just feet away.    The moon was still covered.   There was no light.   The form was still featureless.   It was with them.   The shape of a woman, close enough that they should feel her breath on their faces.    Mello desperately stared, trying to make out something, anything, to identify her.   Her eyes, her nose, her mouth, her chin.   He knew where they all should be, but she was a patch of inky blackness filling nearly all of their vision.

"Mello!"   Hal bellowed again, from the track behind, an urgency piercing her tone.

Mello tore his gaze away, risking a quick look behind them.   He glimpsed Matt's face on the way, pure white and totally distinct. He and this woman were in the same light, but there was nothing to see of her.    Mello felt himself scrutinised.    Every inch of his face was looked over.   There was no breath on his face.    She shifted and did the same to Matt.   That galvanised Mello.   "Hey."   He tried to say, but his voice came out hoarse and barely audible.    It didn't still her.   She completed her myopic inspection of his husband, though it was difficult to tell what she was doing.     The unsettling notion occurred to Mello that she was actually sniffing them.   That felt worse.   Primeval.   Bestial.   He lashed out.   "Get the fuck away from him!"    He tried to say, but his mouth was moistureless and his tongue stuck to the sides of his mouth.   His fist flew straight through her, meeting no resistance along the way.

Then she turned and simply walked away, back along the drystone wall, back towards the yew tree.    She never once looked back.   They followed her progress, with stunned stares.   Mello knew the exact moment when Matt's eyesight gave out, because his husband released a breath and his shoulders slumped.   But Mello could still see her.   His visual acuity was 20/20 and he had no orange lenses to layer more darkness into his field of vision.   He watched, in horrified fascination, her steady stroll back level with the yew tree.   He saw her stand by the wall.   She just stayed there.   She didn't disappear nor walk away.   His heart in his throat, Mello dared not take his eyes off her, in case she came back again.    Matt could see, from Mello's reactions, that his husband still had her in his view.    Matt waited, statuesque, for something to happen.

Hal's call, this time, sounded so much further away, though she was obviously shouting at the top of her voice.   She was somewhere in the copse, on the other side of two drystone walls and a dirt-track.     Mello had to swallow half a dozen times, before his mouth had enough saliva to form a sound.   "She shouldn't be going off on her own."   His flittering gaze finally broke, just long enough to glimpse Hal's direction, before it was drawn magnetically back.

The woman under the yew tree was gone.

Author's Note: This story is being discussed here: http://mrsjeevas.joharrington.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=11
- 38
- 39
- 40
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Annals of Fear II