In a roaring frenzy Reuben broke loose of him, slamming the creature,s inner arms with two monstrous blows from the backs of his paws and shattering the creature,s grip.
Again, Reuben hurled him backwards and his head again struck the wall. Instantly, he recovered and sprang at Reuben, those powerful thighs catapulting him forward, his paws driving Reuben back and down, scrambling, to the floor.
Reuben rose up under him, and with his right arm dealt him one fine blow that stunned him. But he came down over Reuben again, his fangs snapping above Reuben and then sinking into Reuben,s throat.
Reuben felt the pain, felt it infinitely more intensely than he had that night. In a positive fury, his paws thrust the creature up and away. He felt the blood gushing, the heat of it. He was on his feet, and this time he slashed wildly at the creature, kicking the creature as the creature had kicked him, raking the creature,s face with his claws, gashing open the creature,s right eye. The creature bellowed, and thrashed at Reuben, and Reuben lunged again and clamped his teeth down on the side of the creature,s face. He drove his fangs deeper and deeper, his teeth grinding the creature,s jawbone, the creature screaming in pain.
I can,t overpower him, Reuben thought wildly, but he,s not able to overpower me. Again came the creature,s knee, his foot, and those iron arms held him back. They were dancing together away from the wall. Hang on, hang on!
With a fierce growl Reuben ripped with his teeth, ripped as he had at the flesh of the mountain lion, and he knew in that instant that he hadn,t dared to use that full savagery until this minute. And now he must use it or die.
Again and again his left claw tore at the creature, at the creature,s gushing eye socket, while he held fast to his head with his aching jaws.
The creature was bawling, cursing, cursing in a language Reuben could not understand.
Suddenly the creature went limp. The iron arms dropped. A loud gurgling cry came out of him.
Reuben saw the beast,s one good eye staring forward, as the beast slumped but did not fall.
Reuben released him, released his torn and bleeding face.
The thing stood helpless staring upwards with that one good eye while the other eye socket pumped blood. And Laura stood directly behind the beast, glaring at him.
As the monster doubled over, Reuben saw the ax embedded in the back of the creature,s skull.
"I knew it!" the beast roared. "I knew it! I knew it!" He wailed in rage. Frantically he sought to reach behind himself for the ax handle but he couldn,t command his arms, couldn,t make them stop shuddering, couldn,t bring his paws down on the ax handle. Blood and foam poured from his gaping mouth. He turned round and round, staggering to stop himself from falling, maddened, howling, gnashing his teeth.
Reuben pulled out the ax blade by its long handle, and as the creature reeled, he struck at the creature,s neck with his full strength. The blade crashed through the mane and the fur and sank into the flesh, severing the neck halfway. The monster went silent, jaws loose, slobbering, giving only a low hissing sound.
Reuben yanked the ax free and swung it with all his might again. Mercifully the blade went through, and the creature,s head fell forwards and crashed to the floor.
Before he could stop himself, Reuben had grabbed it by its thick hair and flung it into the fire. The body, as if deflated, collapsed heavily on the Oriental rug.
Laura let out a series of gasping cries. He saw her in front of the flames, bent double, moaning, rocking, pointing at the fire, and then she fell backwards against the nearby chair and tumbled to the floor.
Hysterically she screamed, "Reuben, get it out of the fire, out of the fire! Please, for the love of God!"
The flames were licking at the thing, licking at its bleeding staring eye. Reuben couldn,t stop himself. He snatched it free of the blazing logs and dropped it on the floor. The smoke rose from it like dust. A few errant sparks flared in its writhing hair.
Then it was a swollen and bleeding thing, a ruined thing, tangled with blood, and blind. And dead.
Come poetry, come fantasy, come wild imagination, come dreams. The gleaming black hair began to fall away from the head and the body which lay only a few feet away. With no force to retract it, it fell away as the head appeared to shrink, and the body to shrink, and in a nest of hair, hair dissolving slowly around them and under them, body and head were the man again, naked, and slashed and seeping blood and dead.
Chapter Twenty-Two
REUBEN SANK DOWN on his knees and sat back on his heels. All his muscles ached. His shoulders ached. The heat in his face was almost unbearable.
So I,m not a Morphenkind. So I,m odious, loathsome, an offense. Well, this offense to the species has just killed this Morphenkind with a little help, of course, from his beloved and her ax.
Laura began to cry desperately, almost as if she was laughing, her sobs and cries erupting uncontrollably. She knelt down beside him and he took her in his arms. He saw the blood being smeared all over her white gown, all over her hair.
But he held her close, stroking her, trying to calm her. Her cries were heartbroken. Finally, she sobbed without making a sound.
Reuben gently kissed the top of her head, and her forehead. He brought up a knuckle of his paw and touched her lips. Smeared with blood. Too much blood. Unspeakable.
"Laura," he whispered. She held fast to him as if she was drowning, as if some invisible wave might sweep her away.
The man,s remains were hairless now, as if there had never been any hair at all. Only a coarse and barely visible dust covered him and the surrounding carpet.
For a long moment, they remained still, Laura crying ever more softly, exhausting herself in her tears, and then finally growing quiet.
"I have to bury him now," said Reuben. "There are shovels back there in that shed."
"Bury him! Reuben, you can,t." Laura looked up at him as if awakened from a nightmare. She wiped at her nose with the back of her hand. "Reuben, you can,t simply bury him. Surely you realize how valuable, how utterly priceless, this body is - to you!"
She climbed to her feet and looked down at the man from a little ways off as if she was afraid to go closer. The head now lay on its side, the left eye half closed and yellowish. The flesh of the face and body was faintly yellowish too.
"In this body are all the cellular secrets of this power," Laura said. "If ever you are to find out, if ever you are to know. Why, you can,t discard this thing. That,s unthinkable."
"And who,s going to do the studying of this body, Laura?" asked Reuben. He was so exhausted that he feared the change would come, too soon. He needed his strength to dig a hole deep enough for this being,s grave. "Who,s going to biopsy the organs, remove the brain, do the autopsy? I can,t do those things. You can,t do those things. Who can?"