Merciless 7: Elena and the Tiger Vi Moreau and Suzanne Herring Write the authors c/o Bridget Mintz Testa, btesta@houston.rr.com. RATING: PG-15 for language and one sexually-suggestive scene Rainforest of Northern Malaysia November 2008 Elena Duran stared into the tiger's green, intelligent, merciless eyes, trying very hard not to move, but it was a lost cause. She could feel the tremors overtaking her aching muscles as the fever burned its way even through her Immortal constitution. The left side of her belly felt swollen and so tender she didn't think she could stand up straight, and the pain in her shoulder was sharp and recent. For a few days now she'd known she was being stalked by a large animal, and here he was in the flesh. And bone. And muscle, claws, sharp teeth. A damn fucking tiger! God, he was big! [!Carajo!] Elena had moved from her tent on the ground up into the crotch of a tree, making an uncomfortable makeshift bed from her blanket and some leaves and grass, but at some point in her feverish thrashings she'd fallen out of her perch and landed hard, twisting something in her shoulder. Lying semi-conscious on the bare ground, shivering, she'd heard a noise and risen to one knee, grabbing for her sword. That was the position she was in now. She remembered reading that tigers were night predators and attacked only from ambush, from behind, but it was still light enough that she could very clearly see this animal, who looked old and half-starved, but was still big and strong enough to rip her apart. He crouched a mere five meters away from her, trying to decide whether to have himself an easy, early dinner. What the hell was that sound, like a motor running? Oh God, it was a growl, deep in that massive striped chest just between huge clawed feet and a head the size of her torso--and now he was baring his teeth, not teeth, fangs that were going to pierce the back of her neck and break it while his claws tore into her soft belly and eviscerated her so he could eat her intestines or her liver or ... Elena had not been brain-dead enough to enter a jungle unprepared, but her rifle was up in the tree, completely unaccessible. If she hadn't run out of food and spent the last two days eating grubs and drinking rain water; if she weren't wet to the bone, bitten by every insect in the tropics and had forgotten what soap felt like; if she weren't suffering, again, from malaria -- Maybe I'm hallucinating. Maybe this tiger isn't real. Maybe I'm home in bed in Argentina and having a bad dream. Maybe I'm not real. No. She could see the darkening trees, hear the jungle noises, smell the tiger. Hell, she could smell herself: the hot sweat from the fever and the cold sweat of fear, and surely the big cat, who was even now settling into his haunches, ready to spring, could smell her too. She tensed, waiting for the leap, hoping she could get her sharp blade between the cat and herself. But really, wouldn't the tiger be doing her a favor, putting her out of her misery? How badly did she want to live anyway? That was easy--long enough to kill the bastard she was hunting, Hartmann. Long enough to decapitate the son of a bitch who had removed from this world a totally defenseless and beautiful creature whose only sin had been to trust him. Maria Feliz Betancourt was a Mexican Immortal who for the last two centuries had slept with every man she could, and she preferred Immortal men. "One day one of them is going to kill you," Elena had warned her friend. "No. I'm too good in bed," Maria Feliz had answered, her eyes sparkling. "They'd rather screw me than kill me." Well this Hartmann had screwed her, killed her, then robbed her, and he was going to pay and he couldn't hide in that Buddhist temple forever! "You can't hide on Holy Ground forever!" she yelled into the forest that had been her home for over two weeks now. Her outburst startled the tiger, who shook his massive head, then snarled and spit at her. She remembered you were not supposed to look dangerous canines in the eye, but what about felines? Should she pretend submission or get to her feet and charge at him? Yeah -- like she could even stand! Suddenly she felt extremely faint; her grip slipped from the hilt, and her blade fell to the jungle floor with a thud, no doubt disturbing more insects which would bite her tonight. She fell forward onto hands and knees, her head up, still watching the big cat and even more terrified. [!Ayudame, Dios mio!] she prayed as the tiger growled once more then mercifully melted back into the trees. For long moments Elena waited, panting, straining to see in the coming darkness or hear over the pounding of her heart or smell if he was coming back, from behind? But she was a sitting duck here, so when she felt a smidgin stronger, she put her sword back into the scabbard, crawled to the foot of her tree and slowly, laboriously muscled her way up, collapsing in a completely exhausted heap. The last thing Elena wondered before passing out was if tigers could climb trees. When she awoke the next morning the tiger had not climbed the tree in the night, although she could see a rather large snake -- a constrictor, by the width of it -- too near for comfort. She hoped she was too big for the snake to eat. She felt a little better, and decided to risk going down to heat up some water for coffee, stirring in the last bit of her powdered milk, and never mind that the ants had gotten into it. More protein, she thought to herself. She felt cooler, which meant the fever had gone down, which meant she was finally beating back the malaria and could get back to the business of hunting Hartmann. But she was tired of waiting for that fucking Austrian. She had tracked him for nearly four months, from Mexico to Brasil across to Africa, Nigeria, the Sudan, and now here. It was a quest for her, made easier by Hartmann's choice of venue. He should have gone north, to the fiords and mountains, instead of south to Africa and Asia, where tracking a tall, blond blue eyed male required only money, time and persistence. Four months, and he had finally holed up in the most unlikely place, a small Buddhist temple set apart from a tiny village, both deep in the jungles of Malaysia. "You can't touch me, you bitch!" he'd yelled out at her from inside. And she'd waited him out in the jungle, her sword always in its scabbard at her waist. The temple was just far enough from the village that she couldn't stay there and still sense him. But she was tired of eating rodents and snakes and grubs -- often raw, as it was generally too wet to build a fire -- and sweating out first dysentery, then malaria, and now dodging tigers and ever-bigger snakes. The waiting was over. Today -- no, tomorrow when she felt stronger -- Hartmann would die, or she would. As the day passed, she felt stronger. She found some fruit which didn't taste too bad, and she'd become an expert at finding insects. She even managed to catch a lizard that, even raw, made good eating when washed down with collected rainwater. It was an hour before dark and she was just getting ready to climb her tree for the night when she made a horrible realization. She couldn't sense him. She couldn't sense Hartmann. How long had it been since she'd paid attention? If she couldn't sense him, that meant -- "No, not again, not this time!" she yelled as she picked up her rifle and ran through the trees, heedless of catching branches and tripping roots, up the broad stone steps of the temple, banging on the metal doors. No, he couldn't be gone, he couldn't ... After an interminable wait the door was opened by the same small, ochre-robed Buddhist monk she had seen two weeks before, the one who had not allowed her inside, undoubtedly because Hartmann had told him she was trying to kill the Austrian. Which she had been, and still was. "Hartmann?" she asked him again. He stared into her eyes peacefully, his gaze going to the sword hanging from her waist and to the rifle clutched in her hand. She ignored his silent condemnation. "Where is Hartmann?" she asked, knowing he understood what she meant. For an answer he waited, then pointed toward the jungle. Hell, at least it gave her a direction. Kind of. Maybe. "When?" she asked. "When did Hartmann go?" she said, pointing to her watch, belatedly noting that the man wore no watch and probably never had, and never would. No answer, no indication. With a curse, Elena turned and plunged into the jungle. The best and easiest way to get out there was the same way they'd come, on the river, so she headed in that direction, satisfied that she'd scuttled his boat and hoping he wouldn't locate hers. Finding his trail was easy. The man was not really at home in the wild, and she could only speculate that he'd come to such a remote place hoping she wouldn't follow. A miscalculation on his part, as she was still following, reading his recent tracks and trying to sniff him out, like a predator smelling for her prey, and within minutes she sensed the Immortal. The scum. Enraged and still feeling sick, Elena rushed into a small clearing to find Hartmann sprawled on the ground. He turned to face her, an animal at bay, rising to his knees, and she could see how gaunt he looked, how much weight he'd lost. She probably looked as badly as he did. He was disheveled, with torn filthy clothes, dirty matted hair, and several days growth of golden beard on his chin, and there was no hope left in his eyes. And mostly -- he was afraid. She could smell his fear, even over the smells of the jungle and their stinking bodies. "Why?" he asked her in Spanish. "Why can't you just leave me alone!?" "Where's your sword?" she growled impatiently, seeing that he didn't have it. She was so exhausted or sick that she was seeing double, but she was determined to finish this. "Do you think after what you did that I won't kill you if you're unarmed?" "What was Maria Feliz to you? Your student? Your teacher? Your lover!?" he snarled. His defiance gave her strength. Elena swallowed, her face grim as she drew her sword. "She was my friend," Elena whispered. "Then join her in hell!" he yelled. Elena's eyes grew with wonder as she noticed two simultaneous things. Hartmann -- fuck him! -- was pulling a gun out of his pocket, and something big had just emerged out of the trees behind him. The tiger pounced on the kneeling man from behind just as Hartmann fired, the bullet striking Elena in the left side of the head. She screamed and dropped like a stone, trying to hold onto her sword. She heard Hartmann's agonized screams just as she passed into semi-consciousness. It was still twilight when she opened her eyes, her head already clearing a bit, hearing ... it was the noise made by a large animal eating. The tiger noticed her movement and turned to her, snarling his displeasure and his challenge. Elena was frozen with horror at the sight of the big cat's gore-covered mouth and nose, great gobs of what looked like Hartmann's intestines dripping from the tiger's fangs. And the sounds Hartmann was making! Oh, God -- the tiger was eating Hartmann alive! As much as she'd seen death and bloodletting, she felt her skin crawl and she wanted to vomit. She couldn't see the rest of the Austrian clearly, and the cat abruptly leaned down savagely, breaking off Hartmann's horrible cries. In another moment the tiger had picked up his limp prey in his jaws and laboriously carried the man off into the growing darkness of the trees. It never occurred to her to follow, to make sure Hartmann's head was separated from his body; she didn't really want to see any more. All she could think of suddenly was getting to the safety of Holy Ground. She stood shakily, wiping the blood from her eyes. It took her two tries to get her sword back into her scabbard, and she began to stumble back in what she hoped was the direction of the temple. But she hadn't gotten too far when she felt the electricity in the air, and she knew she wasn't going to be able to get out of range in time. OH, NO! She could hear the tiger roaring and she thought: Serves you right for biting his head off, you stupid, flea-bitten -- And at that moment all thought stopped as Hartmann's Quickening, which had searched her out and stalked her just like the tiger had, blasted her from behind with some pleasure and a lot of pain but the worst thing was living in Hartmann's mind those last few minutes -- she could feel in her own body the tiger tearing into her belly, ripping out her insides, his jaws just a few centimeters above her, dripping with her life's blood. "God, please make it stop!" Elena sobbed, helpless to do anything but relive Hartmann's agony. She lay trembling until she finally felt free of Hartmann, until he was gone, then she pulled herself back up to her feet and laboriously made her way back to the temple, crawling up the steps and collapsing just outside the ornately carved double doors. I'm going to die here, right outside Holy Ground, she thought as she heard the triumphant roar of the big cat echoing through the jungle night, and the last thing she saw before she passed out were the outstretched arms of the Buddhist monk. Translations: !carajo! (Spanish) - dammit ayudame, Dios mio (Spanish) - help me, God