OTHERWISE
Elke

---

Chapter Six

Catherine scarcely realized that he sank back, turned her around and smothered her face in kisses. Only when, still holding her in his arms, he climbed out of the pool, and the chilly air met her wet skin, did she become aware of the reality again and was thankful when he quickly swathed her in his cloak.

But she didn't become completely conscious of what had happened until they were back in his cavern and she was lying in his arms again - warm, satiated and exhausted in a wonderful way.

While his hand softly stroked her back, she ran her fingers through the silken hair on his chest. Never in her wildest fantasies had she dared dream that lovemaking could be like this. Vincent had touched something that had been hidden deep inside her, something she hadn't known existed at all - an impetuous, unaffected sensuality that she had never felt before. Almost as elemental as his own passion that had overwhelmed him when he realized she wouldn't shy away in fear and abhorrence. And yet there had always been a certain untamed tenderness between them - even when they had reached the peak of ecstasy. For when they had lost control they had lost it together.

Feeling her eyelids growing heavy, she snuggled up to Vincent even more closely. They had been one - not only in the union of their bodies. And although this feeling had weakened by now so that she sensed it just like a faint echo in her mind, she was sure that one day its strength would last. One day she and Vincent would be one forever.

*

A sudden movement at her side startled Catherine out of her sleep. Vincent, who had just been cuddling up to her back, cradling her in his arms and sharing his warmth with her, had jumped to his feet with a jerk. Hastily slipping into his jeans, he only stopped to throw her clothes to her. "Get dressed! Hurry!"

Too drowsy to understand, Catherine put on her jogging-suit. Only when she was already lacing her sneakers, did she think of asking him the reason for his turmoil. But then she, too, could hear what his sensitive ears had distinguished much sooner: footsteps and voices that were coming closer very quickly.

Torn between fascination and horror, she watched the man in whose arms she had just been lying, turning into a wildly snarling creature that had scarcely anything in common with a human being.

Every muscle, every sinew of his body tensed; his eyes flashed with pure aggression; the veins in his neck swelled, even his mane seemed to bristle.

Arms bent, fingers splayed, he reached the doorway at a leap - ready to attack anyone who would dare to appear there. Without doubt he felt himself threatened - but by whom?

The raging mob... His lifeless body on the ground... The golden circlet smeared with blood...both sapphires broken out of the lion's head. Empty eye sockets reproachfully glared at her. `You're too late,' a voice jeered, `too late...'

Horrified, Catherine shook her head. Was she still asleep? Was this a nightmare?

She turned in order to reach Vincent, to hold him, to calm him, but wasn't able to move. The voices had grown louder; were coming directly from the entrance. She knew the man who was speaking now; it was William, the corpulent cook, whose meals had always been a delight for her taste buds.

"We know she's here!" he yelled. He was so enraged that Catherine hardly recognized the man who always treated the children so kindly.

"We won't let you hold her prisoner again!" Taking a long step toward Vincent, he brandished his bat. "Let her go or..."

Vincent ducked the expected blow like a wildcat preparing to jump. Peering over his shoulder, Catherine could see some other men, amongst them Matthew and Stephen. They were all armed with iron bars and long sticks and obviously ready for anything...

Catherine didn't have time enough to wonder if Jacob Wells knew anything about it; she had to hurry to reach Vincent before he could attack somebody. His furious snarl rose to a frenetic roar, and even though the men shrank back briefly, Catherine reached the doorway just in time.

There was no chance for her to think - she reacted instinctively. The same moment Vincent darted forward she threw herself toward him.

Their collision was hard and painful; it took her breath away. She tumbled...fell...and was caught by two strong arms.

Swaying because of his sudden stop, Vincent pressed her to his chest, apparently forgetting the armed men and what he'd just been about to do. Only his labored breathing and the enormous tension in his muscles revealed the state he was in.

"No...Vincent...no!" Catherine stammered, when she was able to speak again. She didn't realize that she was stroking his hair and his back - to the boundless amazement of the men who had just come to help her.

When she felt Vincent's rage subsiding, she turned to the men and smiled involuntarily. Their baffled faces would have been really funny in a less serious situation...

"Thank you," she said to the cook who was standing next to her. "I really appreciate your efforts to help me, but it's not necessary. I'm here because I want to be here!"

"But..." William stared at her as if she had just explained that from now on the sun would rise in the west. "We thought..."

"Father told us that you had gone down on your own! We were worried about you!" Pascal answered instead of the cook. "We were sure you would get lost. The tunnels are like a labyrinth, they are full of dangerous clefts. We were afraid you would fall..."

"Yes!" Now William, too, had recovered from his shock. "But then Stephen came and said that he had heard you talking to...him..." He pointed his bat toward Vincent who, still ready for attack, was standing behind Catherine. "We had to assume that you were in his power again. After all that this bastard has done to the boy..."

"Just a moment!" Catherine cut in. She looked into the boy's eyes, hoping, her gaze would be as penetrating as she intended. "Perhaps Stephen would tell us what he and his friends had in mind!"

Uncomprehendingly, Stephen stared at her. "What do you mean?"

"I, too, would like to know! And, maybe, somebody could explain to me what's going on here!"

Their heads turned in the direction from where the voice had come. Braced on his cane, Jacob Wells was standing in the corridor, fixing the group over the rim of his glasses.

The old man's natural authority made the men look at their weapons in embarrassment. All too well did they know their leader's view on any kind of violence.

"I suspected something like this!" His gaze caused the guilty bowing of some heads. Matthew and Pascal furtively leaned their sticks against the wall, and the cook slowly turned the bat in his hands.

From behind her back, Catherine heard a relieved sigh. Turning her head, she saw that Vincent had visibly relaxed. His posture was still that of a hunted animal, but he didn't look as aggressive as before. In his eyes showed relief and, to Catherine's surprise, a hint of admiration, too. It seemed that he was impressed by the old man's calm self-assurance.

Now she remembered Vincent's assumption that Jacob Wells wouldn't believe him. The older man's opinion obviously mattered to him...

"Quite honestly, I don't know what she's talking about..."

Stephen's voice sounded so helpless that Catherine became uncertain. The boy didn't look as if he were trying to fool her. But...this would mean... Had Vincent lied to her? She refused to believe that. The pain in his eyes had been just as real as Stephen's confusion.

"Yes! What do you want Stephen to tell?" In his endeavor to help the boy, Pascal came closer. He was stopped by a warning hiss.

"I want him to tell you...," Catherine broke off. She turned to Vincent and gave him an encouraging smile.

He'd better speak for himself. The men would calm down when they realized that they were not confronted with a mindless animal out of control. And perhaps Vincent, too, would understand that problems could also be resolved by talking.

Vincent hesitated for a long time. He lowered his gaze, but he still sensed their eyes directed on him, making him feel very uneasy. If the doorway hadn't been blocked he would have disappeared with his head raised and without a word.

"They," he uttered then, "intended to chain me!"

"That's a lie!" Raising his stick, Stephen made to pounce on him, but was held back by the other men. "He's lying!" he shouted, struggling to get free. "Don't believe him a word, Father!"

"Don't deny it!" Vincent's thundering voice made them all start back. "I heard your talk. Do you want me to repeat it word for word?"

"Stop! Please! Calm down!" Jacob Wells reached the group. Letting his eyes wander from Vincent to Stephen and back again, he found genuine indignation on their faces. Both obviously thought they were right. It was just surprising to him that two men had to keep hold of Stephen, whereas Vincent was held back only by Catherine's small hand slightly touching his chest.

"That doesn't get us any further," he said. "Stephen, do you remember what you and the girls were talking about that evening? I get the impression you and Vincent are talking at cross purposes."

"Yes, of course!" The boy didn't need to think about it. "About a poem we'd read in the afternoon and..." Suddenly he rolled his eyes. "Oh, no! He heard us talking about ... Benji..."

"Benji? Am I supposed to know somebody named Benji?" Father asked.

"It's a...dog." Stephen bowed his head in embarrassment. When he looked at the older man again, his eyes were asking for lenience. "I fed him when I was last Above. And then he ran after me, I couldn't get rid of him..."

Jacob Wells nodded. "So you brought him down here! Stephen, you know what I think about animals in the tunnels. These creatures need freedom and sunlight, they would suffer in the darkness."

He didn't realize the wince Vincent gave - only Catherine noticed it. Soothingly she stroked his chest. You're not an animal! she thought. No, you are not an animal!

"Yes, I know!" Stephen admitted. "But all the children love Benji! We thought if we tied him up for a while...if you didn't see him immediately... We hoped we could persuade you..."

"I understand." Jacob Wells had heard enough, "so, it was all just a misunderstanding." He cast Vincent a reproachful glance. "With very dangerous effects..."

"The boy wasn't in danger for one second!" Vincent replied hastily. He didn't know why he was justifying himself at all. Yet listening inwardly, he recognized that he wanted to win the older man's acceptance.

"No? He wasn't in danger?" Jacob Wells adjusted his glasses. "What would you call it?"

"I was...," Vincent's voice lowered to a whisper, "nearby until you found him. I wouldn't have let him fall into the abyss..."

*

For the tunnel community it became an exciting morning, and the unbelievable news spread like wildfire. Father had brought him along! The one they all feared so much, was sitting in Father's study, having tea with their leader! A murmur ran through the world Below - and suddenly everybody had to do something nearby.

Although nobody dared to enter the room they all tried to take a peek at him - at least they wanted to be told by William how frightening his hands looked, yet how gently he had held Catherine.

Like everybody else the cook alternated between refusal and fascination. Scarcely anybody had ever seen Vincent in person; for most of them he was just like a myth, but everyone had heard about the cruelties he was alleged to have committed. And at least some of all that had to be true...

When he put back his cup on the table, Vincent's hand was shaking slightly. On the one hand Jacob Well's invitation had quickened his heartbeat, and even though he had accepted it only hesitantly, he had taken it as a sign of the old man's trust in him. Yet, sensing the turmoil his attendance caused, he felt highly uncomfortable.

When he had lain in the hospital chamber, hardly able to sit up in his bed, he hadn't created such a stir. For Jacob Wells and his people it was just natural to help everybody who was in trouble - besides he had been much too sick to be regarded as a potential danger so then it had been much easier for them to accept his presence. But now...

Totally concentrated on controlling his alarmed senses, he wasn't aware that he was firmly holding Catherine's hand while he guardedly got into the conversation the old man tried to start with him.

Jacob Wells knew that he had to be very cautious. Avoiding any topic that would possibly induce Vincent to grow angry or to retire into himself, he tried to keep up a very one-sided, dragging and somewhat strange kind of small-talk, thankful that he was at least given a link by the illness Vincent had gone through.

As Vincent had broken off the antibiotic therapy much too early, Jacob expected the inflammation to have flared up again. But subjecting his unconventional patient to a final examination, he found the wound closed; only a thin scar was left. His broken ribs, though, still caused Vincent pain. He didn't show it, but his muscles tensed immediately whenever the examining hand touched an aching spot.

When Catherine and Vincent left the room, the older man's eyes followed them thoughtfully. Vincent's reticence hadn't made their `talk' informative enough to learn anything about his nature, but possibly it had been a beginning. Jacob hoped that one day Vincent would accept his invitation to come back. He would have liked to know more about him... Perhaps they could even become a little acquainted with each other - though this would take much time and even more patience. Three decades of estrangement couldn't be undone so easily. But it was worth trying - not only for the safety of the people living down here. Despite all Vincent might have done - in a way he, too, was a victim, and he, too, needed care and understanding, even if his pride didn't allow him to admit that.

Sighing, the old man sank into his easy-chair and watched the dancing flame of a candle. Once there had been a child whose solitude and pain had never been eased; a boy that hadn't been guided by a father's loving hand. And now there was a man who had probably preserved a part of his sensitivity despite all he had gone through.

If only he took the proffered hand. Maybe it wasn't too late...

*

All the way, he had held her small hand in his, and now, knowing she would leave him soon, he was hardly able to unclasp his fingers. The pain of parting was too new, too strong. Something he had never felt before, threatened to tear him apart... Vincent knew that he had to let her go and yet he wanted nothing more than for her to stay.

"Vincent, I must go..." Her voice, the way she was looking at him should have told him that for Catherine, too, it wasn't easy to say goodbye.

"Tomorrow..." He broke off abruptly. What he was going to say was a date. Never before had he made a date with somebody...

"Will I see you tomorrow?" he gasped out, instantly growing furious with himself because the question had sounded so harsh. It should have been a request...

When Catherine regretfully raised her shoulders, he felt his stomach tense. She wouldn't decline...she couldn't decline after all that had happened...

"I can't promise, Vincent! Tomorrow I start a new job and..."

"I understand," he cut in. His disappointment burned like fire. He should have known... In her life there was no place for him...

Brusquely he shook her hand off. She had only played with him...even when she had been lying in his arms, giving herself to him. To her, he was nothing but an exotic affair that she would possibly remember from time to time...

Catherine noticed his abrupt change with confusion. All at once his features had hardened, the expression in his eyes had grown colder...distant...as if an invisible wall had suddenly risen up between them.

"Vincent?" She lifted her hand in order to touch him, but froze in the movement. His face made her shudder. What had she done to him that he glared at her this way?

He saw the question in her eyes, felt her uncertainty and averted his face from her, sighing. It wasn't her fault - he had to blame himself. He had been crazy to hope for affection from her - to hope for anything from her. Even though for a brief time she had almost let him forget who he was...what he was.

Impetuously spinning around, he turned his back on her and escaped into the darkness. He had to get away from her before she realized what was going on inside him and he made a fool of himself.

It had been wrong to open himself to her; he had gone too far - now he had to pay for it. Their time together, everything she had given to him, had only been a gift, a favor he had unexpectedly been granted. And he'd been foolish enough to think their being together would mean something to her...he would mean something to her.

The lesson he was given now was painful but effective. Never again would he forget what he was and where he belonged. Never again!

*

Only when the pain in his chest became almost unbearable, did he stop. Panting for breath he leaned against the rocks for some time, then he resumed his path back down into the darkness, down to his world...his black prison...

When he reached the deeper sections the moist heat came through his clothes but he did nothing to find relief.

Had he really been furious about some children just because he had thought they were going to chain him? This was much worse than chains could ever be! It was his grave in which he would be imprisoned for all his life. Alone... Nobody would stand by his side to ease his solitude.

The slight smell of burning was still hanging over the cavern John Pater had lived in. His throat felt sore - down here not the slightest draught stirred the stale air.

Determinedly he crossed the room and stopped in front of a wall of book shelves.

As he had expected, he found the books almost completely destroyed by smoke and flames; charred scraps of paper whirled through the air when he opened one. Angry with his inability to assess the consequences of his actions as long as he was blinded by rage and hatred, he hurled the volume away as if it had burned his fingers.

Most of these books, though, he had already read - secretly, whenever he had got the opportunity. He couldn't remember exactly when the rows of letters had made sense to him for the first time. Maybe he had been about seven or eight years old when, hiding behind a big, old mirror, he had watched Paracelsus' fruitless efforts to instruct Erlik in reading and writing.

Erlik whose dull mind had never been able to...

At that time and for some years afterwards, being so neglected had hurt him deeply. Until he had realized that it was just another kind of humiliation which John had devised especially for him, because he had refused to identify himself with the dark side of his being.

Maybe, Paracelsus had hoped to break his will by providing Erlik with intellectual education but putting Vincent, with greater intelligence, in his place. Animals were not taught to read...

For all that, he had learned it - through his capacity for observing and comprehending. Never had he revealed that he could read - but after deciphering the first words in an old basic school book he had suddenly felt a little more human.

This illusion had comforted him, and his dreams had carried him into a world of light and beauty where he'd been allowed to laugh, to play...to live. In this dreamland he had been loved - he, the prince wearing the golden circlet with the sapphire-eyed head of the lion.

For a short period of time he had actually thought that one day he, too, could become a human being... But that hope had dissolved just like his dreams always did when he opened his eyes in the morning. And one day he had understood that there was no chance...that there had never been a chance for him.

Holding a small, almost undamaged volume in his hand, he left the room in order to go back to his own cavern where the air wouldn't burn in his lungs like hot steam. He'd never seen this book before - perhaps it would help him to put the woman out of his mind. Nobody was worth so much pain.

He sank down on his sleeping-place and put a candle stump near the head of the mattress. On opening the book he snorted with disappointment. Poems...poems again!

Usually he read everything he could get - no matter whether it was something of John's specialist medical literature or an adventure story. He had devoured works of the world literature as well as reports on foreign countries and continents which he would never see - but poems didn't mean anything to him. Poetry didn't strike a chord in him.

It was only because of his despairing frame of mind that he didn't throw the book away but reluctantly started to read. He had to take his mind off things or he would run up to the city and give way to his anger there. And afterwards he would feel even worse, for his grim satisfaction always turned into boundless self-contempt as soon as the veil of overpowering rage released his mind. Even poems were better than that!

What is my way; where do I go?
I'm wandering all around.
Until my fear will melt away
And I become the sweet, soft sound
Of the strings you play...

Repeating the words in a low voice, he stared down at the book. These lines made sense, he couldn't deny. In a way, he was even reminded of himself...

He, too, was drifting through his life and didn't know where his destiny would lead him, even though for some days he had thought to see the reason of his life clearly before his eyes.

"Until my fear will melt away...," he whispered. For so many years he had thought that nothing, absolutely nothing, could ever scare him. Then, six months ago when he had freed Catherine and afterwards had been on his own again, had he realized what he feared most. His aloneness...

In the last few days, when Catherine had been with him, she had eased this aloneness - and trustfully abandoning herself to his desire, she had taken it away from him completely for a brief time. He had become her instrument, and only she could make his strings sound softly...

Hastily he turned over some pages, and when he found the next verse that touched him he murmured the words to himself,

"...Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry;
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby.
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on through love's eternity..."

This was what he had longed for all his life. To be loved; to be loved for love's sake - for being the one he was. Catherine had been so close to giving this to him. Lying in the hospital chamber he had still sensed a touch of pity within her - but later her compassion had given way to other feelings. And yet he still couldn't be sure whether or not she loved him.

Again pain and longing came over him, but although he was hardly able to hold the book in his shaking hands he didn't put it away.

He had misjudged poetry completely. There was a deep truth in each line - he only had to open his eyes to see...

As if he were intoxicated he flicked through the book, repeatedly coming across lines that touched him, stirred him, comforted him and recalled the time spent with Catherine. The words couldn't ease his pain, but they gave him the certainty that he had gained something he couldn't lose.

The memory of her was his. Nobody could take it away from him.