This story is set immediately after the finish of “Murder on Voodoo Island” Part II.  A little darker than what I’ve written in the past, but that’s just the direction the story went.  An extra special thanks to Theresa and Kass for helping me meet my self-imposed August deadline.  Thanks for the beta and home for my fic, as always.  Any remaining flubs are mine.  If you want to drop me a line about the story or just S&H in general, I’d love to hear from you at veniceplace12@verizon.net!  Happy reading!

 

 

 

Aftershock

By Kate (CMT)

 

Starsky frowned as he trailed Hutch from Chief Godfrey’s office.  Nothing had made sense from the moment they’d landed on Playboy Island, so it should have come as no surprise when the airline he’d talked to only ten minutes before, now told him their earliest flight wouldn’t depart for another four days.  A “records glitch” the booking agent politely informed him when he complained he’d been told there was a flight leaving later that night.  Suddenly the seats Hutch had booked on a DC-10 three days out looked like the only available tickets.  So much for a quick exit from the island.

 

Any other time Starsky would have enjoyed the delay, even found a reason to prolong it.  He and Hutch were in the center of a lush island paradise, surrounded by blue-green tropical waters, sparkling beaches and scantily-clad women.  What man in his right mind wouldn’t want to be stranded as long as possible?  Sun, water sports, recreation and more beautiful women than he could count, all within a step from their hotel room.  He was living every man’s fantasy, so why did he feel uneasy?  And why had his normally upbeat partner - -  who had done nothing but rant about how he wanted to enjoy himself ever since they’d landed on the island - - suddenly go from being buoyant and chatty, to tight-lipped and sullen?

 

‘Cause of Papa Theodore.

 

Starsky grimaced.  The man the locals called the “Haitian Blood Drinker” had escaped from police custody only hours after being escorted to prison.  How he’d managed it was still a mystery. Starsky would have liked to chalk it up to ineptitude on the part of the local cops, but feared Papa Theodore really did command some strain of malevolent power.  How else could he have bewitched him into attacking Hutch - - an event Starsky still couldn’t recall except in foggy bits and pieces? 

 

He chewed on his bottom lip, letting the sun-baked heat of late morning wash over him.  After just a few days on the island, he’d grown used to it, reveling in the cooling breezes that blew from the ocean.  It was almost eleven o’clock, the sleepy island community waking to the lazy pace of another day. No one rushed in the small city, fretted over looming deadlines, or kept a schedule of must-do appointments.  Life on Playboy Island was slower, self-indulgent and gratifyingly peaceful.  

 

Starsky didn’t have time to appreciate any of that, however, for his single-minded partner had set a beeline for the hotel.  Hutch looked a little too intense to be thinking about fishing, his body rigid, thoughts racing helter-skelter behind his light blue eyes.

 

“Hey.”  Starsky jogged to his side, flashing a quick smile.  He’d played the part of instigator in Godfrey’s office, hoping to get a rise from Hutch with news of Papa Theodore’s escape but hadn’t really meant anything by it.  He’d just wanted to ruffle his friend’s always precise and unflinching feathers, something he rarely succeeded at doing.  He hadn’t expected Hutch to do more than raise a single eyebrow and tell Godfrey his men needed a refresher course in prisoner transport.  That would be Hutch - - college-bred, far too educated to believe in superstition, folktales and mystical religions like voodoo.  Except he’d done a complete 180, growing nervous, and that was glaringly out of character for Mr. It’s-Just-Superstitious-Nonsense Hutchinson. 

 

“Hey, what’s the hurry?”  Starsky tried again.  “I thought we were goin’ fishin’?” 

 

He hated to fish.  Freshwater, saltwater, man-in-the-moon water, it didn’t matter - - one was just as bad as the other.  But he was still feeling guilty for attacking Hutch and wasn’t above going the extra mile to make his friend happy. From the time they’d crawled out of the ocean after that ugly incident on the cliff, Starsky had felt the compelling need to touch.  To make sure he hadn’t hurt Hutch.  On the beach and even in the jungle below Thorne’s house, he’d struggled to reinforce their bond through a pat on the shoulder, a lingering touch on the arm or back.  Realistically, those exchanges were more for himself than Hutch.  He couldn’t remember what he’d done on the cliff but wanted to make sure Hutch understood how sorry he was.  They’d argued in the past, on two occasions had even traded a single blow, but never like this.  Never with the intent to viciously hurt, to kill.  One exchange had been staged.  During the other, Hutch had been out of his mind with grief over the loss of the woman he’d loved.

 

If I could only remember what happened on that damn cliff, Starsky thought sourly.

 

“Hutch?”  His fair-haired friend still wasn’t answering, causing Starsky’s bubbling anxiety to escalate another notch.  “Huggy’s got that hunk-a-junk boat rented for the rest of the day.  We could take it out again . . . even if the thing does sound like a garbage compactor on steroids.”

 

“Sure, okay.”  Hutch spoke a little too quickly, almost breathlessly.  His eyes were still straight ahead, fastened on the hotel.  It was hard keeping up with him when he fell into a purposeful fast-walk.  His legs were just too long, giving him the advantage of height and speed.

 

“Hey, slow down, will ya?”  Starsky complained.  “It’s not a race!”  

 

“Huh?”  Hutch blinked as though waking from a fog.  He flushed guiltily, only then realizing he’d been plowing ahead at a marathon pace. He sent Starsky a flighty smile.  “Sorry, buddy. What were you saying?”

 

Starsky frowned.  “I was talkin’ about goin’ fishin’.  Huggy rented that boat for the whole day.  Aren’t you the one who’s been complainin’ about wantin’ to enjoy yourself ever since we landed on this island?  I thought maybe you’d want to go back out on the ocean with a couple of rods.  Our S.L.O.B. cover’s blown.  Might as well enjoy ourselves as two cops playin’ tourist.”

 

“Yeah, okay.”  Hutch’s comment was preoccupied and quick.  No offhand remark about how much Starsky hated fishing and large bodies of water in general.  Not even a semi-acknowledgement that the dark-haired detective had been anxious to get off the island.  Distracted, Hutch rubbed a hand over his throat, grimacing slightly.  “You know if Huggy’s got any fishing gear?”      

 

“He rented that boat fully equipped, remember?  You’re the one who told him to put the lines out while he was waiting for Godfrey.”  Starsky’s frown deepened into a heavy scowl.  It wasn’t like Hutch to be so absentminded. 

 

His friend gave another inattentive nod and rubbed his neck again.

 

“What’s the matter?”  Starsky felt a burgeoning prickle of alarm.  “Your throat hurt?”

 

“Huh?  Oh - - no . . .”  Hutch shook his head.

 

“Hey.”  Starsky laid a hand on his arm, drawing him to an abrupt halt.  The blond-haired man threw him a quizzical glance, emotions, thoughts and feelings carefully shuttered away behind a veil of gold-tipped lashes and sky blue eyes. 

 

“You okay?”  Starsky asked.  I tried to kill you, I know that.  And the guy who plotted the whole ugly mess is runnin’ around loose.  If you’re pissed or worried spit it out, but don’t do this silent number on me. 

 

Hutch feigned nonchalance.  “I’m fine Starsky.”  One brow rose into the fringe of his bangs.  Just a few days on the island and already the sun had lightened his fair hair with beach-washed strands of platinum and white.  With a deeper tan, Hutch could easily look the part of island surfer.  As it stood now his fairer skin carried the reddish hint of a mild sunburn.

 

“So you’re okay . . . hangin’ out for another three days?”  Starsky persisted.  He decided to skip tact and go directly to the heart of the issue.  “It doesn’t bother you Papa Theodore’s runnin’ around somewhere, likely pissed as hell we ruined his plans?”

 

Hutch gave a short laugh.  “Starsk, come on.  It’s the twentieth century.  You think I’m gonna worry about a voodoo witch doctor when I can be soaking up the sun, drinking margaritas and relaxing on a fishing boat?”

 

“Who said anything about margaritas?”  Starsky smiled despite the semi-insistent voice that told him Hutch was being evasive.  He still hadn’t let go of his friend’s arm.  His fingers tightened over sun-warmed flesh, feeling the hot slick of perspiration courtesy of a tropical sun.   I didn’t wanna hurt you.  Whatever he made me do . . . whatever I tried to do on that cliff . . . Hutch, you gotta know I’d never hurt you, babe.  Wish I could find a way to apologize, but I don’t know what I’m apologizin’ for.  I can’t remember a damn thing.

 

As if interpreting his anxiety, Hutch flashed a dazzling smile.  “You really gonna fish, Starsk?”  He swatted Starsky’s hand.  The casual swipe was enough to make the other man release his grip.  “I thought you hated anything that involved a rod and a reel?”

 

“Shows how much you know.”  Starsky started walking again, feeling slightly better.  At least Hutch wasn’t rubbing his neck anymore.  Did I try to choke him?  “I’m broadenin’ my horizons.  Might even earn me one of those Ocean Scout things.”

 

Hutch chuckled.  “Sea Scout,” he corrected, falling in at Starsky’s side. “And I think it’ll take more than an afternoon on a boat to make a sailor out of you.”

 

+++++

 

Starsky didn’t think there were enough afternoons in the world to make him comfortable on the ocean.  Fortunately Huggy was in control of maneuvering the boat, steering them out into the blue sea until the white stretch of beach was only a speck on the horizon.  He could see the jutting silhouette of their hotel rising above the shorter bulk of assorted luxury condos, upscale lodgings and glittery nightclubs. From a distance, the shoreline looked ragged and gray, a cardboard cutout rimmed by sparkling sand.  Waves lapped gently against the hull of the boat, the only sound but for the occasional cry of a sea bird and the muted beat of reggae music wafting from the aft speakers. 

 

Starsky fidgeted with his rod, undecided if he should check the bait again.  He opted for a swig of beer instead, setting his can aside with a grimace. There was nothing worse than lukewarm alcohol after it had baked in the sun.  He debated about getting a fresh one from the cooler but decided it wasn’t worth the effort.  He’d lost track of the amount of time they’d spent on the water, tooling from one end of the ocean to the other, all of it looking the same fishless blue to him. 

 

A glance to the front told him Huggy was fiddling around in the driver’s seat, trying to rig his rod with fresh bait after getting snagged by a mammoth clump of seaweed.  Hutch had sprawled on the deck near the motor, forsaking his rod completely.  Stripped, except for a pair of belted white denim shorts, he was lying on his back, stretched comfortably on an oversized beach towel, eyes closed, body lax.  Starsky knew he’d fallen asleep some time ago, and although he was loathe to disturb him, he also knew if Hutch didn’t move soon, he’d end up looking like a lobster tonight.

 

“Hey, Blondie, you better get outta the sun or roll onto your stomach.”  Starsky pulled on his line, feeling it bob up and down.  He still hadn’t figured out how to tell the difference between an actual ‘hit’ and the normal drag from ocean current.  He’d already made a fool of himself twice, convinced he’d hooked Moby Dick only to find a clump of seaweed dangling from his hook when he’d wrestled his line in.

 

“Hutch,” he said loudly, noting his friend hadn’t moved.  “I ain’t gonna tell you again.  Don’t expect me to rub menthol shavin’ cream all over you when you can’t sleep tonight ‘cause you got fried.”

 

“My man, you wanna be kinky, don’t advertise it,” Huggy called from the front of the boat.  “What you and the Nordic blond do on your own time is your own business, but the rest of the world don’t gotta know, you dig?”

 

Starsky laughed.  He took another swig of his beer before remembering the sun had toasted it into something oven-hot and nauseating.  “What’s wrong with you, Hug?  You never heard of using menthol shavin’ cream on sunburn?”  He spat the taste of aluminum and curdled hops from his mouth.  “Eases the sting.”  Shooting a perturbed glance at his friend, he broke his own rule about not repeating the order.  “Hutch, will ya roll onto your stomach please?”

 

“Mother Hen Starsky,” Huggy said with clear amusement.  Standing, he moved to the side of the boat and shook his line over the rail.  “Guess all that stuff with Thorne wore out Mr. Fit-and-Perpetually-Healthy.”  Drawing back, he angled a cast over his shoulder, grinning when his freshly baited hook plopped beneath the waterline.  “I thought your better half over there was the one who wanted to play Swiss-Family-Robinson and fish for dinner?”

 

“Me too,” Starsky muttered.

 

Hutch shifted and rolled onto his stomach, burying his face in the crook of one arm.  If any of them had a right to be tired, it was Starsky.  He was the one who’d tossed and turned all night, plagued by nightmares, courtesy of Papa Theodore.  The only reason he was out on the water to begin with was because he thought Hutch had wanted to go fishing.  His blond friend had lasted little more than an hour before abandoning his rod and opting for a mid-afternoon nap in the sun.  Starsky would have preferred to be back at the hotel, lounging around the pool or hanging by the beach bar, even playing another round of golf . . . anything but the water.  He wouldn’t mind trying the jet skis down at the lagoon, but this sitting on a boat, trying to nab a fish from an ocean full of assorted fintails was like digging for a needle in a haystack. 

 

“What time ya got?” he said to Huggy.

 

The black man shrugged.  “Time enough to know we’d starve to death if we had to do this for real.”  He blew out a long sigh and shook his head.  “Just so you know . . . I left a mighty fine fox this mornin’ just to haul this vintage tub onto the water for your sorry behinds.  Much as I like you two, I’d rather be spending my time with my own personal vixen, if you know what I’m sayin’.  Seems to me the Viking prince could be takin’ a beauty nap anywhere . . . like on the beach or in his hotel room.”

 

“I hear you.”  Starsky stood and stretched.  He’d been thinking pretty much the same thing.  He guessed it was already after three o’clock, and it would take them at least another hour to reach the marina and dock.  Although their cover had been blown, the S.L.O.B. boys were still being friendly with them and had invited them to a closing night party at the hotel.  Tomorrow the rubbish conventioneers would pack up and leave, but tonight they were celebrating in style with a live band, extensive buffet, open bar and girls.  Starsky was hoping to go back, maybe take a quick swim, then clean up and shower before the party started at seven o’clock.

 

Reeling in his line, he gave a jerk of his head to Huggy, indicating he should do the same. 

 

“What about - -?”  Huggy nodded to Hutch, lying oblivious at the rear of the boat.   

 

“He ain’t even gonna know,” Starsky said quietly.

 

“I heard that,” a muffled voice responded.

 

Starsky rolled his eyes but indicated Huggy should get the boat underway.  Setting his rod aside, he walked to the rear and sat on the deck near Hutch, his back against the side.  “So are you really tired, or are you just bein’ anti-social?”

 

“I’m enjoying the sun, Starsk.” Hutch didn’t bother to move, his face still buried in the crook of one arm, voice muffled.  The reddish tinge of too-much sun was more prominent on his back than his chest.  Sighing, Starsky looked around for the small duffel bag he’d brought.  He’d packed it when he’d thrown beer into the cooler, bringing along a few snacks, some local newspapers and sunscreen.  Normally Hutch was the one who thought of details, but his friend had grabbed nothing more than a towel, looping it around his neck.

 

Spying the duffel a short distance away, Starsky stretched to the side and snagged it by the handle.  Dragging it close, he fished in the open mouth until he located a small tube of sunscreen.  He could feel heat on his own skin, knew that his shoulders had already crisped a little, but he had the natural protection of a darker complexion. 

 

Upending the tube, he squeezed it in the center, depositing a quarter-sized glob of white goo in the middle of Hutch’s back.  Caught off guard, Hutch hissed in a breath and jerked onto his elbows.  “What, the - -”

 

“Quit your whinin’.  It’s just sunscreen, and I know it ain’t cold.”

 

“No. It’s hot, Starsky.  I’m already sweating here.”

 

“Well maybe you wouldn’t be if you weren’t playin’ rotisserie in the sun.”  He gave Hutch a shove between his shoulder blades.  “Lie down and let me get some of this on you.”  Frowning, he rubbed the sunscreen over Hutch’s back, working it into his shoulders, smoothing it down to the line of his shorts.  The scent of coconut oil and jojoba filled his head, making him think of long ago vacations on the Jersey shore when his parents had packed him and Nicky up for a weekend at the beach. Something tightened in his stomach.

 

Hutch had relaxed again, his cheek resting on crossed arms, his face turned away from Starsky.  Huggy shifted the old boat into gear, revving the motor to life.  It cut through the water, leaving a streak of bubbling white foam in its wake.  The rumble of the engine drowned the music coming from the speakers and vibrated up through the deck.  The ugly thing in Starsky’s stomach clenched down hard.  His hand stilled on Hutch’s shoulder.

 

“My dad took me boatin’ once,” he said through the sudden lump in his throat.  “Out on the bay, off the Jersey shore.  I was ten . . . right before he died . . .”

 

Alerted by the change in his tone, Hutch rolled onto his back and sat up.  His eyes narrowed in studied concentration but he didn’t say anything.  Trying to gauge his friend’s mood, he wet his lips.  “Starsk?”

 

“Jersey.”  Starsky gave a soft snort.  “That was a lifetime ago.”  His right palm was slick, coated with lotion.  He wiped it dry on his denim cut-offs.   “I think that’s the only time I ever liked the water.  Just me and him . . . not fishin’ . . . just ridin’ . . . he even let me drive the boat.  It was just one of those small things . . . like a john boat, but with a deeper vee.  He got shot two days later.  Never have liked the water since.”

 

“We didn’t have to come out here,” Hutch said quietly.

 

Starsky cast a glance to the front of the boat.  Huggy had his back turned, concentrating on driving, giving them the luxury of a few minutes of privacy.  Starsky had once heard voices were magnified on the water, but he knew as quietly as they were talking, Huggy couldn’t overhear.  “Yes, we did . . . ‘cause he can’t get to us out here.  ‘Cause I ain’t gonna lose you like I lost my dad.”

 

“Starsky, nothing’s going to happen - - ”

 

“You’re damn right.  I don’t think he likes water.  I think that’s why the spell broke when we fell.  I ain’t gonna let him do it again.”

 

“Who?”  Hutch’s voice had thinned, growing hoarse at the edges.  Self-conscious, he rubbed his throat.

 

I did try to choke him.  I wrapped my hands around his neck and squeezed for all I was worth. 

 

“Papa Theodore.”  The damn bastard. “I’m only sorry I didn’t hit the SOB harder when I had the chance.”

 

Hutch forced a smile.  Starsky had known him far too long not to recognize that it was staged.  “Starsk, will you forget about that guy?  Let Godfrey worry about him - - ”

 

“ - - not till you tell me what happened on that cliff.”

 

“What’s it matter?  You weren’t yourself.”

 

“I tried to kill you.”

 

“Damn it, Starsky, we’ve been through this.”  Irritated, Hutch reached aside, gathering up his sunglasses and shirt.  “I told you, you didn’t hurt me.”

 

Wish I could believe you.

 

Starsky watched as his friend shrugged into his shirt with clipped movements.  Hutch slipped his sunglasses on, gathered up his towel and walked to the front of the boat on the pretext of saying something to Huggy.  Dejected, Starsky leaned his head back against the hull, craning his neck to watch the sky pinwheel overhead.

 

Papa Theodore had made him attack Hutch.  What was to prevent the voodoo priest from doing it a second time?  Wouldn’t he try that much harder to overcome the disgrace of failure?  Not only had Starsky and his partner broken the curse of the death dolls, but Starsky had knocked him cold.  That was something a man as puffed up and proud as the Bokor couldn’t let go unchallenged.  The only way he could reclaim the reverence and fear of the native islanders was to destroy the two men who had upstaged him.  He already had a direct link to Starsky.  What would happen if the next time Starsky really did choke Hutch to death?  What if he couldn’t stop himself, if Hutch couldn’t overpower him, if - -

 

Groaning, he scrubbed a hand over his face.  He couldn’t, he wouldn’t hurt his friend again.  His mind was stronger than that, he was stronger than that.  But Hutch was acting edgy and nervous, not at all himself, and that was making Starsky more than a little panicky. 

 

Hooking a hand over the rail, he pulled himself to his feet and walked lurchingly to the front.  He’d never quite gotten the knack for moving when a boat was under speed.  “Hey,” he called to the two men under the canopy, one fair and sunburned, the other dark and ebony-skinned.  “Who’s up for a round of jet skis?”

 

+++++

 

For someone who didn’t like the water, Starsky was surprised that he actually wanted to race around on a jet ski.  Of course it was a little like putting his Torino on the ocean . . . a beefed up, customized, flashy machine that oozed horsepower and speed.  Huggy declined, running off to see his “foxy lady” when they docked, but Hutch agreed with the same preoccupied air he’d used when consenting to go fishing.

 

Starsky had hoped to get some kind of competitive rise out of him, but Hutch was mostly quiet, nodding when Starsky spoke to him but otherwise staying silent. 

 

Maneuvering the jet ski was harder than Starsky initially thought and he spilled it in the lagoon three times before finally getting the hang of it.  Hutch, on the other hand, who’d grown up on the shores of Lake Superior and was naturally athletically inclined, made handling one look effortless.  They spent an hour on the water, during which time Hutch actually seemed to be enjoying himself, before turning in the rentals and heading back to the hotel.

 

“Not too bad for a guy from Brooklyn, Starsk,” Hutch said as they entered the lobby of the hotel.  “A little work and you might even make a sea scout.” 

 

Starsky felt the cool rush of air conditioning wash over his sweat-slicked skin.  Despite spilling the jet ski a number of times and getting dunked in the process, he was still looking forward to a dive in the hotel’s pool.  His dark hair had mostly dried, coaxed into tangled curls by the hot afternoon sun.  All in all, he felt considerably better than he had that morning.  Hutch seemed relaxed, his smile easy and genuine, even if his voice sounded a little hoarse. 

 

“Another hour and I woulda put you to shame, Blondie,” Starsky countered.  “You grew up on water skis.  I’m at a disadvantage.”

 

“Hey, lookee here - - it’s Night and Day!”

 

Starsky stopped, turning on his heel at the sound of their “undercover” names.  Jerry Perry and Bill Hill were striding across the lobby, each with a Playboy “attendant” hooked on their respective arms.

 

“Now you boys weren’t thinkin’ of cuttin’ out on us, were ya?”  Jerry asked, halting them just outside the hallway to their room.  “It don’t matter a hill of beans whether you’re cops or garbage men, long as you’re here to have a good time.  Right, honey?”  He grinned suggestively at the shapely brunette attached to his hip.  Starsky saw that her name tag read “Paradise.”   The blonde clinging to Bill Hill was just as shapely, wore the same black-and-white skimpy bikini with stiletto heels, and bore the name “Trinket.”

 

“Uh . . . sorry about that,” Starsky said with a grin. He shrugged, looking from Hutch to the bubbly foursome.  “ . . .I mean about the name thing.”

 

“You mean lying?”  Bill asked bluntly then let loose with a guffaw that was picked up and echoed by Jerry.  “Hell, we don’t care.  Fact is, I told Jerry from the get-go you were the sorriest excuse for garbage men I’d ever seen.  Knew you weren’t in the trash business, ain’t that right Jerry?”

 

Jerry’s head bobbed up and down.  “Right as rain.  We just wanted to make sure you boys are still coming to the big S.L.O.B. shindig tonight.  We figure havin’ cops as honorary members is a good thing.  I mean those gals  - - Silkie, Easy and the others - - who’da known they were tangled up in that Thorne mess?  It’s been the talk of the hotel all day long.  You boys might not know it, but you’re royalty around here.  Gotta have you at our bash.”

 

“Okay.”  Hutch gave a quick nod.  “We’ll be there.”

 

“Not soundin’ like that you won’t.”  Bill poked a finger at him.  “What’s the matter?  You gotta sore throat?  No time to be gettin’ sick and missin’ our party.”

 

Self-conscious, Hutch cleared his throat, raising a hand to instinctively rub his neck.  “I’m fine.  We just came off the ocean . . . jet skis.”

 

“Ahhh!”  Jerry elbowed Bill with a grin.  “Playing it fast and loose, showboatin’ for the fillies, huh?  Isn’t enough doin’ the macho cop thing.”

 

“You know how it is,” Starsky said, trying to hurry the conversation along.  He grinned and waggled his eyebrows, getting another guffaw from Bill.  As much as he was looking forward to a party with a live band, beautiful women and dancing, he wished the S.L.O.B. conventioneers didn’t have to be so . . . slobbish.  It was like being surrounded by a group of lounge lizards and used car salesmen all rolled into one.  “We’ll be there tonight,” he said, catching Hutch’s arm and starting to tug him backward down the hall.

 

“Hey - - hey, wait!”  Jerry called.  “We don’t know your real names . . . you know, your cop names.”  More guffaws from Bill who seemed to find every remark worthy of a stand-up comic.

 

“Starsky.  And Hutch,”  Starsky said pointing first at himself, then Hutch. Two more doorways and they could duck inside their suite.  He waved, still grinning, then turned quickly and dragged Hutch by the arm. 

 

“What’s the hurry?” Hutch hissed.

 

“You gotta ask?” 

 

“Right.”  Hutch chuckled softly. 

 

Inside the suite, Starsky dropped exhausted onto the couch.  “That’s it.  If Dobey ever asks us to go undercover as garbage men again, I will personally turn in my badge.”  Huffing out a sigh, he planted his feet on the coffee table.  “No party’s worth this.”

 

“Aw, come on, Starsk.”  Hutch strolled to the terrace, pushing open the door and stepping outside.  Warm air flooded the suite, sticky with the tropical heat of late day.  “Live music, pretty girls . . . you’ll be in your glory.”  Looking first to the left then the right, Hutch craned his neck as far as he could see before stepping back inside.  Starsky watched as he crossed to the bedroom, then the bath, opening each door and switching on the lights.  Returning to the living room, he tossed his keys onto the coffee table.  “Wanna shower first?”

 

“I’m gonna go take a dive in the pool.”  Starsky studied him a moment, bothered by the hoarse thread in his voice, the strange visual check he’d just performed.  “Wanna tell me what that was all about?”

 

“What?”

 

“What?” Starsky gave a short incredulous laugh.  “How ‘bout the surveillance-walkthrough you just did . . . perimeter, bedroom, bath.  We settin’ up camp I don’t know about?”

 

Bothered by the observation, Hutch tried to shake it off.  “It’s nothing.”

 

“Nuthin’, huh?”  Starsky lurched to his feet and walked around the sofa to confront his friend.  “You’re startin’ to freak me out, Hutch.  You’ve been about as chatty as a clam ever since we left Godfrey’s office, you fall asleep in the middle of the afternoon, and now you’re layin’ down perimeters around our hotel suite.  If you’re bothered ‘cause Papa Theodore - - ”

 

Hutch blanched.  “Don’t be ridiculous.”   He recovered quickly, turning away, dragging a hand over the back of his neck.  “Look, I’m gonna take a shower.  It’s already after 6:00.  Why don’t you go take a dive in the pool, and we’ll go down to the party later?  It probably won’t even get interesting until around 9:00 anyway.”

 

Starsky scowled.  He knew his friend wasn’t being truthful, knew that something was bothering him, but if he pushed the matter now, Hutch would get defensive.  “Sure, okay.”  Disappearing into the bedroom he did a quick change into swimming trunks, grabbed a towel from the adjoining bath and headed back out to the living area.  He found Hutch sitting on the sofa, one elbow propped on the arm, staring thoughtfully out the sliding door.  

 

Two more days of this, he reminded himself, then we can be off this island.  “Sure you don’t wanna come . . . for a swim?”

 

Hutch managed a token smile, but shook his head.  “No thanks.”

 

“Okay.”  Starsky tried to keep the situation light, even though the unease he’d felt earlier was growing.  “Just don’t hog all the water.  See you in about an hour.”

 

He was out the door and down the hall before he realized he didn’t have the charm Aunt Minnie had given him for protection.

 

+++++  

 

Hutch stood under the spray of lukewarm water, one arm braced against the front of the shower stall, chin tucked close to his chest.  Within seconds the water cooled, rolling over his heated skin, matting his hair to his head.  He didn’t understand the strange fatigue that had plagued him ever since rescuing Janice and her father from the Thorne estate, but had no such uncertainty about why his throat was sore.

 

Swallowing, he grimaced against the pain, raising his free hand to rub the abused tendons in his neck.  He knew Starsky hadn’t meant to hurt him.  His friend had been dazed, clearly bewitched during the violent attack.  Even so, that knowledge couldn’t halt the ugly memory of his partner pinning him to the ground, hands wrapped around Hutch’s throat while desperately trying to choke off his air.

 

Hutch’s initial reaction had been shock.  When his dazed mind finally responded and he could think past the horror, he felt only anguish.  During those precious seconds when confusion and terror reigned, Starsky had brutally crushed the tendons in his throat, leaving him gasping for air. It was only by driving a punch into his friend’s face that Hutch had been able to scramble free.

 

Shaken by the attack, he’d shielded his throat with one hand, breathlessly trying to placate his hostile partner.  “Starsk . . .”  Even now the memory of his voice came back to him.  He’d repeated his friend’s name over and over, as if his plaintive tone might somehow offset Starsky’s confusion and rage.  Sadly, it had done little good.  If not for their tumble from the cliff, the unexpected plummet into the ocean below . . .

 

Shoving the memory aside, Hutch shut off the water and stepped from the shower.  The further the day progressed, the harder it became to swallow, the sorer his throat grew.  He knew it was only natural for his voice to turn hoarse, his damaged vocal chords to swell and contract, but he hated having that visible/audible reminder so evident to Starsky.  His friend already felt bad enough, was working himself into a nervous snit over Papa Theodore’s escape fearing a repeat performance of what had happened on the cliff.

 

“Damn witch doctor,” Hutch muttered acidly, toweling himself dry.  The bathroom had steamed from the shower, fogging the mirror above the sink.  He flipped on the exhaust fan, gingerly toweling his back and chest.  While tan underneath, his skin was clearly sunburned, more than a little sore.  Wrapping a clean towel around his waist, he opened the door and stepped into the bedroom.  The rush of air conditioning against his reddened skin made him shiver.  Bypassing the bed, he crossed to the dresser and pulled a clean pair of shorts from the top drawer.  As he straightened, he caught his reflection in the mirror and noticed the bruises on his neck.

 

Hutch swore softly.  It had taken most of the day and a thrum of lukewarm water from the shower to make them appear, but they stood out clearly now - -  stark purple marks ringing the base of his throat like a macabre necklace.  Experimentally he rubbed a hand over the finger marks, flinching when his bruised skin flared with sudden pain.  

 

“Damn.” 

 

It wasn’t enough Starsky was feeling bad for hurting him - - something Hutch kept insisting he hadn’t done  - - now it would be like rubbing his nose in the evidence.  Irritated, he pulled a plain white tee-shirt over a pair of black boxers and flopped onto the bed.  Maybe with a short nap things would look better.

 

Hutch rolled onto his side, fighting back a yawn so he wouldn’t hurt his throat.  He didn’t seem to have any energy today.  It was a wonder he’d made it up that cliff - - twice.  Ever since, all he’d wanted to do was sleep.  And - - if he owned up to the truth - - he was uncharacteristically jittery about Papa Theodore roaming around on the island.  From the moment he’d first learned of the Bokor’s escape, he’d been filled with a sense of dread. He wasn’t a man normally given to shadowy superstition, yet couldn’t deny the ugly truth - - he was afraid, plain and simple.

 

Afraid.

 

It was such a silly word.  An emotion that happened to other people.  There were occasions when he grew rankled, even a little panicky, but true fear he’d only felt a few times in his life.  Like when Monk had first shot him full of heroin and he realized what was happening, or when he thought Starsky was dying, ravaged by an unknown poison, or when Starsky had been kidnapped by cult fanatics and he wasn’t sure if he’d find him alive.  Those were reasons for fear.  Finite things he could put his finger on.  But this was strangely intangible, a ghostly sense that was nonetheless suffocating for its surrealism. 

 

All day he’d try to avoid it, wrapping himself in diversions like fishing, jet skiing, falling asleep in the sun.  He would have built sandcastles, chased eels or sang S.L.O.B. anthems if Starsky had asked.  Anything to occupy his mind, but nothing worked.  No matter how much he tried to avoid the truth, the feeling remained - - fear that crept up into his stomach, wrapped around his throat and made the hair on the nape of his neck stand on end.  When Starsky had insinuated he was bothered by Papa Theodore’s escape he’d almost caved and admitted the truth. 

 

Almost.     

 

The worst part was he couldn’t really define why he was afraid.  That his fear was connected to Papa Theodore he had no doubt, but beyond that he came up glaringly empty.  How could he ever admit such a childish fear to Starsky?  Especially after ridiculing the belief in superstition and voodoo curses?  Besides, his friend was still hung up on what had happened between them on the cliff near Thorne’s estate.  All Starsky needed to reinforce his ballooning anxiety would be for Hutch to admit he was terrified himself. 

 

Which meant he had to continue in the guise of skeptic, keeping his emotions shuttered away.  He should have been used to the role by now.  Starsky had always thrived on superstitions and folktales while Hutch had mocked anything abstract.    

 

Except this time.

 

This time he felt  . . . something.  He couldn’t place the wrongness anymore than he could pin down his inexpressible fear.  He just knew there was something there, like images from a dream that slipped further and further away each time he tried to grasp them.  All afternoon he’d been wrapped up in the confusion of something that was part memory, part nightmare. 

 

Weary, he let his eyes drift shut.  Immediately his thoughts spiraled back to the night Papa Theodore’s followers had caught him and Starsky outside of the Bokor’s hut.  He remembered little of what followed.  Most was a blur, meshed in a pulsing web of music and drums . . . of white powder that made his head spin and his body contort.  He’d wakened on the beach the next morning, head pounding, low tide lapping around him, the night an alarming blank. 

 

Except for that whisper of something.  A plaguing sense of dread that told him something dark and sinister had taken place.  It made his fear swell, kindled the ghost of barely there memories:  the slick of heated oil against his skin, coarse hemp slicing into his wrists, the acrid stench of smoke and something sickly sweet.  He heard laughter, goatish and malevolent, felt the calloused touch of fingers around his neck, tightening until he couldn’t breathe.  Until he choked and gasped for air.  Until music, laughter and remembered pain turned into something terrifyingly real.

 

Trapped in the nightmare of almost-memory, Hutch whimpered softly, tucking his legs closer to his chest.  Outside, beyond the window, a tall shadow moved past, leaving a single feather to mark its passing.

 

+++++   

 

Starsky wasn’t sure what time it was, but he knew he’d been at the pool for a good half hour, cozying up to a few of the playmates and (unavoidably) chatting with a handful of S.L.O.B. conventioneers.  News about the toppling of Thorne’s empire had spread quickly, even among the hotel’s guests and tourists.  Apparently, the whole populace knew he and Hutch were undercover cops and had been involved in what was being touted as the island’s “most extraordinary” bust in decades.  It seemed everyone wanted to talk to him, shake his hand, ask questions and speculate on how Charlotte and her group had managed to arrange the whole devious plot.  He handled most of the attention  - - especially that from the fawning playmates - - with a good-natured grin and a healthy dose of practiced bravado.  But even that got old when all he wanted to do was cool down, take a dip in the pool, then go back and check on his oddly fatigued partner. 

 

Eventually he was able to worm his way free of even the most tenacious of the hangers-on - - a five-foot S.L.O.B. conventioneer with horn-rimmed glasses, slicked back ginger hair, and the unlikely name of Chester Fooglebody.  Throwing the short, overly talkative man a parting grin, Starsky kicked off his sandals, sprinted across the sun-baked cement surrounding the pool and dived in.  The water was cool, vigorously refreshing and soothing at the same time.  He let his body sink with the dive, plunging deeper into the blue-green depths before kicking into a muscularly-powered swim.  Only when his lungs were tight, his chest aching with the need for air, did he rise to the surface, buoyed by the silken caress of gentle waves.

 

Water streamed into his eyes, dripping from his saturated bangs.  He blinked, sucking in a deep breath as the water lapped around him.  The sun caught him full in the face, temporarily blinding him and in that quicksilver moment, he thought he saw a tall, ebony-skinned man standing near the entrance to the pool.

 

Papa Theodore.

 

The sight ripped through him, enflaming a violent bolt of near-panic.  Alarmed, he palmed water from his eyes, squinting against the overly bright sun.  His vision cleared, revealing Chester Fooglebody standing a few yards away, grinning brightly and signaling in eager greeting.

 

No voodoo priest, no bald-headed, white-robed figure intent on vindictive retribution.

 

Starsky gave a half-hearted wave to Chester, frowning when a sliver of pain prickled his thumb.  Moving to the side of the pool, he shoved his knuckle into his mouth, biting down hard against the familiar ache. Not again.  He’s not doin’ this to me again.  It ain’t nuthin’, just my imagination.  Just Fooglebody standin’ there, not some 6’5” spiteful voodoo priest who wants to turn me into a killer.

 

Rattled, he groped for the charm he normally wore around his neck - - the charm Huggy’s Aunt Minnie had made - - and winced when he realized it was missing.  Doesn’t matter.  I was wearin’ it when I attacked Hutch, and it didn’t stop Papa Theodore from usin’ me then.  I broke the spell on my own.  Me and Hutch together.

 

Thinking of his partner, Starsky hoisted himself from the pool, dripping water as he traipsed across the apron and retrieved his towel.  From the corner of his eye he saw Fooglebody making a bee line in his direction. Snatching up his sandals, he ducked out the opposite gate, sprinting for the back entrance to the lobby.  He didn’t care how wet he was, how much water he trailed across the carpet and slate tile.  Real or imagined, the sight of Papa Theodore had him operating on pure adrenalin, his only thought that of his partner alone in their room.  Looping the towel around his neck, he wiped his face with one hand, expertly weaving between playmates, dawdling sunbathers and tourists, never slowing his pace. 

 

The door was unlocked when he reached their suite and he fumbled it open, nearly tripping across the threshold.  A quick dart to the right brought him into the bedroom where he found Hutch curled on his side, asleep on his bed.  Though his partner was turned away from him, Starsky could hear the even sound of his breathing, see that he was content and resting.

 

Sleepin’ too much, but at least he’s okay.

 

Exhaling loudly, he allowed the pent-up tension he’d been nursing since imagining Papa Theodore at the pool slip from his body.  Only then did he realize a small puddle was accumulating on the carpet beneath his feet.   “Okay, partner,” he mumbled more to himself than Hutch.  “So I overreacted.  I’m gonna take a shower now, get out of these wet shorts. We still got a party to go to.”

 

Leaving Hutch to sleep, Starsky closed the bedroom door and headed for the bathroom.

 

+++++

 

“ . . . Starsk . . .”  Trapped in the foggy gray limbo between waking and sleep, Hutch whispered his partner’s name.  A disconnected part of his mind registered Starsky’s presence in the room and tried to swim up from the ugly murk of disturbing dreams but didn’t succeed. 

 

Someone was standing over him . . . two nights ago when he’d writhed on the floor of that primitive hut . . . was standing over him now in the hotel bedroom.  He couldn’t tell which was reality and which was make-believe, if any or both were concrete or just phantom-figments of his tortured imagination. 

 

Hot fingers stroked his cheek and he was back in the hut again, choking on a wretched tangle of smoke and cloyingly sweet incense.  Repulsed, he tried to twist away from the touch as it slid slowly to his neck.  His arms were stretched taut over his head, bound to rings in a mammoth wooden table.  Dazed, he realized he was shackled, spread eagle on the scarred surface like a sacrificial offering.  Panic bubbled swift and fierce into the back of his throat.  Still weak and mostly incoherent from the powdery drug he’d ingested, he moaned and tried to twist free.  The coarse restraints kept him prisoner, biting into his wrists.  Pain spiked through his head, his vision as muddled and impaired as his sluggishly responding mind. 

 

“Starsk,” he gasped. 

 

Strong fingers caressed his throat.  Not Starsky.  This touch was foreign, boldly masculine yet strangely sensual.  It made the gorge rise in the back of his throat, a repulsed groan slipping unchecked from his lips.

 

“Quiet, seraph,” a heavily accented voice cooed.  “I promise you won’t be long for this earth.”

 

Groggy, Hutch tried to blink the face bending over him into focus.  He had a fleeting impression of rich mahogany skin, dark eyes, shocking white teeth and a glistening scalp.  The hand was back on his face now, cupping his cheek almost tenderly, whispering words he didn’t understand.  He could feel a lick of bourbon-warmed breath against his ear, smell the spicy smoke of aged whiskey.  Someone breathed deeply, greedily inhaling his scent, stirring the cornsilk-fine strands of hair clinging to his brow.  Inhaling him, as if his body were mere vapor to be absorbed and savored like the alcohol.  Fear came again, harder this time, slamming into him with the crushing force of a demon-spawned wave.  “Ughnn . . .”

 

A soft chuckle. 

 

“Does it hurt, seraph . . . your throat . . . your chest?  The oil burns, no?”  The hand was back again, slipping under his gaping shirt, rubbing heated oil over flesh already slick with sweat.  He shivered, revolted by the intimacy of fingers wantonly caressing his chest, his stomach, barely feeling the burn it induced.  Sickened, he was sure he would vomit, but the hand wrapped around his neck, pinching just enough to make him gasp for air. 

 

“This is how I envision your end, seraph,” the accented voice told him.  “Nothing quick for those who stand in my way.  I will command your partner and he will belong to me!”  The fingers tightened, crushing his windpipe, igniting cold pinpricks of light behind his eyes.  He gagged, greedily trying to suck down air, frantically twisting in the painful restraints.  Bit by bit the light was sucked from his eyes.  A rushing noise filled his head, pulling him down into greater darkness, into icy fear and the cold-clutch of looming death.

 

Someone laughed and the sound was laced with swollen velvet.  He felt a presence loom over him, bend to whisper in his ear, the voice husky and smug.  “Does your throat hurt very badly, seraph?  Should I hurt you again?”

 

“Hutch.”  A new voice knifed into his cluttered conscious.  A familiar voice.  “Hutch, I said does your throat hurt?”

 

He blinked, jerking awake with a gut-twisting start.  Dream, reality, and memory knotted in panicky confusion.  His heart slammed into his ribs.  Sitting bolt upright, he scrambled backward until his spine collided with the headboard.  The jarring contact helped clear the fog from his mind.  Bewildered, he realized he was in the hotel room, Starsky hovering by the bed in a pair of denim shorts and nothing else, his hair damp from a recent shower.

 

“Hutch.”  As if sensing how disoriented he was, Starsky slid a steadying hand onto his shoulder.  “Buddy, your throat . . . those marks . . .”  The words came with a grimace of self-loathing.  “Is that what I did to you?”

 

Instinctively Hutch raised a hand to his neck, remembering the vivid purple marks he’d seen before falling asleep.  His throat felt like it was on fire, the lining blistered and raw.  He stared mutely at Starsky, afraid to speak, frightened by how badly the simple action might hurt.  In his bewilderment, he no longer knew who had caused him such pain . . . Starsky or Papa Theodore. 

 

“I . . .” The word stuck on his tongue, whisper-thin and broken.  “I’m fine.  They’re just . . .  marks.  They’ll fade.”

 

“Bullshit.”  Aggravated, Starsky turned away, thrusting a hand into his drying curls.  “If you were fine you wouldn’t sound like a bum comin’ off a three-day drunk.  I can’t believe I hurt you like that, Hutch!”

 

Hutch wrapped his arms around his stomach.  More than anything else, he wanted to shove the dream aside, but it hung over him, glaringly vivid, all too real.  He could still feel the intimate caress of hot fingers against his flesh, the slick of oil rubbed slowly and sensually into his stomach.  Revolted by the memory, he turned his head aside and groaned.

 

Starsky latched onto the sound in a heartbeat.  “See that.  You are hurtin’.”

 

“No.”  He shivered, chilled by the ghost-touch of air conditioning against his sunburned skin. “Please, Starsk . . .”  He looked imploringly at his partner, too tired to put up much of a fight.  “I wanna forget . . .”  I wanna forget it all.  I don’t know what’s real and what’s in my head anymore.  “I just wanna  . . . get through the night and the next two days, then get off this island.  Don’t ask me . . . to talk about what h-happened.  Just don’t.”

 

Hutch bit his lip.  Starsky would push.  He knew he would push.  It wasn’t in his friend to surrender the cliff so easily, not without understanding what had really taken place there. 

 

The dark-haired detective paced back to the bed.  “You want me to forget I attacked you?  That I ain’t responsible for those marks around your neck?”

 

Hutch looked away.  “I think I’ll take another shower,” he said, pushing from the bed on the opposite side, ignoring the question entirely.  He couldn’t face it, not now.  Not with the dream images still cluttering his mind, the remembered touch of sacrificial oil and roving fingers all too real against his skin.  Biting down on his lip, he suppressed a shudder. 

 

“You already took a shower,” Starsky pointed out.

 

“I need another.”  I need a freaking ocean.  He didn’t think there was enough water on the planet to wash away the tainted ilk of the dream, the nauseating memory of Papa Theodore’s touch.  For Starsky, he kept his voice light.  “It’ll wake me up before the party.”

 

His partner’s loud snort indicated what he thought of the idea.  “Party, huh?  Have you heard yourself lately?  You can barely talk above a whisper. Wanna tell me how you’re gonna fare at a party?”

 

“Same as I always do - -” Hutch shot back, louder this time, forcing bravado as he walked from the room.  “ - -  Outstanding.”

 

+++++

 

Bravado was something he and Starsky excelled at.  Unfortunately, this time Hutch couldn’t live up to his words.  He smiled at the curvaceous redhead who kept sending him flirtatious glances across the outdoor bar.  Any other time he would have been delighted by her obvious attention, but tonight all he wanted to do was sink into anonymity.

 

The sun was starting to set over the ocean but the playmates, including the redhead, still wore their skimpy bikinis.  Unlike Starsky who wore shorts, Hutch had dressed in long pants- - a pair of faded olive khakis, the hem long and frayed, dragging over his brown sandals - - and a white button shirt composed of a thin gauzy material, sleeves rolled loosely on his forearms.  The breeze from the water was cool, skimming over his sunburned skin, whispering of impending rain as clouds gathered on the horizon.  

 

He took a sip of his gin and tonic, grimacing as the cool liquid splashed against his abused throat.  The party was in high gear, the band pumping out a loud mix of disco, reggae and rock and roll. S.L.O.B. conventioneers and their guests crowded into the outside patio bar and spilled over onto the beach.  The redhead started in his direction, grinning brightly, but Hutch had run out of false bravado half an hour ago.  Aside from the gritty ache in his throat, he still felt unnaturally fatigued and his voice was only a shred of what it should have been.

 

He looked around for his friend and spied Starsky a few feet away.  The dark-haired detective was engaged in an animated conversation with three playmates, all of whom appeared to be vying for his attention.  He had his arm around one of the girls, a bottle of beer dangling from his hand.  Every so often he did a quick one-two dance step to the pulsing bass beat, catching one of his rapt admirers around the waist to join him.  All three seemed eager for a turn and Starsky did his best to satisfy them.

 

Hutch turned away, all but bumping into the redhead.

 

She took the near-collision in stride, sidling a little closer.  “Hi.  I’m Poppy.”

 

He flashed a smile that was sheer reflex.  “Hutch.”

 

A crease appeared on her smooth brow and she leaned closer.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

 

“Hutch,” he said again, louder this time.  The strain on his vocal cords made him grimace and raise a hand to his throat. 

 

Poppy followed the motion, her eyes widening at the blotchy marks ringing his neck.  “Oh, wow, I didn’t see . . . I mean . . .”  She fumbled, obviously not prepared for the sight of something so ugly.  Training as a hotel playmate did not include instruction on how to handle physical evidence of assault.  “Are you . . .” This time she looked into his eyes, her own a startling sea green.  “Are you all right?”

 

He nodded.  It was easier than replying.  Slipping his arm around her waist, he steered her away from the bar. “Do you want to go for a walk on the beach?”  The times that Hutch knowingly played on his looks were rare, but he couldn’t stop himself now.  Female company was exactly what he needed to banish the tainted memory of Papa Theodore.  Reinforcing his own dominance with a willing female would go a long way in eradicating the stigma of being a victim.  He was beginning to suspect everything he’d dreamed had actually taken place.  The only thing that confused him was why he had no signs of rope burns on his wrists, no scrapes or lacerations to indicate he’d been bound.  Surely the hemp restraints would have left behind a mark of some sort.  And yet the ordeal felt real, raising phantom-like flashes of memory on the fringe of his mind.  From the time he’d passed out in Papa Theodore’s hut to the time he’d awakened on the beach the next morning, his mind had been a complete blank.  Anything could have happened, including the hideous scenario that had him bound to a sacrificial table in preparation of his death.

 

At Starsky’s hands. 

 

“Walk with me on the beach?” he asked again, his voice thread-thin, barely vocal.  Poppy seemed to understand the question and nodded with a smile.  She moved closer, letting her hand rest possessively on his stomach. As they exited the terrace, they passed Jerry Perry and Bill Hill rounding the bar.  Both men gave a resounding whoop when they saw the girl on his arm, Bill adding a broad wink and a suggestive crack about cops and handcuffs.

 

Poppy didn’t seem to mind.  She toyed with a button on his shirt as they left the bar behind.  “So you’re one of the cops who were involved in bringing down Charlotte and her gang?”

 

“She a friend of yours?”

 

“No.  I don’t even know her.” 

 

They reached the end of the terrace area and Poppy pulled away briefly, pausing to tug a blanket from a services bin.  A few people were still swimming or lounging by the pool, others sitting at umbrella-topped tables, sipping fruit-plumped drinks in hurricane glasses.  Folding the blanket in half, Poppy ducked snugly beneath Hutch’s arm. 

 

“We’re not supposed to single out any of the guests for special attention,” she told him, changing the conversation.  “But after something as big as that mess with Thorne, I figure no one will blame me for wanting to spend time with you.”

 

Hutch raised a single brow, looking down on her.  “Is that why you’re here?”

 

“Partly.”  She grinned. “But it doesn’t hurt that you’re so good-looking.  Besides, I have a feeling we both want the same thing.” 

 

He couldn’t argue with that.  They took off their sandals  - - his worn and brown, hers with a three-inch cork platform sole - - and walked down the beach until they could no longer see the twinkling lights of the party.  Until the cool white sand and cotton-candy haze of twilight turned the beach into a private haven.  The thrum of bass guitar and jumbled voices drifted from the distance, tangling with the gentle lap of low tide.  Hutch spread the blanket on the ground, a sliver of cool air ruffling his hair and encircling his battered throat. He fought down the urge to cough, fearing what it would do to the swollen tissue in his neck.   

 

Poppy wasted no time in pushing him back on the blanket, curling into his arms.  She snuggled against him, lifting her lips to his.  “You probably think I’m easy,” she murmured against his mouth.  “But it’s not like that at all.”

 

He didn’t care.  She was beautiful, clearly willing, and he desperately needed something - - someone - - to wash away the ugly hold Papa Theodore had over him.  Wrapping one arm around her shoulders, he met her lips in a light kiss, enjoying the first tentative spark of shivery excitement.  She responded willingly, a little too eagerly, her fingers fumbling open the buttons on his shirt.  He felt her palm slide over his stomach and the touch brought back the memory of hot scented oil, of Papa Theodore’s caress.

 

Instinctively he groaned and pulled away.

 

“Hutch, what’s wrong?”

 

“Nothing.” 

 

The sun sank quickly now, melting into the ocean with fiery spears of scarlet, magenta and plum.  More clouds had rolled from the north, massing on the vibrantly colored horizon, kicking up the breeze until it raked through Hutch’s hair with prodding fingers.  His open shirt fluttered back from his chest, tugged free of his waistband.  Poppy’s hand still rested on his stomach, the long tips of her coral-painted fingernails drawing an involuntary shiver from his sunburned skin.

 

“Hutch?”

 

Tired, he folded onto his back, the sand lumpy and cool beneath the cottony puff of blanket.  “Come here.”  Stretching out a hand, he pulled her down, rolling her beneath him, locking a muscular leg over her thighs. He nuzzled her lips, tasted the inviting bow of her mouth - - softly at first, then with mounting urgency and hunger.  His battered throat muscles protested, but the kiss was heated and warm, deliriously sensual.  She tasted of coconut and pineapple, the hint of some tropical drink lingering sweetly on her tongue.  Her curves pressed against him, silk and satin to his corded steel.  He’d only just met her and though he had no intention of making love on the beach, he wasn’t above a night of passionate kissing and intimate touching.

 

He felt her hands slide into his hair and lost himself in the open-mouthed hunger of their kiss.  Thunder rumbled ominously in the distance, rolling across the twilight-blackened ocean.  The sun was almost completely gone now, greedily swallowed by the vulture rim of the Atlantic. In the near-dark her tanned skin looked earthy and dusky, her green eyes luminous. 

 

Heavy fatigue washed over him again and he eased onto his back, barely cognizant that he’d surrendered the dominate role.  He felt strange and disoriented, his senses sluggish and heightened at the same time.  He was fully aware of Poppy’s body pressed intimately to his - - of the splay of her hand on his stomach, inching lower to teasingly graze the top of his waistband.  Of his own growing arousal as she writhed suggestively against him. 

 

A nerve in the back of his mind slumbered awake and told him something was wrong, but he was too far gone to pay it much heed. He felt drunk with sexual arousal, wanted only to touch and be touched in turn.  He raised one hand, tangling it in her long hair, drawing her head down so he could kiss her again and lose himself in the heated press of her lips. The lotus-flower scent of her perfume mingled with the salt-brine of the ocean and the grittier aroma of water-logged sand.  He felt her nails graze his side, drawing painful goosebumps from his sun-reddened skin. 

 

The bass in the distance had turned into the pulse of drums, the mesh of muted voices into a wordless chant.  Poppy nuzzled his ear, slipping her hand beneath his waistband, cupping the source of swollen heat between his legs until he thought he would explode.

 

“You look like an angel,” she breathed huskily into his ear.  “Did you know that, seraph?”

 

Hutch sat bolt upright as if doused with frigid water.  Lightning forked across the sky and buried itself in the reflective shell of the ocean.  The beach was deserted, music and voices drifting wraith-like from the ongoing party in the distance.  Overhead, the sky yawned pitch-black and threatening, massed with rain-swollen clouds.  All along the shoreline skyscrapers and hotels glittered with lights kindled against the advance of night.  Bewildered, Hutch curled his fingers into clumps of cool sand.  No blanket, no Poppy.  He was alone, sandals kicked to one side, shirt fully open and fluttering behind him.

 

Disturbed, he sucked down a shuddering breath, immediately wincing at the hot lance of pain that spiked through his throat.  Another dream or another memory?  The fading after-effects of arousal were still with him, his pants uncomfortably tight.  How could he have imagined an encounter like that?  And yet the name she’d used, “seraph,” was the same thing Papa Theodore had called him.  Was it possible she was one of his followers? That she’d drugged him in some way and this was yet another warning of impending death?

 

Frustrated, he propped an elbow against his leg and rubbed his temple.  Was he losing his mind - - sucked into an illusionary world of voodoo mysticism the same way Johnny Doors and Walter Heeley had been?  What had Heeley told them about his first operative - - that the man’s death had been diagnosed as “hysterical paralysis.”

 

Scared to death. 

 

Surely he was too practical for that, yet how could he explain his encounter with Poppy, his patchy memory of the Bokor?  Suddenly apprehensive and cold, Hutch wrapped his arms around his chest. He could fight any physical opponent, but phantoms and illusions he was powerless to combat.  Just don’t let him use Starsky against me.  Not again.  Please God, I’d rather suffer this confusion than have to turn on my friend.  That memory hurt on too many levels.   

 

“ ’Bout time you turned up.”

 

He gave a startled jerk at the sound of his friend’s voice, twisting his head to see Starsky striding across the sand.  In the relative darkness, his partner’s mustard yellow tee-shirt stood out against his denim cut-offs and battered sandals.  “You know I been lookin’ for you for over an hour?”

 

“Lose your audience?”  Hutch asked, distressed to realize he was shivering, that his voice had grown nearly insubstantial.  Suddenly all he wanted to do was go back to the hotel room . . . to the warmth and bliss of yellow light, the sturdy safeness of indoors.   He wanted to crawl into bed and burrow beneath the covers, shutting out the Bokor, Poppy, even the party.

 

“Where’d your audience get to?”  Starsky tossed back.  “Bill Hill told me he saw you headed this way with a redhead named Poppy.”

 

So she had been real.  That meant everything he remembered had actually taken place.  Maybe.  It still didn’t explain the time lapse, waking up on the beach alone, painfully aroused.  Okay, so that one could have been brought on by memory, but it felt indulgently real.  Hutch gave an inconspicuous tug to his pants, thankful he no longer looked like a cheesy centerfold.  The khakis fit normally now and he was able to stand without feeling self conscious.

 

He gave a distracted shrug, uncertain how to explain what happened.  “She took off.  I’m gonna go back to the room.”

 

Starsky stepped nearer, obviously struggling to hear over the lap of the ocean. “What, are you nuts?  It’s early yet.  They’re gonna move the party inside if we get nailed with a storm.  It ain’t even ten o’clock, Hutch.”

 

He forced a smile.  “Guess I’m still tired.”  Not exactly the brightest thing to say.  It probably sent up flags in Starsky’s overly active mind.  Clearing his throat, Hutch tried to fix his blunder.  “You stay here . . . enjoy yourself.”  He clasped Starsky’s arm briefly before turning away and hooking his fingers through the straps of his sandals.  “Come on, buddy, I’ll walk you back.”

 

Hutch started walking barefoot through the sand, the hem of his long pants dragging on the beach.  When Starsky didn’t immediately follow, he glanced over his shoulder.  “Coming?”

 

Frowning, Starsky jogged to catch up, falling in at his side as they walked back toward the Playboy Hotel.  “I thought you were the one who wanted to have a vacation?  Enjoy yourself and all that other hype?”

 

“Tomorrow,” Hutch said simply which only deepened Starsky’s scowl.

 

“How’s your throat?”

 

Another shrug, this one clear avoidance.  Hutch paused at the edge of the pool area, lightly touching his friend’s arm.  “This is where we part ways, buddy.”  He swallowed gingerly, steeling himself for another bout of words.  “I don’t wanna go through the. . . terrace and the bar and get sidetracked . . . into staying.  I just wanna get up to the room. Okay, Starsk?”

 

Hutch could tell his partner wasn’t convinced.  He could also tell Starsky was edgy, torn between following him back to the room and staying at the party.  He hadn’t quite zeroed in on Hutch’s distress level, which made him uncertain how concerned he should be by the early departure.  Hutch tried to place it in clearer context. 

 

“Starsk, it’s too hard talking to people.  My throat . . .”  He winced, not wanting to use that against his friend, but knowing Starsky would accept it at face value.  The only reason Starsky heard him now was that he had his ear bent close to Hutch’s mouth, that seven years together had given them a near ESP understanding of one another.

 

Starsky nodded. With the music blaring even casual conversation had to be shouted.  “Okay.”  His fingers tightened around Hutch’s elbow.  “I’ll see you later tonight.”

 

Hutch managed a brighter smile.  “Have a good time for both of us, pal.”

 

He slipped away, skirting the pool and the throng of party-goers.  The music followed him through the lobby and down the hall, but by the time he shut himself in his hotel room, it became only a muffled distraction. 

 

Hutch sagged against the door and clicked the lock into place. Through years of normal practice, if one of them was in the room, regardless of hotel, they always left the door unlocked.  But Hutch didn’t feel up to chances tonight.  If Starsky didn’t have his key he could always knock.  Moving quickly he went through the suite, turning on all the lights, testing the latches on each of the windows and sliding door.  When he was satisfied everything was secure, lights blazing brightly, he dropped his sandals on the floor and flopped onto Starsky’s bed.  It was closer to the window, which meant if someone were to come at him from outside, he’d have a better chance of hearing the noise should he fall asleep.

 

Curling onto his side, he tugged a spare pillow close to his chest and closed his eyes.  In the silence he could still hear the faint pulse of thundering disco.  As much as he loved music, he’d never been an exceptional dancer, more of the weekend casual variety out to have a good time.  Starsky would be hamming it up on the dance floor right about now, more limber and versatile than his sometimes klutzy partner.  The thought brought a fond smile to Hutch’s lips.

 

He much preferred softer music of the John Denver/Bread variety, but found that even K.C. and the Sunshine Band could lull him to sleep when muted to the right decibel level.  At least he’d convinced Starsky to stay and have a good time.  There was no reason for both of them to turn into illogical superstitious fools.

 

Rolling onto his back, Hutch folded an arm over his eyes and embraced his strange fatigue.

 

+++++

 

“It’s the drug.  Gotta be,” Starsky muttered as he strode down the hallway toward their suite.  Either Hutch was coming down with a physical ailment or the powder he’d ingested two nights ago had triggered a delayed reaction. 

 

Starsky had lasted as long as he could at the party, but hadn’t been able to enjoy himself with his mind constantly wandering back to his fair-haired partner.  It was bad enough seeing those damnable purple rings around Hutch’s throat, but his strange distraction and fatigue only increased Starsky’s anxiety.

 

He hated the fact he couldn’t remember what had happened on the cliff.  Disjointed bits and pieces of buried memory fluttered through his mind, teasing him with barely-there wisps of recollection.  He knew he’d attacked Hutch . . . knew he’d wrapped his hands around his friend’s throat, savagely trying to squeeze the life from him. That alone was enough to drive a cold fist into his stomach, pummeling his insides like pulp.  He wished Hutch would say something, spit out his frustration and anger, but instead of being outraged over what had happened, Hutch seemed determined to protect him from the memory.

 

And that made Starsky feel guiltier still.  He knew he’d hurt his friend both physically and emotionally but Hutch kept that buried suffering to himself.  It would be better for both of them when the island was a distant memory.  In the meantime he just wanted to get back to the room and relax with his friend, maybe watch some TV or simply unwind with a cold beer.

 

Reaching the end of the hallway, he wrapped his hand around the knob and shoved.  When the door resisted, refusing to budge, he stumbled off balance against the frame.  Locked. 

 

Starsky frowned.  Hutch never locked the door.  Hell, half the time he didn’t even lock up his apartment when he was away.  This was the same man who kept his spare key on the lintel above his front door, available to anyone with the desire to look.  Disturbed, he dug his key from his pocket and inserted it in the lock. 

 

Inside, the suite was blazing with light.  Starsky walked from the living area to the bedroom, noting every available lamp had been switched to maximum.  Hutch lay on his back on Starsky’s bed, still fully dressed, his white shirt gaping open on his chest. Sand clung to the frayed hem of his khakis and the soles of his bare feet.  One arm rested on his stomach, the other dangling limply over the side of the bed.  His eyes were closed but he seemed restless, whimpering softly even as Starsky watched.

 

“Hutch?”  Alarmed, he moved into the room, his heart bumping into his throat.  Locked door, blazing light and a seemingly defenseless partner. Nothing added up to the Hutch he knew.  Bending over the bed, he smoothed a hand over his friend’s brow, grimacing at the sensation of trapped heat.  The flush of fever clung to Hutch’s face, heightening the angled cut of his cheekbones, the vulnerability of his upper lip.

 

“Buddy?”  Starsky stroked his cheek, his eyes dropping to the purplish blotches on Hutch’s throat.  Shame streaked through him.  Take a good look, dickweed, ‘cause you’re responsible.  Is it any wonder all he wants to do is sleep?  Truth is he just wants to get away from you.

 

“Hutch, I didn’t mean it.”  The words came without thought, his heart twisting into his throat.  His friend was idealistic, compassionate, blessed with the ethereal coloring of an angel.  He felt dirty by comparison, diseased by the ugly thing he had done. Edging onto the side of the bed, he braved touching one of the discolored splotches.  I did that.  Made that hideous mark with my own hands . . . tried to choke the life from his lungs.  “Babe, you know I’d never willingly hurt you.”  His hand trailed away, lightly splaying over Hutch’s chest. 

 

His friend’s heartbeat quickened and he whimpered again.  “Don’t . . .” He moaned aloud, an involuntary shiver racking his body.  “Please . . .”  He tried to roll away.

 

Starsky held fast to his shoulder.  “Hutch?  Hutch, come on - - talk to me.”  He cupped a hand against a fever flushed cheek, leaning closer. 

 

Rather than calming, Hutch only grew more agitated, lethargically trying to pull free.  His lashes fluttered as he struggled back to consciousness. “Ughnn . . .”

 

Starsky smiled softly.  “Hey, buddy, you’re a little sleepy there, huh?”  He dragged his thumb down Hutch’s jaw, waiting for the sluggish dawn of realization to peak in his friend’s eyes. 

 

Hutch blinked, trying to focus, his anxiety slowly fading.  “Starsk?”

 

“Yeah, it’s me.”  Why’d you have the door locked?  Why are you acting so damn nervous? “Party turned out to be a bum deal so I thought I’d call it a night. Feels like you got a fever, pal.  Want me to get you some water?”

 

“No.”  Hutch shook his head, slowly gaining control of his senses.  “It’s just the sunburn,” he rasped in a thin voice.  As if in confirmation he shivered, scuffing his hands against his arms.  The air conditioning raised goosebumps on his reddened flesh.

 

Starsky grasped the edge of the blanket, pulling it up over his shoulders.  Hutch was lying on top of the bedspread rather than beneath, making it harder to wrap him in warmth.  “Did you eat anything?”  Starsky asked.  He’d had a healthy platter of slow-roasted pork, pineapple flavored rice and assorted finger foods at the party, but had a feeling Hutch had skipped eating.  Snatching the phone from the nightstand, he dropped it in his lap.  “How ‘bout some room service?”

 

“I . . .”  Hutch rolled onto his side, tucking one arm beneath the pillow.  “Something cold,” he said after a minute.  “ . . . for my throat.”

 

“Okay.”  Starsky ordered soup, Jello and a bowl of ice cream - - all foods that would slide easily without sticking to the inflamed tissue of Hutch’s battered throat.  Maybe the soup wasn’t cold as requested, but it would be nourishing without causing any discomfort. “Ten minutes,” he said hanging up the phone.  “You wanna go out in the livin’ area, or stay here?”

 

“Here,” Hutch said simply, not bothering to move.  He shivered again but made no effort to get up and slide beneath the blankets.  Even as Starsky watched, his eyes dipped with exhaustion.

 

“Wanna tell me what’s goin’ on?”

 

“Tired,” Hutch returned.

 

Starsky swore, agitated without understanding why.  Standing, he paced a short distance away, hovering by the window.  A prickle of pain shot through his thumb, muddling the concise order of his thoughts.  He wanted to help Hutch but his stubborn friend was making no effort to help himself.  When it came right down to it, Hutch was being obstinate and difficult. 

 

The prickle of pain flared sharper.  Why should everything center around him anyway?  Hadn’t Starsky been through the same difficult scenarios since arriving on the island?  Hutch was being selfish, thinking only of himself, but then he’d led a pampered life and was used to the world revolving around his needs.  Rich, sheltered - - a proverbial golden boy.

 

Starsky’s jaw hardened.

 

 A seraph.

 

No sooner did the thought worm into his mind than he realized how utterly alien it was.  What the hell was wrong with him, making such ugly judgments about his best friend?  Pain splintered through his thumb with renewed vigor, echoed this time by a drilling ache in the back of his skull. There was something sickeningly recognizable about it.  A defiled familiarity that made his stomach crawl up into his throat. 

 

Been here.  Done this.

 

Suddenly everything that had taken place on the cliff near Thorne’s estate returned in shocking, vivid clarity.  He remembered the violent anger that had driven him, the savage bloodlust to attack and choke Hutch, his actions controlled by another.   The rational, devoted part of his mind had been horrified, but it had been shuttered away and immobilized without power or voice.  The part that belonged to Papa Theodore had thrived on the feel of pliant flesh beneath his brutally squeezing fingers . . . had taken gleeful delight in Hutch’s tortured gasps for air, the betrayed shock in his eyes.

 

You belong to me.   

 

The voice was a silken caress in the back of his mind, lovingly stroking his senses.  He tried to tune it out, but that only made his thumb throb worse, his head swell with mushrooming pain.  Hutch was still shivering, but a fine sheen of perspiration clung to his cheeks.  He had his eyes closed, his brow drawn in deep concentration, one hand cupping his throat as if he struggled to mute pain. 

 

Starsky took a step toward the bed, uncertain if he wanted to help or hurt. Outside, thunder chased lightning across the white sand beach and the violently charged current speared into his soul.  What am I thinkin’?  Of course I want to help him.  He’s hurt and he’s my best friend.  I love him more than I love my own brother. There’s nuthin’ on this earth can turn me against him again.  You hear that, voodoo pig?  You can’t have him and you can’t have me!

 

Hutch coughed weakly. 

 

“Hutch.”  Swiftly, Starsky returned to the bed, settling on the edge.  Part of him was afraid to touch his friend after the ugly thoughts he’d entertained.  Tentatively he tried to pull Hutch’s hand away from his throat.  “Buddy, let me take a look at your neck.”

 

Growing increasingly groggy, Hutch gave a grunt, his eyes closed.  If Starsky didn’t know better he would guess his strangely tired friend had been drugged.  Between the flush of fever, riddling chills and unexplainable exhaustion, Hutch’s health had taken a staggering nosedive from only hours before.  Was it possible someone had slipped him something at the party? 

 

“Babe, I won’t hurt you.”  He wasn’t sure why he voiced the sentiment.  Maybe it was more to reassure himself than his weary friend. 

 

“Didn’t think you would.”  Hutch’s hand fell away from his neck, and his lips curled slightly.  His lashes fluttered, opening slowly.

 

Starsky felt a split second of enveloping warmth before horror replaced the affection in Hutch’s eyes.  “Starsk - -”

 

He felt something loom abruptly behind him.  Something hideous and malevolent.  A presence that slithered into his mind and soul, banishing all but the blind flicker of obedience.  He whirled, driven by fear and a mindless desire to serve. 

 

Beside him, Hutch tried to scramble off the bed, his long legs becoming tangled in the blankets.  “Starsk, get away from him!  Starsk, do you hear me?”

 

“Papa Theodore,” Starsky breathed, enthralled without understanding why.  Riveted to the spot, he felt a confusing rush of devotion and loathing in equal measure.

 

“You belong to me,” the black man said. 

 

It was all Starsky needed to hear to resurrect the blind obedience that had driven him before.  The desire to serve the voodoo priest was overwhelming, effectively devouring every sliver of his conscience until only emptiness remained.  All that he was - - heart, life, morals and ethics -- shriveled and died.  The loss of his identity was as devastating as the horror of what the Bokor forced him to do.  With a howl of rage, Starsky lunged at Hutch, catching him around the neck with one hand, brutally slamming him against the wall.

 

He heard the crack of Hutch’s skull, felt a convulsive shudder rip through his friend’s body at the violent impact.  With a low moan, Hutch slid bonelessly to the floor.

 

Starsky stood dumbfounded, the crumpled form of his friend sprawled at his feet.  A massive hand settled on his shoulder. 

 

“Well done,” the Bokor said.  Outside thunder and lightning tangled as one, mingling with the sound of goatish laughter.  “The night is only beginning.  Before the birth of dawn, you shall willingly kill the light.”

 

+++++

 

Starsky groaned, ducking his head into his hands.  It was all he could do to draw a breath and not have his stomach rupture up through his throat.  He didn’t know which was worse, the torrential pounding in his skull or the cold knot of nausea rooted in his gut.  His head felt like it wanted to roll off his shoulders, crack and shatter into a thousand throbbing pieces.  With effort he raised his head and squinted through slitted lashes. 

 

It was like waking from a dream with no recollection of what had happened before.  He was sitting on the floor of a small room that sported cheap vinyl tile and faded wallpaper, lined with plump avocado strips. A metal-framed cot, three-legged stool, and battered dresser were the only furnishings in the otherwise sparse room.  A bare light bulb dangled from the ceiling, creating a waxy, tortoiseshell glow.  As weak as it was, even that faint illumination hurt his light sensitive eyes.     

 

Gingerly unfolding his legs, Starsky braced an arm behind him and used the wall as a steadying anchor to climb to his feet.  He wobbled precariously, sucking down a breath as he fought off a dizzying rush of vertigo.  The scent of something cloying and smoky-sweet seeped beneath the room’s closed door, stirring an elusive sliver of memory.  There was something vaguely familiar about the odor, something that made his gut knot up even tighter, pushing acid into his throat.

Gagging, he breathed through his mouth until the cold sweat of nausea passed.

 

And then it hit him.  In a rush all at once he remembered where he’d been, what he’d been doing  . . . Hutch, the hotel room, his friend’s fever and fatigue, the blackness that had clutched his heart, turning his thoughts loathsome and foul.  He’d gorged himself, filling his head with poisonous, hateful feelings about his best friend.

 

“Hutch!”  Alarmed Starsky staggered toward the door, his heart stuck in his throat.  Oh God, babe, wha’did I do? I got this nasty, sick feelin’ I betrayed you. I didn’t mean - -

 

Before he could reach the door, it swung abruptly inward, revealing the broad form of Papa Theodore on the threshold.  The Bokor smiled thinly, smugly, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. Starsky didn’t think, he simply reacted.  Propelled by a twisted knot of hate and fear, he drove his fist toward the black man’s face, fully expecting to feel the violent crunch of knuckle against bone.  Instead his arm was caught in a vice-like grip and wrenched cruelly behind his back.  Unprepared, he staggered off balance.  Papa Theodore thrust him face first against the wall, leaning close to breathe down his neck.

 

“You annoy me, my pet.  This is not the path to obedience.”

 

“I ain’t your damn pet,” Starsky snarled.  His chest heaved as he struggled to catch his breath.  The pounding in his head nearly blinded him and for one horrifying moment, he was certain he would vomit.  The voodoo priest was standing much too close, his massive weight pressing Starsky into the wall.  The scent of bourbon and hand-rolled tobacco was overpowering.  It mixed with something earthy and sweet . . . the stench of perspiration and animal bones, of chicken feathers and soiled clay pots filled with goat’s blood. 

 

“I will not tolerate your defiance,” Papa Theodore warned.  His voice was low, coca-smooth, underscored by lecherous frost.  Leisurely, he stroked his fingers up and down the back of Starsky’s neck. “I can feel your tension. I breathe your fear.”  As if to prove the point, he inhaled deeply, leaning closer.

 

Starsky felt like part of his soul was sucked out in that disgustingly gluttonous breath.  The Bokor’s fingers kneaded his neck in a wantonly familiar fashion, sending an involuntary shiver dancing down his spine. His voice caught in his throat when he tried to mouth an acid reply.

 

Papa Theodore chuckled.  “Fear and rage.  An exquisite combination.”  His hand roamed slowly over Starsky’s shoulders and upper back squeezing and kneading before settling in the middle of his spine.  He gave an experimental jab with his thumb.

 

Startled by a white-hot flash of pain, Starsky gasped.

 

The Bokor chuckled. “Ah, I seem to have located a pressure point.” He bore down with his thumb, igniting new and violent cords of agony. 

 

Groaning, Starsky tried to writhe free of the sudden punishment, but Papa Theodore’s formidable bulk kept him pinned mercilessly in place. Sweat broke out on his body, drenching him in the icy clutch of panic.  He could feel knife-like pressure stabbing just off center of his spine . . . gouging through flesh, muscle and sinew, threatening to rupture organs and boil blood.  It was such a small pinpoint of pain, yet the agony tore a scream from his throat.

 

“Amazing, isn’t it,” Papa Theodore breathed into his ear.  “ - -  the points on the body that can induce acute suffering, if one only knows where to look. Where is your rage now, my pet?  Would you try to hurt me if I let you go?”

 

“I’ll freakin’ kill you,” Starsky gasped.  His head spun, swimming with pain. His whole body, shuddered, convulsed.  “You sick sonofabitch bastard - -”

 

Papa Theodore chuckled.  “Still you’re defiant.  Aren’t you curious about your friend?”

 

Starsky sagged against the wall, hating that he couldn’t fight the pain, that it burst from the inside out, leaving him shaken and weak.  Damp with perspiration, his cheek stuck to the faded wallpaper.  “Hutch.”  He choked on the name . . . felt himself sliding, the hot-poker knot of flame in his back sliding with him.  Then suddenly the hideous pressure stopped and he could breathe again, think again.  Papa Theodore released him completely, stepping backward.  His legs felt like they wanted to buckle.   

 

Gulping for breath, Starsky rolled his shoulder against the wall until he could half turn and support himself.  “Where’s . . . where’s my partner?” he asked. 

 

“Entertaining some friends of mine.”  A vicious smile twisted the voodoo priest’s full lips.  “Ahh, I see that worries you.”  He chuckled softly.  “Your blond friend is very beautiful for a man.  Even I find him pleasant to look at.”

 

“You’re a pig!”  Starsky snarled.  He lurched away from the wall, intending to throttle the repugnant man with his bare hands.  The room upended before he’d taken two steps, sending him dazed and sprawling to the ground.  Sickened, he rolled to the side.  Unable to contain the queasiness in his stomach any longer, he doubled over and vomited.

 

Papa Theodore made a tsking sound. “Do you see what happens when you fight?”  Circling him slowly, the Bokor gazed down on him with an arrogant smile.  “I have plans for your friend.  Plans for both of you.  The dark must kill the light as I vowed.  You will finish what you started on the cliff.”

 

“Or what?”  Starsky struggled to a sitting position.  Sagging back against the wall, he dragged a shaky hand across his mouth.  The reek of vomit filled the room, souring his already churning stomach. “Someone gonna come collect on that death sentence hangin’ over your head?  Hate to disappoint you Papa chump but there ain’t nuthin’ in this world that’d make me turn on Hutch again.” 

 

“Is that why you attacked him at the hotel?  Why you knocked him senseless?”

 

Starsky blanched.  He wanted to deny it, scream that it wasn’t so, but the truth was undeniable.  He’d done the unthinkable, the reprehensible. He’d turned yet again on the man he loved more than his own brother.  With a vulgar curse, Starsky dropped his head into his hands.  “What do you want?” he demanded.

 

“Isn’t it obvious?”  Papa Theodore halted in front of the door.  “You struck me - - something no man does and lives.  Worse, you and your friend slipped through my fingers.  The penalty for a Bokor who fails is death, and I do not intend to fail.”

 

Defeated, Starsky raised his head.  “You might kill me, but you ain’t gonna get me to kill Hutch.”

 

“We shall see.”  With a brazen smile, the black man reached into the pocket of his robes.  In one fluid motion, he withdrew his hand and flung a fistful of white powder into Starsky’s face. 

 

It caught him unaware, sending his senses into a violent tailspin.  The room pinwheeled into a nightmarish carousel of motion and sound. His equilibrium popped and shattered, and he pitched to the side, writhing on the floor like a seasoned drunk.  It was all too familiar and terrifyingly real.  He remembered another time when he’d felt this same way, when he’d squirmed on the floor of a crowded hut, the pulse-beat of ceremonial drums echoing in his ears.

 

Not again.  I can’t . . . I won’t . . . I won’t hurt Hutch . . .

 

Starsky’s frantic thought faded in mute desperation.  Sucked into the suffocating realm of drugged oblivion he was unaware when Papa Theodore smiled indulgently and left the room.

 

+++++

 

“Okay, I admit it  - -  he’s handsome for a pig, but he’s still one of the cops who busted Charlotte. You shouldn’t lose your head over him.”  The masculine voice worming into Hutch’s sluggish thoughts carried a haughty tone of reprimand. He tried to focus on the sound and drag himself from the cold maw of unconsciousness.  “I wouldn’t lose my head over him, pretty or not.”

 

A soft flutter of feminine laughter eclipsed the snooty observation. “Don’t lie, Philippe.  You’re just jealous because Papa Theodore told me I could amuse myself with him and neglected to mention you at all.  Don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you look at him.”  Moist fingertips touched Hutch’s lips then drew away briefly before returning to trace his mouth.  “Maybe when I’m done you can take a turn.  I earned my fun.  I’m the one who got close enough to stick him with that tiny needle and drug him so he’d be easier to handle. Oooh, look!  I think he’s waking up.”

 

Hutch forced his eyes open, trying to blink his surroundings into focus.  Almost immediately he became aware of a sticky haze of heat and topaz-orange light, of the hiss and crackle of dancing flames.  He was in a small room, lit with torches and braziers along one wall.  Shadows leapt over a battered wood floor and jumped in contorted glee across a sloping ceiling. The acrid reek of smoke mingled with the cloying scent of incense, clogging his raw throat.  Gagging on the bitter combination, he tried to rise.

 

“Be still.”  A hand gripped the back of his hair and roughly dragged his head down.  It took him a moment to realize that command came from Charlotte’s dwarf-like henchman, Philippe.  A split second longer and he understood that he was bound to a table, spread-eagle on his back just like he’d been in his strange dream-memory.  His diminutive antagonist stood on a footstool beside the table, one plump hand still snarled in Hutch’s sun-bleached hair. Poppy looked over his shoulder, a gloating smile on her full lips.  She’d changed from her skimpy bikini, opting instead for a clinging blush-colored top and a snug pair of white shorts.

 

“Bet you thought you were gonna get lucky on the beach, huh?  Looks like I’m the one who’s gonna get lucky now.”  Dragging her fingers across her tongue, she bent slightly to trace his mouth with the moist tips. 

 

Hutch jerked his head to the side, increasing Philippe’s pull on his hair.  “Poppy, what . . . what am I doing here?  Untie me.”  His voice was hoarse, fainter than before, causing his audience of two immense delight. 

 

“You’re  . . . not going anywhere,” Philippe said, deliberately making his voice croaky and whisper-thin in direct mockery of Hutch’s raspy tone.  Smiling callously, he patted Hutch’s cheek.  “You’re a present for the Bokor.”

 

Something insidiously foul sliced through Hutch at the mention of Papa Theodore.  Memories of the voodoo priest standing over him, slowly rubbing hot oil onto his stomach, returned in sickening clarity.  He twisted his head to the side, effectively dislodging Philippe’s hand in the process.  He could just see a heated bowl of ceremonial oil, simmering nearby on a lighted brazier.  A crude wooden ladle jutted from the top, the handle stained by something that may have been dried blood.  

 

Sacrifice . . . offering . . .

 

The sight made his gut curl in a creekcold lump.  In that split second of hideous understanding, Hutch realized his dreams hadn’t been about the past, but the present.  He hadn’t recalled what had happened to him the night he’d passed out in Papa Theodore’s hut . . . he’d dreamed about what was going to happen to him now.

 

His breathing quickened in outright fear.  He wouldn’t be so terrified if he could just think, rationalize what was happening, but his mind refused to cooperate.  He knew he’d been drugged but the knowledge didn’t stop his sense of disorientation or sketchy surrealism.  Sweat broke out on his brow and trickled down the side of his face.  Despite the sticky heat of the small room, he shivered.  “Where’s Starsky?”

 

“I’ll tell you for a kiss,” Poppy  promised.

 

Everything he’d ever entertained about a nightmare was coming real.  The woman slid a hand onto his bare chest, pushing the folds of his open shirt aside.  Her lips touched his as her hand swept lower on his stomach.  He tried to twist away but Philippe gripped his head, locking him in place.  At one time he’d been attracted to her but now felt only revulsion as she sucked greedily at his mouth, her nails digging into the sunburned flesh of his abdomen.  Her teeth sliced into his bottom lip drawing a sliver of blood to the surface.  Laughing softly, she pulled back. 

 

“Charlotte was a friend of mine.  A good friend.  You might have screwed up her plans and turned Papa Theodore into a fugitive, but I haven’t forgotten how powerful he is.”  Her fingertips grazed lower, settling on his belt buckle.  “He’s going to have his own fun with you.”  Her smile turned pointed and sharp, wickedly decadent like the Halloween-grin of a carved jack-o-lantern.  “In fact . . . he probably wouldn’t mind if I opened your pants.  I know Philippe wouldn’t.”

 

Hutch spat something vulgar but couldn’t stop an incapacitating swell of fear. Part of him understood what was happening, what the girl and the dwarf hoped to accomplish through the power of suggestion, but the other part couldn’t help feeling panicked.  He knew Poppy’s goal was to inflict terror through the veil of sexual threats.  She and Philippe were playing a game of innuendo.  The problem was he didn’t know how much was bluff and how much they would follow through with. 

 

Never taking her eyes from his face, she tugged on his belt. 

 

“That’s enough, Poppy,” a heavily accented voice ordered.

 

The girl jerked, withdrawing her hand as if stung.  Philippe stepped quickly off the stool and backed into a corner. “We were just scaring him,” he said hastily as Papa Theodore strode into the room, his very presence crackling with authority. 

 

The sight of the black man washed over Hutch in a coldly buffeting wave.  The fear that had been brewing in him all day tentacled into his veins, injecting his nerves with raw terror.   Still only half conscious of what was happening around him, he tried to blink away a numbing haze of fever.  Twisting against his restraints only sent the stiff rope binding his wrists and ankles deeper into his skin.  He felt a gummy breath of heat waft over the soles of his bare feet, felt trickles of perspiration roll from his ribs, soaking into the fabric of the shirt bunched beneath him.  

 

“Play time is over,” Papa Theodore said, striding to the table.  Philippe and Poppy backed out of the way, respectfully giving him room. 

 

Like sheep, Hutch thought.  He stared up into the face of his nemesis, a doggedly persistent demon who haunted his dreams and waking moments.  Through the clinging fog of fear, he realized the terror he felt couldn’t be natural. “You did . . . s-something to me . . . that night  . . . at the hut . . .”

 

“As intelligent as you are attractive.”  Papa Theodore cooed in delight.  “I almost wish I didn’t have to kill you.  You’d make a pleasant diversion, Seraph.”

 

Hutch closed his eyes.  The voodoo priest hadn’t touched him, yet he felt horribly violated.  He knew it was just the beginning of much darker abuse to come.  It was rooted to that night at the hut, when he’d writhed on the floor.  The Bokor had done something to him then, just as he’d done something to Starsky.  Not physical, but mental.  For Starsky it had been filling him with hate and the desire to kill.  For Hutch, it had been the prickly thorn of fear.  He’d felt its clutch briefly on the cliff by Thorne’s estate when Starsky had attacked him.  And because that attack had failed, it had been festering and growing ever since.  Until now.  Now it was something gargantuan, so hideously swollen he could barely breathe.

 

“Did Poppy keep you entertained?”  Papa Theodore asked huskily.  He traced a single blunt fingernail down the center of Hutch’s chest, across his stomach and navel, butting up against his waistband.  Shivering, Hutch turned his face away.

 

A gentle snort left the Bokor’s lips.  “Your skin is too fair for our island.  You burn like Icarus, who flew too near the sun.  Will you melt and die like him too, I wonder?”  As he spoke, Papa Theodore reached for the brazier by the table.  He ladled a steaming scoop of oil onto Hutch’s stomach. 

 

The blond-haired man jerked involuntarily, moaning aloud at the stinging spike of heat against flesh already reddened and burned.  The oil did not scald so much as it crept beneath his flesh, poisoning his veins, filling his head with a noxious tangle of palm bark, pig’s blood and something cloyingly sweet.  It was the same sickening odor he remembered from before . . . from the night he and Starsky had been caught spying outside Papa Theodore’s hut.  It filled his head, stuck in his lungs.

 

Hutch gagged, immediately wincing when pain lanced through his damaged throat.  Never stopping his slow, sensual massage, Papa Theodore chuckled.  His large hand kneaded Hutch’s stomach, curved around to his side, then tracked up and over his ribs.  “You should endeavor to enjoy this, Seraph.  It is to prepare you for the passage to the next world.  I do not so favor all of my victims.”

 

Hutch ground his teeth together.  “Get your fucking hands off me.”

 

“And let you die unprepared?”  The hand moved higher, sliding over his chest.  “You and your friend have caused me great trouble.  For that, you must be prepared properly this time - - not just a victim, but a sacrifice.” 

 

Fingers skimmed the base of his neck, inched higher to lightly stroke his throat.  He swallowed hard, realizing what was coming.  “Don’t . . .”  And then the hand closed, large enough to wrap tightly over his bruised throat.  He gasped, instinctively trying to suck down a lungful of air.

The room spun, darkening at the fringes as Papa Theodore tightened his hand.  In the background, Hutch thought he heard Poppy squeal with sadistic pleasure, but the roar of blood in his ears drowned all noise, including his own tortured wheezing.

 

Papa Theodore leaned close, speaking directly into his ear.  His free hand slipped into Hutch’s hair, raking it back from his brow.  “Does that hurt, Seraph?  Should I hurt you some more?”

 

He tried to spit a curse but there was only pain, heightened by a rubbery swell of nausea. Each tortured gasp sent a steel knife ripping through his esophagus.  His lungs contracted painfully, sending a spasm through his chest.  Bile backwashed into his throat and he choked, certain he would suffocate on his own vomit.  He felt the Bokor’s nails sink into his flesh, pinching the last morsel of air from his fiercely laboring lungs. Blackness swarmed over him.

 

“I have a surprise for you,” Papa Theodore whispered near his ear, and the ruthless hand abruptly released him. 

 

Air rushed into his lungs, kindling a pain as savage as the one that preceded it.  Hutch coughed and sputtered, the racking torture drawing tears from his eyes.  He could barely see any longer, his vision muddled and gray, the room waffling in and out of focus.  The heat was overwhelming, stifling.  His body glistened with sweat and the sheen of sacrificial oil.  Barely conscious, he let his head roll to the side, an involuntary moan slipping from his lips. 

 

“No you don’t.” 

 

The sting of an open palm against his cheek dragged him awake.  For a moment there had been bliss, the fuzzy drone of fading awareness in his ears.  He much preferred the dark to the agonizing body aches full consciousness brought.  He blinked, forcing himself to look at the Bokor.

 

But the voodoo priest had retreated to the foot of the table, leaving another to take his place.  Hutch tried not to let his concern show.  “Starsk.”

 

“Philippe brought him in while you and I were . . . chatting . . . shall we say?”  Papa Theodore’s smile gleamed ivory bright from the foot of the table.  “As I vowed before, the dark will kill the light.  Your friend will now finish what he started on the cliff.”  The Bokor’s eyes narrowed, his voice deepening with command as he looked directly at Starsky.  “You belong to me, my pet.  Prove your worth and kill this man.”

 

Hutch felt a bolt of panic.  Not again.  This can’t be happening.  Starsky wouldn’t . . . he couldn’t.  Desperately, Hutch tried to find strength in what remained of his shredded voice.  “Starsky, don’t . . .”  His gut tightened at the bleak look in his friend’s eyes.   He’d been that way on the cliff  - - distant, unreachable even when Hutch had pleaded and tried to break the spell.  Most recently he’d turned hostile in the hotel room, but Hutch knew it hadn’t been through any fault of his own.  “Starsky . . .”

 

His friend’s hand slid onto his chest, his neck.  “Starsky, don’t . . .”  There had to be some glimmer of the real Starsky behind those implacable eyes.   A partner who believed in their bond over and above all else . . . who hadn’t forgotten the unshakable foundation of “me and thee.” 

 

Inch by inch, the hand on his neck constricted, cutting off his air.  “Starsk . . .”  Hutch’s panic mushroomed into fear.  Something inside him died, saddened and sickened by the unjust roles they’d been forced to play.  In that moment he hated the Bokor more than any man who had ever walked the earth.  Not because he was dying, but because Papa Theodore had destroyed the Starsky he knew . . . the loyal, sometimes childlike partner who saw the world with his own unique innocence.  That would be gone now, trampled and eviscerated by the brutal hands of a killer.   “Starsky, you can’t do this.”  Don’t you realize you’re hurting me, babe?  “Buddy, please . . .please . . .” 

 

He could barely breathe, felt his lungs shudder, ready to cave in.  The room was going black again and this time he knew there would be no returning.  Deprived of air, this time he would choke and die.  Killed by his best friend.  Afterward, Papa Theodore would release Starsky from the spell just long enough for the impact of what he’d done to register.  Long enough for him to wallow in black grief and misery, tortured by the memory of Hutch’s cruel death at his own hands. When Starsky had suffered enough, driven to the brink of madness by remorse, Papa Theodore would kill him  - - slowly.

 

We can’t end like this.  Hutch’s fingers wrapped around the rope cords binding him to the table.  Starsky . . . Starsky, please, you’re hurting me!  Oh, babe, please . . .  I don’t want to die like this!  I need you to stop!   Please, Starsk, I . . . I can’t breathe . . .

 

His body convulsed, shuddering beneath the vicious pressure of slowly depleting air.   A calloused palm slid beneath the hem of his pants and gripped his right ankle, locking him in place. He heard the Bokor chuckle as the voodoo priest’s strong fingers massaged his calf.  You damn pig.  You’re not gonna do this to us.  Not to him!

 

“Starsky.”  He rolled his head, unable to breathe, locking eyes with his friend.  “Babe . . . please . . . me . . . and . . . thee . . .”  Each word was agony, yet he saw something spark in Starsky’s eyes.  Something vague, yet desperate.  Something that longed to connect and believe, to break free of the heinous prison that held him trapped.  Hutch’s consciousness was fading, barely there now.  Even with the ungodly pressure on his ruined throat, the slow death of strangulation, he didn’t hold Starsky responsible.  Buddy, I know it isn’t you.  Nothing’s changed.  Not with us, babe. 

 

He forced the crushed tendons in his throat to move, to form the final three words he would ever say to his friend.  Words that bubbled into his heart, replacing icy fear with living warmth.  Words that muted the sting and horror of death with the assurance of a friendship nothing could shatter.  There was only peace now, strengthened by a bond that stood in defiance of the voodoo priest’s black magic.  “I . . . love you,” Hutch rasped.

 

+++++

 

Starsky felt something shoot through him.  A power so strong, so blindingly luminous, it threw him physically backward.  He staggered off balance, the force of three weakly spoken words resounding in his head with the power of thunder.  “I love you.”

 

Hutch!

 

The darkness and anger that had been controlling him cracked like glass, falling shattered and useless at his feet.  It was as though he’d broken free of physical chains.  He shook his head, trying to clear the mind-numbing stupor.  In that quicksilver second of returning awareness, memory crowded piercingly close.  He’d been existing in a fog, a phantom dreamworld, obeying a voice he didn’t understand, desires in raging conflict with his own.

 

Kill!  You belong to me!

 

It was all a lie - - a ghastly, sadistic lie.  Starsky snapped from the drugged hypnosis.  Shadows and flame cavorted around him, twisting into fantastically grotesque shapes, dancing across the table and the form of his friend bound to its surface.  Hutch lay unmoving, cadaver-still.

 

Oh, god, Hutch.  Please, please, babe! Please tell me I didn’t kill you.  Please tell me you’re alive. 

 

Shaking violently, Starsky stretched out a hand, gingerly feathering it through Hutch’s sun-bleached hair.  His friend didn’t flinch, didn’t even blink an eyelash.  His skin looked waxen, whey-colored with the vulture-kiss of certain death.  His chest was still, no rise and fall to indicate breathing . . . no sign of life at all. 

 

“Hutch.”  And then it hit - - the realization of what he’d done and the return of those three simple forgiving words:  “I love you.”

 

“Noooooooooooo!”   Like a wounded animal, Starsky flung his head back and howled with rage.  Hate bubbled black and fierce into his shattered heart, the grief-shredded remnants of his soul.  Driven by fury, he lunged across the table, snatching the hot brazier from its bed of coals with his bare hands. He never even felt the scalding burn to his palms . . . knew only wrenching emotional pain as he heaved the vat of steaming oil into Papa Theodore’s face.  “You sonofabitch.  I’ll kill you.  I swear I’ll kill you, mutherfucker!  Let me get my hands on you, and we’ll see how you like bein’ choked to death, you pervert bastard!”

 

The Bokor screamed, reeling backward, hands raised to clutch his ruined eyes, the crisping skin of his face. “How dare you!  How dare you do this to me!” Moaning, he crumpled to the floor.  Starsky could smell the reek of burned flesh, the ammonia-like stench of urine.

 

“Piss yourself, did ya?” he taunted, realizing what had happened. “Some high and mighty voodoo priest you turned out to be.  Wonder what your followers - -  or should I say what’s left of ‘em - - think of you now.” He shot a glance over his shoulder.  Both Philippe and the girl looked horrified, the latter staring in outright disgust at the once powerful Bokor whimpering and moaning on the floor.  She spat something crude, backing away slowly, shoving Philippe behind her.

 

“Looks like you’re on your own, Papa Chump.”  Starsky didn’t care about the other two.  He let them go, the sound of slamming car doors and a rumbling motor following just seconds after their hasty departure.  Beginning to feel the sting on his palms, he crossed the room and firmly shut the door.  “I ain’t got no white powder, Papa Shit, but I’m gonna do this one gratis. Looks like you got a strong neck.  Probably won’t strangle easy.”

 

“You can’t,” the Bokor moaned.  He scrambled further back against the wall, hunching into the corner, sweaty with fear.  “You’re . . . you’re a cop.  You can’t - - ”

 

“You made me kill my best friend, you worthless piece of shit!” Starsky screamed. “What makes you think I give a flyin’ fuck about your sorry ass - - about anything anymore?”

 

His voice thundered to silence, the adrenalin shock draining abruptly from his body, leaving him spent and empty.  His head felt like it wanted to explode, throbbing in cadence with his rapid heartbeat.  His palms were on fire, raw with streaks of engorged flame.  He didn’t care.  He welcomed the agony.  Let him suffer, let him hurt.  He deserved it, deserved far worse. Nothing would ever be the same again.  Not without Hutch.

 

Into the molasses-thick silence he heard a weak cough.

 

“Starsk . . .”

 

Starsky stopped breathing.

 

He whirled, pivoting on one foot, and was across the room in a phantom pulse-beat.  “Hutch.”  Frantic, he bent over his friend, lowering his ear to the sun-reddened chest, anxiously listening for a heartbeat, a whisper of air through starved lungs.  “Please, babe . . . please tell me you ain’t dead.”

 

A low moan this time that sent giddy elation streaking through him like wildfire.  Drawing back, he slid his hand into Hutch’s hair, holding tight.  For a minute he couldn’t see, blinded by tears.  And then he was looking at a familiar pair of sky blue eyes, his friend’s expression pained and confused.  Hutch swallowed with effort, grimacing against the torture to his savaged throat. 

 

“Starsk . . . it hurts . . .”

 

“I know it does.  I’m so sorry, buddy.  So sorry.”  Unable to stop himself, Starsky smoothed his hand over Hutch’s brow, feathering it back through fine strands of cornsilk hair, again and again.  He wanted to touch, to immerse himself in the familiar glow of warmth, breath and life . . . the steady pulse of Hutch’s heart, the vibrant spark of life in his river-water eyes.  “You don’t know . . .how sorry I am . . .”  He couldn’t catch his breath, didn’t think he’d ever be able to catch it again.  “I wanna take it back.  God, Hutch, if I could only take it back . . .”

 

“Un-untie me?”  Hutch asked weakly.

 

“Yeah, okay.”  Why hadn’t he thought of that?  Frazzled, Starsky tugged on the tight knots around his friend’s wrists.  Somewhere in the background he could hear Papa Theodore sniffling and moaning, but his rage was gone now.  The bloodlust had been replaced by concern, a fervent desire to comfort and heal.  Once more the tears rushed to blind him and he found himself choking back a sob.  How would they ever survive this?  How could Hutch ever forgive him? 

 

The last of the restraints fell free and Starsky moved around the table to work on his friend’s ankles.  The rope burns were more prominent here, ghastly scarlet rings that stood out against Hutch’s lighter flesh when the hemp fell away.  “Just sit for a moment,” he said, easing Hutch up on the table, helping him swing his long legs over the side.  “We’re gonna get you some help.”  Once more his trembling fingers found their way into Hutch’s hair, this time scuffing upward from the base of his neck.  “You just need to sit here for a minute, while I take care of somethin’, okay?”

 

Hutch shot him a worried look.  “ . . . leavin’ me?”” he asked weakly.

 

Starsky felt like he’d been gut-punched.  “No, babe.  I promise I ain’t never gonna leave ya.  Just sit here and don’t move.  I don’t want you fallin’.  You’re too unsteady on your feet.”

 

Hutch gave a soft smile and a barely perceptible nod.  Satisfied, Starsky crossed the room and crouched down in front of the disgraced voodoo priest.  “Okay, chump.  Where’s the phone?”

 

Papa Theodore lowered his hands, dragging his fingertips below the rims of his eyes.  The lids were red and blistered, the whites clouded with a milky secretion.  Water streamed over his fingers and cheeks.  “No . . . no phone.”  He shook his head.  “Too remote on the island for wires.  Help, please.  I-I can’t see.”

 

“Ain’t that a shame.  Still - - it beats bein’ strangled to death, huh?”  Starsky scowled, realizing

a part of him pitied the once proud priest.  He hated himself for the weakness.  How could he feel anything but hate for the man who had tortured his friend?  “Car,” he barked.  “What about a car?”

 

“Only one.  Poppy and Philippe took it.”

 

“So that was Poppy, huh?”  Irritated, Starsky glanced over his shoulder, keeping an eye on Hutch.  His friend remained as he’d left him, arms locked and braced against the table, head hanging forward as he panted weakly for air.  Likely the girl had drugged him at the party which explained the fever he’d been nursing at the hotel.  Starsky’s eyes narrowed.  “What did you do to my friend?” His attention returned to Papa Theodore, bristling and cold.  “Why’s he been so tired?  Jittery?”

 

“Post hypnotic suggestion . . . from before,” the priest answered quickly, sensing he might gain help if he was cooperative.  “Just in case you didn’t . . .” he swallowed hard, whimpering softly.  “ . . . kill him.”

 

Starsky’s eyes turned flinty.  “So you set him up to be terrified?”

 

“Easier to control, that way,” Papa Theodore rushed to explain.  He moaned again and rubbed at his streaming eyes.  “Please, I need help - -”

 

“He didn’t seem too terrified to me.  Kinda screwed up your plans, huh?  Hutch end up bein’ a lot tougher than you gave him credit for?”

 

“Please!”  This time there was desperation in the Bokor’s voice.  “I can’t see!”

 

“Then I guess I don’t gotta worry about you wanderin’ off while I get my friend some help.  Don’t move now.  Wouldn’t want you to trip, knock over one of those braziers and set this whole stinkin’ place on fire.”  Starsky stood. 

 

Panicked, Papa Theodore grappled for his leg.  “Where are you going?  You can’t leave me here.”

 

“Think again,” Starsky kicked him away.  “I’m gettin’ outta here and I’m takin’ Hutch with me.  If you’re lucky, I’ll send Chief Godfrey back to collect ya later . . . round up that annoyin’ dwarf and the witch with red hair too.  How far to the nearest phone?”

 

The black man wet his lips.  “Twenty-six miles.”

 

Starsky’s jaw dropped.  “What?”

 

“You don’t need a phone.”  Sniveling, Papa Theodore dragged a shaking hand beneath his nose.  He was crying freely now, unconcerned by the tears that spilled from his damaged, red-rimmed eyes.  “Six miles down the road lives a woman who sells chickens and eggs.  She has some skill in the ancient ways.  Tell her . . . tell her Papa Theodore sends his blessings and she’ll send a crow to Chief Godfrey.  The Chief knows this crow.  If he sees it, he’ll think the woman needs help and come running.”  Blinking sightlessly, the Bokor stared up at him.  “I know I’m ruined . . . disgraced.  My only chance for life lies in the safety of prison now, yet there’s something I still don’t understand.  Twice you and your friend have broken my curse.  Twice he has managed to reach through your obedience and hatred.  How can he . . . how can you . . . be stronger than my voodoo?” 

 

Starsky’s smile was pointed.  “You wouldn’t understand.”  In his head, he heard Hutch’s voice yet again:  I love you.  No amount of explaining or rationalizing could ever define the bond behind those three immensely powerful words.

 

Starsky returned to the table, slipping an arm around Hutch’s waist.  “Lean on me,” he said softly.  “I ain’t gonna leave you here with him.”

 

Hutch slung an arm over his shoulders and pushed from the table.  He swayed at first but quickly regained his balance, steadier on his feet than Starsky would have imagined.  The house they were in was small, no more than three rooms with a dilapidated front porch.  A winding dirt road cut into the distance, weaving through fields of sun-baked grass and spindly weeds.  Liberally strewn with gravel, the road presented problems for Hutch who was still barefoot.  Starsky maneuvered him to the right side, making certain his feet were cushioned by snarls of high grass.

 

“You could stay here, off the road,” he said as they walked.  “Let me race ahead, find that woman with the chickens - -”

 

“No.”  Hutch had his head down, his voice a painfully rasp thread.  Somewhere during the course of their abduction, night had given way to day.  The storm had long passed, the moisture it left already sucked dry by a blistering bone-white sun.  In the harsh glare of what Starsky guessed to be late morning, Hutch’s throat was mottled with laddering rings of bruises.  Purple, puce, yellow, red  - - the grisly discoloration was made even worse by a number of half-moon cuts, left by Papa Theodore’s gouging fingernails.

 

Sickened, Starsky looked away.  His ravaged palms smarted, screaming for relief.  He knew the flesh had crisped and blistered, but instead of wrapping them, he ignored the steadily escalating pain.  It was hard keeping his arm anchored around Hutch’s waist when he could barely move his stiffening fingers. His friend sagged against him, needing the support.  Starsky offered it freely, but was loathe to touch him. 

 

Just minutes ago he’d sadistically tried to squeeze the life from Hutch’s lungs.  How could his friend ever trust him to touch again?  Just thinking about what he’d done made Starsky’s gut tighten into a fist.  If he surrendered to his turbulent emotions now, he’d never get Hutch to safety, and that was all that really mattered.  Afterward, when he knew his friend was free from harm and well-cared for, he could distance himself . . . slink away and disappear like the vile night creature he’d become.

 

He knew there was no way for them to remain partners after something so heinous.  Hutch would never trust him again . . . he’d never trust himself.  He’d violated their bond, done something reprehensible, unforgivable.  Hutch had to feel the same way, he just wasn’t in any condition to tell him to get lost.  At least not now.  But later . . .

 

Starsky bit down on his lip, feeling nauseated.  How could he have ruined something so perfect?  How could he ever function with another partner when he breathed and thought in communion with Hutch?   When word got around what he’d tried to do, no one would want to hook-up with him anyway.  He’d be blackmarked, forced to work alone.  Which was just as well if he couldn’t work with the only partner who mattered.  Maybe the best thing for him to do would be to throw in the towel and head home to New York.  He could see his Ma and Nicky, wouldn’t have to pass Hutch in the halls of the precinct everyday. 

 

He groaned softly, unaware the sound was vocal.

 

“Starsk?”

 

“Don’t talk, Hutch,” he said quickly.  “I know it hurts.”

 

A nod for agreement.  “ . . . stop, please.  Shade . . .” 

 

Starsky winced, suddenly realizing they’d been walking for close to forty minutes.  He’d been so involved in his own condemning thoughts he hadn’t considered that his injured friend would need a break.  Pressed against his side, Hutch trembled with fatigue.  His face was no longer gray but it was streaked with sweat and alarmingly gaunt. 

 

“There - -”  Starsky pointed off the road where a few palms clustered together, providing shade.  Hutch was nearly comatose, his head sagging forward on his chest, the breath wheezing through his battered throat in loud, hitching gasps.  The labored sound cut through Starsky like a knife.  He tightened his grip on Hutch’s waist, grimacing against the scalding pain in his palm as he steered his friend off the road.  The blond-haired man nearly crumpled, the bottom of his foot catching on a rock buried beneath weeds and grass.  Starsky slid his free hand onto Hutch’s stomach, holding him upright.  The sheen and reek of scented oil still clung to his friend’s sun-reddened flesh and soiled the open folds of his white shirt.  “Just a few more steps,” Starsky coached. 

 

Once in the shade, Hutch’s knees gave out.  He sagged against the broadest palm, bending forward, painfully panting for breath.   Crouching beside him, Starsky rubbed his back.  “Not so fast, babe.  I know it feels like you can’t get air, but don’t breathe so fast.”  He lowered his voice, letting his hand track soothingly over Hutch’s bowed spine.  Pinpricks of pain rippled from his palm into his fingertips, but he ignored the sting.  “Maybe you should stay here.  That hut can’t be too much further down the road.  Get me some runnin’ speed, I can reach it in less than an hour.”

 

Hutch turned his head.  “Don’t  . . . leave . . .”

 

“Ssh!”  Starsky’s response was immediate.  “How many times I gotta tell you not to talk?”

 

Hutch shook his head, desperation darkening his eyes.  “You said . . .you wouldn’t leave . . . me.  Please, Sta - -”

 

“Okay.”  He spoke quickly to stall the word, raising one hand to press against Hutch’s lips. 

 

The touch of blistered flesh registered immediately in the blond detective’s eyes.  “Your palm.”  Slumping against the tree, he caught Starsky’s hand and turned it over.  Even in the cooling cloak of shade the skin looked vibrant red.  Bubble blisters rose on each of the fingers and dotted the surface of his palm.  The flesh was cracked in places, oozing pus and water. 

 

Starsky winced, feeling the pain ratchet into his head.

 

“How?” Hutch demanded.

 

Starsky shrugged.  “Doesn’t matter.”  He drew away, lightly rubbing both palms together.  Hutch caught his other hand, twisting it so he could see the bottom.  Anger flared in his eyes at the sight of similar damage. 

 

“Tell me.”

 

Starsky frowned.  “I told you not to talk.”

 

Hutch sucked down a breath, struggling to gather more air.  “I’ll just . . . keep . . . asking,” he vowed.

 

Starsky looked away.  When Hutch touched his arm and moved to speak again, the dark-haired man jerked up a hand to stop him.  “All right!  I . . . I threw a vat of oil on Papa Theodore.  I was kinda outta my head at the time and lifted it with my hands.  It was one of those brazier things, settin’ on hot coals.”

 

Hutch sighed.  He didn’t have to ask why, he understood.  Gingerly taking Starsky’s hand, he pulled it into his lap, carefully examining the fingers.  Starsky knew there was nothing they could do to ease the pain, not out here.  Hutch knew it too.  But that didn’t stop him from rubbing a thumb over Starsky’s wrist, the gentle stroking motion clearly meant to console and reassure. 

 

Any other time Starsky would have taken comfort in the familiar caress, but things were different between them now.  He felt dirty, soiled by the hideous stigma of a would-be murderer.  He didn’t deserve affection.  “Don’t,” he choked, trying to pull away.

 

Hutch hung onto his wrist.  “Why . . . didn’t you tell me . . . you hurt yourself?”  It was hard talking, but this was too important to let go.  Tension radiated from Starsky with the force of a sun going nova - - self-destructive and dangerously unpredictable.  Every taut line of the shorter man’s body indicated a desire to distance himself.  Hutch drew a shaky breath, saddened to find that knowledge hurt on a level he hadn’t expected.  More than anything, after the ordeal with Papa Theodore and the traumatic experience with Starsky himself, he needed to lean on his dark-haired friend.  Not just physically.  He needed to connect emotionally too.  If there was ever a time when he wanted Starsky to respond with a gentle touch and an indulgently sheltering tone of voice, it was now.  He needed to feel compassion . . . to know that the same hands that had hurt him so badly could also bring healing.  Instead he felt distance rising between them, a gulf that grew wider with each bloated moment of silence.  Still he hung onto the arm in his lap, the caress of his thumb struggling to impart what he couldn’t manage with his damaged voice.  “S-Starsk?”  Why didn’t you tell me you hurt yourself?

 

“Don’t talk,” Starsky said, but the protest had become automatic.  He looked away, squinting against the glare of sunlight.  A breeze swept across the field, racing toward the gravel-choked road in the distance.  The grass rolled like waves rushing to shore, bending gently then straightening with fluid grace. “I figure once that crow does its thing and Godfrey sends help, we’ll get you to the nearest hospital.” He spoke flatly, evading the question completely.  With a firm tug, he pulled his arm free and stood. Looking away from Hutch toward the road, he spoke over his shoulder.  “You rest awhile.  I’m gonna walk up to the next rise and see if I can spot anythin’ in the distance.  It’ll only take a minute.”

 

He moved away without a backward glance.  The omission, coupled with the impersonal tone of his voice, left Hutch feeling like he’d been kicked in the gut.  He swallowed hard, grimacing when pain flared in his throat.  It was his fault that Starsky was being so distant.  If he’d been upfront with his friend about his fears when he’d first learned Papa Theodore had escaped, maybe none of this would have happened.  It was his fault the Bokor had gotten to Starsky . . . that his friend had been turned into a vindictive lackey again.  No man liked to have his control taken away, to be degraded and humbled to the point of blind obedience.  No wonder Starsky was being so aloof.  He was angry, filled with crippling remorse over what he’d done.  Worse, he obviously felt he couldn’t discuss his feelings with Hutch.  As a result, his guilt and confusion had been internalized and channeled into frost. 

 

It’s my fault.

 

He couldn’t fix the blunder as long as Starsky continued to put up walls.  He didn’t know how, especially when he was hurting so badly.  When all he wanted was for Starsky to slide into the comforting role he rarely craved.  He longed to curl up in his partner’s arms and forget the rest of the world for awhile. . . to shut out the degrading memory of Poppy’s sexual threats, Papa Theodore’s revolting caresses and the feel of Philippe’s punishing fingers in his hair.  It wasn’t the memory of Starsky’s hurting him that twisted and soured his stomach, but the sadistic pleasure of the other three.

 

Hutch turned his head to the side, groaning audibly.  Just thinking about what had happened sent a violent shudder through his body.   Starsk, babe . . . I need you, buddy.  This is one time I won’t pretend.  Pulling his legs up, he bowed his head, resting his brow against his knees.  Lips parted, he looped his arms around his legs and panted for air. 

 

How long would Starsky give him the cold shoulder - - a day, two?  It couldn’t last more than that, could it?  Surely he wouldn’t stay distant all the way back to Bay City?  Maybe when they were off the island he’d ease up.  When the stain of allegiance to Papa Theodore was buried somewhere in the past, maybe Starsky would be more approachable.  I should have told you what was going on in my head.  Feels like I broke some sort of trust between us.  I just wish . . .   He closed his eyes tightly, hunched and shivering, despite the gummy tropical heat.   I just wish you wouldn’t shut me out.

 

“Hutch?”

 

He heard the pat-tap of returning footsteps, the sound of heavy sandals swooshing through grass.  Jerking his head up, he saw Starsky standing an arm’s length away.

 

“Buddy, you okay?  You’re shivering.”  There was true concern in Starsky’s voice, a softening of expression on his face.  Crouching, he raised a hand but quickly dropped it back to his side as if deciding better of the idea.  “I think you should stay here while I get help.  You’re in no condition to hike in this heat. “Sides - - I don’t want you cuttin’ up your feet on those stones.”

 

What you mean is you want to leave.  Get away from me, so you won’t have to think about what I made you become.  Hutch nodded stiffly.  The distance swelling between them was just too painful, something that shouldn’t have been.  Something that had never been.  He tensed, waiting to see if Starsky would touch him . . . just a brush of fingertips against a sleeve in parting, but no such consolation was offered. 

 

Starsky stood, gazing down on him.  “I’ll be as fast as I can, Hutch.”  A pause, during which if Hutch had only raised his eyes and looked, he would have seen Starsky gnawing worriedly on his lip.  “You gonna be okay, buddy?”

 

Another clipped nod.  If his throat weren’t so agonizingly sore, Hutch would have felt it close up in remorse.  Wrapping his arms around his chest in an attempt to still his shivering, he glanced away. If he looked at Starsky now, his conviction would shatter, and that would push Starsky into forced-response mode. The last thing Hutch wanted was obligatory comfort.  He didn’t want pity or phony sympathy.  He wanted his friend. 

 

“Well . . . okay . . .”  Still Starsky hedged.  He scuffed a sandal through the grass.  “I-I’m not really leavin’, I’m just goin’ for help.  It’s not like I’m desertin’ you or anything.”

 

“I’ll be fine,” Hutch said emotionlessly. 

 

“Yeah.”  The word was a whisper, laced with something that bordered on regret.  Before Hutch could pinpoint the emotion, Starsky pivoted and sprinted for the road. 

 

Watching him race into the distance, Hutch felt a heavy mantle of despair settle over him.  Yesterday morning they’d been on a high, having cracked the Thorne case, entertaining the thought of a well-deserved vacation.  That had all come crashing down with the news of Papa Theodore’s escape.  Now, a scant twenty-four hours later, their very friendship was strained. 

 

Disturbed, Hutch rubbed the bridge of his nose.  He should have tried harder.  Starsky was hurt, physically and emotionally, and he hadn’t done enough to reach him.  The man was walking around with what was likely second degree burns, pretending it was a mild sunburn.  Between the heat and the effects of god-knew-what-drug still floundering around in his system, he could keel over five feet down the road.  At the very least, he had to be in considerable pain.   

 

Swearing silently, Hutch braced a hand against the palm tree and clambered upright.  He looked toward the road, but Starsky had disappeared over the next rise, no longer visible.  Deciding he had no intention of sitting still after all, Hutch walked unsteadily in the direction of his missing friend.

 

+++++

 

“Crow.  Godfrey,” Starsky said for the third time and the old woman finally nodded in glazed-eyed understanding.  Pushing her ponderous weight from a rickety spindle-back rocker, she ducked into an adjoining room.  Restless, Starsky paced to the front door of the hovel and back, side-stepping a clay pot filled with some leafy green fern he didn’t recognize. 

 

Hutch would probably know.  Heck, Hutch would probably tell the woman what to feed the thing, how to pronounce its scientific name and what day of the week it liked to be watered. 

 

Except Hutch couldn’t really talk right now because some sick bastard by the name of David Starsky had morphed into an ogre and butchered his throat.

 

He grimaced. 

 

First things first.  Get ‘im help.

 

The old woman’s hovel was cramped and cluttered, overflowing with trinkets and oddities.  A pile of yellowed newspapers took up one half of a mud-colored couch, spilling over onto the floor where they mingled with empty egg cartons, spools of colorful yarn and a few battered tin cans.  Bunches of drying herbs hung from wooden rafters, perfuming the air with an earthy, pungent aroma.  Nearby, a narrow table was littered with urns of various sizes, discarded pieces of driftwood, broken shells, glass beads, and what might have been a snakeskin.  A few feet away, a fat orange tabby slept contentedly on a cushioned stool.  Every so often the cluck-and-squawk of penned chickens would rise from outside, and the cat would swivel an ear in the direction of the noise, otherwise failing to react.

 

Starsky paced again - - back-forth, back-forth.  He was starting to think the woman hadn’t understood him when she returned at last, bearing a large cage constructed of heavy wire.  The bird inside was immense, black as pitch and eerily menacing.  For a thunderstruck moment, Starsky wondered if Papa Theodore had lied to him . . . if the release of the crow would in fact bring displaced followers rushing to his aid.  Tell her Papa Theodore sends his blessings and she’ll send a crow to Chief Godfrey.

 

Trick?

 

He had no choice but to gamble.  The woman carried the cage outside and Starsky followed, distractedly wondering how fast a bird could fly, how long it would take Godfrey to return. 

 

The woman set the cage on the ground and opened the door.  Within seconds the crow fluttered out, shooting skyward with a hissing flap of heavy wings.  Starsky watched until it disappeared, pinwheeling from view, no more than a black speck on the horizon.  The woman gave him an assuring nod, gathered her cage and vanished inside.  Alone, he stood in the heat, the dry dust of the gravel road clogging his throat, the blistered sting of his hands making him feel dangerously light-headed.

 

Probably wasn’t such a good idea to run all that way.

 

But Hutch needed help and he needed it quickly.  Grimacing now that he didn’t have to pretend any longer, Starsky bent over bracing his forearms against his knees.  Grinding his teeth together, he tried to convince himself the pain really wasn’t all that bad.  He’d lived with it this long.  A little longer wouldn’t matter.  Miserable, he paced a short distance away and slumped to a seat on the ground.  His legs were dirty, streaked with grime beneath his ragged cutoffs.  His mustard-colored tee-shirt clung to his back, plastered by perspiration and trickles of cold sweat.  But it wasn’t just a physical bath he needed . . . he needed something to cleanse and purify his soul. 

 

Once more he felt despair well inside him.  In two days they could put the island behind them and return to the safe familiarity of Bay City.  He should have been comforted by that fact, but instead it brought deeper grief.  In two days he’d be forced to face the ugly reality of losing his partner.  Hutch wouldn’t come right out and say he wanted to terminate their relationship, but the brittle distance Starsky felt now would continue to grow until it became insurmountable.  Hutch had been cool and aloof when they’d parted beneath the palm tree.  Anyone with a shred of common sense would know the partnership couldn’t be salvaged.

 

Ah, buddy, I don’t blame you for hatin’ me. I hate me too.

 

“Come inside.”

 

He gave a start, surprised when the old woman materialized from the house.  She shuffled a few feet from the front door, an apparition of graying black hair, leathered skin and sagging clothes.  Flesh dangled from the bottom of her upper arm when she raised her hand, motioning him to join her. 

 

“Come inside.  Your hands need attention.”

 

Starsky looked down at his blistered palms, wondering when she’d noticed.  Standing because it was the polite thing to do, he offered a grateful smile.  “Thanks, but I’m okay.”  A hovel in the middle of nowhere didn’t exactly meet his standards for reliable medical aid. 

 

The woman frowned.  Harsh wrinkles lined her sun-browned face like the deeply grooved shell of a walnut.  “Not okay.”  She motioned crisply.  “Come inside.”

 

Starsky was about to protest again when something about the set of the woman’s face told him she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.  Realistically he had time to kill, and at least the heat wouldn’t be so stifling inside.   He could always race back to where he’d left Hutch, but if he did, he’d have no way of directing Godfrey’s rescue party in the right direction.  It was better for both of them if he stayed where he was and waited it out.  Hopefully his notoriously mule-headed friend would do the same.

 

“Oh-okay,” he said with another smile, this one wavering a little.

 

The woman turned her back and he followed her inside, ducking to enter the small doorway.  The orange tabby was still curled on its stool beneath the window, sleeping contentedly in a patch of brassy sunlight.  The woman pointed Starsky to a chair by the narrow table and he sat obediently. 

 

“Guess you don’t get a lot of visitors out here, huh?” He chuckled to himself, oddly nervous, growing talkative as a result.  “ . . .’cept for all those people wantin’ chicken and eggs.  Big market in that, I guess.  I mean people gotta eat and everyone likes eggs.  Well . . . maybe not everyone, but most folks anyway.”

 

The woman ignored him.  Hunched over the table, she gathered a handful of crushed herbs, grinding them into a pulpy lump in the bottom of a wooden pestle.  Adding a splash of water from a copper urn, she worked at blending the sticky mass into a paste.

 

“Chicken’s not bad either,” Starsky said feeling like an idiot for rattling nonsensically, but unable to stop the inane chatter.  “Don’t know if yours are for eatin’ or just egg layin’ . . . probably egg layin’, huh?  I mean you gotta have chickens or you wouldn’t have eggs and - - ”

 

“Talking won’t erase the sting,” the woman said quietly.

 

Her tone was soft, barely vocal, but the words made Starsky clamp his mouth shut.  A snake-sleek chill slithered down his spine warning of danger.  Not physical, not even substantial, but of the suffocating guilt he wanted to avoid at all cost.  Awkwardly clearing his throat, he tried to fluff off the remark.   “It ain’t that bad.  I got burned worse before . . . in the army.”

 

“I wasn’t talking about the burn.”  Claiming his hand, the woman began to smear a greenish-white goo across his palm.  Starsky tensed at the initial sting, slowly relaxing when he realized the paste was mildly soothing.  Keeping her eyes fixed on her work, the woman continued talking, her voice low, melodious and smooth.  “There is a sting in your heart . . . a blackness that eats from within.  I sense despair and the loss of something that cannot be replaced.”

 

Starsky scowled.  Just his luck to stumble across another wise-woman, seer, griot-what’s-it-whosie, or whatever Huggy’s Aunt Minnie had been called.  Wherever he turned it seemed someone wanted to slip him a charm, zap him with a hex or badger him about what his conscience hid.  Annoyed, he looked away.  “You wouldn’t understand.”

 

“I understand more than you know.  Papa Theodore sent you.”

 

“I told you that.”  Starsky’s brows drew together.  “You a friend of his?”

 

“A Bokor has no friends, only followers.  I do not follow.”

 

“But you sent the crow,” Starsky persisted.

 

“Because you asked.”  Finishing with the paste, the woman located a clean strip of cotton cloth from among the items on the worktable and gently wound it around his hand.  “This heals the outside, the flesh - -”  Her eyes rose, locking with his.  “ - - but not the heart.”  

 

“T’rrific.”  He pulled his hand away, wanting it to end there.  As irritated as he felt, he had to admit the sting was not as volatile.  His palm still throbbed, but the intensity level had dwindled,

shriveling to something he could manage with minimal effort. Too bad she couldn’t get rid of the hole in his heart, the black ilk rotting his soul.

 

Claiming his other hand, the woman slathered his palm with a generous glob of celery-colored paste.  “I sense a great loss - - death?”

 

“Might as well be.”  Too tired to evade the conversation or fence words any longer, Starsky exhaled loudly.  “I lost a friend.  Did something terrible to him and now our relationship’s in the doghouse.  Over.  Kaput.”

 

She raised one graying brow.  “He told you this?”

 

“He didn’t have to.  Some things are just a ‘given.’ Can’t go back to bein’ friends after what I did to him.  The whole thing stinks, but like some shit-wise philosopher once said - -‘nobody said life was fair.’”

 

“So this is how you feel about your friend?”

 

“No, damn it!”  The flash of rage died quickly and Starsky closed his eyes.  “Aw, what’s the use,” he muttered.  “I can’t take it back.”

 

“No,” she agreed, applying a cotton wrap to his hand.  “But like flesh that has been blistered and damaged, you can help it heal.  There are salves and bandages for emotional wounds just as there are for physical ones.  My crow will bring help. You must find healing on your own . . . for yourself and your friend.  Perhaps you already know what he needs?”

 

T’rrific.  Everybody wants to play therapist.

 

Under any other circumstance he would know exactly what Hutch needed  - - emotional support and compassion - - and wouldn’t hesitate to give it.  But this time was different.  This time he knew he’d be rebuffed.  Hutch wanted no part of him aside from using him to reach safety.  Maybe he ain’t sayin’ it, but I can sense it plain as day.  That’s why he didn’t want me to leave . . . not ‘cause of any special bond between us.  He’s just afraid I’ll skip out before he can ditch me on his own.

 

“I think I need air.” Determined to end the conversation, Starsky stood and gave a hasty nod, forcing a smile he didn’t feel.  “Thanks for your help.  I’m just gonna wait outside.  My, uh . . . my hands feel better.”  He lifted both in token acknowledgement, grinning inanely as he backed toward the door.  The woman watched but said nothing, her expression unchanged, unreadable. 

 

Once outside he sucked down a rattling breath.  Away from the woman and the cluttered confines of her hut, his emotions rushed close. All it took was a single thought, centered on his blond-haired friend for an ache to pierce his heart.  Aw, Hutch, if you only knew . . . if you only understood how much I care.

 

The memory of his friend’s softly spoken words gently prodded the back of his mind:  I love you.  It was something they rarely said straight out.  Starsky wasn’t sure if either of them had ever said it.  There were the occasional off-the-cuff quips or teasing remarks, but never a straight forth declaration like Hutch’s.  That particular emotion was felt, clearly understood between them, but rarely if ever vocalized.  It had never been needed before . . . except now, just a short time ago when Hutch thought he’d been dying.

 

Not just dyin’.  Bein’ murdered by his best bud.  Starsky’s face contorted at the grim memory.  He felt a stabbing flush of guilt.  Screw this!

 

Straightening his back, he gathered what was left of his conviction.  He’d see Hutch to a hospital then safely to Bay City.  Not because it was expected of him or because he owed Hutch, but because he loved his friend.   Afterward he’d do the only respectable thing left for a man who had erred so unforgivably - - he’d leave.

 

Permanently.  

 

+++++

 

Starsky sat on the worn stump of an ancient tree, his head propped in his wrapped hand.  The old woman had done a commendable job for having nothing other than a folk medicine background.  He barely felt the sting of blisters any longer, and the binding she’d used was supple, allowing him to bend and flex his fingers.  Overhead the morning sun climbed higher, nearing the onslaught of noon.  He’d lost track of time, one agonizingly slow minute as frustrating as the next. 

 

Bankin’ my whole freakin’ existence on a stupid crow.  I need to have my head examined.

 

Exasperated, he stood and started to pace.  Maybe he really should go back for Hutch.  What if his friend had gotten worse?  What if his throat had swollen shut and he couldn’t breathe?  Instead of resting in the shade waiting for help to arrive, he could be writhing on the ground, desperately gasping for air.

 

“Aw, shit!”     

 

Panicked, he took a hasty step in the direction he’d come from, drawing up immediately short.  Someone was walking down the road.  No - - that wasn’t quite right.  Someone was lurching down the road, staggering drunkenly, the sun blazing off a brilliant halo of white-blond hair.  Starsky’s stomach lurched to his throat.  “Hutch!” 

 

He sprinted toward his friend, the pulse-and-beat of his heart pounding faster than his rapidly-thudding feet.  Hutch’s legs gave out just as Starsky reached his side. 

 

The blond-haired man sank into a boneless heap, folding into Starsky’s arms with a jagged cough.  His face was red, flushed from exertion.  Damp tendrils of hair clung to his forehead and his white shirt gaped open over his chest, the gauzy material stained with sweat and grime.  Trembling, he tried to catch his breath.  It was obvious the mere act of inhaling inflicted severe pain.  Ducking his head, he shuddered for air, his whole body convulsing under the gruesome punishment.

 

“Take it easy, buddy.  I’m right here.”  Despite the resentment Starsky was sure Hutch harbored for him, he felt instinctively protective of his hurting friend.  Underlying the concern was a sliver of anger and fear spurred by Hutch’s foolish actions, but his voice held only reassurance when he spoke.  “You shoulda stayed where you were . . . waited for me to come get ya.”  As he talked, Starsky smoothed a hand over his friend’s hunched back, his eyes doing a quick visual check of Hutch’s body.  He could just see the bottom of one bare foot, near black with grime, smeared with glistening streaks of red where tiny stones and shells had cut into tender flesh.

 

“Damn it, Hutch,” he mumbled, distressed by the sight.  “Why didn’t you listen to me?”

 

Hutch gave a half-vocal grunt that may have been an attempt at a reply and pressed against him, seemingly unable to support his own weight.  Just a few days ago it would have felt natural to wrap an arm around his blond friend and hold him as long as was necessary, but Starsky felt he’d forfeited that right.  Reluctantly, his hand fell away from Hutch’s back.  “Godfrey should be here soon,” he said in a choked voice.  “Won’t be too long before we get you to a hospital.”

 

“S-Starsk?” Hutch tried to raise his head.  Weak, barely able to function, he relaxed against his friend’s chest. 

 

Starsky immediately stiffened.   He felt like a marble sculpture, life-like in appearance but carved from impassive stone.  It was as if he had no feeling left in his body.  As if the guilt he’d nurtured had sucked the last remaining shred of warmth from his heart, leaving desolation behind.  There was only cold and brittle distance, something he couldn’t broach no matter how fervently he wished to try.  Had my chance.  Had a once-in-a-lifetime friend.  All of it’s gone now.

 

“ . . . tired . . .”  Hutch breathed and turned his face into the hollow of Starsky’s neck.  His painful pants for air sounded less violent, as if resting against his friend helped soothe his distress.

 

Still Starsky couldn’t move, couldn’t find it in himself to offer comfort.  “We should get you off the road,” he said clumsily.  “Into the shade.”  So I don’t have to feel you leanin’ against me . . . feel this godawful awkwardness, like you’re some kinda stranger and I don’t know what to do about it. 

 

He slipped one hand beneath Hutch’s forearm, preparing to pull him to his feet.   That he could handle - - a blunt, forced movement with no overture of compassion involved.  He just wanted it to end now - - Godfrey’s arrival, the hospital, even their return to Bay City.  He wanted it over so he could slink away into oblivion and not drag out the agony of separation.  Not that Hutch would care any longer, but it was torture for him.

 

I deserve it.  Oh God, what if I damaged his throat so badly he can’t sing anymore?

 

It was a new, purely horrifying thought, one that made his stomach churn with acid. He swallowed hard, hauling Hutch to his feet, grimacing against the protesting flare of pain from his abused hands.

 

Hutch groaned, knotting his fingers into Starsky’s tee-shirt.  “S-Starsk, please . . . lemme . . . lemme s-stay . . .”

 

Stay where?  On the ground?  In the middle of the road, choking back dust?  He swallowed hard.  In my arms?

 

Not there.  Surely not there.  “Let’s get you off the road,” he mumbled and started back toward the stump that had been his initial seat.  A loud pop drew his attention and he lifted his head in time to see two police cruisers bearing in his direction, their tires crunching over the gravel road.  A plume of dust rose behind the lumbering vehicles, spewing into the air like rising smoke signals. The murderously tight fist inside Starsky’s stomach slowly unclenched.

 

“Looks like that crow was worth its weight in gold,” he breathed, a signature trace of warmth slipping through in his suddenly quavering voice.  “Help’s here.  Everything’s gonna be okay now, buddy.  I promise.”

 

+++++

 

Everything was not okay.  Once at the hospital, Hutch allowed himself to be subjected to the inevitable poking and prodding by numerous doctors, nurses and other assorted medical personnel.  They separated him from Starsky the moment he was admitted, putting him in a small room that was curtained off from the emergency ward.  Normally his partner would have made a fuss about the division, but Starsky merely watched grim-faced as they wheeled him away.

 

Hutch grew agitated as a result, increasingly restless, a reaction that heightened his own spiking pain.  A hefty-looking nurse with a bob of black hair appeared at his shoulder and slipped him a shot. The needle was in his arm before he had time to panic or protest . . . to recall demon-inspired memories of forced heroin addiction and street-style withdrawal.  Within seconds he found his eyes growing heavy, his raspy breath easing from raging torture to a dull ache. Someone slathered a healing salve on his bruised neck and the next thing he knew he woke up in a private room, an oxygen tube under his nose, an IV dripping clear liquid into his arm. 

 

The first thing he noticed was the clock on the adjacent wall, inching toward 5PM.  A splash of sunlight slanted into the room, tinged with the faded gold of champagne.  He tried to move and found that his whole body ached, every inch of him protesting with stiffening rifts of pain. Turning his head on the pillow, he looked to the right, seeking his friend.  “Starsky?”

 

His voice was weak, dismally thin.  Worse, there was no sign of his partner, prompting a fierce stab of worry.  “S-Starsky - - ”

 

A bandaged hand slid onto his ankle.  “Right here,” a familiar voice said.

 

Hutch turned his head, panic slithering into relieved submission when he saw his friend standing at the foot of the bed.  The blanket that covered his legs was untucked lying loose over the mattress, allowing Starsky the freedom to slip his hand beneath the light linen.  Hutch could feel the edge of freshly applied bandages as his friend’s fingers closed around his ankle - - much as Papa Theodore’s had done when he’d been bound to the table.  Only this touch was welcome, not hideously revolting for its implied intimacy.

 

“The doc says the rope burns might sting for a while.” Starsky announced neutrally. 

 

Like he’s reciting a damn grocery list.

 

The dark-haired man’s hand swept lower, brushing over the slope of Hutch’s bare foot, ending at his toes.  “You cut your feet up pretty bad too.  Might hurt for a little bit.”  His fingers tightened, massaging slightly before his hand fell away.  He avoided mentioning the most obvious injury.  “You slept all afternoon, buddy.  Guess the pain shot they gave you must be pretty heavy duty stuff.”

 

Hutch wet his lips.  His throat was still chafed and raw, but at least it didn’t feel on fire anymore.  “  . . . Hands . . .” he said.

 

Starsky raised a brow.  “Huh?”

 

“Your hands,” Hutch clarified.

 

“Oh.”  Starsky seemed to grasp the gist of the question.  “I’m fine.”  He lifted one hand to show a freshly applied bandage.  “That woman with the chickens put some goop on ‘em, then once I got here they gave ‘em an overhaul . . . rewrapped ‘em and gave me somethin’ for the pain.”  He forced a smile.  “Almost as good as new.”

 

Hutch tried to sit up.  At least Starsky was talking, but he was still acting awkward and distant.  Unfortunately, that sticky remoteness wasn’t likely to improve as long as they remained in the hospital.  “Hotel,” he said, knuckling his hands into the mattress, forcefully pushing to a sitting position.

 

Starsky took a step closer then stopped, hovering just off the side of the bed.  “I think they wanna keep you here overnight for observation.  I heard the doctor say your throat should be okay given time.  No irreversible damage”  He lowered his eyes with a guilty flush.  “But they wanna keep you on oxygen for the night.” 

 

“Don’t need it.”  Hutch was growing frustrated.  Starsky stood to the side of the bed, far enough away to be out of reach.  His hands were clasped tightly in front of him, carefully restrained to his own space, as if the Great Wall of China gouged a trench between them

 

“Hotel,” Hutch said again, stubbornly this time. He still felt looped from the pain meds and the residual trace of whatever drug Poppy had given him.  The thought of the red-haired woman made him tense unexpectedly.  Suddenly he was back in Papa Theodore’s prison, bound to a sacrificial table, Poppy taunting him with threats of sexual molestation.  “Papa Theodore?” he asked, wincing at the sound of the hated name.

 

Starsky winced too, but plowed ahead anyway, standing rigid and stiff like a cardboard cutout.  “Chief Godfrey rounded him up.  Last I heard the cops nabbed Poppy and that midget Philippe too.  All three of ‘em are in the city jail, watched like hawks this time around.  Tomorrow afternoon you and I’ll be on a flight back to Bay City and we can forget about this nightmare.  Sound good, buddy?”

 

The forced levity in Starsky’s voice rang hollow.  Worse, his body radiated tension in direct contradiction to his light tone.  He was like two people masquerading as one.  One who hadn’t been able to forgive himself . . . who pushed Hutch away in anger as a result, and the other effecting false cheerfulness.  Both were caricatures, neither the Starsky Hutch knew . . . the one he desperately needed. 

 

Tired but determined, Hutch sagged back into the pillows.  Everything felt out of whack.  Maybe Papa Theodore had been recaptured, but Starsky was acting like a stranger, and that inconceivable wrongness made him physically sick.  He wanted to snap at his friend, tell him what an idiot he was being for erecting walls, but Starsky was still doing the cold-shoulder routine.

 

“Find the doctor,” he said carefully, as concisely as he could manage.  “I want . . . to go to the hotel.  Now.”

 

Starsky frowned.  If things had been different between them Hutch knew he would have argued, but Starsky obviously felt he didn’t have the right for such familiarity any longer.  He hesitated, clearly torn, then gave a clipped nod and went in search of the doctor.

 

Two hours later, Hutch was back in his hotel room, if not at home, at least in what passed for home in the strange island paradise.  They’d cleaned him up a bit at the hospital, but he still felt filthy and grimy, a condition that made him long for a shower.  The reek of sacrificial oil clung to his skin and clothing, and his whole body felt tainted by Papa Theodore’s touch.  The nurse at the hospital had slathered his throat with more salve, wrapping it in a lightweight bandage until he looked like he wore a thin neck brace. She’d given him more of both the ointment and bandages with firm instructions to apply the salve three times a day.  Right now all he wanted to do was wash it off along with the rest of the grit that clung to his battered body.

 

“Shower?” he asked Starsky, suggesting that perhaps his equally grubby friend might want to go first.

 

“You go ‘head,” Starsky countered.  “I’ll order us something to eat.”  He winced as soon as he said it, both of them knowing there was very little Hutch would be able to swallow.  It was also the last thing he’d done before attacking his friend the previous night and the similarity brought back painful memories.

 

Hutch pretended not to notice his sudden anxiety.  Grabbing a clean towel from the linen closet, he headed for the bathroom.  Once inside, he peeled the bandage off his throat and stepped into the shower.  The water felt good, sinfully so.  Standing beneath the spray, he waffled between being too warm or more often than not, increasingly cold.  His sunburn still bothered him, inducing chills the moment he stepped from the mildly heated water to the frigid nip of hotel air conditioning.

 

Shivering, he toweled dry then wrapped another towel around his waist and padded barefoot to the bedroom.  Starsky was in the living area, arranging two trays of food on the coffee table.  Hutch concentrated on dressing, studiously avoiding the sight of his hideously bruised neck in the mirror.  He located his white denim shorts on a nearby chair, matching them with a long-sleeved, blue knit top that sported a stand-up zipper collar.  Making sure the collar was fully zipped, the marks on his neck hidden from view, Hutch tugged the sleeves back on his forearms and walked into the living room.  The plush carpeting felt good against the soles of his battered feet, the smells coming from the coffee table alluringly appetizing.

 

“I got you soup,” Starsky said glancing up at him with a hesitant smile.  “Some kind of chowder.  It’s heartier than broth, but should still slide easily.”  He lifted a silver serving lid from the center of a square tray, revealing a steaming bowl of soup and a cup of orange Jello.  “Thought maybe later on if you’re feelin’ up to it, I’ll order some ice cream.”

 

Hutch sat down on the couch, reaching for a napkin.  “Where’s yours?”   His eyes tracked to the side, noticing a discarded tray covered haphazardly with a similar lid.

 

“Already ate,” Starsky said a little too brightly, his mood obviously forced.  “I had the soup too - - you’ll like it.”  He drew a breath, smiling a little to keep up the false gaiety.  “Think I’ll go take my shower now.”

 

So we’re not eating together anymore either?  You made sure of that, huh?

 

Hutch gave a reluctant nod, picking up his spoon and moodily prodding the soup.  As Starsky disappeared into the bathroom, his eyes slewed to the side, latching onto the discarded tray.  His friend had eaten soup - - not some obscenely stuffed hamburger, char-grilled chicken or juicy steak -  - all things he could have easily ordered.  He’d gotten by on soup because that was all Hutch could eat.

 

Dispirited, Hutch let the spoon plop back into the bowl.  His appetite was gone.  It was just as well.  The thought of swallowing left him sweating with dread.  Returning to the bedroom, he grabbed the tube of ointment the nurse had given him, a fresh length of bandages and a paperback copy of Jaws he’d picked up at the airport, having needed something to read on the plane. All three went on the nightstand. He was only a third of the way through Jaws, and while it was a great beach read - - especially when he was at the beach - - he couldn’t concentrate on much of anything at the moment.  Turning back the blankets, he propped the pillows against the headboard and crawled onto the bed, stretching his longs legs over the top of the mattress and bunched-up sheets.  His legs at least had bronzed, the red hint of sunburn now completely gone.  By contrast, the rope burns around his ankles were starkly visible.

 

Folding his hands over his stomach, Hutch sagged into the pillows and stared at the ceiling.  He felt sick - - physically, emotionally.  Could his friendship with Starsky survive the continually widening chasm between them?  He was tired, exhausted to the point of bone-weary fatigue.  Yet all he wanted . . . all he really needed was the support and compassion of his friend.  Something he’d never had to ask for before.  Something he was afraid he might never feel again.

 

It’s because he feels guilty.  Because he can’t get past what Papa Theodore made him do. 

 

Frustrated, Hutch sighed.  After a time he heard Starsky finishing up in the bathroom.  A moment later his friend appeared, a towel looped around his narrow hips. 

 

“Thought you’d still be eatin’,” Starsky said, noticing him propped in the bed. 

 

Hutch shrugged, reaching for his novel.  The last thing he wanted to do was read, but he didn’t know how to address the tension between them.  Especially when Starsky was pretending it didn’t exist. 

 

“Soup wasn’t too bad, huh?”  Starsky asked, pulling on a pair of black briefs followed by clean cut offs.  His voice grew muffled as he tugged a black tee-shirt over his head.  “You read and I’m gonna start packin’.  We should probably be at the airport early, even though our flight doesn’t leave until noon.”  Shooting Hutch a stray glance, he laced a hand through his damp curls. “You okay, buddy?  You need anything?”

 

True concern this time, or was that Hutch’s imagination?  He shook his head. 

 

“Oh . . . okay.”  Starsky hesitated as if unsure what to do next.  He managed a weak smile before disappearing into the living room.  Hutch heard the clatter of plates as he gathered up dinner dishes and trays.  Within seconds he was back in the bedroom, his expression thunderous.

 

“You didn’t eat a thing!” 

 

Hutch stared at him over the top of the novel, surprised by the outrage in his voice.   He didn’t think it would matter to Starsky anymore, that little of anything would matter to his painfully distant friend.  “I . . . wasn’t hungry,” he managed in a raspy voice.

 

Pressing his lips together, Starsky stood at the foot of the bed.  His glance was tense, edged with frost. “You ain’t ate a single thing in over twenty-four hours.  How the hell do you expect to get your strength back if you’re not eatin’?”

 

Hutch’s eyes fell to the novel and the jumbled blur of words on the page.  He’d stopped seeing them long ago.  Shrugging, he smoothed a restless thumb over the edge of the book.  He was surprised Starsky even cared at this point what he did or how he felt.  His pokerfaced reaction only seemed to infuriate his partner further.

 

“Hutch - -”  Aggravated, the dark-haired detective stepped brusquely toward the bed.  He stopped abruptly, blanching when he spied the rope burns encircling Hutch’s bare ankles. Uncomfortable, he glanced away, his eyes dropping quickly to the floor.  “I, uh . . .”  Whatever he’d originally intended to say was buried in remorseful muttering.

 

Hutch felt the sick thing inside his stomach dig deeper and spread roots.  “Starsk?” he asked weakly, looking at his friend expectantly.

 

It was Starsky’s turn to shrug.  He still stood an arm’s length from Hutch’s side, enforced distance feeling like a gaping abyss between them. “I was just sayin’ I better get back to packin’.  I’ll take care of your stuff too, so you don’t gotta worry  - -”

 

“I don’t want you to,” Hutch interrupted, cutting him short.

 

Caught off guard, Starsky blinked.

 

Before he could say anything, Hutch plowed ahead.  “I want you to sit down  . . . talk to me.”  Somehow he managed to get the words out, forcing them through his swollen throat.  The doctor had given him a bottle of pills to help with the pain, but while his throat ached, the mere thought of swallowing something that might wedge and stick in the grossly enflamed tissue left him feeling queasy.   He shoved the book aside, quickly forgotten, his eyes riveted on his friend.  “Please, Starsk.”

 

Starsky hesitated, torn by the plea in his voice.  He took a faltering step closer to the bed, but drew up shy of reaching it.  “Hutch, I gotta pack. Gotta get ready for tomorrow - -”

 

It was a lame excuse and they both knew it.  When Hutch kept his gaze on his partner, refusing to look away, refusing to accept the feeble justification for avoidance, Starsky blew out an exasperated breath.  Defeated, he slumped to a seat on the edge of the bed, careful to keep his hands in his lap.  “What’s to talk about?”

 

Hutch looked at him levelly, daring him to pretend there was nothing wrong.  Inside, he felt an anxious flutter in his stomach as if their friendship, their partnership, their very future hinged on what would happen now.  Babe, please don’t shut me out.  “We have to talk about . . . what happened.”

 

“You mean what I did - -” Starsky snapped abruptly, his voice spiteful and cold.  “ - - tryin’ to kill you?  Is that what you wanna hear, what you wanna talk about - - what a miserable excuse  for a human bein’ I am?  Some loyal friend, huh?”  The words were bitten off with stinging sarcasm, so filled with self-loathing, Hutch actually winced.  “Talkin’ ain’t gonna change a thing, buddy. What’s done is done.  I can’t take it back. God help me, I wish I could.  I’d give anything to change what happened, to keep from hurtin’ you.”  Starsky voice grew strangled.  He looked away, unable to continue, curling his fingers into the sheets. He’d removed the bandages from his hands to shower and the flesh on his palms looked puffy and pink. 

 

“Starsk - -”  Hutch reached for his wrist, but Starsky flinched away. 

 

“It’s no good, Hutch.  It ain’t never gonna be good again, so this is what we’re gonna do . . .”  He stood, pacing a short distance away, his back hunched with tension.  “There’s no reason we can’t be civil.  I’ll get you back to Bay City, make sure you’re okay, then I’m gonna bow out.  I’ve been thinkin’ about it a lot lately and I think it’d be the best thing for both of us.” 

 

“What?”  Hutch was sure he’d heard wrong. 

 

Starsky half turned to face him, forcing the rest.  “There’s a whole class of junior detectives who’d jump through hoops to be your partner.  You won’t have any problem findin’ a new one.”  He swallowed hard, taking a step closer to the bed, determined to thrust the ugly conversation to its inevitable conclusion.  “I’m gonna go back to New York . . . see Ma and Nicky . . . maybe start over there.”

 

The color drained from Hutch’s face.   He felt like he’d been kicked in the stomach, trampled over and left in the dust.  The room was hollow and brittle, looming like the surreal stage of a bad dream.  In real life Starsky would never say anything so spiteful, so heinous.  Surely he’d heard wrong, misunderstood.  His friend couldn’t possibly mean - -

 

“You’re . . . leaving?” he asked weakly, the horrified shock he felt plainly evident on his face.

 

“Damn it, Hutch, don’t look at me like that!” Infuriated, Starsky stalked to the side of the bed, bunching his hands into fists.  “I came this close - -” He raised a thumb and index finger, leaving only a hair’s width of space between them.  “ - - to killin’ you - -”

 

“ - - it-it wasn’t you,” Hutch interrupted quickly.

 

“Don’t give me that shit!”  Starsky snarled.  “It was my hands, my fingers!”  He lifted them in front of his face, contorting the blistered flesh into claws.  “Don’t you fuckin’ get it?  Nuthin’ I do is ever gonna fix that!”

 

“Starsky, it doesn’t need fixing!”  Panicked, Hutch swung his legs off the side of the bed. His voice was beginning to fade from too much use, making him strain to get any sound from his damaged vocal chords.  His words were choppy and halting, painfully produced with a hitching rasp of breath.  “So you’re just  . . . gonna  . . . leave?  Now, when I need yo –“

 

“Stop talkin’,” Starsky cut him off, looking away, effectively trying to end the confrontation.  “You’ll only make yourself worse.”

 

“Like you care,” Hutch shot back.

 

 Starsky stiffened.  “You think I don’t?”

 

“I don’t think . . . you care . . . jack shit . . . about  . . . how  . . . I . . . feel . . .”  Hutch was practically rasping now, the breath rattling through his swollen throat with a distinctly audible wheeze. The pain brought tears to his eyes.  Hunching over, he cupped a protective hand around his battered throat. Visibly trembling, he plowed ahead, not knowing what else to do, terrified his friend would really leave.  “You’re . . . just thinkin’ . . . ‘bout  . . . yourself . . .”

 

“Stop it,” Starsky snapped.  He took a step closer to the bed, jerked like a marionette on a string.  “Stop talkin’, you idiot.  You’re makin’ yourself worse.”

 

“What the fuck do you care?” Hutch spat.  “You’re leaving!”  The violence of his outburst reduced him to a sudden fit of coughing.  The spasm bubbled up from his lungs and ripped through his throat with the steel edge of a hot knife.  “Oh, god!”  Bowled over by the harsh spasm, he folded an arm across his stomach and gasped for air.  “God, Starsk, it hurts!”

 

“Ssh . . . ssh, it’s gonna be okay.”  Starsky reacted without thinking, catching his hunched friend in his arms, swiftly easing onto the bed to support him.  Hutch instinctively folded against him, one arm slipping around his waist to hold fast, the other rising to knot in the front of Starsky’s black tee-shirt.  Shuddering, he buried his face against Starsky’s chest, gasping for air.

 

“Babe, I’m sorry.  Take it easy, buddy.”  Starsky cupped the back of his neck, letting his fingers prong upward into damp tendrils of sun-lightened hair.  It was surprising, but he couldn’t even feel the tingle of pain from his healing fingertips any longer.  All he felt was the emotional desperation of his friend, the quickened beat of his own quaking heart.  There was no resistance this time, no stiffness or distance that made their embrace forced or awkward.  Hutch practically melted against him, moaning softly when Starsky found the courage to hug him back. 

 

“Just breathe easy, buddy,” Starsky whispered near his ear. “I’m right here.  I promise I’ve got ya.”  His hand dropped to Hutch’s shoulder, rounding the knob, sliding down his arm, gently rubbing in solicitous encouragement.  “I’m not goin’ anywhere, pal.”  He could feel his friend relaxing, the painful hitch of his breath easing into a smoother flow.  The diabolical knot in Starsky’s gut slowly unclenched.   Please Hutch . . . it hurts too much seein’ you like this.

 

Hutch burrowed closer, tightening his arm around Starsky’s waist.  The simple action of trust and dependency after everything that had come between them made a lump rise in Starsky’s throat.  Maybe he’d been wrong, maybe Hutch really did want him to stay, but he didn’t see how they could put the ugliness of Papa Theodore behind them.  Like a specter, the voodoo priest would always loom over them, a vile reminder of what had almost happened.  With little prompting he could still see an image of his friend bound to the table, eyes closed and lifeless, the leap of flame and shadow dancing across his limp, oil-slicked body.

 

I almost killed him.

 

The memory made Starsky tense, bile slamming hard against the back of his throat.  He groaned, fervently pressing his brow to Hutch’s bowed head.  The words came harsh and fierce, spilling from his lips with heated remorse.  “I’m sorry, Hutch.  Ohgod, babe, I’m so freakin’ sorry.  If I could take it back . . . make it go away . . . I wanna fix it so bad, but I don’t know how.  I don’t  know how to fuckin’ fix it!”  He choked, unable to contain the turbulently churning emotion.  “When I think about how I hurt you  . . .  what I did - -”

 

“Starsky, don’t.”  Hutch pulled back.  His voice was a pale whisper, lacking strength, but heard nonetheless.  He raised his head, leaning into Starsky’s shoulder.  “Nothing’s changed . . . between us.  I trust you, babe. I always will.”

 

Babe.  If Hutch really wanted him to leave he wouldn’t be talking like this and certainly not with such raw affection in his voice.  But Starsky felt he didn’t deserve it.  Their trust had been shattered and it would take more than a statement of faith to rebuild it.  “Don’t,” he croaked.  “You can’t trust me.  Not like before.”

 

“With my life.”

 

“Hutch - -”

 

His friend pulled away, reaching across him to fumble for something on the nightstand.  Grabbing the tube of ointment they’d given him at the hospital, Hutch rolled free of Starsky and sagged back into the cushioning embrace of the pillows.  “Here - -” He pressed the tube into Starsky’s hand.  Reaching for his collar, he tugged the zipper down, his long fingers trembling with fatigue.

 

Starsky grimaced at the sight of the bruises on his neck.  Although he’d seen the grisly marks before, they were darker now, mottled with splotches of purple, scarlet and black.   Glancing at the tube in his hand, he felt himself break out in a cold sweat.  Hutch surely couldn’t be purposing - -

 

“Hutch,” his voice cracked with the sick dread of realization.  “You . . . you can’t be serious.”

 

“I told you  . . .I trust you,” Hutch said, watching him earnestly. 

 

With puttin’ my hands on your neck?  Don’t ask me to do it . . . it’ll just bring back those friggin’ memories for both of us.  He swallowed hard.  “I don’t think this is a good idea.”  Starsky started to push from the bed but Hutch clutched his forearm, holding fast.

 

“Starsk, I trust you.”

 

Starsky wanted to argue, to say it didn’t matter, but Hutch was watching him intently as if their very future hinged on his decision.  And maybe it did.  This came down to the ultimate issue of trust.  Did Hutch believe in him enough to let him touch his already damaged throat . . . after Starsky had strangled him, choked him?  Did Starsky trust himself enough to touch his injured partner without recoiling in guilt and fear of hurting him further?

 

Sighing, he eased back onto the bed, butting one knee close to the pillow. The mere fact his friend suggested Starsky should tend to his neck spoke volumes about Hutch’s faith in him.  Whatever else Papa Theodore’s vulgar intrusion into their life had accomplished, it hadn’t shaken Hutch’s foundation of affection and devotion.  Once again the words he’d spoken while bound to the table came back to haunt Starsky:  I love you.

 

It was something neither had ever said before.

 

Blinking back a hot sting of moisture, Starsky lowered his head and squeezed a glop of ointment onto his fingers.  The salve felt good against his blistered skin and for a moment he simply rolled it absently between his fingertips. He could sense Hutch’s tension despite his valiant efforts to hide it.  His friend wanted this, needed this, but he obviously felt anxious about having someone put their hands on his battered throat.  The truth of the matter was Hutch was plainly terrified, no two ways about it and that jumpy emotion made all the sense in the world to Starsky. Which was why Hutch’s insistence they continue, was all the more heart wrenching.  Starsky’s friend was vulnerable, emotionally and physically.  Yet despite that defenseless fragility, he willingly trusted himself to the man who’d hurt him. 

 

Shit, babe, I wish you weren’t so damn idealistic at times. 

 

Starsky bit down on his bottom lip.  He made his hand move, his cramping fingers reaching out to lightly stroke the hollow of his friend’s throat. 

 

Hutch hissed in a breath.  Not because he lacked trust, but because the pain was clearly palpable . . . because any pressure on that part of his body no matter how minute, resurrected the horrifying ghost of strangulation.  Tensing involuntarily, he knotted one hand in the frayed hem of Starsky’s cutoffs. A shudder raced through his body.

 

Uncertain, Starsky hesitated.  “Babe, am I hurtin’ you?”   

 

Hutch gave a clipped shake of his head, his eyes near-panicked as they sought out Starsky.  The lightning strike of innate mental telepathy crackled between them.  I need you to do this.  Don’t stop.

 

Starsky’s fingers slid around the curve of his neck, thumb splaying wide to encompass the abnormally enflamed tissue.  It was the same motion he’d used to choke and brutally pinch off air.  Only now he massaged the bruised flesh as gently as he could.  Slowly, tenderly stroking, imparting warmth and healing, pouring his soul into the soothing caress.  

 

Tension flowed from Hutch’s body.  He moaned softly, turning his head to the side, letting his lashes flutter close.  Uncoiling his fingers, he relaxed completely, the reflex moment of fear past.   Inching closer, he let his brow come to rest against Starsky’s knee, his hand curling possessively on his friend’s leg.

 

Starsky felt a sharp tug at his heart. He tried not to look at the rope-chafed skin encircling Hutch’s wrists.  His friend’s uninhibited trust felt natural this time, his perfect ease with touch and contact as intrinsic as it had once been.  The barrier was gone, allowing Starsky to give with effortless devotion.  It was amazing to realize the man he’d once considered aloof on first impression so many years ago, was now curled contentedly against his knee. 

 

With his free hand, Starsky feathered the bangs from Hutch’s forehead.  “Tired, babe?”

 

Hutch made a soft sound that may have been an affirmative.

 

“I’d say that’s a ‘yes.’” Starsky chuckled fondly at his sleepy friend. It was as if the moment their boundaries of touch had been redefined - - or more accurately relaxed to the point they’d always been - -  Hutch simply surrendered himself to Starsky.  It made the dark-haired man realize how exhausted his partner was. “Don’t think either of us has got much sleep since we hit this island,” he observed, still gently lacing his fingers through Hutch’s hair.  The action seemed to be putting his contented friend to sleep. “You wanna sit up buddy, so I can wrap your neck?”

 

Hutch groaned a negative.

 

“Only take a minute, then I’ll let you sleep.”

 

Forcing a sigh, Hutch rolled onto his back.  He started to struggle to a sitting position when Starsky laid a restraining hand on his shoulder.  “You’re fine, babe.  Just lay back.”  Reaching for the bandages on the table, he pulled them onto his lap, careful to fold and crease the edges the way the nurse had shown him at the hospital. “You wanna shrug out of your shirt?” he asked.  Judging by the heavy dip of Hutch’s eyelids, he’d be asleep within seconds once Starsky was done tending to his neck.  Although Starsky really wanted him to eat something, he decided sleep was the better medicine at the moment.

 

Hutch groaned again, his movements sluggish and stiff.  Starsky helped him with the knit garment, tugging it over his head, ruffling his sun-whitened hair in the process.  Free of the shirt, Hutch slumped back against the pillows, clearly fighting to keep his eyes open.

 

“Almost done,” Starsky encouraged.  He wrapped the bandage carefully, the pressure of his fingers firm but gentle.  Hutch stayed relaxed through the whole procedure, never betraying so much as a flinch or startled hiss of breath.  Completely at ease.  Completely trusting.

 

Emotion welled into Starsky’s throat.  How had he ever managed to attract such a priceless friend . . . one who could survive the suffering Hutch had endured and still have his idealism and faith intact, his friendship as unflagging as it had been before?  “Buddy . . .”  Starsky’s fingers stilled.  He didn’t want to shatter the gentle healing between them but there was more to Hutch’s ordeal than his own misguided crime.  Deciding to get it out in the open, Starsky wet his lips and plowed ahead.

 

“Papa Theodore said some things . . . about you.”  He kept his eyes on Hutch’s face, watching for reaction.  The fatigue drained quickly from his friend’s eyes, replaced by guarded wariness.  “About Poppy, and how maybe she wasn’t the only one attracted to you.  That he . . . that he thought you were - - ”

 

“It was just oil,” Hutch said quickly, his voice a glass thread.  He grimaced, turning his face away briefly.  “Nothing happened, Starsk.  She . . . m-made some threats, and he . . . th-the Bokor . . .”  Another grimace, as though he couldn’t bear to mention the voodoo priest’s hated name.  “All he d-did was touch my s-stomach and chest.”

 

Stutterin’.  I’m guessin’ it was a little more than that.

 

“ . . . and your throat.”

 

Hutch’s fingers curled around his wrist.  “And my throat,” he agreed despondently.  His eyes rose, reflecting the revulsion and fear he’d felt during those moments.  “You threw oil into his face . . . blinded him.”

 

“I shoulda done a lot more.”  Starsky’s gaze narrowed, grew hard.  “What about that midget  - - Philippe?”

 

Hutch grimaced.  “Just threats . . . intimidation.”  He curled closer.  “Nothing happened, Starsk.”

 

“Okay, babe, that’s enough talkin’.”  Moved by the pained rasp of his voice, Starsky scraped his knuckles down the curve of his friend’s cheek.  Hutch seemed sincere, a fact that made his mind rest a little easier.  There was no doubt his friend was attractive, a little too good-looking for his own wellbeing at times.  Despite what Papa Theodore had insinuated about Hutch “entertaining” friends and being attracted to him himself, nothing overtly sexual had taken place.  Threats and insinuations a man could overcome.

 

Starsky sighed in relief, smoothing a hand down his friend’s arm.  “I want you to forget about it now.  Forget the whole freakin’ thing and try to rest.”

 

“Stay?”  A single word that sliced into Starsky’s heart.  It wasn’t about staying in the room, hovering somewhere in the background, fiddling with packing suitcases.  It went deeper than that, the unvoiced question and Hutch’s wounded need hanging between them:  Stay here beside me until I fall asleep.

 

Starsky looked at his own bed across the short aisle of carpet, thinking how good it would feel to fold into the mattress and let his tired, aching body slide into blissful slumber.  Instead he shifted, sitting back against the headboard, dropping a companionable arm around his partner’s shoulders.  Hutch curled against him, automatically shoving his pillow into Starsky’s lap.  “ . . .keepin’ you up . . .” he mumbled.   

 

“I don’t mind.”  Starsky stroked his arm.  “Go to sleep.”

 

For a time there was only the gentle sound of Hutch’s breathing and Starsky thought he’d taken the order to heart.  Then weakly, heavy with sleep, Hutch forced his name.  “Starsk?”

 

“Yeah, pal?”

 

“You wouldn’t . . . really leave . . . go back to New York?”

 

Starsky snorted.  “What - - and leave you to fend on your own?  You wouldn’t last a day without me.  I’m not goin’ anywhere.”  He tightened his arm, hugging Hutch close.  Then very softly, spoken before he could lose his courage:  “I love you too, dummy.”

 

It sealed their relationship, now and for the future.  Whatever hurdles of healing yet remained they’d both survive, overcoming all the Papa Theodores and grim realities the world forced into their path. 

 

Contented, Hutch fell asleep.

 

+++++

 

- -  End Aftershock - -