From EQUINOX by Mel Keegan

Excerpted from NARC #2: Equinox by Mel Keegan

‘I believe,’ Harry said wryly, ‘the colonel placed you under my supervision! Rest, he said. That was an order.’

An order which was easy to obey. Jarrat was already asleep when Stone stumbled into bed. He laid his cheek on the warm, hard plane of Kevin’s shoulder and closed his eyes. The last he knew was the slight vibration through the frame of the vast building as a Starfleet lighter touched down on the roof far above.

The dreams came later.

He ran, but knew he would be caught. Shadowy shapes pinned him down with crushing weight. A capsule broke with a sharp plastic pop, and acrid golden dust filled his head and stole his thoughts.

Angel.

Horror rampaged through his mind. The drug was like sweet poison. Angeldeath awaited him — no one survived the one-way track into the nightmare. But first came the Angeldreams. Fantasies torn from the deepest realm of the subconscious were clothed in sensual flesh that seemed so real. Stone threshed as the bitter dust stung his nose, choked him, but even then the fantasies had stirred to life.

He saw Jarrat again, the focus of his dreams, now as before. The chimerical creature with Kevin’s face rose from his memory: emerald skinned, winged, his body adorned in paint, gold, rings and chains, he deliberately seduced a man he loved. His beauty inveigled, beguiled, and Stone was lost once more. Engrossed in the golden dust he writhed, frenzied with the drug-induced, fantasy-driven lust which would rage as long as his body held out...

Angel.

The word crept into the midst of the phantasm and Stone recoiled from the incubus he had created. It wore Jarrat’s face and body but it was not Kevin. Lips curled back over razor-like fangs, talons ripped his skin as the carnal dream became horror at the mention of a word.

Now he fought, but knew he could not win. Angel was a disease. Some reasoning part of his mind knew it for what it was. A synthetic, a narcotic designed in the lab, so powerful and seductive that it had built empires, and torn them down.

Angeldreams were the kind a man would die for: he might swim in diamond, hear the song of the stars, master the sky with the power of living flight. Rampant with sexual energy, lord of every scene, he commanded any lover his imagination could conjure. No act was impossible, sensuality was infinite.

Until he was so rotten with the drug and the physical punishment wreaked upon his helpless, overworked body, his existence could not be called living. The only escape was death. Stone fought like a madman as the agonies of withdrawal assaulted him. He could inhale another draught of poison, flee into the dreams, one step closer his end. Or he could die here, tonight, in torment.

He was disgusting. Flying, out of his mind, his enslaved body fucked the floor or the bed in its senseless euphoria. He was a user. A rutting Angelhead. In the months to come, the addiction could only deepen, the dreams would fly his mind ever higher while the rest of him decayed. Horror at his own corruption nauseated him and he screamed, hoarse and helpless.

It was not the first time Jarrat had shaken him awake in the night and held him tightly enough to bruise. He gasped air to the bottom of his lungs, buried his face in Jarrat’s chest and inhaled the clean, male scent. This Jarrat was living, real and alive, not the beguiling Angel illusion.

‘I’ve got you. You’re all right, love.’ Kevin was still only half awake, his voice slurred with sleep, trembling with reaction to Stone’s terror, which had invaded his own sleeping mind. Strong arms held on tight. ‘Same dream?’

‘Yeah.’ Stone fought off the last clinging tendrils of the nightmare. ‘Christ, I’m sorry.’ He sat up, chest heaving, skin slick with an icy sweat.

Jarrat stroked his back as they both got their breath back. ‘You ought to tell Harry. He’d be able to do something.’

‘He’s on a NARC research contract now,’ Stone said shakily. ‘He’d have to report this crap I keep dreaming to Dupre. You want me in a psyche clinic?’

‘No.’ Jarrat caught him by the shoulders and pulled him down. ‘Come here. Tell me about it.’

‘Told you last time. It never changes.’ Stone lay against him and struggled to control the leftover shivering. Jarrat’s mouth covered his and he felt a little warmth seep back into his bones.

‘Tell me how to help,’ Jarrat whispered. ‘Is it like what you did for that kid you picked up, Rikki Mitchell? Is it booze, a meal, sex, you need?’

‘I’m not craving. I’m not an addict anymore,’ Stone said gently. ‘Harry saw to that.’

‘Then tell me what to do.’ Jarrat’s fingers tightened.

‘You’re doing it.’ Stone pulled the sheet over their heads. ‘Just don’t let go. It’s rich, isn’t it? Let go of me in the night, and the bogie man grabs me and stuffs my nose with that shit. And I try not to breathe it, but —’

‘Stoney.’ Jarrat’s mouth silenced him. ‘You’re the only man who ever came back from Angel addiction. That makes you one of a kind. No one else ever lived out what you’re going through to know what it’s like. The alternative was a slab in the morgue!’ He gave Stone a shake. ‘Tough it out, try counting your bloody blessings. You have to be alive to feel like hell.’

For the first time Stone glimpsed the absurd privilege of the nightmare. It should have been ridiculous to be grateful for the terror and disgust which assaulted him one night in three, but Jarrat was right. He was alive, and if the price of his life was a cold sweat, broken sleep, it was cheap.

He settled gratefully into Jarrat’s embrace and closed his eyes. ‘I’m okay now. You can let go.’

‘I could,’ Jarrat muffled against his neck. ‘But I’m not going to. Shut up and get some rest.’

‘Romantic,’ Stone accused groggily, but Jarrat was already past hearing. Stone banished the dream with an effort of will. He set his head back on Kevin’s shoulder and closed his eyes.

This time his sleep was peaceful.

Illustrated by Jade -- the new all-digital Jarrat and Stone!