Masque de la Terreur: a Gabriel Knight Mystery
Chapter 3, Part I
by Travis Lester, published on April 28, 2001
A sudden burst of laughter broke him from his sleep.
He was laying somewhere. Felt like a rather uncomfortable couch. The room around him was dark save for a little light filtering in through the rain-washed window opposite him.
There came a sudden flash of lightning, granting Gabriel with a more enlightened view of the room. There was a TV set against the wall at the foot of the couch. The wall along the back of the couch stopped mid-way before reaching a hall way that went to a door. Along the edges of the door was slight lacing of orange-yellow light. He was almost certain he could hear someone speaking from that direction.
Probably them, he realized as he pushed aside the thin bedsheet he’d been granted in his unconsciousness.
Just beside the couch, a digital clock read, in bright red digits, 1:57 AM.
Gabriel placed his socked feet upon the berry-colored carpet and slowly crept towards the lighted door. He passed yet another door on the way out, and giving him brief deja vu sort of vision that told him it was the entrance/exit door, leading out into the hallway.
He ignored the thought and continued on to the door, the mutterings behind it growing louder and more muffled as he closed in.
When he was finally upon it, it occurred to him that he would need to place his ear against the door once more. He was thankful this time that there wasn't anyone who could sneak up behind him. He placed his ear just beside the knob...
“--what I can do,” Mosely’s voice came in clearly.
“Thanks Mose.” Grace replied. “It means a lot to me, you coming here on such short notice.”
“Hey, that’s what friends’re for, right?”
Gabriel could have growled at that one, but kept his silence.
“The man outside,” came a strangely accented young lady. Probably the one who scared the sh*t out of him earlier. “He will not cause any problems. Will he?”
A brief moment of silence.
“Grace, don’t worry,” Mosely said. “I know Gabe better’n anybody. He’s not here for trouble. Probably just wants to help out.”
“I don’t know.” Grace sounded uncertain. Almost disturbed. “How long has he been out?”
“I guess it’s been about an hour since you last checked on him.” Mosely said.
“He did hit his head quite hard.” the other lady offered.
“I'll go check on him again, then.” Grace said.
Gabriel’s heart skipped a beat as he nearly toppled backward, stumbling his way frantically back over to the couch. In a flourish, he lunged into the couch and spread the blanket over him like a matador taunting a bull. As soon as the door opened and light poured into the room, his head was against the pillow and his eyes closed.
He lay there, not seeing a thing, but he could sense her delayed approach. Then for a moment he could sense nothing... nothing until her hand rubbed across his forehead softly. And he heard it. Her sigh.
“Is he alright?” came Mosely’s unwanted voice from behind. He must have surprised her, Gabriel thought, because her hand pulled back immediately.
“Yeah. He seems okay.”
“Okay... well,” Mosely trailed off.
Gabriel felt himself getting angry for some strange reason. He wanted Mosely to just go.
Her hand returned, thus giving Gabriel the impression that Mosely had left them alone.
The hand drew away slowly as she began to step away.
Gabriel grunted, opening his eyes. “You’d think as many times as I've been knocked out, I’d have serious problems.”
Silence.
Gabriel turned on the couch and looked at her, frozen in place with her back to him.
“Who says you don’t?” she only whispered.
The left corner of Gabriel’s mouth curled up in spite of himself. Then it retreated back into the grim frown as she turned back to face him, her face a way Gabriel had not ever seen before. So... hard.
She only stared at him, almost through him. In him. As if probing his insides, wondering what the hell was making him tick at this precise moment.
“You wanna know why I'm here.” Gabriel said softly to make sure they were not joined by the others. He needed this moment with her. Alone.
She nodded.
Gabriel sighed and looked downward, searching for the right words and only coming up with wrong ones undeserving to be said.
“Look, I know Gerde told you,” she said. “I trusted her. That’s my fault.”
“She didn't really tell me,” Gabriel defended her. “I kinda took a hint, I guess.”
“Why are you here, Gabriel? Do you think I Can't do this on my own?”
Gabriel looked into her brown eyes, so deep and dark and inquisitive. “Sh*t, I know you can, Gracie. But for God’s sake, you wantin’ information from SIDney? How do you think it felt bein’ leached off of for information and not even being acknowledged as a decent human being?”
“I know the feeling.” she responded stoically.
One point for her side.
“Alright...” he felt immediately guilty. “Did you really expect me to stay out of this? After what happened?”
“After what happened?” she folded her arms, studying him.
“What do you mean after what happened?” Gabriel protested in confusion, pushing back the sheet and turning so that he was sitting at the side of the couch. “How can you just pretend it didn't happen?”
“How can I pretend what didn't happen?”
“Goddammit, Gracie!” he rose his voice, immediately lowering it to avoid the attention of the others. “You know.”
“I'm afraid I don’t. You'll have to be specific.”
Gabriel just shook his head at her stubbornness. She was luring him into something, and Gabriel had no way of avoiding it really. “After we did what we did.”
“we've done a lot of things, Gabriel. More specific, please.”
Gabriel only just noticed he was gritting his teeth in frustration with this girl and for a slight moment he regretted coming. “We made love.”
“Oh,” she nodded. “Is that what we did?”
“Well, what the hell would you call it?”
She shrugged once more. As if she didn't care, and Gabriel knew it was an act. “Well, I figured it was just, y’know, a way of passing the time.”
That hurt him. “Dammit, I'm not like that anymore.”
Her gaze burned him. “And Madeleine? I guess that was all just an act?”
“What about her?” Gabriel didn't see the validity of this sub-topic. “She ain’t got a thing to do with this.”
“Well, I don’t want to come between you and your obsessions, Gabriel.”
“You never did.”
“Oh. So, you wouldn't really say I'm a... chastity belt, maybe?”
Gabriel’s face burned with absolute shame. “That sonofab*tch...”
“Who? Mosely?” she shook her head. “No, he didn't tell me. I heard it myself, Gabriel.”
Gabriel looked down in absolute shame. Guilt. Pain. All of it, just constricted around him. He felt so dirty, even. It reminded him of the time when his Gran caught him sneaking out of the house one Saturday night and the scorning she gave him, saying how disappointed she was. Only this feeling was ten times worse.
“I said that.” Gabriel admitted.
“Oh, don’t admit it, Gabriel. It’s not like I had a doubt in my mind that you said that.”
Gabriel threw his hands into the air. “That was before, Grace!”
“Before what? That night?” she shook her head furiously. “Oh, of course. All of a sudden you saw me in that new light once I finally decided to just... give in.”
“Grace, please...”
“No, Gabriel. You've got no idea how... how used I felt! Like all of a sudden, I went from your friend to those bimbos back in New Orleans. Bimbos who I so resented. Who I thought were so desperate and stupid to fall for your ploys and one-liners--”
“Please...”
“--and what room did I have to talk? You didn't even say anything! You just jumped right into my bed like it was the most natural thing in the world!”
“That’s now how it was, Grace! I had this dream...”
“You always have your dreams, Gabriel. Frankly, I'm tired of them,” she turned and walked away from him, approaching the blurry window looking out onto the street below and the Opera House across the street. The, more softly, as if to herself, “I had dreams once, too.”
Gabriel merely sat there, watching her dark silhouette against the window.
“I really thought you’d changed, Gabriel. I even thought you had feelings for me. I mean, I thought you were just having trouble acknowledging them. I knew you weren't really prepared for a relationship, and to be honest, I didn't think I was. But I knew if you could make that step, so could I...”
She turned and looked at him. “I thought we'd make it together.”
Gabriel could not make out her eyes in the darkness, but her imagined glare was enough to make him look down into his lap.
“Grace, will you let me talk?”
“Not tonight,” she said bitterly. “I don’t think I can really take anymore of this tonight. Just seeing you was enough to make me sick to my stomach.”
Gabriel’s head shot up in a purely wounded nature.
“Oh no, not at you, Gabriel.” she said looking back at the window, running her fingers down the glass. Her face reflected against it. “At the memories of how I was... back then. At the old me.”
Gabriel rose from the couch silently, and came up beside her. Her reflection showed a Grace unlike one he’d seen before. So vulnerable. Gabriel placed his hand upon her shoulder, her reflection changing simultaneously to one of angry determination as she shrugged his paw away.
“No.” she only said, and walked away from him, going towards the opened bedroom door. She stopped at the door, looking out at him. “You can help on the investigation, Gabriel, but that is all I care to receive from you. Your help.”
“Gracie, please... Just hear me out...” Gabriel took a step in her direction.
He paused as she spoke once more. “I'll wake you in the morning. Early. So get some rest.”
“Dammit, just listen to me.” Gabriel resumed his approach, slowly.
“Good night... Gabriel.”
And the door closed, returning Gabriel to darkness. Alone with his thoughts, his shame and his grief.
Alone.
Last update: October 25, 2007
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