Stargate SG-1: Sacrifice Moon (19 page)

He was free to answer that one; he could feel his tongue and throat
unfreezing. It took a huge effort to keep the words back. Not doing
what you want, bitch.

"Speak." Her fingers lifted his chin and forced him to meet her
eyes. "You are a warrior, I see it in your eyes. I like warriors. They
make good sport."

"Bite me," he managed to whisper. She smiled - cold silver lips,
a sweet schoolgirl smile. He didn't let it defuse his rage. She'd stolen
that body, murdered the person it had housed. A snake with a nice face
was still a snake. "I won't run for you."

"You will." Her fingernails bit into the tender skin under his chin,
drawing blood, and then she let go and walked a few steps away. "I
smell the fear in you, warrior. It rises up like the smoke of sacrifice.
Your comrades already understand their place. You will hunt and be
hunted soon, all of you. And that will please me."

Move the gun. Bring it in line and fire. She can only kill you once.
He tried to force his muscles to obey, but they were locked, held tight
in her control. The collar. The damn collar. Had to get it off.. .

"Your world," Artemis said, and seated herself on a nearby
cracked marble block, with one crisscrossed sandaled foot dangling
and swinging. "Which god rules you?"

"You aren't a god."

"Indeed not. I am a goddess." She gave him another rich smile
and a charming little giggle. "This world was ruled by my brother,
Apollo. He gave it to me as a toy. For a thousand years I have played
here, but I grow bored with the hunting. The prey is too simple. Is
your world better?"

Teal'c had to have heard the voices. It was just a matter of time
before the Jaffa charged out and gave this Goa'uld a smoking hole
where it would do her the most good... "Oh, yeah. Cable TV Air
conditioning. Flush toilets. You'd love it."

"You mock me." The smile disappeared. "You mock me."

"Damn straight," he croaked, and swallowed a mouthful of bile;
fighting his own fear, the fear this damn collar was pumping into
him like poison, was making him sick. "You Goa'uld. No sense of
humor."

Her eyes widened, and she came off the block in a fluid move that
sent the tunic swirling like white smoke. "What did you call me?"

"Goa'uld. Want me to spell it? Wait... don't know how." He was
shaking now, but her control didn't seem quite as complete. His throat
wasn't seizing up, anyway.

"You know of the Goa'uld?"

"Sure. Ra, Apophis... been there, kicked that ass."

"You lie!"

"Call Ra. You'll get his answering machine, because he's a little
dead." He forced himself to meet and hold her eyes. "You're next."

Her eyes flashed white, and she held out her left arm, and he just
knew that he was going to have his brain pureed into cream cheese,
but then he heard something from inside the room where SG-1 was
taking shelter.

Yelling. Screaming.

Artemis smiled, lowered her arm, and said, "I have no need to punish you. You will be punished enough, before I am done with you."

She pressed a button on that silver arm-guard, and a pile of rings
fell out of the sky and stacked around her; she vanished in a blue
flash. Jack craned his neck up at the night sky and saw something
black slide soundlessly across the moon.

Great. The bitch had a ship.

"O'Neill!" Teal'c was yelling.

Jack clawed his way to his feet and went to help.

It was Carter. The sedatives had worn off, and she was screaming and thrashing like a wild thing. Daniel and Pylades were trying
to hold her down. As Jack limped back inside, Teal'c returned to his
post by the door, ready for an ambush. "Dr. Carter! Sam!" Daniel was
yelling her name, over and over, kneeling over her and pressing her
shoulders flat while she bucked and tried to throw him off. Pylades
was gamely holding down her legs and looking like he was having
second thoughts about this whole you're safe with us theory. "Sam,
stop!"

"She can't hear you," Jack said tersely, and rifled through the medkit for another sedative. Not a huge supply of those, either. He pressed
the pod against her bare skin and activated it, full dosage. "Hold her
down." The way she was thrashing around, she was in danger of ripping muscles.

Once the worst was over, Jack rolled her on her side to look at her
wrists, and winced at the state they were in. "She needs bandages,"
he said. "Is she out?"

Daniel lifted her eyelids. "Looks that way."

"Okay, both of you, get back. Teal' c - "

"I am ready, O'Neill," Teal'c assured him. Pylades backed away,
to where his sister was cowering wide-eyed in the comer; Daniel
withdrew to just a couple of feet away, hovering anxiously. Jack cut
the zip-ties, got the bandages from the kit and started wrapping her
bloody wrists. She hadn't cut anything vital, at least. When he'd finished binding up the wounds, and adding an extra layer for padding,
he pulled another set of restraints from his vest and tied her up again.
Daniel winced but didn't protest; he knew as well as Jack did just how
dangerous Carter was in this state.

"She'll sleep a while," Jack said, and looked across at Daniel.
"How you doing?"

"I'm not going to go for your throat, if that's what you're asking.
Not yet, anyway."

Jack checked his watch. "Still got hours to go until sunrise. Get
whatever rest you can. I'll watch you."

"Jack. You won't hesitate - "

"If it comes to it, I'll hog tie you next to Carter."

"Thanks." Daniel gave him that faint, rare smile. "I think."

He went back to his corner, wrapped himself up in blankets and, to
all appearances, went back to sleep. Jack let a decent amount of time
pass, until he was sure everybody was out of it, then met Teal'c's gaze
across the room.

"Next time you hear me having a nice chat with a Goa'uld outside
in the back, feel free to step in," he said.

Teal'c's eyes widened. "You spoke to no one, O'Neill."

"Trust me, I did. Nice girl, name's Artemis, glowing eyes. Crazy
as a bedbug, even by Goa'uld standards." Jack frowned when Teal'c's
expression didn't change. "You didn't hear us?"

"I heard nothing."

Jack ran it over in his head, but he knew it had happened. Hadn't
it? He could still feel the sharp dig of her fingernails in his throat,
and when he touched the sore spot his fingers came away with a light
smear of red.

"Never mind," he said. No point in beating Teal'c up about it. If
Artemis could alter behavior with these damn collars, could make
Carter a killer and drive Daniel to violence, it was a piece of cake to
blot herself out of Teal'c's awareness while she had a private chat.
`Nobody moves alone from now on, not even to piss. We go on the
buddy system."

Teal'c inclined his head, acknowledging both the order and the
wisdom of it, and then settled in for the long, hopefully quiet night.

Running. Always running.

Sam running next to him, dressed not in heavy BDUs but in a short
white tunic, her long legs flashing pale in the moonlight. She grinned
at him, the grin of a wolf, a predator and he felt himself grinning
back. He'd never felt this free. There was nothing in him but the wild
red beauty of letting himself loose. Doubts, regrets... those were old
things, human things, left behind in the dark

Knife in his hand, warm as the blood in his veins. The prey, running, panting and scrabbling ahead. He laughed at its clumsy progress and separated from Sam, darting around the shadows to close on
it from the side.

They pounced together took it down and tore at it with nails and
teeth and knives, bathing in the blood and moonlight and choked,
desperate screams, and it was sweet, so sweet...

Daniel looked at Sam across the limp, trembling body of the
prey, and she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen in his life.
Flushed, fevered, blood-spattered and vividly, violently erotic. She
led a hand brimming with blood to his lips, and he drank the thick
salty copper from her fingers, and he had never felt so much apart of
anyone, anything...

"Dan'yel, " a voice whispered. It wasn't Sam, who was voiceless
now, except for the sounds of the hunt. He looked around in the still
moonlight, then down.

Down at the bloody, dying prey.

Down at Share, whose wide dark eyes were full of despair and
fear and love. Reaching out to him in helpless entreaty.

Oh God no no no no...

Daniel jerked awake and let out a shaking moan as he curled in
on himself in a protective ball. His hair was matted with sweat, his
clothes soaked with it; his breath was coming fast and thick in his
chest, and he wanted to tear it all off and run, run...

That's what she wants. She wants you to run.

He swallowed, tasted blood and froze. Just a dream, it was just a
dream. Sam was still lying on the other side of the room, tied up. Her
eyes were open, and her breath coming in short gasps, but she hadn't
been outside in the moonlight. They hadn't...

... hadn't killed together.

Yet.

The sun was a pale blue mist on the horizon, just rising.

Jack had fallen asleep, sometime during the night; he was leaning
against the door, eyes shut. Daniel rolled up his blankets and stowed
his gear, then crawled over to Teal'c. The Jaffa hadn't slept at all, that
he could tell.

"Daniel Jackson," he greeted him. "O'Neill should rest another
hour to maintain his strength."

"Yes. Sure....Teal'c, did I - "

Teal'c knew what he was asking. "You slept."

Daniel nodded, and couldn't meet the Jaffa's knowing dark eyes.
He moved over to Carter, who had wriggled herself into a sitting position against the wall. Her eyes were clearer now, and touched with the
same appalled expression he still felt himself.

"Oh God," she said in a whisper when Daniel came close. "What
did I do?"

"Nothing. Well... you tried. We got to you in time."

Her eyes welled up with tears, and she blinked them furiously
away. "I dreamed - God, Daniel, I dreamed about killing people.
About... eating them. And -"

"And it felt good," he finished softly. "I know. I dreamed it too."
He settled in next to her. "How are the wrists?"

"Painful," she said with a fragile smile. "What did I do? Try to
gnaw them off?"

He touched her shoulder gently. "Captain - Doctor - "

"After all this, I'd think you could call me Sam."

"Sam," he repeated. "Sony. How are you feeling?"

"Like I spent the night in cuffs." Her eyes stayed on his face. "Ah.
You mean, do I feel like ripping any throats."

"Something like that."

"No." She let her breath out in an unsteady rush. "At least, I don't
think so. I didn't know - I just thought that yesterday I was - I hate
this. Why is it me? Why is this happening to me?"

He'd had the same chorus running through his head since waking
up, and he didn't know the answer. He touched her shoulder instead
and indicated the cuffs. "Look, I'd take these off, but - "

"It's the Colonel's decision," she finished for him decisively. "I
understand. I'm okay, Daniel. Thanks for - thanks for not making
this worse."

He met her eyes squarely, this time. "It'll probably will get worse,
you know. For both of us."

"Then I guess we'll just have to rely on each other."

"Not so sure we should," he said somberly. "I'm not sure either of
us are any too reliable right now."

Her blue eyes were very clear, very direct. "Do you think the Colonel is thinking any more clearly than we are?"

Another unanswerable question; Daniel remembered the flash of - something - in Jack's eyes, his inability to react when Carter stood
over a helpless victim with MP5 ready to fire. The old Jack O'Neill
would have stopped her, with force if words wouldn't suffice.

He'd been assuming that the influence of the collars had been
making him and Carter stronger, faster, more violent; maybe that was
true, but maybe the opposite was true for Jack and Teal'c. Weaker,
slower, more passive.

Victims.

Victims and predators. Dividing them.

"Teal'c," he said; the Jaffa turned his attention toward him and
came at his gesture. "Let me borrow your knife."

"I do not think this is a wise course of action, Daniel Jackson."

"She's all right. We're all right, as long as the - " He gestured
vaguely up at the ceiling. " - sun's up. It only takes hold in moonlight."

"So you believe."

"Yes," he nodded. "So I believe. Now that we know, we can resist
it during the day. Teal'c, we can't leave her tied up. You know that."

He held out his hand, watching Teal'c's face; the Jaffa thought it
over, then silently drew the blade from its sheath and handed it over,
hilt first. Daniel bent and slit the ties holding Carter's wrists; she sat
up, rubbing the bandages, and stood up with a fast, fluid motion.

The moonstone on her collar was straight up and down, a clear
half-moon.

If this is what she's like when she's only half under the influence...

He couldn't finish the thought. He became aware of the knife still
in his hand, warm and oddly familiar, and handed it back to Teal'c
with a nod.

"You're going to have to restrain us at night," he said. "And no
matter what happens, don't let us loose."

From the far comer, the boy Pylades said, "If you had any courage,
you would use that on yourself. Her, then you." His voice was soft but
clear. They all turned to look at him, and Daniel caught the cool shine
of Carter's eyes a second before they softened into something more
rational, more normal, more Sam. "I will not let you kill my sister. I'll
cut your throats as you sleep, first."

"We're not going to hurt you," Carter promised. "We're going to find a way out of this. You have to trust us."

He gave her a scornful look - Daniel couldn't imagine having that
much self-possession at that age, especially under circumstances like
these - and pulled a bronze knife from under his robes. Triangular,
with a ram's head. "I wouldn't let you hurt us," he said. "Touch my
sister and I'll give you back to the gods."