When he thought back to that night much later, Marcus would remember it as being one of the longest nights of his life. In the lavender light of evening, he watched in shock as Jessica collapsed in on herself like a house of cards, as if every bone in her body had disconnected from its neighbor. He caught her before she hit the ground. In his arms, she felt light and impossibly hot, as if all of the essence that made her who she was had evaporated straight out of her slight body.
Her bright, clear eyes opened wide for a moment, and he saw her shape his name with her lips. Then her eyes rolled back in her head, and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was no natural illness.
He thought of the people chasing him, and for a moment, Marcus wanted nothing more than to find and slaughter every single one of them. He was a warrior by nature, and his instincts rode high and hot for a moment. Then common sense reasserted itself, and he knew that he had to take care of Jessica.
He gathered her in his arms, and with the sure step and certain vision of his animal nature, he walked into the forest. Less than half an hour later, he had found what he needed, a small cave rising out of the forest floor. The opening was barely taller than his shoulder, the inside of the cave not much higher, but it was deep enough, and what he had prayed for. The debris told him that other animals had used it as home, but they were gone now.
Marcus couldn't leave her in a hammock in this state. He would need to stay with her, and that meant going to ground. He made her a bed of fallen branches covered with a blanket of fronds, and then wove her a bower out of tall sticks and mosquito netting. When he was done, Marcus tried not to focus on how much she looked like Sleeping Beauty behind the swathes of gauze, beautiful and perfectly still.
Marcus went to the cave mouth and took a deep breath. He had wanted to avoid this if at all possible. They weren't his people. They weren’t his enemies, but in the distant past, their people and his had quarreled, and while there was no bad blood, there was no strong affection either.
It didn't matter. He would have to take the risk.
He lifted his head up to the sky, which was now a deep and velvet blue. He could have made this call in his panther shape. From his human mouth, it came out harsher, less nuanced, but no less desperate, no less demanding. For a long moment, he heard the echoes of his scream recede and this disappear. Nothing happened, but he wondered what he could have expected.
Marcus dragged large branches across the front of the cave, and created a banked fire to act as a barrier. It would keep them warm, it would ward off most natural enemies, and it allowed him to see the woman he loved. At that moment, risk or not, he wasn't sure that he would be able to take his eyes off of her. He joined her under the netting, and almost instinctively, she reached for him. Her eyes were closed, but she stirred fitfully. There was a strange scent rising from her, almost sticky sweet, and it gave him more evidence that this was no natural aliment. There were demons yammering at the back of his mind, telling him what might happen to her if he could not get her help, if he could not save her, but he savagely shut them up.
She had soaked the clothes that she was wearing with sweat, and after a moment of indecision, he stripped them from her body. There was a mostly clean cloth in his bag, and after soaking it in water from the canteen, he started to bathe her. The water was only lukewarm, but she still cried out piteously at the shock to her skin, and Marcus bit his lip as he held her still.
He could feel his male body responding to her nudity, and while he would never touch her while she was not awake to consent to it, he was forced to acknowledge the hold she had over him. There was a bond between them that was made of more than just their circumstances. He would have felt like this if they had met in the largest city in the world, at the top of a mountain or the bottom of the sea. Somehow, his heart had left his body and entered that of the pale and trembling woman in his arms.
"I love you," he murmured, bathing her fevered limbs over and over again. "I love you, Jessica, don't leave me..."
She wept thin tears in her delirium, shuddering and whispering his name. He knew that she was unconscious, but whenever she said his name, he felt a moment of tortured pleasure mingled with satisfaction.
It seemed to take hours, but finally, she was still, sleeping a restless but finally quiet sleep. Marcus settled down next to her, watching the fire as it burned, looking out to the shadows beyond.
Please, he prayed, but at this point, he wasn't sure who was listening.
*
At some point, Marcus had fallen asleep. He was awakened from violent dreams by a scream, and he rose up from the bed, ready to transform, ready to fight.
He realized two things. First, that it was morning, the banked fire completely dead. Second, his call had been received.
A second shriek followed the first, and even if he had not at least partially understood their tongue, he would have recognized it as a challenge. Come out and prove that you are who you say you are.
He glanced back at Jessica, still on the bed he had made. She slept quietly, but she looked pale and drawn, as if she had lost weight in the night. He took a deep breath and walked out into the thin dawn light.
They weren't making a point to hide themselves. Instead, they sat in the trees around him, their dark forms hanging from the branches. The chimpanzee troupe watched him with cold, round eyes, and in a moment, Marcus could see that this was a war band that had come to meet him. All adult males in their prime, a single one could tear a man's arm from his body. There was nothing in the jungle that would take on the full brunt of a warring troupe, and now they all watched him to see what he would do next.
Marcus spread out his hands to show them that he meant no harm, and when that at least did not provoke an attack, he started to speak.
"I am Marcus Van der Berg, and I'm on a mission. My plane was downed miles ago, and my human companion has been attacked. It is some dark magic that has taken her, nothing that I can cure with human medicines. She is suffering."
He hesitated for a moment, and even if the words choked him, he knew that they had to be said.
"She may be… dying. Please. I know that I am in your territory. I swear we were only passing through. I ask for your help now. If you help us, I will owe you a forfeit. Anything. My teeth, my claws. Please. Help us. Help her."
There was a moment of utter stillness in the jungle. No birds sang, and even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
The largest male, enormous even for his kind, seemed to come to a decision. He shrieked a response in their dialect, and two smaller males dropped down from the trees. They approached Marcus, and Marcus thought that it was the hardest thing he had ever done to let them skirt around him and to take Jessica. He knew that he could have killed two easily, perhaps even three, but a troupe of this size would overwhelm him unless he fled, and he could not flee. Not when Jessica would be left behind.
He was gratified to see that they handled Jessica with care, their large and clever hands gentle on her prone form. She stirred, but she couldn't even call his name anymore. Marcus told himself that they might still be too late, but he brushed it aside. The chimpanzees followed their leader into the forest, and with a sigh, Marcus followed them into the depths.