Dark Waters, page 21
“No!” she screamed again, and slapped the water like an angry child. It shimmered in the moonlight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
RACHEL AND ETHAN burst from the water one after the other. They found themselves standing waist-deep off the shore of Lake Wingra, but it was no Wingra that Ethan had ever seen before. Just ahead was the same spring-fed channel, but it was narrower and its contours different from what they had been mere moments before. He squinted into the unexpected sunlight and wiped water from his eyes.
Ethan looked around at the virgin forest, untouched shore, and nonexistent city skyline. The sunlight was blinding in its purity. He looked down at his soaked clothes, then at Rachel standing nearby.
A family of ducks passed before them. The ducklings regarded them with something like disdain. In the distance, a drum began to beat.
Ethan wiped water from his eyes again. “What the hell?”
He looked at Rachel. Water ran in rivulets down her body, and the sun glistened from her curves. He’d seen her naked but never like this, in bright light that made her breathtaking. He was momentarily speechless.
Then a shadow passed over them, and for a moment Ethan thought it was a small airplane flying too low. Then he realized it was an enormous black bird, with wings nearly twenty feet across, sailing in silence toward the far side of the lake.
He turned back to Rachel. “Okay, that’s not right.”
She ignored him, squinting against the glare as she scanned the shore. Suddenly she pointed and cried, “There!”
Kyle Stillwater strode toward shore, down the spring stream’s channel. The tree that stood over the water source in their own world was a mere sapling here, barely ten feet high. All the trees, in fact, were smaller, and there were a lot fewer of them. The forested Arboretum hill was bare of grass on top. There was no trace of the little observation deck.
Ethan was used to acting before he had all the information; as a soldier, he had learned to trust his instincts in a crisis. “I’ll get him,” he muttered, and swam hard for shore.
In moments his hands felt the bottom, and he rose to his feet. He tossed his waterlogged shirt aside and sloshed through the knee-deep water until he reached the bank. He ran from the water and saw Stillwater halfway up the slope through the trees. “Stop!” he bellowed.
Stillwater looked back at him in surprise.
Ethan froze. The man’s face was no longer human but pointed and black-eyed like some devil. Stillwater’s voice was high and shrill when he cackled triumphantly. He shook the plastic bag with Garrett Bloom’s heart. “Too late!” Then he resumed his climb.
“Like hell,” Ethan muttered to himself, and followed. His wet jeans made movement difficult, but he used the trees to pull himself along so that he quickly closed the gap between him and whatever Stillwater had become.
WHEN ETHAN TOOK off after Stillwater, Rachel swam at an oblique angle toward a different part of the shore, intending to approach from a different direction. She doubted she could physically overpower Stillwater, but she might be able to surprise him at a crucial moment.
She reached a spot on the shore about thirty yards from the mouth of the channel. She slipped through the weeds, trying not to think about what might be under the water. As she was about to step onto dry land, a movement to one side caught her eye.
A man stood down on the shore, staring out at the water. He was tall and slender, and wore only a long loincloth made of some sort of animal skin. His profile was the most noble thing she’d ever seen. And his hair was long, snow-white, and braided down his back.
He turned and looked at her. At the instant their eyes met, she saw something familiar—a kindness and compassion that resonated within her. “Hello,” he said.
She recalled that she’d had no difficulty speaking with the old woman before either. “Er … hello.” She swallowed hard. “You’re, ah … one of them, aren’t you?”
“One of who?”
Wait, she thought, he can’t be. This is Lake Wingra, where the evil ones go. But his smile was so warm, so without guile, that she said, “You don’t belong in this lake, do you?”
He looked intently at her, and suddenly she remembered she was stark-naked in broad daylight. She felt the blush creep up her neck and face.
He laughed. “Oh, I see. You’re not supposed to be here, are you? In your world, I’m already …”
“A spirit?”
He shrugged modestly. “If I’m good enough. But there is something familiar about you. Sometimes, as we get closer to joining the spirit world, we get a sense of both the future and the past. That could explain it.”
“So why are you here?”
He nodded toward the lake. “My father is here. He was a man of singular vision and drive, and he accomplished a great deal. Except he never had the first bit of compassion for anyone else. So his spirit is here. You understand about that?”
“Some.” She nodded toward the hill. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m kind of in the middle of something. In the future … will you remember this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, if you do … say hello.”
He nodded.
She headed up the hill, hunched low to stay out of sight and trying not to wince at the sharp-edged grass and briars that nicked her bare skin. This slope was steeper but also shorter, and she made good time. But the contradictions ran through her head. If the man became one of her spirits in the future, then wasn’t he also trapped inside the heart? And if she was here, and had now spoken to him, would that change anything in the future?
Sarah Connor, where are you when I need you? she thought.
She reached the top of the hill and peeked around the trunk of a large tree. She saw a circular clearing. In the center stood a flat, simple stone altar almost identical to the one shown in the old illustration Betty McNally had given her. Rusty trails at the corners showed where sacrificial blood had run down to the ground. Three sharp, long knives rested in notches cut along the edge; the blades reflected the sun.
Stillwater emerged from the trees at the same moment. His whole being was distorted now, drawn tight and wiry over bones that seemed extra-knobby at the joints. His knees also now pointed backward, the way satyrs looked in old drawings. Whatever disguise he’d used in her world, he couldn’t hide his true form here. She couldn’t believe he’d ever been human.
Fear knotted her stomach. What could she possibly do? She was helpless in every sense, huddled naked behind a tree in a strange place and an unknown time. And yet she couldn’t stand by and do nothing.
Stillwater was halfway across the clearing when Ethan tackled him from behind. The impact knocked them both down, and they struggled for dominance. Stillwater was hampered as he tried to hang on to the plastic bag.
Rachel saw her chance. She dashed forward, staying low to keep the altar between her and the men for as long as possible. Then she snatched the bag from Stillwater’s hand.
He turned toward her and screamed. It was a cold, inhuman sound that sent shivers up her spine. He got his knobby feet against Ethan and kicked. Ethan flew through the air and landed on his back a few yards away, the impact knocking the wind from him.
Rachel lost crucial moments making sure Ethan was okay. By the time she turned her attention back to Stillwater, he was nearly on top of her. She tried to run, but his long fingers had grabbed a handful of her hair, jerking her to a halt.
“First my brother presents me with a gift,” he hissed, “and now you do as well. Your death will only add to the agony of your spirits before they meet their own destruction.”
He dragged her effortlessly to the altar. She fought, but his skin was now thick and leathery, immune to her assault. He slammed her head down hard against the stone, and she saw stars for a moment. He twisted one arm behind her and forced her to stay bent over the altar, her cheek pressed against the layers of dried blood left over from previous ceremonies.
“Let me go!” she snarled, kicking uselessly. She yelled in pain as he wrenched her arm even more. She expected to feel him move behind her, to take advantage of her helplessness the way cruel men always did with women at their mercy. Rage and adrenaline rose in her.
“I lived in that lake for centuries,” he hissed. With his free hand he slammed the bag containing the heart onto the stone. “I was once a man, with a man’s desires and dreams. Now look at me!”
He shook the heart from the bag. It rolled perilously close to Rachel’s face, and she scrunched her eyes shut. But it didn’t touch her.
“They kept me there, until a moment of weakness let me jump into that stupid boy,” he continued, breathing heavily. “And my brother. I thought he was truly dead, but they cast him into the body of a woman!”
“You bastard,” Rachel hissed. She felt his deformed foot beside her own. “I’d say your brother was the lucky one.”
Before Stillwater could answer, she slammed her heel down with all her strength on his instep. He howled, and his grip on her lessened enough for her to wrench free, although she left some hair in his hand. She turned, put her back to the altar, and kicked him again, hard, in the groin. When he doubled over, she brought her knee up into his face.
He staggered back, and she grabbed for the nearest of the three knives. It was just out of reach, but before she could lunge across the stone, a crack of thunder split the air, and she felt something warm splash on her back.
Birds shrieked and fled from the trees. She turned and gasped in surprise.
A hole marked the center of his chest, blood just starting to ooze from it. Behind him, Ethan stood with Rachel’s gun, the barrel still smoking.
Stillwater made a sound like broken glass in a blender. She assumed it was a scream.
“Grab the heart!” Ethan cried. “Go back to the lake and try to get them home!”
Rachel grabbed the bag, rolled the heart inside with just her fingertips, and headed back down the hill through the woods. She prayed that whatever passage brought them here was still open.
STILLWATER TURNED AND hissed at Ethan. His tongue lolled out, longer than a man’s and forked. He raised his hands and charged.
Ethan fired again.
The new hole appeared an inch beside the first. Stillwater looked down at the wounds, then back up in confusion. Blood coughed from his mouth.
“It’s over,” Ethan said. His heart thundered with adrenaline, but his aim was rock-steady.
“Do you know … what my existence … has been like?” Stillwater croaked.
“No, but I’m pretty sure you deserved it,” Ethan said.
As he rushed at Ethan, Stillwater again screamed, a nails-on-chalkboard sound that made Ethan wince. But his next shot found its mark, right between the creature’s eyes. Stillwater fell dead at Ethan’s feet.
Ethan closed his eyes and sighed. His own heart felt like it might split in two on its own. He lowered the gun to his side.
When he looked back at Stillwater, instead of the white-haired creature, a young man with black hair and a Native American complexion lay at his feet. Ethan knelt and rolled him over. His face was fully human, and blank with the peacefulness of death.
A new voice said, “That was unfortunate.”
Ethan jumped to his feet. An old woman stood a few paces away, watching them sadly.
“You speak English,” Ethan said.
“I speak what I speak. You understand it; that’s what matters.”
“I didn’t have any choice, you know.”
The woman’s expression did not change. “There’s always a choice. But this did what was needed. The spirit inside him is gone. It had no time to prepare a way to return to its former home.”
Ethan wiped at the blood streaking his sweaty chest. “My name’s Ethan, by the way. Rachel told me about you.”
“Are you her human lover?”
“Er … yes.”
The woman looked him up and down. “She has chosen well.”
“Thanks, I guess.…”
“Don’t thank me. Your path will be difficult—more so than hers. You will have to share her with her spirits.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” She nodded toward the trees behind him.
He turned. Two dozen men and a few women had emerged from the forest. They were all beautiful specimens, lean and handsome and well formed. Some wore loincloths, some full coverings, and two were nude. All sported long, straight white hair.
He met their eyes. In them he saw strength and resolve but also compassion. They were warriors who fought the battles they chose, not soldiers who merely took orders. He understood that.
“So you’re the spirits,” he said.
One of them stepped forward. “In time, we will be. We have a lot in common with you.”
“I’ll say.”
The man smiled. “I don’t mean merely the woman. You, like us, wish to make things better. You are willing to do what is necessary to protect the weak. Or,” he added with meaning, “avenge them.”
“You fucking traitor,” he’d been called when he reported a fellow soldier for the rape and murder of a little girl. “Keep looking over your shoulder,” they’d warned. Even his commanding officer had said, “This is a war, son. People get a little carried away.”
“You did the right thing,” one of the young women said.
“So you can read my mind?” Ethan said.
The first one who’d spoken laughed. “No. At least not with any detail. We have not achieved the enlightenment that awaits us, and believe me, it’s tempting to ask what the future is like. But we can’t.”
“And you,” the old woman said to Ethan, “can’t stay any longer. But you need to know what to do to release them safely back in your time.”
RACHEL CLIMBED THE hill to the little observation deck over the spring and leaned on the rail. She was exhausted, yet there was no sign of Ethan emerging in her wake. The return dive into the pool had been a reflex, and it had occurred to her in mid-motion that if she was wrong, she was about to go headfirst into six inches of water over a bed of hard, smooth rocks. But no sooner had the thought flashed through her mind than she emerged back into her world, still clutching the plastic bag with its grisly cargo.
Belatedly she looked around. There was no sign of Betty McNally. Everything was gone except for Rachel’s discarded clothes. She gazed into the dark woods, and then out at the lake, wondering where the woman—or was she a woman?—had gone. The Lady of the Lakes would have a hot tip for the police, if Rachel could figure out a way to keep her and Ethan out of it.
She stared down at the pool. All she could really think about was Ethan battling that creature. Surely the gunshots had been enough to stop him? Surely he hadn’t turned and slain Ethan?
Please, she begged the universe, please send him back to me alive.
She shrieked when he suddenly burst up from the water and sat sputtering in the spring. Her heart pounding, she rushed around the tree, jumped into the water, and threw her arms around him.
“Oh my God, I was so afraid you weren’t coming back,” she cried as she flung herself against him.
He put his arms around her and drew her into a kiss. Then he looked around in sudden confusion. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” Rachel said breathlessly. “There’s nothing up there but my clothes.”
He looked down at his chest. Passing through the water had washed away the blood. “I need a shirt.”
“Not from where I’m sitting,” Rachel said, and began to giggle.
THEY WALKED BACK to Rachel’s car and drove across town to Hudson Park.
As they got out of the car Ethan said quietly, “Have you seen a ring of small rocks anywhere around?”
“Yes,” Rachel said. “Why?”
“Show me where it is. Your friends told me what we need to do.”
When Rachel did, Ethan kicked the stones aside, dispersing the circle. Then he picked up the individual rocks and threw them as far as he could into the water.
The circle had been a lock, the old woman told him, placed there by Artemak to isolate the good spirits in the lake. As long as it remained intact, they could influence nothing beyond their watery confines, nor communicate with their avatar when she came to them. Once they were weakened in this way, Artemak planned to trap them in Rachel’s heart, after which he could then destroy them utterly. This would free his fellow evil spirits in Lake Wingra.
But his brother Teculor, locked in his own bodily prison by the good spirits, got there first and trapped them in Garrett Bloom’s heart. Teculor hoped the gift of the captive spirits would induce Artemak to help break the spell that confined Teculor. But Artemak had been unable or unwilling—not even the old woman knew which—to help, and in the end neither brother got what he wanted.
Rachel and Ethan snuck quietly down to the water, and Rachel looked up at him doubtfully.
“You’re sure?” she said. “We don’t have to cut it open?”
“Not according to what they told me.”
She looked down at the bag. “So you saw them. You talked to them.”
“I don’t know exactly what happened. Maybe it was all in my head. But if it was real, then yes, I did.”
Despite everything she’d been through, Rachel felt a surge of self-pity. “Why didn’t they come out while I was still there? Why didn’t they talk to me?”
“I don’t know.”
She choked down her tears and wiped her eyes. “What were they like?”
“Young, mostly. Very good-looking. They all had white hair. And …”
“What?”
“It’s hard to describe, but you know how sometimes you just instinctively know something about someone?”
She grinned slightly. “Like the hot guy who just appears in your diner one day?”
“Something like that. Anyway, I just knew they were good people. Are good people. Are good … whatever they are.”
