Falling Light

by Thea Harrison

  Then he was back, shouldering through the narrow doorway. He came up behind her and enveloped her in a dry blanket.

  “Waste of a g-good blanket,” she stuttered. Her clothes were as sodden as if she’d tripped and fallen in the water.

  “There’s more down below.”

  He reached over to turn off the engine and pulled her away from the wheel.

  “What are you doing?” she gasped.

  It was terrifying to hear the sound of the engine die away, to be replaced by the wild sounds of wind and rain and the interminable roar of the Lake.

  “There’s nothing more we can do,” he said. “The boat’s engine is too small—we’re not making any headway against the storm. We have to trust Astra now, and the entities that are allied with her. Come on.”

  He clamped an arm tight around her and supported her drunken progress along the treacherous slippery deck. Then he transferred his grip to around her waist. He half-carried her down the narrow steps to the galley, twisting to slam the hatch shut behind them.

  A battery-powered emergency light was fastened high against one wall. By its faint glow she could see a tiny kitchenette and a small table bolted to the floor, surrounded by booth seats. Against the far wall of the kitchenette was a narrow doorway that led to darkness.

  The boat rolled, and Michael staggered. He pushed her into the nearest seat. “Can you strip off your wet clothes and shoes?”

  “S-sure.” She fumbled with the buttons of the flannel shirt but she couldn’t feel her fingers, so she dragged it over her head and dropped the sodden material on the floor.

  The boat creaked and groaned. It sounded like it was alive and in pain. Michael made his way to the shadowed doorway beyond the kitchenette.

  She struggled to remove her wet shoes as he dragged two narrow mattresses onto the floor from bunks on either side of the doorway. He stacked them on top of each other. Then he opened a cabinet, pulled out a pile of blankets and pillows and threw them on the mattresses.

  He walked back to her, maintaining his balance with bracing handholds on nearby cabinets. She managed to get her jeans unbuttoned and unzipped as he knelt in front of her. He took one of her narrow feet in his hands and stripped off her sock.

  “Jesus,” he said. He took her other foot and peeled the sock off. “Your feet are like ice. Lie back.”

  She complied, flopping back in the booth and lifting her hips when he told her to. He dragged her heavy wet jeans over her slim legs. She sighed in relief as the freezing denim left her skin.

  Michael pulled her back to a sitting position. The blanket she’d kept draped across her shoulders fell away. She was naked except for her panties. He stared for a long silent moment at the high, gentle curve of her breasts, her narrow rib cage and the slight swell of her abdomen.

  Her blue-tinged skin was raised with goose bumps and mottled with several small purplish marks. He gently touched the purple mark on her rib cage under her left breast, then the one at her collarbone.

  “Jesus,” he said again. “How many times did you get shot?”

  “F-four or five,” she replied. “I l-lost count.”

  His eyes were stark and black in the dim light. They shimmered with sudden wetness. “I’m so sorry,” he said from the back of his throat. He pulled the blanket tight around her with hands that shook. “I didn’t sense them hiding there. I never would have told you to run to the dock if I had. I didn’t sense anything but that creature guarding the shoreline—”

  “Shut up, Michael,” she said wearily. A convulsive shudder rippled through her aching body. “It’s not your f-fault. God, I feel like I’m never going to be warm again.”

  He reacted immediately, standing and drawing her to her feet. With one arm around her waist and the other protecting their progress against the roll of the boat, he helped her to the mattresses on the floor.

  She crawled on them and, wracked with violent shivers, she fell face-first onto one of the pillows. She felt weight on her body increase as he piled more blankets on top of her. They smelled like mothballs.

  The small room was in near total darkness, like a cave, shot intermittently with white flashes of lightning that showed through two small, round portholes set high near the ceiling. Michael tucked cushions from the booth on either side of the makeshift bed. Then he lifted one corner of the blankets and slid the length of his naked body next to hers.

  Compared with the hazardous chill of her body temperature, his skin felt furnace-hot. He pulled her against the wide bulk of his chest, wrapping his arms tight around her, and he hooked one heavily muscled leg over hers. She put her arms around him, rested her head on his chest and groaned as spasms racked her body.

  “Shh,” he murmured. He rubbed at her back, her arms and her legs. “It’ll get better in a minute.”

  “I know,” she gritted.

  Soon the combined warmth from their bodies soaked in deep. Bit by bit the clench of her muscles loosened. She rubbed her cheek against the sprinkle of crisp hair on his chest, savoring his warmth and the simple animal comfort of being held. That was when she realized he was shaking almost as badly as she had been.

  She tried to lift her head but his hold on her was too tight. She stroked the broad, taut muscles of his back. “Michael?”

  In a voice so low and raw, she could barely hear it over the creak of the boat and the lash of the wind, he whispered, “I can’t lose you. Not so soon after finding you again. Not after so long.”

  She was glad she had warmed enough so her reply could be steady and gentle. “You won’t lose me. I’m not going anywhere. My memories are returning, and I’ve got my sense of identity back. I’m not about to let go when I’ve just started to really live. Did you see? I even shot your damn gun.”

  With one hand at the back of her head, he pressed her face into his neck. A smile threaded through the other emotions in his voice. “I know, I saw.”

  She stroked his hair. “Do you think I hit anything?”

  “Probably not. But you made them duck for cover, which is the most important thing.”

  Was it? She relaxed further. “That’s all right then.”

  “Yes.” He pressed his lips to her forehead and kept his mouth there. “That’s all right then.”

  The boat pitched and tossed, the movement unpredictable. Michael rolled onto his back and held her tight against him, one arm wrapped around her waist and his legs spread wide as he braced them both from the worst of the rolling.

  She curled into his side, her head on his bare shoulder, one leg hooked over his. The beat of his heart was steady and calm under her ear. Soon she trusted his support so totally her body fell lax. She had used up too many of her resources to continue being afraid.

  For a short while, seasickness tried to take hold. She couldn’t decide if she would vomit or fall asleep.

  With a cranky mutter, she focused and shifted something inside and the nausea vanished. Then her own exhausted body took her away from the whirling dark cabin into a darkness that went much deeper.

  Chapter Ten

  THE ENTITY WAS one of the great behemoths of Earth.

  Born several thousand years ago, its body was carved from a massive sheet of ice that had once covered the northern hemisphere. It was three hundred and seven miles long, a hundred and eighteen miles wide, and nearly a thousand feet deep.

  Humans ascribed a feminine gender to it, but the truth was that it had neither a male nor female spirit. Generally, it paid no more attention to the humans that relied upon it for sustenance, skimmed across its surface or played along its edges than a dog paid attention to its fleas.

  It was also one of the oldest entities on Earth, and now it was dying. Parts of it already rotted with such cancers as decay and pollution and radiation poisoning, from the Cook Nuclear Power Plant in the southwestern part of Michigan, or the greater Chicago are
a, or the coastline along the city of Milwaukee in Wisconsin. Careless industrialization was slowly but surely bringing its temperature up to the equivalent of a long-lasting fever that would kill off all its marine life.

  Because it was so immense, its death would take several decades or even as long as a century. For now, it lay in its rocky bed under an infinite sky, endlessly shifting throughout the interchanging seasons. It was most asleep during the winter, most awake during the summer, most restless during the greening season.

  When it was asked if it would dance with the folk of the air, those stern towering thunder spirits, it accepted with easy pleasure. All creatures danced and mated in the spring. But then it was asked to do something more.

  Lake Michigan chuckled to itself at the absurdity of the request. Searching for two tiny humanlike creatures along its vast surface was like looking for a pair of needles in a haystack.

  Still, it bore some affection for the person that asked, who, while as tiny as a human creature, was after all at least as old as itself.

  They had been friends for a long time.

  So it would try.

  Chapter Eleven

  MARY DREAMED OF a darkness that creaked and shifted, of strong, bare, warm limbs that tangled with hers, and of a queasy stomach that never quite needed to empty, nor did it quite allow her to sink into complete unconsciousness.

  At some point, her dream shifted outside, to the wild lash of rain and the tempestuous writhing of the Lake. There seemed something sexual in the commingling of energies, the gushing wetness of the roaring wind and the airy, champagne-like bubbling of the foamy waves.

  Thunder rumbled like guttural laughter that echoed across the heavens. The sound intrigued her and drew her out of her body. She left Michael dozing, and traveled through the kitchenette and up the steps to the hatch.

  Then she passed through the hatch, for it was only a physical barrier, and she stood on the pitching deck. The corporeal sting of the cold and rain could not touch her, but the storm’s energy was exhilarating, and she raised a hand to it in gleeful salute.

  Something vast chuckled overhead. Unafraid, she climbed to the top of the boat’s cabin. Once there she crossed her legs and sat, perching on the roof as light as a thought, while the glow from her energy shone like a beacon in the darkness.

  Something was happening. Something was coming. She had roused in response to it. She cocked her head and waited.

  It came out of the deep so gently, at first she hadn’t realized it had arrived.

  Gradually she grew aware that the boat was cupped like a tiny toy held in colossal hands. A black, archetypical eye, huge as the mouth of a volcano, peered at her from below, and all the foaming water was the creature’s streaming hair.

  If she had been awake and in her physical body, she might have lost her battle with nausea. But she was dreaming and quite calm. She stood and moved to the edge of the boat so that she could better study the fabulous creature.

  With a careful finger that could have crushed an ocean-faring ship, it tilted the boat to a more upright position.

  You aren’t human, it said. It had a pensive, siren’s voice.

  No, Mary said. I guess I’m not.

  You look like one. That tremendous eye came closer to the water’s surface and regarded her with grave curiosity. The creature said, You are like the other one, my friend. You are older than I am.

  I don’t feel very old, Mary told it. She perched on the rail and swung a foot. I think it’s because I’ve forgotten a lot of things.

  The entity hummed, the savage euphoria of the storm lingering in its words, I could kill you and your companion.

  She shook her head. She still was not afraid, although she probably should have been. You can’t kill us. You could only destroy the bodies we inhabit. Eventually we would come back again.

  Why would you come back? The creature sang, its song yearning and mournful. How would you come back?

  We have to come back, because our people owe a debt to this world. She leaned forward, caught by the absolute loneliness in that massive black eye. Now that the storm’s dance had been suspended the entity seemed forlorn, eternally sad. She held out a hand to it. We owe a debt to you.

  And when you have paid it? it murmured.

  She confessed in a whisper, We must still come back because we can’t go home. We have nowhere else to go.

  The primeval fathomless eye seemed to smile. Sacred child, it crooned. Be at peace now and sleep.

  Released, she yawned and nodded, and turned to walk back into the galley. There she climbed back into her body with the matter-of-factness of a toddler climbing into bed. She fell into a profound, deep sleep.

  She had no more dreams.

  Chapter Twelve

  SHE WAS NEVER sure what woke her the second time.

  It couldn’t have been the storm’s end. As she surfaced to wakefulness, she sensed that they had been stationary for some time. She might have been disturbed by the scratchiness of the wool blankets piled around her shoulders, or the lumpiness of the bed, or perhaps by Michael’s absence.

  Whatever the cause, she yawned, rolled over and stared at the ceiling as she registered the changes in her environment.

  A pale, thin light fell into the tiny wood-paneled room from the two portholes set high into the walls. The second change she noticed was the relative quiet. The roar of the storm and groans from the overstressed boat no longer assaulted her ears. Instead she could hear the quiet lap of water. The boat rocked gently as if it rested at dock, instead of pitching and tossing in high waves.

  The air outside her nest felt damp and chilly on her exposed face and neck. She stretched and slipped one foot out from under the pile of blankets. Her questing toes told her the same tale.

  Her body throbbed with phantom aches from wounds it hadn’t had the time to fully assimilate. She pushed down the covers and stared at herself, her pink nipples crinkling in the cold. Silver scars dotted her torso. She touched one in wonder. It looked as if it were already months old.

  Something insubstantial brushed into the room. The tiny hairs on the back of her arms rose. She yanked the covers up to her neck as she sat.

  Nicholas’s transparent, shimmery form appeared, and he knelt in front of her. She received an impression of black military-short hair, hawkish features and the glitter of his intelligent eyes.

  Relaxing, she anchored the blanket more securely around her torso. “Nicholas,” she said. “It’s good to see you. How is your father?”

  He has not yet passed, Nicholas said. Perhaps there is still something that you can do for him.

  Exhaustion pulled at her bones. Healing herself from so many gunshot wounds yesterday had sorely strained her body’s already taxed resources, but she tried not to let her weariness show on her face.

  Just like any other family member of patients she had treated, Nicholas didn’t need to see her own struggle. She had survived more than one brutal shift in the ER. She would survive this too. “I’ll have to find some clothes,” she said. “I need to eat something too. Do you think he will be all right for that long?”

  He seems to be resting comfortably enough at the moment, the ghost said. He regarded her for a moment. It cost you a great deal to come here so quickly. Thank you.

  She had the impulse to deflect what he said, but the gravity in his indistinct gaze wouldn’t let her. Instead, she gave him a small smile. You’re very welcome.

  He rose to his feet and turned away. She had seen him do that before when he prepared to leave. It was as if the ghost needed to go through the same kind of gesture that he would have done if he had been alive.

  Impulsively, she said, “Nicholas.”

  He paused to look over his shoulder at her.

  No doubt this was not the time to talk about things. But she was afraid that there would never be a time to t
alk about things, unless she just made the talk happen.

  She asked, “If you were offered a chance at resurrection, would you want to take it?”

  That got his attention. He turned and kneeled in front of her, and his gaze turned piercing. There is no chance at resurrection, he said gently. My body has been cremated.

  She shook her head. “I didn’t mean resurrection with your original body, and I’m not promising that I can make it happen.”

  Nicholas lifted a wide shoulder in a shrug. What are you talking about?

  While she knew she needed to move soon, right at the moment, sitting up straight seemed like too much effort. She leaned back against the nearby wall. It felt frigid against her bare shoulders.

  At any other time, she would have taken a great deal of time to think about how to tactfully approach a difficult, delicate subject with a patient.

  Now she said baldly, “Yesterday morning when I examined those injured drones, the only thing wrong with them was that their spirit was gone. Their bodies were strong and healthy. If they had been really alive, they would have recovered from their injuries just fine. I see that as a damn waste, don’t you?”

  He was smart. He was really smart, and he was familiar with the Deceiver’s attributes and habits. She couldn’t see the details of his face very well, but when he rose to pace the length of the small cabin, she could see that she didn’t have to spell everything out for him.

  Energy poured off of him. He said, his tone rapid and bitter, The Dark One has the ability to take over human bodies, but he isn’t human. I am.

  She raised her eyebrows. “I’m not human either.”

  Listen to her, sounding all confident and accepting of who she was. She almost convinced herself.

  He whirled to go down on one knee in front of her. Tension vibrated off of him in waves that were so tangible it felt nearly physical. She leaned forward, searching for any hint of what he was feeling in the blurred lines of his face.