Hydraulic Level Five

by Sarah Latchaw

  “Take a look in the mirror, you podunk piece of trash.”

  “Enough.” A calm, forceful voice sounded behind me. Sofia Cabral stepped forward, her face grieved. “There will be no more fighting.”

  She took the empty champagne flute from my quivering hand and set it on a nearby table. Touching a calming finger to my cheek, she turned to both of us.

  “The two of you mean the world to my son. But if you must force him to choose sides, please don’t do it tonight. This is my daughter’s wedding.”

  Only then did I glance around, noticing for the first time that several guests—Mrs. Jones included—stared at us, whispering about Samuel Cabral’s ex-wife and new girlfriend going toe-to-toe like a tawdry reality show. I sought Samuel’s tall frame on the dance floor and was relieved he hadn’t witnessed the ridiculously embarrassing girl-fight.

  Caroline bit her tongue and carefully schooled her features into a deliberate nonchalance. I mumbled an apology to Sofia like a thoroughly-scolded thirteen-year-old. How was it that Sofia, with a single stern look, could bring me to my repentant knees?

  “Come with me, Caroline. I can help you treat your dress in the laundry room.” Sofia held out a firm hand and Caroline had no choice but to follow. But as she left, she got in one final dig.

  “You are just another addiction,” she hissed for my ears only. “You’re going to destroy him, Kaye. And the disgusting thing is, you can’t even comprehend you’re doing it.”

  As I watched her elegant, retreating back, I chewed on her words.

  I wasn’t an addiction to him, was I?

  No, she was wrong. If it was the last thing I ever did in this life, I would prove Caroline wrong. Samuel Cabral would never face destruction because of me.

  A destructive path…

  I slapped my head at my stupidity. Samuel’s last Water Sirens book. The entire thing was about destructive paths. Now I had to finish it before we discussed New York after the reception.

  Scanning the crowd, I spotted the person I was looking for—kind of scrawny, goofy-looking ruffled shirt, matted blond hair. Alan Murphy sat at a table, chatting away with several old Lyons High friends about some graphic novel.

  “No way, dude, I’m telling you—if WS was illustrated, Neelie Nixie would totally have huge tits. She’d wear leather, too. Head-to-toe…”

  His friends frantically waved to him, motioning “cut it.” He gave them an odd look. “Oh come on. You can’t tell me you don’t think Cabral wrote ’em bigger than in real life…”

  I ground my teeth, struggling not to slap Murphy upside the head.

  “And…she’s standing right behind me, isn’t she?” Alan swiveled in his chair, his face flooding crimson. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat.

  “Kaye, hehe. Look, I totally didn’t know—”

  “Forget it. I need to borrow your book, please. The one I signed?”

  “Yes! Um…you aren’t going to throw it in the dumpster, are you?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I just want to read it. I’ll return it when I’m done, I promise.”

  He just stared at me, protecting the book as if he shielded his kitten from a hungry hawk.

  “Look, if anything happens to it, I’ll see if Samuel can get you a signed galley copy. How about that?”

  Alan reluctantly handed over the precious first edition copy of The Last Other. Muttering my thanks, I scrambled for the house, the book tucked under my arm.

  It was time to finish The Last Other. Neelie Nixie was already dead. Now I had to know, once and for all, what happened to Nicodemus.

  Chapter 20: River Signals

  Like baseball signals, paddlers use a series of signs

  while on the river in order to communicate from a distance.

  “KAYE, PLEASE!”

  “Just a sec’, Alan.”

  Music from the mariachis floated through the window of the Cabrals’ spare bedroom—last dance type of music.

  “My friends need to leave and I need my book back,” he whined through the guest room door, where he’d finally tracked me down.

  “Another fifteen minutes?”

  “Fine.” I heard him tromp down the stairs and back to the party.

  I bit my thumbnail, flying over paragraph after thrilling paragraph of action. This was it. Nicodemus had picked off the rest of the Others, one by one, until he’d cornered their mastermind in a deserted Alpine village somewhere in Austria…

  Nicodemus righted his fossil limbs and threw himself into the dream-fray, desperately striking against the furious strength of the last Other. A defeated soldier in a battlefield of blood he swung, aimless, heedless of the carnage beneath his feet, of the stench. Scatters of stone and smoldered flesh…remnants of a final, failed stand against the overpowering evil that had taken Neelie and left his world in miserable ruin.

  He had been so very sure. When the Others began to drop, mysteriously, by a hand other than his, he’d hoped. When he’d trailed bands of demons across the mountains only to come across their dead carcasses along the road, he’d been so sure…

  The last Other leered down at him with glistening black teeth, hitting him with yet another vision. Neelie, grasping at loose rock, tumbling over the edge. Neelie’s body, crumpled at the bottom of a cliff. Neelie, gone, gone, gone. Nicodemus clutched his head and tried to root out the Other…

  I closed my eyes, pressing the book to my chest until panic subsided. I forced my coward eyelids open and gazed out the window, down at the twinkling lights of the wedding reception. Guests had steadily left over the past hour as it crept closer to midnight.

  A knock at the door yanked me out of Samuel’s fantasy world. My mother, working the beads and bell sleeves, peeked around, noticeably relieved to find me alone.

  “Kaye, your father’s going to drive Hector home. He’s a little worse for wear after that open bar.”

  Guilt clamped down and twisted my chest like a lug wrench. In my haste to secure time with Samuel, I’d completely forgotten about Hector. “Thanks, Mom.”

  “Don’t you get into any trouble with that Cabral boy tonight.”

  I groaned. “Mom, I’m not fifteen.”

  “All the same, I saw you on that dance floor. Make sure he—you know. Covers up.”

  “Mom! Your Free Love card is being revoked.”

  “What? It’s getting cold out.” She smirked and ducked out of the room. Shaking off my utter humiliation, I locked the door, opened the book again and plowed ahead.

  He’d hoped for this. Death. The lashing, the destroying, and now the peace. Wherever Death was, she was. He’d failed to bring down the last Other—this was his fate. But now the fight faded, and he wanted nothing but to feel the stone filament creep through his veins, thicken his blood until his body was encased in the sediment lake bottom. Until his brain petrified. Dear God, he wanted this. Lost…Lost…Lost…

  “Get the hell off of him, you repulsive bastard,” a vicious, feminine voice snarled at the creature. From the haze of fossilizing eyes, he saw a beloved face, twisted in hatred and brandishing a well-known weapon…

  “Son of a—!” I read on. No way. No. Way.

  “Kaye?” Alan Murphy called behind the door, having returned from the party. “What happened? Is my book torn?”

  Ignoring Alan’s panicked cries, my eyes flew over the page. Cripes. Cripes! It was her—Neelie.

  Nicodemus watched helplessly as his lover and the last Other writhed and tore at one another, her deadly blade flashing against the creature’s neck. The beast flung her from his back and leaped onto her tiny body, pitilessly seeking to crush her.

  Now Nicodemus cursed the scum weighing him down, rendering him inadequate. With a savage cry, he fought to lift an arm—just a single arm. But it was enough to distract the thing. The Other whirled around, hissing at Nicodemus. He dragged a limp Neelie behind him as he stalked closer…closer.

  Nicodemus saw the slightest stirring in Neelie’s hand as it brushed her discarde
d knife. Her steady fingers reached for the hilt and she kicked away, toppling the creature. Without mercy, she raised her hand high—

  Alan pounded on the door. “Kaye, come on! Talk to me!”

  —The Other loosed a last, fierce growl and grew still. Between them, they heaved the dead weight of the black, hulking thing behind the thatched hut. It was there, beneath the fractured ice of the Alps, they burned the last Other…

  “If you don’t open this door, I’m going to get Mr. Cabral!”

  “I knew.” Nicodemus framed his world, this face, between his fingers. “Neelie, I hoped. How I hoped. I was turning to stone without you, can you believe it?”

  Neelie pushed away the film of her tattered sleeve, displaying soft, ivory skin. She wiggled several fingers and Nicodemus saw they weren’t ivory but gray…stone gray. Warming gray. Gray fading back to flesh, like his fingers.

  “I believe it…”

  “That’s it. I’m going for help!”

  “Oh for the love of all that’s holy, Murphy, this is the best part!” I leaped up from the bed, unlocked the door and swung it open, staring down a baffled Alan. “You told me Neelie died!”

  “Well, she did. At least you’re supposed to think she did.” He twisted the leather WS bracelet circling his wrist. “Wait, you just now figured it out?”

  “I…I hadn’t read that far.”

  He snorted, making me feel like I missed something obvious. “If you’d paid attention to the rest of the series, you would have guessed at it. Cabral has been setting it up for the past two books, now.”

  “Faking her death?”

  He nodded.

  “But why? Why would Neelie let her friends and family believe she was dead?”

  He rolled his eyes. “So she could lay a trap for the Others. See, Neelie figured out a long time ago they weren’t after her, remember? They were after Nicodemus. And in the process, they planned to take out Neelie, Nora, Noel, anyone who could lead an attack against them. So she faked her death, quietly traveling the same path as Nicodemus and picking off the Others until she could strike. Get it?”

  “Yeah, I g-guess,” I stuttered.

  He scratched his head. “Um, look. I don’t mean to be a jerk, but can you finish that thing up? I really need to leave.”

  “Oh! Sure, just a sec.” He slid down the side of the wall as I tucked into the last chapter.

  It was as I’d remembered before, when I skimmed it on the way to Samuel’s book signing. Nora and Noel, taking up the reins of power. The mythological creatures rebuilding their world after years of oppression at the Others’ hands. No Neelie. And no Nicodemus—now I knew why. Like Arthurian legend, they’d vanished into the Alps, vowing to return when there was need of them.

  So epic. So Samuel.

  I turned the final page and closed the book.

  “That doesn’t make sense, though.” I flipped pages under my thumb. “I never helped Samuel fight the Others.”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s why it’s fiction.” Alan carefully extracted the book from my hands. “Happy endings occur more often in stories than in real life, that’s for sure. Maybe Cabral just wanted to write a happy ending. I dunno.”

  He fled the room, precious book in hand, and I slumped against the bed and fought to make connections to Neelie.

  Neelie had swollen keyhole eyes—battle wounds. Now that was definitely me, watching Samuel plow ahead in his constant need to shield, to pave the way. I could see now how I’d been blind to so many things when it came to Samuel, like his reasons for leaving and his overwhelming sadness. I shuddered as the gruesome things he’d revealed to me about his parents burrowed through my mind.

  And Neelie had been touched by the curse of the wicked sirens, whatever the hell that was. If the Others were Samuel’s demons, then what was the curse?

  Both Neelie and Nicodemus were turning to stone without each other, their love bound them together so inextricably. Samuel’s whole “symbiotic relationship” theory again, taken to the extreme. But again, it didn’t make sense. Until we’d talked at Button Rock Reservoir, Samuel had believed I was happy. He’d wanted me to be happy. So why was Neelie turning to stone?

  “Did you like the rest of the book?”

  I jumped. Samuel stood in the doorway, sober eyes on mine as he munched a piece of wedding cake.

  “I ran into Murphy downstairs, muttering about getting a galley proof because you’d wrinkled the dust jacket. There’s no chance I’m giving him a galley, by the way. It would be online in a minute.”

  I self-consciously tugged up the strapless bust of my dress. “Sorry about that. And yes, I loved the ending. You gave Neelie and Nicodemus a happily ever after, so what’s not to love?”

  Samuel smiled. “I had originally intended to kill off Neelie and Nicodemus. I knew you hated them.”

  “I don’t hate them anymore.”

  He offered me a bite of cake, and I refused. Discarding his plate on the dresser, he settled next to me on the comforter. “Also, it wasn’t healthy for me to keep writing about us, dwelling on us.”

  Just like an addiction, my mind answered. I hastily repressed the thought.

  “So I resolved to end them and move on. But when the time came…I just couldn’t kill them. I’d left a second option open—Neelie faking her death—and I used it.”

  “It’s refreshing, I suppose. You don’t get a lot of happy endings in real life.”

  “No, you don’t.” He played with the ruffle of my skirt. “Grief is a natural part of life, like happiness. But honestly, Kaye, if I see you get your happiness, then I can find mine, too.”

  “I know what you mean.” My voice was soft. I tapped my forehead. “Symbiosis and all.”

  “No, not there.” He lifted my fingertips from my forehead and pressed them to the pulse-point on his wrist. “Symbiosis,” he corrected. His eyes not leaving mine, he slowly moved them to the pulse at his neck. I gulped. When he slid them along his collarbone to his sternum, I felt the swift pounding of his heart. My own heart mimicked his. Suddenly, I was very conscious that I lounged on a big, beautiful bed while Samuel bent over me, and all I wanted to do was tangle my fingers in his tousled hair and yank him down to my body. I shyly pulled my fingers away.

  “Are you going back to the party tonight?”

  “No,” he breathed, inching closer to my face.

  “Okay.” Talk time, Kaye, talk time. My stomach fluttered with nerves. I glanced at the duffel bag I’d left here this morning. “Um, I’m going to go change out of this dress,” I mumbled, grabbing the bag and slipping past him, up to Danita’s room.

  As I pulled out the rumpled yoga pants and tee I’d worn that morning, I chided myself. Way to go, Kaye. Only last night you tell the man you shouldn’t have any sort of physical relationship, and now you want to lick frosting off of his chest. What the heck is wrong with you? It didn’t escape me that ten years ago, my seventeen-year-old self wouldn’t have thought twice about stripping off my dress in front of Samuel and yanking on comfy clothes. Funny, how much had changed. Huffing, I slipped my discarded dress onto a hanger and grabbed my flip-flops, not caring that my fancy up-do was completely incongruous.

  I found him in his bedroom, zipping up the last of his suitcases (now potting soil free), tux discarded for jeans and a T-shirt and still six feet of delectable, lanky limbs. I schooled the lust out of myself, silently cursing and rejoicing over his departure tomorrow morning. If this friendship thing was going to work, I had to get my sex-starved libido away from him. Yet, when he took my hand, I linked my fingers with his.

  “All packed. Where do you want to go?”

  “The ball diamond.” I scanned his room one final time, smiling when I couldn’t spot our framed graduation picture. He was taking it with him to New York.

  He didn’t ask why I wanted to go there—he didn’t need to. Instead he grabbed his old, tattered stadium blanket and tugged me from the room, away from the reminders that tomorrow, he’d leave Lyo
ns behind and resume his fast-paced publicity tour.

  “Grab your laptop, please. Oh, and we’ll need a lighter.”

  We hopped into Samuel’s roadster and weaved through the remaining cars in the driveway. The night air had bite now that we were away from the heat of the party, and I soon realized I should have brought a jacket. Gooseflesh popped up all over my arms. I rubbed warmth into them.

  “Cold?” Samuel fidgeted with the heat. “There’s a sweatshirt in the backseat.”

  I felt around the clutter-free car until my hand hit fabric. I put the black hoodie to my nose and inhaled.

  “It’s clean, I swear. I haven’t been jogging in it.”

  I pulled it over my head, embarrassed. “It smells nice, that’s all.”

  It was even chillier when we reached the windy, wide-open baseball field, completely black save for the lone streetlight washing the loose-graveled parking lot in pale orange. We’d spent long hours here in our youth. Dani and I tagged along, taking up perches in the bleachers while Samuel and Angel practiced hitting. Then there were the times Samuel and I came here alone and spread a blanket in the middle of the field. We’d watch the sky and chat. When we were older and clichéd horny teenagers, we’d move our rendezvous under the bleachers where he pushed an eager tongue into my mouth and I wrapped jean-clad legs around his waist in youthful oblivion.

  The wooden benches were as rickety as ever. We climbed up and down, chipped paint flecking our feet.

  “This is a lot smaller than I remember.” Samuel gazed over the old ballpark with a faintly wistful turn. “Time tends to do that, doesn’t it? Change our outlook of what is big.”

  “Location does that, too. You’re used to New York City—skyscrapers, armies of yellow cabs. Of course the park’s going to look a lot smaller. Lyons probably seems incredibly dumpy to you, now.”

  I don’t know why I was suddenly snippy. Samuel, ever-perceptive, picked up on it. He rested a hand on my shoulder, halting me.