by Ally Blue
He thought out to Luke, wondering why he wasn’t able to “hear” the idol as clearly as he had before. A flashflood of panic and fear pulsed through his connection to Luke’s mind and was gone before he time to react. Shaken, Austin shot a frantic barrage of half-formed questions to Luke.
After a few seconds that seemed more like hours, Austin felt Luke’s touch in his mind, showing him where the idol rested and urging him to hurry. The faint thread of fear running through Luke’s thought clutched at Austin’s insides, but he ignored it. Luke was alive, and he was on his way. Every second brought him closer. Austin could feel it.
Forcing himself to relax, Austin swam across to the hole in the coral where the idol lay hidden. As he laid his hand on lip of the opening, the music in his skull peaked in a gorgeous harmony, then settled into a soft hum. It’s really here, he thought with a sense of wonder.
Austin checked his Heliox level and his dive watch. Plenty of Heliox left, but if he didn’t hurry, he would have to decompress on the way to the surface. Opening the equipment bag, he pulled out a smaller pick and went to work.
The coral was just as soft and chalky here as it was at the cave entrance. Within a few minutes, Austin had chipped away a large, ragged hole. Through the murk his efforts created in the water around him, he saw something smooth and black within the space. A sharp thrill of excitement shot through him. Dropping the pick, he reached in with both hands and pulled out a small black box.
He held the box in one hand and shone the dive light directly on it with the other. The container was fashioned of something that seemed to be metal. It felt solid and heavy, the surface reflecting the light with a soft, diffused glow.
It’s here, Luke. I’ve found it. I have it. The thought Austin sent to Luke was full of awe as he stared at the box, rubbing a corner with one gloved thumb. He wondered if Luke would be able to see it through his eyes.
Austin was opening his bag to put the object in when he heard the unmistakable sound of another breathing apparatus behind him. Apprehension tightened his insides. Luke doesn’t need dive equipment. Dropping the bag, Austin turned in the water as quickly as he could, just in time for a hand to rip his regulator from his mouth.
Adrenaline coursed through Austin’s veins, slowing time to a crawl and bringing everything into sharp focus. Grabbing the person’s wrist in one hand, Austin twisted the way his uncle had taught him. His assailant’s grip loosened. Austin snatched the regulator back, put it in his mouth and cleared the water out.
Only then did he glance at the face of the person who’d attacked him. Austin’s heart skipped a beat.
Collins hung in the water, wearing a thin wetsuit with no hood or gloves. Bluish spots mottled his fingers and ears, and his eyes glittered madly behind his mask. His free hand gripped a large dive knife.
Oh fuck. Austin lunged for the knife, but Collins was too quick. Using Austin’s grip on his other wrist for leverage, the man swung around, swinging the blade in a tight arc. The razor-sharp metal sliced through the arm of Austin’s drysuit and dug into his flesh. He cried out around his regulator, his fingers automatically uncurled from Collins’ wrist, and Collins was free.
Ignoring the curl of blood rising from the new wound to cloud the water, Austin made another grab for Collins’ knife hand. The older man twisted away as quickly as an eel. Before Austin realized what he was doing, Collins clamped one hand around the thick tubing feeding Heliox from Austin’s tank to his mouth and severed it neatly in two.
Instantly, a cloud of bubbles filled the coral cavern as the gasses began free-flowing from Austin’s tanks. It would empty in seconds. He needed another source of Heliox and air, and the only other tanks that could possibly help him were on the back of the man who’d just tried to kill him.
Fighting off the first stirrings of panic, Austin reached down, snatched the pick off the sand and swung the flat at Collins’ head. The metal connected with a dull thunk that reverberated through the water. Collins went instantly limp.
Dropping the pick again, Austin let his regulator fall from his mouth and grabbed the spare one connected to Collins’ tanks. He unbuckled his BCD and weight belt, unclipped the dive light and looped the lanyard around his wrist, then let his own tanks and equipment fall to the sandy sea bottom. Thinking fast, Austin hefted Collins’ limp frame, holding him under the armpits with one arm and using the other hand to make sure the regulator stayed in Collins’ mouth. Even though Collins had attacked him, Austin had no desire to return the favor. He wanted the man to live to see the inside of a prison cell. Thankful that he’d widened the entrance into the cavern, Austin hauled Collins out into the open water and started making his way to the surface.
It wasn’t until the patch of coral had begun to fade into the dark that Austin realized he’d left his equipment bag with the idol in it behind. At that moment, Collins tensed and began to struggle in Austin’s grip.
In the ensuing struggle to hang onto Collins and the tanks they both needed to live, Austin thought desperately out to Luke. Hurry. I need you.
With his attention focused on Collins’ grasping hands, the kick to the groin took Austin by surprise. Paralyzing pain flared through Austin’s body. Collins broke free, tearing the regulator from Austin’s mouth. Another well-aimed kick landed on the side of Austin’s head. He felt himself tumbling through the water, the world wheeling crazily around him. By the time his vision cleared, Collins was swimming toward the surface, his flippers reflecting quick glints of brightness from the dive light still looped around Austin’s wrist.
Pointing the beam of the dive light at Collins’ rapidly fading form, Austin began swimming after him, breathing out in a slow, steady stream. He definitely didn’t want to rupture a lung while ascending if he could help it.
It wasn’t long before Austin’s lungs began to burn, and he knew he was out of time. As his vision tunneled and his ears started to ring, he wondered if Luke would ever find his body.
Through the inky water above, Austin thought he saw a flash of something pale rocketing toward him. He wondered if he imagined the familiar presence in his mind as consciousness began to fade.
Chapter Thirteen
With a final swing of the police club, Carson cracked Luke’s femur. Luke lay still on the floor. Broken bones shifted every time he moved, in too many places to count. The pain was so huge he was beyond feeling it. He counted that as a blessing, especially when Carson grabbed him by one bruised and bloodied leg and dragged him out the office door and into the hall.
“Go to the water,” Carson snapped. “Find my treasure, then come back and lead me to it. If you touch it, I will know, and you will die slowly. If you succeed, I will be merciful and allow you to live. Go, and do not show your face to me until you have found the idol.”
Aiming a final kick at Luke’s side, Carson stalked back into his office and slammed the door behind him. Luke lay there for a moment, gathering his strength. He sent cautious feelers out through his connection with Austin. A sense of discovery and excitement floated from Austin’s mind to his, and Luke knew Austin had spotted the coral patch. He smiled to himself in spite of his battered face.
It didn’t take long for Luke to discover that both of his legs were too badly broken to hold his weight. Gritting his teeth against the blinding pain in his fractured arm, he began inching along the passageway on his elbows. His progress was painfully slow, and he found himself wishing someone would come along and help him.
Normally, when his father beat him bloody, then sent him to shift and heal, Luke didn’t want anyone to see him. This time there was so much more at stake than his personal dignity. He didn’t even care that he was stark naked in the middle of the hallway. The need to get into the sea and find Austin obliterated any embarrassment he might have felt.
Sheer determination brought him to the head of the stairwell within a couple of minutes. He stared down the steep flight in despair. The thought of Austin galvanized him into action. Forcing himself into
a sitting position, Luke planted his hands on the edge of the top step and slid his legs around to rest his feet on the third step down. He bit his lip as the pain threatened to overwhelm him.
You can do this, he told himself. You have to.
Moving as carefully as he could, Luke slid his hips over the edge and started to lower himself down to the next step. As he settled into a seated position on the second step, Luke let out a short, rough laugh. It would be slow going, but it looked like he might actually make it.
He managed to navigate three more steps in that fashion. As he lifted his weight onto his hands to negotiate the fourth step, grimacing with the increasing agony in his broken arm, his palm slipped in the blood coating the stairs in his wake. He tried to catch himself, but his arms were weak and shaking from pain and blood loss. One buttock hit the edge of the next step down and slid off, and he went tumbling down the steps.
He landed in a heap at the bottom, fighting to breath through the pain. The world went gray around him, static hissing in his ears. He clawed his way stubbornly to full consciousness. He had to get to the water. Had to help Austin. Focusing on that goal, Luke planted the knowledge of the idol’s resting place in the forefront of his mind and started crawling forward again.
A cry and a soft curse in Russian came from behind him. Footsteps pounded toward him, and it was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. Someone knelt beside him, gentle hands eased him onto his back. Luke looked up through his swelling eyelids into Niko Vonovich’s shocked face.
“My God,” Niko exclaimed, sounding stunned. “Who has done this to you?”
“Father.” Luke coughed, sending a spray of bloody spittle onto his chest. “Help me,” he begged, his voice almost too slurred to understand. “Need to get ... to water ... dive ... please, help me.”
Niko shook his head. His eyes were huge, his face gray as he swept a horrified gaze over Luke’s battered body. “I could damage you if I tried to move you. You need to get to a hospital on the mainland.” Reaching into his pocket, Niko pulled out a small two-way radio. “I will call Smith. He’ll know how to help.”
Luke almost protested, but thought better of it. Smith knew he was a shifter, and knew he needed to get to the water to heal the damage Carson had done to him. Resting against the floor, Luke listened as Niko called Smith and explained in shaky tones what had happened.
A matter of seconds later, Smith came pounding down the hall at a dead run. He skidded to a stop and crouched beside Luke, assessing the damage with his usual stony calm. His gaze lingered on Luke’s crotch, where his testicles had turned purple and ballooned to the size of grapefruits. A muscle in Smith’s jaw flexed.
“Help me get him up,” Smith said to Niko. “We have to get him into the ocean.”
Niko’s mouth dropped open, his eyes saucering. Luke would’ve laughed if he hadn’t needed all his concentration to keep from screaming when Smith hauled him to his feet.
“But, but he’s severely injured!” Niko protested, even as he slipped an arm around Luke’s waist and helped Smith carry him toward the closest hatch. “He needs to go to the mainland! We should call the Coast Guard, have him airlifted out of here.”
“There’s no time to explain,” Smith growled. “You’ll just have to trust me on this, Vonovich.”
Niko glared at Smith, but didn’t argue. Luke was glad. He didn’t have the luxury of time. He had to get in the water soon, or it would be too late. He knew he had internal injuries and was losing blood at an alarming rate. A sticky stream of it ran down the backs of his thighs, courtesy of his father’s brutal attempt to show him the error of his “sodomite impulses”.
It seemed as though hours passed before they made it to the deck, though Luke knew it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. Smith and Niko lowered him gently to the deck, where he lay panting.
Niko let out a soft, shocked sound. “Smith, my God, he’s bleeding from…”
“I know.” Leaning down, Smith stared straight into Luke’s eyes. “He won’t get away with this. Not this time.”
Luke managed a weak smile, but couldn’t find the breath to speak. He grasped Smith’s hand in his, trying to convey his thanks through the touch.
The corner of Smith’s mouth hooked into a faint smile. “Go. We’ll be at the dive platform waiting, okay?”
Luke nodded. As he pulled himself under the railing and slid over the edge, he heard Smith barking orders at Niko, telling him to get his ass to the dive platform. There was a brief, bright pain as Luke broke the surface of the water. Then the sea closed over him, cradling him in its cool embrace, and he knew everything would be all right.
He shifted, then hovered motionless as his body healed, the hard burn of tissues knitting themselves together moving through him like a wave. When it faded, the familiar heady strength of his octopus form flowed into him. He started swimming, following the mingled threads of the idol’s song and Austin’s mind.
The spike of fear from Austin was shocking in its suddenness. Hurry, Austin’s thought pleaded. I need you.
A vision sprang into Luke’s mind ‑‑ Collins, the hard glint of obsession in his eyes, locked in a desperate struggle with Austin. Luke felt the regulator being ripped from Austin’s mouth, felt the ghost of the blow to Austin’s head, and knew he had only moments in which to act.
Luke shot off toward Austin as fast as he could go. It only took a couple of pumps of his mantle before Collins came into sight. Luke swept a keen-eyed gaze around the surrounding area, and quickly locked onto Austin. Austin was following Collins up to the surface, a steady stream of bubbles trailing from his mouth. The rapid play of images in Austin’s mind told Luke exactly what had happened, and what he needed to do.
Luke swiftly closed the space between himself and Collins. The man caught sight of him just as he whipped two tentacles around each of Collins’ wrists and a third around the man’s throat. Collins’ eyes went wide, the regulator falling from his mouth as he let out a gurgling scream. The temptation to squeeze until Collins’ neck snapped was strong.
A gloved hand on his tentacle caught Luke’s attention. He turned and looked into Austin’s eyes. Austin had taken up the spare regulator on Collins’ tank and was breathing through it, hanging onto Collins’ BCD with one hand. Blood flowed from a cut in his arm.
Austin shook his head, cutting his gaze toward Collins, and Luke understood. Austin didn’t want him to kill the man, even now. Luke turned back to Collins. He’d stopped screaming and hung motionless in Luke’s grip, staring glassy-eyed at him. Luke reluctantly unwound his tentacle from around Collins’ neck.
Reaching between Luke’s and Collins’ bodies, Austin retrieved the regulator that Collins had dropped and stuck the mouthpiece between the man’s slack lips. Collin’s teeth clamped automatically onto the molded rubber. His eyes remained blank, and one side of his mouth drooped around the mouthpiece. Luke was sure he must be sucking water into his lungs along with air ‑‑ a quick perusal showed that the man hadn’t bothered with Heliox ‑‑ but he couldn’t bring himself to care. His tentacles still itched with the need to strangle the bastard.
Austin’s soft touch on his mantle made him turn to face his lover. Austin’s dark eyes locked with his, and a barrage of surprisingly focused thought flowed from Austin’s mind to his. Austin had left the idol behind in the aftermath of Collins’ attack; they would have to go after it.
Luke wrapped a gentle tentacle around Austin’s wrist, the touch helping to clarify his thoughts even with the drysuit between them. In answer to Luke’s silent question, Austin grabbed Collins’ air gauge and shone his dive light on it. He shook his head, and Luke cursed inwardly.
There wasn’t enough air in Collins’ tank to supply both him and Austin for a trip back to the coral patch, then up to the surface. They’d either have to cut Collins loose, killing him, or Austin would have to surface with Collins while Luke went after the idol. Luke didn’t much like either option, in spite of the fury that near
ly blinded him every time he thought of what Collins had done.
To Luke’s surprise, Austin pulled off one of his gloves and stroked the tentacle around his arm with his bare fingers. Instantly, Austin’s thoughts sharpened and solidified in Luke’s mind, telling him to retrieve the idol while Austin continued to the surface with Collins. Luke didn’t like it, but he knew it was the only real option. He wound the end of his tentacle around Austin’s fingers and gave them a light squeeze.
I won’t be far behind you, Luke thought, hoping Austin would understand him. Smith and Vonovich are on the dive platform. They helped me.
Austin’s eyes narrowed behind his mask, and Luke caught the thread of Austin’s worry loud and clear. Luke sent out a wave of reassurance to Austin, reminding him that he was all right, and promising he’d tell Austin everything later, when they were safe.
In answer, Austin smiled around his regulator. Luke unwound his tentacle from Austin’s wrist and let go of Collins’ arms as well. Moving behind Collins, Austin wrapped an arm around the man’s chest and started kicking slowly toward the surface. His gaze held Luke’s for a brief moment, and the sense of love that passed between them sent Luke’s spirit flying.
Stroking one last caress down Austin’s leg, Luke turned and jetted off into the depths.
* * * * *
To Austin, the trip to the surface seemed to last forever. It wasn’t the first time he’d had to help another diver surface. But he’d never had to assist someone who had tried to kill him only minutes earlier. He kept expecting Collins to snap out of his strange stupor and attack again. It wasn’t until Collin’s began to kick weakly with his left leg, his entire right side hanging limp, that Austin realized no attack would be coming.
He knew a stroke when he saw one. It seemed Collins’ heart condition had caught up to him. Austin couldn’t work up any sympathy.
His head broke the water’s surface about fifty yards from El Cazador. Inflating Collins’ BCD all the way and hanging onto him with one hand, Austin began swimming toward the ship, one arm firmly around Collins’ chest. He breathed a sigh of relief that the waves and wind had calmed somewhat.