Larry swallowed. “Barbara.”
FORTY ONE
Peggy Hern sat at the bottom of the temple’s lagoon, the empty carapace of a lobster on a rock beside her. She’d been starving when it crawled to the edge of her light. Instinctively, she snatched it up in her glowing talons and bit down on its back like a nutcracker soldier, shattering the shell; its legs were still twitching as she tore away hunks of raw, tender meat. She devoured it so quickly that the horror of her actions did not strike her until she’d finished. Only then did she drop the animal’s vacant husk and back away.
Oh...that was so disgusting! It tasted like...like...
Actually, it tasted quite good. The freshest sushi she’d ever had.
Laughter came as an explosion of bubbles; she relaxed back into her seated position, tried to put her thoughts in order. Back in New York, she would take hot baths to emotionally decompress, just lay in her tub, her head resting against an inflated vinyl pillow. Sometimes she would burn candles and enjoy a glass of wine. Sometimes she would read. Sometimes Larry would join her and the bath would become something else entirely. And sometimes she would just fall asleep, but, whenever she drifted off, there was always the fear, very faint but very clear, that she might slowly sink beneath the bubbles to drown in her slumber.
Peggy smiled a bit at that.
Drowning was now the least of her worries.
At these times, when she was totally relaxed, Peggy often found clarity. She’d agonize over the right wording for a passage in one of her stories, or sweat out the plot of a novel only to have the answers come to her in the dreamy twilight of consciousness. Now, however, it was not the path of a character she charted, but her own future.
She’d chosen to live.
That was a big step.
Peggy stared off into the depths of the tunnel and her eyelids grew heavy. She knew the open sea lay at the end of this rabbit hole, a whole new wonderland to explore. She also knew that there was no cookie or elixir that would reverse what had happened to her. Given the reality of her circumstances, it would be easy for her to give in to life as a mermaid, to unplug herself from the world and escape into that blue void where she could have all the lobster she could eat. But Larry was also part of her reality. He was the anchor that kept her on the more difficult road, a return to human life. There was no doubt now that he loved her, that he would always be there for her. When he held her, when he kissed her, all the questions about her new life seemed to burn off like morning fog. He would come back for her and together they would —
What time is it?
Her eyes sprang fully open. She ran her hands down her face, then looked at her fingers with an expression of mild surprise, amazed that they were still clawed and webbed.
Did you really think they’d just go away?
No, she didn’t.
Peggy gave the looted shell beside her another glance, then shook her head. Larry had accepted her new condition. It was time she learned to deal with it as well.
With a push of her talons and a twist of her paddle-like tail, Peggy surfaced. The transition from gills to lungs went smoothly this time, and she climbed from the water to crawl across the grotto floor. Looking around the temple, she saw no sign of her lover; she was alone with the statue of Varuna.
Peggy gazed up at the Lord of the Water’s etched face. Where she had once seen a threatening maw of fangs, she now saw a comforting smile. Just wait here with me a while longer, the grin said. Larry will be here soon.
She rested her chin on her laced talons and something odd caught her eye. A glow, like that of a blacklight; it shimmered around the trident emblem on the statue’s base. She crawled over to the seal, traced the carved shape with her claw. The stone vibrated, sent tingling waves across her transparent flesh; it was as if she were touching a tuning fork.
“What the hell?”
The glow and accompanying vibrations ended as quickly as they began.
Peggy studied the rock more closely. The seal now appeared to be a cap, a stone cork. There was something hidden inside the statue.
Something powerful.
FORTY TWO
Karl Tellstrom joined the crowd, crossed a bridge, and moved toward a pyramid of gold and raven glass. The splendor of the buildings around him was truly glorious, as if all the world’s monuments had been stolen from this place and scattered like seeds across the globe.
This was the way his people were meant to live.
As Karl neared the opposite side of the canal, darkness moved across the procession. Every member of the gathering looked to the sky, and he found himself doing the same. The sight that greeted his eyes was a mammoth black arrowhead hovering high above the city of Poseidon. It was Varuna. Varuna was calling for him.
Karl awoke from his slumber to find the pool chamber’s tiled floor beneath him. Christine laid in his arms, still in her natural, nautical form; the human coloring that normally clouded her flesh had evaporated, leaving the skin gloriously sheer. He gazed at her anatomy, tried hard to see the child maturing amid the iridescent contours and shadowy ribbons of her inner physique.
His child.
His heir.
Karl gently stroked her abdomen, not wanting to wake her. The female body was a marvel. To be able to feel life grow and move within you, to give birth to it, to feed it from your own body...truly wondrous.
Tellstrom swallowed and his thoughts returned, as they so often did, to his own mother. When her ruined body had washed ashore, the only concern the adults had was to hide her, to drag her out of sight and throw her in the ground before anyone, any human, could see. Even his father had been concerned with what these murderers would think.
It was then that Karl saw the fear in their eyes; they were afraid of human beings, so afraid that they couldn’t even seek justice for a murdered wife and mother.
Karl ran to the temple; he asked Varuna to bring his mother back to him, to seal her wounds and start her heart beating again. And, when those prayers went unanswered, he asked for more strength and cunning than the humans, powers that were not made weak by benevolent shackles. Karl Tellstrom asked his god to one day grant him revenge.
Tonight, those prayers would be fulfilled.
If the gods could share the power of creation with a mother, they could allow a father to wield their tool of destruction.
Karl thought he saw something move in the jaundiced gloom of Christine’s belly, a small shadow, no larger than a finger. It jerked, no kicked and turned. His child was alive and moving in her womb.
“You,” he whispered to her luminous naval, “will be born into a world where men will fear you. You will rule over humankind the way they rule over the ants and the slugs. I will make this possible for you. Tonight, we will all be free.” His eyes drifted to Christine’s sleeping face. “And they will never hurt your mother the way they did mine. I promise you.”
Karl breathed deeply. On the tile around him, his followers rested; he slowly scanned their diverse shapes and textures, and his eyes came to rest on Jason. The boy’s wounds had healed up nicely. They were an army now, ready for the task before them.
Karl smiled.
Tonight, there would be no more rallies, no more speeches. Tonight, the hand of the gods would be his.
FORTY THREE
Deputy Ray didn’t report for work that morning. By itself, this was quite unusual. Ray had always been conscientious and dedicated. In fact, to John Cannon’s memory, the boy had taken a total of only two sick days in the last three years. By all accounts, he’d been a model law enforcement officer. Cannon thought he might run by the boy’s apartment to check on him when the office fax spit news.
People had been murdered at Black Harbor Medical Center the night before.
Canon took off his wide-rimmed hat and sank into his chair. A trio of thoughts danced in his mind. The first one told him that Ray was one of them, and that he wouldn’t be reporting to work today or any other day. The second said that Barb
ara and Peggy Hern were probably among the dead. His final thought, and most frightening of all by far, was that Tellstrom had finally made a very public strike...and way too close to home.
Canon put down the State Police fax and made a phone call to Ed at the Sea Mist Inn. This alleviated some of his fears. There had been an attack, but Barbara was standing in Ed’s living room and the other woman, the Callisto, waited in the temple.
“Relax, John,” Ed assured him. “They’re safe.”
The chief then went about his business to the best of his ability; patrolling the streets, directing tourists, handling minor disputes here and there through the course of the day. His face was the most positive he could muster. It was hard to be pleasant when you knew your world was about to topple around your ears.
Now, as sundown approached and the tourists staged their nightly retreat, he parked his patrol car and sat silently with his keys in hand. He looked up to the false church on the hill. The evening breeze through his car’s open window was both cooling and calming. After a few minutes of quiet fretting, he moved his bulk into the office.
You’re wrong, Ed, he thought, staring at the fax that still laid upon his desk. None of us are safe.
FORTY FOUR
Barbara DeParle walked into Ed’s kitchen to pour herself some tea, her face made bright orange by the setting sun. She picked up a glass, her hands so numb that they no longer seemed a part of her, and looked out the window. In summers past, the streets would be clogged with tourists anxiously running to each and every shop before the doors were closed and the last ferry left them stranded. But this was not the past.
This was the now.
The now was shop after shop unopened. She’d opened hers, feeling guilty for doing so, but also believing that it was important to make a show. The now was fewer tourists. Oh, first thing in the morning was still as busy as ever, but, once it was clear that Colonial Bay was a mere skeleton of its former self, they’d left in a hurry. And of course, the now was Karl Tellstrom.
Barbara was scared. No, it ran deeper than that. She was terrified, so terrified that she thought she might go mad if she spent too much time thinking about it.
She poured her tea, trying to remember any hint or clue that would’ve told her what Tellstrom was capable of, something that could’ve foretold this desperate state of affairs. She remembered his grief at the death of his mother, his polite tears at the funeral of his father, his easily coaxed temper. She wondered if insanity suddenly took hold of the boy, or if it had been growing steadily within him over the years, changing him so gradually as to have been imperceptible.
But, if it hadn’t been Tellstrom, how long before someone else came along with the same war cries? The ruse of Colonial Bay was only meant to buy Poseidon’s children time to rest, to regroup. It was never meant to be an eternity. All any of the elders could do was teach their own children, tell them about the devils they were forced to imitate, warn them what might happen if they showed their true natures to a world that did not want to understand, a world that thought they were monsters and aberrations, a world that might be angry that, given the choice of living a lie or revealing what they were, they had not chosen the lie.
As Barbara drank her sweet tea, Ed walked into the room. His face was grave, his eyes pale. She thought for a moment that he might have more bad news to deliver her. Another attack had taken place and ended badly. Somewhere, Christine was now tied to the hood of a redneck’s car.
“John’ll be here soon,” was all he had to say.
She nodded, not really relieved by the announcement. There was little Canon could do to turn the tide. There was little any of them could do. Even if she knew Tellstrom’s next move, they were now the minority, and a weak one at that. They were Paralichts, the most peaceful of the three clans. Sure, they were strong, they had to be to remove precious metals from the dark floor of the abyss and carry the loaded baskets up to the great pyramid of Poseidon, but they weren’t warriors. The Charodon and the Kraken...they were the ones that had been bred to fight, to kill. The odds for any confrontation were clearly not stacked in her favor. Unless...
There was always the hand of the gods.
Barbara closed her eyes and the blue flicker from within Varuna’s statue lit her darkness, set her nerves to tingle. It was there, waiting to be picked up, to be used. If she went to Karl with this power, could he stand against her? No. Nobody could stand against her. Nobody would dare...
Her eyes leapt open.
Is this what it’s come to? Clansmen killing clansmen? Civil war?
Barbara shook her head. It was up to her to find a better way, a more civilized resolution. She was “The Teacher,” as was her mother before her, and her mother before her. Until she received some sort of vision or divine guidance, she was still Varuna’s voice here on Earth.
Peggy.
Yes. The Callisto was proof that Poseidon’s children and the humans were all related, the same flesh, created by the same gods. If Barbara could convince Karl’s followers, could convince her own daughter, then perhaps she could also persuade them that killing the humans was wrong. She would make them see this. She had to.
What if I don’t?
Christine was under Karl’s spell. How long before she told him about the power? How long before he tried it on for size? If that happened, it wouldn’t be a matter of civil war, but full-blown Armageddon.
The bell rang at the front desk, giving her a start; Ed left to answer it, and Barbara walked over to the bay window. When it was dark, she would go to the temple. She would get Peggy and move the god’s wrath to a new location. Barbara sipped her tea and watched the shadows grow longer on the vacant street.
•••
Larry rang the bell.
Carol Miyagi could hardly contain her excitement. For most of her career, she’d become grudgingly accustomed to the reality that the evidence and clues she excavated might never manifest into the lost city itself, but would instead remain pieces of a puzzle far too complex to ever really be solved. Over the last month, however, each new discovery seemed more spectacular than the last. First, to find Atlantis, then the trail of artifacts that led them to Colonial Bay, and now, knowing that there were actual descendants of the great city all around them, it made her want to dance. Carol needed to meet this DeParle woman, needed to see if she knew more about what happened to Atlantis, and their motley crew needed all the help they could get.
Ed DeParle finally appeared behind the check-in counter; by the look on his face, their group was not what he expected to see. “Help you folks?”
“We need to talk to Barbara,” Larry told him.
The old man studied him, then looked cautiously over the other members of the group, trying to get a hint of their intentions. “What’s this all about?”
Surprise burst onto Larry’s face, then turned quickly to irritation. “You know damn well what this is about.”
“It’s important that we speak to her.” Carol held up the ancient book she cradled in her arms. “And I think she’s going to want to talk with us.”
Ed’s face nearly hit the floor; he reached for the text with surprising speed, his hand shaking. Carol snapped it back out of his reach.
“That don’t belong to you,” Ed told her.
“Then I’ll gladly give it back to Barbara.”
“Give it back to me and I won’t call the Chief of Police. Stealing from...” His eyes danced uncomfortably. “...from a church. You people oughta be ashamed o’ yourselves. What the hell were you lookin’ for anyway?”
“The truth,” Carol told him. “And by your interest in this book, I’d say we —”
“Who says I give a shit about that there book? I don’t have any love for thieves is all. Just a bunch o’ gibberish to me or anybody else still livin.’”
She offered him a level stare and quoted, “‘Varuna brought forth three clans from the Great Abyss and called each by name: Charodon...Kraken...Paralicht.’”
/> DeParle could not hide his shock. “How did you — ?”
“We’ve been to —” Carol was about to say Atlantis, but quickly changed her wording for better effect. “— Poseidon.”
The old man’s eyes widened and locked with hers. “That’s a damned lie!”
“I assure you, it’s not.”
Ed’s face reddened. “Get out.”
“No.”
“I said get out!”
Earl spoke up, “Sir, I’m an officer in the United States Coast Guard. If you’d like, I can make a call and have the FBI or Homeland Security ringing your bell instead of us. I don’t think you want that.”
Ed smiled mirthlessly. “Son, you think they’d believe a word you said?”
“I don’t have to cry ‘fish-people.’ This —” He pointed to Brahm. “— is a doctor from Black Harbor Hospital. I think you know what happened there last night, don’t you?”
Ed said nothing, his eyes drifted across their faces and back down to the book.
The guardsman continued, “With or without that call, how long do you think it’ll be before they show up at your door?”
“None of this is my doin’.”
“But you know who’s behind it,” Larry said. “Who are you so scared of?”
“Son, I’d say I was scared o’ you. How’d you feel last night when they came for your Peggy?”
“I was terrified.”
“Then you know how I feel right now havin’ you come for Barb.”
“We’re not here to kill Barbara.”
Ed’s face lightened. “No, I ’spose not.”
Carol realized the old man’s combativeness had actually been born of true fear.
Larry appeared to realize it, too. He shook his head and the corner of his lip crept up. “Even when they leave you, they never really go, do they?”
Ed offered him a questioning stare.
The artist elaborated, “Wives...girlfriends...they think that they can just slap a big ‘ex’ on the front and all the feelings will just go away. You might even play along, but there’s always something there, some connection that won’t ever let you totally forget that you used to love them. I know how it feels to want to protect someone, even when they don’t want it. So does Barbara. She saved my life last night. Please, help us stop this, help us protect more people from being hurt.”
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