by Michael West
Barbara shrugged. “As long as you want, child. You’re one of Poseidon’s children now.”
“What’s that mean?” Peggy demanded. “I don’t even know what the hell that means!”
Barbara crawled from the lagoon and walked into the heart of the chamber, beckoning Peggy to follow. The air was cold against her nakedness, but the reverent flames of a hundred melting candles lent the altar some welcomed warmth. A book sat on the granite table, a volume so old that it looked as if it might crumble at the slightest touch. Barbara did touch it, however, and, as she opened it, its binding moaned. On the yellowed pages within, Peggy saw the same pictographic language that adorned the walls. Barbara translated the story, or perhaps it was a Reader’s Digest synopsis from memory.
“A long, long time ago, the gods came upon the Earth and its riches. They descended from the heavens, and, from the world’s creatures, created the clans of the earth, of the sky, and of the waters. But we angered the creators and they abandoned us.” She swallowed, choked back rising tears. “Then came the slaughter. Hate, kept in check while the gods were here, came to a boil. The clans started killing each other, tried to wipe each other out. Humans weren’t stronger than any other breed, but they had numbers on their side. The children of Poseidon were chased from their homes and hunted across the globe. We kept running, kept fighting, but after so long we just wanted all the killing and dying to stop. One day, the founders came to this island. They named it Croaton, which means ‘new life,’ and they said enough.”
“Enough,” Peggy echoed, bemused.
Barbara closed the book, sent a cloud of dust into the air. “They built Colonial Bay and started living like humans. They figured it was the only way to survive. And that’s the way it’s been...right up to now.”
“So why the sudden public display of mayhem?”
The teacher curled her tail into a spiral, then sat upon it as if it were a cushion. “’Bout a year ago, a young man named Karl Tellstrom became a kind of prophet. He’s been telling people just what they’ve been waiting to hear — that they don’t have to be afraid anymore, that things can get back to the way they were before the gods left us.”
Peggy looked into the grinning face of Varuna. “By killing us? Hunting us like animals?”
“By huntin’ them the way we’ve always been hunted.”
“Enough with the we! Until tonight, I’ve never been hunted.” Horrified, Peggy stood up and paced like a caged zoo specimen, the black ovals of her eyes locked with Barbara’s. “You didn’t pop by the hospital tonight to say ‘get well soon.’ You got the news that I’m not a welcomed addition to the family. You know what, fine by me. You take it back.”
DeParle eyed her. “Take it back?”
“Yeah!” Peggy’s voice resonated in the hollow cavern. “Cure this!”
Barbara looked at her own webbed toes. “Child —”
“Stop calling me ‘child,’” Peggy roared. “I’m not gonna live like this. You got that?”
“I understand what you’re going through.”
“Tell me. Tell me what I’m going through. I sure as hell don’t know what it is.”
Barbara’s face was unreadable.
Peggy swept her claws down her new body. “Look at me.”
“You’ve been given a gift, dear. A beautiful gift.”
“You think Larry will think this is beautiful?”
“Does it matter what he thinks of you?”
“Are you profoundly stupid?”
“No,” Barbara sighed. “And neither are you. You’re a young woman in love. All you can think about, all you can see when you look into that crystal ball there in your mind is life with the man of your dreams. And sometimes...” A lump rose in her translucent throat and she forced it down again. “Sometimes you lose yourself to that love and you can’t tell what’s right and what’s wrong. Whatever makes your man happy makes you happy. That’s all that matters.”
Peggy continued to pace.
Barbara went on, “I wish this hadn’t happened to you. I truly do. But, it has happened dear, and now you’ve got some hard choices ahead of you. You have to be strong enough to make ’em. You and Larry aren’t part of the same world now. I know you love him. You have to love him enough to push him away.”
Peggy stopped her pacing, remembering the warning from her dream, the dead thing telling her she was no longer human, that she had to make Larry leave her. As she looked at her claws, at the glowing rivers of phosphorous that gave them light, Peggy thought of Larry’s face when he saw them in her hospital room. It was an expression of loathing. Her anger faded and genuine sadness filled the vacancy in her eyes.
“You can be strong, Peggy.” Barbara was on her feet; her tail swung behind her, slapping the stone altar. “You may not believe it now, but you can be. Remember what I told you, you’re not alone. I’ll help you.” The old woman took a step toward her, and Peggy backed away. “If you’ll let me.”
Barbara reached out to touch Peggy’s transparent cheek, smoothed away a single tear.
Peggy trembled. She covered her mouth with her own hands, shocked by the feel of her thickened lips, and sobbed uncontrollably. This time, when Barbara went to embrace her, Peggy did not fight it.
“Tellstrom did this to me?” she asked, shaking. Tears streamed from her eyes onto DeParle’s shoulder.
“Yes.”
“God damn him.”
Barbara looked to Varuna’s downcast face. “Yes,” she murmured, then shed tears of her own. “Damn him.”
THIRTY THREE
“What did you say?” Karl’s tiger-striped face clouded with rage and his teeth honed to daggers; at his clawed feet, several Kraken lay sleeping, beards of tentacles sliding lazily across their slimy chests.
“She got away,” Jason repeated, blood flowing down his wet chest in threads. He transformed into his human form; the bullet pushed out of his shoulder and onto the tile, pain searing his nerve endings like a hot iron, making him feel as though he could pass out at any moment.
“You really fucked things up, didn’t you,” Karl growled. “Where’s Ray?”
“Gone.”
Karl growled. “You shit!”
“It’s not my fault, Chrissy’s mother —”
“The Teacher?”
Jason nodded, squeezed his eyes shut against the pain. “She was there...helped ’em escape.”
Karl turned and threw his fists against the tiled wall, venting his rage; a child throwing a tantrum. He looked around the room as if searching for something to destroy, and his dark stare fixed on Jason. “I’ll tear you apart!”
Tellstrom charged him, pushed him back with alarming swiftness. Jason’s head collided with the tiled wall and birthed a shower of comets and stars that danced before his eyes.
“No, Karl!” Christine, her voice was stern, but more than a bit uncertain; she fixed her worried eyes on Jason.
Tellstrom threw her a forbidding glare.
“Please,” she pleaded, returning his gaze. “You’re better than this.”
Karl frowned at her protest and proceeded to wrap his talons around Jason’s neck.
Christine’s eyes shot back to Jason and she blurted, “I’m pregnant.”
Both men’s jaws stood gaping at the announcement.
Karl released Jason and staggered back several steps, his eyes focused doubtfully upon Christine. “A child?”
She nodded.
Jason’s stomach sank. Chrissy...no... It’s not true...
When he dove from the drain, Jason considered swimming off into the ocean depths. He’d blundered his mission, and Varuna only knew what had happened to Ray. If the humans had killed him, they’d dissect his body as a natural oddity. If they’d merely wounded him, however...captured him alive...how long would it be before they forced a betrayal from him? How long before the hunters showed up at their doorstep, ready to destroy them?
Jason couldn’t abandon Chrissy to the humans.
&n
bsp; Then there was Karl. His behavior had become wild and senseless, and Jason feared what might happen to Christine in the arms of this madman. True, Karl needed her. She was royalty, after all, and her allegiance kept the more moderate clans allied to him. What Jason had never been able to understand was her attraction to Tellstrom. One day, he feared the man would go into an uncontrolled rage and kill her.
It was for her sake that Jason returned. And it was for her that he now faced Karl’s wrath.
Please, don’t let it be true, Chrissy. Tell me you said it just to make him leave me alone.
The engine of rage that drove Karl Tellstrom suddenly lost steam. “We have a child.”
Jason wanted to change the subject, even if it meant suffering Karl’s fury. “What do we do about the Callisto?”
“Tomorrow,” Tellstrom’s eyes were still firmly planted on Christine. “If the Teacher does have her, I know exactly where she’ll be. Right now, I need to rest. Christine needs to rest. And you, you look like shit, you need to rest.”
Jason cleared his throat. “The humans shot Ray.”
“Not the first,” Karl said with indifference, gently touching Christine’s face with his talon. “Certainly not the last.”
Christine chimed in: “But if the humans come to —”
Tellstrom shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. The war needs to begin somewhere. Why not here?” Karl leaned in and kissed her with great enthusiasm, as if he would protect her. As if he loved her.
Jason thought he would be sick.
THIRTY FOUR
Dante “The Horror Show” Vianello sat in his loft, putting the finishing touches of paint on his new model, a Japanese garage kit of the battling creatures from Alien Vs. Predator. He told himself to stop and go to bed hours before, but the need to color the unfinished vinyl goaded him on. He stopped for a moment to rub his eyes, then admired the craftsmanship of the piece, both his and the sculptor’s.
The collecting bug had bitten Dante long ago. While still a teenager, he’d stolen cars with Carlo Tosti, selling them for a few hundred dollars to spend at the local comic book store. Then, as he made his way through the ranks of Roger Hays’ organization, his growing take had allowed him to buy bigger, better, and far more rare items until his apartment had become a museum of pop culture.
The other wiseguys thought he was nuts. Why blow hundreds of dollars on a set of Star Wars lobby cards? Why not a Lexus or a trip to the Bahamas? Fuck ’em. It was his money. Every man had his passion. For Carlo, it might be trips and cars, but for Dante, it was these bits of Hollywood.
The phone rang, shocking him from his trance.
Dante dropped his paintbrush and snatched up the receiver. “Do you know what fuckin’ time it is?”
“Is that any way to say hello?”
Shit. It was Ludwig. What the fuck’s he doin’ up? “Hey, Boss.”
“The man wants to see you.”
Horror Show sat bolt upright. “What...? You mean face to face?”
“Yeah. His son was killed and he’d like you to handle some of the arrangements.”
Horror Show closed his eyes and nodded. He’d heard about Roger Hays’ boy, David. However, he’d heard it was some kind of boating accident. It sounded strange to him at the time and it appeared his instincts were correct. Hays’ son had been murdered, and now the man wanted blood. “When?”
“Tomorrow, what the fuck, today.”
“Where?”
“A town called Colonial Bay.”
“Colonial Bay?” Horror Show scanned the table, found a pen and paper to take notes with. “Where the fuck’s that?”
“Take I-95. It’s an island just off the coast, halfway between Hampton Beach and Little Boars Head.”
The hitman frowned. “And where the fuck’s that?”
“It’s off New Hampshire,” Ludwig huffed. “Buy a fucking map.”
Fucking map, Horror Show scribbled, smiling to himself. Check.
“You’ll want to take your boy Tosti...O’Shea...and Shiva.”
Shiva? — The torch? What was he getting into? Horror Show put down his pen and reached into his pants’ pocket; his fingers grasped the sliver of Dillinger’s tombstone he kept there. “Where will we find the man once we get there?”
“Stop by the warehouse in the morning. I’ll give you the details and a care package, so you can express our sympathies.”
Weapons, and if Shiva was coming along, explosives. Horror Show feverishly rubbed the finished side of his granite shard, unaware that he was even doing so.
THIRTY FIVE
Carol Miyagi awoke from a wonderfully deep slumber, found herself still in Alan Everson’s embrace; she smiled, the inner flesh beneath her pantyline still tingling at the memory of their coupling. Carol lifted Alan’s arm and slid from between the sheets. She stretched, noticing how nice it felt not to have her fingertips brush against the metal bulkhead of the Ambrosia’s cabin, then she began her daily workout.
Tae-Bo; a mixture of martial arts, boxing, and dance. It increased her strength, toned her body, and helped her fit into her unforgiving wet suit.
Carol spun around, kicked out, and, when she turned again, she saw Alan watching her from the bed.
“I wish I had the video camera,” he told her. “We could make a best-selling workout tape: Learn Nude Tae-Bo with Mistress Miyagi. Give Billy Blanks a run for his money.”
“Very funny.”
“I thought so.”
“You would.” Carol walked over to the knapsack that held her clothes, and her eyes caught sight of the compass packed within. “Oh, my God.”
Alan sat up in the bed. “What’s wrong?”
She ran the device over to him. The needle pointed to magnetic north, then jerked to the west before returning. It repeated the move at regular intervals, as if receiving a pulse.
He shrugged. “It’s broken.”
Carol gave his arm a slap. “It isn’t. Remember what happened to our dive computers?”
“You think whatever affected our equipment — ?”
“Is here too?” She threw on a robe and snatched the compass from his hand. “Why not? The statue in Hays’ office, the drawing on the Maggie May...this place is connected to our city.”
Carol threw the French doors open and stepped onto the balcony. The compass needle was still being jerked toward the west; her eyes rose, searching for what it wanted her to see. There were many shops, some homes beyond those, and a church. The church sat high on a hill. Isolated. A signal from that location would be less likely to be blocked or absorbed. But a magnetic force strong enough to tug on a compass needle from that distance...
She shot a glance through the doorway toward Alan. He was still on the bed. “Get up. We’re going to church.”
THIRTY SIX
Larry and Brahm made their way from Colonial Bay’s boat docks to the church. Half-way up the concrete ramp, Larry stopped. “Wait here.”
The physician shook his head. “I want answers.”
“It looks like there’s only one way in or out of this place.” Larry pointed to the heavy oak doors. “What if those creatures find out where she is and come for her again?”
“You think they’d be bold enough to walk up here in broad daylight?”
“They were bold enough to attack a hospital, weren’t they?”
Brahm produced an iPhone.
“Who are you calling?” Larry asked.
“I’ll use it to warn you.” The physician unclipped a small black box from his belt. He tossed the object to Larry, who caught it before it hit the pavement. “I’ll page that beeper. It’ll vibrate, and you’ll know someone’s coming.”
Pretty damn good thinkin’ there, Doc.
Larry clipped the beeper to the waistband of his shorts. “If I’m not out in half an hour, make your way back to the boat and get the hell out of here.”
“Don’t worry.”
Larry ran for the doors; stained glass windows painted the interio
r in rainbows. He felt his way along pews that lined the center aisle, moving toward the altar at the front of the church. This didn’t feel like any house of God he’d ever been to. It had a creepy, hollow quality.
The door was right where Barbara said it would be. He opened it, heard the creak of unoiled hinges, and saw stone steps descend toward the faint glow of firelight below. Larry ran a hand over his mouth, unsure whether he should call out for Peggy or delay until he saw what awaited him. Deciding to wait, he closed the door and moved cautiously down the steps.
When Larry reached the rocky landing, his breath deserted him.
Alien writing covered the walls of the cavern, and a colossal statue filled its center. Larry scanned the chamber, anxiety crawling through him. He didn’t see Barbara. Most important, he didn’t see Peggy.
“Is anyone down here?” he asked the temple, his voice a booming echo. “Peggy?”
“Over here, Larry.”
His heart beat wildly with relief as he ran across the tabernacle to meet her. She stood at the edge of a tidal pool, completely naked, her arms crossing her chest as if she were a virgin sacrifice, an offering to the pagan god this temple was built to honor. He took off his shirt and held it out to her.
“You must be freezing.”
She made no attempt to reach for the clothing, did not even acknowledge his gesture. Instead, her eyes were transfixed on her feet. “I’m fine.”
“Where’s Barbara?” Larry asked, holding the shirt closer to her, trying to get her to see it.
“She had to leave.”
“She left you alone down here.”
Peggy shrugged, still not looking at him or his shirt. She swayed back and forth as if rocking herself to sleep. “This is the temple of their god. I have ‘sanctuary.’”
“Here, put this on.” He moved the T-shirt closer still.
She grabbed it blindly from his hand and held it at her side.
A tight expression of concern formed on Larry’s face. “What’s wrong?”
Her eyes remained downcast. “You need to go.”
Larry shook his head. “I’m not leaving you again.”