“Well, I doubt they’d intentionally hurt any of you. Daniel’s of their blood, and you and Eddy are his friends. But they might try an intervention.”
“Like, sit in a circle and guilt-trip him out of his humanity addiction?”
Low laughter. “There’s an image. But I doubt they’d just talk. I’m afraid they might try to kidnap Daniel.”
“And duck him in seawater and force him to Change?”
“I’m afraid so.”
While Orne gazed at the river, Sean snuck a closer look at him. For sure, his pale blue eyes were like Mom’s. His nose was like Grandpa Stewie’s, medium length with a convex curve, and his hair was the same pale blond. Mom’s hair had been a darker blond, while Sean’s was plain brown. So really, their fingers were the only things Sean and Orne had totally in common: extra-long and thinnish. Pianist fingers, Mom used to say, though Sean was more a kazoo guy. Maybe magicians needed long fingers as well, the better to wrap around a staff or wand.
Orne stopped rocking and angled his chair toward Sean’s. “We could talk all night, but talk won’t solve Daniel’s immediate problem. The safest thing would be to wait for Marsh to pave your way. I’m tempted to say that’s all you can do.”
“But?”
“But Daniel might be able to get to the reef and talk to his mother, if you and Eddy stand by him.”
“We’ll stand by, all right. Not screwing up is going to be the hard part for me. You know that.”
Orne smiled, with the quirk. “I know your potential, too, and I’ve brought something to help you with any Deep Ones you meet. I’ve also got you a boat, which we’d better look at before it gets dark.”
* * *
In the farthest berth on the last dock was a Boston Whaler Montauk, the 170. “My uncle Gus has a 190,” Sean said. Click. “Or maybe you knew that?”
“Yes, Raphael went with you to Harwichport this spring. I heard you were always out on the water, and at the wheel.”
“Gus has been teaching me and Eddy.”
“A former navy man, that’s reassuring, and good to know Eddy can drive, too. So you think you could handle this particular boat?”
Sean climbed aboard and checked out the console and the outboard, a Mercury four-stroke so spotless, it had to be right out of the box. In fact, the whole boat looked brand new. “It’s pretty much the same.”
“The draft’s a little shallower. Useful what with the shoals around Plum Island.”
The shiny newness continued in the boat’s safety gear: ring and throw bags and three life vests. There were also two long-handled fishnets and two gaffs. The gaffs were the only used-looking items, but they had sturdy shafts and rustless hooks, wickedly sharp. From the dock, Orne remarked, “For defense, but only in extremity. If things turn ugly, run—this boat will go faster than even Deep Ones can swim.”
“How about their patrol boat?”
“You won’t outrun that, but Marsh runs the patrol—the worst his people will do is turn you back. Look in the equipment locker, in case I’ve forgotten something.”
Sean found repellent for mosquitoes and midges, which they’d sure as hell need coasting through the marshlands at night, and greenhead repellent, which they wouldn’t need unless they were still out at daybreak. If they were AWOL that long, poor Helen would freak. They’d already miss curfew unless they canceled the reef trip. He pushed the thought away and cataloged the rest of the locker. Binoculars. Bottled water. Cheese, crackers, and Oreos. First aid kit. Flashlights. Batteries. Flares. A spare key for the Montauk in a floatable box. And a navigational chart showing Plum Island Sound and Innsmouth Bay.
“The marina owner marked that for me,” Orne said. “It shows the deepest channels through the sound. He wrote down the tide times, too. You’ll have the least trouble with shoals if you’re traveling up to two hours on either side of high tide. Which means you’ll want to start no later than an hour and a half from now.”
“Okay. Is it costing you a ton to rent the boat overnight?”
“I’m not renting it. I’ve bought it, and I’ve paid for summer docking and winter storage here at the marina. I’ll have uses for the boat as well, but the keys on the console are yours, and you’re welcome to take the boat out whenever it’s idle.”
Sean jumped back onto the dock. If Grandpa Stewie or Uncle Gus had given him part ownership in a boat, he’d have hugged the crap out of them. Hugging Orne wasn’t an option. How about shaking hands? Or just saying thank you, except even then, what did he call Orne? Grandpa Redemption? Nope. Grandfather? Too Victorian. Stumped, Sean settled for plain and awkward: “Thanks. It’ll be great, when we can go out for fun.”
“Which tonight won’t be, I’m afraid, if you do decide to go.”
“I guess we have to, now you’ve done all this.”
Orne sat atop a piling. “Having the means doesn’t require you to use it.”
“Well, do you think we can manage it without anyone getting hurt?”
“Hurt to the body, hurt to the mind, hurt to the heart. Too many kinds of hurt to calculate, whether you take Daniel to the reef or you tell him I couldn’t help after all.”
“I don’t want to lie.”
“What do you want, then? Why is it important for you to help Daniel?”
Orne looked at him with such urgent expectation that Sean had to put his back to it. He wrapped his fingers around the cool steel railing of the Montauk. “He’s my friend. He’s more than that to Eddy. Or it was getting that way before all this Deep One stuff. And his father’s an asshole, and Marvell’s an asshole for going along with him. They don’t understand. It’ll kill Daniel not to see his mom now he knows she’s alive.”
“And you understand that as Marvell can’t. As even Mr. Glass can’t.”
He leaned into the railing, and the whole hull shifted toward the opposite side of the berth. That put dark water under him, water that flowed toward the sound without taking along the livid reflection of his face. “Well, what if I found out Mom was alive? I know she can’t be, that’s the difference between me and Daniel. But what if somehow. I’d get to her no matter what.”
Orne remained silent so long that Sean turned to see if he’d crept away. He still sat on the piling, gazing downstream. “You were about a month old when I determined you were magical. The next day I left for a long trip. Very long, in fact.” Orne raised a hand before Sean got his mouth open. “I don’t mean to entice you about my destination. I only want you to know it wasn’t lack of interest that kept me from checking in on you and Kate. Also, why would I need to check in? You were well, and well protected. Anyhow. I didn’t come back for six years, and then it was to learn that Kate was very ill. Terminal cancer. I went to Providence at once, and I took Solomon Geldman with me.”
The dock lamps had flickered on, and their orange light gave Orne’s face a drawn and jaundiced look. Sean wasn’t immune—his hands and arms had turned a matching saffron. “To treat her?”
“He’d agreed to try. He examined her, but we’d come too late. She’d passed the point of intervention, even magical.”
“But I’ve seen what Geldman can do, like with Daniel!”
“Daniel isn’t dying, Sean. When death has seeped soul-deep, there’s no saving a mortal, and if anyone can detect that irreversible turn from living into dying, it’s Geldman. I couldn’t doubt him or waste any more time. I knew the only solution for Kate was immortality, and the Communion of Nyarlathotep was the only way she could achieve it.”
Orne’s statement punched through muscle and guts to the curve of Sean’s spine. “Then why didn’t you tell her about it? Why didn’t you give her a chance?”
Unflinching, Orne said, “I did, Sean.”
“You couldn’t have, or she’d be alive. No way she’d have left if she didn’t have to.”
“Left you.”
“Me and Dad and everyone.”
“Would it have done any good if she’d stayed with you but left herself behind?”
“What’s that even mean?”
The air between them sparked—Orne had charged his voice with magic: “Stop talking. Listen.”
Coercive warmth flooded the knotted muscles in Sean’s shoulders and arms, making them slacken. He could fight the mental manipulation, yell for Orne to stop, as he’d done in the seed world, but to accept, to relax—
“Listen. You want to know how it was.”
He let his arms hang at his sides, pleasantly heavy.
“Your father had taken you out for the day,” Orne said. “There was a hospice volunteer, an older woman, staying with Kate.”
Sean remembered casseroles covered with triple layers of foil, small patting hands, and lilac perfume. “Mrs. Amati.”
“She opened the door for us. Kate recognized me as her old mentor Samuel Grimsby, I introduced Geldman as a colleague, and we talked until Mrs. Amati, with a bit of persuasion, fell asleep. Then I returned to Kate the memories I’d expunged, the ones about our true relationship and the magic in her. I said I’d heard how sick she was, and so I’d brought Geldman, the most capable healer I knew. She let him touch her hands, look in her eyes, sample the force and scent of her breath. He needed do no more before he bowed his head and left the room. I understood. So, without explanation, did Kate. There was no cure, she said. I contradicted. I told her about Nyarlathotep and his Communion. It took hours to answer her questions because I had to make her understand exactly what the Master would give her and exactly what he would demand in return; how taking the Communion would preserve her, but it would also change her and ally her with forces even I couldn’t explain in full. She weighed her options, finely, to the point of exhaustion.”
“She said no.”
As Geldman had done, Sean imagined, Orne bowed his head. “She said no.”
“She was wrong. I would have made her say yes.”
“That’s why I’d made sure you weren’t there. No sight of you. No sound of you. Even the little trucks and plastic dinosaurs you’d left on the couch were dangerous, but Kate got over them.”
What if Mom had become like Orne? When he was little, Sean probably wouldn’t have known the difference. Dad would have freaked out if she’d told him the truth about her miracle cure, but he’d never have separated her and Sean the way Eli Glass had separated Aster and Daniel. What about Nyarlathotep, though? Join his gang, and he wanted everything. He’d told Sean as much to his face. What did everything mean, specifically? Looking at Orne, you couldn’t see where he’d given anything up.
It hurt Sean’s head to think about it, actually hurt, a grind of pain around his eye sockets. Maybe that was because he was squeezing his eyes shut so damn hard. He blinked to refocus on Orne. One thing he knew: “If my mom had changed in some scary way, so she thought she had to leave me and Dad? I’d still be like Daniel. I’d go after her as soon as I knew how.”
After another long silence, Orne said, “Come back to the deck. I’ve one more thing to give you.”
* * *
It was a tin whistle without the finger holes, except it was made not of tin but of a reddish gold engraved with a tight spiral of hieroglyphs. To Sean, the symbols looked like tiny mouths more or less open, with more or fewer teeth and the occasional flapping tongue. Maybe there were some eyes in there, too. Orne said the workmanship was Egyptian, but the script and language were nonhuman.
“The whistle’s a magic-modulator,” he said. “You collect energy and intend to breathe it out through the instrument, which will convert it into sound. Music.”
Funny how Sean had thought earlier he was more a kazoo guy than a pianist—however precious, the whistle reminded him of one. When Orne blew into it, high-pitched tones emerged, each lingering until the air vibrated with an eerie harmony, the first tone fading away, then the second and so on. But when Sean blew into the whistle, nothing came out. Nothing went in, either. Instead his vigorous exhale puffed out his cheeks and burst free around the mouthpiece in a great fart imitation. He tried again. Same result.
“You’re putting out plain air,” Orne said. “Unless it carries magical energy, it won’t enter the whistle. You’ve been practicing with the key as your collection image. Relax and use it here. Gather as usual; a tiny amount will do. Center the energy, then send it out with your breath.”
It took Sean a few tries before he could consistently produce one tone per puff. For his last attempt, he built up a decent magical buzz, enough to levitate a pencil. That charged breath emerged as a shrill bleat.
Orne winced, then applauded. “Someone nonmagical wouldn’t have heard that at all. But Deep Ones have keen ears for magical sound. That blast would have gotten their attention, and because it expresses your potential, it would have earned you respect as a fellow magician. A stronger blast yet could serve to warn or distract or deter, depending on whatever secondary intention you added.”
“Could I hurt Deep Ones with this?”
“You might if you put enough energy and malicious intention into your breath. Avoid anger; think self-protection. And how much key did you expose that last time?”
“Just the little knob on top.”
“If you have to expose more, do it bit by bit. I don’t want you injuring anyone, yourself included. You’ll have noticed that doing magic gives you a headache?”
“Yeah. It was real bad after I did the summoning last year.”
“That’s because you still have to use personal energy to shape and deploy the ambient energy you gather. Try too much at once, you could incapacitate yourself.”
“Knock myself out?”
“Exactly. Be very careful, Sean. This whistle should be new to the Deep Ones. They won’t know how powerful a weapon you wield, but much will depend on your confidence. Remember their telepathy, and think that the whistle’s dangerous, as it could be. Believe that you’re ready to do whatever it takes to defend yourself and your friends.”
Sean slipped the whistle and its red-gold chain over his head and under his shirt. Like the One Ring, it was heavier than it looked, but it rested cool and comfortable against his breastbone. “How do I get this back to you?”
“No need. It’s a gift.”
“It’s too much!”
“You should indulge me, Sean. As many grandchildren as I’ve had, I’ve never gotten a chance to spoil one.”
“Thanks! But I don’t even know what to call you yet.”
“If you’re still most comfortable with ‘Reverend,’ so am I.”
“Okay. Then thanks again, Reverend. Really.”
Orne headed for the deck steps. Halfway down, he turned and added, “And go slow through the sound. The moon’s new tonight.”
It was, a fingernail trimming. New moon, dark of the moon. “That’s what it was when I summoned the Servitor.”
“True. I didn’t think of that.”
“Is it a bad omen?”
After studying the slivered moon, Orne shook his head. “You first proved your mettle that night. I’m betting you’ll prove it again.”
“You’re still testing me?”
“Does a father grade every step a child takes?”
“I hope not.”
“Well, he doesn’t. Mostly he just watches. He watches the child walk away. He watches for him to turn back.”
Except it was Orne who walked away, while Sean got out his phone to call Eddy.
22
Orne was right about the whistle. When Sean demonstrated it, Eddy heard nothing, while Daniel grimaced and suggested tuning that sucker. The Montauk was what impressed him. Sean promised future boating lessons, but tonight he’d have to drive while chart-savvy Eddy navigated. Since Daniel was the empath, he’d watch (and feel) for company, on or under the water. Jobs assigned, Daniel settled down on the rear bench, Eddy untied the docking lines, and Sean pulled them out into the Parker River.
They left the dock shortly after high tide, which gave them plenty of time to get through the sound at its most navigable. The Monta
uk ran smooth and high, a sweet ride of a boat; with Eddy calling their course from the bow, they glided between Plum Island and the mainland marshes without any serious flirtations with shoals and mud flats, rocks and submerged pilings. Aside from the clouds of mosquitoes and midges that repellent kept at bay, the only creatures they saw were fish purling the surface, two night herons, and a great horned owl that swooped across the bow, making them all yell. Well, making Sean and Eddy yell. Daniel sat as silent as the owl’s wings, only his head moving as he guarded their wake.
They were rounding the southern tip of Plum Island when harbor porpoises appeared to surf the Montauk’s bow waves, three port, three starboard. Daniel leaned over the rails to feel them out. After a few minutes, he said, “I think they’re real porpoises. I don’t pick up any magic from them.”
“But I’ll bet they’re Deep One allies,” Eddy said.
Sean kept his eyes forward. The chart showed a reef between the last shoals and Sandy Point on Plum Island. At high tide, the reef would be well underwater, but he wasn’t taking any chances. “I don’t care about the porpoises as long as they don’t attack us.”
“They’re just riding along now.”
“Not those two,” Daniel said.
“What?”
“A couple took off toward the point.” Daniel scuffled to the stern. “And something’s on the beach over there.”
Eddy joined him aft. She’d hung Orne’s binoculars around her neck, and she used them now. “Gray seals, pulled out for the night.”
“Can I look?”
Sean watched the binoculars change hands. Then he had to look forward again as the Montauk entered Innsmouth Bay. At the mouth of the sound, the surf ran about a foot; beyond it, the ocean was a sheet of barely rippled glass. To starboard he made out a long concavity of mainland with clustered lights at its midpoint: Innsmouth. A lesser string of lights marked the harbor breakwater. To port was open Atlantic, where, a mile and a half out from town, a sea serpent humped its jagged spine clear of the water. Someone profoundly brave or stupid had dared to spear it with lamp-topped harpoons, one on each end of the beast. “Devil Reef,” he called over his shoulder. “Check it out.”
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