Dead Waters

by Anton Strout

  Jane shrugged as she filled up her own bag with the materials on the floor. “Maybe,” she said. “Part of me wonders if she lived here. If she did, I bet she had more than a drawer.”

  Although Jane sounded playful enough when she said it, the angry twinge rose up in my heart unbidden and I couldn’t hide it in my voice. “Jane . . .”

  “I’m fine,” she said. By the tone in her voice, it didn’t sound like it.

  “About the other night,” I said, swallowing it down. “I’m sorry I hesitated when you asked about me about the set of drawers. These emotional flairs from the tattooist have really been messing with me. Connor had to remind me you were asking for more space, not anything big like moving in.”

  “Exactly,” she said. “I wasn’t asking that. I just wanted somewhere to put my things.” The look on her face faded, replaced with one of shy concern. “But since you went there, would it be so horrible?”

  The tattooist’s emotions tried to press themselves forward, but I tried to be rational. “I just don’t want to mess this up,” I said. “I don’t want to rush anything. I’ve rushed things before, and you know my history. I’ve a lot to think about. . .”

  “Like what?” Jane asked, snapping a little. “Seems pretty simple to me. Either you want to be with me or you don’t, right?”

  I sighed. “Let’s not fight,” I said. “It’s late. We’re both exhausted and touchy. I just came to pick you up, maybe take you to dinner.”

  Jane softened a little and nodded. “That, I can get behind.”

  The half-built driveway loop in front of the high-rise was half-flooded from the downpour of rain, but thankfully one fully built sidewalk was in place and led down to First Avenue. Once my arm was around Jane under the protection of my umbrella, we huddled under it and I finally felt myself relaxing. I didn’t want to worry about our domestic problems all night, and in that regard, I needn’t have worried.

  As we came off of First Avenue onto the side street, we were met by a lack of late-night traffic and a now-familiar figure. The green woman Jane had been warding the apartment against was standing out in the downpour in the middle of the empty street.

  “Holy hell,” I said. “Guess that answers the question of if we finished her off when Connor dropped the statue on her.”

  Jane looked uneasy. “Should we call in the troops?” she asked.

  “We are the troops,” I said, taking out my bat. “Budget cuts, remember?”

  “Oh, right.” Jane looked disappointed. “Crap.”

  “You okay with this?”

  Jane nodded. “I just hate fighting in the rain,” she said. “More so when it’s some aquatic bitch who tried to drown my boyfriend.”

  I squeezed her shoulder. “Feel free to work with that. A little vengeful thinking can go a long way when it comes to a fight.”

  I collapsed my umbrella, pulled my bat out of its holster, and slid the umbrella into it.

  “Gotcha,” Jane said and the two of us headed off for the green woman. When the woman saw us in motion, she strode toward us in great, deliberate strides, Terminatorstyle. She stopped thirty feet away in the middle of the deserted street, and I hesitated. Jane kept moving forward, but the woman raised her arms out to her sides and turned her head up to the heavens. I wasn’t sure what she was doing, but I had a bad feeling about it. I reached for Jane, catching her arm.

  “Wait,” I said, tugging her back.

  The words were barely out of my mouth when I heard the sound of rushing water explode somewhere off to my right. I turned, and water was shooting toward me from the remains of a fire hydrant along the curb. It slammed into me full force, causing me to fling Jane off in the opposite direction as its pressure catapulted me into a row of parked cars. I landed hard on one of the roofs of a gypsy cab, leaving one hell of a body print in it and absorbing a ton of pain that screamed across my back.

  Jane was luckier. My spin had sent her stumbling across the street, but now she was running in the direction of her momentum, diving for the cover of a van parked on the opposite side of the street.

  I rolled off the top of the cab toward the safety of the sidewalk area. Water was now filling the street at a rapid flow. The direct approach wasn’t going to work with this creature. As I tried to come up with a next move, the sound of crumbling stone rose up behind me. I looked down. I was standing next to another fire hydrant. . . and it was shaking violently, crumbling the sidewalk beneath it.

  Pained as my back was, I found the strength to scrabble back over the crumpled roof of the car and fell off it onto the flooding street. I came down with a splash in ankledeep water and took cover against the side of the car. The hydrant erupted, shoving the entire car toward me. It slammed into me, knocking me face-first into the water. I held my breath until I got my hands under me, then pushed myself back up. I looked at my enemy, and all her focus was on me, her arms still outstretched. I had no idea where the hell all the hydrants were on this street, but I had a feeling I was about to find out the extremely hard way.

  A familiar sound rose over the rush of water. The crackle and hiss of electronic connection. I knew it well. It was easy since it was the telltale sign of Jane ramping up her powers. I looked off to my right. Jane was still hidden by the van, but her hands were laid out on its hood. Her eyes were lit with energy as she chanted her technomancy into the vehicle and it started up with a roar, the engine revving up to a near-impossible whine. Its lights flashed on, burning bright. Seconds later the glass exploded out of the headlights themselves. Arcs of electric blue fire shot out of the empty sockets and crackled over the distance before shooting into the green woman. Her body crumpled as she doubled over in pain, but Jane didn’t let up with her attack.

  I stood up, running over to Jane, taking a wide arc to make sure I was well behind her as she electrocuted the woman. As power poured out of the van, the vehicle shook, smoke rising from it in thick, noxious clouds. The pop of something at the front of it rang out, and the hood flapped up with the explosion. The battery was on fire, covered in flame, and the last of its power shot from Jane’s hand into the green woman in a final tail of energy.

  I grabbed Jane and pulled her away from the vehicle. She looked spent, like she had pulled an all-nighter, but I had to make sure she didn’t take any damage from the rapidly burning van. I dragged her into the street with me to see the results of her handiwork.

  The green woman was down on one knee now, but she pushed off of the ground and stood back up. The dark serenity was gone from her face, replace by uncertainty and fear.

  “I think you hurt her.”

  The news seemed to put a little wind back in my girlfriend’s sails and she smiled. “Good,” she said.

  The green woman turned and ran. Cars were coming up the street now and she ran over the tops of them as they came, always landing on her feet and keeping her brisk pace. The falling rain drew into her as she ran, reconstructing bits and pieces of her that the passing cars tore away when she failed to dodge one completely.

  Jane and I weren’t as pliable against the oncoming traffic and took to the sidewalks, avoiding the steady flood of water filling the streets from the broken hydrants.

  “What do we do if we catch her?” Jane shouted over the sound of rushing water.

  “Hell if I know,” I said. “Improvise.”

  The farther we chased the woman, the more destruction seemed to rise up all around us. Fire hydrants erupted left and right as the woman passed them. They lacked the aim of the ones she had taken her time to direct at us, but they were just as harmful, water shooting every which way into the air. Several shop windows either cracked or completely shattered under their concussive force. Glass rained down into our hair as Jane and I covered our eyes, still giving chase.

  The woman looked back to assess her situation. Hate was in her eyes now. Despite all her attempts and distractions that she was throwing at us, Jane and I were still gaining on her. Desperate, she changed direction and darted o
ff to her right and into an alley.

  Jane and I ran down into its darkness after her. The staccato beat of the rain was louder, drumming off the rows of trash cans and Dumpsters lining both sides of the narrow space. The splash of our footfalls added to the eeriness among the cold, wet shadows here. The woman was in a full-on run, but I saw a glimmer of hope up ahead. The alley dead-ended a couple of hundred feet ahead of us.

  The green woman hadn’t noticed it yet and kept on trucking at full speed. Her attention was turned on us as she ran, and only at the last second did she notice the wall in front of her. She hit it at a full run, a large wash of water spreading out and up the wall, yet she remained solid. She was dazed and it took her a second to regain her focus, but by that time we had stopped a few feet behind her. She spun around to confront us, a look of panic on her face.

  “All right, lady,” I said, raising my bat, winded. “I don’t know what you are, but I know this—you’re coming with us.”

  The look of panic on her face dissolved and in its place rose an unexpected look of calm that unnerved me. I stepped forward using caution, but the woman just shook her head at me in slow motion. A dark smile crossed her lips.

  “No?” I asked, tightening the grip on my bat. I let uncertainty get the better of me and stopped advancing on her.

  The woman shook her head again, and then cocked her eyes over to Jane on my right. I wasn’t sure what the woman was up to, but I didn’t like that she was shifting her focus to Jane now. From the uncomfortable look on Jane’s face, she wasn’t too keen on the attention, either.

  “Hey!” I shouted, slapping the bat down in my gloved hand with a wet smack that sent up a small splash of water. “Eyes over here!”

  My words had no effect on her and she just continued staring at Jane. I had to do something. I stepped forward, closing the gap.

  The woman pressed herself back against the bricks of the wall behind her. Her hands spread out along it, her fingers digging into the wall while her eyes remained on my girlfriend.

  “Easy,” I said, drawing out the word as long as I could.

  I reached for the woman’s right arm, but it was already too late. She pushed herself away from the bricks, launching herself directly at Jane. I expected the woman to raise her arms, to try to grapple with Jane, but instead she dropped them to her sides. The woman’s body slammed into Jane, but didn’t knock her over. Jane staggered for a moment, reeling as the woman transformed, losing all solidity and washing over her.

  There wasn’t even a chance for Jane to scream. Her mouth filled with water as the green woman passed both over and through her. Jane’s eyes went wide as she struggled to catch a breath, but it was over before full-on panic could set in. The wave rolled beyond Jane, forming once again into the woman when it was past us. She didn’t miss a step as she hit the ground running and took off splashing her way back up the alley toward freedom. All of a sudden I felt pretty sure I knew how Mason Redfield had died.

  Jane staggered and I dropped my bat to catch her before she fell into my arms, coughing. She took several choking breaths of air as she spit up a small fountain of the greenish water. I patted her back, helping her as best I could to return her to her regular breath. After a moment, her chest stopped heaving and she laid her forehead calmly against my chin.

  “Well,” I said. “That could have gone worse.”

  Jane looked up at me. “Oh, really?” she said, her voice weak. “How exactly?”

  “You’re still breathing, aren’t you? Consider yourself luckier than Mason Redfield when she tried to drown him.”

  Jane narrowed her eyes at me like she was going to say something snippy, but the look vanished almost as soon as it had appeared. “True.”

  “I know Wesker probably sets a different bar for success than the Inspectre does for Other Division, but we consider ‘Still Breathing’ a good benchmark.”

  Jane looked back up the now-deserted alley, her eyes barely open against the downpour of rain. “You want to go after her?”

  I shook my head as I reached down and picked up my bat. “I’m afraid it’s too late for that. She’s long gone by now.”

  Jane looked sad, like she might even be crying, but with all the rain it was hard to tell. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “What do you have to be sorry about? That a psychotic water woman chose to give you a bath in the middle of a rainstorm?”

  Jane gave me a sad smile.

  “You should be happy,” I continued, squeezing her in my arms. “After an attack like that, we have pretty solid confirmation now of who drowned Professor Redfield from the inside out. Now what we need to do is figure out who she is, why she would want the good professor dead, and how we can stop her from drowning anyone else alive.”

  Jane nodded, but still looked quite shaken.

  “Cheer up,” I said, hugging her.

  She squeezed me tight, her head buried in my neck. “Why?” she asked with weak hope in her voice.

  I pushed her back from me, looked her in the eye, and nodded. “You seemed to actually hurt her,” I said. “That’s promising. All I managed to do was menace her with a bat, and not very effectively. Back at the van, you scorched her pretty good.”

  Jane looked uncertain. “Blowing up a van. I’m going to catch holy hell for that, aren’t I?”

  “We can check it with Ghoulateral Damage Division, if there’s anyone left there these days.”

  I spun Jane around and headed her back down the alley. I traded my bat for my umbrella and slid the bat into its holster. I opened the umbrella and the two of us huddled under it despite the fact that we were both already soaked through. There was a comfort in it nonetheless. Now if I could only fine some answers about the crazy woman in green that comforted me . . .

  11

  Jane looked over at me across the wrought-iron elevator cage we rode up to my apartment. She gave me a weak smile, which warmed my heart even though she looked as much like a drowned rat as I did. The old-world elevator rose up through my building, clattering its way up past floor after floor, the low hum of its motor a soothing sound after a night of chaos.

  Jane moaned, followed by a piteous trail of laughter. “You know you’re in trouble when just riding in an elevator hurts,” she said.

  I would have nodded in agreement, but I couldn’t lift my head forward from where it rested against the side of the elevator. Tonight’s pursuit had been a brutal one, but only when it was over did our bodies truly start to feel the toll of our exertion. The only good thing to happen since hobbling our way out of the alley near the professor’s high-rise was that the rain and broken hydrants had taken care of dousing the flames of the van Jane had exploded with her technomancy. Other than that, our bodies had slowly given in to the aches and pains that followed our fruitless chase.

  When the elevator hit my floor, I rolled back the black iron accordion gate and the two of us hobbled our way to my apartment door at the end of the hall. I fished out my keys and managed to get my door open despite my feeble state. I didn’t even bother to flick on the lights and instead took in the welcoming silence of my home. The quiet majesty of my living room was dark, but the wall of windows along the left side of it let in enough light to show off my old-world gentleman’s club motif—rich leather sofas and an entire wall of shelves that housed various antique finds of mine. I pulled off my waterlogged coat and hung it by the door before going any farther.

  I helped Jane squirm out of her coat and hung it next to mine. “You really ought to have a chute installed that drops straight down to the incinerator.”

  “I don’t think that would be such a great idea,” I said, crossing over to my sofa. “I’d be half tempted to throw myself down there, if only to dry off.”

  I started off down the main hall that led back to the other rooms of the apartment. “I’m going to change.”

  “I’m going to shower,” Jane said. She kicked off her shoes and squelched down the hallway behind me in her wet socks o
n her way to the bathroom. “If you could just pull something out for me to wear, that would be great.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  I continued down the hall to my bedroom and changed into something less soaking wet. One Ramones T-shirt and a fresh pair of jeans later, I hit my couch out in the living room, opening up my satchel and pulling out the now-soaked books that Jane had picked for me from Redfield’s place. The distraction of trying to read them with my powers if only to identify students from his lectures was a welcome one after the night we had been through, and I was thrilled to see that exhaustion seemed to be keeping any untoward flare-ups at bay. NYU lecture halls filled my mind’s eye as I pushed into the visions of the professor educating his students on the history of film. While engaging, it hardly was anything I imagined someone killing him over. Eventually the drone of his voice and the subject matter became too much and I decided to switch up books.

  When I pulled out of the vision, it was to a different sound entirely. Jane was screaming from the other room.

  “Jane . . . ?” I said, my voice and body both weak from the hit my blood sugar took with the vision. I grabbed a pack of Life Savers from a tray of them on one of my end tables and opened it, popping them in my mouth and swallowing them whole.

  “Simon!” Jane called out from the bathroom.

  I rose from the couch and ran on unsteady legs down my hallway toward the back of the apartment. I threw open the bathroom door, startling her. Her hair was hanging down, wet, and Jane was wrapped in a white towel. Her eyes were so bugged out I thought they might pop.

  “What is it?” I asked. I looked around the bathroom for any sign of trouble.

  “I just got all the ick off me from tonight,” she said, “and when I was drying off, I found this.”

  Jane pulled aside her hair and spun around, facing her back to the bathroom mirror. She lowered the towel so it exposed just below her shoulder blades. Set between them was what looked like a tattoo of a dark green swirl of symbols with words circling them in a language I didn’t know. The outer edge of the swirl was a ring that was composed of what looked like writhing snakes that were, in fact, writhing.