The whistle of Alex"s breath stopped her as she started to leave the room. He sank to the floor, face slick and pale, and tugged the scarf away from his throat while he fumbled in his coat pocket for his inhaler. His hands trembled as he took a hit.
Liz dropped to her knees beside him, her chest tightening in sympathy. "Are you all right?"
He nodded, sucking in a long breath. "I will be," he said on the exhalation. His breath was bittersweet with chemicals. "So much for my career as a cat burglar." He smiled, but the corners of his mouth pinched white.
"Are you sure?" His gla.s.ses slid down his long nose, and her reflection floated in the striated blue of his irises.
"Yes. Just let me rest a moment." The lingering wheeze in his breath wasn"t convincing. He lowered his head, dusty blond hair drifting around his face. "Go on. I"ll catch up. I mean it," he said when she hesitated. "I"ll be fine."
She frowned, but finally stood. It was no use trying to fuss over him; he"d never admit to all the pain. She"d appreciated his cool reserve when they first met-a grounding counterpoint to her own nerves and dread-but sometimes she wanted to tear down his walls with a sledgehammer, if that was what it took to get an unqualified answer from him.
Instead she opened the closet door, but found nothing but spare blankets and a bland print of loons on the water that might have come with the cabin. The bedroom door opened into a dim hallway; the opposite room was just as empty.
What had she expected to find? A b.l.o.o.d.y coat? A body in the closet? Yeah, me and Nancy Drew.
The hall led to the living room, where a sliding gla.s.s door lay in shining fragments across the floor, Venetian blinds ripped apart and scattered. Beyond the jagged doorframe was the broken remnant of a deck. An easel leaned against the far wall, its wooden legs warped out of true-Liz"s pulse sped at the sight.
Despite the breeze rattling the torn blinds, the room held a strange, layered smell. Damp and salt, but also something raw and metallic, a hint of animal musk, a sharp chemical stink like turpentine. Liz shook her head against a sneeze and the miasma faded, until she wasn"t sure if she"d only imagined it. Beneath the weight of coat and sweater, her skin crawled.
"Find anything yet, Watson?" Alex asked, pausing in the doorway.
"I"d rather be Nancy Drew," she said, clinging to jokes to hold her unease at bay. "Does that make you Bess or George?"
"Either is better than Ned. At least Watson had a gun."
"Actually-" Even forced humor died as she stared at the floor by her feet. "I think I may have found something."
Red-brown stains spotted the floorboards, nearly hidden beneath a Persian rug. She crouched and eased a sliver of gla.s.s free of the tangled fringe. It glittered like a rusty diamond.
"What does this look like to you?"
Alex knelt and took the fragment from her. "Just what it looks like to you, I a.s.sume. But we shouldn"t jump to conclusions." The interest in his eyes belied the caution.
"What conclusions aren"t you jumping to?"
He held the b.l.o.o.d.y shard to the light, then peeled the rug up to reveal more smeared stains. "You"d think Dr. Haddad would have mentioned a wound that bled so much. So if this isn"t Blake or Alain"s blood, whose is it?"
He dropped the shard with a grimace and rose, eyes narrowing as he studied the wall beside the broken door. Liz followed his gaze: more dark stains on the white plaster. A spray of thick ruddy drops inches above her head. She wished she remembered more about blood spatter from their undergraduate forensics cla.s.s.
"How could the police have missed all this?" Alex muttered.
"Maybe they had trouble counting five houses too."
Liz turned toward the water and the wreckage of the deck. The clouds were already darkening, blue twilight leaking out of the mountains" shadow. The cove shone dark as mercury. As she looked down, a glint of silver in the water caught her eye. Boards creaked as she stepped out.
"What are you doing?" Alex asked.
"I see something." She crouched and crawled forward, splinters snagging on her gloves and jeans. A silver chain glittered just under the water, tangled on a broken plank. "I think I can reach it."
"I don"t want to drive straight back to the hospital." The deck shivered under his weight.
She tugged her glove off with her teeth and reached down, hissing as the water closed around her fingers. Boards bit into her ribs as she wriggled forward.
"Liz, be careful." A second later Alex"s hands closed on her ankles.
"Almost-" she mumbled around a mouthful of leather. She stretched until her arm ached and tendons stood taut in her hand. The icy water numbed her flesh.
Ripples scattered her reflection. The image reformed, but now the pale face floating below her wasn"t her own but Blake"s. Reaching for her, sinking just out of reach- She gasped and her glove slipped from her mouth, splashing into the cove and breaking the illusion. Wood groaned and a board slipped. She would have shouted, but the sudden pressure of Alex"s hands closing on her coat and yanking her back drove the breath out of her. They staggered into the safety of the cabin as a plank collapsed into the water. The sound carried like a gunshot.
"What happened?" Alex asked, one arm tight around her. His chest rose and fell too quickly against her back; her pulse sped to match his.
"I-" She swallowed. "I slipped."
"Christ," he whispered. His arm tightened convulsively and then fell away. "That was a year of my life. Did you find something?"
She pried open fingers blanched grey as paste. Silver gleamed in her palm. The delicate links of the chain had broken near the clasp, one end tangled around a ring. Liz"s chest hitched when she saw the design engraved on the heavy band: an intricate triskelion, its coils dark with tarnish.
Her breath left with a whimper and she bit her lip to hold it back. "This was Blake"s."
"You"re certain?"
"I gave it to him." It had been her grandfather"s, and too big for her to wear. Blake had joked about commitment when she"d given it to him, but he kept it. He wore it on a chain while he painted.
She dried her gloveless hand on her jeans and shoved it into her pocket, the ring still pressed tight against her palm. The temperature was fading with the light, and her teeth began to chatter. Her coat sleeve was damp nearly to the elbow.
"We should go," she said, but when she tried to do just that her knees wobbled.
"In a moment," Alex said, steering her toward the sofa. "You should sit down, and I want to have one last look around."
Cold leather crackled as she sat. The weather hadn"t been kind to the furniture. Doors and drawers rattled as Alex prowled the narrow kitchen. Cradling her half-frozen arm against her chest, she stared at the broken door, the gla.s.s and blood. The door had shattered inward, but Blake had gone out. Into the cold, into the water.
Alex returned, breaking her view of the gloaming sky and distracting her from increasingly morbid thoughts. His mouth stretched in a thin, humorless smile as he held something out to her.
A checkbook. The checks were all gone, leaving nothing but dusty ragged edges and carbon copy duplicates. All from the account of Rainer Morgenstern.
LIZ RODE BACK to the hotel in a daze, turning the ring over and over between her fingers. She felt numb through, deeper than the blasting heater could ever touch. She surfaced from her fugue when traffic congested and slowed across Lions Gate Bridge. Brake lights blazed Christmas-bright, reflecting in every raindrop scattered across the windshield.
"Oh, for f.u.c.k"s sake," Alex muttered. She couldn"t see any police cars or ambulances, but all three lanes had trickled to a halt. Car doors stood open in front of them, and a group of people cl.u.s.tered around the far railing.
"b.l.o.o.d.y vultures," Alex said. "All they need are bread and circuses. What are you doing?" he asked as she reached for the door handle.
She shook her head and stepped into the icy wind. Frozen grey slush crunched and slipped under her feet. Sleet stung her face as the wind ripped her breath away. The air was too heavy, charged and p.r.i.c.kling. Liz"s hand tightened around the ring.
"You could have told me you wanted hypothermia for Christmas," Alex muttered as he followed her out.
Liz moved closer, sidling between the spectators pressed against the concrete divider between the northbound lane and the pedestrian walkway, all angling for a better look. "What"s happening?" she asked the closest person. The wind moaned around them; steel and concrete creaked and her stomach lurched with the bridge"s sway.
"A jumper," the woman said.
"We"ll be here for hours," someone else complained, voice high and thin beneath the selfishness.
Liz saw the man then, over the heads of the crowd. He crouched on the icy railing, balancing against the gusting wind, shirtless and barefoot. His skin was already a sickly blue-grey. Long toes curled against the green-painted rail. Matted grey hair whipped away from his face and Liz sucked in a breath.
The street preacher. Yves.
"I have seen the black moons," he shouted. "I have seen the towers of the lost city."
Liz leaned against the divider, drawn by the power of his voice, the horror of the scene. A few onlookers had crossed the barrier and gathered by the rail, hands outstretched and helpless. Someone reached toward the old man; another man shouted him back. A woman knelt beside the railing, trying earnestly to get Yves" attention. A siren wailed in the distance.
"He is coming, and the stars will burn your eyes out! Mais mon ame, c"est le mien!"
An onlooker lunged, but Yves had already arched back into the wind, arms spread wide. For a breathless instant he hung there, cruciform against the wide grey sky, and Liz wondered if he might fly. Then he fell, backwards toward the dark waiting water. The crowd rushed forward to lean over the edge. Most turned away quickly.
Someone sobbed once. Someone cursed. The siren wailed again, closer now, but still too late.
IN HIS DREAMS he drowned.
Blake had never admitted it, not even to Liz or Alain, but he"d always hated the ocean. Its endless pull and alien landscapes. The way it clutched and caressed like hands you couldn"t stop. It reduced, devoured. It would always be bigger and stronger than him.
He tried to swim, tried to move at all, but he wasn"t sure his limbs were there to answer him. Only the aching cold and relentless current dragging him down. He wanted so badly to breathe, but there was only water burning his eyes and lips and nose.
No light, no warmth-just whispering voices and darkness that tasted of blood and turpentine. Was this what Osiris felt, or Orpheus? Drifting, drowning, numb.
Memories unfurled like anemones behind his eyes, flashes of color and sound: a picture; a door; screams and blood; oil-slick shadows rushing all around him. A storm that split the world open and let all the monsters in. The monsters were with him still, curling inside him, their claws in his brain.
If he drifted long enough the sea would take him apart, reduce him to coral and salt and pearl, and he wouldn"t need to think about monsters anymore. That would be a mercy, at least.
I"m sorry, but mercy is not an option. Not yet.
The voice rolled through his head, a rush of warmth amidst so much cold. The sudden uninvited intimacy would have made him cringe, if he"d had muscle to flinch and flesh to crawl. But it was something to cling to, a spar in the storm.
Who are you?
I can be a guide, if you"ll let me. There may be a way out, though it won"t be easy. You have to remember. You have to rebuild the door.
I don"t want to. The childishness of the words drew another mental cringe. But the darkness and cold were a balm, soothing half-healed hurts. Maybe numb wasn"t such a bad way to be.
Then you"ll be trapped here forever , the voice said, gentle and relentless. Dark as bronze, rich and heavy as velvet. Despite himself, Blake wanted to wrap it around him until he was warm again. You can set yourself free, if you rebuild the door. The way out is through. But first you must go down.
The idea should terrify him; he knew that much. But the endless black brine numbed his fear as it did his flesh. And what else did he have to do?
The current pulled him down, and he let memories wash over him.
5.
Stars and Omens
THAT NIGHT LIZ walked through crowded market streets, listening to vendors hawk their wares. b.u.t.terscotch light slanted through low clouds, gilding minarets and rooftop gardens, and the wind smelled of fish and spices and autumn. Wine-colored leaves hung translucent from dark branches, piled in drifts along the cobbled streets. Cats prowled the bazaar, twining around her bare feet and slinking past stalls, s.n.a.t.c.hing any treats that fell. The merchants were resigned to this, and most tossed food to the sleek-furred hordes.
The city was the same patchwork construction she"d always known-red brick and cobbles alongside marble towers and onion domes, ivy and roses growing beside tropical orchids and mango trees. The people were much the same, pale skinned and brown and aubergine-black, scarred and tattooed and veiled. A dozen cultures she might have recognized and more she couldn"t. And some furred and scaled, inhuman shapes swathed in silk and muslin robes. All going about their shopping, picking their way through clutters of cats.
Liz shivered as the afternoon chill leached through her pajamas and the soles of her feet. The streets were quieter than she remembered, the shadows more threatening. Last time she dreamed this place it had been sunlit and warm. Last time she hadn"t been alone. She turned, even though she knew better, searching the crowd for familiar faces. Waited for someone to call her name.
Nothing. Dreamtime had flowed on without her, washing away all her childhood friends, leaving a city full of strangers who barely glanced at her as they went about their business. Everyone she"d known was gone, and no amount of dreaming could bring them back.
Her life in dreams had been more vivid and rich than her waking world, from the time her parents died until she left high school. When she slept she didn"t have to worry about navigating the cruel and alien cliques amongst her peers, or the boys whose desires she couldn"t reciprocate, about placating the counselors who thought her too withdrawn, and the guilt in her aunt"s eyes whenever she found time for her shy and awkward niece. Then came Alice"s suicide, and the rounds of therapy and antidepressants, and Liz wished she could sleep and dream forever.
But she grew up, and college was better, and night by night, week by week, year by year, she remembered her dreams less and less, and her dreamland friends grew old without her. Four years, she realized-four years had pa.s.sed since she last came back and found them gone.
Wake up, she told herself, but the dream held her. A marmalade cat b.u.t.ted his head against her ankle, mewing in sympathy. Or maybe only for a snack. She scratched his ears, but he wandered off when he saw her hands were empty.
As she straightened a wary mutter rippled between the shoppers, and the crowd parted at the far end of the market. The wind shifted and she smelled wet. She flinched, afraid for a moment that the shade of Alice had found her again, but the figure stumbling down the street was someone else.
The old man hugged his arms against his bony chest. Water ran from his tangled hair, pooled around his feet with every step. Cats followed at a safe distance, sniffing his trail. The locals eyed him with more suspicion; no one stopped to help when he tripped and fell to his knees. Liz"s eyes widened as she recognized him.
"Are you all right?" she asked, crouching beside him. Which was, she realized, a stupid question.
Yves looked at her with wide, wild eyes. The Vancouver chill still clung to him, radiating from his grey-tinged flesh. "The water was very cold. It"s been so long since I felt warm. So long... I didn"t know if I"d ever find this place again."
She smiled ruefully. "It"s an easy place to find." Even when you meant to stay away. She offered him a hand and rose. "Go to the temple," she said, nodding toward the ivy-walled tower rising above the rooftops. "The priests can help you."
"Merci." His chapped, broken-nailed hands enfolded hers, colder than the stones beneath her feet. Even icy and wan as he was, his flesh seemed more substantial than hers-this was his home now, and she was only visiting.
"The King came for me, you see," he said with a mad grin. "He wanted my soul. He showed me so many beautiful things... I saw the towers rise above the lost city. But I ran." He bowed over her hand, dripping cold salt water onto her wrist. "Thank you for your kindness. Be careful-I see His shadow on you. I"ll pray for you and your friend at the temple."
He walked away before Liz could ask him what he meant. She wiped her hand on her T-shirt and chafed her fingers, trying to decide if she should go after him. Before she could make up her mind, a man beside her spoke.
"You have a kind heart to speak so gently to strangers." Tall and broad-shouldered, with skin the color of polished mahogany. He wore robes of white linen and his head was shaved. He studied her with heavy-lidded black eyes. "These dark times make men forget courtesy."
"I knew him from the waking world," she said, trying to keep her composure under the weight of his gaze.
"Ah." His lips curled. "Not a stranger, then, but I think you have a kind heart nonetheless." His voice was deep and rich, carefully measured as a stage actor"s.
"What do you mean, these dark times?"
He shrugged, and a golden brooch flashed on his breast. "Travelers bring rumors of monsters on the roads, rumors of slavers. Caravans from Carcosa ride through towns and people vanish in the night."