Gateways. Part 44

He staggered back as they swarmed over him and began stinging. Their angry buzzing and pain like dozens of red-hot ice picks stabbing into his flesh became Jack's world. He needed both hands to bat the bees away from his face but that left the rest of him vulnerable-his neck, his scalp, his bare arms. He could feel them stinging him through his T-shirt. He tried for the door again but they drove him back.

Through the cloud he caught a glint of water-the pond. He stumbled in that direction, picking up speed. When he reached the bank he leaped blindly in a headlong dive. As he knifed through the surface he felt most of the swarm back off-but not all. Some still clung to him, stinging as he- His outstretched hands. .h.i.t the rough, hard surface of an underwater rock. He clung to it to keep himself submerged. He was safe for the moment, but he was going to need air soon. Very- The rock moved, twisting under him. Through the murky water he saw that it had scalloped edges and a tail and he didn't need to see the two big heads rearing up, hooked jaws agape, to know what was sharing the pond with him.

He clung to the edges of the sh.e.l.l as the big alligator snapper surged toward the surface, twisting this way and that as it tried to shake him off. The ridged surface was slimy and his fingers were losing their grip. Jack was running out of air as he raced through his options. The pond was clearly a no-win. Had to get out and take his chances with the bees. With the snapper surfacing, he was going to have to deal with them anyway.

As his lungs screamed for air, he drew his legs up under him, folding them till his sneaker soles were on the sh.e.l.l. As soon as his head broke water, the bees were on him again. He kept his face submerged until the last possible instant, then sprang off the sh.e.l.l, leaping for land. His right sneaker slipped, robbing him of the distance he needed, and the breath he'd taken while airborne was knocked out of him when he belly flopped onto the edge of the bank. His legs were still in the water and, for a panicky instant as he heard the splash of the snapper coming for him, he remembered what those jaws could do to a broomstick. A flashing vision of himself crawling the rest of the way out of the water with a b.l.o.o.d.y stump where a foot used to be threw him into a twisting roll that left him clear of the water. As he batted at the relentless bee swarm, he glimpsed the two heads stretched to the limits of their thick necks snapping at empty air where his legs had been.

Could an alligator snapper move on land? Jack wasn't waiting around to find out, especially with the bees stinging him again. He realized he'd emerged on Anya's side of the pond, so he scrambled to his feet and raced toward her front door. It was closed but maybe it was unlocked.

Please be unlocked!

But he didn't need the shelter of her house. As soon as he crossed into her circle of green lawn, the killer bees peeled off him the same way the palmettos had the other night when he'd jumped through his father's door.

He heard their enraged buzzing rise in pitch and volume as they hurled themselves at him, only to be turned back as soon as they crossed the line into Anya's s.p.a.ce.

"Go!" he heard a voice cry behind him.

Jack turned and saw Anya crossing the lawn in his direction. She was waving both arms in a shooing motion.

"Go!" she shouted again. "Back where you came from!" She pointed to the snapper's two heads, watching from the pond. "You too! Go!"

The bees swarmed in random confusion, then gathered into an oblong cloud and buzzed away. When Jack looked at the pond again, the snapper was gone.

He dropped to his knees, panting. His skin felt a flame, his stomach threatened to heave.

"Thank you," he gasped. "I don't know how you did that, but thanks."

"Didn't I tell you that nothing on earth can hurt you here?"

"I guess you did." He looked up at her. "Who are you? Really."

Anya smiled. "Your mother."

The familiar words chilled Jack.

"That's what the Russian lady said to me by my sister's grave. And that Indian woman in Astoria said the same thing to Gia. What's it mean?"

Anya shook her head. "Don't worry about it, hon. There's no need for you to know. Not yet. Hopefully not ever."

"Then why say it to me?"

Anya had turned and started walking away. Over her shoulder she said, "Because it's true."

13.

Semelee stumbled pantin' and sweatin' along the path through the palms. She stopped and leaned against a gumbo limbo tree to catch her breath.

That same old lady...doin' it again...causin' trouble, gettin' in the way...

She was stronger than Semelee. Somehow she'd just waved her hand and told the bees and Dora to get home and that was that. Semelee's power got canceled like turnin' off a light. Everything went black. When she come to, the sun was pretty much down and she was flat on her back in the ferns with the sh.e.l.ls off her eyes but still in her hands.

She had to be stopped. But how? How do you stop someone with that kind of power?

Where did she come from? Who was she that she could protect herself from Dora and a swarm of bees-not only keep them out but give them orders?

Maybe she couldn't be hurt. Maybe she was beyond Semelee's special power.

She stumbled up to the bank of the lagoon and saw Luke sitting on the deck of the Bull-ship. Bull-ship.

He looked up at her with sad eyes. "Bad news, Semelee. Devil's dead."

A wave of sadness washed over her. Feelin' weak, she lowered herself to the ground and rested her back against a palm.

Poor Devil...her fault...if she hadn't- No, wait. It was that old b.i.t.c.h and her dog. They were the ones killed Devil. Not her.

She ground her teeth. Had to be a way to get back at her.

She glanced to her left toward the sinkhole and saw the glow of the lights seepin' up through the darkenin' air. Pullin' herself to her feet she walked over. She stopped at the edge, then stretched herself out flat on her belly with her head pokin' over the rim. She gazed into the flashin' deeps and tried to remember more of what happened down there. But nothin' came back to her.

She gave up tryin' to remember and was just startin' to get to her feet when she had an idea. She still had the eye-sh.e.l.ls in her hands and figured, Why not? She put them over her eyes. For an instant they blotted out the lights, then suddenly she was seein' them again. But they looked different.

Then Semelee realized she wasn't seein' the lights from above, she was seein' them from within. She was inside some kinda creature down there and was seein' things through its eyes. She looked around and saw wings and jaws and teeth-lots of long, sharp teeth.

An idea crept into her head, an idea so wonderful she started to laugh out loud.

14.

"I still say we should take you to the emergency room," Dad said.

Jack shook his head as he shivered under the blanket. "I'll be fine, Dad. No doctors."

At least not yet.

He sat on the sofa and shook despite the dark blue wool blanket wrapped around him. Most of his sting-lumped skin was crusted pink with calamine lotion and he was dopey from the Benadryl his father had picked up for him in town. The stings themselves-he hadn't counted them, but Pinhead had nothing on Jack-itched and burned, and now his muscles were aching. The chills and fever had started about an hour after the attack. He figured he had so much bee venom in his system that he was having a reaction. He felt as if he had the flu.

At least he wasn't vomiting; his stomach was queasy but he was holding down the orange juice Dad kept pushing at him.

He'd shown his father how to break down the Glock and wipe it dry. Here was where its mostly plastic construction was a blessing. Dad didn't have any gun oil, but subst.i.tuted a little 3-in-1 to lubricate the few metal parts.

And now his father paced back and forth between Jack and the TV as the Weather Channel showed a satellite photo of Hurricane Elvis picking up speed and power as it looped southward through the Gulf of Mexico. It had graduated to Category II and was expected to brush South Florida and the Keys sometime tomorrow, then continue on toward Cuba.

"We've got to call the cops," Dad said.

Dad always seemed to want to call the cops.

"And what-tell them about this woman in the Glades who sent a swarm of bees and a two-headed snapping turtle after me? They'll take you away in a straitjacket."

"We've got to do something something! We can't just sit here like targets and let her take potshots at us!"

"I can't think right now, Dad."

Jack hauled himself unsteadily to his feet and shuffled toward the guest bedroom.

He'd planned to drop in on Anya tonight. He'd cut her too much slack, let her evade straight answers for too long. He was going to get nose to nose with her and find out exactly who she was, how she could keep giant alligators and bees and mosquitoes from trespa.s.sing on her property, and have them obey her when she told them to take off. He wasn't going to leave until he had some answers.

But that was all changed now. Christ, he felt awful. If he'd been sitting on the hood of Dad's car when it got clocked by that truck, he didn't think he'd feel much worse.

"I'm going to hit the rack. In the meantime, don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"That's all fine and dandy," Dad said with a touch of acid in his voice, "except I don't know what what you wouldn't do." you wouldn't do."

"Well, for one thing, I wouldn't leave the house tonight, that's what I wouldn't do. As for what I would would do"-he pointed to the rea.s.sembled Glock resting on a section of the Novaton do"-he pointed to the rea.s.sembled Glock resting on a section of the Novaton Express Express -"I'd keep that handy. See you in the morning." -"I'd keep that handy. See you in the morning."

15.

Jack awoke bathed in sweat. He threw back the covers, sat up, and pulled off his undershirt.

What time was it? The clock's LED display was angled away from him. No light filtered through the curtains. Still night. He ran a hand over a tender, b.u.mpy arm. G.o.d, he felt like h.e.l.l.

As he flopped back and pulled the sheet up over him, he thought he heard a dog barking-high-pitched yips that could only belong to Oyv. They had an almost hysterical edge. Jack wondered what was bothering him. Not that the little guy couldn't take care of himself-look at what he'd done to that big ugly gator-but he hadn't struck Jack as the kind of pooch to bark at nothing.

Jack was ready to force himself out of bed to go have a look when the barking stopped. Whatever had set off Oyv must have pa.s.sed.

Jack closed his eyes and drifted back to sleep.

Sunday

1.

I've got got to get back to New York, Jack thought. to get back to New York, Jack thought.

Not just because he missed Gia and Vicky, but here it was Sunday afternoon and instead of watching the Jets kick Dolphin b.u.t.t up at Giants Stadium, he was sitting here with his father and staring at the Weather Channel.

Trouble was, he found it mesmerizing.

The Weather Channel as a way of life...scary.

I stay much longer I'll be as addicted as everybody else around here.

He excused his present fascination by the fact that the weather was about to have significant personal impact: Hurricane Elvis had reentered the building. In fact he was announcing his presence with a chorus of gusts that hurled sheets of rain against the outside of this little building.

Satellite tracking of Elvis showed how it had made a sharp eastward turn during the night and homed in on the Everglades like a cruise missile. At this moment its eye was making landfall on South Florida's west coast. Elvis wasn't a monster; it was a tight little storm with sustained winds now in the 120-mile-an-hour neighborhood, making it a Category III. Multiple waterspouts had been spotted among the Ten Thousand Islands, wherever they were. But apparently it was a very wet storm and everyone was happy that it was going to dump a lot of much needed rain onto the Everglades.

But how many times could you watch the same graphic and listen to the same Storm Center Storm Center report? report?

Gia apparently had been watching the weather too. She'd called to tell him to stay inside. Not that he had any intention of venturing out into this mess, but he appreciated her concern. He hadn't told her about the bee stings. They were still swollen; not as much as last night, but still itchy and tender.

He was about to ask his father to switch the channel for half a minute-not a second more than that, G.o.d forbid-to check the score of the Jets game, when he heard a frantic knocking on the door. As his father peeled himself away from the tube to see who it was, Jack slipped the Glock from where he'd stowed it under his sofa cushion.

"Better let me get it, Dad."

But before either of them could reach the door, it blew open. Jack had the pistol up and aimed at the figure standing in the doorway, his finger tightening on the trigger, when he recognized Carl.

"Come quick!" he cried as wind swirled around him and scattered sections of the Sunday paper. He wore a dripping, dark green poncho, had a screwdriver sticking out of his right sleeve, and a plastic shopping bag clutched in his left. "Y'gotta see this, y'just gotta!"

"See what?" Dad said.

"Miss Mundy's place! It's all tore up!"

Carl turned and started to lead the way, but once they were outside in the slashing wind and rain, Jack broke into a trot and pulled ahead of him. The sudden memory of Oyv's barking last night sent a cold spike of unease through his chest. It speared down through his gut when he saw her doorway.

"Oh, s.h.i.t!"