In The Dark Of Dreams Part 38

So Jenny focused on breathing. She pretended she was not in the sea, and that the Krackeni who had captured her did not occasionally snarl, and beat the sides of the net with vicious strikes of their spears. She felt the blows and endured them.

The women were spindly and pale, their arms a little too long, their joints a little too sharp. Their b.r.e.a.s.t.s were small and tight, the rest of their bodies all muscle, with flowing silver hair and enormous eyes that seemed polished from ice. Scales covered their forearms, and their hands, each finger tipped with long black claws. Sh.e.l.ls dangled from their wrists, and around their waists. Their tails were long, shining with silver scales that caught the dim light from the sky above the sea, and glowed.

Alien. Beautiful. Terrifying. Moving with a predatory grace that hurt to watch. Not that Jenny was capable of looking away.

They resembled Perrin's cousin, but while Pelena might have been able to pa.s.s as human on land, these Krackeni were too different, in too many subtle ways, to look anything but wrong if one saw them walking down a street.

a.s.suming they could even shift shape. There was so much Jenny didn't understand. She had been nave to imagine that it would be simple. Life was never simple.

The mermaids slowed. Jenny could not move, but inside she braced herself, searching the waters ahead for any sign of what was coming.

Such as a great white shark.

Jenny stared, heart thudding in her throat as the shark swam close. It was huge, and the mermaids glanced at each other. One of them made a sharp clicking sound, then reached back, jabbed her hand through the net, and raked her claws down Jenny's arm and leg. Hurt like h.e.l.l.

And there was a lot of blood.

The mermaids smiled, baring rows of sharp teeth, and pushed Jenny's netted body toward the oncoming shark.

It was well over twenty feet long, old and battered. How old, she couldn't say, but great whites had been known to live up to one hundred years. She didn't think this one was that ancient; he was scarred from so many dolphin attacks, his hide looked like a scratching post for some underwater cat.

For the first time, Jenny was glad to have been given the paralytic. Sharks could sense electromagnetic fields generated by movement. Remaining still wouldn't save her-even her heartbeat emitted a faint electrical pulse-but it was something. Great whites were naturally curious, highly intelligent, and surprisingly social. Ambush hunters. Stalking prey like serial killers.

It would probably come from below, though hunting techniques varied by prey. She was in a ball. Just a ball of flesh in a net.

Facts. More facts, she told herself, trying not to succ.u.mb to terror. And then the shark pa.s.sed so close it b.u.mped her, and she looked into its cold black eye, and thought, Oh, my G.o.d.

The parasite twitched. Jenny felt a pulse of energy, a throb that traveled from the base of her skull into her eyes. Her vision shifted, everything around her turning a deeper blue. A tingle rode over her skin.

The great white made another pa.s.s, skimming beneath her. Jenny couldn't see it, but it b.u.mped her again- -and she sensed its presence in her mind, like a shadow.

She couldn't explain it. Just that it was there, suddenly, and the kra'a whispered, We are born from the Kraken, and there is nothing we cannot touch in the sea.

The calm confidence in that voice steadied Jenny enough that she allowed herself to taste the shark's mind. She sensed hunger and curiosity, and a peripheral awareness of the mermaids-who were best avoided.

The shark was also aware of the kra'a.

Go, whispered Jenny, touching its mind. She almost told it to attack the mermaids, but she had no doubt they would wound the shark, or kill it, and the creature didn't deserve that.

Go, she said again. Get out of here.

The shark a.s.sented, though not before making one more pa.s.s. Still curious. It had not felt the energy of a kra'a in a long time.

Jenny sensed a flurry of movement beneath her-and found her net was suddenly yanked backward with incredible force. She bounced inside it, and glimpsed a broad chest, and long strong arms. For a moment, she thought it was Perrin-and then the net shifted again, and she saw Les looking back at her, broken nose and all. His body was a mess of wounds, and his broken hand had been bound close to his body.

He looked p.i.s.sed and stared past her at the shark, which was rumbling through her mind with a hint of proprietary concern. Great whites sometimes lived in clans, like wolf packs, she remembered. And this one considered a kra'a to be part of every clan, with special protections.

No, she told it. You'll be hurt.

The great white swam lazily in a wide circle around Les and her. Les made a sharp, piercing sound, and waved angrily at one of the mermaids. She bared her teeth at him and did not approach.

Les dragged the net away again, and finally the great white turned and swam from them. Jenny watched it go with some regret-and, despite her circ.u.mstances, a sharp thrill. Her mind suddenly felt so . . . large. Everything around her, burning with light.

And deeper, deeper, another fire.

In the earth, a terrible, sleeping fire.

A fire with a golden eye opening to stare at her.

Claws moved, and the earth buckled. Jenny saw it, felt it, all that lava oozing free just beneath the crust, covering those claws with delicious warmth.

Another claw moved, and this time broke the seafloor. This crack traveled through her like a lightning bolt slamming into her soul.

No, Jenny said, reaching instinctively for the mind behind that staring golden eye. No, don't.

The darkness is immense, and we are alone, rumbled the beast, its voice rolling over her until Jenny felt as though she hardly knew herself. We are alone.

No, Jenny said, again, but it was so hard to speak, to remember who she was. We're here.

Dreams, said the kra'a. Feed it dreams.

But she still didn't know how. All she could think to do was sing inside her mind. Her favorite song, the song she had sung to Perrin when he was a boy. She was too upset to remember the words, but the melody was true.

The Kraken stopped moving. Listening.

But it did not sleep. She knew that, deep inside, like knowing her own heartbeat. The Kraken was there, waiting . . . waiting for something more than a temporary respite.

You must go to it, said the kra'a. You must go now, so that it knows you, and the bond is made.

Jenny tensed. What bond?

But the Kraken stirred again, and though Jenny could not see it, except in her mind-and though what parts she saw were only glimpses of the whole-she felt the immensity of the beast as though she stood at a great height with the world beneath her, with the Kraken as that world.

And Jenny supposed, too, all of that was true. She was floating, flying, at the top of the sky of another world, on the edge between dark and light.

Les appeared, staring at her bleeding arm and leg. Her cheek ached when she saw his dark, furious gaze. He tore the net away, struggling with using only one hand.

The mermaids swam close, making sharp cries that rolled over Jenny's skin. Inside her head, she heard words.

. . . easier to let her die that way. . .

. . . the kra'a would have come free. . .

. . . now you will need to dig it out. . .

Les stabbed something sharp against her throat. Fear lanced through her, but almost immediately her fingers twitched, and she could move her lips. He p.r.i.c.ked her again, in her stomach, then in each leg. Her mobility returned, leaving her to twitch uncontrollably. The mermaids swam circles around them, watching him with their teeth bared. Fast, sleek, turning on a dime to streak above and below in movements that skimmed her hair and feet. Close enough to let her know without a doubt that if they chose to, they could kill her.

Jenny wondered why they hadn't instead of using a shark to do their dirty work.

Because killing the host of a kra'a is considered worse than murder, Perrin's voice said suddenly in her mind. It is like slapping the hand of a G.o.d. Unless, he added, you're me.

At the first sound of his voice, Jenny flinched, kicking out like a crazy little puppet. Les gave her hard look, and she hoped he mistook her wild grin as a grimace. The ocean's surface shone like a white mirror overhead, reminding her of the wall inside her head, which flared with its own white light as Perrin's presence settled hard and strong on the other side. No longer elusive. When she cracked the wall, he was right there, waiting for her.

You, she whispered, shivering with relief and terrible joy. I wondered when you would catch up to my mind.

Warmth flared, like a smile, and she sensed an equal amount of relief.

Show me what's happened.

Jenny showed him, conscious of Les frowning at her. She looked at him once, then dropped her gaze, afraid of the wildness she saw in him. Afraid, too, that he would see more in her than he should.

The Kraken is waking, she told him.

I'm coming, Perrin said. I'm close.

Les pulled her to the surface. Jenny broke through into the light, and her first deep breath made her vomit water. Her lungs hurt like tiny knives were cutting them from the inside out.

"Jenny," he said, holding her close with his good arm. She didn't fight him. Her limbs weren't functioning well enough yet to tread water. Her head lolled, despite her best efforts, and she couldn't stop him when he reached into her hair and touched the kra'a.

His breath hitched. "It's true."

Jenny coughed. "Get off me."

"How?" he breathed, ignoring her, his eyes haunted. "How did you do it?"

"I didn't do anything. I was in the water. It attached itself."

"I don't believe you. It doesn't make sense." He squeezed her shoulder, his hand too close to her neck for comfort. "Why you?"

Jenny stared at him, ignoring his question, searching his bruised, shadowed eyes for something of the man she'd known. Goofy, charming. Treasure hunter. Man whom all the girls loved.

She stared too long. Les broke a little, and looked away.

"Hey," she said.

"Don't look at me like that," he whispered. "Don't."

She kept staring, a strange calm stealing over her, taking away her anger and most of her hurt. It was so surreal, floating in the sea with him, like this. So much had changed. More than she would have wanted to imagine.

"I thought you were my friend," she said.

"I was," he said. "I am."

"My face hurts."

His jaw tightened. "I didn't put those marks on your arms."

Jenny almost laughed, and gave him a bitter, grim smile. "I can tell you're so sorry."

"You can't trust him."

It's different, she wanted to say, and she believed that. Some might call her a fool, but Perrin had been caught in a dream. He had not lashed out in anger. He had not used his fist to shut her up.

"Why were you exiled from your people?" she asked him, already knowing the answer, but wanting to needle him. "Maybe you punched another woman in the face?"

"Stop."

"Poor baby," she whispered. "Did you always know you were going to betray us?"

His hand slipped away from her shoulder. "No, I was happy with you and Maurice. I was more myself with the two of you than I'd been in a long time."

"Then why?"

His face twisted with hunger and distaste. "I need the kra'a. I let that . . . cult . . . think what they wanted about me, that I could control the kra'a, that I had learned things on land that confirmed their worst beliefs about humans. I promised anything, everything, to get me close to Pelena."

You're sick. All this time I never imagined. How many midnight swims did you take, how did you arrange so much without my knowing?

"You want power," Jenny said.

Les shook his head, something terrible moving through his eyes as he reached for her again. Jenny tried to swim away, but he caught her easily and dug his fingers into her hair against the kra'a.

"I just want to live," he whispered. "You don't know what it's like for my kind to live on land. We're sensitive to chemicals, disease. The common flu could kill us. I've gotten nosebleeds from just breathing the scent of bleach. I might have more tolerance to some things because my grandmother was human, but I'm not immune."

"Les," she said.

"I'm dying," he told her.

Jenny tried to process those words. "No."

"I have brain cancer." His voice dropped so low she could barely hear him. "Cancer in my colon. In my stomach. Probably other places I don't want to think about, given that it's started getting hard to p.i.s.s. It's all in the beginning stages."

Jenny stared, wondering if Perrin was ill, too. "Why didn't you tell someone?"

He shook his head. "You don't understand."

"I understand how selfish you are. You think the kra'a will heal you. So you kill someone for it when all you had to do was ask for help. A Priori could have given you the very best medical care."

"And tell them what I am? Even you don't trust your family." Les rubbed his face, looking haggard and weary. "I won't be their guinea pig. Not for them, or the Consortium. The kra'a is the only way I won't die. It keeps its hosts healthy. Though it looks as though it did . . . more for you."

"Of course," she said, with calculating coldness. "It didn't want you, after all. Did you think you would force it?"

Anger crept into his eyes. "You don't know anything."

"I know what it does," she told him, deliberately filling her voice with contempt. "I know how important it is. Even if it did bond and heal you, what were you going to do? Return the d.a.m.n thing? Put the Kraken back to sleep?"

"Shut up," he said.

"Shut up or you'll hit me," she replied with a sneer. "Poor Les. Poor little Les, who's dying like every other f.u.c.king person on this planet. But instead of dealing with it, you decide to take out everyone with you. Jesus, you are a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. What were you thinking, Les?"