In The Dark Of Dreams Part 4

Anger, thought Perrin, his fingers curling against his palm, a loose fist, which he hid against his thigh. He had rarely fought with his hands before coming on land, never fought much at all. As a child, defiance had been discouraged in numerous, painful ways. As an adult, no one had dared confront him.

But all that had changed, in the end-and he had learned hard lessons over the past eight years.

"Go rest," said the man to Eddie. "I'll take care of this."

Eddie shook his head and gave Perrin a measuring look-or a silent warning. Made him uneasy, either way. He strode past Eddie, footsteps light, ready for anything.

"M'cal contacted me," said the other man gruffly, as Perrin approached. "Months ago. Said there might be a time-"

"-when I need someone like you," Perrin interrupted coolly. "Yes, I know."

The man-Roland-made a small, dissatisfied sound. He was tall by human standards, though several inches shorter than Perrin. Broad like a bear, grizzled. His brown hair needed a cut, and though he didn't sport a beard, the bristles around his neck would be long enough for one in a day or two. His dark eyes were bloodshot, and his checked flannel shirt and sweatpants were wrinkled. He smelled like beer.

Not impressive in the slightest.

Roland looked him up and down, his gaze flat, as though he found Perrin just as lacking. "Come on. We'll try not to scare you away."

Perrin held his tongue and followed the man. Eddie remained a short distance behind, a silent, warm shadow. They pa.s.sed through a large room filled with antiques, couches, and books-newspapers scattered on tables, most of them printed in different languages. Perrin smelled something sweet, like hot pie, and heard pots clanging beneath an exasperated tangle of voices. The argument, which had faded, seemed to be starting again. It got louder when Roland turned to walk down a narrow flight of stairs.

"It's ridiculous, and you know it," snapped a woman, but whatever else she was going to say choked into silence when Perrin reached the bottom of the stairs.

He found a kitchen. Quite possibly the largest he had ever seen, dominated by those immense floor-to-ceiling windows. The entire floor felt as though it were floating in the heart of the city-a sensation enhanced by the shadows enveloping almost everything except the kitchen core: long counters, numerous gla.s.s-fronted refrigerators, gleaming golden tile set in the wall, and other copper accents. Nearby, a pit of deep couches surrounded a gas fireplace. And on his right, a cream-colored curtain covered the entire wall. A gap in the center revealed more gla.s.s and darkness on the other side. Not the city. A separate room.

Fleeting impressions. And, for a moment, the only things his mind could handle. Because, despite what he was-what he had been-it was too hard, too impossible, to accept the presence of the two people before him.

One of whom was not human.

Perrin saw the gargoyle first. Impossible not to. Perched on an iron stool, he was huge, his leathery wings hanging loose down his back and trailing against the stone floor. Silver skin, red, glinting eyes; a glimpse of horns from within the long thick hair bound away from his craggy face. He wore human clothes, which was an incongruous sight-straining T-shirt, jeans-and he held a stainless-steel thermos in his clawed hand.

He gave Perrin a look that was wary but unafraid, and quietly a.s.sessing-his reaction as much of a surprise as his presence. Perrin would not have been so calm if strangers found him in his sea form. Even now, he struggled.

A woman sat on the counter beside the gargoyle, her bare feet balanced on his thigh. She was muscular and round, with smooth brown skin and a mane of tight dark curls that brushed past her shoulders. She gave Perrin a sharp look and glanced at the gargoyle.

"Told you," she said; and then, to Roland: "Don't even think about using this as a distraction."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "We're done talking."

"I think not," said the gargoyle. "You know what the Consortium has done, again and again, to others. Experiments, kidnappings-and this latest incident in Africa -"

"Breeding programs," snapped the woman, pressing her fists hard into the counter. "We have to go after them, Roland. I don't know why we haven't already."

"It won't stop, otherwise," rumbled the gargoyle. "And if they continue to recruit the people I think they are, it's only going to get worse. If they involve witches-"

"Enough," snapped Roland. "We have a guest."

"Don't," Perrin muttered, giving him a cold look.

The grizzled man raised his brow. "Excuse me?"

Perrin swept his gaze over the room, trying to make sense of its inhabitants, deciding it didn't matter. Air breathers, all of them. "I don't know what is going on here, but the woman is right. Don't make me your distraction. Don't make me part of this."

Roland laughed, but it was a bitter sound. "You sought us out. You're not human. That makes you a member of the club, whether you like it or not."

"Leave him alone," said Eddie.

Perrin released the breath he had been holding. "I've come to the wrong place."

"Just the wrong time," replied the gargoyle, with unexpected gentleness. He scooted off the stool and helped the woman from the counter by wrapping his arm around her waist and lifting her carefully down. She remained pressed against his side, which surprised Perrin. And made his heart ache, just a little.

There was a woman who had once fitted against his side, just so even if she had existed only in his dreams. Every night, growing with him inside his head, from childhood to adulthood-becoming a woman who had saved his life in more ways than he could name.

Until eight years ago, when he had stopped dreaming of her.

Stop, he told himself; and then: Nothing about this place should surprise you.

He, who was not human, who had come from a world no human-or gargoyle-could survive, should not have found anything at all shocking about this place, or these people.

The woman, however, suddenly winced-reaching back to rub the base of her skull. Much as he caught himself doing, at that exact moment. The similarity made him uneasy. Especially when she fixed him with a hard look that softened, after a disquieting moment, into compa.s.sion.

And worse, pity.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "You should brace yourself."

"No time," murmured Roland, also studying him. "Never enough time."

Perrin's head ached. He stared into the faces of strangers and felt so utterly alone he could hardly breathe. Being here was too much. Too much, too soon. He needed air.

"I need to go," he croaked to Eddie, and without another word, turned and began to climb the stairs.

Or tried to. Someone was standing on the landing above him.

Another young man, tall, with golden skin, golden eyes, and thick black hair cut with streaks of silver and ocean blue. He held pizza boxes, but they started to slip out of his hands when he saw Perrin.

"No," he whispered, shaking his head. "Not you."

Perrin felt like saying the same thing. He sagged against the rail and dug the heel of his palm into his throbbing skull. Lights flickered in his vision, followed by waves of darkness. He fumbled for the vial of seawater shoved into his front pocket.

He felt very old. Bone tired. This was not what he had expected-or needed. Destiny, he thought, was cruel.

"Rik," Perrin murmured, unable to bear the sight of the shape-shifter's familiar face. "We both should have run farther."

Eddie ran up the stairs to the young man, who turned away from him with an expression of pure agony. Perrin sympathized. He heard movement at his back, then a hush. Everyone, staring at him.

Green eyes. A voice, screaming.

Darkness rising.

"What," rumbled the gargoyle, "is going on here?"

Perrin drank the last of his seawater. It burned his throat going down. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he glanced over his shoulder and studied the strangers watching him. They would have to be enough. There was no one else.

"Millions of people are going to die," he whispered. "And I need your help to stop it."

Chapter Three.

Her headache wouldn't go away.

Jenny was on her fourth ibuprofen and was considering downing another two. Chased with vodka, maybe. Reading was no distraction, either, no matter how much she loved Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice usually took her mind off all her problems, including aches and pains, but even Mr. Darcy could do nothing for the incessant throb at the base of her skull. It was beginning to feel like someone was drilling into her brain.

It was late, or very early-almost four in the morning-though time had ceased to mean much to Jenny. Sun rose, sun set, and in between she studied mysteries. Searching for truths, history, that had been relegated to myth and superst.i.tion. Just last week they had been in Vietnam, exploring Ha Long Bay for evidence of a sea monster rumored to terrorize fishermen. Two months before that, The Calypso Star had anch.o.r.ed in the Aegean Sea, helping another team from A Priori recover a two-thousand-year-old wreck filled with enough artifacts to keep the researchers in the company's archaeology department busy for years.

Never about the money, her grandfather would say. We don't do this for the money. Just knowledge. Preservation.

Liar, thought Jenny, touching the worn leather pouch resting on her chest. She turned it over, shaking, and a single scale tumbled free.

His scale. Smaller than the other three she had found, but that made sense. He had been young, a child. His scale, however, was the same as the others in its thickness-hard as sh.e.l.l, silken surface shimmering, glowing, in the dim lights of her cabin. She stroked it with the tip of her finger and closed her eyes, filled with an ache that had burned inside her since that day on the beach. More than sixteen years suffering some delusional, inexplicable need that would never be satisfied.

It was stupid.

But here she was.

You're using this as an excuse to run away, she told herself. You bury yourself in something you'll never have, because that's safer, right?

If Jenny could have flipped herself the finger, she would have. Instead, she slipped the scale into the pouch, sat up, and dropped the whole thing into her desk drawer. Her laptop screensaver winked at her. She had that article to finish writing on Ha Long Bay. No mention of sea monsters, thank-you-very-much.

Jenny frowned. The locals also told tales of underwater people. Several had seen pale human faces in the sea, usually in the evening, there and gone like ghosts. The fishermen called them ghosts-souls of the drowned trapped between human and . . . something else. Dragon, some said. Serpent. Cursed by the spirit of Lac Long Quang, Dragon King of the Sea-a shape-shifter-whose union with the faery, Au Co, had produced mortal and immortal descendants still said to live amongst humans.

Jenny knew just a little too much about the world to dismiss all of that as complete myth. The shape-shifter part, anyway. And immortals. Maybe faeries, too.

Right. She needed a drink.

But one thing first.

Jenny prowled from her cabin to the lab. It was very quiet. She doubted that Maurice was asleep, or Les-but Ismail had disappeared early in the evening, claiming fatigue.

The sleeping pills that Maurice had dropped into his wine might have contributed to that. No offense to the man, but Jenny couldn't risk his getting nosy. Ismail might be good at procuring rare plants and animals, but world-altering secrets were something else entirely. No confidentiality agreement could guarantee that level of trust. If the woman's body had been more obviously nonhuman, different precautions would have been put into place. Namely, the complete and utter ruination of Ismail Osman's career-but only if he talked. The family had some morals. Just not many.

Nothing was out of place in the lab, which on another ship would have been the stateroom. Jenny shrugged on the hooded gray sweatshirt hanging on a wall hook and keyed in the code to the cold locker.

It was a glorified walk-in refrigerator, built to hold all the biological samples they collected while at sea. Larger than average, because A Priori liked to be prepared for any contingency. Including bodies.

The body bag had been strapped to a stainless-steel table that unfolded from an alcove in the wall. Jenny stood at the door, staring-chilled by more than the cold air. She had to force herself to take the first step, but after that it was easier. She even managed to unzip the bag without hesitating.

The woman's hair had been cleared from her face, which was turned slightly to the side. Under the bright light, her skin was waxy, ghost white, and covered in a thin rime of salt and frost. Her eyes were closed. Just looking at her, it was hard to imagine anything more than a dead human woman. No magic. No impossibilities.

You could tell yourself she isn't a mermaid, that this isn't the closest you've come to one in almost sixteen years.

She could do that. She could pretend that the firsthand accounts of the fishermen and the scale she had found meant nothing. She could pretend that this woman's coloring and bone structure did not resemble the most treasured memory of her childhood. She could lie to herself, like some people already thought she did-and live the safe, comfortable, illusion of a normal life. As much as her family allowed her.

No one forces you to take their money or use their resources. You stay within their reach because you need them.

Needed them because she could do some good with that long A Priori reach. Use all those connections and power to make a positive difference.

And search for mysteries. One mystery, in particular.

"I wish I knew your name," Jenny murmured to the dead woman-and thought again about that boy from so many years ago. He might as well have been Peter Pan: always a boy to her, forever young. She hoped he was still alive, somewhere. That the man who had dragged him back into the sea hadn't killed him.

Is that what happened to you? Jenny wondered at the woman. Your kind hurt each other the same way humans do?

She unzipped the bag even farther, and pulled the edges apart. Little of the woman's body had been left untouched, but down, to the left of her stomach, she noticed something odd. Puncture wounds, one of them half-hidden by the deep cuts that had exposed her hipbone.

Jenny pulled the overhead light close and unfolded the ma.s.sive magnifying gla.s.s attached to the stem. There were four puncture marks, perfectly round and small. Like she had been shot with tiny arrows. Or darts. Three of them had gone straight through.

Deep inside the fourth, a metallic gleam.

Jenny went looking for latex gloves and forceps. Bending close, holding her breath against her headache, she managed to get a grip on the lodged object, and pulled it slowly out.

Took forever. The object was almost one and a half inches long, with a smooth bottleneck case at the base and the main body tapering into a semisharp point that resembled the end of a knitting needle. Not much wider than one, either. A serial number had been etched into the side.

"s.h.i.t," she muttered. Her first thought was the fishermen, but this was a high-quality piece of ammunition, distinct enough that she recognized it almost immediately. These bullets were made for only one type of gun-an SPP1M underwater pistol, which was still used by the Russian Navy Special Forces. It was a relatively easy weapon to handle, very effective underwater. They had two such guns on board. Last time she had checked, a person could buy them online.

Someone had fired on this woman. Someone-presumably human-had gotten close enough to shoot her in the stomach.

And then what? Slice her up, Freddy Krueger style?

Not the fishermen. None of them had carried a gun like that, and she was pretty d.a.m.n sure one of them would have been showing it off, given the reception on the beach.

No. This gun had been fired in the water, close, controlled shots, by someone who knew what they were doing.

The throbbing at the back of her head grew worse, more terrible than the spike of any migraine. Jenny briefly closed her eyes, nauseous.

You need a doctor. This isn't normal.

No s.h.i.t. None of this was normal. Jenny needed to find Maurice, show him these bullets. If humans had been involved with the death of a nonhuman. . .

It would have taken more than luck to kill this woman.

Jenny dropped the bullet onto a metal tray and put away the forceps. When she began to zip up the body bag, she noticed something else odd. A thumbprint along the edge of the dead woman's jaw.

It was incredibly faint. Less a print than a disturbance in the fine sheen of salt and frost that covered her skin. Jenny only noticed because of the way the light fell upon her face. Someone had touched her in the hours since she had been brought on board.