Sea Fever (12 page)

Dylan could see from the woman’s uniform that she was some kind

of law enforcement officer. Wouldn’t she recognize official bullshit?

Object to it?

He continued to smile, concentrating his power until he saw her

pupils dilate and the square line of her shoulders relax.

94

“Oh,” she said in a soft, faraway voice. “Well, that’s . . . Dylan, did

you say?”

Dylan nodded, still smiling faintly.

“Very nice to meet you, Dylan,” Hall said and giggled.

Caleb shot him a sharp look. “Shit. What did you do to her?” he

muttered.

Dylan shrugged. She was human and female and therefore

susceptible. Perhaps more susceptible than most, nothing at all like— But

thinking of Regina caused a spasm of something like panic in his chest.

“We’re looking for Jericho,” he said.

“Yeah.” Caleb shook his head. “This way.”

The men around the fire watched— curious, predatory, or

indifferent— as Dylan and Caleb picked their way through the littered

camp.

Caleb stopped in front of a lean-to with a rusting metal roof. A sheet

of cardboard blocked the entry. He bent, tugging a flashlight from his

belt. “Stay here.”

The beam of light preceded him through the rough opening. Dylan

waited until both disappeared before he stooped and followed.

The smell assaulted his nostrils. Not demon. Not all demon. Human

vomit, piss, and sweat. Corrupted flesh. Charred meat. Dylan gagged.

Caleb, kneeling over a pile of rags at the back of the lean-to,

appeared immune. Inferior human senses? Or superior self-control?

Dylan set his teeth and took a shallow breath.

The rags moved. Moaned. Dylan distinguished a boot, the shape of a

leg under a thin green army blanket, the corner of a sleeve, a hand. He

frowned, his attention caught by more than smell or sight. Something

about that hand . . .

He took a step forward.

95

“Stay back,” Caleb ordered.

“Who is it?”

“Jones.” The beam from Caleb’s flashlight played over a thin face

gleaming with sweat. “Where’s Regina Barone?”

The man twitched, turning his head away.

“Regina,” Caleb repeated inexorably. “Where is she?”

Jericho stared at him a moment, his mouth working. And then his

eyes rolled back in his head.

“Damn it,” Caleb snapped. “Jones? Jones.”

No answer.

“Drunk,” Caleb said in disgust.

Sweat broke out on Dylan’s forehead. His father’s gray and ruined

face rose in his mind. This was what he came from, he thought in

revulsion, what had sired him, what he could return to if he became

entangled in human affairs: mortal flesh, human corruption.

He forced himself to think logically. To observe dispassionately.

There were differences, after all.

Unlike their father, this man was not drunk.

“No,” Dylan said.

Caleb stiffened; turned. “You think he’s possessed?”

“I—” Dylan allowed the fetid air through his nose. Smells thick as

sewage rushed in on him, clogging, choking . . . He cleared his throat. He

could discern a charred odor, an acrid taint burning his sinuses. Demon,

yes, faint but unmistakable. And . . .

“I think he is burnt.”

“What do you mean, burnt?”

96

Dylan could not explain. He just knew. He surveyed the man lying

under the blanket. Reaching for his bony wrist, he turned over his hand.

Caleb hissed. “Holy Christ.”

* * *

The dark was worse than the cold.

Regina could keep warm— well, warmer— by moving. But nothing

could help her see, and her blindness hobbled and terrified her. She could

not stumble more than a few feet without slipping and tripping over

things. Rocks. Walls. She could not stand upright for more than a few

steps in any direction. She was trapped underground. Buried alive. The

blackness dragged on her, pressed on her, weighted her chest, swallowed

her up. She was sweating, heart racing, throat tight, and she had to take

long, slow breaths to keep from screaming, crying, battering her hands

bloody against the cold stone walls in the dark.

Swallow. Breathe. There was a way in. She was here, wasn’t she?

Another breath.

There had to be a way out.

She just had to find it. On her hands and knees. In the dark. Her heart

thumped uncomfortably.

She explored her prison, fumbling, crawling with a hand or hip

always pressed to the rough rock wall on her right so she could find her

way back, so she wouldn’t get lost. Lost. She swallowed a sob. What a

joke.

She remembered a long-ago shopping trip to Freeport, the mall full

of shoppers, and her kneeling to unzip Nick’s coat outside a store. “If we

get separated, I want you to stay put, okay? Don’t move, and Mommy

will find you.”

She would have torn the mall apart looking for him.

But who would be looking for her? How would they even know

where to begin to search?

97

I’m sorry, Nick. Ma, I’m so sorry.

The heel of her left hand was bruised from supporting her weight.

Her knees ached. The fingers of her right hand were cracked and

bleeding. But she figured out she was in some sort of— tunnel?

chamber?— in the rock, bounded by water at one end. She sniffed. It

smelled fresh. She lifted a cautious finger to her lips. The moisture was

cool and welcome on her parched mouth and burning throat. But the drop

left a mineral aftertaste, a warning hint of brine. With a sigh, she

abandoned it and crawled the other way.

The passage meandered up and down, over boulders and around

curves, gradually getting narrower. Tighter. She bruised her knees;

bumped her head; inched forward on her stomach until she was blocked,

stopped, squeezed in the rock like a roach in a crack.

She laid down her head, resting her cheek on the cold, damp grit, and

cried. She gasped and keened and whimpered until her nose ran with snot

and her throat was on fire. Water. She needed water. She wanted to get

out. She wanted to go home. To Nick. To her mother.

Hot tears leaked from her eyes. Regina wiped her face on her

shoulder. It was so quiet. So dark. She could feel her heart beating in the

darkness, hear each wheezing breath. The silence was a weight like the

rock, pressing down on her.

Slowly, she began to inch backward, pushing herself with fingers

and toes, hissing and gasping when the rocks scraped her hands, when she

bumped her head.

When the tunnel widened again, she curled into a ball with her back

against the wall, listening to the soft lap of the water. Gradually, her

sweat dried. Her breathing evened. She no longer worried Jericho would

come back for her. She worried he would not.

Not a good thought.

Let him come. She’d kick his ass. Bastard.

Of course, she hadn’t done so well in their first round. He’d

practically killed her. She swallowed against the pain of her abused

throat.

98

Why hadn’t he killed her?

Maybe he was coming back after all. She’d seen a news story about

a guy who kept a woman locked in his basement. For years.

Regina shivered, wrapping her arms around her knees to hold in her

body heat. The air was cold and moist. The floor was cold and damp. Her

butt was numb.

She heard a slither and a soft plop as something slid into the water.

A rock? A rat? A snake? What kind of animals lived down here in the

dark, in that water? Things without eyes. White, slimy, hungry things.

Maybe Jericho was still there in the dark, watching her. Waiting for her.

She shook herself. She ought to get up. Get moving. In a minute.

She was so tired, her muscles cramped and aching.

How long had she been down here? Hours? It felt like hours. The

quiet stretched on forever, like the dark.

Was Nick awake by now? He would be worried when he awoke and

she was gone. And her mother . . . Please, dear God, get me out of here,

and I’ll never fight with my mother again.

How long had she been down here? She wished she wore a watch. A

luminous dial would be really nice right now. But kitchen workers didn’t

wear watches. She strained her eyes against the darkness. Nothing to tell

her whether it was day or night, no hint of light or anything else. Only her

body warned her time was passing. She was thirsty and cold and she

needed to pee. Her limbs were shaking. Her whole body was shaking.

Okay, she really had to get up. Nobody was coming to get her out of

this one. Not Alain, not her mother, not Caleb, not . . .

She didn’t want to think about Dylan. Dylan was gone, like her

father, like Nick’s father, like every other man in her life. “You knew all

along I would not stay.”

Her anger was good. It warmed her, a hard little lump smoldering

like a coal in the pit of her stomach. So she didn’t have a knight in

99

shining armor riding to her rescue. She still had a life waiting for her

somewhere in the sunlight. She had a son.

She climbed to her feet.

There was a way in. There had to be a way out.

* * *

“Holy Christ,” Caleb breathed.

The unconscious man’s exposed palm was orange, raw and swollen;

the fingers blistered dirty white; the skin puffing, sloughing off. And

black in the center like a brand was the oozing sign of the cross.

“Yes,” Dylan agreed simply. “If he was possessed, he is not now.”

“You can’t know that.”

“Demons would not inflict such a mark.”

“You think he did this to himself?”

Dylan shrugged. “It would protect him. No demon would willingly

stay for long in a host branded by the cross.”

Caleb sighed. “I hate this woo-woo shit. Okay, say a demon

possessed Jones. You’re sure about that?”

Dylan nodded. “The fire spoor is all over him.”

“I’ll take your word for it. Jones gets burned, we don’t know how.

Demon . . . jumps?”

“Probably not at once,” Dylan said. “The mark would gradually

grow more and more unbearable. But it would take time for the demon to

relinquish its host.”

“Or to find a new one?” Caleb asked. His voice was steady. His hand

holding the flashlight was not.

100

Dylan watched the trembling beam of the flashlight and felt a rare

sympathy for his human brother.

Caleb had experience with possession. The demon Tan had tried to

take him over. Caleb had been willing to die, had died, had drowned

himself, rather than submit to the demon’s control. Dylan had dragged

Caleb’s body from the ocean bottom.

This could not be easy for him.

“Yes,” Dylan said.

“Shit,” Caleb said again, wearily. He rubbed his face with his free

hand. “So we’ve got some time.”

“We have time. Regina may not.” A deep and unfamiliar fear settled

in his bones. Dylan forced his mind away from it, struggled to focus on

the next step. “We don’t know what this Jericho did with her before the

demon left him. Or where it went. You must arrest the men outside, the

ones he had contact with.”

“I can watch them. I can’t arrest them. I need proof. Probable cause.”

“I can scan them,” Dylan offered. “If any of them are possessed, I

will know.”

“It doesn’t matter a rat’s ass if they’re possessed. Not unless or until

one of them breaks the law.”

“I don’t care about human laws. Or humans either.” Only Regina.

He shied away from the thought.

“That was always your problem, bro.” Caleb slid an arm under the

unconscious man.

Dylan’s brows drew together. “What are you doing?”

Caleb raised Jericho to a sitting position. “Getting him out of here.”

“He won’t lead us to Regina. He can’t even answer questions.”

“Not now,” Caleb agreed. “Maybe when he wakes up.”

101

“Not then either.” Dylan watched in annoyance as Caleb staggered

to one knee— his good knee— cradling Jericho in his arms. “The demon

probably wiped his memory.”

“He’s still a human being. He needs help. Medical attention.”

Dylan scowled. He was not his brother. He did not think about

others’ needs.

“That was always your problem, bro.”

Caleb lurched and grunted in pain as his bad knee took the brunt of

Jericho’s weight.

Dylan’s mouth tightened. “Give him to me.”

“I’ve got him.”

Dylan blocked his brother’s way.

Their gazes locked.

Caleb’s eyes narrowed. Dylan didn’t know what his brother saw in

his face, but after a moment Caleb sighed and surrendered Jericho’s body.