The Fires Beneath the Sea ebook (23 page)

But then a picture was forming, a detailed picture with millions of tiny parts … impossible, yet crystal-clear. Like HD. She saw the front of the house; the light on the front porch must be on, because it was bright enough to see every speck of dust, every hair—she saw the peeling paint on the rail. She could tell it was night, though, from the way dark invaded from the corners….

Rufus was there, colored blood-red, his wet fur still dripping. He had sharp teeth and black eyes—the Pouring Man using the body of Rufus, using Rufus’s poor, faithful old dog face, tail, dog legs.

The not-Rufus was worrying the leash, biting it where it was lashed to the white porch rails with their peeling, faded paint. The sharp teeth made a sawing sound on the nylon strap: saw. Saw. Saw.

She saw the not-dog’s feet, with nails that were long and black and sharp. Not his real nails at all—these were claws like talons, scraping at the wood of the porch.

And then it happened. The leash broke—just as she heard the electronic beep of Max’s watch alarm. And her eyes snapped open.

She realized she was gripping the lipstick so hard it was hurting her fingers.

Three more minutes till the warding charm was finished….he might be coming around the corner right now. His teeth, his needle-sharp teeth—not like her poor, sweet old Rufus at all. And they wouldn’t be able to see him in the dark … she turned so that her headlamp swept the right-hand corner of the house, where Max stood. He must have turned to her at the same time, though, because she was blinded by the light from his headlamp and had to turn away. Then she looked left, to where Jax stood.

She thought:
Did you see it, too? Did you see the leash break?

Jax reached up and clicked off his headlamp. She saw the beam wink off. Then he turned to her and shook his head.

No. She was the only one who’d seen it.

Then Max’s watch alarm beeped again.

“Man!” said Max. “We can talk now, right, J? Was that a walk in the park, or what?”

“Be careful,” she said to Max. “I think it’s gotten loose! The dog-thing. And Jax and I are protected from him, I guess?—more than you, anyway, so watch out. He can still get at you. Because you’re not—”

And that was when the not-dog came walking around the corner of the house. Not running; just walking.

Their headlamps illuminated him.

He was walking slowly, placidly.

And smiling as no dog ever should.

Showing long, needle-like teeth.

“He can’t get through the salt line,” said Jax in a rush. “So let’s just keep going. Down to the water. We still have to do the welcoming part of the charm, or she won’t be able to come home.”

They started walking, turning every so often to see what the not-dog was doing. He kept walking parallel to them, down toward the water, outside the farthest salt line. He was on Max’s side, not Jax’s, at least, which meant he’d have to go around to get in where the gap was.

It’ll be up to us to stop him
, thought Jax at Cara as they walked. They weren’t allowed to run—there was a measured pace to everything, a kind of dignity that had to be observed.
Even if his arm weren’t broken, Max couldn’t. He’s too vulnerable. So if he goes around—if he tries to get in—we have to make a wall. You and me.

Cara thought
Yes. OK.

Max had already taken enough of a beating.

“Don’t let him distract us from the ritual,” called Max. “It’s what he wants. Even I can see that, and that’s without any ESP. At least, that I know of.”

“Be careful, Max,” said Jax. “OK? Be really careful.”

Here they were, in the marsh flat again, the mud beneath their feet. Reeds tickled her shins.

“On our knees,” said Max as they came together. “Foreheads in the water. And her name.”

Cara felt her knees sinking into the mud, and out there somewhere she heard the not-dog splashing in the bay. Maybe he was already going around, trying to get to them. The top of her face was wet as she bent over, her hair dripping into her eyes. She squeezed the lipstick tight and held it to her chest, where she thought her heart was—in the middle and kind of to the left.

“Lily,” said Max. At the same time Jax said “Mother” and Cara said “Mom” and thought:
Come home.

“Here he is,” said Jax, and they looked up from their kneeling positions to see the not-dog swimming in front of them. Swimming across the water a few feet out, in line with the shore … toward the place, on the other side of Jax, where there was a hole in the salt line. And no protection.

She felt the coldness in her again, not his deadly cold but the coldness of being afraid, and having to prepare. Still she braced herself, and she knew Jax was doing the same. He was getting ready.

They rose, backing away toward the salt-line gap, keeping their eyes and their headlamps on the not-dog, who was still paddling past them … keeping their eyes on the water.

What would they do? How could they keep him off Max, out of the safe place they’d made for their mother?

She didn’t know. She felt the confusion of panic and reached out with her mind to Jax—

But then, behind the not-dog, something rose out of the waves. It was dark and light, both black and white and impossibly huge. She’d never seen anything that big rise out of the water—how it could even be here, in these muddy shallows, was a mystery …

It was an orca. A killer whale. Its teeth shone white in the light of their lamps as its great head reared out of the water of the bay. It rose above the not-dog, and the not-dog didn’t even have time to bark.

“No!” Cara heard herself scream—because inside the not-dog was Rufus—it was Rufus, whom they had all loved for as long as she could remember—

The orca went higher and higher, an arc of water following it, a screen of water splashing out into the air—

And Max was screaming, too, and Jax—

But it was over in a second.

The not-dog was in the orca’s teeth, and the orca sank back and was submerged again. There was not even a ripple where the orca had been.

Rufus was gone.

No one said anything for a while. They were done, she guessed—nothing left but to walk back up to the house. He was gone, anyway. And there was not a thing they could do about it.

Stunned, hanging their heads, they walked, defeated, back up through the reeds, through the trees, across the back lawn.

“Was that a—?” asked Max.

“
Orcinus orca
,” said Jax. “Killer whale, or more rarely blackfish. Sometimes also called the seawolf.”

“Do we even
have
those around here?”

“Not in three feet of water,” said Jax quietly.

They took up their positions, their faces to the wall of the house. Cara felt tears streaming down her cheeks as she stood there. It was her fault. All of this. Her poor, dear dog.

The stupid cinnamon shaker. It was a tiny detail—a tiny, minuscule thing. The size of the holes in the shaker had gotten Rufus killed.

Her fault.

“No, honey,” said someone behind her. “It’s not your fault at all.”

She knew the voice, of course.

But she didn’t believe it. She was almost afraid to turn.

She did, finally. Slowly. Still clutching the lipstick.

And so did Jax, and Max. Cara was vaguely aware of them, off to the sides along the house’s back wall.…

The spot of Cara’s headlamp trembled and then stood still. There she was. Their mother.

The same as ever, though maybe more tired-looking.

Her dark hair was stuck to the sides of her head, soaking wet and trailed back over her shoulders; she was barefoot and wore only the sundress Cara had brought.

She blinked in the glare and raised a hand to shade her eyes from the brightness of their headlamps.

Then they were running and piling onto her, their arms around her. Yelling, practically.

“Shh,” she said, though maybe she was tearing up a little too, Cara thought, under the wide smile. “You’ll wake up your father!”

“Who cares?” crowed Max.

“The thing is”—and their mother spoke softly, her arms still around them—“I’m afraid we’ll have to let him sleep, this time.”

They stepped back, looking at her—at least Cara and Max did. Jax was still clinging, his arms around her waist. She kept one arm around him, too.

They all took their headlamps off; Max reached up and hung his on a tree branch. It lit the yard around them.

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t stay, darlings,” she said, almost wincing. It was as if it hurt her just to say it.

“You can’t
what?
”

Max took another step back.

“I know, Max,” she said, nodding. “I know. It seems so wrong. To me, too.”

“Tell us what’s going on,” said Cara.

“I can’t tell you all of it. Not yet. But this is something we’re all a part of, something we all have to do. It’s what I told you when I came in the night, Cara.”

“And what was that,” said Max, almost coldly.

“A war,” said their mother simply.

“A war with—a war with guns and bombs?” asked Cara.

“It may not look like that kind of war. Not at first. But it may become that kind of war, if we don’t win quickly enough. It’s why we have to fight it. And I’m going to need all of you.”

“Then why not Dad?” said Max. “He thinks you left him!”

He shook his head, kicking the ground at his feet.

“Max,” said their mother. “Your father is a grown man. He’ll be OK. It’s you three I’m worried about right now.”

“Well,
I’m
worried about him,” said Max stubbornly.

“What’s happening now dates from long, long before I met your father,” she said. “This is a new battle in a very old conflict. And I’m afraid we just can’t tell him everything we might like to, Max. There are things going on that are beyond the reaches of what he knows, what he accepts to be the world …”

She paused for a second, then went on.

“Wild happenings,” she said.

A chill wind rushed through the pines around them, a sweeping wind that moved the branches roughly for a few moments, dropping needles and cones on the ground, and then settled down again abruptly.

“There are events taking place that would test anyone’s threshold. Events that honestly …”

“What?” prompted Cara.

“… that would simply be too much for some people. For their minds to deal with.”

“You’re saying he couldn’t deal? That he’d have some kind of breakdown,” said Max flatly.

“The truth is, for all your father’s strengths—and they are many—he’s not ready for this.”

“He’s not ready,” said Max, “but
we
are?”

“You’re different,” said their mother. “You’re meant to be a part of it. In every life, Max, there’s a moment of testing. One moment where things turn. And this is yours. You have to believe, as your sister and brother did. You have to make that leap of faith. They made it already, but you still have to. This is a fight for all of us. And believe me, I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t have to.”

“But what are we supposed to say to him?” asked Cara. “Max is right. We’re not the only ones who miss you. He’s really lonely. This is so
hard
for him, Mom.”

“I
know
, sweetheart,” said their mother in a voice full of regret. “But you’ve already seen the danger I put you in, haven’t you? You, the people I love most in the world. You’ve seen the kind of—elements that are after me. They’d be after him, too, if he knew. Just like they’ve been after you. And believe it or not, he’s actually
more
vulnerable than you are. Because he’s not a child anymore, he lacks some of your advantages.”

She detached Jax gently from her side and took his hand, then turned and walked over to where a couple of rusting lawn chairs were fallen over. She flipped one upright and sat down on the edge of it, leaning forward. Jax hovered beside her, still clutching her fingers.

“I’m sure,” she went on, “that you don’t want him exposed to that any more than I do. He doesn’t have your resilience, you know. Adults, after all, are more … brittle. In some ways we’re harder, and that makes us easier to break.”

It occurred to Cara how gracious and elegant she looked, even sitting on a broken chair in her wet hair and bare feet and simple sundress—like a queen.

“You can tell him I spoke to you, if you have to,” she said, and sighed. “Tell him I’m—tell him that one day I’ll come back. That I want to
now
, but I have a duty. Ask him if he remembers where we first met. Those are my people. Tell him there’s a crisis in the world, a crisis that’s all around us but whose roots are deeply hidden. But I’m close to those roots, and I have to do what I can. Can you repeat a phrase, Jax?”

“Of course I can, Mom.”

“Then tell him this. It’s something you already know, something you’ve seen this week and are beginning to understand, but he doesn’t know. Few adults do. It’s this:
Die Tiere sind nicht, was sie scheinen
.”

“OK.”

“And to you three, I promise: when it’s over—when it’s really over—then I can come home for good.”

“You haven’t explained
anything
,” said Max. “You’re speaking in code.”

“The Pouring Man,” put in Cara. “He got Rufus killed! I mean, who is he? Really? And why is—was—he after you?”

“He was a servant,” said their mother. “A servant of the Cold One, a servant who is not alive. An elemental in the water army. In this war, the enemy has his forces arrayed that way—those who operate through water. Those who operate through earth. Those who use air, those who use fire … and there are others, too. There are other soldiers, other servants. He wasn’t unique. But because of your courage, he’s gone now. And I’m so … so very sorry about poor old Rufus.”