Fireshaper's Doom (17 page)

“You know—”

“You know, I think kissing you naked in the moonlight’s more of a fantasy of mine than anything in Faerie.”

Liz’s eyes twinkled.
“Anything?”

David smiled awkwardly. “Well, almost.”

They kissed again, standing on the beach with sun-warmed lake water nipping at their toes. Liz began to giggle, and David found himself tickling her ribs. She pulled away. He reached for her, lost his footing. They fell into the shallows, came up laughing.

“We did come to cool off,” Liz gasped between fits of mirth.

“We?”

“Of course,” Liz snorted indignantly. “You’re not the only one with hormones, David Sullivan.”

They waded a bit farther out, until they felt the lake floor falling away. Eventually they were swimming. David hadn’t realized how hot he’d been, until he felt the water swallow him. He dived; surfaced; dived again. Felt Liz near him in the water and broke surface with her. Ventured a kiss—and felt the fire reawaken. He pulled away, suddenly embarrassed.

Again he dove, and felt the water’s sensuous caress upon his body, now less sensuous than his memory of Liz’s touch.

His hand brushed fingers: soft and delicate.

He grasped the hand eagerly, began to pull it toward him, toward the surface. He was getting low on air, though the notion of an underwater kiss was certainly intriguing. Perhaps a little later…

But that hand was pulling him
downward!
Downward into the dark with a greater strength than he’d ever expected from Liz. His chest began to throb; red lights swam behind his eyes. His head hurt. And still he felt that tugging. He tried to focus the Sight, but could not. Why was she doing this? And who was
she?
His thoughts were slow, dull. Like he was going to sleep.

Why?

Bubbles trickled from his mouth.

Why?

Asleep.

Asl…

Somewhere above him, closer to shore, a silver ring woke upon Liz’s finger, sending pulses of heat up her arms. Bright as day the ring glared into her startled eyes.

“David!” she whispered as the awful truth struck her. “No! Not now! Not now!”

PART III

FLAMES

Chapter XV: Water, Fog, and Fire

(Sullivan Cove, Georgia—Sunday, August 4)

“Not now!” Liz gasped aloud as she surfaced, desperate for air. “Oh God, Davy,
no
!”

Light flashed into her eyes so brightly that it hurt. She looked down, saw David’s ring glowing white-hot like a magnesium flare. It burned against her skin too, becoming hotter with each passing second.
So this is what it feels like,
she realized.
The mystery of the ring.

Davy!

She dove then, farther and farther down, until the water became as cold and dark as the knot of fear in her stomach. Her chest grew tight. Her fingers brushed a tangle of slimy weeds, then muddy sand.

Davy?

And distant as a dream, words filled her mind, like a brush of cold air behind her eyes:
He lives, girl. Now begone. This realm is mine.

Davy…

Silence.

Davy…?

And then silence gave way to despair.

Help: she had to get help, had to find someone to help her—to comb the bottom till they found him, maybe. If necessary drain the lake—

No!
She gave herself a mental slap—she was being irrational. She had to help David, but panic would do no good.

She broke surface again, took blessed mouthfuls of air. The moon beat down upon her, cold and distant. Water glittered blue and silver about her. And the ring no longer glowed, no longer warmed her hand. She wondered what that meant. It had to have some sort of limit of detection, she supposed, so David must truly be gone. But whose thought was it that had sounded in her mind? Somehow it had seemed female. Yet David didn’t know any women of the Sidhe—did he?
He’d better not!
Her toes touched bottom, and she dragged herself to shore, toweled herself vaguely dry with David’s discarded jersey, and dressed hurriedly. After a moment’s indecision, she picked up the rest of his clothes and made a clumsy bundle of them. A brief search for his glasses proved unsuccessful, and then she remembered that he hadn’t worn them since some time in the spring. The Sight had done that much for him, at least. But it hadn’t kept him from being captured—if that was what had happened.

Suddenly it was a long way to the car. As suddenly she was running. Branches tore at her, fallen limbs tripped her as she fought her way through the intervening wood. Her breath quickened, became a series of short, painful gasps, each a greater torment to her lungs. Eventually she developed a stitch in her side that made her
cry
out. She careened to a stop, panting heavily, fingers digging into the sticky bark of a pine tree, Finally the pain faded, and she was off again. Briars ripped her flesh, and then there was open space about her and broom sedge flogging her legs.

She reached the car, threw David’s clothes in the back, but then hesitated. It wouldn’t do for someone to find them there and ask questions. Resentful of the time it took, she stowed them in the cubby where the spare tire went.

Now where to go, she wondered. Not to David’s parents; they’d only go to pieces. And besides, David had left home under a cloud of anger, and she’d sort of been an accomplice. And she was wet—they’d wonder what the two of them had been up to, and while she wasn’t exactly ashamed, it wasn’t the sort of added complication she wanted to deal with just then. The absurd image of a shotgun wedding with JoAnne Sullivan wielding the gun appeared from nowhere in her mind.

God, how stupid!
Panic was making her silly.

She cranked the car, slipped it into first, then paused.
Alec, maybe?
No, wait, better Nuada first. This was a Faery problem, let them provide the answers.

She mashed the gas, sending the little car skittering over the rough gravel as it tore back up the road.

Far ahead and to the right she could see a corner of Davy’s house silhouetted against the night. No lights burned there except the single mercury vapor in the yard.

But there
were
lights closer by: at Uncle Dale’s cozy cabin. Now, that was an idea! He had always seemed more sensitive to what was going on with her and Davy than anyone else in David’s family. And he had always been open-minded. After all, he had sensed the presence of the banshee that had almost taken him last summer. And maybe he knew about the Tracks as well, and the Sidhe. He’d said some things…

Almost without thinking she found herself turning up his narrow, rocky driveway.

She dared not stop to compose her story. If she did, she might simply quit—might just drive on and on till she ran out of gas, and then press on afoot. But she knew she could not do that.

Hurry, girl, hurry,
she told herself. Park the car…up the long flight of wooden steps…onto the porch, not caring how loud her staccato tread sounded on the ancient boards.

A knock on the screen door. Another. And then, as fear finally took her, a pounding. Her knuckles hurt.

A naked light bulb came on among the exposed beams of the sloped porch roof above her. The inside door cracked open, then swung wide, as Uncle Dale unhooked the screen. He was dressed in a pair of rumpled khaki work pants and a worn white undershirt. Without his glasses, his deep-set eyes were nests of squinting darkness.

“Why, Liz, girl, what in the world are you doin’ here this time of night? What’s happened?” His gaze darted over her—missing nothing, she was certain—at last coming to rest on the ring. An eyebrow lifted ever so slightly, and a ghost of a smile twitched across his lips, before his mouth hardened. “It’s Davy, ain’t it? Somethin’s happened to Davy? And I just bet you it’s somethin’…unusual.”

Liz nodded breathlessly, suddenly unable to speak. She made no move to go into the house. “Yeah,” she panted. “Davy and I were swimming, and…and he dove down deep and disappeared.”

Uncle Dale grasped her by her shoulders. “Swimming? You mean he’s drowned?”

Liz shook her head. “No. No—I don’t know. I don’t think so. No,” she finished decisively. “It was—” Her voice froze. “I heard a—” Her eyes widened in horror. “Oh, God! I can’t tell you. I
can’t
tell you! But believe me, oh please, Uncle Dale, believe me! We’ve got to get to the Traders, they’re our only hope. They’re from Ireland and this is an…an Irish matter.”

Uncle Dale fixed her with an appraising stare, then steered her through the doorway. “Come on in, girl. Let me get you some coffee. Get you a towel.”

“You believe me?”

The old man paused in midstep. “I believe you’re scared to death, and I know you well enough to know you don’t scare easy. But you’re not actin’ like you think Davy’s dead, so you must think he’s still alive. Must be somethin’ like what happened to Little Billy, maybe? Somethin’ to do with them funny-lookin’ folks he kept talkin’ about? Like that boy I saw when I had that stroke that time.” Liz’s eyes widened incredulously. “You saw that?”

“Saw somethin’. Teenage-lookin’ boy in funny clothes; Thought he was an angel, only he didn’t act like one. Finally told myself it was a dream so I could sleep with some peace of mind; you may have noticed I been goin’ to church more lately. Now let me get that coffee. Maybe hot cider? Yeah, that’d be better,” he muttered as he shuffled into the kitchen.

Liz flopped back on the sofa and closed her eyes. She had a headache, she realized. She stared at the fireplace on the opposite wall, at the stuffed deer head above it. And that reminded her of what David had said about the Crazy Deer. But that had been male, hadn’t it—she thought that was what David had told her. And the mind that had touched hers had been a woman’s, she was almost sure of that. She shook her head. It made no sense.

Uncle Dale returned a moment later with a steaming mug. “Might be a touch hot. Did it in the microwave. There’s a little ’shine in there with the cider—help you calm your nerves.”

Liz took it with shaking hands.

“Now, what was that you was tryin’ to say?”

Liz set her mouth, forcing herself to remain calm. “It was the Shh—The Irish F-f-f—Uncle Dale, what has David told you about last year? About—about when you were sick? About all that run of bad luck, when Little Billy was catatonic, and all that?”

The old man scratched his beard thoughtfully. “Hmmm. Never told me nothin’—not directly—and I didn’t ask. But I figured out a lot. Took a look or two at some of them books of his. Always liked books, I did—boy takes after me there. Figured David was actin’ strange for a good reason, recalled what my daddy used to say about that old Indian trail. Put two and two together. Don’t know what the answer was though.”

“I do,” Liz began: “A little over a year ago Davy heard music one night and followed it into the woods behind his house. He met some p-p-p—” Her tongue froze in her mouth.
Shit! The blessed Ban of Lugh again. What a time for
that
to rear its ugly head.
She started over: “It was the—” Her tongue locked tight.

“Tell me!”

“I
can’t
!”
she almost sobbed.

“Sure you can.”

“No, I can’t. My tongue won’t work. It’s mmmmm—”

Uncle Dale chewed on his upper lip for a moment. “You really can’t? Like somethin’s
keeping
you from talkin’?”

Liz nodded vigorously.

“Like magic, maybe?”

Liz nodded again.

“Well, that clinches it, then. You say some of them Irish fellers might be able to help? Well, I guess we’d better be gettin’ over there, then.” He stood up abruptly and stalked toward his bedroom.

“You mean you’ll help me? You’ll come along?”

He nodded. “Just let me get my shirt—gun too, I guess.”

A disturbing thought struck Liz. “What about his folks?”

“Bill and JoAnne?” Uncle Dale called from his room. “No time for them. They’d just cause trouble if this is the kind of thing I think it might be. If everythin’ works out, maybe they won’t find out. We’ll give it a try. But if we don’t learn somethin’ in a hurry, I don’t see as how we’ve any choice but to tell them and then get ahold of the sheriff.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

*

They made it to Enotah in a time that David would have been proud of, and then pressed on to MacTyrie. Uncle Dale drove Liz’s car, roughly at first, but later with surprising finesse and authority. Liz allowed herself ten minutes of tears, grateful for the silence that had fallen. She was beginning to consider the implications now, each more dire than the last. She had feared the old man might ask her to explain what she and David had been doing, but he had asked no questions. All he’d inquired about had been the ring.

“Davy gave you that?” he’d asked.

She’d nodded.

“Tonight?”

“Yeah.”

“’Bout time” had been his only comment.

*

“Want to stop and get Alec?” Uncle Dale asked, as they sailed across the long curve of the MacTyrie bridge.