Life Guards in the Hamptons (35 page)

I rolled off him. We really had to talk. “Me, too. I’ve been thinking about you so hard I forgot to be afraid of what’s coming.”

“Do you think the storm will bring another tsunami with fangs?”

“I never saw it, but if that’s what made the rogue wave, then yes, it’ll be back. In the eye of the hurricane, I believe.”

“And what do you believe will happen, to us, afterward?”

I knelt over him, because he smelled of sex and my soap and man and I didn’t want to think about the future. “We can talk about it later, if we survive.”

“If we survive the lovemaking or the dragon slaying?”

M
ATT LEFT WITH MOSES BEFORE I found enough energy to open an eyelid. Damn, I’d wanted to make him breakfast. Pour out the orange juice and cereal, anyway. We had to make plans. Not for the rest of our lives, not for next month, but for now.

According to the news, which had hurricane coverage and nothing else, the killer storm had unexpectedly picked up speed after making its murderous path through the Caribbean and the Keys. This was good for the southern seacoast, because it meant less time being buffeted by the ferocious winds, less time for inches of rain to flood rivers and roads.

The increased forward velocity was bad for the central and northern shores. That meant Desi could get here sooner than expected, sooner than the preparations got completed or evacuations got started. Sooner than I could make sense of the glimmer of an idea in my sleep-fogged brain.

The latest path had Desi brushing the length of the entire eastern seaboard, picking up wind and water and strength from the warm open ocean before making landfall—at the tip of Long Island where it jutted out into the Atlantic. Us.

I knew why Desi aimed straight for Paumanok Harbor, why it kept gathering energy. I knew what rested in the center of the storm, steering, chivvying, pulling, plotting its revenge. I drew a quick sketch of the whirlpool-eyed
monster towering over the roiling ocean, slavering with the expectation of gobbling up Paumanok Harbor and all its power, opening the gates between worlds, using Desi’s strength to destroy its enemy. And us.

Yup, nightmare time.

And what had I done? I’d spent the night in the arms of Matt and Eros—no, not a threesome; they were one and the same—without making a single plan. I
knew
getting involved with Matt was a bad idea. I just never guessed how catastrophic it could be for the rest of my world.

The last bit on the news was about the cruise ship—smack dab in the way of the hurricane. The Coast Guard estimated they could not tow the ocean liner far enough into the ocean to get it out of the storm’s wide path in time to save it, if they righted it. It couldn’t fit through the jetties to Montauk Harbor, and taking it north, around Montauk Point, wasn’t an option, either. Montauk’s protected Fort Pond Bay was already filled with tankers, barges, and big commercial fishing boats. Besides, the ’38 hurricane wiped out that side of the island, too. So they were still going to detonate the reef the
Nova Pride
sat on, but let the ship sink where it was, safe on the ocean floor, to be raised up when the storm had passed.

“No!” I shouted at the TV. “We need the ship!” I got dressed in a frenzy, fed the dogs, walked the dogs, asked how soon the professor could be ready, made an appointment to talk to the chief at the police station and called my father to see if he had any warnings.

“You know that skunk?”

“Yeah?” I didn’t want to hear about some stinky animal. I wanted someone to tell me my idea stank. It was too dangerous, too impossible, too far beyond my capabilities to manage. I hated the idea, but didn’t have a scrap of another. No matter, no one would listen to me anyway.

Instead my father said, “Well, it’s got a lollipop in the cage with it. Now they’re both sticky and dirty and you’re still trying to get them out. Don’t, baby girl. Stay away from them!”

As if I didn’t have enough to do. “Okay, Dad. But what about the storm? Or a sea monster that wants to eat up Paumanok Harbor?”

“You been reading your own books again? That place has survived a lot worse.”

And would survive this, if my father’s dream visions held true. He didn’t seem as worried about Desi as he did yesterday, so I must not be in mortal danger, only a panic. Which didn’t comfort me. What about Dr. Harmon and Matt and Oey? And Grandma Eve and the rest of the townspeople? The physical village might make it, but what happens to the people who live here and depend on it for their livelihoods? Visions of New Orleans, Haiti, and Japan kept swimming in my head, trying to drown my dreadful plan.

I needed more help. How I wished I could drag Matt away from his animal hospital to hold me, to tell me there was another way, to take the burden on his broad shoulders. I couldn’t do it. This was my war, not his. I’d leave him the skunk.

When I went to pick up the professor, I tracked down Lou who was helping Uncle Roger board up windows and take down hanging baskets and hammocks.

I demanded he find a way for me to talk to Grant. “I don’t care if he is on a secret mission to Mars. Use codes, use some dead foreign language no one but Grant and twenty other scholars know. Hell, use telepathy. I need to talk to him. Today! And get a way to record what he says. We’ll need that, too. And do not let them sink the ship! Call Royce if you have to!”

“I can talk to his grace,” the professor offered. “He has a lot of influence everywhere.”

“Get him to work with his weather people, too. Everywhere.”

Lou listened to me and my half-assed, horrible plan. Then he took some special phone device from his inside pocket, put it in his ear, and said, “Get me the White House.”

I kissed him. That’s how hysterical I was. Doc Lassiter touched my shoulder and said I could do it; I could pull
this off. I kissed him, too. He and Professor Harmon knew each other ages ago, so after they shook hands, Jimmie said he felt a lot better about staying on, about taking on the Wyrm again.

We all agreed to meet up at the police station in an hour.

I charged my cell phone in the car as Dr. Harmon and I drove. It didn’t ring when we entered Shearwater Street, but “Collapse” by Rise Against suddenly blared from the House. Not a good sign.

I pulled into the driveway and got out of the car. “Can you help us?”

Silence met me. I guess not. “Can we help you get ready?”

Something flew out of the mail slot, another shrink-wrapped free promotional item from some charity or sales gimmick. This one was a glass bead on a leather cord. A common Turkish bead, I thought, with a turquoise center.

“It’s to ward off the evil eye,” the professor told me. “Put it on.”

“These things work?”

“Who knows? They can’t hurt.”

So I called up Margaret at the wool shop and asked if she had any, and could she string all of them into necklaces for as many espers as she could equip. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

In town, we stopped at Joanne’s deli for breakfast. I never did have my juice and cereal. I got coffee and a muffin instead. Dr. Harmon got tea, with milk, without asking.

Mrs. Terwilliger was unlocking the front door of the library when we went past and beckoned us in. She had books for the professor.

“But I did not ask for any. I do not have a library card.”

“Of course you do.” She handed him one already filled out.

He got a book on parrots, one on the history of Paumanok Harbor, and the LMP, Literary Market Place of
publishers and agents. “For the book the two of you are going to write.”

She also handed him a volume of poetry, with a bookmark in John Masefield’s page. With trembling hands holding the book, and a tremor in his voice, the professor read: “‘I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky.’”

My hands shook, too. “But you won’t be lonely. You won’t be alone. And there’s no other choice. I’ll be with you”—if it killed me— “and Matt will be, too.” I knew that, in my heart. Whatever Doc Lassiter did with a touch, the simple thought of Matt, his smile, his voice—and his touch—did it better.

Mrs. Terwilliger handed me the biography of Alfred Mesmer, the first famous hypnotist, from where we got the word mesmerizing. I tried to hand the book back. “I don’t have time right now to deal with Axel Vanderman and his wicked schemes.”

“Make time,” she said, shutting the door behind us and putting up a “Closed for the hurricane” sign on the library door.

Half the stores on Main Street were locked and shuttered. The Community Center’s glass doors and walls had boards nailed over them. So did the church’s stained glass windows.

We passed few pedestrians, only a couple of people leaving the hardware store with the last batteries and gas cans, or the grocery, whose shelves were nearly empty.

I got a text message from Aunt Jasmine at the school. They were closing early, and for the rest of the week, so the school could be used as an emergency shelter and families could head west, but Margaret called and yes, the art department had some of those Turkish beads. Should she get the kids to string them?

Yes, I typed back. And get one on every kid’s neck. And every teacher’s.

The fire department had all the equipment out on the lot, being checked and serviced and supplied with extra everything. Paumanok Harbor would be as ready as it could get.

The village hall didn’t have the mobs of reporters from last week. They were all out at Montauk, taping the sinking of the ship and the beach, to use in before-and-after shots.

Mrs. Ralston had six phone lines going at once. She could have used that prison guard, she told us, useless as the dimwit was, but the woman had gone to guard prisoners filling sandbags. Sure, like the Dutch boy’s finger in the dike.

The police station wing wasn’t as crowded either. The state troopers and county cops had been reassigned to evacuation routes, while the Feds scurried home after their motels got shut down by Town of East Hampton orders. The Homeland Security people left too, deciding they had more to worry about than the cyber thefts. What was a little embezzlement compared to a category five catastrophe? Even our local police were out on the ocean beach, waiting for the
Nova Pride
to go down and making sure no jackass surfer or dipshit reporter went down with it.

“It cannot sink!” I shouted at Uncle Henry. “We need it!” The chief shook his head when the professor and I explained our plan, rough as it was. “We need more help.”

“Can’t put that many people in harm’s way. And I don’t know if our weather guys can pull this off, either, even if you get DUE and Royce working on it.”

I knew he wouldn’t listen. Then I showed him my sketch of N’fwend.

He got on the phone.

Lou and Doc Lassiter and my grandmother showed up. Big Eddie carried in more seats.

Lou said we had the ship, but we’d look like fools if we couldn’t make my plan work. So would the President, which was never a good policy. Grandma Eve promised her friends. Doc Lassiter signed on, too. Now my hellish plan could destroy more lives, besides a whole commander-in-chief’s reputation.

Chief Haversmith tried to make a list of who we could count on, where to meet, when to call, but he couldn’t
find paper or pencil, only crumpled papers on his desk and overflowing his wastebasket, along with squashed cardboard coffee cups and deli wrappers.

“Sorry for the mess. Lolly never came to clean this weekend, and we all worked overtime.” He called to the outer office for someone to bring pads and pens. While we waited, he asked how come his switchboard operator said Miss Speedy Tate was on the line when I called this morning.

“Oh, that? Matt and I had a contest to see who finished the
Times
puzzle first. In ink. I won. It became a joke around town.”

The chief clutched his stomach. “You trying to kill me?”

“Just getting you to mind your own business.”

Before Grandma Eve could ask why she hadn’t heard the joke, Lou handed the chief a bottle of antacid tablets that had fallen to the floor and Russ came in with a box full of yellow pads and pens, and his laptop computer. He didn’t look good, all rumpled and unshaven, as if he hadn’t slept since the auditors accused him of stealing the town’s money.

“I got those tracers you asked for on Axel Vanderman. No priors, no listings on sex offender lists. It’s all pretty standard except for one thing: He didn’t exist five years ago.”

“Come again?”

“There are no records anywhere. No tax forms, no bank statements, no loan applications. Not even a credit card.”

The chief grunted. “I’m not surprised.”

I was. It sounded to me like Vanderman was in some kind of witness protection program, given a new identity and a new location. I watched the cop shows on TV, too. I just couldn’t see him cooperating with the Feds.

Chief Haversmith swallowed the tablet but didn’t lose the pained expression on his face. “He didn’t. The government knows nothing about him. He saw to that. I had Russ run the files, but I also had Lou check with DUE about finding a hypnotist for you. Top priority, bypass privacy rules, etc. They sent me reports of a master
mesmerist, a wild, unrecorded talent, years ago. They heard the bastard was using his talent to take over people’s minds and bodies and bank accounts. He used his eyes.”