The Secret of Excalibur (19 page)

I suddenly worry about Ruth's force-field.
What if?
No sense staying here any longer. I can't do any damage to the grate that won't alert whoever's inside that we found them. And even from here, up against the grate, I can't scan more than twenty-feet in.
So much for my super scanning ability.
I point up and Ruth shoots off.

Starting to ascend, I'm painfully reminded of those damn straps. I glance up and right above me a few feet is Ruth's bare foot, her bare butt, with pubic hair sticking out from the straps: breasts bobbing free and hair floating around her head. We can't be more than five or six feet off the bottom when I unfasten my leg straps.
Ahhh.
My tanks rise, held by the shoulder straps.
Hell of an improvement.
I look up again.

Watching a naked female body in the water is very inspiring. Suddenly, I'm overwhelmed with head-throbbing lust. I grip Ruth's bare ankle and pull her down towards me. She freaks out, thrashing around, trying to break free from my grasp. Her eyes are wild until she realizes it's me. I unfasten her leg straps and her tanks float up like mine. Pulling her closer to me, she keeps pointing to the grate and shaking no, no, no. Her eyes are big as saucers, trying to wildly push away. I grab her again, pulling her down onto my engorged member, and her legs wrap around me as she guides me in and holds on. But I know she has those big, frightened eyes glued to the grate as we slowly ascend.

As she settles on me all the way, I say into her mind, *Relax, kid. Whatever put that grate there isn't coming out now, and whether it did, I doubt we could do anything about it anyhow.*

That doesn't seem to calm her any, so as I slowly start thrusting inside her, I do some extra, extra light mental strokes of her pleasure center.

The sensation of cold lake water caressing my naked flesh along with the sliding of warm, wet bodies against each other is physically stimulating. We're rising slowly with our bubbles, the only sounds the blurping from our regulators, the steady chug, chug from the idling engine, then the faster blurb, blurb of our released air as we pump together faster and faster, then the louder bluurrp, as she climaxes first, then me, and finally a loud splashing sound as we break the surface.

We bob around in the calm waters, holding tightly to each other. As we remove our regulators, she pants into my ear, “Ooooh. You are totally insane, but God, do I love you.”

“Thank you, ma'am. Now, get out of the water and hand me one of the reels, I don't care which one. Go.”

Ruth wades to shore, drops her tanks, then climbs into the boat. She hands me a spinning reel, I cut the line and open the bail.

“Stand still, don't touch the reel.”

I dive back down, swimming against my loose tanks, but I don't have far to swim. I tie the line to the top of the grate. When I break the surface, Ruth is standing along the shore, loose fishing line lying around. I wade to her and take the reel, drop my tanks then climb into the boat. I reel in the slack leaving four inches, then cut the line, and tie it to the railing by the live-well. From Ron's tackle box, I remove a night-line cowbell and clip it on the slack line. If the line is moved by more than four inches, the bell will ring, and I'll go see what the hell is causing it.

Jumping off the boat, I notice Ruth leaning over the side of the boat to see what I've been doing. She's standing on the tiptoes of one foot, her other out to the side as she leans way over the side to look, and that head-throbbing lust consumes me again. I sneak up behind her, placing my hands on her waist.

She turns her head. “What's the, uh, ooh.”

I pull her sexy, naked backside around towards me, then push her down on her knees. I slide behind her, mount her, and we're off again, doggy style, kaslap, kaslap, kaslap. When we're finished, I lie over her back, catching my breath.

What's wrong with me?
I've never been obsessed with sex, but I feel as though I'm a rutting bull in a pasture of breeding cows. Not that the sex isn't great, but it's not me
.
What about Ruth, am I sexually abusing her? Not considering her needs? I
tenderly kiss her sweaty neck, confused and ashamed at my loss of self-control.

Looking over her shoulder, she says, “You've become an animal, do you know that? We could be killed here, and all you want to do is screw and screw. You're insane.”

Contritely, I mumble softly into her neck, “Then, why didn't you just say no, kid?”

With a sheepish laugh, she says, “Okay, I'm insane too.”

“And you love me, right, lady?” I ask, needing absolution.

“Umm, yes, yes, Arthur, I do.”

Feeling some redemption about our relationship, we rinse off in the water, and while I'm pulling on my shorts, watching her dry off, I joke, “If you don't hurry, kid, I'm gonna start again.”

By the time I turn the key to shut off the big motor, she's dressed.

Lounging by the fire-pit, reflecting on my next course of action, Ruth wanders over, plopping into her chair. She's barefoot, brushing the sand from between her coral pink-tipped toes, asking, “What now?”

Concentrating hard for a few seconds, two cans of cold Pabst appear in my hands. Perfect. Taking a refreshing cold sip, I study the surface and underwater maps of the lake. There isn't anything on the maps to draw attention to this area, just smooth sand, and weeds. Not even a shipwreck nearby.

The biggest map is from the Historical Society of England, and it documents every rock, depression, hump, channel, gully, shipwreck, or piece of shipwreck, even debris that washed into the lake from the shore, and each detail has its own classification number. The map's five years old, and Ruth told me some details were copied from previous maps. Sipping my beer, I scrutinize and compare the various maps. Something's very wrong.

“Look, kid, here,” I say, pointing at the map. “And now, the newer map, remembering what we saw when we were down there, nothing. So tell me, where the hell is the shipwreck titled WS 3461? See, it's here on the older map, but missing on the newer one.”

“Yes, five years ago, they recorded the shipwreck, but a half hour ago, it wasn't there. But it could be a copying error, couldn't it?” Ruth asks with a dubious look.

According to the older map, WS 3461 should be ten feet from where the cavern is located. However, it's not there on the new map.

Studying the newer map again, I exclaim, “Hey, look, Ruth. Here's the shipwreck, about a mile down the shoreline. How do you suppose an old, Italian ship moved after, uh, let's see, after more than a hundred years? The old map shows it half buried in sand right here, but the new map shows it's over there, unburied.”

I glance up, looking out over the sparkling water, thinking.
Unless someone really messed-up the copying of the shipwrecks from one map to another, then the ship moved itself over a mile away. Or, someone moved it in the last five years, to keep attention away from the cavern entrance.

“I still don't understand how anyone could've missed the cavern. I mean it's so big, and after God only knows how many dives over the years to classify the shipwrecks, and document the whole bottom of the lake. It doesn't seem possible.” She's chewing her bottom lip again.

“Well, you didn't find the cavern,” I remind her, “and you were right on top of it, specifically looking for it. The other divers didn't know the cave was there, and there's nothing around it to attract anyone's attention.”

“How long do you suppose the grates been there?”

Good question, kid. I've been wondering the same thing.

“Well, let's see. Plastic like that's been around for at least twenty-five years, but the plastic seems reinforced, or else my abilities are weaker than I thought, because I couldn't generate enough heat to melt it.” As I'm talking, Ruth is digging sand out from beneath her coral-colored toenails.

“You mean the grate could've been there that long? Impossible.” The sand is forgotten.

“Whatever type of grate they have, it could've been there more than twenty-five years.” She glares at me from under her eyebrows. That remark doesn't set well with her, not on her precious lake.

“God, Arthur,” she sighs in exasperation, “can't you feel what's down there at all?”

“No, I can't,” I retort, just as exasperated. “The magnetic influx overpowers my scanning ability. And there might be something else affecting me, but I don't know what it is yet. It could be a combination of elements I've never felt before. I hope to understand more when Dobie calls back.”

Lots of wrinkles on her forehead. “So what do we do until then?” she asks, nervously staring at the trees.

“Oh, relax, have another beer or two, maybe neck a little, eat dinner, neck some more.”

With a loud sigh, she says with irritation, “How can you stay so calm, not knowing who or what may be down in the cavern?” Yup, she's upset.

“Listen, they won't come out until dark, after they know we're asleep. Then, they'll only be checking what the commotion up here was about. From a security standpoint, it's what I would do. So, until then, relax. Let's just be on that holiday you mentioned before. But me, I like honeymooning better,” I say, fluttering my eyebrows at her, squeezing her firm, upper thigh.

“How can you be horny?” she asks with a trace of annoyance. “I thought men need more time to recover after sex?”

“Umm, right, well it seems you brought out the sleeping animal in me, Doctor,” I lamely answer.

“I did?” she asks with a quirked brow. “Or that thing in the cavern? You seem constantly excited now, overstimulated, as if you're watching triple X-rated movies in your head.”

“Good comparison. That's from being around you,” I tease, trying not to show my concern over the changes going on inside me.
If I don't understand what's happening to me, how can I explain my behavioral changes to her?
Plus, I don't want to frighten her.

“Oh, you,” she replies, kicking sand at me. “Well, I'm not ashamed to say that I'm one sore girl, inside and out.”

Is that a compliment?
I decide not to ask.

“Don't worry, you'll have all the time you need to rest and recuperate, oh, at least as long as it takes you to cook us some dinner.”

“Oh, you,” she says, throwing a handful of sand this time. “And what will you be doing, while I rest?” she asks with a smirk.

“I'm going do something sneaky, kid. I want you to sing or talk to yourself, anything to make it seem as though the two of us are together. I'm going into the tent and teleport back into the trees. The two sets of footprints headed into the tree line somewhere, and I want to know where they went.”

Her face turns a shade darker with concern. “Uh, whatever's affecting your powers might also affect your ability to teleport. I mean, you could be teleporting somewhere you never intended, couldn't you?”

I gently take her hand in mine, look at her and softly confide, “Long ago, when I first discovered most of my abilities, my powers terrified me, and my closest friends were frightened of me. Because I didn't know whether I would ever be able to control my powers, I had no choice but to leave them. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?”

“Yes. No. What are you saying?” More wrinkles appear.

With a sad sigh, I say, “Never mind, Ruth. While you're preparing dinner, sing or talk to yourself, whatever you want. I'll be back before you know it. Okay?” I head for our tent, as sand flies at me from behind.

Sitting on a sleeping bag in the tent, I watch Ruth with pots and a pan, then try to scan back into the trees. With much effort, I'm finally able to focus on a tree in the last row of trees by the cliffs. I focus on the pine tree, and BLIP! Ruth is singing
It's My Party
.

Holy Shit.

Arms pinwheeling, I snatch onto whatever's in reach. Clutching a few small branches and pine cones, I stop from falling to the ground. Instead of appearing on the ground by the pine tree, I'm twenty feet up in the tree.

Yuck.
Pine tar, needles, goo all over me, and no shirt or shoes. Carefully, I crawl out on a big branch. I'm not worried about the fall hurting me, but the resulting noise will attract attention, and that I don't want. I search around. Leaning out to look each direction, I realize I'm not even in the right tree.
Damn. The pine tree I focused on is over there, sixty feet away. How in the hell had I missed it by so far?

Leaning out again, I can see for a good half mile each way, pine trees, lots of big rocks, weeds and grass, nothing suspicious or unusual.
This is hopeless.
Wherever they went, I can't see any sign from up here. I'll have to search from the ground. After what happened with my teleporting, I decide to climb down. At least that way I know where I'll land.

Turning towards the tree trunk to begin my gooey climb, I think,
damn, Ruth is right
.
Whatever's affecting me is really messing me up. I must be right on top of the ores. Hell, even the wrong tree.

Down on the ground, there's movement.

I freeze, with one arm above me, one leg below on another branch. There, by those rocks, just a damn rabbit. I take a deep breath, heart pounding.
Relax. He can't see me up here, but if I move, he might spook and run.
Too noisy.
So I slowly, cautiously lower myself on the next branch and watch Peter Cottontail hop, hop from plant to plant.

I nervously shift around. I feel as though I'm close to where I'm supposed to be, but at the same time, want to be elsewhere. I want a smoke, but my cigarettes are back at camp, where I wish I were.
At the rate this damn rabbit is moving, it'll take him an hour to get past me. Too long.
Gathering a handful of pine cones, I get ready to drop a few to hurry him along, when I see something I should've noticed before.

I don't claim to know everything about furry bunnies, but the rabbit is crawling and hopping over the plants he's not nibbling on. There's enough room to hop around the plants, but he's hopping on top of them. What catches my attention isn't the fact he's not eating them, but as he crawls over them, they smash down, and stay down. The plants he's eating, when he hops on top of them, spring back up as he passes on by.

There, a circle of the same smaller plants, plastic, like the plants in front of the grate guarding the cavern. And the circle of plastic plants is right around that rock. It's not the biggest rock there by any means. In fact, it's smaller than the other rocks around it, only seven feet high and four feet wide. All the other boulders are huge suckers. Glancing up and down the line of pine trees, I realize this rock is the only small one. Trying to focus on the small rock gets me nowhere. I should be able to see and feel every damn molecule. I feel zilch.

Peter Cottontail forgotten, I lean out and flip a pine cone at the rock, which is deflected by the branch I'm sitting on, and hits a big boulder. Tink. Scratch. Plunk, the pine cone falls into the weeds. That's too much for Peter; he hops off in a hurry. I lean out farther and flip another one. This one hits the right rock. Tunk. Scratch. Plink, into the weeds.
Well, well, a hollow fucking rock. Now, this is exciting.

Then, I freeze again. My breath, heart, all of me freezes this time.

There, on the ledge, almost even with me. A black tube, like a periscope from those old war movies, turns and raises a hair. The tube's eight feet below me.
Why didn't I see it before?
The periscope is easy to spot, now that it's moving. Before, when it wasn't moving, the black tube looked like a tree branch in the shadow of the rock. The head of the periscope swivels down and in each direction then, begins rising.

Holy Shit.
The periscope's moving up, and here I sit, in the open, like a big, white turkey.
They can't help seeing me, and there's no place to hide. In a panic, I focus on the tent, and BLIP!

AAAHH. Goddamn.

Because I'd been in such a hurry, not wanting to be seen, I hadn't focused when choosing my exact landing site, and find myself materializing midair, fourteen feet over the tent, between the branches of the pine tree. I body slam with an UMPH on a big branch. I lie there face down, my head and ass hanging out over the end, and see below me the tent. I'm clinging to the branch with my toes, but every time I move, I slide farther off the branch.
This won't do, I'll fall on top of the damn tent.
Over by the fire, Ruth is singing,
Last Kiss
. I focus on the ground near her and hope I won't shake her up too much, and BLIP!

AAAHHH. Goddamn.

Jumping up, I race towards the water, leaping in with a sizzle, smoke drifting from the surface.
AHHH.

Ruth runs over, yelling, “Are you alright, Arthur? What the hell happened? Why did you jump into the fire? Are you bloody crazy? You spilled the fish all over the sand.” I never knew she could yell so loud, arms waving like she's signaling a boat.

Standing, I remark, “That's not very ladylike, Doctor.”

“Neither is some madman jumping over my head and landing in a pan of hot grease with fish fillets, plus a pot of boiling water with potatoes. And—Oh my God, are you alright?” she asks, pale-faced, looking down at my body.

I fearfully glance down. Most of my skin is scorched, and my shorts are mostly burned. Of course, you'd expect that when landing on your ass in a two-course dinner being cooked over an open fire.

Ruth wades into the water, holding out her hand to help me. “Are you sure you're okay? What the hell is going on?”

This isn't going very well. Did they see me?
I shake my head, irritated with myself.

“I'm okay, kid,” I say with a sheepish grin, “the grease was pretty damn hot.” I didn't tell her I was hanging in a tree by my toes, about to fall on our tent. I figured the fire would be easier to replace. “I'm sorry, Ruth. I was aiming to land near you, not in the fire. I guess you're right, whatever's messing me up is doing a damn good job.”

Since I've discovered my powers, I've become a pretty cool customer, calm and in control. Now, I feel as though I'm in a B- grade movie, a comedy, and I'm the star and audience.
This isn't good. Not good at all.

Ruth helps me as I walk painfully, like an old-crippled person, back to the tent, and when we get there, I glance up at that damn tree. A handful of needles pulled loose with my toes, fall on our heads.

“What?” She looks up startled, brushing them off.

“Nevermind, kid, just Mother Nature having the last laugh.” Ruth doesn't understand the reference, but doesn't question me as we duck into the tent. I carefully remove what's left of my shorts and gingerly lay down.

“Whoo. You smell like burned chicken feathers.” She holds her nose.

“Thanks, kid, I love you too.”

“Uh, what should I do with your burns?”

Not mentioning anything about having a doctor around who's not a doctor, instead, I instruct, “Just rub hand lotion on the burned areas. The outer layer of skin is dead and the lotion will rub the black skin off.” I've dealt with burned flesh before.