Traffic was heavy on the water with all kinds of pleasure craft. The most dangerous part of the swim was making sure that he kept well below the hulls and propellers of passing boats and Jet Skis.
Also, he belatedly realized, it was Friday of Memorial Day weekend. All of that conspired to work in his favor.
He stayed low in the water until he reached the slips. Then he surfaced underneath one, alongside a metal railing. He had come in close to his boat, just three slips away.
The rest of the maneuver went as smooth as butter. When he reached the correct slip, he climbed up the railing and eased over the side of the boat. He untied it, started the engine and accelerated gently out of the marina. The whole thing took less than three minutes.
When he reached open water, he increased his speed until he traveled at a carefully sedate pace. The wind sliced through his wet clothes, cooling him rapidly from the heat of his swim, until his body tightened into a miserable knot. The farther out he maneuvered from the other craft, the faster he accelerated, until he hit over 120 mph and the boat skimmed along the top of the water with a high, smooth growl.
The sight of land slid away behind him. He adjusted his course to travel at a slight northwestern angle while he scanned the horizon. With Jerry’s trajectory, they should come in sight soon.
They did. As soon as he spotted a likely speck on the horizon, he headed straight for it. The speck grew rapidly. Soon he could make out identifying details on the other vehicle.
He didn’t relax until he knew for sure it was them. Then the tight snarl of tension between his shoulders eased. He grew aware all over again of how cold he had become. Shudders wracked his body. He kept extra clothes, plus other supplies in the tiny cabin space below, but he didn’t want to stop until he had reached the others.
Jerry had been keeping an eye out for his appearance, because the other boat slowed to a stop as he came closer. He shifted down and approached them slowly. Jerry left the cabin to catch the ropes that Michael tossed to him. Together they hauled the two boats close together. Michael leaped aboard the other boat.
“Your lips are blue,” Jerry said with a frown.
The other man started to shrug out of his lined jean jacket. Michael waved at him to stop. “I have clothes I can change into in a minute. We need to finish this and separate.”
Mary and Jamie sat close together on the deck. Jamie had a blanket wrapped around his broad shoulders, and Mary had her arm around him. Her face was smudged from recent tears, but she looked calm enough.
Michael was pleasantly surprised. She had found some way to wash some of the blood off of Jamie. His clothes were still bloody, but his face and neck looked somewhat cleaner. So did his long, dark hair, which spilled loosely down his back. Dark hollows etched the skin around Jamie’s eyes, and the rich copper tone of his skin carried an ashen hue, but he looked a hell of a lot better than he had earlier when he had been covered in blood and unconscious.
Jamie lifted his head and met Michael’s gaze briefly. Michael paused at the power and intelligence in those dark, too-old eyes. He had underestimated the younger man.
That was good. That meant Jamie would be a real asset to Jerry and his mother with the challenges they would face over the next several days.
Precious time was ticking away. Michael said to Mary, “Ready?”
She nodded, turned to Jamie and they came together.
Michael had intended to turn away and sort through what he would give to the other two men, but the sight of Jamie and Mary’s tight embrace held him in place. Jamie put a hand at the back of Mary’s head, closed his eyes and bowed his greater frame around Mary’s shorter, slender body.
“I have no words for what you’ve done for me,” Jamie said, very low. “Simply no words.”
“Not everybody gets a second chance,” Mary said. “It was the right thing to do. You can do this. It’ll be hard, but it’s going to be okay. Remember, be sure to protect your head for at least a couple of weeks. It’s going to take a while for the bones in your skull to finish regenerating.”
Michael’s eyes narrowed as he listened to them. What was the right thing to do, and why would it be hard?
“Poor kid’s been rattled since he came to,” Jerry muttered to him. “Near death experiences can do that to a body.”
Jerry’s words brought Michael back to his purpose. He knelt in front of his canvas bag and pulled out an envelope of cash, two handguns and printed directions to one of their safe houses. He handed everything to Jerry.
“This house is in northern Illinois, about a half an hour outside of Joliet,” he told the older man. “It’s quiet and rural. You should pick up supplies at one of the strip malls just after you exit I-80. There’s a thousand dollars in the envelope, which should be more than enough for five to eight weeks of food for all three of you, if you’re frugal. You’ll have to figure out transportation once you reach land. Don’t use your IDs to rent a car.”
“I understand,” said Jerry. “We’ll get there.”
“You have a cell phone?”
“Yes. Astra has the number.”
“Good.” Michael grabbed his combat boots and shoved them into the bag. Then he grabbed four bottles of water from Jerry’s cooler and shoved those into the bag as well. He zipped it shut and straightened. “We will call you when it’s safe for all of you to return home again.”
He didn’t bother with any further instructions. If they didn’t call Jerry, it meant that they had failed. Jerry, Sara and Jamie would have to figure out the rest of their lives on their own.
Mary and Jamie joined him. She gave Jerry a hug, while Michael looked at Jamie. He said, “Look after your grandfather and your mom.”
Jamie’s young, sensual face set into uncharacteristically hard lines. “I will.”
Michael climbed into the cigarette boat first and held out a hand to help Mary. They cast off. Jamie raised a hand to them as they pulled away.
Mary looked at Michael with concern.
“You need to change into dry clothes right now,” she said.
“I know,” he said. He was shaking violently, and he couldn’t feel his fingers or toes.
He couldn’t fumble the hatch key into the lock, and she had to help him. He ducked his head to enter the small space and tore out of his wet, freezing clothes. “Be sure to keep an eye out. Let me know if any vessels approach.”
“I am,” she said from above. “I will.”
The minuscule cabin was very simple. It held a bed, with storage space underneath and shallow cabinets along the walls. He forced his shaking limbs into jeans, woolen socks and his boots, a T-shirt and a sweater and a wind-resistant jacket.
He had expended massive amounts of energy over the last two days. He hadn’t eaten since earlier that morning before he had gone to bed, and he couldn’t remember the meal he’d had before that. Desperate for some quick calories, he opened a plastic storage container that held a box of protein bars and bags of trail mix, and he didn’t stop until he had bolted down four of the protein bars.
Finally he was able to slow down. He hadn’t stopped shaking, but he felt as if the worst had passed. He climbed back onto the deck.
The afternoon had melted into evening. Golden color blazed across the western sky, while the blue toward the east had deepened. Mary sat with her makeshift poncho wrapped tightly around her torso. She looked as exhausted as he felt.
“There’s food and warm clothes down below,” he told her. He started up the boat again, compulsively calculating again how long they might have been at a standstill. He guessed not quite fifteen minutes. It could have been worse. “It’s going to be a chilly ride to the island. You should put on a few more layers.”
She nodded, her expression distant as she looked off in the direction that Jerry and Jamie had gone. She asked wistfully, “Do you think they’ll make it no
w?”
He wasn’t one for uttering meaningless reassurances. “I don’t know. The Deceiver hadn’t gone after Jerry’s daughter yet. You were able to heal Jamie, which frankly I didn’t think was possible when I first laid eyes on him. They’ve got a fighting chance, which is all any of us can hope for right now.”
She turned to look at him, her gaze turning grave. “That wasn’t Jamie.”
• • •
THE TRIP BACK to the island was uneventful and, thanks to their vastly improved boat, as quick as possible.
After retrieving one of his long-sleeved thermal shirts from the cabin, Mary offered only a brief explanation about what had happened, her words slow with exhaustion.
“I can’t even describe what I did. It was part of what you did when you taught me how to give energy, and part of what the dragon did when it healed my spirit wound. I . . . fused Nicholas’s spirit with Jamie’s body.”
“It’s goddamn amazing,” he said. They were traveling at such high speed, he could only spare quick glances at her. She did not look triumphant. Instead, she looked incredibly saddened.
“It was a terrible decision, of course.” She shook trail mix into one hand. “Brain stem injury. Jamie had died almost instantly, except that his body had not yet shut down. Nicholas had to decide quickly. At first, he didn’t want to, but I told him, it wasn’t fair for his dad and his sister to lose both of them. And he gave in, I think, more because he thought he should than because he really wanted to. He’s hurting pretty badly right now.”
“I knew something was different, but I didn’t even think to connect it to that.” He wiped spray off his face. “You do realize what you did, don’t you?”
She just looked at him, her gaze a tired blank.
“Not only did you give a dead man a second chance at life,” he told her, “but you might very well have thought of a way to save one of us if we get killed. If our ghosts hang on and the others can find a drone, we don’t necessarily have to pass on to another life. That potentially changes everything, Mary.”
Life came back into her expression. “You’re right. I hadn’t thought that far.”
They spent the rest of the journey in silence. The last of the daylight was fading into night when they reached close enough to the island’s coordinates that Michael had to slow down. They crept forward at a cautious pace, apparently moving toward nothing but open water, until from one moment to the next, they passed through the veil of the null space that the island projected.
Land appeared before them. The entire island lay not two hundred yards away.
“If I hadn’t just seen that for myself, I don’t know that I would believe it,” Mary said. “Of course, I’ve been saying that a lot over the last several days.”
“I know what you mean.”
He eased the boat near to the old pier and cut the motor to coast the rest of the way. Then he released the anchor, and both he and Mary worked to moor it in place.
Together they both looked at the path.
“I don’t think I don’t have the energy to walk up that hill,” she muttered.
“We don’t have to.” He put an arm around her and steered her toward the tiny cabin. “We can sleep right here.”
She didn’t object, but she asked, “Shouldn’t we let Astra know we’re back?”
“She already knows. She knows everything that happens on this land.”
He kicked the door shut behind them. The cabin was chilly and in deep shadow as the last of the daylight fled, but the bed was right in front of them and he had plenty of thermal blankets.
He helped her to undress, and then she turned and helped him. With the matter-of-factness of the immensely exhausted, they climbed naked into the bed. He reached out for her, and after only the slightest hesitation, she came readily into his arms.
The feeling of her slender, warm body against his was the most amazing thing he had ever experienced. It was a haven that he couldn’t have known to imagine before they had come together, and it felt like salvation. He meant to tell her all of that, but his overtaxed body hauled him into darkness.
No. His spirit rebelled and fought back to awareness.
He was not done yet, and he would not accept his body’s limitations.
Mentally he assessed Mary. Like he had, she had fallen deeply asleep, nestled against him with her head on his shoulder. He eased into her mind. She had not yet started dreaming but lay drifting in darkness.
Mary, he whispered.
Mm, she grunted. Her body nuzzled closer to his, and his arms tightened around her.
You can let your body rest while we talk, he said, keeping his mental voice easy and quiet. Remember when I did it earlier?
She murmured, Don’t know how to do that.
Just follow my voice and let go.
Still sounding mostly asleep, she asked, You sure?
He had to smile, in spite of himself. I’m sure. We need to finish our earlier conversation. Come with me. Please.
He felt her spirit rouse, and as she joined him, he created a scene around him.
A great hall in an early Norman castle appeared, with a long, scarred wooden table, a massive fireplace and suits of armor displayed at various points around the room. The castle was from the first strong memory he had recovered of a lifetime he and Mary had spent together long ago. This was the life that had taught him the simple, powerful lesson of happiness.
After he formed the image of the great hall, he created a mental construct of his physical self. This time he chose to wear a simple gray T-shirt and jeans.
Mary was learning fast. When the scene appeared, she formed a construct of her body too. She still looked sleepy, and she was wearing checked flannel pajamas and fuzzy slippers. Her tawny hair lay loose on her shoulders, curling in crazy directions. He almost laughed out loud when he saw her.
She looked around the great hall, blue eyes wide. “I know this place,” she breathed. “I’ve been here before.”
“Yes, you know this place,” he told her. “We lived here once. I wasn’t going to say anything about it. I meant to wait and see if you remembered it on your own, but I changed my mind.”
“I’m glad you did.” Her face filled with wonder. She wandered over to the table to touch it with the fingertips of both hands.
He walked up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. “You were trying to tell me something earlier, and I did a bad job of listening. I’m sorry.”
She turned around to face him. “What changed your mind?”
“Your growing closeness to Nicholas.”
Her expression filled with wary confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“I was jealous as hell, but that’s beside the point.” He touched her cheek, her lips. “You said earlier that you thought I was beautiful, but I couldn’t hear you. But then today I watched how you were with Nicholas. It’s remarkable how much the two of you have bonded, even though he’s a warrior too, and I realized that I really had put up a wall between you and me. Astra had told me repeatedly over the years that while we might hope to reunite with you, twinned souls don’t always come together or see eye to eye. I . . . listened too well to her warnings.”
“Of course I think you’re beautiful. How could I not?” She clasped his wrists gently. “Killing is an ugly thing, but that doesn’t make you ugly. If you enjoyed the killing you would be ugly. If you killed for ugly reasons, that would make you ugly. You don’t, do you?”
He stroked that fabulous hair off of her face as he thought through his reply. He wanted to get their talk right this time, so he chose his words with care. “I enjoy the physicality of a fight, the intellectual challenge and pitting myself against a worthy opponent. I enjoy winning and exacting justice—no, that goes beyond enjoyment. I need that. Do I enjoy killing someone, or watching their life drain out of them? No. I c
an see how I might become twisted that way, though.”
“But you’re not twisted that way. I’ve seen so much of you these last several days. You’re not just a warrior.” She gave him a smile. “You are a champion. Don’t you see? That’s one of the reasons why you’re so beautiful to me. Part of healing is the knife. Sometimes you have to cut the cancers out.”
“Yes,” he said.
Her smile faded. “Please listen carefully to what I say. It’s important to me that you don’t misunderstand this either. Astra’s warning carried some weight. We’ve been here before, you and me, haven’t we? I don’t mean this place.” She gestured around at the great hall. “I mean at this kind of juncture in our relationship. We haven’t always understood each other, or been successful in resolving the differences that lay between us.”
“Yes, we’ve clashed and walked away from each other. I refuse to do that this time.”
Her expression eased. She nodded. “I don’t want to either. This life is too precious to waste. So I want you to know that what I say next is about me, not you.”
He stroked her cheek. “I’m listening.”
Her bright, blue gaze shadowed. “I am making a choice not to pick up a gun again. If I take that path, I feel like I would become someone else, someone that’s not me. I would have to grow callused in ways that I’m not right now. I think some parts of me would have to die and I wouldn’t be the healer I need to be, because I don’t have your spirit, Michael. I’m not a fighter. Maybe I’m making a selfish decision. I know it means I take certain risks in our fight, but if that’s the case, so be it—”
He shook his head and put his arms around her. “Hush. You’ll take no more risks than I do.”
“Well, that’s not exactly true.” Her voice was dry. She slipped her arms around his waist. “You’re freakishly fast.”
He started to laugh, and it felt good and healing. “I guess I am.”
He sank to his knees and rested his face against her flat abdomen, basking in her warm, vital energy. She bent over him and ran her hands down his wide shoulders and strong back, and stroked his short, dark hair. For a while they rested against each other in silence.