Strange Candy

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  "No, but they don't know that."

  She laughed, a rich, dark sound like good wine. "Do you think they'd believe he was a vegetarian?"

  "Not with all those teeth," I said. "Come on, we gotta go herd Irving back inside and repair the barricade."

  "You know," Susan said, "Irving used to be almost exclusively nocturnal, but lately he's active at all hours. I wonder why?"

  I shrugged and ran a comb through my hair. "Unknown," I said.

  Unknown, a good word for lake monsters. Nobody knew much about them, and now they were endangered, nearly extinct. Two lake monsters had died in the last fifteen years, both killed by pollution. To make the tragedy worse, both monsters had been pregnant. The babies had been fully formed, but the pollution had gotten them, too. Lake monsters need nearly pristine conditions, and as man spreads out, pristine gets pretty rare.

  The question that no one could answer was, how had the two dead females gotten pregnant? Sexual reproduction is a little hard without a mate. There are wonderful theories about secret tunnels connecting the lakes, but no one had found any tunnels. Another idea was that male lake monsters look so different from females that they had been classed as some sort of fish or...something. But Irving, and two other monsters, had male genitalia. Irving didn't look anything like a fish.

  Susan had come here three years ago to study Irving, the lake monster. I was a forest ranger with a master's degree in cryptozoology, a nice degree if you work in the Enchanted Forest National Park. I was assigned to help Dr. Susan Greco, noted cryptozoologist, look into a possible breeding program for our lake monster. A female lake monster in New England was being studied as well. The idea was to transport her to Irving, maybe. There was always the chance that the two monsters would fight and kill each other. No one had ever seen two monsters together.

  Three years later, married to each other for almost two years, and we still didn't know a damn thing about the sex life of the greater lake monster. Whether there was such a thing as a lesser lake monster was a matter of great debate. Were the two small monsters in other states just younger greater lake monsters, or were they a separate species? How long did lake monsters live? We could reach up and rub Irving between the eye ridges, and we still didn't know how old he was.

  Twenty minutes later we were bouncing across the lake in a small boat. The sky was milky blue with cumulus clouds like white cotton candy. The water was the usual mirror brightness, reflecting the straight cones of pines, and the distant rise of mountains. Two boats passed us at full throttle; the passengers waved and yelled. I caught one word: "Monster!"

  Jordan guided our boat. He was one of the junior rangers. He looked like his name: blond, handsome in a California surf-boy kind of way. Susan said he was cute. If Jordan hadn't been such a hardworking nice guy, I could have disliked him. Jordan drove the boat so Susan and I could slip into diving gear. If you've ever tried to get into a wet suit while riding full tilt in a small boat, slip is not quite the word--struggle maybe. When I was encased in latex from ankle to neck, I took a quick peek through binoculars at our lake monster.

  Irving looks like a cross between a Chinese dragon, an eel, and an oil slick. His head is the most dragonlike, with slender horns and rubbery spikes bristling around very square jaws. Most of his thirty-foot length is all slick and slightly flattened; eel, not land snake. His fringelike dorsal fin extends nearly the length of his body. Overall, his color is black, but he glistens in sunlight like an oil slick; rings of color flash and melt along his skin. The rainbow only shows up at close range, though. Most people aren't much interested in how pretty he is when they're that close.

  Irving's head was keeping pace with the last water-skier. It was a man in a bright orange ski vest. Though through my binoculars his tanned face looked bloodless. Irving's mouth was half open, exposing a dazzling display of teeth. The boat was going full out, motor screaming. The skier was riding the white foam of the wake like his life depended on it.

  The faster the boat went, the faster Irving swam, but quiet, no foaming wake for the lake monster. He could glide at incredible speeds nearly silent and waveless. The only reason we saw so much of Irving was because he liked people. He wanted to be seen. Most lake monsters gave a new definition to the word shy.

  The skier fell into the water. He bobbed to the surface, trapped in his life vest. I could see him screaming and waving his arms.

  The lake monster blew bubbles at him, then stretched his neck up ten feet and gave a great honking sound. It's his version of human laughter.

  If Irving had been human, he'd have been your obnoxious Uncle Ned--the one who makes really bad jokes, wears loud plaid, and slips you twenty dollars when your parents aren't looking. Irving had a good heart, but his sense of humor was a little sadistic.

  Susan waved and called, "Irving!"

  His great head swiveled and looked at our boat. He gave a loud snort and dived under the water. The skier started to paddle frantically for his boat.

  Irving surfaced about five feet from us. Jordan cut the motor and let us drift while the monster moved up alongside. I struggled with my diving gear while Susan coaxed Irving. He finally let her rub the bristles on his chin and then snorted into her wet suit, splashing her with water and making a happy humph sound. She laughed and rubbed his eye ridges.

  Jordan started the boat again, and we began moving slowly toward the barricade and Irving's part of the lake. Our walkie-talkies squawked to life. Someone was calling me. Jordan took it because I was still fastening air tanks into place. It was hard to hear anything over the whine of boat and happy monster noises.

  "It's Priscilla. She and Roy are at an abandoned campsite. A whole troop of Girl Scouts plus two of their leaders are missing."

  "How long have they been missing?"

  "Unsure."

  "Damn. Any signs of a struggle?"

  Jordan asked, then shook his head. "Looks like they just walked away."

  "Where were they camped?"

  "Near Starlight Ridge."

  "What genius let them camp that far up?"

  "You know how it is, Mike, they pick their own campsite."

  "But it's June," I said.

  Jordan just frowned at me, but Susan let out a slow whistle.

  "What?" asked Jordan.

  "No all-female groups are allowed to camp above Bluebell Glade between May thirteenth and June thirtieth."

  "But..." Then the light dawned. "Oh, shit."

  I nodded. "Satyr rutting season. Have them check Satyr Glade. And find out who the hell OK'd the campsite."

  Susan said softly, "Somebody's going to get sued over this one."

  All I could do was nod. I wasn't usually in charge of anything but the monster. Unfortunately, our chief ranger was on the injured list for at least three weeks. I was acting chief ranger at the height of the tourist season.

  The barricade stretched across the most narrow part of the lake, from pine-covered shore to rocky outcrop. It was a deluxe steel net, enough give and no sharp edges so Irving wouldn't be able to break it. The barricade had been the single most expensive item of the Lake Monster Breeding Program.

  The net stretched smooth and unbroken, which meant the damage had to be below the water line. Irving had learned that if he damaged the visible part of the net, we'd discover his escape sooner, but underwater we wouldn't notice the breakout until we spotted him.

  The water was cold even in June, not uncomfortable but cool, and it closed around me on all sides. Air may be all around you on land, but it doesn't have the invasive push of water. Water lets you know it's there. On a good day the visibility is twenty feet. Today wasn't a good day.

  A swirl of water and Irving coiled through the silver trail of my air bubbles, the thickness of his body looped against my back. I brushed a hand down his side as he eased past me. I expected monsters to feel like dolphins, rubbery and somehow unreal, or snakes with their dry, soft brush of scales, but monsters feel like...monsters. Slick, wet but soft like
pressed velvet. And underneath it all, even when you can't see most of him, just a glimpse of shining, black coils, there is the feeling of immense power. Even if you can't see him, you know he's big. You know he could flatten you if he wanted to, but Irving is like some of the great whales. He seems to know he's big and that you're small. He's careful around us.

  The lake monster swam in and out of the wavering sunlight that pierced the water. Susan and I stayed within touching distance of each other. At twenty-five feet, we lost all light. Only my grip on the net let me know which way was up. I've been in caves where it was so dark you could touch your own eyeball and not see your finger. It was like that down here except the water gave the darkness weight and movement as if it were something alive. The water swirled, and something large rubbed against me. It had to be Irving, but my breathing seemed very loud. Even, deep breaths, that's it. I'm not afraid of water, and I'm not afraid of the dark, but combine the two and I am not a happy camper.

  I switched on my flashlight and Susan followed suit. Her beam flashed into my eyes and I gave her the OK sign. She returned it, and we continued down into the blackness. I had to let my flashlight swing on the little loop around my wrist so I could use both hands to hold the net and feel for looseness. The light swung bizarrely, a slow-motion liquid dance of light and darkness.

  The net wobbled under my hands, loose. I waved my light at Susan, and she swam over to me. Together we found the hole that Irving had pushed under the net, tearing out two mooring lines. He was thirty feet long, but he had a snake's ability to squeeze through the darnedest holes. I would have bet a month's pay he couldn't have slipped through the opening. After we fixed one, we'd make sure there were no others, but usually it was just one. Irving is a lazy monster and doesn't do more work than he has to.

  First, of course, we had to get Irving back through that little hole.

  Susan swam through the hole, raising a cloud of silt that floated like a brownish fog in the flashlight's beam. Now even with the light I couldn't see anything. But Irving's smooth bulk eased past my leg. Nothing else in the lake could displace water like our monster. He stopped and I put a hand on his side. I still couldn't see, or feel his tail end. With a convulsive wriggle, Irving began to back out of the hole. It stopped almost as soon as it began, and I knew Susan was bribing him with some of the fish we'd brought. The way to a lake monster's heart is through his stomach.

  Two hours later, the barricade was temporarily secure. We were making our last dive and had stopped at fifteen feet for our decompression stop. If you go up too fast, the air in your lungs doesn't have time to adjust to the pressure as you swim toward the surface. Swim directly up with no decompression stop, and you'll get "the bends"--decompression sickness. The nitrogen in your blood will bubble like soda pop, causing, among other things, unconsciousness and death. That is the worst case, of course. Susan says I dwell too much on the things that can go wrong when you dive. I prefer to think of it as being cautious.

  Irving butted me gently in the ribs, blowing bubbles at me. It's hard to laugh with a regulator in your mouth, but Irving will make you do it. Sunlight hovered in the water at this depth, making the monster's coils shimmer. He wrapped us both in his velvet muscled body, not tight, but to let us know he had us. Then he was gone swimming away into dimness.

  Susan's fingers brushed mine, and I took her hand. We kicked for the surface, turning slowly together, caught in the soft, hovering brightness of light and water.

  We spent the rest of the afternoon searching for the lost Girl Scout troop. We found them asleep, drugged with music. They were curled around a sign that said, "No All-Female Groups Beyond This Point. Satyr Breeding Area." Satyrs have a peculiar sense of humor.

  I had found the orders for their campsite. They hadn't camped where we told them. The park was not liable for their mistake. Honest.

  That night Susan, as usual, was asleep first. She lay on her side, half curled against my stomach. My face was buried in the back of her neck. She smelled of shampoo and perfume and warmth. Nothing felt as good as going to sleep with Susan's body pressed against mine. The soft rise and fall of her breathing was one of my top three favorite sounds in the world. The second is her laugh, and the first is the little sound she makes, deep in her throat, when we make love. It is a personal sound, just for us, no sharing. I've never been in love. Does it show?

  The phone rang and Susan stirred in her sleep, but didn't waken. I rolled over and grabbed the receiver. "Hello."

  "Mike, it's Jordan again..." His voice trailed off.

  "What's wrong?" I asked.

  "It's Irving. A couple of drunks dragged their boat into his part of the lake. Said they just wanted to swim with the monster."

  I pushed the cover back and crouched on the edge of the bed. "What happened, Jordan?"

  Susan touched my shoulder. "What's wrong?"

  I shook my head. "Jordan, talk to me."

  "They hit Irving with the propeller. It looks bad. I already called the vet. He's out on a call, but he'll get here as soon as he can."

  We drove in silence toward the lake. The sky was black and glittered with the cold light of stars. So many stars. Susan's tanned face was pale, her lips set in a tight angry line. Her eyes turn nearly black when she is really angry. They glittered like black jewels now.

  I just felt sick. It was too ridiculous, too stupid for words, that all our work was going to be screwed up by some drunks in a boat. How bad was he hurt? The questions kept running through my head like a piece of song. How bad was he hurt?

  It was Roy who met us with a boat. His thinning brown hair was rumpled; he'd forgotten to comb it. There was a smear of something on his glasses, too dark to be mud. We struggled into the diving gear while Roy talked above the roar of the engine. "Priscilla's in the water with Irving. She swims like a fish. She's keeping him at the surface. Jordan's got our two drunks on the shore."

  "How bad is it?" I asked.

  "Bad, Mike, real bad."

  Susan looked at me. I could see her jaw tighten by starlight. I felt the first warm flush of anger gliding up from my stomach to tighten my throat. Moonlight lay in a shining silver line across the lake. It was all so damn beautiful, so peaceful.

  As the boat got close to the barricade, Jordan yelled, "He's sinking. Priscilla can't hold him!"

  "Cut the motor, Roy. We'll go in over the barricade," I said.

  The boat drifted against the netting with a soft bump. Susan and I pushed regulators into our mouths and grabbed for the barricade. Climbing netting while wearing fins is nearly impossible, but Susan spilled over the top first, using just her arms. I followed, plunging into the night-black water.

  I couldn't see Susan's flashlight. I couldn't see anything, then I heard it, an echoing tap. The sound repeated, and I began to work my way toward it. Susan was tapping her air tank with the flashlight, guiding me to her.

  Irving's body loomed out of the darkness first. She'd found him. I stroked my hand on his side and felt him shiver. My hand found a gash in his side. His dorsal fin had been half cut away, and I realized that part of what was making the water dark was blood. I swallowed hard around my regulator and swam toward Irving's head.

  Susan was cradling his great head, and Irving leaned against her. She was rubbing his eye ridge. The whole left side of his face had been ripped open. The left eye was gone in a mass of meat and exposed bone. I swam up so Irving could see me out of his good eye. He nuzzled his nose against my chest and blew a thin stream of bubbles. There was a backwash of air and blood from his exposed jaw and underneath his body. I swam down to find a rip just in back of his head. His spine gleamed pale and unreal in the beam of my light. There was another rip in back of it. His stomach was half hanging into the water. At least, I thought it was his stomach.

  There was no way the boat could have just hit him once. The first blow had to have been the head, stunned him, but the rest...They had to have driven back and forth over him, slicing him over and over.


  I started to swim back to Susan when the stomach twitched. I shone my light on it and found a tiny lake monster moving inside a membranous sack. Irving was about to give birth!

  The sack split and spilled about four feet of baby lake monster into the water. I cradled the little monster to my chest and swam for the surface. Irving was an air breather; it meant the baby probably was too. We were almost to the surface when I realized I had no idea how far down we'd been. Did I need a decompression stop? The little monster began to thrash in my arms. I let it go, and it popped to the surface. Decompression or not, it was too late. I said a silent prayer and surfaced.

  The little monster made a loud happy snort as it gasped in air. It blinked at me; tiny bristling horns covered a dragonlike head. It was a perfect replica of Irving. Susan surfaced near me and just stared for a minute.

  I wasn't in any pain, no tightness of chest, no muscle cramping; no decompression sickness, lungs okay. We couldn't have been down more than forty feet for a few minutes. Maybe I worry too much.

  I rubbed my hand along the baby's back, like wet silk. I reached up to scratch a miniature eye ridge. The monster bit me, sinking needle teeth to the bone. I screamed around the regulator that was still in my mouth. The baby vanished into the water, gone.

  Susan stared at the spot where it had been, then said, "Irving's dead. His body started to float down. How the hell did he get pregnant?" She lowered her mask to hang like a necklace. "My God, do you realize we've just seen the first birth of a lake monster ever?" Her voice held that hushed awe that you reserve for cathedrals and hospitals.

  I held my bleeding hand up out of the water and didn't know quite how to feel. Irving was dead, and the way he died was awful, but I had held a newborn monster in my arms. I would have the scars to prove that. Even if we couldn't find the baby to get pictures, the bite radius would prove how small it was. I laughed then, spitting out my regulator. Sometimes I think I've been around Susan too long. It hadn't even occurred to her yet that I was hurt.

  Something else had occurred to her, though. She turned in the black water, looking toward shore. The humor, the awe had left her face. Her face was stiff and pale with anger, eyes like black holes.

  "Susan," I said, reaching out to her, trying to touch her shoulder. She moved out of reach, with a smooth flow of ripples. "Susan, what are you going to do?"