In her arms Conn stirred. She stroked his head. Please don’t let him wake up right now! “Conn would be safe?” she asked, almost whispering. “You’d let him go unharmed? And Rob? You’d let them both go?”
Mahtahdou’s eyes gleamed and he stepped even closer. “Of course,” he said at once. “Put the whelp down over there and we can—”
She recoiled. “I didn’t say yes yet,” she snapped. Time, time—what could she do to play for time? Or did she even want to play for time? With each passing second both Rob and Alasdair died a little more. “You haven’t said why I should want to do this. What’s in it for me? Why should I let you take over my body?”
Mahtahdou looked puzzled for a moment then smiled. “Ah. Now we’re talking. I had begun to think you were simple-minded, with all your concern for others. There is a straightforward answer to that. It’s power.
“Occupying you will be different from what I do with this body.” He flapped one of Rob’s hands as if it were an ill-fitting glove. “You will still remain conscious with me inside you, even though I’ll be the one in control. But I’ll be happy to fulfill any little jobs you might have left undone, hampered by your human rules. Surely there are some loose ends in your life you’d like to see tied up?”
He pointed at one of his creatures. It shuffled forward on its three clawed feet, but as she watched it began to change. The three legs melded into two, the squat body elongated and divided into a head and two arms…and there was Derek in one of his three-piece suits, the charcoal gray Brooks Brothers one he’d always worn when he had an appointment with one of his more conservative clients, looking at her with his old grin. She gasped. She couldn’t help it.
“Hey, Gar,” he said, looking her insolently up and down. “Jesus, you haven’t changed much. Still the same old cow. I’d love to know what Alasdair saw in you—no, wait, I do know. He wanted to use you. Just like I did. He thought he could get you to help him with his stupid cause. Do you think he liked shagging you? Hell, no! What was it those tight-assed British ladies used to say? ‘Lie back and think of England?’”
The Derek-thing advanced and she found herself backing away from it. This was crazy and impossible. How had Mahtahdou known?
“Don’t you know he was laughing at you the entire time?” Another rumble of thunder accompanied its words. “I suppose I have to admire someone as devious and underhanded as me. He’s been hiding behind you all these weeks, playing you like a violin, teasing you till you were so hot for him you’d do whatever he asked. It’s what I would have done in the same situation—”
“Stop it!” she shouted.
The Derek-thing grinned at her again, and his head exploded into greenish flames. A foul odor of rotten fish and burning rubber filled the hall as he was quickly consumed, leaving only a greasy smear of ash on the floor.
“There,” Mahtahdou whispered in her ear from directly behind her. “Wouldn’t you love to be able to do that? I could make it happen. I could make a lot of things happen. Anyone who’s gotten in your way…anyone who’s held you back. Your ex-husband—we can come up with something delightful for him, something lingering and unpleasant so that he’ll suffer as much as you did—”
She flinched away from him but his words niggled at her. Did Mahtahdou know her better than she did herself? Was that what she really wanted—revenge on Derek, to see him suffer the way she had?
Mahtahdou was still talking, Rob’s voice sounding both oily and hoarse. “What else do you have here to cling to? Don’t you understand that you had no future with the selkie lord? One day he would’ve grown tired of you and returned to the sea to find some selkie female to give his seed to. That’s what always happens.”
That’s what always happens…Mahtahdou’s words echoed the ones she herself had thought a few days before. In the old stories the selkie always left his or her human lover to return to the sea. Even if Alasdair survived what Mahtahdou had done to him he would leave her as soon as he had his skin again—
“You were going to lose him no matter what. You have no other choice,” the low, insinuating voice murmured. “Time grows short, magic-user. Soon this human’s body will be useless and I will have to toss it aside. If you let me in now, he might survive.”
Rob’s life was in her hands…Conn’s too. Was her life worth more than theirs? It wasn’t as if she’d actually be dead…
“Think of what we can do together,” Mahtahdou whispered. “No one will be able to stop us, selkie or human. No one will stand in my—in our way.”
Garland’s arms ached from carrying the limp Conn, and Mahtahdou’s words echoed in her mind. No one would stand in his way…but someone could—and she was holding him. Someday Conn would grow to adulthood and try to claim his heritage. Surely Mahtahdou knew that.
Which meant that Conn would probably not live to see the sun set today if she let Mahtahdou inside her.
She glanced toward the door of the hall. Could she run for it? But the doorkeeper hung there in a solid sheet once more—
Something—an unconscious movement or her darting eyes—must have given her away. Mahtahdou snarled and lunged at her, his movement jerky and uncoordinated but swift. She saw that he’d retrieved the dagger he’d used to cut Alasdair’s skin.
“It’s too late—I’m deciding for you,” he snarled, and grabbed at her arm as he brought the dagger down. But it was aimed at Conn, not her.
“No!” she shouted, and wrenched her arm out of his grip. The motion over-balanced him and he fell over. The three-legs and other creatures shrieked in rage, but even through the din she heard the wet, ugly snap of Rob’s arm breaking as Mahtahdou hit the floor. The dagger clattered from his fingers onto the scarred mosaic floor.
“Rob!” She stared at him through the hot tears that had sprung to her eyes.
Rob’s body shuddered and twitched, and a cloud seemed to gather over it. The cloud grew darker then coalesced into a dark column of shadow that rose to man height. It bent over slightly to look down at Rob’s once-again unmoving body, then turned away.
“Gah!” said a voice in her head. “Useless human. I should eat him.” The shadow moved away from Rob and loomed over her.
“Leave him be!” She shifted Conn onto her hip to kneel at Rob’s side. Should she turn him over, off the broken arm? He was still breathing, thank God, but in the rapidly dimming light from the windows she couldn’t see much else. Had Mahtahdou left him in time or was he damaged beyond repair? It was a blessing in disguise that his arm had broken or Mahtahdou never would have let him go until it was too late.
Well, he had. And Rob was as safe as he could be, for now. She’d won the time she’d longed for. The thought gave her courage.
“You’ve lost your tool,” she said to the shadow. “What will you do?”
“Do not make the mistake of underestimating me, just because that”—he gestured contemptuously at Rob—“is broken,” Mahtahdou snapped, and flowed into a man-shape so that he looked like a huge, animated silhouette. “I have far better ones at my disposal
He glided over to Alasdair’s skin, lying not far from Rob. “Shall I put on the selkie’s skin and become him for you? I will take his form and you will desire me and beg for my touch on your soft, vulnerable places, and you will be mine.”
A horrible picture rose in Garland’s mind of Alasdair, strong and beautiful as he had been just a few days before, making love to her. But when she looked into his eyes they were a dead black, and when he smiled his teeth were long and pointed. She squirmed to get away from him as he kissed her neck then bit savagely into her throat. “Get out of my head!” she shouted.
A flash of lightning illuminated the hall with acid light. The things around the room stared up at Mahtahdou, their eyes wide, as thunder drummed around them.
“What if I did? Do you forget that there are still plenty of weapons I can wield against you? Remember what I can do to your friend Kathy or anyone else I choose. And what if you leave here now? Can you tak
e that with you?” He motioned at Rob again, then pretended to study his fingernails. “If poor Dr. Mowbray washes up on your beach dead, I should hate to think of the dim view the Mattaquason police will take of that.”
“What?” She stared up at him.
“Especially after they find that note saying that he’s gone to Garland Durrell’s house—” He made a gesture, and the three-legs began to creep toward them, surrounding her and Rob as they bared their pointed teeth. A wave of their horrible stench washed over her and she nearly gagged.
“And the condition they’ll find him in…” Mahtahdou murmured inside her head. “Who would have thought that nice Mrs. Durrell was capable of such a horrible act?”
One of the three-legs gave its nasty snigger. Another bent over Rob’s neck, mouth gaping. A flash of lightning glittered on its teeth.
“Don’t you dare touch him!” she cried, trying to kick it away. As she did, another grabbed at Conn and snatched him out of her arms. But it dropped him after only a few feet, whining. Garland launched herself at Conn as the thing tried to grab him again, and she realized that the touch of the purple shirt had hurt it.
Mahtahdou flowed toward her, thick and dark and almost solid-looking, barring her way to Conn. But her outstretched hands plunged through him, through a cold stickiness that made her shudder even though she knew there was no substance to it.
“How dare you touch me?” Mahtahdou shrieked in her head and jerked aside.
Garland winced—it hurt almost as much as if he’d shouted in her real ear—but didn’t take her eyes off Conn. Her momentum carried her right to him, and she snatched him against her and rolled, glad for the cushioning effect of the life jacket she still wore. She came up into a crouch, scrambled back to where Rob lay a few feet away, and squinted down at Conn’s upper arm where the three-leg had bitten him. Was that blood?
Mahtahdou growled, a wordless, inhuman sound. He’d grown till his head almost touched the high ceiling, and he loomed over her and Rob and Conn.
Another bolt of lightning made her gasp again and shield her eyes. Thunder cracked overhead with a sound like breaking bones, and above it wind roared angrily.
And a flood of icy sea water gushed through the doors of the hall.
Chapter 20
A thin, tearing squeal abruptly cut off as the doorkeeper disintegrated in the frigid flood. Mahtahdou’s creatures scrambled frantically to escape it, screeching in panic. Garland beat them back and gripped Conn, then just managed to grab onto Rob’s belt as the water swept toward them.
The surge slammed her into the wall back first. She gasped, winded, but again her lifejacket cushioned her against the blow. The cold water almost instantly numbed her hands but she kept her grasp on both Rob and Conn, and their combined weight and mass kept them from being tumbled in the flow.
“Unhh…” Conn stiffened in her arms, then gasped and grabbed at her neck.
“I’ve got you,” she said to him over the roar of the rising water. “Hold on tight.”
He didn’t answer, but she felt his legs clamp around her waist below the jacket. Now if only Rob would wake up—she couldn’t be sure she could keep his head above water—
There was barely time for her to gulp a lungful of air before the flood washed over her head. She tried to kick up toward the surface but it was impossible to tell if she was aiming in the right direction. The rushing water pulled and tossed and nearly yanked Rob from her unfeeling fingers but she hung grimly on, and Conn’s arms around her neck would have choked her if there’d been air for her to breathe. If they didn’t let go, maybe their bodies would be found together—
Then she was above the water, and it was pulling the other way. As quickly as it had come the water was receding, pouring out through the doors at an unnatural speed. She drew as much breath as Conn’s death-grip would allow, then let go of him and grabbed at a beam of wood in the wall to keep from being sucked out of the hall. The three-legs had tried to escape by making themselves tall again, but the relentless rush of water pulled them through the door and out into the darkness of the storm.
She clung to the beam—the water had dragged her farther than she’d guessed and she was only a few yards from the door—and watched them go. What was Mahtahdou doing? Had his fury made him create a storm so strong that it had escaped even his control?
“Conn, you can let go a little,” she murmured to him as the water level dropped to knee depth. Rob still hung from her grip like a dead weight—no, not dead, please not dead—and she wouldn’t be able to hang on to him much longer. She eased him down to the floor then dropped beside him, trying to hold his head out of the last of the flood. She was still alive and unhurt, and so was Conn. Had Rob survived as well? Or had both men in her life been destroyed by Mahtahdou? Oh, Alasdair…grief sharp as Mahtahdou’s knife sliced through her. She did her best to swallow it back. Right now she had to keep Alasdair’s son from suffering his father’s fate.
She flexed feeling back into her cramped fingers and reached for Rob’s throat. A thin pulse beat there, to her enormous relief. Rob’s body, at least, was alive. Whether his mind had survived Mahtahdou was another question.
Where was Mahtahdou? She stood up and surveyed the hall. The deluge had done more than purge it of Mahtahdou’s creatures. It had scoured their filth from the walls so that they glowed with a pearly light visible even in the dimness of the storm-darkened afternoon. The last of the water had drained away, leaving behind it the clean, fresh tang of the open ocean.
A scream that managed to be both deep and shrill, like all the notes on a pipe organ played at once, split through her mind. Across the room the black shadow of Mahtahdou cowered behind the selkie throne. Fear radiated from him in almost visible waves, and all at once Garland understood. This hadn’t been his storm.
But if it wasn’t his, then whose was it?
As if in answer to her question something slammed against the outside wall of the hall. Another gush of water, driven on a blast of wind, burst through the doors. She grabbed for Rob’s belt again and clamped her arm around Conn, but instead of flooding the room the water rushed up in a column, shaped by the wind. The column grew and broadened till it reached the roof of the hall, then swirled and began to change. Two immense legs appeared at its base and two equally mighty arms rose and flexed. At the top of the column a pair of narrow, glowing eyes, lit with cold lightning, searched the room. The figure opened its mouth, and thunder rolled through the hall. Conn whimpered and burrowed against her, letting go to clap his hands over his ears.
For a few seconds the enormous figure towered over them, surveying the newly cleaned walls, the throne behind which Mahtahdou cowered…and her. She pressed Conn’s head against her and shrank away as the figure took one enormous step across the room and bent toward her. A gust of wet wind whipped her hair back from her face. This was it. They would drown after all, she and Conn and Rob—
But the wind and water that swirled past her were warm, not icy. And the glowing eyes focused on her were wild and elemental, but not malevolent.
And then she saw that the huge figure held something—something limp that glittered here and there. It hurtled out of the air and splatted in a sodden heap against Conn, then fell to the floor. She stared down at it and saw another flash of gold. It was their fishnet quilt, the one that she and Conn had made together, the one that had so captivated Mattaquason’s fishermen a million years ago in the window of Kathy’s shop.
* * *
“NO!” Mahtahdou shrieked.
“Damn,” she muttered under her breath. He hadn’t forgotten about them after all. The pain of his cry in her head made her close her eyes. But when she opened them again, she saw that Mahtahdou hadn’t moved.
“Conn,” she said, pulling his hands from over his ears. “Can you stand?”
He let his legs relax from around her waist and set his feet to the floor. After a second, he nodded.
“Good. Get ready to run when I say so. Run to
the beach if you can and look for seals. They’ll take care of you.”
“Not leave,” he whispered.
“Yes leave. It will only be for a little bit.” Just because the storm-thing seemed hostile to Mahtahdou didn’t necessarily mean that it would be friendly to them.
But where had it come from? And how had it gotten hold of one of her quilts? A mental picture of her cedar-shingled roof flying into Nantucket Sound flashed through her mind, and she flinched.
A gust of wind blew into her face, and she looked up. The enormous tempest was looking at her, and she saw the purpose in its eyes. Whatever it was, it seemed to know exactly what it was doing. Somehow it had gotten hold of one of the quilts Kathy had made her take back and had brought it to her. And whatever it was, Mahtahdou feared it. The question was, what did it want her to do with it?
She picked up the sodden quilt, wrung the water from it and inspected it swiftly, one eye on Mahtahdou and the storm. The gold cord she’d so carefully knotted into a net with real fishing net knots and sewn into place over the fish was still intact. Of course it was. She didn’t do shoddy work.
But why had it been brought to her?
“NO!” Mahtahdou shrieked again. The storm had turned away from her and was reaching for him.
But Mahtahdou would not go down without a fight. With a whoosh of displaced air he shot upwards, as tall as the storm-figure and as terrifying. The two figures circled one another and then grappled, wet wind and black smoke surging and rolling above her. Conn cowered against her, clutching her purple shirt around him.
Then it hit her. Alasdair’s skin lay forgotten on the floor where the flood had washed it, directly across the chamber from her. Could she get to it and run while Mahtahdou was distracted? Not that Alasdair needed it anymore—the thought cut like a knife—but it didn’t seem right to leave it here. And she had to try to find Conn’s as well.
Skin Deep Page 24
