by J. R. Rain
“Anything for you, Samantha Moon,” he said. “Anything.”
I nodded sadly—perhaps for what could have been—and the three of us headed down the pine needle-covered dirt road that cut through the heart of the island, and headed north.
On a fool’s run, no doubt.
Chapter Forty-three
The storm seemed to be growing stronger.
Wind shrieked. Trees bent. Rain rattled leaves everywhere. As we trekked north, I couldn’t help but think that Kingsley and Allison might be onto something. I was technically a carrier of one of the medallions, and my son...well, my son had consumed another medallion in a sort of potion concocted by one Archibald Maximus, who, as it turned out, was also quite the alchemist.
The medallion is in my son, too, I realized. In his blood, perhaps.
But what did the entity intend to do with my son? Was he going to drink from my boy? I shuddered and nearly worked myself into a panic. Jesus, and what did he intend to do with me? The medallion, as far as I was aware, was now eternally a part of me.
There were four such medallions, and if one of them was indeed hidden on the island, that would be three. The whereabouts of the fourth were unknown to me...and yet, even as I thought about that, the fleeting hint of a memory came to me. And then left just as quickly.
Good God, did I actually know where the fourth medallion was?
I didn’t know, but I figured it was best to approach this one medallion at a time.
More importantly: what did the bastard want with all four medallions?
Allison, who’d been casting me sidelong glances in between cautiously stepping over exposed tree roots, also had been following my train of thought. Her words came clearly to me now as we stepped into an open area of the forest: He mentioned releasing his sister, Sam.
A sister who was presently trapped within me. A blessing and a curse, surely. A blessing because her dark power fueled my now-dead body, and, in turn, gave me superhuman abilities. A curse because I was now being used by her. I was, in effect, serving as her host.
I shuddered.
But how could the medallions help his sister break free? I asked.
Lordy, Sam, how would I know? Heck, just a few days ago I was a hair stylist/personal trainer/photographer/actor in Los Angeles.
That’s a lot of slashes, I thought.
It’s called “multiple streams of income.” Oh, and you can add another slash.
Oh, yeah?
Private investigator assistant.
We’ll see, I thought. So, what good does it do us to find the medallion first?
I don’t know, Sam, but it might give us some leverage. In the least, it could thwart his nefarious plan.
I almost laughed at her word choice. Truth was, any plan that involved harming my son was nefarious. As we continued on, I wondered again how the medallions could be of use to the entity. After all, weren’t the golden discs inherently good? They were, after all, created to counteract the effects of vampirism.
Unless, Allison said telepathically, all four medallions come together. Perhaps then they can be used for evil. After all, a gun can be used to either defend or to murder.
I looked at her. “That was shockingly erudite,” I said.
“I have my moments,” she beamed.
“What’re you two talking about?” asked Kingsley, pausing and looking back. His long hair flung water everywhere, not that it mattered. We were in the open again and rain was literally driving directly into our faces.
“Girl talk,” I said sweetly.
“Fine,” he said irritably. “Looks like we’re here.”
Indeed, I could now hear the pounding of the surf, of water exploding against rocks. The hiss of retreating foam. We were at the north end of the island, near what appeared to be a straight drop down into the ocean below. Yes, the ocean was angry. The rain was angry.
Hell, even I was a little angry.
No, I was a lot angry.
“Okay,” I said, “let’s find this goddamned medallion.”
Chapter Forty-four
We stood at the cliffs.
My jacket flapped crazily. My jeans were soaked through. Yet, I never felt so alive. Wind and rain were elemental. I often felt elemental, too, deeply connected to the rhythms of night and day.
Allison, on the other hand, looked miserable. Her cheeks could have been two freshly-picked cherry tomatoes. She had also started sneezing. I needed to get my friend out of the storm—but to where, I didn’t yet know.
“Where to, Sam?” Kingsley asked on cue. He seemed to be enjoying himself. This was the first time I’d seen the big gorilla since the ‘incident.’ If anything, he looked even sexier. Dammit. Apparently, wet clothing suited him well. I loved a man with meat on him, and Kingsley had just that. Thick and meaty equaled great cuddling.
“Don’t know,” I said, although my voice might have been lost on the howling wind.
The evening was coming on full dark—although never too dark for me. The ocean was alive to my eyes, foaming and frothing and churning. Salt spray exploded from below with each crashing wave. Some of that salt spray reached us. I tasted it on my lips, and then spat it out again.
I didn’t know why I seemed to attract the medallions. Somehow, someway they seemed to find me.
He fearlessly stepped to the edge of the cliff and leaned out, looking down. Massive and immovable, he looked a bit like a cliff himself, only hairier.
“You said some others have been digging for it, too?” asked Kingsley.
I caught his meaning. “You think we should start where they’ve been looking?”
“It’s not a bad idea. After all, they might have narrowed things down for us.”
“Except I don’t know where they’ve been digging—”
“I heard someone mention some caves that were near the beach,” said Allison, cutting me off. “If I were shipwrecked and wanted to hide my gold, that’s where I would pick.”
From here, I could see a wide swath of sand not too far away, where the cliff dropped down to meet the beach. Which is where Allison suddenly set off for, sneezing as she went.
“I guess we follow her,” said Kingsley, chuckling lightly. He bowed in my direction and waved his hand. “After you, madam.”
We followed Allison down the grassy slope, slogging through puddles and ducking against the wind. My new friend seemed oddly determined. And her mind, perhaps even more oddly, was closed off to me.
I frowned at that as I followed her, as Kingsley’s sasquatch-like footfalls crashed through the tall grass behind me.
Chapter Forty-five
Miraculously, Allison led us directly to a cave.
The opening was just far enough back from the shoreline to not be flooded, and yet still deep enough to provide shelter from the pounding rain. Once inside, as our breaths echoed—well, Kingsley’s and Allison’s breaths echoed—I pulled down my hood and asked Allison if she was doing okay.
“Just cold,” she said. She smiled at me faintly, her mind still closed off.
To me, she looked...distracted. And was blinking far too much. Perhaps she’d caught a cold.
Perhaps.
It was then that my inner alarm began sounding...as always a steady buzz just inside my ear. I looked again at Allison and she again smiled sweetly at me.
“Well, now what?” asked Kingsley, hands on his hips and dripping everywhere. His big cartoon feet were buried in the soft sand inside the tunnel.
“Here,” said Allison, pointing. She’d brought her cell phone and was now using its flashlight app.
I didn’t need a smart phone flashlight app to see in the dark, and neither did Kingsley, but we were polite enough. She aimed the light toward the back of the deep cave, and revealed something that none of us were too surprised to see: digging tools. Shovels and picks and strainers. It looked like a looter’s hangout.
Rocks were piled up back there, too, many of which had been moved. Yes, someone was looking fo
r something here, and, by all appearances, had been doing so for quite some time.
Kingsley inspected the area with Allison. I didn’t. Instead, I closed my eyes and did my best to block out their voices, which seemed to echo everywhere at once. I kept my eyes closed and turned in a small circle. I lowered my hands and opened my palms. I breathed deeply, slowly, focusing.
Focusing...
Focusing on the medallion, as if it existed, as if it really could be here in the tunnel.
I didn’t know how to find something that was hidden. After all, I’d only stumbled upon the second medallion in old Charlie’s mobile home quite by accident. Back then, I had closed my eyes, like I was doing now, and the medallion just appeared to me, without effort—
I gasped.
There it was.
Burning in my mind’s eye.
Clearly.
And it wasn’t that far away.
Except, of course, it most certainly wasn’t in the tunnel.
I opened my eyes and headed out of the cave...and toward the crashing surf.
Chapter Forty-six
I looked out over the dark ocean.
Tiny filaments of light brought it all to life for me, illuminating what should have been complete blackness. I stood there at the edge of the foaming surf, which occasionally washed over my now-ruined sneakers. Since I was already soaked to the bone, I didn’t bother removing my clothes, including my shoes.
Kingsley came up behind me. Amazingly, I could smell a combination of nice cologne and something musky. Something wolfish, no doubt. He placed a gentle hand on my shoulder.
“Is it out there?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“How far?”
“Far enough that I need to swim.”
“Where, exactly?”
“An underwater cave.”
“Are you going to get it?”
“Yes.”
“You need my help?”
“No.”
“Do you love me?”
I opened my mouth, stunned by the question. Leave it to the expert litigator to drop a bomb on an unsuspecting witness up on a theoretical witness stand. “No,” I said. “At least, not like I used to.”
“You still love me, but differently?”
“Not now, Kingsley.”
“Right, right. The medallion. So, what are you going to do?”
I looked back...and up at him. “I’m going for a swim.”
Before I headed out into the water, I caught Allison watching me from the shadows of the cave. I was quite certain she was smiling. A big smile. A very big smile.
* * *
I stepped into the foaming surf, Asics and all.
I might be immortal. I might be cold to the touch. But that didn’t mean I relished the idea of stepping into what appeared to be the coldest ocean ever.
“Think warm thoughts, Sam,” called Kingsley behind me. For some reason, he seemed to be enjoying this. Asshole. Then again, the big yeti had recently made his own journey across this very body of water.
If he can do it, I can do it.
And so I started running, splashing through the ankle-high water. Shortly, the water rose to my knees, and when it got to my thighs, I took a massive, instinctive breath and dove forward, under a coming wave. I stayed under, kicking hard, using my strong arms to propel myself under the raging ocean.
I continued on, just a few feet under the surface. The occasional wave still rocked me, but shortly, I was ten feet or more underwater. Soon, I was deeper than that. Far deeper. I kicked hard, pulling myself forward with powerful strokes. The sound of the waves crashing above receded, and soon I found myself in a place of silence. Complete and utter silence.
I liked that.
I held the image of the cave system in my mind’s eye. Luckily for me, the incandescent flashes of light that only I could see were just as prevalent down in the deep. That didn’t mean I could see far, granted. No, in fact, I could barely see a dozen or so feet in front of me.
Good enough.
I wasn’t worried about sharks or killer whales or even mermaids. A merman might be damn interesting, and I briefly found myself wondering again if such creatures really did exist.
Hell, why not? I existed.
Life down here was not abundant...at least, not this close to shore. I did see silver fish that scattered before me. Once, I sensed a darker shape above me, but nothing that triggered my inner alarm system, and so I continued on...down into the deep.
Down, down.
And there it was...
A dark opening emerging through the dark waters. It could have been the maw of a great beast, waiting for something cute and curvy and stupid.
Stupid was right...
I plunged straight into the tunnel.
Anything could have been waiting in there.
Anything.
Chapter Forty-seven
I trusted my inner warning system.
For now, all appeared safe, and so I swam down through the wide tunnel, past scurrying crabs and smaller fish. I tore through swaying seaweed, and startled something big that could have been a grouper; that is, if I knew anything about fish, which I didn’t.
Either way, it flicked its thick tail and shot past me.
Well, excuse me.
I continued down. The walls seemed alive, as various plant life clung to it, all moving and swaying in the currents. Beautiful, I supposed. But I wasn’t here to admire the ocean’s beauty. I was here to recover something seemingly lost forever.
Seemingly.
My kids were a distant memory. Kingsley was a distant memory. Russell Baker and his beautiful biceps were a distant memory. All that I knew was right before me: a cave, the cold water, the ocean depths. I did not think of idle things. What Tammy and Anthony were doing right now didn’t cross my thoughts.
I only knew the tunnel. I continued into it, swimming quickly, pulling at the water, kicking the water, moving faster than, no doubt, most experienced divers. I was a superhuman immortal on land or sea, apparently.
The tunnel twisted and turned. At times, it grew wider. At other times, I was forced to pull myself through small openings. I doubted scuba divers had ventured this far. Scuba equipment was limited...and wouldn’t fit through the many crawl spaces I was presently pulling myself through.
And still I swam, keeping the image of the medallion firmly in my thoughts. It was my beacon...and I knew exactly where that sucker was.
I plunged into a small opening, not so small that I had to pull myself through this time, but small enough that I aimed my hands in front of me and brought my legs together. I was a mommy-shaped torpedo, plunging through the black water.
Black water that was alive to me.
Blazing with light.
I emerged into a massive underwater cavity. A cavern perhaps, but filled completely with water. That someone could have been here before me was an amazing concept. But someone had.
Another immortal.
The Librarian. The alchemist.
I swam down to a grouping of smaller rocks and saw the satchel there, swaying in the currents. How a satchel could have survived so long in salt water was beyond me. Then again, much of what the Librarian could do was beyond me.
I grabbed the bag, paused briefly, then turned, kicking hard, and shot up through the water, up through the tunnel and then, after an indeterminate amount of time, surfaced far from shore.
I saw Kingsley waiting anxiously near the crashing surf.
Holding the satchel, I grinned and began swimming for the beach.
Chapter Forty-eight
We were back in the tunnel.
I wasn’t shivering, although I should have been. Then again, I should have been dead somewhere deep inside that tunnel system, too. But I wasn’t, of course.
The freak lives on.
Allison crowded me eagerly, her mind still closed off to me. Did she know her mind was closed off to me? I didn’t know, but would talk to her about i
t later.
Kingsley, admittedly, took up most of the tunnel. A ceiling that I had thought was high actually got brushed by his big head.
The satchel sat dripping on a rock before us. The bag itself had been leather at some point, but was now black and seemed to be deteriorating with each passing minute.
Perhaps it had been held together by alchemical means.
Waiting just for me.
Perhaps.
I looked at my friends. Kingsley nodded. Allison’s eyes were alight with an inner fire. Then I began opening the bag. And by the time I’d done so, the material irreparably fell away in tatters.
Revealing a single coin.
Not a coin, actually. A golden medallion inlaid with three opal roses. It caught the light of Allison’s silly flashlight app, refracting it beautifully.
That such a medallion was presently in me was hard to fathom. That my son had consumed one in a potion was another hard reality to accept. That a demented entity was bent on releasing his trapped sister within me, was, of course, the hardest to believe of all.
But it was all true.
Every bit of it.
Further proof that I was undoubtedly in an insane asylum, far away from here, rambling to myself incoherently while nurses and staff stared at me sadly.
Perhaps, perhaps not.
For now, I was standing in a mostly-dry cave, staring down at the third of four priceless medallions. Priceless, that is, to me and my kind.
The vampire kind.
“Well, now we know why the others couldn’t find the medallion,” said Kingsley. “It was meant for you to find, Sam.” He held my gaze. “You and only you.”
I nodded. Of that I had no doubt. Except how and why Archibald Maximus knew I would be here 100 years later was, of course, the greater mystery.
“The first medallion reversed your son’s vampirism,” said Kingsley.
“Mostly,” I said.
He nodded. He knew all about my son. No, we hadn’t been romantic over these past few months, but we had kept in touch, and I had consulted with him on Anthony’s growing powers.
