by Tanya Huff
She grinned, her teeth very white in the darkness. "You didn't used to be this nervous."
"I didn't used to have cause." His fingers wouldn't release their grip so he left them where they were. "So this missing surveyor, what did he—"
"She."
"…She do to piss off the protective spirit?"
"Nothing much. She was just working for Stuart Gordon."
"The same Stuart Gordon you're working for."
"The very one."
Right. Celluci stared out at the trees and tried not to think about how fast they were passing. Vicki Nelson against the protective spirit of Lake Nepeakea. That's one for pay for view…
*
"This is the place."
"No. In order for this to be 'the place' there'd have to be something here. It has to be 'a place' before it can be 'the place'."
"I hate to admit it," Vicki muttered, leaning forward and peering over the arc of the steering wheel, "but you've got a point." They'd gone through the village of Dulvie, turned right at the ruined barn and followed the faded signs to the Lodge. The road, if the rutted lanes of the last few miles could be called a road, had ended, as per the directions she'd received, in a small gravel parking lot — or more specifically in a hard-packed rectangular area that could now be called a parking lot because she'd stopped her van on it. "He said you could see the lodge from here."
Celluci snorted. "Maybe you can."
"No. I can't. All I can see are trees." At least she assumed they were trees; the high contrast between the area her headlights covered and the total darkness beyond made it difficult to tell for sure. Silently calling herself several kinds of fool, she switched off the lights. The shadows separated into half a dozen large evergreens and the silhouette of a roof steeply angled to shed snow.
Since it seemed they'd arrived, Vicki shut off the engine. After a heartbeat's silence, the night exploded into a cacophony of discordant noise. Hands over sensitive ears, she sank back into the seat. "What the hell is that?"
"Horny frogs."
"How do you know?" she demanded.
He gave her a superior smile. "PBS."
"Oh." They sat there for a moment, listening to the frogs. "The creatures of the night," Vicki sighed, "what music they make." Snorting derisively, she got out of the van. "Somehow, I expected the middle of nowhere to be a lot quieter."
Stuart Gordon had sent Vicki the key to the lodge's back door and once she switched on the main breaker, they found themselves in a modern, stainless-steel kitchen that wouldn't have looked out of place in any small, trendy restaurant back in Toronto. The sudden hum of the refrigerator turning on momentarily drowned out the frogs and both Vicki and Celluci relaxed.
"So now what?" he asked.
"Now we unpack your food from the cooler, we find you a room, and we make the most of the short time we have until dawn."
"And when does Mr Gordon arrive?"
"Tomorrow evening. Don't worry, I'll be up."
"And I'm supposed to do what, tomorrow in the daytime?"
"I'll leave my notes out. I'm sure something'll occur to you."
"I thought I was on vacation?"
"Then do what you usually do on vacation."
"Your footwork." He folded his arms. "And on my last vacation — which was also your idea — I almost lost a kidney."
Closing the refrigerator door, Vicki crossed the room between one heartbeat and the next. Leaning into him, their bodies touching between ankle and chest, she smiled into his eyes and pushed the long curl of hair back off his forehead. "Don't worry, I'll protect you from the spirit of the lake. I have no intention of sharing you with another legendary being."
"Legendary?" He couldn't stop a smile. "Think highly of yourself, don't you?"
*
"Are you sure you'll be safe in the van?"
"Stop fussing. You know I'll be fine." Pulling her jeans up over her hips, she stared out of the window and shook her head. "There's a whole lot of nothing out there."
From the bed, Celluci could see a patch of stars and the top of one of the evergreens. "True enough."
"And I really don't like it."
"Then why are we here?"
"Stuart Gordon just kept talking. I don't even remember saying yes but the next thing I knew, I'd agreed to do the job."
"He pressured you?" Celluci's emphasis on the final pronoun made it quite clear that he hadn't believed such a thing was possible.
"Not pressured, no. Convinced with extreme prejudice."
"He sounds like a prince."
"Yeah? Well, so was Machiavelli." Dressed, she leaned over the bed and kissed him lightly. "Want to hear something romantic? When the day claims me, yours will be the only life I'll be able to feel."
"Romantic?" His breathing quickened as she licked at the tiny puncture wounds on his wrist. "I feel like a box luuu — ouch! All right. It's romantic."
*
Although she'd tried to keep her voice light when she'd mentioned it to Celluci, Vicki really didn't like the great outdoors. Maybe it was because she understood the wilderness of glass and concrete and needed the anonymity of three million lives packed tightly around hers. Standing by the van, she swept her gaze from the first hints of dawn to the last lingering shadows of night and couldn't help feeling excluded, that there was something beyond what she could see that she wasn't a part of. She doubted Stuart Gordon's junior executives would feel a part of it either and wondered why anyone would want to build a resort in the midst of such otherness.
The frogs had stopped trying to get laid and the silence seemed to be waiting for something.
Waiting…
Vicki glanced towards Lake Nepeakea. It lay like a silver mirror down at the bottom of a rocky slope. Not a ripple broke the surface. Barely a mile away, a perfect reflection brought the opposite shore closer still.
Waiting…
Whippor-will!
Vicki winced at the sudden, piercing sound and got into the van. After locking both outer and inner doors, she stripped quickly — if she were found during the day, naked would be the least of her problems — laid down between the high, padded sides of the narrow bed and waited for the dawn. The bird call, repeated with Chinese water torture frequency, cut its way through special seals and interior walls.
"Man, that's annoying," she muttered, linking her fingers over her stomach. "I wonder if Celluci can sleep through…"
*
As soon as he heard the van door close, Celluci fell into a dreamless sleep that lasted until just past noon. When he woke, he stared up at the inside of the roof and wondered where he was. The rough lumber looked like it'd been coated in creosote in the far distant past.
"No insulation, hate to be here in the winter…"
Then he remembered where here was and came fully awake.
Vicki had dragged him out to a wilderness lodge, north of Georgian Bay, to hunt for the local and apparently homicidal protective lake spirit.
A few moments later, his sleeping bag neatly rolled on the end of the old iron bed, he was in the kitchen making a pot of coffee. That kind of a realization upon waking needed caffeine.
On the counter next to the coffee-maker, right where he'd be certain to find it first thing, he found a file labelled "Lake Nepeakea" in Vicki's unmistakable handwriting. The first few pages of glossy card stock had been clearly sent by Stuart Gordon along with the key. An artist's conception of the time-share resort, they showed a large L-shaped building where the lodge now stood and three dozen "cottages" scattered through the woods, front doors linked by broad gravel paths. Apparently, the guests would commute out to their personal chalets by golf cart.
"Which they can also use on" — Celluci turned the page and shook his head in disbelief — "the nine-hole golf course." Clearly, a large part of Mr Gordon's building plan involved bulldozers. And right after the bulldozers would come the cappuccino. He shuddered.
The next few pages were clipped together and turned out to
be photocopies of newspaper articles covering the disappearance of the surveyor. She'd been working with her partner in the late evening, trying to finish up a particularly marshy bit of shore destined to be filled in and paved over for tennis courts, when, according to her partner, she'd stepped back into the mud, announced something had moved under her foot, lost her balance, fell, screamed and disappeared. The OPP, aided by local volunteers, had set up an extensive search but she hadn't been found. Since the area was usually avoided because of the sink holes, sink holes a distraught Stuart Gordon swore he knew nothing about — "Probably distraught about having to move his tennis courts," Celluci muttered — the official verdict allowed that she'd probably stepped in one and been sucked under the mud.
The headline on the next page declared DEVELOPER ANGERS SPIRIT, and in slightly smaller type, Surveyor Pays the Price. The picture showed an elderly woman with long grey braids and a hawk-like profile staring enigmatically out over the water. First impressions suggested a First Nations elder. In actually reading the text, however, Celluci discovered that Mary Joseph had moved out to Dulvie from Toronto in 1995 and had become, in the years since, the self-proclaimed keeper of local myth. According to Ms Joseph, although there had been many sightings over the years, there had been only two other occasions when the spirit of the lake had felt threatened enough to kill. "It protects the lake" she was quoted as saying, "from those who would disturb its peace."
"Two weeks ago," Celluci noted, checking the date. "Tragic but hardly a reason for Stuart Gordon to go to the effort of convincing Vicki to leave the city."
The final photocopy included a close-up of a car door that looked like it had been splashed with acid, spirit attacks developer's vehicle. During the night of 13 May the protector of Lake Nepeakea had crawled up into the parking lot of the lodge and secreted something corrosive and distinctly fishy against Stuart Gordon's brand-new Isuzu trooper. A trail of dead bracken, a little over a foot wide and smelling strongly of rotting fish, led back to the lake. Mary Joseph seemed convinced it was a manifestation of the spirit, the local police were looking for anyone who might have information about the vandalism, and Stuart Gordon announced he was bringing in a special investigator from Toronto to settle it once and for all.
It was entirely probable that the surveyor had stepped into a mud hole and that local vandals were using the legends of the spirit against an unpopular developer. Entirely probable. But living with Vicki had forced Mike Celluci to deal with half a dozen improbable things every morning before breakfast so, mug in hand, he headed outside to investigate the crime scene.
Because of the screen of evergreens — although, given their size, barricade was probably the more descriptive word — the parking lot couldn't be seen from the lodge. Considering the impenetrable appearance of the overlapping branches, Celluci was willing to bet that not even light would get through. The spirit could have done anything it wanted to, up to and including changing the oil, in perfect secrecy.
Brushing one or two small insects away from his face, Celluci found the path they'd used the night before and followed it. By the time he reached the van, the one or two insects had become twenty-nine or thirty and he felt the first bite on the back of his neck. When he slapped the spot, his fingers came away dotted with blood.
"Vicki's not going to be happy about that," he grinned, wiping it off on his jeans. By the second and third bites, he'd stopped grinning. By the fourth and fifth, he really didn't give a damn what Vicki thought. By the time he'd stopped counting, he was running for the lake, hoping that the breeze he could see stirring its surface would be enough to blow the little bastards away.
The faint but unmistakable scent of rotting fish rose from the dead bracken crushed under his pounding feet and he realized that he was using the path made by the manifestation. It was about two feet wide and led down an uncomfortably steep slope from the parking lot to the lake. But not exactly all the way to the lake. The path ended about three feet above the water on a granite ledge.
Swearing, mostly at Vicki, Celluci threw himself backwards, somehow managing to save both his coffee and himself from taking an unexpected swim. The following cloud of insects effortlessly matched the move. A quick glance through the bugs showed the ledge tapering off to the right. He bounded down it to the water's edge and found himself standing on a small, man-made beach staring at a floating dock that stretched out maybe fifteen feet into the lake. Proximity to the water had seemed to discourage the swarm, so he headed for the dock hoping that the breeze would be stronger fifteen feet out.
It was. Flicking a few bodies out of his coffee, Celluci took a long grateful drink and turned to look back up at the lodge. Studying the path he'd taken, he was amazed he hadn't broken an ankle and had to admit a certain appreciation for who or what had created it. A greying staircase made of split logs offered a more conventional way to the water and the tiny patch of gritty sand, held in place by a stone wall. Stuart Gordon's plans had included a much larger beach and had replaced the old wooden dock with three concrete piers.
"One for papa bear, one for mama bear, and one for baby bear," Celluci mused, shuffling around on the gently rocking platform until he faced the water. Not so far away, the opposite shore was an unbroken wall of trees. He didn't know if there were bears in this part of the province but there were certainly bathroom facilities for any number of them. Letting the breeze push his hair back off his face, he took another swallow of rapidly cooling coffee and listened to the silence. It was unnerving.
The sudden roar of a motor boat came as a welcome relief. Watching it bounce its way up the lake, he considered how far the sound carried and made a mental note to close the window should Vicki spend any significant portion of the night with him.
The moment distance allowed, the boat's driver waved over the edge of the cracked windshield and, in a great, banked turn that sprayed a huge fantail of water out behind him, headed towards the exact spot where Celluci stood. Celluci's fingers tightened around the handle of the mug but he held his ground. Still turning, the driver cut his engines and drifted the last few feet to the dock. As empty bleach bottles slowly crumpled under the gentle impact, he jumped out and tied off his bow line.
"Frank Patton," he said, straightening from the cleat and holding out a callused hand. "You must be the guy that developer's brought in from the city to capture the spirit of the lake."
"Detective Sergeant Mike Celluci." His own age or a little younger, Frank Patton had a working man's grip that was just a little too forceful. Celluci returned pressure for pressure. "And I'm just spending a long weekend in the woods."
Patton's dark brows drew down. "But I thought…"
"You thought I was some weirdo psychic you could impress by crushing his fingers." The other man looked down at their joined hands and had the grace to flush. As he released his hold, so did Celluci. He'd played this game too often to lose at it. "I suggest, if you get the chance to meet the actual investigator, you don't come on quite so strong. She's liable to feed you your preconceptions.''
"She's—"
"Asleep right now. We got in late and she's likely to be up… investigating tonight."
"Yeah. Right." Flexing his fingers, Patton stared down at the toes of his workboots. "It's just, you know, we heard that, well…" Sucking in a deep breath, he looked up and grinned. "Oh, hell, talk about getting off on the wrong foot. Can I get you a beer, Detective?"
Celluci glanced over at the Styrofoam cooler in the back of the boat and was tempted for a moment. As sweat rolled painfully into the bug bites on the back of his neck, he remembered just how good a cold beer could taste. "No, thanks," he sighed with a disgusted glare into his mug. "I've, uh, still got coffee."
To his surprise, Patton nodded and asked, "How long've you been dry? My brother-in-law gets that exact same look when some damn fool offers him a drink on a hot almost summer afternoon," he explained as Celluci stared at him in astonishment. "Goes to AA meetings in Bigwood twice a week."
/>
Remembering all the bottles he'd climbed into during those long months Vicki had been gone, Celluci shrugged. "About two years now — give or take."
"I got generic cola…"
He dumped the dregs of cold bug-infested coffee into the lake. The Ministry of Natural Resources could kiss his ass. "Love one," he said.
*
"So essentially everyone in town and everyone who owns property around the lake and everyone in a 100-mile radius has reason to want Stuart Gordon gone."
"Essentially," Celluci agreed, tossing a gnawed chicken bone aside and pulling another piece out of the bucket. He'd waited to eat until Vicki got up, maintaining the illusion that it was a ritual they continued to share. "According to Frank Patton, he hasn't endeared himself to his new neighbours. This place used to belong to an Anne Kellough who… What?"
Vicki frowned and leaned towards him. "You're covered in bites."
"Tell me about it." The reminder brought his hand up to scratch at the back of his neck. "You know what Nepeakea means? It's an old Indian word that translates as 'I'm fucking sick of being eaten alive by black flies; let's get the hell out of here'."
"Those old Indians could get a lot of mileage out of a word."
Celluci snorted. "Tell me about it."
"Anne Kellough?"
"What, not even one poor sweet baby?"
Stretching out her leg under the table, she ran her foot up the inseam of his jeans. "Poor sweet baby."
"That'd be a lot more effective if you weren't wearing hiking boots." Her laugh was one of the things that hadn't changed when she had. Her smile was too white and too sharp and it made too many new promises but her laugh remained fully human. He waited until she finished, chewing, swallowing, congratulating himself for evoking it, then said, "Anne Kellough ran this place as sort of a therapy camp. Last summer, after ignoring her for thirteen years, the Ministry of Health people came down on her kitchen. Renovations cost more than she thought, the bank foreclosed, and Stuart Gordon bought it twenty minutes later."
