In the Dark of Dreams

by Marjorie M. Liu

  And when she drew even closer, and pressed her forehead against his arm—resting there, quiet, her breathing ragged—he died a little.

  “I don’t know how to talk to you,” she whispered. “I’m always offending you. I know how I feel, in my gut, but the words come out wrong.”

  “No, they don’t,” he told her. “You just have the misfortune of talking to someone who is irredeemably dysfunctional.”

  A rough laugh escaped her, but it lasted for all of a second. He wanted to hear her laugh again. Her silence was deep, heavy. The dog whined. Pop music played on. The woman had stopped screaming.

  Jenny didn’t move. Her hand tightened around his arm. Perrin closed his eyes, still dying, and bent to kiss the top of her head. He needed to, more than he needed to breathe.

  The need spread, and deepened, flowing through his veins with a heat that made him dizzy, lost. He leaned down again and brushed his lips against her brow. She did not pull away or act afraid, and he took that to heart, sliding his hand up her throat, rubbing the corner of her mouth with his thumb until she leaned harder against him, rising on her toes. Her eyes were closed. With anticipation, maybe.

  But it felt deeper than that. Anticipation was cheap. This was survival. This was a moment on a beach, and dreams, and sacrifice. This was a lifetime of needing to be close to someone who had never been real except in his dreams, so heart-hungry for that dream he had never lasted with any other. Never mind he had been called a fool for that—and worse.

  “I missed you so much,” Perrin whispered, and, as her eyes flew open, he kissed her.

  Just a brush of his lips against hers. So light, but he felt that touch down to the root of his soul. Heat poured into the hole at the base of his skull, and for one moment—just one—it was as though his kra’a had returned and he was complete again. Heart humming. Aching with all the terrible beauty of life, stretching his skin.

  Jenny sighed, loosening her hold on his arm, but not her touch. She pressed her hands against his chest, featherlight on his ribs. Seared him, burned him, pushed him near an edge he hadn’t known existed. He deepened his kiss, groaning as her mouth widened, and her tongue grazed his.

  The dog barked. They broke apart. Jenny swayed, and Perrin crushed her to his chest. Both of them were breathing hard. He couldn’t swallow. Too much heart in his throat.

  “I’m losing my mind,” she whispered, breath hot against his skin.

  “I’m losing mine,” he muttered, voice torn, ragged. Suffering, again, the pulse of heat at the base of his skull. Not pain, not emptiness . . . but life. Purpose. He wasn’t sure what good he could do anymore, but if keeping her alive was all that was left to him, then so be it. She was all that mattered.

  Jenny pushed away from him. Not far, but it was enough to steal away all that rich warmth. Perrin wanted to grab her back but forced himself to remain still and harden his heart. Just enough.

  “Stay here,” he said. “Let me go.”

  “No,” she whispered, staring at him with haunted eyes. “I won’t do that. Not again.”

  Not again. Perrin felt punched in the gut, and suddenly he couldn’t stand the idea of letting her out of his sight. “Stay close, then. You want to free hostages, I assume. And find a radio?”

  “Radio first. We’ll help the woman if we’re able, but we’re not equipped to stage a full rescue. Not without possibly making things worse. I know people who can help.”

  Pragmatic. Perrin liked that. It occurred to him that it wasn’t just childhood memory and the bond of dreams that made him want her, but the woman herself. Guts and intelligence, and fire. She hadn’t lied to him yet, either—though he was an expert with omissions. Perrin studied her face, unmoving. “You’re not saying everything.”

  Her mouth opened with a strangled cough, and her eyes focused inward, conflicted. He had the distinct, uncomfortable sense that she was trying to tell him something and couldn’t. He held her face in his hands, wishing he could read her mind. Marveling at the miracle of being able to touch her at all.

  The sea witch’s face wavered in his memories. All he could recall, with clarity, were her golden eyes.

  Look between the two of you for the answers you seek.

  Perrin wasn’t certain anymore that he knew the questions. Find the kra’a? Learn how to survive and make a life for them both? Assuming she even wanted him for life?

  “Jenny,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

  Defeat flickered in her eyes, and she closed her mouth, jaw tight. Stared openly at him, so much in her eyes he leaned in, closer. He heard her sobs in his mind, and before he could push those memories away, his gut clenched so tight and hard with pain and fury, he felt sick.

  “Jenny,” he said again, his voice hard and brittle.

  “Don’t get hurt,” she said. “Please.”

  He stared. Jenny looked away, as though ashamed. “If I didn’t think someone was down there who needed help more than we do, I would just turn around. No matter what I said earlier. But I can’t do that now. So please. Please. Just . . .”

  Her voice trailed off. The dog whined at her feet.

  But he heard the words. Stay alive. Just stay alive.

  “You, too,” he said.

  The village was in worse shape up close. Broken, reeking of human waste. The wave had definitely hit, stirring up the latrines, scattering material belongings. He could see where someone had tried to clean away debris, but it was an exercise in failure without a way to maintain basic sanitation. Cleaning up human filth was something he had become intimately acquainted with.

  He and Jenny huddled in the undergrowth, at the edge of where the wave had crested. Less than fifty yards away, a man sat on a fallen tree, hacking at the trunk with a machete. He looked bored, but his head was bobbing to the pop music blaring through the forest. Not exactly subtle. No one was worried about being found.

  Other men sat nearby, talking loudly, cleaning guns and knives. Bottles clinked. Perrin smelled meat roasting, and smoke—which curled upward and sideways, toward their hiding place. His eyes watered, and he stifled a cough.

  “You see the woman?” Jenny asked.

  “No,” Perrin murmured, just as the earth swayed. He grabbed her arm, holding on until the shaking stopped. Aftershock. All the laughter died for several long seconds, then started again with a roar, and several guns fired. The woman’s voice broke into a startled, hysterical sob that did not quiet but only gained strength.

  “Shut up,” Jenny muttered. “Come on, lady.”

  Just what Perrin had been thinking. He’d known a man in prison—a boy, really—who on his first night had sobbed in his cell. Loud, endless sobs. Perrin had wanted to gag him. Tears and misery were weaknesses, prey markers. You were prey until you proved otherwise. Everyone was. Something he had never understood until his exile.

  Size and strength had given him enough time to learn the ropes. The boy was not so lucky. Perrin hadn’t been close enough to stop the abuse that followed after that first night.

  Jenny slithered away from him, crawling on her belly through the undergrowth. Perrin hissed at her, but she ignored him. The dog pawed at his thigh, whining, and he pushed the animal gently aside with a frustrated sigh.

  He got down on his stomach and tried to follow Jenny. A whale pretending to be a goldfish. The dog licked the side of his face, then disappeared through the undergrowth after her.

  Perrin watched its wagging tail—and her feet—and stopped worrying about being heard. The blasting music, combined with the woman’s sobs, were both loud enough to drown out anything less than a bomb going off. He also suspected that the men were more than a little drunk.

  Perrin found Jenny pressed flat to the ground between two trees, less than thirty yards from the encampment. He squeezed in close, so tight and hard he was practically on top o
f her—one leg hooked over hers, his arms resting on her back so that his hand clasped her shoulder. Better to keep her in one place, he thought—though having her pressed so close had other advantages.

  Jenny didn’t look at him. Her gaze was locked on the woman.

  He saw her through the undergrowth. Fully clothed, which he found oddly comforting. Her long blond hair hung tangled around her face, which was bruised and smeared with mud. All of her was muddy, cut. She sat against a tree, unrestrained, hugging her knees to her chest and weeping.

  Perrin looked past her at the men. He counted ten, but knew there were more, perhaps twice that number scattered around several fires, and deeper, in the woods. Some of them had to be sleeping. He could hear and see their dreams: cars and airplanes and children; glimpses of women who rolled naked in sand and sea, the singing sea, which buoyed silver fish that transformed into silent gods, buried in stars. . .

  He shook himself, disturbed. Not all those dreams were human. Threads tugged on him from the sea. For some reason that made him want to look at Jenny. Her eyes were closed, brow furrowed in discomfort.

  “What?” he breathed in her ear.

  Jenny shook her head. “I don’t know. I heard something. I saw . . .”

  She stopped. He said, “You saw the sea, but it was twisted, like a dream.”

  Her eyes flew open. “How did you know?”

  Perrin shook his head. They needed to talk. Soon. He had a feeling about what was between them, but it was not something he could explain here, now. It wasn’t even anything that should exist. Although, as some humans would say, Whatever.

  She was still waiting for an answer, staring at him with those piercing green eyes. He squeezed her shoulder and pointed with his chin toward the woman. Her sobs were quieting, but Jenny tensed beneath him as a man stood and stumbled drunkenly toward her.

  He said something in slurred Indonesian. The woman squeezed shut her eyes, shaking her head. The other men laughed harder and shouted at their friend. He grinned at them, teetered to the woman, and grabbed her hair. She screamed. Jenny flinched. The man slapped her so hard, her head rocked to the side, slamming against the tree trunk.

  The woman choked down a sob with a muffled whimper.

  “Fucker,” Jenny muttered. Perrin said nothing. He’d noticed another man, sitting deeper in the shadows, away from the others. Bronze skin, long hair. Tattoos covered his arms like claws. He wasn’t laughing or smiling, but he was watching. His eyes were very dark, almost black.

  Yes. Definitely these were the same men who had attacked the yacht. Of all the islands the sea witch could have dumped them on. . .

  She does nothing without a reason.

  An electronic hiss filled the air. A crackle. Perrin almost didn’t hear it beneath the raging music, but all the men flinched—even the one who stood above the Frenchwoman. Someone turned the music off. Silence fell over Perrin like a hammer.

  The tattooed man set aside his beer, reached down beside his legs, and seemed to fiddle with something. Perrin couldn’t see what it was, but that electronic hiss filled the air again, broken by a man’s voice.

  Rough, coarse, gruff. Vaguely familiar. Jenny stiffened.

  “You were supposed to contact me,” said the man. “Did you get the woman?”

  The tone was angry. The mercenary did not seem bothered. He held the receiver to his mouth with preternatural calm, his dark eyes seeming to catch the firelight instead of reflect it. “No. She escaped. There was a helicopter. Armed men, led by the red-haired woman you warned me about, the one with only one eye. We had to leave, or die.”

  Jenny bowed her head, muttering something under her breath. Perrin wanted to do the same. He had been certain that helicopter meant danger. He had taken her away from her people instead. Stupid. So stupid.

  The tattooed mercenary’s English was slightly accented, but far more cultured than that of the man in the radio, who growled. “Did she go with the fuckers?”

  “She was gone before then, into the water with a man. She never surfaced.”

  “What man?”

  “Unknown. Big. Naked. Long silver hair. There was nothing on him in the files you sent.”

  Silence. Long silence. “Stay close to the radio. We’ll be in contact.”

  The mercenary began to reply, but the woman lurched forward, scrabbling in the leaves. Terrible hope in her eyes. She screamed something in French, a long stream of words that were desperate, raw.

  “What’s this?” asked the man on the radio. “Who the hell is that?”

  For the first time, the tattooed man looked uncomfortable. “She was here when I arrived. The men commandeered a yacht earlier this week. I needed to keep them happy.”

  “I don’t give a shit. Get rid of her. Now.”

  Jenny rocked forward. Perrin held her down. She was strong, but he had a hundred pounds on her, all muscle. He clamped his hand over her mouth. The dog appeared beside him and whined.

  The woman was still screaming in incomprehensible, broken French. The mercenary sighed, reached behind his back, and pulled out a gun. It was a new weapon, gleaming and clean, and looked nothing like the battered rifles the other men kept near.

  The woman gasped, eyes widening. The mercenary aimed and pulled the trigger.

  Half her head exploded.

  Jenny cried out against Perrin’s hand. Quiet, muffled, choked down—but the music was gone, and all the men were so silent. Sounded louder than it should have.

  Perrin held his breath as backs stiffened. Some turned, scanning the forest. So did the tattooed mercenary. Gun still out. Gaze sharp.

  The dog whined again, loudly, and shot through the undergrowth toward the men. Wagging its tail. Bouncing, acting incredibly excited to see them. Making a lot of noise.

  Everyone relaxed. But the mercenary stared at the forest a moment longer before he put away his gun. He picked up the receiver. “It’s done.”

  No one answered. The call, apparently, was over.

  Perrin removed his hand from Jenny’s mouth. Her whole body trembled, so violently he thought her teeth would start chattering. She stared at the dead woman, stared and stared, but he wasn’t entirely certain she was seeing her.

  He squeezed her shoulder. Someone turned the music back on though at a lower volume. The mercenary shouted orders, and the mood was somber as some men stood, ambling over to the dead Frenchwoman. One of them kicked at the dog, threw a bottle at it. Perrin heard a hard thud, the dog cried out, and he stopped listening and trying to look.

  “Let’s go,” he whispered in Jenny’s ear. No way would they get to that radio.

  She shuddered, glancing at him. Eyes haunted, filled with tears. Perrin dug his fingers into her shoulder and kissed her hard. Heart aching, aching, in his throat.

  “Perrin,” she whispered, against his mouth. Hearing her say his name, like that—with pain and loss, and need—made him shudder, too.

  He said nothing but slithered backward, drawing her with him. They moved silently, with great care, and it was a long time before they reached a distance where it was safe enough to crawl on all fours. Only when the fires were a prick in the darkness did they stand. Carefully, listening for any hint that they were not alone.

  Jenny still trembled, but her jaw was set, eyes hard.

  “You knew the voice on the radio,” Perrin said.

  “I haven’t heard that man speak in six years,” she replied, softly. “He’s my uncle.”

  She didn’t seem inclined to share more. Perrin wrapped his hand around hers and made her follow him on a circuitous path to the beach. He chose a spot well away from the battered encampment, afraid the cuts in their feet would be contaminated by the human waste he still scented every time the wind turned. Stars glittered overhead. Waves whispered to him. Perrin felt afraid when
he entered the water, as though he would be swallowed, stolen away.

  The feeling passed. He and Jenny waded in to their waists, where it was deliciously cool. He stripped off his bathing shorts and pressed them into the pack still clipped around her waist.

  “Sorry,” he said, but she only nodded, her gaze elsewhere. Her other hand drifted against the water’s surface, and there was a weight to her movement, as though she were touching the body of some sleeping giant.

  “He sent men to kill us, all those years ago,” she said, voice faint. And then: “I hear singing.”

  Perrin stared, unsure how to respond. He heard singing, too: the waters of the sea mixing with the hum of deep earth, rising into a voice that was as old as the first rock that had formed the world. It had been a long time since he had heard that music. Lost to him, on land. Lost, with his kra’a.

  He should not have heard it now. Just as Jenny should have been deaf to it.

  Perrin pulled her close, his legs binding together in painful cracks of bone and rippling skin. He tilted them back into the water as his torn, throbbing feet expanded into the fins of a massive tail that continued to sting even after its transformation was complete. Jenny clung to his side, one leg hooked over his waist. She took a deep breath, and he sank them both down.

  Dark as death beneath the waters, but Perrin could see his way well enough to the anchored yacht. He swam fast, drinking deeply from the sea, and soon they surfaced beside the hull. Jenny clung to the ladder as his tail shifted into legs. He squeezed her hand around the rung.

  “Let me check,” he breathed. “Stay here.”

  She gave him a dirty look, which made him smile. Finally. Some fire again.

  Perrin climbed the ladder. His pounding heart was the loudest thing in the night. No one was on deck except the dead man he had glimpsed earlier. Bloated, distended, smelling so rotten Perrin wanted to gag. He stepped around him.

  Inside, more silence. No minds, dreaming. No one hanging out, drinking a beer. Probably because the small bar he found had already been raided of its liquor.