Motion nearby forced him to open his eyes again. Hands reached toward him and disentangled him from the wreckage, hauling him out. Every part of his body screamed at the torture, and he cried out as he was laid on the muddy ground, damp with melting snow. He wanted to beg for it to end, but the nightmare only deepened. The one horror he'd come to dread more than anything: long, bony fingers shoved against his chest, a brief searing sensation through his ribcage-
— and the pain quickly ebbed. Once he had calmed down enough to realize he could breathe without effort, John instinctively scuttled back and threw a hand up to scrub the blood from his eyes. Aside from the fading echoes of crippling agony, he was whole and healthy again.
Through the light of the fires that seemed to draw closer by the minute, he could see a woman gazing down at him, the reddish glow lending an artificial warmth to her skin. Long-haired and delicate, she could have been the woman in Woolsey's video-except Jackson had met that woman in Iraq. Hanan, he'd called her. How could she have gotten to Tasmania ahead of them?
"Rest your mind, John," she said, helping him to sit up. "The retrovirus remains dormant in the population at large. My name is Anata. We've come to help you both."
Not Hanan after all, then. He didn't like the idea that she'd had an opportunity to rummage around in his brain while he'd been unable to put up a fight. Still, she'd saved his life while she was at it, so he owed her some consideration.
"Okay," he said carefully. "So, can I ask if you're a cambion or a full blood succubus, or is that considered rude?"
Anata smiled and nodded to one of the three people who stood around her, a guy with Ronon's build who scooped up Rebecca easily.
"You don't need to worry about offending me. I've already seen your fears, and I understand them." Anata rose and offered John a hand to pull him to his feet. "I am a succubus. These cambion with me are my children. I'm sorry to rush, but we must hurry now. Don't be fooled by the snow that remains. The fires surround us-fires lit, as you suspect, by those who would hunt us all down-and the wind is only getting worse."
The heat was palpable, and cinders blew across John's field of vision. "How did you get here'?"
"The same way we'll leave." Anata was already hurrying along the gully, her wet hair slapping against her back. All four of them were dripping wet, John noticed. The remains of the snow'? That didn't make much sense.
None of them made any attempt to force him into going with them, but without a radio he didn't have much in the way of options. He could actually hear the blaze, a distant roaring sound that could nearly have been mistaken for a waterfall. Following Anata, he glanced up and saw the rapid movement of the clouds. When he returned his attention to the path, he had to pull up short as a small black shape darted out from the bushes. About the size of a large housecat, it stopped and sniffed at the group before loping off with an awkward-looking gait.
"Tasmanian devil," one of the men explained, picking up the pace.
John frowned. While he hadn't expected the actual animal to resemble the Warner Brothers cartoon, he hadn't had this image in mind, either. "I thought they'd be bigger. And nastier."
The man laughed. "Try grabbing hold of one. You'll learn all about nasty. It'll bite through your arm in one go and tear it off at the shoulder."
It was hard to tell if that was meant to be a joke or not. Probably not, John decided. In any case, there were more animals running past now. Dozens of dog-sized kangaroos that someone identified as pademelons, as well as other things he couldn't identify, joined them on the trail, heading down the gulley to… something.
John caught sight of a dark patch like a distorted well at the bottom of the path. As soon as they reached it, two of the cambion jumped in. He couldn't see them land but heard the splashes. Before he could think to object, the man carrying Rebecca dropped her body in and leaped in after her.
"How long can you hold your breath?" Anata asked briskly.
Still getting his bearings, John tuned out the panicked screams of more animals in the distance. "How long do I need toy"
"Sixty meters underwater."
Sixty yards, farther than the length of an Olympic pool, on one breath. On any other day he would have said that was beyond his capacity. Today, however, the alternative was being charbroiled.
"Through caves," the succubus continued, raising her voice above the alarming crackle of trees being consumed by the flames. "It will be pitch black and there will be some tight turns. If you begin to drown, we should be able to save you, but I need to know if you can do it alone."
With a splintering sound and a shower of sparks, an enormous tree overhanging the gulley went up like a torch. Anata glanced up. "There is insufficient snow to halt the blaze and this spot will be an inferno in less than a minute."
That was all John needed to hear. He jumped in and instantly was assaulted by the icy water, slamming the breath from his chest. Breathing; he had to breathe hard. Hyperventilating would rid his system of as much carbon dioxide as possible before going under. After five or six deep lungfuls, he could feel himself getting lightheaded with excessive oxygen. Good; he'd need it.
Anata surfaced beside him as several animals took the leap as well. "I'll be right behind you," she told him, batting one of the creatures aside as it tried to find purchase on her shoulder. "Swim straight down until you touch the bottom, where you'll see a faint light. Head toward it."
"Got it."
John had never been much of a claustrophobic, and he considered himself to be a pretty good swimmer-he'd even done some SCUBA diving way back when. This experience was very, very different. He ducked under the surface, using his arms and legs at the outset. Almost immediately his ears started to pound. He brought his fingers up, pinched his nose and blew slowly to equalize the air pressure in his Eustachian tubes while continuing to kick. His ears popped right away, but only a few kicks later he had to clear them again. And again.
All around him was darkness, blacker than anything he could have imagined. The water was freezing and Freud must have been out of his mind to equate this in any way, shape, or form with returning to the womb. He felt the first tickle of a need to breathe and paused for half a second before something slapped his leg. Anata. It was reassuring to have proof that she was still with him.
Abruptly he hit the bottom, slimy with weeds and silt. The light-where was it'? Twisting around, he found a muddy red glow. He turned to head toward it when something caught his leg.
For a brief, terrifying moment, he thought he'd gotten tangled in the weeds. Then he felt Anata's hand on his face, forcing his head around, and a duller greenish light came into view. The magnitude of his near-mistake struck him; he'd been about to head back to the surface.
John's lungs and muscles burned. He battled the instinct to suck in a breath of water, of anything. They must have gone down about sixty, maybe seventy feet, which meant the remaining air in his lungs had compressed to…to… He couldn't remember. All he could see, all he could think about, was the light, growing larger and brighter but not quickly enough.
Just focus on the light. Focus…
His vision blurred, and then there was nothing.
Chapter twenty-nine
Out of the approaching wall of orange-tinted smoke burst two Marines, coated in ash and diving into the jumper. "Button it up!" Lome commanded, throwing himself into the pilot's seat. Someone slapped at the hatch controls, and Edwards pounded out a smoldering ember caught in Koslov's sleeve. As Jumper Two lifted off, Rodney could see claws of flame devouring the last few plants that had surrounded their landing zone. The Marines grinned at each other, riding an adrenaline rush even through their wheezing.