The orange ring skimmed out over the water and plopped onto the surface near Quinton’s head with the grace of a belly-flopping eight-year-old. But it was close enough for him to stroke to and grab and I thanked every god I could think of that I wouldn’t have to throw it a second time. The ring wasn’t big enough to shove around any adult’s head, but Quinton held on to it with one arm while he kept the other wrapped around Solis’s chest. I ran the line around the anchor winch and started walking—crabbing painfully—backward to haul in the slack until the men bumped into the side of the boat.
It took a bit of mucking around with the rope to get Solis and Quinton to the swim platform at the back. Solis came up coughing and sputtering as Quinton lifted him, and the edge of the platform butted into his gut, forcing out air and water. He wasn’t steady on his feet and Zantree had to push, pull, and haul him back up to the main deck and then into the main cabin, but he was alive and whole when he got there. By the time Solis was dried off and bundled up in new clothes and warm blankets, sitting in the galley with a cup of hot coffee, the wind had risen and the boat was being shoved by wild gusts and unexpected waves once again.
“I don’t know why those monsters fell off—and thank God for it—but it’s still going to be a fight all the way up,” Zantree said, sticking his head in through the hatch to the enclosed bridge above the galley. He looked at me. “You think they’re coming back anytime soon?”
I took my best guess and shook my head. “Can’t maintain the storm and the illusions for long. There weren’t very many merfolk and they retreated as soon as one was hurt. I suspect she can’t afford to lose people. She’ll put her energy into wearing us down with the storm and save the rest in case we make it to the cove.”
“I’ll take your word on that, ’cause the winds aren’t dying down, but I sure don’t see any more of those fish men. I’ll keep the helm a while longer down here in the pilothouse station while you guys dry off and warm up. I may need a lookout on deck before that, but I can handle the wheel myself. You think you’ll be ready to take over in an hour or two?”
“Yeah,” Quinton replied from under a towel. “Are we still running for Roche Harbor?”
“That’s my plan, though it sounds like we need to go on and find Gary’s cove before we’re out of time or battered to pieces. If this storm keeps up we may have no choice—we’re way off course and fighting the shore current on the west boundary. The wind pushed us out a good bit and if it keeps on the same way, we’ll be pushed back toward the rocks around the Chatham Islands. I’ll have to work her out of the current and back into the main channel as soon as it starts to slack up. Then we’ll have to scoot across to the west shore of San Juan and hope for a lift up the inside current once the tide’s turning. We’re going to be two or three hours later than we thought, if we can make it at all without overshooting Mosquito Pass.”
“Doesn’t sound good . . . That was a hell of a storm,” Quinton said.
“I’d say hell’s exactly where it came from. Never seen anything like that. It was like the squall picked us out. And now it’s back, so I’d better hop to it.” He vanished up the steps and we could hear him moving around overhead.
I looked at Solis, huddled in his blanket. He looked pale but it appeared he wasn’t ready to give up just yet. I was still a bit damp and battered myself but better off than he was.
“You still with us, Solis?” I asked.
He nodded with more vigor than I thought needed. “To the bitter end—if it comes to that.”
“I hope not.”
“This is becoming a most bizarre adventure.”
“I’m not sure I’d call it an adventure,” I started.
“What else can it be? It’s no longer a case, per se. I cannot report most of what’s occurred today without running the risk of being accused of . . . flights of fancy.”
“You mean being crazy,” I corrected.
He shrugged with a small bow of his head and half-raised shoulder. “That, too. I am finding it quite . . . eye-opening.”
“If by ‘eye-opening’ you mean, ‘staring in terror,’ yeah, it is that,” Quinton said. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going up with Zantree to take a look at the charts and nav and try to figure out where we’re going and how to spot it before it’s my turn at the wheel.” He gave me a significant look—including a half-raised eyebrow—and turned to head up the steep steps to the bridge.
When he was out of earshot, I turned my attention back to Solis. “I’m sorry—” I started.
“For what?”
“For getting you into this mess and getting you half-drowned.”
“You did not get me into any mess. This came with the case—which I requested—and while I find it uncomfortable, it is necessary. I would not be diligent if I didn’t pursue this, however strange it becomes. I’m not of a delicate mind that cannot stand a challenge,” he added, leveling a finger at me as if I’d implied any such thing.
“I never said so,” I objected.
“But you think me inflexible.”
“I find you . . . rather traditional.”
He snorted. “Hidebound.”
“No. Just somewhat . . . by the book.”
“It depends on which book. . . .”
I laughed. “I suppose it does. Which book do you favor?”
“I no longer know. But . . . I am not what you think I am.”
I raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything to stop whatever admission he held, trembling on the verge of words.
He took several slow breaths, glancing around as if he were gauging the room’s ability to absorb what he was about to say without mutating into something even stranger than the creature that had snatched him from the deck. “I must be honest: I have looked into your background, Blaine. I . . . wanted to know if you were, perhaps . . .”
“Dangerous? Crazy?” I offered.
“Untrustworthy.”
“Personally or professionally?” I asked. I wasn’t offended; I would have checked up on him, too, if I’d had questions about the reliability of his information or person. And he’d had occasion to question mine once or twice, since I’m such a source of strange cases and freakish accidents. That was understandable and it didn’t bother me . . . anymore.
“They’re the same, in most cases. As you know.”
I nodded. I’d done enough background investigation and legal discovery to know that people who aren’t on the up-and-up in one aspect of their lives usually don’t meet a higher standard in any of the others. Unless they’re a particular variety of sociopath.
He spoke haltingly and without letting his eyes rest on mine for more than a second or two at a time. “But I found nothing of that sort, in spite of your . . . penchant for the unsettling. I have found you frustrating in the past—and still do—but I trust you.”
I think I let a tiny smile sneak onto my face at that admission; it would have been inappropriate to grin. I just murmured, “Thank you.”
“What we are heading into may require more than that. We may be stepping into the land of nightmares—my nightmares, at least. You seem to take such waking horrors in your stride, but I . . . When that creature pulled me over the railing, I fought because I did not want to die and I thought I might break free. But in the water where I was blind and couldn’t draw breath, my old nightmare returned.”
I sat still and breathed as quietly as my aching ribs would allow, letting him say what he needed to. He inhaled and exhaled slowly and went on, gazing directly at me for a moment as he asked, “You recall after we found the bell aboard Seawitch you asked what I had experienced? And I told you it was the bad dream of my youth: sharp circumstance closing in until I could only go helplessly forward. In the dark tunnel of the water with that song in my ears, I felt my death was inevitable, that I had no alternative but to go meet it.”
“That was the song of the sea witch, not your dream.”