The water turned cold around him. Then a strong hand closed on his wrist and helped to pull him up onto the rock. He coughed up the water he’d swallowed even as other hands slipped the laces of his boots from around his neck.
He wiped at his eyes and saw his friends around him. Frost stood just upstream, gaze set with concern. Blue Jay had helped haul him out of the water, and Kitsune had his boots in her hands. They were at a place where the river had leveled off somewhat, the current slackening.
“Are you all right?” Frost asked.
Oliver blinked. “I can see.”
“That’s a good sign,” Blue Jay told him, a smirk on his trickster’s face.
The light in the tunnel flickered and Oliver looked around to see that there were torches set in sconces high on the walls, the fire burning bright and hungry. Whatever was burning, it was no ordinary flame. He stood, still trying to catch his breath, neck sore from the chafing, and throat raw from choking on the water. But he was all right.
He’d live.
“It might have been simpler if you’d dropped the sword,” Kitsune said, head tilted with the fox’s curiosity.
“True,” Oliver replied, a bit sheepish. “But it’s the king’s sword. I’m counting on it to buy me a few seconds to beg for my life, when the time comes.”
“You might want to think about using it to cut off the head of whoever’s trying to kill you,” Blue Jay said helpfully.
Oliver laughed, then winced at the pain in his throat.
“We have company,” Frost said, his voice low and dark.
The river grew colder as it swept past them. The winter man was summoning his power. Oliver tensed, hoping Frost would not need it.
“Nagas,” Kitsune said.
Oliver looked. In the torchlight that flickered through the tunnel, he saw several people coming toward them, armed with long bows, each with a quiver of arrows slung across their backs. They looked ordinary enough, though they had long, sharp talons that likely made weapons unnecessary.
Then he saw the way they moved and realized they were not ordinary at all. From the waist down, they were serpentine, and their bodies moved swiftly under the water as they came upriver.
Beyond them, Oliver could see the end of the tunnel, where it opened into sunlight, and he gritted his teeth and shook the sword free, ignoring the jacket as the current carried it away. All that mattered now was living long enough to wish he’d held on to it.
Halliwell had never felt so old. It hurt him to think about it. Here he was in a place that should not exist, having seen more fantastic things in a single day than most people would see in their entire lives. Some dim part of his mind told him he ought to feel more alive, feel some thrill that there was truly such a thing as magic. Instead, he felt tired and hopeless and lost. Of course, he was all of those things.
The only direction he had now was to find Bascombe, but not because it had been his assignment-to hell with that. The only way to make sense of anything was to find the one person who might have some idea how to get him home.
Once he had Bascombe, of course, he still wanted answers. The mystery of the murdered children and their missing eyes and the connection to the Bascombe family was a riddle he needed solved. But getting back to the world was even more important. Untethered from everything he’d ever known, he had no touchstone for what mattered. What did it mean to be a policeman if there was no one to recognize his authority?
His service weapon was clipped to his belt at the small of his back. He’d worn it under his jacket, but now the jacket was abandoned. Halliwell felt no need to hide the weapon, but he had seen Julianna looking at it warily. She had been astonished that her firm, Bascombe amp; Cox, had arranged for him to have a permit to carry the gun in the United Kingdom. Halliwell had not.
Money greased the wheels of the world.
His world, at least.
He had no clue how this one worked.
But Oliver would. And Oliver was in love with Julianna. Having her along for the ride had at first been troubling to Halliwell. Now it had turned out to be vital. For if Bascombe got wind of her presence here, then he would come find them, and they wouldn’t have to search for him anymore.
For now, though, the hunt was on.
Julianna had caught up with him as they walked down the craggy, rocky slope to the river. Halliwell had taken a look to the north and seen only more of the same, unwelcoming landscape, so he had turned south instead, toward the forest. They’d been walking alongside the river ever since, and been in the shade of the trees for a while now.
“You seem awfully certain of your direction,” she said.
Halliwell kept his focus on the bend in the valley ahead, where the river turned and disappeared in the woods. “I am.”
“How do you know Oliver went this way?”
“I don’t.”
Julianna faltered and fell behind. But when Halliwell didn’t wait for her, she caught up to him quickly and moved around in front of him, forcing him to stop.
“I thought we’d established a pretty decent rapport, Ted,” she said, searching his eyes.
Halliwell let out a breath and nodded. He reached up and scratched at his stubbled chin. “We have. I’m sorry. Maybe I’m not handling this as well as you are.”
“Funny, I thought you were handling it better. I’m feeling pretty brittle at the moment. One little thing and I might shatter.”
He smiled wearily. “At least you’re young. I’m an old bastard and pretty sure I’m in shock, and not in the best shape for a cross-country hike.”
“Bullshit,” Julianna said, eyes narrowing sharply. “You’re in better physical condition than I am. And you’re fiftysomething, not eighty-something. If you’re freaked, that’s fine. Me, too. But we’re here together. Talk to me.”
Halliwell nodded, thinking how beautiful she was, how fortunate Bascombe was to have a smart, pretty girl like this in love with him. How tragic it would be if anything happened to her here.
“Can we walk?” he asked.
Julianna got out of his way and fell in beside him as he started downriver again.
“Water is life, kid,” Halliwell said. “If we follow the river, we’re likely to find a settlement somewhere along the way. The other direction wasn’t exactly inviting terrain, you know? So I’m following my instincts, and a little logic. That doesn’t mean Oliver went this way, but if we have any chance of finding him, we’ve got to find people, to learn something about this place, figure out how to track him.”
“Logical enough,” she replied. “But you could’ve said-”
“Did you feel that?” Halliwell interrupted. He stopped and glanced around, staring at the ground.
“Feel what?”
Halliwell didn’t have to answer her. A moment later he felt it again, and saw in her eyes that she had felt it, too. A small tremor in the earth beneath their feet. It came a third time, more quickly, and he saw the leaves shaking on the trees.
“What the hell is that?” Julianna asked in a whisper.
He had no answer for her. The tremors continued, but this was not an earthquake. It was too regular, too rhythmic, to be anything of the sort. It was more like he imagined a battlefield would be, the impact of mortar shells or bombs not too far away.
“Let’s keep going,” he said.
They walked more quickly now, moving along the river’s edge beneath the shade of branches of the trees along the bank. The tremors continued at a slow, steady march, but they were growing in intensity.
“It’s getting closer,” Julianna said. “Ted, maybe we should go a different way.”
Halliwell shook his head, not in disagreement but simply in confusion. He had no idea what to do. Again, they faltered and came to a halt. Now the branches and leaves all shook with each tremor. The shaking of the earth was not strong enough to throw them off of their feet, but if it kept growing, it soon would be.