After a wistful look down into the suddenly clearing water, and a yearning glance to the fortress, he climbed. Slid off his air tank, peeled off his mask and kicked free of his fins; then he stood there, dripping onto the boat as she sized him up.
She whistled, almost giggling. “I’m guessing you had to borrow a suit for the swim.”
Caleb narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re making jokes?” He pointed over his shoulder to the mainland, where helicopters roamed over the ruins of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. “Right after that just happened?” His hand clenched into fists. “Nina, what have you done?”
Her grin evaporated. Her eyes darted to the disaster site, then back to her prisoner. “I… I’m still sorting it out. Still figuring…”
“Your place in Calderon’s world?”
“My place,” she said through clenched teeth, “is with my boys.”
“Our boys.” Caleb leaned toward her. “Nina, listen. If I had only–”
“Looked? If you had bothered, or if Lydia hadn’t completely distracted you?”
“I know. I would have seen you, but I had no idea. I wasn’t even thinking of questioning it. You were dead, I thought. Why would I want to relive that? Why would I look for you, only to see you die again?” His eyes pleaded, and this time, at last he really meant it. “I would have, Nina. I would have gone to the ends of the earth to save you.”
She snickered. “Touching. But we both know that once you found out I was working for Waxman, you were glad I was gone.”
“I’m not going to argue anymore. If you’re not going to let me go, then shoot me if it’ll make you feel better.”
“Oh it would, Caleb. It really would. But I think Jacob and Isaac really want to meet their daddy, and I can’t deny them such a simple pleasure.” She took a seat opposite him on the deck, crossing her silky tan legs slowly while she leaned forward, casually holding the .45. “But first, there’s the matter of Giza’s subterranean labyrinth. Senator Calderon tasked me to find out exactly what you learned down there.”
Caleb cocked his head. “Why? Couldn’t he get the boys to RV it?”
Nina didn’t move. “Their minds are… a little OCD, I’d say. Getting them to focus is like teaching a golden retriever to play chess in a park full of kids throwing balls.” She absently tapped the gun’s barrel against her front teeth. “Now, why don’t you tell me what you’re up to? What is it you and Xavier thought you could do to stop Calderon? Stop a man who could do…” she motioned to the devastation on the shore “…that?”
Caleb smoothed back his thick wet hair, and his eyes locked on hers. She didn’t need the gun to make him feel like he was at her mercy. Just like when they had first met, he felt out of her league, humbled by her beauty. Only now, he could see something else behind her eyes: the calculating, catlike fury and selfishness that Nina possessed in abundance. But he held onto a hope that just as Caleb had changed after he had discovered he had a son, maybe some grand lycanthropic transformation would work her over, reforming her. But it didn’t seem likely.
“Go to hell,” he whispered. “You want to find out, you know what you have to do.”
“Oh,” Nina said, tracing her lips with the gun’s barrel, “you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Caleb stood up. “Again, I’m not here to talk, and I’m not here to help you. Do what you need to do, but I won’t be a willing subject.”
Nina stood beside him, taking the bait without realizing she’d just been hooked. Smiling, she reached for him and said, “Just the way I like it.”
He felt a burning rush as she grabbed his wrist, and then she was turning him towards her, and the sun was behind her, blazing through her hair, and her face disappeared into the blackest shadow as she leaned in.
And then her lips were on his, her tongue opening his mouth, her lungs sucking in his breath. He squirmed in her grasp, even as he felt the electric chill of her curves against his wet chest, her legs encircling his calves, pinning him in place as she took his thoughts. His memories, his essence.
But this time, he was prepared. His mind was focused.
She may have thought she was taking from him, but this time, he was the one giving.
She saw it all, just as he had mentally prepped it, as if he had loaded the projector in his mind, and had it playing in an infinite loop so that anyone that poked their head in for a look, would see…
A massive ripple of energy, nearly invisible but sparking as if roiling with electromagnetic charges at war within the ether, a wave tearing through New York City, blasting the skyline apart, cutting a swath through the island, tearing across the harbor and splitting the waters, causing mirror-image tsunamis, parting before the Statue of Liberty which seemed to wince before being struck. It shatters, arm, torso and crown tossed in separate directions, caught up in the flux and separately pulverized.
Then—ascent, and a satellite’s view. The ripple tears across the globe, leaving a path of destruction from an origin point somewhere in eastern Alaska. But then… the clouds are massing, swirling over the northern hemisphere, lighting up from within, periodically bursting with intense flashes. Massive auroras are appearing in the upper atmosphere, as if an unseen hand works with vibrant watercolors, splashing them in broad brushstrokes over the world’s skies. Breathtaking. Beautiful.
The earth trembles. Wobbles unsteadily. In breaks of the clouds, the land masses seem to be shifting. Major sections tearing free. Waters spilling over entire countries. The globe shifts the wrong way. The poles reverse. Flipping, as if something has completely unsettled the core, scrambled it and shut off the dynamo at the center of Earth’s molten center, then jump-started it again.
The vision draws sideways so that the Earth is out of the frame, and its companion pulls near. The Moon. Silvery, lustrous, complacent. So bright…
…on one side. But we’re nearing, soaring around, towards the darkness. Towards…
The vision ended in a searing ball of light. Intense white that turned to yellow, then dimmed… and dimmed. She couldn’t get her bearings, but Nina felt as if she were weightless. Still in space. Still…
Then it dawned on her. She couldn’t see, not yet. Not with the glare of the sun still tearing at her eyes, but she knew all the same. She was in the water. In the damn harbor. With… a vest on? And—a regulator stuffed into her mouth. She was breathing the tasteless but pure air from a scuba tank.
That meant…
Shit!
She tried to spin around, awkwardly lashing out with her hands. Where was he? How did she get out here?
But then she realized it.
He had been ready for her. He knew she’d try to pry the truth from his mind, and he was ready.
But with what?
What the hell was that?
She floated, and her vision gradually returned along with the sound of a motor, a familiar motor, departing swiftly.
Damn Caleb.
Lucky, he thought, steering the boat the last few yards, coasting into the dock, where two youths waited with ropes to reel and tether him in. I got lucky. Nina had her guard down, and never considered that Caleb could show her anything that would literally send her reeling.
Let her stew on that, he thought as he disembarked and gave the boat-hands a tip out of the purse Nina had left behind. He took that with him, wrapped in a towel that he tucked under his arm.