In The Dark Of Dreams Part 39

He grabbed her throat, squeezing. His face was stricken, but pale, his eyes lost in anger and fear, and remorse. "I was thinking I want to live."

Jenny snarled at him, no longer pretending to be furious. Les planted his mouth over hers-kissed her so hard their teeth sc.r.a.ped. He tasted wet and sloppy, and when she tried to wrench her head away, he held her in place, forcing his tongue into her mouth. Jenny bit down.

Les jerked back, swearing. Blood dribbled from his mouth. Jenny tasted it and spat. His eyes glittered, with fury or hurt. She still wasn't certain which when he turned away, breathing hard, staring at the sea.

"You think you understand the world," whispered Les. "You and your crazy family. But it's so much bigger than you realize, and there's so much wrong with it, too. Don't you ever think about what it would be like to just . . . start over?"

"Start over with your own life," she told him, hating her voice for trembling. "Don't make that choice for everyone else."

Les caught her hand, squeezing too hard. "I know what the Consortium did to you. I know how they view the world. I know their methods. What they've done is beyond forgiveness. But they are right about one thing. There is something coming, Jenny. If it's not the Kraken, it will be something else that ends the world we know. It's only a matter of time."

Jenny wrenched her hand away, but he made it clear that it was only because he let her. Her wrist ached, and so did her fingers.

"Coward," she whispered, heart breaking for all those memories that would be forever tainted. "You and the Consortium. All of you, cowards. You get all your prophecies and precogs, and glimpses of a bad future, and you want to help it along, or hurt people because you think it'll put you in a better position to survive. You think the world has to change? Fine, grow a pair and change it. You want to survive what you think is coming? Or just survive to the end of the month?" Jenny gave him a look of pure disdain. "You're not going to survive s.h.i.+t by turning on your friends. Go to h.e.l.l, Les. Go to f.u.c.king h.e.l.l."

Les had been silent, pale, his eyes dead as he listened to her. She couldn't imagine his thoughts, and didn't want to. Jenny treaded water in front of him, feeling the kra'a burn against her skull while Perrin burned on the other side of his wall, that wall that she had cracked open the moment Les had brought her to the surface. Perrin had heard, seen, everything-a.s.suming she understood how all this worked.

And he was close now. She had stalled almost long enough.

"I'm sorry you feel that way," Les finally said, a little too quiet. "Because there's something between us." He grabbed her hair, forcing her to look at him. "A bond. A. Very. Real. Bond." He spat out the words with a clenched jaw.

"Not between us," she told him, through her own gritted teeth.

"It happens sometimes," he went on. "But it's rare. Special. Something every Krackeni desires, to find that one soul-"

"Stop."

"-that is yours alone, in all the world." Les leaned in, staring into her eyes. "There doesn't have to be love, Jenny, but it makes it easier."

She s.h.i.+vered. "I'm not yours. There's no bond."

"I feel it!" he hissed. "I felt the echo of it the first time I met you, but I thought it was just my imagination. Just before everything went to h.e.l.l, though, it . . . flared. I could see it in you. And if you're not bonded to me-"

"It's Perrin," she told him, unable to bear listening to another word of what he was saying. "Perrin is mine. I'm his. That's our bond you felt."

Les stared. "No."

Tears bit her eyes. "You want to know what I was searching for all these years? What drove me? It was him. Always him. I found him when I was a child, and that was it. I've known Perrin all my life and I love him. I love him, Les, more than anything."

He shoved her away, and the look in his eyes was stunned, brokenhearted. "Not him. Anyone but him, Jenny."

Because he has always had what you wanted, she thought. Oh, G.o.d. Les.

"I always made it clear I felt nothing for you, except friends.h.i.+p," she whispered.

Les dragged in a deep breath, and reached out again to grab her arm. His fingers squeezed too tightly, but she didn't make a sound.

"I suppose you think . . . Perrin . . . can give you something I can't," he said, hoa.r.s.e. "You just don't know him, Jenny. Or maybe you do. Maybe you like a little pain."

Those tears rolled down her cheeks, but not because he was hurting her body. Just her heart. Les was gone. Her friend was dead.

"I'll miss you," she whispered.

Les frowned. "What?"

Jenny head-b.u.t.ted him. He was not expecting it, and she had good aim. His broken nose crunched. She tried to dart away, but he grabbed her, swearing ugly words as fresh blood streamed down his face.

Jenny was certain he would hit her. The rage in his eyes was terrifying. But just as quickly it turned into disbelief, a terrible hurt that reminded her too much of the Les she had known, the man she had believed him to be. Good, vulnerable, c.o.c.ky Les. Les, who had been her friend.

Les, who spun her around. His good hand disappeared-and then reappeared, holding a knife. He was so fast, Jenny didn't have time to fight before he dug the blade into the meat of her neck, so hard he pushed her underwater. Jenny screamed, the sea flooding her mouth, choking her. Les pulled her deep under the surface. Jenny glimpsed the mermaids watching, teeth bared in excitement.

The kra'a screamed with her. Power pulsed, like a shotgun being pumped. Jenny slammed her elbow into Les's gut. Again and again, trying to twist away. Les stopped trying to pry out the kra'a just long enough to punch her side, and then her ribs, making her double over. The knife flashed back to her skull, digging in harder.

Enough, whispered the kra'a.

A pulse of blue light roared over Jenny's body, slamming from her in a shock wave that sent Les spinning into the mermaids with crus.h.i.+ng force. Blood streamed from their noses as they drifted against each other, stunned and twitching.

Jenny went blind, clawing at her throat. She tried kicking, but was too weak to reach the surface.

Perrin, she called out, widening the crack in the wall between them. A rush of images surrounded her, along with the sensation of extended arms, neck and shoulders hunched, her large, muscular body undulating as her hips were forced up, tail driving down in a propulsive, distance-eating beat- I'm coming, he said, and she snapped back into her own body.

Something very large b.u.mped her legs, and her mind reached out instinctively. She wanted Perrin, but it was the great white shark that filled her thoughts: cool, restrained, and filled with strange purpose.

No time, whispered the kra'a, and Jenny's hand moved of its own accord, reaching out. When the shark made another pa.s.s beneath her, her fingers closed around its fin, and she was pulled into swift, graceful flight.

Stop, Jenny told the kra'a, afraid. Stop controlling me.

We know your heart. You would do this anyway.

Doesn't matter. This is my body.

Our body. One flesh. One spirit. Three minds.

Three minds? asked Jenny.

Me. You. It, Perrin said, breaking in. Where are you taking her?

Below, whispered the kra'a. To the Kraken.

It might have been around Christmas, or maybe the New Year, but while some folks were eating turkey and fighting with family over the remote control, Jenny had climbed into a submersible, alone, to dive almost three miles below the ocean's surface.

Lost, sinking, drifting. Listening to the walls groan as the ocean tried to crush her little metal bubble. VHF radio turned off. No lights except the pinp.r.i.c.k glow of dials.

Peaceful. Safe. No one around who could hurt her. Nature might take her life, but that was okay. Wouldn't be personal. Not malicious, or vindictive, or cruel. In nature, life and death happened. It just happened, and you couldn't always stop it.

Sometimes, you didn't want to stop it.

Jenny knew there was magic in the sea. It was not the only reason she loved the sea, but it added one more element of wonder to an unseen world that was already awe-inspiring. The sea was life. More life than could be dreamed.

But dreams, apparently, were the cornerstone of all that life.

And she was the chosen dreamer.

Sharks could dive to a depth of six thousand feet. A little over a mile. For humans without protection from pressure and cold, one thousand feet was the limit. And even that was too much.

She didn't know how deep they had gone, but it was already difficult enough to breathe. Each rush of salt water into her body made her feel as though she was on the edge of drowning.

The cold was terrible. The pressure, crus.h.i.+ng.

You are going to kill me, Jenny told the kra'a. I'm only human, no matter what changes you've made.

Wait, it whispered. Wait.

Perrin's warmth filled her mind. Bring her back.

Wait, whispered the kra'a, again.

And the shark continued its descent.

Jenny tried opening her eyes, but the pressure was too much. She journeyed, blind, helpless to do anything but grip the fin in her hand, suffering the weight of the sea and what was facing her below, the immensity of which continued to grow inside her mind.

The Kraken opened its golden eye.

You, whispered a low voice. You, of the song.

Each word fell into her. Each word a blow. Each word drowning her ident.i.ty. Jenny struggled with all her strength to remember herself. For a moment, she didn't even recall her name.

Jenny, said a low voice. You are Jenny.

She clung to that name, and the voice, which sank into her as warm and strong as the rumble of the Kraken inside her head. Anchoring her. Rooting her so that she did not rip away. A masculine presence, filling her mind, holding the hand of her spirit. It was the most freeing, transcendent, sensation she had ever experienced-joined and strengthened, and made one-as though her soul was capable of miracles. Bigger than the heart of the beast waking beneath her in the darkness, staring at her with its golden eye.

Strong hands slid around her waist.

Who? she asked.

Perrin, he said. I am Perrin.

Jenny remembered, in flashes. A beach. A boy. Silver light and silver scales, and the silver waves of the sea. She remembered a man with pale eyes, and the hands that held her now, she remembered, too. She reached, fumbling, her movements slow and painful and cold, and touched a muscular arm that wrapped around her, drawing her close and tight against a hard chest and a broad tail that undulated against her legs.

The shark continued to pull Jenny down, but she hardly noticed. Her fingers were tight as iron clamps around its fin, and that was the only part of her physical self that still felt strong. Her body had moved beyond discomfort, past pain and cold. Dying, a little more with each pa.s.sing second.

But inside, she was safe and warm, and didn't care.

I care, whispered Perrin, holding her even closer, warming her skin. I care, Jenny.

We're being watched, she thought at him, numb. I feel eyes.

Ignore them.

She ignored the gathering Krackeni, because the Kraken chose that moment to lift its head from where it was buried beneath thousands of years of rock and sediment. Sluggish. Still partially asleep. But slipping into a deeper awareness.

She felt it all her in her mind, part of her observing from within the Kraken itself, and another part seemingly gifted with magic eyes that were able to see the seafloor buckle and heave upward. The shock wave that rippled from that movement spun the shark sideways. Jenny lost her grip on its fin and rolled with Perrin, who held her tight against him.

The Kraken moved again. Claws. Tail.

Speak to it, said Perrin urgently. We're close enough now.

Speak, whispered the kra'a. Dream.

I don't know how, she told them, her mind flirting with a very pressing need to fall unconscious. All that was left of her was her mind, it seemed. She could not feel her body anymore.

Then feel mine, Perrin told her, and his soul gathered her beneath his skin.

She could see again, suddenly-the outlines of ma.s.sive rocks, where she glimpsed movement: flowing silver hair and narrow muscular bodies that darted amongst fish, fleeing into shadows; and huge, pale eyes that stared at her in pa.s.sing.

She saw herself, in Perrin's arms. Small and still, pale as a corpse. Bubbles trickled from her nostrils, but so few she was surprised her brain had enough oxygen to keep functioning. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe she was hallucinating all of this. Seeing herself was frightening.

Fear, rumbled the Kraken. Fear tastes like prey.

No, Jenny said instantly, forgetting for one brief second that she was speaking to a sea monster. Fear of death is a fear of losing what you love, and not experiencing more. Fear, at the loss of never knowing something else, or having the chance to be something else.

The Kraken stirred. I have slept too long. I feel the weight of time.

No, Perrin soothed, mentally reaching over Jenny's shoulder. No time has pa.s.sed since you entered your slumber. You still have many lives yet to experience.

Many lives. Jenny suddenly understood.

The Kraken had to want to sleep. Its dreams had to be better than life. Its dreams had to make it forget itself. And live, as something else.

So many dreams, Jenny told it. Good dreams.

Dreams are not the same as life, said the Kraken, breaking more earth. The shock wave spun them into a pile of rocks. Searing pain lanced down Perrin's side, and Jenny felt it.

Then let us live for you, she said, fighting not to be buried in that pain. We can live what you never will.

And Jenny reached for the first thing that came to mind, and pushed it at the Kraken.

It was a simple memory. Perrin, kneeling in front of her, speaking of knights and s.h.i.+ning armor-and the rush of warmth that had filled her as she watched him: the overwhelming, heart-in-her-throat ache of safety and love, chasing away a lifetime of loneliness. Emotions that bloomed again, inside her. Raw and s.h.i.+ning.

Jenny pushed those memories upon the Kraken with a deep, wild satisfaction-and all the force two souls could muster. Because Perrin was behind her, feeding her his strength and compounding it with a rush of love so powerful she would have choked had she still been in her body.

And, for one moment following that, Perrin lay exposed to her-his whole life, his darkest thoughts-everything spread out before the eyes of her heart.

And she looked with her heart. Even as she felt him looking at her.

Jenny heard a deep rumbling sigh inside her head-the thunder of a mental voice so powerful it should have killed her.

She sent the Kraken another memory, of Perrin holding her after they had made love, before she started crying and remembering her baby. She sent the Kraken her memory of seeing Perrin shape-s.h.i.+ft after leaving The Calypso Star-the magic of it, the awe she had felt -and she sent it, too, the memory of her joy after she had learned that she was pregnant- -the secret hope that she might have another child- -the secret desire to live a long life with the man inside her mind- -the secret and terrible joy- -of being loved- -loved so deeply- -and having her- -deepest dream- -come true- Every good thing in her heart and memories, she fed to the Kraken. Relentless in her outpouring, flooding the beast, until she heard another thunderous sigh that was nonetheless soft and full of pleasure.