Chronicles Of The Keeper - The Long Hot Summoning Part 48

Austin merely stared.

"No matter what it seems like most of the time," Dean amended. "And besides, you said you checked on her and she didn't leave her bed. She'd have a little trouble sucking my life force from the second floor."

"You don't know that."

"Why are you so suspicious?"

"Why aren't you?"

"Austin, I can't be after accusing her of something without proof. It doesn't do any harm to think the best of people."

"Yeah, tell that to your dried and desiccated corpse," the cat muttered. Jumping carefully down, he followed Dean out into the hall. "Now, where are you going?"

"Up to the third floor." He hauled back the elevator door. "I can't just leave Lance at the beach indefinitely. You want to come, then?"

"No . . . yes."

"You're thinking he'll be an ally in this sudden antimummy thing of yours, aren't you?"

Austin wrapped his tail around his toes and snorted. "I don't know what you're talking about."

By concentrating on what a pleasant swim she was having, Claire managed to have pretty much exactly that. Granted, the water had a tendency to throw in a grope or two when she was least expecting it, but she was a strong swimmer and, bottom line, it made what could have been a tedious hour a little more interesting.

When she could hear the breakers folding against the sh.o.r.e, she stopped and had another look, checking out potential landing sites. The white sand beach stretched in a shallow arc for six or seven kilometers rising up from the water in a series of staggered dunes, sand giving way to gra.s.ses, to low ground covers, to aspens, and a good distance inland to the darker blur of a mature forest.

The blue-and-white-striped cabana, flags flapping, sides billowing in the gentle breeze, looked ridiculously out of place.

Blue-and-white-striped cabana?

Claire lost her stroke, got smacked in the face by a wave, choked, coughed and started swimming with everything she had left. a.s.sumptions, conscious or subconscious, were no longer relevant. She knew what lived here.

The first time they'd used the elevator, the first time they'd stepped out on this beach, had nearly been their last. While she and Dean had been wading, taking a bit of a break from the extended responsibilities their lives had become bogged down in, a giant not-a-squid had heaved itself up through the surf, attacked, and almost crawled, squelched? flopped? back into the elevator with them. It had moved terrifyingly fast even on land, out of its natural habitat.

Did an unnatural creature have a natural habitat, Claire wondered, sucking in a lungful of damp air and then burying her face again for another dozen strokes. Or would it be an unnatural habitat?

Not that it mattered. It was fast on land. In the water . . .

The gentle touches had become motivating rather than interesting, each bringing with it the image of a tentacle tip rising from the depths.

Or the shallows.

The waves were stronger this close to sh.o.r.e and gritty with sand scooped up from the bottom. Claire crested a breaker, let it carry her forward, tumbled out of it, rolled once, got her feet under her, planted them firmly, and pushed off. It wasn't quite body surfing, but it was faster than swimming.

Still not as fast as the not-a-squid.

Would you just shut up!

Subconscious, conscious; she neither knew nor cared.

During the brief time Augustus Smythe had been back in charge of the guest house, he'd killed three. In the first two months they were back, she and Dean had taken out two more. They hadn't seen one since.

Which didn't mean anything, really.

What part of shut up are you having trouble understanding?

The next time her feet touched bottom, she was standing in water only thigh-deep and it was faster to run. Her skirt, which had been floating free and in no way impeding her kick, had decided to buy into the general sense of urgency by wrapping around her legs. Wet silk had the tensile strength of 80s hair spray and, unable to get the knots untied, she finally hoisted it to waist level and made it ash.o.r.e.

Well aware that collapsing at the edge of wet sand, sinking down, gasping for breath, and giving thanks for her survival would have been the proper dramatic gesture, Claire kept moving until she got to the cabana. A dramatic gesture on the Otherside tended to call an appreciative audience. She did not need to deal with any more weirdness right now.

Throwing back the flap, she stared down at the large blond Bystander lying on one of the air mattresses, his left arm tucked up behind his head, his right curved around an inflatable shark. Even in the dim light filtering through the canvas, all his exposed skin was a deep, painful red; Claire'd seen rarer steaks.

His eyes were a brilliant blue.

Eyes?

"Nice underwear!"

Dropping her skirt, she wondered why she'd expected him to be Australian. "Who are you?"

"Lance Benedict!" Tossing the shark aside, he bounded to his feet. "You escaped from her, didn't you?"

"Who?"

"Meryat!"

"No." She stepped inside and let the flap fall. "How did you get here?"

"The same way you did, I imagine!"

"Do us both a favor and don't imagine anything." Technically, Bystanders couldn't affect the Otherside, but in all the times she'd taken the elevator to the beach, Claire had never realized it was on the Otherside so ... wait. Could there be more than one Otherside? Would that not depend on how many sides reality started with? And did that not depend on an agreed upon definition of reality?

My head hurts.

"Did she throw you from her dahabeeyah?"

"Her what?" With any luck, there was some variety of painkiller in the first aid kit.

"Her boat. You're wet! Did she throw you from her boat?"

"Who is she?"

"Meryat, the reanimated undead! I'm the only one who knows how to stop her!"

Claire looked down at the two aspirins in her hand and realized they were going to be insufficient. "Please, tell me everything from the beginning."

"In the beginning, only the ocean existed, and on this ocean appeared an egg from which was born the sun-G.o.d, Atum. He had four children, Geb and Shu, Tefnut and Nut. Planting their feet on Geb . . ."

"Lance."