The Wild Ways (34 page)
“From what?”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Tanis is a bit emotional. Tanis, hi. What’s up? Don’t kneel!”
Tanis wobbled but stayed standing and compromised by so obviously not looking at Jack she might as well have been staring. “Eineen . . .”
“Has hooked up. I heard. I’m happy for her.”
“Who told you . . . ?” Her gaze flicked over to Jack for a millisecond then locked back onto Charlie’s face, eyes moist. “The Dragons are wise and all knowing.”
“Know-it-alls, maybe,” Charlie grunted as Jack elbowed her in the ribs.
“I wouldn’t say . . .”
“You didn’t.” She got him in a headlock but knew she’d never get him to say auntie before he raised his body temperature from sun-warmed to deep-fried. “Was that all?”
“No . . .” Tanis watched them, confused, but that was a huge improvement over moist. “The man she joined with, he works for Carlson Oil.”
Suddenly released, Jack hit the ground on his hands and knees. Swearing under his breath, he slapped out a small grass fire.
Charlie kicked him lightly with the side of her leg. “Watch your language, Your Highness. So Eineen’s with a man from Carlson Oil? That’s interesting.”
“More than interesting; he’s the personal assistant of Amelia Carlson.”
“Not a fiddler, then?”
Tanis searched out Bo in the crowd of musicians. “He says his father was a fisherman.”
“He?”
“Paul.”
“Okay.” Charlie waved a hand in front of Tanis’ face until the Selkie stopped staring at her boyfriend. “Did Eineen plan this?”
“We don’t plan the dance.”
Jack made a rude noise that morphed into a squawk when Charlie smacked the back of his head. “If it was a plan, it’s pretty clever. If it wasn’t . . .” She glanced up at a cloudless blue sky and wondered if the gods were laughing. “. . . it looks like the universe is sticking its oar in again. It’s a seagoing reference,” she added when Tanis looked confused. “Is Paul giving your sealskins back?”
“He doesn’t have them, but he knows where they’re hidden. Eineen says they’re going to pick them up tonight.”
“They are?” Charlie looked up at the sky again. “So, I wonder why I’m even here . . .”
The fiddler in her head broke into a reprise of “I Won’t Do the Work.”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it. I just said I didn’t know what needed to be done.”
“Uh, Charlie?” Jack poked her arm. Hard. “You’re talking to yourself.”
“I have a fiddler in my head,” she sighed.
“Is that like one of those things that means something else?” he asked. “Because if it isn’t, you’re officially the weirdest person I’m related to.”
“I’m officially the weirdest person you’re related to.”
“Okay, then.”
And the fiddler played “Farewell to Decorum.”
When Paul walked out of the office at 7:22, the earliest he’d ever left voluntarily, Eineen was waiting for him by his car. She wore a purple tank and faded, low-cut jeans held over the sweet arc of her hips by a worn leather belt. On her feet, cheap department store sneakers. She looked like the girls he’d grown up with in Dartmouth except that her hair flowed over bare shoulders like water from the darkest, deepest part of the ocean and the curve of those shoulders was the perfect curve of a wave heading for shore. He cupped her face with both hands and realized, as he caressed her cheeks with his thumbs, that her skin felt like water sun-warmed in tidal pools. Her eyes promised him everything, unconditionally.
He felt as though he was being swept away by all she offered, so he anchored his mouth to hers and . . .
. . . remembered he was in the parking lot outside of Carlson Oil’s Sydney office.
Licking lips that tasted of salt, he pulled away. “I can’t do this here.”
“But you’re doing it so well.” She yanked him back against her by his belt loops.
“No, I work here. It’s unprofessional.” He shifted slightly, changing the angle of contact while he was still able.
“To have a life?”
“I was going to pick you up in Louisburg.”
Her shrug moved their bodies together in interesting ways. Goose bumps rose on his scalp under the cool paths her fingertips stroked over the side of his head. He didn’t realize she’d removed his earpiece until she handed it to him. “It was faster for me to come to you.”
“How . . . ?”
“I took a taxi.”
“But money . . .”
“Dead men’s bones can’t stop us claiming treasures from the ocean floor. Also,” she added, allowing him to step away, “about forty years ago one of my cousins danced for an investment banker. We have a comprehensive portfolio.”
“An investment banker?”
Eineen smiled. “His father was
also
a fisherman. And he was a better than average fiddle player, if only at ceilidhs.”
also
a fisherman. And he was a better than average fiddle player, if only at ceilidhs.”
She spoke like she’d known him.
Paul remembered seeing her change, he remembered seeing the pelt fall empty-eyed to the rock, and while he knew it had happened only the night before, it felt as though it happened to someone else a long time ago, everything that had happened overshadowed by the crystal clear memory of how she’d danced to the rhythm of his heart. He knew what she was. He didn’t care. Hell, if she didn’t care what he was, he had no grounds for complaint. She was tall enough, he barely had to bend when he stepped back in and kissed her. “Let’s go make this right.”
She licked her lower lip as though chasing his taste, but she didn’t look happy. “Returning the skins won’t make it right.”
“But it’s a start?”
“Yes, it’s a start.”
He knew he should put his earpiece back in. The greater part of his job involved being available when Ms. Carlson needed him. The plastic housing was warm and slightly greasy in his hand. He slipped it into his jacket pocket.
“Yeah, I had a call you were coming, Mr. Belleveau.” The guard at the gate frowned, but it looked more like concern than suspicion. “It’s kind of late and it’s going to be dark soon. Are you sure you don’t want to do this tomorrow?”
Paul fought to keep his grip on the steering wheel loose. He’d been pleased to see a different guard than the one who’d let him in before although a repeat of the first man’s disinterest would have been a bonus. “I’m here tonight.”
“Pardon me for saying this, but you’re not exactly dressed for . . .”
“I came straight from the office.”
“Well, okay, but . . .” He pushed his cap back and rubbed at the red dent in his forehead. “. . . you shouldn’t be going in alone. What if something happened?”
“You know where I am.”
“Well, yeah, but . . .”
“If I’m not back in three hours, assume something has happened.”
“Three hours is . . .”
“I have no intention of rushing an inspection.”
“I guess that’ll . . .”
“Good. Thank you.” Paul stepped on the gas just emphatically enough for instinct to move the guard away from the car. He drove as fast as he thought was unremarkable to the other side of the wellhead and parked. And exhaled.
“He didn’t see you.”
“I told you he wouldn’t. He saw your jacket and your briefcase.” Eineen lifted them both off her lap, twisting gracefully to drop them in the backseat.
“That’s amazing. You’re amazing.”
“I just wasn’t the droid he was looking for.” When he frowned, she shook her head. “Never mind. Come on.”
Paul hadn’t even considered going back to the
Duke
alone, although had Eineen not been able to do whatever she’d done to the guard, getting her in would have been complicated. In all honesty, he had trouble thinking about doing anything alone. Every thought of the future, from ten minutes to ten years, involved Eineen. There were whole blocks of time, minutes stacked on minutes, when he didn’t think about work at all.
Duke
alone, although had Eineen not been able to do whatever she’d done to the guard, getting her in would have been complicated. In all honesty, he had trouble thinking about doing anything alone. Every thought of the future, from ten minutes to ten years, involved Eineen. There were whole blocks of time, minutes stacked on minutes, when he didn’t think about work at all.
She looked incredible in the hardhat. As the cage descended down the hoist shaft, he wrapped his hands around her waist and kissed a line up one side of her throat, along her jaw, and down the other while she murmured his name and held onto his arms tight enough to leave bruises.
When the cage jerked to a halt at Canaveral, Paul pulled away and fixed his shirt before opening the gate. The corner of Eineen’s mouth twitched and he knew she was laughing at him but there was nothing wrong with looking good even one hundred and fifty meters underground. He was still who he was, and who he was did not wander about with a dress shirt untucked and rumpled.
“It’s this way, down C tunnel. We can grab the cart I used the last time; it’s just inside the tunnel.”
When he turned his helmet light on, Eineen reached up and turned it off again. “It might be best,” she said quietly, “if the shadows weren’t moving.”
There were
more
shadows with the only illumination coming from the tunnel lights, but Eineen was right. They stayed put and that was a huge improvement over his last trip when fear had seeded the deserted mine with imaginary dangers.
more
shadows with the only illumination coming from the tunnel lights, but Eineen was right. They stayed put and that was a huge improvement over his last trip when fear had seeded the deserted mine with imaginary dangers.
Pulling his phone from his pocket, Paul called up the schematic as they walked. Without it, he’d never recognize the correct cross corridor. In all honesty, he hadn’t tried very hard to mark the place where he’d left the pelts. That wasn’t like him, and he wondered if it had been guilt, already present but buried under his obligations to his job.
The cart rolled effortlessly along the tracks, easy enough to push one-handed. They walked silently, Eineen close enough to his side he could feel the turbulence her movement caused in the still air.
“We’re under the sea . . .” Cool fingers pressed down on his mouth, stopping the words. When he turned toward her, she shook her head, reached out, and pulled the cart to a stop. Pulled it to a stop before he stopped pushing. He looked at his hand on the crossbar, on her hand beside his, and decided
beside his
was the important thing to remember.
beside his
was the important thing to remember.
As the last of the noise chased itself down the tunnel—metal on metal, his leather soles on the stone—she leaned close and whispered, “There’s something down here.”
And all at once he remembered the sound of claws against rock.
“Where . . . ?”
She shook her head, but whether she wanted him to stop talking or because she didn’t know where, he couldn’t tell.
The cross tunnel, the first cross tunnel out under the sea where he’d left the pelts, was still about ten meters away. Paul pointed and jerked his thumb to the left.
Eineen nodded, came out from behind the cart, and started forward slowly.
Completely silently.
Sweat dribbling down his sides, he followed. Not quite so silently.
It was a deserted mine. It had been deserted for years.
There was nothing down here with them.
They were granting the dark and the quiet and the heat and the oppressive weight of rock and water too much influence.
They were allowing their imaginations to . . .
He missed his footing on a bit of uneven rock, brought his right foot down a little too hard.
It wasn’t much of a sound. Anywhere else, it would have gone unnoticed, lost in the ambient noise. Anywhere else, there would have
been
ambient noise.
been
ambient noise.
He froze. Eineen froze, then slowly reached back toward him. Paul caught her hand and laced their fingers together, breathing shallowly, trying to hear past the blood roaring in his ears.
It sounded like rats at first, rats in the distance.
Claws skittering against stone.
He remembered that sound.
It grew louder and sounded less like the random movement of animals.
Still claws against stone, but moving purposefully.
Behind that sound another sound, harder to hear. A rough burr. Stone scraping against stone? As if whatever moved slowly up from the lower tunnels dragged a rock. A large rock. Under the scraping, he could hear a slow thud. Slow but steady. His heart began to match the rhythm.
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