GNELFS (20 page)

The small bicep against his throat tightened, silencing him. He stared at the roadway through bulging eyes. The yellow line glowed in his headlight beams and seemed to be moving itself at a high speed. He tried to take his foot off the accelerator, but the creature beside him placed its foot over his, forcing the pedal to the floor.

"You don't want to slow down," said the
Gnelf
, gripping his throat. "You'll be late."

Marley croaked, an effort at posing a question.

As if in answer, the radio began to scan, digital numbers speeding past channels wildly, stopping on a call number Marley didn't recognize.

Then an unearthly voice began to pound through the car, a newscaster's voice, only slower, more like the voice of 'a dead man.

"And on a sad note, the Reverend Marley was killed last night when he apparently lost control of his car and drove into the lake."

Marley again attempted a scream, but the arm remained tight against his throat, and then the
Gnelf
in the passenger seat reached over and grabbed for the steering wheel.

Marley felt it slipping from his fingers against his will, and through the windshield he could see the headlights sweep across the oncoming lane. A small embankment of gravel had formed on the left-hand shoulder. When the front wheels hit that, the car's speed carried it upward. It became airborne, sailing through the darkness.

A billboard extolling the virtues of milk was on display, a pair of spotlights illuminating the smile of a pretty blond girl with white teeth. The car tore through the center of her face and continued forward, plunging down into dark waters. For a moment it seemed the car would stay afloat, but then it began to falter, and water started to pour in under the dashboard.

Ripping free of the grip round his neck, Marley pressed the window’s switch, urging it downward before electrical systems failed.

Water began to pour onto the seat, but the opening offered him a chance of escape. He knew the water pressure from outside would never allow the door to open, but if he could slither through the opening he had a chance.

Kicking at the creature in the passenger seat, he forced his head through, then his shoulders. Water rushed into his nostrils, but he continued to struggle. Though he was underwater now, he could reach the surface. He knew it.

The water stung his wounds, but he forced his brain to shut out the pain.

His clothes were like lead weights, soaking up pounds of water as he tried to paddle with his feet and stroke with his arms. Quickly, he shrugged off his coat and kicked harder with his legs.

His lungs felt as if they were about to burst, and the breath escaping his lips bubbled around his face. The chill of the water was jolting, almost paralyzing.

His wounds ached, but he ignored that, impelling himself upward with sheer will power. He thrashed his arms, kicked, pulled his body through the water with cupped hands. He had enjoyed swimming in his days in the seminary, had gone to the school's pool to relax between study sessions and research for papers. His muscles had not atrophied that much since, had not sagged.

As if by a miracle, his head broke the surface of the water, bobbed out into the air, and he began to cough and gasp for breath at the same time.

He gagged, but gained control of his breathing as he treaded water. He waited to feel tiny hands close around his ankles, but the grip did not come. Perhaps the water had affected them.

He floated on his back for a few moments, resting, and then began to make his way to shore. The crawl proved too difficult, exhausted as he was, and it caused the cut over his ribs to throb, so he did an incomplete backstroke.

Cold dark waves slapped him, and he tasted muddy water, but he fought onward. He was amazed at how far the car had sailed over the lake, but the sandy bank was in sight. Water blurred his vision, however, he could see the dusk-to-dawn lights that blazed over the picnic area.

He made for them, keeping his mouth and nostrils clear of the water. Blood was flowing freely from his wounds, and he gritted his teeth against the pain.

He tried to look back over his shoulders to the area where the water's surface might still be disturbed by the automobile's descent, and saw no sign of the
Gnelfs
. Fine, let the water take them, let them stick in the muddy bottom forever. They'd leave the little girl alone.

He no longer questioned the reality of their existence, and he did not attempt to explain it to himself. That would come later. He would discuss it with the professor, talk it over with Althea. Tomorrow. After he had dried out, after he had rested.

He tried touching bottom, but realized that still wasn't possible, not the way the bottom sloped. He would have to make it to the water's shore. Good enough. He kicked and half-stroked, demanding that his muscles keep working.

He had children, a wife waiting to see him. He had a sermon to prepare. So many things to do. He made outlines in his head as he struggled on, using his responsibilities to drive him onward.

Water lapped at his face, and the night breeze wafted over him, more chilly than he had expected. He felt very cold, icy. For a moment, he floated, letting his arms and legs rest. He even allowed his eyes to close as he sucked in air through his mouth.

Then he kicked hard and began to use his arms like oars again, stroking forward. He could hear his children's laughter now, could feel his wife's touch and smell the fragrance of her perfume. He thought about the way her hair smelled after she had washed it with herbal shampoo, and he remembered the softness of her touch. Last night? Had it been that recent? It seemed a decade had passed since he had seen her.

It seemed he'd been swimming that long too. He looked toward shore again. It still was a long way off. He fought the numbness, concentrated on moving one arm, then the other; one leg, then the other. Stroke, kick. Stroke, kick.

He was still losing blood, and the ache in his muscles was growing worse. He wanted to scream but he couldn't waste the energy. His arms were getting weaker and weaker.

But he kept on. Kick, stroke, kick, stroke.

And then, unexpectedly, he was there, at the water's edge, reaching upward through the reeds to grasp the dock that shot out from shore.

He found a grip at the edge of a piling and began to pull himself upward. Then, in the light from the poles, he saw the outlines of tiny figures, a half-dozen of them, standing on the pier. How had they made it there from the car? It didn't make sense.

They laughed and cursed and spat down at him, and then he heard something, something like a rattle, yet it was not a rattle. It was a different sound, metallic. What was it?

Clink
.

When the weight hit him, he knew what they were dropping.

Chains.

The next morning in California, Devon helped Danube find his way through the crowded airport to his departure gate. She was dressed in her uniform, but she sat with him as he waited for his flight to be called. When the speaker blared Danube’s flight number, he stood and slung his coat over his shoulder. Before he could leave, she took his arm, stopping him from walking toward the ticket taker.

“Who are you?”

Her brow was wrinkled with confusion.

“My ticket reads
Ahasver
.”

“Who are you?”

“You would not believe me.”

“What do you know about me?”

“We are related. Far, far back our bloodlines have crossed. I have lived a long time, and I had some brothers and sisters.”

“Brothers and sisters?”

“Your ancestors.”

She almost laughed. “I thought I’d seen everything out here, but not a redheaded stranger. That’s why you’ve been able to control me? You’re not joking?”

“It’s not control exactly, more suggestion, but yes.”

She shook her hair out of her eyes and looked up into his face. "Will this—lineage, is that it?—will it affect me?"

He bowed his head. "It should not."

"You can tell whether I'm going to succeed or not. You can tell that somehow, I know it. You read it in me."

"You should not know the future," he said. "For better or for worse. If I had known my future long ago, I would never have been able to move forward. Now I know my destiny, and it is a very heavy burden."

"But—"

"Ask no more. You carry the blood of a man who had to exist, a man who played a great role in the shape of the universe, but he played his role as a betrayer. Forget that and move on. You cannot be held accountable for his sins. His guilt was his alone."

"And you?"

"I am not accountable, but I seek atonement—for myself. Not for him."

He turned and pulled his ticket from his vest pocket, quickly disappearing through the doorway to the boarding tunnel.

On the plane, he sat by a window looking out at the clouds. He had felt close to Devon in the brief time he had spent with her. If he hadn't had to leave he might have talked to her more, explained everything, and taken the time to know her. She was not quite a sister, not quite a daughter, but she could have been a friend.

But there was no time. He was needed. He had followed an erratic strand of information. He had learned a little, but nothing of much value.

Dave had been ruled out as the man behind the
conjurings
, and the
Gnelf
creators had confirmed what he had suspected about the forces they had disturbed.

He had learned before that, despite the seeming chaos of the universe, things seldom happened without a reason. He feared that he had been directed or manipulated to follow this lead in order to be misdirected.

If that was true, he had to return to Louisiana as quickly as possible. If someone had been wise enough to make the effort to get him out of the picture, and had succeeded in the attempt, then real danger existed for the mother and child. He chose not to let his imagination play with the possibilities.

~*~

A crane borrowed from a nearby construction site hoisted the car out of the water once the Penn's Ferry police, working with hired divers, had managed to connect tow lines. With a creaking groan and the whirring rattle of the machine's engine, the vehicle rose into the morning air. In the sunlight, the water that poured out of it glistened like crystal.

When people had begun to spot the huge hole in the billboard at daybreak, the cops had come out to look around and had found Marley's body, then his car. Tanner watched from the bank, standing among the police officers and the onlookers milling around. The mayor, a heavyset man with a flattop crew cut, also stood with his hands in the pockets of his brown suit jacket, watching.

Tanner also had his hands in the pockets of his jacket, and he was thankful he was wearing it. The morning was brisk in spite of the season, and the dampness in the air, coupled with the nearness of the water, made it quite chilly.

"You were a friend?" asked Frank Ahern, the Penn's Ferry chief of police.

"Acquaintance," Tanner said. He couldn't decide how much to tell.

"How'd you hear about it?"

"Another friend of his, Althea Rogers, got a call from his wife. "

Althea had gone directly to Mrs. Marley's side, and after Katrina had come over to join Gabrielle, Tanner had headed out to the accident scene to see if he could figure out what had happened.

The police were still wondering about that, but he had an advantage. He knew there were demons involved. He could not question that any longer, even though he wished he could. The accident could be genuine, but he doubted it. Marley's body, which had floated to shore, was still lying beside the lake, but a sheet had been draped over it.

Tanner made his way over to the chief after speaking to several other people. The chief had read his books and seemed talkative.

"It's a puzzler," Ahern said, taking off his blue cap and scratching his balding head. A thin, wiry man, he was wearing a brown plaid cowboy shirt and brown slacks held up by a thick brown belt that had his first name etched on it in back.

"Best we can figure he swerved off the road, hit that embankment, and went through the sign into the lake."

"Maybe something ran in front of him."

"Nope." Ahern shook his head. "He's got stab wounds. Several superficial ones and one pretty deep cut on his leg from what the coroner said. We're sending him to Bossier City for forensics, that's for sure, but I've seen stabs before. He'd been pricked like a pin cushion on his right side."

“You mean someone was in the car with him?"

"Looks like it. Like somebody was
ridin
' with him and started
playin
' a nasty prank,
stickin
' him. Only it went too far." The chief shook his head and plopped his cap back down on his head. "What I can't figure out is where the passenger went. He's not in the car."

"Maybe he made it to shore, got away."

"Maybe. If we find him we'll charge him with second-degree and it'll get bumped down to manslaughter. Way these things go."