Unbearable (8 page)

“No. No more wasting time,” Tally said sharply. She moved around to the trunk, fitted the key and lifted the lid and hauled out the folding stroller, all while holding Riley on her hip. I don’t know how women do that. I would have had to put her back in the car seat while pulling gear out of the trunk.

“Riley can come with us,” Tally said. “It will make us look more like tourists, anyway.”

* * * * *

The farther north we moved along the well-marked trail, the more isolated we began to feel. Even Miguel grew quiet and he is usually irrepressibly chatty. It wasn’t just that there were so few people around, because we did pass couples and groups. It was the silence in the forest itself.

“No small animals or birds,” Tally observed.

“Winter quiet?” Nick suggested.

“Or a bigger predator is keeping them hunkered down,” Tally replied. She was pushing the stroller. The big wheels moved easily along the trail, which was bare, flat earth with sections of boardwalk planking. Riley was asleep, her thumb corked firmly in her mouth.

The verdant southern forestation was thick overhead, cutting out the sunlight and leaving us in shadows. I was glad to have my coat, even though I had put it back on in order to carry my sword, as had everyone else.

Ahead, through the thick growth, I spotted something white and watched it until I had identified it. There was bright, pure white cliff face just ahead, peeking from among vines and trees.

The trail turned sharply to the right, the cliffs were to the left. A faint trail ran off to the left.

I halted.

Nick turned back instantly. He was hyper-alert.

I pointed to the secondary trail. “And there are cliffs, through there.”

Nick glanced at Tally. It was a silent question.

“Yes,” she agreed and turned the stroller carefully, to avoid waking Riley.

The going was slower on the narrow trail, yet there was still enough of a clear path and room for the stroller and we hurried ahead, not talking.

The trail opened out into a clearing. Ahead was the back slope of the cliffs and the entrance to a cave mouth, which had been framed with concrete and featured concrete steps leading down into the cave itself. There were a dozen or more cross-country bicycles chained to the guardrail running along the footpath, with helmets slung over handlebars.

“People inside,” Nick said, pushing his sword back into his coat. “Lots of them. Slow and stealthy, while we look around.”

Tally eased Riley out of the stroller and she began to fret as she woke. I took her from Tally and settled her against my shoulder. “You need both hands,” I told Tally.

She rested her hand against my other shoulder briefly. “Thank you.”

We climbed cautiously down the damp steps into the cave proper. There was concrete walkway leading deeper into the cave and lights, making it bright and warm. There was signage everywhere, with history about the cave complex, warnings about wandering off the path and trivia about the cave itself.

I don’t think I have seen a less gargoyle-suitable cave than that one. We might have been strolling through a museum display. I hitched Riley into a more comfortable position and patted her back as she resettled with soft baby sounds. “You two should go ahead,” I told Nick and Tally. “If Lirgon
is
here, he’s not going to be sitting out where the tourists can see him. You’ll have to step off the trail and explore.”

Tally looked at Nick.

“Well, we’re here now,” Nick said philosophically. “It will eliminate this cave, at least, if we search it properly.”

They moved ahead faster than the three of us. Farther back into the cave system I could hear the echoes of the bicycle group, laughing and talking, throwing rocks and shouting to set up even more echoes. Nick and Tally would have to skirt around them, too.

Even more distantly, at the farthest extent of my hearing, I could hear water dripping into a bigger pool of water, making it splash and ripple.

“We should walk through, too,” Miguel said. “Nyanther and I can step off and check things out if we need to.”

“It will pass the time,” Nyanther said in agreement and from his tone, I knew he had reached the same conclusion. There was no possible chance that Lirgon was hiding out in here. It was too commercial. Too populated.

We strolled along the smooth, flat pathway, climbing steps occasionally and traversing plank bridges here and there. There were more signs, pointing to highlights and more warnings about moving off the path. We stopped at each viewpoint and read the signage and looked up as directed.

After ten minutes of it, I realized that my chest was tight and my heart was beating by itself. Miguel seemed to be oblivious to the thickening atmosphere. I glanced at Nyanther. He was frowning down at the ground.

He met my gaze.

“Something….” I said.

He nodded and reached inside his coat and gripped the handle of his sword. He didn’t draw it, because we could stumble upon humans at any point.

Part of the reason for my growing tension occurred to me. “Sunset,” I breathed.

Miguel looked at me sharply, then looked around the narrow traverse we were in. The wooden bridge we were on was twenty feet above the rocky, uneven floor. There was nowhere to go except backward or forward.

“Move on,” Nyanther said, his deep voice rumbling. “There’s nothing behind us.”

“I should take Riley back,” I said.

The scream was inhuman, pitched at a point that would be beyond most human hearing. It was agony-filled and died away, leaving the very air throbbing around us.

“Too late,” Nyanther said, pulling his sword out.

Miguel hurried forward and we followed him.

A hundred yards on, the zig-zagging bridge turned back into concrete walkway as the ground rose up to meet it and the way ahead opened up in to a large cavern. Naked light bulbs were strung around the edges of the cavern, but the roof was far too high to see. Only a dozen yards ahead the walkway turned into another bridge, this time spanning a pool of water that glowed unearthly blue. There was a wider platform in the middle of the bridge for looking down into the water without holding up other tourists.

To our left, where the walkway was still concrete, there was a fold in the wall that created a shadow, narrow and black. My night vision compensated and I saw that the shadow was in fact a vertical crevasse and deeper inside the shadow there was movement.

“Nyanther,” I breathed, nodding toward the crack.

“I see it,” Nyanther said softly.

From the far end of the cave, where the walkway dove into another transition, came a voice, still far away. “I tell you, I heard something and it didn’t sound good.”

The footsteps were coming closer.

Nick stumbled out of the narrow cleft, walking like an automaton, his movements jerky. There were two swords in his hands. Both his and the katana were covered in inky black ichor. His shirt was covered in blood. Human blood.

I stopped thinking. I deliberately made myself not think, except for immediate concerns. I shoved Riley into Nyanther’s arms and ran across the rock and shale floor of the cavern toward Nick. “Miguel!” I called softly and he followed me.

The footsteps of the bicycle group were coming closer.

I pulled the swords out of Nick’s hands and shoved them at Miguel, then yanked out my own. “Get Nyanther’s, too,” I said urgently. “Take them somewhere and stash them. Not in the cars. Somewhere unconnected. We can’t be found with them on us.”

Miguel’s eyes were large. He nodded as he gripped the swords.

“Then leave,” I told him harshly. “You can’t be processed and this is going to be messy. Go!”

He slipped and skidded back down to the walkway, yanked Nyanther’s sword right out of his hand and started to run, the swords clinking unmusically together, their normally sweet notes ruined by the ichor. He disappeared around a twist in the walkway.

“Oh my god…that’s
blood!
” came the exclamation.

Then someone started to scream, the sound echoing and booming in that cold place.

There isn’t much left to tell in this tale. You already know the hard facts. Natalia Grey Connors died on January 5, 1984, from what authorities presume was a hibernating bear that she must have disturbed when she ventured off the safe pathway of the public caves. What no one mentioned was that she was found lying upon a bed of pebbles and dirt, in a cavern with a floor worn smooth by a river, some eon in the past. The only pebbles anywhere in that cavern were the ones she laid upon.

I managed to rouse Nick enough so that when the police arrived, the ambulance crew just behind them, he could respond almost normally. I didn’t want some over-anxious medical assistant to try treating him for shock and find that he didn’t have a heart beat and his body temperature dropped off the bottom of the chart.

Nyanther gave Riley back to me after that and she sat in my arms the entire time we were questioned. After several hours we were allowed to leave, but had to hold ourselves available for more questions.

I don’t think Nick noticed that we followed the stretcher with Tally’s body out into the night, which seemed much warmer than the interior of the cave by then. He was in no state to drive, so I drove back to Ocala, while Nyanther watched out for the hotel the police had directed us to, with the implication that they wanted to be able to find us there when they came looking for us again.

Nyanther asked for his own room, but came with us into ours. I put Riley to bed, surrounded by a pillow dam so she would not roll off the big bed. Then I pushed Nick into the one armchair the room provided.

Nyanther sank down onto the end of Riley’s bed.

For the first time, I let myself think properly. That was when the shakes set in. The overwhelming fact of her death was shouting at me. Now I could afford to think, I couldn’t think of anything else but the one horrible fact.

None of us moved or spoke, after that. Not until Riley woke early the next morning, hungry and demanding, which stirred us back into the human concerns of daily life.

* * * * *

The police cleared us of any wrong-doing. The condition of Tally’s body and the medical examiner’s conclusions did that on their own. No human would be capable of rendering a body in that way, not with bare hands and Nick had only had blood on his shirt from picking her up and holding her. There had been none on his hands.

Miguel smuggled our swords back the next day. His eyes were red-rimmed and his perpetual smile was gone. He hugged us all in turn before getting into his Buick and driving away in a cloud of blue exhaust fumes.

I had assumed that was the end of it. With the police clearing us, we were free to return to New York. Nyanther announced that he would head back with us, then he would continue on after that. He planned to return to Scotland for an extended stay. He would stop in Albany only long enough to gather his things together.

Which would leave Nick and I alone for the first time in decades, with just one tiny human in the house.

Except that I had forgotten it was 1984.

The extent of my blindness and idiocy made itself known the day we left for Albany. I couldn’t stand the idea of driving back, so Nick was going to give the DeVille to Miguel and we would fly back from Miami. Miguel would bring the swords up in the DeVille in the summer and introduce us to his wife and new child.

The hardest task about packing for the journey was having to collect Tally’s things. I thought it was the hardest thing I would have to face that day and got through it with my jaw clenched.

I was just about done when someone rapped on the room door. I figured it was Nyanther and opened it without checking.

The woman standing there was middle-aged, with a hard expression in her eyes and drab clothing. “Mr. Sherwood?”

“No, I’m Damian,” I said. “You need to speak to Nick?”

She looked passed me to where Riley was sitting on the floor enthusiastically whacking plastic bricks with a plastic hammer. “I’m here to collect the child.”

Something hard and heavy dropped in my chest. The world shifted. My hearing faded.

“Collect?” I breathed. My voice sounded distant even to me.

“What the hell?” Nick demanded, coming up behind me. “What do you mean?”

The woman pulled out a wallet and flashed ID at us. It looked very official. More official than anything we could produce. “Florida Department of Children and Families,” she said stiffly. “We understand that the child, Riley, has no family now that her mother has passed on. I’m here to process her.”

Nick pulled in a breath that shuddered. “You can’t take her away,” he said flatly.

The woman looked at him steadily. “Are you a relative, Mr. Sherwood?”

I am.
The two words were right there. I just had to speak them. Except that the relationship was so distant, there were more than two thousand years of generations between us. And I didn’t have a single piece of proof.

Nick pushed his hands through his hair. “We’re not blood but Tally grew up with us. We helped raise her. She wanted us to take care of Riley.”

“She wrote that down somewhere?” the woman asked sharply. “We couldn’t find evidence of a will, or documents that indicated if she had any final wishes.”

“You’ve been through my house,” Nick breathed. He sounded stunned.

I felt the same. “You can’t take her,” I said, my lips numb. I could barely form the words.

“I’m afraid I can, Mr.…Damian. It is our responsibility to take care of wards of the state. I can have the police enforce the directive, if necessary.”

Wards of state.

I felt sick. Genuinely, physically sick. I wasn’t breathing even though I needed to. My heart wouldn’t work, either and that didn’t help. Oxygen deprivation. I was getting dizzy with it.

The woman tried to step through the door and both Nick and I straightened in reaction.

She retreated. “Believe me, this will all be much easier for everyone if you just let me have her. If I have to involve the police, it will frighten her.” She stepped back one more step and nodded down the corridor. “I just have to call them.”