Wintermoon Ice (2010) (25 page)

"I don't know. It doesn't look good though. I wish I knew what was wrong with her."

Tessa sucked in a breath.

The presence of this other has halved her anafireon -- her life force. Ellie is in grave danger as long as her younger self remains here.

She spoke quickly. "I think I do. And moving her to City General isn't going to help one bit. We've got to get her back to her own time. Right now."

"What? Are you crazy? How are we going to do that?"

She thought for a moment. "Which one of the ambulance drivers owes you a favor?"

* * * *

It had been easier than they thought to persuade St. Luke's to let them take Jane Doe away. Dr. Piper convinced them she would be better off at the "private clinic" to which they planned to transport her. And the ambulance driver was all too happy to drive them to
Anenoa
State Park
.

"After all," Jane whispered, as they loaded Katy into the back, "I fudged the details of his uncle's death a little. No mention of the position in which he was found, or the reading materials involved."

Tessa shook her head. "You are amazing, Jane. I don't know what I would do without you."

Jane dropped her eyes, peering through her hair like a curtain. "You'd be fine. After the way you took on those Polys, I believe you could do anything."

"I don't think so." She patted Jane's arm. "I still need my friends."

They settled Katy in the back. Jane said, "You had better ride up front with Frank, and tell him the way. I'll stay back here and keep an eye on her. If your theory is correct, then she may improve the further we get from
Cloudy
Bay
."

With the lights and siren blaring, the trip took under two hours. The driver gave Tessa a series of increasingly uncomprehending looks as they wound their way up the gravel roads to the site. "Are you sure?" he asked, when she pointed to a narrow, grass covered set of tire tracks. "This doesn't look right."

Tessa tried to project a confidence she didn't feel. "Yes, we are almost there."

She hadn't settled on what she would do if the students had returned to the site. How would she explain a comatose woman on a litter? Some kind of Native American healing ceremony, Tessa decided, as they rounded the last bend.

At first she breathed a sigh of relief, thinking the parking lot was empty. Then she saw the tail end of a car parked beyond the hut. A black Porsche 911.

Ted's car.

Frank noticed Tessa's alarmed expression. "Everything OK? Is this where you meant for me to drop you off? Where in the hell are you going from here?"

Tessa shrugged. "Yeah, everything's fine. You can only reach the clinic on foot. We'll need to borrow a stretcher, but Jane will get it back to you."

"No problem."

They opened the double doors in the back. Jane climbed out, blinking in the bright sunshine.

"How is she?"

"The same, pretty much. Her blood pressure stopped dropping once we left the city limits, but she hasn't stirred." Jane looked around. "Oh crap! Is that you-know-who's car over there?"

Tessa nodded. "He's probably in the cave. We'll have to get past him."

Jane looked troubled by this. "How? Didn't you say he had a gun?"

Tessa withdrew the knife from her purse. "I have a weapon too, remember? And this time I won't hesitate to hurt him if he gets in my way."

Frank's eyes went wide. "Uh, ladies, if you are through with my ambulance, I'd..."

"Sure thing," Jane said. "But I need to borrow your trauma bag. Just in case."

He eyed the knife. "Of course. You want something, you take it, Dr. Piper."

The three of them moved Katy onto a lightweight stretcher. Then Tessa and Jane each took an end, and walked up the trail. The ambulance tires spat dusty gravel.

After five minutes, the climb had almost robbed their ability to speak. "This is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be," puffed Tessa.

"Just keep going. I don't want to have to perform cardiac massage on her."

"You may end up using it on me," Tessa joked weakly. "My heart feels like it is about to burst."

They had to stop four times to rest and catch their breath. Each time Katy Bennett's face looked more ashen, and drove them to pick up the handles and continue. Tessa wiped the sweat from her eyes. "God, Jane. What if I was wrong? What if I've killed her by bringing her here?"

"Quit worrying. It is too late to back out now, anyway. I wonder if Ellie is doing any better?"

"I told Joe to get in touch if there was any change. He promised to call an ambulance once we left the city. I guess we won't find out anything else until we get back."

After an exhausting hour they reached the lookout at the top of the trail and laid Katy down carefully on the bench. Tessa rubbed her aching forearms. "I'm going ahead to scout out the cave. If Ted is in there, I would rather meet him when I am not attached to the end of a stretcher." Tessa smiled. "Anyway, maybe I can persuade him to help us."

Jane snorted. "Ha ha. And I will get back into those jeans I used to wear in high school."

Tessa crossed the scree slope, wondering how the two of them would manage with the heavy burden they had to carry. She could see the gully ahead of her, the rocks almost blindingly white in the sunlight. Beyond, the shadow seemed impenetrable, two-dimensional and black.

Except for one drifting patch of darkness. Broad shouldered, and dressed in a suit.

"Damn," Tessa whispered. "Where is your buddy?"

She spotted him, a moment later, carrying a limp bundle under one arm. A bundle dressed in new-looking jeans, and a black turtleneck. Tessa's eyes involuntarily strayed downwards as something crunched under her foot. She stooped and retrieved a pair of oval tortoiseshell eyeglass frames, the lenses cracked and tinged with red.

Ted's glasses.

Her eyes followed the path the Polys had taken. Rusty splashes decorated the gravel.

Ted's blood.

She thought about running. The Polys hadn't seen her, yet, and they were heading in the opposite direction. She and Jane could carry Katy back down, steal the Porsche and get the hell out of there.

But her conscience wouldn't let her leave Ted, even though she had threatened only an hour ago to hurt him herself. "Oh, you are going to owe me big time for this, Dr. Black. Tenure... My own office... No eight o'clock classes..." Tessa's list of demands grew and grew as she scrambled over the last of the bloodstained gravel. "Assuming he is still alive," she warned herself realistically. "But dead people don't bleed, do they?"

Jane, who could have answered the question, was safely back at the overlook.

By the time she reached the deep shade of the gully, the Polys and their wilted prisoner were nowhere in sight. She eyed the cave mouth. If an ambush lay ahead, that would be the perfect place to spring it. But the Polys, who stood six feet tall and weighed over two hundred pounds, would have had difficulty squeezing through that crack themselves.

Then she remembered Ted's words:

The cave has two entrances, and only one is even remotely accessible to the students. Only I know the other's location.

She knelt and examined the ground outside the cave. The dim light did not reveal any signs of movement, or spots of blood. Tessa stood and backed away, trying to find the path the Polys had taken. After a few moments of diligent searching she found a faint trail that climbed beside and above the waterfall. With one last look back over her shoulder she started the ascent.

The second opening was actually easier to find. No overhanging vines disguised it. But it stood beyond a white-knuckle ledge that Tessa had to negotiate with nothing but finger and toe holds, without looking down. Once she reached the relatively flat vestibule she gave a sigh of relief, and hoped that she might be able to exit through the lower door. She paused only long enough to withdraw Tom's knife from her pack.

Without further hesitation, Tessa plunged into the cool quiet of the cave. She could hear the filtered drip of water, and nothing else. Nothing to tell her which way she should go.

Tessa realized she could wander all day and never find Ted or the Polys. Meanwhile, Katy Bennett might well be dying outside in the cruel bright sun. She turned around, muttering. "Fine. First things first. You'll just have to wait, Ted."

Just then, a feeling -- faint, indefinable, made her fingers tighten on the hilt of the knife. There was no sound, none at all, only a current of cold air that brushed against her cheek like frozen wing tip. Slowly, very slowly, Tessa looked back over her shoulder. She could see nothing and yet she knew, without hesitation, that the Polys had just passed that way.

Creeping now, she moved up the tunnel, wondering how far ahead they were. Faint moans reached her ears. She didn't have time to wonder how or why the Polys had decided to keep Ted alive, but a part of her, a very small part, was glad that they had.

They weren't bothering with anything like stealth. Tessa managed to slide to within striking distance before either of them heard her. She went for the unburdened one first, stabbing between the ribs, just under his shoulder blade. It staggered and fell, but its companion did not stop or look back.

After yanking the knife free, Tessa followed at a distance, waiting for a chance to rush the second Poly. Ted continued to groan pitifully at intervals. The Poly moved on confidently, though the tunnel was pitch-dark. Even Tessa, with her extraordinary night vision, found it difficult going. She tried to remember the passageway she had taken before to the cave with the remains and the portal. This path did not feel the same. It was wider, smoother, and seemed to be sloping uphill rather than down.

For the first time she wondered where the Poly was going and whether it was a good idea to be following.

The tunnel opened into a cavern, dimly lit from above. Tessa recoiled as she saw the human remains littering the floor -- skulls, thigh bones and vertebrae all scattered like blocks in a child's room.

The Poly dumped Ted unceremoniously onto the rocks and then turned around, obviously searching for something. Its eyes skimmed over Tessa and kept moving, in the way a snake sometimes unconsciously slithers over a hunter's boot.

After tensing herself to fight, this non-reaction made her almost dizzy.

She walked towards it, still unbelieving. The Poly had chosen a place just beyond her left shoulder to fix its eyes. It stood stock still, waiting. Even when she cut its throat, it did not look down at her. The caustic blood splashed against her hand, and she swore.

"T... Tessie?" Her name came out in a thin, broken wheeze.

Ted still lay face down where the Poly had dropped him. She knelt by his side. "Yes. Can you walk?"

"Uh... I... Don't know. Don't think so."

A skittering sound made her look up. Bats, or something worse? "You have to. Get up, Ted. Now."

Tessa slipped her arms around his ribs and pulled him upwards. She couldn't suppress a moan of horror when she saw what they had done to his face. "Ted, listen. There might be more on the way. We have to get out of here."

"Go on. Leave me here. Not going to..."

His body shuddered, once.

Somehow she lifted him into a fireman's carry, and staggered back up the tunnel. The light from the cavern died, but Tessa kept going, sensing her way in the darkness. She could feel Ted's breath, heavy and wet on her cheek.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why... are you helping me?"

"Don't know," she gasped back. Ahead, the tunnel divided into two branches. She had no clue which one they had come through. "Need to rest for a minute." Tessa lowered Ted to the ground as gently as she could. He whimpered a little and then lay still. She moved forward easily now, trying to figure out which path would take them back to the outside.

The glowing hands on her watch said she had been gone for fifteen minutes already. Jane would be getting anxious. "Tessie?"

She turned back towards Ted. "What?"

"How in hell can you see where you are going?"

"I have good night vision, I guess."

"Uh-uh. I know damned well there is more to it than that."

"Don't be silly, Ted. It's just a..."

"Then how did you kill those things back there?" he interrupted tiredly.

"That? Well, that was the knife, not me."

Although Ted was still in a lot of pain, he warmed to the argument. "What about that weird language you talk in your sleep?"

"Do I? How come you never mentioned it before now?"

He struggled up on to one elbow and tried to find her face in the darkness, without success. "I never thought it was important, but now I do. Redden said something about a weapon..."

She frowned, not liking the direction Ted was taking. "I heard what he said."

"Well, what did he mean? At first, I thought it was that bloody shiv you whipped out at my place, but it isn't. You are one of
them
, aren't you?"

"I don't even know what
they
are. And neither do you. But even if what you said is true, which it isn't, I don't see how that helps us."

"No," he said, disappointed. "I guess not."

"Do you want to try walking a little? You can lean on me." She knelt beside him, and offered her arm. He couldn't see, but found her by casting about with his hands.

Slowly he staggered to his feet and she put an arm around his waist. "Come on, I'm pretty sure we need to go this way. We'll be out of here in no time."

"Sure, babe," agreed Ted faintly.

But the tunnel Tessa had chosen soon betrayed her optimism. The rocky roof lowered until they had to hobble with bent knees. Abruptly the ground fell away into a deep fissure. Ted would have walked straight into it if she hadn't stopped him.

Tessa sighed explosively. "Shit. We are fucking lost."

Ted collapsed like a folding umbrella by the side of the hole, too tired and injured to care much. "Why don't you go back? I'll stay here and..."

"No! I won't leave you." But a glance at the luminous hands of her watch showed half an hour had passed since she left Jane and Katy. Tessa sat down with her back to the wall, trying to fight down panic. "I don't know the way. If only we could find one of those other portals. Do you..."