Gateways. Part 43

"d.a.m.n right I do."

"But I thought you was sweet on him."

"Wasn't never sweet on him. I thought he was special but that don't matter none now. He hurt you and-"

"His daddy did the shootin'."

"I know that. But his daddy only pulled the trigger. It was him, it was Jack who put him up to it. Probably told his daddy to blow your head off but the old boy only creased you. Can't have that, Luke. Can't have n.o.body, no matter how special they are, hurtin' someone in the clan."

"So then it's okay with you if I take Corley and a couple-"

Semelee shook her head. "Uh-uh. I'm gonna handle this my own self. For you, Luke. It'll be a present from me to you."

The shock in Luke's eyes melted into something like love.

Don't be gettin' no ideas, she thought.

Because this had nothin' to do with Luke. She was just lettin' him think that. He'd been too far away and too busy with his bleedin' head to pay any attention to what had gone on between her and Jack in the shallows. Didn't hurt none though to let him think he was the reason she was gonna go after Jack.

But this was gonna be all for her.

She'd wanted to cry all the way back from the shallows. Her heart still felt like it'd been tore right out of her chest. He'd turned her down, turned his back and walked away. He said it was because he was taken, but that was a lie. Semelee had seen it all through her life and she knew the real truth: Jack thought he was too good for her.

But as she'd returned to the lagoon she realized it was the other way around.

Jack...how could she've thought he was special and meant for her? What was she thinking? He obviously wasn't so special and definitely not for her. She saw that now. Her visit to the lights in the sinkhole had changed everything. She knew her True Name now, knew that she'd been brought here for a purpose. She wasn't sure what that was yet, but she would. She just knew she would.

She'd been special before-her powers proved that-but now she was even more special. Much too special for Jack.

Yeah, but if that was true, why was she still hurtin'? Why this cold hard lump where her stomach used to be?

She knew of only one way to make it better.

"Leave me be for now," she told Luke. "I gotta work on this. I'm gonna fix a big fat surprise for our friend Jack."

He got up and backed away. "Okay, Semelee. Sure. Sure. Maybe I'll go check on Devil. See how he's doin'."

Despite how bad she was feeling, Semelee had to smile. Luke'd always been sorta like her puppy dog, but now he was actin' like her slave.

But she was okay with that. Every girl should have a slave.

10.

"I think this calls for a drink," Dad said as they stepped into the house.

They'd dropped Carl-with his thousand dollars-off at the trailer park. All the way home he'd been so effusive in his thanks for rescuing him from the clan and the lights that Jack had had to shut him up by getting him to describe what he'd seen last night. He'd found Carl's description of Semelee being lowered into the hole particularly unsettling. If the lights, filtered through sand and water, had caused the clan's deformities, what would direct exposure do? Make you crazy? The cenote must have been where she'd learned-how had she put it? Who I am Who I am. Who was she if not Semelee?

"That was one h.e.l.l of a shot, Dad. One h.e.l.l h.e.l.l of a shot." of a shot."

Jack kept reliving the emotional swings of that moment.

"Wasn't it? Wasn't it, though?"

Dad had darted into the kitchen and was searching through the bottles in a cabinet above the sink. His speech came in staccato bursts, his movements were quick, jittery, as if he'd mainlined caffeine.

He's higher than the proverbial kite, Jack thought.

"I wasn't looking to kill him, you know, and prayed I wouldn't, but I was also thinking, if it's his life or Jack's, then I can live just fine with a kill shot. All the skills came back as I was sitting in that tree, Jack. Suddenly I was back at the Chosin Reservoir, and I was on autopilot and really, really relaxed because no one was shooting at me out in the Glades. It was just me and the rifle, and control of the situation was mine for the taking. I-here it is." He pulled a dark green bottle from the cabinet and held it aloft. "Wait till you taste this."

"Scotch? I think I'll go for a beer."

"No-no. You've got to try this. Remember Uncle Stu?"

Jack nodded. "Sure."

Uncle Stu wasn't a real uncle, just a close friend of the family. Close enough to earn "Uncle" status.

"He belongs to a single malt scotch club. He let me try this once and I had to get a bottle. Aged in old sherry casks-amontillado, I believe."

"And discovered with a skeleton behind a brick wall?" When Dad gave him a questioning look, Jack said, "Never mind."

"You drink this neat." Dad poured two fingers' worth into a couple of short tumblers. "Adding ice, water, or soda is punishable by death." He handed Jack a gla.s.s and clinked his own against it. "To the best day of my life in the last fifteen years."

Jack was pierced by an instant of sadness. The best? Really?

Not a Scotch drinker, Jack took a tentative sip and rolled it around on his tongue. It had a sweetness and a body he'd never tasted in any other Scotch. And the finish was...fabulous.

"For the love of G.o.d, Montresor!" he said. "That is good!" good!"

"Isn't it?" Dad said, grinning. "Isn't that the best you ever had?"

"No question. Potent stuff."

"That's what I hear, but I haven't seen any proof."

Jack let that one slide. "Where can I get a bottle?"

"You can't. It's all gone. They produce only so many casks and this batch is long sold out."

Jack lifted his gla.s.s for another sip. "Then we'd better nurse this one."

"I don't care if we empty the bottle. This is a special day. It's been a long, long time since I've felt this alive." He looked at Jack. "But I have to ask you something."

"Shoot."

"Where'd that pistol come from, the one you pulled after I parted the big guy's hair?"

Jack felt very close to his father at the moment, closer than he could ever remember. The father-son slope had been leveled. They were eye to eye now. Equals. Friends. He didn't want anything to get in the way of that, but he couldn't very well tell Dad he'd imagined the Glock.

So he pulled it from the small of his back and laid it on the kitchen counter.

"You mean this?"

"Yes. That." His father picked it up and hefted it. Jack noted with approval how he kept the muzzle directed down and away from both of them. "What's it made of? Feels almost like..."

"Plastic? That's because most of it is. Not the barrel and firing pin, of course, but pretty much all the rest."

He turned it back and forth in his hand, staring at it. "Amazing." He raised his eyes to Jack. "But what's an appliance repairman doing with something like this?"

How to handle this...

"Sometimes I wind up in bad neighborhoods and I feel more comfortable knowing I'm carrying."

"But how did you get it down here? I know you didn't carry it aboard the plane."

Jack shrugged. "There are ways."

Dad continued to stare at him. "Tell me the truth: You're not really a repairman, are you."

"Oh, but I am. That's the truth."

"Okay, but what else are you?" He waggled the Glock. "I saw how you handled this out there. I saw plenty of people handle guns in the war, and you could always tell the ones who knew what they were doing and were comfortable with them, just as you could tell the ones who weren't. You fall into the first category, Jack."

Despite the closeness he felt to his father at this moment, despite the combat-zone bond they'd formed, Jack couldn't bring himself to tell him.

"You're pretty comfortable too, Dad. Maybe it just runs in the family."

"All right. Keep your secrets. For now. But promise me that someday, before I die, you'll tell me. Promise?"

Jack knew a trap when he heard one. This one was a cousin of "When did you stop beating your wife?" If he promised, he'd be admitting there was something to tell.

"Let's not talk about you dying, Dad."

He sighed. "I'm not going to get anywhere, am I?" He poured more Scotch into Jack's gla.s.s. "Maybe this will loosen your tongue."

Jack laughed. "No one's ever tried to ply me with liquor before. Bring it on!"

11.

The shadows was gettin' long by the time Semelee was ready to make her move. Even us in both eye-sh.e.l.ls, it had took her a while to get Dora in place. Like any other alligator snapper, she was slow and kinda clumsy. Nothin' like Devil.

Poor Devil. Luke said he was doin' right poorly and looked like he was fixin' to die. That made her feel bad.

But she shook off the sadness and fixed on what she aimed to do. Now that she finally had Dora where she wanted her, Semelee was ready for the next step.

She moved away from the lagoon and walked through the hummock until she came to the bees' nest. She didn't get too close. These was killer bees and once they got mad they'd swarm and wouldn't stop stingin'. They didn't know how.

She fixed the sh.e.l.ls over her eyes and concentrated...and sees the inside of the hive. Her vision's all weird, like she's lookin' through dozens of eyes at once...

Semelee lowered the sh.e.l.ls and picked up the rock she'd brought along. She tossed it at the hive, then put the sh.e.l.ls back over her eyes, real quick like.

...and once again she's inside the hive with that weird way of looking at things. But the hive's different now. It's filled with angry buzzing-real angry. They're movin' toward the opening, hittin' the air and the sunlight, and then she's flyin', movin' right with them.

She sees herself, standin' in the shadows with the sh.e.l.ls over her eyes. The swarm homes in on her like she's the absolute worst thing in their world, like they gotta protect the hive from her or die tryin'. Sweat breaks out all over her body. Maybe she shouldn't have done this. Maybe she should have thought of another way. Cause if she can't turn them, they're gonna kill her.

She pulls at them, pushes at them, there's somethin' worse than her, somethin' that's a bigger threat to the hive and they've gotta get him, gotta stop him or the hive'll be destroyed.

It doesn't seem to be working. They're still comin' at her. Somethin' inside her is screamin' to run but she knows that won't do no good. Ain't n.o.body gonna outrun these bees.

Gotta turn 'em, gotta turn 'em, gotta- There! They're turnin', veerin' away from her and turnin' east. She did it. She's in control now and her own rage adds fuel to the bees'.

12.

With his father noisily engaged in an exploration of the deep, dark recesses of napland, Jack wandered outside. Square-foot-wise, Dad's place was bigger than Jack's apartment back in New York, but it felt smaller. Maybe because he didn't have to share his place with anyone. He needed some fresh air.

With the comforting weight of the Glock at the small of his back, he scanned his surroundings as he yawned and stretched, looking for signs of the clan. Semelee had said Dad was no longer a target, but she'd been acting pretty weird out there in the Glades. What was to prevent her from changing her mind?

He started to circle the house, as much inspecting as trying to walk off the Scotch. He hadn't had all that much but it had made him a little drowsy. Not drowsy enough for a nap, though.

No white-haired girl sitting on his car hood this time. No one at all in sight. As he walked around to the left side he heard a faint buzzing, like a far-off chainsaw, filtering through the air. He looked around for the source but saw nothing. Maybe someone was using one on the far side of one of the houses. One thing he knew, it wasn't Carl. He was taking the rest of the day off-although he'd told Jack he'd return briefly tonight to set up the Anya-cam again.

The buzzing grew louder and Jack did another slow turn. What-?

Then he saw the man-size cloud sweeping toward him from the Glades and knew with a sick, cold dread what it was and who had sent them. All his instincts urged him to turn and run but he forced himself forward, toward them. Because that was where the front door was. He sprinted with everything he had, but the bees got there first.