“It’s not safe for you here, all right?” Peggy finally looked up, her eyes red and irritated by recent tears. Then, with great deliberation, she said, “I don’t want you here.”
“DeParle told you to say that.”
“She just got me thinking about us...about our future. And the more I sit here and think about it, the more I know she’s right. You deserve somebody better, somebody you can touch without making that curdle face you had last night when you saw my...my hand.” She chuckled through fresh tears. “Someone who can give you children without flippers!”
“Stop it.”
“I can’t stop it!” She swiped a hand across her face, trying to halt the raging streams that flowed down her cheeks. It was a futile gesture. “There’s nothing I want more than to leave with you, than to be with you, but I’m different now.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“How can you not care about it? Have you given it any rational thought?”
Larry checked the silent beeper on his belt, shot a nervous glance toward the empty stairs; he would feel better when they were far from Colonial Bay. “We can talk about this later.”
“No,” she huffed. “What...later? We need to talk about this now. We’ve got plenty of time. ‘Sanctuary,’ remember?”
“This is insane. Brahm’s outside. He’s talked to some specialists. We can get you some help.”
“You can’t help me. Nothing can change me back to what I was. I’m not the girl you fell in love with anymore.”
Larry looked straight into her eyes, his stare unwavering. “I don’t accept that.”
Peggy shook her head, her voice brimming with frustration. “You can’t save everyone.”
“You really believe I could just decide I don’t want you anymore?” he asked, feeling like an idiot as he fought back tears of his own. “When I had my...when I broke that mirror, you didn’t walk away from me.”
“You were going to get better. At least, I hoped you would. I never will, Larry.” She swallowed hard and turned away. “I wish I was dead.”
“Don’t say that! You’re not like her!”
“Like Natalie?” Her despair flared into anger and she threw his shirt aside. “Do you know how sick I am of that bitch? — of what she’s done to our lives? What about me, Larry? Did you think about me when you went running off to be her hero? — when you sliced your wrist open on that glass?”
“No,” he confessed. His stomach sank; tears broke free and burned their way down his face. She was right, of course. Natalie could’ve killed herself at any time and left him in blissful ignorance. Instead, she called out to him and he ran to her, unthinking, as if he were Pavlov’s dog. She’d sucked him into her downward spiral, and he’d dragged Peggy along for the ride. “I wasn’t thinking about anything, least of all you. Now you’re all I do think about.”
Peggy looked away. “Too late.”
He rushed her, grabbed her by the arms, felt them tremble within his grasp. “It’s not too late, damn it! I’m going to take you out of here and —”
“Stop playing hero,” she cried and her eyes snapped back to him. “I’m not your damsel in distress! I’m the fucking dragon! God, how can you even stand to look at me?”
“You’re my life,” he answered without hesitation. “Don’t you know that? I’m always going to love you, to want you. What do I have to do to prove it?”
Peggy looked back to the cavern floor, as if trying to think of a proper test. When she found one, her eyes locked with his. “You want this freak show?” She wiped at her cheeks again, then pulled him to her in a close embrace. “Make love to me.”
“Now?” he asked, stunned. “Brahm’s waiting for —”
“Let him wait. What are you afraid of?”
Larry looked back at the stairs. “Those things could —”
Peggy pressed her fingers against his lips to hush him.
“Sanctuary,” she whispered, tracing his mouth. “You say I don’t disgust you, that you still love me...Love me.”
And then she kissed him. Larry could not believe her enthusiasm. He returned her passion, his fears evaporating as he became lost in the moment. She was alive, they were together, and he wanted her as badly as she wanted him. If she needed proof of his devotion, he would gladly provide it.
Larry stirred to arousal. He grasped Peggy’s head and pried her from his lips, gazing deeply into her eyes. The pupils had widened until they were now black holes rimmed in yellow. They looked up at him with pure hunger, wanting his flesh. He found himself wondering if she sought to caress it or consume it, but quickly vanquished the idea.
“Show me,” he told her, undaunted. “I want to see you.”
In a single, violent motion, Peggy pulled off his shorts and underwear, nearly causing him to lose his balance. She knelt, clasped him in her hands, guided him between her lips and into her expectant mouth. This was not an act she’d been skilled at in the past. He would feel her teeth raking his sensorial flesh, filling him with far more pain than pleasure. Now, however, he felt nothing but her tongue tracing tingling shapes and figures on his receptive skin. She slid him in and out, her mouth and fingers working in perfect harmony. The sensation was incredible. He shut his eyes and braced himself against the etched stone of the temple wall. It was so good, in fact, that it took him a moment to realize her teeth were gone. They’d receded into her gums and been replaced by a soft pallet.
Larry uttered a low moan. He reached down to run his fingers through her long hair and felt the mane slide through his grasp. His eyes opened to see her reddish-brown crown shrinking into her scalp, pulled inward as if by some mechanism hidden within her bobbing skull. She took him deeper than ever before, drawing him into her soft, pulsating tissues. The sides of her neck opened like the flaps of a plane, showing off her surging gills. He felt as though he might come at any moment, but Peggy slowed her nod until his need lost its urgency, then stopped altogether.
He slid from her lips as she rose to kiss him, pressing her exposed vulva against his leg, slicking his thigh with her craving for him. “Lay down,” she commanded, her voice raspy and alien to his ears.
Larry did as she instructed, feeling the chill of the stone against his back. She crawled onto him, her nipples poking at his chest, her skin throbbing as if it were the wall of an artery. She kissed his mouth, her lips fuller and wider now than they’d ever been, and then he felt her heat. As her body impaled itself upon him again and again, Larry felt the muscles within her work against his length, although whether it was a conscious effort on her part or merely an element of her transformation, he didn’t know.
The artist watched in awe as Peggy shifted into her other self. She was one of his rough sketches, drawn, erased, and redrawn, constantly evolving into a finished masterpiece ready for paint. Her skin became transparent, glowing with an inner light that allowed him to view the pumping and fluttering of her anatomy. At one point, he thought that he could even see the shadow of his own erection rise and fall within her. Her arms and legs lengthened, the fingers and toes altering to become the webbed appendages he’d seen before. She bent her head, letting him witness a spiny dorsal fin unfurl from her naked scalp, protruding from the back of her skull like a flag, then tracing its way down her spine. As he lay there, bathing in the glow from Peggy’s body, Larry felt something move against his scrotum and lowered his gaze, amazed to see a long, flat tail frolicking behind her.
He watched these radical modifications overtake her form, and what struck him most were the things that remained so familiar. Her warmth, the way she touched him, the sound of her breathing, the noises she made in ecstasy...if he closed his eyes...he kept them open, however, not wanting to miss an instant of her transformation.
Larry felt a spasm within her, unsure if it were the fine tuning of her form or a powerful orgasm, then he watched as she threw her head back to scream at the roof of the cavern, her ear-splitting cry echoing through the chamber. The sound of her
climax, and the feel of her inner convulsions, brought Larry to conclusion as well. He slammed his eyes shut and grunted heavily, his body tensing, then relaxing as he sucked in the damp air of the cave.
When it was over, Larry began to laugh, the sound maturing to a hearty, boisterous cackle. He opened his eyes to look at the luminescent being that still straddled him. Her breasts, now transparent and laced with veins of rhythmic light, were her only familiar feature, and yet she was beautiful. He’d feared she would look like the things that had chased them the night before, but she was a completely different animal. Hers was the appearance of an angel, not a monster.
She looked down at him, puzzled. “Are you okay?”
Larry nodded, gasping. “Words cannot describe how I feel right now.”
“Am I...” She lowered her head, “...hideous?”
“Oh, God, no.” He rose up to kiss her new mouth and she wrapped her arms around him tightly, as if to keep him from running away. When their lips separated, he added, “You’re incredible.”
She closed her translucent lids, turning her black eyes gray. “If you want to leave me, I’ll —”
“Peggy.” He reached up to clasp her chin, pointing it toward him. “I’ve passed your test. I love you...I need you. If this is how I can have you, then so be it. You’re beautiful.”
She smiled, her mouth widening to an unimaginable expanse, then moved in to kiss him once more. He cocked his head, put a hand up to hush her.
“Quiet for a second.”
Larry saw his shorts and underwear lying wrinkled on the ground and reached for them, digging through the fabric for Brahm’s beeper. His hands felt around the waistband until they came to the small black box he’d clipped there.
It vibrated wildly.
A creaking sound in the distance. Someone just opened the door.
“What is it?” Peggy asked, her voice a gargled whisper.
Larry frowned. “Company.”
THIRTY SEVEN
Dr. Kyle Brahm stood in the bushes; his gaze shifted from his watch, to the church doors, then back again. How long had it been? Twenty minutes? Twenty-five? What was taking Neuhaus so damn long?
At thirty minutes I should go back to the boat, he reasoned. And then what? I still won’t have any answers. Those things wouldn’t show themselves in the light of day. Even when they attacked the hospital, they cut the power to the lights.
Brahm was about to stand up and go to the church when he saw figures climb the footpath toward him, a white man and an Asian woman. What was that in her hand? Whatever it was, it appeared to lead her his way. Brahm glanced at his iPhone, wondered if they had somehow tapped into the GPS and were now able to pinpoint his exact location.
Instead, the couple passed him by and walked over to the church entrance, cautiously surveying the surrounding area as if looking for watchful eyes. Brahm lowered himself even further into the shrubbery to avoid detection, and, after a moment, the pair entered the building.
Oh, shit! Brahm dialed his pager.
•••
The sun filtered through stained glass prisms, bathing the church in a patchwork of colored streaks and shadow. Carol felt along the wall for a light switch and was suddenly blinded. Alan, ever the Boy Scout, had thought to bring a flashlight. He swung the beam away from her eyes, traced the doorframe with it, but found no button, knob, or toggle of any kind.
This is too weird, Carol thought.
Alan, as if reading her mind, had an answer. “This church probably dates back to before electricity.”
“Yeah,” she whispered. “But wouldn’t they have it installed?”
He shook his head, searching the room with his light. “It might ruin the historical feel of the place. They’re probably going for that ‘colonial settlement’ look.”
Carol stepped into the structure; hollow was the only word she could find to describe it, but even that did not accurately convey the emptiness. She held the compass out into the gloom. “Shine that light down here, will you.”
The beam revealed a mad tug-of-war still going on between true north and another magnetic influence: the pulpit.
Carol hurried down the aisle to the front of the church. The pull of true north became less and less insistent, yielding victory to the impostor hidden somewhere in this building. The archeologist searched the altar, lifting the cloth covering to admire the stone beneath.
“What are you looking for?” Alan asked.
“I haven’t got a clue,” she admitted. “Something odd. Something that looks as if it shouldn’t be here.”
He snickered. “That would be you and I, fearless leader.”
Carol stood, irritated, and backed toward the wall to get a better view of the entire scene. Something was here. She could almost feel it in the air like static electricity, but what it was eluded her. She checked the compass once more for guidance. The needle faced the wall behind her, twitching as if it longed to spring forward and bury itself in the wood.
Carol whirled around. A door, hidden in the shadows; she pushed it open, heard hinges squeak in protest, and found a downward staircase made of stone. The object of their quest awaited them down there. She grinned at Alan. “The game is afoot, Watson.”
He followed her down.
Carol turned the corner, and what she saw filled her with chills. “Oh, my God...”
It was an exact replica of the sunken Atlantean temple, except the statue (the glyphs dubbed it Varuna, not Neptune as she’d originally guessed) was completely intact. Even the carvings on the walls, so far as she could tell, were identical. They told the Atlantean version of Sodom and Gomorrah; a tale of gods who traveled in great boats across the heavens, and of the two cities that had angered them, cities destroyed by holy fire that rained down from the sky.
Carol glanced down at the compass needle, saw it aimed at the unbroken idol, and turned to Alan. He was still gazing around in awe, his eyes the size of saucers. She cleared her throat.
Alan blinked and his gaze met her own. “What’s it doing here?”
“I don’t know what’s going on, but let’s see where this thing —” she held up the compass, “— leads us, and maybe we’ll find out.”
They stepped into the tabernacle, the needle guiding their steps. Their footfalls joined the sound of dripping water, filling the vast cavity of the chamber with echoes, adding to the mysterious feel of the place. It truly felt as if they’d stumbled onto a lost world.
•••
From her hiding place behind a rocky outcropping, Peggy watched the two strangers approach the statue. She tried to stand, but Larry grabbed her and dragged her back down to her knees.
“What are you doing?” he whispered.
Her tail slapped at his back as she fought against his grip. “Can’t let them near the altar.”
“Why the hell not?”
She stopped fighting and shook her head; her new eyes were wide, coldly blank. “I...I don’t know.”
“Then I suggest we let them do their thing and leave.”
Peggy gave a slow nod.
•••
When Alan stepped up to the stone altar, he felt the warmth of countless candles; their melted wax formed multicolored stalactites as it poured over the edge and dripped onto the temple floor below. Their light illuminated a very thick, very ancient book.
Carol opened the volume with great care and smiled at its contents.
“What is it?” Alan asked.
“I’ll have to translate it. The language is the same as the glyphs. It’s Atlantean.”
She felt along the base of the statue, looking for possible openings, sealed compartments, but found none. “I don’t understand what’s creating the magnetic pull.”
Alan looked into the grinning face of the stone god above. “It looks like ordinary stone.” He returned his attention to the altar and frowned. “Someone’s been here recently. Half of these candles are new.”
“And you’re worried they might
come back, none too happy to find us in their temple?”
“The thought had occurred to me.”
Carol picked up the book. “Okay, let’s go.”
Alan’s eyes widened. “You’re taking that?”
“We need some answers, don’t we?”
“You don’t think they’ll miss it?”
“I won’t tell them we took it if you won’t.”
A stern, gravelly echo, “Put down that book!”
Both archeologists whirled around; they scanned the chamber for the owner of the voice. Alan even shot a glance upward, fearing he might see the toothy face of the idol glaring down at him with burning eyes. The stone figure was still only that, and the chamber appeared to be theirs alone.
Not taking any chances, he gave Carol a gentle shove toward the staircase. “Go!”
She ran for the steps, Alan not far behind her. He noticed that she still held the book tightly against her chest.
Mistake, he thought, half expecting some trap to snare them for their desecration.
As they mounted the stairs, Alan saw something come into the periphery of his vision: a glowing shape that rose from the rocks like a ghost.
•••
Peggy didn’t know why she wanted to stand up and cry out. But, when that woman lifted the aged book from the altar, it was as if someone else took control of her nerves, a puppet master manipulating a doll. She felt Larry’s insistent hand on her arm, pulling her downward, but she didn’t, she couldn’t obey it.
“Put down that book!” she demanded, still fighting to break free of his grip.
“Peggy,” Larry called, trying to keep it to a whisper. “What the hell are you doing?”
She smacked him hard across the back with her tail.
He fell forward and finally released her arm.
Peggy rose up; she saw the man, watched him run up the stairs, and, with a grace she had not previously possessed, she leapt over the rocks onto the stone floor. She was going to chase them, going to get that book.