Fathomless (32 page)

“She said no.”

As Geldman had done, Sean imagined, Orne bowed his head. “She said no.”

“She was wrong. I would have made her say yes.”

“That's why I'd made sure you weren't there. No sight of you. No sound of you. Even the little trucks and plastic dinosaurs you'd left on the couch were dangerous, but Kate got over them.”

What if Mom
had
become like Orne? When he was little, Sean probably wouldn't have known the difference. Dad would have freaked out if she'd told him the truth about her miracle cure, but he'd never have separated her and Sean the way Eli Glass had separated Aster and Daniel. What about Nyarlathotep, though? Join his gang, and he wanted everything. He'd told Sean as much to his face. What did
everything
mean, specifically? Looking at Orne, you couldn't see where he'd given
anything
up.

It hurt Sean's head to think about it, actually hurt, a grind of pain around his eye sockets. Maybe that was because he was squeezing his eyes shut so damn hard. He blinked to refocus on Orne. One thing he knew: “If my mom had changed in some scary way, so she thought she had to leave me and Dad? I'd still be like Daniel. I'd go after her as soon as I knew how.”

After another long silence, Orne said, “Come back to the deck. I've one more thing to give you.”

*   *   *

It
was a tin whistle without the finger holes, except it was made not of tin but of a reddish gold engraved with a tight spiral of hieroglyphs. To Sean, the symbols looked like tiny mouths more or less open, with more or fewer teeth and the occasional flapping tongue. Maybe there were some eyes in there, too. Orne said the workmanship was Egyptian, but the script and language were nonhuman.

“The whistle's a magic-modulator,” he said. “You collect energy and
intend
to breathe it out through the instrument, which will convert it into sound. Music.”

Funny how Sean had thought earlier he was more a kazoo guy than a pianist—however precious, the whistle reminded him of one. When Orne blew into it, high-pitched tones emerged, each lingering until the air vibrated with an eerie harmony, the first tone fading away, then the second and so on. But when Sean blew into the whistle, nothing came out. Nothing went in, either. Instead his vigorous exhale puffed out his cheeks and burst free around the mouthpiece in a great fart imitation. He tried again. Same result.

“You're putting out plain air,” Orne said. “Unless it carries magical energy, it won't enter the whistle. You've been practicing with the key as your collection image. Relax and use it here. Gather as usual; a tiny amount will do. Center the energy, then send it out with your breath.”

It took Sean a few tries before he could consistently produce one tone per puff. For his last attempt, he built up a decent magical buzz, enough to levitate a pencil. That charged breath emerged as a shrill bleat.

Orne winced, then applauded. “Someone nonmagical wouldn't have heard that at all. But Deep Ones have keen ears for magical sound. That blast would have gotten their attention, and because it expresses your potential, it would have earned you respect as a fellow magician. A stronger blast yet could serve to warn or distract or deter, depending on whatever secondary intention you added.”

“Could I hurt Deep Ones with this?”

“You might if you put enough energy and malicious intention into your breath. Avoid anger; think self-protection. And how much key did you expose that last time?”

“Just the little knob on top.”

“If you have to expose more, do it bit by bit. I don't want you injuring anyone, yourself included. You'll have noticed that doing magic gives you a headache?”

“Yeah. It was real bad after I did the summoning last year.”

“That's because you still have to use personal energy to shape and deploy the ambient energy you gather. Try too much at once, you could incapacitate yourself.”

“Knock myself out?”

“Exactly. Be very careful, Sean. This whistle should be new to the Deep Ones. They won't know how powerful a weapon you wield, but much will depend on your confidence. Remember their telepathy, and
think
that the whistle's dangerous, as it could be.
Believe
that you're ready to do whatever it takes to defend yourself and your friends.”

Sean slipped the whistle and its red-gold chain over his head and under his shirt. Like the One Ring, it was heavier than it looked, but it rested cool and comfortable against his breastbone. “How do I get this back to you?”

“No need. It's a gift.”

“It's too much!”

“You should indulge me, Sean. As many grandchildren as I've had, I've never gotten a chance to spoil one.”

“Thanks! But I don't even know what to call you yet.”

“If you're still most comfortable with ‘Reverend,' so am I.”

“Okay. Then thanks again, Reverend. Really.”

Orne headed for the deck steps. Halfway down, he turned and added, “And go slow through the sound. The moon's new tonight.”

It was, a fingernail trimming. New moon, dark of the moon. “That's what it was when I summoned the Servitor.”

“True. I didn't think of that.”

“Is it a bad omen?”

After studying the slivered moon, Orne shook his head. “You first proved your mettle that night. I'm betting you'll prove it again.”

“You're still testing me?”

“Does a father grade every step a child takes?”

“I hope not.”

“Well, he doesn't. Mostly he just watches. He watches the child walk away. He watches for him to turn back.”

Except it was Orne who walked away, while Sean got out his phone to call Eddy.

 

22

Orne
was right about the whistle. When Sean demonstrated it, Eddy heard nothing, while Daniel grimaced and suggested tuning that sucker. The Montauk was what impressed him. Sean promised future boating lessons, but tonight he'd have to drive while chart-savvy Eddy navigated. Since Daniel was the empath, he'd watch (and feel) for company, on or under the water. Jobs assigned, Daniel settled down on the rear bench, Eddy untied the docking lines, and Sean pulled them out into the Parker River.

They left the dock shortly after high tide, which gave them plenty of time to get through the sound at its most navigable. The Montauk ran smooth and high, a sweet ride of a boat; with Eddy calling their course from the bow, they glided between Plum Island and the mainland marshes without any serious flirtations with shoals and mud flats, rocks and submerged pilings. Aside from the clouds of mosquitoes and midges that repellent kept at bay, the only creatures they saw were fish purling the surface, two night herons, and a great horned owl that swooped across the bow, making them all yell. Well, making Sean and Eddy yell. Daniel sat as silent as the owl's wings, only his head moving as he guarded their wake.

They were rounding the southern tip of Plum Island when harbor porpoises appeared to surf the Montauk's bow waves, three port, three starboard. Daniel leaned over the rails to feel them out. After a few minutes, he said, “I think they're real porpoises. I don't pick up any magic from them.”

“But I'll bet they're Deep One allies,” Eddy said.

Sean kept his eyes forward. The chart showed a reef between the last shoals and Sandy Point on Plum Island. At high tide, the reef would be well underwater, but he wasn't taking any chances. “I don't care about the porpoises as long as they don't attack us.”

“They're just riding along now.”

“Not those two,” Daniel said.

“What?”

“A couple took off toward the point.” Daniel scuffled to the stern. “And something's on the beach over there.”

Eddy joined him aft. She'd hung Orne's binoculars around her neck, and she used them now. “Gray seals, pulled out for the night.”

“Can I look?”

Sean watched the binoculars change hands. Then he had to look forward again as the Montauk entered Innsmouth Bay. At the mouth of the sound, the surf ran about a foot; beyond it, the ocean was a sheet of barely rippled glass. To starboard he made out a long concavity of mainland with clustered lights at its midpoint: Innsmouth. A lesser string of lights marked the harbor breakwater. To port was open Atlantic, where, a mile and a half out from town, a sea serpent humped its jagged spine clear of the water. Someone profoundly brave or stupid had dared to spear it with lamp-topped harpoons, one on each end of the beast. “Devil Reef,” he called over his shoulder. “Check it out.”

“Can't,” Eddy groaned. “We're too busy checking out stuff back here.”

“The patrol boat?”

“Maybe we're going to wish.” Eddy stepped over to the console, without the binoculars, which Daniel still trained on Sandy Point. “Those two porpoises swam to the beach where the seals are pulled out, and then a bunch of the seals dived into the water and came back up porpoises. They're after us.”

Under his life vest, Sean wore the Windbreaker he'd brought from Arkham. With little wind for it to break, he'd started sweating. “Deep Ones?”

“Unless you think seals can shape-shift.”

“You're sure they did?”

“We'll find out when they get close enough for Daniel to read. Or else you could run for it on principle.”

Run for it where? They could go south along the coast, toward Arkham, or north along the ocean side of Plum Island, either way buzzing past Devil Reef as they left the bay. Too bad they had to actually land on the reef and hang around waiting for helpful Deep Ones to show.

Or had helpful Deep Ones already showed? They shouldn't assume their pursuers were the bad guys.

Daniel either read Sean's mind or had the same idea. “No use running. We
want
to meet Deep Ones. Slow down and let them catch up.”

Eddy looked dubious, but Sean cut speed. It was probably better to contact Deep Ones while they were in the boat, not sitting ducks on the rocks. He kept the Montauk putt-putting gently toward Devil Reef. Deprived of their bow waves, the real porpoises dived out of sight. The maybe-fake ones came on fast, their triangular dorsals slicing the water in a tight V-formation. Like the two fake porpoises off the Arkham jetty, these were bigger than usual. Sean itched to accelerate, but that would only make them look scared or guilty.

They'd covered half the distance between Plum Island and Devil Reef when the porpoises reached them. Instead of coming alongside the Montauk, they fell into single file and circled it at a few yards off. Daniel handed the binoculars back to Eddy and drifted from gunwale to gunwale, face blank, bending far over the railings to stare at their pursuers. His lips moved as if in soundless conversation. Then he said, “They're Deep Ones. They're talking to me.”

Eddy relayed the binoculars to Sean and went to Daniel. “What're they saying?”

“Look!”

But “look” was what Daniel was saying. He also pointed at the surrounding swimmers. A few seconds before, they'd had the sleek gray backs and broad flukes of porpoises; now their backs were silvery green, armored with palm-sized scales or plates and sporting a single fixed fin that ran from their hairless heads all the way down their spines. And they had legs that frog-kicked, and arms that oared, and webbed hands and feet. Sean let the Montauk glide to a stop and stepped from the console to the railing opposite Daniel's. Watching the Deep Ones, he began to notice differences in their coloration and unique notches or splits in their dorsal fins. Most distinctive was a swimmer with black scale-plates on one shoulder and a semicircular dip in the middle of the fin, scalloped like a giant shark bite. He counted from him (or her?) and got up to seven before Shark-Bit came back around.

“They're getting closer,” Eddy said.

Slowly, spiraling inward. Metal glinted on their dorsal fins and their ankles and wrists. Deep Ones didn't go absolutely naked, then. Some wore broad gold bracelets and anklets; all of them had piercings in their fins, stuck through with gold rings along the upper edge and gold beads or disks elsewhere. Shark-Bit rocked the heaviest cuffs and anklets and the most fin piercings, and he (or she?) was the one who first swam into the sphere of illumination thrown by the Montauk's all-round light.

Sean went back to the console in case of trouble, but he could see Shark-Bit from there.
She,
not
he,
from the underbelly that appeared as she rolled in the water—white and scaleless with two small but obvious breasts. She dived briefly, and then her head broke the surface six feet from Daniel, giving them all a good look at her face.

The shocking thing was how unshocked Sean felt. Seeing Tom Marsh had prepared him. In fact, it had overprepared him, because Shark-Bit wasn't half as nasty. Her Change was complete, and the human-fish-amphibian features of her face had blended into a whole that, however alien, made visual sense. From the top of her elliptical skull to her collarbones, she was covered with finer, more iridescent scales than the ones on her back and upper shoulders. The dorsal fin started at mid-forehead; dozens of gold rings and studs pierced it there, making it look more like a tiara than a part of her body. Well, if Shark-Bit was going to have any piercings, she had to put them in the fin—she had no ears, just two flat drumheads behind her frog-goggly eyes. No nose to speak of, either, just the two slitted nostrils that flared pink as she breathed air instead of water. Her lipless mouth was an upside-down
U
filled with serrated teeth, and her gills, five on either side of her thick neck, flared pink like her nostrils, then on closing made a soft wet sound like smacking lips.

The other six Deep Ones had stopped spiraling inward, but they still swam a circle around the boat: a guard picket to keep the Montauk from advancing or retreating while their leader parleyed with Daniel. At least it looked like they were parleying, eyes locked, her mouth quivering, his forming silent words.