Part 17 (1/2)

”Tell me,” she said, and her alarm brought him back.

”I heard something,” he told her, and closed his eyes as he heard something else, then.

A woman singing.

”Perrin,” Jenny whispered.

”Come on,” he said, still shaken.

She didn't move. ”Wait.”

”Jenny,” he said, but she squeezed his hand, and he realized she was staring behind him, at the forest. Jaw tight, every inch of her tense, straining, like she was fighting the urge to run.

Perrin turned. And saw that the forest had loosened its many shadows, the eyes he had felt watching them.

Not animals.

Children.

Chapter Nine.

Jenny had never been a big fan of all those Mad Max movies. Postapocalyptic wastelands rife with brutality, bad teeth, and men in a.s.sless chaps were not her idea of entertainment. She preferred historical romances, light with banter and stolen looks; cla.s.sic black-and-white films where women were dames and the comedy screwball; or those old Westerns where the men moved slow and easy-except on the draw-and talked with spa.r.s.e tongues.

The children who walked out of the woods were straight from the proverbial wasteland, fitting into another world: where laws did not exist; where adults were myth; and over the next hill might stand a place where it was common to fight to the death.

Small, lean. None was older than ten. Few shared the same ethnicity. She saw an Asian girl with straight black hair, a lean blond boy covered in freckles, and another with ebony skin and no hair at all. A Hispanic-looking girl with haunted eyes stood in the shadows, and there were smaller children near her, very young, with round faces and st.u.r.dy little bodies that should have been tumbling over soft rugs dragging teddy bears and sucking their thumbs instead of standing barefoot on the border of a rain forest, on an island in the middle of nowhere.

All wore loincloths made of soft pale leather, and nothing else. Jenny counted twelve children, but she was afraid there might be more, out of sight. Their youth didn't make her feel safe. She had heard of kids going feral-mostly to describe schools where bullies were getting rougher, more violent. That was nothing compared to this. This was old-school feral. Raised-by-wolves feral. Hunger in their eyes, and distrust, and just enough curiosity to make it all very dangerous.

”This is new,” Perrin said, mildly.

Jenny didn't dare look at him. ”Is that good or bad?”

”She's old,” he replied. ”I'm not sure.”

She decided to err on the side of bad. ”I'm not going to hit a kid.”

”That would probably be for the best,” he replied, still with that soft voice. And just like that, something snapped inside her: a peculiarly rich vein of anger, throbbing in her gut. Anger, combined with a streak of wild protectiveness.

Jenny's hands curled into fists. ”Who is this woman, and why are these children here?”

Perrin tensed. ”I don't know. She's not human. Her reasons-”

”I know plenty of nonhumans,” she snapped. ”Some are s.h.i.+t, but if any of them messed with kids? No mercy. A bullet in the brain.”

And you remember what that looks like, she thought, with disgust, and nausea. What it feels like to pull the trigger.

Jenny's knees weakened, but she took a step toward the children, and then another. All of them swayed sideways with shambling grace-like little zombies-watching her with silent, feral hunger. She was afraid of them, but her concern was stronger.

Perrin loomed, warm and solid, close enough that their arms brushed. Jenny felt ashamed of her relief. Ashamed, and uneasy that his presence was so familiar, so comfortable, that instead of feeling like a stranger, he felt more like a constant, a touchstone, some piece of home.

He made her feel safe.

It wasn't right. It was too easy. Her heart was going to find itself broken into pieces. Because he was a stranger, he wasn't even human, and those dreams-those dreams, now that they were flesh and blood, and real- Coward, she told herself. Brave until you get what you want most.

But she'd had what she wanted most, not so long ago. And lost it.

Perrin gripped her shoulder. ”Careful.”

Yes, she thought, and swallowed hard, meeting the flat, a.s.sessing gazes of all those staring children, before settling on the Asian girl.

”Hey,” she said, trying to smile. ”What's your name?”

”Stranger,” whispered the girl. But the word had power, as though saying it released some strange current that raced against Jenny's skin. The base of her skull throbbed.

She heard the woman singing again: delicate, haunting, each note s.h.i.+mmering in her mind like a storm of falling light. Warm air rushed over her face. Smelled like rain. She felt sticky with sweat, weak, and suffered the overwhelming urge to throw herself naked into the sea, as though that would solve all her problems.

”And why wouldn't it?” asked a woman, suddenly.

Yes, said another voice inside Jenny's mind, echoing oddly, as though it wasn't quite part of her. Yes, heal.

Jenny flinched, turning. Perrin moved with her. Around them, the world spun with a sickening jolt, sky melting into sand, the sea roaring over the thunder of her heart. The parasite pulsed, trembled, fluttered like it was growing wings- -and everything stopped.

Jenny found herself staring at sand. On her knees, in the sand. Her body tingled, and her head swam. She sucked in a deep breath, and slowly, carefully, looked up. Perrin stood beside her. Large, rawboned, his alabaster white skin carved with scars. Fresh from the fight, like the line from an old song. Frightening, intimidating.

Until he glanced at her, and she witnessed a heartbreaking vulnerability in his eyes that stole the breath right out of her. He was a boy again, that little boy, afraid and alone.

There and gone. She blinked, and found herself looking at a cold hard mask, his eyes empty, unreadable. He reached down and helped her stand. Her knees shook.

”Perrin O'doro,” murmured a low, feminine voice. ”Guardian.”

Jenny stopped breathing, again. Slowly, as slowly as if her life depended on it, she turned her head.

A woman stood in the sea. Naked in the foam, her skin ice white. Even her nipples were white, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s heavy and round, shrouded in tumbling waves of blond hair that lifted in the breeze like strokes of floating sunlight. Her face was not clearly visible, but Jenny glimpsed a flash of terrible beauty, and a pale light that shone in her eyes, in her mouth. Jenny felt afraid all over again. Afraid and small, and infinitely vulnerable.

The sea was a pitiless place. Maurice called it spiteful, a jealous lover, but those were human emotions. If the sea had a spirit, nothing of it was jealous, because jealousy needed love, or hunger, or need, and the sea was a G.o.d without a heart. Too powerful for mercy. Too powerful for right and wrong. A force of nature, old as the world, beyond the tethers of a soul.

Jenny was reminded of that when she studied the woman-and it sent her past terror into cold, numb horror.

Focus only on what is necessary, until you see nothing else, she suddenly remembered Perrin saying. Until nothing else can affect you.

”Lady Atargatis,” said Perrin coldly. ”Or have you become Aphrodite?”

”My names slip away,” she whispered, and Jenny steadied herself, trying not to sway as she listened to that melodic voice. ”My names always leave me, and I have tired of wearing new ones. Call me crone, or witch, or lonely, for those are the words that will follow me into death.”

Then her eyes narrowed. ”You believe that I will kill you.”