Part 41 (1/2)

Moments later, someone stabbed Perrin in the lower back.

Bad aim saved him. The tip of the blade skittered off Perrin's hipbone, but the cut was still deep, shocking. He twisted, thrusting Jenny toward Rik, just as the blade slashed across the back of his tail. Perrin dove, gritting his teeth, his blood spreading through the water.

He was not surprised to find A'lesander.

He was surprised, however, to find desperate grief in his old friend's eyes, and a self-loathing so thick and heavy, Perrin could almost taste it.

A'lesander held an old relic of a blade, probably taken from a s.h.i.+pwreck. Long, curved, rusted almost to rotting-but still sharp.

The two Krackeni men stared at each other, swimming in slow circles, deeper, deeper, away from the light; and Perrin felt all his rage disappear, and all his bitterness, and inside his mind Jenny was warm and quiet, warm and with him, warm and in his soul.

You fool, he said to A'lesander, speaking in the old sea tongue, full of echoing clicks and vibrating whistles that translated into his mind, like telepathy. You had her friends.h.i.+p, and you threw it away. You threw Pelena away. You threw a life away that was yours.

A'lesander closed his eyes. I know what I did.

He attacked Perrin. It was not hard to take the knife. A'lesander only had one good hand, and a quick blow to his broken nose was all it took to disarm him. Perrin knew his old friend had not intended to win.

Perrin held the knife and stared at A'lesander. All around them drifted pale ghosts, other Krackeni, gathering to watch the end.

Do it, said A'lesander.

Do it. Cold blood. Perrin searched for the rage he should have felt, for all those crimes A'lesander had committed. He found his anger, that righteous charge, but it felt as tired as he did.

Perrin dropped the knife, watching it drift and spin out of sight into the darkness. I know you are dying. I will not make it easier.

A'lesander's face twisted with grief, and he looked up. Perrin followed his gaze and saw Jenny and Rik, far above them, floating along the surface. He tensed, afraid that A'lesander would charge them-but in the end, all he did was charge Perrin.

He never reached him. An immense flash of silver surged from the shadows, and a voice sang out. One note, terrible with power. A'lesander crumpled around himself, with such violence it was as though he was nothing but a puppet-strings cut. He did not move again, except to sink into the abyss. His eyes were open. Empty. Lifeless.

Perrin tore his gaze away and stared at his father.

No words. Nothing had ever been easy between them. His father gave Perrin a sharp nod and turned from him. Whispers rose from the watching Krackeni.

Justice . . . injustice . . . what will come . . . from human dreams . . .

Perrin gave his father one last look, then swam upward, toward the light, toward his dream.

Soon after, a s.h.i.+p came. The Calypso Star.

In its wake, some distance away, was Sajeev's fis.h.i.+ng vessel and a speedboat filled with those black-clad, hard-faced mercenaries. Perrin imagined he heard a helicopter in the distance.

Eddie stood aboard The Calypso Star, and with him was the red-haired shape-s.h.i.+fter who had fired a warning shot at Perrin. She had, after that initial bullet, introduced herself as Serena McGillis, a name Perrin recognized. Jenny's friend, who had tried to save her baby.

Sharing that, he thought, was one of the reasons he had been allowed to leave the old fis.h.i.+ng vessel, alive. That and the fact that Eddie had vouched for him once he'd regained consciousness. It seemed those two knew each other. Enough to maintain a polite distance.

Serena and Eddie helped pull Jenny onto the boat. She had been slipping in and out of consciousness. The woman looked hard at her face, something dangerous moving through her single golden eye: pupil little more than a slit, caught between human and cat.

”Come with me,” she said. Perrin carried Jenny into the boat, down the narrow stairs, into her cabin. The bed had been remade, and a slender man was sorting through medical equipment stacked on the small desk. He hardly looked at Perrin. Once he saw Jenny, his focus was only on her.

Perrin was pushed aside, crowded into a corner, ignoring his own wounds as he watched the man and Serena strip off Jenny's clothes with careful efficiency. An IV was placed in her arm. Hot packs stacked around her body. Heart and lungs listened to, questions asked. Jenny remained quiet the entire time though Perrin knew she was awake.

It feels like a dream, she said, as her eyelid was peeled back, and examined with a bright light that Perrin knew would have made her wince had she not been so unnaturally exhausted. I'm not dying, am I?

No, said the kra'a, before Perrin could give his rea.s.surance. We are healing you even now, though it will take time.

We have time, Perrin told her, and found himself confronted with the profound truth of those words. We have all the time in the world.

The corner of Jenny's mouth cracked into a faint smile.

Epilogue.

In the end, the excuse everyone used was that someone needed to bring the dog to Maine.

The dog from the island. No ordinary dog, something Jenny had long suspected, though she'd kept those thoughts to herself-and Perrin-until Serena confirmed the truth some months later.

Her grandfather had a talent with animals. He could possess them, piggyback-take flight inside the head of an eagle, live blind as a mole, sleep warm in the body of a rattlesnake-or, in one case, take over the mind of a particular dog, on a particular island, to help his granddaughter-whom he'd never had much difficulty locating with his mind, no matter where she hid herself in the world.

That last bit of information was something even Jenny hadn't known.

It was spring when she and Perrin brought the dog to the old home in Maine. They stopped first at the graveyard. Jenny laid flowers at the headstone of her unnamed child, and Perrin sat for a time with his hand on the grave, eyes closed and his head bowed.

Jenny did not hear his thoughts. His warmth, though, flowed through the wall between them. His compa.s.sion. His startling love for the baby girl he would never meet. She took that warmth and love, and wrapped it around her grief, which still felt new even after so many years.

Ten minutes away from the old home, Jenny said, ”I don't know if I can do this.”

”Nothing is going to happen,” Perrin said.

Nothing, whispered the kra'a. We are with you.

”I'm scared,” she told them, gripping the car wheel until her knuckles turned white. Perrin s.h.i.+fted the dog in his lap, and reached out to cover her hand. He filled up his side of the car, and the wind from the rolled-down window whipped his silver hair over his shoulder.

They had been in the United States for almost two months. It was their first trip away from the Kraken nesting ground, where they had made a home on a little tropical island, inside an abandoned fisherman's home that they had renovated with their own two hands-and some help from Eddie and Rik, and Serena. Maurice had supervised.

One room. Rudimentary plumbing. Electricity generated from solar panels. The Calypso Star, moored several hundred feet off-sh.o.r.e. It was all they needed.