FIFTY

Pete had come down through the woodland like Death's own carriage running late to a hanging; as he'd fought his way through bracken to the shoreline he'd seen Ted Hammond on the flybridge of one of the Birchwoods, bringing the craft in for a mooring at the boat house's narrow extended jetty. He didn't stop to wonder how or why or even to give thanks; he simply kept on running, his legs beginning to feel drained and unsteady and his breath like knives in his chest, until he'd hit the jetty and covered the last dozen yards. One of Ted's clients, an obvious weekender in a bright green lifejacket, was already ashore with a line; Pete said, "Thanks," and took it from him and threw it back aboard before clambering after.

"I think I just lost you a sale," Pete said as he gunned the still-idling engines and backed the craft away from the jetty. The weekender was standing there, as stunned looking as a Jesuit being welcomed at the gates of Hell.

"Get away," Ted said drily from beside him on the flybridge. "Now what?"

"Duck," Pete suggested, and with the Birchwood's nose aimed at the boat house doors he slammed open the throttles.


The Birchwood was in one piece but the Princess had taken serious damage, and he could guess why; any one of those badly protected girders underpinning the wharf would have been enough to rip the hull. The Princess was taking on water, and starting to list already.

"Diane!" Pete called over the noise of the engines. "Are you all right?" And to his relief, she answered him from somewhere above.

"I'm fine," Diane shouted, "but she's here!"

"Where?"

"She's in the water!"

The deck fell suddenly, ripping free of the joist on which the hull had been snagged. Pete grabbed the rail as they hit, spray thrown up all around and drenching him. By now Ted had boarded the Princess as well, but Pete couldn't see what he was doing. Pete shouted, and Ted shouted something unintelligible back.

And then, as the spray fell, Pete saw Alina.

She was down by the side of the boat, almost under the collapsed part of the wharf. She was holding onto one of the cross-braces but seemed unable to climb any further; her knuckles were showing white, and her head was only just out of the water.

Pete jumped the gap. The wharf shifted as he hit it, a telling sign of deep structural damage. Down below, the water still heaved as if boiling. Ted was out of the Princess and crossing the wharf behind him now; Pete threw himself flat on the decking and reached down over the edge. The boards were sprung and uneven.

He stretched his hand out as far as he could. His fingers brushed Alina's wrist, and she looked up.

She appeared to be in some pain; he wondered if she might be trapped somehow beneath the surface. "Give me your hand," he said, although over the violent swell and the roar of marine engines in the confined space it wasn't easy to make himself heard.

Someone was calling his name. He didn't respond, but concentrated on trying to reach just a little further.

Alina's hand closed around his own in a life grip. He held onto hers just as tightly.

"You followed me," she said wonderingly, as if such a thing simply couldn't be. Pete was locked to her eyes, seeing her fear as she stood at the edge and looked into the darkness beyond. Her face was as pale as a stone from a riverbed, her hair darker than in reality because it was so wet; but he thought that he could recognise the true Alina, the Alina that only he knew, the frightened girl that he'd reassured on the eve of the Liston Hall party.

But he was wrong.

He knew that he was wrong because suddenly he wasn't pulling her up; she was drawing him down. And now he could see that there was a strange light in those eyes, a hint of something almost feral in its intensity.

He grabbed at the edge and held on. But he could feel the long board starting to give, its nails already prised half out and his pressure increasing the strain on them. He began to panic, and looked around for some kind of help. They were still calling to him, and didn't seem to realise that he could no longer move to respond.

There they were… Ted had carried Diane across to the Birchwood, and they were yelling to him to follow. They were yelling because there was fire in the Princess. How, he didn't know… but they were lit by a hell-light and shrouded in smoke, and before them the windows of the Princess glowed like holes punched in a nightshade.

There was fuel aboard both cruisers, there were gas tanks in the galleys. Suddenly the boat house was not a good place to be.

And still Alina was drawing him down toward the water. Its heaving surface was greasy with spilled marine fuel. He'd braced himself as hard as he could, but already his shoulders were over the edge and his feet were beginning to slide.

He looked back to her.

"You can be with me now," she said in a tense whisper, a voice meant for only him to hear. In her own mind she seemed to be detached from her surroundings, and from her desperate situation. "You can be with me forever. Isn't that what you always wanted from the beginning? Isn't it really?

"Just let me help you," Pete said, hanging on grimly and wondering for how much longer. "That's all I want to do."

Something changed in her expression. At first, he wasn't sure what. Her grip didn't slacken, but there was a difference in her grey eyes. A moment ago, he hadn't known her.

And now he did.

"So many people have said that to me. And you were the only one who ever really meant it. I'm sorry, Peter. I'm sorry it didn't work out."

"Me too," he said. "Come on, try to pull yourself up."

Diane was still calling his name. Desperately, now.

Alina glanced over his shoulder. Wet hair fell across her face and she shook it free with a single, violent flip.

"I told you she'd be right for you," she said. "I told you I could help the two of you to get together. I wasn't wrong, was I?"

"No, you weren't wrong," Pete managed to say. "Now climb, damn it!" His arm, now lifting her, was starting to shake with the upkeep of the pressure.

She responded by raising herself a little, so that their faces were closer together. The strain on Pete's arm grew fiercer. His entire body was braced and trembling. In spite of everything that was going on around them, she could now lower her voice almost to a breath and still be heard.

"Remember when you first brought me to the valley?" she said. "We made a deal. You had to promise never to fall in love with me. And I said I'd try never to hurt you. I suppose you thought that was a strange thing to say."

"Grab the edge!" he said, "You can do it!"

But unexpectedly, she opened her hand. He was left holding on alone. Already he could feel her wet skin beginning to slide.

"Now perhaps you can understand," she said.

Her hand slipped through his own like smoke, leaving him not knowing whether he let her or whether he lost her, just staring at the oily surface of the water where she'd been not an instant before.

The Birchwood was reversing out again with Ted at the helm, releasing more daylight to pierce the smoke as it withdrew. The nose was crumpled, but the hull was in one piece. The Princess was listing badly and its interior furnishings were beginning to blaze. Something inside her fireballed with a soft thump.

The gap was widening; Pete took it at a run, and almost didn't make it.

The explosion that followed blew the roof off the boat house, scared the birds out of the trees for miles around, and echoed off into heaven like a distant thunder.

Загрузка...