Santiago was bone tired when he shut off the cruiser’s engine.
Over a twelve-hour shift today and the most enjoyment he’d had was whenshewas around. Which was pathetic. He needed to get off the mountain, get a life that didn’t revolve around this job, but they were too low staffed and most of his deputies worked double shifts multiple times a week. And it wasn’t just about Anderson Archer refusing to increase the budget, it was about no one of quality rushing to join the department.
He let out a harsh sigh, rested his head on the headrest, and closed his eyes despite being surrounded by near pitch-black darkness up here. He welcomed the sensory deprivation, felt his body relax in it, his thoughts quiet.
Stepping out of the vehicle, he took off his shoes and socks, leaving them in the car, and walked along the side of the house to where the lake lay waiting, lapping at the shore. Insects and night birds called out to the moon hidden by the mist that ghosted over the land. He could hear animals roam within the foliage, surrounding him as he stripped off the material skin of civility and padded through dying autumn leaves until they transitioned to rock and sandy shore.
Santiago breathed in the moist air.
This was what it meant to come home.
The convergence of all that had been, intertwined with all that was now, creating the mysteries of life yet to come. This was timeless.
If he walked the quarter mile arc of beach to St. James’s house where an upstairs amber light burned, the energy wasdifferent. Quarter mile to his left, Mrs. Willoby’s house had a dim energy despite the glow from the porchlight. That area of land always felt like it was waiting.
Stepping into the cold water, Santiago walked through the shallows where the spirits were most active, most intense, most vengeful, and treaded forward until the bottom dropped from beneath his feet. Closing his eyes, Santiago submerged himself and remained still, allowing the tide to carry him in whatever direction it chose. For a time longer than most could survive before drowning, he floated in the icy waters with no concern for breath or time. When the water was done with him, had cleansed him, his soul and mind were calm again. He swam to the closest shore and exited the lake close to St. James’s home.
“I’m always amazed when you don’t drown,” Julian called from the darkness. Santiago approached his friend and smiled, brushing his fingers over the gills tattooed on the sides of his torso.
“Nah, it’s only eye-to-eye until you’re no longer exposing yourself,” St. James stated, breathing out a stream of smoke.
Santiago caught the large towel St. James tossed him, his deep laughter rumbling through the dark like thunder.
“You would’ve been scandalized every day in my unit,” Santiago said, wrapped the towel around his hips, and joined Julian on his porch. As was their ritual, Julian handed him a beer as Santiago sat on the other side of the black wrought iron table Julian used for writing and contemplating life.
“Good writing day?”
“You know I’m nosy by habit, trade, and birth. When the vultures started circling over there,” he pointed at the house directly across the lake from them. “I had to...observe. So no, not the best writing day.”
“They didn’t waste time cleaning out the house,” Santiago said.
Julian snorted. “They were jumping at their own fucking shadows. Edgar nearly pissed himself when I stepped around the corner to offer my condolences.”
“Knowing you, that’s exactly the reaction you wanted, you creepy bastard.”
“It was deeply satisfying. That family’s as unpleasant as their dearly departed.”
“Maybe if you didn’t talk to them like they were trash beneath you, they would’ve been friendlier,” Santiago said, placing his beer on the wrought-iron-and-glass bistro table beside Julian’s ashtray. He looked toward the far reaches of Shrouded Lake where the dark outline of Olympus Mountain was hunched over like a linebacker guarding the land and waters below.
“I talk to them like I talk to everybody else,” Julian stated.
“Which is why nobody likes you.”
“Yet here you are, my solemn yet repressed friend.”
“Is it really friendship though?” Santiago questioned. “Or more like being bound by a centuries old blood pact.”
“It doesn’t matter how you define it when you seem compelled to bring your hulking mass over here with your offerings.”
“So now you’re gonna act like you don’t love picking my mind apart to use as material in your books.”
Julian went silent.
“I guess you do have a certain quality that makes you more tolerable to be around than most… Although I hear a certain battle-ready Amazonian would say different.”
Santiago sighed and let his head roll back, closing his eyes.
“How about you don’t undo the effects of my lake bath,” he snapped, opening his eyes.
