And something... happened.
Chapter Six
Eli
She wasn’t in the pool. Her boots, clothes, her walking stick, her rock necklace were laid out. A squeeze bottle of homemade soap from her family business was on top of her small pack. He waited. She wasn’t swimming. She didn’t resurface. With a touch he discovered that the protectivehedgewas still in place. He couldn’t get to the pool, but... it hadn’t been a heavy ward, like ahedge of thornsput in place by a full coven of witches. Had some sort of ward-resistant paranormal creature gotten to her?
Was Lizzie dead?
He should have been here.
His heart rate sped then slowed as he shoved his own reactions away.
The earthquake passed. There was no sign of a mudslide. At least not yet. Maybe a mining company or a quarry had set off a charge nearby, but he didn’t think so. It hadn’t felt like the effect of drilled charges, of dynamite. Plus, there wasn’t a lot of mining permitted this close to the Blue Ridge Parkway.
At the risk of screwing up his night vision, Eli closed one eye, clicked on his tactical flashlight, and searched the ground with the other eye. Something had splashed up a lot of water. His instant conclusion was that something had taken Liz, but there were no footprints. He scanned the water patterns, turned off his light, and closed his eyes. Counted to twenty, listening.
Eli had only been halfway joking when he explained why he carried the weapons he did. Not many things in life scared him. Not vamps, not witches, not Janie, not even dying. But being bitten by were-creatures scared the living hell out of him.
He’d quartered the area before his bath and gotten a good lay of the land. The water patterns on the ground suggested a northeast trajectory, some creature that could leap far, carrying a full-grown woman, without her screaming or fighting. He moved out, silent as death.
Liz
In total darkness, Liz opened her eyes, as if from a dream, lungs burning for air. There was no sense of up or down. Panic rising, she blew bubbles, following them by feel as they tickled across her, showing her the way up. She rotated her body, kicked, and swam to the surface, which brightened slightly above her. When she breached, her breath exploded out. She sucked in fresh air and a little water and started coughing. Her skin was pebbled with cold, teeth chattering. Her hands were so cold she couldn’t grab the roots to pull herself to the surface. It took three tries, and when she landed on the ground, she was shaking so badly she had trouble not curling into a ball and expiring on the spot.
In the dark of deep dusk, she reached for her amulets. Blistered her fingertips.
Her amulets were all scalding hot. In the distance, Eli shouted her name. She tried to reply but the coughing worsened. She picked up her walking stick and banged it against the tree. She doubted he heard her, and she was too weak to bang harder.
She dropped the stick. Her lungs felt full and heavy, and the air that moved through them felt thick as slime.
Shaking, coughing, she pulled on her only pair of clean underpants and a clean tank top. Struggled back into her dirty jeans. There was no way to get her socks and hiking boots on. She was shaking too badly. Her breath was mostly coughing. Her hands ached and burned, and when she ran her fingertips across her knuckles, they were bruised, the skin torn as if she had been fighting. Fresh blood trickled out.
But she didn’t remember what she had been fighting. She wasn’t even certain when she got into the pool.
She slid her arms into the jacket. In her pocket, the silver box was too hot to touch, and she smelled burning nylon. She held it away from her body. She put the amulet necklace on over her head, over the jacket hood, and stuck the battery stone into the pocket on the other side, away from the silver box and the amulet she scraped back inside. Her amulets were odd-feeling where she touched them, and she didn’t know why.
Head wound? Liz touched her head and her hand came away sticky.Okay. That made sense. She had banged her head on something and had lost some time. And nearly drowned. Still coughing, she carried her boots, socks, and the rest of her gear, and moved around the tree.
It was nearly full night, but Eli must have heard her coughing because he appeared out of the dark. “Found her.” He ended a call. “Where the hell have you been?” he asked. “I was just here.”
“I don’t know,” she managed between coughing and shaking so hard her teeth rattled. “Boots.”
“How can you not know—” As if realizing questions were counterproductive, he stopped. “Drop the ward.”
Liz touched the small stone and deactivated the protection. Eli squatted and helped her feet into her socks and boots. Not an easy task with the shivers. He hoisted her to her feet and put her walking stick in her left hand and an arm under her right shoulder. That left his right hand free, and he carried the shotgun in it. For once, she was happy to have a mundane weapon on hand and someone who could use it.
Half carrying her, Eli got her back to the campsite and the fire. “You’re hypothermic,” he said, sitting her on a sleeping bag that he dragged close to the fire. He sat behind her and folded his legs around her before wrapping another sleeping bag around them both. Eventually, her coughing eased, and her lungs felt clear. She wondered if she had taken in more than the drop of water at the surface. Maybe she had taken in a lot of water while deep under.
Eli gave her a scrap of cloth. “Handkerchief. Blow.”
Liz blew and something gross came out of her nose. “Oh, yuck.” She blew several more times, coughed hard for a while, and when the coughing spell passed, she dropped her wet head against his shoulder.
“What happened,” Eli asked, his mouth beside her ear.
“How long?” she asked, the two words bringing on another coughing fit.
“You left the campsite at twenty oh-two,” he said when the racking coughs passed. “At twenty thirty-two, I went after you. You weren’t at the pool, though your things were there. I started quartering the area. At twenty forty-seven, I heard you coughing, back at the pool. What. Happened.”
