Uh. You're different.' I goggle at her, my mouth open like a fish. Different is an understatement and a half. The glamour she customarily wears doesn't make her look unnaturally beautiful to human eves; rather, it conceals the more exotic aspects of her physiognomy. Strip it away and she's devastating, as unlike the weak-chinned followers of St. Monkfish as it's possible to imagine.
'So you've met the country cousins.' Her cheek twitches.
'Yes, I can understand your surprise.' She stares at me, and I'm not sure whether she's disappointed or surprised. 'So do you still think I'm a monster'
'I think you're a — ' I grind to a stop, before I can push my foot any further down my throat. 'Um.' An inkling comes to me. 'Let me guess. Your people. Go-betweens, like the colony at Dunwich. And you were given to the BC and they dropped the, your daemon on you to control you. Am I right'
'I can neither confirm nor deny anything to do with my employers,' she says with the flat-voiced emptiness of a necromancer's answering machine, before snapping back into focus: 'My folks lived offBaja California. That's where I grew up.' For a moment her eyes overflow with a sense of loss.
'The Deep Ones did ... well, they did what they did at Dunwich. My folks have been go-betweens for generations, able to pass as human and visit the depths. But we're not really at home among either species. We're constructs, Bob.
And now you know why I use the glamour!' she adds harshly. 'There's no need for flattery. I know damn well what I look like to you people.'
You people: Ouch! 'You're not a monster. Exotic, yes.' I can't look away from her. I try to pull my eyes away from those perfect breasts and I keep looking down and there's another pair — 'It just takes a little getting used to. But I don't mind, not really. I've already gotten over it.' Down in the Laundry compound at Dunwich they've got a technical term for human employees who start spending too much time skinny-dipping with a snorkel: fish-fuckers. I've never really seen the attraction before, but with Ramona it's blindingly obvious. 'You're as attractive without the glamour as with it. Maybe more so.'
'You're just saying that to fuck with my head.' I can taste her bitter amusement. 'Admit it!'
'Nope.' I take a deep breath and duck under the water, then kick off towards her. I can open my eyes here: everything is tinged pale green but I can see. Ramona dodges sideways then grabs me by the waist and we tumble beneath the reflective ceiling, grappling and pushing and shoving. I get my head above water for long enough to pull in a lungful of air, then she drags me under and starts tickling me. I convulse, but somehow whenever I really need air she's pushing me up above water rather than trying to pull me down.
Weirdly, I seem to need much less air than I ought to. I can feel the gills working powerfully in her pleural cavity; it's as if there's some kind of leakage between us, as if she's helping oxygenate both our bloodstreams. When she kisses me she tastes of roses and oysters. Finally, after a few minutes of rubbing and fondling we settle to the bottom and lie, arms and legs entangled, in the middle of the circuit-board tracery of gold that caps the concrete table.
**Fish-fucker!** She mocks me.
**lt takes two to tango, squid-girl. Anyway, we haven't.
I wouldn't dare.**
**Coward!** She laughs ruefully, taking the sting out of the word. Silver bubbles trickle and bob towards the surface from her mouth. **Y'know, it's hard work breathing for both of us. If you want to help, go up to the surface ...**
**Okay.** I let go and allow myself to stand up. As I pull away from her I feel a tightness in my chest that rapidly grows: we may be destiny-entangled, but the metabolic leakage is strictly short-range. I break surface and shake my head, gasping for air, then look towards the beach. There's a loud ringing in my ears, a deep bass rattle that resonates with my jaw, and a shadow dims the flashing sunlight on the reef.
Huh? I find myself looking straight up at the underside of a helicopter.
'Get down!' Ramona hisses through the deafening roar.
She wraps a hand around my ankle and yanks, pulling me under the surface. I hold my breath and let her drag me down beside her — my chest eases — then I realize she's pointing at a rectangular duct cover at one side of the concrete platform.
**Come on, we've got to get under cover! If they see us we're screwed!**
**lf who see us?**
**Billington's thugs! That's his chopper up there.
Whatever you did must have really gotten them pissed.
We've got to get under cover before — **
**Before what?** She's wrestling with the iron duct cover, which is dark red with rust and thinly coated with polyps and other growths. I try to ignore the tightness in my chest and brace myself to help.
**That.** Something drops into the water nearby. I think it's rubbish at first, but then I see a spreading red stain in the water. **Dye marker. For the divers.**
**Whoops.** I grab hold of the handles and brace myself, then put my back into it. **How long — ** the grate begins to move ** — do we have?**
**Fresh outa time, monkey-boy.** Shadows flicker in the turbid waters on the other side of the coral barrier: barracuda or small sharks circling. My chest aches with the effort of holding my breath and I think I've ripped open the skin on my hands, but the grate is moving now, swinging up and out on a hinged arm. **C'mon in.** The opening is about eighty by sixty, a tight squeeze for two: Ramona drops into it feet first then grabs my hand and pulls me after.
**What is this?** I ask. I get an edgy, panicky feeling: we're dropping into a concrete-walled tube with hand-holds on one side, and it's black as night inside.
**Quick! Pull the cover shut!** I yank at the hatch and it drops towards me heavily. I flinch as it lands on top of the tunnel, and then I can't see anything but a vague phosphorescent glow. I blink and look down. It's Ramona. She's breathing — if that's what you call it — like she's running a marathon,-and she looks a bit peaked, and she's glowing, very dimly. Bioluminescence.
**k's shut.**
**Okay. Now follow me.** She begins to descend the tunnel, hand over hand. My chest tightens.
**Where are we going?** I ask nervously.
**I don't know — this isn't in the blueprints. Probably an emergency maintenance tunnel or something. So how about we find out, huh?** I grab a rung and shove myself down towards her, trying to ignore the panicky feeling of breathlessness and the weird sensations around my collarbone. **Okay, so why not let's climb down a secret maintenance shaft in an undersea occult defense platform while divers with spear guns who work for a mad billionaire wait for us up top, hmm? What could possibly go wrong?**
**Oh, you'd be surprised.** She sounds as if she does this sort of thing every other week. Then, a second later, I sense rather than feel her feet hit bottom: **Oh. Well that's a surprise,** she adds conversationally.
And suddenly I realize I can't breathe underwater.
8: WHITE HAT/BLACK HAT
AN ADVENTURE DEMANDS A HERO, AROUND WHOM the whole world circles; but what use is a hero who can't even breathe under water?
To spare you Bob's embarrassment, and to provide a shark's-eye view of the turbid waters through which he swims, it is necessary to pause for a moment and, as if in a dream — or an oneiromantic stream ripped from the screen of Bob's smartphone — to cast your gaze across the ocean towards events transpiring at exactly the same time, in an office in London.
Do not fear for Bob. He'll be back, albeit somewhat moist around the gills.
'The Secretary will see you now, Miss O'Brien,' says the receptionist.
O'Brien nods amiably at the receptionist, slides a bookmark into the hardback she's reading, then stands up. This takes some time because the visitor's chair she's been waiting in is ancient and sags like a hungry Venus'
