Deep Shadow

I said, “There’s no need to search me, I’ll tell you right now what I’ve got. I’ve got about a dozen coins on me, but there are three, maybe four, hundred more lying out there in bags. Why not do something smart for once in your life, King? Stop acting like a hard-ass. All we have to do is wait for that monitor lizard to clear out. You take your bag of coins, take the truck, too. You’ll leave here a rich man.”

“A monitor lizard,” he said. “That’s what that thing is? Like those three little bastards we saw earlier. Only the giant economy-sized version.”

“When the cops show up,” I said, “I’ll blame everything on Perry. Think about it. Why would I want the cops to find you? If they find you, they’ll find out what I took out of that lake.”

King tilted his head back to smile. “Now, isn’t that sweet of you, making me such a fair offer.” His smile vanished as he pointed the pistol at me. “I’m not going to say it again. Strip off that goddamn wet suit!”

I reached behind my back to find the zipper lanyard as King continued walking, making a slow circle, until he was on the other side of the fire, safely away from the water’s edge. The positioning provided me with a couple of options—neither of them good—but I would have to choose one soon because the man had made up his mind now. That was apparent. He was going to shoot me. Even with the prescription face mask hanging around my neck, I could read King’s intent in his twitching mannerisms and his nervous smile as he watched me peel the wet suit down around my ankles.

When I stepped free of the thing, he clicked his tongue and said, “My, my, my . . . Why, look at you, Jock-a- mo! You’d have been real popular back in the joint. I bet you’re a regular lady-killer.”

I said, “That’s something else we don’t have in common. Do you want to search this thing or not? Here it is.”

King motioned with the gun. “Kick it over here. I want that fancy night vision thing, too. Take it off.”

I had been hoping he’d give me a reason to get a hand on my face mask. It was the size and shape of a brick, and the monocular added enough weight to cause serious damage if I got a chance to rifle the thing at his face. As I was removing the mask, though, King told me, “Hold it. Don’t move,” his voice sounding strange enough to cause me to stop what I was doing.

He was looking toward the lake. When I turned, I understood.

In the oscillating light of the fire, I could see the Komodo monitor. It was gliding along the rim of the lake, tail ruddering smoothly, as it swam toward the marshy juncture where pastureland became swamp. Perry was in the lizard’s jaws. His body was hanging limp, his eyes open wide and dead, staring up at the stars.

Behind me I heard King whisper, “Look at the size of that goddamn thing,” and then I heard WHAP!

It took a microsecond for me to understand that King had just fired at the lizard—fired his last round. I was so shocked that I dropped low even as I saw the slug punch a silver furrow in the water that missed the monitor by yards. How the lizard reacted, I didn’t know or care. I was already turning toward King, my arm drawn back, and I threw the mask so hard that he didn’t have time to flinch before it glanced off his forehead.

He stumbled backward and fired off another round as I charged toward him, which was even more unexpected because the pistol should have been empty, and I thought, Wrong again, Ford. He had reloaded.

But it was too late to stop what was happening. I dodged past the fire as King got to one knee, his hand coming up fast, aiming the pistol at my chest, his mouth contorted as if to say something, but then I went airborne, diving toward him, and he fired again. The impact of the bullet that might have hit me, and the impact of me crashing into King were too closely spaced to know if I had been shot, but my hands and brain were still working as I tumbled clear of the gun, then used an elbow to knock the man’s jaw crooked and send him sprawling on his back.

I rolled to my feet, took a step toward him, hesitated—which was a mistake—and then stopped. Because I’d hesitated, I now had no choice. King’s mouth was bleeding but not badly. He looked dazed, but I had failed to knock him unconscious and he was still holding the pistol. He had fired five times since I had surfaced. If he had reloaded a full six rounds, he still had one round left. And now he was so close that it was unlikely he would miss again.

“You motherfucker,” he croaked, holding his broken jaw with his left hand. “You don’t feel so goddamn smart now, do you?”

No, I did not. I felt ridiculous and vulnerable, standing there in shorts, knowing that I had failed once again, and that I was about to be shot by a loser like King—shot for the first time, because I could see no blood when I glanced down at my belly. King was using a small-caliber pistol, though, and it would take more than one round to stop me unless he put a bullet through my head.

It was another one of those moments—perhaps my last. King would pull the trigger and drop me or within seconds I would have my hands on him and that would be the end of him. Either way, I wasn’t going to stop now.

I took a step toward him, saying, “Go ahead. But you’d better hit me in the heart,” and I watched him scoot backward on his butt.

I took another step, as King extended his arm, and I watched him squint one eye closed to fire. But before I could dive for him and before he could pull the trigger, we both heard a rustling noise in the shadows that caused us to pause. King’s eyes swiveled, I turned. We watched a person I recognized step into the circle of firelight. He was sighting down the barrel of the Winchester rifle, taking careful aim at King.

“I don’t want to kill you,” he told King. “But I will.”

THIRTY

WHEN KING SWUNG THE LIGHT AWAY FROM WILL Chaser and they heard a man screaming for help somewhere out there on the lake, Tomlinson said to Arlis Futch, not bothering to whisper, “That’s not Doc. That’s not Doc’s voice.”

Arlis, who was using a cypress stave for support because he felt so sick, took a moment to listen before he replied, “How can you be so sure? It doesn’t even sound human to me.”

After another moment, though, Arlis’s voice brightened, as he added, “Know who I think that is? I think it’s that bastard Perry. That skinny Yankee scum rifle-whipped me—and his partner kicked me when I was down. What do you think? Maybe that dragon’s got him?”

Using the walking stick, Arlis limped out of the shadows and peered toward the lake, before he said softly, “My God Aw’mighty. That devil’s finally getting his due.”

Tomlinson didn’t allow himself to look. He was focused on Will, watching the teenager while his brain translated the boy’s behavior into patterns of thought and motive. Will was on his knees now, the knife in his right hand, his eyes following King as he jogged toward the lake and away from the generator, where the Winchester rifle was braced at an angle—maybe loaded, maybe not.

Tomlinson didn’t know anything about guns, but he could see the boy’s head swiveling, gauging the distance, and he knew what was in the boy’s mind because Tomlinson could feel rage emanating from Will’s body, a rage that appeared as a red aura, the most potent and dangerous shade in the auric spectrum. Tomlinson had witnessed the phenomenon before, but only rarely—and usually in his friend, Doc Ford.

Tomlinson called to the boy, “Will! Stay here with Arlis. I’m going to try and find Doc.”

The boy was crawling toward the generator now but paused long enough to say over his shoulder, “Instead of spying on me, you should open your eyes. Doc’s right out there, swimming for shore.”

As Tomlinson moved, trying to see, he heard a gunshot . . . then another . . . and then Tomlinson could see Doc, with his hands up, marching toward the beach fire with one of the convicts behind him pointing something at his back. It was a pistol, Tomlinson guessed, although he wasn’t close enough to see. But then his senses sharpened when, abruptly, the screaming coming from the lake stopped, and Tomlinson thought, That must be King. He’s got a gun and he’s going to kill Doc.

Tomlinson knew he had to do something, but more than Doc’s life was at stake. In a way, Will Chaser’s life was on the line, too. It had been gutsy for the boy to lie so still while King painted him with the flashlight—it was, in fact, a chilling display of nerve and self-control that few people possessed. Tomlinson didn’t doubt Will’s courage, but he feared what might happen if Will got his hands on that gun. In Tomlinson’s mind, the boy was teetering between two worlds—the worlds of darkness and light. Will’s ancestors hadn’t gifted them with a tour of the ancient underworld just to turn the boy into a stone-cold killer . . . or had they?