Butler gasped as the tingle built in his loins.
The very instant he filled his lungs to cry out, she rolled him into the water.
Butler inhaled, sucking liquid. His body remained locked with hers, paralyzed by the sensation as his genitals throbbed and tingled. His sudden terror did nothing to stop the waves of pulsing delight bursting through his body.
Butler thrashed, trying to break free. Her arms were like iron bands. Even as he fought, they tightened and forced air out of his starving lungs.
He coughed, half crazy at the water in his nose and mouth. Wild with panic, he sucked it into his lungs. He jerked, struck, and bucked against the woman’s unforgiving restraint. His penis continued to spasm inside her, as if she were draining him.
The frantic panic of suffocation crested. Subsided. His vision drowned in blackness. Faded. He could no longer feel the water in his nose, throat, and lungs. The pounding of his heart slowed. Even the honeyed sensations of ejaculation faded into the distance.
His last memories were of stygian eternity. Weightless. The woman’s body locked around his. The feeling of her long hair drifting against and tickling his skin.
Sinking faded into nothing …
* * *
Awareness came slowly. Naked, he sat on a rock. He might have been sitting there for a long time. Perhaps even forever.
At his feet, still water met the rocky shore, dark, black, and eternal.
He was in a cavern. Somewhere deep underground.
“Are you back?”
He turned at the voice. The woman sat beside him. Her luxurious black hair draped around and conformed to her remarkable body. Through gaps he could see the pale swell of her breasts, caught a glimpse of her thick pubic hair. Her luminous dark eyes were fixed on the water before them.
“Back?” he wondered.
“From death.” Her dark eyes seemed to enlarge in her face. “A man and a woman can make the most exhilarating things happen when they are locked together. It was a surprise to discover you’d never been with a woman before.”
“You drowned me.”
“I had to kill you to separate you from your souls.”
“Who are you?”
She turned those large midnight eyes on his. “The Newe call me Water Ghost Woman. Pa’waip in their tongue.” She gestured toward the cavern roof. “They are calling for you up there.”
“Who?”
“The parts of yourself that you left behind. They know that you are dead and are frightened. They fear what you might discover about yourself.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t. That’s why you came here. To find yourself.”
“Puhagan brought me here.”
“He, too, knows that you are dead. He wonders, Did one of the monsters, perhaps the rock ogre, kill you? Did a Water Ghost drag your dream soul into the darkness and devour it?”
“But I’m alive.”
“Are you?” She laughed, flashing strong white teeth. “Why did you flee to this place? Travel all this way just to let me kill you?”
“Paw always talked about the mountains.”
“Ah yes. The father. The man behind it all. The reason you clung to the dead … why you won’t let them go. Your greatest fear has always been that you might not live up to his expectations.”
She reached out, running long sensuous fingers along his shoulder and arm. Her slightest touch stoked that sexual tingle in his loins. “Your soul wasn’t made for war and horror. You knew that, didn’t you? But once you’d been thrown into the battle, you tortured yourself to become someone you could not be. And when you failed, it was easier to exploit the dead than to live within the shadow of a father’s disappointment.”
“How do you know all this?”
“You ate toyatawura. You shot your souls into me with each hot jet of semen. You are mine, wounded man.”
“What will you do with me?”
She studied him, her infinite gaze picking out each of his souls, warming it before she went to the next. Her hair swayed with each movement of her head. “You interest me. It was your choice to live with the dead. You called them, bound them into your service.”
“They need me to take them home!”
“No man is as blind as when he turns his eyes upon himself. Why do you lie to yourself?”
“I … I…” To admit anything else would be too painful.
She spoke the words he could not: “They take care of you. Shield you from the world. Keep the pain at bay.”
Butler gasped, tucking his arms around his stomach and blinking back tears. The essence inside him twisted, spun, as if to fly away. He felt sick.
“If you were a vain man”—her voice softened—“or arrogant, I would devour you. But you came here as a supplicant, showing both courage and humility. Instead of death”—her smile was chilling and cold—“I give you what you seek.”
“What I seek?”
“A chance to escape the contradiction that consumes you. To understand the root of your fear, and face the truth. Only then will you find illumination and happiness.”
“You don’t make sense. Understand what?”
“Your confusion.” She paused, head back to expose her slim throat. “That the living are dead, and dead are living. The knowledge may destroy you. Come spring, I will give you the Silver Eagle. By saving the Silver Eagle, you condemn him. But understanding never comes without a price. Life, hope, love, and salvation all hang in the balance.”
At that, she reached out and touched her fingertips to his forehead. A sense of peace washed through him.
Then a black haze drifted softly down around his body …
* * *
Butler blinked, shivered, and tried to swallow. His mouth was filled with a bitter taste. His head ached as if his skull were split. He lay on his side in dusty dirt, a soft sheephide blanket over his shoulders.
Groaning, he sat up and realized that his head was covered, a sort of blindfold over his eyes, a binding across his mouth.
Frantically, he clawed the coverings of cloth from his head, sucking in deep breaths. He blinked to clear his hazy vision and discovered he wasn’t wearing so much as
