Jane had grabbed the first aid kit again, started poking through it, God only knew what she expected to find there. She stopped and looked up at Gary.
"Get us the fuck out of here!"
Gary hauled the net in, hell of a mess if that got tangled in the prop, hauled his float bag in, checked the line to the dinghy and retied the God-awful tangle of a knot that Jane had made of it.
Into the deckhouse, he switched on the fuel and electronics, checked that the engine was out of gear, and cranked it. It fired right off. Dad always kept his gear first-rate. Gary came out of the deckhouse to hoist anchor, and Ben was heaving himself upright on the gunwale, grunting, panting, tearing off his boots, yanking at his belt and zipper and the waistband of his trousers. Jane had jumped away from him and grabbed the H&K again and stood tense against the far side, finger twitching at the trigger guard and back braced on the deckhouse wall. Crazy man, pushing her right to the edge.
What the hell?
Ben's skin turned gray. Not the corpse-gray of shock or death, but mottled gray with fuzzy edges. Furry edges. His face narrowed and forced out into a muzzle, eyes shifting, ears shrinking, and his pants ripped as his torso lengthened into space his legs had occupied just seconds earlier. He screamed, his voice turning into a seal's bray, and toppled backward over the side, throwing green water into the air. Rags floated in the swells, the remains of his pants and socks and underwear.
Jane stared at the bloody gunwale and the splashes where Ben thrashed in the water, now in seal form, bandages washing loose, blood still oozing from his wounds. "Oh my God . . ."
She just stood there against the deckhouse corner, pale as a ghost, whispering something that could have been a prayer if you didn't know her, braced against the swells and shock, chewing on her thumbnail and shivering. He didn't blame her. He'd never seen the Change before, never held a mirror up to himself. Dad swam by himself, sought privacy. It was a private thing. God, what it must look like to a stranger, to someone who didn't know such things could happen.
Ben had Changed. He'd never Changed before. He'd failed his test, never won a tear from the Dragon. Never pushed himself to the edge of dying before.
Dying. The Change helped heal some injuries, the body knew what form it should have, but Gary didn't know what happened with wounds, had the bullet hit his lung, cut an artery or vein . . .
He touched her shoulder, pried the SMG from her hands. She didn't move, just stood staring at the dark water with wide, blank eyes. He shook her, brought life back to her face, got eye contact.
"Can you run a boat?"
Eyebrows up, off-the-wall question, "Fuck no! I don't even have a driver's license."
Gary stared at the shadow diving beneath cold green water, biting his lip, tasting salt water or blood. Christ. What the hell do I do now?
Ben needed help. Wounded, his blood in the water, sharks, orcas, he'd be lost, wouldn't know the islands, the landings, the currents, the tastes of safety and danger. Gary remembered the confusion of his first Change, the fire in his bones and muscles, the symphony of smells and sounds assaulting his brain, the strangeness of his body shape that somehow seemed more right than arms and legs. The ancient warning, "Once you change, remember to change back." He reached for the wet-suit's zippers and then froze.
Jane needed him, too. And he was supposed to pick up Dad, rendezvous at a point of land and then head out to sea to muddy his trail.
But Dad could take care of himself. If Gary didn't pick him up, he'd find his own way home. Like a cat. Ben was hurt, Ben was lost, Ben had just Changed for the first time. Ben was his father.
Ben was a cast-iron bastard. Gary knew that Jane needed him. She couldn't run the boat. And those charges were ticking, chunks of rock would be flying damned soon, damned close to here.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The boat felt like a trap. Jane shivered, her hands sweaty on the gun they'd given her, nothing to do with being hot or cold, but if she wanted to run away right now, she'd have to play Jesus and walk on water. She'd never learned to swim. Besides, Gary said the water here was cold enough that the shock of hitting it drove air right out of your lungs, and your brain and muscles quit working like in minutes.
She couldn't run away. No matter what she thought she'd seen. Like that time upstairs in the Paramount with Tina and the new girl that wasn't a girl, cutting the heart out of a John while it still beat and spouted blood. He'd shit himself and the room stank of it and then the blood just . . . vanished . . . when the girl touched the stains . . . as if she'd sucked it in through her fingers . . .
She hugged herself, trying to think herself small, tucked into a corner of the . . . what? Cabin of the boat? Since it was open at the back, open half-way along one side and all the way along the other, and mostly just a windshield and roof, "cabin" didn't seem right. Not a cockpit, not a wheelhouse or bridge or any of the other boatish terms she knew.
And
