Her hand rose toward his chest.
His voice trailed off and he froze, trying to decide which would be ruder, backing away or shuddering at her touch.
Fingertips, a little less black than they had been, stopped just above his T-shirt. Close enough that he could feel body heat filling the space.
“You are…strong.”
“Strong?” Then he remembered she’d seen him move the fridge and blushed. “Well, yeah, I guess. Thank you.”
“Strong is…good.”
There was a note in her voice that deepened the color of his ears. Nine months ago, he wouldn’t have even realized she was hitting on him, but since Claire…
“Your Keeper…will return…soon?”
“I hope so.”
She was smiling. He knew she was smiling. He just wished he knew what to do about it.
“Meryat?”
Her hand fell, but the heat lingered. She turned toward Dr. Rebik and murmured something in her own language. When he shook his head, she repeated it. Or something so close to it Dean couldn’t tell the difference.
The archeologist sighed and motioned toward the dining room, allowing Meryat to precede him. “Would a little breakfast be possible, Mr. McIssac?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll have what I had yesterday, and Meryat would like to know if there’s any chance of chopped dates and honey on a flatbread.”
Why didn’t she ask him herself?
“Sorry, no, but I could do up some grape jelly on Melba toast.”
Dr. Rebik glanced down at his companion then back at Dean, and shrugged wearily. “Close enough.”
* * *
“I don’t trust her. You’re too tired to get up this morning, and suddenly she’s able to complain about the food.”
“It’s not what she’s used to.”
Austin sighed and walked over to stand on the dishwasher where he could look Dean in the face. “You’re missing the point. You’re tired. She’s got new skills. She’s a mummy. Mummies are known for sucking the life force out of the people they come in contact with.”
“We’re not in a cheesy horror movie here,” Dean protested as he straightened.
Austin merely stared.
“No matter what it seems like most of the time,” Dean amended. “And besides, you said you checked on her and she didn’t leave her bed. She’d have a little trouble sucking my life force from the second floor.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Why are you so suspicious?”
“Why aren’t you?”
“Austin, I can’t be after accusing her of something without proof. It doesn’t do any harm to think the best of people.”
“Yeah, tell that to your dried and desiccated corpse,” the cat muttered. Jumping carefully down, he followed Dean out into the hall. “Now, where are you going?”
“Up to the third floor.” He hauled back the elevator door. “I can’t just leave Lance at the beach indefinitely. You want to come, then?”
“No…yes.”
“You’re thinking he’ll be an ally in this sudden antimummy thing of yours, aren’t you?”
Austin wrapped his tail around his toes and snorted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
* * *
By concentrating on what a pleasant swim she was having, Claire managed to have pretty much exactly that. Granted, the water had a tendency to throw in a grope or two when she was least expecting it, but she was a strong swimmer and, bottom line, it made what could have been a tedious hour a little more interesting.
When she could hear the breakers folding against the shore, she stopped and had another look, checking out potential landing sites. The white sand beach stretched in a shallow arc for six or seven kilometers rising up from the water in a series of staggered dunes, sand giving way to grasses, to low ground covers, to aspens, and a good distance inland to the darker blur of a mature forest.
The blue-and-white–striped cabana, flags flapping, sides billowing in the gentle breeze, looked ridiculously out of place.
Blue-and-white–striped cabana?
Claire lost her stroke, got smacked in the face by a wave, choked, coughed and started swimming with everything she had left. Assumptions, conscious or subconscious, were no longer relevant. She knew what lived here.
The first time they’d used the elevator, the first time they’d stepped out on this beach, had nearly been their last. While she and Dean had been wading, taking a bit of a break from the extended responsibilities their lives had become bogged down in, a giant not-a-squid had heaved itself up through the surf, attacked, and almost crawled—squelched? flopped?—back into the elevator with them. It had moved terrifyingly fast even on land, out of its natural habitat.
Did an unnatural creature have a natural habitat, Claire wondered, sucking in a lungful of damp air and then burying her face again for another dozen strokes. Or would it be an unnatural habitat?
Not that it mattered. It was fast on land. In the water…
The gentle touches had become motivating rather than interesting, each bringing with it the image of a tentacle tip rising from the depths.
Or the shallows.
The waves were stronger this close to shore and gritty with sand scooped up from the bottom. Claire crested a breaker, let it carry her forward, tumbled out of it, rolled once, got her feet under her, planted them firmly, and pushed off. It wasn’t quite body surfing, but it was faster than swimming.
Still not as fast as the not-a-squid.
Would you just shut up!
Subconscious, conscious; she neither knew nor cared.
During the brief time Augustus Smythe had been back in charge of the guest house, he’d killed three. In the first two months they were back, she and Dean had taken out two more. They hadn’t seen one since.
Which didn’t mean anything, really.
What part of shut up are you having trouble understanding?
The next time her feet touched bottom, she was standing in water only thigh-deep and it was faster to run. Her skirt, which had been floating free and in no way impeding her kick, had decided to buy into the general sense of urgency by wrapping around her legs. Wet silk had the tensile strength of 80s hair spray and, unable to get the knots untied, she finally hoisted it to
