“Damn it!” Adam spat blood out of his mouth and commandeered the controls.
“Do not increase speed again. We are nearly there.”
The lower, rumbling growl of the engine was mimicked by thunder and the slap of an errant wave. The boat rocked and bobbed, but it was well-balanced and he knew it would pass the test of the next few minutes.
“Are you sure this is safe?!”
“Of course! Even the child understood th—”
“What do you want with them?!” Adam’s fury was increasing, and there wasn’t much time left to get him to see an alternative. The one alternative that might keep him sane—and might provide a modicum of solace for Lila.
Sal gestured to the heaving black waters around them. “Look around us! We are on a vast ocean! In a twenty-eight-foot-long craft made by humans with a very rudimentary knowledge of the natural forces we are facing tonight—much less the forces this universe is capable of.”
As if on cue, a full deluge began, complete with stabs of lightning and a gust of wind that ripped across the canvas rigging with a whistling scream.
“You blame me and my kind, and I respect your anger and will—I truly do! But you simply cannot understand the greater picture of what we are dealing with here! And even if you could . . . would you want to?” His modulators were over-compensating for his fervor, and clouds of steaming mist began to roil off his body. He had a fleeting sense of how intimidating he must look; yet the man before him was resolute.
“Of course I want to understand! I need to know!”
Lightning flashed directly above them, and Sal threw his head back in a mirthless laugh. “Wanting and needing are very different motivations!” The boat crested another swell and lurched sideways, causing him to loom over the man. “You despise us for pretending to be gods, yet what do you know of the stench of death that you could have prevented? Misery you could have abated? Wars you could have averted?”
“I know war! You caused wars!”
“Yes! We did! For every ambition we thwarted, a new one sprouted like the maws on a hydra. And yes, many ambitions were our own! But not all of them! Do you not see?!”
“You think if I know what’s going on, I’m going to become some power-hungry megalomaniac?!”
“Yes!”
“Speak for yourself, you son-of-a-bitch!”
“I am!”
Sal felt the surge of energy just before lightning struck the water, and in a blinding flash of blue-white, he saw the human’s eyes roll upwards. He grabbed the wheel with one hand, and kept Adam upright with his other, steadying the heaving boat until the man could regain his senses.
“What the—”
“Lightning! Too close!” He laid his palm flat on the sonar screen, allowing his modulators to entangle with the circuitry. In seconds, the black screen was lit again; jagged little blips of green light rising and diving in tandem with the sea floor.
“It is almost time!” Now his voice competed with the sweeping roar of rain, and the ocean heaved in cadence with the electric cracks and arcs in the sky.
“You really think that I want—”
“Not intentionally! But if you knew—if you really understood—would you not try to change what you could?”
“I don’t see how knowing why the people I love—”
“This is about more than one woman! You can forget her! You can have loving memories of the family you have chosen! You can—”
“Goddamn you to hell!”
“Cara knows! Lila knows! You know! Give yourselves some peace and just forget!” He grabbed the shocked man by his shoulders and flung him against the helm, enveloping them both in his wraithlike steam. “Knowing that you love her will slowly destroy your lives! Think of what it is doing to her already!”
Comprehension finally dawned in the man’s eyes, and he pushed Sal away in disgust. “What did you do?”
“It was not me!”
“Did you make me forget her?!”
“No! You never met!”
“You’re lying!”
“No! I researched her—her entire life—and you were always on the periphery! Always a half-step out of sync with each other! But your fractals were—”
“Our what?!” The winds were so loud now that they were leaning into each other’s ear to yell.
“You need to forget her!”
“No!”
“You must!”
“I won’t!”
And with a final boom of thunder and a flash of lightning, the rain stopped and the seas quieted.
Alien and man looked up, and both were silent at the hulking black mass hanging above them. Triangular and featureless, yet crackling with random spurts of blueish white sparks; it was utterly motionless against the faint glint of stars peeping through shredded clouds.
Sal sighed and funneled his emotions back into their proper places. “It is time.”
✽✽✽
“Is it still storming?”
I glanced at the laptop propped nearby. “Radar’s still red.”
Eileen chewed on her bottom lip, but kept folding laundry. We hadn’t spoken much the past couple of hours—each of us full of words we didn’t quite know how to voice.
We’d stayed close, though. Working side-by-side to rid my bedroom of smells and mud, forcing the old washer and dryer through cycle after cycle as I whispered little prayers to the laundry gods that they please just get us through a few more loads. As much as I loved the marsh, it didn’t smell particularly pleasant once its debris was caked and dried into bedding.
“Sure you’re not hungry yet?”
She shook her head.
“You just gonna eat your own lip for dinner?” I tried to catch her eye with a grin, but that failed, so I pulled a hot towel from the pile. Two loads of just towels!
“Where’s he going to sleep?”
“In my room, hon. I’ll sleep with you until we can figure out something else.”
“I don’t like him.” She didn’t bother to put any energy into her
