I picked myself up off of the floor, amazed that I could feel so much... the roughness of the stone floor, the chill in the air. My times with Penelope had been much less tactile.
“Yeah, well,” I answered, trying to get my bearings, “you haven't exactly been chatty since that first time we spoke.”
“It's not that I don't want to,” she insisted, “and believe me when I say that I don't do empty platitudes. I've thought of a few things that might have been helpful, but the cloaking spell that they put on you to keep anyone from spilling the beans about you being the Sorceress was a stone-cold bitch!"
“So you would have told me?” This was the first time anyone had even hinted that they would have handled things differently than Angelique and Vincent had.
“Yeah well, it was a gamble, having you go in blind like that. Granted, it would have been a gamble to have told you, but I liked those odds better. I haven't been cock-blocked like that since I drew breath!”
“You haven't been dead that long, have you?”
My question must have struck her as funny because she erupted with laughter. "Oh, my, that's a good one!" she said through her guffaws. "Woo!"
“So I'm wrong?” I guessed.
“Oh, so wrong!” she replied. “Honey, I've been dead longer than anyone you know. I'm just not stuck on myself, and acknowledge that the world has moved on and improved since my time!”
“So, what's on the agenda for today?” I was through sparring with mystery woman number two. She had obviously made contact for a reason, so I decided to get to the bottom of it.
“It has to do with the attacks that happened right before your becoming.” she said, getting to the point. “They haven't ended, they've only been suspended.”
“So who's sending them? And why?”
“Vincent and Angelique's guess about them being from someone who didn't want to coming of the Sorceress to be a good one wasn't a bad guess, it was only off the mark. They wanted to prevent you from coming into your power by killing you. Corrupting you to turn evils is just plan B.”
“But why?” Why would someone want to kill me?
“Some beings are so powerful that the only threat to them is someone like the Sorceress. The idea of someone as powerful as yourself, joining up with a couple of crusaders like Angelique and Vincent is very threatening to someone like them.”
“You wouldn't happen to have an address for this person, would ya?” I had to ask.
“They're cloaking themselves even from me, and if you knew who I was you'd be amazed at that fact. Just be careful."
I assured her that I would be. Before the dream/vision faded, she added one more thing:
“That lake. It's bad news. Be cautious around it.”
* * *
"Tell me that there are no Daisy Ridley fake nudes on here."
“I'm not interested in any Daisy Ridley nudes that aren't one hundred percent genuine.”
“And there aren't any, right?”
Jack swallowed hard. “N-no?”
I smiled at my friend's discomfort. I'd come down to his basement abode to check on his scientific research regarding our magically appearing lake, and had found him browsing some racy pieces of fan-fic on the internet. So I had to harass him for it, of course.
Jack had turned the basement computer center into his bedroom, game room, and all-around Jack-room. One wall was taken up with a massive screen that could be divided into individual, smaller screens if necessary. The other walls were covered in posters reflecting it's occupant's many interests… video games, movies, and superheroes galore. He had a comfy-looking full-sized bed tucked into a corner, a mini-fridge nearby.
“What the hell were you searching for, anyway?” I asked as I sat in the chair next to his.
The chair was comfy and top-notch, just like everything else in what Raina and I had taken to calling 'Jack's playroom'. A large semi-circle desk sat in the middle of the expansive space, with several recliner-style computer chairs sitting around it. Several coolers were placed strategically around the desk as well, with an overstuffed trash can directly underneath.
I leaned back in my chair and rooted around in a cooler until I found a Code Red Mountain Dew, opening it and taking a deep drink while Jack weighed just how much to tell me.
“Okay, fine,” he said, throwing his hands up in the air. “I was looking at Firefly erotica.”
"And that's the space-cowboy TV show, right?"I said, grinning. “It's not about getting off on luminous insects...”
“Please,” he stopped me, hand raised, “don't go any further. If there's one thing that won't excite me, it's anything insect-related.”
I had to laugh. Jack's run-in with the were-roach was a favorite subject for humor with all of us.
“Okay, okay... dreaming of Inara?” I asked, still grinning.
“Inara? Please, I'm more of a Kaylee man, myself.”
“Well Mister Frye, what have you found on insta-lakes?”
Jack clicked a few files open and I found myself looking at a collection of news clippings and blog entries on disappearing and reappearing bodies of water from around the world.
“Most of the lore that I've been able to find about this kind of phenomena focuses on lakes that only appear at night, or in a dense fog. Whatever the particulars, said body of water is always gone by morning Except...”
He clicked article after article away until we were left with just six. He double-clicked on one of the newer ones, and it filled the screen.
"Twenty miles outside of Durbin, South Africa, a lake appeared five years ago." he said as I scanned the article. "It seems to have popped into existence overnight. What's more, they found several animal nests underwater with entire litters drowned,
