Dark Descendant

TWENTY-FOUR

My instincts were still insisting that Emma was nearby. Unfortunately, I wasn’t having much luck convincing those instincts to tell me where.

At first, I stuck to the woods that bounded Alexis’s property, not because I felt it likely Emma was buried there, where roots would have made digging difficult, but because it was easier to stay hidden. I traipsed through those woods for at least forty-five minutes, having no idea what I was looking for but hoping to God I’d recognize it when I saw it.

No luck. If Emma was buried in the woods, I lacked the power to find her.

I turned my attention to the gardens and lawns that surrounded the house on all sides. There weren’t any lights on in the house, so it was likely no one would see me if I ventured out from the cover of the trees. Still, I hesitated to do it. I’d seen what Alexis had done to Steph, and he’d been interrupted before he could finish. If he caught me trespassing on his property … He might still technically have an agreement with Anderson, but I doubted that would protect me.

I squatted behind a bush at the very edge of the tree line, trying to work up the courage to break cover. The cloud cover was growing thicker as the temperature continued to drop. There were moments when the moon disappeared from view, and I worried that soon the patchy clouds would turn into a heavy overcast. If I had any moon-driven powers, and if those powers depended on actually being able to see the moonlight, they’d better hurry up and make themselves known to me.

I was gnawing my lip indecisively when a flicker of movement off to my right made me jump and gasp. I was frantically trying to unzip my backpack before I’d even finished turning toward the sound, cursing myself for not having the gun in my hand already. Then I saw the doe picking her way through the underbrush and almost laughed myself silly.

My heart was racing, my breath coming short and steaming in the frosty air. I sat down on the cold ground, putting a hand to my heart, waiting for the flood of adrenaline to fade.

Braver than I, the doe ventured out of the woods and onto the outskirts of the manicured lawn. She paused briefly to look at the house, as if assuring herself that the coast was clear, then set off toward the man-made pond at a brisk, elegant trot. Still waiting for my heart rate to return to something resembling normal, I watched her progress and felt reassured by the lack of alarms, blaring lights, or barking dogs. My fear of venturing out from the woods was just a side effect of stretched-taut nerves.

The doe reached the shore of the pond, and stood poised there for a long moment. Her head turned in my direction, until I could have sworn she was looking me straight in the eye. The light of the moon limned her with silver, giving her an ethereal look. I shivered as I remembered that Artemis was often depicted with a deer by her side. Was the animal even real?

The doe quit staring at me and bent her head to drink from the pond. And suddenly, for no reason I could point a finger at, I knew. Emma was in the pond. Not buried, as Konstantin had claimed, but drowned. Tossing her into the water, weighted down with chains, required a lot less effort than digging a grave and burying her. I wondered if the magic of the Liberi caused her to revive on a regular basis, and then drown again. I shuddered away from the thought, which was too horrible to contemplate.

All right—I finally had a strong hunch where Emma was. It was based on absolutely zero empirical evidence, and no matter how strong my hunch, I wouldn’t be shocked to find out it was wrong. However, the only way to confirm I was right was to take a dip in the pond. The prospect was far from inviting. The water would be freezing, and while the pond was relatively small and probably not very deep, it would take a significant amount of swimming to check the whole thing. All the while out in the open and defenseless against attack.

Slowly, carefully, I edged back into the full cover of the woods. If Emma really was in that pond, I would need help getting her out. I was less certain of her location than I’d have liked to be, but I figured now was a good time to call Anderson and share my theory. Obviously, he knew more about the Liberi and their powers than I did. If my evidence was enough to convince him that Emma was in the pond, then I’d feel a lot more confident that I wasn’t just imagining things. And if I wasn’t just imagining things, then it was time to call in the cavalry and get Emma out of here.

About forty minutes later, I was so numb from cold I felt like I might have frozen in place. That’s when Anderson appeared suddenly and without warning at my side. I about had a heart attack, and a strangled scream escaped my throat as I backed hastily away and tripped over an exposed tree root, landing on my butt.

Like me, he was dressed all in black, with a black knit hat pulled low over his forehead. Hard to spot in the dark, for sure, but I should have seen something.

He grinned down at me, apparently enjoying the spectacle I’d made of myself. “It’s just me.”

I closed my eyes and sucked in a deep breath, searching for calm. How had he just appeared out of thin air like that? Emmitt and Jamaal had both pulled similar stunts, and I’d assumed it was an ability unique to Liberi who had death magic. Then again, no one seemed to know who Anderson’s divine ancestor was, so perhaps he was himself a descendant of a death god, though apparently an obscure one if no one recognized his glyph.

I opened my eyes and glared up at him. “You’re lucky I managed to swallow that scream,” I told him. “This expedition could have been over before it started, all because you felt like being a comedian.” Probably no one would have heard me if I’d screamed—I’d told Anderson to meet me in the woods at the property line, right near the realigned camera—but it was the principle of the thing.

Still grinning, he reached out a hand to help me up. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I kind of forgot I was in stealth mode until it was too late.”

I brushed dead leaves and pine needles from the seat of my pants. I wasn’t sure I believed him, but I didn’t suppose it much mattered. I glanced into the woods behind him, but saw no other lurking Liberi.

“You didn’t bring any backup?” I asked incredulously. When he’d put enough faith in my hunch to agree to come himself, I’d assumed he’d bring at least a couple of his other people in case this turned into a fight.

“It’s easier to be sneaky with just two of us,” he responded, and I knew at once he was lying, maybe just because it was such a lame explanation.

I gave him a hard look. “What aren’t you telling me?”

The look Anderson gave me in return was just as hard. “Things you don’t need to know,” he said, and took a step forward as if he thought the conversation was over.

I grabbed his arm. “Hey, if I’m putting my butt on the line for you, I deserve full disclosure before I go charging in there.” The sneaking about I’d been doing so far had no doubt been dangerous, but not half so dangerous as an actual attempt to extract Emma from the water. Assuming she was even there.

Anderson twitched his arm out of my grip. “Come help me, or go back to the house. It’s your choice.” He plunged forward again without a backward glance.

Common sense told me to get the heck out of there. I couldn’t begin to guess what Anderson was hiding, but chances were it was going to come back and bite me in the butt. That’s just the way my life works.

But common sense and I haven’t been on speaking terms for a while now, so instead of trekking back to the car and heading for safety, I followed Anderson deeper into the woods. When I caught up to him, I adjusted our course so we’d come out as close to the pond as possible.

We paused for a while when we came to the edge of the woods, both peering into the heavy darkness left by the moon’s disappearance. Still no lights on in the house. It would be pretty funny, in a sick sort of way, if after all this fearful skulking around, it turned out that Alexis wasn’t even home.

“Any idea where to start looking?” Anderson asked me as he sat on the ground and started unlacing his boots.

“What are you doing?”

“I don’t plan to swim in my hiking boots.” He pulled off one boot, along with the sock, then started working on the other one.

“That water has got to be freezing!” I protested, and I meant it literally. Even in the darkness, I could see the thin crust of ice that was forming along the shore.

“You think I can get her out of the water without getting wet?” Off came the second boot, followed by his utilitarian black jacket. “The clothes won’t keep me warm if they’re wet, and I’d rather have something dry to put on when I get out.”

The thought of setting even a toe in that water made my teeth chatter, but of course he was right. And unlike a normal human being, he wouldn’t die of hypothermia.

“Of course, I’m not exactly looking forward to it,” he continued, pulling his sweatshirt off over his head, “so if you can give me a general idea where to look, I’d appreciate it.”

I know I’ve said before that Anderson is rather unprepossessing, but seeing his nicely muscled chest and sculpted shoulders made me rethink the assessment. Then he slipped out of his jeans, leaving himself naked except for a pair of black briefs that clung very attractively in all the right places. I decided I hadn’t just been wrong, I’d been dead wrong. Without the camouflage of his scruffy, unflattering wardrobe, he was very nice to look at indeed.

Which was so not what I needed to be noticing right now.

The surprising view had momentarily distracted me, and I all but smacked myself in the head to get my brain working again and remember what he’d asked me. I glanced at the pond, trying to listen to my gut in case it had a message for me, but there was nothing. The clouds had thickened enough to hide the moon, and even the certainty that Emma was in there had faded with its light. I was going to be completely mortified if I made Anderson swim around in that frigid water for nothing.

“Maybe if you go in where I saw the deer?” I suggested doubtfully. The second thoughts were pounding at me now, telling me this was the stupidest idea I’d ever had. I only came looking for Emma on Alexis’s property because I wanted him to be the one who had her, and I was making an awful lot out of the fact that I saw a deer take a drink from the pond. It was probably a popular watering hole for the local herds, and what I’d seen had been nothing remotely supernatural.

“As good a guess as any,” Anderson said, already beginning to shiver in the cold. “Show me where.”

What confidence I’d had was now completely shot, and I wanted to tell Anderson to forget it, that I’d been wrong and we should just get out of here and go somewhere warm and safe. But I knew he wouldn’t listen to me even if I said it. If there was a chance he would find his Emma in that pond, then he’d take it, no matter how slim the chance might be, or how unreliable the source.

I visualized watching the deer cross the lawn to the pond, homing in on the spot she’d paused to take her drink, then hesitantly stepped out from the cover of the woods. My entire body was tense, expecting against all reason that Alexis was going to jump out from behind a bush somewhere and attack. I did my best to fight the feeling off as I led Anderson to the spot where I’d seen the deer.

I’d have felt a lot surer of myself if there were some nice, clear hoofprints in the mud, but of course there were none to be seen. Had I imagined the deer? Or had it been a supernatural creature, one that didn’t leave prints?

I gestured at the general area, giving Anderson a helpless shrug, feeling like a fool.

“All right,” he said, stepping to the edge of the pond. I felt a little better about the possibly imaginary deer when I saw that Anderson wasn’t leaving footprints in the mud, either. As he eased his way into the water, wincing at the cold, I reached out and touched the ground, finding it frozen solid. I should have guessed as much. The film of ice around the water’s edge had visibly spread since we’d first peeked out of the woods.

Anderson took a series of quick, deep breaths, preparing himself for the shock of cold. Then he dove forward into the icy water and disappeared beneath its surface.