Fire Works in the Hamptons : A Willow Tate Novel (9781101547649) (32 page)

“Would you rather be Scary?”

“No one's afraid of me. I feel more like Scaredy. As in scaredy cat.”

He looked back, but kept going in the right direction, trying to step on drier ground when possible, not leaving footprints. “You're kidding. You scare the hell out of me. I've never known a woman—or a man, for that matter—who can do what you do.”

“What, throw up without getting my shoes dirty or talk to bugs and beached whales?”

“No, someone who can face the totally unknown and figure it out.”

“I did, didn't I?” And without the hotshots from DUE. “You were pretty great yourself, accepting whatever you saw without asking too many questions. But tell me, what
did
you see?”

He stopped walking to adjust his backpack. “Seriously? You were right there looking at the same thing.”

I took the opportunity to have a sip of water to make my interest seem more casual. “I know, but I'd like to hear your impression of what we found back there. Part of your job is figuring what's wrong when your patient can't tell you, by observation.”

Matt described a sadly deformed animal—fish or sea mammal—he thought, with inches of dead flesh sloughing off. Instead of the bone and tissue he expected under the rotting layer, he'd discovered smooth, shiny, firm gray skin, which made no sense in a dying animal. When he listened for a heartbeat, he heard something entirely new to him. Maybe two hearts beating. Maybe an echo from the thousands of maggots, or noise from the nearby lightning bugs. Maybe he'd been listening to another organ entirely. “It was more of a concerto than a glub-glub,” he said. “Nothing that could keep a creature from expiring. I wish I could have recorded it, or hooked up an EKG. We never did see or hear any breath signs. Without a more extensive examination, I'd have to assume the animal was in its last hours, at best.”

I did not want him turning into Martin of the science experiments. “What about the maggots? What did you think of them?”

“They appeared to be hard workers. Big, white, fat.”

“And the beetles?”

“Big, brown, not very impressive, except for a little incandescence in their abdomens. I suppose it shows more brightly in the dark.”

I brushed one off my shoulder and willed it back to M'ma before Matt got a better look. But maybe what he saw was all he could ever see, by the laws of the otherworld. Poor Matt did not know what he was missing. For a rare time I was glad I could see the remarkable visitors in their true appearance.

“What was your take on all the creatures?” he wanted to know.

“Just a little bit different.” Like the difference between an old black-and-white movie and
Avatar
in 3-D. I'd bet the grubs were a blanket of glowworms at night. Even by daylight, the lantern beetles gleamed like prisms. Their outer wings shone gold, while the inner gossamer wings flashed green lace. What Matt called a little incandescence I saw as a tiny flame carried safe in a mica-like transparent belly. And M'ma, under the cover of the cleaners, reflected the sky and the grasses and the sun like stained glass. After his transforming molt he'd be breathtaking, and very much alive.

If we kept him safe long enough.

Matt believed me when I said we had to hide the scene in the ditch, without understanding how serious a problem it was, of course. His reasons were different from mine.

He knew a hundred scientists could be here by morning, doing biopsies and gathering specimens and slides. They couldn't help the dying animal but could add to the poor creature's suffering. “I'd suggest we call in the marine rescue people from Riverhead, but they'd be too late. I doubt it could swim in that condition even if they managed to open the ditch to the bay. It couldn't survive transport to their facility. They'd have no idea how to euthanize it, either, besides needing permission from the endangered species people.”

“Euthanize? He'll be fine.”

“Fine, with its flesh falling off, out of the water, not breathing that I could see, smelling as if its insides were rotting too?”

“He'll be fine.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Because M'ma told me? Because beings from Unity might be eternal? “Because we are going to make certain no one bothers them until they are strong enough to take care of themselves.”

“Them? You are worried about the maggots and the beetles as well as the deformed, dying dolphinoid?”

“They are all together.” One life, One heart, like my pendant said, even if they didn't have the same kind of hearts we did. “They need each other.”

“Okay, I can see that. That's how symbiosis works. Except sometimes it's a fine line between cannibalism and partnership.”

Even though Matt wasn't convinced, he started shoveling dirt while I gathered seaweed and driftwood to pile in front of where the ditch opening should be. We found a thick tree trunk—silver with sun and saltwater—to pull on top of the pile. Then we scattered sand and loose dirt to cover our footprints as best we could. We had to trust the incoming tide to cover some of our boat's skid marks, and pray no one did a flyover.

When we were done, Matt lifted me into the narrow outboard without asking. I might have taken offense at being manhandled, but it felt good, especially when my chest rubbed against his as he set me down and I inhaled his scent of sweat and swamp and something spicy. My nipples hardened, and not from the cool breeze kicking up.

Whoa. This was not the time, the place, nor the man to be stirring senses that had no business feeling anything but worry about M'ma. Matt's quick intake of breath told me he'd felt that touch, that stirring too, which made me think about whether he was attracted to me or not. Which mightn't help M'ma and the luminaries any, but did get my mind off the dark, choppy waves keeping the boat jittering and jouncing. Then I remembered what Piet said about sex and adrenaline, how danger made men horny. I still didn't think it worked for women. Most females I knew wanted to curl up after a crisis, not curl into a hard, naked, aroused body. Besides, there was no danger to me or Matt. Did nausea count? Dread? How about the euphoria of actually communicating with an alien being?

No matter, the thought of Piet brushed aside any lustful notions. So did those waves. I couldn't get sick; my stomach was empty. But I could panic at how many people I spotted out on Rick's boat and the Bay Constable's. The Coast Guard cutter from Montauk cruised by, too.

Sexy feelings, when we had to sink an armada? No way.

 

Piet was furious I'd gone searching without him. I wanted to think he was jealous, and he was, but not of Matt. I got to see Mama and he didn't. I'd seen more of the forbidden otherworld beings than anyone since Unity and our Earth were connected—and he'd never seen one. My reminder that the fireflies were not of our universe did not appease him.

“They're bugs. I can see bugs any time I want. Granted not ones that start fires, but they are still bugs. Furthermore, your actions were dangerous and irresponsible, showing an Other to a nonsensitive.”

“You had your own duties and I could not wait. I thought Matt's veterinary knowledge could come in handy. Besides, he is a good man who considers Paumanok Harbor his home. He wants to help keep it safe. Most of all, he has no idea he is seeing magical, mystical creatures with incredible powers.”

Piet scowled and rubbed at the scar on his jaw. He didn't think I was brave or clever or super-gifted to hear M'ma in my mind, which aggravated me. I knew the gift was M'ma's, not mine, but he chose me, didn't he? I changed the subject.

“Did you find Roy? What about the fire at the camp?”

He told me they'd never seen Roy, but the fire looked like insect-assisted arson, not that the East Hampton fire police had an inkling of that. The last was said with a drop of sarcasm; he wouldn't point out an aberrant creature to an ordinary person.

There'd been no electric wires to short out, no lightning, no accelerants. They did find a cigarette butt and sent it away for fingerprint and possible DNA matching. That took time, though, so they couldn't immediately prove Roy had anything to do with the blaze. They had a manhunt going for him anyway.

And Barry had shown up there, flashing a press pass and claiming freedom of information. The police kept him behind the yellow tape. He'd come along with Martin and Ellen and scores of other ambulance chasers and fire fanatics. He tried to shout out rumors that weird insects were involved. Some of the spectators laughed.

“You said the beetles
were
involved.”

He took two out of his shirt pocket. Alive.

For a minute I thought how foolish he'd been to carry them close to his skin, until I remembered how he had nothing to worry about from these two. They couldn't ignite anything in Piet's presence. And their kind weren't easy for ordinary people to see with their fires out, thank goodness.

Piet handed them to me. “I scooped them up before anyone noticed their size or oddity.”

Anyone like Martin or Barry.

They almost filled my palm, feeling cool. Their wings fluttered against my fingers in what I sensed as distress. I sympathized. Any creature would hate being without its defenses, but Piet's magic had saved them from discovery. “Shh,” I whispered to them, and tried to transmit peace and security. “It's Willow, your friend.”

Was that relief I felt or was I inserting my own emotions? I couldn't tell. “It's okay, you're back where you belong. Now go find M'ma. Your fires will come back way before you get there. Tell him I am working on keeping him safe. See if a bunch of you guys can flap your wings fast enough to get the air moving, to waft the smell away.” I pictured wings moving so rapidly they blurred, and then I puffed my cheeks and blew out.

The two Lucifers flew away. Piet shook his head. “Do you really think they understood? Those were complicated instructions considering your buddies can't understand English.”

“They understood. M'ma does, anyway. But go back to the fires. Were any others, um, mutilated?”

He took one out of the other shirt pocket. Dead. It had no wings and a blackened body. “Oh, my God, how could someone do that?”

“People don't look at bugs the way you do. They sure as hell don't hold conversations with them.” Once again, he sounded jealous, or maybe resentful that I could do something he couldn't. “I'd like to go see Mama for myself.”

“It's M'ma, I think, and he needs to rest. Maybe it's part of the process of his rejuvenation. We need to make calls first.”

We decided Piet should phone his contacts at DUE before anyone else, to get them to call off the environmental people and the Coast Guard, whose presence could only muck up the situation worse. DUE had influence at the highest levels, including the White House.

While Piet waited for the call to go through the encrypted, password-protected channels, he asked, “You're sure they'll all go home after the metamorphosis?”

“I can't be positive of anything. I do know the beetles will not go before then, not leaving their babies and their host mother. M'ma cannot fly or swim.”

I wandered around while he was on the phone. Little Red was upstairs on my bed, sulking that he'd been left alone so much. I missed Elladaire. My arms felt empty. The house felt cold.

So I called my father. He warned me about fire, finally. Except he thought he'd seen Saks go up in flames. He'd also seen his friend Leila's car get wrecked.

“Did you warn her, Dad?” I could see the end of that relationship if he started forecasting doom.

“No time. The diaper truck skidded straight for us.”

“You mean that was real, not a vision? Are you all right? What about what's her name? Was her car really wrecked?”

“Diapers all over the street, but we were fine. Better than Saks.”

I checked the Internet. Saks was still intact everywhere.

Then I called the police station and asked for Chief Haversmith. I told Uncle Henry about M'ma and begged him to fend off any local investigations of the nesting area, like they did for the piping plovers. And maybe see what the weather people could do about dissipating the smell.

The chief listened, grunted a couple of times, then told me his news, which was worse than that the fireflies were here for awhile.

That fire at Rick's? One burning boat sank at its slip, but Rick's dock hands towed two others out of the harbor to protect the rest of the marina, where the harbor's fire boat could pump more water at them. The problem was one of the boats, a big trawler, sank before they reached open water. The Coast Guard sent down divers, who reported the trawler was breaking up, which meant the full fuel tanks and oil reserves would leak out soon. The mix would come ashore in a day or two, depending on the weather and the current and if there were storms in the area.

“Your guys can keep storms away! We can call in skimmer boats, booms, anything. Maybe the Coast Guard can siphon off the gas before it gets in the water. Keep it away from the marshes!”

“It's a federal case now, cleaning up a coast. They won't listen to us. By the time they decide what to do, it'll be too late.”

Images of the Gulf of Mexico and those pelicans covered in oil almost made me sick again. I know our situation was nowhere near the calamity in the Gulf, but we also depended on clean beaches for tourism and clean water for the fishing industry. “Where do they think the spill is headed?”

I knew what he was going to say before I heard it. That's how my luck went.

“Depending on storms and full moon tides, it'll reach the salt marsh soonest, and worst environmentally. The vegetation won't survive, nor the clams and mussels and fish eggs that need the grasses, then the sea life and shorebirds that feed on the bottom rung of the food chain.”