Torrent (32 page)

The sergeant returned and waved for his men to stand back. He drew Simon and me aside. Actually, he drew Simon aside, and I tagged along to keep him from sticking his foot in his mouth.

“You see anything out there?” he asked.

I blinked. He wanted intel from us?

“Yup.” Simon started to reach for his phone, but one of the privates with rifles tensed, and he only pointed at his pocket. “If I can get my phone out, I can show you some new pictures.”

The sergeant nodded. “Go ahead.”

“We were over in those rocks.” Simon pulled out the phone, but it didn’t respond when he punched the button. A few drops of water dripped from the corner of the case. “Ugh. Forgot. It fell in too. Damn, I had a couple of blurry ones from when the monster was chasing us into that—” he glanced at me, “—hole.”

Broken phone or not, the sergeant’s eyes were riveted to Simon. “You saw it in the Dells, you said? So far, the people we’ve talked to… nobody’s leads have panned out. But you actually had some pictures up on your site.”

“Yeah, we’ve seen it a couple of times.” Simon stood a little taller. “Today, it was definitely over there, between the rail trail and the lake. It sort of… cornered us for a bit. We hid in the hole until it left, but it might still be out there.”

Or under 50,000 tons of rocks. I wasn’t about to say it though, not if these guys might leave us alone to go investigate.

“Got it,” the sergeant said. “Look, you kids leave this to us. You’re going to get yourselves killed running around out here with—” he frowned at the sword, “—toys. Curfew’s at ten. If we catch you out again, we’ll have to detain you.”

“We understand,” I said as contritely as I could manage and dragged Simon toward the car. He was staring and sputtering at the “toy” comment. Temi took it in stride, merely unlocking the trunk and waving for me to toss our gear, toy included, into it. I was all too happy to set the sword in the back.

My calf had redoubled its throbbing, so I was glad when nobody rushed to claim the shotgun seat. I plopped down, stretching my legs out as far as I could. My foot nudged something, but I didn’t think anything of it.

“Uhm, Temi?” Simon asked. “Wo—would you like m—me to drive? If your leg hurts, I mean.”

“Thank you, but my knee would prefer the greater leg room up here.”

“You could have Del’s seat,” he offered.

“Hey,” I said.

“I’ll drive for now,” Temi said. “But thank you for the offer.” Something about the look she gave me implied she wasn’t sure Simon should be trusted with her car. I wasn’t sure he wouldn’t take the opportunity to break a few speed limits myself, but I thought he’d genuinely wanted to help with her discomfort if he could.

I shifted again as we drove out of the parking lot, trying to find a comfortable spot for my leg. It must have swollen quite a bit, because my sock felt too tight. My foot bumped something again. Figuring it was Temi’s purse, I reached down to move it—and halted as soon as my fingers brushed the leather cover.

“Simon? I think I found your tablet.”

“What?” Simon leaned forward. “How?”

“I don’t know,” I said, though my heart beat faster. Was it possible Alektryon had escaped with it, chanced across the Jag, and returned the tablet when he saw the opportunity? But how would he have known the car belonged to us? Or what a car
was
for that matter?

Simon reached for the tablet, but I batted his hand away, and flipped the cover open. The drawing app was still up. My breath caught. His words from before were still there, the ones claiming he wouldn’t be anyone’s slave again, but there were a couple of new words in careful script.

“Is it still working?” Simon asked. “Did it get wet? Or, oh, what’s that?” He’d seen the drawing app.

“A new message,” I said.

We were speeding along the highway back into town, but the roads were empty, and Temi took a long look over.

“In Greek?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“What’s it say?” Simon asked.

“Roughly… Be wary. They are the enemies of humanity.”

“Similar to what the Roman said, right?” Temi asked.

“Well, it doesn’t matter anyway,” Simon said. “I don’t think we’re going to see those guys again.”

“Probably not.” I’d barely made it out of that chamber alive; it was hard to imagine someone else going in deeper and surviving.

I couldn’t say that I’d miss Jakatra and Eleriss exactly, but I missed not solving any of the mysteries surrounding them. Would we ever learn who they were and where they’d come from? Not to mention who had created that monster, why it’d crawled out of the ocean in L.A., and why it’d killed all those people… Eleriss’s warning that there would be more monsters made me uneasy, and I wondered if we should have tossed the sword in the lake when we’d had a chance. Only time would tell.

EPILOGUE

T
hanks to the curfew, the town was quiet, and we didn’t see another soul on the way back to the Motel 6. Temi had brought the sword inside, and it lay next to her on one of the beds. It didn’t glow when she wasn’t holding it, but it started up like a touch lamp whenever she brushed the hilt.

“Not too bad,” Simon said from the desk. He had the calculator up on his MacBook and had dug a scale out of the van. Our flakes of gold rested on its surface. “Given the spot price of gold, an estimate of the amount of pure stuff in our ore sample, and a subtraction of our expenses, including new headlights, a new windshield, food and motel bills, medical services—” he nodded toward Temi’s bandaged hand and my bandaged leg, “—and also minus the coin you won’t let me sell until you’ve researched it further, we’ve made over three thousand dollars for our work this last week.”

“Technically we didn’t get paid for the week’s work,” I said. “We got paid for scraping gold out of a crack before a tunnel filled up with water.”

Simon waved my objection away. “One must find a way to fund one’s philanthropy efforts. This was no different. Oh!” He leaned back toward the screen. “I forgot about the money we made from our web traffic. I wish we could have taken a few pictures of the dead monster to throw up there.”

“Three thousand dollars,” Temi said as Simon crunched more numbers.

I could tell from the wry twist of her lips that she found the amount more amusing than inspiring. Simon and I hadn’t made much more than that in the entire previous month, so I could hardly complain. But then I hadn’t won prize money at Wimbledon in a previous life either.

A sickly bleep came from the heater. My phone had been as unresponsive as Simon’s after the flood. I’d taken it out of its supposedly waterproof and drop-proof case to let it dry in hopes that it would come to life again. The bleep, however anemic, was promising.

“Text message from Autumn,” I announced with a sense of guilt. I’d forgotten that Eleriss and Jakatra had been after her before our diversion.

Three messages sent an hour or two apart offered variations of,
Are you all right??

Yes
, I tapped in, the cursor responding with irritating sluggishness. I’d have to find someone who could do more for the phone than setting it to dry by a heat vent.
Are you? Has anyone bugged you?

No, made it to Phoenix safely. Ran the blood.

I paused, afraid to ask. Aside from a gold coin, an item that could have been minted anywhere, and the sword, an item a soldier had dismissed as a toy at first glance, we didn’t have any proof that there were strange… people from a strange culture roaming Arizona. Without proof, any article I attempted to submit about our encounter would be laughed into the rejection pile. But the blood… the blood was something tangible.

And?
I prompted when a follow-up didn’t come through on its own. A long message popped up as soon as I sent mine. Autumn must have been working on it already.

It doesn’t match anything in the database, and the database is extensive. We have the DNA of weeds from the Galapagos Islands in here. Just about every mammal and reptile, and lots of birds and fish as well. Interestingly your sample is closest to human, albeit with a few inexplicable anomalies.

Aside from the fact that it exists?

Yeah. It’s closer to us than chimpanzees, as close as Neanderthals maybe. We’re perplexed by the fact that it doesn’t have a recognizable blood type.

We?
I almost hit the icon to call her—I wasn’t ready to have this turned into some highly publicized find for reporters to paw over. But if she wasn’t alone… text messaging might be more discreet.

Autumn wrote,
I’ve had a couple of perplexed scientists and professors in here with some interesting ideas. Outer space came up. Normally I would have LOLed at the guy, but he’s a chemist and pointed out the mercury level in the blood would probably kill a human—he thought it might make sense that its owner had evolved on a different planet with a much higher concentration of mercury. The biologist is still arguing with him, saying it’s too close to human DNA to have evolved anywhere except here. Being the science fiction fan I am, I suggested it was a traveler from the future, from when we’ve finished goobering up our environment, and there are higher concentrations of mercury on the planet.

“Why don’t you two
talk
to each other?” Temi whispered when she leaned in and saw the amount of text on the screen.

I shook my head. “We’re almost done.” As I spoke, I texted,
File it as weird, I guess. I’m not sure the owners of the blood are still alive. We had a terrifying adventure today. Stop by on your way back, and I’ll tell you about it.

“Weird?” Simon was kibitzing over my shoulder now too. “File it as weird? Tell her to file it as the first elf DNA in the database.”

I snorted. “I don’t know why but that sounds even less plausible than aliens and travelers from the future.”

“Yes, but we don’t have a ray gun. We have a magic sword.” He lifted up the long blade, which did absolutely nothing magical for him. He held it out to Temi. She touched the cross-guard, and the sword lit up.

I blinked slowly. Things I’d been too busy to think about down in that cavern started clicking into place. “Oh.”

The others looked at me.

I held up a finger and sent another message to Autumn.
Hey, one more question. Does your biologist think the owner of that blood could mate with a human and produce viable offspring?

“Ohhh,” Simon said, watching over my shoulder again. “Interesting.”

Temi leaned forward, wanting a look too. I held up a finger while we waited for a response. I imagined the debate that must be going on in some genetics lab at U of A. If these scientists had been there all day on a Saturday, it probably involved pizza and beer. A
lot
of beer if aliens had been proposed.

Maybe
, came the response.
We already tested it for compatibility with human blood types.

And?

It’s academic at this point, but the blood group—we’re calling it Tomko after the hematologist who came in to take a look—isn’t… incompatible, not on paper anyway.

Not a resounding yes, but probably as close as you’d get from a bunch of scientists. I tossed the phone to Temi so she could read the dialogue, but I couldn’t resist sharing spoilers.

“Congratulations, Artemis. Somewhere in your bloodline, there was a…” I groped in the air for a word that probably didn’t exist in our language.

“Elf,” Simon supplied.

I rolled my eyes, but didn’t contradict him. Unless Eleriss and Jakatra showed up and told us what they called themselves, we’d never know.

Temi’s “Uh” response managed to convey skepticism and a lack of enthusiasm at the same time.

I supposed it was a testament to my oddness that I was jealous.
I
wanted to be able to make the sword glow so
I
could fight any heinous monsters that showed up to trouble humanity. I didn’t want to be the grunt, as Simon had called us. Though I was somewhat mollified to realize he was in the same boat. Not special. A muggle. So much for being a mastermind.

“If it turns out to be true, it’s quite fascinating,” Simon said. “I wonder how widespread the phenomenon is. All of those warriors in the stasis chambers must have the shared genes if Eleriss expected them to be able to wield his sword. If we started wandering through the population testing how many people could make it glow, would there be a lot? One in four? Or would it be exceedingly rare, and it’s random chance that Temi can use it?”

“If agility is one of the defining traits,” I said, thinking of Jakatra’s combat skills—even Eleriss had shown uncanny grace in his mundane movements, “then maybe it’s common in certain populations.”

“Like we should stroll through the Olympic training center and do the sword test?”

“Assuming we could without getting arrested,” I said.

Temi lowered the phone and stared at us as if we were both nuts.

We were returning her stare with frank don’t-you-see-it? stares of our own when someone knocked at the door.

If I’d been sitting, I would have fallen out of my chair. It was almost midnight. Far too late for normal people to come calling.

And elves? I didn’t know.

“Someone with a big sword want to get that?” I asked.

“No,” Simon said.

“I said big sword, not big toothpick.”

“I’m comfortable here,” Temi said.

For a muggle, I sure had to take charge a lot. I peeked through the curtains. Two familiar figures in black leather jackets stood outside. Jakatra had reaffixed his wool cap.

For a moment, I wondered what they’d do if I didn’t open the door. I had too many questions that they might deign to answer to contemplate the notion for long. I opened the door and stepped aside so they could enter.

Wordlessly, they walked inside. Eleriss slipped a hand into his jacket and pulled out another of his odd coins. He laid it on the television stand. “As we agreed, the second half of your payment.”

“Oh.” Simon slid into his seat and pulled up his calculator program again.

“Thank you,” I said since he was otherwise occupied.