The Storm King(118)

When he was within arm’s reach of the air, the purgatory of the lake exploded into the most glorious of dawns. The waters burst into rippling mosaics of flame shadowed with the lacework fractals of waves.





Twenty-seven

Worlds perish in all kinds of ways. The Night Ship both burned and drowned.

A blast of heat singed Nate’s lungs as he broke through the surface and gasped for breath. He pulled James’s head clear of the water. There was too much noise to hear if the boy was breathing. Nate had to put his ear to the teen’s mouth to make sure he was still with him.

Above the waterline, the lake was undone.

Rafts of flaming debris flared amid whitecaps like cities burning across the tundra. Medea scoured water, smoke, steam, ash, and sparks into gusts that blazed and seared and chilled.

Nate’s back took the brunt of the impact as the current crushed them into one of the pilings. Above them, the floor of the undercroft gaped with an enormous hole rimmed with fire. There’d been an explosion, Nate understood. One of the tanks of propane the children had kept in the nightclub. He was certain Tom had shot it on purpose.

Tom.



Nate screamed for his friend as the lake whisked him through the rest of the pilings. Something within the nightclub collapsed, and it dislodged a large section of the pier’s undergirding. Its plunge reared walls of water that again submerged Nate. This time it was harder to kick back to the surface.

He had his arm slung around James’s neck in the same way Owen had, though with the opposite intention. The boy lagged behind him as Nate struggled to keep them both afloat. Around them, torrents of fire reached for the sky and were whipped by the hurricane. Not all the wreckage from the pier was aflame. Shingles from the roof bobbed like leaves across the water. The waves broke against massive sheaths of rotted woodwork.

When he regained his breath, Nate again called for Tom. The wind swept away his voice. He could barely hear himself.

He watched as the Night Ship’s last spire collapsed into a galaxy of sparks. They curled like a nebula into the storm and then were extinguished. With the end of the pier unsealed by the explosion, the hurricane fed the blaze within the promenade, sending it to the landward side like a blowtorch. Where the waves weren’t black, they were dipped in flame.

He didn’t know if the children had taken both the kayak and the motorboat, but it didn’t matter because he couldn’t see either.

James’s face fell below the waves again, and Nate fought to give him a better angle, but it was impossible. The water was too rough. The waves crashed into them without pause, and Nate was at the end of his strength.

The current had them, and he couldn’t see the shore.

His legs should have burned from the exertion of keeping afloat, but the water was so cold they’d gone numb. Another wave threw the two of them back under, but this time Nate saw something: a light ahead of him, but also underwater, where no fire could burn. He held James above him as he dunked his head again to look. It didn’t make sense. Twin columns of illumination sliced through the clean water like the headlights of a car.



A car in the lake, Nate thought.

Impossible.

But it wasn’t impossible. He knew this better than anyone.

He struck out for the lights and the current urged him along. Perhaps this was where the lake had always wanted him to go. He swallowed its water by the mouthful as he tried to breathe and keep James afloat. He passed debris on the way, but none of it was significant or stable enough for him to steal even a moment’s rest.

The lake drew them closer to its center, and Nate let it. The town along the shore became a memory. Had he lost his mind? Nate wondered. He tried to remember the exact effects of carbon monoxide intoxication.

They were far from what remained of the Night Ship, but close to where Nate thought he’d seen the headlights. He confirmed this by another sojourn under the surface. Instead of two, there was now only a single beam of light, and he didn’t know if this was good or bad.

A raft of flotsam was ahead. It had none of the contours of Victorian style woodwork. It wasn’t furniture or a fairyland tower. It had the beacon of a lit flashlight fastened around one wrist and the profile of Nate’s best friend.

Tom floated face-up, rocked by the waves. Nate shook and screamed at him but got no response. He couldn’t tell if he was breathing. The skin of his face was cold, but so was Nate’s own.

With his swollen hands, Nate grabbed the collar of Tom’s raincoat and dragged him along with James. For a few moments this seemed like a possible way to continue.

Away from the blaze and smoke of the Night Ship it was easier to see the shore.

Far ahead he could see the stony beach where he’d once been both saved and damned.

The beach loomed and then receded. The currents had carried him this far only to tease him. He kicked for the shore, but the lake pulled him and the others away from land and up to its northern bulge. Its waves pummeled his face and flooded his throat. Tom’s head fell below the water and Nate tried to lift him, but then James began to sink.



No longer burning, his arms felt like stones. They pulled him down along with Tom, James, and their sopping clothes. Deep into the cold water where his dead had waited so long for him.

In the flares of the storm, Nate saw the dim spike of a person on the beach ahead. She stood among the stones, her coat whipping in the gale like the shrouds of a wraith.