One Insatiable(56)

Glancing up, I reach out to catch one as well, but just before it hits my palm, it darts away on the wind. I reach for another, but the same sequence occurs. Pushing off the statue where I’m leaning, I step out, determined to catch one. Frustration burns in my chest.

“Not as easy as it looks,” he says as I finally get one in my hands. Holding it up I raise my eyebrows before letting it go. “Nope. You dropped your luck.”

My brow lines. “You didn’t say I was supposed to keep it.”

“Didn’t know I had to tell you everything.” He takes another pull on his pipe, and I decide to cut to the chase.

“I’m looking for something. I think you might be able to help me.”

His lips move back, and I see his teeth clenched on the pipe stem. “You’re tracking the immortal. It’s his time to resurface.”

“He took someone… I need to get her back.”

Hazel eyes cut to me. “No one comes back once they’re taken.”

“Still… there’s a rift. Somewhere near the town, there’s a way across.” He nods, and hope expands in my chest. “I hoped you could tell me where it’s located.”

“Never seen it,” he says flatly, starting his slow walk back toward the convent.

It takes me a moment to recover, but I’m right behind him. “I was pretty sure you knew how to find it earlier today.”

“Nope.” He shakes his grey head topped with that silly hat.

His shuffling step increases the distance between us, and the frustration grows in my chest. Hustling up behind him, I move around in front of him, stopping his progress.

“If you want money, I can get you money. I need to find the passage.”

Taking the pipe from his mouth, he squints up at me. “I mind my own business in these parts. Things pass by me, but I don’t ask questions. All I know is they’re passing.”

“Okay,” I say, nodding, trying to be encouraging. “When it passes, which way is it headed.”

“Away.” That answer elicits a low growl from me, and the man pulls up short. “What I do know is in the mythology, Aeneas and Odysseus found a passage to the underworld near a lake.”

Considering this information, I nod slowly. Nightmoon Lake is north of here. As if reading my thoughts, the old man calls back to me.

“His path was always north-south, and back again.”

“Thank you,” I say, but I don’t know that he heard me.

He’s already rounded the corner of a far building when I look up again. I don’t have time to waste. The sun is dipping low on the horizon, and I want to get to Nightmoon Lake while it’s still open for business.



* * *



Jim is unusually animated as I drive his truck the short distance to the lake. “Dude, I thought you would go with Mercy to California when she left.”

“I will,” I say, not really listening.

“But she’s gone, bro. You two have a plan or something?”

The entrance to the lake is a small guard’s hut with a big sign that says “Park Closes at Dark.” Looking up through the windshield, I calculate we’ve got about thirty minutes before we’re forced to leave.

“Yeah, we’ve got a plan.” Handing over a fiver, I drive to the large body of water, taking the slow curve that leads to the cabins along the creek. “Say, Jim, you ever heard of any unusual things happening around here? People going missing or getting lost?”

“Dude, people get lost in these woods all the time. The trees all look alike.”

“Yeah,” I say, nodding. “But have you heard of anything else?”

“I don’t know what you’re asking me, bro.”

Stopping the truck, I put it in park and look out across the broad expanse of dark water.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to park in the road like this,” Jim says, looking over his shoulder behind us.

“What about a fault line? Ever heard of anything like that?”

“Like earthquakes and stuff?”

Looking over at him, I nod. “Anything?”

He frowns, scratching his chin as he thinks. I confess, I’m holding my breath waiting for anything that might help me find Mercy.

“Sorry, dude. I don’t know about anything like that.” He crinkles his forehead looking up at the sky. “We’d better head on back. It’s starting to get dark.”

Fighting the ear-splitting roar of frustration burning in my mind, I turn the key and head us back to Doris’s house and my apartment. We’re just pulling into the driveway when Jim suddenly blurts.

“Sally has a friend who studies tectonics at the university. If you want, I can ask her if he knows of anything.” His face falls. “It wouldn’t be until tomorrow, though.”

Breath whooshes in my lungs. I almost grab him in a hug. “Just see what you can find out. I need you to do this for me, okay? It’s important.”

Jim nods, and when he looks at me, I know he thinks I’m losing it.



* * *





Mercy


My eyes open, and I’m in a large, shadowy room. The walls are covered in black embossed wallpaper, and the furnishings are black wood with deep purple fabric. The ceiling is impossibly tall, and every arch meets in a sinister point.