Dead Waters - Anton Strout [74]
“Not if I don’t have to,” I said. “I’d rather not find out whether the water of the East River would eat through me or the metal of my bat first. Or if it would make me like one of those creatures.”
“I wouldn’t worry about what would happen in the water,” Connor said.
“ No?”
“Nah,” he said. “Given the workout your arms are getting, I doubt you’d have the strength to swim to shore before drowning.”
“Thanks, Captain Optimism,” I said.
“It would be a better way to go than having your girlfriend channel some water-based she-devil and kill you.”
The numbers of our gruesome enemies were thin enough now that I could chance a look back into the wheelhouse. Jane looked worn and half-asleep at the controls, but she still managed to shoot me a weak smile.
“She’s got the mark under control,” I said.
“For now,” Connor added
“Yep,” I said. “For now. When we find that water woman, we’ll beat her into removing it. If we find her.”
I turned back and Connor was watching me. “Don’t worry,” he said, as sober and sincere as I’d ever seen him. “If it comes to it, I’ll take care of things if Jane turns.”
I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure there was a proper way to “thank” someone for promising to beat down the woman you loved. All our training in dealing with zombies and the like was meant to prepare us to strike down our colleagues without hesitation if they turned, but I didn’t think I had the courage to do it to Jane myself. Was hoping I didn’t have to come to that level of difficult decision making.
At least I now understood why the appeal of the open water had put Jane in such an improved mood; the girl was just releasing her inner monstrosity.
20
We hit the shore on Wards Island, tying off the boat on the shattered wooden remains of a dock that had definitely seen better days. Thankfully we had been able to outpace the aqua-zombies in their efforts to climb back on board the boat. I was paranoid enough once we landed that I stood at the water’s edge waiting for several minutes to make sure we had no hangers-on. When nothing came shambling out of the river for us, I finally retracted my bat and holstered it.
I turned around to face the darkness of the island’s woods behind us. Jane was sitting on a boulder off to my right, rocking back and forth with her arms wrapped around her body. Her wind-whipped hair hung mostly over her face, giving her a crazy sea-haggish kind of look.
I walked over to her, but she didn’t register my presence as I approached. I put my hand on her shoulder. “How are you feeling?”
Jane brushed her hair out of her face and looked up at me. Her cheeks were wet with tears. “Horrible,” she said, “but a bit more like myself now that I’m on dry land.” She continued to comb her hair down to something less Don King–like. I took her wanting to straighten herself out as a good sign that she was acting a bit less possessed now. “What came over me? What the heck happened out on the water?”
“You don’t remember?”
Jane shook her head. “Snippets of it,” she said. “It’s all a bit cloudy for me.”
“I think you had a little visit from someone,” I said.
“Did I? From that woman?” she asked. I nodded and her eyes widened. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
I knelt down in front of her and took her hands in mine. “I’m fine,” I said. “You fought that woman’s power and you won.”
Jane shook her head and looked down on the ground. “I don’t know how it happened. Being out on the open water just brought out the connection to it in me. It was overwhelming. I felt so . . . right. The mark started burning while you and Connor were fighting those . . . things. I don’t remember too much else until you got me inside the cabin.” Her face darkened. “I never should have come.”
“Don’t beat yourself up over that,” I said. “You can’t change the past. What’s done is done. We just have to keep fighting this as it comes. We’ve got Allorah analyzing things from a scientific angle, and Director Wesker is looking into the arcana behind it . . .”
“But how long do I have?” Jane asked, hysteria rising to the surface in her voice. “I could feel