Dead Waters - Anton Strout [75]
“We’ll find a way,” I insisted.
“No!” Jane shouted. “We won’t. I shower more and more. At this rate, soon you’re going to need to buy an aquarium to hold me, Simon!”
She was over-the-top with emotion, much like I had been during my psychometric bout at the Gibson-Case Center. I know how stubborn those feelings had made me in the moment, and Jane was being just as stubborn. No matter what I was saying, she wouldn’t listen to me. I stood up. “Connor,” I said. “Talk to her.”
I was met with silence and I looked around. At first, I couldn’t see him anywhere in the darkness, but then I caught sight of his shadowy figure standing at the edge of the woods by the white of a nearby building I hadn’t even noticed. He stood there stock-still, and I walked over to him with caution, my hand resting on my bat in its holster. I had already had to deal with one person under possession tonight. I was hoping I didn’t have to take on another.
“Connor . . . ?” I asked, hoping I was hiding the trepidation in my voice.
I walked around in front of him. His hands were shoved deep into his pockets, and he was looking up in the air toward the building. I stepped right in front of him and caught my partner’s eye.
“What’s up, buddy?” I asked, unholstering my bat.
He looked over at me and his face looked normal enough. “Does anything strike you strange about where we landed?” he asked.
“Other than the undead Aqua Men off its coast? Not that I’m aware of. Why?”
Connor grabbed me by my shoulders and spun me around. “Open your eyes, kid.”
I had been so concerned about Jane that I hadn’t really taken in much of our environment. The three of us were standing in a cluster of trees, some kind of forest or park on Wards Island. It didn’t have much in the way of lampposts or lighting of any kind, giving the area a wild and unused look, but there was one thing that stood out about the place—the building Connor had been looking at.
In front of us stood an abandoned lighthouse that rose almost as high as the bridge itself. A small rectangular room at the base of it stuck out, but other than that it looked fairly typical—a raised cylindrical structure that narrowed as it rose, ending high above in a railed balcony that surrounded the glassed-in top and its long-extinguished signal light.
Once I had taken it in, I turned back to Connor, only to find that Jane had joined us. She seemed more composed now as she stared up at the lighthouse. She looked over her shoulder at Connor.
“Doesn’t look to be an active lighthouse,” Connor said, “but with aqua-zombies just offshore from it and nothing else around—”
“We should probably check that out, huh?” Jane asked.
Connor looked at her. “At least one of you is paying attention,” he said. “Good to have you back.” He smiled, and then headed off toward the steps leading up to the entrance of the lighthouse.
I didn’t move. “Excuse me for showing concern over my possessed girlfriend first,” I said.
“Can we not call me ‘possessed’?” Jane asked. “I haven’t started hurling up pea soup or anything.”
“Yet,” I added. Jane shot me a hurt look. “Sorry.”
Jane didn’t say another word and headed off after Connor, leaving me there to feel like an insensitive cad all by my lonesome. I shook it off and followed after her, undoing the strap on my holster once again and pulling my bat free. I hit the combination of marked buttons on the shaft of my bat that spelled out Jane’s initials, which extended the custom weapon to its full size with a gentle shikt.
When I caught up with the two of them at the top of the steps leading up to the entrance, Jane was whispering to Connor. “Who’s going first?” she asked.
Before he could respond, I pushed past the two of them. “I’ll go,” I said. I still felt caddish. The least I could do was take the lead going in. I tried the handle of the heavy door. It was solidly built, its ancient wood barded together with thick iron bars that ran across it at three separate parts. It wouldn’t budge.
“Locked,” I said, handing Jane