Reborn Page 6

  He got up from his desk and walked around to her, his face full of concern. "And what is that?"

  "You."

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Black Sea, Three Weeks Later

  "Be careful with that body!" Heather Paxton shouted. The crate crashed back onto the deck. "Goddammit," she said. "Did any of you even bother to check the safety wires?" She strode over. The group shifted uncomfortably, the crate smashed upon the deck.

  One of the scientists stepped forward. "Dr. Paxton—"

  "Don't pretend you're sorry." She crouched down to see how bad the damage was.

  His face got red, "We checked the wires—"

  "Well, obviously, you didn't. Otherwise, this crate, which contains the perfectly preserved body of a member of sixth-century Byzantine aristocracy, would not have come crashing down on my perfectly preserved sixth-century Byzantine boat!"

  She rubbed her forehead. There was so much money riding on this. So much at stake. If she screwed it up, if she let one more accident happen…She stopped herself from completing the thought.

  Raising the fifteen-hundred-year-old boat from the bottom of the sea had been eerily easy. The university sent robotic submarines after Steve's death. They blamed her for the failure of his suit. And she knew they were right. It was her fault. It had to be her fault. She played that day over and over again in her mind, trying to figure out what she did wrong, what she should have done differently. If she could just figure it out, she could make sure it never happened again.

  She'd get back in their good graces once they saw the ship, once they saw the full enormity of the find, once the papers and prizes were awarded. She and her crew had been kept so busy trying to preserve all the priceless artifacts on the upper decks, they hadn't even seen what was below. She could only imagine the artifacts it held.

  But as she looked at the broken crate, she tried to ignore the cold chill she felt creeping its way up her back. Whenever her team attempted to remove a body, the accidents started again. They hadn't managed to get even one across to the hold.

  Heather could feel his eyes. Captain Marco, that smug bastard, was leaning against the railing of the science vessel, watching. He shook his head slowly, as if he was saying, I told you so.

  "Can we get this mess cleaned up?" she asked. Two of her team ran forward to take off the lid and see how bad the damage was.

  "Both lines snapped," spat a scientist, clutching his arm. When he removed his hand, it was covered in blood, and a deep, angry cut ran the length of his biceps.

  The crew fell silent.

  She knew they still hated her for making them stay. Hated her, hated the boat, hated the project. She told herself it was just grief, that once they towed the ship to port and all this bad luck gave them a break, they would see the incredible part in history they were playing. But as her crew stared at her with accusing eyes, she knew that day was not today.

  Heather rubbed her forehead again. She was so fed up with all of this. She pointed at the science vessel. "Get over to sick bay and find someone to fix it." She turned and addressed everyone. "Actually, all of you. Head back. We're done for the day. Get back to your quarters. We'll try this again in the morning."

  She turned her back to the team as she waited for them to clear out. She shouted over her shoulder, "Don't drip blood on the deck!"

  "Too late," he replied, the wind carrying away his words.

  She looked and there were drops of crimson all over one of the carved symbols. "Shit," she said, looking around for something to try to wipe it up with. The sound of the dinghy’s outboard motor had faded away by the time she found a rag. And the blood had already dried, staining the glyph with rust-colored spots.

  Her crew didn't understand, she thought. She looked at the forty crates, all lined up in a row. They were miracles, every last one of these remains. Why couldn't her team see the bigger picture? Why couldn't they see the importance of this find?

  She walked over to the broken crate and picked up the lid. The lord rested inside in a saltwater bath, water she insisted they bring up from the fathoms below so that his body wouldn't know anything had changed. He was beautiful, mummified by the sea. He retained his skin tone, muscle mass, even most of his hair. His clothing appeared to be linen, but there was no way linen could have survived underwater this long. There must have been some sort of microorganism living at that depth that was responsible for their preservation. Such a microorganism could hold the secrets to eternal life. She needed to get these bodies to her lab.

  She looked at the snapped aircraft cable on the winch. Both the wire and the safety were meant to hold seven thousand pounds of weight. Was it the salt water? Was it defective? She sighed. The only thing that mattered was that it didn't happen again.

  "I'll take care of you," she whispered to the ancient lord before lowering the lid. She rested her hands on the crate, letting her will seal the promise.

  She disembarked, climbing down the ladder to the remaining dingy, the one that should have been weighed down by at least one member of the Byzantine aristocracy. She fired up the motor and headed straight to the science boat.

  Captain Marco was waiting for her, still smoking that goddamned pipe. She hated how he just stared at her as she tied on and climbed up the ladder. She gritted her teeth and forced a plastic smile.

  The sea air caught strands of her blond hair, whipping them into her mouth. She removed them with a crooked finger. "Tow the boat as far as you can tonight. My team will head back over tomorrow to continue working."

  "Should have left the thing at the bottom of the ocean," said Marco.

  She was so tired of this argument. She was so tired of him thinking the university was paying him for his opinions. "Listen, Captain, we have a big journey ahead of us. Let's just get started towards Seattle."

  Marco took another puff from his pipe and shook his head. "This is trouble. I feel it in my bones. It is trouble."

  "I'll make sure to note it in my report. 'Captain Marco has a feeling in his bones.'"

  "I won't have it be told that I'm responsible when things go to hell."

  "'Under protest' noted!" she said as she walked away.

  She ducked down the stairs and headed towards her room. Several members of her team were standing in the hall talking. They stopped as soon as they saw her.

  "Excuse me," she said as she turned sideways to get past. They just stared angrily. Ever since that awful day with the shark and then the suit, everyone on board made sure to let her know they were hired hands, nothing more.

  She opened the flimsy plastic door to her cabin and went inside. She couldn't let the crew know that it bothered her. She was holding things together by a thread. They should be happy, she thought. They were getting paid enough.

  She stripped off her T-shirt and cargo pants, hanging them to air out. She stood, looking at her bag, knowing she should get dressed and join everyone for the evening meal.

  She flopped onto the bed. Not tonight, she thought. She couldn't face them again tonight. She put her arm over her eyes. The cool sheets felt good against her bare skin after the long day in the sun. They would be sorry, she thought. They would be sorry when they got to Seattle and saw that it—all of it—was worth it.

  The night sky twinkled at her, but the stars were out of place. She heard the creaking song of the wooden beams, rubbing against each other as the ocean pushed and pulled. The moonlight bathed the Byzantine boat in silver, catching the edges of the glyphs and carvings. There was an energy…a something…that made her heart pound in her chest.

  She felt something trickling down her arm. She touched it. Blood. Her arm was cut across the biceps. She tried to hold the wound shut, but the blood dripped from her elbow and fell upon one of the ancient symbols.

  She knew that was a terrible thing. A terrible, terrible thing.

  The symbol began to glow, eerie and yellow. At first, it was just the one. But the glow spread like a spill, as fast as wine tipped upon a tabl
ecloth.

  It should have been beautiful, the entire boat lit like it was made of one hundred paper lanterns, shining through the cutouts of the glyphs.

  But it was not.

  Heather gripped the railing, the blood now pouring like a river down her arm.

  The lids of forty crates flew off. Forty dead lords sat up, their white robes gleaming. They turned their heads as one and faced Heather Paxton, foolish Heather Paxton.

  "Stop…," she whispered.

  Their eyelids lifted and the same glow, that awful yellow glow of the glyphs, filled their empty, barren sockets.

  Heather Paxton sat up in bed, drenched in sweat. The sun was shining through her porthole. She had fallen asleep. She dropped back onto her pillow. It was just her mind processing the light from the sun, she thought. Nothing more. It was just the sun and a bad dream. She wiped away the moisture from her neck and chest and tried to will her heart to stop pounding.

  # # #

  Half a hemisphere away, Brett Archer sat up in the darkness of his bedroom. He opened his eyes and light poured out.

  "I am ready, my lords," he said.

  # # #

  Heather Paxton stepped onto the bridge. Marco was sitting in his captain's chair at the helm, doing nothing. His pipe sat unlit as he mouthed the end. It was nearly eight a.m.

  Heather braced herself for another fight and forced a perky chirp to her voice instead of screaming at him like she wanted to. "So what time are we planning to set sail?" she asked.

  "We already are."

  "What are you talking about?"

  He took out his pipe and used it to point at the satellite GPS. "We're the little green blink, there."

  Heather slipped on her reading glasses and peered at the screen. She banged on the monitor.

  "Hitting it doesn't help anything," he said.

  "What's wrong with the gauges?" she asked.

  "Nothing."

  "This says that we've traveled five hundred nautical miles."

  "Yep." He put the pipe back into his mouth.

  "Do we have replacement instruments?" she asked, looking around the bridge as if one would magically appear. "This is an issue if we can't figure out where we are." Captain Marco wasn't moving. "Are you going to help me?" she asked, exasperated, thinking he should be a little more upset that their navigational systems were offline.

  "I already checked. It's correct," he replied. "Somehow, we are five hundred nautical miles from where we were last night."

  She looked out at the Byzantine boat floating outside the window. The chill of her nightmare washed over her body.

  "How is that even possible?" she asked.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Gulf Coast Resort, South of the Border

  Tanis didn't even open her eyes. Just reached over to grab a beer out of the ice bucket. "Fuck. I'm out."

  The waves crashed on the Gulf shore in endless, rolling static.

  Dr. Jared rattled the empty bottle dangling from his fingertips, not lifting his head from the back of his chair. "Me, too."

  He let it drop hollowly onto the sand.

  Tanis hadn't been sober since the massacre, and she wasn't about to start now.

  "We should remedy this," Tanis commented.

  Neither of them moved.

  The sun beat down hot on the beach. A gull cried. Tanis reached over and ran her fingers down Jared's suntanned arm, the sweat of him wet on her fingertips.

  He looked over. "How's my favorite patient?"

  "In desperate need of some medicine," she said.

  "Make it a double. Doctor's orders," he replied before settling back to fall asleep.

  Tanis turned around. Atop the crest of the private beach, a little Mexican waiter dressed in a white jacket was waiting for this moment. Tanis waved him over, the movement almost causing her to tip out of her chair. She steadied herself as the world spun, pressing herself back into her seat. "Jesus, half this guy's face is starting to melt."

  It seemed like they were everywhere, the rotting faces. She saw them all. And now there were people with glowing eyes. She told herself they were just hallucinations, just tricks of her sick mind. But right beneath that thought, all she could think of was that asshole, Matt Cahill, and how he said that it was just the beginning. The security guard's face flashed across her mind, the gun pointed at her, his head flying off, looping over and over. The screams. The ax. The bloodstain on her shoe.

  She leaned over and threw up in the empty bucket.

  "You okay?" Jared asked.

  Tanis wiped her mouth, the acidic bite of the bile and old salsa burning her nose. "Just making room for seconds."

  She leaned back in her chair, needing something stronger, anything stronger to make these hallucinations and memories go away.

  "It's all in your imagination," said Dr. Jared, waking up enough to reach over and grip her hand. "You're here and you're safe. Nothing will harm you as long as you're with me."

  She turned and shouted over her shoulder. "Where the fuck are those beers?

  "Focus on me…," he said. "I'm here." He placed her hand on his heart. "You're here. We don't ever have to go back. Just enjoy the now."

  He looked so sincere, so wanting for her to be happy. Her face cracked into a wicked grin. She slid her fingers down his chest and into his trunks. He was awake. The tip of his dick was already wet and its head fit so nicely in the cup of her palm.

  "We could just…stay here…," mentioned Jared. "Forever."

  Her thumb stroked across the head. "Maybe.

  Neither of them paid any attention to the waiter as he stumbled through the sand to reach them, picking up the discarded bottles, not realizing until too late that one of the buckets was not empty. He didn't blink an eye, just cleared his throat to let them know he was ready to take their order.

  "Dos bucketos of cervezas more," Tanis said, pulling her hand out of her boyfriend's pants to show how many “dos” was. "Charge it to mio roomo."

  The waiter nodded, his right cheek bubbling with pus. He hates us, Tanis thought. She was glad. She hoped he hated them so much he never came back and she never had to see his rotting face again. She turned away so she wouldn't have to watch him bow and scrape as he backed up the hill.

  "Is he gone?" asked Jared.

  "Let me check," said Tanis. She stood, wobbling on her feet, and swayed over to Jared's chair. She threw her leg over and knelt, straddling him. He grabbed her waist and she let him help her slide down, running her body the length of his torso until she was nestled down tight into his lap. She bit his neck and then peered over the back of his chair, one-eyeing it so that she could focus through the haze of alcohol. "Yep."

  He grabbed her hair and pulled her face to his. This was what she wanted. The days of soft, tentative kisses were long behind them. His mouth was rough on her, hungry, wanting. This made the memories disappear.

  He untied the top string of her bikini. She thought for a moment about pulling it back up, but why the fuck not? That waiter could come back with a semiautomatic instead of a bucket of beers. Life was too short. Fuck it all. Jared was nuzzling her tits and his hardness between her legs was rubbing her just right.

  And as luck would have it, the waiter didn't bring a gun. He just dropped off the buckets in the sand and walked away. His eyes flickered up at them only once.

  They weren't going to die today, thought Tanis. She reached behind her and untied the last string, pulling off her top and dropping it out of the way. She grabbed a longneck from the bucket, downing it without stopping for a breath as Jared shifted his trunks and his fingers pulled her bikini bottom to the side. He was hard, and she was wet, and that was what vacations were for, she thought, feeling the tip of his dick and then the squeezing thrust as he pushed inside. She put down her drink only when he laid the back of the chair flat, rolled her over, and started pounding till her toes curled.

  That was what vacations were for.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Gettysbu
rg

  Abraham Lincoln's head rolled across the Gettysburg battlefield.

  Matt Cahill hadn't seen this coming.

  The tour had started about an hour ago. Leading it was a historic reenactor who, other than being five-four, happened to be the spitting image of Abraham Lincoln. He said that he was going to show them one of the bloodiest battlefields of the entire Civil War, and he hadn't been lying.

  But it all started long before Matt killed Honest Abe. There was a new rot in town. Matt hadn't seen it himself, but one of his team swore that instead of fetid flesh, the new face of evil involved yellow, glowing eyes. Matt almost laughed. Glowing eyes. He'd gladly take glowing eyes over the maggot-infested sacks of decaying human meat he usually had to fight. There had been buzz recently around Gettysburg—gruesome violence, ritualistic torture, the kind of stuff that made Matt know that Mr. Dark was in town.

  So he came.

  He knew evil would find him. It was the game that Mr. Dark and he played. Mr. Dark always saved the most horrific scenes of humankind's depravity just for Matt, like some sort of love letter.

  Matt brought his duffel bag with him on the tour, slinging it over his shoulder. It made people less nervous than when he carried around his naked ax. They thought he was on his way to the gym, and he had his weapon close at hand, ready to pull it out whenever evil decided to rear its ugly head. Win-win.

  "If you'll please turn off your phones and be mindful of the sacred site that we are about to enter," the tour guide was saying when Matt walked up.

  Sure enough, evil always found him.

  The tour guide's eyes were glowing yellow.

  "Please turn off your phones!" Lincoln shouted again. No one was listening. A sweaty fourteen-year-old was busy chasing his younger sister around the grave markers to pummel her. Their parents were too busy texting to care. A teen had her hands down her boyfriend's back pockets, and he was taking self-portraits at arm's length. Two good ol' boys thought it would be funny to look like they were getting ass-raped by the statue of General Warren.