The Alchemical Detective (Riga Hayworth) (27 page)

“I am breathless with anticipation.”

“So what’s your plan?” Sam asked, ignoring her tone.

“Since I’m not qualified to cave dive, we’re going to search the area around the cave entrance for signs of Tessie.  In the eighties, two divers reported seeing a creature shoot out of a cave in that cliff face.”  Riga pointed toward it.  “They also reported finding two large fin prints where the creature had been resting.  Maybe we’ll get lucky.”  But luck for Riga meant ending the dive quickly.

“Don’t worry,” Wolfe told Sam.  “I’ll go in and get some shots of the cave.”

“I don’t think so,” Riga said sharply.  “You don’t dive without a buddy and you certainly don’t cave dive without one.  And I told you, I’m not qualified to go inside.”

“Oh, come on,” Wolfe said.  “I won’t go in far.”

“I said, forget it,” Riga growled.

Sam intervened.  “She’s right.  We don’t need interior shots and I don’t need a lawsuit if you get yourself killed.”

“Or brain damaged,” Griff muttered. “Not that you’d notice much difference.”

Wolfe handed his camera to Angus, then walked awkwardly in his flippers to the platform at the rear of the boat.  He stepped off the edge, and disappeared beneath the water. 

His head breached the surface, and he whooped.  “Holy crap!  That’s cold!”

“I can’t believe you agreed to this,” Pen said to Riga.

“Yeah.  Well, it won’t be a long dive.”  Thirty minutes of suffering, tops, and Riga would be back on the surface drinking something hot and alcohol-fueled.  This was a high altitude dive, so they’d agreed to limit the depth and time.  They were erring on the side of caution but Riga wanted to get this over with.  She waddled to the edge and stepped off.

The water slashed her skin like knives.  Her heart seemed to stop from the cold, and then she broke the surface.  Riga shrieked from the shock of it.

“What did I tell you?” Wolfe said, bobbing beside her.  His eyes crinkled with laughter.  “Here, hand me my camera,” he said to Angus.

Angus reverently lowered it into Wolfe’s waiting arms. 

“I’m going to give you a bit of distance so I can film you,” Wolfe said.  “Ready?”

Riga spat in her mask, dunked it in the water and rubbed the plastic with her gloved hand.  She lowered the mask into place, and jackknifed beneath the surface. 

It was another world, dreamy blue-green and pierced by shafts of sunlight, silent but for her exhalations and the occasional odd metallic clank.  They swam above a stand of petrified tree trunks, then drifted lower, towards the stone and silt-covered bottom.  Riga had gotten over the initial shock of the plunge, but her muscles were tense, braced against the cold. 

She used her hands to pull herself over the remains of an overturned row boat, scattering a school of minnows resting in its shadows.  A sheer wall of rock soon rose before her, and she paused, scanning it for evidence of a cave.  Finding none, she gave a mental shrug, picked a direction, and turned, following the rock wall. 

A wide cleft in the rocks appeared, four feet tall at its highest point.  She felt a strange resistance to getting closer, and forced herself to move forward, pulling herself along the round stones on the lake floor.  The cave sloped gently into darkness.  She wasn’t carrying a light, couldn’t tell how far or deep it ran, and imagined the cave sinking into the underworld itself.  She shivered, tried to shake off the foreboding that gripped her. 

Riga looked around, saw Wolfe, and pointed towards the cave, then made a show of examining the lake floor at the entrance, bathed in aquamarine light. 

No Tessie prints. No surprise.

Wolfe joined her and switched on his camera’s light attachment.  A school of minnows darted at him from the cave.  His eyes widened and he let slip the camera, catching it before it sunk to the bottom.  Riga would have found it funny but the tiny fish had startled her as well. 

She tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the surface, then made a show of shrugging, palms up.  Time to go?

He shook his head and disappeared into the cave.

Dammit!
  Her jaw clenched on the regulator and she tasted something bitter.  What was he thinking?

Riga sank to her knees, and tracked the beam of Wolfe’s light from her position at the cavern mouth. He’d been reduced to a dark shadow in the gloom of the cave.   The idiot would be fine, she told herself, and he’d come out when he saw she wasn’t coming in.  Because she was not going inside.  She made windmilling motions with her hands to keep her balance.

His light turned towards her and she pointed upwards, signaling she was going up, hoping that would motivate him to leave the cave. 

A chill wracked Riga’s body and between them rose a cloud of silt.  Something about it repelled her, and it was all she could do to remain motionless, watch Wolfe’s light illuminate the swirling particles. 

Riga forced herself to stay her hands, to wait for the silt to settle, but the cloud thickened and the light from Wolfe’s camera dimmed, unable to penetrate it.  The cloud congealed, forming the outlines of a distorted face, and then swiftly concentrated itself into a thick oblong shape the size of a large fish.  It shot into the cave.  Her teeth clenched on her regulator, and she reared back in surprise.

The beam from Wolfe’s light flipped to the vertical, then drifted downwards to shine sideways upon the cave floor.  The light blinked out.

A wave of fear swept Riga’s spine.

She waited a beat, two, straining for a sign of Wolfe. 

Darkness.

Her instincts screamed to flee.  But she ducked forward and propelled herself into the cave, keeping low to the ground, glancing over her shoulder at the sunlit cave mouth, assuring herself it was still there.  How far back had Wolfe gone?  And what else was in here?  Tentacles of blackness spread through her mind as she inched forward, away from the safety of open water.  Her breathing seemed louder now, quicker. 

She forced herself to focus on her hands, groping forward in the darkness, rather than think about the smothering water, the weight of stone above her.  Her gloved fingertips brushed against smooth stones and the soft plush of silt.  And then she touched straight lines, something angular, unnatural.  The camera.

She fumbled with it, feeling for the light switch.  But she didn’t know the machine, couldn’t find the button in the dark.  She swam with it for the entrance, feeling lighter, safer as she approached its yawning mouth.  In the rippling sunlight, she easily found the red button, switched on the light, swept the cave: moss-covered stones, the green tinted cave floor, and then a black, elongated shape.  The light bounced, her hands shaking with fear.  And then she understood what she was seeing: Wolfe, prone in his dive suit. 

She heard her own breathing quicken, knew she was on the edge of panic, and she flicked her fins, zooming to him.  His eyes were closed but his regulator was clamped in his mouth, bubbles rising steadily.  She grabbed the back of his inflatable vest with one hand.  Swimming on her back so she could watch his regulator, she towed him from the cave, her blood throbbing in her veins.  Once they’d cleared its mouth, she inflated their vests, tugged him toward the sunlight.

Wolfe had been right; the water was shallow and they quickly broke the surface.  Riga wrenched the regulator from Wolfe’s mouth and tilted his face to the sun.  God, he had to be okay, please let him be okay. She shouted and waved to the boat, then looked around, tried to get her bearings.  The cliff here was sheer, no beach in sight.  Five yards away, a line of boulders rose from the lake.  She gripped Wolfe’s vest, and pulled him towards a low, flat-topped rock. 

When they reached the boulder, Riga found the camera still clenched in one hand.  She slung it atop the rock, then released Wolfe and hauled herself up.  Riga turned and grabbed for Wolfe, who’d begun to float away.  She tried to heave him onto the boulder but his body weight defeated her.  Her arms shook with fatigue.  She gave up and let him sink neck deep into the water, keeping a hand on his vest. 

A year ago, she could have magicked him from the cave, used that force to lift him, make the people in the boat aware.  She might have been able to sense what had been in the cave, understand it, communicate with it, she thought angrily.  She’d told herself she’d never relied upon magic, had made it a point of pride.  But the fact was, without it she felt as if a piece of her had been amputated.

She wanted it back and alchemy was too slow a process. 

Riga needed that edge now.  Too much was at stake. 

It was maddening; she saw the boat, the crew lounging upon it, oblivious to her predicament.

She slapped Wolfe gently on the cheek.  “Come on, Wolfe.  Wake up!”

His head lolled and she pulled him closer to the rock.   An orange plastic whistle floated in the water beside him, attached to his vest by a cord.  Riga looked down at her chest, she had a dive whistle too.  She blew the whistle, dropped it, and waved with her free hand, refusing to relinquish her grip on Wolfe’s vest. 

Two figures, then a third, scrambled into the yellow dingy tied to the side of the boat: Pen, Ash and Griff.  Of course Griff, Riga thought wearily.  Something had happened, a cameraman was required.  She sat on the rock, shivering, watching the dingy arc through the water towards her.  The roar of its motor set a fat Canadian goose winging across the lake, honking angrily. 

Wolfe gurgled and she looked down, startled.  His head had fallen forward into the water.  “Sorry,” she muttered, grabbing him by the hair and tugging his face skyward.

The dingy sputtered to a halt beside them.  With a cool look, Ash took in the situation, and reached over the side of the rubber boat for Wolfe.  “Grab his other shoulder,” he said to Griff.

“Pen, you mind?” Griff said.  “I’m filming.”

She shot him a withering look and reached beneath Wolfe’s other arm.  Riga worked with them to roll his unconscious form onto the dingy, then Riga followed, crawling clumsily over the side. 

“What happened?” Ash asked, restarting the engine.

Pen cradled Wolfe’s head in her lap.  “Is he going to be okay?”

“His breathing’s been steady.  I’m not sure what happened.  He went into the cave.  I stayed outside and saw his light fall.  When I went in to check on him, I found him out cold, but still breathing through the regulator.”  It worried her, though, that he hadn’t regained consciousness.  How long had it been now?  She’d counted on Wolfe to watch the dive time, which in retrospect, hadn’t been the smartest idea.

Ash swept the dingy in a wide circle toward the boat.

Wolfe groaned and his eyelids fluttered open.  “What happened?”

“You fainted,” Griff said.

“I don’t think so.”  Wolfe sat up.

“Then what happened?” Griff asked.

Wolfe’s eyes flashed with irritation.  “I don’t know.  I was in the cave.  Riga was outside.  I’d just started filming her, when I realized something was in the cave with me.  It stirred up the silt on the bottom so I could barely see Riga.  And then it came at me, fast.  That’s all I remember.”

Griff sneered.  “You fainted.”

“Oh, shut up, both of you!” Pen said.  “Griff, stop being such a pompous jerk and Wolfe – you’re no better!  You weren’t supposed to go into the cave.  Riga told you she couldn’t cave dive, but you went in anyway and then she had to go in after you when you got into trouble.  She saved your life!”

“My camera!” Wolfe looked around wildly.  “Where is it?  Did you leave it in the cave?”

Riga pointed to the camera at her feet, her teeth chattering. 

Pen flushed. “Un-be-lievable.”

“Oh, come on, Pen,” Wolfe cajoled.  “If I’d lost the footage, we’d have had to do the dive again.”

They roared up to the side of the boat.  Pen leapt out of the dingy without a backward look. 

“What happened?” Sam reached for the line Ash tossed him.

“John fainted,” Pen said in a crisp, carrying voice.

“I didn’t faint,” Wolfe snapped, stumbling onto the boat.  Angus caught him around the waist as he lurched sideways.

“Whoa.  You alright there, buddy?” Angus said.

Wolfe pushed him roughly away and slumped onto one of the boat’s benches.  “I’m fine.”

“Riga, what happened?” Sam watched her clamber onto the boat, his eyes wide.

“I don’t know,” she said, unstrapping her dive fins, then stripping off her gloves, mask, and hood.  “We were separated.  When I found him, he was unconscious.  We should get him checked out at the hospital.”  She tottered towards the steps leading below deck.   “I’m going to go change into dry clothes.” 

“Separated?  How…?”  Sam whirled on Wolfe.  “You went into the cave, didn’t you?  What are you trying to do to our insurance rates?” His face turned crimson with fury. 

It was the first time Riga had heard him genuinely angry, and she paused at the top of the stairs to watch. 

“Right,” Sam said.  “You’re going to the hospital.”

Wolfe protested but Sam cut across him.

“If you didn’t faint then it’s something more serious.  Ash?  Let’s go…”  Sam trailed off.

Ash had turned the boat around and was chugging for shore. 

Chapter 27:Citrinitas

 “He fainted.” Griff sauntered into Sam’s war room, a narrow conference room inside the casino.   Fluorescent lights cast the crew in a sallow glow.  Rows of tables weighted with computer equipment sprawled along the perimeter.  The crew lounged in metal folding chairs, fiddling with equipment or, in Riga’s case, reading through her case notes.  Paper cups lay scattered upon the tables, and the air was scented with pizza and coffee. 

Wolfe trailed behind Griff, scowling.  “The doc said I had a sudden change in heart rate or drop in blood pressure, leading to loss of consciousness.”

“Like I said, he fainted.”

Wolfe silently appealed to Pen, his eyes soulful as a wounded dog’s.  She glanced away, lips pursed.

He grimaced.  “So?  What did the tape show?”

“We haven’t looked at it yet,” Sam said.  “We thought you should do the honors.  Well?”  He nodded toward the monitors.  “We’re waiting.”