She rewrapped the thick leather leash around her chafed hand. Readying herself with a couple of deep breaths, she then released Bartleby's collar. He surged forward, the leash giving a resounding thwack as it snapped taut again.
"Steady, Bartleby!" she gasped. This command struck a chord of sorts in the overexcited animal's brain, and he eased up slightly.
As she continued to talk soothingly to the car, pleading with him to keep calm, she felt the disapproval radiating from the four shadows lurking a little way off. The quartet of Limiters, unlike her and the crazed cat, moved as silently as ghosts. They usually blended in so well with the terrain that they were invisible but, at the moment, they were allowing themselves to be seen, as if they wanted her to feel intimidated. If that was the intention, it was certainly having the desired effect.
She felt profoundly uneasy.
Rebecca had promised her a free hand to track down Will. So why the escort? And why had Rebecca gone to the trouble of involving her at all, when she had absolutely no experience in this environment and when highly skilled soldiers were being deployed at the same time? It didn't add up.
With this thought burning in the back of her mind, Bartleby lurched forward again, dragging her after him whether she wanted to go or not.
Elliott took them out of the clearing and through some dense scrub, Will stumbling and thrashing behind. They found themselves on a strip of shoreline again. She took them along the water's edge and a short distance into what, in the pitch-black, looked like the beginning of an inlet.
Will was in a bad way. The effects of the root had worn off and his fatigue had caught up. He walked stiff-legged, like some sort of Frankenstein's monster, the headset only adding to this impression. Elliott watched him closely.
"He's fried: he needs some shut-eye," she said to Chester and Cal, as if Will wasn't present — and indeed he didn't react to her comment, swaying where he stood. "He's no use to anyone right now."
Chester and Cal exchanged looks.
"No use?" Chester echoed.
"Yes, and that's not good enough." She turned to Cal, running her eye over him. "How about you? How's the leg, kid?"
Chester realized that she was evaluating them and it put him on edge. He didn't delude himself that they all needed to be up to the challenge of escaping from the Styx. But her question was more than a little ominous.
"His leg's much better. He's been resting it," he put in quickly, throwing a sharp look at Cal, who was a little surprised at Chester's intervention.
"Can't he speak for himself?" Elliott glowered.
"Oh, yes, sorry," Chester mumbled apologetically.
"So how is it?"
"Like Chester said… much better," Cal replied, flexing his leg to try to put Elliott's mind at rest. In truth it was incredibly stiff, and each time he put any weight on it he didn't know if it was going to support him or not.
Elliott studied Cal's face for a second, then switched her attention to Chester, who wondered whether he would come up to scratch. But before she could issue any judgments, Will mumbled the word tired — just once — sat down heavily, and flopped onto his back. Snoring loudly, he immediately fell into the deepest of slumbers.
"He's out. He'll be right as rain in a couple of hours," Elliott said, then addressed Cal. "You stay with your brother." She handed him the loose rifle scope. "And keep an eye on the foreshore… particularly the causeway." She pointed at the sea and the impenetrable blackness. "I need to know if you see anything, anything at all, however small. It's really important you stay alert… got that?"
"Why, where are you going?" Cal asked, trying to keep the anxiety from his voice. He'd been worried before that he would be abandoned, and now that Elliott had lost Drake, the fear returned in spades. Was she planning to slope off with Chester and leave him and Will high and dry?
"Not far… just need to do some foraging," she told him. "Look after this, too," she said, shrugging off her rucksack and dropping it beside Will's still form. That single action allayed Cal's fears — Elliott wasn't going to get very far without her kit. He watched as she pulled out a couple of sacks from the side pocket and then, accompanied by Chester, slipped into the darkness.
"How are you doing?" Chester asked Elliott as he walked beside her. He was using the lantern on its lowest setting, shielding it with his hand so there was the thinnest strip of light to illuminate the way. As ever, Elliott didn't require any light, seeming to possess a preternatural awareness of her surroundings. They were moving deeper into the inlet, keeping the dense undergrowth to their left and the sea to their right.
Elliott didn't reply to his question, maintaining a brooding silence. Knowing how distraught she must be at Drake's death, Chester felt compelled to say something, but found it incredibly difficult to do so. Although he'd spent a considerable amount of time with her on their patrols together, it wasn't as though they spoke much on these outings. He realized he hadn't actually gotten to know her any better since that day when she and Drake had grabbed him and Will. She kept to herself, as elusive as a faint breeze in the dead of night that you could feel but you couldn't touch.
He tried again.
"Elliott, are you… are you really all right?"
"Don't you worry 'bout me," came the curt response.
"I just want you to know we're all very sorry about Drake… We owe him for… for everything." Chester paused for a few moments. "Was it awful, back there, when Will had to… uh… to…?"
Without any warning she came to a stop and shoved him hard in the chest, with such unbridled aggression that Chester was completely taken aback. "Don't try to mollycoddle me! I don't need anyone's sympathy!"
"I wasn't—"
"Just drop it, will you?"
"Look, I'm worried about you," he said indignantly. "We're all worried about you."
As she stood there, she seemed to mellow a little, and there was a huskiness to her voice when she finally spoke. "I just can't accept that he's dead." She let out a sob. "He often talked of the day that would come for one or both of us, and that it was just another turn of the wheel. He said you have to be prepared for it but not let it drag you down. He said not to look back, and to make the most of the moment you're in…" She repositioned her rifle over her shoulder, fidgeting with the strap. "I'm trying to do that, but it's hard."
As Chester looked at her, her face hazy in the dim light cast by his lantern, the tough exterior seemed to drop away, revealing a very frightened, very lost teenage girl. Perhaps, for the first time, he was seeing the real Elliott.
"We're in this together," he said warmly, his heart going out to her.
"Thanks," she replied in a subdued voice, avoiding his eyes. "We should get going."
They came eventually to a small strip of shoreline that appeared as if a shadow was cast across it. As Chester discovered when he examined it more closely, this had nothing to do with the light: A darker and heavier sediment had collected in these shallow waters.
"Should be rich pickings here," Elliott announced, and handed the sacks to Chester. She walked into the water and, stooping over, passed her hands through it.
Stepping sideways and still searching, she moved along the margin of the water, then suddenly straightened up with an exultant yell. A large animal flapped in her hands. A foot and a half from head to tail, its silvery body resembled a flattened cone with undulating fins down either side, which rippled crazily as if it was trying to swim away through the air. On the top of its head it had a pair of huge, black, compound eyes, and on the underside were two grasping appendages with spines extending from them; these were trying to curl around to reach Elliott's hands as she fought to keep her grip on the beast. She spun around and splashed back to the beach, Chester falling over in an effort to get out of her way.