‘But I’m good at it – nearly world class!’
Inside the centre they split up; Steven headed upstairs to find their seats while Mark escorted Bridget down to the pool, distracting her with inane jokes to keep her mind off the early heats. As they emerged into the pool area, a wave of voices washed over them and Mark heard someone say, ‘There’s that Kenyon girl. She’s picked to win the 200 free.’
‘Bridget. I think that’s her name,’ someone else replied. ‘I saw her swim at Regions. She put on a freakin’ clinic that day, I tell you.’
‘We may be able to take second or third, but she’s the one, over there, that’s her, she’ll take the l00 butterfly.’
‘That’s right. That’s right. She’s the one with the nigger coach from Idaho Springs. Oh, yeah, I hear great things about him, too. He was tough in his day.’
Mark wheeled on the crowd, drawing an arrow. ‘Who said that?’ he shouted. The bow felt good in his hands. He had made it himself, whittling down the green branch, even killing the deer whose hide provided the crossed leather strips that made the weapon so resilient.
‘Hey Southie, can I come up now?’
‘Right, the one with the nigger coach from Idaho Springs. Oh, yeah, I hear great things about him.’
‘ The nigger coach from Idaho Springs. I hear great things about him.’
‘Hey Southie, can I come up now?’
Mark homed in on the voice. It was Rodler Varn, the Falkan drug smuggler. He was here in the stands somewhere. There, beside that guy, whatshisname, the bigot in the green Fort Collins sweatshirt. Smiling, the racist waved and offered Mark an ironic thumbs-up.
‘That’s just great,’ Mark said, ‘smile and wave. No one heard you, asshole, but this ought to get your attention.’ He exhaled slowly and released the bowstring.
The man in the green sweatshirt took the arrow in the chest, just above the second L in Collins. Two more followed with muted thuds. One dotted the I; the other found its way inside the tiny hillock of the N. Garec’s coaching was paying off.
‘I warned you,’ Mark snapped, nocking another arrow. ‘My family has been putting up with that bullshit for generations and the appropriate thing for me to do right now is to express my outrage at your narrow-mindedness. Well, I’m expressing it this way, asshole.’ A fourth arrow pierced the man’s throat. ‘That’ll shut him up,’ Mark said with satisfaction.
‘Hey Southie,’ Rodler called from his seat beside the body. He reached over to finger the fletching on one of Mark’s arrows. The other parents and coaches chatted, sharing swimming gossip. No one seemed to notice that Mark Jenkins, the talented young coach from Idaho Springs, had just fired arrows into a spectator’s chest.
‘Southie, can I come up now?’
‘I’m going to kill you, asshole.’ Now Mark started loosing arrows aimlessly into the humid air of the aquatics centre; most found their way into the man in the green sweatshirt until the body tumbled off the bleachers and rolled to a stop behind the girls’ bench.
Frustrated, Mark turned to Bridget. ‘Did you hear what they were saying about me?’
The girl smiled up at him, her dirty-blonde tresses tied back in a utilitarian ponytail, soon to be coiled up, snakelike, and tucked inside her swimming cap. Holding two ends of the rolled towel she had draped over her shoulder, Bridget said, ‘Maybe I’ll carry your bag then, sire? Maybe carry it for you? What do you think, sire? Maybe for a copper Marek or two?’
‘What?’ It was noisy in the arena and he shouted over the din, ‘Bridget, I didn’t hear you.’
Grinning to expose her teeth, two perfect rows of white, ortho-dontically sculpted masterpieces, Bridget said, ‘The water’s cold in here today, but they have warm water at the Bowman, my prince.’
‘I’m not a prince, Bridget,’ Mark said. ‘Go swim, will you? You need to get warmed up if the water’s cold.’
‘They have warm water at the Bowman, my prince,’ she repeated and moved towards the starting blocks at the end of the pool.
Mark watched her walk away, then called after, ‘I’m not a prince.’
Bridget turned and mouthed a few words Mark couldn’t hear. Tossing her towel onto the blue-and-white bench running the length of the pool, she climbed onto the third starting block. A large number 3 had been painted on the front of the block; Mark wondered if it were important for the swimmers to know which lane they were in during the race. He glanced down at the water and whispered, ‘I’m not a prince.’
He saw it move, a flash of something opaque and indistinct. Was it a trick of the light? Then he saw it again, this time rushing towards the other end of the pool, and he knew what it was. He started towards Bridget Kenyon at a run, screaming, though the noise had grown so loud, he couldn’t hear his own voice.
Bridget didn’t hear him either. She had tucked her ponytail under the rubber swimming cap and was ready to dive in for a few warm-up laps. ‘Bridget!’ Mark shouted again, ‘No! Don’t go in the water!’
His heart stopped as the young girl dived lazily into the pool. Bridget Kenyon never hit the water.
The almor burst through the surface and took the girl in mid-air. She was dead in an instant; as the demon carried her to the bottom of the deepest part of the pool, Mark could already see her muscular back and powerful thighs thinning to leather and bone in the creature’s unholy grasp. A moment later the almor released her body and a wet sack of bones drifted to rest against the far wall beneath the three-metre diving board.
Mark stood at the side of the pool, waiting for the almor to surface, certain that it would: it had come for him and he was ready to die if necessary, whatever it took to rid the world of this monster.
He expected the demon to explode from the pool like a tidal wave, but instead, the almor bobbed above the surface, a nearly translucent, shapeless creature. He fired arrows into it as quickly as he could draw and release, but they passed through the demon and ended up on the bottom of the pool where they lay together: an underwater game of pick-up sticks.
The water is cold today, but they have warm water at the Bowman, my prince. The almor’s laughter came from inside his own head. Mark thought he might pass out from the pounding reverberation.
Panting, he managed, ‘I’m not the prince.’ He couldn’t bear to look down at what was left of Bridget’s body. ‘I’m not the prince.’
As the almor disappeared through the filtering system and out into the Colorado Springs water supply, Mark heard its words: Not yet. That was what Bridget Kenyon had mouthed to him, he now realised.
Not yet.
Mark awakened and was on his feet before he realised it had been a dream. His cheeks were damp: he had been crying in his sleep. Gilmour, stirring the coals in their small campfire, leaned over and whispered, ‘Are you all right?’
Mark rubbed his hands over his face and across the back of his neck. He felt like he was having a breakdown; his heart was racing, and he was panting and sweating now, as if he had just finished a strenuous workout. He couldn’t even see clearly. He crossed to where Steven was lying, wrapped up tightly in his coat and a blanket, and kicked his roommate firmly on the soles of his boots. ‘Wake up,’ he muttered.
‘What?’ Steven groaned, rolling onto his back, then his eyes adjusted to the firelight and he could see Mark standing over him. He sat bolt upright and reached for the hickory staff. ‘What is it?’ he asked urgently. ‘What’s happened?’
Gilmour crouched beside Steven. ‘You look terrible, Mark. Are you sick?’
‘It was Lessek. I’m sure of it,’ he gasped, still trying to slow his breathing.
‘What did you see?’ Steven’s grip tightened on the wooden staff. He looked over at Rodler and Garec, but both appeared to be sleeping still.
‘Steven, that moment before you hacked that tramp in half, what did he say?’
Steven’s brow furrowed. ‘I wasn’t really listening – he was so irritating, calling me sire all the time, prattling on and on about five hundred different things. I kind of tuned him out as soon as I suspected it was Nerak. I was concentrating on sniffing for any hint of tobacco on his breath.’ Steven smoothed his blanket over his legs while he thought. ‘Sorry, I can’t remember.’