fog, eyes straining. “There’s just no way to dock until the vampires awaken and Rhiannon is able to part the mists long enough to let me find my way in by sight.”
He shrugged. “It’s only a slight delay.”
“It is. And this is a good day, for you.” She smiled at the light in his eyes. “You’re returning to your people with your mission accomplished. Like a conquering hero. Like Gilgamesh himself, so long ago.
You’re saving them, James. And I owe you a huge apology.”
His smile faded as he blinked at her. “For what?
Helping me pull off the impossible?”
“For doubting you. For questioning your judgment in balancing what means were justified to get to this end.”
He lowered his head briefly. “You were right about some of it. Raising the dead didn’t work out so well.”
“The mortal dead, yes. But your sister obligingly returned them to the grave where they belonged, except for that mother you reunited with her husband and children. It all worked out fine in the end. You were right all along. And I’m sorry for doubting you.”
“Just don’t let it happen again, woman.” He delivered the dictate with a hint of Utanapishtim’s exotically unidentifiable accent, and she laughed with him, even while giving a quick glance behind them.
But there was no one in sight. Utanapishtim was asleep, exhausted, in one of the cabins below. Brigit was in another, also napping, equally exhausted after a night of battling mortal vigilantes and rescuing vampires from the flames. The four surviving members of her resistance team were divided up between the two remaining cabins, unconscious until sundown.
Leaving just the two of them alone at the helm, Lucy thought.
James dropped anchor where they were and shut off the yacht’s engines. He led Lucy down to the deck-level wet bar, just behind the bridge, and poured them each a glass of wine. Then he held up his glass. “To victory.”
“To victory.” She clinked her glass against his, then took a deep drink.
He did the same, then said, “I’m sorry about destroying that phone.”
“But you still think it was for the best.”
“Yes. I know you disagree, but that’s okay with me.”
She nodded, feeling a little guilty that she still had her own version of the book. And yet also feeling entirely justified in keeping that information from him. For now. Her phone was tucked away in her bag, in one of the cabins down below. She told herself that she would finish her reading and then delete the thing, though she didn’t think in the end she would have the willpower to do it.
“What’s on your mind? You look pensive,” James said.
She shook free of her thoughts and tried to refocus on what they’d been discussing last. “I…I was wondering why Utanapishtim didn’t return from the grave the way those others did, mindless and out of control.”
“I think it’s because they’d really died. Not only physically but spiritually—the part of them that was them, the soul, for want of a better name, had moved on. I guess with the first woman, it was so soon after her death that I was able to pull her soul back into her body. But with those others, the soul didn’t return. I restored the body, but it was just animated meat and bone. No soul.”
“And with Utanapishtim?”
He nodded, sipping, thinking. “He never really died. I mean, his physical form was gone, but his spirit remained…trapped with his ashes, where it would have stayed forever.”
Lucy frowned. “I wonder…if there’s any way to set him free. I mean, eventually he’s going to die. He can’t live forever.”
“Why not?” James asked. “Seems to me it’s either that or return to his living death. God, can you imagine how awful it must have been? All those centuries, conscious yet imprisoned? Buried alive, basically.”
“It’s a miracle he’s not completely insane.” She shivered. “He’s not quite right though, even now. Sometimes, there’s something in his eyes that just…it scares me, James.”
Something scraped the side of the anchored vessel, and James swore under his breath, rushing to the side to look over it. Lucy could see the island now—just glimpses amid the mist every now and again. “Should I wake the others, let them know we’re here?”
“Let them sleep awhile, Lucy,” James said. “We have three hours until sundown, after all. And this island will be bustling by then. I think maybe you and I ought to sleep, too.”
She dipped her head a little, wondering if that was all he wanted them to do