"They kept me there, until a moment of weakness let me jump into that stupid boy," he continued, breathing heavily. "And my brother. I thought he was truly dead, but they cast him into the body of a woman!"

"You bastard," Rachel hissed. She felt his deformed foot beside her own. "I'd say your brother was the lucky one."

Before Stillwater could answer, she slammed her heel down with all her strength on his instep. He howled, and his grip on her lessened enough for her to wrench free, although she left some hair in his hand. She turned, put her back to the altar, and kicked him again, hard, in the groin. When he doubled over, she brought her knee up into his face.

He staggered back, and she grabbed for the nearest of the three knives. It was just out of reach, but before she could lunge across the stone, a crack of thunder split the air, and she felt something warm splash on her back.

Birds shrieked and fled from the trees. She turned and gasped in surprise.

A hole marked the center of his chest, blood just starting to ooze from it. Behind him, Ethan stood with Rachel's gun, the barrel still smoking.

Stillwater made a sound like broken glass in a blender. She assumed it was a scream.

"Grab the heart!" Ethan cried. "Go back to the lake and try to get them home!"

Rachel grabbed the bag, rolled the heart inside with just her fingertips, and headed back down the hill through the woods. She prayed that whatever passage brought them here was still open.

STILLWATER TURNED AND hissed at Ethan. His tongue lolled out, longer than a man's and forked. He raised his hands and charged.

Ethan fired again.

The new hole appeared an inch beside the first. Stillwater looked down at the wounds, then back up in confusion. Blood coughed from his mouth.

"It's over," Ethan said. His heart thundered with adrenaline, but his aim was rock-steady.

"Do you know ... what my existence ... has been like?" Stillwater croaked.

"No, but I'm pretty sure you deserved it," Ethan said.

As he rushed at Ethan, Stillwater again screamed, a nails-on-chalkboard sound that made Ethan wince. But his next shot found its mark, right between the creature's eyes. Stillwater fell dead at Ethan's feet.

Ethan closed his eyes and sighed. His own heart felt like it might split in two on its own. He lowered the gun to his side.

When he looked back at Stillwater, instead of the white-haired creature, a young man with black hair and a Native American complexion lay at his feet. Ethan knelt and rolled him over. His face was fully human, and blank with the peacefulness of death.

A new voice said, "That was unfortunate."

Ethan jumped to his feet. An old woman stood a few paces away, watching them sadly.

"You speak English," Ethan said.

"I speak what I speak. You understand it; that's what matters."

"I didn't have any choice, you know."

The woman's expression did not change. "There's always a choice. But this did what was needed. The spirit inside him is gone. It had no time to prepare a way to return to its former home."

Ethan wiped at the blood streaking his sweaty chest. "My name's Ethan, by the way. Rachel told me about you."

"Are you her human lover?"

"Er ... yes."

The woman looked him up and down. "She has chosen well."

"Thanks, I guess...."

"Don't thank me. Your path will be difficult-more so than hers. You will have to share her with her spirits."

"I know."

"Do you?" She nodded toward the trees behind him.

He turned. Two dozen men and a few women had emerged from the forest. They were all beautiful specimens, lean and handsome and well formed. Some wore loincloths, some full coverings, and two were nude. All sported long, straight white hair.

He met their eyes. In them he saw strength and resolve but also compassion. They were warriors who fought the battles they chose, not soldiers who merely took orders. He understood that.

"So you're the spirits," he said.

One of them stepped forward. "In time, we will be. We have a lot in common with you."

"I'll say."

The man smiled. "I don't mean merely the woman. You, like us, wish to make things better. You are willing to do what is necessary to protect the weak. Or," he added with meaning, "avenge them."

"You fucking traitor," he'd been called when he reported a fellow soldier for the rape and murder of a little girl. "Keep looking over your shoulder," they'd warned. Even his commanding officer had said, "This is a war, son. People get a little carried away."

"You did the right thing," one of the young women said.

"So you can read my mind?" Ethan said.

The first one who'd spoken laughed. "No. At least not with any detail. We have not achieved the enlightenment that awaits us, and believe me, it's tempting to ask what the future is like. But we can't."

"And you," the old woman said to Ethan, "can't stay any longer. But you need to know what to do to release them safely back in your time."

RACHEL CLIMBED THE hill to the little observation deck over the spring and leaned on the rail. She was exhausted, yet there was no sign of Ethan emerging in her wake. The return dive into the pool had been a reflex, and it had occurred to her in mid-motion that if she was wrong, she was about to go headfirst into six inches of water over a bed of hard, smooth rocks. But no sooner had the thought flashed through her mind than she emerged back into her world, still clutching the plastic bag with its grisly cargo.

Belatedly she looked around. There was no sign of Betty McNally. Everything was gone except for Rachel's discarded clothes. She gazed into the dark woods, and then out at the lake, wondering where the woman-or was she a woman?-had gone. The Lady of the Lakes would have a hot tip for the police, if Rachel could figure out a way to keep her and Ethan out of it.

She stared down at the pool. All she could really think about was Ethan battling that creature. Surely the gunshots had been enough to stop him? Surely he hadn't turned and slain Ethan?

Please, she begged the universe, please send him back to me alive.

She shrieked when he suddenly burst up from the water and sat sputtering in the spring. Her heart pounding, she rushed around the tree, jumped into the water, and threw her arms around him.

"Oh my God, I was so afraid you weren't coming back," she cried as she flung herself against him.

He put his arms around her and drew her into a kiss. Then he looked around in sudden confusion. "Where is she?"

"I don't know," Rachel said breathlessly. "There's nothing up there but my clothes."

He looked down at his chest. Passing through the water had washed away the blood. "I need a shirt."

"Not from where I'm sitting," Rachel said, and began to giggle.

THEY WALKED BACK to Rachel's car and drove across town to Hudson Park.

As they got out of the car Ethan said quietly, "Have you seen a ring of small rocks anywhere around?"

"Yes," Rachel said. "Why?"

"Show me where it is. Your friends told me what we need to do."

When Rachel did, Ethan kicked the stones aside, dispersing the circle. Then he picked up the individual rocks and threw them as far as he could into the water.

The circle had been a lock, the old woman told him, placed there by Artemak to isolate the good spirits in the lake. As long as it remained intact, they could influence nothing beyond their watery confines, nor communicate with their avatar when she came to them. Once they were weakened in this way, Artemak planned to trap them in Rachel's heart, after which he could then destroy them utterly. This would free his fellow evil spirits in Lake Wingra.

But his brother Teculor, locked in his own bodily prison by the good spirits, got there first and trapped them in Garrett Bloom's heart. Teculor hoped the gift of the captive spirits would induce Artemak to help break the spell that confined Teculor. But Artemak had been unable or unwilling-not even the old woman knew which-to help, and in the end neither brother got what he wanted.

Rachel and Ethan snuck quietly down to the water, and Rachel looked up at him doubtfully.

"You're sure?" she said. "We don't have to cut it open?"

"Not according to what they told me."

She looked down at the bag. "So you saw them. You talked to them."

"I don't know exactly what happened. Maybe it was all in my head. But if it was real, then yes, I did."

Despite everything she'd been through, Rachel felt a surge of self-pity. "Why didn't they come out while I was still there? Why didn't they talk to me?"

"I don't know."

She choked down her tears and wiped her eyes. "What were they like?"

"Young, mostly. Very good-looking. They all had white hair. And ..."

"What?"

"It's hard to describe, but you know how sometimes you just instinctively know something about someone?"

She grinned slightly. "Like the hot guy who just appears in your diner one day?"

"Something like that. Anyway, I just knew they were good people. Are good people. Are good ... whatever they are."

Rachel handed him the bag and quickly disrobed. She looked out at the water, her emotions a swirl of desire and apprehension. "I hope so. I hope they still ... like me."

"I think they do," he said, and opened the bag.

She reached in with both hands and lifted out Garrett Bloom's heart. It felt strange and disgusting as she cupped it in her palms.

She looked up at Ethan. "I'll be back soon. One way or the other."

He nodded. "I'll be here."

She stepped into the water and walked until it reached her elbows. Then she took a deep breath, lowered the heart to the water, and opened her hands.

The heart floated for a moment, then sank.

She stood there quietly, waiting.

The hands pulled her under slowly, into the wet darkness. They caressed her the way a diamond cutter might worship a valuable gem. She held her breath, afraid to trust them, but eventually she had to breathe again and found she could. She began to cry, and as the touches grew more erotic and insistent, she felt lips on her ear, and a voice, familiar from her recent adventure, said, Hello again. She could feel the lips form a smile, and she turned to let them kiss her.

ETHAN SAT ON the wet grass and watched the surface of the water. He was more tired than he could ever recall. He felt a sense of triumph, but it was tempered with the feeling that events were still out of his control. After all, the woman he loved was in the water, indulging in a supernatural orgy.

The skyline along the opposite side of the lake sparkled with light. It was the world he knew: concrete, steel, wood, blacktop. In the army he'd destroyed them; as a civilian he built them. There was little room for talk of spirits.

He watched the lights of a plane as it rose above the city. How would this relationship play out in the long run? Would they get married, have children, grow old together? Would he be parked here in a wheelchair someday, watching Rachel use a walker to reach the water? That seemed implausible.

That is, unless the rules were a little different.

He stood up and undressed. It was time for the spirits to understand that they didn't always get the final say-so.

He waded into the water, took a deep breath, and fell slowly back into the water. He'd done this once before, to communicate with the spirits when Rachel had been kidnapped. They had welcomed him then. Would they do so now?

The air began to burn in his lungs. He would have to surface soon. He reached out but felt only water and the silty bottom.

Okay, guys, it's me, he thought. I know you didn't pick me, but we're part of one another's business now, and we might as well get along. If you've got a shred of compassion in you, you'll give Rachel some peace away from the water as well. I promise I'll never make her choose between us, if you do the same.

He waited for a response, but there was none. When he could stand it no more, he put his legs beneath him and pushed. He burst from the chest-deep water and took a long, desperate breath.

He shook his head in disappointment until Rachel's voice cried, "Ethan!"

He looked up. She stood on the bank, fully dressed, her face wrenched with concern. "Jesus, I've been out of the water for almost half an hour! Are you all right?"

I was underwater for half an hour? he thought. It had seemed like the length of one breath. He said in wonderment, "I'm fine."

"Well, come on, it's nearly daylight. You don't want anyone to see you!" She laughed, amusement mixing with concern. He walked toward her through the water.

CHAPTER THIRTY.