"You two just helped three terrorists escape Chicago," Valentine told the Quisling as Molly helped them back into the boat. His friend was still unconscious, under a blanket in the forward cabin. "You can come with us and be set down somewhere, or join the fleet if they'll have you. It's the least I owe you for your help. That is if you don't want to paddle back and have a talk with the Reapers."
"I think we'd better come with you, sir. The name's J. P., by the way. My mate's name is Cal Swanson."
"Thought you might, J. P."
With the powerful motor again in action, they spotted the two-masted ship's lights before dawn. The speedboat tied up against the Whitecloud in an easy swell. The sailors, a mixed group of ten men, women, and children, came on deck to look at the visitors.
Rho stood still as a carving for a moment, looking at the new faces, then sank to his knees.
Valentine rushed to his side. He turned the Lifeweaver's face to him, but Rho did not react.
"I'm exhausted, Valentine the Younger. You are among your kind now?"
"Close enough," Valentine said. "We're safe, if that's what you mean."
The masklike expression did not change. Valentine looked into eyes filled with thousands of years of memories. "I will go in peace, then." Something that might have been a smile appeared on his lips. "I escaped them after all."
"Maybe you just need rest and food, sir. I'll help you up."
The Lifeweaver's mind touched his.
Too tired to talk. You've helped me more than you know. They would have dined long on me, but now I'll fly away free in death. Bring me to the cabin, the others should not...
"Molly, you and J. P. clear out the cabin, would you?" Valentine said.
He picked up the featherweight Lifeweaver. The former Quisling dragged his comrade Cal out into the night air.
"Help us, please," Molly implored to the faces above. Two sailors from the Whitecloud swung down.
Valentine took Rho into the dim compartment. A pair of tiny bunks angled together into the sharp prow of the vessel. He laid the Lifeweaver down.
Thank you, Lee... David. You have a strong aura. It might be best if... the others didn't see me, after... The mind's touch faltered.
"It's not over, sir. Just rest."
It... Rho began, but never finished. He flickered one final time, before shifting back to his natural form. The thing he knew as Rho collapsed into a rubbery mass the size of a teenage boy. Rho sagged-there was no skeleton to support his body-into something that looked like a blue octopus with a bit of bat in the evolutionary tree. Leathery fins ran the sides of his tentacles, the longer limbs at the back of his body joined by the veiny membranes almost to the sucker-tipped ends like a ribbed cape, the shorter ones at the front unattached and with smaller, more delicate suckers. His aqua-colored skin, more blue around cephalopod skull, changed to sea-foam green along his limbs, with a latticework of delicate black lines covering the skin that he found eerily beautiful, though if they were decorative or functional Valentine could not say. Spicules and flaps formed a band under the brain-in-a-bag of its head, but whether they were noses, ears, breathing tubes, or even sexual organs was anyone's guess. The bulging eyes, lids opening wider and wider as it relaxed into death, drew Valentine's gaze back every time he looked elsewhere. They were like yellowish crystal balls flecked with red, with a black band running across the middle.
God, it was ugly for an angel. Or a devil, for that matter.
Valentine hugged the moist, limp form to himself. He owed his and Molly's life to the dead Life weaver. When the warmth had left the body, he covered it with a blanket.
He should stuff Rho's body in a bucket or a big jug, preserve it with alcohol, and get it back to the Miskatonic. The researchers there might be able to find a weakness, some flaw that would allow them to kill the Kurians without blasting into their lairs and blowing them to bits. Duty, and loyalty to his species, demanded it.
He exited the cabin and went to the engine.
"Take any gear and fixtures you want out of her," he said to the crewmen of the Whitecloud. "But don't go in the cabin."
He found a hose and siphoned some gasoline up into a water bottle. He took the fuel down into the forward compartment and splashed it on the carpet and wood paneling. He repeated the process until the gas was gone and the speedboat reeked of fumes. He followed his shipmates into the sailing vessel as the sailors pulled the powerful outboard up out of its mount with a block and tackle.
Valentine reached into his pockets and found one more tin of matches. He struck them all at once, and tossed the flaming handful into the cabin. Flames raced through the boat, and the Whitecloud sailors cast it off.
He watched and waited until the lake consumed the flaming wreck. The smoke dissipated into the fresh breeze.
Sailors are used to the unexpected. A woman with a long, thin-boned face introduced herself as Collier, the captain of the Whitecloud, and offered them blankets and hot coffee.
She invited them below to the cramped galley. Valentine showed the captain his card, the chit given him by Captain Doss of the White Lightning. She agreed to take them north, where they could transfer to another ship, which could take them anywhere in the Great Lakes they wished to go. "I'd do it anyway, even without Dossie's card. Something tells me you went through a lot to get here."
He, Molly, and J. P. discussed their options on the coming voyage. They decided to winter in the familiar (at least to Valentine) reaches of the Boundary Waters. He would see Father Max again. Only when spring came would he have to make new decisions.