He could clean the rest.Adam didn’t mind stripping and oiling a Winchester.The gun went back together like butter.
Leaning over to grab the rope, Ellie took a step forward—and plunged into the river as the bank disappeared under her feet.She clung to the line, sputtering.
Adam couldn’t resist cracking a grin.“How’s the water?”
“Why don’t you come in and find out?”Ellie threatened.
Her shirt had gone translucent, clinging to her skin.Adam could clearly make out the lines of her no-nonsense corset.
Adam liked that corset.He appreciated how easily it came off.
Ellie noticed the lower angle of his attention.“This is hardly the time.”
“You asked me about preventatives,” Adam helpfully reminded her.
Suppressing a smile, Ellie threw a handful of water at him, then pulled herself along the rope.
Adam slipped in after her.He could feel the tug of the current as the cool depth enveloped him.The river was moving fast, but the rope held, thick and sturdy.
A louder splash sounded as Kalb leaped in after them.The dog angled away from the rope, aiming for an oblivious duck.
At least he was generally going in the right direction.
Ellie had made it roughly halfway across the water.Adam glanced downriver, but Borthwick’s project was still safely out of view.
He started to relax.They would be spending the rest of the day wet, but it looked like rain anyway, and it was certainly warm enough.
A flicker of movement caught his eye as a dark shadow shifted across the gray water just ahead of where Ellie gripped the rope.Adam focused on it with a frown.
Whatever it had been, it was gone.All he could see was the softly rippling gray of the river.
Adam dismissed it.The movement had probably just been a reflection of the clouds shifting overhead.He kicked his boots to help propel himself along the rope.
Water pulsed oddly against his legs as if something had just pushed back against the current.
That was weird.
The shadow returned, sweeping past him as a dark shimmer under the surface.
Must be Subhas’s bodh, he thought automatically.
Something less comfortable tugged at the back of Adam’s mind—something aboutscale.
Subhas’s words echoed through Adam’s mind.
It’s a rather large catfish.
The duck suddenly took flight—even though Kalb was still nowhere near it.
Adam’s nascent unease flared into full-blown alarm—and eight feet of slick black body broke the surface of the water, arrowing for Ellie.
“Move!”Adam shouted, hauling toward her.“Ellie, get out of the—”
Ellie went taut on the rope as the black shape pulled at the lower half of her leg.
Adam didn’t stop to think.
He launched himself at the fish, snagging a hand around its dorsal fin just as Ellie lost her grip on the rope.
