For the Dead Travel Fast

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When his head broke the surface of the water, that tight knot in her chest finally eased. He opened his eyes, and that beautiful blue had returned for good—he was dappled with sunlight from overhead, his hair bronzed, his eyes on her as blue as the sky.

His hands raised, dripping water, and beckoned for her to come.

Without hesitation, she did.

Vaguely, she heard Dr Harris's protest, and the others hushing her, but Kate was already taking off her sandals and on the top stair. Bare toes licked by water, as she stepped down into the kiva, the shock of the icy bath took her breath.

She reached for him; his fingers closed around her hands. He looked… she felt the water rise up her waist and lap at her stomach, cooling her scars, easing the taut wounds. It was relief to have the cold water rise up her breasts and cover them, lapping now at her neck, both of them standing toe to toe in the freezing dark water.

She touched his hips, the coolness of his skin—for the first time in a long time, he wasn't soaked in sweat and feverish. Her thumbs dug into the bones of his hips, and she was grateful for flesh there, the muscle he'd regained in the gym, the weight he'd managed to put on in their time here, with the right nutrition.

He was grinning, their noses bumped; he smelled like secrets, but he looked new, made new. He dipped his mouth to hers, missed, brushed against her cheek and back to her ear. "Go under, and open your eyes."

She shivered.

Kate glanced down at the dark water, balked only for the moment it took her mind to adjust to here and now. They were standing in a kiva, a sacred site, in a cliffside dwelling that by all rights should be on some national preservation list, a historic and protected site. But instead they were here, standing in its cold waters.

There was magic in this place, and he wanted to show it to her.

She took a deep breath.

He held her by the fingertips as she dipped her knees, and she slid all the way under until it all the light disappeared.

The darkness was absolute behind her eyelids. She felt the bubbles rise up around her, release to the surface. She waited as long as she thought she could stand it, breath held, and then slowly opened her eyes.

It was beautiful.

There was light below; she was had no idea how it was done, what the trick was, but for once she didn't care. The light moved with the water, when a motion of her hand or a shift of his feet made it ripple, and the rays beamed off the walls in shifting patterns of bronze and gold.

There were pictures on the walls, a carved in stone permanence to the paintings even as the shift in light made the scenes change. By the steps, a man with a spear chasing a buffalo, a lizard with a spiral pattern, and written along the sides, symbols crowded together. She turned her head and began to see the symbols resolve into patterns, a chevron of wide-shouldered silhouettes lined up, one after another after another, and their lines were white, somehow white, brilliant white—ancient peoples in a crowd around them, silent witness.

Yet, as she turned her head, the water rippled around her, and the light bounced against the stone, and it was all different.

Handprints appeared, as if hands stained in blood were pressing up against the walls, elaborate whorls in their palms, shapes of turtles and starbursts and fire. And as she marveled, as the breath began to leave her and her lungs clamor, her body heavy with cold, Castle dipped low and displaced the water as waves—

the handprints were gone and instead the white lines were the negative space to the dark forms of vampires.

She surged to her feet, broke the surface gasping for air, and felt Castle holding her up, pulling her back to the stairs. There were dark spots before her vision, her lips tingled, her feet and hands were numb. The cold had settled too deep, and he had to carry her up the stairs; there were hands on her, keeping her moving, holding her upright, pulling her out of the water.

"It's too cold for you down there," someone said. The older woman, she thought, and her teeth were chattering even as she tried to protest. Michaela had her, Dr Harris was there; Castle held her up.

He wrapped his arms around her from behind, rubbed her arms briskly. A blanket was thrown over her in bright orange and red and brown, she was drowning in it, her lips were icy and her fingers, and she clasped blanket-tassels painfully in order to feel them at all.

"Hey, look at me." She struggled with it a moment, finally found Dr Harris. "That's good." Palpating her jaw, her throat, pulling down her bottom lids, looking into her eyes. "Hey, you were under the water a long time. It's meant for the last of the phase, the overheated body. Yours was regular temp going in. How do you feel?"

"Cold," she admitted.

She was put down on a stone bench warmed by the sun. Impossibly, it seemed, and she felt the sun on the back of her head, heavy and almost uncomfortably hot. The kiva seemed built exactly for this, the bench placed here just for a case like hers. Her blood sluggish but beginning to shift as the sun hit her.

Castle crouched at her feet, apparently trying not to get in Dr Harris's way but too eager to stay still. "What'd you see?"

She nodded, now beginning to shiver.

"Rick, hang on," Harris said. "Kate, can you make a fist for me?"

She did her best, her eyes caught on Castle's. His face was so alive. "I saw them."

"You saw what?" Dr Harris asked, frowning.

"You saw them," he breathed. "I knew you would."

"Did you see something?" Dr Harris asked. She looked deeply troubled. "Do you see it now still?"

"No." It was hard to fill her lungs; they were heavy. "In the water."

"The water is black. It's always been black. There's nothing—"

"Don't question," the older man said. His eyes were blind, but Kate wondered, the way he was attuned to her. "Each man sees his own vision. Each man must unravel the mystery."

"Vision?" Harris said sharply, turning to the older two natives. "You never said anything about hallucinogenic properties."

"It's for their eyes only," Michaela told them, glancing to Harris gently. "It's not always about the body, Aurora. Sometimes it's the spirit."

Kate would've been the first to scoff, had she not seen. The light. The hands. The paintings of ancient volk, just as she'd been pulled from the bottom.

"Here," the teenager said, shoving a flask under her nose. "Drink. Get your blood moving faster. Then we can get the hell out of this place. It's haunted."

It really was.

—-xxx—-