Free Darklight by Lesley Livingston Page B

river.
    Sonny, Please!
    Kelley’s voice rang out like a bell in his mind, and made his head snap up.
    HELP ME!
    He treaded water, glancing wildly around. He felt a sharp, terrible pain in his chest—as though his heart were on fire—and a sudden wash of brilliant green light left him momentarily blind.
    She’s here! something deep in his brain screamed at him. Kelley’s here!
    Sonny sensed the familiar firecracker-spark of her presence—flaring star bright in his mind’s eye.
    Suddenly the waterfall exploded outward with a noise like thunder, and a body—or was it two bodies, tightly intertwined—burst forth, hitting the surface of the water with a resounding impact.
    Sonny caught a glimpse of fiery auburn hair and he dove, swimming frantically upstream against the river’s flow. Opening his eyes underwater, he thought he could see her—bright hair and alabaster skin—where she floated near the river bottom, motionless and pale.
    Kelley! Sonny swam as fast as he could. Oh, Firecracker—no!
    He reached out a hand, and his fingertips brushed her wrist. The current was carrying her away from him. Sonny kicked desperately, closing the distance before she was swept out of reach. He got an arm around her waist and started to swim for the surface, dragging her behind him. Suddenly Kelley twisted in his grip, struggling violently against him and screaming—the muted sound billowing out of her in clouds of bubbles. Their heads broke the surface together and Kelley coughed and sputtered, fighting Sonny’s hold on her as if her life depended on it.
    “Kelley!” Sonny grappled with her flailing limbs, trying to turn her around so that she could see it was him. “Kelley—it’s me! It’s Sonny . . .”
    Her head swiveled around and her eyes went wide at the sight of him. She threw her arms around him, almost dragging them back down.
    “It’s okay,” he murmured into the tangled, wet mass of her hair. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”
    Kelley rasped out a word, the sound catching in her throat.
    “What?” Sonny asked. “Kelley, what are you—”
    “Fenn . . .” She coughed, pulling away from Sonny and trying to swim back out into the middle of the river.
    Fenn, Sonny thought as he turned and saw that there had been someone. Fennrys?
    A body was floating spread-eagled in the middle of the river, pulled downstream by the swift current. Floating facedown. The impact must have stunned him, Sonny thought. He’s going to drown. He reached out a hand and grabbed Kelley hard by the shoulder.
    “I’ll go. You get to shore,” he said, and pushed her in the direction of the strand.
    “But—”
    “ Go, Kelley!” he ordered. “Wait for me onshore.”
    Sonny dove back into the water.
    Swimming with powerful strokes, Sonny shut down every thought that wasn’t directly focused on the task at hand. At least he tried to—tried very hard not to think about the fact that he was attempting to save a man whom he had very recently observed embracing Kelley in the mirror of Mabh’s scrying pool. And he tried not to imagine what kind of circumstances had led to them tumbling through a rift into the Otherworld, arms and legs tangled around one another. . . .
    Sonny surfaced briefly and got his bearings. Fennrys’s seemingly lifeless form was only another ten yards in front of him. Sonny kicked off again and swam until he thought his lungs would burst. With almost the last strength left in his tired arms, he reached out a hand and snagged Fennrys’s jacket collar. Managing to get an arm under the Fenn’s torso, Sonny struggled to flip him over in the water. Finally he succeeded, noticing with a sinking heart that the Wolf’s lips were blue. Sonny was running on fumes. And Fennrys was deadweight. They rounded a sharp bend in the watercourse, and even though the river narrowed and they were now less than twenty feet from shore, Sonny didn’t have the strength left to fight the current’s tow. He needed to get Fennrys to