Tanya Huff - Victory Nelson - The Vengeful Spirit of Lake Nepeakea

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The Vengeful Spirit of Lake

Nepeakea

Tanya Huff

"Camping?"

"Why sound so amazed?" Dragging the old turquoise

cooler behind her, Vicki Nelson, once one of Toronto's

finest and currently the city's most successful paranormal

investigator, backed out of Mike Celluci's crawl space.

"Why? Maybe because you've never been camping in

your life. Maybe because your idea of roughing it is a hotel

without room service. Maybe" — he moved just far enough

for Vicki to get by then followed her out into the rec room

— "because you're a…"

"A?" Setting the cooler down beside two sleeping bags

and a pair of ancient swim fins, she turned to face him. "A

what, Mike?" Grey eyes silvered.

"Stop it."

Grinning, she turned her attention back to the cooler.

"Besides, I won't be on vacation, I'll be working. You'll be

the one enjoying the great outdoors."

"Vicki, my idea of the great outdoors is going to the

Sky dome for a Jay's game."

"No one's forcing you to come." Setting the lid to one

side, she curled her nose at the smell coming out of the

cooler's depths. "When was the last time you used this

thing?"

"Police picnic, 1992. Why?"

She turned it up on its end. The desiccated body of a

mouse rolled out, bounced twice and came to rest with its

sightless little eyes staring up at Celluci. "I think you need

to buy a new cooler."

"I think I need a better explanation than 'I've got a great

way for you to use up your long weekend,'" he sighed,

kicking the tiny corpse under the rec room couch.

"So this developer from Toronto, Stuart Gordon,

bought an old lodge on the shores of Lake Nepeakea and

he wants to build a rustic, time-share resort so junior

executives can relax in the woods. Unfortunately, one of

the surveyors disappeared and local opinion seems to be

that he's pissed off the lake's protective spirit—"

"The what?"

Vicki pulled out to pass a transport and deftly reinserted

the van back into her own lane before replying. "The

protective spirit. You know, the sort of thing that rises out

of the lake to vanquish evil." A quick glance towards the

passenger seat brought her brows in. "Mike, are you all

right? You're going to leave permanent finger marks in the

dashboard."

He shook his head. The truck-load of logs coming

down from Northern Ontario had missed them by inches.

Feet at the very most. All right, maybe yards but not very

many of them. When they'd left the city, just after sunset, it

had seemed logical that Vicki, with her better night sight,

should drive. He was regretting that logic now but, realizing

he didn't have a hope in hell of gaining control of the

vehicle, he tried to force himself to relax. "The speed limit

isn't just a good idea," he growled through clenched teeth,

"it's the law."

She grinned, her teeth very white in the darkness. "You

didn't used to be this nervous."

"I didn't used to have cause." His fingers wouldn't

release their grip so he left them where they were. "So this

missing surveyor, what did he—"

"She."

"She do to piss off the protective spirit?"

"Nothing much. She was just working for Stuart

Gordon."

"The same Stuart Gordon you're working for."

"The very one."

Right. Celluci stared out at the trees and tried not to

think about how fast they were passing. Vicki Nelson

against the protective spirit of Lake Nepeakea. That's one

for pay for view…

"This is the place."

"No. In order for this to be 'the place' there'd have to be

something here. It has to be 'a place' before it can be 'the

place'."

"I hate to admit it," Vicki muttered, leaning forward and

peering over the arc of the steering wheel, "but you've got

a point." They'd gone through the village of Dulvie, turned

right at the ruined barn and followed the faded signs to the

Lodge. The road, if the rutted lanes of the last few miles

could be called a road, had ended, as per the directions

she'd received, in a small gravel parking lot — or more

specifically in a hard-packed rectangular area that could

now be called a parking lot because she'd stopped her van

on it. "He said you could see the lodge from here."

Celluci snorted. "Maybe you can."

"No. I can't. All I can see are trees." At least she

assumed they were trees; the high contrast between the

area her headlights covered and the total darkness beyond

made it difficult to tell for sure. Silently calling herself

several kinds of fool, she switched off the lights. The

shadows separated into half a dozen large evergreens and

the silhouette of a roof steeply angled to shed snow.

Since it seemed they'd arrived, Vicki shut off the engine.

After a heartbeat's silence, the night exploded into a

cacophony of discordant noise. Hands over sensitive ears,

she sank back into the seat. "What the hell is that?"

"Horny frogs."

"How do you know?" she demanded.

He gave her a superior smile. "PBS."

"Oh." They sat there for a moment, listening to the

frogs. "The creatures of the night," Vicki sighed, "what

music they make." Snorting derisively, she got out of the

van. "Somehow, I expected the middle of nowhere to be a

lot quieter."

Stuart Gordon had sent Vicki the key to the lodge's

back door and once she switched on the main breaker,

they found themselves in a modern, stainless-steel kitchen

that wouldn't have looked out of place in any small, trendy

restaurant back in Toronto. The sudden hum of the

refrigerator turning on momentarily drowned out the frogs

and both Vicki and Celluci relaxed.

"So now what?" he asked.

"Now we unpack your food from the cooler, we find

you a room, and we make the most of the short time we

have until dawn."

"And when does Mr Gordon arrive?"

"Tomorrow evening. Don't worry, I'll be up."

"And I'm supposed to do what, tomorrow in the

daytime?"

"I'll leave my notes out. I'm sure something'll occur to

you."

"I thought I was on vacation?"

"Then do what you usually do on vacation."

"Your footwork." He folded his arms. "And on my last

vacation — which was also your idea — I almost lost a

kidney." Closing the refrigerator door, Vicki crossed the

room between one heartbeat and the next. Leaning into

him, their bodies touching between ankle and chest, she

smiled into his eyes and pushed the long curl of hair back

off his forehead. "Don't worry, I'll protect you from the

spirit of the lake. I have no intention of sharing you with

another legendary being."

"Legendary?" He couldn't stop a smile. "Think highly of

yourself, don't you?"

"Are you sure you'll be safe in the van?"

"Stop fussing. You know I'll be fine." Pulling her jeans

up over her hips, she stared out of the window and shook

her head. "There's a whole lot of nothing out there."

From the bed, Celluci could see a patch of stars and the

top of one of the evergreens. "True enough."

"And I really don't like it."

"Then why are we here?"

"Stuart Gordon just kept talking. I don't even remember

saying yes but the next thing I knew, I'd agreed to do the

job."

"He pressured you?" Celiuci's emphasis on the final

pronoun made it quite clear that he hadn't believed such a

thing was possible.

"Not pressured, no. Convinced with extreme prejudice."

"He sounds like a prince."

"Yeah? Well, so was Machiavelli." Dressed, she leaned

over the bed and kissed him lightly. "Want to hear

something romantic? When the day claims me, yours will

be the only life I'll be able to feel."

"Romantic?" His breathing quickened as she licked at

the tiny puncture wounds on his wrist. "I feel like a box

luuu — ouch! All right. It's romantic."

Although she'd tried to keep her voice light when she'd

mentioned it to Celluci, Vicki really didn't like the great

outdoors. Maybe it was because she understood the

wilderness of glass and concrete and needed the anonymity

of three million lives packed tightly around hers. Standing

by the van, she swept her gaze from the first hints of dawn

to the last lingering shadows of night and couldn't help

feeling excluded, that there was something beyond what

she could see that she wasn't a part of. She doubted Stuart

Gordon's junior executives would feel a part of it either and

wondered why anyone would want to build a resort in the

midst of such otherness.

The frogs had stopped trying to get laid and the silence

seemed to be waiting for something.

Waiting…

Vicki glanced towards Lake Nepeakea. It lay like a silver

mirror down at the bottom of a rocky slope. Not a ripple

broke the surface. Barely a mile away, a perfect reflection

brought the opposite shore closer still.

Waiting…

Whipper-will!

Vicki winced at the sudden, piercing sound and got into

the van. After locking both outer and inner doors, she

stripped quickly — if she were found during the day,

naked would be the least of her problems — laid down

between the high, padded sides of the narrow bed and

waited for the dawn. The bird call, repeated with Chinese

water torture frequency, cut its way through special seals

and interior walls.

"Man, that's annoying," she muttered, linking her fingers

over her stomach. "I wonder if Celluci can sleep

through…"

As soon as he heard the van door close, Celluci fell into

a dreamless sleep that lasted until just past noon. When he

woke, he stared up at the inside of the roof and wondered

where he was. The rough lumber looked like it'd been

coated in creosote in the far distant past.

"No insulation, hate to be here in the winter…"

Then he remembered where here was and came fully

awake.

Vicki had dragged him out to a wilderness lodge, north

of Georgian Bay, to hunt for the local and apparently

homicidal protective lake spirit.

A few moments later, his sleeping bag neatly rolled on

the end of the old iron bed, he was in the kitchen making a

pot of coffee. That kind of a realization upon waking

needed caffeine.

On the counter next to the coffee-maker, right where

he'd be certain to find it first thing, he found a file labelled

"Lake Nepeakea" in Vicki's unmistakable handwriting. The

first few pages of glossy card stock had been clearly sent

by Stuart Gordon along with the key. An artist's

conception of the time-share resort, they showed a large

L-shaped building where the lodge now stood and three

dozen "cottages" scattered through the woods, front doors

linked by broad gravel paths. Apparently, the guests would

commute out to their personal chalets by golf cart.

"Which they can also use on" — Celluci turned the page

and shook his head in disbelief — "the nine-hole golf

course." Clearly, a large part of Mr Gordon's building plan

involved bulldozers. And right after the bulldozers would

come the cappuccino. He shuddered.

The next few pages were clipped together and turned

out to be photocopies of newspaper articles covering the

disappearance of the surveyor. She'd been working with

her partner in the late evening, trying to finish up a

particularly marshy bit of shore destined to be filled in and

paved over for tennis courts, when, according to her

partner, she'd stepped back into the mud, announced

something had moved under her foot, lost her balance, fell,

screamed and disappeared. The OPP, aided by local

volunteers, had set up an extensive search but she hadn't

been found. Since the area was usually avoided because of

the sink holes, sink holes a distraught Stuart Gordon swore

he knew nothing about — "Probably distraught about

having to move his tennis courts," Celluci muttered — the

official verdict allowed that she'd probably stepped in one

and been sucked under the mud.

The headline on the next page declared developer angers

spirit, and in slightly smaller type, Surveyor Pays the Price.

The picture showed an elderly woman with long grey

braids and a hawk-like profile staring enigmatically out over

the water. First impressions suggested a First Nations

elder. In actually reading the text, however, Celluci

discovered that Mary Joseph had moved out to Dulvie

from Toronto in 1995 and had become, in the years since,

the self-proclaimed keeper of local myth. According to Ms

Joseph, although there had been many sightings over the

years, there had been only two other occasions when the

spirit of the lake had felt threatened enough to kill. "It

protects the lake" she was quoted as saying, "from those

who would disturb its peace."

"Two weeks ago," Celluci noted, checking the date.

"Tragic but hardly a reason for Stuart Gordon to go to the

effort of convincing Vicki to leave the city."

The final photocopy included a close-up of a car door

that looked like it had been splashed with acid, spirit

attacks developer's vehicle. During the night of 13 May the

protector of Lake Nepeakea had crawled up into the

parking lot of the lodge and secreted something corrosive

and distinctly fishy against Stuart Gordon's brand-new

Isuzu trooper. A trail of dead bracken, a little over a foot

wide and smelling strongly of rotting fish, led back to the

lake. Mary Joseph seemed convinced it was a

manifestation of the spirit, the local police were looking for

anyone who might have information about the vandalism,

and Stuart Gordon announced he was bringing in a special

investigator from Toronto to settle it once and for all.

It was entirely probable that the surveyor had stepped

into a mud hole and that local vandals were using the

legends of the spirit against an unpopular developer.

Entirely probable. But living with Vicki had forced Mike

Celluci to deal with half a dozen improbable things every

morning before breakfast so, mug in hand, he headed

outside to investigate the crime scene.

Because of the screen of evergreens — although, given

their size, barricade was probably the more descriptive

word — the parking lot couldn't be seen from the lodge.

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摘要：

TheVengefulSpiritofLakeNepeakeaTanyaHuff "Camping?""Whysoundsoamazed?"Draggingtheoldturquoisecoolerbehindher,VickiNelson,onceoneofToronto'sfinestandcurrentlythecity'smostsuccessfulparanormalinvestigator,backedoutofMikeCelluci'scrawlspace."Why?Maybebecauseyou'veneverbeencampinginyourlife.Maybebecause...

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Tanya Huff - Victory Nelson - The Vengeful Spirit of Lake Nepeakea

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