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

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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…"
 

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