The moment Charlie did as he asked, he slid Lucy’s head into the black roiling water. He kept hold of her, hands on her shoulders, then the sides of her neck, settling at the nape. He cradled the base of her skull. Then he slipped the rest of her over the lip until all of her was under the surface. She hung there as he held her, all ripples, ghostly pale in the surrounding darkness. No air bubbled up out of her nostrils; her chest was perfectly still, as if she had lost the instinct to breathe. Her hair streamed out on either side of her head in Medusa-like coils, as if each one were a serpent eager to wrap themselves around his wrists, puncture skin and flesh to tear out the cluster of veins on the insides. Inhuman eyes stared up at him, magnified by the water. They were fury-filled and, as if independent entities of their own, they rolled, trembled, and shook violently in their sockets.

To the extent he was able, Whitman ignored the horror of what Preach had made of her—a cross between a Frankenstein’s monster and a flesh-eating succubus. He kept a steady pressure on the nerves at the base of her skull, playing a silent melody only he could hear, and gradually the rage leached out of her eyes. Her chest gave a great heave, her body began to move again, as any human body would, and she blinked. Her arms rose until her fingers wrapped around his wrists. There was no malice in the gesture. But it was not until a clear and present terror suffused her expression, until he could hear her calling to him in his mind, Save me!, that Whitman hauled her out of the water, gasping and choking.

Together, he and Charlie unwound the soaking cloth from her mouth. He removed the cloth gag. Her belly heaved in and out like an accordion. She retched, but nothing came out of her mouth. She tried to speak, and retched again, gasping like a fish out of water.

“Now we take her to the plane,” Whitman said as he lifted her off the edge of the cenote.

“Is she okay?” Charlie asked.

“She will be,” Whitman said, “when she sees Flix.”

*   *   *

King Cutler was inside the jet with Flix and the crew when Whitman and Charlie brought Lucy up the steep stairs. He had assessed the situation, getting a detailed description of what had happened, why Edmond Dantès was dead and by whose hand.

Charlie had discovered Trey’s Navigator and had driven it, with Whitman in the rear with Lucy’s head on his lap, back to the landing strip.

“What the hell happened to you two?” Cutler said when they brought Lucy aboard.

“Later,” Whitman said as they got Lucy into a seat.

“It’s a long story,” Charlie said.