Relentless

by Michael Arches

  When I did, she said, “You look wet and happy.”

  “I forgot to take a jacket, and the trees are still dripping from the rain overnight. No big deal. What an amazing forest, and Teddy’s a great guide.”

  She beamed. “I think you’re going to love it here. Ian may have to come to drag you away.”

  “No kidding. He might have to bring lots of help. I can put up a real fuss when I want to.”

  She took me to a small conference room that contained comfortable chairs arranged around an oak table. A movie screen covered one wall, and a projector pointed at it from the table.

  “I could explain to you in detail what to look for in people’s expressions, but you know what they say about pictures replacing a thousand words? I’m going to show you candid shots of people. Then we’ll talk about how they feel.”

  She started slow, spending ten minutes on the first photograph of a smiling grandmother holding her giggling grandchild. Olympia pointed out the places where people expressed emotions the most, mainly around the eyes and mouth.

  When she asked what I thought the grandma felt, it seemed obvious. “She’s happy to hold the little girl, and likewise.”

  “Pffttt!” Olympia responded. “You can do a lot better than that, and you’d better, if you don’t want to eat cold oatmeal for dinner.”

  So, she wasn’t as easygoing as I’d thought. Then she used a pointer to show me why she thought the grandmother was worried instead of happy. Her smile didn’t make it to her eyes, and a subtle furrow creased her brow. Once I noticed those signs, I couldn’t understand how I’d missed them earlier.

  With each picture, I started out by describing what I thought the people felt. Then Olympia showed me step-by-step why I was wrong or why I’d missed something that was staring me square in the face. Talk about clueless, I’m the worst.

  After I struggled with the tenth picture, I said, “No wonder everybody was so anxious to get me the hell out of Monterey. I thought they just needed a break. I’ve got a knack for pissing people off without even trying, but I’m also oblivious to what they’re feeling.”

  She patted my shoulder like I was a first grader. “No, don’t beat yourself up, Moira. Most people have trouble with these same things. You’ll catch on.”

  It was sweet of her to put such a positive spin on things, but I realized it had to be painful for her to sit so close to an idiot. “How much is Ian paying you to try to make me normal?”

  A nervous giggle burst from her lips and told me I wasn’t too far off target.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Gill and I have been friends for many years, and now I’m very close to Ian, too. I’m just doing a favor for two dear friends. Actually, I’m learning a great deal myself—”

  I held up a hand to stop her from being more ridiculous. The more she talked around my obvious failings, the more embarrassed I felt. “I pity you. Tomorrow, I’ll do better. Or maybe you could break your leg or something. That’ll be a good excuse to postpone our meetings until I have to leave.”

  “Now, you’re being silly. I’m looking forward to our time together.”

  She had to be a masochist. That made me a sadist, and my embarrassment grew.

  -o-o-o-

  NO MATTER WHAT the Elysium staff really thought of me, they treated me like a princess. How could I complain? The setting was fantastic, and the food was incredible. Although I felt guilty for burdening Olympia, I loved how kind she was to me. The whole deal was sweeter than ambrosia.

  After our meeting, I took a different hike into the forest. Teddy was manning the front desk, and he told me about a trail that led past the dozen largest trees at Elysium. Even better, he gave me a copy of another trail map and marked the trees’ locations.

  Thanks to him, I quickly found the first of the true giants nearby. Bigger was definitely better. I spread my arms as wide as I could around a tree twenty-feet wide at the base and pressed my body against its thick, rough bark. Then I dug my fingers into deep cracks in the bark and hummed in resonance with the vibrations coming from the tree.

  Natural magic flowed into me faster than ever. I was thrilled, ready to promise eternal fidelity until death did us part. My last thought before letting my mind drift into bliss was, Ian really might have to come to drag me away from this place.

  Eventually, I relaxed so much I couldn’t stand on my weak legs any longer. My muscles had turned to mush. I slid down the side of the tree to its base and couldn’t get up. So, I sat with my back against my new BFF and gazed upward into its tall canopy. The contentment that came from so much natural magic filled me, pushing out all other thoughts.

  I must’ve dozed off because screeching and chattering woke me with a start.

  About twenty feet away, two squirrels were fighting each other, oblivious to me.” They’d interrupted a vivid dream of me flying like a bird over a forest canopy.

  I wasn’t groggy, unlike most times when I’d woken suddenly from dreams. In fact, I couldn’t remember ever feeling better. Being a redwood slut had definite advantages.

  Reluctantly, I checked my phone for the time. I needed to head back to meet with Leo.

  “Hope it was as good for you, darling, as it was for me. I’ll call you.” But shameless hussy that I was, I was already planning to find an even bigger boy out in these ancient woods tomorrow. After all, I had a map that told me where they each hung out.

  When I tried to walk back, my legs wouldn’t work at first, which freaked me out. I was alone, and nobody else knew where I’d gone. But slowly, my muscles seemed to remember their jobs, and the more I walked, the better I felt. I wondered how it would feel to bring Philippe to this place and spend the night in a tent below one of these giants. That would be a night to remember.

  -o-o-o-

  BY THE TIME I returned to the hotel, I was thoroughly ashamed of how stupid I’d acted back in the woods. What a lunatic. But I didn’t have much time to chew myself out. I needed to find Leo in a training room on the first floor. So, I quickly changed into a karate gi in my suite and hurried downstairs.

  He was probably in his mid-forties, given his mom’s age, but he looked younger. His body was long and lean, and his head bald. He also wore a gi. I shook his hand and thanked him for taking the time to help me train.

  “Been looking forward to it since my mom called from Monterey. A new victim is always welcome.”

  But he laughed as he said it, so I assumed he was kidding about the victim part. Actually, the stronger he was, the more I’d learn. I circled him for a moment, not sure how aggressive to be. He probably weighed less than I did, but he was once a national kickboxing champion. With Ian, I struggled during every fight to survive, punching and kicking him as hard as I could just to hold him off.

  “No coddling?” I asked.

  “Works for me. Just in case, we have a healer on standby.” He proved his sincerity by aiming a lunging punch at my face. I knocked it off course with my left hand, but if I hadn’t, he would’ve crushed my skull. Definitely no coddling.

  I responded with a roundhouse punch to his stomach. Connected, but it felt like I’d hit a wooden beam. I wasn’t sure who’d suffered more. This guy was still in fighting trim.

  An hour later, he said, “Enough. You’ve worn me out, girl.”

  I was thrilled he’d spoken first because I couldn’t last much longer myself. We’d fought nonstop, evenly matched. After a few deep breaths, I said, “Didn’t want you to get bored.”

  He laughed, a friendly and infectious melody. “I don’t think I’ve had this much fun since Ian kicked my ass.”

  My stamina was slightly better than Leo’s, thanks to all those weeks of intense training with Prince Charming and the others in the Garda.

  At least, I’d held my own. Wouldn’t it have been embarrassing, both for Ian and me, if Leo had wiped me out? “I guess I don’t have to worry about losing my edge while I’m up here, eh?”

  “We’ll
see if you do as well tomorrow. I still have a few tricks up my sleeves.”

  Somehow, I figured that he would. The guy obviously loved to win as much as I did. We’d have to see who held up best under a daily pounding.

  I ate dinner with the Papandreou family, all twelve of them still at Elysium. The conversation was crazy and chaotic, and it reminded me so much of the good times I’d shared with my sisters and Mom while I was growing up. At times, the memories made me so emotional I couldn’t trust myself to speak.

  When everyone wandered away, I took a cup of expresso and headed out to the gazebo to watch the sunset. Even though the sky was clear, a thick bank of fog lay low on the horizon. According to Teddy, it stayed there almost all the time. He claimed to have rarely seen the sun sink into the sea. I didn’t either, but a few wispy clouds above me turned pink and yellow in the dying light. Nope, it wasn’t going to be easy to leave this place.

  Chapter 16

  Tuesday, March 16th

  FOR A WEEK, I reveled in the Greeks’ version of heaven. They definitely knew how to live life to the fullest. All the while, Suong and her uncles kept working to find Cara and Mom, but no significant progress. Each morning, I emailed back and forth with Dana, Suong, and Philippe, just to stay in touch. And I met daily with Olympia and Leo to improve myself.

  Otherwise, I did as I damned well pleased. That included visiting four of the largest trees in the forest each day, some of them well off the beaten path. No matter, I clung to them like the needy wench I was. Worse, I promised each of them they were the only hunk of wood for me.

  Although I lied brazenly, they couldn’t talk to each other to find out the truth. Plus, since they didn’t have minds, I doubted they could read mine. And my magic core thanked me over and over for stuffing it full with natural magic.

  At Happy Hour on Tuesday, I sat with most of the Papandreou family chatting on the hotel’s deck overlooking the ocean, and we chatted about family. Then Hector approached. “We may have trouble on the horizon. I spotted a boat a while ago that looks familiar. It’s the black cabin cruiser that has checked on us regularly since Ian and his family visited. The odd thing today is it seems to be hiding at a distance.”

  “Who’s on the boat?” I asked.

  “Don’t know,” Olympia said. “All we can tell you is the pilot is bald, and we never see anyone else aboard. He cruises past here every few weeks but never tries to land.”

  The family seemed anxious, at least, that was my guess based on their pale, taut faces. After reviewing hundreds of candid shots of people with Olympia, I was getting a little better at reading people. Not that I’d ever be a master, like her. They knew so much more about ships, and some of their worry transferred to me.

  We took our drinks and headed up to the hotel’s roof. I’d enjoyed the spectacular, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree views of the coast regularly, but the mood was somber this afternoon. They owned a powerful telescope Hector had taught me to use. It rotated on a metal platform that kept it steady, and they’d surrounded it with a white canvas tent with sides that rolled up to protect it from the weather.

  Today, though, Hector kept three of the four sides down to create shade around the telescope, and he told us to stay in that shadow.

  The air was relatively clear, but a fog bank hung offshore a few miles to the west. With my naked eye, I spotted a couple of sailboats cruising on the choppy sea but no black boat.

  Hector checked the telescope, which was pointed north. “He’s still there, about twenty miles away. Most of the time, he’s hidden in the fog, just over the horizon. We can see the cabin cruiser because we’re two hundred feet above the sea here. At best, all he can see of us is the dark shadow in our tent. And since he’s on a bobbing boat, I bet he hasn’t even noticed that much. He probably thinks he’s out of sight completely.”

  “Does he see the forest on the hills behind us?” I asked.

  “Right. On a moving ship in rough water, there’s no way he can steady a telescope, assuming he has one. More likely, he’s using binoculars, and they aren’t as powerful. As long as we stay in the shadows, we’re invisible.”

  “What does the bald pilot usually do when he comes closer?” I asked.

  “Cruises a mile or two offshore. Once he passes the cove, he usually turns around and follows the same route north again.”

  That seemed innocuous enough. “Why? It must take half a day to make a round trip from Eureka.”

  Hector shrugged. “I can’t imagine. I used to worry that he might try to enter the cove, so we installed a cable attached to buoys. Each evening, we pull it across the mouth of our little harbor so boats can’t sneak in while it’s dark.”

  That was hardly an ironclad defense, but on a dark night, the black rocks blocking most of the mouth to the entrance would be a huge threat to any vessel. Fortunately, the Greeks had no real reason to worry. Although the place was gorgeous, they didn’t have anything particularly valuable that pirates could haul off.

  “The local sorcerers have no reason to know I’m here,” I said, “so I doubt the pilot wants to collect the bounty on my head.”

  “Except,” Olympia said, “remember how someone tracked Sophia to Monterey? They used a plane’s manifest. We flew to Eureka, and by now, the sorcerers probably know you’re in the area.”

  I hadn’t thought about that. I’d exposed the Papandreou’s to danger. “Uh, oh. I’m sorry to cause you trouble.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Hector said. “We don’t even know they’re interested in you. We’ve had our own series of disputes with sorcerers in Eureka going back for decades. On the plus side, this gives me something to do besides complain about my family. I’ll keep watch here until darkness falls, and Teddy can draw the cable across the entrance to the cove before dark to keep him out.”

  “I’ll do it now,” the boy said. “We don’t need anyone bothering us or Moira.”

  He hurried way. The sun remained well above the horizon, but it always seemed to fall quickly in the evening. I decided to stay with Hector and keep him company. He told me tall tales about fish he’d caught out in the ocean.

  From time to time, I took a good look through the telescope at the boat. It was pointed straight at us, and it frequently vanished behind high rollers or the fog bank. Once, I thought I could pick out a bald man behind the windshield, but that was probably my overactive imagination.

  Teddy eventually returned, and the three of us stayed on the roof enjoying the views.

  The oddest thing was that the boat didn’t seem to come much closer. Finally, I asked Hector, “Did he run out of gas? If he’s coming for a visit, he’d better get moving. The light’s only going to last for another hour or so.”

  “He’s acting very strange,” Hector said. “But if he’d run out of fuel, though, the boat would be bobbing aimlessly. Instead, it remains pointed directly at us. What’s he up to?”

  Hector seemed to be asking that last question to himself. I sure as hell didn’t know, and Teddy didn’t venture a guess.

  -o-o-o-

  THE BANK OF fog moved south and swallowed up the boat. I thought that was that, but Hector kept a keen eye focused to the north. I looked through the telescope every so often but didn’t see the cabin cruiser.

  Teddy wandered off, but the old man and I stayed, talking about the upcoming gladiator season. I’d given up trying to convince him not to watch the fights. He really was a fanatic for the matches, despite knowing all the dirty secrets I told him about that world. Some people just loved to watch fighters beat the crap out of each other. At one point, he even said, “I have to admit to being a bit disappointed when Ian ended your slavery.”

  “Tough shit, Sir.”

  He threw back his head and laughed for minutes. “I deserved that. Maybe the witches would be interested in starting a league? The fighters would all be strictly voluntary, of course, and keep their winnings.”

  That was a possibility,
but I wasn’t interested in that life. We talked about who might start such a league.

  Then Hector stared north with his naked eyes. “Ah, you sneaky bastard. Moira, I just caught a glimpse of him. He’s approaching with the fog, and now he’s only five miles north.”

  It was early evening, and a tall bank of clouds to the west was already swallowing the sun. My stomach cramped. “He’s up to something nasty, isn’t he?”

  “I’ll bet he is, but he has to be damned careful. The same fog that hides him is also hiding the coast. If he gets too close, the waves could quickly beat him to pieces against the rocks.”

  Hector shuddered.

  “Is he heading for your cove?”

  The old man thought for a moment. “I’m not sure, but I doubt it. He’s too close to the shore already. I think he intends to land on a tiny beach a few hundred yards north of where our headland ends. A creek flows down a narrow gorge there and empties into the sea. It’s not large enough to accommodate his cabin cruiser, but a dinghy or raft could land there. They might be trying to sneak onto our property from the north.”

  I’d up hiked that way every day, and I remembered the little beach he was talking about. “That hillside is very steep.”

  He nodded. “And, we have wards on the fence across the top of the headland.”

  I’d felt those wards but hadn’t been particularly impressed. “How long has it been since you renewed them?”

  He flushed red as he looked at me. “Not recently. Maybe we should do that now.”

  “Yeah, good idea.”

  We hurried downstairs into the house and told Olympia and the others eating dinner our plan. I’d lost track of the time and forgotten about food.

  “I’ll go with you,” Olympia said. “Hector’s driving isn’t the best anymore.”

  He grumbled but didn’t challenge her.

  The three of us piled into an old four-door Wrangler, and Olympia drove up the trail along the edge of the forest. The rough doubletrack was three miles long and slow going. Either worry or the bouncy ride got my stomach churning.