“I fucked up, all right? Is that what you want to hear?” A growl entered his voice. “Yes, I drove you up here without your consent. Yes, I planned on using you as bait, but I didn’t, did I?”
“No thanks to you,” I growled right back. “The Garzas found him.”
“Who do you think called them here? Who do you think begged for their help? Do you think a couple of witches wanted to hang out in a bait shack with eight wolves for a long weekend? Do you know how much they cost me?”
“They’re your family,” I started.
“They’re also coven witches. They don’t work for free. Not even for blood.” He searched my face. “I had to pay them, because their priest expects a cut for their services. They’re the best, and they command a high price.”
“Your sister deserved the best,” I said numbly, disbelieving.
“Marie is dead.” His voice broke. “I couldn’t save her.” Desperation touched his eyes. “I did this for you.”
My heart skipped a beat. “They had no way of knowing he had already chosen a victim. If he hadn’t—”
“Then I would have found another way.” He cupped my face in his hands. “I’m messed up, Ellis. I know that. You know that. I didn’t expect to meet you. Not here. Not now. But I did, and I won’t let you go so easily.”
My resolve wavered. This thing with Charybdis was far from over. The kelpie had a partner, and he was still out there. Did I trust the conclave to finish the hunt? It was a hard question to answer when I had believed in their mission to help faekind enough to join their ranks. I was a Gemini first. Now the oath I had given rang hollow in my memory. There were layers to this case as yet unsolved, and handing the evidence over to the conclave meant accepting the possibility they might close the case and sweep their involvement under the rug. Graeson would yank the metaphorical broom from their hands and snap the handle. He and I would sift through the dust bunnies until every grain of truth was documented and the people responsible were disposed of like so much trash.
Was that what I wanted? Was he what I wanted?
“Uh, guys.” Dell hooked my arm and whirled me back toward the lake. “Do you see that?”
Being tugged between two wargs like a juicy bone left my eyes rattling in my skull. “What am I looking for?”
Dell pointed where a sheet of white fabric billowed across the gently bobbing waters, a stark contrast to the bleak depths of the lake. Bubbles popped and fizzled around its ragged edges as if it had been propelled to the surface and might sink again once the oxygen saturating it dissipated.
Taking the opportunity to step away from Graeson, I walked until the water licked the toes of my boots and gritted my teeth to keep the past at bay.
He grasped my wrist and held tight, a reminder our conversation wasn’t finished. “Is that…?” He snapped his fingers at the wargs closest to us. “Boots off. I want whatever that is retrieved.”
The female warg hit the water. She stalled out mid-stroke when she got near enough to touch the opaque spot. “It’s just cloth.” She lifted it over her head then let it slap the surface.
My head fell back on my neck. I searched the sky for signs, for hope, but it was as cruel in its indifference as always.
A wet explosion jerked my head forward as a massive sphere jettisoned into the air, clearing the water by several feet before it dropped like a stone, slapping the surface and settling in to rock on the waves its eruption had caused. Two figures huddled in its center, one curled in the bottom while the other sat upright. I glimpsed bright pink hair splayed beneath the resting figure, and my heart soared.
“It’s Harlow.” I wriggled away from Graeson and ran down the dock to its end. The murky depths below spun vertigo in my ears, and I wobbled, but I managed to stay on my feet. I cupped my hands around my mouth and called to the warg, “She’s with us. Bring her in.”
The female hesitated until Graeson threw his weight behind the order. “You heard her. Get them to dry land.”
Two more males dove into the water. The female circled the bubble while smoothing her hands along its sides. Whatever type of magic had constructed it, it was solid. Together the wargs rolled the bubble safely to the shore. I ran back toward them and leapt, meeting the soaked wargs in the damp sand. Inside the strange sphere a petite girl sat with her legs crossed. She wore a pair of blue panties, a matching training bra and one sock. Harlow curved around her, her head resting on the girl’s tiny lap while she stroked the pink strands as though soothing them both.
Relief wilted the girl when she spotted the mutilated kelpie. Tears sprang to her eyes, and her protective grip tightened on Harlow.
“Roni,” I said, voice thick with emotion.
The girl’s head jerked toward me. “Who are you?”
“I’m Camille Ellis. I work with the Earthen Conclave.” When that got me nowhere, I tacked on, “I’m Harlow’s friend.” I showed Roni my empty hands, hoping to convince her I meant no harm, but she cast me a shrewd look that said she knew sometimes the worst dangers were the unseen ones. Considering she had gotten into this situation by having a tender heart, I understood her hesitance to trust me. “You’re safe now. See those lights?” I pointed through the trees to the partially concealed road. “Once those cars get here, we’ll find you a phone and let you call your mom and sister, okay? They can meet us at the nearest hospital, and we’ll get you checked out.”
Or failing that, the nearest safe house with a fae medic on staff. Roni hadn’t been missing long, but she must be starving. Elizabeth McKenna escaped with her life but not without injury. I hadn’t been greedy then, and I wouldn’t be now. Roni was alive. That was all that mattered.
“You know Daphne?” Roni’s bottom lip trembled. “Is she mad at me?”
“No.” I sank to one knee and put my face at her level. “She’s worried sick about you. Your mom is too.” I touched the bubble’s spongy surface. “Did you make this? What is it?”
A sharp nod. “It’s just air magic.”
“That’s a very neat trick,” I praised her. “Maybe sometime you can show me how it works.”
A slower nod, one I could tell she didn’t mean but did all the same to be polite.
“I need you to let me in, Roni.” I touched the wall where Harlow’s head rested. “My friend doesn’t look well. She needs a doctor too.”
“I—I can’t.” Tears rolled down Roni’s cheeks to splash on Harlow’s chin as she slung her head from side to side. “The bubble happens when I get scared.” She trembled. “It won’t go away. I’m trying, but I’m stuck.”
Motion in the corner of my eye left me gritting my teeth. “Stand back.” I shooed the wargs away from us. They wanted to help, but half of them were still wolves, and it was obvious Roni wasn’t ready to deal with more animals. Eyes as wide as dinner plates, she was too frightened. “Go someplace and shift, or stick to the trees.”
The pack obeyed me without question, which appeared to please Graeson, and that worried me. Anything making him happy made me nervous. Being accepted by his pack, even for the night, felt like I had walked into a trap he was attempting to close behind me.
“What if we try talking first?” All I needed was for Roni to shift her focus enough that her magic weakened, then we could pull Harlow onto land and evaluate the extent of her injuries. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“I caught a fish yesterday, and he was hurt. Daphne threw him back in the lake, and I got mad.” Heat simmered in her voice. “She wouldn’t listen. He needed to see the vet. I sneaked out of the tent to find him.” As fast as her burst of anger came, it vanished, leaving her small and shivering. “I was walking around the edge of the lake. I was trying to find the fish when I heard it.” A shudder wracked her. “The horse was crying. Not like a person but... I wanted to help him, so I waded out in the water. He turned and kept going deeper and deeper, and I knew Daphne would be so mad at me, but I followed him. I touched him. Right beside his tail.” Her eyes went liquid. “I c
ouldn’t get loose. I tried, but I was stuck. I was so scared my bubble just… And then he dragged me under the water.”
Her breathing grew faster as she recalled how terrifying that experience had been. I didn’t press her for a timeline. When the kelpie hauled her out to parade her around didn’t matter now. Only the whys did, and she wouldn’t know those.
The air around her distorted, and I pressed her harder while a crack formed in her defenses. “Can you tell me what happened tonight?”
“He was mad. So mad.” She blinked and shed tears. “The merlady found where we were hiding. She attacked him with a knife.” Roni reached under Harlow and produced the slim dagger with a shell-encrusted handle she had tucked into her neoprene top. “This knife.” She gulped hard, shut her eyes and lifted her arm. “S-s-she did this.”
My gaze zeroed in on her elbow, slid down her forearm, and I braced myself for a weeping stump that ended at her fragile wrist, a brutal amputation to match the other victims, but Roni’s hand was whole. More than whole, a cut of raw meat stuck to her palm where Harlow had sliced her free of the kelpie.
I swallowed hard and tasted acid in the back of my throat.
“The horse—he had a tail like hers—like a fin. He hit her in the head with it, and it cut her throat. She couldn’t breathe, so I made her a bubble like mine. Then we hid in a tunnel the horse couldn’t fit into until he went away. I waited for a long time before…” Her gaze dropped to Harlow sprawled limp across her lap. “She was bleeding so much…and then it stopped.”
The faint rise and fall of Harlow’s chest gave me the strength to keep calm. She had survived the ordeal, and medicinal magic could work miracles…if we got her to a medic quickly. Roni might not be ready to trust me yet, but Harlow was human. She had healing charms, but those were patches, not fixes. I had to nudge the girl again and hope having someone to talk to calmed her enough she could relax the tension coating the surface of her bubble.
One of Harlow’s gills must have been damaged when the kelpie attacked, but I didn’t see any signs of the wound. Trapped between inhaling oxygen like a human and filtering air from the water like a fish, it was a miracle she had lasted this long. The other gill needed to be removed, and gods only knew how to do that without cutting into her. Until it was gone, I doubted her lungs would fill and function properly. I had to act now. Either the wall came down or I hunted down the Garzas and paid them whatever it took to burst her bubble.
“You were brave. So brave. You saved Harlow’s life.” I kept my tone even as I praised her. “But I have to ask you to be brave one more time. I need you to take a deep breath, focus on your magic, and lower the bubble so I can get her the help she needs. Can you do that?”
“I can t-t-try.” Her eyes shut, and the air pulsed. A tendril of Harlow’s hair fell through and tickled the sand beneath her. “Hurry. I can’t hold it much longer.”
Careful not to spook Roni with sudden movements, I shifted Harlow toward me and hooked my hands under her arms. I dragged until her heels left furrows in the sand. I checked her pulse—steady but weak—and examined the jagged edges of the wound that had fused together into an angry red chevron pattern zigzagging from her collarbone to her jawline, bisecting one of the artificial gills. With one functioning gill and the use of Roni’s air bubble, I was betting the culprit here was blood loss. Harlow must have used one of the emergency healing charms on herself.
“Here.” Roni extended the blade toward me. “It’s pretty. She might want it back.”
Our fingers brushed when I grasped the handle, and her magic tingled up my arm. Sylph. I should have remembered that sooner. Her magic must have allowed her to filter oxygen through the film of her protective bubble. “I’ll make sure she gets it.” I tucked the dagger into my belt. “Do you want me to help you out now? Or do you want to wait for your mom?”
Magic shimmered around her, and iridescent rainbows slid over the bubble’s hull as it solidified. “It won’t let go.” She tucked the hand clotted with kelpie flesh by her leg, out of sight. “I’ll stay.” Roni shifted positions, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her free arm around them. Her forehead lowered, bracing on her kneecaps. “It’s safer in here anyway.”
A warm hand landed on my shoulder. Graeson. No wonder she had withdrawn from me. The sight of him naked wasn’t doing the already traumatized girl any favors.
His fingers tightened. “We have to leave.”
Car doors slammed nearby, and I made my choice. “I can’t abandon them.”
“Ellis…” A frustrated growl entered his voice.
“Graeson, I said no.” I twisted to stare up at him. “You should go before they catch you.”
His scarred hands lifted a damp lock of my hair. “May I?”
Really? He wanted to smell me at a time like this? Was it some kind of shifter-style farewell? “Suuurrre,” I drew out the word.
Faster than a blink, he willed his index finger to lengthen, its claw to elongate, and he sliced through the clump above his fist, leaving him with a six-inch hank of my hair. The control it had taken for such a precise shift must have been incredible. I smoothed a hand down the cut length.
“Be careful.” He clutched his prize, color high in his cheeks, and my stomach fluttered. “See you soon.”
Before I found the correct response to getting an impromptu haircut via a warg claw, he was gone. Not a single golden eye winked in the darkness. The pack had fled.
Worrying the shorn ends between my fingers, I sank down next to Harlow, wincing when the sharp edges of her dagger’s handle dug into my side. Shifting to one hip, I withdrew the blade and set it beside her in case she craved the security of a weapon when she roused. She remained still where I laid her, and I pressed two fingers to the underside of her blemished jaw. A weak pulse fluttered under her skin, comforting me. I rubbed her arm and made promises I knew I couldn’t keep under my breath.
The conclave would be here soon. They could arrange for a transfusion and a burst of magic to boost her recovery. I had to believe they would make it in time.
“Step away from the body and put your hands in the air.”
I did as the masculine voice instructed. “I’m Agent Camille Ellis with the Earthen Conclave.” I yelled loud enough to be heard from his position. “This is Harlow Bevans. She’s a consultant.” I linked my fingers in the air over my head. “She’s lost a lot of blood. She needs medical attention.”
“Medics,” the same man boomed. “You’ve got patients waiting.”
Two men carrying a stretcher between them crested the rise and jogged toward me. They shuffled me aside and set to work on Harlow with steady hands and low conversation that comforted me. Each anticipated the other’s need, and they worked in tandem to examine her.
A lean man emerged from the trailhead, trundled down to me, grasped my elbow and hauled me in the direction where he first appeared. His eyes were wide set and green, his skin dark. Magic zipped through me at his touch. Bean sidhe. Unsettling choice for a search-and-rescue squad volunteer. I hoped the presence of a death portent meant he’d drawn the short straw, not that he carried a message.
“I need to speak with Magistrate Vause.” I let him lead me away from the scene marshals were scurrying to secure. A guy with a spotlight tucked under his arm shuffled past. Another carried a flipper I assumed went to his wet suit. A woman walked with her head down as she studied a clipboard, and two more men barked orders into walkie-talkies with a fervor that would have done Graeson proud. “She can vouch for me.”
A grim expression pinched his eyes. “I’ll have someone higher on the food chain dial her up and see what she has to say.”
“Can I wait here while you contact her?” I jerked my chin toward Harlow. “I’d like to keep an eye on my friend.”
A frown marred his preternaturally smooth forehead when his gaze eased past my shoulder.
“What is it?” Heart in my throat, I whipped my head toward the lake. At first glance I didn
’t register a problem. A soft-spoken marshal was engaging Roni while a man in jeans snapped pictures of the kelpie’s corpse. A woman decked out in a headlamp documented paw-print impressions as a tall man walked the dock with a phone pressed to his ear. Then my gaze honed in on the twin trenches dug by Harlow’s heels where I had dragged her through the sand. The medics were gone. Harlow was too. “Where did they take her?”
“I don’t—” He scratched behind his ear. “They must have taken another path and circled back to the ambulance.”
I was already shaking my head. The wargs had done heavy recon on the area to prepare us for all eventualities. I was familiar with all possible exits near the dock in case I needed a quick escape route. “There is no second path.” Not for a quarter of a mile in the opposite direction, and no way would two guys with a stretcher decide to forge their own trail when there was a perfectly good path right here. “I’m heading down there.”
“Wait.” A string of foreign swears followed me. “Agent Ellis.”
Shrugging off the bean sidhe’s warnings, I ran for the cluster of activity. I grabbed the first marshal I saw by his collar. “Where’s the mermaid?”
He swatted me aside with a meaty fist. Ursine shifter. “Lady, I don’t know what you’re quacking about.”
“There was a mermaid.” I pointed to the drag marks in the sand. “Right there.”
“Hey, Phil, did you see a mermaid?” he yelled to the guy with a flipper.
“Nope.” He waved at me with the webbed hunk of plastic. “I doubt I would have been hauled out of bed at the butt crack of dawn if they already had a mermaid on site. Wasn’t there a contractor working these things? Whatever happened to her?”
“Yes.” I pointed at my feet. “That was her. She was right here. Ask the bean sidhe. He can tell you I’m not crazy.”
“Leonard?” the ursine called. “What’s all the noise about?”
“There was a mermaid.” A cold spark lit his eyes, and his gaze shot to the forest as if magnetized. “I saw her myself.”
Dead in the Water (Gemini: A Black Dog Series Book 1) Page 18
