by Lark Brennan
“The guys dropped it off this morning. Milk and fresh bread, too.” He poured some juice into a large glass from the drain rack on the counter, downed it, and set the glass in the sink.
“Are you still pissed off about last night?” She understood the indignity of being hauled onto the dolphin sling and given mouth-to-mouth.
“I was surprised, that’s all.” His stance appeared relaxed but a resentment that made little sense to her simmered under the surface.
She joined him at the kitchen counter and poured herself some more java. “What’s going on?”
“I’m drinking coffee.”
“Is this about me asking you to push the orphic out of Chuy?”
When he turned and met her eyes, the silver gaze was even more haunted than usual. “No.” His hand tightened around the coffee mug. “I was up most of last night trying to make sense of what the dolphins experienced. I keep coming back to the same suspicion and it pisses the hell out of me.”
“Okay. I’m listening.”
“Has anyone ever taken your work, work you believed was good and worthy, and subverted it?”
“Someone hurt my dolphins, probably killed Poseidon and his mate and offspring. Maybe because of our tracking devices. So yeah, they have.”
“Well, I think we’re talking about the same person or people.”
“Who?”
“Someone who knows about my early work with delphic.”
“Are you sure?” she asked.
With a shrug, he set his mug on the counter. “No. I spent the last few hours trying to piece the facts together but there are big holes. It’s clear the red orphic had something to do with the dolphins’ disappearance and reappearance. The question is did the orphic cause the time-space leap or is it a side effect of something else.”
“Okay, so what does that have to do with you?” she asked.
“I told you I was working on a theory that multiple planes of reality coexist in the same space separated by a dense form of delphic energy. I was playing with the idea that by focusing delphic into a laser-like beam, a passage could be created between realities.”
“You pierced the barrier between planes?”
“Hell, no! That would be insanely dangerous. Do you really think I’m that irresponsible?”
“There are psychics who would do anything to gain personal power. Our enemies’ mission is to destroy civilization with violence and chaos.”
He glared at her. “Do you think I’m that irresponsible?”
“No. But how could you attempt…”
“I didn’t. My theory was concept and mathematics, not practical application. Aside from a few late night discussions with other grad students—usually fueled by large quantities of alcohol—I never discussed my hypothesis. Everyone threw out drunken bullshit.”
“What about Mark? What did you tell him?”
He shifted uncomfortably. “During my recovery…” He patted his chest. “We explored the possible motives for the hit team sent to kill me. All the possible motives. The parallel reality angle was discarded early as too esoteric.”
“Was this before or after you discovered you could sense orphic energy?”
“About the same time. It didn’t seem relevant to my theory.”
“So if the dolphins really dipped in and out of an evil parallel reality, you think it’s possible someone else figured out how to break through the delphic barrier.”
“Yes. The red orphic could have leaked through the hole.”
She shuddered. “A universe of red orphic? That would be hell.”
“I struggled all night with the likelihood that someone could have come up with a similar concept independently. My gut tells me my theory was stolen.”
“By who?”
“I have no idea. Everyone at Princeton thought I was crazy when I discovered delphic. To accept it, understand it, and discover a way to use it? That’s a hell of a stretch.”
“Unless your theory fell into the hands of someone who already knew about delphic.”
“And had the resources to build a device that could gather and focus the energy into a powerful beam. Someone like Mark.”
“No. It’s not my brother. You don’t like him but he’s one of the good guys.” She ignored his smirk. “Can your sensor detect a laser-like ray of delphic?”
“I don’t know. It would depend on how strong it was and how long it lasted. The sensor on the Talos is more sensitive and powerful than my handheld, and I can program it for continuous scan without the time delay to encrypt and transmit to the clouds. Unfortunately, the sensors are useless without laser activity to detect.” He studied her, his expression grim.
“So the only way you’ll find him is for him to use this weapon of his again?”
He nodded.
“Maybe on humans?”
“We don’t know that, but yes. It’s possible.”
A chill rolled over her. The whales and dolphins who had been attacked were very dear to her. The prospect of the laser claiming more victims nauseated her. “We have to stop him.”
“Now that I know what I’m looking for, I may have useful data from your whale’s disappearance on the Talos. The sooner I get to my sensors, the quicker we’ll have answers.”
“Then we’d better get going. You packed?”
“Packed and ready to go as ordered.”
They loaded their gear into the jeep and set off on the gravel road for Great Harbor. The bouncing and noise didn’t facilitate discussion, so they rode in silence.
Bodie grabbed her arm. “Pull over.”
She’d barely stopped the jeep when he hopped out and darted up a narrow dirt path flanked by scrub. His head and shoulders rose well above the thick, low bush as he wound up the steep hill then suddenly vanished as though he’d stepped into a hole.
A hot breeze lifted the hair on the back of her neck giving her the sense someone was watching.
“Bodie,” she called out. “What the hell are you doing?” Something just felt wrong. In spite of the bright morning sun, the lonely stretch of road felt sinister. She leaned on the jeep’s horn in a couple short bursts.
His head popped up above the foliage and even from a hundred yards away, his face looked grim.
“What was that about?” she asked as he climbed into the passenger seat and slammed the door.
“Know anything about Santeria?”
A shudder rippled through her body. Her Protector training had covered all types of practices, especially those that leaned toward dark magic. “Yeah. Why?”
He told her about his night time run and finding the spell at the point where the paths crossed. “Why did you go back?” she asked.
“To see if the offerings were still there.”
“Were they?”
“No.” He opened his hand to her revealing a gold heart charm—not the Valentine variety. “Nothing except this.”
“El corazón.”
“O coração,” he said in Portuguese.
A shiver shot up her spine. Hearts—usually those of small animals—figured in many powerful spells, few of them benevolent. A golden heart charm could probably go either way. “Why did you pick it up?”
“It wasn’t at the intersection where the spell was. The gold caught my eye on the path.” He dropped the charm into his shirt pocket. “Once I touched it, I couldn’t leave it behind.”
As limited as her understanding of the details of the rituals and sacred objects was, that much she understood. Once an object used in majik was touched, it absorbed life energy of whoever touched it and a spell could be cast on him from afar. “How do you know so much about Santeria?”
The jeep bounced from the gravel road onto the blacktop surface of the main thoroughfare into Great Harbour. Bodie stared out over the bay below. He let out a deep breath. “My mother was an Orixá, a Yorùbá priestess of Santeria.”
“Merde,” she whispered, the implications too dire to comprehend all at once. “Did she
teach you?”
He laughed bitterly. “Hell, no. Not intentionally. Once I was born, she forgot I existed. Her devotees took turns looking after me more or less. I was like the furniture—there and invisible.”
Under the bitterness she sensed a deep-seated fear and revulsion. No love, not even a little affection.
“And being a bright, curious child, you learned things.”
“Yeah.”
“What about your father?”
“Merchant seaman gone back to sea. He’d met Zamora at Carnival in Rio and married her.” The jeep hit a bump and the sun flashed off his Oakleys. “He claimed she bewitched him to get to Miami.”
“How’d you end up in Texas?”
“What is this, twenty questions? I told you how I learned about Santeria. I’d rather not discuss the rest.”
A Brazilian Orixá mother, the ability to sense delphic and orphic energy, a revenant, and a gold heart charm in his pocket. No way could she let this go. She pulled over onto the shoulder of the road and turned off the engine.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“Sorry, Bodie. I need some answers starting with: how involved were you in your mother’s rituals? Did you cast spells, summon spirits, practice magic?”
Even through his sunglasses, she felt his glare.
“I was a kid, damn it. I wish to God I’d never seen any of it.”
“Like what?”
His lips thinned. “You don’t want to go there.”
“Yeah, I do,” she said. “And we’re not going anywhere until I get some answers.”
“Okay. I saw it all. Possession. Orgies. Zamora murdering her lover. João was the closest thing I ever had to a father.”
Her stomach lurched. “Murdered how?”
He looked away.
“Bodie, murdered how?”
A sheen of sweat glittered on his forehead and his hand went to his neck. “With a snake of fire that strangled him then slid down his throat and burned him from the inside.”
“Jesus. And you saw this?”
He nodded. “That night I ran away and never saw Zamora again.”
“How old were you?”
“Seven.”
“So young.” She reached out to lay her fingers on him and he pulled away.
“Okay, Dr. Phil, can we get a move on here?” he snapped.
“Did you tell the authorities?”
“What don’t you get about Santeria? The authorities couldn’t touch her and pissing her off would’ve landed me just as dead as João. My only chance was to disappear.”
Not an easy feat for a seven-year-old in a city like Miami. The tropical sun beat down on her head and a bead of sweat ran down the back of her shirt. She started the car and pulled back onto the road. They began their descent to the village.
“Ever told anyone else?” she asked.
“No, princess, you’re the first.”
• • •
The gold charm weighed heavily in Bodie’s pocket, almost as much as his confession weighed on his mind. What had he been thinking telling a complete stranger about Zamora? Knowledge was power and the last thing he needed was another Durand with information that could be used against him.
When they reached the village, Lex swerved into the space between two palm trees twenty yards down the beach from the dock.
While he began to unload the bags from the back of the jeep, Lex called David to find out if the team had any update on the dolphins.
He hoisted the bags and set out across the sand to the seaplane tied up to the far end of the dock. Silverbelle bobbed gently against its bumpers. He dropped the bags, unlocked the rear door and hesitated. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Turning, he scanned the beach.
Aside from the group around the patio bar table, the only person on the shoreline was Lex. Still, he felt watched. A flash of movement behind the jeep caught his eye and he squinted. In the shadows stood the waitress from the restaurant—Catalina—the one who had noticed his tattoos, staring at him. He felt disquiet, but not fear. Her attention lacked the malice of the Obeah woman on Fat Dog. This was different. Then Catalina vanished, disappeared into thin air. He shuddered. The sooner he got back to his boat, the happier he’d be.
Lex hopped into the cockpit and started up the engines with a quiet hum. Silverbelle lifted off across Great Harbour and flew west over the five mile strait between Jost Van Dyke and Tortola.
Her hand eased back on the throttle and the plane began to climb. “That first day on Fat Dog I asked Mark if I could trust you.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me to decide for myself.”
“Have you?”
“Can I trust you?”
“I can keep a secret,” he said. “Who would I tell?”
“And if I ask you to vow you’ll never reveal anything I tell you, will you?”
“Could this information get me killed?” he asked warily.
Her ponytail bobbed when her head nodded. “We’d be even.”
Hell, with someone already out to snuff his ass, why not make the situation worse? “I promise never to tell anyone anything you tell me in confidence.”
“To the world, the Durands appear to be a family of wealthy French aristocrats with global business and philanthropic interests. We’re also a covert organization of Protectors with a long history of fighting an enemy who would enslave the ordinaire world with mind control and violence. Evil exists and has the advantage of not playing by any rules. You’ve felt the red orphic energy. Watched a man killed with your mother’s dark majik.”
He winced. “You said we. Who exactly are these Protectors?”
“I’m one. I’ve been highly trained for combat—one-on-one, weapons, covert ops. I’m a soldier and when the time comes to face whoever’s behind what was done to my whales and dolphins, I’m going to be there.”
If anything happens to Lex, I’m coming for you. Durand’s message was clear. And yet her plane and training could be very valuable if he found the laser or whatever it was. No way was he making her any promises he’d regret later. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
She must have taken that as a yes since she didn’t push the subject.
Silverbelle crested the last hill and Road Town stretched out below.
“Looks like there’s been some excitement in the yacht basin while we were gone,” Lex said nodding toward the marina on the eastern side of the bay.
Sure enough several official looking vessels loomed near the slip where he’d left the Talos. Coincidence? The security on his boat was impenetrable, the equipment protected by blast-proof, fireproof walls, and the data encryption could not be broken. And the last line of defense, if all else failed…
“There are binoculars in the chart box,” Lex said. “I’ll circle around so you can check it out.”
He swallowed hard and fumbled with the latch. Rooting through charts and manuals, his fingers finally landed on the binoculars. His hands trembled as they adjusted the knob that brought the image into focus. An icy vise squeezed his lungs as he stared at the chaos below.
The last line of defense, if all else failed, was that the Talos and everything onboard would self-destruct.
His boat was gone.
The blood drained from his brain leaving him stunned and numb. His entire life was on the Talos. All lost.
“What’s happening down there?” Lex asked.
“The Talos blew itself up.”
“Are you sure?”
He scanned the harbor hoping to find the sailboat had merely been moved. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
He turned to study her profile as she took the seaplane down for a landing on the opposite side of the harbor from the commotion. One night, that’s all they’d been gone. Had Lex intentionally lured him to Jost Van Dyke so someone could board his boat? Why would she do that when Mark Durand had provided all the equipment and security? No. The dolphin crisis was real. So
meone else had discovered he was in Road Town.
The seaplane glided to a stop next to an empty pier at the end of the charter docks.
Lex removed her sunglasses and her dark blue eyes studied him. “Could it have been an accident?”
He stared past her to the chaos in the marina. “Abso-fucking-lutely not.”
Chapter Sixteen
Lex expected Bodie to be furious about losing his boat. His cold resignation worried her.
She rested a hand on his forearm. “I’m going to go find out what I can from the cops.”
He reached for the door handle. “I’m coming, too.”
“Bad idea. You’re not exactly inconspicuous.”
“You are?”
“The Ariel and Aurora have done plenty of search and rescue missions for the local authorities over the years. I have connections who will talk to me. You need to lay low until we know what happened.” She opened the pilot’s door and hesitated. “Or maybe we should get the hell out of here now.”
“No, go check it out. I’ll try to reach your brother and find out if DT picked up an intruder on the security system.”
The midday sun beat down on her head as she walked along the road that edged the bay. She pulled her ComDev from her shorts pocket and sent her brother a text: Talos blown up in Road Town. Call me.
The closer she got to the excitement, the more wary she became. Two large white boats with Royal BVI Police in black letters idled just offshore to block boat traffic from entering or leaving the marina. Yellow tape cordoned off the street adjacent to the docks where it seemed every police officer and harbor employee milled around, waiting for orders. A half dozen divers in wetsuits sat dripping on two benches. A long-haired, bearded blond waved to her. He rose and headed her way.
“Hey, Damon, what happened here?” she asked.
“Sailboat blew up in the middle of the night. Damnedest thing. Sucker sunk before anyone knew what happened.”
“Been down on it?”
He grinned. “First one as soon as it was light. Don’t know who the son-of-a-bitch was, but he had some radical shit on that boat.”
“Oh?” Radical shit could be almost anything in Damon’s world.
