Children of Poseidon: Rann

by Carr, Annalisa

  She walked away, impervious to the persistent rain. Rann followed, swallowing his urge to comment on the weather.

  Lykos arrived as Lila made the coffee, and he strode over to hug his half-brother.

  “Rann. Good of you to visit.” He radiated vitality, and his presence brightened up the gray afternoon. Sweeping Lila into his arms, he kissed her mouth briefly before releasing her. He looked happier than Rann had ever seen him. “Any particular reason?”

  “I’m on my way to London,” Rann told them. “I thought I’d stop off here on the way. I wondered if you might be able to throw some light on a problem I have.”

  “You have a problem?” Lykos raised his eyebrows. “How did you let that happen?”

  Rann smiled. Lykos’s sarcasm had no effect on him; he knew his brother thought him too easy going to worry about anything and, in general, it was true.

  “Do you need to talk to Lykos privately?” Lila poured coffee into three earthenware mugs and stacked some shortbread biscuits onto a matching plate.

  Rann shook his head.

  She handed two of the cups to Lykos then led the way back into the huge bright sitting room. Lykos and Rann followed.

  “Very domestic.” Rann glanced at his brother. Before he’d met Lila, Lykos would never have dreamed of carrying his own coffee. He took his servants attentiveness for granted.

  Lykos passed a mug to Rann. “Sit down. Let’s hear what you’ve got to say. What on earth are you going to London for, anyway? Horrible place.” He shuddered.

  “Will you see Maya?” Lila interjected.

  “I hope she’ll let me stay for a few days,” Rann said. “Jewel’s with her.”

  “Jewel?” Lila’s brow furrowed. “I thought she was on your island.”

  “She wanted to see her mother.” Rann shook his head. “I’m not sure why. Something about closure.”

  “Kara’s a weird woman.” Lila’s brow wrinkled. “I got the impression she resents Jewel. She never paid her much attention. I always felt a bit sorry for her.”

  “She’s all right.” Rann didn’t want anyone pitying Jewel. She was fine, strong; she’d escaped the misery of her home life. “But I don’t understand why she wants to leave the island.”

  “Leave?” Lila raised her eyebrows. “Permanently?”

  “She says she wants to make a life for herself.” Rann sounded disgruntled even to his own ears. “Why can’t she do it on the island? It’s her home.”

  “She’s been there for nine years,” Lila sounded thoughtful. “Maybe she wants to try something else. After all, the original idea was that she should stay there just for the year of her banishment. Is she thinking she might rejoin the coven?”

  “Not her mother’s.” Rann shook his head. “She said she’d look for another, somewhere with decent weather.”

  “She’s young.” Lykos interrupted. “Maybe she wants to stretch her wings. See something of the world outside your little kingdom.”

  Rann’s domain covered the whole of the Indian Ocean. He scowled at Lykos, who grinned.

  “She said she had a crush on me.” Rann hadn’t meant to say that; it just slipped out.

  Lykos smirked. “And she left anyway?”

  Lila elbowed him.

  “So why didn’t she want to stay? I’d have been good to her.” He scrutinised Lila. “You’re a witch. Why did she tell me that and then leave?”

  Lila looked thoughtful. “Jewel’s had a poor home life. You saw what her mother’s like? You know how she got mixed up with that rogue mage, Micael. I think she doesn’t trust herself. She probably doesn’t want to give her heart to anyone in case she gets kicked again.”

  “I love her.” Rann’s voice rose in outrage. He’d never treated any of his people badly; he loved them all and cared for them all. His former lovers still felt the same affection for him that he felt for them.

  “You love everyone on that island of yours. It means nothing.” Lykos held his hand up as Rann opened his mouth.

  He couldn’t believe his half-brother had said that.

  “I meant that Jewel is not one of your people. She probably wouldn’t like to be one of many. Witch women like to be exclusive.” He glanced at Lila. “Isn’t that right?”

  “Exactly right.” Lila put her hand on Lykos’s thigh. “Mine.”

  Rann shook his head. “I don’t understand any of you.” He sipped his coffee, pushing Jewel out of his mind. “Anyway, I needed to talk to you about something serious. What do you know about seawitches?”

  “They’re extinct, aren’t they?” Lila lifted an eyebrow. “Have been for a thousand years.”

  Lykos shook his head. “That’s not quite true. Circe’s still hanging round the Pacific.”

  “Circe’s different, though,” Rann said. Circe wasn’t just an ordinary seawitch. If anyone knew, it would be Lykos. She had paid him a visit over a thousand years ago and fooled him into thinking she was in love with him. She’d stirred things up in the oceanic communities, caused a war, and then taken off for a remote island near Tahiti.

  “Yes.” Lykos nodded. He slipped his arm round Lila’s shoulders. “I heard she has a couple of the seawitches still living with her. I’m not sure how true it is, but my sources are usually reliable.” He lifted his coffee to his lips, put it down, and eyed Rann curiously. “Why do you ask?”

  “A woman turned up in my territory last week. My mother caught her. She told me she was a seawitch. Tamsin agreed. I’d like to know where she came from.”

  “Your mother didn’t kill her?” Lykos let his bitterness over his run-in with Cyclops colour his voice.

  “Get over it.” Rann forced the smile off his face. He needed Lykos’s help. “That was more than fifty years ago.”

  Lykos grunted.

  “Why didn’t you ask her?” Lila said. “This seawitch?”

  “She was catatonic. My mother had her wrapped in chains. I’ve never seen so much nullsilver in my life. I replaced them with bracelets, of course, but she’s still not connected with reality.”

  “Catatonic?” Lila chewed a finger, and Lykos absently slapped it away from her mouth. “Have you tried taking the bracelets off?”

  “I don’t dare,” Rann said. “My mother said she was leaking dark magic when she found her, and a trail of dead bodies marked her passage. Fish, seals, seabirds. A dead mermaid washed up in the kraken’s trench. All the marks of death magic. I don’t know what would have happened if I’d taken the nullsilver away. I’d be all right, but everyone else on the island . . . and the sea . . . not worth the risk.”

  “You think she’s being used as a vessel?” Lykos asked.

  “A vessel?” Two vertical lines appeared on Lila’s forehead.

  Lykos squeezed her shoulders. “You know what a magic vessel is.”

  “No.” Lila’s tone said she didn’t want to know.

  “It’s when a living creature is used as a sink for more magic than the original user can manage by themselves. It’s what witches used familiars for. Black cats and things.”

  Lila gaped at him. “Familiars? I know what those are. They’ve been banned in the covens for years. Even with animals. And to use a human? It’s an automatic death sentence.”

  “It’s still done.” Lykos shrugged. “By renegade mages, and occasionally talented pure humans work out how to do it.”

  “But there’s a limit, surely?” Rann had no idea how Lykos knew all of this. It was human magic. “This witch has been leaking death magic for a while. It should have leached away by now, but it hasn’t. Maya saw the aura surrounding her, even with the bracelets.”

  “Why didn’t you kill her?” Lykos reached forward, and picking up a couple of biscuits, he gave one to his wife. “You can’t believe she’s still in the body. It mus
t be just a shell by now.”

  “I don’t know.” Rann took one of the shortbreads and contemplated it for a second. “I thought I saw a flash of awareness when I brought her out of the sea. Fear. I made a snap decision not to kill her.”

  “Where is she now?” Lykos asked. “You left her on your island?”

  “No,” Rann sank his teeth into the shortbread. “Maya and Jewel took her back to London. She’s staying with them.”

  “You left my sister with her?” Lila sat bolt upright. “A dangerous witch? Lykos, we’ve got to go to London. Now.”

  Rann did his best to look unmoved, but he’d left his island because he couldn’t shake off the sense of foreboding. He knew he couldn’t blame Lila for overreacting. “Tamsin had a dream. Seawitch should go to London. And if anyone can take care of herself, it’s Maya.”

  “She’s young.” Lila chewed her fingers again.

  Lykos pulled them away from her mouth, kissing her hand and keeping it in his. “She’s the most powerful witch your coven ever produced. You told me so yourself. And she’s an adult now.”

  “I know, but—”

  “I’m going to London.” Rann interrupted before Lila spiralled into open panic. She’d always been ultraprotective of her younger sister. “I’ll make sure she’s all right.”

  Lila gave him a look he interpreted as uncertainty.

  “I’m going anyway. I don’t like a lot about the situation. I don’t know what I was thinking letting them go alone in the first place.”

  “Too lazy?” Lykos suggested.

  Rann didn’t take the bait. He smiled instead, the lazy smile that always irritated his half-brother. “So you don’t know how to fix her?”

  Lila shook her head.

  “Not a clue,” Lykos said. “But I’ll tell you who might know. Circe.”

  “Circe?” Rann shuddered. “I can’t believe you said that. I can’t go to Circe. Not only would she not tell me, but she might try and remove my limbs at the same time. I’ve heard stories about her.”

  “She used to like a good-looking man.” Lykos folded his arms and leaned back on the sofa.

  “You’d know.”

  “If you don’t think you can handle—”

  “I don’t think. I know.” Rann ignored his brother’s attempt to wind him up. “I might be able to beat her into submission, but I can’t see how that’s going to help.”

  “She might want to help a fellow seawitch.”

  Rann couldn’t believe Lykos meant it. “Do you really think—”

  Lila interrupted. “What about Damnamenos? When he had me prisoner, he boasted about having created the seawitches. ‘Spawned them,’ he said. Maybe he’d have an idea.”

  Lykos looked sideways at her, his brows lowered. He frowned. Any normal woman would have cowered. “Damnam’s nothing but trouble. Circe would be better.”

  Lila frowned right back at him. “Not from what I hear. You know I’m right.”

  The change in his autocratic half-brother never stopped amazing Rann. Lykos had never been a bully, because he never had to be. People scurried to do his bidding at his slightest word. If they hesitated, that frown soon had them moving again. Lila seemed completely oblivious. Rann had been there at their first meeting and remembered his brother’s incredulity when Lila didn’t jump at his command. She was good for him.

  “Damnamenos?”

  “If anyone knows, he would.” Lykos’s voice was grudging, but his hand tightened on Lila’s shoulder. “You’re right.”

  “Thanks.” Rann finished his coffee. “I’ll see what she’s like when I get to London. Then I’ll decide whether to ask Damnam. Do you think he’d tell me?” Damnamenos was their half-brother, the youngest son of Poseidon. He’d resented his older brothers for millennia. Nine years ago he’d had Lila kidnapped and then snatched Maya. His resulting defeat at Lykos’s hands had done nothing to improve the relationship.

  Lila answered. “I think he would. He’s a lot of sound and fury, but he sounded as if he had a soft spot for the seawitches.”

  Lykos snorted.

  “And if he created them, surely they must be valuable to him. He was always going on about adding witches to his household.”

  “He did say they’d be miserable slaves,” Lykos pointed out.

  Lila shrugged.

  “I’ll ask him,” Rann said. “It can’t do any harm.”

  “I’ve had another idea.” Lila looked pleased with herself. “Remember the witch and werewolf partners who were prisoners with me?” She had been kept in a cage between Annis, the witch, and Connor, the werewolf.

  “I remember.” Rann raised his brows at Lykos. “The two who helped me track down the missing supernaturals?”

  “Of course I remember. I’m not senile.” Lykos scowled at Rann.

  “They were private investigators,” Lila said. “Working mostly for the magic community. Annis is a finder witch. Maybe they’d know how to go about finding where this seawitch came from.”

  “That’s a good idea.” Rann gave her an approving smile. “Do you know how to get in touch with them?”

  “I’ll give you Annis’s number. We’ve kept in touch. She’s bound to remember you.”

  “Thanks, Lila. Best thing Lykos ever did was keep you.” He glanced at his half-brother whose face had taken on an expression of smugness. “I’ll let you know how it goes.”

  Chapter 8

  Jewel sipped her coffee and slumped into the window seat of the Italian coffee shop on Hampstead High Street. Closing her eyes, she mentally prepared herself for the meeting with her mother. A strong feeling that she would not want, or be able to eat and drink while in her old home, made her dread the prospect of sitting down to tea. Going to the café was an attempt to delay the moment, as well as an exercise in nostalgia. She and Maya had haunted the place while they were teenagers, dropping in every day after school. It was amazing to Jewel how little had changed. It was here she’d met Micael for coffee and ice cream.

  They used to sit in this same seat, next to the plate glass window overlooking the high street. Micael liked to talk, and she would hang on his every word. He’d always pause and check his reflection in the window of the shop across the street before he joined her. She could instantly visualise the way he would smooth his hand over the spikes in his cropped, blond hair. He never guessed how closely she watched him.

  Where is he now? What happened to him in the last nine years?

  Micael’s magic had been stripped from him by her mother’s coven. They’d exiled him from all the covens. None of them, anywhere in the world, would have anything to do with him after that. It was a fitting punishment for a people-trafficking rogue mage. She hadn’t thought about him properly for years. She’d thought he was so clever and grown up, but looking back, she realised he wasn’t much older than she was. Attractive in a golden androgynous sort of way, or at least that’s what she’d thought then. He’d been a terrible criminal, with drugs and kidnapping to his credit, but he made her feel good for a while, and she found it difficult to hate him, even knowing what he was. He had been kind to her. Before her old life fell apart.

  A prickling of awareness on the skin of her face jerked her out of her reverie.

  She opened her eyes and stared out the window at the passing shoppers, wondering why the scene looked wrong. Her gaze lingered on a tramp-like figure, shuffling through the crowds of affluent young people, completely out of place. He was older for a start, his long hair graying, but apart from that he wore a long shabby overcoat that might have been made from some sort of tweed. It covered him from his neck to his ankles. Shiny new trainers stuck out from the tattered hem. He gazed at the coffee shop, body almost quivering with concentration. Jewel’s skin itched as though he stared directly at her. She looked away and gl
anced back, but he’d disappeared as though he’d never been there.

  Pushing herself to her feet, she left the money for her coffee on the table along with a small tip. She knew it was time she bit the bullet and faced her mother. Once, she told herself, just once, then it would be over. She had to prove to herself she could do it. Then she could move on. She closed her eyes again, and Rann’s face danced behind her eyelids. Dark, relaxed, and sensual. A twinge of loss rippled through her before she picked up her bag, gathered her courage, and walked up the hill to the mansion she’d been brought up in.

  The guard who opened the main gates to the house was a stranger to Jewel. He asked for identification, and she handed him her passport with a sense of incredulity. Since when has the coven’s headquarters become a controlled zone?

  Shaking her head in bemusement, she walked down the gravel drive to the imposing front door and rang the bell. An unfamiliar maid answered. It all served to remind her how long she’d been away. The maid held the door open, allowing Jewel to step into the hallway. Her youthful face showed a studied disinterest, but she stole sidelong glances as she accompanied Jewel to one of the sitting rooms.

  “Take a seat, Miss Vargas.” She waved at the arrangement of squashy sofas round a low glass coffee table.

  Jewel hovered. She hadn’t been in this room much as a child. Her mother entertained her coven in here. Most of Jewel’s youth had been spent in the kitchen, or in her room, and just being back in the house made her feel slightly sick. She sank down onto one of the sofas and pulled herself forward so she perched on the edge. Shifting nervously, she brushed a stray hair off her short red skirt before smoothing her new hairstyle with shaking fingers.