I settled more comfortably on the hard, wooden bench and closed my eyes, sending my mind out into the night. Moths orbited each glowing lamp post, and hurled themselves at the floodlights on the tennis court. A small owl perched on the big gum closest to the house; through her eyes, I saw a swimmer cutting through the rippling waters of the elevated pool, indulging in a midnight swim. Wavering blue reflections danced over the white ceiling above the swimmer.
But I needed something inside the house. A couple of cockroaches scurried in the dark crevices below the pool, but inside was remarkably bug-free. No mice inside the walls, no cockroaches in the pantry. Ah, but there was something I could use—a dog.
Excellent. He was curled up on an expensive-looking leather lounge in a giant living area overlooking the rear terrace, with a diamante-studded collar around his fluffy white neck. A tiny, spoiled dog—even better. He probably had the run of the whole house. I prodded him awake and sent him pattering across the polished wooden floor.
We followed the sound of voices and clinking cutlery to a vast dining room where a long table sat twelve or fourteen people. The dog’s nose quivered at the scents wafting from the plates. A woman seated at the foot of the table saw the dog and clicked her fingers invitingly at him. I refused to let him go to her; he seemed just the right size to be picked up and cuddled, and I didn’t want to lose my furry spy.
Scanning the faces at the table, I felt a chill of recognition as the dog’s gaze fell on Bruno’s face. I’d never known his surname, but he’d been one of the shadow shapers involved with EmeryCorp and the vile Mrs Emery in Newport. It was no great surprise to find him here, seated at the head of the table. Who were these others with him? More shadow shapers? Local watershapers he was trying to persuade to the shadow shapers’ cause? I hoped they all choked on their meals.
The woman clicked her fingers at the dog again. “What’s the matter, baby? Are you looking for something? Have you lost your ball?”
Ha. If she only knew what I was looking for it would wipe that sickly sweet smile from her face. I guided the dog from the room and went to explore the rest of this level.
We found nothing of interest, just more luxury. Seriously, did people really need a whole cinema in their own house? On the ground floor, we found some closed doors, but the dog sniffed at the gap beneath the door, and it didn’t smell as though there were any people behind them, so we moved on. There were several people busy in the kitchen, which had the same enticing smells that had so interested the dog upstairs, but none of them took any notice of him.
A spiral staircase off the kitchen led down to a basement area, and the dog trotted down on sure feet, his nails clicking on the gleaming wood. The staircase opened onto yet another lounge area. Through an archway, rows of gym machines waited in the dark, and the scent of sweat hung in the air.
Two hallways ran away from the lounge area. There was nothing to see down one of them but a closed door at the end. The space on the other side of the door smelled of petrol and hot metal, so I assumed it was the garage. That would put it roughly underneath the pool, so that seemed right.
Back we went and tried the other hallway. This seemed more promising. It offered four doors, two on each side. All were closed except the first door on the left. Light spilled from the room into the otherwise dim corridor. A man sitting at a desk looked up at the sound of the dog’s claws clicking on the floor.
“Hello, boy. What are you doing down here, hey?” He reached out and I allowed the dog close enough to be patted while I checked out the room. Three big computer screens sat on the long desk, as if this was a shared work space, though only one of them was active. It showed what appeared to be a video feed of a windowless room, lit only by downlights that had been dimmed, perhaps to allow the room’s occupant to sleep.
The room contained nothing but a bed. Judging by the short hair, the person in the bed was a man. He was facing the wall, so I couldn’t see his face, but my heart leapt all the same. Who else would be locked in a windowless room—barely more than a cell, despite the luxury on display everywhere else in this mansion—but the person I was seeking? It was someone important, perhaps someone they even feared, given the fact they didn’t even dare allow him true darkness to sleep, but they had to have someone watching him all the time. They were taking no chances with this prisoner.
I took the dog back out into the corridor and gazed at the three closed doors that remained. Behind one of these Hades lay; I was almost certain. I was so excited I almost lost my grip on the dog’s mind. He sniffed at the bottom of each door. Only one smelled as though someone was in the room.
“What are you doing, you stupid dog?” the man asked, coming to the open door of his little guard station. “Get away from there.”
A dull slamming of car doors turned both man and dog’s heads towards the sound. The man stayed in the doorway, but I sent the dog trotting back down the corridor toward the noise. Voices, muffled at first, then louder once the door between the garage and the house opened. Footsteps on concrete. It sounded as though several people had arrived. They brought with them a renewed smell of petrol and the faint stench of burnt rubber.
A group of men appeared, led by a familiar face. The dog whined at the surge of animosity over the link between us. Adrian. I’d hoped he’d died in the collapse of the house back in Newport, but no such luck. Here he was, still neck-deep in the shadow shapers’ schemes, apparently still in Mrs Emery’s good books. I was surprised I hadn’t seen her yet.
“All quiet here?” Adrian asked, stopping the group when he caught sight of the guard standing in the doorway of his little office. “No trouble with the prisoner?”
“No, sir. He’s been asleep since my shift started.”
“Good.” Adrian led the group through the lounge to the spiral staircase, no doubt off to join the party upstairs.
I’d seen enough. I released the dog and fell back into my own body.
The darkness in our little hideaway under the drooping branches of the willow was strange after the light, however dim, inside the house. Syl started as I punched the air, rocking the small boat.
“Found him!” I crowed.
“Is he hurt?” Syl asked, frowning at me for the boat-rocking.
That sobered me a little. Maybe that was why he’d lain so still. “I don’t know. Couldn’t tell from the look I got.”
“Did you get a look at the exits?” Lucas asked. “What’s the plan?”
“He’s down on the basement level. One exit through the garage, another up a spiral staircase into the kitchen. It’s all underground, so no windows.”
Lucas looked thoughtful. “That’s a nuisance. Still, we expected as much. How many in the house?”
“At the moment, maybe twenty. Looks like a late dinner party going on.”
“We could use that as cover—go in while they’re distracted.”
I shook my head. “No, the kitchen’s full of staff. Better to wait until most of them have gone home. We’ve got all night.”
“Good,” Syl said. “Does that mean we can get off this stupid river and back onto dry land?”
“Sure. Let’s head over to Cerberus and work out exactly what we’re doing.” I couldn’t see him, but the three red sparks of his life force stood out to my mind’s sight, lurking in the darkness of the property next to the shadow shapers’ house.
Lucas nodded, and used an oar against the bank to push the boat out from under the hanging branches. The leaves parted like a veil, sliding across our heads and shoulders in a gentle caress as we left the shelter of the willow tree.
None of us spoke as the boat glided over the dark water toward the far bank, all watching the brightly lit house. We were nearly halfway across when the boat jarred as we bumped against something. Syl half-swallowed a shriek. “What was that?”
Lucas peered into the dark, but even his shifter vision wasn’t up to the task. “Don’t know. Probably just a bit of floating wood.”
In t
he darkness, I could make out the glimmer of Syl’s pale arms, reaching out to take a better grip on the sides of the boat.
Another bump jarred us, and even I grabbed hold of the seat. What the hell? It felt as though we’d run into something much bigger than a piece of wood.
The next thing I knew, I was flung into the air as the stern of the boat flew up out of the water. It happened so quickly I didn’t even get a chance to take a breath before I was underwater.
The water was freezing, and pitch black. I struggled, weighed down by my clothes and heavy boots. Hoping I had the right direction, I kicked out hard for the surface, desperate for air. The darkness was so impenetrable that Syl could have been right next to me and I wouldn’t have seen her. My head broke the surface and I gulped in a great relieved breath.
And then a hand closed around my ankle and pulled me back under.
11
I’m not ashamed to say I panicked. It was dark and I couldn’t see a thing. I nearly lost the breath I’d just sucked in from the shock of feeling something grab me, and I kicked out in terror with my free foot. I forgot Lucas and Syl in the sheer primal terror of near-drowning. I needed air! Which way was up? I thrashed and kicked against whatever had my leg, frantic.
My lungs burned with the need for air. I jack-knifed, trying to reach the knife in my boot, but more hands took my arms, dragging me down. I couldn’t hold out much longer. My chest convulsed as I fought the reflex that insisted I open my mouth and take a breath.
My head banged against something hard, and the last of my air rushed from my mouth in a stream of bubbles. But before I could breathe in a lungful of water, the hands fell away and the water itself convulsed, hurling me skyward.
I broke the surface, gasping and retching. Sweet air had never felt so good as I filled my aching lungs.
“There you go,” said a voice. “Grab on, that’s a good girl.”
My blindly reaching hand closed on a smooth metal bar. I looked up, straight into a spotlight that dazzled my vision, and hung there in the cold water, blinking. Something breached the surface an arm’s length away, gasping and heaving in air as I’d just done. As my vision cleared, I realised it was Lucas.
Suddenly I looked around, panic churning in my gut. “Where’s Syl?”
“I’m here.” A figure loomed above me; a black silhouette against the glare of the spotlight. She was on a boat, a large boat, and I was holding onto the ladder hanging over the back of it.
Where the hell had a boat this size come from without us noticing it before? Whatever. I wasn’t about to look a gift boat in the mouth, that was for sure. Plus, I had a feeling that the boat’s owner had somehow driven away the owners of the hands who had threatened to drag me down to death. I gripped the rungs of the ladder with both hands and hauled myself up out of the water, eager to be out of their reach.
Hands reached out again, but this time, they were helping. Syl got a grip on one arm and the strange man grabbed a handful of my wet shirt at the back. Together, they pulled me over the transom and onto the deck. I sank down onto the deck, my knees unaccountably weak. There was nothing like a near-drowning to knock the stuffing out of a girl.
“You all right there?” the man asked, bending over to wrap a thick blanket around my trembling shoulders. His left arm was covered in a complicated tattoo of Celtic knots that tangled all the way to his shoulder. It left my own tiny archer tattoo for dead.
Now that the spotlight was no longer shining in my eyes, I got my first good look at the rest of him. He was young, mid to late twenties. His brown, shoulder-length hair had blonde streaks bleached into it by the sun, and his skin was deeply tanned. He looked like he should be a lifeguard on some sun-soaked beach, not cruising up a dark canal in the middle of the night.
Lucas’s wet head appeared at the top of the ladder and he joined me on the deck, shaking himself like a dog, flinging drops of water over all of us.
“Welcome aboard,” the man said with a cheery grin. “You’re quite safe now.”
Lucas eyed him, not quite so cheerfully. I got the impression that werewolves didn’t like unexpected dunkings any more than cats did. “Who are you?”
“You can call me Mac.”
Hmm. I wiped my face with the edge of the blanket and clambered shakily to my feet. I felt at a disadvantage staring up at him like a little kid. He hadn’t actually said his name was Mac, only that we could call him that.
“What just happened?” I asked.
Mac handed Lucas a blanket. He used it like a towel, and rubbed himself briskly down. Syl was already wrapped up in one, looking small and bedraggled. I pulled mine a little tighter around myself; the night air was cold when you were wet. I wrung my hair out onto the deck, trying to disguise the shaking of my hands.
“Looked like you capsized,” Mac said.
“We didn’t. Something—or someone—threw us into the water. And then tried to drown us.” I couldn’t keep the note of outrage from my voice.
Mac spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “The local Merrow aren’t very friendly sometimes.”
“Not very friendly?” Lucas burst out. “The bastards tried to kill us.”
“Lucky I was here, then.” Mac smiled, and crow’s feet appeared at the corners of his eyes. Suddenly, he looked a lot older than I’d first thought.
“Lucky,” I agreed, suddenly cautious. He hadn’t been anywhere near us before the Merrow attacked; I was positive. How had he got there so fast, and where had he come from? He was obviously some kind of watershaper. That surge I’d felt as the water lifted me up toward the surface would have given that away, even without his apparent ability to snatch us from the hands of the Merrow.
I’d never met a Merrow before, although I’d heard of them. They weren’t common in the southern waters. They were an odd kind of shifter in that, unlike most shifters, they didn’t completely transform into their animal shape. Their top half remained human while their bottom half turned fish. They had a bad reputation as ship wreckers and drowners of men. Guess we’d just had that one confirmed. I wondered what a pod of them were doing here in Sanctuary Point, and whether they were connected to the shadow shapers. Maybe they were the reason there was no apparent security on the canal side of the property—they were the security.
For that matter, was our new friend in league with the shadow shapers? But if so, why would he have saved us? He might as well have let the Merrow drown us, since the job had nearly been finished anyway. As usual, I had way more questions than answers.
“How did you drive the Merrow away?”
Mac turned off the powerful spotlight now that we were all safely aboard. It was a relief—I’d felt like I was on a stage, exposed for anyone out there in the dark to see. It also meant I could no longer see the violently pink flowers all over his lurid shirt so clearly, which was no bad thing. The guy wouldn’t be winning any fashion awards with his wardrobe choices. He grinned at me. “I can be very persuasive when I want to. It’s my charming personality, you see.”
“Really?” If Apollo had said that, I would have branded him a wanker, but this guy’s grin was so infectious I couldn’t help smiling back.
“Really. I could talk a werewolf into becoming a vegetarian.”
Lucas snorted. I wondered if Mac could tell that Lucas was a wolf, or if it had been a random remark. My guess was the former. I got the feeling there was a lot going on under the surface of Mr Sunny Side Up.
“Can I drop you folks off somewhere?” he asked.
“Do you live locally?” I asked.
“Here and there.” The twinkle in his eye said he was enjoying my frustration at his evasiveness.
“We’re very lucky you were here right when we needed you,” Syl said, making big eyes at him. From the corner of my eye, I saw Lucas bristle. I could have told him not to worry; Syl was only fishing for information. “Are you a watershaper?”
“Something like that,” Mac agreed cheerfully, not swayed by her flattery. He was
awfully tight-lipped for someone whose manner appeared so open. My gratitude at being saved from a watery death began to be replaced by an eagerness to get away. He was charming, but we didn’t need any charming shapers throwing a spanner in our plans.
“Just drop us anywhere over there,” I said, indicating the dark property where Cerberus was waiting. “We can find our own way home.”
Two could play at being evasive.
“What were you doing out here so late anyway?” he asked, as the boat began to move across the dark canal. There was no steering wheel or engine, and it was certainly too big to pole or row. One of those watershaper waves appeared at the stern, pushing the boat along, though he uttered no command and made no obvious move. He must have been controlling it with his mind. Impressive.
“Fishing,” I said, daring him to challenge me.
“You’ll find the fish bite better at dawn and dusk,” he said, as if he believed me, though I was quite sure he didn’t.
“I’ll remember that next time.”
He pulled the boat in at the dark jetty. I searched the blackness under the trees for red, glowing eyes, but thankfully, the hellhound remained hidden.
“I heard there were some new folk in town,” he said, “though my informant ended up taking an unexpected swim in the canal.”
I didn’t dare look at Lucas, though I could feel him tense at my side. Ready to tear this guy’s throat out if he had to. “I hope he didn’t have any trouble with the Merrow.”
“No, he was fine, and the Merrow have gone off to consider the wisdom of their life choices.” He smiled at me, his eyes as dark as the pitch-black waters of the canal, and just as hard to see what was going on beneath the surface. “You know, not everyone you meet is an enemy.”
“It’s safer to assume that everyone is. That way you don’t get any nasty surprises.” I took off my blanket and handed it to him. “Thank you for your help.”
Hidden Goddess (Shadows of the Immortals Book 4) Page 11
