Corey walked to the veranda and they trailed him, ostentatiously refusing to look at each other. “Iovanius, have you ever appeared in daylight before?”
“Many times.” The ghost stomped up the veranda steps, making thudding noises despite his lack of a physical body.
Cliff the behemi woke, startled, and gave an indignant squeal. He flew off, veering at the last moment to fly around rather than directly through Iovanius.
“Stupid, flying ham hock.” Iovanius waved his arms.
“Those ‘many times’, did anyone actually see you?” Corey persisted.
Iovanius reached for the sword Corey held. “No. Give me my gladius.”
Poppy walked between the ghost and the man.
Iovanius dropped his hand and stared at the baku. “I am not evil,” he told her.
“But are you stronger on the island?” Corey asked.
Naomi frowned. “It’s obvious that Otis channeling Iovanius energy yesterday did strengthen him. He’s much more substantial.”
Corey kept his gaze on the teenage ghost. “Hmm. However, I think Iovanius’s additional power existed before then. It was you who told me, Naomi.”
“Me?” She stared around, baffled.
He nodded. “You identified Catalina Island as a hotspot for fantastical creatures, but more than that, you mentioned its high level of ambient magic—or as Uncle Otis would call it, paranormal energy. I’ve always taken for granted that the ghosts attached to objects which he’s brought here are coherent specters, capable of communication and reason, and even, in Iovanius’s case, able to move things. But what if all of that is due to a power boost from the island’s paranormal energy?”
Iovanius held out his hands and studied them. Then he zoomed left, right, and back to the screen door, rattling it.
“What the heck are you doing?” Otis roared from inside the house.
Iovanius opened, then slammed the door. Opened, then slammed it.
“Stop that,” Otis shouted, and gripped the door handle from inside.
“I am stronger here,” Iovanius said.
“From the energy I channeled to you,” Otis snarled. “And I very much regret it. A fat lot of help you were.”
Naomi intervened. “He was scared.”
Iovanius’s scowl was worse than Otis’s. He picked up the cushioned seat of the porch swing and threw it onto the wet lawn.
“Enough.” Corey intervened. “Iovanius, stop and think. If you have more power on Catalina Island, now is your chance to be a hero. You can actually do things, here. Move things. You can act.”
The ghost ceased wrenching at the hooks that held the porch swing to the beams of the veranda.
As Corey explained his hypothesis to Otis that the island’s energy made ghosts stronger, Otis’s expression grew from incredulous to furious.
“You mean that all these pesky ghosts over the years had the power to annoy me because I brought them here?” Otis looked as if he wanted to fling cushions around as Iovanius had.
Corey nodded. “It would explain why you didn’t sense the ghosts attached to the objects you brought here. They were faint shadows of themselves when you encountered them on the mainland. But here on the island, they sucked in energy and grew stronger.”
“You are right,” Iovanius said. “I am stronger here. In Milan, I communicated with no one. Before that, I was in a German collection, in a castle, and I nearly faded away. I was strongest when my gladius lay undiscovered in the dirt of a graveyard. It was a plague pit, originally.” He drifted away, dematerializing as he went. Perhaps to think, as Corey had advised.
Corey considered the gladius in his hand. “I’ll keep this with me.” Perhaps he didn’t trust Iovanius as much as his calm tone suggested.
“Fine. Bring it with you,” Otis said. “I have some maps out in my study. There’s something you should see.”
Naomi stared at the spot where Iovanius had vanished and barely suppressed a groan. Now what?
Chapter 10
Cait waited for them in an armchair in Otis’s study. Poppy trotted to her, leapt up, and settled on her lap. Given Cait’s lack of surprise, the baku must have relaxed her glamour so that Cait could see her. Cait scratched the little creature’s head.
Otis went straight to his wide, deep walnut desk positioned under the window. It had a large map unrolled on it, pinned by books. The map was of Catalina Island. He stabbed a finger at a rocky expanse of north-eastern coastline. “Roy and Janelle wrecked the Second Chance here.”
Corey and Naomi leaned in to look. He set the gladius down on the edge of the desk and put his arm around her waist. “Strange Beach. Yeah?” He glanced interrogatively at Otis.
Naomi was still trying to come to terms with their encounter with Iovanius outside and all that it meant. Glamours and ghosts drew from the same paranormal energy; yet she hadn’t even believed ghosts were real until Iovanius had appeared.
The last couple of days had revolutionized her world, and although none of it had been or would be easy, she’d have paid an even higher price for the feeling of being exactly where she belonged: with Corey.
Since the situation was too urgent for her to indulge in romantic musings, she concentrated on the map. The shape of Catalina Island was familiar to her after months of studying it while preparing her request for funding, and then, detailing a plan for the year she’d spend here. Only a year. With Corey’s arm around her waist, a year seemed too short a time.
“Here is the jackalope burrow, the sea serpents’ nesting pools, the ourobui colony.” Otis jabbed the map repeatedly. “Here is where the rocs nest.”
Naomi stretched across the desk and Corey’s hand slid to her hip. “Whirlpools have been reported for here and here, just off the coast. Kraken could have helped wreck the Second Chance.”
“Except that those who found it were experienced sailors, and they reckon it was purposely beached. Purposely beached at an area where fantastical creatures are gathered.” Otis stepped back from the map, gesturing her closer. “From your research, do you know of any other fantastical creatures around the area?”
“Wisdom fish and seahorses in the ocean.” She frowned. Janelle and Roy had wrecked very near a zone she’d specifically marked for special attention. She just hadn’t connected the dots to Otis’s report of the wreck site. “The 1960s research survey mentioned a lightning bird roosting in the valley.”
Otis slapped the desk, triumphant. “There’s a cave in that valley.”
“No.” She stared at him. “There aren’t any caves in that area. None are marked.” She looked at the map, then at Corey, who nodded agreement.
“There is a cave,” Otis contradicted them. “One hidden cave. A forgotten legend. The nengaal.” He paused, but Naomi was too confused to even form a question. She had never heard of the nengaal. “Sit down. It was Cait who asked me what I knew of the area while we looked at the map. I hadn’t thought of Mom’s story in decades.”
“So why now? What is the nengaal? Corey dumped books that littered a long sofa onto the floor. A folded afghan and cushions suggested Otis occasionally napped there. Corey tugged Naomi down to sit beside him.
They waited for Otis to continue.
The old man was giving out contradictory signals, concern fighting with excitement. He sat down in the high-backed leather executive chair behind his desk, swiveling it so that he faced them and Cait in her corner. “Have you ever considered how a baku protects itself?”
“It pushes evil away. No one meaning it harm can approach it,” Naomi said. It was why, despite her worry about Janelle and Roy loose on the island, she wasn’t frantic. With Poppy present, evil couldn’t approach them.
Although she was concerned that beside her, Corey was growing increasingly tense. In his workshop he’d shown a relaxed intensity, confident of his ability to control the situation with Janelle and Roy; to end it. Yet now, as Otis meandered his way to whatever point he wanted to make, the muscles in Corey’s arm grew ten
se. Below the white bandages on his wrists, the tendons of his scratched and bruised hands were taut.
Rather than stare at his hands and draw attention to his tension, Naomi glanced across at Poppy. Sitting placidly on Cait’s lap, the baku’s marmalade orange ears tilted this way and that, listening. Listening to so much more than human hearing could ever detect.
“No harm can befall a baku in full possession of its power,” Otis corrected Naomi. “But there are ways to contain or fool a baku’s power. There are the enchanted hobbles.” He nodded toward the silver chains in a shallow pottery bowl on a low bookshelf. “And probably other artifacts that do the same. Then there is trickery. Con artists and hackers will tell you that in any security system, people are always the weakest link. Someone evil wanting a baku captured could manipulate, whether through lies or violence, a well-intentioned person into trapping the baku. For instance, the baku’s anti-evil defense wouldn’t work against a good person who’d been convinced that trapping the baku and sedating it for life-saving medical treatment was essential to its survival.”
Naomi inhaled a shaky breath. “Is that what we’re facing with Janelle and Roy, unknown, well-meaning attackers that they send against us?”
“No.” Otis steepled his fingers. “No, I don’t believe Janelle or Roy threaten us any longer.”
Corey jerked forward. “Why not?”
In the doorway, Iovanius materialized slowly and floated to stand beside the arm of the sofa by Corey.
“A baku is mercy,” Otis said, maddeningly avoiding a direct answer. “They drive away nightmares and evil. Before a person can act on an impulse for evil, they are forced away. The baku prevents them from doing evil in its presence. Or being evil. However, evil is persistent. If its first attempt is foiled, it tries again.”
Naomi sat straight on the sagging sofa. “But you just said you don’t believe Janelle and Roy will attack again.”
“So I did.” Otis’s green eyes sparkled with keen interest. He could have been a university professor considering and near to solving a fascinating conundrum. He produced his answer with an air of triumph. “Because mercy is only one side of the coin. On the other side is justice.”
Justice. Naomi gripped Corey’s arm as the word vibrated on the air.
Justice had so many connotations and they were all hard and sharp: ruthless, implacable, final.
“When evil refuses a baku’s merciful second chance, when a person rejects the opportunity to rethink and choose a better path, then justice takes over.” Otis paused. He shed his philosophical musings. “That is the wisdom my mother was told, and she told me. But I had forgotten. For so long, Poppy was simply part of the family. No one threatened her. I forgot that she has a protector.”
“The nengaal,” Corey said thoughtfully.
Otis’s eyes widened. “Did your dad tell you of it?”
“No. I hadn’t heard the name till now. It was a logical deduction.” Corey’s tone was flat. He’d had a lifetime’s experience of extracting the heart of any story from Otis, but this time he was intensely, emotionally involved, and not playing games. “What is the nengaal?”
Otis slumped. “It’s my fault. I should have remembered. I should have told you the story earlier, as it was told to my mother by one of the last Tongva on the island.” The Tongva were among the indigenous people of California.
Wait! Naomi tightened her hold on Corey’s arm, squeezing till he looked at her, sighed, and stayed silent. Then she released her grip. As uncharacteristically impatient as he was with Otis, they needed to let the old man tell the story his way. After that, they could ask questions.
Otis’s gaze drifted to Poppy as she lay curled on Cait’s lap. “Mrs. Lopez had the sight, the ability to see through glamours. One day she saw Poppy sitting with Mom on the front veranda of Bunyip House, and she joined them to tell Mom a story. My older brother, Errol, who died in the war, was playing in the yard. Mrs. Lopez said that a baku is gentle and friendly and will keep the children of its family safe.”
They all looked at Poppy. She seemed young, yet she’d befriended Corey’s great-grandmother. She had been part of the Madrigal family for nearly ninety years and she’d reappeared when Otis had been out of his mind with worry for Corey.
Perhaps it was the aftermath of Otis’s worry for Corey that made him so long-winded now?
And perhaps Corey hadn’t shrugged off the ordeal of his kidnapping as easily as he and they had assumed? He was tense and terse, nearly cross with his great uncle, for a reason.
Whatever the nengaal was, learning of it wasn’t helping them.
Hurry up, Otis. Tell your story. Naomi picked up a cushion and hugged it. Without thinking, she was trying to protect herself, her vulnerable chakras and her physical body.
“Mrs. Lopez added that to have the baku’s love was also a heavy responsibility.” Otis broke off as Poppy jumped from Cait’s lap to the arm of the sofa, before scrambling across Corey to nudge aside the cushion Naomi hugged and settle between them. The baku didn’t purr, but there was a sub vocal hum, a pleasant sound, as Corey rubbed her ears. His rigid posture relaxed. Otis cleared his throat. “As gentle and merciful as the baku is, it has a companion creature whose nature is justice.”
“The nengaal.” Corey played with Poppy’s front paws, pressing the pads so that the tiny tiger claws flexed and retracted. Her trunk snuffled his hand as he did so. It seemed an established game between them.
The tight sensation in Naomi’s chest eased as Corey relaxed. Was Poppy doing something to heal Corey emotionally as she had physically healed his head injury? Naomi couldn’t help raising an objection even though she wanted Otis to get to the point of his story about the nengaal. “Janelle knows about bakus. She said her family’s baku drove her away. She would know about the nengaal.”
“Would she?” Cait challenged quietly from the armchair. From the front hallway came the distant sound of the grandfather clock striking the hour. “Her family’s baku showed mercy and drove Janelle away. She left, and the nengaal had no reason to attack her.”
Naomi gestured uncertainly. “But wouldn’t her family have warned her of the nengaal? Maybe they called it by another name—”
“A bat-spider was how Mrs. Lopez described it,” Otis interjected.
Naomi shuddered. “Oh, that sounds charming.” Poppy extended a paw and tapped her knee. Naomi played with the paw as Corey had done, watching the tiny claws zing and retract.
“Have you heard of anything resembling a bat-spider?” Corey asked.
“No.” She looked at Cait. “Why wouldn’t Janelle’s family have warned her of the nengaal?”
“There are three obvious answers.” Cait counted them off on her fingers. “Firstly, her family did warn Janelle and she disregarded their warning. Secondly, her family stayed silent for their own reasons. Thirdly, they don’t know of, or have forgotten about, the baku’s companion.”
“As I did,” Otis said.
Iovanius floated down in front of the sofa to face Poppy. “Do you have a friend on the island?”
The baku attempted to snuffle him amiably, but her trunk passed through his spectral form.
“The nengaal lives in a cave,” Otis said. “It is not always on the island, which makes sense to me, since Poppy has also been absent for years. I believe she leaves the island.”
“She can’t swim,” Naomi said. “That’s why Janelle arranged for the hostage swap to happen at sea. She felt safe there.”
“Translocation, portals.” Cait shrugged, as if the possibilities of how Poppy moved around weren’t remarkable.
But Naomi and Corey stared at her.
“Portals are real?” he demanded.
“Possibly,” Cait said calmly. “We’re getting off-track.”
Naomi didn’t mind. She could have hugged Corey for sounding his usual, curious self.
Otis ignored Corey muttering “portals?” under his breath, and continued. “There’s not much more to the story of
the nengaal. Or rather, there’s the single compelling reason Mrs. Lopez told it to my mother. When evil attacks the baku, the nengaal eats it.”
“The evil, not the baku?” Naomi just had to check.
Otis harrumphed. “The evil person, obviously.”
“The person? Not just their evil?” Corey questioned sharply.
“Poppy has a guardian,” Iovanius said in tones of great satisfaction. “It is right that such a magical creature be protected.”
The magical creature raised its marmalade orange trunk and trumpeted. Whether this was agreement, disagreement, general happiness or a call to arms, Naomi didn’t know. While she was still wincing at the noise, Poppy trotted out of the room and vanished.
“Gone,” Corey reported after getting up to check.
“Where do you think she’s…?” Naomi stopped as he shrugged.
Instead of returning to the sofa, he leant over the map. “The Second Chance wrecked relatively close to the valley where Otis believes the nengaal’s cave is.”
“It is there,” Otis said. “I just never went looking for it. Well, would anyone want to find a giant bat-spider?”
Maybe it meant Naomi was a bit crazy, but yes, she was curious what a nengaal looked like.
Corey flicked the map. “Did Roy beach the boat on purpose or did the nengaal call to him and Janelle?”
Everyone looked at Otis, who shook his head. “I don’t know. That is all I remember of the story Mom told me. It was a bat-spider, it lived in that cave but only occasionally.” He paused and looked at Corey. “And our family has a responsibility to keep Poppy safe because if evil attacks her, the nengaal begins to hunt.”
Naomi imagined a bat-spider swooping and scuttling across the island. She shuddered. “It could already have Janelle and Roy. Would it kill them instantly or cocoon them?” She was talking to herself, imagining horrors.
Corey saw a different horror. He frowned at his great-uncle. “You said, ‘begins to hunt’. Is that how Grandma Rhoda told you the story?”
Cold congealed in Naomi’s veins as the meaning of his question sunk in.
Fantastical Island (Old School Book 2) Page 15
