They got into Marcus’s Jeep. He’d already argued, successfully for a change, that she needed to keep her attention on the necklace instead of the road. And if they managed to capture Kesh, he’d never fit in the back of the Karmann Ghia. Even Beka couldn’t dispute that one.
“Which way?” he asked as they pulled out onto the highway.
Beka, her expression intent, as though listening to a melody only she could hear, pointed to the right. “That way. He’s at least a few miles away, I think.”
Huh. “How does that thing work, anyway?” Marcus still couldn’t quite decide whether to be freaked-out or fascinated by the discovery that magic was real, but he was definitely starting to lean in the direction of “Shit, that’s cool.”
“It’s a little bit like that game kids play,” Beka said. “You know, the one where when you get close, someone says you’re getting hotter, and when you move in the wrong direction, they say you’re getting colder.” She sounded a little wistful, as if she’d only ever seen the game played by others but had never taken part herself. He supposed that little Babas-in-training didn’t get to hang out with other kids much. Or ever.
“So the spell makes the pendant hot or cold?”
She shook her head, flipping her braid over her shoulder so that the knife hidden inside clunked on the headrest behind her. “Not exactly. The spell just strengthens the connection between the object, in this case the necklace, and the person it used to belong to. If I’d done the spell slightly differently, I could have tracked every owner it ever had, but for our needs, I just have it homing in on Kesh. When we head in the right direction, I can feel a kind of tug in my belly. When we go farther away, the tug lessens, so I can tell if we’re off target.”
Marcus whistled. “Wow—magical GPS. That’s pretty snazzy.”
“Mmm,” Beka agreed, sounding distracted. “We need to go north from here, I think.”
He found a side road that meandered more or less in a northerly direction.
“Ah, better,” Beka said. “I think we’re getting close.” Her fingers tightened around the pendant, her knuckles turning white.
“Are you worried about facing Kesh?” Marcus asked. “Afraid you won’t be able to hurt him if you need to? I know it can be tough when you’re facing someone who used to be a friend.” Thankfully, he wasn’t going to have that problem. At all.
Beka pointed toward a sandy path, barely a road at all. “Hell no. More afraid that I won’t be strong enough to beat the crap out of him. I can’t believe he actually poisoned his own people and drove them from their homes. What a shit.” Suddenly she stuck out a hand. “Stop here. Stop!”
Marcus eased the Jeep to a halt, pulling it over to the verge where scrubby grasses struggled to take over what little path there was. “Are we close?” he asked, wishing again for a gun. Any gun, although an assault rifle would have been preferable.
“I think so,” Beka said. She indicated the road ahead of them, which looked like it led straight into the ocean. “I’m pretty sure he’s right over that rise,” she said. “I hope he didn’t hear the car.”
But when they crawled on knees and elbows to peer over the sandy hill, it was clear that Kesh was too preoccupied to have noticed the small sounds of the Jeep engine. Beyond them lay a small cove, too shabby and off the beaten path to get much use, from the look of it. At the moment, however, it seemed full to overflowing with a milling crowd that gathered in front of Kesh as he spoke to them from atop a rock outcropping.
Marcus was too busy assessing the enemy force to listen very closely to Kesh’s speechifying, but he caught something about “strike a blow for water people and paranormals everywhere” and “are you with me?” There was a muted roar of cheering.
Great. Nothing like attacking an already revved-up adversary. He did a quick head count and decided that there weren’t quite as many as he’d initially thought, although there were still a lot more than he was comfortable taking on with just him and Beka; maybe a dozen in all. They mostly looked Human to him, although he suspected that none of them were—some had the sleek black hair and round, dark eyes that Kesh had, as well as a few with the red or auburn tresses that Beka said often indicated a Mer.
“There are more of them than I expected,” Beka said quietly. “If you want to back out, I wouldn’t blame you.” She pulled out one of her larger knives and grasped it tightly.
Marcus grinned at her. “And miss all the fun? No way. Besides, we’ve the element of surprise on our side. Piece of cake.”
Beka gaped at him in amazement, and then grinned back, shaking her head. “You’re really something, Marcus Dermott Junior. I love you.” She kissed him soundly on the lips, jumped up, and ran down the hill yelling, almost before he could take in either her words or her actions.
Then, like any good Marine, he put aside thinking and feeling, and just went to work.
For the first few minutes, it was all a blur, the way war usually was; all sound and fury and frantic confusion. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Beka making elaborate, swooping hand gestures. Each time she carved a swirling shape in the air, it seemed to sparkle and hang there for a split second. Then a red-haired man or woman would let out a screech—whether of pain or wrath, Marcus couldn’t tell—and where they had been standing, there was now a creature with a tail, stranded on dry land and unable to join in the fight.
He saw her take out four people that way, but he also saw that each time she did it, her newfound energy visibly ebbed away. By the time she’d returned the last one to his original form, Beka was back to being white and shaky, something that didn’t escape Kesh’s notice.
The Selkie prince had hung back while his people attacked Beka and Marcus, merely urging them on from atop his rocky podium. While Beka was working her magic, Marcus had taken out most of the others, Selkies, he thought, with knife and fists and sheer brute strength. Beka had warned him that the supernatural people could be unusually strong and fierce. But they weren’t fighting for the woman they loved, and they hadn’t had the benefit of Uncle Sam’s training and twelve years of a never-ending battle for survival. The Selkies never had a chance.
Any of the rebels who weren’t lying bleeding or unconscious on the once pristine sands had bunched up in front of Kesh, maybe to defend him, or maybe thinking he would defend them. Either way, he pointed at Beka and said, “Ignore the Human. Kill the witch. Kill her now.” The three remaining Selkies headed across the beach to where Beka was standing, barely holding herself upright and visibly trembling.
Then Kesh jumped down and faced Marcus, a sly smile snaking across his handsome face like a cloud across the sun. “You’d better let me go and rescue your precious Baba Yaga. She’s looking quite ill; I suspect she may not be up to defending herself. Such a pity.”
Marcus wanted so badly to wipe that self-satisfied smirk off the Selkie Prince’s face, he could feel the muscles in his thighs bunch as he prepared to spring. But he couldn’t abandon Beka. Kesh had the advantage—there was no one in the fight that he cared about; it was clear that he would cheerfully abandon all those battling on his behalf. But as much as Marcus wanted to pummel Kesh, he couldn’t do it if it cost him Beka.
He risked a quick glance over his shoulder, not quite taking his eyes off of Kesh, who was poised to make a break for the water, taking one sidling sideways step after another. Once the Selkie got to the sea, he’d be gone for good.
Beka was winded and gasping, bent over with her hands braced on her upper thighs as though she was about to collapse entirely. Two of the remaining paranormals stood in front of her, holding large pieces of driftwood they’d picked up off the beach. The third was circling around from behind.
Torn in agonized indecision, Marcus met Beka’s eyes across the ground that separated them. As he watched, she sank even lower . . . and then closed one eye in an unmistakable wink.
Marcus smothered a laugh, spinning around to leap through the air and tackle Kesh, just as Beka whipped o
ut a knife from each of the sheaths she’d glamoured to be invisible, and plunged them deep into the attackers in front of her, ducking under their flailing arms to sink the blades in. He’d just have to trust her to take care of the third. For now, he had his hands full.
Kesh fought dirty, which came as no surprise. He was supple and slippery, pulling out of Marcus’s grasp time and time again, fingers shaped into claws to try and gouge out Marcus’s eyes or jab at his windpipe. He bit and scratched, twisting like an eel, cursing all the while. Sometimes Marcus was on top, sometimes Kesh was.
Both of them punched and jabbed at each other, connecting more times than not. Sand flew into Marcus’s eyes, and he blinked it away, his feet slipping on the uneven surface. Unwanted memories of other battles flashed before him, but he shoved them down, out of the way. There was only here. Only now. Only one target. Everything came down to Kesh.
By the time they staggered to their feet, facing each other, they were both cut and bleeding from over a dozen places. Marcus was pretty sure one of his ribs was cracked from a flying kick the other man had managed to get in, and the ornate silver knife clutched in the Selkie’s hand cut just as well as Marcus’s more utilitarian model.
“You cannot win,” the Selkie panted, holding his knife out in front of him as he edged even closer to the sea. Tiny waves lapped at their feet, their soothing murmur a sharp counterpoint to the sounds of vicious struggle. “No matter what you do, Beka will die. Already she lies bleeding on the sand. You have lost, Human. Let me go, and perhaps you will still have time to save her. Unless of course she is dead already.”
Marcus didn’t dare turn away from his quarry, as much as his heart yelled out at him to check on Beka, to make sure that Kesh lied. He couldn’t hear anything over the thudding of his pulse and his own harsh breathing.
“If she dies,” Marcus said grimly, “so do you. Count on it.” He took one step forward, and something in his face finally chased away the look of smug superiority on Kesh’s.
“You cannot kill me,” Kesh said with certainty, his back foot ankle-deep in salt water. “I am a Selkie prince.”
Marcus pivoted on one heel, ignoring the stab of his rib as he spun around and kicked Kesh squarely in the stomach. The Selkie doubled over, and Marcus took one more step in, grabbed him by the hair, and smashed his fist into the other man’s face with all of his might. The Selkie dropped like a stone, waves foaming whitely around his crumpled body.
“You might be a Selkie prince,” Marcus said, gritting his teeth. “But no one, not even a Selkie prince, takes out a Marine.”
And he hauled the unconscious man out of the surf and went to find his woman.
TWENTY-SIX
THE WORLD CAME back to Kesh in a blurry haze, half eclipsed by an eye that was rapidly swelling shut. He tried to move, but his arms and legs seemed to have cleaved to each other, and the best he could manage was an abbreviated wiggle, like a newborn pup just birthed into the sea.
A face swam into view, familiar save for the fierce grin that adorned its battered surface; an expression he had never seen before, and one that he would be happier not to be seeing now. Who knew the insecure little witch had it in her? She had been full of surprises from the beginning—not at all what Brenna had said, or what he had expected.
This final surprise was most particularly unpleasant. As was the shiny silver blade she held about an inch from his one working eye. Most insulting of all—the knife was his own. This had not gone at all as he had planned.
“Hello, Kesh,” the Baba Yaga said calmly, as if she didn’t have blood slowly trickling from a cut above her brow. “So nice to see you again. Sorry about the duct tape.” White teeth showed in a smile that held nothing of apology.
“Ah, he’s awake,” a deeper voice said, and the Human mate she had chosen over him appeared to gaze down at Kesh over her shoulder. Kesh took some satisfaction from the battered look of the man. He would have taken more had their positions been reversed.
“Should we kill him quickly, or carve off one piece at a time?” the man called Marcus asked, not seeming to have a preference either way. “I’m still kind of pissed about the way he poisoned you with those fancy picnics. I say we kill him slowly. I learned some stuff in Afghanistan you wouldn’t believe. I can make it last for weeks.”
Kesh swiveled his head toward Beka in alarm. Surely she would not allow this barbarian to harm him. They had been friends, after all. And she had always had a soft heart.
Beka reached out and patted him gently on the cheek with the hand not holding the knife. “I really don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said.
There. He knew she would not allow him to be killed. Now he just had to find a way to speak to her alone, and surely he could persuade her to let him go.
She grinned at Marcus, wincing a little when the motion made a crack in her bottom lip open up again. “It would take way too much time and trouble to torture him, and we still need to figure out where he hid the Water of Life and Death. I say we just slice a few more holes in him and set him out where the sharks will find him.”
Kesh’s eye opened wide and he could feel his mouth gaping and closing like a fish out of water. “But . . . but . . . you can’t do that!”
Beka raised one eyebrow. “Why not? You tried to kill a Baba Yaga, not to mention your own people. I don’t think anyone is going to get too upset if we take justice into our own hands.” She tossed the knife into the air and then caught it a mere inch above his nose, making him twitch.
“But Beka, darling—”
Marcus’s face loomed close. “Call her darling one more time and I will rip out your tongue and feed it to the fish while you watch, you sonofabitch.” Kesh tried to edge away from him on the sand.
Beka snorted. “I don’t think your charm is going to work on anyone here, Kesh. You might as well save your breath. You know, for the screaming.”
Kesh could feel his heart start to race as it finally dawned on him that she meant what she said. They were going to kill him. All his plans, all his scheming and hard work, all brought to naught by an untried Baba Yaga and a Human fisherman. The disgrace of it was almost enough to make him willing to accept death. Almost. But he reminded himself that as long as he lived, there was always a chance to start again.
“Wait!” he said. “I can help you!”
Marcus looked at him with disgust. “Don’t listen to him, Beka. He’ll say anything to keep us from killing him. Let’s just get this over with.” He grabbed Kesh by his bound legs and started hauling him toward the road, none too gently.
Kesh winced as a shell cut into his face, scrabbling with the hands tied behind his back to try and grab the shifting sands and slow his forward movement.
“No, Baba, you need me,” he said in a rush. “I can lead you to the Water of Life and Death. You need it to cure your illness.”
“You mean the radiation poisoning you gave me?” she asked, her expression cold. “That illness?”
He swallowed hard as he realized she’d somehow learned exactly what he had done. There was no way he would be able to convince her that he hadn’t intended to kill her. Kesh looked from Beka to Marcus, taking in their matching hard stares and the grim set of their jaws.
He had lost, well and truly. The universe was cruel and unfair, to reward ones such as these over someone like him. But someday they would learn. If not at his hands, then at the hands of another.
“I will take you to the Water of Life and Death,” he said, drooping. “Just let me live.”
Beka sighed and stuck the knife through her belt. “Oh, okay. But you’d better lead us directly to it and fast. I’ve had a really rough week and I’m running out of patience.”
“And I never had any to start with,” the fisherman added. “And I really, really don’t like you.”
Kesh closed his good eye as the Human hauled him off the ground and threw him over one large shoulder, no doubt heading back toward their vehicle. The feeling is quite mu
tual, fisherman. But even he was not foolish enough to say it out loud.
* * *
WITH KESH FIRMLY trussed up and tossed in the back of the Jeep, and the Water of Life and Death safely retrieved, its decorative box held securely in both hands on her lap, Beka finally felt like she could take a breath. Everything on her hurt, but she was more worried about Marcus, who was clearly favoring his ribs, as well as dripping blood all over the driver’s seat of the Jeep.
They were headed down Highway One, almost to the beach where she’d told Chewie to gather the sick Mer and Selkies. She worried that either one or both of Chewie’s assignments hadn’t gone as planned; that the Queen had said no, or that the water folk hadn’t listened, or both. But there was nothing she could do about that now.
The fancy silver Camaro they’d been following for the last mile suddenly made a left turn into a parking lot, causing Marcus to jam on the brakes and throwing them forward against restraining seat belts. Beka clutched the box even tighter and listened to Marcus curse out everyone who ever got a license to drive without being instructed on the use of turn signals.
She started to laugh until she saw his face—pale and set, teeth gritted in obvious pain.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said tersely, but then he coughed, holding on to his ribs and wincing, and she saw a bubble of crimson appear at the corner of his lips.
Hell. She wasn’t a healer like Barbara, but even she knew a punctured lung when she saw one.
“We have to get you to the hospital,” she said, feeling a pulse of panic starting at the base of her throat. She’d been so terrified when he was fighting Kesh, and so relieved when they’d made it through with only minor injuries. Trust Marcus not to mention a little thing like a broken rib. Or ribs.
“I’m fine,” he insisted, hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were white. “Tonight is almost the full moon; we have to get the Water of Life and Death to the Selkies and Merpeople as soon as possible.” He gave a brief chuckle, cut short by a gasp for breath. “Ow,” he said. “I can’t believe that sentence just came out of my mouth.”
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