Seawitch

NINETEEN

We moved up to the flying bridge for safety’s sake and I tried to bring Zantree up to speed, but it was difficult and there were some things I couldn’t discuss or explain that only made the situation feel more outrageous. He watched me with slowly rising anger. I didn’t know if it was fury at me or the situation but I felt horrible for it, and I told him we’d be getting off at Roche Harbor to find another boat. I hadn’t expected to fall into the path of Reeve’s killer on the open water, but now that we were approaching the islands, we were too close and I wanted to shut that connection down before Zantree could become a target for the merfolk or the dobhar-chú. Fielding hadn’t painted them as the most reasonable of creatures, and while I wasn’t going to take his word for it, no other source made them sound any better. Once again I’d endangered someone without thinking and I’d be damned if I was going to let it go any further. This time I’d end the risk before it got too great. Quinton was frowning at me the whole time, but not an angry frown, just a thoughtful one, and I wondered what he was thinking. I couldn’t tell from his aura this time—it was a fuzzy gold-and-green mess of indecipherable lines and moving steam.

“No,” Zantree said. “I’m not getting left out of this.”

“This could get you killed,” I replied, “and you wouldn’t even know what was killing you! I won’t let you do that.”

“That is not your choice, Ms. Blaine. I had a friend on that boat and I want to know what the hell happened to her—and I’m not going to swallow all that mouth gas Furry Face was spitting. I’m not a foolish old man. I have managed myself for more than sixty years and I have a sound idea of what I can and cannot do. And this I will do.”

“You don’t understand, and I didn’t realize how much danger we were putting you in or I would never have taken you up on the invitation to use the Mambo Moon for this trip.”

Solis tapped me on the shoulder. “This was not entirely your decision, Blaine. I also chose this. And Zantree was not properly informed, it’s true, but you do not bear all the responsibility here.”

“Are you two trying to make me feel better about endangering you all? Well, you aren’t. We will have to put in at Roche Harbor—or any other decent place we can find—and I’ll go on by myself.”

“You will not,” Solis said. “This is also my investigation. According to Fielding, crimes were committed and it’s my job to determine if that’s true, clear them, and close the file on Seawitch. You will not stop me from that duty. That is my decision. It is not yours.”

“But—” I started.

Quinton nodded at me. “I think you’re outnumbered, Harper. Because I’m not letting you go without me—you don’t know how to pilot a boat or where you’re going. I at least know half of that.”

“I can hire someone. I can go on by myself tomorrow. I don’t want to endanger all of you over this . . . insanity.”

“And it’s all right to endanger yourself?”

“No! I’m just saying I have a chance because I can deal on their level and the rest of you can’t. This is my job and the rest of you shouldn’t be in the line of fire.”

“That decision’s not up to you.”

I growled at him, “You’re the one who keeps lecturing me about taking my friends for granted, using them as resources, not treating them like . . . like friends! Now you change your tune? How is this different?”

“We are not your friends,” Solis said. “Not this moment. We’re your colleagues and partners. You have no more say in this venture than any other one of us has. We work together. You haven’t coerced me, I know. This is my decision and my case. I’ll go with you. Like it or not.”

Quinton smiled at Solis and turned his head to nod at me. “What he said goes twice for me. Now, Mr. Zantree, I think, should probably throw us all off at Roche and get the hell out of here before the fecal matter strikes the rotating ventilation device, but . . . I can’t speak for him.”

Zantree glowered at him and then at me and Solis and then back at me. . . . “Damn and blast you all! I am captain of this vessel and if I choose to go off on a mad reach straight to hell with a crew of lunatics, I’ll do it if I so please! And devil take you if you try to stop me!”

I blinked at him. “Umm . . . I guess I’m outvoted. . . .”

“Yes, you are,” Quinton replied. “Now be gracious and let’s get on with this before the clock runs out.”

I shrugged, although I admit the gesture was more uncomfortable than gracious. “In that case, I’m going below for a few minutes. I’m freezing.”

“Come back up in an hour and we’ll change watch on the wheel,” Zantree said.

Solis opted to stay on the flying bridge with Zantree while I went down and tucked myself into the galley. The morning air was still a bit too cold for me without more layers and I felt a little woozy when I looked out at all that water from the height of the flying bridge. I wasn’t so much seasick as sea wary—after all, whatever had forced Fielding off the boat had to come from somewhere and I wasn’t sure it wouldn’t come back, even though Fielding seemed to be its focus.

I sat on one of the built-in settees around the dining table, blocking myself in the upholstered corner to counter the boat’s movement and the strain on my rib a little. I rested my elbows on the table and my chin on my hands and cogitated.

Quinton came in and joined me about fifteen minutes later. “Hey, beautiful. What’s eating you?”

“I’m just thinking. If the dobhar-chú were trying to protect Reeve from whatever magic the merfolk sent, they must have been standing guard or watching him in some way. But I didn’t see their guard until the magic was already actively trying to kill him the first time. Why did they take so long to act? And why did the merfolk want Reeve dead? He was just an old man who was already retired and far away from his old haunts. They hadn’t bothered to try before, so why now?”

“Didn’t Fielding say something about time?” Quinton asked, going past me and deeper into the galley to scavenge coffee.

“Did he? Huh . . . yes, he said it, too. Well, that at least gives some veracity to his story, since the ghosts said the same thing.”

“Which ghosts?” Finding no coffee left, he opened a few cabinets and looked for the raw materials for a new pot.

“The ghosts of the Valencia. They said something about time and place. . . . I had the same impression of opportunity dwindling away as I got from Fielding. They both said something to the effect of ‘the way back only opens every twenty-seven years.’ And that the time it would be open was almost at an end. . . .”

He discovered a can of coffee and a stack of filters for the built-in coffeemaker and started setting up. “That implies a barrier as well as a time frame, like a gate on a timer.”

“So . . . when we find this place—if we can find it,” I said, “we’ll have to get into the right area and work fast.” I closed my eyes and swallowed a touch of panic. “We’re running on the clock here, without any idea how much time we’ve got, and I still can’t figure how Valencia is connected to Seawitch.”

“Well, there’s the bell. . . .”

“That’s a clue, not a cause.”

“Fielding said everyone on board—everyone human, I assume—died. Just like everyone still aboard Valencia died.” He filled the coffeemaker with water and snapped the carafe back into its place under the drip hole. He flipped the switch.

“What you’re suggesting is that the ghosts themselves—or the deaths—are the connection. Is that right?” I asked.

“Why not? What if Reeve knew about the mermaids? Or at least what they did.”

I blinked, considering it. “He must have. . . . He spoke to me as if he thought I was a mermaid. He called me a fish-tailed bitch and threatened to put me over the side—I assume that means throw me overboard—just as if we were at sea and I’d done something dreadful. He also had a mermaid statue on his porch that was a little . . . eerie, and he was the one who introduced the dobhar-chú into the discussion. He knew about the merfolk. He knew about the water hounds. . . .”

“Reeve’s an Irish name, isn’t it?” Quinton suggested. “Don’t you always say that the Grey is shaped by belief? If Reeve was Irish American and had grown up with those stories. . . .”

“He was one old man. I don’t think he conjured the dobhar-chú here on his own. The time frame doesn’t work either, since Fielding’s mother was one and she was the seventh pup of a dobhar-chú—even if he’s lying about something, I don’t think it’s that—which would imply at least two generations of them up here before she was born. But Reeve did say he saw one on his boat and that’s why he didn’t take Seawitch out for the final voyage—seeing the dobhar-chú made him sick or so frightened that he made himself sick. But I’ll bet the dobhar-chú was just looking for Fielding when it came on board. They’re the paranormal gossipmongers, so if they heard one of their kind was around, they’d want to check it out. They probably hadn’t expected to be recognized for what they were, and when that happened they had to keep Reeve off the boat so they could get to Fielding.”

The coffeemaker began to gurgle.

“How would they hear about Fielding?” Quinton asked.

“Maybe Father Otter lied when he told Fielding he didn’t know anything about his mother. . . .”

“That’s possible,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned back on the counter, waiting for the coffeepot to fill. “Bending the truth seems to run in the family.”

I followed my train of thought rather than pursue the fruitless complaint of Fielding’s questionable veracity on some points. “Of course, there’s always the merfolk. If the one that kissed Fielding as a kid really had put a mark on him, maybe any of them who spotted him would know he was their enemy, whether he was aware of it or not, and the word might have slipped out through them. Especially if they were planning something unpleasant. They seem to be a bloodthirsty lot.”

“Yeah, Zantree was saying so upstairs. The original siren legends are pretty gruesome. It’s not all The Little Mermaid.”

I snorted. “Even The Little Mermaid isn’t The Little Mermaid. Did you know Andersen originally wrote it as a ballet?”

Quinton shook his head.

I continued. “I’ve danced that, back when I was still ballerina-sized. It’s a horrible story: The mermaid gives up her voice to get legs so she can marry the prince she’s in love with—and possibly get a soul as well. Every step she takes on land is agonizing, and to get a soul she has to persuade the prince to kiss her so she can take his. To get him to kiss her she has to dance for him. Dancing in terrible pain. And in the end he doesn’t marry her—he marries someone else. It’s a ballerina’s story, really: giving up something you don’t know enough to value to gain something that’s utterly fleeting, and being in pain all the time until you die of a broken heart. So she dies and becomes some kind of angel and soars off to do good deeds and gain a soul and a place in heaven, but the ending always seemed a bit of an afterthought—Andersen did a lot of those ‘but the girl went to heaven and was never cold/sad/alone again’ endings. I hated that show.”

Quinton made a face and turned to pour us some coffee. Then he came to the settee to join me and brought two mugs of coffee along, saying, “That’s a nasty tale. I don’t think I’ll ever think of it the same way again.”

“Now you know how I feel,” I said, accepting one of the mugs and clasping it in both hands.

“Zantree’s stories are equally grotesque, but they don’t include kissing princes. Mostly they’re about singing sailors to their death on the rocks—”

“Wait . . .” I interrupted him. “I know that story: Scylla and Charybdis from the Odyssey. One was a monster in a rocky cave and the other was a whirlpool. . . .”

“Actually they were both monsters—sirens. They used to be sea nymphs; each had been cursed to be a monster but they still had voices that were irresistible. Sailors would hear their voices and either steer their boats into the maelstrom or be wrecked on the rocks on the other side. Then the sirens would eat them. Umm . . . why are you staring at me like that?”

I felt electrified and I must have looked it. The door from the aft deck slid open but I ignored it. Even breathing shallowly with excitement, my chest ached from the clutch of an idea too fascinatingly terrible to ignore—well, that and a sore rib. “The ghosts called them sirens,” I said. “I missed the reference. Valencia was wrecked on the rocks just the other side of Vancouver Island from here and all but thirty-seven of those aboard died. Wrecked on the rocks like sailors lured to Scylla, but what if, instead of devouring their flesh, these sirens took their souls?”

“What would they do with them?” Solis asked from the steps. “What use would the merfolk have for souls?”

I shook myself, taking too sharp a breath in my surprise and flinching as I recovered. “Blood magic. I told you how that works, Solis—a spell cast literally in blood. You don’t have to kill to do it, but you get more power if you do. Fielding said Shelly was the daughter of a sea witch. Fielding and the ghosts both made a distinction between the witch and the merfolk, and Fielding mentioned elemental magic specifically. Not blood magic. But that’s definitely the flavor Shelly cast with that broken circle on board Seawitch, so chances are good it’s what she learned from her mother. She probably doesn’t—or didn’t—have the same degree of power or autonomy, so she didn’t kill anyone right away. OK, yes, I’m just speculating. But what if she left that aside so her mother could collect the important part: the souls? Shelly might not have even had a choice if her mother was using her as a stalking horse. If the sea witch could store these souls, she could have power whenever she needed it without having to take the time and go through the rituals of bloodletting and invoking.”

Solis was confused. He narrowed his eyes and blinked at me.

I explained, “Remember what I said about there being several major categories of magic and whatever type you practice, you have to have access to the right power source? In this case, blood and sometimes death. Under the right circumstances any source can be captured in a properly prepared magical storage device. So having this power in storage is like flipping a switch when you’re connected to a big bank of batteries, versus having to fire up the generator first. Magically speaking, it’s a hell of an advantage.”

Solis scowled, rough-edged spikes of color flashing around his head as he fought with the concept. “You suggest that this sea witch collected the souls of Starrett, Carson, Ireland, and Prince?”

“I suggest a lot more than that: I suggest she first collected the souls of the passengers and crew aboard Valencia. That she and her merfolk caused or aided the conditions that wrecked the steamer on the rocks to begin with and they then killed everyone who hit the water.”