Like a switch had been flipped, Reg suddenly realized what he was talking about. Water on her face. It was somehow triggering her siren instincts. Her unexpectedly enhanced sense of smell. How delectable Damon smelled when she had never before noticed any particular smell around him. She glanced over at him.
Even understanding what Corvin was warning her about, it was difficult to make a decision based on logic instead of instinct. Every cell in her body wanted Damon. Wanted him close, warm against her body, his neck right under her nose, blood pulsing…
Reg took another drink, her mouth dry and her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth. Was that all it took now? The spray of the river water or the spring water she had dribbled and wiped over her face? The last time she had been in the ocean, and the instinct had been so powerful that she had barely been able to resist it, and it was lucky that Corvin was as strong as he was and quick to understand what was going on.
Damon was still shaking his head, not understanding Corvin’s warning or what the two of them were worried about.
“I’ll… maybe I will come back there with you,” Reg suggested.
Corvin nodded and moved the cooler and a couple of other items out of the way so that she had plenty of room to sit comfortably.
“Watch out for him, Reg,” Damon warned. “Don’t let him get away with anything. You know how dangerous he is.”
Reg settled into the seat next to Corvin and looked at Tybalt to see if he had heard this. He would have to be wondering what was going on too. Why Reg was acting so bizarrely and what she had to fear from Corvin. Even if he were a practitioner, he might not understand what Corvin was. And he had no way of knowing what Reg was. She was still trying to figure it all out.
“Are you sure?” Damon persisted. “If you just want to sit at the back of the boat, Corvin could move forward. Up here beside Tybalt. I’m sure they’d find lots to talk about.” He looked hard at Corvin. “Didn’t you say that one of the reasons you were coming along was to study the creatures native to the Everglades? Ones that you couldn’t find anywhere else in the world?”
Tybalt turned his head, looking interested at this. “Are you a zoologist?”
“No,” Corvin said shortly. “It’s just one of the areas of study I find very interesting. I’m a professor. History, mostly, but the animal world fascinates me. Especially the… less common species.”
They all exchanged looks at Corvin’s “less common species,” which obviously meant the magical variety. Their guide considered this information. His eyes went to each of them in turn. “I assume, by what has been said and done here, that you all… have an interest in the unseen?”
Reg nodded, glad to finally have it out in the open. It was difficult for her to know what to say and not say and how to determine whether someone was a magical practitioner or not. It all seemed very complicated, and she had not grown up in a community like Black Sands, where there were so many practitioners in one place. No one had known of her talents back then, so she hadn’t grown up learning how to deal with the divide.
“There are indeed many species in the swamp that you will not find in other parts of the world,” Tybalt said. It was an invitation for Corvin to join him at the front of the boat so that they could discuss the details. But Corvin didn’t stir from where he was.
“I look forward to discussing the topic with you at length tonight.”
Tybalt looked at him for a moment, one eyebrow raised, then shook his head and turned to look ahead of the boat again, concentrating on the navigation.
Damon looked frustrated with Corvin and Reg. He had done his best to fix everything, but Corvin and Reg made no move to separate from each other. It was understandable that this concerned him. He knew what kind of a predator Corvin was and how he had taken advantage of Reg in the past. But he didn’t know how strong Reg had grown and that she didn’t have to worry about Corvin overcoming her again.
At least, she didn’t think so.
She knew who and what he was now, and he wouldn’t find a way to trick her again. She hoped.
Corvin studied Reg’s face. After a few moments, he bent over and rifled through the supplies he had kept close to himself. He found a towel and handed it to Reg. She took it from him and considered it for a moment. Did water on her face really make that much of a difference to her nature? Or was there something more that had triggered a resurgence of her siren nature? Being in close quarters with three potential prey? Being stressed or hungry? Maybe just the length of time it had been since it had happened last, a phase of the moon or a certain tide?
She raised the towel to her face and dabbed the water off.
The wind seemed to slacken slightly, and her chest and shoulders relaxed. She hadn’t realized she had been holding herself so tense. She avoided looking at Corvin, just gazing out over the water. The restlessness she had been feeling gradually diminished. She took a few deep breaths, and when she looked back at Corvin, she felt normal. She shifted her gaze to his throat and was not drawn to the pulse point.
She gave him a little nod and went back to staring at the scenery.
Chapter Ten
Reg had thought that when they got closer to the wizard, her feelings about where he was would get stronger, but the opposite seemed to happen. She felt more muddled the closer they got to larger populations. When they pulled up to the dock that was close to where she had felt the wizard earlier, she couldn’t focus in on him. It was like she had been focusing on a single signal, but when they got to the area, she was suddenly getting nothing but interference.
Reg rubbed her temples, looking at all of the tourists bustling around. Tybalt gave her an I-told-you-so look and sat back with his arms folded across his chest. Damon ignored both of their reactions and was cheerful. Way too cheerful.
“Well, we know he’s around here somewhere. Just because you can’t immediately identify where he is, that doesn’t mean that he’s not here. You need something to eat—we all need something to eat—and some time to center yourself, and then I’m sure it will be much easier.”
Reg decided that eating something was not a bad idea. The nausea she had felt earlier when she’d been able to smell Tybalt was gone and she could definitely eat something.
“We’ll meet you back here?” she asked their guide. “In… how long? A couple of hours? Or should we call and let you know?” She looked at Damon and Corvin for guidance.
“We’ll call,” Corvin said coolly, looking at Tybalt. “I expect it will be at least two hours.”
Tybalt scowled at them. He waited for them to get what they needed from the boat and disembark. Then he turned up the engine and pulled away from the dock, speeding out into the center of the sheltered cove.
“Did we insult him?” Reg asked. “Should we have invited him to lunch?”
“You don’t invite someone like him to lunch,” Corvin said in a tone that Reg thought was a little stuck up? Someone like him?
She opened her mouth to argue with him and demand to know what exactly he’d meant by that. Damon walked into the breach, holding up his hand in a “stop” signal and putting himself partway between them physically.
“Where do you want to go?” he asked Reg. “Anything in specific that strikes your fancy?”
Reg looked around. There were a few eateries in view, mostly little independent places, not big chains. She wasn’t sure what to expect from any of them, but she was not a picky eater. She’d eat just about anything. She reviewed the options. There was a fish and seafood place with a striped blue and white awning. She pointed to it.
“How about there?”
No one objected. The three of them started walking toward it. They were walking along an actual boardwalk, built above the surface of the marshy ground to give them dry, secure footing. There were too many people moving back and forth over the boards for her comfort. She didn’t like to be crowded. She liked to be able to see any approaching danger. There were too many people to watch.
&n
bsp; As they got to the end of the first block, her gaze was drawn to the right, where another street opened up and she saw a garish sign painted with the letters “Skunk Man Saloon” and the roughly drawn figure of what looked like a reddish-brown Bigfoot. She stopped and looked at it.
“What’s that?”
“Skunk Man?” Damon asked. He laughed. “Just a local legend. Every nature preserve needs its mythical beast.”
Reg looked at Corvin. “Is this what you were talking about?”
“In the boat, when we were talking with Tybalt about rare creatures? That’s one of them, yes.”
“And at home, when you were talking about… creepers?”
“Cryptids,” he corrected. “Yes, Skunk Man definitely qualifies as a cryptid.”
“What is he?”
“Why don’t we go in? I’m sure they’ll be happy to tell you all about him.”
Reg hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. Let’s do it.”
Damon rolled his eyes, but didn’t seem to care that much that Reg had changed her mind about where they would eat. Or maybe just get a drink; Reg didn’t know if the saloon sold food or just drinks. They moved as a group down the branching boardwalk and entered the little shop.
The lighting was dim. The walls were covered with pictures and plaques and various kinds of memorabilia. Plaster casts of feet, bits of hair or hide. Other displays that Reg couldn’t make out at a distance. A bar ran the length of the back, and a few tables and chairs were set up in the floor space. There was a hand-lettered sign that advised clientele to seat themselves, so they picked one of the two tables that had not been taken. There was a couple with a young child in a highchair at another table, and three older, retired-looking gentlemen sharing a meal at another. Reg looked at them as she put her hand on the back of a chair to pull it out.
“Go ahead,” said one of them with a friendly smile. “Bess will be out to take your order in a minute or two. They’re short-staffed in the kitchen today.”
Reg smiled and nodded. She pulled the chair out and sat down. She looked at the other guests curiously. She hadn’t expected to see families with young children in the Everglades. It didn’t seem like the kind of place that was made for little children. The retirees made some sense. They all looked like tourists, with colorful shirts and wide-brimmed hats that looked brand new. Out enjoying their retirement savings. It wasn’t the Museum of Natural History, but it was an interesting place to visit.
She picked up one of the menus left on the table and started flipping through it. She found the layout confusing, with information about the Everglades and the Skunk Man interspersed among the groups of menu items. She wasn’t sure if the passages were supposed to be read in conjunction with the descriptions of the food options or whether they were supposed to read them while eating the courses referenced. Either way, Reg wasn’t much of a reader and the dense panels of text were a bit much for her.
An older woman came charging through the bat-wing doors that connected to the kitchen. She was overweight, busty, and sweating, her hair damp at the temples.
“Sorry, sorry,” she called out to them. “Hope you made yourself comfortable. We’re just a bit understaffed today, but you’re still going to get your food and be joining up with your tour again in no time. Trust me. Have you had a chance to look at the menu? Drink orders?” She held a notepad at the ready, waiting for one of them to dive right in.
They each placed their drink orders. Corvin and Damon were flipping through their menus, looking at the various offerings, but Reg’s head hurt and she didn’t have the patience to sort out what to order. She liked menus with lots of display pictures of the food, but this one didn’t have room for them, with all of the side panels and Bigfoot pictures.
“Do you have a special today?”
Bess glibly recited a “catch of the day” meal.
Reg nodded. “Yeah, that sounds good.”
“Good choice!” Bess told her. Damon ordered, then finally Corvin, closing his menu slowly. Bess gathered up the menus.
“Can we get refills?” the man at the retirees’ table called out to her before she could disappear into the kitchen. He gestured to the glasses at their table.
“Of course,” Bess agreed, and then was gone again. Reg sat back.
“You know that the ‘special’ and ‘catch of the day’ is just the stuff in the kitchen that’s going to expire and they want to get rid of, don’t you?” Corvin suggested.
Reg shook her head. “What? No.”
He nodded. “You’re just being a sucker if you order the special.”
Reg shrugged. It was just like Corvin to act like a snob about the little restaurant.
“Oh, I was going to ask her about the Skunk Man,” Reg said. She looked around at the memorabilia mounted on the walls. “I guess Skunk Man is just like the Florida version of Bigfoot?”
“The legend of the Skunk Man goes way back,” the round-faced, balding man at the retirees’ table contributed, inserting himself into the conversation. “Back to legends of the Indians that lived in these parts. It’s pretty much a Sasquatch. But one that smells really bad.”
Reg nodded. Many of the pictures on the wall showed dark figures that could have been a Sasquatch. or could have been a man in an ape suit or a bear. It was hard to classify them all. Some looked more Sasquatch-like than others. “So is there just one? Or are there a bunch of them…?”
“They aren’t seen very often, but since the Indians have been seeing them for hundreds of years, there would have to be more than one,” the man suggested. “Humans don’t live that long, so I can’t imagine that a human-like animal would. Not without modern medicine.”
“They could have medicine. Or they could be magical.”
The man laughed. “They could be magical,” he repeated. “Well, I suppose I can’t argue with you there. Maybe that’s how they keep from being seen. Maybe they can turn themselves invisible, and it’s only when they forget to that we get a picture or a sighting.”
It could happen. Reg had seen other creatures who could make themselves invisible or transport themselves to a different location. Pixies. Davyn, the firecaster who was mentoring her. Elves. Even the gnomes sometimes seemed to blend in so well with their surroundings that they might as well be invisible. Why not Bigfoot?
The other two men at the table immediately began to argue with the first, insisting that the Skunk Man was real, and that they had seen him, or had a friend or relative who had seen him.
Bess brought out a tray of drinks for Reg’s table and the retirees. The couple with the child asked for their bill. Reg looked at the preserved Bigfoot footprints on the wall. It was hard to tell at that distance exactly how large they were, but they definitely looked bigger than a large man’s footprint. Maybe there was something to the legend.
The talk at the retirees’ table had somehow shifted to aliens and UFO sightings. Reg listened to them for a moment before turning back to Damon and Corvin. She sipped her cola. She knew it wasn’t good for her, but the sugar and caffeine would do her a world of good. She was lagging and in need of a nap. Her head hurt. And she still had to look more for the missing wizard. If she were right, he was there somewhere in the small settlement. She just wasn’t sure where. She hadn’t seen anyone who was dressed like or looked like the man in her vision.
She sucked down several swallows of the drink through her straw and tried to relax, letting the sugar do its thing.
“So what else lives in the Everglades?” she asked Corvin. “Bigfoot and what else?”
“Lots of things.” He spread his hands apart to indicate a wide variety of choices. “There is talk of gator men, but I think that’s just fanciful. Swamp goblins. Foxfire. Many of the species that you will find in other parts of the world. And the animals that you are more familiar with. Crocs and gators, Florida panthers, many endangered species.”
“What are gator men?”
“Torso of a man, hindquarters of an alligator.”
>
“But you don’t think they exist?”
He shrugged. “I haven’t read anything convincing. And when you think about it, the scariest part of an alligator is the front end, not the back. It would make more sense if it had the jaws of an alligator and the legs of a man.”
Reg shuddered. “I don’t like the sound of either one.”
“I don’t think that’s one you need to worry about.”
“But goblins? You think there are really swamp goblins?”
He nodded slowly. “I’ve seen a goblin or two in my time. I don’t doubt that there are some around here. There are many other phenomena to beware of in the Everglades as well. Like our guide says, a lot of people disappear here. Sometimes whole boats or planes. You’ve heard of the Bermuda Triangle?”
Reg nodded. “So… why? Is it because of bad luck? Or just because it’s a big, wild area? Or the water?” She couldn’t see the river from her seat in the restaurant, but she stared out the window toward it. If there were big creatures in it, like Corvin had said, then it must be deep.
“In most places, it’s not more than a few feet deep,” Damon contributed. “You could stand up in it with no danger of drowning.”
“But the Everglades still has its secrets,” Corvin warned. “Sometimes, the secrets are just below the surface.”
Reg took a few more swallows of her soft drink, starting to regret that she hadn’t ordered something stronger. But with the way she had been feeling, she wanted to keep her wits about her, not to dull them.
Chapter Eleven
Any sign of you-know-who?” Damon asked, keeping his voice low.
Reg frowned at him. “Who?” She immediately thought of Voldemort in Harry Potter, but was pretty sure Damon didn’t mean him.
“The one we are looking for,” Damon said, an edge of impatience entering his voice.
“Oh, okay. I just didn’t know…” She frowned. “He’s not evil like you-know-who, is he? We wouldn’t be looking for him and taking him back to the Games if he was evil.”
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