The beast raised an arm toward the sky and brought it down with a mighty slap. Seawater splashed high into the air. The boat rocked like a tipsy college student coming home from his first frat party.
Edwin windmilled his arms as his balance failed. I sent air to push him back to center. He didn’t bother to glance at me this time, just cocked his arm back to throw another harpoon that had again magically appeared in his hand.
The beast’s sucker-covered arm rose again, joined by a second arm on the other side of the creature’s body. Edwin yelled as he heaved the harpoon toward the beast’s large, black eye. I can’t control metal and wood like I can the elements, but they’re friendly to me. I sent fire to heat the harpoon’s barbed tip and air to push it even faster and accurately to its target.
The harpoon struck dead center of the creature’s left eye. The kraken screamed and threw its head forward into the water. The boat rocked side-to-side, the left gunwale dipping into the water, and then the right. I gripped the back of the chair as if it were the only thing between me and the deep blue sea—which it pretty much was. Lady had a firm grip on the steering wheel and was throttling the engine up and down, making small reverse and forward adjustments.
Why not just reverse hard? Get us the hell away from the kraken.
Unless the boat couldn’t outrun it. Unless trying to escape would leave us more open to attack. The beast’s arms were long. And I had no idea if it was fast moving through the water or what.
Our best hope was to kill it.
And maybe Lady didn’t have the power to do that herself. She’d said herself she was a land goddess, and we were at sea. And while she could use her voice for persuasion, I’d not seen her as a fighter, not seen or heard about any powers she had except to help heal her land.
The beast raised its head from the water. Blood so dark red it was almost black streamed from the damaged eye. The beast shook its head violently from side to side, trying to fling away the harpoon. Edwin readied another. Where were they all coming from? That was a question for later. I shifted my focus from calming the waters to sending air to keep Edwin from falling over or sliding off the bow, and then again to the water. Shifting my attention back and forth wasn’t letting me do either as well as I’d have liked, but the boat rocked less as the water calmed, and Edwin kept his footing.
Maybe he figured out that I’d helped a bit with that last harpoon thrust because he glanced over his shoulder at me and nodded slightly before straightening and throwing the weapon toward the beast’s other eye. I again sent fire to the barbed tip and wind behind the shaft to shove it forward.
The beast screamed as the metal and wood drove into its eye. I wanted the spear to pierce its brain. I wanted the creature dead. I pushed the harpoon with wind until it disappeared, buried deep in the kraken’s head.
The beast thrashed. The waters churned like they were being stirred by a giant eggbeater. I’d forgotten about Edwin in the few seconds it took to push the spear further into the beast. His yell brought my attention back to him but I couldn’t ready wind fast enough to catch him as he flailed in the air. His fall into the water didn’t raise enough splash to be noticed in the mad roiling sea.
Lady jumped up, ran to the back of the boat and grabbed a long grappling pole. She leaned out over the side of the boat, extending the pole out as far as she could toward him. The boat began to turn on its own, the crazy current pushing it stern first toward the beast.
“Grab the wheel,” Lady yelled. “Straighten us out and then make little adjustments to keep us steady.”
I crawled between the seats and took the chair Lady had vacated. I didn’t know shit about how to steer a powerboat, but thought it couldn’t be all that different from sail. I took the wheel and with the engine only slightly more than idling, managed to bring her around so the side faced where Edwin was trying his best to swim to the boat. I made tiny adjustments as Lady had said, and sent my focus to settling the waters at least long enough to get Edwin back on board.
The beast was slapping all eight of its arms on the water. Waves rose and fell. Spray slapped me in the face. I wiped it away from my eyes with the back of my hand. If I weren’t also calming the waters as best I could, all three of us would be in the ocean by now and probably drowned.
Edwin had gotten hold of the hook and was pulling himself hand-over-hand to the side of the boat. Lady was straining to hold the hook with one hand and pull him up side of the boat with the other. I gritted my teeth and focused on the water around Edwin, making a waterspout. I gave it all I had. The waterspout propelled him into the air. Lady caught him in midair and yanked him onto the boat. He landed with a hard thud.
The beast was losing steam, flailing less, and slowly sinking from view.
“That thing will pull us down with it if it can,” Lady said as she pushed me out of the captain’s chair.
I’d already figured that out and was again working my magic on the water.
She took the seat and revved the engine. In a move I would have called impossible if I hadn’t seen it myself, the boat stood on its stern, bow in the air, and spun like a ballerina. The bow slammed back down on the water, rattling my teeth. Lady gunned the engine. The boat sped away from the last gasps of the dying creature.
I could see Lady cursing under her breath. I was in the chair next to her now, while Edwin had taken the seat I’d occupied before. I leaned close, to listen to what she was muttering.
“You cheating, two-faced bitch, Calypso, hear me good. You will pay for this betrayal, and you will pay dearly.”
12
I mentally held my breath the rest of the way to Catalina Island, but no further uproars disturbed the trip. I thought we might moor in Avalon Bay, where the tourist ships came in and most people who came in their own boats stayed. It was on the side of the island closest to the California shore and had plenty of mooring spots. Instead Lady pointed the boat to run up the island’s rugged coastline.
Edwin was back in the seat next to Lady and I’d returned to the seat behind him. He turned to face me. “We’ll meet Calypso at Rippers Cove. Do you know it?”
I shook my head.
“It’s isolated. Accessible only by boat,” he said. “Given what happened on the way here, be on your guard.”
I rubbed my hands against my thighs, as if that could calm the nerves tingling in me. Yesterday Saylor had tried to hurt me. Today a presumably sent-by-Calypso whirlpool and then sea monster had tried to kill all three of us. For the pearls, presumably. What was so special about the necklace that someone would be willing to kill to keep us from finding it?
Rippers Cove, it turned out, was a narrow crescent of sandy beach that quickly became craggy hillside at the sides and back. There were no mooring buoys. I wondered if Lady planned to anchor and we’d swim to the shore, or if she meant to run her very expensive, fiberglass hulled speedboat up onto the beach.
The latter, it seemed.
She pointed the boat directly at the mid point of the narrow beach and gunned the engines. I hunched my shoulders in surprise as cold seawater hit me from behind. I turned and saw that the huge twine engines had lifted out of the water and now stuck out from the back of the boat above the waterline. Water flying off the propellers as the engines came out of the water had soaked my upper back, neck, and the back of my head. The engines were still working, now using some kind of propulsion to thrust the boat toward the shore. If Batman or James Bond had a speedboat, I imagined it would be something like Lady’s, but probably not as nice.
We hit the shore with a sudden shudder and bounced the rest of the way until almost the entire fifty feet of boat lay on the beach. Lady and Edwin calmly climbed out onto the sand while I was still sitting a little goggle-eyed from the ‘landing’ experience. Edwin took a few steps back, turned to me and held out his hand. I took it gratefully and let him help me to the sand.
Lady stood with one hand on her hip, the other hand pushing through her dark hair that somehow st
ill looked perfect even after all we’d been through while she surveyed the beach and the surrounding hills.
I took a look around as well. The cove wasn’t large, the beach not terribly long and strewn with large rocks and boulders to the back and sides of where we stood. The hill behind the beach sloped up quickly but looked climbable for maybe twenty feet. Then a climber would hit a sheer cliff face maybe another twenty-five to thirty feet high. Getting over that in a hurry would be a problem.
I kept looking, surveying where we were, checking possible escape routes, possible routes for danger. There was a spot where cliff and hillside met the sand. Anyone coming from above would have to be part mountain goat to reach the beach without being heard or sending small landslides down the hill. Anyone trying to escape the beach by land would have to go up the hill the same way. A wind at your back could help with speed. And if you had control over earth, you might be able to create an easy, foot-sure path for escape or a slippery, rocky, crumbling path for anyone attacking.
I wondered how long it would take one, two, or all three of us to push Lady’s boat back into the water, get on board, get the engines down and running, turn the boat around and race away from Rippers Cove if that became necessary. I thought we could do it quickly enough to escape any danger from above unless they were armed. Those firing from above always had the advantage. I didn’t see anyway to defend us from an attack from the water except by magic.
I turned and swung my head to observe as much of the open ocean around us as I could. There were no other boats or crafts headed this way. So how was Calypso going to get here?
I laughed at myself under my breath. Calypso was the goddess of the sea. She wouldn’t arrive in an ordinary boat. She’d swim up. Or be carried to shore by dolphins. Or maybe another of her sea monsters would cradle her gently in its impossibly long arms and deposit her on the shore. Anything seemed possible.
Lady stepped up beside me and together we stared a few moments at the ocean.
“She won’t be coming in a boat, if that’s what you’re looking for,” Lady said.
I nodded. “I’d figured that out. I was musing on how she might arrive. Dolphinback? Riding in a net pulled by whales?”
Lady raised her eyebrows. “You do have quite an imagination.”
I shrugged. “I find it a benefit in my line of work. The more scenarios you can imagine, the better prepared you can be.”
Lady’s mouth bent in a humorless smile. “You may not be too far off. Calypso does like to make a dramatic entrance.”
A school of flying fish leapt suddenly from the water about twenty feet in front of us. The leaping fish batted their fins like tiny little wings as they soared over the water, and then dove back into the sea. Wave after wave of them flew parallel to the shore.
“Is this the announcement she’s coming?” I said.
Lady nodded, her tension visible in the loose fists her hands made. “I’d say so.”
The flying fish were followed by leaping pods of white-sided dolphins.
Next came the sea goddess herself striding straight toward where we stood, rising slowly from the water, emerging a little more with each step—the crown of her head, her head and neck, her shoulders and bare breasts, her waist and bare hips, her legs down to her ankles.
I didn’t think the water was that shallow, even this close to shore. She had to be standing on mantis rays or levitating herself, or something.
Calypso was fair skinned with long, wet, red hair that cascaded over her shoulders and down her back. Water dripped from her body, but dried as she walked toward us.
Lady had crossed her arms loosely over her chest, the way one might do while waiting for an exasperating child to be done with their foolishness.
The sea goddess smiled as she glided—not stepped—from the water and onto the land. Lady and I stood close to the waterline. Calypso stopped as soon as her feet hit dry sand.
“Welcome, Lady!” she said and spread her arms wide.
“Are you surprised we made it here?” Lady said coolly.
Calypso blinked but never lost her composure. “Why would I be surprised? This is the agreed upon place at the agreed upon time.”
Lady tightened her arms over her chest ever so slightly. “A grand entrance and a fake friendly greeting won’t wash away your actions, Calypso.”
The sea goddess held out a hand to Lady. “I can see you’re angry, but I honestly don’t know about what.”
Lady appraised her a long moment. “Let me begin with your son.”
13
Lady related the story I’d told her of Saylor attacking me in the parking lot. I could hear her anger rising as she spoke, and see it in the way she leaned aggressively forward toward the sea goddess.
“Why,” Lady demanded, “did you order your son to attack my employee? And why, after I agreed in good faith to come here to meet with you, did you try twice to kill us on the way over? Answer me now.”
Calypso shook her head slightly. I couldn’t tell whether it was to indicate she’d not done it or that she thought either Lady or her son were fools.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” the sea goddess said.
Lady sneered. “The whirlpool that tried to suck us down? The Kraken that failed to drown us?”
Calypso looked honestly perplexed. Lady looked seriously pissed. This was getting us nowhere.
I took a step toward the sea goddess. “Is Saylor likely to attack me or attack our boat on his own?”
Lady’s eyes flashed with momentary anger. I didn’t know why.
Calypso regarded me with what I took to be a measure of disdain. “Never.” She considered a moment. “Except he’s been agitated and acting strangely since the Mermaid’s Lament was stolen. It’s as if the theft insulted him personally. It might have driven him to do something foolish.”
Something foolish wasn’t how I’d define the attacks.
“Was he in charge of the necklace’s safety?” I asked, trying the one reason I could think of for Saylor to take it personally.
“No,” Calypso said after a long beat. “The pearls were stolen because I filled my eyes with a man who’d filled his eyes with another.”
Calypso’s jaw tightened as she slanted a glance at Lady.
“You were stupid to be smitten with someone as mortal and foolish as Michael Rawlings,” Lady said flatly. “Blaming me for your infatuation is just as stupid.”
She turned to me. “Calypso and I met Michael at a charity event. He flattered us both and paid us a great deal of attention. He’s a handsome man and I assumed Calypso was enjoying his attentions in much the same way I was, as an amusement for the moment.”
I winced at the term “amusement” but from what I’d seen, the gods and goddesses regarded their relationships in a more casual light than I did.
I glanced at Calypso. Clearly she knew where Lady’s story was headed and wasn’t happy about having it told. Lady, though, seemed to be enjoying herself. Whatever had angered her seemed to have passed.
“A few weeks later,” Lady said, “I hosted an event at the house. Calypso was there, and so was Michael. This time he all but ignored me and gave all of his attention to the sea goddess. At some point the two of them disappeared. I assumed Calypso had gotten lucky. We both enjoy a bit of ‘mundane’ once in a while.”
I snuck a look at Calypso again. She was so obviously embarrassed that I began to feel sorry for her.
“The next thing I knew,” Lady said, “Michael showed up at my office and offered the Mermaid’s Lament as a token of his affection.” She paused. “I wouldn’t accept it of course.”
She shifted her gaze to the sea goddess and her voice softened. “We’ve been friends too long, Calypso, for me not to help you find your property, since I know the thief.” Her voice chilled again. “But one more attempt on my life or the lives of anyone in my employ and you’ll get not my help, but my wrath.”
I watched the two goddesses. There was
clearly no love lost between them. Califia was only in this hunt because Calypso had threatened to flood the state if Calypso didn’t get her necklace back. And, though she’d probably never admit it even to herself, I thought Lady felt a little guilty that it was her suitor who’d stolen the necklace. Calypso was still angry because she thought the Pride of Zubris, which had started Lady’s empire, was her property, which Lady had stolen. And Calypso had put herself in the situation that allowed her pearls to be stolen and it embarrassed her. Yeah. There was a bit of history between these two.
My only concern at the moment was my continued breathing for a few more years.
“Can you guarantee our safety back to the mainland?” I said.
Calypso seemed surprised I’d spoken. I think she’d forgotten I was there. The sea goddess hadn’t acknowledged Edwin’s presence at all. He stood behind us where the land sloped up at the back of the cove. He wasn’t hidden and Edwin was pretty hard not to notice.
Calypso put her right hand on her chest. “You have my word that neither I nor anyone at my direction will harm you in anyway.”
I looked for some sort of out in what she’d said, a ‘gotcha’ we wouldn’t expect or guard against, but couldn’t find one.
Lady turned and called to Edwin. “Get the boat ready. We’re leaving.”
As Edwin sauntered toward the boat, Lady tuned a laser-gaze on Calypso. “Make your son stop these attempts. I will not tolerate any more attacks.”
Calypso narrowed her eyes, but she nodded ever slightly. “You return my necklace, and we will call our debts even. I will relinquish my claim on The Pride of Zubris and you will not seek retribution for any of the attacks.”
I tilted my head and regarded the sea goddess. Was she admitting she’d orchestrated the attacks, or was she protecting her son?
Lady nodded about as little as one could and still do it.
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