“What’s your feeling?” he asked when I’d finished.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Miranda seemed pretty interested in her brother getting a free pass from Lady and Calypso if he returned the necklace. I didn’t get the sense that she had it, but maybe she’s a good actor. Or it could be the ghoul is misinformed. Or a good liar.”
“Do you want to go see Miranda again?” he asked. “I’ll drive.”
“Can’t hurt,” I said. “Too late tonight, but first thing in the morning might shake her up enough that she’ll spill something important.”
A thought struck me. “I know Lady has the power to compel people to do what she wants. What about you? Can you compel people to do your bidding? Could you get the truth out of Miranda?”
Edwin shook his head. “I’m a fighter and a healer—a weird enough combination as it is. Add in compulsion and, I don’t know, it would be overload, I think.”
“So, no.”
He turned his hands palms up. “Sorry.”
18
Miranda was less than pleased to see me standing at her door again, especially since it was 6 a.m. That I had big, strong, no nonsense-looking Edwin with me didn’t help either.
She opened her front door the very least she could and peeked out.
“No grass growing under your feet.” Miranda scowled but opened the door all the way. “I’ve spoken to Michael. You might as well come in.”
Miranda had cleaned up the shattered pottery and glass. She’d put her unbroken knick-knacks and photographs back up. The clear shape of where the big mirror had hung on the wall caught my eye, the paint darker where the mirror had protected the wall from the bleaching action of sunlight.
Miranda saw where my gaze had gone and scowled again.
“You’ve spoken to Michael,” I said to change the subject before her anger worked itself all the way up.
She dropped her eyes from the spot on the wall and shifted her gaze to me. “I know where he is.”
“Where?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s not that easy. I know where he is, but he can’t leave and you can’t get in.”
I felt Edwin fidget next to me. Nervous? Impatient? Annoyed? It was hard to tell with him sometimes.
“Why can’t he leave?” I asked.
Miranda’s face grew dark. “Because some witches have him under a curse.”
Realization hit me like a stone dropped on my head. “Your coven, Miranda. Who you told about the necklace and what you think it can do. Which got your brother kidnapped and cursed. You left the coven in protest, but as a favor, they still let you talk to him.”
Miranda shook her head angrily. “That’s exactly what happened. Damn bitches. Betrayed by my own coven-sisters.”
I stared at her, “Why would you tell them about the necklace and that your brother had it? Seems pretty stupid.”
She sighed. “I was trying to protect him from Calypso. She has a temper. A really bad temper.”
The kind of temper that made Calypso threaten to flood half a state to get her pearls back. I couldn’t blame Miranda from wanting to protect her brother from the sea goddess.
Still, something didn’t feel right about her story. Then I had it. “Michael doesn’t have the necklace with him. If he did, there wouldn’t be a need for the witches to hold him captive.”
“You have it,” Edwin said, glaring at Miranda. “Or know where it is.”
Miranda’s neck and face colored. “All right. Yes. I know where it is. But it’s cursed as well. By me. And nothing will make me remove my curse except you freeing Michael from those witches. Return my brother unharmed and I’ll take you to the necklace and remove the curse I’ve put on it.”
Edwin regarded her evenly, “What does your curse do?”
Miranda laughed. “Dissolves the string that holds the pearls.” She laughed again. “I know how the necklace works. I know the pearls have to be in a certain order. The only way you’ll get them back intact is to save my brother.”
“Miranda,” I said. “Why not just give the Mermaid’s Lament to your coven in exchange for your brother?”
“Calypso,” she scoffed. “The sea bitch finds out I gave her precious Mermaid’s Lament to my witch-sisters and I’m completely and utterly fucked. She’d come after me and there would be nothing I could do to protect myself. She’d probably go after Michael, too, in that case.”
I turned to Edwin so Miranda couldn’t see my face and winked at him. “Calypso isn’t concerned about any power the pearls have. Why would she be? She’s a goddess. I say we get Miranda here to tell us where they are—pain is useful for that—and just go get them. They can be restrung in any order, as far as Calypso cares.”
“True,” Edwin said at the same moment Miranda cried, “No!”
“No?” I said, turning back to Miranda.
All her anger and haughtiness had drained away. “Please. Save my brother. My sisters—my former sisters in the coven—are running out of patience with him. He’s refused, so far, to tell them I know where the Mermaid’s Lament is, but I think they’re hurting him. They only let me talk to him because I said I’d try to get him to say where the necklace was. They weren’t happy when our conversation didn’t contain that information. They weren’t happy he told me where he was either. They’ll probably move him. You need to go now.”
I gave a slight shrug. “Tell us where he is and we’ll do our best.”
Miranda hesitated. Why hesitate now when we’ve agreed to do what she’s asked?
She turned and disappeared into another room. Edwin and I looked at each other, both of us with our eyebrows raised in question and neither of us with answers.
“You can leave me here,” I said, keeping my voice low. “I’ll Uber.”
He kept his voice just as low. “I could use a good adventure, if you don’t mind company.”
“The day I interviewed for this job,” I said instead of answering, “there was a curse breaker also interviewing. Could you get her name and number from Lady?”
He nodded. “Sure. If you take me along to the witches.”
I closed my eyes a moment, thinking. Edwin had been pretty spectacular fighting the kraken. He didn’t seem the sort of fool who’d get in my way with the witches. I was going to have to bring the curse-breaker anyway, so why not two people?
“Yeah. Okay. You can come along but follow my lead.”
Edwin chuckled under his breath. “Whatever you say, ma’am.”
I sent him a dark glare.
Miranda reappeared and handed me a piece of paper. I glanced down. She’d given me not an address, but a map. And not a very good one at that.
“I’ll do my best. You have the Mermaid’s Lament here when I return.”
Miranda nodded. “Bring Michael. You really need to hurry.”
Outside I said, “How much of what she said do you believe?”
Edwin shrugged. “Remember I told you I’d inherited healing ability from my father? Along with that came the ability to sense people’s pain. She’s in agony worrying over her brother. I think the witches have him. She absolutely believes her brother is in great danger.”
“So she’s unlikely to send us on a wild goose chase.”
“Right,” Edwin said.
I glanced down at the map in my hand again.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go see the witches, but we need to get the curse-breaker first,” I said.
“Right,” he said again.
Edwin pulled his phone from his pocket and punched up a number from his favorites list. The other person, Lady I assumed, answered and Edwin rattled off in a language that not only didn’t I understand but that I didn’t come close to recognizing.
He ended the call and started punching in an address on his mapping app. He caught me glancing at him.
“The curse-breaker is named Norena, her friends call her Nola, and she lives in Culver City,” he said.
I nodded. “What la
nguage were you speaking with Lady?”
“The language of the gods. Even we demis learn it as children. It’s structured differently than English and is good for getting ideas across quickly.”
I took that in, my mind churning with plans, lining up all the dominos so they’d fall the way I wanted. “You didn’t by any chance mention to her that I’d promised a free pass for Michael if the pearls were returned?”
Edwin shook his head. “I told her the witches have him. That they’ve placed a curse on him—which is why she couldn’t feel him even though he was still in her State. That you’re planning a rescue, hence the need for Nola. It’s up to you to tell her the rest.”
I bit my bottom lip, thinking. “Okay. Is Lady at home?
Edwin nodded.
“Good,” I said. “Back to the house first. Then on to the curse-breaker.”
Edwin raised his eyebrows.
“What?” I said.
“Nothing,” he said.
“You don’t think Lady will agree to the pardon?”
“Lady might,” Edwin said. “But there’s still Calypso.”
Calypso had to agree, that was all there was to it.
“I’ll cross that watery bridge when I come to it,” I said.
19
Lady wasn’t in the house when Edwin and I arrived. We spotted her through the kitchen window, outback, kneeling among a patch of purple flowers on a plant with thick, silvery leaves.
Edwin said, “It’s better if you talk to her alone.”
“Why is that?”
“She’s funny that way,” he said. “Take my word for it.”
“Okay,” I said, drew in a breath, and went out the back door and down a path covered in gray and black gravel to the garden. Cold tendrils of nerves wriggled in my chest. Lady was unpredictable. I’d made a deal in her name and had no idea what I’d do if she didn’t agree.
She looked up from her gardening when I reached her.
“California Scorpionweed,” she said, naming the ridge-leafed plant. “Lovely purple flower, isn’t it? Honey bees love it.”
Lady seemed very calm and in a good mood for a goddess who could soon see the land she was responsible for flooded with salt water if Calypso didn’t get her necklace back. Evidently, she had more faith in me than I did at the moment.
I stood silent, wondering how to broach pardoning Michael for the theft.
“When Edwin told you about the curse on Michael,” I said. “There’s more to it than the curse the witches have laid on him. Miranda has cursed the Mermaid’s Lament itself. She offers a trade. You and Calypso promise no harm will come to Michael and she’ll uncurse the necklace and have it returned.”
Lady pulled to her feet and put her hands on her hips, her elbows jutting to the sides. “Miranda Rawlings will not blackmail me into anything. Fetch the curse-breaker. She can uncurse the Mermaid’s Lament as easily as she can break the spell on Michael.”
Shit.
I cleared my throat. “Maybe. But why chance it? More to the point, why chance Miranda refusing to say where the Mermaid’s Lament is hidden or taking a hammer to the pearls when the easier thing to do is simply let Michael’s foolishness be forgotten?”
Lady’s voice, already cold, turned to ice. “I will not be blackmailed. Especially not by that witch. It’s probably her coven that kidnapped Michael in the first place.”
“It is,” I said.
“Ah,” Lady said, her voice returning to normal. “The whole thing is likely a trick then. There’s probably no curse on Michael at all. I’ll make my promise and she’ll keep the necklace until its too late.” She yanked a weed from the dirt. “No. I will not have it.”
I tried another approach. “Edwin says he feels Miranda is sincerely concerned for her brother.”
“Does he?” she said, her voice reasonable again.
“I agree with Edwin.”
Lady cut more purple scorpionweed flowers and seemed to be considering my words. She had a bunch big enough for a large vase, but kept snipping.
I offered her an out. “Easy enough to make your promise conditional. You’ll pardon Michael only if the Mermaid’s Lament is in Calypso’s hands, in perfect condition, by Saturday at dawn.”
She stopped snipping and gave me a level gaze.
“Fine,” she said.
A bit of the tension that had stiffened my shoulders drained away. “Thank you. You’ve made a good decision.” There was just one matter. “Will Calypso also agree?”
Lady shrugged. “You’ll have to ask her.”
How was I going to do that? I couldn’t simply go to the water’s edge on some random beach and wait for Calypso to show up.
Lady gathered up the cut flowers and started toward the house. She glanced over her shoulder at me.
“You’d better hurry, Shayna, if you want to accompany me to speak with the sea goddess.
I’d thought that we might have to take the speedboat to Catalina again, but Edwin drove us down the hill to Malaga Cove. We parked on the street high above the cove.
During the drive, Lady had said, “Part of the reason I hired you, Shayna, was your control over the elements. Good job on the way to Catalina, by the way. I’d imagine it’s difficult to control a body of water as large as the ocean.”
I’d nodded slightly in admission. I’d never tried to control something that large before. It had been hard, but I’d pulled it off. Which, I’d realized, left an opening for Lady to request more control over the elements.
“There will probably be people on the beach,” she said. “Perhaps you could send a very cold wind to encourage them to leave.”
It hadn’t been a request.
Not that it mattered. I rented myself out, complete with whatever talents and resources I possessed. Lady wasn’t the first employer who’d wanted use of every tool in my bag of tricks.
From the street, looking down on the rocky beach and water, I spotted a couple with their dog and another couple with two children. It shouldn’t be hard to get them to leave.
I summoned up a very cold and raucous wind and sent it roaring around the cove. What little sand was there blew with the wind, pelting the visitors. I felt sorry about that, but wind did what wind did. I couldn’t send a harsh wind but stop the sand from blowing.
Or maybe I could. I’d controlled wind and water on the trip to Catalina. I’d experiment later. Now the only thing that mattered was getting Calypso to agree with pardoning Michael.
We watched as the people who’d brought jackets hastily put them on. The couple with the dog was first up the long path up the cliff back to the street. They nodded at us as they headed toward their car. The couple with the children took longer to gather up their things and make it back to the street. They passed us with hardly a glance, the parents herding their kids to the car.
I calmed the wind. We headed down the cliff and across the rocky beach to the water.
Edwin and I stopped at the water’s edge, but Lady waded right in. When she was knee deep, Lady bent and wiggled her hands in the water, stirring up a little splash. Some sort of silvery-gray fish, about the length of my fingertips to my elbow, popped its head out of the water and then dove back under. Lady hunkered down until she was neck deep in the water, then spoke in some language I couldn’t understand, though it didn’t seem to be the same language Edwin had used with her earlier. The cadence was different and this was much more guttural.
Edwin said, “She’s asking the fish to tell Calypso that Lady needs to speak with her now—it’s urgent.”
I’d pretty much figured that out.
Lady waded back onto the beach with us, seemingly oblivious, or not bothered, that her clothes were soaked. I summoned up a gentle, warm breeze to help her dry.
She inclined her head in acknowledgement. “Thank you, Shayna.”
I shrugged and then pointed out to sea where a sudden wake had appeared. Calypso shot out of the water like a flying fish and landed feet first on the be
ach near us. Water dripped from her long hair and glistened on her naked body.
I saw in her face that being summoned this way irritated her. She stood with her legs apart, one hand on her hip, her eyes hard and fixed on Lady.
“What is so important that I should drop everything and come racing over to talk to you?” she said.
“If you want your necklace back,” Lady said, evidently unimpressed with Calypso’s mood, “put your pout away and listen to Shayna.”
The sea goddess rolled her eyes but deigned to give me her attention.
I cleared my throat. “I’ve been to see Michael’s sister, Miranda. She’s willing to tell us where Michael is, but she wants a guarantee from you and Lady that if he returns the necklace, neither of you or any of your agents will harm him. Ever.”
It seemed better for me to phrase this as a demand from Miranda rather than a rash promise I’d made. Yeah, I fudge things on occasion.
Calypso glared at me a long moment. She drew in a deep, deep breath and let it out slowly and noisily.
“I will agree if he one, returns my necklace in perfect condition and two, never steps foot into my waters nor rides over them in a boat, ship, kayak, or other conveyance, nor flies over them in a plane.”
I ran my hands over my hair. Why did the goddesses have to make everything so damn hard?
“He can’t make that or any other promise until we rescue him from the curse that’s keeping him wherever he is now,” I said.
Calypso snorted. “You don’t know where he is? Or where my necklace is?”
“I know where he is,” I said, which was vaguely true. I had a map. “He doesn’t have the Mermaid’s Lament. Miranda knows where it is. She’ll tell us when she has your promise.”
“And I,” Calypso said, “will make no promise until he has made his and I have the necklace.”
I sent my gaze toward the sky, but no solutions were written there.
“You’re putting us at an impasse,” I said. “If you want your pearls, you need to make this small compromise and promise. Really, once the Mermaid’s Lament is returned, what do you care if Michael Rawlings flies over the ocean on his way somewhere else?”
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