The Ghosts' Return [Were-Devils of Tasmania 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

by Simone Sinna

  “Good luck,” she heard Gabriella whisper as she left. She didn’t need to look back to know her cousin was crying.

  * * * *

  There was a strong wind, and Zac made use of it, their boat seeming to fly across the waves, Lena’s hair streaking back as she looked forward and tried to rid her mind of Gabriella’s words, though “call them” kept turning over and over in her head. She was running away, it occurred to her. She was afraid that if she called them and they didn’t come she would just let the virus do its worst and give in without a fight.

  The force of the wind and its changing directions meant there was little time to think about it. She and Zac both needed to manage the sails and the boom. There must have been a brief lull though when she lost concentration, and in that instant, when Zac called out some instructions she didn’t hear, the boom swung before she had time to duck. It was one of those silly things that happened only to amateurs, and she had been sailing most of her life. But as it swung it hit her across the shoulders and at the base of her head. Even if she hadn’t been so weak it still would have sent her flying, and flying she went, without a vest and only semiconscious as she hit the water, unseen by Zac.

  * * * *

  The three months had been like a dream. A bad dream. Kael hadn’t bothered thinking ahead because there wasn’t anything to think about. He worked and slept. There were plenty of gigs to keep him busy, and his employers and audience seemed to think he was doing all right, but anyone who knew him, really knew him, would have recognized that something was wrong. He was going through the motions, singing the words, strumming the tunes. But his music had lost soul or meaning. He quite simply felt part of himself was missing.

  When Lena had called them a week or so earlier Lincoln had warned him she was dreaming, that it wasn’t real for her. But it had given him hope. Surely if they were still in her dreams she hadn’t really given them up? Maybe she didn’t even hate them. Or at least might be able to forgive them.

  So when he was sitting on the beach at one of the resort islands north of Dream-maker, his thoughts were sprinkled with possibilities and the song he was writing, unlike the previous, was one of hope rather than love lost. He couldn’t quite get the words right, and he’d hoped that sitting on the beach would help.

  Maybe one day you and I

  Will be closer under a blue sky

  Maybe one day you and I

  Will be together until…

  No, he didn’t want the word die. Kael began again but hadn’t gotten far when the call came from Lena as strong and clear as if she had been sitting next to him. He started. It was the middle of the day, surely she wouldn’t be asleep and dreaming?

  But then in the next instant he knew exactly where she was, and without worrying if anyone was watching, he had transformed and was in the water so quickly that even if a tourist had been watching they would have just put it down to too many beers in the sun.

  * * * *

  Her fear of diving came from a fear of drowning, of the sensation of water being inhaled instead of air and her lungs slowly filling up. It was common amongst ghosts. When she had been on a practice dive she had had her mask knocked off, and the feel of the salt water on her nostrils, unable to see properly, had left her shaken. They had been twenty or thirty yards down, and Zac had found her mask and helped put it back on her, reminding her with actions about how to clear it. But the memory had been strong, and she’d never liked being underwater since.

  Now she felt she was floating, drifting, but above her she was vaguely aware of the light of the surface getting further away. In the second before she lost consciousness she knew she was drowning and called to the Tremain brothers.

  When she woke she had no sense of where she was and how she had gotten there. As her mind cleared, the room had the predictable appearance of a hospital, all white and stark. She had a drip in her arm, and she was wearing a hospital gown. Outside the door she could hear voices.

  “I tell you we are her closest kin.”

  “I saved her for God’s sake.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but if you aren’t married or cohabitating then you’ll have to wait…”

  “I don’t want them anywhere near her, and I live with her.”

  The volume was increasing. Lena tried to call out, but her throat was dry and her voice barely came out louder than a whisper. The door opened, and Zac and a nurse came in. Zac went straight to her when he saw she was awake, burying his head in the pillow beside her as the hug threatened to all but suffocate her.

  “Oh thank God,” he said. Lena was vaguely aware his cheeks were wet.

  “What happened?” she mumbled.

  The nurse was taking her pulse. “You gave everyone quite a scare, young lady,” she said in crisply efficient tones. “But seems like you got rescued just in time.”

  “Rescued?”

  “You fell off the boat,” said Zac. “Probably hit by the boom.”

  “You saved me?”

  Zac stiffened.

  “No,” said the nurse. “You are one very lucky lady. A man on the beach saw it all. Must be an Olympic swimming contender. Can’t for the life of me work out how he found you underwater at that distance.”

  In that moment Lena knew and made sense of the voices she had recognized but been unable to identify.

  “Kael and Lincoln.”

  “Kael,” said Zac through gritted teeth.

  “They have been camped outside your door for two days waiting to see you,” said the nurse, glaring at Zac.

  “Oh.” Lena was sure that if the nurse took her pulse now it would be doubled. Her mind raced. Zac still didn’t know they were were-devils. He was just being protective. “Please,” she said softly.

  Zac didn’t say anything. He walked out of the room, leaving the door open as he left.

  * * * *

  “Can you make sure that next time you try a stunt like that I’m a bit closer?” said Lincoln lightly. “You’re lucky Kael can swim because, believe me, I’m the one better equipped to save you.”

  Kael grinned. “He’s just embarrassed I showed him up,” he said. “Hasn’t happened since I beat him in a sack race when I was six.”

  “And that was only because my sack broke.”

  Lena couldn’t help but smile. It was as if the last three and a half months hadn’t existed, but she knew she had to bring it up, that pretending she hadn’t hurt them wasn’t any way to go forward, whether it was together or not.

  “I am so sorry,” she said.

  “For nearly drowning fifty miles from where I was?” said Lincoln. “So you should be.”

  “That wasn’t what I meant.”

  “We’re sorry for not…well, for assuming you knew.”

  “I’m not,” said Lena. “If I had known I wouldn’t have had anything to do with you. As it was…I discovered what I was missing and was finally able to realize what an idiot I was being, just because of my stupid family’s prejudice.”

  “Well, our family has its moments, too,” said Kael.

  “Will you forgive me?”

  “Have done long ago,” said Lincoln.

  “Enough to…”

  Kael grinned. “Definitely.”

  “You just need to be given the all clear, and we’ll get you out of here,” added Lincoln.

  Lena bit her lip. “There is a problem.” She nodded toward her bandaged arm and began to explain.

  * * * *

  In the end, though the Tremain boys were less than happy with the arrangement, it made sense for Lena to go home with Zac and at least see Adam. Lincoln meantime was going to talk to his uncle, and before he left her at the hospital, he took a sample of her blood. He wanted to see if he or Tilman could work out what she was infected with.

  Zac was unusually quiet. Lena wanted to hug him and say she would always be his friend and cousin, but she knew he wanted more than that, more than she could ever give, even if Kael and Lincoln hadn’t existed. She was sure there was
a woman for him, it just wasn’t her.

  “So it’s back on with the dickheads?” he asked gruffly.

  “Yes,” said Lena. “It…was never really off. My mistake and misunderstanding.”

  Zac looked at her hard. “They’re were-devils, aren’t they?”

  Lena looked away. By blocking her thoughts and not answering she might as well have said yes, but she was neither imaginative enough nor a good enough liar to respond in any other way.

  “It was meant to be, Zac, I’m sorry,” she said. “Perhaps it will help reverse their curse and maybe stop whatever is now descending on the ghosts because of what happened half a century ago.”

  “You dying won’t help anyone,” said Zac.

  “If Adam can’t help,” said Lena. “Maybe they can.”

  Zac looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “I destroyed their lab, infected a couple of them. You reckon they are just going to overlook that?”

  “I don’t know,” said Lena, feeling surprisingly calm. “But I have faith something will come up.”

  Zac shook his head. “Lena, their race has almost been wiped out by the virus. If my grandmother died from the virus coming to get us, and that’s what you have…” He stopped himself. Lena gave him a hug.

  “One day at a time, okay?”

  Adam lived in the rainforests north of Cairns. They drove there from the marina in silence. Lena was less confident than she made out, but the reminder of just how strongly the Tremains felt about her sustained her. Even if the virus did prove fatal, she felt more alive and whole than she had in the three months they had been apart.

  It was dark by the time they arrived, and though Adam knew they were coming there were no lights on.

  “Grandpa?” Zac called out at the front door. There was no response. The door was open, so they made their way tentatively inside. They found him sitting alone in a chair on the back verandah looking into the depths of the rainforests he had come to love. As dusk was falling the forest was coming alive with animal noises, mostly the chatter of bats.

  “Never thought I’d like this,” he said without greeting them. “Marianne and I thought we were in purgatory when we first arrived, the heat and the insects, the noise.” He coughed. “But in the end it’s home.”

  As Lena’s eyes grew accustomed to the faint light she thought he looked unwell, his cheeks gaunt hollows in a cadaverous face.

  “You aren’t looking after yourself,” she said softly. She wondered if he ate now his wife wasn’t here to look after him.

  “No matter,” he said, still not looking at them. “I’ll be dead soon, and it can’t be soon enough.”

  “I’ll get something to eat,” said Lena, imploring Zac with a look that said to “do something.” When she returned twenty minutes later with toasted sandwiches and tea they were sitting quietly next to each other, both staring ahead, Zac’s frame dwarfing his grandfather’s. Once the old man had been every bit as tall and shoulders just as broad, but it was hard to believe now.

  “You’re sick,” Lena said, looking at him.

  Adam nodded. “Same as what Marianne had.”

  Zac and Lena exchanged looks. This didn’t auger well.

  “What is it?”

  The silence stretched between them for what seemed to be minutes before he finally spoke.

  “The Magnussens and the Karlssens spilt from our cousins in Scandinavia and England some two hundred years ago,” Adam said. “We eventually came to Australia and agreed on a truce. But another group also split from them, some going to the United States and one small group to Queensland. The main source of the split was over land and ownership, but there was also a secret, and who owned that, ultimately had the power.”

  “What sort of secret?” asked Zac. He and Lena had heard many of Adam’s stories as they were growing up but never this one.

  “The secret weapon,” said Adam, coughing. “Saddam Hussein and chemical weapons? Huh, had nothing on what our people have known for generations.”

  “The virus,” said Lena softly.

  Adam smiled, closing his eyes as he spoke of memories he appeared to be reliving. “They are very smart, the Baekkens. They have been scientists since the middle ages. They have had and used their knowledge throughout time, and no one has ever suspected.”

  “So how does it affect us here?”

  “The group in Queensland that was here when we arrived after the war,” Adam said, “had stolen some of the scientific records. The Baekkens wanted them back or destroyed. I agreed to help them.”

  “In return for…?”

  “In return they gave me enough of a variant of the virus to infect the were-devils. They probably didn’t know just how it would affect them because their biology is inferior. But it was effective.”

  Lena focused on keeping calm. Zac didn’t take any notice of the slur. “Was it the same virus that got rid of the breakaway group up here?”

  “Yes and no. Similar but not exactly the same. The beauty of their weapon.” Adam laughed to himself.

  “And now there is another variation?” Zac asked frowning.

  “Yes.” He opened his eyes and stared at Lena. “Or so the prophecy suggests. Two generations I was told.”

  “Two generations and then what?” Zac asked in frustration.

  “I thought they would all be dead, you see,” said Adam, grabbing Zac’s hand. “That it wouldn’t matter.”

  “Well, it does matter,” Zac replied, shaking off the old man’s hand as he stood. “Where is the antidote?”

  Adam shook his head. “I only ever had just enough. Used long ago.”

  “And you didn’t want my mother to have it, did you?” said Lena, also standing. “You hoped she’d die.”

  “She had were-devil blood,” said Adam, spitting on the ground.

  “And so will my children should I ever have them,” said Lena, also standing. “And I will be sure they are proud of it. Die knowing you may have brought us all to destruction and that if we are saved, it will be because of the were-devils.”

  On the drive home Zac was more distressed than Lena.

  “He didn’t know what he was doing,” he said. “He did it for love and honor. It was the Baekkens that tricked him, hoping to be rid of us all.”

  “Perhaps,” said Lena. “But he conspired with them.” She stared out the window, knowing now that her only hope was with the Tremains.

  Chapter Seven

  Lincoln Tremain frowned. He’d just gotten off the telephone with his Uncle Tilman, and he was struggling to make sense of what Tilman had discovered and what he was seeing in Lena’s blood. Of course Lena was three-quarter ghost and it didn’t help that he had no idea about how ghost blood differed from human and were-devil, but he needed to make sense of it urgently. Lena’s life depended on it. Tilman’s human daughter-in-law who had been exposed to the were-devil’s virus had been the key to them finding a cure for their own people, but would it work for Lena?

  Tilman had been at Tarrabah with Melody and sounded reluctant to have Lena come to where he worked in the south of the island, which, given that she and Zac had caused damage and could have potentially killed both Mac and Mitch’s sister and Tilman himself, was understandable. Linc had assured Tilman that Zac wouldn’t be with them, just Lena, but even this hadn’t helped. In the end Tilman suggested they meet at the university in Hobart.

  Hobart after Queensland was cool, but the spring changes were obvious since they’d left, green leaves sprinkled over the old trees and daffodils in full bloom. Lena fell in love with the town as they drove through, and Lincoln left her with Kael and Gabriella to be shown around Mac and Mitch’s house where they were all staying while he went to meet Tilman.

  Like Linc, Tilman frowned when he looked at the test results Linc had run.

  “She has SMB,” said Tilman, referring to the marker he had identified as an immune defense response to the were-devil’s curse. “Like Gabriella’s blood it has the attachment which helpe
d Melody. Which suggests she was infected and responding or else was already immune. But you say it has increased?”

  Linc showed the second set of test results from blood samples a few days apart.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” said Tilman. “How she can be infected with something that she infected me with?”

  Lincoln stared at his uncle. “What do you mean?”

  Tilman pointed to a faint mark on his neck. “She bit me.”

  “No!” said Linc shaking his head. “I’m sure she would have told me if she had. It had to be Zac. It was certainly him that attacked Melody Mortimer.”

  Tilman frowned. “She was certainly with me just before someone hit me, Zac I presume, from behind. I remember her crashing into me and White.”

  “White?”

  “One of my lab were-devils we hadn’t been able to save.”

  “What if,” said Linc slowly, “her crashing into you brought her into contact with the virus, and because her mother took only half the dose of antidote, the immunity to the next generation—Lena—was impaired as a result?”

  Tilman nodded thoughtfully. “Possible. In which case, the antidote I have should help boost her SMB and she should respond quickly.”

  Lincoln felt the burden he’d been carrying lighten. He would be able to save her and protect her, and as far as he was concerned the sooner the better.

  * * * *

  Auntie Kate locked the door and turned the sign so it now read closed. She made herself some of her special herbal tea and lit an extra stick of incense she had made from a recipe passed through the generations of her family. Musky and sweet, it calmed and also cleared her mind. Right now she needed to make sense of all the changes that had been happening.

  Yet again she asked the question. What is the answer to the Were-Devils’ Curse? She dipped her hands into the cauldron of stones. Yet again seven came up, four black and yellow and three opaque.

  She stared at the stones. They had to show that this time they had followed their instincts. Not their species’ instincts that had led to the curse so long ago, but rather the instincts of love.