Fury’s Kiss

by Nicola R. White

  It had to be a good sign—sharks didn’t splash, right? But my heart was in my throat as I swam toward the noise. I landed in a valley between waves, then breathed out in grateful relief when I saw Jackson swimming toward me on the next swell. He stopped when he reached me, breathing hard.

  “Don’t do that again,” he scolded when he’d caught his breath. “We can’t afford to get separated out here. If you get lost, I might never find you. And get rid of that damn film over your eyes when I’m trying to talk to you.”

  I blinked the brille away, tucking it up under my eyelids. “Don’t do what again? You’re the one who didn’t keep up.” I’d been ready to face down a man-eating shark for him, and all he could do was complain about my appearance?

  “Didn’t keep up?” he repeated. “Tara, I’ve been trying to catch up to you for the past quarter mile. You’ve been swimming like a fish. Hell, you’ve been underwater for the past five minutes.”

  Oh. My eyes widened. “I was?”

  He shook his head disgustedly.

  What I could say to make things OK again? “Um…I’m sorry I got you into a gunfight with the FBI? And that I left you behind?”

  Jackson just looked at me then started to swim again, so I blinked the brille back in place and followed. This time, I made sure to stay close and swim on the surface. After another ten minutes or so, we reached an inflatable boat made of black rubber. It was tethered to a drift anchor to keep it in position, and was captained by an unfamiliar man dressed in black. His dark clothing and dark skin blended into the night, and even while rocking from side to side on a piece of wave-tossed plastic, he carried himself in a ready, alert stance that screamed military. He had to be Ty.

  Aside from the man captaining the rubber vessel, the crew was comprised of four very familiar, very anxious faces—and one brunette zookeeper whose presence I couldn’t explain. After Jackson and I had been hauled aboard, towels and clothing handed out, and hugs exchanged, the man at the helm hauled in the anchor. Muscle bulged under mocha-skinned forearms as he pulled on the rope. After stowing the anchor, he started up the engine and angled us southeast.

  Alex handled the introductions. “Tara, Tyler Kelly. Tyler, this is Tara.”

  “Call me Ty,” our captain said. His voice had a touch of Cajun in it that hinted at Louisiana. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  Well, that was interesting. I’d heard next to nothing about him.

  I looked sideways at Jackson. What had he told Ty about me? His fellow ex-SEAL must have wanted some kind of explanation for what he was doing in a boat full of women in the middle of the ocean.

  “How did you all get out here?” I asked.

  Alex explained. “Ty came up to us while we were getting ice cream and said we had to come with him, on Jackson’s orders. I didn’t believe him, but Ruby said he was one of the good guys.” She shrugged. “You know how the kid can read people, so we came along.”

  “So Ty picked up you and Ruby after Jackson texted him…but how did Nora and Rachel end up aboard? It seems like you all managed to get out here awfully fast. And what’s she doing here?” I pointed to the extra member of our makeshift crew.

  Now Nora spoke up. “The first time Perris came after Ruby, no one believed me, since his people made it look like a break and enter gone wrong. I always kept a go-bag in the truck after that. So when we heard the commotion outside the bar, Rachel and I took off to meet Ty. He and Jackson had this whole thing planned in advance, in case anything went wrong with Perris tonight.”

  “And her?” I still wanted to know about the snake handler.

  “I just couldn’t turn down the possibility to have such an adventure,” Hester said in her posh, British accent. “So when they tried to leave me behind, naturally I threatened to turn them in if they didn’t take me.”

  What a nut. “You do realize you’re going to be implicated in some very serious crimes because of all this?”

  “Oh, yes. Of course.”

  I looked over at Alex.

  Alex shrugged. “She didn’t seem this crazy when I met her.”

  “Hester’s not crazy,” Ruby announced. “I like her.”

  Hester beamed at her. “Thank you, dear. You’re very sweet. Now, that reminds me.” She reached into her pocket. “I brought this for you, Tara. I thought you might not have gotten around to making enough for yourself.” She held out a vial of purple liquid and my eyes widened.

  It couldn’t be.

  “Mrs. Hadley?”

  Chapter 25

  “No, dear, it’s Hester.” She waggled the little glass bottle at me. “Go on now, take it.”

  “Mrs. Hadley?” Alex repeated. To her credit, she sounded more confused than upset that I believed her date was a centuries-old witch who had been masquerading as the old lady next door.

  “The name is Hester,” the witch insisted.

  “You have got one weird group of friends, man,” Ty said to Jackson under his breath.

  Ruby looked up at the witch. “I think it’s time to tell the truth.”

  Hester sighed. “Oh, all right. Yes, it’s me. But I’m not Mrs. Hadley anymore. You may call me Hecate if you insist, but I really do prefer Hester. Now, take this.” She held the potion out again. “You’ll need it.”

  I tucked the vial into the pocket of the jeans Nora had given me from her go-bag and began to work on my hair with the comb she passed me. After a half-mile swim through open water, the tangles had snarled into a heavy knot and pulled painfully on my already tired head.

  “What was that black stuff that attacked you?” Rachel asked Hester while I worked on my hair. “And how did you survive? It almost looked like it was…alive.”

  “It was,” she said. “That ‘black stuff’ you refer to is what makes up the River Styx. Those souls who can’t pay the fee to cross the river and enter the underworld are doomed to forfeit an eternity in that darkness. Unless they can lure another into taking their place.”

  I shivered, feeling the cold tendrils creeping up my body again. I’d been even luckier than I’d realized. If not for Rachel, I would have joined those damned souls.

  “What was it—were they—doing in your kitchen?” I asked.

  Hester’s face took on a stormy expression, brows drawing down into a scowl. “That, I don’t know. The only one with the power to control the souls that make up the river is Charon, the ferryman. And he can’t stand humans. Perris must have very powerful connections if he was able to borrow and command those souls. Charon would only have released them into the keeping of another god, after he or she had made an unbreakable oath on the River itself.”

  “How did you escape?” Rachel asked Hester. “We thought you were dead.”

  “I guess I am, in a way. The body I inhabited as Mrs. Hadley is certainly dead. I transferred myself to this one at the crucial moment.”

  “Where do the bodies come from?” Alex wanted to know.

  “I certainly don’t steal them, if that’s what you’re getting at. I conjure them up and keep them in storage for when I need one.”

  I pictured Mrs. Hadley’s linen closet full of spare, lifeless bodies, and wondered if ‘Hester’ had been tucked away somewhere when Rachel and I had joined her for tea and ambrosia. It was a gruesome thought.

  “It’s best to prepare them in advance rather than do a shoddy job at the last minute,” the witch confided. “It’s when you’re not paying attention that you end up with webbed feet or crossed eyes.”

  “What’s with the British accent?” I asked the witch.

  “I thought it would be a rather nice change. It’s quite posh, isn’t it? The rain in Spain falls gently on the plain,” she enunciated.

  Rain. Of course. “It was you helping us out that night I was shot, wasn’t it? You made it rain so my blood would be washed away.”

  Hester just smiled.

  I closed my eyes, hearing the zip of the gunshot again, and wrapped my arms around myself tightly. The shot had been so qu
iet, I hadn’t even known I’d been hit. Not like when Perris had lifted the pistol to his head and—my eyes popped open. What if there was more to Perris’s death than met the eye?

  “Is there any way a regular human being could switch bodies the way you do?”

  The witch frowned, thinking. “I suppose it could happen if a god gave him the power. It would be a terribly foolish thing to do, though. Humans weren’t meant to wield that sort of magic. Drives them a bit mad.”

  Which sounded about right, given the sadistic images I’d seen in Christos Perris’s head.

  “And would the human be able to conjure up a new body the way you do?” Rachel asked.

  “Oh no, of course not. There would have to be a blood link between the bodies. That’s what makes it so terrible. A mortal can only steal life, not create it. He must make a conscious decision to make the jump and kill another.”

  “So you have to be related to the body you steal?” Alex asked. “That’s harsh. What happens to whoever gets body-snatched?”

  “Well.” Hester shifted uncomfortably. “They die.”

  Oh, no. I felt the blood drain from my face. “Perris killed himself,” I told the others. “Back at the bar. At least, I thought he did. But it seemed like…” I shook my head. “It seemed like his eyes went dead just before he pulled the trigger.”

  Alex finished the awful thought. “Meaning he jumped. Switched bodies.”

  I swallowed hard. Somewhere out there, someone’s life had been taken because I’d confronted Perris and lost. Jackson had been right—I should have waited, found easier prey. I should have done more research, taken the time to find out more about Perris and why he was after Ruby and me.

  “Perris said he had another oracle,” I remembered. “Is that possible? Are there other people like Ruby?”

  “Maybe,” Hester allowed. “It’s unusual in these modern times for an oracle to be born at all, much less two at once, but Alecto’s return is a signal that things are changing. And with oracles, it all comes down to the blood.”

  “What do you mean?” Nora asked. “I’ve tried to ask Ruby about it so many times, but all she tells me is that it’s just the way she is. I’ve never been sure if she doesn’t know, or just won’t tell.”

  “A Fury will come to any woman who is worthy. But prophecy is carried in the blood, male or female, from generation to generation. You are of Greek descent?”

  “I was born in Greece, but we left when I was a little girl. My parents told me the old legends, but…there was never any mention of something like this.”

  Aha. That explained the exotic lilt mixed up in Nora’s otherwise Southern accent..

  “Somewhere in your line, there was an oracle. A powerful one, too, if I’m not mistaken.” Hester reached out and tapped Ruby on the shoulder. “What is your lineage, girl?”

  Ruby answered as though this was a perfectly normal question to pose to a five-year-old. “I’m from Pythia. Nicky is from Aelius Aristides. That bad man makes him hurt people instead of helping them, though.”

  “You just have to ask the right questions,” Hester told Nora with satisfaction.

  “Who, or what, are Pythia and Aelius whoever?” Ty put in. He had kept silent, taking it all in, but he leaned forward now, curiosity piqued. Either he trusted Jackson implicitly, or he had a high tolerance for crazy people. If I were him, I’d have jumped overboard long ago.

  “Aelius Aristides was a poet and orator said to receive advice from Asklepios, god of medicine,” Rachel said, as much for our benefit as Ty’s. “Pythia was the oracle at Delphi, the most important of them all. She was considered to be infallible.”

  “You really do know everything, don’t you?” Jackson said.

  Rachel shrugged. “Photographic memory. What can I say?”

  Ty laughed. “You all are a weird bunch of people, you know that?”

  Ruby piped up again. “Nicky’s in trouble, Uncle Jackson. You have to save him. You will, won’t you?”

  “Of course I will.” He reassured the little girl, but I knew he was thinking of the last time a child had needed his help. When Perris had come after Ruby and killed her father instead. I didn’t need to see into his head to know what he was thinking. This time, he would do whatever it took to keep another child from being hurt. I looked around at my friends. Any of them would do the same.

  Which was why I couldn’t let them.

  Christos Perris was just too dangerous. Years before, he’d taken away a brother, husband, and father. And he’d left behind a grieving wife, a little girl who could hardly remember her daddy, and a man haunted by guilt. Then there were the countless other people he’d harmed over the years, the women he’d terrorized as the New England Slasher. And the boy, Nikos, whose parents I was sure had been helped into an early grave.

  So many people had died already for Perris’s sins, and it was my job to make him pay. I was the one Alecto had chosen, the one with the power to do it, and I couldn’t allow anyone I loved to put themselves in harm’s way. I would get my strength back up and go after Perris alone. If all went well, my friends could yell at me afterward.

  And if it didn’t…well, they would still be alive to look after Ruby, and maybe find a way to do what I couldn’t.

  “Nearly there.” Ty’s voice broke into my thoughts.

  He’d kept the boat on a steady course toward the Monomoy Wilderness, more than three thousand acres of National Wildlife Refuge located on a cluster of islands just off the elbow of Cape Cod. While Morris Island boasted a visitors’ center and was accessible from the mainland, the North and South islands could only be reached by boat. Fishing, hiking, and wildlife observation were permitted during the day, but the Refuge was closed from dusk to dawn, making night the perfect cover for our clandestine arrival. Ty guided the boat into the shallows near North Island and cut the engine as we drifted in to the beach.

  Jackson laid out our next move. “The plan was for all of us to travel together by boat to a safe house. But now that Ruby says this Nikos kid needs to be rescued, it looks like we need to improvise. Ty, you take the others on to the safe house.” The men locked eyes and Ty nodded, a silent promise to look after Jackson’s family. “Tara and I will go after the boy. We’ll take supplies and hike to the center of the island, where we can lay low and wait out the day. Should be a few trees and enough long grass to stay hidden.”

  “Then what?” I asked.

  “When it gets dark again, we swim to Nantucket Island. From there, we find our way to the mainland.”

  “Nantucket Island must be miles from here,” Nora protested. “Why don’t you come with us to the safe house, where you can rest and come up with a real plan?”

  “It’s five miles,” Jackson said. “And we’ll be fine.” He looked me in the eye and I nodded, as Ty had. We were in this together.

  At least, we were until I determined Perris’s whereabouts. There was no way Jackson would allow me to go after the man alone, but I was prepared to overpower and tie him up if I had to. Even if he was unable to forgive my betrayal, Jackson’s anger was a better alternative to seeing him harmed by Perris.

  With one last round of hugs from the girls, and a handshake and hooyah between Jackson and Ty, we shouldered our gear and slid over the side of the boat into thigh-deep water. By now, I was nearing the limit of my endurance and had started to shiver. I tried to control it and Jackson didn’t let on that he noticed until the others were gone and we were alone on the beach.

  “Not much farther now. You’re doing good.” He adjusted a strap on my pack and brushed away a piece of hair that had tugged itself loose from my braid. I warmed a little under his praise. “Tara, about what you said back there, before we got in the water—”

  I shook my head. “Tell me later, when this is all over.”

  I didn’t want him to say anything he would regret. Whatever it was, it could wait until I could be sure it wasn’t the moonlight or the danger talking. And if I didn’t make it…well, t
hen it wouldn’t matter anyway.

  Heartsick and exhausted, I turned away from him and begin the long hike over the sand dunes. It was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do, but I put one foot in front of the other until finally we reached a clump of stubby trees that Jackson deemed fit for our purposes. I watched through a dull fog of fatigue while he built a lean-to that disappeared into the shadows and unrolled a couple of ultra light sleeping bags inside.

  When our shelter was ready, I lay down next to him and watched him in the dark. Though I knew he couldn’t see much more than the shape of my face, he watched me back. I tried to memorize the shape of his lips, his jaw, the way his eyelashes framed his dark brown eyes. He didn’t know it yet but when we reached the mainland, I would leave him, and I wanted something of him to take with me in case I didn’t make it back. Despite my heavy eyelids and the dull ache at the back of my head, I stayed awake for as long as I could, drinking in the sight of him. Eventually, I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer.

  I slept.

  Chapter 26

  When I woke the next day, the sun was high overhead and the lean-to was stiflingly hot. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck as I moved just enough to reach for the canteen of warm, stale water Jackson held out to me. I used the water to wash down the ambrosia Hester had provided. Although my bond with Alecto had made me stronger than ever before, it had also made me weaker in some ways. Still drained from the effort required to heal my wound and escape the Cape in the wake of Perris’s suicide, my body could only repair itself so much without the energy transfer that came with vengeance.

  “What’s wrong?” Jackson studied the pallor of my skin and the lethargy of my movements. “I know last night took a lot out of you, but shouldn’t the rest and ambrosia have helped?”

  “It’s not enough. Dealing with Perris and then swimming for so long in cold water, so soon after healing a gunshot wound… It was just too much. I’ve gone too long without a vengeance boost.”