My first thought was that Mom couldn’t be upset with me now for losing Ashling, not if we were both gone, that was, if she didn’t celebrate her liberation from her children. My second thought as I rolled in the water—the pain drawing my eyes to its source—was that I’d lost my mind.
It was no shark on my leg. It was a monster, human in appearance with a single eye set high in the middle of its forehead, and a massive mouth filled with sharp, shark-like teeth. The thing smiled as its hands, hooked like claws, rose up to dig into the waist of my neoprene wetsuit. The jagged tips brushed against my bare skin inside the suit, and I trembled with fear, a new fear. What the hell was it?
“Can you hear me little Tuatha? I wonder if you know me deep in your soul? We are coming for you. All of you.”
I blinked and stared into the huge, soulless eye; felt the keen edge of years behind it, and, as much as I wanted to deny what I was hearing, acknowledged that the voice in my head wasn’t my own. It was the monster’s.
What are you? I mouthed into the water, salty brine washing over my taste buds, morbid curiosity overcoming rational sense.
“I am your enemy, the one that will strip your flesh from your bones and bathe in your blood.” The voice was masculine, deep and resonant within my head. I wanted to push it out of my mind.
It—he—rumbled and rolled in the water, taking me with him, end over end until I no longer knew which way was up. Finally he stopped and began to pull me into the depths of the ocean, the water getting colder with each inch we moved deeper, away from the sun and air.
Air. How could I still be under the water and not need to breathe? As soon as the thought came, it was gone; I didn’t have time to think about that, as strange as it seemed.
Movement further below and to the right stole my attention away from my own situation. It was Ashling, fighting with a monster very much like the one on my own leg. They were tumbling in the water, her hair floating about like tentacles as she fought the thing off. How could she be in this deep, for this long? How could I? Again that once hollow piece of me responded. This was why we’d never fit in, these abilities, this magic, these monsters. Though my head said that none of this was real, my heart and soul spoke louder.
This was real, this was happening, and if I was to save Ashling I had to move now. That thought broke through the last of my fear, its hold dissolving within the reality I had accepted.
I grabbed my knife out of the sheath and slashed at the monster that held me in his mouth, slicing through the bulbous eye, white fluid pouring out of it. He jerked away from me, releasing my leg—a spray of blood clouding out around me—as he writhed in the water
He screamed, wordlessly, the echo of his pain reverberating in my skull.
Turning my back on him, I swam hard towards Ashling, holding the knife in my mouth. Twenty feet, fifteen, ten. I was nearly to her before she looked up.
She saw me coming and kicked the monster that held her tight, sending it into a spin away from her. Ashling swam for me, her lips tight, eyes wide and dilated. Five feet. Three. I reached for her, my hand wrapping around her slender wrist. I didn’t pause, just turned and started to swim for the surface. Together we swam hard neither of us looking back.
“She is ours, you will not have her!”
We were yanked to a stop in mid-stroke, the surface only a few feet away, the sunlight streaming down through the waves with tantalizing nearness. I turned in the water and looked down. Ashling had a sea monster on each leg. Her pale green eyes were so wide they seemed to fill her face as the creatures jerked her from my hands and sped back into the depths faster than a rock sinking. Her hands reached for me, futilely.
Before I could even consider diving down after her, hands grabbed me and pulled me upwards, away from Ashling, and out of the water.
“No!” I screamed as I broke the surface, the last of my air erupting in denial. There were people all over the water; rescuers dove after Ashling. But I knew what they didn’t. They would never find her; somehow I knew that not only had my sister been stolen away, but my world had just shattered beyond repair.
And it was all my fault.
~~
5
“Shark attack? Out here? You’ve got to be kidding me!”
“Just look at the girl’s leg, there is nothing else that bites like that. And the instructor said he saw a fin right before the attack.”
I turned from the open window to see that the source of the whispering was two nurses outside my room. I’d been rushed to the hospital, my leg bleeding profusely. The paramedics had wrapped my leg and now I was waiting for the doctor to come and stitch me up
I let out a barking laugh; even I could hear the hysteria in it. “He’s lying, there was no shark.” The nurses spun towards me, their eyebrows raised and their mouths hanging open in unison. The chubby brunette pulled it together first. “My dear,” she said. “What was it that attacked you if it wasn’t a shark?
I was saved from having to reply by the doctor’s arrival. The nurse lifted the blanket off my leg and started to unwrap the gauze. She had barely uncovered the top of the wound when she stopped with a gasp. She regained her composure quickly and pulled the bandage completely off. The bite marks were a mirror image of the scars on my other leg. In fact, they were identical to the scars on my other leg—completely healed.
My mind scuttled back to what Grandpa had done to me. Was this part of what it meant to be Quickened? An increase in the speed of how your body healed? I shivered and looked at the doctor.
He stood beside me, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. “Mary, go call Constable Pollett. He’ll want to speak with her.”
I didn’t understand what was going on. Why would they need the police here? Shouldn’t they all be at the beach, looking for clues?
“A shark was it?” he said, a patronizing look on his face. I had the sudden urge to slap him. “It wasn’t a shark, it was . . .” I paused. I didn’t really know what the two monsters were; I had no name for them. And how was I to explain what I saw? They would blame my crazy descriptions on the fear and my past experiences. Or even my family history. Maybe Grandpa wasn’t as crazy as we’d thought. Or maybe I was about to join him at the Pavilion.
“It wasn’t a shark,” I said again, sticking to the one part I knew for sure.
“Your instructor said he saw the fin; perhaps you just got confused when you were tumbled by a wave.” His words were kind, but his eyes were dagger-like. What was his problem? “You stay here, we need to give you a full once over before we release you.” He flipped the blanket back over my leg, shot me another dirty look and walked away. What the hell was that all about?
I sat there, and who should walk in but Luke. He strolled down the hallway, then leaned against the cream coloured wall about ten feet from me. He was still in his wetsuit—though it was pulled down to his waist, revealing chiselled abs and chest that any woman would die to have at her beck and call. His shimmering blond hair seemed duller under the fluorescents. The nurses twittered and blushed under his smile. I stared at his leg where I’d stabbed him. There was no wound, it was if nothing had happened.
“You son of a bitch!” I said, as I struggled off the bed, scrambling once more for my knife. The nurses tried to tackle me but I pushed them off as I fought my way towards Luke. He didn’t seem perturbed at all; in fact, the bastard seemed to be enjoying the show.
The brunette panted as she tried to twist my arm around and under me. The other nurse just grunted as I dragged them both with me, like children that were demanding my attention by hanging off my limbs.
When had I gotten so strong? Again I thought of Grandpa, his Quickening of me. This all tied in. My strength, my healing, the ability to breathe underwater. Even fighting off whatever power Luke had tried to use on me. All if it was tied into what Grandpa had done; this feeling that I was somehow whole, that all the pieces were fitting inside of me.
“Leave her to me,” Luke said, his voice soothing
, his hands warm as he gripped my wrists.
“We should leave her to him,” The brunette said and the other nurse nodded as they stood, brushed themselves off and walked down the hallway, their eyes glazed.
“Listen here Obi-Wan, what did you do to them?” I tried to wave in the direction of the nurses, but my hands were trapped in his steady grip.
“You have to trust me on this Quinn. I will explain this all to you, I promise, but not here, not now.” His eyes bore into mine as if the intensity of his gaze could convince me. I glared at him; I was tempted to spit in his face.
“You stopped me from saving her. And what the hell did you mean by its better this way?” I said, my jaw tight and my hands clenched in fists. His thumbs attempted to work their magic on my forearms, but I would have none of it. I jerked my body away from him, stumbled on my bitten leg as a nerve pinched, and fell to the cold hard linoleum. I bit down on a whimper that tried to escape, as my leg throbbed in time with my heartbeat.
Luke crouched beside me, though he didn’t touch me. “You were lucky they didn’t take you too. If they’d known who you were they would have gone for you first. I wasn’t sure that they were even there, but now we know that they have indeed resurfaced.”
I stared up at him in confusion, seeking his eyes for the truth. He still hadn’t answered my question. I didn’t know what to think, could barely grasp what was happening. Nothing—from what I’d seen in the water to how Luke’s kiss had affected me, even the way the nurses obeyed him—had gone right since we set foot on that beach, and Luke was a part of it all.
I made a move to stand and he offered me his hand. Ignoring him, I pulled myself to my feet and slid back onto the bed. My leg ached, even though it had healed. I didn’t care what anyone else said, I would not believe Ashling dead till I saw her body with my own eyes. She wasn’t dead, couldn’t be, even though the facts wanted me to believe otherwise. Even as the monstrosities had dragged her downwards, she’d been alive.
Two police officers came in, and Luke stepped back from me, his face going smooth, and a small line of consternation appearing on his forehead. It actually made him look better, more real and not so otherworldly beautiful.
The officers questioned me about the “incident” and finally the tears came. Sobbing, I told them how she’d screamed for me, how Luke had held me back; in shame I told them how I’d turned back then was grabbed by something and dragged in.
They wrote everything down and the senior officer, Constable Pollett, asked me one last question.
“So if it wasn’t a shark and you don’t have any bite wounds, how do you explain her drowning? It says here that she had her dive certificate, same as you. Have you argued with her lately?” He lifted his pen, prepared to write down any information I gave him.
I frowned. “What are you asking me? Are you implying that I would have something to do with her . . .” I couldn’t even say it. I didn’t believe she was dead, the words wouldn’t come out of my mouth.
Luke stepped closer and I felt a wave of pressure, as if the air had suddenly thickened and condensed around us. “It was a shark officer. I saw the fin, there was blood in the water. What else could it be?” Power rippled through his voice, power that I could feel crawling against my skin, seeking a way in to convince me of his words. I fought it off, panicked at what he might make me believe.
His eyes locked with Constable Pollett’s while his hand played over my fingers like a concerned friend. Constable Pollett’s eyes glazed; he nodded and wrote on his pad. The junior officer just stared slack jawed at the wall.
Luke continued, and the power swelled around us, nearly choking me.
“She saw a shark, about fourteen feet. A Great White. They’ve been seen up this way lately as the tuna are migrating further north. Uncommon, but it happens,” he said. The officers nodded; even I could see their minds buckling under his power.
“I didn’t see . . .” I didn’t get to finish the sentence as Luke leaned over and planted his lips on mine, sealing them shut. Again the warmth spread through me like a sweet hot drink circulating though my blood. I couldn’t help myself; I let out a groan and buried my fingers in his hair, pulling him closer. Like a drug I hated wanting, yet found myself seeking out, I couldn’t stop tasting him. There was something in his kiss, something that my body demanded, that I was in need of. The power within me, that I’d felt rise on the beach, responded once more. My blood pulsed as the energy swirled around us.
The cops stepped away, chuckling as they left. Though that irritated me, I still couldn’t seem to release my hold on Luke.
“Love ‘n grief, they bind so quickly do they not . . . Luke?” A deep voice, heavy with an Irish accent, rippled across my senses; Luke pulled away from me. I kept my eyes closed as I struggled to get my rapidly beating heart under control. Slowly I opened my eyes, blinking several times before the humming energy receded back inside of me once more, and I could see my newest visitor.
Where Luke was deeply tanned and fair, the man who stood across from us had hair as black as a moonless night. But it was his eyes that snared me. Violet, a colour I’d never seen in anyone else. And they were pissed. Flashing with anger . . . and was that jealousy I saw flicker through them?
He stared down at me. “If she’d wanted to go with her sister, you should have let her. Ta stupid ones should be allowed to kill themselves off. It leaves more room in the world for ta strong.”
I flushed under his judgment.
Luke shifted his weight and snapped his fingers, his wetsuit shifting and re-arranging itself until it was a t-shirt and shredded jeans. My mouth dropped open. That had not just happened. Maybe the monsters had been the tip of the iceberg of craziness crashing into my life. I shook my head then rubbed my face. This whole day had to be a dream; it couldn’t be really happening. In a few minutes I’d wake up, and Ashling and I would still be in our hotel room, ready to start the day. I shook my head again, and my fingers found the bone handle of my knife.
No, I knew this was happening. I couldn’t deny it. To be honest though, it scared the shit out of me. My fingers flexed, there was some comfort in having a weapon, small as it was, with all that was happening.
“What are we going to do with her Bres?” Luke asked. “We can’t take her with us, she isn’t ready yet to face the Council.”
Bres snorted. “I don’t see why we have to be guarding her at all. If ta prophecy is true, then she should be able to take care of everything herself. No help needed.”
I stared from one unbelievably beautiful man to the other. What the hell were they talking about? “Excuse me, but would you mind not speaking over my head?”
They continued as if I wasn’t there.
Luke pointed at the nurse’s desk. “We’ll leave her here. She’ll be safe with the humans for now. The Fomorii have taken Ashling; that should appease them, at least for the moment. Agreed?”
Bres scowled and nodded. “Fine, but know that I’m only doing this because there be no other way. I don’t have to like ta job or her.” He pointed at me, his hands calloused.
I’d had enough of this. “Stop ignoring me!” I yelled. They both turned to stare at me. “Tell me what’s going on! Who took Ashling?”
My voice rose with each word, fear, panic and anger vying for my attention, my knife still gripped in my hand.
The noise drew the nurses in; they saw the knife and screamed. This, of course, brought the police in at a run. In a few brief moments they had me pinned to the bed despite my struggles. Luke and Bres were pushed out, though they didn’t seem to resist all that much, and the chubby brunette nurse jabbed me with a needle.
I let out a yelp as the world went fuzzy around me, my eyes closing as the sedative kicked in, dropping me into unconsciousness.
~~
6
I floated in a world of fog. There were waves and rocks; I was on the beach again. But this time I couldn’t get to the water. An invisible Barrier was between me and the
ocean. My instincts were telling me that if I could just get to the water I could find Ashling.
My hands slid over the slick, transparent surface; but no matter how I pounded and screamed, the Barrier held firm. I could see Ashling in the distant surf, could hear her screams as she called for me. Panic clawed at me. She needed me, and I couldn’t get to her.
Voices whispered across my ears, pulling me out of the fog, but I still couldn’t open my eyes.
“We gave her three times the usual dose. She burned it off in a matter of minutes; if we didn’t have the steady drip of sedative on her she’d be awake even now.” A shuffle of feet, the blanket pulled tight around my body as if someone was tucking the corners in.
“What about their parents?” A second voice asked.
The first person, it sounded like the brunette nurse, made a hushing sound. “Not so loud. Father isn’t around; their mother . . .” More feet shuffling, and my ears strained to hear what was said.
“. . . can’t reach her. Went missing today too. So tragic.”
My heart picked up speed. My mother was missing? She’d only just left for Ireland three days ago, right before Ashling’s graduation. I struggled upwards through the sedative, and opened my eyes to an empty room. The nurses were gone. Like moving through thick mud, I raised my left hand, the I.V. hanging from it. I fumbled for it with my other hand and yanked the drip out. A hiss of pain escaped my mouth as the hospital tape pulled on my skin and hair; a trickle of blood dripped down my arm from the injection site.
Within moments my mind began to clear. They probably hadn’t given me as strong a dose as they thought. Still, I took great care as I sat up and slid from the bed, my legs wobbly underneath me. I had been dreading phoning Mom, telling her that Ashling was . . . missing? Dead? I didn’t even know the answer to that. I was afraid she’d be happy. I didn’t think I could handle that.
Dark Waters (Celtic Legacy Book 1) Page 3