Five
Maine, 1987
Raina
They had picked the New England coast for no other reason than Raina’s instinct told her to go there. When she’d left her mother in the mountains, she hadn’t gone west to the Pacific, though it had been closer. She’d gone east, her water magic acting as her guide. No one questioned her then—there had been no one to argue—and no one questioned her now.
For a few days after the attack, the others treated her like an invalid, which kind of pissed her off. Sure, she’d been shot in her chest by her own Majori, but she was one of the most powerful witches they would ever meet. There was no need to baby her. They even argued about letting her heal their burn wounds from Ory, though they finally relented and allowed her to do that much.
The only one who treated her the same as always was Fox, who had held a healthy respect for her since she’d frozen him during a fight. After a day of everyone else babying her, she had to admit his snark was refreshing. Besides, he’d saved them from the possessed Majori who had shot her.
Ever since the sea faery had made off with her brother, Raina had despised the fae. But now that she knew them a little better, she had to admit they weren’t so bad. They were tough and warlike, and she could respect that. Still, she appreciated her fellow witches’ cooperativeness when she insisted that they go north to find her brother instead of straight east. She didn’t want to have to explain herself, to tell them she was chasing after mermaids.
She didn’t know how she knew, but her brother was in New England, maybe even Canada. While the others debated whether Billy Idol or Prince was hotter, whether U2 or UB40 would stand the test of time, Raina closed her eyes and saw whaling ships and lighthouses, the grey of the sea on a windswept, stormy afternoon. Finally, just as she’d fully recovered from the gunshot wound, they arrived on the coast. The briny scent of the ocean knocked her back in her seat before it came into view.
“Ugh, it smells like fish,” Shaneesha said, wrinkling her nose.
Raina couldn’t speak. It didn’t smell like fish. It smelled like water, like purity and clean, fresh hope, like daydreams and longing and home. She closed her eyes and breathed it in, knowing that when the others continued on to find the rest of the coven, she would not be going with them. It had taken her twenty years to find her way home, and she was never leaving.
Her eyes snapped open.
“Did you feel that?” Sagely asked from the driver’s seat.
No one answered. They didn’t have to. They all felt it—the strong, unmistakable hum of magic.
“What am I supposed to be feeling?” Fox asked, twisting the volume knob on the radio until the Paula Abdul song was lost in the noise of the tires along the sandy pavement.
“Where’s it coming from?” Shaneesha asked, leaning forward and craning to see out the front window, as if the road ahead held the answers.
“Find it,” Raina said. “That’s where we’re going.”
“What if they’re dark witches?” Sagely asked.
“They’re not,” Shaneesha said.
“How do you know?”
“Look, you’re just going to have to trust us,” Raina said.
“Um, I think we’ve been trusting you this whole trip,” Sagely said. “No one has argued about where we’re going. We drove to the tip-top corner of the country for you. How about you start telling us what’s going on.”
“Not a witch, right here,” Fox said, waving a hand. “Mind filling me in?”
“Fine,” Raina said, annoyed at having to explain the obvious. “I know they’re not dark witches because I’ve had ten years of experience with magic to your…three months? It’s not our coven, they have different magic. But it’s not dark.”
“They’re definitely strong,” Shaneesha said.
“What the hell are you witches feeling?” Fox asked, throwing up his hands.
“Magic,” all three of the witches said at once. After a moment of silence, Sagely started laughing. Raina and Shaneesha joined her, and the tension dissipated.
Fox crossed his arms and stared out the window, sulking.
They drove past a lobster shack and a souvenir shop, making their way closer to the sea and further north as they went. The magic signaling to them grew stronger with each passing mile as they wound along a blacktop road with sandy shoulders. Pines loomed on either side, their red bark pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle. Beneath them, the carpet of rust-colored needles was broken up by bushy undergrowth and jutting rocks. At last, they passed a small turnoff to a sandy road into the trees.
“You missed it,” Raina said, as certain as if she’d been reading a set of directions.
Sagely backed up to the road. A faded wooden sign, halfway hidden by a tangle of blueberry bushes, read “Winding Way.”
Excitement built inside Raina as the car started forward again. She leaned between the front seats, trying to absorb every detail of the narrow road. Once, it had been paved, but the pavement had cracked over time, giving way to potholes and sand and roots. The smell of salt was so heavy in the damp, cool air that she could almost taste it on her tongue. Even she sunlight seemed different, cooler somehow, as if seen through the palest blue glass.
At last, after winding along the uphill slope for a few miles, the car came to a stop in a clearing that looked like the parking lot at a popular trailhead. Jeeps and campers were parked in the sandy lot, but not a hiker in sight.
“Are you a hundred percent sure this isn’t a trap?” Fox asked. “You don’t think Viziri could have masked the magic of your coven, somehow disguised it?”
“No,” Raina said, opening the door and bursting from the car before Sagely had turned off the ignition. She wanted to fly all the way back down the road, towards the sea. Why were they here, not at the ocean? If River was a mer now, he wouldn’t be here, miles from the beach. And yet, she couldn’t deny the presence of magic crackling in the air. This must be his coven. She realized then that she knew very little of mer. If he was both a mer and a warlock, could he change his legs to a tail at will, like a shapeshifter?
It saddened her to know that even if she’d been right beside River, she wouldn’t know his magic. Their magic had not yet awakened when he was abducted. She’d never felt the signature of his magic, didn’t even know for sure that he was a water warlock.
And yet, she did know. In her bones, in her blood, in her magic, she knew. They had been twins, born under a full moon. It pulled their blood like the ocean’s tides.
“Let’s go,” she said. “We can at least meet this coven and find out if they know anything about Viziri.”
“You think they know Viziri?” Sagely asked, looking skeptical as she climbed out of the car.
“He’s amassed so much magic he can command an entire coven with his mind,” Raina said. “You don’t think he got all that power from one little coven in Arkansas, do you? Of course they know who he is. Everyone in the world knows who he is.”
“Wow, your boyfriend’s dad is like a rock star,” Fox said with a toothy grin. “An evil rock star.”
“Shut up,” Sagely grumbled.
“Hey, maybe Quill can be famous someday, too,” Fox said. “Just like his old man.”
Before she could tell them to stop flirting, a spark of magic sizzled up Raina’s spine. She turned just in time to see two dozen witches step from the woods around the clearing at the same moment. Looking around the circle of strange witches, she began to doubt her assumption that they would be welcome in River’s coven. The strange coven had them surrounded. And every one of them was armed.
Six
Sagely
Sagely dropped into ready stance. She could handle an opponent with a knife. And though her Tae Kwon Do instructors hadn’t gone over disarming someone with a broadsword, the basics were probably the same.
But all the black belts in the world couldn’t defeat magical fireballs.
Suddenly, she remembered Quill’s tactic with the fae.
She rose from her fighting stance, which her three companions had also adopted. They probably should have thought about taking someone on the trip who wasn’t a complete hothead, but it was a little late to think of that now. Forcing herself to raise her hands in surrender took every ounce of willpower she possessed. She had to leave her torso exposed to raise her hands.
“We come in peace,” she called to the clearing.
Suddenly, something hit her like an invisible wall, throwing her backwards. The next second, she was staring up at the sky, the breath knocked out of her.
Oh, well. She’d tried Quill’s way. He could be proud of her later, after she’d used her way to kick ass and get the hell out of Dodge.
But before she could stand, a witch flew through the air like a fairy and landed astride Sagely, as if she were a freaking broomstick this witch wanted to ride around on Halloween. A hurricane-force wind blew up behind her, whipping her hair over her face.
“All right, that’s it,” Sagely growled. “I tried to play nice, but now you’re going down, witch.”
She bucked her hips, and when the witch lurched forward, Sagely punched her in the face while simultaneously twisting her hips sideways. A nearby seagull squawked in protest as the witch went sprawling in the pine needles. This time, Sagely was on top. She scrambled onto the girl and grabbed her throat, then hesitated. The girl was only a teenager, and she looked completely stunned by this turn of events. It would have been comical if she hadn’t been intent on murdering Sagely just seconds before.
“What part of ‘we come in peace’ did you not understand?” Sagely asked.
“The part where you’re about to strangle me?” the girl guessed, her eyes bugging as she tried to pry Sagely’s hand loose. The seagull dove in, and Sagely had to duck to avoid its talons.
“I’m just looking for my brother,” Raina shouted from a few feet away, where the hurricane wind was still blowing. “I thought this was his coven.”
“Is he a wind witch?” asked the warlock attacking her.
“No, he’s a—mer.”
The wind stopped and the witches paused, their weapons held aloft. Shaneesha sat up with a scowl and began brushing pine needles off her clothes.
“Wait, what?” Sagely asked. Raina hadn’t told her this part. She’d said she knew where he was, that they couldn’t just go straight east to the ocean. Now it made more sense. Of course they had to come all the way to Maine. After all, whoever heard of a mermaid swimming around off the Jersey shore?
“If he’s your brother, how do you have legs?” challenged the fierce-looking warlock who had let Raina up.
“I’m a sea witch,” she said, shaking back her silky blonde hair. “And I don’t know how he became a mer, but I saw him with a seeing stone.”
“Do you really have a seeing stone?” asked the young witch under Sagely, her eyes bright with excitement and awe.
“That explains why you brought a fae with you.” The warlock’s thick eyebrows drew together as he turned to Fox, who was being restrained by two more warlocks. He had blood on his chin.
Great. Sagely would have some explaining to do there. Why had she asked a faery into her collective again? There he went, biting someone at the first opportunity. She was going to need a leash to keep him in check.
When he saw her looking at him, he stopped struggling against the warlocks and locked his eyes with hers, and a tremor of heat sizzled through her body. Oh, right. That’s why she’d added him. Because he made her into a brainless lustball. That, and because she’d been about to explode from ingesting too much magic, and he’d taken some of it off her hands.
Before she could forget that, she sighed and gave Fox a tight smile. If she wanted to dump him before they got married, she could. But in truth, despite all his annoying habits, she didn’t actually want to. She kind of liked him, against her better judgment.
“You’re not a siren, right?” the warlock asked Raina. He took an extra second to check out her long legs before cracking a tiny smile. “Seeing as how you have legs?”
“I told you, I’m a witch. We sensed your magic and came here, thinking you were sea witches.” She returned his smirk with one of her own and said, in a slightly mocking tone, “Seeing as how you live by the sea.”
“We’re wind witches,” the warlock said. “And we’re no friends of the mer.”
The other witches had gathered around behind him, and Sagely joined Raina and Shaneesha. They even brought Fox over to the group, though they kept him restrained.
“But they do live around here?” Raina pressed.
“Unfortunately,” the warlock said, running a hand roughly through his hair, which was already a tousled mess.
“What’s wrong with mermaids?” Sagely asked.
“We call them sirens,” said the young witch who had attacked Sagely. In her arms, she cradled the seagull, which was still regarding Sagely with distrust. The girl looked delighted when a drop of blood fell from her nose onto her seagull. She grinned and said, “I’m Gale, by the way. Thanks for not killing me.”
Sagely introduced herself, and then the others in turn. A few of the wind witches introduced themselves as well, including the warlock who had attacked Raina.
“I’m Guthrie,” he said, pressing a closed fist to his chest. “Apologies if we seemed inhospitable. I’m sure you understand why we’d be suspicious of the sudden and strong presence of magic encroaching on our home.”
Shaneesha grumbled, still picking pine needles from her braids, but Raina smiled with her usual poise. “No sweat.”
“We need someone to heal the two witches your fae bit, though,” Guthrie said. Though his plain clothes and ash-brown hair were disheveled, his large frame and fearsome scowl gave him an imposing air, and he was hellish handsome to boot.
Sagely nodded. Guthrie’s consternation was better than the disgust that the Winslow Coven had for faeries. “Fox is my intended,” she said. “I take responsibility for him.”
“Don’t treat me like a child,” Fox growled at her as they began to follow the wind witches towards their camp. “I may be small, but I’m also mighty.”
“I know that,” she whispered. “But they don’t.”
“Are we sure about this?” he asked. “They know we’re friends with the mer, or that Raina’s brother is one. And it sounds like they’re none too fond of mer people. Why are they inviting us in?”
“Maybe because we’re not mer?”
“Smells fishy,” Fox said.
“That’s because we’re near the ocean.” Sagely took his hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze, ignoring the blaze of desire that simple gesture sent through her. “I know fae are more warlike, but witches are peaceful. Don’t be so suspicious.”
“I’ll wait outside, in case it’s a trap,” he said. “Signal if you need me. I don’t trust them, inviting in a friend of their enemy so trustingly.”
“You don’t trust them because they’re too trusting?”
“Exactly.”
They followed a path through the pines that led up a slight slope, and at last came out atop a hill. Trees and grasses sighed in the wind across the hilltop. In the distance, past a lighthouse and a few buildings, Sagely could just see something glittering—the sea.
The others were a few steps ahead, but before Sagely could catch up, Fox pulled her to a stop. “Take this,” he said, pressing the pistol into her hand.
“I don’t think I’ll need a gun, Fox.”
“Just in case,” he said as she tucked the pistol in her waistband. His eyes searched her face, and her toes curled in her boots with the thrill of his scrutiny. She thought he’d make a lewd joke, but instead, he shook his head, his deep brown eyes serious. “Be careful.”
He stepped back, nodding for her to follow the witches. Hard, sandy paths were beaten into the grasses and the surrounding pines. Sagely spotted a few dozen tents scattered about in the woods, and a few out in the long, tan grasses that swayed in the briny, cool breeze.
“This is your camp?” she blurted out. It was literally a campground.
“Yep,” Gale said, skipping forward, her light brown hair whipping around her. “Welcome to Camp Coastline, home of the Coastline Coven. Pretty rad, huh?” She tossed her seagull into the air and it circled overhead, making harsh squawking noises.
“It even sounds like a water coven,” Raina muttered. She’d left her own familiar in the car.
Sagely twisted around to see if Fox was still there. He’d stayed at the tree line with the two witches he’d bitten and a couple warlocks, who wanted to oversee the removal of the venom. Sagely couldn’t help but catch one last glimpse of Fox bending over his task. His sculpted shoulders tensed as he leaned over the witch.
A needle of jealousy bit into her flesh when she thought of his lips on another witch’s skin.
seven
Raina
Camp Coastline was just what it sounded like. A camp on the coastline. But it was out of reach of the water. Raina could smell it, she could feel the salt in the air, the damp that crept over everything. She even saw the sun sparkling off the ocean far in the distance. It nearly drove her crazy, knowing she was so close, and yet, something had stopped her. Again.
She was sure she could feel her brother there, by the sea. Almost sure. But now a broad-shouldered warlock was smiling at her, waiting for the answer to a question she hadn’t heard. The sea was calling, but no one else seemed to hear it.
“I’m sorry,” she said, trying to focus on Guthrie. “What did you say?”
“I asked if you knew about the dangers of this coastline,” he said. “It’s my duty to protect passing witches and others who might be susceptible.”
“To what, your charms?” she asked, smiling up at him.
His smile broadened. “I have charms?”
She rolled her eyes. “As if you didn’t know.”
“And what exactly are these supposed charms I possess?”
Sister of the Sea Page 3