Saving Her Destiny

by Candice Gilmer

They spread out again and Duncan grumbled as he looked for signs of his friend. While he had decent land tracking abilities—part of the FID training—underwater was a different story. He didn’t even know what he should be looking for. Water didn’t leave tracks like on land.

  He scanned the rocks, looking for some sign of a disturbance. Not that he knew what that would look like.

  Mud moved?

  Something out of place, maybe. There had to be a clue, since they’d just found her breather and her bracelet.

  “What is that?” Kealan said, swimming down the rock face just below where Keefe had found the bracelet.

  He twisted around and jerked a rock out of its notch. “Look at this…”

  “The algae’s been disturbed,” Keefe said. Sure enough, the algae on one side had been rubbed off in about the perfect formation of a handprint.

  A merrow handprint—with the light webbing between the spread fingers.

  Duncan’s heart began to hammer, adrenaline pumping as the two merrow pushed the rock over. The rock hid a small entrance to a cave.

  “Where does that go?” Duncan asked.

  “Only one way to find out,” Keefe said and headed inside.

  Duncan followed the two merrow. “Are you sure this goes somewhere?”

  “No, I’m not. But it’s rather obvious something is going on here. It’s too much of a coincidence finding Cara’s cohuleen druith and breather just outside the entrance,” Keefe said.

  “You sure it’s hers?”

  “Who else would need one?” Kealan asked.

  “True.”

  The tunnel, deep and narrow, pretty much had them swimming single file. The inky dark was only broken by the little sprinkles of algae on the walls, evidently agitated by water movement.

  The tension increased as they swam deeper in the tunnel. The two brothers pulled from their wrist-holsters a funky bone-knife, shaped like a fish’s rib cage. They held them out as they swam, like they were ready for a fight.

  Duncan had pulled one of his knives, ready to use as well. He couldn’t swim fast enough, because he was almost certain Cara had to be in there somewhere.

  The need to find her thundered inside, for more reasons than one.

  In most FID cases, once they were over, Duncan moved on, barely giving the fairy any thought after. He didn’t consider them friends, or anyone he’d be overly concerned about.

  Cara, however, had a different kind of hold on him. Why he’d been so engaged with her after the case, he didn’t exactly know.

  Other than he liked her dimples.

  It sounded stupid just thinking it. Yet he couldn’t help being drawn to the black-haired beauty. The older she got, the more beautiful she became, and she didn’t even realize it.

  He felt privileged to call her friend all these years.

  And he wouldn’t fail his friend with the dimple.

  No matter what.

  Yeah, that was what he kept telling himself. It was only a friend he wanted so much to save. That was all.

  Just a friend.

  Didn’t have anything to do with that damn dimple that haunted his dreams after every casual meeting.

  Especially that one time…

  When I find you, he thought to himself, I’ll destroy the bastard that did this to you, Cara. I swear it.

  He shook off his worry and anger as he swam. He needed to stay focused. Being hotheaded and ready to explode wasn’t going to help Cara. He needed to remain calm and collected.

  Damn you, O’Leary, for putting me on this case! The jerk had to know about Duncan’s relationship with her.

  Maybe that was why he’d sent him and not another FID agent. Duncan would stop at nothing to make sure she was okay.

  And really, would he not go after her himself if he knew she was in danger?

  The tunnel dove down, then slowly started arcing back up, and as they eased through, Duncan noticed the water getting lighter.

  The algae.

  Had to be the algae on the walls illuminating their path.

  As Keefe rose, Duncan saw more and more of the algae lighting the way.

  “Why is all this algae lit up?” Duncan asked. “It’s not from us.”

  “Someone’s been here. Not that long ago, either,” Kealan replied.

  Keefe paused, and Duncan took in the water above them. Not that he knew what he looked at, but Keefe and Kealan did. They slid closer to the sides, creeping up the wall. Duncan realized what they saw—the edge of the water. There had to be some kind of shore above.

  From the way the rocks curved in a tunnel, maybe there was a cove was above? Or an underwater cave? Keefe took the lead and emerged on one side, and Kealan followed on the other.

  Duncan was the last to reach the air. He glanced around and found himself inside a cave.

  “There’s no one here,” Kealan said, his voice bouncing off the cave’s walls.

  “Obviously,” Duncan replied. “But someone had to have been here.” He was glad to use his voice, though he winced at the echoes. There was something to be said about the quiet of underwater.

  Duncan swam over to the small outcropping of rocks on the far side and pulled himself up. “This would be a great place to snatch someone and hide them. Especially an air breather.” He rested his dripping hand on the ledge and, feeling something, he jerked it back. That something he felt wasn’t water.

  He stroked the dark brown pool that laid on the rocks, instantly recognizing the murky substance.

  “What is it?” Keefe said, getting closer.

  “Blood. Not enough to signify a fatal injury, but someone was bleeding here.” Duncan waved his hand in the air. His wand materialized and he pointed it at the blood. Magic hit the pool.

  “Don’t,” Keefe said.

  “Too late,” Duncan replied. He expected his magic to sputter and spit like it had before, but it didn’t. Instead, a shadowed, waif-like apparition appeared, right where Duncan was sitting.

  “This spot must be outside the charms,” Keefe said.

  Kealan leaned in closer to the apparition Duncan had created from the blood drops. “Nice trick.”

  Duncan ignored the merrow’s dig about magic. He wasn’t about to turn away any clues that might help him find Cara.

  The misty image revealed a bound and gagged Cara. Her forehead was black due to blood stain, and she struggled against her bonds.

  Alive. She was alive. Or was, not that long ago.

  Cara.

  “Hear me, Cara…” Duncan pushed his thoughts out into the water, trying to find some glimmer of her, some spark of recognition from her.

  Nothing came back.

  Keefe interrupted his thoughts. “So we know she was here. How long ago?”

  Duncan met Keefe’s stare. “That is up to you. You’re the underwater tracker. How long would that algae be lit up like that?”

  “It couldn’t be more than an hour since it was churned. So she was here, but she was dragged off, I would guess. There’s a lot of stirring here. Means a lot of oxygen was released in the water, so probably a struggle.”

  “We just missed her.” Duncan sighed. At least she’d been alive not that long ago. “So now what?” He pushed away his worry. If she was dead, the scream would have come out.

  He had to tell himself that, because he couldn’t feel her out there anywhere.

  “If she’s bleeding, we might be able to track her,” Kealan said.

  “Blood in the water will attract sharks and other predatory fish,” Keefe said. “So if we move, we might be able to find a trail.”

  “Let’s go.” Duncan glanced at the meter inside his wrist. The yellow color was getting a very obvious orange tint to it. “We’re losing hours here. We have to find her.”

  The three of them dove back down and star
ted swimming out of the cavern.

  “We’re going to need help,” Keefe said.

  Duncan agreed.

  “We have to find her. She’s a ticking time bomb.”

  “What do you mean?” Kealan asked.

  “One thing that most people don’t know about banshees,” Duncan began, “they have to release their screams. If they don’t…”

  “They become a living bomb,” Keefe finished.

  “Exactly.”

  “But who would want to blow up the Merrow Kingdom?” Kealan asked.

  “That’s what we have to find out,” Keefe said.

  Chapter Seven

  Duncan wondered if Cara had gotten away from her captor.

  They couldn’t find any blood trail when they exited the cave. Even with the help of another half dozen Brothers, there was no sign that she’d been taken anywhere.

  If fish had already eaten the evidence—or if there just wasn’t any more—well, Duncan didn’t know.

  It was like she’d vanished. It didn’t make any sense. There should have been blood…or lingering fish. Or something to signify that she’d been down there somewhere.

  He knew she was alive, because while the meter was getting an increasingly orange color, it hadn’t started making that warning noise yet. Besides, if the meter was wrong, and the scream had already erupted, the sonic blast would have echoed off all caverns underwater.

  She had to be somewhere. Yet Duncan couldn’t figure out where.

  He’d tried at least a dozen times to find her with his telepathy with no results—at least, nothing concrete.

  A couple of times he thought he felt her presence, but it was so brief he couldn’t track it long enough to figure out where it was coming from. Frustration raged through him. He was about ready to throw at least one of the princes in the nearest volcano if it would bring some sign of her.

  He gritted his teeth. Thinking like that wasn’t going to find her.

  He had to focus.

  Work the problem.

  Now he couldn’t feel her except for a fleeting second. So what did that mean? Well, if she was kept unconscious, he wouldn’t be able to feel her more than a moment.

  So it made sense that was likely what kept them apart.

  She was unconscious somewhere. Hopefully not too far away.

  The entire merrow home was shaped like a planet with rings. The rings were rows of residences, merchants, and their industrial areas. The outermost ring, however, held their military, and just inside that sat the royal palace, where Keefe and Kealan had brought Duncan to get him some food.

  Not that Duncan wanted to stop to eat, but he’d been getting lightheaded, and the two crown princes thought some time in air would help.

  While Duncan didn’t want to take a break, his stomach couldn’t be ignored.

  “Thanks for this,” Duncan said, waving his hand at the pressurized dining room.

  Keefe shrugged. “You air breathers come around every once in a while.”

  “Yeah, and we can be accommodating on occasion. When we feel like it.” Kealan sipped on his cup of tea. At least, that was what Duncan thought it was—tea. It had that coloring.

  But he wasn’t going to ask questions. The food tasted pretty decent—reminded him of sushi, but not. They ate on plates and sat at a table, and could have been any humans dining around a table after a swim.

  Duncan knew a merrow’s tail changed to legs on land, but he had no idea it changed so easily when exposed to air.

  When the room still had water in it, Keefe had been resting in a chair carved from rock, his fin bobbing. When Kealan had hit the control to pressurize the room, Duncan had been gobsmacked at the transformation. Almost like a wave, as the air hit their fins, the fins separated and became legs.

  While everything was damp, the pressurized room allowed the three of them to walk rather than swim. A technology the merrow had developed—not magic, Duncan noticed—made the pressurized room possible.

  Interesting tech they have down here. Duncan appreciated the change. He’d even let his wings out to stretch—which his two companions thought was amazing.

  The food had been delivered within moments of the room being pressurized. They discussed what to do when another merrow—a girl the two princes took a good five minutes to tease—before they got back to business.

  “So what’s next?” Keefe asked.

  Duncan swallowed his bite before answering. “I’ve been thinking about that. You mentioned another merrow before?”

  “Norton, yeah,” Keefe said.

  “Our cousin,” Kealan added.

  Duncan blinked. “He’s your cousin?” Of course he was. Were they related to all the merrow down here?

  “If anyone’s got a grudge against the royal family, he’d be the most likely suspect.” Keefe ran his hand over his hair.

  “Oh he does,” Kealan said. “His mum is the one who tried to retake the throne a while back.”

  “And you’re just now mentioning this?”

  “What, we brought him up before,” Keefe said.

  “But you didn’t mention that he had that kind of grudge,” Duncan spat.

  “Norton’s a pissed off merrow, I grant you, but he wouldn’t actually kill anyone,” Kealan said.

  “Yes, you’re assuming an awful lot.” Keefe added.

  “What choice do I have? I can’t think of any other reason someone would take a banshee, unless to use her as a weapon.” The thought made him want to vomit the food he just ate.

  “I know Norton’s an ass, but he’d never hurt anyone on purpose. He couldn’t,” Keefe said.

  “Why not?” Duncan asked.

  Both brothers glanced at each other. Then back at him. It was obvious they must be questioning their own family loyalty.

  “You can’t assume he’s hurting Cara,” Keefe said. “Or going to hurt her.”

  “I can’t assume anything else at this point. There’s no other reason to kidnap a banshee who’s about to scream than to use her as a weapon.” And Duncan had gone over the reasons for kidnapping a banshee—specifically Cara—for hours while they searched.

  Duncan picked up his cup and finished his drink, the two brothers sitting there, silently, and both looking like impending doom was coming.

  Unfortunately, Duncan knew exactly how they felt.

  He glanced at the meter on his arm. Time was growing short.

  “So how bad is it, when they explode?” Kealan asked, tugging at the patch of hair at the base of his head.

  “It’s bad.”

  “Are we talking human torpedo bad?” Kealan asked. “Or underwater mine bad?”

  “Both probably. I’ve never actually seen a banshee explode, but from the records in the Realm, it’s really bad. Like leveling a city bad.”

  Both merrow stared at him.

  “I don’t know if it would level this place, but it sure would take out a lot of merrow and probably do a great deal of damage.” Duncan shifted in his stone chair.

  Keefe shook his head. “I can’t… The why. Why would someone do this? I mean, Norton Lynch has a grudge—”

  “What would Norton gain if, say, your whole family died?” Duncan asked. He hated asking this, but he had to.

  Keefe shrugged. “He’d be crown prince right now, I think.” He glanced at Kealan. “That sound right?”

  Kealan nodded. “Yeah, I think so. He’s the oldest.”

  Duncan raised his eyebrow. “You all better beef up security around here.”

  “It’s been done. Dad put out a security alert when the word came down that a banshee was missing,” Kealan replied. “As far as Norton’s concerned, no one’s even seen him around here recently. He’s not a resident. He splits his time topside, being a mixed breed.”

  “Do you have a lot of mix
ed bred merrow?”

  “Not that many, really. We don’t encourage cross-breeding.”

  Duncan snorted. “You all don’t exactly encourage visitors of any kind.”

  “We have our reasons. The mixing of the breeds is the biggest one,” Kealan said.

  “Why is that a big deal?”

  “Because there’s only so many of us. It’s not like there’s a colony of merrow in every ocean. This is it. If we want to continue as a race, we have to protect ourselves. After all, can you imagine what humans would do if they found us?”

  “The same thing they’d do if they found out about me,” Duncan replied. For a second, his thoughts darted to the case he’d been pulled from—Ava’s situation with her charge. He hoped she was behaving herself.

  He really doubted it, though. I’ll deal with that when I get back…

  “And some—Norton Lynch being one—have been trying to convince other merrow to support the idea of opening up the walls and moving the entire merrow kingdom to human-friendly waters.” Keefe adjusted his position in his chair and scratched his leg.

  “He’s what?” Duncan asked.

  “Exactly,” Kealan said. “He thinks that humans should be aware of the mythical creatures in the world. That we can all coexist.”

  “Probably because he’s a mixed breed and has to spend time topside. He’s even been known to walk among the humans over in England.”

  The island migrated along the coasts of England and Scotland, shifting locations to avoid detection. Currently, it was near the northern coast of Scotland.

  Suddenly the situation took a much deeper threat than just a kidnapped banshee. If this Norton fellow was set on revealing not only the merrow existence, but all mythical beings to the human world, it meant he was desperate.

  Did that make him desperate enough to wipe out an entire family to put himself on the throne so he had the power to do what he wanted?

  “And you think that’s not enough of a reason to suspect him?”

  Keefe and Kealan did not look happy at that, but they seemed to be coming around.

  “If he’s responsible for this…” Keefe muttered.

  “He’ll pay for his crimes,” Kealan finished his brother’s words.