Lycan Legacy - 4 - 5 - 6: Princess - Progeny - Paladin: Book 4 - 5 - 6 in the Lycan Legacy Series

by Veronica Singer

  “We should be able to speak now,” Mike whispered. “Even the best night-vision scope and listening devices can’t make us out at this distance.”

  “You think they’d spy on us?”

  “They’d be remiss in their duties if they didn’t try to find out how we plan to perform this impossible mission. Especially after you challenged an SAS officer to an arm-wrestling contest.”

  “Okay, I was showing off. That little shit pissed me off, though.” I shook my head to dismiss the non-important thoughts. “Do you need help to activate your oxygen mask spell?”

  “No, it should work just like our tests in the swimming pool.”

  Mike eyes narrowed in concentration and the nearly invisible sphere of air appeared around his head. I repeated the process. My bubble was slightly bigger; werewolves need more oxygen than humans. We both discarded the now-useless masks into the raft.

  “It might take me a few minutes to adjust my buoyancy here,” said Mike. “Fresh water and sea water have different densities.”

  While Mike played with his equipment and spells, I experimented. Achieving neutral buoyancy was easy for me. I used natural magic, while Mike depended on magically activated tattoos to achieve nearly the same effect.

  I released my grip on the raft and slid under the surface, halting about ten feet down. Beneath us, the water went down another one hundred meters. Even my eyes couldn’t penetrate the darkness more than another ten meters.

  I shivered at the thought of getting lost in that Stygian darkness, then threw it off. This was nothing compared to a real ocean.

  Then Mike’s body dropped past as he sank like a rock.

  He must have tweaked his spell wrong. I dove in pursuit before finishing the thought.

  I managed to snag him by his tank before he passed thirty meters. The sudden pressure change had affected him; his eyes were unfocused in the tiny light from my headset.

  My feet churned the water furiously to keep us both from sinking further. Trying to pull him up was like dragging a boulder to the surface.

  I can’t swim to the surface and I can’t keep this up much longer. Sheer strength wouldn’t help here. We needed to lighten him up to get back to the surface. I thought of tweaking his oxygen mask spell to make him more buoyant, then dismissed the idea. Magic is fickle. Tweaking the spell in a swimming pool or on shore would be no problem. Attempting it here, twenty meters below the water, would be insane.

  Mike was fumbling around with his weight belt, his fingers too clumsy to work. He had the right idea, but was moving too slowly.

  I extended a razor-sharp claw and slashed through his weight belt, the straps holding his tanks, and his hoses. All of his life-sustaining devices sank quickly out of sight.

  With the equipment gone, I only had to tread water a bit to maintain our depth. I started to ascend, pulling Mike with me when he tugged on my arm desperately.

  If only we could talk, I thought, followed by, Luna, you’re an idiot. Of course you can talk.

  A tiny modification to my oxygen mask spell linked our two air bubbles.

  “Mike, what the hell happened? Why did you sink?”

  “My buoyancy compensator failed. When I tried to expand my air bubble to compensate, my head shot up and my body dropped down. I almost broke my neck.”

  I flashed back to an old story about an inventor who created an inflatable-ring life preserver that fit around the swimmer’s neck. It was designed to keep the swimmer’s head out of the water. Great idea, until someone tried diving into the water with the damn thing inflated.

  My oxygen mask spell, which performed perfectly in air and worked great for my werewolf-strong neck in water, was a danger to humans.

  A mental command expanded my air bubble, increasing my buoyancy so that we started to ascend. It was still a strain on my neck, but not insurmountable.

  We ascended slowly to give Mike time to adapt to the pressure changes.

  While drifting up through the darkness, I thought about this air bubble spell. Did it have to enclose only my head? Just making it into a giant sphere wouldn’t work; that would result in a lot of drag. It would be like swimming with a huge sail behind us.

  We popped to the surface. The stench of dead fish, oil slicks, and smog was a joy to my nostrils.

  A tiny bit of luck had kept us within a short distance of our raft. If it had drifted a few hundred feet farther, we never would have found it in the dark.

  Mike was gasping for breath when we reached the raft. I pushed him up onto the inflatable and stayed in the water.

  “You might as well come up here, too,” he said. “I’ll find the radio so we can call for an emergency pickup.”

  “We have to finish the mission.”

  “Luna, I screwed up. I couldn’t handle the buoyancy issue and lost all of my gear. I can’t free-swim that far with my weight. I think you need to accept that this might have been a bad idea.”

  “It’s not your fault. The oxygen mask spell didn’t work as planned. We could tweak the spell and get it to work better.”

  Mike ran his hand over his chest, rubbing the mystical tattoo that powered his spells.

  “Maybe we could tweak the spells that keep me alive in a swimming pool instead of in the Persian Gulf during a mission?”

  “Smartass,” I said. “But you have a point. We’ll have to get to shore before I tweak your spell.”

  “Get to shore? How? Do you have some kind of magic propulsion spell that’ll push this glorified inner-tube where we need to go?”

  I cataloged the spells available to me. Using air to push us was unpredictable. Too little would barely move us, too much and we would be swamped. Using water to create a current to carry us to shore would exhaust all my magical energy before we made landfall. Earth and fire spells were useless out here on the water.

  “I’ve got an idea,” I said. “I’m going to try an experiment.”

  I pulled off my tanks, weight belt, snorkel, and all the other equipment, and dumped it all into the raft, leaving me in just a wetsuit and flippers. I even pulled off the rubber hood and tossed it into the raft.

  “I’m going to swim down a bit and tweak my spell to see if I can get it to work better,” I said. “Shouldn’t take more than ten minutes.”

  “How long can you hold your breath?”

  “Why does that matter? I have my oxygen mask spell, so I won’t need to hold my breath.”

  “And if you tweak your spell the wrong way? How long can you hold your breath?”

  “Maybe twelve minutes? I’ve never timed it before. Anyway, I’ll hang onto the drag anchor from the raft. It’ll be perfectly safe.”

  Mike rummaged around in the raft, pulling together the tanks, snorkel, and mask I had just discarded.

  “You know how many SEALs have died on solo night swims? Too many. I’ll give you ten minutes, then I’m coming after you.”

  “You won’t be able to find me in the dark water,” I said.

  “Which is why I’m going to tie a light to your ass. I should be able to see the glimmer down to about twenty meters. If the light goes out or fades away, or if you’re not back in ten minutes, I’m coming in for you.”

  “You’re the rescue swimmer,” I said. “I’m just the magician who makes it all work.”

  Mike held up his timer, set it to ten minutes, then clicked the start button.

  I took three deep breaths and slipped beneath the waves.

  30

  The underwater light activated at ten feet, casting a bubble of light around me. My oxygen mask spell, one of the first spells I had created solo, worked perfectly. My head was enveloped in a sphere of pure air, allowing me to breathe as if I were on the beach.

  At the edge of my perception, the interface between the air bubble and the surrounding water buzzed with magic. My spell stripped oxygen from the water molecules, constantly replenishing the oxygen I used while breathing.

  I was proud of this spell. I had tweaked it over the
months to automate keeping the oxygen/nitrogen balance perfect without effort. I could even crank up the percentage of oxygen in my bubble, giving me a boost that almost no other werewolf could match.

  Here, in the middle of a mission, I needed to tweak the spell to do more. Much more. I needed the spell to extend and cover my entire body. That would give me a lot more volume of air to use for buoyancy, as well as eliminate the neck-breaking side effect of my original spell.

  This type of modification to a spell would normally take hours, if not days, to perfect. Now, with Mike waiting at the surface like a mother duck, I only had ten minutes to make it work.

  Okay, extending the bubble was the first step. As the bubble grew, extending down my torso, I started to float up. Only my grasp on the chain of the drag anchor prevented a rapid ascent.

  Too hard to control. Another five minutes of tweaks and a series of air bubbles now sheathed my head, torso, arms, and legs. I looked like the Michelin man had swallowed a scuba diver. The problem was that the separate bubbles were too large and too hard to control, each needing constant attention.

  I needed something that would fit my body like my fur fit my wolf form. But the calculations, the constant updates to the spell to allow the air sheath to stay close to my skin, were too complex to update as I moved.

  For the first time since the heaving deck of the ship had sent her into hiding, my inner wolf peeked out. A surge of confidence came from my wolf side.

  Me, the logical, calculating human side, couldn’t modify the spell quickly enough. But my wolf side, more in tune with nature and the supernatural, more intuitive, could do this.

  “Okay, you’re in charge of the air sheath,” I said.

  The image in my head that represented my better half shook her head. Damn wolf was mostly non-verbal, and we normally communicated by feelings and gestures. She was hard to understand, but almost never wrong.

  She projected an image of me in my human form, naked. Then a new image of a fur covered Luna with a wetsuit, fur poking out from collar, sleeves, and leggings.

  “Okay, the wetsuit gets in the way. I’ll remove it.” That was met with an enthusiastic nod.

  I dropped the bubble spells, keeping only the one around my head, then peeled out of the suit and dropped it into the inky depths. I kept the flippers and the belt with the light attached. My wolf side accepted the need for flippers and a way to carry objects.

  I took a deep breath, held it, and turned control over to my wolf.

  Chilly water slapped against my face, eyes, and ears. I resisted the urge to swim back to the surface and waited for the spell to take effect.

  It started slowly. A thin film of oxygen slid from the crown of my head down to my neck, like my original spell, but much more close-fitting.

  I took a breath, happy to have air again. I fed magical energy to the spell, guided by wolf instincts, and the layer of air extended down my torso, arms, and legs.

  The sheath was so fine, so accurate, that my individual fingers and toes were covered. Only my hair and flippers extended beyond the film of air.

  When the sheath was done, a wave of warmth swept over my body. Not only did it provide oxygen and buoyancy, but the film of air also insulated me from the chill of the water.

  Letting go of the anchor chain was hard. Magic is fickle and this spell could evaporate without notice. Then my wolf side snorted in contempt, boosting our confidence. Even if the spell broke, we could always swim to the surface.

  I opened my hand to release the chain. We remained suspended in the nighttime sea, neither rising nor sinking. My wolf had handled the buoyancy perfectly.

  We jerked as a splash from the inflatable on the surface reached us. Our ten minutes must be up, and Mike had jumped into the water to save us.

  I wiggled my flippers slightly and we shot toward the surface, reaching Mike in an instant.

  Despite the mask, the shock was evident in his eyes. I grabbed his arm and pulled him back to the surface. He grabbed the side of the raft, kicking his legs to stay on the surface.

  I looked at Mike as he pulled off his mask and snorkel so he could speak. “You look like a mermaid,” he said. Then he squinted in puzzlement. “Can you walk on water?”

  “What? No, Mike. That’s impossible…”

  Then I realized that I was looking down at him. The extra buoyancy, combined with the slightest sculling of my flippers, had lifted me so that I was out of the water. The water lapped at my navel, leaving my upper body in the air.

  “I guess this new spell works much better than expected,” I said. “It makes it easy to swim. I feel like I could swim more than fifty kilometers an hour.”

  That gave me an idea. “Wait here. I want to test this.”

  Just before I entered the water, he said, “Where would I go?”

  I zipped down to ten meters, then circled Mike and the raft, swimming as fast as possible. It was like my childhood dream of flying. It seemed to take almost no effort to move through the water.

  I extended the range of the circle and came closer to the surface. The attached light caused a phosphorescent wake to follow my path through the water.

  Lord, this is fun! I propelled myself from the water, flying ten feet into the air before slipping quietly back into the water without a ripple.

  I felt as if I could swim this way for hours—race away from battles and obligations, find a deserted island…

  Yeah, that’s not going to happen. Maybe when the cubs were older, and Mason recovered. I swam back to Mike on the surface.

  “That was amazing,” Mike said. I’ve never seen anyone move through the water that fast.”

  “Thanks, Mike. I think I’ve got the spell tweaked now.”

  “Can you do the same for me?”

  I balanced the new spell against the capabilities of Mike’s mystical tattoo. I shook my head. “Tweaking the tattoo isn’t possible right now, in the middle of the water. This new spell only works for me.”

  “That means the mission is still a bust. I can’t swim that far.”

  “No, Mike, you don’t have to swim. I can tow the raft to shore.”

  “Swim fifteen kilometers while pulling this heavy raft? That would exhaust anyone. You wouldn’t have the strength to finish the mission.”

  “This new spell lets me swim like a mermaid.”

  “Like a mermaid.” Then he stared. “Hey! What happened to your wetsuit?”

  “It interfered with the spell.”

  He continued looking at me, a strange look in his eyes.

  “Mike, you’re staring again.” I crossed my arms and gave him my stern look.

  “Sorry. I was a big fan of that mermaid cartoon growing up. I dreamed about her. She was my first—”

  “Is that why you kept giving Ariel second chances? Because she was named after your adolescent crush from a Disney movie?”

  “No! That had nothing to do with it. I just don’t like fighting with allies.”

  He shook his head to dislodge the thought and change the subject. “You have to be naked for it to work?”

  “The spell won’t work with a wetsuit. This is just my first test drive. But I’m not going dive to the bottom of the Persian Gulf for seashells to cover my tits to fulfill your adolescent dreams.”

  He jerked his eyes away and stammered, “I didn’t mean that—” He broke off at my laugh, then gave me a reproving look. “You have a wicked sense of humor.”

  “That comes from hanging around with disreputable SEALs.”

  It took only a few minutes to pull the anchor up, tie a line to my belt, and start swimming toward the distant shore.

  It was rough at first, requiring a lot of energy to get the raft moving, and almost as much to continue.

  Then I had an idea. The layer of air created by my spell work made moving through water nearly frictionless. Could I send another spell to coat the bottom of the raft? This spell didn’t need to be adaptive like my air suit spell, just a bubble on the bottom of
the raft.

  I played with the spell and finally got it to work. Our speed increased from five kilometers per hour to nearly ten. I could go faster, but that would tire me out. Even this low speed would get us to shore in less than two hours.

  Mike felt the surge as the raft sped up. “Don’t wear yourself out, Princess. We have all night to get there.”

  I turned over so I was swimming a backstroke. The line tied to my belt and the pumping of my legs left me moving backwards with only my head above water. That made it easier to talk to Mike.

  “I can go a lot faster. This speed isn’t tiring me out at all. Something about the air bubbles makes moving through water easy.”

  “Air bubbles,” mused Mike. He reached over the bow of our raft and slid his hand along the air/water interface.

  “Supercavitation!” he blurted.

  “Super what?”

  “Supercavitation,” he said. “The Russians had a class of torpedoes that were faster than anything in the water. Faster than anything possible. They used compressed air forced out through tiny holes in the skin of the torpedo to create a frictionless surface, letting it slide through the water with almost no resistance.”

  We spent the next hour discussing the super torpedoes and why they hadn’t worked out. Mike gave me some ideas I could use in the next generation of spells to make the air suits even better.

  I loved talking shop with Mike. Between his military knowledge and my werewolf instincts, there were few problems we couldn’t attack. Add in my magical talents and we made a formidable team.

  Just don’t get too friendly with the handsome warrior. You’re a married girl. Subconscious or better nature, my inner voice was right. Don’t worry, Mike is safe.

  That was why I was disappointed when Mike said, “I think you should roll over and swim on your front.”

  Anger surged. “Are you trying to get a better look at my butt?” I snapped.

  Mike was flustered. “No, Luna. But if you don’t turn over and slow down, you’re going to smash your head on the shoreline.”

  Oops. I spun and backpedaled frantically to keep from crashing into the boulders that lined the shore. The raft bumped against my back and slowed as I pushed against it.