The newcomer wore dark clothing that allowed him to blend into the shadows in a way that wasn’t to be trusted and his black hair fell against the hard lines of his face to frame eyes that seemed to see right through to Ronan’s soul. He leaned against a palm tree with his arms folded and huffed out a derisive snort.
“You looked like you were trying to remember where you buried your treasure chest, Captain. How long have you been wandering the beach?”
“Nice of you to show up”, Ronan said coolly, ignoring the question “you took your time in getting here. I was under the impression this was a matter of great urgency.”
The stranger shrugged.
“It’s no matter of mine. I came only to bear the message that your contact has been detained and won’t be meeting you for any exchange.”
“What?” Ronan bit out. “What about the amulet? I thought this was a matter of life and death and who the hell are you?”
“My name is Adam.” The stranger said. “That’s all you need to know about me. I don’t live in the immortal realm.”
His mouth set into a grim line before he went on.
“The healing elixir was requested by an Olympian to save the life of his dying human lover. I’ll skip over the sordid details of that affair, unless you wish for death by boredom.”
Ronan shook his head, the particulars of the task made no difference to him.
“My sentiments precisely,” Adam continued, “apparently the amulet’s been lost in transit and the Olympian is missing as well. So, all there is left for you to do is to return to your island with Panacea’s vile and beg the sea god’s patience.” He looked out over the water and squinted at the horizon. “Judging by the sun’s approach, you’d better hurry before your stairway to heaven closes.”
Ronan pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger before meeting the other man’s gaze again. Adam’s shrewd eyes widened as realization dawned on him and a sardonic grin crossed his lips.
“You don’t have it do you?”
Ronan shook his head.
“I know where it is though. I left it behind to find the amulet.”
He turned and followed the direction of Adam’s stare. A thin pink line was just beginning to appear up over the ocean.
“Well, friend,” Adam sighed, “unless ‘the old man in the sea’ convinced Hermes to gift you with super speed for this excursion, I’d say that you’re fucked.”
Chapter Nine
The marble hall went on for as far as she could see. She searched for something but never knew what.
It was the same dream every time. Cindy’d had it since she was a child. It was always spent wandering around in a lovely mist-filled palace, nothing like she’d ever seen. At the same time though, so familiar that she felt she’d been there a thousand times before and every time, she hunted something.
She never found what she was looking for. But, this time her, hunger for it was so intense that she thought she’d die of frustration if she couldn’t have it. What was it they always said about dying in your dreams?
On she walked, the floor cold on her bare feet. She wore a filmy white gown that flowed behind her as she rushed through the arched doorways of each room she came across. The mist kept getting thicker and thicker the further she walked and that sinking feeling she knew so well from all the many times she’d had this dream came into her middle and she knew that, once again, whatever she sought was lost to her.
This time, however, her sense of abandonment was so intense that she doubled over from the pain of it and fell onto her hands and knees. She needed something to fix this, something to make her whole and strong again or she’d fade away, become part of that airy mist that surrounded her. Bringing her head up, she searched the room but, as ever, there was nothing.
Cold wind swept into the space and a weighty darkness came through the mists. This had never been part of the dream before. The air around her became dense and a great wave of fear washed over her. Bolting to her feet, she ran to escape. Down a long hallway through different rooms she went, all the while it grew darker and the walls began dripping with a thick, dark substance as shadows ate up the light.
Voices could be heard in the distance and she went toward them until finally, she came to a room filled with light. It was warmer there and there were people in the room, fair and smiling. They carried great wreaths of flowers and wore fine robes and jewels. Somehow they were familiar to her even though she knew she’d never seen them before.
Suddenly, one of the most beautiful women she could have imagined turned to her.
“Ah, there you are Moon! I’d almost begun to worry that you’d run off.”
Her voice was musical and her long hair shown like pale gold. She wore a robe of slate blue silk that matched her eyes perfectly. Their eyes were the same. She stared at the woman transfixed, as if looking into a mirror, and for a moment, she could see herself as the beautiful woman saw her. The white dress from before had vanished in the manner of dreams and her gown had changed to one of shining gold, blue and white. Her hair fell in soft curls to her waist, a bright glow surrounding her.
Then she came back inside herself and the woman walked toward her holding out a thick gold necklace with a large round jewel hanging from it. The stone was a pale blue gem that sparked with flecks of fire and ice.
“The Pearl of the Moon” the woman smiled at her then went on, “our gift to your bridegroom.”
Shock hit her subconscious. This was all new to the dream. She looked around the room. It was evident that she’d walked into the midst of preparations for a wedding. Her wedding!
A bearded blonde man walked up to stand next to the woman as she placed the necklace around dream Cindy’s neck. He was so tall that she had to look up to see him. Who were these people and when had her psyche had time to create them?
Even as she puzzled over this though, the whole room started to shake with thunder. People ran screaming in every direction and tried to shield their bodies from debris as, in an instant, the walls burst apart. The oppressive darkness that she’d run from before stole into the chamber.
She turned to flee like everyone else, only now, she was all alone again. Ice cold fingers grasped at her and tore her gown to pieces as she ran. She kept going as fast as her feet would carry her, trying to escape from the evil that was coming for her.
Down a black tunnel oozing with slime that made her slip with every step, she kept going until she knew her lungs were about to burst, still the darkness came. Her legs grew heavy and she started to fall, sinking into the blackness that surrounded her. Soon she’d be lost.
“Wake up, wake up!” she screamed at herself from inside her head.
Further she sank, becoming part of the ooze, when out of the darkest depths, two steely hands wrapped around her arms and yanked her up. All at once, she was held in an unyielding grip with no chance of escape. She turned her head and looked behind her to see what new terror awaited her when, through the gloom, a brilliant light shown, forcing the shadows back, hissing and shrieking like live things as they went.
Her chest under the necklace burned as if touched by fire and she couldn’t see for the blaze of the light before her. Turning her head, she squinted her eyes trying to get a look at her captor but it was too bright to see, so she shut them tight.
Just as she was certain that she couldn’t stand the fiery sensation one moment longer, the necklace cooled and the light dimmed. Cautiously, she opened her eyes blinking away the remnants of the blinding light. She was terrified of what she would see in this strange new version of her dream but she looked anyway ─ she had to know what creature held her in its iron grasp. When she did, she found herself held by a wild dark stranger with piercing blue eyes.
Chapter Ten
Adam and Ronan walked back up the strip where only a few stragglers were still out ambling around. They had the bleary-eyed look of overindulgence and paid the two darkly clad men no mind. Even the paranormal
predators must have receded to some dark hole now that the sun was up. Adam turned his head to study Ronan then broke the tense silence they’d been sharing.
“You haven’t burst into flames or disintegrated into a pile of ash yet so maybe the Tides aren’t really closed.”
They were though. Ronan knew it the moment the sun had crested the horizon from the sharp pain in his chest. He didn’t relay this information to Adam, however. The immortal’s manner put him off from sharing confidences. Something about the man was oddly familiar and it was unsettling.
“Perhaps death will not be immediate but a slow painful process.” Ronan said.
He could feel a weakness coming over him already.
“Maybe,” Adam conceded, “and then maybe the old salt’s a liar.”
Ronan met his stare, surprised at his disdain for Poseidon.
“You don’t seem to have a great deal of reverence for the gods and yet I know you’re from the other realms.”
The power emanating from the immortal was palpable, more so than that of any demon or spirit Ronan had ever encountered but he wasn’t a god or he wouldn’t be here walking among humans. He presented a mystery that Ronan didn’t feel like delving into in his current state.
Adam just shrugged, making it clear that he wasn’t in the mood to talk. Ronan didn’t really care. At the moment, his thoughts were on finding a way to open the portal again so that he could cheat Thema and Poseidon out of the death they had planned for him. That and save the woman from whatever the elixir could do to her if she stayed in contact with it, or, gods forbid, opened it.
It would be a purely female thing to do he thought, just as a sudden surge pulsed through him like a jolt to his chest, gut and groin all at once. He stumbled and caught himself against the brick wall of a building. The curse was beginning to take full effect.
A hand wrapped around his bicep and Adam pulled him back upright. Ronan shrugged out of the other man’s grip and Adam backed away quirking an eyebrow up at him.
“Sea legs Captain?”
Ronan exhaled through his nose and forced himself up.
“It’s nothing,” he muttered, then started walking again.
Adam’s footsteps picked back up alongside him and thankfully he let the matter drop. Whatever manner of being he was, at least he had the good sense to mind his own damn business. Ronan only hoped he managed to find the woman and get out of this place before he disintegrated into a heap.
They passed a shop that was just getting ready to do business for the day and the warm aroma of baking bread wafted through the air.
“Sorry I’ve come off as such a hard on,” Adam’s gruff voice interrupted his thoughts as he stopped outside the bakery.
Ronan wasn’t quite sure what the other man meant since he spoke using modern day terms but he got the general idea and waited for him to go on.
“My duties on earth take my full attention and are grave matters, I don’t take kindly to being summoned by the frivolous gods to act as their messenger boy. They usually see fit to stay out of my business and I stay out of theirs.”
Ronan nodded. It was clear that this Adam couldn’t be relied on for any kind of assistance, though his interest was piqued, he had more pressing things to attend to than finding out what he meant by ‘grave matters.’
“Come on,” Adam said and turned to the bakery door, “I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”
Curiosity got the better of Ronan and he followed. Once inside, he stood in awe of the restaurant’s many racks of baked goods pulled right out of the oven to tempt early morning patrons. All the strange machinery and paraphernalia were a source of wonderment to his eighteenth century mind. He watched as Adam ordered two coffees and what he called a “breakfast sandwich.”
As they ate in silence Ronan could feel the other man’s scrutiny, he wondered if they had indeed, met before. But he shrugged that thought aside as impossible and looked out the window as the town began to wake up.
Obviously, the demons and spirits came out in full force at night. Those from the underworld were merely resting now, lying in wait. The noisy din they made that only Ronan could hear was faint but steady.
“Things have changed a great deal since I was here last,” he said finally.
Adam’s head came up from his plate, he narrowed his eyes as if a thought had just occurred to him. Just as quick, his expression changed back into the mask of disinterest he wore perpetually and he responded to Ronan’s comment.
“I would imagine they have…Captain…I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”
The words had come out rough at the end, causing Ronan to pause before supplying, “Garring. Captain Ronan Garring.”
Adam nodded and it was apparent that no more conversation was forthcoming. Something the man had said on the beach had been bothering Ronan though and he thought to ask about it now.
“Is there really a human life at risk over this exchange of relics?”
“Would it matter to you if there were?”
“Of course, it would mean that I haven’t been risking my neck on this planet for nothing”, Ronan answered. Then a wave of nausea came over him again and he put his head down to hide it.
“I see we have a champion for the people,” Adam said. He gave a short humorless laugh and took a sip of his coffee before speaking again.
“Yes, Captain, from what I’ve been told, the elixir is meant to save a human…a woman.”
“Why would an immortal have been allowed to fall in love with a human?” Ronan asked. “I thought the gods forbid such things.”
Adam shrugged.
“Stranger things than that have been happening lately,” was all he offered.
Just then a ring sounded and he pulled a small out contraption like the one Ronan had seen the blonde stuff into her bag last night. He held it to his ear and spoke into it.
“Yes…now? I’ll be there soon.”
A look of consternation passed over Adam’s face. Once again, Ronan wondered about his ‘grave matters.’
“I have to be going now,” he said, standing.
Though his expression gave nothing away, Ronan sensed a restrained urgency in him.
“So, what will you do?” he asked.
“I mean to get the elixir back and complete the mission,” Ronan answered.
Adam studied him.
“Best of luck to you then, Captain, and be wary, things in this place aren’t all as lighthearted as they appear.”
Chapter Eleven
The dark stranger hadn’t returned last night, except to invade her sleep so Cindy felt only slightly wary as she made her way to the dock where she could catch a tourist boat. From there, she would make her way over to the island with the lighthouse from Kay’s brochure. Where was that thing anyway? She hadn’t been able to find it this morning but she was sure of the name ─ Sandy Island Lighthouse Museum.
As she walked, the morning sun warmed her skin and she allowed her mind to wander, she made the trek down the sidewalk to the dock and it drifted shamelessly to the memory of a man with intense blue eyes and a pair of strong arms.
A rush of heat came over her that had nothing to do with the tropical climate. Normally, after a nightmare she was chilled to the bone, but the stranger’s appearance in last night’s trip into dreamland had left her hot, not to mention, aroused. It was sick, she told herself, to be lusting after a guy who was probably insane. But man was he gorgeous!
She shouldn’t be thinking about him at all, much less wondering how it would be to kiss those full lips of his. But she couldn’t deny the thrill that his nearness had sent racing through her when he’d helped her up off the floor at Ramone’s. She could still feel the heat of his touch like a brand on her skin. Good thing she’d escaped last night. If it hadn’t been for Marley’s quick thinking she could have let herself be kidnapped by the madman as bereft of common sense as she’d been.
Finally, she came to the dock where there was only one other person wait
ing. A pretty young woman in her mid-to-late-twenties stood reading a brochure. She was tall and perfectly tanned with long blonde hair that was enviably straight from Cindy’s standpoint. She’d never been able to tame her own wayward mop no matter what she’d tried, and in this humidity, it was a lost cause. The statuesque blonde looked up and smiled as Cindy approached.
“Are you here for the shuttle boat too?” She asked in a charming southern accent.
Cindy smiled back and nodded.
“I’m headed over to catch a tour of the lighthouse,” she said, nodding at the brochure.
“Oh good, we can ride together, looks like we’re the only people up this early.”
“Looks like,” Cindy agreed, then pointed towards the dock, “I think our boat is boarding.”
The two women climbed in the boat and sat next to each other.
“So where are you from?” the blonde asked.
“Colorado, I’m here on vacation,” Cindy improvised, “you?”
“I’m from Houston, we’re having our family reunion down here at the end of the week but I came early to use up some vacation time.”
“That’s great,” Cindy liked the bubbly blonde and was glad for the companionship. “You’re going to see the lighthouse too?”
“Well, sort of,” the other woman leaned in conspiratorially, “actually, I’m meeting someone there.”
“Oooo, nice,” Cindy said, “This certainly is a romantic place, might as well take advantage.”
“Is it your first time down this way?”
“Mmhmm,” Cindy answered.
The blonde nodded and smiled again.
“Well, we couldn’t have asked for a prettier day than this that’s for sure.”
The lilt in her accent could only be described as sunny. Both women turned in their seats to look over the water and settled into an easy companionship for the rest of the trip. Before either of them knew it, the little boat was easing up to shore in The Keys.
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