Pyromancist

by Charmaine Pauls

  The boat pushed against the side of the yacht. Clelia saw Maya, and then Josselin, step onboard, but she only had eyes for Josselin. He looked around, and when he saw her, his shoulders visibly relaxed.

  Lann followed her gaze. “I guess now you can ask him yourself what he told the press.”

  Josselin maneuvered around the deck, and when he reached them, he said, “What is she doing outside when the boat isn’t moving?”

  “I watched her,” Lann said. “She’s not feeling well.”

  Josselin’s hand went to her cheek. “What’s wrong?”

  Clelia felt the blood rushing to her face. She lied to Lann and got away with it, but Josselin would know she wasn’t telling the truth. He knew she didn’t get seasick because she told him so herself.

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  “Start up the engines,” Josselin said to Lann, keeping his eyes on Clelia.

  Lann nodded, and with a polite inclination of his head in Clelia’s direction, left to do as he was told.

  Clelia leaned against the rail. She had placed herself deliberately in front of one of the gates that gave access to the gap where a stepladder could be hooked. She saw Josselin taking stock of her clothes.

  “You need a jacket. The wind is cold.” He looked concerned. “And you should wear shoes. You could slip. You’re not feeling well?”

  Instead of answering, she only smiled.

  Emotions swam in his eyes. “If you were a bird,” he said, “you would have flown away now.”

  The minute he said it, his demeanor changed. He blinked a few times, as if trying to recall a memory.

  They had started moving again. From the corner of her eye, she saw the rock formations of Île aux Moines coming into view. She turned her head to survey the surroundings. The engine was running at full speed now. They would circle the island and let the yacht run into the sea for several miles before cutting the engine and drifting in the Gulf until the morning.

  She made a few quick calculations, biting her lip. One wrong move... Behind her back, she felt for the latch to open the gate.

  “I have to give Cain a report,” he said.

  “I’m going to stay here to enjoy the sunset.” She bit the inside of her cheek not to cry.

  “First go and get a jacket and shoes. Please.”

  “Just another minute.” She prayed he wouldn’t push the issue, or her chance would be lost.

  Josselin nodded and walked in the direction of the lounge. He had to have sensed something, because at the door, he paused and turned back, staring at her. As he studied her with a frown, fear and desperation slowly took over his worried expression. As if drawn by an invisible warning, Cain appeared in the door of the lounge. Clelia took everything in very quickly. Lann was at the wheel, out of view. Maya was on the bridge, looking down. Bono was nowhere in sight.

  Cautiously, as if he tried not to scare away a bird, Josselin lifted his hand, palm up, open. It wasn’t a command, it was a plea. Clelia released the latch and let the gate slip open. The force of the wind created by the speed at which they cruised flattened the swing-gate to the side of the boat with a clang audible above the rush of the water and the engines.

  Cain and Maya looked like statues. Jumping would be suicide, and they knew it. Maybe that’s what they would think. When Josselin took a step forward, Clelia pushed herself into the opening in the rail. He stopped. She watched him bravely, trying to convey all the love she felt for him without words.

  A few more seconds, and she’d have to let go, or it would be too late. But she could never let go of Josselin. Never. She suddenly wanted him to have something of her, something concrete, something symbolic of leaving her heart behind. It wasn’t as much for him as for her. The idea soothed her. She’d leave him with the knowledge of her love, of what had passed between them in the ancient cemetery. He needed the reminder more than she did. Every time he looked at it, she wanted him to remember that his life was worth living.

  Clelia slipped her hand into her pocket and almost lost her footing in the strong wind.

  Josselin shouted her name, lifting both arms, but she inched back more and felt her heel sinking over the side. Josselin froze.

  She removed the bullet, lifting it up to him, seeing his face change from confusion to shocked understanding. She let the bullet slip from her hand. It dropped on the deck. She had to let go, or she would miss her chance. The misery she felt at knowing she might never see Josselin ever again was almost unbearable. No amount of mental affirmation of her decision to run could have prepared her for the moment. And as the powerful feeling of despair ripped through her, she felt heat growing inside of her, warming her organs. She had never felt anything like it before. While Josselin, Cain, and Maya watched, a tiny ball of fire erupted at her feet. She didn’t move her eyes from Josselin, and she recognized the shock in his that mirrored her own. Now he knew. She was the prey.

  “I’m sorry,” she mouthed, the sound not reaching her lips, before she took the step to freedom.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Behind them, the water moved in lines of foam, cutting parallel surfs across the ocean. The water was deep and black, a vastness of weight and element that could swallow and bury a person like a secret, kept forever.

  Josselin shuddered as he watched Clelia’s delicate form against the backdrop of the menacing sea. He wanted her to move away from the rail, back to him. She stood vulnerable while the wind whipped her face with her hair. The look he saw in the dark pools of her eyes was one of compassion, and it frightened him. He would have preferred anger or hatred. Anger or hatred was alive, unresolved and therefore continuous, but compassion was the result of closure that came with letting go. Compassion was the end.

  She moved. Nothing in her stance indicated that he should be worried, but then why did his gut wring into a ball that caught alight in his stomach? The intensity of the feeling burned a hole through his heart. He slowly extended his hand, palm up, a silent invitation, because she stood too far away from him to command, or to grab. One step backward... She tilted her head and gave him the smile he knew she was going to and didn’t want to see. There was no blame. Blame would have been good. Blame kept one going. Not to blame was the end of the road.

  Her small foot lifted. One step closer to the edge. His soul twisted like the turbulent water at her feet. Even before the apologetic expression washed into her eyes, he started shaking his head. He took a step forward, his hand still reaching for her, but she took another one back, her heel over the side, and so forced him to stop.

  He followed the hand that slipped into her pocket. Her body rocked dangerously in the strong wind. Lifting both his palms toward her, he called out her name, willing her to come to the safety of his arms.

  Clelia removed something from her pocket. It was concealed in her fist. As she uncurled her fingers, he stared at the object she revealed, and recognition set in too slowly. It was a bullet. It dropped to the deck and rolled to his feet. After recognition, comprehension followed, and when the awful and wonderful truth hit him, his eyes shot back to hers.

  As he watched, a tiny ball of fire erupted by her feet. At first, the meaning refused to sink in, but as it did, he saw that it had shocked her as much as him. It couldn’t be. He had tasted her blood. His eyes widened as he realized the full impact of what had just happened.

  “I’m sorry,” her lips mimed, no sound reaching his ears, and then she took her last step.

  In the instant that Josselin saw her body move, he jumped forward, his hands clawing the air, but she was already beyond his grip, her fragile body a four-pointed star that lived for a split-second on the wind before it connected with the relentless water. He saw her bounce once from the impact before the white foam and a black expanse folded around her and buried her in front of his helpless eyes.

  Josselin felt the weight of that entire ocean crush down on him. He dropped to his knees, his arms lifted to heaven, and uttered a cry that would rip the wings clean off
an angel. He gripped his hair and tore his fingers through the strands, his body bowing to the deck, his forehead thumping on the wooden boards.

  Maya, who had been standing on the bridge, rushed down the steps. “Joss, what the hell...?”

  “No!” Josselin’s helpless cry lifted to the air and dispersed with the salty spray in a tail behind the vessel.

  Lann peered over the bridge, looking baffled. Bono came running. He stopped next to Josselin, his hands on his hips, his breath chasing.

  Josselin jumped to his feet. “Stop the boat.” He tilted his face up to Lann. “Cut the fucking engine.”

  Lann disappeared from view to execute the command. Catching the look that passed between Maya and Cain, Josselin shook his head. “No. No. I won’t accept it. Don’t give me that look, do you understand? Bono, get the fucking lifebuoy.”

  Bono glanced at Maya, who nodded. The boat came to a slow halt. Josselin ran up the steps to the bridge for a better view. Around them, the water was quiet, except for the swell that was the after-shock of their movement. Despair braided his intestines together so tightly he couldn’t breathe. Josselin went back down, removing his shoes in the run.

  “Maya,” he shouted, “I need you. I don’t care if you have to clear a fucking path like Moses.”

  Maya looked again at Cain, who shook his head. She walked up to Josselin and laid her hand on his arm.

  “It won’t help,” Maya said softly.

  Josselin lifted his head and howled like a wolf.

  * * * *

  Clelia had dived for oysters off the coast of Île aux Moines enough times with Erwan to know where the reef parted to give access to the beach. She knew the wind would carry her body to the back of the boat, past the engines, and that normally she would be pulled down and under the boat, crushed to pulp, but she also knew where the currents crossed. This part of the Gulf was the most dangerous. Slipstreams flowing as fast as ten knots crisscrossed the bay. She jumped where the current was the strongest, so that it would carry her away from the yacht. There, the reef dropped to give way to an underwater cave. If she managed to hold onto the rock by the entrance for long enough, the slipstream caused by the boat would weaken so that she could reach the surface and swim to the island.

  For some, the water was much too cold, but Clelia’s body was accustomed to swimming in the icy sea, even in winter, and she was swim fit. Free diving had developed her lung capacity. She could easily hold her breath until the yacht was well past, until it was safe for her to surface.

  She kept down for as long as she could, and when she sensed she was close to blacking out, she surfaced slowly, knowing the air in her lungs would expand and give her more oxygen as she ascended. The noise of the yacht had gone silent. They had probably cut the engine to search for her. Her heart tripped over its own beat as she thought about Josselin, but she put it out of her mind, reminding herself to focus on Erwan and her escape.

  In the distance, she could see the yacht. The engine started up again and then it turned back, but she was already through the reef and making her way with strong, sure breaststrokes to the beach. She would reach it before they had a visual on her. It wasn’t a populated beach. The coast was rocky and the currents too dangerous for bathing. The private stretch of land where she came ashore belonged to a foreigner. On it stood the ruins of a once glorious chateau next to a large pine tree.

  By the time Clelia made it to dry land, she was panting. Her mouth tasted of salt and her limbs ached from the strain. Even if she needed to catch her breath badly, she didn’t stop before she made it to the disintegrating building. Josselin wasn’t a fool. He would search the islands, starting with the one she was on, the one closest to where she had gone overboard. Bono was probably on his way to the mainland to start up his helicopter as she was digging around the protruding roots, trying to locate the box Erwan had mentioned.

  The earth was disturbed in the hollow between two roots that encompassed a network of smaller ones. Clelia found a flat rock and started digging until she felt something hard. The box wasn’t deep. Erwan had left it in a hurry. She lifted the metal lid and found a plastic zip lock bag inside. Its contents included a passport, money, and a letter from Erwan.

  The worst of the fatigue wearing off, she started feeling the cold, and shivered in her wet clothes. With trembling fingers, she removed the passport and discovered her photo inside, but the passport belonged to Cléane de Villiers.

  How did Erwan manage to obtain a false passport? When did he plan all of this? His letter didn’t provide the answers she wanted, only a schedule of the trawlers that would pass during the next few weeks, and a message of love, wishing her well, saying that he was praying for their safe reunion.

  Huddling behind a collapsed wall, Clelia checked the roster for the ships. The next one to pass through the Gulf was on its way to South Africa.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Josselin knew Clelia was alive. Despite what Maya and Lann said, he could feel it. Her heartbeat pulsed in his chest at night as he lay in foreign hotel beds, recalling her face, her voice, the way her body molded to his and the truth of the cold, hard bullet he clutched in his fist.

  After Clelia’s escape, he had taken a leave of absence for the first time since he took command of Cain’s taskforce. Cain had encouraged it, no doubt guessing the depth of his feelings for Clelia. Josselin had asked for three months–he said he wanted to travel for a while–and Cain had granted him five. Four of those precious five months had already been wasted. He had little time left. Now, he finally sensed that he was on the right track.

  The dark angel from his dream was real. She had saved him from blowing his brains out, accepted his kiss and fled on his command. At first, he couldn’t recall what had happened, his memory dimmed by his drunken haze. All he initially had to reconstruct the events of that night were flashes. Sometimes he had a vision of an angel’s face. When Clelia left him with his own bullet, he finally saw what he couldn’t see before, why he was alive instead of a corpse decaying in a grave right now.

  The kiss of his imagination was real after all. The sensation of her lips on his had remained in his subconscious. His mind didn’t recognize her, but his body had. As his memory returned, he recollected telling her to run away as fast as she could. Yes, it came back in agonizing bits and pieces. It was a mistake, the worst he had ever made, and he was determined to set it right. He would find her, and when he did, he would never let her go again.

  Night after night, he lay awake, shamed by the knowledge that she had witnessed his weakest moment, yet, had not used it against him. How easy it would have been to betray him, to confess to Cain that he was nothing but a weakling who wanted to end his suffering with his own revolver. If she was anything less than an angel, she would have told him when he locked her up in his childhood house, used it to bargain for her freedom. An eye for an eye. But she kept it to herself, while he betrayed her in every imaginable way. He betrayed the love he had seen in her eyes by taking her hostage, by submitting her to his ghosts, by trading his hauntings for her peace and by rejecting the redemption she offered, but he wasn’t going to make those same mistakes again.

  Just before Clelia had jumped overboard, they all witnessed her art. It had to have regressed so far it didn’t even come through in her blood. A coldness invaded his soul on that day when he realized the danger she was in. That chill had never left. It now inhabited his heart. She was the prey Lupien was after. Finding Erwan was no longer of essence. Finding Clelia before Lupien did was the only thing that could save Josselin from his agony. Even if he knew Clelia was alive, he didn’t share this knowledge with anyone. He had a damn good reason for keeping it to himself.

  Lupien would not stop until he had Clelia in his claws. This much Josselin had since learned from the little information he could dig up on Lupien. Lupien and Cain were similar in one regard. They were both determined, unstoppable. If Cain discovered that Clelia was alive, she would be hunted by two of the most powe
rful men in the universe, one wanting to kill her for the good of mankind, the other for evil. In both instances, Clelia was doomed. There was only one way to save Clelia. He had to kill Lupien. In order to steal her art, Lupien would have to turn her heart black, destroy her light and her purity. She was inexperienced, a virgin firestarter, and fertile ground for evil predators like Lupien. If Lupien succeeded, not only would he be the most powerful force on the face of the earth, but Clelia would be lost to Josselin. Forever.

  Josselin tossed and turned, considering his self-assigned mission. Find her. Find her and save her. Make her his. Claim her. His destiny was, for the first time in his life, clear to him. Clelia was as much a part of him as his quest was. The one couldn’t be separated from the other. Clelia was his quest. His quest was Clelia. She was the answer to everything, to his happiness, to Cain’s life mission. Find her, and they could save the world from Lupien. Lose her, and all was lost.

  What Maya couldn’t see, Josselin felt. Clelia had gotten away. They combed the bottom of the ocean and didn’t leave a rock on land unturned. For weeks Josselin roamed the woods, watched her house and even his, set her dogs loose in the woods in the hope they’d pick up on a scent, until he had to admit she wasn’t there. For a month they hunted Lupien, tracked him all the way to Spain, where they lost his trail. Josselin would have felt a hell of a lot better if he could have killed the bastard before continuing his search for Clelia. At least his angel would have had one devil less on her tail.

  At first, Josselin suffered in agony because had nothing else to go on, nothing to show him where to start looking for his witch. Then one day, he sat at the harbor watching the boats and the fishing trawlers coming in. By the way his heart started beating faster, he knew he had guessed right.