Beka felt like she was missing something, a feeling to which she was becoming all too accustomed. She didn’t much like it. “He hasn’t mentioned spending time with me, Your Majesty?” Was Kesh ashamed of her?
Gwrtheyrn just grunted and it fell to Tyrus to explain. “My father and Kesh had a falling-out, alas. We have not seen him in our lands in many months, as you surface dwellers mark time. We had not even been certain he remained in the area. It was thought that perhaps he returned to our original home waters off of the land of Eire.”
“Oh,” Beka said. She tried to remember if Kesh had ever mentioned a rift between him and his family; she thought not. Perhaps he was embarrassed. To creatures like the Selkies, family and clan were all-important. Or maybe he was afraid that she would be uncomfortable spending time with him if she knew he and his father weren’t talking, since she was working on a mission for the Selkie King.
No wonder he had been so persistent in his pursuit of her, and so jealous of the time she spent with Marcus. Poor Kesh, he was probably terribly lonely without his people, and she was the closest thing he could find to one of his own.
Of course, said a little voice in the back of her head, maybe he is hiding something. He already admitted to manipulating the fishing routes . . . what if he and the friends he’d mentioned were involved in something worse?
Then she felt terrible for even thinking such a thing. Kesh had been nothing but sweet to her, and so supportive about her fears of not being good enough to do what was expected of her. She resolved to be more patient with him, and somehow find time for another picnic or two, despite the pressing need to find answers to both the old problem and the new one the Queen of the Otherworld had just dropped in her lap. After all, she had to stop and eat sometime, despite her constantly roiling stomach and lack of appetite.
“Please don’t worry about him,” she said reassuringly. “He’s got plenty of acquaintances among the surfing community, so he isn’t completely alone. And we’ve become friends, I think.”
Boudicca and Gwrtheyrn exchanged another one of those weighted glances, making the air between them seem heavy with unspoken words.
“Kesh always was overfond of Humans,” Gwrtheyrn muttered. Tyrus cleared his throat meaningfully, and the King added belatedly, remembering to whom he was speaking, “Nothing against Humans, of course. I merely meant that he could have better occupied his time and energy by attending to those who looked to him for leadership under the sea.”
Boudicca sighed. “Shut up, Gwr, you old bull. Before you swallow your flippers so deeply they come out your earholes.”
Beka swallowed a smile. She so rarely thought of herself as Human these days, having more in common with most paranormal creatures than she did the race she was born to. His words hadn’t bothered her at all. This sense that they were keeping secrets from her, however, bothered her a great deal.
“I was wondering, Your Majesties, Tyrus, if perhaps you knew anything about these renegades that you hadn’t, er . . . felt it wise to share with Queen Morena?”
More guilty looks. Beka tried to channel her inner Baba and simply stared at them wordlessly, putting the force of her office, if not her own personality, behind the implacable silence.
Tyrus broke first. “Father, you really should tell the Baba Yaga all we know. How is she to help us if we keep her in the dark?”
The Selkie King grimaced, but after a moment he nodded in agreement. He walked away from the edge of the water so they could talk without being overheard by the Selkies and Merpeople still waiting patiently for their sovereigns.
“It is not so much that we know anything, Baba Yaga. I assure you, if we did, we would have informed the Queen no matter what the possible . . . repercussions.” They all looked at the broken crystals and the still-quivering stalactite and shuddered in unison at the thought of the Queen in one of her rages.
“We have simply been hearing rumors,” Boudicca put in, her voice melodic and gentle compared to the gruff old Selkie. “You know how such things swirl about in a court; at first we thought them merely gossip and the mutterings of a disaffected and unsettled populace.”
“And just what were these rumors?” Beka asked, a touch grimly.
Tyrus had the grace to look guilty, where his father did not. “Some said that there was a mysterious stranger who had come to lead the underwater people back to glory. No one ever admitted to speaking to this man, or knowing anyone who had. It was always a friend of a friend of a friend. But everyone agreed that this person was attempting to recruit members of the Mer and Selkie communities to his cause.”
“This rabble-rouser made ridiculous, impossible promises,” Gwrtheyrn said bitterly. “He spoke of driving the Humans from the sea and allowing our people to live openly on the wide ocean as we once did, feared and worshipped rather than dismissed as tales for children. Anyone with any sense would know that such things could never happen. They are too many and too powerful, and we are too few, and vulnerable to the brutal weapons you land-dwellers are constantly inventing.”
“No offense,” Boudicca said with a rueful eye roll.
Beka smiled at her. Gwrtheyrn’s mostly well-deserved anti-Human bias didn’t bother her nearly as much as discovering that the outlaw leader the Queen had tasked her to uncover had already been hard at work sowing dissention and recruiting followers among the undersea people.
“How many of your people do you think have chosen to follow this agitator?” Beka asked. “And do you think they are dangerous?”
Boudicca sighed, her abundant bosom heaving. “It is impossible to say. The rumors are everywhere. The renegade himself seems to be nowhere. As for dangerous . . . how dangerous are Humans when they are feeling threatened and helpless and frightened, and some forceful figure comes along and tells them exactly what they want to hear?”
That was exactly what Beka had been afraid of. Queen Morena’s fears that this renegade and his followers would do something that would irrevocably reveal the existence of magical creatures to the entire Human race had apparently not been an overreaction.
If Beka couldn’t find and stop these people before they went too far, Humans could get hurt or even killed. And then the backlash, should the paranormal world be discovered, would be unspeakable. The best they could hope for would be dissection tables, zoos, and internment camps. The worst—the witch hunts all over again.
She had to find these renegades fast, and not just because the Queen was going to take her job away from her if she didn’t.
Beka said her good-byes to Boudicca, Gwrtheyrn, and Tyrus, and made her way back to the pathway that would return her to the doorway between the worlds. Frantic plans tumbled through her brain as she walked. She would try to find Kesh and see if he had heard anything about this renegade leader, or even been approached to join the group. She would send a message to Marcus’s father (hopefully without Marcus finding out and ripping her head off) asking him to warn the other fishermen to be alert for trouble. Although that one was tricky, since she couldn’t exactly explain what forms the trouble might come in.
And she thought it was time to call in some help.
As soon as she got home, she was going to summon the Riders.
* * *
JUST AS THERE had always been Babas, there had also always been the Riders. No one seemed to know if they were immortal creatures who chose to look like men, or if they were simply a series of creatures who took on the same guise when one took over for another. Brenna had insisted that the Riders she knew had been the same ones that her mentor Baba knew, and between them, they covered hundreds of years of experience.
No matter what manner of being they truly were, the Riders were dedicated to the service of the Baba Yagas. Attractive, powerful, and completely dependable (as long as you didn’t mind some collateral damage along the way), the White Rider, the Red Rider, and the Black Rider had ridden their magical horses through the old Baba Yaga stories, inspiring awe and fear. If a Baba Yaga had a pro
blem too big to handle on her own, she could call in the Riders.
As far as Beka was concerned, this particular set of problems definitely qualified.
Apparently Chewie agreed.
“It’s about damned time,” he muttered as she changed out of her finery and detailed her plan to him. “There is no shame in admitting you need help.” He was stretched out on the floor next to her bed, taking up most of the rest of the space in the small room. “Are you going to call them now?”
Beka nodded, tossing on a simple sundress and sitting on the edge of the bed. “Right this very minute, if you could stop bitching long enough for me to concentrate.”
“I am a male,” Chewie growled. “I don’t bitch.” But he sat up alertly, adding only, “I really like that Alexei. It will be good to see him again.”
Beka snorted. “Of course you do. You’re both insanely large, furry, and like to eat anything not nailed down. You’re practically twins.”
Taking off the dragon earring with the black tourmaline in it, she held it in cupped hands and closed her eyes, summoning as clear a picture of Alexei Knight as she could, building a bridge to his essence with her memories and her desperation. A huge bear of a man, at least six foot eight, and massively built, Alexei was the berserker of the three, who lived to fight and drink and eat, and did all of them with joyous abandon. She could see him now as if he stood before her—his coarse brown hair wild as brambles, his beard braided, his eyes lit from within as if by fire. He usually wore black leathers that jangled with chains, and rode a black Harley that roared almost as loudly as he did.
I need you, Alexei. Come to me.
Replacing the tourmaline earring, she took out the one with the pearl and thought about her favorite of all the Riders. Mikhail Day, the White Rider, had always been kind to her when she’d been a child, and she’d had an avid crush on him as a teen. Little wonder, when he looked like a Tolkien elf; his long blond hair worn loose to drift over his broad shoulders, dressed in pristine white jeans and a linen shirt, so handsome that otherwise sensible women tended to lose their heads when he walked into a room. His white Yamaha purred like a panther, and he had a weakness for sweets and damsels in distress. Surely Mikhail could help her, if anyone could.
Mikhail, I need you. Please come right away.
Lastly, she held the necklace with its blood-red ruby. The Red Rider had always intimidated her a little, although she was glad to have him on her side. Gregori Sun was as serene as Alexei was turbulent; shorter than the others, with long black hair pulled back in a tail and the flat cheekbones, dark, slanted eyes, and Fu Manchu mustache of a Mongol warrior, Gregori moved with the grace of an assassin and wore a red skintight leather jumpsuit that matched his silent red Ducati. Beka had never quite figured him out—she thought he was probably the deadliest of the three, which was really saying something, and yet he always seemed so calm and never said a harsh word. He was a puzzle she wasn’t sure she really wanted to solve.
Gregori, I need you. Come to me.
She hung the necklace back around her neck and opened her eyes with a sigh. Hopefully it wouldn’t take the Riders long to get here. The last she knew, they’d finished helping her sister Barbara with something across the country in New York State. But their magical motorcycles, transformed from the enchanted steeds they’d once ridden, could get them from one place to the next much faster than should have been possible. With any luck, they would be here in the next day or two.
Which was good. Because she needed all the help she could get.
* * *
MARCUS LOOKED AT the dripping nets they’d just hauled back aboard and ran through every curse word he’d learned in the military. Then he made up a few more on the spot. Chico and Kenny gaped with disbelief, their mouths hanging open like the fish they’d expected to be unloading, and his father was so pale that Marcus was afraid he was going to pass out on the deck.
He moved unobtrusively to stand next to the old man, who was so upset, he didn’t even bother to say something sarcastic about not needing to be babied like a sick child.
“It’s shredded,” Marcus Senior said in a lifeless voice. “There isn’t even enough of it left to mend.”
“What could do that?” Kenny asked, glancing fearfully over the side of the Wily Serpent. “Some kind of giant squid?”
Chico rolled his eyes and spat. “You watch too many late night movies, mi hermano. There are no monsters under the sea waiting to eat you.”
“Well, something sure as hell tore the crap out of that net,” Kenny retorted. “Unless you think maybe the tuna have learned to fight back.”
Marcus ignored their familiar squabbling and squatted down to take a closer look. His father knelt down next to him, fingering the tangled and tattered remains of what had been perfectly woven fibers not three hours before.
“Have you ever seen anything like this before, Da?” Marcus asked.
“Never,” his father said. He’d been as stubborn and strong as ever through his diagnosis and cancer treatment, but now there were undercurrents of defeat in his cracking voice. He picked up one segment to look at it and it fell apart in his hand. “Look at that. It’s garbage. It’s as though something gnawed through parts of it and cut other sections with a knife. Garbage,” he repeated, letting it fall back to the wooden planks with a slithering thump.
“Could a shark have gotten tangled up in it somehow?” Marcus asked, thinking of the one he and Beka had come up against just a couple of days before. The thought of her made his chest hurt and his head ache. It hadn’t been that long since he’d seen her, but it seemed like without her presence his spirit was as shredded as this net. Ridiculous. Intolerable. But there it was.
“I don’t see how a shark could do this,” his father said, standing up slowly. “But I can’t think of any other explanation either.” He gazed down at the mess, the lines in his face carved by years in the sun and the wind seeming to grow deeper as Marcus watched.
“I can’t afford a new net,” his da admitted reluctantly. “The fishing has been that bad this year. There’s no money for a replacement.” His eyes skittered over the ship, taking in all the places where he’d skimped on repairs or touch-ups. Marcus had been working on a few of the smaller ones when no one was around, but the ship still looked a lot less polished and trim than it had when he was growing up. As far as he could tell, his father hadn’t noticed any of the improvements; all the old man saw was the imperfections. He’d always been that way.
“Maybe I’m too old for this,” Marcus Senior said, his gnarled hands twisting around each other. “Maybe I should just give it up.”
“Is that what you want?” Marcus asked quietly. His father had always loved the sea more than anything. More than his mother, which is probably why she left. More than his children, although ironically, Marcus’s brother had loved the ocean almost as much as their father had, a connection that had bonded them together until the day that ocean killed him. Marcus had always imagined that the old man would die at the wheel of his boat one day, happy in the arms of his watery mistress.
His father shrugged, what was left of his former vibrancy draining away as Marcus watched. “I don’t see that I have any choice.”
“I can help,” Marcus said. “I want to help.” He was stunned to discover it was even true. “I’ve got plenty of money saved up from when I was in the Marines. Nothing to spend it on in the desert, after all. Let me buy you a new net.”
His father shook his head. “My boat. My problem. I don’t need your help.”
Marcus could feel the rage rising up like bile in his throat, choking and fiery, as if he’d swallowed some circus performer’s flaming baton.
“You never change, do you?” he said, the words forcing themselves out through his clenched teeth. “You would never listen to anyone else. You’d sure as hell never listen to me. I told you that Kyle was too young to be working the boat. I told you that the new guy you’d signed on was a stoned-out flake who was g
oing to get someone hurt. But you couldn’t find anyone else willing to work for you, because you’d alienated every damned sailor in the port with your lousy temper and bad attitude, and so you let him stay anyway, and Kyle died. Because heaven forbid you actually ever listen to a word I said.”
His father’s face turned red, and then white, but Marcus couldn’t seem to stop himself from shouting. “Now I come halfway across the world to help you when you’re sick, and you’ll let me haul in fish with the hired help, but you won’t let me actually do anything to make this easier on you. I could fix up the boat, but you won’t let me. I could buy you a new net, but then you’d have to admit you needed me for something, and you’d rather go broke and give it all up than take anything from me.”
He kicked the net, causing more bits and pieces to subside into ruin. “Did you really think I didn’t realize you were broke? The harbormaster came to me days ago, asking for his back docking fees.”
“Well, I hope you didn’t pay them,” his da shouted back. “Them’s my debts, and I’ll pay them myself.”
“How?” Marcus asked. “Beka’s not coming back to give you any more bags of salvaged coins. Your net is in shreds. How do you expect to pay your debts if you can’t fish?”
“Beka’s not coming back?” his father said, looking shocked, and surprisingly unhappy. “What did you do, boy?”
Marcus felt a sudden desire to revert to childhood and stamp his feet on the worn deck. “What makes you think it was me that did something? Did it not occur to you that maybe your precious Beka was the one at fault?”
Across the way, Chico and Kenny exchanged glances.
“She lied to me,” Marcus said stubbornly, as though someone were arguing with him. “She wasn’t who she said she was at all.” He wasn’t going to mention that his da had been right about mystical creatures actually existing—not only would that give the old man something more to feel superior about, but Marcus was still doing his best to pretend he’d never learned the truth about dragons and Selkies and Mermaids. Oh my.
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