A Dark & Stormy Night

by Anne Stuart

  "Jamie?"

  "O'Neal. My big brother. The man who's far more haunted than you, even though he's never seen a ghost face to face. You're here to save him, Katie. Save him from the demons that drive him, save him from those murderous bastards who'd cut your throat as soon as look at you. You're here to love him, and you're not leaving until…"

  "Until?" Katie prompted.

  "Until you really want to," Fiona admitted finally. "If you really, truly want to leave tomorrow then you'll be able to."

  "You're going to tell me you're controlling this storm?" Katie scoffed.

  "Certainly not. We have no power over the weather. It's a hurricane for sure, tearing up the east coast of this wild country, and you'll have a hard time making it to safety tomorrow if you're determined to go. But I don't think you are. I think you want to solve the mystery of O'Neal and Seal Point, don't you?"

  "I'm curious," Katie admitted grudgingly.

  "Curiosity killed the cat. Satisfaction brought him back." Fiona smiled a faint, feline smile.

  "But that doesn't mean I'm here to love him," Katie said belatedly as Fiona's unbelievable words sank in. "I don't know where you got such a ridiculous idea. Your brother is the least lovable man I've ever met in my entire life, and I wouldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole. If he's troubled and I can do anything to help, I will, but there's a limit to how much I'm willing to sacrifice…"

  She wouldn't have thought a ghost could smirk. "Where did I get such a ridiculous idea?" she repeated. "Maybe in the basement vault."

  Color flooded Katie's face. "You locked us in!"

  Fiona shook her head, and her white-blond hair floated softly in the air. "I can't do that. It took all my strength to give you that little shove, and then I was gone. But at least I had a glimpse of the two of you before I faded." She fanned herself with her hand. "If you're not in love then you're a brazen creature."

  Katie didn't bother arguing—there was no way she could win. "If you didn't lock us in, who did?"

  "Ah," said Fiona. "Now you're showing the sense God gave you. There's something very wrong about this place, and it's not the three of us. We've done our poor best to protect him, but there's a limit to what we can do. We need your help."

  "Protect him from what?"

  "Willie Marvel and his evil mother."

  "Don't be absurd! Mrs. Marvel is the sweetest, warmest, nicest woman you'd ever want to meet. Granted, her son is a bit spooky, but she's absolutely wonderful."

  "I doubt her husband would agree, but since they killed him and buried the pieces all along the sea coast I'm afraid he's unable to tell you."

  Katie was silenced only for a moment. "So how come he's not a ghost? Why doesn't he hang out with you?"

  Fiona shrugged. "If there was rhyme or reason to these things I've yet to discover it. We're here, he's not. You would think a murdered man would have a hard time resting in peace, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Whereas the three of us died peacefully and well…and yet we're left here to watch over Jamie and see him safe."

  "You died peacefully and well?"

  "Let me tell you, Katie, that drowning's not a bad thing at all, if one must die. it's very peaceful, once you stop fighting."

  "I'll keep that in mind," she said dryly.

  "God pray that you never have to learn it," Fiona said in a sober voice. She rose, floating across the room in her trailing garments. "Come with me, Katie Flynn."

  Katie stayed where she was, beneath the thick cover of the down quilt. "Where?"

  "I want to show you something."

  "If you want to prove that the Marvels are evil I'd rather not know," she said faintly. "I'm sure that even if they are homicidal maniacs they'd have no cause to hurt me…"

  "Homicidal maniacs don't need cause," Fiona said impatiently. "Haven't you learned that yet? Don't you watch television, girl?"

  "Do you?"

  She nodded vigorously, and her silken hair wafted in the night air. "Mrs. Marvel has a satellite dish and a TV in her room. O'Neal doesn't know about it, of course, and since the storm hit she hasn't been able to get any reception, but in the past I've spent many an hour watching it with her. Mind you, she doesn't know I'm there." She smiled sweetly. "I'm particularly fond of 'The X-Files.'"

  "That does it," Katie said. "I have to be dreaming this."

  "If you're dreaming this then there's no harm in coming with me, now is there?" Fiona asked. She wasn't standing on the ground, Katie noticed absently. She was floating several inches above it.

  "I could catch my death of cold."

  "The Marvels will kill you first. Mrs. Marvel promised Willie he could play with you before he finished you off. I saw what he did the last time." She shuddered, a strange sight in such a willowy apparition.

  Katie wasn't going to believe her, any more than she was going to believe in this absurd dream. And if she truly were in a dream, then any incipient pneumonia would also be imaginary. She slid out of bed and onto the floor. "And you didn't stop him?" she said, reaching for the shawl that lay draped across the bed. It didn't provide much warmth, and her feet were freezing, but since it was a dream it could hardly matter.

  "I couldn't," Fiona said, and there was a grim note in her voice. "None of us could. I could only sit there and weep."

  A cold chill ran down Katie's back that had absolutely nothing to do with the temperature of the room. "You're scaring me," she said.

  "Good." She held out her hand. It was a small hand, that of an adolescent girl, and the green-stoned ring glowed against her pale white skin.

  "Can I touch you?" Katie asked, curious.

  Fiona shook her head in sorrow. "No. You aren't even seeing me—I'm just a reflection of your other senses. But I'll lead you true, Katie Flynn. Follow me, and I'll show you a wonder the likes of which you've never seen."

  "You'd be hard put to top three ghosts and a hurricane," Katie murmured, half to herself.

  "But this has to do with the man you love."

  "I don't love…!" she started, but Fiona interrupted blandly.

  "The man you belong to. The man who belongs to you. We know about such things, and we're never wrong."

  "Who's this we? Ghosts?" she countered irritably.

  "No." Fiona was almost affronted. "The Irish. And you know it, as well, no matter how much you try to deny it. You took one look at Jamie and knew he was your destiny. You've been trying to escape ever since."

  "Maybe I'm not in the mood to meet my destiny at this point in my life," Katie muttered.

  "Whether you're in the mood or not has nothing to do with it," Fiona said sternly. "It happens when it happens, and it won't do you any good to keep fighting it like this. Follow me, and stop arguing. You're as bad as me father."

  And Katie followed, wrapping the shawl tight around her.

  The electric lights in the hallway were out, though Katie had no idea whether it was another blackout or if someone had simply turned them off. It didn't matter…Fiona's evanescent glow illuminated the darkness perfectly, and she followed behind her dutifully enough.

  "Can't you do something about the cold?" she called ahead to her. "For a dream, this is too damned uncomfortable."

  Fiona looked back, a mischievous expression on her face. "It's your dream," she said. "You make it warmer."

  Katie muttered something uncomplimentary as she followed her ghostly flashlight. "Where exactly are we going?"

  "To Jamie's room."

  Katie came to a full stop. "No way. I'm not about to go traipsing into his bedroom in the middle of the night, dressed like this, and you can't make me do it!"

  Fiona didn't bother to look back. "He's not there," she said. "And I wouldn't think a flannel nightgown and an old shawl could be called provocative."

  "If he isn't there, why are we going there?"

  "I want to show you something."

  "Where has he gone on a night like this? What if he comes back while we're poking around in his room? He probably won't see
you—he hasn't in fifteen years and I don't suppose he'll start now. He'll think I…" She let the words trail off. "He'll get the wrong impression."

  "I'm not going to show you anything in his room," Fiona said patiently. "His balcony has the best view of the ocean. I want to show you something out there."

  "It's pitch-black and the middle of a hurricane. I'm not going to be able to see a damned thing." She started walking anyway, since Fiona didn't seem ready to stop.

  " 'A damned thing,' " Fiona echoed thoughtfully. "I don't think so. At least, I hope not. It shouldn't be too late."

  "Too late for what?"

  "Too late for Jamie. Too late for all of us," Fiona said mournfully. She'd stopped outside O'Neal's door, the very door he'd slammed in Katie's face when he'd escorted her out of there earlier that day.

  "I don't know what you're talking about," Katie said stubbornly.

  "Open the door, please."

  "I will not," Katie shot back. "I told you I'm not going in there. If you want to you can open the door yourself."

  "No, I can't. Not without draining every ounce of energy from me, and then we'd accomplish nothing." She turned to Katie, and there was pleading in her huge, pale eyes. "Do this for me, Katie Flynn. Trust me on this one. Help me do what I can't do myself."

  She couldn't resist. The doorknob was cool beneath her hand, and she half expected it to be locked, after her earlier transgression. But it turned easily enough, and the door swung open, and Katie held her breath, terrified that O'Neal would jump out of bed and demand to know what the hell she was doing there.

  Fiona moved into the room, her halo of light illuminating the empty, unmade bed. The deserted room. Katie barely had time to breathe a sigh of relief before Fiona got to the French doors that led out onto the parapet.

  "I don't think so," Katie muttered. "I'm not going out into that. I'll be blown over the edge in this wind."

  The doors were rattling in the frames, and the wind had risen to an eerie pitch, like a woman wailing. Fiona turned to her.

  "You won't be able to see that well from here," she said.

  "What is it I'm supposed to see?"

  "Come and look."

  Katie bit her lip, oddly reluctant. She had no idea what she would see on the other side of the storm-battered glass, but whatever it was would most likely shock and horrify her. Was Fiona right about the Marvels, and had they stored their victims out there? Or would O'Neal be there, watching her, wondering what the hell she was doing in his bedroom again?

  She approached cautiously. "What would happen if I touched you?" she asked.

  Fiona kept staring out into the impenetrable darkness. "Nothing," she said. "It would feel like you were touching air. You could walk right through me and you would feel nothing."

  "What about you? Would you feel anything?"

  "No," she said. "It's been more than fifteen years since I've felt a human touch."

  "I'm sorry." Katie's voice was soft.

  Fiona turned then, smiling brightly, freely. "I've grown used to it. But I'm not about to stand by and watch my brother suffer the same fate. He's not past saving, but the time will come when there's nothing that can be done. Even if the Marvels don't murder him, he'll be dead to the world."

  "I wish I knew what you were talking about." Katie came up beside her, and the pale glow Fiona cast spread over Katie's nightgown and illuminated her face.

  "He blames himself for our deaths," Fiona said. "And until he lets go of that grief and shame he won't be able to live with himself. You can help him."

  "How could he blame himself?"

  "Because he lived and we died. And he goes out and courts death, teases it, to see if this time it will take him. But I don't want him to die, Katie. Even if it meant he would be with us, I don't want him to die. I want him to live and marry and have children. I want him to be happy. He needs someone to love him. Even more, he needs someone he can love."

  "But I'm not that woman!"

  "You are, and you know it," Fiona said simply. She turned back to the storm-blackened windowpane. "Look at him out there! Sooner or later he'll die, unless you convince him that he has something to live for."

  Katie could see absolutely nothing at all, just the silver lash of the rain against the windows. All was blackness, the night, the storm, the fear in her heart. The light in the room grew imperceptibly dimmer, and Katie pressed her face against the glass, staring outward.

  She could see the dark waves, higher than they'd been before, high enough to be seen from the parapet. The storm had grown unbelievably intense, a nightmare of screaming wind and rain. "There's no one out there," she whispered, more a prayer, a hope, than a belief.

  "Look in the ocean," Fiona said. It was almost pitch-black now, and she knew that if she looked beside her she wouldn't see Fiona at all. She could only hear her soft, plaintive voice. "Look out in the darkness, look with your eyes and look with your heart."

  Katie looked. For a moment she thought she saw him, and she let out a strangled gasp before she realized that it wasn't O'Neal's dark head bobbing up and down in the teeming waves. It was the seal.

  As always when she saw him, she felt that strange sense of peace and knowledge settle down over her. And a rare, deep fear that burned in her heart.

  "He'll drown," she whispered, pain and fear in her voice.

  "You see him?"

  Katie turned her head. She could barely see Fiona in the darkness—only her eyes still glowed, rather like the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland. "No," she said. "I see the seal."

  She could see Fiona's smile, as well, then, and the cat image was even more forcibly in her mind. "You see Jamie."

  "I see…" The seal was motionless in the churning water, staring up at the parapet. There was no way he could see her, no way he could know she was there. No way that it would make any difference to an aquatic mammal without the sense to stay ashore during a bad storm.

  But he looked at her. Across the torrent of ocean, his eyes were staring into hers.

  "You see him," Fiona murmured, "and you can't believe. But it's true, and deep in your heart you know it to be true. O'Neal is out there in the water. Watching you."

  "It's the seal," Katie protested uselessly.

  "It's O'Neal. And you know it. Deep in your heart."

  And Katie did.

  Chapter Thirteen

  « ^ »

  She stood alone in the darkness, waiting for him. Fiona had left her, hours ago, it seemed, and the storm had grown wilder still. She could no longer see beyond the parapet to the ocean, she could no longer see the parapet itself, but still she stood there by the French doors, staring out into the darkness, waiting.

  He might be dead, of course. She knew this with the last trace of reason that existed, but her life had been taken over by the unbelievable, and reason seemed far more remote than fantasy. Any creature, man or beast, who swam in that wild ocean took the risk of being dashed to pieces against the rocks. Why should O'Neal be any different? He was courting Death out there. What if Death decided to respond to O'Neal's advances and take him?

  But she knew he'd come back. She could feel it in her heart as it lay beating steadily against the thick flannel of her borrowed nightgown. She could feel it in the warmth of her skin, in the pulse of her blood, in the marrow of her bones. He would come back from the sea. And she would be waiting for him.

  She lost track of time. Her always-reliable watch had stopped, and there were no clocks in this house. No doleful grandfather clock chiming the hour, no sense of the passage of time. She was adrift in a calmer, timeless sea, waiting for him.

  There was no lightening of the storm-blackened sky when he came, but she knew it was close to dawn. The door opened into the darkness and he stood there.

  "What are you still doing here?" His voice was low, barely audible above the howl of the wind. She turned and leaned back against the glass door, feeling the storm shake behind her. She could only see his silhouette against the
open door.

  "How did you know I was in your room?"

  "I saw you."

  She wasn't expecting an honest answer. "Where were you when you saw me?"

  There was a sudden flare of light as he lit a match, leaning over to light the candle on the table by his bed. It illuminated him harshly, throwing strange shadows around the room. He was wearing a pair of jeans and nothing else, and he was glistening with water. His long hair was pushed back, his eyes hooded as he turned to look at her.

  She wanted to look away, but she couldn't. He was starkly beautiful in the wavering candlelight, mesmerizingly so. Frighteningly so, and she should have run away hours ago instead of waiting for him like a virgin sacrifice.

  "Why are you here, Katie?" His voice was harsh. "Did you decide to have mercy on me and get in bed with me?"

  "Who's being merciful?" she whispered.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, as if he were in pain. "I'm not what you think I am," he said. "Go away, for God's sake. Go now!"

  She took a step toward him, reacting to his pain rather than his rejection. "Jamie…" she said.

  He recoiled as if he'd been slapped, and she stopped, halfway across the room.

  "What did you call me?"

  "Jamie," she said. "That's your name, isn't it?"

  "No one here knows it. No one's called me by that name since my family died. How did you hear it?" There was no missing the grief and rage in his voice, and Katie wondered whether she should be frightened. "Did you go through all my papers until you found out everything you could? It couldn't have been very interesting reading. There are no scandals, I'm a legal immigrant to this country, and I have almost no business dealings with anyone. I just want to be left alone, by everyone, but most especially by you."

  It couldn't have been clearer. Katie straightened her back, calling on her shredded dignity and telling herself she should welcome her escape. "Then I won't bother you any longer," she said, wrapping the shawl more tightly around her suddenly chilled body and starting for the door.

  He made no move to stop her, when she was half-certain he would. He waited until she reached the door, then spoke.