A Bay of Angry Fae, page 15
It seemed more likely that they’d hit it at speed to do this much damage. The accident had destroyed their buoyancy and sent them to the bottom. Fortunately for whoever had been on it at the time, in this sort of shallow water and so close to the beach, they were likely to have survived the incident.
Though I wouldn’t have liked to be them if it had happened at night. That would have been terrifying. I swam closer to the vessel. It didn’t appear to have a name, which made it a little more unusual. Those with cash to splash on this sort of maritime hardware loved scrawling a clever name down the side of the boat. It also didn’t appear to have any lights on it, another unusual anomaly.
Why would anyone be piloting such an expensive vessel without the proper safety precautions in place?
Moving closer, I rounded the hull of a submerged sand trawler. I was about fifteen feet from the luxurious yacht I’d observed earlier. They seemed to be anchored near the wreck, but even at this distance there didn’t appear to be anyone on it. Perhaps they were Harry Potter fans too. They could have moored here and wandered down the beach to see the game.
If that was the case though, why wouldn’t they simply drive down to the game and dock at the resort’s pier?
It didn’t make sense but wealthy holiday makers were known to do all manner of inefficient things in the name of having a good time.
Resting in the water a moment, I treaded water above the new shipwreck as I looked about for any sign of danger.
As I prepared for my dive, I thought about my options.
It was starting to look like a yacht owner had grown careless and wrecked their brand-new toy. If that were the case, I probably would have been better served scoping out the island’s interior.
As part of me wondered if I’d wasted a day wandering up the beach and swimming out here, the rest of me determined to make the effort to swim down anyway. I’d come all this way after all, and it seemed unlikely the resort was going to loan me the quads again. Not after the condition I’d returned them in yesterday and particularly not now that Barry had disappeared.
The concierge being sick was about as likely as a white Christmas in Brisbane. The timing of his sudden affliction was just a little too convenient to ignore. I looked down at the yacht and sighed. It was still my best lead. My only lead, really.
If nothing else, the walk had done me good, and learning about glamours from Sleet had been an added bonus. That particular education seemed like it would stand me in good stead as a hunter.
I bobbed in the water and tried to relax my breathing. Full of adrenaline and excitement I would burn through my air much faster. And given the wreck was a good three or four meters below the surface, I was going to need every bit of breath I could muster. Filling my lungs, I closed my mouth and sank beneath the water. Executing a half turn, I felt the water surge into my snorkel tube, but I spat it out of my mouth and let it dangle from the mask. I wasn’t going to need it on this trip.
Kicking hard I propelled myself downward, with slow purposeful strokes. I could feel the increased pressure on my ears the deeper I got, but at this depth it was more of a nuisance than any real threat. Still, I made a note not to surface too quickly as there was no point taking unnecessary chances.
Reaching the submerged yacht, I felt along its hull, the gaping hole clearly the source of its demise. There were rust-colored markings along the hull, a likely indicator of contact where it had brushed against one of the other ships.
Satisfied as to how it had gotten here, I made my way to the doors at the back of the vessel. I found the handle and pulled on it to open the door. But it wouldn’t budge.
Was it locked?
With the damage to the hull, it had to be flooded. I expected minimal resistance on the door. I positioned my feet against the bulkhead and pulled with everything I had, but the door wouldn’t budge. Not even an inch.
Could it be locked?
Surely not. For the occupants to have escaped, they would have had to open it. Who bothers locking a door when a ship is flooding beneath your feet? One more bizarre fact to add to the rapidly growing collection about the ship.
Not to worry. One of the first workings Alasdair had taught me was for opening locks. It was something of a fundamental skill for a bounty hunter. I did as my mentor had taught me. Placing my hand over the door’s locking mechanism I willed power into it. It was a subtle spell designed to unlock the mechanism from the inside. But I felt nothing. No discernible response from my magic that would indicate that the mechanism had turned.
Odd.
I’d performed the simple spell dozens of times. I could do it with my eyes closed, and I was pretty sure I could do it underwater, if I had to. So I didn’t think that was the issue. No matter how I pushed and pulled against the door, I couldn’t budge it. The more I fought with the door, the more I worried that its occupants were still inside, drowned as their vessel went down in the shallow water.
Abandoning my futile attempts to open the door, I let myself drift away from it. Studying the rest of the vessel, I looked at the ocean floor around the ship and paused.
The ship itself was strange but the indentation where it rested in the sand was even more so. It continued beyond the prow of the boat another two or three feet. I’d have thought it was drag from the ship coming to rest on the ocean floor, but that would have been hours ago. It should have well and truly found its level.
“Or perhaps you’re wasting your time playing at being a deep-sea rescue operator,” my inner critic whispered.
Shut up, I told myself. I didn’t need her second guessing me right now.
Here I was three meters below the surface. Unable to get into this stupid boat and I was arguing with myself. I didn’t have time for that kind of stupidity. I shoved my inner critic back into her corner and tried to focus on the problem at hand. I tried the lock once more. It wouldn’t budge.
I circled the boat looking for any other possible entrance, but couldn’t find anything and, what was worse, I was rapidly running out of breath.
In frustration, I pushed off the ship and started slowly drifting to the surface, exhaling gradually as I went, the small stream of bubbles rising past my ear as they raced for the surface.
As I stared at the boat, my eyes made their way back to the ocean floor, and the unusual impression the ship had made. I added to that, the lack of a name on it and the doors that seemed wedged shut. Perhaps I wasn’t as fit as I thought or perhaps something else was happening here.
Sleet’s words came back into my mind, “So look for things that don’t make sense. Things that might be lying to your eyes. A smell where there shouldn’t be. Tracks when you can’t see your prey. Many things can warn you that something is hiding.”
Use your magic eyes.
Running out of breath, I figured it was worth a shot. I closed my eyes, drew on my power and manifested my Sidhe sight. Opening them, the water was now a brilliant shade of aquamarine, but beyond that, the ship caught my eye.
My stomach flipped. The yacht was gone; well, not gone. But for the first time I saw it in its true form. It wasn’t a yacht at all, but an elegant ship fashioned from a bluish steel woven in bands. I’d never seen the patterns before and yet they seemed familiar to me. The yacht’s cabin was gone but the ship did have a sealed canopy with opaque glass windows. The door, in its true form, had a large silver lock but whatever it was made from had resisted my efforts to open it.
Something about its design told me it wasn’t a human vessel at all. Add that to the fact it had been hidden behind an elaborate glamour made me all the more suspicious. Someone didn’t want it to be found.
My heart pounded in my chest as I made my way to the surface. I needed another look, but first I needed air.
I must’ve drifted as I rose because I found myself surfacing underneath the boat that had been at anchor. I kicked free of the bottom of the hull. I cleared the bottom of the boat and surfaced right behind it. I gasped, filling my mouth and lungs with fresh air. Panting, I treaded water and tried to process my discovery.
A pronounced click behind me interrupted my train of thought. I turned, awkward and slow, but as I did I found myself staring at the familiar face of Naerine Oaksidhe, or more precisely, staring up the barrel of the pistol she had leveled at my head.
“Nora Byrne,” she gloated. “I was wondering when I would be seeing you.”
Chapter 15
In a heartbeat, I made and discarded a dozen options. I knew water could be quite effective at stalling bullets, but I figured my chance of getting beneath the surface before Naerine pulled the trigger was non-existent. So, I drew on my power. What other choice did I have? She’d pulled a gun on me, and our last encounter had ended less than ideal. If she hadn’t been bleeding out I imagined she might have pulled the trigger then.
No sooner had I begun drawing on my power, than Naerine shook her head. “Just give me a reason, and I’ll put a bullet between your eyes faster than you can frame that spell you’re considering right now.”
I exhaled, paddling gently in an attempt to stay afloat while hopefully not giving Naerine a reason to shoot me.
“What do you want, Naerine?”
“I was hoping we could have a little chat,” she replied, her lips drawn tight together but betraying the faintest hint of a smile as she lorded over me, from the deck of her yacht.
“And here I was hoping we’d never see each other again,” I replied. “What do you think is going to happen when Alasdair discovers you’re bothering me again? I suspect he’s going to be pissed.”
“Isn’t he always?” Naerine replied with a smug smile. “If being contrary was a superpower, he would be a champion of the people. I’ve never met a more disagreeable soul in all my time in this world.”
She wasn’t wrong. He could be cagey and difficult, and possessed all the diplomacy and tact of a piranha at dinner time. But hearing her talk down about my mentor really got underneath my skin.
Not that I could do anything about it with a gun pointed at my face.
When I didn’t say anything, she continued. “Besides, we both know he’s not here. Last I saw him he was trying to convey a remarkably implausible story to my Queen.”
My pulse quickened. At least that meant he had made it to the Summer Court. Though it certainly didn’t seem like it had gone down well.
Perhaps that explained why he hadn’t returned my call. Was he still there? Or had Titania, Queen of Summer, taken umbrage at her dead ambassador and shot the messenger?
“I’m still a member of the Camp,” I replied. “And if you pull that trigger you and the Court are in for a world of problems.”
“Perhaps,” Naerine replied, “but that’s only if they find your body. There are places we could stash what’s left of you that no one would ever find. So why don’t you come up here, dry off and we can have a little chat.”
I looked around the bay, desperate for other options. “Oh, I’d rather stay here, if it’s all the same to you.”
“It isn’t, and it wasn’t a request,” Naerine replied, her fingers tightening on the trigger. “Perhaps you need some encouragement.”
“Okay, okay, I’m coming,” I replied. Paddling toward the edge of the boat. I considered diving under it, but where was I going to go? I couldn’t hope to outrun a yacht. So I reached up and placed my hand on the deck.
I looked Naerine in the eye. “Permission to come aboard captain?”
“Permission granted,” Naerine replied, motioning at the deck as she took a step away from me. She seemed standoffish, and eager to stay out of range while keeping the weapon trained on me.
Thinking as I went, I tried to deploy everything I had learned in the Otherworld journal.
“If I am to be a guest on your vessel, will you guarantee my safety?”
To bargain with the Sidhe was to court disaster, but I was already at gunpoint and the last time we met, Naerine had very nearly put a bullet in me. If it wasn’t for the fact she had been outnumbered, she just might have. She likely still believed I was responsible for the death of principal Dare, and perhaps even the ambush of her group outside the school.
After all, she’d come looking for the Winter Court and no sooner had she cornered us, than the forces of Winter arrived, slaughtering her patrol. She alone appeared to have survived the Red Cap’s onslaught.
“I most certainly will not,” Naerine replied, “and you are no guest on this vessel. You’ll be my prisoner.”
I paused. Not liking the sound of that one bit, but neither did I think I could take her. Naerine had the high ground. There was a small chance I could slip under the water. But she would get off a shot or two. It would come down to how good a marksman she was, and I wasn’t quite ready to gamble my life away. Besides, I’d come here for answers, and there was no way I’d get them by running away. The safer course seemed to be climbing aboard the vessel.
Perhaps with time I could convince her that I wasn’t her enemy. Perhaps she knew more about what was going on around the island than I did.
I reached up, grabbed the deck with one hand and the rail with the other and pulled myself up onto the back of the boat. Water streamed off me as I sat on the deck catching my breath.
“Shall we head inside? Somewhere a little quieter?”
“That depends on whether you can put the gun away,” I replied.
“Not a chance,” Naerine replied.
“Suit yourself,” I answered. “I’m happy to talk to you, Naerine. I’m even happy to tell you what I know about what’s been going on here. But if your finger so much as tightens on that trigger I won’t be held responsible for what happens to you. Particularly not after last time when you damn near shot me for no good reason.”
Naerine seemed to consider my proposal for a minute. And then slowly she moved her finger outside the trigger guard but didn’t put the gun away.
It was a reluctant middle ground.
I took that as progress. “Just give me a moment to get these flippers off.” Reaching into the water I undid my flippers and sat them down on the deck. Standing up, Naerine opened the cabin of the yacht for me. She pointed inside at a series of chairs around a small table.
I felt like a gangster playing Russian roulette but Naerine took a seat and so did I.
“What do you want?” I asked. “You wanted to talk, let’s talk.”
“So you’re a Winter Court scion living in the middle of the Summer Court’s realm,” Naerine ventured.
“That feels more like a statement than a question,” I replied. Naerine might think she had me at a disadvantage, but I had questions I wanted the answer to as well, so I wasn’t giving anything away for free.
“Why?”
I shifted a little in my seat. The wetsuit wasn’t nearly as comfortable in this position.
Naerine might know what I was, but she had no idea who I was. She also knew far more about the state of affairs between the Summer and Winter Courts than I did. So while I wasn’t even sure my father knew I existed, I could almost certainly be used as leverage in a war I wanted no part of.
I had flashbacks of the Red Cap threatening to kill me and take Conor. I didn’t want my children drawn into a bloody tug of war that could kill us all.
“My mother is originally from Ireland,” I answered honestly. “In her younger days she was beguiled by a Sidhe of the Winter Court. When she became pregnant, she fled out of a desire to protect me from them. She wasn’t sure how her lover would react to the news and she wasn’t taking any chances. So she came here. The furthest point she could find from their influence.”
Naerine studied me intently, her golden brown eyes searching my face for any hint of deception. It was one of the reasons I’d opted for the truth. It gave her nothing about my identity, and it was an all too believable story about who we were and why we were here.
“Have you any contact with the Winter Court?” she asked. “Scions are rare, and sought after for the freedom with which they can move between realms.”
“I’ve never met my father,” I replied, “and until recently I knew little of the Court or its business. It wasn’t until the Red Cap showed up in town and that ice troll tried to kill me that I was drawn into this mess.”
“The mess at the library,” Naerine replied. “That was you?”
I nodded.
“We tracked that particular incursion but Alasdair got there first. He has always been an enterprising hunter.”
“That was the day I met him. And with the library out of commission I needed a job. So I took work at the Camp.”
“Dangerous work,” Naerine replied. “Not the sort of thing most would wander into willingly.”
“Do you have any children?” I asked, resting my folded arms on the table before me.
“One,” Naerine replied, her granite countenance softening for a moment, before she regained her composure.
“So you know what it means to be a parent. I took the work to provide for my family. At the time I didn’t understand the extent of my abilities but I was willing to work. I managed to track down Alasdair and the Camp and persuade them to take me on. That’s when I met you and your friends.”
Naerine set the gun on the table, its barrel facing me. “So you would have me believe that when the Red Cap showed up here in town you knew nothing about him, or why he was here?”
“Got it in one,” I replied. “I was as surprised as the rest of you. More so perhaps when I learned that some of the people who had died were apprentice hunters. I’d not known a thing about the Camp.”
“And that when one of our closest allies was killed and we come to investigate, you knew nothing of the Winter Court ambush that was cunningly prepared and brutally executed. You expect me to believe that?”
“I expect you to believe the truth,” I replied. “Principal Dare was a friend. One who’d helped me keep my son in a normal school and helped us get the support we need. His death was a loss for us all.”
