Fire on the Island (30 page)

Drew gave him a
questioning look but didn't press the issue. "Well there was one thing..."

"What?"
Jeremiah asked, suddenly alarmed.

"Just
before I left New Orleans for my lecture at UC Berkeley, my apartment was
broken into."

"
Fuck!
"
Jere hissed. "The book?"

"Relax,
it's fine. I keep it in my safe, just in case. I think that may have been what
she was after though."

"She?"

Drew nodded.
"Yeah, I caught her in the act. One of my lectures got canceled at the
last minute, so I came back home. There was no sign of a break in or anything—I
didn't even know she was there until I made it into the study and I saw her
trying to crack the safe.

She was dressed
head to toe in black, straight out of
Mission Impossible
. Tiny,
dark-haired, had a mean right hook."

"What made
you think she was after the book?" Isla asked.

"Well, she
didn't touch anything else. I combed the place after she left and not a thing
was out of place. She just messed with the safe...the book was the only thing
in there."

"Wait,
after she left? Didn't you have her arrested?"

Drew gave
Jeremiah a sheepish smile and absently fingered his jaw. "Told you she had
a mean right hook. When I found her in there, I grabbed her, and she spun
around and cold-cocked me. Didn't knock me out, but it rung my bell but good.
Stunned me long enough for her to escape out to the terrace."

"Dude, you
live on the sixth floor!"

Drew shrugged
his big shoulders. "Can't explain it. When I cleared my head enough to
walk straight, she was gone."

Jeremiah let
out a low whistle. "You always did have a knack for gettin' tangled up
with man-eaters."

With the comment,
Drew choked on his coffee. "Ain't that the truth? There was one more
strange thing about her, though."

Isla leaned
forward and Jeremiah raised his eyebrows in question. "The symbol, on the
cover of the book? She had a tattoo similar to it, right here." He tapped
his index finger on his collar bone.

Wincing, Isla
did her best to try and hide her reaction to that little tidbit. Unfortunately,
just like Jere was a keen observer, so was Drew. He narrowed his eyes at her.

"So what
have you gotten out of the translations?" Jeremiah asked eagerly. Drew
opened his mouth to answer, but Isla held up a hand to stop him.

She glanced
warily at an older couple at another table within earshot. "Maybe we
should discuss this back at the cabin."

Nodding,
Jeremiah pulled out enough cash for the check and a tip, and the three of them
headed back to
Taigh na Beinne.

~~~

Once they were
settled back at the cabin, Isla passed beers around. By the time he had a cold
beer in his hand, Jeremiah was practically jumping out of his skin to find out
about the translations.

"Alright,
spill it," he growled.

Drew chuckled
at his friend and sipped his beer slowly, winking at Isla. "I'm afraid
there isn't a whole lot I can tell you. I've been over the scans you sent me
hundreds of times, and most of it is written in a form of Old Latin that is
virtually unrecognizable. Your only hope is to dig up someone who is an expert
on this particular subculture."

"Damn
it," Jeremiah whispered. "I was hoping we would get some
answers."

"What is
it you're trying to find the answers to?" Drew asked quietly, seeming to
wait for Jeremiah to meet his eyes.

Jeremiah
glanced where Isla stood with a wary gaze fixed on Drew. She rubbed her arms as
if she was chilled. It was clear that she didn't trust the newcomer enough yet
to tell him her secret. Sighing, Jeremiah scrubbed a hand over his face.

"There
have been strange things happening on the island since I've been here.
Abductions, what I believe to be possessions, to name a couple. I have reason
to believe that these events may be connected to the
auchrim
. Paranormal
activity is always strongest around Samhain when, supposedly, the veil between
the two worlds is thinned. As we're getting close to Hallowmas, if anything is
going to jump out at us, I want to know how to stop it. Is there anything in
the texts about killing the
Lochrim
and closing the gateway?"

Drew regarded
Jere with a steady gaze for several seconds before shaking his head.
"There is nothing in the translatable part of the text that mentions
killing the
Lochrim
. It vaguely alludes to cutting off its energy source
to trap it, but it doesn't say how that's accomplished. I do believe, however,
if one does manage to kill the
Lochrim
, that will close the
locus
for good."

Nodding,
Jeremiah sat back against the couch cushions. Mhairi had said as much—nobody
knows how or if the
Lochrim
can be killed. "So what
did
you
learn?"

"A nice
collection of random facts. The book spoke a lot about the power of the
Bruixi
witches, and where it comes from."

Isla sank down
to the couch beside Jeremiah. "What did it say?"

"That
their powers are primarily elemental. Not only does it exist inside them, but
they can draw from the four elements of life to harness and expand their own
power."

"Earth,
Air, Fire and Water," Isla said quietly.

Drew eyed her
speculatively but gave her an encouraging smile. "Exactly. While they are
trained in spell casting among their cultural subset, it's usually only used in
special circumstances."

Always the
storyteller, Drew paused for dramatic effect. "More importantly, the book
said that the
Vigilati
have—and I'm paraphrasing this part after drawing
my own conclusion—have a predisposition, or possibly even a genetic marker that
allows them to manipulate a single element more so than the others. And more so
than a normal
Bruixi
witch."

Isla glanced at
Jeremiah, eyebrows raised. "Interesting. I hadn't come across that in
my...research."

Drew
steamrolled on with his story, the fire of discovery lighting his eyes.
"Also, the largest chunk of translatable text I came across doesn't deal
with the
Vigilati
at all. It deals with another race within the
Bruixi
culture—it refers to them almost like a separate species—called the
Feradux
.
Sound familiar?"

Jeremiah
grunted and his eyes automatically went to the door, expecting Marduk to pop up
at the mention of his kind, sort of like Beetlejuice. Satisfied that he wasn’t
going to see a naked wolf-boy walk through the door, he looked back at Drew.
“We’ve heard of them, but there doesn’t seem to be much known about them in
general. What does the book say?”

“They are
revered, and often feared, among the
Bruixi
society as being the most
powerful beings, even more so than the
Vigilati
. Although they haven’t the
special powers needed to fight the
Lochrim.
The
Feradux
are bred
and raised as protectors of the
Vigilati
, but when one of them misuses
his power to hurt another, he becomes enslaved to a v
igile
. While the
two still share a symbiotic relationship, the
Feradux
no longer has the
choice to live on his own and meet his own needs. Their fates are
intertwined—if his
vigile
dies, he will too."

"So is the
feradux
indentured to the
vigile
for life?" Isla asked,
fiddling with a curl that fell over her shoulder.

"Not
necessarily. In order to be released from service, the
feradux
must make
a blood sacrifice for his charge. If he survives it, he's free."

"Interesting,"
Jeremiah said, scratching his chin. "So the shapeshifting is unrelated to
the
feradux-vigile
bond."

Drew pegged him
with a sharp glance. "Shapeshifting?" he asked, looking back and
forth between the two. "There wasn't any mention of that in the
book."

"Uh, well,
it's something that has come up in our other research," Jere covered.

Sighing, Drew
stacked up the copies of his translations that he had brought with him and
handed them to Jeremiah. "Look, I know there's something you're not
telling me, and that's okay. I just want you to know that you can trust me, so
if you need any help with anything, all you have to do is call."

When Jere
raised an eyebrow at the last comment, Drew grinned. "Promise I'll get a
new phone as soon as I get to Glasgow. I'll be in Scotland for the next three
weeks, so I'm around if you need me."

"Thanks,
brother," Jeremiah said, "'preciate ya." Standing up, Drew gave
Jeremiah a one-armed hug and kissed Isla on the cheek.

"Gotta be
up before dawn tomorrow to keep on schedule, so I need to get back to Brodick
and try and find somewhere to stay."

"Don't be
silly," Isla said, "you'll stay here, of course."

"Now, I
couldn't impose on two young lovers," he said with a grin. "I think I
passed a boarding house on the way in."

"Idiot.
Boarding house?" Jeremiah tossed a set of keys to Drew, who caught them
neatly, a reflex that went back to his college baseball days. "I'm staying
here with Isla tonight, but you can stay in the cottage I'm renting."

"Alright,
thanks. That'd be great!"

Scribbling down
the address and rough directions on a piece of paper, Jeremiah handed it to his
friend. "Just leave the key under the mat."

Drew picked up
his briefcase and headed to the door, turning to wave at them one more time.
"Remember, if you need me..." When Jere nodded, he turned to leave.
"'Til next time,
mes chers amis
. Take care!"

Breathing an audible
sigh of relief, Isla sank down onto the couch. "That was close. We need to
be more careful."

"Yes, we
do. For the record, I trust Drew with my life. The only thing he would do is
help. He's come along on my investigations before."

"I believe
you. I'm still just getting used to even my friends knowing my secret. Hell,
I'm still getting used to knowing it myself."

Sitting down
beside her, Jeremiah urged her to lay down with her head pillowed in his lap.
"Of course you are. That's why I covered with Drew. It's not my secret to
share. I just wanted you to know that he meant what he said. He'll be there if
we need him."

Nodding, she
smiled up at him. "What does
mes chers amis
mean?"

"It means
my
dear friends
. It's just one of those things we say back home."

The phrase
reminded him of being back in New Orleans, and he had to fight off a brief wave
of homesickness.

"How come
Drew uses so much French in conversation and you don't?"

Jeremiah
laughed and shrugged. "There are certain areas that you'll hear more of
the ‘Franglish’ than others. Drew lived down the bayou from New Orleans, in a
much more rural area. My family used to live there too, until my dad died.
After that, Mama needed to move into town to find a job."

He smiled when
she rubbed his knee. "Also, Drew's grandmother is from France, and he is
very close with her. The French, and the accent really, only come out when he
lets his guard down or when he gets riled."

"I noticed
that." She was silent for a moment, lost in thought. Jeremiah jumped when
she suddenly socked him in the arm.

"Ow! What
was that for?"

"For
making me believe that you two were actually going to fight!"

He just gave
her his big, wolfy grin and leaned in for a mind-melting kiss. When they
finally broke apart, Isla curled into him and sighed.

It was nice to
have another night of feeling warm and safe, he thought as they both drifted
off to sleep.

~~~

It was full
dark when Isla awoke to light scratching at the front door and a soft whine.
Gently detangling herself from Jeremiah, she managed to rise without waking
him. She knew that whine, so she opened the door for Marduk.

Slapping a hand
over her mouth to stifle her laughter, she observed the proud wolf standing on
the porch, soaked to the skin from the driving rain outside. Ice-blue eyes
glared at her, which only made her shake harder with silent laughter.

She placed a
finger to her lips as she stepped back to make room for him to enter.
"Jeremiah's sleeping," she whispered. "Stay here, I'll grab a
towel."

Still unsure of
how much he understood when he was in wolf form, she regarded him silently. The
animal dipped his head slightly in acknowledgement, so Isla went to the linen
closet to pull out a towel.

Rubbing the
silver fur until it stood on end, she made Marduk look more poodle than wolf.
Standing, the wolf cast off any remaining water with a deep, full-body shake.
Yawning, Isla returned to the couch and lay back down with Jeremiah, who curled
into her without waking.