Hidden Currents (48 page)

Behind him, huge white tents were anchored in the sand with long tables of food and drink and an intricate wedding cake from one of the bakeries. The townspeople pressed all around them, standing shoulder to shoulder. Soft strains of music drifted on the light breeze and the fragrance of lavender permeated the air.

He took Elle’s hand, slipped the ring on her finger and felt an answering jolt in his chest. She put the ring on his finger and he caught her hand and kissed it.

Ilya stepped forward, pulling Joley with him. “Before you pronounce them man and wife, marry us.” He patted his pocket. “I have the license and our rings.”

Tyson grinned and caught Libby’s hand. “You can’t get out of it now,” he said and stood very straight, almost caging her in. He held up two rings. “Marry us, too.”

“Can you do this in front of all these people, Abigail?” Aleksandr asked.

She nodded and stepped up beside him, fitting perfectly beneath his shoulder.

Kate and Matt looked at one another, laughed and stepped up beside Elle and Jackson. “We’re ready as well.”

“And us,” Damon said. “Everyone’s already here, Sarah. Let’s get married.” He held out his hand and she took it.

Hannah and Jonas grinned at each other. “I guess we’re everyone’s attendants.”

Jackson slipped his arm around Elle and held her while the preacher had each couple repeat their vows. He glanced at the sky as the wind began to pick up a little. Strange, dancing lights formed overhead, almost like the aurora borealis, over the night skies in Alaska. Colors of purples and blue, pink and white were nearly luminous. Several villagers gasped and pointed.

As rings were exchanged the sky changed again adding in more colors, green, oranges and reds dancing through the luminous colors, giving off the impression of flames in the skies. Jackson glanced out toward the horizon. He didn’t have a visual on the yacht, but he knew it was out there. He felt the man now, felt him close. He glanced at Bomber. The dog was uneasy and had turned his body to face the sea.

Waves slapped the shore and poured over the rocks. Far out, the water appeared a dark green surrounded by the deeper blue. And then it foamed white. A cheer went up as the preacher pronounced them man and wife and each couple kissed and was presented to the crowd. It sounded a little strange to hear “Jackson and Elle Deveau-Drake.”

Dolphins burst out of the water, somersaulted and dove, disappearing back under the foaming sea. Whales breached and birds flew overhead as if in salute. Several seals bobbed heads in the waves, looking toward the beach.

Applause broke out as the couples moved through the crowd, down the beach toward the white tents. Jackson kept Elle’s hand firmly in his.

“I’ve never seen the sky like that,” Elle said, uneasiness in her voice.

“Damon had some weird-ass explanation for it. Something to do with humidity and the barometric pressure. I don’t know. I don’t understand half of what he says.” He shook hands with several people and kissed Inez, who kept wiping tears from her face.

“Look beyond the dancing lights, out on the horizon, Jackson.” She squeezed his hand. “The fog is building and it’s thick and dark.
His
fog. He’s here.”

He bent to brush a kiss on top of her head. “Not here, baby. He’s out there somewhere on the ocean.”

“And he’s going to do something. He’s going to be angry that I married you.” Her voice trembled. “And I did turn two of his attacks around on him. His pride won’t take that.”

“Don’t think about him right now.” The band started up and Jackson pulled Elle into his arms, sweeping her over the sand, her bare feet sliding between his as he kept her close to him, his body warming hers. “Have I told you how beautiful you look? Honestly, Elle, I don’t deserve you.”

She pressed her face into his shoulder for a moment, but was too worried to stay there long, looking back out toward the sea. Her breath caught in her throat as he whirled her around, forcing her to look at the tents and people who had gathered to help her celebrate. “Look at all the people who love you, baby. Everyone is here.”

“Everyone I love, Jackson.” Her voice choked now. “He’s going to attack us.”

“I know.” He said it quietly. “He’ll try—and you’ll stop him.”

Elle looked up at his face, saw the resolve there and spun around looking for her sisters. Their husbands danced with them, yet they formed a line between the ocean and the townspeople, as if they were guardians.

“Feel the energy, Elle,” Jackson whispered. “It’s all around us. These people care about us, and they’re dancing and singing and celebrating out of love for us. The beat of the music, the laughter, the energy here is tremendous and it’s all positive.”

She drew in a breath and looked out to sea again. Lightning flashed in the sky, far out, tearing through the dark fog. Thunder rumbled, and beneath them, the ground vibrated. No one noticed as they danced and sang. Elle stepped away from Jackson and joined her sisters as they turned and faced the roiling water.

“Send the animals away, tell them to swim along the coast up toward Point Arena,” Damon suggested to Abbey, “just to be safe.”

Abigail did so, and the dolphins and seals dove deep and were gone, leaving the water churning and restless.

“He’s here,” Elle whispered. “Look at the kelp.”

To either side of a fifty foot strip, the kelp stood up in the water, bobbing and floating as it should, but along that fifty foot stretch in the middle, the kelp stretched flat, as the water on the surface ran in a current, a river racing through the sea. A wave burst over the sand, riding up toward Elle, stopping inches from her bare feet when Hannah stepped forward and waved her hand. In the water was a mass of reaching kelp, moving as if alive, seeking prey.

Jackson contemptuously kicked driftwood onto the greedy vines and the current receded fast, heading back toward the ship anchored somewhere beyond the dancing lights. The fog deepened to a darker hue, spinning now. Lightning blazed along the edges of the darker clouds and thunder cracked. Again the ground beneath their feet shivered.

Elle’s body tensed. “He’s coming at us,” she warned.

Her sisters stood with her, shoulder to shoulder, Elle in the middle. She could barely breathe with fear. Far out now she could see the wall of water forming, building into a massive tower. Her throat closed. The rogue wave was coming in fast, a monster, driven by rage and hatred and a savage need to control. Stavros was bent on destroying everyone she loved.

The air thickened around them, pressure building, the force sucking at them as if trying to draw them into a maelstrom of violence. Libby took a step forward, along with the water receding. Sarah and Abigail both caught at Libby, holding her still while the sand was drawn from under their feet. Yards of water rushed back to join with the oncoming wave. Elle glanced over her shoulder, realizing there was an eerie silence. No one ran. No one tried to save himself. The townspeople stood there, watching the wave gather in strength and speed. They had to know, had to realize that the wave would kill everyone, smash houses and cars and destroy everything in its path.

Elle couldn’t believe that no one moved and then she realized they were looking at her with faith, with complete confidence. They believed in her. They believed in her sisters.

Stavros! I won’t let you.
She flung the words at him and raised her arms, stepping deliberately into the surge. She opened her mind to connect with her sisters, melding with them, throwing her fears away because it was now or never. She
had
to stop Stavros. She had no choice. Everyone was counting on her and he would
not
destroy her family. He wouldn’t take the love of her life from her. And he wouldn’t take her friends or her beloved town.

She felt the power swamp her as she tapped in to the vast supply of energy all around her. The force hit her hard, slamming into her with such vigor she nearly went off her feet, but she stood her ground and faced that wall of water as it gathered more speed and towered a hundred feet in the air. As the wave approached them, it split in two, coming at the beach from either side of that fast-moving current. There was so much vile hatred and rage mixed into the tower of water that she was afraid to meet it with any violence of her own. She didn’t know what might happen. She needed something else . . .

She took a moment to glance at Ilya for help, but he was turned away from her, facing some other threat she didn’t see, expecting—believing—that with her sister’s help she would keep all of them safe. She saw her mother step up beside Sarah and her aunt Carol beside Abigail and she felt them waiting for her direction. She turned her head one last time to look at the people behind her. She caught sight of a child, blowing bubbles from a miniature container and she quickly turned her head to look at Jackson. His eyes were on her. His mind in hers. He caught her idea and a slow smile softened the edges of his mouth.

Jackson had inadvertently given her the very tools she needed with his lecture on positive energy. A burst of confidence rushed through her and she felt the instant reaction in the joined minds of her sisters. Elle faced the oncoming wave and a small laugh escaped. Meeting Stavro’s attack with violence would only feed him power. She had to give him something else, something he couldn’t understand and it was all around her. Not power. Not control. Not even anger or revenge. Friendship. Love. Faith.

The wave separated, speeding around the current running on the surface of the water back toward Stavros’s yacht. Her sisters spread out in a V-shape, with Elle forming the point and they all lifted their hands. Elle began to direct, feeding them all the energy around her, the positive, happy, celebratory energy.

Just as in chemistry classes from all those years with her teachers frowning at her, Elle began to mix the ingredients needed. Thicken the water, provide warmth, heat bursting up through the bottom as the wave rolled over it, reduce the surface tension of the water, a bit tricky and she lent her mother and aunt a little help. The wave rolled closer but now it was superheated and much thicker, the composition already changed. She could see the blossoming colors, like an iridescent rainbow rolling through the water. And then Hannah and Elle provided the fierce wind, stepping together, hands up, grinning at one another like two children, agitating the mixture, blowing hard, and the two waves began to break apart.

Large spheres rose into the sky, filling the open spaces so that for a few moments the blue was blotted out and there was only a canopy of large, shiny bubbles, a myriad of colors shining through the translucent spheres. Behind her she could hear the laughter and applause, as if everyone thought this was an amazing part of the celebration, thousands of bubbles floating over the sea, back toward the horizon, the rush of warm air carrying the joyful mood of their celebration across the ocean.

Elle staggered and Jackson was there, his arm around her to steady her, kissing the side of her face, love pouring over and into her. Weak, she clung to him, looking over his shoulder at her brother-in-law. Laughter and conversation poured all around her as the music started up and children ran up and down the beach as if mountainous waves and thousands of bubbles were an everyday occurrence. None of them seemed to notice the rip current going from shore out to sea increasing in strength, the kelp lying flat now as pressure from Stavros sucked the water back toward him for another try.

Ilya closed his eyes briefly and beneath the water a small seal burst on the continental shelf, ejecting methane into the fast-moving current. The rapid stream carried the methane bubbles back with it. He concentrated on pushing the riptide under the yacht so that the power and energy Gratsos was generating took his boat farther out to sea in spite of the anchor. The Greek was forced to abandon building another wave for just a few moments in order to stop his yacht from being carried away.

Stavros stood at the front of his opulent yacht, hands on the railing facing the shore where the celebration continued as if he were nothing at all.
Nothing.
Discounted as a nuisance, not a formidable opponent, a man to be reckoned with. She was mocking him with her bubbles, laughing at him, making him look weak. It was a slap in the face, an insult not to be forgiven. She had dismissed him, hadn’t taken him seriously, but she would learn, she would know, just before he destroyed everything that mattered to her, how powerful he really was. His face was burned from the backlash of Elle’s first psychic retaliation, unexpected and shocking, the pain still excruciating. And he could barely walk, every step agony. He couldn’t be with a woman for a long time, and she was going to pay for her betrayal—letting another man touch her body that belonged to him—everyone she loved was going to die.

The tiny methane bubbles frothed and agitated the water surrounding the boat the moment Gratsos stopped feeding the hidden current. The yacht staggered, shuddered and abruptly plummeted as if into a hole, sinking in one long drop. There was no time to do anything, his crew diving into the ocean around him and sinking as well in spite of kicking strongly. He tried frantically to swim to the surface, but he couldn’t get his body moving in an upward motion.

From the corner of his eye he saw his bodyguard drop deeper, obviously disoriented, swimming in the wrong direction yards from him, going under and away and then Sid disappeared in the darkness. Around him, his crew seemed suspended in the water, most already motionless, a couple struggling feebly in the cold and dark.

Stavros fought, kicking and pulling with his hands, trying to go up. The cold seeped into his very bones, as if the water soaked into him, became part of him. He held his breath, lungs burning. He was Stavros Gratsos. He owned the world. No one, nothing could oppose him, certainly not some worthless woman. He commanded the ocean, yet he couldn’t drag water through his hands. He had to take a breath. He shook his head, feeling as if he might explode with the need for air. Frantic now, he opened his mouth to scream and took in nothing but water.