Lords of the Deep (38 page)

“Not with a can of lighter fluid on them, no.”

Abby ground her teeth together. Obviously, he’d been observing her a lot longer than she’d realized. She tucked the box of matches under her arm again. “In that case, I guess I’ll just forget about grilling and fix a sandwich.”

“Or you could take Mrs. Parker up on her invitation and join us for dinner.”

Us?

Abby discovered she couldn’t really maintain her anger in the face of his determined politeness. “That’s sweet of her, but I’m really tired. And I haven’t even started unpacking my things.”

He studied her speculatively. “All the more reason to take her up on her offer. She’s a good cook.”

Abby looked down at the old jeans and t-shirt she’d put on to work in because they were comfortable and familiar—and she
needed
comfort and familiarity. She didn’t feel up to dealing with meeting strangers and trying to maintain the role the Feds had manufactured for her.

She didn’t think she would ever really be ready for it, though.

And she was hungry.

And she didn’t feel like cooking.

“I should probably change.”

She discovered when she met his gaze that he was surveying her with patent interest.

“Not on my account. You might want to put on a bra, though.”

Abby felt her face heating. She couldn’t resist the impulse to look down at herself despite the fact that she more than half suspected he was only guessing. The t-shirt was old, but it certainly wasn’t thread bare.

It had a few holes in it, though, very small holes.

And her nipple had found one of them!

She jerked her head up and met his gaze. A faint tremor moved along his well chiseled lips, but he managed to keep from grinning at her.

“I’ll tell Mrs. Parker you’ll be along,” he murmured in a shaky voice, turning and striding away.

By

Chapter One

Laughter filled Celeste’s head, but the annoyance she felt at the moment was her own and failed to reflect the merriment of her familiar. ‘Yipp! Where are you? You’re supposed to be gathering that Fairy Wart for me!’

In hindsight, she supposed she had this coming to her. She should never have expected Yipp to do anything he was asked to do. Damn. It would have made everything so much easier, too. Fairy Wart wasn’t as difficult to find as the Dragon’s Bane and Red Caps, but finding anything in a forest this size was time consuming and there were so many other things she had planned to do with her day. Now, I’ll be lucky if I make it out of here before supper time!

She sighed inwardly, looking from the bed of flowers where Yipp should have been gathering herbs, to the trees and bushes around her. Tanukis were mischievous and irresponsible at the best of times. At the worse ….

‘I'm right behind you.’ Yipp replied telepathically. Celeste turned around to find Yipp sitting on a tree limb with his hands clamped behind his back, looking a little too innocent for her Tanuki. Definitely wasn’t there the last time I looked! Which of course meant he had probably been hiding behind it at the time. Sometimes, she just wanted to wring his furry little neck.

“Damn it Yipp.”

She walked toward the large white birch he was sitting in with every intention of scolding him for not answering her call earlier, when she noticed a cloud of soft golden dust rise up from and around his back. She looked from the dust cloud to Yipp and back again. Her green eyes met large, round golden ones. Yipp's snout twitched a moment before breaking out in a big toothy grin.

"Okay Yipp, hand over whatever you have behind your back." Celeste gave him the most rebuking look she could muster and held out her hand. Yipp looked from her face to her hand several times before finally holding her narrowed eyes again. He tilted his head to the side, studying her intently.

‘Aww, Celly, why do you always think I’m up to no good?’

“Because I know you too well to think otherwise! Now, hand it over.”

He relented with a sigh and removed his hand from behind his back, shoving it close under her nose and opening it slowly.

Celeste gasped when she saw what he had caught. A tiny, silvery iridescent figure unfurled in the pudgy little palm of Yipp’s outstretched hand. Her long purple hair was wild and tangled and fell just below slender hips. It did nothing at all to cover her nudity or to hide her perfect form. As Celeste watched, the fairy got to her feet and stumbled a bit before she turned her attention to Yipp. She waived a tiny fist at him and stamped her foot. The tiny high pitched chirping sounds coming from it suggested just how annoyed the creature was with him.

‘It's a Flutter Fairy. Look Celly I can make its wings flap!‘

Celeste watched in abject horror as Yipp closed his clawed fist around the poor little thing and began enthusiastically shaking it up and down. Fairy dust flew off the little wings in every direction as Yipp gleefully made them flap.

“Yipp! Stop that!” Celeste grabbed his arm before he could pull out of her reach and gently took the little flutter fairy from his grasp.

“I am so sorry about that …. ” She carefully took the fairy to the edge of the patch of flowers farthest from Yipp, kneeling to set her down on the ground. The tiny thing jumped to her feet and began shaking her fists and chirping insults at Celeste before she sprang up into the air and flew off into a tuft of high grass to hide.

‘Oh Celly why did you do that? Do you have any idea just how hard it is to catch one of those?’ Yipp’s annoyed voice rang through her mind Celeste stood up and turned around with her hands firmly planted on her curvy hips. She glared at Yipp, who looked at her as though he hadn’t the slightest clue as to why she should be angry with him.

“You do realize that we still need to find the Dragon’s Bane before night fall.” She winced when her tone came out a bit more aggravated then she had intended. Yipp rolled his golden eyes and jumped down from the tree, landing on his hind legs, tail out for balance.

‘Yes, I know already. Geez, you’re such a slave driver sometimes. It wouldn’t kill you to have some fun once in a while, you know,’ he retorted, rolling his eyes at her again for effect. ‘I don’t understand why you heed that senile old wizard when you know he’s misplaced the herbs you picked yesterday, and the day before and the day before that. How many times are we going to come out here and pick them?’ Yipp complained as he trotted over to her and sat down at her feet. The white tuff of fur on his chest rose high as he arched his head back to look up at her. Celeste folded her arms underneath her ample bosom and gave him an arched glared.

‘He’s probably asleep right now. We can go home and just pretend we got them. He’d never know the difference!’

“He’s been good to both of us Yipp. I serve him just as my mother has and just as her mother has before her. And stop calling him senile! He’s just, just … forgetful.”

Yipp sat back on his hind legs and thought for a moment. ‘I see … I believe you are correct. I agree the old coot is forgetful.’ He looked up at her thoughtfully before he added, ‘Because he is senile!’

Celeste grunted, exasperated with her opinionated companion. She bent down, picked up his basket and thrust it at him before standing up.

“I don’t have time for this Yipp. We have to head back to Nariah before nightfall and I’d really like to get back soon enough to have something decent to eat this time instead of plain bread and cheese.”

‘I don’t know what you’re complaining about. I had a nice snack yesterday. You could have, too, if you weren’t so picky.’

Celeste caught herself rolling her eyes, a habit she was constantly getting onto Yipp about, and sighed in exasperation. “Red Caps are poisonous to humans.”

‘Not my fault.’

“Because of that little stunt, I had to spend three more hours trying to find more!”

‘Did it really take that long? I hadn’t noticed it taking that long. Are you sure?’

Not surprising he didn’t notice. He slept the whole time.

“Look, could you please try to stay focused? Please?” Celeste waited for Yipp’s next peevish complaint, but instead he got up and turned indignantly toward the flower bed with his long red and black stripped tail standing tall behind him. Celeste didn’t mistake the dismissal.

“Fine! You want to give me the silent treatment! You go right ahead. Just be sure to pick the Fairy Wart and not the lilacs!”

Yipp’s large ears perked and he looked over his shoulder at Celeste. With a haughty, dismissive humph, he turned around again and began picking through the pink and white flowers for the Fairy Wart.

Celeste shook her head. They had been together for most of her life, so it was hard not to think of him as a younger brother instead of the familiar he was. Her Master got onto her for that fairly often. A familiar was supposed to obey its master, and she could force the point if she wanted to, but she had never been able to bring herself to magically force Yipp to do anything. She loved him and servitude didn’t fit into that equation.

“I’ll be back soon.”

Hiking up her long green skirt, she walked through the tall grass the Flutter Fairy had flown into, looking carefully before each step and hoping the little thing had enough sense to move out of her way. Just over a small embankment, where the stream flowed through, was an old hollow log. If she was going to find any Dragon’s Bane, it would be wise to start there. She climbed down and knelt, pushing aside dead leaves and digging her way down to the molded ones below. A flash of brilliant red caught her eye.

Ah ha!

Bending further, she spied several Red Caps growing inside a very large hollowed-out oak log. On her knees, she managed to wedge her arm and hand in just far enough to brush her fingers against the head of one shroom.

Shit. Too far. She dropped onto her belly and tried again, this time grasping and pulling on the elusive root. The Red-cab dislodged easily and she was able to grab the four cloves her Master had wanted and placed them in her herb basket. She wrinkled her nose at their pungent odor and stood, brushing chunks of rotting wood from the front of her dress. She gave it up as a hopeless effort when she noticed the twin black streaks on her skirt where her knees had pressed it into the soggy ground.

Lovely. Well, at least all I need now is the Dragon’s Bane. If Yipp’s done anything at all. Which he probably hasn’t. She sighed inwardly and walked back over the ridge, looking toward the bed of flowers where Yipp was supposed to be rummaging for Fairy Wart, not the least bit surprised by the sight that met her at the top. Yipp was gone.

“Oh no you don’t! I’m not doing all the work myself!” She stormed determinedly down the embankment.

‘Yipp!’ Her mental call went unanswered.

“Yipp! Where are you?” She shouted this time but again there was no answer. The normal sounds of the forest amplified as she tried to clear her mind and link with Yipp. It was a little peculiar not to hear Yipp in her head. He rarely remained silent for long, which drove Celeste mad a times. However, this silence was unnatural somehow, not like earlier. Once again he didn’t respond to her mental calls as she repeatedly tried to connect with him. She shouted his name over and over again, but the shouts went unheeded. Uneasiness started to grow inside her and she knew immediately that something was terribly wrong when she realized she no longer felt him. The voice she was so accustomed to was gone. Her mind went completely silent. Celeste ran over to the flower bed hoping she could find some indication of where he might have gone. There was no sign of Yipp anywhere. Her heart sank to the pit of her stomach.

“No, no … Yipp! Where are you?” Fear took a stranglehold on her and she found it hard to breathe. They couldn’t be separated for long. If someone took him …. If he were taken away from her, or even separated from her for too long, he would die and she would feel that loss the rest of her days, and not just because he was her familiar. He had never been just a familiar to her.

“Yipp!” She screamed his name over and over as she ran further into the forest, hair flying as she swung her head in every direction, praying for even a glimpse of him. Her breasts heaved with each gasping breath she took.

The forest paths all looked alike now. Celeste had no sense of direction, even though she had walked these very paths thousands of times before. Thoughts of never finding Yipp filled her mind with unimaginable scenarios. He could be hurt, laying on the cold ground somewhere. Someone might have mistaken him for a common animal and caught him for his fur. They might be stringing him up even now, getting ready to murder him for his beautiful coat! Oh Gods, no! Please, don’t let someone skin Yipp!

She searched desperately for any sign of him. She ran into a clearing that led to another path and stopped dead, her blood swirling and pounding in her ears making her vision go black along the edges. In the center of the path was a small basket that appeared to have been trampled by hoofs. Fairy Wart was crushed in the mud around it.

Celeste knew instantly whose basket it was. Yipp …. Around the crushed remains of Yipp’s basket was a set of hoof prints that led deeper into the forest. Her own basket fell from numb fingers and she hurried down the path, following the hoof prints to their destination. Tears streamed down her face as she ran. The sick, empty feeling in her stomach shot through her and settled in the center of her chest, piercing her heart with an ache so agonizing she could barely breathe.