Seawitch (27 page)

He studied the cove a moment, then nodded. “Yup. I can get her in there. But why do you want me to avoid the bubble, exactly? It didn’t do us any harm the last time.”

“We were alone inside last time. I don’t really want to be inside with those things just yet,” I said.

He nodded, brought the burbling engines back up just a little, and then put the big boat in forward gear, easing it around the flickering mist edge of the Grey boundary, keeping us in the normal and the things inside undisturbed by our passage.

As we slipped between the two arms of land that enclosed the cove, he brought the boat around sharply to port once again, keeping as much safe distance between us and the bubble as possible. We slid without challenge into the tiny cove on the island’s north shore.

The cove was nearly a perfect circle of water, embraced in the two reaching arms of the north and east points that enclosed the short spit of the park service dock at the south extreme of the bowl, directly across from the entrance. In spite of the early-summer weather, the calm little anchorage was abandoned; no other boat stood anywhere within the bay. The island beyond rose to a spine of rocky ground covered in still-green grass and tall, slim firs and cedars. The gentle slope at the dock’s end rose into craggy, tumbled cliffs on the curving scarp of the encircling points that enfolded the cove. To the west lay the northernmost point of the island, tall, stark, and black in the shadow of the slowly creeping sunset. On the east the cliff fell into a scatter of massive stones that had rolled down from the treed, curving spine of the island. The sun struck the wet black rocks a burnished gold that writhed with creatures.

“Don’t know that I’ve ever seen it this . . . empty,” Zantree said, his voice hushed as if he feared something watching us with malevolent intent.

I pointed to the eastern cliffs and their strange movement. “What’s that?”

Zantree peered at it, then pulled a pair of binoculars from a box fixed to the side of the steering station and looked through them.

“Otters. It’s a colony of sea otters. Well, I’ll be blowed. . . .”

TWENTY-FOUR

I
found myself turning to watch the expressions of Quinton and Solis. Quinton stared toward the cliff, his mouth slightly open with excitement and awe. Solis looked haunted.

“Do you see . . . Fielding?” I asked Zantree.

He scanned the cliff with the binoculars. “Not sure. There’s a dark shape in the water near the cliff base that
might
be him—it’s a lot larger than the others. . . .”

“Can you get us near them without cutting into the bubble? We’re probably safer near the otters than anywhere else,” I said.

Zantree frowned. “I thought we needed to go into the . . . whatever you call that bubble thing.”

“It’s an overlap where both the near-paranormal and the normal are visible and operating simultaneously. I’ve seen something related before. This one is the merfolk’s realm as it intersects ours. The temporary intersection acts as a gateway, or, as the ghosts put it, a gap in the worlds where both states exist in the same place and time until the gap closes when its operating schedule dictates. In this case I believe the cycle is twenty-seven years, because that’s how long it was from the time
Valencia
went down until its lifeboat was found and the same amount of time from the disappearance of
Seawitch
to its reappearance. Since it’s tied to water, I’m also guessing the cycle’s tidal in nature—it ebbs and swells, so Fielding or his dobhar-chú relatives snuck
Seawitch
out in the magical equivalent of slack water. And I’m pretty sure it’s the only place to solve this mystery. I don’t want you to take the boat in there if we can avoid it, and not until we’re ready if we can’t. If—when—the state that’s keeping this gateway open collapses,
Mambo Moon
could be trapped in the merfolk’s realm for the next twenty-seven years, just like
Seawitch
was. I don’t think you’d enjoy
that
adventure.”

Zantree shuddered. “Not my idea of fun, being drowned by merfolk.”

“I’m not sure if that bubble will stay in place all of whatever remaining time we’ve got. . . .”

“It has been stable for more than the fifteen minutes our previous test lasted,” Solis said.

“Really?” I replied.

He nodded.

“Then maybe it’s going to hold steady. . . .”

“Hope for the best, but prepare for a storm,” Zantree said, steering for the eastern rocks. “I’ll keep the
Moon
out of the bubble for now. We can’t get in too close to the cliff since we’re coming on high tide, and as the tide runs out again the
Moon
’ll swing on her chain. We don’t want to run aground out here—or slide into that freaky ghost wall when the boat tries to come around with the current. But we can drop the dink and set a stern anchor once we get the bow down. That’ll keep her safe off the rocks and out of . . . that.”

Quinton nodded and I mirrored him, though I had no idea what I’d just agreed with. Solis frowned at the lot of us as if he were rethinking the whole mad escapade and checked his watch again.

Zantree maneuvered the boat around about a hundred yards or so from the eastern cliffs until he found a location that satisfied him, then dropped the anchor off the bow with a rattling of chain running off the winch. Then he and Quinton took the dinghy out with a second anchor aboard and put it down a good distance out toward the mouth of the cove. They finished up by securing the second anchor rope to a cleat at the rear of the boat, which held
Mambo Moon
in position with her bow toward the distant dock and her stern toward the entry to the cove. “So we can cut and run if we have to,” Zantree explained, though it didn’t really help me visualize what he meant. I assumed our would-be pirate captain knew what he was doing since he’d got us this far intact, but I admit I was worried; our position was precarious and we were lying between the local version of Scylla and Charybdis. We’d have to wait a few minutes and see what the dobhar-chú and merfolk would do now that we were here. They had to be feeling the time pressure as much as I was, so I hoped they wouldn’t dawdle.

The light in the cove seemed thicker and more golden on the normal side of the water, though the long summer day was nowhere near ending. Our “quick run” had taken nearly ten hours—double the time it should have, according to Zantree. I wondered how long we could count on the presence of the otters and their Grey kin to keep the merfolk at bay, or if the forces of the sea witch would hold off until the fleeting hours of night to make their move against us—and they surely would move. I didn’t know if we could defend ourselves or even see them coming outside the bubble generated by the
Valencia
’s bell. I hoped it would hold, as I didn’t think it was practical to strike the damned bell every fifteen minutes and I wasn’t even sure that doing so would keep the layered zone of Grey and normal intact. I suspected we’d have only one short chance to confront the sea witch before the bubble collapsed and dragged us into her realm permanently—or close enough to make no difference. I might survive in her bit of the Grey, but my companions didn’t have the same skills and their chances would be slim.

Once Zantree declared the boat secure and shut down the engines, I went out on the foredeck to study the Grey bubble.

The cove was about a mile across at most and we were only a dozen yards or so from the bulging edge of the fringe zone. Still no sign of the Guardian Beast, I noted, so nothing that shouldn’t have been here was lurking nearby, but the things that
did
belong were frightening enough on their own. I felt more than heard someone walk up behind me and stop by the rail. I turned.

Solis was frowning out at the curving Grey wall as he held on to the rail. “It is a mirror,” he said, without turning his head to me. “It reflects what you believe.”

“That’s an interesting thing to say.” I don’t know why I was surprised he’d come to that conclusion; as a detective, he must have been observing everyone’s reactions and putting his own experience together with theirs to get a better idea of the situation as a whole. I supposed he’d finally thrown out his resistance to the idea of the paranormal.

“Do you not find it so?”

“Yes and no. I see a lot of things I never even knew existed, so they can’t be just what I believe . . . or the whole magical world would be a black blank to me.”

“You believe in nothing?”

“I believe in people, both what’s good and what’s bad in them. And I think that’s what I see, even when it isn’t something I know. But I also see—or experience—more. Things that aren’t just constructs of human belief, though I must in some way filter it through my own knowledge, memories, fears . . . otherwise I couldn’t recognize it enough to take it in through my own senses at all. It seems to be a state that’s objective and subjective at the same time.”

“When will it come for us?”

The boat swayed and lurched a little as someone moved around inside and the waves in the cove rolled gently under the keel. “It won’t,” I replied. “But the things inside it will—they want a resolution to this situation as much as we do—and they’ll either bring the perception shift with them or drag us to it. They’re . . . I’d say ‘real’ but that’s not quite the idea I want. . . . ‘Corporeal’ is the best I can do. These things aren’t ghosts. Well, there
are
ghosts here and in the bell, but the things we have to deal with have physical bodies. They can do us physical harm.”

“And can we harm them?”

I nodded, taking note of a slithering sound near the aft—maybe Quinton or Zantree was opening up the sliding doors. “Of course. You made some nice bloody holes in the one that grabbed you. I saw it bleeding.”

He nodded. “Good.”

“I approve also,” said a rough, new voice from the side deck.

Solis and I turned around and looked back toward the aft. Quinton stepped out onto the stairs from the pilothouse and looked down at our visitor with a startled expression.

The man was only a few feet forward of the stern deck and he crouched, naked, in a pool of water. He glanced at each of us as he stood up slowly, unfazed by his nudity or our stares. He was about Solis’s height, pale skinned and dark haired, and his eyes were a startling, clear blue—like those of some dogs. He appeared to be in his early fifties, judging by the lines on his face and the slight brush of silver hair at his temples, but he had the body of a sleek, young athlete—a swimmer or a gymnast, I’d have said, since he wasn’t skinny enough to be a dancer or unbalanced like a runner. He also had the sort of strong, active aura I associate with magical creatures: This one was a bright halo of violet and green that whirled with tiny white globes of energy glowing like pearls.

He nodded to me, apparently having decided I was in charge. “Our cousin requires help beyond my ability,” he said in his gravelly voice, exposing sharp teeth with pronounced upper and lower canines, a little more like a ferret’s than a man’s but not as mismatched as Fielding’s had been. “You must come with me.”

I gave him a doubtful glare and did my best to keep my gaze only on his face. “Must?”

He seemed puzzled at my reply. “Of course. That is why we sent him to you to begin with.”

“This cousin would be . . . Gary Fielding?” I guessed.

He nodded with raised eyebrows, as if he thought me a bit dim, but wasn’t going to insult me by mentioning it. “Please. We can go now? I find this form uncomfortable.”

This form. . . .
I made a not-so-wild guess. “You’re Father Otter, then?”

He gave another, slightly impatient nod and pointed toward the eastern cliffs. “This is our holt. Within awaits our cousin, who will not live unless you come now.” He turned and loped along a wet trail back to the stern, where the ladder came up from the swim platform. So that’s how he’d come aboard. He scowled back at us once again. “We none of us have time to waste. Come.”

I looked at Quinton and Solis. I didn’t want to leave the boat, where I had allies and dry decks beneath my feet and any fishy adversaries were at a disadvantage. However, I was sure I’d need the help of the dobhar-chú to bring this business to a close and I knew I wouldn’t get it unless I helped Gary Fielding. The thought of getting into the chilly waters of the Sound gave me a shiver as I remembered drowning as a child and all the times I’d been soaked since the beginning of this case, not to mention the dreadful things that lived in the water of this cove. . . .

Father Otter glared at me. “You will not help?”

I walked past Solis and Quinton to get closer to our visitor, but not close enough to be grabbed and hauled overboard. “I will if I can,” I replied, “but . . . I don’t do water very well.”

“You cannot swim?”

“I can swim, but I get cold when wet. That will make it hard for me to help your cousin, especially since we have to act fast or we’ll be stuck here.”

Father Otter rolled his eyes and shook his head in disgust. “Bring yourself by boat to the crouch. It is dry within.” He pointed to a particularly cluttered bit of the tumbled shoreline where there seemed to be an inordinate number of shadows that resisted the sunlight. “We will meet you there and take you within. Bring your assistant if you must. But soon. The merfolk gather their strength.” That at least explained the cease-fire since we’d arrived and confirmed my thought that the sea witch had to husband her resources with care.

Then Father Otter turned his back, crouching and shrinking into the compact, dark-furred form of a massive otter. A cross of white fur marked his spine and shoulders. The huge otter turned its head to give us one last, annoyed glance before it dove under the rail and out, into the water, vanishing below the surface in a ripple that formed an arrow toward the cliffs before it dissipated into the rolling tide.

I turned back to Solis and Quinton and saw Zantree looking out of the pilothouse door also. “I guess I don’t have a lot of choices . . .” I said.

Quinton and Solis both stepped toward me, saying, “I’ll come with you.” Then they stopped and glanced at each other.

“I’ll go by myself,” I said.

“You don’t know that you’ll be safe,” Quinton objected, his aura spiking with alarm and sending little breathless jolts through our connection.

“I won’t be any safer with an escort. There’s bound to be more of them than us and I can’t hope to fight my way out, so I’ll have to presume their goodwill, because as much as I need their help, they need mine.”

“What if something happens and you can’t get back on your own?”

“I have my pistol in my pocket. If the dobhar-chú can’t help me, I’m sure you’ll hear it if I have to use it.”

Quinton didn’t like it but he knew I wasn’t going to budge on that point. Solis continued toward me with a determined expression.

“Now, wait a minute,” I started.

“I am coming.”

“No, you aren’t. You heard what I just said.”

“Yes. But I am not your boyfriend. I am your fellow investigator and Gary Fielding is material to my case as well.”

Quinton scowled and I didn’t have to experience his secondhand flare of confusion, jealousy, and discomfort to know how he was feeling.

I objected. “Solis—”

Solis shook his head as he came up to where I was standing. “There is no argument. He said to bring your assistant if you must. I am the only person who qualifies and I
will
come.”

“Well, if it’s that easy—” Quinton started.

I held out one palm to nip that in the bud. “It isn’t. If I have to put up with you guys being high-handed, then Solis has the best argument. And here’s one more: I don’t think more than two humans will be welcome and even that number is obviously begrudged. Do not push it.”

Quinton’s mouth hardened and he looked belligerent, but after a second or two sorting out the battle between emotion and logic, he let out a hard breath and quirked one corner of his mouth into a resigned nonsmile. “All right. You are the boss and you know what you’re doing. I’ll stick here with Zantree and wait. For a while.”

I gave him a grateful smile and went over to kiss his cheek. “Thank you.”

“Just come back fast—those fish-butts aren’t going to stay off our backs for long.”