Siren's Surrender (8 page)

The agent pocketed his phone. “Guess that means we take care of things ourselves.”

Kenneth spread his hands. “Everyone just calm down.” He looked toward his wife. “Get some coffee. I think we’ve got some explaining to do.”

Addison glanced at the ceiling over their heads. “I wonder if we’ve got time to drink a cup. Our visitors have got enough firepower to blast the house to bits.”

Tessa gave a little start, dodging the comment clearly aimed her way. “I’ll get the coffee.”

Kenneth patted the walls. “It’s solid concrete all around us, and its several feet thick. They shouldn’t be able to get in.”

Addison gave the steel door shutting them in a glum look. “Yeah, but that means we can’t get out.”

“That’s a lot of precaution,” Whittaker commented.

Kenneth’s hand dropped. “We were hoping we’d never need it.”

Addison eyed the small room. “Just remember the
Titanic
sank on its maiden voyage.”

Her words struck Gwen as totally self-defeating. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Folding her arms across her chest, Addison leaned back against one bare wall. “I think it means we’re in a whole lot of trouble, for sure.”

Gwen snapped, “Quit thinking.”

Taking a minute to catch her breath and organize her thoughts, she looked around. When she was a kid, the basement had served as an emergency shelter during hurricane season. But it was nowhere near as elaborate as it was now. Recent renovations had turned what was a simple safe haven into an underground bunker.

Approximately thirty-three by fourteen, the bare concrete room had been outfitted as a small campsite, complete with a propane heater, microwave, fold-out table, and some chairs. A bunk bed set and adjoining bathroom with a shower completed the area. A small closet held a stash of supplies, including canned goods, bottled water, and other necessary items that were good in an emergency.

Tessa dug out some instant coffee and a gallon of drinking water. Her hands shook as she tried to take off the lid.

Kenneth stepped over to his wife. He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “Let me.” He took over, filling the cups with water before heating them in the microwave.

Tessa gave her husband a grateful smile. “Thanks.”

With a slight wince, Whittaker slipped off his charred jacket. Deep furrows of pain had etched themselves into his forehead, yet he bore his discomfort with remarkable stoicism. “Any chance there’s a first-aid kit in there somewhere?” He jabbed a finger through the hole in his jacket. “I’ve got a few hurts that need patching.”

Noticing his injuries for the first time, Gwen gasped. “You’re hurt.” Shirt burned clean through, his right arm was a mass of scorched flesh.

Addison pushed herself away from the wall. “I can handle this.” She headed over to the closet to dig around. “Right here.” A moment later she produced her find. The familiar red cross was marked on the case. “Have a seat and I’ll patch you right up.”

“Gwen,” Kenneth prompted as he distributed steaming cups of coffee on the table. “Set out a few more chairs, would you?”

Head still spinning, Gwen nodded. “Sure.” Functioning on autopilot, she unfolded a few more chairs. Her numb fingers barely functioned. Somehow she managed to handle the task.

Whittaker took a seat and offered his injured arm to Addison, who was laying out her equipment with precision. She was rock solid. As an EMT, Addison was trained to keep her cool and her wits in an emergency situation.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” he remarked. “That’s one hell of a weapon they’ve got.”

Face practically encased in stone, Addison cut away his sleeve. “You’re fortunate it just grazed you,” she mumbled. “Too bad Lucky didn’t live up to his name.”

Those who hadn’t been outside when the trouble began turned their gazes toward Addison and Whittaker. That included Gwen.

She frowned. “What about Lucky?”

Addison didn’t look up from her work. “He didn’t make it.” Her tone was cold, clinical. She was speaking as a professional medic and not a personal friend of the deceased. Grief would come later, when she’d had time to decompress.

Tessa gaped at her sister in horror. “Oh, no. That can’t be.” She stumbled toward a chair and sat down. A fine tremor shook her body. “Are you sure?”

Addison nodded. “He took a dead-on hit. You don’t survive when something like that finds you.”

Kenneth frowned darkly. “Oh, man. That’s bad. Just bad.” His voice held a tinge of sorrow. “We didn’t think it would come to this.”

A raw, deep slice went straight through Gwen’s heart. She’d always liked Lucky. The old man knew they were Mer and had never said a word to another living soul. He’d worked for her family almost all his life, just like his father before him.

A single tear streamed down her cheek. She hurriedly wiped it away. “He was a good man.”

“Too good to die that way,” Addison added. “But I won’t forget what those bitches did. I’ll get even. Somehow, I will.”

Conversation dwindled off into silence. Nobody seemed to know what to say.

As the odd man out, Whittaker was the first to speak again. He glanced at his injured arm. “Damn thing was like a laser. Burned right through me.”

Addison applied an antiseptic wash and a layer of salve. “It’s pretty clean. The injury is deep, but the heat cauterized the blood vessels, so you won’t bleed to death.” She wrapped his arm in a loose layer of gauze. “All in all, I’d say you’re going to live.”

Grunting his approval, Whittaker lifted his arm. “Still hurts like hell.”

Addison dug back into her kit, offering up a generic brand of ibuprofen. “This ought to help a little.”

The agent gritted his teeth against the agony. “Thanks.” He popped the caplets into his mouth and swallowed. He glanced at his shirt, now missing almost an entire sleeve. “Guess I need to be grateful I still have an arm.”

Tessa offered the agent a cup of hot coffee. “I’m sorry.” She shot a glance toward Kenneth. “If we’d have had any idea something like this was going to happen, we would have contacted the authorities sooner.”

Shoulders slumping, Kenneth stared into his coffee, trying not to make eye contact with anyone. “We weren’t sure if we should say anything,” he added.

Gwen hated to see the two backed into a corner. Even though Tessa and Kenneth had both wanted to go to the government with their discovery, she’d been the one to kibosh the idea. It was better to lay low, she’d said, than to lay their story out and possibly come off looking like fools. The sea-gate had been destroyed. As far as Gwen was concerned, that was the end of it.

But it isn’t over,
she realized. Some of the Mer who had crossed into earth’s waters had obviously survived.

And now there’d be hell to pay.

Gwen turned to the agent. “It wasn’t their fault.” Inside, her nerves were crackling and sparking as she spoke. “I’m the one who decided we should say nothing about the incident in the Mediterranean.”

Whittaker blew out a breath. “Excuse me, can somebody please explain to me what is going on?”

Tessa’s hands dropped. “It’s about Ishaldi.” Her reply was low, almost inaudible to all ears. “We found it,” she told Whittaker. Her bottom lip trembled as she spoke. “We found a lost world.”

Gwen’s heart slammed against her ribs, threatening to pound its way through her chest. She’d always prayed this moment would never come. Now it had. And people were going to know all about the Mer.

Goddess help us,
she prayed silently.

 

 

Blake wasn’t sure what was going on, but he did know one thing: These people were hiding something huge. What he’d personally witnessed outside was enough to boggle the mind. The arsenal those women had—like the one nearly blasting him into kingdom come—was unlike anything he’d ever seen in his life. A bejeweled trinket that shot beams of fire.

Something like that was out of this world.

And very dangerous. His arm was proof of that. He didn’t even want to imagine what Lucky’s remains might look like. Gruesome, to be sure.

Blake pulled in a breath and spread his hands. “You mentioned you’d found Ishaldi. The dossier I read equated it to some sort of vanished continent, similar to Atlantis. Am I right?”

Kenneth stepped up behind his wife. His hands settled on her shoulders, giving a squeeze of reassurance. “There’s so much to tell.” He shook his head as if baffled at how to continue.

“Start at the beginning,” Blake urged. “I’d like to know everything, every last detail.”

Kenneth Randall frowned stubbornly. “Just who are you, anyway?”

Blake tilted back his head, blowing out a breath. Here he was, locked in an underground hiding place with a wounded arm and some guy was demanding his credentials. Only people with something to hide got antsy when the feds came around.

“I’m Special Agent Blake Whittaker, Boston office.” He attempted to keep his answer conversational and not confrontational. This was definitely not the time or the place to make enemies.

Kenneth’s gaze continued to brew suspicion. “Got a badge to go with that introduction?”

Blake was more than happy to oblige. He pulled out his shiny gold shield and showed it around. “If you will look at that little notation right there—” He indicated a smaller line of print under his photo. “You will see I’m with the A51-ASD branch.”

Everyone’s face scrunched up. Of course nobody recognized his organization.

This was the part he hated explaining. “The A51-ASD is a subdivision of the bureau that investigates strange or otherwise inexplicable phenomena.”

Addison’s face lit up. “You mean like the
X-Files
?” She clapped with delight. “Oh, my God, are you like the real life Fox Mulder? Does everybody call you
Spooky
?”

Blake scrubbed a hand across his face. “Uh, the sciences division doesn’t quite work that way.” He purposely didn’t use the word
alien
. No reason for them to wonder if he’d gotten that shield out of a box of Cracker Jack. “Our cases are more based in science than in fiction. All I intended to do was ask you a few questions about your recovery efforts in the Mediterranean.”

Kenneth’s suspicious expression relaxed considerably. “That’s it?”

Tessa’s brow furrowed. “What kind of questions?”

Blake got down to business. The time for beating around the bush was over. “Scientists recorded undersea quake activity in the location your people were reportedly diving in. We understand your outfit had cameras and divers in the water at the time of the occurrence.”

“You think we had something to do with the quake?” Kenneth asked carefully.

Blake shook his head. “Nothing of the sort. Look, this may be hard to understand, but ASD scientists have been monitoring an electromagnetic field in the area you were diving in. It’s always been a low-level thing, something to be curious about but not concerned.”

Kenneth swallowed tightly. “And now there’s reason for concern?”

Having broken the ice, Blake tucked his badge away.

 

 

“That’s just it. We’re not sure what’s going on. The force has suddenly shifted from emitting low levels of magnetic energy to a hell of a lot. It’s playing havoc with electronics now. We can’t get near it.” He shrugged. “Radio, sonar, radars, nothing works. We thought the quake might have given whatever it is a little nudge.”

Kenneth quickly put two and two together. “But you have no way to get down there now because electronics don’t work?”

Blake nodded. “You got it. Since you had eyes and ears down there that day, we thought your equipment might have picked up something ours didn’t before it all went haywire.”

Tessa Randall glanced at him from across the table. She seemed a little calmer now, less agitated. “And that was all you were going to ask? It had nothing to do with Jake or”—choking up, she faltered for a moment—“the accident?”

Blake nodded again. “That’s all we wanted to know.” He lifted the cup he held, still half full of hot black coffee. Kenneth had used so much instant he was surprised the bottom hadn’t melted away. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t plan for it to take more than twenty minutes. Tops.”

Frowning deeply, Gwen cleared her throat. “Looks like you’re going to be staying a little longer than you anticipated.”

Despite the pain in his arm, Blake couldn’t help grinning. “Does this mean you’ll be holding my room? Looks like I’m going to be late checking out.”

Gwen blushed. “Of course,” she mumbled, coughing discreetly into the back of her hand. She looked every which way but at him.

Blake’s stomach rumbled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since last night. “Guess we’re not getting breakfast, either.”

Tessa started to stand. “I could make you something,” she offered. “We’ve got provisions.”

Blake waved her back down. “I’ll think about my stomach later—after I find out what’s going on here.” He paused, pulling bits and pieces of the previous conversation out of his memory. “Now, back to Ishaldi. Am I correct in assuming you located some sort of ruins?”

Pulling up a chair, Kenneth sat down beside his wife. “Yeah, Jake was right. It did exist and we did locate some of the wreckage from an island that used to be in the area.”

Blake nodded. “I see.”

Closing her eyes, Gwen folded her arms protectively across her chest. “Oh, goddess,” she mumbled through tight lips. “Here it comes.”

Tessa slipped her hands around her cup, holding it tightly as if trying to draw warmth from the liquid inside. “It’s hard to explain, but among the ruins we found some sort of a temple under the water. But it wasn’t entirely submerged. It was whole—and something inside it was sealed. Jake—he thought it was some sort of tomb.”

“And this tomb,” Blake prompted. “Did you open it?”

Guilt flashing across her face, Tessa nodded. “We did.”