He's A Magic Man (The Children of Merlin) (26 page)

Maybe bringing her back could erase the horror of those final months when she’d grown so weak and frail he hardly recognized the vibrant woman he’d fallen in love with in Dubai. People thought it took courage to serve in the Delta Force. Not really. Lord, even a Taliban prison with beatings pretty much every day paled before the courage it had taken to watch the woman he loved die a little at a time. The shock of her final plea was that it had been a little bit of a relief. The whole nightmare would be over, for both of them. That was hardest to live with.

But now, if he and Alice couldn’t make the past go away, they could at least start over. This nightmare of the last two years would be the part that didn’t seem real anymore. Well, except for the time with Drew. That wasn’t a nightmare.

Guilt surged up again. He must never let Alice find out he’d forgotten her enough to betray her with Drew. And what about Drew? He’d never see her again. That felt bad. God, but he was a shit-heel. He’d betrayed Alice. But he’d betrayed Drew too. The sea seemed to waver in the moonlight. He held to the wheel, gripping it hard to keep upright. He tried to keep his focus on the image of Alice in his mind, Alice before she had gotten sick, when she had been hale and whole and they’d been so in love. That was what he needed to think about now.

In his mind, the image of Alice spoke.

Is that her name? Drew? I like that name.

Alice!
he
thought frantically.
I didn’t mean to betray you. It won’t happen again.

It wasn’t a betrayal, Michael
, the image of Alice said, smiling kindly
.
I told you thinking of me wouldn’t hurt after a while. How do you think that’s going to happen? You have to meet someone new.

But I can bring you back, Alice. Or a woman named Morgan can. We can be together.

As a ghost, Michael?
Alice chuckled.
Have you been reading gothic novels?

No,
he said, serious.
Really alive again.
And healthy.
She said the cancer wouldn’t be a problem anymore.

Alice frowned. She shook her head, just a little, as if she was contemplating coming back, and didn’t like the idea.

Michael was stunned. He’d never considered that Alice might not want to come back.
I’m not drinking anymore, Alice. It’ll be like it was.
His thoughts sounded desperate.

I’m not sure.
She hesitated. The familiar smoke started to billow up around her.

Don’t leave me, Alice,
he begged.

Michael, be careful....
And she was gone, receding into the smoke.

Michael found his shoulder being shaken by the thug from aft. “Who you talking to, buddy? Eh?” Michael looked around, dazed and distraught. “Anybody up here with you?”

“No. Nobody.” And that had never felt worse. He realized his cheeks were wet. “Get St. Claire up here. He can keep on course. I need some sleep.”

He headed aft, staggering, whether with fatigue or remorse he didn’t know, leaving the wheel in the thug’s beefy hands as the poor sod yelled for St. Claire.

*****

“Go below, Drew,” her father yelled over the rushing wind. “Take a break.”

“Not on your life,” she yelled back. She wasn’t going to be the weak link here. Her brothers and her father were dead on their feet too. They’d been screaming along with only a few scraps of storm canvas up for so long it seemed like they’d always been slipping and sliding over wet decks to execute their father’s orders. They’d leaned over one side or another to keep from capsizing when required. It had been a near thing almost a dozen times.

A wave washed over the deck, and Drew clung to the lifelines they’d rigged.

“It’s lessening,” her father yelled back as the deck righted
itself
. “Can you feel it? Boys, take in the storm trysail and jib. Let’s get ready to haul the mainsail. Three reefs.”

Drew looked at Tris. He didn’t feel it lessening yet either. But if her father said it was lessening, it was. He was the best sailor she knew.

Tris yelled, “Right ho, Senior,” and hauled himself fore through the pounding rain.

Drew refused to desert the deck. “Give me the sails. You guys haul mainsail.”

In half an hour, they knew their father was right. The rain was reduced to sporadic squalls. The wind still screamed in the sails, but they were sporting more canvas and it wasn’t being torn to shreds.

“Looks like we’re
gonna
make it, Senior,” Tris shouted.

Her father grinned and Drew realized that he loved being in this life-or-death contest with the elements.
He’d just won game, set
,
match
. “Did you doubt?” he called from the wheel.

In an hour, they were whizzing along and the clouds showed broken patches.

“Kemble, bring up some coffee and more of those sandwiches. I think we’re good.”

Kemble looked a little depressed, which didn’t make sense since they’d just found out they were going to live. “I’ll give you a hand,” she said and followed him to the hatch. They scrambled down, using both hands, since the yacht was still pitching. It was quieter below.

Kemble had found them a forty-foot bareboat rental—just the boat without a crew. The name was prophetic,
The Hail Mary.
Of course they could have bought the thing for what the guy had asked in a deposit. He hadn’t been exactly keen on them taking it out in heavy weather.

“How does it feel, Drew?” Kemble asked, as he unlocked the cupboard. That question cost him something. Drew was willing to bet he’d never asked Tris how it had felt to find Maggie—too much sibling rivalry between the two brothers.

The truth would likely be difficult for him. So she said, “You mean, how does it feel to be so screwed?” She gave a rueful shake of the head. “Generally pretty awful.”

“No, I mean, how does it feel when you find the One?”

She sighed. Kemble wasn’t as sure of himself as he always seemed. She’d long suspected he had “impostor syndrome” big time. Who wouldn’t with a father who could do
anything
?
Must be hell to work alongside him every day.
And at thirty-one, he hadn’t found love
or his magic. She’d thought Kemble would resent Tris when he had gotten his magic. But he’d just gotten quieter. She wondered if her father noticed. Maybe. He had realized Devin was destroyed when Senior had learned to surf in just over an hour. After that, he hadn’t tried to share his younger children’s enthusiasms. Maybe he was learning.

She couldn’t fix Kemble’s situation. Maybe she was learning something too. So she just answered, “I knew when I saw him on
TV
,
for God’s sake. And the power followed right after. I had a vision that same night. I wasn’t sure about the power at first. But I was sure about him, at least until I saw him in the flesh. That put me into denial.”

“I heard he was … uh … an alcoholic. You sure you want to get involved with that?”

“He kicked it.”

“Just like that?”

Uh-oh. Well, Kemble wouldn’t be surprised. He’d known her all her life. “Uh, actually, I tied him to the bed for a couple of days.”

Kemble barked a laugh. “I don’t doubt it.”

“But once the worst was over, he did it on his own,” she hastened to add.

“Bet he loved you for that.”

Kemble meant it to be light, sarcastic. But it hurt nevertheless. See above, so screwed. Drew tried not to let her face crumple. “He said Alice wanted him to give up the booze. I think he had a dream or something. Anyway, he did it for her. ”

“Sorry, kid.” The sympathy in Kemble’s eyes was hard to take. “Must be a bitch.”

“Lucky me.”

“Was it ever … good?”

She couldn’t help the smile. “Yeah. Like finding the other half of your soul you didn’t know was missing.” She took a breath. Her family blamed Michael for the whole situation— leaving her, joining Rhiannon to find the sword. She didn’t. It was just his destiny. “He’s a good man, Kemble. I know you and Tris and Father will never believe that.
He was trying to drink himself into the grave after Alice died. He loves her that much.
The chance to get her back?
Not something he could refuse.”

After a moment, Kemble said, “Have you thought about what happens when we find him? Them, I mean?”

“I just pray you and Tris and Father don’t get hurt.” She took a breath. “But I don’t want Michael hurt either.”

“Then I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Drew reached for the last of the sandwiches that hung in a net next to the little cooktop. Her knee touched one of the guns that stuck out of a drawer that wouldn’t quite latch. The cold of the metal seemed to burn her.

“We’ll find them,” Kemble said.

Drew believed him. She just wasn’t sure that was a good thing.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

They stood on the hill, under the big tree he’d chosen for Alice. Moonlight made the grave markers gleam white. They were embedded in grass that would be green in daylight. Now it was black, like the cold night. Drew was there beside him. That was all right. He wanted to share the happiness of seeing Alice alive again with her. Rhiannon was there, and the ridiculous Brandon St. Claire. And his father, whose expression was the one he’d gotten when Michael had told him he’d enlisted all those years ago. A shadowy figure dressed a lot like Dickens’ Ghost of Christmas Future stood at the head of the gaping grave. He didn’t remember anyone digging it up. It was just open. The shadowy figure must be that Morgan person. She started doing some incantations or something, and waving her hands. It was really pretty funny. Is that how you raised the dead?

He looked at Drew and she shrugged. He almost missed the lid of the coffin creaking open. Drew pointed, and Alice, whole and young, pushed out of her eternal resting place. She was dressed in a diaphanous gown. Which was strange, because that’s not what she’d been buried in. She looked around. She might be confused. He could take care of that. He’d take her in his arms, and say ... what would he say? “Welcome back, darling?” or just “I love you?” He held out his hand.

She didn’t take it.

“Michael.” She smiled. “Why have you bothered me?”

Bothered her?

And then the smile turned into a grimace, and Alice’s lovely lips drew back over her teeth, and her skin shrank back.

Michael sucked in air. Gaping sores appeared in her face, as if the flesh had rotted away. He heard Drew scream. He couldn’t move. “Alice,” he cried. But the creature in front of him wasn’t Alice anymore. It had claw-like hands, showing bone through rotting flesh. They reached for his throat while its shriek cycled up the scale and reverberated through the graveyard.

The figure of Christmas Future began to laugh, sounding like the witch in Snow White.

Michael couldn’t move. “Alice,” he pleaded as the claws drew closer, trembling with the need to rip out his throat.

“Alice, don’t.” It was Drew. She stepped in front of Michael. “He loves you.”

The claws touched Drew’s throat, and Michael wanted to scream that the zombie Alice shouldn’t hurt Drew. But at that moment the figure of Alice started to collapse in on
itself
until, in mere seconds, it was just a pile of dust at Drew’s feet.

“Alice,” he screamed, finding his voice. Then the graveyard receded and the Ghost of Christmas Future and Rhiannon and St. Claire all seemed to just vanish, and there was only Drew standing by him in the face of his collapsing dreams. Her eyes were luminous with tears.

“Drew,” he breathed.

And everything changed.

*****

Michael woke, sweating and trembling. His ears roared. He rolled off his bed and staggered to his feet, weaving. Where was he? The roar settled into the sound of
The Purgatory
’s
engines. His bed was the padded aft bench on
The Purgatory
’s
lower
deck. He staggered because the deck was rolling as the ship crested the swells. He half-expected to see graves, feel the wet of the black grass. But there was only deck and night sky and a sea silvered by a channel of moonlight from the starboard side now. He must have been asleep for hours.

“Hey, man, what’s up?” a thug with close-cropped hair asked, his voice thick with suspicion and sleep.

“Had a bad dream. Go back to sleep,” Michael muttered. Understatement. The guy groaned and rolled onto his back on the port bench.

St. Claire was still forward at the wheel. The deck was strewn with forms sleeping on benches or propped against the pile of life jackets.
The Purgatory
was just as he’d left it.