Children of Poseidon: Rann (6 page)

“Mother.”

“You’re back in London? That’s Maya’s phone.” Accusation coloured her mother’s voice.

Why shouldn’t I be in London?
“Yes.” Jewel moved to the kitchen table and sat down. “I’d like to see you.”

Kara sighed heavily then relapsed into silence for a few seconds. Jewel didn’t believe her mother would refuse to see her. She wasn’t important enough for that.

“I suppose I could fit you in,” she said. “When did you want to come?”

“Tomorrow.”
No point in putting it off.

“Tomorrow?” Her mother sounded surprised.

Jewel had been an insecure teenager when she left London, frightened of Kara, and rarely offering an unsolicited opinion. She certainly hadn’t been decisive. She waited.

“Come for tea. Day after tomorrow. Three thirty. You know where to come?”

“I lived there for seventeen years.” Jewel could not refrain from sarcasm.

“Goodbye.” Her mother cut off the call.

Jewel closed her eyes. That hadn’t been as bad as she expected. Of course, neither of them had said much more than a dozen words. She went back into the sitting room.

“Sorted?” Maya carried on reading through some papers.

“I think so.” Jewel handed Maya her phone. “I’m meeting her for tea the day after tomorrow.”

“God.” Maya flung her reading matter onto the coffee table. A single loose sheet slid to the carpet. “I remember those teas. Me, perched on the edge of the sofa, trying not to break the china, feeling like a huge clumsy gorilla, while she questioned me on arcane magical theory. Ugh.”

“You’re making me glad she never wasted her energy on me.” Jewel bent to pick up the paper. “I don’t think I ever had tea with her.” She stared at the meaningless list of figures. “I wish I didn’t have to now.”

Chapter 7

Rann jumped out of the small boat and waded through the shallow opaque water to the shore of his half-brother’s Scottish island. He pulled the boat up the beach and secured it between two rocks. A fine drizzle fell relentlessly from the clouds, landing on rocks as gray as the sky. He shivered.
Why on earth does Lykos want to live here?

Rann asked himself the same question every time he visited. The place was usually cold, always damp, and completely isolated. His brother had lived alone except for servants and the occasional lover, until he met his present and final lover, Lila. They’d gone through some sort of marriage ceremony a couple of years ago, but even so, the island was still a place of solitude. How Lykos hadn’t gone into a complete decline defeated Rann’s imagination.
How did he ever persuade Lila to come here? Poor woman.

After the four women left for Dar es Salaam, Rann’s worry had escalated. Tamsin’s talk of death and danger, in the same sentence as she mentioned Jewel, nagged at him. Worry hadn’t troubled him very often in his long life, but now it nibbled relentlessly at the back of his mind. He didn’t like to think of Jewel confronting her horrible mother alone, but that’s what she had seemed to want, and he understood that she needed to overcome the hang-ups of her past. That was fine with him, but he didn’t like the fact that she might not return afterwards. She belonged on his island. In the sun. Sunlight enhanced her beauty, made her happy. Rann did not want Jewel to be in London, which he remembered was almost as gray and depressing as Lykos’s island.

The problem of the seawitch festered away in the corners of his mind unoccupied by Jewel. Tamsin had said that she must leave the island, but she hadn’t said much else.

Who could have infected her with the dark spells, the death magic? Who turned her into a mindless doll? Did I really see a spark of life in her eyes or was it just wishful thinking because I didn’t want to end what life remained to her?

His head pounded just thinking about it, but one thing worried him more than the others—anyone who had done such a thing to a seawitch needed to be found and stopped. Anyone who had done that might be a danger to his people.

He assumed that was why his mother hadn’t killed the infected witch herself. Rann couldn’t dismiss his concerns, and in the end, he decided he needed to go to London himself to try to get some answers there. He could persuade Jewel to return with him at the same time. She’d been away a day, and he missed her. He’d taken her for granted while she lived with him, and it came as a shock for him to realise how big a gap her departure had left. And for such a reason.

He jerked himself back to his present surroundings as a small chestnut-haired woman walked across the shingle, towards him. Lila, Lykos’s lover and Maya’s sister. She looked nothing like Maya; she was small where her sister was tall, with hair that gleamed in a muted version of Maya’s flaming locks. The only similarity lay in the depths of their warm, slightly slanting, amber eyes.

“Rann.” Lila hurried towards him, and he swept her into a hug. She laughed, hugged him back, and kissed his cheek. “Lykos is swimming down with the selkies. He’ll be back shortly. Come on up to the tower.”

She walked away, impervious to the persistent rain. Rann followed, swallowing his urge to comment on the weather.

Lykos arrived as Lila made the coffee, and he strode over to hug his half-brother.

“Rann. Good of you to visit.” He radiated vitality, and his presence brightened up the gray afternoon. Sweeping Lila into his arms, he kissed her mouth briefly before releasing her. He looked happier than Rann had ever seen him. “Any particular reason?”

“I’m on my way to London,” Rann told them. “I thought I’d stop off here on the way. I wondered if you might be able to throw some light on a problem I have.”

“You have a problem?” Lykos raised his eyebrows. “How did you let that happen?”

Rann smiled. Lykos’s sarcasm had no effect on him; he knew his brother thought him too easy going to worry about anything and, in general, it was true.

“Do you need to talk to Lykos privately?” Lila poured coffee into three earthenware mugs and stacked some shortbread biscuits onto a matching plate.

Rann shook his head.

She handed two of the cups to Lykos then led the way back into the huge bright sitting room. Lykos and Rann followed.

“Very domestic.” Rann glanced at his brother. Before he’d met Lila, Lykos would never have dreamed of carrying his own coffee. He took his servants attentiveness for granted.

Lykos passed a mug to Rann. “Sit down. Let’s hear what you’ve got to say. What on earth are you going to London for, anyway? Horrible place.” He shuddered.

“Will you see Maya?” Lila interjected.

“I hope she’ll let me stay for a few days,” Rann said. “Jewel’s with her.”

“Jewel?” Lila’s brow furrowed. “I thought she was on your island.”

“She wanted to see her mother.” Rann shook his head. “I’m not sure why. Something about closure.”

“Kara’s a weird woman.” Lila’s brow wrinkled. “I got the impression she resents Jewel. She never paid her much attention. I always felt a bit sorry for her.”

“She’s all right.” Rann didn’t want anyone pitying Jewel. She was fine, strong; she’d escaped the misery of her home life. “But I don’t understand why she wants to leave the island.”

“Leave?” Lila raised her eyebrows. “Permanently?”

“She says she wants to make a life for herself.” Rann sounded disgruntled even to his own ears. “Why can’t she do it on the island? It’s her home.”

“She’s been there for nine years,” Lila sounded thoughtful. “Maybe she wants to try something else. After all, the original idea was that she should stay there just for the year of her banishment. Is she thinking she might rejoin the coven?”

“Not her mother’s.” Rann shook his head. “She said she’d look for another, somewhere with decent weather.”

“She’s young.” Lykos interrupted. “Maybe she wants to stretch her wings. See something of the world outside your little kingdom.”

Rann’s domain covered the whole of the Indian Ocean. He scowled at Lykos, who grinned.

“She said she had a crush on me.” Rann hadn’t meant to say that; it just slipped out.

Lykos smirked. “And she left anyway?”

Lila elbowed him.

“So why didn’t she want to stay? I’d have been good to her.” He scrutinised Lila. “You’re a witch. Why did she tell me that and then leave?”

Lila looked thoughtful. “Jewel’s had a poor home life. You saw what her mother’s like? You know how she got mixed up with that rogue mage, Micael. I think she doesn’t trust herself. She probably doesn’t want to give her heart to anyone in case she gets kicked again.”

“I love her.” Rann’s voice rose in outrage. He’d never treated any of his people badly; he loved them all and cared for them all. His former lovers still felt the same affection for him that he felt for them.

“You love everyone on that island of yours. It means nothing.” Lykos held his hand up as Rann opened his mouth.

He couldn’t believe his half-brother had said that.

“I meant that Jewel is not one of your people. She probably wouldn’t like to be one of many. Witch women like to be exclusive.” He glanced at Lila. “Isn’t that right?”

“Exactly right.” Lila put her hand on Lykos’s thigh. “Mine.”

Rann shook his head. “I don’t understand any of you.” He sipped his coffee, pushing Jewel out of his mind. “Anyway, I needed to talk to you about something serious. What do you know about seawitches?”

“They’re extinct, aren’t they?” Lila lifted an eyebrow. “Have been for a thousand years.”

Lykos shook his head. “That’s not quite true. Circe’s still hanging round the Pacific.”

“Circe’s different, though,” Rann said. Circe wasn’t just an ordinary seawitch. If anyone knew, it would be Lykos. She had paid him a visit over a thousand years ago and fooled him into thinking she was in love with him. She’d stirred things up in the oceanic communities, caused a war, and then taken off for a remote island near Tahiti.

“Yes.” Lykos nodded. He slipped his arm round Lila’s shoulders. “I heard she has a couple of the seawitches still living with her. I’m not sure how true it is, but my sources are usually reliable.” He lifted his coffee to his lips, put it down, and eyed Rann curiously. “Why do you ask?”

“A woman turned up in my territory last week. My mother caught her. She told me she was a seawitch. Tamsin agreed. I’d like to know where she came from.”

“Your mother didn’t kill her?” Lykos let his bitterness over his run-in with Cyclops colour his voice.

“Get over it.” Rann forced the smile off his face. He needed Lykos’s help. “That was more than fifty years ago.”

Lykos grunted.

“Why didn’t you ask her?” Lila said. “This seawitch?”

“She was catatonic. My mother had her wrapped in chains. I’ve never seen so much nullsilver in my life. I replaced them with bracelets, of course, but she’s still not connected with reality.”

“Catatonic?” Lila chewed a finger, and Lykos absently slapped it away from her mouth. “Have you tried taking the bracelets off?”

“I don’t dare,” Rann said. “My mother said she was leaking dark magic when she found her, and a trail of dead bodies marked her passage. Fish, seals, seabirds. A dead mermaid washed up in the kraken’s trench. All the marks of death magic. I don’t know what would have happened if I’d taken the nullsilver away. I’d be all right, but everyone else on the island . . . and the sea . . . not worth the risk.”

“You think she’s being used as a vessel?” Lykos asked.

“A vessel?” Two vertical lines appeared on Lila’s forehead.

Lykos squeezed her shoulders. “You know what a magic vessel is.”

“No.” Lila’s tone said she didn’t want to know.

“It’s when a living creature is used as a sink for more magic than the original user can manage by themselves. It’s what witches used familiars for. Black cats and things.”

Lila gaped at him. “Familiars? I know what those are. They’ve been banned in the covens for years. Even with animals. And to use a human? It’s an automatic death sentence.”

“It’s still done.” Lykos shrugged. “By renegade mages, and occasionally talented pure humans work out how to do it.”

“But there’s a limit, surely?” Rann had no idea how Lykos knew all of this. It was human magic. “This witch has been leaking death magic for a while. It should have leached away by now, but it hasn’t. Maya saw the aura surrounding her, even with the bracelets.”

“Why didn’t you kill her?” Lykos reached forward, and picking up a couple of biscuits, he gave one to his wife. “You can’t believe she’s still in the body. It must be just a shell by now.”

“I don’t know.” Rann took one of the shortbreads and contemplated it for a second. “I thought I saw a flash of awareness when I brought her out of the sea. Fear. I made a snap decision not to kill her.”

“Where is she now?” Lykos asked. “You left her on your island?”

“No,” Rann sank his teeth into the shortbread. “Maya and Jewel took her back to London. She’s staying with them.”

“You left my sister with her?” Lila sat bolt upright. “A dangerous witch? Lykos, we’ve got to go to London. Now.”

Rann did his best to look unmoved, but he’d left his island because he couldn’t shake off the sense of foreboding. He knew he couldn’t blame Lila for overreacting. “Tamsin had a dream. Seawitch should go to London. And if anyone can take care of herself, it’s Maya.”

“She’s young.” Lila chewed her fingers again.

Lykos pulled them away from her mouth, kissing her hand and keeping it in his. “She’s the most powerful witch your coven ever produced. You told me so yourself. And she’s an adult now.”

“I know, but—”

“I’m going to London.” Rann interrupted before Lila spiralled into open panic. She’d always been ultraprotective of her younger sister. “I’ll make sure she’s all right.”

Lila gave him a look he interpreted as uncertainty.

“I’m going anyway. I don’t like a lot about the situation. I don’t know what I was thinking letting them go alone in the first place.”

“Too lazy?” Lykos suggested.

Rann didn’t take the bait. He smiled instead, the lazy smile that always irritated his half-brother. “So you don’t know how to fix her?”

Lila shook her head.

“Not a clue,” Lykos said. “But I’ll tell you who might know. Circe.”

“Circe?” Rann shuddered. “I can’t believe you said that. I can’t go to Circe. Not only would she not tell me, but she might try and remove my limbs at the same time. I’ve heard stories about her.”

“She used to like a good-looking man.” Lykos folded his arms and leaned back on the sofa.

“You’d know.”

“If you don’t think you can handle—”

“I don’t think. I know.” Rann ignored his brother’s attempt to wind him up. “I might be able to beat her into submission, but I can’t see how that’s going to help.”

“She might want to help a fellow seawitch.”

Rann couldn’t believe Lykos meant it. “Do you really think—”

Lila interrupted. “What about Damnamenos? When he had me prisoner, he boasted about having created the seawitches. ‘Spawned them,’ he said. Maybe he’d have an idea.”

Lykos looked sideways at her, his brows lowered. He frowned. Any normal woman would have cowered. “Damnam’s nothing but trouble. Circe would be better.”

Lila frowned right back at him. “Not from what I hear. You know I’m right.”

The change in his autocratic half-brother never stopped amazing Rann. Lykos had never been a bully, because he never had to be. People scurried to do his bidding at his slightest word. If they hesitated, that frown soon had them moving again. Lila seemed completely oblivious. Rann had been there at their first meeting and remembered his brother’s incredulity when Lila didn’t jump at his command. She was good for him.

“Damnamenos?”

“If anyone knows, he would.” Lykos’s voice was grudging, but his hand tightened on Lila’s shoulder. “You’re right.”

“Thanks.” Rann finished his coffee. “I’ll see what she’s like when I get to London. Then I’ll decide whether to ask Damnam. Do you think he’d tell me?” Damnamenos was their half-brother, the youngest son of Poseidon. He’d resented his older brothers for millennia. Nine years ago he’d had Lila kidnapped and then snatched Maya. His resulting defeat at Lykos’s hands had done nothing to improve the relationship.