Dark Waters (Celtic Legacy Book 1) (5 page)

I frowned. “What are you asking me? Are you implying that I would have something to do with her . . .” I couldn’t even say it. I didn’t believe she was dead, the words wouldn’t come out of my mouth.

Luke stepped closer and I felt a wave of pressure, as if the air had suddenly thickened and condensed around us. “It was a shark officer. I saw the fin, there was blood in the water. What else could it be?” Power rippled through his voice, power that I could feel crawling against my skin, seeking a way in to convince me of his words. I fought it off, panicked at what he might make me believe.

His eyes locked with Constable Pollett’s while his hand played over my fingers like a concerned friend. Constable Pollett’s eyes glazed; he nodded and wrote on his pad. The junior officer just stared slack jawed at the wall.

Luke continued, and the power swelled around us, nearly choking me.

“
She saw a shark, about fourteen feet. A Great White. They’ve been seen up this way lately as the tuna are migrating further north. Uncommon, but it happens,” he said. The officers nodded; even I could see their minds buckling under his power.

“
I didn’t see . . .” I didn’t get to finish the sentence as Luke leaned over and planted his lips on mine, sealing them shut. Again the warmth spread through me like a sweet hot drink circulating though my blood. I couldn’t help myself; I let out a groan and buried my fingers in his hair, pulling him closer. Like a drug I hated wanting, yet found myself seeking out, I couldn’t stop tasting him. There was something in his kiss, something that my body demanded, that I was in need of. The power within me, that I’d felt rise on the beach, responded once more. My blood pulsed as the energy swirled around us.

The cops stepped away, chuckling as they left. Though that irritated me, I still couldn’t seem to release my hold on Luke.

“
Love ‘n grief, they bind so quickly do they not . . . Luke?” A deep voice, heavy with an Irish accent, rippled across my senses; Luke pulled away from me. I kept my eyes closed as I struggled to get my rapidly beating heart under control. Slowly I opened my eyes, blinking several times before the humming energy receded back inside of me once more, and I could see my newest visitor.

Where Luke was deeply tanned and fair, the man who stood across from us had hair as black as a moonless night. But it was his eyes that snared me. Violet, a colour I’d never seen in anyone else. And they were pissed. Flashing with anger . . . and was that jealousy I saw flicker through them?

He stared down at me. “If she’d wanted to go with her sister, you should have let her. Ta stupid ones should be allowed to kill themselves off. It leaves more room in the world for ta strong.”

I flushed under his judgment.

Luke shifted his weight and snapped his fingers, his wetsuit shifting and re-arranging itself until it was a t-shirt and shredded jeans. My mouth dropped open. That had not just happened. Maybe the monsters had been the tip of the iceberg of craziness crashing into my life. I shook my head then rubbed my face. This whole day had to be a dream; it couldn’t be really happening. In a few minutes I’d wake up, and Ashling and I would still be in our hotel room, ready to start the day. I shook my head again, and my fingers found the bone handle of my knife.

No, I knew this was happening. I couldn’t deny it. To be honest though, it scared the shit out of me. My fingers flexed, there was some comfort in having a weapon, small as it was, with all that was happening.

“
What are we going to do with her Bres?” Luke asked. “We can’t take her with us, she isn’t ready yet to face the Council.”

Bres snorted. “I don’t see why we have to be guarding her at all. If ta prophecy is true, then she should be able to take care of everything herself. No help needed.”

I stared from one unbelievably beautiful man to the other. What the hell were they talking about? “Excuse me, but would you mind not speaking over my head?”

They continued as if I wasn’t there.

Luke pointed at the nurse’s desk. “We’ll leave her here. She’ll be safe with the humans for now. The Fomorii have taken Ashling; that should appease them, at least for the moment. Agreed?”

Bres scowled and nodded. “Fine, but know that I’m only doing this because there be no other way. I don’t have to like ta job or her.” He pointed at me, his hands calloused.

I’d had enough of this. “Stop ignoring me!” I yelled. They both turned to stare at me. “Tell me what’s going on! Who took Ashling?”

My voice rose with each word, fear, panic and anger vying for my attention, my knife still gripped in my hand.

The noise drew the nurses in; they saw the knife and screamed. This, of course, brought the police in at a run. In a few brief moments they had me pinned to the bed despite my struggles. Luke and Bres were pushed out, though they didn’t seem to resist all that much, and the chubby brunette nurse jabbed me with a needle.

I let out a yelp as the world went fuzzy around me, my eyes closing as the sedative kicked in, dropping me into unconsciousness.

~~

6

I floated in a world of fog. There were waves and rocks; I was on the beach again. But this time I couldn’t get to the water. An invisible Barrier was between me and the ocean. My instincts were telling me that if I could just get to the water I could find Ashling.

My hands slid over the slick, transparent surface; but no matter how I pounded and screamed, the Barrier held firm. I could see Ashling in the distant surf, could hear her screams as she called for me. Panic clawed at me. She needed me, and I couldn’t get to her.

Voices whispered across my ears, pulling me out of the fog, but I still couldn’t open my eyes.

“
We gave her three times the usual dose. She burned it off in a matter of minutes; if we didn’t have the steady drip of sedative on her she’d be awake even now.” A shuffle of feet, the blanket pulled tight around my body as if someone was tucking the corners in.

“
What about their parents?” A second voice asked.

The first person, it sounded like the brunette nurse, made a hushing sound. “Not so loud. Father isn’t around; their mother . . .” More feet shuffling, and my ears strained to hear what was said.

“
. . . can’t reach her. Went missing today too. So tragic.”

My heart picked up speed. My mother was missing? She’d only just left for Ireland three days ago, right before Ashling’s graduation. I struggled upwards through the sedative, and opened my eyes to an empty room. The nurses were gone. Like moving through thick mud, I raised my left hand, the I.V. hanging from it. I fumbled for it with my other hand and yanked the drip out. A hiss of pain escaped my mouth as the hospital tape pulled on my skin and hair; a trickle of blood dripped down my arm from the injection site.

Within moments my mind began to clear. They probably hadn’t given me as strong a dose as they thought. Still, I took great care as I sat up and slid from the bed, my legs wobbly underneath me. I had been dreading phoning Mom, telling her that Ashling was . . . missing? Dead? I didn’t even know the answer to that. I was afraid she’d be happy. I didn’t think I could handle that.

The police would say Ashling was dead, but I just didn’t believe it. I didn’t think that Luke and Bres thought she was dead either, and for what it was worth, that brought me some comfort. I’d seen what had dragged her down into the depths; it hadn’t been a shark or a killer whale. It had been humanoid, with a single eye and a mouthful of teeth.

I sat back on the edge of the bed and considered everything that had happened from the moment Grandpa had wrapped his fingers around my neck. The voices in my head, the feeling of finally having all the pieces of who I was fit together, the dream, the monsters in the water. Luke and the power he displayed. Either I accepted that I’d been inducted into a world I had never known—one with magic and monsters, where even I, the daughter of a woman who didn’t want children, had power—or I accepted that I was losing my mind and that all of this was just a psychotic break. There was no middle ground.

Which was it going to be? Ashling was the tie breaker. If I accepted I was losing my mind, then Ashling was dead.

I would take magic and monsters if it meant Ashling had a chance of being saved.

It seemed that Grandpa’s stories and ramblings were true. I’d seen a monster for myself; I couldn’t doubt they existed. They’d stolen Ashling away, like some horribly twisted fairy tale.

Fomorii. The word whispered across my mind and with it came a shard of anger. That was what had taken Ashling. Luke and Bres had spoken of them, as if they would be satisfied now that they had my sister. “We’ll see about that,” I muttered.

Across the room my bag sat on the side table, a rumpled pile of mine and Ashling’s clothes within it. The gapped-back hospital gown slithered to the floor, and the air conditioning lifted goose bumps all over my body. Moving fast, I slid into my jean shorts, tank top and flip flops. My cell phone was there too; I tucked it into my back pocket. It wasn’t much, but it was better than the gown, and far better than being naked. My knife was missing and my heart lurched. It had been my first and last gift from Grandpa. For all that he didn’t like me, I still cherished that knife. There was nothing I could do about it now though. No doubt the police took it.

My mind began to pick up speed as I moved around. I would have to get a boat, maybe hire someone to take me out to where Ashling had disappeared. Scuba gear; I could rent that, though my heart nearly ran away at the thought of diving again. Slipping the bag over my shoulder, I put my hand on the door. An image of the gaping mouth and bulbous single eye of the Fomorii assaulted me, and a shiver of fear rippled down my spine. A spear gun. That should be on my list too. Maybe I could hire some divers to go with me; that would be best. I wasn’t sure I could get back in the water, even now. But for Ashling I would try; I would do everything I could to save her.

I limped down the hallway, my leg still aching. At the nurses’ desk I paused to see that they were engrossed in a cribbage game. With their attention all on their game they didn’t notice me as I walked right out of the hospital.

The fog from my dream seemed to have followed me into the waking world. A heavy grey mist lay over the parking lot, blocking much of the trees and road from sight. I shivered in the late afternoon air and wrapped my arms around myself. You would have never known it was almost July. It looked, and felt, like winter was coming on.

I pulled my phone out and whispered thanks to the heavens that it was still charged. I dialled my mother’s cell phone in the hopes that what the nurses had said was wrong. It rang four times and then went to her voice mail. I hung up before the message came on. I tried my cousin Sheila, where my mother had been staying. No answer there either.

The next number I called was for a cab; the dispatcher, in a completely uninterested tone, finally told me it would be about five minutes. I hung up, and limped to a cement pillar, leaning against it to ease the weight on my leg.

“
You shouldn’t be out of the hospital yet.”

I turned to face Luke. “I hate hospitals.”

He stepped close and I remembered his wetsuit shifting, how he’d made the nurses and cops do what he wanted. He had magic, that much was obvious; my gut reaction was that he wasn’t human, he couldn’t be. And if he knew magic, and what I was feeling inside me was answering him, I needed him to help me understand what was going on. At least for now. Time to buckle down and ask the question that had been on the tip of my tongue. “You aren’t Fomorii, I can see that much; so just what are you?”

“
I am Tuatha de Daanan, the same as you,” Luke said. “The same as Bres.”

As if he had been called, Bres stepped out from around the cement pillar to my right. “She’s going to be a problem for us, isn’t she?” he asked.

Luke chuckled. “Are you surprised?”

Bres shook his head and again I felt completely out of my depth. I hated not knowing what was going on. And what the hell was a Tuatha de whatever?

The low rumble of a big truck working its way towards us made me look to the road. I looked around for the rig as the ground below me bucked. It wasn’t a truck; it was an earthquake. The world shivered and swayed, the ground shifting like a tilt-a-whirl. I jerked my arms out to the side but still fell, my bitten leg not holding up. Shocked, my eyes widened at an alarming rate when both men leaped towards me, catching me before I could hit the ground. How had they moved so fast?