Demon Song (13 page)

“No. You’re right that I was thinking of something a little less active than exercise or yoga. Have you considered a spa? A facial, sauna, maybe even a massage could help in the short term. If you were relaxed when sunset arrived, your reaction might be less … intense.”

Okay, that was true. I knew I was reacting stronger to the sunset because I was still angry with Gerry. But her words resonated on another level, too—the human one. A spa. Wow. I couldn’t remember ever going to a spa. I knew Dawna and Emma both swore by spas, but I’d never accompanied them. Maybe that would work, because if I was going to be honest, I
was
stressed. Swimming and bubble baths had even stopped working. Calgon was no longer taking me away.

The problem was that it was the busy season. I was booked every night. But why not a day trip? “Okay. Let me see what I can clear on my calendar. Work is busy, but if Dawna’s health is at stake, I’ll do my best.” I stood up because I really needed to get something into my stomach or I was going to wind up doing something I’d regret. “Tell her doctor I’ll make the suggestion. I know Dawna well enough that if
he
suggests it she’ll get stubborn and claim she doesn’t need to. And,” I added with a sudden brilliant idea, “I hadn’t come up with a single idea for a Christmas gift for her or Emma. We’ll do a girls’ day out somewhere down in the Napa Valley. Maybe take in a wine tasting.”

Gwen was smiling now, most of her nervousness gone. Most, but not all. That made me sad. I’d been wrong. I’d thought Gwen being disappointed in me was second only to making Gran cry. But making Gwen afraid was worse, much worse. “Excellent. I’ll let him know.” I had my hand on the doorknob, desperate to leave before my stomach growled, when Gwen spoke: “By the way, Celia, I appreciate your candor here. Most clients are unwilling to show their … true self to a therapist. I plan to do some reading on the subject of vampirism and I look forward to spending some session time with you as soon as my license is renewed.”

That was good news. I couldn’t look at her again, but it was good news. I nodded. “I’ll look forward to that, Gwen.”

I escaped before she could respond. The world was starting to shift again and I had to get out into the darkness and the safety of a locked car. It wasn’t that Gwen was wrong. My control was going to give out someday. I just had to keep the odds in my favor and do the things I knew worked.

To give myself a chance to succeed.

8

I
burst
from the water and took a huge gulp of air before diving into the surf once more. I used to swim every night, relieving the stresses of the day. Since Vicki died, I hadn’t spent much time down here, in the water off Vicki’s estate. Mostly because of the restraining order that Vicki’s mom had put into place when she contested the Will. But one of my many phone messages over the past few days had been from my attorney, telling me the judge hadn’t renewed the order. I was free to go back to the estate.

I’d parked at the guesthouse—my house, for years, until Vicki’s death—and hurried to the beach, stopping just long enough to grab a couple of big towels from my linen cabinet, one to lie on and one to dry off with. The ocean was calling to me. Just hearing the waves, smelling the salt on the air, helped calm me.

I breaststroked out until the lights from Cooper Manor were just a small dot on the dark horizon. The water was cold, but I felt overheated, so it was perfect. I could feel the ocean like a living thing around me—each fish and plant made itself known without speech or effort. It had been like this my whole life, not just since I learned I was a siren. Maybe it should have occurred to me that my love of water was deeper than other beachgoers’, but I’d trusted the grade-school aptitude test that told me I had no paranormal talent.

Flipping onto my back, I stared up at the twinkling stars and felt safe and secure for the first time in days. The bullet wound in my shoulder had healed and was now nothing more than another scar in a sea of them. I floated and kicked and let the tension seep out of my body with each rise and fall of the swells. Maybe I could sleep a full night for a change.

“I was going to suggest this, but you’ve found the answer on your own.”

The female voice to my left startled me enough that I lost my buoyancy and dropped beneath the waves. I came up sputtering and blinking water out of my eyes.

Lopaka, high queen of the sirens, had watched me nearly drown with amusement.
You weren’t drowning. Sirens can’t drown. The oceans won’t allow it.
She spoke into my mind and I tried to answer in kind.

Where her voice was the sweetest ringing of crystal wind chimes, my telepathy sounded like the harsh squawking of gulls:
I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t startle me. I’m not like other sirens. I’d hate to prove your no-drowning theory wrong.

She laughed and the water grew more alive around us. I could feel more fish come to investigate, and strands of seaweed, completely out of place this far from shore, drifted by. Lopaka plucked the narrow green fronds from the water and began to idly twist them. “I would hate that as well. Monarchs should never be proven wrong. But while I am no psychic, I am … connected to my people, in tune with my subjects. Which is why I’m here. What was causing you such distress? I felt as though your very soul was screaming in agony earlier today. But now you seem well.”

Whoa. She could feel me in pain? I so didn’t want to project my life onto anyone. “How
much
earlier? It’s been a busy day. I got shot around two this morning and wanted to snack on my therapist about an hour ago.”

She shook her head with mild confusion. “It wasn’t physical. I’ve learned to tune such things out. This was psychic pain—panic and heartache and fear, all rolled into one. It was strong enough that I nearly fell, but I couldn’t find the source for some time. It was as though I was being blocked when I searched.” Her hands finally stopped fiddling beneath the water and came up bearing a crown fashioned of seaweed and tiny shells. She put it on her head while I wondered where in the world she’d found the shells. When I looked closer, I realized they weren’t shells but living snails, mollusks, and tiny starfish, clinging to the stiff blades of sea grass.

We were drifting out to sea, and that was going to mean an exhausting swim back unless we started now. “First, the crown thing is a
very
cool talent. Second, we need to start back or I’m going to be too tired to make it to shore. Last, do you recall what time you had the panic attack?” I’d felt that kind of panic twice in the last twenty-four hours—first when Kevin was being shot at and again while at the prison. Both times I’d been behind magic barriers.

“It was late afternoon. Definitely not night.”

I began to do the backstroke toward shore both so we could continue to talk and because it’s less tiring. The queen swam smoothly beside me. Her seaweed crown began to slip, but two tiny crabs crawled down and grabbed onto strands of her golden hair to stabilize it. “That wasn’t me then. I know exactly what you were feeling because I was feeling it, too. It was my mom.”

Lopaka turned her head and one storm gray eye dipped below the waves. The remaining pupil took on the color of the dark water and I could feel the strength of her will in its glittering depths. “Tell me.”

So I did. I stared up at the stars and swam and talked. By the time we reached the shore, I was both mentally and physically exhausted. I wasn’t sure exactly why I’d just told all my innermost secrets to Queen Lopaka, but I wasn’t sorry I had.

As she climbed out of the water, she took off the crown of seaweed and let it float out on the tide. I watched all the animals scatter back into the water and marveled at the beauty of the ocean. She handed me one of the thick towels I’d left on the beach, a vivid blue one that reminded me of the sky above the Isle of Serenity, Lopaka’s home. She took the red one that made her eyes turn silver. As I flipped my hair over to fluff it dry, I spotted a conch shell on the beach, one of the most beautiful I’d ever seen. I collect shells but only those I find myself. I tugged it out of the sand until it came free. I let the surf wash off the remaining dirt and held it up to look at it more closely.

Queen Lopaka stepped closer to see it in the dim light from the moon. “It is befitting a princess. The sea finds you worthy.”

That pulled a laugh from me. “I’ve always considered finding shells luck, not design.”

She smiled and it held a depth of knowledge that I didn’t possess. “You’re still young. Much of life, and death, is by design. Take your mother, for example. She is, by design, a siren. She carries our blood. There are many humans who carry siren blood, but not all are tied to the ocean. I believe she is, even if she doesn’t exhibit any other symptoms.”

I wrapped the towel around me and sat down on the sand. The queen sat down beside me, perfectly at ease. “What do you mean,
tied to the ocean
? I was afraid that was affecting her, but I don’t really understand how it works.”

The queen held out her hands to the water with a beatific smile. “You feel the ocean, as do I. It lives, moves inside us, touches our hearts. You feel it more strongly now that your talent has fully manifested, but you’ve always felt it. To be apart from the ebb and flow of the ocean is to be in pain. The psychic torture you felt was the tearing of the bond between a siren and her ocean. I’ve felt it before, which is why I came to you today. While I wasn’t aware your mother had enough blood to be tied, it appears that she does. And now she’s behind walls, far from the water, with spelled barriers that sever magical ties. In effect, she’s starving to death … and she has no idea why.”

Oh, crap. Mom wasn’t only going through withdrawal from the bottle; she had been literally cut off from a vital organ. She was being tortured, though her jailers didn’t know it. I felt a pain in my chest. “What can we do? Is there some way to prove this to a judge so she can get released?”

Lopaka shook her head. “I wouldn’t suggest requesting her release. She’s broken the law and, frankly, her drinking has to stop. She’s endangering people and harming herself. Is it possible to simply add a saltwater fish tank to her cell? That would restore her connection, if only slightly.”

I shook my head. “I doubt it. Even with spells to make it unbreakable, other prisoners would complain about the smell, or the lights, or something.”

She nodded. “You may be correct. Perhaps there is a more elegant solution. We have a detention center on the island. I could petition the court to have her transferred to Serenity’s jail for health reasons. I have no doubt that her state of mind is affecting everyone in her present facility. If there have been more fights or suicide attempts, the judge will surely see it’s in the interest of all parties to move her. But if they refuse—” She touched my arm and her face looked truly stricken. “Then she will die. Not quickly and not kindly. And even if she is released when her condition becomes clear, the damage would be done and I don’t know if she could be saved.”

I looked out at the wide ocean and felt my eyes well. “I should have done something.” I didn’t know what I could have done, how I could have known, but I felt responsible.

“Celia, no. You have no part in this. You’ve already borne more burdens than most should have to suffer. I believe your mother can be helped, can be brought back into balance. I’d like to try, if you’ll allow me.”

Did I trust Lopaka to make my mother a whole person? Hell, yes!

She laughed because apparently I’d broadcast that thought.

I let out a slow breath. “Yes. I would be thrilled, and honored, if you could help her.” Gran would be thrilled as well. She might finally feel confident that Mom could get the help she needs, with people who understood why she’d turned to alcohol to mend herself.

“I’ll contact the authorities in the morning. Now I must go. I’ve kept several people waiting on board my vessel.” It made my eyes go wide. She’d interrupted a meeting to come see me? She stood easily from her near-yoga position and I realized once again that she looked really good for her age. Hell, for
any
age.

But she was more than beauty. She was mercy, too. I was completely sincere when I touched the glittering gold and pearl ring on her hand. “Thank you, Your Highness. I would never have expected the kindness you’ve shown me, and now my family. I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”

She smiled almost sadly and lifted my chin. “You have my brother Kalino’s eyes. How could I see them in pain and
not
help?” Her hand pulled away from mine and she turned, walking into the sea. She dived into the water without so much as a splash.

I sat there, feeling both happy and sad, happy I had an answer to the question about my mother and sad because she was suffering. I stood up and realized my muscles had stiffened; fleetingly I wondered if Lopaka was feeling the burn, too.

I grabbed the clothes I’d left folded on the rocks and hobbled slowly back to the guesthouse that had been my home for the past few years, feeling muscles pull that I hadn’t felt in months. I really needed to swim more often. I probably should drive back to Gran’s house—it would always be Gran’s house in my head, even though I now owned it and had been living there since Gran had moved out—but I honestly wasn’t positive I could work the clutch right now.