Mystical Warrior (24 page)

Had he thought she was running around with it in her pocket?

Hell, did she even know what a condom was?

Trace spooned what he hoped was coffee out of the planter and into the filter. But on his way back to the kitchen, he stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of what had to be the biggest television he’d ever seen. And not only was it taking up an entire wall, the wall it was hanging on had been completely remodeled to house a state-of-the-art multimedia center that Mac must have also … conjured up.

Trace glanced around and saw a pair of dark brown leather recliners on either side of a granite-topped table, and on that table sat a remote control that could probably run a nuclear submarine.

“Would you consider this an appropriate thank you from an unannounced guest?” Mac asked from the doorway.

“Is it cable or satellite?”

“That would depend on which you prefer.”

Trace shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, because either one comes with a monthly bill I can’t afford to pay.”

“I believe I already solved your little money problem, Huntsman, to the point where you may have to buy a third boat.”

Trace looked at him. “Yeah, about that; I’ve been thinking that it might not go over all that well with the other fishermen when Rick and I suddenly start hauling in boatloads of giant lobsters while the rest of them are going broke. It’s just not … honorable.” He took a painful breath and blew it out slowly. “So you can tell all those big, fat, juicy lobsters that they can go back to whatever they were doing before you told them to fulfill their destinies.”

“Or I could just tell them to go into everyone’s traps,” Mac said quietly.

Trace stared at him for several heartbeats. “Works for me,” he said, heading into the kitchen with his filter full of … something.

“So it’s honorable to let magic earn your living for you?” Mac asked, following.

“It seems to be earning
you
a good living.” Trace shoved the filter into the coffeemaker and filled the tank with water. “And besides, it’s not like we’re sitting on our duffs and the traps are hauling themselves.” He hit the on button and turned to see Mac picking up the contents of the fridge off the floor. “Tell me, if you can make anything you want happen, how come you don’t make the magic do everything for you?” Trace pointed at a bottle of mustard that had rolled under the table. “Like clean up the messes you make, cook toast without burning it, and have my truck drive itself home.”

Mac straightened with his arms full of food. “Because when I find myself standing in front of the pearly gates, I don’t want to be explaining why I spent ten thousand years sitting around on my duff doing nothing. Life is not a spectator sport, Huntsman, and all of it, the good, the bad, and the
ugly,
” he said with a pained grin, “must be embraced.” His grin turned sheepish. “Although I will admit to taking an occasional shortcut.”

“Ten thousand years? How the hell old are you?”

“I’m not sure, exactly,” Mac said, staring off at nothing. “Three and a half, maybe four thousand years old.”

“Wait, you said the pearly gates. They really exist?”

Mac started putting everything back into the fridge. “All myths are based in some form of reality,” he explained. “But the gates aren’t really made from pearls, you
know; it’s the energy they emit that makes them appear iridescent.”

“Then what are—” Trace snapped his mouth shut when he saw Mac suddenly stiffen and look out the window.

“Do you hear that?” Mac whispered.

Trace strained to listen but heard nothing.

The wizard ran for the kitchen door, flung it open and ran onto the porch, and then sprinted toward the barn. Not even bothering to slip into his boots, Trace was only two steps behind him.

“Take the children upstairs,” Mac told Fiona on their way by.

Instead of going to the barn, Mac didn’t stop until he reached the end of the paddock fence, his gaze trained on the ocean. Trace stopped beside him, looked back to see Fiona and Gabriella carrying the children around the front of the house, then looked out at the ocean, trying to discover what Mac was looking at.

“There,” Mac said, pointing to their left. “No more than a mile out. Do you see the dark shadow beneath that swelling wave?”

Trace caught only the slightest movement but then saw what looked like the mother of all whales shoot straight up out of the water over half the length of its body. It twisted and fell on its side, creating a splash that sent spray a good twenty feet into the air, its tail slapping the water so forcefully they heard the sound not a couple of seconds after the whale slipped out of sight.

“How in hell could you have heard that from inside?”

“Listen. He’s telling us something,” Mac said, gesturing for him to be quiet.

The whale was
talking
to them?

Trace saw the water swelling again, only this time instead of breaching, the whale twisted on its side, waving a flipper that had to be as long as a school bus. And then Trace heard a series of deep, guttural moans of varying pitch and length, the haunting song sending chills down his spine.

He turned when he heard vehicles driving into the dooryard and saw Kenzie’s SUV followed by his own truck—which the two men must have recognized and pulled out of the snowbank—with Killkenny behind the wheel. They spotted Trace and Mac and walked over, William’s gaze moving up and down Trace’s body.

“Cute, Huntsman,” the Irishman said, his eyes filled with amusement. “Does your mama know ye snuck out of the house in your pajamas?”

Kenzie, however, was stone-cold sober, his attention directed at where Mac was looking. “What’s going on?” the highlander asked softly. “What are ye watching?”

Trace also turned to look out to sea, but the whale had slipped below the surface again. “Mac is talking to a friend of his,” he drawled.

The four of them stood silently and watched, and Trace curled his toes against the cold seeping through the heavy wool socks he’d barely managed to slip on this morning when he’d stumbled out of bed, his head pounding so hard he hadn’t even been able to get dressed.

“Can you contact Rick at sea, Huntsman?” Mac asked, still watching the ocean.

“I have a marine radio in my truck.”

“Then I suggest you call and tell him to come back to
port. And also radio all of the other fishermen out on the bay, and have them come in as well.”

“What’s going on?” Kenzie asked.

The whale suddenly breached again, letting out a long, chattering whistle as it fell back into the water with a spectacular splash. Mac turned to them. “It appears Midnight Bay is about to find itself at the center of a fierce battle, gentlemen, and according to my father’s messenger,” he said, waving toward the ocean, “we have less than a day to prepare.”

“Does that mean your father is coming here?” Kenzie asked.

Mac merely nodded, rather curtly.

“Thank God,” William said. “He’ll dispatch those bastard demons to hell.”

“I wouldn’t be too quick to claim victory if I were you,” Mac said evenly, “because whoever has angered Titus Oceanus enough to bring him here is obviously someone very powerful, as my father hasn’t left Atlantis in more than nine thousand years.”

“Who in hell did you piss off?” Trace whispered. “You must have some sort of idea. And if you don’t know, then
guess
. Who would have the balls to come after you, if it means going up against your father?”

“I honestly wish I knew,” Mac said, his hands balling into fists at his sides. He turned to the ocean again. “I’m sorry; I never should have come here and involved all of you in my personal problem.” He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “And in the end, it matters not if we know the names of our enemies or the reason they want us dead, only that we face them with courage and dignity.” He nodded
toward the truck. “Go make your broadcast to your fellow fishermen, and tell them they need to come in.”

“Any suggestions as to what I should say?” Trace asked, gesturing toward the ocean. “Considering the seas are as calm as a swimming pool.”

“Tell them Midnight Bay is about to come face-to-face with an unknown enemy and that they need to lock themselves in their cellars with their women and children.” He looked directly into Trace’s eyes. “With the storms your town has weathered recently and with the September eleventh attacks still fresh in your countrymen’s minds, they won’t take a chance that it might be a hoax.”

“Is the battle taking place here in town or at sea?” William asked. “We need to know what to prepare for.”

“I will do my damnedest to keep it offshore,” Mac said tightly, turning away and heading for the house. “And you only need to prepare to defend yourselves, on the off chance I don’t succeed.”

Trace followed a little more than a step behind him. “Oceanus.”

When Mac turned to see what he wanted, Trace drew back and gave him a hard uppercut to the jaw, sending the wizard flying backward without so much as a grunt of surprise, knocking him out cold before he even hit the snow.

“For the love of Christ, are ye insane?” William said, his shocked gaze lifting from Mac to Trace. “What in hell are ye doing?”

“Or more importantly,” Kenzie said, “what are you intending to do when he wakes up?” A slight grin tugged at the corner of the highlander’s mouth. “Or are you thinking ye might enjoy living under a rock with the other toads?”

“I had to do something before the idiot went out there alone and got himself killed.” Trace bent down to grab Mac by the wrists and pulled him into a sitting position. “So if you gentlemen don’t want to join me under that rock, then help me get him down to the tunnels before he wakes up.”

U
sually considered the curse of living in a small town, the speed at which the latest news spread throughout Midnight Bay was actually a blessing. Within six hours of Trace’s broadcast that the mother of all storms was brewing out in the Gulf of Maine, all of the fishermen were back in port, their boats lashed to storm moorings and their heavy morning’s catch of giant lobsters tucked safely in tanks at the co-op.

Just as Mac had surmised, no one was taking any chances that this might be a hoax, since a series of unusually fierce and unpredicted storms had hit this section of the coast beginning last spring. Word had even spread to the surrounding communities, and after lashing down anything that might blow away, everyone was safely tucked in their homes, waiting to see what Mother Nature had in store for them this time.

Well, everyone except John Getze. He was in Trace’s
dooryard, having what appeared to be a sometimes coaxing, sometimes heated discussion with Fiona as he strapped his kids into their car seats.

Trace was actually proud of himself for continuing to prepare for the storm, when he really wanted to go out there and tell the three-piece suit to get the hell off his property. But then, he was just as curious to find out how long it would take Fiona to see through the man’s carefully crafted disguise.

Trace suspected that Mrs. Getze would have found herself divorced in another couple of years if she hadn’t died first, considering that John had changed girlfriends in high school nearly as often as people changed their underwear. Trace was surprised his old high school nemesis had gone into law, though, because he wouldn’t trust the guy to write a simple will without naming himself as one of the heirs.

Hell, even Misneach didn’t like the jerk, he noticed as he glanced out the window for the tenth time in as many minutes. The pup was actually tugging on Fiona’s coat, trying to get her to come inside. Trace went to place some cans of food in the box he was packing, only to step back to the window when he saw Getze trying to coax Fiona into the passenger’s seat of his car, all while kicking Misneach away, as the pup was now tugging on
his
overcoat.

Trace dropped the cans and was out the door and at the car in a heartbeat. “Fiona,” he said cordially, giving John a cursory nod as he pulled her away. “Could you come help me find some blankets for us to use down in the cellar?”

Only when he started to lead her away, Getze grabbed hold of her other sleeve, actually placing her in a tug-of-war between them. “I was just suggesting that Miss Gregor come
with me and the children,” John said, smiling tightly. “I have a condo up at Sugarloaf, and it would be safer for
your tenant
up in the mountains.”

Trace nearly lost his grip on her when he noticed Fiona’s eyes sparkling with amusement. “I believe Miss Gregor prefers to stay
home
.”

Christ, he was tempted to kiss that smirk off her face right in front of Getze.

She quickly turned her smile on her employer. “Yes, thank you for the offer, John,” she said sweetly, pulling out of his grip. “But despite looking like a good wind could blow it over, I believe this old house is a safe haven.” She pulled away from Trace next, then opened the back door of the car and leaned inside. “You two have fun at Sugarloaf, okay?” she said to the children, adjusting the little girl’s hat. “And when I see you in a couple of days, we’ll make cookies together for you to take home.”