Tempest’s Legacy (23 page)

I watched with avid eyes as she finished scooping my choice, then began scooping Chubby Hubby for Anyan. I was so distracted by watching her cut a swath through a particularly thick vein of peanut butter that I barely registered when Anyan excused himself to use the bathroom.

Anyan had just left the room and the pretty, blonde skater girl was just setting both steel cups into their blenders when, all of a sudden, everything went black.

I don’t mean the lights went off, I mean my
world
went black. And quiet. I couldn’t hear the telltale buzz of power from anywhere, but I still automatically raised my shields as I called forth a swirling, iron-gray orb of energy into my palm.

“Who’s there?” I called into the darkness tremulously.

No answer.

“Come on! Who’s there?”

Around me in the darkness, light flared as patterns began to appear in the black.

Dark purple vines began to snake around me, growing in a random pattern. Turquoise flowers sprouted from the
ends of some of the vines, their stamens a lurid, fluorescent pink.

Pouring power into my shields, I searched the darkness for an enemy even as I searched for any ping of power. But I felt and heard nothing.

“Who is
out there
!” I shouted, my calm cracking underneath the oppressive hush. I made a circle, starting to panic as the vines began to float toward me, closing in on me like Briar Rose in the grip of her curse.

I kept circling till my eyes caught a glimmer of white light that appeared in the purple ivy. The glimmer grew to a crack, which grew into a sliver, which grew into a door large enough for a skinny girl.

And Blondie is exactly who came through, only the Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shop uniform was gone and she was naked. Her lithe frame was entirely tattooed, and hoops gleamed in her nipples. She came toward me, that cheeky grin still cutting across her features.

I raised the hand with the mage ball, only to find it suddenly empty.

“Who the fuck are you?” I shouted, just as she reached up to me.

I flinched back, shielding my face with my arms, but nothing happened. I could hear her chuckling, and I finally peeked around my hands to find her standing there, holding out two milk shakes, with napkins and straws.

I blinked at her, and her smile grew bigger. Eventually I dropped my arms, and she came forward with our ice cream.

The unnatural foliage around us finally began to shake as power—but none I recognized—began to swirl around
us. As I raised my own hands to take the milk shakes, she nodded.

Then, with a bawdy wink, everything went black again.

I blinked once… twice…

Then found myself standing in the middle of the Providence, Rhode Island, Scoop Shop, holding two milk shakes while, next to me, Anyan stared at me like I’d lost my marbles.

I looked from him to the girl on the other side of the counter. She was short and chubby, with a bad complexion and lank brown hair.

I looked at her, then at the shakes, then back to Anyan.

“Uhh… weren’t you… blonde?” I asked hesitantly.

“Huh?” she asked, looking at me like I was extra loony.

I sighed, then handed Anyan his milk shake. He raised an eyebrow and twitched his nose at me, hard.

“Here’s your ice cream. And while you were in the bathroom, everything went black, then purple shit grew out of the dark, and then I was approached by a hot, naked, tattoo-advert chick. Who used to be her,” I said, pointing at the brown-haired girl across the counter. “But she was blonde and made us milk shakes. Then she disappeared and changed into that one.”

The girl behind the counter backed away slowly as Anyan sucked on his straw, staring at me curiously.

Finally, he shrugged and held out his milk shake toward me, straw first, so I could taste.

“Well, it seems simple enough. Either someone is fucking with you, or you’re having a nervous breakdown. Want a sip?”

I blinked at him.
The joy of comforting words. Barghest-style.

S
o everything went black, purple ivy grew, and then she gave you a milk shake?” came Ryu’s dry voice from the backseat, where he sat beside Caleb. Daoud and Julian were wedged into the very small seats in the very, very back of the enormous gas-guzzler we’d rented.

My former lover made what I’d said sound even crazier, and it already sounded pretty batpants. Ryu had talents, after all.

“Yup,” I replied from the front seat, watching Anyan’s hands on the steering wheel of our rented SUV.

“And there was no power signature?” Ryu prodded.

“Nope, nothing. Only at the very end did I feel… something.”

“But not elemental magics?”

“No.”

“First Magics?”

“If First Magic feels like what Terk does, then no. It didn’t feel like that at all.”

I could see, in my side mirror, Ryu frowning, his handsome features scrunching up as he sucked on his bottom lip. My libido, ever clueless, made a hesitant suggestion, which I immediately and firmly quashed.

“Anyan?” the baobhan sith asked, after a few seconds more of petulant lip-sucking.

“No clue,” the barghest grunted from beside me, his nose twitching.

We were driving to the safe house right outside Providence where the local Powers That Be had stashed the females rescued from the laboratory. In the wee hours of the morning, Ryu, Caleb, Daoud, and Julian had arrived to begin officially questioning the freed hostages. I had been very happy to see everyone from Boston again, although I did miss Julian’s baobhan-sith mother, Camille. She was serving as Ryu’s replacement while he traveled.

“Could it have been a really powerful glamour?” Caleb rumbled forth.

“Anyan would have felt the magic,” Daoud replied. “Unless the person was so powerful they could mask all trace of their power.”

“And there hasn’t been anyone, even Alfar, that strong since before the Third Great War,” Ryu cut in, clearly frustrated.

“Was that a long time ago?” I queried the barghest sotto voce.

“Yup. About eight hundred years.”

“What was that?” Ryu’s voice cut in from behind us.

“Nothing!” Anyan and I both responded, too quickly and as one.

The car went silent. Ryu’s irritation was palpable.

Caleb, bless him, was the first to stick his neck out. “I
think the obvious question, Jane, is whether you think this could have been some sort of… episode.”

I couldn’t help but smile.

“Like a nervous breakdown?”

“Well… yes.”

“I have been rather stressed,” I said, wryly. “But you’re right, Caleb. I think it’s a distinct possibility. After all, I saw Blondie, when Anyan saw only the dark-haired girl. And neither of us felt any magic, except for that one moment, but it wasn’t… normal magic.”

“Could it have been drugs?” called out Julian from the very back of the SUV. “When, exactly, were you given the milk shakes?”

“We don’t
use
drugs,” Ryu broke in snippily.

Caleb’s calm voice overrode Ryu’s, to my surprise. “True, it is not our nature to use science or its by-products, but these are not normal times. Perhaps Daoud has a point. Jane?”

“Sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t given my ice cream until after my psychic break from reality.”

Anyan shook his head once sharply. “Jane, you didn’t have a psychic break. You were fine. Something’s going on; we just have to figure out what it is.”

“And pray that whoever has that kind of power, to make you see shit that’s not there without exposing themselves at all, isn’t working for the bad guys,” said Daoud, his voice grim.

We all processed that information in silence, the only sound the computer-calm voice of our GPS telling us where to turn on our way to our destination. When we finally arrived at the safe house, it revealed itself to be a large, very baronial mansion in a wealthy suburb. Gathering our things
we headed inside, pushing through various layers of magical shieldings as Ryu “knocked” with his own power and was allowed through.

Inside the house everything was clean, expensive, and vaguely institutional. Healers and guards wandered around, increasing the hospital feel of the otherwise beautiful surroundings. The women were being housed on the second floor, in separate bedrooms. They’d all been in various states of serious disrepair and had needed quite a bit of medical attention.

And after what they’d been through, I could only imagine what sort of help they’d need to begin to recover from the trauma of their incarceration and torture.

We’d been ushered into a small reception room to the right of the landing to wait for the Rhode Island investigators to meet us. Ryu had been given carte-blanche authority in the region, but ever the political animal, he didn’t want to step on any toes unless he had to. So we waited for Isolde, but it was Ezekiel who arrived, his ifrit fire banked to only a glow of flames surrounding his wiry figure.

“Sorry I’m late. I was… detained.”

“It’s no trouble,” Ryu said smoothly. “But where’s Isolde?”

A look of barely contained fury crossed the ifrit’s face as his fire flared up like a geyser until he regained his control.

“She’s been pulled from duty,” he said, his voice tight.

“What?” Anyan barked, his growly voice extra-growly.

“She’s been fired, Anyan. For not capturing the kappa.”

“But he was going to kill that female,” I interjected. “She did the right thing.”

The ifrit gave me a short, dismissive look. “Not according to the Alfar. According to the Alfar, we are all expendable, and the knowledge contained in the kappa was more important than any of our lives…”

Ezekiel’s voice trailed off as he glanced at Ryu. “I’m sure they have their reasons, of course,” he concluded begrudgingly. “But Isolde is a good investigator and a damned fine female. She didn’t deserve to be dismissed like that.”

Ryu’s expression went blank, like it did when he was machinating. “You’re right, Zeke. Isolde was a good investigator. But we all have our orders—”

“Orders, my hairy ass,” Anyan interrupted from behind me.

Ryu turned, his expression furious, but the ever-calming Caleb intervened.

“Let’s remember why we’re here, gentlemen. Upstairs are females who don’t need to see any more violence.”

I could have licked Caleb for his ever-present good sense.

Both Anyan and Ryu frowned at each other but nodded at Caleb.

We were taken upstairs, to another, smaller room that was set up like a small informal therapy area with a few chairs and a couch. Caleb, Julian, and Daoud stayed outside, but I was allowed in with Anyan and Ryu.

The first woman to come in was the kappa female. She was even shorter than the male kappa had been, and her skin was the same, wrinkled-green flesh of a sea turtle. She, too, wore a shell, and I wondered if she could take it on and off, like a coat, or if it was fused onto her. Her human eyes peered nervously around the room from her turtle face.

Meanwhile, healthwise she looked terrible. Physically she’d been healed, but she still looked terribly frail. I could also tell she was suffering being outside the sea. More to the point, however, her haunted eyes testified more eloquently than mere words to the horrors she’d endured.

“Ula Kappa,” she introduced herself quietly when she’d taken a seat.

“Hello, Ula,” Ryu said, his voice saturated with warmth and friendliness. But the kappa ignored him, flinching down into her shell and avoiding looking at either Ryu or Anyan. Instead, she kept her eyes focused on me.

I tried to smile at her but failed. Instead, I met her eyes with mine, trying silently to acknowledge her pain without implying I could ever understand it.

She met my gaze for what felt like minutes but could only have been seconds. Then she nodded, and, when she spoke, the voice emitted from her beaklike protrusion was as soft and breathy as a young girl’s.

“You’re of the sea,” she said.

I nodded. “My mother is… was… a selkie.”

I realized that was the first time I’d referred to my mother in the past tense, and I shivered.