As I hit the surface, I flipped over so I was floating on my stomach. I tried to make out anything I could below but could only see murky water. It churned as the fight continued, sending up a series of waves around us. Finally, I turned over again and took off my charm, holding tight to it in case I should need it again.
Roz and Vanzir did the same, then Morio and Trillian. We bobbed in the waves, treading water as we waited.
“I have the spirit seal. I want to get to shore as soon as possible,” I said, gasping.
“Does the horn have any more power in it? Can you use it to have the Lord of the Depths send his porpoises to take you ashore?” Trillian asked.
I shook my head. “No, it’s expended in full. It won’t do me any good till I can recharge it in two weeks.”
Roz let out a sigh. “You know how I hate taking a chance on going through the Ionyc Sea. I’m never sure if I’m going to get it right. But I can see the shoreline from here, in the distance, and I’m willing to try to take you to shore if you’ll chance it.”
Roz never did trust his ability to shift through the currents. But right now, my main focus had to be getting ashore securely with the seal. I had to let Shimmer and Shade take care of K’thbar in their own way.
“Let’s go, then. Maybe you can come out and help the others after, if you’re willing.”
Vanzir shrugged. “I can shift onto the astral and head toward shore that way. That just leaves Morio and Trillian.”
Roz swam over to me and slid his arm around my waist as I looped one arm around his shoulders. “Hmm, good thing Smoky isn’t here,” he joked.
I just gave him a long stare. Rozurial was an incubus. He was always one step away from being thrashed by my dragon-husband. In fact, at one point, Smoky had given Roz a good beating for landing a stray hand on my ass.
“Right. Let’s go. Ready?”
“Yah. I’m ready.” I closed my eyes. Roz wasn’t as proficient at making the shift as Smoky was, and there was a jolt that landed my stomach in my throat. But then, we were in the currents.
I opened my eyes and leaned against Roz as the shifting tides of energy rose and fell around us. The sparkling mists wafted in great clouds as we flew through them, coiling with long tendrils to reach out and surround the aura Roz emanated that kept us safe. One blink…two blinks…three blinks later and we were on the shore, and I yawned. We hadn’t been out there long enough for the Ionyc Sea to exert its powerful effects on me, so I hadn’t fallen asleep, but I still felt the drag from it.
Delilah jumped up from where she was sitting on a driftwood log and raced over to us. “Did you find it? Are you okay? Where’s everybody else?” She frantically looked around. “Don’t tell me everybody—”
“Stop. Roz brought me to shore because I have the spirit seal and we didn’t want to chance K’thbar grabbing it. Shade and Shimmer are fighting him right now.”
“Back with Trillian.” Roz vanished again.
Delilah calmed down some, but I knew she was worried about Shade. “He’ll be all right. K’thbar is huge. Only the dragons can fight him. The horn’s drained for this month. I used every ounce of energy to get the spirit seal, and I’m bruised and battered.” Now that I was on shore, I could feel the bruises forming from where I’d blasted through the hull of the ship. I was going to hurt like hell tonight, that was for sure.
“What’s he like?”
I tried to describe what I’d seen. “He’s huge, and I’m not sure he’s fully living on this plane—” I stopped as Roz appeared with Trillian.
“Vanzir’s waiting till I go back for Morio, then he’ll come through on the astral.”
“Are they still fighting?” I wanted Shade and Shimmer to pull back, to withdraw. Chances were K’thbar couldn’t follow us onto land, although Yannie Fin Diver had been able to, and we thought he was water-bound.
“I think so. I don’t know. I’ll be right back.” Roz vanished once again.
Trillian hurried over to me. “Are you okay? I saw you go shooting through the side of that ship and was petrified that you had broken your neck. Or at least a leg or something.”
“Nothing broken that I know of, but I’m sure as hell going to need some pain relievers and a long hot bath. I’m probably black and blue beneath this suit.”
“Did you really hurt yourself that bad?” Delilah asked, turning to me. “Let’s get you out of that wet suit before anything swells and we have to cut it off you.”
I started to protest. How could I leave the shore until we were all back together? But Delilah wrapped an arm around my shoulder and guided me toward the bathroom. Behind us, I heard a noise and glanced over my shoulder to see Vanzir, Roz, and Morio appear. Relieved that they were out of the water, I allowed Delilah to lead me back to the bathroom.
“I hope they’re okay,” she said as she helped strip the wetsuit off of me.
“I do too, Kitten. I do, too.” There weren’t any guarantees I could give. K’thbar probably didn’t have an evil bone in his fishy body, but that didn’t guarantee Shade and Shimmer’s safety. After all, we were the invaders in his territory, and we had stolen from him.
As my skin appeared from beneath the neoprene suit, I winced. The bruises were forming, indeed, up and down my legs and arms, and across my ass—from what Delilah said—and back, where I’d met the hull on my way out. I realized that I was starting to hurt in a major way, and let out a soft groan as she helped me back into my fighting clothes—a black Emma Peel–like jumpsuit, with belt and boots.
“I’d give anything for one of my corsets right now. I think I might have bruised a rib and the compression would feel good.”
“Better you don’t put any compression on it till we get you over to the FH-CSI and have you checked out. You might have a broken rib instead of just bruises.” She gathered my wetsuit and carried it out to her Jeep. I followed more slowly as the stiffness began to set in.
“What’s this spirit seal like?” Delilah leaned against the side of her car.
I glanced around. No one in sight, so I brought it out to show her. The pale lemon stone glistened under the flickering sun that was now playing hopscotch with incoming clouds. They were high, though, and didn’t smell like rain.
“Oh, that’s lovely.” She let out a long sigh. “Do you realize that we’ve managed it? We have collected all nine seals. It’s taken us four years…”
“Four years and far too many losses. But yeah, we have them now.” A commotion down by the water caught my attention and I slid the spirit seal in my bag, along with the horn and the moon snail shell. “Oh hell, look.”
As we watched, Shade and Shimmer came out of the waters, running as they hit the sand. They were in their human forms, and behind them, we could see a series of waves churning dangerously.
“K’thbar is chasing them. Get in your car in case we have to make a beeline out of here.” Delilah shoved me toward my car and I raced to the driver’s seat. The men were running toward us from the beach, and right on their heels, Shimmer and Shade. By the time they reached the car, we could see a form rising out of the water only twenty yards or so out in the sound. K’thbar. But he made no move to come ashore and I prayed that we were right in thinking he couldn’t exist out of water. Everybody packed into the cars, wetsuits and all, and I gunned the motor, heading toward the road that would lead us out of the park. We couldn’t wait around—no taking chances on losing the spirit seal.
“Do you think he’ll cause problems for anybody who comes to the beach?” I asked. “We can’t just run away and not deal with the aftermath, if there is one.”
“I think we can contact Chase and have him talk to the sheriff or cops or whoever’s in charge up here and maybe they can shut down the beach for a few days until things blow over.”
“I’m going to talk to Grandmother Coyote about this,” I said. “I don’t want anybody else hurt if we can help it, and that sucker is now both awake and angry.”<
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With that, I shifted gears and we headed back the way we had come, toward Seattle.
ONCE WE WERE back on the mainland, off the island, we found a service station and stopped to both get gas and give the men a chance to change out of their wetsuits. I stayed in the car, my thoughts back with the Primordial Fae. How many of his kind were out there in the world, sleeping until something startled them awake again? He was huge and deadly, but not evil. Danger didn’t always wear the face of a sociopath or villain.
“You’re worried about K’thbar, aren’t you? That he might rampage across Camano Island?” Trillian asked me as they returned to the car. He was riding shotgun.
I eased back onto the road, maneuvering past a stalled vehicle as I slowed down to make sure nobody was hurt. The driver was standing beside the passenger door and when he saw me, he held up his cell phone and waved me on.
“Yeah, I am. I had hoped to get through this without waking him up, but I have no clue what’s going to happen now. He didn’t come ashore after us, so I’m hoping he really is water-bound, but I don’t want to take any chances.” I fell silent again.
Truth was, I was thinking about more than K’thbar. We now had all nine of the spirit seals. Everything was getting more real by the moment. Once I had the Keraastar Diamond, I had no idea what I was supposed to do about the Keraastar Knights. Everybody seemed to assume that I’d know what to do, but I had no clue. And according to legend, the Knights were supposed to go up against Shadow Wing. If that was true, then did it mean I’d be leading them into battle? There were so many variables to my near future that I wanted to curl up in my bed and just hide until it was over and settled.
But instead of telling him what I was thinking, I just said, “We owe Shimmer a big favor. She put her life on the line for us. We’re going to have to figure out a way to thank her. She doesn’t have a stake in this—not really. And yet she helped us out, and she probably saved my life down there by catching me when the blast shot me through the hull.”
“Speaking of which, how are your bruises feeling?” Morio leaned into the front seat, catching my eye in the rearview mirror.
“Painful. I now know what a battering ram feels like.” I snorted. “It’s an event I could happily go through life without ever experiencing again. And I still have to run with the Hunt tonight.” I had been so rattled that the energy of the approaching full moon hadn’t registered, but now that I was in the car and safe, I began to feel the magnetic call of the Moon Mother.
“I, too, my love,” Morio softly said.
“True.”
Ever since Morio had been initiated as my Priest-Consort under the Moon Mother’s eyes, he had been swept up in the Hunt with me. It was something special we shared, just like I shared a beneath-the-skin connection with Trillian that had been forged years ago during the Eleshinar Ritual, when we had been tattooed body-wide to connect our spirits. The tattoos had faded into our cells, vanishing below the surface of our skin, but the bonding ritual had drawn us together. And with all my husbands, I had been soul-bound. We had chosen to create a quartet that, should one of us be killed, we all would know. As time went on, we would also be able to find the others if they were lost or captured.
My stomach rumbled. “I’m starving. Trillian, grab me a candy bar out of the glove compartment?” I kept a variety of energy bars and candy bars around. Even with half-human heritage, my appetite was huge. All the Fae ate more than humans, and we burned it off.
He fished around in the glove compartment and brought out an Almond Joy, unwrapping it for me and handing me the pieces. I liked sweets, but they weren’t my favorite—I preferred savory—but the energy would do me good and I had developed a taste for the coconut and chocolate mix.
As I ate, my body responded to the food, and finally, I was clear-headed enough to drive the rest of the way home without worrying.
FIRST THING I did was put in a call to Chase and ask him to check with Camano Island to see if there had been any incidents reported at the state park. They had responded no, and so I decided to pay a quick visit to Grandmother Coyote. I entrusted Delilah and the men to watch over the spirit seal while I was gone. I’d take care of my injuries when I returned, I promised them.
Grandmother Coyote lived out in the woods about five miles from our place. There was a turnoff where I could park, and—bruised and battered though I was—I headed through the brush and ferns toward the grove where she lived.
Grandmother Coyote was one of the Hags of Fate—the women who wove destiny into being and who cut the cords when necessary. They never played favorites, and were entrusted to right the balance when the pendulum swung too far either way. They were the female equivalent of the Harvestmen, and together, along with the Elemental Lords and Ladies, were the only true Immortals. Even the gods could fall—and did, at times. Even the gods could die. Now and then, Grandmother Coyote would look into the future, if the time was right and the questioner had a good reason, but she never took action unless there was a necessary reason. And those reasons were known only to her and the other Hags of Fate.
The path to Grandmother Coyote’s lair was through the woods, deep into a grove of cedar and fir. The field before the copse was littered with fallen branches from storms, and with scrub brush that had grown tall over the past four years since I first ventured into meet her. There was nothing pointing the way, no sign or landmark signifying this was her land, but the energy wove a net through the meadow and trees that was unmistakable. It shivered along my skin, tracing patterns up my arms and across the back of my neck like needles of light zapping me gently. Butterfly kisses of magic alerted me that yes, one of the Ancients lived in this woodland, so be very, very respectful.
I passed between two giant cedars and through a stand of huckleberry bushes, finally coming to a narrow dirt path littered with needles from the tall timber. At times, Grandmother Coyote met me in the meadow, but today I could sense she was waiting in her lair.
The early evening light was still bright—dusk came late during the summer months—and it played through the lacework of branches as I wound my way through the woodland. The sound of birdsong filled the air, their echoes ricocheting through the trees with a haunting trill. Bees were still gathering pollen, the fuzzy bumbles darting from flower to flower, their legs heavy with the yellow grains. All along the path, brambles and berry bushes overflowed their patches, blossoms white and open. Waist-high ferns sprawled across the trail, and the scent of moss growing on trees hung heavy in the forest. I stopped for a moment, inhaling deeply, the scent washing over me as it calmed my agitation from the day.
And then, I was there—at the base of Grandmother Coyote’s tree. The trunk was huge, large enough to drive a semi through. I walked up to the massive cedar and placed my hand against the wood, leaning close as I whispered, “It’s Camille. I need to talk to you.”
A moment passed, and then another moment. Then, slowly, a doorway formed in front of me, and the next moment, Grandmother Coyote was standing beside me.
Chapter 7
GRANDMOTHER COYOTE WAS old as the hills. Old as time. The millennia of her life was etched deeply into the roadmap lining her face. She wore a long gray robe that swept around her ankles, and she carried a walking stick. Her eyes glimmered in the early evening light, and tendrils of long white hair peeked from beneath the hood that she always kept over her head. She was ancient, she was, immortal and out of the reach of any weapon. No mortal could harm her, no creature could kill her. Time itself could not touch her, for Grandmother Coyote lived outside of time. Soil-bound to the earth, she still served every realm. No power stood above her, and with her sister Hags of Fate, she was destiny incarnate.
“Camille, you seek my advice, perhaps?” With a crafty smile, she stood back and invited me into her world.
As I entered the tree trunk, the space grew, forming a tunnel with a dirt floor. She led me along the passage while eye catchers lit the way, the faerie lig
hts sparkling and twinkling like orange-sized stars of pink and green and blue and yellow.
I knew this path. I had been along it several times and it felt oddly comforting to me. When I was here, nothing from the outside could penetrate. Nothing could interrupt. The trail led to a cavern at the end, and in the cave was an oaken table and two chairs. The chairs were covered with gnarls and burls, the knots of the wood oddly alive. A crystal ball sat on the table and a bag.
Grandmother Coyote offered me a seat and I cautiously sat down. The chairs had a habit of coming to life, and the arms could easily wrap around one’s waist.
“What do you seek today?”
“Knowledge. I want to know about the Primordial Fae. About one in particular—K’thbar.” I paused, then explained to her what had happened. “We woke him up, and now I’m worried he’ll hurt the people on the island.” I was cautious about asking favors from Grandmother Coyote. There was always a price to pay for her answers and help, but we hadn’t much to go on and my instinct had insisted that I visit her to find out what I could.
She laughed, then. “You know the rules?”
I nodded. “I know.”
“Then draw three bones from the bag and we shall see what we shall see.” She handed me a velvet pouch.
As I took it, the energy clicked and sparked against my fingers. The first time I had been here and told to reach inside the bag, I hadn’t been sure what I’d find. Now, I knew what to expect. I withdrew three bones—and bones they were. Finger bones. And I had brought Grandmother Coyote several of them as payment for other sessions.