Turning Tides (12 page)

I touched the water first, felt its familiar greeting, then skipped over it to the fire. It wasn’t a conscious decision, but as soon as I did it, I knew it was the right one. The fire filled me with energy and focus, narrowing my world to nothing but the quiet breathing of the person in the doorway.

“You know I can see your shoes, right?”

My breath expelled in a rush. I flung the curtains aside, the better to glare at the naked cat shifter looking back at me.

“What are you doing here? Sneaking around the hallway like some thief? I was inches from burning you in a panic.”

Simon shrugged, unconcerned. “I was not trying to sneak. I can’t help it. I’m slinky by nature. And you should not be burning anyone, as we both know.”

My heart began to calm, though my brain was still trying to send the message to my adrenaline that it was safe to resume normal activity.

“Fair enough. Still, what are you doing here?”

“The same thing as you, I suspect. Plus, the island has the distinct advantage of not being a boat. I am attempting to prove Sera’s innocence immediately, so we can all resume living in houses that are not surrounded by water.” He wrinkled his nose, disgusted by the mere existence of houseboats.

“I won’t turn down help, even if I owe you major payback for scaring the hell out of me. Something involving a big dog, I think.” I glanced at my phone. “But we only have about twenty minutes before they return, and I haven’t found a damn thing yet. Do you have clothes you can wear?”

He gave me the exasperated look he always did when I suggested there was any problem with him parading around in his birthday suit. As usual, he ignored the question. “This is the room of the dead woman?” I nodded. “We must assume they would have found any incriminating evidence already, if it existed.”

Reluctantly, I admitted he was right. The room held nothing but the possessions of a woman who was never coming back for them.

I led him to the last bedroom, this one decorated in lavender, both the color and the plant. Much like the others, it was pristine, though this one at least held a laptop computer.

I recognized one outfit hanging in the closet, the linen pantsuit she’d worn yesterday while dealing with Robin’s murder. We were in Rachel Strait’s room.

With only one laptop in all the rooms, it seemed likely this was a shared computer for the council, rather than a personal one. Rachel probably claimed it the same time she claimed her new role as council leader.

“We need to get those files.” I hadn’t finished the sentence before Simon opened the laptop. The computer hadn’t been shut down, but it was password-protected. “Damn. I don’t suppose you can channel Vivian?”

His face darkened for a moment. Simon had a unique bond with Vivian, and I suspected he missed her even more than the rest of us did. “Is she answering calls yet?”

“Barely. She says she’ll help until Sera’s safe, then she’s out.”

Simon closed the computer, returning it to its original position. “If we can get the IP address, that will give Vivian a place to start.”

“Vivian is already looking into something, and she didn’t seem too enthusiastic about even doing that. It’s that whole space thing, you know.”

“Sera’s life is on the line. Perhaps we can worry about Vivian’s boundaries after we learn what is happening here.” There was an uncommon bite to his words, and it wasn’t directed at me. Simon had asked for space, too, but he’d given it up the moment his friends needed him. I suspected he would have some strong words for Vivian the next time he saw her. “Now, the IP address?”

I gave him my best blank look. My friends knew, if they were going to talk computers around me, they had to use small words that could all be found in a dictionary from the mid-90s.

“All computers have one. It is a way of identifying the various machines. A variation on the same address will be used by any computer accessing the internet through the same modem. Does your grandmother have a computer?”

Grams still referred to microwaves as “those new-fangled devices” and refused to have one in her house, so I wasn’t optimistic.

Much to my surprise, I was wrong. We had to explore several downstairs rooms before we found it, but there was a desktop computer tucked away in a corner of the library. It was only a few years old, and the spotless screen and keyboard suggested it hadn’t seen much use. Still, it was a computer.

Simon booted it up while I perused the shelves. For a woman who still considered the Roaring 20s the height of modernity, she’d managed to acquire an impressive collection of books from the last century. Though the lower shelves were filled with respectable classics and award winners, the higher shelves, the ones reached only by ladder, contained a more varied selection. I snagged a couple that caught my eye, dropping them into my purse.

“You may not want to do that. It appears she uses this computer only to catalog her books and might notice they’re missing.”

“I’ll confess the next time I see her. Is it connected to the internet?” I stood behind him, watching him navigate various computer programs.

Simon double-clicked the internet browser on the desktop. It opened to the homepage for the Elliott Bay Book Company, and we both sagged in relief. “Fortunately, your relative has accepted that the modern age has benefits for the book lover.” He closed the browser window and opened another program full of information I didn’t understand. “Paper?”

Grams kept the surface of her desk as tidy as the rest of the house, but the drawers were far less organized. I rifled through one of them and found several unopened envelopes, most of which were intent on offering her fabulous and improved cellular phone service. I sliced one of these open with a letter opener and handed Simon the empty envelope, then returned the junk mail to her desk, just in case she was saving it for some reason.

Simon scribbled a series of numbers on the paper, then glanced down, as if looking for a place where he could store it.

Rather than ask him to carry it in an unpleasant location, I took it from him and tucked it into my jeans pocket.

“Is there anything else you still need to look for?” Simon asked.

I looked at my phone. Only ten minutes to go. “We better leave. Let’s just hope Vivian finds something good on the computer.”

We started toward the foyer but pulled up short when the front door silently slid inward.

Chapter 12

I didn’t wait to see
who it was. Instead, I lunged for the window and pulled the floor-to-ceiling curtain closed. It was a bay window, so I perched on the ledge, remembering to lift my feet this time.

Simon wasn’t next to me. I risked a peek around the curtain in time to see a black cat scramble up the ladder and settle himself in a dark corner of the highest shelf. Other than the glint of his green eyes, he was practically invisible.

I strained my ears, trying to discover who’d entered the house. I thought I heard more than one pair of footsteps in the foyer, which was confirmed when several voices reached the library.

They were two steps inside the door before they started arguing. “I don’t understand why he’s still here. Who does that man think he is?” Michael Bay asked.

“He thinks he’s one of the oldest and most powerful elementals in existence. He’s not wrong, either.” I recognized Lydia Pond, as usual sounding like the resident voice of reason.

No one made any effort to move from the foyer. One by one, they allowed their words to pour forth, arguments that had likely been growing and gathering weight and rage ever since they parted from Josiah.

“Not more so than Deborah. He’s just one man. Why should we jump through his hoops?”

“Perhaps we are of an age,” said Deborah, “but I would not wish to pit my power against his. Do we even have any notes on this case?”

“We hardly thought we needed them. It was clear to everyone in attendance that his daughter caused the fire.” There was no mistaking Rachel Strait’s imperious tone. “I will write something up this evening and deliver it to him. We will not have him arguing this was improperly handled. The girl’s trial is tomorrow, and then we can return to the issue of the Brook child.”

“And then we can get off this island, right?” Michael asked.

“Are we really in such a rush to convict? Our verdict will lead to a death sentence. We can’t take that lightly. Don’t we owe it to ourselves, to the elementals for whom we are responsible, to treat our duty with the weight and honor it deserves? To truly consider what we plan to do to Aidan Brook?” Lydia Pond spoke quietly, but there was no missing her beseeching tone.

Blood rushed to my face at her words. I fought to remain still when every muscle in my body yearned to jump out and demand they explain what, exactly, they had planned for my future.

Grams couldn’t be with them. They’d never talk this way if she was there. It was just the four remaining council members.

With every mention of my intended sentence, I became more certain it was something to be avoided at all costs.

I thought of Edith and wondered if my fate had been something worth dying for.

My fire stretched, reminding me of its presence, reminding me that I didn’t need to meekly accept whatever punishment they had planned. My core warmed, filling with the power and strength of forbidden magic.

Impatience colored Rachel’s words. “We’ve had this discussion, and we voted. We voted with Edith, and we voted again after she was killed. The decision was made, and it is past time you accepted that, Lydia. We all know this is our best chance to do this.”

Before, I’d been concerned. Rachel’s words pushed me into “downright disturbed” with the needle edging toward “really fucking pissed.” Whatever they were planning, all my instincts screamed that I needed to stop them, any way I could.

There were murmurs and a bit of grumbling, but no one argued. No one fought against this mysterious sentence. No one stood up for me, not even Lydia.

My fire side was not impressed.

It growled and spat, no longer quiescent. In the face of a perceived threat, it wasn’t content to rest until I called on it. It whispered a solution, one so foreign and impossible I wanted to believe it came from elsewhere, from someone else. I couldn’t be the one thinking this.

And yet, I was.

I could end this, right here. All I needed to do was give the fire free rein to attack Rachel. I could blacken her heart, roast her lungs, turn her insides to ash. I knew I could. Just the thought was enough for the magic to roar in triumph.

I gasped at its power and fought against it for the first time in weeks. I imagined the box where I used to trap it, where I would keep my fire separate, and I demanded it return.

It refused.

The fire knew exactly what should happen. It would only take one dead body. If Rachel fell while Sera was safely tucked away on the other side of the island, no one could say she was guilty.

If Rachel fell before my sentence was read, they wouldn’t have the numbers necessary to complete my farce of a trial.

It would solve all our problems. All I needed to do was kill one unpleasant woman.

I narrowed my focus on Rachel’s voice, following her as she moved toward the stairs and dropped first one foot, then another onto the marble. It would be so simple to end her life. I’d need to be fast, before anyone understood what was happening and attempted to heal her, but I could do that. Though I tried to deny it every day, I knew I was a strong fire. I was Josiah’s half-blooded daughter, after all.

I felt the magic uncoil, greedy and willful. It wanted release. It wanted payback for a lifetime of being ignored, for being denied access to its element. More than anything, it wanted to burn, and it agreed that Rachel was a damn good place to start.

I thought I’d found some measure of peace with my magic. I thought I might control it.

I was wrong.

The magic poured forth, freeing itself from the confines of my body. A small voice whispered that I needed to stop, to consider what I was doing, but that voice was no longer in charge. Fire ruled me now, and it had no interest in debating its plans.

The magic was not subtle. It did not flow toward Strait along a gentle path, as the water might. It surged toward her, hungry tendrils seeking their target. She was twenty feet away, then ten, then only inches from the fire.

I wanted the flames to consume her. Fire is heat and life, but it is also change and destruction, and I longed to watch and laugh while Rachel succumbed to its power.

I exhaled in pleasure.

I was so lost in the moment, the noise hit me like a physical assault, bludgeoning me with its high-pitched demand for my attention. My alarm, telling me it was time to get out of the house.

Though it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, I felt days pass, time stretching to impossible lengths as I was torn from my fire-induced stupor. I blinked and drew in a long, shaky breath.

My water side surged and rolled, demanding my attention. It was almost enough to remember who I was. I yanked on the fire magic, pulling it hard to me. It resisted. It still wanted to feed.

A shadow dropped over my mind, its inky tentacles threatening to consume the light I knew.

I called to the magic again, putting the entirety of my will into the action. All my determination, all my stubbornness fed the command, ordering the fire to return. At last it came, sullen and reluctant, but it refused to be put back into its neat box. It whispered through my core, unwilling to be silent. It dared me to believe I’d ever been in control.

The fire mingled with the water, the two magics speaking to each other in a language I didn’t understand and could not trust. I wrenched them apart. I called on memories of my friends and home and even my family, all the reasons I needed to fight, and after the longest moment of my life, the magic settled.

The shadow receded. I felt myself return. I was still me, and I wasn’t a murderer. Not this time.

I swiped the screen, silencing the beeping tone, but it was too late. Footsteps turned toward the library, the clack of heels telling me Rachel was leading the parade of council members. It wouldn’t take more than a cursory search for them to find me.

Maybe I could have justified visiting my own relative’s house while she wasn’t there. It would be a fair bit harder to explain why I was hiding behind a curtain while doing so.

I rifled through my brain, looking for any possible excuse for my presence. I made it as far as bay window fetishist before I was spared the need to defend myself by a black cat hurtling toward the council members.

Though I dared not peek around the curtains, the sound effects were more than enough to fill in the missing visuals. The high-pitched yowl of an angry cat, starting from high in the shelves and arcing down to the floor. The startled exclamations from the four people in the doorway as the small body darted between their legs, escaping the room and fleeing upstairs, all the while making high pitched noises one might confuse for the beeping of a cell phone.

The council questioned where on earth that cat had come from, but already they were laughing at their surprise. The clack of high heels was no longer in the library, and as I waited, the council members headed upstairs to their rooms.

A few seconds later, I peeked around the curtain to confirm I was alone, then raced to the front door. I don’t think I took a single breath as I crossed the foyer, my rubber-soled sneakers far quieter against the marble than Rachel’s heels.

I opened the door just enough to slide through and closed it gently. Even so, the click of the latch sounded impossibly loud, and I pressed myself against the house, fearful someone would look out an upstairs window and see me fleeing. I counted to five, then slid to the west side, where the only windows were in the garage and the billiards room on the second floor. I had to trust that a meeting with Josiah wouldn’t inspire a sudden need to play pool.

I strained my ears toward the house, but all was silent.

At last, I stepped away from the house. With each step, I grew more confident as I made the effort to look like I belonged there and absolutely had not been up to any sort of breaking, entering, or attempted murder on that particular day. At some point, a small black cat appeared at my side, and together we strolled along the northern shore, doing our best to look perfectly innocent.

I was anything but.

With each step that took us closer to the cottage, some facsimile of calm returned. My magic felt just as it had an hour ago, but I knew. I knew what it was capable of now. I knew what
I
was capable of doing.

That was the woman I was edging closer to every day. Cruel, unrepentant, and more powerful than she had any right to be.

It was why there was a death sentence imposed on all dual magics, and I couldn’t blame them.

I wanted to find a dark corner, curl up in a ball, and give in to the fear and panic threatening to consume me. I didn’t know how to paste on a smile and pretend everything was okay, but I had to figure it out damn fast. Sera still needed me, and Mac. I could go crazy later. First, I had to save them.

And maybe, just maybe, if I did that, everything would be okay.

At least, that’s what I told myself as I walked to the cottage, clutching the tattered shreds of my sanity the entire way.

When we neared
the cottage but before we were in camera range, I placed my
purse on the ground for Simon to jump into. Though the look he gave me was scornful as only a cat’s can be, he didn’t argue, so there was no photographic evidence that a small black cat entered the house along with me.

His reunion with Sera was brief but sweet, though I was certain they’d both reject that adjective. They lifted the corners of their mouths slightly and nodded, acknowledging the other’s presence.

“I knew you couldn’t stay away,” Sera told him.

Simon grabbed a blanket and spread it on the sofa before curling up, a small concession to us weird elementals who preferred not to have butt sweat on our furniture. “I’m fairly certain it’s the other way around. You lot are useless without my help.”

After the last twenty-four hours, I couldn’t even argue that point.

I handed them the IP address. Vivian didn’t answer when they pinged her in chat, and she didn’t pick up the phone, so they sent her an email, arguing the entire time about what information they should include and how much grief they should give her about her continued silence. I figured, so long as they were the ones contacting her instead of me, I was sticking to the letter of her request for distance, if not the spirit.

Neither noticed how quiet I was. I watched them, these friends I loved, and tried to burn their images into my memories, a reminder of something good and pure to cling to when my mind had little interest in being either good or pure.

It was starting. The fire was done being quiet. I’d called on it too many times, granted it too much freedom. The schism was forming in my mind, the use of both magics creating a dual self. For now, it was just the fire side that lacked a conscience, likely because I’d never learned to control it, but it was only a matter of time before the damage seeped into my water side, as well.

I’d dared believe I had it under control, but this afternoon exploded that particular self-delusion. I didn’t control the magic. The magic was beginning to control me.

I needed to tell someone. I’d vowed to give up that whole “no man is an island” thing right around the time I burned down my house in Oregon. I just had no idea where to begin.

If I told either of my parents, they’d lock me in a padded room for the rest of my life, safe from anything that could ever harm me, including myself.

Josiah might be more creative. He would move me to his Hawaiian compound, as he’d tried to do on more than one occasion, where I’d be subjected to all sorts of tests intended to save me, if I didn’t mind being a lab rat for centuries to come.

Once Mac knew what I was becoming, I’d lose him, and I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t ready for whatever we were to end before we’d truly begun.

Mac was the last one. He was the last man I’d know, that I’d care for, that I’d be with, before the crazy fully took over. Fair or not, I needed that. I needed one night with him, one night when I could pretend forever was still an option, and then I’d tell him. And if that was playing dirty, I’d happily roll in the muck with the pigs to have just a few more days with that man.