Captive (5 page)

He wasn’t in the mood for banter with the succubus. She smiled and licked her lips.
Tristan almost groaned, but from frustration rather than desire, knowing that his
irritation was giving Lana much more pleasure than his body ever could.

“You aren’t supposed to feed on me,” Tristan reminded her. “Get out. Or I’ll be the
one reporting to Bosque about
your
behavior.”

The flicker of wariness in her dark eyes gave Tristan a little satisfaction. He turned
his back on Lana and climbed into bed.

“And turn out the light when you go.”

Tristan stared up at the frescoed ceiling of his bedroom. Even in the darkness he
could make out the grotesque shapes of so many creatures familiar from myth and nightmare.
To anyone else the looming beasts might have been a foil for sleep, but not for Tristan.
The monsters were for others to fear, but for him to command. They lived alongside
him: his protectors, his companions, his concubines. It had always been that way.

So much power lay in his grasp, Tristan thought as he closed his eyes, willing sleep.
Why then did he feel like the captive of his own fate?

DESPITE SARAH’S ASSURANCES
that it was unnecessary, Anika had insisted on accompanying her to Haldis Tactical
and seeing her off.

Micah was waiting for them with Jeremy, who would be weaving Sarah a portal. When
the two women entered the room, Micah gave Jeremy a brief nod. Jeremy avoided meeting
Sarah’s gaze, instead immediately drawing his pair of long, silver skeins through
the air. Threads of light spooled out, forming an intricate pattern as the Weaver
dipped and swirled in the complicated dance that created a doorway from one point
on the Earth to another.

Sarah watched Jeremy’s dance, utterly enrapt by his graceful movements. She’d seen
it done many times before, but its extraordinary beauty never failed to amaze her.

“Careful,” Anika whispered. “You might start drooling.”

Sarah shot her friend a cold glance. Of course Anika would assume that she was staring
at the lithe body of the young man doing the weaving rather than the powerful act
of magic they were witnessing. Anika kept smirking, but Sarah lifted her chin and
continued to watch Jeremy weave, refusing to give Anika any pleasure by blushing or
cringing, and ignoring the annoying little whisper inside her head that insisted Anika’s
assumption was completely accurate.

Soon Jeremy was panting and beads of sweat had formed on his temples, then his movements
slowed and then halted altogether. The gleaming chaos of color and light suddenly
revealed a clear image. A rocky shoreline and a storm-ridden sea.

“Ireland is nine hours ahead of the Roving Academy’s current location,” Micah told
Sarah. “Our civilian contact, Ian, will be waiting for you on the other side of the
portal. If all goes well, you’ll be back here for a debriefing in forty-eight hours.”

Sarah nodded, zipping up her leather jacket so the harness that held her silver throwing
daggers would be hidden from view.

“I’m afraid the first-class cabin checked in full, darlin’,” Jeremy said as she approached
the portal. “You’ll have to fly coach.”

Jeremy flashed a teasing smile, but he couldn’t hide the hurt feelings that just reached
his eyes. Anika gave Sarah a sharp elbow in the ribs, which Sarah ignored. She did
give Jeremy a second look, though, and had to admit he was rather drool-worthy. Sarah
hadn’t confessed to her friend what had happened with Jeremy. She still felt too embarrassed
and guilty about it.

Sarah wondered briefly how Anika would have reacted, but it was too late for that.
She probably would have told Sarah she should have just fucked him anyway, and that
wasn’t something Sarah needed to hear at the moment.

Sarah’s thought carried a bit of chagrin but didn’t make her overly morose. High risk
came with their work; Strikers lived fast and hard. If she had truly wanted to sleep
with Jeremy before this mission, she could have.

And she had no time for lingering regrets now.

She took another step forward, but Anika grasped her arm. Sarah was afraid to meet
her friend’s gaze, but Anika simply gave her a tight smile and said, “Good luck.”

Sarah did her best to return Anika’s smile. Not wanting this departure to last any
longer, Sarah turned back to the portal and stepped into its light.

“It’s about time!”

Sarah found herself face-to-face with a dark-haired, heavy-bearded man. She could
barely hear him over the howling wind. At her back, the portal closed, its light vanishing
like a candle flame snuffed out. The sudden darkness seemed to make the wind’s screams
louder and the night air much colder.

The man pointed to a small, boxy car parked on the side of the narrow lane. “Let’s
get going.”

Somewhat bewildered, Sarah followed the man to the car and climbed into the passenger
seat. When the doors were closed and the wind muffled, Sarah asked, “You’re Ian?”

“And you’re Sarah,” Ian replied as the car’s engine rumbled to life. “And you’re late.
Do your folk always dawdle when it comes to magical transport? Don’t you think it’s
a bit off to just leave a door bright as the sun sitting open for five minutes? What
if someone had come along?”

“That’s why we only open portals in remote or well-hidden locations,” Sarah answered
defensively.

“Hmpf.” Ian gunned the engine and then they were hurtling down the country road at
an alarming speed.

Sarah first wondered when the road had last been paved, then whether it had been paved
at all. She also wondered if Ian’s car had any shocks.

“The fisherman who’s agreed to take you across the channel won’t be happy if we’re
late,” Ian said. “And we certainly won’t find another volunteer. It was hard enough
to get this one to agree, and I’m sure what we’re paying is more money than he’d see
in a year.”

“Is the crossing that dangerous?” Sarah yelped as the car hit a bump so hard that
her head slammed against the roof.

Ian didn’t bother to ask if she was all right. “The crossing isn’t the issue. It’s
the island. These old villages have their superstitions. You know how it is.”

Sarah really didn’t know how it was, but she wasn’t particularly inclined to continue
the conversation. She was mostly concerned about making it to the village without
a concussion.

“You have my gear?” Sarah asked, hoping the change in subject would take the edge
off Ian’s mood.

Ian jerked his thumb toward the backseat. Sarah craned her neck to see the ropes and
holds she’d need to scale the seawall. The sight of familiar equipment eased some
of Sarah’s trepidation.

Since Ian was fully immersed in his mad driving, Sarah took a moment to survey the
man. He was middle-aged, with thick, bushy hair and an equally thick body to match.

“How did you become one of our contacts?” Sarah asked.

Ian cast a sidelong glance at her. “They didn’t tell you?”

Sarah shook her head. “I’m just told where to go and who to meet. No backstory required.”

Hunching over the steering wheel, Ian went quiet and Sarah thought he’d decided not
to answer her, but a moment later he said, “My wife, Adele, loved to sail. She didn’t
feel right on land. I used to call her my selkie.”

He gripped the steering wheel tightly. “About three years ago she got it in her mind
that she wanted to chart all the islands along the southwest coast in the hopes of
organizing a point-to-point race around them. We lived two counties north of here.
She started from our home port of Tralee and I kept pace with her on land, meeting
her at each port and resupplying her boat. But when I arrived in this village, she
hadn’t made the port yet. So I waited. But she never appeared.”

Sarah barely noticed the bumps on the road as she watched Ian’s face contort with
grief.

“The Coast Guard found her boat adrift in the channel three days after she was meant
to meet me. They could find no damage to the boat, but Adele wasn’t aboard. She’d
vanished. They concluded that she’d fallen overboard and drowned, but I couldn’t believe
it. So I stayed in the village, believing that Adele might be found. I couldn’t go
home without her.

“First it was days. Then weeks,” Ian said. “I left my job, our flat, and found whatever
work I could in the village. Nearly four months had passed when one morning I found
a letter under the door of my hotel room. It said that if I wanted to know what happened
to Adele I should go the fishmonger and ask for the midnight catch.”

“The ‘midnight catch’?” Sarah watched as Ian’s lips twisted in a self-mocking sneer.

“A code phrase, of course,” he told her. “But at first I was sure it was a cruel prank.
I was well known throughout the village as the obsessed, mad husband whose wife had
drowned in the channel. I thought someone was having a laugh over my suffering. For
a few days I ignored the message, but eventually even the risk of humiliation was
outweighed by the chance that someone might have answers for me.

“Feeling half a fool, and half a nutter, I went to the fishmonger and asked for the
midnight catch. The man said nothing, just pointed to a door behind his counter. I
began to wonder if I wasn’t just foolish, but perhaps had a death wish—though it didn’t
stop me from going through that door. Stairs took me into a cellar, but no one was
waiting for me. There was, however, another door, which opened into a passage. It
was soon clear that I was moving beneath the village, away from the fishmonger’s shop.
The next door I reached was locked. I knocked and a woman’s voice answered: ‘You lost?’
‘I’m looking for the midnight catch,’ I told her. The door opened.”

Sarah shifted in the passenger seat; she knew where Ian’s story was headed yet still
found it unsettling. This was always the way civilians were recruited to the Searchers’
cause—hapless souls caught in the crossfire of a war they’d never known about until
it took something, or more often someone, from them.

Still swimming in his own memories, Ian spoke quietly. “The woman wasn’t alone. There
was a man with her. He was sitting at a small table with two empty chairs waiting.”

Ian hesitated, then laughed. “I almost ran. The way they were dressed. All that dark
leather and barely hidden weapons. They looked more dangerous than a pack of wolves.”

“We try to be,” Sarah commented drily.

“So I hear.” Ian looked askance at her. “Though I’m thankful not to have seen a Guardian.”

Sarah nodded, briefly wondering if she’d encounter any of the wolf warriors during
her reconnaissance. It would be much better if she didn’t, Sarah knew. She was there
for answers, not for a fight. Even so, she reached out to run her fingers over the
harness that held her throwing knives.

“You probably know the rest.” Ian sighed. “They told me about your war. About witches
and the nightmares they command trying to infest our world. That this all started
because there’s a crack between our world and theirs, and your side is trying to close
it, while theirs wants to keep it open.

“And they told me that the war had killed my wife. More specifically, that their enemies,
who they called Keepers, were responsible for her death.”

“You believed them?” Sarah had been born into the world of Searchers and Keepers,
raised with the constant drone of the Witches War humming in the background of her
life. The reality of magic and monsters had always been with her. But for someone
like Ian, the darkness Sarah knew could only sound like madness.

Ian grimaced as he steered the car onto the narrow streets of the dimly lit village.
“I didn’t want to. Over and over I told myself to turn around, get out of that hidden
room, and never look back. But I couldn’t.”

His sudden bark of a laugh made Sarah flinch.

“Of course, it helped when they made a door out of nothing that opened halfway across
the world. Seeing is believing, as they say.”

“True enough,” Sarah murmured.

The car slowed and Ian parked alongside the village quay. Even before she opened the
passenger door, Sarah could hear waves crashing against the rough shore. As soon as
the engine quieted, Sarah saw a lumpy shadow moving in the night toward the car.

“That’ll be our man,” Ian said, opening the door to climb out of the car. Sarah pushed
hard against the wind to get her own door open and scrambled from the seat. A gale
shrieked around them as Ian trudged over to meet the fisherman. Sarah opened the door
to the backseat and zipped up the waterproof duffel that held her climbing gear.

When Sarah joined the two men they were already deep in conversation, but she couldn’t
follow their words, as the fisherman seemed to be a native Gaelic-speaker. Ian gestured
to Sarah. It was too dark for Sarah to make out many of the fisherman’s features,
but even in the dim light she could see the lines that years of wind on the open sea
had carved into his face. She opened her mouth to greet him, but when the fisherman’s
milky eyes met Sarah’s, she flinched. He turned to Ian, speaking rapidly.

“What is it?” Sarah asked.

Ian lifted his hand, signaling her to be silent. He spoke to the fisherman again,
his voice hard.

The fisherman shook his head and wagged his finger at Sarah.

Ian lowered his voice and bowed his head close to the old man’s ear. The fisherman’s
shoulders lifted and fell with a sigh of resignation. He turned and stomped back along
the quay to board his vessel.

“Come on.” Ian began to follow.

“What was that about?” Sarah asked as she walked beside him.

Ian cast a sidelong glance at her. “He didn’t want to take you.”

“I thought arrangements had already been made for my transport.” Sarah looked ahead.
The old fisherman was casting off lines to prepare for their voyage. Whatever the
issue had been, Ian had apparently resolved it.

“They were,” Ian told her. “But when he saw that you’re young—and a woman—he wanted
to back out.”

“I can handle myself,” Sarah said, bristling. “It’s just a reconnaissance mission.
To find out what’s on that island.”

“No one comes back from the island.” Ian had spoken so softly, Sarah wasn’t certain
she’d heard him correctly.

“Sorry?”

“The fisherman doesn’t want to take you because, as he said, ‘No one comes back from
the island,’” Ian said, looking furtively at Sarah. “But I suppose that’s why you’re
going. To find out why no one comes back.” As if to himself, Ian added, “Why my wife
never came back.”

“Something like that,” Sarah answered uneasily. Her mouth had gone dry. All the bravado
she’d felt at the Academy was withering in the face of the rough seas, the fear in
the fisherman’s gaze, and the weight of responsibility transferred from Ian’s sorrow.

The fact that the fisherman’s boat appeared older and more worn than its owner didn’t
do anything to reassure her. Even docked the boat tipped precariously from side to
side as it was buffeted by the rough waves. The captain was already aboard, casting
lines and prepping the craft, though making no acknowledgment of Sarah as she clambered
onto the boat.