Dark Waters (Celtic Legacy Book 1) (4 page)

Eyes closed tight, I fought like a wild thing, thrashing and punching at whatever it was that had me in its grip. And then, for no reason I could see, it let go; I swam for the surface. Gasping for air I looked around. I’d been pulled out to sea. Way out.

I spun and something bumped me in the back. A shark; it was testing me out for a meal. My heart about to burst, I spun to face Ashling’s surfboard. One of her hands gripped the edge of it, white knuckles bobbing in and out of the water, the surfboard actually getting pulled under with her; the sight broke my paralysis. Her head was submerged except for the ends of her hair, which floated on the surface. Something cold and slimy brushed against my legs and I bit down on a scream that made it all the way to my lips before I caught it. Salt water slipped inside my mouth; I spit it out and slid around the side of the board, but not before she lost her grip and disappeared under the water.

“
Ashling!” I screamed. My voice echoed out over the water, but the only answer I got was the gulls crying over head.

Looking down, I couldn’t see anything below me; I could barely see my feet. Breathing deep, I prepped myself to dive, but on the second gulp of air the choice was taken from me.

Teeth latched onto my calf yanking me under the water, my hands slipping from the surfboard. The bite was all too familiar. Apparently I’d been wrong; there
were
sharks in these waters. Serrated teeth sliced through my flesh, biting all the way through the muscle, my foot clamped inside a powerful set of jaws.

My first thought was that Mom couldn’t be upset with me now for losing Ashling, not if we were both gone, that was, if she didn’t celebrate her liberation from her children. My second thought as I rolled in the water—the pain drawing my eyes to its source—was that I’d lost my mind.

It was no shark on my leg. It was a monster, human in appearance with a single eye set high in the middle of its forehead, and a massive mouth filled with sharp, shark-like teeth. The thing smiled as its hands, hooked like claws, rose up to dig into the waist of my neoprene wetsuit. The jagged tips brushed against my bare skin inside the suit, and I trembled with fear, a new fear. What the hell was it?

“
Can you hear me little Tuatha? I wonder if you know me deep in your soul? We are coming for you. All of you.”

I blinked and stared into the huge, soulless eye; felt the keen edge of years behind it, and, as much as I wanted to deny what I was hearing, acknowledged that the voice in my head wasn’t my own. It was the monster’s.

What are you? I mouthed into the water, salty brine washing over my taste buds, morbid curiosity overcoming rational sense.

“
I am your enemy, the one that will strip your flesh from your bones and bathe in your blood.”
The voice was masculine, deep and resonant within my head. I wanted to push it out of my mind.

It—he—rumbled and rolled in the water, taking me with him, end over end until I no longer knew which way was up. Finally he stopped and began to pull me into the depths of the ocean, the water getting colder with each inch we moved deeper, away from the sun and air.

Air. How could I still be under the water and not need to breathe? As soon as the thought came, it was gone; I didn’t have time to think about that, as strange as it seemed.

Movement further below and to the right stole my attention away from my own situation. It was Ashling, fighting with a monster very much like the one on my own leg. They were tumbling in the water, her hair floating about like tentacles as she fought the thing off. How could she be in this deep, for this long? How could I? Again that once hollow piece of me responded. This was why we’d never fit in, these abilities, this magic, these monsters. Though my head said that none of this was real, my heart and soul spoke louder.

This was real, this was happening, and if I was to save Ashling I had to move now. That thought broke through the last of my fear, its hold dissolving within the reality I had accepted.

I grabbed my knife out of the sheath and slashed at the monster that held me in his mouth, slicing through the bulbous eye, white fluid pouring out of it. He jerked away from me, releasing my leg—a spray of blood clouding out around me—as he writhed in the water

He screamed, wordlessly, the echo of his pain reverberating in my skull.

Turning my back on him, I swam hard towards Ashling, holding the knife in my mouth. Twenty feet, fifteen, ten. I was nearly to her before she looked up.

She saw me coming and kicked the monster that held her tight, sending it into a spin away from her. Ashling swam for me, her lips tight, eyes wide and dilated. Five feet. Three. I reached for her, my hand wrapping around her slender wrist. I didn’t pause, just turned and started to swim for the surface. Together we swam hard neither of us looking back.

“
She is ours, you will not have her!”

We were yanked to a stop in mid-stroke, the surface only a few feet away, the sunlight streaming down through the waves with tantalizing nearness. I turned in the water and looked down. Ashling had a sea monster on each leg. Her pale green eyes were so wide they seemed to fill her face as the creatures jerked her from my hands and sped back into the depths faster than a rock sinking. Her hands reached for me, futilely.

Before I could even consider diving down after her, hands grabbed me and pulled me upwards, away from Ashling, and out of the water.

“
No!” I screamed as I broke the surface, the last of my air erupting in denial. There were people all over the water; rescuers dove after Ashling. But I knew what they didn’t. They would never find her; somehow I knew that not only had my sister been stolen away, but my world had just shattered beyond repair.

And it was all my fault.

~~

5

“
Shark attack? Out here? You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“
Just look at the girl’s leg, there is nothing else that bites like that. And the instructor said he saw a fin right before the attack.”

I turned from the open window to see that the source of the whispering was two nurses outside my room. I’d been rushed to the hospital, my leg bleeding profusely. The paramedics had wrapped my leg and now I was waiting for the doctor to come and stitch me up

I let out a barking laugh; even I could hear the hysteria in it. “He’s lying, there was no shark.” The nurses spun towards me, their eyebrows raised and their mouths hanging open in unison. The chubby brunette pulled it together first. “My dear,” she said. “What was it that attacked you if it wasn’t a shark?

I was saved from having to reply by the doctor’s arrival. The nurse lifted the blanket off my leg and started to unwrap the gauze. She had barely uncovered the top of the wound when she stopped with a gasp. She regained her composure quickly and pulled the bandage completely off. The bite marks were a mirror image of the scars on my other leg. In fact, they were identical to the scars on my other leg—completely healed.

My mind scuttled back to what Grandpa had done to me. Was this part of what it meant to be Quickened? An increase in the speed of how your body healed? I shivered and looked at the doctor.

He stood beside me, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. “Mary, go call Constable Pollett. He’ll want to speak with her.”

I didn’t understand what was going on. Why would they need the police here? Shouldn’t they all be at the beach, looking for clues?

“
A shark was it?” he said, a patronizing look on his face. I had the sudden urge to slap him. “It wasn’t a shark, it was . . .” I paused. I didn’t really know what the two monsters were; I had no name for them. And how was I to explain what I saw? They would blame my crazy descriptions on the fear and my past experiences. Or even my family history. Maybe Grandpa wasn’t as crazy as we’d thought. Or maybe I was about to join him at the Pavilion.

“
It wasn’t a shark,” I said again, sticking to the one part I knew for sure.

“
Your instructor said he saw the fin; perhaps you just got confused when you were tumbled by a wave.” His words were kind, but his eyes were dagger-like. What was his problem? “You stay here, we need to give you a full once over before we release you.” He flipped the blanket back over my leg, shot me another dirty look and walked away. What the hell was that all about?

I sat there, and who should walk in but Luke. He strolled down the hallway, then leaned against the cream coloured wall about ten feet from me. He was still in his wetsuit—though it was pulled down to his waist, revealing chiselled abs and chest that any woman would die to have at her beck and call. His shimmering blond hair seemed duller under the fluorescents. The nurses twittered and blushed under his smile. I stared at his leg where I’d stabbed him. There was no wound, it was if nothing had happened.

“
You son of a bitch!” I said, as I struggled off the bed, scrambling once more for my knife. The nurses tried to tackle me but I pushed them off as I fought my way towards Luke. He didn’t seem perturbed at all; in fact, the bastard seemed to be enjoying the show.

The brunette panted as she tried to twist my arm around and under me. The other nurse just grunted as I dragged them both with me, like children that were demanding my attention by hanging off my limbs.

When had I gotten so strong? Again I thought of Grandpa, his Quickening of me. This all tied in. My strength, my healing, the ability to breathe underwater. Even fighting off whatever power Luke had tried to use on me. All if it was tied into what Grandpa had done; this feeling that I was somehow whole, that all the pieces were fitting inside of me.

“
Leave her to me,” Luke said, his voice soothing, his hands warm as he gripped my wrists.

“
We should leave her to him,” The brunette said and the other nurse nodded as they stood, brushed themselves off and walked down the hallway, their eyes glazed.

“
Listen here Obi-Wan, what did you do to them?” I tried to wave in the direction of the nurses, but my hands were trapped in his steady grip.

“
You have to trust me on this Quinn. I will explain this all to you, I promise, but not here, not now.” His eyes bore into mine as if the intensity of his gaze could convince me. I glared at him; I was tempted to spit in his face.

“
You stopped me from saving her. And what the hell did you mean by its better this way?” I said, my jaw tight and my hands clenched in fists. His thumbs attempted to work their magic on my forearms, but I would have none of it. I jerked my body away from him, stumbled on my bitten leg as a nerve pinched, and fell to the cold hard linoleum. I bit down on a whimper that tried to escape, as my leg throbbed in time with my heartbeat.

Luke crouched beside me, though he didn’t touch me. “You were lucky they didn’t take you too. If they’d known who you were they would have gone for you first. I wasn’t sure that they were even there, but now we know that they have indeed resurfaced.”

I stared up at him in confusion, seeking his eyes for the truth. He still hadn’t answered my question. I didn’t know what to think, could barely grasp what was happening. Nothing—from what I’d seen in the water to how Luke’s kiss had affected me, even the way the nurses obeyed him—had gone right since we set foot on that beach, and Luke was a part of it all.

I made a move to stand and he offered me his hand. Ignoring him, I pulled myself to my feet and slid back onto the bed. My leg ached, even though it had healed. I didn’t care what anyone else said, I would not believe Ashling dead till I saw her body with my own eyes. She wasn’t dead, couldn’t be, even though the facts wanted me to believe otherwise. Even as the monstrosities had dragged her downwards, she’d been alive.

Two police officers came in, and Luke stepped back from me, his face going smooth, and a small line of consternation appearing on his forehead. It actually made him look better, more real and not so otherworldly beautiful.

The officers questioned me about the “incident” and finally the tears came. Sobbing, I told them how she’d screamed for me, how Luke had held me back; in shame I told them how I’d turned back then was grabbed by something and dragged in.

They wrote everything down and the senior officer, Constable Pollett, asked me one last question.

“
So if it wasn’t a shark and you don’t have any bite wounds, how do you explain her drowning? It says here that she had her dive certificate, same as you. Have you argued with her lately?” He lifted his pen, prepared to write down any information I gave him.