Eye of the Tempest (27 page)

[
deep in her own mind, Jane stirred, recognizing that fall of limbs. She knew it meant comfort, a nightly ritual, but deep down she knew it wasn’t
her
comfort, nor
her
ritual. But still, looking up at the sky that mimicked what lay below, she knew that pattern…
]

“Earth to Jane!” Blondie’s sharp voice broke through my reverie. She had stood and was looming over me menacingly.

“Hmmm?” was my sleepy response.

“What are you, a narcoleptic? We need your help, so sit up and fucking pay attention,” the Original snapped at me.

Part of me bristled at her harsh tone, but the majority of me was still half asleep, almost hypnotized by my dream. I stretched in the sand, feeling my ocean call to me for a swim. And feeling an equally strong pull from the sky above.

“Jane, I said sit up,” Blondie repeated, her voice grown cold.

I stayed right where I was, peering up at the stars. “You seem to think I’m falling asleep on the job,” I said, putting one arm behind my head like a pillow. “But I’m not. In fact, I’ve solved our riddle.”

“You have?” she asked, skeptically. “Was the answer written on the inside of your eyelids?”

“Nope,” I replied, letting her stew.

“Then where?” she said, through gritted teeth.

“The answer,” I drawled, letting her steam, “is up there.” And with that, I pointed to the heavens.

“Up there?” she echoed, looking from the sky, down at me, and then back up at the sky as if to ask
And what have you been smoking?

“Yep. We’ve been looking from the wrong angle,” I said, as I finally sat up. “Can you grow wings big enough for two?”

“Um… yes? But why?”

“Because,
babydoll
, we are going for a little flight. Now come on… pay attention… Do what you need to do to get us flying.”

I watched her strip off her long-sleeved shirt, only just managing not to wink back at her nipple rings reflecting the light from our mage lights. Around her, the air shimmered with power as a set of lustrous white wings sprouted from her tattooed back. They looked as comfy and clean as two big, soft duvets, making me crave a nap even more.

She’s like the love child of an angel and a drunken merchant marine
, I thought, marveling at the sight. Anyan must have appreciated it too because he barked so hard at Blondie’s metamorphosis that I think he choked on his own tongue.

Distracted by doggie-Anyan’s shenanigans, it took me a moment, when I looked back at the Original, to realize that I was marveling at her boots as she launched herself up in the air. Without me.

Oooo she’s a bitch
, said my brain.

I’m so in love
, thought my libido. At this point, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to
be
Blondie or make out with her.
Or both
, I wondered, in what would be my philosophical conundrum of the decade.

We all watched her soar up into the heavens and then hover on a cloud of magic as her white wings scythed through the air in slow, powerful sweeps. She was up there for only a few minutes when she began flying hither and thither.

She’s opening the glyph
, I thought, as she must have finished, only to hover above us, again.

But nothing happened. So she did it again. And then again.

Then she was landing beside me, swearing like a she-devil between hoarse pants.

“It’s not fucking working!” she cursed. “If those fucking harpies got here first, I am going to rip off their beaks and shove them up their—”

“Take me up,” I interrupted calmly. “Let me see.”

What I didn’t tell her was that every time she’d flown her complicated pattern, I’d felt a kick, but not from below us.

It came from the ocean.

For a second, it looked like she was going to turn her tongue on me—and not in the nice way. But at the last second she paused, and then held out her arms. While Anyan bounced around us barking, I walked over to where Blondie stood.

“Caleb, Iris, you need to take Anyan and get somewhere safe,” I said, turning to where the satyr and succubus stood watching us. “I’m not sure if this is going to work, or if we’ll just set off another trap like we did before. But I think this is going to be it, and if we lose—or if we get incapacitated in any way—it’s going to be up to you two to call in the Mounties.”

Caleb shuffled his hooves, and Iris looked at me, concerned. “Are you sure?” she asked, looking to Blondie as if hoping the Original would contradict me.

“Jane’s right. This is something we need to do alone.”

I frowned, looking at Blondie.
That wasn’t what I said, at all
, I thought, again feeling like Blondie was talking about something I wasn’t necessarily clued in to.

Iris was still frowning, but she’d taken Caleb’s hand and grabbed Anyan by the scruff of his neck. Blondie’s power flowed around us as she apparated my friends somewhere safe.

And then I finally experienced the stuff about which songs are written: Blondie Supermanned this ho.

Scooping me up underneath my armpits, she used a combination of her powerful wings and even stronger magics to lift us both into the night air. I resisted the urge to squeal and hide my face in her neck, à la Lois Lane. I also concentrated on not peeing myself in terror. Flying without a plane is
very scary
.

After what felt like an eternity but was really just a handful of magic-laden wing beats, we were hovering well above the cove.

And then I saw it. The intricate sigil that we’d been chasing and tracing, carved from my cove. The wreath was part of the top of the walls, with the soft sand upon which I’d lain, loved, and grieved making up the wreath’s center. I’d always known the cove’s walls were very thick, but because they were also very, very tall, I’d never seen them from above. In fact, when I thought about it now, the mere existence of my cove didn’t make any sense. It was more like a rock fence than a normal cove. I realized we’d all been duped, and I didn’t know if it was Nell’s glamour, the powerful magics that must have formed the cove, or a combination of both that had made what was really a completely unnatural structure seem normal.

“Ready?” Blondie yelled in my ear, the volume carried off by all the empty space around us.

I nodded.

And with that she swept me away, tracing the sigil with the tips of her fingers or her wings, whichever was easiest. But just as before, nothing happened. At least nothing where Blondie was looking, which was beneath us.

I couldn’t help but laugh as I saw the real culprit.
It’s always been about you, hasn’t it?
I thought.

“Do it again!” I shouted. Before she could protest and say that it was a waste of time, I continued. “And this time, look over there!”

I was pointing at the Old Sow.

This time, as she flew her pattern, we both kept our eyes on the Atlantic. And we both saw it—piglets lit up like underwater flares in a pattern that could only be one thing.

The last glyph.

When Blondie stopped flying, they stayed lit for about ten seconds, and then they went out.

“Fuck,” she said. “It’s a double lock. Yeah, there are four glyphs, but the third unlocks the presence of the fourth. Goddamn Alfar,” she panted.

“Are you going to be okay?” I shouted, remembering what she’d said about flying. “You’ll have to make a few more circuits so I can see to unlock the last glyph!”

“I’ll fly, keeping them lit,” she replied grimly, winging me over to the water. “And you swim.” I nodded, understanding that I was the obvious choice for this mission.

And then she dropped me, clothes and all, into my ocean.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It was one thing to see the pattern of lit-up piglets from above, but it was another thing to be among them, at ocean level. At that moment, I knew what it felt like to be that apocryphal squirrel in the Christmas tree: lights all around me, turning randomly on and off.

Only this Christmas tree has swirling branches that will kill you if you get too close
.

Even on the outer edge of the Sow, where I was treading water, I could feel her power. I’d been told that the whirlpool had been tempestuous lately, and people hadn’t exaggerated. Normally I enjoyed my jaunts through the piglets, but even at this outer edge I had to keep my shields toward maximum to keep from getting sucked up into one like a dust bunny by a Hoover.

And I’m going to have to go way farther in
, I thought, watching as a piglet placed alarmingly close to the Sow herself blazed at me briefly.

Thankfully, as I didn’t really fancy getting pulled apart by my favorite water feature, I had no idea where to start. Unfortunately, however, I also knew that Blondie’s flying a repeated pattern above the Cove would attract attention. Either she was unglamoured and being seen by everyone, including the bad guys,
or
she was glamouring the shit out of herself and attracting the attention of anything remotely magical in a fifteen-mile radius.

Which means time is of the essence, and I have to try something
, I thought, swimming toward one of the lights. I felt a surge of power coming from it, but it ebbed before I could reach it, and I didn’t see the next light pop up till I turned around. But by then it was too late.

I waited till another piglet lit up close to me, and then I used my mojo to propel me forward. Again, I felt that pull of magic, but again I was too late.

There has to be a better way to do this
, I thought. Just then the piglet next to me blazed, along with that same signature pulse of power. Suddenly, I knew what I had to do.

Well, libido
, said my brain to its most exasperating enemy,
you’ve always favored things that pulse. Now is your time to shine
.

My libido bowed to its sensei, and I closed my eyes as I put out my magical feelers.

Left
, I felt, as I moved toward the power tracking over my skin. It was more than a little crazy to be swimming around the fifth largest whirlpool in the world with my eyes closed, but—similar to Peter Parker—I had to trust my selkie senses. That didn’t mitigate the buffeting I was getting, though, as I neared the source of that magical pulsing.

Right
, came the next set of instructions borne to me on the ocean current, just before the buffeting became too much. This one was close.
Then left…
far away this time…
have to motor
…

The power called and I answered, zigzagging across the periphery of the Sow, weaving and darting. Sometimes I wasn’t fast enough and I’d have to start over, this time putting more mojo into my swimming. I drew from the ocean even as I did so, and the very pulses of power that I followed crept under my skin. Their force was so potent that, despite the amount of energy I was expending, my reserves were more than full.

Straight ahead… now left… now right… back, and hurry… back again… right…
As I got better at the game, the pulses grew faster, more powerful, letting me know I was on the right track.

The game was also drawing me closer and closer to the Sow. Every pattern we’d traced was an intricate wreath, weaving inward into a final, central point. But while sticking your finger, or your wing, into the middle of an empty circle was easy, I’d come to realize that the circle I was currently swimming had the Old Sow herself at its epicenter.

Not so easy, that.

Meanwhile, although I was doing my favorite trick of ignoring the pertinent facts of a given situation, the ocean wasn’t making that easy. Despite the pull of the power bursts, the ocean herself was battling my every move. Currents pushed and pulled me, slowing me down considerably.