Sea Witch (31 page)

you’ve got to learn to trust your instincts. I went to his house, no

bloodstains on the rug, not a damn thing out of place. Hell, I can smell

pine cleaner from the fucking porch.” Caleb shook his head,

remembering. “This guy is smiling at me, closing the door in my face,

and I see his fish tank. He’s got one of those big ones. Expensive, like

you’d see in a dentist’s office, with the lights and the bubbles and the

fancy plants. Well.” Caleb swallowed. “It was empty.”

“So, there was no water.”

“Plenty of water,” Caleb said grimly. “Filter running. Lights on. But

the fish . . .” He stopped. Hard to explain, out here on the gentle chop of

the sunlit sea, what made this one detail so chilling, so compelling. “All

the fish were gone. I could see losing one or two. Hell, I can’t keep a

goldfish alive. But to lose them all, all at once like that, is . . .”

Disturbing.

Psychotic.

“Out of character,” Caleb concluded.

“Not for a demon,” Maggie said.

A long look passed between them. He felt the cold in the marrow of

his bones.

“Right.” He drew a long breath into tight lungs. “I don’t have to

worry about a warrant, then.”

Her big eyes darkened with confusion. “I don’t understand. ”

He had fought before, when the mission was unclear and the stakes

weren’t personal. This was a no-brainer.

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“If Whittaker is what you say he is, this case is never going to trial,”

he said quietly. “It can’t. Even if Whittaker could be convicted, I can’t

risk turning a demon loose on the prison population.”

“What will you do?”

“Eliminate him. If I can.”

He throttled down. Three miles out, the winking, wrinkled sea

spread to the horizon, every swell blending into the next. The boat

rocked, lulling his senses. But something about this stretch of water

anchored his attention. A whisper of surf, a whiff of pine . . .

He watched a gull plummet out of the sky and disappear into . . .

nothing, and knew. He felt the rock pushing up from the ocean bottom,

poking through the surface like broken bones, and looked to Maggie for

confirmation.

She nodded. “Here.”

As if her word had raised a curtain, land began to form out of the flat

and featureless sea: a jumble of rock, a curve of shore, a line of dark firs

marching down to the water like a series of descending notes.

Caleb released his breath on a short, wondering laugh. “Shit. It’s

Brigadoon.”

A short dock emerged from the haze, jutting from the stony beach,

and a tethered boat with furled sails.

His heart quickened. “Dylan’s?”

Maggie shrugged.

Okay, Caleb would worry about that when he had to.

He secured the boat. Checked the clip in his gun.

“You cannot shoot a demon.” Impatience frayed her voice. Or was it

worry?

“Yeah, you said.” He holstered his weapon, steadied by the familiar

weight at his hip. “So, how do I kill it?”

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She frowned at him. “Demons are immortal.”

“So are selkies. That didn’t stop Whittaker from taking out your

friend.”

“Because water is matter. Fire is not matter. It has no substance of its

own. It cannot be destroyed. It can only be contained.”

“Or extinguished.”

Her mouth opened. Shut. “Yes.”

“So, what do I have to do?”

“You should not do anything. I should—I must—bind him.”

“Bind him how? You’re not selkie now.”

Her lips drew back. “The demon stripped me of my pelt. Not my

power. I will find a way.”

“Meaning you don’t have a clue,” he guessed.

“At least I have a chance,” Maggie snapped.

“Sure, we have a chance.” A soldier had to believe that, just as he

had to believe some things were worth fighting for. “It would up our odds

if we could get our hands on that pelt.”

“Why?”

“Exit strategy. Things go south, at least you can get away.”

She frowned. “Using Gwyneth’s pelt?”

“She doesn’t need it anymore. Unless you people have rules against

that sort of thing.”

“I suppose . . .” Margred shook her head. “Selkies do not think that

way. If the pelt came to me, it would be my gift to accept, the way I

accept the rain or the sunrise or the bounty of the tide.”

“There you go, then,” Caleb said with satisfaction.

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“My running away does not defeat the demon.”

"Right. That’s why I’m going back to kill the son of a bitch.”

He had not heard her at all, Margred thought in despair.

Despite the swaying deck, his feet were firmly planted. The sun lay

heavy and golden as a knight’s armor on his shoulders. This strong,

honorable man was prepared to kill for her.

Or die.

She shivered.

She had never acknowledged the claims of other partners to her

loyalty or affection. Caleb had both.

She had never understood commitment or admired courage until she

saw them in him. His example had challenged her. Changed her.

Margred narrowed her eyes. And now, she thought, he would just

have to accept the consequences.

He was woefully mismatched in this fight. Somehow, she must

convince him this was her battle.

“You cannot do this,” she said.

His jaw set. “Yeah, I can. Fire needs an air supply, right? Or it goes

out.”

She blinked. “I—yes, I suppose.”

“So, I crush his airway. Slit his throat. Cut off his head. He can’t

breathe . . .” Caleb shrugged. “He dies.”

Margred stared. Easy for humans to contemplate death when their

own lives were so short.

Or did the very brevity of their existence make life even more

precious?

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“If the demon dies, his host dies, too,” she pointed out. “The human,

Whittaker.”

Caleb hesitated the barest instant. Long enough for her to read the

cost of his decision in his eyes. “Collateral damage. Sometimes the

importance of the target outweighs the effect of a strike. Whittaker’s

hardly an innocent casualty.”

“I am not concerned about him. I am concerned for you.”

“Honey, I can handle one middle-aged lawyer.”

She raised her chin. “And how will you handle being arrested for his

murder? What is your
exit
strategy?”

“I’ll be fine,” Caleb said steadily. “I can argue self defense or

something.”

She stared at him, baffled and frustrated. How could he dismiss so

easily the life he had built with such deliberation, the job that meant so

much to him? Didn’t he understand the risks he ran?

And that was when she knew.

He understood too well.

He was not worried about his future because he did not expect to

survive.

259

Twenty

THE KEY WAS UNDER A LOBSTER BUOY ON THE front

porch.

Just like home. Caleb closed his fingers around the tarnished metal

key, wondering what other habits his brother still clung to after twenty-five years.

He raised his other hand to knock. “Anybody home?”

No answer.

“The door is unlocked,” Maggie said.

Caleb tried the knob. Sure enough, it turned easily in his hand.

“Selkies don’t steal?”

She shrugged. “We flow as the sea flows. What one tide brings,

another may take away.”

Caleb grunted. “I’d like to hear you try to explain that one to a

judge.”

“Simple.” Maggie smiled. “Pelts do not have pockets.”

He narrowed his eyes.

“It is a joke,” she explained earnestly.

A reluctant smile tugged his lips. “Yeah, I got it.”

He’d just never heard her attempt an actual joke before. Like a four-year-old’s knock-knock joke, the effort was clumsy, endearing, and . . .

human.

His heart stumbled. He pushed open the door.

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Inside, the cabin looked like every other rundown vacation cottage in

the state of Maine: the same knotty pine and peeling linoleum, the same

rusted hinges and outdated appliances. Mildew grew around the

refrigerator door. The shelves held a bottle of ketchup, a moldy half loaf

of bread, and most of a case of beer. Caleb wondered where Dylan

bought his groceries. Not on World’s End.

Maggie wrinkled her nose at the smell. “I do not think Gwyneth hid

her sealskin in the refrigerator.”

“Right.” Caleb closed the door. His brother didn’t matter. Maggie

mattered.

“I think I should look outside while you search inside,” she said.

Caleb regarded the four square walls and narrow hall that led to

the—bedroom? Bath? “Not much to search.”

Maggie’s lips curved. “You will be quick, then.”

He didn’t like splitting up. But on an island where his brother hadn’t

bothered to lock the door . . .

“Stay close to the house,” he warned. “Where I can see you.”

She gave him a limpid look through her eyelashes. “Of course.”

That big-eyed routine set off alarm bells in his head.

But she had waited for him at the restaurant. “
Then it seems we are

in this together
,” she’d said.

He wanted to trust her.

He had to trust her.

He strode down the hall.

* * * *

Watching Caleb’s tall, strong figure disappear through a doorway,

Margred longed to call him back for a word, a look, a kiss . . .

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Foolish, feminine,
human
need.

Impatiently, she let herself out the front door and crossed through the

sunlit patch of yard, bright with daisies and sow thistle. When she

reached the shadow of tall spruce, she cast one last look over her shoulder

at the house.

And ran.

Caleb surveyed the room like a crime scene, hands in his pockets,

gaze assessing, emotions firmly in check.

If this was Dylan’s room, his brother’s tastes hadn’t evolved in

twenty-five years. The navy spread was the same tough, ribbed material

that covered the beds at home. The furniture was Vintage Motel. Only the

king-sized mattress and an elaborately carved sea chest at the foot of the

bed suggested Dylan had grown.

Changed.

A small frame on the battered dresser caught Caleb’s eye. He

stepped closer, bending to take a look.

Surprise tightened his throat. He recognized that picture. Hell, he

was in it, ten years old, with Lucy on his lap. And beside them, scowling

at the camera, was thirteen-year-old Dylan.

A memory pressed on Caleb’s heart like an old bruise: their mother,

laughing and excited as she framed the shot, ordering Dylan to smile. Had

she known then that she was leaving? Had she kept the photograph to

remind her of the children she’d left behind? Did his brother keep it for

the same reasons?

Or was the picture simply like the bedspread and the mold in the

kitchen, something Dylan had lived with so long he didn’t see it

anymore?

Not that Caleb gave a good goddamn about his brother’s

motivations.

He pushed back the curtain on the closet, revealing a surprisingly up-to-date men’s wardrobe, and rifled efficiently through the bureau drawers

before turning his attention to the sea chest at the foot of the bed.

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His gaze kept skipping over it. Sliding away. Caleb frowned. This

wasn’t like the glamour spell placed on the island. He could see the damn

thing clearly. But he was oddly reluctant to approach it. Touch it.

Ignoring the recalcitrance in his mind, the tingling of his fingertips,

he sank heavily to his knees and raised the lid.

His breath escaped in a silent whistle.
Jackpot
.

Like finding pirate treasure on the beach, a crusader’s ransom, the

pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. He stared at the pile of gleaming

coins stamped with the images of goddesses and kings, Indians and

eagles. Pieces of gold shining through rich, mottled strands of . .

Fur.

A sealskin.

His heart hammered. Gwyneth’s pelt? Or Dylan’s?

Maggie would know.

He had to tell her.

He’d seen what the demon had done to her dead friend. Maggie

complained Caleb didn’t know what they were up against, but he

understood evil. He was a cop. A soldier. He’d dealt with dead babies and

abused wives, executed shopkeepers, blown-up school children. He knew

what men could do to one another out of hate or greed, for high-minded,

hollow political phrases or in the name of religion.

He had fought with insufficient weapons against enemies who could

not be defeated, against poverty and crime and hopelessness, against

zealots and insurgents.

He’d fight now because he had to. Because there was no one else,

and Maggie could not face this thing alone.