Seeking Crystal (16 page)

The contessa pointed at Diamond, Sky, Phoenix, and Karla with her cane. ‘I know my price. Their soulfinders for my son’s freedom. We have four of them in the room. The Benedicts will do anything to get them back.’

‘The woman is mad!’ spluttered Karla. ‘Phoenix, Sky, do something!’ She closed her eyes to send out the distress call telepathically to her husband.

‘Too late!’ declared Contessa Nicoletta. ‘Far, far too late.’ She pressed her hands to her temples and I felt the pulse of power ripple from her, sweeping through the room. I went to my knees: it was a form of telepathic assault, pressing on our minds like a tidal wave. I retched. The contessa grabbed the knot of hair piled on top of my head and pulled me to face her. ‘When I was younger, child, I renamed myself the eraser. You won’t remember why.’

Darkness.

I woke up when a wave slapped my face. Taking an unwise gulp, I rolled to my knees, spitting out seawater, grit, and shell fragments.

Jeez, I was cold.

I rubbed my bare arms, hugging myself to stimulate blood flow.

Where was I? More to the point, how did I get here?

Opening stinging eyes, I saw a muddy beach stretching ahead and behind, low dunes of rusty sea grass, an empty iron-grey sea. My only companions were seabirds. A large gull pecked at an empty crab shell a few feet away, uninterested in the arrival of a blue evening-gowned stranger on his patch.

Racked with shivers, I staggered out of the shallow water and up the beach to the relative shelter of the dunes. I smelt really strange—fishy and, I promise you, that was not the perfume I’d put on last night.

Diamond’s party
. Bits and pieces were coming back to me. Come on, brain, get in gear! I’d heard that hen and stag parties can get wild, with far too much being drunk, and the groom left tied naked to a pillar in Piazza San Marco or on a one-way trip to Rome, but this made no sense. I could not remember drinking—I’d been too busy checking the arrangements. Diamond was hardly the type of sister to trick me by spiking my drinks and then abandoning me on a beach.

I searched my surroundings for clues. I knew I had started the night in Venice and this did look like the Adriatic in front of me. Perhaps I hadn’t gone too far? Maybe I was on one of the barrier islands, washed up on a deserted stretch of the Lido for example?

But lots of people lived on the Lido. It even had roads, cars, and a bus service. I couldn’t see any buildings, let alone a bus stop.

OK, now I was scared. This did not feel like a hen party jest gone wrong. This felt like being shipwrecked. Had the launch sunk on the way back from the contessa’s island? Was I the only survivor?

When I was younger, child, I renamed myself the eraser. You won’t remember why.

Oh my God, I did remember! The contessa had turned into some psycho bitch out for revenge over her boy. The tiny woman packed the largest telepathic punch I had ever met. We’d all gone down for the count—an unfortunate pun as it was all about her criminal son, the Count of Monte Baldo.

But she had not erased my memory—only stunned it—probably because I had always maintained out of habit super-strong shields against telepathy. I knew exactly who I was, why I was here, but not how I had got on the beach or where it was. Two out of four—not too bad. At least now I knew what I had to do: get home; raise the alarm; not freeze to death.

I decided moving was good—it was either that or turn into an iceberg. I clambered up the dune, my silk dress catching at the hem where it caught on a scrap of twisted iron jetsam. It was hard not to be distracted by just how perishingly cold I felt.

From the vantage point on top of the dune, I saw that my island was tiny—a little haven for wild fowl and not much else. The long low mudflats of the lagoon stretched on the other side facing towards the mainland. On the side I was on, there was nothing but sea and the distant shape of a tanker chugging to the oil refinery west of my position. I could just make out the smudge of Venice lying low at the other end of the lagoon. For some reason, I’d been dumped well to the north-east in the wilderness of salt marshes, a place to which only huntsmen and fishermen ever came. They would be along eventually, but I couldn’t wait for a day-tripper to come and rescue me. Time for the others might already be running out.

Why had I been dumped at all? It made no sense. The first thing I would do is make my way back and raise the alarm.

It struck me then that that must be what the countess was counting on me doing. This was a hostage situation. I was like the ransom letter. I’d been left far enough from home so that it would take me hours to get back, giving her time to spirit her captives away from the area. I was of no importance as a hostage as I was not one of the soulfinders; I had been expendable. She probably wasn’t too bothered if I got back before hypothermia set in. And I had even told her that I couldn’t do telepathy and raise the alarm; she’d exploited my confidence ruthlessly.

Fury filled me, the rush of blood bringing a welcome warmth to my fingers and toes. I was not going to fall passively into step with her plans. She had wanted time and I was not giving it to her. I was going to alert the Benedicts even if it meant spewing my guts out on the beach.

I dipped into my mind. I didn’t really know how to do telepathy, let alone over distance, having always avoided it. I did know how to get a fix on a direction though, which should help.

Find home
, I told my brain.

But my brain was different from the last time I had tried this. All my junk—thoughts, belongings, random stuff—was no longer whirling about in a cloud but streaming like an arrow in one narrow direction. Somehow the attack had burst through the barriers in my mind and completely reorganized it. Experiencing no sickness, I found following the arrows easy, like skiing down a well-marked run. I just didn’t know what was at the end of it.

Hello?

What the—? Whoa, is that you, cupcake?

Xav! Oh my God, Xav!

What are you doing talking to me telepathically: you’ll make yourself sick!
He then let out a string of swear words that were not edited by the link.
You’re my soulfinder, aren’t you? No question. Yes, I know you are.
I could feel the burst of jubilation, dancing on the spot happiness, at the other end of the conversation.
Well then, cupcake: get yourself back here, ’cause you and I have some serious kissin’, huggin’, ’n’ plannin’ to do.

I couldn’t share his joy right then—I had to shelve that bundle of feelings for the moment and examine them later. Xav—my soulfinder. Brain just did not compute. Too cold—too shocked.

Please shut up, Xav. Just listen. I’m trying to tell you something.

He laughed. A telepathic laugh is lovely: like a gentle tingle down the line. I’d not known.
Oh, Beauty, this is going to be so much fun. Only you would meet this realization by telling me to shut my mouth.

No, I’m serious. This is an emergency.

I felt his change in mood abruptly. Gone was the teasing boy; on the line was someone I could rely on one hundred per cent.
What’s happened? Is everyone OK? Do you need me? The guys and I did wonder why you weren’t back.

Oh, it’s so much to explain, but the short version is Contessa Nicoletta is the mother of someone you arrested in London.

Mr Rome? I don’t know the names of all the guys we caught in our net, but there was an Italian.

At the end of the evening, she turned into this mad harpy bent on revenge. She’s taken the others—Diamond, your mum, Sky, Phoenix—and is holding them hostage.

What!?

She wants to bargain for his freedom.

But you’re not with them so where are you? Are you safe?

I’m OK but I’m not sure exactly where I am. Best guess is I’m on an island near Torcello—the wild part of the lagoon.

A little motor launch appeared, heading my way. Its wake cut a white bracket in the muddy waters.
Hang on: I can see a fishing boat nearing the shore. I’ll see if I can attract their attention.

If you can’t, I’ll get a speedboat to you but if you can get them to take you that’ll be fastest. I’ll tell the others. Victor and Trace will know what to do. Get yourself back here ASAP.

Yes, sir.

Crystal, you and me: this is good news, really good news.

Even though we fight all the time?

Especially
because we fight all the time.

The fisherman was as surprised as I had been to find me stranded on the island. He gallantly stripped off his waterproof jacket and bundled me up in it.

‘How did you get here?’ he asked. A banker from Milan, he had not bargained for this little side trip on his fishing holiday. He pulled his knitted cap down over my cold ears.

‘I was a guest at a party that went bad.’

He tutted and shook his head. ‘I have a teenage daughter like you.’ He set the motor in reverse to pull away from the beach. He spoke with his hands like a conductor in front of an orchestra. ‘I warn her all the time to watch who she socializes with. Young people can be very foolish.’

I would have liked to point out that my ‘bad friend’ was in her eighties but it would be too long an explanation. I just wanted the fisherman to get me home as quickly as possible.

‘I’m sorry that I’m asking you to go so far out of your way.’

‘No problem. It is not every day I get to fish a mermaid out of the lagoon.’

My kind rescuer dropped me at the little jetty near our apartment.

‘Someone seems to have missed you,’ he commented, pointing to Xav who was waiting by the ramp to shore, blanket in hand. ‘Hey, young man, make sure you look after her better: she could’ve died out there!’

‘It’s not his fault,’ I muttered, embarrassed that the fisherman had assumed Xav was to blame. Fortunately the reproof had been in Italian. ‘Hen party.’

‘Humph: what are girls coming to these days? Weren’t like that when I was young.’ He threw a line to Xav who tied up the boat by the pier. ‘Mind the step, mermaid.’

Xav reached down and pulled me into his arms. He hugged me so tightly against him I could barely get out a muffled ‘thank you’ to my Good Samaritan.

‘Thank you, sir, for bringing Crystal back.’ Xav reached down and shook hands with the fisherman. ‘We’d like to pay for your trouble—the extra gas at least.’

The fisherman understood English but refused the offer. ‘No need for that. Here’s my card in case you have any questions where I found her. Someone should be punished for that—absolutely criminal leaving her there without even a coat.’

Xav tucked the business card in his pocket. ‘You’re right about that. I’ll make sure they don’t get away with it.’

The fisherman cast off and chugged away to his now much truncated day of sport.

‘Oh God, Xav, how did it all go so wrong?’ I asked. ‘It’s my fault isn’t it? I organized the party. I had no idea about her.’

‘You are not responsible for every bad Savant, darlin’. From what you said, she would have been plotting this from the moment she heard Diamond was going to get hitched to my brother. Through you, or from Diamond herself, she would have heard sooner or later. It’s not something we could hide.’ Xav wrapped the blanket tighter about me then bundled me into his arms as he had once before.

‘You’re beginning to make a habit of this.’ And one I wouldn’t mind encouraging.

He carried me towards our garden gate. ‘What was the going rate for rescues? I seem to think you considered charging me for the same service.’

‘I’ll pay anything, just tell me that you’ve found the others.’

‘’Fraid not, but getting you back is one massive step forward. My dad, Trace, and Victor are on the case with the authorities but we need an Italian speaker.’

‘I’ll get on to it right away.’

‘No, you will get warm right away, have something hot to eat and drink. Yves is in the kitchen making your breakfast.’