Undertow (16 page)

She turned my ankle slightly and I gripped the seat harder. I couldn’t figure out what in the world they were talking about. What rules? Who’s young?

Dalca sighed and shook her head,  “I will tell you one thing though. If they were in the dark before, they definitely know now.”

My patience was gone. “What are you all talking about? Who is ‘they?’ What do they know? What the hell is going on and, for crying out loud, WHO IS DEAD?” I demanded, angry I was left out and because my ankle was being fooled with.

They all looked at one another. I searched their faces, but they seemed torn. I finally looked at Raef. He was holding the paper with one hand.

“Raef, what is going on?” I pleaded.

He came over slowly and knelt beside me, looking up to Ana and Kian. His brother nodded, but Ana didn’t move, her face hard.

He took his right hand and held it just millimeters from the angry burn on my ankle, spreading his fingers to line up with the marks. To my absolute horror, his hand was a near perfect match to the burn. 

It wasn’t some
thing
that had tried to drag me to a watery grave.

It was some
one
.

“GOOD GRIEF! What is going on?” I yelled. My heart was racing as Raef withdrew his hand and backed up to the counter. I was looking at all of them, rapidly searching their faces. “Oh my God! Why is there a handprint – a BURNED handprint – on my leg?” I was breathing rapidly and the room was tilting slightly.

Dalca sighed, “Eila. Listen to me. Calm down or you are going to hyperventilate.”

“Calm down? Are you insane? Someone tried to kill me!  HELLO? KILL ME!” The room was definitely starting to spin.

“Ana, grab me a brown bag from the cabinet. And some lavender,” instructed Dalca calmly. “Eila, listen to me. We will explain everything, but you need to calm down. You are safe now.”

I heard Kian snort, apparently not of the same mind as Dalca.  Raef shot him a lethal look.

Ana came back with the brown bag and handed it to me. “Here Eila, breathe into this,” she instructed, handing me the bag. “Slow breaths Eila, slow breaths.”

As I breathed into the bag, I could feel my body calm. My heartbeat slowed and the room stopped spinning. I started to study the faces of those I had come to know and one I had come to love. They held knowledge of something terrifying and I seemed to be part of it, dragged into their dark secrets.

I looked at Raef who was standing by the counter, in some ways, defeated. He studied me sadly, as if I was already lost. As if he had not saved me from the water and whoever had dragged me down.

I found his despondency the most frightening of all. 

11

I have learned many thing
s
since coming to Cape Cod.

The cheerleaders are pukes, the ice cream is to die for
, and that owning a Wrangler makes you part of some strange secret society where the other drivers wave to you whenever you pass.

There is also the fact that, nagging or otherwise, hurrying a Gypsy will get you nowhere fast. I wanted answers instantly.  Come to think of it, answers would have been helpful
before
I moved to this cursed strip of sand. 

Why couldn’t Mr. Talbot have said, “Oh yes, the home is lovely. There are some sea monsters with hands like
Schwarzenegger and your eyeballs may start to glow in the dark, but other than that, the place is great.” 

Information like
that
I would have considered critical in deciding whether to leave peaceful Kansas and, I don’t know, maybe SOLD a multimillion-dollar piece of property and avoided being a target. 

Yes, answers. Right now! 

But Dalca insisted on rewrapping my wound and making me finish breakfast.  She also made sure no one answered my repetitive questions until she had time to gather a few “things.”  It felt like hours, but when I glanced at the clock, she was ready to talk 20 minutes later.

She set a heavy, leather-bound book on the kitchen table and turned to me. “Eila, what do you know of Elizabeth Walker?”

She wanted to talk family? I was surprised at the question. I wanted to demand what my grandmother had to do with my throbbing leg, but instead decided to answer the stubborn Gypsy.

“Um, I know that she and my Grandfather Josiah built my house. MJ also told me about her disappearance, but no one knows what happened to her. He said there was an urban legend she was hit by lightning,” I looked around the room at my audience. “That’s about all I know.”

Dalca cleared her throat and opened the book. It seemed to be a journal, but she was flipping past the handwritten pages too fast for me to read anything.

She stopped at a page with a yellowed photograph of a woman. Her corset top and heavy skirt told me it was taken a long time ago. She was beautiful, her tangled black hair not unlike my own curling down towards her chest. A round necklace, containing an oval stone, lay just
above her breasts. She looked . . . like the woman from my nightmares.

Dalca touched her hand to the photo on the page, “This is Elizabeth, your 4
th
Great Grandmother. This photo was taken a few months before she disappeared. Before she was murdered.”

“Murdered?” I asked slowly, as bits and pieces of the woman by the fountain flicked across my memory. I had a sinking feeling that my dreams were rooted in historical fact, but that wasn’t even possible . . . was it?

I glanced at Raef and he didn’t seem shocked. “You knew this?” I asked him. He nodded and shifted his weight to lean back against the counter.

“History says that Elizabeth Walker vanished on December 14, 1851,” started Dalca. “History also says her disappearance was never solved. We, however, believe that she was killed in the harbor square, not far from here, by a man named Jacob Rysse.”

Crap. It was my dream. Even though it never remained clear and I only had pieces of it, I knew Elizabeth was the woman by the fountain. I also had an instinctive feeling that the man didn’t just disappear.

“What happened to the man?” I nearly whispered.

Dalca looked at me and some strange emotion flickered across her face. “We are not sure. We think he died that night as well. Neither body was ever found. The surprising part of the equation is you,” she said, watching my expression.

“Me?”

“Elizabeth Walker never had any children that we know of, and yet you are obviously a blood relative. That part is without dispute.”

The room was quiet and Dalca sat back in her chair, lost in thought. I wondered how they knew for certain I was actually related to Elizabeth. It wasn’t like I took a blood test to confirm our mutual history.

I was about to ask when the screen door creaked open. MJ’s voice broke the silence and my train of thought. “Eila is up. Alright!” he declared as he entered, quickly appraising the room.

I
snapped my attention to him, and all other thoughts in my head vanished but one. “Did you move some person’s body? That’s completely illegal!” I accused, jamming my paintless fingernail in his direction.

“Well, yeah, but I wouldn’t call him a person. Soul-sucking demons deserve to be off-ed anyway. And if you don’t want me shuttling bodies around with Kian, don’t swan dive off the boardwalk at night anymore. For crying out loud, the water isn’t always safe, ya know? Forget the sharks. It’s the half-human undertow that will get ya.”

I looked at him, irritated, “Please, MJ. I am not in the mood for poor jokes.”

MJ looked around the room. He seemed confused as all eyes were glaring at him.

“Oh, uh . . .” he laughed uneasily, “I, um, guess we didn’t get to that part, huh?”

Ana whacked him in the back of his head with her hand. “Ow!” protested MJ, “What the heck? How was I supposed to know?”

I leaned slowly back in my chair. The issue of what had hauled me under the water had not been settled, my attention diverted by a dead grandmother’s murder and the thought of MJ dragging a body around. 

And while MJ was prone to a few
poorly delivered jokes now and again, no one was laughing. Their faces showed no emotion. They were, however, all looking at me. I felt like they were waiting for me to do something. Or react. Maybe waiting for my head to pop off.

My eyes grew wide,
“Are you kidding me? Is that what grabbed me? Some sort of, what?
Zombie
?” I sat there, unable to move, cemented by a newfound fear of the world around me.

“Thanks a lot MJ,” hissed Ana coldly. “Way to give the girl a heart attack.”

“I’m sorry alright, but I mean, what did she think grabbed her?” pleaded MJ, desperate for a bit of forgiveness. “The Little Mermaid?”

“Well in my world Ariel is just as likely as a person who has risen from the grave!” I yelled at him.  As much as I wanted to deny what I had just learned, I couldn’t. The throbbing evidence was a bright red mark on my leg. I remembered the excruciating pain of the night before and the near certainty of drowning.

Dalca put her hand on mine gently, “First of all, they are not zombies.”

THEY are not Zombies? Terrific. That leaves what exactly? Aliens? Vampires? Swamp monsters from the deep?

“They are known as
Mortis
and they are an extremely dangerous, extremely old race of immortal humans,” said Dalca. “Occasionally they hunt swimmers, since their death is easily covered up as a drowning.”

My internal voice snapped shut. She had my undivided attention now. I silently pledged my undying love of the land, never to set foot in the ocean again.

“Raef. Why don’t you try and fill Eila in on some history. I am going to make a phone call and see if I can find us some further information on  . . . a few things.” 

As Dalca left, I looked back at Raef. “Okay, now spill,” I said. Oddly the fear had melted away. I was, however
, pissed at my ignorance.

“I am just going to say, for the record, that I am not convinced she’s gifted,” said Ana, always the optimist.

“Please,” snorted Kian, “I’d say the fact that her kick-ass grandmother was most likely killed by a soul-thief and now Eila almost bought the farm as well, ensures she has some glow-stick properties.”

My mind was spinning.

My grandmother was murdered by the same super-human race that made an attempt on my life last night? And . . . glow-stick? What the hell does that mean?

Kian and Ana w
ere starting to argue some more when Raef interrupted them. “First of all, she carries the mark. I saw it when she stripped in the Jeep.”

“Mark? What mark?” I asked, trying to picture myself naked in a mirror, scanning my body. “You mean my stupid radiator-burn?” I demanded.

“
You stripped in the Jeep
?” whispered MJ to me, shocked. Or impressed.

Raef didn’t seem to hear my question and he just continued on, “Second, her skin burned
once in contact with her attacker’s blood. The average human doesn’t have that reaction to Mortis
blood, but she would.” He pushed off the counter and walked over to the table.

All eyes, including mine, were on him. He continued, confident in his train of thought, wherever it was headed. “Eila killed her attacker simply with her blood. Not even knowing about it. Not even trying. So do I think she is gifted? Absolutely.” He sighed, sitting down next to me, “Which also makes you, Eila . . .”

“Their number one target,” finished Kian, looking at his brother. He then furrowed his brow, “She really has the mark?  It isn’t some old wives’ tale?”

Raef nodded.

I was irritated now, “It’s a FRIGGIN’ BURN from babyhood! And there is no way I killed anyone!” I felt nausea climbing in my throat. I didn’t want to be a murderous, Halloween light-up accessory. My head was pounding.

“Do you remember getting burned as a baby?” asked Raef.

Well . . . no. Mae just said that was the doctor’s explanation for the mark when she took custody of me. My silence seemed to boost his confidence.

“Trust me, it’s not a radiator burn a
nd you did kill him,” said Raef. “But if it makes you feel any better, you executed him by accident. Plus, if you didn’t kill him, I would have.”

“ALRIGHT THAT’S IT!” I yelled.
“I want answers. Right now. Got it? Right now!”

Kian leaned back in his seat, a smile twisting on his lips. “Have fun man.”

Raef glared at his brother, “Thanks a lot. How am I going to explain this?”

“Oh, I know!” said MJ,
enthusiastic as always. “Show her the chart thing. Like you did for me.”

“Oh my god,” said Ana, exasperated and rubbing her face. “If this takes as long as it did to explain to you, MJ, then we will all start to age.”

“Actually, that’s not a bad way to start,” said Raef, searching the counter for something. He found a piece of paper and a pen and sat down next to me. He drew a triangle, with horizontal lines going through it. He then turned to me and started to explain.

“Okay, so this,” h
e pointed to the drawing, “is kind of like a food chain.”

“Food Chain?  What happened to the marky thing?” I said, rubbing my back, as if I could feel it.

“First things first. Trust me,” he said, a slight smile to his face.

I huffed, “Fine. Radiator burn later. Keep going.”

“It’s not a . . .  nevermind. So, anyway,” continued Raef,  “you know what a food chain is, right?”

I nodded, “Yeah, like, the stronger animals eat the weaker. Humans are at the top and then, like, sharks and lions and stuff.”

MJ looked on expectantly, listening to Raef.

“That’s right, except what you just told me is the humans’ version and it isn’t a very accurate depiction of the truth. Dalca’s family and, well, Kian and I, know a different pyramid. Your Grandmother did as well.”

Ana smiled, “Yeah, I know a different one too. If we are going for accuracy, the new food pyramid has vertical lines.”

“Oh yeah. You’re right,” agreed MJ, leaning across the table to point at Raef’s drawing. “Yeah, see, like from the peak down. You just take a line and . . .”

Raef glared at him and MJ sat back in his chair. “Right. Pointless information. Got it.” He gestured for Raef to continue.

“Anyway, as I was saying with my POORLY DEPICTED hierarchy, which is a
food chain
, you moron, not a USDA food pyramid,” snapped Raef, his patience fading. “In the human version of the food chain, they are on top. In our version, the real version, soul-thieves are on top.” He scribbled a word at the top of the pyramid.

I looked down to see
Mortis
scrawled on the paper.

“Humans are under them, food for them, of sorts. The Mortis survive off the
life-force of others, having no souls themselves. Many of their victims simply appear to have died from natural causes or, in seaside communities like the Cape, apparently drowned.”

I shivered as Raef wrote
humans
under the word
Mortis
.

He turned and looked at me, his face stunning. “But Eila, this picture is missing something. It is missing an ancient family of humans called the Lunaterra.” He wrote
Lunaterra
in larger letters alongside
Mortis.

“The
Lunaterra are the only people, only thing, a
Mortis fears. The Lunattera do have weaknesses, as their body is as fragile as any human, but they command an intense power, which is absolutely lethal to those who are soulless.”

“Such as a soul-thief,” I mumbled, not thrilled with the new food chain.

“Yes, exactly,” said Raef. “A human’s soul, or conscience as some people think of it, is destroyed when they evolve, or turn, into one of the Mortis.”