Authors: Michelle O'Leary
He shook his head and turned away from the creature, pacing through the shallows. Damn it, how could he reach her? He was about to give up the beach and head in to Harle’s office to demand a transport for himself when the selkie appeared in the shallows at his feet. He jerked to a stop before he tumbled over it, muttering a startled curse. Those big, dark eyes stared up at him and the beast tugged at his pants leg with a webbed hand.
Stryker pulled back, snarling his impatience. "This ain’t play time, you freaky little—"
The selkie made that sound again, the eerie, undulating call sending a shudder down his spine. Then it scrambled forward and grabbed a fistful of his clothes, tugging him toward the water with an urgency that finally translated to his senses. There was no playfulness in the selkie, only need and demand.
"Wait…you know she’s gone, don’t you?" Stryker muttered, staring down at the creature. It was a crazy thought—selkies were just animals, but suddenly it made perfect sense to him. He’d seen them do some clever things and Keza was their human, almost like one of their family group. "Did you see him take her?" With quick, predatory grace, he crouched and snagged the selkie’s delicate arm. Staring into its luminous dark eyes, he rasped, "Where’s Keza?"
Far from being frightened by his confining grip or his aggressive posture, the selkie seemed excited, leaning into his hold and bringing its face close to Stryker’s to make a series of high-pitched yips. It turned its head to look out over the water then met his gaze, before repeating the glance over its shoulder. It was looking southeast.
"Okay, yeah," he said with a surge of frantic hope. "Just—stay here. I’ll be right back."
Stryker launched himself over the sand toward the tunnel and the changing area. Before he disappeared into the tunnel, he shot a glance over his shoulder to see the selkie still in the shallows. While he changed into a wetsuit at record speed, he considered contacting Harle. But the selkies were infamously shy—what if they refused to lead him to Keza with Harle’s boats tagging along?
When he returned to the beach juggling several bits of equipment, he stopped breathing for a moment at the sight of the empty shallows. Then a sinuous form arced out of the water with a plaintive cry and he sucked in air again. Fumbling with the equipment and cursing his amateur experience, he finished gearing up while thrusting into the waves. A selkie yipped in his ear and he was startled for a moment to see several in attendance, all staring at him with serious, unblinking eyes.
With a sharp nod, he set the breathing tube between his teeth. "Let’s do this," he growled and dove under the next wave.
Chapter 18
Keza woke with a screaming headache and full body shivers. The quaking of her body sent blinding pain through her head, the left side of her face throbbing horribly. She groaned and tried to open her eyes. Only her right eye responded—her left eye seemed to have something pressing on it. Blinking, she stared at the dark thing in front of her face until she recognized rock. She was lying on rock, wet, briny rock in a dark place. Why was she lying on rock? And why did she hurt so badly?
"Comin’ round, Suki?" asked a gloating male voice.
Clavis.
Memory returned with the impact of a sledgehammer and her body jerked in response, sending spikes of pain from the top of her head all the way to her heels. She groaned again. "Clavis…" she panted, trying to focus through the dark in the direction of his voice. "What…the hell…are you doing?"
"Takin’ back what we’re owed," he responded. Her bleary vision found him across a small, uneven cavern floor. He sat on a ledge of rock, a mini light source in his meaty fist and a shark-like grin on his doughy face. "Shouldn’ta run, Suki. We got investment in you."
Keza stared at him for a moment, wondering how hard he’d hit her because his words weren’t making any sense. "What are you…talking about?" she breathed.
"Five years, ya picky bitch. Five years we waited for you to take a man and give us new blood. And you go and take up with a killer." He made a disgusted sound in his throat, lip curling in a sneer.
She waited, but time didn’t line up the words in any comprehensible manner. Stomach rolling with pain and fear, she pushed slowly off the rock to a sitting position. Panting through a surge of nausea, she pulled her knees up to her chest and tugged the water-logged dress over her shivering limbs to conserve heat. A pang of anxiety went through her for the health of her small passenger, but other than the ache of bone-deep cold, she felt okay everywhere but her head. With ginger fingers, she touched the left side of her face. Her eye was swollen shut and her cheekbone ached like a rotten tooth.
She glanced up to see Clavis watching her with a self-satisfied smirk and was surprised by a wave of fury. If she had a club in her hand and legs that worked, she would fly across the cave and beat the smile off his face. "Goddess preserve your stupid ass, because my family won’t," she hissed. "You kidnapped the wrong woman, Clavis."
His smirk faded into mild surprise. "Well, hell, look who got a backbone." Then he grinned. "Make you more fun, I ‘spect."
She bared her teeth at him. "Explain it again, Clavis. Make me understand why you came all this way to pull such a moronic stunt."
His grin soured and she felt a stirring of fear under her anger to see the aggression in his narrow stare. "Watch your lip, Suki. I don’t gotta be nice." He glowered at her for a second, the muscles of his face twitching in an alarming way. "We needed new blood," he repeated abruptly. "Our great granddaddies set down on Agri to farm the place, build us a home. But there’s somethin’ in the water, in the air. Messed with our get. Lose more every generation. New blood like yours coulda set us straight."
"Messed with your…children?" She blinked at him, working hard on translating his strange explanation. "What was in the air or water? What did it do?"
He looked away for the first time, eyes traveling over the small cave with restless unease, thick fingers worrying his little light source and casting odd shadows. "Ain’t nothin’ wrong with us. We’re good, strong stock. Livin’ right, livin’ simple and clean. No dirty workin’s to foul the place."
Her brow tried to fold into a frown of confusion, but she winced at the pain it caused and smoothed her expression. "You’re not making any sense. What—?"
"Shaddup!" he bellowed, head snapping around and eyes burning as he glared at her. "Nothin’ wrong with me! I’m makin’ all kinds a’ sense, y’stupid offer!"
Keza froze, staring at his wild, mad eyes in sudden understanding. Oh, yeah, there was plenty wrong with him. There had been plenty wrong with all of them—they’d just managed to cover it in front of her. She couldn’t believe how incredibly naïve she’d been. In retrospect she remembered oddness, the occasional peculiar behavior and strange comments, but she’d written these off as being part of an antiquated culture, a product of an unmechanized lifestyle and isolated community. The mob that had chased her down on that last night had been their true face. Madness. Severe mental instability. Enough to kill their own children?
"Who killed those boys, Clavis?" she whispered in as gentle a tone as she could muster.
"Your law breaker," he sneered, eyes flickering away and doughy face altering to sullen defiance. "Collectors catch him yet?"
She ignored his question, though the thought of Chase triggered a bloom of fierce longing deep inside her. "You know it wasn’t him. Who was it, Clavis? Whoever it was needs help before they hurt somebody else."
He snorted, turning his face to the dark. "Nobody hurt them boys."
"I saw the bodies," she ventured carefully. "That wasn’t a natural death."
He was silent, head turning like an animal hunting for a way out. Or hunting for prey. Keza waited, clenching her muscles tight to keep as still as possible. Her fury had bled into a sick fear. Rabid animals and crazy people had one thing in common—they were utterly unpredictable.
He tapped the little light on his palm then waved it around the small space, his face grimly smug again. "Ain’t nobody gonna find us here. They’re all chasin’ that little schooner in the middle of the ocean." She said nothing and he sneered at her again. "Easy as breathin’ to get to you. Man, you people are twisted. That candidate shit’s a joke. What the hell, Suki, you only fuck at home?"
She didn’t respond, afraid to even blink.
He glowered. "Stop lookin’ at me like that. You got no right to judge, runnin’ off and screwin’ some killer. You owe us, Suki. We waited for you and you owe us."
"The boys, Clavis," she murmured in her best soothing tone. "What happened?"
He pursed his lips with sour resentment. "They done each other, all right? Nobody killed ‘em."
"They…killed each other?" she asked faintly.
"Yeah. We watch our young’uns careful, but sometimes it takes us by surprise. Can’t keep an eye on ‘em all the time and don’t know when the sick’ll come on ‘em. Might be just fine one minute and a demon the next."
Keza felt the shock on her face but couldn’t do a thing about it. "They tore each other apart?" she whispered.
He stared down at the little light in silence, twisting it with restless fingers.
Keza shifted on the hard rock, watching him with horrified pity. How long had they lived like that, waiting for their children to go murderously crazy? And what happened to the children who made it to adulthood? Her pity morphed into terror as she realized that she was staring at one of those children right now. Had he killed anyone as a child? Did he still have that demon inside him? Remembering the mob, she was afraid she already knew the answer.
Keza swallowed hard, a dry click in her throat. She was stuck with a crazy man in a cave. And if he was right, rescue wasn’t coming any time soon. If she was going to get away from him, she’d have to figure out how to do it on her own. Licking parched lips, she cleared her throat and tried reason. "So…so you were hoping a new genetic line, fresh blood, would dilute the—the sickness? Are you aware of Kaska’s issues with conception?" She slipped a secretive, protective hand over her abdomen, terrified of how Clavis might react to her pregnancy.
He shrugged a thick shoulder, not looking at her. "Hybrids’re usually stronger than purebreds. Figure mixin’ our blood would clear the stock. ‘Sides, nobody else answered the ad for a handler."
She couldn’t contain a horrified shudder when she realized that they’d actually
advertised
to catch a breeder. "M-mixing blood," she wheezed, trying to get past her reaction, "doesn’t guarantee strength. It’s possible that both weaknesses would be bred into the line."
"We gotta take that chance," he said intensely, fisting the light and glaring at her. "We’re dyin’."
"Why—why don’t you ask for help? It’s a health issue. Universal Legislature provides—"
He snarled wordlessly and silenced her. "I know what those bastards’d do to us! They’d take us from our home, lock us up somewhere. I’m not gonna be some lab rat in a cage! We survived this long without help and we’ll keep survivin’. Just gotta get you home and whelp us a new line. Be just fine," he muttered, face twitching again while his eyes roamed the cave. "Nothin’ wrong with us. Strong stock, born survivors."
Oh, shit,
Keza thought as her muscles went liquid with terror. Paranoia on top of crazy. Not a healthy combination. She wouldn’t be able to reason with him. So what was left? Attacking him would be suicide. Distraction? She glanced around frantically, wrapping protective arms around her middle. The cave was tiny, the only opening leading to darkness and water. She stared from the placid water line to her wet dress, realizing that he must have lugged her unconscious body through some sort of submerged tunnel to reach this place. The knowledge didn’t help. The cliffs and coastline around her home were riddled with tunnel systems and caves. Even if a search party knew that she was in the network of caves, it would still take them days to find her. If ever.
Panic prickled along her spine and brought the sting of tears to her eyes. She blinked fiercely, instinct telling her that tears wouldn’t help. It might set the lunatic across from her into a rage, or maybe stimulate him…
Keza blinked again, eyes on the now rippling water line. The water had been motionless before. Was there a current or tide? Maybe it could draw her back out to open water if she could just—
The darker shape against the water startled her so badly that she almost screamed. She managed to jerk her head back to face Clavis just as he glanced up at her with a frown. "I’m freezing," she muttered, shuddering again in an approximation of her startled reaction, heart thundering in wild hope.
Oh, please,
she thought,
oh, Goddess, don’t let him look…
He stared at her for a second before his frown eased into speculation, glittering eyes traveling over her quivering body. "Well, I can take care a’that, Suki," he drawled, licking his lips. She kept her gaze focused on him and not the silent shadow rising from the water, but she couldn’t stop herself from cringing away when Clavis hoisted his bulk to his feet. "Keep you nice and warm—"
The shadow sprang forward with a shocking roar that rang in her ears and almost covered the thud of their two big bodies slamming together.
"Chase!" she cried in involuntary reaction then slapped a hand over her mouth and scrambled away. She couldn’t distract him—if he got hurt because he looked away at the wrong instant, she’d never forgive herself. The light source fell and bounced, creating wild shadows and scrambling her view of the twisting fighters. She moaned through her fingers, fear knotting her insides as she huddled against the rock and tried to make sense of what she was seeing. Clavis was huge and crazy, driven to extremes with nothing to lose. What if he was too much for Chase? Goaded by the grunts, snarls, and heavy thumps of flesh meeting flesh, Keza hunted the rock with frantic fingers, searching for a loose stone she could use as a weapon.
When she heard the sound of bodies hitting the floor, she looked up with a panicky sob. The sight that met her eyes galvanized her into motion. "No!" she shouted, scrambling toward the prone forms. "Don’t kill him!"