Bay of Sighs (29 page)

“Jesus Christ.” Despite everything, when she turned to the next sketch, Sawyer stared at it with horrified pity. “That's Malmon?”

“He's still between, but more beast than man. Trapped in the dark, the pain—the burning—terrible.”

“Mephisto demon. Lower demon,” Riley continued. “Often enslaved to a ruler demon or dark god. A shunner of light. Mythologically speaking.”

“There's an actual name for this?”

“There's a name for everything,” she told Sawyer, “if you dig deep enough.”

“She comes to him.” Again, Sasha turned a page. “He weeps bloody tears. She could destroy him, such is her rage. And there's a madness in her, as in him. But she's still canny, and he'll be useful. She makes him beg, grovel, supplicate himself, but she gives him back his sight, and she takes him to her palace inside the mountain, to a chamber already prepared. It didn't matter if he'd failed or succeeded,
this was always his fate. The mother of lies promised riches, power, eternal youth. Instead he'll live as she wills, as long as she wills, and have only what she wills.”

She turned the page. There birds pecked at flaps of blackened skin while mirrored walls of stone showed the horror Malmon had become. He sat hunched in a corner, wearing a mad grin.

“They say there are some things you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. Malmon's definitely high on the enemy list.” Riley blew out a long breath. “But no, I wouldn't wish this, even on him.”

“She denied him a clean death, and that's a cruelty. But—” On a pause, Doyle studied the final sketch, coolly. “This is his true self, isn't it? This is what he always was inside. She just brought it out, made it visible.”

“Yes. Yes,” Sasha repeated before anyone else could speak. “She recognized the monster inside him. Now he'll become.” She picked up her glass, took a long drink. “And she'll rule him. He's mad—she's driven him into madness and delusion, but he's stronger, faster, and more vicious. He's more dangerous now than before.”

She reached for Bran's hand. “I'm so glad you're here.”

“You didn't have your quiet day of painting.”

“No. But the day's not over. His life is. All the wealth, the privilege, he traded it for her lies. No, not on even the worst of enemies, but he gave himself to her because the monster already inside him craved more.”

She took another drink, took another breath. “How do we kill him?”

“Demon disposal.” Riley took one last look at the sketch. “Beheading, mythologically speaking again, is tried and true. Otherwise, for some it's fire, others water or salt or the right incantation. I can look into it. I'm pretty sure he's on his way to the merphisto, but I'll find out what I can.”

“I'll do the same.” Concern in his eyes, Bran kissed the top of
Sasha's head. “You should paint, Sasha. Something bright and beautiful.”

“I will. Annika, would you pose for me?”

“Pose?”

“After this?” She closed the sketchbook. “Bran's exactly right. I'd like to paint something beautiful, something full of light and joy.”

“You'd paint me? Oh!” Annika crossed her hands over her heart. “I have such a happy.”

“Ah.” With a shake of his head, rubbing the back of his neck, Sawyer said, “That's actually slang for something else, that being a girl, you can't have.”

“I can't have happy?”

“
A
happy. It's . . .”

“Jesus, Sawyer, be direct. It's a hard-on.” Riley pointed to Sawyer's crotch; he batted her hand away. “When a guy gets hard.”

“Oh! That is happy, isn't it? I should say I
am
happy. I would love to pose for you, Sasha.”

“Would you pose in the pool, in the water, a mermaid?”

“Yes!” Instantly, she reached for the hem of her dress.

“Wait, whoa. You don't just take off your clothes.”

Baffled, Annika lifted her hands at Sawyer. “I don't go in the water in clothes, and I can't wear the suit for swimming in my true form.”

“Yeah, but.” He looked directly at Doyle. “Go find somewhere else to be.”

“I like it here.”

“Doyle and Bran have seen me without clothes.”

“What?”

“When we came back, I had no clothes. Doyle gave me his coat so I wouldn't be cold. You're too shy,” she said to Sawyer. Walking toward the pool, she pulled her dress off as she went, tossed it on a chair, then dived in.

“She's already art. And she's yours, brother.” On a last admiring
glance, Doyle rose. “I'll do more translating while you dig up demons,” he said to Riley.

And to Sawyer's relief, strolled inside.

S
ince searching and diving, even training seemed to be off the agenda, Sawyer took the day. It annoyed him to conk out over his own research, but he felt better after the hour's sleep.

But even after the rest, the compass told him nothing. Part of him worried, despite the reassurances, that using it as he'd used it had cost him the right to it.

Braced for that, he took his phone, walked outside. Annika sat—more lounged—on the steps of the pool, wet hair sleek and not quite covering her breasts. Her tail glistened, a thousand small, bright jewels. She turned her head, just a little, smiled at him.

“I'm supposed to stay still for a few minutes more. Sasha says I can't see until she's finished.”

But he could, and circled around to where Sasha stood at her easel. He saw she'd pinned up several quick sketches, different poses, expressions. And on the canvas she'd captured joy and beauty.

“It's great. It's . . . amazing.”

“So many tones and shades and hues.” Sasha mixed more paint on her palette, dabbed at the canvas with a thin brush. “And the way they all catch the light.”

“You could come in the pool, and talk to me. Sasha says I can talk.”

“Maybe later. I need to make a call.”

“Will you paint Sawyer, Sasha?”

“She doesn't want to—”

“It's on my list.”

“What? Really?”

“I want to do a painting of each of us, and one of all of us together.
I just have to . . . find it. Like this with Annika. I've done Bran's, from memory. At night, with the power on him, like the jewels in Annika's tail. Bright, brilliant, and marvelous. But I need to find it, and find the right time. Today was Anni's.”

“It's . . .” He really didn't have the words. “You're going to love it,” he told Anni. “I'm going to take a walk, make this call.”

He chose the grove for the quiet, the shade, the scents. He took out the compass again, considered simply traveling to his grandparents' home. But with his energy still on the low end, it wouldn't be smart. And more, he didn't want to worry his family.

He settled for the phone.

“Dedushka.”
Even the sound of his grandfather's voice lifted him.
“Kak pozhivaesh?”

He kept it casual initially, sliding from Russian to English and back again, catching up on family news.

“Zolotse.”
His grandfather's use of the affectionate term, and the gentle tone stopped Sawyer's rambling.
“Chto sluchilos?”

What's wrong? Sawyer thought. Where do I start?

“
Dedushka
. I'm afraid I've . . . Let me tell you what happened.”

B
ran walked into the grove. He looked for Sawyer, as Sasha had some mild concern. Apparently Sawyer had been gone nearly an hour.

He found him, sitting on the ground, back resting against a tree pregnant with lemons. And the compass in his hand.

“I hope you haven't taken any recent trips.”

“What? Oh, hey. And no, no. I've been right here. I just talked to my grandfather.”

Bran joined him on the ground, stretched out his legs. “Is he well then, your grandfather?”

“Yeah. Since that scare a while back, he's stronger than ever.”

“It's good to speak with family. I spoke with my mother only yesterday.”

“Is she worried about you?”

For a moment, in the bright, hot Italian afternoon, Bran felt the cool, damp kiss of Ireland.

“She's my mother. Of course she has worries. She also has faith. And though I don't like the worrying of her, her faith gives me more of my own.”

“Yeah. I love my dad, you know? And my mom, my sibs, my grandmother. But
Dedushka
 . . .”

“It's a special bond, isn't it? The compass was his, and he passed it to you. I love my father, and all the rest of my family. But it's my mother who taught me, who helped me learn to open myself to what I am.”

“So you get it.”

“I do, yes. Now you've told him what troubles you still.”

“Everything y'all said made sense, and it helped. A hell of a lot. But . . . You know your power's there all the time, right? You don't have to use it to feel it.”

“I know what's in me, yes.”

“Since we came back from the cave, I haven't felt the connection.”

A dragonfly winged by, gossamer in the dappled sunlight. Sawyer watched its flight, and how it zipped away. He knew what it was to fly.

“When I knew I had to tell my grandfather, I thought about going to him. And I told myself I needed to keep recharging the batteries, you know, and how I didn't want to worry them anyway. But under that was the fear I couldn't do it anyway. I couldn't travel again because I'd lost the right.”

“And what did your grandfather say to that?”

“Well, he listened when I told him what happened, about Malmon, the cave, Annika, all of it. And how I'd used this, this gift, to kill a man. And I thought that might have cost me the right to have it.”

“And?”

“Basically, he told me to stop being a pussy.”

On a half laugh, Sawyer shrugged, and easily, as the weight of guilt no longer sat on his shoulders.

“It was longer than that, had pretty much everything y'all said to me, but with that ‘don't be a pussy' tagged on tight. Then he said he loved me, and he believed in me, believed I'd do what I'd been born to do. To get it the hell done and come home safe.”

“I look forward to meeting him one day.”

“Yeah, we'll have a post-quest party that rocks the house.”

Emotion shuddered through him, and leading it was gratitude.

“I feel it again. That connection. I know it's mine until it's time to pass it on. Had to stop being a pussy, stop moping over dropping some asshole into the void who'd have put a bullet in my brain.”

“Brilliant. I'd say that's earned you a beer.”

“A whole one?”

Testing, Bran laid a hand on Sawyer's wounded shoulder, then on his side. And pleased with what he felt, he nodded. “It's a full pint for you.” Bran rose, held out a hand. “Welcome back.”

“So we can dive tomorrow?” With barely a twinge, Sawyer let Bran pull him to his feet.

“Another day or two for that. We may as well let our digger dig.”

“A couple more days, our digger's going to go wolf on us.”

“Only from moonrise to moonset. It's this Bay of Sighs clearly enough. Let's give her, and Doyle, time to find it, and you and Annika a bit more time. And let's go have that pint.”

“I'd be a fool to argue.”

Annika no longer lounged in the pool. Sawyer didn't see Sasha, but cut across toward the canvas still on her easel.

And just stared. Joy and beauty, magick and marvel. He didn't know how Sasha captured the gleam, the sparkle with only paint.
Didn't know how anyone could so clearly show the light in those sea-green eyes.

How could a painting so perfectly show sweetness and sex and strength?

“You like it.” With one of Riley's famed Bellinis in hand, Sasha wandered out, hooked her arm through Sawyer's.

“It's everything she is.”

“I'm going to do others. It's why I did so many sketches. I want her in the classic mermaid on the rock in the sea, and I want her doing cartwheels or flips on the lawn.”