Fantasy Life (47 page)

“That’s what he wants,” Gabriel said. He’d seen enough men like Walters to know. Walters liked to bait. The problem was, a lot of what these people said was true. That was why the baiting worked.

“I loved Reginald,” Lyssa said. Her entire body was tense, lean, muscular. If she twisted at all, Gabriel wouldn’t be able to keep his hold on her.

“And that’s why you divorced him.” Walters took off the hat, brushed his hand over it as if he had encountered dust, then replaced the hat on his head. “Now if you all’ll excuse me, I didn’t come here for some bizarre Buckingham family reunion.”

Lyssa got even tenser. Gabriel held her close, trying to calm her as best he could without words.

Cassie stepped up beside Emily. Cassie seemed healthier than she had before she fell. Her face was tilted slightly, as if she was trying to reconcile the man before her with the one she remembered.

“Spark Walters,” she said, her voice still husky from all the emotion she’d expressed earlier.

“Cassandra Buckingham?” A flush reached Walters’ cheeks, surprising Gabriel. He didn’t think men like that blushed. “You look same as ever, darling. Still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

“You have no right to talk to her,” Athena said.

Gabriel turned toward her. Her back was rigid, her chin
up. She still held Emily’s hand, but she looked like a mighty warrior who had rescued a child, instead of a great-grandmother trying to comfort one.

“I came for the mayor and the sheriff,” Walters said. “I believe I have business with them, Athena. Unless you still run this town.”

Emily held up her free hand, and Cassandra took it.

In that moment, there was a flare of white so bright it blinded Gabriel. He blinked and—

The Devil’s Goblet

It was nighttime, full dark, and Gabriel was standing on the Devil’s Goblet. The lava rock was slick with surf, booming below. The moon shone brightly above him, casting an eerie silver light that made the ocean, near the horizon line, glow.

The glow vanished near the shore. He wanted to turn, to see what was going on inside the bay, but he couldn’t. He was standing in an open doorway, his hands braced on either side.

His perspective was off, as if he had shrunk a few inches. His hands didn’t look like his either. They were long and slender and lined with age, female and familiar. He recognized the ring on the right hand—a diamond that glittered in an art deco setting. An unusual ring that only Athena wore.

Athena. He was Athena, looking out of Athena’s eyes.

And as he realized this, his consciousness slipped back and he could smell petroleum in the air, mixed with the faint scent of cigarette smoke and alcohol coming from his—her—clothes.

She was wearing a dress and high heels, which made climbing on the rocks awkward. But she had lost track of Walters—it
had been a mistake to bring him to Cliffside House. He had excused himself fifteen minutes ago, ostensibly searching for a rest room, and she hadn’t seen him since.

Some sort of instinct brought Athena down the back steps between the two towers to the exit that led onto the base of the Devil’s Goblet, where she had been the night of the storm.

As her eyes adjusted, she saw two men there, one sitting on the highest lava rock, arms clasped around his legs, the other climbing toward him.

The climbing man—tall, thin—was wearing a white suit that glowed in the moonlight. Walters. Athena took a step forward, then cursed, hating girl-shoes. She kicked them aside and stepped on the cold rocks in her nylon-covered feet.

“The Buckingham ladies have been telling me about all the magic here,” Walters said. “They think I’m some dumb buck who doesn’t get what they’re talking about, so they talk in code. But I know. I don’t know what you are, but I know what you can do.”

The man on the rock looked up, and Athena recognized his face. Daray. The moon caught the planes and hollows of it, making him look older than he was.

“You know nothing,” Daray said.

“I know how magic’s tied to the land. We got our own strange group of creatures in the Panhandle, and they give us our own special gifts. You can’t just take oil from the land, you know. It ain’t just blind luck and careful drilling. You got to find out, figure out, where the stuff is, and it ain’t all geologists and rock formations. Some families got a gift for it, and along with that gift, they maybe get a few others.”

His right hand was in the pocket of that suit. He was holding something—a knife?—and was turned slightly so that Daray couldn’t see that hand.

Athena crawled over the rocks, her feet slipping.

“I was thinking,” Walters said. “You gonna be able to get one of your people to bleed into the water?”

“What?”

Daray sounded as shocked as Athena felt.

“Because if you are, I know where that oil should go. We got another tanker down San Francisco way, empty, heading out to sea again soon. We just gather up that oil, send it to the ship—that ain’t too far for you, is it?—and everything’ll be just the same, like I promised that pretty Cassie Buckingham. No harm done.”

“No harm?” Daray stood. He was taller and thinner than Walters, but he didn’t look as solid. “What of the selkie who dies?”

“Small sacrifice, ain’t it, to save what you’all’re calling a refuge?” Walters stood higher on the rock than Daray. He was braced better too.

Athena clambered toward them, her hands gripping sharp rock, her feet slipping on the wet. She wasn’t going to reach them, and she was afraid if she shouted, she would only be a distraction.

“You’ll get your refuge,” Walters said, “I’ll get to impress one of the prettiest girls I ever seen, and not a drop of oil’ll be lost, except for the stuff in the
Walter Aggie
herself. We’ll sink that, so no press knows, and then the town is saved, there’ll be tourists again, and everything’ll be perfect, just like it was supposed to be.”

“You want to impress Cassie?” Daray sounded shocked. “Killing a selkie won’t impress her, you idiot. She’s my wife.”

“So you’re the one she’s sort of married to. I wondered when I saw her track you. Mind-sharing—rather intimate, don’t you think? I mean, even for married people?”

“What’re you talking about?”

“When you spoke to that old man, and he told you not to create a storm? She was with you. It was fascinating, really, but I thought she was just trolling for minds. I had an uncle who used to do that. Learned a lot of business things that way.”

Athena reached the top of one of the stones and balanced precariously on the peak. The two men were still in the same position. Daray didn’t seem to realize he was at a disadvantage.

“So Cassie didn’t tell you anything,” Daray said.

“Not directly.” From the sound of Walters’ voice, Athena could tell he was smiling—that horrible infectious grin. “But I learned enough. Now, what do I gotta do to make sure that oil goes away?”

“We have to have a meeting of the council. It’s complicated. We have a government just like you do.”

“No. It ain’t just like ours. It ain’t anything near so powerful.”

Then Walters took a step forward, grabbed Daray under the chin, and slipped his hand out of his pocket. It was all one fluid movement.

Athena didn’t even get a chance to yell a warning.

Daray grabbed at him, trying to pull Walters over his shoulder, but he couldn’t get a grip. Walters had his chin tight, pulling it upward so that it had to hurt.

Athena scrambled over the rocks, feeling them cut her legs, her feet, her hands. She didn’t care. She was hurrying to Daray. She had to reach him before—

Walters took the knife and slashed it across Daray’s throat. Blood spurted toward the ocean as if someone had opened a spigot.

“It’s not just because you have a pretty wife,” Walters said as he dragged Daray toward the sea. “It’s also because you happened to be convenient.”

Then Walters swung his entire body around and sent Daray over the edge of the Goblet, into the frothing seawater below.

Athena propelled herself toward Walters. She reached him while he was still bending over the edge and shoved him as hard as she could.

He slipped off the edge and bounced, screaming as he fell.

Athena didn’t watch him land in the ocean. She turned her back and picked her way toward Cliffside House.

If he didn’t fall into the ocean right away, he would when the storm hit. He would die horribly, more horribly than Daray had.

Athena half-wished she would too. Then she wouldn’t have to tell her daughter that Daray had died, and she had failed to prevent it.

Anchor Harbor Wayside

The images winked out, vanishing like the picture in an old vacuum tube television set. For a moment, the world was black.

Cassie stood completely still, feeling little Emily’s hand in her own. Emily, who was holding onto Cassie and Athena. That’s how Cassie got lost in Athena’s memories, in Athena’s world.

Thirty-four years, and her mother hadn’t said a word. Even after Spark Walters had somehow survived.

Even when Reginald Walters wanted to marry Daray’s daughter.

Even then.

The darkness faded and gradually the wayside returned. The first thing Cassie saw was Spark Walters, standing in front of his limousine, looking like a caricature of his former self. Balding, big boots, big belt buckle, ten-gallon hat, and more jewelry on his fingers than Cassie had ever owned.

Rich beyond her imaginings. Married, with children, grandchildren, a life.

And she had been here, beside the beach, mourning Daray, and fearing—knowing—that all his words of love had been a lie.

They hadn’t.

She’s my wife.

He had meant everything he had ever said to her. Walters looked wild-eyed at the minions beside him. They were looking a bit wild-eyed themselves.

Gabriel still held Lyssa against him. He said softly, “What the hell was that?”

And that was when Cassie knew—knew deep down—that everyone in the parking lot had seen this last vision. Athena and Walters’s secret—the murder of Cassie’s husband.

Athena looked paler than Cassie had ever seen her. Cassie couldn’t even face her. Instead, Cassie dropped Emily’s hand and started across the parking lot toward Walters.

“You fucking bigoted son of a bitch,” Cassie said, “what did you want with me? You were already married.”

Walters’s pale eyes widened slightly, and Cassie sensed fear. But he smiled. God, how she hated that smile.

“Divorced, darling,” he said. “See? You never did take the time to find out about me. Esme’s my second wife. Looks a little like you—”

Cassie screamed and lunged for him, and this time, no one stood in her way. Walters held out a hand to stop her, but she slipped past it, shoving his chest as hard as she could.

He grabbed her, held her close, just like Gabriel was holding Lyssa. He stank of cologne and cigars, his meaty body strong against her own.

She pounded him with her fists, and he grabbed them, holding them tight, pulling her as close to him as she could get. She looked up in his face, saw broken capillaries under the skin, the nose wider than it should have been, blood-shot eyes. So, life hadn’t been kind to him after all. He had to anesthetize himself to make it through.

“Like what you see, Cassandra?” Walters asked quietly.

“How did you survive?” she asked. “How did you make it through that storm when it nearly killed me and Anchor Bay?”

“You know,” he said, “back in Texas, we got ourselves ground pixies. Kinda like ground squirrels, only with brains. They got a little government too, and a society that sort of works for them. But they don’t got any way of investigating things that
happen to their clan. They just got rumor and innuendo and—”

“How did you survive after you murdered my husband?” she screamed, pushing herself at him.

“If you’re gonna get all riled, Cassie, I’m not gonna tell you.”

She whirled, pulling his left hand still holding her right fist down across her chest. Her other fist remained in the air, his hand clutching it. Then she leaned forward and bit his arm hard enough to draw blood.

“Stop it,” he hissed. “Stop it.”

He slid his arm down, then squeezed her left fist. His minions were watching from a distance, looking terrified. Gabriel had let go of Lyssa. He was coming close, as if he were going to get involved. So was Lyssa, and so, surprisingly, was Athena.

Emily stood behind them, her skin ashen, her little body shaking. Cassie had gotten words from her. Words that weren’t her own.

Roseluna, begging Emily to help her.

“You’re a tiny little thing,” Walters said, “and I could break you like a twig, but I don’t want to, Cassie. You and I, we could’ve been friends in other circumstances. And I learned from you. You were right that night. It’s not acceptable to spill oil in our precious waters, because you can’t clean it up. You can’t make places what they were before. Unless you got some pull. Your husband, he gave me pull.”

“I asked how you survived,” Cassie said. “I already know how you murdered my husband.”

“Well,” Walter spoke in her ear like they were lovers, “I combined what I learned back home from the ground pixies and what I saw when I followed your mind out of that restaurant that night. Your husband was talking to another selkie, and I figured after that conversation, they’d believe he offed himself to save the humans. Those selkies would never find out, and they could help me—help all of us, which they did.”

“You called Daray’s father to you?”

“I don’t know who all came, but there was a bunch of them. They was already swimming to shore to do what they could, then they saw me. And I told them I knew where the oil could go. They made me promise to sink the ship, and never ever let anything like that happen again. I promised, Cass, and kept that promise. Till a few days ago, when the
Walter Aggie
started leaking all over again.”

“The
Walter Aggie’s
not leaking,” Cassie said. “They brought you here to kill you with the rest of us.”

“What are you talking about, darling?”