Mystical Warrior (29 page)

“But you said the staff did nothing until it touched her.” Mac shook his head. “There’s no reason for my father to take Fiona.” He looked directly at Trace. “Unless he’s planning to use her to force you to let me go.”

“Then he’s about to get his wish,” Trace said, driving his shoulder into Mac’s gut.

He straightened with Mac flung over his back and, ignoring the wizard’s shout of protest, ran into the blinding light of the tunnel. Mac let out a painful roar, but Trace turned and ran up the stairs without even breaking stride, and heaved him into the mudroom as he fell to his knees.

He got up and dragged Mac into the kitchen, then ran back and shut the wall of the closet, then the closet door,
and then the door separating the mudroom from the house. Mac lay motionless, curled up in a fetal position, moaning. Trace walked over to the sink, filled the coffee carafe with water, and threw it on him.

“I hope you rot in hell,” Mac snarled, rolling away to curl back into a ball.

“We’ll keep each other company, then,” he said, filling the carafe again. But when he turned to throw it, Mac was up on his hands and knees.

“Give me a minute to get my bearings!”

“We don’t have a minute.” He set the carafe on the counter, hauled Mac to his feet and hooked the wizard’s arm over his shoulder, then dragged him out the door.

“How in hell do you think to find her?” Mac asked, lurching upright when the blowing snow hit his face. “It’s a big ocean, and right now it’s the site of a fierce battle.”

“I figure if your father took her to trade, one of your buddies will swim out and tell him where you are,” Trace said, heading toward his truck. “And if your enemies took her, they’ll find us quick enough.”

Mac pulled them to a halt. “The ocean’s that way,” he said, waving at the bay.

“But my boat is moored in the harbor.”

Mac blinked at him, and Trace leaned away. Christ, the guy was scary ugly.

“It will be quicker if my friend takes us to my father.”

Trace scrambled away. “Your
friend
? You think I’m going to … that we’re … for chrissakes, I’m not riding on a whale!”

“Not
on
it, Huntsman,
in
it.” Mac lifted what barely passed as a brow on his ugly face. “Surely you’ve heard the
story of Jonah and the whale.” He swayed on his feet as he held his arms apart. “They have really big bellies, which are quite warm and cozy.”

Trace caught one of Mac’s outstretched arms and dragged him to his truck. “We go in my boat or I’m tossing you back in that tunnel and leaving you there.” He shoved him in the passenger’s side and ran around and climbed in behind the wheel. The truck was already running, since he’d started it and turned on the heater when he’d brought out his backpack and a couple more weapons before he’d gone after Mac. “Here,” he said, shoving a jacket at him before pulling the gearshift into reverse. “Put that on. I don’t want you dying of pneumonia before I hand you over.”

“Maybe you should try
asking
people to do something instead of dragging them around and snapping orders at them,” Mac muttered, leaning forward to put on the coat.

“So I’ve been told.” Trace backed out to the road and sped toward town, his gut clenching at the thought of Fiona out there alone, probably scared out of her mind.

Until he remembered she was wearing a gun. He turned onto the harbor road without even slowing down, slamming Mac up against the door. “Christ, I wouldn’t put it past her to shoot your father. And if she’s with your enemies …” He shuddered, unable to complete the thought.

“She’s
armed
?” Mac yelped, looking over at him. “With a gun?”

“You mean, as opposed to a frying pan?” Trace drove directly onto the pier and stopped next to the ramp leading down to the floating docks. Only instead of getting out, he stared at his boat riding on swells being pushed into the harbor by huge waves rolling in from the point. “It looks
like we’re in for one hell of a ride,” he said quietly, glancing over at Mac. “Hey, you’re starting to look … less ugly.” He eyed him suspiciously. “You getting your strength back?”

“Not quickly enough to save our asses if you insist on doing this your way.”

“As opposed to yours?” He snorted. “I realize there might actually be something to this magic thing, but I draw the line at becoming some whale’s dinner.”

Mac glared at him. “At least my way you won’t die of hypothermia within twenty minutes of our capsizing.”

“You mean
we
won’t die.”

“Atlanteans can’t drown; we have ocean water in our veins.” Up went that brow again. “So now which one of us seems determined to commit suicide?”

Trace opened his door, grabbed his backpack and slipped it over his shoulders, and, tucking his head against the blowing snow, he headed down the ramp.

“Have you ever trusted anyone, Trace?” Mac asked when they reached the dock.

He untied his dinghy and shoved it into the water. “I trusted the bastard I asked to keep an eye on Elena when I went out on a mission.” He held the small boat while Mac got in the front then climbed in after him, sat down with his back to Mac, and picked up the oars. “And we both know how that turned out, don’t we?”

“Are you certain it was your friend who betrayed you, and not Elena?”

Trace strained into the oars to row toward his boat, having to fight the gale-force wind as well as the swells. “Jon made promises to her that he had no intention of keeping.”

“And when Elena found herself in a … lovers’ triangle,
you don’t suppose she realized she could lose
both
chances to go to America when you returned and found out she’d seduced your friend?” Trace felt Mac lean closer. “And did you never consider that she may have confronted Jon and threatened to claim that he’d raped her if he didn’t help her get to America?”

“That’s the story he spewed the whole time I was beating the hell out of him,” Trace said, elbowing Mac on the pretense of rowing harder. “I guess we’ll never hear Elena’s version, will we?”

“Do you care to hear my version, Huntsman?”

“No.”

“Elena told Jon she was going to tell your commanding officer that both of you had seduced her with promises of taking her to America. She also intended to claim that she was pregnant and that she didn’t know which one of you was the father.”

Trace stopped rowing and spun on his seat. “Was she?”

“No,” Mac said, shaking his head. “But your friend believed her, and when he confronted Elena, she ran into the night.” Mac leaned toward him again. “Jon didn’t drive her toward that minefield deliberately, Trace, as you believe; he was trying to stop her when he realized the danger.” Mac straightened. “The only thing Jonathan Payne is guilty of is having bad judgment when it comes to women.”

“Then, according to your version, I’m guilty of the same thing.”

Mac merely lifted a brow, saying nothing.

Trace turned and started rowing again, trying to decide if Mac wasn’t just pushing his buttons to get even for his using Matt’s magic against him. Then again, Jon
could
be
innocent, and Elena
could
have duped them both. Trace snorted. It wouldn’t have been the first time a woman had used her body to get him to do something.

“If what you’re saying is true, Jon’s serving time for a crime he didn’t commit.”

“Would your military court believe an eyewitness?”

“The base police questioned everyone who might have seen or heard anything. And by the time Jon got out of the hospital and could tell his side of what happened, public sentiment was already against him—a good deal of it fueled by Elena’s family.”

“And by you,” Mac said evenly.

“And me.”

“If we don’t die today, Huntsman, I’ll produce a witness to exonerate your friend.”

They bumped into Trace’s boat, and he grabbed the gunwale and held the dinghy steady as both vessels rose and fell with the swells. He turned on his seat to look at Mac. “You can do that?”

“If we survive the day.” He smiled tightly. “If we don’t, I’m afraid Jon’s plight is on your soul, not mine.”

Mac was nearly back to his old self again, although Trace wasn’t quite sure if he looked exactly the same. He’d met the man on three different occasions, and the wizard had appeared different each of those times.

Except for his eyes, which were always a sharp, vivid green.

“Climb in,” Trace said, nodding at the boat. He climbed aboard right behind him, letting the dinghy drift off, and immediately started the engine.

“You forgot your extra guns in the truck,” Mac said,
dropping onto a coil of rope with a groan to lean against the wheelhouse.

“I decided I don’t need them. How are you feeling?”

“A bit better, thank you. Why?”

Trace waved his index finger in a circle. “Can you unhook us from the mooring so I don’t have to go up front and do it?”

“You really don’t trust me, do you? You think I’m faking.”

“I’ll trust you just as soon as I get Fiona back.”

Mac waved his finger in the air. “Let’s go.”

Trace set his hand on the throttle, hesitating just long enough to make sure they were drifting away from the mooring, but when he looked at Mac he could see that the little magic trick had cost the wizard. He slowly eased the throttle forward and guided them through the maze of moored boats, all the time eyeing the rough seas ahead.

Oh, yeah, they were in for one hell of a ride.

“You know, Huntsman,” Mac said, stretching his legs out as he settled back against the wheelhouse. “I believe if you are truthful with yourself, you’ll admit that your gut was telling you something wasn’t quite right with Elena. Why else would you have asked Jon to keep an eye on her while you were gone?”

“Because I didn’t know if my mission was going to take a week or a month.” He felt heat creep up his neck. “And she told me her brother had pledged her to some warlord, and I didn’t want to come back and find he’d married her off.”

Christ, he really was a gullible chump, wasn’t he?

“So is that why you panicked when I suggested that you ask Fiona to marry you, because you’re incapable of trusting a woman? Even one you admire for her strength and independence?”

Trace glared at him. “For your information, I
did
ask her, and she said no.”

“You asked Fiona to do you the honor of being your wife?”

“Well … not exactly. I asked if some guy here in the twenty-first century were to ask her to marry him, if she would. And she gave me a flat-out no.” He snorted. “Because, she said, husbands are more trouble than they’re worth.”

Mac just gaped at him. “You are such an ass.”

“Have you even once considered that maybe Fiona really doesn’t want to get married?” Trace asked, spreading his stance when the boat rolled with the growing swells as they neared the point.

“All women want to get married,” Mac snapped as he was thrown off the rope.

“Apparently not badly enough to marry you. Hang on!” Trace shouted, shoving the throttle forward. The boat lurched into the open bay, sending spray crashing over the wheelhouse as the bow slammed into waves he estimated were ten to twelve feet high—which was way bigger than any he’d ever been out in before.

“For the love of Zeus!” Mac roared, springing to his feet and pulling Trace out of the way to grab the wheel. “I’ve met farmers who were better seamen!”

Trace took hold of the console to brace himself, turning to hide his smile.

He’d wondered how long it would take the wizard to get in the game.

Only he quickly sobered when he heard his boat’s foghorn go off. “What in hell are you doing?” he shouted.

“Shut up and look for them!”

Them? As in tails and flippers and big, warm bellies
them
?

Mac started blowing the horn again in a series of long and short bursts.

“Goddamn it, Oceanus!” Trace scrambled to grab the wheel. “I am not—”

Something slammed into the boat, knocking him down and sending him sliding all the way back to the stern. He caught hold of the gunwale and started to stand, but the boat was slammed from the other side, nearly tossing him over the side before he finally got to his feet on the rolling deck just as he heard the engine die.

“Take a deep breath, Huntsman!” Mac shouted, charging toward him.

Trace shot to the side, but the wizard read his intention and veered toward him, snagging him in his arms, his momentum sending them both flying over the stern.

T
race unzipped his jacket, pulled his shirttail out of his sopping-wet jeans, and wiped his face. “Fess up, Oceanus; you were dropped on your head as a kid, weren’t you?” He cleared his eyes enough to glare at Mac, only to find the bastard smiling.

“Are we not here, Huntsman?”

Yeah, they were definitely here; only problem was, Trace wasn’t sure exactly where
here
was. They appeared to be on some sort of ship. Or rather
in
a ship, as he suspected they were several hundred feet underwater. “This boat got a bathroom,” he asked, “or do Atlanteans just whiz in the ocean?”