20. Pippi
“Behind the line!”
Marvin the cat had a set of pipes on him. His slinky, orange-coated body was totally buried behind the wall of people in front of me, but his command rang loud and clear over the throng.
The crowd shifted back, people hissing and cursing as toes got trod on and ankles got dinged. Jackson grasped my arm, tucking me against his side to keep me safe from the shuffling feet.
“I didn’t think it’d be this crowded,” I muttered.
Jackson scoffed in disbelief. “It’s Rune Bloodworth . And they canceled all the tours, so everyone had an open schedule. That’s why I wanted to get here earlier . ”
We’d made only a quick pit stop to our cottage after breakfast so I could change out of my jeans and slip into a graffiti summer dress. The mugginess had been dialed up to ten, and I’d started to feel itchy in my jeans.
Although, to be fair, Jackson said the humidity was still tolerable, and no one else was complaining. So most, if not all, of my sticky feelings were self-induced. Emotions jacked up my internal body temperature, making me less tolerable to the outside heat.
Regardless, I’d needed only a minute to change. We’d descended upon the dock at 11:30 a.m. to find the area jam-packed. And nobody was allowed on the dock—the closest we could get was about a dozen feet away. Too far to see the ocean through the foggy veneer.
Marvin had been waiting for us all to arrive too.
He’d politely asked that we stay a distance from the sea.
When people got brazen and started shoving closer, he’d hissed at us to step back.
When people refused to heed that warning, he’d summoned a piece of chalk (likely the same magic chalk that wrote on the lobby board) to create a long line over the rocks.
“Nobody,” he’d said, “is to wander past this point.”
Someone had, of course, tested his boundary. The man who’d skipped over the line had received a slanted scratch on his ankle.
“Stupid, bloody gremlin!” the man had yelped. “How dare ? —”
“The safety of our guests is our utmost priority,” Marvin had droned.
“And I am permitted to use whatever means necessary to ensure that safety. Loitering on the dock during the disembarkation could pose a hazard to yourself and those arriving on the isle. I apologize for the scratch.” This said in a tone that suggested he was not one bit sorry.
“You will be compensated with a free tonic from the health clinic.”
“Does that include a rabies shot?” Someone guffawed.
“Not. Funny.” The man gnashed his teeth around the words.
But people now tried to stay behind the line. If they squiggled themselves too close to it, one shout from Marvin sent them all fluttering back.
Jackson tucked his arm around my waist, keeping me flush against his side, in case he needed to rescue me from more stomping feet. It was a sweet gesture. And normally, a squeezy, protective Jackson would’ve left butterflies fluttering in my belly.
But today? The heat of his palm seared through my dress and blistered my skin. Sweat moistened the areas of my back that were stuck to his scorching chest. The press of the crowd dragged at my nerves and left my emotions in a big thorny tumbleweed.
“I wonder if they’ll be on the Valiant .” Jackson bounced lightly. “Obviously they won’t ever be on the ship with us, but we could still technically say we sailed on the same ship. Pretty cool, huh?”
“Very cool.” I fanned lightly at my face. “But I’m a little surprised they need a ship. They couldn’t teleport here?”
I felt his shrug. “Maybe they can’t? The magic on the isle could be blocking their internal GPS, or whatever they use.”
“Oh! I think I see it!” a woman in front of us trilled.
“That’s a wisp of fog, hun,” came her husband’s response.
“Oh.”
“It is beholden to me,” drawled Marvin, “to remind you, yet again, that you are not to approach Mr. Bloodworth or any of his delegates when they disembark from the ship. You were given time to acclimate upon your arrival. We ask that you allow the same for them.”
“I definitely see something,” the woman crowed again. “There, to the left a little…”
People slogged into each other, straining to see, and a narrow gap opened in front of me. There, smudged against the foggy horizon, was a ship-shaped shadow.
Jackson squeezed my hip. But, at the same time, a jaw of fear clamped around my heart.
I jolted.
“You…” Thin tendrils of Alistair’s voice brushed against my mind, so laden with shock—with panic —they zapped me with the same voltage as a cattle prod.
Jackson pulled me in for a bone-crushing hug, maybe mistaking my spasm for anticipation. And I welcomed that hug, and the security it provided, when sorrow flooded my chest. A great, yawning sorrow, the kind that ran so deep it couldn’t be soothed by tears.
“Why are you here?” I closed my eyes, bracing against the onslaught of pain that accompanied Alistair’s voice.
Something was wrong.
I could hear it… feel it.
“That is definitely them!” Jackson whooped.
I opened my eyes. And jumped when I realized Marvin had meandered through the legs of the tittering onlookers and was sitting near my feet, staring up at me.
He blinked. In that slow, sluggish way cats did. Like they found your presence to be insufferable.
But I swore he knew what I was feeling. That green gaze was just a little too shrewd.
“I…I…You…”
Marvin’s tail twitched in time with each of my stutters.
“Babe, wha—Oh, shit !” Jackson snatched at my hip, hauling me away from Marvin. “The fuck, man?” he grumbled. “We’re not even near your stupid line.”
Marvin turned, stuck his tiger-striped tail into the air, and wove back through the crowd.
“I don’t think he came over to scold you, Jackson.” I fought to keep my words steady. “He’s probably patrolling.”
“I know. But I’d be spending half the day sneezing if it’d rubbed against my leg or swatted, or did whatever it is that cats do.”
Marvin turned when he reached the front of the group and found a gap to peer at us through.
“Do you think it can hear me?” Jackson hissed.
Marvin gave a slow, purposeful blink.
“Unfortunately, yes,” I said. “But I’m sure he won’t hold your allergies against you.”
Marvin looked, very much, like he would hold them against Jackson.
With a grunt, the smudged shape of the ship ground to a stop at the end of the dock.
Anticipation made the air soupy, so thick and chunky, every breath was a battle to get down. And in between my slurping inhales, I felt Alistair, the pinpricks of his panic puncturing holes into my gut.
I squirmed, battling with the urge to do… something.
If only I could communicate with him the telepathic way he communicated with me.
Ssssssssnnnaaappp.
A hissing snap and a bright flash of light made half the people in the crowd flinch.
“Sorry!” a man on my left side grumbled as he fiddled with the camera in his hand. “Stupid thing’s got a mind of its own.”
The camera he had was the only sort that worked on the isle: a vintage, all-manual type that’d gone out of style one hundred or so years ago. Anything digital, or even anything using a battery, went kaput as soon as it landed on the isle. So not many people had cameras.
And those who did, didn’t rightly know how to work them. As evidenced by the man’s cursing as he fiddled with the knobs and buttons, trying to figure out how to snap a picture.
And he certainly had no chance of sorting his camera in time to catch the big entourage’s arrival.
Ssswwwwisshhh.
A man teleported in front of our group, flashing us a thousand-watt smile as he shook some invisible ruffles out of his Hawaiian shirt. “Well, this is unexpected!”
“It’s Rune!” Jackson breathed in my ear.
There weren’t many people who could wear a red, green, and yellow Hawaiian shirt, paired with khaki shorts, and still look suave. But Rune Bloodworth was one of those people.
He was a bull of a man in his late forties, and his age showed in the grey hair dusting the light brown strands at his temple and the deep laugh lines around his eyes and mouth.
Things that were enough to peg him as an adult in the middle of his life, not enough to actually age him or drag down his devilishly good looks.
And he wielded that devilish charm well, as he preened and strutted closer to our group, throwing a dashing smile at everyone who hooted and uttered cries of “welcome.”
And I had, indeed, seen him before. His squared and masculine face had been plastered across many supermarket tabloids. Those bright amber eyes of his had judged me whenever I’d grabbed a piece of chocolate from the register racks. But I’d never realized who he was. Until now.
“This is a welcome group, yes?” Rune clapped his hands and chuckled. “ Excellent. I love it. Although I’m sure you all have other things you want to do. I would loathe to keep any of you from your vacation. But I do appreciate the welcome.”
A gaggle of other men and women teleported around him as he spoke, all dressed in their Sunday best: suits and ties for the men, and snappy business skirts and dresses for the women.
Apparently, the big head honcho was the only one who got to have a dress down day on the company retreat. Although he had been nice enough to let the men wear colorful ties.
“We should get drinks. Marvin. Marvin! Where’s that blasted—Oh, hahaha,” Rune boomed.
Through the twisting mass of limbs and torsos in front of me, I watched as Marvin sauntered up and sat at Rune’s feet.
“That’s right!” Rune said. “I keep forgetting you’re small .”
Marvin’s tail twitched.
“These fine folks deserve a drink for standing out here in this smog to make us feel welcome. Don’t you agree, Marv?”
“I suppose,” Marvin drawled.
“Open a tab in my name. And take these folks to the…er…Brew & Bites. Is that it?’
“Yes.”
“Take them there and get them a round of drinks.” Rune clapped his hands. “We really do appreciate you being here, ladies and gents, and all others. As I’m sure you can imagine, we are ecstatic to visit the isle with you.”
I swore my eyebrows were going to fly off my face with the way they shot up at that statement. Not a single person in that group of Sorcerers, outside of Rune, looked excited to be here.
“And it’s incredible to see that excitement reflected back to us. To be shown such love.” Rune patted a hand over his heart. “Amazing. Absolutely amazing. Oh, come now, Onyx, it is uplifting, isn’t it?”
A woman had finished her long stroll down the dock and came to a harrumphing stop behind the cluster of Sorcerers. She’d been the only one to walk the dock, instead of teleporting from the ship. And the only one to look at the swarm of onlookers with open disdain on her face.
“She’s excited too. I promise.” Rune laughed. “She just likes to keep people guessing.”
If looks could kill, Onyx’s would’ve melted the skin right off his face.
But in all fairness, she was the sort of woman who made the resting bitch face look breathtaking.
She was tall and willowy with rich black hair (fitting, for her name) and big green eyes.
Everything about her was delicate, from the angular curve of her jawbone, to her spindly wrists, to her lean and shapely legs.
She was like a model, and she dressed the part, donned in a silken green wrap dress, paired with a glittering diamond choke necklace, and big hoop earrings.
Silver rings glittered from six of her fingers as well.
She turned her eyes over our group—the Standie tourists of the isle—scoffed, and walked away, heading for the lobby.
People murmured as she passed.
“Do you know who that is?” Jackson asked.
“Onyx?” I repeated her name.
“Onyx Thornheart. Yeah. He made her. She was a nobody—born without magic to a Sorcerer family, working the nine-to-five grind with the rest of us. Then she got in with Rune and now she’s up there with the richest women in the world.
I’m telling you, babe, this is why everyone’s out here today. Rune Bloodworth changes lives.”
“Onyx.” The mournfulness in Alistair’s voice and the needles of despair he fired into my heart had me digging my teeth into my lips to keep from crying out.
Onyx stopped dead in her tracks and turned, raising her eyes toward the ocean.
Had she heard him too?
Rune called to her, jokingly telling the group that, “Onyx here has been dying for a drink since we left the states. Haven’t you, Onyx?”
“Onyx.” It took every ounce of willpower I possessed to keep my feet rooted when my body itched so fiercely to move.
To run to the sea and offer whatever comfort I could give to Alistair.
To make a dash for Onyx to ask if she really could hear him and then demand to know why he was so upset over her being here.
But I did nothing. Except to lean back into Jackson’s arms and suckle what comfort I could get from his embrace.
After a heartbeat, two, three, Onyx smirked and turned away from the sea.