Chapter 8 #2
"It was working perfectly." My gaze stays on the water below, watching for movement. "Until I realized someone might have weaponized a sea witch and I agreed to help hunt them down."
"I'm sorry about that."
"I'm not."
The words hang between us, weighted with meanings I shouldn't be considering.
Movement below freezes both of us.
A figure appears at the edge of the cove. Male. Young. Maybe twenty-five. He walks with strange jerky steps, like a puppet on invisible strings. Even from this distance, wrongness radiates from him.
"That's not right." Moira's whisper carries barely audible. "His movements. The way he's walking. That's not normal."
I grab the binoculars, focusing on the man's face. His eyes glow with sickly green light. Necromantic power. But the expression on his face suggests he's not in control. Terror mingles with the unnatural luminescence. He's fighting something invisible, losing.
"He's being controlled." The binoculars lower. "Walking himself to his death because someone's pulling the strings."
"The summoner. They're making him the fifth victim." Moira's already moving, scrambling down from our hiding spot. "We have to stop him. Save him before he reaches the convergence point."
My hand catches her wrist. "Wait. Look at the water."
She freezes, following my gaze. The waves have changed. Moving in patterns that defy natural physics. Circling the convergence point like predators waiting to strike. And beneath the surface, shadows move. Too many. Too large.
"They're here." Her voice drops to barely audible. "Not just controlling him from distance. The summoner is here. Watching."
"Where?"
She points to the cliff face opposite our position. A darker shadow among the rocks. Could be nothing. Could be everything.
"If we go down there, we're exposed. Vulnerable." My panther senses scream warning. "This could be the trap."
"It's already a trap. For him." She pulls free from my grip. "We can't just watch him die."
She's right. Damn her, she's right.
"Then we do this smart. I go left, draw attention. You go right, stay in the shadows. Get to him first, start breaking the binding. I'll handle whatever comes." I meet her eyes. "And if this goes wrong, you run. No arguments. No hesitation. You get out."
"Rafe—"
"Promise me."
The pause stretches too long. Then she nods once. A lie we both recognize but pretend to believe.
We hit the beach running. The man's twenty yards from the waterline. Fifteen. Ten. Moving with mechanical precision toward the exact spot where Moira's magic reads the strongest convergence.
"Stop!" My voice carries authority honed by years of making people obey or die. "Don't go in the water!"
The man's head turns toward us. Terror floods his glowing eyes. His mouth opens but no sound emerges. Whatever controls him won't let him speak. Won't let him stop. His feet keep moving forward despite obvious resistance.
The shadows in the water surge toward shore.
"Moira, incoming!"
Dark shapes break the surface. Not fully formed. Not quite solid. Somewhere between corpse and nightmare, animated by necromantic power that makes my skin crawl.
Moira reaches the man first, hands landing on his shoulders. Sea witch power floods through her touch. I feel it like static electricity raising the hair on my arms. She's trying to break the control. Cut the strings pulling him toward death.
The corpse-things lunge from the water.
I intercept the first one mid-leap. My fist connects with what should be a skull but feels like wet leather over ice. The impact sends it spinning backward into the surf. But it doesn't stay down. Just rises again, movements jerky and wrong.
The second comes at me low. I pivot, letting momentum carry it past, then bring my elbow down on what passes for its spine. Bone cracks. The thing collapses but keeps moving, crawling across rocks with broken determination.
The third ignores me entirely. Goes straight for Moira.
"Behind you!"
She can't turn without breaking contact with the man. Can't defend herself while channeling magic. The choice plays across her face in an instant.
She doesn't let go.
I throw myself between her and the corpse-thing.
It hits me like a sledgehammer wrapped in rotting fish.
We go down in a tangle of limbs and wrongness.
Its fingers—if they can be called fingers—dig into my shoulders with unnatural strength.
The face that looms over mine was human once. Now it's just a mask of decay and hate.
My hand finds its throat. I squeeze, feeling things break and shift under my grip. But it doesn't need to breathe. Doesn't need anything except to kill.
Behind me, the man convulses under Moira's grip. For one heartbeat, the glow in his eyes flickers. Then it blazes brighter, stronger. Green light erupts from his skin in waves.
He screams. The sound tears from his throat like something breaking.
The corpse-thing on top of me goes still. Not defeated. Just waiting. Then I feel it. The summoner's attention focusing. Power gathering like a storm about to break.
"Moira, get back! Now!"
She doesn't listen. Her magic pours into the man, fighting the binding with everything she has. Sweat beads on her forehead. Blood runs from her nose. She's pushing herself past safe limits.
The man's body begins to smoke. Not fire. Something worse. His skin turns grey, then black, spreading from his chest outward like infection. The summoner isn't just killing him. They're turning him into another corpse-thing right in front of us.
"I can't break it!" Desperation edges Moira's voice. "The binding is too strong. It's anchored to something I can't reach."
Then the strings jerk hard. The man rips free from Moira's grip with inhuman force. His body convulses, spine arching at an impossible angle. Green light explodes from his eyes, his mouth, his very pores.
He lunges for the water like a fish on a line being reeled in.
I throw off the corpse-thing and launch myself at the man. Catch him around the waist. Use my full weight to drag him down. Away from the convergence point. Away from whatever death waits in those dark waves.
His hands claw at my arms. Nails tearing skin. Mouth opening in a soundless scream that goes on and on. The necromantic power wraps around him like chains pulling him toward the water. Pulling both of us.
"Hold him!" Moira's gathering power again, pulling sea witch magic from the water and air and stone around us. "One more try. I can do this. I can save him."
The man's skin turns colder under my hands. Ice cold. Death cold. Whatever controls him is killing him right now, forcing his body to fail rather than let him escape. His heartbeat hammers against my chest. Too fast. Irregular. Failing.
"He's dying. Right now. Whatever you're going to do, do it fast."
Light erupts around her hands. Sea-green and silver, pure power unmarred by corruption. She places both palms on the man's chest, directly over his heart. Magic floods through the connection. I feel it wash over both of us. Clean. Pure. Everything the necromantic corruption isn't.
For five rapid heartbeats, I think it's working. The glow in his eyes flickers. Fades. His convulsions slow. The grey infection spreading across his skin reverses, color returning. His heartbeat steadies. Strengthens.
Moira's face lights with desperate hope.
Then something laughs in the darkness beyond the shore.
A child's laughter. High and cold and wrong.
The sound hits like a physical blow. The corpse-things freeze. The water goes eerily still. Even the wind stops.
Then power slams into the man like a hammer. Not gradual. Not slow. Just instant, overwhelming force that rips through Moira's healing magic like tissue paper.
The man goes rigid. His eyes roll back. One last shudder runs through his frame. Blood pours from his nose, his ears, his eyes. Then he goes limp in my arms.
Dead weight.
"No." Moira's voice breaks. "No, no, no. I had him. I was breaking the binding. He was coming back. He was—"
The man's body slides from my grip, falling toward the water with inevitable gravity. I try to catch him. Try to hold on. But the magic pulling him is too strong. Invisible hooks drag him across the rocks, leaving trails of blood. He tumbles into the waves like he was always meant to be there.
The water accepts him. Claims him. Pulls him down. Within seconds, he disappears beneath the surface. The ripples fade. The ocean returns to its natural rhythm as if nothing happened.
Moira drops to her knees at the waterline. Grief and rage war across her face. Her hands dig into the wet sand. "We failed. We were right here and we still failed."
"The summoner killed him remotely. Made him die rather than let us save him." The tactical part of my mind catalogs the information even as fury burns through my gut. "Which means they knew we were here. Knew we were waiting. This was a test."
"A test we failed." Her voice comes hollow. "He's dead. The fifth victim. Another drowned spirit for their ritual."
Movement in deeper water draws my attention. Something pale rises just beneath the surface. Not the man we just lost. Something else. Something that's been waiting.
A face. Features becoming clear as it floats closer to shore.
Pale skin. Dark hair streaming like seaweed. A child's face frozen in the moment of drowning. Features I recognize from photographs in Moira's inn.
Elspeth.
The corpse watches us with dead eyes that hold intelligence they shouldn't. Awareness no animated body should possess. Then the mouth opens. That same terrible laughter bubbles up from deep water. Mocking. Triumphant. Personal.
The sound destroys something inside Moira. I see it happen. Watch her face crumble. Watch the years of guilt and grief crash down all at once.
She makes a sound like breaking glass. Her body moves before thought can intervene. She lunges toward the water. Toward her sister's animated corpse. Toward the thing using Elspeth's death as entertainment.
I catch her around the waist, haul her backward with all my strength. "Not happening. That's what they want. They're baiting you. Drawing you into the water where they're strongest."
"That's my sister!" She fights my grip with surprising strength, using sea witch power to make herself heavier, harder to hold. "That's Elspeth! I can't just leave her there! I have to—"
"That's not your sister." Each word comes harsh because she needs to hear truth, not comfort. "Your sister is dead. Has been dead for years. What's wearing her face is just animated meat being used to hurt you. And I won't let you walk into that trap."
"Let me go!" Her elbow catches my ribs. Not hard enough to break anything but enough to hurt. "You don't understand. That's my baby sister. I'm supposed to protect her. I'm supposed to—"
The corpse-thing wearing Elspeth's face tilts its head. Studies us with those dead eyes. Then it opens its mouth, and that terrible laughter pours out. The same child's laughter from before, but closer now. More personal. Each giggle a knife twist in Moira's guilt.
The fight drains from Moira completely. She goes boneless in my arms, every ounce of strength vanishing. "No. No, please. Not her face. Don't use her face like that."
The thing continues to laugh. Sinks beneath the surface. Gone as suddenly as it appeared. The corpse-things that attacked us melt back into the water. Within seconds, the beach is empty except for us and the bloodstains.
"We're leaving. Now." I lift Moira despite protest. Carry her away from the waterline. Away from the pale face that could reappear any moment. Away from the laughter that still seems to echo across the rocks.