Chapter 17 #2
The accusation hits like physical blows. Guilt and grief rising fresh despite years of trying to bury them.
"And Rafael." Those glowing eyes find Rafe. "My faithless betrothed. Together at last. How touching."
"You died, Catalina." Rafe's tone holds no emotion. "You drowned yourself rather than accept exile. Whatever you are now, you're not the woman I knew."
"I became better. I merged with the ocean's darkest depths and learned what death really means." She glides closer without swimming, moving through the water like it's an extension of herself. "I discovered how to walk between life and death without being trapped by either."
"You murdered people." My hands grip the bowl tighter. "Marco. Brigid. Others. You killed them for power."
"I freed them from meaningless lives. And I found something precious in the deep places, Moira. Something that belongs to you."
The water erupts around her.
Figures rise like puppets on strings. Human-shaped but their movements are unnatural. Joints bending at impossible angles. Heads tilting in ways that would break a living neck.
Marco. The man who worked for Rafe and died in his arms. His eyes are empty. His skin has the same corpse-pale quality as Catalina's.
Brigid. The artist whose paintings hung in the gallery on High Street. Young and vibrant in life. Hollowed out in death.
Others from the island. People who had families. Friends. Lives that mattered.
All of them bound. Trapped. Forced to serve the woman who murdered them.
But Old Tom isn't among them. He's still alive somewhere. Still has a chance.
"You're wondering about the old harbor master.
" False sympathy drips from Catalina's words.
"Don't worry. He's safe. For now. I need him alive to make sure you cooperate.
To make sure you come to me willingly when the time is right.
Sea witch blood freely given is so much more powerful than blood taken by force. "
Heat floods my chest, burning away the fear that's been choking me. "You won't touch him."
"Won't I? Who's going to stop me? You? The exiled panther? The brotherhood of broken shifters who can barely protect themselves?"
The bound spirits move.
Not like people. Not even like the dead should move.
They glide through the corrupted water as if gravity means nothing, as if the laws of nature broke when Catalina raised them.
Their limbs bend wrong. Their heads tilt at angles that should snap necks.
And their eyes—those empty, glowing eyes—fix on their targets with the single-minded hunger of predators who can't be killed because they're already corpses.
They don't swim toward shore.
They attack.
Marco launches himself from the water like a missile, droplets of corrupted liquid spraying from his body in an arc of black. He covers the distance to Declan's boat in seconds, moving faster than anything dead should move. Faster than anything human ever could.
Grayson's roar splits the night as he shifts mid-leap from the shore, eight hundred pounds of grizzly bear meeting the corrupted spirit mid-air.
The collision sounds like boulders crashing together.
They hit the Sound's surface in an explosion of spray, both disappearing beneath the oil-slick water.
For three heartbeats, there's nothing. Then the water erupts in thrashing violence.
Fur and pale flesh. Claws raking. Jaws snapping. The sound of something tearing.
Brigid and others peel away from Catalina like sharks scenting blood.
They don't run across the water. They skim it.
Elbows and knees bending backward, propelling them forward in movements that make my stomach lurch.
The artist I knew—the woman who painted seascapes in the gallery, who laughed over wine at the inn—is gone.
What wears her skin is a puppet animated by death magic and Catalina's will.
Jax's howl cuts through the night from the rocky shoreline. Not just warning. Challenge. The grey wolf stands between the spirits and whatever position he's guarding, teeth bared, hackles raised. Then the spirits hit him and it's chaos. Snarls. Screams that sound almost human. The crack of bones.
More spirits surge toward Rafe and me.
They come at us from both sides, cutting off escape. Their movements are coordinated. Tactical. Catalina's will directing them like a conductor with an orchestra of corpses.
Rafe doesn't hesitate. He dives from the boat, his transformation happening mid-leap.
Human form blurs and condenses into sleek black panther before he hits the surface.
He meets the first spirit head-on, massive jaws closing around a corrupted throat with enough force to decapitate a living person.
The spirit doesn't die. Can't die. But the impact drives it backward, buying me seconds.
Another spirit reaches the boat.
Its fingers close around the railing, and I watch the wood blacken under its touch. Corruption spreading like rot through the hull. It pulls itself up with strength that shouldn't exist in limbs that pale, in muscles that dead. Water streams from its clothes, black and oily, reeking of decay.
Empty eyes lock onto mine. Blue light filling the sockets where a soul should be.
Kill the sea witch. Complete the ritual. Serve the master.
The thoughts aren't mine. They bleed from it like poison. Catalina's commands written into its very essence.
I throw salt water at it before it can climb aboard. The blessed liquid hits pale skin and the sound is like meat on a hot griddle. Steam rises. The spirit recoils, one arm raised to shield its face. Flesh bubbles where the water touched. But it doesn't stop. Doesn't retreat.
It lunges again. Faster this time. Learning. Adapting.
My hand closes around a silver dagger from the supplies. The blade feels too light. Too inadequate for what I'm facing. But Gran's grimoire said silver and salt together could disrupt death magic. Could give me a chance against things that shouldn't exist.
The spirit's fingers close around my wrist before I can strike.
Its grip is ice-cold. Strong enough to bruise. Strong enough to break bones if it wants. The cold spreads up my arm like frostbite, numbing flesh, making my fingers weak. It pulls me toward the boat's edge, toward the corrupted water below where more pale shapes circle. Waiting. Hungry.
I drive the dagger into its chest with my free hand.
The silver punches through pale flesh with sickening ease.
No resistance. Like stabbing wet paper. The spirit jerks back, mouth opening in a silent scream.
Blue light leaks from the wound instead of blood.
The same necromantic glow that fills Catalina's eyes, now pouring from the hole in its chest like smoke.
For one heartbeat, I think it worked. Think I've stopped it.
Then it reaches up and yanks the dagger free.
No pain crosses its face. No fear. Nothing human left in those features. It looks at the blade in its hand like it's curious. Like it's learning. Then it throws the dagger aside, the silver clattering across the deck and disappearing into the corrupted water with a splash.
The spirit turns back toward me with renewed focus.
Because it doesn't need to fear death. It's already dead.
And I'm running out of options.
Behind it, Catalina watches with pleased expression. "They can't be killed by any weapon you brought with you, little sea witch. They're mine. Body and soul. And they'll keep coming until you're as dead as they are."
The spirit reaches for me again.
Then Rafe crashes into it from the side, panther jaws tearing at corrupted flesh. They tumble across the deck together, claws and teeth and desperation.
Catalina's attention turns to him. To the panther who was once hers. "Still playing hero, Rafael? Still pretending you care about these people? You're as much a monster as I am. The difference is I accept what I've become."
The panther snarls but can't answer. Can't defend himself in this form.
So I do it for him.
"The difference is you murdered innocent people for power." My voice cuts across the water. "Rafe killed to survive in a world that exiled him. You killed because you wanted to become this. There's no comparison."
"Semantics. But enough philosophy. Let me show you what I discovered in the deep places. Let me introduce you to someone special."
The water behind her darkens. Something worse rising. Deeper. More personal.
Another figure surfaces.
Smaller than the others. Younger. Her hair floats around her face in dark tangles. Her eyes hold the same empty blue glow.
But I know her face. Know it as well as I know my own reflection.
Elspeth.
My sister. Her body never recovered. Her spirit never laid to rest.
And now bound to serve the sea-walker who murdered to raise her.
"No." The word tears from my throat. "No, you can't. She's mine. She's family. You can't have her."
"I found her wandering the deeps." Catalina runs pale fingers through Elspeth's hair like a proud parent showing off a child.
"Still punishing herself. Your sister's guilt made her so easy to bind, Moira.
She blamed herself for drowning. For getting on that boat with your father.
For the storm that took them both. All the years of self-punishment. She practically begged to serve."
The words hit and suddenly everything makes horrible sense. Elspeth blamed herself. Spent years as a spirit trapped by guilt and grief. And Catalina exploited that. Twisted it. Used my sister's pain to bind her soul.
"You think you can save her? You couldn't save her in life. What makes you think you can save her in death?"
The rage that's been building since this started finally breaks free.
Magic surges through my blood. Raw ocean magic. The kind Gran warned me about. The kind that can reshape coastlines or swallow ships whole.
The ceramic bowls around me shatter. Salt water rises from the Sound itself, responding to my fury. Clean magic pushing against corruption. Sea witch power recognizing its purpose.
"I couldn't save her then." Ancient power layers my words. The weight of every Flynn woman who came before me. "But I can free her now. I can break your hold and send her spirit to rest. And then I'm going to bind you so deep in these waters that not even the ocean will remember your name."
Catalina's smile widens. "There she is. The real Moira Flynn. The sea witch who's been hiding for a decade. Finally willing to drown in her own power to save what's already lost."
She attacks.
Water rises in massive waves, corrupted magic crashing toward my boat with enough force to splinter wood. The bound spirits move with her, coordinated and precise. Old Tom's fate hanging in the balance.
But I'm done hiding. Done pretending to be ordinary.
I raise both hands and meet her corruption with clean ocean fury.
The clash sends shockwaves across Stormhaven Sound. Magic colliding with magic. Death power against life force. The battle has finally begun.
Elspeth's empty eyes find mine across the corrupted water. For one heartbeat, I swear I see my sister looking back. Then the glow returns, and she moves with the others. Another weapon in Catalina's arsenal.