Chapter 25 #11
“I called the high school and made some inquiries,” Kuhn said. “The bullyboys known as Dare’s Doggs were Darren Palmer and his four friends. It’s unlikely that there is anyone else connected with…this…that would aim that kind of attack on your daughter.”
“It also sounds like your son went through the moon gate before the four boys who were turned into dogs,” Castelletti said. “He didn’t know they were no longer a threat to his sister.”
If Albert Palmer hadn’t shot them just before sunrise, they still could have been a threat to her, Charles thought. They could have carried out their “mission” against my family.
“Captain?” Kuhn said. “What do you want us to do?”
“We could pick up your daughter after school,” Fahey said. “Make sure she gets home okay.”
He almost agreed. “I appreciate the suggestion, but she might see it as bad news about her brother.” He hesitated. “Maybe Monkton and Reynolds could do a drive-by when her school lets out and just keep an eye on things.”
“I’ll tell them,” Castelletti said.
Charles walked into his office. He wasn’t surprised when Fahey followed him.
“I don’t know what your son’s letter says, but Lucas Frost told us that communication can go both ways.
” She looked at him. “He also said that how long it takes for a letter to arrive depends on the intentions of the sender and receiver.” She looked startled.
“I’m sure he said that, but I don’t remember hearing the words. Maybe I inferred it.”
Or maybe you somehow heard something the rest of us couldn’t hear.
He gave her a long look. “Something happen between you and Castelletti? Something I should know about?”
She shrugged, an uneasy movement. “He thinks I’m too friendly with the Arcana—and maybe wonders who I’ll stand with if it becomes a question of them or us.”
I don’t wonder, Charles thought. I know you won’t stand with us. I don’t know why that’s true, but I know it’s true. I just hope we never have to put that truth to the test.
“The team needs you, Beth,” he said quietly.
“I’ve never seen the Arcana take to any of us the way they take to you.
They show you more, tell you more. They haven’t shown you everything yet.
You don’t have the look in your eyes that tells me you’ve seen the truth about the Arcana that gives other cops nightmares—but I don’t think that truth will give you nightmares.
” He paused. “If other members of the team give you any trouble, I want to know. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
He hoped she did. “Close the door on your way out.”
When he was alone, he sat at his desk and opened his son’s letter.
Dear Mom and Dad,
I’m okay! I got away from the bullyboys, bought a bus ticket, and I ended up here.
I can’t tell you where because not telling is one of the rules.
But I’m safe, and I have a place to stay while things get sorted out.
I’ll write again soon, but I’m not sure how long it will take for you to get a letter.
Mail delivery is way different from what it’s like across the river.
Everything is different—and it’s kind of cool.
Give Jazz a hug from me.
Love you.
Colin
Charles let out a shuddering sigh. His boy was safe. Knowing that much eased a pressure in his chest and would relieve Aisha’s worst fears too.
“It’s kind of cool, huh?” Coming from Colin, that could mean a lot of things, but what it meant most of all was that, for the moment, he was safe.
Whether Colin would be able to get home was a different question.
Using his cell phone, he made a call.
“Frost.”
“It’s Forrester.”
“Did you receive the letters?”
“I did.”
“Is your daughter safe?”
“She is.” Is my son? That was a question he couldn’t ask. “I wanted to clarify a couple of things about sending a parcel to Colin’s…location. I imagine he could use some spending money and other things.”
A thoughtful pause. “Send over your parcel. We’ll try to get it to him. He’s not on a main bus route.”
Charles didn’t ask for more information because he knew Frost wouldn’t provide it.
He ended the call and sat back, elated and exhausted.
Aisha would be disappointed that they couldn’t bring Colin home, but they weren’t burying their son and they weren’t going to wonder for years if they would ever hear from their boy again.
Colin was somewhere that was connected to the Isle of Wyrd, and he was with someone who had cared enough to write and send a report and a warning.
He had to be content with that. If he had any hope of keeping a line of communication open, he had to keep his intentions focused on being content with that.
16
The sensation of cobwebs brushing bare skin had Captain Flint scanning the river—and seeing the Bonnie Lass slowly sailing toward the Last Breath.
The black skull-and-crossbones flag wasn’t flying, so Sheridan Gray wasn’t on the hunt for someone, but she was steering her ship close enough to his fishing trawler to make things very interesting.
Except the river was as still as glass, and he suspected that was the Pirate Queen’s doing.
They were both Arcana who had a connection to water, but Captain Gray came from a major branch of their kind—and was more dangerous because of it.
*Captain Flint.* Even using their psychic communication, her voice was a siren’s song.
Not like some of her sisters, who used their songs to lure foolish men into being their lovers until the men were withered and spent.
No, Sheridan Gray offered sanctuary and a different kind of life to women—and men—who would have used a razor or a bottle of pills to escape an abuser.
Freedom from despair often birthed rage, and her chosen crew was fierce when they were hunting.
She also took on passengers who had made a bargain with the Arcana at Destiny Park, but she was strict about people working for their passage and completing the bargain that had been made.
What did she want with him and his boat?
*Captain Gray?*
*I understand your crew is a man short. I have someone who has sailed with me for two years.
He’s a good man, an honorable man, but now he is near his last breath.
Sailing on the Bonnie Lass was a wish fulfilled.
He has one other wish. I can’t help him, but I think you can, because you and I touch the Isle in different ways and for different reasons. Would you take him?*
She’d sent him crew members before. After all, the Last Breath was often the final stop in a person’s journey. *We’re down a man, so I’ll be pleased to take him.*
“Carver,” Flint called to his first mate. “New crewman coming aboard from the Bonnie Lass. Ready the lines.”
As lines were tossed across the narrow space between the vessels and secured, Flint shut off the trawler’s engines while the Bonnie Lass’s crew lowered the remaining sail. A gangplank was secured between the vessels.
Wing Kei Lee, Sheridan Gray’s first mate, escorted an older man to the gangplank, then walked behind him, protective.
When the man took that final step and his feet were on the deck of the Last Breath, Lee retreated to the Bonnie Lass and helped another woman haul in the gangplank and untie the ropes.
The older man saluted. Gray smiled, and Wing Kei Lee bowed in farewell.
Sails were raised, and the Bonnie Lass went on its way.
Flint turned to the man, aware that the other members of his crew gathered around. After the unpleasantness with Jeremy Swayne, they were understandably cautious about welcoming someone new.
“I’m Flint, captain of this boat.”
The man held out a hand and smiled. “Patrick Russell. I’m grateful to be here, Captain Flint. Grateful to have a little more time on the water and…” His voice faded.
“What is it you’d like that you’re not sure you can have?” Flint asked.
“I was dying.” Russell gave Flint an odd little smile.
“Still am, but I had two wonderful years sailing on the Bonnie Lass, and that was longer than I would have survived on land. Now the end is close, and I wish there was a way to get a message to my daughter, Gracie. When I boarded the Bonnie Lass, I didn’t realize there wouldn’t be a way to say goodbye. Gracie deserved a proper goodbye.”
“That’s your wish?”
“That’s my wish.”
Flint looked at his crew. All of them nodded. Most of them had been with him long enough that there wasn’t anyone left to remember them—or anyone they wanted remembering them. But this man…
“Write a letter to your daughter. We’ll get it to Destiny Park. Someone there will see that it reaches her.” And perhaps, if Wyrd’s Sorcerer King was willing to help, there was one other thing Flint and his crew could do to fulfill that wish.
“Thank you,” Russell said. His eyes widened as a large fish leaped out of the water next to the trawler. “Gracious! That’s a trophy fish for sure.”
“He may be caught someday, but not by us. We have an agreement with the Ferryman not to lower a net or a line when that one is near.”
He saw a question in Russell’s eyes, but the man had learned enough about Wyrd and its ways not to ask.
After Carver led Russell below to settle into the bunk that would be his until it was his turn to take that last breath and leave the trawler, Flint scanned the river.
I won’t lower net or line to catch you until your debt to the Ferryman is paid, Flint thought as he watched the fish leap out of the water well ahead of the trawler.
But I know who you are. Some of my crew took that last breath because of you.
If you’re still in the water when that debt is paid, I’ll be coming for you—and not to add you to my crew.
17