Chapter 86 Maddy #2
“Yeah. No problem.” That was another lie. No matter what happened, how freaked out I or my wolf got, there was no way I was turning back until I had that vial.
This boat was nowhere near as nice as the one Nico and I had been on the night before.
It was a dive boat used for guided scuba diving, so it was more like a big, covered pontoon boat.
Two benches sat along each side of the boat beneath a thick canvas roof to keep the sun off.
The steering wheel was at the front and didn’t even have a chair.
It was barebones, but it would get the job done.
Nico pulled away from the dock and headed toward the mouth of Bakar Bay.
Last night had been nothing but relaxation and exhilaration.
Today, my wolf was pacing, growling, and panting in apprehension.
She knew we weren’t going on some pleasure cruise.
She sensed what we were doing, and she was uncomfortable.
Once we were out in the open sea, I walked up to Nico and pressed myself against him, wrapping my arms around his waist. He glanced back. “How are you doing?”
I shook my head, trying to think of how to put it into words. “It’s almost like a tug at my chest. Something is calling to me, beckoning me. It’s really weird.”
Leaving one hand on the wheel, he patted my arm with the other. “It’s all gonna be okay. Stay focused.”
Nico anchored outside the mouth of the bay, and we all got dressed in our wetsuits.
There wasn’t really anywhere to get undressed privately, so Nico and Sebastian held towels up.
Sebastian chivalrously kept his head turned away as I stripped down and pulled on the wetsuit.
I’d never struggled so hard in my life to put something on.
I panicked for a moment, thinking the wetsuit was the wrong size, but I finally got my arms through the sleeves and let Nico zip up the back while I panted and sweated from the exertion.
The others did a similar dance with the bulky suits.
I turned and gazed out at the sea while the guys dressed.
The next thirty minutes were spent with the three of them giving me and Tiago lessons and pointers on how to use the gear.
Gauges, ballast, something called a buoyancy control device, and hand signals.
The okay sign was simple enough. Then there were others I had to remember: a hand waving back and forth meant something was wrong, thumbs up meant rise, thumbs down was dive…
it went on and on, but there was no way I’d remember all the signs.
Instead, I decided to focus on the few I was most likely to need.
After going over the safety procedures, we went on a test dive right where we’d anchored.
Flipping off the back of the boat was the most difficult thing.
I knew, for a fact, that I’d be fine, and it was only water behind me, but something in my head didn’t want to do it.
All the extra weight attached to me was messing with my body awareness.
Once I finally managed to flip back into the water, I had a few more moments of disorientation.
What seemed like a billion bubbles flashed past my face, the roar of my breathing hissed in my ears, and I struggled to orient myself in the water.
It was a very strange feeling. After a half hour, though, I was surprisingly adept.
Not a master diver by any stretch, but after a bit of practice, I felt less worried about that aspect of the mission.
We all climbed back aboard and stripped off the gear, leaving our wetsuits on.
Nico hauled up the anchor, and we made for the location on the map.
My excitement at learning to dive vanished.
My wolf whined deep within me as we neared the spot.
An electric tingle danced across my skin, growing more pronounced the closer we got.
By the time he dropped the anchor, again ten yards away from a stony cliff wall, it was like I had my finger stuck in a light socket.
Chills and goosebumps seemed to buzz across my skin.
I bounced nervously on my feet and clenched my neoprene-gloved hands together tightly to keep them from shaking.
My eyes were locked on the cold black stone as if it were some great mysterious obelisk that contained the mysteries of the universe instead of granite or limestone.
“Everyone ready?” Nico asked as he pulled his air tanks back on.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Tiago said, strapping on his flippers. “If nothing else, I’ll have a helluva story to tell when I get home.”
Nico came over to help me put on my gear. He looked a little ridiculous, waddling toward me with the flippers on. If he’d had his mask down and neoprene hood pulled up, I don’t think I could have taken him seriously. He finished buckling my flippers and looked up at me. “How’s it going?”
I glanced at the cliff wall again, then back at Nico. “Can you feel it?”
He slowly shook his head. “Not sure what you mean.”
It was like I was coming out of my skin. The buzzing, electric tingle was going over every inch of my skin, and there was a slight high-pitched whine in my ears. The closer we got to the cave, the worse it got. Nico seemed totally unfazed. This was my blood, my wolf, my ancestry at play here.
I vaguely gestured toward the cave. “Being here. That’s what has me all messed up. It gets more intense the closer we get. This is what I’ve been feeling all morning. It’s this place. My wolf knows we’re going there, and there’s some kind of… I don’t know… attachment or connection to it.”
Nico patted my knee. “That means the vial is probably there. In a short while, this will be over. Hopefully, that damned thing will be in your hands within the hour.”
I nodded. He was right, of course, but that didn’t make things any easier.
Biting down on my fear, I tugged the thick, stretchy hood up over my head and tucked my stray hair inside it.
This was it. Now or never. I couldn’t keep letting my fears get the best of me.
We were finally on the brink of a breakthrough.
It was the first time we’d had the upper hand against the royals.
I gritted my teeth and pulled my goggles down, stuffed the air regulator into my mouth, then flipped backward into the ocean.
We all surfaced and floated while Nico tied the guide rope to his wrist. Each of us grabbed the rope at our assigned spots, then Nico gave the signal to dive.
Even though the regulator was in my mouth, I still sucked in a deep breath of air before going under.
It took a moment before I could breathe normally again.
As a group, we all swam forward deeper into the water.
The sea was clear and calm. Diving was the closest I’d ever come to being weightless, and I barely had to work to paddle toward the cliff wall.
All I could hear was the steady in-and-out hiss of air from my regulator and the faint murmur of bubbles sliding around my face and up toward the surface.
Nico led the group and moved up and down the surface of the stone, patting it with his hands and searching for the opening.
Sebastian and Tiago swam forward to help, and Felipe and I hung back.
With the way they were scouring the stone, there wasn’t room for us anyway.
It didn’t feel right. Something deep inside me knew we weren’t in the right place.
My eyes drifted away from the men as they went inch by inch across the stone.
Calming my racing heart, I let instinct take over.
Whatever genetic memory lived inside me needed to wake the hell up and tell us where to go.
Soon, my gaze was drawn lower, far lower than Nico and the others were searching.
I glanced back up and saw they were still moving along the wall, almost like they were looking for a hidden latch or switch that would open a door like in some adventure movie.
Looking back down into the dark, murky depths, a feeling of assurance filled me.
It was down there. The knowledge was like a heavy weight pressing into me. I was sure. One hundred percent.
Grabbing the rope tighter, I tugged at it.
The rope barely budged. Felipe waved at me and made the universal shrugging sign that could only mean what the hell?
I pointed down, then at my eyes, and again back down, finally tapping my temple.
I didn’t know how else to say I know it’s down there, let’s go.
Thankfully, Felipe was bright enough to get what I was saying.
He and I both tugged at the rope and nearly yanked it out of Tiago and Sebastian’s hands.
The three men turned in surprise, checking on the two of us.
Felipe and I both pointed down, trying to instill our urgency by how vigorously we pointed.
Nico and the others swam down. Nico made the same shrugging gesture Felipe had.
I pantomimed again that the opening was lower.
Nico tapped the side of his head and pointed at me.
I gave a thumbs-up and tapped my own head.
He nodded and then, surprisingly, untied the end of the rope and secured it to my wrist. He was basically telling me I had to take the lead.
I hadn’t expected that but couldn’t argue.
All I could do was wait for him to finish and then start swimming.
I led the team down deeper than any of us had anticipated.
The sea level must have been even lower than we thought three hundred years ago.
Either that or Edemas’s emissaries had had to swim a bit too, which honestly made some sense.
There was no way he would have wanted this vial to be found easily.
Under the lip of a huge outcropping of rock, a ragged opening became visible.
It was hazy, though. The depth and early hour meant the sea was nearly pitch black.