Fire forged, p.13
Fire Forged, page 13
The venom in Carmen’s voice cleared some of the panic from Shasta’s mind. There was no good reason for the sirens to kill Cord. In fact, the best thing for the sirens who wanted to return to their previous way of life would be for her and Cord to leave.
While that was marginally reassuring, there was a different problem. She needed evidence against the sirens who were murdering people and attacking their own kind. “Do you have any proof?”
Carmen bobbed her head. “There’s a body not far from here. One of the men they drowned. He must’ve washed up last night when the tide came in.”
The chill crept up Shasta’s back. She had dreamed of the sirens drowning men while she watched. That had only been a dream, right?
“I can take you there,” Carmen continued.
Shasta held up a hand. “Let me think.”
Her strange dream aside, there was a body now. She could really use Cord’s help. He had more experience dealing with crime scenes. Plus it would be nice to have someone watching her back in case Carmen was lying.
With that decided, Shasta reached out to the breeze sliding across the island. Could you carry a message for me?
Yes. It ruffled her hair.
Tell Cord I need him back where he found Alexis. She felt the wind take off toward the top of the volcano. Satisfied that Cord would return as soon as he could, she turned back to Carmen. “Do you have any clothes around?”
She shook her head. “I took my boat back to the dock and swam here in my other form.”
Shasta sat down next to Carmen. Since she wasn’t willing to go to the body until Cord returned, they had time for her to ask questions. “When was your husband killed, and how do you know it was the sirens?”
Carmen tucked her knees against her chest, looping her arms around them. “Tim was a wereseal, like me. It’s hard for one of us to drown. Not impossible, but hard. He was out on a boat with a friend and didn’t come home. I called the police. They found the boat but didn’t find him for another day. They said he must’ve fallen overboard and drowned, but it didn’t make sense. He didn’t have his life vest on, which he always wore when he was on the water. And he was fully clothed, with no obvious sign of trauma, and he clearly hadn’t tried to shift.” She motioned to herself.
“That’s suspicious, but how did you figure out the sirens are responsible?” Shasta tried to keep her voice neutral. Right now she simply didn’t know if the wereseal was telling the truth or not.
“I took over the deliveries. Most of the sirens are very nice, but I got odd looks from a few of them. Then I came out here as a seal to see how those sirens acted when they thought they were alone. I heard two of them talking. It was dark, and I couldn’t see who they were, but they were glad no one knew how people had been dying. They’d missed enchanting people and drowning them. They said they wouldn’t have killed someone with a connection to the island if they’d been able to enchant him into forgetting, but their songs didn’t work on him.” Her voice was dark and bitter. Carmen leaned her head against her knees, looking out over the ocean.
Shasta let the silence grow. Even if the sirens hadn’t been responsible for the other deaths, that was certainly a fair indication they’d had a hand in Tim’s.
Carmen sighed. “At first I stuck around to try to figure out who was involved, but then I wanted revenge. They are killing people. Innocent people like my husband.”
“Did you plant the mannequin and bomb?”
Carmen turned her head sharply. “What?”
“The mannequin. The bomb,” Shasta insisted. Maybe she should’ve felt worse for Carmen—after all, she’d lost her husband—but that didn’t change that sirens were dead and injured. Someone had been responsible, and that person needed to face justice.
Carmen shook her head. “I knew there was something going on when I set up the tripwires but didn’t know what.”
Shasta watched her closely. “Two sirens are dead.”
“Oh.” Carmen blinked a few times. “It wasn’t me. I wanted to hurt them and make enough of a fuss that people started to see what they were doing.”
“Good.” Shasta saw movement out of the corner of her eye. Cord was jogging toward them. She stood up and waved to him, and he lifted his hand in response. Shasta looked back at Carmen. “You’re going to show us the body.”
“Will you help me? Will you help me find out who killed my husband?”
Maybe it was rash, but Shasta needed to see justice done for everyone. “I will hold you responsible for what you’ve done to the sirens. I will hold the sirens responsible for their crimes. I am here as justice.”
Carmen grabbed her hand and squeezed. “Thank you. Thank you.”
As Shasta slid her hand away from Carmen, she hoped the wereseal understood. She wouldn’t hold the sirens responsible for a crime they hadn’t committed. However, if they had killed Tim, well, they would have to pay for that.
Carmen sank down, her eyes focused on something behind Shasta. Shasta stepped aside and turned, hands in a loose fist, ready to summon her sword. Cord closed the distance and was now working his way around another clump of bushes, completely avoiding the beach and traps.
Cord came to a stop next to Shasta, his eyes locked on Carmen. “I thought you had to drop me off early so you could hurry home because you had another charter.”
Carmen winced. “I may have stretched the truth a little. I needed to get back here in my other form because I had plans.”
Cord scowled at Shasta. “Isn’t having a shark here a violation of the truce you set up?”
Shasta shook her head. “Carmen is a wereseal.”
“Oh.” That took all the bluster out of Cord. “What’s she doing here?”
Carmen started to speak, but Shasta interrupted her. “Carmen believes some of the sirens are reverting to the old ways. She found a body that she believes they are responsible for and is going to take us to it.”
Cord sighed. “Lead the way.”
Carmen shifted back to a seal and started slowly making her way down the beach. As they followed behind, Shasta filled the silence. “Carmen was the one who told me true love could make you immune to their song.”
Cord tilted his head to the side. “Perhaps, if there is a group who is reverting to the old ways, they could have other reasons for not enchanting me.”
“Perhaps.” Her heart didn’t believe that explanation. Even though it wasn’t logical, her heart was back to where it had been before, stuck loving a man who didn’t love her the same way. No matter what he said, when his guard was down, he couldn’t hold up the façade. She shouldn’t have gone to the West Coast. She should’ve gone to Canada, Europe—farther away and far better hidden from him.
“Dammit. That didn’t come out right.” Cord captured her hand with his, squeezing it. “I do love you. I’m just not going to trust that we have that type of an advantage.”
And then she could breathe again. She sucked in a few long pulls of air, trying to get her brain to work rather than letting her heart run the show. “Do you truly mean that?”
“Absolutely.” There was no hesitation, no uncertainty in his voice.
“I believe you, but we’ve had a lot of ups and downs lately.” There. That was diplomatic and honest.
“For which I am sorry. I’m also sorry for coming here. My presence isn’t improving the situation.” He helped her over a tree that was slowly rotting on the beach.
“Did something happen in town? How is Alexis?” Shasta tugged him to a stop, letting Carmen get ahead.
He pursed his lips and shook his head. “I’m not sure. They took her from me as soon as I got to town. I offered healing charms, and they didn’t want them.”
While she understood not welcoming Cord since he was both a man and an uninvited guest, refusing healing charms seemed silly. “That’s their choice.”
Cord tipped his head in Carmen’s direction. “We better catch up.”
As they crossed the last bit of beach and started working their way through the narrow strip that counted as shore along the base of the cliffs, Shasta found herself thinking about what Carmen had said. If there was a group of rogue sirens, that would explain the two distinct rings of attacks.
The one thing she didn’t understand was what this group of sirens might be hoping to achieve. Even if they did manage to convert or kill the sirens who were happy with their current life, there was the problem of President Eldred. Having worked in the Dragon Lands and having met his mate, Shasta didn’t think he would be happy having a group of sirens drowning fisherman and boaters on the edge of his coast. Nor were they likely to find a home anywhere else in the world. Their song didn’t just work on humans. It worked on a multitude of races, and nobody liked having neighbors who could sing you to death.
Carmen shifted back to human form and pointed to a small rise shielded by a toppled tree. “I put him up there.”
Shasta stared at Carmen. “Don’t leave. If you run off, I won’t help you, and I will tell the sirens what you’ve done.”
“I won’t go anywhere.” She shifted back to seal form.
Cord was already halfway up the rise. Shasta followed him, trying to get a sense of what was ahead of them. Other than the fact that it was part of the island and home to some small vegetation, she couldn’t get anything from the earth. Typical. A narrow strip of earth separated this area from a big rock slide. Past that, steam billowed into the air, obscuring the lava flow though she could hear the hiss of flash-boiled water.
Cord stepped over the tree and stopped. “Damn.”
Taking a deep breath to steady herself, Shasta scrambled over the log. The bark was rough against her skin, trying to scratch her through her pants. It took a moment for her eyes to make sense of what was in front of her. The overall form, with broad shoulders, masculine musculature, and the strong jaw, was male. The short sandy-blond hair could have belonged to any number of men from the town. Though most of them weren’t missing pieces. The sea life hadn’t wasted any time in munching on him. Chunks were missing from almost every inch of exposed flesh.
“Can you feel it?” Cord’s voice was soft.
Confused, Shasta looked over at him. “Feel what?”
“Use your senses. All of them.” He tipped his head toward the body.
Shasta lowered her shields, letting her senses sweep across everything around her. First the body just felt like exactly that, but then she started noticing details. Organisms had latched on, turning what was left of this person into their meal. All of which was normal enough until she reached his lungs. Salt water filled the interior of the organs. “He drowned.”
“Yes, he did.” Cord sighed. “But that doesn’t prove the sirens killed him.”
Of course not. That would’ve been too simple. “How do we prove the sirens killed him?”
“I don’t have any abilities that can prove that.” He glanced over at Carmen, who was staring at them, before giving Shasta a purposeful look. “You have abilities I don’t. Perhaps some of those would be of use.”
Using her more witchlike abilities was a good idea, but she couldn’t think of any spells that would help, at least not in this case. “I would need something the killer left behind, and I doubt the water left that type of evidence intact.”
“Let me get the camera and start documenting.” He stepped behind her, unzipped her backpack and retrieved gloves, the camera, and some evidence bags. “It would be helpful to take the body back to the mainland because then it would go to the right people for a thorough analysis. However, I want to document everything anyway, just in case this is all we can hand over.”
Shasta watched as he carefully snapped pictures of every part of the body they could see before rolling him over and repeating the process. It felt wrong to be standing over this poor man, not planning on seeking legal justice but trying to use him as a way to ferret out the rogue group of sirens. This man deserved better. He deserved his family to know what had happened and a funeral in keeping with their beliefs.
“Cord, do you need me up here?” From what she could see, they were unlikely to find any useful evidence. Without doing a full autopsy, any injuries he sustained when the sirens killed him were well obscured by the damage the sea life had done.
He took a picture of the man’s right hand. “No.”
Shasta hopped over the tree and navigated the rough stretch of seashore over to Carmen. Shasta knelt, bringing herself to eye level with the wereseal. “Could you take him back to the mainland?”
Carmen shifted to her human form. “Only if I get help. By myself, I’m not sure I could protect the body. Or tow him that far. I only got him all the way up there because it was high tide.”
There had to be a way to get this poor man back to the mainland. “Are the wereseals and weresharks on good terms?”
“Yes, but why would that—” Understanding flashed across her face. “I can see if any of them are nearby.”
Shasta twisted around. Cord flashed a thumbs-up and went back to taking pictures. She turned back to the wereseal. “Go.”
Carmen shifted back into a seal, scrambled across a few rocks, and slipped into the ocean. Shasta watched her swim away. Rather than a seal, she saw a siren dragging a man under the water as he thrashed.
“Are you sure you don’t know a spell that could help?” Cord asked from right behind her.
Shasta started, swinging around before her mind had time to realize who had spoken. “Make some noise next time,” she snapped.
His brows pulled together, and he looked her over from head to toe. “Are you okay? I called your name twice as I approached.”
“I’m fine.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Perhaps not. I keep partially remembering this dream I had last night. I was at the beach, watching sirens drown people. Now I can’t tell if it was a dream, a memory, or a coincidence.”
“What did you do while they were drowning men?”
“I didn’t do anything. I just watched.” She pressed her arms tighter against her chest, as if that would make the memory fade.
“Hey. I know you. You wouldn’t have stood there idly while men died. You would’ve done something. Even if it was hopeless, you would’ve tried to save them. That’s who you are.” He slid an arm around her shoulders. She relaxed enough to gently loop her arms around his waist, and he pulled her into a tight hug. “Don’t let this island that won’t talk to us mess with your head. You are Shasta, half elf, half witch, born of the earth, hunter of evil, bringer of justice. And that is what we are going to do.”
For a moment, with him holding her tight and their bodies pressed together, she forgot about whether or not they should be together and remembered how nice it was to simply have him as a partner who believed in her. “You’re right.”
“I know.” He rested his head against her hair.
“And cocky too.” In spite of everything, Shasta found herself smiling.
“That’s experience. There’s a difference.” His breath ruffled her hair.
“Sure there is. It’s called a Y chromosome.” Before the banter could get out of hand and her heart could talk her into being in love, she refocused the conversation. “How do we figure out which sirens are the problem?”
“We investigate.” He squeezed her one last time before releasing her and stepping back. “And we hope we catch them in the act.”
Shasta snorted. “That’s easier said than done.”
There was a splash and a mumbled curse. Shasta and Cord spun toward the water, each of them summoning their swords.
Carmen sat naked in the surf, the chilly Pacific water swirling around her bum. She glared at a small rock peeking out of the water and rubbed her foot. “Stupid rock.”
Cord’s shoulders quivered with silent laughter, and Shasta found herself grinning.
“It isn’t funny.” Carmen scowled. “This water is cold.”
“Sorry.” Shasta tried to make it sound sincere, she really did.
Carmen rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I found a wereshark willing to help us, but I have to tow the body away from the island on my own. The wereshark doesn’t want anyone to think he’s violating the truce you set up.”
“I can carry the body to the water,” Cord offered.
“Thanks.” Carmen looked toward the ocean, then back to the small swell of land holding the body. “The wereshark had some news he wanted me to pass on to you. Before they started herding the sirens closer to land, they heard the two of them talking. According to the shark, there’s some plot to damage a bunch of the eggs tonight.”
Shasta exchanged a look with Cord. That could be the opportunity they needed to catch the sirens in the act and deliver irrefutable proof to Agatha about the sirens’ misdeeds. “Did the wereshark say anything else?”
Carmen shook her head.
“If we get pictures, even capture one of them, that should be the evidence Agatha needs.” Shasta tipped her head to the side. “Though we’ll still have to explain what went on with Carmen and the weresharks.”
“I like it,” Cord said. “If this works, it should put an end to the killing. It won’t bring your husband back, but it’s the best we can do.”
Carmen looked up at Shasta with wide, uncertain eyes. “What if it doesn’t work?”
Shasta held her gaze and spoke steadily. “Then Cord and I will do our very best to keep you and the sharks safe while we come up with a new plan. We won’t let them continue killing.”
Carmen swallowed hard. “I’ll do my part. Let’s move the body.”
“You can shift,” Cord said. He motioned between himself and Shasta. “We’ll carry the body down.”
Carmen shifted into a seal as Cord and Shasta headed back to the body. Shasta wasn’t looking forward to this. It was one thing to look at the body, to think of it as a body. It was altogether different to move it, because no matter how much she tried to think of it as a body she knew better. Not long ago he had been like her, alive, with a job, a family, and a future.
