Captive Soul (38 page)

“I don’t know who’s on the boat,” Andy added, fishing for any explanation that might turn out to be the truth about why she was so jumpy when Elana’s only purpose in life seemed to be helping her learn to relax.

Elana cocked her head like she was listening to something. “Yes. There’s disruption onboard the approaching skiff. I won’t deny that.”

Andy squinted toward the mainland and sighed. “I hadn’t picked that up. Thanks. Do you sense more tension now?”

Elana ignored her sarcasm, as she usually did. “What bothered you when we left the waves?”

The cranks in Andy’s depths turned again, ratcheting her muscles. She sensed rushing and overflowing in her own essence, but at the same time, her emotions choked inside. She felt like a river battling beaver dams at every bend and juncture. She needed to kick out some logjams before her brain flooded.

“I don’t know. I don’t … well, the building. The Motherhouse bothers me. You can’t see it, but I’ve told you it’s freaky.” Andy smeared water out of her eyes with both hands, then remembered she could absorb it and dried off her face. “It’s crowded here, and too public, and I’m worried more adepts are on the way. What if one of them makes a mistake and we flood half of Europe?”

Elana’s lips curved at the edges like she might be trying to smile. “Keep going. Let it flow, Andy.”

“Flow. Right. That’s supposed to be my job.” Andy glanced at the tattoo that had marked her right forearm since her Sibyl talents manifested. Earth, fire, air—mortar, pestle, broom—in a triangle around a dark crescent moon. Sibyls worked in fighting groups, with earth Sibyls as mortars, responsible for protecting and leading the group. Fire Sibyls worked as pestles, handling communications, and air Sibyls served as brooms, cleaning up messes, archiving events, and researching information on just about everything. When Andy joined their ranks, Sibyl tattoos all over the world had changed. The lines connecting the symbols went from straight to wavy, symbolizing the role of water Sibyls in a fighting group.

Flow.

She was supposed to attend to the emotional flow and growth of her group.

Whatever the hell
that
meant.

“I’m a cop and a warrior, Elana.” She lowered her arm, lifted her chin, and blinked at the sudden glare of sunlight off the too-blue sea. “I shoot things. I don’t flow.”

“The longer you live in water, the more water will live in you. Release, Andy.” Elana put her paper-soft hands on Andy’s bare belly. Her dark, damp skin seemed to glitter in all the sunlight. “Tell me all of what’s bothering you. Don’t think. Don’t censor. Just let yourself flow.”

Andy closed her eyes. The beat of the tides swelled in her mind, the gentle pressure of Elana’s hand focused her, and she was able to come up with the next pain on her list. “I miss my quad.”

“Bela, Camille, and Dio are brilliant fighting partners.” Elana’s voice seemed as hypnotic and rhythmic as the waves. “I’m sure they miss you these summer months when you have to be away. What else?”

Andy listened to the water around her, tried to let it wash through her and break free everything crammed in her chest and throat. The air smelled like evergreen and fish and brine. “The beach bothers me. Stupid as this might sound, it feels wrong.”

Elana said nothing. Andy kept her eyes closed, listening to the waves dance with the beach. “The trees bother me. They don’t … they don’t speak to the water like I want them to.”

Andy wondered if Elana was thinking she was screwy, but the old woman just asked, “And?”

And …

Great. She was starting to relax a little more, but only because she didn’t have the energy to fight with more than one emotion at the same time. Gently, she moved Elana’s fingers away from her and opened her eyes. “It’s everything, okay? It’s the whole place. I sort of hate it. No, I actually do hate it. I’ll never get peaceful here without regular shipments of Valium, coffee, and all the chocolate I can eat.”

Elana’s hands came together like a young child clapping. “Good. I agree.”

Andy wasn’t sure she heard that right. “What?”

“This is not the right location for our Motherhouse.” Elana’s white eyes brightened with emotion. “The Motherhouse we water Sibyls build for ourselves—it won’t be here.”

Andy stared at Elana. It had felt like a miracle, finding a single surviving water Sibyl from time before time, fully trained and able to
really
teach her what it meant to live with water in her soul. Now she was worrying that Elana’s ancient mind might be running dry after all.

Warm breezes teased Andy’s stained hair and underwear, and the afternoon sun baked her freckles. “Build a Motherhouse,” she said. “You and me?”

Elana gestured toward Motherhouse Disastro. “We have the adepts. They’ll help.”

Now Andy’s mouth came open. “We have five teenagers, twenty-two kids, and three infants. Think the babies can hammer a nail?”

“And we have Ona,” Elana said like she hadn’t heard a word Andy spoke. Her robes and hair were completely dry, and she seemed enraptured by whatever she could see in her mind.

Desperate to make Elana talk sense, Andy said, “Ona’s a renegade fire Sibyl who barely talks to anyone but you. And she sort of destroyed the last Motherhouse. And fire Sibyls burn shit up and want everything made of rock. And, and—she’s as old as you are!”

Elana held up two fingers. “Two years older.”

Andy smacked the side of her own head, sending a spray of water over the sand and rocks. “Does that matter when you’re a thousand, for God’s sake?”

Elana paused. “It’s still surprising to hear you call on God instead of the Goddess.”

“I’m from the American South and I didn’t grow up a Sibyl. The whole Goddess thing—I’m ambivalent.” Andy dried off her hands and legs in sheer frustration, soaking the water into her essence and firing it back at the ocean in a fast, arcing plume. “Assuming I go for the insanity of believing we can build our own Motherhouse, where would we put it?”

Elana faced her, her scarred face serious but kind, with that ever-present relaxation she seemed to have when they visited any beach. “Where our hearts take us.”

“That really helps.” Andy drew in more water and shot it out over the sea, using her palm to target the stream. Aquakinesis. She needed a lot more practice with that ability, but she felt a small release every time she did it. Nothing like a little violence to get a girl’s pulse back to normal.

“When the time is right, the place will call to us,” Elana said. “We’ll both know.”

Just the thought of moving her Sibyl training facility to some new and unknown location, never mind building a Motherhouse—Andy wasn’t sure how she was supposed to ever find any peace now.

“Don’t die,” she told Elana. “There’s no way I can fight alongside my quad in New York, figure out all this crap, and build a Motherhouse by myself.”

Elana’s shrug made Andy want to bury herself headfirst in the sand. “I’ll live forever if nothing kills me.”

Andy grimaced because Elana was referring to the fact that not only was she one of the oldest Sibyls in the world, she was also the only half-demon Sibyl … ever. Tiger demons known as Rakshasa had attacked her and infected her a long time ago, but she had survived and lived to help drive the bastards off the face of the planet—twice. Andy felt like she had to protect Elana at all costs, but that would be damned hard if Elana didn’t quit putting herself on the front lines of demon battles.

“Our disruption has arrived.” Elana pointed in the direction of the docks, and Andy saw a man striding toward them.

Weird.

Usually the locals who knew about Motherhouse Salvador Dalí’s Worst Nightmare wouldn’t let anybody approach this end of the island unescorted, much less march right up their private beach to bang on the front door. Which, for the record, was as ugly as the rest of the place, though Motherhouse Russia was quite proud of the carved wolf’s-head door handle.

How had some guy managed to—

Andy looked closer.

The man had coal-colored hair and stoic, handsome features almost too perfectly aligned to be real instead of some Renaissance painter’s fantasy. Those features were familiar, but what she really recognized was his scowl. And who could miss the totally out of place
Men in Black
suit and the dark sunglasses?

Him
.

Here.

Of all places.

Oh, yeah,
this
was really going to help her relax and focus on learning healing and flow and all that other water Sibyl crap.

“Fuck me.” Andy put her hand on Elana’s shoulder. “It’s Jack Blackmore. Think anybody would care if I drowned him?”