Tempest’s Legacy (16 page)

Before I could ask Anyan for help, however, his big hands were around my waist, using a combination of his physical strength and a burst of his magic. I held back a squawk as he lifted me up behind him.

“You can put your arms around my waist, or you can reach back and hang on to the seat from behind you,” he instructed, starting the engine.

That’s really not much of a choice
, I thought, but I was
still hesitant as I wrapped my arms around his muscular torso. He moved my hands tighter across his stomach, pulling me in close.

“Just hang on, Jane. Don’t lean in with the curves; sit like you would in a chair.”

I nodded, then said, “Okay,” when I remembered he couldn’t see me as I was sitting behind him.

We took off down the main street of Eastport, and I felt my heart lurch. I’d never been on a motorcycle before, but, after a moment or two of fear, I decided I liked it.
Really
liked it.

We like it, too
, my thighs purred from where they lay alongside the barghest’s hips.

We purred slowly down the street toward the harbor. For a second I fantasized about yelling over the rumbling engine for Anyan to drive us all the way back to Rockabill.

He’d pull my arms even closer around him. Then he’d veer away from the docks, punching the engine and racing toward 190 to get to Rockabill. I’d be forced to give a girlie squeal and tighten myself against his body…

Do eeeeeeet
, my libido demanded. The rest of my body, tingling against Anyan’s, could only agree.

But I didn’t do it. Instead, Anyan drove me to the docks. He turned his back as I stripped down and folded up my clothes. I left them lying there as I turned and ran hell for leather to the water, gracefully swan-diving into the freezing-cold Atlantic—and nearly crashing into an unmoored fishing dinghy.

The shock of the water hitting my Anyan-heated skin brought me back to earth, so to speak.

I thought about the barghest: his age, and his experience, and the fact of his very Anyanocity.

He just isn’t for you, Jane. And you know it.
But a girl could dream…

And, despite the cold water, dream I did.

P
unching through the water toward Rockabill, I took my frustration out on the waves. I’d always been a freakishly powerful swimmer, capable of doing just about anything I wanted in the water. But now that I knew I wasn’t entirely normal—now that I was extra-normal, so to speak—I’d stopped hampering myself by thinking of what I should or shouldn’t be able to do.

In other words, when I still thought I was entirely human, I swam, more or less, like a human. I came up for air quite often, and I muscled my way through tough spots. Of course, I was really muscling through using arms and legs charged with magic, but I hadn’t realized that.

Now, however, I didn’t bother. One day, soon after I’d returned from the Alfar Compound to Rockabill all those months ago, I’d decided to see what I was really capable of in the water. It had been eye-opening.

Take breathing
, I thought, even as I dove deeper into the sea to escape a pesky current that was dragging
on me.
I used to think I needed to breathe. Now… I just go.

Not breathing had been a huge revelation. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I was
really
not breathing. Instead, just like some sea creature with enormous lungs, my magic allowed me to pull in more air, or to make that air last longer. To be honest, I had no idea what I did. All I knew was that my muscles were clearly still oxygenated—after all, they flexed and pulled and powered me through the water. But I didn’t need to rise to the surface except very occasionally.

The other cool thing I could do was see underwater. I’d always had really good “night vision,” but now that I wasn’t constraining myself, I could see in the darkest water as if it were daytime. That revelation had put a whole new spin on my big black eyes. I’d always hated them growing up. They marked me as different; as an outsider. Now I knew they had a purpose, and that purpose was to allow me access to the astonishingly beautiful world underneath the waves. I loved my black eyes now, and I kept my bangs trimmed so that they showcased rather than hid.

Nowadays, I also did something that was more like
flying
through the water than it was like swimming. It sort of felt like I pulled myself along by the elements around me. Meanwhile, pulsing around me at all times was the power of the ocean. She’d fill me with her magic as quickly as I expended any, giving me almost perfect stamina in the water.

So I motored along, quite happily, figuring I’d beat Anyan to Rockabill.

He has to obey traffic signs, after all, while I can bend the water to my will
, I thought in my faux-superhero
voice. I was so busy faking omnipotence, in fact, that I nearly missed my turn. Veering sharply to continue northwest along the coastline, I finally escaped that hindering current and could swim closer to the surface.

Wrapping my glamour around me so that humans would see but a small porpoise, I allowed myself a little playtime. Breaching into the black sky only to dive back down into my sea, I reveled in the freedom and security I felt in the water.

Except for when I swam with Trill, this was my turf, my territory… Besides the kelpie, I was the only supernatural swimmer in the waters surrounding Rockabill.

Which was why, when I felt the skittering of a foreign power on the very edges of my perception, my shields were up and ready. That said, because of the Sea Code I didn’t expect to have to need them. So the blast of magic and water that came at me was deflected easily, although I couldn’t have been more startled.

What the hell?
I wondered, even as another blast—stronger this time—buffeted my shields.

I’d stopped dead in the water, floating about two feet from the surface. Peering around the darkness, I scanned for my attacker while trying to figure out what to do.

The fact was, I’d never really fought besides in practice, and I certainly hadn’t fought in water. We’d always assumed I was safe in the water, as I was accepted as a water-being despite being, more accurately, amphibious. Therefore, the one genuinely offensive thing I knew how to do—besides belch the alphabet—was throw mage balls, but they worked only on dry land…
Don’t they?
I wondered, as I realized I had a few Boeing jet–sized holes in my training…

So I did what Jane does best. I fled.

The ocean helped me along, speeding me through her waters as if she wanted me to escape. But I could feel my attacker behind me, using that same power to propel himself as I remembered Anyan’s words about my mother’s kidnapping…

“Sea Code,” my foot
, I thought as an ominous blast of dark water shot past my ear.

Apparently there does exist the water version of mage balls. Too bad I don’t freaking know how to make one…

Really panicked now, I opened myself even further to the ocean and put on the speed. I also began a weaving maneuver as I felt at least two blasts of energy hit against the shields protecting my feet. Those blasts were strong, and I needed to put as much energy I could into escape.

I was swimming as fast as I could, but I knew the creature behind me was gaining. I could feel the presence of powerful magics more than anything else. We were close to Rockabill now, but not that close…

Where the fuck is Trill?
I thought, suddenly remembering Anyan had said he would contact her just as one of those dark water balls clipped the tail end of my shield.

It didn’t blast through. But it was strong enough, and I was going fast enough, that it sent me into the aqueous version of a tailspin.

I stopped only when I slammed against the seafloor. The wind was knocked out of me, and in my panicked state I nearly took in a deep breath, a
real
breath, that would have drowned me.

Get it fucking together, girl!
I screamed at myself, even as I skittered away as one of those black balls of magic came piercing through the water toward me.

I forced my heart to slow as I raised my shields. Then I tried to calm my racing brain and focus.

You know how to make mage balls. It can’t be too different to make the water version… Think, Jane.

As if to give me an example, two powerful magical strikes hit my shields inches from my face. My attacker was obviously close. Had I been above water, I would have screamed for him to show himself. Limited, however, in my ability to express frustration, I shook my fist good and hard at the surrounding darkness.

The water around me started to heave as a shape began to coalesce just outside the range of my vision. It was small—not as small as Nell but a good foot shorter than me—and vaguely humanoid, although it appeared to be hunchbacked.

As it came closer, and the swirling sand settled back to the ocean floor, I saw it clearly.

Oh, shit
, I groaned.
It’s a fucking kappa…

I’d heard of kappas from Trill, who’d explained to me that the Japanese legend of the dreaded water sprite was based on the cousin to the kelpie, the kappa. Kappas and kelpies had probably started out the same evolutionarily, but when kelpies veered off to become shape-shifters, the kappas had stayed humanoid with modifications.

Holy shit, Trill was right. It
does
look just like a goddamned Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

I’d scoffed when my friend told me that kappas resembled those surfer-dude-voiced reptiles. Or were they amphibians? Whatever, this little guy was very green, with a strange, slightly beaked face, and a definite shell on his back.

If he’s got nunchakus, I am so screwed.

The water around me increased its buffeting, and I beefed up my shields in response. But even though I could feel what the kappa was doing, when I tried to emulate him, I was stumped.

Not least because of how my ocean had decided to play me. Granted, people had been writing the same type of sea shanties ever since that first ancient sailor had learned to shant: the songs about how the ocean was a fickle mistress who would grace you with bounty one minute and take your life the next. But it was hard to take that message to heart, when every night I swam in her and loved her and she loved me back.

So I was more than a little surprised to find
my ocean
practically ignoring me. Don’t get me wrong, she was still responsive, but not nearly as responsive as she was being for the kappa. For the ocean was answering
his
call at the moment.

How is he doing that?
I wondered, panicked, as he continued to brusquely cut me off each time I reached out to the water.

I pulled hard, sending out my own probing magics to figure out how he was managing to pull my own element away from me.

There it is
, I thought, as I could suddenly “see” what he was doing with his power: Where I asked politely, he forced; where I pleaded, he demanded. And the ocean ignored me to fall over herself doing his bidding.

Fickle bitch
, I swore as I felt the side of one of my shields bow under the strain of the attacking water. I couldn’t believe I was sitting here, being defeated by my own element like I was some landlubber, especially after the virtual miracle I’d performed when caught in Phaedra’s Alfar trap months ago.

Hmmm… speaking of what happened months ago
, I thought, suddenly inspired by remembering Conleth’s own tactics. In a desperate bid to escape, I tried waiting till the kappa was between attacks and then shooting away as Conleth used to using his fire. To be fair, I did a pretty good job. I was rocketing up through the water, until the power of the kappa batted me down to the seabed like he was a badminton player and I was his shuttlecock.

This time when I hit sand, I hit hard. And the kappa’s power was there immediately, taking advantage of my disorientation to press in with his power. If he breached my shields, I was a goner.

That’s when I heard the cavalry approaching, sweet music to my ears.

Tiny hoofbeats, weirdly booming underwater, struck the ground ever more loudly. I knew I just had to hold on a little while longer…

Throwing the last of my power into my shields, I nearly wept when Trill’s little pony shape came hurtling past me. Trumpeting a weird underwater war cry, she made straight for the kappa, sending out pummeling blasts of water like thick, liquid laser beams.