The strands of red and olive sparked and burned away as I severed them and Fielding sighed and yelped at my feet, twisting with every virtual inch of separation gained. I worked deeper, toward the last dense area near the center of the entwined shadow forms. A roaring filled my ears and I forced myself to suck in a painful lungful of air and expand my chest as I leaned into the core of Shelly’s curse.
Through the din in my head I heard Fielding whimpering and a cacophony of shouts, barks, and yelps underscored by a pounding that shook the cave and thundered on my eardrums. The oscillating pressure of the sound made me shudder with nausea. I didn’t raise my eyes from the task at hand, even when I felt something cold and liquid spatter onto my legs and right shoulder. I shoved as hard as I could, paying Fielding’s scream no heed as I reached through the moment’s gap between his two forms and drew the knife down and back, the curved blade sweeping through the taut bundle of gleaming magic like a scythe through grass. The entangled, writhing forms rushed apart and Fielding roared, bucking and shoving me away as I clutched frantically and snapped off the last clinging filaments of the curse as I fell.
I landed hard on my back and felt my abused rib pop. I didn’t have the breath to cry out and barely kept hold of consciousness as the normal and ghost realms fell apart, leaving me beached on the wet rocks of the cave as the otters and the dobhar-chú leapt at the invading flood of waterborne merfolk.
At their back, held up by a wave that crested but didn’t break, I glimpsed two humanoid forms with long, streaming hair: one pale green; the other vivid red. And then the two forces crashed together and the battle front was obscured by an explosion of salt water.
TWENTY-FIVE
Battered, wet, cold, and laced by pain with every movement, I rolled to my uninjured side and squirmed sideways until I could touch the wall Fielding had been leaning against. Bracing my hands on the wall and floor, I pushed and pulled myself up to my knees. I paused to look around. Nearby lay a colossal mustelid even larger than Father Otter. Solis stood in front of it, glaring down while the otters and the rest of the dobhar-chú clan pushed their enemies back out of the cave by sheer weight of numbers. They’d worked the watery tide of merfolk and sea-witch illusions into a bottleneck in the cave complex and were moving them backward and out by short rushes.
Solis noticed me and, as he looked away, the huge otter got to its feet and tried to run past him to the back exit. Solis dove past me and tackled it. They rolled together on the wet floor, the otter snapping and growling as it writhed and changed shape. The otter form collapsed suddenly into a slender, dark-skinned man with long, curling black hair hanging to his back and his naked skin slick with blood and brine. Fielding eeled out of Solis’s grip and started for the back door again.
I threw the knife.
I’m not a great knife thrower and the curved form didn’t fly well, anyhow. It flipped into a flat arc, the base of the grip smacking into the back of Fielding’s right knee. He stumbled but he would have kept going if Solis hadn’t launched himself from the ground like a sprinter coming out of the blocks and snatched Fielding around the waist and neck, half shoving, half dragging the dobhar-chú down to his knees. Solis released his grip on Fielding’s waist and switched to his nearest wrist, twisting it up between the other’s shoulder blades.
I heard Solis warn him, “Change now and your arm will leave the socket. You will not enjoy it.”
Panting, Fielding hung his head. “All right. I give up. Just don’t . . . don’t tear off my arm.”
Solis stood up, pulling Fielding up with him. “I won’t. Unless you force me.” Then he marched Fielding back to me.
Fielding kept his head down and I doubted it was strictly over his nudity. I was beginning to think I’d now seen enough naked men to fill my quota for the rest of my life. I started to sigh and caught myself cringing as my rib twinged. I kept my gaze up as the two men stopped in front of me.
The noise of the battle moved farther away but it was still there in the background as I started to speak.
“So . . . I take it you’re not as innocent as you protested,” I started.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Solis glared at him and must have twisted Fielding’s arm a little, making the former sea captain wince.
“Hey!”
“What did you do?” Solis demanded. “What did you really do to bring down this sea witch’s wrath?”
“Nothing!” Fielding shouted back.
Solis’s mouth was a hard, straight line and I could see tension gathering in the muscles of his shoulders and arms. I shook my head at him and staggered over to pick up the knife from the slick stone floor.
I walked back, turning the knife in my hand as I came. “This is a long way from anywhere. And there’s a lot of water around, though I understand it only takes a few inches to drown.”
“Are you threatening me?” Fielding demanded, incredulous.
“I’m reminding you of the situation,” I said. “My friend’s not in a good mood where you’re concerned. See, he has a couple of daughters himself.”
“I don’t see how that’s important.”
I shook my head at him in disappointment. “Oh, Gary, is this the way you repay favors? You came to me to solve a problem. And I have. But now we have a new one and there’s still a question my friend needs answered and so do I. Not to mention, what should we tell the insurance company? Should we take you back to Seattle and let Solis lock you up as a rapist and a murderer?”
“I didn’t hurt anyone!”
Solis shook him. “You are alive and all the rest are dead. You say this came about because Castor Starrett attempted to sexually assault Shelly Knight and you didn’t stop him. Or did you do it?”
“No!” Fielding shouted, looking indignant.
Solis bumped him again. “Did you rape Shelly Knight?”
“No,” Fielding repeated but his tone was less adamant.
Solis continued to bully him, no longer twisting his arm but badgering Fielding with unremitting questions. “You worked together before. Why this time did she accuse you?”
“She was angry! She knew what I was!”
“She knew that before. Why now was she angry enough to curse you and call on her mother’s help when she’d hidden you all from her?”
“I don’t know!”
“Yes, you do.”
“I made a mistake.”
“What mistake did you make? Do not repeat that ridiculous story about going down below with Castor Starrett. What did you really do? Did you rape her?”
“No!”
“Did you find her with Starrett? Is that what happened? Castor Starrett had your woman before you could? You got angry, you hurt him, and then you had to get rid of witnesses—”
“No!” The single word came out in a long, agonized howl. “No! I didn’t hurt him. I didn’t hurt anyone. I just—” He cut himself off and curled on himself as if Solis had punched him in the gut. Then he sank to his knees on the slick rock floor of the cavern. “Les started freaking out. I still don’t know what she said to him exactly, but Shelly must have told him his wife was dead while Cas and I were out after that damned halibut. She could do that sometimes—she knew things. She didn’t like to say them, but Les probably badgered her into it. That’s the sort of guy he was.”
“Who broke the circle?” I asked.
“What?” Fielding barked, staring at me.