A light came on in my mind at his use of “we” and “our”—they were not the common plural, but the royal usage—as Fielding lurched forward and down, putting his face to the rock floor of the cavern.
“No! No, Uncle,” he gurgled even as his form flowed and shifted from human to otter in front of us. Even though he was the largest of them, he wiggled forward like a pup, keeping his head on the ground and rolling onto his side in front of Father Otter, exposing his throat and belly.
Father Otter shrank down to his own otter form beside me and lunged forward, biting down on a mouthful of Fielding’s nearest ear and scruff. Then he shook the larger dobhar-chú hard until Fielding squalled and flailed with all of his paws as he was flung about. A stench thickened the air and Father Otter held his miscreant relative down until Fielding made a docile yipping that sounded like “Pax, pax, pax . . .”
Father Otter spat out the fold of Fielding’s hide and glared at him with disdain. He made a barking noise at Fielding and turned his back on the younger creature before stalking away to join the rest of the returning otters and dobhar-chú redistributing themselves around the cave. The others watched but none interfered or gave any sign that they were upset at what had just happened. A few furry faces even looked a bit pleased.
Solis and I stood still and watched Fielding resume his human form, shivering and sweating as if the scene between him and Father Otter had been a sickening ordeal. Perhaps it had been in a way we mere humans couldn’t understand. Fielding didn’t get to his feet this time but curled up to sit on the floor with his knees drawn up against his chest. “I’m to do as you tell me.” He sounded like a chastened child.
“Or?” I asked.
“Or I’ll have no home among otters or men. They’ll hound me to death. Father Otter is really pissed at me.” He was in his fifties no matter how he looked, yet he sounded like a teenager.
I kept my growing dislike in check. “I see. What about the merfolk?” I asked.
“They’ve withdrawn for now. Father Otter and the others will attack when you say so. But I think it’ll have to be soon—before the fish faces can regroup and come after us or Paul’s boat.”
I was ashamed to admit that I’d almost forgotten about Mambo Moon. It lay outside the overlap but that didn’t make it safe and I had no idea what may have happened to it while Solis and I were in the dobhar-chú’s cave. I looked at my watch and picked a course of action, no matter how wild and stupid it was—even the faultiest plan put in action swiftly is better than working out a perfect plan and squandering the time to execute it.
“I assume they’ll move at or just before sunset when we’ll have the sun in our eyes. There’s not much time. So we’ll have to be ready to go before they move. How long until sundown?” I asked Fielding.
“It’s pretty dusky now so . . . maybe two hours to darkness, ninety minutes to red sun—that’s what the dobhar call sunset.”
“All right. In one hour the dobhar-chú and the otters need to be in place as far into the overlap perimeter as they can get without being spotted. Father Otter will know the strategic points for placement. You need to scout and find where the other ghosts are and get into a hiding place where you can get to them quickly once the sun is nearly down. I’ll deal with the sea witch and her daughter.”
“I thought you wanted me to be the go-between.”
“I need those ghosts more than I need you dangling like bait. Besides, I don’t think Jacque will let you get close enough to issue the invitation I need.”
“Jacque . . . ?”
“You said the sea witch is a redhead. The woman who was on Pleiades until Father Otter came to talk to me at the marina is a redhead. The name she gave was Jacque Knight, and if she’s not the sea witch, I’ll be the proverbial monkey’s uncle.”
Solis interrupted. “Could it not be Shelly who is the sea witch, as we discussed?”
“I don’t think so,” I replied. “The revised story doesn’t fit that scenario, and if you were a powerful magic user looking to unseat your parent, would you keep her around afterward?”
Solis shook his head. “No. Then this business about virginity and power was the truth? But how does one have a child if that is true?”
“I don’t know that it’s true or not—I can’t even guess at this point. Shelly was a mermaid. She’s still a mermaid. She just never became the sea witch, but there’s no way to know why and my speculation may not be correct in any case. The sea witch used to roam the Sound and destroy ships but she couldn’t keep the door open this time and then she lost a significant percentage of her ghosts. She’s got to be pretty angry at Fielding here.”
“Didn’t I say she carried a grudge?” Fielding asked. “She never lets go of anything.”
“You did. And I intend to use that to my advantage. But we have to get back to Mambo Moon first. Fielding, you find the other ghost receptacles and get ready to grab them when the sun goes down and bring them to me. Recruit other dobhar-chú or the otters if you need to; we have to get those things away from here or there will never be any peace.”
“What about Jacque and Shelly?”
“What about them?”
“Aren’t you going to . . . destroy them?”
“I said I would deal with them; I didn’t say I’d kill them. That’s not what I came here for. I won’t stop your clan from doing what it needs to and if my goals force me to do it, I will kill them both, but I won’t put my job aside to do yours.”
“But—”
“I already helped you and your clan. Now you return the favor. That’s the deal. That’s as far as it goes.”
Fielding looked flabbergasted, but it was the truth: I hadn’t come here to play avenging angel for the wrongs done to the dobhar-chú or the merfolk. “Someone once called me the Paladin of the Dead and that’s what I am. My job is to get justice for the dead, not to settle scores for the living, no matter how magical.”
“But I hired you—”
“When? I was already on this case when you showed up. And you never offered me anything but false answers. You’ve never offered me any payment. I am not working for you. I’m working for something bigger and meaner than Father Otter or any clan of sea witches or even the insurance company. You’ll get what you want if it works with the rest of my own plans, not because I owe you anything or feel you’re the injured party. If you don’t like that, maybe next time you should offer something better than lies.”
I turned my back on him and started for the dark passage that led back to the bay. Solis fell in behind me in a few steps, saying nothing as we were joined by an escort of otters and a single dobhar-chú the size of a rottweiler.
Nothing stopped us all the way to Mambo Moon.
TWENTY-SIX
When Solis and I stepped back on board, the decks of Mambo Moon were a mess. The skirmish between the merfolk and the dobhar-chú had sent a lot of sea life tumbling over the sides of the boat, and Quinton and Zantree were still clearing it away when we returned. Finishing the job killed about twenty minutes of the hour or so that we had before I’d have to be in place to bargain with and distract the sea witch from the snooping presence of Fielding and his relatives. Explaining what I needed to do took another ten minutes and resulted in an argument I didn’t win.
I’d just finished summarizing the events and discussion in the otter cave and said, “So, Quinton and I will take the bell to the dock while Paul and Solis move the boat out as close to the bay’s mouth as possible. I’ll use the bell to get the sea witch’s attention—”
Solis said, “No.”
I stared at him. “What?”
“I will not allow you to put yourself into the first line of fire.”