Nathan deferred to Bruno with a wave of a hand. “You know more about the history, so I figured I’d leave it to you.”
“Well, I lived on the East Coast my whole life, so I grew up hearing legends of the lost city of Atlantis. There was always one expedition or another taking off with some new plan or a new invention to get into the trenches where everyone swore it was. When I went to college, I first wanted to study metaphysical biology. I had a theory that the island had simply collided with a continent and evolution had taken over.”
Meaning, were the Atlanteans just plain folk who lived everywhere now or did they have a unique biology that could be traced—like sirens? Now I remembered this about Bruno’s studies, and I remembered some of our old conversations. I picked up on his idea: “There are, after all, continents with odd angles. France looks like it was slapped on as an afterthought and so do the northwestern tips of Africa and Florida. They’ve all been speculated to be the ‘lost’ island.” I made quotes in the air with my fingers. Raising my arm moved his hand, which slid down to my waist.
Possessive thing today. But that wasn’t surprising, considering yesterday.
Adriana shook her head. “No. Atlantis was most definitely part of the siren empire. Eris the Just was the queen of queens for many centuries. The location has never been a secret from our own people, and I assure you it was nowhere near the supposed locations stated in books. Atlantis was no myth; it didn’t collide, and didn’t sink. It’s not in this dimension. That’s why nobody can find it.”
Bruno nodded. “The dimensional rift is a brand-new concept I’ve never seen anywhere. But I did find evidence that more than a few Atlanteans survived the cataclysm and moved to integrate with other populations.”
Adriana didn’t look happy to admit it, but she tipped her head with a grim face. “Refugees wouldn’t have been accepted on the other siren homelands. They were all deemed to be traitors who nearly destroyed the world. They would have been killed on sight. Living among the humans was the only hope they might have to survive.”
Mick picked up the story. “Then enters a young sea captain named Henry Fulbright. He was master of his own ship at only twenty-two when he came upon an area of horrible devastation. Debris and the decaying bodies of humans and fish made a whole region of the ocean stink of death. Other ship captains warned him against entering the waters for fear of disease, but he needed to get his cargo to harbor before it spoiled. He found a raft of people floating among the dead. His crew nearly mutinied when he insisted on picking up those survivors.”
“Atlanteans?” I asked, and Mick nodded.
“Only six survived the trip back to England. He married one of the women and they settled down to have a family. The men went to work in the town and eventually became landowners with new names, borrowed from the hosts who took them in.”
“Murphy.” My voice was as positive as I felt. “And Fulbright. So you’re both descended from the original Atlanteans?”
Mick nodded. “And, if Nathan’s source can be trusted, he says my multi-great-grandfather was actually the son of Kraystal, the older daughter of Queen Eris. Although she’d sent him away to be killed upon birth, as was the custom, the nanny took the child to a family on the shore to raise as their own.”
Wow. Shades of Moses. Adriana raised her eyebrows, then nodded. “I did find evidence of some family units around the cities on Atlantis. Craftsmen with human wives, mostly, who built the palace. The carving of stone was usually left to the men before they were…” She grimaced slightly. “Discarded.” Nobody likes admitting their ancestors did horrible things. It changes how you remember them. At least she was suitably disgusted. That spoke well of the future of Rusland, where she would rule. “But it would be quite easy to learn the truth on Serenity. We have geneticists who specialize in identifying—”
At that moment, a bright, sharp tone split the air. It was similar to the high-pitched whine of a radio weather alert. It seemed to come from everywhere at once. The other four people in the gazebo dropped to their knees almost simultaneously, with their hands on their ears and pain etched on their features. I turned when I heard glass shatter and that the window of the restaurant had fractured. I raced forward before all of the glass hit the ground and leapt onto the sidewalk just as the tone stopped.
The three girls were sitting at the same table where we’d left them. If you opened the dictionary to the phrase “the cat who ate the canary,” their pictures would be there. My hands were on my hips instantly, but I couldn’t get out a word before Molly Murphy was in the room. “What in the name of heaven is going on out here? A whole tray of glasses just out of the dishwasher shattered right in the tray.”
I fibbed just a bit: “I’m a vampire, girls. I can smell who’s got something to hide.” In a manner of speaking, that was true. Beverly certainly smelled more musky than she had when I’d left, and her pulse was racing a mile a minute under pale, sweating skin.
Molly and I both stared at them until they were literally squirming. Julie broke first: “It was Beverly. I told her not to touch it. I did, Mom.” Now she started rubbing her earlobe and I saw that there was blood dripping down her neck. “That sound really hurt my ears.”
Her mother raced forward the moment she saw the smear of red. “Oh my lord, sweetie!” I very intentionally didn’t step forward.
But I wanted to. This was twice now that I’d gotten twitchy longer before four hours had passed after a meal. I wasn’t liking the trend.
It took a moment for all the pieces to fall into place. Shattered glass, pain in people’s ears, and one person whom it didn’t bother at all. I looked at Okalani. “Did the sound hurt your ears?”
She nodded and I pointed toward the door. “Go see your mother right now and get checked out. Watch out for the glass.”
Okalani nearly sprinted for the door—probably to get out of the line of fire. I looked at Beverly. “That sound didn’t bother you at all, did it?”
My eyes were locked on hers and she finally shook her head just a fraction.
“Was it one of the shells in the bag?”
She opened her mouth and I could tell from her shifting, panicked eyes that she was about to say something to protect herself. I wanted none of it. I held up a hand to stop her and said, “You won’t get in trouble. Just please tell me. It’s important.”
Part of me knew what she was going to say, but every fiber of my being wanted her to deny it. I felt actual pain in my stomach when she nodded with her eyes fixed firmly on my shoes. “Yes’m. It was the orange one. Okalani said nobody could make it blow.”
Bruno and the others came in as I was staring at the ceiling, fighting back tears with my arms wrapped tightly around my body. He took one look at me and pulled me into an embrace. “What’s wrong, Celie? What’s happened?” I gratefully accepted the comfort and dug my fingers into his strong back muscles. He looked around, trying to find the source of my pain. I could see Beverly out of the corner of my eye, doing her best to look small and insignificant—just a girl trying to finish her sandwich. Molly had taken Julie into the other room to check out the bleeding. I knew Beverly was also wondering what was wrong with me.
It was hard to put words to, and I found I was weeping as I spoke: “She’s only twelve, Bruno. It’s not fair. I can’t do that to her—to her family … and her sister. But if I don’t, how could I live with myself? What if there’s nobody else?”
Bruno tensed abruptly, holding his breath as he got it. He always was one of the smartest people I knew. He looked at Beverly over the top of my shoulder. “Was that sound one of the shells? Was it the orange one?”
She nodded, now with more ease but also more fear. She understood that something significant was happening but had no idea what. Likely Okalani hadn’t had time to explain the whole story.
“Holy Mother of God,” Bruno swore forcefully. I looked over to see Adriana likewise stricken, which surprised me a little.
Mick was just looking confused. He crouched down beside his daughter. “Hon, you can’t touch other people’s things. That’s a very valuable artifact, and magical. You could have hurt it. You could have been hurt.”
She nodded. “I know it was stupid, Dad. I shouldn’t have touched it. But nothing happened.”
“Yet—” The word just slipped out, but it made Mick stare at me with renewed worry. He stood in a rush and put a protective hand on his daughter’s shoulder.
“What’s wrong? Do I need to get her to a doctor?”
It was Adriana who put things in perspective and made his face go pale and trembling: “A priest might be more appropriate, for last rites.”
21
It took two hours at a table with Mick and Molly to answer all their questions. And then there was nothing left but the fear.
“No,” Molly said simply and with force. “I won’t allow it.”
There was a television in the corner of the restaurant, on a shelf mounted near the ceiling. Bruno reached far up to turn on the set. As expected, my little town was on every national channel. The rift now was the equivalent of a dozen city blocks across. Bruno looked back at the Murphys with a serious expression. “When we arrived here, the rift was only a quarter the size of what you see here. It’s increasing exponentially. Soon it’ll breach the barrier. I don’t see how it can’t. There aren’t enough magic practitioners in the world to keep up a barrier this size. It’s pulling at me right now. The mages like me who put up that shield are being drained, minute by minute. If some of the people I crafted this with aren’t already dead, I’ll be surprised.”
I looked at him with abrupt fear. I hadn’t known it was a continual drain—that he was somehow tied to the shield. “Bruno…”
He waved it off, but now that I knew I saw the weariness around his eyes. The laugh lines were deeper, as were the creases of his brow. “I’m one of the most powerful mages in the country, Celia. It’ll be a week or better before it starts to pull on my life force. The shield won’t last that long.” Then he turned back to the Murphys, who were holding white-knuckled hands and staring at the screen. “When it fails, we all die. The priests, the Pope … they’ve tried everything in the Vatican vault. Things hidden from the public eye for centuries. Yesterday I heard from some friends back east that black-arts sorcerers are volunteering to help, knowing even they’re at risk from this. We have no choice but to ask this of you.”
