Children of the Sea 01 - Sea Witch

away does not defeat the demon.”
     
    "Right. That’s why I’m going back to kill the son of a bitch.”
     
    He had not heard her at all, Margred thought in despair.
     
    Despite the swaying deck, his feet were firmly planted. The sun lay heavy and golden as a knight’s armor on his shoulders. This strong, honorable man was prepared to kill for her.
     
    Or die.
     
    She shivered.
     
    She had never acknowledged the claims of other partners to her loyalty or affection. Caleb had both.
     
    She had never understood commitment or admired courage until she saw them in him. His example had challenged her. Changed her.
     
    Margred narrowed her eyes. And now, she thought, he would just have to accept the consequences.
     
    He was woefully mismatched in this fight. Somehow, she must convince him this was her battle.
     
    “You cannot do this,” she said.
     
    His jaw set. “Yeah, I can. Fire needs an air supply, right? Or it goes out.”
     
    She blinked. “I—yes, I suppose.”
     
    “So, I crush his airway. Slit his throat. Cut off his head. He can’t breathe . . .” Caleb shrugged. “He dies.”
     
    Margred stared. Easy for humans to contemplate death when their own lives were so short.
     
    Or did the very brevity of their existence make life even more precious?
     
    258
    “If the demon dies, his host dies, too,” she pointed out. “The human, Whittaker.”
     
    Caleb hesitated the barest instant. Long enough for her to read the cost of his decision in his eyes. “Collateral damage. Sometimes the importance of the target outweighs the effect of a strike. Whittaker’s hardly an innocent casualty.”
     
    “I am not concerned about him. I am concerned for you.”
     
    “Honey, I can handle one middle-aged lawyer.”
     
    She raised her chin. “And how will you handle being arrested for his murder? What is your exit strategy?”
     
    “I’ll be fine,” Caleb said steadily. “I can argue self defense or something.”
     
    She stared at him, baffled and frustrated. How could he dismiss so easily the life he had built with such deliberation, the job that meant so much to him? Didn’t he understand the risks he ran?
     
    And that was when she knew.
     
    He understood too well.
     
    He was not worried about his future because he did not expect to survive.
     
    259
     

Twenty
     
    THE KEY WAS UNDER A LOBSTER BUOY ON THE front porch.
     
    Just like home. Caleb closed his fingers around the tarnished metal key, wondering what other habits his brother still clung to after twenty-five years.
     
    He raised his other hand to knock. “Anybody home?”
     
    No answer.
     
    “The door is unlocked,” Maggie said.
     
    Caleb tried the knob. Sure enough, it turned easily in his hand.
    “Selkies don’t steal?”
     
    She shrugged. “We flow as the sea flows. What one tide brings, another may take away.”
     
    Caleb grunted. “I’d like to hear you try to explain that one to a judge.”
     
    “Simple.” Maggie smiled. “Pelts do not have pockets.”
     
    He narrowed his eyes.
     
    “It is a joke,” she explained earnestly.
     
    A reluctant smile tugged his lips. “Yeah, I got it.”
     
    He’d just never heard her attempt an actual joke before. Like a four-year-old’s knock-knock joke, the effort was clumsy, endearing, and . . .
    human.
     
    His heart stumbled. He pushed open the door.
     
    260
    Inside, the cabin looked like every other rundown vacation cottage in the state of Maine: the same knotty pine and peeling linoleum, the same rusted hinges and outdated appliances. Mildew grew around the refrigerator door. The shelves held a bottle of ketchup, a moldy half loaf of bread, and most of a case of beer. Caleb wondered where Dylan bought his groceries. Not on World’s End.
     
    Maggie wrinkled her nose at the smell. “I do not think Gwyneth hid her sealskin in the refrigerator.”
     
    “Right.” Caleb closed the door. His brother didn’t matter. Maggie mattered.
     
    “I think I should look outside while you search inside,” she said.
     
    Caleb regarded the four square walls and narrow hall that led to the—bedroom? Bath? “Not much to search.”
     
    Maggie’s lips curved. “You will be quick, then.”
     
    He didn’t like splitting up. But on an island where his brother hadn’t bothered to lock the door . . .
     
    “Stay close to the house,” he warned. “Where I can see you.”
     
    She gave him a limpid look through her eyelashes. “Of course.”
     
    That big-eyed