Children of the Sea 01 - Sea Witch

routine set off alarm bells in his head.
     
    But she had waited for him at the restaurant. “ Then it seems we are in this together ,” she’d said.
     
    He wanted to trust her.
     
    He had to trust her.
     
    He strode down the hall.
     

     
    Watching Caleb’s tall, strong figure disappear through a doorway, Margred longed to call him back for a word, a look, a kiss . . .
     
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    Foolish, feminine, human need.
     
    Impatiently, she let herself out the front door and crossed through the sunlit patch of yard, bright with daisies and sow thistle. When she reached the shadow of tall spruce, she cast one last look over her shoulder at the house.
     
    And ran.
     
    Caleb surveyed the room like a crime scene, hands in his pockets, gaze assessing, emotions firmly in check.
     
    If this was Dylan’s room, his brother’s tastes hadn’t evolved in twenty-five years. The navy spread was the same tough, ribbed material that covered the beds at home. The furniture was Vintage Motel. Only the king-sized mattress and an elaborately carved sea chest at the foot of the bed suggested Dylan had grown.
     
    Changed.
     
    A small frame on the battered dresser caught Caleb’s eye. He stepped closer, bending to take a look.
     
    Surprise tightened his throat. He recognized that picture. Hell, he was in it, ten years old, with Lucy on his lap. And beside them, scowling at the camera, was thirteen-year-old Dylan.
     
    A memory pressed on Caleb’s heart like an old bruise: their mother, laughing and excited as she framed the shot, ordering Dylan to smile. Had she known then that she was leaving? Had she kept the photograph to remind her of the children she’d left behind? Did his brother keep it for the same reasons?
     
    Or was the picture simply like the bedspread and the mold in the kitchen, something Dylan had lived with so long he didn’t see it anymore?
     
    Not that Caleb gave a good goddamn about his brother’s motivations.
     
    He pushed back the curtain on the closet, revealing a surprisingly up-to-date men’s wardrobe, and rifled efficiently through the bureau drawers before turning his attention to the sea chest at the foot of the bed.
     
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    His gaze kept skipping over it. Sliding away. Caleb frowned. This wasn’t like the glamour spell placed on the island. He could see the damn thing clearly. But he was oddly reluctant to approach it. Touch it.
     
    Ignoring the recalcitrance in his mind, the tingling of his fingertips, he sank heavily to his knees and raised the lid.
     
    His breath escaped in a silent whistle. Jackpot .
     
    Like finding pirate treasure on the beach, a crusader’s ransom, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. He stared at the pile of gleaming coins stamped with the images of goddesses and kings, Indians and eagles. Pieces of gold shining through rich, mottled strands of . .
     
    Fur.
     
    A sealskin.
     
    His heart hammered. Gwyneth’s pelt? Or Dylan’s?
     
    Maggie would know.
     
    He had to tell her.
     
    He’d seen what the demon had done to her dead friend. Maggie complained Caleb didn’t know what they were up against, but he understood evil. He was a cop. A soldier. He’d dealt with dead babies and abused wives, executed shopkeepers, blown-up school children. He knew what men could do to one another out of hate or greed, for high-minded, hollow political phrases or in the name of religion.
     
    He had fought with insufficient weapons against enemies who could not be defeated, against poverty and crime and hopelessness, against zealots and insurgents.
     
    He’d fight now because he had to. Because there was no one else, and Maggie could not face this thing alone.
     
    But if they lost, if the situation went literally to hell, he wanted her to be safe. At least the skin would give her a chance to escape, to return to the sea she loved.
     
    And if they won . . .
     
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    Caleb lowered the lid of the chest, annoyed to note his hands were trembling. He wouldn’t let himself think about what Maggie would do if they won.
     
    Maggie crashed through the wood on the slippery, overgrown path as if the hounds of Hell hunted at her heels.
     
    Or a demon.
     
    Hurry, hurry . Her feet pounded and slid on the carpet of pine needles. Her breathing rasped. In. Out. Her heart hammered in her ears.
     
    She burst from shadow into sunlight. Blinded, she stumbled forward and thumped into something—someone— warm. Solid. Male.
     
    She almost shrieked.
     
    Hard hands gripped her