Children of the Sea 02 - Sea Fever

coolly. As if it didn’t matter. As if she didn’t matter. “Why?”
     
    “She’s gone.”
     
    Dylan was rigid. “Where?”
     
    “I wish to hell I knew,” Caleb said, more honestly than he intended.
     
    Dylan’s face was white, his mouth a thin, grim line. “Hell has more to do with this than either of us could wish.”
     
    Caleb frowned. “What are you talking about?”
     
    “I must find her,” Dylan said.
     
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Eight
     
    “YOU’RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE,” CALEB SAID.
     
    Dylan raised his eyebrows, fighting the pressure in his chest.
    “Obviously not. Since I came back.”
     
    He could hardly breathe. The urgency that had driven him from the sea surged back. Only now the stink of something wrong, the stench of evil, was sharper. Stronger.
     
    Regina was gone.
     
    He made himself like stone, like flint, like the prince’s tower at Caer Subai. Cold and immovable. Emotion would not bring her back.
     
    “What are you doing here?” Caleb asked bluntly.
     
    Dylan relaxed his fists; forced himself to speak coolly. “I followed the demon spoor here. If they have her, I will find her.”
     
    If they held her . . . He did not like to imagine what the demons could do to her smooth skin, her strong spirit.
     
    “What would demons want with a twenty-nine-year-old cook?”
    Caleb asked skeptically.
     
    Dylan shook his head, frustrated. “I don’t know. They should not have taken her in any case. She is warded.”
     
    “Warded?”
     
    “She wears the triskelion on her wrist— the wardens’ mark. It should have protected her.”
     
    “From demons maybe,” Caleb said. “A tattoo won’t stop a human kidnapper. She could have been grabbed by this Jones character.”
     
    “Have you found him? Questioned him?”
     
    93
    “Not yet.”
     
    “Then I will.”
     
    “Forget it,” Caleb said. “This is a police investigation. You can’t interfere.”
     
    Dylan suppressed the snarl in his throat; stared down his nose instead. “And if he is possessed, you can’t help. You need me, little brother.”
     
    Caleb didn’t like that. Dylan could tell. Too bad. “Right,” Caleb said tersely at last. “Let’s go.”
     
    Dylan followed him around the corner of the ratty shelter. Stopped.
    The half-dozen humans collected around the fire did not concern him.
    However, the large woman with the gun standing beside Caleb’s Cherokee could be a problem.
     
    She swung the long barrel toward him. “Who’s that?” “Don’t say anything,” Caleb said to Dylan.
     
    Fine with him. He had had enough of humans and talking in the past two weeks. But there was that gun . . .
     
    “Detective Hall,” Caleb said. “My brother, Dylan.”
     
    Dylan met her gaze and smiled at her slowly, deliberately, watching in satisfaction as the barrel of the shotgun wavered and dipped. Not quite enough.
     
    “What’s he doing here?” she asked.
     
    “Assisting in the investigation,” Caleb said.
     
    Dylan could see from the woman’s uniform that she was some kind of law enforcement officer. Wouldn’t she recognize official bullshit?
    Object to it?
     
    He continued to smile, concentrating his power until he saw her pupils dilate and the square line of her shoulders relax.
     
    94
    “Oh,” she said in a soft, faraway voice. “Well, that’s . . . Dylan, did you say?”
     
    Dylan nodded, still smiling faintly.
     
    “Very nice to meet you, Dylan,” Hall said and giggled.
     
    Caleb shot him a sharp look. “Shit. What did you do to her?” he muttered.
     
    Dylan shrugged. She was human and female and therefore susceptible. Perhaps more susceptible than most, nothing at all like— But thinking of Regina caused a spasm of something like panic in his chest.
    “We’re looking for Jericho,” he said.
     
    “Yeah.” Caleb shook his head. “This way.”
     
    The men around the fire watched— curious, predatory, or indifferent— as Dylan and Caleb picked their way through the littered camp.
     
    Caleb stopped in front of a lean-to with a rusting metal roof. A sheet of cardboard blocked the entry. He bent, tugging a flashlight from his belt. “Stay here.”
     
    The beam of light preceded him through the rough opening. Dylan waited until both disappeared before he stooped and followed.
     
    The smell assaulted his nostrils. Not demon. Not all demon. Human vomit, piss, and sweat. Corrupted flesh. Charred meat. Dylan gagged.
     
    Caleb, kneeling over a pile of rags at the back of the