Deep Betrayal

killing swimmers. It’s only a matter of time before someone takes him seriously—one more kill for the pendulum to swing from mocking the lunatic to searching for monsters. If you keep this up, people will come looking.”
    She rolled her eyes toward the sky and held them there. “And if they come? What will they find?”
    “You tell me? Are you planning to let them find you?”
    “We won’t be found,” she said, her voice flat. “Soon there won’t be anything left of us. We’ll be nothing more than wasted shells. And we’re well aware of Jack Pettit’s antics. That’s why we’ve been keeping a low profile. If you can’t tell, I haven’t made a kill in over a month.”
    “Pavati, then.”
    Maris shook her head.
    “I don’t understand,” Calder said, his shoulders falling heavily.
    “Get this through your thick skull,” Maris said. “It’s not us. Something else has turned the lake into a killing ground, and its appetite has forced us to suppress our own.”
    “It’s really rip currents?” Calder asked, almost too quiet to hear.
    “Don’t be a fool,” Maris said, and she returned her gaze toward me. Her eyes narrowed again, studying the pendant and then searching my face. For what, I didn’t know, but I didn’t like the way she was looking at me.
    I tugged at Calder’s elbow. We’d found Maris and Pavati. We’d delivered our message. We’d warned them about Jack and the risk of hunting recklessly. “Let’s go,” I whispered.
    “One second, Lil,” he said, waving me off. “You weren’t trying to spite me—leaving the bodies to rot so conspicuously?”
    “We’re not above spite,” Maris said.
    “But it’s not you,” he said, confirming something he could not quite rectify with his assumptions.
    “No.”
    None of this made sense. If it wasn’t them … I heard myself blurt out, “Then what?”
    Maris whipped her head to glare at me again, her eyes blazing. “Maybe it’s your father. Ever consider that?”
    “That’s impossible,” I said, my voice more air than sound.
    Calder looked at me nervously. “I’ve been with him. I’ve stayed close.”
    “Clearly, you aren’t with him all the time,” snarled Maris.
    “Jason doesn’t need to kill. His family keeps him happy,” Calder said. “He can avoid the curse.”
    “Don’t be a fool,” said Pavati, finally walking up the beach on too-thin legs, scarlet and glistening in the sun. Her skin was more sallow than I’d seen it before, and her collarbones stuck out in dangerous points.
    Dressed in tattered rags that barely covered her, she walked immodestly on the sand right toward us, without apology. I had to turn away, and I heard her chuckle under her breath. Calder seemed nonplussed. He barely acknowledged her presence.
    “It’s possible. I’ve done it,” Calder said. “Jason can make his own happiness with his family.”
    “So he’s spending his evenings with the family, playing Monopoly around the fire?” Pavati asked, stepping over a sun-bleached driftwood log.
    “No,” I said, and Maris flinched at the sound of my voice. Pavati, on the other hand, showed no discomfort.
    “Give me another theory,” Calder said. “One that makes sense.”
    “There’s only one other option worth considering,” Maris said.
    Calder waited impatiently while Maris feigned a sympathetic look. “Aw, see? Isn’t this so much harder, little brother? If you hadn’t left us, all this information would be at your disposal. You really didn’t think things through, did you?”
    “I think you made it clear all the time I was growing up. Good instincts were never my strong suit.”
    Maris almost cracked a smile, but then a cloud descended over her face. “Maighdean Mara,” she said as a sharp wind lashed around the point and sent sand stinging against my legs.
    “What?” Calder asked, and his tone of incredulity draggedmy focus from the possibility of my dad as hunter back to the conversation.
    “Maighdean Mara,” Maris said again.
    My hands shook by my sides, attracting Maris’s gaze. I couldn’t understand how guarded she was—so leery that my smallest movements did not escape her. She looked terrifyingly weak; if it came to a fight, I was pretty sure I’d be able to take her. At least on land.
    “Maighdean Mara is a myth,” Calder said. “And it isn’t funny.”
    “Therein lies the problem,” Maris said.
    “Which is?” Calder asked.
    “That you think I’m kidding. That we’ve always thought