Fantastical Island (Old School Book 2) Page 2

  He was attractive: healthy and active rather than handsome. He could be an ally—or she could have stumbled into the headquarters of the threat she hoped didn’t exist. His affection for the behemi was in his favor, but she had to remember the inconsistencies of human nature. A man could keep a pet deer and still hunt and eat venison.

  So she gave him a tiny part of the answer to his question. “I moved here a month ago.” She’d arrived at the tail-end of winter, arriving in time for a memorable storm. It had been quite the welcome to Catalina Island. “I live in the yellow boarding house in the next street.”

  “Mrs. Liu’s? Huh.” He thought about it. “You saw Cliff from your window?”

  “It was a shock.”

  “I’ll bet.” He smiled faintly, but his eyes remained watchful.

  She forced her own smile. “You’re wet and need to shower. I need a change of clothes, too. How about we do that, then meet for lunch? I’d love to learn more about behemis.” Like, has their island population declined recently? “And you can reassure yourself that I’ll keep your pet’s secret.”

  “O-kaaay.” He drew out the word, then more briskly. “Okay. I’ll meet you at the boarding house in thirty minutes.”

  “See you then. Bye, Cliff.” She scratched the behemi’s ears in passing. Thirty minutes wouldn’t give her long to shower, dress and research Corey.

  It didn’t, but she managed.

  “Corey Madrigal Catalina Island” was the first search term she entered, and she hit jackpot, reading as she dressed. He was twenty seven, his family had lived on the island for decades, and he was a highly regarded special effects artist with a studio in Long Beach, Los Angeles. It was his profession that had been the focus of the article in an entertainment magazine that she’d found online.

  It gave her a starting point, and the fact that he belonged on the island was in his favor. Maybe she could and should trust him with her suspicions? After all, few people could see through glamour and that was a necessary ability for this investigation. It was why Sadie had gone to all that trouble to get Naomi the amulet.

  She dressed distractedly, choosing jeans again, both to prove to herself and to Corey that she wasn’t trying to attract him, and because the jeans let her keep the amulet on her. She wore a long cotton shirt in olive green that hid the bulge of the amulet in her pocket. She tied her blonde hair back in a ponytail and slipped on sunglasses, a practical move on an island surrounded by glittering seas. That they hid her eyes and expression was a bonus.

  She was still rolling up the sleeves of her shirt as she walked out of the boarding house.

  Corey waited on the front porch.

  “Oh hi.” She stopped abruptly. In the silence, the door swung shut by itself, the click of the automatic lock sounding loud.

  He was dressed as he had been to wash Cliff, in a gray t-shirt and jeans, but he’d changed his wet sneakers for boots. He pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head, and his eyes were very green in the shade of the porch and very intent as they studied her. Then he smiled.

  An uncharacteristic blush rose and flooded her face. “Um, hi.”

  “Shouldn’t that be ‘g’day’? Your accent…you’re Australian, right?”

  “Aussie through and through,” she agreed as she fought down her blush.

  “Where are you from?”

  They started walking down to the harbor where the restaurants clustered.

  “Sydney.”

  “Avalon Harbor must seem small to you after Sydney.”

  She shrugged. “I like it. Being on an island is romantic.” Oops! Freudian slip. She was just so aware of him. It was disconcerting.

  He answered her seriously. “Most people who come here like the idea of living on an island, but the reality is something else. Los Angeles isn’t far away, but catching the ferry or a plane isn’t the same as being able to hop in a car and drive down to a shopping mall.”

  “Malls are over-rated.”

  That won her an approving smile.

  They took a short cut and the narrow path squashed them together. He smelled of his shower and a fresh, ocean-inspired scent.

  She liked his deodorant. Oh wow. Get a grip. There was a time to moon over an attractive guy, and this wasn’t it. She decided to move things on from innocuous chit chat to establishing whether or not to trust one another with some of their secrets. She’d get the ball rolling.

  “I’m a marine biologist.” Okay, it wasn’t a huge confession, but it was a start.

  The narrow path between houses ended as she spoke, spitting them out onto a wide street with an actual sidewalk. Despite the amulet in her pocket, she wasn’t seeing anything an ordinary person wouldn’t see. However, she hadn’t expected the island’s fantastical creatures to live in town. Cliff the behemi had been a shock in more ways than one.

  Corey walked on the outside of the sidewalk, taking the traditional gentleman’s place nearest the street. “Do you work at the Institute?”

  “I’ve rented office space there, but I’m not part of the Institute team. I have independent funding.” She breathed in, held it for a count of two, and exhaled. She had a cover story to explain her presence on Catalina Island, one that she even worked at so as not to raise anyone’s suspicions. “I have a year’s funding to study the impact of human-generated ocean noise on marine mammals. Specifically, I’m attempting to detect variations in whale and dolphin speech that mimic human-generated noise.”

  The Institute’s scientists were snide about her research, dismissing it as coming from the loony fringe, but their mockery held an envious undertone. Her research might be on the flakier side, but it was well-funded. With so many sources of funding drying up and research projects folding, that made her sonic studies desirable.

  Besides, cover story or not, the hypothesis was feasible. Lots of animals imitated human noise. An Australian lyrebird that mimicked chainsaws had given Naomi the idea. She’d put a lot of thought and preparation into her real reason for being on the island and she was willing to do whatever it took—including tolerating her colleagues’ scorn—to achieve her objectives.

  “Human-generated ocean noise,” Corey repeated.

  As a cover story, it was solid—unless you knew that she could see fantastical creatures, like behemis.

  He leaned fractionally toward her as they waited for a line of golf carts and a couple of cars to pass. “Are you sure you’re not studying sea serpents and kraken?”

  “Are there kraken off the island?” she countered.

  A golf cart stopped to let them cross the road, the driver waving a greeting.

  Corey nodded back and took her arm. His hand was strong, calloused, yet gentle now that the slipperiness of the pet shampoo that had coated it earlier was gone. “There are whirlpools out there. You tell me.”

  He released her arm and she wished his hand had lingered. Their shoulders brushed as tourist numbers increased, crowding the sidewalk. It might be early spring, but the fine weather had encouraged weekend visitors from the mainland.

  “Whirlpools could have other causes, but if they change locations it is probably kraken,” she said. “I’ve heard two reports of whirlpools at the northern end of the island. But kraken are notoriously difficult to see.” Not only did the creatures hide behind their glamour, they also lived in the depths of the ocean. If there were kraken around Catalina Island, they were probably juveniles. Just as young fish kept to the shelter of coral reefs, young kraken lingered near islands. Only as they grew older did their territorial instincts drive them out to establish themselves far from land.

  A candy store released a gust of sweet-scented air into the street as tourists exited, chattering and carrying sparkly bags.

  Naomi’s stomach rumbled.

  “Fish tacos suit you?” Corey asked.

  “Absolutely.”

  He led the way to a small restaurant with a smoky, spicy atmosphere. Despite its out of the way location, all of its tables were occupied. Two men
worked swiftly, faces flushed, in the kitchen. An older woman took orders, and a teenager darted among the tables, clearing things as soon as people left.

  Corey and Naomi ordered at the counter and took their tacos and coffees to the waterfront, sitting on a bench beneath a palm tree. It was relatively quiet there. They were part of the harbor scene, but withdrawn from it. Above them, streaky white clouds broke up the deep blue of the sky. Sunlight danced on the water as the waves rocked the boats and lent gentle, continuous motion to the scene. Music drifted from a bar and three seagulls stalked a silver-haired couple who were eating fish and chips as they strolled to the pier.

  “Are you a wizard?” Corey unwrapped his taco.

  “No.” She appreciated his bluntness, now that they were semi-private. “Are you?”

  He shook his head. “I have an inherited talent for seeing through glamours, but no magic.” He bit off some taco.

  “I have an amulet that enables me to do the same,” she shared, on the principle that you had to give a little information to get some. “I didn’t think I’d need to see through glamours to do my work, but…have you noticed anything different about Catalina Island?”

  The sunglasses he wore prevented her from seeing his eyes. Had they widened in surprise? Narrowed in suspicion? He’d stopped chewing for a second.

  His chewing resumed before he swallowed. “What sort of changes, and how recently? I’ve been preoccupied with a project for the last four months and away in Toronto for some of that time.”

  “I don’t know how recently. I…I really am a marine biologist, but studying marine mammal mimicry isn’t the important reason I’m here. Fifty years ago, a woman called Alexia Poe undertook a survey of the fantastical creatures on Catalina Island. She was a wizard. She mapped and documented the different species’ populations for a year. I realize that fifty years is a long time, but some of the populations are stationary, like metz, and others are long-lived, like lightning birds.”

  She paused to eat some of her taco.

  Given Corey’s natural talent for seeing through glamours and his years on the island, his knowledge of its fantastical creatures could be immensely useful to her, but could she trust him or was she biased by her instant attraction to him? She had to keep a cool head and remember that far from guaranteeing that he was a good guy, his knowledge of the island and its wildlife could just as readily place him at the heart of her suspicions.

  He could lie to her and confiding in him would set her up as a target.

  “So, you’re doing a survey of the island’s fantastical creatures?” he prompted.

  She jolted out of her thoughts, shocked to find she’d eaten most of her taco and he’d finished his. “Sorry. I was thinking.” Worrying. “Yes, I’m starting with a survey. I’m investigating the effects of human activities on fantastical creatures’ lives and habitats. Being an island, Catalina is a protected environment and, usefully from my perspective, it’s been ignored as a possible hotspot for fantastical creatures.”

  “Is it a hotspot?”

  “It should be,” she replied cautiously. “The field study was undertaken in the 1960s. Alexia recorded a high number of some of the more common fantastical creatures as well as the presence of rarer creatures, like the lightning birds from Africa. She was intrigued by the mix of indigenous and introduced species, and what she assessed as a strong, stable island ecology.”

  Naomi wrapped up the remains of her taco, walked across and threw it in a trashcan. She was a good scientist, but she hadn’t been trained in subterfuge or criminal investigation. She was walking a tightrope. She hoped that Corey was the man he appeared—strong, kind to smelly behemis, a good man. If he wasn’t, she reassured herself that she likely wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know.

  Bottom-line? The only new information he’d get from her was that she was here, she had suspicions, and she had the amulet. She tucked it deeper in her jeans pocket before resuming her seat beside him on the bench. The danger her friend had encountered to get the amulet to Naomi told her just how valuable it was. She had to protect it.

  “It took me weeks of research, studying the 1960s field report, extrapolating from other studies, and linking to ongoing research into hotspots around the world to pull together a research proposal strong enough to get me funding for a year-long investigation here on Catalina Island. A significant part of the proposal was evaluating the island’s current ecological status. I ran two different scenarios. One positive, where the creatures continued as Alexia Poe anticipated. The other, negative, where the creatures’ stable ecological balance was disrupted by human activity, including the well-meaning conservation efforts that cleared feral pigs and goats from the island.”

  “I remember the eradication of the ferals,” Corey said. “Some islanders still grumble about the loss of hunting opportunities.”

  “Did the eradication make it harder for the behemis to hide?” Basically, the behemis were flying pigs. If their mundane porcine counterparts were gone, would that gap reveal the behemis’ presence. She needed to study Cliff with and without the amulet on her. Could the behemis’ glamour hide them completely or just conceal their wings? Obviously when they were flying, it hid them completely—unless, did they only fly at night? Was Cliff an exception?

  “I didn’t notice any change in the behemis’ behavior.” Corey frowned. “But I wasn’t studying them. When I hiked, I saw them in their usual locations.”

  That was exactly the sort of information she’d hoped he could provide. “As I said, I only arrived on the island a month ago.” There had been a storm that first night. She’d watched from a sheltered nook near the harbor as the storm crashed over the town and she’d wished she could see a lightning bird. Legend said that they appeared to women, so even without an innate ability to see through glamours, she’d hoped for a sighting—and been disappointed.

  “When I got here,” she continued. “I had a plan. I didn’t have the amulet then. I expected to track the fantastical creatures by the traces they leave, but there weren’t enough traces.”

  “So the negative scenario from your proposal is the accurate one?” He sighed and stretched out his legs, staring across the harbor at the boats gently bobbing at their moorings and the people lounging on them. “I always thought the island was filled with fantastical creatures, but I guess I never really compared it to—what did you call them? Hotspots?”

  She nodded. “The thing is…”

  He turned and studied her as her voice trailed off.

  She pulled the amulet out of her pocked and turned it over and over between her hands. The broken ends of the chain twisted around her fingers. “I have a feeling that the negative scenario is wrong. I think Catalina Island continued to be a hotspot up until recently.” The chain uncoiled from her fingers and the two broken ends dangled free as she stilled her restless hands.

  Corey leaned forward. He touched one dangling end with a fingertip. “You’ve snapped the chain. I can repair it.”

  Their faces were close together, but because they both wore sunglasses, they couldn’t read each other’s eyes.

  She let the chain pool in her right palm before placing the owl amulet over it and closing her hand around both. “It was broken when I got it.” She didn’t know whether to trust him with the amulet, even if she stood by while he worked. But if she wanted to wear the amulet, someone had to solder the broken links together.

  For the moment, she shelved the question of chain repairs. “I arrived on the island in time to set up for spring. With the fantastical creatures busy laying their eggs and raising their young, they’ll be less mobile. There’ll be more concentrated activity, more traces for people like me, people who can’t see through glamours, to find.”

  “Except you can’t find those traces,” he said flatly, anticipating her story.

  “I found far fewer traces than I anticipated. But that wasn’t all I found, and that’s why I grew worried and a friend sent me the amu
let.” She really wished he’d take off his sunglasses so she could watch his eyes, but lacking a view of his eyes, she watched the firm line of his mouth and his general body language. “Alexia Poe’s field report might be half a century old, but fantastical creatures are like other animals in that colonies don’t readily move location. So metz patches, sea serpents’ nesting pools, even jackalope burrows, ought to be in or near areas she marked out in the 1960s.”

  She shoved the amulet back in her pocket. “I’ve visited three metz patches on either side of the island, two sea serpents’ nesting pools, and found an abandoned jackalope burrow. The burrow was obviously unused for years. Parts of it had collapsed.” She exhaled unsteadily and rubbed her bare arms. “But two of the metz patches showed signs of being recently dug up.”

  His shoulders jerked. “What?”

  “The sea serpents’ pools were empty of all but one egg.” She looked at him steadily, thinking that he seemed shocked. Hoping he was. She wanted him as an ally, not an enemy. “I think someone’s trapping and trading the fantastical creatures of Catalina Island.”

  Chapter 2

  Corey took off his sunglasses and pressed the heel of his left hand to the eyebrow ridge of his face, just above the bridge of his nose. It was a habit of his when baffled, as if pressing over his third eye might stimulate understanding.

  It didn’t help this time.

  He dropped his hand and stared at Naomi Twain. She was gorgeous: blonde, blue-eyed, tall and athletic. He liked her Australian accent, the way she waved her hands when she talked, and most of all, the fact that she could see fantastical creatures like Cliff. He liked how delighted she’d been with the small behemi.

  It was a bit disappointing that she only saw the creatures because of an amulet. He would have liked to meet someone else who saw through glamours. On the other hand, he was glad she wasn’t a wizard. Magic wasn’t his thing. He liked to create the illusion of it with stagecraft, and if someone in his life could do for real what he so painstakingly faked, that would take some of the sparkle out of his work. There’d be a temptation to rely on wizardry when he hit a problem, rather than solving impossible puzzles.