Fantastical Island (Old School Book 2) Page 5

He spoke quietly. “Maybe bringing the island to the government’s attention would be worth it. We can’t save the creatures from government monitoring by letting the hunters steal them instead.”

  Given his response, he was willing to let go of the question as to who was funding her research. Either he trusted her promise that they wouldn’t hurt the island’s creatures or he considered them a less immediate threat than the hunters. He was a practical man, after all, and it was easier to deal with one danger at a time.

  “That could be our fallback plan,” she agreed. She also considered how much of her story he’d had to take on trust. If they were only going to work together briefly, perhaps she could keep her secrets, but the island was small and she was here for a year—and she liked Corey. Really liked him.

  I need to talk to Cait. A second opinion from someone she trusted was called for before she spilled all of her secrets or, alternatively, messed up a possible relationship by keeping secrets when she could have been honest and open.

  Fortunately, after bringing Naomi the amulet yesterday evening, Cait had decided to stay on the island for a few days.

  Naomi suspected it wasn’t the island’s beauty that had captured Cait’s attention. Cait was best friends with Naomi’s grandmother and had known Naomi since she was a baby. Cait was staying to provide back-up if required—although she’d be thinking of danger coming from someone chasing the amulet rather than from Naomi deciding to hunt the hunters.

  Would Cait tell her she was crazy for going vigilante?

  No. Cait was accustomed to working both with and around government authorities. As long as Naomi had a reasonable plan and likelihood of success in tackling the problem of the hunters, Cait would support her decision.

  Cait would also be a dispassionate, intelligent judge as to whether and how much Naomi could tell Corey about the Old School.

  The Old School was at the heart of Naomi’s secrets, and it would be into the Old School’s library that her report on Catalina Island’s fantastical creatures would disappear.

  “The chain should be cool to the touch, now, if you want to put it on.” Corey broke into her thoughts. He’d stowed away the equipment he’d used to repair the silver chain, while she’d been thinking.

  That she hadn’t noticed his movements indicated the depth of her preoccupation. Never before had she been tempted to confide the truth of the Old School network to a man. Was it the situation on the island or Corey himself that was different?

  During her silence, he’d been thinking about their problem. “Our first option is to provide evidence of the hunters to the relevant authorities, then step aside and let those authorities capture and prosecute the hunters.”

  She looped the amulet’s chain over her head and tucked the amulet under her shirt. The silver was cool against her skin.

  “Second option.” He gestured her to the door, and closed and locked it behind them before pocketing the rattling key ring. “We capture the hunters ourselves and hand them over to the authorities. That would preempt the government sending people to tramp all over the island. Surely they’re busy enough not to bother if the bad guys are already caught?”

  “Possibly,” she said cautiously and adjusted the weight of the amulet.

  “But you don’t believe it?”

  She shook her head. “Third option?”

  “We tackle the hunters ourselves.” Night had fallen, veiling his expression.

  “How?” She was leaning to the third option, but she was under no illusions as to her own lack of training. Where Olga probably could make a whole troop of hunters swim for the mainland and never return, Naomi lacked her friend’s mad skills.

  Nor did she think Corey had police or military training.

  What could they do against hunters?

  He grinned at her, his teeth a flash of white in the night. “I’m a special effects artist. Manipulating people’s minds and expectations is my craft. I’ll need to think on it, though. Possibly we could use the lightning birds.”

  An eep of protest escaped her.

  “Not the real birds,” he said hurriedly. “But the idea of them.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Her gaze snagged on the large window nearest the driveway at the back of the house. A light was on in it, and there hadn’t been a light when they crossed to the workshop. “Can ghosts switch on lights?”

  “I’ve never known one that bothered.” Corey paused in the center of the yard where he’d washed Cliff the behemi—and didn’t that seem a long time ago. It had been a busy day. “The lit window is Uncle Otis’s study. He must be back.” Corey glanced at Naomi.

  His hesitation made sense to her. He needed to talk to his uncle about the ghost, about the hunters of the island’s fantastical creatures, and about her. He was also too polite, having invited her to dinner, to tell her to scram.

  She got out her phone. “You’ll want to talk with your uncle, and if he’s just home from travelling, he won’t want a dinner guest. What’s your number? We can coordinate a time to catch up tomorrow.”

  “That would be great.” Relief laced his voice. He recited his phone number.

  She entered it and his phone rang. “Good.”

  “I’ll call you early tomorrow.”

  There was a moment’s awkwardness as they stared at each other in the darkness. Now that her eyes had adjusted to the lack of light, she could see his expression, but she couldn’t read it. They weren’t friends or lovers, there was no reason to hug or kiss before they parted, and yet, she couldn’t just walk away.

  “Thanks for repairing the chain.” She touched his arm fleetingly. “Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight, Naomi.”

  She walked away, down the driveway.

  Five seconds later, he ran after her. “It’s dark.” His arm brushed hers. “I’ll walk you home.”

  She smiled into the night. “That would be nice.”

  The silence between them felt comfortable, but also exciting. They were both worried about the island’s fantastical creatures, but awareness of each other also hummed between them. It had a charge like static electricity mixed with magic. It was potent.

  Corey gripped a branch of the frangipani tree outside the boarding house. If he walked any further, say up to the porch with Naomi, he’d forget that this wasn’t a date and kiss her. The more time he spent with her, the stronger that impulse grew.

  “Goodnight.” The porch light was on and it deepened the gold of her fair hair. Her ponytail was scruffy after their busy afternoon, but she looked good disheveled. Gorgeous and real.

  “Goodnight.” His voice came out gruffer than he meant.

  She opened the door and slipped inside.

  Left alone, he stretched out his arms, tipping his head back to grin at the stars. Today had been unexpected in so many ways. Some of those ways were very, very good.

  Naomi Twain was someone special. From his first glimpse of her catching Cliff, he’d felt that jolt inside him, the one that said, pay attention. He’d felt the jolt before with his business, and it had always meant an opportunity. But he’d never felt the jolt this strongly, or this close to his heart.

  He retraced his steps to Bunyip House, absently noticing Cliff when the little behemi flew to meet him.

  Cliff tried his usual trick of trying to balance on Corey’s shoulder before toppling off and flying ahead, back home.

  Did Naomi think it odd that he lived in his great-uncle’s house, sharing it with him?

  To Corey, it was simply home. Rhoda, his great-grandmother had been Australian—like Naomi—and the house blended Australian and Moorish architectural styles. It was designed around a central, private courtyard with internal and external verandas on both levels. The roof was green and the walls a creamy white. It was large and comfortable, unpretentious. It could have easily become one of Catalina Island’s landmarks, but Uncle Otis was firm on discouraging any such notion. He raised hell if anyone mentioned Bunyip House in tourist information.

 
Corey jogged up the seven front steps and turned left, walking around to the kitchen door and finding it open. Cliff landed and trotted in with him.

  Otis was inside chopping tomatoes with the aroma of frying onions already on the air. “I met Vince while I was checking on the Haunted Beauty. He gave me an octopus. I’m going to add it to a tomato hash. Can you put the pasta water on to boil?”

  Cliff curled up on his bed in the corner. The fact that he wasn’t underfoot meant Otis must have fed him.

  Corey got out a medium-sized pot. “Thanks for the ghost,” he said ironically. “It stabbed a sword into the kitchen table.”

  “Italians.” Otis snorted. “Excitable.” Which was ironic coming from him. Corey’s great-uncle was an indestructible, larger than life character who had a knack for getting his own way. His boisterous personality carried all before it, although he did have a quieter side. But that was reserved for a few select friends and family. Mostly Otis was loud.

  He added the chopped tomato to the frying onions and they sizzled dramatically. He stirred them, adding a dollop of red wine and some herbs. “The wretched airline lost my luggage. Luckily I have other psymeters, but that was my personal favorite among the portables. It looked just like a flashlight. The airline better find my luggage or I’ll go and see them personally.”

  “I’ll have bail money ready,” Corey said drily.

  Otis elbowed him in the ribs. “Comedian.” He turned the flame down under the frypan so that the tomato hash could simmer a while. “I’m sorry about the ghost. Damn thing hid from me. You got rid of it yet?”

  “Hardly.”

  Otis frowned. Gray eyebrows bunched over shrewd green eyes. He was skinny despite his love of food, as if he was too busy living for weight to catch up with him. “What’s wrong?”

  “You interrupted his date.” Iovanius materialized on the far side of the kitchen counter, leaning against the oak table he’d vandalized. “She was bella.” He sketched an hourglass shape in the air.

  “You interrupted my date,” Corey said to the ghost. “And it wasn’t a date.” For the moment, he shelved the problem of the ghost. In Bunyip House, ghosts came and went. The threat to Catalina Island’s fantastical creatures was far more important. “Uncle Otis, someone is hunting the island’s fantastical creatures, trapping them for trade. I only found out this afternoon.”

  “And this woman that the ghost in the toga mentioned, she told you? Or is she one of the hunters?”

  Corey frowned. “She’s a scientist here to do a survey of the island’s fantastical creatures populations. At least, I believe she is. She won’t tell me who funded her research. She has an amulet that enables her to see through glamours as we do.”

  Otis poured Corey a glass of red wine and refilled his own glass. He carried it to the kitchen table and sat down. “Does this ‘she’ have a name?”

  “Naomi Twain.”

  “Twain?” Otis said thoughtfully, then shook his head. “I haven’t heard of a wizarding family by that name.”

  “Naomi doesn’t have magic.” Corey pushed back his chair with a foot and dropped onto it.

  Iovanius swiveled to watch them both, but for a wonder, stayed silent.

  “But she knows about magic?”

  “Yes.” Corey drank some wine, considering the few but significant hours he’d spent with her and what she’d said—and left unsaid. “I think she has friends who are wizards.”

  “I wouldn’t doubt it.”

  Corey stared at his uncle, his attention caught by a smug note in the old man’s voice. “What do you know?”

  Otis swirled the wine in his glass.

  “I miss wine,” Iovanius said mournfully.

  The two men ignored him.

  “I saw Caitlyn Zeith down at the harbor,” Otis said.

  Corey blinked, unenlightened.

  “Caitlyn Zeith,” Otis repeated, impatient, now. “Catastrophe Cait, Professor Zeith, famous emergency response coordinator. Challenges dictators, rescues babies from earthquakes.”

  “Okay, okay.” Memories of news reports through the years flooded back to Corey, including pictures of an attractive older woman with an aura of vitality, humor and, above all, determination. Steely was the right word to describe Professor Caitlyn Zeith. “But what does Caitlyn Zeith have to do with Naomi?”

  “Maybe nothing.” The gleam in Otis’s eyes said he didn’t believe it. “Moscow, 1987. An interesting time. I played a small role courtesy of the woman I was involved with at the time. Evangaline knew Cait. Not that I met Cait to talk to, but I saw her hustling the kids onto the train. Cool under pressure, and the KGB were everywhere. I learned then not to underestimate a Minervalle girl.”

  “Minervalle?” Corey fed Otis the expected question to keep the story rolling.

  “Minervalle School for Girls, or rather, its alumni network. That’s what I believe you’re dealing with, Corey. Your Naomi is the active agent. Cait is here as back-up.” Momentarily, Otis’s enthusiasm dimmed. “Cait looked tired.” Then his energy rebounded. “But she has magic. She’s a wizard of some kind. Evangaline wouldn’t tell me any details. The Old School network protects its own. They’re a force to be reckoned with.”

  “Bah.” Iovanius thumped the wine bottle back down on the table. He’d been sniffing the wine since he couldn’t drink it. “Women are nothing.”

  Otis snorted. “Boy, you’ve been dead how long?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Two thousand years and you haven’t learned the power of women who organize?”

  Iovanius muttered in Latin.

  Otis turned to Corey. “Let me tell you about Minervalle School. Then you can tell me what you know of the threat to our creatures.”

  Naomi met Cait in the hotel lobby. They would eat in its restaurant. Naomi wanted Cait’s advice—or maybe the word was permission. She wanted to tell Corey about Minervalle School and the Old School network. The man kept the secret of the fantastical creatures’ presence on the island. He could be trusted with this secret.

  Minervalle School was the girls boarding school that Naomi had attended in England. Her grandmother, the famous artist Lydia Twain, had also gone there. It was a special place, with ambitions far beyond merely educating its students.

  Named after Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom who was often pictured with an owl, the school opened in 1919 in the aftermath of the First World War. The founders dreamed of establishing a female counterpart to the old boys’ network, a way for women to use their talents to the utmost and to know they would always have support. They succeeded. The Old School network crossed generations, spanned the globe and incorporated all types of women. This was due to the school’s policy of recruiting widely, and not just for magic. Students were chosen by an arcane method that took in charm, intelligence, social status, magic and other talents. Together, the Old School worked to make the world better for everyone, particularly for those who couldn’t fight for themselves.

  Naomi was proud—and a little awed, as if she didn’t quite measure up—to belong to the Old School. People like Cait were the network’s warriors, but everyone played a role.

  But Cait was also Naomi’s grandmother’s good friend, and it worried Naomi to see Cait crossing the foyer looking gaunt, almost frail. Naomi was accustomed to Cait being the driving power in any space she occupied. Her husband’s death the previous year had shaken Cait. Her spine was still straight and her gaze direct, but an intangible aura of loss surrounded her.

  Naomi hugged her gently in greeting. “Thank you for meeting me on such short notice.” She’d phoned Cait as soon as the door of the boarding house had closed behind her, then showered and dressed quickly before meeting her here.

  “I’m pleased to have company for dinner.” Cait dismissed Naomi’s thanks. “And the dinner will go on my hotel account. I remember what it is to be young and on a budget, although that was a long time ago.” Her smile was faint and wistful.

  A waiter seated them at a white-clothed table ov
erlooking the harbor. The scene was fairytale perfect with the lights on the boats glowing yellow, their reflections like drowned stars, and the moon hanging low in the sky.

  “Was Sadie okay?” Naomi asked. She was still worried for her friend who had found the amulet for her, but at a high price of personal danger. Last night, when she and Cait had met for dinner, the setting had been a crowded bar totally lacking in privacy. It had been perfect for Cait to unobtrusively hand over the amulet in its containment box, hidden in a shopping bag, but it hadn’t enabled them to do more than talk casually of Naomi’s grandmother and family, and of current affairs.

  “Sadie is fine.” Cait’s smile widened in genuine amusement. “More than fine. A very intimidating man accompanied her to the handover, and she didn’t seem to find him intimidating at all.”

  Naomi blinked. “Sadie? She’s in love?”

  “It seemed mutual.” Cait’s tone became brisker. “Nor was he the kind of man to allow an old woman,” said with a comical, self-deprecating grimace. “To walk into danger, so I’m sure I wasn’t followed. He would have seen to it. Sadie’s trust in him was obvious. Have you tried the amulet?”

  They broke off as the waiter approached and made their selections. Seafood was the obvious choice on an island, but given her fish taco for lunch, Naomi chose steak. Cait went with roast chicken with a mash of parsnip and salsify.

  “The amulet works,” Naomi said as soon as the waiter had gone and they could speak freely again. “I saw a behemi and a roc.” She relived the wonder of that moment. “It was amazing. Majestic.” She sipped her glass of sparkling grape juice, aware that as much as she wanted to simply chat with Cait—and pepper her with questions as to Sadie’s man—she had her own man to discuss. “I met an islander who can see through glamours. The behemi I saw was his pet flying pig.”

  By the end of their meal, while they lingered over coffee and a cheeseboard, she’d told Cait of her afternoon’s discoveries and her desire to trust Corey completely.

  “It’s fascinating that seeing ghosts seems to be linked to seeing through glamours. The amulet Sadie found for you has more uses than we thought.” Cait seemed sharper and more focused the later it became. Perhaps it was simply that she had a purpose again.