Fantastical Island (Old School Book 2) Read online

  Naomi knew from her grandmother that following Cait’s husband’s death, Cait had taken an indefinite leave of absence from her position as head of an international disaster relief organization. She’d retreated to her home in Massachusetts and, Lydia had worried, from life itself. When Vanessa, coordinator of active response for the Old School network, assigned Cait to bring the amulet to Naomi she’d undoubtedly intended the mission to help Cait as much as it assisted Naomi.

  So forget that Cait is seventy two, Naomi told herself. Don’t worry about putting her in danger. Ask her to get involved.

  “What should I do?” Naomi asked. “I’m positive fantastical creatures are being stolen from Catalina Island. The dug-up metz alone are proof. Should I pass the problem on to Olga for her to pass on to the appropriate authorities, whoever they are?”

  “We can handle this ourselves.” Cait replaced her coffee cup on its saucer with a faint clink. “I trust your judgement, Naomi. This Corey Madrigal seems a useful ally, familiar with the island and a special effects expert capable of seeing through glamours. Physically, is he strong?”

  Stupidly, Naomi blushed. There was no reason to blush over the memory of Corey lifting a behemi’s bath tub, even if he had been wearing a wet t-shirt clinging to formidable muscles when he did so. “Yes.”

  “We can, of course, manage without physical strength, but there’s no denying it can be useful—especially when going after bad guys. Even more important is that your planning takes advantage of all the resources at your disposal. I agree that Corey needs to know, broadly, of the support network you can call upon.”

  “And you will stay on the island? Please, Cait?”

  The older woman smiled, although she downplayed her usefulness. “My water talent has limited application in ordinary life.”

  In the extraordinary life of emergency response, Naomi had heard stories of how the slim woman opposite her had held back floods or raised the water in basements to slide earthquake-toppled buildings sideways and rescue trapped people. “I rely on your resourcefulness.”

  Cait’s smile held a gleam of amusement before she became serious. “Protocols. Since we don’t know who the hunters are, we can’t anticipate their actions. I would like you to contact me morning and night, and meet me in person once a day.”

  “Is that necessary?” Naomi was taken aback.

  “Yes. We are a tiny team of three on the island and we are dealing with unknowns beyond the hunters. What do you know of the dangers of ghosts?”

  Naomi slumped back in her chair. “I didn’t even believe they existed. Okay, I get it. Danger could be hiding anywhere. I’ll check in with you.”

  “Thank you.”

  Naomi grinned at her ruefully. “I forgot you’re used to organizing complicated missions. This must seem small time to you.”

  “When people I care about are involved, it’s never small time.” Cait looked out across the harbor. “When John died, that’s when I realized what I was doing. The people working for the agency do so willingly, but by the nature of their missions into disaster zones, and even warzones, they’re flying into danger—and I’m the one who sends them.”

  She studied her hands, spreading her fingers out.

  “There is no blood on your hands,” Naomi said quietly. She hadn’t realized—and she suspected that none of the Old School members had—that Cait wasn’t just mourning her husband. She’d burned out. The responsibility of years of disaster response had caught up with her. Trauma did, no matter how strong you were, no matter how vital the work you did.

  Cait hid her hands under the table. “Never mind me. Perhaps it was time I retired.” Except she hadn’t retired. She hadn’t cut that final cord. A leave of absence gave her the option of returning to work.

  “I’ll phone you in the morning.” Naomi finished her coffee. “I’ll call Corey first, then I can tell you where and when I’m meeting him.” She didn’t want to leave Cait alone, but at the same time, the reserved woman was also two generations older than her and by her set expression, didn’t want Naomi prying into her emotions. Not that Naomi would be prying. She was simply concerned. “Grandmother would love to talk with you. You know how she chats on speakerphone while she paints, and with the time difference to Sydney…” She left the option open.

  Cait made an obvious effort to smile. “I’ll be fine, Naomi. Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight.”

  Reluctantly, uncertain, Naomi left the hotel. The stars felt close on the island. She glimpsed them in between the houses as she walked back to the boarding house. No behemis flew in the sky. No jackalopes bounded in to raid the town’s gardens. Even with the amulet around her neck, Avalon seemed empty of fantastical creatures. She shivered in the cold wind off the ocean and was relieved to turn a corner and have a row of houses block it. Her footsteps slowed, again. The boarding house was close and there’d be people in the common room, watching television. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be sociable.

  Her phone rang. “Corey?”

  “I have to go to the mainland, tomorrow, to meet with a producer at my studio. There’s been some changes to the director’s vision for the movie. I’ll be away all day, but I thought…if you wouldn’t mind…the ferry ride is about an hour. We could talk on the way there and back, and you could see my studio. I might have a few ideas on how we could fool the hunters, at least for long enough to identify them.”

  “That sounds promising.” She thought of a day away from the island, at least part of it spent with Corey, and with the chance to view his special effects studio. “Which ferry are you catching?”

  “The first one of the day,” he said apologetically.

  She touched the low-growing lavender that bordered the boarding house’s porch. The old-fashioned scent was cool and fresh. “I’m an early bird, so that suits me.”

  “Great.”

  “Great.”

  She was smiling as she said her good-bye. The situation was serious, but this felt like a date. Certainly the happy fizzing in her veins was delighted anticipation. Then she touched the silver chain of the amulet as it hung around her neck. She groaned.

  She couldn’t risk wearing it off the island. Los Angeles lacked Catalina Island’s high ambient magic that hid the amulet from anyone scrying for it. She needed to leave the amulet with Cait.

  “Couldn’t he have phoned me thirty minutes ago?” she asked the night sky. Now she had to walk back to the hotel to entrust Cait with the amulet and inform her of her plans for tomorrow. It wouldn’t be fair to wake the elderly woman before dawn to hand over the amulet just because Naomi’s thighs ached from the afternoon’s hike. She was fit, but she really, really didn’t want to return to the hotel before climbing the hill again to the boarding house.

  Sometimes saving the world—or the fantastical creatures in this corner of the world—was just plain exhausting. She tucked a sprig of lavender in her hair and set off into the night.

  Chapter 4

  Naomi wasn’t sure what to wear for a visit to a special effects studio or how Corey planned to explain her presence, so she stuck with jeans, a dark blue shirt and a black jacket since being out on the water just after dawn would be cold. She also wore boots and looped the straps of a slouchy black leather handbag over one shoulder. It was large enough to hold everything she thought she might need for a day on the mainland.

  She expected to meet Corey at the pier, but he was waiting for her outside the boarding house.

  “I thought we could walk down to the ferry together.” His smile wasn’t exactly shy. It was more hopeful and a tad uncertain.

  She felt the same way: unsure if the attraction she remembered from yesterday would be real today. One glance at him standing there, strong yet casual, in jeans and a zippered gray jacket, and she knew it was. Her heart jumping in excitement told her he was important to her.

  Of course, the way she’d dithered over her limited clothing choices had already suggested that. At least she’d chosen cor
rectly. Jeans, the unofficial uniform of busy people, she thought ruefully.

  Then Corey shocked her mind clear of romance.

  “Uncle Otis told me about Minervalle School.” He nodded slightly, as if at a suspicion confirmed, when she stared at him, dumbfounded. “Apparently he used to date one of your ‘Old School’ members.”

  “Who?”

  “Evangaline someone.”

  Naomi skipped sideways to avoid a jacaranda branch. “Cait might know her.” Cait would definitely want to know that the Old School wasn’t a secret—or at least, not to these two Madrigal men who could see through glamours. And there was me worrying about telling Corey who we are.

  “Caitlyn Zeith? Uncle Otis recognized her down at the harbor, yesterday. When I told him about you, he connected the dots.” He gestured joining three separate points. “Magic, trouble, Minervalle School.”

  “That about sums us up,” she agreed. “What did your uncle tell you about us?”

  “It boiled down to trust you.”

  “Oh.” It told her nothing, yet said everything.

  Corey grinned at her. “Of course, I would have, anyway.” His fingers briefly tangled with hers before the narrow path between houses ended and they had no excuse to walk close together.

  Her mind spun. He knew who she was; at least, in the sense that she was an Old School girl.

  At the harbor a sleepy pelican watched the activity of boaters and early commuters. As Naomi paid for her ticket, she was aware of the ferry’s crew and some of its passengers studying her and Corey and, judging by their sly grins, coming to some erroneous conclusions. They thought she and Corey were a couple.

  Perhaps “erroneous” was the wrong word? Maybe “premature”? She smiled.

  He put an arm around her waist as they boarded the ferry. “If people think we’re together, they’ll give us privacy to talk.”

  And it didn’t hurt at all that his arm around her waist felt right. “For the good of our mission,” she said solemnly, teasing him. Flirting, really.

  The skin at the corners of his eyes crinkled in the beginning of a smile. It was an intimate expression, one just for her.

  He led her to a sheltered nook on deck while most people, islanders and tourists alike, stayed in the warm cabin.

  It was better outside. The air smelled of the sea and gulls soared on the wind, their white and gray wings glinting silver, their cries hoarse and demanding. A fisherman carrying a bucket of bait along the pier was determinedly pursued.

  The ferry shuddered into motion, navigating the harbor with due care before accelerating.

  “We need to set a trap,” Corey said. “The island’s too big for us to stake it out, watching for the hunters. Unless you have reinforcements you can call in?”

  “Nope. Cait’s staying for a while, but she’s not actively involved. She’s a friend of my grandmother’s.”

  By his wry grimace, Corey caught the subtext, but he didn’t tease her for being ‘babysat’ by a septuagenarian. Then again, sharing a house with his great-uncle, he probably had his fair share of generation gulf experiences. “Okay, so guessing where the hunters will strike next is impossible. We don’t know enough about them.”

  “Except that they’re escalating, moving from the least glamoured to the more magical, and probably more expensive, fantastical creatures,” she pointed out.

  He leaned against the side of the cabin, easily accommodating the ferry’s motion. “That helps us on two levels. First, the rarer creatures are the more magical, and at the current pattern, they’ll be safe a while longer. Second, it suggests that these hunters are cautious. They calculate risks and rewards. Knowing that, we can craft the right bait to haul them in.”

  She was curious what bait he had in mind, but there was an important point to clarify. “Are we going to hand them over to whatever authorities Olga, my friend, can put us in touch with?”

  “Olga’s a Minervalle girl…uh graduate?”

  “Girl is fine. That’s what we call ourselves. Old girls.” She grinned. The slight rocking motion of the ferry on the clear, fine morning reminded her of weekends on her dad’s yacht with her brothers, the waters of Sydney Harbor blue and sparkling, freedom beckoning even as they argued. She loved her family. They were close despite the years they’d spent at different schools. Her two brothers were younger than her, but not by much. They were both at university, finishing degrees in law and geology.

  Dustin and Paul would like Corey. He was competent and self-reliant, neither pushy nor a pushover, but confident in himself. She was curious to see his studio and how he acted in a world in which he was the boss. Somehow, she didn’t think he’d be any different to who he was now. He carried his quiet self-assurance as a natural part of himself.

  “You could contact your friend.” Sunglasses protected him from the sunlight reflecting off the rippling ocean, but hid his eyes. “I thought we could decide what to do with the hunters once we know who they are. Know thy enemy. That kind of thing. If we could scare them away from the island, well, sometimes the simplest solutions are the best.”

  She nodded. “I’m okay with a wait and see approach. Although I have no idea how we could scare away hunters.”

  “It depends who they are. Everyone is afraid of something.” He shook his shoulders, as if physically throwing off the problem and his little bit of philosophy. “To identify the hunters, we need an irresistible lure.”

  “The right bait.” Naomi considered the question. She was the scientific expert here, even if Corey had been the one to grow up with fantastical creatures. She ought to be able to think of a bait that would lure in hunters. What sort of fantastical creature would be irresistible to these dastards? “Low risk, but high value to tempt them into the open. But not an obvious trap.”

  She was thinking out loud. “They’ve got metz and sea serpents. I would expect them to go after ourobui next. The hoop snakes are about equal with sea serpents in the glamour stakes, although they don’t cluster their nests, so their eggs aren’t as easy to find and steal. Jackalopes would also be on the list, but jackalopes are common in Texas. I’m not sure how much they’d make in an illicit trade market. Rocs would be a mega pay day for the hunters, but they’d be a huge risk to go after. Not low risk.” There were legends of rocs killing sailors.

  “And rocs are difficult to fake. They’re just too big to hide the stagecraft required to imitate them.”

  She hadn’t realized he meant to lure the hunters with a fake creature. That opened up other options. “It needn’t be a fantastical creature actually on the island,” she said slowly. “But it needs to be small enough for you to fake it, non-threatening so the hunters don’t immediately dismiss it, and rare enough to guarantee a diamond-dazzling price on the market.”

  He looked at her expectantly. “Any ideas? I thought of a lightning bird, but we’d have to wait for a storm, and they can be dangerous. The hunters mightn’t be willing to risk electrocution.”

  “If they could even see it. They’d have to include a woman among their numbers. Lightning birds only show themselves to women.”

  “Really?” Corey fidgeted, discomfited.

  She leaned beside him against the cabin and bumped his shoulder. “You can see through glamours. It’s different for you.”

  “So you don’t think I’m less of a man because I’ve seen lightning birds?”

  “No.” Sunglasses hid her eyes, but perhaps her head tilted as she scanned his broad chest and lower because when her gaze returned to his face, he was smiling. She bumped his shoulder again, harder. “You just want compliments.”

  He laughed.

  She loved the sound of his laughter. It was husky and rumbly. But she tried to stay focused. “There is a creature that would lure any hunter of fantastical creatures, even a hunter disciplined enough to stick with a strategy of capturing his way up the glamour chain. There’s never been one recorded in America, but it’s possible. Fantastical creatures often accompany huma
n immigrant communities.”

  “What are you thinking of?”

  “A baku.”

  He stiffened beside her.

  She noticed, but barely, too taken with her own brilliant idea to do more than assume he was surprised at her inspired notion. “Have you heard of them? Bakus are the rarest of rare. The Japanese have been studying them for decades, but have barely made any progress in learning about them. The hunters would never have seen one—so you can make it appear any way you like—but they would have heard about them.”

  She gripped his arm, giving it a little shake in her enthusiasm. “A baku is the size of a large house cat. It has a miniaturized horse’s body with an elephant’s head and trunk and a cow’s tail. It stands on furry feline paws. A tiger’s paws, according to legend.”

  “I’ve heard of bakus,” Corey said.

  It was the first time she’d heard his voice dull. Usually, even in casual speech, he had energy and conviction. “Is it a bad idea? Do you think it would be too hard to create a fake baku?”

  He looked down at her hand gripping his arm, then pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head. His green eyes were startling in their intensity—and in their suspicion.

  “Corey?” she queried uncertainly.

  “What made you think of a baku?”

  “I d-don’t know.” She was annoyed to hear herself stutter, annoyed enough that she straightened away from leaning against the cabin. “A baku is like the holy grail of fantastical creature researchers. Most of us will never see one. Ninety nine percent of us,” she added, recovering her emotional balance. “They are rare, but not dangerous. Even the most level-headed, ruthless, money-hungry hunter would lose his mind a bit at the chance of capturing one.”

  “Like a unicorn.” Corey’s tension relaxed.

  “Unicorns don’t exist.”

  He smiled at her as he slid his sunglasses back on. “Like ghosts?”