Mikhail, I need you. Please come right away.
Lastly, she held the necklace with its blood-red ruby. The Red Rider had always intimidated her a little, although she was glad to have him on her side. Gregori Sun was as serene as Alexei was turbulent; shorter than the others, with long black hair pulled back in a tail and the flat cheekbones, dark, slanted eyes, and Fu Manchu mustache of a Mongol warrior, Gregori moved with the grace of an assassin and wore a red skintight leather jumpsuit that matched his silent red Ducati. Beka had never quite figured him out—she thought he was probably the deadliest of the three, which was really saying something, and yet he always seemed so calm and never said a harsh word. He was a puzzle she wasn’t sure she really wanted to solve.
Gregori, I need you. Come to me.
She hung the necklace back around her neck and opened her eyes with a sigh. Hopefully it wouldn’t take the Riders long to get here. The last she knew, they’d finished helping her sister Barbara with something across the country in New York State. But their magical motorcycles, transformed from the enchanted steeds they’d once ridden, could get them from one place to the next much faster than should have been possible. With any luck, they would be here in the next day or two.
Which was good. Because she needed all the help she could get.
* * *
MARCUS LOOKED AT the dripping nets they’d just hauled back aboard and ran through every curse word he’d learned in the military. Then he made up a few more on the spot. Chico and Kenny gaped with disbelief, their mouths hanging open like the fish they’d expected to be unloading, and his father was so pale that Marcus was afraid he was going to pass out on the deck.
He moved unobtrusively to stand next to the old man, who was so upset, he didn’t even bother to say something sarcastic about not needing to be babied like a sick child.
“It’s shredded,” Marcus Senior said in a lifeless voice. “There isn’t even enough of it left to mend.”
“What could do that?” Kenny asked, glancing fearfully over the side of the Wily Serpent. “Some kind of giant squid?”
Chico rolled his eyes and spat. “You watch too many late night movies, mi hermano. There are no monsters under the sea waiting to eat you.”
“Well, something sure as hell tore the crap out of that net,” Kenny retorted. “Unless you think maybe the tuna have learned to fight back.”
Marcus ignored their familiar squabbling and squatted down to take a closer look. His father knelt down next to him, fingering the tangled and tattered remains of what had been perfectly woven fibers not three hours before.
“Have you ever seen anything like this before, Da?” Marcus asked.
“Never,” his father said. He’d been as stubborn and strong as ever through his diagnosis and cancer treatment, but now there were undercurrents of defeat in his cracking voice. He picked up one segment to look at it and it fell apart in his hand. “Look at that. It’s garbage. It’s as though something gnawed through parts of it and cut other sections with a knife. Garbage,” he repeated, letting it fall back to the wooden planks with a slithering thump.
“Could a shark have gotten tangled up in it somehow?” Marcus asked, thinking of the one he and Beka had come up against just a couple of days before. The thought of her made his chest hurt and his head ache. It hadn’t been that long since he’d seen her, but it seemed like without her presence his spirit was as shredded as this net. Ridiculous. Intolerable. But there it was.
“I don’t see how a shark could do this,” his father said, standing up slowly. “But I can’t think of any other explanation either.” He gazed down at the mess, the lines in his face carved by years in the sun and the wind seeming to grow deeper as Marcus watched.
“I can’t afford a new net,” his da admitted reluctantly. “The fishing has been that bad this year. There’s no money for a replacement.” His eyes skittered over the ship, taking in all the places where he’d skimped on repairs or touch-ups. Marcus had been working on a few of the smaller ones when no one was around, but the ship still looked a lot less polished and trim than it had when he was growing up. As far as he could tell, his father hadn’t noticed any of the improvements; all the old man saw was the imperfections. He’d always been that way.
“Maybe I’m too old for this,” Marcus Senior said, his gnarled hands twisting around each other. “Maybe I should just give it up.”
“Is that what you want?” Marcus asked quietly. His father had always loved the sea more than anything. More than his mother, which is probably why she left. More than his children, although ironically, Marcus’s brother had loved the ocean almost as much as their father had, a connection that had bonded them together until the day that ocean killed him. Marcus had always imagined that the old man would die at the wheel of his boat one day, happy in the arms of his watery mistress.