Rampant

“Blimey, so how do we, er, get rid of him? I mean, he still thinks he can get what he wants, if he gets hold of me, right?” Those words made her feel queasy—that and the roll of the boat on the rough waters. She took a tentative glance over her shoulder. Spotlights on the speedboats scanned the water close by.

“Yes, but his time is up. Annabel needs our help to bring him in.”

Zoë cursed under her breath, wondering if she was dreaming this. “How?”

“She was very helpful, up to a point.” Sarcasm rang in his tone. “She said to go back to the cottage and he’ll follow you, but I’m far from happy about you being used as bait.”

“She didn’t give you any more clues?” Another flare lit up the sky. It was as bright as day right above their heads. There was no hiding now. Zoë didn’t even want to look back over her shoulder.

Grayson’s expression was grim. “It must be something she can’t do in spirit form. A ghost can move things around, cause apparitions and change moods, but a ghost cannot instigate things in the real world that are solid and factual. It’s a natural law.” In the bright light of the flare, his expression was intense. He looked at her with curiosity. “She also said that Destiny’s lass would know the way to end this.”

Oh, how that made her heart flip.

She stared at him in disbelief, a well of emotion dredging inside of her. “That’s me. I am Destiny’s lass. My mother’s name was Destiny Daniels.”

Could it be that Annabel had communicated with her mother? She shook her head, holding back the unshed tears. She was too vulnerable, too emotional, to think about that now. “What does it mean, Gray? What has my mother to do with this?”

“The spirit world has a network all its own, far beyond our understanding.” Gray continued to peer across the bay, working the engine for maximum speed, weaving through the waves. “Get ready to get down, hunker inside the boat.”

The noise grew louder. “I kept thinking about her,” she called out. “I was angry that she’d never communicated with me the way Annabel had.”

“If she hasn’t it probably means she doesn’t need to, she’s a content soul.”

“I understand that now,” Zoë said, and it was to herself.

“Annabel has certainly used us for her purposes, but she put the pieces into place when you needed them. We’re going to have to trust that she will continue to help, and we don’t have a choice on that matter.” He stopped talking, and pointed at the floor of the boat, his eyes bright as the spotlights hit them. “Get down now, take cover.”

Zoë scrambled, glancing back as she did so. Waves washed over them as the large speedboat did a U-turn, sending water spraying up in the air before running parallel to their much-slower boat.

Above her she saw Cain, his hands on the side of his boat as he glared over at them. He shouted, but his words were swept up in the noise. Angry thunder roared across the sky. The sky cracked open and lightning flashed, hitting the island behind Gray.

If Cain was using magic, they’d be lucky if they reached the shore alive, let alone work out how to get rid of him. Then a horrible noise sounded close by, a rasping sound. Zoë’s skin crawled. This wasn’t thunder or lightning, it sounded like something that was alive and hungry. A really bad feeling stole over her and her heart thundered in her chest. Something hit the side of the boat, making an ominous, hollow, knocking sound. On her knees and elbows, she scrambled along the floor of the boat until she touched against Gray. If she was going to die, she needed to feel him.

He put his hand against her head. “Don’t look!”

She couldn’t help it.

She looked, and then screamed. Along the edge of the boat nonhuman hands gripped the edge of the boat, hands that shimmered with blue scales. Sea monsters?

Okay, I shouldn’t have looked.

Gray weaved the boat in the water but couldn’t shake them free. They rose

up in the water and attempted to clamber onto the boat, the awful stench of rotting fish filling the air as they did so. Zoë gulped down bile and fear as she stared at the spectacle. They had seal-like heads and black eyes, bodies shimmering with blue scales, spiked spines on the humped backs of their bloated bodies.

It’s only Cain’s magic.

“Not real, not real,” she said aloud, trying to convince herself.

“I’m afraid they are real,” Gray said, “but their place is at the bottom of the sea, not here. He’s summoned them from the deep. Nice work, Cain!” He turned to her. “Take the rudder. Stay as low as you can, and I bloody well mean it this time!”

He glared at her. Lightning cracked again, right overhead, and rain lashed down on them. That hollow knocking sounded again. She stared in horror as one of the creatures bit into the side of the boat and water started to leak in. She clambered into Gray’s place, hands shaking, mouth tightly closed. With the rudder at shoulder level she couldn’t even see where they were headed, she just kept pointing their boat away from the white speedboat looming at their side. Cain leered over at her. She felt sick to her stomach knowing now that he was Ewan, knowing what he’d done to Annabel, to Hettie, and to Irvine, in the name of power and revenge.

She looked away, focusing on Gray instead.

With his feet spread wide to measure the sway of the boat, he opened his arms to the sky and shouted loud his magic. Zoë willed him on, watching as his hands filled with light and it shifted and changed into a huge silvery net which he cast wide over the creatures gathered at the side of the boat. He pointed down as if to the floor of the ocean. The creatures struggled against the net, but to no avail, because it dragged them back down to wherever they had come from.

Zoë felt dizzy with relief when the last of them disappeared beneath the water. Then the sound of a gunshot rang out.