CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‡
Thomas was thoroughly shaken after the fire at the hotel. Morgan wouldn’t risk killing him. She needed him. And the more he thought about it, the less he thought that Tammy’s family would risk her death.
They sat in padded leather seats on the top deck of a boat that was speeding toward the island ahead. Did everyone in this place do everything at top speed? The sky was full of racing clouds, their gray reflected in the pewter of the choppy ocean. Even though they were somewhat protected from the brisk wind blowing off the sea, his hair was lifted and tangled by it. This was not the warm Mediterranean but the Pacific Ocean, and the chill of the Humboldt Current seeped into his bones. But it cooled the blisters on his right arm. Marrec’s people had put salve on it and bandaged it to keep it clean. The cabin of the ferry was half-full, perhaps twenty people sitting in the seats or leaning over the railing. Five or six were men he recognized from the hotel, which meant they were friends of Mr. Marrec. There were many more people leaning on the rails of the deck below.
Tammy had taken a seat on the opposite side of the aisle, as far away from him as the eight-seat span would allow. She looked frightened too. Why wouldn’t she let him comfort her? Even having her a few feet away made him itch with nervousness. He wanted her close.
The boat slowed and a voice came from speakers at the front, directing them to look at dolphins to the right of the boat. Huge fish sleek and gray, crested out of the water. Suddenly the sea seethed with them. There must be half a hundred, maybe more. Their intelligent eyes fixed on the boat as if they were displaying their leaping prowess to the intruders in their world.
Thomas felt like an intruder in this modern world full of strange things and new attitudes. It occurred to him that Tammy might be afraid of him. He was too different.
And then there was the fire. There had been fire when he had first seen her too. And when he was escaping in the helicopter, just at the most anxious and critical moment, the flight bay had burst into flame…
Thomas stopped breathing. Everything slowed down, even as the boat picked up speed. Then Thomas’s thoughts began to tumble over each other.
People didn’t just experience three monumental fires within three days. What if the common denominator was…him? Things seemed to burst into flame around him.
And if it was his fault somehow, then he was a danger to everyone around him. Including Tammy. Dear God in Heaven (as the monks used to say), she was right to be afraid of him. He looked around anxiously. Were all these people in danger because of him? Had anyone been injured at the hotel? Marrec had swept them away before he could know, and he’d been so concerned with Tammy that he hadn’t thought that others might have been hurt.
It couldn’t be him. People couldn’t just start fires, and spontaneous combustion must have some internal source for the flame—a compost heap warmed by the sun could catch fire, but it was the decomposing leaves that burned. Anything else was too fantastic for belief.
But it was also hard to believe three fires in three days were unrelated, too.
Thomas leaned his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands. He knew the truth. It was he who had caused the fires. He wasn’t sure if people were hurt in the hotel, but he had seen people hurt in Las Vegas. Were they killed by the collapse of the building, or by the fire he had set? Guilt settled in his gut. He didn’t know. He hadn’t thought it might be his fault. His heart squeezed inside his chest. He was a terrible person.
What should he do? He got from Marrec’s conversation with Tammy that they were going to another hotel, a smaller one, on the island growing closer and closer just ahead. He couldn’t put people in danger again.
He’d have to leave Tammy. What choice did he have? He couldn’t threaten her life with his presence. She could have died last night.
The very idea of leaving Tammy made his stomach roil like the waves in the wake of the boat. Could he bear to leave her?
Leave, or she’d send him away if she ever knew what he had done. He surged to his feet and staggered to the rail, stomach heaving. He couldn’t leave now, not in the middle of the ocean. His stomach was empty but still angry at him. He must come up with something. He wanted to be with Tammy. But he was not who she thought he was. And he was a danger to everything and everyone around him.
*
It was early afternoon when they were finally settled in the hotel, high in the hills on the south side of the harbor. Tammy’s window looked out over the rotunda of the Casino far below, used now as a dance hall and theater, and the lines of boats with rocking masts like an organized forest of denuded trees. The town of Avalon nestled between the two cliffs that cradled the tiny blue bay. It was off-season for cruise ships, so there wouldn’t be very many. What tourists there were would mostly depart on the afternoon ferries. She’d always loved Catalina. Back before the whole fiasco of Destinies and Talismans of the Tarot and the Clan, her family came here often, even keeping a house here one summer. It had always seemed a refuge.
That’s why she’d chosen to escape here with Thomas. Now she wasn’t sure. She might have just brought the biggest danger to herself and her family along with her.
He was outside, sitting in the little garden. She knew that as certainly as she knew her own name. He had refused to come inside. That was suggestive. She’d have to get him away from the hotel though, just to be sure it didn’t go up in flames.
Because nothing had changed. Firestarter or not, her life was bound to his. He’d been sick on the boat on the way over. Could be sea-sickness. Or it could be that he was thinking of leaving her after he betrayed her family to Morgan?
Could one so isolated and innocent be capable of that kind of betrayal?
The answer to that one was “yes,” if he thought her family was evil. Like her family could be evil. As hard as it was to be a Tremaine these days, and the baby of the family to boot, she knew she had the most loving, supportive, generous family in the world. And she was damned lucky to have grown up with The Parents and The Brood, as the boys called the kids.
She’d almost lost that feeling in all the sadness and betrayal when Daddy was hurt. Wasn’t it self-centered to think her world collapsed just because the man she thought was omnipotent turned out not to be? Like she was center of the universe and everything must be organized to support her. Besides, her father was coming back. Slowly. He didn’t have magic powers, but he was slowly coming out of the effects of being in a coma with the help of Dr. Tanet and his own indomitable will. She had no right to co-opt his pain and sadness, as though she were the only one who mattered.
So, she had a great family. And that meant she had a responsibility to them. Which was why she was here in a way. It was time to stop being the baby and do something about their situation. And the thing she could do was to find out more about Thomas. He was important to Morgan. That meant he was important to the future of her family.
She just had to think of a way to do it safely.
Hmmmm. She needed a place without combustibles.
And she had to shake his confidence in Morgan. If he did know anything about Morgan’s plans, he’d never tell Tammy if he thought Morgan was saving the world or something.
It had been all of two days since she first saw him. She’d talked to him for a single afternoon at the fence and last night for only a few minutes in the hotel room. And yet strangely enough, she thought he might have a moral core. So maybe he just didn’t know Morgan.
She’d better be right about that. She might be betting her life on it.
*
“Come on,” Tammy beckoned to Thomas on to the little sailboat moored at the Avalon harbor. She’d rented it for three days. She didn’t want the old salt/carnival barker who rented it to her to demand she have it back at a certain hour.
Thomas looked with trepidation at the rocking craft. He’d been a bundle of nerves all afternoon as they did some shopping and got their pack together for tonight. He hadn’t tried to touch her once. Several times he’d said he needed somewhere where he could be alone, looking deeply unhappy. Only when she had told him she wanted to go to a remote beach had his mood lightened. Looked like he wasn’t much for boats though. Had he ever been in one?
“Don’t worry. I’m a great sailor,” she said. “I’ve done this a lot.”
“Are you, uh, certain that we should be on a small craft alone together?”
No. She absolutely wasn’t sure, especially with him dressed in board shorts, a tee shirt and flip-flops. Who knew that muscular calves could be so distracting? But she was going to see this through. What choice did she have? She’d told Marrec where they’d be. He could come down the almost invisible trail over the hills to the private beach. But there was no way she was taking Thomas through all that dry brush. Fires on Catalina were devastating. “Yes, we should. And I think bare sand and a lot of water would be good about now.”
She saw his expression go quiet and watchful. He knew he was a Firestarter. That was why he was relieved when she said she wanted to go to the beach. Useful information. Was he afraid of what he was? Or did he wield his power with cruel abandon like the rest of the Clan? She couldn’t quite believe it of him.
But here was not the place to pin him down. She actually hoped his stomach issues on the way over to Catalina were a result of thinking about leaving her because otherwise he was prone to sea-sickness and this was going to be a miserable boat ride. She beckoned again. “Come on.”
He picked up the heavy pack he’d carried down the hill from the hotel like it was nothing and pulled it over one shoulder. But he winced as he did so. Come to think of it, he’d winced this morning when he shouldered it. Did he have a back problem? He seemed like such a strong guy. Then he took a long breath and stepped over into the sailboat.
It was a fifteen-footer that could sleep two adults stretched out and provide sitting shelter from the rain in a tiny cabin with a portable head. Not that they’d need overnight accommodations. They’d be back to the hotel in a few hours. It didn’t look like they’d run into weather, but it had a little two-horsepower motor just in case.
The boat rocked under Thomas’s weight and he put a hand to the mast to steady himself.
“You sit there.” She pointed to the back where there was a built-in bench. At least he wouldn’t get hit by the booms as she tacked. She took the weighty pack and heaved it into the tiny cabin.
“Can I assist you?” he asked.
“Uh, I’m good.” He probably didn’t know a spinnaker from a barnacle. “These things are great for a lone sailor.”
She busied herself with casting off. She had to sit beside him to start the little pushbutton motor. That was uncomfortable, but he was probably two-ten or two hundred and fifteen pounds with all that muscle, and she couldn’t let him sit on the side benches. So she gritted her teeth against the effects of his proximity and manned the tiller as she concentrated on getting them out of the harbor between the tidy lines of moored boats.
When they’d maneuvered past the bigger yachts anchored farther out, she idled the motor and unshipped the main sail. A nice stiff breeze blew in from the west, perfect to fill the sail solidly. Indeed, it luffed for only a moment before it belled out. She worked the tiller with one hand and held the line to the main sail in the other. As the little craft built up speed, something in her relaxed. It was so calming to harness the raw power of wind and water to skim the waves and bounce out into the current. Then the ride smoothed out. “Here, hold this,” she ordered Thomas.
He nodded once and took the tiller while she let out the jib. It flapped free and filled. The boat leapt forward. She heard Thomas laugh.
She turned. That laugh was a revelation; full, throaty, bursting with life. His eyes danced and his continuing grin revealed white, even teeth. She couldn’t help but smile back. How long since she had smiled?
“It feels like it’s alive!” he exclaimed.
“It is,” she grinned. “Alive with the wind.” At least he wasn’t seasick. Which meant he’d been thinking about leaving her when he was sick on the ride over to the island. But she wouldn’t think about that now. “Pull the tiller in toward your body, just a little, to take us out around the point.”
He obeyed, slowly, and she jumped to pull the sails into place. “Good job,” she called, and glanced back to see his expression of pride.
“I like this sailing.”
The good thing about sailing was that it could keep you busy. No need for heavy conversation, in fact, no time. They met other sailboats coming into harbor, but none going out and soon they were alone on the water.
The sun was sinking into late afternoon when she furled the sails and the little boat floated into a small cove, just a wide sickle of sand maybe a hundred yards long under steep hills. The beach was lined with huge rocks, all the better for a firebreak. Avalon faced west, out into the Pacific, so they’d have a nice sunset with all the clouds.
One of the advantages of a little boat was that she could get right in close to shore. No need to swim. “Thomas, can you toss the anchor overboard?” She pointed to it, sitting in the corner next to the winch that held its sturdy chain. His muscles bunched under his tee shirt as he heaved it over. That was lovely. So lovely it sent a gushing throb to her core. The splash of the anchor jerked her back to the present and she waited to feel it set as the boat rocked in the waves.
“Okay. You slip into the water as far forward as you can, and I’ll hand you the pack. Don’t get your bandage wet, either.”
While she had to drag the pack to the edge, he held it easily over his head when she swung it to him. She lowered herself into the water. She was wearing a tee shirt and bikini bottoms, but the pack held long pants and sweatshirts in case it got cold after the sun went down. She’d noted on the specs for the boat that the cabin included blankets and was fully stocked with necessities. She could sail the boat back after dark, no question. But, well, if they didn’t want to go back…
She wouldn’t think about that.
The water was cold as it slid up toward her hips. She hopped with the roll of a wave and made her way to the beach behind Thomas, who pushed through the water as though it was air.
“Are you hungry?” she asked. He’d lost the Danish and coffee they’d had in the terminal over the side of the ferry and somehow they’d never thought about lunch.
“Like a wild boar,” he said, digging through the pack. He pulled out a blanket and laid it out on the sand. The beach had cooled. The clouds were going golden as the afternoon faded.
Tammy sat down and pulled out the hooded sweatshirts, laying them aside for the moment, to find the picnic package provided by the hotel. “Let’s see what they gave us.”
The hotel kitchen had provided roasted chicken sandwiches on a grainy kind of bread, and fruit, and chocolate, and a bottle of nice pinot noir. “Let’s save the wine for later,” she murmured, twisting it into the sand so it would stand upright. There were several sodas in the packet too, so she popped open a couple of those.
If she worried about awkward conversation, she needn’t have. Thomas attacked his food with the same single-minded intensity he’d shown last night. It reminded her of her brothers, and that was comforting somehow. She needed comfort. She was out here in the middle of nowhere with a guy who worked for the enemy and could start fires.
And who was the man destined to be her true love. Didn’t mean it would be happy love. If you loved a bad person, or you were so different that you could never bridge the gap, then love could be pretty damned miserable she imagined, especially the kind of love the Tremaines experienced. Handcuffed together whether they belonged or not, or made into shells of themselves, unable to love at all if they refused to be together. But just because there was so little choice in the matter, she had to find out exactly what she was getting into.
And she had to help her family glean as much information as possible about Morgan and the Pentacle. She wanted no part of the fight with the Clan that had robbed her of the father. But she was a Tremaine and there wasn’t much choice about that either. It was her duty. She’d been hiding from reality these past months. But reality had a way of rooting you out from your hiding place. Lanyon had tried to hide from his Destiny and look where it got him.
So she had to face the music here. Or at least know what she was up against. Thomas had spent at least some time with the Clan. If he were a full-fledged Clan member, he’d know how things worked.
She had to find out. And that meant talking about the magic.
*
Thomas wiped his mouth with the fine cloth napkin from the package the hotel had sent with them. The fizzy, flavored drink was gone. So were two of the sandwiches, an apple, a pear, and a whole cluster of grapes. Oh, and some potato chips. They were wonderful: salty and crackly. Tammy only picked at her food. He probably shouldn’t have consumed everything in sight, but he needed time to think and strength for what was to come next. He had to convince Tammy that Morgan wasn’t a bad person. She wasn’t, was she? He put the doubt that had crept into his mind at the compound aside. But he might be a bad person. He’d started the hotel fire and maybe even injured or killed people. His insides clenched in guilt. Tammy would never leave everything she knew and loved (no matter how wrong-headed that was) to come with him if she knew he had started the fire in the hotel. Why would Tammy help someone like him fulfill his purpose with Morgan when he didn’t even know what his purpose was?
Well, he might know the answer to that question. He would go with her to the ends of the earth if she asked him. He was that sure his life depended on having her near him. What he felt for her seemed to go so much deeper than the liking he had felt for anyone else in his life, or the vague memory of loving his parents, back when he didn’t know what love was. He was certain his emotion now was rooted in his soul. If he denied that feeling, then he denied his soul and his heart, his blood, his sinew and muscle, his bones.
She might feel something like what he was feeling. He’d seen her turquoise eyes go saucer-round when they touched, just like he felt his own doing.
Of course he hadn’t touched her since they’d gotten out of the car in the parking lot. Once he realized he was to blame for the fires that seemed to constantly dog his heels, he couldn’t trust himself not to immolate her, along with whatever else was in the neighborhood.
If she knew what he suspected about himself, she’d hate him. And yet, from what she’d said about the beach and the water—did she already know?
He was torn in so many different directions he didn’t know what to think. Only sailing on the water with her had calmed his confusion as he felt the freedom of the wind and the powerful surge of the sea. They were inevitable. There was nothing he could do about them but feel them.
But now the calm was gone. He had to talk to her. He cleared his throat at the same time she did. That provoked one of her lovely smiles, this one a little self-deprecating. He wanted to see her smile all the time. “Sorry,” they both said, in unison. That brought out the smile again. He couldn’t help but smile back.
Then she sobered. He saw her get her courage up. “You want to tell me about the fires?”
Oh, no! His stomach lurched. Then he gathered himself. He couldn’t avoid this, or lie about it. “What do you want to know?”
“How about you tell me how they started?”
He took a breath. “I…I don’t know.” That was true. He wasn’t sure. Not completely sure. Or how he did what he thought he was doing.
She looked at him through narrowed eyes and pointedly took a bite of her apple. “I think you do. Either that or you just look appalled and guilty every time someone asks you a question.”
Had he looked guilty?
“You’re not very good at lying, are you?”
“It wasn’t a lie,” he protested. “I don’t have empirical evidence for their genesis.”
“You really do like your eighteenth century philosophers.”
“Yes. Specifically Descartes’s theories of certainty, if you want to know.”
“Wow. ‘Theories of certainty, and wanting to know.’ Did you just make a pun to poke fun of my need to control things?” She raised her brows. “A play on words?” she prompted.
“I know what a pun is. Shakespeare loved puns.” He was slightly put out. Did she think he was that ignorant? He might not know the modern world, but he wasn’t a child.
“Well, never mind about that.” She shook her head. “You’re hiding behind sophisms. You know you’re creating those fires.”
She could just accuse him like that? The fact that she was right was almost beside the point. “Men can’t create fires. There are cases of spontaneous combustion, of course, but not…”
“Well, you must know your Plato slash Socrates,” she interrupted. “Because Socrates, or at least the Plato version of Socrates, is contemptuous of people who think that something has to be physical to be real. Even Descartes connected the mental with the physical—I think and I am, for instance.” She frowned at him. “I may be home-schooled, but I’m not ignorant.”
It was surprising that they felt the same thing. “I…I didn’t say you were ignorant.”
She threw up her hands. “Oh, how did we get to arguing about philosophy anyway? The first time I saw you in Las Vegas, a fire just bloomed up behind you as our eyes met. And when we almost kissed last night the room caught fire. True or not?”
“True,” he whispered.
“Unlikely that spontaneous combustion just follows you around. Have there been other times that a fire started around you?”
He nodded dumbly. She waited. He might as well confess the whole. “When I was trying to get out of the compound where Morgan kept me, a…a fire started in the hangar.”
“Were you upset at the time?” she asked. She was trying to keep her voice casual, but he knew she was deadly serious.
“Yes. I thought some men were about to discover me. I had never been so disobedient before.” He looked up at her, all his longing welling up in him. It was more than physical at this point. It was soul aching for soul. “But I needed to find you.”
She sighed and looked away. She couldn’t bear looking at him. He hung his head.
“I know how you start fires, and why.”
She did? He raised his eyes slowly to hers. In her gaze he saw that she did. Or thought she did. He held his breath. If she knew the cause of the fires, maybe he could stop them. Maybe he had some kind of sickness that only waited for a cure.
She took a big breath and swallowed. “You remember I said that we had genetic material that made us attracted to one another?”
He nodded.
“Well those genes are from Merlin of Camelot or Morgan Le Fay. The original one, from whom your mentor took her name.”
Thomas felt excitement welling up in his belly. “We are descended from the same people as my mentor?” He really was connected to his mentor’s purpose.
“Well, you are. My family is descended from Merlin.” Tammy leaned in. How he loved it when her body came closer. “I suspect you are descended from Morgan Le Fay. Now focus on me, not what’s going on between us. I know that makes it hard to think clearly.”
She was right about that. He tried to push aside the fire that was growing in his loins. Actually, that was an unfortunate analogy. He might really start a fire growing if he wanted Tammy any more than he did right this moment. He scooted away six inches or so.
“They had magic in their genes, Thomas. And they passed that magic down to us.” She stilled his protest with a raised hand. “Think of Socrates and his belief in the truth of the unseen.”
“Very well.” He had to suspend his disbelief in superstitious magic for the moment anyway, just so she would continue with her theory.
“The magic was dispersed through the ages so that it became small and inconsequential, like premonitions or intuition. But now it wants to come together and grow stronger. When people who have the magic gene in their DNA find each other, they’re attracted, like you and I are attracted. Somehow the gene is activated in the presence of a like gene. So each of us gets a magic power. If…if we had children they would have even stronger magic. It will become more powerful, generation by generation, until it changes the world.”
“I don’t have magic.” He had to protest at least that much.
“But you do,” she insisted. “You can start fires.”
“That’s magic?” This was a lunatic theory.
“Yes. That’s your power.”
“I don’t feel powerful. It’s something that just happens. And terrible things follow.”
“But you can learn to control it. My family has learned to control their powers.”
Wait. “Your family has powers?”
She shrugged and nodded. “Morgan’s people too. You can’t say you haven’t seen it.”
She had him there. He remained silent.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. A girl controls the weather. Her name is Rhiannon according to my sister. And there’s a guy who can cause pain by just looking at you called Hardwick, and one who can make things invisible called Jason, and that’s just for starters.”
“Yes.” They were all part of the insanity of this world outside the monastery.
Tammy seemed taken aback. “Okay. Well. My family has powers too.”
Actually, he should have figured that out. Morgan wouldn’t bother to hate a family who was no threat to her. And Morgan had asked what the Tremaine kid’s power was. “Do you have a brother who can make very loud sounds?”
Tammy smiled as though she was not seeing Thomas. “Yes. And very beautiful music.” She took a determined breath and looked him in the eye. “His new fiancée controls light. I have a brother who can power machines, too. He married a very dear woman who can calm people and animals. My oldest brother can inhabit computers and their networks, and his wife can bring darkness. My oldest sister can see the future and her husband can Find anything. The whole family got their powers when they found their mates.”
Thomas pounced on her admission. “And you think I have a power to start fires.” It seemed fantastic, but it might mean something else that would be very fantastic, in a good way.
Tammy nodded. “Morgan had a Firestarter once before, but…but he died.” She looked at him a little ruefully. “She must treasure you very much.”
“I…I don’t think she knows I start fires.” He didn’t want to talk about Morgan now. “Do you think my having a power, according to your theory, means I have found my mate?”
The air went still between them. “Maybe,” she whispered.
He leaned in. “And do you have a power, Tammy Tremaine?” he asked softly.
She nodded, almost reluctantly. “I…I can see through the eyes of animals. You know, what they see.” She got a little flustered. “It’s a stupid power, really, but…”
“And do you think it’s because you have found your mate?” He wouldn’t let her escape so easily.
There was a long pause. “Maybe.” Her voice was small, even frightened.
Thomas considered. Her theory was wild, but it did explain a lot, and Socrates would adjure him not to dismiss the unseen lightly. His thoughts jerked to an unwelcome possibility. “How long have you had this power?”
She bit that wonderful, full bottom lip, blushing the color of wild strawberries in summer. “Just a little while.”
Thomas smiled.
She would come with him back to Morgan in the desert. They were in some ways fated to be together by this thing she called genetics that explained so much. He felt happy. Until he remembered his fire at the hotel.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, as though reading his thoughts.
“I…I may have hurt people last night. The fire…” He couldn’t help the panic in his voice. He looked around at the darkening beach, judging the distance to the brushy hillside behind them. What if he started a fire right now and hurt Tammy? She was almost killed by the smoke in the room last night….
“Shush,” she soothed. “I bought a newspaper at the bait shop. Let’s see what it says about the fire.” She began digging in the pack. “Luc wouldn’t let me bring my phone, so no checking the internet.” She came up triumphantly with a rolled paper and a thick cylinder. “And I remembered a flashlight. You hold the paper.”
That meant he had to lean in closer. He spread out the roll. He heard a click and a bright channel of light from the cylinder danced across the print. Together, they scanned the paper. There it was. “Fire guts San Pedro hotel.” Thomas felt the dread tighten into ball in his belly.
“No, no, it looks like everyone was okay,” she said, the light zeroing in on the article. “Property damage. Ongoing investigation of how the fire started….” She snorted. “Like they’re going to come up with the source.” She straightened. “Looks like you’re in the clear.”
He let out a sigh of relief. At least he wasn’t a killer. “Thank whoever there is to thank for that,” he said. He swiveled his head to look up at her.
She stared at him strangely. “I’m glad you said that,” she whispered. Her eyes were big and dark and unfathomable outside the channel of light from what she called a flashlight. Her face, where she was leaning over his shoulder, was so close he could feel her warm breath.
She thought they were destined to be together. She said that earlier about people who had this gene that gave them magic. He was very, very glad.