Seawitch

aboard the Seawitch.”

Fielding looked smug but the expression was wobbly. “By what evidence and under what charge?”

“Piracy, perhaps, or criminal negligence as the captain who allowed his ship to be taken and his charges killed. And as you are the only surviving member of the crew, the questions will be pointed. If your answers don’t please the court, you would be remanded for psychological examination at Western State Hospital, which could take quite some time in that landlocked and miserable place.”

Quinton cleared his throat, looking a bit uncomfortable. “Actually . . . if his answers or actions—like turning into an otter in the holding cell—set off the wrong alarm bells, he’ll be made to disappear.”

We all turned to regard Quinton with a range of emotions from curiosity to terror.

I raised my eyebrows at him. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with your dad’s little project, would it?”

He was pale and upset. “Yes.” He looked at the others and continued. “I can’t tell you much but certain groups within the U.S. government know that there are . . . people like Fielding and Shelly and Harper. One of these groups is headed by my father, who is even less agreeable than Father Otter here. If Dad gets wind of someone like Fielding, his agents will hunt him down and snatch him. He won’t even make it to court.” He shifted his focus to Fielding. “Once that happens, you get to be the biggest rat in their lab and these guys . . . they redefine the term ‘living hell.’ You really, really don’t want them to find you. Or even hear of you.”

“You’d narc on me?” Fielding asked, appalled.

Quinton gave an adamant shake of the head. “Not in a million years. Not to anyone and especially not to these guys. No one here would.” He cast a desperate glance around and all the humans nodded. “But if you are booked on charges, information about you will get out. That’s just the way the booking databases are connected to other parts of the electronic world and there are specialized programs cruising that information pool like sharks looking for the right kind of food—food like you. Once they figure you out, they’ll descend like ninjas and you’ll disappear in a small puff of paperwork that will claim you’ve been transferred to a special facility that doesn’t exist. No one will see you leave or where you go, and if guys like my dad have their way, you’ll never come out.”

Fielding’s eyes widened, his mouth gaped, and his chest began to jerk as his breathing went panicky and shallow. He was ready to bolt but there was nowhere to go.

I caught his eye. “I recommend that you go to back to the Columbia. As their royal dobhar-chú, you’ll be a lot safer than you are as Gary Fielding.”

“Only if you behave,” Father Otter put in. “Kin they may be but the Columbia folk are not easy. They will make you earn your place—as we should have done.”

Fielding nodded like a broken doll. “All right. OK, I’ll go back to the Columbia.”

Father Otter bared his teeth. “We will know if you do not.”

Fielding flattened himself on the deck, a cowed and horrified expression on his face. “Pax, pax,” he muttered.

Shelly gazed at Father Otter. “Can he be trusted to swim the whole way?”

“I’ll take him,” Zantree offered. He stood with his arms crossed over his chest, the gleaming cutlass in his fist making him look every inch the pirate captain, although the starstruck smile he turned on Shelly did somewhat ruin the effect.

Shelly seemed bemused by it all. “Will you? Why?”

“Well . . . I’ve got this big ol’ boat to myself these days and I rarely take her out, but now I’ll have a top- notch bar pilot along. I always did have a yen to cross the bar on my own. I’m sure Gary can teach me a few things—being half otter he must have a feel for the water I don’t. I think that would be a fine adventure. And . . . well . . . it would be my pleasure to do something for you.”

“You would take this risk for me? How can you trust him after what he has done? His presence nearly got your boat destroyed,” Shelly objected.

“Oh, I imagine your folk and his folk will want to check in on us once in a while . . . won’t you?” He turned his attention to Fielding with a gimlet eye. “And you won’t dare give me trouble. Will you?”

Fielding looked horrified but he nodded docilely enough.

Zantree looked back to Shelly. “First we’ll have to drop these folks off, though. If it’s all right with you.”

“Yes,” she replied. “It’s a wonderful plan. If Father Otter agrees . . .”

The dobhar-chú gave a stiff nod.

Zantree turned to me and asked, “You have any objection to being dropped off at Victoria? You can take the hydroplane in the morning and be home before lunch. I think Gary and I’d be best served to head straight on down the coast as soon as possible. Don’t you?”

I agreed. “That sounds like a plan. Can we pause long enough to drop this off?” I added, pointing to the Valencia’s bell lying on the deck.

“Where do you want to take it?” Zantree asked.

“Back to its proper home. Out where the Valencia went down.”

“Well . . . it’s a bit of a ways . . .”

Shelly smirked. “Not with my help.”

Zantree smiled like a kid with a present. “Would you?” I had the feeling Paul Zantree was utterly enchanted with the new sea witch—though not in the usual way.

Shelly’s smile warmed to something genuine. “Of course.” Then she turned to Fielding. “Be a better man this time, Gary. The nature of a second chance is that you only get one.”

EPILOGUE

As wonderful as it had felt releasing the spirits that had so long lain imprisoned by the previous sea witch, I was exhausted, sore, and miserable, and I wasn’t convinced I was the only one—just the worst off. The human vote was to head out in the morning, after we’d all had a chance to rest. Fielding went off with Father Otter, unhappily but not actively resisting, to be watched over by his furry kin for the night—just in case. With the assistance of Shelly and her merfolk, the cruise back up Spieden Channel in the morning was as smooth and swift as an ice cube sliding down a satin tablecloth and we passed the turn for Victoria Harbour about ten in the morning, making Pachena Point less than two hours later. There we broke a bottle of red wine over the bell at Zantree’s insistence, and, asking for the help of Poseidon—I was a bit leery of this, but Zantree claimed we had to—we ceremoniously heaved the Valencia’s bell overboard and let it sink to rejoin the last remains of the ship from which it had been taken long ago.

We entrusted the emptied shells, bells, bottles, urns, bowls, and boxes that had contained the spirits of the drowned and shipwrecked to the merfolk for disposal in the most appropriate places. All but the first brass bell, which we carried away to return to Seawitch.

Shelly’s merfolk, though not much seen, were in evidence throughout the trip in the persistent strangeness of waves and wind that ran fair on our stern even when every other boat in sight was caught up the other way. We couldn’t do much about the tide, but with Zantree’s knowledge of the currents, we didn’t have to. We slipped back to Victoria ahead of the turn of the tide and Quinton, Solis, and I disembarked on the pier at Victoria Harbour at last, carrying our baggage and feeling altogether grubby, sore, and disconnected from the normal world. Since it was Sunday, the Victoria Clipper’s morning hydroplane was full and we had to wait for the next boat. We did have some complications because we had appeared pretty much out of nowhere, but both Solis and I had our passports with us all the time and I am still not quite sure what Quinton said to earn a startled look and a quick escort to a private office before he was released again under a barrage of nervous smiles from the Victoria Harbour master.

On the high-speed ferry trip back to Seattle, Solis and I discussed the reports we would file. For the first time in my experience of him, he had no interest in telling the unvarnished truth about a case. As far as I could tell, he was as ready to bury this one in obscure paperwork and oblique wording as I was. It was weird to feel so much in tune with him and I wondered if I was going to feel this new oddness forever. I found myself calling him Rey more often than I’d meant to. It was a strange way to build a friendship but it looked as if that’s what we had. Solis even invited us to come home with him for dinner but we declined. I didn’t want to know what he would say or not say