Jeremy looked calm and confident, and just based on his emotions I rather thought Katie was in for some good news. I could’ve been wrong, but I was sure I’d find out one way or the other later. That he’d obviously come straight to her after work was a good sign as well. If she didn’t show up at the club tonight, I’d know for sure.

  It was an hour or two before dinner and the club, so I thought I’d get in some practice. I practiced the subtle stuff every morning still, but it was still a rush practicing larger magic deep in the ocean for me. There really was nothing like the rush of jumping like a dolphin, skimming the ocean’s surface, or diving deep at incredible speeds. It was dark in the depths of the ocean, but with my power I could see everything. It wasn’t something I got to do every day.

  When I popped back out of the water realm, I was somewhat north of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, right around the tropical line. My heart hammered as my power surrounded me and I plunged into the ocean. That time of year it was already dark being so far east, so I wasn’t all that worried about being seen, and I was far enough away from shipping lanes and from where leisure craft would go that I wasn’t worried about becoming a sonar mystery either.

  The ocean was beautiful at night, and the waters clear and silvery under the light of the stars and moon. With my recent advance in power, I could jump much higher and longer, and move a lot faster cutting through the waters of the ocean than I could the first time I’d done it. I never felt freer than when I was doing this, it was a little addicting.

  I stopped short as my magic sensed an oddity, and I swung back around. There was a bright yellow self-inflatable raft, that would fit around twelve. The kind that would be found on a boat and used if the boat went down. There was one person in it and based on how dehydrated he was I’d guess he’d been floating out here for days. He was also unconscious. Shit, what now? We were at least a hundred miles north of the Caribbean islands, there was no way he’d survive long enough to be found.

  How the hell had he even gotten out here, and on his own?

  The smart thing to do was just to leave him out here, but I couldn’t do it. I frowned, and I pivoted my body and shot straight down toward the sea floor, then spiraled out. It took longer than I’d hoped, but not longer than fifteen minutes before I found his original craft.

  Not a boat at all, but a single engine Cessna. Based on the shape of it, it hadn’t been down there longer than a few days, so it had definitely been his. He must’ve had the self-inflatable raft on board, and he’d gotten out before it sunk. I wondered what the hell he was doing flying all the way up here, away from any islands, but that question got answered when I figured out what his cargo was.

  He was a drug runner, no doubt taking a circuitous route that avoided awkward questions. That also explained why there was no search for him in the area. I didn’t imagine he’d be able to call in a mayday without a flight plan filed… with someone, and he’d decided to depend on luck rather than get thrown in jail for the rest of his life.

  I sighed, still not willing to let him die, even if the world might be a better place without him. Who was I to judge and play god? The ones I killed had always been in self-defense or the defense of others, at the moment he wasn’t doing anything wrong. I shot back up to the surface, hydrated his body just enough so he didn’t die on me, and used my power to make sure he stayed asleep.

  Then I pushed him south, wrapping his craft in my power to keep it from skipping and stuttering along the surface, as we were going quite fast. There was exposure to worry about, so I stopped when we were a mile or two from Puerto Rico. They’d see him in the morning, and assume he floated in range overnight. I had no doubt there’d be plenty of pleasure craft on the ocean come dawn.

  Let him try to talk his way out of it, and explain it, if he had a record he’d be in jail after that. I might also be saving him only for him to be killed by whoever owned all those drugs at the bottom of the ocean, but none of that was my problem.

  I snickered, as I wondered if a water sorceress was responsible for the mermaids saving fisherman stories.

  I dove back down deep, and shot off to the north, my element propelling me at great speed. I got back to where I’d started a lot faster than it’d taken to move him south.

  Of course, no good deed goes unpunished. I had mentioned that before, I think.

  I hadn’t met another water sorcerer yet, at least not until that moment. He came from the south at a much faster speed than I was capable of, and I estimated he was at least four times as powerful as I was currently, his reach maybe four hundred feet.

  I stopped like a dumb ass to say hi, although I did focus on my shields and tighten them up a bit. Well, maybe not a dumb ass, it wasn’t like sorcerers went around and immediately tried to kill all other sorcerers they ran into. Our world wasn’t quite that screwed up. We only fought if we interfered with each other, or pissed each other off, or thwarted goals. I had no reason to think he’d attack without even a hello.

  Except, he did, try to kill me I mean.

  The water around me corkscrewed, and then hardened. That might be a bad description, but the water itself was held rigid by his power, turning the corkscrew into a blade of water that spun around me and started to contract against my shields.

  He looked pissed off, and annoyed, as he glared at me from twenty feet away under the water. I couldn’t imagine what I’d done to annoy him. He also looked a little familiar, but I knew I’d never seen him before, and I was a little too focused on not dying to really put any thought into that fact at the moment.

  At four times more powerful his corkscrew blade of death was unbreakable for me, but he wasn’t so powerful that he broke through my shields easily or quickly. I had at least thirty seconds, before my shield failed and he cut up my body into little pieces.

  I didn’t panic, which probably saved my life, and I felt a little annoyed myself. Who murders a stranger without even saying hello first? He was obviously an asshole. Rude as well.

  I slipped down out of the corkscrew with a burst of power, or tried to, since it was the only open part. It was closed above me, close around me, and closing in tighter around my shield. Except, he and the corkscrew effortlessly followed me. My shields held for the moment, but my air bubble was long gone, sacrificed in an effort to extend my shields life, and my chest was starting to feel rather tight.

  Normally I could hold my breath for minutes, but with the adrenaline, and my heart humming like a snare drum, I wouldn’t last nearly that long.

  My heart pounded in my chest, what now? I used as much power as I dared, most of it was needed to maintain my shields, but I just couldn’t move away fast enough. The only open side of the trap was down, so it was the only direction I could go, but he followed. If I kept going down, I’d only aid him by increasing the water pressure against my shields.

  He was a lot stronger than I was, and I wondered what I’d done to piss him off. I must’ve blown by him without noticing, on my trip south or back north, or maybe his greater reach picked me up but I never got close enough to feel him? Or maybe he merely picked up my cavitation from a greater distance.

  I thought about Mark, he’d never know. What a stupid reason to die, I should’ve stuck to the deep ocean to practice, where it was much safer and far less likely to run into anyone like me.

  Then the obvious occurred to me, I was surrounded by water, my gateway element. I slipped into the water realm escaping the asshole’s deadly trap, and rocketed straight up, then gasped in a breath as precious air replaced the water I’d taken with me through my little connections back to the corresponding atmosphere above the ocean. As the water drained, fresh air rushed in.

  I was about to head home as fast as I could, then paused. Perhaps it was a stupid risk, but my mind wanted to know why he wasn’t already here and chasing me down in this realm.

  Maybe my attacker had never learned how to enter and travel through the water realm, more powerful or not. I was pretty sure most water sorcerers never found this ability, and I knew Ben believed that to be true. At least, the few he’d ran into hadn’t known about it. If I was right, then I was completely safe at the moment.

  I opened a window to peek, and he looked rather agitated, and confused.

  I smirked, as I calmed down even further. I studied him for a moment. He had brown hair and blue eyes, and appeared to be in his mid-twenties, which put him at over a hundred probably. I still couldn’t figure out why he looked familiar.

  He took off like a shot to the south, and I’d never have been able to keep up with him in our world, cutting through the ocean, but in the water realm I could move much faster. There was no resistance, and I was at my most powerful being surrounded by the pure magic of my element.

  I followed, wanting to know who he was, and why he wanted to kill me so badly. Was he just an asshole and murderer? I also wanted to make sure he didn’t know who I was, the last thing I wanted was to put Mark, Katie, and the others in danger. My face had been plastered all over the news, and he’d have seen right through the illusion on me, but I wasn’t sure if he recognized me or not. I was supposed to be dead after all, and he’d have no way of knowing Danielle Shields had been a water sorceress faking her death. He could miss the connection.

  Cute light blonde’s with lithe athletic bodies weren’t exactly rare among the seven billion people on Earth.

  I was also curious why he looked so damned familiar.

  He approached the shore rather quickly, but he slowed abruptly and got out of the ocean like a normal swimmer would. He was essentially on the beach now, behind a beach house that must’ve been at least eight thousand square feet. It was built with a rich reddish-brown wood, and large full wall windows facing the ocean. There was a deck in back, with stairs down to the beach, and he headed up those stairs.

  I followed, unseen and unfelt from the water realm.

  Whoever this water sorcerer was, he lived on the beach in Puerto Rico. I traced all his connections, but it didn’t tell me much outside of the fact this was his main residence, and he had other less used homes in southern California, Long Island New York, and London.

  I did get good vibes off his connections, but I knew from experience that wasn’t reliable at all at times. He wasn’t greedy, but so what, he was still a murderous asshole.

  His shields protected his emotions and body, but nothing could stop me reading his connections. Of course, that went both ways, I needed to know if he’d read mine. He probably hadn’t, he’d been too focused on killing a stranger for no reason, but I couldn’t depend on that.

  He opened the French door and slammed it shut as he walked into the house. He was obviously still agitated and confused about how I’d just disappeared out of his trap.

  A female walked into the back room from the kitchen, and she frowned at his state. She had long curly red hair, green eyes, and was thin and willowy at five foot ten.

  “What happened, Sal? Bad swim?”

  Sal? Salvatore. Holy shit. I realized why he looked so familiar, and I shivered. What were the chances? Salvatore was a name Katie and I had found in our mother’s records. The name of the water sorcerer that had slept with my mother for a favor, though exactly what that favor was hadn’t been written down.

  It stretched the bounds of coincidence, but I finally figured out why he looked so familiar. I mostly took after my mother, I had a lot of her features, not to mention the hair and eyes, but Sal looked familiar because I looked into the mirror every day. There was no doubt, the family resemblance was obvious, in hindsight.

  Shit, my father, who probably hadn’t given my existence a second thought, or perhaps not even a first after knocking my dark witch mother up, and me becoming a slave, had just tried to kill me.

  I was angry, but not quite livid, yet. That would come later, after the shock of the moment wore off.

  Sal said, “I’ll be alright, just need to calm down, Cara. Water sorceress interrupted my swim. Stupid bitch buzzed a U.S. sub, who knows what the sonar operator made of it. So, I tried to take care of it before she exposed us all, but she got away. I don’t know how she got away, she just disappeared out of a water blade trap. Literally there one second, gone the next. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Oh, shit. I buzzed a Navy submarine? Obviously, not within three hundred feet, or I’d have felt it, but I supposed I could’ve set off their sonar like crazy. Still, he could’ve talked to me first, it was an accident. That’s what vampires are for, that kind of shit happens all the time, and is covered up. I didn’t think I was being reckless.

  I should’ve stayed in the deep ocean and let that drug runner die. I flushed guiltily at that thought, and then I took it back.

  Cara asked, “Did you read her?”

  He shook his head in disgust, “No, I figured she was about to die, I didn’t think I’d have to chase her down.”

  Cara shrugged, “Just let it go then. Maye it was an accident, did you even try to talk to her?”

  You tell the prick, Cara.

  Sal snorted dismissively, “My kind can’t afford to be careless like that, we have no powers over the mind like air sorcerers or vampires.”

  Cara flushed, but bit down on whatever she might’ve thought to say. Apparently, my father treated his woman like shit too. Asshole.

  I was guessing by Sal’s harsh and dismissive tone that Cara wasn’t one of us at all, a human lover in the know perhaps? But I couldn’t be sure from where I was. I couldn’t feel their magic from the water realm, and they couldn’t feel mine.

  He wasn’t exactly wrong, we couldn’t afford to be careless, but mistakes happen, and I do my best to minimize those. Killing without even asking a question seemed like a huge overreaction.

  I wondered how many of us my father had killed in his callous self-righteousness, believing he was right and everyone else was wrong. Was I like that? So sure of my own rightness and worldview? I didn’t think so, I’d never killed anyone for making a mistake, just in self-defense and in the defense of others, to stop their evil actions. That was different, wasn’t it?

  I also didn’t feel contempt for others or their opinions, at least not without solid proof they deserved it. Maybe I could’ve been more careful, but I hadn’t expected to be saving someone on a raft either, or even approaching land at all on that night.

  Yet, he seemed just as sure he was in the right about me, his own daughter. Asshole. My stomach felt sick at the thought I came from him, but that didn’t make me like him, no more than I was like my corrupted by darkness mother before I ended her evil in this world.

  He also had some balls, judging me on a mistake, after what he’d done that ended up with me being enslaved under a curse and drained of power for years. How many lives had his callous indifference toward everything but exposure destroyed? It was only by luck, running into Tara and Ben in Chicago, that I’d escaped my fate. There wasn’t much I could about it though, he was far more powerful than I was.

  He murdered casually, and he was quick to do it. What he did was almost worse, a casual selfishness that harmed and killed others. He might be right about exposure risks, but he went overboard, and he certainly didn’t show the same vigilance when it came to his actions screwing up the lives of others supernaturals.

  Like his daughter’s.

  I wasn’t sure if I could stomach killing another parent. I was tempted to just leave, and never look back. I could do my practice swims even further north and east, deeper out in the Atlantic. Chances are he’d never find me, or ever run into me again. The world was a big place, and I never frequented any of the places he had homes in.

  I needed advice, I didn’t think I could decide one way or another with a clean mind and conscience. I didn’t want to overreact like him, but I also didn’t want to let a monster roam around the world killing and screwing up other lives because I was feeling squeamish about who he was.

  Cara went back into the kitchen to finish up dinner, and my father moved further into the house. I supposed that was one way we were very different, I did seek advice, especially when my emotions were running high. My father was clearly dismissive of the thoughts of others, even his lover.

  I was far too powerful a being to let emotions make life and death decisions, like my asshole father seemed to be inclined to do. I left with a thought, channeling my magic with focus, and just let it take me home.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Mark’s scent was like a soothing balm on raw nerves, as I talked about my recent adventure. I knew it was ridiculous, given my power, but I always felt safe and warm in the gentle grip of his iron muscles, and leaning up against him. I didn’t spare anything, just pouring out my anger, fears, doubts, and sadness. My mate would never see me as weak, and I wasn’t, taking comfort in him, revealing myself, took strength. He was old enough, and wise enough, to understand that.

  He just held me for a while and caressed my hair and shoulder, not saying anything at first, but eventually he spoke with reluctance.

  He said, “I hate to say it, but we chase down rogues who break human laws, abuse or kill humans, and risk exposure. And of course, those that attack us directly. If he comes for you, hunts for you, we’ll take him down, but I think we should leave well enough alone. Even though it greatly angers me that he tried to kill you, it sounds like he didn’t get a good look at you at all.

  “It’s not against our laws to be a selfish self-absorbed asshole, or to allow harm through callous disregard of others, or we’d be fighting every sorcerer we came across, save the few we’re allied with and yourself. Most sorcerers are exactly what you just described in your father, entitled, selfish, and arrogant in all their opinions and views, completely dismissive of others. They care about exposure, only because it would effect themselves, and we have to take that as a win.”