This Wicked Fate (This Poison Heart #2)(54)

“So another dead end?” I asked.

Persephone shook her head. “She said they put up a new one a few towns over, but that the public isn’t allowed to visit. The caretaker is extremely fussy. His name is Mr. Herman, and she says if we make contact with him, she’d like for us to tell him that she doesn’t appreciate him coaxing tourists to visit, knowing they can’t see the lighthouse up close and in person. Apparently, we’re the second group in the past month that has come around asking about it and inquiring about boat rentals.”

I sat up.

Persephone swallowed the last mouthful of coffee and stood up. She thanked the woman, paid the bill, and we hurried to the car.

“People were asking about the lighthouse and about renting a ship?” I asked. “That’s gotta be Karter.”

Persephone pulled onto the road leading up the coast, and for the first time since we landed I felt a fragile sense of hope. As we drove in the direction of the next town, the land enfolded us. Hills rose up on either side of the road, blocking the view of the sea. Nearly an hour later as we consulted our maps, Persephone slammed on the brakes and sent me, even with my seat belt on, into the seat in front of me.

“Holy shit!” Marie said. “You tryna kill us?”

“You can’t die,” Persephone said.

“But I can!” Circe said angrily. “What is going on? Why’d you—”

She stopped short as she followed Persephone’s gaze.

A rusted metal sign sat crooked on its stand just off the side of the road. It looked like somebody had run it over and tried to fix it. The blue paint was chipped and brown splotches of corrosion bloomed on its face, but what was clear was a small rendering of what was meant to be a lighthouse and at the very top—an elongated oval shape with a white circle in the center.

“The Great Eye,” Circe said in a whisper.





CHAPTER 15

Whatever this town—which was actually more like a village—had been, it had long since lost its luster. The few buildings we passed were mostly boarded up or left to the elements. I didn’t see a single person. Abana had been alive and bustling, but this place was dead.

As we navigated the single narrow street that ran through the center of town and emerged onto a gravel turnaround, the nighttime sky fell down around us and met with something darker and more foreboding. In the gloom, the Black Sea looked like a giant void in the earth, like I could step off the edge of the wind-battered bluff and fall into nothingness. The only break in the blue-black night was the thing we’d been looking for—the lighthouse.

It sat at the farthest edge of the bluff, a beacon to ships sailing that great black void. It was a solid four stories high, painted ivory, and shaped like an octagon at its base. At the top was a white light spinning in a slow circle like a small sun.

I didn’t see a car or any other signs that someone was actually there. We walked through a small opening at the center of the rusted gate that surrounded the entire structure. As we approached, a rounded wooden door creaked open and a shadowy figure appeared in the doorway.

“Sorry to bother you so late,” Circe called out.

“Have you reached your destination or are you just passing through?” he asked in a deep, raspy voice.

I glanced at Circe.

“A little of both,” she replied.

“You with that other group?”

“We’re not with anyone,” Circe said.

The man stepped out of the doorway and straightened up. He held some kind of lantern in his hand that lit half his face. We were still a good ways away from him, but even from where I was, I could tell he was abnormally tall. Persephone pushed forward a little but I stayed put.

“Spidey sense tingling?” Marie whispered.

I nodded.

“Me too,” she said.

The man waved us closer, and I hesitantly followed Persephone and Circe, clinging to Marie’s hand.

As we stood in front of the man I realized he was taller than Persephone by at least a foot, maybe more. He held up his lantern and let his gaze wander to each of us. When he looked at me the hair on the back of my neck stood straight up.

He had an untrimmed salt-and-pepper beard and wore a wide-brimmed hat. His skin was wind chapped, like deep brown leather. His brown eyes were piercing and narrow, and his long shawl-like coat hung down so far it scraped across the ground as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

“We need to charter a boat,” Persephone said quickly. She skipped mentioning the Great Eye, and I just had to trust that it was for a reason. “The people in Abana said you might have one we could borrow.”

“Is that so?” he asked. His mouth turned up and the skin around his eyes wrinkled. “Another group of people came here asking the very same thing.”

“Did you help them?” Persephone asked.

The man smiled. “No. I turned them away, but it seems they found someone else to accommodate them. They sailed into the heart of the Black Sea without knowing fully what they might find. Pity.”

“Why pity?” Circe asked.

He glanced out over the bluff, then back to us. “Those waters are dangerous. They always have been.” He ducked through the door and called back to us, “Come in.”