Wickedly Wonderful (Baba Yaga, #2)(14)
Her sister Baba, Barbara, laughed at her cautious nature and perpetual worrying. Beka thought Barbara was amazing and wished she could be more like her—tough and decisive, not caring what anyone else thought or believed. Maybe when she’d been a Baba for as long as Barbara had been . . . But probably not. At least not as long as her foster mother’s voice drifted like fog through the back of her head, telling her she still wasn’t quite getting it right.
Like now. She’d made a promise—and not just any promise, but one with a magical commitment behind it, writ like words carved into stone—and now she had no way to keep it. She couldn’t believe she’d failed before she even started.
At the end of the pier, she stopped outside the harbormaster’s office to pull herself together, tucking shaky hands into the pockets of her patchwork cotton skirt. Through an open window, she caught the tail end of a heated discussion, two voices raised in head-butting dissent. One of them sounded familiar, with a slight Irish brogue under the bulldog growl.
“I’ve told you,” the voice said. “I’ll pay my mooring fees when I’ve caught something to pay them with. It’s not my fault the damned fish aren’t showing up where they’re supposed to.”
“It’s not my fault either, Dermott,” the other voice said. It was tenor rather than bass, and less filled with ire than the loud Irish rumble, but there was no trace of weakness there either. “Nobody else is catching fish, but they’re all paying what they owe. You’re behind three months already. I can’t just let you keep docking your boat here for free.” There was the clear sound of a deep inhalation. “Why don’t you ask your son to help you? He just got out of the service, right? He’s probably got some money stashed away—nothing much to spend it on over where he was. Get him to pay your mooring fees.”
“The hell I will!” This bellow was probably heard halfway down the dock. Beka winced a little, standing just outside.
“It’s bad enough the boy has put his life on hold, coming back here to take care of me when I never asked him to. I’m sure as hell not going to take his money too. You’ll just have to wait.” There was the sound of boots clomping against a wooden floor, and then the slamming of a door.
Beka peeked around the side of the building. Marcus’s father stood by the door he’d just crashed shut behind him, leaning against the wall next to it and holding one hand to his chest. His breathing sounded rough and uneven, and his face was white except for the flush of anger riding his sharp cheekbones.
“Are you okay?” Beka asked, stepping around the corner. Behind her back, she made a gesture that pulled a bottle of water out of her fridge on the bus. That trick didn’t work when she was in the ocean—too much water could inhibit magic unless you prepared for it in advance—but here on land, it barely took any effort at all. She held the bottle out to the older man. “Here, I haven’t even opened this yet. You look like you could use it.”
The elder Dermott glared at her from his piercing eagle eyes but took the bottle anyway, gulping down half its contents along with a pill from a container in his pocket. After a few minutes, his color looked better and he had enough breath to thank her grudgingly.
“You’re that idiot girl we brought up in the nets yesterday, aren’t you?” he said, looking at her more closely. “What the hell are you doing down here? If you came thinking you could sue me, don’t bother. There’s nothing to win.”
Beka suppressed a sigh. She could see where Marcus the younger got his charm and good manners. “Actually,” she said, “I came to offer your son a job. Well, both of you, really, since I wanted to hire the boat. But he turned me down flat.”
One graying eyebrow rose toward the battered cap perched above it. “Hire the boat? You want to go out fishing?” He looked unconvinced. “Is this one of them Greenie tricks?”
“Not at all.” Beka was suddenly struck with an idea. She dug the bag of gold coins out of her pocket and held it out. “I want to hire someone to take me out to that stretch of water so I can go diving on a wreck I heard about. I’m willing to pay.”
The old sailor gave her a dubious glance that turned thoughtful when he looked inside the pouch she’d handed him. “Huh. I never heard of no wreck out there.” He looked into the sack again, poking at the coins with one gnarled, black-rimmed fingertip, before gazing into her eyes. “You know how to dive, do you, girly?”
Beka laughed. “How do you think I got what’s in that bag?” She gave him her most earnest smile, although it mostly seemed to go unnoticed. “I won’t get in your way, I promise, and you can still fish while I’m diving.”
“Huh.” Dermott thought for a moment, bouncing the little bag up and down in one hand. “You’ll sign a waiver afore you come on board? Sayin’ I’m not responsible if anything happens to you?”
She nodded, trying not to look too eager.
“And if there happens to be something down there, I get ten percent as a bonus,” the old man added. “Only fair, seeing as how you couldn’t get out there otherwise.”
Beka bit back a laugh. She kind of liked the greedy bastard. At least he wasn’t pretending to be looking out for her. And it wasn’t as though she was expecting to actually bring up anything valuable. “You bet,” she said. “Have we got a deal?”