Wickedly Wonderful (Baba Yaga, #2)(20)
She and Fergus finished up the last of the tasks he’d given them and came over to join Marcus in the bow of the boat. He caught another whiff of strawberries and sunlight, although it should have been impossible to smell anything but sea and salt and fish guts. As always, it made his heart race, and he had to take a deep breath of briny air to clear his head.
Fergus gave him a piercing look accompanied by a wry smile, and then gazed out over the churning ocean. “Does your father really think we will find fish out in this tempest?”
Marcus sighed. “I don’t know if he believes it, or if he is just too stubborn to give up. Anyone with any sense either didn’t go out today or went back early, so if we catch anything, we’ll get prime dollar for it. I suspect he needs the money.” He eyed Beka, who wore a slightly guilty expression. “Either way, the fish haven’t been running in their usual patterns or showing up in the places they would normally be at this time of year, so I don’t know why he thinks bad weather is going to change anything.”
Under his red hair, slicked back with rain until it looked much darker than usual and currently dripping down the back of his neck, Fergus’s face was thoughtful as he gazed at the watery surface before them.
“There is truth in that, undeniably,” he said in the slightly formal way he had of speaking. Marcus thought it sounded like he came from some foreign country, except he didn’t have an accent. “We have noticed that as well. The fish are not where they are supposed to be, and they are turning up in the oddest spots instead.”
“We?” Marcus asked, a little suspicious. “I thought you said you didn’t fish much.” Could the man be spying out his father’s fishing routes for some rival?
Beka and Fergus exchanged wordless glances; Fergus blinked wetness out of his eyes with absurdly long lashes. “Er, us divers, I mean.”
Uh-huh.
Beka stirred restlessly beside him, distracting in her nearness. “If I can find us some fish, do you think your father will agree to go back in?”
Marcus snorted. “Sure. Why, do you have some hidden up your sleeve?”
Fergus rolled his eyes, gesturing at Beka’s skimpy attire. “And where in that ridiculous getup do you think she could hide so much as a pea?”
Beka smacked his arm playfully, causing an electric buzz to zing through Marcus’s chest for a moment. “Not exactly,” she said.
“There doesn’t seem to be much point to the question, then, does there?” He glowered at Beka, tired of the rain, the boat, and the memories that always seemed to haunt him on days like this. If he had a magic wand, he’d wave it and fill the hold with fish so he could go sit on the shore with a cold beer and try to forget.
Surprisingly, Fergus’s normally merry face suddenly took on a look of alarm. “What are you thinking of, Baba?”
“Baba?” Marcus said, looking from one to the other. “I thought your name was Beka.”
“It’s kind of a nickname,” she said, kicking Fergus lightly with one bare foot. “We don’t usually use it in public.”
Well, that answered that question, didn’t it? Not that he cared.
Fergus cleared his throat. “So, Beka, how exactly did you plan to find these elusive fish?” He looked pointedly at Marcus, who got the curious feeling that there was some subtle communication going on that he was missing.
Beka’s expression became serious, too, and she turned toward the open ocean as she spoke, so the wind nearly snatched her words away.
“I’m going to ask someone who knows, of course,” she said, and leaned dangerously far over the bow.
SEVEN
BEKA GAVE A piercing whistle that she knew would travel a long way over the open water. At the same time, she added a silent magical call and sent it out in all directions. A few minutes later, she got an answer, as a pair of gray dorsal fins cutting their way through the equally gray waves headed rapidly in their direction.
She heard a low chuckle from her left and a gasp of surprise from her right but ignored them both to pay attention to the two dolphins now keeping pace with the slowly moving ship. But she’d have to get closer if she was going to get any useful information. Marcus was going to have a fit.
“I know what I’m doing,” she said, and before he could stop her, she grabbed one of the ropes they used to tie on to the dock and flung it over the side. She clambered down it, ignoring the splintery fibers that gnawed at her fingers, and the cold spray from the turbulent sea. Above her head, she caught a brief glimpse of Fergus, holding Marcus back when he would have climbed down after her. Good. She was already pushing the limits anyway. No point in having him discover she spoke fluent Dolphin.
“Baba! Baba!” the dolphins chortled joyously, squirting water through their blowholes to add to the already raucous ocean spray that dampened Beka’s face and clothes.
“Hello, my friends,” Beka responded, approximating the mammals’ whistles and clicks the best she could. “I am looking for some fish. Do you know where I can find some fish?”
A few minutes later, she climbed back over the bow of the boat, her arms aching from hanging on to the rope. Rough hands hauled her the rest of the way onto the deck and set her down with a thud that rattled her teeth.
“Are you out of your damned mind?” Marcus’s face was white and his body was as rigid as stone. “Are you trying to get yourself killed? What the hell were you thinking, climbing over the side of a moving boat in the middle of a storm?”