| |
The cool water was heaven on my skin as I powered across the surface of the bay. Here, the waves were almost non-existent due to the man-made barrier created by the sunken ships I was swimming toward. Some of them had settled, and become submerged in their entirety. Others loomed up out of the water, their rusting superstructure towering over the waves.
In time they would gradually sink into the soft sand, their steel hulls rusting and giving way to the relentless salt and sea. The water here was clear, and the snorkeling mask allowed me to see everything. The soft sand sloped gradually down to deeper depths. Schools of vibrant-colored fish darted about the bay.
It was always a relief to be able to see what was around you. While only a few people died from shark attacks each year, the statistic was poor comfort should you be the unfortunate soul who did come face-to-face with a great white shark. I certainly wasn’t willing to bet on it, as luck had not been on my side this week. So snorkeling alone as I was, I tried to be vigilant and remain wary of my surroundings, all the while powering toward the wrecks with slow steady kicks as my flippers did their job to perfection.
It had been a good two or three years since my last snorkel, so I took the time on the journey out to acclimatize myself once more. I was in no particular hurry, though I was driven by a curiosity for what might lie amid the rusting wrecks. For practice I dived down beneath the surface, closing my mouth as water filled my snorkel and pushing myself deeper with steady kicks. As my oxygen reserves grew low, and my lungs started to protest, I kicked back to the surface. No sooner had my snorkel broken through the water than I exhaled, the plume of breath forcing the water out of the tube in a burst of salty sea spray.
My lifeline clear once more, I swam along the surface, breathing through the snorkel as I searched the depths.
Some things were just like riding a bike, you never really forgot how to do them. I passed the first boat at anchor. Pausing, I checked its deck but couldn’t see any people moving about the ship. It was a modest vessel, perhaps thirty feet in length, with an enclosed cabin. I swam on toward the first of the wrecks, at the southernmost point of the man-made barrier.
The submerged ship had become home to a dozen varieties of fish, some I recognized. Others I had no idea about. I passed schools of bream swarming about the wreck. There were also trevally and yellowtail kingfish. All in all they were spectacular. If I didn’t have work to do, I might have dawdled here enjoying the sight of them darting in and out, through the rusted holes in the ship’s hull.
Coral and other marine vegetation was growing all over the vessel, turning the rusty wreck into a vibrant reef swarming with life. It was even more vivid than I remembered as a child. Funny how the water had seemed so deep back then. Now it didn’t bother me at all.
I remember thinking these wrecks must have been the size of the Titanic, in my childish imagination. Now I looked at the back of the submerged fishing trawler and smiled as I swam past it. Only the very tip of the prow stuck up through the surface of the water.
Making my way north along the man-made tidal break, I found a cluster of shipwrecks close together. Two of them were wholly submerged, while the third loomed up out of the waves. Taking a deep breath, I dove beneath the surface, eager for a closer look. I rounded the bow of the first ship so that I could see behind it. Fish by the thousands played through the wrecks but I saw no life of the human variety out here.
It would seem that closing down the resort’s attractions for the quidditch finals had given me an excellent opportunity to explore the wrecks unmolested.
I kicked back to the surface and broke through, filling my lungs with fresh air as I let the snorkel dangle free. I kicked over to the deck of the ship that was jutting out of the water. I figured it was the perfect chance to catch my breath. There was no need to push myself and fatigue was not a friend for anyone caught in a rip.
The ship was sticking out of the water, its sloping deck rising away from me. It dwarfed the other ships around it. I felt about on the deck, testing to be sure it would take my weight. The edges were a rusted mess, but the main deck hadn’t rusted through. So I pulled myself up onto it and rolled onto my back, catching my breath and resting my muscles.
I’d always been a confident swimmer, but I had no intention of treading water for my entire exploration. Just the thought of that was exhausting. I lay on my back on the deck for a minute, massaging my legs. The swim out had certainly been a thorough workout. I took advantage of the raised deck to survey the vessels in the makeshift bay. There were three other functional vessels moored in the shelter of the shipwrecks. One of them was at the far northern part of the break, while the one I had passed bobbed deserted on the water behind me. The last vessel lay about a hundred meters away, still at anchor. It was a larger vessel, perhaps fifty feet long and looked like it cost about the same as the house we lived in. The yacht had two decks, and a jet ski tied to the back deck. Which should mean the owner was still on board. Unless of course they had a smaller launch to ferry them to shore. Which was always a possibility.
“Oh, to have dumb money.” I laughed as I shook my head. The jet ski, a recent model Sea-doo, was probably more valuable than my car. If its owners were aboard, they seemed far more intent on lazing about in their cabin rather than enjoying the magnificent vista nature was providing for them out here. Staring at all this through tinted windows just wasn’t the same. Or so I thought. I’d never been on a yacht, so I guess I had nothing to compare it to.
I turned my attention back to the shipwrecks around me. They had been sunk in a line running roughly parallel to the coast. They’d been sunk a few years apart, so they suffered from different stages of rust.
Looking along the line, I spotted something silver amid all the red rusting metal. From its polished sheen it looked like the aluminum hull of a submerged ship. Though that only made sense if it had capsized. Unless the whole hull was silver. From here it was hard to tell as it rested between two of the other ships.
It obviously hadn’t been here nearly as long as the others. My heart skipped a beat. Was it the shipwreck the couple on the beach had been talking about?
Easing myself off the deck of the ship I was resting on, I slid back into the water and pushed off. I eased into a steady freestyle stroke as I made a beeline for the new shipwreck.
My fatigue forgotten in the excitement of finding the ship, I powered through the water. Schools of fish parted, darting away as I plowed unapologetically through their midst. I passed the rusted-out hull of a ferry. The closer I got the better I could see the new shipwreck. It was a small yacht, perhaps thirty-five feet long with an enclosed cabin, but it was resting on its deck in the sand, the hull pointing up toward the surface.
A giant gash was readily visible in its ruined hull. Perhaps the pilot hadn’t been a local. Had he struck one of the submerged ships by accident? Or perhaps drifted into it during the night?
It seemed more likely that they’d hit it at speed to do this much damage. The accident had destroyed their buoyancy and sent them to the bottom. Fortunately for whoever had been on it at the time, in this sort of shallow water and so close to the beach, they were likely to have survived the incident.
Though I wouldn’t have liked to be them if it had happened at night. That would have been terrifying. I swam closer to the vessel. It didn’t appear to have a name, which made it a little more unusual. Those with cash to splash on this sort of maritime hardware loved scrawling a clever name down the side of the boat. It also didn’t appear to have any lights on it, another unusual anomaly.
Why would anyone be piloting such an expensive vessel without the proper safety precautions in place?
Moving closer, I rounded the hull of a submerged sand trawler. I was about fifteen feet from the luxurious yacht I’d observed earlier. They seemed to be anchored near the wreck, but even at this distance there didn’t appear to be anyone on it. Perhaps they were Harry Potter fans too. They could have moored here and wandered down the beach to see the game.
If that was the case though, why wouldn’t they simply drive down to the game and dock at the resort’s pier?
It didn’t make sense but wealthy holiday makers were known to do all manner of inefficient things in the name of having a good time.
Resting in the water a moment, I treaded water above the new shipwreck as I looked about for any sign of danger.
As I prepared for my dive, I thought about my options.
It was starting to look like a yacht owner had grown careless and wrecked their brand-new toy. If that were the case, I probably would have been better served scoping out the island’s interior.
As part of me wondered if I’d wasted a day wandering up the beach and swimming out here, the rest of me determined to make the effort to swim down anyway. I’d come all this way after all, and it seemed unlikely the resort was going to loan me the quads again. Not after the condition I’d returned them in yesterday and particularly not now that Barry had disappeared.
The concierge being sick was about as likely as a white Christmas in Brisbane. The timing of his sudden affliction was just a little too convenient to ignore. I looked down at the yacht and sighed. It was still my best lead. My only lead, really.
If nothing else, the walk had done me good, and learning about glamours from Sleet had been an added bonus. That particular education seemed like it would stand me in good stead as a hunter.
I bobbed in the water and tried to relax my breathing. Full of adrenaline and excitement I would burn through my air much faster. And given the wreck was a good three or four meters below the surface, I was going to need every bit of breath I could muster. Filling my lungs, I closed my mouth and sank beneath the water. Executing a half turn, I felt the water surge into my snorkel tube, but I spat it out of my mouth and let it dangle from the mask. I wasn’t going to need it on this trip.
Kicking hard I propelled myself downward, with slow purposeful strokes. I could feel the increased pressure on my ears the deeper I got, but at this depth it was more of a nuisance than any real threat. Still, I made a note not to surface too quickly as there was no point taking unnecessary chances.
Reaching the submerged yacht, I felt along its hull, the gaping hole clearly the source of its demise. There were rust-colored markings along the hull, a likely indicator of contact where it had brushed against one of the other ships.
Satisfied as to how it had gotten here, I made my way to the doors at the back of the vessel. I found the handle and pulled on it to open the door. But it wouldn’t budge.
Was it locked?
With the damage to the hull, it had to be flooded. I expected minimal resistance on the door. I positioned my feet against the bulkhead and pulled with everything I had, but the door wouldn’t budge. Not even an inch.
Could it be locked?
Surely not. For the occupants to have escaped, they would have had to open it. Who bothers locking a door when a ship is flooding beneath your feet? One more bizarre fact to add to the rapidly growing collection about the ship.
Not to worry. One of the first workings Alasdair had taught me was for opening locks. It was something of a fundamental skill for a bounty hunter. I did as my mentor had taught me. Placing my hand over the door’s locking mechanism I willed power into it. It was a subtle spell designed to unlock the mechanism from the inside. But I felt nothing. No discernible response from my magic that would indicate that the mechanism had turned.
Odd.
I’d performed the simple spell dozens of times. I could do it with my eyes closed, and I was pretty sure I could do it underwater, if I had to. So I didn’t think that was the issue. No matter how I pushed and pulled against the door, I couldn’t budge it. The more I fought with the door, the more I worried that its occupants were still inside, drowned as their vessel went down in the shallow water.
Abandoning my futile attempts to open the door, I let myself drift away from it. Studying the rest of the vessel, I looked at the ocean floor around the ship and paused.
The ship itself was strange but the indentation where it rested in the sand was even more so. It continued beyond the prow of the boat another two or three feet. I’d have thought it was drag from the ship coming to rest on the ocean floor, but that would have been hours ago. It should have well and truly found its level.
“Or perhaps you’re wasting your time playing at being a deep-sea rescue operator,” my inner critic whispered.
Shut up, I told myself. I didn’t need her second guessing me right now.
Here I was three meters below the surface. Unable to get into this stupid boat and I was arguing with myself. I didn’t have time for that kind of stupidity. I shoved my inner critic back into her corner and tried to focus on the problem at hand. I tried the lock once more. It wouldn’t budge.
I circled the boat looking for any other possible entrance, but couldn’t find anything and, what was worse, I was rapidly running out of breath.
In frustration, I pushed off the ship and started slowly drifting to the surface, exhaling gradually as I went, the small stream of bubbles rising past my ear as they raced for the surface.
As I stared at the boat, my eyes made their way back to the ocean floor, and the unusual impression the ship had made. I added to that, the lack of a name on it and the doors that seemed wedged shut. Perhaps I wasn’t as fit as I thought or perhaps something else was happening here.
Sleet’s words came back into my mind, “So look for things that don’t make sense. Things that might be lying to your eyes. A smell where there shouldn’t be. Tracks when you can’t see your prey. Many things can warn you that something is hiding.”
Use your magic eyes.
Running out of breath, I figured it was worth a shot. I closed my eyes, drew on my power and manifested my Sidhe sight. Opening them, the water was now a brilliant shade of aquamarine, but beyond that, the ship caught my eye.
My stomach flipped. The yacht was gone; well, not gone. But for the first time I saw it in its true form. It wasn’t a yacht at all, but an elegant ship fashioned from a bluish steel woven in bands. I’d never seen the patterns before and yet they seemed familiar to me. The yacht’s cabin was gone but the ship did have a sealed canopy with opaque glass windows. The door, in its true form, had a large silver lock but whatever it was made from had resisted my efforts to open it.
Something about its design told me it wasn’t a human vessel at all. Add that to the fact it had been hidden behind an elaborate glamour made me all the more suspicious. Someone didn’t want it to be found.
My heart pounded in my chest as I made my way to the surface. I needed another look, but first I needed air.
I must’ve drifted as I rose because I found myself surfacing underneath the boat that had been at anchor. I kicked free of the bottom of the hull. I cleared the bottom of the boat and surfaced right behind it. I gasped, filling my mouth and lungs with fresh air. Panting, I treaded water and tried to process my discovery.
A pronounced click behind me interrupted my train of thought. I turned, awkward and slow, but as I did I found myself staring at the familiar face of Naerine Oaksidhe, or more precisely, staring up the barrel of the pistol she had leveled at my head.
“Nora Byrne,” she gloated. “I was wondering when I would be seeing you.”