MARCUS COULD TELL that Beka had succeeded as soon as she pulled her mask off. Her smile could have lit up a day even gloomier than this one, and triumph exuded from every pore. He helped her over the side of the boat, wincing away from the bright light of the globe she carried tucked under one arm.
“What’s that?” he asked, not sure he wanted it on his father’s boat.
Beka followed his glance and mercifully stowed the glowing orb away in her bag. “That’s all the radiation that used to be in the water,” she said, as if that was a good thing.
“Jesus Christ!” Marcus took a step away from her, and even his father looked alarmed, for all that he was already dying. “Is that safe?”
Beka smirked. “Safer than your driving,” she said. But she took pity on them and added, “No, seriously, the sphere is completely impermeable; it only takes things in, and doesn’t let them out.”
“Oh.” Marcus let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “That’s good. What the hell are you going to do with it?”
“I’ll take it with me to the Otherworld when I go to see the Queen,” she said, like other people mentioned they were going to Santa Carmelita to catch a movie. “There are creatures there who will consider it a tasty treat.”
He was never going to get used to all the weird.
“Great,” Marcus said. “That’s just great. You did it. I’m so proud of you.”
And he was. So why did his heart feel like he’d swallowed fifty pounds of lead?
Standing there in her wet suit, hair dripping seawater onto the deck below, she looked just like the crazy surfer chick he’d pulled out of the ocean not so long ago. But she wasn’t the same girl at all. She was so much more—and so much more to him—than he would have ever dreamed possible. And way out of his league. It was almost enough to make him wish he didn’t know who and what she really was. Not quite, but almost.
“Here,” his da said, opening a cooler. “I thought we might want this.” He pulled out a bottle of champagne and three plastic cups. His smile wavered a bit around the edges, but he was clearly doing his best to put aside his usual crusty, growling demeanor, so it seemed like Marcus should do the same.
“Great,” he said again.
Beka winced, but he couldn’t tell if it was because of the champagne—a staple at Kesh’s seaside picnics, so she’d said—or because his “happy voice” was unconvincing in the extreme. Overhead, a passing gull dropped a load of guano, missing him by inches. Fabulous—even nature was critiquing his efforts.
“Great,” she echoed, not sounding any more sincere than he had. Luckily, his da didn’t appear to notice, and took up his cup in a shaky hand when Marcus poured them each a tiny bit.
“To Beka,” Marcus Senior said. “The heroine of the hour.”
Beka blushed a becoming pink tint that stained her cheeks and accented her bright blue eyes. “Oh, please. I am not.”
Marcus’s father nodded his head. “You are, young lady, and in more ways than one. You saved those sea people’s homes from poisonous radiation, which was nothing short of a miracle from where I’m standin’. You brought the fish back to where they belonged, which is going to save a lot of people here on land.” He gave her a tremulous grin, rusty from disuse. “And you helped me and my boy here reconnect, which I reckon was an even bigger miracle.”
“Hey,” Beka protested, waving her hands. “You guys did that yourself. I don’t get any credit for that one.”
“Yes, but you kept us from killing each other long enough to do it,” Marcus Senior said, winking at her.
“You can’t deny the truth of that, Beka,” Marcus said. And neither could he. The fact was, he and his father were barely speaking to each other at the point when she’d appeared out of the sea like a mythic goddess sprung from the waves. Somehow just by having her around, they’d both been transformed into kinder, less aggressive versions of themselves. Beka did that to people, and that was the biggest miracle of all.
“You brought the light back to this boat after too many years of darkness,” his da said, raising his glass to Beka again. “I thank you for that, and for brightening up my last days upon the earth.”
They all fell silent, the specter of the old man’s illness hanging over their attempt at celebration like a ghost at a wedding feast.
“It has been my pleasure,” Beka said, getting up and giving his da a hug. The old sailor actually looked pleased, which was almost as shocking as his toast had been.
“Speaking of darkness,” Marcus said, all the naked emotion making him twitch worse than a hill full of snipers. “That sky is looking pretty ominous. I’d better get us headed into port before we are hit by a storm and get sent to the bottom, taking all that nasty radiation right back down there.”
He headed for the cabin to start the engines, and as he walked rapidly away, he heard his father say, “That boy sure is cranky. I can’t imagine where he got that from.”
Beka’s laughter pealed out over the sea like clarion bells in a church, calling the faithful to worship.