So much for that.
“A number of them, in fact,” she said with perfect honesty. She always tried to speak the truth if possible; there was power in words, and it didn’t do to misuse them. “You can call me Beka. Beka Yancy.”
He hesitated, and then stuck out one large, calloused hand. A tingle ran through her as she took it. “Marcus Dermott. The charming gentleman you met before is my father, Marcus Senior.”
A scowl marred his otherwise attractive visage. “I’m helping him out temporarily. This is his boat.” Something about the way he said it made her think he’d rather be anywhere but here, doing anything but this.
“He’s sick, isn’t he?” she said softly. Even without the heightened sensitivity of a Baba, she would have noticed the obvious pallor under the older man’s weathered skin, and the way his well-worn clothes hung on a frame that looked as though it had lost much of its original bulk. “What’s wrong with him?”
Marcus stared at her, then out at sea. “Advanced lung cancer. He’d been fighting it for a few months before I got home from my last tour of duty. Trying to work this boat with only two crew, one of them barely out of school.” Beka could see the muscles in his shoulders bunching up under the dark tee shirt he wore.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Babas didn’t suffer from Human illnesses much; one of the benefits of being a powerful witch. But that didn’t make it any easier to watch the people around you suffer. Her mentor used to warn her away from close friendships with Humans, said they were too fragile and short-lived for folks like them. Beka was almost thirty but still looked like she was in her early twenties. Yet another reason not to get attached—sooner or later, someone would notice. But that didn’t mean she didn’t like Humans. After all, she’d been born one.
Marcus shrugged, still not looking at her. But his shoulders hunched a little more, making a lie of his casual tone. “I told him that the cigarettes would catch up with him someday. He tells me he quit a couple of years ago, but I guess it was too late.”
Something about that rang strangely. “He told you? You didn’t know?”
“I did three hitches in the Marines,” he said. His back straightened as if just saying the word made him stronger. “Only got out a little while ago. While I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with myself, some busybody called to tell me my father was sick. So I came here to pitch in. Not that the old man wants my aid.”
He snorted. “You should have seen his face when I showed up. Cursed that doctor up, down, and sideways.” A crooked grin relaxed the grim lines set into his face and startled Beka into realizing he was actually quite handsome. If you liked your men tough and muscular and just a little scruffy around the edges. Which she didn’t, thankfully.
She turned a little so she could see his face better, enjoying the light touch of the spray on her skin. All Baba Yagas were in tune with the elements, but each tended to be drawn more strongly to one in particular. Her sister Baba, Barbara Yager, who had just relocated to New York State, was tied to the earth. Beka, on the other hand, was water all the way. Although she traveled around as Babas did, she slept the most soundly when she could hear the ocean singing a lullaby through her open windows.
“How long had it been since you’d seen him?” she asked, more because she was enjoying the deep rumble of his voice than out of any desire to know. Soon they’d be onshore; she’d pay him off and then she’d never see him again. An odd shivery melancholy ran through her at the thought, but she shrugged it away.
Marcus swiveled to face her, his visage settling back into its customary wall of stone. For a minute, she thought he wasn’t going to answer her.
“I left the day I turned eighteen,” he said. “Joined up that week, and haven’t been home since. Until now.”
“You said you did three tours.” Beka thought about what little she knew about the military. “That’s twelve years, isn’t it?” She blinked. Babas were solitary creatures, for the most part, except for the time they spent training their replacements (usually about fifteen or sixteen years, for most, although Beka’s mentor had stuck around for a lot longer, since she didn’t trust Beka to manage on her own). But Beka knew that Humans usually valued family as much as the Selkies and the Merpeople did. “You couldn’t get back here to visit in all that time? That’s so sad.”
Marcus stood up abruptly, his large shadow blocking out the sun. “Not really,” he said shortly. “We don’t get along.”
Beka opened her mouth to say something, but he stalked off toward the port side and didn’t say another word to her until the Wily Serpent glided into the harbor as smoothly as its name.
THREE