“Are you going to say next that it’s God’s will?” Maraval asked with a snort. “We have grown beyond letting God decide history for us.”

“And so you decide who lives and who dies?”

“Sacrifices have to be made,” Maraval said with a blasé shrug.

Oriana swallowed, fury rising in her gut. It was exactly what Maria Melo had said about choosing Isabel. Was a spy no different from this man, playing at being one of the gods? Perhaps Maria Melo was different in her espoused cause, but both valued their goals above innocent lives.

She laid one hand on Duilio’s back so he would know she was behind him. Keeping her eyes on the four police officers, she backed away. She was in the water then, up to her knees. She turned and dove into the shallows, pushing away toward the edge of the cove.

Duilio heard a splash behind him; Oriana had fled to the safety of the ocean.

Good. She would be safe, and he could count on her and Erdano to get the pelt back to his mother. He wasn’t going to get out of this alive, not facing five armed men. He could take two, possibly three. He took a deep breath, feeling remarkably calm. “I’m not a religious man, Maraval,” he said, “but don’t you worry you’re inviting divine retribution?”

“God doesn’t concern me,” Maraval said blithely. “Now out of my way, Ferreira. We have a tide to catch. Rios, you lost control of him. You finish him off.”

Duilio tore his eyes away from Maraval long enough to see that one of the four officers was indeed Captain Rios. The captain gestured with his pistol for Duilio to clear the way to the pier for his master. Duilio gazed at the muzzle of the gun, knowing Rios wasn’t going to hesitate. Rios had never liked him.

He was going to die now.

And then a sound made him spin about, eyes drawn toward the sea.

Duilio felt his heart slow as an ethereal song tore his attention away from the fire, from Rios, from Maraval. He tried to quiet his own breathing so he could hear it better. He needed to find the source.

He scanned the dark water with desperate eyes. At the edge of the cove he could see a swimmer, only a dark silhouette of a head above the water. He had to find her. . . .

Then he realized what he was hearing. Wordless, keening, it wasn’t a song after all. Duilio ground his teeth together and jammed fingers into his ears, trying to block it out, trying to concentrate.

His pulse pounded in his shut-off ears and his head buzzed as if a fly were trapped inside. He wanted nothing more than to remove the fingers from his ears and let it out, but if he did he would surely find himself swimming toward that open ocean, unable to help answering Oriana’s call.

CHAPTER 35

It was her only weapon against the man who held a gun on Duilio.

Oriana wove the call from memories of childhood longing, from every bit of homesickness she’d felt in the last two years, of the yearning to have her family whole again. She didn’t weave a spell of sexual desire, but of comfort and home and love. It was her only magic, her only way to protect him—to call them to her.

He stayed on the shore, hands on either side of his head. He recognized what she was doing and didn’t come to her. Thank the gods!

But the others did—all of them, the four police officers and Maraval. The marquis resisted her only for a second before his desire for the comfort of fond memories led him to the edge of the pier. He dropped his bag and leapt into the water. He swam toward her, drawn as straight as an arrow.

Two of the police officers didn’t swim. They were going to drown.

Oriana didn’t let that stop her. She couldn’t let them go and still call Maraval. So she sang on, kicking farther away from the beach as she did so. She swam out to sea, the three of them—no, only two now—following her call. How far out did she need to draw them?

She submerged, skirts buoying about her, and dropped her call to a hum. She spread her hands wide so that her webbing could sense the movement of the two remaining pursuers. There was a disturbance in the water behind her, but with a flash of dismay, she realized one of her pursuers was almost on her. She kicked desperately backward, only to collide with Erdano. Suddenly her arms were full of pelt and he was gone in a flurry of bubbles, the policeman in his grasp. He might not be all that clever on land, but Erdano was fast in the water.

Oriana turned her attention back to her lone pursuer: a slower swimmer moving doggedly in pursuit. Clutching the pelt to her chest with one arm, she sank lower. Then she started back to the beach, cutting around her adversary with a dozen feet to spare. It was Maraval.

Was this her chance? She could use her call to draw him down in the water, to cause him to follow her deeper to his own death. It would be a proper repayment for what he’d done to Isabel, a death by drowning. She could pull him down and then release her control of him when it was too late for him to make it to the surface but not too late to understand that he was drowning. It would be justice.

She could almost feel the pleasure that watching the terror on his face would hold. Her free hand curled into a fist, nails digging into her palm.

They needed him. If they were going to find everyone involved in this plot, they needed the head of the serpent. So Oriana swam back toward the beach, coming out of the water at the side of the pier.

But Duilio was no longer alone. A petite woman dressed and veiled in black stood near the water’s edge, easily visible on the pale sands.

Duilio grabbed Oriana’s arm and drew her back away from that dark form. “What happened?” he asked, pointing with his chin toward the sodden pelt clutched under her arm.

Oriana could sense the tension in him. “Erdano gave me this. Maraval’s still out there.”

The woman turned her black-veiled head in Oriana’s direction and in accented Portuguese said, “Bring him back.”

Her voice was flat, without emotion. Oriana felt a chill not due to the cold air, until Duilio set a hand on her shoulder to steady her. “She’s on our side. She’s with Gaspar.”

Had Gaspar managed to find them with his compass? She spotted him then, walking along the path toward the beach.

Reassured, Oriana took a deep breath, turned to face the sea, and called again. Duilio turned his head, plugging one ear with his free hand; he held his revolver in the other. Apparently her call had some effect on him, but Duilio managed to resist her, keeping his gun trained on the waves lapping at the edge of the beach. Gaspar seemed completely unmoved. After only a few minutes Maraval stumbled onto the sands, his fine clothes ruined. Oriana closed her mouth, letting him go.

Duilio kept his gun trained on the man. But upon seeing the woman waiting for him on the shore, Maraval struggled to his feet. Grimacing, he swung one arm toward her. She merely touched him with one slim hand. Maraval whimpered. She said a word in a foreign language, and he collapsed to the sands. His ragged breathing showed he was still alive, but the black-veiled woman knelt down, apparently unconcerned by any threat Maraval might pose. “I can take your life away,” she told him, “bit by bit, drag you down into the waters and hold you there till you drown in my arms. But first you and I have much to talk about.”

Oriana felt ill. Hadn’t she just thought of doing the same thing?

Gaspar strode directly over to the woman’s side and proceeded to put cuffs on the prone Maraval. As if they’d been waiting, Joaquim and Pinheiro appeared at the end of the path, both tugging wads of cotton or wool from their ears.

“Don’t try anything on me, old man,” Gaspar said as he dragged Maraval to his feet. “It won’t work.”