Luke protested. “I’m never a baby. I’m manly ... and studly ... and really turned on by what you just did.”
“Oh, geez.” Raven rolled her eyes to the heavens. “Must you be so gross?”
Luke ignored her and moved closer to Cole. “You probably need to recharge,” he said in a husky voice. “Like, in private.”
Cole’s lips quirked. “I could probably manage that.” The look he shot me was triumphant. He’d won. He knew he would. Their relationship would be stronger because of it.
“What should we do about this?” Nellie asked, gesturing toward the mess on the beach. “Should we try to clean it up?”
Max shook his head. “No. It’s not as if there are bodies to alert the locals to what happened here.” He stared at the ocean. “Naida, do you sense anything?”
The pixie planted her hands on her hips and shook her head. “No. Whatever it was, it’s gone.”
“For now at least,” Max agreed. “We’ll take turns providing watch, just to be on the safe side. I think we’re fine for tonight. Tomorrow, we need to figure out what happened. It might not be a one-time event.”
Kade blanched. “You mean we could be attacked again?”
Max clapped his son on the shoulder and smiled. “Anything is possible. I would’ve thought you’d learned that by now.”
“But ... .” Kade was flummoxed.
“Come on,” I urged, slipping my hand into his. “Let’s get some sleep. Morning will come soon enough. We’ll figure this out then.”
4
Four
Breakfast was a busy affair the next morning. Nobody came late and questions were flying before anybody had even taken their seats.
“Hold up.” Max raised his hand and pinned each member of our team with a quelling look in turn. “There’s no reason to panic. Let’s attack this in an organized manner.”
“Oh, there’s nothing I love more than being told to calm down by a man,” Raven drawled, shaking her head.
Max jabbed a finger in her direction. “Don’t be difficult, Raven.” Max’s tone was that of a chiding parent. “We’re all in this together. Your attitude isn’t necessary.”
Raven had the grace to be abashed, which was saying something, because she idled at “come at me, bro.” The look she shot Max was apologetic, though just barely. “I was simply saying that we could have a fight on our hands,” she demurred. “Of course we need to work together to solve this.”
Max rolled his eyes. He was familiar enough with Raven’s attitude to recognize that was the best he was going to get from her. “I went to the beach this morning,” he started, turning to the business at hand. “Most of what remained from the battle last night is gone. I found a few remnants, but I made sure to take care of them.” He dug in his pocket and placed what looked to be a barnacle-encrusted coin on the table. “Anyone recognize this?”
Nellie was the first to snatch it up. Today he was dressed in an airy sundress and his muscular arms were on full display. “Is this what I think it is?”
“If you mean One-Eyed Willie’s treasure, then yes,” Luke replied, grinning as he delivered Cole a mug of coffee. They seemed especially lovey-dovey this morning.
Raven’s forehead wrinkled. “Who is One-Eyed Willie?”
“The most fearsome pirate in all the land,” Luke replied with a straight face.
When I glanced back at Max, I found his expression unreadable. Sensing trouble, I waded in. “It’s from a movie,” I volunteered.
“I’m familiar with The Goonies,” Max reassured, cracking a smile. “In fact, I took Kade to see it when I visited once. He was about ten and it was being shown at a revival theater.”
Kade brightened considerably. “I forgot about that. It was a lot of fun. The movie was great and after you explained to me that pirate treasure was real, that it was more than a magical story.”
Max smiled indulgently. “You wanted to find a pirate ship of your own.”
“I never did find one.”
“You might get the chance now,” I noted, snagging the doubloon from Nellie to study it. “This is old.”
“Very old,” Max agreed. “If I had to guess, I’d say that coin is at least four-hundred years old.”
Kade gaped. “Then it really did come from a pirate.”
The look Max shot his son was fond. Their relationship was still a work in progress, but it was obvious they were making strides.
“I don’t want to be the tool of the group,” Nellie started, his eyebrows hiking when multiple sets of eyes landed on him. “I’m serious. I really don’t want to rain on anybody’s pirate parade, but what does that coin have to do with what happened last night? We weren’t attacked by the ghosts of pirates.”
“In a way, we were,” Max countered. “Those creatures coming out of the water were once human.”
“How does that work?” Cole asked, lifting his chin. “Were they traditional zombies?”
“You tell me,” Max said. “You took out most of them.”
“I had help,” Cole volunteered quickly.
Max waved away the statement as if it were nothing more than a vague annoyance. “Fire took them out, even though they were wet from the ocean. That seems to indicate they were traditional zombies, although perhaps with a twist.”
I’d already caught on to where he was leading the conversation. “You think all the bodies came from the ocean … and not just for the attack. You think they originated there.”
Max nodded as he settled at the table between Kade and Luke. “I spent a great deal of time at the beach this morning studying what remained. I was reasonably assured that there was nothing to get us in trouble lying about, but it’s always good to double check.”
“You found the doubloon,” I said. “Anything else?”
“In a very vague sense.” Max dug into his pocket and came back with a few more items that he dumped on the picnic table.
I leaned forward and immediately reached for a tarnished piece of metal. “Is this what I think it is?”
“Yes.” Max’s expression was serious. “It’s an admiral’s stripe ... from quite a long time ago.”
“What does this mean?” Kade asked. “Why was all this stuff on the beach?”
“Because the bodies were called from the depths of the ocean,” Cole surmised. “Think about it. Charleston was a busy port. This was the hub of the slave trade, so ships were coming in and out at a steady clip. Many ships didn’t make it to port and sailors were lost at sea.”
“And those are the people we fought last night?” Kade rubbed his forehead. “That is really freaky.”
Max smirked. “It makes sense. We fought a few before we were drawn to the explosion you created. I studied them. Some were just bones.”
“We saw that too,” I confirmed. “You’re saying someone conjured the bodies lost in the deep and sent them to land to attack.”