Venus gazed from Isis to Stella woefully, then turned to Heathcliff, who sat on the table beside her, a happy servant to the child who’d given him back his youth. “Heathcliff,” she said solemnly, “When you were a wee kitty, did you know your papa? I bet you did. I’m sure he loved you. Because all papas love their children and mean them no harm, don’t they?”
“Yes, yes that’s true,” I answered for Heathcliff.
Venus looked at me tearfully, trying to believe, and managed a small, hopeful smile.
Later, on the beach, I hooked a hand through Rhymer’s arm as he exited the surf. His eyes were tired. “Any news?” I asked.
He shook his head. “They’re either dead or Orion’s keeping them quiet.”
“They’re alive. I insist on hoping for the best.”
He smiled wearily. “Good. That’s your job, Moll. But my job is to plan for the worst.”
“What do you think Orion will do next?”
“I’m betting his next move is to come here and offer Jordan and the others as a trade for the girls.”
“But if he makes an offer such as that, you won’t accept it.”
He nodded, his face agonized. “At which point, he’ll slaughter them for sure.”
* * * *
Tula and I helped Jordan onto the long, cushioned bench that served as a sofa across from the yacht’s small galley. I covered him with a blanket and put a pillow under his head, smoothed his sun-streaked hair from his forehead, stroked his chin. “I’ve missed your touch,” he mumbled.
“You must be delirious,” I countered tearfully.
He sweated and dozed. I watched him without blinking, terrified. Even the best tan this side of a GQ model couldn’t hide the pallor of his face. The rise and fall of his chest riveted me. I counted the seconds between inhalations. The slow seep of blood from the clot on his side made me want to wring my hands and moan. Yep, the situation had sunk to the melodramatic level of bad reality TV. Jordan was a contestant on a one-man Survivor Island.
Tula sat beside me on the floor. She stared upwards grimly, listening to the rumble of the engines and occasional footsteps as Orion moved about the pilot house above us.
“When he walks,” she whispered, “he sounds heavier than any human being could possibly be. He can’t disguise that.”
“He’s not really human. You should see his claws.”
“I did.” She hugged herself. “For just a second. When he leapt aboard our boat and slashed Jordan. I caught just a glimpse of this . . . this huge, knobby, muscular, veined, webbed hand with . . . with claws like a giant cat’s.” She took a deep breath, then looked at me. “And his hand was silver.”
I nodded. “And iridescent. Like a fish.”
Tula nodded wildly. “We’re related to that creature. We’ve got violent fish blood. This proves it. It’s disturbing.”
“Oh, please. We’re no more related to him than your average Lander is related to a gorilla at the zoo.”
“Orion makes gorillas look civilized.”
The engines stopped. Orion’s feet creaked on the top deck as he descended to the cabin.
Tula and I traded a wide-eyed look. “What do you think his feet look like?” she whispered.
“Big. Silver. Webbed,” I grunted. “But no claws — or he’d sound like a dog clicking across a tile floor.”
The door burst open. Charley/Orion thrust his head inside. “Juna Lee. On deck. Now.”
I raised one of Jordan’s sweaty hands to my mouth, kissed it, then headed outside.
The sun was setting. A hot breeze tossed my hair. Somewhere on the other side of the planet a budding hurricane sent the remnants of its mood our way, rocking the small yacht on shallow, rolling swells. I lurched after ‘Charley,’ grimacing. “I’m not paying for this sunset dinner cruise. It sucks.”
He grabbed me by one arm and unceremoniously hauled me to the yacht’s bow, then pointed toward the faint hint of a coastline, just a haze on the horizon. “We’re only fifty miles from Sainte’s Point. We’ll arrive there tonight. It’s time for you to do your job.”
“My job?”
“Sing out. Call Rhymer McEvers. I want him to know you’re alive. Tell him I’ll hand the three of you to him safely after he meets me at moonrise, alone, at a place called Echo Marsh.”
“What? You’re going to ambush Rhymer, kill him, then track your daughters down on Sainte’s Point and kill them, too? No way am I helping you do that!”
He drew me close to his face. His five-hundred year old eyes burned into me. “I have lived too long and seen too much,” he whispered, “to mourn the deaths that necessity demands. To put it bluntly, you pampered child, either you do as I tell you, or I’ll rip your friends to pieces while you watch.”
I gulped air. “I want your word that you won’t hurt Jordan and Tula if I send a message to Rhymer for you. And I want your word that—”
My voice ended in a yip as the razor points of his hidden claws dug into my forearm. “Do you really want to see who you’re dealing with?” He bent closer to me, and Charley’s features vanished. My blood froze. I stared up into the thick-boned face of a silver sphinx, a beautiful horror, like something out of a science fiction comic book. No. Comic books portrayed mermen as sleek, fish-faced people.
They’d gotten it all wrong.
This offshoot of the Mer family tree had a human face covered in silver scales so tiny they formed a glistening, smooth skin. Black hair as coarse as seaweed cascaded down his back in thick braids like dread locks. Large, dark, browless eyes lasered me above a hooked nose and a wide mouth with pale, full lips. Those lips pulled back to reveal broad, white, human teeth, except for the little matter of the top and bottom canines, of which there were four on top and four on the bottom, a pair on each side, all an inch long, sharply pointed, and curved inward like white talons.
“Sing,” he ordered in a voice like the rumble of a dark tide.
I sang.
* * * *
Rhymer stood on the beach as if struck by lightning. The ocean stretched to a blood-red sunset. Somewhere out there, Orion waited. I gripped Rhymer’s arm. Deep in my mind I felt, or heard, the distant hum of the Mer voice that was speaking to him. Juna Lee. I’d know that snarky, sophisticated, Southern Belle drawl, anywhere.
He’s making me say all this, Rhymer. The mutant asshole will kill Jordan and Tula if I don’t play along. Let me tell you, I’ve known some aggressive mermen in my life, but this Orion takes the cake. Not to mention he’s seriously in need of a laser peel to remove his freakin’ facial scales, and he could use some good cosmetic dentistry to fix —
Silence. Orion had cut her voice off as if punching a button on a CD player.
Rhymer turned to me. “I’m to meet Orion tonight at midnight, alone, at a place near the mainland called Echo Marsh.”
I froze. “What else did he tell her to say?”
“That’s all. I could feel her fear. I could feel her anger. She’s protecting Jordan and Tula. Orion forced her to be his messenger.”
“What is Orion trying to accomplish? Why didn’t he even offer a trade?”
“Because I was wrong. He’s after something else. I’m not sure what.”
“Whatever it is, you can’t meet him alone. You can’t. It’s a trap.”
Rhymer looked at me sadly. “Aye, probably, but better that than have him come here. I do no’ want to fight him in front of the girls. They do no’ need to see their father’s blood.”
“Or yours.” I reeled. “You can’t fight him alone. He’s more powerful than any normal Mer, even you.”
“Moll, I have to try. I have no choice.”
“Please, please let me go with —“
“No. I want you to take the girls away from here. Put them in that bus of yours and head up the coast toward your own home state. Don’t stop, don’t look back, and don’t sing out, no matter what becomes of me.”
“I can’t. I can’t just leave you. It took me all thes
e years to find you.”
“You’ll never leave me.” He put his hand to his heart.
I cried.
* * * *
You floated down a sewer when you were a kid, I told myself. You can surely keep your shit together now and think of a way out of this situation.
“No, you can’t,” Orion said aloud.
He threw the yacht’s anchor overboard. In front of us the ocean made a black, rolling seascape. Above us, the stars looked like white pin points. I pointed to the night sky. “There’s your constellation. The one that looks warped.”
Orion laughed, grasped me by the wrist and dragged me into the cabin, then slammed the door behind us. Tula stood up anxiously. Jordan half-lay, half-sat on the cabin’s couch, woozy but furious as Orion continued to manacle me by one wrist. “Let go of her.”
Oh, how I wanted to wrap my legs around Jordan and kiss him, right then.
Orion released my wrist and nodded. “You’re a brave man—” he paused “—for caring about her. I salute you.”
“Well, how rude —“ I began.
Jordan cut me off. “Orion, if you kill my cousin Rhymer or hurt his nieces, I’ll hunt you down no matter where you go.”
“Don’t waste your efforts. As for tonight . . . I’ve disabled the engine and the radio. You’ll get nowhere, even if you escape from this locked cabin. Sing out, and no one will hear. Try to swim, and you’ll regret it. Look out the port windows at my pet.”
Tula and I sidled over to the windows and peered out. In the starlight, a silvery fin cut the ocean’s surface. It glided through our field of vision, then sank out of sight. I pivoted toward Orion. “Your pet is a Great White. Isn’t he a little out of his territory?”
“Yes. But I called him specifically with you in mind. The big sharks like it when their prey nags and threatens. They enjoy the high-pitched shriek of a human voice while they’re eating the voice’s owner. To them, it’s the equivalent of a dinner show. I’ve told him you’ll be particularly entertaining.”
“Listen, you shark whisperer, you won’t get away with this. You can’t trap us here while you go out to Echo Marsh and murder Rhymer McEvers. He’s a Mer. He’s your . . . your brother-in-law.”
“He stole my children.”
“Your children? You don’t care about those girls. You’ve never even met them.”
“I’ve visited them many times, I assure you. I’ve watched them for years. They just didn’t know it was me.”
After a stunned moment I blurted, “So what? They don’t know you, they don’t want to know you, and they’re terrified. Leave them alone. You can’t kill Rhymer and just take them. He’s their uncle. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“To be blunt, No. I’ve killed hundreds of people in my lifetime. From Spanish conquistadors to UniWorld scientists. Mer or Lander, it makes no difference to me. Family ties mean nothing either.”
Tula stepped up beside me. “Explain what you mean by that. Until now, most Singers — myself included — believed Mers such as you were just a fairytale. Or maybe a nightmare. You could have dispelled our prejudices. If you wanted to be part of the Mer community, you could be. Tell me why you’ve rejected our society. Tell me why you reject your own children.”
“Because I’ve watched my children and their mothers grow old and die, time and again. Lander or Mer, they always die. Loyalty to a family is a curse, not a blessing.”
Tula held out her hands in supplication. “But your own daughters—”
“Are of no importance to me except as property.”
She stared at him. “You can’t mean that.”
“I always mean what I say.”
I jabbed a forefinger at him. “Bullshit. You just need a good therapist.”
Orion stared at me as if I were a lame video game in a theater lobby. I was only worth a couple of quarters before the feature started. “It will be a shame,” he said finally, “if you’re eaten by the shark. You’ll give him indigestion.” He left the cabin. We heard the rumble and click of the hatch’s lock being secured, then the quick, heavy thud of his footsteps striding across the upper deck, and, finally, the precise swoosh as he dived into the water.
Silence. The yacht rocked gently. Tula and I traded worried looks. Jordan struggled off the couch. I quickly slid an arm under his shoulders as he stood. He dripped blood on the floor. “We’ve got to find some way to get out of this cabin,” he said.
“Unfortunately, jimmying locks is one of the rare, nefarious skills I don’t have.”
“I do,” Tula said. When we looked at her incredulously, she sighed. “The Lander I loved — the one whose memory of me I erased? I never told you much about him, Juna Lee, because it’s painful to discuss him, but he grew up on the streets of Los Angeles. Long before he became rich and notorious, he was poor and notorious. He led a street gang. Once, for fun, during a long, romantic weekend in the south of France, he taught me to pick locks and hack into the computer systems of major governments.” She paused. “He was multi-talented.”
“Your mysterious Lander was a streetwise super-hacker? Was his name ‘Neo’ and did the Matrix finally suck him back into cyberspace?”
“I knew you wouldn’t understand,” she muttered, then headed for the galley’s utensil drawer to search for breaking-and-exiting tools.
Clash of the Titans
Chapter 22
Moll looked a little frail and lost in the driver’s seat of her big bus, but her face was set in determination. She hung her mermaid cane from the back of the seat. Behind her, their faces shadowy in the light over a dining table, the girls huddled like unhappy doves, watching us. I stood beside the four of them, my throat closed and aching.
’Tis no small thing for a man trained in fighting to give himself over to the peacefulness of love.
“You do as Moll says,” I told the girls. “She’s the commander of this operation now.”
They nodded. Moll’s throat worked. “I’ll hold the fort until your return.”
“Aye. I’ll see you soon.”
Probably a lie. I didn’t expect to survive a fight with Orion. I tried to hide that thought from Moll, but her eyes squinted in pain. “We’ll be waiting.”
I caught her behind the head, wound my fingers through her soft brown hair as if tasting silk through my skin, and kissed her quickly, twice, on the mouth. She raised her hands and dragged them down my cheeks and neck. I pulled back for both our sakes and looked at the girls. “Never doubt I’m proud to be your uncle, such as I am.”
I turned to go.
Venus launched herself and grabbed me ‘round the legs. Stella and Isis crowded in behind her. The three looked up at me. “We love you, Uncle,” Stella said.
Moll and I traded a look. Her eyes tearful, she spoke to me privately, inside my mind. We all love you. Say it back.
I nodded. “I love the lot of you,” I said to her and the girls hoarsely. “You’re what makes the oceans rise and fall to me.”
Then I turned, stepped down from the bus, headed for Bellemeade Bay without a backward glance that might undo me, and dived into the water.
* * * *
“Nice night to be eaten by a shark,” I said grimly. Tula and I sat cross-legged on the yacht’s deck. The small cruiser rode the summer swells in silence except for the erotic, rhythmic slurp of the ocean against the bow. I kept a hand on Jordan’s shoulder. He was stretched out beside us, his forehead sweaty and eyes half-shut in pain.
Tula got up and looked over the side. A silver fin slithered through the starlit water. The deep, primitive hum of a shark voice — imagine a big dog growling underwater — filled our heads. Tula snorted. “Go away, you oversized minnow. We’re not afraid of you.”
Just your teeth, I thought. Normally, Mers swim in the company of dolphins. The dolphins are like pet guard dogs, fending off jelly fish and small sharks. Loyal dolphins will even attack a Great White and drive him away. But we couldn’t wait for a dolphin cavalry to come to
the rescue tonight. Sharks don’t converse with us the way dolphins do; like most fish, they’re nearly as primitive in their thought process as some professional football players. Speaking to one is like pleading with a big, dumb, hungry linebacker.
Tula sat down beside me. “You try talking to him.”
I got up and went to the rail. “Hey, you. Howz about I call up a nice little school of fish for you to eat? Hmmm? I’ll do that for you if you’ll promise to leave after you clean your plate.” Our finned prison guard raised his snout from the water, opened his mouth, and displayed a maw large enough to swallow me whole, outlined with sharp teeth. It was easy to guess what he was thinking.
I don’t want an appetizer. I want a main course. Jump in.
“Eat this,” I said, and flipped him a bird. I stomped back over to Tula.
“What did the shark say?” Tula asked grimly.
“He’s auditioning for a remake of Jaws. He wants me to play the part called Naked Swimming Girl Who Gets Eaten in the Opening Scene.”
“We’re screwed.”
“Orion said if we sang out, no one would hear us. But that’s not true. Mers all over this part of the coast will hear us. The problem is, there’s a ninety-nine percent chance none of them can get here in time to help us.”
Tula frowned at me. “When I was a little girl and I’d come spend the summer with you in Charleston, I always admired you for jumping down that storm drain in your parents’ back yard, even if I was too afraid to jump with you. You never calculated the odds. You never hesitated.”
I looked at her, my throat burning with emotion. She was right. “Let’s work on that one percent.”
We sang.
* * * *
Echo Marsh. Where the dead can speak.
Aye, just superstition; a spooky tale told by African slaves and coastal planters I’d read in a local history book from Lilith’s library. If the dead could really speak, my sister would be here, telling me whether I should fight the father of her children to his death or mine.
Yet as I swam through black, narrow channels into the marsh I felt the ghosts, the dark slip of large shapes in the water. Out in the ocean some miles away I sensed a military submarine cruising silently in the deep. Probably nuclear, hopefully American. During my time in the British service I had worked in a unit controlled by Mers — passing ourselves off as Landers, naturally — quietly going about the job of tracking the Russian subs, and others, that creep beneath the seas with all the subtlety of submerged junkyards. I’d thought only the man-made monsters of the deep threatened the rest of us.