The Savage Blue

  But before I can take another step into the shadows of the castle walls, a tall woman emerges. Her black leather clothes glisten in the moonlight. Her hair is a shock of bloody red cascading over one shoulder.

  “Tristan—” Thalia takes a step back, crushing a twig that seems to echo all over the park.

  The woman bends her face over the crossbow in her arms.

  I raise a hand, about to say, “Don’t shoot!” but I hear it. The crunch of leaves beneath her feet. The spring release of her bow. The way the air is split by the arrow, silver and sharp and headed right at my face.

  The arrow shoots right through the center of my palm. Thalia screams my name.

  A familiar voice barks, “Rachel! No!”

  Frederik is a shadow in the park, zooming toward the redhead with the bow. I can hear the bow fall against a rock.

  I grunt through the pain, fighting the reaction to ball my hand into a fist.

  “Nice friends you’ve got, vampire,” Thalia says.

  She examines my hand. The shaft went right through. There’s so much blood. On the ground. In my palm. When Thalia wipes her forehead, a red streak comes away like a brushstroke.

  “They were trespassing, Fred.”

  Another set of feet rush through the trees. It’s Marty the shapeshifter. He pushes past the redhead, swivels his black baseball cap backward, and kneels down by me. “They’re friends.”

  I grind my teeth as he takes my hand.

  “I have to break the shaft,” he says, “and pull it straight through. Okay?”

  “Just get it out.” I let myself scream once, then hold my breath. Fuzzy numbness starts to crawl along my entire arm. I have the vague feeling that’s what an army of ants crawling on your skin would feel like.

  “Want me to turn into someone more appealing?” Marty’s pale face turns into a blond I’m pretty sure I’ve seen on the cover of one of Angelo’s Maxim magazines. Then my stomach heaves when Marty turns into Layla. The hazel eyes smile down at me. But the thing about supernatural creatures is that they don’t smell like anything, and I turn my face to the side.

  “I don’t think now’s the time,” Frederik says.

  Then Marty is Marty again, messy brown hair beneath his baseball cap. “On three.” His mouth twitches. “This is gonna hurt.” I clench my jaw, bracing for the snap.

  “One.”

  But he doesn’t make it to three, and the next thing I feel is the arrow sliding through my open palm, leaving a bloody hole. “Knew you were going to do that.” I nurse my hurt hand on top of the good one. The blood isn’t pooling anymore, but my whole hand is numb and swollen.

  Rachel, the Red Menace, stands with all her weight on one leg. “Why are you pissed when you just tried to shoot me in the head?” She flips her hair over one shoulder and turns away from us. “I’ll tell Shelly not to worry.”

  “I’m going to find something to dress the wound with,” Thalia says. Frederik stares at my hand with a possessed look. I retract my hand, realizing blood plus vampires aren’t a good combination. His hand clamps down on Thalia’s shoulder. He says, “There’s no need.”

  “No need?” I’m so confused. Unless he means he’s going to lick the blood off.

  “Look.”

  And when I look, my hand is changing.

  The gouged hole is closing, the skin mending. I stretch my fingers and flip my hand front to back. It’s like there was never a hole to begin with. My hand looks like I dipped it in a jar of blood. “That’s new,” Marty says.

  From behind them, a short somebody wrapped in green fabric waddles over with the help of a walking stick. She gets to eye level, and I can see the folds of her white-gray face. Her tar black eyes are not happy to see me. Instead of a welcoming hug, Shelly, the oracle of Central Park, pokes me in the chest with her cane. “You have much explaining to do, Tristan Hart.”

  •••

  The poker table is a slab of polished stone.

  A mishmash of things is piled high in the center: jars of live bugs, a golden dagger, black apples, and stacks of regular, old American cash.

  “This…” I point a finger in Rachel’s disgustingly perfect face. “This is why you shot me?”

  She sits on one of the massive toadstools growing in a circle around the table. She takes her cards, glares at them, and throws them down. “I had a good hand. I should shoot you again.”

  “Now, now,” Shelly says, taking her seat. “There is no killing in my neck of the woods. Frederik?”

  The vampire looks up to the sky and sighs. “I didn’t know she had the bow. She’s a demigoddess. She can conjure lightning and puppies from thin air if she wants to.”

  Shelly sucks her teeth. “Well, conjure up some manners while you’re at it, dear. This is the future Sea King, and he’s got some answering to do.”

  “Me?”

  Shelly sets her eyes on me. Her palm-sized fairy maidens flit about, tugging on my hair and blowing kisses from the trees. Thalia bats them away, taking a seat beside Marty.

  “The last time I saw you,” Shelly says, “You couldn’t regrow your body parts.”

  “I can,” Marty says. “Sort of.”

  “Look, I’ll get to that later. Right now I need your help,” I say.

  “Gah! Always help.” Shelly throws her hands in the air. “Not just popping by to say hello?”

  “No,” I stutter. “I mean, I wanted to visit you also, but the championship and all.”

  Rachel and Frederik share a smirk at my expense.

  “I saw your sister,” I tell Shelly. “The one in the shell that can’t move. I like you way better, just so you know. And those laria are lame compared to your fairy girls.” This makes the fairies sigh and giggle in twinkling chimes.

  Shelly tut-tut-tuts and offers me a seat on one of the toadstools. “What is it you need help with?”

  I glance at Marty and Fred and Rachel—

  “Come now, Tristan. You’ve already achieved a great thing. You have the scepter. You do still have it, don’t you?”

  I tap my backpack. “I do.”

  “Then?” Shelly gives a no-nonsense headshake.

  “Don’t worry about Rachel,” Frederik says. “She’s impulsive and new to our fair city and the Thorne Hill Alliance, but she knows to keep quiet.” Then he sends a look that I’m not sure is meant to scare her or turn her on. “Or else.”

  “Uhm. Okay.” I unzip my backpack and bring out the paper I need translated.

  As soon as she sees it, Shelly mutters in a strange language. I’m pretty sure it’s all curses. “That bloodied barnacle.”

  “So you know each other?”

  Shelly purses her lips. It makes the folds of her face pucker.

  “Gregorious,” she says his name like an ex-boyfriend. “Always searching and searching. Can’t just write things down without raising too many questions.”

  “What is this?” I hold it up. She tries to take it but I pull it away. “I know this is your language. You’re swearing in it right now.”

  “The king wanted no record of that prophecy.”

  “Why? What does it say?”

  “Give it here, son,” she says, trying to take a motherly tone. “No.” I yank it away. “Not until you promise to tell me what it says.”

  She crosses her arms and looks away. “My services don’t come for free.”

  “We brought something,” Thalia says, offering an apologetic smile.

  Shelly’s ears, wherever they are, perk up. “Let me see.”

  Thalia takes out the small box of sea-horse eggs and opens it. I know how much she loves the eggs. I can’t thank her enough. They gleam in the moonlight.

  “Gah, I’ve no use for eggs that won’t hatch!”

  Thalia closes the box, shielding the eggs protectively.

  “I have an idea.” Frederik’s voice is like a purr. His eyes glance down at the deck of cards and then at me. “Tristan, can you play?”

  I scratch my throat. “Sort
of.”

  “How about we let Tristan play this hand?” Frederik offers. “Him against all of us. Winner takes all. If Tristan wins, Shelly has to translate his text. Then he will leave and continue his quest.”

  “What if Shelly wins?” Thalia asks.

  Shelly clears her throat and glances at Marty. He chokes on a fit of laughter and says, “I think Tristan should put up seven minutes in heaven.”

  “What if any of us win?” Rachel looks as if she could spit on my shoes. “He’s a bit short for my taste.”

  “We’re all playing for Shelly,” Frederick says. “Tristan versus the table.”

  “That’s not fair,” I say.

  This makes them all smile, even Rachel, who says, “Sounds like you haven’t many options.”

  Whatever Greg has in that parchment has to be important. I stretch the fingers of my miracle hand. I set the parchment in the pot, where it shrinks and turns into a glowing neon poker chip along with everything else.

  “Temporary charm,” Marty says. “Space saver when a game is in session.”

  I smile and cozy into the cushion of my toadstool. Cicadas and fairies whisper their sounds into the night.

  And I say, “Deal.”

  My buddy Angelo’s dad plays poker.

  He has his own table in their basement, along with a full bar and a pool table, a jukebox and a collection of NY Jets memorabilia that, if sold on eBay, could probably buy a Third World country.

  Here, under the moonlight, they watch me. Rachel, the newest demigoddess of crazy to arrive in New York, Marty the shapeshifter, Frederick the High Vampire of New York, and Shelly, the youngest of the sea oracles. I take a deep breath and remove any traces of a smile. People playing poker never seem to smile.

  Thalia watches with the utmost curiosity, flicking fairies like marbles every time they try to sit on her shoulders.

  Marty shuffles the deck of cards. He holds them out to Thalia, who blows on them. Each person’s hand is dealt. I’m fighting the urge to look at everyone right away. I want to read their faces. The problem is that I can’t sniff out their emotions like regular humans. Frederik, as always, is steel-faced and apathetic. Rachel has a very pretty red smile going on, and the folds of Shelly’s face are distracting.

  I finally peek at mine, and my mind flashes to the arrow driving through my palm so I wince. Ace and king of spades. My hand feels better than ever.

  I realize Frederik can probably hear my heartbeat, so I try to get it down.

  Shelly waves her fingers and a golden chip appears, representing her promise to me and calling my bet.

  For the most part, I keep my eyes on the cards and the glowing chips on the table. When Angelo’s dad bluffs, he shrugs his shoulders and sighs a whole lot. Even though his friends play with him all the time, they always fall for it.

  Rachel calls it by throwing in a tiny knife the size of my index finger, and the knife shrinks into a chip as red as her hair. Fred throws in a tiny jar containing a small flower. It becomes a pink chip.

  Marty reveals the flop. Jack of spades, ten of hearts, and three of diamonds.

  Fred groans and throws his cards into the muck pile, folding.

  Another burned card. Then the turn—ten of spades.

  Burn. Then the river, right in the middle. The queen of spades.

  I can’t show them how freaked out I am, so I reach in my pocket and bring out the Venus pearl. “Raise.”

  This is the first time I’ve ever heard Frederik gasp. I didn’t peg him for a jewelry kind of guy. He gets up and stomps around in circles.

  “Call,” Rachel smirks. She pulls a ring with a sparkling black diamond from thin air. It flips into a silver chip and gets added to the pot.

  Shelly holds her palm out and produces a red stone. She weighs it in her hand and hesitates, like she’s not willing to part with it. But she has to call or fold.

  She throws the stone in the pot, pursing her lips ever so slightly.

  The silence of the forest is incredibly loud—every chirping bird, rustling squirrel, and all the other creatures that must be lurking are soundless.

  Rachel growls from deep in her throat, like a roll of thunder. She reveals a straight—QJJJ8.

  Then Shelly, jiggling on her toadstool. Her smile is as wide as a slice of the moon. “After you’ve lived a few decades, you learn your way around the table.”

  The smack of her cards is a loud snap. For an ancient being, she’s a worse winner than the boys of the Thorne Hill football team. “Get your ChapStick out, champion. Full house.”

  When I see her tens full of jacks, I realize I’ve been holding my breath.

  Shelly reaches her hands into the pot, but I place my hand on top of hers. “Hang on, hang on.”

  I flip my cards over and there they are, white under the belly of the sky. A royal straight flush. “Beginner’s luck.”

  “You hustled me,” Shelly growls. “You said you couldn’t play.”

  “You guys assumed I couldn’t play,” I shrug.

  Marty nearly falls on the ground laughing. I take the chips and scoop them up to my side. The items revert back to their normal shapes. I drop my winnings into my backpack, except the crumbling sheet of paper.

  In my hands, a few more pieces crumble. Shelly’s shoulders relax, giving in. Maybe even happily. She smiles and says, “Give it here, champion. I knew you had it in you.”

  •••

  “Where is she?” I pace around a toadstool. “It’s been, like, ten minutes.” Shelly vanished into some trees and hasn’t come back yet. Frederik isn’t paying attention to me. He’s staring at Rachel, who’s using the poker table as a sofa. They share a secret smile with each other.

  Marty’s giving Thalia a lesson in basic card games. “Relax, dude,” he says. “She’s probably counting her corny shells. I made a joke about pawning them off to a psychic friend. Go fish.”

  Thalia pulls a card from their stack.

  “Have you been to see the landlocked yet?” Frederik asks. “Not yet.”

  “You should.”

  “I’ve been a little busy,” I say drily.

  I know in my bones I’m on to something.

  Frederik’s going to speak again, but the chime of fairies returns through the bushes. They form a curtain around Shelly in a fluttering march. She’s changed her green sari dress into a red robe.

  “Didn’t figure you for the never-wear-the-same-thing-every-hour type, Shell Bear,” Marty laughs.

  Shelly harrumphs and says, “Don’t make me get my stick.” “No, ma’am.” Marty takes off his baseball cap and bows to her.

  Shelly turns her cheek to him and says, “Also, I was just kidding. The Yankees are going to lose. Hope you haven’t made that bet yet.”

  “Anyway.” I wave at her.

  “This is the oracle’s procession,” Shelly snaps. “Just because I moved to the big city doesn’t mean I’ve turned my back on the old ways. Once, I would’ve sat under a pyre and waited for the words to strike. Now, the gods have retreated. They’ve left us alone. But I still wear the robes of the gods.”

  “Takes you half an hour to change a dress?” Frederik asks from the table.

  Shelly looks over my shoulder at him and yells, “I had to relieve myself. Some of us eat more than blood.”

  She takes the paper from my hand and holds it at eye level. Her hands are pruned, wrinkled, white. They glide over the paper. Wax on. Wax off.

  I can feel her pulling on something, but it’s not on my wavelength, whatever her magic is.

  The writing flows, the letters scramble. Her face goes slack, hypnotized and facing me but not looking at me at all. In the black of her eyes, the symbols scroll like Internet code.

  When it stops, she blinks the daze away. Suddenly she appears to be drooping. I realize it’s the way she slouches.

  “Shelly, what is it?” I take her chin with my fingers. The skin is cold and soft as leather.

  “Are you certain you want to know thi
s?”

  “Yes.” I don’t hesitate.

  Shelly considers my answer. “Our secrets are rising to the surface. This is the prophecy of the Star of the Sea. My ancestor.”

  “Which means?” I turn back, wondering if the others are still there because they’re so quiet. Covered in shadow, they watch.

  Shelly stares right into my eyes as she recites:

  “When known is the last son of kings,

  Only the sea will remain.

  The sky will shatter

  And the king will rip the earth once more.

  Beneath, the heart of the sea awakens.

  When Death sets fire to Eternity,

  The daughter of the sea weeps darkness

  In darkness we will remain.”

  “Are there any happy prophecies?” Marty asks. “Like, born will be the last son of kings and he’s going to shit rainbows.”

  “That sounds terribly uncomfortable.” Thalia groans.

  “What does ‘Death sets fire to Eternity’ mean?” Fred asks.

  “What does any of it mean?” I ask.

  Thalia drops her cards and walks over to Shelly and me. “It’s got to be about Tristan. He’s the last son of kings. The Sea King broke the sea, technically, when he split the trident apart.”

  I’m nodding, staring at Shelly for anything. She’s cold as stone when she says, “Our kind is shifting, moving like the plates beneath the earth.”

  That’s the second time I’ve heard that. Eternity. Shifting.

  Kurt said his oracle was supposed to be at the Vanishing Cove, in the Well of Memories, and she wasn’t there. Eternity. Shifting. If the oracles are physically shifting…

  “Shelly,” I say, “Is Eternity a place?”

  She nods once.

  “So the nautilus maid’s home was in Eternity?” I say slowly. “And then she switched with the oracle that belongs in the Vanishing Cove?”

  Shelly stares at me curiously. “Yes. Chrysilla’s true home was Eternity.”

  I swallow the dryness on my tongue. “Can you tell me where it is?”

  “I can’t.”