Vicious Deep

  I wonder what they asked her. Whatever it is, she finds my eyes through the crowd. It’s not like she’s never looked at me before. She’s been looking at me for the past sixteen years. But now she really looks at me, and I can’t hear anything except my heart pulsing in my ears. How can she think this isn’t real?

  The girls wave us over, sloshing foamy beer down their arms.

  “You’re Tristan, right?” Brighton Beach girl asks. She has tan lines from wearing her sunglasses on the tower too long.

  “Yeah, how’d you know?”

  “I remember seeing your picture right after, you know, the storm. In, you know, the papers.”

  I forgot I was a local celebrity. “What’s your name?”

  “Cindy.”

  “This is my cousin Kurt.”

  Kurt waves at them, tucking his hair behind his ear. His body tenses as he fights the urge to bow. Layla catches it too, because she’s smiling at him.

  “It’s so weird seeing you without your uniform,” Cindy says, pointing down at me.

  “Actually,” I go, “the real uniform is under here.” And even as I say it, I want to bite my lip. I can feel Layla’s eyes burning holes into the side of my face. Why do I even say things? Why, Tristan? Why?

  Cindy giggles. “Ohmigod, you’re so funny!”

  “He’s hilarious,” Layla says flatly. “Aren’t you supposed to be looking for something?”

  She’s jealous. Of course she’s jealous. She gives me all this crap about how I make her feel this way, but if I accidentally flirt with someone else, I’m the bad guy.

  “Duty calls,” I say, leaving the other lifeguards with question-mark faces and Layla trying her best to not smile at me.

  Inside, the steady bass of a hip-hop song makes everyone bob their heads without even realizing they’re doing it. Up the beige carpeted steps, there’s a line for the bathroom. I don’t even bother trying to wait. A door is cracked open to my left. The room is all white and light blues, from the walls to the duvet. The wind blows through the balcony window, the temperature having dropped quite a bit since this afternoon. I know Maddy isn’t here. I know I need to be looking for her. But I have sand in places sand shouldn’t be.

  I rummage through my backpack for underwear, but I forgot to pack it. Great. Fine. I don’t need underwear. I’m a merman, after all. As I step out of my shorts to take my Speedo off, I catch the light scent of smoke, something sweet like burning flower petals.

  The curtains blow open more, and this time someone steps forward from the window. I stumble to get my cargo shorts on and end up slipping on the soft carpet.

  “Very smooth,” her pretty voice murmurs from where she stands. Gwen’s white-blond hair is weighed down with salt water and sand. She puffs rings of purple smoke past her pink lips.

  “What the hell, man?” I finish pulling my shorts on, trying to mask the embarrassment creeping its way up my torso. Not that I have anything to be embarrassed about, but still.

  “I’m no man, Tristan,” she says, tracing the shape of her silhouette. She’s in a bikini that looks like it’s all made of crochet and pink sequin, like if it moved at all, you could see the little bits that she’s hiding. She hooks her thumb on the sheer silver-and-gold wrap thing around her hips. “In case you can’t tell yet.”

  “It’s just something to say.”

  “You seem jumpy. Come, have a smoke.”

  I don’t know why I look at the door, as if someone is going to come and tell me not to do what I’m about to do. I’m not doing anything wrong. I pull my backpack on and follow her through the curtain. Form here we can see everyone in the backyard, on the boardwalk, and on the bit of the beach that’s in front of the house.

  “You missed the sunset,” she says. “It was exceptionally beautiful today.”

  “Yeah?” I reply, just for something to say.

  “It’s my favorite time of day.”

  “The end of it?”

  “The beginning of night.”

  “What are you doing here, Gwen?” I don’t know why I keep asking her that. I like having her around, I’ve decided. She’s not like everyone else around me.

  “I have nowhere else to go.” There’s something raw about the way she says it. The automatic light above the balcony goes off. “I spent all day swimming. Went to court for a bit to see if they had news of Elias.”

  At the mention of his name I look away. Down by the pool a guy picks up a girl and throws her into the water. Her top comes off with the force of it, but she just holds her hands in the air and woo-hoos.

  “No news?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t seem so upset.”

  I tuck a bit of hair behind her ear, and when I do, I see something I would never notice unless I was this close to her. Right over the razor-thin slits where her gills would be is a long scar that runs from the opening of her ear down to her clavicle. It nearly blends into her, so it looks like a thick vein of extra skin. It must’ve hurt like hell.

  It startles both of us. That I would touch her so absentmindedly. That I would even notice.

  “That was an accident,” she says.

  “Someone accidentally tried to cut you open?” I don’t know why, but I’m suddenly angry for her. I don’t want to ask if it was Elias, if this is the real reason she doesn’t care that he might be missing. That he’d never be around to do this again.

  “Would you be able to do it?” she starts. “If you were forced to marry a man and pretend that you cared about his every whim, his every mood, every desire—And if I didn’t do as he asked, fixed things to his liking with my magic—”

  “Actually I don’t think I’d ever be forced to marry a man.”

  She punches me lightly, but at least it makes her smile.

  “Elias swam into our palace with sea-horse loads of gold. Somehow he knew of me. He wanted me. And my father gave me away without even saying good-bye. My lady-in-waiting came in to pack for me and told me where we were going. That’s why I’m not at court. I’d be expected to sit around waiting for his return. Dead or alive.”

  The sharpness of her words is startling. It really is a different world. “I don’t get why you have to hide your powers. Everyone knows Thalia can talk to her sea horse.”

  Gwen forces a laugh. “It’s not that I’m hiding. I don’t believe we should be forced to reveal all parts of ourselves. After all, there was once a time when we all had magics. But like anything else, when you suppress it long enough, you forget it. If you really wanted to, you could make yourself forget anything.”

  I don’t think that’s true. There’s nothing that would make me forget my parents or Layla. But I don’t say as much. Instead I say, “Show me something.”

  She tilts her head to the side and looks at me with those gray eyes. She takes a long puff and blows the purple smoke out slowly. Her fingers reach up to the swirling smoke, where they take the shapes of a mermaid and a merman. They swim around each other; they have faces and arms, and lips, which they aren’t shy about using. They run their hands against each other so hard that I think they’ll go right through the smoke. She twirls her fingers again, and they’re pulled apart. Their faces contort, their arms reach for one another. They look up at Gwen with ghoulish faces. And then the smoke goes out, and the only thing that lingers is the smell of burning flowers.

  “What the—” I start. “And Elias knows you can do that?” Knew. Elias knew.

  Something dark passes over her eyes. “Magic isn’t bad. But it’s considered dangerous. The Sea King always worries we can’t be trusted with it.”

  “Can you?” I adjust the weight of my backpack. I can feel the thin hum of the sword. “Be trusted with it?”

  She doesn’t say anything. I think of
how quickly she used it to help Layla win. It’s not her fault Elias attacked me, but if she hadn’t done it, everything might be different now. We stay in this silence, staring over the railing. Right below us the lifeguard girls and Layla are watching Kurt talk to Thalia. If he would look up, he’d see me and Gwen watching them.

  The giggles from below drift up. Cindy is loud-whispering to the other girls, “Ohmigod, he’s so totally hot. Why are all of his cousins so totally hot?”

  Gwen rolls her eyes. We lean closer and hold on to the metal bars. It looks like we’re in a little prison.

  “Even the girls!” another girl says.

  “It’s so unfair,” a third girl adds. “At least there’s finally more eye candy than Tristan.”

  “I always though Tristan was just a man-slut who thought he was too hot for everyone.”

  The girls laugh. Layla doesn’t say anything in my defense. Do they know that we kissed only minutes ago? Would she even tell them?

  “I don’t think you’re too hot for everyone,” Gwen jokes, elbowing me in the side.

  “Har-har.” I wish I had a bucket of water to dump on them.

  Cindy gasps, like she just got hit with the mother lode of ideas. “You should go talk to Kurt, Layla.”

  “Why?” she says defensively. “It’s not like I haven’t talked to him before.”

  “Yeah, but you said you think he’s hot. So you need to go ask him if he has a girlfriend.”

  “He doesn’t.”

  “Did you ask?”

  Layla groans. “No, but he never talks about one.”

  “Guys never say it unless you ask. It’s like they think they can get away with it if you don’t ask. So it’s technically not lying.”

  Girl Number Two chimes in, “Yeah, I hate when they do that.”

  “He’s not like that,” Layla says, and I hate that she comes to Kurt’s defense and not mine.

  She stands up with protest, taking time to smooth out her tank top. She pulls her ponytail loose and shakes her hair out. The lifeguard girls whistle.

  Gwen laughs. “Ugh, I can smell their humanity. It’s like a burning tar pit.”

  I force myself to laugh, because my skin is on fire as Layla walks up to Kurt and Thalia. Thalia says something and points to the house. Layla shrugs and Thalia walks away, handing Kurt her backpack. I bet they’re asking where I’ve gone. Kurt adjusts the bag on his shoulder. Even with his human clothes and surfer-dude hair, his violet eyes stand out. People take turns stealing quick looks at him. He catches himself bowing at Layla when she stands in front of him and smiles at his feet.

  She tucks her thumbs in the pockets of her skirt and shifts her entire weight to one side. I’ve never seen her flirt before. Not really. It’s not that she thinks I’m making her like me; it’s that she doesn’t want to tell me that she wants him. Of course, Tristan. How could you be so stupid? I want to puke. I want to jump over this railing and toss him in the water, rip his face off for talking to my girl.

  Gwen stands up. “Boring. I’m getting hungry.” She loops her arm through mine and kisses my cheek with her glossy lips. “Cheer up, little merman.”

  “Huh? I’m not upset.”

  “Sure you’re not.” She says this matter-of-factly.

  I’m glad she doesn’t pry. I decide I like Gwen. She’s like the friend who is brutally honest with you even when you want someone to help you nurse your wounds.

  “You’re a prince, Tristan. You should learn to keep your emotions from your face.”

  I open the door. She thumbs my cheek where her sticky pink lipstick must have left a trace. Someone bumps into her, sloshing a cup full of beer all over Gwen. Her gray eyes darken like the sky getting ready for a thunderstorm. A thunderstorm directed right at Maddy, who stands in a white David Bowie T-shirt and a long black skirt. Her eyes are drunken headlights as she pats Gwen’s hip where the beer sloshed.

  Maddy laughs and hiccups. She slurs an apology. Then she sees me. Her eyes fall to where my cheek is pink with lipstick. I wonder how many things could go wrong all at once without me even trying.

  “Maddy.” When I say her name, her eyes focus.

  I hold on to Gwen’s hand to appease her, and her eyes go back to their unstormy gray.

  “Your cousin?” Maddy says. “The one with the green hair? You know? She said I needed to come see you.”

  She wobbles where she stands. She pulls her braids off to one side, and when she does so, her necklace gets caught. She pulls too hard and the chain breaks. It slides down her shirt. She cups her hands over it to stop it.

  “What is that?” I don’t care that I’m yelling.

  Maddy shakes her head, but she loses her balance and gropes at the air. The necklace keeps sliding. I hold on to her by the waist. The Venus pearl falls to the wooden floor with a thud.

  “You lied to me,” I say.

  “You cheated on me!”

  Thalia ascends the staircase and takes in the sight of us. I don’t know who she’s more surprised to see, Gwen or Maddy.

  “Let go of me!” Maddy pushes me off her, and we both grab for the necklace at the same time. Her fingers clamp around it. I’m flashing back to junior high football when we had a coed team for about a second. I always lost the ball, because I didn’t want to hurt the girls. She elbows me in the gut and steps on my feet.

  “Maddy, you don’t know what you’re doing. I need that back.”

  From outside the house there’s a crashing noise, like windows breaking and things falling into the pool. Gwen doesn’t miss a beat and grabs hold of Maddy’s arm. The three of us run down the carpeted stairs.

  “Ryan.” Thalia pushes girls out of her way and runs ahead of me.

  “What is that smell?” Gwen covers her mouth with her free hand.

  I can feel the heat of my dagger, like it’s burning its way through the backpack. Kids race past us out of the house as we run toward the backyard. The music is still blaring, masking the screams.

  In the kitchen the floor is covered with broken glass. Some guy has a phone shaking in his hands as he tries to dial 911 but messes up every time. Outside, anyone who couldn’t run away is hiding behind lawn chairs, bushes, and garbage cans.

  Gwen lets go of Maddy and rushes to the poolside. Princess Violet is lying with her hand against her chest. There’s a shard of glass sticking out from it. The girl’s green eyes are full of tears. Gwen pulls out the glass and helps her stand up. Angelo swims out of the pool. He doesn’t notice the bloody cut on his shoulder, or he doesn’t care. He just drapes the princess’s arm around his neck and helps her inside.

  The lights in the house go out, which only leaves the mosquito torches that line the backyard. The darkness is still. The merrows are hiding.

  Kurt pulls out a thin bow, and the metal symbols on it catch the firelight and glisten. I fumble with the zipper to my backpack. The blade of my knife glows in the dark. Thalia brandishes two long and thin swords.

  “I shouldn’t have come here,” I say. “I should’ve known.”

  Layla looks at me and speaks. But as a scream rips through the scared silence of the backyard, I can’t even hear her.

  The merrows seem to come from nowhere and everywhere at once.

  One with yellow scales along his arms seems to be more human than fish. Then he bares his rows of shark teeth. He smells the air and lets loose with an angry wail.

  “Stay down,” I tell Maddy, pushing her as gently as I can behind a patio chair.

  In the meantime the yellow merrow has vanished. Kurt wrestles with a hammerhead merrow who looks like nothing but sinewy strength. Angelo runs out brandishing an aluminum baseball bat. I’m ready to run to Angelo’s side, but he’s caught a red one with a face like something that hasn’t surfaced from the depths of the sea in years. Once
it’s dead, it starts decomposing, but he keeps swinging.

  Their rotting flesh and black blood covers the ground, sticky under our bare feet. We stand waiting as the merrows hide in the shadows again, watching us.

  Maddy is pulling on my shirt. “What’s happening?” She cries when she realizes there’s a thin line of blood on her arm. I wipe it off. It isn’t hers. It’s dripping from above us.

  The yellow-scaled merrow wrestles with someone on the balcony. It’s so dark I can’t see who he’s fighting, I can only hear the loud snap of a neck. The wail of triumph. The heave of the body over the merrow’s head. He throws the limp body over the balcony but misses the pool by a few inches. The body rolls over once until it lies on the blue tiles, broken. Then again until it falls into the pool with a splash.

  Not it. He. Until he falls.

  “Tristan!” Kurt yells. The hammerhead is on Kurt’s back, jaws open to bite.

  I run.

  I slip on the slick ground.

  I keep my blade out and cut cleanly across both the hammerhead’s ankles. When I right myself, I see Thalia’s thin dagger pierce the creature’s neck. The weight of him collapses on top of Kurt, and they topple into the pool.

  Maddy screams. A blue merrow sniffs at the air around her.

  It smells me.

  It goes in for her.

  I don’t think about the fact that they’re yards away, that if I miss by a few centimeters I will probably slice off my ex-girlfriend’s face, which might make her like me even less. What I do know is that I can make it. I know it like I know I’m my mother’s son. I throw my dagger and it pierces the merrow’s spine.

  The merrow stumbles once, deteriorating into mush as he does. It’s like smelling a fish market and burning sulfur in chemistry class at the same time. It’s not the most opportune time to think that I’ll never get the smell off me. The black blood splatters over Maddy’s clothes.

  I walk over and pull my dagger out of what’s left of the merrow’s back.