“You’re being selfish.”
Horror coursed through me, molten and electric. “No. No, I’m not being selfish.”
“Yes, you are. You’re selfishly focusing on your own feelings instead of forgiving him for screwing up. He died too, you know. He’s been punished as much as a person can. Now you’re just slinging mud in the afterlife. You’re the bad guy in this situation, Rach. Face it.”
She turned and left me in the corner, my mouth open, unable to even blink.
“I’m not selfish,” I whispered. “I’m not.”
I’d died. I’d literally died because of Commander Hollander’s mistake. If he’d only maimed me, nobody would’ve questioned my anger at him. He was supposed to know how to land a stupid plane on the flight deck, for crying out loud. Yeah, I was sure it was a tricky maneuver, but nobody would’ve just la-de-da forgiven me for incorrectly handling the uranium in the reactor, especially if someone had died.
“Or if twenty-five people had died,” I hissed to myself. Heat crept up my collar. He was a flyboy, a jock in a flight suit, so of course he got a pass. He’d killed more than a score of sailors, all proudly wearing our country’s cloth. He needed to own up to that before I could even begin to move past it.
But stewing about it in the engine room wasn’t doing me any good. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my coveralls and wandered back to the group. Bickley was explaining the basics of marine engines to Hollander, who was nodding along politely. I joined Torres and elbowed her hard in the ribs. I was still mad about what she’d said.
And it wasn’t true. I wasn’t selfish.
Without warning, the tinny whistle of the captain’s com went off, and we all jerked our heads up to look at the intercom.
“This is your captain speaking. We’re approaching the location of the Belles Échelles dragon. Aviators, report to the hangar bay. All other sailors, man your stations.”
The whistle sounded again, and he cut the line.
“Belles Échelles dragon?” Torres repeated. “And Port des Mortes. Why is everything around here French?”
“I asked another aviator that yesterday,” Commander Hollander said. “Our location roughly corresponds with the Mediterranean. These are considered the safe waters, too. Beyond this world’s Gibraltar, it’s nothing but wild sea. Apparently it’s pretty hairy out there.” He stepped through the doorframe, then turned and nodded at us. “See you all. First mission.”
He disappeared down the passageway, but was immediately replaced by Seaman Wayne. “Guys, you’re going to want to see this.”
Bickley raised an eyebrow. “Captain just said to man your stations, which means we’re staying down here, and you’re going back to the laundry, bucko.”
Wayne waved his hand dismissively. “Nah, ignore that. Come with me and check out the dragon. All the guys are up there.” He winked at me. “You know you want to.”
Torres and I exchanged a glance, and I knew she was thinking the same thing as me: on one hand, Wayne was trouble. On the other hand, a dragon.
Like there was any question.
“Come back here!” Bickley shouted. “Goldstein! Torres! You’re smarter than this!”
“We won’t be five minutes!” Torres shouted over her shoulder as we ran down the passageway after Wayne. “We’ll tell you all about the dragon!”
I stifled a giggle and flew up the stairs. The thuds of our boots joined dozens of others as the entire crew, it seemed, congregated in the hangar bay to catch site of the Belles Échelles dragon.
Could it fly? What could I expect? What were the aviators going to do?
A small crowd converged in the corner of the hangar bay, comprising mostly supply guys and other rates that weren’t strictly necessary in battle. Torres and I stood on our tiptoes to get a better look until one of the taller men noticed me and hissed at the others to let the ladies through. We were gently pushed to the front, and…
“Wow.” Torres and I breathed the word at the same time.
Far out in the water, at least a quarter mile, swam the most fearsome creature I’d ever beheld. Turquoise blue on its back, but iridescently white-gold on its belly, the dragon slithered in the air as it dodged the volley of bullets from no less than five Helldivers.
As it moved, it flitted in and out of the sunlight that streamed down through broken clouds. Whenever it did, the sun scattered off the dragon’s scales in marvelous bursts of rainbows. No gem in the living world could compare to the fire in the scales of this magnificent beast.
I was dazzled.
A yeoman leaned over and whispered, “Its name means ‘beautiful scales.’ I’ve always thought it was pretty swell, too.”
I grinned. “Were my thoughts that obvious?”
“Your eyes were sparkling more than the scales.”
I looked up at him, and couldn’t help but notice that he was cute, in a dashing, James Dean-kind of way. In fact, he was the kind sailor who’d stopped me in my flight from the conference room on my first day. He’d been concerned for me. What a sweetheart.
I stuck out my hand. “EMN2 Rachel Goldstein.” At his confused look, I added, “I’m an electrician.”
He shook my hand. “Yeoman Third Class Hanson. John Hanson.”
More like John Handsome.
The silly thought brought me up short. How very unlike me to think like that…but goodness, he was handsome. Blond hair, dark green eyes, a lantern jaw—my mother would’ve squawked in horror if she’d seen such a man hanging around me. Men were “distractions.”
But now that I thought about it, it was about time I let myself be distracted. I was an adult with nothing to lose. Besides, I was still angry about Commander Hollander, and I wanted to feel good again. A tall blond with a winning smile was conducive to that.
He handed me a pair of small, brass binoculars. “Here, why don’t you take a peek? Your friend can use them, too, if she likes.”
Blushing, I peered through the binoculars, focusing them until the dragon’s features were brought into sharp clarity. It was at once familiar and alien, the living embodiment of an idea—a fantasy in thrashing, snarling three dimensions. Its lizard-like face was surrounded by a midnight-blue fan, and with the binoculars I could see that even the fan had tiny sparkling scales.
I lowered the binoculars. “It’s a shame that they’re going to kill it. It’s so pretty.”
“Oh, don’t worry! If you look carefully, you can see that they’re mostly just strafing it to drive it away from one of the weak spots. Look, right there,” he said, pointing. “I bet you can almost see it. Sometimes the sky is a little different.”
I peered through the binoculars again, following his finger. Behind the dragon’s head was a disc-shaped… something. Like a smudge on a mirror, it was hard to focus on, but it was definitely there.
The clouds in the disc didn’t match the clouds around it. That was it.
My mouth fell open. “That’s the living world?”
“Possibly, or maybe an opening to the fairy realm, or any of the others. We patrol to keep all the worlds safe, though there are more openings to the world of the living than any other. The living world used to be like a motel for these kinds of monsters until the ships started patrolling.”
I handed him his binoculars. “How many ships are there?”
He flashed me his movie-star smile. “Would you like to have dinner with me in the galley tonight? I’d be happy to tell you all about your new life. I know you have a ton of questions. I sure did.”
A smile tugged at my lips, but I didn’t want to seem too eager. I nodded. “I’d love that. Can Torres come, too?”
Torres glanced at me, absorbed in her own conversation with three good-looking sailors. “I’ve already got my galley invite, thanks.”
We were still sharing a naughty smirk when a klaxon began to blare, ear-shattering and everywhere.
“General quarters! General quarters! All hands man your battle stations! This is not a drill!�
�
Commander Muree’s voice, amplified over the intercom, contained a vein of fear. Hanson and I looked at each other, then hurried away from the entrance of the hangar bay. What on earth was going on?
The ship lurched. Something had hit it—from underneath.
Sailors near the edge of the flight deck waved frantically for us to go inside. “It’s her!” one man screamed. “It’s her! Run!”
Torres and I grabbed hands and turned to flee together, but the rush of people flooding through the open bay doors tore us apart. “Torres! Torres!”
“Rach! Where are you?”
A large body shoved me aside into a large coil of rope. Inspired, I settled down into the rope, piling it up and crouching down as low as I could. I risked a single peek over the edge of the coil, searching the skyline for incoming planes, ships, or anything else that would warrant such panic.
There was a hiss, a large splash, and then…
“Hashem help us,” I whispered, covering my mouth with a trembling hand.
A woman rose up from the sea, at least one hundred feet tall. Her immense, nude torso loomed over the ship, so starkly white that it hurt to look at her. Her snarled black hair appeared to slither around her neck and shoulders, and then I realized that it was slithering. Her hair was snakes. I could see the eyes now, and their thin, forked tongues.
But it was her face that nearly made me pee myself. Her bulbous eyes never stopped moving, practically spinning in their sockets as the planes turned away from the dragon and began shooting at her instead. Her toothy grin only widened, and a long, pointed red tongue darted in and out as she hissed.
A Helldiver arced in the air and turned toward the massive woman, little bullets bouncing off her shoulders as though she were made of marble.
She caught the plane in midair and rent it into halves, plucking the flailing aviator out of the cockpit. He struggled against her fingers, but she just opened her mouth and swallowed him. There was a burst of light from behind her teeth.
I knew the truth immediately: she’d killed a ghost.
Hanson grabbed my shoulders and hauled me out of the rope, shoving me toward the doorway. “Now! Go now!”
The woman’s bestial eyes flickered toward us, and her hand shot into the hangar bay.
Hanson pushed me into the passageway. My hand was still in his as the enormous white grasp of the woman closed around his torso.
“No!” My high scream was drowned out by his cries of fear. She began to pull him toward her, but but I didn’t let go. “Let go of him! Let go! Let go!” My shrieks grew increasingly shrill as I was dragged along the hangar bay, never letting go of Hanson’s hand. Bullets tore through the air, bouncing off the concrete. Around us, men ran to the mounted guns and aimed at her.
But I still didn’t let go.
She lifted her arm, and then we were airborne. Torres was screaming from the edge of the flight deck, and from the corner of my eye I could see someone grab her and pull her away.
Hanson’s hand was slippery, but I tightened my grip. I’d never let go. I’d never let go. I would be brave. I would—
The woman lifted us up to her eye level, laughed, and shook me off like a fly.
The last thing I saw before I hit the churning, frothy water was a burst of light.
Down, down, down.
The watery darkness enveloped me like a cool blanket. It was quiet in the depths, and the pressing silence was a welcome counterpoint to the carnage above. Frankly, I didn’t want to go back up there. And since I was dead and didn’t strictly need to breathe, I had no particular reason to go back.
Except Bickley and Torres. And the other nice sailors. And the fact that horrible ghost-killing monsters inhabited this ocean and I was increasingly convinced that the ship was the only moderately-safe place for me to be. I could still feel the knot of raw power inside me, since we’d been interrupted during our engine room practice. My very body contained a valuable resource.
I began to swim toward the ship.
Well, sort of. I’d never been one for swimming in life, and now I regretted it. Apparently there was more to it than “move your arms and legs,” because I was doing an elaborate underwater dance and going nowhere. After a few minutes of buffeting up and down in the water, I looked around.
The woman’s legs were clear to see by the ship. She was moving them back and forth in a gentle scissor-like motion. I copied her, and lo and behold, I moved upward a little. Angling my body, I began to move toward the ship, swimming in little frog-like motions through the dark blue water.
Something moving by the woman’s legs caught my eye. I paused, then swam a little closer to her. Was it a shark? I could just make out a long fish tail. No… not a shark. The tail was too long and thin, and had too many fins.
I swam even closer, then stopped moving altogether, hardly believing what I was seeing.
It was a merman.
He was chained to her leg like a sad little pet, a metal collar around his neck. He strained and struggled against the collar, but to no avail. His long tail thrashed mightily as he fought for freedom, catching the weak light in the water and shimmering various shades of green and blue. Like the fairy who’d imprinted on merfolk, his skin was also quite pale, and his loose, long hair was like seaweed.
However, there were differences. The fairy had been thin and underfed, but this merman was muscular, and a circlet dotted with pearls adorned his head. His face betrayed no malice, just fear and consternation.
My heart swelled with pity for him. I frog-swam over to him and held out my hands, hoping the gesture of peace crossed the interspecies divide. He stopped, his white eyes widening, then reached out and touched my hands.
I laced my fingers with his and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze, then broke away and touched the collar. It was metal, and very solid. There was no breaking it. The chain it was attached to, however, was much thinner.
I held a finger up to my lips, and the merman copied the gesture. Grasping the chain, I focused the rest of the latent power inside me and shot it into my hands.
Both of us were blasted backward several feet—but the chain was broken.
The merman swam a fluid victory lap around me, naked joy clear on his face. I waved, pointed to myself, then pointed up to the ship while mouthing, “I have to go.” I began to kick my legs back and forth, moving slowly upward.
He swam up to me, so close that our noses were almost touching. After a second, he wrapped his arms around my torso, then leaned in and gently kissed me on the lips.
I was too bemused by my first kiss to react at all.
When we were done, he gingerly pulled me to him as if he were hugging me, then began to swim away from the woman, his undulating tale propelling us at a shocking speed. He circled around the keel of the Saint Catherine, to comparatively safe water. When we were on the far side, he moved us upward, toward the light.
Our heads broke the surface at the same time, the silence immediately punctured by the whizzing of planes, shouts of men, and small explosions. I couldn’t see the woman beyond the ship, but I could hear her—every shriek, hiss, and roar. The battle was still raging, but I could do nothing more.
I hugged my gentleman friend and pointed toward the sound. “What is she?” I shouted.
His face darkened. “Scylla.” His voice was surprisingly deep.
I gasped, memories of yet more Greek mythology washing over me. “Is the dragon Charybdis?”
He shook his head and pointed to the east. “Charybdis.” He kissed my forehead, then tapped his heart. “Tank…ooh.” Slowly and carefully, he directed me to spread out my arms on the water, and he wiggled his index and middle fingers while looking at my legs.
I kicked my legs as he’d directed, and then tapped my heart in turn. “You’re welcome.” I laced my fingers with his again. “Friends.”
He nodded, and I was satisfied that he understood. After one last tender look, he let me go, and disappeared under the water, z
ipping away in seconds.
A throaty scream from the woman made me flinch, but smile at the same time. Surely that was a scream of pain and defeat. Indeed, there was a massive splash that rocked the ship, and then her dark shape moved under me, swimming away in a different direction than the merman had gone.
Cheers erupted from above, on the flight deck. Tiny heads appeared over the edge. “There’s someone in the water! Get a ladder!” More heads appeared, and some kind soul threw down a life preserver, though I was treading water well and wasn’t in danger of ever drowning.
I slipped under the life preserver and chugged over to the rope ladder that had been lowered, then began to climb up, shivering from the cold and adrenaline. Sailors crowded the edge as I climbed, all extending their hands even if there was no hope of me reaching them.
Suddenly, one pointed beyond me toward the water. “Look! It’s an aviator!”
I looked over my shoulder, and sure enough, an aviator was floating facedown in the water by the stern. Blood colored the water around him. I put a hand to my heart, moved. That poor man.
And for once, I could do something about it. I turned back, gave my heartiest grin to the sailors, and pushed myself away from the ship as I let go of the ladder with my life preserver in hand.
Down again I went, landing in the water with more grace than before. I frog-swam all the way over to the aviator, kept afloat by the raucous cheers from above. When I was by the unconscious aviator, I angled myself so I could flip him over. “Hey there, shipmate,” I whispered. “You’re going to be okay.” All my former antipathy toward aviators had evaporated. They really were okay, generally smart and very brave. It was just one aviator I didn’t like, since he was an asshat who refused to apologize.
He turned over, and I cursed. It was the one aviator I didn’t like. Naturally.
But as my eyes combed over his body, my ire cooled, then morphed into concern. Commander Hollander’s chest bore deep parallel gouges that oozed a silver-greenish pus that stank strongly of sulfur. His face was slack, though his eyelids fluttered as I maneuvered him into the life preserver. Torres could never accuse me of selfishness again. I was saving him, and I would’ve done so even if the entire crew of the Saint Catherine hadn’t been watching.
Sea of Lost Souls Page 8
