by Dee J. Stone
Together, I tell Shoney, fisting my hands and lifting my tail.
Together.
I propel myself toward it to slam my tail into its face just as Shoney takes a huge bite out of its side. Except, my tail doesn’t make contact with the sea serpent. It manages to free its claw from my grasp and grabs my tail, flinging Shoney away.
I shake my tail as hard as I can, but the sea serpent’s grip doesn’t loosen. I don’t get it, how could it be so strong after what Shoney did to it? Damn, it must have healed itself. When I lift my hands to shoot at it, it tosses me around, making me disorientated. I’m left dangling upside, seeing double, my hands hanging freely over my head. And then I see them—three sea serpents surrounding Damarian.
Chapter Sixteen
“Damarian!”
My yell is so loud it causes every single creature on the battlefront to stop fighting and just stare. That gives the sea serpents the opportunity to take advantage of their opponents. I watch in horror as many children of the sea and sharks are sliced and thrown to the bottom of the ocean, including over half of the remaining Guards ordered to protect Damarian. I don’t see Syren or Kyle. Quite a number of the fish, dolphins, whales, and others are slaughtered.
I force myself to look away and focus on Damarian, who is now surrounded by six sea serpents. I feel his heart hammering in his chest and his thoughts are scattered, but the thing that stands out most is his hope, refusal to give up, and love he has for every single creature in the ocean.
All of those feelings transfer into me, infusing every cell in my body with electrified energy. Releasing a loud shout, my hands shoot outward, electricity crackling between them. It travels down the length of my body, until I’m bathed in it. Then I pump my tail, creating a pulse that seems to shock the sea serpent holding me captive. It hisses and drops me, clutching its hand to its torso. From the small glimpse I get, it looks like its claw is charred.
Damarian. I pump my tail as hard and fast as I can in his direction, before the sea serpent heals its claw and comes after me. Damarian’s arms are raised high above his head as he struggles to hold his shield in place. The six sea serpents slash their claws and smash their tails at the shield, and I can see it growing weaker. It won’t be long until it breaks.
I can’t take them all on my own. When I look at the merpeople, I see they are blocked by the rest of the sea serpents. There is no way any of them can get through.
Out of nowhere, Shoney hurries to my side. She must have managed to slip through the blockade. She nods to me, and I’m overflowed with relief. Still, the two of us against the six of them? But as I look at Shoney and see the resolve in her eyes, I know we can do it. That we have to. Everyone else is cut off from us and are busy battling the rest of the sea serpents and rebels. We’re the only ones who can do this.
Mustering my energy and drawing on the undying love I have for my merman, I move just a little bit closer but still far enough that there’s distance between us. I grab Shoney’s fin with one hand and hold out my other toward the sea serpents. I feel her life force flow into me, charging me with even more energy. I make a fist and ram it into the space in front of me, as though I’m hitting the sea serpent closest to Damarian. It gets knocked to the side, as though my fist actually made contact with him. And it doesn’t look like just any blow—some of the skin on the side of its face peels off, as though Shoney’s sharp teeth grazed it. It takes me only a few seconds to realize it was Shoney’s teeth. Sort of. The punch was a combination of both of our abilities.
Still at a distance, I start smashing my fists into the six sea serpents, and then I use my tail. Shoney snaps her teeth and whooshes around, and I realize she’s hurting them, too. The sea serpents are disoriented at first, hissing and looking around for their assailant. Then their eyes pin on me.
“Shit,” I mutter as they zoom toward me and Shoney.
Damarian’s energy intensifies inside me, making me feel stronger than I’ve ever felt. I sweep my hands to the left, forcing five of the sea serpents to be flicked to the side. Shoney and I rocket to the lone beast and deliver blow after blow, as swiftly as we can, before it has a chance to heal. We need to kill at least one more of them—it’s the only way we can weaken them.
Something that resembles a large spear impales the sea serpent. It howls as it clutches its stomach, blood spurting out. The sea serpent gets knocked to the right and left, and I stare down at my hands. I’m not doing it. When I crane my neck to look past it, I see Damarian’s the one responsible.
“Damarian!” I yell as I point to the spot behind him. The remaining five sea serpents are storming toward him. He quickly looks at them before focusing his attention back on the one he’s attacking. With a flick of his wrist, the sea serpent’s neck cracks. It plummets toward the bottom of the ocean.
The sea serpents make a short stop and shout out in pain. The ones battling the merpeople and sea creatures falter back and cry out, too. That gives the merpeople the opportunity to strike back. I nod to Shoney and Damarian, and we waste no time throwing attacks at the four sea serpents.
Just as I’m twisting my body to thump my tail into one of the bastards, I catch sight of Syren, Kyle, and a few members of the Guard dashing toward me with their sharks. They help battle the sea serpents until they back away and swim away to the others.
I rush to Damarian’s side and touch his face. “Are you okay?” I do a quick sweep of him to make sure he hasn’t sustained any injuries. I don’t see a scratch.
Syren grabs his arm while Kyle takes mine. “You two must remain behind the others!” Syren says.
“No.” Damarian pulls his arm free. “You do not understand, Father.” His eyes lock on the sea serpents who are back at the battlefront. “It will not be long before they regain their strength.” He touches his chest before moving his gaze to me. “Do you feel it, Cassie?”
I concentrate on—I don’t know exactly. I shake my head helplessly. “I just feel you.”
“Cassie and I must remain in the forefront, Father. You know that is the sole way we can be victorious.”
Syren shakes his head with a resolute expression on his face. “You may be my king, but you are first my son. And I will not allow—”
“Examine the sea, Father! What do you see?”
Syren winces.
“I see death,” Damarian continues. “Death and more death. Every one of them is on my hands!”
“And mine,” I say. “Damarian’s right. We can’t just sit in the back and sacrifice everyone else. You saw the way we took down two of them. You guys need to trust that we can handle the rest. We just need you to have our backs.”
Syren’s eyebrows furrow. “Your backs?”
“An expression,” Kyle tells him. “What Cassie means is that we should allow them to be offensive while we defend and protect them.”
“All we are accomplishing is wasting time.” Damarian pushes forward, reaching for my hand. As we swim closer to the battlefront, I turn my head back at Syren. He looks like he’d rather offer himself to the sea serpents than let his eldest son put his life at risk. But I see that he’s starting to realize that he can’t protect Damarian anymore. He’s starting to learn that Damarian’s grown up and has to make difficult choices. That sometimes a person needs to put others before himself, even if he’s putting himself in harm’s way.
Squaring his shoulders and holding his head high, Syren nods to Kyle and the other Guards. They don’t flank us but swim close behind, their sharks poised to attack.
Damarian tightens his hold on my hand and looks at me. I look at him. We share a silent message, telling each other how much we love one another and how we will do everything we can to destroy these damn sea serpents. My hand feels warm as the electricity starts crackling again, encasing us. Damarian closes his eyes and when they open, they’re filled with that silver light, but it looks a little different. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s as though he’s drawing power from every fiber in his bei
ng. It enters my body, and it feels like I’m being dressed in a coat of armor. I feel…invincible.
We leap at the sea serpents. Damarian cuts off one of their tails while I flip my hand toward one of their opened mouths, extracting its fangs. Blood spurts out. Bile rises in my throat, but I force it away. I launch the sharp fangs back at it, slicing off one of its claws. It lets out a deafening shrill before shooting the green venom at me. I wave my hand to the left, flicking it into a rebel’s tiger shark. The shark’s skin starts to melt away, followed by his bones and organs, until he completely disintegrates.
Another sea serpent jumps at me, and just as I’m about to attack, I realize it’s much smaller than the rest. I stumble back. The sea serpent is either Bobby or Ruthie.
My brain urges me to attack, but my heart tells me otherwise. This sea serpent is my little brother or sister. I can’t…I just can’t…
It leaps at me, its claws knocking into me and forcing me down. The two of us plummet toward the bottom of the ocean. I look at Damarian and the others and see them battling the rest of them. They no longer seem weak.
As we descend, I realize this sea serpent’s eyes are not yellow like the others. They’re hazel. Like Bobby’s.
A conversation between my father and Sheila plays in my head—about the kids not being fully sea serpents. “Bobby,” I say. “Bobby, it’s me! It’s Cassie. You’re in there somewhere, I know you are. You can fight it!”
Maybe it’s the hope or maybe my head is messed up from all the fighting, but I can almost swear I see something flicker in his eyes. But it’s gone, and then my back crashes into the ocean floor. Bobby raises his claw to strike.
I use my tail to toss him away. He rolls on the floor before straightening out and hissing. “Don’t make me kill you, Bobby,” I plead. “Please don’t make me kill you!”
He hisses again before swarming to attack. I avoid his blows.
“Think of the game you love so much,” I tell him. “Raiders of the Moon. Don’t you want to play that again?” I need to draw out his human side. If he and Ruthie are not fully-formed serpents, maybe there’s hope for them.
His tail knocks into my face, but it’s too weak to do any damage, just leaves me with a small headache.
“You can’t play it in the ocean,” I continue as I dodge his attacks. “Don’t you want to go home and play it with Ruthie? And I can teach you to surf.” All I’m doing is giving him false promises, because he doesn’t have a home to go to and I’ll never be able to teach him how to surf because I’m a mermaid. But I need to appeal to his human side. I can’t kill him.
He’s about to land another attack, when his head whips toward the left. He bares his fangs in a smug smile and then dashes away. When I look to the left to see what’s going on, I find Damarian clutched in one of the sea serpent’s claws, blood streaming out of him. The other sea serpents are crowded around, closing in on him. Bobby has joined them, too, a look of hunger in his eyes.
“Damarian!” I left him totally defenseless while I tried to save Bobby. How could I have been so careless? “Damarian!” I race toward him. Syren and Kyle float in the water like dead fish. I feel a pang in my chest. Are they dead or knocked out?
A shock of pain hits me, paralyzing me. It’s because of Damarian—that sea serpent is trying to tear him apart. I need to get to him and heal him. But I can’t move. I shut my eyes tight and grit my teeth, digging deep within me. Releasing a growl, I push my arms and tail outward, forcing myself out of my paralyzed state.
There are too many of them, all staring down at him with ravenous looks in their eyes. The sea serpent clutching Damarian throws him down on a large rock and pins him with its tail. I need to do something, but it’s just me against them. I look around frantically for Shoney, but I can’t find her anywhere. Another pang forms in my chest. Has she been killed? I need to push that aside and focus on helping Damarian. If they kill him and steal his power, it’ll all be over.
Closing my eyes and squeezing my palms into fists, I draw on every cell in my body. Electricity crackles around me, and I slam my hands together, sending a shock at them. Four of them get seared, but they’re healed within seconds. I’m so shocked that I don’t have a chance to defend myself when they pounce on me, like they forgot I was there because they were so excited about killing Damarian.
One of the sea serpent’s claws latches into my chest. Blood shoots out of me and gathers in my mouth. The pain is so strong I black out for a few seconds. When I come to, I see three of them looking down at me.
“Let her be,” Sheila’s voice says. “You know we can’t let her die.”
They’re not talking in their minds. They want me to hear this. Why? And why can’t they let me die?
I start sinking toward the ocean floor.
“D…Damarian,” I try to say. They’re going to kill him. They’re going to steal his power and rule the ocean. We tried so hard to fight them, had so much hope and determination in our hearts. But they proved to be too strong. We’ve lost.
No, it’s not over yet. I can’t give up. I dig deep inside me, mustering everything I’ve got. Every part of me throbs as I draw every last bit of energy left inside me, my life force, my essence. My existence. I focus on transferring that to Damarian. He can’t die. It doesn’t matter what happens to me. Damarian needs to live.
My eyes are so heavy, all I want to do is close them and sleep, but I force them open. The sea serpents think they’ve beaten me, think I’ve given up. But they don’t know how much love I have for Damarian, his family, the ocean and her creatures. They don’t know what the two of us have experienced, what we’ve shared, what future we want to have. They don’t understand that he and I are forever, and that we won’t let anyone get in the way of our happiness.
It’s as though something clicks inside me. My body is still too weak to move, but my heart and soul are alive. Alive and burning for revenge. I feel something shoot out of me and into Damarian. I shouldn’t be able to see him since I’m close to the bottom of the ocean, but I see him in my mind. Blood no longer pours out of him, and it looks like his bruises are starting to heal. The sea serpents notice the changes and must realize their window of opportunity of killing Damarian and taking his power is dwindling, because they go crazy. They try clawing at him and spitting their venom, but everything bounces off him and are reflected back at them.
“Yes,” I rasp as my body hits the ocean floor. “Live, Damarian…save…the sea.”
One of the sea serpents releases a thundering roar as it thumps its claws into Damarian. Once again, there is no effect. It hisses before glaring at me. Then it swoops toward me, snatching me off the ocean floor and wrapping its claw around my neck.
“Release your hold on him,” the familiar voice of Sheila demands. “You’ve lost.”
“N…never…”
She shakes me so hard I think my neck will snap. “Release him!”
“I’d sooner…die.”
She hisses again. “Say goodbye to Cassie Price.” She buries her other claw into my chest.
I cry out as the most intense, burning pain I’ve ever felt in my life shoots throughout my body. No! I try to call out. She’s extracting Cassila.
I can’t fight her off—I’m too weak and in too much pain.
“Yes,” she says, her eyes and voice demonic. “Yes, Cassila! Join us.”
Reclaim the ocean, I hear in my head. Reclaim what is ours.
NO!
My head rings, so intense it blinds me.
Reclaim the ocean. Reclaim what is ours.
Chapter Seventeen
A booming wail echoes throughout the ocean. Fighting the pain, I glance to my right, to the direction the sound is coming from. Something large and blue is heading toward us. It looks like an airplane. An airplane in the ocean? Maybe Sheila has crushed my brain. As the thing moves closer and continues to cry out, I realize what it is—a blue whale.
About twenty sperm whales flank it on either side, an
d a few Rubies follow behind.
They’re moving toward us at such a fast pace. Each one of the sea serpents is frozen in place as the one-hundred foot beautiful mammal crashes through the rock formations and slams its tail into two sea serpents. They are knocked backward into a wall of rock, their bodies mangled. Dead.
Some of the sea serpents dart away, but the blue whale and the sperm whales pursue them. The blue whale doesn’t have the right kind of teeth to bite into them, so he makes good use of his massive body. The sperm whales bite off large chunks of their skin.
The sea serpents look frazzled, and—I can’t believe I’m even saying this—they look scared.
Cassila. I no longer hear her or feel her. That must mean Shelia didn’t succeed in extracting her. When I glance at Damarian, I find him free. I take a deep breath and focus on healing myself before swimming to his side. I cup his cheek. “Damarian.”
His eyes flutter. “The…whales.”
I place my hands on his chest and heal him. His gills expand and contract wildly as he tries to get his breathing under control. When he seems to be feeling much better, I take his hand. “The Rubies convinced the blue and sperm whales to join us. Come, we can win this.”
He and I touch both Syren and Kyle’s arms, healing them, before doing the same to the other merpeople who are unconscious and not dead. They all stare up in wonder as they witness the scene before them. I do a quick sweep of the area for Shoney and Fiske. They are battling the rebels sharks, their bodies scratched up. But otherwise, they look okay.
Damarian and I rejoin the battlefield, holding hands and using everything we have to attack these bastards so we can finally kill them once and for all. I can’t help but watch in awe as the blue whale twists and turns his huge body as he lands punches at the sea serpents. Damarian told me that blue whales are not aggressive mammals, and the fact that he’s here means so much. He’s probably going against his nature because he feels something terrible is going on in the ocean.
