Dangerous Depths (The Sea Monster Memoirs)

by Karen Amanda Hooper

  Held high on either side of her were my wings.

  “Noooooooo!” I groaned, trying to roll out of Treygan’s arms so I could get to them. My wings. She had ripped off my wings. I would never fly again. Treygan held on to me. I didn’t have much energy to fight. Tears pooled in my eyes as Sage slithered up and down my arm.

  The Liora statue disintegrated into another pile of black sand. My beautiful pearl wings landed on top of it. A strong wind blew, and the sand formed a small tornado that carried my wings into the air. Evil laughter echoed above us as they swirled out of sight.

  I buried my face against Treygan’s chest, fighting the urge to break down and sob. He kissed the top of my head and squeezed me tight. “I know it hurts. I want nothing more than to sit here and hold you, but we have to find Rownan.”

  We knew this place would be awful. I expected to fight. I expected to get hurt. But my wings—the part of me I inherited from my mother—were gone.

  “Yara, can you walk?” Treygan probed.

  Sage nudged me. I rolled onto my knees, but I was so lightheaded. My limbs felt like they weren’t attached to me. “Go. Help Rownan.”

  “I can’t leave you.”

  I willed blood to travel to my limbs, demanding my legs become useful. Sage pressed her head against the back of my skull, trying to help me up. I tried so hard to stand, but I collapsed again.

  Treygan’s arms were under me in an instant, carrying me. Every jostle hurt as he ran toward the temple with me in his arms.

  “Three entrances,” Treygan said. “Which one do I choose?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The middle.” Treygan rushed toward it. “Agreed?”

  I nodded my heavy head.

  Left. Sage whispered to me.

  “Left!” I groaned. “The left one.”

  He didn’t question me—just changed course, and into the muggy, dark ruins we went.

  She always loved it slow. The slower the better.

  I slid Vienna’s coat off her shoulders and let it fall to her feet. I brushed my fingers up her arms. She watched them as if I was touching her for the first time.

  “Do you need a drink?” I asked her. “You look weak.”

  “A drink?”

  “Of my blood.”

  “No, I need you.” She grabbed me with such intensity that I was knocked off balance. She tried to kiss me, but I slipped. She missed my lips and ended up almost biting my chin.

  “I know it’s been a long time, but don’t be so rough.”

  Her eyes were so different. Beautiful ice crystals used to form when she stared at me with love or lust, but now they were dark and empty.

  She rushed at me again. Something inside me screamed that this situation was very off. I dodged her next kiss and held her at arm’s length.

  “V, why do you love me?” She first asked me that question when I proposed. We had asked each other the same question more times than I could remember. Our answer was always the same.

  “Because.” She leaned forward, pouting, but my locked arms kept her from reaching me.

  “Because why?” I wanted her to say the right words. I wanted it to be her more than anything.

  “Many reasons,” she whispered.

  I clenched my teeth, realizing this person, this thing, was not my Vienna. “Wrong answer.”

  Her eyes hollowed and I shoved her backward. “What are you? Where is my wife?”

  Her tongue rolled out of her mouth like a long carpet, changing from pink to black as it hit the ground and slithered toward my feet. I stomped on it and she screamed like a teapot boiling.

  I reached for my knife, but she catapulted through the air and knocked me down. We wrestled as she morphed into a creature with speckled skin and black holes for eyes, but then she became Vienna’s lookalike again.

  “You’re not her,” I grunted. “Where is she?”

  “Fool,” it hissed, elbowing me in my jaw. “Give me your soul.”

  Her mouth opened as wide as my entire head. I grappled for a tight hold on her neck, pushing her off me with all the strength I had. Whatever this creature was, it was strong and not giving up.

  Vienna’s features solidified. For a moment her eyes almost looked real. Her voice softened, sounding exactly like Vienna’s. “Please, Rownan. Don’t do this. I love you.”

  Part of me wanted to believe it could be her, possessed by some demon that I could exorcise from her. It caused me to hesitate, and the creature used the opportunity to bite my forearm. I cried out, but tightened my grip on its neck. This thing was not Vienna. It couldn’t contain the soul I loved so dearly.

  I dug my heels into the ground and took a quick breath for strength. My claws shout out of my fingers and into the demon’s neck. She hissed, and the holes smoked, but it hardly fazed her. She kept thrusting her face at me. Her disgusting tongue flopped side-to-side, smacking against my neck and shoulders as I thrashed out of its path. My arms shook from exertion.

  She pinned my forearms over my head. Her bony hands seared my skin. I cried out in agony. Her mouth opened wide, a swirling black vacuum, and she rushed at my face for what I suspected would be the final time.

  But then her mouth turned to stone. The rest of her hardened into rock in seconds. She hovered less than an inch from my mouth.

  “Move!” Treygan yelled.

  I wiggled my right arm furiously, breaking her stone fingers and freeing myself from her grip. I dug at the dirt to free my other arm and then rolled out from under her, shoving the statue so it wouldn’t fall on top of me. I scurried to my feet, wobbling and almost falling back down. Treygan rushed over to me, carrying Yara in his arms.

  “What the hell was that thing?” I gasped, trying to catch my breath.

  “We don’t know. But our mothers were the same thing.”

  I leaned against a wall, raising my head to look at my brother. “Thank you. If you hadn’t shown up, I would’ve been a goner.”

  The statue began cracking. Even though I knew it wasn’t Vienna, it was hard to watch her crumble and melt into a black pool that looked like tar. The liquid slid up into the air like a floating blob then turned to smoke and swirled around me. A bodiless whisper said, “Her soul is ours. You’re too late.”

  Distant laughter echoed through the ruins as the black smoke rose through an opening in the ceiling.

  “We have to get out of here,” Yara said shakily, looking more scared and weak than I would have ever thought possible.

  “What happened to—?” Then it registered. “Holy hell. You’re wings are gone.”

  Yara dropped her head to Treygan’s chest. “Please, let’s go home.”

  Treygan hugged her tighter to him. “I hate to say this, but we have barely survived an hour in this place and there are three of us. Vienna couldn’t have survived this long by herself.”

  Anyone else would be easily convinced this place would have killed or consumed Vienna minutes after her solo arrival, but no one knew her like I did. I knew she was still alive.

  “No,” I argued. “She’s here and I’m going to find her, but I can’t do it without you guys.”

  “Try shadowing her again,” Treygan said. “Do you get any sense that she could still possibly be here?”

  “I feel it. I know she is.”

  “Just try,” Treygan demanded.

  I closed my eyes and searched for her. Nothing.

  My eyes fluttered open to find Treygan watching me with a crinkled brow.

  “She’s not dead,” I told him. “I would know if she was.” My heart was hopeful, even in this wasteland of despair. I would find her. She was here somewhere, and I would search every crevice, shadow, and demon until I found her.

  I cried out so long and hard that the leaves around us curled in on themselves. I was curled up as well, in too much pain to move. “They hurt so much.”

  Keeley flew around me, examining me with tears in her eyes. “They’re fine. I swear, nothing is wrong with your wings.
”

  “There must be,” I groaned.

  Jenna continued to pet my cheek. “The boys went to get help. Hang in there. I promise you’re going to be okay.”

  “I hate seeing her like this,” Keeley whispered.

  The pain wasn’t subsiding, but time allowed me to think about why my wings were hurting so badly. “Oh, gods.”

  I lifted my head and Jenna and Keeley both froze, watching me intently.

  “What? What is it?” Keeley asked me.

  “It’s Yara.”

  “What?” Keeley looked confused.

  “Ohhhhhh.” Jenna drifted backward and sat on a daisy. “What do you think happened?”

  “I don’t understand!” Keeley glanced between Jenna and me.

  “Sirens feel other sirens’ pain,” I explained to Keeley. “If there’s nothing actually wrong with my wings, it could mean something happened to Yara.”

  “Maybe it’s Mariza or Otabia,” Jenna offered.

  I shook my head, clenching my teeth at the furious stinging in my back.

  As if on cue, Otabia’s caw pierced through the bayou. Mariza’s shrill squawking echoed Otabia’s. I answered them, my loud call sending Jenna and Keeley backing away from me. They looked up at the sky where Otabia and Mariza’s black and brown forms swept over the tops of the Weeping Willows.

  “They scare me,” Keeley whispered.

  “Should we leave?” Jenna asked.

  “No,” I told them. “They aren’t as scary as they seem. Don’t worry.”

  Otabia and Mariza’s wings blew leaves all around us. They landed gracefully on the riverbank.

  “What in the hell was that?” Otabia asked me. “Did you hurt yourself?”

  Mariza made a disgusted face as she pulled the heel of her boot out of the mud. “I loathe this place.”

  “It wasn’t me,” I said, sitting up. “I think it’s Yara.”

  Otabia walked closer, staring at me. Her pupils enlarged, the way they always did when she thought hard. “Do you know how badly she must have been hurt for all three of us to feel her pain?”

  “While she’s in Harte,” Mariza added, flying up to a tree branch. She sat on it and used leaves to wipe the mud from her boots.

  “My back is still burning,” I said. “What if she’s dying?”

  Otabia waved her talons dismissively. “She’s not dying. We’d feel that too.”

  I hoped she was right. “Something horrible must have happened.”

  “Maybe she lost her wings,” Mariza said. “Easy come, easy go.”

  “Shut up, Mariza!” I snapped. “How can you be so heartless?”

  Mariza laughed. “When have I ever pretended to have a heart?”

  I snarled at her and she snarled back.

  “Stop it, you two,” Otabia ordered. “We didn’t come here to discuss Yara or give the false impression that we care about her. We wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  “I’m not all right. If Yara is in pain then so am I. What if she dies in there? What will happen to me?”

  “You will live,” Otabia assured me.

  Mariza flicked a leaf off her hand. “And we’ll throw a party and get on with our lives.”

  I snapped my teeth at her. I wanted to rip every hair out of her head, but she wasn’t worth my energy.

  “I would be devastated,” I admitted. Yes, I was assigned to be Yara’s siren as part of the gorgon sister trinity, but my feelings ran deeper than that. I genuinely cared about Yara. Cleo had me protect her for years. I had watched Yara grow up and go through so much in her short life. She and Treygan had just started their life together. She deserved a long, happy existence. “We have to get them out of there before it’s too late.”

  “We?” Otabia grimaced.

  “You have lost your batty little mind,” Mariza said.

  Jenna and Keeley were hiding behind plants. I could never ask them to come with me. I’d have to go alone. “I’m going,” I said. “I should have gone with them and I didn’t, but I’m going back to the Triangle and I’m going to find them.”

  Mariza flew down from her branch, landing directly in front of me. “No, you’re not.”

  Otabia advanced on me too. “Our connection to you is infinitely stronger than your connection to Yara. If you suffer in there, so will we.”

  “Exactly,” I argued. “The same way I’m suffering from Yara’s pain.”

  “Your connection to her can’t be that strong yet,” Otabia snapped.

  “I assure you, it is.”

  Mariza crossed her arms over her chest. “I refuse to endure more pain and emotional torment because of that half-breed sea monster. Give her the damn mirror.”

  Otabia’s eyes flared with fire and she swiped her talons at Mariza’s mouth. “Silence!”

  “Mirror?” I questioned. “The all-seeing mirror?”

  Mariza nodded, darting away from Otabia. “It still exists. Stheno and Euryale have it hidden in the grotto.”

  Otabia slowly and deliberately stepped toward Mariza. “Shut.” Another step. “Your.” Another step. “Mouth.”

  Mariza fluttered backward, putting a safe distance between them.

  “That mirror was destroyed,” I said. “Stheno and Euryale told us it was destroyed ages ago.”

  Mariza’s lip curled. “They lied.”

  “Last warning,” Otabia snarled. “Shut your trap.”

  Mariza curled her fingers into fists. “We tell her, or she enters Harte and we suffer.”

  “Tell me what?” I probed.

  Otabia shook her head. Her black bangs swept across her forehead.

  Mariza crouched the way she always did before an attack. “It doesn’t just view Rathe, it views all of Poseidon’s worlds.”

  Otabia pounced, but Mariza did too. They collided in mid-air, grabbing each other’s hair, yanking so hard it looked like their flailing heads might snap off. Their wings flapped and rustled as dark feathers drifted to the ground. Jenna and Keeley trembled so hard the plant they hid behind shook.

  “Enough!” I flew at my pain-in-the-ass sisters, breaking up their fight, and keeping myself positioned between them. They continued swiping and spitting at each other. “Stop it! Tell me the truth!”

  Otabia snapped her teeth and kicked at Mariza a few more times while Mariza stuck out her brown tongue like a spiteful child.

  “Mariza,” I glared at her. “Start talking.”

  “They will punish us severely for this,” Otabia hissed. “Stheno and Euryale will have our heads.”

  “So, they become angry for a few days.” Mariza shoved my hand off her chest. “They still need us if they want to have any kind of pleasure or excitement in their dismal existence. Besides, Nixie can tell them she discovered it all by herself. No need to rat us out.”

  “I won’t rat anyone out,” I promised them. “You’re saying the mirror still exists and I could see Yara in Harte?”

  “It does,” Mariza said. “And you could.”

  Otabia turned her back to us.

  “How come I didn’t know about this?”

  “It’s one of their many secrets.” Mariza shrugged. “Stheno and Euryale are greedy. They don’t even let us use it.”

  “Where is it hidden?” The grotto had many dens and corridors, but Stheno and Euryale mainly stayed in the front few caverns. The mirror could be hidden anywhere, and if it was buried or hidden in a tide pool then it could take me weeks to find it.

  “They will never allow you to use it,” Otabia said. “If they find out we told you it still exists, they will make our lives hell.”

  “But why can you know about it and I can’t?”

  Otabia’s pupils contracted then expanded, over and over. As they always did when she was biting her tongue.

  “Because you aren’t a real siren,” Mariza said with too much satisfaction. Otabia looked away.

  My wings drooped. I lowered to the ground. I felt as if I’d been shot. “What is that supposed to mean?
I’m as much a siren as either of you.”

  “No,” Mariza said. “You weren’t born a siren. You were—what did they call it?—promoted.” She snickered. “You are much softer than us. You don’t even have a pure gorgon to bond with.”

  “I have Yara!” I argued. “Stheno and Euryale should want her to be kept safe. She’s the third of their trilogy.”

  Mariza laughed. “Yara is the most motley mess of a sea creature in history. Do you really think Stheno and Euryale take her seriously? No one knows what she is. Not even Yara.”

  “She is more powerful than any of us!”

  “No, she’s inexperienced. And her human genes make her vulnerable and weak. Stheno and Euryale are insulted that Medusa sent her to them in her condition.”

  I tore my eyes away from Mariza and looked at Otabia, hoping she would tell me Mariza was lying. But Otabia wouldn’t look at me, which meant Mariza was telling the truth. They considered Yara a joke. They considered me a joke.

  “And to think,” I said, “all this time I considered you my sisters.”

  “We are sisters.” Otabia sounded exasperated.

  “Sort of,” Mariza jabbed. “We’ve always known you had a stronger connection with the sprites. You behave so much differently than Cleo. She hardly ever separated from us.”

  “Until she fell in love with Vyron,” Otabia grumbled.

  “Seductive selkies,” Mariza snarled. “That’s how these huge messes begin, when creatures start mingling outside their own breed. It’s not natural.”

  They could have continued the conversation without me for all I cared. I had never felt so disconnected from them. I backed up to the plant where Jenna and Keeley were hiding and put my hands behind my back, waving them to come to me. Both of them nestled into my wings. I flew away, leaving Mariza and Otabia to finish their bickering by themselves.

  Never again would I forget who my true family was.

  Treygan’s hands trailed gently over my back, examining the wounds where my wings had been ripped off. He applied a healing salve the Violets had given us.

  “That’s enough.” I pulled on my suit jacket, woefully aware of the slits in the back that were no longer needed. “We need to conserve the salve.”