by Judi Fennell
“Whaddya want? Yer interruptin’ my dinner,” said the eel. The side of his mouth kicked up.
“You speak English?” With a South Philly accent?
Must be the eel equivalent of snowbirds who moved to Florida for the winter.
The eel rolled its dime-sized yellow eyes. “Yer new, aintcha?”
“She’s a Human,” Chipper piped up.
“Then why aintcha wigglin’ around like one of his kind on a hook?” He nodded toward Chipper. “That’s the way I usually see your kind.” Something crunched between his teeth.
“I’ve been turned. By a Mer.”
“Now that’s interestin.’ Ain’t seen none of that in my life. Heard about it, though. So, who did the deed?”
“That’s not really important at the moment. What is important is that you’ve got a bag in your, er, home that belongs to me, and I was wondering if you’d mind returning it.”
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“Ya mean that lumpy thing back here?”
Erica nodded.
The eel sucked a shrimp from inside the hole, the crustacean’s crooked legs hanging out the side of the eel’s mouth. “It’s gonna cost ya.”
“But I don’t have anything to give you. I could give you one of the stones in the bag, I guess. They’re very pretty.”
The eel’s head swished from side to side and the shrimp legs disappeared. “I ain’t got no use for no fancy stone.” His jaws opened and closed, sluicing water back over his gills. “I know. I want a digit.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I want a digit. Ya know, those fluttery things on the ends of your limbs.”
“I am not giving you one of my fingers.”
“Then I ain’t givin’ you no bag.” He zipped back into his home.
“Wait.” She put her hands on her hips. “There has to be something else you want. Something I can trade.”
The eel peeked out, sizing her up. “Nope. Pretty much all you got that I want is a digit. I ain’t picky. I’ll take one from your flippers.”
“My flippers? Oh, you mean my feet.” Erica kicked the body part in question.
An idea formed.
It wasn’t as if she had any other options. But, oh God, was it going to take a lot of intestinal fortitude to pull this off—even for a seasoned diver. For her? God, she didn’t even want to think about it. If she didn’t time it right…
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Chapter 21
“Okay,” Erica said before her resolve wavered. It wasn’t like she was going to need her toes if she couldn’t get away. With the diamonds. “But you’re going to have to come get it since I don’t have anything sharp on me.”
She wiggled her toes as added incentive.
“Um, Erica? Are you sure you want to do this?”
Chipper whispered in her ear.
Ol’ Yellow Eyes was almost salivating as he peered over the lip of the hole. He slithered out, all two-and-a-half feet of black-and-white muscle, his tail drawing the bag to the rim. Erica ignored Chipper as she gauged the distance to the bag and the eel’s whereabouts in the dimming light.
“I want the big one,” the moray said.
“You can’t have it. I need that one. Go for the little one on the end.”
The eel seemed mesmerized by her wiggling appendages. He moved back and forth with the motion of her legs like a cobra to a snake charmer’s flute. She didn’t like the analogy.
Erica reached up slowly for the bag, still keeping her focus on the eel. She had to get the timing just right. God, what she wouldn’t give to have her brothers here right now.
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Rhythmically, the eel’s jaws opened and closed. Almost like he was savoring the anticipation. Just get on with it already…
The eel lunged.
Adrenaline pumping through her system, Erica reacted instinctively, kicking her other foot with all her might. The water slowed the action, but the ball of her foot connected solidly with the eel’s head, just above his eye. He went hurtling off, smacking into a colony of fire coral with the underwater equivalent of a thud.
“Hey, you did it!” Chipper squeaked, circling excitedly in front of her face. She swished him toward one of the windows, grabbed the bag, and kicked her legs as fast as she could, aiming back to where she’d come from. When Ol’ Yellow Eyes came to, he was going to be one pissed-off eel.
“See you around, Chipper, and thanks for your help. Oh, and listen to your teacher from now on. No talking to strangers.” She dragged the little parrotfish back into the darkness of the palace corridors.
Phase One accomplished.
Now to get the weapons.
The corridors were refreshingly empty of sea life, which made her job that much easier. Unfortunately, the easy part gave way to frustration when she came to several look-alike tunnels, all leading to dead ends. She kept turning back to try the next one, fraying her already stretched-thin nerves. How much longer until someone discovered she was gone?
Where was Ceto?
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What was going on with Reel?
Where was the damn chest with the weapons?
She wiggled through an opening she probably had no business traveling in, but if her sense of direction hadn’t deserted her, this should put her somewhere in the vicinity of where she needed to be. As she pulled her hips through, an octopus popped its head out of a cavity in a wall. It stopped. She stopped.
It zipped back in.
She swam in the opposite direction but then thought better of it. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to go advertising her presence, but since Ol’ Yellow Eyes was bound to call for reinforcements sooner or later, she didn’t have the luxury of time. She swam back to where the octopus had disappeared. A tiny rusted bell hung above the hole. She flicked it and the clapper bounced against the inside with a tinny ding.
An eye blinked in the darkness. “You rang?”
“Um… yes. Hello. Could you, ah, tell me which way to the main entrance? I seem to be lost.”
“Are you supposed to be lost? Ceto doesn’t usually let stray Humans swim about her home.” A tentacle slithered out and adjusted the bell clapper that hadn’t fallen back in place.
“Yeah, well, about that. I’m here with her neighbor. Reel?”
“Ah, Reel. A good Mer, if a little irresponsible. But he was kind enough to take my cousin, Amphithoe, into his home up north after she lost two of her tentacles to a fisherman.” The tentacle disappeared back into the hole as the eye blinked again—and rolled back into its head cavity. InOverHerHead.indd 179
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Totally gross. But she didn’t have the luxury of getting grossed out.
The eye reappeared. “I guess I owe him something for that. Amphithoe was a goner for certain.” It blinked again. “Take this crevice to the end, turn starboard, then head to the surface. You’ll see the tunnel you want for the entrance about twenty feet up. He’s down this one, you know.” The tentacle slithered back out to point to one she’d passed.
“Thanks.” She stuck out her hand before she realized what she was doing.
The eye blinked once, then the tentacle latched on.
“You’re welcome.”
She waited for the suction, but it never materialized. He let her hand go as easily as if she’d shaken hands with another person. A person with a skin condition, but still…
She followed the octopus’s instructions to the tunnel and found a reef shark hover
ing above the chest of weapons. That could be a problem. She really hated sharks. But then, she hadn’t been too keen on octopi either and now… well, now she was shaking hands with them.
Hell, she’d escaped from a sea prison, outwitted a moray, and shaken hands with an octopus. A shark should be a piece of cake, right?
Unfortunately, she couldn’t just walk up and ask him what was in the box, and there was no place for her to approach without being seen. The cave ceiling had more window slits carved through it, so any of the passing fish up there—of which there were many—could alert him, too.
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Something large swam over the skylights, darkness flickering down the length of the hallway. The shark didn’t even blink.
Wait. Could sharks blink?
She shook her head to get back to the matter at hand. If shadows were a recurring event that didn’t alert the guard…
She tied the bag of diamonds to the mesh at the bottom of her suit and tucked it under the leg opening, exchanging it for the whittled spike of coral she’d hidden there.
Man… it was risky, but this situation demonstrated perfectly the need for those weapons he was guarding. Another large fish swam overhead, yet all the reef shark did was yawn.
Erica let herself drift upwards, all the while keeping her eyes on the sentinel and her fingers around the coral spike.
Her shadow danced through the water as she crossed the room, but the shark didn’t move. Straight above him, she held her breath. A school of sea horses motored in then stopped to talk. Erica halted but kept fluttering her toes. She needed to get into the shadows before one of those kids saw her or she’d be sunk.
Luckily they were chatty little fish, and she reached the corner without incident. Around it, massive doors opened to the rest of the Caribbean. Land was out there. Freedom. Half of her wanted to swim out. The other half focused on that sculpture in the lobby. Fishing rods, twisted metal, grappling hooks…
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She pushed off the wall, zipped to the opposite side, swam along the ceiling toward the doors, then dove to the sculpture.
The ionic pedestal displayed a tangled selection of fishing and boating equipment—most of it held together by the selective threading of fishing rods through handles and hooks. It didn’t look like it’d take much to bring it down. Praying the vibration didn’t alert the shark, though he’d seemed rather, um, self-concerned, she slid a pair of fishing rods down about six inches, worked a grappling hook out, fished it beneath the anchor, and, holding onto the pole, swam back to the ceiling. Glancing around and seeing no one, she gulped and heaved on the pole with all her might.
The anchor shifted then tilted with a grind of rust and metal on stone. She shoved the grappling hook to the floor and swam as fast as she could back the way she’d entered. Erica reached the corner just as the hook dragged the anchor off its perch.
The anchor clunked through the paraphernalia around it, thunks and bumps and bangs reverberating through the water. She looked toward the reef shark. He’d heard.
While he took off to investigate, Erica pushed herself around the corner and swam to the chest. She retrieved the weapons and was swimming along the ceiling line before the shark figured out what had happened. Hiding in the shadows beyond the skylights, she balanced Reel’s weapons on her feet and wrapped her belt around her waist. Once it was secure, she slung the quiver over one shoulder and Reel’s belt over the other, then jettisoned herself off the ceiling and back down the tunnel. InOverHerHead.indd 182
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Phase Two accomplished. Now it was time to find Reel. She retraced her path past the octopus’s hole. The cephalopod flicked its tentacle in greeting as she swam down the other passageway.
Its directions were perfect. It was almost too easy to find Reel’s holding cell.
Easy made her nervous.
She looked in and discovered why.
Unconscious and slumped against the wall, head lolling to the side, a huge red welt covering his arm, was Reel.
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Chapter 22
“Reel!” Erica dolphin-dove to his cell door. Locked.
But luckily for her—though not for the unconscious ray on the ground outside the cell—the key was easy to find. She didn’t know what Reel had done to the fish, but at least he’d made his jailer suffer. Sliding the chain over the ray’s dorsal, Erica was inside with Reel in no time.
His eyes were closed, shoulders hunched forward, legs splayed against the cavern floor. One arm draped over his lap, the skin raised and angry-looking.
“What did they do to you?” She stroked his cheek then drifted her hand over his chest. Still breathing, thank God… gods… whatever.
They had to get out of here.
“Reel, wake up.” She nudged him.
He groaned softly, but his eyes didn’t open. This was a fine mess… Now what?
She looked around. There was nothing she could use as a gurney. Which left her one option. She snorted. Yeah, like she could lift a hundred-andninety-pound man. Actually, underwater, maybe she could…
She wedged the door open then, sliding the weapons off her shoulders, rolled Reel onto her back, taking care not to touch that angry welt.
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Two-ten might be lighter in water, but he was still no lightweight. She hefted him to a better position, retrieved the weapons, and shuffled to the door. No one waited outside, so that was a plus. She needed all the plusses she could get.
Taking another fortifying gulp, Erica stepped off the rock face and headed back the way she came. Reel’s weight dropped them right into the middle of a school of angelfish a dozen feet below the cavern. She kicked her feet to gain control then slung the quiver strap over her neck and put his belt between her teeth. Keeping one hand on Reel, she used the other to swim. Slow and steady, plod on. They’d make it. And then a massive whump echoed through the water. The angelfish zipped out of sight. What the hell was that?
Whump! A muffled sort of snorting followed. Something was coming.
Something big.
Right for them.
Son of a…! Erica kicked around in a circle, losing Reel’s belt and almost flinging his inert body off in the process. She tightened her grip, got her bearings, and swam the other way.
Whump… whump… whump…
Its speed picked up, sucking the water out from under her, and she had to work twice as hard to keep moving forward.
There was no way to outrun it. Whatever It was. She kept swimming, though, holding onto Reel, looking for some way, any way, out of this mess. The Thing snorted behind them, water swishing loudly. Reel hung limply over her shoulder. It wasn’t InOverHerHead.indd 185
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possible to swim fast enough with his weight. Not to outrun, er, outswim It. They needed to hide. She dropped another few dozen feet, scanning the underwater walls. All the local sea life had to have some place to hide from this thing. It couldn’t just be a straight shot to death.
“Come on, Reel. This would be so much easier if you’d wake up.” She shook her shoulder, but all she succeeded in doing was veering them sideways into the jagged rock.
Wincing as yet another scratch contributed more blood to the water, Erica jerked around to keep Reel from hitting the rock and rolled around the corner. Watery, long fingers of grayish purple twilight beckoned from behind a pair of inch-thick, steel meshwork doors set back in a rocky outcropping.
A bar braced them closed. Better than a hiding place, freedom lay just beyond. All they needed to do was get there.
The Thing snorted again, closer now. The ebb of water threatened to suck her toward it. Erica swam into the alcove and latched onto the steel bars with one hand, then slid Reel from her back. She leveraged herself against the door and pulled on the bar. It screeched as it slid free.
The Thing’s growl rumbled through the corridor. She yanked on the ancient brass-ring door handles. One popped off, its rivets succumbing to the effects of seawater. The other held long enough for her to inch the door open. She got her shoulder behind it and shoved. The steel scraped along the floor, wedging sand until it wouldn’t go any further. There was just enough space to slide Reel through.
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Once he was safely on the other side, she pulled the door closed and reached through the grillwork to drop the bar into its braces. It would slow the WhateverIt-Was down while she took Reel to safety. While. Not if. Huge difference. The creature’s snorts and rumblings grew louder. Closer. Vibrations rippled along the walls as its tail thwacked along them. At least, she assumed that was its tail.
This Thing must be as big as a whale.
In a glorified coral reef? She couldn’t imagine what Ceto was doing with something this big. As twilight melded into pale gray night, she hefted Reel onto her back again, pulled a harpoon from the quiver, and kicked toward the opening before her. What she wouldn’t give for the power in a tail like Reel’s sisters had right now to—
Clunk!
Actually, it was a good thing she didn’t have that tail power. Otherwise, she might have split her head open. Glass.
A wall of it blocking their way out. Where it came from and how it got there were a mystery, but the bottom line was, no freedom.
It was one huge trap. And now they were locked in. The Thing roared into the cave area, a large, hideous monster the likes of which she’d never seen. Worm-like, as thick as a beluga, with a mass of undulating, glistening red scales coated by the odor of rotted fish. Its big, ugly, square head with green, bulging, sideset eyes reared back, sucking a zillion gallons of water with it.
