“He didn’t let us do anything,” Eddie corrected, his tone sharp and clipped. “We were under his thrall as much as Red. He had every intention of going right down the line, picking us off one by one.”
Taking a step closer, a twig snapped under Terin’s boot. “How did you get out?”
“He was practically hypnotized by the gushing blood,” Beard Face bitterly snorted. “He breathed it in like he wanted to taste it. It wasn’t hard to tell that his focus was distracted. He could hold me there, but he wasn’t prepared for my monster. I unleashed—let the beast swell—and Rowan’s grip slipped.”
“And you ran,” Terin filled in.
When Eddie jabbed a thumb in Beard Face’s direction, one corner of his mouth screwed to the side. “Eventually, as soon a Gigantor here cleared us a path.”
Wiping sweat from my brow with the back of my arm, I asked, “How did he do that?”
Lone Twin lifted his chin, staring off at the swaying treetops with narrowed eyes. “Remember the scene in Avengers when Hulk pulverized Loki? Picture that, but with an enormous orange, lumpy dude in a giant diaper.”
Terin’s lip curled in disgust. “Actually, I think I’d rather not.”
“We couldn’t risk him coming after us a second time. So …” Catching the collar of his Hawaiian shirt, Eddie peeled the fabric back to reveal blindingly white skin and an angry red scar. Comprised of a cluster of three swirls, each flared out into jagged points that stabbed in opposite directions. “We did our research and marked ourselves with these. These little babies make us nonexistent on Rowan’s radar. As far as he knows, we’re already dead.”
Edging closer, I pinched the fabric between two fingers and pulled it back for further inspection. “It also makes ya completely helpless if he does show up, which could get the real kinda dead.”
“That shouldn’t be an issue,” smacking my hand away, Eddie took a step back, “as long as we stay far away from you. He came for us, and he’ll come for you. It’s just a matter of time.”
As I raked my fingers through my hair, I tried to fit the pieces of this puzzle into place. “He gave me my memory back. Reminded me of Celeste’s callin’. Why would he wake me just tah target me?”
“Sport?” Lone Twin shrugged.
Lips pressed in a thin line, I tapped one finger against them. “No. That doesn’t make sense. In the moment he let the hound infect him, he was lookin’ for a way tah save Gabe. Hell, a way tah save himself. Like us, he needed answers.”
“I know where I would go if I was looking for answers,” Eddie said with a skeevy chuckle, shaking out the front of his shirt like he was overheating.
Lone Twin bumped Eddie’s elbow with his. “You’d go there looking for the remote if you weren’t scared she’d gnaw your face off just for being there.”
Terin glanced from one of us to the next in search of markers rerouting her on this conversational detour. “Where? Who?”
Ignoring her question for more pressing matters, my chest swelled at the looming threat the trio of misfits were hinting at. “Ya can’t mean—”
“Malise, the merqueen.” Eddie’s voice held the dreamy, wistful cadence of idolized puppy love.
Terin’s eyebrows disappeared into her hairline. “Mermaids? Now this story has mermaids?”
Jaw clenched, my mouth opened with a pop. “She’s an oracle of sorts. Her reign can be traced back tah when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Nothin’ happens on the world above or unda the sea without her knowin’ about it. She never chooses sides, and that’s how she’s stayed alive. Rumor has it she’s also quite—”
“Hot?”
“Curvaceous?”
“The object of my every waking fantasy, and a few twisted sleeping ones?” the remaining Glee Clubbers offered, one after another.
“Attractive,” I corrected, cringing at their proposed suggestions. “She also has a reputation for being viciously, unforgivingly brutal.”
Eddie nodded in emphatic agreement. “I heard she ordered one of her mer to eat his own tailfin when he interrupted her dinner.”
“Why do you say that like it’s a good thing?” Beard Face spun on his friend, aghast at the glimpse into his psyche.
“What? No one likes to be interrupted while they’re eating.” Eddie let his shoulders rise and fall in a nonchalant shrug.
“We could go tah her lair,” I piped up, purposely side-stepping his icky infatuation. “She has tah have more information on Hellhounds than we do, which is basically the equivalent tah readin’ the back of a cereal box.”
“Can we?” Terin mock pleaded. “I long to eat my own arm!”
Raising both hands, I pumped the brakes on her rebuff. “We would pay the proper homage and honor her accordingly to stay in her good graces. But, tah be truthful, this may be our best chance.”
“To be fed our own limbs,” she reiterated, nodding along.
I spun on my heel and stalked a few steps away. Exhaling a lungful of frustration, I gulped down calm resolve and turned back to face her. “Rowan will attack again. That’s a certainty. Next time he might not stop at demons, and we may not get there in time tah exterminate the problem. We need tah utilize whatever resources we have, no matter their cost.”
“Fine,” Terin relented, letting her arms fall to her sides. Golden sparks of mischief twinkling in her eyes, she raised one hand. From her palm emerged a grapefruit-sized fireball that hissed and sizzled with malicious intent. “But if she gets combative, I’ll reduce her to fish sticks.”
“That is so hot,” Lone Twin marveled, sniffing at his own humor. “Pun intended.”
Plucking a tall blade of grass, I twirled it back and forth between two fingers. “What say ya, boys? Ya’ve fought on the side of the good guys, and we could use yar help. It wouldn’t take much tah singe those bindin’ marks from your flesh and unleash ya as the weapons ya truly are.”
Leaden silence plunked down in the space between us and wriggled awkwardly.
“I said that out loud, din’t I?” I pondered, flicking the tightly twirled blade aside.
Beard Face and Lone Twin glared Eddie’s way, prompting him to speak with their vulture-craned necks and white-pressed lips.
“Things were different then!” Eddie blurted, buckling under the pressure of their stares. Shoulders sagging, he glanced my way in defeat. “When we fought with Celeste, we had all the advantages: the Guardian, the Protector, two Conduits, our own abilities, and—in the end—even an army of demons to fight alongside us. Now, we have nothing but the five of us. No offense to either of you, but our sense of self-preservation demands a whole lot more than that. We wish you both the best, we truly do, but we have to sit this one out. Forget you saw us. Forget you know us. Go visit the merqueen. See if she has any ideas on how to stop Rowan. If not, I suggest you follow our lead. Hide who you are, hide what you can do, and run before he kills us all.”
Chapter Four
“You know, in all the time that we spent discussing the horrible ways that the merqueen could kill and/or mutilate us, I never once contemplated that we were actually going to have to go in the water to meet her.” Toes sinking in the sand with each lap of the tide, Terin jabbed her hands on her hips and stared out at Oahu’s turquois sea.
“No part of Mermaid Queen made ya think we might be takin’ a dip?” I countered, one corner of my mouth tugging back in a smirk. The bathwater-warm waves splashing up to my ankles lured me to venture in farther.
“Well,” she said with a self-depreciating snort, “of course, it goes without saying. Still, you should have … said.”
Palms together, I bent at the waist in a deep bow of apology. “My sincerest apologies, m’lady. It is completely my fault for not specifyin’ that the particular mermaids we seek do, indeed, reside in the water.”
“There’s different kinds of water,” she mumbled under her breath. “Is it too much to ask for a shallow pond, or the pool of a five-star resort?”
Running my palm over th
e rough two-day stubble of my jawline, I tried—unsuccessfully—not to laugh. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think ya were scared, Phoenix. Is that an emotion yar capable of?”
Instead of playing along to my goading, Terin’s hands fell to her sides. Chin dipping to her chest, she peered up at me from under her lashes. “Really? You’re surprised the girl of fire is averse to water? All dimples and no brains,” she tsked, “that’s the true tragedy here.”
Dragging a hand through my tangled hair, I got a whiff of just how badly I was in need of a shower. “Katniss has nothing on ya, girl on fire, and neither does this meddlesome ocean. We’re headed tah a grotto deep within the belly of the sea. You’ll be able tah breathe air, with yar hair only getting’ mildly mussed by the humidity.”
“Yeah, because that’s my concern,” she grumbled. “Not being stuck under the crushing sea with no way to defend myself.”
The wind tossed her hair back in a fiery mane, lashing and licking in fingers of mayhem. The late day sunlight darkened the dusting of apricot freckles across her nose and the rise of her cheeks.
Compassion snared my heart in a tight, barbed grip for the diligent warrior. Her reality had recently been restored, just like mine. That reality fights to the death, develops intricate battle plans, and scopes out the means of escape from any situation. And here I was, asking her to follow me blindly into a death pit.
Insensitive clod, party of one, your table is ready.
Pulling my feet from the sand—which held them like tight suction cups—I turned to Terin with my metaphorical hat in hand. “Lass, it’s you and me in this. That’s it. If ya believe nothin’ else, believe I will do everything in my power tah keep ya safe. Mostly because the idea of facin’ the shit storm ahead by myself makes my balls retract so deep inside it’ll take a dentist to retract them.”
In spite of herself, and the white foam licking the tops of her feet, Terin snorted a wry laugh.
“No, really,” I rambled, feeding off her reaction, “I am moments away from emittin’ a high-pitched squeal that will forever change the way ya look at me. I’m not proud of it, but I think I can keep it in check as long as ya stay within arms’ distance at all times.”
Head falling back, her barks of laughter serenaded the sinking sun.
“Okay, smart guy,” she relented, clapping her hands in front of her, “what’s the plan to stay alive?”
The sea called my gaze, yet nowhere in its whitecaps would I find clues of what was to come. “Normally, I would suggest we bring a gift. Unfortunately, time is of the essence and a conk shell from a local gift shop would not be well received. That said, I think we’re gonna have tah go by the grace of our charms.”
Terin sucked air through her teeth, the tendons of her neck bulging in a dramatic cringe. “You do the charm thing. I’m more a brutal honesty and awkward social interactions girl.”
“Straight up respect angle it is,” I countered. “The moment we get there we take a knee, bow our heads, and do not make eye contact. We don’t want her tah feel we’re challengin’ her.”
“Don’t make eye contact,” Terin mumbled each word slowly, weighing them on her tongue. “So, our strategy is to handle this the same way one would encountering a silver back gorilla? Yeah, nothing can go wrong there.”
Arms akimbo, I let them fall to my sides with a slap. “We don’t have tah do this. I’m sure with a little research we could find anotha way.”
Filling her lungs, Terin exhaled through pursed lips and closed the distance between us to offer me her hand. “We don’t have time for that. Rowan needs to be stopped before his vicious pup virus spreads. We go now, bow respectfully, find out what we can, and get the hell out of there.”
I pulled back, peering down at her extended hand with narrowed, doubting eyes. “And yar sure that’s what ya want to do?”
Lurching forward, her steaming hand caught my wrist, singeing my arm hair. “Less talking, more moving in a cloud of nauseating smoke. Chop, chop. Before I reconsider and blaze out of here never to be heard from again.”
“Mmmm,” Malise, the vivacious merqueen, stood before us practically purring in appreciation, “what have you brought me?”
Knee pressed to the slippery rock floor of the grotto, I kept my stare cast respectfully downward whilst saying a mental thank you to the powers that be for granting me this small mercy of opportunity. If flashing the dimples and playing up the broody cursed demon angle was going to help us get out of this situation, I was not above utilizing my resources.
Chest expanding with a calming breath, I risked a glance up from under my lashes. “All that I am, the entirety of my insignificant bein’, I offer to ya in exchange for—”
“Shut up, demon,” the queen commanded with a snap of her fingers. She hovered not in front of me, but in a wide-legged stance before Terin. Tales of her beauty had not been misleading. Easily five-foot-ten of supple curves, she waded from the water onto legs that seemed to go on forever. Blonde hair cascaded over her shoulders, parting ever so slightly to hint at her deliciously ample cleavage. Her bra, comprised of sea shells and pearls, clicked in a tittering of applause as she crouched down.
Hooking her index finger under Terin’s chin, Malise eased her gaze to her own. “I do enjoy a fiery redhead, and they don’t blaze any hotter than you, do they pet?”
Terin’s heart-shaped lips trembled, parting to release a nervous squeak completely out of character for the seasoned warrior. “We’re really deep down here. I-I can’t see daylight at all. Can’t smell fresh air. It’s moist and dank, and—are the walls closing in? They feel like they’re closing in.”
Leaning in, the tip of Malise’s pert nose nudged Terin’s cheek. “Breathe, angelfish. I won’t let anything harm you here.”
Terin pulled back, her wide eyes forgetting to blink. “Please don’t eat me.”
A sly smile tugged back one corner of Malise’s inviting lips. “If I do eat you,” she murmured, “it will only be after you beg and plead for it.”
Terin’s freckled forehead creased with confusion. “Why would I ever … Oh. Oh! That’s … equal parts flattering and frightening.”
Malise caught one strand of Terin’s silky hair to deliver a firm, yet gentle tug. “All the best things are. It keeps the blood pumping to all the right places with a steady, hypnotic thump.”
She made love to that last word as it left her lips, taking her time to spew it forth with orgasmic promise.
“Now,” Malise’s hungry stare wandered over Terin’s curves, “tell me what brought such a lovely offering to the threshold of my abode? It isn’t even my birthday.”
Stare drifting about twelve inches south of the queen’s eye level, Terin mumbled dreamily, “For the life of me I can’t remember.”
“We’re here because of a pirate named Rowan Wade,” I offered, adjusting to my role as the third-wheel with a heaping dose of amusement. “Have ya heard of him?”
“Ugh,” the queen groaned, rocking back on her heels with the enchantment tarnished—at least for the moment. “If you caught something from him, get a shot of penicillin. If he stole your girl, you’re now part of a not so elite club. And, if he broke your heart, consider yourself lucky he’s out of your life.”
“Ya know him, then?” I pressed, heartrate accelerating at the prospect of us being on the right track.
Rising on narrow, bare feet, Malise padded over to the hot spring in the middle of the grotto. After dipping a toe in first, she slowly sank in. Turquoise scales spread up her legs and over her hips the instant she touched the water. She settled in, and the end of her tailfin slapped the surface of the pool as she stretched. “I’ve known Rowan since he was a randy bilge rat using his mind control to coerce young bar maids into giving up their virtue. I even let him think he had influenced me once …” The memory curled her lips into a naughty little grin. “That was a fun weekend. Unfortunately, our union didn’t end on the best of terms.”
Blinking back into fo
cus on the matter at hand, Terin frowned at the news of Rowan’s lack of popularity. “Then, he wouldn’t have come to you for information?”
Malise’s head fell back in a throaty chuckle. “Darling girl, if there’s something Rowan wants, he wouldn’t let some pesky detail like tarnished emotions stand in his way. He has been known to come sniffing around for information from time to time, despite my attempts to expose fang and scare him off.”
Subtly leaning my way, Terin muttered out of the corner of her mouth, “That was a metaphor, right? She doesn’t actually have fangs?”
“I suppose ya’ll find that out during your long weekend with her,” I deadpanned, not even attempting to ease her mind.
“Bloody Irishman,” she grumbled. Righting her posture, she projected her voice for the sake of the lounging royalty. “Have you seen him recently?”
Stretching her sun-kissed arm out in front of her, Malise watched water drip from her skin like diamonds. “Child, I’m over three thousand years old. You’ll need to be a bit more specific on what you consider recent.”
“Within the last month,” I offered, shifting from one knee to the other.
Squinting at the wall, the queen ventured back through her endless vault of memories. “All the knowledge I possess, and a concrete grasp on the passage of time still evades me. But yes, I believe it wasn’t all that long ago that Rowan visited me last. The lovelorn swashbuckler came here looking for tips on how to woo a lass by way of destroying a Hellhound. Of course, that was before he ignored my advice to steer clear of the mangy beast altogether and became the sodden thing.”
Forgetting how crucial decorum was in my desire to stay alive, I bolted upright. “Ya knew he became the hound and did nothin’ to prevent it?”
Clearing her throat, Terin caught the corner of my shirt and tugged at it to coax me back down.
Inferno (The Gryphon Series Book 6) Page 4
