Arista rested her head on his shoulder as he held her tight. The door to the small room swung open and Salazar stepped inside.
“This tearful reunion must come to an end, I’m afraid. The mermaid and I have business to which we must attend.”
˜
{ Chapter 35 }
Kellen stood impatiently with his arm outstretched across the kitchen table. “Can’t I move yet? I’ve been standing here forever.”
“Just a few more minutes,” Valerie said. Her wandering eyes moved over to Clarissa, who peered intently at the open pages of a book, and continued to the bracelet sitting on Kellen’s wrist. She frowned and crossed her arms. Clarissa looked up from her text with a similar concerned expression.
“It should be working,” she said.
“But it’s not,” Valerie said with a sigh, leaning across the table to look at the bracelet.
“Maybe it is and you can’t tell,” Kellen suggested.
“No, I would know. And you should feel something when it kicks into effect, too. Like a jolt of electricity running through you.”
“You never said anything about that,” he said, a hint of suspicion showing in his voice.
“I didn’t mention it so we’d know if it happened. But it didn’t, did it?” she said. He shook his head in a defeated response.
“It has to be the bracelet then,” she continued, gnawing at the very edge of her lower lip. “For some reason it’s resistant to holding the spell. Bring it over here, Kellen.”
He turned and held his wrist out towards her. She analyzed the bracelet, rotating the large metal cuff around his wrist. The light playfully bounced around from the core of the band. She pursed her lips as her fingers traced the muted design work on its surface.
“Let me know if you feel something,” she said, tightening her grip on the bracelet. She looked into his nervous eyes as he waited for something to happen. He cried out in pain finally, jerking his left leg up from the ground as if he had stepped on a hot coal.
“Well, it’ll let magic pass through,” she said, the corners of her mouth turning down into a sharper frown. Kellen gingerly straightened his leg as Valerie stared at the bracelet.
Valerie tapped her nails along the tabletop in frustration. Clarissa sat down next to her.
“Let me help,” she offered, holding out her hands.
“Maybe this will help, too,” Kellen said, holding out the bracelet.
They completed the circle and closed their eyes. Valerie felt Clarissa’s powers probing through her and back to Kellen’s bracelet, searching for the answers. Valerie tried to center her mind, to concentrate on what she was seeking. Every time she tried to focus, she felt Clarissa there pushing her to let go. Finally, Valerie released her mind and allowed it to drift with no destination in mind, following the flow of images.
She thought first of Gavin, then of Arista. Her thoughts drifted to mermaids, visions of them swimming through water. She thought of Kellen, leaving the water to come after Arista. Then she saw the spark. She thought of Arista becoming sick without water. The mermaids needed water. Their magic must need water, too.
Valerie’s eyes shot open and she jumped out of her chair. She ran to the sink to fill her largest bowl with water. The other two sat at the table shaking their minds free from the trance.
“I don’t know how I could be so stupid. It’s so obvious,” Valerie muttered as she waited for the bowl to fill with water. She tapped her foot impatiently, the clicks from her shoe echoing through the kitchen.
“What’s going on?” Kellen asked.
“You’re a mermaid,” Valerie answered, keeping her attention on the bowl of water.
“Water is a crucial element of everything related to mermaids, including your magic,” Clarissa said.
Valerie rushed back to the table with the full bowl. She grabbed Kellen’s wrist and thrust it into the water, closing her eyes and moving her lips as she soundlessly uttered the words of her chant. Kellen looked at Clarissa, unhappy at being little more than another ingredient in Valerie’s spell. Clarissa smiled and shrugged at him.
Valerie let go of his hand and took a step back. Kellen looked down at his wrist waiting for something to happen. He was about to say he felt nothing when his arm locked into a stiff line. A wave of electricity shot through him and his arm shook from the pressure. He yelped in surprise.
His arm still quivering, he glanced at Valerie with a smirk. “I think I felt something that time.”
Clarissa leaned over for a better look at the bracelet. “Is the light still working?”
Kellen glanced down and moved his arm. The light displaying Arista’s position traveled across the surface and he nodded in satisfaction.
Valerie clapped her hands together. “What are we waiting for then? Let’s go bring them home.”
˜
{ Chapter 36 }
Arista held Gavin’s hand in her own as Salazar loomed over them.
“Come along, mermaid. I don’t think you’ll want to do this here.”
“I’m not leaving him,” she said, holding her head high. “Do what you want.”
“As you wish,” he said, sliding his tongue across his jagged teeth. “I’m sure I can use him.”
He extended a finger underneath Gavin’s chin and, with a boost of magical energy, dragged him up against the wall. He stopped when Gavin hovered upright a few inches above the ground. Arista defiantly held onto Gavin’s hand as he groaned in agony from the magic tightening in coils around him. Shackles tumbled out from the dark recesses of the ceiling and Salazar latched them onto Gavin’s wrists, shoving Arista away in the process. He left Gavin hanging with his arms over his head and his toes brushing the ground.
Arista regained her footing and moved back by Gavin’s side. Salazar held her in his gaze, a discernible rage simmering beneath the inky black surface of his eyes.
“Your friend here hasn’t been very cooperative. He didn’t want to talk about you. Kellen was far more useful for information, but you figured that out already. How?”
Arista glared and crossed her arms. “I don’t need to tell you anything.”
“Ah, ah, ah… not so hasty. I don’t think Gavin will appreciate your heartless attitude.” Salazar flicked his finger in the air and Gavin cried out. A fresh wound appeared on his chest, mimicking the line the blutjager had drawn through the air.
“Stop, stop it,” she yelled, throwing herself in front of Gavin. “He’s had enough. It’s me you want to hurt.”
“Wrong again, mermaid. I don’t want to hurt you. I just need you to tell me what you know,” he said with a growl as he paced the room in front of her.
“We found the nexus you made,” she said, keeping herself positioned in front of Gavin.
“There’s more,” he insisted.
Arista turned her head to look at Gavin who was near to passing out from the intense pain. “The Oracle,” she whispered.
Salazar’s eyes sharpened with renewed anger. “That old hag is always getting in the way. What else did she tell you?”
“She told us what you are — a despicable blutjager,” Arista said, allowing herself to flood with anger. “That you’re trying to destroy magic. That we must stop you.”
“Stop me,” he said with the smallest laugh. “I’m flattered it’s me you think you should worry about. As you’ll soon find out, I’m the least of your problems. But in the meantime, I’m owed a mermaid.”
His grin vanished and his dark eyes cast a piercing stare, boring into Arista’s own eyes. “You killed mine.”
“I didn’t kill her,” Arista said. “I set her free.”
Salazar lifted his arm to strike her, but his hand stopped inches away from her face and he growled in displeasure. He shifted and instead let his hand fall across Gavin’s chest, tearing more of his flesh away. Arista forced her way further in front of Gavin. For some reason Salazar was unwilling to hit her.
Salazar turned away, licking the blood off his f
ingers. Arista took the opportunity to tear more strips of cloth away from the blanket and drape them across Gavin’s chest.
“Conniving, stupid mermaids,” Salazar muttered in the corner, still licking the blood and chewing at his cracked fingernails to get the few escaping drops. “Always have to act superior, don’t you? You won’t be, not for long.”
With his back to Arista, he turned his face up to the ceiling. “You need me! And you can’t control me forever,” Salazar screamed into the shadows.
Arista watched him fearfully. Not only was she here with a creature from her nightmares, but he appeared to be completely mad. She held strips of the blanket against Gavin’s chest to soak up his blood. She closed her eyes, hoping the others would arrive soon.
…
“I know you’re eager to reach her, we all are. But we have to stay close. We don’t know exactly how far our barrier extends,” Valerie warned Kellen.
He slowed a few paces as he waited for the women to catch up. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”
They had followed the light from Kellen’s bracelet as far as they could on the road. Once they made it over the Wabash River, they thought it was possible to easily spot the car in the open stretch of land. They left it hidden in some brush and kept traveling by foot.
The light emanating from the core of the cuff worked like a compass. When they went towards Arista, the light remained balanced in the center of his wrist. When they veered off the correct path, it fell from the center until they corrected their direction. It had been difficult to follow on the road, since it wasn’t a straight line to their destination.
Clarissa glanced at the light on his wrist, which was glowing brighter as they approached Arista. “How come I never noticed it before? It’s practically become a flashlight since we got out of the car.”
Kellen looked down at the light, assured to see it situated in the center of his wrist. “Once it gets close enough to her, I guess where we can be expected to see her, it dissipates. The whole thing kind of gives off a soft glow. You notice it in the dark, but it’s barely perceptible in the light.”
“Are we still on track?” Valerie asked Kellen, while turning to look over her shoulder and through the trees.
“It seems so.”
“What’s wrong?” Clarissa asked as she watched Valerie look backwards once more.
“Birds have been surrounding us. I think the barrier is still working and they don’t see our magic as a threat, but they still sense we’re here,” Valerie answered.
She was still looking over her shoulder when Kellen stopped walking and she bumped into him.
“Watch it,” she said through gritted teeth.
Kellen rolled his eyes. “You ran into me. Anyway, look ahead, there’s a light through those trees.”
Clarissa and Valerie peered past him to see the faint yellow light piercing through the dense woods.
“That has to be it,” Clarissa said. “That has to be where he’s keeping them.”
Valerie pulled the others close to the ground where they were less likely to be seen. “I think you’re right. Now’s the time we could use a plan.”
Clarissa shifted uncomfortably in the silent minutes that followed.
“I don’t think we thought this through all the way,” she said.
“That doesn’t matter now,” Valerie said. “Gavin and Arista are inside and they’re depending on us. We have to come up with something.”
“Older mermaids used to tell stories from the war,” Kellen said. “They told tales of the blutjagers to children to make them behave. They’re the stuff of our nightmares. I don’t know how much of the stories are actually true, I’m sure they’ve been embellished through the years. But all the stories end by saying the blutjagers were defeated when they were split in half.”
“Split in half? What does that mean?” Clarissa asked.
“I don’t know,” he answered. “As kids we always thought it meant they were sliced in half, but that would make them no different than any other living thing. So the fact that ‘split in half’ was always used has to mean something else.”
“It could mean any number of things,” Valerie said. “We don’t have time to solve mermaid riddles. We need a more immediate solution.”
They stared glumly at each other. A bird chirped nearby, making them jump. Clarissa moved her feet on the ground, snapping a twig in half. She picked up a piece of the twig and rolled it between her fingers.
“He is powerful, but you told Arista he may still be susceptible to a vampire’s weaknesses, right?” Clarissa asked.
“I don’t have any solid proof, but it’s reasonable to assume so.”
Clarissa continued to twirl the broken end of the twig in her hand. “So maybe we don’t go in with a big magic spell. Maybe all it would take is some broken branches and a lit match. Don’t kill the blutjager, kill the vampire. Split him in half.”
˜
{ Chapter 37 }
Arista thought the pounding of her heart was so loud that Salazar would surely hear it, even over his insane ranting. She continued to press strips of cloth against Gavin’s wounds to staunch the flow of blood. He had faded in and out of consciousness for the last several minutes. She worried he'd worsen the longer he remained suspended from the ceiling.
She glanced out of the corner of her eye to Salazar. He had ignored them for quite some time, making her nervous for what would come next.
He let out another piercing yell as he held his head between his hands. Arista watched in fear as he stuck out his tongue and bit down on the tip between his pointed teeth until a stream of blood trickled onto his chin. He hastily pulled his tongue back in, sucking on the blood and quieting down, like a child with a pacifier.
Arista looked back at Gavin, wondering if they could subdue Salazar. But Gavin had slipped back into unconsciousness and was unresponsive. Salazar’s eyes slid back towards her and he stood from his spot against the stone wall.
“Why are you trying to find your mother?” His calm demeanor sent chills down the back of her neck.
“I… I don’t know. I need to know if she’s alive, if she’s okay. And, I guess, why she left.”
“Your mother is dead,” Salazar said, watching her intently with his inky black eyes.
Arista returned his stare, her anger rising to the surface once more. “You’re lying. You don’t even know who my mother is.”
“Ciara Tidehli. I know her all too well.”
The blood drained from Arista’s cheeks and she wavered on her feet. Gavin’s dangling body served as her only support.
“You can’t… it doesn’t mean anything. You could have learned her name somehow,” she whispered. Her mind was spiraling out of control. She had difficulty keeping one thought untangled from the next.
“You’re trying to remember if you’ve said her name since you’ve been to the surface? No, you haven’t, my dear. How else could I know?” he said, taunting her and moving ever closer, inch by inch.
“Another mermaid could have told you,” Arista argued, struggling to fight through the onslaught of emotions.
“Now, now, you are Ciara’s daughter — I know you must be smarter than this. You hear my words and you know they’re true, you’re just not willing to admit it.” He frowned at her the way a parent would a petulant child. “Still not enough? How about this, you didn’t come to the surface on a whim. You received your mother’s messages.”
Arista fell back, her mouth agape in horror. She hadn’t told anyone about that. Not Gavin, not Clarissa, not even the witch Morena knew about the dreams. The dreams where her mother appeared, begging her to come to the surface to find her. To help her.
No one knew.
“Shocked, I see?” Salazar asked with a wicked grin.
He leaned in closer. Arista felt his hot breath against her neck. She desperately wanted to move, but was completely frozen by fear. He reached up with a fingernail, made ragged by his chewing, and slid some of the
hair from the side of her face to behind her shoulder.
“You came to find her, but I don’t think you want to know the truth. Your mother is dead, but Ciara is alive. And she doesn’t want you anymore.”
A tear formed in Arista’s eye as he pressed against her body, trailing his lips from her jaw to her collar. She closed her eyes, allowing the tear to fall, as he probed the surface of her skin with the edge of his teeth. In the back of her mind a voice screamed at her to fight back. She couldn’t focus, couldn’t keep her thoughts straight.
“Arista,” Gavin murmured as he drifted back to wakefulness.
Like a lightning bolt, the fog cleared from her head. The voice screamed louder in her mind. Stop him!
She shoved her left hand into her pocket and wrapped her fingers around the packet of verbena from Valerie. She slid her right arm up across her chest and jammed her fist into the side of Salazar’s throat. He fell away, but as he did a sharp tooth tore into her flesh. Blood dripped from her throat. Without stopping she tumbled forward into him, knocking Salazar onto the ground. With her knees pressed into his chest, she thrust the packet of verbena into his open mouth. She forced it in as far as it would go before he threw her off.
She scrambled to her feet and watched as he lay thrashing on the ground. His head rocked back and forth, slamming into the hard surface of the floor as he violently coughed and gagged on the verbena. Arista ran to Gavin, who was drowsy but still conscious. She tugged on the clasp of one of the chains, hanging from it with her full weight until it gave way and opened. Gavin rocked forward and cried out when his other arm pulled against the last restraint.
“Come on, Gavin, you have to help me pull it open,” Arista urged between gritted teeth as she worked on loosening the final clasp.
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