Undertow

by Michael Buckley

  The audience grumbles, but there are no angry outbursts like before.

  “That’s good, right?” I whisper to my mother.

  “What say the rest of you?” Nor calls out to the council.

  Minerva snarls. “There is nothing to contemplate. She is guilty, and anyone who says otherwise turns his back on us as well.”

  Each council member takes his or her turn, saying “Guilty” one by one.

  Nor shakes his head in disgust, and my stomach seizes. I fight down the sick but cannot hold back my panic. I cry out in disbelief at this monstrous injustice.

  “She never had a chance,” Bex says, stunned.

  “You have heard the council. What have you decided, my prime?” the high minister says.

  “I give her death. May the Great Abyss take her in his loving arms,” he says, then unleashes a string of high-pitched giggles.

  “No!” I cry as Selkie guards push Bex and me aside and clamp their enormous hands on my mother’s arms.

  “I claim my right to combat!” my mother shouts.

  The crowd roars happily. They’re going to get their blood after all.

  “Name your challenger,” the prime says.

  My mother crosses the sand and stands face-to-face with him. “I challenge you, Your Majesty.”

  The prime smiles. “My son will do his duty.”

  “No!” I shout, and turn to Fathom. “You can’t fight my mother. You can’t!”

  He lowers his head to avoid my eyes. He’s really going to do it. I won’t let him. I’ll kill him first. What I feel for him won’t stop me from protecting my mother.

  “I will fight for her!” I shout.

  “Lyric, no!” my mother cries.

  “Am I right that the Alpha allow their offspring to fight their parents’ battles?”

  “Yes,” the high minister says. “That is true.”

  “Lyric, I know what you’re trying to do, and I won’t allow it,” my mother says.

  “Yeah, this is kinda dumb, Walker,” Bex says.

  “I am Alpha, half Alpha, but enough, and I am my mother’s daughter, which makes me a Daughter of Sirena. I will fight for her.”

  The prime laughs. “So be it!”

  The guards drag my mother from the circle and thrust a spear in my hand. It’s heavy, almost impossible to hold with one hand, and made from something I’m sure was alive once. I can barely keep it level. What are you doing, Lyric? This is crazy.

  Fathom approaches. Surprise is my only advantage, so I stab at him, not hard, but enough for him to know that I will hurt him if I have to. He needs to understand I am fighting for my mother’s life, but he swats my attack aside and charges at me. Instinctively I fall back, retreating into the crowd, but their hands push me forward and I fall onto the sand again. Fathom stands over me and he’s smiling, toying with me, cruelly making me suffer until he lets loose his blades and finally fulfills his father’s expectations.

  So I kick him in the groin. He hunches over and groans. I grab my weapon and stand.

  “I hope it hurts!” I shout, and raise my spear over his head, but I can’t do it. I can’t kill anyone, especially not him. Fathom senses my hesitation and swats the spear out of my hands. I watch it fly through the air and land ten yards away. I run to retrieve it, but he’s too fast and blocks my path.

  “This will all be over soon,” he says.

  I look up into his face, surprised by what I see. It’s not full of murder. In fact, what I see looks a lot like hope.

  “What?”

  Before I get my answer, he throws me across the sand and into the crowd, knocking the wind out of me. Robbed of breath, I free myself from their arms. Just as I get away, I feel something at my fingers. I look down and see Ghost slipping a golden gauntlet on my hand. It’s like the one he and Arcade wear, and when it snaps shut, it glows a milky green.

  “What is this?”

  “Testing a theory,” he says as he presses a button on the palm. I can feel a tiny engine rumbling under the metal. “I hope Arcade is right. If not, Fathom’s going to have to kill you.”

  “What are you talking about?” I ask. “What is this thing?” He pushes the button on top, there’s a roar in my ears, and suddenly I am a bubble, effervescent and charged, growing, expanding from something small and insignificant into a massive circle of energy, pulsating and flashing like an infant galaxy. My feet take root in the sand and my head is a balloon with a string that rises into the air to taste the clouds. Everything speaks to me, and I speak to it; the wind is a chatterbox of thoughts and ideas, sunbeams sing silly songs, and the water—the water is in love with the shore. It has a voice and it whispers to me, “What would you have us do, Lyric Walker?”

  And for the first time in my life, my mind is calm. Not even an F1. It’s such a beautiful, deliciously boring sensation to be 100 percent pain free. I don’t feel mentally hunched over. The burden has been lifted. I look down at the glove. What is it doing to me?

  I’m pulled out of my bliss by the cheering crowd, and a good thing too, because Fathom is rushing at me with his sharpened blades. He’s going to cut me in half. I throw up my hands, knowing they won’t stop the jagged saws he uses to kill, but instinct takes over. There’s an explosion, a geyser of water rocketing out of the ocean, soaring through the air and slamming into Fathom’s back, a missile of liquid. The spout hovers in midair, waiting, and when the prince tries to stand again, it smacks him down.

  The crowd gasps.

  “Lyric?” my mother says. “Are you doing that?”

  I marvel at the glove. Yes, I’m doing this. I’m not sure how, not even sure I could do it again, but yes, this is me, and I like it.

  The high minister rushes between us. “This fight must stop at once,” she cries. “She wears the gauntlet. She hears the Voice.”

  The prime stomps toward me with his wife by his side. They share the same murderous look. “You cannot stop this, old woman!” Minerva shrieks.

  The priestess shakes her head. “In all matters regarding the Great Abyss, I have supreme power. The girl communicates with the giver and the taker. She rules the wave, and is needed. She cannot be sacrificed.”

  The prime’s brother steps into the circle.

  “Braken, this is not your place,” the prime shouts.

  “Brother, do not let your hunger for revenge allow you to do something gravely foolish. There are so few who can hear the Voice—”

  “Shut your mouth, Braken!” Minerva commands. “She is not one of us. She is a human bottom feeder.”

  Fathom gets to his feet and approaches his father. “Your Majesty, my uncle speaks with wisdom. Lyric Walker commands the sea. She cannot be squandered to pay for her mother’s crimes. She will be needed when the Rusalka find us.”

  “You are not to speak of the murderers!” the prime bellows, and the crowd boos Fathom.

  “You are offended by the truth? So am I. But it must be discussed. The Rusalka rose up against us and used the power this girl has to kill us in the millions,” Fathom says. “They drove us from the hunting grounds and forced us into hiding on the shore. We are all that’s left. It is time to give up your glorious plans for invasion of the mainland and focus on the Rusalka threat.”

  Terrance rushes to join us and is met with jeers. “Alpha, listen to me now. The authors of our genocide have found us.”

  The crowd gasps.

  “The Rusalka are coming here?” Nor cries.

  I remember Doyle’s comment about the Alpha cavalry, but he had it wrong. The creatures in the water aren’t coming to help. They’re coming to finish the job!

  “We have to warn people!” I shout.

  “Your people are preparing war against us as well,” Braken says to me. “I do not believe they will listen to our warnings. No, like always, we will fight our own battles, but it may very well be our final stand. You could be the difference between survival for some and complete extermination.”

  “Pardon her mother
and end the challenge,” Nor demands. “Our future is at stake.”

  The prime stands and points his finger at all of us, so angry he’s shaking. His eyes are wild. It’s true what Terrance said. He’s lost his mind. “Your roles, all of your roles, are not as advisers but as servants to my whims and desires.”

  “You must listen to Braken’s council. He is your brother!” Nor shouts.

  “The next person to talk will die,” Minerva says. “Ah, finally the people remember their places. Now, Fathom, continue the challenge, and when you are done, bring your father the bottom feeder’s head.”

  “I will not.”

  “Your disrespect is outrageous,” his father rages.

  “I have stood with every decision you have made—most I did not agree with—and I fought for every one,” Fathom shouts. “I have been beaten and bloodied for you—”

  “As is your obligation!” his father bellows.

  “I have given you a lifetime of fighting,” Fathom says. “I ask for one thing in return, as a father’s gift to a dutiful son. Father, spare Lyric Walker and her mother.”

  The prime’s blades slide out of his arms, and he marches down the stairs toward me. “If you will not do it, then I can manage! Your feelings for this ape embarrass you. Do you think I would allow you to lie with her, bear my grandchildren?”

  “Show the boy what respect means, my darling,” Minerva cries.

  I search the crowd for Arcade and find her behind me. Her stoic face cannot hide her distraught eyes. She looks at me and I am ashamed.

  Fathom’s blades spring out of his arms, and he leaps into his father’s path.

  “I will not let you.”

  “The heir challenges the father,” the prime says. “Was that your plan all along? Did you hope to change my mind, make me weak before my subjects? All for a little surface girl? You dishonor me.”

  He swings his arm, and the blade catches Fathom’s shoulder. Blood pours all over the sand, but Fathom does not fall.

  “Father, if you kill me, the nation will turn on you. You cannot rule without a son,” Fathom says.

  Minerva steps forward with a wicked grin. “Chop him down, husband. You have another heir. I am with child.”

  The prime grins and rushes at him, but Fathom rolls away from his kicks. Finally, he leaps to his feet and punches the older man. The prime stumbles and falls awkwardly, rolling on his back like an upended turtle.

  “What has happened to you?” Fathom rages over his father. His anger radiates, burning everything it touches. I suspect it is more intense than his wounded arm. “You prance through this camp, muttering to your voices, taking the advice of the piranha you call a wife, and dragging the rest of us into ruin. Now we find one who might help us reclaim our rightful home, someone who could take us off this filthy beach and allow a chance for your people to reclaim their dignity, and you would cut her down to satisfy your pride? You are a foolish old man and I am glad my mother was spared the tragedy of seeing your descent.”

  The prime snarls, baring teeth like a rabid dog. “She should have thrown you into the trench while you were still a suckling.”

  He leaps to his feet and lunges at his son. Their blades sing through the air. Fathom blocks the attack, then strikes out himself, only to have his father sidestep out of the way. The two violently slam into each other, testing each other’s strength, then tumbling backward. The prime backhands Fathom, and he falls to the sand. When blood bubbles on his lip, he wipes it with his fingers, looks at it, then punches his father in the gut with such force it sends him flailing out of the arena and onto the beach. With an incredible leap, Fathom soars into the sky after him, causing a stampede of followers to leap out as well, eager to see the fight.

  I grab Bex’s hand and we rush to the steps, but my mother calls out.

  “Stay here. It’s too dangerous,” she begs.

  “I can’t, Mom,” I say, and continue my ascent. By the time Bex and I get to the top, we’re out of breath, but we force ourselves to push through the crowd.

  Nor stands at the edge of the battle. “No! This must stop! There are no winners here. If the prince kills the prime, he cannot take the crown. He has no heir of his own.”

  “I have no interest in this crown,” Fathom shouts as he stalks after his father. “I renounce my blood claim. If I cannot make the prime listen to reason, then the seat will go unchallenged to whoever will take it.”

  “How kind of you to spare our people from the embarrassing fate of you as their leader, pup!” the prime shouts. He leaps forward and knocks Fathom down with his shoulder. I can hear the wind flying out of his lungs even from here. “You underestimate me, Fathom. Did you forget that I fought my own father’s battles, boy? That my worthiness was tested as well?”

  “A couple of scratches,” Fathom shouts. “Your father died when you weren’t much more than a boy. No heir in Alpha history has tasted his own blood as little as you. I have fought endless battles for a man who has led our people to the very edge of extermination, a fool who antagonized the humans, a people who might have made war against the Rusalka by our side. You have forced a proud and noble race to live in squalor. Is it any wonder I have these trophies? Everyone in this camp wishes you dead.”

  Fathom’s father buries his fist in his son’s belly, then sweeps his leg and knocks him off his feet. He kicks him in the ribs with such strength that Fathom’s body is sent flying over the crowd and into the water beyond. The prime springs off his heels and stomps in after him.

  “My husband’s commands will be honored,” I hear behind me. I turn to find Minerva standing over me. She’s holding my spear in her hands. “If his worthless, disrespectful son will not complete this challenge, then I will do it for him.”

  “You have no right!” shouts the high minister as she rushes between us.

  “I am the prime consort. I make the right,” she roars, and slaps the old woman to the ground. Then she strikes, jabbing her weapon at me. I feel the point stabbing into my arm. Something warm leaks down my sleeve.

  “Are you crazy?” Bex shouts, and snatches the weapon right out of her hands. It happens so fast, I can’t believe it, but Bex swings the staff hard and knocks Minerva in the back of the head. The queen falls to the ground, unconscious.

  My mother forces her way to our sides. She looks at Minerva as the high minister commands two Selkie guards to arrest the queen.

  “Did you do that?” she asks me.

  “That would be Bex.”

  Bex smiles. “You can’t come to Brooklyn and act a fool.”

  “Fathom!” I run through the crowd toward the ocean, with Bex and my mother close behind. There’s no sign of him or his father.

  “Are they still out there? I can’t see them,” Bex cries, scanning the water.

  “They killed each other,” I hear a young Ceto boy say. “Our prime and prince died in honorable combat.”

  And with each passing minute, I start to believe it is true. Bex takes my hand and squeezes it tight, reminding me that no matter what, she is there. My mother stands behind me with her hand on my shoulder, and we wait and wait. Each second feels like an hour as the entire Alpha Nation surrenders to the obvious. Arcade forces her way to the front of the crowd. Her tall friend Flyer stands nearby and watches as she walks down to the shoreline. She lets out a sad, thrumming call, but there is no response. She turns to Flyer, her face full of sorrow, and he joins her. The two of them leap into the water.

  “They will retrieve the bodies,” Nor says.

  Ghost rushes into the water, and then Luna. Terrance is next, followed by Surf. Dozens more dive in to find the boy I love.

  My tears break free. I don’t know how I held them back, maybe from some sense that he would have wanted me to be strong, but now I bury my face in my mother’s shoulder and let it all go, crying until I could make my own ocean. One by one the Alpha return without their prince.

  “This is your fault,” Arcade bellows at me. “He had to sa
ve you.”

  It’s then that I understand that Fathom had this planned. He knew how to save my mother and me. He knew that this thing on my hand would make me valuable. But he was hoping to save his father as well. The only part of his plan he could not see—would not see—was his father’s unbending mania, and he died because of it.

  “Come on,” Bex says as she tries to pull me back to the camp.

  “No, I can’t. Not yet,” I cry.

  Suddenly, I hear a splash. When I look up, there is a spray of water shooting into the sky. On top of the spout, soaring higher and higher, are two figures. One is a young man with blond hair. The other is his father, limp and beaten.

  “Fathom!” Arcade shouts.

  He lands a few feet from me, making a cloud of sand that rises and falls in the air. He drops his father to the ground in a heap. He’s still alive, but he’s not going to get up anytime soon.

  “I held back, Lyric Walker,” he says.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “There are more humans at the wall,” a Selkie shouts to us.

  “Doyle?” Fathom asks me.

  “I hope so,” I say. Terrance said he could get him a message. If there’s anyone on the other side of the wall I can trust to warn everyone about the Rusalka, it’s him. Luna opens an archway, and Fathom and I step through, only to find Governor Bachman waiting with a small army of paramilitary troops.

  “Where’s Doyle?” I ask.

  “Mr. Doyle is no longer involved in this program. As it turns out, he had a member of the Alpha Nation right by his side, helping him make choices,” she says. “He’s probably going to be court-martialed for treason. As of now, I have placed all of Coney Island under martial law and have taken command of New York’s branch of the National Guard.”

  “You’re in charge of that?” I say, pointing at the missiles still aimed at us.

  She smiles smugly. “So, there are two ways we can do this. You and your people can surrender peacefully and give yourself up for arrest and relocation, or, by orders of the governor of the great state of New York, we will forcibly remove you.”