Undertow

by Jordan L. Hawk

  The idea of her asking Dr. Whyborne how to court me caused me to feel faint. “I’m glad you didn’t.” Then something else occurred to me. “Your mother…Heliabel…knows you like women? Not just men?”

  “I have male friends, but I’ve never wished for them to be more,” she said, matter-of-factly. “Why? Have you?”

  My face could have fried an egg. I tried very hard not to think of her brother, and failed miserably. “S-Sometimes. Is that all right?”

  She gave me that slow grin again. “As long as you like me better.”

  “Always.” I took her hand, a bit shyly. She immediately curled her fingers around mine, the tips of her claws resting lightly against my skin.

  I wanted to stay like this forever. Well, not like this, precisely. I wanted to kiss her again. Warmth collected between my thighs at the thought we might do other things, as well.

  Aware I was blushing furiously, I cleared my throat. “The ketoi. Were you able to warn them?”

  Persephone withdrew her hand. “No,” she said, her voice a growl of frustration. “The librarians have no summoning stones.”

  “And Oliver took mine.” My shoulders slumped. “But surely your people will worry when you don’t return?”

  “Of course.” Her scowl deepened. “But they can’t walk the streets openly during the day. That is why we have the hybrids, to be our eyes and ears on the land. But those who are known to us are either taken captive or have fled.” Persephone shook her head. “Foolish. I underestimated the danger.”

  I wracked my brain, trying to think of some solution. “What about your father? He has some way of contacting your mother, surely. I could go to Whyborne House with a message for him.”

  “Mother is done with her life on the land,” Persephone replied. “Perhaps I should have given Father a summoning stone, but I wasn’t certain I wanted him to have one. Stupid.” She sighed. “I have made many mistakes, it seems.”

  “You couldn’t have known.” I took her hand again.

  “Still, we aren’t without allies.” She straightened. “The librarians have fought for us once before. And they aren’t vulnerable to the siren’s song. Mr. Quinn?”

  His shoes tapped on the floor, and he ducked beneath the curtain moments later. Heat flooded my face—I’d forgotten he was so close. Had he heard the things we’d said to each other? Would he sneer at me in disgust? Tell anyone else?

  Tell Dr. Whyborne?

  Mr. Quinn appeared unruffled. He bowed to Persephone. “How may I serve?”

  “Do you have a ship?” she asked.

  “One can be procured immediately,” he said. I hoped his assurance stemmed from the fact one of the librarians already owned a boat of some sort, and not from any plan of acquiring one forcefully.

  She nodded. “You fought against the Fideles in July. Are you prepared to fight again?”

  Mr. Quinn looked as though she’d offered him a treat. “The librarians are at your disposal, Widdershins.”

  “The Fideles have taken a ship, and intend to use foul magic against my people.” There was a commanding note in her tone I’d heard only once before, the night she’d fought the old chieftess in the grand foyer. Something stirred in me to hear it, and I found myself sitting straighter. “We will find them, and we will stop them.”

  “At once. Rest here, and I shall return the moment we’re ready to move.” Mr. Quinn bowed again and vanished back through the curtain.

  I knew Persephone had little choice, and yet… “You’re injured.”

  “Yes.” She put a hand to her side with a wince. “But we ketoi can recover from that which would kill a human. It’s the reason I was given to the sea in the first place. Brother and I nearly died at birth, and the hybrid working in the house wished to save at least one of us.”

  “One for the land, and one for the sea,” I murmured.

  “Yes.” Her hand fell from her side to cover mine. “But I’ll need you with me, Maggie. To lean on.”

  I wanted to be there for her. I wanted her to rely on me. But… “I’m not a fighter. Not like you or Dr. Putnam-Barnett. I’m afraid I’d only be in the way.”

  “There are many kinds of strength, cuttlefish.” She ran her fingers along my jaw, catching my chin gently. “Many ways to fight. And you’ll never be in the way.”

  She kissed me, soft and sweet. When our lips parted, I said, “O-of course, then. I’ll come. Only…what about you? Will you be able to fight off the effects of the mask again?” I frowned. “Actually, I’m not certain how you were able to in the first place.”

  “The same way my brother guards his mind against the dweller in the deeps.” She tapped the side of her head. “Sorcery is an act of will. My will was stronger.”

  “I see,” I said, though I wasn’t entirely sure I did. “Should we go find Mr. Quinn?”

  “Yes.” She slid off the table, steadying herself on my arm as she did so. “Then we shall make these Fideles regret ever setting foot in Widdershins.”

  ~ * ~

  A few hours later, I clung to the rail of a small ship with one hand and Persephone with the other, as it powered through the waves. The wind tore at my hair and my tattered dress; I surely looked like a madwoman. A belt hung around my waist, to support the sheathed knife Mr. Quinn had given me.

  A storm had blown in just as we got underway. Lightning danced and crashed at our heels, and the white foam flew from the waves. Rain spat from the heavens. I soon shivered from its icy touch.

  Persephone seemed unaffected by the cold and wet—which I supposed was only natural. Her gaze remained trained on the horizon, her mouth set in a grim line.

  According to Persephone, the most likely place for the ritual would be near a reef. Something to do with the arcane lines of power, flowing across both land and sea, to form the maelstrom beneath Widdershins. The reef, apparently, lay along one such line, which made it a good place to cast spells.

  Mr. Quinn frowned. “They seek to use Widdershins against itself. Is there no way to prevent it?”

  She laughed softly, but without humor. “If there was, the maelstrom wouldn’t have needed my brother and I to exist.”

  Mr. Quinn only nodded and withdrew to consult with the man captaining the ship, a rather unsavory looking sort who was apparently related to one of the librarians. When he was gone, I said, “What did you mean by that?”

  Her arm tightened around my waist. Ostensibly, she leaned against me for support, and Mr. Quinn hadn’t looked at us askance. Perhaps he hadn’t overheard our conversation in the library after all. “Widdershins—the arcane vortex—collects things. People.” She flashed me a smile, shark’s teeth gleaming in the night. “Perhaps it brought you to me.”

  Heat scalded my skin, and I shook my head quickly. “I’m just a secretary.”

  “No one is just anything.” Her hair threaded through my locks; the sensation odd, but not unpleasant. “As for what I meant—”

  “There!” cried the librarian on lookout. “Straight ahead!”

  Persephone left off and peered ahead. Light appeared across the plunging waves, brilliant beams illuminating the ocean all around the dark bulk of a whaling steamer. I squinted through the rain and flying foam, but we were still too far away to make out any details.

  “You need to see this, sir,” the lookout said, voice trembling. He passed his binoculars to Mr. Quinn. Mr. Quinn took a brief look, then handed them to Persephone. She turned them over, baffled.

  “Here,” I said. “Hold the smaller glass lenses to your eyes. This dial focuses them.”

  “Ah.” She flashed me a grateful smile, then lifted the binoculars. After a moment of adjusting the focus, her smile died. Her lips curled back from her teeth, and when she lowered the binoculars, her expression was savage.

  “They will pay for this,” she spat. “They will all pay.”

  Mr. Quinn nodded. “Yes, Widdershins.”

  I took the binoculars from her with trembling fingers. Even though I feared wh
at I’d behold, I forced myself to find the whaling ship amidst the black sea, to adjust the focus until everything came into terrible clarity.

  Men in robes lined the rails. They wore featureless masks, eerily similar to the bone mask from the play, and in their hands they held a variety of weapons: harpoons, rifles, nets, and pistols. Atop the bridge, in front of the stack belching smoke, stood Oliver. He, too, wore a robe, his arms lifted and his mouth moving as though he chanted. Joanna stood before him, once again wearing the bone mask with its strange symbol and cabochon. The decking was awash in blood, and someone had painted bloody symbols on the white bone.

  I shifted the binoculars slightly, and saw where the blood had come from.

  “No!” All the strength seemed to leave my arms, the binoculars too heavy to lift. “Irene…” And not just her, but the other hybrids: Burton, the man we’d seen last night, and more.

  Persephone’s hand closed on my shoulder. “We will avenge them,” she said. Then she stiffened, her jaw tightening. “The singing—I hear it. We must hurry. They’ve begun to call up the ketoi.”

  ~ * ~

  “Full steam ahead!” Mr. Quinn shouted. He flourished a heavy dictionary like a weapon in the direction of the whaling vessel. “Those armed with guns, to the fore! Hold your fire until we’re in range, then let them have it!”

  I surrendered the binoculars to one of the librarians and gripped Persephone’s arm. She swayed slightly on her feet, her eyes narrowed with strain, her neck corded with effort. I didn’t dare interrupt whatever mental battle she fought to keep herself free of the siren’s song, but I would at least be on hand if her will failed.

  Fins began to break the water around the whaler. Clawed hands reached up, gripping the side of the vessel.

  The crack of gunfire sounded across the water, over the roar of the engine and the howl of the wind through the rigging. Harpoons flashed, spearing targets rendered vulnerable by the arc lights. Nets tangled batrachian limbs.

  And above it all, the song of the siren, audible now even to my ears. Joanna stood beside Oliver, the hem of her dress dyed with blood. Her hair tumbled free, streaming in the wind, a black cloud around the pallid bone of her mask.

  She sang in the same language as she had in the play. Even though I didn’t understand the words, this time I felt their meaning, perhaps due to some quirk of Oliver’s sorcery. She sang of despair, of darkness. Of surrender to forces so much larger than oneself. Of giving up the fight.

  It robbed the will of the ketoi; even those who had been struggling gradually ceased, leaving them utterly helpless. As we drew closer, I could make out Oliver’s manic grin, his eyes alight with glee at his revenge.

  “Fire!” called Mr. Quinn. Several rifles cracked, and a moment later, the cultists were returning fire against our little ship.

  I ducked behind an equipment locker, dragging Persephone down with me. Bullets pinged against metal, as our small ship began to slow. Someone cried out in pain, while Mr. Quinn howled encouragement, and the waves broke over the rail and drenched me with water. Persephone growled, a low sound of rage, her muscles tight as wires beneath my hands.

  What was I doing here? I couldn’t fight; couldn’t do anything but huddle in terror and pray no stray bullet came our way.

  No. Persephone had asked me to come. She relied on me to help her now, while she fought the insidious influence of the song within the landscape of her mind. I might not believe in my ability, but I trusted her judgment.

  A shudder ran through the ship as it fetched up against the whaling vessel. Harpoons thudded onto the deck. I pulled out the knife Mr. Quinn had given me. When a harpoon slammed into the crate, I rose from my crouch and slashed the rope before the cultist could recover it. I put the knife away and wrenched the harpoon free. It was heavy, but I felt better with it in my hands.

  Mooring lines had been thrown between ships, and the librarians started to board. Mr. Quinn led the charge, leaping onto the heaving deck of the whaler and slamming his heavy dictionary into the head of the nearest cultist. I caught a glimpse of Mr. Ayers’s face beneath the hood as he collapsed into a heap.

  “Come,” Persephone said to me.

  I lent her my arm, and we emerged from cover and made for the rail. Two of the huskier librarians helped us up and over, and within moments, we stood on the enemy vessel. The deck was slick with blood, and there were several unmoving bodies, fetched up against the rail or slumped over the harpoon canon mounted at the bow of the ship. Near at hand, the librarians struggled with the cultists, while above the siren still sang.

  And Oliver glared down, his face white with rage. “Faithless bitch! So you throw your lot in with them, even knowing they murdered our fathers?”

  Before I could formulate a response, Persephone snarled. She flung out a hand, and frost raced across the rail Oliver leaned against. He drew back with a shout of his own.

  Cultists ran at us from both directions. I fell in against Persephone’s back, jabbing wildly with my harpoon. I didn’t make contact, but they slowed their approach and began to circle warily.

  There came a loud blast, accompanied by screaming. Before I could make out what had happened, one of the men in front of me drew a gun. An instant later, it exploded in his hand. Hot fragments whizzed past, and he stumbled away before I could more than glimpse the mangled flesh which was all that remained of his forearm.

  “The ketoi is a sorceress!” Oliver roared. “Put your guns away, you fools. She’s setting fire to the powder in them!”

  Oh no—Oliver was a sorcerer himself. “Librarians, do the same! Now that he has the idea—”

  My warning came too late for one man. His rifle burst into flinders, and he fell back over the rail, into the heaving sea.

  With the librarians distracting the cultists, some of the ketoi had managed to climb aboard. But once there, they staggered in circles, dazed by the song. One male spotted Persephone; he seemed to try to struggle through the haze cast over him by the song, his hand lifting in her direction.

  A robed cultist stepped up behind him and ran him through with a blade.

  “No!” Persephone screamed. “Stone Biter!”

  She tore free from my grasp and sprang to the bridge, clawing her way up and onto it. Her eyes blazed with fury and anguish, and she didn’t even seem to feel the pain of her wound through her rage.

  Oliver laughed, a chilling, mad sound. “Now you know how it feels to lose someone you love, creature.” Then he thrust out his hand and began to chant.

  An invisible force seemed to punch into Persephone. She cried out, and blood appeared on the bandage swaddling her midriff.

  No. A cry of my own escaped me. I wanted her to flee, to dive over the side, to get away from Oliver and his madness, from the siren and her song of despair.

  Persephone didn’t, of course. She raised her head, her tentacles coiled and ready to sting, even as she pressed one hand against her wound. Her legs shook as she took another step toward Oliver.

  He laughed. “Now you die.”

  A second chant, and this time the invisible blow sent Persephone to her knees…before she collapsed altogether. Still. Unmoving.

  Oliver drew a wicked knife from within his robes. “I’m not going to make the same mistake twice,” he said. “Let’s see you recover from having your throat cut ear to ear.”

  Chapter 10

  Every instinct begged me to freeze in place. To hide. To flee. To close my eyes and wait for someone to do something, anything, to save us.

  But the librarians were locked in their own desperate struggle. The ketoi were still rendered helpless before the siren’s song. There was no one else.

  Just me.

  I ran to the harpoon cannon and shoved the dead man from it. His body hit the deck with a sound like wet laundry. Pulling out the locking pin, I pivoted the cannon around and pointed it up, toward the bridge roof.

  Lightning danced across the sky, and the waves howled. Oliver bent low, but the sire
n stood before me, her hands uplifted, her terrible song of despair magically amplified to ring out across the waves, down into the depths. Into the very minds of the ketoi.

  I could try to hit Oliver and risk striking Persephone instead. Or I could aim for Joanna, and free the ketoi from the slaughter raining down on them.

  There was no time left. No time to dither, to fret, to fail to act.

  I pulled the trigger on the harpoon cannon.

  The sound nearly deafened me. The heavy iron head, packed with explosives, punched through Joanna’s chest and out the other side, to slam through the smokestack behind her.

  The explosion ripped apart the funnel, sending fragments of hot metal in every direction. I dropped to the deck, covering my head as smoke and ash rolled over the ship in a wave. Sparks fell all around, stinging my hands.

  I lifted my head cautiously, blinking smoke from my eyes. Persephone lay a few feet away, having been thrown clear by the blast. The siren’s limp form, threaded through with the whale line, lay nearby. The bone mask had fallen from her face and rolled between them.

  Bile stung the back of my throat, but I couldn’t think about what I’d done. About the weight of killing a woman. Instead, I shoved it aside and ran for Persephone.

  A heavy hand grabbed my arm before I made it three steps. Oliver slammed me to the deck. I tried to roll away, but he was too fast, and I found myself pinned beneath him.

  “How dare you?” he snarled. Smoke from the explosion stained his face, and blood trickled from a shallow cut on his forehead. “I thought you were still the Maggie I always knew, the sweet girl who loved her family, who would never speak an ill word or hurt anyone.”

  I tried to strike him, but he seized my wrist with his free hand. In the other, he still held his knife. “Oliver, stop! You’ve murdered Irene, murdered—”

  “I cut the throats of animals,” he growled. “But you—you’ve allied with monsters. With creatures who will take all of humanity down into the darkness with them when the masters return. But I don’t give a damn about that. Let the Fideles worry whether or not the world burns. You betrayed me. You betrayed the memory our fathers, by siding with their murderers.”