Undertow

by Jordan L. Hawk

  He raised the knife, and a whimper of terror escaped me. “Burn in hell, you treacherous whore,” he said.

  The blade and hilt of the knife flashed red-hot. Oliver shouted in pain and dropped it; the blade narrowly missed me.

  “Get away from her,” Persephone said.

  She stood a few feet away, backlit by flames and shadowed by smoke. Her tentacles waved around her face, and her eyes seemed to burn with fierce determination. In her hand, she held the bone mask.

  “You!” Oliver scrambled away from me and moved into a crouch. Clearly, he thought Persephone the greater danger. “You’re a ketoi and a sorceress. But how? They have no sorcerers of their own. Who are you?”

  Her mouth split open in a grin, revealing row upon row of teeth. “My land name is Persephone Whyborne,” she said. “But the ketoi call me Sings Above the Waves.”

  And so saying, she placed the mask on her own face.

  ~ * ~

  Persephone spread her arms out to either side and tipped back her masked face. The world responded to her. The ocean heaved the ship like a toy; lightning exploded all around us; and the wind screamed like a mad thing. A strange, blue glow began to shine from her eyes, and a moment later they burned with magical flame. The cabochon began to glow as well, its fire spilling into the rune carved around it.

  Then she began to sing.

  As with the siren’s song, I couldn’t understand the words, but I felt their intent in my bones. Persephone’s song was a call to arms—to rise up, to fight back. To use hope as a shield, and determination as a sword. It was a song not meant to control, but to uplift.

  The ketoi were free. And they were angry.

  They swarmed the ship in a mass of sharp claws, stinging hair, and razor teeth. Side by side with the librarians, they fell on the remaining cultists. The cultists fought back, but they had no hope of overcoming such a force, and within minutes the last of them had been dragged screaming over the side.

  “No!” Oliver staggered to his feet, his face twisted with fury and hate. “You can’t win!”

  A hand closed on my arm. I gasped, but it was only Mr. Quinn. His pale face was streaked with blood, though none of it seemed to belong to him, and he still clutched his dictionary. “Miss Parkhurst! The librarians are falling back. They’re already cutting the boat free—we must hurry!”

  I turned back to Persephone. She stood alone, shining in the night, that strange blue fire burning through the mask. The cabochon on the forehead blazed, searingly bright. “Something’s wrong—something’s happening to Persephone.”

  A clawed hand caught my other arm, and I recognized Heliabel. “We must leave,” she said, though her gaze remained fixed on her daughter. “Now.”

  “You can’t win, I said!” Oliver repeated. He’d almost reached Persephone now. “I spent years planning my revenge. Years studying; years learning the blackest of arts. And I’m not the only one. The Fideles won’t stop. They won’t leave the maelstrom in your hands!”

  Persephone’s song ended. In the abrupt stillness after, the whole world seemed to hold its breath.

  When she spoke, it was in the voice of something ancient, dredged up from the very depths of the earth. “Foolish land dweller,” she said, and her eyes blazed like twin suns. “I am the maelstrom.”

  An enormous tower of water lifted from the ocean, like a great fist held high above the ship.

  “Oh dear,” Heliabel said. Then she hooked her strong arms around both Mr. Quinn and me. I had just enough time to glimpse Oliver cowering in terror, before Heliabel hauled us over the rail, and we fell.

  The column of water smashed down onto the ship, even as we struck the water. The surge of the ocean sent us tumbling, and I didn’t know up from down. Terror exploded in my breast, and I struggled, my lungs aching for breath, my limbs trembling in the icy cold.

  Then the arm around my waist pulled me upward. My head breached the surface, and I took in great gasps of air.

  Nothing of the whaling ship remained but shattered wood and other flotsam. A few feet away, something white bobbed on the surface. I reached for it, and lifted up one side of the bone mask. It had cracked in half, the cabochon shattered and dark, the rune burned all the way through from the outside in.

  “Persephone?” I whispered. Fear chilled me, even more than the icy water weighing down my clothes. “Persephone!”

  Fins broke the water all around us, and the librarians’ ship nosed through the debris. Heliabel called out in the ketoi tongue, though whether for Persephone or someone else, I didn’t know. Within moments, two other ketoi had surfaced.

  Heliabel let go of us and dived. One ketoi caught me beneath the arms, while the other took Mr. Quinn. “Where is she going?” I asked frantically. “Is she looking for Persephone?”

  The ketoi didn’t answer; perhaps they didn’t speak English. Instead, they hauled us to the ship. A rope was thrown out, and within moments, we were both on board.

  Someone tried to wrap a blanket around me, but I shoved them off. “We have to find her,” I said. My teeth chattered from the cold, but I didn’t care. “Persephone!”

  “Miss Parkhurst.” Mr. Quinn stepped in front of me, forcing me to look up at him. To my surprise, his pale eyes held an expression of sympathy. “There’s nothing we can do.”

  “You’re wrong. There has to be.” She had to be all right. The ketoi were resilient—hadn’t she said so herself?

  Bone-deep shivers wracked my body. My fingers felt like ice, and my toes had gone completely numb. My thoughts seemed to come sluggish and thick. I only knew that I needed to see her. To know she was all right.

  To tell her I loved her.

  “The ketoi will find her,” Mr. Quinn said. “Leave them to tend their wounded, while we tend to ours.”

  I wanted to argue. I wanted to strike him, to demand we stay and search.

  My legs gave out beneath me. Another librarian caught me from behind. As I looked around, I saw men lying on the deck, swathed in hasty bandages. Some of them surely needed the hospital. How could I demand they lie here suffering, perhaps dying, while we searched fruitlessly?

  Heliabel would find her. I didn’t know Mrs. Whyborne well, but I felt certain she wouldn’t give up on her child, so long as there was breath in her body.

  “Yes,” I said numbly. “You’re right.”

  The librarian wrapped blankets around my chilled body, but I refused to go below decks. Instead, I stared out at the dark and heaving ocean, long after night and distance had swallowed up the place where Persephone disappeared.

  Chapter 11

  Several days later, I sat in my room in my new boarding house, brushing my hair for bed.

  Dr. Whyborne had returned to the museum that morning, fresh from his adventure in Kansas. Mr. Quinn and I gave him our account of everything that had transpired in his absence. His eyes grew wider and wider as we spoke. When we finished, he asked, “And my sister?”

  The same question had haunted me every moment since I’d watched the whaler vanish beneath the waves. “I don’t know.”

  Mr. Quinn cocked his head to one side, watching Dr. Whyborne closely. “You’re both linked to the maelstrom. Can you not find out?”

  Dr. Whyborne’s mouth tightened. “It’s not like that. I don’t think.” His eyes went unfocused, then he shook his head. “Please excuse me. I need to write a few notes.”

  He dispatched several urgent notes to Mr. Flaherty and his father, before spending most of the afternoon pacing his office. Though his correspondence had piled up in his absence, he bolted from the museum the moment the clock ticked over to five.

  I’d wanted to beg to go with him. Instead, I took my pocketbook, the one that had once belonged to Irene, out of my desk and made my way to my lodgings.

  Mrs. Yagoda had turned me out the moment I returned to her boarding house. At least I’d had the chance to collect my things. I’d spent a night at the Widdershins Arms Hotel, then set about trying to find somewhere ne
w to live.

  At least I had that luxury, unlike poor Irene. My grief for her made me feel even more isolated from everyone around me, none of whom would ever know the horrible circumstances of her death.

  I grieved for Oliver, as well. Not as he’d become, twisted by the need for revenge, but as the boy I’d once known. I’d taken it upon myself to send a letter to his mother, telling her of his loss in a boating accident off the coast of Widdershins.

  As for what I’d learned about the fate of the Bedlam…a part of me felt as though I’d lost Papa all over again. I’d always imagined him a kind man, and at first I tried to tell myself he simply hadn’t realized the ketoi were thinking creatures. But then I recalled Mr. Young had written of her jewelry, and I grew sad all over again.

  The boarding house I’d settled in was in a less pleasant part of town. When the wind came from the wrong direction, the stench of the cannery became nearly unbearable. But it was much closer to the river than my former abode.

  Just in case.

  I set aside my brush and rose to my feet. After turning down the thin blankets on my bed, I re-checked the latch on the door. Not that I felt threatened by any of my fellow boarders; they seemed a lively bunch of women. However, most of them had a steady stream of visiting “uncles” and “cousins” whose identity changed by the day, and I worried lest one of them try the wrong door in the middle of the night. I never would have thought I’d miss Mrs. Yagoda’s rules quite as much as I did.

  Something scratched at my window.

  I spun. Had I truly heard it, or was it wishful thinking on my part?

  The scratching came again.

  I ran to the window and flung back the curtains. Persephone clung to the frame, grinning in at me.

  I barely recalled opening the window; it seemed the next instant, we were in each other’s arms. I clung to her, pressing kisses to her mouth, her throat, anywhere I could reach. “You’re alive,” I whispered, over and over again.

  “Very much so,” she agreed.

  I leaned back to look at her. “Oh no. Your poor face!”

  She had not escaped unscathed. A deep scar marked her forehead, where the cabochon had seared her. More scars surrounded it, in the shape of the rune that had burned on the mask. Though closed, the skin was pink and tender looking, and yet scabbed over in places.

  “Yes.” Her grin faded. “Brother said we’re both marked now.”

  “Dr. Whyborne found you, then?”

  “Yes. I made him tell me where you were.” She scowled. “I went to your old room last night, but you weren’t there. The woman inside was very surprised to see me.”

  I laughed. “I bet she was.” Then my laughter faded. “What of your other wound?” I touched her belly; a small scab still showed where the bullet had pierced her. “You’re all right, then? Truly?”

  “Yes.” Her fingers stroked my cheek. “Thanks to you. If you hadn’t killed the siren…”

  I shuddered at the memory. “I didn’t want to kill anyone. But I didn’t have a choice.”

  “You saved my life.”

  My heart beat very hard in my chest. But I’d spent too much of my life waiting for someone else to act, and it had almost cost me this chance. I couldn’t become paralyzed, wondering if we had a future, or fearful of what might happen if Dr. Whyborne somehow found out.

  “As I said, I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t let them kill the woman I love.” I glanced up at her uncertainly. “That’s…that’s all right, isn’t it?”

  Her grin returned, the one that made her eyes shine with delight. “I love you, too, cuttlefish.”

  I pulled her close. Her mouth tasted of salt and the ocean. Her tongue probed the seam of my lips; I parted them, and she tasted me deeply. Her arms went around me, pulling me close. I slid my hands up her back. She didn’t really have hair for me to sink my fingers into, and I wasn’t certain if tugging on the tendrils would hurt her.

  She withdrew a little, dropping her head and nuzzling my neck. “Maggie,” she whispered. Her hold on me tightened, the tips of her claws pressing lightly against my skin. “I missed you, these last few days.”

  “I missed you, too.”

  Her hand skimmed my side, down over my hip. “Would you take a lover from the sea?”

  I was wet now, and a fierce ache had settled between my legs. Her breath came short against my skin, and it seemed impossible I could so affect someone like her. My whole body trembled with desire, but nerves churned my belly. “Persephone, I…” I swallowed, feeling desperately uncertain. “I do want that. Want y-you.” A hot blush crept over every inch of my skin. “I…I’ve never…not with anyone, at least. I don’t wish to disappoint you.”

  She released me, though she didn’t move any farther away. We stood looking at one another, her dark eyes startling in her inhuman face. Our breasts brushed each other’s skin with every breath, through the layer of my nightgown.

  “You could never disappoint me,” she said. “Even if you do nothing but let me make you feel good.”

  “No! I mean—I want to make you feel good, too.” I put my hands over my face. “Oh God. I must sound so ridiculous right now.”

  “Not at all. Look at me, Maggie.” I let my hands fall, and she caressed my face, then slid a finger down my throat, to the edge of my nightgown. “I want to strip away these coverings you land dwellers hide inside, so I can see you.” She leaned in, her lips almost but not quite touching mine. “I want to touch you until you sing my name.”

  I felt dizzy, my mouth as dry as other parts of me were damp. “Th-that sounds good,” I stammered. “Let’s do that.”

  Persephone laughed—then caught me up in her strong arms. I let out a surprised squeak. Grinning at me, she carried me to the bed and deposited me on it. “This is right, yes? Where land dwellers make love?”

  I couldn’t bring myself to ask who had told her that. “Yes,” I managed to say.

  She unhooked the gold mesh of her skirt and draped it over the chair. Not that it had hidden a great deal, but it became easier to admire the roundness of her bottom, the curve of her hip. And to trace the dark whorls that marked her pearlescent skin, centered on her spine and covering much of her back.

  “I think you’re, um, beautiful,” I said, because it only seemed polite.

  She sat on the bed beside me. “So are you,” she said, running a hand down my thigh. A whimper escaped me. “Some find land dwellers strange to look upon, but I enjoy looking at you. Can I see more?”

  I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. She watched avidly while I removed my nightgown, stockings, and drawers. When I was done, she brushed the thatch of hair between my legs with her fingertips, as if curious. The ketoi were all hairless and sleek, more like orcas than seals in that way. Need and anticipation and nervousness all tangled in my belly, and I parted my thighs. She dipped her finger between them, pressing the pad into my folds and drawing a sigh from me.

  “I didn’t think to bring…caps, I think is your word? For my claws,” she said regretfully. She withdrew her hand and licked the moisture off her finger. “Mmm. But don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”

  “I’m more w-worried about the reverse,” I said. My face burned horribly, but I couldn’t leave the words unsaid. “I know…somewhat… but…”

  She leaned over me, and my breath caught. Her eyes burned bright with desire. I slid my arms tentatively around her shoulders, and she stretched out beside me, her body against mine. Her skin felt marvelous—even more so when she threaded her thigh between mine, pushing up while I pressed down.

  She ran her hands reverently over my side, shoulder, and down my arm. “No fins,” she said.

  I touched the nearest fin, jutting up from her arm. It was hard, cartilaginous. “Are they sensitive?”

  “No.”

  I slid my hand up to her shoulder. A questing tendril coiled around my wrist. “What about your, um, hair?”

  “Much more so. Like fingers or toes.” She cons
idered for a moment. “Don’t pull too hard, though. I don’t want to sting you by accident.”

  I certainly didn’t want that either, so I traced a line over her throat, across the opercula closed tight over the gills slits. She moved against me, little thrusts of her hips that pushed her thigh against the hard bud between my legs. Each movement sent a rousing shock of pleasure along my nerves, and I soon moved in time with her.

  She kissed me again, her hand cupping my breast as she did so. Her thumb stroked the skin along the side, a place I’d always found sensitive in my own explorations, and I made an encouraging sound into her mouth.

  She pulled back, leisurely exploring my neck, working down to my breast. Her lips sucked on one nipple, while she continued to fondle the rest of the breast. I gasped and arched into her. Delight washed through me: her hands on my skin, her thigh pressing into my folds, her mouth on my nipple. I cried out, my breaths coming in short pants as the first crest shuddered through me.

  “Let me touch you,” I gasped. I wanted to share this with her, to return the pleasure she gave me.

  “Of course,” she said, and rolled away, spreading herself open for me.

  Her nipples were darkly pigmented against the pale coloration of her chest, belly, and thighs. Her breasts were small, but I cupped what I could, then plucked at one nipple with my fingers. To my satisfaction, she arched into me in response, her eyes slitted with pleasure. “Harder. Use your nails.”

  I did so. Then inspiration struck, and I replaced one hand with my mouth. Surely teeth would be a novel sensation for her there. An enthusiastic groan was my reward, and much of my nervousness melted away. She tasted of salt and smelled of the sea.

  “Let me taste you,” she panted. Our legs were intertwined again, and I could feel her wetness against my thigh as she ground against me.

  Her fierce teeth gave me pause. But going by her confidence, the ketoi presumably did this sort of thing to one another without any unfortunate incidents. “Yes?” I said. “That is, if you’d like.”