Olivia gasped. Sounds of shock from Celeste and my aunts quickly followed.
I snapped out of my thoughts and looked down at my hands and feet. Vines wrapped up my calves and branches wound around my fingers like intricate wooden rings.
“You can do this, too,” I told my sisters and aunts. “Huldra never ate men. The myths were all stories to make us look like animals set on mayhem, unable to think and out for blood. They were stories propagated by the Hunters so that villagers would be repulsed by us and think we were out to get them. Somehow, my mother knew this. The Hunters wanted us to believe the stories, to be ashamed of our foremothers and fear our abilities, to suppress our strength. And now they want that power for themselves.” My mother must have tapped into that strength and been taken for her effort.
Azul’s quiet contemplation ended when she raised her voice to address the group. “We are all descendants of high priestesses who were forever changed when their goddesses breathed her life force into them. We should rise as one and crush the Hunters for what they’ve done to us.”
Mermaids gave shouts of agreement. Huldra nodded.
The rusalki stood at the end of the table, staring. Reading minds, no doubt.
“The harpies have landed on your patio,” Drosera told me quietly. “And the succubi are driving up your driveway.”
The others around us cheered and patted shoulders, as though the fight moments ago had never happened. I figured the rusalki mind tricks had a little something to do with it.
Our patio led into the living room through a large set of doors. Three tall, lean harpies stood outside the glass doors. Feathers along their bodies ruffled in the wind and talons clicked along the stone tiles. A set of powerful wings protruded from each of their backs.
Olivia ran to open the patio doors, having to tilt her head up to invite the feathered females in. The harpies gave tight smiles, but refused the invitation, unwilling to retract their talons and wings. They peered around the living room with short, controlled head movements.
In my mind, I asked the rusalki if any other mermaids were working with the Hunters.
Yes, one responded. I couldn’t tell who answered because the words were without voice, but more like my own musings that I hadn’t thought up. The grey-haired female with the scales of midnight. She will adhere to her promise to you, in her own way.
I shot a glance to Azul. What a shame, with all of her talk of sisterhood. The mermaids looked up to her. They followed her wisdom and support. I couldn’t let the rusalki end her life too. Not yet. Not if she’d lead the other mermaids in helping me to get Shawna. Her punishment must come later.
We will wait for the attack, one of the rusalki said into my mind. We will force a Hunter to end her life, a most ignoble death compared to the cut of a rusalki, but if you wish.
I nodded. Either way, Azul would suffer the consequences. The rusalki would make sure of it.
The doorbell rang and Aunt Patricia opened the front door. Marie let herself in without a verbal invitation from my aunt. Five succubi followed their leader into our common house. Marie wore a short, tight black and red striped skirt. Tattoos stretched down her thighs. Her high heels clicked on our hardwood floor. A low-cut, black, tight V-neck top revealed cleavage and nipples pushed through the thin fabric.
I half expected her to bring a male for downtime pleasure, but only succubi flanked her. She looked right and caught Elaine’s gaze. Her smile widened. She peered left at the harpies refusing to come in.
“Ugh.” Marie groaned. “Your anxiety is leaking into the room. It makes me want to vomit.”
Immediately the harpies’ talons and wings retracted, no doubt due to the relaxing energy Marie shot their way. Their shoulders eased down as skin replaced feathers and they crossed the threshold into our common house.
“That’s better,” Marie said, running her fingers through her hair and shooting Elaine a lusty smile.
Elaine twirled a strand of her hair and licked her lips. I quickly made my way to Marie and put my arm around her shoulder, turning her away from Elaine and toward the kitchen.
“Stop making her want you,” I whispered under my breath, though I knew most of the females in the room heard me.
“Do you blame me?” she asked with a snicker. She turned and gazed at Elaine. “She’s gorgeous, and attracted to me. I’m doing her a service, helping her to let go. The fun we could have…”
“She’s taken, in a committed relationship with another mermaid who has stayed in California to care for their daughter…that they share…together,” I said.
Marie laughed and patted my arm before she pulled away. “That’s cute, but succubi don’t believe in committed relationships. We believe in pure, raw energy.” She left my side and made her way into the kitchen. So far, no one else had died. I had to count that as a success.
Twenty-Six
The kitchen table proved too small for all thirty-one Wilds, as did the living room and patio. After a quick round of introductions my aunts showed our guests to their rooms and invited them to unpack and get some rest. On the way to my personal tree home, in the dark early morning hours, my phone buzzed. A message from Marcus. Once inside the privacy of my home, I opened up my messages.
In two words he confirmed my belief that the Washington Hunters held my sister captive. “She’s here,” he’d typed. I scoured those words for additional meaning, wishing he’d included which building I’d find her in, or if she was hurt. The day I’d asked for help in finding my sister, John had told me each complex is highly trained in dealing with the Wild Women they’re supposed to handle, so I was certain the “she” Marcus referred to was Shawna.
He also included a rough drawing of the complex. I downloaded the drawing to my phone and pulled up the coordinates on a Google Earth app to compare the two. I’d been there plenty of times, but only to the main building and only from the front gate. Never had I seen it from an aerial view. The tops of evergreens blanketed my screen in a deep emerald green, but lines of brown walking paths and rooftops peeked through. My kind could use those trees to our advantage. A river ran alongside the complex, but farther than I would have liked. Still, other Wilds could make use of it. I took a screenshot and sent it along with the drawing to every Wild on my property whose contact information I had saved in my phone.
I ached with need to call my coterie members, wake them up, and tell them Shawna is alive, and so very close to us. I didn’t, though, because I couldn’t for the life of me think of an excuse as to how I came by that information—one that didn’t involve an alignment with a Hunter. It wouldn’t be a tidbit I could attribute to my bounty hunter connections like I planned to use for an explanation as to how I got the hand-drawn map of the complex.
We’d decided to reconvene in the woods behind our tree homes an hour after sunrise, to give everyone a chance to catch some shut-eye. I figured each group would use a bit of that time to privately go over the maps before meeting up. I neither slept nor discussed the map with my coterie. Knowing Shawna was so close and alive kept me on edge; picturing her in a cell underneath the main complex building didn’t help.
After the kitchen incident, though, I’d mentally prepared for the regathering to result in more arguments. But as the sun barely hung in the sky, everyone seemed to have calmed down enough to listen intently as I announced we’d attack the local Hunter complex the day of the huldra check-in—a week and a half away. It tortured me to wait that long. While the Hunters might not be killing our kind, they weren’t exactly having them over for tea either. But we had no choice. We couldn’t get in until then, and if we couldn’t get in, we couldn’t rescue anyone. An all-out siege on the complex would only end in more of us dead.
I assured the Wilds that as the date approached we’d create a more solid and detailed plan, but first we should train and assess each group’s strengths and weaknesses. What I left out was the tidbit about collecting intel from Marcus that’d help me to strategize better. Not that
the Wilds noticed much; they seemed more eager to flex their abilities than to plot tactics, though a few did thank me for sending the map screenshots. Other than the mermaids, they each had a loved one depending on them for rescue—learning to use their Wild abilities was their only hope of overpowering the Hunters, who’d had years of training and experience.
As the day wore on, my heart-broken Aunt Abigail stood back and watched the other Wilds practice hard, take direction, and try again…except for the rusalki, who kept away from the group, watching, listening, and probably reading minds. They garnered a few puzzled stares from the mermaids and succubi, though the harpies seemed unfazed by the rusalki’s oddness.
“Like this?” Olivia stood with legs parted and bare feet crunching the dead leaves. She separated her fingers and light patches of bark grew up her arm. “Why can’t I grow branches?” she asked, shaking her hands.
“I wasn’t able to until I had my first kill,” I said. “But according to Gabrielle, that’s not what caused my body to remember the dormant ability.” I’d thought of taking my group on a bounty hunter outing to access their abilities about three times since we’d started training. Each time I’d decided against it. We had too many witnesses on our property at the moment. Plus, it was illegal.
“Then what’s. It. Caused by?” Olivia asked between ragged gasps. She’d been practicing hand-to-hand combat with a mermaid who’d clearly gone against a few sharks and won.
“She said it’s because I had stood in my strength, fought back,” I explained.
Olivia groaned. She stopped training and put her hands on her hips, using the opportunity to catch her breath. “So, what, I’m not going to get lifesaving abilities until after I go up against a bunch of people who want to kill me? Yeah, I can see that going real well in my favor.” She adjusted her dark blue yoga pants and loose cotton top. “Sounds counterproductive, if you ask me.”
I could ask Marcus out to the property to train my coterie and help them access their powers, but bringing him to my home, with thirty other Wilds… No, it wouldn’t go over well. And anyway, other than the map email, I hadn’t spoken to him since he’d called the night before to tell me that he’d returned to the fold. And that he’d seen Clarisse at the complex, but she was a problem for another day.
“I’m no huldra,” Azul said as she walked away from the others to join Olivia and me. “But if you go into the complex full of confidence and a couple moves at the ready, you’ll light that spark inside of you.”
“Just drug me and I’ll wake up when it’s over with a few Hunter’s bodies at my feet like Faline.” Olivia pulled her hair into a ponytail. Sweat glistened from her temples.
Azul’s eyes widened and she shot me a glance while my sister wasn’t looking. I only stared—didn’t confirm or deny. I hadn’t mentioned my abilities’ origins to any of the groups and I had no intention to share the story now.
“Gabrielle is…was,” Azul corrected herself with a slight shake of her head, “a better teacher than me at these sorts of things. But I’ll give it a go.”
I wondered how long the two of them, Gabrielle and Azul, had been working with the Hunters. And what had started the unnatural relationship. I also wondered if any mermaids left on the island knew their secret and had joined them in their risky dealings. Thankfully, the rusalki were keeping a mental eye on the mermaids we currently dealt with.
“Your greatest strength is in the legs,” Azul explained to Olivia. “Use it. Crouch down and kick me with everything you have. Swipe my legs out from under me. Try to land a foot in my gut to knock me down. Once you have the Hunter on the ground, you’ve got more options at your disposal.”
Azul evened her footing for balance. Olivia crouched before jumping up and using the momentum to jab a foot into Azul’s stomach, though it didn’t make contact. Azul quickly bounced out of the way, allowing Olivia to lose balance and fall forward into the dirt and leaves. Olivia huffed as she stood and brushed the dirt from her jeans.
“You didn’t tell me I’d have to catch a moving target,” she complained.
“Hunters are not stupid. They won’t stand around, waiting for you to knock bruises into them.” Azul got into position.
Olivia thrust her foot out again toward Azul’s stomach, but again, Azul jumped to the side causing Olivia’s foot to only swipe at air. This time, though, Olivia didn’t lose her balance. She swung around, crouched, extended her leg lower, toward the ground, and knocked Azul’s feet from under her.
“Perfect!” I yelled before leaving the two to visit with Celeste, who leaned on a nearby tree. A large fern glistened with rain drops beside her legs. I bent down to touch the wet leaves.
“I can’t do this,” Celeste said before I opened my mouth. “There’s so many variables, most all of them with outcomes that are not in our favor. Statistically, we’ll lose.”
“Is that your logical mind talking or is it your fearful mind?” I asked. “Because sometimes they sound the same in our heads.”
“Aunt Abigale isn’t training. She knows there’s no hope.” Celeste watched our other coterie members practice. She wrapped her beige sweater shawl around herself.
“She doesn’t know. She’s scared shitless. And who can blame her? She’s not scared of how well she’ll be able to protect herself. Her daughter was taken by the same organization who taught us to not only fear them but to fear ourselves and what we were created to do.” I put my arm around my sister’s shoulder. “Fight your fears. Combat those who put that fear in you. I promise, once you overcome those who want to dominate you, you’ll overcome your fear of them.”
I peered up at the great evergreens towering high above us. A harpy swooped down from the branches and knocked a mermaid on her ass before flying away just as quickly as she came. “That was great!” the mermaid yelled as she grabbed a handful of dried pine needles and threw them in the harpy’s direction. “I didn’t see you coming!”
I never imagined such a scene would ever play out in my lifetime. A rusalka and a succubus stood ten feet from one another, staring, probably trying to out-maneuver each other—the rusalka getting into the mind of her opponent and the succubus shifting the energy around hers. Harpies pretended surprise attacks on mermaids. A grin pulled at my lips until my face hurt. If Shawna could see us now. She would, very soon.
As the day wore on, though, excitement wore off and irritation took its place. Dark clouds loomed in the evening sky. Rain drenched our hair and dribbled down our faces. The mermaids’ skin drank in each drop of water, so while we wiped our eyes and wrung our clothing, the mermaids practiced undisturbed.
“I’m only saying there’s a river near the complex, it’d be best for us to attack from that direction, swim up the river and surprise them,” a mermaid said as she absently pinned a harpy to a tree. “I don’t know why that’s so hard for you to grasp.”
“Oh, I can grasp it all right, but that doesn’t give the idea any credence,” Aunt Patricia responded sharply. “The river is nowhere near the complex. That leaves us down twelve females who could be fighting alongside us from the moment we enter.”
“How about we call it a night?” I announced, interrupting the disagreement between the huldra and the mermaid. “Maybe over dinner we can discuss the strengths and weaknesses we discovered during training and come up with possible plans of attack.” I’d never organized gatherings like this. That was Shawna’s forte. So it only just occurred to me that the huldra shouldn’t have to do the all cooking and cleaning up. “Since we’ll be doing this for a week and a half, we should also come up with a schedule for cooking meals and training.”
Wilds nodded, glad to be done for the day. They brushed dirt, leaves, and other debris from their clothing as they came closer. Harpies perched on evergreen branches. Rusalki sat on the soft moss growing along a fallen log, out away from the group. Some succubi stood in the center of the group while others sat. The more vocal mermaids sat in the center while the stoic ones paced the outlyin
g area. Aunt Abigale leaned against a tree and petted Shawna’s dog, while the rest of my coterie took part in the discussion. Celeste stood quietly beside me.
But before I could think of a suggested schedule, another mermaid joined the river argument. “The harpies probably won’t be walking into the complex with you,” she pointed out.
Aunt Patricia furrowed her brows and spoke slowly. “They can fly directly to the Hunters. You can’t swim right up to the Hunters. The distance between the main complex and the river shows that your idea isn’t feasible.”
A few Wilds pulled their smart phones from their back pockets to examine the maps, as did I. The Hunters’ main training building also housed our “classroom” and monthly check-in area. I’d never been given the opportunity to walk the grounds, but according to the map, smaller structures scattered the property connected by pathways extending out from the main building. What looked like a large home with a porch stood off to the side of the property, away from the circle of buildings. None of them, however, were remotely near the river.
“Do you mind?” the mermaid asked, holding her hand out for the nearest phone, which happened to be mine. “I left mine in the house.”
“Sure, here,” I said.
“See.” The mermaid tilted the screen toward my aunt and pressed her fingers to zoom in on the map to show the distance between the river and the main training building.
For a short second no one spoke as a few Wilds, including my aunt, gazed at what the mermaid wanted them to see. And in that short second, my phone let out a screech. A certain type of sound that I’d programmed to alert me of bad news. The members of my coterie all jerked their heads to me. I stared at my phone.
“Um, it says you got an email,” the mermaid said, handing the phone to me.
I absently accepted the device, but didn’t look at the screen. I knew who it was from. The warning sound from the desktop computer in the common house sounded, and those of us with heightened hearing abilities turned toward the house despite our inability to see through the trees.
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