The Iron Fin

by Anne Renwick

“Me,” Alec agreed. “We might make it back to my boat. Or we may not. Depends on your rate of blood loss, the speed at which I swim, and whether or not you answer my questions.”

  “Please,” the lord begged. “I can’t feel my feet anymore.”

  Cold or blood loss, impossible to say in these frigid waters. “CEAP. Name the committee members.”

  “Impossible. There are several subdivisions, divided by anthropomorphic curiosity. For security purposes. I served only on the Selkie Committee.”

  Aether, how many existed? He was willing to bet Logan knew. “Names!”

  “Me. Lord Dankworth.” A wave hit Roideach, and his grip slipped.

  Hard to tell beneath a starlit sky, but Alec could swear the man spat bloody seawater from his mouth. The bullet had penetrated near the man’s liver but appeared to also have caught a portion of his lung. In which case this would be a short interrogation.

  “Dankworth is dead,” Alec called. “Poisoned.”

  “Necessary. I had no choice.” The man drew a ragged breath and started coughing again. More blood. “He discovered Drummond’s true nature and threatened to expose him. Us.”

  Bilge rats had more personal honor. “Names! Or I stop swimming.” Alec slowed.

  “Commander Norgrove.” Roideach’s hands slipped again. He wasn’t much longer for this earth.

  Another traitor within the Royal Navy. Lovely. “His role?”

  But a wave washed over Roideach’s head, across the UP bag, and when the water receded, the lord’s fingers no longer clutched the gas-filled float. Dammit.

  This was an unwanted complication. Not the justice he’d planned for Roideach. Moreover, this would leave two extremely amoral Finn now in control of the unfortunate child’s future. Treading water, Alec waited several long minutes. Waited until it was clear young Thomas had inherited the title.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  ALEC PULLED HIMSELF ONTO the deck of Isa’s boat. He could no longer feel his fingers. Or toes. Or other body parts he rather valued. He fumbled open the latch on her door and staggered into the dim cabin, pulling the goggles from his face.

  “Alec! Thank the tides, I’d begun to worry.”

  She was back? Already? They could use a few good Finn men on the BURR team. Wait, there were. Well, at least one. Heck, they should form an all-female team.

  Isa‌—‌wearing nothing but her dressing gown‌—‌helped him to a chair set beside her small cookstove. Inside, a stack of peat bricks smoldered in anticipation of his arrival. Grateful, he leaned into the radiating warmth and let her yank the swim fins from his feet.

  “Your lips are purple!” She pressed a hot cup of tea into his hands. “Drink. It’s fortified.”

  His teeth chattered too hard to reply, but he drank. More whisky than tea, it cauterized his esophagus on the way down. Internal icicles began to thaw.

  “Roideach?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Dead?”

  “Yes,” he whispered.

  “I found it.” She fairly vibrated with the news. “The cave. It’s not far. But there’s a reason it’s not on any map.” Alec listened, amazed and horrified as she described a near-fatal adventure. Any woman but her would have been dashed against the rocks. “The entrance to the cave was twelve feet below the water. Perhaps thirteen. But the tide has turned and it will soon be less.”

  She spoke as if it would be no task at all to enter the sea cave. She was Finn and, from what he’d seen, she had every right to such confidence. But a ten-foot depth was the lower limit of established safety for his aquaspira breather.

  Davis’s death flashed to mind, and Alec’s heart rate jumped. But his teammate’s death had been a factor of the drug, of the high concentration of factor Q pumped into his bloodstream. Chances were Alec’s aquaspira would function satisfactorily, and it wasn’t as if he had a choice. There was no knowing how long the channel was‌—‌ten feet? Seventy? All with nothing but water and rock above him until they reached the central cavern.

  As if it mattered. They needed to know what lay inside, and he would not send her in alone. “Let me send a skeet pigeon to my team. Inform them of recent developments. Then we can go.”

  ~~~

  With the boat anchored as close to the cliffs as she deemed safe, Isa joined Alec aboard the deck. His spyglass was trained upon the dark expanse of water, waiting for the megalodon to exit. Meeting it head on within the channel would mean certain death for them both.

  “Norway.” She stood beside him, wrapped in a thick blanket against the cold wind. The water didn’t sap her body heat, but a cold night wind would. “When I was a child, I remember Mrs. Carr‌—‌Maren’s mother‌—‌speaking about emigrating, of building a community of Finn. If my uncle held such a vision, why not merely gather those who share the same dream and emigrate?” She shook her head. “Why go to so much trouble to build a biomech shark? Or‌—‌worse‌—‌the biomech octopus.”

  Without lowering his spyglass, Alec answered. “He’s a naval officer. I’ve no doubt both chimeras are part and parcel of his plans to protect his…‌ settlers. Though Norway wouldn’t take kindly to such an invasion, the subtle, quiet occupation of a small Shetland island or two might not make much of a splash. Unless they caused trouble, I doubt the Crown would be inclined to fuss.”

  “Perhaps.” Isa frowned. “But whatever my uncle is up to, I doubt it’s peaceful or benign.” Far too many bodies had been left in his wake. Though the most recent casualty, one Lord Roideach, was hard to regret.

  A sudden and large displacement of water shifted the boat beneath their feet, and the tip of an iron fin broke the surface.

  Alec tossed the spyglass aside. “Let’s go.”

  Minutes later they descended, dropping deeper into the water that churned above the base of the cliff. Amidst a tumble of scree, a wide, jagged hole opened. Alec, garbed in his dive suit and unrecognizable behind goggles and the aquaspira breather in his mouth, motioned for her to take the lead.

  She swam into the passageway. Some sixteen feet in, a faint green light began to illuminate the water above her head. Careful to keep close to the rough gneiss wall, she ascended and broke the surface.

  A giant cavern arched overhead. A stone shelf ran alongside the edge of the water, a portion of it widening and lengthening into another chamber that extended into the cliff.

  Her stomach tightened. Her own sister had lain on this very ledge where chains bolted into the rough, rock walls ended in metal cuffs clasped about the wrists of five women. They huddled against the cave walls, shivering and clutching wool blankets about their shoulders. Their faces were bleak with hopelessness, captive witnesses to the horror that had befallen their spouses.

  For along the edge of the pool, iron-barred cages‌—‌she counted six‌—‌hung in the water, suspended by long chains that stretched upward to pulleys embedded in the cave’s ceiling. Inside the cages were men, their husbands. Some floated listlessly, some gripped the iron bars. All had the same horrible octopus attached to their upper back. In a decided contrast to their pale, glistening white undersides, the upper surface of each creature’s body pulsed a reddish-brown, as if human blood coursed through its body. It most likely did.

  Each octopus wrapped tentacles about its host’s neck and shoulders, twining others down the victim’s arms and legs. Half-submerged as the Finn men were, it was impossible to trace insertion points.

  Alec caught her elbow and tipped his head, and she followed his direction. The chains from which the cages hung descended again at an angle, all anchoring to a winch powered by a motor that rattled and hummed and sputtered in readiness. A guard holding a rifle was positioned beside the machine and stood all of an arm’s length from a single lever designed to raise‌—‌or lower‌—‌all six cages at once.

  Bored, the guard slouched against the rock wall and picked at his fingernails while throwing irritated glances at his colleagues‌—‌four armed men‌—‌who sat abou
t a small table, enjoying an engrossing game of cards.

  Keeping only their eyes above water, Isa and Alec swam along the rock wall of the cave until the interior of the secondary chamber came into view: a laboratory.

  Miss Russel gesticulated wildly at a man who frowned at the onslaught of her heated words, his knuckles growing white with anger as he gripped a long, pointed stick. He growled back an answer, and Miss Russel’s mouth dropped. But whatever they argued about was lost to the acoustics of the cave.

  Scattered throughout the space were tables laden with all manner of bottles, flasks and test tubes. Equipment of all kinds littered the room, including a long, metal gurney complete with leather straps to hold a patient against his will. But her eyes were drawn to the agonizingly familiar tank that stood in its center. Within, a man floated, his arms bound by buckled, leather manacles, the water tinged red with his own blood.

  An octopus crouched upon his back, gripping his neck and shoulders and tapping two tentacles upon the man’s legs and arms and shoulders as if unable to locate the precise blood vessel it desired. Then, one tentacle drew back and plunged into the man’s thigh. The man screamed, every muscle in his body straining against the painful attack.

  She looked to Alec, her eyes wide. “We have to stop this,” she mouthed. But Alec shook his head slowly, reminding her this was a reconnaissance mission only. Too many people. Too many weapons‌—‌and none of them theirs. There could be no wholesale rescue. Not today.

  But they still needed information.

  Isa pointed at the nearest cage, one furthest from the guards, indicating that she was going to contact the prisoner. From his silhouette, she was almost certain it was Jona. They could at least speak with him, reassure him of Nina’s safety and find out what‌—‌if anything‌—‌he might know about her uncle’s plans.

  Alec frowned and jerked his head back toward the tunnel.

  But Isa took a deep breath and submerged. Swimming underwater, she stopped beside the cage and tapped on the knee of the man held within. His leg jerked away, but a moment later, his face appeared beneath the water and behind the bars.

  It was Jona. Eyes wide with recognition, they stared at each other. Isa pressed a finger to her lips, then pointed upward. Quietly, they both broke the surface. The octopus that griped his back pulsed and whirred. It shifted, staring at her over Jona’s shoulder through its strange, horizontally-slitted eye. She shuddered. What went through the creature’s mind? Would it cry out if it were able, alert the guards to her presence?

  “Nina?” Jona whispered across the water.

  Feverish. Sick with worry. And not particularly safe from their uncle. “At home with our mother.”

  Relief washed over his face. “Don’t let the others see you,” he warned, glancing at the other caged Finn. “The winch adjusts for the tide, but if anyone makes trouble of any kind, a guard raises the cages. It makes it…‌ difficult to breathe.”

  The water stirred beside her as Alec approached. “I’ve a companion with me,” she whispered as his head broke the surface. He tugged his mouthpiece free, and Isa made hasty introductions. “We can’t free you just yet, not with so many armed guards, but Alec has a whole BURR team on its way.” His eyes slid sideways, and she knew she’d promised too much.

  “Soon, I hope.” Jona said. “I’m not sure how much longer I have.” He shifted in his cage, planting his feet on the lower bars. Ever so slightly, he lifted his shoulder above the water’s surface. “If this grows worse, they’ll feed me to the hyena fish.”

  Alec swore under his breath, and Isa clamped a hand over her mouth.

  The creature’s beak was sunk deeply into the base of Jona’s neck. Nearby, its tentacle had inserted in his shoulder and, though the sight of blood pumping through some internal vessel just beneath the creature’s translucent skin was stomach-turning, the skin surrounding the insertion point was red and throbbing. Infected.

  Unhappy, the octopus tightened its grip, strangling Jona, and her brother-in-law dropped back into the water. “That empty cage?” He jerked his chin. “That man didn’t make it. They’ve left on an acquisition trip. My sister and your uncle loaded him onto the megalodon to…‌ dispose of.”

  “Hyena fish,” she whispered.

  Alec frowned. “And to conscript more Finn men?”

  Jona nodded. “Those that pass the blood test. They’ll need more free cages when they return. My sister and your uncle have come unhinged.”

  “Family.” Isa twisted her lips, wondering why her uncle bothered to pretend it mattered.

  “Change of plans,” Alec breathed. Unhooking a strange tool from his dive belt, he shifted, inserting a long metal rod into the cage’s padlock. “Does the infection affect the octopus?”

  “Hard to say,” Jona answered. “It’s not alive. Not entirely. Part machine, part animal. And there are design flaws. For every successful attachment, five Finn men die. All too often, the tentacle burrows into the skin and misses. A bad attachment drains the blood before it can circulate back. Or‌—‌like me‌—‌infection sets in. With so many half-blooded Finn conveniently at hand, the scientists find it easier to discard the body than to attempt to save the man.”

  “Half-blooded,” Isa repeated. Alec was entirely focused on his task.

  Jona glanced away. “Your uncle, he has this dream about restoring the purity of our people. About establishing a homeland. Something to do with our blood and our ability to swim. He approached us about joining his colony. We were to visit the Orkneys and speak with the others. But your sister failed the blood test.” His eyes grew wide. “I tested pure, and your uncle suggested a divorce. I objected, loudly, and…‌ well, that’s how we ended up in here.”

  “A colony in Norway?”

  “No,” Jona said. “On the Faroe Islands.”

  “Tell me about this octopus,” Alec asked. “We’ll have to surgically remove it, and the more you can tell us, the better. I gather it’s filtering your blood, oxygenating it using gills as a secondary air source?”

  Jona swallowed hard and nodded. “Blood flows out from my leg, through the creature, then back into my shoulder. With this thing attached, I can stay underwater indefinitely. But out of the water,” he shook his head, “it’s hard to breathe. Not only because the beast objects, but because so much blood is diverted.”

  There was a soft, wet thud as the lock popped open.

  “Me next,” a man hissed from the next cage over.

  “Shh!” Eyes wide, Isa lifted a finger to her lips. “We’ll be back.”

  The guard’s head snapped up. He barked something out in a strange language that echoed off the stone walls and pulled the lever. Overhead, chains clanged. His colleagues snapped to attention, searching the water while lifting their rifles to their shoulders. Alec yanked her under the water as Jona’s cage‌—‌as all the cages‌—‌began to rise.

  Jona shoved at the door of his, desperate to escape, but the hinges must have been rusty. He‌—‌like all the men‌—‌gasped for air, his rib cage straining to drag more oxygen, but no matter how deeply they drew breath, it wasn’t enough. The women cried out, pleading with the guards, but to no avail.

  At last, Jona’s door swung free with a loud creak, and he leapt. But not before the guards took aim all firing at once. Alec grabbed Isa, spinning her away, pinning her between his body and the cave wall as bullets struck stone. When the gunfire ceased, the screaming and yelling and weeping continued, all voices muffled by the water.

  “Stop!” It was Miss Russel.

  “Orders were to prevent any and all escape,” the guard answered. “It’s our neck on the block.”

  “Don’t hurt them, you idiots,” she countered. “We don’t have time to create more OctoFinn. Get the hook. Launch the raft and drag the water.”

  “Where is he?” another guard yelled. He swept a bioluminescent torch over the surface of the water, hunting for Jona. Her heart pounded. The guards stood on the ledge, ignoring Miss Rus
sel’s continued cries of outrage and aiming their rifles at the water, waiting. If Jona surfaced again, he would not survive.

  Alec tugged her to the surface beneath a dark shadow cast by an overhanging rock. “Dive,” he ordered in a harsh whisper. “Head out. I’ll grab Jona.” He shoved in his mouthpiece and submerged without waiting for comment.

  Taking a deep breath, Isa dove deep. Heart pounding, she followed a shadow that slid through the water. She drew closer. Alec dragged a limp and unconscious Jona. A dark stream of blood flowed from a bullet wound to his shoulder. With baleful eyes, the octopus stared upward at her, but it made no move to prevent their exit.

  Swallowing her disgust for the creature, Isa reached out and caught Jona under his other arm. They needed to hurry. An unconscious Finn reflexively drawing a breath could drown before they reached the other end of the tunnel, in which case this abhorrent biomech octopus might‌—‌for once‌—‌save a Finn’s life.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  ALEC HEAVED THE UNCONSCIOUS man onto the deck of Isa’s boat, and together they dragged him into the cabin. Isa grabbed a cloth and pressed it to Jona’s shoulder, but the gunshot wound wasn’t an immediate crisis. He was struggling to breathe, dragging in deep and unnerving lungfuls of air. The biomech octopus drew so much blood from his circulatory system that his lungs couldn’t compensate out of the water. And, true to its nature, the beast slowly tightened its grip about Jona’s throat. His breaths were horrible, tortured affairs. Unsustainable.

  Wave after wave rocked the boat. He’d performed surgeries aboard ships, but detaching this creature would require vascular surgery and a steady hand. Not to mention a live patient. He pulled a knife from his dive belt and reached for the tentacle that strangled Jona.

  “Wait!” Isa cried. “We don’t know how it’s connected to his circulatory system. We need to stabilize him first.” She grabbed a bucket and ran from the cabin. “I have an idea.”

  A few minutes later, they’d cobbled together an odd sort of platform from a chair, a sea chest and two long, wooden planks. Jona lay on his back beneath a blanket‌—‌lashed in place with a length of rope‌—‌while the body of the creature passed through a gap between the two boards, suspended beneath him in a bucket of water.