“Ah I see.” I silence myself, trying not give anything away as Titus turns a creepy grin.
“So you see, you are going to let me do my little ritual, or my armies will overrun this city on a single command and slaughter your women.” Titus boasts cruelly, smiling at his self-assured intellect, looking down on us all through his blackened eyes that look like orifices into nothing.
“What about Orion?” I ask, feeling like a small child who has had their teddy bear threatened.
“He dies. The ritual requires it. The sacrifice of the all-powerful vessel so that another all-powerful being may rise and bring the army of the dead to life again.” Titus says it so casually I want to hit him once again, drain his powers and leave him for dead.
I look at Azure and wonder, if I hadn’t received the information Atlas and Saturnus had just imparted on me, how would I feel about her? I mean she is Orion’s sister after all … there are still strokes of the genetics there, the dark hair, the tanned skin, the icy blue lightning that streaks across the blackness within. Did I trust her? Absolutely not. Did I understand her? Never. But could I see her as being Orion’s sister? Of course I could. It was all over her face, the square jaw, the broad forehead. This girl was definitely a part of Atlas’ family. She grips a large staff in one hand and a pearl beaded whip is fastened to a belt around her waist. I stop for just a moment to survey all their weapons.
Regus holds a gigantic stone hammer and I wonder if I would even be able to lift it. I think about the logistics of the stone, crushing bone to dust. Solustus grasps a rapier, the slim blade sharp just like his skeletal body and the bony fingers that grasp at its handle. Lastly, Caedes, who had a joyous and eerily maniacal grin on his bony face holds in each hand a handle that are connected to a blade in the shape of a crab claw. I am only too familiar with these weapons as I remember our confrontation in the Temple of Atargatis.
My eyes finally land on Titus again and in his hand lies a weapon deadlier than any of his counterparts: my weapon. I want to show my hand, is it too soon? I look at Orion on the ground, trapped beneath the metal links struggling to move, his freedom taken from him, because they think my power is his. It’s with this realization that I’ve had enough. I hold out my hand and the weapon flies to me through the water as though it were air. It lands in my palm with a soft yet dramatic thud and Titus looks shocked. I breathe in deeply feeling my nerves rattling in my skull.
“I’m the vessel, Titus. Are you dense?” I cock my head smiling and he recovers his composure with a small smile.
“Oh, Callie, this just gets better and better.” He sneers.
The moments that follow feel like an eternity.
“Let Orion go and you can have me.” I bargain and my back straightens as I try to look more powerful than I feel.
“How about we don’t do that? How about you come with me, or I kill him?” Titus looks at me maliciously and Solustus moves closer to him with his sword, ready to carry out the threat of his boss.
“Let him out of the net.” Titus barks, following my panicked gaze. He knows he has me at a disadvantage. My muscles visibly tighten as I think of the many ways in which Solustus could kill Orion with just a few slices in the right place.
“But …” Solustus questions him subordinately, his black eyes stormy with grey lightning.
“I want him to watch as she dies.” Titus spits out and Regus and Caedes are instantly behind me grabbing my arms. I let them take me, only fighting to get a last look at the mahogany hair and icy blue eyes that are now filling with grief.
I wonder if I should have told him. But I know I did the right thing. He has some wonderful memories of me that would have been marred by the prospect of my sacrifice. I just hope those memories are enough for eternity.
Caedes and Regus hold my elbows, their fingernails slicing my flesh at the joint. Regus tries to take the scythe from me, his shark like tail massive in girth.
“You could try, but that thing and I come as a set, it’ll just come back to me.” I say and shrug as he looks at me with his black eyes; they’re sparked with lime green and get lost somehow in his large head.
“No funny business or I’ll make you wish you’d stayed dead.” He threatens and I wince looking up at his bald, fat head.
“No.” I vow. I’m not going to run. This is what I was made for. I was made to save this city so they can carry on protecting people just like my sister. Giving her a world to grow up in and stopping all hell from breaking loose.
The duo, well-muscled and crazy, pull me upward. They are flexing their hybrid bodies until we are high above the city but not astray from the point directly above the fountain of Atargatis. I see her open palms that reach to the sky and the spout of air that emerges from them as tiny points of glittering gold below.
The entirety of the Occulta Mirum is spread out beneath me and I wonder why I never thought to come up this high before; the city looks beautiful, like a jewel of the sea beneath the full moon. I take the moment to relax, despite the overwhelming evidence suggesting I should be fighting for my life; I feel a calm fall over me. However, the same cannot be said for everyone else as I watch Orion using his power over Titus below, trying to keep him at bay, trying to save me. We hang for a few moments, watching the fighting below. Saturnus goes down hard, or at least I think he does. It’s hard to tell from up here.
Solustus stares at me intensely as he rises, driving himself at a sharp speed that is quite beyond imagination to my eye level. He is holding something dark green. It is seaweed, but this stuff has the tensile strength of something far stronger. He ties me to the scythe.
“Just to make sure you don’t get away.” He winks at me and I wonder what I’m seeing behind his eyes, he appears pleasant on the surface, but maybe that’s because he is getting his own way in killing me. “It’s funny … you remind me of someone.” He says, after the binding is complete. He places a skeletal finger on his chin, stroking its acute structure leisurely.
“Really?” I say, playing along. I wonder why I don’t feel more afraid, have I always been leading up to this moment, have I always had a death wish?
“Yes, your father has the very same nose.” He looks at me intensely, watching the information bomb he just let loose spark fire in my eyes.
“You know my father?” I snap out at him. This is no time to be playing personal games.
“Ah, I can see I’ve said too much. Time to start the ritual, must hurry.” He points upward and I see that the moon is approaching the point directly above us. Titus joins us and takes a book that Regus has procured, it looks old, bound in black leather, I see the pages, and the ink is red. Maybe it isn’t ink after all; it could be blood for all I know. I look around for Azure; she is nowhere to be seen. I am floating, surrounded by the others, their weapons poised to kill in an instant.
“I’d stand back if I were you, from what I understand the power this thing generates is not something you want to be near … unless of course you have no choice.” They all look at me, wondering why I’m not fighting back. I have to say I’m asking myself the same question. I ponder this for a moment and then I see Orion coming up from the depths of the sea, fighting his way back to me and I know. I know because I’ve seen real love in the mer people of this city. The way they wait, how they try for and achieve relationships that last an eternity. The way Orion’s eyes sparkle and the very mention of my name and his unending and raw instinct to save my life. They say it’s magic, but I know different. I know now it both can’t be and is magic because love itself is magic in its purest most awe inspiring form. The love two sisters have for one another, the love of a mother for a daughter, and the love of a man for a woman colliding in messy, spectacular bursts of magic throughout the world. That is something worth dying for.
Atlas and Orion have risen, like warrior statues in their silence, until they are surrounding all five of the banished and myself, ready to defend the city and me with their lives. Having procured spears, seemingl
y from nowhere, they begin to attack, Regus and Caedes keeping them busy. Titus isn’t stupid enough to take the risk of them rescuing me so he nods, and as he does, a section of the black swarm of psirens pour forth. Hideous hybrids of man and creatures of the deep surrounding Atlas and Orion.
“You handle the boy and his father. Leave the rest of them to me.” Titus barks and they bow their heads in respect. I feel bile form in my throat as Regus and Caedes join the small group of psirens. Titus looks over and begins to chant, Solustus moves away from me with a wary gaze, pulling his sword from its sheath and dives, heading behind me to where the fight is taking place. I want to move but I’m scared if I see Orion I won’t go through with this. The language I hear from the mouth of Titus is not one I have ever heard before, it sounds like a hundred voices speaking at once and I begin to feel the metal of the blade I am attached to vibrate. My heart begins to flutter as fear seeps into my stomach like a poison, if I thought I’d escaped the fear of dying I guess I’d been wrong. I could move up or down, but I know Titus will stall me with his power to inflict pain or with his army, and without my hands free, I can’t defend myself. I then see something I couldn’t have ever predicted happening.
Azure, with her staff poised to clobber, appears behind Titus as the other members of The Banished fight with my lover and his father. She puts her fingers to her lips and I realize she is warning me not to give her away. I turn my attention away so Titus doesn’t follow my gaze and hear the crack of wood on skull. Saturnus and Atlas must have been right; she really was watching The Banished for us the whole time.
It is then that I know Starlet has joined the game too, letting out an eye-watering high-note. I watch as The Knights rise from the city below where before they were invisible and all hell breaks loose. There is a commotion and I whip my head back again, finding them grappling desperately. Titus grabs Azure and she starts to writhe, convulsing in vile agony. I want to help but I’m still tied to the scythe and the metal is really starting to vibrate, getting hotter and hotter by the second. I am startled when something grey shoots past my ear and then Atlas is on Titus and they’re thrashing in the water. My heart is pounding, my blood rushing hot against the metal that is starting to burn.
As I take a second to watch the two mermen fight, I expect the ritual to cease but it does not and my arms begin to ache with the constant vibration of the scythe in my hands. Behind me, I can feel the movement of the water as The Knights meet with the psiren army, they outnumber us and Titus clearly knows this as I watch him grin maniacally when the first clangs of steel on steel can be heard.
Fury emanates around him as he lashes out against Atlas, grabbing at him, clawing at him, and fighting with dirty, conceited moves that leave Atlas struggling to gain the upper hand. I watch the two of them, whirling in the water, Atlas clearly having fought him before as he is careful to avoid his touch. I blink, my eyes watering with the heat of the scythe and in that fraction of a second, Titus has his lips around Atlas’ throat and all Starlet and Azure can do is look on in horror. His death isn’t calm, and it certainly isn’t painless. I watch as Titus makes him convulse, moments before the grip of his mouth on the flesh of Atlas’ neck tightens and he bites savagely, ripping the tendons and veins from the neck of his opponent.
“NO!” I cry as I hear my own voice echoed by Orion’s. For a moment, the fighting stops behind me. The Knights are shocked at the defeat of one so old, and their opponents gaping to see what all the fuss is about. I pause, mind reeling, arms aching, blood racing, and the world seems to stop as Atlas’ blood plumes in the water, scarlet and thick.
Atlas can survive a simple bite, can’t he? I find myself hoping this in one moment, and in the next, Titus’ bloody face is staring at me, the head of Atlas in his hand, its eyes lolling, long grey hair still attached. The body and head turn to sand silently in a moment no different than any other. It’s like watching someone dissipate in a vampire movie as he becomes nothing more than particles, sinking to the floor of the Occulta Mirum. A being of hundreds of years, gone in an instant.
Titus turns, his jagged teeth look like razor blades now more than ever. He’s looking past me and I know he’s staring at Orion, he doesn’t say anything, but his silence speaks abhorrent volumes as a cat like smile spreads across his scarlet lips. His face is even more terrifying under the moonlight as the scarlet blood sticks to his skin, the water refusing to wash it clean.
“Regus, Solustus! Bring the boy forward! Restrain him. The rest of you, restrain their so called Knights!” The tag team brings Orion to the forefront of my field of vision, he looks empty, the death of his father over taking him. Now he will lose me too. I can still hear movement behind me as Titus’ eyes stir with impatience.
“This is what you get when you bring younglings to do an elders job.” He whispers in my ear, gripping the back of my neck and yanking my head backward with long clawed hands. He pulls me up, allowing us to tower over the carnage below, isolating me from any hope of rescue. I can just about see the remains of the psirens whom he set on the Knights. Their bodies are numerous and unrecognizable, some cut in half, some beheaded, and all falling through the water like dark angels.
“Still, they were built to be fodder, and that is how they died. A means to an end, don’t you think?” He whispers, running his tongue perversely down my neck. I shudder as he continues, “Kind of like you … Callie Pierce. Atargatis … that bitch … gave you this life, but for what? For me to bleed you dry. I don’t recall doing her any favours lately … but I suppose I’ll just have to settle for carrying out your destiny for her as thanks for putting the vessel in such a pretty package.” He kisses me on the shoulder and I feel agony where his lips leave my skin. Almost enough to make me forget the aching in my arms at the scythe’s continual shaking.
“Solustus, retrieve Starlet and her sister, the traitor, please. Oh and make sure Saturnus is still unconscious where we left him.” Titus calls down and Solustus nods and darts away, seamlessly.
“Now where was I?” He has lost the book; he must have dropped it in the fight with Atlas. I see Orion through the water, he is writhing, but Regus and now Caedes, who takes Solustus’ place, look immovable, holding his hands so he can’t use his power.
“I seem to have lost my book, but I have to say, I never was much of a reader.” Titus muses. I hate his speeches.
“Can we just hurry up and sacrifice me already?” I ask, looking him in the eyes, my shoulders are burning.
“Right you are, Callie! As I was just saying, I’ve never been much of a reader; I’m always too impatient and skip to the end.” He grins maliciously and this last piece of the ritual he says in perfectly clear English.
“Master of death, ruler of the dark dimensions, I bring you forth this night, in honour of your almighty power. Rise from the depths and be born into our world of the very moonlight that your oppressor so cast you to your dark prison. With a sacrifice of this pure blood, you are anointed and so in my name, so shall you be in this place.” The sea around me seems to rumble at that, and Titus moves a knife against my flesh, a knife procured by the hand of Solustus who looks into my eyes as he ascends to our level, returning emotionless and dead inside.
It is then the amazing happens, as Titus moves to slit my throat, spill my blood, there is a terrible crack like a gun. The light that erupts from the moon up above is beyond bright, like looking into the sun. It is siphoned into the scythe, which illuminates with white light and inside I am on fire. Hours if not days of agony must go by, but this isn’t Titus’ poor imitation of pain, this is real pain. This is death.
The final things I remember before darkness claims my last breath is my palm finding Titus’ chest, in the place where his heart should reside and hoping above all else that I am lucky enough to take him with me. As I close my eyes, it calls to me from outside the torturous beam of magical energy that binds me. It’s barely audible but I hear it: Orion’s voice calling to me.
“Callie …�
� I grit my teeth, maybe I can survive this for him. I open my eyes and through the blinding light. I see Titus’ eyes, the black abyss calling to me. In those last moments, I have but one thought, and that thought is Orion.
ORION
Callie! Callie! Callie! The inside of my head is screaming her name over and over like a record that’s gotten stuck. My father is dead and I am helpless, bound by Solustus and Regus. They let me go as the brightness of the magical energy field, the field that supplies as much power as thousands of lightning bolts recedes. I am sobbing, mer tears streaming down my face, oily, heavy, and valuable, turning to diamonds and sinking with the weight of my sorrow. My chest is full of despair, swallowing my heart whole in a symphony of grief. The light dies and only the moon is left to light the way. I see her in the dark, still a whole body … Could this mean she is alive, maybe she survived … no I dare not think it. I need to make it safe for her. I hold out my palms, summoning the wave of my despair from within, manifesting such power as I did not know I was capable of before this grief rained down on me like lethal knives. The tidal wave of air starts with me, dense as brick and as tall as a mountain and ripples outward, sending the outer ring of the psirens armed forces from the city and out into the open ocean so they cannot re-enter this place. Only Solustus remains within, his tail making him, unbelievably, fast enough to out swim the colossal current. I look around for the other psiren I expect to be able to withstand such force, but can’t find him. Where is Titus? I search for him as I move from the place where my two captors left me. It’s then that I see her once more. I swim desperately as she starts to fall, meeting her after around 30 seconds. Her face is cold. Oh God … oh no. No! Callie! She is like ice, I hold her to me. I look up from her face and see Solustus open his mouth and howl, an awful sound that stings the ears as he darts from the city limits. The psirens got what they came for. Rage consumes me. I want to go after Solustus, tear him limb from limb, devour him and cause him the suffering he has caused me. But I am holding her and I wouldn’t let her go for all the vengeance in the world. Her tail is still, as though she is dead. Yet she is not sand. I feel a hand on my shoulder … I turn, Azure’s dark eyes meet mine, and Starlet is at her back.
The Kiss That Killed Me (The Tidal Kiss Trilogy Book 1) Page 45
