by Michelle Fox
The tank turned out to be a large, indoor swimming pool boxed in with thick glass. The water inside churned with all sorts of beings. I spotted the sleek, small form of a nymph and several scaled creatures that I'd never seen before, but unlike the tree troll, I was able to name them; selkies, nymphs, sprites and a hippocamp. In the far corner slumped the form of my sister. Her bright scales had dulled since she'd been taken and her hair hung in clumps around her face. She'd either stopped caring for it or had been unable to groom herself.
Even so, my heart leaped with joy at the sight of her, but then sank a moment later as I realized she wasn't moving. Actually, upon a closer look, I saw that no one swam freely in the pool. Heavy chains pinned everyone in place, restricting movement to just a few inches in either direction. One of the water sprites kept testing the limits of her chain—zooming forward only to be stopped short again and again. The panic on her thin face sent a chill up my spine. What had happened to make her so desperate?
The tree troll set me down on the concrete floor ringing the pool and switched out the gag the sheik had fashioned out of his belt for one made of rubber. I grimaced as the gag's sour flavor filled my mouth. It reminded me of diesel fuel. With a grunt, the troll picked me up again and placed me in shallow water at the end of the pool opposite my sister.
For a moment, I thought he would take off my chains, but he didn't have a key like I did. The sheik hadn't said anything, and the tree troll hadn't thought to ask.
He poked at them though and peered at the lock as if trying to decide what to do. In the end, he left them in place. Shuffling over to a nearby cabinet, he sorted through the shelves and returned a moment later with a short length of chain. Looping it through mine, he secured it to the loops of metal set at regular intervals around the pool. Another trip to the cabinet and he had a padlock that would bind his chain to mine, making it look like I was locked in with no hope of escape.
Relief filled me as the tree troll made his way out of the room. I still had the key. Our plan was going to work. Across the pool, though, Siya still had not moved. I hoped I wasn't too late. I didn't know what I would do if I had failed her.
The second the tree troll was gone, I tried to get my sister's attention. "Siya." I did my best to say her name around the gag, while also not making too much noise. I was unsure of how closely the sheik guarded his prisoners.
The whole room went still at the sound of my voice, and all eyes turned toward me. A soft muttering started, the sound growing bigger the more my fellow prisoners talked.
"Another mermaid."
"Hey Siya, another of your kind is here," said a nymph. She was a tiny one, not much longer than my arm.
"Do you know her, Siya?" asked a selkie.
"Is she one of your tribe?" This question came from a bigger nymph.
The hippocamp merely snorted and turned its back on everyone.
Slowly my sister raised her head and looked at me. Her jaw dropped and eyes widened as she recognized me. I attempted to smile around the gag, but she didn't return the gesture. Instead, she turned away, burying her face in her hands with a loud sob.
I looked behind me, checking to be sure we were alone. Once I verified there were no apparent guards, I began to fumble with the key to my chains. I needed to tell Siya it was going to be okay, that my appearance as a prisoner was merely a ruse. Then she would stop crying and we could get out of here.
It took several minutes during which I dropped the key twice and had to dive after it. After the second time, I swore through the gag in every language I'd ever heard whenever the little piece of metal slipped in my hands.
"Poseidon's ass in the air, just work already you barnacle!" Everyone stopped and stared again, not because they could understand me—the gag rendered my speech unintelligible—but because I'd been so loud. I gave them an apologetic look and as I did so the key finally slipped home, turning as if it had been greased with whale fat.
I unwound the chains and let them sink to the bottom of the pool.
"Hurry, girl. He watches us," said the nymph. She pointed up at black boxes mounted on the ceiling.
"In minutes, you'll be back where you started," said the sprite.
I yanked off the ball gag, wincing as the rubber took some of my hair with it. "Has anyone ever escaped?"
"No. Never."
"You won't be the first to try and fail, either," sniffed the sprite.
"I'm not staying here and neither are you." I pushed off the pool wall and swam to where Siya sat. She'd heard my voice and peeked out at me from between her fingers, watching as I came to her.
"Are you okay?" I'd expected her to be happy to see me.
She shook her head and turned away.
I put a hand on her shoulder. "What is it? Tell me. I've come to take you home."
Hands dropping from her face, she turned to look at me, a dark anguish furrowing her brow. I waited for her to say something, but she didn't speak. Instead, she opened her mouth.
It took me a second to see it and when I did I recoiled. Hot anger boiled inside me. They'd cut out her tongue and taken her magic away from her. Throwing back my head, I howled until the air around me shook, and everyone in the pool ducked for cover.
Siya reached out and laid a hand on my shoulder as she shook her head. "Sh," she said.
"I'm going to kill him." My words started as a scream that spiraled higher and higher up the scale. A sharp crack sounded above us. Siya pointed up and I tilted my head back to find my voice had weakened the glass the ceiling. With some effort, I reined in my temper and forced it to smolder in my gut. Showering the pool with shards of glass wasn't a good idea, no matter how angry I was.
Calmer now, I said, "He will pay for this." I hugged her close to me. She trembled in my arms and held herself stiff and apart from me. "Don't worry, Siya. You're going to be okay. Once we get back home, we can figure out what to do."
My sister pushed me away and spoke for the first time. Even though her voice was mangled, I understood her. "No."
"You can't stay here. We're not going to leave you behind." I hadn't found my sister only to lose her again.
"We?" She gave me a look of surprise. "We who?"
"I-I brought some friends." At her puzzled look, I added, "No one you know. The others still think they can hide from the slavers. I came alone, but met some people while looking for you." That reminded me of the communications gear Sara had given me, and I held the necklace up to my lips.
"Hello? Can you hear me?" I poked at the earpiece inside my ear canal and was rewarded with a faint buzz of static. "I found my sister. We're in a pool house. It's made of glass. You can't miss it."
There was no answer, and not knowing if help was coming or not, I decided just to move forward. The first thing to do was remove the chains holding my sister and the other prisoners. I examined the lock, pleased to find it simple. Clicking my tongue, I hummed a tune that unsnarled knots and undid locks.
Once Siya was free, I moved on to the next person, a nymph who shrank away from me as if she were afraid. "Don't worry. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm going to set you free."
She frowned at me. "Why? There's no place to go."
A splash of water behind me drew my attention, and I turned to see Siya swimming to the other side of the pool. "Where are you going?" I yelled the question after her.
She ignored me and pulled herself out of the water, her tail undulating across the rough cement to the wall. Rising up on her tail fins, she reached up and snagged a key ring off a hook on the wall. She returned to the pool and began fumbling with the keys, looking for the one that would work with the lock in front of her.
Pride swelled in my heart. This was my sister, strong and smart. Siya had found her courage and that meant she would be okay, tongue or no tongue.
The water around us now churned in agitation as everyone anticipated their freedom. "Just hang on," I said. "We're working as fast as we can."
"And then what?" The quest
ion was snorted at us by the sprite. "You do know we're in a desert, right? We'll die out there."
"I'll find a way to get you home. All of you. I'm not going to let you die."
"Swear it on water," hissed a fish with human eyes and lips.
I laid my hand on the water. "I swear it by the water that gives me life."
A shadow crossed over the pool, and I smiled when I saw it was in the shape of a dragon. I hurried to free the last of the prisoners, making my song bigger and louder so it could attack more locks at once. "Come on, Siya." I swam over to her. "Let's get you out of here."
I tugged on my earring and felt my human form flow over me. It would be easier to move through the sheik's compound with legs. The transformation felt more natural the second time. My body flowed in, out and around until it reached its new second form. The water beings in the pool were horrified. They gasped and recoiled almost as one.
Ignoring them, I stepped out of the pool, shaking the water off me. Spotting a robe hanging on the wall, I grabbed it and wrapped it around me. In my human form, I found I preferred to keep my thinner skin covered.
Grabbing Siya's hand, I led the way out of the tank, peeking around the door to make sure no one was there. Siya's tail slapped gently against the ground as she followed me.
She asked me a question, the sound a grotesque snarl of words missing their most recognizable sounds. But my ear adjusted, treating her speech as a new language and automatically providing a translation. It was an unexpected but welcome surprise. Perhaps the loss of her tongue would not be as much of an obstacle as I had thought. She would be understood, at least, by our people. As for her magic, maybe even that could be recovered with time and practice.
"Where are we going?"
"Home," I said.
"They'll come for us." She put a hand on my arm and pulled me around to look at her. Turning her head, she showed me a fresh scar just behind her ear. "They put something in me that lets him track me. We all have it."
"If it was put in, it can be taken out. Or I'll sing it into oblivion. He will not follow us," I said my voice fierce. "I will not allow it."
"He has so much power. His magic is so strong." Her voice broke.
I whirled around and faced her, anger making my face hot. "I didn't come all this way to have you complain about being rescued. Do you want to stay here? Is that it?"
She shook her head. "No, but you don't understand how powerful he is. Some of them are loyal to him like he is their king. He's all they've known for centuries now."
"I didn't come alone. We have a way out, we just have to take it." We passed through the hallway that connected the pool to the outside world. Just one more door and we would be in the garden that made up the heart of the compound. From there, the dragon brothers could scoop us up and we would be away from the sheik and his menagerie prison.
It was almost too easy.
Which was why I only cracked the door open, taking the time to scan the garden for any threats. If I had been the sheik, I would not trust chains to hold anyone, but perhaps he'd been doing this so long he'd put too much trust in metal. Maybe no one had ever challenged him to where he'd had to evaluate his security. Either way, I was grateful to find the courtyard empty and still.
Swinging the door open, I gestured for Siya to go through. She gave me a fearful look but with a ripple of her tail moved forward. I followed her, watching the sky as I looked for dragons. Had it been Niall or Alec's shadow that I'd seen from the pool? Were both brothers air borne or just one? Was the communication equipment working or not? I had no answer to my questions and could only keep us moving, hoping that it would all work out as planned.
"This way." I brushed past Siya and headed for a relatively clear area of the garden.
Siya hesitated. "Mila, no."
"What do you mean no?"
A loud shriek rang out. I recoiled as I realized it came from the palm tree in front of me. Dozens of pixies in a rainbow of colors perched in the trees ringing the garden. They had eyes full of golden fire ringed in red. A chill went up my spine at the menace in their stare. They bore me ill. I could feel it.
Siya pointed at them. "They're part of his guard. They attack anyone who tries to escape."
"But they're so tiny." I could swat them like flies if I had to.
"He crossed them with vampires." She bared her teeth at me. "If enough of them land on you, they'll suck the blood out of you in seconds. There was a werewolf who tried to get away..." She trailed off.
I blanched. "Okay. I'll deal with it." Drawing a breath, I prepared to sing, the notes of a travel song coming to mind. In the old times, we'd used these to move two-legs or predators away from us. As the first few notes burst forth, rainbow wings stretched into the air and swooped down toward me.
I sang as fast as I could, but one pixie landed on my shoulder and stabbed my neck with her fangs before my magic could take her. One of them got to Siya as well, latching onto her upper arm. She smacked its legs out from under it, but the pixie remained, hanging by its fangs.
Grabbing the one on me by the waist, I attempted to yank her off and pushed my song louder. I gave them all an insatiable wanderlust, a need to find the driest spot in the desert and roost there. Don't come home, I sang to them, until the sun rises no more.
Still shrieking, the pixies in the trees flew off, lured to their deaths by my magic. A second later, the ones feeding off us followed them. I clapped a hand over the wound in my neck and watched them go. Unless I sang a counter song to cancel what I'd just done or the sheik had some magic I didn't know about, they would sit in the desert until the heat roasted their flesh from their bones.
Good.
"Are you all right?" Siya wiped blood off her arm.
"Yes. Just one bite." I cocked my head at her. "Why didn't you sing with me?"
"He took my tongue." She opened her mouth and showed me the jagged stump that remained.
"But you still have your voice. I can understand you. That has to mean that you can still sing."
"Maybe. I don't know. I didn't think to try."
At the upset in her eyes, I hugged her with one arm. "It's okay."
"I'm deformed now. Like Ndia." She hung her head.
"Don't say that," I said my voice sharp.
"No one will want me."
"You're still my sister. That hasn't changed, and anyone who says anything unkind to you will have to deal with me."
She gave me a sad smile. "What if you're the only one who can understand me?"
"Don't be foolish." I strode toward the clearing. "It's going to be fine."
The ground trembled and cracked beneath our feet, proving me wrong. Siya and I jumped back as the crack widened into a trench. Nothing happened for several seconds, but then a large red...snake?...worm? burst through. A guttural howling sounded as the worm's gigantic mouth opened and closed over and over again.
"What is that?" I asked, shouting to be heard.
Siya gave me a panicked look and shook her head. "I don't know."
"It's huge." I pulled on her arm, drawing her farther away from the red worm thing. A large palm tree stood to our right, and I led us behind the trunk, seeking what shelter I could find. Where was Niall? Now would be a good time to appear.
"Maybe he crossed it with a giant. He likes to mix us together." The worm had stopped howling but remained reared back, waving it's blunt, featureless head back and forth. We whispered our conversation so it wouldn't hear.
"What was he going to mix you with?"
"Shifters," she said. "He wanted me to have babies with the werewolf."
"Why?"
"To see if we could make a mermaid who could shift."
I blinked. "But what for?"
"He just did stuff like that. All the time. He took stuff from us constantly; blood, hair, scales. He called it DNA." She hugged herself.
"Are you—"
"Pregnant?" She shook her head. "No. The werewolf tried to get away before anyth
ing happened." Nodding to the worm, she asked, "What are we going to do about that?"
"Nothing. We're just going to hide until my friends come get us."
She frowned as she watched the worm. "How fast can they be here?"
The worm sniffed in the background, sucking in air. Its head continued to wave back and forth.
"They'll be here soon. Do you think it tracks on scent?" I asked.
"I don't even know what it is," Siya said.
"Let's go farther back." I took her hand and led her down to another palm tree further away. I hated doing it because who knew what other dangers lurked in the sheik's compound? My gut instinct said we should not be anywhere near the worm.
A bird—a real, normal bird— shrieked as we came too close to its perch. Flapping its wings, it flew up above the tree line. A roar sounded followed by the splat-splat-drip of a yellow liquid. Siya and I ducked and hurried away.
Wanting to be sure the worm wasn't gaining on us, I looked back in time to see the yellow fluid smoking and hissing as it hit the vegetation. The green of the trees and grass gave way to yellow with crusty brown edges.
Another stream of liquid chased the bird around. It squawked and darted from side to side, trying to get away. This time I could see that the liquid was coming from the worms.
"Uh-oh," said Siya.
"Yeah. This isn't good," I said. Not only was the worm bigger than a boat and longer than a giant squid, it could also shoot out liquid that killed anything it touched. I gripped the communication necklace Sara had given me with one hand and tapped at the ear piece with the other. "Hello? Anyone there? We're cornered and could use some help."
The ground shook beneath us. Confused, I looked back to where we'd come from. The worm was still there. I could see its red body through the palm tree fronds.
"What's happening?" Siya's voice shook with the ground.
