It paused when it arrived over us again. Its attention spun us in a circle, the blades pushing the water below them back in concentric rings, and the top of the life raft shuddered with the force of the sinking air. A door opened on the helicopter’s side and a man began to lower himself.
Nathaniel. He hadn’t gone down with the Maraschino or his mercenaries. Maybe he was right, and this was his fate. The muscles of my stomach roiled again and I screamed in pain and defeat.
No matter what happened, he’d already won.
“If he can save you—” Asher said, pressing forward, waving Nathaniel down.
“No,” I gasped out.
“He has a cure—”
“No!” I shouted, letting my anger ride another wave.
The towrope Nathaniel was dangling from lowered, and he held his arms out like he was a descending god—carrying a knife.
“If you save her—” Asher began to shout out, over the whirring sound of the helicopter blades—
And then I felt something beneath us. Like in summertime pools, when your older brother tries to be stealthy and sneak up on you and push you out of your inflatable lounge chair. The bottom layer of the raft rose up and rubbed against the top layer beneath me, making the entire raft subtly rise.
My eyes widened and I looked at Asher, but he was too busy bargaining to feel it.
A tentacle snaked out of the water. Three times as large as any of the worms I’d seen, much much longer, it rose up like a cobra about to strike.
“Asher!” I shouted in warning as the tentacle lunged for Nathaniel’s ankle and pulled.
* * *
He’d been so busy plotting to hurt us that he didn’t see it until it was too late. The harness trapped him upright; he couldn’t lean down to get his knife into play. The tentacle tugged down twice, like a fish testing bait on a bob, and then yanked. The helicopter dipped, listing to its open side, and a startled man fell out, while others barely hung on.
The helicopter reeled in line, but only lowered itself without raising Nathaniel an inch. He was frantically gesturing for them to pull him up—I saw the knife glint in the sun as he dropped it, forgotten—and they were trying to do as he told them, tilting away, but the tentacle yanked again, making the helicopter jump. In the frantic tug-of-war between its panicked pilots and whatever was beneath the waves, Nathaniel lost.
His leg tore off. It dropped into the ocean and blood spattered down like rain. The helicopter, finally free, rose abruptly and started flying sideways at the same time, but not fast enough. A second tentacle rose, and then a third, grabbing Nathaniel’s remaining ankle, and then climbing higher up the towrope.
I saw whoever was inside the helicopter run away from the wench. Nathaniel zinged out like a badge on a broken reel, cut loose, dropping into the ocean. The helicopter, now free, bucked up into the sky.
But impossibly long tentacles flew out of the water to catch its running boards. The men inside leaned out to hack them away, and were in turn themselves caught, plucked out of the helicopter as though by Scylla herself, squeezed into halves and thirds, and then those pieces pulled down into the sea.
I knew just enough about physics to know that it wasn’t only a matter of strength—that whatever was below had to be more massive than what was above us in the air. It was as if we were watching an old-time woodcut, where an octopus was wrestling a ship, only being reenacted with a helicopter and some kind of demon.
The pilot must have been the only person left, shielded by his seat. He tried valiantly, weaving back and forth against the tentacles, diving down once to buy himself time, but nothing worked. Nothing would work. The Leviathan was hungry.
The helicopter hit the sea like a sack of bricks. The blades chipped against the water like it was cement and shattered, sending chunks of plastic and metal skipping out. Asher put his arm over me to protect me, and by the time he pulled back, it was done. The helicopter was down. I couldn’t even see where it’d landed.
Asher pressed a finger to his lips—as if we could hide from the monster by being very-very-quiet, Elmer Fudd–style—and I would have laughed, if another wave of cramps hadn’t hit.
There was a splashing sound from beside us, and then a loud gasp. Both of us turned to look out and saw Nathaniel there, bobbing up courtesy of his life jacket.
“No!” he yelled. Whatever was still below caught hold of him again—and dragged him back down.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
I don’t know how—if I felt safe, was exhausted, or was dying slightly more slowly than I had been—but I slept as the life raft shaded us from the sun. When I woke up, it was dark, and Asher was asleep too.
Out here, with the moon at quarter strength, I could almost believe we’d done this on purpose, we’d just taken a lovely vacation out to sea. The raft rocked back and forth like a mother’s arms as the moonlight filtered in.
My stomach didn’t actively hurt anymore—it was just sore, exhausted as the rest of me. I moved slightly away from Asher so that I could see out better. No land in any direction around us. It was as if we were the only people on earth.
And the water looked inviting. I knew it’d be cold, but only for that first second of shock. After that it would welcome me, and draw me in. Who knew how deep it was out here? I could hop off this raft for a moment, dive down, and see.
I could even drink it. Drink it all in.
As though I were in a dream, I pulled my legs into myself and found purchase against the handholds that lined the raft’s sides. It was as though a god had drawn this magnificent bathtub just for me; I only had to go and lie down in it.
Without taking in a breath, or any thought of breathing ever again, I went over the side.
* * *
The water welcomed me like I thought it would. I didn’t know why I’d ever been afraid of it. I heard Asher’s panicked scream and then it cut him off for me. Everything was simpler down here, cold, quiet, wet. The water hugged me, pressed in on all sides, and held me close. My hair, ungainly and tangled above, was radiant here, floating out in the moonlight. I dropped down like a stone, and felt my ears pop, but there was still more to the deep.
A luminescence grew beneath me. Down where the sea went black, a hundred-hundred bright eyes opened up, as if seeing for the first time in ages. They blinked up at me in a syncopated rhythm, sending me signals from the dark. I didn’t know what the meaning was, but I would learn. I was sure the light would teach me.
Something grabbed my foot. Asher? Ruining this? I kicked, and the thing grabbed up my leg.
There was a ripple in the water in front of me that spun me around, although this far down I didn’t know which way was up. Hands grabbed my armpits, shoving me through the water, pulling me where I didn’t know. I felt currents of water moving against my flesh, and something strong kept hitting my feet with a thump.
A song kept time with us, so sweet. No wonder I had jumped. If I hadn’t, I never would have heard anything like it.
The water got lighter; then we breached and I was divorced from the waves.
A child’s smile rose up in front of me, her face low. Emily. I could see the gills on her neck below the waterline, pumping, and envied her them. I knew she was still singing as her new tail beat time.
“Thirsty—” I explained. For water, for answers, for the light-in-the-darkness’s touch.
“No,” answered a voice behind me, and I felt strong hands on my back hoisting me up and into the life raft again. I felt abandoned as Asher looked back behind himself. “Thank you for this. I’m glad you’re well.”
I leaned up to fight with him, to get her to take me back, but it was too late, just a ripple and the flick of a tail flapping against the surface of the sea. There was no way to tell where she’d gone. Why wouldn’t she take me?
Asher crouched over me in the life raft. I was so mad at him I couldn’t even put it into words.
“Thirsty,” I spat out, when I could figure out how.
&nbs
p; “I love you, but I’m not listening to you say things like that.” He took the end of the cord that had inflated the raft and started wrapping it around me.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Asher tried to stay up, but couldn’t—so instead he fell back asleep on top of me, me tied, him perpendicular across my legs. My mouth ached it was so dry. I would do anything to drink. I wondered if this was how vampires felt.
A piece of the surrounding dark detached itself in the moonlight and crossed the bottom of the life raft, scurrying like a large beetle. I shook my head and tried to free myself, but it came up the side of the raft, so close I couldn’t turn my head to see it, but I could feel it crawl into my ear.
“Hello, Edie!”
The Shadows or a piece of them. Of course they’d survived. At my thinking this, they laughed. They were in my head now, and they sounded excited to see me. Great.
“We didn’t think you’d manage to last this long!” they said, and sounded cheerful as they said it.
No thanks to you.
“Well, we are the reason that you’re here. Maybe you’ll thank us later. You never know,” they said, and laughed like they’d made a hilarious joke. “Ah, no, really, your son’s been doing all the hard work of keeping you alive. Shapeshifter DNA—if you can call it that—is really quite amazing. Very robust immune systems. We’re hoping you live now, so that we can get the chance to meet him. We’ve never met a human–shapeshifter hybrid before.”
I didn’t want them to ever meet my son, if that’s what he wound up being. I imagined giving birth on the face of the sun, under lights so bright even the Shadows had to hide. They laughed at this—and then all my imagined light reminded me how parched my mouth was, how this night was very dry, and all I wanted to do was drink and never stop—
“That’s the worms talking. Don’t listen.”
But there was nothing else I could think of other than my thirst—my thirst and the thing I’d seen when I’d tried to quench it, the thing beneath the waves, with a thousand all-seeing eyes—and I felt the Shadows inside my ear jump.
“Did you tell it that we were here? Does it know?”
Know what? I rubbed my head against the bottom of the raft, trying to get them out.
“About us!” they whined, painfully loud in my ear.
“I don’t know!” I whispered around the gag in my mouth so they’d shut up. Why are you scared of it?
“You of all people know what it’s like to have relatives you’re ashamed of, Edie. Ashamed of, scared of—trust us, our relatives are worse.”
Asher stirred, and I willed him to go back to sleep. I thought if he were awake the Shadows would stop talking to me, and for the first time ever they seemed willing to share answers. Nathaniel’s dead, right?
“Fish food. Literally.”
Can you go get help for us?
“We’re as stranded as you are. We got here inside your shoe. Decided to hitch a ride on you inside the morgue.”
So not only can you not save me, I saved you. Awesome.
“We’d say that we’d owe you one, but we’re not entirely sure you’ll survive. We’re cheering for you though.” Then they shouted, “Go Edie!” sarcastically.
I bounced my head off the bottom of the raft, hoping to knock them loose, as they laughed very loudly. I gave up, and they settled down.
I asked the only question I had left to ask. Are you sure it’s going to be a boy?
The aura of smug mystery finally returned to their voices. “What do you think?”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
I woke up with a start, gasping for air. I have to tell Asher something.
Everything’s bright and orange, and I can only see through one eye. The other eye’s swollen shut; it burns when I try to open it. Water slaps rubber, over and over, in endless slow applause. I remember the sound from childhood, floating down a lazy river in an inner tube, drunk from beer my older brother had snuck me when I was sixteen.
“Edie? Are you okay?” Asher’s leaning over me. His voice is hoarse.
I have to tell him something.
But I can’t. There’s rope in my mouth. And I can’t pull the rope away because my hands are tied. My feet too. I’m hog-tied, and when I move my shoulder starts to throb.
“Is it still you?” Asher asks me. I don’t know why he’s asking. I don’t know what he means.
I have to tell you something, I try to say around the rope, even though I can’t remember what it was.
“I’m so sorry, Edie. I’m so, so sorry. It is you, right?” he asks, and his voice cracks.
I want to comfort him. To tell him that I’m okay, even though it’s clear that I am not. He looks so afraid right now. I’ve never seen him this afraid before.
“We’re going to be all right. We’re going to get away from here. I’m going to save you,” he says, more to himself than me. He scuttles backward and brings up what I realize was a paddle, then leans over the side of the orange thing we’re riding on and paddles for all his might.
Inside my mind, things slide into place. My ties, our lifeboat. What I want to say to him.
He’s paddling so hard to nowhere that salt water is spraying my face.
And I remember.
Everything.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
The sound of helicopters in moonlight. One flits over to us and dips down like a dragonfly.
All this—again?
Men descend from the sky, only this time Asher helps me over to them. Strange hands grab me, fasten me down, and then hoist me up. I’m frantic until Asher’s brought up too—they let him sit beside me. They leave me tied.
I lose track of time. I can’t hear anything, and Asher’s buckled in. I wake up when we land with a bounce.
Men undo the latches that hold the gurney in place and bring it into a room. Somewhere. All I can really see is the ceiling—and I know with unflinching certainty and sadness that they are taking me away from the sea.
* * *
“Is there any other way?” Asher’s voice breaks through the fog inside my mind. I leave my eyes closed so that I can’t see anything, so that I can pretend that we’re still on the ocean. If I concentrate hard enough, I can still feel the waves rocking me.
“The fact that it is your child is the only thing that’s kept her alive this far. But even now the baby loses strength. When it dies, so will she,” says a voice that’s strange.
“This is wrong.” Asher’s again. “I want it to be Anna.”
“Anna’s the one that sent us.” Stranger one again.
“She’s on the other side of the country.” And stranger two. Both of them sound imperious.
There is a long pause. Long enough that I can almost convince myself I am back at sea, in the water’s cold embrace.
“What if she never forgives me?”
“Do, or don’t, the choice is yours.” Stranger one sounds exhausted. “Anna told us not to force you. But dawn is near.”
“And she won’t live to see another night if you delay.” Stranger two sounds amused by Asher’s pain.
What’s hurting him? Instinct struggles to mount a response over lassitude, and wins. Whatever’s hurting him, I’ll kill it. I clench my fists and find my hands still tied. Asher places a calming hand atop my brow.
“Okay. Do it. Now.”
“By the order of the Sanguine, and with the permission of Anna Arsov, progenitor of the Arsov Throne, I bind Edith Spence eternally to me, Raven of the Catacombs.”
“No—wait—” Asher says.
But whatever he objects to, it’s too late. Something flows into my mouth. It tastes like salt, but it’s not water.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
It felt like everything had changed when I woke up. I felt … healthy. Like a long fever had broken. And nothing hurt.
“Good morning, sunshine,” a voice said. I turned and found Anna standing right beside me. Her blond hair was unkempt, like she’d just woken up.
&nbs
p; “Anna?” I leaned over to look past her, and then around at the rest of the strange room, in case I’d been pranked, and then returned my attention to her again. “How come you’re here?”
“Because I told them that if I weren’t by you when I woke up, I’d slaughter every single one of them. So they put my coffin over there.” She pointed behind herself.
I looked past her. It didn’t look like a coffin. It looked like a lightproof, bombproof shipping container. Where the hell was I? And what time was it? How long had I been out? I remembered the life raft—and Asher and my child. I put my hand to my stomach as I said Asher’s name. “Where is he? Is he all right?”
“He’ll be here shortly.”
“What’s going on? Why are you here?”
Anna took my warm hands gently in her cooler ones. “What he did, he did it for you. You both might regret it later, but he did what he thought was right at the time. Don’t be mad at him.”
“For what?”
She gave me a sad smile. “You know what.”
Like a door unlocking, memories slid into place. And the last one was of a pale stranger looming over me and the hot taste of blood. “Oh—no.”
“It was the only way to save you. He never would have allowed it otherwise. And I’m just as guilty as him—they were here because I asked.” She swallowed. “I wanted you to have a choice. I didn’t want you to die.”
“Am I…” like you was what I was going to say, but it was clear that I was not. My skin still had color, and I could hear my own pulse. Anna had a pulse too, being living and all, but hers was not like mine.
I knew because I could hear it, beating inside her.
“Oh, no,” I said again, more quietly.
She shook her head. “You can tame it, Edie. You’re not one of us, yet. And nothing says you have to be. Daytimers die all the time without knowing another drop of vampire blood.”
“I would have never—” I began.
Edie Spence [04] Deadshifted Page 23
