by Amy McNulty
“What’s going to happen to Journey?” I demanded to know.
“She’ll be fine,” said Calder. “If… If Ember cooperates.”
“And what if she doesn’t?” I asked.
“A threat wouldn’t be very effective if there was no actual danger behind it,” said Laguna, her meek voice carrying across the basement with an almost ephemeral quality to it.
I snapped. Launching my hand back, I shot out a stream of ice, larger than any ice ball I’d produced before. It nicked Calder in the side as it shot up the stairs, pinning Llyr and Laguna against the wall. Before they could think, I launched myself up the other side of the stairs, shooting an ice ball behind me without looking where it was hitting, praying at least that the poor cat stayed hidden and out of harm’s way.
Chapter Twenty-Six
In the kitchen, I looked around like a wild animal, left and right, assessing my surroundings. I’d effectively iced three-quarters up the basement doorway. It was already cracking, so I had to get moving. Through the window, I saw Dean and Ember deep in conversation at the side of the house, some distance away from the rest of the party gathered in the backyard.
One vampire was with Noelle, and the others—I didn’t spot any just yet.
I let up on the ice blast—Dad would probably explain the moisture with a basement leak—and charged out the sliding door and around the side of the house to face my foe.
Ember immediately responded to my sudden rushed appearance, flinging out her right hand and gathering fire to her fingers.
“Wait!” I said, lifting both hands above my head, as if to show her I was unarmed. My right hand still stung with ice, but I was forcing deep breaths through my system, causing the blue color to fade. “We need to get out of here. Now.”
“We?” asked Ember. There was no disguising the disbelief in her voice.
“They have Journey,” I said, my voice a harsh whisper. “I didn’t know they were going to…”
Ember and Dean exchanged a look. Dean laid a gentle hand on her upper arm. “Where are your friends?”
“Detained… for now,” I said. “But I don’t know for how long.”
“Come on,” Dean said, turning on his heel and pressing a hand to Ember’s back.
Her flames went out. “With us?” she asked. “Dean, have you lost your wits?”
A slight shake of his head.
Ember went quiet.
I could guess at what kind of unspoken conversation was going on there. Even if they didn’t trust me, they’d already proven last week they’d wanted to take me somewhere alone.
But the horrible thing the merfolk had done might backfire on them if they tried anything funny right now. Ember wouldn’t risk Journey’s safety. At least I hoped. So, as angry as I was at Calder and everyone else… I supposed I could be thankful for that.
We jogged over the front lawn, headed down the block and to a fancy-looking red vintage car. It was sleek, but practically as big as a boat. Way to not stand out.
Dean held the passenger’s side door for Ember and she climbed in.
He held the back door open and stared over at me. Right.
Glancing over my shoulder, I saw two pale vampire men heading our way.
“No!” I said, taking hold of the car door. “Just you two.” I stepped back.
Dean’s chin jutted upward and he made a hand signal to the other two. They stopped.
I climbed into the enemy’s vehicle.
It took Dean another moment to get around the car, climb in, start it up, and pull away. No one spoke for the first minute.
“So what do you two want to do?” Dean asked, like we were just hanging out instead of potentially at each other’s throats.
“Do you have Rae?” I asked.
“Who?” said Dean.
Ember’s mouth opened in profile. She seemed to be waiting for Dean to say something.
“Raelynn Kelly,” I said. “My friend Lyric’s girlfriend. She was at Model U.N. with Journey, on the bus. Cal—He said your dad and some vampires got her.”
“My dad?” said Ember. She turned over her shoulder. “Again, how do you even know about him?”
Not it couldn’t have been her dad. Not they didn’t have Rae. Just how did I know.
“We bumped into each other,” I said. It wasn’t a lie. “But I just want to know the truth about Raelynn right now.”
Ember looked to Dean again. “We don’t know anything about that,” he said at last.
The way she waited for him to answer for her… Was that a lie?
I sighed. One innocent at a time, then.
“We should go to the merfolk mansion,” I said, clutching my elbows tightly against my abdomen. “Before Calder and the others catch up. A few less to contend with to free your friend.”
“Now hold on a minute,” said Ember, grabbing hold of the back of her seat and practically climbing over it. “So you claim you didn’t know anything about them taking Journey—what were your plans then?”
I opened my mouth and closed it.
“That’s what I thought.” Her eyes narrowed as she turned back around. “This is all just a part of her plan,” she continued to Dean. “Get me to the merfolk fortress—”
“Yes,” I said, my voice rising, “but now you have to go. And you have to work with me if you want a chance of getting Journey out safely.”
Ember whipped around again. “Is that a threat?”
The car came to a sudden halt. Dean coasted off to the side of the road and put the vehicle in park. “Let me show you something,” he said, looking over his shoulder straight at me.
I sunk back into my seat as he opened the door and went to the trunk, propping it open.
Ember glared daggers at me over her shoulder.
“Is that an invite to get in the trunk?” I tittered nervously.
“Do you want us to cooperate with you or don’t you?” Ember sneered.
I reached for the car door with a shaky hand and let myself out. I could always run if need be. Even if they pulled that time freezing trick. I could fight back.
Ember got out of the car after I did, trailing behind me as I shuffled my feet the slowest I possibly could to join Dean.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake. Come on.” Ember grabbed hold of my arm, the bare skin of her hand sliding up my loose blouse sleeve.
I tried to focus. Find out what she knew about Rae.
“What if they try something at the wedding ceremony?” I—Ember—asked. Dean was sitting beside me in Dad and Noelle’s backyard, on a bench facing the woods. I looked down to see a pair of tight pants on—so not what she was wearing today. Of course, she’d invited her vampire boyfriend to the place she’d declared a “neutral zone.”
“You both agreed not to fight at your ma’s house,” he said.
I—as in the real me—hadn’t agreed to that, really.
“But she’ll lure me away—”
“Then don’t let her.” Dean squeezed my—Ember’s—hand in his. “Or do. Just because you’re cornered doesn’t mean you can’t end this. Let it happen.”
I gasped as I came back to the present. Ember gave me a slight head shake. “What?”
“Nothing,” I said, ripping my arm away. She let me go. So she was prepared to go along with whatever I planned for her today. Maybe she didn’t believe I was even genuine about wanting to save Journey.
Dean held a long, rubbery thing out from the back of the trunk. It took me a second to let it sink in. I glanced into the open truck to spot an oxygen tank, a set of dark goggles, and a pair of flippers.
A diving suit.
“Are you kidding me?” I asked, shuffling back a step.
“Well, this is an argy-bargy I didn’t quite expect to chance upon. Oy, care to give me a lift?”
I whipped around so fast, even Ember jumped back from me in fright.
Orin strolled out of the nearby woods, foliage snapping beneath his feet with each step. He picked a dry twig out of
his curls as he approached. “Heading to where all the action is, yeah?”
Orin. The diving suit. Dean. Ember. My eyes flitted between all of them.
“Truce until both of our friends are safe?” I proposed.
Dean tossed the diving suit back into the trunk and slammed it shut. Sliding his hands into his pockets, he looked at Ember.
“Fine by me,” she said, clenching her fists at her side.
“Well, this is a downright shocking turn of events,” said Orin, his smile wide.
“And we’re not done here, either,” I said, pointing to him and me. I thought of the way he’d tried to hide the green on the orb, but I wasn’t sure if I should bring it up in front of Ember and Dean or try to keep at least one thing out of my enemies’ hands. “You have some talking to do.”
“That’s a first,” Orin said as Dean went to get the front door for Ember again. “Most seem to want me to keep my laughing gear in check, talk less.”
There was no arguing with that.
We parked on the grass right outside the moat in the merfolks’ front lawn. After getting the door for both Ember and me, Dean was back at the trunk, removing his hat and suitcoat and suiting up.
I clung to the car door warily as I crawled out, on alert for any sign of a merperson. But the place was eerily quiet.
The UV lamps buzzed overhead, but Dean didn’t so much as flinch. Ember did, stumbling to the back of the car and putting her back to them. Orin squinted his eyes and held a hand up above him as he joined us at the trunk. “Blimey. That’s going to leave a nasty burn on you lily-white types.” He pointedly gave both Ember and me a onceover.
We weren’t going to be standing there long enough to get a tan.
“So the light doesn’t work on you?” I asked Dean, swallowing. His legs were in the suit now—and his sculpted, bare chest was exposed. Talk about lily-white—this guy was two shades past snowfall.
“Just the eyes,” he said, gesturing to his face, where a pair of sunglasses rested. He grinned at me as he took them off and tossed them into the trunk along with the rest of his clothes.
I expected him to scream or vanish into smoke or… something. But he stared at me with those black, black contact eyes. He’d worn contacts under sunglasses in anticipation of fighting with me today. And I couldn’t forget the suit. So much for all my plans about this being the perfect place to get Ember alone.
“Now what?” asked Ember as she tried to take the place in. She had to raise her voice to be heard over the trickle of the moat and the sizzle of the UV lamps overhead.
My chest constricted as I thought I heard sounds of a vehicle some distance away. Calder, Llyr, and Laguna couldn’t have been caught in the ice for too long—I’d tried to paste them back against the wall, but I hadn’t covered their faces in it. Then there was the fact that there could be more diving suit bloodsuckers on their way for backup. Either way, we needed to get in—fast. Get Journey, get out.
Convince Ember to surrender.
Right? That wouldn’t be breaking our truce if she did it willingly. I tugged on the collar of my blouse and my fingers went to work unbuttoning it. I might not have appreciated what the merfolk did, but that didn’t change the fact that the vampires were undead—that they’d had their chance to live. And that they posed a danger to people.
Merfolk needed to win and then I could put this all behind me.
But there was no question that Calder and I were done now.
“I don’t even know if the front door opens,” I said, peeling my blouse off and tossing it in Dean’s trunk. Everyone stared at me—Orin’s eyes particularly lingering as his eyebrows shot up—but I unbuttoned my skirt and flung that off, too. I had panties on—no sense in making it a bikini bottom when it was bound to be shredded regardless—but it didn’t look that much different from a slinky bikini at the beach regardless.
I decided to ignore the eyes on me. Actually, I couldn’t really tell what Dean’s were doing. His diving suit included a cap and he was adjusting his dark goggles over his contacts. He had frozen in place a moment as I’d undressed, though.
“Through the garage,” I said, pointing the way. “And stay away from the moat,” I added. I couldn’t tell for certain with the bright, bright light, but there was movement in those waters—either a fish or a merperson.
The garage door was closed, but I had an idea. I approached the parked cars in the lot outside the garage, my aquatic shoes swishing through the grass. I tried the first handle and then the next until I discovered a minivan that was open.
Reaching for the visor, I found what I was looking for and clicked the garage door opener.
Ember and Orin glanced around the van as I did so, Dean several steps behind them as he waddled in his flippers.
His hands were still bare and there were slight pieces of skin exposed under his visor and around his lips. But I supposed he’d been able to stand the slight sizzle of rain before.
“Come on!” I said, climbing out of the van and pointing to the open garage door.
No one moved after me. Ember was frozen to the spot.
She ripped open the back door of the van and sniffed the seat, then patted it, lifting those fingers to her lips and licking them.
As if I weren’t already doing some of the weirdest things imaginable, that still made me feel unclean. I moved back to the van to peer closer at whatever had gotten her attention.
Red on the seat. A small but unmistakable circle of red. Blood.
Ember hissed—like a cat, a guttural sound of anger. When her lips parted, a set of fangs stuck out as she trained her eyes on me.
“That’s Journey’s blood.” The words were sharp and slithery in her mouth. Her eyes flickered blue just briefly. “You hurt her.”
“Ember, no,” I said, backing up a step. “You have to believe me. I didn’t know. That’s why I ran off with you.”
The sound of the approaching vehicle got louder, the crunch of the gravel beneath its tires.
I backed up until something caught me, a set of hands clamping down around my bare arms. I felt the rubber against the flesh on my back.
I tried to move away, but the hands grabbed me tighter.
“Get off me!” I screamed, fighting, trying to kick at diving-suit Dean behind me.
Orin laughed and ran around the front of the van, jumping up on its hood and crossing his legs as he took this all in, like this were some movie instead of my life potentially being in danger.
“Ember!” I said, my wrists clamped tightly in Dean’s grip. “We’re here to save her, remember?”
Ember stepped closer, faltering as she did—as she stepped closer into the UV beams. She cried out and held an arm over her eyes.
She was in vampire mode right now. The light and water could hurt her.
Calder’s truck braked hard as it burst through the tree-lined driveway, skidding to a rough and squeaky stop.
Laguna and Llyr jumped out of the truck bed even before it fully stopped moving.
“Ivy!” screamed Calder through the open truck window. He honked his car horn once, twice, three times.
The sound only made Ember growl more and she leaped at me, her mouth wide open, the hiss emanating from her throat like something out of a horror movie. Her eyes shone blue, her fangs bared, heading for my throat.
And then with a click, click, click the grass around us erupted into upward showers as a sprinkler system I hadn’t even been aware of started up.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
In his elaborate protective suit, Dean only flinched at the assault, but Ember released a high-pitched shrill scream from her throat as her skin started smoking.
Dean dropped one hand off me to rip his mouthpiece out of his lips. “Let go, Ember. Stop feeling the venom.”
I didn’t need to stick around for his little pep talk. I used the opportunity to send an ice ball at his flipper and tear away from his grasp.
My toes tingled in the aquatic mesh as I stu
mbled forward, Ember’s cries ringing in my ears.
No tail now. No tail now. No tail now.
I heard a rip as my legs snapped together
No. Tail. Now.
The tingling lessened.
“Stop!” I said, whipping around. “I’m trying to help you—”
“Looks like an ambush to me,” said Dean. His exposed skin was smoking, and he kept shaking his head every few seconds like he had a tic.
Ember let out one last scream and then all at once, the smoke stopped sizzling off her skin.
She straightened herself, the blue bloodlust gone in her eyes, her teeth retracted back beneath her lips. “Let’s go,” she said, as if nothing had just happened.
She took my hand in hers and I nodded, running toward the open garage.
Orin jumped down off the van’s hood and shook his head quickly like an animal caught in the rain. He caught up to us. “I thought I was about to witness the most epic of fights, yeah? Though I wondered how fair it would be with the champion of water flopping about the lawn like a fish.” His eyes darted downward and I knew my panties were hanging on practically by a thread.
“Don’t say it,” I growled.
Behind me, a whistle rang out across the sky. I looked over my shoulder just as we arrived at the garage to see Dean with his fingers to his lips, Calder, Llyr, and Laguna closing in on him.
“What’s he doing?” I asked.
“Never mind him,” snapped Ember, tugging on my arm. Just as we slipped past the vehicle parked nearest the door, I saw something… weird.
“Wait!” I said, tugging my arm from Ember’s grasp. I ran back to the garage entrance. Orin stepped back, his hands in his pockets, a grin on his face.
“Will you look at that?” he proposed.
More diving-suit-people were stomping out of the woods surrounding the merfolks’ property. Five of them—based on the shapes, two women and three men. Only they weren’t wearing flippers like Dean was—and Dean himself was peeling his off.
They sprinted toward my merfolk friends, who quickly figured out what was going on and shifted back-to-back as they faced the assault from two sides.
