by Amy McNulty
“Whoa,” said Journey, taking in the sight of me as a mermaid, I supposed. “Kind of awesome in a way.”
“Did vampires take Raelynn away?” I asked Journey, ready to grab her and do a mindreading, even if my head was pounding, if she said no or feigned ignorance.
“Yeah,” she said instead, her chin dropping to her chest as her whole body slumped. “I didn’t know they were following me, let alone that they’d do that.”
“How do I know she’ll be okay?” I asked Ember.
She was still soggy, her hair clinging to her face like a wet dog’s. “We’re not going to hurt her if we win,” she said, tossing a damp strand of hair behind her back as she straightened slightly.
Was that a threat?
I didn’t know what to do. Make her surrender? She never would if she believed she’d be dooming the planet if she did.
…And what if she would be?
I stared at the merfolk approaching me—and realized Beck was missing.
“Look—” I started, but he jumped up from the water at our side, reaching up to grab hold of Journey and yanking her below the water. She screamed.
“Journey!” Ember shrieked.
I went to dive after her, but with a crash, one of the windows leading to the front lawn—the part surrounded by the moat—broke, the dark curtains keeping the light to a minimum in here so the underwater light fixtures could shine ripping to the ground. A man in a diving suit and Calder went tumbling as one inside the room. Nerida stepped back quickly, flinging off her dress and diving into the pool.
Calder rolled and rolled with the diving suit vampire to the edge of the pool, then rolled on top of him, panting, Calder’s skin flecked with little streaks of blood from tiny cuts.
Journey gasped as she rose to the surface and I jumped back into the water to help shove her back to the floating island as Ember scrambled to pull her up. When Beck appeared again, tugging on her legs, I slammed an ice ball underwater at his head. With a great thunk, it made contact with his temple, chilling the water as a trickle of red dyed the water around him.
With a mighty grunt, Calder ripped the goggles and hood off the vampire he was fighting with—Dean, of course.
Then he grabbed him by the shoulders and stood up on shaky legs, dragging him into the water headfirst. He let go.
“No!” screamed Ember just as we succeeded in pushing Journey back onto the floatation device.
She dove into the water.
“Ember, wait!” I said.
The water was turning red now, radiating outward heavier from where Dean sank, that red steaming blood coming thickly from his facial and hand pores. I had flashbacks to when we’d gotten him into the school pool.
Ember swam at the surface, gasping for air, and Bay grabbed hold of her easily, Cascade snatching her legs.
Queen Nerida laughed as more merfolk bobbed up from the water at her side and Calder stepped back from the pool unsteadily, hunched over, staring down at it. He was still bleeding, still panting.
Her laughter was too loud, the sounds of more conflict from the front yard and Ember’s futile struggles the only other noise, both overpowered by that laughter.
The laughter of an evil queen, if you asked me.
“Well, this is something,” said Orin as he stuck one long leg through the broken-open window and then the other. He was slightly wet from the sprinklers outside and he shook his curly mane out like a cat. “What do you reckon, Ivy? Merfolk for the win?”
Ember struggled and struggled in Bay and Cascade’s grasp. Dathan moved closer to help them keep her from moving, and between screams of “Let me go!” and “Dean!” she started choking, sputtering as water kept getting onto her face.
Red steamed out from the other end of the pool as Dean sank. Blood dripped, dripped, dripped into the water from where Calder stood looking down at it. And blood… Blood should have been seeping into the water at my side, where I’d conked Calder’s uncle.
Only there was a trail of the blood-like steam instead when I looked down, leading to where Dean had gone into the water. I stared down.
Dean was moving underwater and it looked like his lips were on the wound on Beck’s temple. He lay unconscious, unmoving, as Dean had his snack.
“Uh-oh,” I said, just as Dean shot upward and broke through the water, his hands and face still sizzling steam, his red, red lips twisted into a grimace, like it was taking him great effort to stay afloat. Every time his hand reached up out of the water and back down again, he let out a grunt like he was touching fire.
“Dean!” shouted Ember, and she went limp in the merfolks’ grasp.
And just then a cry from the broken window grabbed my attention and Laguna went soaring through, landing in a heap with a thump. A vampire woman in a diving suit jumped after her, her breathing tube knocked aside as she bared her fangs. She turned instantly toward Calder, cocking her head like a shark smelling blood in the water.
And then she leapt for him, letting out a bloodcurdling predator-like growl.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Without even thinking, I hurled ice ball after ice ball straight at the vampire woman and hit her dead-on in the chest, flinging her back against the wall.
Calder turned from staring at the vampire as she slumped over to looking at me. His mouth opened as if he were about to say something, but he slouched more, one hand cradling his other arm, which was pouring more and more blood forth. He staggered and fell headfirst into the pool, causing Nerida to finally cease her laughing and shriek.
I stared at Dean for a moment to see what he’d do and he stared back, the grimace still on his face as he paddled hard to stay afloat.
“Ember,” I told him, then I dove to the bottom of the pool, following the blood trail to Calder’s sinking body. His eyes were closed, his head lolled back, and I saw the moment his legs snapped together, his dress pants ripping as his tail formed, his top still loaded down with his dress shirt, ripped and half-unbuttoned.
It was an odd look for a merman.
As I scrambled to reach him, Nerida popped into view beside me, sending me a wicked glare as she reached her son first. “You could have ended this!” she snapped, her singsong voice at odds with the anger in her tone.
I took Calder’s other arm and helped Nerida to right him upward. “It won’t work,” I said, my own voice bubbly and mermaid-like once more. “She’ll never surrender. She believes you’re going to flood the world if you win.”
Nerida sneered as she tugged on her son. His head lolled back and forth and his eyes began to flutter. “So kill her then!”
“No!” I said. Some blood-tainted water got in my mouth and I sputtered. Calder’s eyes were wide open now.
“Then what use are you to us?” hissed Nerida. “Calder, get her the orb and be done with it!”
“Done with what?” I asked.
Calder shook his head, his eyes blinking hard. He ripped his arm out of his mother’s grasp as he seemed to get his wits about him. He winced as he did so, the majority of the blood coming from that same arm.
“Fine, I’ll do it myself,” she snapped, more merfolk swimming up behind her as if to belie her point. She glared at me, her brows furrowing. Swimming off with the others, she turned around and pointed to a body at the other end of the pool. “Your uncle could be dead right now!” she shrieked. “And it’ll be your fault! Just like it was with your father!”
Splashing above made me flinch as I gazed up to see three sets of fins thrashing about with two sets of legs—one in a diving suit, one in a soggy red dress.
“Did you ask Mom if we plan to flood the world?” asked Calder, sadly, his melodious voice somehow melancholic. “Or was I delirious?”
“Ember told me,” I said. “And I confirmed that’s what she’s been told—by both Dean and Orin.” I went quiet. There was room for doubt there. Orin might have claimed not to have picked a side, but I knew he’d helped us—“motivated” us at times. What was to say he woul
dn’t do the same for them?
Calder floated back a bit and cradled his bleeding arm, removing himself from my gentle grasp as he did. “It’s true,” he said. “That’s what I meant when I told you we didn’t really win that first time millennia ago. If we had, humanity…”
“Humanity what?” I said, slight tremors taking over my hands.
“It wouldn’t exist anymore.”
“You knew?” I said after a beat, my eyes darting to the struggle above us, then to the tunnel leading to the basement through which Nerida and the others had disappeared. More muffled cries rang out as figures moved alongside the edge of the pool above.
“Of course,” said Calder—though his voice was monotone. “We all do. It’s why Mom didn’t care too much about us dropping out of swim team—none of it will matter soon enough.”
“I didn’t know!” I shrieked. “Do you think I would agree to such a thing?”
“As champion, you could have still lived among us as a mermaid. The change could be permanent once we won and this war was over.”
“And you think I’d want that?” My voice was rising now, like an operatic crescendo. “What about my family? My friends? The rest of the several billion good people in the world?”
“Good people don’t wound the planet like humans do.” Calder slouched back against the side of the pool.
“You’re going to make billions pay for the sins of thousands at most.”
“They’re all complicit,” he said. “And things have only gotten worse since the last war the merfolk participated in.” He winced and closed his eyes tightly together. “The planet is dying, Ivy.”
I wasn’t about to float here and debate world crises with him.
Above us, that steamy red was emanating outward again as Dean started sinking below the fins above him.
“What’s your mother doing?” I snapped at Calder. “What did she want you to do?”
He shrugged. “Get the orb and get you to drop out, I guess. It was a backup plan.”
“Backup plan if what?”
“If you refused to win this thing. If there was no hope of you defeating Ember your way and you didn’t have what it took…” He drifted off.
“To kill her? Say it, you coward! Say what your kind wants me to do!” My hand grew colder and colder as my fist clenched at my side.
He turned his head up to face me. “Will it matter if she’s going to die once we win anyway?”
That was it. I flung out another ice ball, and I kept it going, creating an ice belt of sorts across his abdomen and pinning him to the wall.
He cried out in pain but fought to keep his eyes open, to stare me down. “Again, Ivy? Will you just listen to me?”
He had absolutely nothing more to say that I cared to hear.
I swam off toward Dean, who was sinking now, his little doggy paddles slowing and not accomplishing much. I grabbed him under the shoulders and winced as I realized how heavy he was—heavier than his skinny frame looked, perhaps weighed down by the water and the equipment. I kicked and kicked my tail, my muscles practically tearing with the strain, and got us both to the surface.
I took a breath of air as my lungs shifted from water to oxygen. I realized with a start that Dean had no need for air—he wouldn’t have drowned underwater, just steamed and been in pain. Maybe the oxygen tank had just been to protect his insides from the moisture. He was wincing now. “You believe us?” he said.
I didn’t have to ask what he meant.
“Then help,” he said, tilting his head toward Ember, who’d somehow made it back to the edge of the plastic island. Journey was scrambling to lift her up.
I gripped Dean under the armpits again even tighter and power-swam as hard as I could toward the little island. “Get up!” I screamed. “Quickly!”
Journey managed to pull Ember all the way up then, the water dripping from her dress onto my face and splashing Dean, who groaned. “Him, too!” I said, heaving him toward Ember and Journey, who each took an arm and tugged.
“What are you doing?” asked Bay from nearby. He had a black eye and Cascade had a scratch down her cheek. Dathan was nowhere to be found.
“Don’t huddle them together,” said Cascade. “Get the bloodsucking champion away from the rest.”
Behind them, Llyr fought against another diving-suit vampire just as more of the merfolk crawled in through the broken window, panting. We were running out of time.
“Stay back!” I cried. Dean was up now, the steam still rising from his hands and face, though the red color started to fade as he got out from the water. I turned and launched myself up onto the small plastic island, causing Journey and Ember to let out a little “whoa” as they scrambled to make the thing stay balanced. But I yanked myself up and Dean grabbed hold of me, pulling me up the final way.
Then I told that mermaid tail to go away, my muscles searing with the effort as the scales fused back into flesh and the tail split back into legs. I stood and Ember yelped, reaching a hand out to cover the area below my abdomen as I turned back to face everyone.
I caught sight of Orin sitting atop a washing machine down the hall leading to the garage, a little smirk on his face.
Let them see. Whatever.
Reaching my arm back, I screamed, calling forth the ice, pouring it out from beneath my fingers. “STAY. BACK!” I screamed again, shooting the ice at every inch of water I could see.
Bay and Cascade shrieked as they tried to get away, but I kept icing the water, turning it to winter in here, my legs almost buckling. Ember slid in to hold me by the upper arm and lift me, Journey taking me by the other side, dodging my extended arm to grip me by the waist.
The ice kept pouring from my hand, the water snapping and cracking as the crystals spread. I shrieked, feeling all of my energy slipping, but I was quickly bolstered by the strength of the girls at my side.
The ice caked half the pool now and the additional merfolk who had entered—two men and one woman—shouted incomprehensibly as they dove toward the water.
“The prince!” yelled one.
They could breathe underwater. They’d be safe.
Right then, I didn’t fully care if they wouldn’t be.
I kept screaming like a woman in childbirth as I poured my all into my hand, gripping my elbow with my other arm to keep it steady as it shot out my power. Just as I reached that final, farther edge of the pool, the queen popped to the surface, flanked by Dathan and Beck, who evidently hadn’t died. She raised the orb above her head, and I could see it clearly—glowing blue, glowing red, glowing green.
Though she trained her eyes on me for half a second and glared, it was toward the laundry room that she quickly directed her attention. “Fae, you sneak!” she shrieked. “I see what you’ve done!”
But she didn’t have a chance to say more as I hit her arm with my beam of ice, knocking the orb toward the front door, and she shrieked, diving below, the mermen following her. With one last grunt, I sealed the rest of the pool in my layer of ice.
Then I collapsed, even with the girls trying to hold me steady.
My breaths were ragged, my vision going blurry.
Someone was laughing, someone familiar. A deeper, yet somehow more childlike laugh than had echoed in this room before.
“Must you, fae?” said some other guy, a twinge of that New England accent to his tone. “That sound’s messing with my head.” A vampire in a diving suit at the edge of the pool held a palm up to where his ear was beneath his diving suit cowl.
“Quiet,” said Dean from behind me. He brushed past the three of us, balancing on the nearby plastic palm tree to get past. Only the island wasn’t rocking with the movement anymore.
There really was a coat of ice across the pool, a cold steam sizzling to the surface that chilled me to the bone.
I was only wearing a bikini top for one. I shivered as Journey started massaging my limbs. “We need to get her some clothes or a blanket or something.”
Ember s
neezed then, as if to point out that she could do with a change, too.
“It’s just the surface,” said Dean as he took a tentative step on the ice. He flinched. “I can see their forms moving underneath—hurry! We leave now!” He gestured widely and the diving-suit vampires moved, coming around the edge of the pool to get closer.
“Come on,” he said, helping Journey down from the island onto the ice and guiding her to the edge, where the other vampire hoisted her up off the slippery pool beneath her feet.
Ember was still rubbing my arms, but her fervor was ebbing, her movements slowing.
“Ember,” said Dean, and he nodded. Then he took hold of my ankles, his eyes darting carefully away from my exposed waist. He didn’t pull to help me down, though.
With a start, I felt Ember’s clammy skin go even colder on mine as her mouth opened with a hiss.
Turning my head just in time to look up at the sight of Ember’s fangs coming out of her mouth, I was too weak to do more than push meekly at her to get her away.
“No,” I said quietly. “No…” Pain seared through my flesh as her fangs sunk into my throat.
Chapter Thirty
I shot up with a start, my breaths heavy, the chill that hit my arms causing me to shiver immediately. I hugged myself, my fingers sliding through a plush, oversized sweater. My feet were warm. I stared down to find a quilt over my legs, a fire roaring toward the end of the bed.
And a snarky faery stoking the fire from one of the rocking chairs beside the hearth.
“Why am…?” My voice croaked as I tried to speak. I grabbed at my throat. “Why am I here?”
I looked around the cabin. There was no one else to be found.
“You were zonked. Vampires thought it best that I watch you for a bit,” said Orin, as calmly as reporting the weather on a sunny day. “Let you recover. I wouldn’t let them take you to their place. Not after you saved their hides and they thanked you the way they did.” He chuckled. “Seemed a bit unfair, if you ask me.”
