“Ninety-eight percent.”
Heat poured out of the cracked nozzle.
Zamir was alive only because heat rose. Even so, it only bought him seconds. He was instantly drenched in sweat; his skin felt as though it were aflame as he crawled beneath the scalding hot air, as thick and palpable as a physical wall. The air wavered in a haze of orange and red. His vision frayed as dehydration and disorientation set in. The exit was…somewhere—
He dragged himself forward, following some inner spatial awareness. His fingers brushed along the straight indentation in the ground. It took him only an instant to realize that he’d found the grooves for the doors of the engine chamber. His breaths were short, strained heaves as he dragged himself out of the engine room. He struggled to his knees and slammed his hand against the chamber lock.
As the doors slid shut, twin explosions rocked the engine room.
The heat had destroyed the drones.
And the heat—His breath caught as he placed his hand against the door. It was already melting on the inside. The heat from the engines would destroy the door too, before spreading through the Tiamat.
It would not be enough time to find Kai and Badur.
And even if he found Kai, there was no way off the ship.
Zamir had to force Marduk to land the Tiamat beyond the Tree of Life.
The starship had to cover thousands of acres.
In minutes.
And he was out of time.
Chapter 30
An explosion shook the right wing of the Tiamat, so powerful it rocked the entire ship. Kai grabbed on to the edge of the corridor as the ship jolted like an injured creature.
“What was that?” Marduk shouted.
“The right engine has overloaded and has sustained total failure,” the ship’s synthesized voice reported.
“Arman!” Marduk shouted, his voice vibrating with fury.
“Should I land the ship?” the voice asked.
“No! Take off! The other engine is still functioning. It’s enough to get us off this planet,” Marduk ordered.
“I’m not leaving,” Badur said, his voice trembling. “You’ve lied to me. Leaving isn’t going to save my son, but I can still save my people. This aether core belongs to the Beltiamatu.”
“No, it belongs to Aldebaran!” Marduk roared. He strode over to Badur. “And you are going to help me bring it back to them!”
“No, I won’t.” Badur held his hand to his chest, drawing out the aether core.
Kai screamed as pain ripped his tail apart.
Scales sloughed off. Flesh followed. Bones melted then reformed into legs.
His vision was still swimming with pain when he clawed out of the tunnel.
Marduk stared in disbelief at him. Badur, too, looked in the same direction, his attention transfixed by Kai’s scream of anguish.
Teeth gritted against the searing agony, Kai tackled Marduk to the floor. His legs were already tingling, the transformation imminent. But as long as he kept Marduk on the floor, he could fight the ancient Beltiamatu, whether he had legs or a tail. His vision turned bloody red for an instant as his legs melted into a tail. When it changed back again, the agony ripped the breath from his lungs, turning his vision into a fraying gray sheet against a backdrop of midnight black.
“Kai!” His grandfather’s voice came from far away. Strong arms yanked Marduk off him, and flung a fist into Marduk’s jaw.
Marduk went sprawling.
Kai stared up, his gaze a blur of vicious, unending pain, at his grandfather’s face. He could only see his grandfather’s eyes—like his own—the blood tie that forever bound them together. “The Tiamat can’t go down on land,” he gasped the words. “You have to take it out to the ocean.”
A quick snap of Zamir’s head was the only sign that he had understood Kai’s bloody gurgle of words. Zamir sprinted toward the control panel, but Marduk scrambled to his feet and lunged forward. His arms wrapped around Zamir’s waist, and both men tumbled to the ground, fists swinging, legs kicking.
Kai’s melting legs reshaped into a tail. And for an instant, a single perfect, merciful instant, it remained a tail when he swung it hard. The blow lifted Marduk off Zamir and hurled him across the room, smashing him against the far wall. Marduk dropped to his elbows and knees. Kai dragged himself over the floor toward Marduk. “Bring the Tiamat down! I’ll keep Marduk off you.”
Marduk sneered as he pushed himself to a standing position, towering over Kai. “And how do you think you’ll do that, little mer-prince? Do you think that I—one of the ancients, one of the first Beltiamatu ever created, as immortal as the Illojim—could be stopped by three mermen? One with a shattered psyche, one blind, and another dying—trapped within a body that cannot decide what to be?”
Another transformation ripped his tail into legs. Kai’s teeth gritted against the devastating, all-consuming pain. His vision dripped in tattered shreds. All he could see were shadows.
But shadows were enough.
His legs were strong enough to support him for the split second when he pushed off the ground. When he landed, his legs were a tail again, heavier, bulkier, and harder to move. He pinned Marduk to the ground with the last of his fading strength. Blood swelled up in his throat, suffocating him.
The Tiamat was dying, like him. Explosions ripped through the ship, the cascading sounds drawing ever closer to the bridge.
He just had to keep Marduk away from his grandfather.
He had to buy Zamir enough time to bring down the Tiamat over water.
Marduk’s hands closed around Kai’s throat, cutting off his air. Kai tried to pry Marduk’s fingers off, but there was no strength left in him.
He arched involuntarily against the spasm of another transformation.
Something slammed into his back.
In an instant, the blinding agony vanished. His vision cleared.
And his tail remained a tail.
Kai glanced over his shoulder. His jaw dropped. “Badur…”
His father slumped beside him, his hand pressed against Kai’s back. The last traces of aether’s purple glow seeped into Kai’s skin.
There was no question who now carried the aether core.
Kai.
Marduk’s eyes flared wide. Disbelief escalated into denial. “No!”
He shoved Kai, and would have flung Kai off him, but Kai gripped Marduk’s arms, and allowed momentum to swing him around. His tail smashed into Marduk, and the both of them went sprawling. Marduk kicked hard, trying to get away from Kai, but without the assault of internal anguish, Kai was more than capable of holding on. In strength, they were evenly matched, and with his tail, he was heavier than Marduk. It was the only advantage he had, and he had to use it. He was still light-headed from blood loss, his movements too sluggish to win.
But he didn’t have to win.
He only had to delay Marduk long enough for Zamir to plunge the Tiamat into a watery grave.
“No!” Marduk shouted, his voice shaking with panic, trembling with terror. “I will not be defeated. Not now. Now with the aether core on my ship! When I drag you back to Aldebaran, I will carve the aether core out of your bleeding chest!” He slammed his fist into Kai’s face, snapping the mer-prince’s head back.
The blow twisted kaleidoscopes of color through Kai’s vision. His breath wrenched out of his lungs, leaving him gasping for air.
The Tiamat dove sharply, the motion sending Kai, Marduk, and Badur tumbling across the bridge, toward the control panel. Marduk effortlessly rolled into a combat crouch. His narrowed eyes fixed on Zamir, whose back was to Marduk. The wide blue of the Pacific Ocean filled both viewports.
Kai gritted his teeth against the pain, and hurled himself, tail and all, at Marduk.
And in that instant, the door of the bridge exploded, spilling in searing heat and scalding flame.
Chapter 31
Ondine’s gasp sharpened into a wheeze as the flash of purple aether Ginny had hurled into
the Tiamat plunged back to Earth. It slashed into Ondine, then vanished.
The auburn-haired woman shook, trembling from head to toe. Purple mist swirled around her, pouring out of her nostrils and her slack mouth, then twirling to surround her like yards of chiffon silk. Her curves straightened then elongated; her features blurred.
Ginny squinted but could not make out the details behind the massive translucent shroud.
Jacob limped up to her, his voice shaking with pain. “What…the hell is that?”
“That…is probably more than we should have bitten off,” Ginny muttered. She reached into her backpack, her fingers groping around the spill of its contents until she grasped the hilt of the Isriq Genii. She had not forgotten Inanna’s words. The Illojim, who measured time so differently from humans that they were effectively immortal here on Earth, could only be killed by the blade forged in the demon’s heart.
Now that the Isriq Genii was not bound to deliver its next claimed soul, perhaps Nergal could be killed—once and for all.
It came down to whether she could do what needed to be done.
Without the excuse of aether.
Without the veneer of civility, or of humanity.
“Excuse me,” she muttered. She did not know if she was speaking to Jacob, to Nergal, or to herself.
She lunged forward as the veil of aether magic faded like mist melting in sunlight. Nergal stood behind the wispy shreds—every bit as tall and imposing as Ginny had recalled.
Not a god, she reminded herself.
An alien.
With the wannabe powers of a god.
She was done with aliens. She was done with gods.
Her left hand dropped the bag away from her wrist, and her right hand stabbed the Isriq Genii forward.
Nergal blinked. His stunned gaze shifted to Ginny’s face, before dropping to the dagger protruding from his stomach. “You…” He stared at Ginny, his mouth slack with shock. Then he started to laugh, a wheezing sound that shook his shoulders.
Ginny lifted her chin. “You forced me to realize that the world needed me to protect it from you.”
He dropped to his knees. His body swayed. “You’re stronger, braver than I ever imagined, Ginny. Inanna would be proud of you, little Space Mage.” Black blood, thicker than sludge, foamed from his mouth. His eyes rolled up until the whites were all she could see, then he toppled sideways.
For an instant, his body lay on the grass, then it shimmered, green smoke evaporating across the entire length of his body as he shrank, his shape and features changing, until only Ondine was left, pale and unmoving in death.
“Is it over?” Jacob asked, his voice pitched low, the quiver evident nevertheless.
The shadow of death swept over the land. The Tiamat was so massive that its shape darkened the sky long after it soared away from the Blue Mountains of Oregon and the Tree of Life.
Ginny shook her head, icy cold dread in her heart. “No, it’s not over.”
Explosions rippled from both Tiamat’s wings, then along the length of its spine in opposite directions—toward the tail and toward the head. Ginny knew, perfectly well, that the Tiamat was a starship, not a living, breathing dragon, but in that moment, it was impossible not to feel wrenching, shattering sympathy for the dragon trying to wring the last few moments out of its flight, as if it knew how perfect and how doomed it was.
Fire burst along the length of the Tiamat’s neck as the dragon twisted, its wings and tail flailing, into a final arc toward the west.
* * *
The explosive burst of heat had Zamir instinctively retreating into a crouch, but Kai’s agonized scream twisted him around.
Kai had been closest to the door when the explosion burst through it.
He was burning, his body and hair aflame.
Zamir shot to his feet and sprinted toward Kai, but Marduk tackled him to the floor. Together, they rolled into battle crouches, facing each other. Marduk’s gaze flicked over Zamir’s shoulder, and his eyes widened. Disbelief, denial, then raw anguish chased over his angular features.
Zamir did not need to look over his shoulder. He knew he would see only the endless blue of the Pacific Ocean.
A heartbeat from impact.
He ducked and rolled beneath one of the control panels as the viewport, weakened by the intense heat, shattered into a deadly spray of glass. Water rushed into the bridge, extinguishing fires, instantly swallowing the head of the Tiamat as it started to sink. The only sounds were the pulse of water currents and the hiss of fire against water—
And a low moan.
A shard of glass, as thick and wide as Zamir’s bicep, pierced Marduk’s chest, and pinned him to the control panel, arching his body backward like a sacrifice upon the altar. Blood pumped out of Marduk with each faltering beat of his heart, the crimson of life fading into thin threads against the deep blue of the ocean.
Zamir and Marduk’s gazes met, one last time.
The hate and despair that seared Marduk’s eyes lingered like poison in the water, even when they finally closed.
A low metallic groan resonated through the water as the Tiamat settled on the ocean floor. Zamir’s shoulders sagged; he had no words to describe his relief. The ocean was home in a way that Ginny would never understand.
On the other side of the bridge, Badur moved slowly, disoriented but alive.
And Kai—
Secondary explosions ripped along the length of the Tiamat. The starship trembled and collapsed as the seabed gave way. Rocks crumbled into a crevice, and the Tiamat’s head, narrower than the rest of its body, led the way into the darkness. The sudden pressure ripped control panels off the Tiamat’s walls and floor, turning the bridge into a twisting obstacle course.
Zamir had to get out before he was trapped in a stony grave.
The faint shafts of sunlight from the surface blinked out as the shadow of the rocks encased the Tiamat. “Kai!” Zamir shouted. Groping his way through the water to where he had last seen Kai, he followed the subtle turns of the currents looping around the floating panels until his fingers brushed against warm skin and cold scales. He grabbed Kai around the waist. His panicked search for Kai’s pulse yielded a fluttering, weak beat.
Kai was dying.
He would die if he didn’t get immediate help.
“Badur!” Zamir shouted.
“Here,” Badur called out weakly.
Dread clutched at Zamir’s chest as he swam around the debris. Badur’s tail was pinned beneath a heavy control panel. “Hold him.” Zamir delivered Kai into Badur’s arms, then tugged at the panel. It didn’t budge. Grunting, he heaved his shoulder against it.
“He’s dying. My son is dying. He needs help.” Badur’s voice cracked. “Now.”
“I know. But I need to move this—”
“You can get him out, before the Tiamat sinks into the abyss, before it’s too late for all of us. Take Kai. Get out. He is the only one who must be saved. The only one who matters—”
Zamir laid his hand over Badur’s. He drew a deep breath, but not even his iron control could keep his voice from quivering. “You also do.”
A faint smile tugged up at the corner of Badur’s mouth. His unseeing eyes turned toward Zamir. “Thank you for doing what I could not—raising him to be a prince worthy of the Beltiamatu. My blessings go with him, and with you, Father.” His voice cracked. “Now, go, and for my sake, live.”
The pain radiating from Zamir’s chest swamped his thoughts and stunned his mind. He couldn’t let it. Not when he held his unconscious grandson in his arms. Not when the Tiamat was plunging, ever faster, into the darkness around it. Carrying Kai’s dead weight, he darted toward the shattered view pane and out of the doomed starship.
Zamir glanced over his shoulder, his final glance taking in the shadowed gloom of the Tiamat’s bridge; Marduk’s body still pierced, by glass, to the control panel; Badur, pinned beneath debris, alive and awaiting certain death.
A flare of light pierced
the darkness as a final explosion ripped the Tiamat’s head from the rest of its body. Zamir blinked, instinctively recoiling from the shockwave of heat and flames.
When he looked back for Badur, Zamir saw nothing but dissipating sea foam, ghostly white against the deep blue sea.
Epilogue
Jacob Hayes finally understood and appreciated the layers of secrecy established by his Atlantean forefathers.
The world reeled in shock and panic over the dragon that had appeared over the American northwest and plunged into the Pacific Ocean. Governments demanded inquiries and investigations, but Jacob retreated behind the shadowy conglomeration of international corporations that protected his assets and his identity.
Anyone who knew enough about what was going on was either dead or even more implicated than he.
He was safe. For now.
But it was not over.
His yacht anchored in deep water, northeast of Bermuda, and he alone took his speedboat out. Far beyond visual range of his yacht, Jacob pushed the underwater radio beneath the waves and turned it on.
And then he waited.
Waves lapped gently against the side of his boat as he snapped back a tab on a beer can and sipped his drink. The sky faded from bright blue to deep dusk, and the heat gave way to the cool of sunset.
Only then did Kai break the surface of the water, a good distance from the speedboat. He surveyed the speedboat through narrowed eyes before diving. The diaphanous black fins of his tail flicked across the surface of the water. Moments later, Kai emerged, directly next to the speedboat.
“You’re cautious,” Jacob said by way of greeting as he turned off the underwater radio that had been broadcasting Kai’s name.
“We have to be,” Kai replied. “Humans are in a frenzy over having discovered dragons. I don’t think they need to realize merfolk also exist.”
Jacob nodded. Words tumbled through his mind, all of them awkwardly phrased. They sounded no better when they finally emerged from his mouth. “You’re well?”
Cursed Legacy: Lord of the Ocean #3 Page 18
