Heart of the Storm

by Michael Buckley

  We drifted down the boulevard, passing architectural wonders made of sand and shells. Elaborate art and sculptures real enough to breathe appeared on every facade. Some were portraits of Alpha, and others portrayed what I guessed were historical events from the empire’s past. Stone reliefs of a bloody battle between Selkies and some unknown creatures were so lifelike I could almost hear the violent clash of weapons. Others illuminated hunting packs chasing schools of fleeing swordfish. I saw gelatinous Ceto teachers surrounded by eager students, and scrawny Nix holding radiating spheres above their heads. One tower featured carvings of swaggering Triton, both strong and merciless, standing triumphant over the piled corpses of conquered enemies. One had his foot planted on his victim’s head.

  Statues stepped out of the walls of a temple at the far end of the road, each an idealized portrait of a different Alpha tribe; Ceto, Feige, Sirena, Triton, Nix, Selkie, and so many more with faces and bodies that boggled my mind. Despite their differences, they stood together, their eyes looking toward the same future. Conspicuously, the Rusalka did not stand with them. In fact, they were absent from all of the imagery scattered about the city they had built. The gloves they wore, like the one I once owned, had made this city a reality. The empire owed every building to them. If their images had been intentionally avoided, it was incredibly cruel.

  A massive statue stood high above everything. It was nearly two stories tall, an uncanny depiction of the now-dead prime. The name the Red Cross had given him was Arthur, because his own was unpronounceable on the surface, but he never used it. Anything human, especially our language, was filthy and grotesque. He was Alpha and, more important, Triton, superior to the filth he ruled and the humans he planned to conquer.

  The Rusalka artists had done an amazing job depicting the disdain in his eyes. The prime looked out on his feeble subjects with intolerance. His mouth was twisted with arrogance and a touch of his madness. Despite his collapsing mind, the prime’s chest was wide and proud, his legs strong and sure. His hands clenched a trident wrapped in octopus tentacles, and the razor-sharp blades all Triton hide in their forearms were extended and ready for battle.

  Minerva knelt in the street before him. Her body convulsed as if grief were clawing at her skin. She pulled her hair out in handfuls and shrieks, and after each blistering sob came another bitter vow of revenge that threatened to break the world in half. Husk kept us at a distance. He said nothing to Minerva and offered her no comfort. Instead, he watched patiently, emotionless. Even when Minerva used her tail to slice off the legs of the statue, he did not react. Like all the Rusalka, he watched as the massive figure toppled and broke apart in the road.

  Minerva turned to me suddenly; her eyes flashed even in these dark depths. She was fury personified. Instinctively I tried to back away, but Husk kept me in place. She snarled something at him, and he nodded. Two Rusalka approached and pulled me away from him. They dragged me away from the crowd, toward another temple at the opposite end of the boulevard. Its exterior wasn’t as grand. The walls were scratched with graphic symbols, crude depictions of water, the wind, the sun, fish, predators, lightning, so many more. I’d seen them all before, etched into the steel of my glove. Was this building connected to those machines?

  The creatures pulled me through an open archway and into a massive room. There was a sense that this place had once been important. A table made out of some unknown substance sat in the corner, and a cage made of wood was rotting to nothing in the corner. There were pieces of metal and odd devices scattered about, as well as an extensive mathematical equation scratched right into the walls. Something had happened there. I could feel a prickly history, but again I was dragged onward without answers. We went through another archway and then up a cylindrical tube that took us to the second floor, and finally into the oddest room I’d seen so far. The walls were high and had no ceiling, but there were slots cut into them that allowed the shimmering red energy of the volcano to permeate, turning everything into a circle of hell. The Rusalka shoved me roughly, like they were tossing out a smelly bag of garbage, then swam back down the shaft and out of sight. When I got control of myself, I studied everything, the walls, the open roof, the floor, and I wondered if the creatures really thought this place could hold me. I was sure I could swim right out through the ceiling, but when I tried, four Rusalka appeared. They perched themselves high on the walls above, like gargoyles crouching on the battlements of an ancient church, and they watched me. I gave them the finger. I don’t know if they understood what it meant, but it made me feel better.

  Pressing myself against the wall, I peered through one of the thin slots to spy on the city. It was no less a miracle than when I first saw it. I wondered if it was this glorious when my mother lived here, before the prime sent her and nineteen others to spy on the human world. I wondered if having all this majesty was her dream, too, or if the nomadic life was fine. What did Fathom or Arcade or even Ghost think of it? This place had once been theirs to inherit, before they were forced onto the land. It would have been Fathom’s to lead if he hadn’t given up his claim to protect what he and I had together. It couldn’t have been an easy decision. I wondered if he would still have made the choice if he’d known our love wouldn’t survive its challenges.

  I turned from the peephole, using the walls to move myself into as comfortable a position as possible. There was a spot in the shadows that partially blocked the Rusalka from spying on me. Once there, I did my best to lie as still as I could, hoping to slip into something that resembled sleep. The real thing had eluded me for days, and I felt tired in every inch of my body. Even my bones felt ragged, but the water refused to let me be. I drifted around the room, carried along by an unseen current. How the hell did Alpha sleep?

  Yoga would calm me, but I couldn’t wrap my head around how it would work down here. Breathing is at its foundation. Moving oxygen in and out of the mouth and nose, directing it to the limbs and organs, then freeing it back into the universe is central to the practice. How could I do it without lungs? Or air? I wasn’t even sure I could do the poses. My whole life I’d depended on them, whether it was to quiet the migraines that used to torment me, to give me some peace in a crisis, or just let me tune out. Now even yoga had been taken from me, and the loss felt heavy and cumbersome. It’s silly how upset I got about it, but I was tired of losing things. No, not losing, having things taken from me. I couldn’t handle any more of the universe’s thievery.

  “There’s nothing left!” I shouted.

  Maybe that was why he wasn’t there. Fathom. The boy who’d said he loved me. My memory dragged me back to our last conversation . . . fight, really, when his seeming indifference to my problems in Trident, and the secrets he’d kept from me, broke my heart. I confronted him, demanded to know why he hadn’t done more to help me, and his answer blew my mind. He said his love for me had expectations. To fit into his life, I had to fight when necessary. He said I had to learn to save myself and claimed he would never disrespect me by treating me like a damsel in distress. In a nutshell, he expected me to act like a Triton. It was all very inspiring at the time, very girl power, and his unshaking belief in me bulldozed the tall, emotional walls I’d built to protect myself from him. No one had ever spoken to me like that, made me understand my own value and strength, but at that moment, I wanted him to shove his expectations. I needed rescuing. I actually was a damsel in some serious effing distress, and all the pep talks in the world weren’t going to help me out of it.

  So where was he?

  The answer was sharp and cold and harsh. He’d realized he made the wrong choice with me. He’d given up everything for me, and he regretted it. He’d expected me to fight like a warrior for my freedom. He was disappointed.

  He wasn’t coming.

  Fine, I thought, then where was my mom? She was Sirena. She’d lived in the hunting grounds and would know how to find it. There was only one reason why she wouldn’t be there that I could think of, and it turned my insid
es cold. Something terrible must have happened to her. Nothing short of a tragedy would have kept her from saving me.

  Maybe the kids would come? They all had gloves. They could get here in no time. Chloe, Maggie, Finn—​all the others. No. None of them knew where I was. They might not even know it existed. Even if they did, they couldn’t find it.

  No one was coming. I couldn’t help but cry. My tears mixed with the salty sea. All the while, the gargoyles watched with quiet indifference.

  Chapter Five

  BEFORE I EVEN OPEN MY EYES, I KNOW I’M IN TROUBLE. I am not on the dock anymore. The throng of onlookers is gone. Encardo and his sons are nowhere to be found. Now I’m in a tiny room shaped like a cylinder. A curtain divides the space and blocks my view, but I can hear voices coming from the other side. My arms are still handcuffed, and a chain has been looped through, strung to the ceiling, and locked to a pin. It keeps them suspended over my head. There’s another chain wrapped around my waist and legs that leads to a similar pin in the floor. Shackles encase my ankles. Someone doesn’t want me going anywhere.

  That someone has also changed my clothes. I’m no longer in the sweater Encardo loaned me, but a pair of light cotton pajama pants and a matching shirt in soul-sucking gray. The room shakes, and I’m jostled, suddenly realizing I’m not in a room. I’m on a plane. A surprising sting in my back tells me I’m also not alone. Someone is behind me, poking at my wounds.

  “Good morning, Lyric. My name is Dr. Lima,” she announces in a thick Spanish accent. Her tone is flat, with the air of someone who is both all-business and bored. “I’m examining your injuries.”

  “How long have we been in the air?”

  “Four hours or so,” she says. “What did this to you?”

  “Fingernails,” I say. I pull at the cuffs in some hope of getting a little more comfortable. Having my arms above my head is making my shoulders ache. Unfortunately, the cuffs don’t care. I suspect Lima shares their attitude.

  “It’s best if you stay calm,” the woman says.

  “I’m calm. Is this how you examine all your patients?” I ask, sarcastically.

  She comes around to face me. She’s short, standing just over five feet tall, with long, straight brown hair and a strip of sunburn across her nose. “Some of them, unfortunately. Did you say fingernails? Must have been one hell of a manicure.”

  I nod. “Where are we going?”

  “I don’t know. I never know. It’s not my job to know, and probably not my job to tell you even if I did. I work for the Navy, and jointly with the American embassy in Panama in some special circumstances. They call me when they need me, and I come. Sometimes I’m on a boat. Mostly I’m on planes. Where we land is always different and always a surprise.”

  “I need to know where—”

  Lima frowns and cuts me off. “Now, listen, I know you’ve got a million questions. I don’t have any of the answers unless they have something to do with your health. I’m sure that the ambassador will be back here soon enough. You can ask him then. I’m just a doctor. You’re a mess, and I need to know how you got this way so I don’t make things worse when I treat you.”

  The plane jostles again. Lima holds the wall with her hand until it stops.

  “I know you’re not human,” she continues. “But I haven’t seen your species before.”

  “Species?”

  She sighs, impatiently. “You’re not going to get sensitive on me are you? I don’t know the fifty billion different types of Alpha. I’ve examined Sirena and Selkies and one Triton. I know there are lots more. I’ve seen pictures of the kind with the spikes. What are you?”

  “I’m human, mostly,” I snap. “My mother is Sirena.”

  She nods. “A hybrid. I’ve heard stories. Do you grow a tail?”

  “Nope,” I say, trying to fight off a cramp in my back.

  “Good, mostly human,” she says, jotting something down in a notebook she pulls from her white lab coat. “There are a lot of bruises.”

  “That’s what happens when you find yourself on the food chain,” I explain.

  “So, you were down there a while?”

  “Three months.”

  She rummages inside a leather bag resting on a countertop. From it she removes a stethoscope, blood pressure cuff, and that little light doctors use to burn your cornea before shoving it in your ears.

  “Are you always this thin? I don’t have a scale on the plane, but I’m going to estimate that you are around one hundred and five pounds.”

  “I’m usually around one forty,” I say. She takes more notes.

  “There is clear evidence of vitamin deficiency. You have dark circles under your eyes, your nails are brittle, and you’re unusually pale. Your hair is falling out, and your skin is dry. What have you been eating?”

  “Fish.” I feel like an animal.

  “I need to take a look in your mouth,” she says. I don’t fight. “There is some blistering on the gums and tongue, some early signs of periodontal disease, most likely from lack of proper diet and vitamin D deficiency. No sign of infections, which is very good. Do your teeth feel loose?”

  “No.”

  She wraps the stethoscope around her neck and sets the cold steel disk under my shirt and onto my chest, then listens closely as she slides it over my skin.

  “Your lungs sound healthy, and your breathing is strong. Your heart rate is high, common for your spec—​I mean, for a Sirena.”

  She wraps the blood pressure cuff around my arm and pumps it up like a balloon, then releases the valve to let the air seep out.

  “Blood pressure is high too, but not outside healthy parameters.”

  She fumbles with her stethoscope, and listens again, this time to my throat and belly. Then she takes more notes, scribbling furiously until she snaps the tip of her pencil. She spits out a curse, then searches her bag until finally finding a replacement. When she’s done, she shines the light in my eyes and ears, and up my nose.

  “Your eyes are clear and focused. They follow the light, well, but are very sensitive to exposure. Nose is clear, and your ears. Lyric, do you take any medications?”

  “When I’m not being held hostage or chained up in a plane? No.”

  “Are you still hearing voices?”

  “No,” I snap, defensively. I might as well have shouted it. “I’m not crazy. Is that what you think?”

  “I don’t know enough about you to make that kind of diagnosis,” she says. “DeCosta said you were raving about an invasion and children. You’ve been through hell, and the mind can play games with us when we are at our lowest.”

  “My mind is just fine.”

  “Let’s take a closer look at your back,” she says.

  “Do you examine a lot of crazy people?” I ask.

  “I examine a lot of people who are struggling with their sanity. What is this on the back of your scalp?”

  “There were staples there from an injury. I pulled them out myself.”

  “The monsters had staples?”

  “The human monsters did,” I say. “At the camp where they keep people like me. They beat me up and had to staple me. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of the camp? They call it Trident. I assume that’s where we’re going.”

  There’s a long, uncomfortable silence. I think I’ve finally cracked this woman’s professional callus.

  “I have to suture these cuts. Some of them are wide open and will never close without help,” she says as she digs through her bag.

  “Stitches?”

  “Yes. You really should be in a hospital right now. I’ll raise a stink, but they never listen. I’m going to do my best for you,” she promises.

  Her finger is tapping on something. I turn awkwardly, the chains fighting against my body. In the corner of my eye, I see her priming a hypodermic needle. Flashes of Nurse Amy from the camp slam around my skull—​her bored expression as she went about her sadistic work, drugging me, poking at me like I wasn’t human, all so ro
utine for her.

  “What is that?”

  “It’s a tetanus shot,” she says. “I have no idea what kind of bacteria and viruses you were exposed to. There’s also something imbedded in one of your muscles. If you refuse the injection, you could get lockjaw. You don’t want lockjaw.”

  “Don’t drug me,” I beg, trying to soften the edge in my voice. “Please. I need to keep a clear head.”

  “This won’t make you sleepy, Lyric, but it’s not the only injection I need to give you—​vitamins, antibiotics, a few vaccines just to be safe. I need blood samples, urine—​and that’s before I even get to working on your back. You’re going to need lidocaine to numb the area, maybe ten injections before I get it all done.”

  “Can you do it without the shots?”

  “You’re joking, right? This isn’t an action movie where the hero sews up his own wounds. Suturing skin is a violent, painful process, and to be honest, I don’t think I could handle it if I knew you were suffering. It’s for me as much as it is for you.”

  “I thought doctors were supposed to be tough,” I say.

  “I’m not that good of a doctor. I swear, I won’t give you anything that will affect your motor functions. Keeping you doped up is not part of my job description,” she says, gesturing toward the curtain. “If they want to drug you, they’ll have to do it themselves.”

  She’s got her needle poised and ready, waiting for me to give her the okay. This could be a trick, of course, but I nod, and she jabs my shoulder. The plunger pushes the medicine into my muscle. It’s like a wasp’s sting, but I suck it up.

  I feel her hand reach around my shoulder. There’s a flask in it. I smell something sweet and woody inside.