by M H Ryan
“Okay, settle down there, Magneto,” Aubrey said.
“What? You told me you thought you could not only feel weather but you wondered if you could manipulate it, Storm.”
“I think we’re going to find our powers in time, and I imagine that is what Shaya’s father was getting at with us not being ready yet, but we don’t have any more time. We are going to face these Crultar now,” I said.
“And her brother,” Aubrey said.
“Sweetie, are you going to be okay with us fighting your brother?” Sherri asked.
Shaya gave us a slow nod and a determined expression. She didn’t need to use words to show us how much she was okay in fighting with her brother. To her, this was about what her father died for. If I was killed, her father would have died for nothing, and his last honor wouldn’t exist. As little as I knew about these mer-people, they were big on honor.
“This island is worth fighting for as well,” Kara said. “There is no other one like it that I’ve seen.”
“I’m with Kara and Jack,” Eliza said. “My gut says this is the place we should be right now.”
“Some angry fish dudes don’t scare me,” Aubrey said. “I’ve got Sherri on my side, and a bat-wielding Emma.”
“And we have Jack,” Benji said. “He should be able to stop all of this before it even starts.”
“I hope so,” I said.
Shaya clapped her hands and got our attention. She motioned for Emma, as if she wanted to hold her hands.
“Oh, come on,” Emma said. “My head is killing me.”
Shaya held up one finger.
“I think she just wants to tell us one thing,” Cass said.
“Okay, but I’m about as beat as a tanner’s hide,” Emma said, and stood in front of the woman from the sea and held her hands.
After a few seconds, Shaya blinked, as if the connection had been made or severed. I wasn’t exactly sure what happened between the two.
“They might have one with powers, like what you have,” Shaya said in a rush and yanked her hands back from Emma.
Emma dropped to one knee but quickly brushed off any help. She got back to her feet, taking her bat back from Kara and used it as a cane.
“Thank you, Emma,” I said. “If we didn’t find you, none of this would be possible. We owe you for the pain you are inflicting on yourself.”
“Shaya is the one that is going to owe me a steak dinner after all this,” Emma said.
Shaya smiled and pointed at me and winked, which looked much more dramatic with her big green eye.
“Oh, dang, I think she’s saying Jack is going to pay the debt,” Aubrey said.
Shaya nodded, laughed, and then got closer, pointing at my shorts and then pointing at Emma. She then proceeded to make the apparently cross-species gesture of sliding a finger in and out of an okay symbol.
“Was that a joke?” Sherri asked and laughed.
“She basically just said you’re going to fuck off her debt,” Aubrey said, in near hysterics.
Shaya just stood there, smiling, and that made Aubrey and Sherri laugh that much harder, pointing at me.
“Um, I will choose how I am paid back for services rendered. Thank you very much,” Emma said, eyeing me.
So the little miss of the sea had a sense of humor. She smiled at me, as if she knew I was weighing her out, trying to figure out this lady of few words. There was an exotic way about her, in the way she moved and the slender lines on her body. It was easy to say that I had never seen anything like her in my life. Could this be what sailors had seen and called mermaids? Yet, she had two perfect legs that were lean but muscular. Her gaze met mine, and I think she sensed the way I was admiring her and she looked away.
I hadn’t really thought of her in that way. I wasn’t even sure if we were physically compatible. I turned away from Shaya and my own thoughts of her.
“Okay, we still have a lot of work to do, and I’m going to need all of you wonderful ladies if we’re going to have any chance at stopping them,” I said and then went into the details of the battle preparations.
Chapter 29
“You know, we’re like peas and carrots, Jack,” Emma said, sitting next to me on the sand and holding my hands.
“Forrest Gump,” Benji said, standing next to us.
“Okay, I’m not sure if this is going to work or not. Benji, just keep your eye on the scope,” I said.
“They’re close,” Eliza said, taking deep, nervous breaths. “I can feel it.”
“Listen, no one freak out at what’s coming. We’ve faced sharks, crocs, killer whales, and a freaking sea monster the size of a house, and we’ve made it through it. Do you know why? Because we have each other, and together, nothing can stop us,” I said. “Now, let me concentrate on this.”
Emma and I sat near the shoreline, face to face and holding hands. I had an idea that if she could suppress the king’s power, then she might be able to amplify mine. The cost of it would be that she would have a thorough sharing of my mind and everything in it while we were connected. It wasn’t that I had a lot to hide, but there were moments as a young man when I might have spent a long time on certain websites, exploring the adult world. Let’s just say I’ve seen things that can’t be unseen, and I don’t want to put images into her head that then she can’t un-see.
“Don’t worry, I’ve seen many of the same things,” Emma whispered.
Bless her for trying to make an awkward situation somewhat bearable. I only wished it worked both ways. I would love to see what is in that mind of hers. She was an amazing person that had joined our group and accepted this world without as much of a bat of an eye. Now, I got to hold hands with her and…shit, she could read all these thoughts.
“I can,” she giggled. “I’m glad we met, too, Jack Sawyer.”
“Are you two mind-fucking?” Aubrey asked.
“Shh,” I said and then laughed with Emma.
Aubrey muttered about how she wanted some mind-fucking.
Having sex with Emma had crossed my mind a few times. What that sparkly bikini held back might be an avalanche of awesomeness. I imagined her on top of me with her twins…damn it, I can’t stop.
She squeezed my hand harder, and then I felt her thumb rubbing the back of my hand. I guessed trying to hide anything from her was just stupid, and plus, I wasn’t ashamed of the way I felt for her or any of the girls. I was lucky to have them in my life, and damned if I’d let anyone tell me otherwise.
“The ocean, Jack,” Emma said. “Your mind is like a herd of cats in heat.”
I couldn’t help but laugh and almost pulled my hand away, but she gripped it tighter.
“Okay, sorry, this is just a little strange for me,” I said.
“Clear your thoughts and relax. Anything we share is only between us, I promise,” Emma said.
I took a deep breath and felt the ocean. With Emma, I felt the sea like I’d never felt it before. All the creatures in the water. The crabs and stingrays. The sharks and sea bass. The squids and a hundred other types of creatures swimming, crawling, hiding and hunting. Seeing it in that way, gave me a new respect for the ocean, and how everything in it was connected.
“Whoa, it works,” I said.’
“I can almost see the ocean the way you see it. It’s beautiful.”
At first, I scanned the area near our island, and then I steadily moved out, and finding the static as the numbers went from hundreds to thousands of sea creatures. They moved along in the ocean in a wave of emotions that mostly surrounded the idea of survival and procreation.
Emma took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She massaged my hand, and I knew it was an indication to keep pushing. I went further, way further than I’d ever gone before, and that’s when I found them.
A group of watchers, or fish people. They were swimming and…pushing something through the water. I didn’t understand what, but they had an urgency to them. They wanted to get here quickly, but they were stuck with the thing
they were pushing. I was too far to send a thought to them, and even if I could, I didn’t want to. Not yet. I wanted them to come to our shores so I could deal with them with my gift.
“They’re coming,” I said and let go of Emma’s hand.
She sighed and got her feet as I did. I pointed to the horizon and knew precisely where they were coming from. A section of the ocean we hadn’t been to yet, in the direction between Yang and Tar Island.
“How many?” Benji asked.
“Eight of them…that I can read,” I said.
“Are there females in their group?” Cass asked Shaya.
Shaya shrugged and then winced in pain.
“How much time do we have?” Benji asked, staring through the telescope in the direction I faced.
“Thirty minutes, maybe less. They seem to be pushing something our way, but I don’t know what it could be.”
Shaya jumped at this statement and got our attention. She held up one finger as if signifying the number one.
“There’s one?” Kara asked, not understanding the meaning.
“There’s one of our type with them. One with a power of some kind?”
Shaya nodded.
“That must be what they are pushing. They could be on a boat or something,” I said. “But if that’s the case, then we have no idea what we’re dealing with. We have a wide range of powers. I mean, we could be dealing with anything.”
“I see something, on the horizon,” Benji said, handing me the telescope and pointing.
Through the optics, I spotted a raft and a silhouette of a person standing on it.
“My God, they have a human with them. They are pushing a raft with a person on it,” I said, and Aubrey took the scope.
“I can’t see who it is,” Aubrey said.
“It’s a woman,” I said. “I can’t read her. Okay, we need to get to our stations as planned. I believe they will attack us straight on, so we take them out on the beach.”
The next twenty minutes, we made the final preparations for the invasion. I wished we had a few more days to prepare, but I put that aside. If we lived through this one, a whole new level of defenses would have to be considered. I never imagined we’d be facing others with powers. Sharks, while terrifying and vicious killers, didn’t move the water like Sherri did to kill all those fish. They didn’t break rocks like Benji, and I knew we were just tapping the surface of these abilities. We were like level ones, killing boars in the barrens. I couldn’t imagine someone that had trained for years, or even decades with the powers we held.
Once we were set up, I glanced around at the various defensive positions. Benji stood in the house with a pile of arrows and a clear shot of most of the shore. Cass was there with her, to defend the entrance and let Benji get off as many shots as possible. Sherri, Emma, and Aubrey were next to me on the shoreline. We had a few sheets of metal to use as cover from their spears. Eliza and Kara were taking positions in the trees as support to us. If things went bad, I could have them reinforce or make sure we had a clear escape path. Also, in case this enemy tried to flank us, they’d be the early warning of that.
I raised the scope, and the person that had been standing now lay down on the raft with only a bit of her bare skin visible. I handed Sherri the scope, and she studied the craft for a minute.
“I can’t tell if she’s one of ours or not,” Sherri said.
“This is going to be hard if she is,” I said. “It will turn into a rescue mission real quick.”
“Unless they’ve turned her,” Aubrey said. “We’ve heard several times now about how the king likes to ripen people. I think that means turning them into something different. Something awful, like what the stones do to these islands.”
“Like what happened to Mario,” I said. “He wasn’t a bad guy when I knew him, but on that ship, it was as if he’d been turned into a different person.”
“Great, so we are facing some possible sister with superpowers that has been turned evil by the great king of the archipelago?” Sherri said.
“Pretty much,” I said. “And we better get to our cover spot.”
I glanced back at the house. Benji stood near the edge of the porch, bow in hand, staring at the sea. A quick glance around, and I counted all the girls. Sherri, Aubrey, Emma, and I crouched behind a bush and used some fronds as camouflage. Sherri and Aubrey had a spear at the ready, with several more on the ground behind us. Emma could throw a spear, but she would make sure no one came near us with that bat of hers.
Moshe walked around the posts that held up the house, and I sensed she knew something was amiss. I sent a thought to her that she needed to herd the chickens back and keep them and herself safe for the time being.
Moshe meowed a soft response and then rushed after the chickens, pushing them into the forest.
They were close enough now that I didn’t need Emma to amplify my signal. I took a breath, trying to relax, and reached out to them. They were slowing down as they neared the island, and some were already touching the sandy bottom, walking along it as they pushed the raft. Strangely, the sea around them had gone blank. The fish and floor crawlers had left the area. I felt them a hundred feet away, but it was as the incoming watchers were actually repelling the creatures.
Du’tumey’s mind stuck out for me. I knew it because I had connected with it before. It felt like seeing a familiar face. He wasn’t in charge though, but he was angrier than the rest. Rage boiled through him, and rational thought was a relationship he had abandoned. A dangerous mixture.
At least I knew I could influence him to a degree. I wanted to end this before it even began.
I urged him to reconsider his actions, but the thought didn’t go through. Du’tumey’s mind didn’t change. His hate burned hotter than ever. I tried again with greater force, but it just…bounced off of him, and when a tinge of pain hit me in the head, I backed off.
Breathing hard, I moved to the other watchers in the group, but the same thing happened. My attempts were being deflected, and for the effort, my head throbbed in pain. I wasn’t strong enough.
“Emma, can you help me?”
“Yes.” She set her bat against a bush and holding my hands.
I closed my eyes and tried again. They came to me with great clarity. They were closer. Too close.
“They’re coming out of the water,” Sherri whispered.
I felt them as their heads cleared the water, but the attempts at connecting with them, urging them that this wasn’t the path to take, failed. I let go of Emma’s hands.
“I can’t stop them,” I whispered and then looked back to Benji, giving her the signal that we were going to have to fight.
Benji nodded and leveled her bow and arrow to the shoreline.
“Okay, plan B everyone,” I said as Emma grabbed her bat.
“Good, I’ve got a lot a payback to dish out,” Emma said.
The raft with the woman on it stopped in the water thirty feet off the shore. A single watcher walked up the beach and out of the water. A square emblem branded onto his chest stood out, the very one that Shaya’s father had warned us about. The fish-man had slabs of muscles over his body that also held several scars over his torso. His dark gray skin shifted to a lighter blue as it went to his extremities, nearing white at places, like a soft gradient.
He stopped just short of leaving the water, the soft waves rolling over his ankles and feet. He sneered at our island, searching for us.
“Show yourself,” he said in a deep, gravelly voice.
“Want me to pop him?” Aubrey asked.
“Not yet,” I whispered.
“I think that’s Carmen on the raft,” Sherri said.
The woman on the raft hadn’t moved. She lay face down on the raft, with the top of her head pointing toward us. She had light brown skin and wore a purple bikini, but it looked as if it had been smeared with dirt and took on a deep brown-purple color.
“Okay, then we move to plan C,” I said. “This is now a da
mned rescue mission.”
I glanced back to Benji and made a C with my hand, and then showed it to Eliza, Shaya, and Kara in the forest. They all saw it, and I went back to the man on our shores. I was thrilled that we didn’t have to go searching for Carmen—she was delivered to us. She hadn’t moved, and so help me, if they harmed her, I would cross these worlds to avenge her.
“Hello,” the fish-man said. “I have demands.”
I got up from our hiding spot and realized he had been looking right at us the whole time. He shook his head as he took me in. A long, curved blade sat at his hip, hanging from a small pair of shorts made from animal hide, his only article of clothing.
“I have a demand for you,” I said. “You give us the woman on the raft and leave us, never to return and no harm will come to you.”
The man laughed at this, sounding like an old car trying to start.
“No,” he said. “You come with us. We take you to king.”
“Why does this king want us?”
“He wants all. If you don’t come, we take you.”
“I’m afraid we can’t do that. We’ve come to like this island. We’ve set up roots and laid down a great foundation for living here.”
“Mistake.”
“The mistake was you coming to this island, thinking you could take us like we’re yesterday’s garbage.”
This seemed to confuse him. “We kill you and take women. The king will like these women very much.”
“We’d rather die,” I said.
“So be it,” the big fish-man said and walked backward into the water.
“Is he moon-walking back into the ocean?” Aubrey asked.
“There’s something in the water,” I said, sensing a mass that I hadn’t before.
Just as the fish-man dipped under the water, a massive red claw emerged from below. The crustacean crawled out of the water.
“That’s a big fucking crab,” Aubrey said.
That’s exactly what it was, a big fucking crab about the size of a small bus. Its two massive pinchers moved around, snapping at the air as its whole crusty body dripped with ocean water. On its back sat Du’tumey, holding a spear and glaring at us over his wooden shield. The guy hated us, I sensed that much, but he also didn’t have a single thought of us surrendering or obeying anything the Crultar wanted; this was solely a revenge mission against me.
