The Teeth in the Tide

by Rebecca F. Kenney

  “Hush.” He covered her mouth with his calloused hand. “By thorn and thunder, you take many words to answer a brief question. A simple ‘no’ would have done.”

  He eased her body away from his and rose, pulling on his pants and picking up his shirt. “I’ll come here tomorrow, when I get a spare moment, and we’ll talk about plans for catching your mermaid. I’ll bring my first mate, Jazadri—he has a good head for strategy.”

  Kestra sat up, hugging her dress to her chest. “I’m sorry, Flay. It’s not that I don’t want to be with you—”

  “You’re afraid. I understand.” He smiled, but his eyes didn’t sparkle. “Think about it, Blossom, and I’ll ask you again before I leave.”

  “Fair is fair.” She got to her feet, her clothes held limply in one hand.

  “Now come,” he said, stepping behind her and skimming his hands from her hips up to her collarbones. “Let me help you back into your dress—you can’t be running through the garden naked. Who knows what unsavory louts may be lurking about.”

  -6-

  Rake

  Rake’s chest tightened, his headache spiking along with his panic. Acrid’s claws twined jagged in Jewel’s hair, one of them nicking the boy’s forehead so that red blood filtered into the water. Along each of Jewel’s cheekbones, Acrid had sliced tiny crescent shapes in perfect rows.

  “Look, I decorated these too.” Acrid pointed with her knife-tip to a series of triangular cuts lining Jewel’s collarbones. “Do you like it?”

  Rake blinked through the pink haze of his son’s blood. “Fascinating,” he ground out.

  Acrid’s expression turned greedy. “You don’t seem appreciative. Jealous, maybe? I could decorate you, too.”

  “As you wish, my exquisite lady.” He bowed his head to her and spread his arms. “Here I am.”

  Acrid slithered nearer, running her thick purple tongue over her teeth. She poised the knife over Rake’s heart and leaned in until her cheek touched his. He forced himself to stay immobile, not to cringe away. Better that her attention was centered on him now, instead of on his spawn.

  Acrid set her teeth on his earlobe, her tongue teasing his gold studs. “Yes, here you are,” she whispered. “Yet you weren’t here when I arrived.”

  “Had I known I would be graced by your presence in my quarters, I would not have gone out.”

  “And there is the question,” she said. “Where, oh where, would a fool such as you go for so long? Your spawn told me you’d been out for hours.”

  “I—”

  “Have a care how you answer.” Her voice rippled through her teeth, setting his nerves on edge. “You may be Calla’s favorite, but you are not mine.”

  “A swim, my lady—nothing more. I want to keep myself in good form, for your sake. So I can better please you.”

  “Your words are lies. A stream of foulest whale’s shit,” she growled. “I demand you tell me—”

  “My Queen.” A voice from the archway. Never had Rake been so glad to hear Scythe’s gravelly tones.

  Acrid spun, slashing at the mermidon. “What?”

  Scythe flinched away. “The council, my Queen. The meeting about the food supply? Queen Calla requested the presence of all the high mermaids.”

  “I’m more than a high mermaid.”

  “Of course.” Scythe bent double, nearly flipping herself over in the fervor of her obeisance. “And your presence is much desired at this gathering.”

  “Simpering fool.” Acrid pushed Rake away and swam past Scythe, slapping the mermidon in the face with her tail. Scythe followed her, not even bothering to cast her usual look of disgust in Rake’s direction.

  The instant the two mermaids disappeared, Rake shot to Jewel and wrapped him in both arms. Jewel tensed at first, but Rake only clutched him tighter, burying his face in the indigo curls. “Forgive me. I told you that you were safe here, and then I let her hurt you.”

  “You were gone,” muttered Jewel. “I thought maybe you were eaten.”

  “No,” Rake replied. “Almost, but no. I was working on something for us, for you and me. Something we cannot tell the others. Something to keep us safe.” He held the boy at arm’s length. “Do you understand?”

  Jewel nodded.

  “Did you sleep while I was gone?”

  “Not really. I played. I thought about going outside the cave.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No.”

  Rake smiled. “Good. Now that I know you can follow my orders, I can trust you with bigger responsibilities.”

  “Like what?”

  “You’ll find out soon. But first, we both need to sleep.”

  He showed Jewel the alcove stuffed with sea grasses where he usually nestled when taking rest. “Sleep in here. I’ll rest outside and protect you from anyone who comes.”

  Jewel burrowed into the grasses and relaxed, lulled by the soft sway of their tendrils. Rake stretched his length along the alcove, letting himself sink down to the sand. Jewel might feel protected in the enclosed space, but the safety was an illusion. Rake couldn’t defend his spawn or himself from anything the Queens or their mermidons might choose to do.

  But for now, the high mermaids were occupied, arguing over the food supply.

  He and Jewel were safe.

  Lulled in the liquid arms of the ocean, Rake sealed his eyes and began to sort through the memories that the Bone Trench horror had given him. There were no more than half a dozen or so, but it was more than he’d ever taken in at once and his brain rebelled against the intrusion.

  He fought the oncoming drowsiness, and instead focused on the clearest of the new memories.

  He could see claws, and webbed fingers jutting out before him—hands belonging not to him, but to the owner of the memory. A mermidon, apparently, since the high mermaids had no webbing between their fingers. A little distance away, Rake saw two mermaids who looked exactly alike, each wearing crowns of metal and coral twisted together. He knew them by reputation from the oral histories told at court—Vrynn and Veldi, the twin queens who ruled before Calla, Bruta, and Acrid took power. The mermidons still whispered of how Bruta had chewed through one twin’s spinal cord while Acrid tore out the heart of the other. But it was Calla, the twins’ former maidservant, who had poisoned them both. Calla paralyzed the Queens with viper-eel venom so her co-conspirators could finish them off.

  In the memory, Vrynn and Veldi looked young, maybe twenty years of age. And they were arguing.

  “Why keep these abominations, Vrynn?” Veldi demanded, pointing to a large silver box in her sister’s hands. “We are not planning to use them. We should destroy them.”

  “It seems a shame,” Vrynn answered. “Our ancestors toiled to perfect these devices, so we could lure more sweet meat to our domain. What if our food supply were to grow scarce? We might have need to walk among the land-slugs again, to select the choicest and most toothsome flesh.”

  “A dangerous and humiliating task,” said Veldi. “We’ve enough meat from sailors and fishermen, and from the young whelps that scramble about on the beaches. And we have fish in plenty, and dolphins, sea-cows, and whales. There’s no need to take on their disgusting two-legged form.” She propelled herself to the box and reached for it. “Let me take it, sister. Let me destroy these abominations.”

  “No.” Vrynn’s black eyes snapped. “I too am queen, and I say they shall remain intact, in the royal treasury.”

  The memory dissipated, and another took its place. This one was older, striated with dark ripples, as if the mermaid to whom it belonged had trouble remembering the event clearly. A high mermaid with bright blue hair and an amber tail held a heavy golden belt, which she clasped around her hips. When she turned a wheel on the belt and pressed a lever, her tail began to disintegrate, turning into a cloud of pink and red and amber particles in the water. The particles swirled, shifted, and reassembled, taking on the form of two human-shaped legs.

  The mermaid’s laugh rippled through t
he water. “Just wait, my loves,” she said. “I’ll be bringing home a luscious hunk of man-flesh tonight. I’ll deliver him alive and breathing, and we shall take our time disassembling him.”

  “What if he won’t come with you?” asked a nearby mermaid, licking her teeth.

  “Oh, he’ll come. He’s completely besotted with me. He asked me to wed him, to live in his hideous little fisherman’s hut and bear his fat babies. Delicious as that sounds, I shall have to decline. Bringing him here to be eaten should clarify my answer, don’t you think?”

  Shrieks of laughter echoed in Rake’s mind as the memory faded.

  The other memories were faint, cloudy snatches—four mermaids taking off four identical belts and grimacing as their legs dispersed and reformed into tails. A golden belt, broken into jagged pieces, floating in murky water. Hands stowing two belts in a chest and wrapping the chest in heavy chains. And the last memory—a very young Acrid screaming at Calla to let her borrow one of the belts and go hunting ashore.

  “Too dangerous,” Calla replied. “Ask again, and I’ll take your tongue.”

  The gold flash of her eyes ended the conversation, and Acrid gave up, spinning away from Calla, looking for another way to spend her fury. She locked eyes with the owner of the memory. “Come here, boy,” she snarled and charged.

  Rake jolted, startling out of the memory. His heart thundered, and he had to take a moment to calm himself. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t him facing Acrid’s wrath, not that time.

  But he would suffer her rage again if he didn’t act soon.

  The relics, if any were left, would be in the Queen’s treasury. Stealing them wouldn’t be easy. He’d probably die trying.

  Unless—

  Unless something occurred to distract everyone in the Realm Below.

  The Queens would be spawning any day now. They were the first to mate each quarter, just before the mermidon mating frenzy—so their spawn would be birthed a week or two before the mermidons’ spawn.

  Three out of every four cycles, the Queens and high mermaids produced spawn of mermidon aspect—up to a dozen from each pregnant female. But every spring cycle, the Queens and their attendants spawned young with high mermaid aspect, like Jewel, and like Rake himself. And those spawn became the future queens, servants, and breeders of the Court.

  Rake didn’t understand why the high mermaid spawn varied in aspect depending on the time of year. It was especially odd because the mermidons consistently birthed masses of ravenous merlows, no matter the season. But he wasn’t permitted to conduct a thorough study of his race’s reproductive cycle, no matter how much it fascinated him.

  He shoved the topic out of his head and returned to the question at hand—accessing the treasury. The best time to do it would be during the Queens’ spawning period. Calla, Bruta, and their entourage would be occupied with birthing and sorting the young. Most of the mermidons would gather around the Queens’ private chambers, while others reinforced the boundaries of the mermaids’ domain, to prevent any predators from sneaking in and gobbling up the fresh spawn.

  Everyone would be distracted. But he’d still need a way to handle the guards posted at the doors of the treasury.

  An idea began to take shape in his mind—the outline of a plan. To execute it, he would need to be cunning as Calla herself, ruthless as Bruta, quick as Acrid, and more dangerous than all of them.

  -7-

  Kestra

  “That won’t work,” said Flay’s first mate, for the tenth time.

  Kestra leaned back in her chair, rubbing her temples. They’d been discussing mermaids for the past half-hour, and they were no closer to a viable capture plan.

  Mai tossed her sketch-stick onto the table, her dark eyes snapping. She faced Flay. “Why, exactly, is he here?” She pointed at the first mate.

  Flay, perched on the edge of the table with his boot on a tilted chair, took the cinnamon stick out of his mouth long enough to say, “He’s here to help.”

  “Help? Oh, pardon me. Because I thought ‘help’ meant actually contributing some words other than, ‘No, that won’t work.’ And so far, that’s all we’re getting out of this big lump’s mouth.”

  Kestra nearly giggled. The first mate, Jazadri, was mountainous indeed, with biceps like cannonballs and hands the size of barrel hoops. She loved the look of him—his full plum-colored lips, the glow of his rich, dark skin. She especially liked his deep, rolling voice—soft thunder to Mai’s volleys of verbal lightning.

  Mai apparently wasn’t enthralled.

  Flay kicked the chair aside and rose to his full height, looking down at Mai. She stiffened, indomitable despite his physical advantage.

  “Jazadri is also here because he has a stake in this mission,” Flay said quietly. “His brother, our cabin boy, fell into the sea when we were half a day from the island. He was dragged under by several of the warrior mermaids. So you see, he’s as eager to kill them as you are. Think of it as a shared goal.”

  “Oh.” Mai deflated slightly. “Well, then—I would welcome any constructive thoughts he might have.” She rounded on the big man. “Do you have any ideas?”

  “Do you have a map of the island?” Jazadri countered.

  Mai snatched a scroll from a bin and spread it on the table. Jazadri’s thick finger hovered over it for a moment before descending.

  “There. The spot where my brother was taken. That’s where we’ll do it.”

  “But—how?” Mai peered at the spot. “You said that dragging nets wouldn’t work, and throwing harpoons from the ship wouldn’t work, and building a trap wouldn’t work—what in the maelstrom will work?”

  “Bait,” said Jazadri.

  “Bait. As in—”

  “Flesh. A human. On our voyage in, the warrior mermaids had been following us for some time, watching and waiting for someone to misstep. My brother wasn’t careful enough, and they were ready.”

  Flay stepped forward. “How exactly do you propose we bait them without losing another life?”

  “I know the risk is high,” said Jazadri. “And that is why I will be the bait. We sail here, to this spot. I’ll stand on the backup anchor, and the crew will lower me toward the water. When the mermaids try to grab me, I’ll spear one of them. Then the men can pull me back up.”

  “No, Jaza.” Flay shook his head. “I can’t let you do that. What if you fall? I’d lose more than a friend—I’d lose my right hand. Who would pull me out of the Gordin gambling dens before I’ve spent all my coin? Who would tell me when it’s time to cut my hair, or warn me when a drink is drugged, merely by sniffing it? And think of Madam Brishton’s women at Fazht. They would be broken-hearted if their favorite bodice-ripping sailor were to lose an arm.” He winked at Kestra. “You should see Jaza rip a bodice, Blossom. It’s quite a sight. One swift jerk, and—”

  “Touching as your eulogy for me would be, I’ve no plans to die, or to lose any limbs,” said Jazadri. “I’ll wear armor, and you can tie me to the anchor so I don’t slip off.”

  “It could work,” said Mai, drumming her fingers. “We’ll need some way to subdue the mermaid once we’ve got her.”

  “How about fire-ray serum?” Kestra suggested. “The town physik uses it to immobilize patients when they won’t stop thrashing long enough for her to treat them. We could use some of that on the mermaid.”

  “Brilliant idea, Blossom!” Flay’s eyes shone with approval. “You’re in charge of getting the serum, then. I’ll check the ship’s hold for the armor—I think we have a few sets down there, and hopefully I’ll find one to cover most of Jaza’s bulk.” He slapped his first mate on the back. “Mai, what else do you need?”

  Mai fairly wriggled with excitement. “This!” She shoved a drawing in Flay’s face. “I’ve designed a holding cage for the mermaid once we catch her. It will enable me to keep her alive while studying her safely. See these armholes? And the opening for the head? And I can widen or constrict the cuffs using these levers. I just need someone to
help me build it.”

  “Impressive.” Flay nodded. “I’ll assign someone to help you, starting this afternoon. Now, my lovelies, I have taken a long enough break—I must get back to the business of negotiating and purchasing. If I can get most of our commerce done today and tomorrow, we’ll fetch you a mermaid on the third day. Good enough?” His ice-blue eyes crinkled at the corners, and Mai smiled back.

  “Better than I could have wished for—thank you, Captain.” She gave him a little bow.

  “My pleasure.” He kissed her hand lightly and turned to Kestra. “And now, before I go—”

  Kestra let him pull her close. He kissed her—quick and warm as a sunbeam—clapped his beaten three-cornered hat back on his head, and bounded out of the hut.

  “Good afternoon to you,” rumbled Jazadri, and he strode outside after the captain.

  Mai squeaked with delight, seized her sketch-stick, and began marking adjustments on the design of the mermaid’s cage.

  “I’m not hearing it,” said Kestra, cupping her hand to her ear.

  “Hm? Hearing what?” Mai scratched out a set of lines and drew new, thicker ones.

  “I’m not hearing the gratitude. Let me demonstrate.” Kestra sidled over and intoned, in her best imitation of Mai’s voice, “ ‘Thank you, oh sweetest and wisest of cousins, for persuading the captain of the Wind’s Favor to catch me a mermaid and build me a cage. Your wiles and wanton ways have won the day.’ “

  Mai rolled her eyes, smirking. “Whatever you did, it worked.”

  Kestra sat on the table’s edge, well aware that Flay had perched in that very spot moments ago. “Honestly, he didn’t need much persuading. And what I gave him, I would have given anyway, even if he said no to your plan.” Her cheeks heated as Mai looked up, wide-eyed.

  “Oh.” Mai flushed too. “You—you two—did—”

  “Yes. And not for the first time. I shared his bed once the last time he was here.”

  “You little vixen.” Her cousin dropped the sketching tool. “Why didn’t you tell me?”