The Teeth in the Tide

by Rebecca F. Kenney

  Calla twisted in his grip, wrenching, trying to get away. Bruta was still insensate, a dead weight trailing from his fist.

  Rake cried out in his mind, and aloud with his voice—shouting to the beast.

  “Come!” he roared. “Come and feed on the Great Queens of the Realm Below! Come and end the ones who tore you apart, who sought to defy you and escape you!”

  He felt a change in the mind-voices—a pebble of attention rolling his way, followed by another, and another—a thousand hungry thoughts turning toward him in an avalanche of desire. The beast turned, slowly, ponderously, and he fought his way ahead, toward it. Toward death.

  Something was biting his tail, ripping away his scales. Merlows, separated from their swarms, attacking anything within reach of their teeth. Calla screamed too, and jerked, streaks of blood coloring the water around her.

  A massive wave rolled over them, plunging Rake into salty gurgling dark. When he managed to drag himself and the Queens back to the surface, the monster was there, a wall of thick armored shells blotting out everything else. Through the slim cracks between those jointed plates Rake glimpsed eyes, so many eyes, and pulsating translucent flesh. Tentacles reared up from the sea, forming a glimmering, wriggling cage around him.

  Rake cast one last glance at the Kiken sea-wall. So temptingly close. He could let go of the queens and swim for it.

  Calla must have had similar thoughts of escape, because she raked both sets of her claws deeply across his body and thrust with her tail, trying to break free.

  Pain splintered his vision, but Rake held on, even as Bruta came to herself and chewed into his shoulder with her fangs.

  Roaring, he drew the mermaids forward once more. A hideous maw opened before them, merlows and kelp and broken coral and seawater pouring into it in an inescapable flood. Rake felt it sucking, sucking, drawing him in. He tightened his grip on Calla’s waist and pulled Bruta closer to his body.

  Another moment, and it would be over.

  He had only to hold on.

  “This is nice, isn’t it?” he said, grinning as they screamed and slashed at him. “All of us together, one last time.”

  -27-

  Kestra

  When Kestra’s monster dove into the sea, she ran to the wall and stared out at the heaving waves, straining her eyes for a glimpse of him. Waiting, while engorged leaden clouds crawled across the sun, throwing the world into shadow and turning the ocean a cold, senseless gray.

  Breathless, she watched the titanic monster prowl nearer to the wall, and still nearer, waves the size of ships cresting and breaking in its wake. She prayed that Jazadri and the Wind’s Favor might be spared, wherever they were. Thanked the stars that Flay was safely back at The Three Cherries, with her mother, and Mai, and Jewel.

  But Rake—where was Rake?

  Many long minutes later, she saw him—his arms wrapped around two thrashing mermaids, one flame-haired and the other bald.

  They were fighting him, but he pulled them through the foam, toward the bulging carapace and myriad mouths of the monster. It reared up before him, translucent tentacles writhing into the air, high as ship’s masts. Shifting, rearranging itself, it exposed one of its glistening maws, a tunnel to death and darkness.

  Kestra strained to see through the rolling waves and the arching spray. Rake was still there, holding the mermaids in place as they clawed him, trying to cut themselves free. Cutting him to pieces.

  “Leave them and go, Rake!” she whispered, her voice breaking. “Swim for it!”

  But she knew that even if he swam away, he was too badly hurt, too damaged to survive.

  The monster surged forward, drinking the world.

  No one drew Kestra away, or buried her face in rough cloth to hide her from the truth.

  She saw it all. She watched the monster swallow them—Rake, and his queens.

  And the beast swept on, churning through bloody waves, sucking swarms of frantic merlows down its gullets.

  Kestra couldn’t breathe. Her body shook, bones rattling through slack muscles.

  Even if Rake survived being swallowed, the merlows and mermaids would rip him apart inside the beast’s belly.

  A high, keening wail slid from Kestra’s throat, the echo of an emptiness shaped like him.

  Rake had been here, moments ago. Here with her, by the wall. Calm and curious, brave and beautiful. Her friend, alive, so exquisitely alive.

  And then—

  Gone.

  Her voice issued between stiff lips, its sound foreign to her, hoarse and hollow as if it belonged to someone much older. Someone broken by time and tide.

  “Eyes be salt, and body be sand, but soul be the breeze that flies to the land.”

  She stayed by the wall, even when the monster came too close and brushed against it with a scabrous armored shoulder. The wall shuddered and shifted, stones rattling down to splash into the sea. The cobbled street beneath Kestra tilted, cracking, and she began to slide screaming into a crumbling mass of rock that ended in scarlet surf—

  A hand caught her wrist—pulled her scrambling back to safety, against the wall of Takajo’s house, as the street and the earthen bank under it fell away with the wall. The edge of the dirt cliff crumbled nearer, more soil slipping away—nearer, nearer—until it stopped, a few steps away from their feet.

  Kestra looked up and met her mother’s fierce eyes.

  “Quickly,” said Lumina, her voice tight. “Sideways, along here. Keep as close to the house as you can.”

  They edged along Takajo’s building until they rounded the corner and found safer ground.

  “Mama,” Kestra croaked. “You came down the hill.”

  “I saw the great beast coming closer,” she answered. “I ran. I did not trust that water creature to protect you.”

  Kestra fell on her hands and knees, prey to the roaring ache inside her. “But he did,” she said. “He saved us all. And now he’s gone.”

  She stared down at the rough cobblestones in the packed soil of the road—at her own hands, seamed with dirt across the knuckles and under the nails. She felt the weight of her shoulder bag sliding along her ribs, heavy with the burden of Rake’s belt.

  “Kestra.”

  She raised her eyes a fraction and saw her mother’s slippers. Plain black cloth, thickly padded, with double-stitching. No embroidery. Worn smooth and round at the edges from frequent use. Each detail seemed frighteningly, monumentally significant.

  “Kestra, get up. Your young captain cannot see you this way. He waits for you, to know that you’re safe.”

  Every bit of Kestra ached, from her knees and her back to the heart thrumming deep in her chest. Slowly, she forced herself to unbend, to straighten—to stand and walk. Walking felt too normal, too safe, especially when the sea roared behind her with the force of the monster’s passage.

  Rake will never walk anywhere again.

  She couldn’t stop the words from beating in her head over and over as she ascended the hill with her mother.

  Takajo met them at the door, his sun-browned face relaxing. “You’re alive!” His words seemed to encompass them both, but he looked only at Lumina.

  Kestra had no energy to evaluate the glance that passed between the hawk-master and her mother. She stumbled past Takajo, toward the bench where Flay reclined with his bandaged stump across his chest. He began to rise at the sight of her, but Mai pushed him back down.

  “Easy,” she said. “She’ll come to you.”

  But Kestra didn’t. She stopped in the middle of the common room, her eyes fixed on the small boy with indigo curls, gold-flecked eyes, and a shimmering metal belt around his waist.

  Jewel’s gaze flicked to the inn’s empty doorway, and then back to Kestra.

  “Kestra,” said Mai, slowly, whitening. “Where is Rake?”

  Kestra said, in that old voice that wasn’t hers, “Rake jumped into the sea. He wanted to make sure the queens didn’t find a way to survive this. They didn’t, but ne
ither did he.”

  Mai gave a little broken cry and fled the room.

  Jewel did not move. His face barely changed. “He’ll come back. He leaves me often, but he always comes back. When he returns, we’ll play a game.”

  Kestra’s heart fractured.

  She stumbled to Flay’s side and sank to the floor, burying her face against him. He stroked her hair with his good hand. “I’m sorry you had to see it, Blossom. I liked him. He was a good man.”

  Kestra nodded, sobbing with relief that he understood. Through her tears she heard murmurs rippling from mouth to mouth around the room: “That creature Rake was different than the other mermaids. Brave. Noble. Yes, I always thought so. He was a hero, he was. We should make him a statue in the courtyard. A fitting remembrance.”

  She almost laughed, overcome by how quickly human opinions could shift. Wiping her face, she rose, an odd sense of release trickling through her heart. She couldn’t be angry at Rake, or the sea monster, or herself, or anyone. Under her sorrow, she simply felt grateful.

  But her work wasn’t done, not yet. The monster would be prowling the seas around the island for days. Afterward there would be refugees to feed and buildings to repair.

  Before all of that, there was one small heart in need of comfort.

  She turned to Jewel, who was clutching Lumina’s skirts, and crouched before him. “You know, Jewel, I lost my father when I was very young, too.”

  “He’s not lost!” Jewel bared his tiny shark teeth. “He’ll come back.”

  Kestra opened her mouth to protest, but Flay interrupted. “Keep that hope alive, little fish,” he said. “Many a man has lived through horror on hope alone.”

  After days of roaming the coasts of Kiken Island, sating itself with mermaids and merlows, the great beast prowled away. Flay’s ship followed it at a safe distance for a day, and when it showed no signs of pausing or coming to rest, Jazadri turned the Wind’s Favor around and came back to Anchel.

  The docking station had been smashed, so the crew dropped anchor at a different point, rowed up to the wall, and climbed a long rope ladder. Jazadri carried a small barrel strapped to his back, and when he reached the top of the wall he handed it to Kestra. She opened it and found fish, sweet and fresh, still alive and wriggling.

  “They’re coming back already,” Jazadri said. “Schools of them, swimming in. And we saw dolphins, jumping the waves, and a gale-shark nosing around, chomping on a few leftover merlows.”

  Relief swept through Kestra. The sea was already filling the void left by the mermaids. She tried to smile, but the expression felt odd on her lips—traitorous. Out of place, when the memory of Rake’s death blazed so vividly in her mind.

  “Another thing,” Jazadri said, looking at Flay. “One of the high mermaids’ breeders surfaced while we were on our way back. Lots of blond hair, green tail, wearing a kind of rope vest. He was scared, but he waved to us, so I let him come closer and we talked.”

  “That must be Shale,” Kestra said. “What did he say?”

  “He and several of the other males went to the nurseries to protect the spawn. Some of the young were smashed or eaten, by the great beast or by their own kind—but thanks to Shale, a couple hundred survived, a mix of males and females. He and the other males are caring for them.”

  “Teaching them not to munch on humans, I hope,” Flay said.

  “I’d expect so. But I told him he needs to talk to you two, or to the Council—work out some kind of arrangement. Some laws for his kind, and some ways to protect their young against predators.”

  “Very wise, Jaza.” Flay gripped his first mate’s shoulder. “Those are issues for the Anchel Council members, not for me. I’ve done my duty, and more.”

  “Much more.” Kestra touched his wounded arm.

  Jazadri’s eyes followed the gesture. “How is it?”

  “Oh, not bad.” Flay raised the wrapped stump. “No black streaks or oozing, which I’m told is an excellent sign. And Mai is already planning my replacement hand. She has several designs in the works, actually. My favorite so far is the folding razor with supplemental fork and spoon; but truthfully, I’m afraid to say no to any of them, for fear she’ll take offense and I’ll end up with a plain old hook.”

  “Here’s the little scientist now,” muttered Jazadri, nodding past Flay at the street leading down from The Three Cherries.

  Mai was racing toward them so fast that Jazadri stepped in front of her, catching her before she soared right past them and into the sea.

  “Easy, Sparrow,” said Flay.

  Mai shook Jazadri off, panting, and shoved a notebook in front of Flay. “We have to send someone down to the mermaid queens’ treasury. There might be more devices down there. Maybe I can take some apart, find out how they work—and then—and then—” She stopped for breath. “Flay, if these devices can be altered to create other body parts, not just legs, then maybe—maybe someday I can make you a new hand!”

  Flay’s eyes widened. “That’s quite a leap, Sparrow. The technology in these artifacts is far beyond anything we—”

  “I know, I know! That’s why I thought—let’s send any surviving merfolk down there and have them bring up everything they can find! And then you can take me and the artifacts with you on the Wind’s Favor when you leave. Drop me off in a city where they have schools, colleges—more books and knowledge. I can study, I can learn—I can figure it out.”

  “Mai!” Kestra seized her shoulders. “Stop. Calm down. Do you even know what you’re saying? How many years it would take to—”

  “I know!” Mai almost screamed the words. “But I don’t want it to end like this. It can’t end this way, with him gone, and Flay’s hand gone. It can be better. I can make it better!” She twisted away from Kestra. “And don’t ever tell me to calm down.” Tears trickled from her eyes, along the hollows of her cheeks.

  Flay opened his mouth to speak, but Kestra shot him a warning glance. “We’ll talk about it,” she said soothingly. “But first—when was the last time you ate something?”

  “I—I ate sometime. Recently.”

  “How recently?”

  “Yesterday morning,” Mai mumbled.

  “You’ll all come back to The Three Cherries, and I’ll make everyone a pot of the tastiest, freshest fish soup you’ve ever had,” Kestra said. “And then, while we’re eating, we’ll talk about mermaid treasure, and faraway cities, and Flay’s future hand. Yes?”

  Mai drew a shuddering breath. “Yes.”

  “Come,” said Jazadri, drawing Mai ahead with him. “Walk with me and show me your designs.”

  Flay and Kestra lingered behind the others, climbing the hill slowly.

  “I’ll have to leave soon,” Flay said quietly. “I have to face my father and explain my extreme lateness. A little mermaid treasure in hand would certainly help ease my way back into his good graces.”

  “I know. Perhaps we can speak to the surviving mermaids about it.”

  He nodded. “And now, on to a more pressing question—my beautiful Blossom, are you going to sail with me?”

  “For a while, yes.” She hooked her arm through his. “Until I decide that I want to come back to my garden, and my kitchen. But for now—yes, Captain Flay, I’m coming with you. Just try to leave me behind.”

  Flay stopped walking and pulled Kestra close, kissing her. The piercing call of a bird startled them apart, and they watched in awe as a pair of sea-hawks soared over their heads and skimmed, fearless and free, down to the ocean.

  -28-

  Rake

  Rake tried to open his eyes, but something viscous held them shut. He felt it all around him, a burbling mass of flesh pressing and pulsating against his back, his arms, his tail. He was enveloped by it, curled into it like spawn in a bed of sea-grass.

  He twitched, and it hurt. Rivulets of pain raced through his arms, torso, and tail. Agony spiked sharp in his head.

  A familiar voice whispered to his mind.

 
“Rest, my beauty, my little fishlet, rest. You are nearly healed. Sleep, and your time will come again.”

  Rake’s mind blurred, and he relaxed into the soothing dark.

  THE END

  PREORDER the sequel NOW on Amazon!

  THE DEMONS IN THE DEEP

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book has a special place in my heart. It’s the book that got me my first agent, and though it didn’t sell on submission, I couldn’t give up on it. I will always be so grateful to Ali Herring for seeing the potential in this story! Even if big publishing didn’t want my angry island girl and my abused single-dad mer-guy, we gave it a good shot.

  Thanks also to so many friends who let me scream and whine to them in their Twitter DMs about the uncertain fate of this book and about publishing in general—especially Kate MacDonald, Lydia Russell, Kayla McGrath, Rachel Menard, Cassie Pugh, and Darby Cupid. A hefty helping of my gratitude goes to Kristin Jacques for her support and advice, and to Elle and everyone else at Midnight Tide Publishing for giving my books a family. A huge thanks to my fantastic Patreon supporters who encouraged me at every step! And thanks also to my wonderful husband, who is optimistic, kind, and enthusiastic no matter what twists and turns my publishing journey may take.

  And thanks to YOU, for taking a chance on this dark, twisty tale. I hope I haven’t scarred you for life, and that you’ll come back for more torturous delight when I release the sequel!

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Rebecca writes darkly romantic novels about magic, myths, and friendship. Her first “book” was a self-illustrated story about mermaids! Her love of stories led her to major in English and minor in Creative Writing, and she self-published her first trilogy in 2018. Since then she hasn't stopped writing! She lives in upstate South Carolina with her eternally optimistic and supportive husband and two kids.

  Twitter: @RebeccaFKenney1