Seaborn 03 - Sea Throne

by Chris Howard

  Nikasia looked over her shoulder at the parking lot, the only apparent option not appealing to her. "We're going to get someone to drive us?"

  "Have you ever flown in an airplane?"

  Nikasia's eyes went wide, shocked that her mother would even consider such a wild idea. She gasped, "No. But I'd love to."

  "We'll plan on the way. Let us go."

  They stood, Nikasia grabbing her mother's arm. "One more ally I have not told you about. She will become part of our net for the Rexenor killer, a lure."

  Suspicion creeping into her mother's voice. "What is it?"

  Nikasia led her to edge of the water, lowered one flattened hand, and sang a call for Barenis.

  Theoxena went into a fighting stance when the dragon lifted its head from the water twenty yards from shore. Nikasia laughed, pointing up the coast. "North, my dear Barenis. We will meet in the waters off North Hampton, New Hampshire—" She named the place for Theoxena, dragon's not having access to modern cartography. Then nodded at the questioning look in Barenis' eyes, and stepped through a series of whistles, sung a string of low notes, adding in English, "The place with the cut of land that curves out to sea, and there is a tiny diamond shaped island very near shore. Rocks of granite, taste them in the water. You know where I mean, dear Barenis. I will meet you there tomorrow at the latest."

  When the dragon had slumped beneath the waves, Theoxena turned to her daughter. "Barenis?"

  "You're going to love this one, mother." She pointed north in the Dragon's curling blue surface disturbance. "Barenis was once the dragon of Gregor Lord Rexenor...and the dear beast has been looking for her master all these years."

  Theoxena nodded her head, took the motion deeper, into a bow, acknowledging her daughter's power and planning.

  Nikasia flagged down a truck carrying bathroom cleanser, climbed up in the cab to bend the driver to her will. He suddenly found—even after a minute's study of his log and manifest—that he had an urgent delivery to make at one of the departure terminals at Norfolk International Airport up in Virginia. And, yes, he would love the company of two beautiful ladies for the trip.

  He chatted about life on the road, pointing out interesting sites like Kill Devil Hills, where the Wright Brothers monument stood, and where they flew some of their famous flights. Theoxena and Nikasia stopped their plotting to listen to that one, but generally ignored him the whole way up, talking in low voices, making a list of questions that needed answering before they attacked.

  In Norfolk, Nikasia worked out all the strange procedures that went into getting tickets and flying on an airplane—she worked it out of a pilot she'd captured in a bar in the terminal, dragging him by his tie into the ladies room, pinning him to the wall in one of the stalls, threatening him. Then she took his wallet, credit cards, gate pass, anything that looked useful, dumping his pants, boxers, and shoes in a garbage bin on her way to the ticket counter.

  The war-bards went right to the front of the line because they were Kirkêlatides, and never had to wait for anything. They ordered two one-ways, first class, to Boston, putting them on the pilot's card, and convinced their way through airport security. It wasn't difficult.

  The flight went smoothly with three exceptions, the takeoff, landing and one in-flight incident that ended without anyone dying. Mother and daughter clawed at the arms of the chairs on takeoff, but not seeing anyone else panicking, kept their reactions to the strange sensation of lifting off the ground damped down.

  Twenty minutes out of Boston, Nikasia got to within a moment of killing and drinking all the blood from a stewardess who handed her a glass of wine without the proper amount of reverence, but at a touch on the arm from her mother, pulled back, decided instead to curse the impudent woman with eyebrow horns that would develop over the next week.

  They landed at Logan airport around midnight, and without too much trouble forced a ride out of a business man who lived in Manchester, New Hampshire. After Nikasia was through with him, he seemed agreeable to anything, including going a bit out of his way to drop them off in North Hampton, and even a quick stop to grab bagels and coffee at one of the many brightly lit places along the way.

  They stepped out of the car in the early morning dark on the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Lafayette, waving goodbyes to their driver. After a huddle to discuss strategy, the war-bards, descendants of deadly Circe, the mother and daughter army of two, set out down Atlantic Avenue.

  Nikasia stood on the wet sand staring out at the waves, the Atlantic rolling in rough and gray. "I need to warm up, mother."

  They had passed Kassandra's house and turned on Ocean Boulevard to prepare for their battle on the beach.

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Summon Fenhals. I know you can do it. Summon him now."

  It was a command. Theoxena went still, lips pressed tightly together, paused to catch a few seconds that still belonged to her, and then nodded, drew a breath of cool ocean air, and sang a slow song to call the king's terrier.

  The mother and daughter waited, standing side by side; they had turned their backs to the land. Theoxena tilted her head when she heard the rumble of Fenhals' old truck pulling into a space in the North Hampton Beach parking lot. Nikasia just smiled.

  He stepped lightly, carefully over the sand, head down, a whipped dog coming when it was called. He kept glancing at Theoxena for help, but he spoke to the daughter. "Please milady. I was following orders. I am bound to King Tharsaleos. He makes me do things that I perhaps would not do." He held his hand out, open fingers spread, an appeasing gesture. "Please do not do this, my lady."

  Nikasia chirped a note and the last knuckle on his little finger popped with a spurt of blood. He jerked his hand back. She sang another note and the second knuckle collapsed. Fenhals stifled a scream.

  "Please, milady," he begged, turning his pain-blurred gaze to Theoxena. She looked away, toward the Atlantic.

  The first knuckle on his thumb went with a wet crunch. Shaking, tears running from his eyes, Fenhals took a step back, and Nikasia advanced, cold anger thrum in her in body. She twirled her fingers with a soft flow of notes. His wrist twisted too far with a sharp crisp-vegetable snap.

  Fenhals shrieked, staring down at his mangled bleeding hand, dangling at the end of his arm, holding it out as if he didn't want it to belong to him.

  "Nikasia," started Theoxena in a voice that sounded like protest.

  Her daughter shot her a glare, told her to shut her mouth, and she did.

  Nikasia turned back to her prey in time to deflect a bolt of blue lightning Fenhals had summoned and thrown at her. It shot off her defenses, crackling into the ground, lurching up the beach, a scattering blast of sand and molten glass.

  She nodded back at his challenge, even a little bit amused by it. "Mr. Fenhals, you poisoned one of the Kirkêlatides, something so offensive I am finding it difficult to come up with punishment that fits your crime." She sighed, and then shrugged consolingly. "On the good side, we're in a hurry, and there just is not enough time to do this correctly."

  She made a claw with her fingers, swiped the air with a short song, and most of the right side of Fenhals' face tore free from his skull. Invisible hooks ripped into his right eye, cutting away the lid and the skin along the brow and cheekbone. His jaw popped and hung loose, teeth spilling out of his mouth, red threads of root and saliva glistening and swaying stiffly like stalks of fishing line. He tried to shove his face back together with his good hand, gargling a scream through the sticky fluid collecting in his throat.

  His legs shifted out from under him and he landed clumsily in the sand at her feet, one knee bent wrong, breaking when his weight came down on it. He was breathing now in rapid wet drags of air, his old limbs too weak to hold him up in the Thin. His remaining eye drifted lazily in its socket to find Nikasia, the gray iris floating up, pupil contracting, trying to focus on her.

  The sand shifted under his body, loosening to the consistency of oil, and he fell into it, on
e arm paddling feebly. The eye going wide, gaping ruined mouth sucking in water and sand and air.

  "You never were much of an under the waves sort, Mr. Fenhals." She tapped her chin as if giving this notion her full measure of thought. Then she smiled down at him. "So, I am going to bury you up here in the Thin, under the dry sand. Unable to breathe the air, unable to breathe the water—a fine way for you to go. We'll just let the things that cannot live under the water clean your bones. How's that?"

  He shook his head, and he started to cry, his good eye flooding with tears. The cold wet sand of North Hampton Beach tightened around his shoulders, his neck, pulling him under, and with a heavy folding crackling noise, swallowed his body.

  Chapter 29 - Scissors

  Kassandra paced up and down the back walk, holding a full assembly discussion with herself. "Cut my ties with them, now is the right time. Both of them. I will only drag them down if we remain together." A bowl full of ideas in her head, most of them swimming in the same direction. "I have proven my own inability to handle this, nearly killed them with my stupidity."

  She stepped into the house, bold steps, right to the junk drawer in the kitchen. She pulled out a heavy pair of scissors, big steel ones with painted black loops for fingers.

  She peeked into the living room. "Jill?"

  Gregor, sitting on the couch, looked up from a half-played chessboard. "Upstairs, I think." A look of concern swept his face. "What are going to do with the scissors?"

  "Cut my ties with the seaborn."

  She waved him back, a forced smile on her face. "Not really, dad. Being figurative." She shrugged. "And I've already done that. Did that during the battle in the north. Showed them what I really was."

  What a ruthless fucking monster I am.

  He stared at her, taking a moment to remember to breathe. Kassandra turned back into the kitchen to the stairs, bounding up them to the second floor, down the hall to Jill's bedroom. She burst in without knocking.

  Jill swung around, startled, sitting on the edge of her bed, one of her hands still rubbing her eyes. Kassandra strode right up to her, jammed the handles of the scissors into her sister's hands, and turned around.

  "Do it. As far as you can drive them. I am mortal. I have commanded the past Wreath-wearers to do nothing. I will die. Do it, Jillian. I have hurt you to the core, crushed your heart. I am wrong. I do not deserve your forgiveness. I do not deserve to be your sister. I deserve your anger."

  Jill stood up behind her, holding the scissors like a dagger, her hands shaking. She took the sheers in both hands, raising it over her head. Her fingers slipped into the cold metal rings for a better grip.

  Kassandra let a minute go by, silence, feeling Jill's rage and indecision, and then let out a long slow breath. She swung her three long braids over her shoulder, penduluming across her back.

  "Then please, if you will, cut them off, Jill. They are not me. Cut them off and make the appointment at Maxine's. Get my hair dyed or highlighted, zebra stripes if you want. Just cut them off. Please."

  Kassandra felt Jill's relief in the air, and then stiffened at the cold metal sliding across the back of her neck. Fingers shaking, Jill squeezed the handle, a metallic fibrous stomach-squeezing sound, and Kassandra's right braid thumped at her feet, coiling on its own and laying still. Another slide of metal, a crunch and snip through the bundle of hair, and the middle braid fell with the first one. Kassandra let out a deep breath with the last braid gone, reaching her hand around to ruffle her hair loose.

  "Thank you." She desperately wanted to call her "sister," but kept her mouth shut.

  Jill didn't say anything, just set down the scissors, and pulled out her phone, went through the receptionist to get to the proprietor, Maxine of Triple M Salon. Then she called in favors, and got an immediate appointment.

  Kassandra took the stairs slowly, shaking her head, feeling the brush of her short hair against her ears, the cool air on her neck. She felt different, lighter, a weight taken off her shoulders...and she liked it. Zypheria came in from the mudroom with a bag of vegetables and eggs from the farmer's market, stopped at the foot of the stairs, staring up Kassandra's weird serene smile, dropped the eggs.

  "What happened to your hair?"

  Kassandra took the last flight of stairs slowly, and at the bottom, held out the three braided loops of hair. "Keep them for me, Zypheria. They used to be me." She walked past her, stepped over the eggs. "I'm going with Jill to get my hair done. Don't let my father near the door."

  Maxine shrieked in ecstasy at the appearance of one of Jill's mysterious sisters. She had heard about them for years, but neither of them had ever set foot inside her salon. "Which is too bad," said Maxine, running her fingers through Kassandra's thick wavy hair. "You have gorgeous hair. What should we do with it?"

  On the ride back from Maxine's, Jill turned to Kassandra, put her hand on her arm. "Hey. You did for me what a sister should do. You were just watching out for me."

  Kassandra's voice was flat. "A sister would have done it without hurting you."

  They drove on in silence, but just as she braked to a stop in the driveway, Jill sighed. "What if there wasn't a way to do it without hurting?

  "I don't know. If I hurt this bad doing what I did to you, I cannot even imagine how you feel. And I can't see a way to make that not hurt, or heal faster. You have a heart, Jill that you hold out in front of you, that you use all the time, that you expose for the world to see, share, hold, and hurt. Your heart is like the sun, Jill, beauty and kindness that is blinding. I have trouble finding mine most of the time."

  Gregor met them at the front door. Kassandra gave Zypheria a glare for not being there before her father, but that faded quickly. The change in him made her heart jump unexpectedly. He looked happy, smiling, something lifted off his shoulders as well. He looked at her short hair, swaying around her ears, silky right from the salon perfection, parted a little off to one side, a wavy dark angle across one eye, and blue stripes spaced a few inches apart, running vertically.

  "I—I love it!"

  "Thanks, dad. Can we get away from the front door." She shut and locked it behind her. "Where's Nic?"

  Nicole came up the basement stairs dripping wet, deep shock in her expression when she saw her sister. "I was out for a swim, went to Georges Bank and back with Ochleros. Zypheria showed me your braids. I didn't believe her." She stammered something, then nodded. "Looks good." A smile at Jill. "You wouldn't let her get anything that made her look bad."

  Jill shook her head. "Never."

  Kassandra jutted her chin back into the kitchen. "You got a minute, Nic?" She took the steps into the basement two at a time, calling over her shoulder. "Just need a few minutes alone."

  Kassandra stopped next to the far wall, old cemented stone and rows of stacked plastic storage boxes on a pallet. "Nicole." She pulled in a deep breath, closed her eyes a moment, and then opened them, and released it. "I just want to say that I am sorry for everything I have put you through. I..." Her voice was getting rough, and she cleared her throat. "I want to give you your life back. I really do."

  Nicole scowled at her. "What?"

  "But I can't."

  "I don't want a different life. What are you talking about?"

  "I have so much to tell you, Nicole. Not enough time in the rest of our lives to explain it all, but I have to try. I told you once that that there is no me anymore, no Kassandra left, just the name. Maybe it's the other way around, there's only me, but I have become it. And I have to do what it wants."

  "But—"

  "I am powerless—me. I am weak, entirely in its control." Her voice died, her body shuddering with a fresh wave of hatred for what she had become. "I have known you for most of my life, Nicole Garcia. You are the one with power—and loyalty. You are honest, you keep your word. I am just a really hungry animal with way too much force at my disposal. You are free. You have a choice. I do not. I've been used every day of my life, and I use everyone who gets near me, twi
st every friendship, kill every love. I'm a puppet in someone else's world. Always have been. You." She poked Nicole in the center of the chest. "You have no strings."

  Nicole stared at her, a shiver of pain, confused.

  Kassandra stared back, pleading, "Forgive me, Nicole. Please forgive me. Do not answer now, but in the end—if I have not destroyed you—when all of this is over, I would ask...I will beg for your forgiveness...and I ask that you consider it."

  "I already—"

  Kassandra held up her hand, a startled look on her face.

  "What is it?"

  "She's here." Kassandra ran for the basement stairs.

  Zypheria, in the living room, turned at a chill up her back, a command from Kassandra. She grabbed Gregor by the arms and pulled. A squeal of timber, and the door flew off its hinges, coming away with half the structure around the entry way, bracing and slats splintering, ripped off the front of the house.

  Chapter 30 - The Old Sirens

  Theoxena of the Kirkêlatides, war-bard to King Tharsaleos, stood in the ruined doorway, one hand raised, fingers curling. She sang a short hop of notes, and Gregor and Zypheria winced, a snap and squeal noise in their ears, their throats scorched raw. All the breath left Gregor's lungs, an acid burn in his mouth, cutting through wet tissue, vocal cords disintegrating. Gregor gasped, mouth ratcheting open, his hands at his neck, clawing for his voice, for air. He tried to counter with something defensive, but he couldn't make a song, say a word, his voice torn out of him.

  In the basement, Kassandra screamed agony, a long wail of pain, and all the windows in the house shattered, burst in with the force of the Atlantic, glass pooling, rolling down the stairs, a deadly skin-cutting flow into the kitchen. And she was running up the stairs, yelling commands at Nicole over her shoulder.