Vast and Brutal Sea

by Zoraida Cordova

  Everyone nods, like we’re all picturing the same thing—jaws chomping blindly and ready to devour.

  “How did you get past the great white beasts?” Ewin asks.

  Layla’s eyes swivel between Thalia and me. She must have seen Kurt. “Someone was arriving. They parted for them. That’s when I saw Atticus hiding. Swam like hell all the way to the shore.”

  I draw a few sharks beneath my outline of the island.

  “Is there anything else you saw?” Frederik asks.

  Layla’s eyebrows furrow. “Other than the fact that Nieve has more mood swings than my cousin pregnant with triplets? She almost never lets Gwen or Archer out of her sight. You can see that she loves them. Every time they’re gone for too long, you can hear her scream for them.”

  “I can use that,” I say, squeezing her hand lightly.

  “The beach is full of merrows,” Thalia says.

  I nod, still thinking of the last order they had from Nieve. “They can’t risk losing their numbers so close to tomorrow night’s full moon. She told Gwen and Archer to go fishing in the morning.”

  “Let them try. I want to keep a line here.” Frederik draws a line across the beach. “For merrows or any rogue mermaids trying to come ashore.”

  Ewin seems confused. “Why would the mermaids of your court attack the shore when you’re defending it?”

  “Because the king is dead,” I say. “The trident is severed into three pieces, which means his laws, his bindings, they’re all going to be broken.”

  “It’s what has kept the land safe from us for eons,” Brendan says.

  “And also from us being discovered by humans,” Kai adds. “Our laws have changed. Actually, they’ve been discarded completely.”

  “She doesn’t have Layla anymore, but she’s still keeping the nautilus maid. She hasn’t figured out what I want with her. She doesn’t know about the Sleeping Giants. Big plus for us.” I draw Toliss as I remember it—the beach, the forest, the river that leads to a waterfall behind the valley where the Sea Court gathers. The king’s throne, marking the entrance to the inner chambers.

  “So how do I get me from here to here?” I say, drawing a line with my fingertip from the boardwalk to Toliss.

  “What do you mean ‘you’?” Layla says. “We’re all going. Isn’t that the point of having a small army? That you don’t have to go at it alone?”

  Frederik stands beside me. I’m so used to Kurt being there, lending his suggestions. But Kurt isn’t here, is he? I have to keep reminding myself of that because part of me keeps forgetting.

  “I have to go in first,” I say. “You’ll wait for my signal. What’s up, Vampire Guy?”

  “I’m concerned the night creatures won’t be much help until nightfall.”

  Kai shakes her head. “Not so.”

  “What do you mean, not so?” Marty asks, jumpy. “Sun equals extra-well-done vampires. And no offense to other supernatural beings in the room, but few things on this plane equal vampire strength.”

  Ewin smirks and Marty amends his statement. “Except for a warrior of the Vasiks clan.”

  Kai takes the marker and draws the outline of an eclipse in the corner.

  “Remember the prophecy,” Shelly says, repeating one line. “‘And in darkness we will remain.’ Everything we’re doing is changing the natural weather of this plane.”

  “This puts me and mine back in the game,” Frederik says, eyeing the map like he’s trying to sink my battleship.

  “Once I free the Sleeping Giants,” I say, “I think we can expect thunderstorms with a chance of hellfire. I don’t know where the other two will be coming from, but the kraken is inside Toliss.” See, Kurt? I think. I did pay attention to some of the things you babbled about.

  “That creature hasn’t been awake in years,” Thalia says.

  “Then it’s sure as hell going to be cranky when it wakes up,” I say, explaining that each trident piece corresponds to a different sea beastie. “I get Doris, the badass sea horse with claws. Nieve, the kraken. And Kurt, the turtle with the spike collar.”

  “Why are we giving Nieve and Kurt more power?” Layla asks.

  “They won’t know what’s happening. That’s where I have the upper hand. I can attack Nieve’s merrows and open the field for your entrance. I know we can beat them.”

  Once again they break into a chorus of indecipherable arguments. That I’m insane to wake these creatures up. That I don’t know if I’ll be able to control them. But among all of their noise, all I see are Shelly’s dark, sad eyes. I hold my palm up so she can see it. There’s the scar that bears the promise I made to the nautilus maid. To end her life and set free the Sleeping Giants of the sea. To use them to put an end to Nieve, to start a new world for everyone in this building.

  She nods once, and then her voice is in my head. “I know.”

  Frederik’s head turns to the door. “The gates just opened, and patrol isn’t due to change for another twelve minutes.”

  I run after him, leaning over the banister to see what the commotion is about. The downstairs hall is filling up with mermen in armor. I don’t recognize their faces, most of them with patches of scars. They shake hands with my army of strays and unload their weapons. One of them looks up at where I stand frozen, staring unbelieving at them.

  “Master Tristan,” Arion says. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  I pull Arion into a man-hug. “I looked for you, and you weren’t there.”

  He smacks my back affectionately. “The blast severed my rope. I woke up on a strange beach. As soon as I could, I swam to some old friends. They’re here to fight for you.”

  I shake hands with the newcomers. We feed them and give them water. Dylan is fascinated with their weapons craftsmanship. I leave him to prepare the artillery for the battle.

  “Come, Arion,” I say. “We’re going over our strategy.”

  It’s strange and wonderful to see him walking. The black and white scales on his forearms have patches of pearly scars where his ropes used to be, but not anymore. The roundtable welcomes him with open arms. Kai hugs him the longest.

  I catch him up on what we’ve discussed. He agrees with my plan, which makes me feel like I got an A on a test I hardly studied for.

  “What about our fin-challenged friends?” I ask.

  “I can swim.” Marty raises his hand.

  “It’s best to save that energy for fighting,” Brendan points out.

  “Master Tristan,” Arion says.

  “Just Tristan.”

  He smiles, but I know him better than that. “I have a ship. It is yours.”

  “Thank you, Arion. We’ll load it up tonight.” I can see in my team’s faces that they’re more and more hopeful that we’ve got this.

  “Brendan, Kai,” I continue. “Mix and match our troops into small teams. They may have the numbers, but I’d love to watch a merrow figure out what to do when a werewolf is coming at them.”

  Ewin points to the Toliss drawing. “I understand there is only one beach on this island.”

  Thalia nods. “Toliss can be entered two ways, through the beach or through the tunnels. The rest of the island is comprised of cliffs.”

  At the thought of cliffs, I remember Karel pushing me off them.

  “There is a third way,” Frederik points out. The merpeople are confused as Frederik draws birds above Toliss. “We have wings at our disposal.”

  “Where will you be, Tristan?” Layla asks. I can feel her jitters. She’s good at hiding it, but her nerves smell of smoke.

  “After I send out my signal,” I say. “Leave finding Nieve to me.”

  “What about my brother?” Thalia whispers.

  I swallow the dryness that coats my mouth. My heartbeat spikes because I have to tell her. “He’s already there.”

&n
bsp; “What do you mean, he’s already there?” She gets up, her chair smacking the floor. Layla goes to calm her down. Thalia balls her hands into fists, as if she can take all her anger and choke it. “He wouldn’t.”

  “I know my sister,” Shelly says. “She’s been obsessed with the boy since he was born. She must know that Nieve would kill him. Joining forces with her would keep him alive.”

  “She’s controlling him,” Thalia raises her voice. “She has to be.”

  “He chose her,” I say, though I wish I could agree with Thalia. “I saw it.”

  Thalia sits back down, her jaw set, her yellow-green eyes full of fire.

  “Then it’s settled,” I say, after a moment of silence. The plan is set. “Now, raise your hand if you don’t know how to swim.”

  My army of solitary beings and court mermaids sleeps. Or at least they try. After an hour of twisting and turning on a floor that still smells of greasy pizza and fish, I give up. Everything I see is black. There’s no Kurt. No Nieve. I wonder if they’ve finally figured out our connection too.

  Wind whistles through the top of the broken window. Rotating shifts patrol the shoreline, but I know there won’t be any trouble. Not for a few hours at least.

  Off in a corner, Marty and Brendan are having a snoring competition. I’m tempted to take a bit of leftover pizza crust and throw it in their wide-open mouths. Amada is in her Naga form in a hammock because she doesn’t know how to sleep in her human body. The merpeople downstairs are still unnerved by her, but no one is saying anything, not after she let the young merboys ride on her back and kept them from crying while their parents prepared for battle.

  I decide to go downstairs where every inch of the warehouse has turned into a campsite. Some can sleep better than others. Children cry and mothers shush them. A guard with a trident tattoo leans his head back against the wall. His eyes are shut, but he twists the dagger in his hands over and over.

  I start ticking off numbers to have a full count of my army of strays, but it’s pointless. Most of the Thorne Hill Alliance isn’t sleeping here. They have their own homes right here on Coney Island. They will fight beside me to protect it. I think of my parents, out in Long Island where I told them to go until this was all over.

  It’s the merpeople I’m scared for. There’s so much riding on me, and I feel the weight of it. Each one of their lives, like a human pyramid stacked on my shoulders. I can’t let them fall.

  The girls have gotten creative and turned the tables into bed. They give canvas and rope to the merpeople for pillows. Layla shows a mother how to make a sling for her baby. It cries out for water so she fills a wash bucket and it quiets down. No one is allowed to go into the water.

  Not until I give my signal.

  “You need sleep,” Frederik says beside me.

  I jump. “Did I mention I hate it when you do that?”

  He smirks. “Can’t help it.”

  “Do you walk on air or something?”

  “Or something.”

  If someone had told me a few weeks ago that I’d be sitting with a vampire, in the dark, getting ready for the biggest battle of my life, I would have laughed. I’m still laughing.

  “How can they sleep?” I say, thinking of Marty and my cousin spread out in the office like we’re at summer camp.

  Frederik shrugs. “Sometimes the body wins over the mind.”

  My body and my mind are both warring against me.

  “Are you going to ask me to rethink my plan?” I ask him.

  He shakes his head and tucks a black strand behind his ear. He leans forward on the railing, fingers touching in that conspiratorial way of his. “No.”

  It would be weird to confess that I want his approval. He’s ancient compared to me. All of them are. They’ve all had their share of wars, but here they are, backing me up.

  “In fact,” Frederik says, “it’s smart.”

  “But—?” It sounds like there’s a “but” at the end of that compliment.

  “But—” He hovers over what he wants to say. My heart tightens like a fist. I feel like I’m getting dumped or something. “I wonder if you’ve given more thought to what you will do when it comes to Kurt.”

  “I’ve been sort of busy,” I lie. Kurt is in the back of my head, at the front of my head. He’s there when I hold the Scepter of the Earth because the ancient weapon is incomplete, and Kurt and Nieve hold the other pieces. Kurt is there when I look at Thalia because he’s her brother. He’s there when I look at myself, because we, yeah, okay, Layla pointed out we have the same nose and the same stubborn frown when things don’t go our way. He’s there when he’s not there because I was counting on him and he’s missing.

  “You should rest,” Frederik tells me.

  “My blood is pumping like crazy,” I say, “not that I should confess that to a vamp. You should go get some sleep.”

  “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

  “You’re already dead.”

  “The dust kind of dead.” He looks behind me and smirks. “Though I don’t suppose you’ve got sleep on your mind, either.”

  And just as quickly as he appeared, he’s gone. I see what he was looking at before he vanished. Layla. She cut her sweatpants into shorts. The hoodie she’s wearing swallows her up, covering her so that all I can focus on are her sun-kissed legs. Her hair is curled from the humidity, framing her cheekbones in a way that makes my gut fall like it’s at the peak of a roller coaster.

  “You’d be terrible at sneak attacks,” I say.

  “Good thing I’m not trying to be sneaky.” She sits beside me and my body heats up instantly. “We almost maxed out all the guest rooms. Marty’s going to have a hell of a time laundering the sheets.”

  “I’m going to try to sleep standing up.”

  She takes my hand. “I think there’s still room upstairs.”

  I let her tug on my fingers, and without even thinking, I follow her up the steps and into an empty guest room. It’s all black and red. There’s an arched window with a ledge cluttered with old books. I sit on the bed beside her.

  Now that it’s just the two of us, I let my body deflate. She rubs my shoulder, and some of that pressure eases off.

  “That’s amazing.”

  “Jesus, Tristan. You’re like overcooked steak.”

  “Thanks? I’m a little tense, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  She squeezes extra hard and I pull back. There’s this moment where I want to reach out and grab her. I want to hold her in my arms and tell her everything I feel about her. In the dim light of the room, we reach for each other at the same time. My knee is shaking and she puts a hand over it. She touches my chest, tracing her finger on my new tattoo.

  “I’m kidnapped for a few hours, and you chop off your hair and get tatted up.” She edges closer to me, her warm breath right at my ear. “Any piercings while you were at it?”

  I answer with a crooked smile and a wink. She doesn’t believe that I’d pierce anything. I have to get belted onto the table when the team does the yearly blood drive. But still, she lets her hand wander from my chest. I hold her eyes, daring her, as she keeps exploring down. My heart is stuck in my throat. When she gets to my stomach, I grab her hand.

  It is the most painful thing I’ve ever done to myself. “Wait.”

  “Wait?”

  “I have to say something.”

  She sits back and listens.

  “Tomorrow,” I say, “when this all happens, I want you to promise me, and I mean seriously promise me, that you’re going to stay somewhere safe. I can’t tell you what to do, because you’re you, and you don’t listen, even when I’m trying to protect you.”

  “Not helping.”

  “I don’t care. If something happened to you, I’d—It wouldn’t be good for me.”

  She leans forward, re
sting her head on my chest. “What about me? I could say the same to you and it’d be like talking to the wind.”

  “It’s different, Layla. I chose this.”

  She presses her hand on my face, leading me down so we’re less than an inch apart. “So did I.”

  “It’s in my blood. It calls to me.”

  She stands up. The light of the street and the fog fill the room with a strange glow, like we’re stuck in an old movie. She takes off her sweater. Her skin is hot to the touch. Her tank top is ripped and has a black stain I’d rather not think about. She bats those thick, black lashes and I forget why we’re here and not tangled back at home on a couch. Or on the beach.

  “Don’t ask me to go home,” she whispers.

  I smile, pulling on her hands. She sits on me, one knee on either side of me. I want to jump out of my skin, but it’s best if I don’t move. “There’s no telling you what to do.”

  “Only took you sixteen years to figure it out.”

  She traces the lines of my face, like outlining where my hair used to be.

  “You don’t like it.” I keep my hands pressed firmly on her lower back. “Layla—”

  But she doesn’t want me to talk. So she kisses me. It’s so soft that I open my eyes to make sure it really happened. It’s not enough. Not when either of us could be gone in a few hours. No, I don’t want to think like that. I just want to feel her lips on mine. Again. Again. Again. She moves her face to the side and kisses my jaw, my neck. I lean in against her. Her breath hitches when I pull her closer because she’s still too far away. I kiss her cheek and then stop because her face is wet.

  “That bad, eh?” I try to joke, but I’m nervous. I lean back on the bed and keep my hands at my sides.

  She shakes her head, wipes the tears from her eyes, then presses her wet fingers on my face. “I’m trying to not be mad at you.”

  “What did I do now?” I bark out, laughing, and she puts a hand over my mouth. That pulls me out of our bedroom dream and back to reality. A vampire’s home. A storm. A battle.