by Tricia Barr
“Are you sure you’re fine?” Sebastian asked Skylar. “You were out for a long time. You don’t have to go on this dive with us if you’re not up for it.”
“Nonsense,” Skylar said. “I’m fine. The storm has passed and I feel fine. Besides, I’ve come this far with you guys, I’m not going to abandon you now, especially considering what we might face down there.”
“If you say so,” Sebastian said, somewhat reluctantly. “Just don’t slow us down,” he teased.
Skylar didn’t even react to the joke. He just took a huge bite of his sandwich, and Sebastian shrugged it off.
Just then, Ralph accidentally knocked his beer over on the table while reaching for another sandwich and it spilled all over Sebastian’s and Skylar’s laps.
“Oh geez, sorry about that guys,” Ralph said a bit too loudly, thoroughly intoxicated.
“Don’t worry about it,” Sebastian said jovially, drying himself off with a handful of napkins. “Not like these clothes weren’t already soaked once today.”
“I hear you, man,” Ralph said, attempting to clean up his mess but just making it worse. “I’m just so glad to be alive after that crash. I’m in celebration mode. I’d encourage you to celebrate too but I’m not too sure how old you are…but then again, we’re on international waters—probably—eh, who cares! Here, have a drink.” Ralph held a fresh bottle of beer toward Sebastian.
Sebastian laughed. “No thanks. I would, but we’re diving later.”
Ralph shrugged. “More for me.”
Now that Ralph had inserted himself into their conversation, he went on and on about completely random topics, and Sebastian, being the social butterfly that he was, went right along with it. Somehow the subject of Ralph’s past came up and he told them all about how he used to be a bounty hunter in New York City. Phoenyx didn’t mind his drunken babble because his story was actually pretty interesting, if any of it was true. He went on about how he worked the system to his advantage, helping certain criminals when it benefited him and busting criminals only when they had become a personal problem.
“That’s a pretty big leap from bounty hunter to pilot,” Phoenyx said. “What inspired that change?”
“The bounty business got a little too complicated,” Ralph said with a mouth full of chips. “I was getting older and needed to get out of the game and into something a little more secure, something with a retirement plan and not just a retirement hope.” He laughed like he just made the funniest joke he’d ever heard. “Besides, I needed an easy way to get out of the country at the last minute.” He laughed again. “And being a pilot is great, especially a private pilot. The hours are flexible, the pay is great, and there’s almost no stress.”
And then they somehow got to talking about Vegas. Sebastian bragged about his escapades in the casinos and Ralph talked about the connections he had there and the misadventures with the city’s underbelly. Phoenyx loved hearing them go back and forth. It all made for a great pallet cleanser between surviving a plane crash and foolishly going back into the water for who-knew-what-dangers lay in wait for them.
“So, what’s your deal,” Ralph blurted out after he had finished his fourth beer.
“Excuse me?” Sebastian asked, leaning back casually in his chair as if he was just dealing with a drunken fool.
“You three.” Ralph pointed the end of his empty bottle at each of them.
Phoenyx’s pulse hiked up, and she tried not to react.
“What are you three doing out on this adventure with Ayanna?” he asked. “This seems a sudden and quick trip to take for research purposes.”
Phoenyx was starting to suspect that he wasn’t as inebriated as he was letting on. He was fishing for information. But to what end?
“When your professor asks you to accompany them on a field excursion that would look great on your resume and help you get into grad school, you jump at the opportunity,” Skylar responded in a cool tone, shrugging.
“It’s even better when your professor is fronting the bill,” Sebastian added.
Ralph shrugged. “Makes sense.” He sat back in his chair. “Not that I’ve spent much time around college students, but is it customary for students to refer to their professor by their first name? You three seem awfully chummy with your teacher.”
“We’re all adults,” Skylar said flatly, showing some impatience. “We’re not in high school anymore. How would you prefer we talk to her?” Skylar raised his hand, clearly a mocking gesture. “‘Miss, may I go to the bathroom?’ Or ‘Teacher, I know the plane is about to crash, but can I please be excused so I can puke in peace before we die?’”
Phoenyx bit her lip to keep from snickering, but Sebastian didn’t hide his amusement at all. Ralph looked at Skylar for a moment, and Phoenyx expected an angry outburst, but instead he barked out a laugh, slapping his knee.
“You’re a funny guy,” Ralph said, slapping him on the back.
Skylar looked sideways at him, irritated. “Thank you,” he said in a dry tone.
“Well, you guys have fun swimming,” Ralph said. He scooted his chair back and stood up, slightly off-balance. “I’m gonna go to my room and sleep off some of this beer.”
Ayanna, who had been engaging their hosts in conversation to distract them from Ralph’s improper behavior, looked down at them with an apologetic frown, mouthing “I’m sorry” as Ralph stumbled away.
Phoenyx hoped that Ralph would not become a problem, and hopefully the haze of the booze he’d ingested would make him forget his suspicions of them.
By late afternoon, they had just rounded past the Florida Keys and were entering the part of the Atlantic Ocean that was the tip of the Bermuda triangle. Kevin gave the four of them an hour-long lesson on how to use the scuba gear. Each suit came with a tank that, contrary to its small size, contained enough oxygen to last three hours, but he advised that the deeper they dove, the faster their tanks would run out. Knowing that they would be diving to the ocean floor, they would need to head back to the surface as soon as their tanks were at half capacity, which he estimated would be around an hour and a half into the dive; if they didn’t, they ran the risk of running out of air before returning to the boat.
The head gear was a lesson all in its own. They were to wear goggles, obviously, and a mouth piece that covered their nose, jaw and ears. It was fitted with a microphone so that they could communicate at short range distances, within about a twenty foot radius. This would come in very handy, Phoenyx thought. She hadn’t even considered the possibility of not being able to talk to each other while diving, and knowing that this feature wasn’t common in diving equipment, she was even more grateful to their rescuers for having it at their disposal.
After they entered the Atlantic Ocean, they all headed to the deck so that Sebastian could lead them in the right direction. The researchers thought it a little odd that Ayanna didn’t have exact coordinates for them, but Phoenyx was able to use her influence to make them overlook that detail and accept Sebastian as their wayward temporary captain.
“Any idea how close we are?” Phoenyx asked.
He was concentrating so hard, both on what was in front of him and what was far, far behind him in his mind. His mouth was set in a straight line, his jaw clenched, and his brows furrowed. “I knew this would be difficult. It was so many lifetimes ago that I accidentally found myself in those waters. I knew on our maps where we were, but the maps we had back then were so inferior to modern maps, comparison is almost impossible. So I’m trying to use my sense of the water to navigate, and I just feel lost. I…”
He paused, squinting into the distance.
“What is it?” Phoenyx asked.
“I think I see something familiar,” he said pensively. “Ayanna,” he called.
Ayanna, who had been making small talk with the professors to distract them, came to Sebastian’s side. “Yes?”
“Look, out there.” He pointed straight ahead. “What do you see?”
Ayanna squi
nted in the direction he was pointing. “Uhhh, little black dots? Are those boats maybe?”
“Not boats, rocks,” Sebastian corrected, excitement building in his voice. “I think those are the rocks we lured General Copeland into.”
“Are you sure?” Ayanna asked.
“I know we were sailing in this direction when they found us, north by northeast, and I remember those rocks being the sentinels of the Bermuda Triangle, the natural warning to sailors of the territory they were entering. I’m pretty sure that’s our spot.”
Phoenyx peered into the ocean before them, finally seeing the black speckles poking out of the water. From this distance, they could have been a family of black ducks floating on the surface. As they drew nearer, the small black dots grew larger and farther apart, revealing just how massive they truly were. Big as freight containers, shooting up out of the water like mini skyscrapers, with enough space in between them for an average sized boat to pass through them. Their presence suggested that the ocean floor here was shallower than the expected depth, which she hoped would allow them stay submerged longer. We really don’t know what we are going to find down there, and I’m sure we will need every second we can afford.
Sebastian pulled Ayanna aside. “Tell them to stop here before the rocks,” he whispered to her. “That way there’s less chance of getting stuck, or worse—lured into the same shipwreck trap as last time.”
She nodded and went to tell the driver—even though Sebastian was leading this expedition, the Florida research team couldn’t know that, and any directions or orders had to come from Ayanna.
Once they had dropped anchor, the four of them helped each other into their scuba suits, with Kevin there to properly situate the tanks and hoses.
“Alright, I think you’re all ready to go,” Kevin said, giving their gear a final once-over. “Now, if you run into any trouble or if you need help for any reason, there is a beacon on the inner right side of each of your tanks. It’s in a place that it won’t accidentally get pushed, and you have to press down hard in order for it transmit, but when you do, that will signal a distress light on deck, and we will know to send someone down after you.”
The four of them nodded, and Phoenyx tentatively reached behind her to feel for the button. He fingers were shaking as they fumbled over her shoulder blades, and she brought her hand in front of her to rub away the tremor. She had only just escaped the water’s clutches not twenty-four hours ago, and here she was now about to willingly jump right back in. Last time she had only been under for a few brief minutes, and this time she was committing to be under for at least two solid hours. The circumstances were different—this voyage into the water would be controlled, and she would be safe from the ocean’s icy chill in the warm and cozy comfort of the wetsuit—but it was no less frightening. The danger of the last swim had been the plane crashing. The danger this time was possibly being eaten alive by cannibalistic amphibious humanoids, she thought to herself sadistically.
But she wasn’t alone. She had her soul sister, Ayanna, her beloved Sebastian, and Skylar, whom she now considered a brother at the very least. Skylar had just come out of a storm-induced mini coma, and he was willing to risk his life with the rest of them. That reminded her that this wasn’t a choice, for any of them.
Sebastian turned around to look at the three of them. “Ready?”
They all gave silent nods, then followed him over the rail and down the rope ladder toward the water. Phoenyx was right behind him to enter the water, and she tried not to react as she willingly stepped into the water, tried to contain her shudder as the water rose up over her body to swallow her, tried to resist from shrieking with feline discomfort as it soaked her hair.
Skylar and Ayanna splashed into the water behind her. Phoenyx looked back at both of them, floating stiff and nearly frozen in the cold water. Ayanna, who was comfortable in any element, put a reassuring hand on Phoenyx’s shoulder, and Skylar nodded at her, as if to say “you can do this.” Once they were all in the water, they dove under the surface and swam after Sebastian’s lead.
The soft pinks and oranges of the pre-sunset sky bled into the water, giving the undersea a rose-tinted glow in every direction. The light was so calming and made Phoenyx feel as though she were dreaming. And the weightlessness was a surprising sensation. When she had escaped the sinking plane, the water had seemed to be pulling her down, like she were an anchor plunging despite her struggles to reach the surface. But now that she was intentionally moving through the water, she had a much greater senses of control; she was just floating, not pulled or bound by any force. The experience wasn’t quite so harrowing for the time being, and as she gracelessly floundered through the sea alongside Sebastian, an exhilarating sense of freedom flooded her veins. She now understood why Sebastian enjoyed swimming so much.
Sebastian led them deeper and deeper into the sea, and they were soon scaling the shallow sea floor and weaving around the jagged rock formations that jutted up through the surface. Fish of all different shapes, sizes and colors scurried about around them, and Phoenyx watched them, mystified. Several times, she reached out to touch one, and, quicker than she could blink, they zoomed out of reach.
They swam along the sea floor for what seemed like a long time, and all of Phoenyx’s attention was on the tiny crabs, fish and snails that moved amongst the rocks and pockets in the sea floor beneath them. They rounded the final jutting rock arm in their field of view, and the sea floor dropped and disappeared into the dark abyss of the water. Phoenyx’s stomach dropped like the sea floor at the sudden emptiness. It was disconcerting to suddenly have nothing under them, like the ground had been pulled out beneath them and they would plunge into the depths.
“What are we looking for, Sebastian?” Skylar’s voice sounded in the speakers in her ears, almost obnoxiously loud in the dead quiet of the sea around them.
“I honestly don’t know,” Sebastian’s voice answered thoughtfully. “Last time I was here, I didn’t have to search them out, they came to me. I’m not too sure how to go about finding them. I almost expected to have to fight them off.”
“That’s reassuring,” Ayanna said in a sardonic tone.
They were quiet as they floated above the murky pit below.
“I think I have an idea,” Sebastian finally said. “They don’t speak as we do, their communication is…it’s hard to explain. It’s through frequencies, sort of like dolphins or whales. I was able to mimic that frequency to communicate with them before. Maybe I can do that again, just to draw one out.”
Sebastian closed his eyes and concentrated for a few seconds. Phoenyx listened hard, waiting for any echo or vibration in the water, but it appeared as though nothing happened. Is Sebastian doing anything? Or am I just too deaf to it to hear whatever he’s doing?
Sebastian opened his eyes and said, “I think it will help if we go deeper, if we keep moving.”
The three of them nodded and followed him into that murky blackness they’d been hovering just above. Phoenyx gulped and took a deep breath, only after remembering that she needed to conserve her oxygen. As they descended, there were fewer and fewer fish and rock formations to distract her. At this depth, the blackness was almost tangible, thick in its inkiness. Anticipation swelled inside Phoenyx’s chest, and she feared that less appealing sea critters than fish or crabs swarmed in the darkness waiting to snatch her.
“I sense one,” Sebastian whispered, a sense of both wonder and foreboding in his voice. He had stopped swimming and was just floating in place, concentrating.
The three of them halted, the sudden lack of airy sound hinting they were all holding their breath.
“It’s confused,” Sebastian said. “It’s coming to investigate my call.”
Phoenyx could almost hear Ayanna and Skylar swallow hard as she did. She was on high alert, twitching in every direction for any sign of this creature.
“Its hesitation is…odd,” Sebastian whispered. “I think it’s best if I use the wa
ter to cloak us.”
Once again, Phoenyx watched keenly for any change in the water, but nothing changed. Sebastian must have just created the illusion that they weren’t there so that the creature wouldn’t see them when it came close. She was grateful for that; it would give them the upper hand in case the creature planned to attack them.
“From which direction is it approaching?” Ayanna asked, en guard.
Skylar answered, “Straight ahead.” Phoenyx realized that he must be able to sense the creature’s mind.
Phoenyx had her eyes glued to the gloom in front of her. The darkness was so thick now, they couldn’t see more than a few feet in any direction. The temptation to turn on her goggle light was unbearable, but she couldn’t risk spooking the creature away, even as terrified as she was of facing of it.
The inky water in front of them began to move, like smoke slithering in the dark, and Phoenyx twitched and gave a startled gasp. Something was coming. Through the watery tendrils, she saw it emerge, and it was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen.
The creature that wafted gracefully and hesitantly before them was breathtaking. It was humanoid in shape, with distinctly feminine features. Phoenyx couldn’t stop staring at the mermaid’s skin. Shimmery, iridescent light blue scales covered the mermaid from head to fin. The scales were not hard and rough like that of a lizard, but soft and silky like that of a goldfish. Each scale was like a perfectly placed blue pearl, almost glowing as it reflected the scant remaining light from the setting sun at the surface. Phoenyx wanted so badly to reach out and touch it.
The creature had an exquisite rounded face, with large completely black eyes, as if the pupil had opened up to consume the entire eye. Full lips pouted in lovely confusion as her head turned from side to side in search of something, revealing elfish, slightly pointed ears as the movement in the water lifted silky black hair.
The rest of her body was just as beautiful, oddly sexy even. She was blessed with full breasts that were left uncovered, a narrow waist and wide hips that gave way to her trademark sea-maiden tail. The tail was longer than human legs would have stretched out to be, with so many curves that Phoenyx couldn’t imagine what the skeletal structure looked like. At the end of the tail were four large, white, billowing fins, with three narrower fins lining either side of the tail’s length.