“This is a good vantage point,” I agreed. But I remained mostly submerged. Vibrations against my skin could tell me as much, if not more, as what we could see.
Keegan nodded. “When something happens, I’ll be ready to dive.”
He pulled his pelt around his shoulders and changed. In moments, I was staring into the face of a Steller sea lion again. He let out a belching laugh and shook his head and shoulders, his shaggy mane sprinkling me with sea spray.
I smiled, despite myself. Sea lion belches were much more entertaining than humans’.
In the distance, the killer whale pod approached. Their dive patterns were steady, each of them taking three to four short dives before taking a turn at a longer dive of several minutes. I watched their progress as they came closer. If they passed us by, we’d have to move to another outcropping, but this area had plenty. We could follow them for quite some time before having to come up with a different strategy.
The shallows beneath the waves filled with their clicks and whistles, and most importantly, their pulsed calls. The clicks were mostly for echolocation and locating their own prey. It was the calls, pulsed signals, that made the foundation of their language. I settled in to listen as their song wove through the rest of the sounds of the surrounding sea.
A storm was approaching from far offshore and would arrive by morning, so the currents and waves were already swelling with the weather pattern’s violence. It wasn’t until the killer whales changed their course abruptly, letting out shrill whistles and rapid clicks, that I realized the undertone wasn’t just the approaching storm. It was something much more vicious.
Resident killer whales normally only made abrupt changes in course when going after prey but there was a sharp tone of fear in their calls. This wasn’t hunting behavior on their part. They were evading a bigger predator.
I dove, staying close to the shelter of the rock formation. The whales were close enough for me to see, headed to the shallowest water they could dare.
Out of the deepest darkness between islands, I saw it.
It was massive.
This wasn’t any modern-day animal. It was a thing of myth and legend, a true sea monster, perhaps once mistaken for a seagoing dragon or a great serpent. It had the characteristics of both, though it had only one head, not multiple, as some religious texts claimed. I could only guess at its size based on the darker shadow of its bulk against the night seas and the flickers of bio-luminescence along its length. It was a creature of the unexplored abyssal depths in this world, and the stories of old claimed there was only one in existence.
Leviathan.
Whether this was the sole representative of the species or not, it shouldn’t be here. A predator this big could wipe out the entire killer whale population in a matter of nights. The negative impact to the rest of the ecosystems was too horrible to consider.
And if this monster ran out of whales to eat, what would it go after next?
From my somewhat safe vantage point, I stared, racing through any possible way to deter it. Humans called humpback and blue whales leviathans due to the size of those peaceful cetaceans. That was laughable when faced with the reality. This creature was many times larger in length and girth. And yet, the leviathan moved with the symphony of the ocean, with a grace that belied its huge size. It was, in so many ways, terrifyingly beautiful.
Any damage my claws and razor-sharp fins could do would be no more than paper cuts in the flesh of it. My diver’s knife wouldn’t do better or worse. Perhaps there were weak spots in the soft flesh just under its jaw or behind the collar, where its head joined with its neck. Even a spear wouldn’t be enough though, not even at the weak spots. This animal looked to be armored to potentially withstand the torpedoes humans had created to fight each other.
The killer whales had gone so far into the shallows they were practically beaching themselves, and still the leviathan approached. The top of its great head broke the surface, then its back, and I could see why sailors told stories of coming upon the leviathan in open seas, thinking it was an island. But it kept its face below water. It’d left its kill behind last night, beached up on rocks. Perhaps it hadn’t abandoned the previous kill willingly but couldn’t retrieve the carcass. Whatever its adaptations to allow it to rise up out of the crushing pressures of the abyss, even if it could come to the surface, it didn’t seem able to breathe air. That, at least, was a small mercy.
The panic of the killer whales reached me then, scattering my thoughts. Their desperate thrashing sent tremors through the water and shivered along my skin. Their combined fear stabbed me in the chest. I stared at a fellow creature of the sea and grimly acknowledged that could be me.
But it wasn’t, and I couldn’t watch this happen, doing nothing. The physical weapons I possessed might be useless against the leviathan, but I was the daughter of the Sea King, and in this moment I could use all of the nightmarish training of my past to save lives rather than conquer them.
I shot up through the water, away from my hiding place, ignoring Keegan’s angry sea lion bellow behind me.
I swam, picking up speed faster than any killer whale could manage. Bearing down on the leviathan at an angle, I streaked past it, angling my tail fin to cut across its eye. It roared in anger, not pain. I’d contacted the tough skin of its eye ridge, not the soft tissue of its actual eyeball.
Damn.
Well, I’d intended the move to get the leviathan’s attention. It would’ve just been a bonus to have managed wounding it on a first strike. I dove beneath it and swam along its underside, hoping it couldn’t completely double back on itself before I could get enough of a head start to avoid its jaws. I passed between its primary set of flippers, and then past two more sets bracketing its long body. As I cleared its wickedly barbed tail, I swam hard because the beast was long enough and serpentine enough to be able to turn and bite its own tail if it wanted to.
The water around me pressed against my sides, letting me know the leviathan had changed its course. I didn’t look back, didn’t need to. I headed directly for the swift current running between the islands.
I’d managed to turn it away from the killer whale pod. Now, I needed to figure out how not to get eaten.
A game plan would’ve been good. I couldn’t just swim forever. But sometimes we don’t have everything we need when we need it, and I figured I’d have to improvise as I went. Or die.
The latter wasn’t an acceptable option.
I wove through long stands of kelp, doing my best to confuse my pursuer. But the leviathan didn’t slow its progress coming after me. It ripped huge swaths of the kelp from the sea floor as it passed through. I was managing to stay ahead of it, but only because my magic let me find and ride the fast-moving currents that were too small to give the giant the same boost in speed.
My stamina was good but I was going to slow down eventually, or crash into some underwater outcropping. I wasn’t as familiar with the seascape around the San Juan Islands as I was with the Elliott Bay area, and there was only so long I could keep a cool head with this massive sea creature bearing down on me. All I knew for sure was that I needed to get to deep water if there was a chance it would return to its normal hunting grounds. Seeking a hiding spot and losing the thing too soon would only result in it returning to the Puget Sound for the new prey it’d found.
We cleared the islands, heading out into open sea. The currents were bigger here and some of them were faster. But there were also currents capable of carrying my pursuer, too.
The shivers along my sides and up my spine, the fear driving me forward eased. I cursed and risked a look back. I’d gotten too far ahead of the leviathan, even while I’d been thinking I couldn’t risk doing exactly that.
It was losing interest in me as prey. Like a cheetah on the hunt, or a number of other predators in this world, the leviathan had to weigh the cost of trying to continue after food it might not catch or conserving precious energy to begin a new hunt. We were still
too close to the Puget Sound and the new food source it’d been looking to go after.
I halted and faced it, hanging suspended in the water with growing dismay. Even with me no longer trying to evade, it wasn’t coming after me. It was turning back.
No. We weren’t as far out as I wanted but I was going to need to do something drastic. I gathered my power to me, pulling magic the way waters draw back from the shore as a wave gathers for a tsunami. More and more, I took in as much as my body could hold, until I had no choice but to release it or burst.
I touched my fingertips to my larimar pendant to help me focus. What I wanted had to be precise and accurate, a strike to a very specific location. Otherwise, I’d do irreparable damage to the seascape.
Once I had enough power gathered, I sent it streaking across the distance between us.
The magic exploded just beneath the leviathan’s head like the gas produced under high pressure in a depth charge. The magically summoned gas bubble expanded to reach the pressure of the surrounding water, producing a shock wave directly under my target. The leviathan shuddered and roared as the pressure wave went through its body, causing damage to its surface and its internal organs alike.
But I’d created the magic depth charge beneath the beast on purpose. With no place to vent, the momentum of the water moving away from the gas bubble as it expanded created a gaseous void at a lower pressure than the surrounding water, and the pressure of the seas collapsed the gas bubble under high pressure again. A second shock wave resulted before the leviathan could draw back, and a third hit as it pulled away from the Puget Sound and headed for open waters, giving me a wide berth.
This was the danger of any kind of depth charge triggered in the deep.
The gases drawn from the water by my magic finally rose up to the surface and vented to the air above, dissipating harmlessly in the storm summoned by my use of my power.
I watched the leviathan swim away, and I heard again the new song in the water. The deep bass was still pitched to a flat note but it thrummed with an angry rhythm.
Down, down, I looked and saw the shadows approaching. A dozen of them rising with spears made of whale bone, their faces turned up toward me and their gaping, fishy lips pulled back from sharp, translucent teeth.
They were Deep Dwellers. Perhaps my people and theirs had shared ancestry at some point, but they’d chosen the trenches and abyssal plains as their hunting grounds. They had evolved to survive in a world devoid of sunlight, harsh and unforgiving, with extremes in temperatures and living conditions. Their long bodies were a nightmarish design of strength and flexibility, their tails an impossible combination of eel and shark. Their upper bodies were bony but more fish than humanoid. Large eyes, all iris and pupil, designed to catch every bit of available light, reflected light from the surface back at me as if their eyes glowed.
Lorelei had tried to describe their true forms to me. Even if she hadn’t, I’d have recognized them for what they were.
Hate emanated from them. It would’ve been impossible to miss even if my small gift didn’t give me that insight. I saw it in the sharp, lashing movements of their eel-like tails and the aggressive posture of their hunched backs. Their spears were raised toward me, and I prepared to fight them claw and fin if I had to. My magic was tapped out. This would have to end quickly, or I wouldn’t come out of this fight in one piece. I’d put almost everything I had into deterring the leviathan, and the price of my magic was taking its toll already. I was exhausted.
The reality of the situation tightened into a compact weight in my gut as I admitted I couldn’t win against twelve of them in my current state.
It might’ve been what they’d planned. Their appearance right on the tail of the leviathan was too much to be coincidence, even if I hadn’t heard their song throughout it all. They’d called it here. They had to have. And now they were coming for me.
A battle cry tore through the water as a tawny form torpedoed toward the Deep Dwellers. They had been focused on me and scattered as the Steller sea lion broke their ranks. Dark blood clouded the water in his wake, evidence he’d wounded one of them on his attack pass.
But he didn’t come around for another go at them, instead making straight for me. He had his own sea magic, and the currents aided his speed. He slowed as he approached and spun until he presented me with his broad back.
I reached out and took a firm hold in the longer fur around his neck and shoulders.
He immediately headed back toward the Puget Sound, his magic wrapping around both of us. I let him tow me, hugging myself close to his body to reduce drag. His thrumming subvocalizations, territorial to be sure, were woven with his selkie magic, and I realized we were blending into the harmony of the ocean sounds around us. Once he’d gotten us out of visual range, the Deep Dwellers couldn’t track us. With their own blood in the water and the leviathan so close, they wouldn’t risk coming after us when it was better to hide and heal. If the leviathan didn’t come after them, there were sharks and even giant squid to be considered. It was never a good idea to be bleeding in the ocean.
Exhaustion crashed down on me as we got farther and farther from danger. I rested my head against his back as he glided through safer waters.
I’d never trusted anyone else with my life, ever. But at this moment, I didn’t have a choice and I was grateful for his presence.
5
The harbor was dark and silent as he brought me back. I could barely manage to take my human form. It was too much to crawl out of the water. I lay in the shallows, sheltered from sight by the overhanging branches of a few trees, and wondered how long it would be until dawn. The humans of Friday Harbor woke early.
Keegan rose from the shallows. He said nothing, only knelt and gathered me into his arms. He didn’t carry me far, only to the base of the tree where I’d cached my clothes. Once he set me down, he knelt within arm’s reach, his pelt clutched in one hand as he stared out over the harbor.
I was too tired to try to reach for my clothes. It was okay, I thought, to sit like that for a short while.
Which didn’t make sense, I chided myself silently. We were out of the water and the Deep Dwellers hadn’t managed to follow us, as far as I could tell, but our current position was vulnerable. There was no way I could have gotten to my feet to defend myself if one popped up right then. And there was no way I’d be so lucky as to have only one attacker when I’d seen them coming after me in a large group. Keegan couldn’t take on that many, either. He’d had the element of surprise on his side earlier, but here, he’d be surrounded if they decided to attack at the water’s edge. We were exposed.
Except, looking at him by my side, I did feel safe.
Logic and rationale were obviously in low supply while I was this close to losing consciousness. I’d overextended myself wielding my magic against the leviathan. I hadn’t been strong enough. Again. Just like I hadn’t had what it took to lead my father’s army into battle back on Salacia.
“I’m a failure.”
It’d come out in a whisper.
“No.” His gaze left the water, and he turned to look at me.
I pressed my lips together and stared back at him. I wouldn’t hide from the truth—as much as it shamed me—and I wouldn’t accept a lie, even as a kindness.
“You saved those killer whales tonight. There’s no doubt about that. And you are obviously trained to fight, but you lack experience.” He reached out slowly, and I let him touch me. Gently, he brushed a few strands of hair from my face. “You did what needed to be done to defeat your first foe, but you kept nothing back. You have courage and heart, and you are surely formidable. A soldier learns with time to save enough in reserve to face the next enemy, and the next. You survived this time, and now you know better.”
“I’m not a soldier.” I meant for it to be a flat statement of truth. Instead, my words tasted bitter in my mouth and despair rose up in my chest. Maybe this was what humans thought drowning felt like.
&n
bsp; “No.” His voice was still so gentle, understanding. Tears stung my eyes as I heard the acceptance. There was no disappointment there. “You’re not a soldier. But you are protective. Your heart drove you to save those killer whales tonight. And you are strong, powerful enough to have killed the leviathan, but you didn’t.”
I opened my mouth, but he tucked his fingers under my chin and pressed his thumb against my lips.
“You are kind.” He leaned in and pressed a kiss against my mouth. His lips were warm, soothing. They woke heat inside me where there had only ever been bleak cold. “Even though all of the creatures we encountered tonight would’ve killed you to save themselves, you fought for their lives or gave them mercy. Every one of them—even the sea monster none of us thought was still swimming the oceans. I wouldn’t have done the same.”
The voices of my trainers, the sea witches, and my father echoed in my head, telling me how much of a failure I was. And I’d been validating them all this time, reinforcing what they’d said to me. But here was Keegan, insisting I had strength and kindness I didn’t believe I had, and my empathic gift told me he sincerely believed what he said.
“I’d have killed the Deep Dwellers if I could have.” I shuddered. I remembered their expressions as they’d come after me. “They were there, with it, and I’m sure they somehow brought the leviathan out to lure me into the open. They hunt my kind.”
Even now, after he’d saved me, I wouldn’t mention my sisters. It was one thing to begin to trust him with myself. I wouldn’t ever reveal them, not even to a potential ally.
“Those things wanted to take you alive.” Keegan gathered me close, tucking my head under his chin. His arms wrapped around me, and he warmed me as if I were a human in need of body heat. I didn’t need it, but the comfort was…welcome. He continued as he held me. “They could’ve ambushed you, killed you while you were fighting the leviathan and I was too far away to help, but they hung back. They waited until you’d spent your energy. If you couldn’t fight them, there was less risk of killing you.”
Siren's Calling (The Sea King's Daughters Book 4) Page 4