by Starla Night
Blue sky shone through a huge hole cut in the deck.
She must have passed out with her contacts in. Her vision was so clear. Luckily, her contacts hadn’t scratched her eyes like usual when she dozed.
Yeah. Lucky.
Ty organized thin candle strings. He looped the strings over the taut canvas.
Wait. She knew those plastic candles. She knew those strings — as fuses.
“Dynamite,” she groaned.
“Yep.”
He emptied a bag of flowers on top of the dynamite. Then, he walked to her and knelt, showing her a black box. Inside, a pilot light glowed red.
“They give the welcome speech. Stomp the pressure plates to signal this box. Lights the fuses.”
He mounted the pilot light on the wall behind her. Beneath it, a large tank was bolted to the wall. He twisted the aperture. Air hissed. A rotten-eggs smell assaulted her nose.
“After a five-second delay, it releases the pin.”
He pointed to the small metal hook securing the canvas bag to the floor. When it was released, the springs would fling the contents of the huge canvas bag — flowers and lit dynamite — out of the boat.
“And they fly like the Fourth of July.”
Sprinkling the water in the middle of the welcome ceremony for the Sea Festival. “You’re going to kill people,” she breathed.
“Monsters. Mostly.”
Ugh.
“Not just the mer,” she said.
He shrugged. “Sympathizers.”
“And the mer are not monsters. They’re the same as you and me.”
He rose and tested the springs. Twang. Ignoring her.
The murderous scope of his atrocity shook her to the core.
He would launch lit dynamite over the whole festival. Kids. Parents. Everyone on the boats and in the water.
She’d called the entire mer army. Had they come? Please, God, let them not have come. The army was all warriors capable of raising arms. Most of the population of Dragao Azul. All the warriors who might have come to her aid — summoned by her call — would be dead.
Wait.
If the dynamite flew away from the boat she might survive.
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked.
He formed another sly smile and hunkered down to her level. “For the big finish.”
“Huh?”
Ty pointed.
Under a tennis shoe she recognized as belonging to Brody — Brody! — there was a large keg.
A single fuse ran from the pilot light box, coiled around machinery, and snaked across the boat before ending at the keg.
Whether it took five or even ten minutes to burn down, no one would know it was in here.
The dynamite lofted into the air would burn for minutes but they’d catch everyone by surprise and spread out in the water. Impossible to get in time. After the little dynamites killed, the slow fuse would burn to its destination and the entire boat would explode.
The tennis shoe twitched. Somewhere beyond it, a man moaned.
“Brody!” Milly cried.
He groaned louder.
Ty’s smile wiped away.
The engine for the tow-boat started. The thin hull vibrated.
Ty stood, tapped the pilot light box, and headed for the ladder.
She thought fast. “They’ll know it was you.”
“I’ll be long gone.”
“You stuffed that warning under my door. The police have the paper. They dusted for prints.”
He smirked. “They won’t find mine.”
Of course he hadn’t sent it. He’d wanted the mer to attend. This bomb set-up was his grand masterpiece.
“You’re killing people, Ty! Killing me.”
He shrugged. “You’re one of them now.”
“Your own cousin?”
He murdered Brody with his gaze. “He betrayed me.”
“What? How?”
Ty gripped the rungs.
Milly strained against the tape. “Why are you doing this?”
“With the monsters gone, I’ll finally get a girlfriend.”
What. The. Heck.
Milly choked. “You’re murdering all these people so you can get a girlfriend? Are you insane?”
Ty climbed the ladder.
Of course he was insane. He was murdering all these people. No shock he couldn’t get laid.
She shouted after him. “The mer didn’t stop you from getting a girlfriend. Your psycho-ness did!”
His shadow disappeared.
She writhed.
The duct tape held.
Could she scream loud enough to alert the pilot in the tow boat? Assuming he or she wasn’t in on the plot?
She sucked in a huge lungful and screamed.
Nothing.
The boat chugged toward the inner harbor. Music, talking, and noise grew loud.
The chair of the Sea Festival committee thanked attendees in a tiny, tinny voice.
The welcome speech would soon be starting.
“Brody. Brody!”
He groaned.
“Brody.”
“Five more minutes…”
“We don’t have five more minutes. We’re going to die.”
He did a crunch, raising himself up, and groaned. “What’s going on? My arms…” He blinked at the open sky. “Am I on the Death Float?”
“So, you knew?”
He blinked hard. “Uh … Ty was just talking … it means nothing.”
“Oh, no, you’re right. This is the Friendship Float and your psycho cousin—”
“Ty’s not a psycho. He’s confused.”
“He’s confused?” Fury welled in her chest. “He lucidly explained how he rigged the Friendship Float to deliver flowers with a side of murder. You were in on it. What’s your excuse?”
“I wasn’t, really. I just went to a couple of meetings.”
“Meetings? Psychos hold meetings?
“The ‘Sons of Hercules.’ Kill monsters, save women, be heroes. Get a girlfriend.”
Oh, god. It was true. It was all true.
Brody, her close friend and coworker, attended psychopath meetings to plot how to murder her friends and family.
He noted her horror and shrugged. “They had free beer.”
“You sent that warning.”
“Warning?”
“About the bomb in the harbor. This bomb. You stuffed it under my door.”
“Oh, no way. Not me. I’m never going to your house again.”
“Somebody stuffed a warning under my door days ago.”
“Probably … eh, I don’t know. Some recruits are more into the ‘Be Heroes’ part than the ‘Kill Monsters’ part.”
“So dynamiting a helpless octopus colony counts as being a hero?”
“That wasn’t me!” He sobered. “The last time I went to a meeting, they were—”
“They?”
“College kids.”
“College kids as in more of my friends? In the marine biology department? At our college?”
“Eh … just some guys.” He waved her away like his co-conspirators weren’t a big deal. “They wanted to drop a depth charge over a trench and ‘hope’ it reached a mer city before it blew up.”
“There are kids in those cities, Brody. ‘Young fry’ mer kids.”
“It would never work. Real stupid, all of it. Sci fi Abyss stuff. Like, how do they find a depth charge? Who’s funding them, the military?”
“Well, who funded the free beer?”
Brody shrugged. “Not Ty. He just sent some emails. And his ‘recruits’ were a bunch of college, er, college-aged kids with nothing better on a Saturday night.”
“Nothing better to do than import and sell dynamite to tourists.”
“Yeah, I don’t know how he did that.”
“Your cousin tried to destroy an octopus colony, Brody. And they’re about to kill us and a lot more people.”
“No way.”
She re-exp
lained the whole plan Ty had told her.
Brody shook his head from start to finish. “Ty promised he’d stop the dynamite. I threatened to turn him in. And then … wait. How did I get here?” He tugged on the duct tape securing his arms behind him. “Am I tied up?”
“You lured me to Ty’s warehouse.”
“Oh, right, the pressure plates. I wanted to keep you away from Ty so he didn’t find out about your change-over to mermaid.”
Her heart sank. “You knew?”
“Milly.” He gave her the “duh” expression. “You were underwater for thirty minutes. Nobody holds their breath for that long.”
So, she hadn’t been as sneaky as she’d thought.
“Anyway, you weren’t outside when I arrived. And after I told you to avoid Ty.”
“You didn’t tell me!”
“Yes, I did.”
“No, you—” Another memory thumped her tofu brain. “My phone died.”
“I’d get the pressure plates from you so you’d never run into Ty.”
“He was waiting for me outside.”
“And then I arrived and he used a sonic … no. Air horn? And you collapsed. And I told him hurting people was wrong. And he said you were just knocked out and I could take you home after we shared a beer to prove there were no hard feelings…”
“And then he roofied you.” She rolled onto her side. “And here we both are.”
“Huh. I got roofied?” He twisted at the torso, stretched, and yawned. “I’ve never been roofied before. Huh. I got roofied. Cool.”
“No, not cool! You knew all along your cousin was a mer-hating psycho. A little warning would have been nice!”
Brody shook his head. “Nah, you just have to be careful with Ty. He’s always been violence-prone, but he’s an all right guy.”
She pushed her shoulder into the hull trying to flail upright. “All right guy?”
“Like when I got old enough to beat him at cards and then he lured me to his parents’ storage unit and locked me in for sixteen hours. His parents let me out. I thought I was going to die.”
“Now you are going to die because he will blow you up.”
The tugboat engine idled. They were in position. Their time was running out.
She wriggled on her side. “Are you going to hang out and wait? His parents won’t show up this time.”
Brody stared into the darkness.
“Help me!”
“Okay, give me a minute.” He rolled his abdomen into a tight crunch and strained.
“What are you doing?”
“Moving my wrists around to the front. I saw this in a prison movie. You have to dislocate your shoulders.”
“What?!”
“I’ve been practicing yoga…”
She was not dislocating her shoulders.
Milly rocked back and forth. She had to rescue her warriors. They were her responsibility.
She was their queen.
Her feet flexed — fins — and she rolled to her knees. Her fins flexed to human. She staggered to her feet.
Brody’s arm jutted an unnatural angle. “What are you going to do?”
“Put out the pilot light. Then it doesn’t matter if the dynamite gets launched. Nothing will blow up.”
She hopped across the rolling hull. There was the glowing red flame. She blew.
Her breath fogged the glass.
“Hit the button on the side,” Brody suggested, contorting. “Maybe the top. It’ll kill the flame.”
She looked around. “There’s no button.”
“Maybe it’s behind the box.”
The gas hissed out. Slow, concentrated on the fuse, and stinky.
Her head swam. “Ugh.”
The glass must protect the pilot light to make the trap work. If she exposed the pilot light now, it would light everything on fire prematurely.
“When this glass drops, I bet there’s so much gas here the whole boat explodes,” she said.
“Nah, Ty plans for that. He’s scary with mechanics. It will go off in a perfect controlled blast.”
The committee chair’s tinny voice faded away.
Uh oh. Her time had run out.
She tensed.
Whoever spoke next would kill them.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Uvim gripped the black speaking stick.
This moment had been important to Milly. He would honor her passion.
“For a thousand years, the warriors of Dragao Azul have lived beneath you, secret.”
His voice echoed across the crowd.
“Now we are secret no longer. Our Life Tree has ‘healing essence’. Our mating jewels are Sea Opals gemstones. You are curious. So today, our finest warriors surface. They swim here in the water.”
Everyone craned.
He did not expect the warriors to emerge. They could not hear his speech beneath the water. But First Lieutenant Elan must have conveyed his words. After a long moment, heads bobbed above the waves.
His city’s warriors. Milly had summoned them. They had come.
Now, they too heard him speak.
“We offer our respect. This land is your domain. What is your answer? Do you welcome us with a friendly greeting? Some humans dislike the mer.”
The crowd quieted.
“Yes, some humans hurt, injure, even kill warriors. Some threaten our young fry. Kidnap our brides. They attack us with weapons we do not know. Guns and dynamite.
“But even if we are attacked, even if we are injured, we will protect our brides and our young fry.”
His warriors stood tall in the crowds, their lights bright with the vow.
“My bride, Milly, believed this welcome speech was important. I stand before you, a warrior. You see me? We are different. I swim the deepest seas and hunt the wild bream.
“But I, too, search for a bride. And I, too, hope she desires me. I plan for us to marry. I dream for our future young fry.
“Will our young fry enter the world healthy and strong? Will he act with honor? Will he encounter kindness? And will he meet his own bride? I hope he, too, makes a happy young fry. And so on, and so on.
“Are my hopes and my dreams so different?”
The crowd clapped.
This noise had accompanied other speeches. Uvim continued speaking.
“Today, my bride Milly is not here. She is missing. Her car was found but I do not see her light. If you know her, a beautiful female with long brown hair and kind brown eyes and a soul shining as brightly as a sun, please tell me.”
Silence.
Uvim waited.
It appeared everyone held their breaths. Waiting for the next part of his speech.
But he had said everything he intended.
The committee chair eased forward. “You are finished? That ends your speech?”
Yes. He had said his piece.
He nodded.
“Step on the plate.” The committee chair gestured at the decorative boat floating in the harbor. “Dispense the friendship flowers.”
Uvim looked down.
The dull silver plate had not been on stage the day he and Milly had toured here. But he recognized the plate. The last time he stepped on one, an audible weapon had knocked him unconscious.
The committee chair gestured again for him to stomp and dispense the flowers.
He shook his head.
This plate had hurt him once.
No, he would not step on the plate.
Milly strained to hear the new voice after the committee chair.
The next speaker sounded deeper, clearer, surer.
Uvim!
“That’s Uvim,” she said. “Brody, the cannon is supposed to go off right after he finishes speaking.”
Which mean Uvim would be the one to kill them!
“Help me shut off the pilot light,” she gasped.
“Find the button!”
“There is no button!”
“Then … do … something! Anything!” Brody tw
isted. “I can’t help you, Milly. You’ve got to — try shutting off the gas!”
She whirled to the gas hose.
A small metal funnel bent to focus the gas on the pilot light. Above it was the pressure gauge and then the valve. Could she turn the valve? It was too high. She poked it with her nose.
It didn’t budge.
Hands. She had to reach it with her hands.
Milly backed up and lifted on her tip toes. Her bound-together fingertips brushed the metal body. She’d never reach the valve with her hands. Not by a long shot.
Her elbows clinked the bent metal funnel.
Elbows!
She angled her elbow and pushed. The valve wiggled. Lefty loosey, righty tighty…
It moved.
Great! She pushed harder.
A wave rocked the boat.
Her elbow jammed the valve — in the wrong direction.
Gas whooshed. Rotted egg stink filled her nose and mouth.
She coughed and spat. “Agh!”
“Milly!”
The boat rocked hard.
She lifted onto her toes. The tape bruised her ankles. She lost her balance.
Oh no.
She fell backward onto the edge of the canvas bag. The side folded under her weight. She tipped in head-first. Her feet flew over her head.
Flowers and dynamite buried her.
She wriggled beneath the heavy mass. “Brody!”
“Hey, you did good. You knocked the fuses out of position. They’re off to the side now.”
“But I increased the gas!”
He was silent for a long moment.
“Brody?”
“Yeah, that’s not good. Ty’s smart about testing but, uh, this could be bad.”
“Like, now the gas could blow up the whole boat?”
“Yeah. That’s a distinct possibility. Milly? Get out of the bag.”
“I’m trying.”
“You’re sitting on top of a bag full of dynamite.”
“Actually, it’s sitting on top of me.”
“Seriously, Milly.”
“I know.” Something else struck her. She stopped wriggling. “I don’t hear Uvim’s voice anymore.”
Brody dropped silent.
The gush of the uncontrolled gas filled the boat.
“I don’t either,” Brody said uneasily.
Maybe that was okay.
Maybe they would be okay. Maybe Uvim had found her. He had special merman powers, right? Maybe he saw her soul light through the hull.