Vicious Deep

by Zoraida Cordova

  Some kids are jaywalking away from the school. It’s the first sunny day in a week, so half the school must be doing the in-’n’-out, walking into the building just for show before turning right around and heading to the park, Coney, the mall, or if you’re my friends, the kosher Mexican restaurant on Sunset with the hot Mexi-Jewish girl behind the counter.

  I’m thinking about how I can get the pearl back from Maddy when she won’t even talk to me. Adaro and the others are probably halfway around the world, and I’m back at high school. Some things just aren’t right.

  Someone shouts my name across the street. Kurt and Thalia’s hands hover over the daggers at their waists, which they say are glamoured from the human eye. My dagger is in my backpack, because I may have seen a lot of shit in the past couple of days, but this whole glamour business still gets me.

  “Ryan!” Thalia shouts, forgetting about the weapon and taking a step forward.

  Wonder Ryan runs against the traffic. Thalia’s face is as bright as the noon sun when she sees him. I’m surprised they aren’t running toward each other in slow motion.

  “Hi!” I know his hello includes me and Kurt, but he only looks at Thalia. He’s wearing a T-shirt the color of asphalt and new jeans. His hair is messier, not as slicked to the side as usual. “I missed you.”

  “So did I.”

  “Yeah,” I smirk, “so did I.”

  Kurt shoves me away toward the entrance, and we share a laugh. I’d never admit that watching them makes my insides feel like beef jerky, like I’m shriveling up because I don’t have someone looking at me like that. I can only think of one face I want to see. And when she comes into view, my heart sinks, because she’s getting out of a white BMW with tinted windows and a license plate that spells PUMPITUP. Suddenly I remember Alex, the orange guido from the beach who helped find me. Fire creeps over my skin. Even my dagger tucked into my backpack hums as though it feels how ticked off I am.

  “What’s wrong?” Layla asks, slinging her backpack over one shoulder.

  “Nothing,” I say with a shrug. If she’s not going to tell me that she’s seeing someone, then fine. “Did you get in trouble?”

  “I told my dad I was with Maddy. Her mom unplugs the phone at night, so it’s not like they called. Still, he was super mad.”

  “Hello,” Kurt says, all stiff and merman-y.

  She smiles at him and says, “Today might be boring, after yesterday.”

  “I look forward to human pleasantries, actually. First, Tristan needs to acquire something from the angry blond girl.”

  Before Layla starts breathing fire at me, I go, “I’ll explain.” The school bells chime and we ascend the steps.

  “Hey, Tristan,” a girl calls out to me in the hallway. I don’t know her name, but I wave.

  Ryan slaps my arm, “Dude, Coach said he’s going to pull us out of class again for practice. Luis texted me the announcements already.”

  “Isn’t it great to be in charge?” Layla asks. They all fall into a giddy stride walking into the school. Though arriving back home didn’t feel any different, coming back to school does. There’s something different about the walls, the lighting, the way my classmates’ emotions fill the sterile air. Or maybe it’s just me and my guilt pangs over having to break my ex-girlfriend’s heart all over again.

  •••

  “You’re officially being weird,” Layla tells me, gathering her hair into a bun for practice.

  “I’m a weird guy,” I say, stretching my arms to either side, “in case you didn’t notice.”

  “You know,” she smirks, “I still haven’t seen you as a mermaid.” Her laugh is small, forced. Her nervousness smells like birthday candles after they’re extinguished.

  “I’m all man, lady,” I try to joke, but it comes out angry and she shrinks back. “I’m sorry.”

  She dismisses me with her hands and says, “Whatever,” before diving into the pool.

  What the hell happened? A few hours ago she was all over me and now…What did I do wrong?

  Coach blows his whistle. “Chop, chop, Hart! Meet is tomorrow. Gotta be ready!”

  I nod, scanning the team one more time for Maddy to come strolling in with her white T-shirt over her bathing suit. She doesn’t. She wasn’t in school all day either.

  I dive when the whistle blows again, the water being my only comfort against the dark thought looming in the back of my mind—the thought that it’s only my first day as a champion and I’m already failing.

  •••

  The hot dog is cold and the bread is stale in my mouth, even after I drown it in ketchup. Bertie and Angelo have found a reclining chair with wheels and are taking turns pushing each other across the room, because there are only two lunch monitors and they keep disappearing.

  I lower my head to whisper to Layla. “Have you talked to Maddy? She’s not in school today. I need to talk to her.”

  Layla shakes her head sadly. “I bet she’s just cutting class, her and her new bad-girl self.”

  I hesitate, breaking my hot-dog bun into crumbs. “Do you remember that necklace I gave her?”

  “Yeah, that little pink pearl. She loves it.”

  “It belongs to one of the oracles. I need it back.”

  She exhales loudly. “You know, just when I didn’t think you could sink any lower with her.”

  “Me?” I yell indignantly. “You’ve seen what I’ve seen. I wouldn’t do it unless this was serious.”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t know if she still has it. Knowing her, she hasn’t thrown it out. Did you try her phone?”

  “I tried. It goes to voice mail, and she doesn’t text back.” Layla pushes her tray of food away from her in disgust, and my heart darkens like the clouds that are no longer clinging to the sky.

  We sit in silence and watch our friends decide to hang out on the field after class, because Principal Quinn is supposed to be in meetings all day and Ryan has keys to the sports equipment. Kurt avoids looking in my direction, feeling a little guilty that he’s having so much fun.

  •••

  The target rings are lined up in the middle of the field. Each one has a different teacher’s picture taped at the bull’s-eye. Most of the arrows are horribly off, if they make it to the rings at all. There are only seven guys on the archery team, and they take great pride in teaching everyone else. I’m okay at it, but I’ve never gotten a bull’s-eye. Ryan, having taken archery since he was in junior high, is the captain of the team.

  I take a seat near the bin of arrows.

  Thalia giddily unzips the oversized purple backpack my mom gave her this morning. She pulls out a finely crafted bow and a set of arrows. I know this is a terrible idea. I would never, ever bring weapons to school. But Kurt insisted we have to always be prepared.

  “That is a beauty,” Ryan says. His blue eyes are practically sticking out of his head when he sees the arrows. “You guys are certified, right?” And I quickly say yes before it becomes an issue.

  “Our father was an expert archer,” Kurt says. He holds the brass bow, which looks light as a feather as he weighs it against his palms. “He made this for me.”

  Thalia doesn’t join them and instead stays sitting between me and Layla. “You’re not going to try?” I ask.

  “I find that it might hurt Ryan’s human ego if I were to best him.” She leans back on her palms. Even knowing what she is, she is a wondrous sight. Her hair is free and flowing around her face with a life of its own. She crosses her legs and wiggles her ankles so that the glitter of her slippers catches the stadium lights. I wonder if she misses her fins. I’ve only changed a few times, and already something deep inside me is urging me to find a river, or even a bathtub, and sink in.

  “I very much miss Atticus,” Thalia sighs. “But I like it here. Don
’t tell Kurt.”

  “He looks like he’s having more fun than he’d like to admit,” Layla says. I follow her eyes to where Kurt is taking aim.

  “Kurtomathetis wouldn’t know how to have fun if it were pulling on his fishtails.”

  I laugh hard at that. I bet Kurt can hear what we’ve said, because when he lets his arrow go, it misses Principal Quinn’s picture and hits the outer ring.

  Ryan gets a bull’s-eye on the picture of Mr. Van Oppen. Thalia shrieks and claps her hands. The other guys go, one by one. Some of them get close, but none of them are as accurate.

  Jerry throws his arms up, letting the school’s bow and arrow fall to the ground. “This is whack! I’m going to check on the freshman lunch period, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, all your little boyfriends are waiting,” Angelo calls out after him, and is answered by Jerry’s middle finger. Bertie isn’t too far behind Jerry after he fails for the umpteenth time at getting his arrow to go anywhere other than the grass.

  “Know what?” Layla goes, pushing herself up, her arm brushing against mine and sending pinpricks down my spine. “I’m gonna go play with sharp objects too.” She runs up to Kurt, who shows her how to stand, his hand carefully guiding her hands into position. He whispers something to her, and she smiles. She lets go and hits Ms. Pippen right at the center of her third eye. Layla jumps up and down and throws her arms around Kurt’s neck.

  “She’s lovely, you know.” Thalia nods at her.

  “Who?”

  “You know who. Layla. Duh?”

  “Yeah, well.” I grab a handful of the fake grass and pull hard on it. “This whole Maddy thing isn’t going to make me look like Champion of the Year in her eyes.”

  “If I’ve learned anything by watching human interaction, it’s that they’re always angry at the person they feel they love. It’s easier to feel anger than love. Love makes people sick. Anger just consumes you so you think you’re not feeling anything.”

  “What about mermaid love?”

  “Mer-kin, maybe all immortals, don’t necessarily fall in love. Forever is awfully long, and the oceans are vast. You never know who will, how do you say, rock your boat?”

  “Maybe that’s why I have the reputation of being a man-slut.”

  “Surely, it has nothing to do with the fact that you’re also a sixteen-year-old foot-fin.”

  She cups her hands around her mouth and hollers when Ryan gets another bull’s-eye. He drops his bow and arrow. He runs over to us, gets down on his knees, and kisses Thalia on her sweet full mouth. At first she’s surprised. Hell, I’m surprised. So is everyone who’s looking at them from the bleachers. A camera flash goes off somewhere. Layla giggles behind her hands, and some of the guys whistle with their fingers. All except for Kurt, who shakes his head disapprovingly.

  Thalia rests her hands around Ryan’s face, bringing him in, and neither of them seems to notice the crowds. I want to look away, but it’s not like anyone’s been kissing me lately. I glance at Layla to see if maybe she’s looking at me, but her face is tilted to the sky, where a gray patch of clouds is floating over us. When I relax my eyes, the clouds look like grizzly bears. I shut my eyes to get Elias’s face out of my head.

  Just then Ryan stumbles out of their kiss. “Cool. Okay. Good.” He jogs back to the targets with a new strut.

  “Tristan.” Thalia bites her bottom lip. “Will you make me a promise?”

  “What is it?”

  “Will you let me stay? If you’re king? Would you let me stay here like Aunt Maia did? I could never ask anyone else.”

  A king keeps his promises, my grandfather told me. I guess I should be careful of the promises I make.

  A fat drop of rain hits me right in the eye. The knot in my stomach that started in homeroom is growing with the darkening gray clouds. I point at the sky. “I thought that wasn’t supposed to happen anymore.”

  She stands with her hands over her eyes like visors. “It isn’t. Something is wrong.” She breathes in long and deep. “Do you smell it?”

  I smell damp air. Mist rises around us. Clouds roll in front of the sun, and everything inside me turns. Just like before the first storm, the first wave.

  Angelo is the first to run past me, yelling something about his hair and how he’ll see us losers back in the lunchroom. Ryan holds out his hands and cries out with excitement. It’s something that comes from deep inside him, as if he’s waking up for the first time.

  The sky turns black, the wind pushing the clouds fast across the sky. The only light comes from the stadium lights and the lightning cracking open the sky. Car alarms go off all along the block. For a moment, it feels like the earth is shaking around us, but it’s actually the metal fence around the field that’s shaking.

  I grab Layla by the shoulders. “Please go inside. Please.”

  “What’s wrong? What’s happening?”

  Thalia’s glamour is fading slightly, or maybe she’s just green with sickness as her yellow-green eyes widen at what they see. She points at the other end of the field. “There!”

  Three of the ugliest creatures I’ve ever seen are ripping the fence open. Damp air mingles with the scent of sea sludge, like a manhole just threw them up into the street. The tallest one has the head of a hammerhead shark on the body of a human. Yellow eyes glow on either side of his head. His gills open at the touch of rain, and a smile like crushed glass grins right at me. Beside him is a creature that is blue from head to webbed feet. His elbows end in long red spikes, and his mouth opens to rows of canines. The smallest one of the three is round with the head of a blowfish whose cheeks constantly puff in and out.

  Kurt takes aim with his arrow and shoots before I can even blink. The creatures are fast, and Kurt only grazes the blue one in the arm. They jump high and scatter around us.

  “Layla, please do as I say!” I fumble to unzip my backpack for my dagger.

  “No!” Kurt shouts over me.

  “What do you mean no?”

  “They’ll follow her. Chase her. They’re fast, whatever they are.”

  “You mean you don’t know?”

  The round one shows himself in front of us. He breathes hard and puffs his body out. Shit.

  “Get behind the targets!”

  I pull Layla down, shielding her with my body behind the wooden target. The needles hit like darts into the wood.

  “Lord Sea, stay down,” Kurt says. “Thalia, aim!”

  She reaches for a bow, stands quickly, and lets the arrow fly.

  Ryan has his back against the target. “What the hell! What the hell are they?”

  I peek around the target ring. They’re just standing in the shadows waiting, like this is a game.

  “Ryan,” Kurt says as he kneels and pulls his arrow into place. “You can hit them. Go on. On my count. One.”

  “Two.”

  Thalia’s hands tremble as they search her backpack. She pulls out two slender daggers and throws one to Layla, who catches it in midair.

  “She can’t fight.” My voice is frantic, and I hardly recognize it. This is not how a champion should sound.

  “She has to.”

  Layla pulls the dagger out of the sheath and holds it up, her knuckles with a vise grip on it. She nods surely. This isn’t like fencing during spring recess. This is something else, something we’ve never faced before.

  “Three!” Kurt and Ryan shoot. The creatures spread out instantly, howling as Ryan’s arrow pierces the hammerhead in the arm. The creature howls in pain, but just for a moment, before pulling the arrow out with one tug, dripping black blood and red flesh.

  “Holy shit!” Ryan says, holding his chest as if to keep his heart from coming out.

  I want to tell him it’ll be okay, but even I don’t know that. As Kurt yells
something over the thunder, the creatures charge right at us. I shove Layla out of the way, so the blue creature pushes the target on top of me. The ground is muddy and wet. I slip when I try to push the wooden target off me. The blue one does it for me. He pulls the red spikes out of his skin and stabs at the grass around me. I kick his gut with the full force of my legs, roll over, and reach for my dagger.

  Up close, his eyes are dirty yellow. His permanent smile reveals bloody gums. He raises his fists in the air and brings them down hard on the ground, shaking the field right under me. I swing and catch him on the side, and he winces. The barnacles around his neck suck at the air like suction cups. Layla runs around us, and as he reaches out with his spikes, she brings the dagger down through his back.

  The creature’s body shakes, and black blood dribbles out of his mouth. The body goes limp over me and falls slack on the ground. I take his red spikes and stab him through the chest to make sure he stays there.

  “Where are the other two?” I push myself off the ground.

  More car alarms go off after another blast of thunder. The few students who didn’t make it inside are screaming behind the bleachers. Up inside the school, crowds are gathered at the windows.

  Kurt and Ryan hold their arrows at the ready. The five of us stand in the middle of the field. The other two are still out there. I breathe in air heavy with their stink.

  “There!” I turn and the guys let their arrows fly up at the fence where the hammerhead has climbed. He ducks to the right and jumps on the ground and charges at me. For all their strength and speed, they’re really uncoordinated and stupid. His yellow eyes are focused on me and only me. I punch him with all my strength; my knuckles come away bloody from the sharp scales of his cheekbones. I slash my dagger out with both hands, but he jumps back from every swing.

  Kurt’s voice thunders over the car alarms, the screams, and the clapping thunder. “Tristan, get down!”

  I throw myself on the ground as he takes one clean shot. The creature falls backward with Kurt’s arrow pierced right through his throat. A guttural wail sounds through the field. Layla runs up to me and helps me stand. She takes my hand and examines it where my knuckles are cut open. “It’s just a surface scrape.”