Kerrigan's Race (The Syreni Book 1)

by C. M. Michaels

  Ducking my head under to initiate a flip, I reached my hands up behind my knees, got a massive kick off the wall and rotated over into my dolphin kick. I could feel the power of my thumping kicks as my adrenaline surged, and when I surfaced I had almost a half-a-length lead. By the midpoint, Tara had faded to third behind Vanessa and was clearly rattled. Vanessa, on the other hand, was closing fast, and just to her left in lane seven I caught a glimpse of Gentry. This was going to be a hell of a finish.

  We were down to the last fifteen meters. Somehow I still had almost three quarters of a body length lead over Gentry, who had nudged by Vanessa. Calling on a reserve I never knew I’d possessed, I took my last breath, cleared my mind and charged toward the wall.

  I was going to Tokyo.

  Just as I reached for victory the water shifted color to almost a sea green, and my body was sucked forward with the fierce surge of a deadly undertow. I tried to turn toward the surface but my body was tumbling end over end so rapidly that I had no idea which way was up anymore. Remembering my lifeguard training, rather than fighting the impossible current I started to swim with it, and after a few strokes my direction stabilized. I could see now that the water was lighter above me, even if I was somehow over thirty-five feet deep. Nothing made sense, but I was too desperate for air to think about anything other than kicking for the surface. I began to slowly exhale about half way up, letting out the built up carbon dioxide, and after a few more flailing kicks my head popped above water.

  I was dead. The realization hit me like one of Austin’s spinning back kicks, which always left bruises in spite of the thick padding he demanded I wear for sparring. All around me, as far as I could see in every direction, was nothing but mile after mile of lime green, foamy water. There was a massive fireball of a sun directly overhead, and it felt like at least a hundred degrees. The thick, almost pungent scent of salt mixed with a touch of citrus filled the hazy air. I thought about yelling for help then laughed at the absurdity of the idea. Who exactly was I hoping would hear me?

  The distinct sound of a splash nearby snapped me out of my hopeless daze. I spun to my right and spotted what looked like a piece of navy blue debris floating in the water. Then I saw Gentry’s blonde streaked, fire red hair drifting away from her submerged face. No. Acting on instinct alone, I raced through the three foot chop to reach her, cradled her head to my chest and began mouth to mouth. I had to spin her around to do Heimlich-like chest compressions after each set of breaths, which was a bitch in the rolling waves, but I kept at it, and after almost five minutes she spit up several mouthfuls of water.

  “Leave her and revive the others!” A raspy male voice shouted behind me.

  “Where!” I snapped back as I frantically scanned the waves for more of my teammates. Having Gentry and this unappreciative asshole show up shot my being dead theory all to hell, but I was at a loss for any other explanation. Maybe the pool wall collapsed into a sewer drain and we got sucked into some kind of reservoir? But how did that explain the monstrosity of a sun overhead? Not to mention that this reservoir was like a thousand miles wide. When my body rose up with the crest of the next wave a red and white swimsuit came into view about a hundred yards away—Vanessa. I was off like a rocket.

  She was floating on her back when I reached her, her eyes open and lifeless, and there was a large, nasty looking gash across her forehead. I felt for a pulse, but I knew I wouldn’t find one. Tears pooled in my eyes as I slid her lids closed and gave her a mournful kiss on the cheek. Whoever was responsible for having us end up here—wherever the fuck that was—was going to pay.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The recovery

  * * *

  Watching her powerful arms cut through the turbulent water made me realize I wouldn’t have as much time as I’d hoped. Not that it mattered how fast she reached the remaining bodies; I’d already confirmed they were dead. Sending her on the futile errand served only to buy me time to subdue the woman she’d resuscitated and transport her unconscious body to the birthing chamber almost three miles away. Damille, an ancient female and our chief surgeon, was still carving gill slits into the child’s throat that I’d guided to the surface when I arrived. She barely spared me a glance.

  Only three survivors. Support for the mission among the regions had been divided to begin with. When the other region commanders found out that now only two of them would be receiving a breeding female—and that’s assuming all three women survived the totally experimental transformations that lie ahead—it could very well mean war. All because Analiese, the Western Region engineer who’d been assigned as a good will gesture to Sheriolac, improperly configured the portal to open on a fifty degree down angle. It was amazing any of the females had survived after being sucked through what amounted to a high pressure drain, the churning vortex tossing them out almost forty feet below the surface. Had the portal opened at the proper five degree up angle, as we’d practiced countless times since rebuilding it, the women would have swam through undisturbed and been headed toward the surface only ten feet above. Somehow I doubted King Celandor or the Throne of Nine would see it that way. The whole debacle would just become another albatross around my neck.

  No longer burdened with an unconscious, oxygen breathing body to carry, I dove under the waves and retrieved another handful of Sherifan root from the murky bottom on my way to the last of the females. She was an impressive swimmer even in our rough seas, and as a commander I had to admire her ability to keep her head in a crisis. Surely the king would select her for our region after hearing of her heroic exploits, which meant—unless I wanted to live as a nomad—that she would be carrying my children. I suppose there could be worse surrogate mother servants to be stuck living with. That’s all she would ever be to me. And if she so much as looked at any of Pulchra’s belongings, I’d gut her.

  Circling around to surface from behind, I covered her nose and mouth with the toxic plant root balled up in my right hand. She countered with a wicked elbow to my ribs that loosened my grip enough for her to slip out of my headlock, but within seconds the root was taking effect. Her arresting, silver blue eyes widened with fear as her left arm went numb. Her legs soon followed, causing her to go under several times, and yet she still kept pulling herself around in little circles with one hand. The female’s will to live was remarkable—I’d seen battle tested Syreni warriors succumb faster to the potent neurotoxin. Nonetheless, I didn’t want her to suffer, so I tilted her head back and coated the inside of both nostrils. Her lanky, perfectly toned body went limp in my arms.

  I cradled her over my left shoulder, looping my arm under her navy clad butt, and swam close enough to the surface to ensure her head remained above water. It felt so weird to hold a human in my arms. I’d never even seen one in the flesh before this morning. In some ways our two species bared a close resemblance, such as our arms and torso, but their long stringy legs were beyond strange, as was their bland coloring and obsession with hiding their skin beneath artificial material. To think the king feared we’d fancy their kind. Not that she was repulsive or anything—based on the humans I’d watched over the last decade she’d be considered stunning—but it’d be like being attracted to a griffin.

  About half way back some curious, inane part of me wondered what was underneath that stupid red cap on her head. It slowly ate away at my brain like a famished mealworm until I caved, easing her off my shoulder and freeing her bound up locks. The surprisingly silky hair was a rich, deep brown and was longer than I expected, coming all the way to her shoulder blades. Realizing that I was now floating here, fondling an unconscious human’s hair like some swamp miscreant, I quickly took hold of her body and continued toward the birthing chamber.

  Damille had finished with both women and was waiting for me when I swam up onto the platform. The youngest girl and the stripe-haired one were resting comfortably next to each other, stripped of their clingy garments, with orangish-brown, stem cell bio-salve smothered liberally over their carved u
p throats. If all went well—and griffins didn’t discover their hiding place—they’d have fully functioning gills in five days and could be taken to the relative safety of Halon’s Gate, where the rest of the surgeries would be performed.

  After ducking beneath the surface to catch her breath, Damille took the woman from my arms, removed her swimsuit and laid her back against the stone floor. Unlike the other two women, whose genitals were as smooth as our own females, this one had a narrow strip of short, curly brown hair between her legs. It was disgusting.

  “Don’t fret, my general,” Damille said with a sly smile. “A little talcium paste will take that right off. The waterkite spider venom it contains is wonderful at dissolving hair follicles—not that you need to be knowledgeable about the beauty secrets of Syreni females. I will polish her entire body with it before I’m finished so her scales have a smooth base to adhere to, just like I have done for the others.”

  “Thanks, Master Healer.”

  She gave me a curt nod and picked up her carving blade. An unexplainable urge to protect the woman surged through me as I watched the steel enter the side of her throat. Damille completed the S shaped design of the first slit, seemingly unconcerned about the massive blood loss, and was about to start the second when I took hold of her hand. “She saved the stripe haired one and exhibited commendable bravery today. She shall receive the five gills of a Syreni female rather than the three intended to mark a mutant.”

  Damille was clearly shocked by my order, and what would motivate me to issue it, but to her credit she just steeped into a formal bow. “As you wish, General.”

  With that she set about her work, carving horizontal slits through the female’s soft tissue and down into her trachea, from her chin all the way to the base of her neck. Damille was meticulous about avoiding major arteries, and ensuring that the right side was an identical match to the left. It was easy to see why she was our chief surgeon. After rinsing the fresh wounds with sterilizing water she began to apply the bio salve.

  As soon as the wounds were sufficiently covered we both took a break, staying under for almost fifteen minutes, long enough to fully replenish our oxygen. When we returned, Damille selected an elephant snail shell from a whale bladder satchel and scooped out a handful of talcium paste, rubbing it through the female’s short pubic curls. After a few seconds she splashed sea water over the entire area, washing off the ash-grey cream to reveal pristinely smooth skin underneath. Interesting. And here I thought Syreni women were just born that way. It made me wonder what else my mother and Pulchra had kept hidden from me. Damille methodically worked her way up the female’s body, from the tips of her odd, hand-like feet to just below her neckline, until every inch of her pale skin shined like marble.

  Taking hold of the still unconscious woman around the waist, Damille swam to the top of the platform and pulled them both up onto the stone floor. I knew better than to offer my assistance, even though it was hard for me to watch her struggle to drag the female along behind her as she inched backward, one arm length at a time. She finally made it to where the others were resting and slid the girl up onto a thick bed of ultra-plush Azar seal furs. The females were bound with canta vine to several metal eye-rings protruding from the stone floor, to keep them from scratching at their throats or trying to wash off the salve before it had a chance to take. Damille placed massive bladders of desalinized water within easy reach of their mouths and positioned the catreed straw by bending each of the girl’s heads to the side.

  What to offer humans in the way of food their first few days had been a subject of great debate. Some favored breaking them in on live minnows, so as not to coddle them, while others, including myself, felt that showing some sensitivity toward their diet might build the tiniest fraction of goodwill. Not that some humans didn’t eat sushi, as we’d learned over the past decade of surveillance via the looking glass, but seasoned and prepared meat was a far cry from ripping a mouthful out of a still swimming fish—scales, guts and all. In the end, we decided that vegetable matter would be a far safer bet. Damille filled a small sac with our cherished lion thumb sea peppers—a rare treat which only grew in the Eastern Seaway on the other side of the continent—and suspended it from the floor, angled toward them. Nudging it with their faces would cause the tiny yellow vegetables to fall into their mouths.

  They looked so vulnerable lying there tethered to the stone floor that I was struggling with my earlier decision to leave them unguarded while they healed. Unfortunately, posting a small contingent here would only announce their presence and invite an attack. Learning that horrific lesson had cost me everything. Besides, since the griffin had no idea what humans were, they had no reason to consider the unfamiliar scent as food or a threat. At least that’s what we hoped.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Captivity

  * * *

  My tongue licked my dry-as-cotton lips and I let out a wheeze, which only further aggravated the brain crushing pain in my head. Holy hell. I hadn’t felt this bad since spring break our junior year in Cozumel. And what the fuck was up with my throat? It felt like someone had taken a machete to it then coated it with about six pounds of Vaseline. When I tried to inspect the damage a thin rope bit into my wrist, preventing me from raising my right hand more than a foot off the floor. A flurry of small, increasingly panicked movements confirmed my entire body was immobilized. Flashes of being swept away in a tidal wave, rescuing Gentry, finding Vanessa’s dead body and fighting for my life came flooding back. I started screaming at the top of my lungs.

  “Kerrigan!” The ear-piercing shriek from about three feet to my right was loud enough to cut through my hysterical wailing. And scare the shit out me in the process. It took my messed up head a few moments to identify the voice. “Ta—” I couldn’t even get her name out before several violent, hacking coughs brought me up short. Apparently yelling was not such a hot idea.

  “There’s some water to your left,” Tara said. “Just bend your head to the side and the little straw like thing will go in your mouth. It’s not salty or poisoned or anything—I’ve been drinking it for days.”

  As bad as my throat hurt, I was willing to take her word for it. I did as she instructed, and sure enough, some kind of hard, hollow weed slipped between my lips. I gave it a tentative suck, and lukewarm water streamed into my mouth. I’d downed about a dozen mouthfuls when Tara stopped me, warning that she had no idea how much water there was or when someone would be back to bring more.

  “Are we the only two?” I asked, wondering what the asshole who’d yelled at me—and kidnapped me apparently—had done with Gentry.

  “I’m here, Kerr,” Gentry groaned. “Not that I have a clue where here is, or why I woke up with a Brazilian wax.”

  That creepy tidbit required immediate investigation. My hand could just reach far enough for the tips of my fingers to discover my own bald folds. “I don’t believe it. What a perv! Tara?”

  “As far as I can tell, he waxed my whole body.”

  “Great. So we’re sex slaves. Guess that explains why I’m naked and tied up. We’re probably on our way to Russia right now. How long have I been out?”

  “Almost two days since I woke up,” Tara replied. “Gentry came around only a couple hours after I did. He must have given you a super dose.”

  “Lucky me. Did anyone else get a look at the prick? All I noticed before I blacked out was a super long, silver braid. I did land a nice elbow to his ribs though.”

  “Of course you did,” Gentry said with a snort. “Having you here makes me feel like we’re not totally screwed. I only got to see his face for like half a second before he shoved something nasty into my nose. The next thing I remember is Tara kicking me in the shin to see if I was dead. Thanks for going all girl-on-girl to resuscitate me by the way. I can still taste your cherry lip balm.”

  We all laughed in spite of ourselves. I strained my neck toward the sound of their voices, trying to figure out how we were situated, and smacked my
cheek against some kind of bag. “I wish I could see you guys. What’s in this stupid sack thing?”

  “I think its food.” I could hear Tara rustling her own bag. “These little yellow jalapeño looking things fall out if you hit it. I haven’t been brave enough to try one, though.”

  “I don’t get it,” Gentry said. “Why’d he tie us up here and leave? Why not take us with him? And where the hell did he go, anyway? I didn’t see any boats or anything.”

  “I need to tell you guys something.” Tara paused, obviously struggling with whatever she was about to confess. “I know how crazy this is going to sound, but I swear I’m not making this up.”

  “If we were ever going to believe one of your bat shit crazy stories, now would be the time.” Barbed comments like that were what made most people think Gentry was a bitch. Her sense of humor had to grow on you—slowly.

  In this case I shared her underlying skepticism. Tara had bragged that her mother worked at Langley—training senior agents no less—during a swim camp in Dallas last summer. Girls took to their smart phones, and we soon found out that her mother had actually run out on them when Tara was five and had a mile-long criminal record. Then there was her TV interview after setting her world record this spring, in which she claimed to be the youngest of three sisters and to be part Latino. It took the media all of about five seconds to fact check that one. Turns out she was an only child born to two very white parents in Minnesota. Given her success in the pool, the public just thought she was quirky, but she was almost a pariah in swimming circles.

  After Gentry’s sarcastic, backhanded jab, it was no wonder it took Tara a couple minutes to muster the courage to try again. “I saw him. I don’t think he could drug me until we got to the surface. He’s huge by the way, like pro basketball player huge. And built like a Norse God.”