by Katee Robert
And what hunts in the deep.
“The deal didn’t include you killing me.” It feels so good to speak my native tongue again—almost good enough to realize exactly how much trouble I’m in.
You’re welcome for returning you to your rightful state. You’re also welcome for carrying you to the sea.
If I could blush in my current state, I would. Yes, he helped me. More than makes any kind of sense. Creatures don’t live as long as he has by being a bleeding heart. Abel is too smart for that, even if he’s determined to play this like he isn’t. No matter which way I look at the situation, I’m in trouble. I can try to escape, but he owns the ocean more than I ever will. If I touch water, there’s a good chance he can find me. I couldn’t keep away even when I was mostly human. Now? There’s absolutely no chance.
No, better to face this head on and deal with it as best I’m able. I can’t beat Abel in anything resembling a fair fight, but once my strength returns, I can portal his ass and that gives me the advantage.
I just have to survive long enough to use it.
His tentacles move around me, closer than they were before. So many thoughts running through that pretty head of yours.
“Keep your tentacles to yourself, Abel. I’m more than capable of swimming where I need to swim without you hauling me around.” I cross my arms over my chest and immediately have to uncross them to keep myself steady. Damn it, it’s hard to act like I’m totally in control when I can move as well as a small child. I just need time—the one thing I don’t have. “I need—”
I tire of your stalling. He snags me around the waist and then we’re moving faster than I could have dreamed as he drags me deeper and deeper, out to sea.
I hate this.
I hate him.
Getting my powers back was supposed to put me more in control of my life and my future, and yet here I am, being dragged around by this asshole again. My anger and frustration flares brighter, hotter, and power sizzles at the tips of my fingers. I can’t create a portal yet, but the longer I’m in the ocean, the higher my power meter will climb. Another thirty minutes, tops, and I’m out of here.
Even if Abel tries to chase me through, he has to be touching me to enter the portal. I’ve never seen what happens to a living being if a portal is closed before they’re all the way through, but I don’t imagine it’s pretty. He’s huge. That might work to his advantage when he’s throwing his weight around, but it will work in mine when it comes to portaling.
I can kill him.
I wait for the euphoria to course through me, but there’s only a hollow twang. Abel is a jerk and a monster, but up to this point he hasn’t hurt me—aside from some psychological trauma I will spend the next decade getting over. But even that is worth it because I have my powers back. If he isn’t planning on sacrificing me in some arcane ritual, then I owe him.
Something to deal with when the time comes.
The water changes around me, the darkness growing until even I can’t see much beyond the tentacle wrapped around my middle. I know where we are, though it seems impossible that we traveled hundreds of miles in such a short time.
Abel releases me and nudges me toward the edge of the cliff walls leading down, down, down into the dark. There’s a thrum of magic below, but it tastes strange and unnatural. I glance at him, but he doesn’t move or give any indication of what the hell we’re doing here. Without knowing if it’s safe to speak, I do my best to mentally project my words at him. What’s happening.
You wanted revenge, pretty. Your vengeance is down there.
I shift forward to peer down, but there’s nothing more to see than there was last time. The deal was that you destroy my enemies. Though how will I know if he kills them if I can’t see?
That damn amusement flicks at me. The deal was that we destroy your enemies. I don’t expect you to take my word for it.
It’s too easy. I keep coming back to that. I have proven time and time again that I am not lucky. If there is a way to get screwed over in most situations, I’ll find it with the least amount of effort. No one in the history of the merfolk have managed to lose their ability to shift and yet I managed before I hit my first century. I test my magic again, and it sparks brighter inside me. Not too much longer until I can portal.
Except…
I do want revenge.
Not for the noble reason that my father has drilled into my head since I was a small child—the Deep Dwellers are the enemy and they tried to kill our entire people before we escaped this world. No, I want them dead for what they did to me personally. It’s selfish and probably unforgivable, but that doesn’t change the truth. I want them to hurt the same way I hurt. I want to take my pain out on them, to rid myself of the weight of it by releasing it on them. They hurt me, so I want to hurt them back.
A tale as old as time.
What’s the plan?
He shifts closer, a giant weight against my back that I feel despite the fact he’s not touching me. There’s a camp down there—the same Deep Dwellers that sold me your necklace. We attack and when it’s finished, you fulfill your end of the bargain.
I grip the edge of the rock to hold myself in place and crane my neck to look at him. I can’t portal with abandon, and I can’t toss people through without going through myself. I’m not going to be much use in a fight.
He shifts his tentacles away from me and one descends from above, something glinting within its surprisingly delicate grasp. A sword. I take it gingerly, half expecting the weight of it to drag me down, but it’s light and when I swing it, it cuts through the water with barely any drag at all. Magic. It must be. Do you normally swim around with treasures hidden in your skirts?
Only when the situation calls for it. He pauses, watching me with that giant eye. This once belonged to a siren killer.
I swing the blade again. It takes a particular kind of crazy to go after sirens, let alone to do it often enough that you get a reputation as a siren killer. A particular kind of crazy and a particular kind of weapon. Thank you. I still don’t trust him, exactly, but the evidence keeps piling up that I’m being paranoid. I don’t know what to think of this whole thing, other than to assume that Abel really needs my portal. It’s the only thing that makes sense, but that nice little answer doesn’t comfort me in the least.
There’s nothing for it. I can keep stalling, but in the end, we’re going down there to mete out my revenge. Might as well get it over with. Let’s go.
After you, pretty.
I find myself holding my breath and force an inhale. The dark hides a multitude of sins and the shadows below us are no different. At least my motor skills have evened out, though it still feels strange to have a tail again instead of weak human legs. I head down into the depths, my body automatically adjusting to the pressure. Most fish can’t shift between layers easily, but my people have uniquely adapted over the millennia so that there is no part of the water on this planet that we cannot explore at will.
Or at least, we’ll be able to explore as a people once my sisters and I find a way to bring them back.
A worry for another day.
I readjust my grip on the sword and dive deeper. I can feel the kraken at my back, and it’s not nearly as comforting as I’d like it to be. It’s only when lights appear ahead of me that I recognize where we are. The place where the portal from my home world spat me out.
Memories roll over me despite my best efforts. The breathless excitement of knowing that I was on the front lines of bringing my people home. The confusion when none of my sisters were present to greet me. The fear that rose in a drowning wave at the sight of the Deep Dwellers edging closer in a circle around me. A trap I couldn’t escape, though I didn’t go down that day without a fight.
I won’t go down today at all.
I press my hand to my chest and send out a finding pulse. It doesn’t always work when it comes to living creatures, but these ones have my blood on their hands. My power knows them, has tasted
them before. One by one, they flare in my mind. Six of them. Not such a great number when all is said and done. I should have been able to fight them off on my own, would have if not for the curse they poured down on me.
They don’t have that damned curse today.
9
The Deep Dwellers are gathered around a fresh kill, a fish twice as large as I am, and they don’t sense me until I’m nearly on top of them. Even then, the thing they look at is Abel. Not that I blame them. He looks like the worst kind of nightmare descending into their midst.
The Deep Dwellers reflect their chosen hunting grounds. Where the merfolk have been accused of being designed to draw sailors to their deaths by mimicking humans—at least in part—no one would mistake these creatures as anything but monsters. Their powerful fins harken to a strange combination of shark and eel, and their top half looks like something birthed of a humanoid fish. Arms capable of holding their preferred weapon—spears. Gaping fishy lips that part in fear and anger at the sight of the kraken descending into their midst. Large eyes designed to use even the smallest hint of light to see at depths well beyond where I’m comfortable going.
Even if they weren’t my own personal nightmare, they would inspire sleepless nights.
They surge up to meet me, all sharp teeth and murderous intent. In that moment, I am not the weak, broken thing I’ve let myself become. I’m the warrior my mother taught me to be. I slash with the sword, faster than I could have imagined possible. The blade cuts the first Deep Dweller across the chest, bathing the dark sea with blue-green blood. It screeches at me even as I strike again, aiming for the torso. The heart. The sword cuts through its thick skin without resistance and I’m already onto the next attacker as my victim drifts down into the deep.
More appear from somewhere, but before I can readjust my trajectory, Abel is there. A single swipe of his massive tentacle and they’re broken bodies spinning away from us. Good enough. Distantly, I register that he’s mostly hanging back, but it’s fine because I have this covered. I am in control. These assholes aren’t going to swim away from this fight to hurt someone else.
Never again.
I fight and slash and stab, my body falling into a rhythm as natural as breathing. Though I’m sure there were only six to start with, they keep coming at me, their injured comrades falling back to be replaced by fresh attackers. It doesn’t matter. With adrenaline and magic coursing through me in a heady mix, I can fight forever.
In the back of my mind, I know that’s nowhere near close to the truth, so I don’t drag this out. As much as part of me wants to revel in the vengeance dealt by my hand, I’m too aware that I can’t go on like this indefinitely. Not against superior numbers.
I will never be one of my people’s great warriors, but I am better than these things. One rears up in front of me and I cut its head clean off. I spin, ready to take on the next, but I’m alone. They’re all gone, shattered dolls littering the ocean floor. I turn again, half expecting some kind of secondary attack.
There’s no one left alive but me.
Well, me and the kraken.
I swim up until I’m even with his eye. He’s too large for me to see the one on the other side of his head, so I meet this one directly. With the fight still singing in my blood, I don’t even shake when all his focus lands directly on me. I’m almost done. I just have to see this through and then I can finally close the door on the tragedy of the last two years.
There’s only one thing left to do. “Your portal. Where to?” I’m fully recharged now, and confident I can create the portal without issue. Depending on the distance of the jump, it might wipe me out, and that is something I can’t let happen. I don’t have a choice. I haven’t since the start of this. Even if I could slip through a portal alone and flee, Abel will still come after me to fulfill my end of the bargain. Better to just take care of it while we’re somewhat at peace.
An image appears in my head, startling in its detail. Crystal blue waters, so bright they could almost exist inside some giant gemstone, and schools of tropical fish darting through them. It feels familiar to me, though that doesn’t make any sense. In the time I’ve been in this world, I haven’t traveled anywhere that looks remotely like those waters.
Something tickles at the edges of my mind, but it’s gone before I can focus on it.
I swim in a slow circle, considering. “I need you smaller. If I try to take you at your current size, it will probably kill me and then you really won’t get where you’re going.”
He starts to shift, his body seeming to fold in on itself. There’s a hint of ink in the water and then the man floats before me in that damned three-piece suit. I have no idea how he’s breathing but, considering the feats he’s pulled off since I met him, it’s the least impossible thing I’ve seen. As he moves closer, goosebumps break out across my skin. I give myself a shake and try to focus. “When the portal opens, you have to hang onto me to get through.”
Noted.
Something is wrong.
I don’t know what it is, and I don’t know what’s causing the feeling, but I swim another circle and search for the cause of my agitation. I’m no seer. I can’t sense trouble coming any more than I can predict the winning lottery numbers. But I learned a long time ago to listen to my instincts, and every one of them is screaming that this isn’t over. “Come on. Hurry.”
Portal Abel to his destination.
Create just enough portal to jump somewhere else.
Move on with my life.
Seems simple enough, but nothing has been simple from the start of this.
I draw my power into me, focusing on the destination. For the handful of heartbeats it takes to form the portal, I’m completely helpless. Once the process starts, it’s impossible to stop. If someone was going to launch a stealth attack, this would be the time to do it. I brace, imagining a knife sliding through my ribs in vivid detail.
Nothing happens.
The portal opens, and I get a glimpse of that vivid blue on the other side. From the sparse energy it draws from me, it’s not nearly as far away as I would have guessed. Why Abel didn’t just swim there himself is anyone’s guess, but he hasn’t played to my expectations leading up to this moment, so there’s no reason to think he’d start now. I hold out my hand. “Let’s go.” The sooner I get him there, the sooner I get rid of him.
He clasps my wrist, his big hand creating a manacle. I hesitate, but it’s far too late to go back now. There is only forward. With a deep breath, I take us through the portal.
The jump is instantaneous. One second we’re in the darkest of waters with pressure I can feel even in my natural form, and the next it’s downright balmy and bright. Next to me, Abel shakes his head and blinks blearily. I haven’t jumped with many people in the past, but even merfolk react to portals like that if they’re not of the royal line. At least the kraken isn’t totally impervious.
I look around while he adjusts, taking in everything around us. We’re in relative shallows, not too far from some land mass, and there is a significant amount of surface activity. Boats and surfers and…
Oh fuck.
I know where we are.
The Nexus Portal.
It shouldn’t have taken me so long to remember it, but I only got a glimpse before the Deep Dwellers snatched me. Now that I’m concentrating, I can sense the portal itself pulsing just out of sight. It’s the only way back to our home world—the only way for more of my sisters to follow us here. If that portal is destroyed, our connection to home will be destroyed along with it.
What have I done?
I focus on holding the portal at our back open. I can’t do it forever but maybe—hopefully—I can hold it long enough. “I didn’t agree to this.”
“On the contrary, you did.”
I spin on him, twisting my free arm and lunging with my sword out.
He’s ready for me, though.
Of course he’s ready for me.
He knocks my blow asid
e and yanks me close. “You’ll find our partnership is just beginning.”
I can’t get leverage. Even in his mockery of the human form, he’s too strong. He moves like something of the sea despite his body being land-based, and as I spiral us down toward the ocean bottom, Abel never once loses his grip on me. I can’t use the sword in such close quarters and the bastard knows it.
That’s okay.
I have one better.
I let the portal above us close and he glances up. His slow smile sends a shudder through me. “Thought you’d see things my way.”
“You know,” I gasp, still struggling. “You say partnership, and I hear captivity.”
“Yes, well, who wouldn’t want their own personal portal creator?” He twists my wrist and my sword falls from nerveless fingers. “There’s a reckoning coming, Lorelei. I’ll protect you from it.”
But at what cost?
I have no reason to believe him, and he has no reason to be truthful. I knew there was a trap closing around me, I just couldn’t sense its dimensions until too late. I refuse to go down like this. I just regained myself. I’m not going to let him clip my fins all over again.
But if he has information, I need it.
“What reckoning?”
“Did you think yours was the only plan the Deep Dwellers hatched against the merfolk?”
When he puts it like that, it sounds stupid to think I was a one-off. I have been so shortsighted and selfish, it makes me sick. I can’t foil whatever plans the Deep Dwellers have already put into place when it comes to my sisters, but I can ensure this asshole doesn’t eat our only way home.