by Joss Ware
But at least his face was out of the water.
It wasn’t far. He could do it. One stroke . . . the next stroke . . . don’t think about—
“Did you see?” Ana’s voice was urgent. “You have gills!”
At first her words didn’t penetrate over the roar of desperation and panic in his heart and mind, but she said it again. “Bruno. You have gills.”
By that time he’d reached the sailboat and grabbed onto it like a drowning man. Hell, he was a drowning man.
“What did you say?” Safely holding onto the edge of the boat, trying to forget that he was still in the ocean, he turned to look at Ana.
She’d come toward him, her eyes wild with excitement. “I was showing you! You have gills. You can breathe underwater.”
“What are you talking about?” he said, but even as he did, he was lifting his arm to look at his torso. Which was still underwater, so he couldn’t see anything.
Ana was there next to him now, and she took his free hand and slid it down beneath his arm and—
Holy Mother of God.
Sure enough, there was an opening that had not been there a few moments earlier. His skin had split open just like the gill on a fish, by God.
It was fucking freaky. Completely, madly freaky, sliding his fingers along the beveled edge of a slit, warm and moist, in his torso . . . like the time he broke an arm and saw the edge of the bone pushing against the skin from the inside.
It was his body . . . yet it wasn’t.
“There’s one on both sides,” Ana said. She was right next to him now, her legs so close they brushed against his.
“I can’t . . . it can’t be,” he whispered.
“What the hell is going on?” Zoë’s face appeared in front of him. There were tear streaks on her cheeks, and her nose was tipped red, but from the way Quent hovered behind her, his hand curved around her middle, it was clear that whatever crisis they’d had was either resolved or put aside for now.
“Fence has gills,” Ana said.
“Let me see,” Zoë demanded, bending over farther.
Fence obliged, still numb and foggy-minded, by popping out of the water, using the bow of the boat as his pull-up bar.
“Hot damn, you’ve got some crazy-ass muscles going on there, Fence,” Zoë breathed, and then, “I don’t see any fu— Oh.”
Quent was there, leaning over her shoulder, looking down at Fence’s torso. “They’re gone now. But they were there; I saw them for a second. Now there’s just a little line. Like a scratch.”
“They must come out when you’re in the water,” Ana said. “And close up when you come out. That’s why you never noticed them.”
Fence lowered himself back in and felt the now-familiar stinging on either side of his ribs. He’d had these gills all along?
“So does this mean I can breathe underwater?” he said faintly, still struggling to comprehend. And to figure out how, just how the hell, he was going to allow himself to take that first breath.
“I told you,” Ana said. “I knew you were breathing underwater.”
A particularly vehement wave nudged Fence, and he looked over just as Quent said, “Buggering hell! Look at that!”
His body went cold.
Just beyond the shimmery force field curtain were choppy, massive, gray waves. As if someone had stirred up a great big cauldron, or dropped a big stone in a bucket. The barrier contained them, for they splashed up against it as if crashing into a breaker, but the water was definitely getting rougher on this side as well.
“It’s got to be the stones,” Ana said. “They’re gathering their water force. And when it’s all stirred up and ready, a place will be opened in the barrier to let the tidal wave through.” She looked up at the afternoon sky. “The moon’s up already. It’ll be at its fullest point and strongest pull in two . . . three . . . four hours,” she counted. “I’ve got to go back down there and find those crystals.”
“And we’ve got to get this boat to shore,” Quent said, his face tight. “And far enough inland that whatever comes isn’t going to get us.”
Zoë had already moved away, and Fence saw her picking up the lines and trying to raise the sail.
“I’ve got to go,” Ana said. She looked at Fence but didn’t say anything else.
Another wave, with more violence, smashed against them, sending Ana surging into Fence. He reached down and felt his torso. It was underwater and, yes—it was a miracle—the gill was there again.
Open.
He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. He just released the side of the boat and slid underwater.
Out of habit, he’d taken a deep breath of air and he propelled himself down as far as he could go, praying the whole way.
Ana’s long, slender legs and the glow of her crystals appeared above him and began to sink in front of his face. She reached out, sliding her hand along his shoulder then down his arm until their fingers clasped. . . . and this time when she held his hand, he didn’t feel like a kid going to the doctor.
He felt like a man with a partner.
He’d found his lifeline.
Fence held his breath, holding steady as long as he could. He managed to keep the panic at bay by testing his side to make sure the gills were still there, by counting, by praying, by looking into Ana’s eyes.
When he could hold his breath no longer, he released it. And then he had to fight the urge to panic again. Even as he floated there, propelling his hands to keep him below the surface, he felt the water changing around him. Moving faster, harder, without its normal easy rhythm.
He was having a harder time remaining in one place, keeping from bumping into Ana.
Now his lungs were empty. Now he’d been holding his breath for a long time. Too long.
Now what?
He closed his eyes and forced himself to relax. Tried not to think about what he was doing. Oh God.
The burning in his lungs eased, and something cool rushed into them. Fence had another terrifying moment when he realized that cool rush was water, filling organs that were only supposed to be filled with oxygen.
But he felt no pain, no desperation, no panic.
He opened his eyes and found Ana there in front of him again, watching intently.
He breathed a few times, raggedly, carefully . . . and everything seemed to work.
There was no choking, no tightening in his chest, no panic messing with his mind—well, that wasn’t true. It was still there, hovering, ready to slide into his consciousness if he had even a moment of uncertainty . . . but he managed to keep it at bay.
I’m breathing.
Under the fucking water.
When at last he smiled, Ana smiled back, and the next thing he knew, she had her arms and legs wrapped around him and was covering his mouth with hers.
The feel of her warm body sliding against his in the cool water was delicious and erotic, and he accepted the kiss from her without hesitation. Her tongue was hot in a world of cool darkness, and Fence realized just how pleasurable this could be. When her hands slid down along his torso, over his gills, he froze, heart pounding, and that panic threatened to turn his vision dark . . . but nothing happened.
She brushed over them, accidentally closing one for a second, and then slid her hands around behind to hold him close. It’s cool. I’m cool. It was no more disconcerting than having one nostril plugged for a moment.
He smiled against her lips and kissed deeper, reveling in the sense of heat between their mouths while the rest of her felt cool.
Just as he was getting comfortable with the idea that he didn’t have to even pull away from a kiss in order to breathe, Ana released him.
Her face had become serious and intense, and he looked in the direction she was pointing.
Even here beneath thirty or forty feet of water, the shimmering curtain glowed from a hundred yards away. It extended down into the depths so far that he couldn’t see an end to it.
A rough surge of water
reminded him that they were in a violent stew that was going to come to a boil if they didn’t do something. And he also reminded himself not to think too hard about the fact that he was underwater. And going deeper.
And now that it seemed he no longer had air in his lungs but water instead, he wasn’t floating back toward the surface. He was buoyant-neutral, hovering in place without having to work to keep himself down.
He drew in a deep breath—it felt so odd, with chill rushing into him and not through his nose—and followed Ana as she took off down, down, down.
Down into the blackness.
Fence’s heart hitched and his stomach hurt, but he went after her. He was breathing. The panic had subsided—mostly—but it was so dark. And silent.
At least in the depths of caves—which were just as dark, but not nearly as fucking wet—you could hear the drip or plop-plop of water . . . or the scrape of one’s canvas-covered knees on rock, or the gentle ding of a metal helmet against the wall.
Here . . . it was a dead zone. There was nothing but silence.
The only thing Fence could see were Ana’s crystals, and he was grateful for them as he followed their blue glow.
As he became more comfortable with this new and unbelievable development, he also became more aware of his surroundings. When they swam past a building, it took him a moment to realize that the structure extended several feet below and that he was near the roof.
It was surreal in a way the post-Change world had never appeared before. It was as if he were flying through a ruined city, several floors above streets and cars. But instead of having birds as his companions, there were schools of fish. Those orange ones from that Disney movie. He noticed a freaking squid, tentacles curling out of a dark space as if beckoning for some prey to enter his parlor. He passed destroyed houses, looking down into roofless rooms and past broken windows, and saw translucent shrimp as big as his hand with spiny blue eyes.
He had a start when he caught sight of a large shadow swimming above him, slowly and ponderously, and he nearly swallowed his heart when he realized it was a killer whale. They were big-ass creatures. He supposed that was why they called them “whales.”
He recognized old, algae-encrusted, cracked signs as they swam over what had once been a large shopping center: one for Home Depot, with only the EPO still hanging on tenaciously. Another for REI—which gave him pause, because, wow . . . camping gear. Much of which would still be wrapped in indestructible plastic. It would be a treasure trove! If they had time, he’d stop and check it out.
But of course he didn’t stop, and continued on over another store he vaguely recognized—it had the word “Bath” in the name—and then he saw half of a furry, bleached McDonald’s M protruding from the wall of a building. And a jumble of cars from the long-ruined parking lot below.
Just as on land, the ruins were stamped with Mother Nature’s decoration: fronds of green and brown stuttered in the increasingly rough water, algae and coral attached to brick walls and along the edges of doorways and car windows.
As they swam deeper and he could finally make out the uneven sea bottom, he saw other natural glows that illuminated the floor of the ocean. Starfish, seahorses, even a long, whiplike black snake slithered by. But still the curtain shimmered alongside them.
Once, he and Ana passed a small crystal, no bigger than his fist, set in the ground. It burned lavender and pink, and he realized it was a sort of fence post for the barrier—one of the crystals that connected its force field to the next. He wondered if by moving them out of the way, out of line, it would change the barrier.
He would have suggested it, but Ana led the way as if she knew where she was going, swimming parallel to the electrical curtain. They were very close to the rise and fall of the ground, and Fence noticed that she seemed to be following a road. He recognized cars and other vehicles, streetlights, and even the yellow concrete bars that used to mark parking places, all littering the thoroughfare.
He also realized that the water was moving more violently, making it more difficult to swim in a straight line. The churning caused the sea grass and plants to shake and whip, and even a few doors that still hung onto their hinges shuddered and flapped.
At last Ana stopped and pointed. Fence swam up next to her and looked. The glow from her ever-present crystals illuminated the area enough for him to see a dip in the sea bottom. It was black as night, a great, deep vee.
But the barrier crossed over the top of it like a blanket covering a hole, and he knew she meant to swim through there to the other side.
There was no way to communicate in this deep, silent place other than wordlessly, and so he grabbed her arm and dragged her through the water, pulling her up against him.
Her arms went tightly around his neck, telling him that she was just as apprehensive. The fit of her body against his, the warmth plastered against him in this cold, blue world, was beyond comfort. It made him feel whole.
He bent his face to take her mouth, gentle at first, brushing her lips with his as they slid over a barrier of salt and cold damp. He kissed her, using his mouth and the caress of his hands to tell her what he’d just recently come to understand: there was no one else, there would be no one else, he had to be with her. And thank you.
The last bit of the kiss was all thank you.
Thank you for making me whole again.
When she pulled away, her face tinged by the blue of her crystal glow, her eyes were filled with emotion that matched what was billowing inside him, and he knew she understood.
And then she eased out of his arms, took his hand, and together they swam deep and far . . . into the black hole.
Ana was grateful for Fence’s big strong hand in hers as she led them into the dark pit.
She couldn’t believe she didn’t have to do this alone. She had a partner, someone she trusted and relied upon. If her eyes weren’t already wet from the sea, they’d be damp with happy, relieved tears.
The naked terror in his face when she first saw him underwater had been frightening, and that was when she truly understood the risk he’d taken, jumping in after her.
That was when she fully realized the kind of man he was. Not only how he felt about her, but that he would struggle to do what was right even when every fiber of his being tried to convince him otherwise.
Now, as the crystal barrier undulated up into the water just above her head, she paused, squeezed his hand, then darted down and forward.
When she felt them pass safely beneath the wavering curtain and the echoes of its energy, she drew in a deep breath of relief. The glow of her crystals fired higher at that moment, then returned to normal as she and Fence paused, now on the other side of the barrier.
Ana scanned the dark shapes that made up some submerged cityscape, unsure where to go and how to find the stones.
Fence gave a little tug on her hand and gestured. She understood him to mean they should go back the way they came along the barrier, and she agreed.
Off they went, swimming quickly, no longer needing to hold hands.
As they zipped through the heavy, dark sea, Ana was aware of how readily Fence seemed to have adapted to his changed situation.
Her heart was filled to bursting despite the seriousness of their mission: How could she be any more fortunate to have found a man who could share in the secrets of the sea? And who wasn’t an despicable Atlantean?
She’d been waiting for him without even realizing it.
She’d found her partner.
As they came along the barrier, Ana noticed a glow in the distance. It was an unnatural illumination, much too big to be fish or anemone, or even the Atlanteans themselves. Her heart began to race, and she gestured to Fence—but he’d already seen it, for he darted up next to her with strong, smooth strokes.
Using the cover of old buildings, they made their way down an old street toward the glow. As they came into closer proximity, the churning water became cloudier. There weren’t any fishes or other se
a creatures in this area, and even Ana began to feel apprehensive about the state of the water.
At last they could see the source of the glow. They’d swum higher in order to see over the tops of the waterscape—both natural and manmade—and Fence thrust his arm out to stop her from going any farther.
But water churned so strongly here that he had to grab onto something—the naked frame of a window—to keep from being dragged into the swirling mess, and he snagged her arm to keep her next to him.
Now they could see the whole picture.
Fence looked at her, and in the dim blue glow, she could see the stark intensity on his face. In his eyes shone concern and determination, and not a little of holy shit.
She felt the same way, for looking out at the glow that illuminated even this stirred-up water made her stomach hurt. There were seven Goleth stones, and she’d been right about their size. They were about four feet high and three feet in diameter and looked like moonstones, with a soft gray light burning inside each of them.
She and Fence hovered there, holding hands again, staring in horrified fascination. The stones were lined up in two rows of three, with the seventh one set apart from them at one end. As they watched, the water rushed down in the channel between the rows and gathered up, spewing forth beyond the single one at the head like a horizontal waterfall.
Dirt, debris, plants, everything was kicked up and churned in the vortex of water, turning the world murky. They were far enough away, and off to the side of the water funnel, so that the tug wasn’t pulling them into the vortex . . . but Ana sensed it was only a matter of time and proximity.
It was as if they were watching a cyclone begin, a long, horizontal one gathering up its force and spewing it forth. It was like being in the midst of a thunderstorm, but completely silent and darker.
Fence was staring at it, and Ana wondered fleetingly if he was becoming panicked again. She wouldn’t blame him; she’d been in many sea storms before, but this was different and it frightened her.
How the hell were they going to get close enough to move one of those stones out of alignment?