by Jade Kerrion
“No one goes in.”
“Damn it! I know you’re the captain of the ship, but this is bigger than the Veritas and whatever liability or insurance issues you’re worried about. Others need to know what’s going on here. I need to know what’s going on here.”
“No one goes in.”
“This matters, Ashe. It’s the only thing that does right now! How can I make you understand?”
“Maybe if you stopped yelling?” The parrot chortled as if he had understood—and not just merely—translated the captain’s words. “Get some rest, and we’ll discuss it tomorrow.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“You very nearly drowned. Telling you to rest isn’t patronizing.”
“I know what I’m doing. I didn’t nearly drown as a result of my own carelessness. I was attacked.”
“And that’s why you’re not going back.”
“You can’t stop me.”
Her eyebrow arched.
When had he begun to sound like a petulant child? Varun grimaced and tried again. “This is important.”
“Staying alive is important too.”
“Not as important as this,” he snapped.
She looked startled.
His eyes locked on hers. “This matters.”
The surprised expression on her face focused into a thoughtful gleam in her eyes. “Rest now. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“We’re wasting time. Every minute counts,” he snarled. “Why are you fighting me on this? I know what I’m doing.”
“You have no idea what you’re doing, or what you’re getting into. Go to bed, Varun. Get your rest.”
What the hell! She was treating him like a child. He spun and stomped down the deck toward the crew quarters. A chill wind followed him. As he entered the passageway, it strengthened into a gust. It ripped his grip from the door handle and slammed the door shut behind him.
He stared at the door handle, half expecting it to move on its own.
It did not.
What was wrong with him? When did he start expecting ghosts at every turn?
He didn’t—not until seaweed had moved of its own volition and attacked him.
Varun returned to his cabin, but his anxiety rubbed too raw an edge to permit him any rest. Three steps carried Varun across the breadth of his cabin. What was wrong with him? He could not let himself get carried away chasing down the fantastical. Surely there was a logical reason for what he saw. He was a scientist, for God’s sake, even if he descended from an insane family tree. For generations, his family had believed in fairy tales, in mermaids taking on human form, in magic unrecognized, in love lost—not just lost, but carelessly thrown away.
Varun drew a deep breath. No wonder the captain had told him to sleep it off.
She was probably right. Oxygen deprivation was hell on the mind. Who knew what was real, and what was not? He owed her an apology, if not for what he thought had happened to him, then at least for behaving like an ass about it.
In the end, she had saved his life. A bit more gratitude—or even politeness—would not hurt. Her ship; her rules. She could keep him from diving; he had to make certain she didn’t. A taste of humble pie, a more sincerely worded apology—perhaps he could smooth things over.
Varun returned to the deck, but something—perhaps it was the pregnant silence in the air—kept him in the alcove of darkness next to the door. The deck was empty.
Motion flickered in the corner of his eye. In a secluded corner of the deck where the lifeboats were lashed, he caught a glimpse of movement. He squinted until his eyes adjusted to the surrounding night. The captain stood, almost perfectly hidden by the lifeboats, the long spear-like weapon still in her hand. She stared out at the ocean, her expression inscrutable, and then she took her clothes off.
Varun might have flushed had he thought about it, but as graceful as she was, there was nothing coy or seductive about her undressing. She was all business, all focused intent. She tucked her clothes under the cover of one of the lifeboats, picked up the spear, and dived off the ship.
She did not even make a splash.
Varun stared out at inky blackness and saw nothing, but the moon peeked out from behind cloud cover just as something broke the surface of the water. For an instant, silver moonlight gleamed down on a being too ethereal to be human.
For a moment, Ashe appeared luminous in the surrounding black.
Then she was gone, back under the water.
It jolted him back into reality.
He was alone.
Had he really seen what he thought he had seen?
He reached under the cover of the lifeboat where he had seen her hide her clothes. His hands groped for several moments before touching cloth. All right, he hadn’t imagined her stripping down and diving off the ship. But alone? Without diving equipment?
What the hell was going on?
For a moment, his mind trembled on the edge of asking an even more terrifying question, but it shied back. He could not cross that barrier. Not willfully. Not yet.
Chapter 7
Not needing to breathe was a convenient trait to possess. When Ashe had transformed from a mermaid to a human two hundred and ninety-seven years earlier, she had not lost just her tail and her voice. She had shed the pale blue-green cast of her skin for the smooth, bronzed complexion of the Beltiamatu’s land-walking descendants. Her talons had shrunk into human-sized fingernails; her incisors were but a fraction of their former length. Other changes were invisible, but even more profound. As there was more oxygen in air than in water, her lungs had weakened and lost their ability to squeeze oxygen out of water.
Her physical form, such as it had been, could not have returned to the water.
Just as well she was not human anymore, and that her body was little more than a shell—a convenient way to interact with humans without sending a tornado to get their attention.
She dived down, past the tangle of Sargassum seaweed, beyond the reach of their trailing strands. None of them tried to stop her. It would seem at a glance that nothing was wrong—except that there was nothing else. No fish. No invertebrates. No clusters of eggs and fish nurseries nestled in the seaweed.
And deeper down, nothing still.
Occasionally, she saw the shape of a fish in the distance. Small. Solitary. Infinitely vulnerable.
The Sargasso Sea had once teemed with fish. Where were they? She touched the sand on the seafloor. The pale gold was streaked with black. Frowning, she ran her fingers through the rough grains. The sand was not black, but something on it was. Slick and viscous. Perhaps blood of some sort, but she had never seen blood so dark or so thick.
Something small flicked at the edge of her peripheral vision. Slender. Humanoid.
Ashe darted after it. Her human-shaped body was not optimized for an underwater race, but she remembered the old motions—the smooth undulation, arms forward, slicing through the water.
And she cheated, just a little.
Her elemental powers raced ahead of her like a plow through a dense snow pile, pushing aside water molecules, reducing the number of things in her way. Her elemental powers also pushed from behind her, propelling her faster than she could have moved as a human or a mermaid.
She lunged alongside the slender figure and grabbed its arm. Stop. She flung her thoughts into its mind. I just want to talk.
A human might have mistaken the figure for a young child. It was small—only about three feet from head to toes—but its limbs and body were mature. It stared at Ashe’s face, blinked sharply, and then its astonished gaze traveled the length of her body. “I thought you were a Beltiamatu.”
I was. Once. What is your name?
“Galene.”
Asherah. Once of the Beltiamatu.
The Nereid tilted her head. Her blue hair streamed out behind her. “There is only one Asherah that we know of. The crown princess who vanished from the oceans almost three hundred years ago.”
I am she.<
br />
“Why have you returned?”
The humans are panicking. Never a good thing.
Galene scrunched her nose into a wry expression. “No, but at least this time, they have a reason.”
What’s going on? What’s happening to the ocean?
“You don’t know? The Beltiamatu are poisoning the water.”
Shock rippled through Ashe. Why?
“I don’t know. No one can get close enough to the city of Shulim to find out.” Galene shook her head. “The Beltiamatu are our enemies now. They hunt and kill anyone who tries to stop them. I have lost many sisters who thought that it was enough to be the children of the god of the sea to stop the Lords of the Ocean, but they were wrong. Even the Daughters of Poseidon cannot put an end to the madness of the Beltiamatu.”
What are they doing?
“The madness, the poison is in their blood. The Beltiamatu swim across the far reaches of the ocean and then kill themselves in a demonic ritual. Their blood—blacker than the abyss—spills onto the sand, and it spreads. Like a shroud, it covers in death anything not swift enough to get out of its way.”
Ashe’s thoughts reeled. Not her people— I don’t understand.
Galene glared at Ashe. “The Beltiamatu are not as they used to be. The sickness is inside them, in their blood, and it’s spreading death across the ocean.”
Are all the Beltiamatu so changed?
The Nereid frowned. “No, not all, but most of them.”
How do I find these Beltiamatu—the ones who are sick?
Galene held up her hands. “Their nails turn black; their skin is pale. You will know. They look like carriers of death.”
Ashe’s thoughts spiraled without clear direction, but she managed a grateful Thank you.
The sea nymph tilted her head to study Ashe. “Even though you have feet and breathe under the water, like me, you’re not a Nereid, are you?”
No, I was Beltiamatu first, then for a while, I was human.
“Was? And now? What are you?”
Ashe shrugged, but could not dismiss the ache in her heart. I am a memory.
Varun was still hidden among the shadows cast by the lifeboat when something broke the surface of the water, right next to the ship. Ashe.
What he hadn’t expected then was her astonishing leap—a vertical soaring into the air, as if propelled by a rocket, in complete defiance of physiology and physics. She somersaulted to alter her trajectory, and landed with the unmatched grace of an Olympic-class gymnast leaping off a vault.
Shadows concealed him, but she turned her head to stare at him.
Had his accelerated breathing given him away?
Ashe wore only the fish-scale necklace around her neck. Water trailed down her slender body to pool on the deck.
She had legs, not a mermaid’s tail. But of course, he snapped into the silence of his own mind. What had he expected to see?
In his heart, he had not been sure.
Unsteadily, Varun rose to his feet, his arms spreading the towel he was holding. Without a word, he wrapped her in it.
It startled him that she permitted it.
Wings fluttered through the darkness. Jinn landed on a nearby perch. Its beady black eyes shuttled between Ashe and Varun.
Varun braced for the parrot’s scathing sarcasm.
Instead, Ashe, through Jinn, said, “I need your help.”
Surprise and instinct bypassed his brain. “Of course,” he responded. “What do you need?”
“I need to capture a mermaid.”
Chapter 8
Ashe glanced at the shadow of the Veritas—so far above her that it was almost invisible. One hundred and fifty meters deep, she waited, concealed by rocks next to a crossroads in the sea. The great currents shaped the highways of the ocean; the lesser ones defined the roads. Where currents met, oceanic roads crossed, conveying its travelers from one path to another. Life thrived, like a town along a trading route. The waters carried different nutrients, making the junction an incredibly rich breeding ground. If sunlight could penetrate that far, plants thrived too, like at this particular crossroad, located on an ocean shelf. If divers knew of it, it would have been among the top dive spots in the world. Its location, in the middle of the Atlantic, however, kept it known only to the residents of the sea.
It also made it the perfect place from which to observe ocean traffic.
Nothing untoward, though, had taken place in the past several hours. Ashe, however, did not mind, not when life’s fullest blaze of beauty surrounded her. She sat, suspended on a cushion of air, above the dazzling profusion of corals. Fish darted around her, curious and inquisitive. A bed of baby eels slunk from their nest tucked among the rocks.
The vibrancy of the ocean surpassed all the beauty of land.
Large fish and sharks swam on the outer edges of the shelf, lazily gliding between shallow and deep water. Pods of dolphins called to each other as they swam past. A small dolphin broke away from its companions and circled her. Its dark and gentle eyes met hers. Their minds touched briefly. Need…help?
No, I am all right. Thank you. You should return to your family.
The pod, however, had turned back to surround the errant dolphin with the safety of numbers. Tails flicked. Snouts nuzzled each other. Family ties were reaffirmed.
Ashe smiled as the dolphins swam off together, united in heart as well as in action. They made love, acceptance, and forgiveness look simple.
She closed her hand around her pendant—the last, her only, tie back to her life beneath the sea. Her mistakes had taught her unshakeable truths: Love, acceptance, and forgiveness were the hardest things in the world.
A familiar humanoid shape undulated through the deep water toward her. Galene.
The Nereid circled the reef, but did not approach any closer. Farther out, other sea nymphs glided through the water. The message was clear enough; Ashe was being watched. The Nereids and Oceanids, the true water elementals, had always been wary around the Beltiamatu, whose superior technology compelled obedience from the currents and tides. The merfolk merely held the tools; they did not wield true power. Advanced technology and innate magic, however, were indistinguishable to those who did not know the difference, like humans.
As a Daughter of Air who possessed elemental power, Ashe was intimately aware of the nuances. One was not deadlier than the other; elemental magic was simply more convenient. She did not have to worry about losing a trident engineered with seismic devices.
The relaxed motions of the fish swimming in the reef suddenly stiffened in shock, then accelerated into hasty darts from open water into shelter. The baby eels retreated. Sharks flicked their tails, wary and afraid, before heading into deep water. The Nereids vanished into the far darkness. Disquiet rippled across the reef, chasing life into hiding.
Ashe concealed herself amid the rocks as two sleek shadows swam past. The Beltiamatu—one male, one female. Ashe studied the dullness of their once silvery scales. Their skin was waxy white instead of healthy blue-green. She was not close enough to examine their talons, but she would have put all her money on black.
Diseased merfolk. Just as Galene had said.
Ashe crept along the seabed, tracking them. They did not look down. They were, after all, the Beltiamatu—Lords of the Ocean. All living creatures in the sea deferred to them. They had nothing to fear.
Except from a former Beltiamatu. Ashe’s faint smile was ironic.
They swam to the center of the reef. The male positioned himself over the coral bed. His hair, a sickly shade of violet, stringy from disease, wafted out from around him. His body, however, still seemed strong, although there was something unnatural about it. The strength seemed false, although Ashe could not exactly define how or why.
He bent his head back, baring his neck.
His voice screamed out to the ocean, to all life cowering from the messenger of death. “Peta babkama luruba anaku ana jarrani sa alaktasa la tarat. Usella mituti ikkalu baltuti.
”
Ashe’s thoughts stumbled through the translation of the ancient Beltiamatu language: Open the gate for me to enter the path that does not turn back. Raise up death. Consume the living.
To hell with watching the ritual. She had to stop it.
She lunged out of her hiding place, but she was not fast enough. The merman raked his black talons across his own neck, tearing through his veins. Dark and viscous blood spilled out. The currents carried the drops of blood away from the dying merman, spreading them across the reef. Where the drops fell, they bubbled like cauldrons of death, brewing over. They stained the sand black, and then the blackness spread, as if alive. One drop of blood fell near the eel cave. Panicked eels darted out, but one baby eel was not fast enough. The black sand reached the mouth of their home as it swam from the cave, behind its siblings. It brushed briefly against the sand, stiffened suddenly, and then dropped, its body writhing through death throes.
The darkness spread, not just horizontally but vertically, like a translucent black shroud rising. Many fish swam out of the way, abandoning their unhatched eggs. Those that did not suffered the fate of the unfortunate eel. Color leeched out of the coral, leaving behind only their white skeletons, stark against the growing blackness.
In the middle of the darkness, the merman’s body dissolved into gray sea foam—poisoned, polluted—and blended into the ocean currents.
Damn it all to hell!
Catastrophe was not a large enough word to encompass what was happening.
The plan. Stick to the plan.