Her head jerked up and her eyes glowed with wrath. I expected her to come after me, to launch herself in the water or to scream. It was there for a second, the rage that would make her beat me down for my own good, but then she stopped.
“Fine. You want to be an adult? This is what adults do. They protect the pod. They protect the people they love.” She pulled back her hair and let the water run over her gills. “There’s an entrance around here to a place your father had. There’s a chance Edgar is using that. If he runs there, he’s yours. If he doesn’t run, he’s mine.”
“If he runs someplace else, you’ll come back and we’ll hunt him together.”
She weighed my suggestion for a long moment. I felt the pull of the ocean, the tide moving over me. Each brush of water brought new air to my lungs, new clarity to my head. If she trusted me, we could do this together. If she didn’t, I would do it alone.
“If he runs someplace else, we’ll finish it together,” she agreed. She tilted her chin toward Sam. “What about him?”
“He wouldn’t let me come out here alone.”
“Smart boy.” She smiled at him, a genuine smile that made me think the two of them might get along someday. Then she swam over and hugged me. “Be careful. I’ll come find you when I’m done.”
****
After Mom swam off, I brought Sam to the surface. “She’s going after Edgar. There’s a chance he’ll come back here.”
“To your reef?” Sam’s head bobbed above the waves, looked around. The moonlight had turned the water pitch black.
“Mom said there was a place here, my father’s place. Edgar might be using it.”
“But your father couldn’t hold his breath forever, so it had to have some access to air, right?”
“Yeah, I guess.” I shrugged, not sure why it mattered.
“Then it’s not your reef.”
“And Mom didn’t tell me where.” My tail twitched in anger.
“She was probably trying to keep you safe.”
“That doesn’t make it better!” I took a deep breath, but the air above the waves didn’t clear my head like the water would’ve. “Okay, so Mom’s willing to let me be an adult, but she’s still worried about me. Fine. I don’t like it, but I can deal with it later. We need to find that place.”
“What’s it look like?”
“I have no idea.”
“Oh, I thought she might’ve said something, I really couldn’t understand you guys at all.”
“She didn’t say anything. All we know is it has air.”
“Can you tell when water has more air? Like, does it taste different to you the way different types of salt taste to me?”
“Maybe.” I tried to think about it. “A little.”
“Then let’s go down and start looking.”
In the darkness, my reef lost most of its color. During the day, I knew which coral shined bright red and which were soft green like my tail. Now it all blended together, only shapes above the sand.
I picked out the fan coral first, the tall lacy pattern swaying with the ocean tide. I used it to navigate, swimming from one section to another, tasting the water as I went. It was slow going. Minutes became hours and I couldn’t be sure how much time had really passed. My reef looked like a lollipop during the day, a corridor of thick rocky coral outcroppings under forty feet of water, then the circular part, with the center sand that so often became my bed.
I’d shown all of this to Sam once, relaxing and having fun. Now I moved slower, and I didn’t have any fun. I’d get a sense of air, but then convince myself I was wrong. After the first hour, I started searching with my hands, patting the reef, looking for openings. Behind me, Sam did the same. I poked more than a few fish, scattered whole schools of them, but I didn’t find anything.
Frustrated, I pulled Sam up to the surface. “This isn’t working. We need to come up with a new plan.”
“What can we do instead?”
“Go back home and search for something my father left behind that has an address or even a map.”
“Have you seen anything like that in your house? If I had a secret place, I don’t think I’d write it down.” He sounded doubtful and I agreed with him, but what else could we do?
He peered off into the darkness of the ocean. “Hold on. What’s that?”
“I don’t see anything.” At least, I didn’t think I did. I’d been searching so long; I could be convincing myself something was there when it wasn’t. “Is that moonlight on the water?”
He pulled us down under the waves and pointed into the near complete blackness. Ahead of us, so small I could barely make it out, something moved fast. Something big. And when the moonlight flashed on it, I saw it was yellow.
We both held perfectly still, maybe Sam was paralyzed with awe, maybe with fear, me, I just wanted to watch it. The thing had to be a giant squid. It propelled itself forward in the water by puffing up its body and then pushing the water out behind itself. Tentacles ballooned out then came back in with each puff, looking like a blur around the body. It almost swallowed the water, and it moved fast, maybe as fast as I could. I wanted to race it, to see which one of us was faster; but then it moved past me and the thick eye came into view. It looked at me. I could feel the weight of its gaze, the intelligence behind it. That look reminded me how Mara had died, how all my friends had died. Racing suddenly didn’t seem like such a great idea.
I pulled Sam into the water after it, following the giant yellow limbs. It came to the wall of my reef, and turned down, like it was going to burrow into the sand. In an instant, it was gone.
I swam to the spot, thinking it might’ve buried itself like some fish do. But no, it had found a hidden opening. One I would never have found.
I turned to Sam and he nodded. In a second, I dragged us through.
The tunnel looked small and dark, like a line sticking into the bottom of the ocean. No sunlight peeked through the heavy ceiling. But even as I swam as fast as I could, I saw glints of something silver, like air trapped under water. Glass, I realized. The tunnel was manmade, a glass enclosure crusted over with coral and buried in sand. I had no idea who built it or where it would lead.
I followed the squid, keeping his bright yellow limbs in view. The water tasted different to me, stale. No fish followed us.
The water warmed as I swam on, ending in a cave, a space filled with air and once lush carpet. Under the mold and sand, it might’ve been blue. The squid lay half on the sand and half in the water, regarding me with its great black eye. I panted, feeling out of breath. He’d swum fast, almost as fast as I had, and the stale water didn’t offer me much to breathe.
“He’s amazing, isn’t he?” Edgar stepped out of the shadows, but I didn’t have enough breath to answer him. “They’re rare these days. Used to be my people could get a dozen giant squid, like that.” He snapped his fingers. “But when I asked, I only got this one.”
“And he killed people for you?” Sam asked. He stood up and offered me a hand. I shook my head, not wanting to switch from tail to legs and be half-naked in front of Edgar.
“They weren’t really people, were they? I mean, not our kind of people. I’m sorry it upsets you, Danika. But it had to be done.” He didn’t look sorry, not even a small bit. “Fitting when you consider what this place is.”
“What is it?” Sam asked.
But Edgar ignored him, looking at me. “Behold your father’s dream, Danika. Neptune’s Table, a premiere restaurant experience.” He spread his arms wide. In the watery gloom, I could see a mosaic buried under years of mold and neglect. A white-haired merman rose out of the water; his eyes were once probably windows. “The whole ocean was going to entertain the tourists, with our kind of people dropping by for fun. Your parents were going to run the place. Your mom probably still owns it. I’ll bet she’s never mentioned it.”
“You killed them.” I got back to the only important thing. “You killed my friends.”
“Oh, n
o. I didn’t kill them. That’s what Beakie is for.” He walked over and patted the squid.
“But you’re the one who told him to. And for what? Revenge? Some stupid obsession?”
“Is that what you really want to talk about? Really, Danika? You don’t want to know about your dad, or what I am, or anything like that?”
“You’re an aqueous. I know about my dad. And there’s nothing else I could learn from you.”
“Oh, but you’re wrong. I know lots of handy things, like how to manipulate real estate law and change tax zones, how to take back our town. And I’m doing it, little by little. You’d be amazed how easy it is to change things when all the important people are busy with funerals.” He grinned as if he’d done something to be proud of.
“The killings were a distraction?”
“Not just a distraction: a perfect distraction, with a hint of revenge thrown in. I called Beakie. Told him to eat hardy. We started with the homeless on the beach to keep the police busy. Then some low-lifes, people no one would miss, who had enough money to fund my cause. Finally, we got the big prize: the children of the dry-landers that stole our home.”
“So you could buy real estate?” Sam asked his voice filled with disbelief.
“So I could buy back the land that was stolen from us. Not for me—for us. All of us. I put the deeds in the council’s name. Everything is legal, above-board, and it can never be taken away again. So if a few dry-landers had to die, oh well.”
“What about the mermaid? She’s not a dry-lander and she wasn’t part of your distraction. Why did she have to die?”
“Oh no, Mara was different. She wanted me for my body. You know how it is.” He walked over to Sam and leaned toward him, as if he was going to share a secret. “They kill what they screw.”
Sam punched him hard enough to split Edgar’s lip. “You’re disgusting.”
“Noble little monster, aren’t you?” Edgar dabbed at the blood. “Never fails. Salt golems always want to be old-fashioned, play the hero. You think that’s how the dry-landers would think of you if they found out? You think that’s how any of them would treat you?”
Sam didn’t bother with answering.
“Oh well. It doesn’t matter.” Edgar reached into his pocket and pulled out a gun. It was small, but I knew that wouldn’t stop it from killing both of us. “I wanted to start things fresh. A new council, a new vision for Savage Beach. But if it has to be like this, well, then it does.”
He pointed the gun at me. Before I had a chance to say something, to try to dissuade him, he pulled the trigger. I braced myself for the impact, the way the bullet would tear through my flesh, but instead I felt nothing. I opened my eyes and saw Sam on the sand, his head half in the water, blood pouring from his chest.
“Well, now, that won’t do,” Edgar said. “If you get into the water, you’re as good as healed.” He shot again, four times, maybe five, the loud sound echoing through the room. More holes appeared on Sam, more blood.
“Stop!” I screamed. He did but I doubted it would last. “Why are you killing him?”
“He’s an outsider but you…you’re family. Why don’t you go, Danika? Spend some time with your pod, think things through. I think you’ll find I’m right. Peaceful coexistence doesn’t work.”
“It could.” The words seemed so small and impotent.
“I tried, honey, I really did. So did your dad. And what happened? They killed him.” His voice started out low, but it kept getting louder. Finally, he yelled. “They stole ten years of my life. My bride, gone. My money, gone. Everything I believed in, gone.” With each word, he gestured wildly. Behind him, the monster Beakie, flinched. Edgar didn’t see it; instead, he walked toward me. “So I’m going to take what they love. I’m going to keep killing their children until they leave this place. Until they close the beaches and the only people who are left are the people like us. Then we can start over, on our beach, with our kind. No more hiding.”
He’d gotten close to me, or at least close enough. I slowly shifted my tail out of the water toward his feet. I didn’t want to hurt anyone but he was crazy and he had to be stopped.
“It doesn’t have to be that way.” I tried one last time to save him.
“Of course it does. I can see now that you’re like your father. You’ll never let this go.” He leaned down to look into my eyes. I squirmed as if I couldn’t move, as if I was trapped sitting on the sand with a tail. Really, my tail was around his legs, sharp scales at the ready. In a flash, I saw something else: a long yellow tentacle near his chest. “I’m sorry, Danika.”
He tapped the side of my face with the gun. I curled my tail, cutting off his legs. At the same time, Beakie tightened his grip, slicing Edgar’s upper body in half.
The gun went off, so close to my ear that all I could hear was a loud ringing. I fell back on the sand, my head throbbing with the sound. My face landed next to Sam. He tried to talk but managed only to cough up blood.
“Should I pull you into water?” He worked his jaw but no sound came out. “Blink twice for yes, okay?”
He blinked twice.
“So into the water?”
Two blinks.
“You don’t need me to pull the bullets out or anything?”
One blink.
“Guess that’s a no.” I grabbed him with my arms, scared my tail might cut him, even by accident. He felt heavier than I remembered. I dragged him into the waiting water. He stopped bleeding when the water hit, as if Mother Ocean pinched his wounds closed.
I let him go, let him float there for a second, and swam next to Beakie. “I’m not like Edgar but I think you can understand me.”
The large yellow monster blinked slowly, once, then twice. It scared me that something so large and inhuman understood everything.
“You can’t stay here and eat people. Sharks, fish, animals, sure; but not people. They’d hunt you, want you dead.”
Another two long slow blinks.
“But you can stay, if you want to, I’ll talk to the dolphin shifters and the mermaids, whatever else is out there. You saved my life. I’ll make them accept you.”
He blinked, the membrane moving over his pitch black eye. I waited for the second blink but it never came.
“I guess you have someplace to go.”
He blinked again, slowly, a second blink followed it.
“Thank you for helping me. I’m sorry Edgar used you. I’ll tell everyone it wasn’t you.”
He blinked twice, then looked at me for a long time. Finally, he reached out with both long tentacles and picked up the pieces of Edgar’s body. Holding on to them, he pushed himself off the sand and into the water, careful not to bump Sam on his way.
****
Sam and I slept on the floor of the reef. He didn’t need air and I didn’t need to go home. By morning, I could see tiny black stumps of bullets working their way out of his wounds. After I’d caught myself breakfast, the bullets were on the sand next to him. By afternoon, even the marks were gone.
I wanted to stay on that sand forever, but I knew I couldn’t. It was time to head home, face my mother, tell her what happened, and then the hardest part: go back to my regular life. I’d always spent my time worrying about something; when I would give in to my mother and leave my life behind for the pod, what would happen if someone knew I was a mermaid, hurting someone I liked, I had a million worries.
Only now that I’d faced a real danger, now that someone had put a gun in my face and almost killed me, none of that seemed worth worrying about. Worse, it all seemed sort of, well, dull. Could I really go back to school now? How do you go from facing a huge, life-altering decision to worrying about when some report was due?
Sam sensed my anxiety and curled his arms around my waist as I swam. His embrace reminded me that I wouldn’t have to answer all those questions alone. I felt better as I stepped onto the sand of our beach. Things had changed, but I felt excited about where they might lead.
“I
told you to wait for me.” My mother stood outside the balcony, looking down at me with half a scowl.
“It doesn’t matter. You were right. He went back to the restaurant.” Even from a distance, I saw her expression. She hadn’t wanted me to see Edgar.
By the time we got up to the deck, she’d recovered, but not by much. For the first time in my life, my mom looked a little lost. “He told me he’d meet me here last night.”
“Did he mention swimming?” Sam asked her.
She nodded. “He wanted me to catch him something for dinner. He joked about it, about how much better it was when I caught it instead of him having to command it.”
“He had a giant squid. He told it to kill things, I’m not sure, but I don’t think it had much choice.” I tried to explain it without having to say something that would upset her more.
“How do you know?”
“Last night he called it to the restaurant.”
“Why would he do that?” She looked puzzled for a few seconds before she answered her own question. “He was going to tell it to kill me. That’s why he wanted me in the water.”
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
She gave me an odd glance for a second, then pulled me into a hug. “We’ll talk about it all later. For now, go call your friends, they’ve been calling every five seconds.”
“Ashley’s probably worried. I’ll text her.” I turned around and looked at them. Sam stood on the edge of the deck, the wood railing against his back. Mom looked at me from about three feet away. I wasn’t sure if I should leave them.
“What happened to you?” Mom asked Sam, looking at the pink spots the bullet wounds left behind.
“I got shot a few times. Want to hear about?” He leaned back, a slight smile on his face.
I heard Mom tell him yes as I opened the door to go inside. I reached for my phone to text Ashley, but it started ringing.
“Oh my God, I have been so worried about you,” Ashley exclaimed, breathless.
“Really?”
“I talked to my dad about those things that Edgar did.”
“Ashley, that’s great.”
“Yeah, he said I should blah blah blah; anyway, important point: stay away from Edgar, because he might be able to control you.”
The Mermaid and the Murders Page 21