Heart of the Deep

by Tiffany Roberts

  The cell beside Neo’s held Vasil, who maintained his normal, pale gray coloring. Vasil’s only outward sign of distress was the bulging of his jaw muscles.

  Dracchus counted six more cages, all empty. He hoped that meant Brexes and Garon had escaped.

  He inhaled deeply, and the faint ache in his chest as his lungs swelled reminded him of the projectiles he’d been shot with. What sort of poison had they contained? How much time had passed? He recalled charging toward the large ship, recalled the red-haired woman and the thump of her gun, and then…nothingness.

  “Are either of you injured?” he asked.

  “Uncomfortable, but unharmed,” Vasil replied.

  Neo growled. “I am going to—”

  An opening door cut off Neo’s threat. Light flooded the room — not the flickering fire the humans had used on the small boat, but a handheld light of the sort found in the Facility. Electric, according to Arkon.

  The intensity of the light impaired Dracchus’s vision, turning the humans behind it into dark, indistinct shapes. When they shined the beam directly at him, he squeezed his eyes shut against the sting.

  “Looks like they’re awake,” one of the humans said.

  “Good. I was afraid we’d have to wait another day on the big one,” said another, and Dracchus recognized the voice — it was the human who’d given the command to attack. “He took three darts before he finally went down.”

  The light shifted as the human holding it crouched in front of Dracchus’s cell. Dracchus slitted his eyes, meeting the human’s gaze through the bars.

  “That’s some freaky shit,” the man said, scowling. “How long do you think these things have been around, commander?”

  The leader stepped closer and stared down at Dracchus, his expression hard. “Doesn’t matter, Ranger Dane. They make the wrong move, and there won’t be any of them left.”

  Dracchus balled his fists and bared his teeth.

  “Does that piss you off?” the commander asked.

  Clenching his jaw, Dracchus maintained his silence. He longed to act upon the fury roiling inside him. He wouldn’t tolerate even the vaguest threats against his people, but the complexity of this situation extended well beyond the fact that he was currently immobilized by his bonds.

  “I know you understand me,” the commander continued. “I see it in your eyes. You want to kill me. Imagine how much I’d love to gut you, right here, right now, and force you to watch the whole thing.”

  Ranger Dane glanced up at the commander. His tongue slipped out and ran over his downturned lips before he stood up and backed away a step, keeping the light on Dracchus.

  “Maybe I should start with your friends.” The commander gestured toward Neo and Vasil.

  Neo growled and thrashed against his bonds.

  “Look at how red that one is,” Ranger Dane said, staring over his shoulder.

  “We have made no move against you,” Dracchus said, calling the humans’ attention back to him.

  “So, you know how to speak and how to lie.” The commander’s eyes gleamed with reflections of Ranger Dane’s light. “Six of my men are missing. You’re going to tell me where they are.”

  “I only cast four into the water.”

  The commander grasped the bars and leaned forward. “You know that’s not what I’m talking about! They came looking for you, and you know where they are now!”

  “I cannot help you,” Dracchus said, keeping his tone as even. Despite his restraints, his instinct was to meet this human’s aggression with aggression of his own, to rise to the unspoken challenge that had been issued.

  The commander gritted his teeth. “You have information about them. All of you do. And we will extract that information by any means necessary. If you cooperate, we’ll be merciful. I understand the value of that. But this is your only chance for it.”

  “We will slaughter you,” Neo snarled.

  “Close your mouth,” Dracchus growled. “Give them nothing.”

  “Is that how you want it to be, then?” the commander asked, looking from Neo and back to Dracchus.

  Neo glared at Dracchus, lips pressed into a tight line, but said nothing more. Vasil remained silent, head slightly bowed. His siphons and nostrils flared in quiet anger.

  The commander stepped back from the cage. “Ranger Dane, go get Sanson, Brock, and Altez. Our guests are tough. We might need some extra muscle to persuade them to cooperate.”

  With a muttered acknowledgment, the human holding the light strode out of the room, plunging the place back into shadow. The commander clasped his hands behind his back and paced between the cells.

  Dracchus strained against his bindings, but without any way to anchor himself, he couldn’t generate enough force to break them.

  “You are without a doubt the most incredible things we’ve ever hunted,” the commander said, boots thudding on the floor in a steady rhythm, “and we’ve hunted damned near everything on this planet. You’re intelligent. Maybe as intelligent as a human. So, you should be smart enough to know that this isn’t going to be pleasant.

  “I’ll ask again,” he stopped before Dracchus’s cell, “where are my missing rangers?”

  Dracchus met the man’s gaze and pressed his lips together. Anger burned in his chest, speeding his hearts, but he would not give it voice. These humans did not represent the entirety of their race any more than Neo and Kronus represented the kraken. The thought did little to ease his fury.

  The Commander clutched the bars and brought his face closer. “Where is Randall Laster?”

  Hearing that name very nearly startled Dracchus into betraying its familiarity. At the edge of his vision, Neo stirred, skin pulsing crimson and black; the issuance of a challenge that could not be faced.

  Dracchus focused on the commander. He’d seen eyes very much like this human’s many times over the last year They were Randall’s eyes.

  This man was Randall’s sire.

  The commander’s intensity dwindled at the sound of footsteps near the doorway. He eased back from the bars as Ranger Dane and three burly humans entered the room, plucking something from his belt — a small, thin piece of metal with toothlike protrusions at one end. He inserted the object into a box on the door. There was a click, and the door swung open. He turned away and repeated the motion for the other occupied cages.

  Dracchus wasn’t sure what the tiny device was; apart from the few that required a certain pattern to be entered on a keypad, all the doors in the Facility opened at the touch of a button. Did the commander’s device fulfill a similar function?

  Ranger Dane stopped beside the commander, who directed each of the other humans to enter a cage. The broad-shouldered human with yellow hair — Brock, according to the Commander — loomed over Dracchus with an indecipherable expression on his face.

  “Rangers, introduce yourselves to our guests,” the Commander said, once again pacing between the cells.

  Brock moved with surprising speed, slamming his fist into Dracchus’s cheek.

  The kraken’s head snapped aside, forcing the collar into his neck. The taste of blood spread over his tongue; his teeth had cut the inside of his mouth.

  Dracchus looked up at the human, whose large frame obscured the view of the other cells. Neo snarled and growled on the other side of the room, rattling his bindings.

  “Release me and try that again,” Dracchus said evenly.

  Brock snickered, mouth tilting into a smirk.

  “However big you are, however strong you are, we are the hunters,” the commander said. “Give me the information I want, and we’ll see about altering our relationship. Until then, you’re nothing but animals in these cages. Six of my rangers went missing.”

  Brock hammered a fist into the other side of Dracchus’s face.

  “Cyrus Taylor.”

  A blow to Dracchus’s gut.

  “Hassan Stone.”

  Another.

  “Ward Bowman. Joel Tatum. Chad Booth.”
>
  Each name was punctuated by a heavy strike.

  “And Randall Laster!” the Commander concluded in a shout.

  Lifting his knee, Brock kicked Dracchus in the face, his boot scraping skin. Warm blood oozed from the wounds. Flexing his abdomen, he swung his bundled tentacles toward Brock’s feet. The human grabbed onto the bars, holding himself upright, and scowled.

  Despite the deep aches in his body, Dracchus curled and stretched his fingers and bared his teeth, offering a challenge of his own. “Your body will break before mine, human.”

  “We’ll see about that,” the commander said, nodding toward his men. “Let’s go over this again…”

  Larkin concealed herself behind a stack of crates as her father and four other rangers emerged from below deck. The commander’s mouth was set in a harsh line, his movements were tense, and his eyes burned. She shifted her attention to the others, and her heart stopped.

  The glow of Jason’s flashlight made the blood on their fists, shirts, and pants glisten.

  Dad, what have you done?

  Nicholas called another man over — Lance Oliver, a young, inexperienced ranger — and spoke with him quietly. Lance nodded, grabbed his rifle, and positioned himself beside the door leading down to the brig. They’d designed the bowels of the ship to keep the holding cells separate from everything else; nothing could come or go from that room without alerting the guard posted above.

  Larkin waited until her father was out of sight before stepping out of her hiding place. She crossed the deck, heading directly for the brig.

  Lance straightened as she approached. “Miss Laster.”

  “Ranger Laster,” she corrected. As petty as it was, any guilt she might’ve felt for what she was about to do faded in the face of that slip-up.

  “Sorry.” He cleared his throat, cheeks reddening. “W-what can I help you with?”

  “I want to see the creatures.”

  The color that had just entered his face quickly drained. “I don’t think anyone’s supposed to go down there right now, Ranger Laster.”

  “That might be true for the others, but I am Commander Laster’s second, and I want to question them myself.”

  Swallowing, Lance swung his gaze from side to side, as though her father would materialize to sort this all out.

  “You know the commander places high value on respect for the command structure, Ranger Oliver,” she said. “Do I need to report your insubordination to him?”

  “N-no!” Lance licked his lips and squared his shoulders. “Please, just be careful down there. Those things are strong.”

  “I will.” She placed her hand on Lance’s forearm and smiled at him. “Thank you.”

  His blush returned, but he otherwise maintained his composure.

  She walked through the wide entryway; the door had been left open since the creatures were hauled below and would likely remain so while the weather was fair. Her fingers trailed along the wall as she moved down the ramp into the room below. A single electric lantern hung on the wall, illuminating the door into the brig, which was secured with a thick wooden bar.

  Larkin raised the bar, swinging it aside and latching it in an upright position. She paused. A strange sense of foreboding filled her chest, amplifying the beating of her heart. Taking a deep breath, she pushed the door open and stepped inside.

  The metallic scent of blood hit her nose immediately, mixing with the briny air and the odor of recently treated wood to create something overwhelming.

  Father, what have you done?

  The room was dark; the lone window, high on the wall opposite the door, allowed only a sliver of moonlight inside. She stepped back to remove the lantern from its hook and reentered the brig. The white lantern light reflected on the metal bars, which cast wide, vertical shadows on the creatures inside the cells.

  Two kraken were caged on her right — the first two she’d hit with tranquilizers. The closest cell held the gray one; the creature hung limp in its bonds, eyes closed, blood and saliva oozing from its mouth.

  Larkin frowned and stepped closer, raising the lantern to shift the shadows away from the kraken’s face.

  The creature in the next cell snarled and thrashed in its bindings. Larkin leapt back, hitting the bars behind her. Dark splotches of drying blood stood out against the kraken’s crimson skin.

  For all its fury, its struggles quickly weakened, and its head finally lolled back as it sagged in its cuffs. Its skin faded to brown, and its chest heaved with short, shallow breaths.

  Despite her startlement, Larkin’s heart ached for the creature. She looked between the two kraken. It was easy to imagine them as humans in those cells, with their heads bowed and their tentacles bound. Her stomach clenched; her father had done this.

  Something released a low growl behind her.

  Larkin moved away from the cell at her back and turned, holding up the lantern.

  The largest of the three kraken was inside, the one with the black skin and pale stripes. Though its amber eyes were narrowed, they glowed with reflected light, and its intense gaze was directed at her.

  Not it; him.

  His coloring made it difficult to assess his condition, but the glistening patches on his cheeks and lips indicated open wounds. She leaned closer, and as the light shifted the shadows over him, she realized that parts of his face were swollen.

  “You have come to relish your victory?” His voice was a deep rumble that raised gooseflesh on her skin, but his words were slightly slurred.

  “My victory?”

  “Your shots brought me down.”

  She pushed away her pang of guilt. The kraken were the only lead, the only hope of locating Randall and the others. The tranquilizers had ensured these creatures survived capture.

  “They did,” she agreed, “and both your companions.”

  He closed his eyes and curled his hands into fists, but seemed otherwise relaxed. His position couldn’t be comfortable. She suspected that all three kraken had been hit with lower doses of tranquilizer in an attempt to keep them docile.

  “Leave,” he grumbled. “Enjoy your victory while it lasts. The next will be mine.”

  Larkin ran her gaze over him. She didn’t doubt that men would die if he broke free. She’d seen him leap onto the other boat and pluck four men over the railing with little effort, had witnessed the ferocity of his charge despite having been hit with two tranquilizers.

  Powerful wasn’t an adequate description of this kraken.

  “Did you tell the commander where the rangers were?” she asked, refusing to back down.

  “Leave,” he repeated.

  She stepped closer to his cell, gripping the bottom of the lantern to hide the trembling in her arms. “Did you tell him where Randall is? Is he alive?”

  The tube-like protrusions on the sides of his head opened wide as he released a long, slow breath.

  “Is Randall alive?” she asked again, trying to keep the desperation from her voice.

  “Leave me!” he roared, opening his eyes as crimson flared over his skin. His huge muscles flexed, and veins bulged; the whole ship seemed to groan.

  Larkin stumbled back. Without another word, she walked out of the room, closing the door behind her and slamming the wooden bar into place. She leaned back against the door and closed her eyes, chest heaving with rapid breaths.

  She couldn’t deny her fear, though that wasn’t what had made her run. Her exit had been fueled by guilt and grief. Randall was still missing, they weren’t any closer to finding him, and a year of that uncertainty, that need to know, had taken its toll.

  That familiar pain had paired well with the new — Larkin had put the kraken in those cages. They weren’t mindless beasts, they weren’t sources of food. The kraken were people. And the big one blamed her, acted as though she relished her actions.

  Her father had told her they would be hunting monsters. These were not monsters. Though they were clearly capable of viciousness, these were not the fer
ocious, unreasoning creatures Cyrus’s report had depicted.

  This was no different than hunting, caging, and beating humans from any village on Halora.

  The krakens’ blood was on her hands just as much as it was on her father’s.

  Chapter 5

  Ranger Dane swung his bucket, splashing its contents through the bars and into Dracchus’ face. The water was cold, refreshingly so, but the kraken would not express gratitude. The humans were not doing this out of kindness; it was a simple matter of preserving Dracchus and his companions until they gave up the information the commander was after.

  Vasil gasped when another bucketful of seawater hit him. His siphons gaped open and closed. Streams of bloody water poured down his face, trickling over his neck and chest. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and his lips were split in two different places.

  Dracchus bore similar wounds, and they stung as seawater ran over them. If nothing else, the sting confirmed he was alive.

  Time had become strange for him; he knew this was the second day since waking in this cage, the second day of questioning, but his mind couldn’t reconcile the time that had passed. How could two days feel like years?

  The Commander stood in the space between the cells, wiping blood from his knuckles with a rag. He’d joined in the beatings today, moving between the cages to assist Brock, Sanson, and Altez in their work.

  Despite the punishment they’d endured, none of the kraken — not even Neo, whose rage was growing as his body flagged — had given up any information. Dracchus was proud of them. They were remaining strong in the face of this pain.

  He didn’t let his thoughts dwell on the notion that his pride meant nothing now.

  “I am disappointed and impressed,” the commander said as he folded the bloody rag. He extended his fingers, staring thoughtfully at his split knuckles. “We’ll see if you break tomorrow.”

  Neo fought against his restraints. “We will break you, human!” he shouted as the humans, without a backward glance, walked out of the room. “We will gut you! Feed upon your—”