In the Dark of Dreams

by Marjorie M. Liu

  “More trouble,” Sajeev said. Perrin didn’t see anything in the water, didn’t feel anything. Before his exile, he would have.

  A’lesander tried to stand, grunting with the effort. His golden brown hair partially covered his eyes, and some of the color was returning to his face. “You can’t kill them all.”

  “My father,” replied Perrin.

  “Not him. Others.”

  “Who did you lead here?”

  Sajeev shot at some invisible target in the water, another and another—and then ducked as something sharp whistled through the air where his head had been.

  Perrin pushed Jenny to the deck as a slender bone spear skittered toward his feet. He glanced at the engravings: a twist of narrow lines that flowed like the stingers of a jellyfish. Familiar marks, and they made him sick and angry.

  Another spear flew from the water, followed by several more that came dangerously close to hitting him. One skimmed his arm, leaving a welt. He heard chattering clicks, and several shrieking wails that made the hairs rise on his neck. The boat rocked violently sideways—again, again—all of them sliding, staggering. Perrin feared they would capsize.

  Rik crouched, digging his fingers into the deck. Golden light shimmered over his body, burning bright in his eyes. Eddie knelt near him, radiating waves of heat. Smoke drifted from charred holes in his shirt.

  “Do something,” Rik said to him. “Fry their fucking asses.”

  “I need to see them,” Eddie snapped, but Perrin thought that might be a lie. There was a look on the young man’s face that reminded him of times he’d been on the edge of doing something he knew was wrong—all that conflict and doubt, and fear. Fear that would become self-hatred later, if anything bad happened now that could have been prevented.

  But the self-hatred would come anyway, from hurting others. Even the enemy.

  “Eddie,” Perrin said in a low, urgent voice. When the young man looked at him, he said, “There’s no escaping regret when you’re fighting to survive. You will always have to do something distasteful.”

  Eddie’s gaze darkened. Jenny tensed beneath his hands, and A’lesander let out a bitter, rasping laugh.

  “But you still condemn me,” he said. “Oh, God, Perrin. What happened to us?”

  Sanjeev loaded more bullets into his rifle, bracing his feet against a bolted-down equipment box. Perrin held Jenny tight and stared over her head at A’lesander. “What happened is that you fell in with a cult of fanatics. No wonder you killed Pelena. You wanted the Kraken to wake.”

  A’lesander hunched over his broken hand. “It’s not like that. I needed something, and they had answers. Let me talk to them. They can taste my blood in the water. They know you’ve hurt me.”

  “I’m surprised they care. All they need to do is look at you to know you’ve got human blood in your veins.”

  “They need me. And they feel sorry for my . . . impurities.” No mistaking the sarcasm in his voice. A’lesander backed up to the rail and looked at Jenny. “I know I’ve made . . . mistakes. But don’t trust him. If you’ve got the kra’a, don’t trust anyone.”

  “If you care,” Jenny said tightly, “if our friendship ever meant a damn thing, you’ll lead whatever is down there away from here . . . and never come back.”

  A’lesander stilled. “Jenny—”

  “Get the fuck away from me!” she screamed at him, and for one moment Perrin felt her inside his head: raging, raging, cut with heartache.

  Hurt flashed in A’lesander’s eyes, then anger. “We’re bonded, Jenny. You just don’t realize it yet. You don’t even understand what it means.”

  Perrin glanced at Sajeev, who had stopped firing at the water and was watching them. “Shoot him.”

  A grin touched his mouth. He raised his rifle, fast—but A’lesander was faster, and threw himself over the rail.

  Perrin didn’t follow to watch. He crouched over Jenny, shielding her from the bone-spear needles whistling onto the ship. Her small hand gripped his wrist, and he met her haunted gaze. Hit, again, with the knowledge that she had been betrayed before.

  A’lesander hadn’t just hurt her body. He’d made her relive the past. He’d taken friendship—trust that came so dear to Jenny—and ripped it away.

  Perrin curled over her, heart in his throat, and kissed her brow. He wanted to say something to make it better, but words died in his throat.

  I’m here, he wanted to tell her. I’m here.

  “They’re slowing down,” Eddie said, behind them.

  Perrin did not relax. He had always been outnumbered in the sea. When his kind chose to fight and kill, very little could be done to stop them. Escape was the best defense, but there were few human vessels that could travel fast enough to elude the Krackeni. This was not one of them.

  He heard a wet slurping sound, and turned in time to see webbed, iridescent hands grip the edge of the vessel, at the stern. Enormous pale eyes appeared, blinking wildly, silver hair pressed wet against narrow skulls.

  They stared at him. Then Jenny.

  There and gone. The Krackeni disappeared so quickly, they might never have been present at all—except for the wet hand marks left on the rail.

  But Perrin’s heart thundered, his vision contracting to dizzying pricks of light. He had to force himself to breathe, stunned by the fear coursing through him. He had never been afraid of his own kind before his exile. He hadn’t even been afraid of his father. Wary, perhaps. But not afraid.

  You are not one of them anymore, whispered a familiar, dry voice. Perrin realized he was gripping the back of Jenny’s head, his palm pressed against the kra’a. He tried to let go, but couldn’t.

  They cut your heart from them, the kra’a continued. You share their flesh, but not their soul.

  But you are still ours.

  And you do not fear for yourself, alone.

  Perrin yanked his hand away, burned—mentally and physically. His palm was hot, and red. Jenny gave him a startled look.

  “I heard all that,” she said.

  He grunted. “Stay down.”

  Jenny frowned at him but kept low to the deck as they shuffled to where Rik and Eddie were crouched with Sajeev. No more spears flew from the water, and the vessel’s rocking motion was subsiding.

  Perrin didn’t relax. There was a certain irony to the possibility that he wouldn’t be able to rest easy until he returned to land. If there was any land to return to.

  If the kra’a has bonded to Jenny, you’ll take it from her, A’lesander had said.

  You’ll let her die when you’re done.

  And if he didn’t take the kra’a, the Kraken would wake.

  You would kill all but one, murmured the sea witch’s memory. And for that one, you would let the world die.

  Screwed, he thought.

  “Screwed,” Jenny murmured, surprising him. “So screwed.”

  He stared. “Are you reading my mind? ”

  She blinked, as though startled, and looked away from him. Rik held one of the spears in his hands and studied it with distaste. “Makes sense now, what’s happening.”

  “Yes,” Perrin said, still looking at Jenny. “We have no name for the clan that spear comes from because it’s not a real clan. Just a group of individuals with a common philosophy.”

  “Humans suck,” Rik said.

  “In large numbers, anyway. Some advocate for . . . population control.”

  Eddie’s gaze filled with shadows. “So this . . . man . . . who was just here . . . he’s working with those who want to cause a natural catastrophe that will wipe out humans.”

  “It’s more complicated than that,” he replied, wishing he could be alone with Jenny, to speak to her about what had just happened with A’lesander. “The sleep of the Kraken, the waking of the be
ast, are living myths amongst my kind. The Kraken are not . . . monsters . . . to my people. They’re not gods, either. But if there is a middle ground . . .” Perrin stopped, trying to find the right words. “Death and rebirth are part of the Kraken, and some pray for its waking as a time of profound change.”

  “Destruction,” Eddie said.

  “Remaking the world,” Perrin replied. “The world, when magic walked. When men like you, who could make fire with their minds, or read minds, were more common. When shape-shifter clans were powerful and worshipped by humans as gods, or when the old winged kind, the gargoyles, ruled the mountains. A world where no one had to hide—except the bad kind, who always mask true natures.”

  Eddie sighed, rubbing his face. Sajeev was humming to himself, as though he hadn’t heard a word. Rik turned to face the sea. Only Jenny looked at Perrin, and her gaze was unreadable.

  “But it ended,” she said finally. “You mentioned a war, once.”

  “There’s always war. Some more desperate than others.” Perrin’s head ached, and he was suddenly aware, keenly so, of the hole in the base of his skull. “That’s not the case here. Conspiring to wake a Kraken is one of the worst crimes my kind can commit.”

  “Not much worse than what you did,” Rik muttered. “Or so I was told by the local dolphin pod that found me.”

  Perrin stilled. Sajeev said, “They’re gone.”

  A’lesander will be back, he thought, not sufficiently distracted from his desire to throttle Rik. Though he got the diversion he needed when Jenny shook her head, gaze turning inward. “Someone is watching. From a distance.”

  She closed her eyes and rolled her shoulders, like something cold and dirty had touched her. “That’s a strange sensation.”

  Perrin buried a dull ache of envy. “Hosting a kra’a requires years of preparation and training. You’re doing very well, considering.”

  “What would be the alternative?”

  He hesitated. “That depends on the kra’a. Some are more . . . forceful . . . than others.”

  Jenny frowned. “This one is pretty spunky, let me tell you.”

  Perrin grunted. “So were its prior hosts.”

  “It’s too bad Ms. Jameson can’t control this . . . Kraken.” Eddie peered over the side of the boat. His posture was more relaxed than his voice, which was sharp, quiet, and thoughtful.

  Startled, Perrin stared at the young man, then looked at Jenny. Really looked, thinking hard about their bond, and why the kra’a, of all those in the sea it could have chosen, would have linked to her. A human.

  “Huh,” he said.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sajeev knew of a small, uninhabited atoll located a little over three hours west of their location. Nothing but an island of coral encircling a lagoon, with little vegetation and no freshwater. But it would help prevent anyone from ambushing Perrin and Jenny while they were in the sea. Training.

  As in, Learn How to Control a Sea Monster 101.

  “You’re nuts,” she told Perrin, while Sajeev blasted Aerosmith over his stereo system. “Just . . . remove this thing from my head. Please. I don’t want it.”

  “No,” Perrin said.

  “I don’t care what Les said. He’s full of shit. I know you don’t want to hurt me.”

  They were seated on two plastic chairs. Perrin was busting out of his, one of the legs sporting a new crack that flexed wider every time he shifted. Jenny nursed a bottle of water and held the satellite cell phone in her lap. Ready to call home. Putting it off, despite how stupid that made her. Although, if Eddie had already contacted Roland Dirk, chances were good her family knew what was going on.

  And, apparently, there was a helicopter full of mercenaries in the region that would be at her disposal if she needed them.

  “Results matter,” said Perrin, with more than a little bitterness. “I don’t want to hurt you. If I remove the kra’a, I most certainly will. I think I might kill you.”

  “You lived.”

  “Barely. I was found naked on a beach in Singapore, bleeding from the back of my head, with my spine partially exposed. Disoriented. Sobbing my guts out. I couldn’t speak a single human language. I didn’t even know how to walk because I’d never used my human legs. Everything was bright and loud. Dirty. Heavy.”

  Perrin rubbed the back of his neck. “A man found me. Dragged me to a cab and took me to the Swedish embassy. I don’t know why, maybe because I had the right coloring. Officials there took me in and gave me medical treatment. Sent me to Sweden, finally. I lived there for a year, just learning how to be human, before I went to the United States.”

  There was so much he wasn’t saying. It would take a lifetime to pry out the details. Jenny wet her lips and tried to speak in a normal voice. “You could have stayed in Sweden. Why America?”

  Perrin smiled to himself. “I once knew a girl who lived in that part of the world.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “Yes,” he replied.

  “It’s still stupid,” she said, then clarified: “You can’t possibly trust me with this. I don’t trust me.”

  “I trust you,” he told her, then, very quietly, “The kra’a didn’t have to choose you, Jenny. It didn’t choose A’lesander, after all.”

  “Well, he’s a dick,” she muttered.

  Perrin’s mouth twitched. “He always was, though it was more tolerable when we were children.”

  “This has hurt you, too,” she said. “Seeing him like this. Because you friends.”

  “I wondered what happened to him.” Perrin’s gaze turned inward. “I always questioned whether there was anything I could have done to change what happened between us. But except for giving him my life . . .” He closed his eyes. “It wouldn’t have made him happy. My life was hard. Like being a human monk. Isolation, discipline. But there were rewards. Power over the sea. A . . . wider awareness of the world.” He shrugged, shaking his head. “You seem to be displaying some of those gifts.”

  Jenny swallowed, pressing a hand over her stomach—struggling to settle her nerves. “Those flulike symptoms I had. I think . . . I think the parasite was making changes to me, then. Maybe it introduced a virus. I don’t know.”

  “I didn’t make the connection,” Perrin said. “I was also sick right after the initial bonding. I wasn’t . . . born . . . with certain abilities, which only came to me after the kra’a and I were made one.”

  “Was it frightening? When you were bonded?”

  “Was it for you?”

  “I didn’t even know it was there.”

  Perrin grunted. “I knew. There were enough outside rituals involved that I would have had to be dead not to know there was something living on the back of my head.”

  “How old were you?”

  “The previous host died when I was . . . thirteen of your human years. I was young, either way. Very young for the responsibility. Many were concerned that I would not be strong enough to bear the isolation.” He hesitated. “You and I hadn’t been inside each other’s dreams for long.”

  She tried to imagine the boy she had known, alone and shouldering the weight of keeping a sea monster asleep. Made her ill. “We met off the coast of Maine. But the Kraken nests in these waters?”

  “I was born and trained in the part of the ocean that the humans call the Atlantic. Near . . . Greenland, I think. But I was sent here. None of the local candidates were strong enough for the kra’a.” Perrin paused. “I never knew it was Maine.”

  He said that very quietly. Broke her heart a little. Perrin, lost in the world. Jenny ached at the idea. She couldn’t even fathom what he had gone through, just to survive. Alone. Abandoned. Cut off from everything he had known.

  Eight years ago. Jenny thought she should have felt something, but nothing stood out. Nothing at all. Eight
years ago she had been in San Diego, exploiting family contacts in the United States Navy in order to work with, and learn from, the military’s dolphin trainers. Wondering, sometimes stupidly, if any of those animals would be willing to chat with her grandfather about the existence of mermen.

  You never did ask, she thought, watching Rik and Eddie play cards in the shade of the bridge. Clearly not eavesdropping.

  “How did they know you would be strong enough for the kra’a?” she asked. “Was there a test?”

  “A Kraken nests in the waters between Iceland and Greenland. Children of a certain age are presented to the local Guardian, as I was. The kra’a told its host what I was, and so I was selected for training. When the Guardian here began dying, its kra’a somehow knew about me. And asked for my life.”

  “Is that normal?”

  “It happens,” he said, but there was something in his voice that made her think that it wasn’t common at all.

  Rare, whispered the kra’a inside her head. But there are times when rarity is necessary. We wanted his mind.

  Jenny winced, touching her head. Perrin said, “What is it?”

  “It spoke to me,” she said, and only because she was looking at him did she see the split-second devastation that filled his face. Devastation and grief, and terrible aching loss.

  Then, gone.

  But she felt those emotions like a slow ache inside her mind, on the other side of the wall, and wondered what would happen if she tore down the barrier between them. If she let him flood her mind. If he would feel the kra’a again.

  “Perrin,” she began, hesitantly. But before she could say more, the phone in her lap rang.

  Jenny flinched, and tossed the oversized cell to Eddie. He answered quickly, was silent for several long moments, then settled that dark, old-man gaze on her. “Ma’am. It’s Roland. He’d like to speak with you.”

  “Remind me,” she said. “Is that old bastard still clairvoyant?”

  “Um, yes.”

  She flipped the phone the middle finger. “So I guess he can see this, right now?”

  Eddie wasn’t standing all that close, but she very clearly heard the answering growl that came out of the phone. The young man bit back a smile. “Yes, ma’am. I believe that’s the case.”