Sordid Depths (The Cursed Seas Collection)

by Heather Marie Adkins

  Raising the stone over the slab, she lowered her hand to place it.

  A strange screeching sound filled the cavern. Every hair on her body stood up straight, goosebumps covering her arms.

  Rivka turned to find the ningen upon her. The creature raised her ghostly white humanoid hand and knocked Rivka away from the stone slab. The legacy stone tumbled to the sand below.

  Having the ningen here could only mean one thing: Lesya was dead. Her first and only friend, gone. Determination settled in her shoulders. Lesya was brave enough to risk her life for a cause she didn’t even want a part of in the first place.

  Rivka would place the stone in its rightful place even if it killed her. Tucking her knee to her chest, she kicked the ningen off her as it leapt at her again, then she bolted for the stone nestled in the sand.

  Without hesitation, she slapped the stone into place, locking it into the indention.

  The world around her exploded.

  26

  Lesya

  Lesya called on the vodyanoi.

  It was a reflex. She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. And getting to the surface was an impossibility. She would be dead before she even made it halfway.

  Time and space folded around her. She couldn’t see the stars, but the water swirled, a slow-moving vortex.

  And then she faced the vodyanoi in the in-between, where she couldn’t die.

  “Quite the predicament you’ve found yourself in.” The vodyanoi coiled around her, his ebony face so close, she could touch it.

  Though she wouldn’t have dared.

  “You’ve disrespected me, mage.” He uncoiled, his long blue-scaled tail stretching out as he pointed a vicious claw at her face. “The audacity! You already owe me. You’ve already milked my patience for one predicament. Yet here you are, asking again.”

  Lesya remained silent. She didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t get her skewered by one of his claws.

  “I heard through the ether that you called on Baba Yaga,” the vodyanoi went on. “I am sure the old witch spouted with her fake advice and sent you on your way.”

  “She helped me in another way. Without requiring a blood pact of me.” The second sentence fell from her lips before she could really think about it.

  The vodyanoi’s beady black eyes narrowed. He drew himself up in the water until he towered over her, nine feet of muscle, teeth, and claws. “You forget yourself, human. We do not work for you.”

  “There was a time you loved my people,” Lesya said, even as she wanted to kick herself for doing it. “There was a time we worked together for the common good. When you would help us because you loved us, not because you could take payment from us.”

  “That time is past.” The vodyanoi grabbed her arm and shook her. He stretched the last word, hissing like a snake. “We live in this world. Where I rule the sea and you are nothing but an interloper asking the impossible of me.”

  Lesya’s heart thumped in her chest. The vodyanoi’s claws sank deep into her arms, drawing blood.

  But if she were being honest, death at his hands was infinitely preferable to drowning.

  She knew he could smell her fear, and he liked it. His face dipped lower, his nose skimming the sensitive skin of her neck. She squeezed her eyes shut.

  “Better idea. Why don’t we make good on that pact now?” His claws sank deeper into her arm.

  She cried out as they scraped bone.

  With his other hand, the vodyanoi unsheathed a single claw and pressed it against her belly. “Your blood will fill the ocean. Your body will be mine.”

  Lesya sobbed once, her eyes still closed. She would be with her parents. She held onto that thought. Whatever waited next, whatever waited on the other side, they would be there, too.

  The vodyanoi’s grip loosened, and the pressure of his claw on her belly disappeared.

  Lesya peeked out to see his face turned up and his gaze somewhere she couldn’t follow. After a tense moment, his claws retracted from her arm, and he shoved her away.

  “You have friends in high places, human,” the vodyanoi growled. He backed away, eyeing the way he’d massacred her arm. He licked his lips. “Now is not the time to make good on our blood pact. But hear me, witch. that day will come. A day when it will benefit me most, and I will have you.”

  “If you send me back, I’m just going to drown!”

  “That is the risk you took coming into my kingdom. Mages don’t belong here, Lesya Markova. I suggest you remember that.” He moved a single claw through the water, a swirling vortex forming around his finger. “Lead the ningen to the mouth of the volcano.”

  And then she tumbled back into the ocean.

  Her first inclination was to panic and claw her way to the surface. The sooner she got started, the more likely she could survive.

  But… Why would the vodyanoi tell her to lead the ningen to the mouth of the volcano? Was he just playing with her?

  You have friends in high places, human.

  Just what the fuck did that mean?

  She couldn’t consider it any longer. She was going to die anyway.

  The ningen streaked towards her, and she took off in the direction of the volcano’s apex.

  Outrunning the beast wasn’t an option. The ningen was ten times faster than her, moving like a white comet in the dark of the ocean. She kept her knife clutched tightly in her fist, and at any sign of the ningen lunging at her, she slashed out.

  Her lungs burned with the need to breathe, but her battle with the ningen had the nice side effect of keeping her mind off her imminent death by drowning.

  The conical silhouette of the volcano grew smaller until she crested it completely and threw herself over the edge of the crater.

  Far below, in the bottom of the inactive volcano, a flash of white light illuminated Rivka’s kneeling form. Her palm was on the stone. It glowed like the sun.

  And then a rush of hot water erupted around Lesya. The column of hot water hit the ningen first, completely incinerating the beast, and then slammed full force into Lesya.

  Instead of destroying her like it did the ningen, the water felt barely lukewarm, and it shot her body to the surface in a matter of seconds.

  Lesya broke the surface of the ocean with a deep, choking breath. She dipped beneath, startled by the ride, but bounced right back up for another thankful gulp of air.

  Another form barreled through the water, nothing but arms and legs until Rivka breached the surface with an exuberant shriek.

  She shoved her blonde hair from her face and let out another shriek as she saw Lesya treading water.

  Lesya splashed through the water to throw her arms around the siren.

  “I thought you were dead!” Rivka squealed. “The ningen was in the volcano with me. I thought it had killed you!”

  “It almost did. But it wasn’t my ningen. I guess there were two of them.” Lesya extracted herself from the hug because she was having a hard time treading with just her legs. She scooted away from Rivka and gave her a once-over. “No problems placing the stone?”

  “No. But something amazing happened! I actually went inside the stone and met this being who must have been a goddess!” She cut off abruptly and snatched at Lesya’s right arm. “Shit, what happened?”

  “There’s that word again,” Lesya teased. “I’ll make you a bitter, foul-mouthed mage like me yet. The ningen popped my air bubble. With no other option, I called on the vodyanoi. He almost killed me.”

  “He ripped your arm to pieces. I can see bone.” Rivka cringed.

  “Marina can fix it.”

  “I am not giving her another scale. Correcting for one missing scale was exhausting. Two would probably make me swim sideways like a flounder.”

  Lesya laughed. “Don’t worry. Nobody better ever take a scale from you again. They’ll have to answer to me.”

  Rivka looked down, her eyes widening. “The volcano is erupting.”

  “Yeah, wasn’t it weird how that hot wat
er destroyed the ningen but not us?”

  “No, Lesya.” She pointed at the water. “It’s not hot water anymore. The lava is flowing.”

  Lesya leaned forward to gaze deep beneath the ocean. A bulbous cloud of black was rising slowly towards them.

  “We have to move,” Rivka barked. “Swim!”

  “Swim where? I don’t even see land!”

  “This way!” Rivka dove under the wave.

  Lesya followed. “You better have some super-secret power to find land!”

  Rivka surfaced with a smile. “I do. It’s called faith.”

  Land, when it finally appeared in the red glow of night, was a welcome, welcome sight.

  When Lesya’s bare feet found purchase on the sand, she could have wept with relief. The weight of her own body rising from the waves comforted her in a way she never thought it could.

  On the beach, two forms huddled by a raging bonfire, wrapped in blankets. It wasn’t until her bare torso was completely exposed that Lesya realized it was snowing.

  “Rivka. Snow.” Lesya pointed at the night sky, where flurries danced overhead. “It hasn’t snowed on flat land in ages. This land used to be covered in deep snow. Before the poisoning.”

  Rivka tossed an arm over Lesya’s shoulders. “We got the stone home.”

  “I guess we did. We saved the world. Do you feel any different?”

  Rivka shivered. “Chilly. Tired. Hungry.”

  “Huh. Me too.”

  They kept their arms around each other as they trudged through the shallow waves towards the two men who had already stood, prepared with smiles and blankets for the siren and mage who had saved the world.

  Epilogue

  RIVKA

  Rivka unwrapped her wrist and set the bandage aside. It’d taken some time, but her missing scale had grown back. It still hadn’t hardened like the others, but it was getting there. A lot of missing things in Rivka’s world had grown back or returned.

  Salt being one of them.

  She could literally breathe easier in her underwater home. Her people were no longer dying from the Aether. With the stone back in place, the salinity of the water returned to normal.

  “Can you hand me my belt, Andrei?” Rivka asked, pointing to the hook on the cave wall of their bedroom.

  Andrei complied, taking it upon himself to fasten the leather strip around her waist. A gold badge glistened in the lights as it hung from her belt. “Anything for you, Detective Petrovna.” His smile was infectious.

  “You know you love me in my uniform. You think it makes me look sexy.” Rivka winked. And by uniform, she only meant the belt. Her people still had no issues with nudity.

  Andrei growled under his breath and disappeared into the closet.

  “Hurry up! We’re going to be late!”

  Andrei was now a part of her clan, initiated in the manner of her people, which meant they had a big ceremony. The difference between this celebration as opposed to the ones held in the past was the amount of food available. The tables had been filled with all manner of fish, seaweed, and other crustaceans they could find.

  Andrei stepped out of the closet, his own bone knife sheathed at his waist and their satchel angled around his body.

  Rivka fingered the badge on her belt. “I still can’t believe I defeated the mob.”

  “You ran a smooth operation. They couldn’t have picked a better siren to head up that team.” Andrei wrapped his arms around Rivka and squeezed her tight.

  She sighed in contentment. Her clan knew peace because of her. Rivka had been gone so long on her journey that the mob boss had died from the Aether. The funny part was, she’d been lied to in the beginning. When she’d been sent on land to obtain salt, the mob boss had been hearty and hale. They had somehow discovered she was a mole and orchestrated to send her on a suicide mission. It wasn’t too long after her departure that he’d contracted the Aether and passed before she could make things right in her region. Karma at its greatest.

  His death sparked an all-out war within their ranks, with friends and family turning on each other. It’d been a piece of cake to infiltrate their lair and take them all down.

  Andrei gave her another squeeze, breaking her out of the memory of that day and bringing her back to the present.

  It felt good to have someone she could trust by her side.

  “Let’s go before Lesya sics her puffins on us for being late.” Rivka grabbed her knife, the one Andrei had given her, and shoved it into its sheath. “Now I’m ready.”

  Together, they left their new home. Rivka no longer had to split her time between her undercover house and the one in the city. The government had been gracious enough to move her to a larger unit. She’d no longer be doing any more undercover work. Her face was too recognizable for her to do the job anymore.

  “You think she’s had time to fix up her house?” Andrei asked.

  “We’ll see.” Rivka had made sure to fill Andrei in on everything that had happened before their paths crossed. She’d come a long way from a rookie hiding out amongst the mob, trying to ferret out their secrets.

  She took the same route she'd taken three months before, the day she'd saved Lesya's life—the first time. The view hadn't changed: the same rocky cliff, the little cottage with its quaintly smoking chimney.

  Except for one addition - Lesya's grinning face waiting for them on the shore.

  Lesya covered her eyes and held out a bag and two towels. “Put some clothes on. I've seen enough siren nudity to last me years.”

  “Oh, gods. I’d forgotten how weird I feel on land.” Rivka trudged up to Lesya, her body once again having to acclimate to the gravity above the sea.

  As the sirens toweled off, Lesya pulled out clothes for them both and waited patiently, her eyes averted.

  Andrei took his borrowed shirt and pants. “It’s not like you all haven’t seen it before. Why are you surface dwellers so squeamish about nudity?”

  “Why are you sirens so obsessed with being naked?” Lesya shot back.

  Rivka tugged Lesya's shirt over her head, then stepped into her cotton pants. “Oh! Look! I brought the puffins a present. Maybe now they won’t try to bite me when I visit.” Rivka opened the side pocket of her satchel and revealed the fish she’d stowed away.

  “I need to see this house full of puffins that Rivka keeps talking about.” Andrei interrupts. “Plus, I heard there’s going to be food.”

  Rivka smacked Andrei in the stomach. “Hush!”

  Lesya shook her head and laughed. “Dinner, wine, and good conversation, as promised.”

  Rivka reached out to squeeze the mage’s hand. “Friendship without putting our lives in danger.”

  LESYA

  Lesya led her friends up the natural stone steps to her cozy cottage on the cliff. It had snowed the night before, but Viktor had awakened early that morning to clear the steps for their visitors.

  As she stepped onto the cliff’s edge, Lesya tried to see her cottage with Rivka’s eyes. The fireplace smoked from the roaring fire that waited for them inside, staving off the chill. The garden was covered by a new greenhouse, and the puffins littered the snow-covered grass like little lawn ornaments. The roof had been lovingly replaced, several days’ work between Lesya and her new houseguest.

  Viktor waited by the open door of their cottage, wrapped in his favorite scarf and flanked by his favorite puffins, Fork and Chip. Fork, the traitor, had immediately fallen head over heels for the pirate. He even slept at his head every night like some kind of treasured pet.

  Lesya tiptoed to kiss her ex-pirate’s scruffy cheek. True to his word, he’d bought a boat and started a fishing business. He was surprisingly good at it, too.

  “Were they naked?” Viktor asked, amused.

  “Of course they were. Damn sirens.”

  “Glad I didn’t go with you then.” Viktor winked at Andrei and swooped in for a hug with Rivka. “Good to see you. Three months passed fast.”

  Lesya silently di
sagreed. Every moment of her life with Viktor had passed slow. Contented. Happy. She’d devoured every single moment of it.

  And when their baby was born in seven months’ time, she’d adore every single moment of that, too. She couldn’t wait to lead her daughter to the ocean and teach her magic. She’d been training with Marina twice a week since returning from the volcano. Her powers and technique grew stronger by the day. She felt closer to the mage she would have been had her parents lived.

  Maybe one day, she could ask Rivka to call the whales so that she and her daughter could hear their chorus.

  Viktor put an arm around Lesya’s shoulders and pulled her close, tucking her against his side. “Well, come in! We have some catching up to do. Some pretty big things happening on land.”

  “And in this cottage,” Lesya added, grinning.

  Andrei and Rivka passed into the house, chatting excitedly about their own exciting news. This would be a long visit, and one well overdue. Already, Lesya loved having Rivka back in her home.

  Lesya stepped aside at the door, waiting patiently in the cold as her puffins filed inside. They began chirping excitedly when they realized the visitors had brought fish.

  Cheese was the last to cross the threshold with a little double-chirp, his version of “thanks for holding the door, Mom!”

  Lesya cast one more glance over the calm seas beyond her cliff and closed the door to join the people—and puffins—she loved most in the world.

  THE END

  About the Authors

  HEATHER MARIE ADKINS writes too much but still too little. She also has too many cats, not enough tequila, and a torrid love affair with procrastination.

  Heather resides in southern Indiana with a sarcastic cop who is entirely too dependent on puns. When she’s not plotting her next story or herding felines, she's researching the weird, witchy, and woefully spectral for Spirits & Spells Podcast. Find out more about her at heathermarieadkins.com.