Diary of a Radical Mermaid (21 page)

Rhymer and I were on the island’s Atlantic beach at the time. At least, I was on the beach, holding the pistol Rhymer had given me. Rhymer had vanished into the ocean over a half-hour before. “I need to have a little confab with the dolphins as to what they’ve heard or sensed lately,” he’d explained before he speared the surf, wearing naught but loose black trunks and his sheathed sword.

So I was standing there, looking anxiously from the gray-green ocean to the dunes and woods that hid the mansion from my sight, wondering if the girls were keeping their promise to stay locked in their suite upstairs with Heathcliff for company, when a part of my mind, listening for Tula and Jordan, went still. That’s how it felt. Still. An engine had been turned off. The telegraph wires had been cut. Dodge City had lost the dit-dit-a-dit of the telegraph from Tombstone.

“Tula?” I said aloud, putting a hand to my head as if tapping my skull a few times would clear the line. “Jordan?”

Just beyond the surf, Rhymer popped to the surface. We traded a grim gaze. He’s got them, Rhymer whispered to me. Orion. He may have killed them.

Things Turn Nasty
Chapter
21

Jordan was bleeding all over my slinky little Anne Blegis dress. Not that I minded. The dress could be dry cleaned. Jordan couldn’t.

I looked up at Orion. Help him, please, help him.

Orion waved a hand. He’ll live. If he does as he’s told. Just like you two. He gazed quietly at me and Tula, his Charley face a blank mask for those place-of-no-return eyes. Tula knelt on the cabin’s floor beside me, speckled in Jordan’s blood, holding his head in her lap while I pressed my hands onto the ripped, bloody cloth of his white cotton shirt, low on his right side. Blood poured from two deep gashes.

The bleeding suddenly stopped. Orion shrugged. He’d granted me a small favor. Jordan took a deep breath and opened his eyes. “Sorry,” he whispered to me. “Some rescuer I am.”

I nearly cried. “Sorry? Sorry for letting a shapeshifting psycho onto your boat because he was impersonating me? Sorry for hesitating to shoot an apparition you thought might really be me? Sorry you were deceived by a deranged mutant outcast who’s so freaking ashamed of his freaking, freakish, freak appearance he still hides behind Charley’s face and won’t even show himself to us?” I glared up at Orion.

Jordan coughed. “Maybe you want to be a little more polite, since we seem to be his prisoners.”

Orion smiled coldly. “A wise man. Onward to Sainte’s Point.”

* * * *

The breakfast nook at Sainte’s Point was a cozy alcove of delicate white furniture, several small, original seascapes by a who’s who of famous artists, and a small, sea-nibbled statuette of a web-footed nymph being caressed by an octopus. I’d never seen anything quite like it in collected antiquities; no Greek, Roman, or other ancient Mesopotamian culture had produced such a strangely erotic ode to inter-species dating.

Women and the tentacled marine animals they love, I thought weirdly. Next on Jerry Springer.

The girls and I sat in the alcove, eating a breakfast of butter and boiled shrimp. That’s right. Butter and boiled shrimp. We each had a small porridge bowl filled with scoops of the creamiest fresh butter, and a small plate of fat, salmon-pink shrimp. A typical Mer breakfast. All my life I’d hidden my fetish for marbled steaks and lard out of the can. I hadn’t known I was just a fat-loving Mer, eating what came naturally.

I stared at the statuette again, not really seeing it, lost in thought. Worrying. Jordan and Tula remained silent. Rhymer was out on the seaward beaches, listening for them looking.

“That statue’s very ancient, you know,” Stella said. She nodded. Her face, on the cusp between childhood and teenage beauty, was pale and haunted.

I felt her trying so hard to be a role model to her sisters. “Oh? Please, tell me about it.”

“It’s from a Mer civilization that existed long before the earliest ones Landers remember. The girl in the statue was a princess of an ocean clan. She became a great queen and warrior. Long before the age of Landers.”

“How fascinating.”

“Only if you’re stupid enough to believe in fairytales,” Isis grunted. She scooped shrimp and butter into her mouth. “I like stories about Santa Claus better. At least he brings gifts.” Pause. “Unlike our own father. Who’s never even met us but is probably headed this way to murder us.”

“Isis!” Stella hissed.

“Murder us?” Venus moaned.

I drew myself up in my best former-librarian-shushing-people mode. “Eat your butter and shrimp, Isis.”

Venus gazed from Isis to Stella woefully, then turned to Heathcliff, who sat on the table beside her, a happy servant to the child who’d given him back his youth. “Heathcliff,” she said solemnly, “When you were a wee kitty, did you know your papa? I bet you did. I’m sure he loved you. Because all papas love their children and mean them no harm, don’t they?”

“Yes, yes that’s true,” I answered for Heathcliff.

Venus looked at me tearfully, trying to believe, and managed a small, hopeful smile.

Later, on the beach, I hooked a hand through Rhymer’s arm as he exited the surf. His eyes were tired. “Any news?” I asked.

He shook his head. “They’re either dead or Orion’s keeping them quiet.”

“They’re alive. I insist on hoping for the best.”

He smiled wearily. “Good. That’s your job, Moll. But my job is to plan for the worst.”

“What do you think Orion will do next?”

“I’m betting his next move is to come here and offer Jordan and the others as a trade for the girls.”

“But if he makes an offer such as that, you won’t accept it.”

He nodded, his face agonized. “At which point, he’ll slaughter them for sure.”

* * * *

Tula and I helped Jordan onto the long, cushioned bench that served as a sofa across from the yacht’s small galley. I covered him with a blanket and put a pillow under his head, smoothed his sun-streaked hair from his forehead, stroked his chin. “I’ve missed your touch,” he mumbled.

“You must be delirious,” I countered tearfully.

He sweated and dozed. I watched him without blinking, terrified. Even the best tan this side of a GQ model couldn’t hide the pallor of his face. The rise and fall of his chest riveted me. I counted the seconds between inhalations. The slow seep of blood from the clot on his side made me want to wring my hands and moan. Yep, the situation had sunk to the melodramatic level of bad reality TV. Jordan was a contestant on a one-man Survivor Island.

Tula sat beside me on the floor. She stared upwards grimly, listening to the rumble of the engines and occasional footsteps as Orion moved about the pilot house above us.

“When he walks,” she whispered, “he sounds heavier than any human being could possibly be. He can’t disguise that.”

“He’s not really human. You should see his claws.”

“I did.” She hugged herself. “For just a second. When he leapt aboard our boat and slashed Jordan. I caught just a glimpse of this . . . this huge, knobby, muscular, veined, webbed hand with . . . with claws like a giant cat’s.” She took a deep breath, then looked at me. “And his hand was silver.”

I nodded. “And iridescent. Like a fish.”

Tula nodded wildly. “We’re related to that creature. We’ve got violent fish blood. This proves it. It’s disturbing.”

“Oh, please. We’re no more related to him than your average Lander is related to a gorilla at the zoo.”

“Orion makes gorillas look civilized.”

The engines stopped. Orion’s feet creaked on the top deck as he descended to the cabin.

Tula and I traded a wide-eyed look. “What do you think his feet look like?” she whispered.

“Big. Silver. Webbed,” I grunted. “But no claws — or he’d sound like a dog clicking across a tile floor.”

The door burst open. Charley/Orion thrust his head inside. “Juna Lee. On deck. Now.”

I raised one of Jordan’s sweaty hands to my mouth, kissed it, then headed outside.

The sun was setting. A hot breeze tossed my hair. Somewhere on the other side of the planet a budding hurricane sent the remnants of its mood our way, rocking the small yacht on shallow, rolling swells. I lurched after ‘Charley,’ grimacing. “I’m not paying for this sunset dinner cruise. It sucks.”

He grabbed me by one arm and unceremoniously hauled me to the yacht’s bow, then pointed toward the faint hint of a coastline, just a haze on the horizon. “We’re only fifty miles from Sainte’s Point. We’ll arrive there tonight. It’s time for you to do your job.”

“My job?”

“Sing out. Call Rhymer McEvers. I want him to know you’re alive. Tell him I’ll hand the three of you to him safely after he meets me at moonrise, alone, at a place called Echo Marsh.”

“What? You’re going to ambush Rhymer, kill him, then track your daughters down on Sainte’s Point and kill them, too? No way am I helping you do that!”

He drew me close to his face. His five-hundred year old eyes burned into me. “I have lived too long and seen too much,” he whispered, “to mourn the deaths that necessity demands. To put it bluntly, you pampered child, either you do as I tell you, or I’ll rip your friends to pieces while you watch.”

I gulped air. “I want your word that you won’t hurt Jordan and Tula if I send a message to Rhymer for you. And I want your word that—”

My voice ended in a yip as the razor points of his hidden claws dug into my forearm. “Do you really want to see who you’re dealing with?” He bent closer to me, and Charley’s features vanished. My blood froze. I stared up into the thick-boned face of a silver sphinx, a beautiful horror, like something out of a science fiction comic book. No. Comic books portrayed mermen as sleek, fish-faced people.

They’d gotten it all wrong.

This offshoot of the Mer family tree had a human face covered in silver scales so tiny they formed a glistening, smooth skin. Black hair as coarse as seaweed cascaded down his back in thick braids like dread locks. Large, dark, browless eyes lasered me above a hooked nose and a wide mouth with pale, full lips. Those lips pulled back to reveal broad, white, human teeth, except for the little matter of the top and bottom canines, of which there were four on top and four on the bottom, a pair on each side, all an inch long, sharply pointed, and curved inward like white talons.

“Sing,” he ordered in a voice like the rumble of a dark tide.

I sang.

* * * *

Rhymer stood on the beach as if struck by lightning. The ocean stretched to a blood-red sunset. Somewhere out there, Orion waited. I gripped Rhymer’s arm. Deep in my mind I felt, or heard, the distant hum of the Mer voice that was speaking to him. Juna Lee. I’d know that snarky, sophisticated, Southern Belle drawl, anywhere.

He’s making me say all this, Rhymer. The mutant asshole will kill Jordan and Tula if I don’t play along. Let me tell you, I’ve known some aggressive mermen in my life, but this Orion takes the cake. Not to mention he’s seriously in need of a laser peel to remove his freakin’ facial scales, and he could use some good cosmetic dentistry to fix —

Silence. Orion had cut her voice off as if punching a button on a CD player.

Rhymer turned to me. “I’m to meet Orion tonight at midnight, alone, at a place near the mainland called Echo Marsh.”

I froze. “What else did he tell her to say?”

“That’s all. I could feel her fear. I could feel her anger. She’s protecting Jordan and Tula. Orion forced her to be his messenger.”

“What is Orion trying to accomplish? Why didn’t he even offer a trade?”

“Because I was wrong. He’s after something else. I’m not sure what.”

“Whatever it is, you can’t meet him alone. You can’t. It’s a trap.”

Rhymer looked at me sadly. “Aye, probably, but better that than have him come here. I do no’ want to fight him in front of the girls. They do no’ need to see their father’s blood.”

“Or yours.” I reeled. “You can’t fight him alone. He’s more powerful than any normal Mer, even you.”

“Moll, I have to try. I have no choice.”

“Please, please let me go with —“

“No. I want you to take the girls away from here. Put them in that bus of yours and head up the coast toward your own home state. Don’t stop, don’t look back, and don’t sing out, no matter what becomes of me.”

“I can’t. I can’t just leave you. It took me all these years to find you.”

“You’ll never leave me.” He put his hand to his heart.

I cried.

* * * *

You floated down a sewer when you were a kid, I told myself. You can surely keep your shit together now and think of a way out of this situation.

“No, you can’t,” Orion said aloud.

He threw the yacht’s anchor overboard. In front of us the ocean made a black, rolling seascape. Above us, the stars looked like white pin points. I pointed to the night sky. “There’s your constellation. The one that looks warped.”

Orion laughed, grasped me by the wrist and dragged me into the cabin, then slammed the door behind us. Tula stood up anxiously. Jordan half-lay, half-sat on the cabin’s couch, woozy but furious as Orion continued to manacle me by one wrist. “Let go of her.”

Oh, how I wanted to wrap my legs around Jordan and kiss him, right then.

Orion released my wrist and nodded. “You’re a brave man—” he paused “—for caring about her. I salute you.”

“Well, how rude —“ I began.

Jordan cut me off. “Orion, if you kill my cousin Rhymer or hurt his nieces, I’ll hunt you down no matter where you go.”

“Don’t waste your efforts. As for tonight . . . I’ve disabled the engine and the radio. You’ll get nowhere, even if you escape from this locked cabin. Sing out, and no one will hear. Try to swim, and you’ll regret it. Look out the port windows at my pet.”

Tula and I sidled over to the windows and peered out. In the starlight, a silvery fin cut the ocean’s surface. It glided through our field of vision, then sank out of sight. I pivoted toward Orion. “Your pet is a Great White. Isn’t he a little out of his territory?”

“Yes. But I called him specifically with you in mind. The big sharks like it when their prey nags and threatens. They enjoy the high-pitched shriek of a human voice while they’re eating the voice’s owner. To them, it’s the equivalent of a dinner show. I’ve told him you’ll be particularly entertaining.”