OVERFALLS (The Merworld Water Wars, Book 2) (38 page)

“Habit,” said the gnome before his eyes glazed over. “
Over, over, over she falls
.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. Listen, whoever you are, or whatever you are…I’m ready to take your ass down, anytime.”

Using every crevice I could find, I started to climb my way out of the chamber. As I neared the halfway point, huge blasts above, below, and on either side of me sent dirt into my mouth and eyes; rotting hands shot out all around me, yanking at the staff, ripping at my clothes, and pulling at my limbs. The relentless clawing jostled my legs, causing me to swing uncontrollably sideways; dangling by my fingertips, my gaze unwittingly landed upon at least a dozen zombies shuffling towards me, their ravenous eyes focused on my legs. Scrambling to regain my footing, I forced my feet into the wall, but every time I found some stability, all of the slimy, groping hands knocked me out of place. As I was about to reposition my left foot, something grabbed hold of it; looking down, I gasped: a zombie had his mouth open, ready to rip my ankle apart; I could feel its breath through my jeans. Just as it was about to bite, I swung the staff around and stabbed the tip through the zombie’s skull. When I did, an enormous orange glow engulfed the chamber, setting it ablaze, and sent me flying up and out.

“Oooh, this is gonna hurt!”

Landing flat on my back by Jex’s feet, the wet soaking through to my leather jacket, I wondered if I was drenched in sweat or blood.

Jex lifted me up and pulled me into a hug. “First back from both teams, Savior! Well done!” I yelped when he touched my back. “Let me look.” He gently removed my jacket, dropping it to the sand, and slowly peeled the shirt from my back. The tips of his fingers gently slid along my sides, caressed my waist, and brushed the small of my back. I may be inexperienced in the ways of sex, but his touch spoke one unequivocal fact: Jex knew how to please. “Here, this will speed up the healing.” Removing a feather, he slipped it inside the back of my shirt.

The cool softness of the feather melted into a cream and soaked into the wounds. “That feels good,” I said.

“I know,” he said, leaning into me.

“Pentacle and staff,” demanded Mr. Anderson, sneaking up on us.

“Yeah, I’m okay, thanks for asking. Damn zombie almost took off my foot. Cut the hell out of myself trying to escape the coffin,” I said sarcastically.

“The items…please,” he replied coolly.

As I handed him the pentacle and staff, Jex quipped, “Must be rough for you, Allen, being reduced to nothing more than the equipment boy.” Mr. Smarmy pursed his lips and stomped off. “He must be in blue ball hell.”

I frowned. “Is that the name of the next ball or something?” Oh God. I did it again. “Was I just stupid?”

“I’d call it refreshingly innocent,” said Jex, flashing a gorgeous smile.

“Could you please rotten up the innocence, so I don’t make a fool of myself again?”

“Basically, Anderson hasn’t had a decent lay in his life and he desperately needs one,” said Jex. “And, for the record, you make a pretty cute fool.”

I think I’m having a moment with the horn-dog angel…at night…all alone. It feels weird. Very weird. And wrong. Thank God Trey, Meikle, Airianna, and Katrina exploded from their chambers. They were soon followed by Polly, Ophelia, Irving, Gully, Benji, and Muriel.

“Happiest I’ve been in a long time,” Meikle purred, swinging her pentacle.

“Of course you’d enjoy being buried in the ground and fighting gooey zombies,” Polly growled as Mr. Smarmy approached her.

“Pentacle and staff,” he said, holding his hand out.

Polly put the pentacle around his neck and slammed the staff in the crook of his arm. “You’ll need free hands for these.” She shoved a handful of smelly, rock-like objects into the palm of his hand. “The gnome bit me…so I removed his teeth. He may want them back.” For the first time, a sickly green overtook Mr. Smarmy’s usual look of hate. “So, who’s left?”

“Troy,” I said, a sudden worry filling my body. “Something’s wrong.”

“This was worse than the first match, and it is on land…maybe it’s just difficult for him,” said Ophelia, trying to calm me as I shivered.

“No, that’s not it,” I said, the worry turning into a flashing warning inside my mind.

“Um, okay, fans, it appears Troy Tombolo is…having some technical difficulties,” said Kori’s muffled voice. Kori and the crowd were still underground. “Oh…should someone help him?” Her attempt at covering the microphone failed.

“I’m going in.”

“Marina, no,” said Jex, grabbing my arm. “You don’t know what has him.”

“I know whatever it is will soon un-have him.” I ran for his makeshift tomb and jumped in.

I quickly unburied the busted coffin and followed the path he created until I found the tunnel to his chamber. When I finally dropped into his chamber, my heart ached—Troy was cowering in a corner with his hands pressed over his head as the spirits danced around, heckling him. An odd bell-like ringing echoed off the walls. I quickly spotted the pentacle resting askew in the middle of the room; the staff was leaning against the wall near Troy.

“Hey, didn’t your mamas ever tell you it was rude to heckle?” The spirits turned their angry eyes on me and soared for my head. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. Time to put some starch in those sheets.” Throwing my hand in the air, I trapped them within a gel bubble. “Damn, Troy, I’m so getting the hang of this whole power paw-palms girl stuff.” At the sound of my voice saying his name, Troy stood up, cracked his neck, and faced the crowd of startled faces watching us. “Here,” I said, snatching the pentacle off the ground. “Put this around your neck and under your shirt. It’ll make them disappear. Troy? Can you hear me?”

“How could I not? You haven’t stopped talking since you dropped in, uninvited,” he said coldly.

“Uh, where did that come from?” Ungrateful dick.

“From the
right
place inside me…the place you’ve trained me to ignore…the place I intend to listen to from now on.” He turned to face me; the emptiness of his eyes couldn’t be any darker.

“You’re not Troy.”

“I’m the real Troy. The one that terrifies you...the one that turns you on. Terror and passion go together like blood and murder. I’m the one you want to be your teacher…to swallow you…to drive into you and make you scream. Problem is…I like my women to know what they’re doing. If I’m bringing them
there
, they better be getting me…further. Get me,
Rubylocks
?”

I wouldn’t allow the tears to fall. I wouldn’t. This wasn’t my boyfriend. “And then some. You’re a man-whore demon wearing a good man’s face. What, you couldn’t find a boiled-covered ass appropriate enough for ya?”

Smiling a devilish grin, he said, “Spunk. I like that. Brings the act of killing from mere entertainment—you know, something to do on a rainy Sunday—to a point closer to ecstasy. You used to read cards, right? So here’s one for you. What does the Jack of spades plus the word ‘
D
eliberating’ mean to you?” From his pocket, he pulled out the Jack of spades and flipped it between his fingers. “What’s that I see? Hurt? Mmm, that’s doing it for me, Red. Ah, wait…is that a glimmer of grief? Now, grief I love. Screw greed…grief is good. Grief is great. Grief cleanses the palate for the main meal—destruction.”

“As much as I’ve not enjoyed your little diatribe, I was wondering if I could have my boyfriend back,” I said.

“Let me think…no. But I will accept your hidden invitation to rip that nightlight of a head clean off your shoulders.”

“Not if I break the bulbs first,” I said, kicking him hard in the groin. He slammed against the wall. Sliding to the ground, he grabbed his balls and groaned. I grabbed the staff and pushed it under his chin. “Now, that was the easy way. This,” I said, pressing the staff against his throat while stepping lightly on his manhood, “would be the hard way. Pick one.”

“Ma—rina? So…sorry.”

His eyes...

Removing the staff from his throat, I fell to my knees and held him to me. “You’re back. You’re back. It’s okay. Let’s get out of here.” Driving the staff into the ground, the same orange flash blasted us out of the chamber and back to relative safety.

Jex flew to us and helped Troy to his feet. “You two all right?”

“We will be,” I said, wiping dirt and sweat from Troy’s face.

“I love you,” he said, touching my face. “But if I’m…I won’t hurt any of you. I need…help.” With that, he handed Jex the Joker card and, in a flash, disappeared into the dark night.

The stands, stage, and band slowly rose from the ground; the crowd was as silent as I’ve ever heard them.

“Okay, folks, we have a bit of a controversy,” said Kori, slightly unnerved. “Madame Helena, if you will.”

Madame Curtain Rods stood behind the judge’s table. “Ladies and gentlemen, fellow judges, we have a dilemma, do we not? Miss Valentine aided a fellow contestant. This is grounds for a severe deduction in points.”

“Oh, come on!” I screamed. “I helped a contestant of the OTHER team! Even Kori suggested someone needed to step in. No one did, except me.”

“It’s still a potential violation, Marina. Helping another is simply unacceptable—” Startled, Madame Helena stopped mid-sentence as a dull, but noticeable wave of boos erupted throughout the crowd.

“She helped my son.” Every head in the stadium looked to the luxury box. King Tombolo was on his feet, addressing the judges. “There is no foul there…only courage and love.” We shared a warm exchange of smiles. “If anyone wishes to go against courage and love, I urge them to speak now.” No one dared, not even Queen Zale, who simply sat like an ice sculpture. “I believe you may consider your dilemma resolved, Madame Helena.”

I’m fairly certain little puffs of smoke emitted from her ears. “Thank you, King Tombolo. I…much appreciate the assistance. Shall we, judges?”

After the usual rigmarole, Mr. Anderson handed Kori the results. “Okay, let’s see where we stand after match number two! Taking the earth element is team…Normals! Team Merpeople, you finished a distant second this time around. Normals, y’all lead by a whopping thirteen points!”

“We are so taking this,” said Polly smugly.

There were more claps from the crowd this time around; admittedly, their applause sounded incredibly out of place (way too used to boos or a sulky silence).

“The third and final team match, the fire element, will be held on April fifteenth,” said Kori. “And it’s an early one—or late one, depending upon your sleeping habits—three a.m. See you then!”

Any slight jubilation over winning tonight’s match was completely obliterated when the echo of Troy’s demon side floated within my ears. Gazing into the darkness, I wondered if his words haunted him. Was it possible he remembered nothing of his words or his actions when turned demon-side-out? If he doesn’t recall anything, the likelihood of Troy being The Dealer has never been greater.

*****

For over two weeks, Troy has been seeking guidance from the ancient Merpeople, the Sandtalians. He doesn’t talk much about his meetings in Sandtala, apart from them being ceremonial in nature. It was Treeva who told me that the Sandtalians were the key to cracking open any secret activities his demon side may have going on. In the meantime, Troy has been a sullen shell of his former self. Nothing I say seems to make a dent. His guilt ranked off the charts, and he was seriously worry-warting (not a word, I know) about being The Dealer, despite Gully essentially embodying a broken record, telling him over and over that she couldn’t detect his essence in the Joker card. Troy believes his demon side may leave an entirely different footprint. I suppose I’m being too cavalier; when Troy told me he didn’t remember anything the demon side said that night in the chamber, I felt like an angry monster was about to bust from my gut…and I knew exactly where to aim the messy result—on Doctor Tenly.

“
Truth bypasses a severed core, flowing through the veins of one’s beginning
,” said Doctor Tenly. “The spirits said nothing more?”

“Nope,” I said.

“Severed core could be two entities living inside one body,” offered Jex.

“Let me guess,” I said, “like a demon and a merman?”

Jex shrugged. “Never know.”

“
Flowing through the veins of one’s beginning
could be pointing to a particular point of origin or creation,” said Doctor Tenly, rubbing his forehead. “Well, more to research.”

“I need to know…do you think Troy’s The Dealer?” Today, Doctor Tenly would not toss me out after he was done kicking me sideways during Savior training. Oh, no, no—today, he will answer every question said angry monster intends to spew.

“Marina, I really have work—”

“Work to do. Yeah, I’ve heard, like everyday. I need some Doc time. Please.”

“Well, if you ask me, I’d say fin boy is much more interesting with the demon unleashed,” said Jex. “Which, of course, means he’s likely dealing the cards.”

“See, I didn’t ask you, so zip it. Doctor?”

Doctor Tenly stared at the floor. “Truthfully, I just don’t know. If we’re playing the odds, I’d say it’s fifty-fifty. Whatever the Sandtalians come back with should shed some rays on things.”

“So not what I wanted to hear. But, when he was delivering Normals to Zale, he was aware of it. He knew. So, wouldn’t he know if he was writing on cards, killing innocent people, planning to kill innocents, setting traps…”

“Big difference, there,” said Jex. “When Troy was the deliverer, he was on the same page as his demon self. He was doing what Zale forced him to do. Of course he’d remember.”

“Regardless of Troy’s feelings, whether guilt or hate or indifference, both the demon and the merman were sharing the same conscious awareness while delivering Normals,” Doctor Tenly added. “If the demon is acting on its own accord at present, Troy would be staunchly against whatever it does, thus, both would be on different conscious planes.”

“Kinda get it,” I said, looking at them warily. “But in simple speak…”

“Fishy doesn’t agree with demon. Demon sneaks out when fishy isn’t looking. Demon gets back before fishy knows he’s gone. Got it?” said Jex.