The Dragon in the Sea (13 page)

“This is most irregular,” said Fluke.

“The Keepers and Emmy will need someone to guide them to the Coral Jungle,” Star said.

“You know it’s not safe to leave the ship!” Fluke said.

“Actually,” said Star, her chin held high, “I do it all the time. I’ll be fine.”

Fluke and Yar dealt her a stern look.

“I’ve even gone into the jungle once or twice,” Star said, “on a double-dare from my friends.”

“I beg your pardon?” Yar said, swelling up with outrage.

“But mostly we ride the waves,” Star added meekly. “Anyway, I know the safest way in. I can be as useful to them as I am to you … but in a different way.”

Yar and Fluke swam off a short distance and whispered back and forth. After they had arrived at an agreement, they swam back.

“Permission granted,” Fluke said finally.

“Thank you!” Star said, throwing her arms around Fluke’s shoulders and hugging her, then doing the same to Yar.

Yar pulled away and tugged nervously at his whiskers. “Do take care, though. It’s fiendishly dangerous out there. Still, I imagine the dragon will protect you from harm.”

“No sweat, mateys,” said Emmy.

Yar said, “I suppose we’ll simply have to make do on our own without you for the duration. Might try swabbing the deck myself, what?”

After Emmy rubbed Star down with dragon
ichor and turned her every bit as green as she had the Keepers, the four made ready to set out in the direction of the Coral Jungle.

Word of their journey must have spread among the passengers of
The Golden Dragon
, for the decks were soon thronged with well-wishers—selkies and merfolk and kelpies and even a few polar bears—waving sea fans and hanks of seaweed.

Before the party took their leave, Fluke presented them each with a conch shell well stocked with phosphairies. “They say the Coral Jungle is a dark and murky place. A little illumination will come in handy,” she said.

“Thanks. But won’t the phosphairies be in danger?” Daisy asked.

“No worries,” said Emmy as she rubbed each conch shell until it shone bright green. “Now they’ll pass for mini water zombies. Either that or tiny traffic lights. And speaking of green lights,” she said, “let’s get going before my sib hatches into the lair of the Mermage and the Eight Seas turn into one great big seething zombie pit.”

“Ra
ther
!” said Yar. “Best be moving along, then, what?”

A group of water sprites mounted on dolphins swam alongside the party as far as the rock near the bright orange fan coral where Daisy had stopped to
rake the kelp out of her hair. As the escort spun around and rode back to the ship, the four travelers turned toward the curtain of blackness that loomed in the distance.

Now that they knew the evil Mermage Maldew dwelled in the heart of the Coral Jungle, it seemed all the more ominous to them as they swam steadily toward it. The tortured tangle of coral all but reached out to pull them into its murky depths.

They came to the edge of the jungle and halted. What looked like a large cave loomed before them.

“This bald area is where we usually sneak in,” Star said. “Me and Coral and Reef.”

“I don’t get it. Why would you come here if you didn’t have to?” Daisy asked.

“Because it’s fun!” Star said with a delighted shiver.

“Really?” said Daisy.

“Sure, Daise,” said Jesse. “Scary fun. Like that abandoned, haunted house up on Old Mine Road.”

Daisy nodded slowly. “I guess. Let’s go and have ourselves some scary fun,” she said, twirling her finger without enthusiasm.

Star said, “Okay, but first, I have to do our nails.”

“A
manicure
? Now?” Daisy asked. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

Star picked up a sea sponge and, saturating it with a blob of sticky tar that was floating in the water, began to rub Daisy’s fingernails until they turned black. Then she did the same with Jesse’s.

“It’s a
mud
-icure!” Jesse said, holding up his black-nailed fingers and wiggling them ghoulishly.

“Close attention to the details is always important, as any good mer-maid knows,” Star said with a pert little nod of her head. “Oh, and one final word. When you see a Red Eye, just wave but don’t let them touch you.”

“How come?” Jesse said. “Not that I’d want to.”

“If they touch you three times, you’ll become one of them,” Star said.

“How do you know that?” Daisy asked.

“Coral and Reef told me,” Star said. “We play a game called Red Eye Tag. Three tags and you’re Red.”

“Yeah, but how come Reef and Coral know this?” Jesse asked.

Star shrugged. “My friends know tons of stuff. Oh, and stay clear of the black coral. That stuff stings.”

“I already learned that the hard way,” Daisy said, showing Star the white welt on her finger.

“What about the other creatures in the Coral Jungle?” Jesse asked. “Are they dangerous, too?”

“What other creatures?” Star said. “Everything and everyone else moved out a long time ago. Only merfolk are vulnerable to Maldew’s power.”

“Good to know, since we just happen to be in the form of merfolk,” Jesse said slowly. “Anything else we need to know before we take the plunge?”

“Act creepy,” said Emmy.

“Creepy, right,” said Jesse. “I am a water zombie.” He held out his arms limply before him. “Are you going to act creepy, Emmy?”

“I’m going to transform into a dragon fish,” said Emmy, doing exactly that.

“I’d say that’s creepy,” said Daisy; then, with a roll of her eyes, she added, “She was
so
much cuter as a sheepdog.”

Emmy flashed her needles at them in a cunning fashion and turned toward the Coral Jungle.

Lanterns hoisted, with Emmy leading the way, the cousins and Star swam slowly into the jungle.

The water felt instantly warmer and not in a comfortable and relaxing way. If looking at the Coral Jungle from the outside was a creepy proposition, being in the thick of it was far creepier. The sunglasses made it difficult to see through the cloudy water. It even smelled bad, worse than the sea at low tide, like wash water in which dirty socks and dead fish had been soaking. As they followed along
behind Emmy, the Keepers and Star kept their arms tucked in close to their bodies and tried to move their tails as little as possible to avoid grazing the black coral. The jungle seemed deserted.

“Where is everybody?” Jesse wondered.

“At the Mermage’s hideout?” Daisy suggested.

“Where’s that, do you think?” Jesse asked.

“I guess we just keep swimming until we see something that looks like a Mermage’s hideout,” said Star. “My friends and I always stick to the outskirts. I’ve never gone in this deep before.”

“If we see someone, maybe we should just stop them and ask them directions,” said Daisy.

“I think the less contact we have with the Red Eyes, the safer we’ll be,” said Jesse.

“Ess,” said Emmy.

Green faces began to appear out of the gloom, mere yards away, raising limp arms toward them in melancholy salutation.

Jesse and Daisy and Star lifted limp arms and returned the greeting. If the Red Eyes wondered why anyone would need sunglasses in such a dark place, they gave no sign.

A few moments later, Emmy shimmied to a halt. Then she shooed them behind a wide trunk of black coral just as a heft of six beefy Red Eyes with
heads full of swirling braids and wielding rusty tridents swam past.

“Oh, my scales and fins!” Star cried out, and clapped a hand over her mouth.

“What is it?” Daisy asked her.

“The Red Eyes. I recognize one of them. It’s Rock. He was my friend,” Star said sadly.

“Well, I hate to tell you, but he’s not your friend anymore,” said Jesse.

“Ollow em!” said Emmy.

By which the others understood her to mean, “Follow them,” and this is what they did at a safe distance. It was a good thing, too, because the burly shoulders of the Red Eyes cut a nice broad swath through the stinging coral.

As Emmy and the merkids increased their speed to keep up with the squad, Jesse found himself wondering what the Mermage would look like. Would he be a hulking merman with a head full of long tight braids and green skin holding a trident? Or would he have a magic wand? In their time as Dragon Keepers, Jesse and Daisy had faced off with St. George the Dragon Slayer and his consort Sadra the Witch. Those two looked like humans, only a lot scarier. They had also battled thuggish Fire Dragons, dogs spelled into knights in armor, and
large mad dogs and acid-spewing fire lions. So how bad, really, could an underwater sorcerer really be?

Eventually, the heft of Red Eyes swam into a wide clearing, where the seafloor was as black and scorched-looking as a forest after a raging fire had swept through it. In the center of the clearing lay an object twice the size of a semitrailer: long and green and slimy-looking and covered with red bristles. The Red Eyes swam up to one end of the long green thing, from which a steady line of bubbles streamed. Daisy wondered if the Mermage was hidden somewhere inside the green thing.

Jesse, thinking along the same lines, said, “This must be the Mermage’s hideout.”

“I don’t think so,” said Star in a low voice. “I remember that Reef and Coral said something about Maldew being a giant sea cucumber. I thought it was a joke, but—”

“Holy moly!” Jesse said. “You mean to say that the big-deal Mermage Maldew is really just a humungous sea cucumber?”

“That just might be the grossest thing I’ve ever seen,” said Daisy with a deep shudder.

“Well, if that’s him,” said Jesse, “at least he can’t move very fast. I’m pretty sure sea cucumbers have minimal powers of movement. Let’s get a little closer to him so we can check him out. Those bubbles
are probably where his lips are. Or the closest thing a sea cucumber has to lips.”

Jesse started to swim out into the clearing.

“No, Jesse, don’t!” Star cried out.

But it was too late. One of the Red Eyes had turned away from the giant sea cucumber and seen Jesse.

“Uh-oh,” said Emmy.

“Who goes there?” the Red Eyes called out.

The other five Red Eyes turned to look; then they all swam over and bore down upon the trespassers.

“How dare you enter the Mermage’s Inner Circle!” one of them said.

The Red Eyes were even more imposing up close. Unlike the other Red Eyes they had seen, these didn’t have limp arms and lifeless voices. Perhaps, Jesse thought, being the Mermage’s guards gave them special strength and powers. The green skin of these Red Eyes bulged with muscles and their red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes were more angry than vacant. Through clenched teeth, they growled low and wove back and forth like grizzly bears on their hind legs working up to an attack.

“Rock? Is that you?” Star said to the smallest of the Red Eyes. “It’s me. Star. Your old friend. You probably don’t recognize me with these glasses.”

“Whatever you do, do
not
take off your sunglasses,” Jesse said to her out of the corner of his mouth.

Rock replied in a flat voice, “I recognize only my master.”

Star pinched her lips together, bowed her head, and looked as if she were holding back tears. When she raised her head again, she said to her companions, “If we get out of this alive, I’m never leaving the ship again!”

“Ay alm,” said Emmy.

But it was hard to stay calm with twenty-four rusty trident points aimed at them. With those tridents, the Red Eyes began to prod them toward the bubbling mouth of the Mermage.

Emmy’s red dragon fish scales had begun to blanch as she flitted to keep clear of the trident points, which were made of iron.

Daisy, realizing this, spoke up. “Keep those things away from our dragon fish!”

One of them jabbed the trident menacingly at Daisy. As she dodged it, her sunglasses fell off and tumbled to the seafloor. She tried to grab them back but the same Red Eyes picked them up in his fist and growled at her, “You’re a White Eyes!”

The other Red Eyes all turned to stare at Daisy.

In a show of solidarity, Jesse whipped off his sunglasses, followed by Star.

“They’re all White Eyes!” the Red Eyes snarled as he prodded Jesse, Daisy, and Star closer to the bubbling end of the sea cucumber. Here, the water was even warmer and more rank-smelling.

“We bring you three fresh White Eyes, Master,” the Red Eyes said. He was the biggest and burliest, and he seemed to be the leader.

Apart from the quivering mass of red bristles that covered his body and a slight puckering at the end, the creature the Red Eyes called master was nearly featureless. A series of big bubbles that smelled like sewage burst in the captives’ faces. Sounding like a giant wheezing fat man gargling oil, a voice asked, “What do the White Eyes want?”

Jesse said the first thing that popped into his head. “Nothing. We just want to get out of this place. We’re lost.”

Daisy said, “We took a wrong turn.”

“YOU LIE!” the Mermage bellowed. A stream of foul-smelling bubbles drove the four backward, choking and coughing. But the Red Eyes behind them prodded them again, forcing them back toward the Mermage.

The Mermage went on in a more subdued tone.
“Belleweather sent you. This feels like one of her tricks.”

“Her?” Daisy snorted. “Captain Belleweather’s not a female.”

Jesse nudged Daisy and whispered, “Um, Daise? I think she might be.”

“What are you talking about, Jess?” she whispered back.

“Last night, I was going to tell you but I fell asleep.” And then Jesse told Daisy, all in a rush, about the crystal ball and Mitzi Driftwood waving the sizzling marshmallow stick over him. It wasn’t the place to tell her something this important but it was high time. “And she was the one who gave us the spelled seashells, wasn’t she? So it kind of adds up. Daise, Mitzi Driftwood
is
Captain Belleweather.”

“But Belleweather is a selkie, like Yar, and she looks like a human woman … in a black wet suit,” Daisy said, falling silent while she added it all up in her head. When she finished, her eyes nearly popped out of her head. “Jesse!” she cried. “You’re right! Belleweather
did
send us!”

C
HAPTER
T
EN
THE WRATH OF THE MERMAGE