Undertow (21 page)

“Stay calm, Lyric,” my father says. He takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. I squeeze back as we approach the makeshift entrance that separates the Alpha from us. We're spotted by a beefy soldier who holds up his hands and demands we stop.

“This is a restricted area,” he barks.

“We're delivering the tutor,” Bonnie says.

“Doyle's girl,” he says as he gives me a once-over. His name­tag reads
foster
.
He's got a doughy face and heavy lids that make him look sleepy. I can't tell if he's ogling, judging, or pitying me. Regardless, he gestures for us to approach, then puts up another hand when we've gotten as close as he's comfortable with. “What's your name, officer?”

“I'm Leonard Walker. I work out of the Sixtieth Precinct. This is my daughter, Lyric Walker.”

“If I were you, I'd keep an eye on your daughter, Leonard. His Majesty has some violent tendencies. He's on that beach fighting a blood sport every night.”

“She wouldn't be doing it if she didn't have to,” my father says.

“That's everyone's story in the Zone.” Foster takes my tote and searches through the books I've brought for Fathom. He gives them back and then takes out his radio and clicks it on. “I've got the tutor here with her father for the prince.”

A voice crackles back. “He's in the arena.”

“Can you go get him?”

There's a long pause and then, “Screw you.”

Foster sighs. “Nice,” he says, then takes his gun off the strap around his shoulders. He cocks the chamber and gestures for us to follow him to a door in the chainlink fence. “I have to take you in. Stay close.”

“You'll be fine, Lyric,” Bonnie says as she watches us enter. “I'll be here when you come out.”

My father takes the brave first step through the door and onto the sand, and I follow. When Foster relocks the door, I look around at the seashore. There were summers I spent every day here, squeezing out a tiny place to lie on a blanket and read YA novels. Now it feels like a foreign country, a maze of huts, constructed from mud and sand, old sheets, and heavy pieces of driftwood pounded into the ground. Most of these little houses are no higher than my waist, and none of them has a roof. Alpha dwell within them and stare out at us, watching with suspicion as we walk past. Children of all shapes and sizes cling to their mothers when they see us. Old Nix shoot us the stink eye. A Sirena girl no more than nine stumbles back, startled by our presence. Her scales turn bright red just before she dashes away.

“Not too many humans come into the camp,” Foster explains. “Not since those Marines got killed. The president came once, but that's between you and me. Most of them have never gotten past the fence, so we're still a novelty.”

He makes a left and guides us past a row of metal barrels, all of which are burning newspapers and billowing smoke. We make another turn, and I realize that this sloppy collection of homes is actually a well-planned stretch of interlocking paths, not unlike the street grid of Manhattan. Every twenty yards or so, one path intersects with another, making “city blocks,” each dedicated to a different necessity. There are blocks for food preparation, trading, clothes mending, and one that looks like a school for young Alpha. An elderly Ceto stands before his students, growling in their language. Farther on, I find a mountain of scrap metal piled four stories high. This is what they scavenge when they run through our streets at night, and what a haul. Nearby is what looks like an old-timey blacksmith shop, where I watch the scrap superheated, melted, cooled, and pounded with hammers. They're making weapons with what we throw away.

But none of it is as surprising as the block set aside for a massive collection of stools, lined up like pews in an open-air church. Two Selkies place a bundle of fish on an altar, while the elderly priestess looks on.

Foster puts his finger to his lips.

“This is their wacky church. Don't make a peep or they'll lose their minds.”

Out of respect, and embarrassment for gawking, I lower my eyes and move on.

The crowd noise rises as we get closer to the shore. There's loud applause filled with roaring and shouting, but I can't tell why. Foster leads us down an alley, and we turn toward the ocean. There we find a sunken area the size and shape of a baseball field, carved right into the sand. It's massive, with several levels of seating that go fifteen rows deep. It looks like Yankee Stadium on a smaller scale, and at the bottom I can see two people fighting. Both are wearing the armor made of bones and shells and claws.

“How did they build this?” my father wonders.

Foster shrugs. “These guys have their secrets. We put up cameras and they pull them down. We've got some satellite up in space spying on them, but we still haven't figured it out. All I know is every night the water comes in and washes this away and every morning it's back.”

It's nothing short of a miracle.

“We're going in, so be careful. Don't brush up against one of them if you can help it. They're prickly, literally, and they don't like humans at all.”

We weave through the crowd. Most of them are Selkies, and getting around their hulking frames is not easy. There are a lot of Nix, too, as well as Triton. I don't see any Sirena or Ceto in the crowd, but I am also wildly distracted by the different kinds of Alpha I have never seen or heard about before. The one closest to me is tall and very lean. When he turns he scowls, but I'm too busy staring at the long, thick whiskers that poke out from beneath his nose on either side to notice. They're easily six inches long, but what's even odder is his mouth, a long, jagged line that reaches from one side of his face to the other like a catfish. My mother told me of the Rusalka, and she's also talked about the Feige, who she once described as troubling. I have no idea which one I'm looking at or if he's something completely different.

There are some with hands like flippers and a few with bare chests covered in suction cups. There's a small group of men with jet-black hair and greenish-white skin. Their teeth are sharp and they have pink slits at the base of their jaws. I'm so entranced, I walk into someone and fall to the sand. He's a man. I mean, I think he's a man. He is obese, is dressed in ratty sweatpants, and has a belly that flops down well below his waistband. His skin is as dark as fireplace cinders, highlighted with ashy white freckles, and his eyes are on the sides of his head. He reels on me, howls with indignation, and then inflates like a balloon. He swells to three times his size, and sharp spikes pop out of his skin. They're as long as nails and inch dangerously close to my face.

Foster steps between us.

“Back off, Nathan!” he demands.

Nathan stomps his feet and kicks sand at me like an angry toddler.

“Nathan, we go through this all the time,” Foster shouts. “It was an accident, you big baby.”

Nathan growls.

“Yes, yes, I know all about Alpha honor,” Foster says. “So you really think you're entitled to challenge a young girl to combat because she accidentally touched you? Doesn't sound like honor to me. Sounds like what a bully does.”

Nathan roars louder, but then his spikes sink back into his skin and his body deflates to its normal size. He stares at me and growls threateningly one last time before turning back to the show.

“Let's go before he changes his mind,” Foster says.

“You're learning the language?” my father asks.

“Not really. I mean, I've picked up a few words, but these guys still struggle with it, and they made it up. It's meant for speaking underwater, something about the bubbles and the vibrations, I guess. Truth is, they only talk about three or four things—honor, how humans are disgusting, their trippy religion, and war. It's easy to guess, and when I get it wrong they are all too eager to correct me. They all speak a little English even if they like to pretend that it's beneath them.”

We circle until we find stairs leading to the lower levels, then make our way to the bottom. There I see what all the cheering is about. A full-grown Selkie, maybe the biggest one I've ever seen, is fighting Fathom. He stands nearly eight feet tall with a jagged white scar running from the top of his head down the center of his right eye, leaving it milky and dead. He's much older than Fathom—possibly sixty years of age, with wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and deep lines in his forehead—but his movements defy the ticking clock. Each swing of his crescent-shaped sword is like a lightning strike, eliciting a rousing cheer from the crowd. They are clearly rooting for the big man over their prince.

Fathom stands in the Selkie's immense shadow, looking exhausted. The Selkie's attacks are relentless, and Fathom seems barely able to defend himself. The shoulder I helped pop back into place has not had time to heal. Every time he moves his right arm, he winces.

“He's going to get killed!” I cry.

“It happens,” Foster says, as if it's as unavoidable as insects splattering against a car window.

My father gapes. “You don't interfere?”

“My orders are to let them do what they want as long as it doesn't spill into the streets.”

The Selkie punches Fathom in the face, sending him reeling to the ground. More blood erupts from a gash below his left eye and paints the lower half of his face in red.

I have to stop this. I can't let him die.
My feet take over and I rush forward, but Foster grabs my arm and pulls me back.

“Whoa, kid! Don't get involved in this. If you do anything to stop this fight, his old man will lose it,” he says, pointing across the arena. There stands a Triton with long, golden hair. He wears a crown made from sea glass and, like his son, a suit of armor. Next to him is his wife. Both clap wildly whenever the Selkie hits Fathom.

“He's cheering for the other guy?” my father cries.

Foster shrugs. “I guess it's supposed to toughen him up.”

“It's disgusting,” I say. “They should be stopping this, not cheering it.”

Another punch from the Selkie, and Fathom is rattled. He falls to one knee, and the audience boos. They want more fighting. Even his father and stepmother shake their heads in shame. The Selkie throws up his arms in triumph to a smattering of applause. Then he raises his sword directly over Fathom's neck.

“No!” I cry.

Fathom extends the blades in his arms and leaps back into the air, bringing his jagged saws across the chest of his opponent. The skin divides, exposing pink flesh, and a waterfall of blood pours down his abdomen. The crowd cheers as the Selkie presses his hands to the wound. He's clearly surprised as he watches his life pour out between his fingers, but instead of crying out or asking for help, he lets out an uproarious laugh. He drops his sword and kneels to the boy. He barks a few things at him, but not in anger. He's smiling and cheering Fathom, celebrating his own loss.

Fathom's blades retract and the crowd cheers, all except his family. His father and stepmother boo. The only one on Fathom's side is the bald Triton with the goatee who stands behind them. My mother told me the prime has a brother. He must be Fathom's uncle.

Terrance pushes through the crowd and approaches. His presence causes an angry uproar everywhere he goes. Alpha push and shove him, shout angry words, and spit at him. He keeps his head down and continues his approach, even when a Selkie kicks him in the behind.

“You got one seriously screwed-up way of life, Lir,” Foster says to him.

Terrance ignores him. He shoots my father and me a look but quickly turns his gaze to the ground. “His Majesty sends his appreciation for you coming to the camp, Ms. Walker. He will meet you at the end of the pier. Please come alone.”

“I'm not leaving her with that kid,” my father says. “He just nearly cut a man in half.”

“He won't harm her, Mr. Walker. But he will not be watched, either. The Alpha camp is not for spying humans,” Terrance says.

“Spying humans? Ouch,” I say as my father and I are led to the pier.

“At least he's playing along,” my father replies.

There are not a lot of places to sit at the end of the pier. Without anyone to clean it up, it's become a bathroom for seagulls and pigeons. Birds are sort of disgusting. Not only do they empty their bowels all over the place, they use it as a dinner table too. There are thousands of crab shells up here, scooped up, tossed onto the planks, and then devoured. I can't take a step without hearing a crunch.

I kick some aside and lean against the railing, then think better of it. If no one's cleaning it, no one is maintaining it either. The whole thing might collapse under my weight for all I know. Why does Fathom want to meet here?

I wait for ten minutes, watching my father pace back and forth on the beach. I wonder where Fathom is, if he's pulling the “I'm royalty” card, which he believes entitles him to be rude. Then again, he might have bled to death after the fight.

Suddenly, I hear a splash below, but before I can investigate I watch Fathom shoot into the air, a rocket with a trail of ocean water behind him. He soars high above the pier, three stories above the water below, and then comes down a few feet from me, where he lands as nimble as a cat. He's still wearing his armor and is glistening wet.

“Hello, Lyric Walker.”

“Oh” is all I can think to say.

He kicks some shells from beneath his bare feet and turns to me, his armor clinking against itself with every twitch of his muscles.

“I'm sorry I am late. Those who fall before me in battle are entitled to make amends.”

“So he apologized for beating you up?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “He apologized for believing he could.”

“Are you ever scared?”

He looks at me for a long time, as if I'm talking gibberish and he's too polite to ask me to repeat myself.