Waterborne (19 page)

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Authors: Katherine Irons

BOOK: Waterborne
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The mermaid’s gaze became hard. “When the sun rises over Aunu’u. At dawn, prince of Atlantis, many of your dolphin brothers and sisters will cease to exist. But you will not be there to help, for you will be obeying Poseidon and hunting the Russian.”
 
As Danu raced after her father on Echo, she nearly collided with her Aunt Morwena. “Help me!” Danu cried. “Daddy is in danger.”
“How?” Morwena asked. “And why are you unescorted? This is not a section of the palace that is safe for—”
“There’s no time,” Danu argued. She thrust her father’s bow and quiver into her aunt’s hands. “Lord Pelagias means him harm!”
“How do you know this?” Morwena, a novice priestess, was already late for prayer. She’d already missed too many sessions, and if she went with Danu, she might be dismissed from her class and have to repeat an entire level.
The child drew herself up as tall as it was possible for a six-year-old and placed her hand over her stomach. “I feel it. Here. You must come. They will hurt my daddy.”
“If there’s danger, it’s no place for a child,” she scolded the dolphin. “Go and find palace guards. Take Danu to safety.”
“No.” Danu dug her heels into Echo’s sides and the dolphin shot ahead down the hallway. Morwena hesitated only a fraction of a second before going after them.
Danu heard the angry shouts before she reached the enclosed courtyard.
“Usurper!”
“You have no right to the crown!”
Danu knew the second voice. That was Lord Pelagias. “Go!” she urged Echo.
Girl and dolphin shot from the corridor into the walled courtyard. “Daddy!” she screamed. Her father leaned against a painted column clutching his side. There was something sticking out of it, and blood ran down his body in thick streams. “Don’t hurt him! He’s the king!”
A mean-looking man that she didn’t know pulled a knife from his sheath and moved toward her father. “Prince Caddoc is the rightful king!” the man said. “For Caddoc and Jason!”
“No!” Danu shouted, giving Echo the signal for ramming.
The great mammal surged through the water, catching the man just below his midsection with her beak and bowling him backward. So great was the force of the blow that Danu was nearly hurled off the dolphin’s back. Lord Pelagias hurled a spear. It struck Echo and she squealed in pain but turned toward her tormentor. Danu threw herself out of the harness and swam to her father. She caught his face between her hands and gazed into his eyes.
“Run,” Poseidon whispered. “Run, Danu!” His eyes widened in fear and Danu looked in the direction he was staring. The bad man was struggling to his feet and coming toward them with a naked blade.
Danu wanted to run, but she couldn’t. If she took her hands off Daddy he would slip away. She could feel his life force weakening. There was so much blood. The thing sticking out of his side was a short sword, and that was draining his life away. She wanted to yank the thing out, but something told her that was not the right thing to do. Instead, she concentrated on holding his attention.
“Listen to me, Daddy,” she said. “Close your eyes, and listen to me. Feel the cool water. Feel the power of the star. Feel the blood slowing. Soon it will stop, and you’ll be fine. You can’t die, Daddy. I need you. Perseus needs you.”
Danu could feel the scales rising on the back of her neck. She could feel the bad man growing closer. She knew he would hurt her—kill her, and then he would kill her daddy. But she could only do what the light told her. She was a royal princess and she had to remain brave.
“Hold on. Hold on,”
the voice in her head said.
“Believe in the power of healing.”
Danu’s fingers were trembling. Her heart pounded. She was only a little girl. She didn’t want to die.
And then she heard the hiss of a missile moving through the water. She waited for the pain of the knife slicing through her body, but it didn’t come. Instead, she heard the man behind her grunt. She glanced over her shoulder and saw him pierced through by an arrow. As she watched, the bad man’s eyes opened wide and he sank to the tile floor and lay still.
“Back, Echo,” her Aunt Morwena ordered. “Back.” Morwena stepped in front of Danu, blocking her view of Lord Pelagias. “Don’t look,” she said. “He won’t hurt anyone again. Neither of them will.”
“Did Echo kill Lord Pelagias?” Danu asked.
“Yes.” Morwena dropped her brother’s big bow and knelt beside them. “Is he alive?” she asked.
Danu sighed. “Yes, but he’s lost so much blood.”
“Take Echo and go for the guard! Tell them to send healers from the temple.”
Danu shook her head. “I can’t. If I let him go, he’ll slip away. Send Echo, or you go. I have to stay with Daddy.”
Morwena looked at the child, realizing what she’d just witnessed, realizing that she was in the presence of a powerful priestess, one who had never studied and was too short to reach the shelves of scrolls in the great library, knowing that this small girl commanded knowledge that she might never possess.
“I’ll bring help. Echo, you stay with Poseidon and Danu!” Morwena picked up the bow again. “I’ll warn the queen and Princess Elena. There may be more traitors in the palace.”
CHAPTER 19
 
T
hree of Lord Pelagias’ armed hirelings, led by his youngest son Creon, charged into the queen’s apartments where they found not a helpless woman surrounded by serving maids, but Lady Athena and a troop of her archer-priestesses waiting for them. The would-be assassins fell in the courtyard, all but Creon who, although wounded in the right arm and left side, dodged a hail of arrows to invade the baby prince’s room.
“Death to the false heir!” Creon cried. “Long live King Caddoc!”
Perseus’ gilded oyster-shell crib hung suspended from the ceiling with braided ropes of sea grass. A blanket-wrapped form lay sprawled across the mattress, and Creon drove his trident into what he believed was a sleeping toddler. When he ripped away the covering, he found only a stuffed dolphin toy. Cursing, he turned away to find the door blocked by Lady Athena.
“Traitor,” she accused. “How much courage does it take to slay an infant?”
“Out of my way, high priestess!” he bellowed.
“As you wish.” Lady Athena stepped aside and two of Poseidon’s fighting dolphins dove past her into the baby’s room. “Kill!” she ordered, and the armored mammals made short work of the task, knocking Creon’s body back and forth between them as if it was a misshapen ball.
Lady Athena swept from Perseus’ room to the court where two dozen of the king’s guard shouldered into the open space. “You took your time about it,” the priestess admonished.
“Lady.” The captain saluted. “We came as soon as we were called. You may be at ease. No rebels will pass this gate again.”
She motioned to the now-floating and lifeless bodies of Creon’s followers. “Take them away, identify them, and dispose of them. Has Poseidon been found?”
The captain shook his head. “No, lady. No one has seen him. He was not struck down with the others on the archery range.” The man hesitated, clearly wanting to speak, but reluctant.
“What else?” Lady Athena asked.
“Two of the royal princes are dead.”
“Who?” Queen Rhiannon jerked back as if she had received a physical blow. Then she straightened and came to stand behind her mother, Lady Athena, with Orion’s Elena beside her. The queen clasped her son Perseus in her arms, holding him so tightly that the baby squealed in protest. “Which princes are lost? And is it fact or only rumor?”
Tears sprang from the captain’s eyes. “Prince Orion and Prince Paris. A merman brought the message. The assassins were struck down within a heartbeat of the treachery, but the princes had no chance. They were shot from behind by men they trusted. One of the traitors was Kiril, oldest son to Lord Pelagias.”
“And cousin to Prince Caddoc,” Lady Athena said softly. “Creon, too. Lord Pelagias’ only children. He will take it hard.”
“What of the king?” Queen Rhiannon demanded. “Our daughter was with him.” She looked at Lady Athena with desperation in her eyes. “No one would harm a little girl, would they? She’s only six.”
Lady Athena averted her gaze. “If the worst had happened, we would have had word. Queen Mother Korinna is safe, and Princess Morwena should have been at the temple. ”
“Orion?” Elena’s voice came as thin and cracked as an old woman’s. “There must be a mistake. Orion can’t be dead. We just shared a meal together.”
The queen gripped her sister-in-law’s hand. “Are they all lost? All my husband’s brothers?”
“The whereabouts of young Prince Lucas is a mystery, your highness. And there is Prince Alexandros remaining.”
“He’s far from here, in the Pacific. How do we know that he wasn’t slain as our dear ones here were?” The queen took a deep breath and kissed the baby’s head. “Protect my son,” she said. “If anything has happened to his father, he is now Poseidon, high king of all Atlantis.”
“With our lives,” the captain answered.
“And bring me word as soon as you hear,” she added. “Good or evil. We must know what’s happening.”
Elena reached out for Perseus. “Let me take him,” she said. Her face was a mask of grief. “It may not be an error,” she said. “In emergencies, first reports are often garbled. Orion may be only injured. I can’t know that he’s ... that anything has happened to him until I see him.” Her mouth quivered. “I won’t believe it. Not Orion ... not my Orion.”
 
“How far are we from American Samoa?” Ree asked Alex when the mermaid had tired of their company and swam away. “Varenkov may be gone before we can reach Pago Pago.” She had some knowledge of the geography of the South Pacific, but the distance between Tahiti, which was her last identifiable point, and Samoa were vast. It wasn’t as if they could hop an inter-island jet.
Dewi flashed her a scornful look. “We aren’t going after the Russian.”
“What do you mean?” Ree asked. “Alex promised me—”
“Mother of Vassu!” Anuata swore. “Have you humans no heart? How can you think of hunting him when our brothers and sisters are about to be massacred?”
Bleddyn scowled. “We go to Aunu’u to try and prevent a wholesale slaughter.”
Ree appealed to Alex. “Are you the one who decides? You promised me that we were going after—”
“Aphrodite’s message changed everything,” Alex said. “Try and understand. To us, a dolphin is ...”
“An equal,” Anuata supplied. “Smarter and more caring than a human.”
“I know they are intelligent mammals,” Ree said, “but—”
“They have a superior intelligence, but different from that of humanoids,” Alex explained. “Dolphins are courageous and loyal, but in some ways, they are innocent. They don’t lie, and they don’t understand treachery. Family is everything to them. If a mate, an offspring, a sibling, or parent, any relative or friend in their complex society is injured or sick, they remain at their side to protect and comfort them, even if it means their own deaths.”
“They fight beside us”—Dewi said—“and care for our children. Those who have cast their fate with Atlanteans accept us as part of that family, and we give them the same regard. You consider yourself an American, do you not?”
“Irish-American,” Ree answered.
Dewi nodded. “Do you have any Swedish blood?”
“No, not that I know of.”
“So, would you stand by and watch Swedish families massacred, if you could prevent it? Could you turn your back on Swedish children who were going to be gutted alive and skinned for meat?”
Ree’s stomach churned. “Of course not, but Swedes are humans.”
“Who speak another language and have different customs,” Alex said. “For us, it is the same. Dolphins, even wild dolphins who have never had contact with an Atlantean or a Lemorian”—He glanced at Anuata—“are still deserving of our compassion.”
Ree nodded. “So we give up our chance at Varenkov and try to stop the dolphin kill?”
“I missed him in Tahiti,” Alex said. “If I miss him again at Pago Pago, it matters little. I will get him, and after the Russian, the council will give me a new assignment.”
Ree understood that. She’d lost track of the number of undesirables that she’d eliminated.
No, that’s a lie,
her inner voice cried.
You know exactly how many there have been. You see their faces in your dreams.
But none she regretted. The world was better for them being gone. What did trouble her were the occasional mercenaries who got caught in the crossfire or the possibility that some innocent might be killed by mistake.... Like Nick.
Not that Nick was innocent; he’d been in the game for a decade longer than she had. But losing him was a wound that had never healed. She’d gone over and over the sequence of what had happened that day, searching for where she’d gone wrong. It always came down to a bad decision that she had made, and nothing she could do would ever change it.
Who would have guessed Varenkov’s people would have identified the rental car they’d been using that day? She’d been driving since they’d crossed into Germany, and she should have been the one to leave their surveillance point to get the car. But, she was the better shot, and she hadn’t wanted to move off the rooftop until she was certain the Russian wouldn’t come out of the apartment building and cross the parking lot. The area was well lighted, the weather was foul, and at that hour of the night, no civilians had ventured out for more than an hour.
So she’d sent Nick to his death. And when she’d heard the explosion, she’d known that Varenkov’s agents had spotted them, and that he wasn’t coming out. The chances were that he’d been gone long before Nick had unlocked the car door and inserted the key into the ignition. The bomb had been professional and effective. There hadn’t been enough left of the vehicle or Nick’s body to identify the make or model.
It should have been her ...
“Ree. Ree. Are you all right?” Alex’s strong hand on her shoulder pulled her back into the present.
Anuata’s tattooed face loomed over hers. “Has the sickness returned?”
“No. I’m fine. I was just ... just thinking.” She moved away from Alex. “So we’re chasing ... what? Bottom trawlers? Polynesian fishermen?”
“Greedy and misguided humans,” Alex replied. “Not necessarily evil, but ignorant. We’ll do what we can not to harm any of them, but if it comes to self-defense, or if you have to protect the dolphins, then ...” He shrugged. “And above all, if you’re seen, be certain that you throw an illusion.” He looked at Anuata. “You’ll have to stay beneath the surface. No one would believe you’re human.”
Dewi grinned. “I’m not sure if that was a compliment.”
“Lemorians are not so ... so ...”
“Sneaky?” Dewi suggested. “Deceitful?”
“Illusion is a useful tool we’ve developed through the ages,” Alex said. “It helps us remain hidden from humans when we come in contact with them.”
Ree frowned. “I don’t understand. What do you mean by illusion?”
Alex gestured to Bleddyn. “Show her an example.”
She stared as the soldier transformed before her eyes, changing himself from an Atlantean warrior to the likeness of an elderly Greek woman, complete with a market basket containing a loaf of bread, two fish, and a bottle of wine. Ree blinked and reached out to grab not the arm of a senior citizen but that of a sinewy warrior. “You can all do that?”
“Most of us,” Alex assured her. “I suspect you might be able to as well, in time. The physical appearance of Atlanteans and humans aren’t that different.”
“We’re taller, stronger, smarter, and handsomer,” Bleddyn said.
Dewi settled an arm around Anuata. “Not to mention sexier.”
With an incredulous look, the Amazon shoved him away and raised a threatening fist.
“You know it’s true,” Dewi said with a grin. And then to Ree, he confided, “She adores me.”
Anuata’s quick reply didn’t translate but came across to Ree as a slurred growl.
“It’s simple. Fix a human in your mind,” Alex said. “Then imagine yourself in that likeness.”
“It’s so easy that even a child can do it,” Dewi said and proceeded to make himself a perfect mirror image of Anuata, down to her scowl and the fierce expression in her eyes. “See how beautiful I am?” he proclaimed in his own voice.
Anuata laughed. “More handsome than you are in your own form.”
Ree concentrated, but nothing happened. “Maybe it’s a talent I wasn’t born with.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Alex said. “I’d rather not leave you alone here, but I’m not convinced that you’re in the physical or mental condition to take part in this mission. If you were to pass out again or have trouble breathing, you’d put us all in danger.”
“I told you, I’m fine. If you won’t let me help you, then get me ashore. I’ll go after Varenkov myself.”
Alex shook his head. “You’ll come, and you’ll stay where I put you. My conditions, remember. I give the orders, you obey them.”
“And if I don’t agree?”
“Then you stay here on the island. Until we come back, or until you can find your own way home.”
 
Danu remained at her father’s side with Echo beside her. She knew that he was still alive, but barely, and she was more afraid than she’d ever been in her life. “I love you,” she told him, over and over. “I’m here. You have to stay with me. Aunt Morwena will bring the healers but you have to fight the darkness.”
She could see that Daddy wasn’t bleeding as badly as he had been, but she didn’t know if that was because he was better, or if all his blood had already run out. He had to live. How could she tell Mommy that she’d let him slip away from her when they needed him so badly? Daddy was Poseidon, high king of all Atlantis, but most important, he belonged to her and Mommy and little Perseus.
Tears rolled down Danu’s cheeks and she rubbed them away with the backs of her hands. She wouldn’t cry! She wasn’t a baby! She wasn’t afraid of the bad men who’d tried to kill her father, but the tears wouldn’t stop. They just kept coming out of her eyes and running down her face.

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