Madly and Wolfhardt (10 page)

Like a bullet, I shot toward the surface.  When my face broke through the water, I felt the sun warm my skin.  It radiated down into my stomach, as if it focused its warmth and solar power into a tight ball of light in the center of my being. 

I understood what it was.  It was my fate, the purpose and strength of my life as the future Queen of Atlas, blossoming into maturity.  It was the enchantment of an entire race flowing through my veins.

A laugh of sheer pleasure spilled from my lips and I spun in a tight circle, one controlled by the wide web-like tail that spread out from my toes.  I felt more alive than I could ever remember feeling.  It was as if, in that single moment, everything in my life came together perfectly, as if I could feel destiny and reality intertwining their fingers in agreement.

Finally, I looked toward shore.  With a grin, I determined that I was going to give my three onlookers something to remember.

I stretched my arms out to my sides, laying my palms flat against the glassy surface of the water, and I closed my eyes. 

I concentrated all my attention on my bracelet, feeling it warm against my skin.  Then I summoned the ball of light as I thought of the sea and what I wanted her to show me.  I pictured the face of the boy from the party.

The water around me started to move, circling me, spinning about me, faster and faster, tugging at my clothes.  It was the silent voice of something that only I could understand.  I listened with every fiber of my being, focusing all my senses on what the swirling waters had to say.

I opened my eyes as the water began to lift me.  Higher and higher I rose until I could look down and see a whirlpool beneath me, a twirling cyclone of water around the funnel that held me at its tip, towering far above.

Drops of moisture peppered my face as the clouds of heaven spilled forth the answers of the ocean.  In the fine sheets of rain, a face appeared.  It was the face of Dustin Hyden.

I saw him as he mixed and stirred things in beakers and tubes inside a chemistry lab.  The scene dripped away with the rain and a new one formed in its place.  It was Dustin as he typed line after line of characters onto a computer screen, bypassing passwords and internet security. 

When I saw him looking through virtual pages of expensive shoes and handbags, jewelry and perfume, I knew what the ocean was showing me.  She was showing me the real Dustin, that he was a chemistry nerd and computer hacker who thought to buy his way into the heart of a girl he liked.

The images in the fine shower dripped away a second time, only this time they were not replaced.  I saw nothing more than the rain as it fell lightly from the sky over my head.

I looked back toward the shore and saw three pairs of eyes trained on me.  I couldn’t help but smile when I met Kellina’s wide, awe-struck gaze.  I doubted I would have to say another word to convince her that what I claimed was true.

As the funnel of water that held me aloft began to melt back into the ocean, I sank lower and lower until I was once again at sea level.  I looked toward shore again and, with a smile, turned to swim back. 

Just as I dove beneath the surface, I felt cold fingers curl around my legs and begin to drag me away, away from shore and away from the light, down toward the bottom of the sea.

I glanced below me and saw that three Seers had surrounded me.  They looked like ink spreading through the water, their diaphanous black forms nothing more than shifting gossamer threads waving in the current.

I could see the filamentous fingers of one as he held my ankles just above my tail.  The long arms of the other two were held away from their strange bodies, forming a gauzy cocoon around me.  They had no need to lend their strength to the one tugging me lower.  His touch had somehow paralyzed me from the waist down.  I could not bend or move at all.

I thought to question the one to my left, but as I looked into the dark and hollow places where his eyes should have been, my tongue froze, becoming as useless as my lower half.  I had to look away for fear that I would become forever lost in the cold, empty depths.

My mind began to whirl and race as my predicament really set in.  I was helpless against the Seers and there was no one around to lend a hand.  Though they were chained to the Mer race, to my knowledge they only responded to the commands of the ruler of Atlas.  And I was not yet the ruler of Atlas.

Cool fingers of a different kind assaulted me next.  They were the clammy digits of fear and they’d begun to work their way around my heart. 

I couldn’t help but wonder if the allegiance of the Seers had changed since Atlas was under siege.  It had never happened before, so there would be no way for anyone to know how the Seers would react to such a situation.

Frightening thoughts began to flit through my mind, panicky thoughts about how they might’ve gone rogue and started working for the traitors, about how they might’ve been dispatched to kill me since I had the only bracelet outside Atlas.

Before true terror set in, however, something warm and familiar began to penetrate the cold, dark prison of the Seers.  My soul hummed in recognition and something like a blossom of awareness bloomed in my stomach.

I looked through the filmy shroud of the Seers and saw a small shape rocketing toward us.  I didn’t need to see him more clearly or feel him more closely to know that it was Jackson.  I knew without a shadow of a doubt that’s who it was.  And he was headed right for us.

When I thought of what the Seers might do to him if he interfered, an iron fist squeezed tight around my lungs and a lump rose to clog my throat, preventing any words from escaping.  I wanted to shout for him to stay away, but I couldn’t utter a single sound. 

As I looked into his eyes, growing ever-closer by the second, I tried to discourage him with my expression, with a look I hoped he found meaningful and clear.  But he continued toward us, the look of all hell on his handsome face.

His strong body cut through the water like a torpedo.  He’d shed his clothes and I could see his bare, broad shoulders and the flick of his dark blue tail as he swam toward me.  

Jackson didn’t even slow down as he reached us.  He simply burst through the hazy black barrier of the Seers’ arms and grabbed me around the waist.

Immediately, he came to a stop, his face contorting in pain.  His mouth opened wide, but no sound emerged.  I wanted desperately to do something—anything—to help him, but I was still paralyzed.  I could do nothing more than watch the scene unfold.

One of the Seers moved forward slightly, his long, wispy, branch-like fingers winding around Jackson’s throat.  My heart ceased to beat for one agonizing second, its rhythm interrupted by an overwhelming fear that the Seer would hurt Jackson.  But then something amazing happened.

The instant the Seer’s all-knowing hand made contact with Jackson’s bare skin, he released him straight away, as if he’d been burned.  He backed away quickly, the others immediately following suit. 

As the chilly hold on my ankles disappeared, I felt life return to my body.  As the five of us floated there in the sea, I felt as if there was a wealth of information being communicated, though no one said a word.  Jackson hovered at my left, the Seers hanging like stains in the water in front of him.  They faced off for the space of a few more seconds before the Seers’ large, diffuse forms shrank into small points of darkness and sank to the depths of the ocean below us like tiny lumps of coal.

I looked to Jackson, who was watching them as they disappeared.  His face was a tight mask of authoritative fury, his scowl dark and frightening.  The only indication of his emotion was the heaving of his wide chest. 

When it seemed apparent that the Seers were not returning, Jackson turned to me, his expression softening somewhat.

“Are you alright?” he asked, his deep voice vibrating the water around my ears and tickling the skin of my face.

Though I knew that I was capable of speech, I was awestruck by what had just happened.  One thought kept running through my mind, stealing words from my lips.

He risked his life for me.  Again.  He saved me.

Coming slowly forward, Jackson slipped one arm around my waist and silently guided us both up toward the surface.

With the comforting weight of Jackson’s strong hand at my side, we ascended.  On the way up, I let my mind wander, pondering what he’d risked to save me. 

All Mer knew that you didn’t challenge Seers.  Ever.  It just wasn’t done.  It was a well-known fact that Seers were spirits gifted with extraordinary psychic abilities.  It was also a well-known fact that they were spirits gifted with terrifying powers, the full extent of which remained a carefully guarded secret. 

As long as I’d been alive to witness Mer history, there had been only one instance when a Seer had been used against a Mer.  I knew few of the details, other than that a Seer had been forced to take action against a young Sentinel.  The Seer had somehow disintegrated the Sentinel’s physical body and then turned his spirit over to my father for imprisonment with the Lore in the center of Atlas.  In light of the heartiness of Mer, spiritual imprisonment with the Lore was considered to be a fate worse than death. 

And Jackson had risked that.  For me.

When we surfaced, Jackson didn’t release me right away.  We simply drifted in the gently stirring water, facing one another, his arm draped loosely around my waist. 

In the sunlight, his eyes were the clear, pale blue of a cloudless sky and they were focused sharply on mine.  It was as if he was searching for something, but I had no idea what.  I only knew that they made me feel both weak and strong at the same time.  They made me feel confused, yet never more certain; fragile, yet more capable than I’d ever been.  He gave me butterflies, yet there was something about him that was more comfortable than my favorite pair of pajamas.

In the midst of all that emotional turmoil, my lips began to tingle, crying out in want of a kiss that I’d felt only once before.  As if he could hear them, Jackson’s gaze flickered down to them and then quickly back up to my face.

“Come on.  We’d better get back to shore.”

I nodded and we both struck out across the water, swimming in a slow, rhythmic freestyle toward the beach.  Jackson tempered his strength to maintain a speed that didn’t push me.  He stayed right by my side, never once pulling out in front of me, although we both knew he could easily have left me behind if he so chose. 

We moved in unison, our strokes such a smooth mirror-image of one another, our swim felt like a choreographed dance.

When the water had grown nearly shallow enough for us to touch bottom, Jackson slowed.

“I’ll be back,” he said just before he shot out to my left, swimming parallel to the shoreline, away from me.

He didn’t even give me time to answer, much less to ask a question, so I just watched him swim until he ducked beneath the water and didn’t resurface.

I felt the tingle of my scales receding and then my legs separated, no longer joined by the thin webbing.  I stretched until my feet touched sand and I walked out of the surf, my dripping uniform hanging heavily from my shoulders. 

Aidan and Jersey approached me.

“That was freaking awesome!” Jersey exclaimed excitedly.

Aidan was smiling as well.

“I have to admit that was pretty cool, James.”

“Eh,” I said, waving them off casually as my cheeks stung with the blush of their praise.  “Nothing to it.”

“Yeah, right,” Jersey said, rolling her eyes.  “I’ve never seen anything like that!”

I just shrugged, for some reason bothered by her statement.  She didn’t give me much time to ponder it, though. 

Bling, bling,
I heard.

Jersey grinned widely and Aidan shook his head in exasperation.

“What was that?”