Tide (25 page)

The love of his life and his mother. The two women he had loved and lost.

Nicholas went to visit their graves whenever he could. Ekaterina’s grave had been built by her human family; they thought that she’d died of heartache because of her newborn son’s death. They couldn’t know, of course, that although her body was in that grave, her spirit was alive, imprisoned and bound to the Shadows. Martyna was buried in the same graveyard. Because she’d taken her own life, she shouldn’t have been allowed to be entombed there, but the priest took pity on her and arranged for her to be buried against the stone wall, at the very edge of the cemetery, a few yards from her parents and sisters. Nobody except Nicholas ever visited Martyna, because her entire family were killed at their hands; there was nobody left. He was the only one who tended to her grave – and every time he went back it looked more abandoned, more forgotten.

Nicholas forbade himself from thinking that Sarah might follow the same path as his mother and Martyna. Sarah was stronger, wiser. More used to being alone, more used to suffering. Sarah would survive her destiny, he had to tell himself that.

Before she died, his mother had whispered her last wish, that when the time came for the King of Shadows to fade and leave his son to rule the Shadows, Nicholas would refuse. He had looked at her, desperately wanting to reassure her, but he’d said nothing.

Beneath the waves

What kills me

Is what saves me

It was nearly a relief to be in that place again. The place of dreams, with the purple sky and the endless waves of swaying grass, the heightened colours and the wind. Sarah sighed in her sleep. At last the dreams were talking to her.

She was standing alone on soft, mossy ground, shivering in her T-shirt and leggings. A salty smell invaded her nostrils, and the muted sounds of the sea came from behind her. She turned towards the sounds, and saw that she was standing on the edge of a white sandy beach dotted with Venus shells. The wind was making the sea dance, frothy and white-topped. Sarah took in the beauty of it all, the near-emerald colour of the waters, the translucent shells – a scene so enchanting it could not be real, it could only be born in a dream. Such a place was nowhere on earth.

But she didn’t let the beauty deceive her. She knew what that dreamy landscape hid. She knew what would happen, as always in her dreams. Her heart tightened in fear and anticipated rage.

Too much had happened for Sarah to be the trembling lost girl she had once been whenever a vision took her, resigned to another ordeal, frightened to her very core. Inexperienced, clueless, able only to yield to whatever came upon her.

The forces that she had encountered, and that she had survived, meant that she had now grown into herself. She was still frightened, but she had learnt how to handle it. She had embraced her Midnight blood at last. After having been deliberately shielded from her rightful inheritance of power throughout her childhood, her parents’ death meant that she had finally reclaimed it, been forced to reclaim it. All that Sarah was meant to be, she was, at last. It was a conquest made of pain and loss, like most conquests, and it gave her strength, and a belief in herself she had never felt before. Only now, standing by the seashore, drawn there by her dreams, could she fully grasp how far she’d come. Her hands were burning, her senses were awake and alert. She stood on that beach flexing her hands, waiting to find out what was in store for her.

She didn’t have to wait long.

It was Mermen who emerged from the sea, their scaly skin shimmering in an opaque rainbow, pale green and mother-of-pearl, their gills faintly throbbing in the transition between water and air, webbed hands at their side and wide mouths open to reveal row after row of thin, needle-like teeth. Two, four, six, ten of them, walking unhurriedly towards Sarah, waddling slightly from side to side, the sound of their gurgling breath coming nearer. They were close enough now for Sarah to see the barnacles attached to their skin, the sea anemones that had made a home on their chests, on their hips, on their legs, and the seaweed dangling from their arms like ripped clothes. Little creatures slithered over them, newborn eels and many-legged things that resembled woodlice. A slimy trail shimmered faintly behind them on the wet sand.

Sarah tried to calm her pounding heart – there were too many of them. They were going to kill her. The best course of action was at least to try and get as much information as she could out of the dream – when it would happen, and where – before they slaughtered her.

She drew a deep breath, her eyes glinting with the Midnight gaze. “Who sent you?” she screamed into the sea wind, her voice determined but coloured with the terror of what was soon to come.

The Mermen neither acknowledged her question nor replied. Instead they continued their silent march across the shore towards her. They resembled fish gasping for air, their mouths opening and closing intermittently, their gills pulsating in rhythm with their heartbeat. A nauseous smell of things decaying underwater wafted off them, carried towards Sarah on the wind.

“Answer me! Who sent you?” she repeated, and a bittersweet memory came back to her – how Sean used to get so impatient with her whenever she tried to communicate with the Surari. She used to try and communicate with them to avoid fighting, and it angered Sean no end, but this time she was on her own, and she was demanding the truth.

The Mermen were now a few yards away and coming closer, closer. There was no point in turning around and running. She could have outrun them, but she would have learnt nothing. She raised her hands, now scalding, and readied herself. Suddenly she felt something brushing her elbow and she jumped in alarm, but it was only Nicholas, having materialized beside her in perfect silence.

“Oh no,” she whispered.

“I’m glad to see you too.” He grinned sarcastically.

“I don’t want you in this dream. You’ll die too.”

“No. I won’t. And neither will you.” And with that, Nicholas started shouting to the creatures at the top of his voice, with such fury that his fingers were sparkling blue and crackling with fire. Sarah could recognize only a few words as they were spoken in the ancient language, the one used by the human tribes during the Time of Demons.

Immediately the Mermen stopped in their tracks, and one of them replied in a gurgling, watery series of sounds that vaguely resembled the ancient language, but sounded alien as well, alien to this earth and all its creatures.

A dialogue followed that was fevered and full of anger on Nicholas’s part, and calm and steady from the Merman. He kept repeating the same things, on and on, over and over.

Sarah turned and smiled sadly at him. “Nicholas, I don’t think you can help me here,” she said gently.

“Sarah …”

She turned back to the Mermen. “Come on! Come and get me!” she screamed, and as one, they starting moving up the beach towards them again.

Sarah could feel Nicholas tense at her side. Now that the sea creatures were right in front of them Sarah estimated that they were twice her size, their arms thick with sleek muscles. There must have been at least twenty of them. She’d never seen so many Surari in one place at the same time.

Another gust of wind, and Sarah gagged at the rotten smell that swept over her. Recovering quickly and ignoring Nicholas’s muted pleas, she crouched slightly before leaping with a growl, her hands thrust forward, trying to grab at least one of the Mermen before they bit her, or drowned her, or whatever they were planning to do to put an end to her life. But the Merman she attacked didn’t react by retaliating. He simply put one arm around her waist, lifted her off her feet and threw her aside effortlessly.

Sarah landed on the sand, her breath knocked out by the fall. For a few hazy seconds she watched as the slimy, wet fins of the Mermen moved towards her, then around her, marching over the dunes, leaving her behind. They weren’t interested in Sarah. She wasn’t the target.

Where are they heading?

Sarah sat upright and looked ahead of her. The landscape had changed; the sea and land had swapped places, so that the water was now in front of her. The Mermen were marching towards a formation of rocks that jutted out of the waves like rotten teeth.

Sarah stared aghast and peered into the gloom. She could see something tied onto each of the rocks – some
one
.

It was Niall, Elodie, Mike, and a bit further away, Sean. Her Sean. Their feet were dangling over the water, their hands bound behind them, and she could see now that their eyes were pools of horror and despair. They knew what was ahead of them. They were waiting for the sea to take them – they were like Andromeda, waiting for the sea monster.

Nicholas scrambled along the shoreline, shouting warnings one moment and threats the next, but the Mermen took no notice, continuing their march into the water, towards the rocks. It was as if they were being controlled by some other power. Sarah watched, frozen with horror. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, and worst of all, she couldn’t close her eyes as, one by one, the Mermen climbed over her friends and tore their bodies limb from limb, ripping flesh from bone, leaving only trailing, reddened ropes of sinew behind.

Unable to take any more, Sarah threw herself on the sand, staring in silent despair. Why couldn’t she have stopped them? Why couldn’t Nicholas have stopped them? Eventually she found the strength to raise her eyes towards the scene of devastation. She felt her world spinning as she contemplated a lock of blonde hair strewn with blood floating on the incoming tide. All that was left of Elodie.

Sarah woke up panting, her eyes open wide in the pure, unbroken Islay darkness. The horror of the dream had been burnt into the back of her mind – she’d never get rid of it for as long as she lived. Her skin was covered in freezing sweat, her heart would not stop pounding, and the room was so dark, so silent that she couldn’t even make out the shape of the furniture. All she could hear was the beating of her heart and the rush of blood in her ears.

Why? Why had the sea demons devoured her friends but not her and Nicholas?

Sarah felt the edge of her bedside table with a trembling hand and eventually found the lamp switch. Soft, yellow light illuminated the room. She sat up, and breathed deeply – once, twice, three times – trying to calm her heart. There was no doubting the dream. But despite its cruel clarity, there were things she didn’t know or understand.

I’ve got to warn them. Now.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed, bare feet on the ice-cold stone floor, and tiptoed out of the room. Nicholas slept at one end of the corridor, Sean’s room was at the other. She stood for a long, long moment, hesitating –
which way to go?

Finally, she made her choice.

*

He was awake, of course. When he’d heard the footsteps outside his room, he had got up instantly, weapon in hand. He was standing by the bed as Sarah pushed her way in.

Ready for anything
, she thought, and felt better for knowing that. “It’s me. Were you not sleeping?”

“You know me, I never sleep. Are you OK?” he whispered as she closed the door behind her.

“Yes. I dreamt again tonight. It’s the first time since …” She shook her head, puzzled.

Their eyes met, and lingered for a moment. And then it happened – they were drawn towards each other like a planet and its moon.

Sean’s body smelled just the same as it used to, of soap and of the sea, with a soft, lingering scent of coffee. She didn’t want to let go, and he clung to her with all his might – it was as if they had come home to each other. But eventually they forced themselves to break their embrace and take a step back. Sarah’s cheeks were scarlet in the darkness.

“Come here. Here, have this.” Sean switched the table lamp on and took a blanket from his bed, wrapping it around Sarah’s frozen shoulders as he sat her down in an armchair. Then he knelt in front of the fireplace and lit the fire. It didn’t take long before she saw the soft, warm light reflected in his face, dancing over the old white scars on his arms and the more recent ones on his chest. He was wearing only a pair of sweatpants, and the glow of his skin, the strong contours of his body made Sarah want to run her hands over him, made her want to be close to him.

The horror of her dream followed so quickly by the sudden rush of desire made Sarah’s mind go blank and she sat immobile, rigid, unsure of what to do or say.

“What did you see?” Sean asked. He sat at her feet, looking up at her.

Sarah’s emerald-green eyes widened at the memories as she pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “Sea demons. Mermen. They were huge.” She flinched, thinking of their wide, fish-like mouths and their razor-sharp teeth. “They came out of the sea, and I thought they were coming for me. But they ignored me. Just cast me aside. They …” She took a deep breath. The last thing she wanted was to recall the terrifying images.

Sean found her hand under the blanket and held it tight. Once more Sarah considered how big, how strong his hand was, and she clung to it, drawing strength from him. She braced herself to tell the last part of the story.

“You were there, tied to a sea rock. Niall, Mike and Elodie, too. The Mermen,” she shuddered, “tore you all to pieces.”

Sean grimaced, then recovered himself. “Was Nicholas not there?” he asked carefully.

Sarah nodded, frowning. “He was with me on the shore, trying to help me. He kept shouting and calling to the Mermen in the ancient language, trying to convince them to stop.”

“Are you sure? You don’t understand much of the ancient language. How would you know what he was saying?”

Sarah rubbed her forehead. “No, I don’t, but the meaning was clear. He was begging them. Honestly, Sean,
begging
them. But they wouldn’t stop.”

Sean nodded, his manner almost businesslike. “Any indication of when this would happen?”