Vicious Deep (17 page)

So much for not having to fight the guys directly.

“What is today?” Grandfather turns to the green boy, who whispers in Grandfather's ear. “Ah. The next full moon is just over a fortnight away. Leave at sundown and return with your findings at the next full moon, or not at all.”

“But sire,” the herald of the West speaks up, “the oracles shift their locations every so many years. Their last known locations may have changed.”

“I never said it would be easy,” the king says with a tiny wink. “You all have excellent resources at your disposal.”

Wait a minute. I don't have a strategy. I don't have resources. What was my grandfather thinking? What am
I
thinking?

Before I can say anything, my grandfather pats me on the back as if he's done it a million times before. “Now, let the festivities continue.”

It's still daylight, but the sun is sinking, allowing the pale blue sky to burst with the first signs of pink and yellow.

Kurt is at my side. We sit alone watching our companions eat and drink the strange new flavors, dive into the cool water, and laugh. “Congratulations.”

“Where the hell have you been all day? Shaking hands and kissing babies?”

He looks a bit embarrassed. “I've been asked to give accounts on what your character is like.”

“Did you tell them I took you to the mall and fed you swine, because that's what I do to all the merpeople who come out of my faucet?”

“I was gracious, I promise.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“I believe you already have.”

“Don't hang around Marty so much. You're starting to joke like him. But seriously. What's a fortnight?”

Kurt laughs, actually laughs. “Fourteen days.”

“How was I supposed to know?”

“The important thing is that you know now. You must also know the king would like to speak to us privately before we leave.”

“Is he going to give me a cloak of invisibility or something useful? I mean, all I've got is you and Thalia. If I can get her to sit still for more than a second.”

He doesn't acknowledge me. Not just because I'm being a smart-ass, but because Elias is standing in front of Layla and Marty with his finger pointing in their faces. When he yells, he spits. The music stops, and everyone drops their instruments, their food, their turtle-shell Frisbees to hear what the yelling is about. Marty stands in front of Layla to block her and shoves Elias right on the chest. Elias shoves him back, sending him splashing into the lake.

We rush over to them.

Kurt becomes all political etiquette and calm. I pull out my dagger. “What seems to be the problem?”

Elias points at my friends. “These humans have stolen from me.”

“Do not forget that
she
is my sister and of the court. The boy is of the alliance, and the girl—the girl belongs to Tristan—who is a champion—” As well-spoken as he is, Kurt really does seem to be making all of it up.

Layla stands but wobbles. “I don't belong to anyone,” she says indignantly. “This is the twenty-first century.”

Elias is the first to laugh. “There! She denies being his. Therefore, she is a thief.”

“I am not!” She's drunk. She's drunk, and now she's going to get herself killed.

“They've stolen drink from my family's tent.”

Thalia gets in between Elias and her brother, holding a long, thin glass full of bubbly green liquid. If I didn't know better, I'd say it was champagne with green food coloring, like we tried to do last St. Patrick's Day. “
This
is of the court, not just for you and yours.”

“The human girl is not of the court, which makes her a thief. Guards!”

The guards trot around us. “Whoa, whoa! Easy.” I look to my grandfather, but he shakes his head as if he can't help me. “Is there a different way to resolve this?”

Kurt leans in to my ear and whispers, “Elias is very influential. He'll argue his way into having her beheaded. Your grandfather is no longer truly Sea King, and other than some loyalty, he doesn't have the same power he did before giving up the trident. Elias knows that.”

“You're not so scary.” Layla presses her finger on Elias's bare chest.

“This is ridiculous,” Elias says, exasperated because the guards can't move in on her and the king can't take sides.

“I can take you,” Layla says again.

“
Shut
up
,” I say between gritted teeth. “Do you have a death wish? I can't save you.”

“Since when do you save
me
?” She turns back to Elias. “I challenge you to a race. Little ole human me versus big ole champion-of-the-wicked-East you.”

The crowd eggs them on. It's like I'm watching a fight break out in the cafeteria because someone stared at someone else too long.

Elias turns to the king. “She is a disgrace to our people, and the only way is to punish her.”

“I wouldn't think a guy your size would be afraid of little me.” Leave it to Layla, standing up to guys three times her size. When I was in middle school—tall but really skinny—the ninth-graders picked on me, and Layla once kicked a kid in his shins with her little cowgirl boots. That's when I knew I couldn't live without her. But this isn't a junior-high bully we can just run away from. This is a holier-than-thou merman who doesn't like either of us breathing the same air as him.

“I take your challenge as an insult. Disgraceful. The champion of the
king
brings humans among us. He does not deserve to be champion.” Every other word is laced with a kind of hatred I don't recognize. People usually like me. I mean, I'm a pretty nice guy.

“He cannot help bringing humans among us,” Grandfather says, “as he is half human himself.”

I realize he's just made a joke, and so does everyone else. He may not have his trident, but he's still seen as king, and the crowd laughs at his joke. See, my grandfather is a pretty nice guy too.

“I've seen her swim, sire,” Kurt says, his face turning red suddenly. “She is exceptional, even for a human.”

Layla crosses her arms and bobs her head at me.

“You have a courageous heart,” my grandfather commends her. “But it is also a foolish heart. If you lose, you will be set on a sailboat without an escort to face the sea on your own. Should you win, you will be an honorary member of this court. No harm can come to you by my people.”

“As long as they are still your people.” Elias growls loud enough so that only we who are nearest can hear him.

“I'd like to take her place in the challenge,” I say.

Kurt shakes his head. “You can't. It's done. They've accepted.”

“What happens if Elias loses?”

Thalia shrugs. “This never happens. If he challenged another merman and lost, he'd have his fins stripped and he'd be left out in the sea to die.”

My laugh is bitter, nervous. “Comforting.”

Layla pulls on the straps of her dress, and the silk pools around her feet. She's down to her bra, the same lacy pink-and-black thing she was wearing when she decided to surprise me in the pool.

I hold my hands out to them. “Are you sure there isn't anything to be done?”

Kurt and Thalia shake their heads. Even Thalia's pretty smile is a tight line.

I follow behind Layla. “Why, why,
why
, couldn't you have just let me talk?”

“You don't talk for me,
Finn
. Don't you believe in me?”

“It's not that, Layla. I do.”
I
just
can't have anything happen to you.
I leave it unsaid.

“Not enough, I guess.”

I grab her wrist. My whole body is hot. I don't know what to say to her now.
I
love
you? Please don't die?
She's almost a better swimmer than me. On my bad days she beats me. But this guy is a full-blown merman. The whispers of the court surround us like a swarm of mosquitoes. She pulls her hand free from my hold and practices her breathing. Just like at any other meet.

I rub my hands over my face. This is happening.

This is happening, and I'm not doing anything to stop it.

They dive at the same time.

There is one giant intake of breath from all of us that makes the hair on my body stand on end. She hits the water. A clean, perfect dolphin dive. That's what Coach calls her, his pet dolphin. I don't know how the water is, but it looks warm at least. She doesn't come up right away for breath. Her body is a blur beside Elias's.

My heart feels like the time I spent an entire homeroom making a rubber ball, twisting and snapping rubber band after rubber band into a tight ball the size of my fist. My heart is a ball of twisted rubber—and that's how every girl wants to make a guy feel, right?

She's falling behind Elias. Not by much, but enough to keep even my grandfather at the edge of his throne. She comes up for air, and that's the beauty of it: he doesn't have to. She's going to lose. And she's going to die. And it's all going to be my fault.

Her arms are like hummingbird wings flitting through the water. She's almost a foot away from him. They reach the rocks. He flips right around, a smile visible when he breaks the surface just for show. My own gills burn.

“Will you
stop
pacing?” Marty pulls on my cargo shorts. “It isn't going to help.”

Maybe not looking might somehow make this nauseous feeling go away. I pick the spot directly across from me where the herald tents are. Alone, while her future husband is racing my best friend, the Snow White mermaid lies on heaps of blankets. The servants who surrounded her moments ago are gathered at the edge of the lake. She leans her cheek on her fist, bored. That's when I see it. I mean, see
her.
In a second, her gray eyes glaze over with a black shadow and her lips mouth a single word, a word I can't even begin to guess the meaning of.

The crowd gasps and squeals as Layla speeds up. One, two, three, four strokes, and she's reached the other side of the shore.

Elias is only a second behind her, but it's clear to everyone watching that he's lost.

The court is a mess—girls, kids, fathers—
laughing.
My grandfather is still and pulls at the tip of his chin hair. He makes a motion to reach for something at his right, his trident, and then realizes it isn't there anymore.

Elias has lost. He's lost to a human girl, an intruder, and the court is laughing at him. I look for his fiancée, but she isn't there anymore, and I can't find her in the crowds of the court.

In the lake, Layla cries out and cringes. She has a cramp and grabs on to the rocky ledge. Kurt and Marty are weaving their way through to help pull her out of the water as Elias turns his bloodshot eyes on my friend. My Layla.

Brow tight, lips curled in a growl, hands outstretched for her neck, he is literally a creature rising from the lake to attack her. I can't say I do this without thinking. I think he's going to hurt her. I don't think about what this might do to my standing as a champion. I run and dive into the lake, close enough to him that my splash distracts him. Elias turns to me full on.

The shift comes naturally. It starts as a tingle in my spine, right where my tattoo is, and it travels all the way down. In two strokes I adjust to one tail movement instead of two kicking legs. One, two, and I have my arms around him. One under the right arm and one over his left shoulder. I squeeze him and he pushes hard against me, so we sink into the water.

He's physically stronger, and we go down, down, down. We hit against a wall, and I let go of him. He charges at me with arms outstretched, full speed, Superman underwater. We're locked in a wrestler's grip, forearm to forearm.

Something in me is awakening. I don't know what to call it. Instinct is too simple. It's older, more primal. It's more than defending a girl I'm possibly in love with; it's knowing that I
can
beat him. I push as hard as I can through the water. I can feel every fiber in my body, every bone in my tail, and he cannot overpower me. Something in me knows nothing can harm me. I am untouchable.

And then there is the darkness. We're so far from the surface that the light doesn't reach us anymore. He breaks my hold and hits me right on the jaw, sending me slamming against a boulder. His hands close around my neck so my gills can't take in water. I hold my breath, but it isn't enough. I wrap my tail around his, and even though I can't see his face, I can still see the whites of his eyes. His grip loosens, and his eyes roll back into his head. He lets go completely, falling down into the pitch-black. Did I do that? I couldn't have. I wouldn't know how.

My stomach contracts and there's that nauseous feeling again. My head feels like it's splitting open. I reach for Elias's hand and try to pull him up to the surface, but he's as heavy as he looks, and my muscles feel like elastic that's given out and snapped.

I shut my eyes against the throbbing pain in my head, and I know this is all happening because of her. I can see her face again. Smiling, waiting in the black coldness of my dreams, the silver mermaid. Waiting for a moment like this.