Dying Dreams (Book 1 of Dying Dreams Trilogy) (35 page)

“Shouldn’t we be seeing a pirate ship?” Liza asked. “How far are we from the drill?”

Sloane had always had an ability to know his exact location anywhere on the sea, it spoke to him and gave him landmarks that he felt more than saw. “We’ve got about another mile before we drop in and swim to the drill.”

She nodded and took her hand from his to pull out her gun and check it again. The redcaps would dive, since they were the ones with the explosives, and Liza and Sloane would watch for trouble from the boat. Sloane wanted to dive, to touch the sea and be in his element, but someone had to stand guard.

“You sure you’re ready for this?” he asked.

Liza bit her lip and looked back out over the sea. She nodded and Sloane noticed her hands were shaking as she held her gun.

“Because if you’re not, you can go below decks and one of the redcaps can stay here with me.”

The redcaps hooted with laughter and Liza flinched. She turned to look at Sloane, worry flickering through her brown eyes. “I want to stay. I’m not afraid.”

Sloane did his best not to let his concern show. If he doubted her, she would doubt herself all the more. Still, he worried that she might fall apart and disappear back inside herself. She might not be as ready for violence as she believed. “Good,” he said, to reassure her. She looked away again, still chewing on that bottom lip.

Their path to the drill presented no obstacles. The pirates, if they were around, were closer to the drill. The redcaps donned their scuba gear like they dressed to dive every day and disappeared below the surface of the water with barely a splash. He and Liza took up their posts at opposite ends of the boat and Sloane scanned the water. He didn’t even see a mermaid and it seemed like only moments later that the redcaps were popping back up onto the boat, all smiles.

“Any trouble?” Sloane asked.

Newton shook his head. “No trouble and no drill, brother. They moved on.”

Shit
. The news shouldn’t have surprised him, since they’d anticipated the drill being moved, but they’d established no plan for finding the drill, and the ocean could take three lifetimes to search. Especially without access to a plane.

Liza’s face had reddened and she walked over to him, her eyes blazing. “They were in this spot for a while and they risked being close to the mermaids to access it. I’d bet they’re still in the area.”

Still in the area sure, but the area was the fucking ocean and if they picked the wrong direction…

“Circles,” Liza said. “We’ll sail in ever-widening circles until we find something.”

“Okay,” he said, looking to the redcaps. “Change of plan. We’re going to search for this thing, but we’re probably going to find pirates first. When we do, could you dive and start looking for the drill? Liza and I will fight, but we’ll need you to destroy the drill or the whole mission’s a waste. Arty won’t care about a few dead pirates. As soon as the drill’s done, get back up here and help us fight. Is that cool?”

The tall redcap looked to his wife, as did the rest of the redcaps. The wives nodded and grinned. “Sounds like a party to me,” Clara said. The redcaps whooped and Sloane sailed them out.

It didn’t take long to find trouble. The wind had picked up, blowing them forward at a fast clip, when they spotted the ship in the distance. Sloane sailed straight for it and hoped they’d find pirates. A family on a pleasure cruise would put them back at square one and Sloane wanted to get the job done that day. Next to him, Liza licked her lips and leaned forward, like that would help her see who sailed toward them.

Pirates sailed whatever they could steal, and they didn’t make themselves obvious by flying a skull and crossbones, as helpful as that might be. Sloane couldn’t be sure they were what he hoped for until they glided right up next to the other boat and he saw five greasy, dirty men, two of them with guns brandished and the other three with knives. The redcaps didn’t wait for a signal from Sloane or Liza, but dove overboard and disappeared beneath the surface of the sea. The pirates watched the redcaps dive, but didn’t seem concerned. They probably had guards below the surface, too.

“Hello, gentlemen,” Liza called, her smile bright and sunny. “You must be the coast guard.”

The pirates laughed. “Sugar, you can call me whatever you want, just so long as you scream it.”

Liza raised her gun and pointed it at the asshole who’d threatened her. Startled, Sloane pulled his own gun and aimed it at the next nearest pirate. He’d hoped to take things a little more slowly, but Liza seemed to be leading the charge and her face was set in a stony mask that broached no arguing. “Plan?” he whispered without moving his mouth.

She laughed. “My partner here is a little put out by my aggression, boys. He doesn’t seem to understand that I am so mad I can taste it and the only thing that’s going to make me feel better is seeing your blood all over that pretty little boat of yours.”

The man closest to them paled and took a step back. He started to raise his own gun and Liza’s gun exploded. Sloane hadn’t expected the shot, but he kept his weapon trained on the other man with a gun and watched Liza hit her target, who fell down on the deck in an unmoving heap. Liza laughed, a dry, emotionless laugh. “Should I feel bad that that felt so good?” she asked. “Anyone else want to make a move? I could use the target practice.”

Sloane felt the need to get control of the situation. He had the experience and he should be leading the mission, but he understood Liza’s need to have control after everything that had happened to her, he could hear the instability in her voice and he didn’t want to do anything to send her back into herself and out of his reach. If killing pirates was the therapy she needed, he’d let her have it. He’d never met a pirate who hadn’t killed at least ten innocent people, they were a menace, and kept good people off the seas and fearful. Their deaths would be no great loss and he’d tell Liza that if she ever felt bad about killing them.

“What do you want?” asked one of the pirates from the back.

“I want your boss on his knees before me,” Liza said. “Do you think you could get him here?”

A blast of water shot up half a mile away and the pirates swung their heads that way, eyes wide.

Liza smiled a slow, toothy smile that did nothing to reassure Sloane about the state of her sanity. “Our friends just blew up your—” Sloane started, when another fountain of water interrupted him, then another and another. Before the last blast, the redcaps climbed back onto the boat hooting and laughing.

Sloane glared at them, keeping his gun trained on the pirates, until they noticed him and shut up. Liza hadn’t stopped grinning. “Did you get the drill?” Sloane asked.

The nearest redcap looked at him like he was crazy and shook his head. “We wouldn’t be back here if we hadn’t.”

“Shit, you blew up the drill?” the nearest pirate asked. “We had twenty guys down there guarding it.”

The redcap shrugged. “After we started throwing explosives around, they took off.”

The redcaps stepped up next to Sloane and Liza and drew their own guns.

“Look, we were just here to guard the drill,” the pirate said. “If the drill’s gone, so are we.”

Sloane shook his head, suddenly uncomfortable with their plan. The idea had been to draw Arty out on their own terms and their own turf. They wanted to distract him from his search for Liza’s mother, and figured that if they got his attention and pissed him off enough, he’d show his face. It had all made sense when they didn’t have any better plan, but the pirates didn’t look as worried as he thought they should. Something felt off.

“Call your boss,” Liza said. “Tell him Liza blew up his drill, and she’d like to talk to him.”

“What am I, your fucking secretary service?” The pirate asked.

Liza’s expression didn’t change. “You’re going to have to call him to tell him we blew up his drill, so you might as well give him the rest of the message.”

“I’d rather tell him after we’ve killed you.” The pirate laughed, just as Sloane felt the boat rock and spun to see men in wetsuits scramble up onto the sloop. Pulling themselves onto the boat put them at a distinct disadvantage and the redcaps were slashing at them with blades and shooting at them, but as one fell back into the water, another one took his place.

Liza glared at the pirate. “Call them off.”

The pirate shrugged. “Why should I?”

Sloane saw the pirate fall back before he heard the shot and he spun to see Liza shaking. “I won’t go back to him. I won’t.” She aimed and shot down another of the pirates.

Sloane pushed back the fear that had started to rise in him. “Liza, sweetie, if you kill them all, they won’t be able to call Arty. If they don’t call Arty, we won’t find out who he’s working for, and get the proof we need to clear our names.”

The remaining two pirates had taken cover behind a crate. “We’ve already got the righ carraig, did you know that? The world is changing and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“How’s that work for you?” Sloane asked. “You want to live in a world without technology?”

“Hell, yes,” the pirate said. “We’d be a lot harder to track if the cops didn’t have helicopters or motor boats or radar. We could own the seas.”

A pop sounded next to Sloane’s ear and left it ringing. He watched as the pirate who’d been talking fell back and hit the decks. Sloane looked at Liza and wondered why he felt no fear. He should have been afraid of her and her killing spree, but he still felt the need to protect her. The bond told him she was still vulnerable and hurting. “Liza, please stop shooting people.”

She didn’t take her eyes off the last pirate. “He said he would rule the seas and hurt more people. He can’t hurt anyone if he’s dead.”

“Yes, but we need someone left to call Arty.”

She looked at him, her eyes were glassy with tears. “I don’t feel anything. I’ve killed them and I don’t feel bad about it. I should feel bad, shouldn’t I?”

“We’ll worry about your morals later, okay? For now, let’s forget all of that and work on getting Arty here.”

She nodded and trained her gun on the last pirate. “Call Arty now or I’ll kill you.”

The pirate had a phone to his ear so quickly, Sloane wasn’t sure where he’d gotten it. The pirate listened for a few moments and shook his head. “He’s not answering.”

“Then call Arty’s boss and tell him to come and bring Arty with him.”

“Are you sure that’s such a good idea?” Sloane asked, as the pirate’s face paled and the hand holding the phone shook.

Liza shrugged. “We need to know who holds Arty’s leash. Then he needs to die, too. Two birds, one stone.”

Sloane opened his mouth to argue with her, then thought better of it. He could list all of the reasons killing everyone who did something they didn’t like wasn’t logical, later. First, he thought he’d better call in his back-up.

*LIZA*

Liza bit her lip until she tasted blood. She could feel herself wanting to slip away from everything, to hide from the violence and the death, but another part of her wanted to rip and tear and destroy. If she destroyed, she controlled her situation. She knew she should feel bad about the pirates she killed, but they would have hurt her if she hadn’t and it had felt good to make them feel pain, to make them pay for the pain they’d caused. Even several feet away from them, she could sense the death on their hands. She could hear the screams of the people they’d hurt and killed and she knew, if she closed her eyes, she’d fall into vision after vision of their most violent actions. She felt like she might go insane, and she wished for her mother, so that she could better understand what she felt and saw.

She knew she should tell Sloane or Curtis. They’d be able to get answers for her, but then she’d have to tell them all she could do. She’d have to tell them that one day she’d touch them and she’d see their deaths. She’d have to tell them that the only thing making her feel better were thoughts of how she would hurt Arty, of how she would destroy his world and everything he’d worked for. She suspected her desires were irrational and that she might get them all killed, but the only thing she knew with absolute certainty was that Arty had to die.

Sloane held the phone to his ear. She heard him calling for back-up and she wanted to tell him they wouldn’t need it. The more people they involved the more limited she’d be when it came time to take her revenge and she needed, she craved hearing Arty scream in pain and seeing his blood splashed on the walls. She wanted him to hurt and she wanted him to know that she hurt him. She didn’t argue with Sloane, though. She’d done enough to ruin his life.

They heard an engine in the distance, but Liza kept her gun trained on the pirate and let Sloane and the redcaps search the horizon. She tasted blood on her lip and smiled as the pirate reached behind him. She smiled when he brought a gun around, and she smiled when she pulled the trigger and he hit the deck. It felt good, it felt so good to watch him fall and let the feeling of violent death that surrounded him fade away.

Sloane turned and swore, his face concerned and upset, and she felt bad, because he didn’t understand and he didn’t like what she had done. “He pulled a gun,” she said.

The tension on his face eased a bit and he nodded, but she could see that he still didn’t understand and she couldn’t explain it to him.

Luckily, a splash and a roar prevented her from having to say anything at all. Liza spun around, as Sloane stepped in front of her, and saw an enormous green head rise from the sea. The redcaps, for the first time since she’d met them, did not look stoked. They scrambled back to stand with Liza and Sloane, as the boat seemed to levitate and rise into the air, water sluicing down its sides, as the creature lifted it with its tail. Once the boat had risen several feet, it stopped and the sea monster stared at them, the nictitating membrane on its eye sliding open and closed once before it blinked and continued to stare.

“Liza, please don’t shoot it,” Sloane said in a low voice.

She lowered her gun and glared at him, but he ignored her. She shook her head and studied the beast instead. She didn’t get any sense of violence or death from the beast and they stayed that way, in a staring contest, until the engine they’d heard before roared closer and a large, solar powered speed boat stopped next to the sea monster. Arty stepped onto the deck and grinned at them. “I see you’ve met my pet, Wilhemet.” Arty peered around them and saw the bodies on the other ship. “I see you’ve dispatched my friends. A shame.”