“I know,” she said softly. “Being here hasn’t been all bad, but we need to go back to our own world.”
“Fine.” He thrust his hand out, palm up. “Give me the key. If we’re running away, I’m driving.”
* * *
Maybe slightly lower parts were trying to stop him. Olivia wanted to leave, and she had to come first with him.
He couldn’t deny they’d been getting embroiled here, though he did dig in his heels about deactivating the autopilot after they’d emerged from the hall’s tunnel.
“James!” Olivia said when she saw him switch off the toggle.
“I know how to drive this thing,” he said, setting his jaw stubbornly. “And I can find the Helike Tunnel. There are signs for it on every damn corner. Plus, if Anso’s cousenemy is planning to kill us, what better way than to have the escape vehicle she supplied drive us exactly where she pleases?”
“Fine.” Olivia flopped back in the co-pilot seat. She rubbed her temples, so maybe she did have a headache. “Up there is the turn for the grand canal thingy.” James turned the sub the opposite way.
“James!”
“I’m not taking the obvious route. This way we can avoid police patrols.” Privately, he doubted they’d run across any. Most of the city’s cops would be posted near the banquet hall for the big shindig. He couldn’t help it if he wanted one last look around. Oceana was amazing, and he’d hardly seen it at all.
The streets were different at night, though lit well enough to navigate. He noticed traffic above them and remembered he didn’t have to cling to ground level. Once he’d climbed, the bird’s eye view of the city was beautiful - like flying over a metropolis in a plane.
From above, Oceana’s street grid formed a spiral, loosely resembling a nautilus shell. So many lights twinkled under them, so many exotic little lives, none of which he’d encounter now.
“It’s pretty,” Olivia said grudgingly, her fingertips pressed to the side window.
She
was pretty, his soulmate and partner.
“I love you,” he said. “I’m sorry to go, but I’m not sorry to be with you.”
“James.” Her voice was soft with emotion, her new blue eyes glimmering.
“You’ve always been my heart.”
James jerked back as a quick black shape darted past their windshield. “Shit,” he said, his pulse pounding in his throat. “What was that?”
“A fish?”
It was a big damn fish. The shape darted at them again. This time it was spitting fire. James jammed his foot on the brake.
“Oh my God,” Olivia said. “It’s the last missing Meimeyo.” It was. As their sub-compact sub drifted to a stop, the mini-dragon landed on its hood. It screeched at them, its three-foot long leathery wings flapping threateningly. James wished they’d found some other way to settle the question of whether dragons could breathe fire.
“Uh,” Olivia said, shrinking back instinctively. “This might sound stupid, but do you suppose it doesn’t want us to leave?”
The mini-dragon hissed fire at them again, the heat of the combustion leaving a black spot on the thankfully reinforced window glass. James didn’t know what to make of this.
“Maybe it’s angry we didn’t take it home with its nest mates.” The dragon stomped on the hood with each of its rear clawed feet, reminding James of a child throwing a tantrum. One of its front paws threw something at the windshield, which hit it with a clink.
Olivia leaned forward in her seat. “That’s one of the diamond hairpins I wore for Anso’s speech! How on earth did it get that?” The oddest sensation came over James, like every millimeter of his skin was tingling on the inside.
“Olivia,” he said slowly. “Take the pins from your hair.”
“Honestly, James, what good will that do?”
James removed the pearls himself, then stuffed them in the glove compartment for good measure.
Olivia glared at him when he stopped her from pulling it back open. “You’re crazy.”
“Maybe, but look at the Meimeyo.”
The mini-dragon was sitting calmly on the nose of the sub. When it saw it had their attention, it chittered like it was talking and raised its gleaming black and gold wings. This time the display wasn’t threatening.
“I think it wants us to follow it.”
“James ...”
“I
know
,” he said, “but I think it does. This place isn’t ordinary, and neither are we anymore. I have a feeling this is what we’re supposed to do.” Olivia gave him a dubious look.
“I trusted you,” he reminded her.
“For about five minutes!” She wasn’t using the tone that said she was really angry. James tried not to let his smile show. “All right. If it takes off in the next two minutes, we’ll follow it.”
The mini-dragon immediately flapped up into the currents. With the sense that he’d stumbled into a fairy tale, James put the sub back in drive.
Their escort led them to a section of the city that was mostly warehouses. Big black subs with trucking logos were tied by cables behind the buildings, creating an obstacle course. They steered through it after the mini-dragon to a wall marked PREMIUM STORAGE. Halfway up the expanse of brick, perched on a window ledge, the sea dragon awaited.
“Crap,” Olivia said. “We have to go out there.”
James was glad she’d given up arguing. He knew how she was about submerging in deep water. “You could stay here while I investigate.”
“No point. You’ll have to flood the car before you can swim out.” He did this as quickly as he could, to give Olivia less time to grow anxious.
Her hand was very cold and squeezed his very tightly before she gave in and inhaled her first lungful of water. She coughed a bit, but then she was all right.
They swam from the car together.
Her outfit turned out to be more adaptable than his. She only had to tie up her skirt. He needed to remove his jacket and his shoes. Free to move then, they peered in the window the mini-dragon was waiting by.
“Oh boy,” they said in dismayed unison.
Someone had drawn what even they knew was a spell-working circle on the warehouse’s concrete floor. Except for a giant pentagram, they didn’t recognize the symbols, though they were sufficiently creepy nonetheless. Six or seven men were scattered around the warehouse - hulking, bouncer-looking types. Another man, who wasn’t hulking at all, stood within the spell circle. He was naked and had both arms thrust upward in front of him. They couldn’t hear through the window, but he appeared to be chanting. Because he was on his feet and not floating, James concluded the warehouse was filled with air.
Most interesting of all, a pair of filmy phosphorescent wings fluttered gently behind the spell caster. Shaped like a dragonfly’s and equal to the man in height, the wings gleamed with every color in the rainbow.
“That’s Lajos,” Olivia exclaimed softly. “Mrs. Bonn said he was three-quarters faerie. He did a super job on my hair.”
“I think it’s safe to say that’s not the only job he’s doing.” A vibration shook the building they were clinging to, as if a heavy truck had driven by on a nearby road. The Meimeyo cheeped mournfully and climbed onto James’s shoulder, its weight about that of a large cat. Under other circumstances, James would have been flattered. Under this one, he wished its rear claws weren’t digging through his tuxedo shirt.
“The faerie made the building shake,” Olivia surmised. “He’s summoning something nasty with that spell.”
James agreed, though he didn’t know what to do about it. He was no one-man army, and he doubted Lajos had brought those goons just to stand around.
“Do we have a way to call for help?” Olivia asked.
“There’s an emergency beacon in the car, but Ty told me it just notifies their version of Triple A.”
The building shook again, harder this time, causing the skin on the back of James’s neck to crawl. When he looked down, a jagged crack - maybe five feet long - had split the compacted sandy ground below. He didn’t think it was a good sign that the dragon hissed angrily.
“We can’t wait for Triple A,” Olivia said, arms braced on the brick of the window ledge. “We need a weapon. Or a big distraction.”
“Or both,” James said. They turned as one to stare at the car.
“There’s air in this building -”
“- and this window looks big enough to crash through.”
“But what if the glass is too strong to break? What if it’s magic?”
“Something powerful could heat it first. Then whatever spells protect it would be compromised.”
As James put forth this theory, the Meimeyo stepped around on his shoulder excitedly.
“All right,” James said, patting its prickly foot. “I guess you do know what you’re doing.”
They left the dragon at the window and swam back to the car.
“Safety belt,” James reminded Olivia as she pulled her body down into the second seat. God, he hoped this thing had airbags.
Another thunder-like rumble shook the water, this one seeming to originate underground.
“Jesus,” Olivia swore. “Is he calling a damn earthquake?” Suddenly, they both knew that was exactly what the faerie hairdresser was doing. For whatever reason, Lajos was hoping to bring the city down. James’s cheeks grew colder than the water surrounding them.
“We’ve got the car,” he said. “We could try to outrun it.” Buckled in now, Olivia shook her head. She looked as white-faced as he felt.
“Olivia, even if we survive this, we’ll lose our chance to escape.” He had to say it, though he was certain how she’d react.
“You
know
we have to try to stop this,” she said. “We couldn’t live with ourselves if we let them be hurt.”
She didn’t just mean the people of Oceana. She meant Ty and Anso. That was clear from the very personal worry pinching her lovely eyes. James turned his own stinging gaze to the warehouse window, where a starburst of scorch marks suggested the dragon had quietly done its work.
“Okay,” he said, giving Olivia’s trembling hand one last squeeze. “Let’s Thelma and Louise this.”
* * *
Fortunately, mermaids weren’t as long-winded in giving birth as they were in their “entertainments.” No more than twenty minutes passed between Ty and Kelvin’s adrenaline-stoked arrival in the dressing room and Ty carefully cleaning up the newborn. He expected he and his fellow guard were grateful for their training in different species’ biology. The baby was small but healthy, the mother sufficiently recovered to be voluble again. Her conversation alternated between gushing thanks and her mystification as to why she’d gone into premature labor.
“My doctor swore I was right on schedule,” she said for the umpteenth time.
“Sixteen days and three hours from now was my due slot.”
“We’re simply glad you’re all right,” Ty said, also not for the first time. He watched the baby nuzzle her pretty breast, the dark fuzz of hair on its head tinged with emerald. Despite the horror of its unscheduled birth, he had to admit the kid was cute.
Unaware of his thoughts, the new mother rocked her blanket-swaddled child and patted its small bottom. “Sixteen days yet. I should fire him. I’m just so glad you were here!”
Given that Ty had run out of ways to say
you’re welcome
, the appearance of the EMTs with a stretcher, come to trundle mother and baby off to the hospital, was an undeniable relief.
“
Mermaids
,” Kelvin said darkly, watching them disappear down the corridor.
“
Babies
,” Ty added.
Both guards, so recently thanked for being heroes, shuddered delicately.
“I need to get back to the hall,” Ty said, realizing he’d left Olivia and James to find their own escort.
“Right.” Kelvin glanced around the dressing room. “I’ll just, uh, finish cleaning up some of this. If you see that maid again, send her here.” Ty slapped him on the shoulder and got while the getting was good.
Two of his men stood guard on either side of the dining room’s imposing central doors. One of them was the younger Corlier brother.
“Didn’t expect you back so soon,” Mark observed.
A single icy finger trailed down Ty’s spine. He stopped without going in.
“What do you mean? Who took the queen and James back to the palace?” Mark’s eyes rounded. “We thought you did.”
“Fuck.” Horrible conclusions jumped together in Ty’s head. People whose delivery dates were set by the hour didn’t go into early labor unless something triggered it. Magic maybe. Or a drug slipped into a water bottle. He thought back to the maid who’d called him and Kelvin to help and then disappeared. Had Olivia and James been kidnapped? Except ... hadn’t Olivia urged them leave and, looking back, hadn’t she seemed a tad eager?
“Fuck,” he repeated, clutching his head this time.
“What is it?” Mark asked. “Has something happened to the queen?” Ty gazed at the closed double doors, behind which Anso would be smiling politely for who knew what toast or speech. God, Ty didn’t want to tell him this.
The king loved Olivia. This was going to break more than his heart.
“The queen and her husband have escaped,” he said tightly in a low voice.
“They probably had help, very likely from Lady Ellice, but I suspect they went voluntarily.”
“Lady Ellice left ten minutes ago,” Mark said. “We saw her walk out of here in a rush.”
The second guard nodded in confirmation, worried enough by the enormity of this disaster that he’d broken into a shiny sweat. Even the famously unhappy Queen Denise hadn’t tried to run away.
“Find Lady Ellice’s friends,” Ty said. “Any of her clique who are still here.
And servants, if you recognize them. Lock them up at the security station. I don’t care who they threaten to sue. None of them leaves until I question them.”
“Yes, Captain,” Mark acknowledged, the guards’ spines stiffening now that they had orders.
Ty should have known his course of action wouldn’t be this straightforward.