Authors: Joss Ware
He would have suggested it, but Ana led the way as if she knew where she was going, swimming parallel to the electrical curtain. They were very close to the rise and fall of the ground, and Fence noticed that she seemed to be following a road. He recognized cars and other vehicles, streetlights, and even the yellow concrete bars that used to mark parking places, all littering the thoroughfare.
He also realized that the water was moving more violently, making it more difficult to swim in a straight line. The churning caused the sea grass and plants to shake and whip, and even a few doors that still hung onto their hinges shuddered and flapped.
At last Ana stopped and pointed. Fence swam up next to her and looked. The glow from her ever-present crystals illuminated the area enough for him to see a dip in the sea bottom. It was black as night, a great, deep vee.
But the barrier crossed over the top of it like a blanket covering a hole, and he knew she meant to swim through there to the other side.
There was no way to communicate in this deep, silent place other than wordlessly, and so he grabbed her arm and dragged her through the water, pulling her up against him.
Her arms went tightly around his neck, telling him that she was just as apprehensive. The fit of her body against his, the warmth plastered against him in this cold, blue world, was beyond comfort. It made him feel whole.
He bent his face to take her mouth, gentle at first, brushing her lips with his as they slid over a barrier of salt and cold damp. He kissed her, using his mouth and the caress of his hands to tell her what he’d just recently come to understand: there was no one else, there would be no one else, he had to be with her. And thank you.
The last bit of the kiss was all
thank you
.
Thank you for making me whole again.
When she pulled away, her face tinged by the blue of her crystal glow, her eyes were filled with emotion that matched what was billowing inside him, and he knew she understood.
And then she eased out of his arms, took his hand, and together they swam deep and far . . . into the black hole.
A
na was grateful for Fence’s big strong hand in hers as she led them into the dark pit.
She couldn’t believe she didn’t have to do this alone. She had a partner, someone she trusted and relied upon. If her eyes weren’t already wet from the sea, they’d be damp with happy, relieved tears.
The naked terror in his face when she first saw him underwater had been frightening, and that was when she truly understood the risk he’d taken, jumping in after her.
That was when she fully realized the kind of man he was. Not only how he felt about her, but that he would struggle to do what was right even when every fiber of his being tried to convince him otherwise.
Now, as the crystal barrier undulated up into the water just above her head, she paused, squeezed his hand, then darted down and forward.
When she felt them pass safely beneath the wavering curtain and the echoes of its energy, she drew in a deep breath of relief. The glow of her crystals fired higher at that moment, then returned to normal as she and Fence paused, now on the other side of the barrier.
Ana scanned the dark shapes that made up some submerged cityscape, unsure where to go and how to find the stones.
Fence gave a little tug on her hand and gestured. She understood him to mean they should go back the way they came along the barrier, and she agreed.
Off they went, swimming quickly, no longer needing to hold hands.
As they zipped through the heavy, dark sea, Ana was aware of how readily Fence seemed to have adapted to his changed situation.
Her heart was filled to bursting despite the seriousness of their mission: How could she be any more fortunate to have found a man who could share in the secrets of the sea? And who wasn’t an despicable Atlantean?
She’d been waiting for him without even realizing it.
She’d found her partner.
As they came along the barrier, Ana noticed a glow in the distance. It was an unnatural illumination, much too big to be fish or anemone, or even the Atlanteans themselves. Her heart began to race, and she gestured to Fence—but he’d already seen it, for he darted up next to her with strong, smooth strokes.
Using the cover of old buildings, they made their way down an old street toward the glow. As they came into closer proximity, the churning water became cloudier. There weren’t any fishes or other sea creatures in this area, and even Ana began to feel apprehensive about the state of the water.
At last they could see the source of the glow. They’d swum higher in order to see over the tops of the waterscape—both natural and manmade—and Fence thrust his arm out to stop her from going any farther.
But water churned so strongly here that he had to grab onto something—the naked frame of a window—to keep from being dragged into the swirling mess, and he snagged her arm to keep her next to him.
Now they could see the whole picture.
Fence looked at her, and in the dim blue glow, she could see the stark intensity on his face. In his eyes shone concern and determination, and not a little of
holy shit
.
She felt the same way, for looking out at the glow that illuminated even this stirred-up water made her stomach hurt. There were seven Goleth stones, and she’d been right about their size. They were about four feet high and three feet in diameter and looked like moonstones, with a soft gray light burning inside each of them.
She and Fence hovered there, holding hands again, staring in horrified fascination. The stones were lined up in two rows of three, with the seventh one set apart from them at one end. As they watched, the water rushed down in the channel between the rows and gathered up, spewing forth beyond the single one at the head like a horizontal waterfall.
Dirt, debris, plants, everything was kicked up and churned in the vortex of water, turning the world murky. They were far enough away, and off to the side of the water funnel, so that the tug wasn’t pulling them into the vortex . . . but Ana sensed it was only a matter of time and proximity.
It was as if they were watching a cyclone begin, a long, horizontal one gathering up its force and spewing it forth. It was like being in the midst of a thunderstorm, but completely silent and darker.
Fence was staring at it, and Ana wondered fleetingly if he was becoming panicked again. She wouldn’t blame him; she’d been in many sea storms before, but this was different and it frightened her.
How the hell were they going to get close enough to move one of those stones out of alignment?
That was when she remembered, with a start, that they’d left Zoë’s sling behind in their hurry to get below, and now she looked at Fence, gesturing:
What now?
He didn’t seem to understand, so she took his hand and spelled out
forgot sling
on it with her finger.
He shook his head, smiled that devastating white smile, and flexed his massive biceps.
Oh. Yes.
Ana smiled back and felt a surge of heat flush through her, followed by relief.
She wasn’t alone.
He gave her hand a squeeze and then raised his eyebrows as if to ask:
Ready?
She nodded, and allowed him to guide her out of the shadow of the building that had shielded them. As soon as they did, the buffeting water caught them. It took her by surprise, but Fence held her, and she realized he was grasping a dark shape anchored in the ground.
His grasp was the only thing that kept them from being drawn into the vortex of water and debris. And so they progressed, bit by bit, Fence’s strong hand tight around hers while his other held onto some stable object until he released it. Then they surged to the next as if being washed down a river, and he reached out and snagged something else to hold onto.
The speed and power of the churning water whipped Ana’s hair and stung her skin and face with the sharp bite of debris. Her crystals glowed brightly as they fought to breathe in murky water, and she felt Fence look down at her more than once, as if to gauge her safety.
The Goleth stones were only yards away now, their glow casting a grayish fog in the stirred-up water, but the force was so strong Fence nearly missed the last two anchors. He pulled Ana through a window into a dark building for a moment of relative calm. The water storm raged beyond, stirring the water in and through the old structure, but its walls acted as somewhat of a shield, slowing the vortex’s force as it channeled through. Now they could catch their breath, and she looked up when he turned her to face him.
In the faint blue glow that cut through the dark room, she saw question in his eyes, and before he even lifted her hand to spell it out, she knew what he was going to say. She began to shake her head violently, then stopped.
There was no sense in making things more difficult. She knew the closer she got, the more powerful the water would churn. She knew she wasn’t strong enough to fight it—heck, she’d nearly been swept away already.
Not as strong as you. Will follow but stay back to keep watch
, she spelled before he could grab her hand.
He moved closer, his body warm in the chill, and brushed her tangled hair away from where it floated into her face. In the glow of her crystals, she could see the warmth and emotion in his eyes.
Brave
, and then
smart,
he lettered on her chest with his finger, then tapped her there as if to say “you.” Tapped again, more firmly. Then he spelled, very slowly, as if for emphasis:
L-O-V-E . . . Y-O-U
.
A rush of heat and pleasure surprised her, and she nodded, blinking at warm tears that mingled with the cold saltwater. Smiled.
Will stand watch. Be safe
, she sketched on his broad chest, then showed him the way to make a sound that would echo through the water: slapping her palm onto the end of a fist. The noise wouldn’t be as loud in the hurricane of water, but it was the only way they could communicate.
Just then a sudden gust from beyond sent a sudden forceful rush of water into the room. Old furnishings and pieces of rock and metal swirled around them with less force but no less malignancy than beyond those walls. Yet it was eerie because the violence was silent.
Fence shielded her from the embattled room’s contents, and when the silent roar of water eased, pulled her with him into another space. Here, the walls were intact, and since it was an interior room, there were no windows.
Go to Q and Z if I don’t make it,
he spelled onto her shoulder.
She nodded.
Will wait in other room. To watch.
What do with stone?
he asked.
Ana spread her hands and looked up at him, shaking her head.
Bring back?
He shrugged and nodded, then mimed breaking it with a hammer and raised his brows in question.
Ana nodded with a smile. That could work. Then they could bring just a piece back for Quent. He helped her into the next room, where she could see the glowing crystals from an old window. The waves swirled and surged, but she was able to find a sheltered beam near the window to hold onto.
Go now
, she sketched on his right pectoral.
Moon growing.
Fence held her by the shoulders, gave her a sweet kiss on the forehead, and then he was gone.
F
ence swam out of the abandoned building and into the raging, buffeting water. He knew if he didn’t have the soft moonlike glow of the crystals he sought, he’d be lost.
But at least he knew he didn’t have to worry about holding onto Ana. And if anything went wrong, she’d be able to get away and get back to warn the others they’d failed.
Now he just had to concentrate on getting to one of the crystals.
Easier said than done.
He clung to the frame of a glassless, open car door as the rush of water tried to suck him into its rhythm. Once he let go, he’d be gone.
His heart raced and the water pummeled him, reminding him how powerless he was against the force of the sea.
Underwater. Deep, dark, close.
And now, in the midst of a below-water windstorm. Nearly as frightening as the time he’d been caught in an avalanche in the Tetons.
But not as terrified as his spill during white water rafting, when he was caught on the tree branch and nearly drowned.
Fence closed his eyes, blanking those memories before they could pull him back into a world of blind panic, and drew in a long breath. He felt the twinges of grit prickling against the insides of his gills, then the cool rush of water flowing inside him.
How can this be? he thought for the hundredth time since discovering his own personal Change, once again touching his gills. How did this happen to
me
? It was a miracle.
How did I find Ana?
Another miracle.
After a moment he opened his eyes, back to the task at hand. If they had Zoë’s sling, he could attempt to use it like a rappelling line and hook one of the stones. From what he understood, once a crystal was moved from its position, the madness would stop.
But until then getting close was an impossibility.
He considered the possibility that someone or something was watching and waiting, protecting the crystals—but rejected it after a bit of contemplation. The water was too messy and stirred up here for anyone to be lurking about. They’d get washed away, just as he was threatened to be.
And even if they were, what could they see? Little but foggy, murky water, and since he wasn’t constantly surrounded by a glow of crystals, he could move unnoticed.
However, he was aware that there could be an Indiana Jones trap set: the moment one of the stones was moved, something could be set into motion.
But that was a chance he would have to take. It wasn’t like he was being greedy, trying to steal a gold icon. He was fucking trying to save a city. He figured he was due a damned break.
As he contemplated his next move, Fence watched the dirty, murky water rushing around him, funneling into the back of the rows of crystals and then blasting forcefully down the channel between them.
After a bit of observation, he squinted in the dimness and eased himself into a low crouch, his hands curling around the edge of a concrete slab protruding from the sea floor . . . and the violent pushing and pulling eased up.
Now he was tugged and buffeted instead of being tossed and flipped, and he knew that had to be the plan.
Stay near the ground.
If he could army crawl to the nearest crystal, he’d be below the strongest part of the energized current.
Careful to use stable handholds jutting from the uneven ground, Fence began to inch his way toward the crystals. It was like climbing a mountain, except he was on his belly on the sea floor. If the current managed to get under him, he’d be yanked free and tossed into the maelstrom.
Fighting to keep his legs and feet from their natural urge to float up was the most difficult part, and he felt the tension in his abs and glutes as he kept his body pushed down.
That was fine by him—he hadn’t had a good workout in a while and was starting to feel a little flabby.
Of course, there were parts of him that had been in a near-constant state of
un
flabbiness ever since he’d gotten close to Ana.
Realizing that if he was making bad jokes to himself again, he must be getting comfortable in this new world, he smiled.
Inch by inch, he crawled, dragging himself, fighting the current, aware, too, of the edge of panic that never fully left him. It was always waiting there to rush in and overtake his consciousness.
At last he was close enough to one of the middle crystals to feel its energy emanating through the water. And when he lifted his hand to pull himself to the next handhold, he saw that his fingers were slippery with something thick and slick.
A brief glance told him he’d found the sparkling gray glop. That solved one mystery.
Now, faced by the crystal that rose above his supine figure, he concluded that to have any chance of moving it, he’d have to launch himself to the big stone and latch onto it, arms wide in a desperate embrace.
If he let go of his anchor and missed . . .
Not possible.
He wouldn’t even consider it. He closed his eyes. Focusing, he visualized the movement of the water, of himself, thought about the trajectory, the position, the angle . . . and opened his eyes.
One . . . two . . .
. . . three.
He released his grip just as he used his feet to push off toward the crystal.
For a moment he was weightless in the churning water, and then its full force slammed into him. A corner of red-hot hysteria eased into his mind, but he would not allow it, and pushed it away as the moonstone crystal spun closer.
His foot hit something and he pushed hard, toward the stone, and a sudden blast of waves slammed him into the rock.
But Fence was ready; his arms were wide and he grasped the stone, trying to find purchase for his scrabbling feet as his fingers struggled to meet on the opposite side of the crystal. The strength of the gale was beyond belief, trying to suck him in, and he felt his arms slipping as the pull nagged and beat at him. But at last his fingers met and clasped, and he held the rough crystal in a passionate embrace while using his feet to leverage it out of place.
His arms around the stone, he felt the vibration of energy buzzing through him, realized that his bare skin was being burned, and at the same time that the stone was slimy with a thin, sticky gray overcoat. He tasted heat and something dark and gritty. As he drew in a steadying breath, trying to center himself in the midst of this silent, violent storm, heat instead of cool rushed into his lungs, filling them.
It took him an instant to realize his gills were trapped against the crystal as he desperately clutched the stone in his arms. The energy was scorching him, sealing them closed, cutting off his breath . . . and then he lost his tenuous grip on sanity.
Everything turned black and swirling red, and the sea came crushing down on him. Stifling, terrifying, heavy, dark . . . He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think—his feet moved wildly, his arms stiff and desperate as he held onto the stone: his only anchor.
His mind went blank and his face banged and then scraped against the crystal and he gasped for a desperate breath, dragged in heat that was
wrong
, blindly kicking and fighting . . .
I’m in the water—I can’t breathe—I can’t breathe.
He struggled for a minute, battling the fear, knowing that somewhere he had sanity. Somewhere in his head he found his center again, and he took in another breath—a heavier, more difficult one, but a breath nevertheless.
Easy.
The stillness he’d grasped in his mind wavered, threatened to dissolve.
Focus.
He breathed, focused, tried to grasp sanity again, but it eluded him, and he continued to tumble into mad panic.
Then suddenly there were hands on him, gentle, as if pulling him back to reality. He was able to open his eyes, and there was Ana, her face slack with concern, her hands pulling at his death grip.
And that was when he realized he’d moved the stone, and everything around him had changed.
The sea was calm, the moonbeam glow gone, and he was covered with sparkling gray glop.
Oh, and he was still breathing.
A
na saw the war of emotions on Fence’s face: shock, surprise, and finally annoyance. The latter, she assumed, was due to the fact that she was there with him, and not back in the building where he’d left her.
She had watched his large, shadowy figure inch along the sea floor toward the crystals, and then after what seemed forever, launch itself at one of the stones. Then the flow of water had eased, but Fence didn’t move. She’d darted out after him, watching sharply for any sign of threat.
But the sea was calm and almost back to her normal self, and she was with Fence now, and they had the stone. His chest was moving roughly, as if he’d just completed some great effort—which, of course, he had.
Something heroic.
She smiled up at him and patted him on the arm, then gestured to the crystal. He’d moved it out of alignment, scraping and tugging it along the bottom of sea so it was just beyond the others. Instead of looking like a soft glowing pearl, it seemed dead and devoid of energy, and appeared just like any other boulder. The other crystals were dead too.
The crisis was over.
But their work wasn’t done. The rock could just as easily be put back, and then the threat would start all over again.
At that thought, Ana glanced around again, suddenly nervous. Surely the Atlanteans wouldn’t have left this place completely unguarded. Although they couldn’t get close during the sea storm, they likely had some sort of monitor—a guard or watch, even if it were just observing the energy of the sea. By now the surface would have settled back into its normal rhythm.
She grabbed Fence’s arm and forced him to look at her.
Hurry
she spelled onto his hand.
He nodded, his expression matching hers. Then he gestured to his side, lifting his arm to reveal his gills.
Ana looked and saw for the first time that his chest, inner arms, and the sides of his torso were covered in a thin, sparkling gray sheen—similar to the gray stuff they’d found on the beach. It had crusted over one gill, the edge of the slender lip of skin darker than the rest of him, and it stuck together in places, as if it had been seared shut and was trying to work itself loose. The other side was hampered in the same way, and now she understood why he seemed to be struggling to breathe.
Ana gently helped to spread the skin so the gill worked fully again, and inside the flaps of skin on both sides she saw a faint, healthy pink color.
Better?
He smiled, relief in his eyes, and nodded. Then he looked down at the stone and once again mimed taking a hammer and smashing it.
She nodded, and through gestures and spelling agreed to move the crystal farther away from its original position before going to look for something that might be heavy enough to break it. If it was out of place and hidden, no one would find it.
But as Ana moved closer to the Goleth stone, closer than she’d been, it began to glow ever so faintly from deep in its core. She felt her own crystals reacting as well, growing warmer and brighter, and quickly pushed herself away in a surge of water. The large stone stopped glowing, turning dead and gray again.
Better stay back,
Fence spelled quickly.
Nodding, suddenly nervous again, Ana watched as he used a long metal pole he found on the sea floor to leverage under the crystal and shift it out of place. Little by little he rolled it along until it careened down a small incline and crashed against an old car in a cloud of sea dust. He moved a large piece of metal in front of the stone to hide it—probably not necessary, since now it looked like every other gray-blue boulder, but it was best to take all precautions until they could come back and destroy it.
Then Fence grinned at her and held out his hand. She let his large fingers close over hers, but instead of leading her off, he pulled her up against him.
His sleek, warm body pressed against hers, and Ana was struck by the difference in sliding against a land-person and an Atlantean in the water. Darian had always felt neutral to the touch—the same temperature as the water. But Fence’s heat bled into her, from his muscular arms to his belly and chest, to his mouth and that strong, hot tongue.
The next thing she knew, his legs were fluttering against hers and they were rising, sifting slowly up through yard after yard of ocean. The buildings and seascape fell away, the water lightened, and then they abruptly emerged from the water into evening light. The sun had half set in a glorious array of red and gold. The full moon was showing strong and fat in a darkening sky, its magnified pull no longer a threat to them.
“Wow,” she said, smoothing her hand over his face to wipe a bit of gray glop away. It sparkled all over the front of him like tiny stars in a thin layer of glue, and now it clung to her as well. “And I’m not talking about the sunset,” she added.
“The hero always gets to kiss the beautiful woman after he saves the world,” Fence told her with a cheeky grin, moving his legs lazily to keep their heads out of the water now that they were both breathing air. “I guess I’d better step up.” And he proceeded to do so once more.
Suddenly, beyond the shimmering barrier behind him, she saw a streak of light go into the sky and then explode into a small starlike puff. “What was that?” she said, grabbing his arm. They were still on the far side of the barrier, the side the Atlanteans considered theirs, but the shot had been on the Envy side.
At the whistling sound of the streak, Fence had spun in the water, but now she felt his muscles relax. “That’s Quent and Zoë,” he said. “They can see that the water has calmed and are sending a signal back to Envy that all is well, that we’ve stopped the tidal wave.”
“Is that what you call a flare gun?”
“That’s one definition for it.” He grinned and eased her closer. With his other hand, he pulled a lock of hair away from where it clung to her cheek and then paddled gently to keep them afloat. “There are flare guns . . . and then there are guns with
flare
,” he said, linking his arm around her, just above the curve of her butt, and pulling her up against him. “Like the one I have right . . . here.”