Secrets of the Deep (68 page)

“No, not up there! Below us!” Jake said, pointing at the water. “Look beneath the boat, carrot!”

“I am not sticking my head out over the side of the boat, Jake. One of those brutes could pop up and bite it off. Just tell me what you saw!”

“It’s the Colony!” he said.

“The Colony?” she echoed.

“Remember? Those huge, weird, shaggy creatures in the Seaweed Forest—like the one that nearly ripped my arms off for swimming off the path? You remember! Liliana knew how to talk to them?”

“Ohh, of course!” Dani exclaimed.
So that’s where she went!

“The mermaids told us these creatures really hate the shark men. Guess they weren’t joking. Good timing down there!” He waved at the huge, kelp-covered creatures that had so terrified them while passing through the Seaweed Forest.

“Hate to tell you, but their arrival here is no accident, believe me,” she said ruefully, and sure enough, Liliana surfaced well behind the Colony.

“See? I told you I could help!” she called proudly. “I remembered the one thing the shark men are scared of!”

“Well done, Your Highness!” Dani shouted back, laughing.

“She’s a mermaid again?” Jake asked, looking confused.

“It’s a long story,” Dani answered, but at last, they were able to catch their breath.

The shark men were either fleeing for their lives or being gruesomely dealt with underwater by their bizarre mortal enemies.

Jake peered over the gunwale. “I think we’re all right now—by some miracle. Though I’m still wondering what the deuce
you’re
doing here, carrot.”

“If you scold me right now, I’m warning you, I still have this oar–”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Jake collapsed onto the bottom of the boat and slowly started laughing in relief. “I can’t believe we actually did it. That was a close thing there, for a minute.”

“Is the orb destroyed?”

“Aye, I think so. Blown to smithereens. And so is Davy Jones, at least for the time being. Pity. I was almost starting to like him.”

At that moment, they heard the by-now-familiar notes of the Triton Trumpet.

Lil turned toward the sound with an eager gasp. “It’s my sister! Maybe she brought Papa!” She dove underwater to find out and returned a moment later. “I don’t see my father, but Sapphira’s coming with Tyndaris and his troops!”

“Better late than never,” Jake murmured wryly.

“Sorry about the delay,” Sapphira called upon her arrival. Tyndaris and his men started surfacing behind her. “I would’ve been here sooner, but we ran into a…slight difficulty.”

“Is Papa all right?” Lil asked anxiously, bobbing up out of the water.

“Liliana?! Yes, he’s fine, but—Sweet Poseidon, what are you doing here?” the elder princess cried.

“Saving these two,” Lil declared with a defiant toss of her hair. “I told you, I can have adventures, too, if I want!”

“It’s true,” Dani told Sapphira and the shocked-looking Tyndaris with a nod full of relief. “Liliana saved the day.”

“She’s not the only one,” Jake said softly, to Dani alone.

She turned and gazed at him while Lil explained to Sapphira what had just happened.

Jake stared at Dani in wordless gratitude, his soulful eyes as blue as the sea around them. She reached out without a word and took his hand.

Her voice caught in her throat, but surely the small squeeze of his fingers told him everything her heart wished to say.

He squeezed back gently. “You’re a right plum lass, you are, Dani O’Dell.”

Salty tears rose briefly in her eyes, for she knew the translation. “I love you, too, Jake.”

He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles, never breaking their stare.

A loud splash suddenly erupted beside them as the
Turtle
surfaced. The hatch banged back and Maddox emerged from the waist up, giving Jake a rude grin.

“Not interrupting anything here, are we?”

“Er, no,” Jake said, quickly yanking his hand back while Dani did the same, turning pink.

“Jake! You’re alive!” Archie’s voice rose with a slightly tinny quality from inside the metal sub.

He must’ve pulled Maddox back down, for then he peeked out, positively beaming to see his cousin. “Sweet Bacon, we were sure you’d drowned, coz!”

“Who, me? Nah.”

“I thought you got knocked out! We couldn’t find you in the wreckage! Then Izzy sensed you up here.”

“Yes, I managed to make it to the surface, and this one picked me up.” He sent Dani a very handsome smile.

Her heart fluttered slightly, and her blush deepened.

“Oh, it was nothing.” She tucked a lock of her hair prettily behind her ear—before she realized she probably looked like a drowned ginger cat.

“Well, then! If everyone’s alive, what say we all go home?”

“One word,” Jake said. “
PIZZA
.”

They cheered, except for the mermen, who did not know what this was.

“Er, Lord Griffon, I understand your eagerness to return home, but before we part ways,” Tyndaris said, “His Majesty, King Nereus, requests the honor of your presence so he may thank you properly for keeping his daughters safe. You are all invited to come down to the Coral Palace—”

“I don’t think so,” Archie interrupted with great diplomacy, apparently, on the entire group’s behalf, since the rest quickly agreed.

Everybody wanted out of the water. Not even Dani cared to see the mermaid city after all that.
Dry land, please, thank you.

But Jake had other plans.

“I’d be honored, Commander. Unfortunately, I seem to have a bit of a head wound.”

“Oh, right! Nixie? Haven’t you got a spell for cuts?” Archie slipped down the hatch and sent the little witch up in his place a moment later, wand at the ready.

“Turn around, Jake!” Nixie called. “I don’t usually have to do this from ten feet away. Dani, duck. Maddox, can’t you please hold this sub steady?”

“I’m trying! It’s not that easy!”

They heard Isabelle laughing from below at their exchange.

While Nixie concentrated on the healing spell, Dani leaned out of the way. With his back to the witch and his head tilted down, as instructed, Jake waited for the healing spell to take.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Dani offered.

“Only if you want to,” he said.

“I’d really rather not. Just don’t take too long. I’ll miss you. And I’ll worry.”

He smiled, glancing sideways at her just a little, holding that position. “I’ll let the king know I’m in a hurry.” Then he chuckled. “I really just want my reward.”

Dani poked him in the arm. “You would!”

“Head feels better.”

“You’re done!” called the witch.

“Thanks, Nix!” He prodded gingerly at the gash. “That’s amazing.”

“Let me see.” Dani turned him to make sure it was reasonably healed. “Well, it’s gone. But you still have blood on you.”

“Don’t worry about sharks anymore, love. I’ll have all those soldiers around me. On second thought, I’ll ask some of them to stay with you lot, just in case.”

Then he went, jumping back down into the water.

“All set now!” he called to Tyndaris. But for a moment, treading water, Jake lingered by the sailboat, as if loath to leave her. He glanced up at the sky. “So much for the end of the world. Glad to see the weather’s back to normal.”

Dani followed his gaze. It was true.

The thunderclouds had broken up into small, roundish bits here and there, like a few woolly black sheep wandering across a wide azure field. The late morning sunlight danced in gold spangles on the waves, and Jake smiled up at her.

“Looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day.”

Dazzled, Dani smiled back. “Not a raindrop in sight.”

Then he put his mask on again and dove under the waves to go and claim his reward.

CHAPTER 33

Reunions and a Reward

T
yndaris split his company of mermen, leaving half behind to guard Jake’s friends while they waited for him, in case any of the shark men came back. The rest, including the commander, escorted Jake and the two princesses down to the Coral Palace.

Lil was giddy with excitement to be finally going home. With Wallace by her side, the little pink mermaid flitted about, quizzing Tyndaris and all the mer-soldiers about everything that had been happening in the city during the girls’ absence.

Jake and Sapphira, meanwhile, had much to discuss as they swam, surrounded by guards.

“I can’t believe you blew up Davy Jones
and
his Locker!” she exclaimed, marveling at the wreckage below as they passed over the site of the explosion.

“I’m just glad Archie and I didn’t blow
ourselves
up in the process. As for Jones, he won’t be dead forever. He may be in little bite-sized morsels right now for the crabs to snack on, but some way, somehow, I believe he’ll eventually be reassembled. He said he can’t die.”

“Well, by the looks of it, I’d say there’s no way the orb could’ve survived that.”

Jake murmured in agreement. Considering that a hard knock against the rocks on Nisáki had dented the orb, he felt sure that three barrels of gunpowder had reduced it either to dust or to such tiny bits that not even Archie could’ve put it back together again.

“I hope I never see another Atlantean artifact for as long as I live,” he declared.

“Me too.”

They glided on through the now-placid sea. Jake’s head didn’t hurt anymore, thanks to Nixie’s healing spell, but his neck still ached from the blow that had shot him forward.

“It’s not much farther,” Sapphira said. “You must be exhausted. I know I am.”

He nodded. “Say, I hope your father won’t be insulted that my friends didn’t come. It was generous of him to invite us all, but I think the others have had enough of the underwater world for the time being.”

She laughed. “Understandable. I was beginning to feel the same about the dry world. Do let them all know they’re welcome to visit anytime. As for my father, don’t worry about him being offended.” She glanced discreetly over her shoulder at Tyndaris, making sure he wasn’t listening. “It seems that spending some time in one of Davy Jones’s soul cages has changed His Majesty’s attitude on a large number of things. He seems almost humbled.”

Jake shook his head. “I can’t believe Jones did that to one of the sea kings.”

“You should’ve seen the look on Father’s face when I got him out of the cage. His ‘difficult’ daughter was the last person he ever expected to save him. I think it was the first time he was ever proud of me.”

“I’m sure that’s not true. He’s your father!”

She shrugged, but she seemed quite pleased with her own accomplishment, and Jake couldn’t blame her.

She had told him as they swam about the peasant uprising she’d had to lead, driving Jones’s henchmen out of Coral City. The battle to retake the palace was what had delayed her in bringing the promised reinforcements.

No wonder she had been so happy to hear that Davy Jones had been blown to bits, he mused. The merfolk had no doubt suffered cruelly under the pirates’ bullying, but with their king and top military leader caged, the citizens had not dared come together to make a stand against the occupiers in their city, until their fearless crown princess had shown up and taken charge.

As Sapphira chatted on about the thrill of leading her people to that small but important victory, and how by doing so, she had finally proved her mettle to her sire, Jake realized in hindsight why he had become infatuated with her for a while there.

In all honesty, there was more to it than just sea magic or the lovely mermaid’s bronze-skinned, blue-eyed, black-haired mystique.

It was because the two of them were a great deal alike—maybe too much so. Both headstrong, stubborn, bold, opinionated, and perhaps a little too adventurous for their own good.

Their similarities were probably also why they had clashed so much, he thought. They had not trusted each other at all for a time, but by now, Jake knew the trials they had endured had forged them into solid allies.

At the same time, he also knew by now that, girl-wise, he much preferred Dani. Aye, he’d learned something else on this long holiday: that all the
bellissimas
in Italy could not outshine his little Irish lass in his eyes. He was eager to get back to her and the others, just as soon as he collected his reward.

If the king offered, Jake already knew exactly what he wanted.

“Well, before we reach the palace and are surrounded by the usual audience of courtiers, I just wanted to thank you for everything you did for me and my sister, and for the whole kingdom,” Sapphira said with a sincere glance.

“It was no trouble,” Jake said, smiling.

She sighed, a stream of little bubbles escaping her lips. “I suppose I’ll miss you all–but not too much. Except for Maddox,” she teased.

“Aha, I knew you liked him!”

She shrugged. “He’s cute. For a land boy.”

Jake smiled ruefully. “I’m sure we’ll miss you and your little sister, too—but only a bit. It’s certainly been…interesting.”

They exchanged a sardonic look, and both chuckled.

“Well, here it is.” Sapphira gestured ahead. “Home, sweet home, as you landers say.”

Floating in the turquoise sea some thirty feet below the surface, they paused above the jewel-like mermaid city that stretched out across the white, sandy plain below.

Jake beheld the busy avenues, the fanciful clusters of homes and shops made of sea sponges or stone, the complex caves and algae gardens where colorful fish darted, and, towering over all, the pink spires of the Coral Palace.

“This place is a marvel,” Jake said, staring at it all.

“As you can see, repairs are already underway after the damage from the raid.” She pointed to where merfolk were busily at work, thatching sea-grass roofs or patching walls of their rounded burrows with some sort of thick mortar fortified with gravel and sand.