Authors: Tracy Deebs
I was hoping he’d be able to tell me that. “I don’t know. Are you okay?” All his limbs were attached and he didn’t seem to be bleeding, but he’d obviously been attacked out here. By something that seemed less and less like an animal and more like—
At that moment,
something
wrapped itself around my ankles and tugged. Hard.
I went under much as my father had, without any warning or fuss. Of course, it was kind of hard to throw a fit, or protect myself, when I was completely blindsided. Which I shouldn’t have been—I’d known something was out there when he went under. But I’d been too busy trying to get my dad to breathe to worry about the same thing happening to me. As I went under, all I had time to do was release my dad so I didn’t pull him down with me and shout, “Get to shore. Now!”
I prayed that he would listen to me. That, first of all, he was recovered enough to make the journey, and second of all, that he was smart enough not to dive down and try to find me. I was much better suited to a fight in the ocean than he was, and though he worried about me because was my father, the last thing I needed right now was to stress out about him as well as Whatever thing had me in its grip.
I twisted around, determined to get a good look at the minion of Tiamat who had decided to grab me. But there was nothing. No one behind me, no one to the side of me. No one
anywhere. Just a tight clamp around my ankles and the inexorable draw downward that felt an awful lot like fishing in reverse—with me as the catch and my dad as bait.
I powered up the light bubble again, made the glow brighter, then bent in half so I could get a better look at my ankles. Ancient iron manacles had been fastened around them, so tightly that already I could feel the skin chafing underneath. The manacles were attached on the outside to a rusty chain that spiraled down deeper than I could see.
I was furious, part of me more than ready to meet whatever had come fishing for me and nearly killed my dad instead. They’d wanted me and I was more than ready to let them try for a piece. But again, my more logical side refused to be ignored and I knew that the absolute last thing I should do was allow myself to be dragged to the bottom of the ocean. Not when I was chained, alone, and had no idea what was waiting for me down there. And not when my dad was still in the water above me, probably frantically searching for me when he should be making his way back to shore.
Grabbing on to the manacle on my right leg, just where it met the chain, I used every considerable ounce of superhuman strength I had to try to pry it off. The cuffs were old and rusted, the connector eaten through in places, so it shouldn’t have been that hard to rip the link away from the cuff.
But it wouldn’t so much as budge no matter how hard I tugged and twisted and yanked. Giving up on the right cuff, I turned to the left and started working on it in earnest. It wouldn’t budge either.
Letting go of the chains, I tried to wiggle my fingers under
the cuffs just where the two sides met. No one had been around to lock them, plus I couldn’t even see where a key could be inserted into the stupid things. Which meant that there was probably some kind of catch on the inside that I could press to make them open. I just had to find it.
The only problem was the cuffs were tight, really tight. And while my fingers were slender, they weren’t tiny enough to slide between my flesh and the iron, no matter how hard I tried. Which only made me more frustrated and more determined to find a way free.
I kicked my legs out, somersaulted, twisted around and around so that the chain grew taut. My goal had been to stretch the chain until any little movement put pressure on it, and as I slowly began to press my legs outward, I realized—a little gleefully—that I had succeeded. The chain was so tight that the basic movement of opening my legs was almost impossibly difficult. Strong as I was, I could open them only an inch at a time.
Though the water muffled the sound, I could feel the vibrations as the chain stretched and stretched and stretched. Whatever was beneath me must have felt it too, because suddenly the downward tugging grew much, much faster.
I stretched my legs some more, felt a little give as my left leg slammed outward quickly. Yes! It was working. One of the links on the chain was breaking. I had gained only about three inches of movement that time, but it was enough to make me try again. I started scissoring my legs, pressing out harder and faster. It hurt like hell, but I ignored the pain. After all, what was waiting for me at the bottom of the ocean was probably going to hurt a lot worse.
The chain on my right leg gave first, all at once, and I went tumbling backward—which served only to twist my left leg up in its chain even more. It also made it impossible to apply pressure because there was no longer anything pulling me in the other direction. I was still tethered, only now it was by one leg—a gruesome balloon for some monstrous ocean creature.
I stared at my bound leg, out of ideas and nearly out of time. Adrenaline was racing through me, fear a wild animal clawing at my insides, but I tried to focus.
I bent in half once again, studying what I had to work with. When the chain holding on to my right leg had broken, it had done so about thirty links below the manacle, meaning I had quite a nice length of iron chain still attached to my right ankle.
After curling my legs up to my stomach, I started to search the still-taut length of chain for the link that had begun to give earlier. I prayed that it was close to me and not farther down, and for once I got lucky. It was only about fifteen links away from the manacle itself, which put it well within reach for what I planned to do.
I wrapped the length of the broken chain, still attached to the manacle on my ankle, around the intact chain so that the two lengths crisscrossed. Then I focused on the electricity bouncing around inside of me, molding it into a solid ball of heat and light. I had to be careful—metal was a great conductor of electricity even without the water to help things along. The last thing I wanted was to fry myself along with the chain. But at the same time, I needed to heat the metal up to the point that it was malleable.
Again, not an easy thing to do, as the chain was currently
immersed in the very cold Pacific. The heat I needed to generate was immense, and I could very easily end up burning myself as the chain warmed up on either side of the weak link. That was why I had wrapped the broken chain around it to begin with. If I somehow did manage to get it hot enough to bend, there was no way I was going to be able to touch it.
When I’d gathered as much power as I could, when the ball was as tightly wound as I could make it, I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and allowed it to explode outward in one giant, fiery eruption, aimed straight at the chain that was still, inexorably, pulling me down.
It nearly killed me. Nearly vaporized me on the spot, like it did the hundreds of gallons of sea water directly surrounding me. For a second it was like I was hanging in an air pocket, in a vacuum where nothing else existed, and then three things happened at once.
The chains and manacles actually melted, leaving molten hot iron wrapped around both of my ankles.
The weight of the ocean absorbed the sudden air pocket until I was once again surrounded by water.
And finally, sea creatures of all kinds swarmed around me, terrified and angered by the electricity that had snaked through the water in every direction.
A hammerhead shark shot straight at me, mouth gaping wide. My instincts—and my fear of sharks—screamed for me to get away from it, but at the same time I could feel the molten iron burning the skin around my ankles. Thank God for the nearly frigid ocean water, which was cooling the metal down rapidly. But if I wasn’t careful, I would end up right back where I started.
I settled for dodging out of the shark’s path at the same time I used my fingernails to scrape the metal from my ankles. My fingertips sizzled a little as they came into contact with the still hot metal, and I knew I’d have second-degree burns on them. But at least the shark decided to leave me alone, intent as it was on getting out of the area as fast as it could.
As I got rid of the last of the metal, I knew I had a choice to make. I could dive deep and see who was behind this attack, or I could head back to the surface and make sure my father was all right. I knew my dad well and I was pretty certain that, near-death experience or not, he wouldn’t head to shore until he knew I was all right.
That knowledge made the decision for me. Though I was aching to use the element of surprise to take on whoever had done this, I couldn’t leave my dad all alone in the middle of the ocean. Not when he was still weak from nearly drowning.
I started swimming as fast as I could, straight up toward the surface. Now that I was free of the manacles, I tried to shift to mermaid so that my tail could propel me faster. But the injuries to my ankles were too severe—my body wouldn’t let me shift. So I focused all my attention, all my power, on swimming as fast as I could, thankful that I didn’t have to stop every thirty feet to adjust to the change in pressure. I might be in a human body, but I was still mermaid and I was built for this kind of rapid surfacing.
I hit the air less than two minutes after I’d started swimming full out. I looked around frantically, even as the combination of air and salt water made my eyes burn. It didn’t take me long to figure out that my dad was nowhere in sight and that the shore was much farther away than I had anticipated.
I remembered the explosion blowing me sideways when I’d let all that energy loose, but I hadn’t realized just how far it had pushed me. Ignoring the pain in my ankles and my hands, I struck out toward shore. But I couldn’t go as fast as I would have liked, not when I was screaming for my father every few yards that I covered.
Please let him be okay. Please don’t let anything have happened to him. Let him have gone back to shore. Let him be safe.
The words ran through my head like a mantra as I pleaded with the universe, with God, with the ocean itself, to spare my father’s life. I’d already caused my mother’s death. If it turned out I’d done the same to my dad, I would be finished. Done. Broken.
As I swam, I scanned the shore, desperate for a glimpse of my father. For some little glimmer of hope that told me he was okay. But there was nothing, the beach completely deserted beneath the glow of the lamps that lined the border where street met sand.
The storm was growing closer—I could all but taste it in the air around me. Though the thunder and lightning hadn’t started, the wind had definitely picked up. It was making the waves stronger, choppier, and I had to fight harder than ever to make progress against the simmering sea.
I kept going, kept swimming, kept calling out for my dad. I was fighting the waves and the wind and what felt like Mother Nature herself, but it didn’t matter. Nothing did but finding my father. Making sure he was safe. That he felt the same way about me, I was certain, and it terrified me. Kept me going when any other time I might have just dived deep, where the
surface conditions wouldn’t have such a strong effect on the water.
I was hysterical as I approached the shore, tears pouring down my face while sobs racked my body. I had done this. With my screwed-up life and the enemies that just wouldn’t let me go, I had led us to this. I had led him to this.
I brushed the tears out of my eyes, tried to see through my swollen lids. I scanned the beach, once, twice, and after I was certain he wasn’t there, I turned back toward the roiling, unforgiving ocean and prepared to dive deep. I wasn’t leaving until I’d found my father. I couldn’t, no matter how many miles of ocean I had to search.
But as I turned, bright purple lights to the left of me caught my eye. I turned toward them, saw that they were in lines, in the shape of a board. My surfboard! It was there, and something, some
one,
was draped over it.
I took off toward the board, hoping, praying, that I was also heading straight for my father. As I got closer, I started to scream his name again, praying that he would answer. For the longest time, nothing happened, and then I heard his voice, heard him calling my name. He sounded weak, exhausted, but he was alive. That was all that mattered.
I started swimming faster, ignoring the pain and the fear, pushing forward to get to my dad. He was paddling the surfboard toward me as well, and, frightened that he was using up too much of his strength after everything he’d been through, I used a telekinetic hold to freeze him in place. It was a new aspect of my powers that had recently developed—one I hadn’t shown anyone, even though I’d been practicing it for weeks.
He freaked out when he realized he couldn’t swim forward, and I called out, “You’re fine, Dad. I’ve got you.” I wanted to shout for him to turn off the lights, but I was afraid without them I wouldn’t find him in the desperately churning ocean. But as soon as I got there, I promised myself I’d shut the purple LEDs down for good. Bad enough that I was practically chumming the waters with my raw flesh; the last thing we needed was to give a road map to whatever creature had set up this midnight swim to hell in the first place.
Finally, the distance between my father and me closed. I could see his face, see my own panic and fear reflected there—but for my own safety. More proof that I’d been right, that there had been no way my dad would go back to shore until he’d assured himself that I was safe.
“Tempest, thank God! What happened to you?”
The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up before I could answer him. “Cut your board lights!” I snapped at the same time I extinguished the small balloon of light I’d created. He obeyed instantly, plunging the water around us into an eerie blackness, one I was intimately familiar with after a year as a mermaid. Still, out here, tonight, with everything that had happened—it was freaking me out.
Terrifying
me was probably a better description, but as I positioned myself in front of my father, I decided not to go there. I just had to remember that this was no different than any other showdown I’d had with Tiamat’s minions. I wouldn’t let it be. I’d emerged victorious from all of them and I was going to do the same tonight. There was no way Tiamat was taking both of my parents from me. She’d have to kill me first.