Waterfire Saga, Book Four: Sea Spell: Deep Blue Novel, A

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Forty-One

Forty-Two

Forty-Three

Forty-Four

Forty-Five

Forty-Six

Forty-Seven

Forty-Eight

Forty-Nine

Fifty

Fifty-One

Fifty-Two

Fifty-Three

Fifty-Four

Fifty-Five

Fifty-Six

Fifty-Seven

Fifty-Eight

Fifty-Nine

Sixty

Sixty-One

Sixty-Two

Sixty-Three

Sixty-Four

Sixty-Five

Sixty-Six

Sixty-Seven

Sixty-Eight

Sixty-Nine

Seventy

Seventy-One

Seventy-Two

Seventy-Three

Seventy-Four

Seventy-Five

Seventy-Six

Epilogue

Glossary

Realms of the Mer

About the Author

M
ANON LAVEAU, regal on her throne of twining cypress roots, regarded the merman before her. Her eyes traveled over his black uniform, his close-cropped hair, his cruel face. He and six of his soldiers had barged into her cave, deep under the waters of the Mississippi, as she was laying out tarot cards on the mossy back of a giant snapping turtle.

“Captain Traho, you say?” Manon’s voice, like her eyes, betrayed no emotion. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for a mermaid named Ava Corajoso,” Traho said brusquely. “Dark skin. Black braids. She’s blind. Travels with a piranha. Have you seen her?”

“I have not,” Manon replied. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Captain, the cards require my attention.
Au revoir
.”

Manon’s manservant moved to show Traho out, but Traho pushed him away. “Ava was observed entering your cave,” he said. “I’ve also been told you have a seeing stone that you’re using to follow her. Hand it over and I’ll be on my way.”

Manon snorted.
“C’est sa cooyon,”
she said with contempt.
Fool
.

She snapped her fingers, and twenty bull alligators, each weighing half a ton, burst up from the thick mud covering the cave’s floor. Tails thrashing, they surrounded Traho and his men.

“I have a better idea,” Manon said, her green eyes glittering. “How about my hungry little friends eat you alive?”

Traho slowly raised his hands, never taking his eyes off the alligators. His men did the same.

Manon nodded. “That’s more like it,” she said. “
I’m
the shack bully in these parts, boy.”

She laid her cards down and rose from her throne, her turbaned head high. It was impossible to tell how old she was. Her light brown skin was smooth, but her eyes were ancient. She had high cheekbones and a strong nose. A white tunic and a red reedcloth skirt covered her body and her silvery tail. A belt studded with river pearls and mussel shells cinched her waist. The belt had been handed down from the first swamp queen, a Native American who had journeyed to Atlantis as a human. She’d survived the island’s destruction, had become mer, and then returned to the delta.

Manon spoke with the twang of the swamp. Her language was a mixture of freshwater mer salted with the African, English, French, and Spanish words of the terragogg ghosts who dwelled in the Mississippi. Some of those ghosts kept her company, among them a runaway slave called Sally Wilkes, a Creole countess named Esmé, and the pirate Jean Lafitte.

Manon was not afraid of ghosts. Or thugs in uniform. Or much of anything. As her alligators growled, she circled Traho.

“This mermaid Ava, she’s
boocoo
brave. She goes into the swamps all alone. But you?” she said mockingly. “You need two hundred soldiers to hold your dainty little hand.”

Manon couldn’t see the rest of Traho’s soldiers from inside her cave, but she didn’t need to. The stone had told her of their approach.

Traho ignored the taunt. “Kill me, and those two hundred soldiers will kill
you
,” he said. “I need to know where Ava Corajoso is. I’m not leaving until I find out.”

Anger flashed in Manon’s eyes. “You want information, you
pay
for it,” she spat. “Same as everyone else. Or are you a thief as well as a coward?”

“Ten doubloons,” Traho said.

“Twenty,” Manon countered.

Traho nodded. Manon snapped her fingers again, and her alligators burrowed back into the mud. One of Traho’s soldiers had a satchel slung over his shoulder. At his leader’s command, he opened it, then counted out gold coins, placing them on a table.

When he finished, Manon said, “The mermaid stopped here two days ago. She was on her way to the Blackwater and wanted a
gris-gris
to protect her from the Okwa Naholo. I made the charm. Used talons from an owl, teeth from a white alligator, and the call of a coyote. Bound them with the tongue of a cottonmouth. Won’t do her any good, though. She was worn-out. Sick, too. By now she’s nothing but bones at the bottom of the Blackwater.”

Traho digested this, then said, “The seeing stone. Where is it?”

Manon chuckled. “No such thing,” she replied. “Stone’s just a story, one I don’t discourage. Mer in these parts are
boocoo
wild. They behave a little better if they think they’re being watched.”

Traho glanced around. He muttered a curse about the godsforsaken Freshwaters, then left the cave.

Manon floated perfectly still, staring after him, listening to the shouts of soldiers and the whinnying of hippokamps. Sally and Lafitte joined her, anxious expressions on their faces. When the soldiers finally rode off, Manon let out a long, ragged breath.

Esmé, her silk skirts swirling around her, walked up to Manon and tugged on one of her earrings. “You’re telling
lies
, Manon Laveau! That merl’s not in the Blackwater. Why would she be? There aren’t any Okwa in the Blackwater. She’s headed for the Spiderlair, and you know it!”

Manon shrugged her off. Turning to Sally, she said, “You still have it? Nice and safe?”

Sally nodded. She reached down the front of her dress and pulled out a polished garnet. It was as large as a snake’s head, and so dark it was almost black.

Manon took the stone and cast an occula songspell. A few seconds later, an image of a mermaid wearing silver glasses and a fuchsia dress appeared in the stone’s depths. She was frightened, Manon could tell, but trying not to show it. It was Ava. She was already in the Spiderlair. Manon didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“That mermaid’s
trouble
,” Lafitte fretted, wringing his hands. “I
told
you she’d bring the likes of Traho to your door. You bluffed him good this time, but what if he comes back?”

Manon didn’t have an answer.

Ava Corajoso had shown up at her door five days ago, led by a growling piranha. She was thin and feverish, but she hadn’t begged for food or medicine. Instead, she’d held out what little currensea she had and asked for a charm to keep her safe from the Okwa Naholo.

“The
Okwa
?” Manon had said, looking her up and down. “Those nasty monsters are the
least
of your worries! Take that money and buy yourself some food!”

She’d started to close the door, but Ava had stopped it with her hand.
“Please,”
she’d begged. “Everyone in the swamps says your charms are the strongest.”

“Everyone’s right. But
no
charm’s strong enough to save you from the Okwa. Just the sight of them will stop your heart dead.”

“Not mine. I can’t see them. I’m blind,” Ava had said, lowering her glasses.

“So you are,
cher
, so you are,” Manon had said, her voice softening, her bright eyes taking in Ava’s unseeing ones. “Tell me, why do you want to mess with the Okwa?”

“I
don’t
want to,” Ava had said. “But they have something I need in order to stop a monster—a monster ten times worse than any Okwa.”

“Doesn’t mean you’ll get it. The Okwa might still kill you. In fact, I’d put money on it.”

“They might. But I’d give my life gladly if it meant I could save many more.”

Merl’s crazier than a swamp rat,
Manon had thought. She’d been about to send Ava away once and for all, but something had stopped her. Something in Ava’s eyes. They weren’t right, those eyes, but still…that mermaid
saw
. Right down into you, to what was deep and true. She saw the good there no matter how hard you tried to hide it.

“Keep your coins,” Manon had said, against her better judgment. She’d led Ava inside, offered her a chair and a cup of thick, sweet cattail coffee. She’d sat down across from her and asked what she was after in the swamps. “Tell me straight. No lies,
cher
,” she’d cautioned. “A good
gris-gris
needs many ingredients. The truth’s one of them.”

Ava had taken a deep breath, then said, “A monster lies under the ice of the Southern Sea. For centuries, it has been asleep, but now it’s waking. It was created by one of the mages of Atlantis.”