Blood of a Mermaid (16 page)

Brown eyes flew open wide. “Sinking? We survived the crash?” She pulled on the man’s hand. “Did you hear that, Howard? We survived!” He didn’t respond, but slumped forward in his chair. “Howard! Wake up! This is no time to sleep!”

Shea pressed his fingers against the side of the man’s thick neck, checking for a pulse like he’d seen them do on countless television shows. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be feeling for, but the man’s skin felt clammy to the touch as he pressed harder, seeking some sign of life.

The woman had let go of the man’s hand and began to slap his arm. “Howard! This is no time for jokes. We need to listen to this young man and leave the plane now!” She released her own safety belt and struggled to reach around the man’s wide belly. “Help me unbuckle him,” she told Shea, panic in her voice.

“I can’t find his pulse,” Shea said gently. “We need to get you out of here.”

“I’m not going anywhere without my Howard,” she shrieked, and started pummeling the man’s chest in a kind of frenzy. “Wake up, damn you! You’re not leaving me here in the middle of the Mediterranean all alone! Wake up!”

“Shea! Get her out of there!” Chip’s voice sounded far away over the noise the water was now making as it flowed faster into the cabin. Shea glanced up to see him silhouetted by the opening, gesturing wildly.

“Ma’am, you need to get out of here, right now. The life boat is cutting loose any second.” He grabbed her firmly by the arm and pulled her into the aisle, where the water had now reached Shea’s knees.

“But my Howard!” She pushed back against Shea’s chest as he slogged behind her through the rising water. “You can’t leave him there! He’s not dead! He can’t be dead!”

“I’ll go back and get him, I promise,” Shea told her. “But you need to get on that life boat!” He was relieved to see Chip coming the last few feet to grab the woman by her arm and drag her forward.

“Promise me! Get my Howard!” She screamed in protest as Chip dragged her forward none too gently.

Chip shot him a disbelieving look. “Shea, come on, man! Leave him! The stewardess already cut the rope!”

“I promised her.” Shea took a few steps backward, realizing the water was mid-way up his thighs. “I’ll catch up with you in the water, Chip.” He turned and pushed his way down the aisle, back to where the last passenger, Howard, was still unconscious. Shea wasn’t worried about getting out of the plane himself. He knew he’d be able to breathe underwater even if he sunk to the bottom with the plane. That was the good thing about having gills – never having to say, “I’m drowning.”

There was a sudden bang. Shea whipped around to see the rising water had pushed the restroom door inward, slamming open against the small vanity sink inside. The noise also seemed to jolt a reaction out of Howard, whose head lifted partway up before falling back onto his chest.

Shea smiled, relieved to see a sign of life from the guy. “At least there’s no one else to rescue. It’s just you and me, Howard. And I’m psyched you’re still alive. Let’s keep you that way.”

He reached under the man’s armpits and lifted, glad for the sturdy cloth of the brand new Hawaiian-print shirt. He was also thankful for all those years of grueling work on his dad’s farm, giving him the strength now to help over 200 pounds of dead weight. Or not-quite-dead-yet weight, as it were.

The water was already up to his waist as Shea wrestled Howard’s limp body into the aisle and began the slow process of dragging him toward the opening in the plane’s hull. Was the plane filling faster than before? Although it wouldn’t be a problem for him to breathe underwater, Shea suddenly realized that the rising water posed more than a little problem for Howard, who had yet to regain consciousness and remained blissfully unaware of his dire situation.

“Come on, Howard,” Shea urged as the man’s leg got snagged on a piece of fallen luggage. “Help me out here. I’m trying to save your life!” Shea yanked harder and Howard’s foot came loose, the pair of them falling backward with a splash, Howard on top and Shea completely underwater.

Shea blew a deep breath out through his gills before getting back on his feet, hoisting the large guy’s torso up and as far out of the water as he could. “Okay, Howard, this is it.” He glanced forward and saw he still had quite a ways to go, and unfortunately Howard remained out like a light.

The rear of the plane began to tip downward at an increasing angle, making the trek to the opening an uphill battle. Shea clenched his teeth together and pulled against the rush of water splashing down the aisle and gushing under the seats. “Work with me, Howard. We’re almost there.” With a last final heave, Shea was finally able to see out of the opening. The storm clouds pressed in close around the plane but the driving rain had stopped. The shrieking wind pummeled waves over the rear of the plane, dragging it down, but could no longer reach into the opening, which was now a few feet above the water’s surface.

The crowded yellow inflatable was already a short distance from the side of the airplane, tossing with the waves. An eerie quiet had descended on the passengers, who sat wide-eyed as they watched the unbelievable sight of their plane sinking into the sea. Most of them had grabbed their life preservers, but a few were still bleeding. The flight attendant was patching people up as best she could with her first aid kit. Shea could see Hailey, still unconscious, her head resting against her mother’s shoulder.

Chip was gesturing to him. “Shea! Let’s go! Dive in!”

“Where’s my Howard?” shrieked the woman who’d been seated next to him, breaking the strange silence of the crowd. She was one of the people without a life vest. Another of the passengers held her down in the raft, obviously trying to keep her from overturning the boat.

Shea called down to Chip. “The guy isn’t awake yet, but he’s still alive. I forgot to put his vest on him, so he’ll need your help.”

“I hear you,” Chips said, nodding, and sat down on the edge of the boat. He tipped himself over backwards into the water without upsetting the balance of the inflatable raft, and surfaced among the waves. “I’m ready when you are.”

Heaving the body around to the front of the opening, Shea hesitated. Would Chip be able to handle someone this big? He shook his head. There was no other choice. He took a deep breath and pushed Howard as hard as he could, out of the opening and away from the side of the airplane.

Howard landed in the open water with a huge splash. Chip was at his side in an instant, pulling the guy’s head above water and tucking his arm over Howard’s chest to tow him back to the boat. Shea watched as the passengers on the raft worked together to drag Howard and Chip both back onboard. “Shea, the pilots are still in there,” his grandmother yelled. “We couldn’t get the cockpit door to open.”

“I’ll check on it,” Shea assured her, turning away from the opening, but not before he heard another passenger protesting.

“He’s just a kid! He’ll drown if he doesn’t get out,” he heard some woman say to Martha. He couldn’t hear what Martha said in return, but hoped it was something plausible.

In reality, he wasn’t concerned about “going down with the ship,” because it would be just as easy for him to swim out of it from underwater as it was to jump out. Probably easier. The real problem in Shea’s mind was that the storm was the result of magick, and that he was the intended target. So all of this, the entire crash, was Shea’s fault.

And the mermen who caused the crash would be coming to find him.

But…if there was any chance to save that pilot who’d been able to level off the plane at the last minute… that guy was the real hero of the day.
If the plane hit the water nose-first, all of the passengers would’ve been toast. Including me and Gramma.

Shea yanked on the door to the cockpit. Locked. He banged his fist as hard as he could and yelled. “Hey! Anyone awake in there?” He pressed his ear to the door and heard faint groaning.

The plane tilted at an even sharper angle as Shea made his way carefully over to the opening. “Gramma,” he yelled over the wind. “The cockpit isn’t jammed, it’s locked but I can hear someone alive inside. Ask the stewardess if there’s a key.”

He saw Martha confer with the flight attendant, who was shaking her head. Martha yelled back to him. “Try the
transmutare
.”

For a minute, Shea thought she was saying something to him in Greek before he realized she meant his mermaid medallion. Kae had told him it had all kinds of magical abilities. Could it also unlock doors? He turned back to the cockpit to find out.

Wrapping one hand around the stone, he grasped the locked doorknob with his other hand. He had no idea what he was doing.
I’ve never used magick before!
What is she thinking?
Did Gramma hit her head in the crash?

Nothing was happening. Shea started to feel stupid, standing there as if he had all the time in the world when he knew he didn’t. The plane was now rocking at a forty-five degree angle and going down fast. He closed his eyes and squeezed harder on the stone, concentrated on the magick he could feel pulsing within.
Maybe if I tell it what I need, it will help me.
He tried to visualize an actual metal key being inserted into the lock and turning. He felt a jolt run through his body, from his medallion through to the doorknob, and heard a click. Could it be that simple? He opened his eyes and found he was suddenly able to turn the knob!

Arm muscles straining, he pushed open the cockpit door and saw the pilot and co-pilot slumped over the instrument console. A third crewmember sprawled on the floor with blood pooled under his head, crushed underneath a fallen panel where the metal hull had ripped. Swallowing back the bile that rose in his throat, Shea stepped gingerly past the dead man to check on the pilots.

When he pressed his hand to one pilot’s throat to check for a pulse, the man moaned. “Wake up,” Shea urged, quickly moving his hand to the man’s arm and giving it a slight shake. “We need to get you out of here.” The man groaned in response but didn’t move at all.

Shea glanced over at the other pilot, and saw that the man’s eyes were open but unfocused, staring straight over at his co-pilot but obviously seeing nothing. Blood dripped steadily from his nose and mouth. Shea felt the bile rising again and looked away quickly.
So much death
. He pressed his lips together and drew in a deep breath, refocusing on the one crewman left who still had a chance to get out of this alive.

The cockpit seatbelts were a little more complicated than the simple lap belts in the passenger cabin. Shea gently pushed the man’s torso into a sitting position with his back against the seat, and found the mechanism to unclasp the shoulder harness. Once unhooked, the pilot again slumped forward, but this time Shea caught him before he hit his head on the dashboard. After slipping a life vest over the man’s head, Shea hooked his arms under the guy’s shoulders and hoisting him up and out of the seat entirely.

He reached the door and saw that the cabin was flooded all the way to the opening in the side of the hull. Seawater poured in through the hole, filling the cabin at an even faster rate than before. There wasn’t much time before the last of the air pockets filled – and then the plane would sink like the hunk of twisted metal it truly was.

Shea steadied himself against the cockpit’s doorframe and assessed the situation. There was no way he could keep his balance on the angled floor while carrying the pilot and make it through the opening, all while the plane was steadily sinking. If he slipped or dropped the body, they would get tangled in the mess of debris now clogging the cabin. Getting stuck underwater for a while wouldn’t bother Shea, but the pilot could drown. Was he willing to take that chance with a man’s life?

He glanced back over the dead crewman’s body, at the hole in the side of the cockpit’s hull, his heart racing a mile a minute. Maybe a better idea would be to wait a few more minutes, and then swim out the hole in the front of the plane as the rest of it sank away from him down into the deep. If he positioned himself near enough to the hole, the pilot wouldn’t be underwater for long at all. The opening looked big enough, although the ripped metal had jagged edges. He would have to exercise extreme caution, but there was no stray luggage to tangle with in here. Not yet, at least.

The water reached the door to the cockpit. He made his decision and stepped around the dead guy on the floor, dragging the groaning pilot along with him. The plane tipped further backward again, the angle of the plane’s descent increasing, and Shea almost lost his balance. Keeping one arm wrapped around the pilot, he grabbed onto a metal bar bolted to what remained of the cockpit’s sidewall and watched as the water rose higher. By the time the water level reached Shea’s waist, the pilot was half-floating by his side. He pulled the ripcord on the inflatable life vest and watched it puff right up around the guy’s neck and chest. Shea placed his sneaker carefully on the edge of the hole, pulling the groaning man behind him as he stepped through into the open water. He hesitated for a second as he felt the metal hull snag on his jeans, but gave another kick and cleared the opening.

He tried to position his arm around the man in the same cross-chest carry he’d watched Chip use on Howard, but the life vest was in the way. Realizing that the vest itself would be enough to keep the pilot’s head above water, Shea grabbed onto a loop near the neck and towed him as he swam straight away from the plane. Behind him he could hear all sorts of strange sizzles and pops as saltwater seeped into the cockpit’s front electrical panels. He didn’t turn to look. He wanted to get as far from the plane as he could while he still had the chance.

Never having learned how to swim in human form, he pumped his legs together as if they were one tail, which wasn’t quite as effective with blue jeans instead of scales and fins. His clothing and sneakers were already soaked through, weighing him down and making every kick a huge effort. Using his one free arm to paddle, he strained to put distance between himself and the sinking airplane.

Loud popping noises sounded behind him as the plane made its final descent. Shea could feel the pull of the shattered hull trying to drag him and the unconscious man along with it to the bottom. He kicked as hard as he could, knowing the pilot’s life depended on him not succumbing to the vacuum suck created by the plane. Sweat beaded on his forehead from the effort, as he gritted his teeth and kicked with his legs.