Promises (Book One of The Syrenka Series) (18 page)

“
You said that two leaders
have been killed. Who were they?” Jeremiah asked.

“
One was from a Washington
clan, Master Harrison. And the other…”

“
Was my uncle,” Carissa
interrupted. “Ren Kiyomizu. He was killed in his mountain home in
the Catskills two weeks ago. It was ruled a natural death, but
there were signs that water sprites had been involved.”

Jeremiah’s eyebrows arched higher than
I would have thought possible. “Water sprites, huh?” He rubbed his
chin in a way that made me think he had once maintained a beard.
“You are Carissa Nakamo?” She nodded her head and smiled slightly.
“I have seen your work. Very impressive. We should talk more about
your future.” Kain cleared his throat to remind Jeremiah that there
were more pressing issues right now. “Yes cousin, later. I know.”
He turned to look directly at me. “Tell me about the
attack.”

Considering that I hadn’t spoken more
than a few words since we arrived, I looked at Kain to see what he
thought. He gave me a small and nearly invisible head bob
encouraging me to tell my story. So I spent the next few minutes
telling Jeremiah and the servants all about the attack on Brendan
and me and how that led up to our visit today.

“
They stole his skin?” a
deep voice from the far side of the room questioned. As one, we
turned to see the mysterious speaker and I was surprised to find
that the selkie from the corner stool had started moving closer
towards us.

“
Malcolm…” Jeremiah warned
and the man stopped dead in his tracks.

Kain looked at the merman, “Who is
he?”

“
He’s a selkie,” I replied,
never letting my eyes fall from the shifter. I felt Kain and
Carissa’s stare boring into my skin, but I could discuss this with
them another time. “Why would they take Brendan’s skin?” I
continued.

Malcolm shook his head and let his
gaze drop to the floor. “I-I don’t know. If the mermaid clans are
controlling selkies, I would think that they would have captured
your friend to use him in their army instead. But taking the skin
only means that they are ensuring he will have a slow and painful
death.” He shuddered with those words. “It’s just
cruel.”

“
Unless they are using it
as bait to bring you to them,” Jeremiah added.

“
What would they possibly
want with me? I have no power and no authority over
anyone.”

Jeremiah’s eyebrows lifted again with
that comment but he quickly continued with his thought. “But you
are the key to the Matthew and Dumahl Clans. If they can’t get
their hands on Kain or your mother, you would be the next best
thing.”

“
But I’ve been shunned! Our
clans would care less if something were to happen to
me.”

“
Well, obviously that isn’t
true, Eviana,” he said while acknowledging Kain and Carissa’s
presence. Was he right? Even though I’d received nothing but a cold
shoulder from Kain, he was jeopardizing a lot to come here and help
me. Carissa may have had a more personal reason, but she was still
risking banishment as well. “Malcolm, come!” Jeremiah demanded,
pulling me from my thoughts.

As though he lost all ability to think
for himself, Malcolm walked closer to the table and knelt down next
to Jeremiah’s legs. The merman began stroking Malcolm’s short hair
like one would pet a dog. “Tell me selkie, have you felt the
call?”

“
Yes,” he replied
robotically.

“
When?”

“
Almost every night,
master. It is not strong enough to obey, but it is
strong.”

“
Why is he calling you
master?” I asked, realizing that I was standing now to get a better
view of this display. I was also quite uncomfortable and didn’t
care that Kain was commanding me with his eyes to sit down and shut
up.

“
Because he is mine,”
Jeremiah replied as though the answer was obvious. “They all are.”
He looked around the room and I followed his head as each and every
servant stared back. “Do you not control your selkie?”

“
No!” I gasped. “Why would
I do that?”

“
Why not?” he asked in
return.

“
Because it’s wrong!
Besides, I can’t do that. I’m not a leader.”

Jeremiah’s wicked laugh echoed through
the atrium again. “A leader? You don’t have to be a leader to
control those that belong to us. Who told you such fairy tales?” I
didn’t answer. Brendan had told me about the stories of mermaids
controlling his kind. He was also the one who said that I couldn’t
do that to him now.

Malcolm was still sitting next to
Jeremiah looking up at the merman like a begging dog. It broke my
heart to see this happening in front of me. I would never do that
to Brendan; it just wasn’t fair. “Are you controlling the humans
too?” I asked in a whisper.

“
Of course,” he scoffed
like it was the most idiotic question ever asked. “Humans are the
easiest. We’ve been in control of their minds for thousands of
years. Don’t you recall your ancient Greek history? Poseidon and
Amphitrite? They were some of the first mermaids to interact with
the humans and shape their culture. ‘Gods of the Sea’ they used to
call us. Humans would sacrifice each other and their beloved
belongings to beg for calm seas and victories in battle. They are
so susceptible to superstitions and legends.” He laughed and shook
his head again. “It is actually quite sad to see how weak minded
they are. It really would be a better world if we were allowed to
practice The Legacy,” he said in a wistful tone.

“
Humans are not here to
serve us!” yelled Kain.

“
No?” Jeremiah snapped.
“Then why can I do this?” In an instant, every single human servant
stood and briskly walked over to the edge of the pool. As one, they
jumped in and disappeared underneath the surface. The stillness was
startling after the echoes of the splashes disappeared into the
walls. The music beat rhythmically in the background and we all sat
in stunned silence for nearly a full minute. None of the humans
came back up for a breath of air.

“
What are you doing?” Kain
asked in desperation.

“
Proving my point, cousin.
If humans weren’t around to serve us, I wouldn’t be able to enter
their mind and tell them to sit on the bottom of this pool until I
commanded differently. They will stay there until their lungs give
out and they take that last deadly gasping breath. And they will do
that simply because I told them to.”

“
Stop this!” I cried.
Carissa and I rushed over to the edge of the pool only to see about
twenty bodies sitting on the bottom of their deadly liquid crypt. A
few of them began to twitch and release bubbles from their mouths.
They were running out of air and Jeremiah was willing to let them
die to prove a point. “We get it okay? Humans are weak and feeble.
Now please release them!” I screamed at Jeremiah.

“
Not just yet,” he
murmured. More bodies began to jerk and shudder under the water.
Carissa reached down towards one particularly young female who was
directly below us, but before her hand got to the water’s surface,
another one reached up and grabbed her. She let out a scream as a
clawed liquid hand with long, bony fingers wrapped around her wrist
and held her arm in place.

“
What is that?” she cried
out. Shaking her arm back and forth, she tried to dislodge the
hand. When she lifted her hand up, an arm, shoulder and then head
appeared at the surface as though she had pulled this creature from
the depths of its lair. Its hand was large but the rest of the body
only seemed to be about three feet long. The water sprite smiled
and a mouth full of sharp, pointy teeth filled its malevolent grin.
He snapped at Carissa, causing her to scream again.

I heard several noises at the surface
of the water like dolphins breaking through for a quick breath, and
when I surveyed the pool, I saw at least a dozen water sprites
smiling back at us. Each one had an oval shaped head, long pointed
ears, and a sharp teeth peeking out from underneath their lips. But
they couldn’t distract me from the real horror. Every human under
the water was now struggling. A few of them had stopped moving and
I feared the worst.

“
Please…” I whispered
through the tears in my eyes.

As if on command, the water sprites
dove under the surface and began to toss the humans one by one up
on the side of the pool. Some of them hit the edge hard enough to
make a sickening crunch and I wondered if the sprites were causing
even more damage. Coughing and sputtering noises consumed the room
while the servants began to expel the water from their lungs and
breathe in the oxygen they so desperately needed.

“
What have you done?” Kain
gasped as he watched the water sprites play with shoes and pieces
of clothes that they had stolen from the helpless
humans.

“
Who them?” Jeremiah asked
innocently as he watched the faerie-like creatures play while he
continued to pet Malcolm who hadn’t moved from his position. “Why,
I own them too. I captured two of them in a bog several years ago
and they have bred like bunnies ever since. As you can see, I now
have a little family that continues to grow each year. In fact, we
are expecting a new arrival in a few weeks.”

“
This is why they shunned
you,” I guessed while helping Carissa to her feet. We walked over
to Kain who was standing on the opposite side of the table as
Jeremiah. We had overstayed our welcome and I could see that we
were all ready to go.

“
For this and other
things,” Jeremiah replied lightly. “As I said, what’s the point of
being a merman if we don’t use our gifts? You have them too, you
know.” He waved his hand at each of us. “All of you do. You should
try it. It’s addicting,” he hissed. My body ran cold and Carissa
grabbed my hand in hers.

“
Are you going to help us?”
Kain said stoically.

Jeremiah sighed and turned his
attention to the selkie at his feet. “Malcolm,” he started like
someone would speak to a child. “Do you know where they may have
taken the skin?”

Malcolm stirred and tilted his head
like he was trying to concentrate. “Maybe,” he whispered. “There
has been a rumor that a large group of selkies has been seen just
outside the city. Perhaps this is the army controlled by the
Sutherland leader?”

“
What city?” I
asked.

“
Malcolm, what city?”
Jeremiah repeated since he seemed to be the only one Malcolm could
listen to.

“
Baltimore.”

“
Thank you, shifter.”
Jeremiah pushed against the selkie to stand up and Malcolm fell
back against the floor. The action was so condescending that I
almost couldn’t stop myself from running over to Malcolm to see if
he was alright. But I held my ground for fear of making the
situation any worse for Jeremiah’s slaves. “If you would like the
assistance of my selkie, you may take him.”

I looked at Kain who seemed to be
contemplating the same scenarios. If we took him then he could get
away from here, but Jeremiah would probably only force him back and
punish him. Or worse, the Sutherland Clan may call to him and he
would be compelled to kill us. I looked over at Malcolm who was
staring intently at me. There was a special place in my heart for
selkies and this was breaking that home into pieces.

“
No thank you,” Kain
finally answered. He lifted his head and straightened his
shoulders. “We will see ourselves out.” Not only did we want to
walk out on our own free will, but all of his human servants were
still lying around the edge of the pool recovering from their near
drowning episode. We turned and began to move towards the arched
exit that would get us away from this place.

“
Don’t be strangers,”
Jeremiah called after us, making no attempt to stop our hasty
retreat. We had gathered the information we needed and Jeremiah
succeeded in scaring all of us with his sideshow acts. No one said
a word. Only the sound of our shoes clicking against the wood
floors echoed through the empty house. I kept feeling that
something was watching us around every doorway and behind us in the
hall, but I refused to turn around. I didn’t really want to know
what was there. I had seen enough horror for one day.

Fourteen

When we finally made it outside to the
front porch, Abhainn was waiting for us in his fountain. “What was
going on in there?” he asked in a thick accent. “I could feel the
pull of ma master ‘n it almost made me leave ma pond.”

“
Could you have done that?”
I asked.

“
I don’t know,” he said
while shaking his head. “It wouldn’t ‘ave been smart though. I
can’t survive very long away from ma water.” He floated on the
water’s surface as he followed our movement along the edge of the
fountain. “Why are ye leavin’ so soon? Did my master scare ye
away?”

“
Something like that,” I
grumbled. We had reached the car and Kain started it before
unlocking the doors.

“
Please take me with ye
mermaid. I can be of great assistance, ‘n this place is just not
right for me.” He had fallen to his knees at the edge of the
concrete border and was holding his hands together to emphasize his
pleading.