The Vast and Brutal Sea: A Vicious Deep novel (The Vicious Deep) (16 page)

Marty laughs. “Just a regular Friday night.”

We march down Surf Avenue past stores covered in graffiti tags and groups of people who wouldn’t evacuate if you told them a meteor was headed straight at their homes. They sit under the glass bus stops, drinking booze out of paper bags. When we pass by, they stare, blinking and rubbing their eyes, wondering if we’re real or if they’re just real drunk.

Frederik and Marty live in the old Childs Building. It’s been a restaurant and a roller rink, and now it’s boarded up and covered in graffiti.

Waiting outside is a group of the landlocked and the Thorne Hill Alliance.

One of them is Penny, a hardworking mother who’s believed in me from the beginning. Her arms reach out into the rain, and she lets her hands shift back and forth between human fingers and tentacles. Each one of the landlocked is different. Some were banished because of something their parents did. Others because they made bad choices. There’s a guy with eyes the size of baseballs and a tiny fish mouth. His tank top says Hurricane Gym. Another guy the size of a sumo wrestler, with acid green skin, paces the boardwalk with his eyes trained on the waves.

Someone whistles at me. Up above is Rachel, the demigoddess, sitting on the roof, her crossbow fully loaded. She’s flanked by men and women with black retracted wings that make me think of flying Vikings. Howls ring along the deserted beach, a reminder that it’s the night of the full moon and they’re restless, but they’re still here.

When I was little, my dad said I was good at picking up strays because I always brought home a lost dog or a kitten. One time it was a pigeon with a broken wing. Another time, a rat with its tail bitten off. My mom didn’t like that one. But we took care of them.

I’m going to take care of my army of strays.

Penny shakes my hand. “I’m glad you’re back. The beach has been quiet, minus a handful of stragglers.”

“Good. We have work to do.”

When Penny notices Shelly, she gasps. Penny gets on her knees and takes Shelly’s hand.

Shelly pats her hands gently, but I can tell she doesn’t like the attention. “There’s no need for that, child.”

Shelly points a finger at me. “I hope when this is over, I don’t see you for a long time. You hear me? Central Park north of Sixty-sixth Street is off limits.”

I scoff. “You can’t do that. Can you?”

Frederik and Marty shrug and nod.

“Shelly.” I kneel down to her. She gives me her cheek, but I’m used to her being cranky. “This is the reason you’re changing, isn’t it? Because your sister was killed in the Springs of Aurora.”

She doesn’t have any quips for me because she knows I’m right.

“I used to envy my sisters and their sight. Now…” Shelly’s black eyes concentrate on the space between my eyes. For a moment, she’s not there. Worry lines crease her forehead, and I’m afraid of what she’s seeing. I reach out, touch her hand, and she jumps. Then her sweet, motherly smile is back. “We’re not supposed to pick sides.”

I kiss her cheek. “But I’m your favorite, I know.”

“We’d best get inside. It’s getting too dark.” She pushes me away. “Draw an unbroken line of salt around the building. Not a skinny sprinkling over your shoulder. I mean a visible line. When the barrier is up, you’ll feel it.”

“Where am I supposed to get that kind of salt?”

“You’re the champion. Figure it out.”

Marty pushes up the gate to let Shelly in. She whispers an ancient language so quickly that it’s like someone hit the Fast Forward button on her.

“How are you supposed to put down salt if the ground is wet?” Kai asks.

“It stopped raining,” I say. Then it hits me. One of the great things about being a merman who’s survived New York City blizzards. “The salt they use to melt snow. It’s the same thing as table salt. It just doesn’t clump up.”

Marty wiggles his baseball cap. “I know where we can get some. Come with me.”

•••

Marty, Ewin, and I carry sacks of salt over our shoulders. Marty has a key to every building on the boardwalk. We got into the Cyclone stadium and traded the bags for an IOU favor to a vampire maintenance worker.

“Is it clockwise,” Marty says, cutting off a corner of his bag, “or counterclockwise?”

“She didn’t say.”

Ewin takes a crystal from the bag and pops it on his tongue like candy.

“That’s not—” Edible. If he can bust through enchanted doors, he can eat chemically processed road salt.

“I’d go with clockwise,” Ewin says, “just to keep a natural flow. Make sure you’re inside the circle as you draw it, or you’ll have to do it again.”

“How do you know all this?” Marty asks.

Ewin shrugs. “My ex-girlfriend is a Wiccan.”

Then a car flashes its hazard lights and jumps the curb. Ewin reaches out a hand and places it on the hood of the car. The tires squeak, and the engine cuts off. “State your name and purpose.”

The side gate opens and Frederik is a flash beside the passenger door. “That’s dinner.”

“Not me, right, Fred?” the short delivery guy says. “Just the pizza, right, Fred?”

Frederik shoves an envelope into the delivery guy’s hand. The guy tries to help carry the pizza in, but the vampire holds up his hand in a “stay” motion.

“Hey, Fred, when are you going to let me into the Alliance?” The delivery guy pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I’ve got skills, man. I’m real handy in a tight spot. What are you planning, huh? An evil force about to take over the city? You’re not wearing that, are you? Superheroes need spandex and a big symbol.”

“We’ll talk,” Frederik says with a pained smile. The guy drives away and Frederik mutters, “Soon as you stop calling me Fred.”

“Can you guys go inside?” I shout.

I take this moment of being alone to look up at the gray overcast sky. Thick clouds hang so low it looks like they’re eating the tops off buildings. Mermaids don’t believe in heaven, so what’s the point of looking up and giving a shout out to my grandfather? “I won’t fail you.”

I said the same words to Isi in the Vale of Tears, but this time it’s different. I can only promise to try as hard as I can and hope my words find him.

I feel a hot twinge between my shoulder blades and blame it on all the beatings I’ve taken. Six bags of salt later, I’ve drawn a thick line around our perimeter. I run to the empty second floor, along the white balcony banister, until I find the empty room where Shelly could be. She floats over the tiled floor as if she’s moving underwater.

“Shelly?”

I inch closer. Her black eyes are dilated toward the ceiling, and her lips move rapidly in the language of the gods—that’s what oracles speak.

“I wouldn’t interrupt,” Frederik says.

I jump and put my hand on my heart. “Don’t do that.”

“We have a problem.”

I rub the pain in my skull. “What is it?”

Below, my cousin Brendan is trying to push back a merman who’s pointing a finger at Amada. She gets ready to crouch on her hind legs, but when she sees me, she resists the urge to change. The merman punches Brendan, who stumbles into Penny’s outstretched tentacles. Kai has her hands up, yelling at them to stop, but dozens of punches fly. Glass shatters and walls are punched to dust. I fear we may kill each other before our enemies have a chance.

What was I expecting?

That the landlocked, the Alliance, and the Sea Court would get along famously? That they would see that we are in this together? That if we start fighting over things that happened hundreds of years ago, we don’t stand a chance?

That all it would take would be me to bring them together? And if I can’t pull together this army, how will I pull together a kingdom?

I run downstairs, narrowly avoiding a blow to the face. I snatch the golden conch from a guard’s neck and blow.

They turn, one by one. I blow the conch again, the hollow noise vibrating against the walls.

“What is going on?” I stand at the center of the room.

Brendan wipes a cut on his lip and brushes his red hair out of his face. He and Amada stand behind me.

Dylan has a white-haired merman by the arms, pulling him away from Jim, one of the landlocked. Jim is shaking so hard that the light protruding from his forehead blinks like a strobe light. Penny puts an arm on his shoulder and begs him to calm down. He points at his attacker. “Stay away from me.”

I have new sympathy for my coach after all the times my boys and I started fights with other swim teams.

“Is this why we’re here?” I ask them. “To rip each other to shreds? Because you really should save some for Nieve and her merrows.”

They erupt in wordless chatter. Their voices are so loud that they sound like a swarm of mutant wasps.

I bang the Scepter of Earth on the cement floor. The sharp sound makes some of the merpeople cringe. “
Enough!
”

I can sense that everyone is ready to grab their weapons, and I know that, for better or worse, I have to end this.

“This is not conducive to defeating the sea witch,” I say. “Toliss is overrun. The Glass Castle is destroyed. We have to band together or there won’t be a Sea Court to save.”

“So it’s true?” Penny asks. “The Glass Castle is gone?”

I nod my head. “Kurt and I blew it up with an entire merrow army inside it.”

“Kurt?” Penny raises her eyebrows, eyes shifting to Thalia. “Where—?”

“He’s gone,” I say to Thalia. “He didn’t say where, but wherever he is, we know that he’s with Lucine.”

Thalia nods silently.

“Nieve wants to rule,” I say, standing between the people of land and sea and those in between. “She’s terrorized you out of your homes. She’s taken hold of the island. She has her magic and her army of merrows. But she doesn’t have this.” I hold up my scepter. “I won’t let her.”

“Then tell us.” The white-haired merman loosens himself from Dylan’s hold. “Tell us how you plan on stopping the most powerful mermaid of our lifetime.”

I don’t answer them. Come on, Shelly, I think.

Nieve thinks she knows me. She’ll assume I’ll go straight for Layla. It kills me inside, but I have to go to the nautilus maid first.

“I don’t suppose the prince knows,” says a shrewd-looking, slender mermaid with scalloped braids piled atop her head. “I suppose he’ll send us out as bait to give him time to rescue that girl. We don’t stand a chance.”

“Wait a minute,” I say defensively. “I never said that.”

“Don’t talk to him like that,” Penny says.

The scarlet-scaled mermaid points a finger in Penny’s direction. “Who are you to talk to the prince, you banished scum?”

“That’s unnecessary,” I tell her.

“Taking their side, are you?” shouts another mermaid. She’s shaking and has a bright red gash on her arm. “They said you’d be fonder of the banished than of the true folk.”

“I am true,” Penny says, but her courage is failing her. It’s those years of secret meetings in abandoned subway rooms, led by a man who wanted nothing more than to exploit them. Use them. Always reminding them that they were of the sea but could not be part of it.

“Penny fought side by side with me right on this shore,” I say. “Can any of you say the same?”

Some cross their arms, refusing to look at me. Others look torn between what they’ve always been told and a future that is completely unknown.

“Most of you have known me for the blink of an eye.” I point to both sides of the room. “It’s a lot to ask for your trust, but know that you are not just bait to me. And if you can’t at least be civil with each other, then we’re all dead.”

The warehouse is silent for a long time. Everyone trades suspicious glances until finally my friends decide to lead by example. Dylan walks up to me and bows his head, then nods to the Alliance and landlocked behind me. He takes Penny’s hand and shakes it. His men follow suit, bowing at me on the way to take arms with strangers.

I have a knot in my stomach, waiting for swords to fly, but it doesn’t happen. Finally there are a few merpeople left, still on their side. They’re older, and under the fluorescent lights their skin is tinged with an algae-colored paleness.

“I’m not shaking hands with him,” the old merman says, pointing at Jim with the flashlight dangling from his forehead.

Jim turns his cheek to the old man but doesn’t respond. I suspect he’s had a lifetime of those kinds of comments.

But the old man persists, walking toward him with an accusatory finger pointed at him. “His father was there the first time around with Nieve. He and his kind should have stayed buried in their caves.”

Jim, who I’ve never seen smile before, bares a hideous set of teeth. His jaw unhinges and elongates further than his upper lip.

The old man draws his sword.

And then so does everyone else.

I bang my scepter on the ground again. “Get. Back.”

The old man looks like he wants nothing more than to drive that blade into the closest body he can find. So I stand between him and Jim.

“If you won’t consider the things I’ve said, then the best thing for you to do is leave.”

Some of the mermaids gasp.

“Do you know who I am, boy?” the old merman says.

“No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

“I am Sulas, son of Tulastian.” He puffs up his chest the way I’ve seen those red-breasted birds do. “I fought alongside your grandfather. What did that mongrel do but come from a long line of banished folk? What did these beasts ever do, other than hide in the shadows of the dry land?”

I get up close to Sulas, son of Tulastian, and he doesn’t pull his sword away. The tip pricks my skin. Brendan and Marty step forward, but I hold my hand up and they stop advancing.

“I’m only going to say this one more time. If you won’t consider the things I’ve said, you can leave. I will not force anyone who doesn’t want to be here to fight with me. I don’t have time for titles or lordships. We’re not in Toliss. We’re in Brooklyn. I want people who are true and willing to fight for the future, not the past.”

It isn’t the thing he wants to hear from me.

It isn’t the thing many of them want to hear from me.

So, Sulas, son of Tulastian, sheathes his sword. He smiles at me and says, “Then you will die at the hands of the silver mermaid, Land Prince,” and walks out into the Coney Island night.

The chill air comes in, along with the stink of rotting flesh polluting the water. The building shakes. A light pulses through the air, the walls, and my skin, right down to my chest. The headache that’s been pounding in my head is gone, and I feel weightless.

Then my remaining army of strays gasps in awe at the light coming from the second floor. It’s Shelly, floating, her black hair thick and long and moving as if underwater. She descends over us, landing right in the middle of the room. Hands reach out to touch her, just to make sure she’s real.

Her eyes trained on me, Shelly says, “Don’t ever say I don’t come through on my promises, Tristan Hart. It will only last until morning, I’m afraid.”

“That’s fine,” I say, “because tomorrow, we fight.”