Chapter Text
The Foxes were a ragged team of people gathered by a man with palms as coarse as the sand. They fought like mad dogs yet had the loyalty of wolves. They were zippy, snarky, and tougher than anyone gave the little crew credit for.
But most imminently, the Foxes were desperate.
“No,” Dan said. Her voice was hard as iron. “That’s preposterous. Do you know the chances of us finding it? We would waste the last of our resources on nothing.”
“Oh come on,” Seth said from across the circle they had set up in the main room. “What’s the harm in a little gambling? The payoff’ll be big for this little critter.”
“You’re only for it because it isn’t dangerous,” Allison said.
A few days past, Seth had nearly gotten his head bitten off by the Bigspotted Serpent they went after. His head just barely fit in its maw. Too bad the baby’s teeth hadn’t grown in yet.
“The ocean’s a mind-bogglingly big place, kid,” Wymack cut in. “The Aurum Lionfish could be good as gone in the depths.”
“There was a sighting!” Nicky said excitedly.
“Two days ago,” Dan said.
“Yeah but it’s probably like, super bright, right? Like luminescent!”
“It’s off-course.”
Nicky’s smile dampened until it sparkled again. “But…” he started. “All that money.”
With the 200,000 silver being offered, the Foxes would have enough money to finally patch up the ship. They’d be able to afford better food, better beds, and less scratchy outfits. Everyone looked up for a second in consideration.
Kevin scoffed. He was used to another ship’s luxuries. “This is a stupid and faulty path to riches. We’ll bet on the poor man's tax and pay our due before cashing out at this rate. We should follow the Treacher—”
“Shut up,” Aaron groaned. “We’re not birdshit. We’re Foxes.”
It was rare for Aaron to include himself as a Fox, seeing as most of the time he acted like a whiny teenager who didn’t want the other kids to know him and his siblings were related. His hate for Kevin’s devotion to the Treachery of Raven’s seemed to have overridden that act.
“I am a gamblin’ man,” Wymack said. “That don’t mean I’m stupid. When you play cards, you’ve got a hand.”
“What’s our hand?” Allison asked.
“We’re chasing a possibly bioluminescent fish across darkness and gambling our stomachs and our time,” Dan said. “I’d say we all have been dealt shitty cards.”
“Let’s use them,” Seth said.
“I don’t think you understand, Seth.”
“Then explain.”
Renee held up her hands like a peace offering. “You know how some people call the desert a big sandbox? The ocean isn’t big in that sense. The ocean is… incomprehensible. Caves, depths, sinkholes, magick instillations and natural magick can cause any number of spacial strangeness to happen and stray the pattern we thought we understood changes as brisk as the current.”
“That makes it even better,” Nicky said optimistically. “Who knows what could happen.”
“Thanks for the poetry. Renee, but we aren’t getting anywhere,” Aaron groaned.
Abby clapped her hands. “I think we should do it.” She looked at Andrew. “You haven’t said anything so far, what do you say?”
Andrew shrugged, he was a bit annoyed that he had been roped into this useless meeting and that he was now being made to give a useless opinion. “We do it or we don’t.”
“Very helpful.” Seth rolled his eyes. Andrew thought of viscerally shanking him.
Wymack looked over his Foxes. “We’ll go by numbers then. Whoever’s for it says ‘aye’!”
Allison, Seth, Nicky, Matt and surprisingly— Renee, all raised their hands.
Wymack looked at Renee. “Hold on, did you do a reading?”
She nodded hesitantly. “Yes.”
Wymack tilted his head. “And?”
“I can tell it to you in full later.”
That meant it wasn’t hopeful. Renee’s readings often spawned perplexing riddles. Sometimes they meant the opposite of how you interpreted them, sometimes they were ominous and other times simply they predicted the weather. Andrew would have to stick around to hear what in the reading motivated her to choose yes.
“We need a tiebreaker,” Wymack said to their ten crewmates.
“I can break it,” Andrew said. “If I can hear that riddle.”
Renee nodded, leaned close without touching, and spoke so quietly only he could hear:
“Move on a whim with toes light as tethers
When the moon is four fingers above the brine,
By descent to pinky, quarters waning,
Crimson gold to be sifted, shall you make it in time.”
Andrew thought about that for a moment. Crimson gold could mean money acquired through illegal, immoral, or disgusting means. It could also mean they would bleed trying to get it. It could mean they killed the Aurum Lionfish when trying to get it. Whether it was good or bad, Andrew was intrigued by the lengthy passage. Normally Renee ended up with a few words at most. This one even included time passages.
“Well?” Wymack asked.
Andrew looked up. “Aye, Cap’. We have to set off now.”
Renee nodded reassuringly. “He’s right.”
Andrew scaled the stairs and stacked his hands to count the hours until sunset. They had six hours until sunset, and if they set their course now, they would make it to the Aurum’s last spotted location in five and probably be down by the reef, searching soon.
One hour to find “crimson gold”, whatever the hell it was. Andrew could stay vigilant for an hour.
Renee was right about the unpredictable sea. By the time they had made it to the South Shore of the island, Andrew could only fit two fingers between the sun and the horizon. That meant they had around thirty minutes to search the reef.
Wymack, Abby, Aaron, Allison, and Kevin stayed on the boat while everyone else rolled out to shore. The Island of Ocatello didn’t even have a port. There was a small town at the center of the island and that was about it.
“Which way is Ocatello Reef?” Nicky asked Dan.
She frowned. “I’m uh.. Not actually sure.”
“West,” Renee said. “But we can check the town to be sure.”
“No.” Andrew held up two fingers. No Fox besides Dan and Renee seemed to understand the gesture.
As they walked partially through the forest on the island, swishing their way against overgrown paths, Andrew saw a few long-forgotten trails and two run-down shacks that could’ve been a hundred years old.
“What were they here for?” Matt wondered.
“Maybe it was Aurum’s,” Dan said.
Nicky chimed in. “I heard they used to be so plentiful, that you could look across the bay and the ocean would look gold.”
Renee hacked down more brush. Her eyes were wistful but Andrew could see the glint of venom on her sword. Despite who she used to be, she had since sacrificed things to nature and tried to amend. Andrew suspected that if Renee had started out with a better hand, she would have never needed to amend. It was her appreciation for the ocean's power and the life within it that had gotten her out of that place initially.
“I mean we aren’t really better, are we?” Seth said.
“Sure we pilfer and raid people, and go after sea creature bounties, but we go after dangerous sea creatures. And this Aurum is going to a reputable person,” Dan said. The way she sighed said she was thinking otherwise.
They made it to the West shore and saw the reef through crystal-clear waters. Everyone stripped off their shoes and socks, rolled up their pants, and readied their nets. Andrew joined with disinterest. When he could only fit one finger (his pinky) between the ocean and the ever-orangening sun, Andrew gave Renee a glance and walked off to the sand. He ignored Seth’s protests that they should all take a break together and that it was unfair.
“ Move on a whim with toes light as tethers.”
How light are tethers? Andrew wondered as he walked back to the shacks. His boots were heavy with water.
None pursued him, although Dan’s yell said he would be reprimanded later. He could deal with a few extra chores.
Andrew made it to the creaky old building and kicked the door down. The hinges went easily. Inside, everything was destroyed and dusty. All the wood had rotted. The only indication that anyone had been inside within 100 years was the faint outline of footprints in the dust on the ground. Maybe left by teens from Ocatello Village daring each other.
Like gruesome vinegar in Andrew’s nostrils, the smell of death overpowered the smell of rotting wood. He looked over abandoned weapon storage racks in search of a source. The size of some rusted spears told him this used to be a fishing port for medium-sized creatures. The fragments of enchanted stones on the floor near ropes were an indication that it was a mythical creature they were hunting. It could have been Capital-mandated safety hunting for Sirens or Rusalka.
He followed the footsteps. They stopped suddenly, the floor had a square outline that lacked dust. Interesting. Someone had a secret hiding place. Andrew felt for the outline with his fingernails and lifted it. There was a decrepit staircase.
He descended.
He found the source of the smell.
Corpses.
One man, on the ground by some covered crates, looked to have been shot. The other had been stabbed and was slumped against the wall. Both had rotting, white eyes and yellowed pale skin. The blood was browned by now and the smell was putrid. He suspected them of being a week old at the least. The room made it clear they had gone down in a messy scuffle.
There were several boxes, more grand weapons on the walls. Weathered maps with locations marked, probably tracking the thing they had been hunting, were still plastered up on some walls. Most were too worn to read properly.
A few covered crates were stacked up in the center of the room. Andrew counted five in total, one was larger than all the others and under the most of them. He removed the tarp and opened one crate. Inside were several burlap sacks, he untied one and opened the bag.
Scales. Bright, big, luminescent scales. Each was big enough to fit comfortably in his palm. After running a hand through them he grabbed one, went upstairs, and held the scale in offering to the paltry sunlight that streamed in through the broken roof. The scale, warm in his palm, burned like crimson fire, like a bloody sunset over the ocean.
Crimson Gold.
Andrew pocketed the scale for proof and headed back outside.
Dan looked up from atop a rock and crossed her arms. “About time! When we get back on board you’re on deck duty!”
Andrew pulled out the scale, which gleamed like a lighthouse light.
Dan squinted from where she was on the rocks. The other Foxes, even Seth, leaned in curiously.
“What is that?” Matt asked.
“Crimson gold,” Andrew tossed it to Renee. “Can you discern what kind of scale it is?”
Renee squinted and shook her head. “I have no clue, but it looks valuable. I’d bet it’s magic.”
“Where did you find it?” Dan asked.
Andrew guided them to the old building, giving them a brief description of the dead to prepare them for walking in. Nicky still threw up the instant he saw the gutted man against the wall.
“Ugh.” Seth plugged his nose. “The smell.”
They looked through the other boxes. The other three had no more scales, but various collections of treasure in them. Money, supplies, some food made for long-term storage, and an old book on mermaid history. The Foxes enlivened upon seeing the silver and gold coins.
Nicky wiped his mouth with a smile. “We won the jackpot.”
“Can’t wait to see the look on Captain’s face,” Seth smirked and ran his fingers over a scale. “How much do you figure it’s worth?”
Dan answered. “If it’s from a serpent, it’ll be worth half its weight in silver.”
Seth whistled.
While they were chatting away, Andrew opened the fourth box and slid the burlap down to reveal a glass within cloth padding. Inside sloshed a viscous red liquid. His stomach churned a bit as he watched the thick texture of the dehydrated blood shift in the jar. It glistened unnaturally. Now there was something crimson.
Seth and Renee were searching the corpses while Matt and Dan searched the room. None of them had noticed the jar of blood.
Dan reached out for the parchment and stopped just before touching it. “What do you suppose they were tracking so many years ago? Maybe hoards of ponaturi?”
Nicky walked up behind Andrew, “Wha—” he made a disgusted noise. “Is that blood? I’m gonna be sick again.”
Renee looked at where Andrew was watching the blood. “If they kept blood from something it was probably magical. I might be able to use my magick to find what creature it came from on the ship.”
Andrew nodded and covered the jar up again, closing the crate's lid. He and Matt worked to remove the boxes atop the largest box, which lay oblong on the floor. It looked to be about 2 x 3 x 8 feet or smaller.
He paused with one hand on it as Renee made a curious noise. She was looking at a book she had taken from the stabbed one.
“Oh Great Sea, I beg you; do Grace me with your strength,” She said. That wasn’t good. Renee only quoted verses when something really got to her.
“Read it,” Andrew said.
Renee looked up and took a steadying breath.
“Fuck’s sake,” Seth groaned. “Just read it.”
She gracefully ignored him. “It’s...directions along with a few journal entries.” The Foxes’ face’s contorted in horror and confusion as Renee started reading. ‘Specimen has started scratching its arms. Rodge suspects it’s an instinctual stress response and suggested we make its tank larger or start feeding it. Considering the specimen's strength has not diminished despite the lack of food and the scales come off easier, both requests have been denied. We will tie the specimen’s hands to prevent it from losing more of the precious recourse. Rodge is starting to get on my nerves with his suggestions.’”
“What the fuck?” Dan said. “Does it say what the ‘specimen’ was?”
Renee frowned and flipped through more pages. The more she read, the harder her fingers tightened on the cover. She started muttering verses under her breath. “It… a siren maybe? But sirens don’t have precious blood and they aren’t…” She squinted, “Over ten feet long. Not to mention siren scales only come in shades of white and they’re small and smooth.”
“No humanoid sea creature is ten feet long,” Dan said.
“Except mermaids,” Renee said.
Silence throughout the room. Andrew eyed the box.
“There are no more of those,” Matt said. “No one’s seen any in—”
“Like a hundred fucking years!” Seth said. “Just like fucking unicorns, they’re dead. All of them because humanity sucks ass.”
At least Andrew could agree with him on that last part. According to sailors’ stories, it was Gill Cutter’s Enterprises. Their fishing trade specialized in mermaids. They found every last one, all for some precious quality that varied by story. Some said mermaid’s blood would add years to your lifespan. Others said it could heal any ailment. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter to Andrew. They were all dead. Just like the unicorns, whose horns had a similar ability.
Most didn’t believe humans had killed them all. Not when less than 5% of the ocean had been explored. The more likely explanation was that the creatures had learned how to vanish. They knew humans meant death and the lesson was ingrained after practical genocide.
Andrew put his hands on the lid. “Matt, help me open this.”
With queasy eyes, Matt put his hands on the lid. “On three.”
“No just fucking open it.”
They did.
Inside, the entire crate was filled with a glass tank. Several latches closed the top, the water was a murky grey and the outside of the box was covered in dark algae and moss. Through a few patches, grey-red scales could be seen pressed up against the box.
“Whatever it was, it's dead,” Matt said.
Renee nodded. “Let’s bring it to the ocean so it can die properly.”
Seth squinted. “Why?”
“We’re already taking it’s scales and blood. It deserves this much respect.”
With a lot of bumps against elbows and stepping on feet, they were able to haul the bog box up the stairs and carry it to the ocean. Once they made it deep enough that the ocean waves covered the top by a few feet, Andrew unlatched the case, ready for the corpse of a premature serpent to float out lifelessly.
What met his eyes instead, made them widen ever-so-slightly from their unyielding mask.
“Holy fucking shit,” Dan whispered in unbelief.
There was a human shape, deathly pale, of a creature with long brown curly hair obscuring its face. There were tied-up hands peeking up through the algae. The patches of dead moss that floated above the water obscured Andrew’s view of its chest, but he could see the dead red color of faded scales from a tail that started low and curled up tight all around the walls of the tank.
It wasn’t a siren. It wasn’t a naiad. It was something a thousand times more impossible.
It was a mermaid.
And it was dead.
“We.. it’s— get back,” Renee said as her face slowly fell and her words increased in urgency. “Back! We need to get BACK!” She grabbed Seth’s shirt and pulled him when he didn’t move. The rest of the Foxes obeyed without question, they seemed to want to get away and be sick somewhere else.
“What!?” Seth complained. “It’s pretty fucking obviously dead.”
“You can’t be near a mermaid corpse,” she said. “Curses. They release curses upon their death like toxins in the air. We need to get away.”
“That’s a fucking mermaid,” Matt gaped. “That’s…” His joy dimmed when he realized how dead it was. “Shit. That was a fucking mermaid. ”
“How was it—” Nicky started in disbelief. “Do their corpses not decompose or something?”
“I don’t know,” Renee admitted as she ushered everyone to shore.
“Alright, calm down everyone,” Dan said. “Let’s gather the crew and load the scales.”
They started off toward the shack, looking back a few times to check if the dead would move. They saw nothing but the reef glowing in the night.
Andrew wondered what was in the book Renee had read. He remembered the hands being tied, the scratches, the filth of the tank, the blood, the way its body wrapped so, so tightly inside that tank. He cursed his imagination as he wondered what it had been like to die in such a condition. Arms tied, unable to do anything. Collar around its neck.
“Andrew, come on,” Renee called.
When he didn’t move, she continued. “Don’t. You've lived too long to die by a curse.”
From where he stood, legs in the water, Andrew walked back to the casket. Renee called after him but didn’t dare to hold him back. When Nicky ran over to try and stop Andrew, Renee put an arm out to stop him.
“Hold your breath!” Renee called.
Andrew held his breath. He walked over to the corpse and pulled out a knife. Under the water, Andrew laid a hand against the rope and cut the binds. The cut pieces floated up in the water. He couldn’t do much about the collar or the tangled stuckness, even though it was repugnant to know the mermaid wouldn’t— couldn’t even go to rest free of its restaurants. Andrew took one look at the face, knowing it might kill him.
His heart stopped when the eyes drifted open.
Neither moved. The mermaid was still frozen. Lifeless.
Dead blue.
He convinced himself it was a muscle reaction caused by the salt and backed away.
“Andrew!” Dan called. “If you get us cursed I’m making you jump overboard!”
When he was far enough that his feet were once again on sand, Andrew turned his back to the shore.
He didn’t know how long it had been.
The cramped tank. The hunger. The scale and blood harvesting. It was unbearable. It was unbearable because of how much it hurt. Because of how much it was. He couldn’t even make a sound. Somehow, after all that pain, it was the onslaught of dreaded nothing that broke him.
He learned to be petty, learned that if he scratched his arms they couldn’t. Then they tied his arms up. And it was black and all he could do was listen as two captors yelled, a gunshot sounded and everything was silent and still. The humans killed each other where no one would ever find them.
Where no one would ever find him.
He couldn’t keep track of time after that. It was mind-numbing. Black. He went nearly mad. The water would all evaporate eventually, he knew that. He daydreamed. He daydreamed about what would kill him first: A lack of oxygen as all the algae died, the cramping, a blood clot, or starvation.
He had turned his head toward what he thought was the sky and there was nothing. He didn’t know if it was up. He just stared, forcing himself to go into hibernation mode despite the frozen pain in his muscles and the emptiness burning up his stomach that screamed “You can’t sleep! You haven’t eaten enough!” .
Who cared? He would die either way.
His dreams started violent. Then they were simply painful. Unpleasant. Soft and agonizingly slow. Inescapable. Soon, even his dreams lost their spirit. Until a series of painful jolts wracked his dream body. Aching light. The cuts on his arms stung slightly.
He wasn’t sure whether he opened his eyes or not, but gentle as the waves of the sea, there was an oddly, ethereally, blank face before the expanse of stars.
An angel, halo made of moonglow, blocked the aching light.
When he woke up, all he had left was the impression of that face, fleeting as a dream. He blinked a few times, wondering if he was dead. The water around him was different—
Fresh.
Cautiously, he started untangling himself. Stretching was the most painful experience of his life and his entire life had itself been a painful experience. Despite the pain, waves of relief washed over him as the ache he had been feeling for days subsided.
Under his hands, he felt the sand. He flexed his fingers and combed them through it. Rejuvenation washed through his bones. The reef was beautiful. Luscious colors overwhelmed him in their texture and their everything. He was free, Praise be Poseidon, he was fucking free.
Finally, he could breathe. He swam like flying for the first time in forever. The water flowed to his very damaged soul. He ate every slimy, slithering thing within sight. The way the collar made swallowing more difficult could be addressed later.
The fish and crustaceans would have been able to outrun him faster, but his desperation made up for his horribly aching and weak muscles. He sampled a grouper, savoring the sweetness, and ate numerous snappers. The slightly nutty flavor that he remembered as being “okay” was heavenly on his tongue. A lobster was next to go. He shelled it easily with sharp teeth that ached from the lack of use.
When he was done with the wonderful feast, he rushed to where the seafloor dropped and scraped his scales against a rock. Instant relief. The murky filth scraped off easily until his scales were bright again. For a human, it must’ve been the equivalent of taking a shower after being stuck in a sewer for months.
Once he was clean, he found the sharpest shell he could and cut off the tangled mess of his heavy hair. That was better. Light and short. He combed through it with his nails and cleaned the green glossiness off until the texture was right where it should be. Full of softness and volume despite the press of the sea.
He felt better. Much, much better, and swam endless indulgent patterns on the seafloor. Staying hidden. The night sky sparkled above him. By the phase of the moon, Neil could tell it had been a week in that dead room and maybe a month in that cramped tank.
Darkness passed above him, blotting out the moonlight. His heart skipped one full beat and he hid in the densest cluster of kelp.
Everything in him screamed at him to run.
His mother’s voice roared above it all. In the language of mermaids, she screamed a horrifying shriek that made his brain shake.
Go. Go.
It was running that had gotten him here. It was her paranoia that ended up getting her killed.
Thinking about it now, the mermaid realized that staying put was the safest option. He knew where North was, but he didn’t know what locations humans frequented. There could be areas enchanted by the remnants of mermaid fishers. There could be anti-siren charms that got caught in his head and made him swim in endless circles.
For once, the safest thing to do was not listen.
That was what he tried to convince himself as he watched the boat.
When they revealed what was in the crates, the crew’s faces were priceless.
Wymack stared at the glistening scales, which even in moonlight, shone like sunstone and fire opal. “Report?”
“You’re not going to believe this,” Dan said. “Andrew went to investigate one of the abandoned buildings, there were two dead men and a few boxes with supplies, one box with scales. One has blood.”
“Blood?” Abby looked concerned.
“In a jar it was collected from… well… I’ll let Renee tell you.”
Renee held up her notebook. “They had a mermaid.”
Kevin’s gaping mouth somehow opened further. Wymack’s eyebrows lifted higher and Abby tilted her head in disbelief. Aaron was the only one who didn’t have a surprised reaction.
“Bullshit,” Aaron said.
Wymack didn’t seem to fully believe it either, he searched the Fox’ expressions for the answer to an obvious question he had. After a breath, he said, “So you found an extinct creature and scales worth a fortune, why do y’all look seasick.”
Dan’s initial rush from surprising the Captain dropped as she remembered the body, so tight it was practically mangled, in the dirty glass tank. Her stomach felt like someone had just dropped a cannonball in it.
“The mermaid wasn’t alive,” Renee said. “We set it’s body out in the ocean.”
Wymack blinked. “This was unanimous?”
“No it was not,” Seth said.
Renee handed him the book. “It was the least it deserved.”
Wymack’s weathered eyes crinkled and he took the book. By the time Wymack had skimmed a few pages in, he had to shut the book and rub his face with his hands.
“From what I can gather they were affiliated with the Gokudo,” Renee said.
Kevin shivered. “We have to put everything back. They’re with the Treachery. They’ll find out we took their things and—”
“Shut up,” Andrew said. “They would have gotten it.”
Renee elaborated for him. “The corpses looked around a week old. Don’t you think they would have sent someone to retrieve it if they knew where it was? From what I was able to read, the two men betrayed the Gokudo and stole the mermaid to get rich. Rodge wanted them to be more lenient and the other man who wrote the diary—Proust—was greedy. They ended up killing each other.”
“Well maybe we should’ve been greedy,” Seth said. “We could have stuffed our noses with cloth and skinned it. Or closed the glass case and brought it back.”
“Why didn’t you?” Wymack asked. The details of Seth’s words hit him a second later. “What, did it smell that bad?”
“A curse,” Renee said. “Mermaids release aerial curses upon their death. The worse their life, the worse the repercussions that are relayed onto humans. Andrew may or may not have caught the curse.”
Wymack looked at Andrew. “Got a deathwish?”
Andrew shrugged. “I wanted another look. I was simply enamored, Cap’.”
Wymack and Dan were both too smart to let that explanation slide. After the crew was dismissed and told to set sail for the nearest city where they could find some bidders, she stayed back with Renee, Abby, and Wymack.
“He cut the ties they put on it’s arms,” Renee said quietly. “You read the page, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Wymack said gruffly.
After a tense silence, Renee kept talking. “I can use my magick to determine the authenticity of the scales and the blood.”
“Get to it.”
Now that it was just the doctor, the captain, and the first mate, Wymack let his stronger face fall away.
“May I see the journal?” Abby asked.
“Keep a bucket nearby,” Wymack told her as he handed it over. He was aware that Abby wasn’t soft. She was against killing, yeah, but she was all too happy to show them how to knock out a human nonlethally. Her real soft spot was marine life. It would break her heart to read about the terrible things that happened to that poor creature.
Dan said, “If it were me, Captain, I’d let you sell my scales.”
He huffed a weak laugh. “It ain’t you. Nonetheless, I appreciate it.”
They celebrated by busting out the beef preserves. Abby made the most delicious beef stew. Dan looked down at the stew, glad it didn’t have any scales. She took another swig of beer and thanked Matt when he offered her some of the good stuff from the back of the storage room.
Wymack eyed Matt. “That bad, huh?”
“Let me tell ya’ Captain,” Matt said. He added an egregious amount of alcohol to the pot of beef stew. Allison drunkenly cheered her approval. “We opened the case in the water and no bang! It was just… silence. Looking at a dead mermaid. Pale as a ghost, but not like he was supposed to be pale. It was all cramped up in that little box. Tail longer than its body.” He took another swig.
Nicky winced. “It was... pretty. In kinda sad way”
Renee ate her non-alcoholic stew slowly. She hummed in agreement.
“Worth it,” Seth smiled grossly. “Who cares if it’s dead we got those scales and that..blood, right?”
“‘Who cares if it’s dead?’” Kevin said mockingly. “A fuckton of people, actually. Me included. Do you have any idea the ramifications of finding a mermaid in this fucking century? About a hundred and fifty three years ago Gill Cutter’s started their corporation after finding out the magic capabilities of mermaid’s blood and scales. On par with those of other immortal creatures it—”
“Shut up!” Aaron snapped. “As you can see. We are largely uninterested.”
Abby leaned forward. “I’m a little interested.”
Seth didn’t roll his eyes, but he did lean in a little circle, almost like he was thinking about rolling his eyes.
Kevin held up a finger and continued. “It’s said that a pint of their blood adds a month onto a man’s lifespan, and that their scales can heal anything if prepared properly. I doubt it’s that extreme, but whatever they could do, it was profitable. The first scientist to find out tried to hide this only for the head of a certain fishing company to catch on. His name was Nathan Wesninsky. He formed a new trade entirely for mermaids. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had people up in the skies catching wyverns and people on land searching for unicorns, too. The man was obsessed with immortality.”
By this point, Aaron and the rest of the Foxes were drunk enough that they just crowded around the stew and listened. Some were laying on wood and others on blankets.
“Tall tales,” Aaron said sleepily.
“Every tale looks tall to you,” Seth said. He barely caught the empty bowl Aaron threw at him.
“What happened next?” Dan asked.
“Well,” he said. “The trading companies all followed suit, although none of them were as efficient as Gill Cutter’s. The trade routes became tainted with blood. Dirty business. Finally the Capital of the Equata Isles caught wind of it. Cut a deal with the Wesninsky’s so they would have a monopoly over the business.”
“They threatened them,” Wymack said. “Bloody hands under the palms of half the officials in the Capital. Hulls covered in filth.” Wymack’s eyebrows furrowed. His irises darkened. The look was gone as soon as it had appeared. Washed away when Wymack took a long drink.
“Bed time, kiddo’s,” he said.
Andrew glared.
“Fuck you,” Allison slurred. “Can’ tell me what’a do.”
Renee stood, carrying Allison by her waist. “Goodnight Captain.”
Seth stood up. “See you sleepy shits.”
The rest of the Foxes grumbled “goodnight”’s and “fuck you”’s. Renee helped Allison back to her cabin.
“Night, Captain,” Dan said.
Wymack’s fire-lit face watched her. “Night.”
“Nathaniel. How do you like the name?”
Never did he respond to the name. Even as the water was cleared of oxygen and he was roped down and held by many sailor hands. Not even as the one with the gleaming smile tried to get a gag around his head. He wouldn’t allow that name to be his.
Now, he thought maybe it would be better to give himself a name that had nothing of “Nathan” left of it. He settled on “Neil”. His mother always told him not to have a name, that they were strictly identifying things. He would give himself away if he had any identity, but all her advice had amounted to nothing when he was caught.
Now that he wasn’t starving, he could think. Somehow he had been set in the ocean, without being skinned or bled out, like how the cruelest of the humans had always promised he would die. That didn’t align with any of the behavior that he knew humans would have.
The only hint he had was a face. Blond hair and an apathetic expression.
No matter how much he ran over the actions in his mind they made no sense. The conclusion he inevitably came to was that the blond-haired human had found him, taken his case out to the sea, and cut his arms free.
But why?
He shook the question off.
The urge to run burned in his gut, traveling all the way down his vertebrae to the tip of his tail fins. He didn’t run. He knew which way was North and he knew there wasn’t anyone to find there.
He knew each and every face that had slaughtered the last of his kind. The men who hurt him would be looking. They’d find the scales soon enough. Then his blood, then they would be able to track him.
He ventured down into the wonderful deep.
He noticed some whales talking of humans and golden fish. As he approached they gave him an odd look. They told him they hadn’t seen one of him, only heard what their parents had told him. They asked him about his red scales. They asked him about the others.
Conversation was just what he needed right now. He opened his mouth to speak his first language. Then he remembered the collar around his neck.
“There’s no way to tell if it’s part siren. I want that on at all times. We won’t let this thing get the upper hand. A shame we can’t hear it scream. I wonder how incredible the sound would be.”
The whale’s asked him if he was ill.
He was without his voice, but Neil wanted to tell them he was fine. It was a human word.
They politely swam away.
Neil tried to ignore the way his lack of voice pressed at his chest. Before, in the tank— both the small one and the bigger one— he had no want to make noise. He preferred the silence of himself, where he could deny the cruelest of the humans the satisfaction of a sound wrought out of pain, whether it was by choice or not. Now it felt like he was missing a piece of freedom.
He didn’t have to get it off. He could swim to the deepest part of the ocean. Even with his blood, they could never get him out from the deepest trenches. No spell was strong enough to reach that low. He would trade one confinement for another. Spend his entire life on the run.
As Neil ran his hands over everything on the seafloor, he put a hand to the collar and thought of the blond human. Neil peeked up at the darkness and noticed the tiniest orange light originating from the human ship.
The stars rippled above him. If he went up to the human ship now, he wouldn’t be seen under the dense atmosphere of a pitch-black sea. Swimming up felt like swimming against the current, it felt like rubbing a hand the wrong way over his scales, but Neil swam to spite the alarm bells in his head. It was running that had got him caught, he had learned the hard way that being cold and calculated was smarter.
Or at least, that was what he told himself as he defied his mother’s words and swam near the surface. Not near enough to be seen, just near enough to watch the orange light bob and a blond head of hair exhale smoke.
This human helped him. Neil was beyond trusting anyone— least of all a human at this point— but just maybe there was some way to get his voice back.
As per usual, Andrew found himself climbing down the ladder and drifting his feet in the ocean while lighting his tobacco sticks. No one bothered him here. Staring down into the depths, he almost felt like the ocean could disappear and he could fall, fall, fall. The thought twisted a tiny piece of his gut.
When he saw a flash of burgundy glimmering in the deep, his gut twisted significantly more. Serpents don’t come in reds that distinct. No sea creature would come in a red color that set off every alarm bell and prevented camouflage.
Unless it was so strong that camouflage became unneeded.
He decided he was hallucinating, still thinking of the dead mermaid he had seen, and he finished his cigarette and climbed back up the ladder.
“Andrew?” Renee asked. “Are you experiencing any…thing?”
There was no reason to lie to Renee. “I saw red scales.”
Renee frowned. “That is… not good.”
“You don’t know what the mermaid’s curse does,” he simply stated.
“You’re right. Honestly I mostly know of tales and old legends. No one really knows anything about mermaids. I even asked Kevin but all he knew about was vague history book stuff.”
“Mytho-historians know,” Andrew said. “Or the fanatics obsessed with mermaids. Tell Cap’ we should look for one at the next city.”
She was his superior, but Renee nodded. “We’re heading for Barbatos next. They are especially well known for their interest in aquatic life. They’ve even got an aquarium and a museum.”
He was too tired to respond, but Renee understood.
Andrew laid in bed wondering about curses. He wondered if he would die in a boring way too, or if his death would finally spark some interest.
“Captain!” Nicky called. “There’s a ship approaching starboard!”
Andrew looked off the starboard beam and stopped dead on seeing the small ship in the distance.
He thought he could see a dark denim blue.
Now he was beginning to think he was cursed.
“They’re raising the white flag!”
Dan had brought Captain on deck. “They what?!”
“The white flag!” Nicky called.
Wymack pulled out his looking glass and squinted. “No shit.”
“Suppose we better reciprocate, Captain.”
“Alright Wilds, order our men to use a shirt or something.”
They didn’t have a white flag, but they did have a white sheet that they tied to the rope and raised. They watched as the ship approached. The dark blue and red flag was unmistakable to Andrew’s eyes.
He was cursed. There was no other way The Shiver could have found them so soon after he laid that mermaid to rest.
He mentally thought up a string of curses for the vile creature. This is what happened when he tried to do something good for once. Whether it was a curse or simply confirmation bias, this always fucking happened.
“It’s The Shiver,” Dan said. “A marine ship. I’m talking the people the Capital sends to take care of dirty work.”
The Shiver lowered three boats into the water. Four men on each. Twelve men total. More than the Fox Fleet could send.
“Bastards,” Wymack growled. “Andrew, Dan, Matt, Aaron, think you could take on two of ‘em? I’ll be down with ya.”
“Not Aaron,” Andrew said. “I could take on four.”
“I could take on six,” Allison said, hand around her pistol.
“Alright. Dan, Andrew, Allison and Matt it is. Off we are.”
Andrew drummed his fingers on his leg as they rowed to meet the three boats. He knew who was on that ship, so he set his expectations low, as to not get crushed. What was worse than Drake? Two Drakes, maybe. So Andrew forced his mind to think that he would be met with dual Drakes.
When he looked up, he only saw one.
But the smile all yet made up for it.
They were ‘The Shiver’ for a reason. Named after a group of sharks, their crew—the Sharks— were known for their unbound cruelty that used the law as an excuse to brutalize. Perfect for Drake Spear.
Their Captain looked rusty as a knife. He wore the same sharp smile Drake did.
“Hello, ye’ old salt,” the old man said.
“Jackson,” Wymack grunted. “Lookin’ a little salty yourself.” He nodded to Jackson’s peppered beard.
Jackson laughed. “We’re here on official business. As official as blood can get. See we’ve lost a rather important shipment right where your ship was sailing from. When we got there, we didn’t find what we needed. Now I was Hopin’,” He shuffled in his seat so his shirt moved and showed off his badly-hidden gun holster, “That you and your mates could be out with it. You’re ought to have something worth more than all ‘yer souls combined.”
Andrew mentally filed away what Jackson said. It could get sorted later.
“You know the rules of the sea,” Wymack said. “What’s free loot is free lootin’.”
“Doesn’t go for things that are alive.”
“Nothing we found was alive.”
Jackson’s face mangled into a disgusted and rageous expression. “M’possible! Drake here knows. He’s seen that demon.”
Drake shook his head. “Not sure if even the demon could survive that crinkly bastard.” He looked… disappointed?
Revulsion biled up in Andrew’s empty gut. He thought of killing Drake right then, but Wymack would probably stop him concerning their position on the boat.
“Hm,” Jackson growled. “Where’s it’s carcass?”
“We set it in the ocean,” Dan said.
For the first time, Jackson’s eyes lit with pure shock. His salted beard fell as his mouth dropped open. “You what!?” He said. His accent grew thicker as his anger reached him. “You ‘ar telling me that you had a dead’ned magical creatchure, and you DIDN’T THINK TO KEEP IT!” He was practically spitting salt in Wymack’s face now.
Wymack didn’t back down. “That’s right.”
“You have NO CLUE what you’ve lost!” He rasped, then coughed a bit. “You’ve ought to give compensation. Find it or give us one of your crew members.”
“I know where it is,” Andrew said.
Drake looked at him. He had been focused on the conversation before, but not he was entirely attentive to Andrew.
“It’s on Ocatello,” Andrew said evenly. The thought of Drake’s ship in flames kept him form drawing a weapon just yet.
“Why don’t you guide us?” Drake asked with a smile.
“Fine,” Wymack growled. “We’ll travel back and dock on the shore.”
They rowed away. Drake’s eyes bore into Andrew’s back.
“Explain,” Jackson growled. “Now.”
The box was empty.
“Something bigger came along and took it, someone from Ocatello Village noticed it, it floated away at high tide,” Dan offered. “There are a lot of things that could have happened.”
Jackson looked crestfallen. Andrew wondered just what exactly they would do to him if he returned without anything. He huffed an astonished and crunchy laugh. “Then who’ll it be?”
“Let’s check the ones on ship,” Drake said. “I’ve an idea of who.”
Andrew hand went to his hidden knife sheath.
Wymack stepped forward, hand on his holster. Before he could stay anything Andrew rushed in front of him. “I’ll go,” he said.
“No you will absolutely not,” Wymack said.
Andrew fixed him with a look. He lifted one eyebrow a fraction of an inch, as if to say “You really think I’d let myself stay on their crew? The lot of them’ll be dead by sundown.”
Wymack growled. “I oughtta confer with my crew.”
They formed a circle and stepped away where the Shark’s couldn’t hear them.
“They’re Sharks Captain,” Andrew said. “They’re stacked with unnecessary ammo. I can have their barrels of gunpowder lit and used against them by tomorrow.”
Allison nodded. “We keep the scales and destroy the bastards’ ship.”
Wymack ran a hand down his face. “You’re sure?”
“I am, Captain,” Andrew said.
“I’m rowing you over.”
“Me two,” Dan said.
“Me three,” Allison said.
“Me four,” Matt said.
“Sorry but only two of us can fit,” Wymack said. “Allison, keep watch with your goldeneye. If you see my signal, shoot.” He turned to Jackson and hollered, “We’re ready!”
Wymack and Andrew sat in the dinghy with Jackson and Drake. Wymack looked between the two, he was too perceptive for his own good. “You said you’d known of it,” Wymack said to Drake.
Drake smiled with his teeth and sighed. “Guess it doesn't matter now it’s dead. Yeah, I was stationed where they had the demon for a while. You wouldn’t believe seeing that thing when it was alive… man. A pity. A real pity it’s gone.”
Wymack stayed quiet.
“It was so fucking cool. You wouldn’t believe the fucked biology of that thing. Had an attitude I think. Although it’s about as smart as a fucking goldfish.”
“The biology?” Wymack prompted.
Drake gave a nasty smile. “Haven’t you ever wondered about how...y’know.. How a mermaid would…” He shrugged a shoulder. “Mr. Wes wouldn’t let me poke around though.”
Andrew’s hands tightened on the edge of the dinghy as if he could snap it in half and cover his hand with bloody splinters. He wouldn’t mind, and Drake couldn’t mind if Drake was dead.
Wymack leveled Drake with a look that managed not to be entirely disgusted. Drake missed the look in favor of staring at Andrew.
Drake looked at Andrew with shark’s eyes. “Can’t wait to show you the ship.”
Wymack narrowed his eyes.
Andrew wasn’t a liar. He could have the ship up in flames by tomorrow even if they cuffed him and put him inas cell. He knew how to get out of the cell, though. He knew how to convince Drake to let him out. It would stop him from ever touching Aaron.
Wymack’s hands were steady at his sides. Too steady. Jackson was looking right at Wymack’s eyes, searching for the instant the man decided to pull his gun.
“You should’ve seen the way they bled it,” Drake said. “Had me convinced the damn things could feel.”
“You hunted a species to extinction,” Wymack said. “Nothin’ to be proud of.”
Drake’s eyes crinkled with his smile. “Oh, but I am proud. That one didn’t listen to nothing for no one. It stayed alive somehow. It really was something… haven’t you ever wondered the capacity something has to bleed?”
Wymack gave Drake a leveled look. “No,” he drawled. He hid his revulsion well.
Drake smiled like Wymack had laughed along with him. “He called it Nathaniel, how cute is that?” He turned to Andrew. “Say, you’re Andrew, right? How are you on nicknames? I think ‘AJ’ would be good.”
He said it as if he hadn’t already called Andrew that. As if he would actually stop doing it when Andrew told him “no”. The little act he was putting on would dissipate as soon as Andrew was alone surrounded by bloodthirsty sharks.
Andrew thought up a string of sailor’s cusses that he would yell to the sea in the mermaid’s name.
So this was a curse.
Neil was trying to find a way to get the collar off. He attempted to use two spindly fishbones to affect the mechanism of the lock. It was too difficult for numerous reasons. Maybe he would’ve had better luck if he had ever picked a lock before, if the lock wasn’t located on his neck, or if his hands didn’t have webbing—if he had human hands. Neil shivered at the hypothetical notion. He hated human hands after what they’d done to him.
He dropped the fish bones when he noticed another ship approaching. Neil hadn’t thought blue could come in ugly shades. This ship proved him wrong with it’s dark hull.
Neil hid himself by his instincts, even his crimson couldn’t shine through the ingrained skill of camouflage. Briefly, he had seen that ugly combination of blue and red on a sailor uniform before. He remembered the man with the nasty eyes.
“Say, how do you suppose a mermaid’s biology works, Mr. Wes? I think it would be worth researching. No? Well alright then… Another proposal, I don’t think it’s ever been burned, something new ought to be more effective.”
That one always pulled his scales off the wrong way. He purposefully twisted them so it would be painful. He seemed to have a knack for using things that burned against Neil. Neil remembered the way the heated metal bubbled in the water, upping the temperature until he felt like a lobster over a lava plume.
Neil ran a hand over his smooth and unblemished scales now. The power of magic was incredible. They had all healed. The scars on his skin stayed. He knew which burns were left by that particular human.
It only took a few moments of waiting before numerous boats met in the center between the larger boats. There were too many than Neil wanted to risk. He watched as the human’s conferred something, then the boats went back and the larger boats began sailing. They met at the island. As close as he dared go, Neil peeked from behind some red sea whip in the reef. He used his predator’s eyes to focus on the blond human and the cruel human— Drake. Neil remembered. That one’s name was Drake and he was particularly nasty.
He swallowed back his strongest instincts to run as three boats rowed off in the water. Drake got in a boat with two older humans. Peculiarly, the blond one got in with them.
Drake’s metal pins gleamed. Neil could practically smell the nasty human’s uniquely rotten scent from where he was. That smile was unmistakable even from so far away, it wasn’t directed at Neil this time. It was directed at the blond.
The urge to run dissipated.
Neil’s eyes narrowed into slits. He wasn’t red to be cowardly. His red was a warning, enlightened with enraged flames. There was a reason mermaid’s had claws not wings, fangs not legs, scales not feathers. Sure they were fast, but they were fast in a powerful way that sent tremors through the ocean and clanged scales against swords.
He swam toward the tiny boat, which now seemed puny compared to him.
Something bumped against the boat.
Drake welded the oar.
Red and burning light swirled under them in the water.
Goosebumps shot up Andrew’s arms as he watched it move and descend in leisurely patterns in the dark water.
“Sea snake?” Jackson’s voice was laced with steady fear. He readied his gun. “Men, steady! Oars out of the water!”
Wymack and Jackson were the only two armed. The men in the boats alongside the Captain’s scrambled to sit in the center.
“It’ll leave us alone,” Wymack said. “Don’t shoot, Jackson.”
Drake, being the spineless halfwit he was, jabbed the oar at the water.
It was yanked out of his hands and he fell back on the boat.
“The hell Drake!” Jackson yelled. Wymack covered the man’s mouth with his hand. Only a moment later did Jackson's eyes widen as he realized the oar had indeed been yanked.
“That’s not a sea snake,” Wymack muttered.
Everyone within earshot looked at him.
A random sailor nearby blanched. “Then what?” he whispered across the current. It was almost funny to see a fierce Shark devolved to such a pitiful state.
The red disappeared completely.
Andrew held his breath.
Then, off the side of the boat nearest to Drake, something surfaced. The water splashed.
Drake scooted back as far away as he could get from it.
Auburn red hair was the first thing Andrew saw, in loose waves that managed to curl as if they were dry. The hair curled around ‘ears’ with odd webbing. A sharp jaw gave way to a slim neck with unusual slits and shoulders that had peppered scales climbing up over their smooth and muscled shape. There was a face, a human face with red lips. It had icy eyes textured in every most ethereal shade of arctic and ocean blue, with flecks that appeared violently magenta, and rainbow patterns reflecting off it’s irises.
It was impossibly beautiful.
Jackson was speechless. His mouth stuttered silent syllables.
“Mother of God,” Wymack whispered.
Drake barely recovered. He laughed weakly when he realized what he was looking at. “Miss me that much?”
It swam closer, chilling blue eyes tracking every movement Drake made. The pupils oddly oval-shaped. Andrew had seen a diamond before, it felt underwhelming compared to the crystal clarity of those azure eyes.
Jackson reached for his gun.
Drake held out a hand to Jackson. “I got this.”
It’s face disappeared behind the boat until two webbed and clawed hands grasped the edge, and it pulled itself up until Andrew could see it’s full face. It was so close. So unreal. He knew that face. Less than two days ago he saw it dead, obscured, and not nearly as vivid as it was now.
“Did you remember who your owner is?” Drake said.
The mermaid folded it’s arms over the edge of the boat and leaned down against them. It’s ear fins lowered like a cat’s. It blinked in a curious way, with full, bright eyelashes.
Very slowly, Wymack moved between it and Andrew on some unknown instinct. Andrew had to push Wymack’s arm back for a better look.
Drake moved closer. “No— seriously?” His disgusting smile was aghast. He started to laugh as he got closer. He had a look about him like “You’re fucking kidding me!” Without Wymack in the way, Andrew would already have lodged a blade in Drake’s throat.
With one hand, Drake reached out. “I can get the collar off if you’ll follow me.”
The merman descended a bit lower in the water.
“No no! No more hurting I promise.” He leaned not a foot away from it. “I swear.”
Liar, Andrew thought.
The merman reached out a clawed hand, gently almost, and wrapped it’s fingers in his hair. Even from afar Andrew was able to see it’s pupils dilate into vantablack circles.
Drake’s eyes widened and he leaned in.
If Andrew had blinked, he would’ve missed it.
It’s eyes narrowed into slits, it’s claws lengthened, pearly white fangs were wrapped around Drake’s throat white and red in a bloody mix. Drake was hoisted off the boat with an impossible strength. He grabbed on to the edge and they fell into the thrashing ocean as the boat was upturned.
Andrew’s nose was filled with the salt of the ocean. His eyes stung while he opened them only to see red. Flaming red and rose red with the sun shining off it. Blood red streaks filled the water.
He surfaced, grabbed the capsized boat, and coughed up his lungs. Crewmates were screaming as their boats crashed into the water. Some scrambled up and tried to climb aboard the slippery small hulls. Over the boat, Andrew saw a giant tail snap up from the water and slam into a boat, breaking it in half.
Andrew took a breath and pushed himself back into the water. All the Sharks, with their red and deep blue uniforms, were being eviscerated by a violent flash of red and white that snaked through the water fast as a whip. Andrew saw Wymack, who was struggling to tell up from down in the blood. He grabbed onto Wymack by his white undershirt and swam up to the dark outline of the boat.
Through the falling bodies of drowning sailors, Andrew saw the slitted pupils of ice blue. The eyes tracked him like a blue lantern in the depths.
Andrew desperately swam up in all his heavy clothes. The cotton Wymack was wearing had absorbed so much liquid it felt like carrying a giant sandbag. Wymack was swimming along with him, but both their feet were weighed down by boots like iron weights.
They were starting to sink.
Andrew had to close his eyes as his eyes and his throat stung. A current of bloody seawater rushed past him and he squinted only to see two enraged ice blue eyes.
A bubbled choked past Wymack’s mouth. Andrew held the gaze. He didn’t so much as kick up to the surface. His body screamed.
The merman curled and descended, leaving it’s tail fin— a giant array of wide red like billowing cloth— in its wake. Wymack’s shoulder bumped Andrew’s and suddenly something was hauling him up by the back of his shirt.
Fast as a cannonball, he shot to the surface and was up on the back of the boat.
Andrew’s lungs screamed as he hacked up sour salt water.
When Wymack had regained his breath, he looked over at Andrew. He didn’t appear ready to speak, but simply stared with a mix of horror and a silent message: “What in God’s name just happened?”
Neil bumped his shoulder against the boat. He tried to conceal his long tail but they must have seen it swirling loops in the water.
He heard a man’s voice over the veil of the ocean. The nearby boats took their wooden paddles out of the water. More voices clamored. People talking in low tones.
Someone jabbed the end of a wooden stick at him. Neil grabbed it and yanked it in the water.
The humans yelled.
Then; silence.
Neil descended. He watched from his hiding place directly under the center boat. Drake must’ve been near the front portside. That’s who he had taken the oar form.
Steadying his heart, he surfaced alongside the boat.
The man’s eyes met his and the man climbed back, struggling to put as much space as possible between himself and Neil. Neil kept his stare fixated on Drake, cold enough to freeze him.
“Mother of God,” one of the men said.
“Dea—” The man laughed weakly. “Miss me that much?”
Cautiously, Neil swam closer. He tried to keep his murderous intentions hidden.
One of the men reached for a weapon.
“I got this,” Drake said.
Neil moved closer still until he could grasp the edge of their dinghy. He scraped the wood under his claws.
When he pulled himself up, he noticed the blond human in his peripheral vision.
“Did you remember who your owner is?” Nasty words said by a nasty person.
Look pretty, Neil thought, channeling his siren side. He folded his arms over the edge of the boat and laid down against them, lowering his ears to appear less aggressive and more approachable. He blinked slowly at Drake, making sure his full eyelashes fluttered to conceal the spell in his eyes.
Drake looked astonished. “No— seriously?” He started to laugh in a sickening way. He seemed to be in disbelief that a mermaid would listen to him so obediently.
With one hand, Drake reached out. He was breathing fast. “I can get the collar off if you’ll follow me.”
Neil shied away from his hand.
“No no! No more hurting I promise,” Drake lied. “I swear.”
As gently as he could manage, Neil reached up and wrapped one hand around the hair behind the Drake’s ear, a laced spell on his fingertips.
He watched the man’s eyes widen as he leaned in.
And lunged.
His teeth met the bared neck first. With a swish of his tail he pulled the man underneath the water and ripped out his vibrating vocals. The taste of iron blood invigorated his rage. He remembered night after night, burnt, cut, bled and scratching his own arms. He wanted to scream with all his diaphragm, but he couldn’t because of the collar on his neck. Being unable to use his voice felt almost like choking.
He was a maelstrom of boiling rage. Neil went after everything marked red. He ripped ugly blue uniforms to shreds. He remembered hands holding him down. He remembered Drake taking his scales when they weren't ready to shed and he crushed bones between his teeth. The humans’ screams were muffled underwater. Their throats releasing bubbles as they sank with broken legs.
He swirled up whirlpools and snapped currents. The red of his scales glowed with rage. Silver flashed in his vision as a human’s sword managed to cut him across the side and another stab ripped up his sensitive tail fin. The attacks only enraged him further.
With all the boats capsized and all the red uniforms torn, he felt more beast than he had in years. He took a few breaths to calm himself and ran a hand over the cut on his side to make sure it hadn’t cut through gills.
The mermaid looked across the carnage. Dark bodies floating in bloodied waters. Through it all, he saw a dark yellow-gold. He swam under the sinking figures and watched. He was small, but broad and was trying to haul up the other one by his shirt. They were both struggling.
Neil swam up and met the human eye-to-eye. The calm, measured gaze that he remembered from his dream cooled his rage. The human didn’t so much as look afraid of death in Neil’s presence.
Neil swam down and curled behind the bigger man. He grabbed both of them by the backs of their clothes and determinedly pulled them to the surface, depositing both on the upturned ship. Their choking mouth’s sputtered up seawater. He didn’t stick around to see how they would fare in the unsteady ocean.
His blood trailed behind his tail like an extension of his fins as he slithered away.
Only after the adrenaline started to wear off did Neil realize how much pain he was in. His tail fin was torn in a debilitating way. It would regenerate with the same magical prowess as his scales, but until then, he couldn’t swim properly. The pain in his bloody side was bearable, but now that he was under the ocean, the wound could end up infected.
Neil carefully swam to the shore and tried to remember which medicinal plants he needed. He hadn’t had a chance to use his repertoire of herbal knowledge in some time. His side stung all the while as he dug for a certain root.
He shouldn’t be this weak. He should’ve been able to move too fast for a single one of those swords to touch him. He should have been able to tear each and everyone of those boats in half.
As it was, Neil still wreaked devastation. He plucked a piece of flesh from his teeth. It was nice knowing three of his least favorite humans were dead.
Using some nearby rocks, Neil ground a paste from what he had collected and rubbed it into his side. It stung but it would prevent infection. Now all he needed was a specific type of magic coral ‘mushroom’. Neil peeked up at the over side of the sea cliff he was under. He didn’t want to be near the shore again with all that blood, but if he found the Blue Allievant, recovery would be much faster.
He pulled himself from behind the seaweed and slithered through the deepest part of the reef. It wasn’t long before Neil smelled the blood from his early outrage washing ashore. Their bodies were becoming fish food. Just as deserved.
He scurried over and under coral formations and smelled the minty tinge of a Blue Allievant. Once his nose caught the scent of it, finding the coral mushrooms was inevitable. Neil saw the electric blue and broke off one end of it.
What had his mother said so many times? You either eat it whole, cook it, or grind it, or cook it and grind it. Neil couldn’t remember which. Maybe that’s what a week cooped up in your own nothingness did to memory.
A week entangled. But much longer in the slightly larger box.
He shivered with disgust in himself. In the world for existing like this. His arms burned where he had scratched them. He wanted to cry out if only to make a sound but he couldn’t.
Deciding came to a matter of preference. Without giving much thought to it, he ate the coral. It was crunchy and not very good, but there were bits in the center that were oddly soft and tasted hydrating. Neil felt a little tingle of electricity jolt through his nerves. He swam in a zig-zag of energy and his tail twitched with pain.
He gasped in watery breaths through his gills as black specks peppered his vision. He needed somewhere to rest.
There was a series of interconnected tunnels and tide pools off the Northeast side of the island. Neil felt averse to staying after he had been around this accursed island so long, but the way his body throbbed said it wasn’t optional. When he had gotten to a comfortable pool with soft sand and undulating surfgrass, Neil curled up to rest.
“My God,” Dan said. Her and Renee had rowed over. Andrew and Wymack were treading water while holding onto an upside down boat. The bodies of the Sharks’ crew were floating up from bloodied water. “What the fuck happened?”
“We need to go,” Wymack said in a torn voice. “Don’t know when it’ll come back.”
“When what will come back?”
“We need to go.”
Renee helped Dan pull Wymack and Andrew on the boat, where they dripped with all the added water weight. Behind their backs the crew of The Shiver seemed like they didn’t know what to do. Wymack gruffly stated they would explain it was a serpent attack later.
They climbed back up on The Fox Fleet.
“Thank God.” Abby rushed forwards to hug Wymack. “We just saw a bunch of red waves and bodies in the water and we didn’t know what happened.”
Wymack hugged her back.
“It was,” he started to say. He sucked in a breath. “You aren’t gonna believe this.”
Renee looked at him.
“A mermaid,” Andrew said anticlimactically. He couldn’t tell if the Foxes’ dumbfounded reactions were more annoying or amusing. Considering he had almost died, they leaned toward annoying.
Dan looked at him like he was insane. Which he surely must have been, because they both saw the dead corpse of a mermaid a few days prior.
Aaron scowled as Andrew.
Abby’s eyes widened. “What?”
“The one we found!?” Nicky looked ecstatic.
Matt was practically jumping out of his boots. “No.”
Andrew nodded. “Yes.” To be honest, he wasn’t sure if he could fully believe it either. That and Drake was dead. His vocal chords had been ripped out. Andrew would’ve preferred to do it himself but that death had been so gruesome he was satiated.
“How is that possible?” Abby said.
“I guess they’re more resilient than we thought,” Renee said.
“So there’s a mermaid. Out there. Alive.” Seth said.
Kevin made a low and amazed noise. “And it killed the Sharks?”
“Yes,” Andrew said. He thought back to those terrifying lantern eyes under the water. “It ‘saved’ us.” The word “saved” didn’t seem right to use here. Maybe it just didn’t see them worth killing. It was an animal, after all. And judging by the shredded remains Andrew had seen of Drake’s corpse, it was vicious. That creature had ire to rival Andrew’s own, which was on par with the molten heat of the Earth’s core. Maybe it even had more, or at the least, could unleash its fury in a much more grand manner.
Wymack’s head swiveled to Andrew. “It what?”
“I didn’t pull you up, Captain. I was sinking.”
Wymack’s face contorted in confusion as he tried to make sense of that. The others had similar reactions.
“Wait, so what did it do?” Dan asked.
“We were sinking,” Wymack said with dawning realization. “It was killing all the Sharks and then I felt a tug at my back. Suddenly we were above the water.”
“The real question is why didn’t it kill you two?” Kevin said. He busted out a notebook from seemingly nowhere and dipped a quill in ink to write. “So you're sinking, mermaid comes. Eats, eviscerates, etcetera. Instead of killing you, it pulls you up. Theories?”
Seth groaned. “Are we really doing this?”
Kevin was jotting some notes down. Oh god, he was making this into a thing. Andrew was begrudgingly curious, but he really didn’t want to be part of Kevin’s research squadron right now. He was tempted to follow after Aaron who was walking away, but Seth was looking more irritated than normal, and Kevin wasn’t about to back down now that he thought they might make history. Most the Foxes gathered round to sit next to him where he was writing.
“Maybe they smelled different and it pulled them up to identify them,” Allison said. “Or it was injured and confused.”
Upon hearing Allison join in, Seth grinned. “It was saving them as a snack for later.”
“I think it’s the uniforms,” Nicky said. “The Shark’s uniforms have red.”
“It’s not a bull,” Seth said.
“No, maybe he’s onto something,” Dan said. “But... pulling them up?”
“Renee,” Kevin started. “How smart are mermaids?”
Renee shrugged. “The notes say they aren’t intelligent, but Proust is hardly a reliable source.” She shook her head. “Proust was…”
“One fucked up individual,” Abby said. Her cussing surprised everyone. It was like hearing your mother cuss for the first time. If Abby thought someone was fucked up, they were beyond fucked up.
“I think the red scent theory makes sense,” Kevin said. “It might have increased aggression because of the way Proust treated it. Or Maybe they’re normally like that. I bet they would have a good sense of smell though…” he trailed off annoyingly as he kept adding to his little notebook.
“I’m cutting the field day to a close,” Wymack said. “The last of the Sharks are rallying it seems. We ought to go deal with those Capital bastards and hurry up already to the next port.”
Kevin’s eyes went wide, but it was Matt who responded. “Captain, I think we should take this opportunity and search for the mermaid. If we could catch it we could make a fortune.”
Wymack raised an eyebrow. “I’m not too keen on the idea when we just watched the bloody bastard eviscerate ten men. If it ain't long gone by now, how the hell are we gonna catch that demon?”
“Captain,” Aaron said, sounding somehow dejected, like he had lost a bet with himself. “You might want to see this.”
Wymack stretched his neck and followed Aaron to the stern. Andrew, Kevin and a few others followed. Aaron pointed near the shore.
Wymack squinted. “You better have a better reason to bring me over here than ‘the water looks pretty in the sun’.”
Normally, Aaron would answer that with a bored face and not grace it with a response. They were not in normal circumstances, however. “Croutch a little, Captain, and look off the side of those rocks over there.”
Wymack obeyed, smartly holding back any height comments, and his eyes widened a bit. Andrew pushed Aaron aside to get a look at the strong red hue gleaming on the water. Dan was next, moving beside Wymack to see the glimmering ruby red, like a pomegranate seed.
“Captain,” Dan said. “Do we have a tank?”