To Kill a God by C.S. Wilde
Chapter 15
“Mer?”Belinda’s voice echoed through the dark. “Are you okay?”
Mera blinked, waking to find herself floating amidst town. She remembered everything, though. The chase, the explosion, and most of all, the fact that she’d killed a siren using a power she didn’t quite understand.
Centering herself, she swam to a standing position. “I’m fine,” she assured, the worry in Belinda’s face not going amiss.
“We should take you to a hospital. That thing you did—”
“We can’t waste time. Azinor is out there and we have to stop him.” Her friend opened her mouth to speak, but Mera was faster. “Besides, I feel fine,” she lied.
The truth was, being hit by a train had to feel better than this, but Mera would be damned if she would let that stop her.
“You’ve always been a stubborn sturgeon, haven’t you?” Letting out a sigh through her gills, Belinda shook her head. “We should at least talk to the commissioner and the king about what you did. Maybe they can help.”
“They have enough on their plates. Did you get the enhancer?”
Her friend nodded, opening her palm to show a metallic pendant with an emerald in its middle. Relief washed through Mera.
“I reported to the commissioner everything that happened, except the whole,” Belinda waved her arms around, “lightning-underwater-that-kills-sirens thing.”
“Good. Let’s go, then. We need to find the asshole who escaped.”
“Mer, I won’t stop you, but I think you should at least go to a doctor.”
Arching a challenging brow, Mera crossed her arms. Belinda should know she wasn’t a delicate flower. “Noted. Now, let’s dash.”
They went on to interrogate Belinda’s informant network, trying to figure out Azinor’s angle—or where his lackey might be. They weren’t alone, of course. By the end of the day, almost the entire police force patrolled the streets, hunting for leads, but so far, they’d gotten nothing on their radars.
Body scanners had always controlled the flux of sirens passing through the tunnels, especially after Azinor began attacking the city a few months back, which meant that the two sirens had fabricated the bomb inside Atlantea.
If they’d built one bomb, they could build more. Also, who could have tipped them off about the location of the magic enhancer, if not someone from the Atlantean police force? Belinda hadn’t shared the location of the enhancer with any civilian, but an officer with clearance could’ve easily had access to it.
Suspicion festered in Mera’s chest while she observed the officers rushing around the precinct. Those walls had eyes, just like in the first case she’d worked with Bast. They had to thread carefully.
After an entire day of searching, Belinda let out a frustrated sigh. She scrolled through a blue screen that popped out of thin water, coming from her silver bracelet.
“It’s pointless,” she grumbled as she tapped closed the holo-display. “All we’ve got is the dickweed’s name: Victor Redtail, but he’s vanished. Probably left through the tunnels during the chaos after the bomb.”
Mera floated inches above the precinct’s floor, facing a large, glass wall. “You mean after I killed his accomplice,” she muttered, observing the rainbow city that glinted below the moon orb.
“You shouldn’t feel bad. You did what you had to do.”
“I don’t regret it.” She honestly didn’t. That criminal wanted the world to burn, just like Azinor. Deep down, Mera wished she’d killed Victor Redtail too, and if that made her as cruel as the queen, so be it. “Have you tried tracking Azinor’s lackeys before? Bring the fight to him?”
“Oh, we really did, but they always lost us one way or another. My guess is the greasy walrus set up a base in the trenches. All the drones we sent there came out empty handed.”
“Could he be using a cloaking device?”
Belinda shook her head. “The drones would have caught it.”
“How about cloaking magic?”
“They’re not designed to find that.” She raised her shoulders. “Doesn’t matter. Waterbreakers can’t do cloaking magic.”
Azinor could. Mera had seen it firsthand.
“Let’s bomb the trenches, then.” She nodded to herself. “Blow him into oblivion.”
Belinda’s eyes widened, and she stared at Mera as if she’d gone mad. “If we do, we might hit the lava pockets, not to mention the chasms. One wrong hit, and we could cause random eruptions and earthquakes for miles. Look, I want to catch the bastard as much as anyone else, but vaporizing Atlantea isn’t the way.”
She was right, of course.
“Then there’s one thing left to do.”
Her friend rolled her eyes. “No way. Look, you can help me hide the enhancer again. It will be a better use of your time.”
“She said she would tell me where he’s hiding if I came back. She’ll give me a location, Bel. She has to.”
“The queen is leading you on. Ariella Wavestorm is a master manipulator, and you should know better.”
She had a point. Deceit, hate, and violence were Mother’s specialties, but Mera didn’t have much of a choice. She was their only path to Azinor, and gods help her, Mera would make her talk.
Even if she had to kill the bitch for a third time.
* * *
The queen floatedin the middle of her cell, watching Mera with cunning green eyes. “Last time you looked at me that way, you jammed icicles through my body, then beheaded me.”
“It must have hurt.”
“Tremendously.”
“Fantastic.” Mera watched her own slender hand and the thin membranes between her fingers. “When did you know I had the same powers he does?”
“I didn’t, not until I was reborn. But you don’t have the same powers, child. You’re a different beast altogether.”
“Am I? I can shoot lightning like a warlock, only underwater. Does that mean I’m a siren-witch, like him?”
“In a way, and yet, not at all.” The queen didn’t break eye contact. “You’re his blood. It’s only natural that you inherited some of his abilities, as you did mine.”
Mera narrowed her eyes at her. “Then why did one of his lackeys call me ‘Soulbreaker’?”
The queen’s nostrils flared, her eyes widening for a second, but she quickly masked her shock. “You can never access the world beyond; what Poseidon calls the great unending space. You cannot raise the dead, but you hear the whispers, yes?”
When Mera nodded, the queen began to swim in circles inside her cell.
“Waterbreakers manipulate water. Soulbreakers manipulate…” She made a flourish with her hand, not needing to complete the thought.
“I can’t manipulate souls.” Mera snorted. “That’s ridiculo—”
“You can’t. Not yet, but you should be able to give or take from them. I heard that’s precisely what happened this morning.”
“How do you know?”
“We are everywhere.”
Mera swallowed dry, which said something since she was underwater. “How can I suddenly do things I’ve never done before?”
“I suppose that when you faced your father, whatever blocked that side of you cracked.”
Becoming silent for a moment, she connected the dots, or at least tried. “Soulbreaker or not, the question remains. Why am I hearing these voices?”
“The voices are your soul. It’s speaking to you, for you are one and the same.” She waved a hand as if any of that made sense. “Listen to what it has to say, let it guide you. Let it unlock the doors that guard your potential.”
“How can the voices be mine if I can barely understand them? They speak another language!”
“The language of souls, child.” The queen leaned forward, grabbing the bars. “Hart et maki na?”
“Hersh tu falut,”Mera instinctively countered, and her eyes widened. She’d just told Mother to go fuck herself in a language she’d never learned.
“See?” Ariella smirked. “All the same in the end.”
Clearing her throat, she held both hands behind her back. She couldn’t lose focus; couldn’t forget why she was there. Her questions would have to wait. “I came back as you requested. You need to keep your end of the bargain. So, tell me where Azinor is hiding.”
“No. If I told you, you would go after him.”
Mera’s mouth pressed into a line, heat shooting up her head. Belinda was right; the bitch had been leading her on. “You promised that if I came by, you would tell me where—”
“I did, but I’m not exactly reliable, am I?” The queen frowned. “Frankly, I’m surprised you believed me.”
“You asshole!” She boosted toward her, shaking the bars.
Startled, the queen swam back while Mera kept flinging herself against the cold silver, taken by an urge to squeeze the life out of the monster’s frail neck.
She clawed at the water pointlessly. “Tell me where he is!”
“If you face him, you’ll lose.”
A knot clogged Mera’s throat. “Don’t pretend you care!”
“You must fight him with this.” The queen tapped her temple, then lowered her bony hand to her chest. “And this. Your father will descend upon this nation with fury, so you must hurry. He doesn’t like losing things he considers his.”
“You mean he’s coming for you? We’re counting on that, Mother. You do realize your relationship is sick, right?”
The queen lowered her head. “That’s what she said in the world beyond.”
Confusion scrunched Mera’s nose. “Who are you talking about?”
“There’s no escaping your father.” Ariella turned to her, regaining her composure. “Perhaps, joining him would be for your own good.”
“My own good?” She chortled, the sound bitter and sharp. “Stop the mind games, they won’t be of any use to you here. Where. Is. He?”
Her keen gaze studied Mera for a moment. “If I tell you, how do you intend on killing him?”
“Chopping him to bits should do the trick just fine.”
A certain pity flashed in those cold green eyes. “Weakling, I thought you were smarter than that. Your friend shot him in the face, and still, he prevailed. Chopping him to bits will neutralize him for a while, not forever. Deep down, you know that.”
The bitch was right, and it left a sour taste in Mera’s mouth. “How do I kill him, then?”
“He cannot die.”
“Everything dies!” Mera bellowed, the memory of Ruth’s smile jumping to mind.
Her mom had been larger than life; the one, steady pillar in Mera’s existence, and the queen killed her. Tears pricked her eyes, but she wouldn’t shed them; wouldn’t let Mother taste them.
The water above Mera’s hand cooled off, shaping a sharp icicle. “You will tell me what I need to know.”
A shimmer of pride shone in Ariella’s irises. Opening her arms, she grinned. “Do your best.”
“Little fry!” the professor shouted, coming out from a tunnel next to the elevator on the far left—an emergency exit, or entrance, in this case. He panted through his gills.
The icicle atop her hand dissipated before he could notice it. “What happened?”
“A frigate was attacked by a group of Poseidon’s men. A ship with black sails, and a silver crest of a half-moon crossed with a curved dagger.”
The Night Court’s crest. Mera’s heart dropped.
Bast!
“Are they all right?”
“We can’t be certain. It seems the landriders defeated them, and according to our scouts, the frigate is heading to the Isles of Fog. We haven’t made contact, since the lines between us and land can be tricky to cross. I figured you could rendezvous with your friends to start a conversation.”
Knowing Bast would be there, she nodded. Mera turned to leave, but a shriek boomed from behind, sending her toppling forward. Bringing herself to a halt, she turned around and released her siren’s shriek, fighting Mother’s own.
Water rushed into the professor’s gills instantly, and he puffed up his chest. When he opened his mouth, his scream broke both of theirs, making pebbles fall from the walls and ceiling.
“Enough!” He pulled out a phaser from his holster and aimed at the queen. “Go, Mera!”
Ariella stretched her arms between the bars, trying to reach out for her. “It’s not safe!”
The sound of a mighty blast roared from outside, and the dungeons’ rocky walls suddenly shook. Loud explosions rumbled in the far distance, one after the other, almost as if in synchrony. They went on like dominos, circling Atlantea.
Professor Currenter glared at Mera as the same realization dawned on him.
The dome!
“Stay here!” He zinged up the tunnel, rushing out of the dungeons.
“The hell I will!”
Just as Mera was about to follow, another boom roared outside, this time all too close. The place shook violently, and she watched in horror as the exit’s walls groaned then collapsed, blocking the path with stony rubble.
The blast must have hit the palace, probably the courtyard.
“Professor!” Mera bellowed, but he wouldn’t be able to listen. She could only hope he’d left before the tunnel collapsed.
“He’s early,” the queen muttered. “He wasn’t supposed to…” Ariella’s grin resembled a broken twig, a fake, nervous smile that oozed with madness and fear. “Regneerik is coming.”