Page 95 of Oceansong
“Yeah, okay. Um, look, I have to get going. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Angie choked out, keeping her head low and taking her leave.
She quickened her pace to make the ferry, and her stomach clenched and contracted, threatening to upchuck the tea and half cup of bitter melon soup she had for lunch.
Thirty-Eight
Angie sat with a slumped,defeated pose when they set out on the boats. Her plan to delay them hadn’t worked. They’d taken the sabotaged spearguns with them after the previous group of divers, including Celia, informed their group that the spearguns were inspected recently and were in good working order. Then Stefan and Ken had brought along another half-filled crate of them, the remainder from their shop.
Nick informed them of the game plan before dividing the thirty of them into groups of four or five and setting out on different boats. They were to be dropped off on a remote stretch of water where mer had been spotted. Then they would spread out and dive down in pairs to seven hundred feet. She and Stefan asked to be grouped together.
Angie scanned the other eight divers on their boat. “Where did all these people come from? I’ve never seen half of them.”
“Oh, the local government is also paying divers to come out and hunt mer. So we’ve got people coming from Homer, Kodiak, and Dutch Harbor.”
The boat’s mortar quieted to a low hum and the vessel slowed to a stop.
Angie’s heart rate spiked, hoping nobody noticed her incessant fidgeting with her diving gloves. Pulling them on and off, twisting the fingers together, and squeezing her BCD’s weights with a grip so tight she constricted the blood flow to her hands, the bristly texture grating against her palms. Her temples pulsed when she thought of seeing Adrielle or Cyrus or the mer-queen.
Or worse, Kaden.
She was indiscernible from the other divers holding a speargun, but she couldn’t imagine him recognizing her in her diving getup and killing her. Or watching Stefan spear and kill the man she loved. Her heart splintered into pieces at the notion. She prayed they would be in the palace and not outfighting this battle.
Their captain gave them the okay sign to don their tanks and begin their dives.
Moving at a deliberate pace, she let the other divers go ahead of her while she dropped weights into her BCD and strapped on her tank. The diving pair ahead of them left a red and white diving flag pinned to a buoy, jostled along by the small currents.
She and Stefan were the last to go. Angie took a deep breath, bracing herself and rolling backward into the water after him.
They descended, lower and lower until they reached four hundred feet, once more encircled by stifling gloom. Stefan turned his flashlight on first, and she followed, hanging back so she swam by his feet.
A beam of light nearly blinded her, and Angie held up one hand. The other two divers from their group approached, and one pointed to their left.
For a time, they found nothing.
Angie’s breathing slowed. Maybe they would make it out without any casualties and then report that they found nothing. Then Nick might stop his crazy venture.
A long, graceful form darted from the void, the flashlight beam illuminating bright lavender scales. Stefan and the other two divers stayed as still as the rock and coral formations around them.
It was too late.
The form came into view, a disembodied, pale face and tattooed shoulders appearing, and the merman stared them down. Waving their flashlights around revealed three more mermaids and mermen wielding golden lances and tridents.
They were surrounded.
Each mer wore markings on their faces, chests, or shoulders, designating them as royal sentinels.
One diver from the other pair made a hand motion, holding up four fingers, pointing to the divers, and then the mer, followed by an okay sign. Angie suspected she knew their meaning. Four of us, four of them, perfect. An agonizing stillness befell them, as if each were waiting for the other side to strike first.
Stefan floated frozen beside her, sucking through his rebreather in hitched inhales and exhales.
One diver raised their speargun with slow, controlled movements, and pulled the trigger. Did the mer want them to attack? Angie figured there had been enough time that they could have stopped the driver from pulling the trigger.
It failed. The diver looked around and attempted to pull it again, and again. No use.
The mer struck.
Without Angie’s help, it was three against four, and the mer were in their element. She shrank back, watching in horror as a mermaid grabbed one of the divers, her tail wrapped around his body like a snake strangling its prey, and snapped his neck. The diver went limp, speargun floating away from his hands and drifted down into the depths. The mermaid released him, leaving his body to the deep-sea creatures’ mercy.
The other diver speared that same mermaid and shot their speargun at another, killing two, but not before he took a trident in the stomach. The diver’s hand flew to their abdomen, blood appearing as a sanguine algae bloom.
