Deep Water (33 page)

Next to him sat an elegant older black
woman, eyes closed and face tipped up to enjoy the sun’s warmth. He dredged for
her name, came up with it. “Ms. Kuttner?”

“That’s one of my names,” she agreed,
smiling. “I wanted to thank you.”

Something was very wrong about that. “For
what?”

“For doing what you were brought back to
do. You brought Poseidon and Amphitrite back together again. If they hadn’t
reconciled their differences, it would’ve been very bad for, well, everyone.”

His mates. “Are they all right?”

“At the moment, yes. They’re both quite
angry with Thetis at the moment, and with good reason.” Ms.
Kutter
lowered her face, sighing. “To be honest, I’m not all that happy with her
myself. She’s cheating.”

Griffin shook his head. “I don’t
understand.”

“You wouldn’t,” the manager said. “But it
doesn’t concern you anymore. You’ve done your job, and now it’s time for you to
go on.” She stood, and Griffin followed suit. “It’s within my remit to give you
one of three choices. You’ve earned a right to the Christian heaven, or you can
take your place in the Elysian Fields. It’s up to you.”

“I’m … dead?” Griffin said, lips numb even
as they formed the words.

The sudden impact to his chest, the agony.
Looking down and seeing the spear shaft shudder with the last beat of his
heart.

“Yes,” Ms. Kuttner said gently. “But you
died bravely, and after fulfilling your destiny. Thus, your pick of afterlives.
Heaven or the Elysian Fields.”

He tried to think, but his mind didn’t
want to focus. “Heaven is real?”

Ms. Kuttner smiled. “Oh, yes, for those
who believe in
it.
It’s quite beautiful. However, if
you go there you’ll never see Poseidon or Amphitrite again. I’m afraid that
particular god guards his gates most carefully, and outsiders are not welcome.”

Griffin’s heart ached at the thought of
never seeing his mates again. “What about the other place?” he said through a
tight throat. “The Elysian Fields?”

Ms.
Kuttner’s
chin came up a fraction. “Just as beautiful as Heaven, but the shades who drift
there are happy because they remember little of their mortal lives. I’m sure
that Poseidon and Amphitrite will gain permission to come and visit, but I
suspect you won’t recognize them.”

The pain in his chest spread throughout
his body, making everything hurt. “You’re saying I have to choose between
remembering them but never seeing them again, or maybe seeing them again but
not remembering them? How is that supposed to be a reward?”

Ms. Kuttner spread her hands. “I don’t
make the rules, Griffin. I’m simply explaining them to you. It’s up to you what
you want to do.”

“I want to go back.” The words came out
before his brain had a chance to process them. “You said I had a third choice.
What is it?”

The rental manager considered him. “It’s
more of a deal, really. I will only offer this deal once, the terms are
non-negotiable, and I reserve the right to change them at any point in the
future. But if you agree, I will restore you to your mates.”

Hope and suspicion warred within him.
“What is it?”

“You will become my agent. Your loyalty
will be to me first, and everyone else, including your mates, second. This
shouldn’t be very onerous most of the time, but there may come a point where
you will find yourself in contention with Poseidon and Amphitrite as a result.
Are you willing to risk that?”

Risking the enmity of the two people he
loved more than anything in the world. Would they understand if he took the
deal? Would he understand if they did something similar?

God,
I hope so. I can’t lose them, not now.
“Can I ask you one question first?”

“Of course.”

“Who are you?”

That earned him an indulgent smile. “Your
species puts far too much emphasis on appearances. Look at me with your soul,
Griffin Moore, not your eyes.”

He did. And suddenly it was as if he stood
at Ground Zero of a nuclear bomb. Energy blasted through him, then, tearing him
apart in joyous fury and scattering his atoms to the very furthermost corners
of the universe.

And
in the middle of it all was a voice asking him questions. Bodiless, senseless,
selfless, he still heard them.

He
listened. Responded. And finally agreed.

When he came back to himself an
immeasurable time later he was on his knees, staring up at the rental manager
in awe.

“You,” he whispered.

“Me,” she agreed. “Your mortal life is
over, Griffin Moore. I lift you up to the same realm as your mates. You join
Ian, God of Storms as an
Atlantian
God. Remember my
terms, child.”

He bowed his head as his new status poured
into him, filling every crack and crevice in his being. “I’ll remember.”

A flick of long fingers and the cove was
gone. He was back in the shadowy coral lagoon. A large chunk of wood stuck out
of his chest, hurting like hell.

He grabbed it and concentrated. The
molecules of the shaft disintegrated. He felt his flesh close around the wound,
his heart begin to beat again. Light poured through his veins, warming him from
within.

No,
ichor.
The
body fluid of the gods. His body fluid, now.

Turning, he glared at the gaping hole torn
by the dead right shark. Amphitrite was out there somewhere, chasing down her
sister. And Poseidon was battling more of the monsters.

He swam toward the hole and felt every
cell in his body shift, moving,
swelling
. And then he
was surging through the water, homing in on his mates.

Hang
on. I’m coming.

****

Still locked in a rage, Poseidon thrust
his weapon at yet another whale. This one was larger than the others, and far
cannier. It had avoided his strikes so far, body twisting like a spring in the
water, but hadn’t directly attacked either him or Aphros.
Kasos
and the rest of the tritons were now gathered in a perimeter, watching the
battle.

The
damned thing is playing with us.
Poseidon backed off, sucking in cool
seawater as he considered the beast. An evil intelligence glinted in the
whale’s rolling eye, a misshapen version of the gracious consciousness normally
exhibited by the giant mammals.

I
think it’s studying our attack patterns, Father
, he heard Aphros
say in his mind.

Gaia’s
tits. I think you’re right.
He could try for a hurled shot, but there were limits
to the amount of damage even his legendary weapon could do if he wasn’t holding
it. And the whale seemed clever enough to make sure that it took the hit on a
relatively unimportant area.

There was no help for it. He would have to
get in close and go for one of the whale’s vulnerable points. A
phros, circle behind it, see if you can
distract it.

Yes,
Father.

Adjusting his grip on the harpoon,
Poseidon waited until he saw his son’s
ichthyocentaurine
form appear behind the whale’s fluke, then darted towards the creature.

The whale wriggled around blazingly fast,
smacking Aphros to the side with one blow of its fluke before turning to face
him with the long, bony snout. Poseidon backed off, cursing. He could try
ramming the harpoon down its throat, but the rows of grayish teeth he could now
see in its mouth guaranteed that he’d take serious damage to his throwing arm,
exposing him to the whale’s venom and Thetis’s poison.

Something disturbed the water behind the
creature. At first Poseidon thought it was Aphros coming around for a second
pass, until a massive orange tentacle slid around the whale’s tail and latched
on. The whale squealed in fury as it was yanked backwards into the grasp of a
gigantic Great Pacific octopus. The cephalopod wrapped more tentacles around
the beast, holding it in a firm grip.

And then Poseidon heard an impossible
voice in his head.
I’ve got it, love. Kill
the damned thing already.

There was no time to question. He lunged
forward, shoving the harpoon into the whale’s eye. The whale squealed louder
this time, thrashing in the octopus’s grip and flinging Poseidon back and forth
like a chew toy.

The god held on, sending a blast of energy
down the harpoon. A spike went through both eardrums as the whale screamed.

Get
back!
Poseidon shouted to the tritons and Aphros.

Then he yanked the harpoon free, pulling a
trail of gore from the whale’s ruined eye. The orange tentacles slithered free
and the octopus darted away. The whale writhed in agony, divine power doing
battle with the venom in its veins.

And then it exploded in a bubble of gas
and light. The concussion wave was enough to send Poseidon tumbling backwards
and down towards the sea floor. He slammed up against a rocky outcropping, his
back and shoulder scraping along the roughly encrusted boulders.

Grabbing a rock, he stopped himself,
looking back at the whale. A noxious black cloud filled with gobbets of flesh now
filled the space where it had been.

And underneath it sailed the giant
octopus. It came over to his outcropping, slowing easily.
I think you overdid that one a bit.

Griffin?

The octopus cheerily waved one thick
tentacle.
In the flesh, so to speak.

Poseidon knew even his brother Zeus
couldn’t raise the dead, and Hades had never released another spirit after the
Eurydice incident.
Gaia’s work?

Yeah.
I’ll tell you about it later. Right now, we need to go find
Ammie
.

Poseidon held out a hand. His trident rose
from where it had fallen to the sea floor and flew to his grip.
She’s gone after Thetis. She thinks you’re
dead.

Shit.
The octopus
shimmered, then disappeared. A naked Griffin floated where it had been. He swam
quickly to Poseidon, careful not to touch the god’s already healing wounds.
Can you find her? I don’t know how to port
yet.

That simple phrase confirmed Poseidon’s
suspicion about his mate’s new status.
Always.
He fired off mental instructions to Aphros and
Kasos
,
then reached out through the seas for his consort. What he found terrified him.
Hold on to me.

Griffin did. Poseidon opened a portal, and
they swam through.

****

Amphitrite slowed the seahorses to their
equivalent of a canter. Ahead of her was a rugged deep water reef known to the
mortals as the Charleston Bump.
Seafolk
called it
Oceanus’s Keep and avoided it, considering it to be an ill-omened place.

Which
makes it a perfect location for my sister.
She could still sense Thetis. It
could only mean that the elder Nereid wanted to be found.

Amphitrite dismounted from the chariot,
running a hand along
Skylla’s
curly mane. “If I’m not
out in an hour, go find Poseidon,” she ordered. “If you can’t find him, get
Aphros, Bythos, or Ian.”

The seahorse nodded in obedience, nudging
her mate who did the same. Unclipping her trident, Amphitrite swam to a rough
gap in the reef wall and went through it.

The interior was just as severe as the
exterior, opening into a maze-like arrangement of rough stone outcroppings
crusted with greyish minerals and the occasional cluster of ocean plants. Fish
and other sea creatures were nowhere near as plentiful as at other reefs,
giving the Keep an eerie, abandoned feeling.

Amphitrite forged on, avoiding a sharp
outcropping of limestone as she navigated through the reef’s channels. The
sense of her sister strengthened, and she headed in that direction.

It led her to a low, flattish plateau in
the reef. Amphitrite edged into it, acutely aware that she was exposed to an
attack from above.

“I’m here, Thetis!” she shouted. “Show
yourself!”

Ahead of her a dark mist coalesced into
the form of her sister. Amphitrite repressed a wince at Thetis’s rotted
appearance.

But the Mad Nereid smiled at her.
“Welcome, sister,” she crooned. “I knew you’d come.”

“You killed my mate,” Amphitrite said, her
grip tightening on her trident. “What else did you expect me to do?”

Thetis flicked her fingers dismissively.
“He was human. You didn’t really want to associate with that trash, did you?”

She hefted her weapon in response. “Give
me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you right now.”

The amusement drained from Thetis’s ragged
face. “You’d kill me, sister? Your own blood? Over vermin?”

“He was my
agapetos
!” The shout echoed in the space. “And you killed him for
no reason!”

“No reason?” Thetis snarled back,
gesturing at her own ruined body. “They did this to me, little sister. Their
infernal science destroyed me, destroyed my beauty. And once I was destroyed
all of you turned your backs on me, didn’t you?” Tattered lips pulled back from
teeth that looked longer and sharper now. “I wasn’t fit anymore for divine
company, not looking like this. Even your precious husband, who once panted
after me like a dog after a bitch in heat, refused to help me.”