Tempest Unleashed (42 page)

We need to get out of here
, Mahina hissed.
Unless you’re going to
go all nuclear again, we don’t stand a chance against this many people. Tiamat’s hurt, but Sabyn is still in great shape
.

I know, I know. Any ideas?
I asked her and Kona. A quick glance at Mark showed that he was more than holding his own—and that his oxygen tank had only about fifteen more minutes left in it. Whatever we were going to do, we had to do it now.

As it became obvious that we were surviving, Tiamat and Sabyn entered the fray one more time. Sabyn with that sneaky, terrible whirlpool of his that surrounded us, robbing us of the ability to breathe, and Tiamat with her spells and magic that hit each one of us differently.

Though she wasn’t touching me, I could feel the poison in her razor-sharp claws as she punched straight through the raw, angry skin of my stomach and started to squeeze my heart, much as Hailana had done all those months ago. Except Tiamat wasn’t trying to make a point. She was intent on killing me, and with so much of my blood running through her veins, it was child’s play. She was scarily in tune to what I could do and what I couldn’t.

I shot a blast of energy at her, but she dodged it easily even as she squeezed her fist tight. It was too much. I stumbled, dropped to my knees.

Kona came to my rescue. Blasting through the walls of the whirlpool Sabyn had created, he sent his own energy straight at Tiamat. She was so busy concentrating on me, relishing the pain that she was inflicting, that she didn’t notice until Kona’s fireball connected straight with her vulnerable midsection.

She went down with a scream of rage, hitting the ground hard enough to loosen her grip on me. It was all I needed. I climbed to my feet, prepared to blast her with everything I had left. But Mark was already there, emptying the clip of his gun straight into her like some kind of commando in a war movie.

She didn’t die. Mere human bullets couldn’t kill a sea witch of Tiamat’s magnitude, especially not slowed down as they were by the water. She was injured though, badly enough that Sabyn dropped his attack and swam to her. He picked her up in his arms, and after sending a powerful volley of arrows our way—hundreds of the things came soaring at us, forcing us to focus on them instead of him and Tiamat—Sabyn retreated.

We were left with a battalion worth of bunyip and shark-men, all of whom looked nervous, confused. Like they didn’t know if they should keep fighting or surrender the field. A few of them started backing away while others rushed forward. Reaching deep inside of myself, I laid them flat with a couple more energy blasts.

Then I swam over to the bunyip who had been acting as leaders. Stood over their fallen forms and thought about killing them all, just to ensure this never happened again. I could do it. I had the power—not to mention the little voice urging me to end them for everything they’d put my friends through.

But I flashed back to that moment in my mother’s cave, where she’d stood over three unarmed merpeople and killed them in cold blood. I remembered my horror, my shock. My disgust. And knew that I could never hurt these bunyip, no matter what they had done. They were unarmed now, practically defenseless against us, and I. Was. Not. My. Mother. Nothing, not even this brutal of an attack, could make me cross that line.

Leave us alone
, I told them,
and I’ll let you live. But if even one of
you attacks us, it’s open season. We will kill you all.
I shot a bolt of electricity into the floor of the boat, inches from one of the most powerful bunyip’s heads.

He must have gotten the message because no one followed as Mahina, Kona, Mark, and I slowly made our way through the carnage and out of the ship.

Do you think they’re out here, waiting for us?
Mahina asked anxiously.

I think they’re long gone
, I answered.
Tiamat was in bad shape. It will take a while for her to recover from the beating she received today.

What about Sabyn?
Mahina continued.

I glanced at Kona, knew that Sabyn’s days were numbered. There was no way the new selkie king was going to let him live, not after everything he’d done to Kona’s family … and to me.

We’ll deal with Sabyn later
, Kona said, straightening up.
Right now we need to get—

I gasped, cutting him off. Because as he stood, I realized something none of us had noticed before. One of Sabyn’s final arrows had hit the mark, ripping through Kona’s side and embedding itself deep within him.

Chapter 35

Kona seemed to notice at the same time I did, or maybe the adrenaline coursing through him finally wore off, because he suddenly collapsed in a heap right at my feet.

Oh my God! What do we do?
I dropped to the sea floor next to him, pressed my hands against the wound, and tried to stop the blood flow.

We get him to a healer
, Mahina told me grimly.
It has to be bad if his body can’t heal itself. I don’t know if there are any around here or even if they’d help him if there were. The Australian clans are really tight-knit. They don’t like outsiders.

I’m fine
, Kona said, but already his breathing was labored, his beautiful silver glow dimmed.

No one was talking to you
, I told him archly.
We need to stop the bleeding or we won’t be able to take him anywhere.

I know.
Mahina was already scouting around the ocean floor, looking for God only knew what.

What are you doing?
I asked. I didn’t move to help her—I was too busy putting pressure on Kona’s side—but Mark had stumbled over to a different spot and was trying to help her search for whatever it was she needed.

Red algae
, she told me.
It’ll clot the blood if we apply it directly to the wound.

I turned to tell Mark what red algae looked like, and remembered I had no way to communicate with him. I couldn’t get inside his head the way I was in Mahina’s or Kona’s. I ended up waving to him, gesturing him over.

Once I got him situated, with his hands over Kona’s wound, I sprang into action, fanning out to look for anything red algae might grow on. I finally found some on the outer pieces of the destroyed ship and I scraped it off before swimming back to Mahina as fast as I could.

She breathed a huge sigh of relief and pressed it straight onto Kona’s side. Within a minute or so, the bleeding had slowed to almost a drip and he wasn’t gritting his teeth quite as hard as he had been.

Red algae is also a painkiller when applied directly
, Mahina informed me.

Thank God
. My knees went weak with relief.
What do we do now?

We try to find that healer.
She glanced to both sides of us, as if she could tell our location just by a quick look around the ocean floor.
I think there’s a selkie clan north of here
, she said doubtfully, as if something about the whole situation had made her lose faith in herself.

There is
, Kona said.
I think they’re about seventy miles north.

Seventy miles isn’t bad
, I told myself as I helped support Kona’s weight. About a half-hour swim from where we were if everything went as planned.

Mark got on Kona’s other side, helped support him by draping Kona’s arm over his shoulder.

Are you ready?
I asked Kona, pressing my cheek to his.

As I’ll ever be.
His smile was a little strained, but it was there. And his silver phosphorescence wasn’t quite as dim as it had been.

We started out, a little slower than I’d anticipated courtesy of Kona’s wounds and Mark’s human limitations. But we hadn’t gone more than a few yards when a strange, high-pitched beeping noise started. My already abused eardrums ached in protest.

What is that?
Mahina demanded.

Mark turned stricken eyes to us as he pointed to himself … and his oxygen tank.

Shock raced through me as I studied his gauge. With everything going on, I had completely forgotten the air situation. Now, according to the gauge, Mark had only five minutes of oxygen left. And that wasn’t enough time to get him to the surface.

I looked between Mark and Kona frantically. What was I going to do? Kona was nowhere close to being out of the woods yet. We hadn’t found a healer, his wound could burst open at any minute with all the swimming he still had to do, not to mention the fact that he’d lost a lot of blood.

And Mark? Mark didn’t have enough air to get to the surface. And even if he did, it wouldn’t exactly matter. We were in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, somewhere off the coast of Australia. What was he supposed to do if he even made it to the top? Bob around until some passing boater picked him up? And what was he supposed to say? He was far from home with no money, no passport, nothing.

I bit my lip and tried not to freak out as precious seconds leaked away. I’d known all along that I was going to have to make a choice like this one day, a choice between the two of them, but I’d never dreamed that it could be a life or death situation—for either of them, let alone both.

In the end, though, it wasn’t much of a choice. I looked at Kona, waited until his beautiful silver eyes met mine.
I’m sorry
, I told him.
I can’t let Mark die
.

I know.

I turned to Mahina.
Get him to a healer. Keep him safe. Please.

I will. But you better get moving.
She nodded at Mark.

I know.
I crossed to Mark, smiled at him. He was amazingly calm considering he was on the brink of death. I didn’t know if that was because he didn’t realize how far down we were or if he was just more stoic than I could ever imagine being. Either way, I wasn’t going to waste a second more.

I pointed up and he nodded. Then wrapped an arm around him and pulled him close, so that our bodies meshed from shoulder to hip. He waved at Kona and Mahina, mouthed the words
thank you
. And then we were ascending, moving slowly toward the surface. We couldn’t go too fast because we were a long way down and rising too quickly could end up killing him. Decompression sickness was nothing to fool around with.

At the same time, it wasn’t like he had enough oxygen left to do everything we needed to. Which meant, soon enough, we were going to have to make a choice between leveling up and rushing to get him air.

But not yet. For now, we were going to do everything we could by the book. And pray, by some miracle, that it was enough.

I hated that we didn’t have a gauge to tell us how deep we were or how many feet we had ascended. I tried to remember how many feet we were allowed to ascend per second—I think it was somewhere in the thirties. Thirty-one? Thirty-seven? I decided to compromise at thirty-five to be on the safe side. Of course, that was all estimation too.

I counted to sixty, moving up as slowly as I could, trying not to surpass thirty-five feet a minute. After about four minutes, I made him stop. Level out and hang for a while as his body rid itself of excess bubbles from being down so long. Mark was trying not to breathe much, using only enough oxygen to keep himself alive, but after a few minutes of hanging out at this level, his tank gave one long beep right before it shut down.

For the first time there was real panic in Mark’s eyes, panic that mirrored the fear deep inside of me. How was I going to get him up in time? How would I keep him alive? The surface of the ocean was a long way off …

I shoved the worry down, closed my eyes, and tried to think. There had to be a way out of this, had to be a way to keep Mark safe. We hadn’t fought through everything with Tiamat and Sabyn just to give up now. I took a deep breath, blew it out slowly … and that’s when it came to me.

I ripped the breathing apparatus from Mark’s mouth, ditching the oxygen tank altogether. Then took another deep breath in through my gills and placed my mouth over his, creating a seal between our lips, and breathed the oxygen into him.

His hands tightened convulsively on my hips as he took in the first breath, and held it for a few seconds before breathing it out. I shook my head, mimed holding his breath, and he nodded. He already knew what I was trying to tell him. He’d just needed that life-affirming breath to make sure everything was still in working order. I didn’t blame him.

Breathing deeply again, I did the same thing. Leaned over and brushed Mark’s cold lips with my own until he opened them a second time; then I breathed more air into his mouth.

He held the breath inside this time, his brown eyes staring straight into mine with so much love, so much concern, so much
awe
, that it filled up every empty space I had inside of me. I stroked a hand down his cheek, then wrapped my arms around him and memorized the feel of him for all time.