Sea Spell (Waterfire Saga #4)(91)

Three ghostly men stood there. Their chests were bare, and they wore wrap skirts of linen pleated in the front, leather belts, heavy bronze bracelets, and menacing expressions.

“Guards,” Sera said. “This way,” she ordered. She darted to the right, then stopped dead. Another group was blocking the way.

As Astrid tried to figure out what to do, both sets of guards walked toward the mermaids, forcing them back to the center of the T.

“We’ll have to swim back the way we came,” she said.

But before they could, the guards on the left grabbed hold of a massive iron lever jutting from the wall. They threw their weight on it, pulling it down.

There was a deep groaning sound, and then the heavy scrape of stone against stone. The entire prison seemed to shake. Cracks appeared in the floor, and the corridor the mermaids had just swum down rose, forcing the mermaids up with it. The guards disappeared from view. With a booming thunk, the moving corridor slotted into its new position, and instead of staring at a stone wall, the mermaids found themselves looking down a new passageway.

“What happened?” Ava asked.

“The guards shifted the hallway. They’re driving us farther into the labyrinth,” Sera explained.

Astrid peered into the murky waters ahead. There were more cells, with more ghosts inside them, but no free-roaming guards.

“We’ve got to be on the lookout,” Becca said. “Ava, you’re going in the middle. Everyone else form a circle around her.”

The group made its way down the new corridor, and two more, before running into guards again. Just as before, the guards pulled a lever, but this time they lowered the corridor.

“They’re herding us,” Sera said. “Toward the courtyard.”

“Becca was right,” Ling said. “Abbadon wants to get us into an open space. So it’s easier to kill us.”

“And we still have no idea how to kill it,” Sera said.

“We better come up with something fast,” Neela said. She pointed ahead with her sword. A wide doorway yawned ahead of them. Light poured in from it. “There’s the courtyard.”





THE SIX MERMAIDS swam up to the doorway cautiously, weapons raised. When they reached it, everyone but Ava looked around, their eyes scanning the high walls, the remains of a fountain, hills of ice, but they saw nothing.

“It’s got to be here,” Sera whispered. “It led us here.”

Then they heard it: a short, sharp sound, like a shot. It sounded like ice cracking. Or glass.

Astrid looked up. “Great Neria,” she whispered. The others followed her gaze.

Abbadon clung to the glass ceiling with two of its hands; more were thrust out into the water, the eyes in the palms staring. Its sightless head hung down, scenting the water. Its body, the color of a shadow glazed red, was tensed and ready to spring.

“I’m the one who’s supposed to know how to undo this thing?” Astrid said. “Then we’re doomed. Because I don’t have the first clue.”

“We can do this, merls. Don’t lose your nerve,” Neela said bravely, glowing bright blue. “We can bring it to that monster.”

“Ava, anything?” Sera asked.

“I’m trying,” Ava said, “but it’s blocking me.”

“Becs—”

Becca was a stroke ahead of her. “Sera, you get out in front of it with me,” she said. “Astrid, take the back. Ling, you and Neela take the sides. Ava, stay here in the doorway, and keep focusing. We need to see inside it.”

At that very second, Abbadon sprang. It was so fast, the mermaids had no time to react. Its slashing claws caught Ling and sent her spinning. She hit a wall and sank to the floor with a deep gash in her right side. Blood poured out of it and her ribs showed whitely through her torn flesh.

This is how we’re all going out—fast and bloody, Sera thought grimly. Unless Ava can get a glimpse inside it. And Astrid can use what she sees to kill it.

“Hey! Hey, lumpsucker! Over here,” Astrid shouted, trying to draw the monster off Ling.

She swam close to Abbadon and jabbed it with her sword. It wheeled around instantly, and Astrid was nearly slashed herself, but the few seconds of distraction Astrid provided gave Sera time to grab Ling and get her underneath an overhang of ice.

Sera took off her jacket. “Press this against the wound,” she told her, then she swam back to help the others.

They took up the positions Becca had devised and began to harry the creature with songspells.

Neela launched a frag. It hit Abbadon in the back but did little more than enrage it.

Becca tried to encircle it with waterfire, but it deftly eluded the flames and backhanded her into an ice hill. As she struggled to get up, Astrid hurled a stilo.

Her spell hit home, tearing a chunk out of the monster’s shoulder. It roared and came after her. She defended herself with her sword, slicing into one of its hands. It nearly grabbed her with its other hands, but Sera threw up a water wall and blocked it.

The mermaids kept at it, battling Abbadon with everything thing they had, but only managed to inflict small injuries.

Astrid, ducking Abbadon’s hands again, swam close to Sera now.

“We’re getting our tail fins kicked!” she shouted.

“It’s going to wear us down and crush us! And then it’ll get out of here! What if it breaks through the waterfire you cast over Orfeo and takes his pearl? What if Orfeo’s soul jumps into Abbadon?” Sera shouted back.