Deep Blue (Waterfire Saga, #1)(55)

“No,” she moaned. “Oh, great Neria, no.”

They were Miromarans. Her people. They weren’t soldiers; they were civilians. And they’d been slaughtered. She felt a deep, tearing sorrow inside, and a white-hot fury.

“I think Mfeme’s trying to capture us for Kolfinn. Because he wants the talismans and thinks we know where they are. But why would he kill innocent people? Why?”

Neela found her voice again. “For information. He must’ve thought they knew something about the talismans. Or about us.”

Above them, a humming noise started. It grew louder, and then there was an enormous whoosh as the blades of the huge propeller started to spin.

“Come on,” Sera said, hoping against hope that their plan would work.

The blades made several revolutions—and sliced through the net effortlessly. Serafina’s heart sank.

“Time to make wake,” she said.

“No, Sera, it’s working! Look!”

As the mermaids watched, the shredded filament wound itself around the propeller’s shaft and jammed it. The shaft strained, turned a few more time, then quit.

“We stopped him,” Neela said.

Serafina shook her head. “We’ve only slowed him. He followed us here. He knows where we’re going. As soon as he fixes his propeller, he’ll come after us again.”

“Sera,” Neela said, “Mfeme transports death riders for Kolfinn. The duca said so. What if they’re on board right now? What if they come out to see why the propeller stopped?”

“If they were on the ship, Mfeme would have sent them out to get us by now. But that doesn’t mean they’re not patrolling nearby. We need to get moving.” She glanced at the dead once more. “Before we end up like them.”





“HI, KITTY! NICE KITTY! Please let us pass, nice little kitty-witty!” Neela said nervously to the catfish circling around her.

There were eight of them in the dusky water, and they were monsters. Six feet long, they had speckled gray backs and fleshy pink undersides. Long barbels stood out like whiskers on either side of their broad, flat faces. Their mouths were over a foot wide. Big enough to down a duck in one gulp, a mermaid in two or three. Neela reached out her hand to pet one.

“Um, Neela? I wouldn’t do that,” Ling said.

“It’s okay. He’s purring,” Neela said.

“He’s not purring. He’s growling.”

The catfish snapped. Neela jerked her hand back.

“We don’t have time for this,” Serafina said, casting a worried glance over her shoulder.

“Tell him!” Neela said, checking her fingers.

Death riders were on their tails. The mermaids had reached the Dun?rea and had put a league or so between themselves and Mfeme’s ship when they heard the soldiers coming. They’d been trying to find a place to hide. Instead, they found themselves surrounded by giant catfish.

“Get off my river,” a voice brusquely said.

Neela looked up. A freshwater mermaid floated nearby, brandishing a hockey stick. She was dark gray with beige stripes and spots. A spiky fin ran down her back. She wore dangly earrings made out of bottle caps and a necklace the likes of which Neela had never seen before. All sorts of goggish things dangled from it: a doll’s head, a pacifier, a bottle opener, a lighter, a small flashlight, and a golf ball. Her hair, bound into two hippokamp tails that stuck up on either side of her head, was dyed an alarming shade of red. Her mouth was painted a matching shade. She hadn’t exactly colored inside the lines.

“Perfect. Just what we need. A crazy lady with too many catfish,” Ling whispered.

The mermaid had come out of a house—kind of. Neela had never seen anything like that, either. It appeared to be made out of old, rusting car parts—doors, hoods, chrome bumpers. The windows were bicycle wheels. An old black umbrella, its edges hung with forks, knives, and spoons that clattered and chimed, was stuck at the very top. It twisted in the river’s current like a weather vane.

“Zi bun?, doamn?,” Ling said in Romanian, trying to smile as she held her broken arm to her chest. Good day, madam.

“Don’t madam me, merl,” the freshwater retorted, in Mermish. “Leave the way you came. Now.”

“We can’t do that, Miss…Miss…”

“Lena,” the freshwater said. “This section of the river,” she added, pointing with her hockey stick, “from that rock all the way up to the next bend, is mine. And I don’t like trespassers. Trespassers upset the kitties. Can’t you see the line of pebbles I put out? You aren’t supposed to cross it!”

Neela knew that freshwater merfolk were very territorial. They liked to be left alone, too. But this mermaid’s behavior…there was more to it than a dislike of strangers. Under the brusque words and aggressive posturing, there was fear. Neela could sense it.

“Could we please cross, Lena?” she asked. “We’ll swim right through and keep on going.”

Lena crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s what the mermaid who wanted to cross yesterday said!”

“Do you know who she was? Did you get her name?” Serafina asked.

“Sava or Plava or Tava…something like that,” Lena said.

Neela traded glances with Serafina and Ling. She could see they were thinking the same thing she was: Could Sava, Plava, or Tava be one of theirs?