Four Dead Queens(19)

A wave barreled into my back like a runaway horse, pitching me toward the dock.

No. It wasn’t a wave. It was an arm, encircling me, weighing me down. Black hair bobbed above the water, pale eyes reflecting in the starlight.

The messenger.

Why was he trying to drown me? A body thrashing in red-and-gold liquid resurfaced in my mind. I wouldn’t be taken down as easily.

I kicked, connecting with his stomach.

“Stop!” he sputtered. “I’m trying to help you!”

I gagged, my mouth full of salty sea. It shredded my throat on the way out.

“Your dress is weighing you down.”

“Oblough.” Obviously, I tried to say.

“We need”—he panted as he treaded water—“to take it off.”

I nodded and reached around to the ties behind my back. Without the use of my arms to stay afloat, my head dipped below the water.

Two strong hands lifted me back up. “Stop!” he said. “I’ll do it.”

I tried to comment about him wanting to undress me ever since we met, but my mouth filled with more salty water.

He turned me in his arms, and I did my best to stay above the surface as he tugged at my corset. His valiant attempt to keep me from greeting the ocean floor with a sandy, salty kiss was taking its toll. We were sinking.

“Why is this so complicated?” he gasped. I thought of his dermasuit and the easy magnetic clips.

“Here,” I managed to say. I pulled my sharp lock pick from where it clipped into my dipper bracelet. “Cut it off with this.”

He wasted no time slicing through the corset. My outer layers floated away, and I kicked free. The relief was immediate.

Without the weight of my dress, I was able to swim easily. The messenger wasn’t far behind. We swam toward the dock.

I was halfway up the dock’s ladder when a voice sounded in the dark like a foghorn.

“Find them!” Mackiel ordered. “We can’t let Keralie out of our sight!”

I shivered. He saved that tone of voice for certain people. Only two people, in fact.

His henchmen.

Slipping back into the water, I held a finger to my lips so the messenger would stay silent.

“I don’t see them,” came a low voice, the sound of footsteps on ice.

We were in deep shit now.

“What is it?” the messenger whispered.

I clamped a hand over his mouth, but it was too late.

“I hear them,” the voice said. “They’re in the water below us.”

“I don’t care about him,” Mackiel said. “Get her. Now!”

A dark figure spiraled into the water, while heavy boots clomped overhead on the dock.

“Move!” I pushed the messenger away from the dock toward the shore. “Move!”

I swam as fast as I could, hoping the messenger would follow suit.

I made the mistake of glancing back. The messenger was behind me, as was one of Mackiel’s henchmen. He was bald with two black eyes, all pupil, increasing his vision beyond the normal limits. His skin was yellowed and scaly and smelled worse than a half-rotted fish. He moved toward us like a ghostly sea creature.

“Swim faster,” I shouted back to the messenger.

Mackiel laughed from somewhere above us. He wouldn’t dare come close to the dock’s edge and had sent in his henchmen to do the dirty work, as usual.

Something grabbed at my ankle. I shrieked.

“Don’t know why you’re always so jumpy around the henchmen,” Mackiel said. “They’re such charming fellows. Wouldn’t hurt a fly.” He laughed again.

If only that were true. They might’ve been nice men once, but under Mackiel’s supervision, they’d morphed into something truly ugly. Or was it the other way around, and Mackiel was the true ghoul?

One of the henchmen pinned my legs together and pushed me into the side of a dock post. His black eyes reflected my terrified expression.

“Let go!” I cried.

“Give her ’ere,” said a gruff voice.

I screamed as the first henchman pushed me upward.

“Don’ worry, Kewawee,” the second henchman slurred; the right side of his face had been eaten away. “We won’ hurt you.” He leaned over, revealing yellowed bone where half the muscle and skin had fallen from his left arm.

Before his bony fingers could clasp onto my shoulder, something leapt out of the water and smacked him aside.

The messenger!

He shoved the destabilizer against the henchman. There was a loud zap, and the remaining veins in the henchman’s arm sparked blue, then black. The henchman’s eyes rolled, and he tilted backward onto the Jetée, his body stiff as the corpse he smelled like. The messenger disappeared beneath the ocean’s surface.

I’d thought the henchman was dead, until I heard him groan. The spineless Eonist should’ve used the destabilizer’s highest setting.

“What’s happening?” Mackiel asked. His voice sounded far away. He wouldn’t risk seeing for himself.

The other henchman narrowed his black eyes at the water, attempting to see into the dark depths. I’d never seen the henchmen fear anything, or anyone. I squirmed in his arms, but he still wouldn’t release me.

“Tell me!” Mackiel roared.

I bit down on the henchman’s yellow hand. He let out howl like wounded animal.