Tide (The Sarah Midnight Trilogy) Page 26

  The waves ebbed and flowed, the water winter-dark, hiding what lay in wait beneath its surface.

  53

  Christmas at Sea

  The untold stories

  And how they end

  A vast oak table stood in the middle of an ancient hall, covered in red silk and as many flickering candles as Sarah could find. Seven chairs, seven people and seven sets of secrets and hopes and fears.

  On one side, a black-haired man burning with fear, white-as-snow hands clutching the napkin on his lap in terrible anticipation, and beside him a tall, fair woman with bandaged arms and weary eyes.

  At the opposite side, a girl with silver hair, placid and beautiful and brimming with kindness, beside a man whose grey eyes always smiled, and a dark-skinned man between them, his desires and hopes well hidden away, buried beneath selflessness and duty, strong and loyal as the roots of a tree.

  At either end of the table, the ones with the invisible chain between them – Sarah’s hair flowed down her back in a sweet-scented stream, the scars on Sean’s arms shone white in the light of the candles against his bronzed skin. Unspoken words went back and forth between them, hands that longed to meet and a story interrupted.

  And then, in a shower of glass, the Mermen came.

  At last, thought Nicholas, and rose slowly, readying himself to fight. Because he, like Sarah, had finally made his choice.

  54

  Things That Come Ashore

  Teeth and bones and flesh

  Fragile like glass

  Soft as clay

  The million different ways

  To break a human body

  The windows exploded in a shower of glass, shards falling all around them and darting across the polished floor. A foul, rotting smell filled the air, and through the broken windows the Mermen made their inexorable way inside the Hall, waddling, arms outstretched to grab, teeth bared to bite. There were too many to count, shuffling along the floor under the golden light of the chandelier.

  They prepared themselves in a heartbeat. Sarah was poised to leap, her eyes shimmering with the Midnight gaze, hands ready. Sean had his sgian-dubh in his hand faster than the eye could see; Mike drew his gun. Niall stepped back slightly, and started humming softly; Elodie’s lips began to take on a deadly shade of blue, quickly turning to black.

  Only Winter remained sitting, momentarily frozen, her whole body, every bit of her screaming for the water. Out of the sea she was just like any other human being, no powers, no Gamekeeper’s training – just the instinct to survive and an innate, animal courage. And that’s what kicked in. A split second later she was standing too, ready to fight with all she had.

  After the shattering of the windows, there were no sounds but the Surari’s gurgling breath, their fins dragging over the floor as they spread across the room, and Niall’s soft humming. The Islay night enveloped them in darkness and silence.

  And then it began. It was relentless, and bloody, and painful. The Mermen were thumping and breaking and biting soft flesh, moans of agony and exertion and fear exploded into the air like thousands of fireworks. It didn’t take long for Sarah and her friends to realize what was really happening: the sea’s power itself had been unleashed, and they were about to be overwhelmed. It didn’t take long for Niall’s song to be interrupted, for Elodie to be trapped in a fight she couldn’t win, for Mike’s gun to be knocked out of his hand, and for Winter, the weakest of the pack, to be isolated and cornered. A wave of despair swept the room, and for a moment, the end looked near, the fight as short as it’d been savage.

  But suddenly red ribbons began to fly about the room, spurting from Sean’s runes like bloody streams, and soon his power was clear for all to see. Mermen fell all around, cut by an invisible blade, as Sean’s movements got faster and sharper, the ribbons dancing and slicing. The Surari were taken aback for a moment, and Niall had the time to jump to the table, raising himself above the battle long enough to resume his humming. Elodie, agile and quick as a cat despite the pain she was in, twisted out of one of the Merman’s grasp and started working with Sean so that every time he floored one of their attackers, she would jump on it and give it her deadly kiss. The creatures writhed and contorted for a few instants, gasping for air, their mother-of-pearl skin turning darker, their eyeballs bulging and their gills pulsating frantically in their death throes.

  By now Sarah was everywhere, her eyes shining emerald and lethal – Elodie could actually see a flash of green wherever Sarah went. The instant she felt that the Midnight gaze had paralyzed a weakened Surari, she grasped it with her toxic hands, dissolving the hideous creatures one by one. A thin film of Blackwater began to cover the floor, engulfing and suffocating the little sea creatures – the eels and crabs and unnamed slimy things that came from the deep, carried on land by the Mermen, were thrashing in it, suffocating slowly. It was as if the sea had turned black and poisonous, flooding Midnight Hall.

  Niall’s song strengthened, rising in volume and power. He flinched as he watched a Merman throw Mike to the floor and bite a chunk out of his leg. But nothing stopped the song. It was all Niall could do. His voice became increasingly high-pitched and painful and deadly, reaching Mike’s attacker just as the Merman was preparing to bite Mike’s face off. It folded into itself, holding its head, while Mike crawled across the room to grab his gun and fire it, once, twice.

  To his dismay, the bullets lodged into the Surari’s translucent skin but didn’t reach its insides. Its skin might have looked deceivingly thin and scaly, but it was as thick as an elephant’s hide. The discovery made Mike moan in despair. All he could do was aim at their eyes, and so he did. One Merman fell, its face blown off, but before he could fire again, another Merman grabbed him with all its strength and threw Mike to the wet, blackened floor.

  A Surari climbed over the table and grabbed Niall’s legs, throwing him down on the hard wooden surface. His song came to an abrupt halt as his mouth filled with blood and he fell in a sea of broken crockery and splattered food, the Merman still holding onto his legs. Niall braced himself for the bite: and it came, excruciating, as the Surari sank his teeth into his thigh.

  “Niall!” As the song was interrupted, Elodie had instinctively looked at the table to check on him. She threw herself on the Surari holding Niall down and stabbed it repeatedly. She grabbed its head and placed a poisonous kiss on its lips, the Merman’s sharp teeth cutting Elodie’s mouth, and her blue lips were smeared with red.

  “Are you OK?” she asked Niall when the demon had fallen, wiping her mouth and wincing in pain.

  Niall nodded and spat out two teeth. Then he saw something out of the corner of his eye, and gasped. Winter had been holding her own in every way she could. Her arms were lined with deep cuts and her hair was dripping with Blackwater, but she didn’t seem mortally wounded. A Surari was standing in front of her, and they were looking at each other – the Merman baring its teeth, anticipating the taste of her flesh, Winter trying to stop herself from shaking, trying to stop her legs from buckling, trying to pretend she was unafraid. Suddenly, with newfound courage she leapt on the Surari, a strange sound coming from the back of her throat. It was a call the Merman recognized – a seal call.

  Infuriated, it grabbed her by the shoulders and sank its teeth into her chest. Winter screamed in pain and terror, but Niall was already on the Surari, the magic song streaming from his mouth, the notes spurting into the air like blood from an open wound. Elodie was close behind.

  Agonized, the Merman let Winter go, and both covered their ears, hit by the full force of the song. Elodie took her chance and, with a graceful leap, bent over the Merman, kissing it and killing it in seconds.

  The sounds of battle were retreating.

  Niall stopped singing and took Winter in his arms. They clung to each other, breathless, surveying the horrific scene. A Merman had just dissolved under Sarah’s touch, another one was writhing on the floor in its final moments, Sean standing over it, panting in fury. Another one
lay dead, a bullet hole between its eyes. Mermen corpses lay everywhere, lapped by the mixture of blood and Blackwater on the floor. The last of the dying Surari became still, one after the other.

  For a few seconds Sarah and her friends allowed themselves to breathe, looking around in the sudden calm.

  Could it be?

  Could they have made it? Could they have survived such a merciless attack?

  And then gurgling, shuffling, and what was left of the windows shattered. Another deadly wave of Mermen erupted into the hall. Icy panic shot through Sean’s veins as only one thought filled his mind: This is the night we die.

  55

  One Soul

  Like many before me

  Beneath the waves, beneath the crosses:

  I’ll never see my home again

  A merman ripped Winter from Niall’s arms, ready to bite. A suffocated sound came out of Niall’s throat. He was faced with a terrible choice, with Mike on one side and Winter on the other, and him in the middle, scrambling to get the song going again, and failing.

  In the terrible instant before the Surari crowded in on him, Mike saw Winter’s predicament. There was no doubt in his mind as to what to do. He pinned his eyes onto the Merman’s.

  “Hey, you! Damn bastard fish! And you!” he screamed at another Merman making its way through the wrecked window. “Come and get me!”

  “Mike! No!” Niall yelled, surging forward to help his friend.

  But Mike’s words stopped him. “Don’t you dare, man. Go help Winter. Now!”

  Niall knew his friend was right. He threw himself on the Merman that was pinning Winter to the floor, and stabbed him over and over again with the knife he’d grabbed from the table.

  With a howl of pure fury, Winter grabbed the Merman’s head and pushed her fingers into its eyes, scooping out its eyeballs with a shudder of revulsion. The Merman jerked backwards, convulsing on the floor, scraping at its head with its hands, dark, foul-smelling liquid pouring out of its empty eye sockets.

  Niall had barely got his bearings before two Mermen threw him aside. One of them grabbed Winter’s leg and took a bite out of her calf, then threw her face first into a puddle of Blackwater. The other ripped into Niall’s back, lifting him off the floor by his shoulders. Niall roared in fury, until finally he swept into the song again, every bit as deafening as before. The Mermen fell to the ground, rolling in agony, covering their ears with their hands. Niall fell heavily, released by his captor, still screaming and singing and howling the deadliest sound that had ever come out of his mouth.

  Elodie lost no time, kneeling beside the fallen Mermen, delivering her deadly kisses – two, four, six Mermen fell unconscious and died, touched by Elodie’s poisonous lips. But soon Niall’s song got too much even for her. She slid underneath the table and covered her ears with her hands, blood dripping through her fingers.

  Sean pulled her out of the other side with one hand, while the other was still tracing the runes with the last of his energy, sending deadly ribbons hurtling through the air. Niall’s song was hurting him too. “God, Niall, stop!” he shouted, though he knew that their lives depended on it.

  The only one who seemed unaffected by the song was Sarah, who kept placing her hands on fallen Mermen, her eyes closed, pressing their bodies until their skin starting to weep and ooze away. One after the other, Sarah dissolved them, utterly focused on what she needed to do.

  Elodie and Sean huddled by the wall, unable to move, grimacing with the pain. Sean’s ears were now bleeding heavily too. But Niall would not give up. They had been caught out once, he would not let that happen again. He kept going as long as he could, slowly folding into himself as his body weakened and the spell drained the last of his strength.

  The song turned into a final terrible wail, and then silence. Niall lay mute and panting on the ground. For a few seconds there was no movement in the room except terrified eyes darting, trying to work out where the danger would come from next. The only noise was heavy breathing. In the sudden calm, two uninjured Mermen moved swiftly towards where Mike was lying. One of them bent over him, grabbed him by the hair, and then dropped him, in full view of the others.

  Mike lay lifeless, his throat ripped open.

  Niall let out a shout of grief and anger. He crawled towards the fallen body and shook Mike’s shoulders, trying not to acknowledge the terrible thought that kept forcing itself into his mind.

  Mike is dead.

  No.

  Mike is dead.

  No, no!

  “Look out! Niall!” yelled Sarah.

  A Surari grabbed him from behind, shaking him and squeezing him so hard he couldn’t breathe. He had no energy and no breath left to sing, and the knife was out of reach, stuck into a dead Merman. In his head he was already dead, alongside Mike. But then Nicholas was standing there, his hands raised, blue flames flowing from his fingers and enveloping the Merman. The Surari caught fire immediately, as if it’d been doused in fuel, blackening and curling up at once. Niall was astonished to see the look on Nicholas’s face as he looked down at Mike’s dead body. The sparks from his fingers faded. He dropped his head into his hands.

  This is it. It has started, Nicholas told himself.

  The brain fury in all its might – not the headaches that had been tormenting him. This was the real thing.

  “No! Stop! Please, stop!” he begged in a daze of blinding pain, clawing at his scalp. It was as if acid were being poured through his eyes, burning through his skin, his bones, and the soft tissue of his brain. Every breath was crippling, every blink like dying a thousand deaths, until he shut his eyes and curled up into a ball, unable to do anything but wail.

  And then when he thought that the pain could not get worse, the King of Shadows – his father – unleashed the full force of his power on his own son, driving him through acute pain into near madness. Nicholas shuddered and screamed, a scream that chilled everyone’s blood, drawing their attention from the remaining Mermen.

  “Nicholas!” Sarah was facing a hideous Merman whose hands were woven with seaweed, and whose face was encrusted with sea anemones. She too wondered where he had been all this time. She shook her head briefly – she had to concentrate, summon the Midnight gaze, and quickly – but her eyes couldn’t focus, not with Nicholas screaming like that. She had never heard anything like it.

  Summoning all her remaining strength she finally looked at the Surari with all the force of her Midnight eyes, and incredibly the Merman faltered, scrambling blindly at her with its slippery hands. Sarah took hold of both its hands at once, and for a second it looked almost as if they were dancing – and then the Merman’s skin began to weep and blacken, until its arms dissolved with a splash, and its head, its body, its legs followed, gushing across the wooden floor in a black puddle.

  Breathing heavily, Sarah surveyed the scene. Many Mermen were dead, but there were many others still standing, waiting for the humans to fall. Sean was badly wounded, Elodie looked utterly exhausted. Nicholas, to her horror, had begun to bang his head against the wall, and Niall … Niall was crying. Her eyes met his across the room and she raised herself to go to him. But Nicholas needed her first. She had to stop him injuring himself, splitting his head open against the wall. What had happened to him?

  She was sure that the way across the room to reach him was clear – but almost immediately a Merman halted her in her tracks, punching the air out of her lungs, and throwing her to the floor. As she landed, she felt something breaking – the ribs she’d cracked only a few weeks before, probably. The pain was so intense she almost fainted. She braced herself for a kick or another vicious punch. But instead of the ghastly face of one of her attackers she saw the innocent little girl with long blonde hair. The girl she’d seen the night of her scrying spell. Everything fell silent.

  “Mairead,” she mouthed.

  “Remember,” said the little girl, and her voice resounded clear and composed in the sudden silence.

  Not a second pass
ed before Sarah found herself standing on the beach. She was a child again, eight years old, the wind blowing on her face, and someone holding her hand. She looked up. It was her grandmother, Morag Midnight. The scene twirled and danced around her, and suddenly the beach vanished and they were in her grandmother’s room. She was showing Sarah something. A book.

  “A storm is coming, and it will hit before long. If you have no other choice left, and you have to read this book, death might not be far away.”

  “Gran,” she murmured, troubled at what she had been told.

  And then the scene dissolved.

  She was back in the hellish mess of Midnight Hall and Mairead was in front of her again, caressing her face. Somebody was screaming. Nicholas was screaming. Sarah fixed her eyes on Mairead, silently pleading for help, and then the world ebbed away.

  Nicholas had seen Sarah falling, and with impossible effort he’d steadied himself. He moved away from the wall, yelling in the ancient language, ordering the Mermen to take hold of Sarah, to lay her in a corner of the room where she would be unharmed, to guard her. She was his chosen bride, she must be saved.

  The Mermen heard him, but they showed no sign of obeying his orders.

  And then, the voice in his head.

  You’re going to die, and so is Sarah. You sealed her fate with your choice.

  “No! Sarah!” Nicholas clutched at his head again, fighting the fire that was consuming him.

  Had you not betrayed me, she would have been spared.

  “Sarah!” Nicholas’s brain was burning, scorching. He could no longer see anything but painful bursts of lightning piercing deep darkness. His forehead was bruised and bloody from where he’d banged it against the wall.