“It is, Finn. It is.”
He started to turn away but paused once more. “I’m glad you’re here, Brett.”
“Me too.” It hurt how much I needed him to say that. Luckily, Finn had started up the stairs before my eyes stung with tears.
I staredafter him for far too long, such a rush of emotions I wasn’t able to identify one underlying feeling or thought. After a time, my gaze focused on the rosy hue of the marble stone that had rolled back into place as Finn walked away. For such a sinister place, everything was beautiful. Even the cavernous dock. Granted, I hadn’t seen the main portion of the Vampire Cathedral, but so far it was nothing like what I’d expected. When Caitlin had threatened to call the Royals when Finn had first brought home the ignorant demon, I’d pictured a scene out of an old Dracula film. Transylvania and the whole bit.
Forcing my gaze to leave the stone—Finn wasn’t returning—I glanced around the strange spherical room. The swirling patterns of pink and caramel gold in the stone made it seem more like Cinderella’s castle than the fortress of vampires. Even when Sonia had led us into the cave and hidden us in the boat, something about the structure of the place had felt familiar. The sensation grew as Finn led me down the steps to the mer pool. I felt like it should be obvious. The place was so otherworldly, yet more a part of the earth than anything else I’d ever seen, like it had been birthed in one perfectly solid formation.
My gaze continued to sweep over the smooth surface, and the realization hit me as I looked from one torch to the next, taking in the perfect transition from marble to precious stone that made up the sconces. The demon’s cave in the cliffs of San Diego. Though minuscule in comparison, it had been just the same. The curving wall that transformed into a bookcase had seemed like it had been grown that way somehow. Exactly like every part of the Cathedral I’d seen thus far. Everything seamless. Everything smooth and perfect. Instead of feeling pleased I’d made the connection, I felt like I’d missed the biggest part somehow.
Leaving the sconces, I focused on the surface of the water. Nothing about it suggested it contained the enclosure that held the mers. Maybe Finn was mistaken. I dismissed the thought as soon as it formed. He wasn’t. As terrified as I was, I had a certainty we were on the right path. It all felt right. Finally. The pieces had fallen into place, whether placed there by the nymphs, Moheetla, or the God of my grandmother.
I stepped to the edge of the pool and curled my toes over the sloping marble lip. Surety filled me, making me feel both indestructible in my confidence and frail in the scheme of the overall picture of life. It had all led to this. The alleyway. My love for Finn. Sonia’s death. All to this.
Words from the nymph’s prophecy at Rodrigo’s funeral flitted through my mind—“fulfillment of freedom from slavery.” The truth of it hit me with such force, I took a step backward to keep my balance.
I wasn’t certain we were all going to make it out alive. But two things I knew without a doubt. The mers would be free. Finally. So certain, I doubted I could fuck it up even if I wanted to. For once, I had no doubt a higher power was facilitating their freedom, or had at least foreseen it. The other, while I didn’t have the same surety of divine intervention, I would make happen or lose my immortality in the process. Cynthia would be free as well. I promised Finn. I’d promised him many things and broken every one. This one, I was going to follow through on.
I wanted to run back up the stairs and find everyone. Let them in on the truth I knew I’d been given. Even Sonia. Let her know she was going to get what she wanted. While I didn’t understand her reasoning, or even who she’d become, she was as much a part of this as I was. The truth of it had begun to dawn on me as I’d watched her revolted expression as Shane fed from her, then gaped as his wounds healed before my eyes. In some way, her life had been sacrificed for this purpose.
There were three things I knew. The mers would be free. As would Cynthia. And the vampire king was going to die, ensuring Sonia would have her liberation as well.
Forty
BRETT WRIGHT
They seemednumberless. I’d never dreamed there’d be so many. My heart swelled with hope at the sheer number of mers spread throughout the maze of underwater caverns and passages. Not only that, but in addition to the massive quantity of them, so many different tribes were represented. I hadn’t known there were so many. All different variations of appearance. It was easy to identify those who were offspring of the Chromis, Scarus, and Volitan. But there were so many others, and even more that seemed a combination of qualities.
Not only would the mers be saved from being hunted to extinction, but their numbers were about to explode.
The mers’ appearance kept causing me to doubt what I was feeling, but I continued to shove it aside. We’d gone too far. Suffered too much for these mers who’d been captive for so long not to make it. So many looked sickly. Their tails, skin, and hair seemed malformed and wrong. Some of them simply reminded me of Akamaii’s aged appearance, but most felt different somehow. Even some of the young looked weak and frail.
I’d stripped out of the cargo shorts as soon as I’d exited the first tunnel that led to the chamber with the mers. Though tailless, I felt like one of them. I thrilled at their existence and filled with indignant fury at their condition. Clothing made me a different species entirely.
Even so, though I attempted to communicate with many of them, every mer either gaped at me in terror or looked through me entirely. Communicating with them only increased their fear and confusion. I quit trying.
It didn’t matter. I didn’t need anything from them. They’d be free soon enough. Nothing they could tell me would stop that or make it quicker.
After endless offshoots and nearly countless identical sphere rooms, I found one that was different. Not in appearance—the flames behind the crystalline panels filled the space with a soft light, but instead of the warming glow it lent to the other spaces, here it cast a gloom and pallor over all the chamber held.
The tunnels around it had been absent of mers, which made me think I was reaching the end of the enclosure. And maybe I was, but that wasn’t why they were avoiding this place. Bones were piled in heaps, several mounds of them reaching the curved ceiling. Such quantity it took me a moment to grasp what I was seeing.
I couldn’t begin to fathom how many mer lives were represented by the heaps. The weight of it all had smashed the bases into nearly solid foundations of broken and shattered bone. Only the tops and sides displayed nearly intact mer skeletons. A few—less than ten—skeletons still had decomposing flesh clinging to them.
Closest to me lay a few forms that had died most recently. The one that held my focus was the body of what had to have been a child. Its face was turned from me, so I couldn’t distinguish if it had been a boy or girl, but enough of the scales remained that the child had obviously been from the Scarus tribe. I remembered Akamaii saying they had recently lost one of their children. Try as I might, I still couldn’t remember if she’d said whether it had been a boy or girl, much less the young one’s name.
Forcing myself, I swam closer and laid my hand over what was left of the long black hair. There would be no more. No more death like this one. This was a thousand times worse than any mer war that might happen. Even more atrocious than the fate that had befallen Nalu and Wrell.
No more.I promised as much to the Scarus child before I turned and swam out of the room.
I knewit was him before I saw him fully. Even before I completely entered the room. Simply from the mass of fiery-red hair that clouded around his upper body.
“Ventait.”
At the sound of his name, he looked up, his blue eyes wide in shock, then blazing with fury.
I swam closer.
