“Bollocks to Trewin!”Merou’s head snapped back.Cords stood inhis neck.He couldn’t get another word out, and his lost, desperatewail cut through Priddy like a knife.He joined Merou in hisclenched-jaw efforts to force his legs apart.
Themembrane ripped.Blood sprayed across the white wall.An arc of ithit Priddy in the face, smelling of hot salt and ozone, and thatwas far from the worst of it: something snapped like a whiplashunder his hands, some new-formed tendon or ligament cracking underthe strain, and Merou fainted cold.
Priddyknelt over him, fighting not to throw up.To stay conscious,because two passed-out bodies piled up on the bed would do nothingto stop whatever hellish thing was happening here.Tentatively hepatted Merou’s face.“Mate.Wake up.”Some of the damage Vigo haddone to him was good: he’d have walked a mile to avoid hittingsomeone, but a pat wasn’t going to do the business now.He bracedup and delivered a ringing slap.“Come on!”
Thelong-lashed eyes opened.Priddy wished they hadn’t.The silverythird eyelid was back, sweeping up in a diagonal to hide iris andpupil, all the humanity of his gaze.“Help,” Merou whispered, onewebbed hand blindly seeking Priddy’s face.“The sea.”
“What happens otherwise?”
“I’ll die.Not here, please, not...caught halfway.”
“I don’t think I’m strong enough to carry you down.”
“Try.We’re different when we’re leaving ourbodies.”
“You’re not leaving anything.”Priddy stroked his hair, tookfirm hold of the hand reaching out for him, not caring that it wasnow webbed to the fingertips, the inside of the wrist trailing ablue-green frill.“You’ve got to hang on.”
“Then...you’ve got to try.”
At leastthey were starting from the top bunk.Priddy sprang to the floor.He reached up and helped Merou roll to the edge, wincing for him asmore of the enclosing membrane ripped away.“Come here.Lean outtowards me.Hold onto my shoulders and...”
Merouslipped past his centre of gravity and fell out of the bunk.Priddygave a cry of fear at dropping him, torn and bleeding as he was,but seized what he could—armpit, waist, the skin there scouring hishand with its textured pattern of perfectly arrayed littlescales—and hoisted him somehow over his shoulder into a fireman’slift.
Easierthan he’d imagined.Priddy could even spare a hand to grab ablanket off the bed as he backed away.He threw it over his burden,turned round carefully and headed for the stairs.He was muchhealthier now than when he’d arrived to take up his duties—clean,although as both Merou and Baz had pointed out, less through virtuethan necessity; beginning to harden up again with muscle from allthose stairs.Maybe that explained how he was doing this, how hewas able to cart a grown man taller and heavier than himself downthe treacherous flight.Merou had passed out again and wasdeadweight over his shoulder, limp hands passively bumping off hisarse.
We’re different when we’re leaving our bodies.Lighter, he meant.Priddy had encountered thisbefore, in a long-ago family dog, an unloved lump, inherentlyvicious and carefully taught by Vigo to remain that way.When fatehad caught up with the beast, Priddy had tried to carry it to thevet, too sick to snap at him for once.He’d never got there.Acurious weightlessness had come over him as he’d stumbled down thepavement, just before the creature had stopped breathing and fallenstill.
“Shit,” he said, coming to a halt on the stairs.“Merou, no.No, no, no, no.”Awkwardly he turned, getting the best purchase hecould on the handrail, and laid him down, cradling his skull torest on the edge of the blanket.“You’re not a dog, or a—a bloodyfish.You don’t just slide away like that.”The frill had wrappeditself protectively tight around Merou’s wrists, so he felt for apulse in his throat instead, and yelped in fright as his fingerspassed through the skin and into a chilly, green-fringed spacebeneath.“Oh, fuck,” he choked, snatching his hand away.“Dude,what is happening to you?”
Dying.That was all he needed to know.Dead alreadywas a possibility herefused to admit.The fireman’s heft seemed brutal now, so he easedone arm under Merou’s shoulders and the other beneath his knees, orwhatever the hell he had there instead, now that the membrane hadgrown back with ferocious vigour and his feet, ankles and calvesseemed to be one long tapering bone inside it.Lifting him this wayought to have been impossible, but the terrifying lightness wasstill there, the weight in his arms no harder to bear than achild’s.Once he’d got his balance he was able to set off once moreat a good pace, Merou’s head resting quiescent against him.It tookhim less than a minute to reach the ground floor.
Still too late, still too long.Priddy began to cry, unable tohelp himself.Bless Baz Dingwall, bastard that he was—he’d left theiron door inched open in his panicked flight, and Priddy didn’thave to stop to struggle with the lock.He shoved his foot into thegap and dragged it open.The night outside was pure and still, ajewel-prickled majesty of stars in the darkness after moonset.Hecarried Merou down the steps of the foundation block, slipped andstumbled with him over the slope of rocks and yarrow-fragrant turfto the beach.Almostthere, he’d have said, if he hadn’t beensobbing aloud like a frightened kid.Almost at the sea.Now Merou feltlike nothing in his arms, ready to crumble to iridescent dust, theforce of the life that was trying to leave him lifting him up andaway.Priddy almost ran the last few steps: splashed franticallywaist-deep into the star-shivered water.Leaning to plant a kiss onhis brow, he lowered him, letting the next crest of the gentleswell surge up to rock and reclaim the tortured flesh.
Andsomehow Priddy lost him.On instinct he’d kept the dark head abovesurface—mouth and nose anyway, whilst at the same time a deeperunderstanding prompted him to let the salt water flow freely overand into the new creases in his throat.He’d been holding him,unable to control his noisy grief over the stillness of his face,and...
Nothing.His arms were empty, the rippling surface vacant.He whipped round,losing his footing, submerging under the weight of his soakedjeans.That was all right—he needed some ballast, something to keephim down here while he searched, because he was damned if he wasgoing to let the sea snatch Merou now.He kicked off his shoes anddived.
Thewater was so dark!He lost his bearings instantly.Something wasswirling around him, a heavy current or one of the vortices thatoccasionally formed as the tide combed the ocean back through theHell’s Teeth barricade.Priddy tumbled through it, blind, castinghopelessly around him for a floating limb, a handful of hair.“Merou,” he yelled, wasting his last breath on the cry.Silverbubbles, soundless, shimmering away into the abyss...
Something bumped against him.He had a DNA-deep westCornishman’s terror of sharks, and he lashed out wildly.If it wasa mako or a white, you stood a chance—a very remote one—if youcould catch the bastard a hard enough thump on the nose.Christ,though—this felt more like a serpent, one of the giant eels thatgot caught in the nets and passed into infamy as grandfatherstories, tales around a beach fire on Golowan night.A coil of itslipped around Priddy’s waist and clamped tight.Bubbles and foamrushed past him and he broke surface with a breaching dolphin’sforce.Whatever had caught him just as suddenly let him go.Onreflex he started to swim, coughing and trying to clear his vision.There were the stars and the bright heavens, bisected like Merou’sunmarred belly with the silvery brush of the galacticrim.
Merouwas swimming beside him.Priddy sucked an astonished breath andwent under again.Again something caught him—coiled aroundhim—raised him with supple, irresistible force.Not Merou, who wascalmly treading water, smiling incandescently.“All right there,then, blue-eyes?”
“Merou!”Priddy threw his arms around him, not caring if hedrowned them both.Merou burst into laughter, not a bitinconvenienced by the attack: seized him joyously in return.Priddy’s world turned upside-down once more, the Milky Way swoopingdown into the depths and the glitter-filled water soaring to thezenith.The eel, the serpent, was rolling him over and over,laughing all the time, and Priddy couldn’t be afraid, because...“It’s you,” he cried out, the next time he could breathe.“You’reback.You’re alive.It’s you holding me, isn’t it, with your...with your...”
“With my tail,” Merou finished for him, taking pity.“Keepstill, wriggly landling, or I’ll scratch you up.The scales arevery sharp when they first grow back.”
“Oh, man, what thefuckare you talking about?I’ve lost it, haven’t I?This is a fucking dream.”
“Feeling is believing, my handsome.Let go your stranglehold onmy neck.Go on!I won’t bite.”
Heavinggreat lungfuls of air, Priddy forced himself to unlock one hand andslide it down Merou’s back.The skin was warm as sin and toast,normal enough if normal meant bloody perfect, all the way down thegroove of his spine to his waist, and then to the opening crease ofhis arse, which began right on time but then...“Shit!”Priddysnatched his hand back.“You’ve got scales.You really have got atail.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you.And you’re sitting on partof it, so don’t freak out too far.”
Priddygave a barking caw of laughter.Keeping one arm hooked safelyaround Merou’s neck—the top end of him, the part that still madesense—he tried again, and this time dared to feel the great muscledcurve that had swept behind the back of his thighs and wassupporting him there.“How are you...How are you holding us stillin the water like this?”
“Great big fluke on the end.Whale-style, not fish-style,perpendicular to my tailbone and totally flexible.Treading water,you could call it, only...”
