A female shape emerged from the water. Black, glossy maggots crawled inside the open sores on her soggy breasts.
“Where do you think you’re going, warm thing?” the undead mermaid hissed through her decomposing lips.
“Stay away, ghoul,” Kye warned, stepping closer to me.
She cackled in response. The torn skin around the deep gash on her neck flapped with a disgustingly wet noise. The surface of the water bubbled and foamed around her as another ghostly female emerged.
“There you are, oh mighty king. Come. Join us for a swim,” the mermaid croaked. Her one black eye focused on Kye. Her other eye was missing, and a pale tentacle of some creature slithered out of the empty socket instead.
Kye smirked, then bent a knee to lower himself to the water.
“I’d love to,” he crooned slyly. “Come closer, fair maidens. Give me your hands.”
He stretched his arms toward them. The mermaids recoiled, hissing like feral cats, clearly aware of what touching him would do to them.
A muddy green tentacle unfurled from the pool like a water serpent.
I shrieked, flattening my back against the glass wall behind me. My heart leaped to my throat. Horror sliced through me. The monsters would drag me back into the darkness.
Kye straightened, standing up. He darted a hand out, trying to touch the beast, but the tentacle lashed aside, evading histouch. The monsters had learned their lesson and knew to avoid him now.
Another tentacle cut through the water along the ledge, followed by a third. One appendage looped around Kye’s ankle, immediately turning to glass at the contact. But before Kye could shake it off, another one snapped around the first one and yanked Kye off his feet.
He slipped into the pool.
“Kye! No!” I dropped to my knees, peering into the depth.
Kye’s long hair fanned out like moonlight as he went under. But he didn’t panic. Instead, he raked his hands, scooping the water, just like I taught him. His eyes were open, his mouth closed as he held his breath. He bent at the waist and punched the tentacle that was dragging him under. The monster turned to glass. With a powerful push of his arms, Kye surfaced and grabbed onto the ledge.
More tentacles reached for him through the water. Claws, tails, and the webbed fingers of the undead mermaids grabbed for him from the darkness below. The attention of all the creatures of the Abyss seemed to focus on the siren king. No one was attacking me now.
In one quick, determined movement, Kye pulled himself up and onto the ledge, swung his legs upwards, and slammed the glass loops that had trapped his feet against the wall. The glass shattered, shards big and small flying everywhere.
The mermaids hissed. The monsters groaned. Their disappointment charged the air.
“They’re here for you, not me!” I yelled, climbing to my feet. “Run! You have to run, Kye. More are coming. You can’t fight them all.”
He glanced at me, and I nodded quickly, letting him know I’d follow him. At that moment, I’d follow him anywhere as long as it was away from these disgusting creatures.
Then he ran.
A gray claw hit the glass in his path. He jumped over it. White bone pincers snapped, aiming for his ankle, but he evaded them too. In a wide leap, he reached the first step on his way out of the hall. I stayed close on his heels, running as fast as I could along the slippery glass ledge.
The pearl strings on my body suddenly tightened. My chest constricted, my lungs gasping for air. My legs jerked, tripping my feet.
With a cry of desperation, I slipped off the glass and plunged into the pool. Cool water closed over my head for a moment, then parted again, allowing me to draw a frantic breath.
“Maren!” Kye shouted, stopping short of escaping.
“No...” I sputtered in the churning waves raised by the lashing, undulating monstrous bodies around me. None had grabbed me, though. The mass of all that sleek, dark, moving flesh rolled and rippled in one direction, following Kye’s every movement.
The pearls around my legs and arms yanked and eased, not letting me drown yet but not releasing me either. They made me thrash and struggle on the surface.
“Like bait,”I realized.
The god used me to lure Kye into the water.
“Don’t...” I tried to yell a warning before water flooded my mouth.
