Deep silver, p.18
Deep Silver, page 18
part #2 of Alexis Silver Series
“What? Cat’s already out of the bag, innit?”
“Come on.” I grab his hand and run for the exit, dragging him along.
By the time we reach the eel pit, it’s clear this place is coming down—and soon. My little friends in the water are panicking big time. Halfway across the narrow bridge, I pause long enough to peer down and project to them that this place is about to collapse and they should get out until the earthquake is over.
“Why’d you stop?” asks Ethan.
“Just catching my balance. Mind the moss.”
It is rather difficult to tolerate creeping across a narrow beam while worrying about thousands of tons of stone falling on my head. I couldn’t care less if this place floods, but being buried alive would be absolutely wretched. Worse because it would take a really long time for me to die, if I even did.
Once we reach the open hallway on the other side, we dash around the pressure plates in the floor and don’t much care about the light beams, either. Since we’re running out, the hammer that springs down misses us. Had we been going the other way, it would’ve hit me right in the face—or got Ethan in the upper chest. Either way, from the sound of it hitting the ceiling at the end of its arc, it would’ve been fatal, at least, for him.
I drag Ethan down the last section of corridor, but skid to a stop in the flooded cave, squinting at a wall of bright light. It takes me a second for my eyes to adjust, and the curtain of blinding glare resolves into another InEx submersible with floodlights trained on us. Or maybe it’s the same one I sent away before.
Four men and two women in wetsuits stand in a line, blocking us off from the yellow sub. It seems I’ve rather irritated them, as they’ve upgraded from handguns to military rifles. Fortunately, the sight of me running around naked stuns them into confusion, but that won’t last long.
Ethan goes for his pistol, but I grab his hand.
“No time for a fight. Close your eyes.”
“What?” he whispers.
“Just do it!” I rasp.
He does.
I let off a blast of charm, and all four guys go dazed. The women, however, are unimpressed.
“Look,” I say. “This entire place is about to destroy itself. Don’t be fools. Get out of here before the ceiling comes down.”
“Nice try,” says a redhead, before pointing her rifle at me. “You think we’re going to fall for that?” She waves the rifle at, I think, my breasts.
The other woman, possibly Japanese with a short bob, also points her weapon my way. “Where are your clothes?”
“Budget cutbacks. They didn’t have any wetsuits in my size,” I say.
Dust and debris rains down over the whole cave… along with a heavy tremor.
“Umm,” says one of the men, taking a step back. “Maybe we should get out of here.”
The Asian woman glances at him, looks up at the shaking ceiling, then nods. Smart woman. “Yeah, maybe…”
“It’s just a minor quake,” says the redhead. “They happen all the time down here. It will pass.” She takes aim at Ethan. “Sorry, but this claim belongs to InEx now.”
Before she can fire, I hammer her with as much mental influence as I can bring to bear while shouting, “Get out!”
The command stalls her brain enough for me to whirl around and drag Ethan back down the hallway.
“Where are you going?” shouts Ethan, scrambling to keep up with me.
“Back door,” I shout over the clap of my feet on the cave floor.
He shouts something incomprehensible, but I pick out words like “crazy” and “fuck them.”
Fist-sized stones clatter to the ground on all sides. One or two hit us, but aside from hurting a lot, they don’t do real damage. We dodge around the giant hammer, which dangles straight down, no longer a threat. By the time we reach the eel pit, everything shakes so much it’s difficult to stand. The water down there froths like a pot of boiling soup.
I spin, grab Ethan by the shoulders, and yank him close, planting my lips to his and giving him the Mermaid’s Kiss.
He stands there wooden, caught between freaked out, surprised, and wondering if he should be enjoying the moment.
When I pull back, he continues staring at me in utter bewilderment. “What wa—?”
Water wells up out of his mouth and dribbles down his chin. He grabs his throat.
“Don’t panic.”
I shove him into the eel pit and jump in after him. We splash down and sink a few feet from the fall. Ethan stares at me wide-eyed. Underwater, the thunder of the surrounding tremors sound much louder and deeper.
“You’re alarmed because you can see now and you’re breathing underwater.”
He nods. His lips move, but no sound occurs.
“You’re confused because I’m talking and my lips aren’t moving.”
Ethan nods again.
“I can explain,” I say.
He folds his arms and makes a ‘oh, this had better be good’ face.
I bring my legs together and shift into my aquatic form—except for my face. No need to bring out my razormouth and put the poor man into therapy for the rest of his life.
Ethan points at me.
“I’m sure you’re thinking quite a few things make sense now, but we really don’t have time.” I lift the end of my tail up toward him. “Grab the narrow bit at the end and hold on.”
He wraps both hands around the end of my tail, right above the fluke.
“Try not to lose your grip. This passage is too tight for me to turn around in.”
I roll over and swim for the hole at the bottom in the wall. The cave passage isn’t terribly large, and it’s lined with growths of sharpish crystals. They’re radiantly beautiful, but I avoid them with the same care as I’d use navigating a tunnel lined with scalpels jutting out from the walls. Ethan seems to share my opinion of them and tries to maneuver his body away from every outcropping.
Between towing a trailer and being in such a dangerous, confined passage, I can’t go too fast. I mostly pull with my webbed hands since propelling myself with my tail will likely hurt Ethan, or at least slap him in the face.
I dodge crystals for about three minutes before reaching a curve where the tunnel bends into a vertical ascent. From there, it’s only about six feet to the opening, which is too small even for me to squeeze through.
Grr.
Claws out, I grab the edge of the hole and struggle with caked-on sediment. It’s not so much rock as the seabed silt condensed into a calcified crust. It breaks off in chunks, which I toss upward into the water.
Ethan squeezes my tail twice, kind of like double-clicking a mouse.
I peer down at him. “What?”
He wags his eyebrows.
“You’re wondering why I’ve stopped?”
Ethan nods.
“Slight complication with the opening.” I hold up a chunk of sediment so he can see, then toss it. “Give me a minute.”
He double-squeezes again.
“What? I’m a little busy,” I say.
Ethan points at his mouth.
“You can breathe because I gave you the kiss. It won’t last forever… a couple hours tops or until you leave the water.”
Both his eyebrows go up.
“Yes. Magic.” I wink at him, and resume shredding my claws at the opening.
Dozens of eels swarm over to check me out. A few radiate gratitude for the warning, and for enlarging the opening to their nest. Some of the fatter eels were having issues, apparently. At least the rumbling of the cave-in has grown distant. Aside from being stuck in a narrow tube lined with deadly crystal spikes and eels, we’re reasonably safe.
Eventually, I break enough of the crud away that the opening’s wide enough for us to slip out. Once we’re free and clear, I flick my tail to send Ethan gliding up to eye level, and catch him with a hand on the shoulder.
“All right. I’m going to take you to the habitat.”
He nods, still staring at me in awe.
That buzzing noise that signals danger starts up in my head. I spin to the left, and narrow my eyes at three men in wetsuits approaching fast. They’re clinging to devices that somewhat resemble a cross between a manta ray and the handlebars of a motorcycle. Each has a pair of shrouded fans that pull them through the water quite a bit faster than a human could swim. And… they’ve got spearguns. That’s cute.
I glance at the eels congregating around the opening, and will them into a cloud around me. The InEx divers reverse the thrust of their little propulsion devices, effectively ‘slamming on the brakes.’
“I’m really not in the mood, boys,” I say, my telepathic voice radiant. “My friends here have rather potent venom in their teeth. It probably won’t kill you, but it’s excruciatingly painful… provided they don’t strip all the flesh from your bones before you get away from them. Shall I send them in for a nip, or will you idiots please go away?”
The eels move in a swarm, reacting to my control like an extension of my body. I must look like an undersea Rapunzel/Medusa. Some of these lovelies are six feet long. They snap their jaws as the mass of serpentine forms pulse, ready to surge forward. Much to my annoyance, the display doesn’t chase the men off, but it has apparently caused them to re-think their intention to attack.
A moment of standoff later, a great rumbling boom thunders over us, followed by a massive geyser of grey silt billowing up out of the undersea canyon to my left that resembles the Mount Saint Helens eruption—only without the fiery parts. Some of the eels rocket away, propelled by a current blasting out of the crystalline passage.
Damn. So much for that site. Looks like it’s completely caved in.
The explosion of silt is the last straw for the divers. They wheel their little propulsion devices around and haul ass. I give off a pulse of thanks to the eels and release my control over them.
Ethan gawks at me, which makes me feel a bit like some cryptid he’s studying.
You should probably make him forget that part of you.
Yeah. Licinia’s right. This guy’s going to try and get famous on my back.
I take him by the hand and guide him close behind me. “Hold on.”
As soon as he loops his arms around my neck, I flick my tail and take off wearing him like a cloak. Normal people can’t tolerate going anywhere near my top speed underwater without serious injury. At least, not unless they’re wearing some manner of hardened suit. So, I keep it relatively tame—for me. Ethan clings for all he’s worth, his head pressed sideways against my back to take cover from the onrush of water.
Considering the depth, it’s too cumbersome to think of surfacing with him. It would take me hours to get him up there without giving him the bends. Not to mention, a person floating in the ocean hundreds of miles from land is actually worse off than being in the habitat without a submersible handy. At least he has food and warmth there.
We make it to the habitat in a few minutes, and I head straight for the big module with the opening in the bottom. Upon my head breaching the surface of the pool, I shift back to human form and crawl out of the water with Ethan still clinging. I think he’s fainted…
I roll him flat out on his back and sit on top of him, straddling his stomach while bending forward so we’re nose to nose. Since he’s once again in air, the magical kiss fades, and water stops welling up out of his throat.
His eyes flutter open soon after. He gazes at my stomach for a moment before looking up past my boobs to make eye contact. A dazed smile pulls his lips wide. “Well… I believe this has been my most pleasant near-death experience so far.”
I smile. “Happy to oblige.”
“Did we…?”
“No, we did not.”
“Ahh, right. Umm.” He scratches his head, his once fluffy sand-blond hair pasted to his skull in a sopping mass. “Am I imagining things or are you a mermaid?”
Smiling, I stare deep into his soul, commanding him to forget seeing me as a mermaid, breathing water, and exactly how we went from the alien ruin to his habitat.
“Yes,” I finally say when I’m done. “You’re imagining things.”
Chapter Twenty-five
A Total Ruin
Two weeks and a few days later, I drive up to the Ainsleys’ manor, having accepted a dinner invitation.
After returning to the underwater habitat with Ethan, I’d spent a few hours resting in one of the bunks before heading back into the ocean. I’d left Ethan with the impression I’d come down in a tiny one-person sub that had no room for him.
Phoebe at Deep Indigo was particularly helpful in arranging one of their build crews to go out there and retrieve him with some kind of bathysphere winched down from a mothership. Ethan had only to free-dive a short distance from the pool to the dangling orb. That allowed the crew to reel him in while maintaining pressure, and he got to enjoy the hours-long decompression process while en route back to land.
A man I haven’t seen before answers the doorbell. He’s in his early thirties, with short dark-brown hair and a goatee. His hazel eyes light up at the sight of me, even though I’m rocking a fairly plain day dress and beige sandals. For an instant, I feel a bit like an expensive car being admired by a guy who knows he can’t afford it but likes to look. Though that’s probably not an apt metaphor, as I’m sure he could afford whatever car he wanted. No, this has to be Mr. Carrington, Pippa’s husband, and his hesitation comes from loyalty.
That’s quite refreshing, actually.
“Hello,” I say. “Alex Silver. You must be Bryce.”
“Oh. Yes.” He smiles. “Come in. You’re a little early.”
He waits for me to step inside, shuts the door, and then leads me to a sitting room where the boys, Trevor and Alastair, are climbing all over Ethan. He looks so much different in a white shirt and khaki pants, all cleaned up.
Licinia senses my interest in the man.
He’s a mortal, dear. Unless you want a servitor…
Yes, I realize that. I frown, and sigh in my head. Much like Bryce giving me the eye, it’s ‘look but don’t touch.’
“Ethan!” I say, smiling. “You look so much better.”
“Hello, Alex.” He gestures at Alastair sprawled across his lap, engrossed in a children’s book. “Forgive me if I don’t stand.”
I walk in and sit on the same sofa. “It’s not a problem. I’m glad to see you made it home all right.”
He sighs while ruffling the boy’s hair. “The site’s a complete loss. Even the chamber with the sub collapsed in.”
“Oof. That’s dreadful. At least you’ve got the…”
He senses my hesitation. “We can talk about the crystal, Alexis. There’s no secrets in this family.”
“Oh, right. Like I was saying, at least you’ve got the crystal.”
“Aye, there is that, but it will be quite an effort to unlock its secrets. I’ve been collaborating with an associate at MIT who may be able to develop a way to read the information encoded within.”
Pippa glides in, followed by Bryce who went to fetch her. He’s carrying a large serving tray with tea and tiny brownies in a dish. Like sharks detecting the scent of blood in the water, both children eye the pastries the instant the tray’s through the door.
I nod. “Don’t feel too bad. Other than that relief on the wall, the place honestly didn’t have much of interest aside from that crystal anyway.”
Ethan waits for Pippa to pour us all tea, then takes his mug plus a small brownie. “Aye. Sadly, no one’s ready to believe me about the aliens.”
“Here you are,” says Pippa, handing me a cup.
“Thank you,” I say before turning again to Ethan. “Next thing you know, you’ll start trying to tell people you saw a mermaid down there.”
The boys dive in, both grabbing a brownie in each hand.
Ethan glances over at me, brownie hesitating in his teeth. A tic twitches his left eye twice. He pulls the brownie away from his mouth and laughs. “Mermaids… hah. See? You mock me, too.”
Good. He passed the test. I smile. “Certainly not. I think I’ve come to believe you about the aliens. At least, I cannot offer a better explanation for what we discovered down there.”
Pippa sits beside Bryce in a loveseat across the coffee-table from us and fires a sour look in Ethan’s direction. “I’m still astonished that he accepted money from InEx.”
“Why not?” Ethan shrugs. “The site is a complete ruin now. I had feared they would destroy whatever relics might be there, but it’s already destroyed.”
She leans toward him, her eyes widening with urgency. “But, E, they tried to kill you.”
“What of it?” He shrugs. “I’ll never be able to prove anything, all the evidence is quite inaccessible to anyone who would care—not to mention far off in international waters. And, taking their hush money is at least some benefit.”
“I’d call that crystal a benefit,” I say before sipping tea.
Alastair picks that moment to show me a mouthful of chewed-up brownie by sticking it out on his tongue. Pippa scolds him, but he laughs. I sneak a grin at him when his parents aren’t watching.
“Aye. A rather large benefit—if I can ever crack its secrets.” Ethan raises his teacup. “I do thank you for your assistance down there—though, for the life of me, I cannot remember how you managed it.”
I twist a lock of hair around my finger, trying to look innocent. “Quite a bit of dodging and running. The air in that place was so stale, you must’ve been woozy.”
“Aye. Well, whatever happened, I feel you’re responsible for my continued existence, so, thank you.”
“You’re most welcome,” I say with a nod.
Conversation drifts back to his friend Kasper at MIT, and his hopes the man (who does something with lasers) will help him access the crystal’s secrets. Pippa fills him in on various banal things that happened with her and the boys while he’d been ‘missing.’ By the time dinner is ready an hour or so later, Ethan’s already gotten the itch to return to some Aztec site in Teotihuacán, Mexico.
This, of course, doesn’t go over very well with Pippa who pleads with him to spend at least a few months at home before worrying her to death again.
