The Twice Lost (46 page)

And it no longer sounded like a cry of amazement. The tone had darkened to a howl of fury and dismay. Imani, Graciela, and Yuan rushed close to hold her, tugging her away from the shore in alarm. All of them were buffeted by a torrent of outraged sound. They spun in place, bewildered. A woman was yelling at Dorian. In that vast clamor Luce couldn’t make out what she was saying, but she saw the desperate look that came over Dorian’s face, the way his body wrung with sudden despair as he scanned the water for her.

“Luce! Yuan!” Dorian screamed. The mermaids were floating together thirty feet out, scared to approach any nearer. He caught sight of them and waved his arms wildly; Luce thought he was beckoning them over and shook her head in anxiety. “Get out of here now! Swim away and hide!”
Hide?
Luce shuddered with the first gasp of understanding. “The mermaids just destroyed Baltimore!”

35

If it had not been for the vast tumultuous crash that turned the inside of the harbor into slashing crosscurrents as strong as waterfalls, for the shock waves slamming forward with irresistible violence, for all the froth and the mermaid bodies hurled in disorder, Anais wouldn’t have had the slightest chance of escaping. She was sent tumbling with the rest of them through a labyrinth of foam that rose in veils and hid them from one another. A surge like an angled geyser caught Anais and shot her up and over. Strange green fins smacked at her face; a hand wriggling like an anemone burst out of a wall of crystalline foam and grasped her wrist. Anais craned forward and bit the hand savagely, and it let go. Then she was speeding away, although at first she was too disoriented to guess at her direction. When she surfaced she saw cars drifting like bubbles where the freeway had been minutes before, an off-ramp snapped in two halfway up its arch, buildings slumped over into heaps of angled walls and rubble while high wild waves leaped through the city streets.

Moreland had promised her that she could be human again if she wanted to. And she couldn’t keep being a mermaid, obviously; as soon as the Twice Lost recovered from the shock and realized what she’d done they’d be after her. And once they caught her . . . Her only option was to leave the water as soon as possible before dozens of enraged mermaids shredded her fins, twitched her scales off one by one, then opened her veins with raking nails. But when she looked around she couldn’t recognize the spot where Moreland had left her anymore. The streets channeled eddying waters spangled peach and bronze by the rising sun. She had a vague sense that she’d slid into the harbor somewhere on the left, near those slips where dozens of shattered and upended yachts now slanted across the jetties, their white hulls grinding together with each new impulse of the maddened sea. Anais dashed in that direction. Soon she was weaving between the submerged cars on the freeway, sometimes ducking below rolling human bodies dressed in bright summer outfits. A German shepherd with blood pouring into its eyes from a head wound snarled furiously at her as it swam nearby, but with a quick lash of her tail Anais darted out of reach of its jaws.

Lush green trees cast endless shadows over the dawn- shimmered water as she turned up a street of partly collapsed red brick townhouses and small, uninteresting shops that had sold plumbing supplies and carpeting. The water was high enough that she skimmed alongside second-story windows, sometimes peeking in at beds whose sheets suddenly hovered above them like huge waterlogged wings. Anais passed a teenage girl who was standing on her dresser in a room whose front wall had torn away so that rags of its flowered wallpaper bellied in the currents. The girl was gasping so hard that her breath sounded like tearing flesh. In the green water below a drowned white cat thudded against crushed bits of furniture, shoes, and uprooted saplings, followed by an unmoving boy no older than four. A silver fish peered out of his open mouth. Anais felt her heart beating so quickly that it merged with the sound of her blood into a single skittish clamor. She’d only done it because Moreland had
made
her, she told herself. But somehow that didn’t calm her down or ease the yawning, rattling sensation in her chest.

The water was smoother now, gradually lapping into the calm that comes after utter devastation. Birds trilled in the protruding crests of uprooted trees lining the street; sirens howled in the distance. Wherever she looked, Moreland was nowhere. A torn daisy grazed Anais’s shoulder, heading out toward the sea. She didn’t think about it, only about the black van that
had
to be around here somewhere. No matter how much she hated Moreland she needed him now to rescue her from all this awful chaos.

Then a garbage can lid came spinning straight at her, clapping her on the head. She glowered at it in irritation as it cycled on toward the harbor. It was traveling faster than the daisy had been.

A chair swung itself through roiling water, smacking her arms and bruising her tail. The drag of the current was against her now, and she had to fight to keep swimming inland. Her fins flicked against the cold metal dome of a car. Lace curtains billowed from a second-story window, and now they were well above her head.

With a sudden jolt, Anais became aware that the level of the water was dropping. Fast. The flood was receding from the ruined blocks along the waterfront.

And she couldn’t find Moreland
anywhere,
and soon she might be left beached and helpless on a field of silt-filmed debris, her tail slowly drying in the brightening sun. She toyed with the idea of turning back to the harbor and trying to escape into the open sea. But the harbor’s neck was quite narrow, and it seemed much too likely that the mermaids she’d deceived would catch her if she tried it. Anais could already picture the water streaked by their rapidly converging bodies, their hands contorting with desire to sink into her throat. She hovered where she was for a few moments, the water bubbling past her as if drawn by some immense drain. Then she began slipping along with the flux.

Where had Moreland gone? How could he have abandoned her now? It was, Anais thought, so terribly unfair. Doorways flashed by. She was drifting backwards now. Something razor-sharp gouged into her scales. She screamed and rolled sideways to escape it and only succeeded in slashing herself more deeply. Anais curled in place, turned awkwardly on her side, and saw that her tail had snaked deep into the broken windshield of a car strangely canted on a pile of fallen tree trunks. The hole where her tail was lodged gleamed back at her like a mouth lined with gleaming diamond teeth. The water kept pulling out from below her as she struggled to free herself until she was draped across a row of serrated glass jags, her upper body tipped across the car’s steeply angled hood. A long curve of her tail was exposed to the summer air now and her fins flapped helplessly against the driver’s seat. Blood streamed down the car’s scraped silver paint and blossomed in the greenish tide. With every twist and spasm Anais felt the glass stabbing her anew. Hot sun settled gently on her scales. Droplets of water flared like sparks, and soon Anais felt the pain of a deep internal fire. Her tail smoldered unbearably; it was all far beyond any suffering she’d ever imagined.

With a desperate effort she managed to tilt her body off the hood until her torso dipped into the outflowing sea. The sloping trunks below appeared through the reddish clouds of her spreading blood as she braced herself with both hands, then heaved her tail up and free of the slashing glass and jerked herself violently forward at the same time. Pain raked through her and gouts of blood spurted from wide ragged cuts. Her azure fins shredded as they flopped across the jags again, and she landed screaming in the water: water that was now no more than three feet deep. Bleeding and frantic, Anais swung her lacerated tail. She had to get back across the highway and into the harbor again before the falling water left her stranded.

She hurled herself through the retreating tide as best she could, asphalt and broken bricks and spilled garbage only inches from her face. Behind her blood trailed in crimson plumes. But there, just ahead, the highway shone in a long plane of glittering water interrupted by cars and trucks knocked askew like hundreds of small lacquered islands. And beyond the highway there was a large gymnasium caved in on one side, rows of treadmills heaped in muddy confusion—beyond that, the broken, swaggering masts and boats turned belly-up that promised deep water. If she could get there, at least she wouldn’t have to face that horrible burning in her tail again, that immolation buried in her own flesh . . .

The deep gouges in her tail slowed her movements, sending blades of cold agony through her with every beat of her fins. She was no more than a foot above the pavement now, and as she skimmed across the double yellow lines at the freeway’s midpoint she began to understand that the water below her might run out and leave her floundering before she reached the gleaming green depths on its far side. Terror charged through her muscles, and her tail began to lash in wild defiance of the pain. With every stroke her shredded fins slapped horribly against the coarse pavement and pebbles grated against her raw wounds. But she was close now, so horribly close; already she was crossing the yacht club’s parking lot on a plane of water so shallow that she had to constantly crane her neck to avoid dragging her face across the stones and torn metal thrown everywhere by that enormous wave. The masts now were just ahead, and suddenly instead of skimming above asphalt Anais saw the dark stained beams of the boardwalk that ran out between the ruined boats. In only moments she would plunge into deep water and sink her tail far from the harsh, pursuing sun, the naked air.

Wood slammed into Anais’s belly, and the last cascade of water dashed back to sea without her. Salt water pooled under her flailing tail and then gradually drained away through the cracks between each plank. The harbor glinted. How far away? Was it six feet? Eight? It struck her as impossibly distant. Sunlight fluttered onto her scales like butterflies. Then, as Anais smacked and thudded at the planks, those butterflies burst into penetrating flames.

Something dark squealed as it loomed above her, cutting off the sun. Sharp, repetitive screams burst in her throat like tiny exploding stars. She was filled by fire, and her wounded tail thrashed uncontrollably. Her torn fins caught against rusty nails and ripped again. Everything seemed blinding bright, set alight by pain. A car door slammed close by.

“Aaaah,” a voice groaned. “Aaah, no, no. My Anais . . .” Rough hands shoved and then rolled her like a sloppy, blood-spattered carcass over splintering wood. She couldn’t stop screaming.

Then . . . then the wood came to an end, and Anais dropped through empty air. She landed with a splash in the green harbor. Flotillas of debris bobbed thickly around her. Her tail soaked up the cool, quenching water while she gulped harsh, staccato breaths. Someone was close by. Someone was dropping into the water next to her and binding her shoulders in huge greedy arms . . .

At first the delicious relief of simply being in somewhat less pain was enough to keep her from caring who was gripping her. The fire in her scales was doused, drowned, and even if blood kept on unraveling from her salt-stung wounds she was
alive.
If she could just make it past Sadie and the others she would still have a chance. Though, come to think of it, she was feeling awfully weak and sleepy. Maybe she should rest before she tried anything like that.

A heavy hand pawed at her cheek and hot, humid breath gusted into her ear.

The sodden wool of a large expensive suit pressed against her side. Two thick legs kicked and then found purchase on a submerged pier. That
someone
was standing slightly above her now, the water’s surface just reaching the knot of his tie, so that she sagged a little in his grip.

Anais’s relief was replaced by the intensely disagreeable awareness that Secretary Moreland had saved her life. Couldn’t it have been a younger, hotter guy? Someone more like Dorian? Her tail flicked with irritation, but that only made her torn fins burn. Vaguely it occurred to her that she’d lost a lot of blood. She didn’t feel well at all. Clouds of tiny black fish seemed to swim through her head.

“Anais,” Moreland moaned into her ear, “Anais, it’s all over. Everyone knows, everything’s been exposed. But thank God, it’s all over! Oh, Anais . . .”

“I want to be human again,” Anais snapped. It was disgusting to feel him squeezing her this way. It made her feel so cheap. “Like you promised! I want to be human, and I want my house back, and all my parents’ money. And I want to
never
see you again!” She gave a quick, revolted squirm. “Get
off
of me!”

It took her a few moments to understand that the high, whining sound in her ear was coming from Moreland’s throat. “Ah, tadpole,” Moreland wheezed out at last. “I’m afraid I can’t accommodate you. It’s much too late for that. The jig, as they say, is up. In the last fifteen minutes or so there’s been simply astounding news blaring over the radio. And it’s all about me and you. It appears that your Charlie Hackett secretly recorded tapes of the two of us talking, and now he’s gone and given everything to the news channels. Everyone knows the little tricks we’ve been getting up to, and they’re not pleased with us at all.”

Anais didn’t understand what he was talking about—and even more, she didn’t
want
to understand.
Too late?

“Anais,” Moreland crooned. “Anais, darling. Sing me to sleep.”

Anais thrashed hard enough that he loosened his grip slightly. She turned to look into his jowly, contorted face. His gray eyes slopped in their sockets like dirty water as he gave her a kind of simpering smile. He reached to stroke her hair. She felt too weak now even to try to shake him off. The water below her looked dark as wine, wrapped by unwinding blood.

“Sing me to sleep, Anais. That’s the only thing I still want. Sing me to sleep, once and for all, and then . . . you’ll be free, free, free to go.”

Her head pitched a little. He should take her to a hospital, Anais thought blearily, not keep jabbering on about singing. And anyway, she didn’t
feel
like it. “No.”