Waterfire Saga, Book Three: Dark Tide: A Deep Blue Novel (30 page)

Summoning all her courage, Becca swam out from the kelp and headed for the
Achilles.
The ghosts were still singing and dancing. Becca swam between two English sailors who, judging from
their clothes, had died centuries ago. They were playing chess.

“You feel something?” one asked, as she passed them by.

“Aye, Jackie! Look out, it’s yer wife! She’s brandishing a rolling pin!” the other said.

Jackie jumped. He spun around, panic-stricken, then laughed when he saw the cod. “Naw, that’s not me wife,” he said. “That fish is ten times prettier!”

Yes!
Becca thought excitedly. Her plan was working.

She glided past a Spanish sailor wearing a uniform last seen when Ferdinand V ruled. He was fencing with the blue-blazered owner of a yacht who looked like he drowned a week ago. The Spaniard,
too, swiftly spun around as Becca swam by, cutlass raised, only to relax when he saw the cod.

She moved past more ghosts, careful to stay out of reach, until finally she reached the ship’s hull. The hole was in the starboard bow. Becca carefully swam through it and made her way
down the hold.

The inside of the ship was murky and filled with more ghosts. As she reached the stern, she spotted what she was searching for. There was another opening in there, much larger than the one in
the bow, and beyond it rose the rocky base of the Williwaw’s lair. Becca could just make out the crack, jagged and wide, that the bubble tea seller had told her about.

Fear raised the scales along the back of her tail. She had no idea what she was swimming into, if the Williwaw was in its cave, where Pyrrha’s gold coin might be, or even how long the
transparensea pebble would last. She squeezed through the crack and found the passageway. It was dark, but Becca didn’t dare cast an illuminata for fear it would be seen, so she had to feel
her way along the walls. Creatures of the darkness—soft, slimy, and sightless—moved under her hands. After she’d been swimming down the passageway for five minutes or so, it
started to angle up. The waters around her grew lighter.

A few seconds later, Becca surfaced in a soaring space. She tilted her head back and saw that the cave was conical in shape and the top had a large opening that let in air and light.

On a large, broad ledge just above the waterline, sat an enormous nest. It was made of ship’s timbers, splintered masts, whalebone, human bones, sailcloth, rigging, pieces of fiberglass,
and shredded life jackets.

The nest was empty. The cave was empty. Becca was alone.

She heaved a sigh of relief, almost unable to believe her luck. But her relief quickly turned to discouragement as she realized Pyrrha’s coin was nowhere to be seen. She’d thought
the Williwaw might have a chest, or a special niche where he kept his treasures, but no. The small coin was probably somewhere in that giant nest, and it would take her ages to search it.

The cod poked his nose out of the water. “Can I have the rest of my squid now?” he asked.

“Not until we leave,” Becca said.

The fish dove. He swam around in circles under the surface, grumbling.

Becca stuck her face in the water. “Maybe you could
help
me?” she said. “I need to find a gold coin, very old, with an image of Neria on it.”

“Maybe,” the cod said. “Wouldn’t count on it, though.”

Becca sighed and regarded the nest again. She knew she had to get herself inside it, but how?

She put her hands on the ledge, ready to boost herself up, but her arms were shaking so badly, she couldn’t. Becca didn’t like leaving the water, and a tail was not much good when it
came to climbing. She also didn’t like not having a plan.

This is impossible,
she thought.
I can’t do it
.

She was going to submerge again and try to work up her courage when her eye fell on the scar on one of her palms. It was from the bloodbind. The cut she’d made had been painful and deep,
but the scar tissue had closed it and made her skin stronger than before.

Just as the bloodbind had made
her
stronger.

Sera, Neela, Ling, and Ava—their blood surged through her. Her friends, her sisters, were with her. She might be scared, but she
wasn’t
alone.

Becca’s arms stopped shaking. She boosted herself up onto the ledge, then carefully worked her way up the side of the nest, using her hands to pull herself and her tail to push. She knew
her next move. That was something. It wasn’t a plan, exactly, but maybe it was the start of one.

Half an hour later, she was at the top of the structure, her tail fins planted on a broken mast. She heaved herself over the edge of the nest, landing with a
whump
.

The fall knocked her glasses down her nose. She pushed them back up, then started to search, pulling up the boat cushions and tattered spinnakers that padded the nest. There were hollows
underneath, but they contained nothing. Becca soon saw that every component of the nest served the purpose of strengthening it. Nothing was merely decorative.

Why would a coin even
be
in here?
she wondered, losing hope.

As she continued to search, she noticed that one of her hands had started to shimmer. The transparensea pebble was wearing off.

She’d just picked up the edge of a sail when she felt it—a vibration. It was coming from the rock itself. The very walls of the cave were shaking.

Something was coming. Something big.

The cod poked its head out of the water. “I think we’ve got company,” he said. “It’s the Williwaw. It’ll kill you for sure when it finds you in its cave. So
can I have my squid now?”

Becca didn’t answer him. She was leaning on the edge of the nest, looking out of the hole in the cave’s wall.

The vibrations increased. The water below her started to swirl and bubble. And then it came into view, a creature unlike any she’d seen before.

Becca blinked.

And bit back a scream.

T
HE WILLIWAW WAS a parched and tattered thing, death in a handful of dust.

It was a whale washed up on a beach and left to the merciless sun. A broken-winged gull hobbling across the hot sand. A deer collapsing at a dry riverbed.

The top half of its head was a bird skull, bleached white, with a sharp ebony beak, and the bottom half was human, with a wide jaw, and a gray bottom lip. Its feet and hands were tipped with
talons. Bones showed through tears in the dry, leathery skin stretched over its manlike body. Trinkets dangled from golden chains around its neck. A pair of black wings sprouted from its back. Each
flap brought the creature closer.

“I need to think. Come up with some ideas. I need a
plan
.” Becca was babbling with fear.

“Plan?”
the cod scoffed. “You need a
miracle
!”

Becca knew she had to act.
Fast.
If she didn’t, the Williwaw would kill her. But she couldn’t move. She was frozen.

The Williwaw drew nearer. Becca squinted. Her glasses were strong and allowed her to make out the treasures around its neck. Gems. Teeth. Bones. And a locket—an ancient gold locket on an
ancient gold chain.

It was hanging open and it held a coin.

That’s Pyrrha’s coin! It has to be!
Becca thought.
I bet Merrow put it in that locket, and then put the chain over the Williwaw’s head to make sure no one could
ever get it.

Getting it from the spirit would be all but impossible. Calculations would have to be made. It would take time.

But Becca didn’t have time. Despair gripped her. She’d never be able to get the coin from the creature. She and the others would fail in their task and Abbadon would rise again.

The sound of rushing wind grew louder.

The cod glanced nervously at the opening. “Time to improvise, sister,” he said.

“I—I can’t improvise. I don’t know how. It’s not in my comfort zone.”

“What about death? Is death in your comfort zone?” the cod asked.

An image swam before her eyes, of the monster killing one of the Iele. Abbadon would kill her friends, and so many others. Unless she got the coin.

In that instant, Becca’s paralysis broke.

She looked at her hands. One was still shimmering, but not much.
I’m still mostly invisible. The cod’s still here. And I’m crafty. In more ways than one. I can
do
this,
she told herself.

She looked at the Williwaw again, only yards away now, and knew she had about sixty seconds.

“Fish!” she hissed. “Do you still want the squid?”

“What do you think?”

“Then do
exactly
what I say.”

T
HE WILLIWAW SPOKE as it flew into the cave. To Becca, its voice sounded like the vengeful howl of a gale one second, the mad shriek of a hurricane
the next. It hovered over another ledge, where it tossed its latest gleanings—driftwood, a fishing pole, an oar—then flew up to its nest. Becca’s heart thumped with fear. She was
sitting on the far edge of the nest, her back against the cave wall, her tail pulled up under her. She could see the spirit’s terrible talons, curved and sharp, as it raked through padding,
plumping it up. After a moment, it turned away from her, faced the front of its nest, and settled. It folded its wings along its back and started to preen them.

Where’s that fish?
Becca wondered anxiously, praying that the cod hadn’t changed its mind. Mer could breathe air for a little while but it was difficult, and Becca’s
lungs were beginning to feel the strain.

As if on cue, the fish poked his head out of the water.

“Hail, great Williwaw!” he said.

The Williwaw leaned forward menacingly. “What do you want, fish?”

“The ghosts sent me. There’s a bit of a fracas going on at the
Achilles
, and they told me to give you a heads-up.”

The wind spirit spoke to the fish in its own language, just as Becca had done. She was able to understand everything they said.
So far, so good,
she thought. The cod was saying exactly
what she’d told it to.

“What do you mean there’s a
fracas
?” the Williwaw asked.

“Seems that Cassio, the sky god—”

“I
know
who Cassio is,” the Williwaw said.

“Right. Well, Cassio’s got a thing for Neféli, a cloud nymph. She saw your locket yesterday when you were flying around, and she wants it. So Cassio sent some heavies to get
it. Trykel and Spume are down below, battling the ghosts. Looks like they’ll be coming in through that crack in the rock any second. And Zephyros is planning to attack from the air. I’m
sure he’ll be popping through there”—the cod nodded at the opening the Williwaw had flown through—“pretty soon. So you might want to take the locket off and hide it.
Just a suggestion.”

Good job!
Becca said silently. Trykel and Spume, the gods of the tides, and Zephyros, Cassio’s son, were more powerful than the Williwaw. The wind spirit was sure to be
alarmed.

But it wasn’t. Instead, it laughed.

“You want me to take off the locket so you can get it,” it said. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

“Stupid? No. Paranoid? Maybe,” the cod said.

The Williwaw jumped onto the edge of its nest and snapped its fearsome beak in anger.

“Chill, Will. As I’m sure you can see, I’m a
fish
. I don’t have legs or wings or a hovercraft. So there’s no way
I’m
getting into your nest
to steal the locket. I don’t even have a neck, so what good is it to me?
Don’t
hide the locket. I really don’t care. The ghosts told me to warn you, and I did. So
I’m out of here.”

The cod flipped its tail and dove, but Becca knew it wasn’t finished yet. She’d told it to swim in circles just below the surface to stir up the water and make the Williwaw think
Trykel and Spume were coming.

At first nothing happened. But then the water started to swirl, and bubbles rose. The Williwaw saw it and screeched. It tore the locket from its neck, dug up the padding in its nest, and hid the
locket under it. Then it climbed back on the edge, its back to Becca once more, its sharp eyes darting between the churning water and the entrance high above it.