Chapter 11 #3
I sighed heavily. “Look, Donovan, if she eats us, I dare say we deserve it. We’ve gone about this the wrong way. We should have knocked on her door and politely asked her to talk to us.”
“Oh. I still would have eaten you,” she called out from behind me.
“But instead,” I barreled on, ignoring her. “We rattled the door to her sanctuary and attacked her when she tried to come out. That’s not a polite way to introduce yourself, is it?”
“Yes,” the sea witch called. “It was very rude.”
I paddled with my arms, facing her again. “Please accept my apologies… uh, I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
Her lip wobbled again. “Nobody has asked me my name in centuries. Everyone just calls me the sea witch.”
“Well… what’s your name?”
“It’s Jengrakenzlore.”
“Nice to meet you, uh, Jen. I’m Susan Moore.” I held out my hand.
She looked at it and licked her lips. Her sharp teeth flashed.
I snatched it back.
“Sorry,” she said cheerfully. “Force of habit.”
“Listen, Jen.” I sidled a little closer. “I was wondering if you could help us with something. I’ve heard that you guard your realm’s spark stone.”
Her eyes suddenly narrowed. “What’s it to you?”
“Well, first of all, it shows you how much the other merpeople respect your power. If you’re the strongest, most magically capable creature in this whole world, and they’ve given you the stone to guard, it means that they value you enormously.”
She puffed out her chest. “You’re not wrong there, love. Well,” she wobbled her head from side to side. “Technically, they didn’t give it to me. I took it, and nobody could stop me. I’ve been using it as a centerpiece on my dining room table for the last few hundred years.”
“But you obviously know how important it is, so you guard it with your life.”
She shrugged. “Not with my life. Just with my teeth. And to be fair, I don’t really have to try too hard to secure it.”
I edged closer. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but the spark stone is in danger right now.”
“How?”
“There’s a—” Hmm. I probably shouldn't mention that the thief was Donovan’s brother. “There’s a fae man running around the Middle World who intends to steal it and devour it.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Hang on. This rings a bell.” The sea witch pouted her thin beaky lips and tapped a black-clawed finger against them.
“Honestly, it’s hard to keep track of all the prophecies that soothsayers and oracles spout, but I’ve heard this one a few times.
Hmm.” She peered at me. “I suppose he is trying to absorb its power?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“Right.” She huffed out a long breath of bubbles, a long sigh. “This has been foretold. The great Devourer, coming to destroy the magic of all the worlds.” She looked at me, frowning. “You’re the Chosen, I suppose. The One of Every Blood.”
“Apparently, I am. I’m supposed to close the stones.”
Her eyes roamed around my body for a second, her thin eyebrow raised. “You’re not what I expected. I thought the Chosen would be some hot chick in black leather. Like her.” She jabbed a thumb at Cress, still in her Black Widow pose—tense, taunt, and ready to fight.
“I’m sure Cress would make an excellent Chosen One.”
“No, she wouldn’t.” The sea witch sniffed. “I would have eaten her and spat out her bones. And there’s barely any flesh on her, anyway, so it would have been deeply unsatisfying.”
“Well, I guess it’s lucky you’ve got me,” I said, smiling at her warmly, trying to maintain eye contact while her boobs drifted all the way to the right, then back again.
“I don’t think I’d be much help in a fight, but in conflict situations I believe in diplomacy, first and foremost. Jen, we are both smart women.
I know we can reach a mutually beneficial outcome with a little discussion.
But in the interests of full disclosure, you should know that if I close the stone, your people will cease to evolve. ”
She wrinkled her nose. “We’re already damned perfect. I can’t see how we can get any better.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “So, that’s the only downside to cooperating with us today, Jen.”
The sea witch tapped her chin again, thinking for a moment. “I can’t just give you the spark stone, you know. I’ve been looking forward to fighting someone over it for centuries.”
“The Devourer will still come for it,” I reassured her. “From what I understand, he is obsessed with power, and he’ll try to eat all the spark stones. We’ll keep this between us, and hopefully he’ll still come to fight you.”
She nodded with relish. “Good.”
“And I don’t need to take it away from you. I just need to close it, so he can’t absorb the magic if he does try and eat it. Is that right, Donovan?” When he didn’t answer, I glanced back at him.
Oh, God, he was doing the same thing as Cress—he was frozen, eyes blazing, daggers bared, every line in his body tensed and ready to attack.
I turned back to the sea witch. “So, how about it, Jen? Let me close the spark stone, and you can just relax, kick back, and wait for the Devourer to show up, and you’ll get a good fight out of it.
You won’t be risking anything, because if he does by some miracle manage to eat your spark stone, it will be closed, and you won’t lose your magic. ”
She furrowed her brow, scowling deeply. “That’s actually a good point. I can’t imagine not having my magic. An eternity of not being able to curse bratty merkids will get boring quickly. Hmmm.” I waited patiently for a whole minute. “Okay, fine,” she said. “Wait here.”
She swiveled around and shot back into the hole, her tentacles trailing behind her.
“I’d invite you inside,” her voice echoed out from the darkness of her cave.
“But the kitchen is a bit of a mess. I was making lunch when you banged on my door.” A low moan drifted out of the hole.
“Quiet, you,” she admonished. “Give me five minutes, I’ll be right back. ”
I glanced back at Donovan and gave him a reassuring smile, but he was still tense, his eyes glued to the hole.
The tentacles erupted again, spilling out the doorway and fanning around the rocky seawall.
Good grief, she really was a terrifying nightmare.
If this was real, I’d be absolutely pooping my pants.
“Sorry it took so long,” she puffed, finally emerging.
“I had it glued to my dining room table. I learned the hard way that when I let my dinner wander around the cave, they can’t help themselves and keep picking it up.
Sticky fingered little bastards.” She whipped her hand out from behind her back. “Ta dah!”
I gasped.
“Pretty, isn’t it?”
My eyes bulged. “It’s glorious!” The mer spark stone was the size of a cantaloupe, perfectly round, with a hundred natural facets that caught the dim light in the trench, setting it to a heavenly, otherworldly glow—a shimmering deep aqua color, sparkling with silver flecks.
“Go ahead,” she said, holding it out. “Close it.”
“Er…”
She sniggered. “You don’t know how, do you?”
“Not exactly, no.” I cast another glance back at Donovan, but he and Cress were still in attack-mode, eyes darting left and right, waiting to make a move. “I must admit I’m new to all this, Jen. Could you give me some pointers?”
She sighed dramatically. “Fine. All you have to do is draw your power up within yourself and focus it on what you want. In this case, you want to ask the atoms of the stone to move, to condense, if you will, so that they harden on the surface, creating an impenetrable shell. That way, the stone will still vibrate on the inside, but the shell will stop the magic from emanating out of it.”
“That sounds simple enough,” I said, nodding. “So… er… how do I draw up my power?”
She stared at me. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
I sighed. “Please be kind, Jen. It’s been a long day, and like I said, I’m new at all this.”
“Kindness is not in my wheelhouse, sweetheart,” she said.
“Then we’re both trying something new today, aren’t we? Please,” I begged. “Give me some pointers.”
She huffed out another exasperated sigh. “Well, what does it feel like in your body just before you work your magic?”
“I… uh… I don’t think I’ve ever worked any magic.”
She snorted. “Of course you have. You are the Chosen. You can manipulate matter. You can’t contain that kind of raw power, girlfriend. If you don’t focus on it, it can erupt out of you whenever you’re scared or angry. You could quite literally tear down mountains.”
“I’m quite good at regulating my emotions,” I told her.
But a tingle ran down my spine as the memory hit me.
The heat within me, it was overwhelming, I couldn’t contain it, and it erupted out of my belly, pouring through my limbs and electrifying every part of me.
Walls shaking, plaster cracking. Bricks falling inwards, hitting the bed, bouncing on the mattress. Screams.
Loud screams. I’ll never forget the screams.
The sea witch snapped her fingers. “You managed to grow your gills. How did you feel just before that happened?”
With effort, I forced myself to focus. I remembered.
Donovan was calling me incompetent. The heat in my belly overwhelmed me.
I opened my mouth to shout at him, and I realized I could breathe.
“The heat,” I whispered. “Of course. My hot flashes. The menopause.” I shook my head, finally understanding.
“I’m subconsciously trying to reframe my early menopause symptoms into something not bad.
” I chuckled softly. “This all makes sense now.”
“Whatever, weirdo. Listen, can we hurry this up? My lunch is probably trying to escape.” She held out the glittering stone.
“Right.” I took the enormous crystal in both hands and jolted with shock as it tingled on my skin. “It feels… alive.”
“It is alive, stupid,” she snorted. “It contains the magic of the merpeople. It literally is life. Come on. Get on with it.” She nudged me gently once. Wait, no, that was her boob, drifting in the current, bumping into me. “Focus. Draw on your power.”