When one thinks of mermaids, one thinks of fairy tales, of beautiful creatures with long flowing hair, ethereal skin, a fantasy built around seduction. The mermaids that had captured me in the ocean were just that, humanoid beings that sang their prey to them. Some could even be good, though, and had alliances with the King just like other magical creatures of Verania did.
This was not those creatures.
This mermaid had only the vaguest of human attributes upon its countenance. There was a nose, yes, flattened with slits running down the middle. And eyes too, deep black pools that glittered in the sunlight. But the gaping maw that was its mouth was most certainly not human. It was almost perfectly circular in shape, with rows upon rows of sharpened teeth wrapping around the interior. Its skin was green that faded into black, looking fetid and tight, like it’d died decades before and then been baked by the sun. Its arms were long and thick, the claws on the hands it used to pull itself toward us bigger than I thought they were, curved into wicked hooks that looked as if they were made for eviscerating. It was obviously female, breasts hanging down into the sand. The lower half of its body was fishlike, with iridescent scales that caught the sunlight and cast reflections onto the surface of the sand. The tail at the bottom had fins that curved off outwardly.
But what stuck out at me the most aside from the sheer horror of it, the size of this thing crawling toward me, were the seashells that looked as if they were embedded into its skin, shells that were green and gold and red and white and jutted out from its face and neck and shoulders.
“Sam!” Gary called.
“Yes, Gary.”
“Now would probably be a good time to run.”
“Thank you, Gary.”
“Also, Sam?”
“Yes, Gary.”
“There’s another one crawling up on the other side.”
“Godsdammit,” I said as we whirled around, because sure enough, another horror was crawling up and out of the sand, moving toward us as if it had all the time in the world. “I am going to have such fucking nightmares after this.”
“Maybe we should—” I heard Kevin start.
“No,” I shouted at them. “You stay back there, you hear me? Don’t. Not until—”
Wizard, the voice sang, from the heart of the ruins or in my mind, I didn’t know. Come to me.
“Fuck,” I said, bending over and clutching my head. I felt Ryan put a hand on my back, anchoring me with his presence. “It’s calling me. We have to—”
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Ruv said, sounding far calmer than he should have been. “I’m going to draw them away. And you’re going to get to the island as quickly as possible. Don’t stop. Don’t look back. The path curves left, then right, then left one more time. Ryan, do you see that large stone? Looks like a tree.”
“Yeah. I see it.”
“That’s where the path ends. Get him there.”
“What are you going to do?” Ryan asked, sounding dubious. “You can’t go out onto the sand. They’ll pull you under.”
I looked up as Ruv said, “Not if they can’t catch me.” There was a glint in his eyes that I didn’t like, but before I could say anything about it, he pulled the wooden contraption off his back and threw it out onto the sand to the right, off the path. It landed but didn’t sink. And as soon as it hit the sand, it popped open, the wooden slats snapping on the metal hinges, until it was a long, thin board, curved up along the edges. A wooden pole shot up in the middle, the cloth tied to either end. The wind blowing over the surface of the sand sea caught the cloth, and it billowed out, like a sail. The board began to slide along the sand.
“Holy shit,” I said. “Are you going to ride that?”
The Wolf of Bari Lavuta winked at me, a cheeky grin on his face. “Told you I knew what I was doing.” And then he took a few steps back, bounced on his heels once, twice. He took four running steps forward and jumped, then landed on top of the board. It caught his weight and sank the slightest amount into the sand before it bounced back up and skittered along the surface. The sail flapped, and the momentum of his jump caused the board to pick up speed, away from us and toward the sand mermaid. Ruv bent his knees and jutted his hips, turning the board to the left.
“That’s not something you see every day,” I said.
“I bet I could do that if I wanted to,” Ryan said, though he too sounded impressed.
“Over here!” Ruv yelled. “Come and get me!”
The sand mermaid let out an unholy roar, something that caused my bones to ache. Its tail snapped back and forth, and for a moment, I thought it was going to reach out and pull him right off the board, but he moved at the last second, directing himself toward the large sand dune that surrounded one side of the valley we were in. It began to chase after him, sand shooting up around it as it dove under the surface.
“Crap,” Ryan said. “Where’d the other one go?”
He was right. It was gone too. The sand rippled, but there was no sight of it.
“It went back under,” Kevin called out. “When the other one did. Maybe you guys should consider moving your asses?”