15

Vic

The water inside the sphere picked up the red of the dry ground around it, turning it purple. Vic caught glimpses of tentacles and fins as the Sea upon the Land swirled with internal
currents.

Drops sprayed them as wind whipped across the sphere. The grass retreated from the salt, leaving sticky mud that made the going hard.

Vic slipped and muttered a curse while Argent walked with perfect grace. The stories had gotten that part right about elves. Or maybe she slipped and tripped and just hid it with an
illusion.

They were close enough now that the sphere loomed over them. Its surface rippled with endless waves. Miles wide at its equator, it rested on the ground, like a marble on a table. Vic didn’t have the math to calculate the volume. It was just what Argent called it, a Sea upon the Land.

The closer they got the more he felt the size of it. Even the tiniest roll would crush them. Vic fought the need to retreat.

The gnomes’ tracks ended at the sphere’s base.

“How do we get inside?” he asked. “Or can you breathe underwater?”

“I cannot,” Argent said with a scowl. “I can bring air with us, but it would take magic.”

“Okay, what is the plan here?” Vic asked. “We’re spying on them, hoping to overhear their evil plan? Or do we just walk up and knock?”

“You are very droll today, Vicente,” Argent said.

“Yeah, well, I’m hungry,” he said.

It was true, but his concern for Adam gnawed at him more. Vic hadn’t signed up for this and he remained kind of pissed off that Argent had roped him into it without asking him first, especially since he still didn’t know why.

She’d said she had Adam’s best interests at heart, but Vic didn’t trust that. Elves were from another world. They lived forever. Her idea of best could be radically different from Adam’s, and it might not include a future with Vic.

“What about the gnomes?” he asked, focusing on the business at hand. “Can they breathe water?”

“Good question. They cannot,” she said. “Let’s get closer.”

Vic swallowed hard, but he followed Argent into the valley made by the sphere’s weight.

A dock sat on the dry ground. It jutted into the sphere’s base.

“It’s a dive shop,” Vic said, unable to suppress a grin.

There was a shack and racks of different sized tanks and suits just like he’d seen in Cozumel. Dozens, the smaller ones especially, were gone, but a mix remained.

“You know how to use these?” Argent asked, looking a little uncomfortable.

“I do,” he said. “I can show you, but why are they here?”

“Stealth,” she said. “A mundane solution for the sea elves’ allies. Likely since magic might be detected.”

“You said that’s not supposed to be here.” Vic nodded up at the sphere. “So they’re planning something and they didn’t want you to know about it.”

“Exactly my concern,” Argent said.

“That doesn’t give off a lot of magic?” Vic asked, waving at the sea.

“I didn’t say they were smart,” Argent said.

They took turns changing in the shack, and he helped her fit a tank and goggles to her suit as he explained how to breathe.

“How do we get inside?” Vic asked. This close, it curved over him. It felt like being underground, beneath the tremendous weight of all that water.

Vic had never felt so small.

“Just step into it,” Argent said. “Once we’re in, keep close. You asked me what dangers lived here. Most of them can swim.”

Vic shuddered, but followed as Argent touched the sphere. Her hand sank into the water as easily as it might a wave.

Vic took a long breath, adjusted his goggles, and leapt inside.

The water was cold, and he was grateful for the wet suit, though he wasn’t certain how his clothes and gun were faring in the plastic bag he’d tied them in.

He swam after Argent, rising. They kept near the sphere’s edge, but not too near. Vic imagined himself falling through it, tumbling to his death as they rose higher and higher.

Argent had no trouble mastering the tank. Either she was a natural or it was another elf thing. They might learn faster, take up new things faster, but that seemed to contradict their love of old things and classic cars. Vic hadn’t met enough of them to decide.

The lighthouse perched atop its pile of shipwrecks. It grew colder as they swam that way, deeper, toward the core. The sunlight thinned. Vic hoped Argent remembered that his eyesight wasn’t a sharp as hers.

Everything was distorted and hazy, but it all felt like someone had seen pet store aquariums and really wanted that look for their home, or their skyscraper of a fortress.

Vic took a long breath through the mask and let out a stream of bubbles. This place was whimsical, but scary too. Whoever had built this had the power to make it happen, to build an ocean in a bubble in the middle of Kansas.

They swam on, deeper and deeper into the sphere. Something blurred the last of the light behind them, like a thick cloud had passed over the sun.

Vic turned. No, not a cloud. A giant shark passed between them and the sphere’s surface.

Argent went very still and Vic followed her lead, floating there, taking as few breaths as possible.

The creature was massive, bigger than most boats, than an RV.

It hadn’t noticed them, but if it turned—Vic forced himself to breathe calmly into the mask. He’d seen a dragon. He was a cop, a Grim Reaper, but still, that shark could swallow him in a single bite.

Argent gave him a nod and they continued.

The tower stretched for at least twenty stories, but they swam quickly. Vic could feel the pressure tighten as Argent led him to a window near the lighthouse’s peak.

She stuck her head inside, then stepped through, waving for Vic to follow.

The window was like a force field, holding back the water. Vic stepped into air. Whatever magic kept the water out, it kept all of it out. He was dry, head to toe.

The room looked like something from a theme park, but it wasn’t too weird if he thought in aquarium terms. The floor was mosaic, a million little tiles of blue and teal held together by white mortar that looked a bit like toothpaste. Still, it was empty. He could hear dripping somewhere. So some water got in or it might be a feature.

“No one here either,” he whispered.

“They’re above us,” Argent said.

He shot her a questioning look.

She pointed to her ear.

The walls were fresco, a colorful, textured plaster that was probably supposed to remind him of coral. Maybe it really was coral, grown here over eons. He focused on it as they shed their tanks and wet suits. Vic was glad to see the magic had dried his clothes but more importantly, his gun appeared unsoaked.

Outside, the massive shark continued its lazy swim, sunning itself on the faint beams of light passing through the sphere.

“What is that thing?” Vic asked.

“A megalodon,” Argent said, appreciatively. “They’re ancient, long gone in your world, but like us, our brethren of the water are preservationists. Here, they thrive.”

“So they’re not all bad? The sea elves, I mean,” Vic asked.

“Very few people are all anything, Vicente,” she mused. “Anyone can be the best or worst of persons. The greatest saints or horrors of your own kind were all human.”

Vic nodded. His mother would have appreciated the thought. History said Argent’s words were true.

He watched the megalodon a moment longer. Its teeth had to be as long as his fingers.

“Are we going to have to come back this way?” he asked.

“Perhaps,” she said. “But it should not bother us if we don’t attract its attention.”

“I’ll try not to look like bait,” Vic said, taking in more of the room.

The ceiling wasn’t quite flat, the walls not quite squared. Immortals were almost alien, and their spaces were strange. The angles weren’t quite meant for human eyes.

Not that Vic was certain he was still entirely human.

He had no sense of the Reaper sleeping inside him. He didn’t even know if it was part of him, or just some spirit he sublet space to. His baton was tucked into his belt. He didn’t feel anything from it, any kind of tingle or sign that he or it had any special significance.

Maybe, if Adam wasn’t going to tell him anything, Argent could.

“Will the sea elves know we’re here?” Vic asked. “You’re hiding your magic. Is that enough?”

“I have an advantage they don’t know about,” she said.

“The window thing, that they’re not looking for you with their eyes?”

“Not just that.” Argent smiled. “I have you.”

“I don’t get it,” Vic said.

“Reapers are strange and very subtle. We’ve never had much chance to study one before. I suspect Death hides you the way she hides her own power. No one really knows its source or limits. She’s not a god, or even an immortal as we understand ourselves. I am gambling on two things: one, that a little of her efforts to hide you will cling to me.”

“And the other?”

“That if it does come to war, she wants us to win.”

“I don’t think she cares about politics, or whatever this is.” Vic waved a hand at the coral walls and ceiling. “I think she cares about doing her job. And burritos. She said something about burritos last time.”

“We don’t understand her,” Argent admitted. “Not really. But she showed a bit of herself in Denver. She likes balance, that life and death keep their roles. She doesn’t like things that break those rules.”

“Like warlocks?” he asked.

Argent stiffened.

“Very likely, though she’s clearly not above using them as tools.”

“Did he really have to do it, maim himself to bind the spirit?”

“This isn’t the best time or place for this conversation, Vicente, but yes. Binding a spirit as old and complicated as what we’ve named Mercy, required a sacrifice. It was that or maim another conscious, living thing.”

Vic nodded and swallowed the rest of his questions.

It wasn’t just the bonding thing. There was too much Adam hadn’t explained.

Spending time with Argent was starting to give Vic an idea just how much Adam was holding back, how much he hadn’t said. Worse, Vic was starting to wonder if he really could trust Adam, and it put a little stitch in his heart to think that.

“So what next?” Vic asked, nodding to the shell-lined, curving hallway.

“I’m uncertain,” Argent said. “I’m making it up as I go along.”

“Is that smart?” he asked.

“Quite,” she said. “Immortals are predictable. We like patterns. Having no plan should make it harder to anticipate what I’ll do next.”

“You talk like someone is watching you, watching us,” Vic whispered. “I thought we were hiding.”

“You can never be too cautious.”

It was another lie, or at least another half-truth. Argent wasn’t telling him everything. Vic didn’t like it, but she was right, this wasn’t the time or place to push it.

If these sea elves had been the ones to attack them, they might come for Adam too.

“After you,” Argent said, gesturing Vic forward.

He took a breath, screwed up his courage, and started down the hall.

Light filtered in from great prisms of greenish sea glass. The only sound was the ocean, churning and roiling outside the windows.

“There’s nobody here,” Vic said. “Is that strange?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t like it either,” Argent said.

“Do they know we’re here?” he asked.

“Not so far as I can tell, but it could be a trap.”

“Let’s go carefully,” Vic suggested as they came to a spiraling, corkscrew stairwell.

A long chain of blue glowing worms ran down its center, casting enough light for them to safely climb. Argent took the lead.

Vic felt exposed. There were too many corners, too many places for someone to get the drop on them, but he didn’t see anyone climbing or descending when he leaned out past the metal rail to peek.

They’d gone up for a while when Argent jerked Vic to the side by his jacket sleeve. They pressed themselves against a wall, between two giant ceramic seahorses, waiting for someone to go by.

A group of the sea elves came up the stairs.

Vic tried to get a look without moving. They carried long tridents, and Vic imagined being skewered on one. So far this place had felt like a theme park, but now the danger got a little more real.

The sea elves were the opposite of Argent’s brood. She and Silver favored grays and metallic shades, looks that brought out the glow of their pale skin and icy eyes.

The winter twins were beautiful, and these elves were no different, yet they were somehow colder. Their hair and eyes leaned toward darker shades, inky midnight, deep blues and blacks. Their skin had a blueish tint. Argent and Silver were strange, but these elves moved differently, more like birds or insects, like something predatory, something not human.

Vic wanted to ask Argent if she and Silver did that for their sakes, to fit in better with the humans they knew. He tucked the question away as the sea elves continued to climb the stairs.

Their dark hair rippled out from their helmets. Vic did not try to guess their gender. Their armor, gleaming like black beetle shells, gave no clue.

Argent waited a long while, past even when Vic would have. Only when he was starting to think she’d frozen did she move, following the soldiers up the stairs.

The light from the prisms brightened. They were nearing the lighthouse’s peak.

Argent paused again, ear cocked to the side, and then hurried into the shadows. Vic followed. He crept as quickly as he could, certain the tread of his clumsier steps would give them away.

The stairwell opened onto a broad, circular space. It was a lot like an old theater, filled with velvet, ornate folding chairs and an eager audience.

Vic recognized the gnomes and sea elves, but dozens of other things sat in the theater, including a number of figures with red and purple tentacles for hair. There were shark men, with fins on their arms and heads.

Despite the crowd, the place could have sat hundreds more. It felt empty, like the sad concert of a faded legend.

Argent led Vic up to the balcony, to a private box that stood empty.

No one had been here for a long while. The carpet was dusty. The walls needed painting. Vic followed Argent’s lead and crouched down near the rail, not risking a creak from the aged chairs.

Vic wanted to ask what this place had to do with Adam, but he wasn’t stupid. He kept quiet and listened.

The stage was backlit by the polished disk of the lighthouse. It worked like a giant fun-house mirror, reflecting the figures sitting atop their thrones. There were four chairs, all high-backed and carved from bright-red coral, but only two were occupied.

Thankfully there was no blinding torch to light the disk, just a blue-green glow that filled the room from all directions at once. The place had a strong Vegas by way of Atlantis vibe.

Showy, Vic thought.

The man and woman occupying the largest two thrones were bickering. They made no attempt to hide their conversation, as if they didn’t have hundreds of silent onlookers.

“. . . he should be here,” the woman said. Her voice was like a tempest, like waves crashing against the rocks.

Vic could not help but compare her to Argent, and maybe that was the point. They were different sides of the same coin, different aspects of the same thing, the same ancient power, and judging by the crown, they were both queens.

“Our guest came alone, did he not?” the man argued. Shipwrecks echoed in his voice. “Three of us should be enough.”

“You are too indulgent of him,” the queen argued. “You always have been.”

Adam had told Vic that they only saw a fraction of the elves, of their true selves and power. Maybe that was why Vic heard tides in their voices, his brain was trying to find ways to process the magic spilling off of them.

Vic had no magic of his own, but he felt something, a pressure in the air.

Adam’s magic had been a curse until Silver had taught him to control it. The emotions and sometimes even the thoughts of spirits and people had crashed into him, making it too loud in his head. He’d lost track of what was in the mortal realm and what lay on the Other Side.

Vic could understand that now. The argument happening below felt like a gathering storm. It wasn’t even much of a conflict, but it washed through Vic. It could break him. He could lose himself. It was like standing on a beach as a hurricane approached.

Argent squeezed Vic’s arm, and the world steadied. Vic took several long breaths, working to keep them quiet. Argent gave him a little nod.

I’m good, he mouthed.

What had it been like for Adam, alone for so long with this in his ear? Ex or not, Vic was grateful that Silver had been there to save Adam’s sanity.

A third elf entered, marching up the aisle toward the dais. She had straight black hair cut with such an edge that it could have scored glass. She wore a suit of armor, black metal plates and purple chain mail that any cosplayer would have envied. Bits of sea glass were worked into her crown of black coral, aqua and green that caught the light.

She settled into the third seat without a word of greeting to her two elders. They seemed thirtyish while she appeared around Vic’s age, a woman in her middle twenties.

“Did you find him?” the first woman asked.

Queen and knight, Vic mused. The elves took their titles from the tarot suits. If the man was the king, then it was the page that they were missing and complaining about.

“He’s in none of his usual haunts,” the knight answered.

“I told you,” the queen said, turning to the king. “He’s gone to taunt his opposite. We should have chosen another.”

A chime sounded. Whispers and mutters rippled through the packed chamber. They ceased when the king lifted a hand.

“It is too late to argue now,” he said. His crown was something like glass, maybe crystal, but it flickered and twisted like a thing alive. It might be a whirlpool, tamed to rest upon his head. “Our guest has arrived.”

A dozen sea elves marched into the chamber, walking down the broad aisle in a diamond formation.

Argent stiffened and Vic recognized the figure at the center of their march.

Silver, Argent’s brother.

“Silver of the North,” a guard announced. “Knight of Swords, eldest of the Pale King, Prince of the Frozen Tree, firstborn of Alfheimr, signet of the nine-realm treaty of . . .”

Vic thought he might fall asleep before the litany of titles ended. They droned on long enough that he suppressed a yawn. Even Silver looked bored before it ended.

“So?” the king asked. “Has your father considered our proposal?”

Silver wore a suit of perfect gray, with a fedora banded in black atop his head. He looked about twenty-three, with a diver’s body and pale hair. Gorgeous, if you were into that, but he dressed and carried himself like an older man, like a gangster from a black-and-white movie. He stood straight, tall, and carried a cane that he didn’t lean on.

“My father has heard your proposal,” Silver said with an exasperated tone. “And he rejects it, again, just as he has rejected it every other time you’ve made the suggestion.”

Vic stole a glance at Argent. She’d narrowed her eyes to slits. From her expression, Vic guessed that she hadn’t known about this business.

Silver should get his head checked. Vic would not want to be the target of his sister’s anger.

“The North no longer holds the sway it did,” the queen in black said. “The loss of the eastern watchtower was caused by actions your sister initiated. It is time your father gave us an equal voice.”

“Is it?” Silver asked. He leaned on his cane, putting both hands atop it. “I see this place, your arranged subjects, and the trappings of your former place on the council.”

“The Sea remembers,” the king said.

“The Sea shall rise again,” the crowd responded.

Called it, Vic thought.

Silver turned his face slightly toward the crowd, but never took his gaze from the dais.

Vic wouldn’t have either. The sea elves reminded Vic of eels.

“Platitudes aside,” Silver said. “You do not have the votes among the Council of Races to force action.”

“The council is terrified,” the queen said. “The loss of the east freed many a thing, many a being better left imprisoned.”

Vic felt the tremor of power moving through the room. It reinforced his idea that it was the immortal women you’d be smart not to pick fights with.

“We are dealing with the matter,” Silver said coldly. “The Watchtower of the East will be rebuilt.”

“Let us have it,” the queen said. “Let us have a place of power again.”

“It is not up to me,” Silver said. “But either way, the answer is no, the council will not give two towers to the same race. That law is ancient.”

“Then give us the north again,” the queen snapped, the command like a rushing wave that made most of the audience flinch. “Then we’ll stop the destruction at our doorstep, the pollution and murder of life.”

Silver shook his head.

“You cannot drown the mortal world,” he said.

“They’re killing everything,” the queen protested.

“The mortals are wrong,” Silver agreed. “But wiping them back to the Stone Age is not the solution.”

“So you say,” the knight said calmly. She’d straightened in her seat. “We’ve done it before.”

Silver stared her down. He was vastly outnumbered, but he did not look afraid.

“If you won’t cede the tower to us, then we’ll have to take it by force,” the queen said.

The knight rose to her feet, her motions so quick that Vic could not follow them. From atop the dais, she loomed over Silver, a sword in her hand. It looked like a saw blade, or the nose of a swordfish, with little spines along its edges.

“We’ll return your head to your father,” she said. “That will show him how serious we are.”

“Perhaps he’ll see reason in his grief,” the queen added.

Vic looked to Argent. Her eyes were narrow, her expression even. Vic could practically see the calculations moving through her mind, the exact math of how she’d kill every sea elf in the room. A cold power began to seep through the veil she’d drawn over herself.

Oh Queenie, Vic thought. He’d have backed away if he had anywhere to go. You done fucked up.

“Your treachery is predictable,” Silver said, shaking his head.

“Then you shouldn’t have come alone, Prince Silver,” the queen said. The three of them were standing now. They looked like a school of sharks scenting the water, tensing to attack.

“I came in good faith, under a flag of treaty,” Silver said. “And I would not see any of my people harmed by your inept attempt at a coup.”

“Inept?” the knight questioned. Her sword flashed as she twisted it in the watery light.

“So you’ll surrender?” the queen said, her voice dripping with bloodlust.

Vic dealt with criminals, with dealers, thieves, and plenty of addicts. He couldn’t say any of them were evil. They were mostly misguided, their sense of right and wrong twisted up with their survival. Many were the heroes in the stories they told themselves.

More and more Vic was beginning to doubt if the law wasn’t the problem, that he should work on untangling those stories instead of punishing people.

But these sea elves, these deep elves—they were cruel, and cruelty seemed pretty damn evil.

“I didn’t say that,” Silver said, his voice casual.

“There are no witnesses here who are not our vassals,” the queen said. “They’ll say you came to threaten us. After all, the North is known for coldness, for exactness. The council will believe us. We’re at your mercy. You’re so much stronger than us.”

Silver’s eyes narrowed at her mockery, and Vic knew that she’d pay for that.

“And yet the Page of Cups isn’t here?” Silver asked, turning about as if the missing elf would pop up. “Did he decline to participate in this foolishness? Perhaps he will be spared from what you’re about to bring down upon yourselves.”

“You mean your father?” the queen said, sneering. “Aren’t you a little old to threaten us with him?”

“No. No.” Silver laughed. “Like I said, you’re predictable, Your Highness, but you’re not the only ones.”

“What do you mean?” the king asked, a hint of something—not fear exactly, but a note of worry—in his voice. He cast about the room, but his gaze did not land on the box where Argent and Vic crouched.

“I mean that I’m a twin,” Silver said. “And that my sister, for all her cleverness, is not quite as sneaky as she thinks.”

“Now,” Argent said.

She leaped to her feet, grabbed Vic about the waist, and jumped.

Her strength almost squeezed the breath out of him.

They fell in an arc.

Vic bent his knees, ready to crash into the Knight of Cups.

She lifted her spiny sword against the threat. Argent let Vic go, placing him on the ground with barely an inch to fall. She didn’t even pause as she took the final step, her sword appearing in her hands.

The knight’s face was a mask of concentration and panic. Vic could feel the power swirling as two storms, a blizzard and a hurricane, collided. The crowd felt it too. They gasped or cried out.

Argent’s blade connected. It cleaved through the spiny sword. The Knight of Cups staggered back, her arm clearly broken, shattered by the impact with Argent’s oversized blade.

The Sea Queen screamed, a deep wail of rage and agony, like she’d been the one injured.

“Time to go, I think,” Silver said. Leaning toward Vic he added, “Close your eyes.”

Vic obeyed as Silver tapped his cane on the ground and cold light exploded inside the reflecting dish. It burned like a frozen star, too bright even through Vic’s closed lids. He pressed his arm to his face.

Then Silver’s arm was around Vic’s waist.

The world went very cold, like they’d stepped into a snowstorm. The air pressure changed. Vic felt snowflakes brush the back of his neck as the world fell away.