Chapter 3
He was rugged, as far as men with tails go. He had one of those resting I-want-to-kill-something faces. He was like a living mugshot. Precisely the sort of guy I’d normally be attracted to if, one, he was human in the lower-half and, two, if I could look at him without wondering how many bodies he’d left in his past. Dark and broody is my thing. But murderous psycho killer? A girl has to draw a line somewhere.
“Follow me,” Titus said with a gravelly voice.
He took me through the same door Joni—whom they apparently call La Sirene—had passed through moments before. From there, we swam up through an oblong opening in one of the inner spire walls. Pauli slithered through the water beside me with ease.
“These will be your accommodations. You are free to explore the city. But I must warn you, the folks around here do not take kindly to land walkers.”
“Land walkers?” I raised my eyebrows.
Titus narrowed his eyes. My heart raced.
This dude is so creepy! Isabelle said.
I coughed over my shoulder, signaling my agreement with her observation.
“I suppose you’d call yourselves human,” Titus said. “But we are human, too.”
“Aren’t you Mermaids?”
“That’s a sexist term.”
“What? You have to be kidding… I mean, what do you call male Mermaids anyway?”
Titus cringed. “Mermen. Obviously.”
I bit my lip. “Good to know. I guess I’ll refrain from using the M-word from now on. Never thought about political correctness in Mer culture.”
Titus nodded. “As I was saying, take caution if you choose to explore our city. Not all will be so welcoming to your presence as I have been.”
I chuckled. “You are welcoming? Sorry, that’s just not the vibe I was getting.”
“I get that a lot.”
“That you don’t appear welcoming?”
“People say I look like an asshole.”
“You don’t,” I lied. “I mean, not literally.”
Titus squinted—probably trying to imagine a literal asshole in his mind. “I’m actually something of a teddy bear.”
“Sure you are,” I said. “I’ll take your word for it.” Wasn’t going to argue with him. If a man that scary wants to fashion himself as a teddy bear, far be it from me to try to convince him otherwise.
Titus huffed as he turned to leave.
“So you said we can explore the city?” I asked before he swam out of the room.
“You may.”
“Any suggestions? The trip down here, not to mention fighting off zombie sharks, has given me quite the appetite.”
“There’s a McDonald’s just around the corner.”
I looked at Titus incredulously. “Seriously?”
“No, I am joking. It thought that was obvious. It’s actually a Long John Silver’s.”
I chuckled. “I get it. Seafood joke, right?”
“No, it’s really a Long John Silver’s.”
“How the hell do they fry their shit underwater?”
“Long John’s serves fried shit on land?”
“No, not literal shit.”
“So now you aren’t being literal? What is metaphorical shit?”
“Shit. You know, stuff. The words are interchangeable.”
“Land walkers are weird,” Titus said as he turned again to go.
I didn’t stop him this time.
Well, I guess we’ve got some time to kill before we meet up with Agwe and Joni tomorrow…
I nodded.
“See any joints flying rainbow flags on the way in?” Pauli asked. “I’d like to try and get some tail.”
“Funny,” I said. “But no. Still there has to be something better than a Long John’s. That place gives me gas anyway. I wonder what Mermaids… err… Mer people do for fun anyway.”
Maybe we should just get some rest. Titus said that we might not be welcome.
I sighed. “Isabelle, don’t be a party pooper.”
Just saying, it wasn’t that long ago we saw most of Vilokan drown. Not really in the mood for going out on the town.
I shook my head. Isabelle was the sulking type. Her way of paying respect, I suppose. When I was hurting—and I very much still was—my inclination was the opposite. Party my ass off. Live it up. Distract myself however I can. The last thing I wanted was to be left in an underwater room, floating around and thinking about how many lives were lost during the course of the last twenty-four hours.
“I say we celebrate,” Pauli said. “After all, Annabelle won the Trials! That makes her our High Mambo.”
I snickered. “The High Mambo for all twelve people or whatever who made it out.”
“Oh honey, I got more than that many out. But I see your point.”
“I say we celebrate the lives you saved.”
“I’m all for that!” Pauli exclaimed. “Do they serve beer down here?”
I shrugged. Beer wasn’t my thing. Alcohol in general never appealed to me. Mostly because I never really experienced the effects for more than a few moments. Isabelle’s presence had a side-effect of basically detoxifying my body the second alcohol hit my bloodstream. “Well, just know, you can drink all you like. But Isabelle’s magica won’t allow me to really get drunk, and I don’t like the taste.”
“Can she just sober me up when all is said and done, help me avoid a hangover?”
“Probably not. Healing drunks is harder, in some ways, that healing a severed limb. Isabelle could do it, if she had the reins. But without Mikah’s remedy down here, I’m not about to cure your hangover so I can basically experience one myself without the advantage of at least having enjoyed the buzz before. Not to mention, how much can a boa constrictor really drink?”
“Okay, okay,” Pauli said. “I get the point. So no bars.”
“So no alcohol, because we don’t want an underwater headache… and no Long John Silver’s, because if it starts coming out the other end down here…”
“Pauli!” I said. “I don’t really want to think about it.”
“Well, you know, everybody poops. Haven’t you read the book?”
“Who hasn’t? But I wonder how the Mer folk do it. They don’t seem to have butt cracks on the back of their tails.”
“They have to have a hole tucked away in there somewhere.”
“Do they?”
“Of course! Again, see the book! Everyone eats. So everyone poops. If there is a Long John Silver’s here, there’s definitely a lot of shitting going on.”
“Why are we talking about this anyway?”
“Beats me! You started it.”
“No I didn’t.”
No, you did start it, Annabelle…
“Hush, Isabelle.”
Isabelle chuckled. You said something about how Long John’s gives you gas.
“But Pauli brought up the shits.”
“That’s true. I was the one who talked about poop. Such a fun word to say, isn’t it? Poop.”
I snickered. “We’re so mature.”
“So manure, you mean?” Pauli asked.
I stared at Pauli blankly.
“Oh come on. It wasn’t my best, but I’m trying here.”
I busted out laughing. “It really wasn’t funny. But now I can’t stop laughing about how unfunny it was.”
“I guess I’ll never be a stand-up comedian,” Pauli said.
“Of course you won’t. Because you can’t stand up!”
“Now that was low, Annabelle!”
“You would know, on account of always being low to the ground…”
Pauli zapped himself onto my shoulders on a flash of rainbow-colored light. “Head and shoulders above you, bitch!”
Can we just go? So we can get this night over with?
“Isabelle… did someone shove something up our butt that I didn’t notice? Because you’re sure acting like it.”
I’m fine.
“No you aren’t. If it’s about Vilokan… all the people…”
It’s about Letty…
My chest tightened. It hadn’t occurred to me that when Vilokan flooded, my dog was stuck at the academy kennel. Fuck… my dog… our dog. Isabelle and I have seen a lot of death. Nothing like the scale of what happened in Vilokan. You’d think the loss of so many human lives would weigh heavy on someone. The fact is, so many people had died that I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. It was like this massive, dark cloud that hung over me, too horrific to even begin to ponder. But thinking about my dog… that made it real. For the first time since we’d gone under the sea, it felt like I was drowning… I could barely breathe.
I wiped the tears from my eyes as Pauli curled around my ankle—his way of trying to comfort me. I forced myself to inhale, then released my breath forcefully, as if I could somehow exhale the pain.
There was nothing we could do about it. “You’re right, Isabelle. I’m at a loss for words… but we can’t afford to dwell on it.”
Isabelle remained silent.
There was only one way put the loss out of my mind—to find a distraction. To go out and try my damnedest to lose myself in whatever kind of good time this underwater world had to offer.