Hearts in Zenith (Four Husbands and a Lover)

14. The Blood Pearl

I didn't have to search for my foe. I plunged maybe five or six times my height, when our gazes locked upon one another. Her two eyes stared unblinking at me. They were both the same color, but for a different reason. One eye was red because it was red. The other was red because it bled.

Unlike other fish, the barracuda had intelligence sparkling in her gaze. There could be no mistake. Our fight made the monster aware of her origin and purpose. This giant barracuda was a Bhuta's tear of frustration. She was vengeance against the winners reborn in a fish form. A hunter thirsting for blood of every woman descendent from the ancient allies of the Divines, including me.

Under the ocean, I would fight one of the echoes of the Primordial War. My only hope to survive was that it was a very faint echo. I wanted fortune and glory, not an unmarked grave in the Gulf.

The barracuda's black maw sprung open like a trap. No matter which way I lunged, the monster presented me with the same view of sharp pointy teeth, none shorter than my thumb. They snapped less than an inch from my flesh on every racing heartbeat.

The spear, the knife and the hatchet didn't find their purchase when I struck out with them. All part of the plan, but my hands shook anyway.

I whipped the sea with my feet, launching toward the daylight.

The barracuda boiled the water in pursuit, shooting like a living bolt out of a catapult. She shut her snout to swim faster. The teeth snatched the bubbles where my toes had just been as I jerked my knees to my chest and flipped.

The momentum carried me past her terrible head to stab her flapping gills. Not with my flimsy knife, of course. I jammed in my remaining vial of valerian sleeping draught. I knew it might come in handy when I had stolen it from Anastasia's stores!

The monster convulsed from insult more than from injury. Her jaws chased my arm, snapping with those terrifying teeth.

I twisted away, swung the hatchet and chopped down. Then I chopped sideways or any way before my wild motions sent me floating askew from her.

The vial cracked under the frantic ax blade, flooding her gills with the sleeping potion.

I beat my legs even more desperately now, eager for a gulp of air. The magic clip Sharim gave me helped, but magic had both its limits and its price. In this case, the payment was coming due.

After what seemed like eternity of swimming through blue, I surfaced. Between shuddering intakes of breath I spat water, I pissed water and I frothed water with my wind-milling arms.

The terror kept me from looking into the abyss, but barracuda's black shape abandoned its chase when only two human heights of the water column separated her from Tashaya's sunlit world. She needed the watery blanket, because she still had the brain of a fish even though it was driven by Bhutas' hatred to kill.

I threaded water, conserving my energy and counted. If I was right, by the count of two hundred, the drug would slow the barracuda down to my speed of movement. Or maybe more, because she was a fish, despite her size. Once that happened, we could dance a dance of death. If I was wrong, then I had unleashed Bhutas' evil on my home's harbor.

Not that I could be completely sure it was entirely my fault even then. Strife attracted creatures like this and the barracuda appeared before I set foot on the Naiad. However, I doubted that Sharim's colleagues would engage in a symposium on the beach under Yansara's stars to determine the degree of culpability. They'd feed Sharim, me and the others to the barracuda before Queen Zinaida's watch would even scratch their asses and come to our defense.

With that lovely image for inspiration, I somersaulted and attacked the vile creature again.

It moved to meet me. However, she wasn't moving as fast as she did before. The Divines favored my plan!