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But right when I’m about to strike, Mazu grabs my wrist. “What are you doing? I told you, you don’t have to kill him!”
She moves my hand so that the sword slices his bicep. Once one side of the blade is coated in thick red blood, which the sword seems to hold onto as if it too knows its mission, its purpose, she helps me turn it over so that the other side is as well.
“Now go,” she breathes into my ear.
Standing up, I look down at my bleeding husband. My eyes burn with tears I can’t feel in the water. “Please, watch over him.” I see her nod in my periphery. Then I close my eyes and turn around, opening them only when I know he won’t be in my field of vision any longer.
With Joanna and Beatrice still fighting, they have spun and stumbled much closer to the cage, making this a little easier. Still, I need to move quickly. I quietly push the cage door open and step outside. Even though they are only steps away from me, they rotate in their wrestling match at such a speed that I don’t know how I’ll focus on Beatrice to stab her and not Joanna.
I slam the rusty metal door shut with a clang loud enough to reverberate through the water. The fighting stops. Joanna and Beatrice separate and look at me, but I don’t hesitate. I push my feet against the rusty cage to propel myself, plunging the blade deep into Beatrice’s abdomen. The corners of Beatrice’s smug smile drop. Her face crumples and her bottom lip sticks out as she lowers her gaze to her belly. When I pull away, keeping the sword with me, a plume of red rises into the water while Beatrice falls to the ocean floor.
Under my breath I utter, “Good riddance.” I don’t feel the slightest bit of guilt about this fight, this death on my hands.
To my right, Eliza and Rory stir. Slowly they rise to their hands and knees and shake their heads. They look at each other as if both are waking from the same horrible nightmare, give each a quick once over, and embrace before kissing all over each other’s face. Jake, still sitting against the bars, blinks rapidly as he comes out of his trance. The moment he stands up, he winces and grabs his arm. More blood swirls around him. Mazu wraps her hand on either side of the slice in his arm and talks quietly to keep him calm.
“Oh thank god.” I breathe a sigh of relief, or whatever it is I’m doing down here without air since Mazu kissed me.
I hold the cage door open and usher my friends outside to their freedom with big hugs and smiles. Rory and Eliza are still in each other’s arms; Eliza’s eyes twinkle as she nods thanks to me. They leave the cage and Joanna is there to start walking them back in the direction we all came from.
Jake stays behind for a moment. Looking into my eyes he says, “I’m glad the plan worked.”
My brow wrinkles, “What plan?”
One corner of his mouth rises in an awkward crooked smile, “Getting you the little sword dagger thing, you cutting me, that siren bitch getting killed… You know, everyday kind of shit.”
“You knew I was going to cut you?”
He arches his back, making himself look taller before coyly responding, “Of course I did! George prepared me for this mission well. He’s not so bad you know.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Not so bad? How much blood did you lose?” I look over his arm to make sure it’s not worse than I thought.
He laughs and takes a hold of my shoulders, holding me in front of him so he can lean in for a kiss.
But the happiness doesn’t last long. Mazu stares into the distance in the opposite direction from which we arrived. “Guardian, we need to get you all to shore. Now.”
I swim to stand next to her and follow her line of sight. Five, now eight, distant silhouettes slowly grow larger. But these don’t look anything like Jake did as he approached us. These aren’t walking on the ground. These are ovals with a thin triangle on top. “Oh, fuck me. Are those sharks?”
Mazu nods before she gestures toward Jake’s wound. “The blood.”
“The blood?” Jake looks at his arm and back up. “You meanmyblood? There are sharks coming for my blood?”
Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit. I turn back to my friends, who are still rightfully celebrating our win over Beatrice. “Guys, we gotta jet. FAST.”
Eliza, who’s closest, looks over my shoulder. Her eyes widen and jaw drops. The three of them are standing frozen, not sure how we are going to out swim eight sharks.
Before everyone can panic, Mazu commands us all. “I’ll carry Jake. You all just get yourselves. Follow me.”
I take up the rear, even though it’s not like I’ve been learning to fight sharks in the dojo or researching their weaknesses in the library. But I’m still the Guardian, and I did not just go through all this bullshit with Beatrice to lose my friends to some great white shark mother-fuckers.
We swim, well, like our lives depend on it. At one point, the water behind me feels bubbly to me, like it’s being churned by something bigger than my feet. I make the mistake of turning around, which only slows me down. He is only a few feet behind me, and he catches up quickly. From somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, I remember something about punching them in the snout. Since I can’t think of anything else to do right now, I ball up my first and push my elbow forward, cracking him right under the triangular tip, between his black nostrils, with my first two knuckles in a perfect jab, just like George has taught me to do. He turns away quickly. Thank goodness I learned to punch in the dojo.
The rest of the sharks are further back. I guess the first was the alpha or something. I don’t stick around to fight the others though. I take my speed up a notch and head for that shoreline where the water starts to feel thinner and less oppressive. Everyone ahead of me breaks through the surface in turn. Then they each disappear as they make their way to the coastal shelf. I’m not too far behind them and can’t wait to breathe oxygen again. As my head rises above the plain of water, my face feels as if someone is stabbing it with a thousand icicle, my soaking sweater is stuck to me, trapping the cold against my skin, making me shiver down to my bones. And if that’s not uncomfortable enough, my skin prickles and sizzles from Mazu’s magic wearing off.
Speaking of that beautiful mermaid, Mazu disappeared after handing Jake off to Rory. Once we’ve all crawled forward and collapsed on the shore, catching our breath and filling our lungs fresh air, I sink to sit cross-legged, the sand sticking to my sopping wet legs, staring out and search the waves for any signs of her.
Her head pops up where the sand drops away and the waters open up. “You did well, Guardian. I knew you could trust yourself, believe in yourself. Remember that you can. Take the memory of succeeding forward with you.”
Where are you off to now? Do you live close by?
