“She could still be here,” the smaller Oceanid wheezed. “And she’s alone now so she’ll be much easier to find.”
The larger considered this for a few more moments, the thick bands of muscle on his arms continuing to squeeze the smaller Oceanid before releasing him as his skin took on the same ghostly pale blue tinge that now covered Qinn.
“What do you mean?”
“She could be at the surface or something…every time her scent disappears it’s as if she has left the water. Perhaps there’s a boat or something....”
His comment gave me much-needed insight into the potential power and threat of how the water spread my scent. It seemed that when I was in the disguise Qinn had taught me to use, or out of the water, I was undetectable.
As I watched the Miengu push himself off the ocean floor in a swirl of white sand and swim straight for the surface in an elegant wavelike motion, his arms taut at his side and his stomach muscles rippling as he moved, the kernel of an idea began to form. The smaller Oceanid followed hurriedly, scanning the blue expanse of water as he went.
I eased out of the crevice only able to maintain my disguise by allowing the current to move me at a painfully slow pace in forward and backward swells across the coral, and away from the other Oceanids and Qinn’s still trapped and lifeless body.
A cascade of dark rocks ornamented in living colour rose out of the sea bed and I managed to back my way into an opening in one of them, hoping against hope as I did so that there wasn’t a large and hungry predator waiting inside it.
I kept the disguise despite the gloom of the cave, watching warily as they returned from their search of the surface, the bigger Oceanid continuing to roughly motivate the smaller to find me.
“You don’t honestly think she’ll co-operate when you do find her?” The slighter one floated above the larger as they searched, scanning the reef constantly, his chest moving as if he were breathing but without the regularity that ordinary breathing produces.
“She won’t have a choice.” The Miengu was irritating the sea creatures, sending bursts of brightly coloured fish and irritated crustaceans swirling into the water. “Neith isn’t planning on giving her an option to co-operate or not, that’s why she’s too scared to just attack him straight on, she knows he is more powerful.”
His statement made me angry, mainly because what he was saying was true and I hated the cowardly choices I’d made so far in Merrick’s rescue mission.
I knew, of course, that the plan we’d made was supposed to be the most logical, the most objective, but hiding here in the cave helplessly with Qinn dead, I wasn’t so sure any more.
“If she is so powerful why didn’t she free her friend from the net?”
The Miengu stopped and straightened. His back was to me but I could see the tension in the thick muscle that ran down his spine as he considered the other’s question.
“Perhaps she didn’t try,” he replied.
“No, her fragrance is all around there.”
They dropped out of sight and I had to use all of my strength and concentration to maintain the disguise and zone in on listening to their voices at the same time.
“Do you see here?” It was the smaller Oceanid’s voice.
A grunt in reply.
“And here and here. This is all her.”
They were quiet for a while.
“I knew this Oceanid.” The Miengu this time. “His name was Qinn, he was in the pod with us for a while, his talent was disguise.”
“It doesn’t look like it helped him much.” A snicker that was quickly cut short with a gurgle of pain.
“He was a good man.”
They swam back into view, the Miengu scanning the reef methodically as he did so.
“She has probably learnt how to disguise herself from Qinn.”
“She can do that?”
A grunt.
“I’m going to report what we’ve found and get some help. You wait here and be alert. She’s still here, I’m sure of it.”
He left without another glance, disappearing quickly into the darkening blue.
I watched the smaller Oceanid as he drifted lazily over the coral, seemingly disinterested in the task he’d been assigned.
As I planned my escape, to dart out in disguise and gradually allow the current to drift me away, I wondered how many more Oceanids like Qinn would die before Merrick was rescued. I hadn’t known Qinn well but my inability to save him had come as a sharp shock to me. What if Sabrina, or Maya, or any number of Oceanids all followed me to Neith’s lair only to die…
Every muscle in my body tensed as the Oceanid swam purposefully towards my cave. He stuck his head into the opening, his eyes darting around the space, a confused expression on his face.
I had drawn back my fist and was about to hit him, making my escape a clear possibility, when he darted out of the cave and swam swiftly away.
I’d managed to move only a few metres out of the cave when he returned to exactly the spot I’d been in, ruffling the coral and sea creatures I’d been imitating to check for a normal response.
This close I could see the faint yellowish sheen that shone just under his skin and watched as irritation replaced his puzzled expression. I allowed myself to drift in the ever-moving backwards and forwards motion of the current, emptying my mind of every thought and pushing back the fear that threatened to blossom around me in the telling water.
He floated upwards into the middle of the blue, his eyes scanning the reef intently.
He was clearly waiting for his partner to return from Neith. And then it hit me, the obvious plan I’d missed. With Qinn’s gifting of disguise, I’d easily be able to follow them into Neith’s lair and then once inside I could free Merrick.
I waited for a long time.
The water darkened, the pale blue fading to a rich navy from the sea floor up. I hoped he wasn’t talented with great sight as well as the ability to track scent so effectively. Merrick had explained the Oceanids’ talents as being single-faceted, with each Oceanid inheriting their talent from their forebears.
As the reef became enrobed in night I wrapped strands of sea weed around my body, allowing me to rest and wait and watch.
I woke with a start from a sleep I hadn’t intended to fall into. The scent and flavour that filled my mouth was sheer agony and bliss at once.
I’d come to recognise Merrick’s distinct fragrance and the delicious flavour that lingered on the back of my tongue every time he was near me, while he was helping me to discover the talents that were part of my DNA.
In the green light of the wooded valley we had been sitting in I’d discovered the distinctly exotic fragrance of his skin and been amazed by the strength of it. In the water it was overpowering to the point that it seemed to affect every cell in my body, galvanising me to action.
The time it took to impatiently pull the strands of sea weed I’d wrapped myself in saved me.
Had I not had them wrapped around me I would have shot forward and into the danger that lurked around me without a second’s