‘I love you, too. Don’t worry about killing anyone. Just keep them away from the sub.’

I smiled. ‘That was my plan already, big guy.’

‘Good.’ He turned to Ryu. ‘Take care of her.’

Ryu nodded. I could tell he was enjoying this immensely. It wasn’t often he got a chance to do something the barghest couldn’t. ‘Of course. I’d never let anything happen to her.’

Anyan reverted to glowering, and I turned away from both of them to Trill. My friend had joined us, her large swampcolored eyes looking eagerly out at the sea. The sun reflected wetly off her pearlescent gray skin, and her seaweed hair flowed down her back in a neat queue. She turned to me and gave me a fierce smile.

‘It will be good to fight with you in the water, Jane, where you belong.’

I wasn’t quite as excited at the prospect as Trill was, but I didn’t tell the kelpie that. Instead I held my hand up for a high-five. Her webbed fingers smacked mine and we both grinned, reminding me for the umpteenth time that month how lucky I was to have my friends.

‘Move out!’ the Alfar shouted, and move out we did. The halflings surged forward, meeting their element with eagerness, while the Alfar and his soldiers moved with more deliberation, but no less enthusiasm. I gave the barghest one last squeeze, then trotted forward with Ryu and Trill.

Power swirled around me as we entered the ocean – that of the sea herself but also that of the elementals around me, drawing forth and expending energy as we powered through the water. We’d decided to eschew boats for this mission, shooting for maximum surprise. That meant we had about a two-hour swim till we reached our destination.

Once we hit real ocean, the Alfar leader made the gesture we’d all been waiting for, and the halflings, Trill, and I moved forward. We made a sort of V-formation, with two rows. Our first row of real water elementals went first, Trill and I in the lead. Ryu and the Alfar made up the row behind us. Our row cocooned the back row in a bubble and began to tow them forward.

After much arguing and grandstanding earlier that morning, the Alfar had finally agreed that this was the best way to get where we needed to go. I could swim for days without really tiring, I was so symbiotic with the water. The Alfar had limited access to their water channels – they had access to all four elements, but only so much access to each. When they could use multiple elements simultaneously, they were super-powerful. But limited to one, they were pretty average.

Once we had the Alfar in our tow, we could really move. Jetting through the water, after about an hour of swimming, we spotted our goal. A submarine, floating in the deep. We stopped then, watching from a distance for the enemy to show.

Eventually, there was movement on our watery horizon. I could feel their power from here: Alfar, as Hiral had warned, and two much stronger water signatures – the kappa and the rusalka.

I looked around. We had superior numbers, we had laid our own trap, and we had the champion. This should be a piece of cake.

So why did I still feel like we were the ones who had been set up?

Chapter Twenty-Four

Putting on a burst of speed, we catapulted ourselves and our Alfar backup through the water. We had to meet the enemy at a distance from the sub, not least because it and the men in it were so very vulnerable to attack.

Our swimming shapes streaked over our target, and I was the only one who slowed. I took a defensive position floating above the submarine, pushing the rest of my team forward with a strong shove that lent them much-needed distance from the vessel we guarded.

We didn’t want to take down the thing we were trying to protect with ricocheting power.

I watched as our own forces met Morrigan’s in a flurry of magical weaponry and physical muscle. Our halfling water elementals moved with ease through the water, and I could feel them using the tricks Trill had taught me when we’d fought the kappa that had kidnapped my mother. They would try to catch and hold one of the Alfar, keeping the power of the sea away from them until they drowned. It worked on a few; lifeless corpses floated away on the current without a scratch on them. But not all of Morrigan’s troops were so easily killed, and a few of our own forces were similarly weak. We lost at least one of our Alfar to the power-sapping trick before a halfling could save him.

Once the weakest had been weeded out, the real fighting began. Nets and tridents were our halflings’ weapons of choice, created out of magic but just as dangerous as a physical counterpart. Underwater mage balls also began flying, and I carefully spread out shields, catching those that streaked toward the sub. Some were definitely accidental ricochets, but at least a few of Morrigan’s troops kept their eyes on the prize and were trying to target the sub.

As for Trill, she went right for the big prey, moving in on the kappa and the rusalka. The kappa seemed happy to engage with her. The rusalka, however, darted away. He was male, and looked like a Disney version of a merman, but I knew from past experience with his race that he’d have a hollowed-out back. I knew because one of the Healer’s victims had been a rusalka, and this bastard was working for the same forces that had raped and mutilated one of his kin.

If that didn’t make my blood boil.

Unfortunately, the turncoat was also a very good fighter. He pivoted away from the kappa and kelpie, only to be met by one of our half-selkies and a half-siren. All three closed in on each other, power flying. I saw the selkie nearly net the rusalka as the siren made a fierce jab with his glowing trident, but somehow the rusalka managed to dart under the net, grabbing the selkie so that it was her body that met the siren’s thrusting trident. I gasped as the trident cut deep, but the siren was clever. Jerking her whole body forward, and I can only imagine painfully, on her fellow halfling’s trident, she jerked herself away from the enemy. Then the selkie halfling used the trident to dart with her away from the enemy. At a safe distance he stopped to pull out the trident, and I could feel his healing powers as he concentrated on her.

Which left the rusalka free to move.

An Alfar of ours got in his way, but was no match for the rusalka in his element. A quick slash with a weapon that appeared and disappeared in the rusalka’s hands and suddenly the Alfar was minus a head. That meant the rusalka was free to make his way toward his real target … the sub.

I swam forward, putting a burst of power into my sprint to create a nice distance between me and the submarine. Unfortunately, the rusalka did the same. We careened off each other’s shields like a couple of kids playing bumper cars, spinning through the water in arbitrary directions – me back toward the sub and him up toward the surface of the water.

When I got my sea legs back, giving my head a firm shake to clear it, I darted back toward my enemy. This time I didn’t get very far, however, and I was very aware of the vulnerable hull of the submarine scant yards behind me.

The rusalka wasn’t fucking around, either. A weapon flashed in his hand, and as it came slashing at my face, I solidified my shields just in time to match it, even as I pulled the labrys. It floated in my hand with no weight whatsoever, like a good magical weapon, lighting up under our attack. I slashed back at the rusalka, only my weapon carved through his shields like they were butter. His eyes went wide as he swam hurriedly backward. Then, undoubtedly realizing I wasn’t such easy pickings, he focused behind me and took off toward the sub.

I swore, albeit soundlessly, and tore off after him. The labrys gave me speed, and I closed in on the rusalka with no problem. Throwing up a barrier in front of him to protect the sub, he only managed to stop just short of my shield’s power signature, turning to face me again. I swung the labrys in front of me cockily, motioning to him to come on over.

It was time to finish this.

His face mashed up into a snarl of rage, the rusalka came at me, throwing mage ball after mage ball. I met his volleys with my own, my shields easily absorbing the impact. When he was close enough, I slashed forward with the labrys. It was still way too far away to make contact with him, but it did what I wanted it to do.

Cutting through his shields, which he kept pretty far out from himself as most water folk did in a fight, I had a convenient hole through which to aim my next volley. One mage ball caught him in the face, one in the stomach, and one in the crotch. I had meant that last one as a follow-up to my gut shot, but I like to think that karma intervened.

I was pretty sure the rusalka died immediately, but just to make sure, I paused, letting my selkie senses probe for any sign the merman was alive and quietly healing himself. When I felt nothing, I let the ruined corpse drift away.

I guess when the stakes were high enough, I could kill and not feel that bad about it.

Returning to the sub, I watched our forces mop up the enemy. Trill had dispatched the kappa and was helping to capture the last of the Red’s forces. We wanted to take a few of them alive if we could, for questioning.

I floated above the submarine, just in case, until Trill and Ryu came toward me.

‘That was easy,’ she mouthed. I nodded. It had been. Maybe my spidey senses had been wrong and this wasn’t a trap, just a cockeyed plan that must have been plucked whole from the brain of the mad dragon queen.

But I found that hard to believe.