“Okay, then. Now I have to”—he swallowed with difficulty—“I have to cover you with more bodies before Zhen comes back.”
Fear made Ling’s mouth go dry, too. She tried to imagine herself elsewhere. Anywhere but here.
Her father worked all around her first. When he started to ease a body directly on top of her, he lost his nerve.
“Do it,” Ling said, finding her strength again.
He nodded, and lowered the body. Suddenly Ling was completely surrounded. Her back was pressed against a merman’s cold, stiff chest. Her arms were pinned down by more dead flesh. The back of a lifeless young mermaid’s head covered Ling’s face. For a second, hysteria seized her. She wanted to scream and crawl out from the corpses. Instead, she dug her nails into her palms and the pain brought her back to her senses.
“Lie perfectly still,” her father whispered.
“I will, Dad. Go.”
Shan swam down off the cart and closed the back.
“That the last of ’em, doc?” a voice called out.
“That’s it,” Shan replied.
“Poor slobs,” Zhen said. “Well, at least they’re free of this place. Night, Shan.”
“Good night…” Shan said.
As the death cart lurched forward, Shan spoke again, but in a voice so low and soft that only Ling could hear it.
“…and godspeed.”
LING FELT THE DEATH CART SLOW.
“Stop, Zhen,” a lazy voice drawled.
“Why? You searching the cart tonight?” the driver asked.
“Not me. We got orders not to touch any fever bodies.”
Ling, who’d been rigid with fear, relaxed. The guards were no longer searching the carts. Thank the gods. Any second now, Zhen would crack his whip, and they’d be moving through the gates.
“So can I go?” Zhen asked impatiently. “I want to dump these stiffs and get home. My wife’s got a bowl of whelk stew waiting for me.”
“Hang on a minute, will you? We got a new system,” the death rider said.
“What is it? You poke ’em with spears or something?”
“No,” the guard said. “We use the sea wasps.”
“Ha!” said Zhen. “That’ll make sure there’re no live ones.”
Ling’s blood turned to ice in her veins. Sea wasp venom was one of the most lethal substances known to mer. If a tentacle found her, she wouldn’t last for more than a few seconds.
“Pull up here, Zhen. Right at the gate,” the guard said.
The cart lurched forward.
It was over. She was truly dead. She’d never find the puzzle ball, or help Sera and the others defeat Abbadon. She’d never get her father’s ring to her mother. Instead, she’d end up dumped in a common grave. No one would ever know what had become of her.
“I’m sorry, Sera,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, Mom and Dad.”
She lay perfectly still, hands clenched, waiting for the pain. There was a body on top of her, and it was dark out, but the sea wasps were giving off so much light that Ling could see the faces of the dead on either side of her. Suddenly a movement to her right caught her eye. She held her breath. A tentacle—blue and quick—came toward her. It wound around the neck of the dead merman next to her, snaked over his face, and then stopped only inches from her own.
Another tentacle slithered over the head of the mermaid on top of her. A third coiled around the neck of the merman on her left.
Then a whistle was heard, and the tentacles were gone.
“Go on, Zhen. You’re good,” the guard shouted. “If anything was alive in there, it’s dead now!”
Ling exhaled. It was over. By some miracle, the tentacles had missed her. She’d survived.
And then everything went white.
The pain slammed into her as a tentacle slid across the bottom of her tail. Ling felt as if she’d bitten into an electric eel. She clamped down on a scream, gritting her teeth so hard, the cords stood out in her neck.
“Hey, Bella! Back in line!” the guard shouted. “Swear to gods, Zhen, these things are so damn mean, they’ll sting anything—a dead mer, a rock, even each other—just for the fun of it.”
As quickly as it had come, the tentacle was gone again. But the pain was not.
Ling’s heartbeat was a crazy staccato. Lights flashed behind her eyes. She dimly heard the guard wave the driver on. The cart lurched forward and picked up speed. She tried to remember how long she was supposed to wait…fifteen minutes? Fifteen seconds? She couldn’t think straight. It was as if the pain had shorted all the circuits in her brain. She started to convulse. The lights in her head turned into visions. On one side of her, the dead merman started to laugh. Snakes started twining through the hair of the mermaid above her. Terrified, Ling pushed her away. She pushed so hard, she flipped the body onto its side.
Have to get out! Ling’s mind screamed. She struggled to sit up, then pulled her tail free. Crawling over the bodies, she made her way to the edge of the cart, then tumbled over the side. She hit the seafloor with a thud and lay on her back, chest heaving, hands scrabbling in the silt.
Sight and sound blurred together inside her head, then broke apart.