“Not too many humans come into the camp,” Foster explains. “Not since those Marines got killed. The president came once, but that’s between you and me. Most of them have never gotten past the fence, so we’re still a novelty.”
He makes a left and guides us past a row of metal barrels, all of which are burning newspapers and billowing smoke. We make another turn, and I realize that this sloppy collection of homes is actually a well-planned stretch of interlocking paths, not unlike the street grid of Manhattan. Every twenty yards or so, one path intersects with another, making “city blocks,” each dedicated to a different necessity. There are blocks for food preparation, trading, clothes mending, and one that looks like a school for young Alpha. An elderly Ceto stands before his students, growling in their language. Farther on, I find a mountain of scrap metal piled four stories high. This is what they scavenge when they run through our streets at night, and what a haul. Nearby is what looks like an old-timey blacksmith shop, where I watch the scrap superheated, melted, cooled, and pounded with hammers. They’re making weapons with what we throw away.
But none of it is as surprising as the block set aside for a massive collection of stools, lined up like pews in an open-air church. Two Selkies place a bundle of fish on an altar, while the elderly priestess looks on.
Foster puts his finger to his lips.
“This is their wacky church. Don’t make a peep or they’ll lose their minds.”
Out of respect, and embarrassment for gawking, I lower my eyes and move on.
The crowd noise rises as we get closer to the shore. There’s loud applause filled with roaring and shouting, but I can’t tell why. Foster leads us down an alley, and we turn toward the ocean. There we find a sunken area the size and shape of a baseball field, carved right into the sand. It’s massive, with several levels of seating that go fifteen rows deep. It looks like Yankee Stadium on a smaller scale, and at the bottom I can see two people fighting. Both are wearing the armor made of bones and shells and claws.
“How did they build this?” my father wonders.
Foster shrugs. “These guys have their secrets. We put up cameras and they pull them down. We’ve got some satellite up in space spying on them, but we still haven’t figured it out. All I know is every night the water comes in and washes this away and every morning it’s back.”
It’s nothing short of a miracle.
“We’re going in, so be careful. Don’t brush up against one of them if you can help it. They’re prickly, literally, and they don’t like humans at all.”
We weave through the crowd. Most of them are Selkies, and getting around their hulking frames is not easy. There are a lot of Nix, too, as well as Triton. I don’t see any Sirena or Ceto in the crowd, but I am also wildly distracted by the different kinds of Alpha I have never seen or heard about before. The one closest to me is tall and very lean. When he turns he scowls, but I’m too busy staring at the long, thick whiskers that poke out from beneath his nose on either side to notice. They’re easily six inches long, but what’s even odder is his mouth, a long, jagged line that reaches from one side of his face to the other like a catfish. My mother told me of the Rusalka, and she’s also talked about the Feige, who she once described as troubling. I have no idea which one I’m looking at or if he’s something completely different.
There are some with hands like flippers and a few with bare chests covered in suction cups. There’s a small group of men with jet-black hair and greenish-white skin. Their teeth are sharp and they have pink slits at the base of their jaws. I’m so entranced, I walk into someone and fall to the sand. He’s a man. I mean, I think he’s a man. He is obese, is dressed in ratty sweatpants, and has a belly that flops down well below his waistband. His skin is as dark as fireplace cinders, highlighted with ashy white freckles, and his eyes are on the sides of his head. He reels on me, howls with indignation, and then inflates like a balloon. He swells to three times his size, and sharp spikes pop out of his skin. They’re as long as nails and inch dangerously close to my face.
Foster steps between us.
“Back off, Nathan!” he demands.
Nathan stomps his feet and kicks sand at me like an angry toddler.
“Nathan, we go through this all the time,” Foster shouts. “It was an accident, you big baby.”
Nathan growls.
“Yes, yes, I know all about Alpha honor,” Foster says. “So you really think you’re entitled to challenge a young girl to combat because she accidentally touched you? Doesn’t sound like honor to me. Sounds like what a bully does.”
Nathan roars louder, but then his spikes sink back into his skin and his body deflates to its normal size. He stares at me and growls threateningly one last time before turning back to the show.
“Let’s go before he changes his mind,” Foster says.