Mermaid Pirate Dispatch

Celina drifted anxiously back and forth at the back of the dark cave where we were hiding. My stomach churned seeing her so stressed. I looked around at the rest of our pod, dimly illuminated by our bioluminescent lanterns. The overall atmosphere was grim.

Alondra let out a long sigh, dramatically splayed out on the sandy floor of the cave. “What if we just try fighting them off? Are we really going to let them drive us out of our part of the sea? This has been our territory since ancient times! We need to fight for our claim to the area!”

“Geez Alondra!” I groaned. “That’s suicide. They’re not sharks, they’re sirens. They’d slaughter most of us and enslave the rest. You know that.”

“Would they? When was the last time a mermaid tried fighting a siren?” Alondra perked up on an elbow, her long dark hair haunting the eerie green water around her face.

“Well,” Dana suggested, “there was the incident with Crystal and her pod last year.”

Celina stopped pacing and addressed the group. “Everyone quiet down,” she said in a low, stern voice. “They could hear us in here.”

We were hiding in a cave where we’d disguised the entrance. We knew they were looking for us. I had seen them setting up a nest. They would need our pod to help lure in enough men for all of them to… I shuddered to think of it. Their ways were so violent. So brutal.

Celina continued. “Crystal’s pod only had to deal with one siren and they stabbed her as she prepared to breed.”

“Right!” Alondra said excitedly. “But nobody has even tried harming one that wasn’t about to breed. What if that whole thing about their skin being impenetrable is just a lie to keep us from attacking them?”

Several of the group shushed her but Celina just shook her head. “If it was one siren I’d consider it. But this is a pack. Even if you’re right we’d be outmatched by their strength. I won’t risk our pod being slaughtered and enslaved.”

Alondra drifted back to the sand scowling and she folded her arms over her chest.

“Well we can’t hide here forever,” someone muttered. I couldn’t hear who it was, but a brief glance at our food stores corroborated her concern.

“I know,” Celina lamented. “I know.” Her countenance sunk and she resumed pacing along the back wall of the cave.

I racked my brain for ideas. Unfortunately, everyone was right. We couldn’t just let them take our territory, but we couldn’t fight them. We couldn’t hide forever, but the moment they spotted us we’d be in serious trouble. They were faster, stronger, and had better senses than us. Normally they were solitary creatures. Just one could enslave a whole pod of mermaids, easily controlling them and getting them to do her bidding. I guessed that without finding pods of mermaids themselves, these sirens had formed a pack. I shivered. A whole pack of sirens. The ultimate apex predator joining forces…

Celina had stopped pacing. She was resting on a boulder with her head in her hands. Her lovely golden hair swirled around her fingers like threads of sunshine, weaving and twisting, waving and bobbing in the gentle currents of our secret sanctuary. She looked defeated.

A single question loomed in my mind. I knew why they would form a pack, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how the pack could function. Did they use their powers to exert their will on each other? Being such dominant creatures, even if it were possible, would they even allow such a thing? Or were they immune to their own powers? How were they communicating? Were they sharing the men they found? Had they found any men yet? My mind was raging, piling with questions upon questions until I was lost in the storm.

“Ingrid,” Celina sang inquisitively.

I was too deep in my mind for my own name to register.

My friend nudged me, hissing. “Ingrid!”

Looking up I met Celina’s gaze and my heart jumped. “Sorry!” I gasped.

Celina smiled lovingly. “I could see that you were lost in thought. Please, share with me. I don’t have any ideas left, but I know you have a gift for creative thinking.”

“I’m sorry,” I said woefully. “I’m afraid I don’t have any ideas either.”

“But what were you thinking?” She pleaded, with a bothersome hint of hope.

I sighed. “I just can’t figure out how they are working together as a pack. I imagine they could hunt normal pray the way a pack of sharks might coordinate, but without language, how are they getting along?”

Celina paused, staring at me with the blank look of someone waiting to starve to death. Finally, she said flatly, “sirens are cunning but single-minded creatures. Given that they all want the same thing, I doubt much communication would be needed for them to simply nest together.”

Alondra stretched out. “Clearly they came here looking for us. They wanted us to serve them, bring them their men. I say we wait here for them to be forced to the surface to find their own stupid men, and when they’re gone we’ll sneak out, destroy their nest, and…”

“That’s it!” I blurted. My heart was pounding. “I think I have an idea!”

Celina’s eyes lit up. “Do tell!” she cried.

Several trembling mermaids shushed her, looking around with big, frightful eyes.

---

“Ingrid,” Hanna called after me, flipping her fins furiously to try to catch up. “Tell me again why you volunteered me for a suicide mission?”

I pumped my tail, powering up through the water toward the surface, smiling and shaking my head. “Because you’re my best friend,” I called over my shoulder. “And I’m going to need some help.”

Panting, she pulled up alongside me, struggling to keep pace. “But if you cared for me, you wouldn’t subject me to such a stupid, coral-brained plan!”

“True,” I said, smirking. “But you are the one who seduced the diver recently and you know where to find him.”

I caught Hanna glancing down at her belly where the faintest hint of a baby bump was forming. “How do you know I seduced him already?” she asked defensively.

“How long have we been friends?” I asked rhetorically. “Come on. I know you. You slept with him.” I grinned. “You’re gonna be a mommy,” I teased.

She swerved into me, jabbing me in the side. “Stop,” she blushed. “Fine. But I don’t see what he has to do with this.”

“Do you care about him?” I asked, genuinely concerned.

“Dear Neptune,” she grumbled. “What are you planning to do with him? Are you going to…” she put a hand to her mouth and her eyes bulged.

“Look,” I said. “I get it. You may have feelings for him, and that’s fine…” I shrugged, still whipping my fins as we glided beneath the waves heading for shore. In truth, it was taboo to fall in love with your mating partner, but it did happen from time to time, and between friends it certainly couldn’t be considered a crime.

Hanna furrowed her brow. “No…” she began, charting a path through her case for denial.

I laughed. “It’s fine. We do need him for my plan, but if I’m right he’ll be safe.”

She shook her head. “So you’re gambling with his life.”

I sighed and looked her in the eye as we cut through the water. “I’m sorry,” I said earnestly. “I wish there was another way, but he’s the only one who can do this. Unless you know another diver who is ready to do anything you ask him to do.”

Her eyes fell and she shook her head.

“I promise we’ll take every precaution. He’ll be as safe as possible.”

“Ingrid,” she said scornfully. “You know that’s impossible. These are sirens. I still don’t even see what your plan is. Are you going to have each of them prepare to mate with him and kill them one by one? Surely they’ll start to catch on. They can’t talk, but they aren’t stupid.”

“What is the only creature that can kill a siren?” I asked, grinning.

She cocked an eyebrow judgmentally and glared at me. “There is none,” she said matter-of-factly. “Nothing can kill a siren unless she’s about to mate.”

I tilted my head and raised my eyebrows. “Nothing?” I asked. “Are you sure?”

She frowned. “Well… maybe another siren…”

I smiled and looked at her expectantly, waiting for it to click.

She furrowed her brow, bit her lip, and her eyes darted wildly around as she searched the neural pathways in her brain, trying to find the connections.

I let out an exasperated groan and rolled my eyes. She wasn’t going to piece it together. “I love you Hanna,” I said playfully, “but sometimes you’re as slow as a jellyfish.”

---

Frank, or Hank, or whatever-his-name-was, looked sick. Our meeting with him had been brief. He was truly enchanted with Hanna and he quickly agreed to do anything he could to help us, but when I explained the plan (or a version of it anyway) he had almost backed out. Then, when Hanna begrudgingly explained that he was going to be a father, suddenly a surge of courage overtook him and once again he was on board.

Hanna and I watched from a distance. He had seemed brave enough climbing into the shark cage when we were on the boat. He had wet his mask in the choppy waves and put it on with a smile on his face, giving us a big thumbs up as his friend began lowering him into the water. He thought he was going down to scare off some sharks. He wore a large tank of air and had a couple of cute little harpoon guns that would glance off a siren’s skin. With any luck he wouldn’t even get a glimpse of the sirens. After sneaking back into the water, we swam away until his descending cage was just a tiny black spot at the edge of the fathoms.

Hanna was clutching my arm, digging her nails into my flesh. “Hey,” I whispered, “it’s going to be fine.”

She didn’t say anything, but her grip tightened. We descended as well, trying to maintain the same depth as the cage, which was slowly approaching the nest. I watched with bated breath, knowing that the sirens could tear through the cage’s thick steel bars like they weren’t even there.

What was his name? Hans? His cage was only a dozen yards from the bottom of the ocean where the nesting sirens prowled around looking for our pod. One of them spotted the descending human and began circling almost like a shark.

Hanna’s death grip was overpowering. “Fred will be fine,” I breathed.

“Henry,” she growled through her grinding teeth.

I clenched my jaw. If only one siren moved on him, he was dead. The whole plan hinged on them all spotting him. “Come on…” I urged quietly. “Can’t they smell a man from a hundred miles away or something?”

Hanna wasn’t breathing. The lone siren approached from directly beneath the cage. From where we watched we couldn’t tell if… Francis? had spotted his predator. A burst of tiny bubbles blasted up from inside the bars. He might have seen her. Hanna jumped.

“It’s fine,” I lied, searching desperately for another siren. Where are they? I begged inwardly. I was trying to be strong for Hanna, but my skin was crawling. I watched breathlessly, hoping desperately for just one more siren to catch sight of the tasty man trapped in the cage.

The distance between the siren and the cage was closing. Another cloud of bubbles blew up from the descending cage. It stopped descending. I saw a small burst of white, foamy bubbles beneath the cage. He must have fired one of the harpoon guns. That was it. Now the siren would be angry. I bit my lip and my stomach sank. Hanna buried her face in my back and began to cry. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t help but watch, waiting for the siren to launch at the cage and shred it, peeling back the steel so she could get to her prey.

In a flash the siren was gone. I gasped, my eyes following a streak of cavitation bubbles shooting up from the ocean floor like a lightning bolt, arcing past the cage and disappearing into the darkness. The siren reappeared. Was it the same one? I couldn’t tell.

“Hanna!” I hissed excitedly. “Let’s get closer. Something is happening!”

She stopped crying and looked up as I began swimming closer. The other siren jumped at the cage but once again she disappeared in a flash. As we got closer I saw a faint cloud of darkness crawling along the sea floor. It had a deep crimson quality to it.

“Blood!” I gasped. “Siren blood!”

Hanna shook me wildly. “Really?” She screeched.

“Hush!” I hissed. “Keep it down! They might hear us!”

We found a bolder about fifty yards away and hid behind it, watching in awe as the sirens grappled with each other, each attempting to make a run on the cage while another would tackle them, slashing and biting to keep her away. One after another they made their runs, each one being stopped by another. They hissed and screeched, howled and growled. Clouds of blood exploded like fireworks, settling on the sand and rolling down into cracks and valleys in the rocks. It was a frenzy, exactly how I had imagined it. There was only one man, and several of them. I tried counting them, but they moved too quickly.

Hanna threw her arms around me and held me tightly. “They’re massacring each other!* she said, her voice shaking with giddy, nervous energy.

“Just wait,” I said. “We need to make sure they all die.”

“What if one wins?” She asked nervously.

I took a deep breath. “I have a plan for that, but…” I turned and locked eyes with her. “If that happens I want you to go back to the cave and hide. If I don’t return…”

“No!” she whispered harshly. “Tell me what your plan is and I’ll stay and help. You don’t have to do this alone.”

I turned and held her by the shoulders. My eyes shot down to her belly and back up at her shocked face. “Hanna,” I said. “I can’t let you endanger yourself.”

“And I can’t let you go alone on a suicide mission.”

I stared at her, my jaw tight and my resolve firm. Behind me the infighting was climaxing. The metallic tinge of blood was wafting into my nostrils. Soon they would all be dead, or there would be a victor to deal with. Presumably, the strongest one would remain. It was the one flaw in my plan. Either they all died, or the most powerful fighter would survive to kill Frederick and enslave our pod.

“Ingrid,” Hanna whispered, her eyes full of love. “Let me help you.”

The smell penetrated to my tongue. I could taste the blood now. The fighting was dying down. Hanna’s eyes widened. I could feel her trembling in my grip. Whirling around I came face to face with one of the injured sirens. She had deep, fatal gashes in her belly, but she was ambling our way with hatred in her black eyes.

I looked beyond her. Another siren was tearing desperately at the cage.

“Harry!” I barked. “Get him out of there!” We pushed off each other, kicking hard against the bloody water with our powerful tails. It seemed there were two left. The one that had found us watched us launch away from her then gave chase. At first she went after Hanna who was making a beeline for the cage, but then the siren stopped and dashed after me.

I could feel her power radiating out as she weakly attempted to control me, but her frail, wounded state made her will much less influential than my own. I smiled. At least they probably couldn’t control us.

I arced toward the cage. I had no intention of letting Hanna attempt the rescue alone. Neither of us was any match for a siren, no matter how mortally wounded she was. Until she took her last breath, each siren was a threat. I glanced over my shoulder and caught sight of the streak of blood my pursuer left trailing behind her. Those open gashes… I had to wonder…

Hanna swam to the top of the cage and was prying the door open, trying to reach inside for the man, but the attacking siren had already grabbed him by his ankles. Hanna and the man would lose if it came down to a pulling contest. I swam straight for the siren at full speed and rammed into her, throwing my arms around her bloody waist and driving my shoulder into her belly. She was cut to ribbons, long slashes running from her shoulder to her tail, open wounds like jagged canyons through layers of fatty tissue and armored skin.

We slammed into the side of a large rock and I grabbed her around the chest, digging my thumbs deep into her wounds. She shrieked, writhing and clawing madly at me but it was like her arms had a mind of their own and they were too drunk off the pain to aim properly. She was weak. I clenched my jaw and squeezed harder, then gasped as I was slammed against the siren, crushed between the two of them. I heard a sickening crunch and something snapped. I quickly tried to take inventory of my own body, but caught a sharp impact on the side of the head as a clawed, bony hand struck me.

I ducked and flexed my powerful tail, prying my way out from the siren sandwich and quickly kicking away. They grappled with each other for a moment and I looked over at the cage. There was a trail of blood and bubbles that my eyes followed until I spotted Hanna dragging the man back up toward the surface.

I looked back to the sirens just in time to witness a sudden burst of deep red from which the victor emerged, rushing me with her sharp teeth trailing bits of flesh which flapped in the current.

She collided with me and I felt a searing pain flash through my back as we tumbled and swirled in the sea. I pushed and pulled, kicked and twisted, but I couldn’t get get free of her grip. I pawed at her flesh with my hands, desperately searching for an open wound I could exploit, but she sank her teeth into my shoulder and I screamed, completely overcome with agonizing pain. The rush of adrenaline fueled one final push for survival. I roared at her and my fingers finally found their way into a hot gash in her side. I rammed my whole hand inside and she jerked, contorting like the torn, bent steel rods of the shark cage, a haunting atonal barrage of dissonant screams assaulting my ears.

Suddenly we were both thrust down toward the sand and the siren went limp with a large cloud of blood flowing from her side and back. Drifting away from her, I saw a harpoon sticking out from a massive gash by her spine. I looked up and saw Horatio, floating next to Hanna, still holding the harpoon gun with eyes that were full of terror. Huge plumes of bubbles launched from his mask as his chest heaved. Hanna hugged him, kissed him on the cheek, then began pumping her tail and dragging him up toward the surface again.

Slowly, my wounds began to burn. I could feel a mess of slashes in my back, some cuts on my face and arms, a massive pain my shoulder, and a throbbing bruise that seemed to encompass my entire head. I felt lightheaded and dizzy. Everything hurt, even my uninjured tail. But I was overwhelmed with gratitude. Ignoring the pain as best I could, I rushed to join Hanna at the surface.

I caught up just as they were breaking the waves, not far from the boat.

“Hanna,” I heard him saying. “I…” He choked and coughed. “You…”

She smiled and glanced at me. I shrugged, bright blood dripping down my temples and clouding the waters around me.

“You’re…” he continued stuttering. “I, uh… You’re a…”

“I’m a mermaid,” she said empathetically.

“But…” He stuttered.

I rolled my eyes, trying to imagine how long it would take him to grasp the situation. I decided to interject. “Hey,” I said, swimming closer. “I wanted to thank you. That was very brave of you. You helped our whole pod and you saved my life.”

He glanced at me, then looked back at Hanna, and back at me.

“I…” He furrowed his brow.

I put a hand on his shoulder. “Look, Flynn, or whatever your name is, I know you can speak in full sentences but…”

“Hey!” Hanna said, shoving me playfully. “Shouldn’t you go get those wounds taken care of?”

“I uh…” The man sputtered. “I can have someone… a doctor… I can arrange… I mean, we can help with those gashes. They probably need uh…” he kept searching his scrambled brain for more words.

I laughed. “It’s fine. We have ways of treating these kinds of things. I’ll be alright.” I backed away. “I’ll leave you two to it then. Just… thanks. Really. But please, please don’t tell anyone what you saw here today. OK?”

He nodded vehemently, his mouth hanging open.

I gave him a nod also, sealing the deal, waved, and raced down to the pod’s hiding spot to let them know it was safe to come out again.

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