“The poison,” Layanna gasped. “I can’t ...”
The fish-men approached. Truly afraid now, Avery shoved Ani toward one of the whalers, then spun to Captain Greggory.
“Your pistol!” he demanded. “Shoot them!”
“What—?” Greggory said. He’d removed the gun from his jacket and was aiming it uncertainly at one of the approaching fish-men, then another.
Avery snatched it out of his hands. “Get back! Protect Ani!”
The attackers coiled their long harpoons. The crowd had drawn away, and if any constables were trying to push through them, the press was too thick for them to get near. Avery and Layanna were in a bubble all alone, with even the whalers moving back. About a dozen attackers, he guessed. And five or six bullets.
“Get out of here, Francis,” Layanna said. “They only want me.”
The fish-men shoved through the last circle of people and entered the clearing. They looked relieved when they saw Layanna unable to bring her otherworldly aspects over.
Avery took aim at the nearest attacker, but the man was moving, and Avery knew he was not a particularly good shot in any event.
The attackers approached, the leader poised to hurl his weapon at Layanna …
Avery turned and fired at the aquarium, a suitably large target. Once. Twice. Again.
The wall of glass holding back the eels erupted. Cascades of foaming, crackling water surged out and over the cobbles, huge long shapes thrashing in the tide. The crowd screamed and scattered, almost stampeding. The attackers’ eyes widened.
The water burst over Layanna and Avery, knocking him down and dashing the gun from his fingers, nearly dislodging his glasses. A long green shape shot past, and he heard a scream. He threw himself over Layanna and pressed them both to the ground, making as small a target as possible. Water tore at them, but he held on tight. Something heavy slithered over him and was gone.
At last the surge was over. Crackling water bubbled all around in a spreading, thinning pool. Three long green shapes ripped into the nearest meals, the attackers, who writhed gruesomely under them. The rest were fleeing. Drenched and shivering, Avery and Layanna clung to each other.
Her eyes rolled up in her head, and she sagged.
Avery felt her pulse: fluttering but present.
“An ambulance!” he said. “Someone call an ambulance!”
Constables finally arrived. The group of watchers that had orchestrated the attack were slipping away, and although they couldn’t have gone unnoticed, no one stopped them.
“Papa!” Ani cried, running forward to wrap her arms around him.
“No!” He halted her with an upraised palm. “Don’t! I’m wet. You could get infected. Someone please call an ambulance!”
* * *
Janx looked up blearily when Avery arrived. The big man lay prone on a narrow table drinking from a chipped green bottle while the monkey Hildebrand hooted, gibbered and leapt about the tattoo parlor like a demon, sometimes alighting on Hildra’s lap or shoulder; she slouched in a chair along the wall, a lean young woman in a black leather jacket with scars on her face and a gun at her hip.
A squinting Azadi needler carved a bleeding face into Janx’s back. A jungle of other tattoos covered the big man’s body from head to toe, an intertwined tangle of dragons and sea-nymphs, horned slugs and tigers, a great whale, a volcano god, voluptuous women and maps of legendary lands that Janx claimed to have seen, perhaps been the only one to have ever seen. The face currently being woven into this chaos was that of Muirblaag, Janx’s dear friend, whom Janx had tried to kill two months ago.
Seeing the tattoo, Avery rubbed his own upper right arm where Muirblaag’s name had been inked weeks ago; Janx had never wanted to admit Muirblaag was gone, and had never properly honored his passing, but their encounter with Uthua on what they were calling Activation Day had finally altered his opinion. The name just below Muirblaag’s on Avery’s arm read Frederick: Layanna’s son, who had died that very day. Indeed, he had saved them all.
Janx pulled a slurp off his bottle and blinked at Avery, and the sailor that was Avery’s guard and only escort hung back as the doctor stepped forward. To Avery’s shock, tears shone in Janx’s eyes, which burned red, though he didn’t release them.
Avery touched his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said, for what seemed like the thousandth time.
Janx offered him a pull on the bottle. Avery declined. To the tattoo artist, he said, “How long do you need?”
“Not long.”
Janx said something, but it was so slurred that Avery couldn’t make it out. He looked for help to Hildra.
“I know,” she told Janx. “I know.” To Avery: “You hear the latest?”
“Latest what?”
“The thing wiping out islands, of course. It wiped out one of the Gyrgins last night.”
“I heard. It’s terrible. That’s not why I’m here, though.” Taking a deep breath, he said, “Layanna was attacked.”
“Shit.”
Janx set the bottle down and told the tattoo artist, “Hurry up, hon.”
“So how bad is it?” he asked Avery some minutes later, as they made their way through the packed streets. Janx listed and swayed as he walked, still drinking, but he was used to massive amounts of alcohol and stayed mostly on course. Hildra helped him when needed.
“She’s in the hospital,” Avery said. “We’re going there now. The doctors have done all they can. The wound’s superficial, but the poison is unknown. We think it’s in the metal itself.”
“But she’s okay?” said Hildra.
“She was awake and talking normally when I left, and I think the worst is past. The poison’s main property seems to have been to prevent her from bringing over her other-self and to slow her healing. To make her killable, in other words.”
