Zombie Shark Read online

  “The sleep of those wounded in the mind,” Selni had said.

  “When will she wake up?” Nissa had asked.

  Selni had merely shrugged. “Tomorrow? Never? Who’s to say?”

  But the little girl was awake now, and her gaze had frozen Nissa in her tracks.

  “I heard you scream,” the girl said. “I scream sometimes, too. The bad dreams make me, but only until I wake up. It seems like forever since I been awake.”

  Nissa forced a smile. “My name is Nissa,” she said. “What’s yours?”

  “Tam’ra,” the girl replied. “But everybody calls me ‘Rat.’ Have you seen my mum?”

  Nissa shook her head. During the days she’d been here, the only person she’d seen attending the little girl was Selni, and even that attention had been perfunctory. “I’m sorry. I haven’t, Tam’r—”

  “Call me Rat. Everybody does.”

  “…Rat.”

  Rat’s head drooped, and her white hair fell across her dark eyes. “I ’member now,” she muttered. “Mum’s dead. They’re all dead. Just like we’re gonna be.”

  Pity for the girl welled up in Nissa’s breast. “I’m so sorry, Rat.” She took a step forward to comfort the child, but stopped as something gleamed in the darkness between them.

  In her bony hand, Rat held a knife with a curved, serrated edge—a fish gutting knife. She pointed it at Nissa.

  “Who are you?” Rat demanded, her voice low and predatory. “Are you one of his?”

  Fear and confusion battled within Nissa. “I’m not even sure who ‘he’ is,” she said. “We’re new here, my friend and I.” She pointed toward Arzu, still trembling on her cot.

  Rat’s beady eyes switched from Nissa to Arzu. Her hand clenched the dagger tighter.

  Nissa cursed herself for a fool and prepared to throw her body between this feral child and her lover, if it became necessary. Why had she drawn attention to Arzu?!

  “Whozzat?” Rat asked, wary.

  “Arzu. She’s my … friend.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “She has the coughing fever.”

  Rat nodded. “I had that once. Mum got me better … her and Selni. That was a long time ago. Before he came.”

  “Who is ‘he?’” Nissa asked, trying to turn the girl’s focus away from Arzu.

  Rat’s voice grew very quiet. “The bad man … the wizard. He killed a lot of people before they caught him. Had me in the water pit a whole week, so I got to see the rest go first … including my mum.”

  Nissa understood now how this girl had been wounded in the mind. What a terrible thing! She shuddered. Though Rat still seemed dangerous, Nissa couldn’t help but feel sorry for her as well. “You’re here now, though,” she said in her most comforting voice. “Safe. In the infirmary.”

  “Nobody’s safe,” Rat hissed. “Everybody’s gonna die! Don’t you listen?”

  Nissa nodded. Maybe agreeing with the girl would calm her down. “Is the … the wizard coming for us?”

  Rat screwed up her face, thinking. “Wizard got killed. This knife killed him. My frien’ Pod gave it to me. His mum thought I couldn’t hear, but I could. He gave it to me when I was sleeping, and I kept it.”

  Nissa remembered an older woman and a boy briefly visiting the infirmary yesterday. She’d seen them enter while she’d been out walking. Though she hated to leave Arzu even for a moment, she had to get out of the oppressively hot room at least once every day—though she always waited until Selni was around to do it.

  Come to think of it, where was the healer? Maybe Selni would have better luck coping with this crazy little girl than Nissa was having.

  Nissa looked at Arzu, still trembling, still moaning, and her heart sank. She didn’t have time to waste with this child. “I’m going to take care of my friend now,” she said. “All right?” She made it more of a statement than a question, and without waiting for a response, she found a half clean rag and went to Arzu’s bedside. Out of the corner of her eye, Nissa saw Rat nod in agreement.

  “You like her,” the strange little girl said.

  “I love her.”

  “Mum loved me,” Rat said. “She said, ‘Take me first,’ so he did—but not until he’d killed the others.”

  Nissa suppressed a shudder as she mopped the sweat off of Arzu’s head. Gods, she looked so pale! “I … I’m sorry,” Nissa said to Rat, unsure what else to say.

  “I wish I could have killed him,” Rat hissed. “I wish I could have stabbed him and made him bleed, then watched as the sharks ripped him to pieces.”

  “I–is that what happened to him?”

  “I don’ know. I was asleep, remember?”

  Nissa nodded. She poured a cup of fresh water from a nearby pitcher and touched it to Arzu’s lips. Arzu didn’t respond verbally, but she did swallow a bit. Was that a good sign?

  “That’s how they usually do it, though,” Rat continued. “I seen it once, when that man did the mayor’s wife. He screamed until the sharks took him.” She fell quiet for a moment, and only the sound of Arzu’s coughing broke the silence.

  “What the wizard did to me and the others,” the girl finally said, “that was worse. He deserved worse ’n death.”

  “Some people do,” Nissa agreed.

  “But he ain’t.”

  “Ain’t what?”

  “Dead,” Rat replied.

  Cold fingers seemed to run up Nissa’s spine. “But you said…”

  “They killed him,” Rat said, her voice barely a whisper, “but he ain’t dead. I had a dream that he was coming … coming back for me … for everyone.”

  “But that’s just a dream.”

  Rat shook her scraggly head. “Ain’t no dream. We’re all gonna die.”

  TWO

  The wind tugged at Nissa’s short-cropped black hair and brief clothing as she stood on the boardwalk on Scaletown’s western edge. The fresh sea air and warm breeze did little to dislodge Rat’s chilling words from the young mage’s mind.

  We’re all gonna die…

  Following that grim pronouncement, the little girl had lain down once more, her eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. A short while after that, her breathing became deep and regular. Rat’s eyes never shut, but Nissa supposed she must have gone back to sleep.

  The young mage didn’t dare try to physically take the knife, clasped tight in both hands above the girl’s chest, away from her. And if Nissa used her metal-summoning spell in this circumstance ,,, well Rat could be cut by the blade … or worse. Nissa hoped that the girl wasn’t really dangerous—to anyone but herself, that is—but the young mage couldn’t quite shake the worry.

  Right after Rat fell asleep, Selni had returned. She’d brought with her a teenage boy, “Devon, my apprentice,” she’d explained.

  Nissa had seen the boy around town before. He was slender and rangy with bowl-cut brown hair and world-weary gray eyes.

  Together, he and Selni had tended Rat and Arzu’s bodily needs while Nissa explained how the girl had woken up while Selni was gone.

  Devon had been skeptical at first, but Nissa’s story soon convinced both healers. Selni seemed pleased by the information.

  “It’s a start,” she’d said. “Healing can be a long slow process, and every oar stroke forward is a good one.”

  “Can I talk to you outside?” Nissa had asked; Selni had agreed.

  Now the two of them stood a hundred yards from the infirmary, leaning on a rough-cut rail and looking out over the clear blue waters of the Shark Keys.

  “Will Arzu make it?” Nissa asked. She hadn’t wanted to inquire inside; she’d heard that some patients, even unconscious ones, were keenly aware of what was going on around them. And didn’t what Rat said pretty much prove that theory?

  “I expect so,” Selni replied. The healer was a tall, slender woman with deep-tanned skin, almond shaped eyes, and long blonde hair. “Most do, and I’m thinking your friend’s through the worst of it.”

 
Nissa let out a long sigh, feeling as though a great weight had lifted from her shoulders.

  “She’ll still be a few days, though,” Selni added.

  “That’s all right,” Nissa said. “We’re not going anywhere. Not until she’s well, at least. What about Ra—Tam’ra … the little girl?”

  Selni’s dark eyes sparkled in the late morning light. “I’d considered Tamara might never wake up again, but now that she has … maybe she’ll recover all right. Her chances’re better, anyway.”

  “What about that knife she has?” Nissa asked. “Shouldn’t we take it away from her?” She’d learned her metal summoning spell during her treasure hunter days. Once the girl wakened, Nissa could safely snatch the blade out of Rat’s hand and into her own. But the young mage didn’t want to wait that long. “If she wakes up again while we’re not looking, she could hurt someone with it.”

  “I doubt that,” Selni assured her. “Tamara were never a violent child.”

  “But—”

  “Besides,” Selni continued, “if it gives her mind comfort, she’ll maybe recover more quickly. We’d best leave it with her, I’m thinking.”

  Nissa still felt nervous about the weapon, but she supposed she could always use her spell if needed. And if holding the knife might help Rat recover… “What happened to her?” Nissa asked, curious.

  “Magrum Saark happened to her.”

  “Is that the wizard she talked about?”

  “Yes,” Selni replied. “But he were no wizard—a warlock, maybe, more demon than man.”

  “Really?” Nissa had heard of human-demon crossbreeds, but never seen one.

  Selni laughed. “That’s just a matter of speech, girl,” she said. “No, Saark were as human as you or me—except maybe in his soul … if he had a soul. Harbored some crazy notion about living forever.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Near as we could figure—the constable and town elders, I mean—he were culling the school, preying on the outliers, bleeding them for his dark magic. City like this, lots of folks come through, lash their boats here for a while, then move on. Others come on ships—like you and your friend—and stay a spell. Lots of folks coming and going during the year, and we don’t keep track of ’em. You understand me?”

  “I’m not sure…”

  “What I’m saying is: Some people… don’t nobody care about them. They scavenge the garbage for their meals, or sell their bodies, or… Or whatever they have to do before moving on. And when one of them folks goes missing, ain’t nobody notices … usually. We figure they just hoisted anchor and moved along. That’s what we tell ourselves, most times, anyway.

  “But Tamara, she kind of got to be friends with Pod, Captain Belna Fishgutter’s son. And when the child’d gone missing, the boy went looking for her—found her, too, eventually, in a half-submerged cage under Saark’s houseboat, crazed with fear and hunger. It were too late for those others, though, the ones that got caught with her.”

  “Including Rat’s mum,” Nissa muttered thoughtfully. “So, this warlock, Saark, killed them.”

  “Oh, he finished up by killing ’em, that’s for sure, but he done other things afore that—things one usually pays for the privilege of first, either with coin or a ring of pearl and gold.”

  Nissa nodded, fighting down the urge to retch. She knew that the locals used pearl and gold rings when they married, and the reference to coin seemed obvious, but, somehow, she still had to be sure. “So … he raped them.”

  Selni hung her head, gazing out to sea. “Aye. And worse probably. Never met a warlock that couldn’t think up some new perversion just for hisself.”

  “So you killed him.”

  “What do you take us for, Vortex Gladiators? We give him a trial, first. Then we sent him down to Shark’s Deep. The sea and the sharks done the rest. It were rough justice, but justice nonetheless.”

  Nissa felt appalled. Killing someone in combat was one thing, but she’d never been able to come to terms with slaying a prisoner. She couldn’t believe that Selni’s healing training would allow such a thing. “But you’re a healer,” she protested.

  “Sometimes you gotta to cut away some diseased flesh before the healing can begin.”

  Nissa bit her lip. “I suppose so,” she said.

  “We found him—and the girl—three days ago, same day your … friend took sick and your other friend shipped out.”

  Nissa remembered some commotion going on in the village at that time, but she’d been far too concerned about Arzu’s health to pay it any attention.

  “And when was the … execution?”

  “Day afore yesterday.”

  Nissa remembered that Selni had been gone a long time that day. Had the healer attended the execution herself? The thought made Nissa shiver.

  “And you’re sure he’s really dead,” Nissa said. “He couldn’t still be alive?”

  Selni frowned. “What makes you ask that?”

  “Ra—the little girl … she said he wasn’t dead, that he was coming back.”

  “And why would Tamara say a fool thing like that?”

  “She had a dream—”

  The healer laughed. “Gods save us from the dreams of children—especially that one! Don’t you worry your pretty head, Nissa girl. Nobody comes back from Shark’s Deep.”

  THREE

  Arzu’s fever broke just before noon. Her eyes fluttered open, and she smiled slightly. “Hi, Niss,” she said in a voice so hoarse that Nissa almost didn’t recognize it.

  “Oh, Arzu!” Nissa blurted, tears streaming down her face. She kissed her lover’s forehead and cheeks and dark-ringed eyes.

  “Hey … What’s all the blubbering about?” Arzu asked. “And what’s a lady have to do to get a drink around here?”

  “Water! Right!” Nissa fetched a cup and filled it with tepid, brownish water from a pitcher.

  Devon, who had been hovering protectively near Rat, came to Arzu’s bedside.

  “Feeling better, are ya?” the young healer asked.

  Arzu sipped her water and nodded.

  “’At’s wonderful. You still got a heap of recoverin’ to do, though,” he said. “You jus’ take it easy, now.” He smiled as Selni came and stood at his side.

  “Aye,” she agreed. “Rest is the best medicine you can get right now.”

  “I’m hungry,” Arzu protested.

  “Well,” Selni said, “maybe Devon can rustle you up some soup.”

  Four hours later though, and with a hot bowl of seaweed and seagull egg soup in her belly, Arzu protested that she couldn’t stand being cooped up any longer.

  “I feel as though I’ve been in this awful coffin forever,” she said, her dark eyes drinking in every dingy, dimly lit corner of the infirmary.

  Selni had left on personal business an hour earlier, so only Devon now stood between Arzu and her freedom.

  As the apprentice healer tried to bar the door with his body, it quickly became clear that he was no match for the piercing gaze of Arzu’s dark eyes.

  “Don’t make me turn you into a toad,” she said quietly, a grin flickering at the corners of her dry-lipped mouth.

  Devon swallowed hard and stepped aside.

  “Don’t worry,” Arzu said, patting the teenager atop his head, “Niss will take good care of me. Won’t you, Niss?”

  “Absolutely,” Nissa replied.

  “Can I come, too?” a small voice asked.

  “Gods be praised,” Devon blurted, looking to Rat’s cot, where the girl now sat, dark eyes sparkling with life. “I guess you’d been telling the truth, miss.”

  “Of course I was!” Nissa replied, slightly insulted.

  “Truth about what?” Arzu asked.

  “About me being awake,” Rat said. “I was, you know. But even when I’m asleep, I can still hear you talking.” She walked to where Arzu stood in the doorway. “I’m Tam’ra, but everybody calls me Rat. You must be Arzu. I’m glad you’re getting better. Nissa told me
all about you.”

  Arzu raised an eyebrow at Nissa, but merely said, “Pleased to meet you … Rat. Would you like to go walking with us?”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Devon said.

  In an instant, the knife with the serrated edge appeared in Rat’s hand. “You ain’t stoppin’ me,” she hissed.

  Devon put up his hands defensively and backed away. “’C–course not! I just … you should be careful, is all. You ain’t been well.”

  “’M better now,” Rat insisted.

  “I’m sure you is,” Devon said, “all of you. But you all best be back by the time mistress Selni returns. She don’t like her patients wandering off, you know.”

  “If she wants us,” Nissa said pleasantly, trying to calm the waters, “I’m sure she’ll be able to find us. The town’s not that big, after all.” She smiled, but a niggling thought worried at the back of her mind: Scaletown might not be big, but it had been large enough for kidnap victims to go missing without anyone noticing.

  “You just be back by sundown,” Devon said, trying to exert some control.

  “Yes, mum,” Arzu replied with a chuckle. She exited the infirmary, and Nissa and Rat followed.

  As soon as they were outside, though, Arzu’s shoulders sagged, and she looked suddenly weary. “Give me a hand, would you, Niss?” she asked weakly.

  Nissa stepped close and put one arm around Arzu’s waist and draped Arzu’s left arm over her shoulders.

  “Arzu, should you be out?”

  “I was dying in there, Niss, but I didn’t want that over-eager boy witchdoctor to see. I needed fresh air more than I needed to rest.”

  “Seems like you need to rest quite a bit.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Arzu insisted. “Just help me over to that rail.”

  Nissa did, with Rat trailing close behind.

  “She gonna die now?” Rat asked inquisitively.

  “No!” Nissa snapped. “And you need to stop talking about death all the time.”

  Rat looked abashed. “I thought you were my friend,” she said with a sniff.