Tide - By Daniela Sacerdoti Page 0,103

was pinning Winter to the floor, and stabbed him over and over again with the knife he’d grabbed from the table.

With a howl of pure fury, Winter grabbed the Merman’s head and pushed her fingers into its eyes, scooping out its eyeballs with a shudder of revulsion. The Merman jerked backwards, convulsing on the floor, scraping at its head with its hands, dark, foul-smelling liquid pouring out of its empty eye sockets.

Niall had barely got his bearings before two Mermen threw him aside. One of them grabbed Winter’s leg and took a bite out of her calf, then threw her face first into a puddle of Blackwater. The other ripped into Niall’s back, lifting him off the floor by his shoulders. Niall roared in fury, until finally he swept into the song again, every bit as deafening as before. The Mermen fell to the ground, rolling in agony, covering their ears with their hands. Niall fell heavily, released by his captor, still screaming and singing and howling the deadliest sound that had ever come out of his mouth.

Elodie lost no time, kneeling beside the fallen Mermen, delivering her deadly kisses – two, four, six Mermen fell unconscious and died, touched by Elodie’s poisonous lips. But soon Niall’s song got too much even for her. She slid underneath the table and covered her ears with her hands, blood dripping through her fingers.

Sean pulled her out of the other side with one hand, while the other was still tracing the runes with the last of his energy, sending deadly ribbons hurtling through the air. Niall’s song was hurting him too. “God, Niall, stop!” he shouted, though he knew that their lives depended on it.

The only one who seemed unaffected by the song was Sarah, who kept placing her hands on fallen Mermen, her eyes closed, pressing their bodies until their skin starting to weep and ooze away. One after the other, Sarah dissolved them, utterly focused on what she needed to do.

Elodie and Sean huddled by the wall, unable to move, grimacing with the pain. Sean’s ears were now bleeding heavily too. But Niall would not give up. They had been caught out once, he would not let that happen again. He kept going as long as he could, slowly folding into himself as his body weakened and the spell drained the last of his strength.

The song turned into a final terrible wail, and then silence. Niall lay mute and panting on the ground. For a few seconds there was no movement in the room except terrified eyes darting, trying to work out where the danger would come from next. The only noise was heavy breathing. In the sudden calm, two uninjured Mermen moved swiftly towards where Mike was lying. One of them bent over him, grabbed him by the hair, and then dropped him, in full view of the others.

Mike lay lifeless, his throat ripped open.

Niall let out a shout of grief and anger. He crawled towards the fallen body and shook Mike’s shoulders, trying not to acknowledge the terrible thought that kept forcing itself into his mind.

Mike is dead.

No.

Mike is dead.

No, no!

“Look out! Niall!” yelled Sarah.

A Surari grabbed him from behind, shaking him and squeezing him so hard he couldn’t breathe. He had no energy and no breath left to sing, and the knife was out of reach, stuck into a dead Merman. In his head he was already dead, alongside Mike. But then Nicholas was standing there, his hands raised, blue flames flowing from his fingers and enveloping the Merman. The Surari caught fire immediately, as if it’d been doused in fuel, blackening and curling up at once. Niall was astonished to see the look on Nicholas’s face as he looked down at Mike’s dead body. The sparks from his fingers faded. He dropped his head into his hands.

This is it. It has started, Nicholas told himself.

The brain fury in all its might – not the headaches that had been tormenting him. This was the real thing.

“No! Stop! Please, stop!” he begged in a daze of blinding pain, clawing at his scalp. It was as if acid were being poured through his eyes, burning through his skin, his bones, and the soft tissue of his brain. Every breath was crippling, every blink like dying a thousand deaths, until he shut his eyes and curled up into a ball, unable to do anything but wail.

And then when he thought that the pain could not get worse, the King of Shadows