THE SELKIE CATCHERS
Salted Series: Episode 1
CHIDI
The two seals swam beneath the surface like a ghostly pair of silver shadows, both navigating the long and winding underwater tunnel that led into the bowels of Crayfish Cavern. The one leading swam toward the future and the promise of what lay ahead at the passage’s end. The other followed, plagued by the past, the surrounding darkness raising an ill-fated memory in her mind.
Chidi Etienne would never forget her father’s careful pausing, as if even then he knew the warning would return to haunt his daughter the rest of her life. If they come in the day, he had said. Then it is our things they come for, child. But if they come at night . . . if in the night, my Chidi, that is when you know they have come for us. And then you must run.
A chill not from the surrounding water coursed through Chidi’s seal body. I tried, Daddy. She thought to herself, kicking harder to keep up with her owner’s fervent pace. But you were wrong. Day or night, it wouldn’t have mattered. There was no ‘they’ on the day that I was stolen. There was only one . . . She looked ahead to the seven-hundred-pound Leopard Seal swimming in front of her, its muscular body powering through the frigid Northern Atlantic water with ease. Only he . . . Chidi’s muscles pained with her every continued effort to swim faster. And he always finds me.
Before she was Salted, back when she had only ever walked the shores of her native Sierra Leone as an innocent girl, Chidi had heard missionaries label the devil as the personification of evil. Painted as a demon with black horns, blood-red skin, and a whip-like tail, the missionaries called him a malicious, shape-shifting sinner who had been cast into a fiery inferno.
But the unrelenting Salt tides had long ago drowned her girlish innocence.
Chidi knew better now, or so she believed, both of the devil and the abyss he supposedly ruled over. Nothing was so simple as the forces of good and evil, light or darkness. Not in her life ashore. And certainly not in the underwater Salt realm. Truth wore the same color as the devil in his Leopard Seal form: slate gray, with more black spots than hints of white. And, just as harsh, biting truths could cut to a person’s core, the Leopard Seal had its razor-sharp teeth to rend his enemies with also.
Chidi had found some kernels of truth in the ancient stories though – the devil she knew could shift his form between that of man and beast. He had shrouded Chidi with the same cursed gift of shape-shifting also, if only to keep her at his side in both worlds, the watery and the hard. And while it was also true her devil had been cast into the abyss, Chidi found that same netherworld he had dragged her into more cold and wet than fire and scorch.
The devil also had a name.
Chidi had only ever known him as Henry Boucher, but it would not have surprised her in the least if her owner acknowledged all the monikers that antiquity assigned to the light’s opposite number. For all her dread of him, the voices of others long dead at his hand still lived within Chidi, their phantom words ever reminding that Henry Boucher was truly just a man of flesh and bone.
But a man could be killed. The devil could not, or so the old stories went.
Chidi had seen plenty of both death and dying since being taken to the realm beneath the waves. Continuing in her ascent toward the surface, she guessed she would see still more if the armed party of Selkie sell-swords that waited upon the rickety docks engaged them in a fight.
Henry’s actions gave her little reason to doubt the coming bloodshed. He smelled them, Chidi gathered, as she did also, the moment both peeked their seal nostrils above the surface for a quick breath, careful to not reveal their presence below. The watery ceiling blurred the true number of those awaiting them, but the torches carried by those upon the dock signaled their presence in the above and the glints of steel their intent.
Henry turned his monstrous Leopard Seal face back to look on her, the animal’s beastly black eyes boring into hers. A cold, French-accented voice commanded across her mind. Faster, my Chidi . . . faster. We are nearly there.
Chidi obliged, calling upon all her strength to match the Leopard Seal’s speed. On their approach, her mind raced with the idea she might scout the area above by swimming beneath the dock first. Once there, she thought to weave a watery trail between the barnacle-encrusted pillars and look up through the slatted cracks. All to better determine the number of their attackers and, perhaps, overhear any whispered words among them.
Henry’s path never wavered. He turned his serpentine-like neck upward in angling toward the surface, then leapt out of the water and into the blurry beyond.
Chidi slowed, waiting for his command. She glanced back to the darkened, underwater tunnel mouth they had swum to enter Crayfish Cavern. A whispered voice of the naïve girl she once was rose from the recesses of her mind to utter some spark of defiance. It urged her to try and escape. That, perhaps, if by some miracle those upon the dock were to kill Henry, she may yet have a chance of a life without her owner.
Henry ended any such fanciful notions with a single word. Five.
Only five? Chidi thought to herself, uncertain of whether her owner would be insulted or relieved. Insulted. She decided before Henry spoke to her again.
Come, he said. Come, my Chidi.
She obeyed without question, experience reminding her what awaited if she did not. Looking toward the surface with her seal eyes, Chidi kicked her hind-flippers and rocketed upward. Bursting through the watery ceiling, she opened her nostrils and snorted a breath of cool and musty cavern air. As momentum flew her to land beside Henry upon the dampened dock, Chidi glimpsed the players awaiting her there.
She estimated roughly ten yards of slick, wooden platform separated the five Selkie sell-swords from Henry, he the snarling Leopard Seal at the dock’s edge. But, seeing their opponents clearer, without the Salt to hinder her vision, Chidi gathered that she had mislabeled them. Not sell-swords. She rightly judged them all by the coiled whips hanging from the belts of their hooded, sealskin garb. Taskmasters. She landed beside Henry, skittering to stop, her seal claws clacking for purchase on the wet boards. Selkie taskmasters.
Upon spotting Chidi sidling back to join Henry, two of the taskmasters cast their torches into the water and sheathed their blades. Both donned their hoods to morph their Selkie forms. The moment their hoods were up, the fabric lengthened like overly long stocking caps to drape over their faces and shield the taskmasters’ identities. Their legs buckled, shifting into flippers, dropping both men on all fours. Their faces twisted and bulged outward until both stared back at her with angry seal eyes. Within seconds, a pair of snarling Common Seals replaced the area where the two Selkie taskmasters had stood.
The oldest of the remaining taskmasters in human form came hobbling forward, leaning hard on his waist-high, razor-shell cane. But in his eyes, Chidi recognized a sharpness that spoke to long years lived in the realm beneath the waves and experience won from hardship. “Peace now.” The old man quieted the seals, then nodded in she and Henry’s direction. “My name is Fenton. I’m the head overseer of Crayfish Cavern. My master asked me to treat with you here on his behalf.” He studied Chidi first, then looked to Henry for a response. Receiving none, Fenton grimaced. “I wonder, if you might allow one of my taskmasters to free you of your seal forms and reveal your true faces that we might discuss my master’s terms, man-to-man?”
Henry spoke a single command to Chidi’s mind. Go . . .
Snorting, she bowed her head in submission and slunk forward to the dock’s middle.
The overseer tapped one of his human taskmaster’s on the shoulder. “Tieran,” he said, then motioned up toward the dock’s middle. “Go and free our guest.”
Chidi’s stomach twisted at the rampant glee in the taskmaster’s beady eyes as he came to treat with her. A weasel, this one, she thought of Tieran’s narrow-face and ratty, black hair. He’d just as soon skin me as free me.
Stopping in front of her, Tieran rubbed his snotty nose with the back of his wrist. “Right, bit closer then, love.” He patted his thigh as if calling a dog toward him. “Open up and let ol’ Tieran see that ugly mug of yours, eh?”
This better not be a trap, Chidi thought, opening her seal mouth to allow the taskmaster begin the process of freeing her from her seal body’s form. Or you won’t get the hand back.
Chidi closed her eyes as the Selkie taskmaster lightly took hold of her upper seal lip and easily curled it back like someone peeling the rind off a piece of fruit.
The changes began immediately.
To Chidi, the transition from her seal form and back into her human body felt like slipping free of a warm sweater. The cavern’s cool air quickly kissed what bare skin became uncovered by the sealskin. The back of her neck prickled with goose-pimples when her hood fell away, the hood being both the key and the prison of her shifting power.
Tieran whistled low upon releasing his hold over her, the hood limply falling down Chidi’s back until she needed to call upon its power again. Circling her, Tieran licked his lips in studying Chidi from head to toe. “Mmm. Well, look at you then, love. Aye.” He considered her further. “Think ol’ Tieran might just keep looking, he will. My, my, my . . . aren’t you just a pretty, black beauty?”
Chidi briefly met his gaze when he stood in front of her again. She gave him nothing in response, the lust in Tieran’s eyes paling in compare to that which Henry showed her when free of his Salted form. Forgetting Tieran’s taunts, Chidi addressed his boss instead. “Now you have seen my face, Master Fenton. What are your master’s terms?”
“First, I would know you better. Who are you?” Fenton asked. “You and your owner? Your names, please.”
Chidi parroted the confidence and the words Henry commanded in her mind. “Your owner knows our names well enough. It’s why he sent for us. Where is he?”
“My master awaits further in,” said Fenton. “I’m to bring you both to him, should you prove worthy of the task he would set you first.”
Worthy. Chidi’s jaw tightened at the word. She surveyed Fenton’s trio of would-be attackers again and minded Tieran at her side. You mean survive whatever it is you have planned for us.
Squinting, Chidi looked further up the darkened dock for any other potential threats, finding none. But safe is how it would look, she thought, her gaze scouring the rows of darkened huts that lined the shore and beyond. Other than the torches carried by Fenton and his taskmasters, the whole of Crayfish Cavern was quiet and dark, save for the stalactites in the stony ceiling, all glittering in mirror of the firelight below.
Still, doubt nagged at Chidi until Henry’s voice whispered across her mind once more.
Play to him, my Chidi. Play their silly games . . . for now.
A shiver of adrenaline ran through Chidi at the sound of Henry’s seal claws delving into the wood behind her, readying to launch himself forward at Tieran if need be.
Chidi cleared her throat. “What task would you have of us?” she asked Fenton. “We were told the job was already won.”
The overseer of Crayfish Cavern shrugged. “Say rather, the job is yours to lose. You are both still strangers here and my master cares little for how highly others recommended your services. He insists on proof, especially when his son’s life might hang in the balance.”
An audition then . . . Chidi thought, catching movement from the corner of her eye.
Tieran had freed the coiled whip at his side. He was already reaching for Chidi’s shoulder before the overseer had finished his speech.
In a pair of fluid moves, Chidi dropped to a knee and decked him with all her strength. The whip fell at her feet. Tieran did also, curses on his tongue and tears in his eyes. Chidi dug her heel in his ribs and shoved for good measure, knocking him off the dock before he could rise or reach for her again. She did not wait to see Tieran hit the water below, turning instead to face the pair of Selkie seals that rumbled toward her with barked roars.
Neither reached her.
Henry barreled past Chidi, baring his seal teeth and shuddering both of his foes with a loathsome hiss that signaled death had come for them at last. Before either seal could recover from their fear, Henry careened into the one closest to him and latched his jaws around its throat. Clamping, Henry shuddered the lesser opponent back and forth as if it were a mere penguin in his mouth rather than a smaller, seal cousin.
Chidi looked beyond the dying seal’s last moments, focusing instead on the remaining enemies.
The overseer, Fenton, had not moved from his safe position beyond the fray. Befitting of his title, Chidi estimated that he would not partake in the violence wrought on his master’s account. Fenton stood upon the dock only to oversee that all was done as his master bid and then report back with his findings.
Trapped in Henry’s bite, the dying seal shrieked at the last. Its final call stirred courage in his fellow Selkie. The remaining seal bared its teeth at Henry, snapping and snarling, but it came more cautious in its movements than its murdered fellow had done.
Chidi pivoted away, as Henry had trained her to do, the pair of them fanning out around their opponent, forcing the lone seal to choose which enemy to focus on.
Fenton commanded from his safe position, shoving the remaining human taskmaster forward. “Fight, you fool! Help him!”
The lone human taskmaster came on then, whirling a whip over his head. A second later, the whip’s flayed end snapped within an inch of Chidi’s ear. She flinched like a startled cat as the whip was called back to its master. Over and again, the taskmaster sent its flayed end flying out before him in practiced fashion. Each crack forced Chidi to retreat. The snap of its tail echoing throughout the cavern sent shivers down Chidi’s spine, her skin and back needing no reminder of the lasting bite a flayed whip’s end could make when landing.
Withdrawing another step, Chidi’s heel caught on the end of the same whip that Tieran had dropped. She bent low to scoop it up and take the weapon for her own. What she didn’t see was the pale, wet hand shooting up from the dock’s edge.
“Gotcha!”
Chidi’s eyes widened as Tieran’s fingers closed on her wrist, then yanked her off balance. She went reeling over the edge and struck the icy water below on the flat of her back. The landing winded her, the force of her fall plunging her six feet deep in an instant.
Instinct commanded her through the pain. Change, Chidi. Change!
Exhaling her air, Chidi donned her hood and pictured a Ribbon Seal in her mind to make the transformation into her Salted form. Her upper and lower body bulged like a water balloon filled almost to its bursting point, the growth overtaking her thighs and shins. Her ankles went lax, her toes extending into long hind-flippers.
The changes came quickly, but not fast enough.
Tieran had followed her into the water, his feet landing on Chidi’s chest and driving her deeper into the depths.
Chidi choked down an unwanted mouthful of salt water as seal whiskers sprouted from her cheeks and her face morphed into a dog-like muzzle. Her human ears sucked into her head next, leaving two holes the size of quarters on either side of her seal head. The changes completed, Chidi opened her coal-black eyes. She found Tieran already donning his hood, beginning his own transformation.
Safe in her seal body, the surrounding water seemed not so foreign to Chidi as it had moments ago. With a flick of her hind-flippers, she somersaulted to right herself and then swim at Tieran. Calling again on Henry’s trainings, Chidi drove herself toward Tieran’s neckline before he could make the transformation in full. But where Henry would have slain the taskmaster without thought, Chidi veered away at the last, nipping instead at the sealskin fabric of Tieran’s hood with her teeth. She dove then, using the neckline of his Selkie outfit against him, forcing Tieran to focus on achieving his next breath rather than attacking her. Chidi did not relent in her dive until the weight of his struggle lessened. Only then did she turn her nose back toward the surface, dragging Tieran’s limp body toward the shoreline before he drowned.
Breaching, Chidi found the battle upon the dock had ended too.
The devil looked down on her from above, his seal snout covered in blood that was not his own. His victims laid low around him, the last of their lifeblood painted the dock and the water beneath it red. Chidi swore the Leopard Seal smiled at her even as Henry’s voice whispered approval in her mind. Well done, my Chidi, he said. Well done, my love.
Chidi cringed at his compliment and his naming her. She said nothing in reply, however, choosing instead to swim Tieran’s body out of the depths in quiet defiance.
The overseer of Crayfish Cavern awaited her upon the stony shore. Fenton nodded at her. “Congratulations. I believe my master will be most pleased to meet with you now.”
Chidi Etienne would never forget her father’s careful pausing, as if even then he knew the warning would return to haunt his daughter the rest of her life. If they come in the day, he had said. Then it is our things they come for, child. But if they come at night . . . if in the night, my Chidi, that is when you know they have come for us. And then you must run.
A chill not from the surrounding water coursed through Chidi’s seal body. I tried, Daddy. She thought to herself, kicking harder to keep up with her owner’s fervent pace. But you were wrong. Day or night, it wouldn’t have mattered. There was no ‘they’ on the day that I was stolen. There was only one . . . She looked ahead to the seven-hundred-pound Leopard Seal swimming in front of her, its muscular body powering through the frigid Northern Atlantic water with ease. Only he . . . Chidi’s muscles pained with her every continued effort to swim faster. And he always finds me.
Before she was Salted, back when she had only ever walked the shores of her native Sierra Leone as an innocent girl, Chidi had heard missionaries label the devil as the personification of evil. Painted as a demon with black horns, blood-red skin, and a whip-like tail, the missionaries called him a malicious, shape-shifting sinner who had been cast into a fiery inferno.
But the unrelenting Salt tides had long ago drowned her girlish innocence.
Chidi knew better now, or so she believed, both of the devil and the abyss he supposedly ruled over. Nothing was so simple as the forces of good and evil, light or darkness. Not in her life ashore. And certainly not in the underwater Salt realm. Truth wore the same color as the devil in his Leopard Seal form: slate gray, with more black spots than hints of white. And, just as harsh, biting truths could cut to a person’s core, the Leopard Seal had its razor-sharp teeth to rend his enemies with also.
Chidi had found some kernels of truth in the ancient stories though – the devil she knew could shift his form between that of man and beast. He had shrouded Chidi with the same cursed gift of shape-shifting also, if only to keep her at his side in both worlds, the watery and the hard. And while it was also true her devil had been cast into the abyss, Chidi found that same netherworld he had dragged her into more cold and wet than fire and scorch.
The devil also had a name.
Chidi had only ever known him as Henry Boucher, but it would not have surprised her in the least if her owner acknowledged all the monikers that antiquity assigned to the light’s opposite number. For all her dread of him, the voices of others long dead at his hand still lived within Chidi, their phantom words ever reminding that Henry Boucher was truly just a man of flesh and bone.
But a man could be killed. The devil could not, or so the old stories went.
Chidi had seen plenty of both death and dying since being taken to the realm beneath the waves. Continuing in her ascent toward the surface, she guessed she would see still more if the armed party of Selkie sell-swords that waited upon the rickety docks engaged them in a fight.
Henry’s actions gave her little reason to doubt the coming bloodshed. He smelled them, Chidi gathered, as she did also, the moment both peeked their seal nostrils above the surface for a quick breath, careful to not reveal their presence below. The watery ceiling blurred the true number of those awaiting them, but the torches carried by those upon the dock signaled their presence in the above and the glints of steel their intent.
Henry turned his monstrous Leopard Seal face back to look on her, the animal’s beastly black eyes boring into hers. A cold, French-accented voice commanded across her mind. Faster, my Chidi . . . faster. We are nearly there.
Chidi obliged, calling upon all her strength to match the Leopard Seal’s speed. On their approach, her mind raced with the idea she might scout the area above by swimming beneath the dock first. Once there, she thought to weave a watery trail between the barnacle-encrusted pillars and look up through the slatted cracks. All to better determine the number of their attackers and, perhaps, overhear any whispered words among them.
Henry’s path never wavered. He turned his serpentine-like neck upward in angling toward the surface, then leapt out of the water and into the blurry beyond.
Chidi slowed, waiting for his command. She glanced back to the darkened, underwater tunnel mouth they had swum to enter Crayfish Cavern. A whispered voice of the naïve girl she once was rose from the recesses of her mind to utter some spark of defiance. It urged her to try and escape. That, perhaps, if by some miracle those upon the dock were to kill Henry, she may yet have a chance of a life without her owner.
Henry ended any such fanciful notions with a single word. Five.
Only five? Chidi thought to herself, uncertain of whether her owner would be insulted or relieved. Insulted. She decided before Henry spoke to her again.
Come, he said. Come, my Chidi.
She obeyed without question, experience reminding her what awaited if she did not. Looking toward the surface with her seal eyes, Chidi kicked her hind-flippers and rocketed upward. Bursting through the watery ceiling, she opened her nostrils and snorted a breath of cool and musty cavern air. As momentum flew her to land beside Henry upon the dampened dock, Chidi glimpsed the players awaiting her there.
She estimated roughly ten yards of slick, wooden platform separated the five Selkie sell-swords from Henry, he the snarling Leopard Seal at the dock’s edge. But, seeing their opponents clearer, without the Salt to hinder her vision, Chidi gathered that she had mislabeled them. Not sell-swords. She rightly judged them all by the coiled whips hanging from the belts of their hooded, sealskin garb. Taskmasters. She landed beside Henry, skittering to stop, her seal claws clacking for purchase on the wet boards. Selkie taskmasters.
Upon spotting Chidi sidling back to join Henry, two of the taskmasters cast their torches into the water and sheathed their blades. Both donned their hoods to morph their Selkie forms. The moment their hoods were up, the fabric lengthened like overly long stocking caps to drape over their faces and shield the taskmasters’ identities. Their legs buckled, shifting into flippers, dropping both men on all fours. Their faces twisted and bulged outward until both stared back at her with angry seal eyes. Within seconds, a pair of snarling Common Seals replaced the area where the two Selkie taskmasters had stood.
The oldest of the remaining taskmasters in human form came hobbling forward, leaning hard on his waist-high, razor-shell cane. But in his eyes, Chidi recognized a sharpness that spoke to long years lived in the realm beneath the waves and experience won from hardship. “Peace now.” The old man quieted the seals, then nodded in she and Henry’s direction. “My name is Fenton. I’m the head overseer of Crayfish Cavern. My master asked me to treat with you here on his behalf.” He studied Chidi first, then looked to Henry for a response. Receiving none, Fenton grimaced. “I wonder, if you might allow one of my taskmasters to free you of your seal forms and reveal your true faces that we might discuss my master’s terms, man-to-man?”
Henry spoke a single command to Chidi’s mind. Go . . .
Snorting, she bowed her head in submission and slunk forward to the dock’s middle.
The overseer tapped one of his human taskmaster’s on the shoulder. “Tieran,” he said, then motioned up toward the dock’s middle. “Go and free our guest.”
Chidi’s stomach twisted at the rampant glee in the taskmaster’s beady eyes as he came to treat with her. A weasel, this one, she thought of Tieran’s narrow-face and ratty, black hair. He’d just as soon skin me as free me.
Stopping in front of her, Tieran rubbed his snotty nose with the back of his wrist. “Right, bit closer then, love.” He patted his thigh as if calling a dog toward him. “Open up and let ol’ Tieran see that ugly mug of yours, eh?”
This better not be a trap, Chidi thought, opening her seal mouth to allow the taskmaster begin the process of freeing her from her seal body’s form. Or you won’t get the hand back.
Chidi closed her eyes as the Selkie taskmaster lightly took hold of her upper seal lip and easily curled it back like someone peeling the rind off a piece of fruit.
The changes began immediately.
To Chidi, the transition from her seal form and back into her human body felt like slipping free of a warm sweater. The cavern’s cool air quickly kissed what bare skin became uncovered by the sealskin. The back of her neck prickled with goose-pimples when her hood fell away, the hood being both the key and the prison of her shifting power.
Tieran whistled low upon releasing his hold over her, the hood limply falling down Chidi’s back until she needed to call upon its power again. Circling her, Tieran licked his lips in studying Chidi from head to toe. “Mmm. Well, look at you then, love. Aye.” He considered her further. “Think ol’ Tieran might just keep looking, he will. My, my, my . . . aren’t you just a pretty, black beauty?”
Chidi briefly met his gaze when he stood in front of her again. She gave him nothing in response, the lust in Tieran’s eyes paling in compare to that which Henry showed her when free of his Salted form. Forgetting Tieran’s taunts, Chidi addressed his boss instead. “Now you have seen my face, Master Fenton. What are your master’s terms?”
“First, I would know you better. Who are you?” Fenton asked. “You and your owner? Your names, please.”
Chidi parroted the confidence and the words Henry commanded in her mind. “Your owner knows our names well enough. It’s why he sent for us. Where is he?”
“My master awaits further in,” said Fenton. “I’m to bring you both to him, should you prove worthy of the task he would set you first.”
Worthy. Chidi’s jaw tightened at the word. She surveyed Fenton’s trio of would-be attackers again and minded Tieran at her side. You mean survive whatever it is you have planned for us.
Squinting, Chidi looked further up the darkened dock for any other potential threats, finding none. But safe is how it would look, she thought, her gaze scouring the rows of darkened huts that lined the shore and beyond. Other than the torches carried by Fenton and his taskmasters, the whole of Crayfish Cavern was quiet and dark, save for the stalactites in the stony ceiling, all glittering in mirror of the firelight below.
Still, doubt nagged at Chidi until Henry’s voice whispered across her mind once more.
Play to him, my Chidi. Play their silly games . . . for now.
A shiver of adrenaline ran through Chidi at the sound of Henry’s seal claws delving into the wood behind her, readying to launch himself forward at Tieran if need be.
Chidi cleared her throat. “What task would you have of us?” she asked Fenton. “We were told the job was already won.”
The overseer of Crayfish Cavern shrugged. “Say rather, the job is yours to lose. You are both still strangers here and my master cares little for how highly others recommended your services. He insists on proof, especially when his son’s life might hang in the balance.”
An audition then . . . Chidi thought, catching movement from the corner of her eye.
Tieran had freed the coiled whip at his side. He was already reaching for Chidi’s shoulder before the overseer had finished his speech.
In a pair of fluid moves, Chidi dropped to a knee and decked him with all her strength. The whip fell at her feet. Tieran did also, curses on his tongue and tears in his eyes. Chidi dug her heel in his ribs and shoved for good measure, knocking him off the dock before he could rise or reach for her again. She did not wait to see Tieran hit the water below, turning instead to face the pair of Selkie seals that rumbled toward her with barked roars.
Neither reached her.
Henry barreled past Chidi, baring his seal teeth and shuddering both of his foes with a loathsome hiss that signaled death had come for them at last. Before either seal could recover from their fear, Henry careened into the one closest to him and latched his jaws around its throat. Clamping, Henry shuddered the lesser opponent back and forth as if it were a mere penguin in his mouth rather than a smaller, seal cousin.
Chidi looked beyond the dying seal’s last moments, focusing instead on the remaining enemies.
The overseer, Fenton, had not moved from his safe position beyond the fray. Befitting of his title, Chidi estimated that he would not partake in the violence wrought on his master’s account. Fenton stood upon the dock only to oversee that all was done as his master bid and then report back with his findings.
Trapped in Henry’s bite, the dying seal shrieked at the last. Its final call stirred courage in his fellow Selkie. The remaining seal bared its teeth at Henry, snapping and snarling, but it came more cautious in its movements than its murdered fellow had done.
Chidi pivoted away, as Henry had trained her to do, the pair of them fanning out around their opponent, forcing the lone seal to choose which enemy to focus on.
Fenton commanded from his safe position, shoving the remaining human taskmaster forward. “Fight, you fool! Help him!”
The lone human taskmaster came on then, whirling a whip over his head. A second later, the whip’s flayed end snapped within an inch of Chidi’s ear. She flinched like a startled cat as the whip was called back to its master. Over and again, the taskmaster sent its flayed end flying out before him in practiced fashion. Each crack forced Chidi to retreat. The snap of its tail echoing throughout the cavern sent shivers down Chidi’s spine, her skin and back needing no reminder of the lasting bite a flayed whip’s end could make when landing.
Withdrawing another step, Chidi’s heel caught on the end of the same whip that Tieran had dropped. She bent low to scoop it up and take the weapon for her own. What she didn’t see was the pale, wet hand shooting up from the dock’s edge.
“Gotcha!”
Chidi’s eyes widened as Tieran’s fingers closed on her wrist, then yanked her off balance. She went reeling over the edge and struck the icy water below on the flat of her back. The landing winded her, the force of her fall plunging her six feet deep in an instant.
Instinct commanded her through the pain. Change, Chidi. Change!
Exhaling her air, Chidi donned her hood and pictured a Ribbon Seal in her mind to make the transformation into her Salted form. Her upper and lower body bulged like a water balloon filled almost to its bursting point, the growth overtaking her thighs and shins. Her ankles went lax, her toes extending into long hind-flippers.
The changes came quickly, but not fast enough.
Tieran had followed her into the water, his feet landing on Chidi’s chest and driving her deeper into the depths.
Chidi choked down an unwanted mouthful of salt water as seal whiskers sprouted from her cheeks and her face morphed into a dog-like muzzle. Her human ears sucked into her head next, leaving two holes the size of quarters on either side of her seal head. The changes completed, Chidi opened her coal-black eyes. She found Tieran already donning his hood, beginning his own transformation.
Safe in her seal body, the surrounding water seemed not so foreign to Chidi as it had moments ago. With a flick of her hind-flippers, she somersaulted to right herself and then swim at Tieran. Calling again on Henry’s trainings, Chidi drove herself toward Tieran’s neckline before he could make the transformation in full. But where Henry would have slain the taskmaster without thought, Chidi veered away at the last, nipping instead at the sealskin fabric of Tieran’s hood with her teeth. She dove then, using the neckline of his Selkie outfit against him, forcing Tieran to focus on achieving his next breath rather than attacking her. Chidi did not relent in her dive until the weight of his struggle lessened. Only then did she turn her nose back toward the surface, dragging Tieran’s limp body toward the shoreline before he drowned.
Breaching, Chidi found the battle upon the dock had ended too.
The devil looked down on her from above, his seal snout covered in blood that was not his own. His victims laid low around him, the last of their lifeblood painted the dock and the water beneath it red. Chidi swore the Leopard Seal smiled at her even as Henry’s voice whispered approval in her mind. Well done, my Chidi, he said. Well done, my love.
Chidi cringed at his compliment and his naming her. She said nothing in reply, however, choosing instead to swim Tieran’s body out of the depths in quiet defiance.
The overseer of Crayfish Cavern awaited her upon the stony shore. Fenton nodded at her. “Congratulations. I believe my master will be most pleased to meet with you now.”
***
Thank you for reading this excerpt from The Salted series, Episode 1: The Selkie Catchers. Did you like the read? Email Aaron to let him know what you thought! You can reach him at [email protected]
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