Meg smiled as the men screamed and threw herself headfirst into the water. The other mermaids followed, their tails propelling them through the current as they swarmed around the sinking ship. When she surfaced again, she sang four keening notes, and watched as one of the men froze and walked, zombie-like, toward the edge of the ship. One of the other sailors grabbed him and tried to pull him back. The other mermaids broke the surface, their voices joining hers, causing more sailors to fall under her spell.
When they plunged over the side of the ship, the feast began.
She dove back under the water at the first splash and swam for one of the sailors. He flailed away from her, kicking toward the surface. She let his head break the water before she grabbed his boot and dragged him back under. He kicked harder, trying to dislodge her, and she laughed, dragging him deeper into the ocean before letting go of his boot and allowing him to once again try to kick his way upward.
She swam in front of him, cutting off his access to the air, and hissed at him through her pointed teeth. The spiny fins on her back and her forearms flared outwards as she did, and a stream of bubbles flew from his mouth as he screamed through the water.
He swiped at her, and she easily dodged and swam downward, raking her claws down his face as she went. As he kicked toward the surface she swam around him, lazily swiping at him with her claws until he surfaced again, bleeding from half a dozen wounds.
She surfaced with him, springing on his back with a screech and forcing his head back under. All around her there were men dying in the water, thrashing helplessly as the others attacked them, holding them under the waves or dragging them down. She watched her cousin, Ruby, leap on another man's back and tear through his neck, shaking her head back and forth. She laughed as he screamed, bits of flesh stuck between her pointed teeth.
When the man underneath her stopped struggling, Meg hauled him away from the bloodshed and threw his body onto the rocks where his ship still remained, half-sunk. Ruby joined her a moment later, blood still oozing from her prey's neck-wound and running down her arms.
Meg ignored her and dug her claws into the man's chest, tearing through his ribs and shoving strips of flesh into her mouth. The screams stopped as the other mermaids killed their prey and dragged the bodies up onto the rocks. When she ripped the heart from the ribcage, Meg allowed herself to look out at the carnage around her.
The water was stained with red as the blood swirled, bits of wreckage floating in the tide. Torn scraps of flesh bobbed with the moving ocean, along with an odd limb and scraps of human clothing. The mermaids who had not been lucky enough to grab a sailor as they plunged off the side of the boat circled the ones they had allowed to escape, floating just under the water or hovering at the edge of the rocky island. Casey winked at her as she plunged beneath the waves, swimming after the tiny lifeboat that was rapidly rowing away from the wreck. A small pack of mermaids dove off the rocks and swam after her.
Meg knew the game well. It had been one of her favorites when she was a child, and the older mermaids had claimed all the prey that had fallen into the water. They would follow the boat for days, nudging it in circles as they picked the men off one by one, luring them into the water. She still played it once in a while, and always allowed one or two humans to escape so he could run back to his people and tell tales of hers.
"You gonna eat that or what?" Ruby asked. Meg blinked and clicked her teeth together, tearing herself away from her thoughts. She turned away from the still-churning, reddened water and toward Ruby, sinking her teeth into the muscle as she did so. Wrenching her head from side to side, her serrated teeth tore a piece of flesh free. Meg moaned as the still-warm blood flowed from the muscle and ran down her arms. She did not speak to Ruby, and continued to eat until the body grew cold under her and the blood dried on her arms and face.
When she was finished, Meg rolled the body off the rocks and watched it bob with the tide, leaving it for the other sea creatures that needed the carrion. "You should have saved some to bring to Lucifer," Ruby said, ripping strips of flesh from her own kill and stuffing them in the blood-dampened bag next to her on the rocks.
"Grandfather can hunt his own prey," Meg answered, picking bits of skin from under her claws. "He does, often."
"He is your King, Meg. You could pay him homage."
"You shouldn't be such an ass kisser." The fin on Meg's back flared out and snapped down angrily. "Why do you care?"
"There have been some...whispers lately," Ruby said slowly, finally rolling her own catch off the rocks. "Some others have been talking about needing a new King. Someone to unite us completely instead of letting us go around killing when we please and sleeping where we choose."
The fin on Meg's back flared again. "Who?"
Ruby shook her head, her dark hair tumbling around her bare shoulders. "I don't know. I didn't see their faces. Like I said, just whispers. I thought…"
"I'd be insulted if it wasn't such a stupid assumption," Meg snapped. "Whoever they are, I'm sure Grandfather knows and is just waiting for the right time to make an example of them." Before Ruby could answer, Meg slung her own bag over her shoulder and dove off the rocks.
She swam down to the hole in the side of the ship and slipped through it, avoiding the torn parts of the wood and letting the ocean wash the blood from her. She blinked rapidly to let her eyes adjust to the darkness before she continued to swim through the bowels of the ship. A faint glint of gold caught her eye as she explored, and Meg swam over to the corner of the ship and ran her fingers through the gold coins piled in a chest, a smile blooming on her face.
She was a mermaid, and there were only a few things in the ocean that she loved more than killing, glittering objects being one of them. She stuffed a fistful of the coins into her bag before continuing through the wreckage. She found several more treasures as she ventured through the wreck, necklaces and coins and bracelets. Some she stuffed in her bag, but most she looped around her neck or wrists as she continued her search, pulling open chests of ruined spices, alcohol, and fabrics. She pulled a bolt of one of the shiner fabrics from the chest and tore at it, wrapping it around her bare breasts and stomach before knotting it in place.
When she found a hole in the wooden floor leading to the upper parts of the ship, she swam up cautiously. She sang a few notes as her head broke the water in case any survivors had found themselves trapped in the bowels of the wreck, willing them toward her with her voice. When no humans walked to meet her, she allowed herself to take in the still-dry cabin.
Meg let out a gasp of delight when she spotted the bookshelf on the wall and the books spilled across the cabin floor. Taking care to avoid the splinters of wood, she hauled herself from the water and onto the floor, clawing her way over to the books.
The ship continued to sink as she grabbed the ones closest to her and drew her hand over the covers, muttering a spell to protect them from the water before she stuffed them into her bag. She chose at random as the cabin filled with water until her bag was bulging, and tucked one under her arm as she prepared to leave.
Out of the corner of her eye, Meg caught a shape half submerged in the water. She made a clicking sound as she slithered over to it and turned the object so it was facing upright.
The statue of the human face stared back at her, and Meg's eyes were pulled to the statue's back. Two feathery wings spread out on either side of it, and she ran her fingers over them, claws scraping on the stone. She stayed there until the water brushed her breasts and nearly covered the statue before she shrugged and tucked it under her arm with the book. Loaded down with her treasures, Meg slid through the hole in the floor and headed for home.
.
Meg unloaded when she reached the cave she called home, breaking to the surface of the little air-pocket and up-ending her bag. The gold coins glittered in the faint torchlight from the walls and clacked merrily against the stone. She picked them up and dropped them again, smiling at the noise and glitter, before turning to her other treasures.
She pulled herself from the water and onto the dry rock, dragging the books with her, and stacked them with the rest of her collection in the corner, as far away from the water as she could, a precaution for when her spells wore off. The jewelry and coins she placed as close to the torches as she could, unwrapping them from her body and dropping them carelessly on the floor. For a few moments she watched the light dance off the metal, head pillowed on her arms while her dark hair slowly dried in the air.
When she managed to wrench herself away from the wall, Meg unwrapped the fabric from around her body and laid it out to dry, avoiding the frayed edge from where she'd torn it from the bolt. The shiny purple fabric felt soft to her touch, even while wet, but she knew that when it dried the salt would stiffen it eventually, and damage the fabric. Still, she had piles of it stacked against the wall where she sometimes slept, and when the purple fabric dried, she would add it to the pile.
When she was finished, Meg turned to the statue and tapped her claws on the floor. Angels.
The word from a book she'd read long ago flitted through her head, and Meg tore herself from the statue and dragged herself back toward her books, shifting through the pile until she found one of her oldest ones. Over the centuries she'd collected hundreds of the things, and in the last few years since her mentor's death, she'd slowly transferred her collection from her old cave to his. She drew the book to her bare chest and opened it, flipping through the pages until she came upon a drawing of an angel.
It looked like the statue she had salvaged from the wreck. Large, blue eyes stared up at her from the page as she scanned the other one, drinking in the familiar story about the warriors of God.
When she finished, Meg tossed the book back onto the pile and dragged herself over to the angel statue again, wincing when her tail scraped along the stone. Carefully, she gripped the statue and rolled into the water.
Her cave had belonged to her mentor and honorary uncle, Alastair, before his death a few years ago. After he'd died, Meg had claimed it as her own and begun filling it with all of the human things she'd collected from shipwrecks and other caves during her life. Her magic was poorer than a lot of the mermaids she knew, but she had enough power to preserve most of her treasures.
She had everything, from human bones to sails, arranged erratically in niches in the walls and piled on top of the cave's natural dips and rises. She swam with the statue, moving aside paintings, boxes filled with buttons and knives, and a ship's wheel before she found a place for it on top of one of the cave's higher rock formations.
She moved aside the skull she'd placed there and put the statue down before replacing the skull so it sat at the base of the statue. Arranging a few shells around it, Meg swam back and let out a pleased hum.
"Still playing with human trash, are we?"
Meg spun, the fin on her back flaring, then relaxing, when she realized it was only her brother, Tom. "What do you want?"
"Sister, is that any way to treat your family?" he asked, holding out his hands. Meg rolled her eyes and took his hands, letting her brother pull her to him and kiss her, their teeth clacking together. She clawed at the half-ripped fin on his back, a souvenir from one of their childhood fights, and pulled away from him.
"What do you want?"
"Grandfather wants to see you," he said, stroking her face. "The news is not happy."
She leaned into his hand. "Oh, wonderful. I should bring him something, huh?"
"He would like that. Go and get whatever gift you're bringing him, and I'll take you to the palace."
"I'm only sixty years younger than you. I don't need an escort," she snapped. Her brother's black eyes seemed to get even darker.
"Today you do, sister." Meg growled at him, slapping his side with her dark tail as she swam back upward and pondered over what to bring her grandfather. He, like all the other merpeople she knew, liked objects that sparkled when held up to the light. With a smirk, she grabbed her bag and threw a couple of the gold coins in before swimming back down to Tom.
They swam to the palace in silence, ignoring the other merpeople they passed on the way. A few bowed their heads to Meg and Tom, while others ignored them in turn. Her black tail propelled her through the current as they swam, and the water flowing through her mouth and gills finally washed the taste of blood from her tongue as they got nearer to the sprawling mass of coral where their grandfather made his home.
Every time she saw the palace, Meg felt the same awe she had felt as a child when she saw it. It towered above the ocean floor in spirals, the large, carved windows and rooms teeming with sea-plants and fish that swam through the windows. Once, when she was young, her father, Azazel, had told her that the palace was thousands upon thousands of years old, carved out by ancient merpeople. Her kind lived centuries longer than humans, but even for them, the place had been build long before any living merperson's memory.
She had grown up there, with her brother and aunt and cousin. Most of her family still lived there with her grandfather, but she had left long ago, preferring to be alone. Still, the sense of home when she saw the palace was overwhelming, and she reached out to squeeze her brother's hand.
He took her through the large hallway and to the throne room where her grandfather sat in his grand chair, his red tail lazily moving with the ocean current. "Meg, how good to see you," he said, reaching into Ruby's bag next to him and pulling out a strip of human flesh. "Have you brought your grandfather a present?"
Meg swam to him and held the gold coins out for his inspection. He scooped them from her palm, running his claws along the thin flesh as he did. "I hunted with Ruby and the others," she told him, drawing her hand back. Lucifer held the coins up to the feeble light and smiled, turning them to see the shine.
"I see you had some luck." He placed the coins on the small table next to his throne and selected another piece of flesh from the bag. "That's good. I have some unfortunate news for you, my granddaughter." He reached out to stroke her cheek, and Meg closed her eyes and leaned into the touch, humming in pleasure. "Your father is dead."
Her humming stopped and her eyes snapped open. She stared into Lucifer's eyes, black like her own, in disbelief. "How?"
"A human man that we know very well," he said. "He killed your mentor, and now he's killed your father."
"Dean Winchester," she whispered, trembling. She remembered him all too well, the human that had managed to get away from her mentor's torture and kill him in the process. Her hands curled into fists as she recalled his face while he slept in her cave, passed out against the stone floor.
Alastair had captured him and dragged him to the cave, intending to play with him like he had done with dozens of others. When she'd arrived to help him, she'd found Dean gone and Alastair dead in a pool of his own blood on the floor.
No one knew how he'd gotten away.
"Yes, the son of the man you tortured so long ago," Lucifer said, picking up the coins again. "I remember John Winchester. He spoke of his sons often under Alastair's knife. Now it seems that his son has taken revenge."
"I'll kill him," she whispered, her fists tightening. "I will drag him down and kill him."
Her grandfather smiled. "I would be disappointed in you if you did not."