Chapter Sixty One

Shark Attack

MELODY

"Well that was fun." Tracy said as they swam away from Eiden. They'd parted ways with King Triton, and Harry had sent them off to the borders. Tracy still looked like she wished she could stay and spend more time with her brother, but sadly time was of the essence. "We practically learnt nothing from this little expedition."

"At least now we know the Crimson Order uses assassins." Melody pointed out. "Demon sorcery."

Tracy snorted. "Yeah, how's that going to help us? We still don't know who runs the Order, and where to find them. All we know is that these assassins are gonna come after us with their demon powers. We don't even know what kind of bloody demons they have on their side!"

Melody bit her lip. That was true. After the trip to Atlantica and then to Eiden, they were barely a step ahead in their investigation. The Crimson Order was still an unsolved mystery.

"So what now?" Tracy asked. "Regroup with the others empty-handed?"

"I suppose so." Melody admitted. She hated to accept the fact that this entire mission had been fruitless. They didn't come all this way for nothing.

"Heads up!" Tracy shrieked all of a sudden, shoving Melody out of the way and diving in the opposite direction herself.

Melody's side hit a large rock and a dull pain echoed across her ribs. She opened her mouth to shout at Tracy, but when she turned her head she understood instantly. A large grey thresher shark torpedoed its way through where both girls had been swimming, and smashed its head against a reef.

She gasped. The Dark Sea was a horrible place, but never had she imagined that it would be this bad. A thresher shark?

The shark recovered and whirled around, eyes soullessly black and gleaming dangerously. Its mouth hung open slightly, teeth bared and ready for a fresh kill. A long tail shaped like an arc swept from side to side, surveying its prey menacingly.

Shit. Melody gritted her teeth. The pain in her side was still there, but fortunately there hadn't been any blood. Not that it seemed to matter to this shark. It seemed like it was hell bent on having a feast on both of them.

From the peripheral of her eye, she saw Tracy far to the left, having narrowly avoided being devoured too. Her eyes were wild. Neither of them had ever had to fight a shark before.

Quickly, Melody went through her various trainings in her mind. In all her years of underwater exploration and adventures, she'd never encountered an aggressive shark like this one. There was only one time she'd met a shark, but that was when she was twelve, and the shark was as tiny as a guppy. This was very different.

Common sense told her that she and Tracy needed to stick together back to back. They would be less vulnerable to attack that way, but of course this wasn't an option. The shark had them both separated, and right now it was only a matter of who would be its first target.

Glancing at Tracy again, she mouthed the words "Crossing Point". To her dismay, Tracy shook her head ever so slightly, mouthing back something in response. "Too dangerous."

Melody cursed silently. A Crossing Point might aggravate the shark, and there was no guarantee that both she and Tracy would be able to make it to the portal before the shark got to them. It was too great a risk. So what now?

The shark didn't give them that option. It moved suddenly with terrifying speed, making a beeline straight towards Tracy. Perhaps it had somehow sensed that her magic was a greater threat.

"Tracy, move!" Melody yelled, darting after the shark.

Tracy gave a yelp of alarm and raised both hands. A cloud of purple and black ink engulfed the waters in the vicinity, making everything dark and blurry. A defence mechanism of a squid, which Tracy had employed excellently. The shark slowed down slightly in confusion, and that gave Melody enough time to catch up.

A regular person would have steered clear of a predator. But not Melody. She knew that there was no way both of them could outswim a shark this angry and large. Propelling herself the remaining distance through the water, she latched onto the shark and held on to its sides.

The shark's body jerked and it whipped round, trying to dislodge her. Her fingernails gripped against its scaly flanks, and she held on for dear life as it wriggled frantically to get her off its back. It didn't roar or make a sound, but Melody could sense its anger and frustration as it tried its best to shake her off.

Then from out of the murkiness, Tracy emerged and slammed her full weight against the left gill of the shark. It reeled but recovered quickly, rotating itself expertly in the water to face the former sea witch.

"What are you doing?" Melody shouted. Attacking a shark like that was tantamount to suicide!

"I could ask you the same, y'know!" Tracy hollered back as she darted out of harm's way. The shark, with Melody on its back, snapped at nothing but water.

"You need to get clear!" Melody wriggled herself forward on her belly, arms still clasped around the shark's flanks. She pulled herself towards the shark's head.

"What?" Tracy avoided the jaws again and struck a purple aura of black magic at the left gill again, weakening the predator.

Melody lifted one arm high, and drove her elbow right into the head of the shark with all her might. The impact sent the shark into a frenzy, and it threw its head back, the force sending Melody flying backwards. She lost her grip on the shark and whittled through the water.

The thresher turned its attention to her, baring its sharp, deadly teeth. Melody didn't hesitate. She propelled herself away from it and towards the big rocks about a hundred yards away. It was now that she suddenly realised that her salmon-pink tail was like a bright red target just waiting to be chomped down on.

Gritting her teeth, she tried not to think about the jaws closing around her tail and rocketed herself through the water, hands by her sides. A hundred yards. Would she be able to make it before the shark? Behind her, she could almost instinctively feel the shark catching up even without turning her head. The rocks were just up ahead. Another twenty more yards…

Something lassoed the shark back. Tracy had a dark purple tendril of sharp spikes laced around the shark's head, pulling back its jaws and preventing it from advancing. Hands entwined around the tendril, she yanked on it as hard as she could as if she were reining in a stubborn horse.

The shark's head snapped back and its body followed, swayed by the current. The whiplash took it out of the fight for a few seconds before it shook itself out of its daze. Soulless eyes locked on Tracy.

"To me!" Melody shouted, reaching the space in between two large vertical rocks. "Hurry!"

Tracy landed one last strike of black magic against the left gill of the shark again and raced straight past its jaws. The thresher attempted to snap at her flowing tentacles, but she narrowly gathered them up behind her and pulled away. Then, she threw herself into a sprint like a straight torpedo, moving through the water faster than Melody had ever seen her go before.

"Hurry up!" Melody yelled, watching in horror as the shark closed the range and opened its mouth wide.

"Bloody hell, I'm trying!" Tracy shrieked, jerking her body to the right as the shark snapped at where her body had been. Releasing another squirt of dark purple ink, she covered the remaining distance and got to the safety of the crevice between the two large vertical rocks.

And just in time too. The shark's head smashed into the two rocks, too large to fit through the small gap. It repeatedly rammed itself against the rocks, trying to get to the two girls.

"Any ideas?" Tracy panted.

"Fresh out." Melody gritted her teeth. "Never been caught in a shark attack before."

"There must be something."

"Do you see any bows or swords lying around?"

"No."

"Then I don't know." Melody said tightly. Then something clicked in the back of her mind. "Wait."

"Sure. Take your time. It's not like we're being hunted by a freaking shark." Tracy watched as the two rocks began to vibrate dangerously with the repeated ramming. The shark was relentless.

"Reach out and sense its true form." Melody said.

"Huh?" Tracy looked at her like she'd gone mad.

"Just do it!" Melody hissed.

Tracy lifted out a wary hand and pointed it at the shark. Within a few seconds she rounded on Melody. "You're a genius."

"It's one of them." Melody said. "An assassin sent by the Crimson Order to eliminate us."

"I don't know how you figured it out, but it still doesn't answer the question as to how the hell we're supposed to survive a shark attack."

"We have to hit it with everything we got till it passes out. It's only human after all." Melody said, then immediately realised her error. Correction. It was a human assassin harnessing the powers of a demon.

But Tracy didn't seem to notice. "Right." Tracy raised a hand again. "I swear, there has to be better ways to die."

A lance of pure darkness lashed out, striking the shark right in the left eye. It recoiled in a rage, and Melody took the opportunity to dart out of the gap, securing a place on its back again. Meanwhile, Tracy escaped from the gap and navigated into clear water.

"You want me?" Tracy yelled at the shark, lashing out again with another tendril which struck the side of its head. "Come on!"

The thresher shark attempted to shake Melody off, but this time she clung on, digging her nails into its flesh. Tracy hit it with another potent blast of black magic, purple aura reverberating off its face. That was enough to fully agitate it.

It darted straight towards Tracy, who set off again at torpedo speed. Coming up were rocks again, and common sense had it that the shark wouldn't make the same mistake twice. This time however, Tracy blindsided it with constant bombardments of magic as she backed herself up against the side of a large boulder which stretched all the way up to the surface.

The flurry of incessant black magic made it impossible for the shark to see clearly, and that was compounded by the fact that Melody was repeatedly hitting the shark on the head and disorienting it. At the very last moment, Tracy pulled herself to the right, lunging out of the shark's path.

Rocks chipped off and crumbled as the shark went head first into the boulder at breakneck speed. Melody was thrown off the shark by the impact and she spun away to regroup with Tracy by the side.

Clods of dirt and rubble from the crumbling boulder obscured the shark, but the long tail was visible as it began to float to the surface limply.

The two girls exchanged glances as if to exclaim "we did it". Then, they swam upwards, where the shark was beginning to shrink as it floated. The shark shrank smaller and smaller till it became the size of a slender woman with charcoal coloured hair.

Melody and Tracy reached the limp body of the assassin and pulled her up to the surface for air. Breaking the water surface, the sky was morbidly grey and cloudy, and it was raining heavily. A thunderstorm, it seemed, which wasn't very surprising, considering the fact that they were currently in the Dark Sea.

A small island was conveniently nearby, and they pulled the assassin towards the land. By the time they got there, the clouds had grown black, and the storm was in full force. Lightning flickered across the sky, and thunder rumbled in the far distance.

Dragging the assassin up to the shore with great effort, Melody and Tracy collapsed on the wet beach, breathing heavily as the rain plummeted from the sky incessantly. They'd done it. Caught one of the Order's assassins. Putting a hand on her locket, Melody transformed herself back into her human form. The tail disappeared in a brilliant golden flash of light, blindingly stark against the dark landscape.

Tracy did the same, returning to human form. Their eyes met, and both looked down at the assassin. The woman was alive but very weak. Her eyes were open and her chest heaved, but she was silent.

"Shark lady's still alive." Tracy said disdainfully.

"I know." Favouring her ribs, Melody clambered to her feet and crouched beside the assassin. Scanning the woman's features, she realised that she'd seen her somewhere before. In Eiden. The assassin had been observing them back in the trading post, waiting to strike.

"You were spying on us. You work for the Crimson Order!" She shouted to be heard above the heavy rainfall and the rumbling of thunder. "Who's the High Priest? Where do we find him?"

The assassin cackled weakly and coughed up blood. One eye was closed, hurt badly from where Tracy had lashed out with her magic. She spat something in a foreign language.

Melody looked blankly at Tracy, who shrugged. If the assassin couldn't speak the same language, then all of this was for nothing.

"Where do we find the Crimson Order?" Melody shouted again, hoping for a different response. "Who is the High Priest?"

"You do not find the Order." The woman said in heavily accented English, her voice hoarse, teeth red. "The Order will find you. You think I'm the last Mage Slayer they'll send? No. You have no idea what's coming."

"Mage Slayer?" Melody repeated.

"What's coming? More assassins?" Tracy asked.

The woman stared back defiantly at Melody. Melody shook her. "Tell us what we want to know and we'll get you to a doctor. Where do we find the Crimson Order?"

"The Order will crush all of you sorcerers." The woman cackled and hacked up more blood. "The Mage Slayers will be your undoing. Our Holy Crusade will be fulfilled. We will stand tall amongst your ashes and blood. May His Eminence be praised. May the Order live forever." From out of nowhere, she lifted a small blade to her throat with lightning speed. "Ignahon Malkovtoh."

"Wait, wait!" Melody reached out to snatch the knife away, but it was too late.

"Bloody hell," Tracy muttered.

The assassin was dead. Something seemed to rise, a mist of some sort, dark and mysterious. It formed the brief outline of a snarling face, and then evaporated into thin air. The demon was gone, leaving the dead body of its host behind.

Eyes wide, Melody stepped away from the fallen assassin, crimson staining the sand. She looked over at Tracy, who stared back in alarmed silence. Overhead, lightning continued to flash and thunder rumbled ominously.