Silver Crucible
Author: Matthew S. Cox; J. R. Rain
Date: 2020-07-24 00:00:00+00:00
Description: America's favorite mermaid detective is back! Alexis Silver returns in her biggest adventure yet! Even immortal beings need to get away from it all. Mermaid Alexis Silver can tolerate only so many years living primarily on dry land before it's time for a nice long swim. While she loves her work as a private investigator, a few nail-biter jobs in a row calls for some time off. She leaves everything behind-literally-and dives into the ocean, planning to take a month off, cruising around Central America. What's the point of vacationing without seeing new things? Soon after arriving in Panama, cur
Publisher: Independently published

SILVER CRUCIBAL

by

J.R. RAIN &

MATTHEW S. COX

Alexis Silver Book #4

Other Books by J.R. Rain and Matthew S. Cox

**World of Samantha Moon**

VAMPIRE FOR HIRE

Moon Master

Dead Moon

Lost Moon

Vampire Destiny

Infinite Moon

Vampire Empress

SAMANTHA MOON ORIGINS

New Moon Rising

Moon Mourning

Haunted Moon

SAMANTHA MOON CASE FILES

Blood Moon

SAMANTHA MOON ADVENTURES

Banshee Moon

Moon Monster

Moon Ripper

Witch Moon

Moon Goddess

Moon Blaze

Golem Moon

Moon Maidens

**Other Series**

WINTER SOLSTICE SERIES

Convergence

Containment

Catalyst

Catacombs

ALEXIS SILVER SERIES

Silver Light

Deep Silver

Silver Quarrel

Silver Crucibal

MADDY WIMSEY SERIES

The Devil’s Eye

The Drifting Gloom

Dark Mercy

FOUR ELEMENTS TRILOGY

The Elementalist

The Black Rose

The Wakefield Curse

IMMORTAL OPERATIVE SERIES

Broken Ice

Silver Crucibal

Published by Rain Press

Copyright © 2020 by J.R. Rain & Matthew S. Cox

All rights reserved.

Ebook Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Reading Sample: The Elementalist

About the Author: J.R. Rain

About the Author: Matthew S. Cox

Silver Crucibal

Chapter One

A Little Fun With the Locals

Freedom is perhaps the single greatest gift I received upon becoming a mermaid.

To be fair, freedom is one of those concepts where the meaning varies considerably in the eye of the observer. These days, teenagers think ‘freedom’ means not having to be in the house by ten at night. Or college students being able to stay out as late as they want. Smaller kids today think ‘freedom’ means they can go on their own to a friend’s house down the block.

Not to sound like an old lady here, but when I was a small child, all the kids ran wherever the heck we wanted. We knew to go home when the sun started to go down or parents started shouting their kids’ names out the window. Back then, we didn’t have the belief if the kid spent more than five minutes out of their parents’ direct vision, some creep in a van would whisk them off into oblivion. Not saying stuff like that didn’t happen then, just society as a whole wasn’t inundated with bad news. People in those days tended to follow the ‘have twenty kids so at least a few make it to adulthood’ mindset, too. Fortunately, the world’s come a long way since my childhood in the early 1900s.

Ahh, the modern age. Women today have no idea.

My decision to hop on a cruise ship unaccompanied by a man—gasp, the horror—as an act of rebellion wouldn’t seem the least bit strange to anyone alive today. If a young woman expressed interest in higher education nowadays, no one would wonder what’s wrong with her.

For me, falling into the depths of the ocean ended up being simultaneously terrifying and wonderful. It’s anyone’s guess why Barnaby decided to turn me rather than devour me. Frightening as he was to me, I’m grateful. Becoming a mermaid not only gave me freedom from the oppressive expectations of a society that viewed women as inferior creatures, it freed me from every conceivable constraint of mortal civilization. I no longer required employment, money, marriage, property, or anything. The sea provided all. I’d given the world a cut infernal so to speak, or perhaps a ‘cut abyssal,’ as living at the sea floor is a touch more extreme than pretending to examine my shoelaces.

Licinia chuckles in the back of my mind.

There I go again. It’s difficult to stop thinking in terms of the vernacular of my mortal days. It doesn’t mean to literally cut someone like with a knife. When we said cut someone, we meant to disavow a person we no longer wished to be associated with. The ‘cut’ had several variations. To ‘cut direct’ is about as obvious as a slap in the face. When out in public, it means to cross the street to avoid passing near the person. A ‘cut indirect’ is much less obvious, but if done right, hits the same nerve. For that, one merely averts their gaze as they pass the boor. A ‘cut sublime’ involves admiring something high up like the clouds or architecture of a nearby roof until the person is gone. And of course, the cut infernal means to examine the set of one’s shoestrings... rather than acknowledge the offending party.

While I didn’t consider society so obnoxious as to want to disavow myself entirely of it, events happened as they did, and I found myself at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, having no further need of ‘civilization.’ The degree of freedom that becoming immortal gave me lessened by comparison over the years as a ‘woman’s place’ changed in society. Nonetheless, I don’t need any of the traditional things... like money, a house, job, and so forth. Fate saw fit to bestow a fair amount of wealth on me anyway over the years. Ninety-nine percent of merfolk stay in the ocean, but, for whatever reason, some part of my psyche still fancies being among the land-based world.

Perhaps it’s due to the same reason Barnaby and I didn’t get on properly. He’s a bit of a monster, not to mince words. I still don’t much care for consuming human flesh, preferring seafood. Unlike what modern folklore says of my kind, merfolk are not sweet, innocent, bright-eyed redheads—though some look like it—or cute helpful sea spirits. Most of us are quite terrifying. We’re from the old folklore. You know, sirens sitting on rocks waiting to lure sailors to an untimely death. Changing our bodies from the waist down into a large fishy tail isn’t the only bit of shapeshifting we do. Normal human mouths aren’t designed for the kind of feeding mermaids require. A true abyssal horror lurks below our human visage. Some believe it our ‘natural’ forms, considering our human faces to be disguises. While it makes sense how some folklorists think it so, it’s inaccurate.

As all mer-people started off their existence as humans, normal faces really are our ‘natural’ form. What I refer to as my ‘razormouth’ is more akin to a werewolf becoming a beast. No one would say the wolf is the ‘normal’ form of a lycanthrope, merely a temporary state required by what they’ve become. Honestly, I’m not a fan of looking at myself when using it, but it comes in damn handy for feeding. My jaw roughly triples in size, my teeth elongating and sharpening into huge transparent needles. It’s large enough to take a man’s arm off at the bicep in one bite or devour a deep-sea fish in four-to-seven bites depending on size. The monster from a late Seventies movie, Alien, has nothing on mermaid teeth. Only, we don’t have the little inner mouth thing that extends out.

Ick. Is it weird that film gives me the creeps?

Not all mer-folk are evil. In all honesty, most of us wouldn’t be considered ‘evil.’ No more so than a shark eating what it happens to find in front of its nose. Even the mers who favor consuming live humans don’t do so out of malice. We’re not cats. We don’t torment our food first.

That said, some are evil. Barnaby for example. He took pleasure in killing. I don’t. Maybe it’s because I stared into the eyes of corpses of people I’d been having conversations with less than an hour earlier as he devoured them, their aspirations for the future still fresh in my mind as I watched his teeth rend their bodies into floating bits of meat. To this day, I still can’t think of humans as food.

Sometimes, I wonder if my personality is responsible for Licinia being my dark—or ‘poorly lit’—master. We get on quite well. Our relationship is complex, to say the least, varying from mother-daughter to sisters to best friends to conscious-subconscious.

It is, as I understand, somewhat rare. The majority of dark master/host relationships end up being fairly adversarial, and in the worst-case scenarios, the master takes over completely, relegating the former person they inhabited into a mental oubliette. That’s French—interestingly, one can express the most sinister, horrible things in that language and still it sounds beautiful. Unlike German, where loving whispers sound like death threats.

Back to freedom. Despite having money and a nice house—job, too, but I’m self-employed and don’t need to work—it’s high time for a vacation. Sure, someone might call me a hypocrite for taking advantage of the generosity of past lovers. I’ve been romantic with several supernatural beings over the years, all of them old school enough that they decided to gift me large sums of money upon the end of our relationships to ‘take care of me.’ Maybe it does make me somewhat hypocritical to object to society treating women as lessers while still accepting money given by men because they didn’t think I could take care of myself without a man in my life.

Better a mild hypocrite than a fool. I didn’t ask for it, but since they offered…

Mortals aren’t as stuck in the rat race as they think, but most are too complacent or unmotivated to go out and live off the land, so to speak. People didn’t always have the nine-to-five slog to contend with. Go back far enough, no such thing as ‘day jobs’ existed and humanity still managed to survive. Sure, growing one’s own food is a tremendous amount of work. Also, modern civilization has all sorts of shiny, blinking toys. Obtaining said toys requires one to play by ‘the rules’ as they say—except for those people at the top who ignore the rules. Seems most try to find as much comfort as possible until it’s time to hop in the ol’ eternity box and get put in the ground.

Despite being comfortable financially, I’ve no need to wave wealth around or suffer a delusion of grandeur. Sure, some people might come from destitute conditions, obtain wealth, and pretend they’d always been ‘royalty,’ but I’m not one of those people. My mortal years may have been over a century ago, but wearing flour sack dresses and not even owning shoes for most of my childhood is still fresh in my mind.

Precisely why I’m swimming instead of flying. Tail power doesn’t cost anything.

No, I’m not ‘cheap,’ merely not inclined to waste money. Besides, I’m on vacation. Wandering the ocean is relaxing. It isn’t as if I’ve got a specific itinerary. Another problem modern society has: even vacations can feel like work. People plan to go to a specific place, do specific things on a specific scheduled timetable, then rush straight back home to resume the grind. Maybe it’s too 1920 of me, but my idea of a vacation is to pick a general area, go there, and let adventure find me. Of course, the world of 2020 is quite a bit smaller. For example, European explorers back in the day thought of places like Africa as vast and mysterious… foreign and treacherous as the bottom of the ocean or the surface of an alien world. Well, it is vast. Not so mysterious any more. It’s no longer viewed as a hidden land filled with unspoken dangers like magical forests a person could get lost in for eternity. People back in the day used to be terribly superstitious, after all.

After making arrangements with a service to maintain my house and office, I more or less jumped in the water and started swimming. One nice thing about being a mermaid—packing is easy. Only bringing myself: no clothes, electronics, bags, cosmetics, toiletries... or anything I’m worried about, say, forgetting in a hotel room and not remembering until I’m 2,000 miles away back home.

I do kind of miss my phone, though. Odd, really, to consider how long I’ve been alive. Smartphones have only been around for a small percentage of my existence, yet they are so freakin’ fizzing. Whoops, sorry. They say ‘amazing’ now. As a kid, I considered myself beyond lucky to have a ragdoll with two eyes still attached. I often wore the same dress several days in a row and sometimes sat around the house with only a sheet wrapped around me while Mother did laundry. The boy down the street from me had a bike. In my neighborhood, it made him the ‘rich kid.’

These days, kids have smartphones, PlayStations, computers, AirPods, and so on. Imagine taking a modern kid back to 1908 when I’d been nine? They’d barely last an hour before melting down out of boredom. Back in the day, I could occupy myself for hours with a stick and a hoop. Although, to be fair, my friends and I often got into places we didn’t belong. We were not ‘proper little girls’ who sat on porches playing with dolls. None of us wanted to end up as old maids sipping scandal-water over gossip. To be fair, none of us did, though my friends all mostly ended up as traditional wives and mothers.

So, yeah. I ought to be able to manage going a month or two not having a phone on me.

Perhaps it’s a mistake not to bring money or at least a credit card, but racing through the ocean depths is hell on fanny packs. Not having anything with me is super convenient in the ocean, less so if I decide to explore dry land. It’s nothing a little charm can’t make copacetic though. Even without supernatural powers, most guys see a dame emerge from the ocean in her birthday suit, they’ll run right over, either to help—or with less honorable intentions in mind. Then again, it doesn’t matter what the guy’s thinking; the only thing he’s doing is what I tell him to. Also not a problem if no one’s there to see me leave the water. Radiant charm can keep me unnoticed until I want to be seen. Granted, such wide-ranging telepathy is somewhat tiring to do, but definitely preferable to becoming a local celebrity.

My plan, such as it is for now, is to roam around Central America, visiting Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama… maybe hang out for a while in the Caribbean Sea. Nice change of pace down that way. Warmer than the waters off Washington State anyway. Licinia wants to visit the Faiyum Oasis in Egypt in a bad way. She hasn’t been too talkative about why, only saying it’s important. I suspect her intention is to surprise me with something nice given her lack of explanation, so I’ve refrained from pushing.

Swimming down the west coast of the United States to Central America isn’t exactly a direct path to North Africa, but it’s possible to get there. Perhaps I could cling to the underside of a ship navigating the Panama Canal… though it would be much less tedious to cross on land rather than spend hours going through water-locks.

If I do go to Africa, crossing the Atlantic on tail power is pretty much the equivalent of a person hiking from New York to California. Many days sleeping on the sea floor. Thankfully, merfolk possess a supernatural sense of direction in the ocean. Shame it doesn’t work on land, though. Sometimes, I still get lost while driving even using GPS. Blame my instincts. Every attempt to feel out which way I need to go ends up pointing me at the shortest path to open ocean. Can’t really complain though. Cats are going to chase mice. Sharks can’t resist the smell of blood—nor can lawyers for that matter. Mermaids can’t help but want to be in the ocean.

While my life is far from arduous, it’s not work or responsibility I’m vacationing from, it’s the land. Every so often, my soul needs a good long soak in the water. Someday, my strange urge to cling to the surface world might weaken enough to where I end up spending another few decades completely underwater… but it doesn’t feel imminent. The ocean is amazing; however, it lacks people—and Starbucks.

Ironic, right? A mermaid being addicted to coffee from a place using a mermaid as its mascot.

Might cheat a bit insofar as going to Egypt is concerned and hop on a plane to save time. As wonderful as vacationing is, disappearing from life for too long creates a whole other set of problems. Also, it’s mildly difficult to sleep while floating adrift. Crossing the deep Atlantic is a project. While I can tolerate serious depths, there is a point at which the pressure becomes annoying. Gives me a mild headache similar to balancing a bowling ball on my skull or listening to someone trying to tell me how vaccines are part of a government conspiracy to mind control everyone.

Anyway, short of the Mariana Trench, I can visit the sea floor more or less anywhere I want. Haven’t tried going all the way to the bottom of the trench yet, though I expect it will be incredibly uncomfortable. Neither cold nor pressure alone can kill me—or even inflict permanent injury. The worst thing cold could do to me is trap me inside an iceberg. Now there’s a nightmare in the making. I’d still be conscious, unable to move, and starving. As long as said iceberg remained on the ocean, I couldn’t die. It’s a fate almost worse than being tied to a seat at a Justin Bieber concert.

Fortunately, icebergs can’t form at depth. It’s also pretty damn hard to unexpectedly end up frozen in the middle of one. They don’t exactly pop into being in an instant. Significant enough depth does force me to take my time surfacing. Mermaids don’t suffer the bends. I can ascend rapidly from most depths without a problem. But, when we’re talking blobfish type depth, the stresses are so great, my body would suffer if not given some time to adjust to lessening pressure.

Again, nothing my supernatural healing ability couldn’t eventually cope with, but there’s no reason to subject myself to such pain.

Right, so I’ve got a service looking after my home and office. No family to worry about. My friend Trisha Buda thinks I’m flying to Europe for a month or two. Didn’t lie to her, merely said I’m going on vacation for at least a month and didn’t have a specific destination in mind. She assumed I’m planning to backpack across Europe or something suitably bohemian. While it does have some temptation in a romantic sort of way, such a trip would take me too far away from the ocean for comfort.

The biggest problem with being a mermaid is proximity to the ocean. As in, I must stay within a reasonable distance of salt water to avoid permanent death. Vampires have the sun to worry about. We get dry land. Honestly, it’s hardly anywhere near as much of a handicap. So what if I can’t go exploring the heart of Africa or like… Kansas? It’s not like sudden unexpected exposure to dry land will light me on fire. In the modern age of air travel, I could actually visit landlocked areas hundreds of miles from water for a little while. As long as I can take a dip in the ocean once every three days or so, I’m good.

Not sure if a tank of saltwater like in the movie where the rich dude had a captive mermaid would work, nor am I keen on finding out. Sticking to coastal regions or islands is totally fine with me. I have no driving urge to see the world’s biggest ball of twine—think they have something like that in Kansas… or one of those states where the nearest ocean is more than 500 miles away.

Back to my point. I don’t really have a burning need to return home any time soon beyond Trisha worrying about me. It doesn’t matter how long this vacation of mine lasts, but I’m inclined to return to Washington in a reasonable amount of time. Exploring the globe based on a whim is nice, but so, too, is having a place that feels like home. It’s taken me a long time, but my house in Medina does. I’ve lived in many places during my life, and only two have truly felt like a real home: where I grew up, and my present house.

It’s good to have somewhere to return to.

For now, I’m adoring the heck out of the ocean.

I haven’t worn pants in a week. Okay, to be fair, I haven’t worn anything in a week. Luckily, this underwater safari features an unlimited seafood buffet. No alcoholic drinks and the band stinks, but hey, can’t have everything. With only sea life to ‘talk’ to, I am perhaps going a little crazy. I mean, it’s totally normal to quote Hamlet at a crab before eating it, right? Fish are weird. Sometimes, I feel guilty about eating them since they’re always so willing to do whatever I ask of them—but fish also have the attention span of advertising executives, and about the same level of empathy... for other fish. Meaning, devouring one in front of thirty more doesn’t register. In fact, the others come in to gobble up the scraps. It almost feels like the fish to be eaten is eager to die for my sustenance. Maybe they’re aware of the idea of reincarnation and can’t wait to get another shot—hoping they don’t roll snake eyes and come back as a fish again.

Sure, all life is precious, but life as a fish has got to be immensely tedious. Yeah, being a child in the early 1900s would be considered supremely boring by modern standards, but fish don’t even have the option to beg sweets from the corner pharmacist. Their lives are little more than a constant search for food while trying to avoid being preyed on by larger sea life. Even that they don’t do a good job of. Honestly, most fish have less survival instinct than a blonde in a cheesy horror movie.

Again, I think they want to escape this life and go ’round again hoping for a better result.

Picturing a ghost walking up to a game show stage, spinning the wheel, and having the needle come up on ‘fish’ makes me laugh. I can just see the poor bastard screaming ‘nooooo’ as the trap door opens under them, they fall and land in the ocean as a tiny baby fish with a ‘well F me’ face.

My telepathic laugh startles sea life for miles.

Licinia thinks I’m terribly bored to find that funny.

Your daydreams are even more droll than British comedy.

Some of those shows are hilarious. And come on, you laughed at Hitchhiker’s Guide.

It made absolutely no sense. How is absurdism funny?

Because it is. I thrust my arms out to either side. It’s impossible to explain why something is funny or not.

Eye of the beholder, I suppose.

Quite.

You’re in desperate need of someone other than me to converse with, dear. Some people aren’t wired to be alone for long stretches. You are one of them.

Yeah, talking to fish doesn’t really work. My mermaid powers don’t let me ‘talk to’ fish and other sea life as much as remote control them. I suppose there is some communication involved, but not in any sense of words. For example, my telepathy (or whatever it is when linking to fish) returns concepts rather than speaking. If I ‘ask’ fish if they’ve seen a particular land mass or shipwreck, I’ll understand the crux of the fish’s reply in an instant. A barracuda doesn’t exactly sit there trying to give me directions like a hillbilly at a gas station.

My dear, you are in desperate need of human contact.

Yeah, okay. Picturing a barracuda in overalls is a good sign solitude is starting to nibble away at my sanity.

Distant machine noise piques my curiosity. The sound is coming from above me on the left. I’m not too deep, only about 200 feet or so, making it easy to spot the dark outline of a surface ship despite the sun getting ready to go down.

Feeling a bit curious and mischievous, I pull into a climb and chase the boat. Well, ‘chase’ the way a running dog pursues a house. Large boats are the exact opposite of fast. I can outrun torpedoes, but to be fair, the last time it happened occurred during World War II. They might be faster than me by now. Can’t say I’ve been around any present-day subs firing them, nor am I curious to test. Then again, they’re still basically the same sort of machine. How much faster can they be?

As best I’ve been able to determine, my ‘cruising’ speed is approximately 120 MPH or 104 knots. I can sprint faster in short bursts, but there aren’t many surface ships capable of coming close to my speed underwater, especially something as big as the boat I’m looking at now. Oh, sorry. Sailors get weird about calling ships ‘boats.’

Needless to say, cruising along at 120 underwater is ruinous to clothing and objects. It’s a pain to carry even a small bag as the water rushing by so fast wants to tear it away from me—or simply shred it. A wetsuit top would stay on me, but I don’t see the point as I’d still be bottomless after leaving the water. Don’t even get me started on how dumb the idea of a seashell bra is. Obviously, whoever made those movies never saw a real mermaid. And yeah, I know they had to cover the boobs to appease the censors.

This ship is cruising at a modest twenty knots or so, a ‘slow walk’ to me. From below, I’m guessing it’s a small supertanker or large cargo ship. I pull along the starboard side, a few feet under the surface, and pace the vessel for a while, listening. Two different sources play music, not the same song, resulting in a discordant mess. In addition to a few scattered voices, the occasional clank, squeak, or tapping suggest this is not a passenger ship. Nowhere near enough commotion. At a guess, I’d say there are less than fifty people on board. Someone’s going up metal stairs. Yeah, sound carries a long way in the water. Plus, my ears are many times more sensitive than they’d been as a mortal. Out of water, they’re a little sharper, but while swimming? I can hear a lobster break wind from a mile away. Did you know lobsters pee out of their faces? They even spray it at each other sometimes.

Every time a wave hits the ship, a cascade of metal creaking follows. Aha. It must be one of those container ships. Hmm. Curious, I breach the surface, but only my head. Not too worried. It’s surprisingly difficult to spot a person in the water. Sometimes, even with a fluorescent orange vest, lookouts can miss survivors of a wreck multiple times.

Sure enough, I’ve found a container ship, piled high with blue, red, orange, and green boxes as big as the trailers of semi-trucks. My gaze goes straight to a Hispanic man leaning on the railing near the stern. He appears to be relaxing or admiring the view of the ocean rather than working. In ages past, mermaids peered up at ships from the water the way people today look at the offerings at a buffet restaurant. Not being too much of a connoisseur of human flesh, it eludes me what makes one person tasty and another not.

For all I know, to the merfolk who eat people as a matter of preference, they all taste the same. Contrary to what some people think, there’s nothing sexual about our feeding. Sure, merfolk are usually naked, but it’s a matter of practicality. Salt water is murder on fabric. Admittedly, our powers of charm are based on sexual attraction, but the mermaid isn’t thinking at all carnally. We’re hungry.

The compelled sailor might be jumping overboard expecting a good time, but the truth waiting for him is considerably sharper, bloodier, and far less pleasant.

Because of my unusually squeamish nature—for a mermaid, that is—I don’t look at human men like walking T-bone steaks. They don’t really stir much of any other feelings either, sadly. Romance between mermaids and mortals (or mermen and mortals) doesn’t work out well for the mortal. Something about our supernatural nature results in the mortal none-too-slowly evolving into a near mindless servant. It’s honestly kind of off-putting to me. I don’t need a man literally crawling around wanting to attend to my every whim and behaving like a well-trained dog. Perhaps I have too much humanity left, but it makes me feel vicariously embarrassed for him. However, I’m not above temporarily charming guys into automaton servants when I need something.

Or am investigating something.

So, yeah. Mortal men don’t ‘get my juices flowing’ anymore. Mermen on the other hand… ahh, Stavros. Or vampires… or werewolves…. any of them!

True mermaids are not ‘sexual creatures’ despite our habit of sitting around bare-breasted on rocks and being the subject of mariners’ fantasies. The reality of our existence is no more prurient than a group of lions waiting eagerly for some meat to fall into reach.

Sorry, but there’s nothing even remotely sensual about a pack of mers letting our razormouths out and tearing people apart. Any guy who survives witnessing such a scene would surely be deathly afraid of women for the rest of his life. Almost like he went through a brutal divorce.

However, I’m bored, somewhat mischievous by nature, and quite deep into ‘oh hell with it’ territory.

What can I say? I am a mermaid and it’s kinda in my blood to tease people, especially sailors.

While I could easily charm this guy into jumping overboard for a snack, my motives here are purely to chase some laughs—no intent to harm or eat. For the next few minutes, I swim alongside the cargo ship, staring at the guy. Eventually, perhaps feeling the weight of my gaze, he looks down and notices me.

His thoughts reveal the evolution of his perception from ‘something is in the water’ to ‘is that a person’ to ‘it’s a woman.’ I rise a little higher out of the water, giving him a brief look at my chest before flipping backward and going under—making certain to let my tail breach the surface like a diving whale’s fluke.

It’s a little juvenile of me, but it still strikes me as funny.

Even Licinia finds it amusing.

Mermaids have been doing this for centuries. I can picture the poor guy freaking out, running to tell his buddies he just saw a mermaid and their skeptical reactions. Of course, I’m not going to resurface. Can’t let any of them take pictures or have more than one witness. Gotta keep the folklore alive, right? Some things in the world exist purely because people believe in them. We can’t ‘go mainstream,’ but we also can’t let the myth die.

You do realize the man might spend the next twenty years crisscrossing this part of the ocean trying to find us.

Nah. They only do that if we kiss them. Couple days from now, he’ll probably think he hallucinated or dreamed of seeing me.

Men’s laughter echoes into the sea from the ship overhead. Heh. Guess his shipmates don’t believe him. Mission accomplished, I dive again to my cruising depth of between 150 and 200 feet below the waves, and keep heading southeast.

***

I spend the next several days after my encounter with the container ship exploring reefs, shipwrecks, and sea caves. My meandering takes me past Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.

Soon, I get the itch to make land.

Not sure what gave me the urge to visit a jungle environment, but here we are. Doesn’t really matter which country I start with. They all have beautiful places to see. That said, my best estimation places me off the west coast of Panama.

It’s dark by the time I reach shore. As luck would have it, my course brought me to an uninhabited area of beach. Since there are no people around to charm into going to fetch me something to wear, time for option two: find something on my own. It’s relatively easy to blot my existence out of people’s awareness as long as I keep a reasonable distance—like I sometimes do at the marina back home when streaking between the water and my Jeep.

Once I’m in water shallow enough to stand up in, I shift my tail back into human legs. Ugh. The ‘human muscles’ are somewhat stiff after spending about eleven days in mermaid form. Having toes again feels odd. Good odd, though. I amuse myself for a minute or ten, enjoying the sensation of mud squishing between them before walking up onto the beach.

Someone watching me would likely think me a drunk. Reacclimating to being on land after almost two weeks at sea is not an instant process. Granted, it’s not like the first time I emerged from the ocean after my mother passed away. Her death hit me hard, so I kinda retreated into the ocean for a decade or so. It bothered me having to lie at the funeral, not being able to tell anyone there—all four people—she was my mother. Maybe I should’ve claimed to be a granddaughter or something. Too late now. It doesn’t really matter, though. Mom’s spirit knew I was there for her.

I get the hang of walking by the time I’m off the beach onto normal earth. Maybe 2,000 or so feet from the water’s edge, I find a dirt road. Okay, promising. I set my hands on my hips and look left and right. Neither direction appears more likely to lead to civilization faster than the other, though some sounds of human activity come from my right. Works for me.

Minutes after I begin walking down the road, a faint rustle comes from the bushes on my left. Before I can even look, a man pounces on me from behind, clamps a hand over my mouth—and bites me on the side of the neck. Okay, normal people don’t move anywhere near that fast.

Within a second of biting me, he disengages, spits, coughs, and retches. Sort of the same reaction a small boy might have to being fooled by a chocolate-covered Brussels sprout. I grasp the wrist of the hand covering my mouth.

A vampire bit me. Seriously?

Sigh.

Chapter Two

Nice Night for a Walk

One doesn’t need to be an aikido master to flip a man when they’re as strong as me.

I yank him forward by the arm he grabbed my face with, throwing him to the ground in front of me as easily as if he were a plastic mannequin. He hits hard enough to bounce, then lands flat on his back gazing in bewilderment at the sky.

“Keep looking,” I say. “I’m not on your menu.”

The man, who appears outwardly a few years older than me—in his mid-thirties—springs upright and lunges at me. I mostly catch him. Vampires tend to be much faster than merfolk, after all. In my experience, we’re stronger as well as a measure tougher. Probably has something to do with deep water pressure. He rips a bloody trail of claw slashes down my front before I manage to throw him aside again.

“Ow!” I yell, gasping from the burn of vampire claws.

He’s quite agile, really. Manages to land on his feet, upright, only staggering five paces or so. His eyes glow gold in the moonlight, tiny flames burning in the pupils. Nothing about him seems even the least bit cordial, a completely feral beast attacking out of… hang on. I don’t think this guy’s in control at the moment. His dark master’s gone unhinged.

“Listen here, ya rumbumptious idiot. Scratch me again and I’ll wallop ya so hard in the kisser you’ll need to reattach your jaw.”

As quick as he gets his balance back, he lunges at me again.

Rather than try to catch him this time, I defend by means of throwing a haymaker at his face. My knuckles meet his jaw at the same instant his claw tips touch my throat. Lucky for me, the sudden, intense reversal of his momentum away from me reduces my injury to only mildly more painful than the wrath of a perturbed housecat.

He flies a good fifteen feet before crashing to the ground, jaw shattered, his neck most likely broken as well. It won’t kill him, but it will keep him immobile for a while. My resumé does not contain any professional hand-to-hand combat instruction. However, as a child, I’d been no stranger to the occasional scrap. I had several run-ins with bratty little boys who thought they were better than me for having wealthier parents. The only thing to surprise them more than a girl initiating a fight was me punching them in the face first. Fighting was something little girls just didn’t do back then. When it happened, everyone expected us to pull hair or maybe bite—something not particularly effective, even laughable. Like a tiny dog thinking its growl means something.

Not me.

I might not have been the biggest kid, even among girls, but I fought like a boy. Suppose it made for an unfair situation, though... fighting a girl, that is. Only one boy ever punched me back and his buddies gave him hell for ‘hitting a girl.’ If a boy picked a fight with me, they got an actual fight, but couldn’t hit me back or walk away with any dignity left. Like I said, tough spot for them. Personally, I’d never have cried about a boy hitting me, especially when I’m the one who made the confrontation physical, but who was I to change society?

Of course, I’m the same girl who grew into a woman wanting an education. Always a rebel, I guess.

It worked out though. The boys stopped picking on me for being poor because they neither wanted to hit me back and be mocked for it nor have everyone see them slink away from a girl without hitting her. Except for this one kid, Big Tony. Ten years old and built like a teenager. Whenever I hit him, he’d laugh and just bear hug me so I couldn’t punch him. He’d hold me off the ground until he got tired of listening to me threaten his whole family. You’d think it would’ve been embarrassing for me, but nah. He was huge, I was tiny. Other kids respected me for having the nerve to stand up to him. He played it the best he could, simply holding me as immobile as he could manage until I gave up. Didn’t hit the girl; didn’t get a black eye; didn’t do the walk of shame, either.

However, Big Tony, this vampire is not. He’s pretty average size-wise.

I sense his dark master is trying to get you to destroy him.

Ugh. Not this again.

“Look, pal,” I say, addressing the dark master. “There’s no easy way for me to send you back to the Void. Best I can do is leave you in a broken heap and maybe you’re stuck here when the sun comes up. It ought to be fairly obvious to you I’m not carrying any weapons or even a lighter. I’m also rather keen on not ending up on the business end of your claws. So, can we cut the crap?”

Wincing, I rub the scratches on my chest. They’ve already stopped bleeding, but will likely take at least an hour to fully heal.

He growls like a cornered dog.

Oh, enough of this nonsense.

I walk around to where he can see me, crouch, and metaphorically club him over the head with the charm hammer. In most cases when charming a man attracted to women, a full-frontal view enhances the power of my abilities. Effects vary based on the victim, though. As they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For some guys, having a little bit of mystery is more powerful. But, gotta work with what I have on me at the moment—which is nothing.

Seems to do the trick.

He stops growling and merely stares worshipfully up at me, his mouth half full of dirt, blood gushing from his nostrils.

Romantic, right?

“It would make me so very happy if you’d go dormant for a nice long spell and let this poor man to the surface.” I bat my eyelashes at the dark master within.

The gold luminosity in his irises fades to hazel. “Oi, sorry about that, luv.”

“No harm done.” I lightly touch the claw marks. “Well, a little bit of harm. Nothing to worry about.”

“Niles Chamberlain.” He offers a shaking hand. “Thank you for not twisting my head completely off. Forgive me for not properly greeting you. Seems I’m presently a bit incapacitated. Pretty sure my neck is broken. Jaw, too. Hurts like hell to talk. I should probably shut up now.”

“Alex Silver.” I shake his limp hand, then brace my palm over the fang holes in my neck. “What are the odds? The first person I meet in Panama is not only a Brit but a vampire.”

“Aye, right?” He chuckles, then grimaces. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Minor scratches. You didn’t really hurt me.”

“No, I mean… you’re wandering about starkers.”

“Pardon?”

“Without clothing?” He twitches again, still unable to really move. “Walking around the jungle nude means either a person’s part of a primitive tribe or something unseemly has occurred. Considering you don’t appear to be local, I figured you’ve been the victim of some manner of attack. That said, I’ve never quite experienced such an unpleasant flavor in blood before. Rather foul actually.”

“Not a fan of seafood?” I snicker.

Licinia’s sigh slides across the back of my consciousness.

“Come again?” asks Niles.

“I’m a mermaid, old chap.”

He blinks, ponders a few seconds, then attempts to nod. “Aye, makes sense then. Lack of kit.”

“Huh? Kit?”

“Means clothes, luv. Ya just come up outta the sea, I reckon?”

“Exactly.”

“Fancy that. Mermaids…” He chuckles. “Would you mind rolling me onto my back and setting my head straight?”

“Thought I already set your head straight.”

“Meant in more a physical sense.”

“Yes, I’m teasing you.” I wink, then ease him over to lie flat before twisting his head to face the proper direction.

Niles groans in relief. “Not sure how you made the old bastard shut up, but you have my thanks.”

I sit on the ground beside him, still holding my hand to the side of my neck. “Your dark master must be male.”

“Aye.”

“My kind aren’t as flashy as vampires. However, we’re quite adept at charming men to do what we want.”

He shifts his gaze to me, only able to move his eyes. “You charmed me? But I’m a vampire.”

“Yep. It’s part of the whole mermaid thing.”

“Mind if I ask what a mermaid’s doing on land?”

I laugh. “Vacationing.”

“You’ve got some special ability where no one’s going to notice you’re traipsing about in the ‘all together’?”

“I do, as a matter of fact. However, it’s tiring. I’m not above liberating a garment from a clothesline when no one is watching. In fact, it’s my first order of business. I’d been on my way to do just that when you sized me up for a nibble.”

A sharp snap comes from his neck. “Oh, that’s the stuff. Almost there. ’Nother twenty minutes or thereabouts and I’ll be right as rain.”

“Haven’t heard that phrase in a while. Been turned long?”

“Thirty years give or take a few months.” He shifts his eyes toward me. “You?”

Oh, a baby, says Licinia.

Heh. “Nearly a century.”

“Well, you don’t look a day over twenty-three.”

“You flatter me, Niles.” I overact the line like something out of a lame period drama.

“Can’t place your accent.”

“Been all over, but originally from California. You?”

“Manchester.” He reaches up and feels around his neck. “If up to me, I wouldn’t have accosted you from behind.”

I glance down at him. “You’d have attacked me from in front? How noble of you.”

“Though a person walking alone makes for the best prey, I wouldn’t have pounced on you like that. Much easier to fog the mind first and be calm about it. Granted, as soon as I couldn’t fog your mind, I’d have realized you are—as you put it—not on my menu.” He winks badly. “And true, I never much cared for fish.”

I fake gasp. “How’s a man from England not like fish?”

“Rare, but it bloody ’appens.” He smiles wistfully. “Me mates used to constantly take the Mick out of me over hatin’ fish and chips. Well, don’t so much mind the chips.”

“Kinda like an American thinking baseball is stupid.”

We sit there on the dirt road somewhere in Panama idly teasing each other over the idiocy of our respective countries for another half hour or thereabouts before he sits up. By then, my injuries are gone, too.

“My dark master’s gone ’round the bend,” he says. “Been trying to get me killed for a few months now. So much for the immortality deal. He’s changed his mind.”

I nod. “Yeah. Saw a werewolf the same way not too long ago. Something about their leader, someone named Elizabeth.”

Niles looks at me. Yeah, he’s checking me out but his gaze doesn’t feel lecherous. More like he’s admiring a statue in a museum. Admittedly, I have no idea what goes through the minds of most men while they admire the ‘artistic merits’ of a female nude statue, though it’s likely not as pure as they claim. No shame in it though. Sex exists for a reason. Continuation of the species is somewhat important. We wouldn’t still be here without it.

“Like what you see, handsome?” I ask, teasing.

“My apologies.” He flashes a charming, yet polite grin. “Couldn’t help but notice how calm you seem. Is your hitchhiker also trying to kill you?”

“No. We’re good. She doesn’t join crazy cults in search of power.” I bite my lip. “Back up. She did once. Knows better now.”

Hah, says Licinia in my mind. Elizabeth’s followers are a ‘crazy cult.’ The order I once belonged to is nowhere near the same level of psychotic. They’re trying to take over the world or some such nonsense. We contented ourselves with quietly growing our power... all while remaining in the shadows and serving Amphitrite.

Sounds reasonable to me. And to be clear... goddesses are real?

Yes.

Good to know.

“Seriously?” he blinks. “It’s not all of the dark masters?”

“No. Merely the ones who follow this Elizabeth woman.” I shrug. “It’s nothing we pay much attention to. Licinia has mentioned they are a relative minority among dark masters, less than a third of their population.”

“Licinia?”

“My ‘hitchhiker’ as you put it.”

He gawks. “You know her name?”

“Yes, we converse often.”

Niles rolls his eyes. “Great. Here I thought I got lucky finding immortality, even if I hadn’t asked for it. Nope.” He waves as if bidding farewell to someone. “That’s my luck. As bad in death as it was in life. At least I’ve got my looks.”

I laugh under my breath, mostly because his tone came off joking. He’s not a bad looking guy, but he’s no movie star. What is it about British dudes? So weird how some look painfully average but for some reason are irresistibly attractive? At least forty percent of it has to be the accent.

“Hey, at least you’re better looking than most of the werewolves I’ve met. Eventually, they all end up resembling unibrowed cavemen with a facial expression permanently stuck like they’ve encountered a doorknob for the first time and aren’t sure what to do with it.”

Niles throws head back, laughing, but grabs his neck. “Ouch. Bit too soon for sudden motions. Think I just cracked it again.”

“You should be more careful.” I examine my fingernails.

“Any chance you’d be inclined to help me find someone? I could use your help, I think.”

“Find who?”

“His name is Geovani Castillo... and he’s an alchemist.”

“Why do you want an alchemist?”

“Walk with me, and I’ll tell you.”

Having nothing particular in mind to do, I shrug. “Okay.”

Chapter Three

Discord in the Void

“There’s a little town that way.” Niles points in the direction opposite the one I’d been walking. “Figured I’d start looking there.”

“All right.” I stand, helping him up. “So, who is this Giovani?”

We start walking down the road, slowly at first, but picking up pace as Niles regains his strength.

“He’s the reason I’m in Panama. Followed rumors of a ‘holy man’ of sorts being here. Don’t rightly know much about the bloke other than his name is spelled in an unusual way. G-e-o, not G-i-o. Probably a local thing.”

I shrug. “Geovani then. Not Giovani. Still sounds the same to my ear.”

He chuckles. “From what I’ve heard, this fellow’s my best chance at separating myself from my dark master before the demic old bastard kills me.”

“Demic?” I glance at him.

“Oh, sorry, luv. Means old and decrepit. Broken down, that sort of thing.”

Short of destruction of the host, the only means by which I am aware it is possible to do what he seeks is light alchemy.

Light? As in one who dabbles in it?

Licinia sighs in my head. No. dear. Light, as in opposite of dark. You’ve heard me speak of the light warriors before.

I nod. Gotcha.

“If this Geovani guy you’re talking about is the real deal,” I say, “he’s more than likely an alchemist, possibly a light warrior.”

Niles makes a series of contemplative faces. I’m not convinced he knows what a ‘light warrior’ truly is. Then again, I’ve only heard of them in passing. Never met one. Their habit of usually destroying all ‘fiends’ they see tends to put a damper on establishing a friendship.

“Not rightly sure what ya mean, luv.”

“Figured. They’re an order of… something. I half want to call them monks or mystics. Not entirely the same as hunters, but they have similar opinions—usually—about beings like us. If he is one of them, we will need to approach him carefully.”

We walk for a minute or so in silence.

“Aye. Good chance you’re right about that,” says Niles. “Ever since I started looking for this bloke, the hitchhiker’s been losing his ruddy mind. It’s been a right task to keep him contained. Ya saw me lose the fight for a tick tonight. Arriving in Panama’s got him extra feisty.”

“Your goal is to separate, right? Not destroy him? Why would he care? Getting out is what he wants.”

“Indeed. But… he’s not convinced it will work. Bugger’s certain Geovani will try to destroy him, not merely cut him loose.”

A valid worry, adds Licinia. To a point. My kind are incredibly difficult to truly destroy. The worst this alchemist could feasibly do is trap the dark master in a soul prison. If any being has discovered a way to permanently destroy us, it remains unknown to me. I do not think it possible, at least not for a single alchemist. The power needed to do so would require a group ritual and it’s unlikely a desperate dark master would remain imprisoned long enough to allow such a ritual to complete.

So, it makes no sense for his dark master to be worried.

It does and doesn’t. No entity is willing to gamble their immortal existence on ‘most likely.’ However, Elizabeth’s minions are fanatical enough to do so… if it serves her goals.

She sounds like a real bitch.

She is, from what I gather.

“All right. Well, I didn’t come to Central America with anything particular in mind to do other than take a break from my normal routine. Might as well help you find this Geovani guy. Besides, you look like you need some help keeping your genie in a bottle.”

Niles bows to me. “Wonderful. Sorry again for the biting.”

“Understood. Before we begin the hunt, I’ll need to find something to wear.”

He cocks an eyebrow at me. “You don’t seem to mind.”

Heh. “I don’t, but society and all…”

“Aye. Surprised it doesn’t bother you.”

I shrug. “It would have, years ago. When I was younger, I had no sense of embarrassment. Then one day, showing too much leg made me blush. Not sure it ever was true shame as much as being afraid of the way people would react. If my dresses didn’t touch the floor, people would gasp. In my twenties, I’d seriously have been mortified if a man saw my bare knees.”

He laughs.

“It is, however, rather difficult to be a mermaid—or merman—and keep any sense of shame about covering up. Deep sea living doesn’t play well with fabric.”

“What about the seashells?”

I sigh. “They’d rip straight off me as soon as I swam faster than a crawl.”

“Ahh, didn’t think about that.” He snaps his fingers.

“Yes. Water is much denser than air, and we’re quite fast. Supernaturally so.”

“Wow… mermaids. Fancy that. Never imagined such a being existed.”

“Most people have no idea.” I smirk. “Vampires get all the sexy PR.”

“Are you friends with a singing crab?”

Ugh. “Don’t even get me started. We’re nowhere close to that cute—or that friendly.”

Chapter Four

El Chirú

Our conversation dwells on the idiotic decisions made by certain fictional mermaids as we continue walking.

It’s a little frustrating to me how the media generally portrays vampires as cool, sexy, mysterious, and powerful—but mermaids are some combination of cute, ditzy, overly innocent, or generally aimed at little girls. While there have been one or two obscure horror movies and one somewhat serious TV series clearly not going for the ‘cute’ market, merfolk are still vastly underrepresented.

“One upside,” says Niles. “No one’s ever heard of a mermaid hunter.”

“Hah. Good point. Just drunken sailors crisscrossing the same patch of sea in a desperate search to find the mermaid they ‘know they saw’ years ago.” I look around. “So, you seem to know where we are.”

“Aye. We’re in El Chirú, a bit west of a resort, the Buenaventura.”

“Hearing the names of places I’ve never been before doesn’t help me much.” I chuckle. “Sorry. I’m tired. Usually not up this late. Kinda thinking about sleep soon.”

“The night’s only just begun!”

“Says the vampire.” I try to smile but end up yawning.

“Fair point. Strange thing about places like this. Can walk two blocks and go from poverty-stricken slums to rubbing elbows with rich foreigners on vacation.”

Minutes later, we follow a right turn off the dirt road. It doesn’t take us long before we’re wandering past small homes. Niles is somewhere between embarrassed for me and amused at me so casually walking into a public place in my birthday suit. However, in the tropics, the only real point of clothing is modesty. Mental powers achieve the same goal, so I’m basically dressed. A handful of locals out late glance in our direction, but they only see Niles. In a strictly technical sense, my image is appearing on their retinas, but their brains aren’t paying any attention. Doesn’t help me avoid security cameras or cell phone pictures, but this does not look like the sort of place likely to have random CCTV cameras.

Observing the locals show zero reaction to me gives Niles a case of nervous tittering. He’s probably the guy whose friends never brought him along to do anything remotely mischievous. Not entirely sure what he’s concerned about. We won’t ‘get in trouble’ for anything at all, much less a ‘crime’ as mild as simple lack of clothing.

For no particular reason, I let him navigate. Seems as though he’s been here before or at least scoped the place out. My concentration is mostly going toward concealment, so not having to think about direction is a welcome relief. We eventually stop at a small house on a stretch of curving road. It’s isolated enough not to have any direct view of another house thanks to foliage in the way, plus sits fairly close to a small stream.

I’m about to ask if the place is empty when he knocks.

“Why are we here?” I ask.

“Privacy. Going to borrow the place for a day or two.”

“You know the people who live here?” I glance at him.

“Never saw them before.” He wags his eyebrows.

The door opens, revealing a grey-haired woman probably upwards of seventy. Her initially confused expression melts to neutral as soon as Niles stares into her eyes. A moment later, the two launch into an animated conversation in Spanish. Apparently, he’s some manner of ‘distant relative’ visiting Panama briefly and I’m his wife.

The woman, Yaris, smiles warmly at me... not reacting in the slightest to my lack of clothing.

I’m familiar enough with Spanish to follow along in their conversation, but I’d definitely sound like a ‘dumb tourist’ if I tried to say anything. I learned Mexican Spanish, which is not quite the same as what Yaris is using. She speaks quickly, a bit ‘sloppy,’ and seems to hate the letter s, turning it into more of an h sound. And yeah, the colloquial slang here is completely weird to me. If I do speak, I’m going to sound like a fifth grader reading from a language textbook. Doesn’t matter, though. I’m not a spy needing to blend in here like a local. Niles even sounds a bit odd. Going to guess he learned Spanish in actual Spain. Listening to the two of them talk is making me feel like I’m standing next to fast-moving traffic. He appears to be making up for his lack of local dialect via mental tweaking. Despite the oddity of their conversation, she’s behaving as though nothing is unusual.

Presumably, Niles is mentally encouraging her to think we’re married, so she doesn’t get weird about us being alone together. I’m sure he’s not planning on anything happening between us, more that he doesn’t want any fuss if we need some seclusion to talk about finding Geovani or other supernatural matters.

Yaris appears as thrilled to see him as if a long-lost son came home after years abroad. I feel somewhat guilty, thinking she’s probably quite lonely. However, we’re not really taking anything from her and he will most likely erase us from her memory so we don’t leave her pining for lost relatives who don’t really exist.

She invites us inside to spend a night or two, no doubt at his mental prodding.

Niles eagerly follows her through the door. I step in after, shutting it behind me. A grey-haired older man on my left sits in a cushioned chair, absorbed by a small television blaring highlights of a recent soccer match. He’s not looking at us, though does start to turn his head upon noticing me out of the corner of his eye. Just that slight delay gives me enough time to mentally blank myself from his awareness before the poor old man processes the sight of me and has a heart attack.

Yaris starts shouting at him. I follow enough to understand he’s her husband, Artorius, and she wants him to pull himself away from the soccer to welcome us. Niles reassures her it’s not a problem. Her yelling fizzles out; the old guy resumes watching TV. Yaris shows us upstairs to a small guest bedroom. Niles continues making conversation with her, claiming to have gone to England for some years as a student. She acts as if the pair of us are related to her despite it being obvious to anyone with functional eyeballs we aren’t. I’ve always been a bit on the pale side—blame my Irish ancestry there—but next to Niles, I feel normal. Admittedly, his version of pale verges on corpselike. Then again, he technically is a corpse.

Eventually, she leaves us to ‘settle in.’

Niles bows at me like a butler. “Bit early for me to tuck in. Going to head into Santa Clara and see if I can find anything on Geovani’s whereabouts… also grab you something to wear.”

“Thanks.”

“Oh, and fair warning: the bugger still thinks getting you cheesed off is a ticket out of this body for him. So, ah, don’t take it personally if I attack you in the middle of the night or something. Feel free to break my neck again.”

I pull back the covers on the bed, still feeling a bit awkward about barging into someone’s house. It’s not the sort of thing I’d have done if alone—at least not in a country like this. I’d have curled up out in the wilds under a tree. Obviously, had my purse come along, a hotel room would have happened. But, I’ll clean up after us—and do anything else I can think of to help them. Can’t make an old couple work for me. Bad enough we invaded their home.

“Not worried.” I can’t help but yawn again. So much easier in the ocean… merely settle down wherever I am. Though, some places do require shelter. Sharks can be dumb. When I’m sleeping, they can mistake my tail for a big fish. No real threat to my life, but few things hurt like saltwater in an open wound.

“Night, luv.” Niles backs out and closes the door behind him.

Oh well. I’m here. Might as well sleep.

***

I wake with the sun in my eyes from a little window to the right of the bed.

This room is basically a huge closet. Got the feeling Yaris and Artorius made a guest room out of it because they couldn’t figure out what to do with it. Only a small table and one chair can fit in the space beside the bed. I have to be the first person to use this bed in twenty years.

Speaking of the table, it presently holds a folded pair of jeans, a khaki button-down shirt, a pair of leather sandals, and a written note.

Might as well get up, since the room is already quite warm.

Once on my feet, I remake the bed, intending to wash the linens later. No idea if we’ll be spending more than one night here yet. The note is, predictably, from Niles.

“Alex,” I read aloud. “Found some things for you. Apologies for not providing smalls, but I guessed you wouldn’t be too inclined to borrow them used. Opted for trousers as a dress isn’t the most optimal choice for tromping about the jungle. Made some progress asking around last night, but ran out of time. If you’re inclined to keep looking while I sleep, there’s a woman named Ciera Munoz in Rio Hato who supposedly knows our guy personally. Didn’t get much more than an address. Talk soon.”

He’s written the address below. Doesn’t mean much to me by looking at it, but it ought to be enough to show around and get directions.

Apparently, Niles has quite an eye for sizes. The jeans, shirt, and sandals fit me well enough. Can’t tell if he stole them from someone’s house or from a store. They don’t seem worn much, but also don’t feel new. Not every store selling jeans and shirts also carries underwear. Or smalls, as he calls them. I appreciate him assuming my preference to avoid wearing borrowed underpants. Some things just shouldn’t be done—this coming from a woman who has literally eaten a man’s heart before.

Well, a long time ago.

That is, of course, assuming a German stormtrooper counts as a man. Nah. Anyone prepared—and eager—to shoot a group of women and children merely trying to hide from violence isn’t a man. Licinia rather likes the taste of human, but she’s happy to put up with my squeamishness. In that case, however, I had no problem giving her what she desired.

Hmm. Wonder where Niles is sleeping?

I raise an eyebrow, turn around, and squat to peek under the bed. Aha! Found him. And yeah, he’s out cold. Looks even more corpselike than he did while awake. I reposition the bedspread to conceal him and close the curtains.

Okay, so… find my way to Rio Hato and locate a woman named Ciera Munoz.

I’d say ‘should be easy,’ but don’t want to jinx myself.

Chapter Five

The First Breadcrumb

Finding my way to Rio Hato shouldn’t be terribly difficult. I am, after all, a detective.

I wander a little way down the dirt road outside the house Niles and I helped ourselves to. Yaris and Artorius live a proverbial stone’s throw from the village of El Rincón. I approach a guy riding a bicycle-powered cart loaded with produce. Between my basic Spanish and charm abilities, it’s simple enough to play lost tourist and ask for directions. He explains Rio Hato is a little over a mile to the east and I need only to follow a road called Interamericana to get there. It’s basically the major artery across Panama, even though it’s only a four-lane highway.

Conveniently enough, it runs right through El Rincón.

Considering we’ve already essentially stolen someone’s house, I’m not going to take this man’s bike. The thin leather sandals Niles acquired for me aren’t exactly made for hiking, but they do at least spare my feet from the hot paving. A mile or so isn’t too bad to walk, so I don’t bother looking around for a person to encourage to drive me there.

This part of Panama isn’t too jungle-y, being largely open fields separated by strands of lush vegetation. The highway is two lanes in either direction, separated by a narrow strip of either grass or solid concrete. In the interest of not being hit by a speeding car—it’s terribly inconvenient—I keep to the dirt left of the oncoming lane. Traffic is reasonably light, but the cars speed by fast enough to make me nervous.

I can still remember the days before car insurance became a thing. Except for unusual situations such as going off a bridge, problems with a downhill stretch, or rolling off an embankment, people didn’t usually end up suffering serious injuries wrecking their Model Ts. The darn things barely did forty-five miles an hour on flat ground. Most times, an accident did more damage to someone’s pride than their bodies—or the cars.

It didn’t stop some from complaining about them being dangerous, though. Plenty of people preferred horses for years. I can still hear country people calling them ‘devil wagons.’ It’s human nature, though. We’re afraid of new technology. Before Henry Ford ‘put a car in every driveway,’ automobiles had more or less been toys for the eccentric rich. Some of them ended up being wildly dangerous, but when everyone’s building stuff themselves and playing around, bad stuff happens. Leave men in a room long enough with tools, gasoline, and whiskey, someone’s ending up in the hospital.

Some of those 1930s cars were veritable tanks compared to modern vehicles.

I didn’t drive much before becoming a mermaid. Like many things, men of the day complained and tried to stop women from driving. They claimed we were ‘temperamentally unsuited’ or some hogwash. None of that was what kept me from driving, though. No, my lack of experience came from two primary reasons: being poor and not having anywhere to go. After my transformation—when I finally hauled myself up from the deep—I tended to obtain whatever I wanted.

One could say having the ability to influence men to grant my every desire felt like a small amount of revenge for having my dreams of higher education yanked out from under me. The admissions board denying my application didn’t bother me anywhere near as much as the way they did so—almost laughing at me for having the temerity to apply.

I wouldn’t say I ‘abused’ my charm powers, but I sure had fun. Made sure my mother lived comfortably for the remainder of her life. After working so damned hard to support me and herself for so many years, I didn’t even think twice about it. In hindsight, borrowing the extra bedroom of an older couple is quite tame compared to encouraging an oil tycoon to sponsor my mother.

Seriously, though. The guy had more money than he could’ve spent in ten lifetimes. He genuinely didn’t even notice the loss.

For the remainder of the walk into Rio Hato, I daydream about the years I spent with my mother in the new house. While I hated pretending to be her niece—or even hired help in the later years—it had to be done; that is, if I wanted to stay with her. And I really did.

Mary McCarthy legally died at age twenty-five when the ship she’d been on sank under mysterious circumstances, all hands lost. I couldn’t publicly use my real name once I returned to land. Went through several aliases. At first, I kept them Irish to fit in among the locals. Didn’t start calling myself Alexis Silver until 1971. Mum had been gone awhile by then.

It’s honestly a bit of a surprise no one’s questioned how I still look young. Even claiming to have been eighteen in ’71 wouldn’t explain why I still appear to be in my twenties after almost fifty years. Might be time to find a new identity, but nah. It’s such a massive pain to develop an entirely new persona.

Besides, I like the sound of ‘Alexis Silver.’ I generally use ‘Alex’ for the private investigation biz as a fair number of prospective clients still have a little prejudice about women working in a ‘man’s’ field, especially a dame with my physique. Growing up never being fully certain there would be food at all for dinner resulted in me being on the smallish side. Sure, there are plenty of women out there who can totally handle demanding, physical jobs—and they look it.

Me, not so much.

Granted, I can lift way more than any human ought to be able to.

Appearances, as they say, are deceiving. However, if a willowy thing like me goes around punching dents in steel doors, it’s going to attract all the wrong kinds of attention. I somewhat recently discovered the CIA knows about me, and beings like me—meaning supernaturals—as well. Honestly, it didn’t surprise me as much as I thought it would. Being around in the Forties, Fifties, and Sixties gave me the perception of our government being nearly omnipotent. G-men are everywhere, listening to everything.

Makes me wonder, though, how long has the government been aware of mermaids, vampires, werewolves, and other things?

And if the CIA knows about me, is there any need to change my name?

Perhaps they’ve left me alone because I continue to pay taxes.

Mermaid or not, I’m still a patriot. Mostly why I went hunting after a lost submarine for the CIA. And, well, it was fun. Thinking about the submarine issue is a good way to escape the wistful nostalgia trap of missing my mother—it also reminds me of Niles due to the entire problem having come from a werewolf who’d also gone self-destructive over this Elizabeth situation. Hopefully, things with her don’t become so insane I’m forced to get involved.

I’m not ready to panic, but encountering two supernatural beings whose dark masters are seeking to destroy their hosts is concerning. Niles, for the most part, hasn’t lost the battle of willpower to the same degree as Maddox—the werewolf on the sub.

Anyway, I’m not entirely sure if this errand I’m running at the moment will bear fruit, but hey, it’s an adventure to try, right? Licinia believes some alchemists do have ways to serve dark masters the old walking papers, so to speak. What happens to the host afterward, she isn’t entirely sure, though she believes it’s not wholly unpleasant. She happens to know a ritual, which could also do the trick except for two problems. The first being she can’t use it while lurking inside me as a dark master. Worse, her version of ‘separation’ results in the host’s body exploding like a tomato thrown off the Empire State building.

My bizarre train of thought abruptly ends when I reach the city of Rio Hato.

A reddish pedestrian bridge spans the highway. Walking under it feels sort of like going through the town’s ‘entry gate.’ A few blocks later, I reach an intersection where two roads intersect at the edge of the highway. Weird to see surface streets in a town bump up directly with a ‘major highway’ without using on-ramps. Takes me back to the old days.

I turn left—a completely random guess.

I walk past two more cross streets before spotting a man leaving a house and heading for a little car in a dirt driveway. He’s probably sixty feet away from the paved street, but the first person to cross my path not already in a moving car. As soon as I veer onto his property, he stops walking and watches me.

The man doesn’t seem at all concerned to have a random person approaching him. Probably thinks I’m a tourist who lost track of her bus or something.

“Buenos dias,” I say, before attempting to ask him to help me find this address while showing him the note Niles left.

He smiles, likely finding my clearly non-native Spanish funny. I probably sound like Borat to him. When he looks up from the paper, I give off a pulse of charm. “Por favor, tráeme aquí.”

The man flashes the usual partially out-of-it grin I’m used to seeing from people under the influence of my charms. He mutters something too rapidly for me to catch while gesturing at his little orange car. Hopefully, I’ve managed to ask him to please take me to this address and didn’t say something like ‘find me the nearest outhouse.’ Luckily, Spanish doesn’t change that much from Mexico to Panama. He asks me to get in the car.

I’m not the least bit worried about being attacked. This guy doesn’t at all give off any sinister vibes, and it would be incredibly unusual for a mortal to be any sort of threat to my life—barring him having a silver dagger on him somewhere. I know he doesn’t since it’s difficult to hide silver from me. It’s like the old joke—why are faeries’ clothes always wrinkled? Because iron kills them.

Licinia sighs. Has anyone ever considered that funny?

I mentally shrug after hopping in the car. No idea. But… fey creatures don’t like iron. We don’t like silver. But they have it worse, since iron is quite common. I can ‘feel’ silver within about fifty feet. Triggers an instinctive flight response, stronger depending on the type of object. A dagger or weapon made of silver causes panic much more than a silver picture frame like the one my mother’s portrait used to be in. Hope her spirit—if she’s around—doesn’t mind the fake silver one. Couldn’t bear associating her picture with painful nausea. The silver had to go.

Upon leaving his driveway, the guy, Frederico, turns right and heads south.

Oops. Seems as though I went the wrong way.

I shrug and relax. Hey, I am on vacation, after all.

We drive back to the Pan-American Highway, the same corner intersection where I first entered town. Frederico goes straight across to the surface street on the other side, and proceeds to follow a somewhat winding course through a mostly residential neighborhood, all the while grinning to himself. It’s a bit eerie, but I understand the look. Whenever guys follow my requests, they’re engulfed by a sense of happiness for making me happy, as if the entire purpose of their life was making me smile. Fortunately, they go back to normal soon after completing the task. One might argue a mer’s charms are more insidious than vampire mind-control because even after it wears off, the person thinks they really wanted to do whatever we asked them to. Victims of a vampiric command will usually know something forced them to act—unless the vamp takes the secondary step of erasing memories.

Ten years from now, Frederico is going to remember ‘some tourist’ he gave a ride to and still smile at himself for being such a kind, helpful person.

About ten minutes after we began driving, he pulls to a stop at the end of a dirt driveway.

“This is the place.”

I blink. “You speak English?”

“I do.” He grins at me. “Your Spanish is… not too bad, but I think my English is better than your Spanish.”

“Yeah.” I brush off the critique and wink. “Maybe just a bit better. Thank you for bringing me here.”

Frederico nods. “You are most welcome.”

I get out, wave, and shut the door. He u-turns and goes back the way we came, still smiling to himself. Hey, if someone’s going to be compelled via supernatural means to do my bidding, at least they feel good about it. Could be worse… traditionally, victims of a mermaid’s charms end up as food. Mermen tend to resort to more direct means—like using their ‘water control’ abilities to sink ships in deep water.

And, yeah, that’s what happened to the ship I’d been on.

It didn’t strike me for many years—most likely due to shock—how Barnaby had killed roughly 200 people that night. I’d been sharing an undersea cave with a mass murderer. Some might say he regarded human lives with about as much significance as a fisherman thinks of their catch, but it wouldn’t be accurate. Barnaby adores the killing. I really don’t know what made him spare me. Some men have told me I have ‘waifish’ features and seem innocent, like the girl who usually walks into a private investigator’s office at the start of a noir film. Doubtful he would’ve felt sorry for me. I bet he picked up on my broken heart. After losing my husband, Albert, a few years working in the laundromat had driven me to a point where I didn’t care what happened to me. I got on the boat hoping never to return to Los Angeles. Honestly, I’d not been in my right mind, though suicide or death weren’t in my conscious plans.

Or, maybe, he remembered me. I think we met once when I was a little girl. He’d caught us breaking into a warehouse or something. More to the point, we caught him trying to hide a body in an alley. The man gave me the weirdest look at the time. Still not sure what he’d been thinking. It scared me back then, but he hadn’t done anything to us. I’d for sure thought he was about to kill us to keep his secret, but he merely walked away. Suppose it’s possible he remembered me and decided to spare me as a thank you for not telling the cops about the body. Not that a merman would’ve been the least bit worried about mortal police.

However, it’s easier to assume Barnaby thought I wanted to die and turned me purely to prolong the torment of my existence. If it bothered him to learn my despair hadn’t reached the depths of suicide and he didn’t sentence me to an eternity of misery, he never showed it. In addition to his inadvertently arranging my meeting with Licinia, I should also thank him for the metaphorical wake-up slap.

Those years at the laundromat had been a slow death, me giving up after the loss of Albert. Somehow, I’d changed from the young woman determined to buck convention and go to university to the sort of woman who felt purposeless without her husband. Surviving—in a manner of speaking—a shipwreck put my priorities back in order. Albert’s loss hurt, but he didn’t define my life. I had dreams and hopes before I’d ever met him.

Right, so… back in the here and now.

I walk down a long dirt driveway, approaching a fairly large one-story building. White stone walls crumble in a few places, but the structure isn’t decrepit, merely old. Could use some repairs, too. The overall size and shape implies school or tiny hospital. Hard to say from the outside, as there are no signs. It does, however, have a front porch, the dusty old wood covered in bare footprints, many small.

A simple cross hangs from a nail on the front door. Hmm. I start wondering if this might be a convent until the sounds of children’s voices coming from inside reach my ears. Back to thinking ‘school.’

At first, I knock, but after a minute or two of no one answering, I decide to try the knob.

It opens, and I step into a room similar to the check-in area of a hotel. No one’s at the reception desk. Six chairs and one bench closer to the door are empty as well. Three hallways lead off into the building, one of which being the source of the kids’ voices.

Before I can make up my mind which hallway to explore, a woman emerges from the corridor on the left. She’s taller than me by a bit and visibly about a decade older, probably in her middle thirties. Her coral-colored dress appears well worn and bares surprisingly muscular arms. She’s no bodybuilder, but has obviously done a fair amount of physical labor—or maybe even combat. The woman isn’t wearing shoes or jewelry or make-up. Between her and the décor in here, feels like I’ve walked straight onto a set from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly—or gone back in time several decades.

Speaking of Clint Eastwood movies, the woman and I have a momentary staring contest like a pair of gunslingers. Her mood shifts between fear and suspicion. While my charm powers are quite weak on other women, normally, I don’t have a problem reading their minds. Somehow, this woman’s thoughts are a jumbled mass of chaos harder to understand than a drunk Bob Dylan singing. Unfamiliar language can play a part, but if so, I’d be hearing words that made no sense to me while emotions and images still came through. Not so, here. She’s got some way to shield her mind. Perhaps a witch, a psychic, or one of the small percentage of people I think of as ‘negative psychics’—basically so far away from being open to mystical things, their brains are effectively dense stones.

“What are you doing here?” asks the woman in thickly accented English.

“Sorry for walking in. No one answered my knock.” I point over my shoulder at the door. “I’m looking for Celia Munoz.”

She hides her reaction to the name outwardly, but an unmistakable mental twitch is obvious. Seems I’ve gotten lucky and found her right away. Celia leans back as if afraid of me, but something keeps her from running. I get almost a ‘mama bear’ vibe. Does she think I’m a danger to the children down the hall?

“Why are you looking for her?” asks Celia. “She doesn’t have anything you need.”

“Relax. I’m not here to cause any problems. And do you always talk about yourself in third person?” I raise an eyebrow.

She stares at me again, seemingly teetering on the edge between attacking and running.

I put on my most disarming smile. “It’s obvious you’ve got some notions about me, but you don’t need to worry.”

“This place is protected. Who did you kill to find me?”

“No one.” I force myself not to look guilty. Despite not knowing either way, I have to believe Niles didn’t kill anyone for this address. He wouldn’t have to—but I don’t know for a fact he didn’t. “What is this place protected from?”

“Being found.” She folds her arms. “It is a place where women come to be safe.”

“Sounds like an awful lot of children for a women’s shelter.”

She only stares at me.

“Please, relax. I’d sooner shoot myself in the head than hurt a child. I’m no threat to you or anyone here.”

Celia studies me for a moment before swallowing a lump of fear. “How are you awake now?”

“Pardon?”

“The sun is up.”

I tilt my head. “Isn’t that usually when people are awake?”

“People, yes.” She narrows her eyes. “Not what you are. Your kind are supposed to be destroyed by the light.”

“Ah, you’re talking vampires.”

She gives me a ‘don’t play coy’ frown.

It stands to reason, dear, says Licinia in my head. If she knows Geovani, she may very well be aware of the greater world most are not.

“I’m not a vampire.” I drift to my left and stick my hand into the sunlight streaming in the nearest window, wiggling my fingers. “See? No smoke. No burning.”

Celia hesitates a few seconds, then steps closer, peering at my hand. The sight of me not igniting nudges more of her fear into puzzlement.

“In the interest of full disclosure, I am trying to help a vampire free himself from the darkness inside him.” I lower my hand. “He’s traveled here from a great distance in search of a man named Geovani Castillo.”

“Even if I knew such a man, why would I tell a creature of darkness?” Celia backs up a step.

“Primarily because you’d be helping in the—not sure if I should say destruction or liberation—of one such ‘creature of darkness.’ He believes Geovani can free him of the curse and wants him to try, even if it destroys him.”

“This fiend would risk destruction?” Celia paces around me. “I find it difficult to believe.”

I stand still, not turning my head to keep looking at her. “How familiar are you with the way these curses work?”

“Enough to understand the dark ones hide within. You all have them. They’re all evil.” She passes behind me at a relatively safe distance, and reappears on my left. “You aren’t to be trusted.”

“Not all who wear black are morbid.” I smile. “If one of the women you shelter here killed her abusive husband or boyfriend, would you call her evil?”

“Of course not.”

“The ‘dark one’ inside my mind came from a similar situation. She resorted to unnatural means to protect her children.”

Celia stops pacing. “What are you if not a vampire?”

“A siren,” I say. Sometimes, people take the word more seriously.

She looks pointedly at my jean-covered legs. “A siren? As in mermaid?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not sure what to believe.”

Giving her a peek at the razormouth for proof is faster and less involved than showing off the tail, but she’ll either faint, run away screaming, or try to kill me. “I could prove it, but I’d have to remove my pants. Take me at my word?”

“Well, you’re are obviously out in the sunlight, and not at all uncomfortable or sluggish… so you cannot be a fiend… at least of the bloodsucking variety. Mermaids… but you feel too dark for such a thing.”

“We’re not exactly the beings of childhood stories. I can’t speak for all of my kind, but I don’t eat people, though I do make exceptions for those who’d hurt children.”

“Why do you really want to find Geovani?”

“The vampire I’m helping is at war with his ‘dark one’ inside him. The spirit within wants to escape and is attempting to destroy him to do so. He wants to ask Geovani for help breaking the vampire curse, if at all possible. I get you don’t trust us. Even a phone call to talk to the man without knowing where he is would be great.”

Celia folds her arms. “He is not in a place with a phone. They don’t even have electricity.”

“I promise we mean him no harm. We need his help.”

She paces again for a few minutes, making a series of faces as if having an argument with herself. At least she’s no longer keeping one eye on me, as if expecting me to rip her head off the instant she turns her back. Progress—to a point.

Finally, she stops and faces me. “For the past seven years, I’ve been helping run this place. Started off as an orphanage, but we’ve opened our doors to a few women who needed a place to go in order to escape dangerous situations.”

I nod. “Right…”

“Geovani’s whereabouts are known to me, but I am not fully convinced you can be trusted. If you prove your intentions, I will help you find him. Edrian Perez, the commander of the Rio Hato Police, has been forcing us to pay him protection money to ensure our ‘safety.’ Otherwise, he says he cannot guarantee some crazy person won’t set fire to the building.”

“Grr.” I narrow my eyes. “People like that aren’t worthy to wear a badge… or steal oxygen from others. If this guy seriously threatened to burn your building down, I can definitely make sure he doesn’t cause you any further problems.”

Celia raises a hand at me like she’s trying to stop traffic. “If you kill him, I will know you cannot be trusted. Can you get him to leave us alone in a way that… defies your nature?”

“My ‘nature’ isn’t as dark as you’re assuming. But yes.” I smile. “Won’t be a problem.”

I hope.

Chapter Six

Corruption

I really miss my Jeep Rubicon—or Rubi, for short.

Meaning, I’m hoofing it once again. Rubi would have loved it out here... the dirt roads, the hills, the forest... all of which she would have beat into submission. As I like to say, a Jeep is a girl’s best friend.

Moving on...

Rio Hato is one of the larger towns in the area, but it’s still pretty small. Walking a half mile or so along residential streets brings me back to the main highway. From there, according to Celia’s directions, it’s a simple matter of a left turn and going another few hundred feet to the police station. Her directions prove spot on.

On the way to the door, I undo a button or two on my shirt for charm enhancement purposes. Celia has a point. Killing the guy for making a veiled threat about burning the place down might be an overreaction. Might. I’m inclined to rip his flippin’ head off for threatening kids, but I’ll play by her rules.

The man might not have had any serious intention to hurt the orphans, merely threatened them to make Celia worry enough to pay his extortion. In some cases, it is possible for a mermaid’s charm to cause permanent alterations in a man’s behavior. A few things need to be true. First, the mermaid needs to have existed for a while… like going on one hundred years, so I’ve got that covered. Second, I need to—as the cops say these days—drop the hammer on him. Probably going to have to let the ‘girls’ out a little and give him a full blast of mental power. The final thing needed to make a charm permanent is the request itself. It can’t be too opposed to the guy’s inherent nature or habits.

For example, it would be unlikely I could charm a politician into being honest forever or make someone who hates country music love it for the rest of their lives—unless they’ve only got a few years to go. I could charm a cop into forever letting polite drivers off with a warning if he pulls them over for speeding. Some cops occasionally do let people off with warnings, so it isn’t too far away from normal.

I’m guessing Edrian Perez didn’t spend his childhood years daydreaming of growing up to extort protection money from orphanages. As much as I want to make him stop running a protection racket in general, doing so might be too much for it to remain a permanent charm. Asking him to leave Celia alone ought to stick, though. There’s also giving him the idea to ‘accidentally’ send an email or letter to his superiors talking about the extortion scheme he’s running, but for all I know, they’re in on it. Even if they aren’t, if Edrian is removed, no guarantee someone else doesn’t take over. Most likely, the best option for everyone concerned is to leave him where he is and charm him into never harassing the orphanage for money again.

And I could also give her my number and a promise to come back if needed.

Great. I’m turning into the supernatural version of the A-Team.

I catch myself whistling the theme song on the way in the front door. No, I never watched the show. One of my past ‘husbands’ loved it. Manfred Worley. Never imagined an old English vampire would care for a cheesy American television show from the Eighties, but he adored it. We amicably parted ways romantically in 1988.

It’s quite easy to charm my way past a few officers into a back hallway. I’m not prepared for the ‘chief’ to have an office assistant. The specific problem here being she’s a woman. Can’t charm my way past her in a supernatural sense... unless she’s attracted to women. Doesn’t appear to be the case here. Damn.

“Hello,” I say, trying English first. “Is the chief here?”

“He is. Do you have an appointment?” The woman’s expression says, ‘I know you don’t.’

Curious as to what’s set off her hostility so quickly, I peek into her thoughts. She suspects me of either being sent here to assassinate him, of being a prostitute, or, less likely, of being some ‘arrogant American’ who wants to talk to the manager because my iPhone disappeared and, being American, I deserve to go straight to the top.

Ugh. Then again, I did unbutton my top few buttons.

“No, sorry. I don’t have an appointment. Came to Panama sort of on the spur of the moment while on vacation. I met Edrian a few years ago at a party and wanted to pop in to say hello.”

The assistant regards me with an unimpressed stare. Darn. She’s thinking for sure I’m an assassin now. Okay, she’s closer to the truth there than she realizes—only I’m just here to kill a small bit of his criminal activity, not him personally. Obviously, this ‘police chief’ is crooked. Fair bet his shady dealings go deeper than a basic protection scheme. He’s probably got plenty of enemies who want him dead. Based on this woman’s thoughts, she’s loyal to him, aware of the dirty dealing, and has no problem with it.

“Sorry.” She opens a small planner on the desk with her left hand, her right reaching for a gun under the desk. (I know this because I’m still in her mind.) “He doesn’t see anyone without an appointment. I can put you on his schedule for next Tuesday. What did you say your name is?”

Damn. I don’t want to be stuck in that nice old couple’s house for six more days. It’s Wednesday now—I think. Vacationing in the ocean with no technology makes it easy to lose track of time.

“Lauren Worley,” I say, mixing the name of someone I knew—but disliked—in grade school with Manfred’s family name. Heh. If paranormal beings legalized romantic relationships, my last name may well have been Worley for real.

Hmm. Not going to charm my way past her. I could always wallop her in the sniffer and leave her unconscious. Brute force, while unladylike, does often get the job done. Might cause additional problems, however. She’d certainly send the police after me once she woke up. Or... maybe I’ll wait until dark and ask Niles to mind-control her. Problem being, neither she nor Edrian will be in this building by then. I’m sure they both have homes.

Could go all private eye and stake the police station out, follow Edrian home. But… I don’t have a car. My fishy tail makes me a veritable rocket underwater, but mermaids aren’t any better on dry land than mortals, except for endurance. Takes far more to make me tired. While a vampire might be able to run down a car to a point, there’s no way for me to follow comfortably.

Another possibility would be to go outside and sneak back in a window. Seems Edrian’s office is at the rear of the building. He’d probably notice me trying to climb in, but—with eye contact comes charm. Having a window between us wouldn’t help him.

There’s my best bet. Quiet and undetectable.

“All right. Next Tuesday then.”

“If he decides to see you.” The woman writes my name down and closes her appointment book, making a face as if to say ‘yeah, I’m never going to see this dumb broad again.’ She’s already planning to run right to Edrian and tell him an assassin tried to ditz her way in to get him.

Honestly surprised she’s not hitting a button to summon cops to detain and search me for weapons—or pulling the gun she’s holding under the desk on me.

Speaking of more cops… a fairly tall police officer enters carrying a stack of paperwork. He drops it on the desk, giving me a casual once-over while turning around to walk right back out. Oh, hang on… you big, lovely man. I need you a moment.

His expression slackens as he stares at me.

I catch a few scraps in his mind before my cleavage replaces the entire contents of his active thought processes. The paperwork he’s dropping off is a ledger of the extortion payments. Oh, good grief. At least it helps me not feel guilty about using this guy for expediency. I lean in close as if hugging him and go up on my toes to whisper in his ear, trying my best to say, “Please take this woman out of the room for me, sweetie? Bring her somewhere quiet and keep her there for ten minutes” in Spanish.

He replies, something to the effect of ‘I’ll do anything for you’ or a similar suitably melodramatic expression of complete devotion. Feeling like I’m in a bad romance movie never gets old. Seriously. It’s either sensual as hell or unintentionally funny. Sometimes, the men I charm turn into Clark Gable, sometimes Antonio Banderas, and other times Rob Schneider doing an impression of Antonio Banderas. Either way, entertaining.

Tall, dark, and brainwashed lets go of me and rounds the desk. He scoops the chief’s personal assistant out of her chair. She’s so stunned at watching us appear to hug, it takes her a few seconds to react to being manhandled and carried out of the room. As her screaming drifts away down the hall, I barge into Edrian’s office.

He jumps at the suddenness of his door swinging open, looking up from paperwork on his desk. If the glare he’s giving me is any indication, I’m about to be barked at. Yeah, no thanks. I throw my charm dial up to eleven and leave him gawking at me like a love-starved puppy.

The room is reasonably plain except for the lime green walls and coral-orange curtains. Apparently, this man’s crimes extend into the realm of interior design. I take note of at least four crucifixes and one ten-inch statue of the Virgin Mary in the back corner. Oh wow. What balls. This guy’s surrounding himself with crosses and he’s running a criminal enterprise?

Ooh. Idea. I think I might be able to get him to leave Celia alone, permanently. Part of me wants to try shutting down the extortion completely, but it’s never a one-person operation. If Edrian loses his nerve for it, the people he works for will replace him.

Like I said... idea.

I approach the desk, gazing around at all the religious paraphernalia. My mother was Catholic but she never wallpapered a room with crosses like this. One per room did the trick. For what it’s worth, I hope the man upstairs doesn’t mind me impersonating an angel. Maybe I should imply demon instead, just to be safe? Hmm. Traditional angels were fairly horrifying to behold, hence the whole ‘fear not’ thing.

Right, here goes.

Edrian’s brain has mostly shut down except for an endless loop of how pretty he thinks I am, plus wanting to do whatever he can to make me happy. This is normal for a man exposed to a mermaid’s charms. Technically speaking, mermen have the ability to charm women, too, but they don’t use it often. Traditionally, few women crewed sailing ships, so the mermen had to resort to other ways to lure prey. Most of them possess the ability to control water like telekinesis, allowing them to capsize or sink ships. Which is what Barnaby had done.

“Edrian…” I walk up to within a few feet of his desk. “I come bearing a message.”

He blinks.

“Celia Munoz.” I gesture at the crosses and Virgin Mary statue. “Do you not appreciate the hypocrisy between the faith you claim to have and the way you treat abused women and orphaned children?”

His lip quivers, a sign his brain is struggling to form words.

“Much to my disappointment, the Man Upstairs has seen fit to give you a warning. I’m not allowed to have you just yet, if you catch my drift. Oh, you don’t? I’m talking Hell. You may wish to re-evaluate your life choices. If you continue stealing from the innocent, I’m going to return… and when I do, you’ll be going back down with me. We’ll spend quite a lot of time together.” I lean toward him, and abruptly shift my face into razormouth form while trying to roar.

This mouth isn’t really made for producing audible sound in the air. My ‘roar’ sounds like screeching train brakes with a serious case of phlegm.

Edrian yowls and falls backward out of his chair.

Traditionally, a mermaid’s ‘true face’ is the last thing a sailor sees. It’s so alien, demonic, and horrifying (to most people) the sight of it is enough to shock them straight out of charm, as it’s done to this guy.

By the time he scrambles up to his knees, I’ve reverted my appearance to normal. Another side effect of seeing the giant, toothy, maw is how it tends to make men immune to my charm powers for a while. It’s so horrifying, they can’t see me as alluring again for days, if ever. However, I’m betting on this man’s faith as a stronger motivation to keep him permanently away from Celia. If he thinks I’m a demon itching to get my fangs in him, the fear won’t wear off as easily as trying to make him appease me via charm.

Edrian, shivering, grips the edge of his desk. He’s unsure what to do between scream, pass out, go for his gun, or start praying.

“I’m hoping you keep taking money from those orphans. It’s been a few centuries since I’ve gotten a new toy. My last one’s a bit tattered. Eternal torment is much less pleasing to me when the subject is too broken to scream anymore.” I finger-wave farewell to him like an aristocrat—my claws out for added effect. “Hope to see you soon, Edrian.”

An instant before I turn away, a scrap of panic races across his brain. Wow, he fell for it. Really thinks I’m a demon and he’s terrified of going to hell… to the point he’s decided to not only stop stealing from her, but return the money he’s previously forced her to pay. As soon as he can speak without his voice shaking, he’s planning to send one of his underlings to the shelter with a bag of cash. Ooh. Bonus.

Grinning, I sashay out of the office, pulling the door closed behind me.

Mission accomplished, as they say. Maybe I should’ve tried my hand at acting.

Nah. I’ve no desire to be famous. Besides, my face appearing all over media would make it way harder to conceal immortality. Seriously stupid idea. Hmm. The assistant is still missing, though her voice comes from the hallway on my right, yelling at the soldier to let go of her. She sounds annoyed, not afraid. I peek just to make sure nothing unintentional is happening. The guy’s simply forcing her to stay seated in a chair. Excellent.

I back out of the corridor and go the long way out of the police station.

Hopefully, I won’t have to wait too long for Celia’s proof to arrive.

Chapter Seven

Privacy

I fall into a strange mood on the walk to the orphanage.

Few people have seen the monstrous side of my teeth. I’d say fewer have survived, but it would both sound a touch cliché as well as be inaccurate. My reality is something of a paradox among mermaids. There have been more people to see my razormouth and live than see it and die. Mostly because the few times I’ve eaten someone, they’d already been dead or at least unconscious before I took a real bite. Off the top of my head, I can think of three who’ve seen my ‘dark side’ so to speak, and of them, only one died—the werewolf, Maddox.

The first happened by accident when a night security guard at a wharf in Long Beach, California managed to sneak up on me. Some people scream when startled. I hadn’t intended to scar him for life, but the teeth came out as a matter of instinct. In that case, I hadn’t roared as much as shrieked; then again, no normal person could really tell the difference between a mermaid screeching in fright and a vicious sea monster bellowing a war cry.

At least he never saw my real face, having come up from behind me. I dove back into the water. Poor guy probably wasn’t really sure what he saw. Lucky for me, they didn’t have security cameras in the late Forties.

The odd mood I’m in is due to Edrian being only the second person to see the ‘big teeth.’ In this case, I wanted to leave something of a mental scar. The face he made is making me laugh, but the whole thing could blow up in my face if he starts up a monster hunt once the shock settles. However, I doubt anyone will take him seriously if he tells them a demon walked into his office. Or why the demon showed up.

It’s not a good look for a police chief to admit to threatening an orphanage-slash-women’s shelter for protection money.

I’m also starting to question what possessed me to travel to Central America. Being immune to natural cold comes with the inevitable side effect of not being particularly fond of the heat. It’s not harmful, merely unpleasant. Maybe it has something to do with Licinia being from Ptolemais. They don’t call it that anymore. The modern name for the area is Faiyum, in Egypt.

And yes, I’ve often teased her about how a desert-dwelling occultist could end up a mermaid.

The short answer is, she fell in with a sect devoted mostly to Amphitrite, goddess of the sea in Greek Mythology—though seems the ‘mythology’ part isn’t terribly accurate. Romans of the day referred to the same being as Salacia. Fittingly enough, both goddesses are described as nymphs of such great beauty that they could charm gods into pursuing them. Sounds quite a bit like mermaids. Our charm abilities alter how men perceive us, causing our appearance to vary in accordance with the desires of the observer. Some men see me as blonde or with slightly different facial features or differing body proportions.

Anyway, Licinia found the power to stand against those who’d abducted her daughters and killed her son. As one might expect, in Ptolemais, a sect worshiping a Greek/Roman goddess went against the social order. Followers of Tefnut and Nephthys—two goddesses connected to the Nile—were particularly loud voices against them. Licinia’s description of those days sounds quite a bit like the way people in the early United States viewed witches.

Dark masters, even poorly-lit ones like Licinia, are tied to their natures as soon as they become dark masters. Her association with Amphitrite’s order all but guaranteed her becoming a mer spirit. Every time a dark master slips out of the Void and inhabits a human host, they always change the host into the same sort of monster. Centuries from now when my time is up, Licinia’s next host will also become a mermaid.

Assuming, of course, humanity hasn’t destroyed the Earth by then and all the oceans are gone. Hmm. Gets me wondering about where the far future will go. If people manage to establish colonies on other planets outside this solar system, would dark masters and the creatures they manifest as go with them? Or are their spirits tied to the energy of our Earth?

Licinia squirms in the back of my mind. She does that whenever I ponder a question related to mysticism she has no immediate answer for. We’ve previously had conversations about dimensions—there’s a subject to make one’s head explode. Our reality exists on the third dimension, but a theoretically infinite number of dimensions exist laterally equivalent to ours. People and beings from the third dimension can safely exist on any sideways reality. Going up, however, is much harder. Merely existing on the fourth dimension is often too taxing on a human—or mermaid—body and can lead to an incredibly painful disintegration after less than an hour.

Sort of like watching Dr. Phil.

The mind-blowing part of the dimensional thing is our entire universe—every planet, star, and nebula humanity has become aware of is all part of one dimensional slice. I suppose it means supernatural creatures could exist on other planets, since everything would still be part of the reality we’re native to. Vampires, mermaids, werewolves, and so on might not exist in a laterally adjacent dimension, but we could exist there if ever someone found a way to travel between them.

It’s happened. As magic goes, opening dimensional gates is not the most difficult thing one can try. It is definitely not something a novice could do, though. So few people in this age possess the necessary skills, it’s essentially gone.

Hmm. Should I feel sad at the decline of magic or reassured?

Both. Though, I’ve sensed a recent surge in magical potential. I cannot determine what happened other than a tremendous amount of magical energy returned to the world. It wouldn’t surprise me to see fantastic creatures reappearing within the next few years.

Wow. Interesting. Either way, I don’t fancy a trip to alternate realities. I’m only going as far as Bermuda.

Could so totally go for a swim right about now. Yes, I realize it’s not even been twenty-four hours since I left the sea. Hey, I’m a mermaid. It’s to be expected. We’re rather fond of the ocean.

Panama is beautiful though. I gaze around at patches of sunlight, palm trees wavering in the breeze, brightly colored homes, and the occasional local going by close enough to say good afternoon. It’s tempting to double back and check out that cute cafe across the street from the police station, but I presently lack any means to pay for food. Also, perhaps best if I stay out of sight. It might confuse Edrian to see ‘a demon’ going into a restaurant. That’s taking Hell’s Kitchen a bit too literally.

Licinia and I spend the rest of the walk back to the orphanage talking about Gordon Ramsay. She’s a fan. I am too, though sometimes, he can be a bit too sarcastic. I understand he cooks for snobs, but people who lose their minds over minor imperfections in overpriced food seriously need to reevaluate what’s important in life.

I might have quite a lot of money at my disposal, but I’m not ‘filthy rich.’ At least, not in the sense of feeling at home among the swanky set. I can fake it if necessary, but after growing up in poverty, it drives me nuts to see people being miserable to those with less. Nothing wrong with having wealth and enjoying it, but it’s not a reason to be a turd to someone.

Screaming at a person because the Wellington came out a bit limp is so ridiculous to me.

Ahh well. Human nature is what it is.

It’s been a long time since the extent of my worldly possessions included a couple of flour-sack dresses and a rag doll. Can’t be too annoyed with the wealthy as I’ve become one of them, but I can certainly resent the ones who treated us like trash back then.

I set aside my irritation upon arrival at the orphanage. Children’s voices echo from behind the building, reminding me of the recess yard from an old timey school. The creaks of at least two swings accompany intermittent thumping—probably a soccer ball being kicked around. It’s impossible for me to hear happy children and not smile. I realize it’s very 1920 of me, but I once wanted to be a mother quite badly. Licinia had nine kids and took ‘being a mother’ to an entirely new level. It’s one thing to drive to school and get in the face of a teacher singling your kid out. Studying ancient blood magic and pledging your soul to a vengeful ocean goddess to protect your kids from Roman soldiers is taking things above and beyond.

Except... pretty sure I’d have done the same thing.

Oddly, becoming a mermaid never once made me feel depressed at not being able to have kids of my own. I realized early on it would be pointless to lament those things outside my power to control or change. Licinia sharing her memories came quite close to having a brood myself, so, I’m good. Maybe, one of these days, I’ll adopt. The only thing stopping me is fear. Same reason I tend to make friends only with older people like Trisha Buda. It’s morbid to say, but they’ll die before they really notice I’m not getting any older. If I adopt a kid, I’d almost certainly have to tell them the truth about what I am. Then again, it would be nice to have a confidant—once they’re grown up.

Of course, there’s the inevitable result of being immortal. I’ll eventually watch them grow old and die. Licinia tries to make me feel better by pointing out it’s merely another spin around the reincarnation cycle. No one ever truly dies. Not even vampires or mermaids. Sure, we’re removed from the cycle, but we rejoin the Creator. It’s not the same as reincarnating, but it’s still existing… in a way. The energy from our souls is still present, merely part of a greater whole. We don’t remember past lives at all anyway, so consciously, no difference.

I’ll think about it later. Now, I’m on vacation.

In theory...

Celia opens the front door when I’m not quite halfway down the long dirt driveway. She waits patiently for me, her expression unimpressed. She clearly misinterprets my smile—at the beautiful day and the happy kids—as me not taking her request seriously. Or perhaps she assumes I gave Edrian the ol’ dirt nap. Wonder if she thinks of me as a ‘dumb millennial’ or is that more of an American thing? In fact, someone called me a millennial a couple weeks ago merely for being in line at Starbucks. It’s hard for me to complain about it since, well, I do look to be in my middle-twenties. Despite my actual age, it didn’t feel like a compliment.

“Back already?” asks Celia, in Spanish.

I step up onto the porch, stopping beside her at the door. “I work quickly.”

“Maybe. The smell of death is not on you.”

That’s good to hear, considering I left my deodorant back in Washington state. “You did request a non-violent solution, which seemed the wiser course of action here, anyway. Whoever he’s working with would have replaced him... and they might be worse.”

“True. But you haven’t been gone for even an hour.” Celia furrows her brows. “How did you convince him to stop stealing from us so fast?”

“Simple. I merely pointed out the error of his sinful ways.”

“And he decided to change...” She snaps her fingers. “Just like that?”

“Well, I did frighten him enough to possibly soil his pants.” I wag my eyebrows.

“You?” She blinks. Her expression all but says some of the kids here are scarier than me.

I smile like the cat who ate the canary. “Yes, me. I won’t demonstrate how I did it. But I got the idea when I walked into his office and saw all the crucifixes. Let’s just say the man thinks I arrived as a messenger to warn him off a path to Hell.”

She gasps. “You pretended to be an angel?”

I shake my head. “The opposite. I claimed to be a demon—and I couldn’t wait to have the chance to chew on him for a few centuries. You should have seen the look on his face.”

Celia stands there for a moment, tapping her foot. “You’ll understand if I’m not quite ready to believe you.”

“Of course. You should have more than my word to go on in a few minutes.”

She somewhat reluctantly invites me in to join her for lunch—homemade arroz con pollo. It smells wonderful, so I accept. While ordinary food doesn’t offer me much nutritionally, I can still enjoy the taste. It is possible for me to sustain myself on real food but I’d quite literally have to be eating constantly to get enough.

A distant woman’s voice drifts in the window, calling the children back inside to the classroom. She sounds on the older side. In between bites of our lunch, Celia tells me about the twenty-six orphans living there, attending a one-room school. Some of the women who are hiding out here from their dangerous boyfriends or husbands help out doing small chores. A tiny group of nuns run the place, though Celia isn’t one of them. She works here essentially as the manager, taking care of the day-to-day stuff. There’s definitely more to her than she’s letting on. Fairly obvious considering she is aware of supernatural beings and rubs elbows with an alchemist.

The sound of an engine pulling up outside puts her on edge, likely worried it could be an angry man here to ‘collect’ his woman.

“No need to worry,” I say. “Whatever the palooka wants, he’s not going to hurt you or anyone else here.”

Celia narrows her eyes at me. “You can’t kill anyone here.”

“Who said anything about killing?” I flash a coy smile. “I know how to get guys to do whatever I want. It’s kind of our thing.”

She stands, giving me a momentary look like she’s stuck between a tiger—who may or may not be trained enough to only attack dangerous people—and a man about to kick the door in and start shooting people. We head down the hall to the foyer.

The engine draws nearer, then cuts out.

Celia peers out the window by the front door… and her fear shifts to annoyance. “Again? They’ve already been here this month.”

“They?” I ask.

“The police.”

“Oh. In that case, I shouldn’t be seen here.” I retreat into the hallway, lean my back to the wall by the arch, and listen.

Footsteps tromp over the porch, then someone knocks.

“What do you want?” asks Celia.

A man rambles in rapid-fire Panamanian-accented Spanish. I can’t follow it perfectly, but it sounds like he’s saying this is from Edrian with apologies… something about God and forgiveness, then thanks her and runs off, not waiting for a response. As soon as I hear the car door outside slam shut, I peek around the arch.

Celia is standing in the doorway, holding a brown paper bag, staring awestruck out at the retreating police car. I wait a moment more for the vehicle to back out of the driveway, then approach her. She turns her head to stare at me.

“I’ll assume he’s returned the money they’ve taken?” I ask.

“It seems.” She blinks, peers down into the bag. “I’ve never seen so much in one place before. What sort of game are they playing?”

I grin. “No game. Like I said, Edrian doesn’t want to end up in Hell.”

“How…”

“Merely made a scary face at him.” I feign innocence.

“A scary face?”

“Yes.”

“Must be quite scary.” She peers into the bag again, whistling.

“You have no idea.”

Celia looks at me. “I have to see it.”

“Do you want your world view shattered?”

“That bad?”

“Worse than Kim Kardashian without makeup.”

Celia looks at me like I spoke Greek.

“Heh. Never mind. Real mermaids are not cute… at least not when they feed.”

Celia nudges the door shut with her foot and walks to the kitchen in no great hurry, setting the bag of cash down on the counter. “This is really happening.”

“It is. And he will be leaving you alone now, too. Can’t promise it’s going to last forever. If, for some reason, Edrian quits, dies, or they put someone else in charge of the extortion, people might threaten you again. Look, I’m willing to give you my phone number and come back to help again if needed.”

“I don’t know what to think of this.” She bows her head. “Your presence feels dark but your actions are anything but. Are you deceiving me?”

“The only deception going on now is not showing you my tail or teeth. I assure you we mean Geovani no harm. Niles wants to ask for help. That’s all.”

Celia mulls for a long minute or two. “You should know, he is far from helpless.”

“He a master alchemist, from the sound of it. If so, I have no doubt.”

“Doesn’t feel like you’re trying to confuse my thoughts.”

I chuckle. “Would you believe me if I said I can’t confuse them?”

“But you’re a…”

“Mermaid. We sit on rocks and lure men to their deaths. My powers don’t work too well on most women. Normally, I can see into their thoughts but not change them. With you, I’m not seeing much.”

She finally appears to relax enough to smile. “Yes. Geovani showed me how to guard my mind.”

He’s probably asked her to be here as a lookout for orphans who might be well-suited to join his sect, says Licinia.

How concerned should I be if that’s true? Like joining a cult?

Closer to a cross between Hogwarts and a shaolin monastery.

Okay, there’s a weird image.

They wouldn’t take any random orphan. Only those with inner potential.

What, like for magic?

More or less.

“Can you please help us find him?” I ask.

“This vampire friend of yours is willing to risk destruction?”

I hold up a finger. “We’ve only recently met. Wouldn’t exactly call him a friend. However, yes. It appears he’s willing to risk destruction. Mostly because if his dark master wins, he is going to be destroyed anyway.”

“If you’ve only met the man, how can you trust he isn’t a threat to Geovani?”

“I’ve seen into his thoughts.”

Celia lets go of the bag, facing me. “But he is a vampire.”

“Correct.”

“You can’t invade each other’s thoughts, or so I am told.”

“True for the most part. Merfolk are uniquely potent mentally. Underwater, we cannot speak, so must use telepathy for all conversation. I’m able to see into the heads of any being with a mind, more so if they’re male. Can’t change memories, but reading them—even out of a vampire’s head—is easy.”

“All right.” She sighs. “When I asked you to stop Edrian from threatening us and told you not to kill him, I hadn’t expected to see you return at all, much less within an hour. But”—she glances at the money—“you’ve done us a mercy I used to think impossible for your kind.”

I raise an eyebrow. “I’ll assume you mean vampires. Seems you didn’t realize merfolk existed until a few hours ago.”

She laughs, relaxing more. “You are correct.”

“I’ll caution you not to expect all merfolk to be like me. Very few dark masters are like mine, and it’s quite rare for a host to resist the darkness for long. However, it’s also rather unlikely you will ever encounter another mer unless you start spending lots of time out on boats.”

“You’re that rare?”

“Not exactly. My kind are merely not prone to visiting land. I’ve made a lifetime of going against tradition.”

Celia returns to the table.

I take my seat as well. No point letting the last of our lunch go to waste.

“Geovani is a good distance away from here. He lives in a remote monastery about fourteen miles east from the town of Meteti. You would need a helicopter, patient horse, or good shoes to get there.”

“Zero for three.” I glance down at my wimpy sandals. “I think my bare feet are tougher than these.”

“They probably are… if your kind are even half as hardy as vampires.”

“So, a remote monastery, eh?”

She sips water. “Yes. Not even a Jeep could reach it.”

“He must like the isolation.”

“That is the point entirely. I call it a monastery because it resembles one, but they are not monks. They are warrior-mystics. Out in the jungle, they are able to train in peace. One moment.” Celia sets her fork down, stands, and walks out.

I finish off my arroz con pollo. Honestly, I rather pity vampires for not being able to enjoy food. Wonder if they taste the last thing a person ate when they drink blood, or if it always tastes like blood to them.

Celia re-enters, pushes her plate aside, and unfolds a paper map on the table. “The town of Meteti is here.” She points at one spot, then again about two inches east in the middle of green jungle. “Geovani is here.”

Hmm. Panama is kind of shaped like an S-bend. As countries go, it’s quite small. Rio Hato is a little east of the midway point near the southern coast. Meteti is about 120 miles in a straight line away from here, with about ninety of those miles being ocean. Obviously, it’s not possible to drive there in a straight line, which makes the trip closer to 200 miles or so in a curve. The spot she points out for Geovani’s ‘monastery’ is near a marking for Emberá-Wounaan Comarca, or the Emberá-Wounaan Region. On this map, it’s all green. Probably jungle. Looks like the literal middle of nowhere.

This is the kind of place people used to go when hunting for Seven Cities of Gold or other lost cities. It’s going to be something of a bear to find. The map doesn’t show even the smallest hint of anything but trees in the spot where she points. No roads, no river nearby… it’s going to take something supernatural to find this place.

Lucky for you, supernatural is an option. Licinia gives off a sense of holding her head proudly. If there is an alchemist or a group of light warriors out there, I should be able to sense them once we are close enough. Minor incantation. Easy-peasy.

Grand. I smile.

“You can probably hire a driver to bring you to Meteti at least,” says Celia. “The town sits right on the highway.”

I scan the map, tracing the path of the Pan-American Highway from Rio Hato to Meteti. A little difficult to eyeball based on the map’s scale, but my earlier guess of roughly 200 miles on the road appears to be accurate. At least the directions are easy—no turns at all.

“There won’t be anyone in Meteti who can guide you to Geovani’s home.” Celia looks up from the map, her expression giving off a mild amount of worry she might be committing an error. “If you’ve fooled me and your motives aren’t as you say, you will regret going there.”

“I understand. These are people who’ve spent most of their lives training in preparation to war with vampires.” I smile. “It would be foolish for a snake to attack a den of mongoose.”

She nods.

“Do you have a spare piece of paper you can part with?”

“Of course.” Celia pulls a notepad from a drawer by the kitchen counter.

I sketch out a general representation of the highway, Meteti, and the location of Geovani’s compound. Enough of a ‘map’ to give me a general notion of which way to go into the jungle once we get there.

“All set. Thank you for your help, and for the food.” I tear the page out to keep, then jot my public office phone number on the next page. “Call me if you need help with these thieves again.”

Celia accepts the notebook back, somewhat less hesitant about my presence than before. Still a bit numb at having a sack of cash on the kitchen counter, she walks me to the door not saying anything until I’m out on the porch. “You’re an interesting person, Miss Silver.”

“Thanks. I try to be.” I wave farewell, then head off.

Hmm. Should probably avoid going past the police station on my way out of town. Wouldn’t want to give the police chief a heart attack.

Chapter Eight

A Matter of Taste

The nice thing about being on vacation is not feeling pressured to do anything fast.

Helping Niles out is more an adventure than a job. It’s not as if some innocent person’s been abducted and I need to find them before time runs out. In one respect, his life is in danger, but the situation doesn’t carry the same urgency as a missing person case. He’s mostly able to contain his dark master himself. With me here to provide backup, we should have plenty of time.

Obviously, we’re not going to stay at this little house with Yaris and Artorius for weeks. Dawdling and ‘not rushing’ are two different things. Besides, it’s not quite dark out yet. In my experience with vampires, I’ve learned they’ve got varying degrees of tolerance for the day, though it’s due mostly to personality and attitude of both the dark master and the host. If, say, a dark master is particularly dark, they have less tolerance to the sun. If the human host is a night owl... same thing.

Reality isn’t a Hollywood movie. Vamps don’t go up like a pan of flash powder the instant they’re exposed to sunlight, and they can even force themselves to awaken before sunset, though with some grogginess.

Surprisingly, sunblock helps to a point.

I get the feeling Niles used to be one of those people who hits the snooze button on their alarm clock six times each morning and showed up chronically late for work... back when he was mortal. He is, as they say, not a morning person. I’m sticking close to the house out of concern his dark master might try to exploit the mental fog of waking up and potentially threaten the nice older couple who live here.

They still think I’m his wife, with Niles himself being some ambiguous close relative. He didn’t give them any specifics in terms of how he’s related to them. Easier to sell a compulsion that way rather than claim to be their son or grandson or nephew, I suppose. Anyway, I spent most of the afternoon helping out around the house—couldn’t make myself sit idle watching an older couple work. Been a while since I’ve felt so… domestic. But, hey… what’s a vacation if not a break from normal?

After a long afternoon of not-unpleasant puttering around the house, I slip off for a quick trip to the sea, grab three decent sized fish and return to the house to relax and wait for sunset. They’ve got a nice little spot set up in the backyard with some chairs, a couple palm trees, decorative rocks... and a decent grill. Though I prefer my fish raw, I don’t have a problem cooking up a nice meal for all of us... excluding the vamp, of course.

Beautiful scenery to watch the sinking sun turn the sky orange. The old couple appreciate their fresh meal. The only way to make the scene more picturesque would be if the sunset happened over the ocean.

When the old couple returns inside—and I’m sure no one is watching—I polish off the rest of my meal... head, tail, and bones. Mmm!

“Blimey,” mutters Niles, behind me. “I thought my teeth were impressive.”

Blush washes over my face. I’ve no real need to hide the razormouth from Niles, but him seeing my monstrous face feels about the same as having a strange man barge into my bathroom at the exact moment I’m stepping out of the tub. Or at least, how I would’ve reacted to such an event before becoming a mermaid. After so many years, clothing is more irritating than anything. But I put up with it for the sake of civilized society.

Yet, this is embarrassing. Perhaps because it’s a rather obvious break from anything remotely resembling humanity.

“Are you blushing?” asks Niles, walking over. He drops into the seat next to me.

“I believe I am.”

“Interesting.”

I fuss at my hair purely to do something with my hands, still not quite able to look at him.

“The deep has teeth the likes of which few mortals can even comprehend,” I say.

“Then I shall hope never to end up on the wrong side of them.” He leans back, lacing his fingers behind his head. The sun is officially gone, though a reddish radiance hangs over everything. Vampires may not see an actual sunset... but they certainly get to enjoy the afterglow.

We sit in silence, watching the horizon gradually darken from blood orange to a lush blue-black. The look on his face suggests he’s about to say something maudlin about missing the sun, but he holds two fingers up at the sky. I’m confused for a few seconds before remembering it’s the British version of flipping the bird. Seems he doesn’t miss the sun… or maybe he does.

“I’ve made some progress,” I say.

“Oh, grand.” He glances over at me. “Good news I hope?”

“Depends on your definition of good. It’s not bad, at least.” I fill him in on what I learned regarding Geovani’s whereabouts. He finds my head game with Edrian hilarious, laughing himself to tears.

“Right, then. Haven’t had a proper howler like that in a long time.” Niles wipes his eye on his sleeve. “And sounds like this Geovani bloke’s a fan of privacy.”

I nod. “Sure does.”

“Some of the rumors I chased claim he’s been around for centuries,” says Niles. “Makes sense then. People tend to get a bit strange when they suspect their neighbor isn’t aging.”

“That they do.” I glance down, kicking at the ground. Fortunately, my current neighbors can’t see me when I’m at home. Fair amount of property around my house, plus tall hedges.

Niles leans back, gazing up at the stars. “Reckon it’s true he’s as old as the stories claim?”

Some alchemists do have ways of achieving effective immortality, yes. It isn’t terribly common, but a skilled enough individual is certainly capable of it. Bodes well for this vampire if the rumors are true, says Licinia.

“For your sake, I hope so. If he’s figured out how to make himself immortal, he’s probably advanced enough to help you.”

“Aye. Tis why I’m here. Trick is going to be finding him. You said it’s a monastery?”

“Celia used the word. I got the sense it’s a place where light warriors train.”

Niles closes his eyes, sighing out his nose. “They’re no doubt aware of the coming shit-storm. Exactly the reason the ol’ evil bastard in my head’s gone ’round the bend. Like a nutter of an adopted dog bitin’ at the new family, wantin’ ta run off back to his old home.”

“We might as well get started, then. No promises on how long I’ll be able to stay awake, though.” I smile at him.

“Aye, right.” He claps his hands on the armrests of the chair, then stands. “Give me a tick to clean up the old folks.”

“I do hope you mean their memories.”

“Of course, luv.” He smiles.

“You might want to consider feeding from animals rather than people. Keeps the dark master weaker.”

Niles makes a face at me like I’m his mother reminding him for the twentieth time about some trivial chore, but doesn’t comment more than a resigned stare at the ground. “Aye. Except for the boat ride here, been trying ta. Bastard lulled me into a false sense of security, hence the spirited nature of our first meeting.”

“It’s water under the bridge.”

Niles starts to walk toward the house but pauses. “Mind if I ask a somewhat personal question?”

“I reserve the right not to answer if it’s too intimate.”

“Fair enough.” He sticks his hands in his pockets. “The fish you had for a nosh was rather substantial. Well, the bones were, at least. I’m suspecting it was a big sucker, though. Yet... you’re not the most robust lass. Where’d it all, um, go?”

I’m laughing before realizing it. “No idea. Doesn’t make much biological sense why I need to eat such a massive fish.”

“You need a meal like that every day?”

“Thankfully, no. Every few days is adequate. Ordinary food seems to extend it a bit, especially seafood… but once it’s cooked, it’s much less appealing.”

“Interesting. All right then, give me a moment.”

I nod.

Niles goes inside, presumably to erase us from Yaris and Artorius’s memory.

As they’re soon to forget who we are, I walk away from the house so they don’t wonder who the ‘strange young woman’ is in their backyard. My habit of befriending elders comes back to haunt me as the day spent here being treated like a member of their family leaves me a bit melancholy over the notion they won’t remember any of it.

Vampires are frequently the opposite of subtle. They take what they need as expediently as possible.

One of many reasons it didn’t suit you, Licinia.

True.

I stand on the road waiting for Niles, arms folded, mentally grumbling about his choice to pretend to be relatives rather than merely compel them to let us borrow the room. And yeah, it’s bothering me more than it should that Yaris won’t remember me. We had a rather pleasant day together, albeit doing housework and cooking.

Niles soon emerges from the front door, curiously wishes them farewell, and walks over. “Ready then?”

I raise an eyebrow at him.

“What?” he asks.

“Didn’t you make them forget us?”

“Not entirely. Whatever you did today stuck in the woman’s memory. Faster to adjust their perception of us as random travelers who used their spare room. She grew rather attached to you, lass.”

I smile to myself. “Older people can be lonely. She must have enjoyed having someone to talk to while doing chores.”

“Does that mean you’re lonely as well?”

“Not in the same way.” I pull my hair out of my eyes, stargazing as we walk toward town. “Reminded me of how things used to be, before technology muddled everything up.”

“Ahh.” He chuckles. “Planning to move here then?”

Grinning, I shake my head. “No. A fond, brief reminiscence is one thing. Progress happens for a reason. I do rather miss my phone.”

“What happened to it? Lose it at sea?”

“It’s back home. Not wanting to lose it at sea is precisely why.” I make a silly face at him. “If you’ve ever ridden a motorcycle at high speed, multiply the wind effect by about five or six and it’ll come close to what water does. Suppose I could look into a streamlined wearable pod or some such thing, but it feels silly.”

“Silly?”

“Yes. Same way some people refuse to wear fanny packs. Mermaids are primal and ancient. A modern plastic teardrop on a nylon harness would look ridiculous… and probably still break off.”

He laughs. “So, what’s our plan?”

“Obtain a car or convince someone to drive us to Meteti. It’s a straight path down the highway, so we could drive it ourselves without getting lost. Once there, we’ll need to walk. According to Celia, there won’t be anyone in Meteti who can guide us there due to the secrecy, but Licinia ought to be able to sense which way to go if we can get close enough.”

“Sounds simple…”

We wander the streets of Rio Hato for a little while, debating if we should steal a car, knock on a door and compel someone to give us a car, swipe a police car—since that wouldn’t incur a loss to a private citizen—or do something else. Eventually, Niles spots a taxi going by and jumps in the way. The driver manages to stop before running him over. Predictably, he jumps out and starts yelling at Niles for being an idiot.

Trying to be a little nicer than dominating the poor man, I charm him into wanting to give us a ride to Meteti. Since he’s been in Panama a few days longer than me, Niles already acquired local money. He tosses the whole wad to the man. Based on the cabbie’s reaction, it’s clearly more than he would’ve asked. But, for a vampire who can obtain more money whenever he wants, no big deal.

Juan, the driver, is overjoyed—albeit artificially thanks to me—to use his entire night taking us to Meteti. I don’t feel at all guilty about it since Niles paid him quite well. The two of us hop in the back of the tiny green car.

It’s likely to be a three-ish hour ride, so I decide to take a nap.

Licinia will alert me if Niles loses control of his dark master.

She’s cool like that.

Chapter Nine

Overdoing It

“We’re here, luv.”

I sit up, yawn, stretch, and look around. For some reason, Niles thinks it funny and starts laughing at me.

“What?” I squint at him. “Is something stuck to my forehead?”

“Naw. Just chuckling at you acting like such a normal person.”

Heh. No need to point out I’m not undead like him. “Normal’s the last thing anyone’s ever accused me of being.”

We thank the driver and climb out.

“I should likely find something to nosh,” says Niles, giving the driver the same look most people reserve for sheep’s head or haggis.

I tilt my head, waiting for the cabbie to drive off before asking, “Beyond keeping your hitchhiker weak, you seemed almost disgusted at the idea of feeding from the driver.”

“Not a fan of biting men, luv. Can’t get past the intimacy.”

“No more intimate than the relationship between a man and a hamburger.”

He chuckles. “For vampires, there’s a palpable sexual energy to feeding.”

I shrug. “Sounds like it’s mostly in your mind. There’s absolutely nothing sexy about biting people on the neck and lapping up blood.”

“We don’t ‘lap it up.’” He snickers. “We’re not cats.”

“Still... feeding is feeding. Nothing to do with sex.”

“Maybe for you, luv. There’s nothing sexy about devouring a sturgeon in three bites.”

“Umm... I’m fairly certain that was a grouper.”

“Are you sure? Did you consult the sturgeon general?”

I narrow my eyes. “I’m about to bite you, Niles.”

He laughs. “Seriously. You’ve got it easy. Don’t have to worry what someone watching you eat thinks. No one will give you the side eye for having a trout for lunch. I drag some bloke into an alley and next thing I know, got some skinheads thinking I’m Jack the Ripper, ripe for a beating.”

I chuckle.

He leans against a streetlamp post. “Would you eat a woman if you had to, or would it feel uncomfortable?”

“No more uncomfortable than it already would be to kill someone. I’ve also been this way for almost a century, so I’m used to it. Traditionally, mermaids end up consuming men as they are who our charm powers work on. Didn’t see a lot of women sailors back then.”

“Is that why you fancy seafood? Or are you keeping your dark master weak?”

“Neither.” I smile. “I’ve no qualms taking life when needed, but preying on random innocent people bothers me. Remember, I eat; I don’t drink. A vampire doesn’t have to kill.”

“Which is where the intimate nature of feeding comes in.”

“Hmm. Hadn’t thought of it that way.”

Had this conversation been with someone closer than a two-day-old acquaintance of chance, I’d probably have said something about how the final stare of one of Barnaby’s victims still haunts me. Mere hours separated us having a conversation on the boat about our respective future plans... and being feet away from her as she drowned. It’s terribly unlikely I’d have been capable of the sort of savagery Barnaby enjoyed, but her face in my mind is a constant reminder everyone has hopes and dreams, no matter how small. Even though I’d only met her a few hours before she died, it irks me I can’t remember her name.

Granted, if a person is a monster in their own right, killing them no longer bothers me. And I don’t mean monster in the literal sense. That said, I’ve also been known to nibble on my enemies.

Niles takes a few steps off down the street. “Since we’ll be out in the middle of nowhere, I’m going to top off.”

I trail after him. He spends a little while searching for a cow, horse, or some other animal large enough to feed on. One attempt to feed from a burro doesn’t end so well. In some movies, vampires can fly—which is pretty darn funny to think about. No idea what gave anyone the idea vampires could turn into Superman, but hey… shape-shifting is possible, so who knows. This donkey, however, teaches Niles how to fly the hard way with a kick to the pelvis. Then again, not sure going ass-first through a window fifteen feet from where he’d been standing counts as flying, but…

My vampire companion staggers out of the barn, dusting himself off. “Bloody hell. Still haven’t quite gotten the hang of fogging the minds of animals.”

“Donkeys are stubborn.”

“Aye.”

A woman in her forties comes running around the corner of the barn, yelling at him for pestering the donkey and being in her yard. She’s pretty much a samurai with a broom.

“Bollocks to this,” mutters Niles, amid repeated whacks to the face.

I cringe, but hold my tongue as he stares into her eyes and knocks her senseless. He embraces the woman and bites her on the neck. The broom slips from her hand to the dirt. It’s not the wisest thing for him to do, feeding on human blood while actively at war against his dark master… but it’s also not a matter of critical stupidity. Blood, after all, is not like giving Popeye spinach. One meal won’t trigger a loss of control. It takes years of repeatedly giving them what they want in order for their power to grow to a point a host can’t hold them back anymore.

Licinia and I are in the minority among our kind—and by that, I mean supernatural beings. I’ve got to be one of less than a dozen who completely trusts their ‘friend from the Void.’ Many try to lock them away in a mental prison, which is more or less a fool’s pursuit. The dark master always escapes… eventually. I suppose there might be a handful of people out there strong-willed enough to keep up the game for decades. However, even the most determined person will eventually wear down. And once a host lets them out the first time, the ‘door’ can never close again.

I’m glad not to be in an adversarial relationship with Licinia. Yeah, I metaphorically opened the door a little too early. Perhaps naively, I believed her when she said she had no desire to take me over completely. Luckily, we’ve been best friends ever since.

Anyway, once he’s done, Niles eases the woman into a chair by the barn’s door, neatens her dress, and walks over to me. “Right. All set. Let’s be off.”

The woman stares into space, but appears to be alive and mostly unhurt. The fang marks are already gone. She’ll be a little dizzy for a while from blood loss.

Concerned, my eyes linger on her.

“She’ll be fine, luv.” He pretends to look at a wristwatch he isn’t wearing. “Got about two minutes before her brain begins to work again. We ought to be out of eyesight by then.”

“Okay.”

We make our way out of Meteti to the east. Any locals watching us traipse off into the wilderness at night with no provisions or even equipment would think us crazy. Of course, neither of us have to worry about problems like crazy cults or mercenaries, or organized groups of highwaymen—or whatever they call them nowadays. Looking American in some places can be like waving a ‘victim here’ sign. To a point, we do outwardly appear to be a pair of ill-equipped idiot tourists. Niles is pretty small for a man, maybe an inch taller than me, and wiry.

It would almost be entertaining if some criminals tried to kidnap us or some such thing, purely for the look on their faces when they discover the error of their ways. Yeah, the thought is a bit dark for me but hey, I’m allowed idle thoughts. It’s been a while since Licinia got to enjoy human flesh. She’s so accommodating to my preference for seafood, I suppose the least I can do is put myself in situations like this every so often and roll the dice to see if dinner delivers itself.

I don’t really dislike human meat for the taste. It’s entirely the morality of it. My associate, on the other hand, looks about ready to throw up. We barely make it a hundred paces away from the town before he stops.

“Feeling all right?” I ask.

“Overdid it with the old gal. Drank too much. It’s Indian food all over again.”

“Ooh, I could really go for some of that now.”

He chuckles. “Please don’t make me think of food at the moment. I’ve eaten too much.”

“Not a fan?”

“I’ve got a rather odd relationship with Indian cuisine... and blood, for that matter. Back when I was mortal, I’d get a craving for vindaloo or curry. I adore it, usually, but if I ate too much at once, it suddenly became nauseating and it would take me a month to be able to think about eating it again. Somewhat the same situation with blood. I eat it because I have to, but I get rather sick of the flavor in short order.”

“Let me get this straight.” I smile playfully at him. “You’re a vampire who can only tolerate the taste of hemoglobin in small doses?”

He exhales hard, fluttering his lips. “Essentially, yes. It’s rather an unpleasant flavor. I’ve not a clue how any vampire comes to enjoy it. I’m the petulant boy at the table eating what’s in front of him because I don’t want to starve, making a sour face the entire time. May as well be broccoli.”

“Hah. I can picture that.” I stumble on my sandal and give serious consideration to taking them off. Thin slabs of leather aren’t helping much. Plus, I’m not worried about parasites, soil-borne viruses, or sharp rocks.

He shakes his head. “Thirty years at this racket and I still can’t get used to the taste.”

I laugh... then yawn.

“Say, how do you fancy we start this tomorrow night, lass? You seem ready to pass out and we’ve only about five hours of darkness left. I’d prefer to take this trip in one stretch rather than hope to find shelter out in the middle of nowhere when the sun comes up.”

“Good point.”

It’s easily after midnight, given the length of the ride from Rio Hato to Meteti. Barring working a case that needs late night surveillance, I don’t usually stay up past eleven. Hey, I’m an old lady.

Licinia cackles.

Okay, I’m mentally an old lady. I still have the physical endurance of a twenty-five-year-old. It’s merely a habit of mine to go to bed at a particular hour. Never saw the point to stay up late only to wake up late. I’d rather sleep when it’s dark out. But that’s just me. No clue what other mers do.

“I spied a hotel back in town,” he says.

“Didn’t you give the driver the last of your cash?”

He grabs the lapels of a jacket he isn’t wearing. “I have my ways. Hey, at least we won’t be displacing a couple of elderly folk.”

Chapter Ten

Petty Cash

It has to say something about hotel beds when even an immortal has trouble getting comfortable.

Niles is a perfect gentleman. Even when I strip naked before slipping under the covers, he doesn’t stare despite it being mildly obvious he’d like to. No, I’m not trying to tease him despite our room at the Hotel Felicidad only having one bed. My entire wardrobe at the moment consists of one shirt and one pair of jeans. I’d rather not sleep in them after wearing them all day. Besides, he’s not going to be in bed with me; he’ll be under it once it’s time for him to pass out, or do whatever it is vampires do.

“I’ll try to force myself up a bit early tomorrow.” Niles flops in the room’s only chair, near a metal radiator almost as old as me. “Damn sun’s a bloody ballache.”

“What?” I ask.

“Means pain in the arse.”

I fluff the pillow behind me. “Is it a pain in your ass or your balls?”

“Hah. Both. Depends on which way I’m facing.”

“Have you tried sunblock?” I lay back and pull the covers up. Ugh. Good thing I’m exhausted or this bed would be impossible to sleep in.

“Aye. Works to a point. Stops most of the smoke, but I’m still in considerable pain.” Niles gets up, crosses the room, and leans into the tiny bathroom doorway. “No window in here. Are you going to want a shower in the morning?”

“Typically… though it’s only been one day. I can skip if you’re thinking of sleeping in the tub. Probably more comfortable than this bed.”

He scratches at his chest. “Aye. Nice thing about it for me, doesn’t much matter where I am when the sun comes up. Out I go. Could sleep on one of those Indian nail beds and not even notice. No tub in here, just a concrete curb keeping water in the shower stall. Good enough.”

Good enough? I squirm at the thought.

And are those nail beds real or just a gimmick from old cartoons?

Fortunately, being up past my bedtime drags me down into the depths of sleep despite the lumpy-as-hell mattress.

***

Next thing I know, a woman’s rapidly muttering apologies in Spanish—and I’m awake.

A door shuts.

A few seconds later, I realize I’m sitting up in bed, most of my face hidden behind a wild mass of hair. I yawn, scratch my stomach, yawn again, then reach up to pull my hair off my face. As best I can tell, housekeeping entered the room expecting it to be empty. I sat up like a cross between a bare-breasted troll pencil and Cousin It from The Addams Family.

Might be time for some conditioner.

The clock on the nightstand reads 10:04 a.m. Most hotels I’ve stayed at have a check-out time of eleven. She probably thought we’d left already and it surprised her to find someone in the room. I’m sure she’s seen way worse than a pair of boobs during her shifts. Anyway, she’s gone now.

So, yeah... I overslept. Not surprising given how late I was up last night. Also doesn’t really matter… going to be up late tonight again, so some extra sleep isn’t a bad idea.

I lay back down and allow myself to drift in and out of consciousness for a while until it becomes impossible to sleep any more. It’s mostly due to having obtained more than enough sleep, plus it’s also damn hot in here. If Niles didn’t occupy the shower area, I’d totally be standing under a full blast of cold water.

It’s so tempting to walk out the door not bothering to get dressed and go straight to the nearest body of water large enough to fit in. A big enough pothole works. I’m not picky. Yuck, it’s warm. Whoever designed reality is cruel. Wearing jeans in this heat is torturous, but also wise. Helps guard against bugs, leeches, and whatever else might be out there in the jungle. Though, parasites tend to avoid me. I don’t smell right to them. Even if a bug did bite me, the tiny wound would heal in seconds. Think I’d rather deal with scratches from plant life than the heat of jeans, but I really ought to avoid going full feral.

Another reason merfolk generally avoid land: heat sucks. Clothing is uncomfortable, and in the sea, we’re basically surrounded by unlimited free food. Well, one could say the same thing about land. In fact, traditional mermaids have more food on shore than off it. Don’t have to wait for a ship to go by to lure dinner over the side.

Unfortunately, it’s a bit messier for us than vampires. I’m sure people would have questions if they walked into the bathroom at a McDonalds or Starbucks to find blood all over the walls and a skeleton on the floor. What is it about a blood-covered skull still with eyeballs in it that makes it seem to be screaming ‘holy crap that hurt’?

Alas, it’s a paradox for mermaids on land. So much food but eating it will rapidly lead to our discovery. Especially in the modern age with cameras everywhere. Maybe in a country like Panama where things are a bit slower paced, it wouldn’t be so bad. But… as mentioned before, people aren’t for me. Plus, I like my home and all the tech toys inside it. I don’t want to be forced to move.

Screw it.

I get up and go to the bathroom. It’s a long, rectangular room with a brown concrete floor, the last third of which—the shower—is separated from the rest by a three-inch-tall curb. Niles appears quite corpselike while unconscious. I’ve seen enough dead people—hell, I shared a bedroom with vampire husbands twice in my life for a good number of years. Doesn’t bother me to see him like that at all. I remove him from the shower area, rest him on the floor by the sink, and avail myself of the cold water. The chill wraps around my skull and rolls down my back, carrying away the stickiness of the stuffy hotel room.

Oh, it’s so awesome.

Next vacation, I should totally go to Russia or wherever it is the people go swimming after cutting holes in ice. It would be hilarious to mess with the big tough guys who wouldn’t think me able to tolerate the frigid water. Alas, Russian isn’t one of the languages I know, so it would be difficult to hustle them for a wager.

Once I’ve cooled off enough to where the idea of getting dressed doesn’t fill me with loathing, I cut the water, towel off, and head out to retrieve my clothes from the floor by the bed. I’ve got a few hours at least before Niles can force himself awake. He probably didn’t have a bad idea about pre-eating, which gets me thinking. We’re heading deeper inland. Unless Geovani’s got a helicopter or some other means of traveling faster than walking, it could be two days or so before I’ll have access to seafood.

Best to avoid a situation where I’m forced to randomly eat someone.

And while I’m out in Meteti, I can also try to find sunblock. Not sure how big this place is on tourism being away from the coastlines and resorts, but it is on the main highway. I’ve got nothing else to do with my morning, anyway, so may as well look.

After stepping into my flimsy sandals, I leave the hotel room and proceed to walk around town. This place is smaller than Rio Hato even, maybe three quarters of a mile across. A little bit stretches east of the Pan-American Highway, but the bulk of Meteti lays to the west along the route of a street named Carretera Puerto Kimba. I spot a few restaurants and a bunch of small shops.

I poke my nose in a few of them, basically anywhere that looks as though they might sell sunblock. Fortunately, having become a mermaid, I can no longer burn despite my paleness. I’m the quintessential black-haired Irish girl with skin almost as white as copier paper. No one’s going to question me asking for some industrial grade solar protection.

The first few mini-groceries or pharmacies I check out don’t have anything promising. One has some cheapo ‘tanning lotion,’ but I need sunblock. No, I need ‘let the Irish girl go outside and not turn into a lobster’ grade stuff.

Hmm. Does becoming a vampire make the Irish less vulnerable to sun?

Laughing, I leave store number five and keep looking.

Being a higher order predator has certain advantages. One of said advantages is a paranormal awareness of threats that manifests as an alarm tone in my head. The more threatening a situation is to me, the louder the sound. Another advantage of being an immortal is heightened senses, even if they’re only a little better than mortal humans on land for me. My hearing is sharp enough even out of the water to pick up the scrape of shoes on the sidewalk behind me, too faint for normal people to hear.

I glance back over my shoulder at a guy following me. He’s about my age—visual age, that is—in a mesh top, shorts, and flip flops. His body language and proximity are both highly suspicious, so I read his mind. Yeah, he’s mistaken me for a celebrity, though isn’t sure if I’m Katy Perry or Anne Hathaway.

Drat. Bad side effect of my nature. My appearance changes in men’s perceptions based on what they find most attractive. The more he thinks I’m someone famous, the more I’m going to look like that person to him. This is not necessarily a problem. The issue is his intention to abduct me for ransom. What started off as the idea to pickpocket or mug ‘the dumb American’ has turned into ‘holy crap it’s her, we’re going to be rich.’ He’s waiting for the perfect opportunity to jump me from behind, put a knife to my throat, and force me into a van his buddies are creeping up behind us in. The guy is clearly not operating on a full deck of cards since it hasn’t occurred to him a celebrity would likely have bodyguards.

Licinia perks up, wondering if I might treat her to a human heart or five.

Not too sure about that. This guy’s intention isn’t too malicious. He’s not planning to do anything worse than abduct me for ransom and make some phone calls. Okay, the abduction part is a pretty crappy thing to do, but on a list of bad things that could happen to a woman in a foreign land... it’s merely right there in the middle. And probably not worth killing the guy over.

Tell you what... if there’s a murderer rapist among the group, I’ll eat him. Deal?

Deal.

The guy tries to fake a casual nod of greeting. Only the most oblivious person would fail to realize he’s a threat, but I pretend not to notice. My alarm sense must be ‘giggling’ because his only weapon is a cheap steel knife about four inches long he’s not concealing very well against his forearm. It’s more of a threat to my clothing than me. Shallow cuts heal fast. Faster still if I eat human flesh directly after. Which I just might if the bastard stabs me.

A block later, the guy makes his move, jumping on me from behind.

“Don’t scream,” he rasps in English. “Not hurt... if you listen.”

I stop walking, but don’t bother pretending to be scared.

A beat-up white van rolls to a stop nearby, the side door opening to reveal three more guys wearing bandannas over their faces. A couple paint cans rattle around the otherwise empty cargo area—no seats. A kidnap van if I’ve ever seen one. As they clamber out to grab me, I let off a pulse of charm. The four men plus the driver all stare at me.

As if removing an unwanted scarf, I peel the one guy’s hand away from my throat, take a step forward, then turn to face them. Wow, they’re young. Like between seventeen and twenty-two. One of the van guys does have some rapey thoughts bouncing around in his skull, but the rest are purely thinking of ransom money.

“Hello, boys. So nice of you to welcome me to Meteti. Unfortunately, I left my wallet at home. It would be so nice of you to let me borrow a little cash.”

I’ve never once in my life worked as a stripper, but for a few brief seconds, I feel like one.

These guys abruptly start throwing money at me. The driver hops out of the van, runs over, and empties his wallet of paper bills.

Honestly, a mermaid could make a fortune performing in adult clubs. But… I already have a fortune and my mother would absolutely get up from the grave and drag me out of the place by the ear if I even thought of doing anything like that. I’m sure she’d faint if she ever knew how blasé I’ve become toward nudity.

Nothing against strippers in particular. It’s just not for me. I’m tempted to break a limb on the guy who wanted to assault me… but nah. His friends most likely wouldn’t have gone along with it and he might not have even had the nerve to suggest it... or follow through. Can’t go around mauling people for having dark fantasies.

Well, I could, but if bad thoughts deserved punishment, most of the world would be in the hospital.

“I’m flattered you all think I’m a celebrity, but I’m no one famous. Why don’t you boys go on home and do something productive?”

Still consumed by their unnatural desire to make me happy, they scramble over each other to get into the van, three of them even fighting for the driver’s seat before one wins and they take off at high speed.

Smiling to myself, I crouch and collect the money from the sidewalk. I’m a bit surprised to find it’s about half American bills/half local, plus some coins. Damn. Wish I had my phone on me to check the exchange rate. Oh well, this should be plenty to get some sunblock and something to eat.

Whistling, I head off.

It’s good to be me.

Chapter Eleven

Inner Monster

As it turns out, the men threw $73.50 at me. I’ll take it.

Had a nice conversation with the clerk at the next store I visited. He explained Panamanian money is based on the US Dollar, so there is no exchange rate. Awesome. Stuff is noticeably cheaper here. I nab a basic compass, a bottle of ‘max protection’ sunblock, a half-dozen fish—hey, they’re kinda small—and one of those silly wide-brimmed hats they sell to tourists for ‘sun protection.’

The nightstand clock tells me it’s 2:08 p.m. when I return to our hotel room, and the disheveled bed announces the housekeeper didn’t return. Raw fish aren’t prone to keeping too long in hot weather without refrigeration. Any sort of preservation technique other than cold—curing, smoking, jerking, cooking… would turn them from ‘mermaid primary food’ to ‘normal human food.’

Six fish sounds like a lot, but they’re not that big. I take a reasonable amount of time to eat them. No need for full razormouth since they fit easily into a human-sized mouth. I do, of course, have to change my teeth a little to deal with scales. I’m slightly overfull when done, but it should hold me for at least two days provided we don’t get shot, stabbed, lit on fire, or encounter a crashed alien spacecraft leaking dangerous levels of radiation. And if hunger does hit, there might be a river, lake or pond along the way. Wouldn’t be the first time I went hunting in a lake. Anyway, figure I’ll give the vampire a little more sleep, waiting for later afternoon to bother him once the sun’s a touch less intense.

I flip channels on the small television, but find nothing in English. So… I flop on the bed and stare at the ceiling while allowing my meal to settle. As soon as boredom becomes terminal, it’s time to poke the vampire. He’s had enough time. I hop off the bed and head for the bathroom.

Niles is still out cold on the floor. He didn’t specify what his definition of ‘getting up early’ was, but this has to be good enough. I vaguely recall Patrick—I mean Kingsley—saying something about his current vampire girlfriend forcing herself to wake up early enough to take her still-mortal kids to school. It’s definitely later in the day than school starts, so I should be safe. A moderate shake to the shoulder stirs a groan out of him. Another shake gets him to open his eyes.

“Is this too early for you? It’s about 3:30 in the afternoon.”

He grimaces in discomfort. “Aye, it’s a bit—”

Next thing I know, it’s dark, my face hurts, and multiple sharp points are stabbing me in the back of the neck. Takes me a second to process I’m standing, bent over backward as if doing the limbo, and my head’s through the wall. Explains the flavor of plaster dust in my sinuses. Aha! The sharp points in my neck are broken wood.

“Bitch,” growls a voice not quite Niles.

I shove myself out of the wall in time to be grabbed and thrown into the outer hotel room, where I land on my back and slide most of the way to the front door. Niles staggers out of the bathroom after me, a noticeable bright fiery glow in his eyes. Yeah… his dark master is presently at the controls. Fast as a blur, he grabs the sheet off the bed and wraps me in it.

Claw-tipped hands squeeze my throat through the sheet, throttling me and banging my skull repeatedly into the concrete floor slab. Sorry, Niles, but…

I punch upward into the general area of his chest, my fist tearing a hole in the sheet. Ribs crunch on impact. Niles flies straight up into the ceiling. I rip the linen out of the way in the second and a half it takes for him to fall on top of me. He continues trying to choke me out or break my neck, but isn’t quite strong enough. Vampires might be as fast as bullets, but mers are a hearty bunch. I grab his arms at the wrists and try pulling him off me, but he’s stronger than I remember.

Vampires aren’t usually able to overpower me. This dude is seriously having a moment. His face twists in rage and panic and finds himself staring into my eyes without a sheet between us. Big mistake... for him. Before he can throw me aside, I wallop him over the head with the charm hammer.

“Be a sweetie and go sit in your mental prison cell again for a few days,” I say in as alluring a voice as possible with hands squeezing my neck.

The fire in his pupils shrinks to a pinpoint.

Niles emits a pained groan, then collapses over sideways holding his ribs. “Bollocks.”

I clear my throat, re-swallowing a little fish, but don’t bother sitting up yet. “Welcome back, Niles.”

“Bugger slipped his leash.” Niles rolls flat on his back, sprawled out like a shooting victim on the carpet. “Is somethin’ burning? Oh, it’s me.”

I note a haze of smoke around him. “Got you some sunblock, buddy. It’s on the bed. Or… no, on the floor. You threw everything aside tossing the sheet at me.”

“You all right?”

“Yeah. In better shape than the bathroom wall.” I turn the right side of my face toward him. “How bad’s the bruise? Did you give me a blinker?”

“Bruise? On the wall?”

“No, you twit. My face. You punched me.”

He groans. “Sorry.”

“I blame him, not you.”

Niles sits up. “Don’t see a bruise. Nor whatever a blinker is.”

“Black eye.”

“Nope. Not one of those either.”

A heavy knock hits the door three times before a man yells, “You okay in there?” in Spanish.

“Aye, mate.” Niles grins. “She likes it a bit rough.”

“You’re going to allow that man to think we had rough sex in here?”

“Seems funny enough. Be hilarious when they find the hole in the wall.”

I sit up. “It would most certainly not be hilarious. I’ve a reputation to uphold.”

“No one here knows you or will ever see you again, most likely.”

“Beside the point.” I hold my chin up.

“Fine, fine…” He clambers to his feet, opens the door, and drags a burly maintenance guy inside.

The room isn’t too disheveled, merely the ripped sheet on the floor, so his gaze settles mostly on me. Seeing me fully dressed—except for the sandals, which I seem to have flown right out of—confuses him enough to where he doesn’t say anything before Niles is in his head.

“I slipped in the bathroom,” says Niles. “Nearly broke me neck kissing the wall.”

A moment later, the maintenance guy nods and leaves.

“There.” Niles claps ‘dust’ off his hands. “Fixed.”

“Gee, thanks.” I pick up the sunblock and toss it to him. “Here. This might help.”

He holds the bottle up, examining the label. “Aye, ya found some decent stuff. Gracias.”

“Ran all over town.” I put the sheet on the bed again, concealing the rip I made as best I can near the foot end. “We should probably get going before the housekeeper comes back and sees the wall.”

Niles coats his face, neck, and arms in sunblock.

“This, too.” I offer him the hat.

“Are you joking?”

“No. Thought it would help.”

“It’s a ladies’ hat.”

“It’s a wearable sun shade.”

He sighs, smirking at me. “I’ve a reputation to uphold.”

I chuckle. “Your choice. It’s a sun shield. Take it or leave it.”

“It’s got little daises ’round the brim.”

“I know. It’s cute.”

“Couldn’t you have gotten me a sombrero or something?”

I pad past him to the bathroom to recover my sandals. “We’re in Panama, not Mexico.”

Niles opens the door to peek outside, cringes, and reluctantly puts the hat on his head.

Yes, he looks ridiculous, but at least he won’t be smoking.

“I look ridiculous.”

“Nah, you don’t.”

He rotates to stare at me. “I look like I belong on Benny Hill.”

I step into the sandals. “Never heard of it.”

“Uncultured heathen,” mutters Niles past a grin.

“Ready?” I walk over to him. “We should be on our way.”

“Aye. About as much as possible. Sorry again about the violence. Bastard’s getting desperate.”

“Don’t worry about it. To be expected.”

We go outside, stopping by the front office long enough for Niles to erase our existence from the hotel desk clerk’s memory. Considering it’s only thirty bucks a night, it bothers me to ‘steal’ the room, so I leave cash on the counter. Grumbling, Niles creates a false memory of someone else using our room and paying for it.

On the way out of the office, he gives me a sideways smirk. “You wouldn’t do well as a vampire. You’ve got too many qualms about taking what you need.”

“Hardly. However, I don’t steal. I ask nicely and people give me things.” I wink.

He laughs.

The Hotel Felicidad sits directly on the Pan-American Highway, so it’s essentially at the eastern edge of town. Within minutes of leaving the office, we’re trekking through foliage. It’s not overly dense here, and there’s at least one street a little north of us extending east of the highway. Except for the palm trees, the first half hour or so of walking feels like we’re climbing through the woods behind a housing development.

The late afternoon sun isn’t too brutal. Despite how hot it is, the canopy overhead keeps the brunt of direct rays off us. Know what sucks? Jeans and hiking. Denim is cotton. Know what cotton does? It holds moisture. Know what people do in hundred-degree-plus jungles while hiking? Yeah, we sweat. Even mermaids. Hell, it’s so damn warm, even Niles is sweating... and he’s undead.

Not sure how that works, nor do I really care.

Still, kinda funny to joke about.

“Excuse me for a minute. I’m about to go full native.”

“Pardon?” asks Niles.

He watches me amusedly as I stop, remove the jeans, and tie them around my waist in a sad attempt at a skirt. It’s more to carry them than for modesty, but it stops the chafing. Don’t care if it heals in minutes, it still hurts. And having what little breeze there is on my bare legs is heaven in physical form. Also, mermaids and bifurcated legwear are not a good combination. Nothing on this Earth hurts as much as having fabric trapped between my legs when trying to shift them into my tail. Skirts and dresses may not be the most practical apparel for physical activity, but what can I say? I have a fish tail.

Anyway, my next vacation is going to be somewhere less warm.

The cheap compass is enough to keep me going more or less in the right direction based on my estimate on the map sketch, about a twenty-four-degree angle off directly east from Meteti. We’re admittedly hunting for an area of land as big as Celia’s fingerprint to the map. Her poking the paper to show me where Geovani’s compound is effectively outlined within a five-mile circle. I hope.

I may be able to sense him from five miles, but closer would be better.

Were I a more methodical tracker, I’d be counting my steps or have some way to measure distance traveled. Unfortunately, I am not wonderful at navigating on land. In the ocean? I practically have a supernatural GPS system. Not complaining. I’m well aware of being out of my element. If we reach the coastline, we’ve obviously overshot. One nice thing about Panama being narrow and small—no chance of me dying of dehydration from being trapped too far away from the sea.

Mortals walk at roughly two miles per hour. Vampires don’t get tired at all from what I understand. Mermaids, not being undead, do get tired, but our endurance is so high compared to humans, no amount of walking or running is going to tax me. Sure, if I start breaking down steel doors and lifting cars, I’ll wear myself out.

Hiking though? Even uphill? No problem.

Let’s see. We left the hotel at roughly 4:00 p.m. We’re moving fast—for humans—figure about three or four miles an hour in jungle conditions. According to Celia, the compound is fourteen miles away from Meteti. Makes for about three and a half hours. I’ll round that to four hours… so we should arrive close to 8:00 p.m. It’ll be after dark, but by no means staying up too late for me.

“Any idea what to expect when we arrive?” I ask after far too long a time walking in silence. “You researched this guy.”

“London’s got a bunch of old libraries, not all of which are ‘open to the public’ so to speak.” He chuckles. “We call them Occult Libraries, many of which are hidden in obscure universities. I did find a reference to some sort of diamond medallion with the power to cure vampirism.”

“Interesting. Think it’s real?”

“Certainly seemed so.” He exhales. “If nothing else, the bloke who wrote about it sure seemed to believe in its authenticity.”

I sprout my claws and shred at some vines blocking our way. “Didn’t think it was possible to undo the change. Figure there’d be more of it going on if it could be done successfully.”

“Aye. Expecting there’s a bit of risk. Or maybe it’s only one bloke who can do it and he doesn’t advertise. Anyway, I’m hoping our guy here in Panama can evict the bastard from my head. That’s all I’m asking for. Nothing too crazy. I figure I’m goin’ ta be dead either way, so I have’ta try. Rather go out on my terms.”

“I can understand…” I gaze down at my sandaled feet disappearing into the foliage with each step.

I’d be lying to say the idea of ‘the end’ never crossed my mind. No, it had nothing to do with my becoming a mermaid. Albert—my true husband—died not long after we married. We’d had a little over a week together as an official couple before he shipped off to the Great War. Months later, I received the letter informing me he’d been killed in action. So impersonal. A number on some general’s column of casualties. I’d given up my dreams of going to college to marry him, trading the fate I worked hard for in exchange for the fate society wanted me to have—becoming a dutiful wife and, eventually, mother. And that future died with Albert. We tried our best to have a child in the short time we spent together after the wedding, but luck didn’t find us. Perhaps I’m looking at it wrong. Luck did find me. Life had been difficult enough as a twenty-one-year-old war widow without being a single mother on top of it. If I’d been responsible for a child, too, I wouldn’t have gotten on the boat four years later. But, those first few weeks after I got that damn letter, I sure thought about death a lot. Never worked up the nerve to kill myself, but for a little while, couldn’t say I cared much one way or the other if I lived to see tomorrow.

Became quite good friends with the bottle at that point in my life, too.

“Are you happy being a mermaid?”

“Quite.” I smile, lifted out of my momentary gloom. “I’d like it considerably less if I was forced to kill people, but as it is, I’m rather content. I take it you’ve been unhappy?”

Niles shakes his head. “No, not really. Up until the bastard started trying to destroy me, I rather fancied it. Being a vampire opened doors I never thought I’d set foot through. I pretend to be a wealthy man back home. Go wherever I please—within reason, of course. But… yeah. My course is set for destruction from all sides. The hitchhiker wants out and he’s going to eventually win. Geovani is my only chance.”

“You seem sad.”

“Oy, you’re an empath now, too?”

“Of sorts. It’s not entirely subtle in your mannerisms. And you’re thinking about it so much I can hear it.”

He chuckles. “Well, yes. At first, I didn’t much care for it. Hadn’t asked to be turned. Missed the sun. I’d basically become the whiny emo wanker everyone who watches vampire movies hates so much.”

“Hah.”

“Figures, as soon as I decide to enjoy myself… the hitchhiker goes unhinged.”

“So you are hoping Geovanni can turn you human again?”

He flashes a weak smile. “Much prefer that to destruction, aye.”

“You realize it’s quite unlikely to return you to mortality. Once a dark master takes up residence inside, our relationship to the universe is permanently altered. Have you done much reading on souls?”

“Can’t say I’d bothered to.”

“We all have them.”

He laughs. “How profound.”

“I’m not finished.” I smirk back at him, check the compass, then keep trudging. “The reason mermaids and vampires and so forth have abilities some may consider ‘super powers,’ is due to us having the entirety of our soul within our physical forms.”

“What? Isn’t that the normal sort of way souls operate for everyone?”

“It’s what some think, but not truth. The majority of our soul resides in another plane of existence. Some call it Heaven. Think of our souls more like a wire connecting us to the Origin of all. When the plug at one end—our bodies—dies, the machinery replaces it, but the wire’s the same.”

“Reincarnation?”

“Yes. When a dark master gets into the mix, they unplug the Heaven end of the wire. Instead of a wire connected elsewhere, the soul essentially compresses into a bubble.”

“All of it stuffed into the ‘thingee at the end.’” He chuckles. “Our physical bodies.”

“Exactly. Our extraordinary powers come from the energy contained in the sixty-something percent of the soul not supposed to be inside our bodies. But it’s expensive. No more reincarnation. Our connection to Heaven is gone. I don’t believe any alchemist is powerful enough to overrule the very fabric of creation. Even if Geovani is able to kick the dark master out of you, the soul is not going to get plugged back in upstairs. He’s not going to have a long enough ladder to reach the socket.”

“What does that mean for me then?”

“No idea. Licinia’s been studying all this stuff for thousands of years. Alchemy, not so much. Assuming this man is even willing to talk to us, if what he does works at all, you may end up basically still a vampire, just without a dark master.”

“I’ll take it. And if I survive, I won’t have a ghost in my head trying to kill me. It’s a win. Anything is better than complete destruction. Except maybe being stuck in a room forced for all eternity to listen to… oh, what do they call it—polka?”

My turn to laugh. Not sure I’d call it worse than destruction, but definitely unpleasant.

“What about you, luv? If you could escape your hitchhiker, would you?”

“No.”

Licinia gives off a tiny bit of surprise at the speed of my answer. She knows how I feel, but the reassurance, I think, surprised her like a daughter giving her mom a flower on Mother’s Day.

“Really…?” He raises an eyebrow at me.

“Already told you we are quite good friends. Dark masters are, after all, former people. Not all are monsters.” I wave at him with my claws out. “At least, not on the inside.”

Niles salutes me off the brim of the ridiculous wide hat. “Touché.”

Chapter Twelve

A Place of Light

Ever notice how in most movies about explorers going to remote places in search of lost treasures, they almost always have a female supporting character who is pretty, intelligent, often an expert in some scientific field (typically archaeology or Egyptology), no one takes their skills seriously until a pivotal moment, and they’re frequently the love interest of the main character?

In just about every case, the one thing these characters all have in common is a comic-relief level of discomfort with the outdoors. Though a master of thirteen dead languages, rain, mud, branches, bugs, rivers, or sand dunes are just too much for her to cope with.

I’m not sure if it’s Hollywood trying to make a comment about women being helpless outdoors or if the writers decided the character couldn’t be perfect and had to give her a flaw of some kind.

Where am I going with this? After spending several hours hiking the Panamanian jungle, I kind of feel like these women, though I haven’t fallen in mud or been chased off by wasps. My thin leather sandals are horrible for crossing untamed terrain. Not only are they too flimsy to really protect against stepping on painful things, every time I end up shin deep in muck, the sandals stay buried, forcing me to squat and dig them out.

I ended up carrying them.

Fortunately, I’m a supernatural creature. Don’t really care if I cut myself on a rock, get stung by some ridiculous tropical insect, or stumble into a punji trap. Granted, those sandals wouldn’t have helped me much against sharpened bamboo spikes. No, haven’t fallen into a punji trap... just saying.

Our hike started off okay, but the past two hours have been less than fun. I feel like those ‘out of their element’ characters because, quite frankly, I’m way out of my element. Mermaid on land, or city girl in the jungle, or supernatural being heading toward a light warrior enclave—pick one. Of course, this is normal for me. Always trying to swim upstream. The girl who played like a boy, the woman who wanted to go to college…

I joked about going native earlier, but I haven’t found myself up to my knees in mud so often since 1967 during my brief stint as a gossip columnist in LA. Thought it would be something fun to do, but it ended up being horrible. Like babysitting a room full of toddlers with zero impulse control who had unlimited access to wine and Vicodin.

I’m tired of earth. As in dirt. I have granules in places granules don’t belong. As soon as I find water, it’s going to take an hour of soaking to get rid of all the dirt. Maybe I’m overstating it to a point, but the next time ‘oh, let’s just pop off and walk fourteen miles into the jungle on a whim’ sounds like a good idea, I’m going to make sure I’ve got proper equipment first. Decent shoes and non-cotton pants, or maybe even a charmed helicopter pilot.

Niles has given up on dryness, too. We’ve both fallen into streams and rivers so often we may as well have gone swimming on purpose. My shirt is soaked. The jeans I’ve tied around my waist into an almost-skirt keep trying to fall off, and I swear the next time I end up in a river, I’m staying under... tail out, and swimming all the way to the ocean.

Or not. Breathing river water the color of overly creamed coffee is not pleasant. Tastes of dirt and visibility stinks. It’s like being in a dust storm.

A few minutes past dark, Licinia rises to the surface of my consciousness and ‘takes the wheel’ so to speak. I’m all too happy for a short break and let her have control of the body. Well, my body. She stops walking and raises our arms out in a pose similar to a monk doing tai chi.

“Whoa,” whispers Niles. “Are you all right?”

Licinia’s too busy focusing her mind on mystical patterns to answer.

“Weird to say, but you seem rather different all of a sudden.” Niles walks around in front of us.

She chants a few lines in Arabic while slowly moving our hands around. Kinda silly of me not to have ever studied the language considering having her in my head, but it didn’t seem necessary since she could easily translate for me. Some familiarity always comes with proximity, however. I understand enough to figure out she’s invoking Amphitrite to open her senses to fluctuations in magical energy.

“Alex?” asks Niles.

A feeling of mild warmth washes over me similar to standing in the glow of a portable space heater, only the ‘heater’ is quite a distance away ahead and to the left. I’m going to assume the sensation of heat is my brain translating the information we’re receiving from Licinia’s incantation into a perceptible manifestation of distance and direction.

Her mental smile confirms my guess.

“Umm, Alex?” asks Niles. “Since when do you speak Arabic?”

“Stop being so impatient,” says Licinia in English. “She doesn’t.”

The moderately deeper pitch and strong accent hits Niles like a slap.

Chuckling to herself, she drifts once more into the back of my mind.

“It’s all right.” I smile at him. “Got good news.”

“Your hitchhiker got away from you?” He leans back, eyes wide.

“No. Stop being so thick.” I knock on his head. “She needed to surface for a moment to help us.”

He exhales, slouching in relief. “Ahh. Pardon. Sometimes, I forget they’re not all nutters.”

“Oh, they mostly are all at least partially crazy. Sane people don’t dabble in the sorts of mystical paths leading to becoming a dark master in the first place. What you meant to say is not all of them are part of the crazy sect.”

Niles holds up one finger as if to say, ‘yes, that.’

I change course to walk directly toward the heat source. “We’re close enough for her to sense paranormal energy radiating from the place. Shouldn’t be long now.”

“Brilliant. And, um, tell her thanks.”

“She can hear you.”

“Thank you!” he shouts louder than necessary.

Licinia shakes her head, but smiles.

Speaking of proximity… I stop at the next small stream we reach to wash the mud off my legs and put my wet jeans on normally. Cold, wet denim sliding over my legs is not a pleasant sensation. I sense Niles’s thoughts as he admires my bare butt for the moment it takes me to wrestle the damp fabric into place. He considers complimenting my figure, but refrains out of fear I’d misinterpret him as making a pass. Interesting. Even the most polite men I’ve run into have always possessed a certain level of lust in their thoughts toward me. Niles is either the most ‘professional’ man to ever live, or he’s fully expecting to die within the next twenty minutes and has given up.

I step back into the flimsy sandals, cringe again at the sensation of having wet denim between my legs, and resume walking. Hopefully, Geovani’s people see us and give us a chance to talk first. We aren’t exactly the most intimidating duo at the moment; appearance wise, we’re closer to a pair of drowned rats.

The sense I’m approaching the open door of a furnace grows in strength, though doesn’t become uncomfortably warm. At some point, it shifts from being heat to a mild pins-and-needles feeling.

As soon as I spot the yellowish squares of artificial light amid the swirling blues of natural energy illuminating the darkness, Licinia ends her detection spell. Good call; the prickling of a billion spiders walking all over me had become rather distracting.

There is a protection ward ahead.

“Ward?”

“No.” He glances at me. “Name’s Niles.”

“Smartass. I’m talking to Licinia. She says there’s a ward ahead.”

Feels like an alarm, not a trap. It is difficult for me to sense the exact location, but within your next several steps, someone inside the compound is going to know the two of you are here. It is unlikely the defensive enchantment will reveal any information beyond the presence of a dark master, so they will likely assume you both vampires.

“Basically, a doorbell,” I say. “The place is too far away to knock without setting off their early warning system, so nothing to do but go on and try to act casual.”

“Right. Casual.” Niles wags his eyebrows at me. “I’m good at casual.”

“Be wary. I’m hoping if we walk right up to the front door without trying to be sneaky, it will give them enough doubt not to attack straight away.”

Not wanting to take any unnecessary chances, I radiate a low-level charm effect, projecting calm and peacefulness.

Six steps later, no odd sensations hit me, though I’m sure we’ve gone past the magical alarm. We keep walking toward the distant glowing squares. Soon, the shape of a reasonably large building emerges from the swirling blue energy I see as light. It appears to be a giant square with thicker sections at each corner about the size of single-family homes. The wall we’re approaching has a gate at the center, presently closed, but it’s only sticks lashed together. It reminds me somewhat of the old monasteries found in Mexico and some parts of the American Southwest, only not made of adobe and red tiles. It’s part Gilligan’s Island, part Shaolin temple, and part Vietnamese village.

Silhouettes appear in some of the windows on either side of the gate.

I wave in greeting, as does Niles.

Upon reaching the edge of cleared vegetation around the outside of the compound, I stop. We’re fifty feet or so from the gate, standing in plain sight, and hopefully not coming off as a threat. At least seven people watch us from inside. Blurriness and bead curtains make it difficult to tell much about them other than their all being adults.

It’s beyond obvious we’re being watched.

“We’ve come to ask Geovani for assistance,” I call out. “Yes, we are more than we appear to be, but mean no one here harm.”

“What she said.” Niles points at me. “Tis me lookin’ ta have a word with the man himself.”

A few minutes pass.

“Think they heard us?” asks Niles.

“Quite sure they did. Likely deliberating.”

Finally, the wooden gates swing inward. The instant the two halves part, my attention goes straight to a modern crossbow in the hands of an Asian man. More specifically, the silver-tipped bolt he’s got loaded in it. I clench my fists, feeling a bit like a little kid opening a closet door to find an evil clown staring at her. As a child, I’d been what people tended to call ‘nervy.’ Nowadays, I’d be called ‘ballsy’ or fearless. Never had nightmares, no fear of the dark, or bugs. No fear of exploring strange places.

However, silver—especially in the form of a sharp pointy thing—instinctually freaks me out.

The man is not aiming it at us, though, merely holding the crossbow at the ready. Three other men, all apparently Panamanian, stand in a line with him. One of the locals has a touch of grey in his hair, seeming close to fifty, the others all in their younger thirties.

Two of the men hold large single-edged Saracen-style swords and wear handguns on their belts. The older guy has a handgun on his belt, but no weapons in his hands. He does, however, give off a highly noticeable supernatural presence. He’s definitely not a vampire, mermaid, werewolf, or anything of the sort—but I can clearly feel he’s something.

I’m going to assume he’s the alchemist, Geovani.

Licinia agrees.

He regards Niles with a note of hesitant curiosity. When he makes eye contact with me, one brow creeps up a little. Predictably, his mind is shielded from my eavesdropping. Crossbow Man is also as blank as a stone mannequin. The two holding swords have some accessible thoughts, but it’s like trying to watch HBO on an original cable box in 1988 without paying for it: warped images all the wrong colors and distorted sound.

They’re on edge, I can tell that much, and think we’re both vampires.

Yeah, so what. I’m pale as hell. I’m Irish, not undead.

Licinia chuckles.

“Is it all right if we step a little closer so we don’t have to shout?” I call.

Geovani looks at me, then Niles. He seems to contemplate for a moment, and waves us to approach.

Whew. Please don’t point the crossbow at me.

Niles and I walk closer to the gate, stopping roughly ten feet away from the line of men.

Another nine or so people, five women and four men, lurk in several doorways at the edges of the courtyard on all four sides. I have much less trouble peeking into most of their heads, except for two. Each person’s degree of resistance to mind-reading gives me something of a feel for who’s new and who’s been training for longer. All but one of them think Geovani’s being foolish for allowing himself to get close to ‘the enemy.’ The woman who seems curious also has the strongest mental shield. I suspect she’s the most advanced student, but likely still a student or she’d be up here at the front gate. The woman thinks it’s unusual for us to have walked up to the door and proverbially knocked.

“Hello. I’m Alexis Silver. This is Niles. Thank you for speaking with us.”

“How did you find this place?” asks Geovani.

“I spoke to Celia. Explained our situation, and she thought you might be able to help,” I say.

“You charmed her?” asks the swordsman at the right end of their line.

“No. My charms don’t work on women. Well, not on most women.”

Geovani frowns, takes a step closer. “You are possessed by a dark master.”

“More of a roommate situation, honestly. That said, a dark master problem is indeed why we’re here. Niles is hoping you can evict his.”

The four men give us incredulous looks.

“He wants to be destroyed?” asks the left swordsman.

Some of the students inside the courtyard lean in toward each other, whispering among themselves.

“Preferably not destroyed.” Niles makes a flicking motion with his finger and thumb. “Hoping you can kick the old bastard out of my head. Willing to risk destruction for the chance. He’s trying to do away with me anyway.”

“What of yours?” Geovani glances at me.

“She’s no threat to anyone here.”

“They’re sinister. You think she’s harmless, but the truth is different.”

“No.” I shake my head. “She did some dark stuff in life, but nothing any mother with no other options would have done to protect her children.”

The light warriors exchange dubious glances.

“Your dark master learned the blackest of mystical arts somehow to protect her children?” Geovani raises an eyebrow. “I find that difficult to accept.”

“Any better ideas how one woman could take on the Roman army by herself?” I fold my arms.

“There are no writings of this,” says Geovani.

“Correct. She only harmed those who abducted her daughters and murdered her son.” I pat Niles on the shoulder. “This guy’s come all the way here from London because he read some old books about you. He thinks you can break the bond between him and his dark master. Something is stirring out there. He’s the second one I’ve run into where the dark master is attempting to destroy their host.”

“I’m just barely keeping him back,” says Niles. “I don’t care what the risks are. Any chance you might offer me at survival is more than I’ve got otherwise. And if it kills me, at least it’s not giving him the satisfaction of doing it.”

Niles next explains his dark master wanting to be rid of him so he can return to Elizabeth, then what he read about a medallion capable of breaking the curse of vampirism. When he’s done, I tell them about the werewolf—though I skip the whole submarine part. It’s likely classified. So what if I’m an immortal? I was an American first. Besides, the exact location I ran into a werewolf trying to destroy himself so the dark master could escape is irrelevant.

Geovani makes a ‘relax’ gesture at the three men. “I believe the two of you have truly come here with peaceful intentions. It offers me hope I’ve not had in many years to see those possessed by Void spirits to have resisted descent into bloodthirst and madness. Unfortunately…”

Niles bows his head. “Bollocks. Here it comes.”

I cringe.

“Let me finish.” Geovani chuckles. “True, I have the ability to help in the way you are asking, at least in terms of knowledge. Problem being, a particular sanctified crucible required for the process was lost some years ago when one of my associates vanished.”

Niles looks up, eyes huge like an eager boy. “We can find this crucible for you.”

This is like a client asking me to get evidence of their husband or wife cheating on them only to discover the spouse is innocent of cheating but involved in some elaborate criminal enterprise. Expect a quick, easy job and it turns into a serious project.

“Where did this associate of yours disappear?” I ask.

“Dominic took a boat heading for Europe, but never arrived.”

Niles groans. “So, he could be anywhere over thousands of miles of ocean… explains why this crucible is still missing. Bollocks again.”

“He usually flew,” said Geovani. “But in the weeks leading up to his trip, he had a recurring dream of dying in a plane crash.”

Niles whistles. “Seems the boat thing didn’t quite work out for him, either.”

“It’s quite possible he would have crashed if he flew for the same journey,” I say gently, fighting the urge to shrug and seem indifferent to this man’s former apprentice dying. “Having a premonition of the future doesn’t necessarily allow a person to avoid their fate, merely change the form of it. A plane crash turned into a boat being swallowed. However, shipwrecks, I can work with.”

Niles gawks at me as if finally doing the math. Searching the bottom of the ocean for a lost magic bowl is an impossible task—for anyone but a mermaid. Doesn’t mean it won’t be tedious. Or close to impossible. Roaming around the sea looking for an object the size of a mixing bowl could take decades. At least, I’m assuming it’s relatively small. A ‘crucible’ could be the size of a compact car, but I doubt anyone would casually take such a thing on a boat with them.

“Any idea where the boat went down?” I ask.

Geovani breathes out a sad sigh. “No one is even certain the Estrella de Mar sank. It is mere assumption, if a logical one. The ship simply vanished. They did not send a distress call or indicate by radio anything unusual had occurred. If I remember correctly—forgive me as it’s been several years—they’d been scheduled to make port at Nassau in the Bahamas before beginning the Atlantic crossing.”

I tap my foot, thinking. “All right. That makes this feel less like an impossible task if the ship is somewhere between Panama and the Bahamas. Much more reasonable than searching the entire Atlantic.”

“You are optimistic.” Geovani chuckles. “Even the Caribbean Sea is vast. Are you planning to walk back and forth on the sea floor? I didn’t realize your kind tolerated the ocean so well.”

“He still thinks you’re a vampire,” fake-whispers Niles.

The three men with Geovani chuckle halfheartedly. It’s somewhat like how Al Capone’s people used to ‘laugh’ whenever he cracked a joke no one truly found funny.

Geovani stares into my eyes for a long moment, then emits an, “Ahh. Yes. Now I understand. It has been quite a long time since I’ve encountered one of your kind. The last time was somewhat markedly less cordial.”

I cringe like I’m the woman at a fancy wedding reception whose husband belches a little too loudly in front of everyone. “Let me guess... a shipwreck, allure didn’t work on you, and some chewing maybe happened?”

He chuckles. “Close. When your sisters couldn’t make a meal of me, one kindly towed me back to land.”

Something in his eye makes me think he held a silver knife to her throat the whole time, but who knows. Even normal—as in the ‘like to eat people’ kind—mermaids are occasionally helpful. Sort of the way farmers take care of cows and don’t like to see them needlessly suffer. And hey, we were all human once. The ‘Barnabys’ of mer-kind are only slightly more prevalent than serial killers in the mortal population. Most mers only kill when they have to in order to survive. Given the change in the size and power of ships in the modern age, a lot of my brethren have switched to seafood. It’s pretty difficult to make cruise ships smash into rocks these days, though some incredibly ambitious mermaids still try.

One of them got the Costa Concordia not long ago.

At least, I’m assuming so. I’d like to think a ship’s captain wouldn’t be so stupid without being under the effect of a charm. Anyway… Geovani’s presence has brightened upon realizing I’m a mermaid. He understands the chances of recovering his missing crucible have gone from totally impossible to merely a long shot.

“Please, join me inside. But, be cautious. Li Wei is an incredible shot.” Geovani motions for us to follow him into the compound.

The guy with the crossbow—likely Li Wei—nods in a way both welcoming and as if to say ‘watch your step.’

“Happy to do whatever I can to set your minds at ease,” says Niles. “The only thing I want is to get this bastard out of my head.”

Geovani leads us across the courtyard to the main building, the two swordsmen and Li Wei following a few paces behind us like twitchy prison guards escorting new inmates. The students whisper among themselves, sounding incredulous we’ve been allowed in.

Once inside, we head down a short hallway to a basic dining hall where twelve chairs surround a blocky wooden table covered in nicks and stains. It’s probably older than the building. Li Wei stands beside the door while Geovani joins us at the table.

In these more cordial surroundings, we discuss the particulars of his apprentice Dominic’s voyage on the Estrella de Mar. The ship departed from Colón, Panama in May of 1987. Hmm. I think Geo is older than he appears to be.

Actually, that’s a good sign, says Licinia. An alchemist skilled enough to extend his life is more likely to possess the ability to separate a dark master from their host.

“I’d ask if you had any pictures of the ship, but after decades underwater, it’s not going to look anything like it used to. What does your missing crucible look like?”

Geovani holds his hands as if gripping a basketball. “It is about this big. Engraved with sacred markings. Dominic had it in a protective case, locked of course. While I have no doubt the crucible itself is still intact, I cannot say the same for the case. After so many years underwater, it has likely fallen apart.”

Okay, fancy bowl with fancy writing on it. Check. If it’s an alchemical artifact, it’s most likely going to give off a noticeable aura of magical power. Even if I can’t feel it, Licinia should be able to sense it the same way she sensed Geovani.

With luck, says Licinia.

We talk for a while about Niles’s journey here, me helping Celia with her extortion problem, and then listen to Geovani lament the loss of Dominic, a once-promising apprentice who’d taken to alchemy surprisingly well. He’d been on his way to a meeting in Luxembourg, from the sound of it, a ‘workshop’ of sorts for alchemists to share secrets. Contrary to what some people think, they’re not reclusive and jealous, or trying to turn lead to gold 24/7. They work together to ‘advance the light,’ whatever that means. Probably has something to do with killing vampires and other ‘monsters.’ Perhaps even defeating Elizabeth.

“So you’re really going to go look for this crucible?” asks Niles.

“I am.”

He bows at me. “You have my eternal thanks. I’m assuming this is going to involve a bit of swimming. I don’t rightly need SCUBA gear, but a visor might help me...”

“There’s no reason for you to come into the ocean with me.” I pat him on the arm. “Not to sound cliché, but you’d only slow me down… a great deal. I assume you’d rather deal with your hitchhiker as soon as possible.”

“Aye.” Niles nods sadly. Surprisingly, he doesn’t give off the sense he’s relieved at not being expected to help look. I get the feeling the old chap is always up for an adventure.

The prospect of searching the ocean floor for a missing vessel is pretty close to ridiculous for anyone who isn’t a mer, Jacques Cousteau, or Robert Ballard. Even with expensive research ships and mini-submarines, it would be months and months before they found anything—if they found anything. All the more remarkable that Niles is willing to tag along.

Maybe he likes you, dear.

Hmm. Maybe.

I pat Niles on the cheek and look at Geovani. “The dark master within him is fighting for control and dangerous. I’ve managed to help hold him back, but if I’m away for a few days, the entity inside Niles could be a problem. Do you have a way to help him maintain control?”

“There are a few things we can try. If nothing else, we have a chamber where he cannot harm himself or others.”

Niles winces at the idea of being stuck in a cell… but nods. “Whatever it takes. If it’s a shot at survival, I’ve got to do it.”

“Would it be all right if I got started in the morning? I’d adore the chance to get out of these wet clothes.”

“Of course.” Geovani tilts his head. “I cannot help but ask… wet bothers you?”

I smile. “No. Wet clothes bother me. Especially when I’ve been sweating in them for two days straight. Will be nice to slip out of them.”

Geo stares at me. So do most of the others, including Niles.

I think you might have inadvertently charmed them, dear.

Oopsie.

Chapter Thirteen

No Distress

Geovani is kind enough to allow me the use of a small, private bedroom.

He also lets me borrow a light linen tunic. Makes me feel like a walk-on extra in a low-budget kung fu movie, but it breathes way more than the shirt and jeans I’ve been wearing—and it’s dry. He’s apparently told the others here I’m not a serious threat. Most of them have relaxed in my presence, regarding me with curiosity rather than suspicion. Li Wei, however, shadows Niles to the ‘safe room.’

Eager to show goodwill, my vampiric friend goes inside willingly.

Probably for the best, in case his dark master gets any ideas.

Licinia tells me the ‘monastery’ is covered in all sorts of mystical protections... or wards. Had we not been invited in the gate, being here would have felt similar to a nasty hangover. The magic couldn’t keep us out, but I’d want to get the heck away from it. Also, there aren’t many vampires, werewolves, or other things in Panama for some reason. The ones Geovani knows of are all in Panama City.

Doesn’t surprise me. The vamps are rather fond of civilization and modern toys. That whole aesthetic of vampires still wearing clothing from the 1700s is complete Hollywood nonsense. The only reason an association exists between vampires and the medieval world is they happened to exist back then. Humans don’t still routinely ride horses to work. Vampires are the same way. They appreciate advancement.

Hey, when you’ve got eternity to exist and you’re awake when the rest of the world’s asleep, television and video games can be the difference between insanity and happiness. Merfolk are the ones who wish the clock would go backward. Much easier to order take-out when the food came wrapped in wooden sailing ships.

After a nice, restful sleep. I change back into my—now washed and dried—shirt and jeans. A young woman—rail thin and probably around twenty—is waiting for me right outside my door. In Spanish, she introduces herself as Milanis, and tells me Geovani wants to see me before I leave.

“All right. Lead on.” I smile at her.

She brings me down two long hallways to a big library. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves cover every inch of wall; not a window in sight. Geovani stands in one corner, near one such shelf. As we enter, he turns to face us.

“Good morning. I hope you slept well, Alexis.”

“Quite. Not sure how a little monk’s bed is so much more comfortable than a modern bed, but I’m not going to argue.” I smile.

Geovani extends his hand, offering me a pair of smallish white stones. “These will expedite your efforts to recover the crucible and ultimately help your friend. I spoke with him at length last night. He is very sincere in his desire to fight the evil within him.”

“Is this where you feel me out to see if I’m the same?”

He grins. “Well, I’d intended to ask.”

We talk for a while about my relationship with Licinia. Encountering a ‘dark master’ who isn’t the embodiment of avarice and craving power and human flesh surprises him, but he also appears fascinated. He’s also quite keen on getting his crucible back, so resists the urge to ask the thousands of unrelated questions bouncing around in his head.

“I’ve generally believed the Estrella de Mar sank, most likely due to something sudden that didn’t provide the crew any opportunity to make a radio call.”

I nod. “Rogue wave or some such thing. They’re real. Do you have any idea what the weather might have been like?”

“Calm as far as I know, but the weather ten miles off the coast can be completely different from what’s on land. Also, we should consider the possibility something supernatural may have occurred as well.”

“Such as?”

“Stray time holes or other temporal displacements.” Geovani shrugs. “Maybe something to do with the Bermuda Triangle?”

I fight the urge not to roll my eyes. “If the ship never made it to Nassau, it wouldn’t have been in the Triangle yet.”

Geovani raises a finger, mouth half open, then closes it. “You are correct, of course. Most likely, then, the ship sank. Those stones will help speed your efforts. When you leave this place, walk directly away from the front gates. A hundred paces out, you will find a shallow pool. Drop one stone into the water. Save the other for later.”

“This sounds like a portal. Where’s it go?”

“Meteti.”

I sigh at the ceiling. “I can skip the jungle hike?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, goody! Let me get going. I’ll return as soon as I can. If I’m not back in two weeks, it most likely means something ate me.”

He starts to laugh, but hesitates, unsure if I meant it as a joke.

I’m not sure if I did either.

***

A hundred paces from the monastery, I find a flat stone disc with a three-inch high rim around it. Looks like an enormous coaster for the world’s most gigantic coffee cup. A little over an inch of water has collected in it, plus a ton of moss.

I shrug and drop one of the two white stones into the water.

It vanishes on contact, turning the water opaque grey.

As instructed, I step into the shallow water, walking across the stone disc. In an instant, my surroundings change. Rather than having jungle on all sides, I’m in the enormous backyard of a residential house. Behind me, a similar stone disc overflows with ordinary-looking water. No idea if anyone lives here, but if it’s a shortcut to Geovani’s compound, they probably have a light warrior or two staying at the house. Or maybe a simple employee. Or more magical wards.

Or all of the above.

After hurrying out of the yard to the street in front of the house, I look around. Yeah, I’m back in Meteti. All right, time to think like an investigator. Might be on vacation, but it’s not a reason to be stupid—or stupid again. I’m not applying ‘let’s just walk fourteen miles into the jungle hoping we find where we need to go’ logic to the entire Caribbean Sea.

We found Geovani, didn’t we?

Beside the point.

Is it? You’re correct. I can likely sense the crucible from a distance, though it would shock me if it has even a tenth of the energy in it as him.

I raise both eyebrows. Wow. He’s that powerful?

Licinia laughs. Power is a relative thing. I mostly sensed the magic he’s using to stop himself from growing older. It’s why you sensed him as something more than a mortal.

Alchemists can become immortals without dark masters?

It’s not the same. If someone shot him in the heart, he’d still die. It’s merely time and disease he does not fear.

How old do you think he is?

Three or four centuries, at least. He is undoubtedly one of only a handful of people skilled enough to achieve immortality—and keep their bodies intact.

I smile. Most dark masters wanted immortality, but didn’t exactly get their wish granted the way they’d hoped. They went into the game trying to do the sort of thing Geovani did, but ended up turning themselves into shadowy wraiths that make vampires, mermaids, werewolves, and other things. In Licinia’s case, she never tried for immortality. However, the idea of being dragged off by the Devil terrified her. The powers Licinia tapped in life came with a steep price, and when it came time to pay, she essentially panicked and ran.

Can’t blame her.

It’s like a woman shooting an abusive husband to protect the life of her children but the state prosecutes her for murder anyway—only on a cosmic universe scale. Well, in Licinia’s case, maybe it’s a little closer to killing him and fifty of his murderous friends. From the sound of it, the Roman Army were a bunch of bastards.

Right, so… I’ve got a job to do.

I search around for a bit, eventually finding a café with a working phone. The manager is kind enough to let me use it as long as I don’t call internationally. Takes me a little while, but I manage to get in contact with an English-speaking government clerk in Panama City for maritime records. They don’t have much information on the Estrella de Mar since it disappeared so long ago. She confirms it left Colón in May of 1987, headed for London by way of the Bahamas.

“The last recorded radio contact is shown as originating from the approximate location of the West Indies. They reported being a few miles northwest of the Inagua Islands.”

Ugh. I hang my head, suppressing a groan. This is going to be a bit of a hike. Swimming hundreds of miles is much more pleasant to me than hiking fourteen, though. No dirt everywhere, no sweating… yeah. Oh well, I wanted a vacation, didn’t I?

“Thanks,” I say. “No other records of anyone hearing from the ship after that?”

“No. I’m afraid not. The Estrella de Mar was officially declared lost at sea, all presumed dead. There’s nothing here about anyone finding the ship, survivors, or any debris.”

Hmm. I can think of a few situations where a ship of decent size could go down like a bathtub toy being stepped on. A big enough rogue wave could swat it underwater too fast for much debris to escape. Though, at least a few life vests, Styrofoam, and other plastic trash would probably end up floating to the surface.

Another—somewhat less likely—option is a group of mermen. Ships were much larger in the 1980s than in 1920. One of them couldn’t capsize a passenger ship so fast no one escaped and no radio calls went out. A large enough group, maybe could. But it wouldn’t make sense, especially in the Caribbean. Plenty of tiny fishing boats from local villages. Much easier, and as anyone who’s ever organized a group project knows, getting fifteen people on the same page about anything is a lot of work.

There aren’t too many whirlpools around here, and they’re also not exactly sudden. Even if the Estrella de Mar got caught in a giant whirlpool and blundered past the point of no return, they’d probably have managed a distress call. Also, as far as I know, there aren’t any giant whirlpools around here.

An alchemist had been on board with a—presumably precious and important—crucible, plus who knows what else. Maybe Elizabeth or some minion of darkness arranged the sinking. It’s equally probable terrorists attacked, trashed the radio and… maybe even forcibly sailed the ship to some other country and kept it hidden all these years.

Nah. Anyone who steals a ship plus all its passengers would’ve tried to ransom them somehow.

“What route did they file?” I ask.

“Northeast from Colón, then north past the eastern end of Jamaica, passing between Cuba and Haiti, then left by the West Indies toward Nassau.”

“Excellent. So it didn’t go between the Cayman Islands and Jamaica?”

“No, other side.”

I smile. Perfect. The Cayman Trough is one of the deepest places on Earth. Think it’s a bit over 2,000 meters. Yeah, I can handle going down there, but I wouldn’t like it. It’s less fun than riding the trains in Japan, where they literally pack people in like sardines in a can. At those depths, the pressure gives me a headache and it starts to feel like I’m having trouble breathing. Admittedly, I’m a whole lot better off than a mortal, who’d simply die a crushing death.

Seriously though, anywhere deep enough to give a mermaid the bends is a pain in the ass.

Not technically the bends, per se. But if I surface too fast, I’ll burst open. Always really irritating. Plus, if the boat had sunk 2000 meters, debris would be spread over miles. Finding a shipwreck is already a pain in the ass. If the crucible is loose on the ocean floor in a debris field the size of a small town, yeah, good luck. After twenty years, it could be a foot or two deep, buried under silt.

Good news though, the ship took the eastern route. The Caribbean is the deepest sea in the world—being technical here. Sea, not ocean. Yeah, I know, a fine hair to split. Cayman Trough aside, most of the seabed in the Caribbean is closer to 7,000 feet in depth. Slightly uncomfortable, but I’m not going to turn into a blobfish if I zoom to the surface.

By the way, they’re kind of tasty, but only if eaten at a depth where they still look like fish... and not Ziggy from the cartoon strip.

I thank the clerk for her time and hang up.

Having a starting point and a much narrower area to search, I don’t feel like such an idiot. Of course, it’s possible the navigator messed up, but unlikely. Maybe they strayed into a Bermuda Triangle wormhole and the Estrella de Mar isn’t even on this planet anymore. I snicker at the idea and nearly shrug. Who knows, right?

Since I can’t tell Niles or Geovani what’s going on, I might as well get going. Meteti is annoyingly landlocked. I’m about eight or nine miles to the closest seawater, but it’s the south side of Panama... and thus the Pacific Ocean. I’d have to swim all the way to the canal. Driving northeast to the Caribbean Sea is closer to thirty miles—and perhaps more jungle hiking. Ah, hell no.

I’ll take a bus to Colón... a coastal city with access to the Caribbean.

If you wish to update Geovani of your itinerary, I can assist. Obtain a paper and something to write with.

The café manager is obliging enough to part with a sheet of paper. Least I can do is buy some food as I still have some cash left over from the idiot kidnappers. I take a seat at a table and write a letter to Geovani and Niles, explaining my plan to follow the route the ship took, hunting along the sea floor for the wreck plus apologizing it looks like it’s going to take several days at a minimum.

When I’m done, Licinia nudges me in a ‘let me take over for a moment’ way.

I mentally release the controls, so to speak. She mutters in Arabic while brushing her hand down the page. A faint wash of glow shines out of the ink and fades.

Pretty. What happened? Is Geovani hearing my voice in his head now or something?

Licinia recedes, chuckling. No, dear. When you are done in this café, leave the letter behind. As soon as no one is paying any attention to the paper, it will be in a place Geovani can find it.

Neat. Magic is handy.

It is, but expensive.

She’s got a point. Having one’s soul hurtled into the Void is way more expensive than a postage stamp—or whatever Kinkos charges to send a fax. Wait, does Kinkos still even exist? And do people still use faxes?

Whatever. I have a bus to catch.

Chapter Fourteen

Seven Stars

The bus ride takes roughly five hours—plus a few hours sitting around waiting for it.

At least the ticket was cheap. It’s almost dark when I arrive in Colón, but it’s irrelevant, really. Light conditions above the surface have no effect on my ability to see in the ocean. Sunlight is pretty scarce below 200 meters, anyway, so merfolk aren’t reliant on it. Down there, the world glows to me. Streams of energy—the life force of creation itself, according to some people—flow in endless ribbons. It’s similar to how night vision looks in movies, only bluish rather than green… and I can see color, albeit it saturated in azure.

My search, alas, is going to wait a bit since I plan to sleep before starting. It’s weird to think about the hand-written letter I ‘forgot’ in the café magically relocating itself to Geovani’s desk or some random table near him. While we waited for the bus, Licinia talked about something she called ‘background magic.’ It’s the same force that steals stray socks out of the laundry or causes objects to vanish from reality until you buy a new one—then you find the missing one. As soon as no one is aware of the letter’s location, it slips through the fabric of reality and appears where we want it to be.

There’s an entirely scary line of thinking here about the world being a computer simulation and it being possible to move objects by changing a number in the program code… but I’m not starting such a discussion.

I walk from the bus terminal to the coast by way of the New Washington hotel at the north end of the city. Initially, I’d been thinking to sleep in the ocean tonight but… the hotel is right here. Hard to ignore. Plus, it saves me the trouble of trying to find a place to stash my clothes tonight. The second portal stone is in the pocket of these jeans. Don’t want to lose it.

It’s a fairly nice place, even has a casino and restaurant. Gambling isn’t one of my vices or even something particularly entertaining to me, but hey, I’m on vacation and it’s not like I’m going anywhere until morning. Besides, being able to read minds tilts the odds in my favor for certain games. That said, I make enough playing blackjack to cover the cost of a room for the night and a nice dinner—yes, I ordered the swordfish, raw.

Most women would be annoyed at having so many guys hit on them, but it’s my normal. My supernatural nature essentially turns me into a bug-zapper for males, a Venus flytrap they can’t help themselves but try to dive into head first, even when I’m not actively trying to charm anyone. Unfortunately for them, me becoming intimate with mortals doesn’t work too well for the mortal.

Since I don’t want a mind-slave, I politely avoid any entanglements and head to my room... alone.

***

The next morning, I borrow one of the bathroom towels as a skirt, conceal my chest under my hair, and head down to the lobby, carrying my shirt and jeans. Similar to how I can make people not see me at all, I give off a subtle radiant charm so any random observers think I’m wearing a swimsuit.

After stashing my clothes in the hotel’s safe—the clerk thinks it’s a small box of souvenirs—I head out the back, cross a strange courtyard painted blue for some reason, and go straight to the edge of land. Not much of a beach here, but it doesn’t matter. I drop the towel and wade into the water. Once it’s up to my waist, I dive forward, shifting my legs into mermaid form. Unfurling my long, rainbow-finned tail is so wonderful. I’d compare it to how it feels to take off a bra after a long day, but don’t want to imply having human legs is uncomfortable. They’re really not.

But it can’t compare to the relaxation and sense of freedom I have now.

Right. Mission. Focus time.

Well, vacation time, actually. I don’t exactly have to race the clock. Good thing, too, since I’ve got so much area to cover. Being in the ocean is a bit like having a GPS. Though I don’t see a little screen or map floating around me, I do have a general sense of knowing where I am. Even after all these years, having the ability to simply understand my location relative to the oceanic world still astonishes me. Pity it doesn’t work on land.

I can picture the route the Estrella de Mar took in my mind. It doesn’t go near the Cayman Trough, which is good news. The bad news is having about a thousand miles of territory to cover, which would take me somewhere between nine and ten hours going in a straight line at my fastest non-sprint. Slowing down is key here. Obviously, searching for shipwrecks is somewhat more difficult to do while pretending to be a torpedo.

The clerk at the maritime office gave me hope the wreck is going to be closer to Turks & Caicos, likely on the south or western side of the Inagua Islands in the West Indies. Means I should be able to dash straight across the Caribbean Sea without going too crazy scanning the bottom. I’ll probably slow down when I’m a hundred miles or so from the gap between Cuba and Haiti.

I dive to 300 meters, which puts me far enough from the surface that the sun glare overhead doesn’t interfere with my ability to see. Barring unusually cloudy water like Loch Ness, I can see as far in the sea as mortals can in the air. This depth offers a reasonable panorama of the sea bed. Shipwrecks are not, after all, small objects. Unless the Estrella de Mar literally exploded, I’m not going to have any trouble spotting it from this ‘altitude.’

Yes, swimming is a lot like flying. Me searching for a shipwreck is pretty much the same as a search and rescue helicopter scanning the ground for a plane crash—except I can go in close enough to read the name on the hull. Or brush away silt.

I swim in a mostly straight line, looking for wrecks. Even though I don’t think the one I’m trying to find is going to be this close to Panama, I dive down to check on every dead ship I see on this route in the interest of thoroughness, hanging around only long enough to find the name somewhere on the hull or, in some cases, stenciled on lifeboats or other debris.

Being a mer in the ocean is remarkably similar to being a child in a pool. Time flies and I don’t want to go home. I lose track of the hours passing as I dart from one wreck to the next or dash across swaths of open sea floor.

It’s obvious my search has consumed the entire day, as the sun’s gone. The ocean surface glows pale blue above me, the faint moonlight outlining every wave and ripple. For an instant, I’m shocked at how much time has passed without reaching the West Indies. I’d woefully underestimated the number of wrecks along this shipping lane. Granted, I’m ignoring the ones too obviously old or small to possibly be the Estrella de Mar, or I’d still be only a few hundred miles off Panama. By my estimation, I’m between forty and fifty miles away from the gap separating Jamaica from Haiti.

Hmm. I’m not ready for bed yet. Still a few hours of searching-slash-having fun left in me tonight. I glance down but hesitate, sensing an odd energy in the water. Imagine being alone in a giant stadium but sure someone or something is somehow nearby, watching. Same feeling, though perhaps not quite as much fear. Being in the gaze of a giant shark or one of those other creatures mortals haven’t discovered yet wouldn’t create the same sensation. And the Leviathan up by Polyarny, Russia wouldn’t bother with me. I’m way too small. It’d be like a person going out of their way to eat one sesame seed.

Curious, I look around.

Takes me a moment, but the odd energy finally draws my gaze upward again, this time at a dark spot on the surface, as subtle as a cicada on a window shade. It’s a mere shadow cast by the moonlight from this distance, but the shape is obvious: a ship. Not a small ship either. Normally, such a sight would barely register as notable. However, two things feel wrong.

First, it’s completely silent. No engine noise, no cavitation from the screws. A ship this size drifting dead in the water is unusual. Could be mechanical problems, piracy, or something terrible happened to the people on board.

The second issue is the straight up bizarre feeling I get in the pit of my stomach from looking at it. There is something on board throwing off gobs of spiritual energy. Ooh, maybe I’ve found a ghost ship.

Hmm. What are the odds the Estrella de Mar didn’t actually sink? How powerful is Geovani’s crucible? Did Dominic, his apprentice, screw something up... or just the opposite? Spare the ship from sinking?

Okay, time to check out the creepy silent mystery ship...

Chapter Fifteen

Adrift

Licinia gives off a pulse of excitement.

I don’t blame her; after all, something weird is going on with that ship, and I intend to find out what.

As a mortal, I couldn’t care less about maritime things. Now? I find ‘boat stuff’ fascinating. It totally makes sense to me how people can get so into stamp collecting. Well, not exactly. The idea of stamps still bores me to tears. I mean how a person can get so into something, the obsessiveness of it. It’s me with boat stuff. I could watch movies about mysterious events at sea, sinkings, investigations of shipwrecks, and so on all day long. Even documentaries about the Philadelphia Experiment. ‘Mortal me’ would have laughed at the notion of a failed attempt by the government to ‘cloak’ ships or even teleport them long distances. All the things I’ve seen since becoming a mer have given me a new perspective.

Not saying I think the UFO nuts are right about what happened to the USS Eldridge, but I can’t instantly discard notions of supernatural occurrences. Sure, Licinia teleported a single sheet of paper and it’s a bit of a stretch to scale a spell like that up to an entire destroyer… hence why it probably failed. Supposedly, the government experimented with a way to cloak—as in turn invisible—an entire ship, but it went wildly wrong. Some people claim the USS Eldridge teleported across the globe. Others say it jumped to a different dimension and reappeared with people melted into the deck.

Regardless of what happened, it makes for an interesting story.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure I have an interesting story above me now…

I flick my tail, launching myself upward.

Despite not having any operating engines, the ship is moving. Not going to set any speed records, though. It is obviously cruising faster than drifting in the wind. The bottom is intact, no signs of damage. Both screws also look to be in working order. They’re spinning, but not under power, merely reacting to water flowing past them.

Eeriness builds the closer I get.

It almost feels like the ship itself is looking back at me. I’m getting the same sort of spine-tingling warning as when my friends and I used to sneak into places we didn’t belong as children. Not sure if it counts as lying or not, but we usually got away with it merely by playing innocent and claiming to be lost. I mean, we hadn’t gone into anywhere with deliberate intent to do bad stuff, just look around—so the ‘innocence’ wasn’t totally pretend. My point is, a pack of young boys would’ve been assumed up to no good and been yelled at or worse. A group of little girls like us received gentle warnings about ‘it’s dangerous here, go on home’ and sent on our way. I like to think about it as exploiting the patriarchy.

The same curiosity pulls me closer.

I pace the ship at about fifteen knots, swerve back and forth under it a few times before moving off to the starboard side and surfacing a safe distance away. My eyes aren’t quite as adept at piercing the darkness in air as they are seeing underwater, so I can’t really see into any windows too much. It’s clearly an ocean liner, not a cruise ship. It’s about the size of the RMS Queen Mary, also having three funnels, but appears slightly newer in overall design. At a guess, I’d say they built this one probably in the mid-Fifties. The white paint reflects the moonlight so strongly the entire vessel appears to be luminous.

Or maybe it really is glowing.

It’s not the least bit transparent, so I doubt I’m dealing with a literal ghost ship. Licinia’s told me those do exist, but I’ve never seen one. She has a complex theory on how the increased size and metal content of modern vessels makes it more difficult to achieve the necessary concentration of paranormal energies compared to old wooden sailing ships. Wood, having once been alive, is a far better conductor of spiritual power than steel. According to her, it only takes the brutal, untimely deaths of about forty men to set up the conditions necessary for a ghost ship on an old-timey galleon—compared to several thousand to turn a modern cruise ship into a ghost ship. The Titanic couldn’t have carried enough bodies to do it.

I dunno. Mixing math and magic feels somehow inappropriate.

Curiosity building, I approach even closer. Gold lettering on the side spells out the vessel’s name: Syv Stjerner. Hmm. Sounds Norse or maybe Swedish. The vessel is entirely dark, no lights (neither inside nor external), no signs of anyone alive being on board. All the lifeboat mounts are empty despite there being no visible damage anywhere.

Definitely strange.

There aren’t too many situations where the captain of a ship this large will order everyone to abandon it when the boat isn’t about to sink. In fact, I can’t think of one. Some deadly disease among the passengers would trigger quarantine, not evacuation. Maybe pirates boarded it and forced everyone off, then killed each other amid a disagreement later?

Only one way to find out.

At fifty feet away, the patter of water lapping at the hull seems too loud to be natural—or the rest of the world has gone quiet. I’m a little annoyed this isn’t the Estrella de Mar, but I accept the universe isn’t going to let me get off the hook so easily. If this truly is an abandoned ship, it’d be worth a giant pile of clams to salvage.

I’d have no way to explain how I found it though, plus as fascinated by ships as I am, it doesn’t mean I’ve the first clue how to operate them. Something this size needs a crew of more than one, if its engines still even work.

The design of the ship bothers me. It makes me feel like I’ve jumped back in time. No ship decades old should still appear to be in such good condition… at least not without being a floating museum or turned into a restaurant. Out here drifting by itself for maybe eighty years? Yeah, it should be in far worse shape.

Oh, and there’s a ton of paranormal energy wafting off this thing, too. Plus, how it came out of nowhere. One moment, nothing on the surface, the next, a totally silent ship.

Yeah. I gotta see what’s on board.

Chapter Sixteen

The Willies

Old fashioned sailing ships had one big advantage over modern steel-hulled vessels.

It’s way easier to climb wood than metal. I’ve tried scaling steel ships before and it’s both awkward and painful. Yes, I am strong and my claws are supernaturally sharp, but forcing them into the hull deep enough to hold my weight is annoying.

Fortunately, this mysterious vessel is not a modern cruise ship. No one built it to make a statement. The outer deck is only five stories above the water. I dive again, going 150 feet or so down before pulling a U-turn and swimming straight up as fast as I can sprint. Like a dolphin with a rocket booster, I fly out of the water—a little too fast—and sail past the railing at the top deck. For a second or two, I get a great view of the ship from above. Looks like chaos, but no damage.

On the way back down, I grab the edge of the deck, my body crashing against the hull like a huge slab of raw salmon. Yeah. Super graceful. A flying fish I am not. Oof. I didn’t quite need to swim so fast before breaching the surface.

Whatever. I’m on board.

I shift my tail back into human legs, making it easier to pull myself up. I climb over the banister onto the deck, and survey the destruction. Anyone looking at me standing there like Magellan, hands on my hips, water streaming down my naked body, would probably think me insane.

Or not. Society has changed quite a bit since 1920. After all, there’s a reality show where people explore the wild in the buck. Only a matter of time before someone stretches the concept out of wilderness to other environments.

Doesn’t matter, anyway. There’s no one on this boat to see me. Both directions along the deck are strewn with haphazardly thrown junk. Some luggage, furniture, bundles of canvas I imagine used to cover lifeboats, plates, cups, small bags, even a few shoes. It looks like the scene of an out-of-control frat party, except there aren’t any beer cans.

Yeah, a panic scramble definitely happened here.

Randomly, I turn right and make my way down past the upper deck staterooms toward the bow, stepping carefully around the stuff scattered everywhere, arms out for balance. Wet feet on painted steel doesn’t make for the best traction. A palpable tingle in my soles each time I make contact with the deck gives me goosebumps. It’s like I’m walking on a giant Van de Graaf orb. Even more strange, I spot a half-eaten pastry of some kind on the floor.

Not moldy. Not waterlogged. Everything around me looks as if the evacuation happened only minutes ago. Yeah, something weird is definitely going on. Grr. I really hope I didn’t slip through one of those weird time anomalies Geovani mentioned.

I don’t believe we did.

Are you sure?

Licinia gives off a sense of pondering for a moment. More certain than not. However, I believe this ship is outside the time it belongs in.

The ship, not us?

Right.

Then where are the people?

A good question, dear.

I peek into a few staterooms with doors directly open to the promenade deck. Predictably, there’s no one in any of them, and all appear to have been hastily evacuated. The scent of people—sweat, after shave, perfume—is thick inside most of the rooms, making me think the passengers had only recently evacuated... or perhaps they had been inside for an extended period. Hmm. Could be a quarantine situation, but if some horrible disease affected the passengers on this ship, it wouldn’t have led to all the lifeboats being launched…

Unless the crew jettisoned the empty lifeboats to prevent people from fleeing.

I grimace at the dark thought.

Maybe it’s the eeriness in the air or the electric sparks snapping at my toes, but the mood of this boat is getting to me. Could a sickness so dangerous have affected this ship that the crew took steps to make sure everyone stayed here to die? Or worse, what if something drove the crew crazy enough to dump the lifeboats then kill everyone on board?

If so, either one of those scenarios would likely exceed the ‘deaths required’ for Licinia’s equation regarding ghost ships.

When I reach the forward end of the promenade deck, a sudden presence rushes at me from behind. Like an ordinary woman walking alone at night, I spin while emitting a bit of a yelp. Unlike a normal woman, I sprout claws—and stare at a long, narrow strip of deck between staterooms and banister, still strewn with debris.

No one there.

I’m bewildered for a second as it felt so much like someone charging up behind me. I stand there for a little while, watching the deck and listening. Only the light slapping of the waves against the ship’s sides reaches my ears along with the clatter of plastic cups rolling around. Not even the wind is making noise. This ship is too quiet. Perhaps the silence isn’t as supernatural as it feels. A place like a passenger liner which ought to be noisy being empty seems all the quieter for its failure to meet expectations. No one thinks a library is eerie for silence, but the same stillness in a mall puts people on edge.

Shaking my head, I keep going, making my way up a set of stairs to the command deck. The ship’s bridge is as wide as the boat, except for the walkways on either side. At the top of the stairs, I find a plain white door bearing black stenciled letters:

Kun besætning - équipage seulement

Crew only

Makes sense for the bridge.

The door’s open. Like the rest of the ship, the bridge looks like a Walmart after Black Friday, only there isn’t as much blood.

Spoke too soon.

Blood pools in one relatively confined area on the opposite side of a table covered in navigation charts. Based on the size of the slick—yes, it still appears wet—one person bled to death on the spot. I pad over, not particularly concerned if I step in it. What? It’s not gross. It’s blood. It’s not going to make me sick.

I crouch at the edge of the puddle, examining one part outlining an arm, hand and fingers. Doesn’t look like the victim moved at all. There’s no evidence of any attempt to crawl, or even anyone dragging the body away. Whoever met their fate here most likely died instantly, fell to the floor, and leaked out. I have no explanation for where the corpse went or how anyone moved it without disturbing the blood or leaving drips. The shape of the puddle suggests it expanded due to the wave motion on the boat, similar to making spaghetti sauce coat the surface of a plate by tilting it around.

A metallic creak breaks the silence.

I jump to my feet, staring at the doorway I entered from. Nothing there. Feels like someone is glaring at me, but I’ve had the same sense ever since coming within fifty feet of this ship. If something is truly a danger to me, my sixth sense will warn me. So far, it hasn’t. Then again, this ship is so charged with energy, a minor entity might blend in among the ‘background creepiness’ and not show up on my ‘danger radar’ until the very last second.

Yet... I feel nervous and on edge. What’s that about? Whoa. My hands are shaking, too.

Clenching my fists, I focus on being a mermaid for a moment to still my mind.

The fear—no, not fear, too strong a word. The nervousness is coming from the energy here, not a real threat. I’m the monster sailors should be terrified of. There’s nothing on this boat or this ocean for me to be afraid of. Leviathans aside.

So... what’s going on here?

Clue one: someone died violently in the bridge.

Well, that’s honestly more like clue thirty. This ship is not modern. If the design didn’t make it obvious enough, the equipment in the bridge fully confirms it. There’s not a scrap of computerization anywhere—plus a calendar on the wall hangs open to June 1963.

Clue thirty-one: the Syv Stjerner experienced highly unusual events over fifty years ago and everything here is totally out of whack. Blood should not still be wet after so long. Pastries shouldn’t be intact. Heck, the entire boat should not be in such good shape. So, this clue can be simplified to the ship having been somehow separated from the time stream. Perhaps it continues to exist in a past moment?

Crap.

I’ve seen this movie. Hopefully, I’m not stuck in 1963 somehow, trapped on this boat until I figure out what happened (good ending) or get eaten by the monster (bad ending). Considering I am the monster… the screenwriter’s going to have an aneurysm. But seriously, I should probably get off this boat before it slips back through the time hole to where it belongs. I already lived through the Sixties. Once is enough.

We aren’t certain these time holes exist or that this boat fell through one, says Licinia. It could be a legit ghost ship.

“Certainly feels like it. Any way to tell for sure?” I speak to Licinia out loud because... why not? I do so often at home.

There are some indicators, yes. Powerful supernatural presence. Inexplicably appearing out of nowhere.

“And what if it inexplicably disappears while we’re on it?”

It might simply vanish, and we fall safely into the water. Or it might remain here until we leave. Or, we may become spiritually bound to it if we’re not off before the proverbial clock runs out.

“Great… I should hurry up then.”

Hurry up?

“Figuring out what happened here.”

Why?

I shrug. “Why not? How often does a girl get a chance to explore a genuine ghost ship?”

If it’s a ghost ship. Still might be something.

“True.”

If I sense something happening and tell you it is time to leave, I expect you not to hesitate.

“Yes, Mom.”

She mentally pokes me in the side.

Various logbooks and papers are all written in a foreign language, with far too many vowels and a bunch of those joined ae diphthongs. Upon looking over the navigation charts, I realize this ship is from Denmark. They’ve got a little painted wooden boat token—like something from Monopoly—sitting on the map at the end of a drawn line. Depending on how methodically they updated their position in the midst of whatever catastrophe befell them, it looks as though ‘the event’ occurred 463 miles east-northeast of the Bahamas.

Great. They sailed in from the direction of Europe and experienced some mysterious event well within the Bermuda Triangle. I’ve found the ship drifting a little south of Jamaica, which is almost 900 miles away from the last charted location. Heck of a run for a ghost ship.

Perhaps you were too quick to roll your eyes at the Bermuda Triangle?

“Hey, I almost rolled my eyes! And the ship obviously didn’t get swallowed up. It’s still here.”

No passengers or crew. According to some stories, the forces within the Triangle take the people and spit out the… packaging.

I grimace. “Okay, now you’re officially giving me the willies.”

Chapter Seventeen

Lost at Sea

A ship captain’s logbook is usually a good source of information for investigators.

Not so useful when it’s written in panicky Danish. The last two pages or so are significantly less neat than the rest, but the handwriting tells me it’s from the same person. Seems the captain had been under a ton of stress. Numbers at least, are the same, allowing me to take a guess at dates. ‘Juni’ is fairly obvious as June. Whatever occurred here started on June 7th, 1963. Possibly a day or two earlier since I’m only estimating the onset of weird based on when the handwriting became rushed and sloppy.

The majority of ship captains I’ve met in my days have all been fairly stoic. A person doesn’t end up helming a vessel this big without having nerve. Supernatural craziness could definitely lead to a captain coming partially unglued. Not all of them, though. In her first run as a mermaid, two hosts before me, Licinia ran into a ship captain who looked straight into her razormouth and didn’t flinch.

She let him live due to the sheer surprise of his reaction, and her respect for his courage.

Alas, the man probably died a drunk with no one believing his ‘tall tale’ about monstrous mermaids. Then again, a man confident enough to try killing a mermaid with a dagger after seeing the teeth could probably tell such a story and sound believable.

The door creaks again, but I ignore it since my danger sense is keeping mum, and continue sifting among the personal effects in and on the captain’s desk. Probably swaying in response to the ship’s motion on the waves. In one drawer, I find a box containing a hollow space the approximate size and shape of a revolver.

I glance at the bloodstain. Hmm. The victim might have been shot. No proof the captain did it. Anyone who knew he kept a gun in his desk could have done it. Hell, the blood might be the captain’s. There’s a definite irony in being murdered by one’s own weapon.

A scuff comes from behind me.

Okay, that’s a shoe. Am I imagining it? Do I resist the urge to peek and feel like an idiot when no one’s there? Or do I look and prove myself an idiot? Meh.

Scuff.

Oh, to hell with it.

Smirking, I twist around in the chair to look at the bridge—and damn near scream.

A rotting corpse stands five feet behind me. In addition to the ghastly sight of him, the odor wafting from him takes me straight back to being with Barnaby. He let drowning victims age in his ‘pantry’ as he preferred the taste of rotten flesh. Smells do exist underwater, and a sea cave containing dozens of human corpses gets quite rancid. This dude is so far gone I think even Barnaby would’ve turned his nose up at the meal. Fist-sized patches of skin and muscle have fallen away, revealing bone or blackening internal organs. Decomposition fluid has stained his formerly white officers’ shirt various shades of red, brown, and black. It’s impossible to tell how old he was at the time of his death beyond being an adult.

Despite being a supernatural creature, I find myself paralyzed in shock at this guy being so overwhelmingly putrid. I’m unable to do anything but stare.

He tilts his head slightly to one side, flesh squishing.

The sudden thought he’s confused why some other monster is on his turf and he can’t figure out how to react to me almost makes me laugh. But given my heart rate at the moment, the humor I’m finding here is just enough to nudge me back to mostly calm. It’s probably silly to point out his decayed state is at odds with the apparently short amount of time that’s passed for the ship.

“Hvorfor er du her?” asks the man in a near voiceless rasp of a whisper. The sound emanates from his presence more than his mouth, though what’s left of his lips did twitch.

“Sorry? I don’t understand you.”

“Taler du Amerikansk?”

“If you’re asking me if I’m an American, yes.” I nod.

He shifts his weight to one side, and rubs his forehead as if frustrated. It, too, squishes.

“Taler du andre sprog?”

I shake my head. “I have no idea what you just said.”

“Vy ponimayete Rossii?” rasps the man.

Okay, that sounded like Russian. I ask, “Do you understand Spanish?” in Spanish.

He shakes his head.

“What about French?” I ask, using French.

“Yes!” His eyes bulge in eagerness, nearly falling out of their sockets due to the complete absence of eyelids. “You understand French.”

“I do.”

He, rather cordially for a rotting corpse, bows. “I am Mikkel Hegner, the first mate.”

Of all the things possible to happen while exploring a ghost ship, having a pleasant conversation with a dead man didn’t even make the list.

“Alex Silver,” I say. Here’s hoping he doesn’t want to shake.

“What are you?” Mikkel steps closer, leaning in to study me like I’m a cursed diamond in a museum.

“Mermaid. Not mortal.”

He nods. “I sensed you were not mortal. Aren’t you a bit too underdressed to be wandering around on a ship?”

I raise an eyebrow. “Aren’t you a bit too dead to be wandering around a ship?”

Mikkel bows his head, sighing. “So it would seem. Are you a stowaway?”

“No. Merely visiting. As I said, I’m a mermaid. I can take my leave whenever I so choose. In case you haven’t realized, your ship is drifting aimlessly.”

Mikkel rubs his chin, which promptly comes off in his hand. He jams his mandible back into place. I’ve seen some nasty things before, but the crack of the bone snapping into place coupled with the visual is enough to make me regret that last mackerel I ate.

“A visiting mermaid on board the Syv Stjerner. Who would have thought?”

“So says the dead guy.” I smirk. “What does Syv Stjerner mean?”

“Seven Stars.”

“Pretty. So… where did everyone go?”

Mikkel stares off into space for a few seconds, then tells me he remembers it being dark out. Less than twenty minutes before midnight. They observed a smaller vessel a little over a mile ahead of them being swallowed by some manner of unidentified giant submarine. The captain ordered an emergency turn. He describes chaos, people screaming, panic. An abandon ship order, lights faltering, and darkness. Mikkel is certain he died as a result of being shot, but can’t say who did it, or why. When I ask him what threw the ship into chaos, he struggles to come up with an answer more than ‘something evil.’ The guy is not giving off any sense of malice, so I’m inclined—for now—to think of him as a victim in whatever happened here. His memory is spotty at best, large pieces—and frustratingly, important details, are absent. Some ghosts get stuck so firmly in the moment of their demise they lose track of everything else. Or maybe whatever dark energy infuses this ship is preventing him from recalling the past accurately. My telepathy doesn’t work on ghosts since they don’t have physical brains. Doesn’t work on zombies either since their brains are tapioca. Apparently, it also doesn’t work on whatever this guy is.

I blink. “Did you say swallowed by a giant submarine?”

“Aye. It resembled an enormous manta ray. Larger than this ship but not so much it could have swallowed us, too. The craft it consumed looked to be a fifty- or sixty-foot pleasure vessel, or perhaps a private fishing boat.”

Eek. Hearing him say that scares me more than this whole ship, especially after finding ruins on the sea floor apparently of alien origin. Could all the weird things going on in the Bermuda Triangle be the work of aliens operating out of an undersea base?

I’d stand, but Mikkel is still kinda looming over me, so I lean back, resting my elbows on the desk behind me. “Did this giant manta sub attack the Seven Stars, too?”

“No, but watching it take the other vessel before diving convinced the captain to change course and take a longer way around to avoid the area.” Mikkel turns away from me, stumbles a few steps, and ends up leaning on the navigation table. “What happened next, I do not know. Now, I fear we are cursed.”

“Whoa. I feel like we missed a chunk of the narrative there. Okay, let’s start with this: who or what cursed you?”

Mikkel lifts his head to look at me. His eyes are sad, but his face… eek. I turn my eyes away, lest I actually lose my lunch. “I don’t remember, Alex. There is a... gap in my memory. One minute we are fleeing... and the next... we are all cursed.”

“How did you get cursed? And by whom?”

“I... do not know. My head is in a bit of a fog.”

“Okay fine. How, exactly are you cursed... other than being a living corpse?”

He tries to grin. “Wouldn’t that be enough?”

“Actually, yeah. Sounds terrible.”

“It is. The curse is rather extensive, I’m afraid. The ship exists only until sunrise. Because of that, you should probably leave before then.”

“What happens at sunrise?” I stand, tempted to approach and comfort him but… yeah. Dead. I feel horrible for the guy, but touching is not a great idea.

“The Seven Stars slips into limbo. I don’t remember how long it has been since we last had a night’s escape.”

“Sorry… night’s escape?” I ask.

Mikkel’s lips do that ‘trying to smile’ thing again. “We mostly float in void. Sometimes, the ship emerges back into the world as it is now. I consider it an escape.”

“Ahh.”

He pauses, shifts his eyeballs from me to the bloodstain on the floor, back to me. “Please help us, Alexis Silver. Please break the curse… I feel you may be able to.”

I puff air out the side of my mouth, tossing a strand of hair away from my eye. “Okay. I’m already here. Have a good nine or so hours until sunrise, most likely. I’ll try to help. What do I need to do?”

Mikkel stares blankly at me. He hangs his head. “I am not sure.”

“Right… Okay. Guess I’ll start looking around for anything important. Can you check the journal on the captain’s desk? I can’t read Danish. Maybe there’s something helpful in there.”

Mikkel walks past me to the desk, staring at the logbook as if he isn’t sure what it even is.

Yeah, this is going to be fun. Gotta at least try.

Chapter Eighteen

Definitely Not Pirates

Curses are often inexact problems.

Sometimes, they’re the ‘mess with my tomb and thousands will die’ variety. Sometimes, they’re as simple as telling someone ‘F you and the horse you rode in on’—which is generally harmless unless the person saying it has Licinia’s skills. There is a reason, after all, people call them ‘curse words.’ Though, she’d never use something so crude. Her idea of a ‘simple’ curse is along the lines of ‘may the fleas of a thousand camels infest your nether regions.’

Oh, I simply must try that one… she chuckles. Can you imagine the screaming?

Ack. What have I done?

Licinia laughs louder.

It’s funny because she’s not serious. It’s disturbing because she can laugh while we’re exploring a cursed ghost ship. Exactly how dangerous it is for me to be pulled into limbo if this takes too long is a mystery. Nothing called ‘limbo’ ever ends well for anyone, but at least the ship’s not about to be drawn through a rift into a dentist’s waiting room. Talk about interminable.

I exit the bridge via an internal stairway down to the main deck. It’s so damn quiet and echoey in here, the faint pat of my bare feet on the steps seems loud enough to be heard in the engine room. As with the weather deck, the hallway here is also a complete mess of random junk thrown hither and yon. There’s plenty of clothing lying around in dropped luggage, but no point wasting time hunting for anything that fits me. I’m the only living person on board… and I might need to make a rather rapid return to the sea at any moment.

Besides, stealing from a cursed ghost ship has bad idea written all over it. It’s somewhere between desecrating a grave and Indiana Jones swiping the little golden statue. I doubt a huge boulder is going to chase me down this corridor, but ‘bad consequences’ aren’t limited to giant rocks. The real world has a much larger special effects budget.

It is amusing to me you’re simultaneously excited and frightened.

Most people who adore doing dangerous things for fun enjoy the adrenaline. And I’m not mortally frightened. Closer to how one feels exploring a yard where wasps are known to exist. The worst fate ahead of me is likely painful and highly annoying, but not deadly. At least, I hope. Curses, after all, are open to interpretation. Death is hardly the worst thing they can do to someone. Sometimes, people get stuck hosting the Golden Globes.

Speaking of curses, a commonality is source. The vast majority of them originate from one person with a command of mystical knowledge placing a curse on an individual, location, or object… often as a last act of spite upon their death. Dying as part of one’s magical ritual certainly ‘kicks it up a notch’ as Emeril would say. Talk about commitment to one’s craft.

Other curses come from groups of mystics acting together, but that’s getting more into the tomb-style curses such as the ones guarding various pharaohs or ancient burial grounds. It’s pretty unlikely a whole team of mystic-priests boarded this ship intending to curse it.

A tiny fraction of curses are the direct result of powerful entities like demons and demigods saying ‘screw this mortal in particular.’ Typically, it only happens if a person does something seriously offensive to said entity. But every now and then, a demigod will wake up on the wrong side of their interdimensional bed and end up in a bad mood.

And since we are in the open sea...

Right... ocean gods.

Licinia would know if Amphitrite decided to hate this ship. She’d also probably know if they ticked off Poseidon. Since she hasn’t said anything about either, it’s safe to consider both unlikely. I suppose some random passenger might have brought an object on board stolen from ancient ruins in Peru and an angry demigod-slash-demon followed.

I mull the idea over while making my way down the hallway, peeking into each doorway. It totally looks like all the passengers freaked out at the same time and ran. Every stateroom looks as though its occupant left abruptly only minutes ago. One even has a cup of coffee in it, though I don’t get close enough to check it for heat. Something tells me it’s still going to be warm and I’m already on edge. Finding still-hot coffee in a ship empty for decades would be too weird for me to handle on top of everything else.

Yeah, okay, bit wimpy of me. I love watching this creepy boat stuff on television. But being on it is different. Still fascinating, though much more difficult to curl up and enjoy while sipping tea.

As I near the midpoint of the ship, small bloodstains start to show up here and there. I say small in comparison to the puddle on the bridge. My guess is Mikkel died to a gunshot wound and bled out. The spatters down here are indicative of knife injuries or blunt trauma. Something much more sinister than a simple stampede to the outside happened.

I reach for another door to check out the stateroom behind it. Before my fingers make contact, a blonde woman in a chemise appears out of thin air farther down the hallway to my right, already at a full run toward me, screaming.

“Holy crap!”

Just as I turn, an invisible force yanks her nightie from behind. She spins around, shrieks again in horror, then rams a previously nonexistent knife into nothing at about chest level. The blade floats on its own as if stuck in something—or someone. She backs up, both hands over her mouth in shock, seeming about to break down in sobs. Rapid blurs suggestive of other people rushing by appear around her. One of them grabs her arm and drags her along; the apparitions disappearing into a blur as she resumes fleeing.

I stand there staring at the spot for at least five minutes.

This ship is so infused with wonky energy it’s impossible for me to sense a ghost by feel alone. However, this appears to be a residual manifestation rather than a sentient ghost.

Agreed, says Licinia. Her expression makes me believe she killed someone she knew, which raises several questions but explains how the moment left an emotional imprint here.

Yeah, questions indeed. Why would a woman randomly stab someone she knew well to death in the middle of an abandon ship panic? A large knife is not usually the sort of accessory a woman takes to bed with her. For what reason did she happen to be carrying one in the first place while running down the hall? And, of course, the biggest question: if she’d been in a crowd of other people at the time, why did they completely ignore her stabbing someone and help her continue to escape?

The blurry hints of people running by her right before she vanished isn’t like they came out of nowhere. This imprint had been burned into the ship because of that woman’s emotions. Everyone else didn’t matter until the moment they involved themselves and helped her. She hadn’t been in a mental state to process anyone’s identity, so the other apparitions took the form of indistinct person-shapes.

Another question on my mind is... why didn’t the victim appear in the vision?

She couldn’t bear the memory? Licinia nudges me toward the spot, so I walk to the exact place the stabbing occurred.

Sure enough, the carpet has a bloodstain. Difficult to see the subtle difference in color on a red rug in the dark, but it’s definitely here. Still even smells like fresh-ish blood.

Licinia ‘leans forward’ so to speak, a request to use my body. I mentally step aside, allowing her to take over. We squat to touch the blood while she whispers in Arabic. She lifts our hand away from the rug, smearing blood between our thumb and fingers.

“Her boyfriend,” I say in a voice not mine, slightly deeper with a strong Egyptian accent. “She did not kill him, though.”

He survived a knife to the heart?

“No, dear.” Licinia recedes. He was already dead when she stabbed him.

Oh, that’s fairly terrifying. Undead?

It is too difficult to say. It’s possible someone else shot or stabbed him a second before she did. I know only that her blade did not take his life.

Interesting… that could explain why the other people didn’t react. The whole mob might’ve been party to his murder. Wonder if this woman’s boyfriend might have been the cause of the disaster here, or at least played some role in it. What else could make multiple passengers want to murder him?

Unless, of course, he was already dead.

My first thought of undead might be the right one.

The more staterooms and other areas I explore on my way down the hall, the deeper my confusion gets as to what made the captain order everyone to the lifeboats. Additional bloodstains plus some bullet-marks on the walls or holes in doors reveals there’d been fighting going on. More violence than simply one woman adding a knife wound to her ex.

Dropped books, dirty plates, and the clinging fragrance of humanity to most of these rooms tells me people had been sheltering in their quarters for at least a day or two. The apparition being in a nightie could indicate the evacuation order happened in the middle of the night, but she also might have not bothered to get dressed if she expected to spend all day in bed due to some manner of quarantine.

Damn. I don’t like it when a clue raises more questions than it answers.

Think, Alex.

Whatever doomed the ship may or may not have been paranormal in nature. Or related to a giant manta-ray shaped submarine engulfing a small pleasure boat. Mikkel’s not the most reliable source of information as he seemed a bit confused. Can’t fault him really, ending up as a cursed rotting sailor on an endlessly drifting ghost ship has to be rough on a guy. But I’m not taking his sighting as definite fact. He could have hallucinated or dreamed it, and now can’t tell the difference between reality and imagination.

There is ample evidence of violence. Someone clearly shot Mikkel. At least one man got stabbed in the main hall of the main deck, right in the midst of a large, rushing crowd. In addition to the two known deaths, I’ve spotted dozens of other bloodstains, bullet holes, and broken stuff. One spot even had a barricade of chairs where people appeared to have tried to block off a corridor.

Pirates?

I mean, we’re not anywhere near Somalia, but the interior of the Seven Stars certainly looks as though multiple skirmishes happened. Passengers and crew fighting off pirates could explain it, but not the abandon ship order. Unless… maybe pirates stormed the bridge, shot Mikkel dead, and demanded the captain clear the boat.

Nah. Doesn’t make sense to me. Pirates would want to keep hostages.

Maybe Soviets? We are near Cuba. Could this ship have strayed too close to something top secret and been attacked by military forces? Wait, no… the Cuban Missile Crisis was 1962, if I remember right. The calendar on the bridge showed June 1963. It would’ve been over by then. Also, the chaos doesn’t fit. If soldiers stormed the boat, they would’ve either killed everyone where they found them, or calmly escorted them all to the outer deck to get them out of the way before impounding the ship. In one case, there’d be blood everywhere. In the other, far less chaos.

Grr.

Also, neither military intervention nor pirates explains a curse.

Ghost pirate ship?

Now you’re getting silly.

I sigh.

There is a fine line between silliness and desperation. I’m grasping at so many straws here I could open an ice cream parlor. Hmm. I head back to the barricade and study the area. Blood and bullet holes in the corridor on only the stern side tell me an extremely one-sided battle happened here. I’m picturing a group of armed people standing on one side of the pile of chairs shooting into an oncoming group that lacked firearms. Evidence the barrier had been overwhelmed is both baffling and unsettling. More so is the relative smallness of the bloodstains—sprays on the wall, dribbles on the floor. Not one large pool where anyone fell dead.

Either the people firing guns had the absolute worst aim in the world, or something unusual went on. Considering I’m on a ghost ship and recently had a conversation with a dead man, unusual seems the most likely explanation.

A trail of bloody footprints piques my curiosity. I follow it down a side hall to a stairwell, and up—stopping short in the doorway at the top, gawking at the bloody mess of the ship’s rear deck. A few dozen lounge chairs, some tables, and sun umbrellas are so thoroughly coated in crimson it looks like someone tried to recreate the prom scene from Carrie here. Other than a few spilled drinks (and all the blood), the rear deck doesn’t appear as chaotic as the interior halls or promenade deck. The chairs are mostly still in neat rows; none of the umbrellas are toppled. I’m guessing no one was here when the evacuation order happened.

It might mean the curse started here.

I step out onto the deck, the floor slippery under my feet due to the blood. My hair trails to the left in a breeze blowing crossways over the ship. Beyond the stark white lines of the banister railing ahead of me, the ocean appears dark, calm, and inviting. The Seven Stars isn’t throwing up a wake, the night air tomb quiet.

Two men lay dead near an empty lifeboat station at the far left corner, both in the white shirts and black pants of ships’ crew. Their position implies they died in the process of lowering the lifeboat, though from my present distance, their injuries aren’t obvious. Can’t tell if the blood on them is theirs considering how much of it is all over the surrounding deck.

Even after walking right up to them, it’s still not terribly obvious how they died. Their shirts don’t show any signs of penetrating injuries. Unlike Mikkel, their bodies don’t appear very decayed—merely pallid. I see no visible damage to their bodies, ruling out being shot in the head or having their brains smashed in. These two appear more like I’d expect corpses on this ship to be. Everything else about this ship is stuck in time seemingly less than an hour after all hell broke loose. Mikkel seemed to have been rotting for weeks, but he’d been shot. I can’t determine what happened to these guys, so perhaps ‘the curse’ killed them?

Hands on my hips, I tap my foot in the blood slick while thinking where to go from here.

“Well, you two aren’t going to be much help explaining what happened.”

The men abruptly begin to stand.

Startled, I jump back, slip in the blood, and land on my butt.

Ugh.

“That wasn’t nice of you,” I say.

The former crewmen rise to their feet and turn to stare at me. Like Mikkel, they seem bewildered at my presence here—but only for a few seconds. The blond man jumps at me, reaching for my throat. He tackles me flat to the deck, but isn’t strong enough to crush my neck thanks to me being quite a bit tougher than a mortal. The other guy grabs my left ankle and pulls me away from the first man, like a dog fighting for a scrap of meat.

And yeah, I’m the scrap of meat in this scenario.

Syrupy blood is rather slippery. I slide out from under the blond guy, crashing into the other man’s legs and knocking him over on top of us. It’s beyond obvious these men are dead. The sight of a nude siren on the rocks is the sort of thing capable of turning men into lemmings, willingly leaping off their ships straight to their doom.

These two?

No reaction whatsoever.

Even giving off a pulse of charm doesn’t get them to stop playing tug of war with me as the rope. What does it say that my charm worked on a dark master but not these guys? Right. Enough of this. I punt the brown-haired guy in the face, knocking him over backward and sending him sliding into a tangle of lounge chairs. Blondie tries to choke me out as we roll around in blood. I can’t get any sort of traction on the floor, though he can’t either.

Grumbling, I grab his wrists, peel his grip away from my neck, and toss him to the side. My attempt to stand up turns into a ten second impression of someone playing drunken Twister. The brown-haired walking corpse tries to grab me from behind, but by this point, I’m thoroughly covered in blood and slip out of his grasp.

I kick him in the chest, sending him careening into another row of lounge chairs, a few of which tumble overboard when he crashes into the banister. Again, I attempt standing. My feet shoot out from under me, dumping me flat on my front an instant before the blond guy runs in with a haymaker. His wild punch hitting nothing spins him off his feet.

Dress shoes aren’t terribly good for traction, either.

“You two aren’t in the mood to talk?” I ask in French.

Neither man responds. The brown-haired guy extracts himself from the tangle of deck chairs, picking one up as a club. Okay, that’s it. Enough of you. I grab the blond guy’s leg and hurl him sliding across the deck into the path of the second undead crewman. He lands on his face, the deck chair stretched out over his head in a two-handed grip.

You’re not bad at shuffleboard, says Licinia.

I glance down at myself, dripping in blood. Ugh. So annoying. Considering I have occasionally eaten human meat, it’s not quite as disgusting as most people would think. Then again, the average person wouldn’t want to cover themselves in raspberry jam either, even though they can eat it.

After dragging myself over to a narrow steel post, I pull myself upright. My feet keep wanting to slide apart on the slick surface, but as long as I hold onto this post, it’s not too difficult to stay upright.

The dead crewmen are having about the same amount of luck staying on their feet. They keep trying to stand up before coming after me again, which results in them taking only two or three steps and falling again.

Brown-hair guy reaches me first.

Since I’m quite done with this mess, I punch him as hard as I can straight in the chest. My fist pierces his squishy flesh like a harpoon, leaving me bicep-deep in gore. I yank it out of him. Within seconds, the hole closes—even repairing his shirt.

Again, he tries to strangle me, so I punch him on the chin.

His jaw ends up somewhere in the ocean, his face exploding like dynamited Jell-O. It’s so good I spent time with Barnaby or the sights and smells assaulting me now would’ve been the end of it. It takes a lot to make a mermaid puke, but I’m getting close. While he staggers backward and falls over, the other guy attempts to rush me from behind, swinging another deck chair.

I duck.

His attack strikes the post I’d been holding, shattering the rickety wooden folding chair. The instant one of the legs hits the floor, I swipe it and ram the stake into his heart, losing my balance in the process. Again, I land on my butt as my feet squish out from under me. Unimpressed, the man pulls the improvised wood spear out of his body, the wound sealing up as soon as it’s out.

Dear, the curse is preserving them. You might have better luck eating them.

I clamp a hand over my mouth to stop myself from vomiting at the thought.

Licinia has a point, though. As long as the curse remains intact, these two aren’t going to die… well, die again.

Brunette, his face/jaw intact once more, grabs me from behind. He tries to pick me up and hold me helpless for his buddy to murder, but slips, going over backward and taking me with him. A pronounced crack accompanies me landing seated on his chest. Grr. The nerve of his ribs calling me fat.

Eventually, our slippery brawl drifts to the stern end of the deck. Out of sheer frustration—not wanting to waste more time on these two—I drive my clawed fingers into his chest and lift him. With everything I have, I throw Blondie over the banister. Seconds later, a distant splash confirms his encounter with the sea. Oblivious to this, the other crewman charges at me with another folding deck chair. Except running across a huge blood slick is not smart, especially for undead sailors. Before he gets close enough to swing at me, he wipes out and ends up sliding right past me, his head striking a metal post with a dull ding.

Ooh, how’d the railing taste?

He grabs the banister and pulls himself upright, then pounces at me.

His fingertips graze the front of my throat an instant before I raise both legs up and kick him as hard as I can. A damn fine kick, considering it launches him overboard. For a moment or two after the distant splash, I lay flat on my back, gazing up at the black night sky.

My vacation has taken a rather weird turn. Being covered head to toe in blood on a ghost ship wasn’t on my itinerary. No idea if undead sailors can swim, but even if they can, the most they’ll do is follow the boat for eternity. Can’t see any way for them to climb up the sheer steel hull in the absence of a rope ladder or line being dropped. So, yeah. Those two are out of my way.

And double yeah… it’s starting to look like pirates didn’t do this.

Chapter Nineteen

Voices out of Yesterday

Tired of repeatedly falling, I don’t bother trying to stand until after I’ve pulled myself across the floor to the entrance of the upper deck, out of the blood slick. Unlike the main deck, this corridor is a war zone, at least it is near the stern. Carnage extends about sixty feet to another improvised barricade. Lots of destroyed furniture, bullet holes, blood splats, and miscellaneous junk is strewn everywhere, even some improvised barricades. I don’t see any bodies, undead or otherwise.

I approach the largest barrier, which blocks off the entire hallway. It appears to have held firm against whatever attacked. Being on the skinny side plus not a dumb zombie, I’m able to climb it and squeeze through a gap near the ceiling. For once, the slick blood all over me comes in handy. On the bow side of the barrier, the corridor looks much the same as the main deck one level down… a chaos of random objects. Signs of a rushed evacuation with little evidence for why.

I resume checking rooms, exploring several dining halls, a ballroom, two bars, and a small casino before reaching an area of first-class staterooms. Being covered in blood is unpleasant, so I try the shower in one cabin. Since everything appears as if only minutes have passed, it doesn’t surprise me when the water turns on. No need wasting time waiting for hot or taking a full shower as I’m going to end up back in the ocean soon anyway. A quick rinse under full-blast cold does the trick.

Wet again, but I don’t mind.

A few staterooms later, I start finding corpses in the hall. Claws out, I tentatively check the dead over. These appear to be passengers, mostly middle-aged men and a few women who appeared to have died to a mixture of strangulation and blunt force trauma to the head. I’ll assume they fell victim to the undead. Makes sense to me now why the ‘battle’ at the smaller barricade downstairs looked so one-sided. The cursed ones didn’t have guns. It had to be a bunch of passengers and crew shooting at approaching undead who kept walking into the bullets. The zombies—or whatever they were—didn’t shoot back.

Also, the dead here aren’t zombies. Maritime legends are rife with stories of crews cursed to remain with their ships for eternity. Odd how Mikkel seemed closer to a normal person with some memory loss than the two from the stern deck. Then again, the first mate died to a gunshot and the other sailors seem to have succumbed to the curse.

The eighth stateroom I check smells like a young woman. People have distinctive scents, which is how bloodhounds can track individuals. Humans generally can’t detect these subtle smells, but most supernatural beings—especially werewolves—can. I’m no lycanthrope capable of telling what a person ate for dinner three days ago from one sniff of a recently worn shirt, but I am familiar enough with human scents to be able to differentiate by general age and gender. Body chemistry changes as people age. Children and teens smell different from adults. Middle-aged individuals smell different from thirtysomethings. Elderly also have distinct qualities to their scent—these days it’s especially obvious due in part to what medicines they’re on.

According to my nose, a teenage girl spent time in here. The room is huge—that is, for a cabin on a passenger ship—with two beds at opposite corners. I pick up the fainter scent of two adults on one bed, but their essence isn’t anywhere near as prevalent in the room. My guess is, a girl and her parents shared the suite, and she ended up hiding in here after something happened to the parents.

Clue sixty-something whatever—I lost count: something started turning people into undead. The crew tried to fight them off, likely while ordering the passengers to secure themselves in their staterooms. I’m going to further assume the containment effort failed, leading to the captain ultimately ordering everyone to abandon the ship.

The undead may not have caused the event as much as resulted from it.

Good point. But, something attacked the ship and they tried to fight it off. If not undead, then what?

Demons?

Ugh.

A book on a nearby desk catches my eye. It’s size, fanciness, and pages covered in handwriting scream diary. There isn’t too much in the world capable of causing a teen girl to abandon her diary at all, much less leave it wide open in plain sight. I completely understand the sentiment, even though I never kept a journal as a child—mostly due to not being able to afford one. Besides, back then, the sorts of adventures and fantasies I had would’ve resulted in me being sent to an institution for not being a ‘proper girl.’

Writing down my dreams of becoming a doctor or recounting the things my friends and I did would have been roughly equivalent to a serial killer documenting their murders—at least in terms of how society would’ve reacted.

You’re still exploring dangerous, abandoned places.

“Yeah, well…” I pick up the diary. “People don’t really change much. The only thing missing is a flour-sack dress.”

She laughs.

Alas, the diary is written in Danish. The pages are tear-stained though, so I’m guessing she knew something bad happened to her parents.

Licinia again leans forward in my mind.

She whispers an incantation. Tingling spreads over my hands, even stronger than the electric sensation in my skin wherever I make contact with the ship. Her minor spell sends energy into the diary, which rebounds into my thoughts, carrying emotional resonance. The girl who wrote this had been terrified. Fleeting images of panic in the hallways, people fighting and screaming come and go. She’s scared because the ship’s engine and electrical power died without warning, and the crew couldn’t fix it. This girl and her parents hid in here for days while the ship floated adrift. I see a vision of a man in a crew uniform appearing in the half-open doorway, his expression one of exhaustion.

“Undskyld. De er døde,” says the man.

The apparition of the crewman in her memory flickers like an old-timey movie, vanishing to black, replaying over and over only long enough to repeat the words. They’re meaningless to me, but the emotional blow they deliver to the girl who owned this book is unmistakable. He must be saying her parents are dead.

Panicked hope is the final emotion Licinia’s spell reads from the book. I catch a fleeting glimpse of another crewman banging on the door and a young blonde teen darting away from the diary and going out into the hall.

The abandon ship call…

Licinia and I share a moment of silently hoping the girl survived. If she’d been fourteen at the time, she’d be in her seventies today. What a choice… sitting in a lifeboat hundreds of miles away from land, or staying on an ocean liner full of—something evil.

Think I’d have taken the lifeboat option, too.

Chapter Twenty

Mad Miss Emmeline

I heave a sad sigh and set the diary back down on the desk where it was.

Looking at items is not the same as stealing from a ghost ship. While I have liberated a few things from shipwrecks in the past, nothing had any emotional significance to anyone who died on board. Plates, a candlestick or two, fancy goblets... stuff that had been part of the ship. And I never collected items from shipwrecks where it felt as though the spirits remained behind—the difference between junk on the sea floor and a proper grave site.

The Seven Stars is not a shipwreck, and it definitely has some angry energy. So, yeah, not taking the diary. At least if I don’t have her angry ghost coming after me, I can continue to hope she got out of here alive.

I cross the hall to the next first-class stateroom. This one smells like two people, adults, had spent several days in here with the doors closed. Clothing in the closet appears stylish—for 1963—and not cheap. Definitely a man and a woman. A small safe is open, revealing several pieces of fancy jewelry. The sight of it makes Licinia shake her head, thinking the woman had tried to grab it in a rush during the abandon ship order and likely got dragged off by her husband or the crew.

Never could understand why anyone would risk their life for valuables.

Family heirloom?

I shrug. Maybe.

My alarm sense buzzes.

I jump, scream, and whirl around to face the doorway, claws out. Nothing’s there, but I can’t make myself move. After spending almost two hours constantly on edge in the creepiest place I’ve ever been in, a genuine sudden threat startles me so bad my muscles lock up. Even those two former crewmen didn’t make my alarm sense go off.

Nothing is obviously here, yet the buzzing is still in my ears.

“Is the ship about to trap me in limbo?” I ask Licinia.

No, child. I sense a presence.

Moving only my head, I scan my surroundings. Disheveled bed, clothing tossed all over the floor, upended luggage, the safe hanging open. This room leaps to the top of my ‘places I do not want to be’ list. I hate the feeling. I used to be the little kid who never had any fear of basements, attics, or scary buildings and laughed at her friends for being afraid of the dark.

The instant I take a step toward the door, a fiery hot nail whacks me in the right ankle.

Shrieking, I jump to the left, dragging a black snake as thick as my forearm out from under a discarded evening gown. It releases my leg as I stumble away. The second time my retreating foot hits the ground, my leg gives out—entirely deadened from ankle to hip already.

As I crash down onto my side, the snake rises up in a cobra-like posture, hissing.

I’m not the biggest fan of snakes, but they don’t generally scare me. However, snakes aren’t usually so black they appear to be made of Void energy with glowing red eyes. This little bastard doesn’t scare me either—actually, I’m furious.

It ducks back from my attempt to claw its head off and hisses again, hovering just out of my reach as if waiting for something. The numbness in my leg shifts to pain, spreading up into my chest. Neither one of my legs wants to move now. So, I drag myself at the snake and swipe at its head again, but the little son of a bitch zips out of the way, hissing.

Grr.

Fury gets the better of me. I hiss right back at the bastard—with my razormouth. The snake practically leans backward from the force of the sound coming out of me. I’ve never seen a snake make an ‘oh hell no’ face before, but this one does… then zooms out of the cabin.

The sensation of tiny bugs devouring me from the inside reaches the middle of my chest. Dammit. Licinia?

Yes, dear?

If I ever again complain about a clue being so obvious it could’ve bitten me, please take over one arm and slap me.

She laughs.

I drag myself partially out into the hallway, glaring death at the fleeing snake. It races away at the speed of a fleeting shadow, zooming down the corridor before disappearing under the fifth door on the right side. Pain picks this moment to reach my shoulders. Both arms go numb and stop responding to my desire to move. I’m stuck halfway out the door, face mushed into the rug.

Never been paralyzed before; don’t like it.

Two facts keep me from being frightened. One, the snake fled from me. It clearly appeared to be patiently waiting for its venom to kill, as if it knew anyone it bit would be dead in seconds. Also, I doubt the little monster expected me to have scarier fangs. Second—okay, third—pretty sure if the venom was going to kill me, it would’ve done so as soon as the pain reached my heart.

Feels like acid is actively destroying my flesh inside while it’s simultaneously regenerating. This is slightly more torturous since I can’t move at all. Granted, it’s not the most torture I’ve gone through in my lifetime. I have, after all, been to an Andy Gibb concert.

Anyway, I’m just going to lie here and wait for this crap to wear off.

Hopefully, it won’t take too long.

At least my alarm sense has quieted.

***

By my best guess, somewhere between ten and fifteen minutes later, the pain stops.

After a momentary full-body numbness, a dull ache settles in. This, I know well. I feel the same ache every time some idiot shoots me and the wound heals, though the pain has never been everywhere before. I turn on my side and prop my chin up on one hand, tapping my other fingers on the carpet.

Yeah, I may have become ambivalent to clothing as a mermaid, but I’ve developed a sudden craving for snakeskin shoes.

The position I’d been stuck in allowed me to watch the room the little bastard went to. Since he didn’t come back out, good chance I’m going to find him in there. Some might call me foolish for going straight after him, but the worst he’s going to do is paralyze me again. He’s way too little to swallow me. Other than being stiff and sore all over, I soon feel fine.

I push myself upright and stomp down the hall. There’s probably some significance to the place the snake hid within... being the only room in the entire corridor with a closed door. Like I said, a clue so obvious I wouldn’t notice it if it bit me.

Licinia takes over my right arm, raising it as if to slap me, but laughs instead.

Okay, I deserved that.

The door is locked, but also not made to endure the strength of an angry mermaid. I grab the knob and pull until the mechanism breaks off in my hand. Dammit. Should have expected as much. Grumbling, I chuck the knob aside, then rear back and stomp-kick the door by the lock plate. It swings inward, striking the wall almost as loud as a gunshot.

Inside, the large first-class stateroom appears relatively undisturbed. A large steamer trunk sits against the left wall. Dated-looking women’s clothes hang in the mini closet, more like the stuff my mother used to wear than what people wore in 1963. Six black candles form a row along the back edge of the writing desk, behind a pile of loose papers and books, all of which seem quite old. Something tells me the human skulls under the two middle candles are real.

There’s no overwhelming scent of a person in the air, which implies whoever belonged to this room didn’t spend days sheltering inside. Could mean they died early on or… considering the creepy décor, might have something to do with the curse in question.

My alarm sense rings faintly, more of a ‘stay alert’ than a ‘look out!’

This room does not have clothing all over the floor. Nowhere for the snake to hide, at least near the door. I step in, on alert for glowing red eyes. Apparently, the little bastard counted on the darkness shielding him, considering he’s in the distant right corner, out in the open... coiled up on the floor and watching me.

Pretending as though I can’t see him, I meander into the room, ‘looking around.’

Mind if I take the helm for a tick?

Licinia knows how angry I am and how much the need to twist this snake into pieces with my bare hands is driving me—however, she wouldn’t ask if not important. It does take me a few breaths to Zen my way back from the precipice of rage before I ‘let go’ of the body.

She raises our right arm at the snake, repeatedly chanting a three-word phrase in Arabic.

After the first recitation, the snake charges at us.

The second repetition stops the critter short, as if someone stepped on its tail. The third and fourth time she repeats the phrase, the ink-black serpent writhes, twisting and untwisting on the floor. Number five causes it to fly back into the wall—and the sixth time she repeats the words, the serpent bursts into a cloud of black smoke.

Darn. Guess it wasn’t a fleshy snake.

No, dear, says Licinia, receding into the back of my mind. A magical assassin. Not even alive. I’m sorry to say you could not have inflicted any pain on it.

Being momentarily disconnected from my body makes the dull ache everywhere feel stronger when I come back into control. Ugh. I set my hands on my hips, frowning at the spot where the creature exploded. So much for it leading us somewhere important. What’s the deal here, Licinia? I mean, what the hell is going on?

The venom it delivers typically kills in seconds and reanimates the victim.

The source of the zombies?

Yes.

Did something send it after me or has it been lurking?

Likely lurking. We haven’t been on board long enough for you to anger anyone enough to create one of these things.

I next rummage the steamer trunk, discovering more clothing as well as a boarding pass issued under the name Emmeline Fiske. A UK passport tucked in the same folder contains a photo of a wild-eyed woman in her mid-forties. She’s staring at the camera the way most people would look at someone pointing a gun at their face. Hmm. According to the passport, she’s forty-four—or was forty-four in 1963, born in 1919 when I’d been twenty.

“How does a British national wind up on a Danish ship sailing to the Bahamas?”

She bought a ticket?

I chuckle. Literally, yes, but London is a major sea port. Why would she go to Denmark to catch a ship when it would’ve been easier to travel directly from London? The navigation chart on the bridge showed a plot originating in Copenhagen.

Perhaps she’d been in Denmark already for other reasons. Forget the government documents. What’s on the table?

Good question. I drop the folder back in the trunk and check out the books and papers scattered across the desk.

The two skulls feel like they’re watching me, but it’s probably my imagination. Ignoring them, I sit on a nice cushioned seat and rifle among the papers. Most appear almost medieval in age, handwritten by quill. Some bear Latin writing, which I can kind of follow, some Arabic which Licinia is fluent in, and the rest are a scattering of ancient German, Italian, and something so foreign I can’t even tell what language it is. Two of the three books are huge, old, and full of hand-drawn pages. One appears Germanic, the other in Olde English. Licinia believes they are both grimoires containing magical knowledge.

Reasonable guess considering they look like creepy old witchcraft books. Plus, the magical snake had returned to this room. Witches come in multiple types, some generally benevolent and aligned with nature spirits… others not so nice. Granted, unless Licinia takes the time to study these books in depth, we’re only guessing Emmeline to be a ‘witch’ as opposed to a demonologist, sorcerer, or some other kind of mystic.

The third book is a journal, thankfully written in English.

According to the later entries, Emmeline was excited to obtain passage on this ship due to its name. She believed it was the ‘seven stars’ foretold to align by the writings of one Margaret Theobold, penned in the late 1600s. Emmeline writes about being proud of herself for ‘correctly’ interpreting the prophecy, as her contemporaries are fixated on literal stars. It appears this woman believed the ‘alignment’ in question referred to the ship named Seven Stars reaching a specific point within the Bermuda Triangle.

She attempted to open a gateway of some kind, based on these notes. Licinia nudges me into looking at the papers in Arabic. This woman believed the Bermuda Triangle to be an enormous spiritual hotspot, the mother of all ley line intersections. What I’m reading here along with what we’ve been seeing tells me she managed to do something, but her ritual failed in a big way. I think demons spilled into the ship.

Hmm. If Mikkel really did see a giant submarine eat a smaller ship and the captain changed course, maybe that threw off Emmeline’s ritual? The ship hadn’t been where she expected it to be.

Possibly.

You think she wanted to summon demons?

Hard to say, but my guess is no.

What else could she be trying to open a gate for?

The Germanic text there speaks of an ancient witch hunter stealing magic, called the Red Rider. My theory is she wanted to open a gateway to another dimension allowing magical energies to flow back into our world.

Wow, really?

Yes. Even as recently as when I walked the Earth as a mortal, magic was far more prevalent.

Not simply the absence of scientific understanding?

Partly. But, people did not need science when magic worked. And even then, magic was not common. All those legends and tales of folklore came from somewhere. Most are distortions of actual facts. Dragons once did exist, but they died off. The world no longer held enough magic to sustain them.

Right. What makes you so sure she failed?

For one thing, what happened to this ship. If she’d succeeded, it is most likely no one on board would have even noticed anything… unless they happened to possess latent magical talent too weak to manifest in the world as it is. For another thing, these notes are haphazard at best. I don’t want to call them ‘amateurish,’ since she’s certainly more advanced than a beginner. To be polite, I will say she appears to have lacked focus and rushed.

So… demons invaded the ship.

A distinct possibility.

I let out a long-suffering sigh. Great… Just great.

Chapter Twenty-one

The Engine

Hooray.

We’ve found the source of the curse. Maybe not the reason, but the source. My bet is on the accidental effect of a botched attempt to open a magical gate.

That said, there’s no sign any ritual happened in this stateroom, though. She could have performed it on the rear deck with all the blood...

Mikkel is both part of and outside the curse, says Licinia. Because of this, simply discussing the curse with him might actually break the curse.

Say again?

Breaking the curse may very well be much simpler than we’re thinking. We might only need to tell him what happened. Once he remembers, he is free.

And if he is free...

The rest of the ship is free. I feel Licinia shrug. It’s a working theory.

What makes him so important?

I meant that in the sense the curse is holding his foot like a rabbit trap, not a cage. He’s stuck, but not doomed. I don’t believe Mikkel is pivotal to the curse itself, merely the easiest to free from it. However, accidental curses are often like hose. All it takes is one little rip and the whole thing falls apart.

Better than nothing. Let’s go!

True. ‘Breaking a curse’ sounds like it’s going to require me smashing an altar or relocating some remains to a proper grave or… something more involved than merely telling a guy he’s dead because of a witch. Still, worth a shot.

I grab the journal and leave the room, heading down the hall to the nearest stairway up. I trust Licinia, but am a little skeptical it’s going to be as easy as merely reminding Mikkel what happened. Wonder if he got anything from the captain’s writings yet. It was, of course, the only job I gave him. Perhaps between those and Emmeline’s journal, we can figure things out.

A few minutes later, I emerge from the top of the stairwell into a corridor containing the officers’ quarters. The bridge is at the end on my left. Didn’t find anything in the officers’ rooms before, so I ignore them and hurry down the hall.

The bridge is empty.

Damn.

“Mikkel? Are you here,” I ask in French.

“I am.” He appears beside me, the reek of a corpse manifesting a second later.

Once my heart starts beating again, I sorta glare at him, but he didn’t intend to startle me on purpose. I can tell because he’s not smiling or laughing.

“I’ve found something,” I say. “Any luck with the captain’s logbook?”

“Somewhat…” He stares off into space. “The ship lost all power, leaving us adrift. The engine shut down, electrical system failed. Nothing worked except the plumbing. Even small battery-operated radios stopped working.”

Likely happened at the moment the demons arrived.

I nod as Mikkel shambles toward the captain’s station. “It’s all still foggy. The captain wrote about passengers becoming violent. Men he sent to check on the engine did not return. Several murders happened. He wrote about monsters. It all sounds quite mad.”

I fold my arms and try to sound comforting. “Mikkel, you do understand you’ve been killed and are still here on this ship, right?”

“Yes.”

“The world has many things beneath the veneer everyone believes to be real. Ghosts, demons, vampires. In this case, I don’t think it’s a product of madness. Evil actually happened here.”

He points at the desk. “We drifted without power for five days. Passengers hid in their cabins. For some reason, it seemed as though the monsters could not hurt them if they did so.”

I blink. Weird. How would hiding in their cabins protect people?

Do you remember hearing the old wives’ tale about having to invite vampires into your home or they couldn’t enter?

Yeah, it’s not true though.

Correct—for vampires. Demons cannot enter a home without permission or invitation. Once they’re in, however, it’s exquisitely difficult to get rid of them. A cabin on a passenger ship, if it provided the same security to someone as a home, could follow the same rule.

If people were safe in their rooms, then what happened?

Undead crew can open doors that demons couldn’t.

Ahh.

“So if the demons couldn’t get people in their cabins, they resorted to using meat puppets to do so. Eventually, the shelter afforded by cabins stopped working. Is that why the captain ordered an abandon ship?”

“He was crazy,” says Mikkel. “Out of his mind. He thought the ship was sinking, taking on water.”

I drum my fingers on the cover of Emmeline’s journal. “The demons got to him. They must have forced him to hallucinate, so he ordered everyone out of their rooms.”

Confusion and the ‘lost’ look in Mikkel’s eyes fades. He snaps his fingers. “The captain shot me. That’s why I’m dead and still here.”

“My guess is you died before the curse got you. Explains why you’re still lucid. I met a pair of your crewmates on the stern deck. They weren’t interested in talking.”

Mikkel grasps my shoulders, his hands squishy and devoid of warmth. “I’m stuck here until the curse is broken. I wish to move on.”

“Did telling you what happened break the curse?”

“No. I still feel the same.”

It was worth a try.

I nod, scratch my chin. “Hmm. Well, it sounds like the whole mess started when the engine died. Might as well check the engine room.”

He lets go of my shoulders. “Please hurry. Only two hours remain.”

Dammit. This is what I get for being happy about not having a deadline before.

Chapter Twenty-two

Taking On Water

While I’m not specifically familiar with the layout of this vessel, engine rooms tend to be near the stern and below decks.

Mikkel advised me to look for signs saying ‘motorrum,’ Danish for ‘engine room.’ Pretty obvious in hindsight. I take the stairs down from the bridge deck to the upper deck, jog another corridor and a half to a second set of stairs leading down past the main deck to the waterline deck. When the ship’s carrying a normal load, the floor of this level is roughly even with the water outside.

The engine room is probably one more level down at the very bottom, but this stairwell ends here.

My best guess is to head for the stern. This deck is mostly ‘steerage class’ cabins. Hmm. Do they still use the term steerage? Whatever. It’s the cheap rooms. Also, storage. No carpet down here, plain painted metal floors, little decoration. The same energy that’s been tingling in the bottoms of my feet the whole time I’ve been aboard is so thick in the air on this level, it feels like I’m walking into electrified cobwebs.

Multiple emergency fire stations have been broken into, the axes and extinguishers taken. More random stuff lays scattered everywhere as on the upper decks. Blood flows out of one narrow doorway up ahead. As much as I’m hesitant to look, I give in to curiosity—and regret it.

The corpse of a thirtyish man lays on the floor in the middle of a small cabin… well, at least his upper half. He’s missing from the base of the ribcage down, stomach, liver, and intestines unraveled out onto the floor. It doesn’t look ritualistic, more like a giant tore him in half and threw the body aside.

I ease the door shut and continue down the hall, searching for another stairwell to the floor below this one. Figure I’m about at the midpoint of the ship when a sudden roaring noise wells up behind me.

I twist to look back.

Seawater gushes in from the stairwell at the opposite end of the corridor where I entered, racing toward me.

“Seriously? You’re trying to scare me off with flooding?” I ask to no one in particular.

Mermaid or not, rapid flooding will sweep me straight off my feet and send me flying. I leap into the nearest cabin, not closing the door. Better to flood the room than being trapped inside, in case I can’t open the door. At least in here, I won’t be swept down the corridor out of control like a guppy being flushed.

Seconds later, seawater blasts in the door, shoving me back against the wall. I don’t bother fighting the swirling current or trying to keep my head above the surface. Mostly, I sit there with my arms folded and a sarcastic ‘really?’ expression flattening my eyebrows. I do, however, close the nictitating membranes over my eyes. They’re cool. Like built-in swim goggles. Even after almost a century, having a second set of eyelids is kinda weird. But, damn handy.

The cabin—likely the entire deck and everything below it, floods to the ceiling in only a few minutes. Although the seawater feels real, I have some doubts. The ship didn’t lurch, pitch, or experience any noticeable sudden motion before the water appeared. A flood of this rapidity coming in from a higher deck could only happen if the boat sank, and I’m not talking about ‘slipping gently into the embrace of Poseidon’ sinking. This is ‘pissed off Hulk smashing a fishing boat’ sinking.

An entire deck on a ship this size could only flood this fast if the vessel snapped in half. Snapping in half tends to be the exact opposite of subtle, and the ship has been nothing but still. This means either I am hallucinating the water or it’s some manner of bizarre conjuration. Whatever is in control of this ship obviously has no idea what I am or it wouldn’t try to scare me off with a fake flood. Being four decks below the surface during a sinking is perhaps on the top three ‘most terrifying things’ list for a large portion of the population.

Drowning is a horrible way to die. Ask me how I know.

Though I did most likely drown, I don’t remember personally suffering… just hanging there in the water watching other people take their last breaths, the horror and agony in their expressions haunts me still. Barnaby had to have done something to me to erase the memory of my own death.

Shall I split a hair, dear?

Please do.

You did not technically die. Seconds before you would have, Barnaby passed along the gift and I joined with you. There is no memory of drowning or struggling to breathe because you were too worried about trying to help other passengers swim to the surface. You do not remember blacking out.

I blacked out?

She chuckles. Yes. For just a few seconds. Not long enough to die. Though, without the gift, you would certainly have died. Only vampires die during their change… and it’s—to split another hair—technically the change that kills them. Even if they’re about to die from a terminal illness or wound, the change finishes the job. If someone truly dies, they can’t be changed to a mer or were.

Interesting, but good to know.

Distant clunks and bangs sound like water flooding into compartments on the floor below this deck. Two entire levels full of seawater should be dragging the Seven Stars down to the ocean floor, but I’m not feeling a change in ‘altitude’ so to speak. As far as my senses are telling me, the ship is still on the surface.

Stop looking for things to make sense. The Earth has two types of creatures that require people to ignore logic: demons and politicians.

I laugh—telepathically, since I’m under water.

You think I’m kidding. In Caesar’s court, truth became whatever he said it was. Not reality.

Fair point.

Apparently, the demons aren’t picking up on my unimpressed attitude or noticing I’ve failed to drown. The water is still here. Fine. Thank you for making my job easier. I stretch my legs out, put my feet together, and shift my lower body. My tail is almost twice as long as my human legs, so it ends up spilling across the cabin. The fluke at the end plus my thin rainbowy fins remain still, revealing the lack of current.

This flood is somewhat realistic and somewhat laughably fake. I’m inclined to think the water is really here, but the ship is not sinking. I wonder if the captain saw a similar phenomenon, and it’s what caused him to order the abandon ship. Believing they were sinking rapidly would definitely convince a captain to deploy lifeboats without hesitation.

Again, whatever. I’m fine with this new development. Stupid demons think they’re slowing me down, but it’s quite the opposite. I kick flip from a ‘seated’ position to swimming headfirst, grasp the doorjamb, and pull myself out into the hallway. Now that I’m underwater, my ears fill with hundreds of whispery voices from all over the ship. Probably demons or ghosts, since people have some difficulty speaking while their lungs are full of water. Even mermaids can’t speak underwater—we rely on telepathy.

I dart down the corridor to the next stairwell, swimming past a half-dozen corpses in crew uniforms. These don’t appear rotting like Mikkel, nor do they move like the two on the stern deck. Most have visible injuries. It’s unlikely they all died in this stairwell. I think the flood collected them. The bodies drift around me like logs as I swim out the door into the lowest deck. A sign with a direction arrow hangs on the wall in front of the doorway, the word “Motorrum” over it. I go that way.

Within seconds of my entering the corridor, a faint churn in the water comes from behind me and my alarm sense rings. I roll sideways, shifting from a headfirst swim to gliding backward in a ‘sitting’ pose.

Two creatures rush toward me. They’re generally humanoid in shape, but aren’t at all human. Pale white eyes glow from jet-black faces, their chins seemingly stretched downward to points. Horns jut out either side of their heads; clawed hands reach toward me. Black fur billows around their bodies from the waist down, cloven-hoofed feet flailing at the water.

Oh, dear. These poor demons didn’t think things through, did they? Hooves are ungainly on smooth steel floors, but they’re next to useless in the water. I grin at them for a second before unleashing the razormouth and charging at them.

I dash between the fiends, claw ripping at the one on the left. The speed of my passing creates a vacuum effect, smacking them together. I pull a somersault turn and attack again, tackle-grabbing the demon on the left, sinking claws into its sides while biting it on the shoulder and dragging it with me at high speed. On the way by, I tail-slap the other one. Despite the resistance of seawater, my tail smacks it into the wall hard enough to shake the ship.

No taste as foul as demon blood has ever entered my mouth before. It’s enough to make me gag, but not stop tearing. The demon struggles to claw at me, more or less helpless due to being shoved through the water at high speed. Alas, such speed means I run out of corridor in seconds. An instant before we smack into a steel bulkhead, I pull my teeth out and use the demon as a crash pillow. Its bones crunch on impact. I yank it off the wall and bite again, going for the neck. Beheading is usually a great way to kill something.

It catches me with a claw across the stomach, but the trade goes completely in my favor. I’ll take a shallow wound in exchange for a kill. The instant my jaw closes, severing the spine, the entire demon bursts into an ink stain. Had we been above water, it probably would’ve turned into vapor.

Mouth open to let seawater carry away the foul smell, I zoom down the hallway at the other demon. It flails around trying to defend itself, but has about as much luck as a cow trying to fight off a great white. It slashes at my face—so I bite its forearm, severing the hand.

Yes, I spit out the chunk. These things taste utterly horrible. Worse than a rotten egg and liver smoothie. Not sure what’s wrong with this stupid thing, but it doesn’t get the hint, continuing to come after me. Guess demons have no sense of self-preservation. I grab its remaining arm on my next pass, bite-tear it off, then go full Barnaby, ripping out the front of its throat and most of its chest with a series of savage bites.

Maybe not full Barnaby. He would’ve swallowed.

Finally, the second demon dissipates into a cloud of ink.

Bleh. Nasty. I shrink my face back to normal and spit a few times.

Demons are evil, vicious, and power-hungry… but not always intelligent.

So, what’s the difference between demons and people exactly?

Plane of origin.

Her perfectly straight answer hits me as funny, giving me a bad case of the giggles. After a look both ways to make sure no more demons are interested in committing suicide, I kick my tail and launch myself to the end of the corridor.

The door at the end is marked ‘motorrum’ in Danish as well as ‘engine room’ in English and ‘Salle des machines’ in French. Another sign reads ‘no passengers beyond this point’ in the same three languages. The door opens inward, which could be something of a problem. If the engine room hasn’t already flooded, the instant I turn the handle, it’s going to be.

Might as well get it over with.

I grab the handle and give it a hard twist.

Much to my surprise, the door doesn’t move. Good. Means the engine room is flooded, too. Might explain why it stopped working. Hmm. I’m no mechanical genius, but I’m fairly sure diesel-burning engines wouldn’t be happy underwater. Did Emmeline open a doorway to an aquatic plane? Those demons didn’t seem at all water-based, though. They probably would have been a real pain in the ass to deal with on land, but submerged? Like watching a pair of bison attempt rhythmic gymnastics.

Here’s hoping the answers are in front of me.

A hard shove, and the door swings inward, revealing a shimmery silver film over the doorway. It takes me a second to process what my eyes are telling me. The water flooding the hallway stops at the door, the engine room beyond still has air in it.

I grab the doorjamb on both sides and stick my head out of the water. It feels exactly like I’m surfacing, only sideways. From here, I can’t see much but a room full of big metal cabinets and shelves for about thirty feet, then two giant machines, one on either side—the engines. The room is two decks tall, and both engines are almost to the ceiling, the size of small houses. Catwalks allow access to the upper parts of the engines and the two mammoth drive shafts stretching aft. It’s as quiet in here as it’s been everywhere else on the ship—except for the faint tinkling of chains.

Whoa. This is bizarre.

Chapter Twenty-three

Quite a Nasty Typo

Not entirely sure what to expect, I sink to the floor and pull myself into the room.

The alarm bell rings in my head before I’m all the way out of the water. Rapid clomps come from my left, another demon charging at me from behind a shelf of spare parts. Oh, how the tables have turned. I’m about as mobile as a dead salmon at the moment.

It leaps at me—so I do the only thing possible and wrench my body around, smacking the airborne fiend with my tail. The demon flies straight up into the ceiling, splattering like an ink-black rotten tomato on impact. It starts to gloop downward, but disintegrates into smoke before any slime falls on me. A shallow, but noticeable dent in the steel overhead marks the spot it hit.

Beware the tail.

Talk about an unwieldy and impractical weapon, but in a perfect situation, it’s brutal.

Except I need legs right now. Shifting to human form isn’t as fast, but I’ve gotten it down to about ten seconds. Going to mermaid is pretty much instant. Funny, considering how long it took me to be able to change at all. I’d been stuck in the home Barnaby made out of a sea cave for weeks before my first tail shift. One could make a comparison to sex, as the first time is painful and messy… but I can’t imagine anyone experiencing anything even close to the same level of pain as the first time my tail came out.

Having all the skin peeled off my legs while sledgehammers broke my femurs and shins is more like it. Fortunately, it only hurt so much the first time as my body dealt with the physical changes required to become a mermaid.

I still have a habit of massaging my legs a little after shifting. Kind of a holdover to the ‘holy crap I’m still a person’ feeling of my first time reverting. Walked like a newborn foal for almost an hour afterward.

However, I am not a new mermaid. The claw marks on my stomach have shrunk down to mildly worse than cat scratches already. They only sting a little. Body still aches from the snake, though. I may have developed a permanent mild flinch reaction to black serpents. Time will tell.

Water still hangs like a wall in the doorway behind me. So, so weird.

Not sure what to expect, I keep my guard up and advance into the engine room. Once past the initial set of shelves, I enter an area like a small machine shop with workbenches and tools. Dozens of large chains hang from the ceiling. While they might belong here to lift heavy objects around, I’m pretty sure the barbed hooks and mangled corpses aren’t standard equipment. The headless, limbless remains of thirteen men—as well as the missing limbs—hang from everywhere overhead. Most people’s reaction would be screaming, but I’ve seen worse with Barnaby. At least these bodies aren’t visibly rotting.

Soft pats of dripping blood echo out of the shadows around me.

Yeah, someone or some thing is trying a little too hard to make this ship look like a nice little slice of Hell. Who’d have thought demons have interior decorators? I cautiously head over to the giant engines, where a narrow corridor allows passage between them. Wow, it’s like being a mouse under the hood of a car. The pistons inside these things have to be big enough to crush a person. It’s irrational, but I think I’d be afraid of them if they were running.

A flicker of candlelight breaks the darkness at the end—or dimness, I should say since it’s not truly dark to me. Candles? Wow. It’s probably pointless to comment there’s no way candles should still be burning from 1963.

Yet that “Sweet Caroline” song is still clinging to the public consciousness.

Deals with the Devil and dark magic aren’t the same thing. And wow, dark master and music critic.

Child, I’ve been enjoying music for thousands of years. You think he made a deal with the Devil?

How else do you explain it? Humans have a reflexive, almost instinctual reaction to reply with ‘bah, bah, bah’ if they hear someone sing the words ‘Sweet Caroline.’

Hmm.

Silent as a barefoot ninja, I creep down the passage between engines. At the end, I pause to take in the scene before me. The candle glow comes from the perimeter of a ritual circle painted on the floor in a somewhat open area where two drive shafts link the massive engines to the gearworks driving the screws. A pair of foot-thick steel shafts span the room at head height to me, with only thin railings in the way of anyone touching them... or being killed by them.

The area up near the ceiling contains more chains, barbed hooks, and mangled bodies. Blood drips from the dead onto the drive shafts, and floor. Licinia’s attention goes straight to the symbols and mystical writing on the floor. Mine goes to the woman kneeling at the center of the ritual circle in a dark, hooded robe, surrounded by papers marked in arcane writing. It’s definitely Emmeline Fiske. Her face looks exactly like her passport photo, still mid-forties, but her hair’s gone prematurely grey, almost entirely pewter in color.

Licinia mentally facepalms. Her reaction is so strong she speaks directly out of my mouth.

“Well, there’s your problem, child. Your ritual circle is organized around a Saturn declension. No wonder you attracted demons. The focusing circumscription is entirely in the wrong house.”

“I hate it when Saturn’s in the wrong place,” I mumble.

Emmeline looks up at me. She seems about to scream from being startled, but ends up staring at me in bewildered shock, her eyes glowing red. “Gardnerian witch?”

What?

She’s assuming you’re a witch of a particular tradition because we are naked.

“Oh. No. I’m a mermaid.” I fold my arms. “Going to guess you’re no longer alive, or at least no longer completely human.”

Possessed. Definitely possessed. This explains the serpent.

Damnable thing. Yeah, I was thinking this witch made it to help generate zombies so she could take over the ship.

It is more likely the demon inside her did it. The woman you see is no longer in control. I do not believe her motives were inherently sinister.

“Or, you’re not even Emmeline right now.”

She tilts her head. “I am not sure. You aren’t one of the demons?”

I shrug. “Depends on who you ask. Generally, no. My kind aren’t demons.”

“I did not summon you?”

“Not the last time I checked.”

Emmeline draws a small dagger from a sheath on her belt. The instant the blade parts from the scabbard, I cringe at the presence of pure silver. “You are not bound to this ship?”

Uhh, crap. I lean back. “In the interest of full disclosure, I haven’t tried to leave the ship since coming aboard, but I don’t believe I’m stuck here yet, no.”

Her eyes flare even wider, manic desperation twisting her features. She shouts, “Please! End this torment,” and charges at me.

“Well… if you insist.”

Chapter Twenty-four

Torment

Emmeline is surprisingly agile and fast.

Not saying forty-four is elderly, but I was not expecting a bookish mystic to come at me like a vampire with boosted agility. The speed of her attack might have let her slip past my defenses if not for my instinctual reaction to silver: meaning panic. Rather than try to block, I dive to the side. She slices empty air as I flop on the bare steel floor and scramble back to my feet. Snarling, she whirls and tries again, thrusting for my stomach.

Hey, at least it’s not at my heart.

I throw my hips to the right, letting the blade go past me—close enough to feel burning but not draw blood—and grab her arm. Before even thinking about it, I ‘hot potato’ throw her across the room to get the damn silver thing away from me. Emmeline flips over once in midair before crashing into the port side drive shaft, sliding over it, and collapsing on the floor.

She springs upright without hesitation, showing no signs of having felt any pain at all. “It must end! You must slay me!” She rushes toward me again, raising the dagger ala Norman Bates.

Ready for her speed this time, I catch her by the wrist and throat, stalling her attack. She gurgles, grunting, the light in her eyes glowing brighter red. Emmeline is fast, but I’m stronger. As long as I can keep hold of her, I can control the fight. Honestly, despite this wench waving a silver dagger at me, killing her doesn’t feel right. Begging for death is something a demon would do on purpose... just to be a dick.

“You’re possessed. It wants me to kill you.”

“No,” she gurgles. “I want to die. It is my only escape.”

I spin with her, pushing her back against the closer engine. My left shoulder feels hot, as if a laser beam projected from the tip of the dagger into me. “The demon would say the same thing to trick me.”

“I’m already dead,” she rasps. “Time did not stop for me.”

Okay, that would explain her grey hair but not the relatively young face. Glowing red eyes are, however, a pretty good sign something is really wrong here. Unsure what to believe, I hesitate, merely holding her against the engine and pushing the dagger up to the side as far as my arm allows. Being this close to silver makes me itch everywhere, my eyes water, and it steals my breath. It’s as irritating as being near concentrated ammonia.

I think my alarm sense is screaming at me but I’m too freaked out to hear it. Licinia’s also screaming at me, though she’s reverted to Arabic, which means she’s panicking, too. She doesn’t want me to be destroyed. What’s happening?

“Do… it,” rasps Emmeline. “I’m not trying to attack you. He is. My body is lost.”

A clink of heavy chain above me gives enough warning for me to jump aside an instant before a three-foot tall barbed hook swipes through the air where I’d been. I land on all fours, scramble a short distance away and leap up to my feet as Emmeline, now free, runs after me. Another, somewhat smaller, hook comes at me from the left at the same time.

Not taking chances with a silver weapon in play. I jump back, putting the flying chain between us. It buys me a second to grab on and plant one foot in the curve of the huge hook, riding the chain away from her—at least until the demon controlling it realizes what I did and reverses it, sending me swinging back at her.

Emmeline’s a little slow to respond to my Tarzan impersonation. I grab the chain above my head in both hands and drive a double kick into her back before letting go and dropping to my feet. She flies over the ritual circle and lands on her front, sliding down the open passage between transmission housings and coming to a stop like thirty feet away at a wall. Above her, the two huge drive shafts pass through watertight seals on their way to the screws.

“Hey, not funny. Attacking mermaids with giant fish hooks is kind of offensive.”

Emmeline gets up, again showing no signs of injury. “The hooks with the dead were the demons’ doing. I have been a prisoner in my own body for decades.”

Despite her relatively cordial tone, her facial expression is pure rage. She runs at me, taking care to go around the ceremonial circle. Much to Licinia’s dismay, I stand my ground, all my attention focused on the knife. This woman—or should I say the demon controlling her—is not exactly a Navy SEAL professional knife fighter. My earlier comparison to Norman Bates is fairly accurate. Her attacks are basic and predictable… enough for me to roll the dice and try to catch her arm and remove the knife.

She icepicks the dagger at me again as expected. Charging at her causes her to mistime the downstroke and lets me grab her forearm in both hands. Wow, I really don’t like having a silver knife so close to my arms.

I squeeze, trying to break bones so she loses her grip, but the woman’s arm refuses to give. Yeah, she’s definitely not human anymore. Snarling, she fights me for control of her arm. Being a little taller than me, she has a mild advantage in leverage but it’s not enough to counteract my major advantage in strength.

Swear we must look like a pair of teenagers fighting over the television remote. One of these days, I really ought to consider actually learning how to fight if I’m going to be spending so much time on land. Instinct is fine for underwater, but doesn’t help me much otherwise.

Another fishhook comes at me from above. I swing Emmeline around, using her as a shield. The hook diverts to the side.

“Why?” rasps Emmeline.

“Huh?”

“End this torment. Why aren’t you doing it?”

“Because I’m still not sure if the demon is trying to trick me.” I swing her around to the right, forcing another hook to abort its attack. They’re not silver, but it still doesn’t feel like a great idea to let them hit me. Last thing I need to do is end up helpless in the presence of a silver knife.

We struggle back and forth for several minutes, Emmeline constantly rasping pleas for me to kill her. The disconnect between her tone and facial expression starts to feel genuine. It simply doesn’t seem possible for a demon to fake such desperation.

“What happened here?” I ask.

She scratches her left hand at my chest. Annoying, but human fingernails—even demonically tough ones—don’t hurt too much. “When the moon has full eclipsed—”

I drag her out of the way of the larger hook. It misses my head by inches and smacks into the engine housing with a painfully loud clang.

“—the seven stars shall cast light upon the rift—”

I move my hand, pinning her forearm to the metal wall.

“—through thinnest veil, the balance shifts.”

“Quoting Margaret Theobold?” I ask, my voice strained from the effort of keeping the silver away.

“Yes.” Her glowing red eyes peer past me.

This woman is dead already, child. You can’t save her. The entity within her is growing concerned and summoning aid. Many demons are gathering. Finish it now or we are in big trouble.

The demons aren’t that bad.

Sixty of them at once?

Crap.

Exactly.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“Don’t be,” shouts Emmeline. “Free me!”

The fish hook flies at me again. I spin to the side out of the way, dragging Emmeline into the air by one arm, swinging her up over my head, and hammering her body into the floor at the same instant the hook smashes against the engine housing. Emmeline twists around, not the slightest delay before attempting to get back up. I jump on top of her, pinning her down with my body while still holding her weapon aside.

Whispering shadows close in around us. The entire chamber floods with shadows, dozens of demons phasing in, turning the walls and ceiling into a roiling mass of eyes, faces, and claws.

My alarm sense wails as loud as it’s ever gone off before.

Hissing, Emmeline keeps trying to fling me off and stand. In a moment of sudden, desperate panic, I push past my instinctive aversion to silver, overpower her, wrap my hands around her fist folding the knife handle, and drive the blade deep into her sternum. The knife penetrates easily, bones giving a dried-out crunch. A spurt of black ichor sprays from her mouth with a joyous cry. All the fight leaves her body.

I don’t trust any of it, so I keep holding the dagger down, using her hand as somewhat of a shield between my skin and the silver. Feels like I’m stabbing her using a forge-hot rod, but I’m more afraid of letting go right now.

The chattering of demonic whispers closing in on me ceases.

All eighteen candles wink out at the same time.

Emmeline’s face rapidly wrinkles and thins, going from mid-forties to centenarian in mere seconds. “Thank you, child.”

“I’m actually older than you are.”

“Are you?” She lets her head lay back on the floor, smiling.

“Yeah. By about twenty years.”

“You look good for an old broad.”

I chuckle. “Thanks.”

“Please…” Emmeline struggles to lift her head. “Tell Mikkel I am sorry. This is not what I intended. Did not want… demons.” Her head sinks to the floor again as she emits a long, deathly wheeze. “Damn Saturn.”

Her body disintegrates into a wash of grey dust.

I leap away from the knife, waving my hands around to cool them. My left palm’s been charred with a pattern of the gaps between her fingers. Painful, but it’ll heal in a couple days. Turns out, the damn thing’s handle is not bound in leather, merely decorative silver braiding.

Son of a bitch. Who makes an all-silver dagger?

It’s an athame. Ceremonial. Not intended for fighting.

Yeah… sure. The thing’s not really sharp. Silver doesn’t hold an edge after all. But… funny thing about dark masters. Even a dull silver blade will slice us like a razor. Seemed to work pretty damn well on Emmeline, too—whatever she was.

She was human, possessed by a demon and steeped in dark magical energies for sixty years.

Right. That explains everything.

Look up.

I do… and blink. All the chains are gone, as are the mangled bodies. Whoa. I turn in place, gazing around. The engine room appears a bit dirty, but largely as it probably did the night the ship went crazy. Huh? I stare down at my feet. The tingling has stopped.

It’s actually kind of placid and nice in here now.

Great. This is the moment the ship sinks, isn’t it?

Probably. I’d say you should hurry on out of here before it goes down, but… mermaid.

I laugh.

Chapter Twenty-five

The Calm After the Storm

Turns out, the Seven Stars doesn’t sink once the source of the ‘evil’ is gone.

Why would it? It’s not as though the ship sustained major structural damage and only remained afloat due to supernatural forces—it merely suffered a demonic infestation. Nothing some careful fumigating won’t fix and certainly shouldn’t sink it.

The bodies are gone; the dangling hooks are gone; and the water flooding the hallways is gone too. All illusions. Power illusions, granted. But illusions nonetheless. And with luck, it should avoid being dragged into limbo now that Emmeline is gone.

We should still destroy this circle, says Licinia.

“She painted it on the floor,” I say aloud since there’s no one here to hear. “And I’m a little short on turpentine.”

There is paint there. We don’t need to erase the circle, merely render it meaningless.

I feel a bit like a toddler smearing paint on the walls, but hey… this serves a purpose greater than driving parents crazy. Licinia points out eighteen ‘key’ markings, which I modify into doodles. When finished, the circle no longer gives off any sort of supernatural energy pulse. Confident it’s been disempowered, I set the little can of black paint down and make my way out of the engine room.

Interestingly, the giant engines no longer scare me. Yeah, this ship had been saturated in creep. Kinda wonder now if the demons had been sleeping inside them. Whatever. They’re gone. This ship is so spiritually calm at the moment, I could probably sense a ghostly rat snooping around.

Well, I’m done here. Don’t feel tired yet, but I’m probably close to crashing hard. At a guess, since there are no operable clocks on this ship, sunrise is about an hour and a half away. Even though I’ve ‘cleansed’ the Seven Stars, the idea of sleeping aboard is about as welcoming as curling up for a nap in an empty coffin at a funeral home. Just doesn’t feel right. No big deal. I can find a shipwreck or grotto on the sea floor. Also, I’m hungry.

I walk down the hall from the engine room to the stairs and make my way up through the decks. Mikkel startles me by appearing at the base of the stairs leading to the command deck just as I’m stepping out onto the promenade.

He’s no longer rotting, having become a relatively handsome light-haired man in his early forties. Slight transparency plus two obvious bullet holes in his chest give away his ghostly nature. He’d been quite solid before, so I’m going to assume his corpse is probably on the floor in the bridge.

“Alex… you’ve done it.”

“Mostly by luck, but it seems so.”

He walks up to me and bows. “Thank you for breaking the curse and freeing me to move on… to wherever that might be.”

“You are likely going to reincarnate with little if any memory of this life. Prior to that, you may experience a time in a Heaven-like state.” I shrug. “Or so I’ve heard. Not really sure how it all works. I’m sure my soul went through the machinery hundreds of times before this life, and I don’t remember any of it.”

Mikkel smiles.

I look around at the clearly not sinking ship. “Wow… someone is going to lose their mind when they discover this thing drifting.”

“It will be the source of many stories,” says Mikkel, sounding almost proud.

Should we scuttle it to keep its secrets? asks Licinia.

Nah. There’s already enough garbage on the sea floor. I don’t want to make more. Besides, a ship from 1963 mysteriously reappearing adrift hundreds of miles from its last known location is going to end up on tinfoil-hat websites and documentaries. Like Mikkel says... a source of many stories to come.

“Well, I should be going. I’m still in the middle of something.”

“Perhaps there is a way for me to repay your kindness?”

I look at him, baffled at what a ghost could possibly do to help anyone. “Thanks, but you don’t have to feel obligated to do anything for me. Unless you can somehow find a specific shipwreck.”

Mikkel’s expression goes serious. “What is the name of the vessel?”

“Estrella de Mar,” I say.

He gazes off into space for a moment before nodding. “Yes. It is resting on the ocean floor not too far from here.”

I blink.

Spirits are sometimes able to divine knowledge from the spaces at the edges of the mortal world, especially if it relates in a way to their existence. A man who died at sea would likely be able to determine the location of another nearby shipwreck.

He bows. “I could lead you there, Alexis Silver. Would be my honor.”

I smile. “Lead the way, my good man.”

He sinks into the deck.

Okay… umm… right. I shrug, looking around one last time at the Seven Stars. “May you all rest in peace.”

With that, I climb up onto the banister, perching like a cat for a second to get my balance before diving off. A five-story fall to water can be mildly unpleasant for mortals—especially if they land flat—but I’m a professional.

My body pierces the surface like a needle, plunging straight down into the wonderful embrace of the ocean. Not far from where I enter the water, an indistinct patch of greenish-blue light drifts toward me. It’s maybe two feet across and cloudy, like a coalescence of smoke. It reminds me of a will-o-wisp. After a moment of running my hands around my legs to rinse off the last of the blood and dirt from the ship, I shift to mermaid form. Though the spirit presence floating near me bears no resemblance to the man I saw on the ship’s deck, or even a human being, I’ve no doubt it’s Mikkel. As my tail unfurls, he gives off a sense of awe, the sight of me confirming some long-harbored hope of mermaids being real. No idea if he understands how dark we can be, but I’m not going to ruin his storybook picture of us… not for the last few hours he remains on this plane.

The ghostly glow darts off into the deep. I follow, easily able to keep pace with him. He’s moving slower than I can cruise, but not agonizingly so. When I start to mentally grumble about being awake all night, Licinia mentions we don’t really need to sleep every day. We are, after all, not mortal. It’s mostly a function of habit for me to sleep each night. Merfolk do need rest, but going a day or two without it is only about as annoying as a normal person staying up a few hours later than usual.

Suppose it explains why I haven’t started yawning.

Hopefully, Niles the vampire isn’t going stir crazy in his room/cell. Hey, if Mikkel’s right about the location of the wreck, I’m going to come out ahead of the game time-wise. At the searching rate I’d been going, it would have taken me two or three more days to find the wreck without his ghostly help.

Chapter Twenty-six

The Star Beneath the Sea

A few hours later, Mikkel abruptly swerves downward.

I follow, diving after him. He soon comes to a stop about 200 feet above the seabed. There, in front of us not far away, lays the relatively intact form of a smallish passenger ship. Ocean travel, even in the Eighties when the Estrella de Mar went down, hadn’t been a big industry. Given the ubiquity of aircraft, people generally only went on boats for vacation cruises. However, some passenger lines do still remain.

The light blob stretches out into the spectral form of Mikkel. He smiles, bows in a ‘here you go, thank you very much’ sort of way, and fades out of existence. I wave at the empty space where he’d been.

“Thank you… hope your next spin around is more fun than the last.” You know, Hallmark is totally missing out by not having ‘Happy Reincarnation’ cards.

I approach the wreck. It does appear to have cracked near the midpoint, but the damage likely occurred on impact with the ocean floor. The aft and stern angle upward, but not quite enough to resemble a banana. Except for the bottommost deck, the hulk is in one piece. There isn’t much of a debris field around it. The bow point is crumpled like a paper airplane after hitting the wall. Hardly the worst I’ve seen. Looks like this ship had a relatively gentle landing.

Upon circling to the far side, I confirm the identity of the vessel by means of the words ‘Estrella de Mar - Panama’ painted on the hull. Still don’t see any obvious reason the boat would’ve gone down. A rogue wave capsizing it might have done the trick. Such a gentle landing suggests it had been losing air for most of the way down, the additional buoyancy provided effectively acting as a parachute. Ships that flood rapidly near the surface come down much faster and tend to smash into the sea floor, looking like cars after a highway accident.

It is, of course, quite possible for a group of mermen to be responsible here. Their powers of water control can allow them to drag ships under rather suddenly, as in the case of what happened to the ship I’d been on. Granted, it had been quite small by comparison, and Barnaby didn’t need help.

The Estrella de Mar is about a third the size of the Seven Stars. It might’ve taken only two or three mermen. No way to really know for sure, but if I don’t find any bones inside, it’s a good indication of mermen. They’d have taken all the dead away to their lairs. If the boat sank naturally, various forms of ocean life would’ve fed on the corpses but the bones will remain.

Smiling to myself at having days of searching taken off my shoulders, I cruise around the ship, checking on the deck, peeking into windows, and trying to get a general feel of it before going inside. Shockingly, the foredeck has a bunch of lounge chairs still in place—though they’re liberally caked in coral growth and buildup. They have to be bolted down. No way would loose deck chairs still be in place otherwise.

Confident there are no weird monsters or other nasty surprises lurking anywhere obviously around the wreck, I swim up to a door leading inside from the foredeck. At the first corridor junction, not even thirty feet in, a dead diver floats where he expired. Looks like his air tank harness snagged on a door handle. Even experienced divers can panic and die to disorientation. Depending on his state of mind, he may even have hallucinated some manner of monster grabbing him. The straps are somewhat torn, proving he struggled for at least a little while before death. He most likely fainted from terror and ran out of air before regaining consciousness.

Ugh, poor guy.

The wreck is south of the larger Inagua Island, about four miles away from the drop off to deeper water. It’s nowhere near bathysphere deep, but well past casual diving. Anyone coming down here did so specifically to find this wreck. No markings on the suit indicate what country he’s from. I don’t have any real urge to take a closer look at a decaying body and rifle through his possessions, so I swim around him and keep going.

Another dead diver lurks at the end of a short left-branching corridor off the next intersection. He seems to have been here longer as the wetsuit resembles a deflated black balloon draped over bones. Nothing about the body suggests any obvious reason for death. His position implies he’d been heading for an exit but didn’t make it.

Exploring the interior of shipwrecks is one of the most dangerous things a diver can do. It’s not surprising to find remains… but two?

Three, says Licinia.

I glance to the right at her mental prodding and spot a wetsuit-covered arm and facemask sticking out of a partially open door. Looks like he died struggling to get through the doorway. Good grief. Three? Not another cursed ship.

Doubtful. I don’t sense any unusual energy here.

Bad luck? Poor training?

Maybe. May I?

I nod and mentally ‘lean back’ from active control over my body in a ‘be my guest’ manner. Licinia drifts forward, chanting while concentrating on a series of specific hand motions. I sit in the background of my mind, wondering to myself how magic works. She’s not technically speaking the phrases, being underwater. Mermaids speak via broadcast telepathy. Any living being within roughly a hundred meters of us can hear a voice in their mind, but it makes no true sound. Nothing a microphone could pick up. I’m thinking magic doesn’t require clearly enunciated words. Subvocalized words—those words spoken just under one’s breath—probably work just as well.

Then again, what do I know?

I’m distracted by the sudden manifestation of a presence in the distance. Almost the same way mortals can just feel another person nearby watching them, I’m certain ‘something’ is like fifty feet down the hall and ten feet down, giving off energy.

That is the crucible, dear. Or at least an object infused with ‘light magic.’

As opposed to high calorie magic?

She sighs.

I grin. Thanks. Much better than roaming the whole ship all day long. The nearest stairwell has a wedged door, due to the ship’s back breaking. It’s no longer a perfect rectangle, distorted to a tilt. Similar warping is likely why the one poor diver couldn’t get out the other doorway. He obviously didn’t go in that way, so he, too, must have been out of his mind for one reason or another. Takes a lot of panic to keep pulling at an impossible barrier rather than just backtrack.

Scuba diving in shipwrecks is not for the claustrophobic, either. Or anyone who is terribly attached to staying alive. Even the strongest-willed person will eventually feel like the walls are closing in on them and the ‘spirits of the deep’ don’t want them to leave. Sometimes, all it takes is a surprise encounter with human bones—or even a floating sock—to hit the panic button.

It’s much nicer to explore shipwrecks as a mermaid. This is our natural environment. Me being here is like normal people wandering around an abandoned house. Simply existing in this place is not a threat to my life like it is to someone who still needs air. The weight of having a time limit is rough on the psyche, too. ‘Get out on time or die’ easily leads to blind panic.

So, too, do mis-calibrated watches.

The one guy just floating there, not trapped, might’ve thought he had more air left than he did and passed out.

Right, enough morbidity. I’d normally take my sweet time and amuse myself by exploring, but Niles is waiting on me, alas. I grab the steel door in both hands and pull… but it doesn’t give. One problem with a mermaid tail is I can’t brace a foot against the wall for leverage. So, I brace one hand against the wall instead. It’s enough. The steel gives a skull-splitting squeal, bending under my fingers. I manage to pull the door open enough to squeeze past it and swim headfirst down the stairwell to the deck below.

The odd directional sense from Licinia’s spell leads me along a corridor lined with small staterooms, nowhere near as spacious as the first-class cabins of the Seven Stars. Honestly, a ship this size making a crossing from Panama to London is kinda ballsy. It’s not exactly a fishing boat, but still on the small side for trans-Atlantic voyages.

I’m led to one stateroom in particular. Luckily, this threshold frame isn’t slanted. The door opens easily enough... revealing bones on the bed. Yeah, I think just found Dominic, Geovani’s former apprentice.

It seems this ship went down in the middle of the night. Poor Dominic likely drowned in his sleep, never knowing what happened.

That’s impossible, you realize. A person always knows what happened, even if they don’t figure it out until they’re a spirit.

So much for the romantic notion of a peaceful death.

The sensing spell leads me to the closet. I pull the door open to reveal two suitcases stacked on top of a boxier leather-clad case more like a camera from the 1910s than luggage. Decades of seawater exposure has not been kind to it. No big deal. I don’t need the case, merely what’s in it.

Sorry, Dominic. Have to move your stuff.

I pluck the two suitcases aside and send them floating toward the bed. When I remove the second one, the lid of the box drifts away, the case evidently having disintegrated. Without understanding why, I recoil in a hard cringe, instantly sick to my stomach and dizzy. By the time I return to my senses, I’m halfway into the hall. It takes a moment for the sediment I kicked up to settle, allowing me to see the closet and the reason for my reaction.

The damned crucible is made out of silver.

Like a giant middle finger from the cosmos, a bowling-ball sized orb of bright untarnished silver shines at me from the decaying remains of padded foam. The thick-walled bowl is covered in fancy patterned inscriptions, which give off a golden light. Considering the vast majority of people don’t believe in magic, I’ll assume the glow is only visible to me because I’m a supernatural being.

It’s not ladylike, but I give the crucible the finger for having the audacity to be made of silver.

Dammit. Now what?

Touching silver hurts. Being near it is highly unpleasant.

I might as well have been asked to carry a red-hot bucket of toxic radioactive waste 900 miles by hand. Sure, Licinia is on the extreme ‘nice’ end of dark masters, but the universe doesn’t make exceptions. Or maybe it does… to a truly evil vampire—or mermaid—opening that lid and getting a face full of silver crucible at close range might have actually been fatal. More than simply such a massive quantity of silver in one place, this thing is also infused with light warrior magic.

It’s basically antimatter to me.

“Okay, look, you…” I point at it. “I’m here to bring you back to Geovani. No idea if talking to an inanimate object is doing any good… but you need to mellow out. No reason we can’t be hotsy-totsy.”

Unsurprisingly, the crucible doesn’t reply.

Sigh. It’s kind of ironic for me to share a name with the substance best able to destroy me. Can’t even blame fate since my birth name was Mary McCarthy. I chose Alex Silver. Not even sure why. Merely thought it sounded pretty.

And hey, wait a second. Aren’t crucibles used for smelting metal or some such thing? Shouldn’t they be ceramic or at least a metal with a higher melting point than silver?

It’s sanctified, dear, so a bit hardier than ordinary silver. Also, I believe they use it for spiritual-magical imbuement, not literal fire blasting. A crucible for spiritual energy, not literal heat.

Ahh. Okay. Makes sense.

The carrying case is clearly useless. No way am I going to touch the bowl directly, though. I’ve already got burns on my hand from the knife that’ll be there for days—and I hadn’t even touched it. Emmeline’s fingers shielded me.

Hmm.

I spend a few minutes searching around the various other cabins for a way out of this annoying problem. Salvation finally presents itself in the form of an Igloo ‘Playmate’ cooler, the sort of thing people take beers to the beach in. Should work. Not like I need a fancy lead-lined box. Just some protective padding.

I swim it back to Dominic’s cabin and set it on the floor, gritting my jaw as I force myself to swim closer to the closet...

Ack. It’s like sticking my face in front of a litterbox six months overdue for being changed. Well, bad metaphor. It doesn’t stink… but the level of unpleasantness is appropriate.

Anyway, I need another plan.

A little more searching around later, I discover a cleaning supply closet. A pair of mop handles should work like giant chopsticks, allowing me to move the crucible while also keeping a little distance.

It soon proves to be frustrating as hell trying to manipulate a heavy silver bowl with a pair of wooden rods. I get so damn frustrated I nearly seize the stupid thing by hand, but stop myself.

Plan C.

I grab the edge of the carrying case and pull. As expected, the leather-and-wood comes apart. Feels like I’m hovering right next to a kiln while a vase is being blasted, but I force myself to keep clearing out as much muck as I can. Eventually, only a few scraps of debris plus the crucible sits in the closet.

After tilting the Playmate cooler on its side, I use one of the mop handles to push the crucible into it. Closing the lid improves the quality of my existence by a hundred times. Nausea and pain cease. Yeah, it’s only plastic, but having any solid object between me and silver drastically reduces the discomfort. The metal isn’t literally radioactive, merely reacting to my ‘dark’ nature.

I pat the lid.

“Stay calm. You’re not being captured by ‘the enemy.’ I’m gonna bring you home.”

Maybe it somehow knows, which is why I didn’t melt into dust the instant the lid broke off while I had my face two feet away from the crucible. I’d like to think it’s the universe being aware of Licinia’s kinder nature. A certain group of Roman soldiers would dispute my characterization of her as ‘kind,’ but they brought it on themselves.

I grasp the cooler by the handle and pick it up. “Time to go home.”

***

Well, soon...

Since the Estrella de Mar still has deck chairs, I decide to use one.

I stretch out and relax. My tail is longer than the footrest of the lounge chair, draping off the end onto the deck, but it’s still comfortable. Reclining on the deck of a ship having a few crabs for dinner makes me think of my ill-fated voyage. I haven’t been on a cruise since, for obvious reasons. Silly of me, I know. Not like I can die on a sinking ship again. Besides, it would be too tempting to jump in the water. People on a functioning cruise ship tend to make a big deal about someone diving overboard—or going skinny dipping. Truth is, there’s no need for me to go on cruises. It’s about as dumb as a person driving into the woods and calling it ‘hiking.’

Anyway… nap time.

***

I wake up to a group of small fish checking me out.

They scatter as soon as I sit up, making me laugh.

Now for the annoying part. Swimming about a thousand miles while dragging a plastic cooler full of ouch. It’s almost tempting to swim to a nearby island and mail the damn thing, but there’s no way in hell a solid silver crucible is going to make it through any sort of shipping company without being stolen along the way.

Sigh. Swim it is.

Not going to be able to go as fast as I want to while carrying a cooler box. Some motion to the side attracts my attention. A few goliath groupers cruise by the shipwreck. Hmm. Idea. I have the ability to influence and control marine life. Might as well take advantage of it. I steer one of the fish over to me. It’s big enough to tow the cooler, which will allow me to keep about ten meters of distance away and avoid even the mild discomfort of its presence through the plastic.

Now, just need a bit of rope…

Chapter Twenty-seven

Immortality

My little friend worked out beautifully.

Since I couldn’t swim at 120 anyway, moving at the pace of a fish pulling a plastic cooler didn’t matter. It took like sixteen hours, but once I came within twenty miles of Panama, I let him go home and carried the box myself. A couple guys witnessing me emerge from the water applauded, mistaking me for a nudist. They didn’t seem likely to cause an issue, so I paid them no attention and went back to the hotel after pouring the seawater out of the cooler.

Except for the desk clerk who had to fetch my clothing from the hotel’s vault, I charmed everyone around me into ignoring my presence. The clerk didn’t notice what he brought me, nor my lack of clothing since he’d been too desperate to do whatever he could to make me happy.

As much as I adore the ocean, saltwater has the same effect on my hair as anyone else’s. I helped myself to an empty hotel room long enough to have a proper shower, dry off, and get dressed.

The worst part of this ‘mission’ is next: the bus ride from Colón to Meteti with the crucible in my lap. On second thought, I’ll keep it with the other luggage.

Who in their right mind would imagine something of value in an old beach cooler?

***

Half a day later, I toss the second little white stone into the pool behind the house in Meteti, and step through the portal to the jungle monastery.

My presence sets off whatever ability Geovani’s people have to sense a ‘dark master’ approaching. The same welcoming crew is waiting for me at the gate when I emerge from the trees into the clearing around the place. Upon recognizing me, they relax and wait for me to approach.

As soon as I’m close enough, I throw the cooler to Geovani. “You didn’t mention it was made out of silver.”

He catches the Playmate, unable to hide a little bit of a ‘gotcha’ smile. Maybe he worried I’d refuse to go get it for him if I knew. Either that or he intended it as some manner of test. The man pushes the little button on the side of the cooler and rotates the lid open. Despite him appearing forty or so and likely being closer to 400, the look in his eyes is absolutely that of an eight-year-old boy opening a Christmas present and getting the thing he’d been begging for all year.

Fortunately, he doesn’t scream or go jumping around.

“Forgive me if I keep a little distance,” I say.

He closes the lid, smiling at me. “I was unsure if it would have a significant effect simply from existing. After all, it’s not a weapon.”

“True, but that much silver in one place is… unpleasant to be around.”

“My apologies for any inconvenience the crucible may have caused. That said, you’ve returned faster than expected.” He beckons me inside. “Please, come in.”

I follow him across the courtyard and into the main building. At first, I expect he’s going to the same library where we talked previously, but he diverts down a stairwell at the midpoint of the hall, leading me to a basement room. Stacked stone walls give the square chamber the feel of a medieval castle dungeon. Various workbenches littered with hundreds of bottles, jars, boxes, books, and all sorts of weird alchemical tools surround us. Four corridors lead out from the room at the center of each wall. Yellowish light glows from the left passage.

Geovani sets the cooler on a big wooden table, opens it, and removes the crucible. He rambles in Spanish for a few minutes, essentially thanking me over and over again for returning it to him. I smile, keeping a safe distance.

He finally carries it to one of the workbenches, then gestures at the glowing hallway. “Your friend is waiting down there. It will take me a while to prepare the elixir.”

“All right. It’s gracious of you to do this for him.”

“Ahh, do not mention it. You have returned my greatest possession. It is my pleasure to assist with what he asks. That said, I’ve not attempted this before, so the experience will be valuable.”

Ack. Probably a good idea not to tell Niles this is Geovani’s first time trying to serve an eviction notice to a dark master. I wander into the corridor and discover the soft yellowish glow is coming from a series of symbols carved into the walls on either side of the opening into a square chamber marginally bigger than a prison cell. It’s completely open, no bars or even a wall with a door in it, more of an alcove.

Niles sits on a cot, reading.

I attempt to walk in, but smack face-first into a solid barrier.

The soft thud makes Niles look up. “Brilliant! You’re back.”

“Yeah.” I rub my nose, looking at the glowing marks. “Some kind of force-field?”

“Essentially. It is a barrier solid only to those with hitchhikers. Works on demons, too.”

“How are you holding up?”

“Little hungry, but it’s not too bad. Doesn’t take much energy to lay about reading.” He closes the book and sits up. “So, how did it go?”

“Found it. Geovani is working on the elixir now. Said it will take some time.”

Niles gives me an ‘I’m going to tear your throat out, bitch’ glare, his eyes glowing with flames, then regains his composure. “Sorry about that. The old boy’s a bit peeved.”

“Apparently.” I sit on the floor outside the cell. “Shouldn’t be long now.”

“No matter what happens, I will be forever grateful for you taking time out of your life to help me.”

I shrug. “I have plenty of it.”

“But you’re not immortal.”

“Close enough. Even being what I am, it’s difficult to mentally process the idea of being alive for 800 years.”

Niles stands, pacing. “Seems unfair.”

“How’s that?”

“Vampires don’t have a time limit. You do. Yet, we both face the same ultimate fate at the end. One would think those who have limited time might be allowed to go ’round for another spin since they’re not getting as much out of immortality as us.”

I smile. “How do you know the ‘ultimate end’ is a bad thing? A return to the Origin might be the most wonderful thing imaginable. What if mortals stuck going around in circles are the ones who are missing out, and it’s vampires who have the worst luck for having the longest wait?”

“Romantic… but if true, wouldn’t vampires fling themselves into the sun?”

“How could anyone know?” I ask.

“True. However, my hitchhiker isn’t at all concerned with what happens to my soul. He’s trying to run back to his insane mistress. Elizabeth. Anyway, I expected you to be gone longer. Did you somehow get lucky?”

“Might call it that. Had a bit of a side adventure.”

“Oh?”

I tell him about the Syv Stjerner and its curse.

Niles isn’t quite done processing my story by the time Geovani walks up to us, carrying a chalice belching fog.

“Oh, that looks lovely,” says Niles. “Is it supposed to be smoking?”

“Or looking like it might explode?” I chime in.

Geovani chuckles. “It is in no danger of exploding, I assure you.”

“I’d been expecting a medallion or something.” Niles approaches the magical barrier, trying to peer into the cup. “Not an atomic cocktail.”

“Close. The last time a member of our order made this, he imbued it into a medallion for preservation,” says Geovani. “He’d created it mostly to see if it was possible, not because he had an immediate use for it. Before it could be activated, the medallion would need to be dissolved, then consumed. From my understanding, the relic had been applied successfully.”

“Good to know. So, you went straight to the tonic.” Niles grins. “Here, drink this sounds like the beginning of a crazy story—or tragic joke.”

Geovani starts to offer the cup through the barrier.

Niles eyes flare up again with inner fire. It seems the alchemist expected problems; somehow, he has the reflexes to yank his hand back before losing multiple fingers to vampire claws. Niles’s hand ignites, momentarily aflame. Golden sparks spray from the invisible wall where he scratches it. He howls in pain and stuffs the hand into his armpit, cradling it.

“Would you mind?” asks Geovani, glancing at me.

“No problem.” Considering the dark master inside Niles likely expects this to be his destruction—even if it isn’t—I decide to use a full power charm.

Like a petulant child, Niles also turns his back on me. I stand there waiting, tapping my foot. Niles grabs his head, growling. An internal war rages inside his mind. Even as Niles struggles to make himself look at me, the dark master is doing everything he can to fight it. The entity within knows as soon as he sees me, it’s the end. This is one of those times I’m annoyed at not having actual mind-control. I can’t give him a simple command to turn around. Merfolk are kind of like Medusa. Gotta look at us to fall victim.

Ten minutes of grunting, growling, and weird noises later, it seems Niles is losing this one.

I walk around to Geovani’s right side and gesture at the handgun on his belt. “Mind if I borrow this?”

He draws the weapon and offers it handle first. Not sure what model it is other than likely a 9mm. Perfect, not too big. I toss my hair over my shoulders, take aim, and put a bullet into Niles’ left calf. His leg buckles, causing him to twist around reflexively as he collapses to the floor. The jolt of being shot also likely helped him seize control for the second it takes to look directly at me.

The instant he does, I have him.

I offer the gun back to Geovani, smiling at Niles. “I’d really love it if you would be a sweetheart and let Niles come forward.”

The fire fades away from his eyes.

Good. I ease off the charm radiance. Niles continues to stare at me in a lovestruck daze for a minute or two until Geovani clears his throat.

“Right… sorry about that.” Niles stumbles over to the glowing runes. “Hey, you shot me.”

“Sorry. Couldn’t go past this barrier to make you turn around and I didn’t think Geovani would want to open it lest you fly out of here in a rage.”

“No worries. Quick thinking, and clever.”

Geovani hands him the chalice, reaching into the cell as if no barrier existed.

“Whatever happens, thank you both. Cheers.” Niles makes a toast gesture, then drains the cup. He casually glances at the empty chalice, fog wisping out of his nostrils like a dragon. A moment later, he shifts his gaze to Geovani. “Doesn’t seem to be having any eff—”

He faints.

I raise both eyebrows. “Is that supposed to happen?”

Geovani shrugs. “I cannot say. This is the first time doing this for me. I have only Archibald’s writings to go by. According to him, it should work. The process felt right. I do not believe I committed an error.”

I watch Niles lay there like a corpse. After two minutes, I look at Geovani. “This isn’t good.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

Thirty Years

Five minutes later, Niles twitches.

“Or maybe I spoke too soon.” I tentatively reach forward, but my fingertips stop on an invisible barrier. Worried, I lean against the magic wall, staring at Niles.

He twitches again, lays still for a few seconds, then lapses into a mild seizure.

“Is this normal?” I ask.

Geovani shakes his head. “I have no idea.”

Alex, get Geovani away from Niles, now! shouts Licinia.

I push off the barrier, hurling myself into a flying leap an instant before an eruption of black energy explodes from Niles’s body. The wraith lunges out of the cell, raking elongated smoky claws at us. The attack misses by mere inches as I land on top of the alchemist. Screeching, the vaporous horror darts downward, still coming after us. I scramble away, dragging the flailing Geovani with me.

One phantasmal hand grasps his leg, but the creature stops short as if at the end of an invisible leash. I pull Geovani back farther, out of its reach. The faceless apparition roars an utterly inhuman cry, raking its claws at the air in a futile attempt to retain its grip on this world as some unseen force yanks it backward away from us. Before returning to the cell, the vapor collapses into a point the size of a fist, then vanishes amid a flash.

I blink. “Was that a…”

“Dark master.” Geovani stands. “Yes, I believe so.”

Licinia keeps quiet. She feels a bit shocked.

You okay, I ask her.

Trying to understand what we just witnessed. Dark masters outside their hosts do not typically look like enormous wraiths made of shadow. My head fills with a brief memory, a desolate landscape of ruined walls like a bombed-out city from World War II. But it’s something else entirely, something alien. Nothing but grey dust for ground, dark mountains in the distance. A small group of people stand among the ruins, their skin grey, eyes pure flames, but otherwise, they appear to be normal humans. The scene resembles a black and white movie, but it’s merely a world devoid of color.

It’s how she saw other dark masters in the Void.

I swallow, glad I’ll never see the place.

Licinia chuckles. You won’t see the place because it has been destroyed. Alchemists may create a replacement someday, but for now, we are free to roam. I suspect the apparition we witnessed is how my kind appear when directly present in the material world without a host.

If there’s no Void, where the heck did he get dragged off to?

This, I cannot answer. It did not feel like oblivion. Perhaps his mistress collected him.

Perhaps. No idea if that’s a good thing or not. Either way, it appears Geovani’s elixir worked. There is no longer a dark master inside Niles. Speaking of whom… I pick myself up off the floor and approach the cell.

Geovani collects himself and walks up beside me. He rests his hand on a seemingly unimportant, blank part of the wall. The etched symbols around the outside of the chamber stop glowing.

“Niles?” I ask, stepping into the room.

Maybe dumb of me. If Geovani turns the barrier back on, I’m stuck. Hopefully, he doesn’t have fantasies of keeping a mermaid in a fish tank.

“Ngh.” Niles moans and rolls onto his back. “Anyone get the tag of the lorry that hit me?”

Geovani also enters the cell. He crouches beside Niles, removes a small bottle and some bandage supplies from a satchel on his hip, and begins applying a dressing to the bullet wound—after dribbling a bit of mysterious liquid into it.

I take the Englishman’s hand. “Are you all right? How do you feel?”

“Like a sushi chef sliced me into paper-thin sheets and glued me back together.”

“Is it really that bad?”

Niles sits up. “Aye, but the feeling is going away.”

I stare into his eyes. He no longer feels like a vampire, but he’s also definitely not a mortal. “Geovani, any idea what he’s become?”

“No, it will take a little experimentation.” The alchemist grasps Niles’s wrist. “You have a pulse. Try to extend your fangs.”

Niles makes a few silly faces, but nothing happens to his teeth. “Is it working?”

I shake my head.

He smiles. “Seriously?”

I nod.

He licks around his teeth, blinks, then grins again. “Brilliant. Seems I am required to breathe again, too. Is it presently day?”

“Yes, but only for a few more hours,” says Geovani.

“I must know.” Niles clambers to his feet and speed-limps down the hall to the central basement room, then up the stairs.

Geovani and I follow him, all the way outside to the courtyard.

Niles holds his arms out, gazing up at the sky, laughing. “I’m not burning. I...I don’t know what to say.” He spins to face us, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. “It worked!”

“As Licinia mentioned, you’ve got a fully contained soul,” I say. “Unavoidable really. Once a dark master moves in, a person gets kicked out of Heaven.”

“Too early to say if you are still immortal or will simply live a long time.” Geovani rubs his chin.

Niles stares at us in stunned awe for a long minute. “Even if I live for a thousand years, I’m not sure if I will ever be able to repay you.”

“It’s fine.” Geovani smiles. “You gave me a chance to experiment in a way I never imagined possible. Most vampires aren’t willing to give up any power.”

Niles makes a few weird faces. “Ach, no more mind reading.”

Geovani flicks a coin at Niles; the motion is so blurrily fast I don’t even realize it happened until after Niles catches it. I’m not really jealous of vampires’ superhuman speed. Mostly not. Of course I’d like it, but the price is a bit high. The sun allergy is too much. Considering how pale I am naturally, it’s scary to think what becoming a vampire would’ve done to me. Then again, vampirism might’ve actually given me more color.

“You have reflexes beyond those of a mortal.” Geovani smiles. “I suspect you may also be somewhat stronger. If my theory proves out, you’re likely resistant to sickness as well.”

Niles bobs his head in a slow nod as he takes this in. “Maybe I could stay here while I figure this new reality out.”

“Certainly.” Geovani smiles. “We would be grateful to have you. Given your abilities, you would be an incredible boon to our cause.”

“What… join your light warriors?”

Geovani nods.

“Well…” Niles looks down at himself. “I do seem to have changed sides. The least I can do is to help out after what you’ve done for me. I owe that bitch whatever trouble I can cause for her.”

Geovani raises an eyebrow. “Pardon?”

“Elizabeth,” says Niles. “My former parasite wanted to destroy me so he could get back to her.”

“Ahh. Yes.” Geovani frowns. “Her. Come, I will show you to a room you can consider yours for as long as you care to remain among us. If there’s anything else you need, please ask.”

“As a matter of fact…” He smiles. “Perhaps some actual food? Feels like I haven’t eaten in thirty years.”

Chapter Twenty-nine

Vacation

Unlike Niles, I have a life awaiting my return.

I am, however, still on vacation, so there is no immense hurry to be anywhere specific. Consequently, I accept Geovani’s invitation to join them for dinner. One nice thing about being at an isolated monastery of light warriors who know about my true nature, I get to eat ‘real’ food. No, not a person. Raw fish. Though I do try some of the ceviche the others are having for dinner, as well as taking a taste of patacones de platano—basically plantain cakes served as a side the way Italians have bread everywhere.

A lesser mermaid might feel weird about sharing a table with fifteen people ostensibly trained to destroy her. However, after returning the crucible and helping play a part in ‘curing’ Niles, they trust me… mostly. The scrap of distrust still in their minds is mostly them not knowing who and what Licinia is. Also, no one here is really scared of a mermaid on dry land. I won’t correct them by pointing out they underestimate what my charm powers are capable of.

Over the meal, I repeat the story of encountering the Seven Stars, captivating everyone except Niles who already heard it. Li Wei thinks they should try to intercept the ship in case any lingering darkness remains. Also, the salvage would be worth a fair amount.

“Oh, I received a call from Archibald Maximus,” says Geovani. “He seems to believe the ‘great confrontation’ is at hand. Something is going on in Alaska.”

“Wow.” I blink. “That’s quite far away.”

“Yes.” Geovani chuckles. “I fear we wouldn’t be able to get there in time to matter. But if we are truly needed, the way shall be made clear.”

I salute him with a hunk of raw fish. “Good philosophy. Any idea what this ‘great confrontation’ means?”

“The bitch is trying to take over the world,” mutters Niles.

“Something like that.” Geovani pauses, his expression one of resigned dread. “Our order exists to put an end to a war started many years ago.”

This leads to Niles and the others discussing his interest in becoming a light warrior. Except for Li Wei—who is more of a mystic—the others at the table are all gifted with a not-so-obvious form of magic. Their abilities require years of training, but internalize the power, allowing them to increase their speed, stamina, and strength. Essentially, they reach a point of mastery where they can stand up to a vampire and not be swatted aside like pests. Since Niles has a fully contained soul, he’s kinda cheated past the ‘years of training’ part and already has the superhuman reflexes. It’s unclear if he can develop them any further, but he likely doesn’t need to.

From the sound of it, Niles plans to make this place his permanent home. Seems he didn’t expect to survive parting ways with his dark master and is really happy to still exist. Geovani and the others are eager to have him.

“So, what are your plans?” Niles glances at me.

“Oh, I dunno. Might go check out Bermuda or the Bahamas. Or check out some sunken ships. Pretty sure some of them might be pirate ships.”

“With treasure?” asks Niles.

“If I’m lucky.”

“Here I spent decades running from the sun and drinking blood, and she’s out swimming the world’s oceans looking for pirate treasure.”

I smile. “Sometimes it’s good to be me. Now which one of you wants to refill my drink?”

Funny how just about everyone there sprang into action.

Yeah, definitely good to be me.

The End

Alexis Silver will return!

~~~~~

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Broken Ice

Immortal Operative #1
by J.R. Rain and

Matthew S. Cox

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Return to the Table of Contents

Also available:

The Elementalist

Four Elements #1
by J.R. Rain and

Matthew S. Cox

(read on for a sample)

Chapter One

The Dame

I see it again in my dreams.

The fire... blazing across the night sky.

It is the third such time I have seen it, but this time is different. This time, I awaken, gasping, and covered in sweat. I am certain, yes, beyond certain that my hands are glowing.

Dreaming... I’m obviously dreaming.

I lay my head back down on my pillow, tucking my hands under the covers, and fall asleep again, dreaming of rushing water, blowing wind, shaking earth... and a raging fire...

***

The day started like any other day in recent memory. Ordinary.

I’d been sitting in my office eating a cold bologna sandwich, watching highlights from California Tech’s worst season in twenty years when she walked into my life.

She was a dead ringer for Veronica Lake: pale skin, silky hair swept over one eye, and bow-shaped lips plumped up to a quarter-pout. The girl had curves in all the right places and moved with fluid ease, more floated than walked. Chic high heels supported a pair of shapely legs peeking from beneath a mid-thigh navy skirt and matching blazer. For a millisecond, I caught a glimpse of lacy white camisole as she peered at me through my half-open office door.

I blinked and turned off the YouTube video. In fact, I almost pinched my arm.

Before I made too much a fool of myself, I swallowed the giant mouthful of sandwich as discreetly and fast as possible, cringing at the bite of strong mustard.

She stood there like a shy, demure creature not quite sure if she would be safe stepping into my domain. The look suited her, though—and I couldn’t quite say why—it didn’t make her come off as a helpless damsel, more like she deliberately put on an air of harmlessness. An act, perhaps. My instincts said to be careful with this one, that I stared into the pretty blue eyes of a trap.

Beautiful women didn’t exactly grace my humble office often. Hell, lately, clients in general rarely graced my office. These days, investigation gigs were few and far between, which I didn’t mind much. My landlord, however, did mind. Especially when the lack of clients caused my rent payment to wind up being late. Unfortunately, I wasn’t quite pretty enough to bat my eyelashes and pay with my good looks, so I actually had to work a case every now and then.

“Come on in,” I said, before taking a sip from my lukewarm can of Diet Coke.

The woman had been crying, that much was obvious. I didn’t consider myself an ace detective for nothing. She crept in the office door, looking a little bit hesitant and a lot beautiful. Her misty blue eyes warned me she had a story that would get me so choked up I wouldn’t even care if she could pay me. Yeah, she was that gorgeous. That classy. And that vulnerable. Something about her struck a chord in me. Up until that moment, if anyone had asked me if I believed in love at first sight, I would’ve laughed at them. But the more I stared into those teary eyes of hers, the more I felt like a high school kid who unexpectedly wound up face to face with his crush, simultaneously thrilled and wanting to run away screaming.

“Can I help you?” I asked, my voice squeakier than I would have liked.

“Are you a real private investigator?” she asked in a shy voice not far above a whisper. I detected a trace of awe in it, too, as if she’d placed private detectives somewhere between Bigfoot and the Second Coming.

“I am. To the envy of all my friends,” I said, milking it. “Please, sit. I have coffee if you’d like some… I have tea, too. I think.”

She thought about it longer than I would have liked. These days, people’s need for private eyes has diminished thanks to the internet. Computers and broadband had pushed a lot of us out of work. Most people could track—aka stalk—anyone they wanted online. Although I didn’t consider myself a professional stalker, I had once made a good living by locating people who didn’t want to be found. These days, I mostly dealt with cases from the odd housewife who suspected her husband of cheating or the even rarer husband who suspected his wife of cheating. Every so often, I had someone asking me to background check someone—usually owners of small business around here. And twice, I tracked down guys not paying child support. I tried to avoid taking missing persons cases around here, since nine times out of ten, they either went nowhere or ended up as a body in the woods.

I got why people thought private dicks were sleazy. I felt sleazy following sleazy people doing sleazy things. I felt especially dirty after I took zoom-lens evidence photos of marital cheating in progress. However, I took whatever work came my way. It was a seedy job, but somebody had to do it.

At first, I expected this girl to say her hubby cheated on her and she needed me to find proof. If she had a husband, they couldn’t have been married for long. I figured her for maybe twenty-one or so. She looked way too... nice to have sex outside of marriage. Yeah, a real angel face. My second thought was that she should definitely get back at the jerk—with me, of course.

Okay, maybe I was one of those sleazy detectives.

Eventually, she nodded and came in. “Yes, coffee would be fine.”

I rushed out of my chair, banging my knee in the process, and limped around my crumb-strewn desk. “Cream and sugar?” I only had dehydrated Coffee-Mate, but ‘cream’ sounded classier.

“Yes, and yes,” she said, which I thought sounded adorable.

My hand shook a little as I reached for the guest mug. I poured her a cup of my best java, which is the only kind of java I drank. I might skimp on the office rent, but never the coffee. Never.

“Is now a good time to talk?” she asked. “Or should I make an appointment?”

“You’re in luck,” I said. I hadn’t had anyone call me for an appointment in maybe two months. “My next appointment just canceled. I’m all yours.”

Boy, sounding sleazier and sleazier.

“Really?” she said, her eyes innocent and trusting.

Okay, now I felt like shit for lying to her. I sighed, then brought the coffee over and handed it to her. She looked up at me with what I would classify as gratitude, so I coughed up the truth. “No. I’m just making a joke. I didn’t have any other client. Lying is what private eyes do sometimes to get information. We’re good at lying. I’m good at it.”

“That’s not really something to be proud of,” she said, avoiding eye contact. “Lying, I mean. Lies can cause a lot of damage.”

“You’re right, sorry. But you might think differently if my, um, skills were able to help you.” I slipped back around my desk with my coffee mug in hand. “Speaking of which, how can I help you?”

She processed what I’d said and nearly got up to leave. I mean, I’m not a mind reader or anything, but I saw her questioning... everything. Luckily, my coffee must have been that good—or the warm mug felt comforting in her hand. Or maybe my encouraging smile did her in… or the relaxing ambiance of my simple office with its cluttered desk and foldout client chairs. At least she wasn’t put off by the scar on the right side of my neck…a nasty sucker that reached up almost to my ear and plummeted to well below my collar bone.

Or, perhaps, she was that desperate.

“I need help, Mister....”

“Long,” I said. “Max Long.”

She nodded. “I need help, Mr. Long.”

I nodded along with her. “What kind of help?”

She sipped from her coffee mug, her pinkie finger sticking out at a 90-degree angle. She’d had etiquette training, which didn’t surprise me. This town had old money, and a lot of people who still held onto past niceties. Nine families had most of the wealth in the area, and they’d had it for a couple centuries at least. People around here referred to them as the Founding Families, since they’d initially settled the area. Etiquette training still remained popular for the upper class, like they clung to the old ‘royals and peasants’ mentality. This girl obviously had taken the white gloves and ankles-kept-crossed seminars. She exuded upper class—except for the haughtiness.

“Someone killed my sister and her husband.”

I was about to lift my coffee mug when I paused. Steam wafted up between us, drifting past the face of the blonde woman in front of me. I’d heard about the deaths, of course. “That was your sister? The animal attack in the woods?”

She nodded and looked down, fighting tears. Eventually, she collected herself and sighed. “You would think the woods here crawled with bears and wolves, based on all the animal attacks.”

“You disagree with the official findings?”

“Damn straight I disagree.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, but what exactly are you looking for me to do?”

“I know it wasn’t an animal attack, Mr. Long. I want to hire you to find proof of that. I want you to prove that something else is going on in these damn woods. Once and for all, I want you to help this town find answers for why so many people here die horrific deaths or just disappear.”

I blinked, absorbing her words. I hadn’t worked a wrongful death case in a long time. My cases tended to be lightweights. Heck, my last job had been undercover work at the Shadow Pines Hospital, trying to find out who’d been stealing from their blood supply. I never did find the bastard, although I was pretty sure the hospital was haunted as all get out. Moving shadows, disembodied footsteps and breathing sounds, and the overall disconcerting feeling that someone was watching me. Afterward, I had dreams of that place, nightmares where a tall man with a long face and Hollywood hair told me to forget what I saw. Of course, I could never quite remember what I had supposedly seen, but the dreams were weird as hell.

She bit her lip. “Sheriff Waters and her team of klutzes aren’t saying much. It makes me wonder whose side they’re on. It’s why I came to you.”

I nodded. “What’s your name?”

“Crystal Bradbury.”

Aww damn. There it was. Bradbury… one of the Founding Families. I said the dumbest thing possible after hearing that. “You live in town?”

She shook her head. “Ironside.”

Okay, that surprised me. If someone with that name didn’t live in town, it meant something. It might mean she just happened to have a surname that matched one of the oldest, most influential families in the area, but I doubted that. Shadow Pines’ former mayor, Sterling Bradbury, had a reputation for being a real piece of work—that’s polite speak for asshole. Fortunately, he’d been eaten by a bear or something out in the woods… like so many other people in this place. It’s an absolute wonder why anyone still went out into the forest for recreation. With all the animal attacks around here, you’d think everyone would be hiding in their houses with the windows boarded up.

Another thing stood out to me. This girl didn’t resemble Sterling in the slightest. Though, sometimes genetics did weird things. I knew the nearby town of Ironside, of course. Locals called it a poor man’s Shadow Pines. At least, that’s what my generation always called it back in high school. Troublemakers often ended up being sent there to finish high school with the ‘less desirables.’ The town had a fair number of steel mills and mines, all started by the Founding Families years ago. Only a handful continued to operate these days.

Ironside also had some factories and a lot of nature tourism. With mountains on one side, forest everywhere else, it had become a beacon for people rebelling against urbanization. Some called it a sister city. I always thought of it as an annoying little brother city. Then again, I was biased. I grew up in Shadow Pines, and good or bad—mind you, this place had a lot of bad—I loved my creepy little hometown.

She must have seen the surprised look on my face, because she added, “You could say I started in Shadow Pines, and finished in Ironside.”

I put two and two together and figured she’d done something bad. Or at least socially horrible. Bad enough to be cast out, most likely. Or at least kept at arms’ length to protect the rest of the family’s reputation. I’d probably have known exactly what she’d done if I bothered paying attention to the upper class around here, but I never understood the fascination with that. Why would working-class people care who a celebrity dated, or freak out if they got in trouble with the law? I would never understand that the same way I couldn’t fathom how people in the UK fawned all over their royals.

“You were a problem child,” I said.

She gave me a half smile. I had the feeling she liked to have fun, to enjoy life, but recent events had dragged her down. A murdered sister would do that to you.

“I was just being me,” she said, “but the Bradburys had a name to uphold.”

“Your father used to be the Mayor?”

“Yup. Mayor, asshole, you pick,” she said.

I recalled seeing him years ago. He’d smacked one of his sons, Arthur I think, over at the Pines Café. The boy had to be twelve or so at the time and a paparazzi caught the moment of the slap with near perfect timing. That photo was everywhere for months. Some called it the ‘slap heard ’round the world.’

“We shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because they can’t defend themselves.”

“Are you sure about that?” she asked cryptically.

“Umm...”

“Anyway, I told Dana not to go out there. I mean, who wanders off for a party deep in the woods around Shadow Pines these days? How many people have to die before people get the idea that it’s not safe here? If you ask me, it was a godsend that I was sent out of this town, even if the boarding high school had been more like a prison.”

“That bad?”

“Compared to what I’d been used to, it felt like prison. Ironside has been good to me. It’s kept me alive.”

She had a point. The sheer number of deaths in this town has been staggering, along with numerous supposed incidents of supernatural activity. Spontaneous combustion. Reports of hauntings. UFOs sightings up the wazoo. Of wolves running free in the streets.

And, of course, the daddy of all rumors...

Vampires.

Yup, vampires. As in bloodsucking fiends. Guess where my mind went while investigating the guy stealing blood from the hospital? Yeah… a rational person would’ve assumed some wacko with a vampire complex. Me? For some reason, as much as I couldn’t believe it, I half expected it to be a real vampire. Probably because the basement hallway, according to witnesses, always stank of rotting bodies whenever blood went missing. This town had a history of such crazy stories, and, with all the disappearances, I couldn’t help but wonder if the rumors might be more than a bunch of scared (and bored) locals running their mouths. Hell, the newspaper got a hold of the blood theft story and went crazy with it. People had been petitioning the mayor for years to make vampires illegal. You can’t make this stuff up!

Anyway, all were whisperings, of course. All were laughed off. Nervously, that is. Truth was, something was happening in this town, something damn strange. A lot went on just below the ability of most people to realize it. One would think that with all of the strange occurrences, I would actually be a busy private eye, but that wasn’t the case. Most people didn’t talk about the strange happenings, and fewer still hired me to look into them. Most people swept them under the proverbial rug. Most residents, in my view, were hiding a lot of secrets.

A helluva lot of secrets.

Then again, I could be wrong, too.

Over the years and decades, Crystal’s family had suffered some of the greatest losses. And the tragedy evidently continues...

I recalled the case since I’d seen a bit of it on the news, but not the details. A young-ish married couple slipped away from a party for a quiet walk in the woods and never returned. The authorities called it another random animal attack in the woods. One of dozens over the years. At the time, the names had been withheld. Truth was, I had forgotten about them until now.

“The police claimed a mountain lion attacked them,” I said. “What makes you suspect something else?”

“Because she called me and told me something was following them.”

A cold chill swept over me. “Something or someone?”

“She said something.”

“Did she happen to say what followed them?”

“No. She was too busy screaming.”

“You heard your sister die? Over the phone?”

“Every strangled gasp and shriek, Mr. Long. Now, do you see why I want answers?”

“Yeah…” I picked up my notepad and asked the usual array of questions to establish the where and when.

Crystal hadn’t heard a big cat in the background. No growling, roaring, nothing. Nor did her sister mention a cat.

“Felines are rather stealthy. Perhaps she’d been ambushed?” I asked. “Sorry if I sound a bit oafish and insensitive, but there’s no way of tiptoeing around some of this stuff. I don’t mean to be cruel, just trying to take the most direct path to the answer.”

“I understand. It’s all right. And no, I don’t think she was ambushed. Dana wouldn’t have had the time to call me if a big cat pounced on her without warning. She called me while running away from something. She said it’s following us. I heard them running, then some grunts… and... all the screaming—” She broke down crying.

I sat there offering a comforting gaze, patiently waiting for her to regain her composure, wondering if I should comfort her, but concluding that would be overstepping my position. Dammit.

“She begged for her life, Mr. Long. Begged.”

“People don’t usually plead with animals not to kill them.”

“Now you know why I came to you. The police are no help. They decided it was an animal before they even went to the place it happened. As far as they’re concerned, a mountain lion did it and there’s no point arguing the point with them.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

I was with Crystal. Something didn’t seem right, and I was happy to take the case.

More than happy.

My landlord would be too.

Chapter Two

Pins and Needles

The Shadow Pines Sheriff’s Office was always surprisingly busy for a small town. Today was no exception.

I parked in one of the spaces lining the edges of the town square. The city hall occupied the center of the west side, the police station on the north face, both nestled among an array of fancy boutiques, little bistros, and overpriced gift shops. Women in sneakers power-walked during their lunch breaks, young mothers with strollers meandered along while texting, and a frazzled hot dog vendor struggled to keep up with a long line. Maintenance workers swept up popcorn from last night’s latest Movie in the Square showing of The Wizard of Oz. I hadn’t gone. It seemed more of a date-night thing. I didn’t have a date with anything other than a bottle of cheap bourbon. Yeah, that’s how low I’d sunk since my last girlfriend left me.

Smart girl.

After locking my gun in the glove box, I hopped out of my pickup and walked past a stream of deputies emerging from the entrance of the sheriff’s office, located under the clock tower, determination in their strides as if on high alert. Another rash of killings tended to put the law on edge. Years ago, I’d worked with Sheriff Justine Waters on a missing person case, and that person had stayed missing, sadly. Private eyes and cops alike had that tragedy in common. Sometimes, our cases didn’t get solved. Indeed, the cops had their cold cases, and I had mine.

Anyway, I flashed my ID at the check-in window and the desk sergeant buzzed me in. I made my way through crowded halls that reminded me more of a precinct in New York than a small town in the mountains, and found Sheriff Waters sitting at her expansive desk, surrounded by far too much paperwork. I rapped on the open door and stuck my head in. “Have a minute, Sheriff?”

Her hard green eyes widened in an expression approaching surprise. “Max… You have that look about you that suggests you’re working an actual case.”

“Stranger things have happened. Can we talk?”

“Have a seat.”

I entered and sat across from her. With her mouse-brown hair glowing radiantly in the slanting sunlight, she might have looked beautiful. Problem was, we had dated not too long ago, and some of that shine had worn off. We worked much better as friends, it turned out. No, scratch that—we worked better as colleagues. ‘Friends’ was pushing it. The break up hadn’t been smooth, to say the least. Turned out, I tended to become a bit mean when I felt rejected.

“You’re here about the Dana Bradbury case,” she said. “Unless you want to apologize.”

“For what?”

“For being an ass.”

“I was lashing out.”

“I didn’t deserve to be called all those... names.”

Truth be told, I couldn’t remember what I’d called her, so upset had I been at being dumped. I might have mentioned something about being both uptight and loose with her morals.

“No, you didn’t.”

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“My apology?”

“That was months ago...”

“Being called a slut with a stick up her ass doesn’t just go away.”

I sighed. Why did she care so much about an apology? I didn’t know, but I needed her help, and her being mad at me did no good. “Fine, I’m sorry for being an ass.”

“Say it like you mean it.”

“Have you always been this controlling?”

“I have. You were just too smitten to notice.”

I chuckled at that. “Fine. I’m sorry like I meant it.”

“You’re not supposed to say that last part. You’re supposed to... emote it.”

“Lordy. Can we get back to the case?”

“Sure, but can you quit looking at me like that.”

“Like what?” I ask.

“Like you’re still in love with me.”

I snorted, and so did she. We got along fine, even swimmingly. But dating... not so much. We were both sort of pig-headed. Okay, maybe more than ‘sort of.’ Trouble was, I’d really fallen for her, and I was too prideful to let it show. That’s why the breakup had stung.

“How did you know I was here about the killings?” I asked, shaking off the sadness that threatened to overwhelm me... yet again.

Justine shrugged. “The younger sister was in here yesterday, raising hell, not happy with our findings. Wasn’t hard to deduce she decided to look elsewhere for help. And last time I checked, you’re the only private dick working in town.”

“The only and best.” I noted the emphasis on dick... sigh.

“Sad but true. But I’m afraid Crystal’s only throwing away her money. We confirmed a big cat was responsible for the attack. Even had a forensic odontologist and a carnivore biologist confirm the wounds were consistent with claw and bite marks from a large feline. Not to mention, we found fur and blood from the animal all over the scene. Oh, lastly, the husband had the animal’s blood under his nails.”

“He put up a fight.”

“Tried to.”

“Was the cat found?”

“No. We looked.”

“I’m sure you did. Five whole minutes? Since when is the Shadow Pines Sheriff Department big game trackers?”

She laughed. “Such an ass. We teamed up with the local park rangers. No sign of the cat, but they are still on the lookout.”

“Should the town be on lockdown? You know, with a big cat on the loose?”

“Refer to my prior comment,” she said. “The part about being an ass.”

“It’s a serious question. Once those suckers get a taste for man, all bets are off.”

“We’re doing our best to keep the town safe, Max.”

I took in some air. “Crystal heard her sister screaming, Sheriff. She didn’t hear anything else. No growling or roaring or even meowing. Dana said nothing about a cat, but she did say they were being stalked by something in the woods.”

“I know, Max. I spoke with Crystal at length. Dana never mentioned what was stalking her over the phone before she stopped talking... and started, you know...”

“Dying?”

“Yeah, that. Anyway, it could have been a big cat stalking her, and based on the evidence, it was, in fact, a big cat. If not, what else? A bear? If so, then why no evidence of a bear? A man? You really think there is a man out there killing people and making it look like a cat did it?”

“I’m just doing my job, Justine.”

“That’s Sheriff Justine to you, pal.”

I sighed. “Fine. Sheriff. Look, my client isn’t happy with the findings, and I’m here to see if anything got... um...”

“Missed? Overlooked? Is that what kind of department you think I run, Max?”

“That Private Dick Max to you, missy.”

“Oh god, that sounds all kind of wrong.”

I laughed. She... almost smiled. Good enough.

“No. I don’t think you cut corners or misread the findings, Sheriff. I’m here at the behest of my client, to serve her in whatever capacity I can. I’m being asked to look deeper into the case, and so I am. It’s how I make a buck.”

“Give her money back, Max. There is no case here.”

“One problem,” I said. “I already paid my rent with it.”

She snorted. “What did I ever see you in you?”

“My prowess in the bedroom?”

“Yeah, maybe. I do miss that. Don’t get any funny ideas. I don’t sleep around with assholes.”

“I’m not an asshole.”

“You hurt me. That makes you an asshole.”

“I’m sorry.”

She drummed her fingers on her oversized desk, looked at me sideways. “What else did you need?”

“The autopsy report?”

“You can read it in here, but it doesn’t leave my desk.”

“Thank you.”

“Wait here.”

“On pins and needles.”

She laughed once. “Such a dork. Be right back.”

I couldn’t help but smile as she left.

The Elementalist
is available at:

Amazon Kindle * Amazon UK * Paperback

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About J.R. Rain:

J.R. Rain is the international bestselling author of over seventy novels, including his popular Samantha Moon and Jim Knighthorse series. His books are published in five languages in twelve countries, and he has sold more than 3 million copies worldwide.

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About Matthew S. Cox:

Originally from South Amboy NJ, Matthew S. Cox has been creating science fiction and fantasy worlds for most of his reasoning life. Since 1996, he has developed the “Divergent Fates” world, in which Division Zero, Virtual Immortality, The Awakened Series, The Harmony Paradox, and the Daughter of Mars series take place.

Matthew is an avid gamer, a recovered WoW addict, Gamemaster for two custom systems, and a fan of anime, British humour, and intellectual science fiction that questions the nature of reality, life, and what happens after it.

He is also fond of cats.

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Table of Contents

- SILVER CRUCIBAL   by   J.R. RAIN & MATTHEW S. COX   Alexis Silver Book #4

- Other Books by J.R. Rain and Matthew S. Cox
- Silver Crucibal
- TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Silver Crucibal
- Chapter One
- Chapter Two
- Chapter Three
- Chapter Four
- Chapter Five
- Chapter Six
- Chapter Seven
- Chapter Eight
- Chapter Nine
- Chapter Ten
- Chapter Eleven
- Chapter Twelve
- Chapter Thirteen
- Chapter Fourteen
- Chapter Fifteen
- Chapter Sixteen
- Chapter Seventeen
- Chapter Eighteen
- Chapter Nineteen
- Chapter Twenty
- Chapter Twenty-one
- Chapter Twenty-two
- Chapter Twenty-three
- Chapter Twenty-four
- Chapter Twenty-five
- Chapter Twenty-six
- Chapter Twenty-seven
- Chapter Twenty-eight
- Chapter Twenty-nine
- Chapter One
- Chapter Two
- About J.R. Rain:
- About Matthew S. Cox: