I hoped they hadn’t been mates.
Judging by the type of party going on below, this guy was likely the permanent bachelor type.
I couldn’t blame him. Why settle down when there were plenty of fish in the—okay, bad metaphor.
I bent down beside the hot tub and grabbed the big guy’s wrist. It wasn’t easy to roll him over, but once I did, I got a better look at his neck.
His throat had been slashed deep—nearly torn out.
If it hadn’t been quite so deep, he might have survived. Shifter healing and all.
I wondered if the monster knew how hard it was to kill a shifter. And why this guy? Fish Face seemed to know exactly who it was looking for, and was careful not to cause any chaos or collateral damage on its way to reaching this guy.
I guessed the monster was smarter than it looked. How had it gotten past all of those people downstairs without causing a panic? They were drunk, but not that drunk.
And it wasn’t wearing that good of a cape.
I took a closer look at the victim’s face. His eyes were closed and his lips were blue.
He wasn’t just some shifter. I knew this guy.
Parky, Barky, or something like that.
He was a bigwig at the Tribunal.
This was about to get a lot more complicated.
In less than an hour, Hugo Rose and a whole slew of Tribunal agents had shown up. They had the scene at the boat locked down, easy peasy. Agents interviewed the shifters, and the witch we kept on retainer altered the memories of the humans at the party.
Seeing that gave me the heebie jeebies. Lucky for me, that stuff was reserved for humans, not shifters. Then again, I wouldn’t mind forgetting about those vertical eyelids.
I watched the whole thing go down from the concrete near the dock.
Lots of walking and talking and picture taking was going on.
There was nothing for me to do until I received my next mission, and I’d had enough of boats and water for a lifetime.
Eventually my boss escorted the last of the confused bikini girls down the plank and into a waiting cab.
Rose’s suit was crumpled, and his scowl was deeper than usual—if that was even possible. There were dark circles around his eyes, and his hair was uncharacteristically wild. Maybe he’d been asleep when I’d texted him. Asleep in his suit.
His gaze locked on me, and I knew I was in for it.
In his mind, I knew there was no question—I had failed tonight. Not just in catching the monster, but also because a member of our organization ended up dead.
He walked over, in slow measured steps. His back was stiff, like that stick he kept in his butt was right where it always was.
I wasn’t going to get off easy.
Rose stopped in front of me and slowly removed his glasses. He pulled a cloth from his pocket and wiped the lenses in slow circles while looking down.
The bastard was going to drag this out as long as possible.
After an agonizing, awkward length of time, he slid his glasses back onto his face and looked at me.
“I think you missed a spot,” I said.
He ignored my comment. “Based on your account, I’ve contacted the sea people. They’ve agreed to entertain a delegation from the Tribunal and assist with our investigation.”
Sea people? There were more of those bug-eyed monsters? I shivered at the thought.
“Well, that’s super. Bon voyage!” I said with a wave.
My smile was met with cold indifference.
“You’ll be part of my personal security detail,” he said.
Uhhhhhh...no thank you?
I just stared at him, and no words came out.
“It has to be you,” Rose said. “You’re the only witness.”
This was happening. It wasn’t a request.
Fuck.
Chapter Two
Selene
The main lights faded overhead, leaving only the soft glow from the floor beneath my feet. A cool sanitizing mist shot out of the vents adding an artificially sweet scent to the air.
I looked out from the tower’s corridor to the only world I’d ever known, to the city of Thalassapolis. Just beyond the transparent wall, the water had long turned from cerulean to stygian blue.
I could still make out the faint white glow of light in the distance, businesses and residences in the other towers along the outer ring. The towers were the highest points in the city, forming a curved wall around the lower city, the old city, the katopolis. Those of high stature, predominantly of mermaid descent, could spend their entire lives never leaving the outer ring. All their needs could be met without venturing below to the katopolis.
Most weren’t so lucky.
Below, in the katopolis, survival was earned instead of given. As the towers grew dark, the katopolis came to life. Golden lights pulsed along the sea floor, dulling the appearance of the aqua-hued power lines that stemmed out from the temple district at the center of it all.
From my position above, the lower city resembled a blooming sea flower, dark at the center save for gentle blue veins, orangey yellow petals swaying in the current. Answers resided somewhere in that flower. I could feel it in my gut.
Hours had passed since the work cycle was meant to end, leaving only a skeleton crew on the upper floors of the Defense Ministry tower.
I watched as the last of the pods that were likely to leave actually left, watched as the tiny submarines swirled around the towers, like schools of fish in a great reef.
Everyone had someplace to be, family to return home to, or some social engagement to kick off the weekend.
Fewer and fewer pods remained nearby.
This was the opportunity I’d been waiting for. It was time.
I turned from the window and entered the elevator, pressing the button that would take me to the pod dock.
As expected, most of the pod pools were empty—out on patrol or out for the weekend. Perfect.
Two lime green torpedo pods remained.
They would get me where I was going faster. Tempting, but too flashy.
There, floating in the last pool on the right, was a standard beige Defense Ministry pod. It would get me down to the lower city without scrutiny, but once it was in the lower city, it would be a bullseye. Any Ministry pod would.
One step at a time.
I walked up to the pool’s control panel and scanned the coded symbol tattooed on my wrist.
The Ministry would know I had taken the sub, but by the time they realized where I was headed, and that I wasn’t sanctioned to go there, they’d be too late to stop me.
Or at least that was the plan.
The hatch on the pod’s roof popped open with a hiss, and I climbed inside. I winced as the golden rod that was my service weapon jabbed into my hip. Like the uniform, the offices, and the weapon, the vessel was utilitarian in design, comfort be damned.
I settled into the seat and pressed a series of keys on the console to turn off the autopilot. I’d have to do it the old-fashioned way. No one needed to know where I was going until I got there.
I pulled the lever to my right. Red warning lights flashed as the pod began to pressurize and sink. It was a strange but familiar sensation.
The harsh spotlights that kept the pool bright gave the water outside a pale blue glow. The circular gray slab labeled 010 loomed on the wall in front of me.
There was no turning back.
I pressed the button that raised the gate, revealing a corridor of blackness with a tiny gray dot of hope beyond.
Full throttle.
The pod shot down the tube, and in less than a second I was out, just another metal fish cruising high above the ocean floor with the great school I had seen from the tower above.
All the other pods circled from tower to tower, but my destination was elsewhere.
I veered out of traffic and made my way toward the center of the city, down to the katopolis.
The stone buildings on the oc
ean floor were crumbling from neglect. Not just the marketplaces and housing, but the temple district, too. Money didn’t trickle down from the towers, nor did the people above visit below.
I slowed the pod as the vessel sank between rooftops. From here I couldn’t easily be spotted from above; from here, I could navigate the dark seafloor streets.
Residents peered out of their doorways and swam into the shadows, away from my clearly marked Defense Ministry pod.
The farther I traveled from the tower, the less fear the residents showed.
Sirens, nereids, and merpeople—all three races of the Thalassapolis were equally represented in the streets and markets.
Merpeople appeared much the same in either form, our bodies adapting from breathing air to breathing water without thought, while the transformation from legs to tail was done at will. Scales often matched the color of the person’s hair, though everyone was different.
With green skin and webbed hands and feet, sirens looked more like the rest of life in the sea when they transformed, and more easily camouflaged themselves in kelp and amongst algae-covered surroundings. Here in the katopolis, it was a valuable survival skill.
Nereids were perhaps the most interesting to look upon. Swimming together just below me was a group of three. One was as wide as the path, forcing everyone else to move around him as he swam forward. A second was as small as a clam, like a tiny purple seahorse circling his companion and swinging a knife in the direction of anyone who drew too close. The third was closer in size to the rest of us and resembled a turtle, with an armored shell that covered his torso.
This was their part of the city, and we all knew I didn’t belong here.
Those who bothered to glance up at my pod scowled or made rude gestures before going back to their business. That suited me fine. I wasn’t here to make friends.
The streets turned like waves in the sand, and I followed, one with the foot and tail traffic below, yet also apart.
Streaks of brilliant azure peeked out from beneath the broken stone roads, the Source working as well as ever to power Thalassapolis, and painting the way toward the center of the city, and to my destination.
My contact had insisted on meeting in the colosseum, not far from the temple district.
No surprise there.
The ancient and abandoned arena had long been a hangout for the worst of the city’s criminal element—a black market for anything a scoundrel could want. Or for anything a desperate person could need.
I was the latter.
Like everything else in the katopolis, the colosseum was crumbling. Three stories tall, the building towered over those around it, even when in ruins. It was said to be one of the oldest structures in existence, second only to the temples beyond.
My pod ascended upon approach, and I drove up over the curved wall of arches. The stones here may once have been gray or white, but in the pitch black, all I could see was the green overgrowth that coated everything around here.
The pod crested the outer wall, and those who had gathered in the seating were quick to scatter down into the center of the colosseum, hidden in the thick kelp that grew there, or back to wherever they had come from.
This had to be quick.
Word of my presence—the Defense Ministry’s presence—would travel quickly, and it would invite the sorts of scum who didn’t run from the law.
I maneuvered the craft so that the headlights swept over the seating area.
Most of the people had already scattered, and those who hadn’t were well on their way.
A solitary nereid, who hadn’t fled with the rest, remained on one of the middle rows. His yellow skin made him stand out amongst the green vegetation and gray stone.
He had to be my guy.
I set the pod down along the edge of the kelp field. Green stalks reached up high above the top of the pod, a forest contained inside the ring.
With the press of a button, the cockpit began to fill with seawater.
The cold liquid bubbled over my shoulders and covered my head. I closed my eyes and inhaled the brine, saturating my lungs with a deep breath.
I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed taking in the pure waves until this moment. It had been too long. But there was no time to savor the experience.
My body floated gently up off the seat, and I willed my form to change. My service shoes and uniform conformed to the shift from two legs to the unified shape of my tail.
I popped the hatch and swam upward out of the sub, heading for the nereid who was still illuminated in the pod’s headlights.
He stepped back into the shadows of the decked seating as I approached.
I hadn’t gotten a name, only a place to meet. And I wasn’t even sure what the guy was supposed to look like.
“What’s with your ride? Couldn’t find something flashier for this meeting? Maybe a glowing sign that screams murder me?”
“I do not have time for bullshit.” I was on edge and out of my element. The sooner I could return to my pod the better.
“No time for anything, now that everyone knows a Defense Ministry officer is here.”
He had a point.
I got my first real look at the nereid. His kind came in all sorts of varieties—small as a clam, large as a whale. This one was fairly small, not much shorter than me, and quite globular.
“Provide what I came for and we can both go home,” I said.
“Right, you get to go back to your tower and forget all of this. I am home.”
“Give me the drive.”
“Money first,” he said, shoving out the tattoo on what I guessed was his wrist. His tentacle was yellow and covered in spines, but the skin was smooth over his mark.
I pulled out my tablet from my pocket, scanned my wrist, punched in my bank code and the amount, then scanned his mark.
His already squinted eyes narrowed further, then he checked his tablet and glanced at the screen.
“All right, now we can do business. By the way, there is no drive.”
Betrayal. It wasn’t a surprise, but I’d hoped...
My hand instinctively shifted toward the golden rod at my side.
The nereid’s eyes flicked to my service weapon.
“No, no I don’t mean like that,” he said, waving his tentacles in defense. “I mean the info is in here.”
He tapped above his eyes, to the bloated area between spines that was probably his head.
I didn’t like where this was going, but there was no other choice. This was my only lead. After a decade of searching, this was it.
“I get it, you don’t trust me,” he said. “You want something concrete.”
I remained silent. In my experience, it was the best way to get most people to divulge more information than they intended.
“The thing is, I got more than I bargained for when I started digging around. I need to stay off the Ministry’s radar. And I don’t just mean in the way all of us ‘round here has to. No tech.”
The Defense Ministry? There was something more he wasn’t telling me.
“Why?”
“It’s like this. Your parents—” The nereid shut his mouth hole and his eyes widened as his attention flicked over my shoulder.
I turned around. Three dark figures were coming toward us—mermen floating up from the kelp below.
My pod’s headlights were the only light source. It came from behind them, so I couldn’t make their faces in the darkness. But I didn’t need to see their faces to know they were trouble.
I moved to the side of the informant, keeping him and the newcomers in my sights. My fingers rested on the cold hilt of my service weapon.
There were two possibilities. The first was that the pod had drawn them out for the chance to assault a Ministry officer.
The second was they were here for the nereid. No question he had shady dealings with other people besides me. If that was the case, it was better not to get involved.
Hoping it was option numbe
r two, I slowly inched away, circling with a wide berth toward the colosseum floor where my pod was parked. But I kept my gaze set on the mermen who closed in on the nereid.
But as they rose from the shadows, I got a better look at them. Their chests were adorned not with clothing, but with golden armor. Their tails were purple...like mine.
All three had silver hair, just like me.
I’d never seen anyone with the same coloring as me. Never.
“What...uh...what’s this about fellas?” The nereid looked around and took a step back.
The lead merman drew a blade from his coat, and without hesitation, drove it into the nereid’s torso.
Inside my head, I screamed.
I wished I hadn’t left the informant’s side. I wished I’d defended him. I wished he was still alive.
But he wasn’t.
The merman shoved the nereid backward. His body floated lifelessly over the seats. Shimmering golden blood dissipated into the water around him.
This kind of thing happened all of the time. Nothing out of the ordinary.
But it should have been out of the ordinary. It should have been a crime.
My stomach clenched and I couldn’t look away. This was not supposed to happen. No one deserved to be treated like their life was meaningless.
The merman turned to me. “You’re coming with us.”
He swam closer, his friends fanning out to either side.
I turned and swam hard toward the kelp.
What did they want with me?
There wasn’t time to get back into the sub before they would reach me, and I was sure they knew it too.
But I didn’t need to escape. I only needed to create an advantage.
I could feel them closing in behind me, around me.
A little farther.
I reached the edge of the kelp forest and swam between the long, swaying shoots.
Hidden deep in the darkness, I spun to face my attackers.
The sound of movement in the water told me where they were. The leader was straight ahead, while his lackies closed in on my sides. Their movements had slowed. They didn’t know where I was, not yet at least.
The Ocean's Roar: A Tiger Shifter and Mermaid Romance (The Protectors Quick Bites Book 3) Page 2