by ReGi McClain
“Do you need something, Kaito?”
Kaito’s head turned in Harsha’s direction, but his eyes remained glued to Seraph’s breasts. The gun he held pointed in the direction of her friend, so Harsha took the liberty of pushing his arm downward. At her touch, his eyes fixed on her hand until she removed it.
“Ah, heh, heh. I’m sorry, Ms. Moreland, but I thought for sure I saw a huge dog get into your room.” Rubbing the back of his neck, he went out the door. “I guess I was just dreaming and sleep-walking. Or something.”
Seraph shut the door behind him. “Whew,” she said with an exaggerated brow-wipe. Sliding the blanket aside, she looked under the berth at Zeeb. “It’s all right, you can come out.”
He crawled out looking like a frightened puppy. Harsha gave in to the urge to say, “aww,” and scratched him behind the ear. He batted her hand away with a paw.
The door burst open, its lock busting off. “Ah ha! I did see a dog.”
Seraph crossed the room and put a restraining hand on Kaito’s shoulder.
“Hey, that’s a pretty, unh.” He winced under the pressure of Seraph’s grasp. “Pretty strong grip you got there.”
“Give the gun to Harsha.”
Kaito held out the gun. Harsha took it, holding it by the handle with two fingers, and flung it out the porthole. Seraph let go of Kaito.
He toppled to the floor.
Seraph coughed. “Guess I squeezed too hard.”
“I’ll say,” Kaito agreed. “Will you please use those strong arms of yours to get me to a berth?”
Obliging, Seraph set Kaito down on Harsha’s berth. Zeeb tilted his head to one side and yipped.
“We have to tell him sometime.” Seraph answered.
“Tell me what?”
A mischievous grin spread across Seraph’s face. “This is going to be fun.” She rubbed her hands together in anticipation. “Well, it’s like this. We have no interest whatsoever in your chubby flasher fish ”
“Flashlight.”
“Or bio-whatical-nosity.”
“You mean bioluminosity?”
“Whatever. What we’re interested in does live deep in the sea, though.”
“As long as I get the funding I need to test my sub, we can look for whatever you want.”
“Deal. You test your sub. We look for what we’re looking for. Everyone’s happy.”
“No, everyone’s not. First, I need to know what to look for. Second, none of this explains the sudden appearance of a massive dog.” Grasping Maura’s berth, he lifted himself onto wobbly legs. “I’m going to talk to the captain.”
Seraph pushed him back onto the berth.
Kaito scowled at her. “How’d a lady like you get to be so strong?”
Seraph’s smile widened. “Because I’m not a lady.”
Kaito’s eyes swept her. “Well, that’s disappointing. Still doesn’t explain the dog.”
“No, no. I meant, it’s only possible to be a lady if one is human, correct?”
“I knew a guy with a dog named Lady.”
Seraph plopped onto her berth, scowling. “For a genius, you’re not too quick to pick up on implied meaning, are you?”
“Nope.” His shoulders slumped. “I suck at social strategy. Feel like sharing a few pointers on how to,” he straightened, waggled his eyebrows, deepened his voice, and addressed himself to Seraph’s breasts, “handle the ladies?”
Seraph growled, leaped up, yanked the sheet off Maura, and hog-tied Kaito, giving nobody a chance to react before she finished.
“Hey!” came an indignant whine from under Maura’s pillows. Seraph handed up the blanket from Harsha’s berth.
Kaito looked around the room from his awkward position on Harsha’s berth. “So, is this like a sorority thing?”
Seraph banged her head on the wall, threw herself into bed, and covered her head with a pillow.
“I’ll give you a tip,” Harsha said. “If a woman can overpower you just by pinching your shoulder, try not to aggravate her. Especially not a woman who’s rejected you several times. Looks like you’re stuck here until morning.” Harsha rolled him out of her berth.
He landed with a thud. “Ow! Hey!”
“Sorry, but the berths are all taken.” She patted hers. “Hop on up, Wolfman. You can sleep in mine for one more night.”
Wagging his tail, Zeeb jumped onto the berth and settled in. Harsha pulled down the berth over Seraph’s and climbed up.
Kaito, who faced Harsha’s berth, asked, “You give your dog his own berth?”
“He’s not my dog.”
“Seraph’s dog?”
“No.”
“Whose dog is he, then?”
“His own.”
“What? That doesn’t make sense. Dogs don’t own themselves.”
“This one does.”
“Don’t get me wrong, but I’m starting to worry I took money from a nutcase.”
“Maybe you did.”
“Is it okay if I keep the money? Or will your family come after me for letting a schizo fund my project?”
“Go to sleep, Kaito.”
Kaito strained his neck to look at her. “Like this? You’re kidding, right?”
Harsha closed her eyes.
Harsha waited until she heard snores from Zeeb and Kaito. When both sets of breath settled into smooth, steady rhythms, she dropped out of her berth and landed with minimal noise on her bare feet. Another night of sleeping above a dragon proved to be one night too many. She stripped off her pajamas, trading them for a camisole. Breathing a sigh of relief, she climbed back into her berth. The cooler clothing failed to help her sleep. She stayed awake, staring out the porthole while her gut twisted with guilt and anxiety. When the edge of the moon touched the horizon, she hung her arm over her bunk to jiggle Seraph’s arm.
Seraph stirred in the blossoming light. “Is it dawn?”
“Any minute. We better wake them soon.”
Seraph spread her fingers and toes far apart, yawning. She tilted her wrist to point at Kaito. “You can sure pick ’em, can’t you?”
“I found you. Hand me some clothes, please.”
Seraph passed up a pair of shorts and a tank top. “No, Jason found me. You’re just stuck with me. Do you know where my brush is?”
“Bathroom counter.” Harsha put on the clothes and slid out of bed. She collapsed when she hit the floor.
Seraph gasped and rushed to lift her to her feet. “Are you okay?”
Harsha took a moment to steady herself, then nodded. “Yeah, I think so.” She winced at the bruises that popped up on her arms and legs. “I guess adrenalin rushes and sleep deprivation make a bad combination.”
“Let’s get Kaito and Zeeb out of here, then, so you can sleep.”
Harsha nodded, again, and shook Zeeb. He stuck out his tongue in a doggy yawn.
Seraph kicked Kaito.
“Ow! I’m awake, you patron’s-friend-I-shouldn’t-call-nasty-names. Untie me. I can’t feel my limbs.”
“Hush. Don’t wake Maura.” Harsha knelt to undo the knots, but her fingers, weakened by illness, failed to budge the layers of fabric. She looked to Seraph for help. Seraph went on braiding her hair. Zeeb barked.
“All right, all right.” Seraph untied the knot, yanked Kaito up, and sat him on the bed next to Zeeb. “No flirting.”
Kaito glared at Seraph while Harsha rubbed the life back into his wrists. “I might need more money when this is over. For doctors’ bills.”
Harsha shook her head, “Not unless she causes potentially long-term damage.”
Kaito shrugged. “Worth the sho Augh!”
Harsha looked away. Zeeb would be all man in a moment. She watched Kaito, instead, who stared open mouthed until the change finished before shouting, “Captain! Caaaaaptain! Captaincaptaincaptain!” He tried to run for the door but tripped over his own feet. “Help! Help!”
Seraph shoved her forearm in his mouth. “Hush. Maura is trying to sleep. Besides, letting yo
u in on our secret is not the same as giving you permission to blab it.”
Kaito’s eyes bulged downward toward Seraph’s arm. “Nwuh, nwuh, nwuh, nwuh.”
“What?” She moved her arm an inch away from his mouth.
“I said,” he whispered, “‘please don’t burn me.’ I remember the trick you pulled with the handshake.”
Seraph moved her arm further from his mouth. “All done shouting?”
“Not sure. What other tricks do you have up your sleeves?”
Zeeb stepped into Harsha’s line of sight wearing two of her sweaters tied around his waist. He hoisted Kaito back onto the berth. “We let you in on the greatest scientific secret in the world.” He lowered himself to one knee to look the Kaito in the eye. “And you’re worried about tricks? What kind of scientist are you?”
“One who can distinguish reality from fantasy. This is a dream. Either that or I took money from a whole bunch of bananas and your families already have their lawyers picked out. I’m going with dream.”
“If you were dreaming, would you feel this?” Seraph flicked him.
“The crewman in the hammock above mine dropped a nutshell. My subconscious incorporated the sensation into my dream.”
Harsha sat next to Kaito. “Look, I know it’s a lot to take in, but Zeeb really is a werewolf, Seraph is a dragon, Maura is a selkie, and the only reason we’re telling you this is because I hired you to find mermaids.”
Kaito leaned away from her. “Dragon?” He dropped his head into his hands. “Ugh. I’m in trouble. The check is fake and your family is going to make mincemeat of me.”
“No, Kaito. The money is sent to your bank and I don’t have a single family member to sue you. You don’t think we can fake Zeeb’s change, do you? On a boat? There isn’t space for the smoke and mirrors.”
“I don’t know how you did it, but I know it’s not real.” He wavered in his seat, blinking his eyes.
Recognizing the symptoms of an oncoming faint, Harsha steadied him with a hand on his shoulder and patted his cheek. “Stay with me, Kaito.”
“No, no. I’m dreaming. It’s all a dream.”
“It’s not a dream. How can we convince you?”
“You want to convince me? Let’s see her turn into a dragon.”
“If there isn’t space for smoke and mirrors, there definitely isn’t space for a dragon.”
“Exactly. So you must be lying. Or crazy.”
“Do you remember when you shook her hand?”
“Of course. She burned me with thermogenic lotion.”
“Watch this.” Harsha stepped into the bathroom to fill a glass with water. She dumped it on Seraph’s head before sitting back down.
“Hey!” Seraph protested.
Kaito laughed. “Do it again.”
“All right, Seraph, show him how you dry your hair.”
Seraph steamed the water away.
Kaito shook his head. “No good. The trick with the dog was more impressive.”
“All right, what about her eyes?”
“Contacts.”
“Her body temperature?”
“Thyroid problem.”
Zeeb opened his mouth to reveal his extra canine teeth. “How about these?” he asked.
Kaito made a noise of disgust. “Weird fascination and unethical dentist.”
“Kaito?” Seraph asked, her voice saccharine. “You’ve seen fire blowers before, right?”
“Sure. They use alcohol.”
“Well, have you seen me drink anything?”
“No.”
“Good.” She spurted twin fountains of flame out of her nostrils.
Kaito’s eyes rolled back in his head. Unable to hold him, Harsha let him fall onto the berth. His head bounced off the wall on the way down. She winced. “He will need extra money for doctors’ bills at the rate this is going.”
Zeeb threw his hands up.
Seraph shrugged. “At least he won’t be talking for a while.”
Maura leaned over her berth. “He’s quiet. Is he okay?”
“Not exactly. Since you’re awake, can you get clothes for Zeeb and a cup of tea? Uh, but don’t mention Kaito, okay?”
While Maura ran for clothes and tea, Harsha tried to revive Kaito by slapping him on the wrists. If he stayed unconscious long, she worried, they’d need to alert the captain. Even being sympathetic toward hiders, she doubted he’d be amused at having a scientist injured by one. “What happened, Zeeb? Why didn’t you stay in our cabin tonight?”
“I lost track of the moon while I was sick. I could’ve sworn I had two days left. I didn’t think to check.” Grasping handfuls of dreadlocks, he sat on Seraph’s berth.
“Off.” Seraph, in the middle of dressing, whapped him with her skirt. The pained expression on the redhead’s face gave Harsha the impression she was struggling not to do more than whap.
Zeeb transferred to Harsha’s berth. She scooched to give him room, but with Kaito taking up most of the space, her efforts made little difference. She felt awkward with so much of his skin touching hers. Awkward and thrilled, which compounded her embarrassment. She looked at her hands and pretended to be scrutinizing her nails. Much to her relief, Maura returned with jeans for Zeeb.
He changed in their bathroom then returned Harsha’s sweaters, folded. “Thanks for the loan.”
“Er, you can put them in the laundry.” And later, after he left, Seraph could burn them. The last thing she needed was to put on a sweater to stay warm only to take it off because picturing Zeeb using it as a loincloth heated her up faster than the fluffy fabric.
Maura changed and went off in search of breakfast while Harsha tried a new tactic for reviving Kaito. To her great relief, he awoke when she sprinkled his face with water.
Rubbing his head, he sat up. “Ugh, what a dream.” On seeing Zeeb and Seraph, he groaned. “Except it wasn’t a dream, was it?”
“What wasn’t a dream?” Seraph asked, all innocence and sweetness.
Zeeb growled. “Enough, Seraph. He’s aware you don’t like him. We need his help, so stop tormenting him.”
Seraph sighed. “All right. No, not a dream. You did see Zeeb turn into a wolf ”
“Other way around, actually,” Kaito interrupted.
Seraph closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “And I did incinerate a sweater with my breath.”
Kaito looked around, nodding. “Okay, okay. This is real. So, do I get to study you guys?”
“No.”
“Okay. All right.” He held up his hands in mock surrender. “I get it. The scientific community isn’t ready for you. What about you?” He looked at Harsha. “What do you change into?”
Marveling at his sudden acceptance, she pressed the cup of tea into his hands and checked his temperature with the back of her hand. “Nothing.”
“Nothing? No blood sucking? No snake hair? No flying saucer?”
“No.” She decided he looked all right. “I don’t do anything special. Except bruise easily,” she added, thinking of the black and blue marks polka-dotting her.
“You’re just another human who got mixed up with a werewolf and dragon and, and… whatever Maura is?”
“Selkie, and I’m only part human.”
“What’s the other part?”
“Faerie and mermaid.”
Kaito’s face lit up. “So, when you two joked about looking for mermaids the day we cast off, you weren’t kidding?”
“No. Are you feeling okay?”
He jumped up and danced around the room, splattering tea all over the place. “This is the chance of a lifetime,” he sang. He finished his dance with a noisy smooch on Harsha’s lips. Zeeb shoved him, sending him flying into the door.
“Hey, man.” Kaito held his hands in front of him. “Just the appreciation of a broke scientist.” His eyes took on a maniacal gleam. “Make that a broke mad scientist. Mermaids! No one will ever believe me, but I’ll know.”
Harsha blushed and wished she’d had th
e presence of mind to smack Kaito herself. The moment to do so was past, however, and she felt it would be mean-spirited after the push Zeeb gave him. She resorted to brushing her teeth with dramatic flair, hoping Kaito felt the insult of it. Apparently unruffled by the gesture, he started shooting off questions faster than they could answer, his eyes bright and crazed. He left the room with an armful of the notes they had brought along with them, dancing down the hall and up the stairs.
Seraph watched him leave. “That went pretty well, I think.”
“Oh, yes. I’m sure all those bumps and bruises will heal in no time.” Zeeb scuttled through the narrow door past her. “I’m off to see if the cook has crackers left. Join me, ladies?”
“Crackers?”
“For nasty little dry squares with no flavor whatsoever, they’re not too bad. They crunch.”
Seraph wrinkled her nose. “Why eat them at all?”
“You try holding down meat while your stomach is jumping overboard.”
“Well, I’m not eating crackers.”
They left and Harsha collapsed onto her berth to grab a few hours of sleep.
Chapter 31
The cook, an olive-skinned Italian with hard-muscled arms and a belly shaped like a keg, kept the galley stocked with snack foods. Twice a day, he whipped up delectable hot dishes, which scented the entire boat, but the rest of the time, people scrounged the available munchables on their own. Except Maura. After the cook found her sinking her teeth into a raw fish, he made a point of preparing all her meals.
Harsha dragged herself to the galley after her nap. She found her friends seated around a table with empty dishes, notes, maps, and various measurement tools. Kaito grinned at her, resembling the Cheshire cat. “Ready?”
Harsha snagged a bag of trail mix and sat down. “For what?”
“We can’t run blind. I need to figure out the best place to find them. That’s what you’re paying for, isn’t it?”
She picked through the snack for the bits of dried fruit. “It is.”
“All right, so let’s plan.”
Kaito started a lecture. Harsha tried to follow, but her eyes glazed over as he explained methods of triangulation. She knew the basics but found the application of geometry to geography uninteresting. Zeeb, however, jumped right in, pointing to regions on the map and checking the notes for details. Harsha exchanged looks of boredom with Maura and Seraph. “Anyone for Go Fish?”