The Mermaid’s Lament
Shay Greene Book One
Alexes Razevich
Razor Street Publishing
Copyright © 2019 Alexes Razevich
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual events, locals, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidently and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the author. Requests for permission should be sent to [email protected].
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Contents
Untitled
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Also by Alexes Razevich
Contact Information
With much love to Chris, Larkin, and Colin Razevich.
1
The demon burst through the doors of the penthouse office suite cursing like a marine and reeking of patchouli oil.
There were thirteen women in the reception area—a dozen of us vying for the job of companion to entrepreneur Lady Califia, founder and CEO of Zubris Enterprises—and one very young-looking receptionist. Except that, according to the friend who’d told me about the opening, companion was a euphemism for ‘Lady Califia isn’t naming what specific job she wants done until the person is hired.’ I’d worked for secretive clients before. It wasn’t that unusual in my line of work.
I was on my feet in half a heartbeat, taking in the demon’s particulars, trying to match it with something—anything—I’d faced before or had heard about, looking for the best way to bring it down.
Every inch of the demon’s eight or so feet was warty green skin. Random sprouts of hair as thick and the same color as broomstick straw stuck out from its face. Its muscle-bound arms looked steroid built. The wrists were thick and the hands big enough to easily wrap over a basketball. Its feet were long and broad, good for balance, and ended in wicked looking talons.
Was it like anything I’d seen before?
Nope.
All the job seekers had leaped to their feet, some with weapons drawn, each woman set in her fighting stance. I readied a casting to halt the demon in place, visualizing in my mind what I wanted my chosen element to do. I had fire, water, air, and earth available, and had decided on air.
The demon had bee lined for the receptionist’s ultra-modern chrome and bamboo desk, reached across and hauled the screaming blonde girl—she couldn’t have been more than seventeen, eighteen—out of her chair as though she were no heavier or studier than a rag doll. Before I could get my casting off, the demon tossed the receptionist over its shoulder, held her in place with a massive, warty, green hand, and hustled out the door with the kind of amazing speed I’d only seen in vampires.
I jetted toward the open door after them, my mind busy with plans. I’d checked out the floor plan when I’d gotten off the elevator. There were stairs at the end of the hallway, my bet for how the demon would carry her down. Taking the elevator made no sense. The hallway was long but no so long that my casting wouldn’t have its intended effect.
I sprinted out of the office and into the hallway followed by the other job seekers.
Empty.
I glanced right, left, up, and down, looking for possible escape routes. Nothing in the ceiling. I couldn’t see any way for the demon to have reached the stairs at the far end, even with the hellish speed it possessed. There weren’t any windows for the demon to have leaped through. But there was a door to, presumably, another suite of offices down and to my left. I ran to the door, grabbed the knob and twisted it.
Locked.
Because no one was at work there today? Because whoever rented the suite didn’t want just anyone walking in? Or because the demon had thought it a useful hiding place and had locked the door behind it?
I readied myself to blow the door open with a storm-worthy blast of air, but heard a click before I set the blast free. The door unlocking. I stood a moment, trying to feel if it was a trap.
The door opened. The receptionist beamed at me. I looked over her head into the room. There was no sign of the demon.
“Shall we?” she said and skipped across the hall back toward the offices like a happy child with her basket full of posies. I followed behind, scowling and irritated.
The receptionist flashed a smile and a wink at the other job seekers as she pranced through the room and once again ensconced herself behind her desk.
Pissed off mutterings of ‘Shit’ and ‘Well, fuck,’ darkened the room as the realization that the abduction was completely staged broke over the other applicants, many of whom were putting away throwing stars, knives, and guns.
Who comes to a job interview armed like that?
Evidently, everyone but me. But then, I carried my arsenal inside myself, always ready when I needed it.
What confused me was the demon. Why would someone ordin, which I assumed Lady Califia was, fake a demon attack? True, she’d evidently specified a magical for this job, which was unusual but not unheard of the ordin world, especially for someone of Lady Califia’s wealth. Money buys a lot of things. Knowledge of hidden worlds among them. And, evidently, rent-a-demons.
I shifted my attention back to the receptionist. She was all business now, walking around the room handing each applicant a clipboard with a blank, lined piece of paper on it, and a Montblac ballpoint pen. Yeah, Montblanc. Very nice.
“If you will each write down what you just saw,” she said, “that would be lovely. No conferring with others. Sign your name at the bottom.”
There was a bit of we applicants glancing at each other in a What’s going on here? way and then some chair scraping as we each sat and bent over our tasks. Other than irritation at having been had by the fake demon abduction, no one seemed the least bit thrown off by the theatrics we’d witnessed. We were all professionals, by the looks of things. From what I’d heard about Lady Califia, she’d accept no less.
Lady wasn’t her title, it was her first name, and she was beyond wealthy. I wasn’t sure numbers went as high as her net worth. She’d made it all herself, which I appreciated. Or rather, she’d found a treasure and turned it into a thriving enterprise.
Lady Califia had been barely older than I was now when she found the sunken Pride of Zubis and recovered the treasure in its hold. In the six years since, she’d taken the initial find and built an industry around it, all by her fortieth birthday.
There was the theme park that everyone wanted to go to, the imitation crown and jewels that every little girl just had to have in her princess closet, the replica Sword of Zubis that every young (and quite a number of teen) boy craved. A few adult men also had the replica sword hanging in their living rooms or bedrooms; I knew this from seeing social media posts from grown-ass Zubis-nerds.
To
each their own, I say.
Lady Califia ran her empire from this penthouse office suite at the Cooper Building in downtown Los Angeles, where we even dozen would-be companions now waited to be called for our one-on-one interviews. After the demon charade, I was rather looking forward to the one-on-one which I hoped would be with Ms. Califia herself and not just some minion. Maybe I’d get answers to some of my questions.
When the last of the applicants looked up, indicating she’d finished writing down what she’d seen, the receptionist collected the clipboards and pens back into the same cardboard box she’d drawn them from. She sat back in her black Aeron chair and beamed at us as if we were children who had just managed to tie their shoelaces semi-well for the first time. I don’t know what the other applicants did in response, but I simply stared at her, the blandest expression I could muster plastered on my face.
The receptionist broke off her beaming in our direction and began reading our ‘witness statements,’ separating them into two piles. I figured the piles were the ‘reject’ and the ‘second step’ groups. I wondered which pile my recollection had wound up in, and admitted to myself I wanted to be in the ‘second step’ group, if only to maybe meet Lady Califia.
The baby receptionist picked up one pile, rose from her chair, and went to a tall oak door with an intricately inscribed gold knob married with a deco design black and gold back plate. Ms. Califia seemed to spare no expense, and she had good taste. The receptionist opened the door and then disappeared behind it. I didn’t think that was Lady’s private office. Most execs liked to be a bit removed from the hoi polloi that regularly came into reception areas—salesmen, break room service people, and the like.
I got up to look closely at the doorknob.
“Runes?” one of the other applicants asked.
I nodded as I let my eyes go unfocused and sensed the door. Under the dark-brown stain, the entire thing was covered in runes.
“Really?” another applicant said to the confirmation that runes were on the doorknob. “What sort?”
“Protection,” I said. Evidently, I wasn’t the only one who seemed surprised that magic was in use here.
I sensed someone approaching from the other side of the runed door and casually made my way back to my seat.
The baby receptionist opened the door and stepped back into the reception area, accompanied by a tall, brown-skinned man with luxurious black hair. I guessed he was East Indian or Pakistani, that part of the world at least. Magic visibly radiated from him in lines, like one of those Our Lady of Guadalupe paintings. I was pretty sure he didn’t walk around the streets like that, and wondered why he wanted to make his magic so obvious to us. And who, or what, the richest woman in the country really was.
Baby receptionist held up a list she had in her hands.
“As I call your name, please stand,” she said.
Six names were called. Mine wasn’t among them. Disappointment sidled through me.
The receptionist eyed the standing women, as if taking their measure. Maybe she had some bet with herself about who would make the final cut. The tall man with the lovely mane of hair stared slightly over the standing applicant’s heads, his face a masque of disinterest. I say a masque because the magic that had radiated off him in spokes now undulated like dancing snakes. I was pretty sure that was a sign of intense, not dis, interest.
“Thank you,” the receptionist said to the standing applicants. “I just need you to sign these non-disclosure agreements. Your parking stubs can be validated at the front desk downstairs.”
It took a moment for the standing women to realize they were being dismissed. The looks of excited expectation they had worn shifted to display their own disappointment. The rest of us watched silently as each woman signed the agreement and headed out the door.
When the last of the rejects had left, the receptionist cast her glance over the remaining six applicants; all of who—myself included—had figured out we’d made the cut. “If you will kindly follow Doctor Sharma, he will lead you to the interview room.”
We stood like a well-trained drill team. The sound of half a dozen chairs scraping across the hardwood floor was like a symphony to my ears.
I’m often too curious for my own good, or so people tell me.
2
Our group of six followed Dr. Sharma down a long, white hallway wide enough for four or five people to walk side-by-side. The hall was lit by white globes hung a couple of inches below the high ceiling. I was third in line, behind a woman I’d describe as ‘strapping.’ She was tall, six feet or so, muscular with the lean muscles of a runner or soccer player, and dressed throat to ankle in leather as black as her hair.
Dr. Sharma hustled ahead and opened another oak door.
“Son of a bitch!” Leather Woman cried and spun to send Dr. Sharma a glare so harsh it could melt glass. “Do you think we’re stupid? That door is protected. Opened or closed, any stranger trying to cross the threshold is in for a nasty surprise.”
I let my eyes go unfocused and saw pulsing, neon-orange ward lines crisscrossing the door and jamb. Strong wards, powerful enough to have thrown Leather Woman into the wall behind us if she’d tried to enter the room before they were disarmed.
There was more to it than just wards, though. I was sure of that. I opened my senses to feel for what else was going on and blew out a breath when I got it.
“Who here is a curse breaker?” I said. “Any one?”
I didn’t hold out a lot of hope. Curse breakers were a rare commodity since curse throwers tended to hunt them down and kill them. Curse throwers are a nasty bunch.
A seriously short, thin woman, maybe mid-twenties, with short, spiky brown hair and dressed in an almost knee-length forest-green sweater over brown leggings stepped up. She couldn’t have looked more ‘wood sprite’ if she’d had pointy ears. Which she didn’t.
“I’m a curse breaker,” she said.
“Do you think you could do anything with the one on this door?” I said.
She regarded the door a moment, tilting her head left and then right, as if getting a bead on the curse.
“Not much of a curse here, honestly. A little pinch will do.” She reached into the brown leather purse she carried, inclining her head down to see inside. “Now where is that? Ah.”
She pulled out a small, round, silver tin. A purple haze of wards surrounded the tin. She muttered some words to clear off the wards. When the wards had dissipated, melting away like dew in the sun, she opened the tin, gathered a pinch of something vegetative and blue, (dried flowers maybe?) and rolled it between her thumb and middle finger.
“Move back,” she said, her voice suddenly firm and authoritative. Leather Woman and I backed up to stand with the other three applicants who leaned against the wide hallway’s far wall.
She tossed the crumbs toward the door. The curse broke as if the delicate flower bits were a rock shattering a mirror. A couple of the women flinched as the curse splintered and fell to the floor. I was impressed.
Leather Woman stepped forward, seemingly determined to be first through the door after all. I grabbed her arm to stop her.
“I wouldn’t do that,” I said. “There are more than a curse and some wards guarding this door.”
“Pftt,” the curse breaker noised. “It’s a secondary curse and it’s mostly for show.” She wriggled her fingers and muttered a few words. Her voice came back to normal and she said, “All done. We can go in now.”
I shook my head. “There’s something else going on here, but I can’t quite tell what.”
Leather Woman gave a dismissive sort of snort and strode through the open doorway. Nothing hit her, or jumped out, or in anyway seemed designed to further keep us from entering the room. I scratched my head as the curse breaker followed Leather Woman into the room. Something else was definitely at work here, but evidently it wasn’t anything designed to stop us. I stepped through the doorway.
A frizz of something prickled over my s
kin as I passed through the jambs into the room. The door slammed shut.
“Sorting door,” I said, now that the something else I’d felt had made itself known.
Leather Woman gave the curse breaker and me the once over. “Either we’re selected or rejected. My bet is on selected.”
I thought so, too. We were the three who’d taken charge. A thrill of anticipation ran up my breastbone.
Dr. Sharma clapped his hands to get our attention. “Congratulations. One of you will be offered the position of companion to Lady Califia.”
Great. Were we going to arm-wrestle each other and the winner got the job?
As if he’d heard my thoughts, Dr. Sharma said, “As you know, Ms. Califia is a powerful, wealthy woman. As you might well guess, that sort of position engenders jealousy, greed, and threats to her well-being. She needs to know that whomever she selects for the position is able to protect her physically. To that end, she requests a demonstration of your skills.”
Criminy. We were going to arm-wrestle. Or some equivalent of that. Probably a rather more aggressive equivalent. I hoped we weren’t really about to be asked to fight each other. I was growing a little fond of Leather Woman and Curse Breaker. I wouldn’t want to hurt them just to get a job.
I glanced around the large room. It reminded me of what I imagined a Victorian Men’s Club might have looked like. Dark wood paneling. Long, thin windows wearing with heavy, gold draperies. Thick, expensive-looking rugs over dark oak floors. Comfy-looking, maroon, wingback chairs set around dark wood side tables, the groupings close enough together to not make the room look weird but far enough apart that each little assemblage could hold private conversations if people kept their voices low.
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