Krav absently twirled a strand of mist around his arm, leaving Panacea to wonder of he’d been listening at all. Then he spoke.
“Are you so sure about that?”
“He must find them. The kings’ curse may be our only salvation and they will be able to move between worlds in ways the gods can’t once they are found and re-throned. Poseidon’s angst over the loss of Atlantis is a weakness we can ill afford to suffer much longer…”
“I know. He’s been so Greek about it right?” Krav cut in. Panacea glared at him but she could tell was being flippant on purpose. The situation with his friend bothered him very much though he was trying not to let on.
“It will take some doing and I’ll have to step up my concealment measures but I will try to aid the search and undo the curse.”
“Why is it always ‘curse this’, ‘prophecy that’ and ‘sell me your soul’ with the gods ─ have you ever noticed?”
All Krav’s rant earned him was another arch look from the goddess.
“I’m just saying,” he mumbled. “So you’ll help?”
“I’ll take care of it myself.”
Pan closed her eyes to gather bits of information from the cosmos and undefined time, channeling the source in a manner her demon friend would never experience. Krav waited in silence, knowing better than to interrupt her. When her aquamarine eyes opened again, she spoke.
“Since Poseidon hunts a relic that I happen to know the whereabouts of anyway, tell him to send the vial of my elixir that he’s been hording to your friend, Xieran, on Olympus and he shall have the amulet he seeks in return.”
Krav’s shoulders sagged.
“Right, that idea makes so much more sense than if, say, you were to just give me the elixir directly and then I pass it along to Xieran myself,” the sarcasm rolled thick off of his tongue. “And now there’s an amulet in the mix? I should have known.”
“My dear Krav,” Panacea clucked, “when will you ever learn the art of politics and subterfuge?”
“I’d sooner have you take a shovel to my neck,” he grumbled.
Pan waved absently at that comment.
“We’ll kill two birds with one stone and no one will be the wiser.”
“Wily goddess, I see what you’re doing here.” Krav’s grin turned conspiratorial.
Panacea gave him a pointed look, about out of patience but he didn’t seem to notice. His black forked tongue darted out as he licked his lips in excitement at thinking he was on to her.
“You’re throwing everyone off your trail, all the while getting in some meddling of your own…very sneaky of you.”
She let out a beleaguered sigh at his impudence, one day she was going to have to punish him so that he took her seriously.
“You try me Krav. Just go and be competent for once. Tell the sea god to use a human messenger for the exchange, the one the Nereid Queen hides.”
She froze again, getting something from the ether.
“Be quick. Xieran’s human hangs by a thread.”
Krav bowed his head to her, all remnant of his former impertinence gone in an instant.
“Don’t fear goddess, I won’t fail,” he intoned, then wrapped himself in a cloak of red scales as he took on his serpent form and flashed out of the mists.
Panacea waved her hand in a sweeping sideways motion to clear the cloud that had stirred in Krav’s leaving and brought up a new scene in the stars. This time, of a lone woman, her face fringed by gold curls and lit by the glow of a computer screen.
“Not quite ready yet in this lifetime, but she’ll have to do anyway.”
A landscape of powers was quickly changing and desperate times called for a little “meddling” as Krav had termed it. The situation was turning volatile so she was only too happy to intercede in this case. She just had to take care not to do it too directly.
Evil had been allowed much unsupervised playtime by those that were supposed to be keeping things in check and now the universe was teetering on the brink of an unholy war. Hopefully, Poseidon’s lost sons could be found and the humans would prove worthy.
Chapter One
Miami, Florida
“This one, this is the place!”
Cindy wrinkled her brow and gave Marley a skeptical look. Loud music pumped out onto the sidewalk from the nightclub as she looked from the club’s neon sign to the piece of paper in her hand then nodded. Hard to believe, but this was definitely it. A thick humid breeze ruffled her hair and she leaned forward trying to hear over the noise. She felt conspicuous, like the two of them were co-conspirators about to commit some shady act as they stood outside of the club.
The maniacal neon pirate twenty feet above them looked like he agreed. Alternating red and yellow border lights ringed the grinning caricature and the words “Ramone’s Party Cove.” She imagined he winked at her as they passed underneath. No doubt, he knew all about them being warned off of following through on this amateur investigation they were running. Marley’s cousin Kay had gotten a wild hair to come down to Miami about a month ago and no one had heard from her since. She and Marley were Cindy’s best friends so when Marley called to tell her that the detective was about to close Kay’s case, they’d both come down to see what they could dig up on their own.
So not Kay’s style, Cindy thought as they walked by a pair of giant inflatable palm trees decked out with flamingo string lights. Kay was a book worm, a science geek studying geology at the Colorado School of Mining and Industry. She never partied, not even with her school friends. This would have been the last place she would have come. But Marley would not be deterred. She had reason to believe that this may have been the last place her cousin was seen before her disappearance.
They walked through the doorway and the host gave them some generic greeting in Spanish and a hot up and down appraisal that made Cindy glad she’d decided to dress the part and wear her black salsa dress. Hey, when in Rome, right? Maybe if she looked like she’d come for the nightlife, no one could accuse her of playing private eye.
She could still here Detective Santiago’s words from earlier ringing in her ears.
“This is a sensitive case,” he’d said, “very sensitive, a lot of unknowns.”
Well, no shit Sherlock, Cindy had thought. Aren’t all missing persons cases that way? But she’d kept her mouth shut. She’d been able to feel the steam rolling off of Marley so she’d decided to try and be the one with the level head in Santiago’s office.
“This isn’t a town you want to mess around in,” he’d warned. Then he’d suggested most indelicately that she and Marley stay away from anything to do with Karina’s case.
Cindy shook off the bad feeling she had about this whole mess and followed after Marley.
The brunette was already halfway through the crowded bar and moving towards the back of the club when Cindy caught up to her. Marley went straight for the patio just beyond a double doorway and Cindy followed. Thick warm air hit them as they passed by a man-made fountain then they found an opening in the crowd at the outside bar and squeezed in.
They managed to get the bartender’s attention and Marley ordered a pair of Jamaican Ten-speeds. She passed the fruity drinks to Cindy.
“I’m going to see if he knows anything. Why don’t you find us a table?”
“Okay, I see a spot over there,” Cindy shouted over the music.
She skirted her way around the dance floor. When she reached the table, she sat down and looked back at the bar where Marley was grilling the bartender relentlessly. He kept shaking his head and glancing at the club’s back door. Cindy had to hand it to her friend, she was a force to be reckoned with, the guy looked nervous.
Taking a long sip of the frothy green drink in her hand, she sat back in her chair and hoped that Marley found out something helpful tonight. All the anxiety was weighing on her. Her sheltered upbringing and hum drum lifestyle left her ill prepared for Marley’s break neck pace. On that thought, her phone buzzed inside her purse and sh
e dug it out.
It was a text from Leslie, her co-worker / cat babysitter / person who made her weekdays doable. Most of her texts came from Leslie due to the game they played.
“Did u make it to Miami ok?”
Shoot, she’d promised to let Leslie know when her flight had landed. But she’d hit the tarmac running and had completely forgotten.
She texted back.
“I did. Richard O’Shea was our pilot. The landing was a little rough, haha!”
“Lol, Rick O’Shea. Got it. Have fun!”
They shared funny names back and forth. It was the stuff that dorks were made of but it got them through the day. Running background checks for housing rentals was pretty dull work so they needed all the help they could get or at least Cindy did. Leslie was a wild child by night with an affinity for biker boyfriends, so her maybe not so much. Cindy was just grateful to have her taking care of her kitties, Beauregard and Snookums, right now. She was a good friend albeit an infamous matchmaker.
She could still hear Leslie’s latest attempts on her.
“So, I was thinking,” she’d started out, her total lack of subtlety something that Cindy overlooked as her friend, “when you get back from your trip to the orange juice state…”
“Oh no, here it comes,” Cindy had thought.
“…we should all go out sometime. Ray has this friend. He’d be per…”
“For the last time Les, quit trying to set me up with your biker boyfriend’s ruffian comrades,” Cindy had cut her off.
She knew she was a hopeless case in the dating arena but blind dates were the worst.
Plus, the boyfriend in question was named Raymond Gunn ─ she’d had a field day with that one.
Everyone seemed to think that her being single was this terrible thing and her sexual status as a twenty-five year old virgin did leave her feeling like a loner amongst the crowds of the sex obsessed masses. At this point though, she’d pretty much given up finding “the guy” as a lost cause.
She wasn’t really even that picky. She just seemed to have a knack for attracting the wrong kind of guy. And as far as the sex – that was just a whole other level of weirdness that she’d kept a secret her whole adult life.
She called it the wet blanket effect, it had been the nemesis of every guy who’d ever tried to get in her pants for as long as she’d been dating. It wasn’t anxiety or guilt or even fear, but an actual physical reaction that had kept her from going all the way. Therefore, her Latin classification name was still Virginus Suprimus. As the last remaining one of her kind, she made it a point to steer clear of cannibal tribes and volcanoes, just to be on the safe side.
Marley made it back to their table then and dropped down into the chair across from her. She blew her bangs out of her eyes and reached for her drink.
“What did the bartender say? Does anyone here remember seeing Kay?”
Marley took a drink.
“He thinks he may have seen her here with some guy a couple of times, is that weird or what?”
“Yeah, weird,” Cindy said. “It just doesn’t sound like Kay."
Kay was totally immersed in working on her master’s degree. She dated even less than Cindy did, if that was possible. Her being sited at this touristy club with some strange guy was totally out of character. Cindy took another sip of her drink.
“Mmmm, good call Marley. This is great!”
She plucked a chunk of pineapple off the side of her glass and sucked on it.
“I know,” Marley agreed, “I always order these when I go somewhere tropical.”
“Oh, the life you lead. Must be tough,” Cindy teased.
Marley traveled all the time doing research for the articles she wrote on vacation sites for her travel blog.
“You won’t hear me complaining. I know I’ve got a good gig.” She took another sip then said, “I think we should split up tomorrow.”
“What do you mean? Did you get another lead?”
“I want to go talk to the lady Kay was staying with before she went missing. She’s the reason Kay came out here in the first place.”
“Okaaay, what do you want me to do in the mean time?”
“I found this crumpled up in Kay Kay’s backpack at the police station.”
Marley pulled a brochure out of her purse and handed it to Cindy.
“Sandy Island’s Historic Lighthouse Museum,” Cindy read, taking the wrinkled pamphlet, “looks interesting. You think she went there?”
Marley shook her head slowly, focused on the dance floor over Cindy’s shoulder, then blew out a frustrated breath.
“I don’t know, but it could turn up some more clues and I figure it’s right up your alley. I know how you love anything historical.”
“It’s in the Keys, I’ll have to take a shuttle boat,” Cindy skimmed over the brochure, “looks like it could take all day. You sure you won’t need my help with the old lady?”
She hated to lose sight of Marley in the city.
“Don’t worry about me,” Marley assured her, “I’ll be fine.”
“Okay, I’ll snoop around tomorrow and ask if anyone knows anything,” Cindy said.
She needed a second to mull over everything they’d found out so far which wasn’t much. Kay had flown down to Florida out of the blue and turned up missing shortly after her arrival. Aside from the woman she’d been staying with and a few numbers scratched on a notepad, there wasn’t much else to go on.
“I think you have an admirer”, Marley broke in on her thoughts.
She nodded her head at the dance floor and Cindy turned to look. Her eyes met with a giant stuffed head version of the club’s pirate mascot that was making his way through the sea of people handing out jello shots. Could that leering grin get any more terrifying? He reached up and pulled on a string hanging off of his jacket. The stuffed parrot that was sewn to his shoulder squawked and flapped its wings. Well, that answered her question…yes, yes it could.
She rolled her eyes at Marley.
“Har har Mar, glad to see you still have your sense of humor.”
“Not him you goof… him.” Marley laughed then pointed out onto the dance floor.
There was a really cute guy, probably Latin ─ definitely from some culture that had mastered the steps of the rhythm dances judging by the way he moved. He flashed a killer white smile and waved her over, inviting her to dance. Cindy whipped back around in her chair to look at Marley.
“Go on!” her friend said, flicking her wrists. “Go dance with him. We might as well enjoy the evening. We aren’t getting any more information tonight.”
She tossed the guy a flirty little wave.
“He looks like he’s got some moves,” she moved her eyebrows up and down suggestively and Cindy laughed then looked back at him.
“All right,” she said leveling a glare of mock severity at her friend, “just remember, what happens in Florida…,”
“That’s Vegas, Cin,” Marley interrupted, “oh, and for the record, Florida is ‘the Sunshine State’ not the ‘Orange Juice State’ to quote your text before you left Denver.”
Cindy just shrugged and rolled her eyes again. Marley stood.
“I’m going for more drinks”, she announced. “You go dance with the hottie.”
With that, she sauntered off to the bar and left Cindy to either sit there by herself or kick up her heels for a few minutes. Who was she to refuse a dance? She stood up and joined the crowded dance floor.
Chapter Two
Captain Ronan Garring stepped out from behind the mists and into the blaring sounds of a modern day tavern. The last time he and his crew had come to the surface, there’d been nothing here but a stretch of beach. That had been nearly a century ago.
His five man crew followed behind him then spread out into a throng of people and tried to blend in with the mass of revelers. He skirted the crowd and looked for his contact. The place thrummed with unearthly energies but they weren’t of the heavenly variety so he k
new that the Olympian had yet to show. It figured. The entities that resided in Zeus’s realm were generally a careless lot of bastards so it wasn’t surprising that whoever Poseidon had sent him to meet was late.
He studied his surroundings, noting the carefree attitude of the humans. They had no idea that they danced and drank with the dark spirits of the underworld. Ronan could see them though. He’d always been able to see the others.
His vision blurred for an instant as a wave of nausea came over him then passed. It was Thema the Nereid’s curse; a subtle reminder that his time here was finite. The longer he stayed away from his sea realm island, the more pain that would be inflicted on him by the nymph who held his life in her hands. And if he stayed too long…well, he had no hope of escaping back to earth permanently unless he wished for an excruciating death. This was how the Nereid queen fulfilled Poseidon’s demand that he be used as an emissary while she kept him and his men bound to her, even after she’d been banished from the Isle of Gades by the sea god himself. The nymph queen had angered Poseidon by interfering with humans when she took Ronan and his crew as her slaves, now they worked for Poseidon though they had never seen the god themselves.
Rolling his shoulders back, he ignored the drain of the curse and waited at the end of the bar so he had a better view of the place the Tides had dropped him and his crew into. Finn, Bas and James had already stationed themselves within the tavern’s perimeter while Will and Cully were still exiting the portal. They’d been eager to travel through the mists and see 21st century earth while, at the same time, watching their captain’s back. Their loyalty reminded Ronan why he had accepted the evil Thema’s terms for their survival centuries ago.
Ronan searched the crowd until his eyes landed on a young woman sitting all the way across the dance floor. A mix of moon and artificial light reflected off her skin and hair and she appeared to glow. Her luminous quality piqued his sixth sense but he couldn’t get a read off of her that exposed her as anything other than human. Still, there was a quality to her that he couldn’t turn away from. She shone like something otherworldly but not from any kind of demon glamour.
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