by Lori Devoti
She grabbed the man by the front of his shirt and towed him back to the surface.
o0o
This time as the mermaid pulled him along, Nolan kept his eyes open.
The bottom of the bay was dark, too dark even for his vampire vision to make out more than murky shapes, but as they moved upward, back toward the surface, his eyes adjusted, and he could see the mermaid clearly.
Her hair flowed behind her, and her body undulated with the water. Her skin, in this form, was silvery, giving way to glistening scales just below her waist. Her breasts were high and firm, the same, he imagined, as they would be in her human form. His groin tightened at the thought.
Mermaids were sirens, known for luring men to their deaths.
Staring at her, having heard her voice and felt the brush of her lips, he could understand sailors who steered their ships up onto the rocks or dove into the ocean knowing they were about to die. Death would seem a small price for a moment in the arms of such a creature.
So, despite the fact that she had pulled him to the bottom in what had to be an attempt to kill him, he had no doubt that he had found his guide.
He, like any man, would be tempted to follow her anywhere, even to hell itself. Making it good fortune that she was willing to lead him where he wished to go.
Where she wished to go too, if the bartender was correct.
Why she, a creature of the sea, needed a companion was a question Nolan would at some time ask, but for the moment, it didn’t matter.
He had found his guide.
o0o
Sarina popped through the surface of the water, releasing the man as she did and plunging her body immediately back down into the bay. She swam beneath the surface for a moment, assessing her plan.
She could not return to her human form until most of her body was dry of the sea. She hadn’t thought to place towels on the dock and was unprepared to air dry herself here, in the human domain, as mermaids often did when sunning on the rocks.
But if she let the human go, would he come back? The journey was too long and dangerous to swim while towing him. They would need a ship.
She returned to the surface a few yards from where the man waited, treading water.
“Do you have a name?” she asked. Humans were simple creatures, fond of being called by their own names.
He glanced toward the dock, as if questioning her choice of location for this chat, but then looked back at her and answered, “Nolan Moore, and you?”
“Sarina…” She paused. “Neri.”
“Sarina.” He smiled, and a strange warmth filled Sarina. She usually found talking to humans, especially the men, frustrating. They were obvious creatures filled with base desires. No human she had ever encountered wanted her for anything other than what she could do for them, or what they thought she could do—lead them to treasure, supply them with sex, or entertain them with song.
She moved her tail, swam a little to the side and then back.
“Why did you try to drown me?”
The question caught Sarina by surprise, not because the human realized that his life had been in danger, but that he was, without her doing anything to charm him, so calm.
She came to a stop, holding her body in place with tiny movements of her tail. “I wasn’t trying to kill you.”
“Really?” He stopped treading water for a moment, allowing his body to sink down beneath the water before bobbing back up. “Last I checked, humans need air.”
“You don’t.” If he chose to be direct, she could too.
Again, he smiled. “Of course, I do. I’m no different than any”—he shoved a damp chunk of dark hair off of his forehead—“man.”
Her eyes narrowed. He was lying. He had to be. He couldn’t, despite his appearance, be human. “You are….”
“What?”
“Different.” She circled him, careful not to get too close. “I’m just not sure how.”
“And you are a mermaid.”
She flicked her tail, sending water spraying to the side. “Obviously.”
“Are you dangerous?”
“Yes.” Mermaids didn’t lie. They had no reason to. Men would follow them even if they were told within minutes they would die.
“Should I trust you?”
“No.”
Her answer seemed to please him. He smiled again. “Trust is overrated.”
It was a strange reply, and she had no answer. She waited.
“Will you take me to the sea hag?” he asked. His gaze was direct now, demanding the truth.
“Yes.” She held his attention.
“Dead or alive?”
She shook her head. “Dead you do me no good.” She dove under the water and swam along the docks, emerging twenty feet away. “Meet me at the ship, the Mermaid’s Dream.” Then, her message delivered, she disappeared under the water again.
He would follow her, not because she had charmed him; she hadn’t. He would follow her because his desperation to find Melusine was as great as her own. She had seen it in his eyes.
Chapter Three
Nolan pulled himself up onto the dock. His soaked clothing slapped against the damp wood. He ran fingers through his hair, sending water droplets flying.
The mermaid, Sarina, had said she hadn’t been trying to kill him, but she had also admitted she was dangerous and not to be trusted.
Which was he to believe? Could both be true?
He supposed, but whatever the female’s motive for pulling him under the surface of the bay, he was sure no other occupant of the bar would have survived the trip. Which explained the bartender’s warning.
If Nolan had still been human, he wouldn’t be alive now.
He was a lucky man, cheating the grim reaper like that twice in one lifetime.
He laughed, an ugly sound that had taken over any carefree noise he could make years before.
Being ostracized and cursed was not anyone’s definition of lucky. Death would have been better, and Nolan might well have searched it out if he hadn’t learned of another possibility, a way to reverse what had been done to him.
As he sat dripping on the dock, a new light approached, the beam of a large flashlight, dancing over the wooden dock where Nolan sat and the bay behind him.
“You survived.” It was the bartender. Behind the glare of the light, Nolan couldn’t see the man’s face, but he could smell his fear. If the bartender had been afraid of the mermaid, it seemed now he was even more afraid of the man who had swum with her and survived.
Nolan stood, running his hands over his clothing to remove some of the water as he did.
“I was right, wasn’t I? She is a nixie, a mermaid.” The man’s voice quivered, and his flashlight’s beam shook.
Nolan paused. Behind him, he heard the slap of a tail against the water. He pulled off his shirt and wrung it out onto the dock. Water fell against the wood in loud splatters.
“The mermaid. Where did she go?” There was an eagerness in the bartender’s voice now, his merchant mind realizing the potential draw a real mermaid might hold for his business.
Nolan slung his wet shirt over his shoulder and walked forward. “No mermaid here. Just a girl looking to play a joke with some friends. I called her bluff, and she shoved me in, then ran. Her friends did too.”
“A joke?”
Uncertain.
“They had a camera. My guess? They were planning to upload these ‘mermaid encounters’ on the Internet and become the next big thing.”
“A stunt?” The bartender still didn’t sound as if he was buying Nolan’s explanation.
The vampire shrugged. “Believe me or not, but I don’t think you’ll be seeing her again.”
“Oh.”
Disappointment now.
Nolan walked past the bartender without looking back.
If the mermaid thought to dump him now, she would at least have to find another place to fish for his replacement. Of course, he had also saved her from possible p
ursuit by the bartender and other fortune hunters, but that had held no weight in his decision to lie about her real identity.
None at all.
o0o
Sarina stared out over the borrowed boat’s stern.
They had been at sea for two weeks, depending on the sea hag’s magic to direct the current and lead them to her.
Sarina had given the main cabin of the yacht to the human, Nolan. She slept on deck or in the water, her hand pressed against the boat’s side so she didn’t lose it in her slumber.
The sun was fully overhead now, and she was alone. Nolan, she’d soon learned, preferred night to day, disappearing into the cabin at dawn and not appearing back above deck until dusk.
He had other habits too that didn’t fit with what she knew of humans. While he slept each day, she would swim and catch fish for their dinner, but he had yet to eat anything, at least in front of her. He drank wine, and once she had seen him sipping something from a flask he’d pulled from one of his bags, but he had declined all offers of food.
She had quit asking, preferring to eat her fish alone in the sea anyway.
His habits, she realized, suited her, gave her privacy to be in her natural state in the sea. And, since mermaids didn’t require the same amount of sleep as humans, staying awake through the night was no issue.
She was able to do what she wished in the day, even sunbathing in her mermaid form on the deck, and watch the human at night.
But still—she slapped her fin lightly against the deck—Nolan’s habits added to her certainty that he wasn’t what he appeared, that he wasn’t human at all but some other creature she hadn’t encountered before.
A gull squawked overhead, pulling her back to the present and reminding her that they were approaching land, a small string of islands, uninhabited by humans, but the first visible sign that they were moving closer to the sea hag’s home.
There would be a test soon.
Sarina had no idea in what form it would come or when, but she knew it would come.
She only hoped that whatever kept Nolan hidden in the cabin by day wouldn’t prove to be their downfall.
o0o
Nolan’s body rolled off the bed and slammed into a wall. His eyes flew open, and his nails scraped over the cherry boards that lined the cabin walls. He fell back onto the bed, only to be flung sideways again as the boat was catapulted in the opposite direction by some unknown force.
With a curse, he leapt to his feet and clawed at the walls to keep from tumbling again.
His head throbbed, telling him night had yet to fall. Since his turn, he had avoided the hours between dawn and dusk. He’d never been caught in the daylight to know if the horror-flick images of vampires erupting into Roman candles of flames were true; the general groggy feeling and aches he experienced when the sun was in the sky had been enough on their own to keep him inside.
The boat listed violently to the side again. Only Nolan’s hands pressed on the walls of the tiny hall by the cabin’s door kept him from slamming into the wood.
He could, he realized, stay here, become bruised and perhaps waterlogged, or go out and hazard the sun.
Water or flames?
He chose flames.
o0o
As the boat continued to tilt side to side, Nolan struggled his way through the bedroom door and into the kitchen and living part of the cabin.
Sarina was nowhere to be seen, which meant the mermaid was above deck facing whatever threatened them alone, or she had already left—swam off to safety.
Grim but determined, Nolan flung open the main cabin door. Sun blasted into the room, hitting him in the eyes like a giant laser. Wincing, he stepped back, out of the light.
His eyes burning, he groped around the room, looking for the small desk and a pair of sunglasses he’d seen tucked into a basket.
Glasses in place, he opened the door again.
o0o
Sarina clung to the boat’s railing and stared up, resigned to the nightmare that had descended upon them.
A sea wyrm, the sea hag’s pet.
Steam rolled from the water dragon’s nose, and its tongue danced over her face, smelling her. She held still, knowing any movement on her part would only anger the creature.
It snorted, spewing hot water over her. She shook her head, freeing the droplets from her hair, and held up both hands, revealing she held no weapon. “I’m here by Melusine’s invitation.”
It was the right thing to say, although most likely unnecessary. If the dragon had thought the yacht and its occupants were trespassing, it would have sunk the boat long before this. Still, though, the wyrm’s job was to guard the outer perimeter of Melusine’s territory, and it apparently took its job seriously.
The dragon’s wormlike body curved up on both sides of the ship.
The yacht was trapped now, sandwiched.
“If you are going to sink us, get on with it.” To show the creature his threat was wasted on her, Sarina lifted her head to meet his gaze and allowed her body to shift. In seconds, her human legs were replaced by her tail, and only the strength of her arms holding on to the railing kept her upright.
The dragon moved its body again, sending the boat popping upward and out of the water before landing back down with a bone-jarring jolt.
Sarina lost her grip on the railing and went flying. With a roar, the dragon moved in and caught her on the bridge of its wide nose.
Stranded like a beached animal, she could do nothing but stare into the creature’s oversize amber eyes.
Holding her gaze, it pulled its tail from the water and slapped it hard against the surface of the water.
A wave washed over the yacht and the dragon, sending the boat and Sarina airborne. She closed her eyes and prepared to hit the water, but the welcome feel of the ocean embracing her never came. Instead, she was grabbed again, this time by the dragon’s tail.
With a roar, he held her overhead, like a human dangling a mouse by its tail.
o0o
On deck, Nolan blinked—not from the sun, but what was blocking it.
A huge gold-and-green dragon with fins jutting from the sides of its face and a tongue that danced out of its mouth like an excited snake’s rose from the sea next to the yacht.
At Nolan’s arrival, it opened its lips and roared. Hot steam coated Nolan, clouding his glasses.
He had wanted fire. It appeared the dragon might soon give him his wish.
He glanced over the deck, searching for Sarina, but the mermaid was nowhere in sight.
Free, then. Swum away, leaving Nolan to face this beast on his own. Not that Nolan could blame her. He couldn’t imagine a mermaid had much defense against a creature this large—no more than a lone vampire might.
But then Nolan couldn’t swim, at least not like the mermaid.
Which left him with one choice—fight.
While he thought, the dragon turned the boat, using a part of its body submerged beneath the water, Nolan guessed.
Nolan stood still as it analyzed him and his apparently hopeless situation.
“If you are going to sink me, do it now,” he muttered as much to himself as the beast.
The dragon paused and, for a moment, leaned closer. Its tongue darted out, touching Nolan’s face, chest, and legs.
The boat rose, and the dragon turned, another bigger section of its body appearing from beneath the waves—its tail, Nolan realized, but something more too.
Wrapped tight in the creature’s tail was Sarina, her face pale and her eyes closed.
She hadn’t swum away.
One simple thought, but it was enough.
The beast Nolan worked so hard to keep hidden behind a human face burst free. His fangs extended, and his muscles clenched. His thick vampire blood pounded through his heart, and the pulse at his neck jumped.
He hadn’t fed in two weeks, not from a living creature. And while the blood of this oversize snake was far from what he craved, it would more than do for n
ow.
He ran forward, leaping as he did.
His arms wrapped around the dragon’s body, not far below its head and his fangs sank into its flesh.
Its scales were soft and easy to pierce, but in an anger-fueled rush, Nolan had taken no time to assess his target. His bite sank into flesh but missed any veins the creature might have.
If it had veins.
The dragon jerked and tossed its head trying, it seemed, to dislodge the vampire attached to its throat, but, determined, Nolan hung on. The creature roared, and steam rolled from its throat.
Nolan’s clothing stuck to his skin, and his hair clung to his face. He was sticky, and his arms ached with the effort of holding the twisting, angry beast, but none of that mattered; nothing mattered but getting it to loosen its hold on the mermaid.
His lifted his face and yelled, “Drop her.”
The dragon sank under the sea, beneath the boat and lower. Arms and legs wrapped around the creature now, Nolan closed his eyes and willed his mind to slow.
He was accomplishing nothing holding the creature like this. Would accomplish nothing. He was to the dragon what a mosquito might be to a bear. Annoying but little more.
Deeper they went until sun no longer filtered through the water, until only Nolan’s vampire ability allowed him to see at all. Suddenly, with no apparent reason, the dragon slowed until he seemed to barely be moving.
Nolan pulled the sunglasses from his face and shoved them into a pocket. Then, thinking this would be his chance to let go and escape back to the surface, he looked around but quickly realized he had no idea which was up and which way was down.
He could as easily swim deeper into the sea as swim to the surface.
As he pondered his choice, something slipped under his waist and curled tightly around him. Then, with no other warning, he was jerked from the dragon’s throat and dropped. He floated for a moment, stunned and unsure of what had happened.
With no sound and no backward look, the dragon slithered away. The creature had done as he’d ordered. He had dropped Sarina, and Nolan too.
Unfortunately, wherever he had left the mermaid was nowhere near here.