by Starla Night
“…Yeah. It was a misunderstanding.”
“Oh, good. I want to help you, Herc, I really do, but I prefer honey over vinegar. If you’ll forward me just a small token of your regret, I’m sure I can put this awkward misunderstanding behind us.”
“What small token?”
“Say…” Bella calculated. The instant she found herself operating above the law, one person came to mind. Her half sister, Starr, had contacts all over the security industry, and a wire transfer had to be something she could trace. “Five thousand dollars.”
“Five thousand!”
“I’m a highly paid executive, and I have a lot of medical bills. The five minutes you made me worry about my life is worth at least that much.”
“What makes you think we have five thousand dollars?”
“Did you really expect me to risk my life for free?”
“But…I’m not authorized…”
“How sad. Even my community college debate team had over five grand kicking around in our student activities account.”
A long silence answered her demand.
“Herc?” she prompted. “Are you listening?”
The line was dead.
Bella hung up and rotated the phone as her recording saved into the cloud.
This domestic terrorist was inexperienced. She’d flipped on him so fast, he’d reeled.
Bargain with the devil…
The offices of MerMatch had a security leak.
Bella would plug it.
She was sick and tired of life’s blows. Jonah’s flat-lined status reports. Watching the mer warriors experience cruelty and violence on the news. Planning redemption campaigns for companies that had no intention of redeeming themselves.
Ooh, she hoped the idiots would call back. What would she make them do?
Transfer money to an investigation account. Incriminate themselves in a thousand traceable ways. Scramble when she rolled over the rock and exposed their wriggling, black souls to the court of public—and legal—opinions.
She had no choice but to wait for Jonah’s match on the bone marrow registry. No real choice about her work clients. But unmasking the antisocial college students who’d perpetuated hate-filled acts of violence? Oh, she’d manipulate her busy schedule of schmoozing, lying, and grieving to fit that right in.
Her phone rang. A new number.
Oh, goodness.
She took a deep breath, blew out her nervous excitement, and answered. “Are you ready to pay?”
“Our funds are liquid, but I’m less convinced of your motivations.” The strange not-female, distorted voice tsked at her. “You’re energetic for a grieving mother, Bella Taylor.”
Although the distortion was the same, the way of speaking sounded brusquer. Businesslike. She was dealing with an experienced negotiator.
“My motivations are simple.” Bella grinned into the streetlight. “To be honest, I could really use the money.”
“I trust no one who begins a sentence with ‘to be honest.’”
“Who do you trust?”
“Hmm.”
“Skepticism is a strength in your profession, but so is risk-taking. You’d be a fool to ignore this opportunity.” She splayed her hand across her chest. “Herc, when it comes to opening up a box of trouble for the mermen, I’m your personal Pandora.”
“Your face launched a thousand ships?”
“Absolutely,” she said, although he was obviously confusing Pandora with Helen of Troy. A compliment, even if it was a mistaken one. “Now, tell me about the floral heist.”
Chapter Three
A week later, Balim received the most incredible news. “Bella has agreed to meet at the office building for your date tonight.”
Dannika announced Balim’s future via speakerphone. He needed his hands free to wave in the delivery truck.
“You already know what she looks like, but I’m sending you her picture.”
He looked away from the backing-up delivery truck to glance at the photo.
Silken red hair. Seductive curves. A plump, red mouth. Intricate freckles.
It was her.
His heart stuttered and stopped a second time. The band that always constrained him tightened to the breaking point. His hand jerked up.
The delivery truck stopped with a hiss, and the engine died.
Balim held the cell phone screen so close the picture blurred. “She agreed?”
“Of course she did.” Dannika’s voice sounded tinny. “Bella’s a great friend to the mer. Besides designing our website, she was a regular visitor at MerMatch before you surfaced. She coached everyone for media appearances. Mostly, she coached Faier.”
Just as Hazel had said. Faier had disappeared during a routine Coast Guard mission weeks ago. He had leaped into the ocean to rescue a female and been sucked into a storm.
Again, surprise struck Balim. Faier had met her. Bella Taylor. And he had complained of never finding a bride?
The driver opened the truck and wheeled a stack of boxes down a ramp. “Where do you want these?”
“Over here.” Balim showed him the storage room.
The driver shook loose the stack and returned to the truck for more.
Balim opened the lid of the top box. Thick plastic covered the Sea Opals, but he could still hear tinkling chimes deep within.
Van Cartier Cosmetics had purchased multiple Sea Opals to create skin-care products that made resonant users miraculously young. Then, they had tried to take more Sea Opals by force.
Queen Aya had ended their reign of terror, dismantled the company, and retrieved their old scientific materials.
He carried the box of Sea Opals into the room they’d repurposed into Mitch’s laboratory.
Dannika prompted him. “Balim? Finish up and meet us at the office so we can prep for our date.”
He found his voice. “I do not need to ‘prep.’”
“We do. Hazel’s making a food run right now, and I need to secure the rooftop garden. After the attack on Pelan, we don’t want to take any chances.”
Balim agreed to her request and ended the conversation.
The delivery driver held out a pen and a clipboard. “That’s everything. Sign here.”
Balim crossed an X on the paper. “You have eye strain. Would you like a cool washcloth?”
“You got me. I stayed up for Ninja Mud Warriors.” He grinned and elbowed Balim. “You don’t have any of that miracle drink, do you?”
The driver’s chest barely glowed.
Balim shook his head. “Elixir will not help.”
“Ah, well. Only ten more deliveries. I’ll grab a coffee when I gas up.” He carried away his clipboard and reentered his van.
Some humans had dark souls because they were angry, sick, or dangerous.
This driver was not angry, sick, or dangerous. He was a fine human who simply had no resonance with the sea.
Balim closed the delivery door, passed by the conference rooms where he tried to explain this concept to visiting scientists every day, and again through the lab.
Mitch pored over the old Sea Opal research.
“Look at this.” He lifted a paper marked with human writing squiggles. “How to See Shiny Sea Opals by Best Friends and Cousins Elyssa and Aya. How cute.” He set the paper aside and reached back into the box. “Even as kids, they were doing great things for mermen.”
Yes, long before mermen surfaced, the future queens of Atlantis had championed Sea Opals.
“Whoa.” Mitch pulled out a heavy rock encased in paper and bubble wrap. He clunked it on the desk. “Heavy.”
This was not a Sea Opal. It made a strange mechanical ticking noise like a human clock.
Balim continued through the lab to the main hospital recovery room.
In the center, a steel frame enclosed a giant glass aquarium with bubbling aerator and heat lamp. Mitch had taught him about aquariums, both saltwater and fresh. A ladder was affixed to the side.
Although most mer lived in the
oceans, they did not suffer from freshwater, and it was easiest to get. Balim used it in the large pressure cooker machines in the next room. With Sea Opals lining the bottom, he simulated steeping the gemstones for centuries to create the elixir in huge batches and then dispensed it into this tank. He’d created a surface rehabilitation chamber for mermen.
Pelan was his first test case. The black-and-red warrior floated in the center, sleeping. Alone.
Normally, his bride entwined with him. She had partially transformed the first time she’d entered the water and spent the week trying to heal him using her resonance as his bride. Floating as a mermaid with gills in her back, she had dangled her still-human toes between his mer fins. But not now.
Now, the hospital coordinator, Roxanne, rested her fingertips on the glass.
Balim stopped in the doorway. “Where is Pelan’s bride?”
“Hmm?” Roxanne’s long, crinkly brown hair stuck up in wild abandon, her glasses nestled on her worried face, and her clothes were disheveled from spending all day pricing, negotiating, and coordinating the delivery of essential equipment to set up the hospital. “Oh, I think she said she was going to take a smoke break. Not that she smokes, but she needed personal time, so I said it was no problem.”
Whenever Pelan’s bride left, she endangered Pelan’s healing. “She—”
“Don’t worry. I do know that he mustn’t be left alone, and yet sometimes a woman needs her personal time. Nora’s been a champion. I can’t imagine what she must be going through. Meanwhile, I get to go home at night, even though it’s so hard to concentrate, and I don’t do well here either. Something’s wrong with me.”
She rubbed her chest.
Pelan’s soul glowed brighter as well. He resonated with the Sea Opal delivery? Balim’s protest evaporated.
Roxanne glanced at him, and guilt flashed across her features. “I’m not letting it interrupt my work. I’m still concentrating on tasks. If you must know, I’m waiting on a call back from Singapore on an MRI machine.”
He inserted his question. “We need this MRI?”
“Since we can’t send warriors to a better-equipped hospital, I’m afraid we do. And technicians to operate it. This isn’t an immediate purchase. I’m still compiling research for the doctors we hire to know their options.” She rolled her lips, worry tugging at her usually cheerful features. “Pelan will be okay, won’t he?”
“Yes.” Balim stood beside her. “He is improving every day.”
His tank had accomplished much. Pelan’s two separate mer legs bent at the knees, his long fins unfurled and waving.
Roxanne touched her lips with her other fingers. “Oh, I hope you don’t think I’m staring at him because he’s naked. He is great-looking, I’m not going to lie, but I’m not only looking there, so please don’t you tell him I did that. I’m just being present. Like a canary in a coal mine. You know. If anything goes wrong with him, I’ll scream.”
Balim could have that healing with Bella. Closeness. Connection. Resonance.
He shook himself. “Good.”
Mitch entered the room, hefting the ticking rock. “Hey, Balim. What do you suppose this is?”
“A human clock or other mechanical device.”
“It looks like a mineral, but it’s not on the inventory sheet.”
“It is human made,” Balim insisted.
“Why do you say that?”
“The ticking.”
“Ticking?”
Mitch held it up to his ear and shook it. The rock rattled. “I hear nothing. Oh, wait. There’s a piece of tape. I suppose you could be—”
Roxanne’s voice dropped. “Put it outside and call the police.”
Mitch looked up. “The police?”
She spread her arms across the tank to shield Pelan with her body. “An unidentified ticking object not on the inventory? The Sons of Hercules are trying to kill Pelan again. Put it outside, far away, and call the police.”
Mitch looked as flummoxed as Balim felt, but he shrugged and meandered out of the large room.
As he passed Balim to enter the back hall, the ticking stopped.
“Roxanne, what does it mean when the ticking stops?” Balim asked her.
She paled and shrieked. “Mitch! It’s going to blow!”
“What?” His voice echoed around the corner.
“Throw it! Now!”
Mitch’s running footsteps echoed down the hall.
Balim ducked into his office and looked into the parking lot.
Pelan’s bride jumped up from his office chair. She wore a white hotel bathrobe and clenched her phone in both hands. She had been typing onto it.
“Oh! Balim, you startled me. I was just taking a quick break, I swear—”
“Yes, Roxanne told me.” He held up his hand to quiet her.
Mitch shoved open the outer door, lobbed the not-ticking rock across the parking lot, and yanked the thick emergency door closed again.
The rock landed on the concrete with a loud thunk.
She let out her fright in a long sigh. “Look. I know you want me to spend every hour with Pelan. And don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate catching up on my sleep. But I’m getting so bored, and I don’t think a break is too much once in a while.”
He ignored her. The rock was just sitting there. Perhaps they were mistaken.
“Hey, will you listen when I’m—”
Boom!
The ground beneath his loafer-clad feet jumped.
Pebbles spattered his office window, cracking the glass. He ducked. Pelan’s bride shrieked and huddled under the desk.
In the main room behind him, water sloshed out of Pelan’s tank and slapped the floor.
“What was that?” Pelan’s bride demanded, shaky. “Are we under attack?”
He stood again.
In the parking lot, a large chunk of concrete was missing. A new hole sizzled. Mitch creaked open the external door and stared at the hole in shock.
“Yes.” Balim strode to check on Pelan. “We are.”
The warrior was still sleeping.
Roxanne hugged the tank. “We need to quarantine the rest of that shipment. Quarantine it until the police can send in the bomb squad. Call 911.”
“On it.” Mitch held his phone to his ear. He rubbed his head. Although he looked okay, he was shaken. “Operator? I need to report a small bomb that destroyed a chunk of our parking lot.”
“Bomb!” Pelan’s bride squeaked and hurried after Balim as he next checked the pressurized tanks. “I thought you said this place was safe!”
The tanks remained pressurized. No flaws or weaknesses. Good.
“We bought this property unlisted,” Roxanne said.
“We need a gate. Wait, we have a gate. Who let him in?”
“I did,” Balim said.
Pelan’s bride covered her mouth as though to stop herself from saying any more. But fear pinched her word. “Why?”
“Because I did not expect a bomb in this delivery.”
“To be fair, it might not have been the driver’s fault,” Roxanne piped up. “We spoke on the phone, and he seemed nice enough, if a bit tired. The police will undertake that investigation.”
Pop.
A crack crossed the glass wall of the aquarium.
Roxanne moaned. “Balim…”
Irritation burned in him. The tank had been difficult to build and nearly impossible to fill.
“Climb up the ladder, Roxanne. Mitch, get on the desk.” Balim herded Pelan’s bride as she gaped at the crackling glass. “Your wish has been granted.”
She climbed up a few rungs behind Roxanne and clutched her bathrobe collar. “What?”
“You will now aid Pelan’s recuperation in the air.”
The tank collapsed. Water gushed out and knocked him over. The warm elixir swept him across the floor.
His lungs shifted to gills. He stared up at the human ceiling before the water flooded out and left him beached on the wet floor alone.
He had let the dangerous rock into the building. He had carried it himself surrounded by the disguise of other Sea Opals. The Sons of Hercules had counted on him not identifying the danger as Roxanne had.
How would the enemy trick him next?
Chapter Four
Britney Spears’s “Toxic” played on Bella’s cell phone as she repeated her mantra in the mirror. “I am beautiful. I am scintillating. Clients can’t take their eyes off me.”
Bella sucked in her gut to smooth the black fabric corset. Her figure filled the dingy hall mirror with dismaying proportions. She hadn’t dressed up since Jonah’s diagnosis. After all the junk food, she was lucky the dress still fit.
Her breasts oozed out the sides.
She shoved them in. They oozed out the strained fabric. She applied under-bra tape.
There.
Rolls of fat puffed out the back.
She forced them in, grunting with every word of her mantra. “I. Win. Every. Marketing. Contract.”
The tape held.
Quickly, she stepped into and zipped on her emerald-green dress. The dress hugged her like the ribs in an anaconda. Her body jiggled. Jelly under pressure.
The dress held.
Thank goodness.
She let out her breath cautiously, then in a whoosh.
The fat, frumpy, freckled woman in the mirror sagged with exhaustion.
Oh, dear, her mother would say. Time to lay off the margaritas.
As if alcohol was Bella’s problem.
She spackled on a heavy mix of expired makeup and affixed an emerald feather in the twist of her red hair. She’d been living off convenient chips and dollar-menu items for a year. Limp hair, gray skin, and spilling out of her dresses were the natural results.
She swiped her lips with gloss.
It tasted like bitter almonds.
Well, the gloss was a year out of date. She was a year out of date. Bella tossed the tube in the trash and wiped off the gloss.
Only one year since the nightmare had started? It felt like much longer.
And tonight’s client was the most important she’d ever courted.
She snapped the fist-sized red heart necklace on and positioned it over her collarbone. It was exactly how she’d imagined. A tacky, plastic-looking, water-filled “locket” that hung around her neck like a weight. The top screwed off. How was she supposed to shove the Life Tree blossom through the tiny mouth without crushing it or tearing the petals off? Good thing she would not have to find out. But, just in case they had spies photographing her leaving the apartment, she had to make it look real.