It was his face more than anything that made you think of the lameness that had gotten him cast out of Olympus by his own mother, Hera, simply for being imperfect. Not that there was anything wrong with the face, especially if you liked the brooding Heathcliff-type—it had fine, pale, tequila-colored eyes, strong squared-off lines, a powerful mouth. The problem was that Hiero looked like he was just waiting, daring you even, to mention his legs, at which point he would pounce like a wounded tiger. I felt that I could easily forget there was any vulnerability at all if only he’d let me. There was so much else to notice. But I didn’t get the impression he gave anyone that chance. Being cast out at birth probably had that effect on a person.
The apartment was nearly as fascinating as the man, crawling as it was with movie monsters and disembodied parts. Hanging over the drafting table was a vampire bat with bloodied jaws, wings fully extended as if to launch another attack. Leering down from a bookshelf was a huge toxic-waste-green insect with sinister red eyes I recognized from the direct-to-video cover of Mantis II. A creature from Death Strike, which looked like someone had turned a manta ray inside out, was mounted on the adjoining wall.
“You like it?” Hiero asked, following my gaze. “The exoskeleton glows in the dark. Not the cheesy black-light effect, but luminous like a deep-water fish.”
“Neat,” I answered dutifully. “Your work?”
“Early stuff,” he admitted. “That’s why it’s tucked away here. Sentimental value, but not my best work.” The more relaxed look of memory lane vanished in an instant as he turned from his creations to me. And wow was that focus intense, even hostile. “You’re not here to talk about my design work. Apollo says you want to discuss the old ones. For him you have five minutes.”
I met his glare, thinking of how I’d like to deliver Hera a good smack-down for setting her son against the world right from the get-go. Of course, he’d had centuries to get over it already.
“Yes, I’d like to ask you about Circe and the filming of Making Waves.”
“What do you want to know?” Something leapt forward on the table and Hiero reached for it.
“What do you think is most relevant for me to know?”
He shook his head, not even sparing me a glance now from the gadgetry he’d begun to tinker with.
“I don’t have time for a fishing expedition. Ask what you want and be done with it.”
“Funny you should mention fishing. It seems that Circe was killed by one of the water divinities. Her attacker was green-scaled and webbed but walked like a man. Any idea who he might have been, who had a reason to kill Circe?”
“Yeah, Apollo gave me the description. I can’t figure it. Thing is, most of the water spirits aren’t amphibious. Aside from Poseidon, they’re either built for the water or no different than you and me—or at least you—with an affinity for the water. And Poseidon wouldn’t need to get his hands dirty to get rid of a little nothing like Circe. He doesn’t even much concern himself with the land-dwellers anymore.”
“Any particular reason?”
Hiero spared a second to glower at me. “His business.”
I smiled to show I wasn’t intimidated. “There can’t be any harm in a little speculation.”
“Fine, I’d speculate that things like the Exxon Valdez, garbage barges, PCPs and other dumping haven’t really endeared mankind. Go figure.” With a shrug, he turned back to his project, an eerily life-like robotic arm, now flexing and relaxing at the twist of a screw.
“Fair enough. What about Circe?”
“What about her?” he echoed. “You list the first hundred people who come to mind and I’ll give you the whys and wherefores.”
“How about the top ten?”
He snorted. “Yeah, like I’ve got a ranking system. You got a Bulfinches Guide? Start there.”
I struggled not to grind my teeth. “How about the filming of Making Waves? Anything happen there that might have set someone off?”
He looked up and speared my gaze. I felt like a fish flailing at the end of a hook. “Lady, do I seem like the social type? I create my effects back at the workshop. I only get out as required to set things up and then it’s straight back home. Circe repped the talent, but she didn’t play handler, so I’d guess she never even appeared on-site. I can’t see the connection. If that’s all you’ve got, I think Apollo’s wasting his money.”
Such a charmer. He went back to tinkering.
“Well, hey, thanks so much for all your cooperation. Could you at least pinpoint for me the locations of the shoot? I’d like to see if any of the oceanids or nereids are still around to interview.”
His brows rose, though his eyes didn’t. Grudgingly, he hefted his bulk out of his chair, walked stiff-legged to his single filing cabinet and yanked on a drawer that whined in protest. I didn’t see any tabs, just a mess of papers—glossy, blueprint, velum—all with ragged edges and seemingly tucked in any which way. He flipped through them quickly, flying past two or three pages at a time, clearly uncaring whether he found what he was looking for or not. Finally, though, he stopped, pulled out a map of coastline and thrust it at me.
I had to rise to accept it.
“Do you need these back?”
“The masters are on file somewhere. No need for you to come back.”
In other words, Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
But I’d never let a little thing like social graces get in the way of my curiosity.
“What kind of effects did you do for the film?”
I hadn’t noticed before, but his brow ridge was really pronounced when he scowled.
“Functional mermaid tails, kelp hair, that kind of thing,” he answered, beginning to crowd me toward the door.
“Did you notice any of the nereids or oceanids hanging around?”
“Sure, the sirens and I had a little tea party, dined on barnacle stew.” He reached around behind me for the door. “If there’s nothing else—” a push that was more of a shove and the door shut in my face.
Wow, the charm was simply staggering. Finally, a man I’d want to bring home to mother. For a cage match.
Early spring was probably my favorite time to visit Venice Beach. Fall and winter were too tarted up for my taste with all the overblown seasonal displays. Summer was gorgeous, of course, especially if you considered it a perk to be cheek by surgically altered jowl with the bronze and the beautiful. Thongs as far as the eye could see. Speedos on men who could almost pull off the look. In the whole history of the world, the part I’d been around for anyway, there’d been maybe three men who could make the bikini bathing suit work—Greg Louganis, Mark Spitz and…okay, two men. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of the natural male physique. It was more the weight machine bulging-in-odd-places look that gave me trouble. I much preferred the taut, streamlined, natural approach. You didn’t see much of that in L.A. But I digress.
By early spring, all that was done. Venice Beach, L.A. and its environs were as close to normal as they ever got. Real? Well, that was a matter of perspective. Out here keeping it real was just an expression, no more comprehended than “right as rain” or “sick as a dog”.
On this beautiful April day people and street performers—fire-eaters, roller-blading musicians and stand-up philosophers—milled around on the boardwalk a quarter mile away. Farther still rose the scenic Santa Monica Mountains. Lovers might stroll at sunrise or sunset. But for now, I had the beach all to myself. Just the way I liked it.
I didn’t know what I expected to find, nigh on a month after filming wrapped, but it almost didn’t matter. The sun was shining, as it did three-hundred-plus days of the year. The breeze was blowing. My slingbacks knocked against each other as I held them, allowing my toes to curl into the deliciously chill sand. Life was good.
Murder? It was the farthest thing from my mind.
That was the kind of effect the ocean had on me, when I could actually hear the crash of the waves over the roar of the peopl
e.
I wandered up and down what I estimated to be the right section of beach, futilely stooping to examine the occasional bit of detritus. If anything of the fish-folk had been left behind, the ocean had claimed it. Finally, I approached the water, which rode in to the beach on gentle four-foot waves, sadly underestimating the tides. As I jumped back from the shock of ice-cold water, I caught movement beyond where the waves began. That froze me. I swept the spot again, hoping to find what had caught my eye, but there was nothing. A figment of my imagination or light hitting the rippling water just so. Maybe. But my hindbrain, the part that processed without conscious effort, wouldn’t accept that. Something had been there. Too cold for swimmers, too tame for surfers. Anyway, either of those would have surfaced again.
Damn, I was going out there. I sat my shoes down in the sand with my jacket folded atop to await my return and rolled up my pants legs as high as they would go to just above the knee. I wouldn’t get far, but it would have to do.
The water had only gotten as high as my ankles when my teeth started chattering. I hugged my arms to my chest, as if that would help, and bulled on ahead. Another step, a breaking wave, and the water was up to my knees. Still nothing. My gaze panned the ocean, catching flecks of foam here and there beyond the waves, but nothing off. One or two more steps, and I’d be risking the wrath of my dry cleaner. Plus, I was starting to lose feeling in my toes.
What the hell, I thought. I’ve come this far. If need be, Apollo can spring for a new suit. Call it a business expense. I waded forward and something brushed my feet. The chill suddenly hit my heart. Then that something wrapped itself around my leg and yanked. Hard. A scream ripped from me as I went down, opening my mouth to the rush of water—gagging, choking, burning and freezing at the same time as it raced down the wrong pipe, seizing my lungs. I thrashed, but the thing had hold of my leg, was pulling me into deeper water. I was desperate for air. My heart pounded but couldn’t seem to expand, as if gripped by a tightening fist.
That panicked me. I jackknifed, clawing at the hand holding me—webbed, I noted as the skin separated. It was a grotesque feeling, worse because it came with a spike of triumph. The grip released. I kicked it away, straining toward the surface—what I hoped was the surface.
A single gasp of air, then the creature had me again, this time in a bear hug around the waist. It practically climbed my back, its body weight pulling me down as it leveraged itself up. Oddly jointed arms circled my neck, cutting off any aid from that last aborted breath. Last. No, I wouldn’t accept it.
I kicked backward with all my strength, but had no leverage and his legs quickly wrapped around mine to keep me still. Defenseless. He because whatever sick fuck was behind me was getting off on the whole thing. I could feel it. I fought the urge to tense and instead played limp as if the fight had gone out of me, hoping not to telegraph my next move. In the following instant, I flung my head back, bracing against his very body as I smashed his face.
I felt something give and the arms went loose, just long enough for me to twist, to try to bring my arms up between us. It brought me face-to-face with Circe’s killer. No time to dwell on the insanity of what I was seeing as his coal-black eyes met mine—or maybe those were spots swimming before me. Deep, dark, depthless. Already I felt myself slipping away from lack of oxygen. I hoped to Hades the family legends were true and focused everything I had into freezing my attacker in place with the glare.
Nothing moved. Nothing. We were sinking before my sputtering brain realized that meant it had worked. No treading was keeping us afloat. He was frozen.
Galvanized, I shrugged out of his arms and kicked for all I was worth in the opposite direction—up! My arms felt like lead and my legs like they were encased in cement, but I kept moving.
The urge to open my mouth, to breathe, became nearly unbearable. Spots became my landscape. I wasn’t going to make it.
It was as if the surface rushed to meet me as I poured the last of my strength into one final kick. I hit the air coughing up water and taking oxygen in great gulps.
All I wanted to do was lie there floating, recovering my strength and just breathing, but somewhere below me that thing waited. I didn’t know how long the paralysis would last—still couldn’t believe my whammy had worked at all.
It seemed the hardest thing I’d ever done to make myself move. My arms and legs were stiff with cold and refused to bend. It was as if I beat the water with sticks. Only fear propelled me. Every time I bobbed upward I focused on the beach, but it never seemed to be any closer. Finally, my movements slowed almost to nothing except for the shaking. Tremors racked my whole body now. Hypothermia—or something. Something I was supposed to remember. I nearly sank before I thought to turn onto my back. To float. Sun blind. Helpless.
Something grabbed for me—again? I thought—but I didn’t have enough energy to fight or figure out why that should be disturbing.
The world had contracted to my palsied limbs and the unexpected warmth of the grip. Dimly I realized that I was moving again, then I lost the fight with consciousness.
Chapter Eight
“All things being equal, I prefer life over death, ’cause, you know, I never have thought of a suitable comeback for that.”
—Tori Karacis
I awoke to a slight pressure on my chest and lips on mine—vaguely, um, mushy—with breath definitely garlic-tinged pushing its way into my mouth. My gag reflex kicked in and the pressure disappeared as I curled onto my side in a fetal position and coughed up a noxious cocktail of saltwater and bile. The heel of a hand bruised my back several times, presumably to encourage the purge. It certainly did that—each time my head would swim and the vertigo caused me to heave-ho.
I was about ready to take a whack at the hand’s owner when I realized something terribly important: I was alive. Pain was just a side effect.
“Ulg—” I managed as the hand hit me again.
A moment of blissful silence was observed. Then I rolled over only to be captured by the rapt stare of my green-haired, barely post-pubescent rescuer. Sure, I thought, it couldn’t have been Orlando Bloom or Hugh Jackman. Oh no, it had to be a refugee from Green Day. It wasn’t a thought I was particularly proud of, but apparently my inner censor hadn’t yet recovered her equilibrium.
“You okay?” he asked earnestly.
Since the poor boy was still dripping wet, I was guessing I owed him for more than a little mouth-to-mouth.
When I didn’t answer immediately, he added, “Jill called 9-1-1.”
It was the first I noticed that there were other people around as well. Enough to start our own beach volleyball game.
I groaned.
“I saw you go down out there,” he continued. “I didn’t think there were sharks here, but I guess I was wrong, huh?”
I tried to shake my head and it nearly split in two.
It felt like someone with a crowbar was trying to whack his way out of my skull.
Seconds later, we were joined by paramedics, who oh-so-helpfully pushed aside the kids and shined an overly bright light into my eyes. I only let them live because 1) I was too weak to move farther and 2) they brought blankets.
It was all fun and games ’til they pulled out the stretcher, the better to cart me off to the hospital, at which point I became an instant convert to Christian Scientology—or whatever it was that claimed medical care was Evil. ’Cause everyone knows that evil spelled backwards is live.
Everybody stared at me as if I had two heads and had maybe conked them both too hard out there on a reef. The burlier of the two medics looked like he was ready to haul me in anyway—for a psychiatric exam if nothing else—but his partner held him back with a “Dude, we can’t do it.”
He turned to me then. “But, lady, if you don’t go with us, you gotta get someone to come out here for you. There’s no way you’re going home on your own steam. You can’t drive.”
Burly rolled his eyes. “I’ll get the paperwork,” he said, and stomp
ed off up the beach toward the ambulance.
From the ’tude, I was guessing refusal of care came with a cover-your-buttload of paperwork. But that wasn’t my problem. My problem was that on my shoestring budget I never had gotten around to frivolous things like health insurance. The paramedics alone would probably bankrupt me. The hospital was right out.
Paperwork meant questions I shuddered to consider answering. My throat ached like I’d swallowed prickly pears. I tried to think of something that would head them off at the pass.
“Wallet,” I croaked to the surfer dude, shakily moving to pat my pocket.
When I left my purse behind, I generally folded essentials—driver’s license, PI license, gun permit, some cash and cards—into a bifold case that slipped into my pocket. I hadn’t planned on going for a swim. I wondered what had fared worse, my body or various IDs.
Surfer dude took pity on my slow-motion attempt to fish out my wallet and finally did the honors. He took an inordinant amount of time flipping through everything, even letting an “oh cool” slip out at the sight of my PI license and carry permit, before finally stopping at one card with a hand-scrawled cell phone number. Armani’s. I groaned as he turned it toward me in question and took a swallow—big mistake—before nodding my head in answer.
Armani was going to make me pay for this, but I didn’t see any other option. I was pretty sure that the cell phone on my hip and all the nice numbers in memory had not survived the dunking.
My eyes must have started to close because the next thing I knew, I was getting slapped in the face. “Stay with us,” surfer boy commanded.
“So tired,” I mumbled.
But surfer boy had an answer for that—a series of rapid-fire questions to correspond to those little blanks on the paperwork attached to his clipboard. I tried answering each in ten words or less, wondering if they’d believe my near-death experience had spurred me to a sudden vow of silence.
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