It was a sunny June day, perfect for scuba diving.
He could barely keep his excitement in check as he pulled his scuba gear onto his back and strapped it on. He’d already checked and connected everything, listened for leaks, and assembled the weighting system.
Looking up at the two other marine biologists, he was glad to find huge grins on their faces, too. The other men were older and more experienced and both had blond hair. Levi Harris was a slender, quiet man in his fifties who hailed from Australia. Brayden Wright was a thirty-something champion surfer from San Diego, California.
Both were highly respected in the field of marine biology and he was thrilled to be working with them.
Today, Brayden would be his diving buddy, while Levi would team up with the dive master from Seize the Bay, the dive boat company in Moonchuckle Bay. A shorter Hispanic man, Hector Martinez had proudly announced that he had one-hundred-twenty dives under his weight belt. Twice the number required to certify.
Conall had done four hundred.
With both a bachelor's degree and a doctorate in marine biology, plus open-water certification with a professional diving association, he was an expert diver.
He’d been on numerous dives in the years he was studying for his marine biology degree and since in his work with marine animals. He loved being underwater. It was so quiet and peaceful there. Well, except for moments of adrenalin when you might run into an aggressive creature. He’d encountered several of those in his career. Great white sharks. Lionfish. Sea snakes. Blue-ringed octopi.
But watching for danger was a small price to pay for the beauty of being under the surface of the water. He’d tried to choose between land and marine mammals in his studies, and when his mother had paid for him to do a dive trip on the Great Barrier Reef, he’d been hooked.
Conall checked the dive computer on his wrist for calibration. It looked like a fancy watch, but one that could monitor depth and bottom time and lots of other things on each dive.
Sitting on the deck bench, Levi shrugged his tank onto his back and fastened the straps. “Have you ever been to the Blue Hole in Belize?” he asked in his light Australian accent. “I met a shark there that thought he’d have me for dinner.” He pointed to a scar on his calf. “He was wrong.”
The Californian, Brayden, grinned at the challenge. With his best Beach Boys inflection, he shook back his shaggy blond hair and pointed to his arm. “Lionfish didn’t like me getting close to the coral, and I wasn’t even that close.”
Conall and Levi both winced. Lionfish were incredibly venomous and left painful wounds.
“Hospital?” Levi asked.
Brayden shrugged. “They checked me over and sent me home. I drove back over to the beach to finish my dive. Nothing was going to stop me.”
Conall grinned and motioned to his shoulder. “Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Box Jellyfish.” Also known as sea wasps for their highly poisonous sting. Luckily, Conall had received antivenom within minutes or he wouldn’t have been around to brag about it.
“And you’re still walking around?” Levi said, admiration in his voice. “Nothing will stop you either, will it, mate?”
“I saw Mandarin fish,” Brayden said. “In the Philippines.”
“I’ve always wanted tae see one,” Conall said, slipping into a Scottish brogue in his excitement, something he’d trained himself not to do. But today he couldn’t help it. “Are they as beautiful as I’ve seen pictures of?”
“Spectacular.” Brayden looked serious.
They were all experienced divers, which meant they would take care to remember all the safety rules — like keeping track of their buddy and his air, as well as their own.
The boat came to a stop, barely making waves on the glassy blue surface. Ahead was a lightly foggy bank and everywhere else the sun shone, reflecting off the surface.
He could hardly wait to go underneath the surface.
The men exchanged happy glances and headed for the stern, the back of the boat, looking like giant frogs in their wetsuits and fins.
Hector sat on the port side of the boat and did a back roll into the water, coming up and giving them a thumb’s up. He was followed by his diving buddy, Levi, then Brayden.
Finally, Conall took his position on the left side of the boat and back rolled into the water.
The men did a buoyancy check. Conall inflated his BC — Buoyancy Compensator — until he had neutral buoyancy.
Then they slipped beneath the surface and began to swim.
Nixie kept to the shadows, using her mermaid magic to keep from being noticed. Waverly had been called back, so Nixie was on her own for her merely-bending-the-law assignment.
What might happen to her if she was caught by the Council? Would they care that she was the king’s daughter? It wasn’t like she was important in the line of succession or anything. She was the heir-and-the-spare to the 24th degree. Her father had wished for sons but hadn’t had any. He was, however, awash with daughters. All married except her. All with either children or expecting a child.
But Nixie could do anything as well as a man, anyway.
She just had to grab one of the four men who swam clumsily ahead of her and make sure it wasn’t the fourth man, who hadn’t been in the picture her father had shown her. She pulled it from the bodice of her bra-swim top and studied it. She didn’t need to get the handsome one, the one who’d tugged at her in a way she hadn’t expected. In fact, it was probably better that she didn’t, because she didn’t know what was going to happen to him. It wasn’t like she could just claim him as her own. And what would she do with a human male, anyway?
Unless she were to go live on land.
The idea tugged at her. She loved humans. She’d watched Disney’s The Little Mermaid a hundred times, and she certainly identified with Ariel. She called human things by their proper names, and though her father wasn’t so anti-human as King Triton, they were supposed to keep their distance.
So she tucked the picture back in place, flicked her tail, and glided along behind the four.
When one — it was the handsome one! — turned slowly, scanning the sea around him, she froze in place. He didn’t look at her. He couldn’t see her because of the magic, but she felt a flicker of unease coming off him. The others didn’t seem to notice her, but he had.
And she noticed him.
Even though he was covered in a black and dark-blue wetsuit, with a yellow tank on his back, she could sense him.
It was the strangest sensation she’d ever felt, sort of a tickle along her spine and down her arms and tail.
She would take him, after all.
She Was In Such Trouble!
Conall switched from a flutter kick to a frog kick that allowed him to glide between strokes and save on air consumption. Alongside him swam Brayden. For the most part, they were evenly matched in strokes, so they stayed close together.
The water was a little murky at this greater depth, and he checked often that Brayden was still there. His life might depend on his buddy and vice versa.
Ahead, he could see the other two.
Other than the sound of his regulator, it was blissfully peaceful. Listening to only the sound of his own breathing was hypnotic.
He scanned around him as he kicked and glided. There were fish here, but they weren’t exotic like in salt-water oceans. Bonneville cutthroat trout, redside shiner, speckled dace, lake trout, common carp, yellow perch, green sunfish, rainbow trout, smallmouth bass, and a bunch of other fairly common fish. No sharks or jellyfish here. No dangerous fish.
And, so far, no Nessie.
So why was the hair on the back of his neck rising?
He turned in a slow circle, but didn’t see anything to worry about.
Brayden stopped and, using hand signals, asked if everything was all right.
Despite his unease, Conall nodded, and they moved on, falling farther behind the other two.
The plan was to search for one hour, at w
hich time they’d still have air in their tanks, then they’d surface to get fresh tanks and go for another hour.
Their bottom time had been fifty-five minutes and Conall tapped Brayden’s elbow and pointed to his dive computer/watch. Brayden nodded, and they began to rise slowly, stopping periodically to keep things safe. They never rose faster than their bubbles. The bends were nothing to mess with.
At about twenty feet from the surface, they made a safety stop, hovering for three minutes to make sure any excess nitrogen cleared from their bodies.
Brayden began to rise again when Conall again had that uneasy feeling. He spun around — and stared straight at a ...woman?
She wasn’t wearing snorkel gear, and her long, platinum hair flowed up above her head. Starfish and seashells framed her face, a seashell necklace circled her throat, and pearl-and-shell earrings dripped from her lobes. Her lips were a rosy pink, and exotic blue-green eyes were highlighted by blue eye shadow. She wore a swimsuit top swirling with purples and pinks, showcasing a shapely figure. Her waist was bare.
She was beautiful, and when she reached out her hand, he raised his to take it. She flipped her tail and glided closer, her fingers nearly touching his.
The woman had no tank of air.
But she did have a tail. A beautiful one, with purples and pinks and blues and greens ending in a blue double-fin.
A mermaid?
She certainly looked like a mermaid, but he shook his head. It couldn’t be. They didn’t exist except in the imaginations of old-time, superstitious sailors. He’d gotten too much nitrogen in his bloodstream apparently. He was hallucinating.
His hallucination was beautiful.
Suddenly hands grabbed him from above and plucked him from the water. He sputtered as he was hauled up into the boat.
“Wait!” he said, still reaching down to touch her hand.
He worked his way back to the starboard side and peered over, but he couldn’t see her.
He spun on the crew members. “What’d you do that for?”
“We thought there was a big fish. We thought you were in danger.”
Conall had imagined a big fish was a mermaid? He really had hallucinated, but he wasn’t about to tell anyone.
He had not seen a mermaid.
Because mermaids didn’t exist.
Still, she was the most beautiful hallucination ever.
He escaped!
Shocked, Nixie froze in place, focusing all her magic on remaining invisible to anyone in the boat. Her emotions had called a school of fish to swirl around her and then speed up to the surface, leaping and drawing attention away from her. She sent them a mental thank you.
How had she let that happen? She’d been so caught up in feeling him, in wanting to touch him, that she’d come in too slow. She should have rushed in and grabbed him, just like her father wanted her to do, then wrapped him in her fin and swum off.
Her father! What in the sea was he going to say when she came back empty-finned?
She was in such trouble!
She couldn’t go back home without one of the men.
Pulling herself together, she saw that the other three men were climbing out of the water and into the boat.
She hadn’t grabbed any of them?
No. She wasn’t beaten. She had to get one of them. Perhaps she could get the sea creatures to create enough of a show for the men that she could leap up out of the water and grab one of them right out of the boat.
She sent out a throne call, which all of her royal family could do. It was a signal to the sea creatures around her, and they started gathering from farther away, leaping out of the water, some of them flopping against the top of the boat and falling back into the water.
The men leaned over, pointing and exclaiming.
Keeping her magic firmly around her, Nixie moved toward the boat.
We Have A Problem, Asherah
Conall watched the leaping trout in amazement. Where had they all come from? He’d just come from the water and there hadn’t been nearly this many. Now they surrounded the boat, circling and leaping and seeming to play.
He’d never seen this type of behavior, and he could tell by the faces and exclamations of the others that they hadn’t, either.
The men, including Conall, shed their heavy tanks, setting them on the deck benches and securing them while keeping their eyes on the show around them.
He worked his way down the starboard side of the boat, exhilarated.
“Grab a net, mates, and we’ll have fish on the barbie tonight,” called out Levi happily, searching for a net.
But Conall didn’t want to eat these trout. He sensed their pure joy at leaping and something else. Something ... that made the hair on his neck rise again.
He turned around in the boat. Hector stood by the cabin.
Brayden was laughing in delight.
The crew members were standing around staring.
Conall looked down at the trout and — there! He saw her again! The mermaid!
And then she was moving fast toward the surface and, breaking the surface close to the boat, she was coming out of the water, just like the trout.
In the corner of his eye, Conall caught movement. Turning, he saw a harpoon gun being raised — toward the mermaid.
“No!” Conall yelled, but it continued to raise, the man holding it around the wall so he couldn’t see who it was.
Without another thought, Conall jumped in between the mermaid and the harpoon — and a searing pain hit him in the shoulder.
He fell, spinning from the impact, and hit the water hard.
He’d been harpooned.
As things faded to black and he sank beneath the surface, thoughts mushed through his brain.
It was a good thing there were no sharks in these waters, or they’d be attracted to the blood coming from his shoulder.
He wondered if Nessie really were in this lake and if she would want to take a bite out of him.
He wondered how long he could hold his breath.
And then he faded into oblivion.
Instantly, Nixie created an air bubble and wrapped it — along with her invisibility magic — around the man’s head before he drowned. He didn’t have his air tank on now.
The fish broke off from the boat, swimming in all directions, and Nixie dove hard with the man.
She didn’t want the shooter to get off another harpoon.
Panic filled her as she swam furiously. The man’s face was pale, and he was leaking blood into the water. That couldn’t be good. She had to get him back to court, to her father’s surgeons. They had to fix him. She couldn’t bear it if he was killed because he’d try to save her.
And that thought chilled her and warmed her heart all at the same time, for he had saved her. He had intentionally leaped in the path of the harpoon meant for her.
Surely her father would reward him for doing that.
If he lived.
He couldn’t die.
“Stay alive,” she whispered to the man, glancing down at his face so close to her own. His eyes were closed, and he had a grimace of pain on his face.
She pushed herself even faster, swimming past the new Starfish Estates that Waverly was so enamored with, past the older homes glittering with crushed seashells as was the fashion several decades ago, past the opera house where her sisters liked to perform.
Finally, she was at the gates of the court, which two mermen threw open when they saw her approach.
“Get the surgeon,” she shouted to them as she swam past. She didn’t stop until she was in her father’s official chambers.
His advisors lounged in chairs and against walls, laughing and relaxing, until she dashed in. Then they jumped to attention. Her father rose from his elaborate seat, not his throne as this wasn’t his throne room, a surprised look on his face.
She came to a sudden stop, holding onto the injured man in her arms. “He threw himself in front of a harpoon that was aimed for me. He saved my l
ife. Now we have to save his.” A sob escaped her, surprising both her and her father.
“He saved your life?” Her father looked at the man, a puzzled look on his face.
“Yes. And I invoke Rule 629 of the Merma Carta — he saved my life and so I am now responsible for him.” She stared into her father’s eyes. “He is now mine.”
There was total silence for a moment, then her father said, “That will be a problem.”
She shook her head. “I’m taking him to the medical chamber so he can get help. Please call the surgeon.”
“We’ll take him for you,” Dylano said, reaching for the man.
But before he could take the man, Nixie flicked her tail and was halfway out of the room and headed for the medical chamber, her arms firmly around the man who called to her, even when he was passed out from pain and injury.
She raced him into the medical chamber, where the surgeon was just swimming in. Reluctantly, she let him take the man from her arms. She clenched her hands into fists to let go, but she stayed next to the platform the surgeon placed him upon.
“You’ll need to leave the medical suite,” the surgeon said, detached as he examined the man.
“No,” she said, but her father’s voice echoed behind her. “Yes, daughter, come out with me.”
She turned as her father slipped his hand around her upper arm. He told the surgeon, “We need to save this one. Do whatever it takes, at whatever cost.”
The surgeon nodded solemnly and went to work, picking up an instrument while magic spun in the air around him. His two assistants came up close to hold the man.
And she was whisked from the room in her father’s arms. He swam with her into her mother’s private chamber, where her mother reclined, reading a Kindle H2O, the newest Kindle Water wetreader. She glanced up when her husband and daughter rushed into the room. “Nixie, Henry, what’s wrong?”
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