Don't Feed the Mermaids (The Mermaid Files Book 1)

by Tiana LaGrone

  “Well thanks for saving my life, I guess,” I say. I put my fingers to the woman’s neck. I don’t feel anything.

  “Call 911.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s illegal,” North says.

  I stand up. “What do you mean illegal? Was she a mermaid?”

  “No. A golem.”

  “You mean a golem, golem, made from clay?”

  “Yes,” North says.

  I lean in to get a good look at her. Wow. “You had her made?” She’s totally indistinguishable from a real human. Her make is totally, absolutely amazing. “I’ve got to call this in.”

  North looks at me. “Now hold on a minute,” he says. “Let me explain. “I met her one afternoon. I saw her walking down Rodeo. She had a confused look on her face like she didn’t know where she was or who she was, but she was sweet as pie so I picked her up.”

  “Are you always in the habit of rescuing women from bad situations?”

  “If I say yes, does that make me bad in your eyes?” North asks.

  I look at him. He seems as if he’s asking an actual legitimate question. I suppose it’s legitimate. “No, I guess not. Why didn’t you turn her into the bureau. Golems are one hundred percent illegal. Illegal for them, illegal for the one who made them, and illegal for anyone who comes across them and doesn’t report them.”

  North pulls on his black t-shirt. His gray sweats sit slung on his hips. His sneakers are off his feet. His hair, which is a bit long in front, falls over his forehead. “I didn’t report her because I felt sorry for her.”

  “So. Golem’s can be dangerous. Especially when made by a maniac. Did she ever tell you who made her?”

  “No, she wouldn’t tell me who made her. Sometimes I got the feeling that she didn’t even know who did. We got into a fight over it often. I insisted that I couldn’t protect her if I didn’t know who her maker was because I know that a maker might try to find their golem if they lose them.”

  “So why did the two of you break up?” I ask. I draw my feet up to my chest, but let go because my arms feel weak. I really need to get to the beach. “Was it because she wasn’t a real person.”

  “What is a real person after all? I broke up with her because she started to change. She started hanging out with the wrong crowd while I was busy shooting a movie and then while I was on press junkets. I told her how dangerous it was for her not to watch the company she kept. I tried to impress upon her how it important it was to keep it chill. To keep to herself even, lest someone else besides me ended up finding out she was a golem.”

  Things like being used as a puppet was one of the not so nice things about being a golem. Such a creation and control over it required expertise, perhaps even uber power and evil.

  “Is that the only gun you have?” I ask, looking at North’s hand.

  “No, I have more, why?”

  “I might need to borrow one. Any other friends showing up you need to tell me about?”

  North pulls his hair back off of his forehead. “”Well, just my assistant. She’ll probably be here soon.”

  “We’ve got to move her body then.”

  “Okay,” North says, moving around. “We can take it to the wine cellar.”

  “I know someone who can help us disassemble her the safe way.”

  “Disassemble her?”

  “Yes, you have to disassemble her a certain way or things could get ugly. If you’re going to date a golem, you really should read up on them?”

  “I thought I did. I mean it was a quick digest thing, very straight forward.”

  I smirk. “You’re kidding right?”

  “No,” North says. “I really didn’t think it was going to be too big of a deal, and she need my help.”

  I understand North’s impulse to be a good samaritan, but from what I saw of her, she’s a looker. I think he got mesmerized by her pretty smile and forgot all else. “Do you have a security camera?”

  “Yes, I do. Why?”

  “Can you pull it up here. On your computer? I want to see if she came alone.”

  “Sure, I can pull the security feed up, but I’m pretty sure that there was no one else here besides her, me, and you.”

  I yawn. North goes over to an ottoman, opens it, and pulls out his laptop. He flips it open, clicks around, and spins the computer around.

  “See. No one else came with her.”

  “I think we should go. As a matter of fact I know we should.”

  I know that you can look in a golem’s mouth and pull out the slip of paper put inside it which makes them work. With the paper, I can figure who made her, but maybe that’s not so important now. After all her motives for wanting to kill had to do with her being in love with North, but maybe someone was making her love North. If so, why? I don’t have time right now to get into it. I’ll be luck if I’ll even have enough energy to help North get her into his car.

  I gather my hair up into a ponytail and twist the ponytail around until it’s wrapped tightly into a bun.

  “Are you sure we should take her away from here? And where are we taking her?”

  “What’s her name?” I ask, ignoring North’s question.

  “Amy?”

  “Amy? Nice name.”

  The two of us lift Amy off of the floor. I keep my eyes on her in case she somehow makes her way back. Then I remember the paper thing. I try to go into her mouth to get the paper out, but seems her jaw is locked and her teeth the gatekeeper of her soul.

  “I used silver bullets on her. She shouldn’t wake up.”

  “Yeah, those bullets are pretty much catch all, but a golem can be fixed.”

  “Right,” North says. “Okay, you got her?”

  I waddle with Amy’s feet in my hands.

  “Wow, you’re pretty strong.”

  I shrug. “Must be all those days I spend working out in the gym.”

  “I detect a bit of sarcasm in your voice,” North says.

  I roll my eyes. “Pop the trunk you.”

  North pops the trunk to his Ferrari with his key fob.

  “Uh, I don’t think she’ll fit.”

  “Right,” North says. “We can take my G-Wagon instead.”

  I huff. “You have a G-Wagon too?”

  “Sure. Doesn’t everyone?” North says with a smirk. “According to my agent, I need have a utility vehicle that commands attention as well.”

  “Is it armored?” I ask.

  “As a matter of fact it is.”

  I shrug. “Might come in handy later. Let’s take it then.”

  “Although,” I say looking at the Ferrari. “We could probably fold her up in the back of the that. I suppose that wouldn’t be too nice.

  “You mean her body?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “She’s a Golem.”

  “She’s a person,” North says. He frowns. I suppose I lack a certain amount of sensitivity, but I don’t have many human friends. Unlike other organic beings, golems are made from clay. I guess I have a terrible sensitivity.

  The whole thing gets me to thinking. I’ve never dealt with a golem case before. Makes me think about how they should be treated. Just because some created them for their own purpose, does that mean that once a golem is animated that they have no rights?

  We carry Amy to the garage. North clicks the garage door open with his fob. The garage door slides open so silently that I wouldn’t even know it was opening if it wasn’t for the fact that I’m watching it do so. Rich folks. Stealthy garage door. Must be nice.

  As I help North hoist Amy into the back of his G-Wagon, I think about my brother. Being in jail isn’t as nice as the digs he has down in the realm. Being the prince of the House of Mermaids comes with a great many perks.

  I hop into the passenger seat of the car. I smell cinnamon. Everything in the G-Wagon shines. I wonder if Amy drove this wagon. If she did, how cold now that she’s riding in the back of it. I feel sorry for her. I feel sorry for Nor
th. In a short span he has lost his sister and a his ex-girlfriend to his own silver bullet.

  “It’s okay. You can cry if you want,” I say. “What a shitty life you lead.” I’m only partially being sarcastic.

  North chuckles.

  “No. I’m serious. I’m not kidding. What a ride you’ve had as of late.”

  “Are you always this morbidly funny.”

  “No,” I say.

  “It’s okay, I’ll cry later. When I’m alone,” North says.

  “Here here, I might cry when I’m alone too,” I say.

  The G-Wagon jerks out of the driveway. We hit the freeway. North leans over. “What will it take to get you to help me find out who murdered my sister. I say we can work together. We make a good team.”

  I look away. “You kill people, and I help you stash the bodies?”

  “Nah, this is hopefully a one time only thing,” North says.

  I’m not sure if I know the answer to his question about his sister. What I do know is that my plate is suddenly fuller than the average of my days. And I’ve had some crazy ass days working at the bureau.

  We head to the beach because I absolutely can’t go one more second with out taking a swim.

  The water crashes against the shore. I check my cell again. Still no word from Casey. I’ll call her when I get out of the water. I need to replenish myself stat.

  I also need to visit my mother. She has an oracle shell. The oracle shell allows her to call into it, and with it she’s able to to check on me and my brother. She also programs it so that it lights when either of us are in trouble, like vitals wise. That’s the simple explanation of how the oracle shell works anyway. The more complex explanation includes slicing both me and my brother at the bottoms of our feet with the oracle shell itself, and then mixing the oracle shell in our blood.

  North sits behind me, on the sand. The gray water crashes against his feet. I’m already in feeling better below my waist. “Stay right here,” I say. “But stay strapped. In case the someone who sent Amy after you again. If someone sent her after you, they likely have a pulse on where you are at all times.

  “You know, come to think of it Amy wouldn’t have ever tried to do a thing like that without someone else pulling the strings,” North said.

  “Right, so stay alert.” I want to tell him that Amy did a lot of things with someone else pulling the strings. I mean after a time, it is possible for a golem to grow a mind of their own so to speak, but that’s only if they get away from their maker for a very long time, long enough for the spell that locks the golem to their maker to lose its potency.

  “Do you think that the person controlling Amy could be the same person who killed my sister?” North asks.

  “Could be,” I say. “Be back soon.” I wave goodbye and dive into the ocean to go see my mother.

  Chapter Six

  The water envelopes me, and I feel better. I twirl around. I don’t have fins. Not having fins basically makes me a leper in the realm.

  When I was a baby, my mother fixed these fake fins over the bottom of my body so that I wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb. Of course everyone knew that I was a half-breed.

  Word spread around the House of Mermaids pretty damned fast about me, no matter which House Chapter you’re in you know about me because my mother’s father was adamantly against the mixing of the races, and my mother turned around and defied him.

  I swim down to the reef, past a couple of mermaid enclaves. I watch as a kelpie swims by, and a swarm of gwendylows hold hands and sing their songs. I skip right past the festivities below the water which is considered to be the first barrier of the underlands. I find one of the portals, which happens to be a glass mirror.

  If a human or anyone other than an underlander tries to access the second ring of the underland realm, the portal doesn’t work, unless they’re wearing a portal charm of course. Such things are impossible to come by on the surface, even on the black market.

  Portal rings are made by the registry of the underlands. I’ve heard a couple of stories of people getting a hold of portal rings when they’re not supposed to, but the stories end terribly. Let’s just say that humans who have used the portal ring fail to make it back in one piece. There are tools one can use to survive in the underlands, if they don’t have the natural physiology to do so such as face masks, body suits, air tanks and such things. But again, it rarely ever happens. There have been some authorized trips by humans to the second ring of the underlands, but those trips have been composed of ethnographers and diplomats. The casual surfacer has only ever seen the underlands on t.v.

  On the other side of the mirror, the underlands are abuzz.

  I swim towards Collin, a mermaid I’ve known since I was a kid. He’s floating next to a couple of mermen. His bluish green tail flicks around. His hair is white and long. It reaches his back. He keeps it pulled back with a gold bracket. His chest is strong. He’s known for being one of the best at fighting. Is it obvious that I admire him.

  He’s usually around this portal entry, and I’ll admit that why I chose this particularly entry even though there are a gazillion portals through the sea.

  Houses are ablaze with lights. The House of Mermaid’s Palace is visible in the distance. A kelpie station is open. Kelpies are the favored choice for transportation around these parts. Humans want desperately for their to be kelpie rides available in the first ring, but the kelpies with the support of the underland council has been able to resist those efforts thus far.

  “So you’ve come to see your mother,” Collin says when I’m close enough for us talk.

  My legs dangle freely. I float fine, without much effort, when I’m behind the glass. The laws of swimming are different on this side than on the other. On the other side, my legs can get tired if I swim far enough, but on this side of the glass it would take me quite a while to tire.

  “Listen, can I talk to you for a second alone?” I ask Collin. Collin excuses himself from the conversation he was in with his admirers.

  I swim off to where there aren’t mermaids, selkies, or anyone else zipping or floating around.

  “I hope you’ll help keep things sane while my brother is away,” I say immediately. “He’s got himself into some trouble on the surface.”

  “I know,” Collin says. “Your mother told me. She saw on the oracle.”

  “I mean it Collin. The House is testy in times of trouble.”

  “Don’t tell me about my House woman,” he says.

  “Don’t call me woman.”

  “You’re damn right I’ll keep things sane while he’s gone,” Collin says. “I hope you can find this killer. The one who killed the human woman. You mother couldn’t see it on the oracle. Which means that Balthazar wasn’t there when the murder took place.”

  Of course we can’t use my mother’s oracle as evidence because then it would certainly be confiscated by the bureau. There are things about the underlands that the bureau doesn’t know about. Hell, there are things on the surface that the bureau doesn’t know about. Like for instance the H3 pills I take.

  “Collin, did you know about my brother being engaged to that woman? Did you know what he was planning to do?”

  Collin averts his eyes. I lean forward, moving my head around towards his in order to get Collin to make eye contact with me. He turns away. “Get home to your mother.”

  “So you knew and you didn’t tell me?”

  I roll my eyes. “Right, catch you later, Collin,” I say, swimming off.

  Collin catches up to me. “I knew but Balthazar made me swear on my life that I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

  “He’s prince of this House. Do you know how important that is? You didn’t try to stop him? Is your family jockeying for power?”

  “Not on your life,” Collin says. “Ali has been very generous to my family. My father is grateful to serve in the house and Balthazar is like a son to my father and a brother to me. I would never betray him.”

 
“Is that why you stopped seeing me?” I ask.

  I know I shouldn’t bring this issue up, but I can’t help myself. It’s bad timing. But when has my timing ever been good?

  “What happened between us was not my doing.”

  I swim off towards the palace. This is an old argument. One I do not wish to have now, as it will do nothing but lead to a bucket full of frustration,

  “See you inside,” Collin says loudly behind me. I assume he’s going to swim back to the mermen he was talking to.

  I give him the finger inside my head, and I swim toward the palace. Housers float around exchanging glances and whispers. I’m used to it. I’ve been dealing with such things my entire life. Mermaids can be quite the clannish bunch.

  But palace guards let me pass because they know who I am. I search the first floor of the palace, looking find my mother. The walls of the palace are made from crushed sea shells. The palace is over four hundred thousand years old. My mother sits at an ivory table, watching the transmission of images emanating from her oracle shell.

  “Willow,” she says. She rushes to me and wraps me in her arms. “I’m sorry darling, I’ve been keeping an eye on your brother. Look how he suffers.” My mother is long and graceful. Her hair is black and flows in the water like silk. Her big blue eyes shine by the flicker of the glowing octopuses which hang from a line above our heads.

  I watch the images of Balthazar emanating from the oracle. He’s fighting five men inside of the holding cell down in the basement of the bureau. He’s strong, but the pain must be getting to him. I’ve been told that the pain of being hit as a human is different from the pain one feels when being struck while a mermaid. I bet it takes some getting used to.

  My mother moves my hair out of my face. “Ali is livid. He’s wants to go to war now. I try to tell him that we have you there, that you’ll make sure that your brother is set free sooner than later. I’m not sure I’ll be able to hold him off much longer.”

  My mother’s words hit me like a splash of cold water after a long day on the surface. “Ali is talking about going to war?”