"At work. He's opening the shop today," Melpomene said.
Sven sighed. It was supposed to be his day off, but he'd have to go into the shop if he wanted any chance to speak to the merman privately. "I'll see him this afternoon, then. I'll speak to him then about…ah, your concerns, ladies." And tell him to divide his time more evenly between the girls or at the least fulfil his obligations with Thera if he didn't like Melusine any more. If Sven had children, he'd be the best father he could be. His thoughts darted to the other baby in the Mer habitat, who was never the subject of a single complaint. Why, little Panacea was only a few weeks old, and her father was never far from her. Sven might not like the Human, but he couldn't fault Galen as a father. If a Human could face up to his responsibilities, Theron the merman had no excuse.
Both girls thanked him, and headed off in different directions.
Sven let out a breath he hadn't even known he was holding. This leadership gig was harder than he'd thought it would be, but he wouldn't give it up for the world. He knew that before the day was over, things would be settled between Theron and his women, even if he had to hold Theron down and threaten to cut the man's balls off so he could give the girls one each to satisfy them. Mermaids were a bloodthirsty lot, and no mistake.
Tonight, there would be peace in the Mer community, because nothing should disturb their idyllic life. Such was the privilege of being a Mer.
Six
After her third coffee, Minali decided she was awake enough to listen to Phil's excuses, which turned into desperate protestations of his love for her. According to him, some Meta had put an irresistible lust spell on him in the bar, and he had no idea how those women had arrived in his apartment. He'd woken up this morning with no memory of what he'd done with them, or why they were asleep with him in the same bed. When he'd started to complain about her absence among the pile of female flesh, he'd evidently woken the girls up, who started to voice their own complaints that Phil wasn't in bed with them. Minali had hung up on him.
Some spell. Right. Like his implant didn't make him immune to such things.
It didn't matter. Any man who struck a woman would never touch Minali. She was done with Phil.
Instead of taking the day off like she'd planned, Minali decided to work her frustrations off in the office instead. Plenty of cases needed solving, and if she got her teeth into a really meaty one, she'd forget all about Phil and the Metas who were no doubt gnawing on his manhood right now.
Minali grinned at the vision of the fanged girl biting Phil's balls off. He deserved it, the cheating, beating prick.
"So you've heard already?" Lieutenant Diamond asked as Minali strode into the office.
Minali's grin faded. "Uh, heard what?" she asked.
"Murder over in Main City. No witnesses, and no one knows the identity of the body. It's yours if you want it."
A murder case might be a nice change after last week's drug bust, Minali decided. Most of the time, the perpetrator was a man, and she was definitely a man-hater this morning.
"I'll take it," Minali said.
"Good. You'll need a partner on this one, given it's a bit tricky," Diamond replied, not looking up from his tablet. "Head over to Uni Fish Supply. Your partner's already there, and can fill you in on the details."
Minali fought down her disappointment that Phil had not only survived the night intact, but he'd beaten her to work on a particularly juicy case. "On second thought, I'd like to take a break from working with a partner. Maybe a smaller case that I can take care of by myself. Or – "
"Can't. I already promised Violet she could have you on this one. I want you to let her lead on it, too. She's good at diplomacy and not even I know where she gets half her information sometimes, but I need my best detective on this, and she's not experienced enough. Seeing as Small called in sick, you're the best I've got."
The momentary pride Minali felt at being called the best deflated at the thought of being second to Phil. She knew she was a better detective than him, but Diamond never saw it. She hoped Phil caught some horrible sexually transmitted disease from his Meta playmates that made his dick fall off.
She swallowed her disappointment. "I'll head over to Main City right away."
While Minali's flyer zipped through the streets and tunnels of the Complex, she pulled up a profile on Violet, her new partner. Try as she might, Minali couldn't remember any detective by that name. When she arrived outside a shop already shrouded in crime scene tape fifteen minutes later, she still wasn't any the wiser. The woman had several commendations that came from the head of the Intra himself, a man Minali had never met, but there was no information on how she'd earned them, or even what cases she'd worked. Even her rank on the computer system put her as an ordinary constable, not a detective at all. Why, then, was she on a murder investigation and elevated to be Minali's partner?
Minali looked harder at the other woman's profile and spotted a tiny footnote at the bottom. The tiny print held just two words:
Caution – succubus.
All the pieces fell into place. Violet had seduced Diamond or perhaps someone even higher up to get the position she had. Not earned it, the way Minali had, climbing her way up, case by case, in a department where women were few and far between. How dare the Meta woman sleep her way to the top, giving veracity to the stereotype that Minali and others had worked so hard to break. She'd probably been one of Phil's lovers last night, too.
Minali climbed stiffly off the flyer and marched up to the fraud known as Constable Violet Love.
Violet's deep frown morphed into a beaming smile the moment she caught sight of Minali. "Oh, thank the stars! I thought Diamond was going to saddle me with the Lollipop Man. You're such a sight for sore eyes I could almost kiss you. Can I call you Minnie?"
Minali's tone was so frosty it approached absolute zero. "It's Detective Burman to you, Constable."
Violet didn't seem the slightest bit discouraged. "Detective now, as of this morning, though I heard it might be a week before it's official on the computer system. But you can call me Violet. And I heard you let your last partner call you all sorts of nicknames. Seems only fitting that I get to, too." She winked.
Definitely one of Phil's lovers, Minali fumed. "I don't care what gossip you've heard, or who you've heard it from. If you think trading sex for information or promotion is better than getting there by working hard, you're in for a big surprise. I intend to solve this case, without having to seduce anyone."
Violet's eyebrows rose. "Good for you, though it all sounds a bit rich coming from the Lollipop Man's latest sucker."
"The what?"
Violet laughed. "While Small's just as apt a description of the man, he's known as the Lollipop Man to most of us Meta girls. See, he's attracted to girls with power, which includes most Metas, as well as assertive Humans, like you, I guess. He's no match for most of us, so he deals with his bruised ego by dating girls way better than he is. Once he's got you on your knees, he feels like a really big man. His sole goal in life is to make as many powerful women as possible lick him like a lollipop. It's no secret that he's awful in bed, so you wouldn't be the first to offer him a blowjob instead."
Minali felt her face grown hot. "Did you?"
Violet laughed again. "No, I don't like lollipops. Instead, I like ladies. But I don't mix work and pleasure, so I'm afraid you'll have to find me after hours if you fancy an evening together. In the meantime, I believe we have a murder to solve." She turned to duck under the crime scene tape.
"Wait," Minali said, her thoughts whirling. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean – "
Violet cut her off. "Yeah, you did. You're not the first to think that sort of stuff about me, being a succubus and all. I might need sex to live, but I'm picky as hell about my partners. And I picked you for this case, because you're the best, even if Diamond doesn't know it. So whatever issues you have with me, succubi, or Metas in general, can 'em, and let's get to work, eh?"
Minali nodded mute
ly. This was going to be a long day. She followed Violet through the doors.
Minali stopped in surprise when she saw the interior of the shop. She was surrounded by glass, and on the other side of the glass were…
"Fish," she said weakly. Fish as small as her finger right up to fish as long as her leg, filling giant aquariums like nothing she'd ever seen before. What sort of shop was this?
"Uni Fish Supply. You'd hope they have fish," Violet said. "Usually, they have a big display of juicy fillets over there." She pointed at an angled display case, also made of glass, that was currently empty. "But they won't risk spoiling the goods until we clear the crime scene and let them open for business again. Which we'll have done by noon." Violet cast a dark glance around the shop, which seemed to contain an inordinately large number of people for a forensic team.
Minali did a head count, and came up with double the normal number. She'd struggled to get one team out to the last murder investigation she'd worked on. How did a newly promoted detective manage to get twice that without having to sleep with half the Intra force?
Violet seemed to be reading her thoughts. "You're not used to working with Metas, are you, Minnie?"
The nickname set her teeth on edge, but Minali let it go this once. "What is this place?"
"It's a fish shop. Freshest fish in Seldova, or so they say. And I'm not going to argue, considering who owns the place," Violet said.
Realisation dawned on Minali. It wasn't the strings Violet had pulled, but the pull of the shop's owner. Minali pressed her lips together. She didn't care who owned this place. If they were trying to cover up a murder, they'd soon discover they'd made a terrible mistake. No one was immune to justice, especially not when she was the officer on the case. And she'd team up with the devil himself to solve this.
"Where's the body?" Minali asked.
Violet pointed. "In the tank."
Minali's gaze followed Violet's finger, and her jaw dropped. Not one body, but two floated in the water. Two women. No one killed women in her city and got away with it, Minali swore. Not now, not ever.
One of the women moved and Minali's eyes widened. At first glance, she'd looked like a woman, but that was only the top half of her. The other half…
"Why is there a mermaid swimming in my crime scene?" Minali demanded. Mermaids didn't exist. Couldn't exist.
"She's fishing out the crabs, so the boys can get to the body," Violet said, barely glancing at the tank. "If she leaves those scavengers in there, there won't be any body left to autopsy."
Minali took a moment to process this. "Mermaids are real," she said slowly. "And they're out here in space?"
"Mermaids in space. You better believe it," Violet replied. "Most dangerous Meta you'll ever meet. And as they own this place, you'd better not forget it. No one holds a grudge quite like a Mer."
Seven
"So you didn't see anything until you came in this morning, and found the body in the fish tank?" Minali repeated.
Theron shook his head. "I left when the shop closed last night, just like Mel. We were home together last night. Making too much noise ourselves to hear anything else from the place next door, let alone a shop halfway across the Complex." He winked.
He'd probably lasted a grand total of ten minutes and his partner had started moaning loudly at five in order to fake a convincing orgasm so he'd be done sooner, Minali thought cynically. Men who boasted about their sexual prowess were rarely any good in bed. Phil was the perfect example of that.
Violet appeared in the doorway to the office Minali had commandeered to take the man's statement. "You done with yours yet?" she asked.
"Yeah," Minali sighed, thanking Theron before dismissing him back to the front end of the shop. "What time is it?"
"Quarter to noon. The forensic boys have been and gone, the body's bagged and on its way to autopsy, and I have a statement from a mermaid that she never saw anything before she closed the shop last night. She just left to quarantine the crabs. We might have time to grab lunch before we head up to the morgue, where the body should be cleaned up and ready for autopsy," Violet said.
Minali knew there had once been a time when the thought of eating lunch before viewing a body or watching an autopsy would have turned her stomach. That time was long past, though. She'd seen a lot in this job, both on Wreston and on Lorn.
"Sure. Anything but fish," Minali replied.
Half an hour and two curries later, they emerged from a restaurant, ready to get back to work.
Violet pulled out her tablet to tap out a message. After a moment, she said, "Remind me again, what was the guy's name you questioned in the fish shop?"
Minali blinked, but her memory blanked on her. "I don't remember." She reached into her bag for her tablet. "Shit, I must have left my tablet in the shop. You go on ahead. I'll meet you at the morgue."
Minali marched into the fish shop, deliberately avoiding meeting the gaze of the man standing at the counter. "I'll only be a minute," she called softly over her shoulder.
Her tablet was right there on the table. Minali snatched it up and turned to go.
She had a body to view.
Eight
Sven waited for the doors to hiss open before trudging into the shop. He wasn't looking forward to this conversation one bit. If he'd known being the leader of the Complex Mer community would involve so much relationship counselling, he never would have taken the job. He had no experience at this sort of thing. He'd only loved one woman in his life and she…
Sven shook his head, trying to drive out all thoughts of her. It was worse now she'd returned to the Mer community with her husband to have her baby. Seeing her so happy with him…
"Sven, I need to talk to you," Theron began.
Sven waved him into silence. "Unless it's about Melpomene and Melusine, I don't want to hear it. Those two girls are destroying the peace of our community because of you. A man who deserts his child has no place in our community."
Theron paled. "I haven't deserted her. She's right next door. It's Melpomene who can't stand hearing the baby cry when she wants one of her own. We're trying and trying, but she just can't seem to conceive. The girls were inseparable until Melusine got pregnant. Sometimes they'd ignore me for days, but it all changed when she started to show. She's got me up most nights, all night. If I even suggest going next door to Melusine to help with the baby, she turns into a raging harpy. I don't know what to do."
Sven comforted the man as best he could, noticing for the first time the dark circles around Theron's eyes. The limited gene pool and difficulty conceiving had hit them all hard.
Theron excused himself to go to the bathroom, hurrying away, but not before Sven caught the younger man wiping away a tear. Sven wondered how many miscarriages and false alarms Theron had endured with the two women before they'd managed to have a living child.
Sven could scarcely imagine it. He'd expected a childless future for himself, for he knew Allie couldn't have children, or at least that's what he'd thought. Now, he'd still never have offspring, because how could he, without a woman he loved and cherished enough to carry a single kid for him?
As if on cue, a woman walked into the shop. Human, most likely, from the way she wouldn't meet his eyes. Metas would at least offer him a respectful nod, as was due the leader of the Mer. Humans either didn't notice him, too focussed on all the fish, or thought he was one of them. More fool them.
This woman walked in as if she owned the place, striding around the counter and into the office before Sven could form a protest, let alone voice one. Only a Mer woman would ignore him like that, and he knew every Mer in the Complex.
Unless there was another woman like Allie hidden among the Human population…
Sven crossed to the office door, his heartrate rising eagerly at the hope flowering in his mind.
She wore her hair like a dark cap, short and close to her head, though it curled slightly around her ears. Her figure was athletic, like a Mer, but he was cer
tain he'd never seen her before.
"Miss, this office is for staff only," Sven said.
"Detective," she responded, sounding lost in thought. "And I only came back to get my tablet, like I said." She peered down at the item in question and jabbed her finger at the screen. "Theron," she added as an afterthought.
Sven's jaw dropped. Theron had THREE women, not two, and he'd arranged his trysts with this one in the office of Sven's shop? "I'm not Theron," he said heavily, almost wishing he were. There was something about this woman's eyes as she brought them up to meet his that was…extraordinary. They held deep sadness, but in those depths was something like determination. Steel. Theron had a knack both for attracting women and for making them anything but happy. Sven wouldn't be so careless if a woman loved him the way they all seemed to love Theron. Some men didn't know how lucky they were.
"I can see that," she said. Her gaze hardened. "Who are you and where were you last night?"
"Sven Grun, and right here," he replied promptly. What he would have given to spend last night with her in his private pool…
"Theron didn't mention that there was anyone else here last night," she said.
There was a question in both her tone and her eyes that Sven could only guess at.
"Well, he wasn't here, was he? He was at home." Banging his other girlfriend while the mother of his child listened next door, Sven thought but didn't say.
"What were you doing here?" she demanded.
Sven couldn't suppress a grin. She was half his size, but she radiated power. He could see why Theron liked her. "Honing my skills. You wouldn't believe how good I am with my hands." He winked. "I could show you, if you like."
Her lips pursed in what Sven imagined was disapproval, which only made him want to kiss them. She had quite a sexy pout.
"Unbelievable," she said, half under her breath.
Fishtail (The Complex Book 0) Page 2