“Do you have any eights?” he asked Jason before answering me.
“Nope, go fish,” Jason answered.
“His name is Jim Moon, I got what I wanted,” he said as he showed Jason the eight of hearts he picked from the deck.
“Can you give me his contact info? I would like him to find out some information for me about a creep named Terry who’s bothering my people.”
Brian paired up the eights then lay his cards face down on the table before getting up. “Watch him, I think he cheats,” he said as he pointed to Jason and walked into his room to grab his phone.
“Why would I cheat at Go Fish, you sore loser?” Jason called, then quickly shuffled the deck before Brian could come back in the room.
I just shook my head at his antics, “Isn’t Go Fish a kid’s game?”
He shrugged and grinned, “It seemed appropriate since we’re going hunting the moment you finish your calls.”
My phone dinged with an incoming message and I saw Brian had sent me a contact for his friend.
“Thanks,” I called over my shoulder as I walked back outside, “and Jason shuffled the deck when you weren’t looking.”
“Thanks, a lot,” Jason laughed, as he threw his cards on the table. As I closed the sliding glass door, I saw Brian tackle Jason and rolled my eyes as they began to wrestle. “Really,” I huffed, “you’d think men as old as they would find better ways to deal with boredom. Oh, well, they’d better not break any furniture,” I finished as I opened the contact card for Jim Moon so I could have him get me all the information he could on Terry the Creep.
The moonlight filtering down through the water was breathtaking. My ability to utilize even the tiniest amount of light allowed me to see in even the darkest water, the underwater landscape was as bright to me as if it was a sunny day. I loved swimming with more light because the colors of fish, underwater plants and coral popped in a way that didn’t happen in the darkness. I was glad the storm had moved further inland, and the clouds parted so the light of the full moon was unobstructed.
Although Jason, Brian and I moved to the water so we could hunt, I needed to be surrounded by the deep so I wouldn’t feel so useless. I wasn’t back home to deal with the problems facing my business and I didn’t have the magic necessary to track down Akore. Hillaes had finished the tracking spell on her crystals but they had to be within a half mile of the Akore’s arcane crystals before they would vibrate in resonance. Steve, Enzokuhle and Robert were flying a grid pattern over the city to see if they could pinpoint his location and Hillaes and Wu were searching by car.
Carlos and Yoli were also on the ground, in wolf form, searching for his scent. When Enzokuhle obtained the surveillance video from the Table Mountain cable car, he was able to pull Akore’s image based on the day and time the men were killed. We realized he was using a disguise spell of some sort but Enzokuhle continued to use that image to search for him, and we got lucky. Officer Booysen recognized his picture and Enzokuhle was able to requisition the records from the day he entered the country. Either Akore was so arrogant he didn’t realize using the same disguise would cause him a problem, or he was so low on power he couldn’t create two disguise spells. Whatever the case, it was a benefit for us.
Carlos and Yoli searched the Khipius, which was still moored at the harbor, and were able to get scents of everyone who had been on board. They were able to eliminate the members of the crew because they were staying on the boat, but there were two scents that couldn’t be eliminated. When the captain showed Carlos to the owner’s cabin, he was able to link the scent to the person calling himself Ramesh Achayra. Once both Carlos and Yoli had the scent, Enzokuhle called in Colonel Dlamini and turned the crew over to her tender care and passed along the information we discovered.
Jason sensed my need to be alone while I brooded over my inability to help find Akore, so he and Brian were hunting on the opposite side of False Bay. I love hunting here because there are abundant yellowtail, which is one of my favorite fish, and the large population of great white sharks nearby made hunting more exciting. I wasn’t worried about the sharks because I naturally carry an aura about myself that let other predators know that I’m a greater danger than they are and they stay away. But it’s still thrilling to swim with those magnificent killing machines.
As I swam into a school of yellowtail, my arms lashed out without my conscious thought, and I speared a fish with my claws on each hand. As I munched on my dinner, I thought about how octopuses have nine brains, one central brain and one for each of its arms so each one literally has a mind of its own. The way my arms seem to work independently in my mermaid form makes me think that maybe I’m part octopus. I laughed at the absurdity of that thought until I was suddenly doubled over with a crushing pain in my right hip that left me gasping for air. I looked around to see what hit me, but I wasn’t damaged; the pain was coming through my mate bond with Jason.
I mentally shouted his name and felt a weak response from the opposite side of the bay. I put on a burst of speed and within moments was swimming as fast as I could towards his position. Even though our mate bond would grow stronger once we were married, it was strong enough for me to pinpoint his location. As I swam, I wondered how this could have happened then realized that one of the drawbacks of someone using their final shift to transform from one species to another for the sake of their mate, is that person is never as strong as a naturally born shifter of that type.
If I had chosen to become a sasquatch to be with Jason, instead of him becoming a merman for me, I would have always been slightly weaker than a naturally born sasquatch. Thankfully that weakness would not pass along to our children but it’s something I should have remembered. Jason's underwater aura must not be as strong as mine so predators would steer clear of him. I prayed that I would arrive in time as I neared his location. I could sense him but couldn’t see him yet.
Almost there, I broadcast to Jason and received a sense of love from my mate rather than words; I could also tell he was weakening. A flash of scales caught my eye and I saw Jason struggling to swim to the ocean floor, he was favoring his right side and blood was trailing from an open wound where his torso met his tail. There was also a great white fifty feet behind him and closing fast.
I put on another burst of speed and arrowed my way towards the great fish, my arms open wide and claws ready to tear into the shark. Jason was heading for a shark cage, abandoned at the bottom of the ocean but it was clear he wasn’t going to make it before the shark could attack again. I roared in frustration because I wasn’t going to make it in time either, that is until I was slammed from behind by a rogue current which gave me the extra speed I needed to hit the shark before he could bite Jason.
I ducked my head and rammed the shark just behind the gills with my shoulder. My momentum carried the two of us away from my mate and I plunged the claws of my hands into the side of the shark and raked downward, shredding its skin in my fear. The shark was thrashing in its death throws and was enveloped in a cloud of blood, which would soon draw other great whites to the area. I was ready to kill any others that dared to come between me and Jason, but he needed my help.
Jason made it inside the shark cage, but he was still favoring his wound. I sent my senses out and felt Brian a quarter mile to the north, oblivious to what was happening.
Brian, I mentally shouted, Jason’s wounded and I need you here.
What happened, Brian asked as he jetted towards my position as I explained what I knew. He was amazingly fast for something so large and in less than a minute one of his tentacles reached out and wrapped around the shark.
It’s a shame for this to go to waste, he said as he drew the dying fish towards his beak.
Keep everything away from us while I take care of Jason, I commanded and swam to where he was listlessly floating in the cage, unconscious and unresponsive. Now that the battle was over, I could feel the ache in my chest as I looked at the damage caused by the shark. My tears bl
ended with ocean water as I looked at the man I loved and wondered if I could save him.
I’m so sorry, I should have been here, I sobbed as I tried to figure out the best way to get him out of the cage. The opening at the top was wide enough for one of us but I was concerned about how to swim out of there with him in my arms.
The cage had served its purpose by protecting him from the shark, so I used my claws to cut through the bars on the side nearest to where he was floating. The flow of blood had slowed to a trickle and that could be a good thing, or it could mean he was bleeding out, I thought in terror. I pulled him towards me and felt for the pulse in his neck and was relieved that it was steady, even if it was weak. A curious crab picked the wrong time to scuttle by and I grabbed it, Jason needed the protein to heal.
Eat this Jason, c’mon I need you to eat this, I repeated over and over, trying in vain to wake him enough to eat. I was despairing again when I felt the water grow warm around us and I heard An’Ceann’s voice whisper three words into my mind, sing to him.
I didn’t question the command but began to pour out my heart in song. I told him how long I had been waiting for my true mate and he couldn’t leave me. I told him how sorry I was that I didn’t consider the danger he was in and how I needed him to wake up to eat so he could heal sufficiently so we could head back. It was important for me to keep singing until he woke up to eat so his body could use the energy to accelerate his healing. I don’t know how long it took but he finally began to stir in my arms and smile weakly as he looked up from where his head was laying in my lap.
I’m hungry, he said, and I had to hold the crab for him while he bit through the shell. I was looking around for something else I could feed him when the tip of a tentacle dangled a redfish before my eyes, and I snatched it and handed it to Jason while thanking Brian for his thoughtfulness. He ate that redfish and two others Brian handed us as I examined his wound and Jason told us what happened.
I didn’t feel the shark coming up from below me until the last moment and I moved enough so he hit me in the side rather than my chest where he’d been aiming. He grabbed and thrashed me side to side and I was overwhelmed with pain. I guess he let go, to take a larger bite but I managed to dodge his strike and swim for the cage I had noticed a few minutes before the attack; and then Cyndi was there fighting off the shark and I made it into the cage.
I’m so sorry, I sobbed as I kissed the back of his hand and smoothed the hair away from his forehead, which didn’t do any good in the moving current.
Don’t be, if it weren’t for your singing, I think I would have been done for. It may have been a dream, but I was standing on the edge of an impossibly large cliff looking across a chasm at an even larger mountain. Even though the distance between the two was infinite, I could see people on the mountain waving to me, beckoning for me to join them. I had just decided to take a step towards them when I heard your voice calling me back. As much as I wanted to explore the mountain, I needed to be with you more and knew I couldn’t leave you; you sounded so sad.
I bent down to kiss him and silently thanked An’Ceann for his help and felt him hug me even though we were sitting on the bottom of the bay and the lion wasn’t anywhere nearby. The wound on Jason’s side had closed but when I felt where the bite had been, I could tell his bones were still healing. Brian kept watch as I lay next to Jason and willed his body to heal quicker. We talked about our wedding and our plans for our future. I knew how close he’d come to dying and my fear spiked when I thought about what my life would be like without him and it gave me more compassion for my mom and what she must have gone through when she lost my dad. After we captured Akore, Jason and I would visit her in Cetacea and work on rebuilding our relationship.
Jason drifted off to sleep and even though I intended to keep watch over his healing, I fell asleep to the sound of his beating heart as I lay my head on his chest.
Llandudno Estates
Cape Town, South Africa
Akore looked at the emaciated body lying on the cot in the cell and shook his head in disgust. It hadn’t provided him the energy he needed and he was having to drain more victims, more often. He looked around at the other prisoners in the cells of this makeshift prison he had converted from the servant quarters on his property. He caught his reflection in the mirror above the sink and was concerned by the way he looked. Even though he was draining someone every other day, he was aging more quickly than the spell could compensate for. If someone saw him on the street, they would think he was in his seventies; this was intolerable.
“Funani,” he called as he left the building, ignoring the cries for mercy from the rest of the prisoners.
“Yes sir,” the servant called as he stepped out of the darkness, the moonlight reflecting off his shaved head. His ebony skin blended in with the darkness and his dark suit added to his air of mystique.
“Get rid of the body in the first cell,” Akore commanded as he walked towards the main house. Funani matched the stride of the man beside him and waited for him to continue. He knew that the only thing keeping him alive was appeasing the powerful madman he worked for.
“I need you to find me healthier specimens, from the town proper. These,” he gestured to the building behind them, “are too malnourished to do me any good.”
“But sir, no one misses the rejects in the shanty towns. If we start pulling people off the streets, it will raise suspicion.”
“Then find me healthy tourists out on their own. They may be missed but by the time the police get involved, your men will be back here and beyond their reach," Akore demanded.
Funani was silent as they walked around the estate, Akore stopping at each arcane crystal to judge how full they were. By his calculations they would take another two weeks before he had enough magical energy to create the defensive spells he needed to protect himself. He was concerned that his personal crystals weren’t filling up quickly enough because he was having to cast the life-force spell so often. He hoped that he could extend the time between castings with healthier specimens.
“What should I do with the prisoners already in the guest house?” Funani finally asked as they made their way back to the main house after checking each crystal.
“Don’t bother me with trivialities,” Akore shrugged his shoulders. “All I know is we need the space for the newest guests you’ll invite here to join us. Do what you need to do.”
“Very well,” Funani answered and wondered when he had become a monster as evil as the one he walked beside.
September 12
Adderley Street
Cape Town, South Africa
I sipped coffee and watched the tourists and residents in this upscale area of Cape Town. While September is still technically winter in this part of the world, the seventy-four-degree weather reminded me of my home in Southern California. Since it was the weekend, there were more people out and about than I’d seen so far. My phone buzzed with an incoming message and I sighed when I read the text from Brian, you still can’t come back for two more hours.
I’d been chased out of the suite an hour before because I was fussing over Jason too much. His body was healing but he wouldn’t be at his best until tomorrow or the next day. His injuries would have killed or permanently crippled a human, but his accelerated healing was doing what it was supposed to do; I just couldn’t stand seeing him in such pain so I apparently hovered.
“More coffee, ma’am?” William asked, with a smile.
“Please, oh and if you happen to have one of those white-chocolate Magnum bars, I’d like one of those, too.” I smiled back at him.
William looked thoughtful before responding, “We only have bowls of ice cream, but I’ll take care of it for you. They sell them at the market down the street.”
“I don’t want you to go to any trouble—”
“It isn’t any trouble, I’m happy to do it for you. Besides, when you sat, you had the look of a woman weighed down with worry. I hate to see anyone in that
state, if this will help lift your spirits, it is my pleasure,” he answered with a grin.
“Thank you, William. My fiancé was injured and even though I know he’ll be fine; I hate to think of him in pain.”
William laughed, “Well done, not only did you politely let me know you’re taken, but you also allowed me to save face in case I was flirting with you. However, my wife wouldn't be happy with me if she knew I was flirting with a customer, even one as beautiful as you,” he smiled and winked at me, “I just hate seeing anyone in pain. Besides, my wife Katherine works at the shop and that gives me a good excuse to stop in to say ‘hi’.”
“In that case, who am I to stand in the way of a quick rendezvous with your wife?” I laughed as William filled my cup.
As I watched people walk by, I thought about the debrief session we had when the three of us finally made it back to the suite. It was about two hours before dawn before Jason was well enough to travel. Brian wrapped both of us in his tentacles to transport us across the bay to the dock below the hotel. By the time we arrived, Jason was able to transform into his human form and I carried him up the stairs from the dock to our room. I was glad there wasn’t anyone around to see me carry a man in my arms, but it wouldn’t have mattered. I wasn’t willing to let him go.
The rest of our party joined us after I got Jason situated on the couch facing the sliding doors. They didn’t have any leads on Akore’s position but were hopeful they would have more luck the next night. Hillaes felt we still had time before Akore was able to cast his defensive spells using the arcane crystals.
Once everyone else left to get some sleep, I made a bed for myself on the other couch so I could be close by in case Jason needed anything. He was probably out of danger, but I was feeling unsettled, which was why I woke up every time he moved or made a noise in his sleep. When Brian came out of his room and saw me standing over Jason, while watching him breathe, he told me to get ready because he was kicking me out for the rest of the day.
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