by Starla Night
Yes, long before mermen surfaced, the future queens of Atlantis had championed Sea Opals.
“Whoa.” Mitch pulled out a heavy rock encased in paper and bubble wrap. He clunked it on the desk. “Heavy.”
This was not a Sea Opal. It made a strange mechanical ticking noise like a human clock.
Balim continued through the lab to the main hospital recovery room.
In the center, a steel frame enclosed a giant glass aquarium with bubbling aerator and heat lamp. Mitch had taught him about aquariums, both saltwater and fresh. A ladder was affixed to the side.
Although most mer lived in the oceans, they did not suffer from freshwater, and it was easiest to get. Balim used it in the large pressure cooker machines in the next room. With Sea Opals lining the bottom, he simulated steeping the gemstones for centuries to create the elixir in huge batches and then dispensed it into this tank. He’d created a surface rehabilitation chamber for mermen.
Pelan was his first test case. The black-and-red warrior floated in the center, sleeping. Alone.
Normally, his bride entwined with him. She had partially transformed the first time she’d entered the water and spent the week trying to heal him using her resonance as his bride. Floating as a mermaid with gills in her back, she had dangled her still-human toes between his mer fins. But not now.
Now, the hospital coordinator, Roxanne, rested her fingertips on the glass.
Balim stopped in the doorway. “Where is Pelan’s bride?”
“Hmm?” Roxanne’s long, crinkly brown hair stuck up in wild abandon, her glasses nestled on her worried face, and her clothes were disheveled from spending all day pricing, negotiating, and coordinating the delivery of essential equipment to set up the hospital. “Oh, I think she said she was going to take a smoke break. Not that she smokes, but she needed personal time, so I said it was no problem.”
Whenever Pelan’s bride left, she endangered Pelan’s healing. “She—”
“Don’t worry. I do know that he mustn’t be left alone, and yet sometimes a woman needs her personal time. Nora’s been a champion. I can’t imagine what she must be going through. Meanwhile, I get to go home at night, even though it’s so hard to concentrate, and I don’t do well here either. Something’s wrong with me.”
She rubbed her chest.
Pelan’s soul glowed brighter as well. He resonated with the Sea Opal delivery? Balim’s protest evaporated.
Roxanne glanced at him, and guilt flashed across her features. “I’m not letting it interrupt my work. I’m still concentrating on tasks. If you must know, I’m waiting on a call back from Singapore on an MRI machine.”
He inserted his question. “We need this MRI?”
“Since we can’t send warriors to a better-equipped hospital, I’m afraid we do. And technicians to operate it. This isn’t an immediate purchase. I’m still compiling research for the doctors we hire to know their options.” She rolled her lips, worry tugging at her usually cheerful features. “Pelan will be okay, won’t he?”
“Yes.” Balim stood beside her. “He is improving every day.”
His tank had accomplished much. Pelan’s two separate mer legs bent at the knees, his long fins unfurled and waving.
Roxanne touched her lips with her other fingers. “Oh, I hope you don’t think I’m staring at him because he’s naked. He is great-looking, I’m not going to lie, but I’m not only looking there, so please don’t you tell him I did that. I’m just being present. Like a canary in a coal mine. You know. If anything goes wrong with him, I’ll scream.”
Balim could have that healing with Bella. Closeness. Connection. Resonance.
He shook himself. “Good.”
Mitch entered the room, hefting the ticking rock. “Hey, Balim. What do you suppose this is?”
“A human clock or other mechanical device.”
“It looks like a mineral, but it’s not on the inventory sheet.”
“It is human made,” Balim insisted.
“Why do you say that?”
“The ticking.”
“Ticking?”
Mitch held it up to his ear and shook it. The rock rattled. “I hear nothing. Oh, wait. There’s a piece of tape. I suppose you could be—”
Roxanne’s voice dropped. “Put it outside and call the police.”
Mitch looked up. “The police?”
She spread her arms across the tank to shield Pelan with her body. “An unidentified ticking object not on the inventory? The Sons of Hercules are trying to kill Pelan again. Put it outside, far away, and call the police.”
Mitch looked as flummoxed as Balim felt, but he shrugged and meandered out of the large room.
As he passed Balim to enter the back hall, the ticking stopped.
“Roxanne, what does it mean when the ticking stops?” Balim asked her.
She paled and shrieked. “Mitch! It’s going to blow!”
“What?” His voice echoed around the corner.
“Throw it! Now!”
Mitch’s running footsteps echoed down the hall.
Balim ducked into his office and looked into the parking lot.
Pelan’s bride jumped up from his office chair. She wore a white hotel bathrobe and clenched her phone in both hands. She had been typing onto it.
“Oh! Balim, you startled me. I was just taking a quick break, I swear—”
“Yes, Roxanne told me.” He held up his hand to quiet her.
Mitch shoved open the outer door, lobbed the not-ticking rock across the parking lot, and yanked the thick emergency door closed again.
The rock landed on the concrete with a loud thunk.
She let out her fright in a long sigh. “Look. I know you want me to spend every hour with Pelan. And don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate catching up on my sleep. But I’m getting so bored, and I don’t think a break is too much once in a while.”
He ignored her. The rock was just sitting there. Perhaps they were mistaken.
“Hey, will you listen when I’m—”
Boom!
The ground beneath his loafer-clad feet jumped.
Pebbles spattered his office window, cracking the glass. He ducked. Pelan’s bride shrieked and huddled under the desk.
In the main room behind him, water sloshed out of Pelan’s tank and slapped the floor.
“What was that?” Pelan’s bride demanded, shaky. “Are we under attack?”
He stood again.
In the parking lot, a large chunk of concrete was missing. A new hole sizzled. Mitch creaked open the external door and stared at the hole in shock.
“Yes.” Balim strode to check on Pelan. “We are.”
The warrior was still sleeping.
Roxanne hugged the tank. “We need to quarantine the rest of that shipment. Quarantine it until the police can send in the bomb squad. Call 911.”
“On it.” Mitch held his phone to his ear. He rubbed his head. Although he looked okay, he was shaken. “Operator? I need to report a small bomb that destroyed a chunk of our parking lot.”
“Bomb!” Pelan’s bride squeaked and hurried after Balim as he next checked the pressurized tanks. “I thought you said this place was safe!”
The tanks remained pressurized. No flaws or weaknesses. Good.
“We bought this property unlisted,” Roxanne said.
“We need a gate. Wait, we have a gate. Who let him in?”
“I did,” Balim said.
Pelan’s bride covered her mouth as though to stop herself from saying any more. But fear pinched her word. “Why?”
“Because I did not expect a bomb in this delivery.”
“To be fair, it might not have been the driver’s fault,” Roxanne piped up. “We spoke on the phone, and he seemed nice enough, if a bit tired. The police will undertake that investigation.”
Pop.
A crack crossed the glass wall of the aquarium.
Roxanne moaned. “Balim…”
Irritation burned in him. The tank h
ad been difficult to build and nearly impossible to fill.
“Climb up the ladder, Roxanne. Mitch, get on the desk.” Balim herded Pelan’s bride as she gaped at the crackling glass. “Your wish has been granted.”
She climbed up a few rungs behind Roxanne and clutched her bathrobe collar. “What?”
“You will now aid Pelan’s recuperation in the air.”
The tank collapsed. Water gushed out and knocked him over. The warm elixir swept him across the floor.
His lungs shifted to gills. He stared up at the human ceiling before the water flooded out and left him beached on the wet floor alone.
He had let the dangerous rock into the building. He had carried it himself surrounded by the disguise of other Sea Opals. The Sons of Hercules had counted on him not identifying the danger as Roxanne had.
How would the enemy trick him next?
Chapter Four
Britney Spears’s “Toxic” played on Bella’s cell phone as she repeated her mantra in the mirror. “I am beautiful. I am scintillating. Clients can’t take their eyes off me.”
Bella sucked in her gut to smooth the black fabric corset. Her figure filled the dingy hall mirror with dismaying proportions. She hadn’t dressed up since Jonah’s diagnosis. After all the junk food, she was lucky the dress still fit.
Her breasts oozed out the sides.
She shoved them in. They oozed out the strained fabric. She applied under-bra tape.
There.
Rolls of fat puffed out the back.
She forced them in, grunting with every word of her mantra. “I. Win. Every. Marketing. Contract.”
The tape held.
Quickly, she stepped into and zipped on her emerald-green dress. The dress hugged her like the ribs in an anaconda. Her body jiggled. Jelly under pressure.
The dress held.
Thank goodness.
She let out her breath cautiously, then in a whoosh.
The fat, frumpy, freckled woman in the mirror sagged with exhaustion.
Oh, dear, her mother would say. Time to lay off the margaritas.
As if alcohol was Bella’s problem.
She spackled on a heavy mix of expired makeup and affixed an emerald feather in the twist of her red hair. She’d been living off convenient chips and dollar-menu items for a year. Limp hair, gray skin, and spilling out of her dresses were the natural results.
She swiped her lips with gloss.
It tasted like bitter almonds.
Well, the gloss was a year out of date. She was a year out of date. Bella tossed the tube in the trash and wiped off the gloss.
Only one year since the nightmare had started? It felt like much longer.
And tonight’s client was the most important she’d ever courted.
She snapped the fist-sized red heart necklace on and positioned it over her collarbone. It was exactly how she’d imagined. A tacky, plastic-looking, water-filled “locket” that hung around her neck like a weight. The top screwed off. How was she supposed to shove the Life Tree blossom through the tiny mouth without crushing it or tearing the petals off? Good thing she would not have to find out. But, just in case they had spies photographing her leaving the apartment, she had to make it look real.
The Sons of Hercules thought she was working for them.
They thought wrong.
And it felt good, so good, to be doing something again. Slaying dragons. Punching bullies. Security-auditing MerMatch.
She crossed the tiny, run-down studio crammed with leaking cardboard and half-opened moving boxes, shouldered a thin stole, and checked her purse for emergency cab fare. Her credit cards were maxed. She stuffed one maxed out card inside her bra to be used in a little theater performance later, and then fished for a real card that still allowed charges. Somewhere… Here? No…
Jab. “Ow!” A plastic edge stabbed her cuticle, ripping the skin and spotting blood. She stuck her finger in her mouth, eyes watering.
She turned the purse upside down and splayed the canceled cards. Didn’t she still have a store credit card from—
A heavy fist hammered on the door. “Bella! I know you’re in there.”
She jumped, tiny cut forgotten. Her landlord.
On her feet in an instant, she cut the music on her cell and eased to the window. The ladder rested against the side of the building beside cans of dried paint that had been abandoned years ago. Were her downstairs neighbors home? The country music was silent.
“Don’t sneak out the back ladder again,” Harv’s rough bark stopped her. “That thing’s older than you are, and the Steves aren’t home.”
Right.
She repacked her purse, checked her appearance one last time, and gave her mirror image a test smile.
Not a million dollars, but a nice flash of teeth and assets. It would have to be enough.
The hammering started again. “I can serve this three-day Demand for Rent whether or not I see you.”
She opened the door and leaned on the jamb. “Good evening, Harv.”
“Bella.” The heavy-weight retired construction-worker-turned-landlord dropped his fist and stepped back, his gaze drinking in her figure.
His hands were empty. No official forms. Whew.
She eased her weight onto her front heel to give her profile more of an hourglass.
His thick, gray-speckled brows rose appreciatively.
Nice to know she still had it. “What’s this about three days?”
“Er, yeah. That.” He gripped the back of his shaggy brown head. “You haven’t paid rent in a few months, and it’s what I have to do, you know…it’s in the rent agreement…”
She channeled a wounded look. “You know I will pay in full.”
Her expression hit the mark. He swallowed. “I know. It’s just, the guys…”
“What about you?” She rested her hand on his rough, construction-scarred forearm. “We’ve been through so much together.”
“Yeah.” He coughed, no longer able to meet her eye. “You were there when my dad went through the chemo. But, uh, the guys are getting antsy, and I didn’t know what to say.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I believe you. It’s just the guys. And, ah, you know, ah… I was just thinking…if you and I went to, uh, dinner sometime, then I could tell the guys I was, uh, taking over the payments. Just for until you’re back on your feet.”
She ought to agree. If she led on terrorists, she should have no problem manipulating an emotionally vulnerable man.
But she did.
A spark of anger flared in her chest.
Harv had started her vending addiction by buying her hundreds of chips and coffees. He’d saved her money and commute by finding her an apartment in his building. He had shared her tears when Jonah had returned to the hospital a third time.
He didn’t deserve the runaround. And she hated herself for doing it.
She’d sworn she would grow up different from her parents. Thanks to them, she knew fifty ways to avoid a summons, fight an eviction, and use people’s kindness against them. The first time she’d snuck out to avoid Harv, she’d died a little inside.
Convincing Harv to write off her debt for two dates where she wasted his time and then let him down easy would solve this problem.
Bella stepped into the hall and kissed his rough cheek. “Harv.”
He flushed tomato red. “So, uh, is that a yes?”
She smoothed away the damp spot. “You’re too nice a guy to get run around by someone like me.”
“Yeah, that’s what the guys say too.”
“I bet they do.”
“Aw, geez. I didn’t mean… Well, you know… You have that fancy, high-class job downtown. We don’t get many of your kind here. That’s why they’re so nervous.”
“Tell them to relax. I’m going to meet with a client right now.”
“Oh.” He looked relieved. “Will he give you the back rent?”
Not in cash. The warriors sought
brides, not escorts.
“Absolutely.” She turned away from Harv to lock her door and dropped the key in her purse. “If I nail this contract, I’ll get my bonus and pay you free and clear. And I’ll pay the next six months in advance.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to. Everything will work out.” She strolled to the stairs and waved, leaving the bighearted man in front of her apartment. “You’ll see.”
Were those words for him? Or for her?
She tripped out the door and hit the street. If Harv started an eviction, she’d earned a temporary reprieve.
But it had also cost her time at the subway. Bella checked the hour on her phone. Uh-oh. She ran.
A light drizzle broke, wilting her like a plucked flower. She ducked into the terminal and dealt with the discomfort. The new studio—she still thought of it as new, even though she’d moved in six months ago—was a fraction of the size and convenience of her old two-bedroom. But it was close-ish to the hospital and more affordable. Plus, she didn’t need two bedrooms now.
A sharp pang stole her breath.
She closed her mind to it and pulled out her phone. Bella needed her head in the game. The cell searched for a network. She zoned in on the blank screen.
There were two types of men in the world: those who tolerated lies, and those who needed them.
Most men tolerated lies. Like Harv’s partners. So long as a rent check showed up soon, they’d let her go.
Sensitive dreamers, like Harv, needed to believe the world was nice and people were caring.
She could play either like a maestro.
There was a third type—men who did not tolerate lies—but they were rare and not worth placating.
Bella shoved off that ancient history before it could poison her night. Now her first theater performance began.
At her exit, she ducked into the station restroom.
Thwarting tonight’s flower-stealing mission was simple. All she had to do was not steal the Life Tree blossom—ie, leave the blossom in the tank at MerMatch. But the Sons of Hercules wouldn’t like her to refuse. She’d have to give them a reason.
So, inside the grotty bathroom stall, she took off the Sons of Hercules water-filled necklace and shoved it into a feminine hygene products bag she’d grabbed from her office for just this purpose. She balanced the plastic-lined paper bag atop the stinking, overfilled small metal trash in the cramped stall.
