“Oh, no,” he muttered.
Nick swallowed a mouthful of toast.
“What?”
“We’re about to have visitors.” Liam
winced. “Chiron must have contacted her. I was afraid of this.”
Aidan joined the other mer at the
window. He scowled at whatever he saw. “You have got to be kidding me.”
Worried now, Nick stood up and went to
the window. Just offshore he could see three bodies rising out of the water.
“Friends of yours?”
“Not really,” Aidan said flatly.
“Aid,” Liam chided him, before turning
to Nick. “I was hoping we’d be able to put this off a little longer, but she
tends to be very forceful when it comes to me.”
“She?”
Nick could now
see that the middle figure was a woman wearing a sarong-style dress made out of
what looked like a finely woven fishing net. It hid absolutely nothing, and made
it very clear that their visitor was built like a fitness model. Greying blonde
hair was held back from her face with an elaborate braid, and she wore a more
elaborate version of Liam and Aidan’s thong neckbands. “Who’s that?”
Liam sighed.
“My
mother.”
“That’s your
mother
?”
“Unfortunately,” Aidan grumbled.
“Looks like she came with reinforcements, too.”
Two males flanked Liam’s mother, both of
them carrying tridents. One wore a mer’s thong neckband and more of that
netting material casually looped around his waist. The other, a strongly built
brunet with piercing dark eyes, wore lightweight armor embossed in a shell
pattern on his shoulders and arms, and an abbreviated helmet that was comprised
of a headband, noseguard, and a rigid mesh over the crown. While the merman’s
trident was silver, his was a flat black.
Liam reached over, squeezing Nick’s
shoulder. “The one in the armor is Commander Kasos, one of the triton leaders,”
he said. “If he’s here with my mother, this isn’t a social call. We better get
this over with.”
He headed to the back door, Nick and
Aidan falling in behind him. As they got to the water Liam stopped a few feet
away from the newcomers, giving his mother a curiously formal nod.
“Mamere.
I didn’t expect you to come here.”
Closer up, Nick could see the family
resemblance. Mother and son had the same hazel blue eyes and elegant cheekbones,
but the mermaid lacked her son’s smile lines.
“My child,” she said, ignoring Aidan and
Nick. “I received word that one of the land demigods wished you released from
your studies to play bodyguard?” She said the last word as if it tasted sour.
“Lord Chiron,
yes.
He wants Aidan and me to guard our
chuisle
.”
He waved Nick forward. “Mamere, this is Nick Gardiner, mate to Aidan and
myself. Nick, this is my mother, Lady Eine, leader of the Bright Water Elders.”
The mermaid’s mouth firmed, obviously
unimpressed. “I had hoped you’d grow out of this childish affection you have
for,” she paused, flicking a glance at Aidan, “your friend. But bringing a
landwalker into it? Surely you must see how ridiculous this all is.”
Liam stiffened. “It isn’t ridiculous,
Mother. The Oracle himself declared that Aidan is my fated mate, and that a
male from the land would be our third.”
“And yet no mating mark has appeared on
your back.
Which should have illustrated that your affection
for him,” another flicker at Aidan, “was nothing but folly.
”
Liam turned and exposed his back to the
newcomers. “We have the mark now.
All three of us.”
Nick watched Eine’s lips tighten even
further when she saw the tattoo. “How do I know that’s not something you
obtained in a landwalker’s tattoo parlor?”
“Lady Eine.” The merman stepped forward.
He had the same muscled swimmer’s build as Liam and Aidan, with warm brown eyes
and a strong jaw. “I can feel the power in the mark. It’s no landwalker
imitation. Your son truly has been mated with Aidan and this human.” He gave
Liam a friendly nod. “I’m glad you finally found your third, Li. I know how
long you’ve been looking for him.”
“Thank you, Colm," Liam said,
equally friendly.
Nick blinked at the name. Was this the
same Colm that Liam’s mother had wanted him to mate with?
Great.
I
have a mother-in-law who thinks I’m not good enough for her son.
Well,
fuck that noise.
“Yeah, hi,” he said, moving to Liam’s
side and deliberately taking his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Lady Eine.
You, too, Colm.”
Lady Eine’s expression flickered in
momentary distaste, but Colm stepped forward and held out his hand to Nick.
“It's good to meet you, Nick. You can call me Col.” He hesitated. “This is what
your people do, right? Shake hands when you meet?”
“Yeah, that’s right.” Nick took his hand
and shook it. There was an immense strength in the mer’s grip, but he didn’t
try to crush Nick’s hand or pull any sort of stupid Neanderthal tricks.
Probably because he’s on a
completely different evolutionary track from the Neatherthals.
“I
take it you’re friends with Liam and Aidan?”
“You could say that.” Col shot the other
mers a merry grin, and Liam blushed.
Lady Eine made a throat-clearing noise.
“If you’ve been marked by the Fates, then I cannot say anything against it,”
she said, her tone very clear that there were all kinds of things she wanted to
say about it. “However, we have another issue. Last night, two of our rangers
cornered an injured ilkothella and were able to capture it.”
She glanced at the triton, who stepped
forward. “Right now it’s being kept in an isolation cell,” Kasos said. “I know
Lord Bythos had studied a previous specimen, and I’d asked him if he was
interested in this one as well or if we should simply kill it. He said that we
should speak to the Bearer and have him examine it.” Dark brows came down in a
dubious look. “I presume one of you knows who the Bearer is?”
Liam pointed at Nick. “Our
chuisle
is the Bearer of the Rod of
Asclepius, and a most skilled physician.”
The chill in Lady Eine’s attitude thawed
slightly. “You are indeed the right hand of a god?”
“So they tell me,” Nick said. “Do you
have a place where I can examine the ilkothella?”
“No.” Aidan’s expression clouded. “Baby,
I don’t think that’s safe.”
“Aid, this is why I have the Rod,” Nick
said. “If I can figure out how Thetis is changing mermaids into these things, I
might be able to come up with some kind of treatment for them, or even a
vaccine.”
His mates exchanged a long look, before
Aidan finally nodded.
“All right.
But we’ll be with
you as guards, understood?”
“Fine.”
Nick turned to
the triton. “Can you bring it here?”
Kasos shook his head. “Lord Bythos has
placed a protective geas over these waters. If we tried to bring the ilkothella
here, it would disintegrate the moment it entered the cove. You’ll have to come
to our grotto.”
“Quite impossible,” Eine said. “He’s a
landwalker. He’ll die within minutes of being submerged.”
Nick grinned. “Not if I have Poseidon’s
Kiss.”
Her hazel eyes widened in sudden
respect. “Ah. That makes things quite different.” She glanced down at his legs.
“But you won’t be able to keep up with us in the water. I shall summon a mount
for you.”
****
“You’re doing great, baby!” Aidan
called.
The words sounded like dolphin song, but
somehow made perfect sense in his head. Nick gritted his teeth and hung onto
the (holy mother of Cthulhu, he didn’t want to think about this) harnessed
shark he was currently riding. “Are you absolutely sure this is safe?” he
called back in the same language. “And what the hell am I speaking?”
“It’s Éthlé, the sea tongue. Lord
Poseidon gave it to you with his kiss,” Aidan called back. “And yes, you’re
perfectly safe. We’ve been domesticating sharks for centuries. It won’t hurt
you.”
Nick muttered something unpleasant under
his breath. It had taken all of Liam’s persuasive power, plus Pythia’s
assurances that he was safe, to climb onto the large creature. Even through the
mer equivalent of a saddle pad he could feel the roughness of its skin against
his inner thighs.
If I start bleeding and
this damn thing eats me, I swear I’m going to haunt them.
That won’t happen
,
Pythia said. After some quick
questions, he’d learned that Pythia was not only waterproof, but could shrink
the Rod and herself to a variety of sizes. The now-baton-sized Rod was securely
strapped to his back, with the snake peering over his shoulder.
You’re
perfectly safe, Nicholas.
I’ll
still feel better when I’m off this thing
, Nick thought grumpily.
Are you sure being in water isn’t going to
hurt the Rod?
It’s the instrument of a god. You could
throw it into a volcano and it wouldn’t be damaged.
Yeah, but what about you?
My existence is entwined with the Rod. I
am as invulnerable as it is.
Her phrasing caught his attention.
Wait. Were you originally separate from the
Rod?
Yes. A group of boys came upon me one
day and tried to stone me to death. I was able to escape, but I was grievously
injured. Lord Asclepius found me and nursed me back to health. In return, I
became his companion and assistant. In time, he cut himself a walking stick and
let me curl around it. It became the Rod, and I its voice.
So
you’re trapped by the Rod?
He didn’t like that
. It makes me feel like I’m using you.
Don’t be silly, Nicholas. I loved my
master, and I love the art and practice of medicine. I’m extremely pleased to
be of use again, and by a physician of your high ethical standards. My only
request is that you not put me away in a closet when we’re not working
together. It’s very boring, you know.
Nick felt his face heat.
Shit. I’m sorry. I’ll make sure you’re
always out from now on.
Her tongue flicked over his ear
affectionately in response.
It was hard for him to judge their
speed, but the ocean floor beneath them appeared to be moving by at a
respectable clip. Looking up, his heart clenched when he spotted a shoal of
largish sharks circling through the water head of them.
“Uh, Liam?” he called.
“Jaws, dead ahead?”
The mer chuckled. “It’s all right, Nick.
They’re ours.”
The other mers and triton slowed,
slipping under the patrolling sharks. His mount followed, getting closer and
closer to the bottom, before abruptly diving towards the sand.
Nick yelped, leaning away from the
expected impact. The sandy floor slid past them like clouds, revealing a large
underwater cave with glowing globes in shades of white and pale green mounted
on the walls.
The triton and mers drew close to one of
the globes, where another mer wearing a mesh vest and belt waited. “You can get
off now, baby,” Aidan said, gently pulling his hands loose from the shark’s
reins.
Nick stared up at the cave’s ceiling. A
wide round hole opened up into the water, and he could clearly see the greyish
shapes of the sharks circling there. “What the
hell
?”
“We’ll explain it all later,” Liam
reassured him. As the vest-wearing mer led his shark mount up towards the cave
opening, Liam and Aidan took his upper arms in a careful grip and tugged him
down towards the rock-strewn floor, where Lady Eine, Col, and Kasos were
already waiting. “Here’s the entrance.”
With a flick of her sinuous tail, Lady
Eine dove through a large ring of nondescript rocks and disappeared. Kasos and
Col followed, the brown-eyed mer giving Nick a wink before vanishing from
sight.
The penny dropped. “Cloaking
technology,” Nick said incredulously. “You people have
cloaking technology
?”
“Just because we live underwater
doesn’t
mean we’re primitive, baby,” Aidan said. Twisting
gracefully, he followed the triton and other mers.
“We’ll show you the rest of the grotto.
Then you’ll understand,” Liam said, hand moving to the small of Nick’s back.
“Just dive straight down through the ring. The rocks are just an optical illusion.”
Nick flailed a bit in the water as he
stared at the rock ring. It looked solid and real. Cautiously, he swam down to
it, and tried to touch one of the rocks in the center. His hand passed through
it like smoke.
“Convinced?” a laughing Liam said. “Come
on, Nick. Just go through.”
He straightened out and pushed himself
through the rock ring. What he saw next stunned him. He’d entered an enormous
underwater cavern, easily a mile wide and half a mile high. Lining the floor of
the cavern far below were slender fluted towers topped with blue glass domes,
sprawling colonnades, and open spaces that looked like parks. All of the
buildings were lit with the same luminescent globes surrounding the upper cave.
Hundreds of tailed bodies swam busily through the underwater city, just like
any downtown scene on land.