The frigid water. The pressure. The deceptively gentle current. The lack of air.
The predator.
Her submersible came with self-defense mechanisms. Stun guns. Flares. Flood lights. In the event of an emergency, she could activate the ballast and float the vehicle to the surface. If that failed, she could risk exposure by using the emergency personal life support system and exiting the vehicle.
And she could, of course, turn the predator’s mind to sludge with one focused thought — like the tiny, bolt-shot blow of a mantis shrimp to its prey.
She could do any of those things and yet, as she stared into that terrifying white face with its razor teeth and its wild eyes, Clementine was rendered helpless by the primal knowledge that she did notbelongthere. She had trespassed into territory she could not hope to survive in.
Sitting in the dark, helpless and certain of her own death, the primordial animal that lived in the basest part of her brain came awake with a scream of terror.
And then, because flight was impossible, the animal chose to fight.
Instinct punched a hole in her psychic barriers. The hum of life all around her dulled as her focus narrowed to a single, blazing beam. Her predator hovered before her, wicked lips curled in a vicious, sharp-toothed smile, unaware that she was mentally aiming the gun, pulling back the hammer and?—
A melody, haunting and alien, stopped her from killing him with barely a second to spare.
Her breath hitched.
It wasn’t language like she understood it. It wasn’t even quite music. It was neither and both and more. The voice was deep and rich, but it resonated in ways she knew she could never even hope to replicate. She quickly realized that the song was periodically broken up by high whistling notes and clicks, giving it a structure she vaguely recognized.
Sentences. Itwasspeech. More than that, it wasthought.Thought she couldn’t recognize or even have the vaguest hope to decipher because it ran in currents utterly unfamiliar to her.
It’s him.
For once, feeling the press of another strange mind didn’t exhaust her. She didn’t have to work to block it. She didn’t need to constantly filter the stream of jumbled language and impulses before they reached her own. There was nobuzz buzzoutside her barriers, no knocking, no discomfort. Her barriers did not need to snap back into place immediately because she didn’twantthem to.
Clementine’s fear ebbed, replaced by a singular sense of awe she had never experienced before. The predator before her, powerful and deadly, had thoughts that didn’t feel like any she’d encountered. His mind was open. From it spilled music of such ethereal beauty that she was utterly captivated.
Her chest tightened. A vice of feeling had clamped down on her lungs, pulling tight, as she found herself reaching out to touch the source of something so astonishing. She was almost surprised when she felt the plexiglass, her fingers bumping the smooth surface with a jolt.
He seemed surprised, too, but he still leaned closer, as if he also wanted to break through the barrier to explore what lay on the other side.
Clementine couldn’t articulate why she was so altered by the touch of the merman’s mind. Perhaps it was its alienness. Maybe it was the raw beauty of its song.
Or it might have been the strange certainty she felt that he wasn’t justthinking.He was reaching for her in his mind, singing a song to connect with her and her alone.
She didn’t even realize she was smiling until her cheeks began to cramp.
Hello,she thought, careful not to project into his mind without permission.I’m so glad I finally get to meet you.
The predatory smile slid from his face as he watched her. It was replaced by a look of plain confusion and alarm. He darted backward, forward again, then away. A shadow passed over her. When she tilted her head back, she found the predator staring down at her with a flinty-eyed look.
The melody of his mind picked up its tempo in a way that felt distinctly stern as he gestured to something in the distance.Move,the flick of his webbed hand seemed to say.
Clementine could only give him an exasperated look. Move? Move how? He’d disabled the thrusters, which was really quite rude, but something she was willing to forgive so long as he didn’t leave her to suffocate.
But it turned out she didn’t need to worry.
Clementine tried to keep him in view as he pushed away from the top of the half-dome. For a moment, all she could see was the swirl of his long, long hair before it began to drift along behind them.
“Oh!” She sat back in her seat, her stomach tumbling with the sudden sensation of forward momentum.
A reckless, giddy thrill sparked in her gut.He’s pushing me along!
It wasn’t nearly as fast as her vehicle’s thrusters would have been, but there was something so delightfully outrageous about being carted around by a deadly merman that Clementine didn’t even care. And when after a few minutes the area began to look more familiar to her — a jagged rock there, a dip in the seafloor here — any tiny flicker of nervousness she might have had at being dragged off to her doom was extinguished.
Her predator was taking her home.
