It was unnerving to know that and yet not be able toseethem until they breached the waves. The steep drop off from the beach meant that the nutrient-dense water became impossible to see through within two feet even on a clear, low-surf day.
If there was someone just beyond the boulders where she stood, Clementine wouldn’t know it until the very last moment, when a head or webbed hand or dorsal fin breached the surface.
No wonder there were so many disappearances.All it would take was a careless trip over the rocks, a stroll too close to the shoreline, a slip into the surf, and a patient hunter. One moment, a person could be safely on the shore and the next?—
No, stop it. You’re fine.
She breathed deeply, mustering her courage. Then in a voice that wobbled, she called out, “Hello? Is anyone there?”
Her heart jammed into her throat. Was that a shadow in the water?
The wind snatched at her t-shirt and the loose ends of her scarf as it swept down from the slope. Between the waves and the ripples made by the wind, it was impossible to tell if she was seeing things or not. Without unleashing her telepathic senses, which came with a whole host of risks, she couldn’t determine how near the person was. For all she knew, the shadow was little more than churning sand or a curious sea lion.
Clementine waited, wide eyes scanning the water in rapid sweeping movements. There was nothing. No fin. No reply to her greeting. There was only the sense of being watched, the pressure of another mind near her own, and the calls of sea birds circling overhead.
She wasn’t entirely sure how long she stood there, stock still, waiting for a reply, but by the time she gave up, her knees were stiff. Sighing, she gathered up her paint supplies. Just in case, she moved extra slowly, routinely glancing over her shoulder at the waves, but her hunter still didn’t show themselves.
With the bucket in one hand and the tray in another, she began to walk back to the heavy metal steps and door that was the entrance to her home. The wind whistled down the slope with more force. Grit sprayed into her eyes. Making a distressed sound, she turned her head to rub her eyes against her shoulder.
The movement dislodged her scarf. She felt the silky material slide backward a moment before a gust of wind ripped it free.
“Shit!” She whirled around, arms lifting like she might be able to catch it with her hands full as they were.
Clementine watched helplessly as the scarf, still loosely tied in a bow, drifted over the beach to land with a tiny splash in the waves. It was almost immediately sucked out into the deeper water, where it bobbed and twirled at the surface between boulders.
Normally she wouldn’t have thought twice about wading in or scaling the boulders to get it, but on Demon’s Tooth… No, that wasn’t an option. It didn’t matter that the law said it was safe for land dwellers to enter the water during the day. Even she wasn’t foolish enough to try it knowing full-well that there was a predator laying in wait.
The scarf was gone.
Damn. I loved that one.Clementine’s shoulders rounded. She’d have to ask her mother to send a replacement. Perhaps something from her parents’ travels, now that they were once more free to roam the world without fear for their childrens’ safety.
Her good mood effectively soured by both her failure to introduce herself to the predator and the loss of her scarf, Clementine kept her eyes on her boots as she trudged back up the beach with her load.
What she needed was a good cup of tea and a conversation with her sister. Maybe something minty and sweet to wash the taste of salt and disappointment out of her mouth.
She was so busy considering what was in the contents of her tea cabinet that she didn’t notice the dark, sleek head that rose above the water behind her — nor the clawed hand that snatched the ribbon from the frothing surf.
By the time she got to the door of her home and bothered to glance back at the water, both it and the predator were gone.
ChapterTwo
The Merfolk Agreementhad been in effect for nearly two hundred years. As a requirement for her training, she’d studied it extensively.
The agreement itself wasn’t long. All told, it barely covered four pages. It was a short, no-frills treaty that had put a stop to thousands of years of antagonism between those who dwelled on land and those who made their homes in the ocean around the United Territories and Allies.
Those four pages could be summed up succinctly as:You stay on your side, we’ll stay on ours.
Of course, there were exceptions to the rules, baked in and implicit and renegotiated over the years, but that was the gist of it. The diverse array of merfolk who lived within seventy-five nautical miles of the UTA shoreline agreed not to harm boats or people found in the water during the day. At night, when merfolk tended to be most active, they owned the water. Anyone caught trespassing after sunset was fair game.
It hadn’t stopped violence altogether, but it had greatly reduced it, allowing for centuries of distrust and outright hatred between the territories to mellow.
She knew from her research that though merfolk still tended to avoid land dwellers, many had strengthened ancient ties with fishermen and traders since the treaty’s signing, allowing them to access modern conveniences, medical care, and luxuries. Historically speaking, they didn’t need or want much from the land, though, which had always made bargaining with them difficult.
It was made even harder by the fact that merfolk came in thousands of different shapes, cultures, and attitudes. Some were mammalian, some weren’t. Some could change shapes, like the selkies who claimed the water around San Francisco’s famous piers, and some were rumored to be so large, they could sink boats with a single glancing blow. It was widely accepted that many more beings existed in the ocean, some at unimaginable depths and pressures, than anyone would ever truly know.
Many assembled in sprawling communities known as pods or schools, echoing the pack structure she was more familiar with on land, but even more were solitary predators — shadows in the dark water, all sharp teeth and powerful, muscled bodies.
Caught unawares, a person could be dragged to unimaginable depths or torn apart in an instant. Stories abounded detailing gruesome run-ins with pods on the hunt or solitary hunters.
