I shot up into the air and flew over the shimmer as it made its way up the road to the bridge. The car was nose-first in the water. The rear tires appeared to have been caught on rocks, but the interior of the car was underwater.
I speared through the water and found the driver unconscious in a rapidly filling car. Shifting, I grabbed for the door. It was jammed closed. Shifters are nothing if not strong, so I braced my legs against the side of the car and yanked hard.
I had to do this quickly. I needed air, but I’d already broken the seal on the door and water was rushing in twice as fast. Muscles straining, I pulled until it finally gave with a horrible screeching sound. I tried to haul the man out, but his buckle kept him in place.
I reached across, unlatched the belt, and dragged him up. Kicking hard, I broke the surface and gulped air, doing my best to keep his bloody head above water.
A wave shoved us into the rocks and I twisted, taking the hit. Damn, that hurt. Thankfully, the splash to the face woke him up. Groaning, he started to move his arms and legs, helping to keep himself afloat. I got us closer and then pushed him up onto the rocks.
Eyes glazed, he turned to me in the predawn murk and stared. “What’s happening?”
We were swamped by another wave. “Hold onto the rocks. You need to climb up.”
One of his eyes was so dilated, it looked black. That wasn’t good. “Wait. Why are you naked?” he asked.
“Mermaid.” I shoved him up and out of the water.
The look of confusion and wonder on his face was too much. He climbed a bit higher, wiping blood out of his eye. When he turned his head the other way, he saw his car. “I had an accident?”
I didn’t know what to say. As far as his insurance was concerned, sure. It was an accident. It wasn’t as though I could tell him he’d crashed into an invisible supernatural being. Still in the water, I was trying to decide if I should shift now or wait for him to make it up and back onto the road.
When he was about halfway up the rocks, he looked over his shoulder, squinting in the low light, studying me. “Are you really a mermaid?”
I grinned. “Not really.”
The air swirled and the hazy outline of an outsized arm swung over the ledge, snatching the concussed man off the rocks. There was a strangled scream and then the top half of his body disappeared. Blood ran down his severed torso before that too was flipped into the air and disappeared along with the rest of him.
The sounds of crunching bones and smacking lips make my stomach roll. I pushed up onto a rock, let the fire race through me, and speared into the air. As I crested the cliff, the air swirled around me and a big, invisible mitt tried to grab me. Clawing and dipping, I maneuvered away, though he did rip out a couple of my tail feathers.
The sky was pinking at the horizon as I flew back up the coast. I knew more now, and knowledge was good. I had to keep telling myself that as the horrible sounds of that poor man being eaten were echoing through my mind on a loop.
SIX
Story Time
I had time on the flight to think about what that was and how it could be fought. As I had no idea, I was flying to Arwyn’s. The thing had touched me. Hopefully, if Arwyn, a psychic wicche, touched me too, she’d glean some information about him.
Landing on the deck of her art gallery, I tried to look through the windows for her, but she seemed to have spelled them. I couldn’t see inside.
Her gallery was in a remodeled cannery, right down the road from the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It sat on the water, her extensive deck on pylons over the ocean. She’d created towering, hyper-realistic octopus tentacles that appeared to be coming up out of the water to pull her gallery under, as though the Kraken was waging war on her.
I hopped on a bench by her studio door and tapped my beak on the glass. After a few minutes, I tried again. No response. No movement at all inside. Sighing, I flapped and landed on the gate at the end of her deck. It felt like a good spot to monitor two sides of the gallery. Declan had said she was in the middle of a big job. Hopefully that meant she’d be arriving soon.
Closing my eyes to the rising sun, I waited and rested.
Voices startled me awake. Declan and Arwyn were walking down the side of the gallery building. She wore paint-spattered overalls, a long-sleeved tee, and matching gloves, with all her hair piled on top of her head. Declan, in jeans and a flannel, had her backpack over his shoulder again.
“You don’t have to walk me all the way to the studio,” she said. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”
He had to lean down to kiss the top of her head. “I know, but I enjoy spending time with you. And no working through lunch today. I’ll be back to make sure you take a break and eat.”
“Dude. I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time now.”
“I know.” He reached over and rubbed his hand back and forth over her stomach. “But it’s not just you anymore. I just want to make sure both my girls are safe.”
She rolled her eyes. “Just because my dad says it’ll be a girl, it doesn’t mean it will be.”
“She will be,” he corrected. “And I trust your dad.”
