Diary of a Radical Mermaid (3 page)

I wound a long necklace of pearls into a faux noose around my throat. “So you’ll let me hang in the court of public opinion? You refuse to help me?”

“On the contrary.”

I dropped my pearls and lurched upright on the divan. “Really?”

“Yes. I approve of your blog.”

“You approve of my blog?”

“Yes. And I’ll even allow you to post excerpts from my history of Mers.”

I squealed and applauded. “This is wonderful.”

“It’s not for your benefit. It’s for all of us. The world is becoming a very small place, Juna Lee. The oceans are shrinking.”

“You mean . . . metaphorically? Because I thought we had that whole shrinking ocean thing all taken care of with global warming.”

Lilith sighed at my frivolity. “There has always been a delicate balance between us and the immense Lander population. That balance is becoming more fragile as our worlds merge. Humans in a disconnected world, lost to themselves and each other, encased in vast waters or dry cities, while the planet slowly spins out of control toward a frightening future of sterile and regimented loneliness. I’m seeking to draw the faithful together and create a social revolution of sorts, a quiet return to the water in spirit as well as form. Landers share the waters with us, they always have. They are part of us. And we are part of them.”

“Only much better dressed.”

Lilith arched a brow. I was hopeless, yes. “Go and write your computer journal, your blog. Try to spread the good word about us, Juna Lee. See what you stir up and who swims to the surface because of it. You may find a good deal of trouble, but not from the powers that be. I’ll speak to the Council on your behalf.”

I was stunned. This was much better news than I’d dared hope. I leapt to my feet. “You’ll intervene with the Council? Let’s celebrate! I’ll make a gallon of martinis! And a second gallon for you!”

My career as a Mer blogger had been launched.

Crossing Jordan
Chapter
4

I hurried to take advantage of my new status as a journalist. My first interview: Jordan Brighton. I headed up the coast in my lovely little yacht, The Delicious. Destination: the very rich enclave of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Land of fine beaches, multiple golf courses, excellent shopping, exquisite resorts, and Jordan, the most alluring hellion since Rhett Butler (who, by the way, exhibited many of the qualities of your average Mer playboy). I decided I’d wear something expensive, seductive, but very, very strict.

The oversexed dog fish began singing to me even before Hilton Head’s beaches, villas, and piney coastline came into view. Singing is a low hum, sometimes wordless but emotional, sometimes filled with images and messages. Who needs a cell phone when you’ve got a real psychic network?

There’s a reason the vast majority of Mer people fall into the Singer caste. We sing. We sing to communicate without speaking, we sing to subtly control Landers (who can be maneuvered like remote-controlled toy cars, if one is in the mood). We sing to find loved ones over great distances, and we sing under water (sonar, remember — it’s a very useful little tool when you’re ping-ping-pinging along some dark, deeply submerged Mediterranean ruin looking for priceless trinkets).

Anyway, singing can be practical. Singing can be soothing. Singing can be a warning. And singing can be a seduction.

Bingo.

The horndog fish was toying with me. Warming me all over with a low-pitched hum. If I gave it a voice, it would be a bass flute, deep and reedy, like a warm breath on my bare stomach. Standing on the deck of my yacht with my head thrown back in the wind, I swayed and clutched the rail.

Stop that you outrageous jerk stop stop or I will hurt you, I screeched into his head. High pitched, lots of vibrato. Designed to pierce the psychic eardrum.

His hum filled with a long, low, deep laugh, but he stopped.

When I reached his villa I found him in his bizarre pool. Its one of those faux rock creations, woodsy and natural with a huge waterfall pouring over boulders, as if someone merely plucked an Olympic-sized pond from high in the Rockies and set it down on the other side of the continent. Jordan Brighton likes contrasts. There he was in the hot, sandy, moss-draped forest world of coastal South Carolina, surrounded by palm trees and hibiscus, and what did he do? He built himself a Rocky Mountain log villa and a mountain pond.

Lander envy, I say to myself. How sad. His lungs would puff up like a blow fish if he tried to live in real mountains.

I heard that, he sings back.

There he was, lounging on the bottom of his silly pool with a high-tech, deep-water, submersible camera weighing him down. One of his experimental toys. I frowned at him. When Mers are underwater they don’t get that strangled, hamster-cheeked expression all Landers wear when they’re holding their breath. Mers are perfectly comfortable and look at ease. So he looked very handsome underwater.

Planning to tour the Titanic again? I asked with psychic sarcasm.

How boring, he answered. If you’ve seen one famous wreck, you’ve seen them all. He smiled up at me. Brilliant white teeth enhanced by deep blue chlorine. He was dressed in relatively demure black trunks — naked would have been a rude provocation, and a Speedo would just be gilding the lily — so he’d opted for classic and coy.

My heart twisted. I hated him. I loved him. I was terrified of his effect on me. All the usual suspects.

He surfaced with all the sensuous movement of a lazy squid. When his dark-haired head broke the pool’s surface he quipped, “You heard me calling, all the way down at Sainte’s Point. Couldn’t resist. As usual.”

“Couldn’t resist? It was my choice to come here today. It’s been five years since that debacle at Cannes. If I couldn’t resist, I’d have strangled you long ago.”

Cannes. The famed place, the famed film festival. He and I had gone there together, enjoying what I can fairly admit was the happiest time of my entire Mer life thus far. He’d anchored his yacht off the French coast and we filled it with the most glamorous party people in the world, both Landers and Mer. Mers love the movie star life — I could name names of more than a few superstars who are Mers — so we were there to party hearty with the webbed crowd. And we were there to make love to each other in the warm French waters. Which we did — wildly, wonderfully, and constantly.

Everything was perfect until we had a misunderstanding as to the exact degree of our committed romance. I was. He wasn’t. Committed, that is.

“Cannes?” Jordan said now, reading my thoughts. He loved to pretend he was a careless man, but underneath those still waters he was a boiling volcano-Mer. Which is why I couldn’t forget him, but also why I kept trying. “Cannes,” he repeated darkly, with just the right touch of evil humor. “Ah, yes. Now I remember. When you left me because you were afraid you weren’t good enough for me.”

I formed a large and exhausted expression, sighing out a tidal wave of boredom. “What a pathetic joke. I gave up more for you than any sane woman would. Cannes. Ah, yes. I remember. Cannes. When you turned two skanky Lander actresses into your personal bedroom pets.”

“Cannes,” Jordan repeated. “When you assumed the worst and wouldn’t listen to reason. When I realized you were looking for excuses to desert me.”

“When I found thong underwear on the private sun deck of your suite. And it wasn’t mine.”

“Considering the parties you and I threw, a person could find almost anything on my sun deck. With none of the evidence remotely incriminating me.”

“Oh? You wanted that underwear there. I sensed it.”

Jordan began to grow taller, thicker, and madder, at least in personality. A remarkable illusion, really. He towered over me like a Tolkien orc. (Tolkien, by the way? A Mer, on his father’s side.)

“Cannes,” Jordan said. “When you were terrified I’d want other women enough to be unfaithful to you, and so you used that as an excuse to—“

“Stop. Can the Cannes debate. We’re over. Done with. Whether you’ll ever admit it or not, you were unfaithful to me, at least in spirit.”

He groaned. “You make me wish I could order a lobotomy.”

“Mine or yours?”

“Juna Lee—”

“Stop this conversation. I’ll put my psychic fingers in my ears at this point and sing la la la la la, if you bother to continue.”

“If you don’t want to talk to me, why did you come here?”

“I came to interview you for my blog. Because you’re a perfect example of an arrogant, clueless merman. The pride of faithless dogfish everywhere.”

Jordan’s expression turned black. I watched in awe as he mutated into the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Psychically speaking, I shrank down to the size of Minnie Mouse but trembled with excitement. A woman craves domination. Oh, not the true kind. Just the take-me-you-beast-but-then-do-what-I-tell-you kind.

Just as I thought he was about to chase me around the pool, a cell phone rang. He snatched it from a pool bench. I sighed with relief and disappointment. Saved by one his business calls. “Yes? Make it quick. All right. The plane’s been chartered? Good.” He snapped the phone shut and dropped it back on the bench, then stood for a moment, frowning and gazing into thin air.

Jordan was ignoring me. Impossible. Nothing except the most worrisome trouble could distract him from moi. I froze. “Wait a . . . you’re hiding something. What? Hmmm. Ah hah. I sense it. You’re leaving for Scotland tonight.” A black tide hit me. “Oh, my God. You’re involved in something dangerous in Scotland.”

Jordan groaned at my intuitions. “Juna Lee—”

“Don’t ‘Juna Lee’ me. What kind of trouble are you in?”

“I’m not in any trouble.”

“I didn’t fall off the tuna boat yesterday. I sense something about Scotland and McEvers kin and desperation. Something very peculiar and extraordinary. Murder. Jordan! Have you killed someone?”

“For godsake. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Murder. I feel death and violence and misery and your McEvers cousins and . . . murder. Jordan!”

He headed for me with both hands out, a ferocious frown on his face and his dark eyes hard as jewels. He would grab me and distract me, and if I let him do it I’d never get answers.

I spun around and made a perfect arc into his pool. He followed. We engaged in a feverish slap-and-grab in the deep end. Under normal circumstances I’d have wrapped him around my little finger, drained him dry, and left him on the bottom with a silly smile on his face. But the pulse of something dark and sad inside him only grew stronger, and I went still. I shivered. Fear for him. Jordan groaned in defeat. We shot to the surface.

“Tell me what’s going on,” I ordered. “I’ll find out anyway if you don’t. You want to tell me. That’s why I came here. I knew you wanted to talk to me. I sensed it.”

“I lured you here. I wanted to warn you. I want you to go away. You have to leave Sainte’s Point.”

“Are you insane? Ali and Griffin’s wedding is in a few days!”

“After the wedding. Go. Go with the rest of the family on the wedding cruise. Leave the island.”

I stared at him. In celebration of Ali and Griffin’s wedding, the entire Bonavendier clan from Sainte’s Point was scheduled to leave on a leisurely cruise aboard the enormous yacht of Lilith’s love, Riyad. Lilith, her sisters, their men, Ali, Griffin, even the servants. Everyone who lived on the island would be gone for at least two months. But I was supposed to stay. “What do you mean, leave the island? Lilith is planning to put me in charge of the place. Tula and I are already scheduling parties that will fill the entire mansion, and —”

“There’s been a change of plans.”

“No way. Lilith would have told me —”

“She will. Trust me. You can’t stay at Sainte’s Point. Rhymer McEvers is taking up residence at the island for the next two months.”

“Rhymer . . . Rhymer . . . Rhymer McEvers?” I had vague memories of meeting Rhymer once during a McEvers clan shindig at the clan’s drafty old castle overlooking a loch. I recalled dark hair, wonderful eyes, a great body, and a Sean Connery voice that could melt a shelelagh, but also I recalled his boring penchant for honor, duty, discipline, shooting people, et cetera. After an early girlfriend of his was killed by European gangsters he’d turned into a vigilante. Now I’m not one to believe rumors, but if one did believe rumors, one would believe that Rhymer tracked down and killed a half-dozen Landers he blamed for that girlfriend’s death. Dragged them into the ocean and strangled them, one by one.

If one believes rumors.

At any rate, then he’d disappointed his family by joining the British navy, thus sinking to the level of a gun-toting Lander and an Englishman. He and Jordan were both far too serious for mermen. Jordan and Rhymer had been friends since they were boys climbing icebergs in the north Atlantic. But what did that have to do with now? “Your cousin Rhymer? The Peacekeeper?”

Jordan arched a brow. “How many other Rhymers do I know? Yes, Rhymer the Peacekeeper.”

The Council had its own police force, you could say. Peacekeepers, they called them. Hard bodied, hard-assed cops. They were only dispatched in the most extreme cases, when Mers had turned violent or . . .

“What have you done?” I grabbed Jordan’s hands. “Is Rhymer coming after you? I’ll stand by you. Whatever it is, you’re too well-groomed to be a criminal—”

“For the last time, this isn’t about me, Juna Lee. All I can do is make you leave, for your own safety. That’s why I wanted you to come here today. So I could convince you. When I come back from Scotland, I don’t want to find you at Sainte’s Point.”

“If there’s some horrible trouble that requires a Peacekeeper, and it includes you, I’m not leaving.”

“If I have to shanghai you and send you to the other side or the world, I will.”

I shoved him and stepped back. “Don’t even think about it.”

“Don’t make me.”

“What could you possibly—” I searched his mind and shivered. “Rhymer’s in trouble. That’s it. Oh, I always knew he was too stern and Lander-like. All those solemn allegiances and violent inclinations. He’s wrapped tighter than a mummy. He was bound to snap. He killed someone.”