EDRA DIDN’T really want to leave the warmth of the car. Jordan had put the heater on, so he was starting to feel a little better and he wasn’t disappearing as randomly. Outside, clouds were gathering and the bay was choppy. He was not going on a boat this morning.
Jordan leaned forward and rested his forearms on the steering wheel. “The storm is building, but I can see why so many people wanted to get out and sail this morning. It’s been flat for days.” He glanced at Edra. “Something about the merfolk storm?”
“It was the lull before the storm as they drag the power of the tides to them… or something. I don’t know a lot about the process.” He knew enough to stay out of the water if there were mermaids, and he knew that if the ocean went still, it was time to find a place to hide. But the period when the storm was building, the air currents beckoned. “Sailing, flying. People can feel the energy, and they want to be in it. Just make sure you don’t stay out too late.”
“I won’t be out in it.”
Edra grinned. “I will be.”
“Feeling better?”
“I’m still having issues.”
“You look fine.”
“Hands and feet mostly. Let’s get this done with.” Edra opened the car door and was immediately buffeted by salt spray and wind. The temptation to strip and soar spiked. He’d feel better as a dragon. Even though Jordan had tried tugging him toward the bed last night, he’d shifted so his body could work through the alcohol. If he hadn’t eaten the chicken, he wouldn’t have had the strength to shift back to human.
Jordan’s hair was immediately swept up into spikes. If he had eyeliner on, he’d have looked more rock star than cop. But he probably wouldn’t appreciate that compliment at a crime scene. They made their way over to where a knot of uniformed police and paramedics were standing. A crowd was gathering and the boats were coming in.
“Kells.” The officer greeted Jordan and ignored Edra. That was typical. “The victims said they heard several bangs and scratches. Then the boat took on water, fast. They radioed for help and got into the water. All had life vests on. Andrew Campbell went under and never resurfaced. They were picked up by another boat who came to their aid, and we’ve called all the boats in as a precaution.”
“Did any of them see mermaids?” Jordan asked.
“Yeah. They were apparently circling the boat and rocking it before it sank.”
Edra’s hands went cold. He put them in his pockets before someone thought they were missing. “That sounds like mermaids.”
“What else is it going to be? The Loch Ness Monster?” the cop snapped.
Edra turned to the cop. “I doubt it very much, as she lives in Scotland.”
The cop glared at him. Edra usually affected a more frequent blink because humans didn’t like it when he didn’t, but he didn’t care today. He held the man’s gaze. The cop’s lips moved and then he glanced at his notes, his cheeks reddening.
“I’ll have to talk to the witnesses. We’re not sending divers out. There’s a storm coming.” Jordan moved away to talk to the three blanket-wrapped men.
“Last thing the firefighters need is this damn wind.” The cop put his notebook in his pocket.
Edra agreed with that, but it was all part of the process. “Have any mermaids come to the dock?”
“Not that I’ve seen. I’d have shot them if I had.”
He didn’t doubt that for a moment. “And how would you know you’ve shot the right one? If it were the wrong one, it would be murder.”
“It’s not murder to kill a fish.”
He could argue they weren’t fish, but it wouldn’t make a difference to this man. “I’ll make sure they stay well out of your way.”
“You’ll bring them in for questioning. They killed a man.”
“Or he drowned.” Edra shrugged and walked to the edge of the pier. He looked into the water, but there were no flashes of blue light and no pale faces staring back at him.
He could fly out to the island and look like he cared about what had happened, but he hadn’t eaten enough to shift and fly. And he didn’t really care and didn’t have the inclination to fake caring.
Darian’s killer was dead. Justice had been done.
Jordan walked up, his footsteps so familiar Edra didn’t need to turn and check. “Anything?”
“No. The sinking of a police boat was a trial run.”
“Likely. After the storm, I’m going to need to talk to the water dragon. He can’t go tearing out the bottom of boats just so his mermaid love can… have a meal.”
“You don’t believe in taking your date out for dinner?” They’d never gone out on a date just the two of them. It had always been bars or parties. Edra couldn’t even bear thinking about alcohol.
Jordan squinted out across the water. “Not when humans are on the menu. Besides, I thought we agreed that Narv is being tricked.”
“Yeah. Romance is dead.” And a dragon caught up in the thrall of mating could do all kinds of dumb things.
“I would never say that. How about I buy you breakfast and you can tell me the best way to catch a water dragon and his mermaid.”
“I wish I knew.” But he turned away from the water and walked back along the pier with Jordan.
“What would you have done before?”
There were some things that were best left to the sea and those that lived in it. “Sacrifices have to be made. The fishermen knew that. They chanced the weather, the tide, and the mermaids every time. We’d usually buy off the mermaids, send out a boat with a criminal.”
“Which is exactly what happened today.” Jordan looked like he wanted to say more, but then he shook his head. “We don’t work that way.”
“I know. You let the guilty walk.”
“I have to follow due process.”
“And I don’t.” Edra pulled his hands out of his pockets, since they were warm enough to be visible. “The mermaids stopped a satyr-driven blood feud.” That he’d acted as intermediary was best kept to himself.
“You walk a dangerous line, Edra. If you slip, I won’t be able to catch you.”
“Excuse me,” a man called out. “Can I get a statement? When will the boats be allowed back out? What’s going to happen to the mermaids? Do you think it’s dangerous to have them this close to humans?” Carlin Howard held his recorder out. “Why are you working with Mytho Servo so closely?”
“I have nothing to say about an active investigation.” Jordan said the words as though they were so familiar it was boring.
Carlin turned his attention to Edra. “You brought the dragons to the park. When will they leave?”
“When their home isn’t on fire.”
Jordan tugged at his sleeve.
“Do you think mermaids are dangerous?”
Edra stared at Carlin. He wanted to tell him how dangerous humans were to mythos, regardless of who they were, of the numerous murders and beatings that were overlooked because a human had been responsible. “Talk to Mytho Servo and get some stats.”
Those statistics would never be published, because they revealed the truth. Humans were far more dangerous than any mytho, and they were dangerous even to other humans. He gave in to the tug on his sleeve and turned away.
“You don’t have to talk to them. It’s probably better if you don’t, because whatever you say will be on record and they can twist it all up. Do you have a media liaison?”
“Carly Arche. You met her in the Presidio.”
“Oh. Well, she should be the one talking to the press.”
“What do you mean, ‘Oh’?” He couldn’t believe he was about to defend Carly, but he wasn’t going to let a human, even Jordan, cast doubt on a coworker.
“Just that it didn’t appear that she had much media training.”
She didn’t, not really. He was supposed to cover up crime to protect mythos and she was supposed to say nice things to the humans when they called up looking for a story. “She wanted my job.”
“I know.” Jordan flicked him a grin. “I think your boss made the right choice.”
Edra wanted to ask if it was because he looked human or because he could do his job. If he was doing his job, no one would be looking at the mermaids as suspects. “I think you need to make it clear in your reports that you’re after the water dragon for the thefts and the sinking of the boats.”
“And the mermaids get to walk… swim?”
“Got a better idea?” This was the wedge, the thing they didn’t talk about directly. “The city has to live with the mermaids on their doorstep. If they agree to put out the bushfires each summer, it could be a real bonus.”
“At what cost?”
“You can’t scoop them up in a net and lock them in a tank at SeaWorld—I read that plan in the paper the other day. They can crawl on land, and they could wipe the city into the ocean with one big wave.” He made a little hand gesture and his fingers turned silver.
“Are you still hungover?”
“Be glad I’m wearing jeans and shoes. My legs have been cold for the last thirty minutes.”
“Is that what it feels like to disappear?”
Edra raised an eyebrow. “Mostly.”
Jordan stopped to look at the menu on display in one of the cafés. He checked his watch. “It’s well past breakfast. But this one does it all day. Is that okay?”
“Sure.” He glanced at the prices. If it were up to him, he’d go home. He didn’t have the spare cash to eat out. That Jordan was paying didn’t sit too easy in his gut either, even though he knew it was a thing humans did.
Jordan put his hand on the door but didn’t open it. “This is going to sound….” He shook his head. “Can you still see yourself when you’re invisible?”
Edra laughed and slid in close to Jordan to open the door. “Yes. What did you think happened? That I actually vanished?”
A wave of warmth hit Edra as he entered. His fingers lost their silvery sheen, but his feet were still cold. The café was fairly empty—the few people there had window tables to watch the boats come in. They all looked at Jordan and him.
Gossip, more powerful than any spell.
They sat in a deserted corner that had a view of the door and the kitchen—not the best table, but one that gave a buffer between them and the other patrons.
“This won’t damage your reputation?” If Jordan was seen with him too often, people would talk.
“We’re working together,” Jordan said smoothly.
“Uh-huh. At some point people will realize it’s more than work.” Would Jordan want the mess that came with that? Had he even thought about it?
“I dated plenty of people in stealth mode when I was a teen.”
“What does that mean?”
“Exactly that. I couldn’t date boys when I lived at home. My father would have beaten the life out of me.”
The waitress came over. “What can I get you?”
Jordan glanced at him and Edra shrugged. As long as it was food, he really didn’t mind unless it was cucumber. He didn’t like them, and they didn’t like him.
“Two of the big breakfasts, one coffee, and one hot chocolate. Juice?”
“Sure.” Edra nodded, even though the last thing he needed was a cold drink.
She repeated the order. “It shouldn’t take too long.” The wind rattled the windows. “You made it in just in time. I hope that sailor is okay.” Her gaze flicked between Jordan and Edra.
“I’m sure the police are working on it,” Jordan said with a benign smile.
The waitress hesitated and then left.
Edra flicked at the corner of the menu. “I don’t want to be a secret.”
“This is a conflict of interest.”
“I know. You think my people would be thrilled about it?”
Jordan pressed his lips together as the juice arrived. “Then what are we doing?”
“I don’t know. Why was it so important that your friends approve, when you don’t approve of Bud?”
Jordan leaned back. “That obvious?”
Edra tilted his head. “Not obvious, but I was watching.”
“He’s a dick. Not to everyone, just some. And he should know better. He knows what it’s like to be on the receiving end of those attitudes.” He shrugged. “Mason loves him. That’s all that matters. But I wanted my friends to like you too. They’re my family.”
“They only like me because they think I’m human.” If they knew, things would’ve been very different. He’d done his best to fit in and not deliberately needle Sean about his degree in mytho biology. He hadn’t pulled Bud up when he was criticizing the mythos in Nigeria for rebelling and fighting the humans who had tried to kill them. While Edra thought the European solution was working out much better for everyone, some humans didn’t like the idea of sharing their world at all.
“What do other mythos do? We aren’t the first.”
“You could try asking that man who was dating an elf. You can’t ask her, because she was set on fire. The humans who beat up the man walked away.”
Jordan stared at the table. “They shouldn’t have.”
“The judge let them off with a warning.”
“You want to let the mermaids go. Is that any better?”
“There are some battles that can’t be won.” Merfolk were best left well alone.
“Is this one of them?”
Two choices—Jordan or his own kind. It had never been this difficult in Tariko. Was he being selfish even thinking about staying with Jordan? “I’m not that easy to set on fire… but that doesn’t mean that everything around me will survive. We keep doing this, people will notice. Someone will eventually realize the truth. How will you deal with that?”
“How will you?”
“I’ll be telling my boss to mind his own business.” He wanted to tell Jordan about the Strega, but that wouldn’t make it better. “Although I am the knight of the city, he can still fire me. And jobs aren’t that easy to come by for mythos, even with the new incentives for employers.”
His phone buzzed and Edra checked who was calling—Ardel, no doubt following up. “I have to take this.” He answered, “Tendric.”
“I’ve just had Dr. Lew on the phone, wanting to cancel the storm because Andrew Campbell is dead.”
“That’s not possible. The storm has been wound up. It’s unleashing tomorrow.” He could go out to the colony and ask them to send the storm out to sea, but he didn’t want to. Wasting a merman’s time and effort wouldn’t endear the human population to them.
Jordan watched him, his eyebrows slightly drawn together. Edra probably should’ve taken it outside, but it was warm in here and he didn’t want to walk away from Jordan.
“I told her that. This one can’t get buried.”
Really? You think? He remembered the Strega’s warning to Helena that justice would have far-reaching threads. “It wasn’t mermaids who sunk the boat.”
Too many heads turned in his direction. He could feel their gazes needling his skin.
Jordan narrowed his eyes and pointed over Edra’s shoulder. Edra glanced behind but saw only a corridor that led to the toilets. He took the hint and stepped away from the table, but he also lowered his voice. “I’m pursuing the water dragon. He’s about the only suspect we have a chance of catching.”
“We? You mean the SFPD?”
“Yes. They want someone too.” As much as Edra hated to hand over a mytho, it was getting out of hand. He glanced at Jordan. Breakfast had arrived, and the scent of crispy bacon was calling him to the table. “I can’t cover this up.”
Ardel drew in a breath. “You’d better get it under control, Tendric.”
“I’m doing my best.”
“If Dr. Lew makes my life impossible….”
“I understand. If I weren’t being hobbled by human laws, this wouldn’t be an issue,” he hissed.
“If you aren’t up to it—”
“Of course I am. I was doing this job before you became ruler. But now there are extra rules to play by.” And half of them went against the ones Edra was used to.
A waitress dropped a stack of dirty plates.
“Where are you?”
“Having breakfast… lunch.”
“We need Narv Skery in custody before he sinks any more boats.”
“I’m working on it.”
“With the cop.” For a moment Edra wondered if Ardel had someone watching him. “Remember which side you’re on, knight.” Ardel hung up.
Edra exhaled and put his phone in his pocket. Then he slid back into his chair and looked at breakfast. If this was what humans called big, he’d hate to see small.
“You want some extra bacon?” Jordan nudged a piece toward him.
Edra scooped it off Jordan’s plate and made the effort to chew before swallowing. They were in public, after all.
“Everything okay?”
“Just a vampire breathing down my neck.” He was sure Ardel suspected something. Had Carly mentioned that he smelled like human too many mornings? “We need to figure out how to get Narv.”
“I was hoping you’d have a plan.”
He was going to have to find one, or when his three-month probation came up, he might be back covering crimes instead of liaising with the cops. As much as it was a thorn between his toes, he liked it. He could help his people better. “Not yet.”
Jordan sighed, reached across the table, and brushed Edra’s hand with his fingers. “We’ll work it out.”
Edra wanted to believe him, but not everything could be solved by hope alone.