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Gavin’s eggs sizzled on the stovetop, and his tongue poked out the corner of his mouth as he carefully positioned his spatula to flip his omelet.
Shing!
Drat. Scrambled eggs it was, then.
“You know, I could make those for you,” Nines mused from his seat at the kitchen island, scratching at Asshole’s forehead as she purred in his lap.
Gavin pointed his spatula at Nines, raising a playful eyebrow. “Let me have this, Sharkboy. Can’t have you besting me at all things land-based.”
Nines chuckled, making Asshole’s backside rise by scratching at the space where her spine met her tail. “Pardon me, Apeman. I didn’t mean to intrude on your talents.”
Gavin chuckled back, returning to cooking breakfast. Soon enough, Gavin finished up, gathering a couple plates and dispensing an equal amount of food on each one. Nines dutifully nudged Asshole off his lap before accepting one of the plates along with a fork. He sure had developed quite the taste for various surface foods in the three months since he and Gavin had gotten together.
The two of them made pleasant conversation, adding one more lovely morning to the countless they had already created, making the occasional wise crack or quip as the time went on. How incredible how much things had changed, merfolk mingling with humans on a regular basis instead of remaining elusive creatures confined to the sea, and yet Gavin had grown used to this as the new normal in no time. He couldn’t imagine a world without his merman in his day-to-day life.
“I’ll be taking my break around one,” Gavin said as he scooped up the last of his eggs. “Want to meet up for lunch around then?”
“I’m afraid my duties will have me preoccupied for the day,” Nines said, finishing up himself and collecting both his and Gavin’s dishes, taking them to the sink to wash. “Ada has several meetings and responsibilities that she’ll need my attendance for. I’ll be accompanying her Majesty through the late evening, possibly the early hours of the morning.”
Nines poured himself a glass of water from the tap, hydrating himself before walking back to the kitchen island and planting a kiss in the midst of Gavin’s curls. “But I’ll see you tomorrow?”
Gavin turned his head so he and Nines could lock lips properly. “You better, Sharkboy.”
Once everything was tidied up, Gavin led Nines out the back door, walking him down the sand and to the shore. The merman hummed a simple melody, dismissing his human clothes into his “personal ether” to show off his smooth lower half covered in electric blue scales. The seven scales at his collarbone lit up as Nines called forth more powerful magic, commanding the water before him to rise like a small hill with a simple flick of his wrist.
He stepped into the water, scaled legs immediately morphing into a pristine tail that flashed in the early morning sunlight. Nines turned in his self-made bubble, giving Gavin a wink and a wave—the latter of which Gavin returned—before letting the ocean bring him down into its depths. The water splashed Gavin as it returned to its natural form, waves lapping at Gavin’s toes while he watched his boyfriend disappear from sight.
Gavin gave a content sigh once Nines vanished into the sea, spinning on his heel and walking back towards his home to start the rest of another normal day.
*****
Nines swam at a steady pace through the sea, using his magic to craft a slight current and boost his speed. He swam close to the surface, enjoying the songs of the waves overhead and the muffled caws of seabirds. He’d swim down to deeper waters once he got closer to the Queendom, but for now he let his natural habitat lull him into relaxation.
SPLASH
Nines furrowed his brow at the commotion and the distant cries that followed. He raised his head to see a boat not too far off, a thrashing mess beside it. Swimming up to the surface, Nines took in a clearer view of the scene, two women standing aboard the boat and calling out to the third in the water.
“Bethany! C’mon, take my hand!”
“You can do it, Beth, just swim to us!”
It was quite clear Bethany could do nothing of the sort, flailing her arms and legs, ensuring she never stayed above the surface for long in her panic.
Nines wasted no time, swimming as fast as he could to aid the drowning woman. He sent a current her way to buoy her above the water and push her back towards the boat. He reached her himself shortly afterwards, lifting her by the waist into the arms of her friends. “It’s OK, I’ve got you, you’re alright,” he said as he boosted her.
“Oh my god, oh my god, thank you,” one of the women aboard said, hoisting Bethany halfway up onto the boat. “Frankie, have you got—?”
“I’ve got it,” the other woman—Frankie—said. She reached down, and Nines assumed she was going to grab a fistful of Bethany’s shirt to better bring her aboard.
Until she switched her aim, a small syringe sliding out of her long-sleeved shirt that she plunged into Nines’s neck in one deft movement.
“Wha—” Nines breathed out, grip already loosening as the world seemed to darken.
Bethany pulled herself the rest of the way onto the boat with ease while Frankie took hold of the back of Nines’s neck.
“It’s got really pretty scales,” the third woman said, leering over Nines as Frankie dragged him on board, his body and magic unresponsive to his commands. “Nice job, you two.”
“What can I say?” Bethany said, the picture of calm as she wrung out her long blond hair, giving her friend a self-satisfied smirk. “I’m the best faker on West Jericho.”
Frankie tossed the used needle into a nearby, nondescript fishing tackle box. “Hannah, help me carry it—”
And that was all Nines heard before darkness took over, and he slipped into unconsciousness.
*****
Nines awoke with an ache pounding throughout his body, raging inside his skull and dissolving into a dull throb at the tips of his toes.
Toes. He wrenched his eyes open, propping himself up on his elbows despite his body’s protests to see that indeed, legs had morphed to take the place of his tail, some of his scales chafed.
He groaned as he sat up fully, smacking his tongue against the roof of his mouth in an attempt to alleviate the tackiness it had developed. Taking in his surroundings, he found that the three women had left him in a solitary concrete room, three blaring fluorescents bearing down on him and leaving nothing in the room to the imagination. The floor was merely equipped with dust, no tools or weapons to be found. Not a single window adorned the walls, a lone metal door at the top of a set of stairs serving as the only point of entry or exit.
Nines grit his teeth, huffing out his frustration at being so easily captured before hoisting himself to his feet, crossing the room and ascending the steps to pound on the door. “Hello? Hello!”
No response.
He gave the door a furious strike, the metal CLANGing in protest. “I am High Guardsman Nines of the seven seas and personal servant to her Majesty Queen Ada. Release me at once or you will face the wrath of the merfolk court!”
This time he did get an answer, though he had to press his ear up to the door in order to make anything out.
Giggling. Mockery.
At first, Nines inhaled, prepared to wreak havoc himself. But his confidence came up short as he realized none of his songs had the power to unlock whatever mechanism kept the door sealed.
Giving a dry swallow, Nines turned back towards the room, reevaluating the prison’s features. The air felt stale, not a bit of moisture in it. The dust lining the floor was not composed of any stray lint, but rather strands of hair mingled with mounds of dried-up flakes of skin that were swept to the corners of the room. Said skin had a bit of a shine to it, reflecting the sparkle of the scales they no doubt had fallen off of.
Nines was in a merfolk poaching dungeon, and he had no way of getting out.
*****
Queen Ada prepped herself in her private quarters, floating before her bedroom mirror. Normally she would get Nines to help decorate herself, but her guardsman had yet to show up, and in cases like this she preferred to pick her own jewelry.
She pinched her lips at the view of her own reflection, running a finger over the skin where three of her collar scales had been ripped from her, the flesh barely hardened over with a single clear layer of new scales. It had been months since the terror of Perkins had been brought to a close. Nines had regrown his own collar scale over two of said months ago. All the merfolk citizens who had been enslaved by Perkins had fully recovered the loss of their collar scales. And yet despite all the time her body had been given and all the healing merfolk she had visit her every day, there wasn’t even any color to her newfound scales, the scars underneath completely visible.
Ada sighed, lowering her hand. She knew the slow progress was due to the cost of being the acting crown, the weight and power of the ocean, of her people, coursing through her veins and pulsing in her very soul. Logically, she knew such trauma inflicted on her body would take much longer to heal because of this. Yet, she couldn’t help but crave an immediate recovery. She was the Queen of the merfolk, she was meant to be the strongest of them all, and the longer she stayed vulnerable, the longer her people stayed vulnerable.
She sighed again, exhaling her frustrations as she rummaged around one of her jewelry boxes. There was nothing to be done about it right now. Besides, it wasn’t as if there were some great looming threat Ada had to worry about. She would be fine, and so would her people.
Ada selected a series of pearl necklaces, their lengths draping exactly where she needed them in order to cover up her collar scales and scars.
“Your Majesty!” a guard posted outside her room called as she fastened the first chain. “Your assistant has arrived.”
Ada narrowed her eyes at the announcement while picking up the second set of pearls. Normally Nines declared his own arrival. “Send him in,” she called back anyway.
The guard sang out the tune to get the rock blocking Ada’s quarters rolling out of the way. Ada used her mirror to watch the newcomer enter, giving an “Oh!” as she saw it was not her guardsman.
North cocked a brow and a smile, making eye contact with Ada’s reflection. “I take it I wasn’t expected?”
Ada smiled back, setting down her third row of pearls to turn towards her girlfriend. “Not expected,” she said, swimming up to North and planting a kiss on her cheek, which was returned amidst a batch of giggles, “but always welcome.
“Forgive me, I thought you were Nines,” Ada continued, returning to her necklaces. “He hasn’t shown up yet.”
North shrugged. “All the major diplomats of the seven seas are here today, aren’t they? Maybe Nines got swept up in the welcome party.”
Ada gave a considerate frown. “That sounds like him. I’m sure I’ll see him later.”
She added another row of pearls to her neck, smile returning. “And what might give me the pleasure of having you at my side? Isn’t Shell Out open today?”
“I’ve got Lazarus watching the restaurant,” North explained, swimming up behind Ada. “Plus, his girlfriend’s recently been promoted to full-time, and those two can handle anything together.”
North snaked her arms around Ada’s midsection, nuzzling her chin into the dip of her Queen’s shoulder. Ada laid the side of her head against North’s, smiling into the touch. “And I wanted to see you,” said North.
Ada’s smile fell as North lifted a hand to touch the various pearls. “You don’t have to cover them up, you know,” she whispered.
Ada snatched North’s hand off her chest, tossing it aside. “My people shouldn’t see me that way,” she snapped, leaning out of North’s embrace to busy herself with securing the rest of the necklaces.
North backed away, respecting Ada’s boundaries but still keeping close. “You hold your head high enough, Ada. It’s not like you’re a crumbling mess, despite everything you went through. None of your people will think you’re weak if they’re reminded of monsters.”
Ada stared into her reflection, running a finger down the ten strands she’d chosen. “I think I’ll get a structural merperson to change these into a single necklace for me,” she muttered.
North sighed. “Whatever you wish, my Lady,” she said, though she swam just a fraction closer, inclining her head. “But you are strong. You’re the strongest person I know, Ada.”
The Queen softened, spine relaxing. She knew her girlfriend was just trying to help. There were more productive ways to vent her frustrations.
Turning to face North and giving her a soft half-smile, she asked, “Will you help me pin up my hair?”
North returned the gentle smile. “Of course, my Queen.”
*****
Nines didn’t know how long it had been since he’d been thrown in this arid basement, but given how chapped his scales and gills had already become, he placed the timeline somewhere between four and five hours. His jaw hung open as he sucked air in and out of his mouth, breath wheezing no matter which direction it flowed. His surface-made airways would be fine for now, but without a regular supply of water, the flesh of his throat would continue to swell shut.
He sat by the back wall of his prison, facing it. He kept his hands splayed flat against the concrete, shutting his eyes tight against the glare of the overhead lights.
For as much as the merfolk used it, magic was not a limitless resource. Energy was needed for each spell that was cast, though with time and training, this cost was often negligible. However, Nines had not been placed in negligible circumstances.
He channeled all his concentration, all his strength into his inherent power. There had to be water somewhere nearby. It winded him to reach so far, feeling out the skeleton of the building, but if he could just find enough water to control close to him, perhaps he could cause enough of a ruckus to escape.
A series of sudden coughs wracked Nines’s body, breaking his focus and making him lose track of what progress he’d made. Once he finally managed to silence himself, he raised a hand to the side of his neck, fingers coming away with sticky blue stains.
“Shit,” the merman rasped out, rubbing away his own blood on the wall before gripping the single garment he’d bothered to summon out of his personal ether. He hadn’t brought out his whole human outfit, no need to waste magic on such antics, but his white leather jacket lay crumpled in his lap.
He liked the jacket well enough, enjoyed wearing it when he was waltzing about on land, but Gavin loved it. He’d never forget the look on his boyfriend’s face when he’d stepped out of that dressing room, way back when Gavin and Tina were helping to refine his disguise.
With a rattling sigh, Nines returned his hands to the wall. He had people who cared for him, were expecting him. Surely someone was looking for him.
*****
Gavin dug into his Italian sub, enjoying his lunch along with Tina and Chris.
“Go on, Damian, go to Daddy!” encouraged a digital version of Simone, Chris showing off a recording of his wife and son on his phone to Gavin and Tina. Little Damian stood in the middle of Chris’s living room, clad in a pair of green footie pajamas and mouth wide in a sort of confused smile. He looked back at his mother for a moment before returning his attention to his dad, to which past Chris reached one hand forward to beckon Damian forward.
“Come on, Damian, you can do it! You can do it!” video Chris said. Damian’s toothless smile grew, and he bent and straightened his legs a few times over while vocally inhaling and exhaling. He lifted his arms halfway up to counterbalance himself, wobbling a bit before taking a single step forward.
Both Chris and Simone could be heard gasping, Simone’s jaw dropping and eyes growing wide in genuine shock. Damian’s smile fell for a moment, feet growing still as he mimicked his parents. Chris and Simone were quick to reverse their demeanors, encouraging their son once more. “No no no, It’s OK buddy, you got it! Come here, come here!” Chris said, waving Damian forward.
Damian’s smile returned, and after a bit more leg bouncing and excited breathing, he took a second step towards Chris, a third, a fourth, traveling the whole way across the carpet before falling into his father’s arms. Chris and Simone cheered their support, starting to rush forward, before the video ended and Chris pocketed his phone.
“So cuuute,” Tina cooed, propping up her chin and holding her own cheeks with both hands. “You and Simone must be so proud.”
“You have no idea,” Chris confirmed, folding his hands on the little round table they all shared and leaning forward on his forearms. “I don’t think I’ll ever stop seeing him as the tiniest little bundle in my arms.”
“Congrats, man,” Gavin said, slapping Chris on the back a couple times. “Keep the update videos and pics coming, better a cute baby to entertain us during lunchtime than doom scrolling.”
“Hmm,” hummed Tina, who’d taken out her phone and was frowning at her screen. “Too true.”
“Something up?” Chris asked, leaning towards her and raising his eyebrows.
Tina sighed through her nose, clicking the power button on her phone and setting it face-down on the counter. “Just another article about people being weird knowing merfolk are on land.”
Gavin pursed his lips at the news, another coin dropping into the proverbial cup of his frustrations. Plenty of people had been chill—excited, even—when merfolk started coming out of the woodwork to reveal they’d never truly abandoned humanity’s companionship. But there were quite the vocal groups of others that had a slew of problems with this development.
These people would shout online and in the streets that “fish belonged in the ocean” and had “no right to invade and conquer human spaces.” Humans truly never failed to exaggerate their ignorance into hatred.
“Hey, Nines hasn’t had any trouble with those people, has he?” Tina asked, leaning towards Gavin and lilting her eyebrows in concern. “Nobody trying to… antagonize him?”
“Oh no, no, he’s been fine,” Gavin said, finishing off the last of his sandwich. “He’d tell me if anybody was harassing him, and he’d be able to handle himself if anyone tried to give him trouble.”
“That’s true enough,” Chris said, giving a considerate sideways nod. “I doubt anybody could get the jump on that guy.”
An alarm went off on Tina’s phone, signalling the end of their collective lunch break. “Blegh,” she pouted, silencing the alarm and pocketing her phone. “We need to hang out outside of work, we never do that anymore.”
Remembering what his boyfriend had told him that morning, Gavin offered, “Are you two free tonight? Nines has some royal business to take care of all day and night, so I’ve got the house to myself for the evening. We could order pizza or something.”
Tina’s eyes lit up as a smile broke out on her face. “I can come! Valerie’s working late too, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”
Chris gave a thoughtful shrug. “I’d have to talk to Simone and make sure Damian gets his dinner, but I can probably swing by,” he said with a grin.
“Cool,” Gavin said, returning a smile to his friends as he gathered up his trash. “See you guys later.”
*****
Ada set herself ashore via her own personal wave, North close behind her. The mermaids’ tails morphed into two pairs of legs, and they each hummed tunes to summon and don human clothes, North in her usual business casual outfit complete with her signature cardigan and blue beaded choker, while the Queen only had a simple cotton t-shirt, sweatpants, and cheap sandals.
“Y’know, I could get you some nicer clothes for when you come up on land,” North offered, brushing out her hair with her fingers, her locks shining just as bright and red as her scales even with the sun dipped just below the horizon.
“I could also acquire new garments for myself,” Ada said, patting the golden, pearl-studded pins that still kept her braided bun in place, “but I prefer to be comfortable on the few occasions I travel on the surface. Are you sure the detective will be home?”
“Oh yeah, he’s home. Lights are on,” North said, pointing to the small one-story abode before them. “Sounds like a few people are home, actually.”
Indeed, boisterous laughter resounded from within the small home, dying back down into friendly conversation before rising again. Pursing her lips and keeping her temper in check, Ada approached the back door, followed closely by North. The screened-in back porch was open, and Ada slid its door aside before knocking on the back entrance.
The cheer inside immediately quieted, replaced by curious mutterings Ada couldn’t make out. Eventually, Detective Reed’s head appeared in the door’s window, his brows raising as he registered the two women. Unlatching the entrance, he lingered in the doorway before greeting, “Um… good evening, your Majesty. Wha-what can I do for you?”
Though he was clearly confused, Queen Ada still appreciated his attempt at formality. Not all humans would respect her so.
Lifting her chin, she said, “Detective Reed. Would you please fetch my guardsman?”
The detective narrowed his eyes, looking back into his living room. Ada caught sight of Detective Miller and Officer Chen sitting on the couch, drinks in their hands and looking every bit as confused as Reed. Turning his attention back to Ada, Reed said, “You mean Nines?”
“I understand he enjoys the time I allow him to spend on land, but I still expect him to at least bid me a good evening before he returns to you,” Ada said.
Or greet me good morning. Or say anything to me at all.
“Just get Nines to come out for a second, Gavin, I’m sure there was just a misunderstanding,” North said, waving the subject away as if it were no matter.
The detective only narrowed his eyes further, leaning towards them. “Wh—Queen Ada, I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. Nines isn’t here.”
Ada furrowed her own brow, her girlfriend stepping forward as if to voice Ada’s bewilderment. “Nines didn’t come back here?” North asked, inclining her head sideways. “You’re sure?”
Gripping both the door and the doorway, Reed splayed the first three fingers on each of his hands. “He said he’d be with you all day. Made it sound like he would be with you all night,” he said, Miller and Chen waltzing up behind him, curious. “I saw him swim off this morning. He hasn’t been back since.”
North continued to talk, speaking with all three officers in an effort to get to the bottom of things. Ada, meanwhile, thought. Thought back on her entire day, all the excuses people had provided as to why Nines had not been at her side. They’d seen him helping so-and-so, operating such-and-such, guiding someone or other.
All tasks around the same general area where Connor would have been working throughout the day.
“I need your sink,” Ada interrupted, shouldering past Reed to enter his abode. “North, go sing for Nines in the ocean.”
The Queen ignored everyone’s exclamations, all their questions, instead beelining for Reed’s kitchen. She plugged the sink, twisting the spigot to let loose as much water as it could muster, her few remaining collar scales glowing underneath her t-shirt as she used her inherent power to make the water spurt even faster.
As soon as the sink filled up enough, Ada stuck her face in, singing a tune for her guard that would echo across the land of West Jericho. She sang and sang and sang, increasing the radius of her call to a mile, five, ten.
But her best friend in all the seven seas did not answer.
Ada threw her head back, gasping through her mouth and pushing away the loose strands of hair that had fallen from her unraveling bun. “He won’t return my song. He always answers when I call for him, it’s his duty, why would he—?”
“Ada!” North yelled, barreling into Reed’s house and silencing the humans’ efforts at questioning and comfort. “Nines isn’t answering my song. I’ve tried contacting a few other nearby merfolk for information, but no one’s seen him.”
Ada was certain Reed’s pale look of dread matched her own, her blood running colder than if an ice folk had seized her. “He’s gone. My guardsman is missing.”
*****
Nines lay flat on his back, prone on the dusty concrete floor, doing his damndest just to repeat the actions of inhaling and exhaling. The ghost of fingers danced over his throat with each breath he managed to drag into his lungs, the chafed, peeling skin at his neck fluttering with his ragged intakes of air. Struggling to stay conscious, his fading imagination layered memories over hallucinations in an effort to make something out of his own impending demise.
Sometimes the fingers were kind, gentle touches from his lover, asking him if he was alright and encouraging him to get up, to breathe. Of course, Nines could never muster the strength to move, let alone sit up, but he still appreciated the concern the vision of Gavin gave him.
Other times the images were not so kind, Gavin’s worried face replaced by the Queen’s, by his best friend, her face just as it had been the night she was under Perkins’s control. Ada stared at him with murky eyes and an indifferent expression as she attempted to choke the life out of him.
“Ada,” he rasped out, lifting one shaking hand towards her, two chafed scales scattered along his forearm cracking and falling to clatter on the floor. “Ada, please.”
His hand managed to make its way to her cheek, though instead of the illusion dissipating into a fog of nothing as it had been, a far-off song echoed in his ears, calling for him.
“Oh, my guardsman,” the suggested outline of his Queen said, fingers loosening as she leaned into his touch. “Where are you?”
Nines furrowed his brow, feeling the skin peel at the action. More figures swam into his vision, the essence of all his friends both merfolk and human. But that song, that song was real, calling out to him and asking one question over and over.
“Where are you? Where are you, Nines?”
The highest Guardsman in all the seven seas grit his teeth, willing himself to gather all the magic he had and condense it into something he could control, something to reflect the power he was meant to have. With a rasped cry, Nines shoved his hand through the illusion of his Queen, smacking the wall and funneling all the energy he had into it, holding no thought, no intention, no direction for his power except the chaos of disruption.
The last things Nines registered before darkness overtook him were a series of rapid, bursting CLANGS, and the unmistakable sound of three women screaming upstairs.
*****
Not a single pair of eyes was spared in the search for Nines, every WJPD officer scouring the land and Ada’s entire guard combing the ocean. Gavin, Tina, Chris, North, and Queen Ada herself made up their own search party, gathered in the bullpen of the WJPD and phoning in every possible person they could think of that might have the slightest chance of providing a lead as to where Nines could have possibly gone in the twelve hours since Gavin had seen him off. Captain Fowler had tried pitching a fit about letting civilians in on investigations but quickly shut his trap as Ada performed quite the theatrics with every water bottle in the bullpen and made it clear she would investigate what she damned well pleased where she damn well pleased, conveniently leaving out North’s non-guardsfolk status. Now the Queen occupied the restroom, using the same sink trick to “sing” to and communicate with all the merfolk scattered about on land while everyone else did their best to investigate at their desks.
“We should get a boat,” North said, gripping the back of Gavin’s chair and leering over his shoulder.
“Ada has all the merfolk she can get monitoring the water already, North,” Tina said, lilting her eyebrows in sympathy but not taking her gaze off her monitor. “We won’t be any help out there.”
“They’re searching the deep sea!” North insisted, smacking her free hand down on the table and sending one of Gavin’s pencils clattering to the floor. “We could still patrol the surface of the water. He was last seen going into the ocean, it makes sense to search the ocean!”
“Nobody’s going to stop you if you want to join the search in the ocean, North,” Chris said, leaning back in his chair to face her, “but we can’t guarantee that someone didn’t take Nines out of the ocean.”
North gripped Gavin’s chair all the tighter, and in the reflection of his monitor, Gavin caught her gaze. One look at her expression in that smudged screen and Gavin knew they were thinking the exact same thing.
It was so hard to picture the ocean’s most experienced warrior left to the mercy of some careless, cruel human, especially after the fight he put up during the battle with Perkins. Gavin kept expecting his merman to stroll through the police station doors, head tilted just so while he asked what all the hubbub was for.
But if that same months-long scourge had proven anything, it was that the sea’s finest was nowhere near invincible. Captured, tortured, briefly put under the same mind-numbing spell so many of his people had suffered under, Nines had already been dragged to the wringer plenty of times. So, the question of where Nines was had long since fled as the most pressing question ringing in Gavin and North’s heads, replaced by two that screamed for answers.
Just who had taken Nines? And was help far too late to provide?
Gavin sucked in a breath through his teeth, preparing to turn his attention back towards a fruitless venture when Queen Ada came sprinting out of the bathroom, cheap sandals clapping against the bullpen’s tile flooring.
“There’s a house just a few miles from here, near the shore!” she yelled to the four of them, her face and the collar of her t-shirt soaked but her hair ever-impervious to H2O, if frazzled from stress. “It’s tall and blue, built to look the same as the other homes it’s sandwiched between. My people tell me it’s burst, flooding as if every single water pipe inside it collapsed at once.”
“You think—?” Chris started.
“Who else?” Ada finished.
“Dark blue or light blue?” Tina asked.
“Royal,” Ada answered.
“I know exactly where that is,” Tina said, shutting off her computer and rising from her seat. “Come on!”
Gavin didn’t even bother locking his monitor, scrambling to stand and run alongside everyone else as they piled into the nearest police cruiser, Tina at the wheel and speeding out of the parking lot.
Gavin managed to hold his tongue for about fifteen seconds before asking Ada, “Did any of your people see Nines inside the house? How he looked or if—?”
The Queen shook her head. “No. No, everyone’s outside. They said they needed to keep the owners from running.”
“Tina—”
“I’m driving as fast as I can, Gav,” Tina said. Indeed, with the cruiser’s siren blaring, citizens on the road dutifully pulling out of the way, and Tina continuously pressing her foot to the gas, a 15-minute venture was quickly turning into a three-minute race.
But Gavin couldn’t help but feel that even if they had the ability to teleport to the flooded house they were far too slow. How had the night turned out this way? The morning with Nines had been so normal, the whole day had been normal! How could the disposition of reality turn on its head so fast?
Biting the inside of his bottom lip so hard copper coated his tongue, Gavin couldn’t begin to think what he would do if such a nice day only brought tragedy at its close.
The five of them were thrown forward in their seats as Tina was forced to brake a full block before their destination, so expansive the commotion had become. People craned their heads, parents balancing children on their shoulders for a better look at the flooding house, water pouring from pipes that had burst from its structure, as if the home’s skeleton had suffered several compound fractures.
Spirit renewed with a sort of desperate rage, Gavin exited the car and began shoving his way through the crowd as fast as he could. “WJPD, let us through! Police! Get out of the way!” Gavin shouted, the other four close behind him, Chris and Tina yelling similar commands.
“Officer! Officer!” a human woman shouted, one of three located at the center of the chaos, waving to Gavin. “Thank goodness you’re—”
She cut herself short as soon as she spotted Ada and North, both her smile and arm dropping. “You have got to be kidding me,” she said.
“You can’t keep us here!” one of the other two women shrieked, clutching her long blond tresses and crouching on the front lawn as she stared up at the merman that leered over her. Dozens of merfolk surrounded the three women, some of them common citizens dressed in sensible land garb, but others bore their scales in full, many carrying spears and such that marked them as guardsfolk.
The merman didn’t dignify her with a response, standing aside to let his Queen take over. Eyes alight as if the purest flame burned behind them, Ada growled, “Where is he? Where is my guardsman?”
The third woman, looking impressively bored with the whole situation, gave Ada a half-lidded stare as she said, “Like we told the rest of you fish freaks, we have no idea what you’re talking abou—”
“He’s in the basement! The passcode is two-four-seven-three!” the crouched girl shouted, words tumbling out of her mouth as if she were attempting to speak them all at once.
The indifferent if annoyed front the other two women put up disappeared at their friend’s confession, the both of them laying furious eyes on the cowering woman. “Bethany!” they yelled in tandem.
“I just want this night to be over!” Bethany screamed right back, clutching her head all the tighter and squeezing her eyes shut.
Ada was already across the lawn and halfway up the short set of stairs leading up to the porch, sprinting off with a command to North to help make sure the three women stayed in place. Gavin ran after her, letting Chris and Tina stay behind to ask questions and act as a barrier between the commotion and the cellphone-wielding human crowd.
“Nines!” the Queen screamed out, running from room to nautical-decorated room with abandon, using her powers as she went to keep the water out of the way so she was not forced to grow a tail. “Nines, where are you?!”
“Have you found the—?” Gavin called, doing his best to move as fast as he could without slipping on floors covered in two inches of running water and the waves Ada left behind in her wake, cutting himself off as he spotted a door with a thin gap at its base, the space inhaling the oncoming current. Fighting the water to get the door open, Gavin revealed a set of downwards stairs and shouted, “Basement! Ada, it’s here, I found it!”
She was at his heels in an instant, the two of them barreling down the steps and Ada invoking her magic to keep the path clear.
But their merman was nowhere to be seen at the bottom, just a soaking carpet, lawn chairs, tools, gift wrap, and various plain, sealed cardboard boxes.
That didn’t stop Ada from darting about, tearing open every box that could possibly hold a full-grown merman. “Nines!” she shouted, uncovering nothing but junk. “Nines!”
“Ada, he’s not here,” Gavin muttered, staring at the trash-filled basement as if his soul had been severed from his body, a rippling numbness poking at the underside of his skin. Shouldn’t his boyfriend be present, perhaps hurt but ready for rescue? Hadn’t they made it in time?
Ada ignored him, ripping open too-small boxes with even more fervor. “He has to be! They said he was in the basement, and we found the basement! Nines!”
A shiver of reason shook its way down Gavin’s spine, sending his spirit back to the present. “That girl mentioned a code, maybe…” Gavin let himself trail off as Ada froze, raising on pointer finger and staring off at some undefined point, her collar scales glowing brighter than ever despite her not commanding any extra water.
For a moment, they simply paused there, rushing water overhead filling up the silence. Then, Ada sprang up, scurrying to the back wall and pressing both her hands against it. She didn’t stay there long, moving sideways and crossing one arm over the other and back again as she went, smacking the forest green-painted concrete over and over until she came to a set of boxes stacked in a pyramid shape flat against the left wall.
She gave a cry as she shoved at the boxes, and Gavin opened his mouth to ask what she was doing, but shut it half a second later as the toppled structure revealed a hidden gap. And on the other side stood a thick metal door, water crowding its airtight entrance.
“Holy shit,” Gavin said. Then, rushing forward, “Holy shit!”
He skidded in front of a number pad embedded to the left of the door, hands shaking worse than they ever had as he jabbed in the numbers 2-4-7-3. The mechanism beeped in affirmation, and Gavin and Ada both took hold of the lever sealing the entrance shut, grunting as they wrenched it open together.
Yet another set of stairs greeted them, lit by blaring fluorescents and descending into barren concrete.
The two of them rushed side-by-side downstairs, calling for Nines as they went.
Stopping dead in their tracks as they finally spotted what they had been looking for.
Nines lay curled against the back wall, facing away from them and staying far too still. His whole body was dried up, inflamed upper half partially covered in his white leather jacket but wrinkled and peeling while his scaled legs had grown dull and cracked, leaking a dozen little rivulets of ultramarine blood.
Without a word, Ada let the water she held in place upstairs rush downwards, commanding a bucket’s worth and flinging it forward to splash over her guardsman.
“Hhnck!”
“Nines!” Gavin and Ada chorused, the floodgate that was tension letting loose their worry as Nines began to choke and convulse, the two of them running to collapse by his side.
Gavin rolled Nines onto his back, taking in his boyfriend’s fluttering eyelids and swollen neck. All day. All day Nines had been down here, slowly choking, slowly dying, and not a single person had realized he was missing. What sort of loved ones were they?
Gavin cupped his boyfriend’s face, helping him to sit up in an effort to ease his breathing while Ada rehydrated his scales, gripping the jacket and humming a tune to force it into her personal ether. “Nines?” Gavin asked, the water from the first basement slowly soaking the calves of his pants. “Nines, can you hear me? Nines, please wake up.”
Nines gave no response, eyelids growing still and breath coming in shallow, ragged bursts.
“Carry him upstairs,” Ada demanded, abandoning her efforts to stand and run back up the stairs. Halfway up them, she yelled, “Now!”
Gavin obeyed the Queen, holding the top half of his boyfriend close while using his spare arm to reach over Nines’s legs, looping his forearm under them to keep the limbs secure against his side. He grunted as he stood, finding the exact counterbalance he needed to keep Nines steady in something between a bridal and a fireman’s carry.
Abandoning harsh lights and an impossibly dry atmosphere, Gavin followed Ada up two sets of stairs, unable to run as fast as he’d like with the water now fully flowing against him. Still, he managed to exit the house not too far behind the Queen, in time to see her give a deliberate whistle that had all the nearby purple-scaled merfolk—those with the inherent power to heal—running forward.
“Nines!” Tina shouted, rushing towards Gavin alongside Chris, who asked, “What happened?!"
Gavin ignored them both, following Ada onto the front lawn as she brought forth a full wave of water from the house, letting it settle as a large bubble on the grass.
Gavin collapsed into the water, drenching his outfit as he fully submerged Nines, four purple-scaled merfolk joining him and taking hold of various parts of Nines’s body. Though he tried to give the healers enough room to work, Gavin did not fully let go of his boyfriend, using one hand to support the back of the merman’s head and keep his face above the bubble of water. “C’mon, Nines,” Gavin begged, spare fist shaking in his lap.
“Where’s his tail?” Tina said, less a question and more a meek plea that hoped its utterance would summon the limb in question.
A merperson’s tail was meant to morph into existence the second their lower half was dunked underwater. But even when fully submerged, Nines’s legs remained legs, blue blood and loose skin flakes tinting the water.
No one answered her, everyone surrounding the unconscious merman waiting with bated breath, the only murmurs echoing from the human crowd.
Gavin licked his lips, both they and the inside of his mouth feeling far too dry, eyes stinging with the heat of memories from back when he’d found Nines in a similar state, all the way back when he’d first met the merman.
Captured, unconscious, but breathing back then.
“C’mon, Sharkboy,” Gavin urged, the wetness of premature grief rolling down his cheeks. “You’re supposed to be the one who saves me from suffocating, remember? You gotta wake up.”
For five more agonizing seconds, Nines lay perfectly still, the air reverberating with the magic the healers exuded.
Gavin couldn’t keep his face from screwing up, leaning forward as his fingers twisted in Nines’s locks. “Please, Nines, don’t leave me.”
“Nines,” Ada said, eyes wide but expression otherwise blank. Clasping one of Nines’s hands, she said, “Awake. Your Queen commands it.”
One. Two. Three full beats.
Then—
“Hrrr-rr-rRAC-HACK!”
A series of violent coughs had Nines arching into a sitting position, everyone giving a cry of, “Nines!” as they helped him keep upright while his tail sprung forth. His throat was still swollen, inflamed gills bleeding, but he was awake and breathing and alive.
While Gavin held his boyfriend as close as he could as the healing merfolk continued to work their magic, Ada regripped Nines’s hand in both of hers, holding it close to her lips. “Nines! Oh my guardsman, you’re safe. It’s all alright now, you’re safe. Nines, what happened? Please, tell me what happened to you.”
Nines gurgled on air, saliva, and blood, shifting where he lay and looking up at Gavin. Gavin assured him as best he could, squeezing him close and giving his own murmurs of “It’s OK, it’s OK.”
Nines’s gaze maneuvered across those that surrounded him, across the healers, lingering again on Gavin and Ada, taking in the sight of Tina and Chris.
Before finally landing on the three women still being kept in place by a slew of guardsfolk.
With the injuries to his throat, Nines couldn’t quite form words, but he still removed his hand from Ada’s grasp, pointing one shaking finger at the three women as he choked around his syllables. “P… p’ch… p’ch-rss…”
Any sense of decorum the Queen may have kept before was gone in an instant, eyes flaring as she rose to her feet, facing the group of poacher women. “You dare kidnap and suffocate the highest guardsman in all the seven seas? My, the Queen of merfolk’s, personal guard?” she asked, voice low, seeming to rumble with each word. Beside them all, the flooding house grew still, the flow from each broken pipe slowing before coming to a silent stop.
“We’re sorry!” squeaked the woman who’d been crouching—Bethany—scrabbling backward on the wet grass as her friends tried backing away, blocked by the barricade of merfolk. “We didn’t know he was important!”
“You think it would have been any better if you had taken a common citizen?” Ada said, eyebrows rising so high they threatened to disappear into her tousled hair, her four collar scales glowing with a mad brilliance beneath her t-shirt. “You think I do not care for all of my people? That we as a species do not value every member of our kind?”
An echoing creaking resounded across the street, and Gavin whipped his head around along with most of the other bystanders to see the front of the flooded house bend forward, its walls threatening to burst. Luckily for the witnesses, the windows gave way before the wood did, all the glass breaking and cell phones flashing for photos and videos as waves of the water inside came floating out in controlled, twisting swirls. Ada only needed to lift one hand halfway up to bring the mass hovering over the crowd, all three of the poachers cowering now while their fellow humans in the crowd shouted in alarm.
“Ada…” North warned in a low tone, but the Queen was not listening.
Glowing as if her very soul were aflame, Ada declared, “I am tired of apes treating my people as fish in a barrel. We are not your toys, we are not your merchandise, we are not your meat. If you treat any merperson as such—”
Ada flung her hand towards the grass, casting the enormous sphere of water onto the three women, making it scoop them up and raise them back into the air, each of them screaming a stream of bubbles in vain. “—there will be consequences.”
Ada threw her arm to the side, towards where the deep dark ocean lay in wait, everyone watching until the poachers splashed into an unforgiving sea, not a one of them resurfacing.
Silence for a while, waiting for distant screams that never came. The humans were the first to break the silence, fueled with the ire only a confident mob could have.
“Murderer!”
“Fish freaks!”
“Terrorists!”
Their accusing shrieks intermingled with the sound of oncoming police sirens, rivaling them even as backup finally arrived on scene.
Tina, always with her head square on her shoulders no matter what chaos surrounded her, turned towards Gavin. “Get him to the ocean,” she ordered, leaving no time for argument as she focused on Ada. “Your Majesty, you need to leave, now.”
“I’m not—”
“Ada!” North said, firmer this time, eyes darting over the human crowd threatening to enclose on them.
Ada pursed her lips, taking in the sight of the angry human mob being held back by guardspeople and regular merfolk alike, looking back to where she’d thrown the poacher women, and finally settled her gaze—absent of the flame it had before—on Gavin. “Carry him. The rest of you, follow us. North?”
“With you. Always,” North confirmed, and the Queen’s eyes softened in gratitude.
Gavin scooped his boyfriend back up, the bubble of water Nines had been placed in popping and disappearing into the grass. Gavin, Ada, North, the four healing merfolk, and five guardsfolk all beelined for the coast, sprinting across a couple lawns and a stretch of sand and sharp shells before reaching the water.
Gesturing at her home, Ada brought the tide closer to them, making the water balloon in front of them to create an easier, deeper space to dive into, she and her people humming various melodies to send their human clothes back into their personal ethers.
But as Gavin set Nines back into his natural environment, the merman gave a shuddering gasp, latching one fist to the front of Gavin’s shirt. “G’v’n!” he choked out. “Pl’ss d’n l’ve m’…”
Though it broke his heart to reject those desperate cool blue eyes, Gavin peeled Nines’s hand off of him, delivering a kiss to the back of it. “You’ll be OK, Nines. I can’t come with you right now, but I’ll see you as soon as you’re better, alright?”
Nines whined, looking past Gavin’s shoulder towards where the human crowd was still shouting in murderous defiance.
Gavin pursed his lips, squeezing Nines’s hand all the tighter. “I’ll be OK too, Sharkboy. Worry about yourself for now, yeah?”
Though he did not lose his expression of worry, Nines did let himself be gathered up by the healing merfolk, and Gavin watched as Ada conjured a current to sweep them all out to sea. Once the shine of their scales disappeared, replaced by the glow of the moon off the waves, Gavin sighed, turned, and ran back to help his friends with what he knew would just be the start of a reinvigorated, centuries-long rivalry.