She woke, gasping in the darkness, strange dreams vanished. Nightmares fading. She had vague images of ocean and strong hands trying to drown her.
Darkness lay pressed against the sliding glass doors. Moonlight shivered through the closed drapes. Adria sat up, abrupt, and felt dizzy and awkward. She couldn’t remember closing the drapes. Her head felt like cotton, her throat horribly dry. Too many pills, she felt detached, the rush of fear dying under the dregs of the tranquilizer.
A shadow fluttered against the drapes. Adria stood, a little unsteady. Was it a man’s shadow? She touched the drapes, soft, cool. Fear was back, adrenaline chasing the tranquilizer away. The sound of her own heart was obscenely loud. Adria shoved the drapes back, sudden, and he was there. He stood naked and beautiful on the other side of the glass. She tried to scream but couldn’t, not while looking into his eyes, dark and peaceful.
He put a hand against the glass, spread it flat. There was webbing between his fingers like a frog’s. Adria touched fingertips to the glass. The webbing began to shrink, smaller and smaller, until it melted away, like a moonlit dream. He smiled then, and she felt his need like a physical touch. His hand touched the door lock. Adria jerked back, startled, frightened, awake. The drapes fell shut—the moonlight gleamed empty.
Adria peeked round the drapes, hand shaking. There was nothing there. Had she dreamed it? She had been dreaming of him, of strong hands pushing her under the water. Adria stared at the empty deck. Moonlight glittered off something. She knelt against the glass and stared. There was a puddle of water on the deck. There was no rain this time of year.
Adria was halfway to the phone to call the police when she stopped. What could she say? “I saw webbing between his fingers, and it melted away.” They wouldn’t believe her, and he had known they wouldn’t. He had come to taunt her, or to kill her. Adria remembered the feel of him inside her mind, slick, and cold and warm, like nothing she had ever felt. She wondered what he could have done if she hadn’t been on the pills, half dead to the world. If he had opened the door…
Adria knew now how he had gotten Rachel down on the beach. He had called her, lured her, with himself as bait. The police wouldn’t find him, because he could go places they couldn’t, places they would never dream of going.
Adria knew the truth, but no one would believe her. It was crazy. If she’d had her gun tonight she could have given him a surprise. Would bullets hurt a triton? They didn’t hurt vampires, did they?
Adria couldn’t remember any stories about how to kill a mermaid. Just fairy tales.
The morning paper showed another victim, miles from Adria. Adria drank morning coffee with a gun lying on the table. She had bought it years ago when her ex-husband had traveled a lot and left her alone. It was cleaned, oiled, and loaded. The hammer rested on an empty chamber. If five bullets weren’t enough…well, Adria didn’t think it would matter.
The triton didn’t come back, but he killed two more women. The police were baffled, looking for lifeguards, triathletes. They weren’t even close.
Adria stayed safe and warm and dry. And another woman died. He was killing almost every other night. The police were frantic; everyone on the beach was terrified.
When Rachel had been dead almost four weeks, Adria dreamed of the triton again. Strong webbed hands caressed her skin; she swam under water and breathed. She woke halfway across her bedroom floor. Her feet were tangled in a pair of discarded old jeans. Almost tripping had woken her. Adria swallowed, tried to breathe, tried to think. She heard his song then, inside her head. Music that cried and wept, that rolled and roared, lonely as the sea, vast and deep, promising miracles. She stood frozen for a moment, listening.
Adria stumbled back to her bed and sat on the edge of the rumpled sheets. She could not go to him, should not, would not. The song sighed and eased her mind, until she was standing. His need was in the music, strong and deep, careless as the ocean itself, and as unstoppable. She picked up her robe from the floor and slipped it on. It felt real and soft. She picked up the gun from the bedside table and put it in the robe pocket. It hung heavy and awkward, bumping her leg as she walked. She could not deny him, but she might be able to surprise him.
The moon rode high and almost full, shimmering silver on the rolling waves. The sea whispered, adding to the triton’s song. Music and ocean hissed and roared until Adria could not be sure who was singing to her. Was it the sea? Did the sea itself want to touch her, to hold her? Yes, the sea wanted her. It was not love the sea offered, but violent need, a need so great it filled the world with crying.
She walked at the edge of the wet sand, as the lips of curling waves sloshed over her ankles. High tide was spilling inland.
She waded ankle deep to the rocks, the water soaking the edge of her robe, pulling, tripping. The song said, Leave it. But Adria climbed the rocks with the heavy robe still on. She didn’t remember why it was important to keep it on, but there was a reason. The beach was bigger on the other side; part of it stayed dry. She thought of Rachel, and fear, grief filled her mind, but the sea took her terror and her sorrow and wove it into its song. Her throat was tight with fear, heart threatening to choke her. She slipped down to dry sand and waited, waited for the sea to come.
A chill wind blew off the ocean. She shivered, and the song took the thread of her chill, for the singer had never been cold. There was something heavy in her pocket that pressed against the damp robe, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but the sea.
Something bobbed out in the surf, dark and small, a sea lion maybe. The head disappeared and surfaced closer to shore. It wasn’t a seal.
The triton let the waves sweep him up on shore, tumbling. His upper half was the muscular paleness she remembered, except for the long dark hair. Below the waist, he was a soft grayish black, abrupt against the white skin, as if somebody had pieced together two different creatures. There was a small ridge along his spine like a whale’s humped back. His tail flukes whipped up and down, a dull half moon. He lay on his stomach in the surf and watched Adria with eyes so huge and luminous, they seemed to have a light of their own.
Tail began to melt, like wax exposed to heat, the tail flukes became blunt, the main trunk began to shrink, growing tight, and the shadow of legs pressed against the shrinking skin.
His face flickered in pain, and that fed into his song. It hurt to change over. Adria felt his pain, crumbling to her knees, staring, waiting, needing.
He stood, nude, and human, his dark hair hanging in wet curls round his face. He called out to her, inside her head, the music sliding and seducing. She went to him.
He was tall. She came only to the middle of his chest. When he reached for her, moonlight glistened through the webbing on his hands. Adria took a step back, away. He frowned, and the song roared inside her until she could hear only that. She watched him come closer. He undid her robe, pushing it open. She shivered as the wind blew against her nightshirt. His hands cupped her breasts, water soaking through the shirt, cold. His face bent over her, eyes huge and drowning deep. Terror flashed through her; she shook her head, violently, tried to step back. He grabbed her, pressing her against the hard cold of his body. The song roared in her head, but her fear rode the waves. The sea had come to drag her down, and she was afraid.
His mouth closed over hers, probing. His lips nibbled down her neck. Adria tried to scream, but she couldn’t. She was afraid, afraid of the song, afraid of the sea, afraid of this thing touching her, but she could not scream, could not move. He spilled her back onto the sand. Strong hands tore her nightshirt, leaving her gasping and half naked. Waves rushed in, spilling over her breasts, curling between her legs. He knelt over her, staring down, arrogant, no pity, no doubts, the sea made flesh. She meant nothing to him, the song clanged through her mind, a roaring violence, a vast unknowing guiltless thing.
She whispered, “No.”
He lowered himself on top of her, skin cold, so cold. Waves splashed over his back and spilled into her face. He still kissed and bit along her skin. The hardness of him rested against her panties.
“No.” Still only a whisper. She needed to shout, to scream. “No.” Then she remembered the gun.
His hands ripped away her damp panties. He lowered his hips, eyes distant.
The gun clicked on the empty chamber. Adria pulled the trigger again. The gun fired through the robe pocket. The shot seemed to explode, so loud. His body jerked, eyes staring at her, seeing her for the first time. She pulled the trigger again. He jerked and then slumped over her.