 
Deranged Little Mermaids

A Low Campbell Adventure

J. D. Rogers

***

Smashwords Edition

Text copyright © 2017 by J. D. Rogers

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for quotations in printed reviews, without the written permission of the author.

All characters are fictional. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cover Photos Courtesy of Pixabay.com

## Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 1

My new client wasn't what I expected, but then they never are. Of course, I don't exactly fit their image of a private detective, what with my being a mermaid, so I guess we're even.

He called me, told me that he needed to hire a private detective. He said he got my number from a friend, then he asked me to meet him at his place of work as soon as possible. I said I'd be there in an hour.

I just got back from my morning swim, so I showered, changed into a professional looking black pantsuit and white silk blouse. Then I drove to the address that he gave me. The place turned out to be a funeral parlor, mortuary, whatever you want to call it. The sign in front of the two story Tudor style building read, Tibit's Mortuary and Crematorium.

I should've known it wasn't going to be a normal case, cheating husband, cheating wife, embezzling employee, that kind of thing. I'm the only supernatural detective in the city, which means all the weird cases are sent my way.

Why is a mermaid working as a private detective? Simple. Food cost money, especially if you're not a big fan of sushi and seaweed, which I'm not. I prefer cheeseburgers, pizzas, and pancakes. Plus, I eat a lot of food. I need to consume at least seven thousand calories a day or I lose weight.

I guess that's the downside to having such dense muscle tissue, muscle tissue that allows me to withstand the water pressure at the bottom of the ocean, swim at speeds in excess of seventy miles an hour, and bench press a car, not to mention repel small caliber bullets.

I parked my Honda Del Sol in front of the funeral parlor and followed the brick walkway that led to the building's front door. There was a sign on the door that said, open for business, so I went inside.

I found myself in a spacious foyer that smelled of flowers. To the left was a chapel. Its double doors were open, revealing a silver casket surrounded by bouquets of flowers, all kinds of flowers, tulips, lilies, roses, daises, carnations, you name it.

Straight ahead was a winding staircase that led to the second floor. Directly to my right were four office doors. The walls were painted a dark pink. I believe most people refer to it as salmon. The carpet was a dark brown. It was thick and plush, the kind of carpet that's designed to mute sounds.

A tall man stepped out of the office closest to the door. When I say tall, I mean like seven feet tall. He was dressed similar to me, black suit, white shirt. The only difference was he wore a red bow-tie.

He was pale, pale enough to pass for a vampire, although he wasn't a vamp. Vamps have about half the water in their bodies as humans and his was over sixty percent water, which meant that he was human.

I knew that because I could feel the water that made up his body. Feeling water, controlling it with our minds, is something all mermaids can do. Although some of us our better at it than others.

He was clean shaven, both his head and his face. He had a long nose and a thick lower lip that drooped down toward his chin.

"Can I help you?" he said with a voice that was so deep it was almost scary.

"Low Campbell," I said. "Someone called me, said they needed a private detective."

"That was me," the man said. He offered me his hand. "Edward Tibit."

He headed into his office and I followed. He slid behind his desk and sat. I grabbed one of the brown leather captain's chairs that faced his desk.

"What's up?" I said.

"To put it simply, somebody is stealing bodies."

"From here?"

"Yes. Four bodies disappeared last night."

"Have you reported this to the police?"

"I'd rather not."

"Why?"

"The bodies are transients. Mostly drug addicts in their twenties and thirties. They have no family to claim them so the city delivers them here, pays us to cremate the bodies and dispose of the ashes."

I nodded. "And if they find out someone's been stealing the bodies from you, you could lose your contract with the city."

Edward Tibit nodded. "That's why I'd like you to handle this, find out who's been stealing my bodies and put a stop to it."

"Can I ask where you got my name?"

"Hiram Bernard. His family has done business with us for years."

Hiram Bernard was a client of mine. He hired me to find his twenty-five year old daughter, who was being held hostage by a bogeyman. A bogeyman that I ended up killing.

"He said that you were the best in the business and if you couldn't solve the case then no one could."

"I assume somebody broke in."

Edward Tibit nodded. "Through a back door."

"The bodies were all taken at the same time?"

"They were, three males, one female."

He took me to the chapel and through a side door that led to the back. The door led to small parking lot in the alley. Both the door and the frame showed damage. It looked like the thieves used a crowbar to break the wooden frame and pop the door open.

If they needed a crowbar to break in then they were probably human. Most supernaturals would have been strong enough to rip the door off its hinges.

"Looks like your thieves used a crowbar to break the lock," I said. "Which means they were human. My guess is whoever wanted the bodies hired some petty thieves to snatch some bodies for them, which means they'll be back."

Edward Tibit recoiled in horror. "You think they'll come back?"

"Petty thieves tend to return to the scene of the crime, especially when they've been successful. When they run low on cash, they'll come back, snatch a couple more bodies, try to sell them to whoever hired them to steal the first four bodies."

"So you're going to what? Stake the place out?"

"I'll give them a couple of days to burn through whatever they were paid, then I'll stake out the alley."

"And when you catch them?"

"I'll make them tell me who paid them to snatch the bodies."

"What if they don't want to talk?"

"Trust me. They'll talk."

***

I gave the thieves three days to spend their money, then I started my stakeout. There was a small parking lot behind the mortuary, big enough to hold seven or eight cars. The parking lot was on the right hand side as you faced the Tudor style building's rear. There were a pair of garage doors on the far right of the building. I assumed that was where they kept the hearses. To the left of the garage doors, on the left hand side of the parking lot, was the door the thieves used to steal Edward Tibit's bodies.

One of the advantages to being a mermaid is that we don't sleep for extended periods of time like humans do. We grab five minutes here, ten minutes there, never more than an hour at a time, which means I'm sort of made for stakeouts.

I parked my Honda Del Sol in front of the garage doors and waited for the thieves to return, spending most of my time listening to the radio and eating the snacks that I brought with me.

Nothing happened the first night, but the second night something did happen. It was just after one in the morning when a white van pulled into the lot. On the sides of the van were the words Sunshine Dry Cleaners. The yellow and orange writing had faded, which told me that Sunshine Dry Cleaners no longer owned the van.

And yes, my eyes are sharp enough to allow me to distinguish colors in the dark. One of the advantages to being a mermaid. Our eyes are designed to see in the ocean's dark murky depths.

They pulled into the lot, spun around, and backed the van toward the door, paying no attention to my little Del Sol.

As two men climbed out of the van, I reached out with my mind, until I could feel the water that made up their bodies. Like all mermaids, I can control water with my mind, make it do pretty much anything I want. Although I'm a little better at it than most mermaids. Most mermaids can only feel and control large bodies of water, like the ocean, or a lake, or a swimming pool.

I can feel and control small bodies of water as well as large bodies, from the ocean down to a cup of coffee. I can even control the water that makes up a person's body. I can order it to freeze, I can order it to boil, I can order it to burst through a person's veins, arteries, and skin.

Which is what I did. I ordered the water inside the two thieves to cool. Not freeze, just cool a couple of degrees, just enough to make them shiver. Which is what they were doing when I climbed out of my car. "You boys wouldn't be planning something illegal would you?"

"Wha . . . what's it to . . . to you?" one of the men said. He was shivering, which is why he had trouble talking, no big surprise since I was causing his body temperature drop.

He was human, both men were human. I put them in their twenties. Both men were skinny, with long stringy hair that looked like it hadn't been washed in months. They had gaunt faces with three day stubble on them. Their jeans were dirty and had holes in them. Their wife beater style undershirts were as dirty as their jeans.

I pegged them as a couple of drug addicts that thought they discovered an easy way to make some cash to feed their habit. Break into the mortuary, steal a couple of stiffs, sell them to the guy that paid them to steal the first four bodies.

"I'm a private detective. I was hired by the mortuary to find out who's been stealing their bodies. And from what I can see, I'd say that would be the two of you."

"Ge . . . get out of here girly, be . . . before you get hurt."

Their teeth were chattering and their bodies were shivering, but unlike most people, they didn't seem to notice. Probably because they spent half their lives shivering, every time they needed a fix.

The guy holding the crowbar stepped forward and swung it at my head. I stuck my hand up and caught the crowbar, stopping it in mid swing. Then I ripped it out of his hand and tossed it onto the building's roof.

"I'm not a girl," I said. 'I'm a mermaid."

It was against the law for a supernatural to kill a human, which meant I couldn't freeze the water inside their bodies. And since shivering was a normal part of their lives, there was no point in making them do that, so I ordered the water inside their bodies to return to its normal temperature.

Instead, I grabbed each man by the neck and lifted him off his feet, at the same time. One of the advantages of having such dense muscle tissue is it makes me extremely strong. I'm talking superhero strong.

That being said, I would like to point out that I'm not what you would call a husky girl. Although I am fairly tall, coming in at five feet nine inches in my bare feet. Dense doesn't mean thick. A block of wood and a block of lead can be the same size, the same thickness, but the lead is heavier, denser than the wood.

"What are you?" one of the men croaked.

"I already told you, I'm a mermaid."

"Mermaids aren't that strong."

"And just how many mermaids have you met in your short despicable life?"

"None." He was still croaking when he talked, probably because I was still holding him by the throat.

"Who paid you to steal those four bodies?"

"A vamp."

"A vampire hired you."

He nodded, or tried to nod. Not an easy thing to do when you're dangling by the neck.

"This vamp have a name?"

"Gavin."

"Gavin what?"

"He never gave us his last name."

I turned to the guy I was holding in my other hand, my left hand. Then I shook him. "That true?"

This one tried to nod. Once again, not an easy thing to do when you're dangling by the neck. "It's true."

"What did he look like?"

"He looked like all vamps" the second man croaked. "Skinny and pale."

The reason vamps are so pale is because their bodies are about thirty to forty percent water. Compare that to a living being which is over sixty percent water. The reason they're all skinny is because, well, to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure why they're so skinny. Maybe it's because the cells in their bodies are dead, animated but dead. They don't split and reproduce like normal healthy cells. Maybe it's because the only food they digest is blood. I don't really know. But then I'm no scientist. I'm a private detective and an ex-cop.

"That's all you can tell me about this vamp?" I looked at the guy I was holding in my left hand, then I looked at the guy I was holding in my right.

"Can't breathe," the guy I was holding with my right hand squeaked.

I lowered him to the ground, so he was standing, then I did the same for his partner, but I didn't let go of their throats. I just loosened my grip a little, so they could talk.

"He drove a motorcycle," the guy in my left hand said.

"A red motorcycle," the guy in my right hand said. "That's all we know. I swear it."

"Yeah. Yeah," his partner said. "That's all we know."

A vamp that drove a red motorcycle and went by the name Gavin. Had to be Gavin Eckles. He was hired muscle and would do anything for anybody, if they paid him enough.

I had run into him before. He was working for a bogeyman named Theodore Wexell. Teddy, as he liked to call himself, was kidnapping young women and draining them of their youth. Which is where that old phrase, don't let the bogeyman get you, came from.

Gavin Eckles cleaned up after the women disappeared, making sure there was no evidence left behind, evidence that would tell the authorities what happened to the women. Unfortunately for Teddy, Hiram Bernard found a piece of that evidence and passed it on to me before Gavin could get to it. I had no idea where Gavin Eckles lived or who he hung out with, but I could find out. The city might be big, but the supernatural community isn't.

Before I looked for Gavin Eckles, I needed to take care of the two clowns in front of me. And while it was against the law for a supernatural to kill a human, it wasn't against the law to rough them up a little, especially if it occurred during the commission of a crime.

That's why I banged their heads together, kind of like Moe with Larry and Curly. I didn't bang their heads hard enough to kill them, just hard enough to knock them out, and maybe give them a couple of concussions. Then I called the police.

Chapter 2

I was well acquainted with the two uniforms that arrived on the scene after I called the cops. The older guy was John Simkins. A fat middle aged cop that made fun of me when I first joined the force. The younger one was Doug Wert. I stayed at his place for awhile when I was being hunted by assassins. The only other mermaid in town, Savanna Green, was still staying there.

"No no," Simkins said, climbing out of the passenger's side of the black and white Dodge Charger. "We're not taking this call if you're here."

"Relax," I said. "There's nobody here but me and a couple of unconscious drug addicts." Simkins looked around, checking to see if someone was hiding in the shadows. No big surprise. The last time they answered a call and found me waiting for them, a fireball throwing elf set their shirts on fire, sending both men to the hospital. The good news was the burns they suffered turned out to be minor, probably because I managed to activate the building's sprinkler system before the fires got too big.

"What's up?" Doug said, climbing out of the driver's side. He was about my size, with broad shoulders, large biceps, and sandy blond hair.

"Couple of drug addicts tried to break into the place."

"And what?" Simpkins said. "You just happened to be driving by and stopped them?"

"Someone broke in a couple of days ago. I was hired to catch them."

"Why would drug addicts want to break into a mortuary?"

"That's a question best answered by a drug addict," I said.

Simkins looked at the two men lying at my feet. "What did you do to them?"

"We were playing three stooges. I was Moe."

"You banged their heads together?" a grinning Doug said.

"Just hard enough to knock them out."

Simkins looked into the back of the empty van. "I'd still like to know what they were planning on stealing."

Coffins?" I could've told them the truth, but Edward Tibit insisted I keep quiet about the missing bodies.

"What would they do with coffins?" Doug asked.

"Some of those things run as much as ten grand," I said. "You could sell them for a tenth of the price and still make a tidy profit."

"Especially if you're a drug addict in need of a fix," Simkins said.

"Yeah, but who would you sell them too?" Doug asked.

"There are some shady funeral parlors in this city," Simkins said. "Run by various mobs. I wouldn't be surprised to learn they're dealing in stolen coffins. Among other things."

Simkins bent down and looked at the arm of one of the unconscious thieves.

"Track marks?"Doug asked.

Simkins nodded. "Dozens." He straightened up and looked at me. "You mind putting them in the back of the cruiser. I'd do it, but my back has been acting up."

"Probably because the human back wasn't designed to support a stomach that big," I said.

Simkins didn't fire back like he normally did, instead he just smiled, and said, "Guess I could lose a little weight."

Now that was strange. Simkins and I had been exchanging barbs for over ten years. In fact, he was the one that started it. It wasn't like him to be nice, especially when I was flinging arrows at him.

I grabbed the first guy, tucked him under my right arm, and carried him to the cruiser. Doug opened the back door and I tossed him in, then I grabbed the second one and tossed him in. Both men were still unconscious and they slumped against each other, making it look like they were making out.

Doug shut the cruiser's back door and looked at me. "How's the stomach?"

I had taken three bullets to the gut not too long ago. Most bullets can't penetrate my dense muscle tissue, but these weren't most bullets. They were hollow points fired from a forty-four Magnum.

I was wearing sneakers, jeans, and red tank top, so I pulled the tank top up and showed Doug my abs. He leaned down and took a close look, as did Simkins.

"There isn't even a scar," Simkins said. He straightened up. "We still got our scars from that fireball your elf threw at us."

"Which you should be glad of," I said. "A lot of women find scars sexy."

Normally, Simkins and I threw a lot of barbs at each other, but since he was being nice, I figured I would respond in kind. Although I wasn't really sure why he was being nice, maybe he was on some kind of meds that mellowed him out.

Simkins looked at Doug. "You take those two losers back to the station. I'll drive their van to impound."

"You're not supposed to drive at night," Doug said.

"I'm not supposed to drive the cruiser at night," Simkins said. "Because my night vision isn't good enough to engage in a high speed chase, but I'm perfectly capable of driving within the speed limits."

Doug nodded, climbed in the cruiser, and headed toward the station. Simkins watched him go then grinned. "Kid worries too much."

"You're in a good mood," I said as he shut the van's rear doors and waddled toward the driver's door.

"Been seeing one of the nurses that took care of me when I was being treated for burns. Girl's a regular nympho in bed."

That explained why Simkins was in such a good mood. He was finally getting some, something that probably hadn't happened since his wife left him five years back.

"Guess what they say is true, some women have no taste, especially when it comes to men." I tried, but I just couldn't let Simkins go without tossing one last barb. I guess what they say is true, old habits are hard to break. Much to my surprise, Simkins didn't fire back.

"You want to know the best thing about her?"

"Not really," I said.

"She's twenty-two years old," a grinning Simkins said. He climbed in the van and started it up. It backfired a couple of times, but ran.

"I'm happy for you," I said.

"There is one thing," Simkins said

"Which is?"

"She saw you on the news, when you took the three bullets, and wants to meet you. It seems she's a bit of a fan."

That explained why Simkins was being nice to me. He must've told his twenty-two year old nympho girlfriend that him and I were buds and that he could introduce us.

"We're having a barbecue this Saturday," Simkins said. "You should stop by."

He drove off before I could answer, leaving me to wonder how long I could milk this. I dismissed that thought and headed for the Del Sol. I had a vampire to find, a vampire named Gavin Eckles.

***

Normally, when I needed to find a vamp, I would go to a nightclub called O Positive, talk to the man that owned it. Titus Hawthorn was the oldest vampire in the city. I say was because Titus was dead. Not vampire dead, I'm talking a pile of ash dead.

He hired me to protect him from another, even older vamp, and I failed. The other vamp didn't kill him, an elf killed him. An elf that I brought in to help me deal with the other vamp.

Titus's club was still closed, as were his other holdings, pending the reading of his will. I had no idea who would inherit his empire. He was a vamp, and like all vamps, couldn't have kids. Which meant he had no heirs.

If I wanted to find Gavin Eckles, I would have to use one of my other resources. The problem with that is none of them knew as much about the vamp community as Titus did. I figured my next best option was Nicholas Wormby, a gnome that owned a pawnshop just a couple of blocks from my condo, which was just a couple of blocks from the beach.

No, I don't live in a coral castle at the bottom of the sea. No mermaid does. That's a myth. The fact is, it's cold and dark at the bottom of the ocean. Nor is there a lot happening down there. Just some weird looking fish swimming around. Plus, I can't breathe under water. I'm not a fish, I'm a mammal. I can hold my breath, hold it for hours on end, but eventually, I have to come up for air, just like whales and dolphins.

Wormby and I have a business relationship. He keeps his ears open for stories of sunken treasure and when he hears something, I check it out. If the treasure is valuable, I bring it back and we split it. Unless it's something shiny, something I just have to have, like gold, or silver, or rubies, or emeralds. If that's what I find, I put it in the vault in my condo and tell Wormby I didn't find anything. Yeah, I know, I'm ripping him off, but it makes up for the times I bring the treasure to him and let him sell it. I have little doubt that when I do that he short changes me.

Why do I keep the shiny things? It's simple, I'm a mermaid, and like all mermaids, I'm obsessed with collecting shiny things. If a mermaid doesn't have a shiny shiny treasure to stare at she can go into a deep dark depression. I can't tell you why we're that way. I can only tell you that's the way we are.

After my morning swim, something I do every day, I headed for Wormby's Pawnshop. I was wearing a green bikini that matched my emerald green eyes. A silk scarf that fell to mid thigh and had a beach scene on it, was wrapped around my waist. Flip flops were on my feet. Sunglasses hid my eyes.

It was always my eyes that gave me away, told people that I wasn't human. Mermaid eyes are bigger and brighter, and in my case, greener than human eyes.

"I got a bone to pick with you," Wormby said when I entered his shop.

Like all gnomes, he was short and ugly. He had a big nose with a wart on the end. One eye bulged out while the other was always squinting. His huge lips covered a full third of his face, and he had cauliflower ears, even though he had never been a boxer. He was also bald, all gnomes are, even the females.

He was wearing spandex. Shiny blue spandex bike shorts and a shiny yellow spandex shirt. He even had a little blue and yellow cap, making it look like he was about to enter the Tour de France. And just for the record, if there's one thing you don't want to see, it's a gnome in spandex.

Wormby was behind the counter at the back of the shop. As soon as I entered, he popped out, so he was right in front of me. I should probably mention that popping is an ability that's unique to gnomes. One second they're here, poof, the next second they're somewhere else.

"I don't know why I didn't discover this spandex stuff earlier," Wormby said. He stared at his crotch. "Check out the way it shows off the package."

I glanced down, although I'm not sure why I did it. Probably for the same reason that people slow down to stare at car wrecks, perverse curiosity. Sure enough, there was a good sized bulge in the front of Wormby's shorts.

Perhaps I should mention that gnomes don't have a lot of manners. If you're holding an expensive dinner party, the last person you want to invite is a gnome. They fit in much better at frat parties.

"You stuff some socks in there or something?" I said.

"Just happy to see you," a grinning Wormby said.

I don't know who introduced him to spandex, but if I ever found out who it was, I was going to strangle them.

"I need a favor," I said.

"I already did you a favor," Wormby said. "I paid for the chopper that flew your boyfriend back to shore when that cop shot you."

"Which I appreciate," I said. "Now, I need you to do a darknet search for me."

The darknet was the part of the internet that dealt with illegal activity. It was also the part of the internet that a lot of supernaturals liked to use. Since Gavin Eckles was muscle for hire, I figured he had to advertise his services somewhere, probably on the darknet. You had to have the right software to access the darknet. I didn't have that software but Wormby did.

"What do I get in return?" Wormby said.

"What do you want?"

"I need a date," Wormby said. "For the gnome ball."

"The gnome ball? I didn't know there was such a thing?"

"Once a year, all the male gnomes in city get together for dinner, drinks, and dancing. We call it the gnome ball."

"I didn't know there were that many gnomes in the city."

"We like to keep a low profile, but there are a few hundred of us around."

"Did you have anybody in mind?" Hopefully not me.

"I was thinking that elf that was staying with you. What did you say her name was, Gladrielle?"

She's not here anymore."

"Where'd she go?"

"Montana."

"What's she doing in Montana?"

"She found a couple hundred disenfranchised elves like herself and convinced them to start a new family. Savanna found a town that was for sale, so they bought it."

"Where'd they get the money to buy a town?"

"Some of them have been living and working in the human world for quite awhile, so they had some money stashed away. I covered the rest."

"Why would you do that?"

"Because it was my fault she got banished."

Wormby sighed. "So find me another date."

"Like who?"

"How about Savanna?"

Savanna was Savanna Green, the only other mermaid in town. She was younger than me, a little taller, and had blond hair compared to my red hair. She also liked Wormby, so I was pretty sure I could convince her to go to the gnome ball with him.

"I think I can convince Savanna to go with you," I said.

"You have to come too," Wormby said.

"Why do you need both of us?"

"All the gnomes that attend the ball try to out do each other, try to bring the best looking date. A mermaid ain't quite as good as an elf, but two mermaids is almost as good as an elf."

"Who did you take last year?"

"A wisp."

I glared at Wormby. "Was it the one that spoke French and tried to kill me?"

"What difference does it make?" Wormby said. "That was last year. Besides, I didn't win anyway."

"Win what?"

"The pot of gold that goes to the gnome with the best looking date."

"You award a pot of gold to whoever brings the best looking date?"

"We're gnomes," Wormby said. "Nobody would show up if there wasn't some kind of a prize."

"Fine," I said. "We'll both go with you. But if you win pot we get one third."

"Twenty-five percent," Wormby countered.

"Deal," I said.

Wormby rubbed his hands together and grinned. "I'm sure to win this year, unless somebody shows up with an elf."

"Has that ever happened before?"

"Nope."

"Who won last year?"

"Doesn't matter," Wormby said. "That was last year. Now what do ya want?"

"I need you to do a darknet search for me."

"What am I looking for?"

"A vamp by the name of Gavin Eckles. He works as hired muscle to whoever can afford him."

Wormby turned and headed for his office, which was nothing more than a closet at the back of the room. I followed. The odds were pretty good that Gavin Eckles was using the darknet to promote his services, and even if he wasn't, someone on the darknet would know how to get in touch with him.

Chapter 3

Sure enough, Gavin Eckles had a web sight on the darknet, promoting himself as the vampire that could get the job done. I had Wormby leave him a message, telling him that I was interested in hiring him, and asking him to meet me at the Denny's restaurant just off the beach, around nine o'clock that evening.

Most vamps can't go out in direct sunlight, so it wouldn't do any good to ask Gavin to meet me for lunch. Even if he was awake, he wouldn't and couldn't come out until after sunset.

Since we had run into each other before, I couldn't let him see me sitting there waiting for him, so I told him that I had blond hair and blue eyes. I figured I could get Savanna to front for me, although I would probably have to buy her a meal. That was one of the reasons I selected the local Denny's. If I had to buy Savanna a meal, I didn't want it to be at an expensive restaurant. When you consider how much mermaids eat, well, buying one of us a meal can get expensive.

I had the rest of the day to myself, so I figured I'd stop by the college where my boyfriend, Dr. John Cook, worked. He had a doctorate in marine biology and taught several classes. I'm not exactly sure what he taught, other than it had something to do with fish and the ocean. To be honest, I'm not nearly as interested in fish as John is, perhaps that's because I've spent more time with them.

John isn't a merman, he's human. The fact is, mermen are extremely rare. I've never even seen one let alone met one. That's because mermaids rarely give birth to boys. I guess that's nature's way of ensuring the survival of the species.

John's the first boyfriend I've ever had, might be the only boyfriend I'll ever have. Like most supernaturals, I'm not capable of loving someone else. At least I don't think I am. Supernaturals are descended from the Nephilim, who were the sons of fallen angels and human women, fallen angels that lacked the ability to love the God that created them. Not surprisingly, supernaturals seem to lack the ability to love.

That being said, I've always wondered what it would be like to be in love, and to have someone in love with me. No surprise there. I am a mermaid and we're curious about everything. Including love.

John's big and strong and smart, but he does have one weakness. He falls in love way too easily. Plus, he tends to fall in love with all the wrong women. Before he fell in love with me, he was engaged to my arch nemesis, a siren named Crystal. I'd call her an evil siren, but that seems redundant. As far as I'm concerned, all sirens are evil.

I'm probably not the right woman for him either, but at least I was up front about it. I told him that supernaturals, myself included, aren't capable of falling in love. We're controlled by our baser instincts, lust, hunger, fear. Love, compassion, empathy, don't seem to be a part of our makeup.

That being said, I try not to flirt with other men. Not an easy thing to do considering mermaids are natural flirts. I try not to tease other men. Once again, not an easy thing to do considering mermaids are natural teases. I try to take an interest in what interests John, except of course when he starts prattling on about fish, then I tune him out.

That being said, dolphins are fun. I love swimming with dolphins, racing them actually. Although I usually win. Maybe if they added pizzas and pancakes and cheeseburgers to their diet they'd be able to keep up. Killer whales are fun too, especially when they mistake me for a seal and try to eat me. When that happens I usually turn the water between us into a sheet of ice then watch them plow into it. I do get a kick out of that.

Most of my time in the water is spent searching for sunken treasure, trying to add to my collection of shiny things. I'm not as obsessed with building my treasure as Savanna is, but then I already have a sizable treasure. It takes up the extra bedroom in my condo, which I converted into a walk-in vault. It's full of gold and silver and diamonds and emeralds and rubies and pearls. All in Plexiglas containers with spotlights pointed on them.

After leaving Wormby's, I walked back to my place, which is a two bedroom condo on the third floor of a brick building a couple blocks from the ocean. I showered, changed into tan shorts, a green tank top, and matching green sneakers. Then I hopped in the Del Sol and cruised on over to the campus where John taught.

John had a twelve o'clock class, so I reached his classroom just as the class was ending. John was big for a human. He played college football, linebacker, to be exact. When he played, they listed him at six foot four but he says he's closer to six foot three. He weighed two hundred and thirty pounds when he played, but says he doesn't weigh that much anymore. Although he's not sure how much he weighs since he doesn't own a scale.

I consider weight to be a deceptive number anyway. I'm five feet nine and weigh in at just over three hundred pounds. That being said, my measurements are 36-24-36. The reason I tip the scale at over three hundred bills is because of my dense muscle tissue. Not thick. Dense. There's a difference.

"Hey," John said when he saw me waiting for him in the hallway. "What are you doing here?"

He wrapped an arm around my waist and kissed me. It was a long passionate kiss, probably too passionate for a public place, but then that was John. When it came to expressing his feelings, he wasn't what you would call shy.

I could hear several of the girls in the hallway sigh. John had a lot of girls in his class. Maybe they loved fish as much as John did, more likely, they just liked looking at hunky, blond haired, blue eyed professors.

"Thought maybe you'd let me buy you lunch," I said.

"Do I get to pick the restaurant?"

"As long as it's on campus."

John laughed, wrapped his arm around my waist, and headed toward the student union building in the middle of campus. We attracted a lot of attention as we walked across campus. No big surprise. The coeds have dubbed John, Professor Hunky, and I am a mermaid.

There's no such thing as an ugly mermaid. Truth be told, there's no such thing as an average looking mermaid. We're all pretty spectacular.

In the middle of the student union building was a food court. Dozens of tables and chairs occupied the middle of the court. A ring of stalls circled the tables and chairs, offering a variety of foods, pizza, burgers, submarine sandwiches, tacos, burritos, egg rolls. You name it, they had it.

I liked eating there because it was cheap, and I could work my way around the ring without attracting attention. I'd order a pizza, eat it. Grab a burger and fries from the next stall, eat it. Grab a turkey sandwich from the next stall, eat it. Down a couple of tacos and burritos, and well, you get the idea. Since I was ordering the food from different people, nobody gave me funny looks.

John and I had started on a large pizza when another woman approached our table. She looked to be in her late twenties, early thirties, which meant she was probably a professor. She stood about five six, was slim, and had long blond hair that she wore straight. Her eyes were pale blue and she was pretty, not as pretty as me, but pretty enough for a human. She wore tan shorts like me, although hers weren't quite as tight as mine, and a pale yellow blouse. Sandals covered her feet. Her toenails were painted the same bright red as her fingernails, which were the same bright red as the lipstick that covered her full lips.

Her tray contained a salad, a bottle of water, and nothing else. No big surprise since she smelled human. My nose isn't anywhere near as sharp as that of a werewolf, but it is better than a human nose. Like most supernaturals, I can smell the difference between a supernatural and a human. Mostly because all supernaturals have a distinctive smell. Vamps have a dry musty smell. Werewolves smell like wet fur. Gnomes smell like sugar. Bogeymen smell like citrus. Elves smell like flowers. I'm told mermaids smell like sea salt, although I can't detect it.

"Hey John," the blond said as she reached our table. "Mind if I join you?"

She set her tray on the table and grabbed a chair without waiting for a reply. One advantage to being a mermaid is I'm very good at spotting predators, killer whales, barracuda, sharks, perky blond college professors. I could tell from the look in her eyes that this perky predator had set her sights on Professor Hunky. My Professor Hunky.

I cleared my throat, prompting John to speak up. "Oh, ah, this is Sarah Crewe. She's an art history professor. Sarah this is Low Campbell. She's a private detective."

Not this is my girlfriend, Low Campbell, just this is Low Campbell. She's a private detective. Like he was thinking of hiring me.

Sarah took the plastic lid off her salad bowl, poked the salad with her fork, but didn't actually eat anything. I should probably mention that I hate eating with human women, mostly because they don't eat. They just sit there and pick at their food.

That always leaves me with a choice, I can either sit there and starve, or I can eat like I normally do and remind everybody just how different I am. Not surprisingly, I decided that this wasn't the time to remind John just how different I am from normal women.

"How did you two meet?" I asked Sarah. "Marine biologist. Art historian. Not a lot in common there."

"We actually met when we were in college," Sarah said. "John was a football player. I was a cheerleader. We attended a lot of the same functions."

"We lost contact after graduation," John said, picking up the story. "Mostly because I did my graduate work here and Sarah did hers in France and Italy."

"When you're an art historian, you kind of got to go where the art is," Sarah said, flashing a perky smile.

Did I mention that I hate perky blonds with perky smiles. Maybe it's because my arch nemesis, Crystal the evil siren, is a perky blond.

She continued to pick at her salad, not bothering to take a single bite. I decided to wait for her and John to leave before eating my lunch.

"So how does one become a private detective?" Sarah asked me.

"Used to be a cop. Left the force and struck out on my own."

"Mind if I ask why?"

"I'm a mermaid and like most mermaids, I'm not very good at following orders."

"Low was with the force for ten years," John said. "She's the most decorated officer in the city's history."

"You married?" Sarah asked me.

"Not yet," I said. "You?'

"Not yet," Sarah said.

"Sarah was engaged to the star quarterback when we were in college," John said. "But it didn't work out."

"Turned out he was an idiot. I was just too young to realize it." Sarah finally took a bite of her salad, so I took a bite of my pizza. "I guess I don't have to ask how the two of you met."

"I was doing a study on the tuna population," John said. "I wanted to see what's happened to it compared to a study that was done twenty years ago."

"He wanted me to count fish for him," I said.

Sarah laughed. "Did you?"

"Of course not."

John laughed. "She told me I was good looking, but I wasn't that good looking."

"I'd count fish for you any day," Sarah said.

Did I just hear her right? It sounded like she was flirting with my boyfriend. Right in front me.

I wondered what the standard protocol was for normal women when someone flirted with their boyfriend. I knew what the standard protocol for a mermaid was, haul the flirt's skinny ass into the ocean and see how long she could hold her breath. Somehow, I didn't think that was the way human women solved their problems.

"So tell us about your boyfriend," I said.

"My boyfriend?" Sarah said, looking puzzled.

"I just assumed a woman as attractive as you has a boyfriend. If you don't, there must be something seriously wrong with you."

I got that line from a book. Since John was human, not to mention my first boyfriend, I figured I should read up on relationships. Human relationships. So I had been reading every relationship book that I could fine. Books written by humans for humans. I remembered that line from a chapter on predators, more specifically how to stop a female predator from stealing your man.

Sarah smiled. "Actually, I'm between boyfriends right now."

"They say everybody gets dumped, so I wouldn't take it too hard."

"You ever been dumped?" Sarah asked me.

"No, but then I'm new to the dating scene."

"How old are you? If you don't mind my asking."

"I'm thirty."

"And you're just getting into dating?"

"Mermaids live between two to three hundred years," John said. "So Low is just a baby by mermaid standards."

"You mean you're going to look like this for the next two hundred years?"

I shrugged my shoulders and took a second bite of my pizza. A small bite, the kind human women take.

Before Sarah or I could say anything else, John spoke. "If you two ladies will excuse me for a moment, a couple of my students are requesting my presence."

John rose from the table and drifted over to talk to a couple of perky coeds. As soon as he was out of ear shot I turned to Sarah. "Let's get serious here. You're clearly interested in John, who right now is involved with me. So how about you just step aside for say, twenty years. Then when John's too old and wrinkled to interest me, you can have him."

Sarah laughed. "Are all mermaids as blunt as you?"

"Yes."

"How about this," Sarah said. "You and John continue to do whatever it is you do, and John and I will continue to do what we do, and we'll let him decide who he wants to spend the next twenty years with."

Sarah didn't wait for me to respond, she just got up and left. Although she did swing by John and the two coeds that he was talking to. She placed a hand on his back and said something, then she laughed, rubbed his back a little, and walked away, but not without giving me one final glance.

I could deal with vampires, and bogeymen, and gnomes, and elves, and werewolves. I could even deal with Crystal the evil siren. But I wasn't sure I could compete with a human woman for the hand of a man. Mostly because she could offer him something that I never could. Love.

Chapter 4

That evening I swung by Doug Wert's place. Doug was the cute cop Savanna and I stayed with when assassins were trying to kill me. I moved back to my place when my run-in with the bogeyman that hired the assassins ended. Savanna elected to stay there, probably because Doug had more room than I did. He had a two story house, I had a two bedroom condo.

Doug and Simkins were still on the night shift, so Doug wasn't home. Savanna was. I found her stretched out on the sofa, watching Doug's flat screen and snacking on a bag of potato chips.

"You busy?" I said.

Savanna laughed. "Do I look busy?"

"You want to help me with something?"

"What's in it for me?"

"A free meal."

Savanna turned off the television and scrambled to her feet. "Do I get to pick the restaurant?"

"No, but you can order anything you want."

Savanna grinned. "You got a deal."

Like me, she was wearing shorts and a tank top. Where mine were tan and red, hers were both dark blue. Like me, she had sneakers on her feet.

"Mind if I ask you something?" I said as we headed out the door.

'Depends upon what it is."

"Are you and Doug sleeping together?"

Savanna laughed. "Not exactly."

"What does not exactly mean?"

"It means I tease him, mercilessly, even make out with him, but we haven't done it yet."

"Any reason for that?"

"I'm afraid that if I give him what he wants, he'll get bored with me and kick me out, then I'll have to look for a new place to live."

"You can always come back to my place."

"Can I?"

"You gave me three pints of blood, giving you a place to stay is the least I can do. Not that I think Doug will kick you out." I took three hollow points from a forty-four Magnum awhile back, bullets that were big enough and deadly enough to penetrate my dense muscle tissue. That required surgery and that required a transfusion. The only blood in town that matched mine was Savanna's.

"Why don't you think he'll kick me out?"

"You're kind of the perfect girl, blond, beautiful, and you won't begin to show your age for a couple hundred years."

"Yeah, but he's always complaining about the amount of food I eat."

We climbed in the Del Sol. I fired it up and we headed for the Denny's where I asked Gavin Eckles to meet me.

"So what do you need me for?" Savanna said. I told her why I needed her. When I finished, she asked the obvious question. "Is this vamp dangerous?"

The last time I involved Savanna with a vampire, it was a guy known as the Count. The Count just happened to be the oldest and most powerful vampire in the world. It wasn't long before Savanna realized that she was in over her head, way over her head. Mostly because Savanna was nine years younger than me, and not nearly as skilled at controlling water.

"He's just an every day run of the mill vamp. Nothing special."

"I really do need to learn how to control the water that makes up a person's body," Savanna said. "Any suggestions on how to start?"

"Pigeons. Or seagulls."

"Pigeons?"

"That's how I started. My mother took me to the park and told me to feed the pigeons. Then she told me to reach out with my mind until I could feel the water inside their bodies. Once you learn to control the water inside a pigeon's body, controlling the water inside a person's body is easy."

***

We reached the restaurant. I gave Savanna some money to buy a meal and she headed inside. I stayed in the Del Sol, parking it between two pickup trucks so it would be harder to see. Gavin Eckles had seen the car before, so he was familiar with it, just like he was familiar with me.

About ten minutes after we arrived, Gavin Eckles arrived, pulling into the restaurant's parking lot on his red Ducati motorcycle. He parked the bike, climbed off it, and headed inside. He was long and lean, with long dark hair that he wore in a ponytail. He had the dry pale skin you find on all vampires. He worn jeans, a black tee shirt, and a black leather jacket.

I climbed out of the Del Sol and followed Gavin into the restaurant. I entered the restaurant to find him sliding into Savanna's booth. Savanna had grabbed the side of the booth that was facing the door, which is exactly what I told her to do. That meant Gavin Eckles had his back to me. I slid into the booth next to him before he even knew I was there, pinning him between myself and the wall.

"Remember me?" I said.

"The mermaid," he growled.

"Actually, we're both mermaids," Savanna said, between bites of the hamburger she was eating.

Gavin glanced at Savanna, taking in her big blue eyes, eyes which identified her as a mermaid. Then he turned back to me. "What do you want?"

"You hired a couple of drug addicts to steal four bodies from Tibit's Mortuary. I want to know what you did with those bodies."

"I gave them to the guy that hired me to procure them."

"Procure," Savanna said. "Sounds like somebody has been studying his dictionary."

"Give me a name," I said.

Gavin grinned, a smug grin. "I can't do that."

"Why not?"

"I have a reputation for confidentiality. It's why I'm in such high demand."

"Confidentiality," Savanna said. "My my. You have been studying your dictionary. Such a smart little vampire."

"Your reputation for confidentiality is about to end," I said.

Gavin grinned, a smug grin. "Yeah, what are you going to do? Freeze the water inside my body like you did before? Hate to break it to you, but if you do that, the last thing I'll be able to do is talk."

"Actually, I'm going to do the opposite."

I reached out with my mind, to the water that made up his body. He had about half the water in his body as a living being, closer to thirty percent than sixty percent. Then I ordered the water inside his body to heat up, I ordered the blood flowing through his veins to heat up, I ordered the water in the cells that made up his body to heat up.

Gavin tugged on the collar of his tee shirt. "Is it unusually warm in here or is it just me?"

"It's definitely you," Savanna said as she wolfed down her burger, fries, and chocolate milkshake.

"I ordered the water inside your body to heat up," I said. "And if you don't tell me what I want to know, I'll order it to boil."

"It's an extremely effective way to kill a vampire," Savanna said.

"Extremely effective," I added.

"You know," Savanna said. "You could do to this clown what you did to the Count. Take him for a swim in the ocean until you reach crush depth and the water pressure turns him into a pancake."

"Actually the water pressure at the bottom of the ocean doesn't turn a vampire into a pancake. It turns him into chunks of meat. What fishermen call chum."

Gavin squirmed out of his leather jacket, acting like it was on fire, which it wasn't. It was the water inside his body that was on fire. Well, not exactly on fire, but if I didn't let it return to its normal temperature, it would eventually begin to boil.

"You're the one that killed the Count?" Gavin said to me.

I raised my hand. "Guilty as charged."

"Killing me would be murder."

"Killing you when you were human, back in the what, the nineteen thirties, nineteen forties? That would've been murder. Killing you now that you're a vampire, well, the law says that's self defense."

"You are a vampire," Savanna said. "And we all know how dangerous vampires are."

Gavin tried to stand up on the bench seat that we were sitting on, probably intending to climb over the back of the seat to get away from me. I put a stop to that by placing my hand on his shoulder and forcing him to remain seated. He looked at me, his eyes wide with surprise.

"Yeah," I said, answering the question that was in his mind. "I am that strong. We both are."

Gavin continued to squirm. No big surprise considering how hot his shoulder was. He was strong, but he wasn't as strong as the Count, who hadn't been strong enough to get away from me.

"I've never seen a vampire sweat before," Savanna said.

"Normally they don't," I said. "But the water in his body is beginning to boil. When that happens, some of it seeps out through the pores."

"If you kill me, you'll never find out who hired me," a squirming Gavin said.

"You remember what happened the last time we met?"

"You froze the water inside my body."

"And then?"

"And then you tried to drowned me in the ocean."

"I didn't try to drowned you," I said. "We both know that vampires don't need air to survive anymore than they need food."

"You hit me with those waves."

"And why did I do that?"

A squirming Gavin didn't answer so I squeezed his shoulder, hard enough to make him wince.

"You took my phone," Gavin said. "I was trying to get it back."

"Exactly," I said. "And that's why I can kill you. Because I'm betting that you called the person that hired you to steal those bodies, which means his number is on your phone. And once I have his number, I have him."

"Maybe . . . maybe I deleted his number."

He was sweating profusely, like a fat man in a sauna. His skin had also changed color, going from ash white to a bright pink.

"I don't think you're that bright." I looked at Savanna. "Does he look that bright to you?"

Savanna studied Gavin for a few seconds, then she shook her head. "He really doesn't."

"In about two minutes your insides will start to cook," I said. "And there's no coming back from that, not even for a vampire."

"On the bright side," Savanna said. "You're starting to smell better. Normally vampires have a dry musty smell, but you're starting to smell like chicken soup."

I sniffed the air. "You're right. He does smell like chicken soup."

"All right!" Gavin said. "I'll tell you who hired me, just stop what you're doing. Please."

"I've never heard a vampire say please before," Savanna said. "Did the Count say please before you killed him?"

"We were at the bottom of the ocean," I said. "The Count wasn't really in a position to talk. He just squirmed, kind of like Gavin here is doing, then he broke into hundreds of little chunks."

"Chum," Savanna said.

"Chum," I said.

"I don't know the guy's name," Gavin said. "All I got is a phone number."

"You got more than that."

He really didn't look very good, his ash white face was now a bright red, making him look like a fat man running a marathon in a sauna.

"What do you want from me?" Gavin continued to squirm. I continued to pin him in place with a heavy hand on his shoulder.

"What did you do with the bodies?"

"I delivered them to a warehouse."

"Where's the warehouse?"

"On the north end of town, across from the docks."

"There are a lot of docks in this city," Savanna said.

"Across from which docks?" I said. "Be specific."

"The docks with the cargo containers. The big steel ones that come from overseas."

"Describe the building to me."

It was one of those prefabricated steel buildings. The sides were green, the roof was white."

"Was there a sign on the building?"

Gavin nodded. At least I think he nodded. He was squirming so bad it was kind of hard to tell.

"Kragen," Gavin gasped. "The sign on the building said Kragen Industries."

I removed my hand from Gavin's shoulder and ordered the water inside his body to return to its normal temperature. Kragen was Crystal's last name. Crystal was a siren, as well as my arch nemesis. She tried to steal John from me and was still hoping to steal my shiny shiny treasures. Can't say I was surprised that she was behind this, she was always up to something nefarious. Although I had no idea what she was doing with dead bodies.

"This was fun," I said to Gavin. "We'll have to do this again sometime."

Gavin glared at me. His face had faded from bright red to pale pink and would soon return to its normal ashen white.

I turned to Savanna, said, "You done eating?"

"I am," Savanna said. "Although I'm suddenly in the mood for chicken soup."

We slid out of the booth and stood up. As we did, a waitress brought Savanna her bill. She held the bill out, offering it to Savanna. Savanna looked at it then pointed to Gavin. "He's buying."

The waitress set the bill in front of Gavin and left.

"Don't forget to leave a tip," I said to him.

Gavin glared at me, but didn't say anything. I headed for the exit and Savanna fell in alongside of me.

"Crystal Kragen," Savanna said. "You seem to run into her a lot."

"She wants my treasure."

"What do you suppose she's doing with dead bodies?"

"I have no idea," I said. "But I intend to find out."

Chapter 5

Savanna and I headed straight for the warehouse that Gavin mentioned. We found it exactly where he said it was, across from the docks with the cranes that unload those big steel cargo containers.

The building was both long and wide. It was one of those prefabricated steel structures with green sides and a white sloping roof. A ten foot high chain link fence surrounded the building and its parking lot. The front of the building contained four semi-truck sized garage doors on its right. The left hand side of the building contained a green steel door that people could walk through. To the left of that door was a large window, the only window in the building, probably part of an office. Above that door was a sign that said, Kragen Transport.

There were no cars in the lot, just half a dozen semi trailers with the words Kragen Transport written across their sides in blue and yellow lettering. There were no lights in the the building's lone window.

"Crystal sure does own a lot of stuff," Savanna said.

Crystal was actually the person that brought Savanna here. She spent a lot of money looking for sunken treasure only to have that treasure snatched out from underneath her snooty little nose by me. Well, me and Wormby. Wormby found out where her people were looking for treasure and passed that information on to me. I investigated. If there was a treasure, I snatched it out from beneath her people's noses. Crystal decided to bring in a mermaid of her own and advertised for one on the internet. Savanna answered the ad, but I convinced her that working with a siren wasn't a good idea.

Later, Savanna betrayed me to a bogeyman, but she did it for a shiny shiny necklace, so I forgave her. We've gotten along fine since then. I showed her where to find pearls so she could build up her treasure and she donated blood when I got shot.

The man that shot me was a cop that was under Crystal's influence. Sirens aren't big or strong or fast but they do have the power to control others by whispering into their ear. Men seem to be especially susceptible to their powers.

"Crystal's a siren," I reminded Savanna. "They have a much longer life span than we do. God only knows how old she is."

"What do you suppose she's doing with dead bodies?"

"Whatever it is, it ain't good."

'We going to break in and investigate?"

"Breaking and entering is against the law."

Savanna looked at me and grinned. "So we're going to break in?'

"Of course we're going to break in." I reached behind my seat and pulled out a box of latex gloves, the kind doctors and nurses wear. "But we're not going to leave prints."

I wasn't worried about our leaving strands of hair behind. Mermaids don't shed hair like humans do. My hair wasn't as long as Savanna's, which reached to the middle of her back, but it had grown back to shoulder length since I cut it short.

I parked the Del Sol down the block from the warehouse, so it wouldn't arouse suspicions, then Savanna and I hiked back to the warehouse. I formed a stirrup with my hands. Savanna stepped into it and I tossed her over the ten foot high fence. Then I jumped up, grabbing the top of the fence and pulling myself up and over in one smooth movement.

We went to the door on the left hand side of the building and simply kicked it open. No alarms went off in the building, although that didn't mean a silent alarm didn't go off at some security company. Even if one did go off, they wouldn't call the cops. Crystal was engaged in too many nefarious activities to let the cops poke around one of her buildings.

"No alarm," Savanna said.

"Unless there's a silent alarm."

"At the police station?"

"More likely at some private security company. I can't see Crystal involving the police in whatever scheme she's up to."

Savanna looked around the giant warehouse. "Doesn't seem to be much going on here."

She was right about that. There didn't seem to be much in the warehouse other than wooden pallets stacked with cardboard boxes and wrapped in plastic. The boxes on the pallets contained a little bit of everything, from electronics to toilet paper.

"Just your average run of the mill warehouse," I said. "Looks like they store stuff that comes off the ships that pull into port until it can be shipped out to wherever."

"Why do you suppose they brought those bodies here?"

"Maybe they used it as a storage depot until the bodies could be shipped to their final destination. Or maybe they used it as a transfer point so Gavin and the drug addicts he hired wouldn't know where the bodies were going. Think about it. If you hired Gavin to steal bodies, would you want him to know what you were doing with those bodies?"

"Nope," Savanna said.

"Neither would I."

Since there wasn't anything to see in the main part of the warehouse, Savanna and I slipped into the small office directly to our left. The wooden door leading into the office was locked, but opened with a swift kick. There wasn't much in the office, just a desk, some filing cabinets, and a desktop computer.

"Not much here," Savanna said.

"Let's take the computer," I said. "Might be something on its hard drive."

Savanna and I began to unplug the keyboard, monitor, and printer from the back of the computer. Just as we finished, I could hear a car roll to a stop directly in front of the warehouse.

"We got company," I said, tucking the computer under my arm and heading back into the main part of the warehouse.

"Cops?"

I sniffed the air, there was a new smell, one that wasn't there when we first arrived. It smelled like wet fur. "Werewolves."

A second later the door we came in opened and a pair of werewolves burst into the warehouse. Both were male, both were big, both were dressed in black. Black boots. Black pants. Black shirts. Sewn onto the left breast pocket of their shirts was a yellow and black patch that said Blackwolf Security. In the middle of the patch was a picture of a growling wolf.

"You two better have a good reason for being here," the werewolf on the right said.

He had short black hair, unlike his partner, who wore his shoulder length black hair in a ponytail. These two werewolves were obviously from the same pack, although it wasn't a pack that I was familiar with, but then werewolves were always breaking off to form new packs.

I looked at Savanna and grinned, then I turned back to the werewolves and gave them my best airhead accent. "You know, my friend and I were like, using our computer, when it went on the fritz. So like, we didn't know what to do. Then my friend here said, maybe we can borrow one of Chrissy's computers. So like, we called her up and said, Chrissy baby, our computer's on the fritz, can we, like, borrow one of yours? And she like said, anything for you babe, take whichever one you want. And this one was the closest, so like, we took it."

"I don't know who this Chrissy is, but you're not taking anything out of this warehouse."

"Chrissy Kragen," Savanna said, imitating my accent. "Her name's, like, on the building."

"Maybe they can't read," I said. "They are werewolves, and like, werewolves aren't the sharpest tools in the shed. At least, like, that's what I hear."

I twirled my hair around my finger, figuring it added to my airhead image.

"How did you know we're werewolves?" the werewolf on the left said.

Savanna and I looked at each other, then Savanna cocked her head sideways and pointed at the patch on the man's chest. "Duh. It's, like, on your chest."

Just for the record, teasing werewolves isn't as much fun as teasing vampires, possibly because vamps have absolutely no sense of humor, while werewolves, a few of them anyway, have a small sense of humor. That being said, it's still fun.

"Put the computer down," the werewolf on the right said.

"Like, make me," I said.

"We can smell you," the werewolf on the left said. "We know you're not human."

"Which means we can do anything we want to you with no legal repercussions."

"Ditto," I said, dropping the airhead accent. I set the computer on the warehouse's concrete floor and pushed it several feet away from us. Then I straightened up and looked at Savanna. "You ready."

"How strong do you think these werewolves are?" Savanna asked as she braced herself for their attack.

"Somewhere just below vampires."

"So they're not as strong as Gavin Eckles?"

"Naw, but they do like to bite, so when you hit them don't hold back."

"Holding back has never been my style," Savanna said.

Werewolves are shapeshifters, like mermaids. They can change form anytime they want, and are forced to change form during a full moon, although I have no idea why. I only know that's the way it is.

These two changed form. Actually, they changed form from the neck up. Their heads changing from human heads to wolf heads, complete with muzzles and fangs.

"Follow my lead," I said to Savanna.

Before the werewolves could rush us, we rushed them, moving at full speed. I grabbed the werewolf on the right by the front of his shirt and the waistband of his pants. Then I tossed him straight up into the air, as hard as I could.

The werewolf on the right flew straight up, smashing into the building's metal ceiling, which was a good forty feet high. He hit it so hard that he bent the steel sheeting. A second later the exact same thing happened to his partner. A second after that the two werewolves crashed back to the warehouse's concrete floor, bouncing a couple of times before settling on their stomachs.

Both were unconscious. I knew they were unconscious because their heads transformed back into their original human shape. There was no blood, but I had little doubt that both men had several broken bones. Not that it mattered, supernaturals have accelerated metabolisms and heal quickly. A day or two and they would be back to normal.

I grabbed the computer off the concrete floor and we headed out the door and into the parking lot. The security men left the gate open so we didn't have to climb the fence. I tossed the computer in the trunk and we drove off.

"You think there's anything on that computer concerning the dead bodies?" Savanna asked as we headed back to Doug's place.

"Probably not," I said. "You'd have to be pretty stupid to keep a digital record of stolen bodies."

"But you're going to look anyway."

I nodded. "I'm going to look anyway."

Which is what I did. After dropping Savanna off at Doug's place, I returned to my condo, hooked the warehouse's computer up, and did a detailed search of the records on its hard drive. Everything that had passed through the warehouse over the past twelve months was listed on that computer except for the four dead bodies that were stolen from Tibit's Mortuary.

I tossed the computer in a garbage can just off the beach and went for my morning swim. When I finished, I changed into a black pantsuit and headed for the downtown section of the city. Titus Hawthorn's will was being read today and I was one of the people that had been invited to attend.

Titus was the city's oldest and most powerful vampire, at least until the Count came to town. Titus hired me to protect him from the Count. I failed. Sort of. The Count didn't kill Titus but an elf I brought in to help me handle the Count did kill him. Although not intentionally. But then that's another story.

Titus had been around for a thousand years, so he had a lot of assets. Including a thirty story steel and glass tower located in the downtown section of the city. Since vampires are sterile, he had no heir. That meant his assets would be dispersed to whoever he wanted to give them to.

I had no desire to attend this meeting, mostly because I didn't need to be reminded that I had failed, failed to protect Titus, failed to keep him alive. Titus's attorney insisted I be there, so I would attend, whether I wanted to or not.

His attorney's office was located in the thirty story tower that Titus owned, so I parked in the lot directly across the street. A lot I was familiar with because Titus owned a nightclub located at the top of the building. A club called O Positive. The club had been closed since Titus's death.

The building contained an exterior elevator that led directly to the club, that was the one I usually used, but not this time. This time I headed into the first floor lobby and used one of the inside elevators, riding it up to the twentieth floor.

The elevator door opened to reveal a reception desk. On the front of the reception desk was the name of the law firm, Gordon, Dewey, and Howe. It looked like the firm occupied the entire twentieth floor.

I told the pretty brunette sitting behind the reception desk who I was and why I was there. She escorted me to a conference room dominated by a big oak table. Elvis vamp was there, as were a dozen more of the people that worked at Titus's club, O Positive. Half of them were vampires, the other half were human.

And no, Elvis Presley isn't a vampire. Elvis vamp's real name is Tony. I just call him Elvis vamp because he looks like a young Elvis Presley, complete with the thick black hair and sideburns.

"Vamps out during the day," I said to no one in particular. "This is unusual."

"Not really," Elvis vamp said. "The glass in this building repels ultraviolet light, so the sunlight can't hurt us here. Plus most of us live here."

"I'm sorry about what happened to Titus," I said.

"Not your fault," Elvis vamp said. "Titus knew his time was up when he learned the Count was coming to town."

I didn't bother to mention that the Count didn't actually kill Titus. No one actually knew that except me and a few elves. In the end I guess it didn't matter, if the Count hadn't arrived, Titus would still be alive.

A silver haired man in an expensive gray suit entered the room through a side door, grabbing everyone's attention. He moved to the head of the table, set a folder on it, and looked us over.

"My name is Jason Howe," he said. "I'm Titus's attorney. As you all know, Titus died in an encounter with the Count. That of course was confirmed by a DNA test on the pile of ash that was identified as his remains. We are here today for the reading of Titus's will and the dispensation of his assets."

Jason Howe opened the file in front of him, glanced at it but didn't pick it up or try to read it.

"Titus was a vampire, and like most vampires, he didn't have much to say, other than he led about as good a life as a vampire could lead.

"Moving on to the disposition of his assets. He leaves his nightclub, O Positive, which comprises the top two floors of this building, to the club's employees in the form of a private corporation, the stock of which will be distributed equally to the twelve of you here. The six vampires that maintain a residence in this building, which as you know are all on the floor directly below O Positive, will be given ownership of those residences.

"The other twenty-seven floors of this building, as well as the gentleman's club on the south end of town, not to mention his estate and collection of exotic automobiles, he leaves to Low Camelia Campbell."

Chapter 6

I wasn't sure I heard right. It sounded like Titus left the bulk of his fortune to me, which made no sense whatsoever. Particularly since I was the one that got him killed. Kind of got him killed.

"He left his fortune to me?" I said.

"He did," Jason Howe said.

"Why?"

"He said he never did much good in his life, at least not since he became a vampire, said he wanted to leave his fortune to somebody that would do something good with it."

"And he thought that was me?"

Jason Howe never had a chance to answer because the door burst open and somebody walked into the room. It looked like Titus Hawthorn, sort of. I say sort of because, he was shorter than Titus. Titus stood about six foot two. This guy was about my height, five nine, maybe five ten, but no more. Other than that he looked just like Titus, same blond hair, same blue eyes, same square jaw.

"It seems the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated," the Titus lookalike said.

He even sounded and dressed like Titus. Same deep commanding voice, same shiny gray suit. If he hadn't been four inches shorter than Titus, I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.

"Who are you?" Jason Howe asked the Titus lookalike.

"Who do I look like?"

"You sort of look like Titus Hawthorn. Except you're shorter than he was, considerably shorter."

So I wasn't the only one that noticed this guy was shorter than the real Titus. That raised the obvious questions. Who was this guy and where did he come from?

"I'm Titus Hawthorn," the lookalike said.

"No you're not," I said. "The real Titus Hawthorn was at least four inches taller than you."

Elvis vamp stood up and walked over to the lookalike. They were the exact same height. "She's right. The real Titus was taller than me, while you and I are the same height."

The Titus lookalike smiled. "I can see why you guys don't want to admit that I'm still alive. You were about to inherit my assets and you don't want to give them up. But the fact is, I'm still alive, as you can obviously see."

"This presents a problem," Jason Howe said. "I can't distribute Titus's assets when there's someone here claiming to be Titus. On the other hand, I can't turn Titus's assets over to this man because we all seem to agree that this man isn't Titus Hawthorn."

"Probably some con artist thinking he can steal Titus's assets," Elvis vamp said. He was still standing in front of the lookalike, glaring at him. "Are you even a vampire?"

The Titus lookalike bared his fangs, then he grabbed Elvis vamp and tossed him across the room. Elvis vamp sailed over the table we were sitting at. He landed on his feet, jumped over the big table, and landed directly in front of the Titus lookalike. Then he threw the Titus lookalike across the room.

The Titus lookalike sailed over the big table and crashed into the wall at the far end of the room. He hit it face first and slid to the floor, unconscious.

"I never would've been able to do that to the real Titus," Elvis vamp said. "The real Titus was older and stronger than me. This guy might look and sound like Titus, but he's not as old or as powerful as the real Titus."

"Even so. I can't distribute Titus's assets until we can prove this man is not in fact Titus Hawthorn." Jason Howe turned to me. "I understand you're a private detective."

"You understand correctly," I said.

"Since you have a vested interest in this, perhaps we can ask you to get to the bottom of this."

"You want me to find out who this guy is and where he came from?"

"We all do."

The others sitting at the table nodded in agreement.

"Fine," I said. I rose from my seat and walked over to the unconscious lookalike. He was lying on his stomach on the room's plush gray carpet. I picked him up and slung him over my shoulder in a fireman's carry. "I need some place private. Where I can question this guy."

Jason looked around. "We can clear out and give you this room."

"I'd prefer someplace smaller. Where I can crowd him, intimidate him a little."

I followed Jason to a small office that was set aside for a paralegal, but was currently unoccupied. It was about eight feet wide by eight feet long. The exterior wall contained a floor to ceiling tinted glass window. A large wooden desk occupied the middle of the room, a high backed black leather desk chair sat behind it, gray carpeting covered the floor, there was nothing else in the room.

"Will this do?" Jason Howe asked me.

"It's perfect," I said.

I set the still unconscious Titus lookalike in the desk chair then sat on the edge of the desk directly in front of him.

"You prefer to be left alone?"

"You can stay if you want," I said. "It's up to you."

"I'd like to stay," Jason Howe said.

"Fine with me."

"Who do you think he is?"

"I've been working on another case. Somebody stole four bodies from a mortuary. My gut tells me that these two cases are connected."

"How do you figure that?"

"Just seems a bit of a coincidence. Four bodies disappear, then some guy shows up claiming to be Titus Hawthorn."

"You're thinking someone got a hold of some of Titus's DNA and used it to reanimate one of those dead bodies."

"According to the news, scientists have been experimenting with supernatural DNA, seeing if they can use it to heal various diseases that have been inflicting humanity."

Jason nodded. "Instead of healing those bodies the supernatural DNA takes them over, literally turning the person injected with the DNA into a copy of the supernatural being the DNA came from."

"A clone," I said.

"An imperfect clone," Jason said. "For whatever reasons the DNA doesn't make them taller or shorter."

"So they say."

"And you're thinking that someone injected one of those stolen bodies with Titus's DNA."

"It would explain where those bodies went and where this guy came from."

"We know that supernatural DNA alters live bodies," Jason said. "But can it reanimate a dead body?"

"It might be strong enough to reanimate it," I said. "If you inject the supernatural DNA into live stem cells then inject those stem cells into the dead body."

"Even if that was possible, how would they get a hold of Titus's DNA?"

"Titus didn't like drinking his blood from a plastic bag. He liked drinking it from the thigh of a leggy blond. He paid most of those blonds to let him dine on them, so it wouldn't be inconceivable to assume that someone else paid one of those girls to grab a lock of his hair, or some other form of his DNA."

Jason nodded toward the Titus clone, who was finally waking up. "Here's your chance to find out."

The Titus clone rubbed his forehead and looked around. "What happened?"

"You lost consciousness," I said. "After being thrown against the wall by a vampire one thousand years younger than you."

"That doesn't make sense," the Titus clone said.

"It certainly doesn't," I said. "Unless of course you're not the real Titus Hawthorn."

The Titus clone smiled. "If I'm not Titus Hawthorn, then who am I?"

"We think you're a clone. A clone made from a dead body that was stolen from a mortuary a couple of days ago. What we want to know is who turned you into a Titus clone and where is their lab?"

I didn't need to ask who was funding this operation. I already knew, Crystal, my arch nemesis, was obviously behind this. And I knew why she was doing it. If I gained control of Titus's fortune, I would be as rich as her. Which would put our rivalry on an equal footing. Not that you could ever consider a siren to be the equal of a mermaid.

"I don't know what you're talking about," the Titus clone said. "I'm Titus Hawthorn and I can prove it."

"How?"

"You're Low Campbell, ex-cop, private detective, mermaid. He's Jason Howe, human attorney. We've known each other for years."

"That doesn't prove anything," Jason said. "Any six year old could figure out who we are with just a little bit of work."

"How about this," the Titus clone said, looking at me. "A bogeyman that was trying to kill you hired a professional assassin, several assassins actually. One of them was a wisp. She came to my club in the form of a cloud of smoke, tried to suffocate you. You used your power to control water to turn on the overhead sprinkler system which drenched the wisp and turned her back into her physical form. You then picked her up by the arms and gave her to me as a gift. She was tall and skinny and spoke French."

"All of that is true," I said. "Except I didn't give her to you. I gave her to the real Titus. The one that was too strong and too powerful to get thrown across a room by Elvis vamp."

"Tony," the Titus clone said. "His name is Tony."

"How does he know all of this?" Jason asked.

I shrugged my shoulders. "Must be some sort of genetic memory."

"Is that even possible? To encode someone's memories into their DNA?"

"Not for humans."

"What about supernaturals?"

I shrugged my shoulders again. "I don't know, but then I'm not a scientist."

"Maybe you should talk to a scientist."

"I'd like to talk to the one that made him." I turned back to Titus clone. "Where's your maker?"

"If you mean the vampire that made me, he's gone. Been gone for close to a . . . ." Titus clone's voice trailed off and he shook a finger at me. "Uh-uh. I know what you're trying to do, you're trying to get me to tell you how old I am."

"I know how old you are," I said. "You're two days old. What I want to know is where's the scientist that created you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I don't think he knows what we're talking about," Jason said. "What's more, I think he actually believes that he's the real Titus Hawthorn."

Titus clone rose to his feet. "I am the real Titus Hawthorn."

I slid off the desk and stepped forward, so I was nose to nose with Titus clone. "The real Titus Hawthorn was five inches taller than me. You and I are the same size."

"Because you're wearing heels."

"No, I'm not."

Titus clone looked at my feet, noticing what I already knew. That I was wearing flats with my pantsuit, not high heels. He seemed surprised and puzzled. Then he rationalized his way around the problem. "You're still young for a mermaid, maybe you're still growing."

I'm not growing," I said.

"What's the last thing you remember?" Jason asked Titus clone.

"Before coming here," I added.

"Waking up in my suite on the twenty-eighth floor."

"What brought you here?" Jason said. "To this office?"

"There was a note on the night stand next to my bed."

"What did the note say?"

"It said: they think you're dead. Let Howe know you're still alive."

"Whoever created him left that note," I said.

Jason nodded. "Brought him into the building last night, put him in Titus's bed, gave him something that would wake him up, and left him that note."

"That looks like one of Titus's suits," I said. "And it fits him perfectly, which it shouldn't."

We turned to Titus clone, to see how he'd respond.

"The suits in my closet didn't fit all that well," Titus clone admitted. "So I called in a tailor, had him make a few adjustments."

"When did this happen?" Jason asked.

"This morning, before I came here."

"Didn't you find that odd?" I said. "That your suits didn't fit you?"

Titus clone shrugged his shoulders. "I thought maybe I had lost weight."

"Vampire's don't lose weight," I said. "Nor do they get fat."

"What's the last thing you remember before waking up this morning?" Jason asked Titus clone.

I understood what Jason was looking for. If supernatural DNA did contain genetic memory, then Titus clone's last memories would give us a clue as to when Crystal and her flunkies acquired the real Titus's DNA.

Titus clone smiled. "I spent the night with the most magnificent creature."

"When was that?" Jason asked.

"Shortly after Low gave me the wisp. "

I turned to Titus clone. "This magnificent creature have a name?"

"Crystal Kragen."

Chapter 7

I wasn't surprised that Crystal was behind this scheme. Nor was I surprised that she had been working on it for over six months. I had been snatching treasures out from underneath her snooty little nose for over two years, so she had plenty of time to plot and plan her revenge.

I was surprised that she decided to acquire Titus's DNA herself. She usually got other people to do her dirty work for her. Like when she used her seductive siren powers to convince a cop named Walter Francis to shoot me.

For all I know, she might have used her powers on the original Titus, tried to turn him against me. Being a thousand year old vampire, Titus would've been too powerful for her to turn.

"That was over six months ago," I said.

"What was over six months ago?" Titus clone said.

"I gave Titus that wisp over six months ago."

"No you didn't, you gave her to me a couple of days ago." Titus clone wrinkled his brow. "Didn't you?"

I shook my head. "No."

Titus clone looked at Jason Howe then at me. "So where have I been the last six months?"

"You didn't exist six months ago. Although it sounds like Crystal and her scientists have been working on this project for quite awhile."

"Sounds like she's been collecting DNA for quite awhile," Jason said. "I wonder how big a data bank she has?"

I was betting she had collected a fairly large data bank of DNA. Crystal was a busy little beaver, hanging out with anybody and everybody in the city that was halfway important. I bet she even had some of John's DNA, although John certainly wasn't anybody important. Well, he was important to me, which is why she got involved with him in the first place.

Did I think she created a clone lab just so she could ruin my life. Hardly. Crystal was like a lot of supernaturals, like a lot of people, she lusted after money and power. I suspect her little clone lab was just another scheme to get her more money and more power. If she could use it to ruin my life in the process, well, that was an added bonus. And what better way to test her cloning process than by making clones of people that could screw up my life.

The question was, where was her clone lab? It certainly wasn't in that warehouse we broke into. Probably wasn't in the place where John used to work, the Kragen Institute for Marine Research.

Then again, that might just be the perfect place to hide a clone lab. It was already full of scientists, would anybody notice one more? One that had no interest in fish and seaweed and crustaceans and cephalopods. Maybe I needed to check that place out.

"Have six months really gone by since you gave me that wisp?" Titus clone asked me.

"They have," I said. "But I didn't give the wisp to you, I gave her to the other Titus, the original Titus."

"The real Titus."

I nodded. "The one that hired me to protect him from the Count."

"The Count is here?" Titus clone said.

"He was. He's dead now."

"Who's the Count?" Jason asked.

"He was the world's oldest vampire."

"How'd he die?"

"I killed him."

Jason didn't ask me why I killed the Count and I didn't tell him. He probably just figured it had something to do with Titus's death. Which it did.

Titus clone sat down in the leather desk chair. "So I'm not Titus Hawthorn?"

"You're not the original Titus Hawthorn," I said. "You're a clone, near as we can figure, you were created a couple of days ago."

"Do I look like Titus Hawthorn?"

"Except for your height, you look and sound exactly like him."

"But I'm not him."

"No."

"Why do I have his memories?"

"Supernatural DNA is encoded with genetic memory. Meaning the DNA they used to create you contained the original Titus's memories, right up until the day they harvested that DNA."

"Which is why I don't remember the last six months."

I nodded.

"So what happens to me?"

I looked at Jason. Titus clone did the same. "You're not Titus, you're merely someone that looks and sounds like him, so you don't own this building, or any of his other properties for that matter. Those will be distributed according to his will. In regards to what happens to you . . . perhaps you should take that up with whoever created you."

"That's just it," Titus clone said. "I don't know who created me."

"No clues at all?" I said.

Titus clone shook his head. Then he looked at Jason. "Can I stay in Titus's suite?"

Jason shrugged his shoulders. "Don't ask me, ask Low. She's the new owner."

Titus clone turned to me. "I got no where else to go. And, well, the real Titus doesn't need it anymore."

I looked at Jason. "There's nothing in there that he can cause trouble with is there?"

Jason shook his head. "It's just an apartment. An opulent apartment designed for a vampire, but an apartment none-the-less."

"Which means the window glass is like this stuff, designed to screen out the ultraviolet rays that can kill a vampire."

"The entire building contains that glass," Jason said. "Titus insisted on it when he built the place."

"Titus built this place?" I don't know why that surprised me but it did.

"Back in the seventies," Titus clone said. "Before you were born."

"You can stay there for now," I said to Titus clone. "Until I can figure out what to do with you. But I don't want you causing trouble, which means going around trying to convince people that you're the real Titus."

"You want me to have Tony keep an eye on him?" Jason asked me.

"That's a good idea." I looked at Titus clone. "If he misbehaves, tell Elvis vamp to toss his clone ass out in midday sun."

"Consider it done," Jason said.

***

After leaving Titus's building, now my building, I decided to join John for lunch. He didn't have a noon class so I caught him in his office and we headed over to the food court in the student union building.

"I need to ask you some questions about the Kragen Institute for Marine Research," I said as we walked across campus. We were holding hands. Once again it was John's idea. One of the reasons I liked him so much, he was the only man I knew that wanted to hold my hand.

"That's a part of my life I'd prefer to forget," John said.

It was a warm summer day. A gentle breeze off the ocean was making the leaves of the palm trees that littered the campus rustle. Students sat on the grass, studying, eating, flirting.

"I understand that," I said. "But this is important."

"How important?"

"Crystal's making clones."

"Clones?"

"I went to the reading of Titus's will this morning and a clone showed up claiming to be Titus."

"Did he look like Titus?"

"An exact duplicate, except for one fact, he was four inches shorter."

"That's how you knew he was a clone."

"That and the fact Elvis vamp was able to toss him around like a rag doll. Something he could have never done to the real Titus."

"When scientists injected dying people with supernatural DNA, it turned them into clones of the supernaturals they took the DNA from," John said. "I remember the story from the news."

"The supernatural DNA overwhelmed the human DNA," I added. "But could supernatural DNA could reanimate a dead body?"

"Splice the supernatural DNA into stem cells, inject those stem cells into the body, it might be enough to reanimate the body, assuming the person hadn't been dead very long, supernatural DNA does have amazing healing properties." John looked at my stomach, where I had recently taken three shots to the gut. "You're proof of that."

"Which is why scientists thought they could use it to heal dying humans."

John nodded. "Except it didn't quite work out that way."

"Somebody stole four bodies from a mortuary a couple of days ago," I said. "They delivered the bodies to a shady vamp I know, who delivered them to a warehouse owned by Crystal."

John stopped walking, let go of my hand, and faced me. "You think Crystal is turning those dead bodies into clones?"

"I don't know what other use she'd have for dead bodies. Plus, it seems a bit of a coincidence. Dead bodies are transported to a warehouse owned by Crystal, the next thing I know, a Titus clone shows up at the reading of Titus's will."

"And you're thinking Crystal's clone lab might be located in the building where I used to work."

I shrugged my shoulders. "You tell me."

John took my hand and we continued our stroll across campus. "The building does have a lot of labs and scientists, but most of them are marine biologists like me."

"You never noticed one or two scientists that didn't hang out with the rest of you, that didn't seem interested in fish or the ocean?"

"There were a couple of guys that worked in the basement. Never learned their names because they didn't eat lunch with the rest of us. The only time I ever saw them was in the lobby, when we were waiting for the elevator."

Had to be Crystal's clone scientists. At least now I knew what Crystal did with the bodies after they left the warehouse. She had them transported to the place where John used to work. There just wasn't anything the police could arrest Crystal on. It was against the law to clone humans, but it wasn't against the law to clone supernaturals. It was against the law to steal dead bodies, but I was pretty sure no one would be able to trace those stolen bodies back to Crystal. She would just point out that she has a lot of holdings and a lot of employees, way too many to keep track of twenty-four seven.

Even if I couldn't bring Crystal down, I could put an end to her clone lab. Although I wasn't exactly sure how I would do that. I couldn't just break into the place and burn it down, well, I could, the police were quick to investigate break-ins of human property, but a bit slower when it came to property owned by supernaturals. The law and the police exist to protect humans and their property, supernaturals are pretty much on their own, which is why Crystal was using werewolves to protect her warehouse.

Not that breaking into the clone lab would put an end to it. Crystal would just set up the lab somewhere else. I needed to get to the scientists that were making the clones. Otherwise Crystal would just keep sending clone after clone to ruin my life. And yes, Crystal is that petty. But then, she is a siren.

"So tell me what these two scientists look like," I said as we neared the student union.

***

I decided to start lunch with a cheeseburger and fries. And a chocolate shake. John opted for the same meal. We had just sat down at a table in the middle of the food court when Sarah Crewe approached, once again carrying a tray with nothing on it except a small salad and a can of diet soda.

I was tempted to use my power to control water to send the soda out of the can and up her snooty little nose. And as a side note, what is it with blonds and tiny noses? Just once I'd like to see a skinny blond with a honker the size of a motorboat.

I was tempted to use my power to splash her with her soda, but I didn't. If I did that, John would know it was me. I didn't want him to think that I was petty and vindictive, even though I was and am.

"Mind if I join you?" she said, looking at John and ignoring me.

"Have a seat," John said.

Sarah Crewe set her tray down and slid into a seat directly between John and myself. Then she looked at me. "Low, isn't it?"

She knew damn well what my name was. You don't tell someone you're going to steal her boyfriend and then forget her name.

"Interesting how the two of you always seem to eat lunch at the exact same time of day," I said. "John eats at one, you eat at one. John eats at twelve, you eat at twelve."

"Life is full of coincidences," Sarah said. "But actually I'm here for a reason."

Once again, she picked at her salad but didn't eat it. John was eating his burger and fries, so I decided to eat mine. Maybe he preferred a girl with a healthy appetite instead of an anorexic in the making.

"What's that?" John said, between bites of his burger.

"The art history department is having another one of those wine and cheese parties they're always hosting, I was wondering if you'd like to accompany me. You know how I hate being the only person at those things without a spouse or a date."

"What are they celebrating this time?"

"The department head's twentieth anniversary at the school."

"I guess it's kind of up to Low," John said, looking at me. "If she's willing to loan me out for an evening, I'll be more than happy to join you."

Sarah looked at me and smiled. A smug smile that reminded me of Crystal. I wondered if there was a special school where they taught that kind of stuff to skinny blonds with snooty little noses.

Smug Smiling 101. Advanced Smug Smiling 201, 202, and 203. "You don't mind if I steal your boyfriend for an evening?"

An evening. Ha. She made it perfectly clear the last time we ran into her that she wanted to steal him for more than an evening.

"Of course not," I said, forcing a smile that I wasn't really feeling. "He's all yours. Just make sure you remember to return him."

"I guess that means I'm available," a grinning John said.

Men can be so dense. John clearly had no clue as to what was going on here, just like he had no clue as to what Crystal was up to when they got engaged. Thank god he had me to look out for him.

As luck would have it, Sarah decided to celebrate her little victory by opening her soda. When she did, I ordered the carbonated water in the can to spray out of it and drench her in the face. Yeah, I know. I wasn't going to do something that petty and vindictive, but that was before I knew she was going to ask John out on a date, right in front of me.

Besides, carbonated beverages spray out of those cans all of the time. No way John could prove that I did it. When she opened the can, the soda flew out of it and hit her in her smug little face, soaking it, and her hair, and the front of her expensive white cashmere sweater. Too bad she opted for a Diet Coke.

I grabbed a paper napkin off my tray and wiped the front of her sweater with it, just so John wouldn't suspect that I was behind Sarah's little accident. The fact that I ended up smearing the Diet Coke into her sweater, permanently staining it, was just an added benefit.

"This is why I always order milkshakes," I said. "You never have to worry about them spraying out of the can."

Sarah seemed at a loss for words, finally, she pushed her chair back and stood.

"Go," John said, before she could figure out what to say. "Just send me a text, letting me know when and where you want to meet."

Sarah nodded and scurried off, doing her best to ignore the giggling students that were staring at her. When she was out of earshot, John looked at me and said, "You didn't have anything to do with that did you?"

"What? Suddenly I'm behind every can of soda some kid shakes before handing it to one of his professors?"

John held up both hands. "You're right. I shouldn't have accused you. It's just that . . . ."

"It's just that what?" I said, taking a bite of my cheeseburger.

John picked up Sarah's can and held it upside down. Nothing came out. It was completely empty. "It's just that I've never seen every single drop fly out of the can, not like it did this time."

I shrugged my shoulders and took another bite of my cheeseburger, all the while trying to to look as innocent as I could. "Maybe he shook it extra hard."

"Why would he do that?"

"Maybe she flunked him."

John raised a quizzical eyebrow but didn't say anything else, proving the once in great while, the mermaid does win one. Granted it was a small victory, but I've learned to take then when and where I can get them.

Chapter 8

While John spent the evening flirting with Sarah at some wine and cheese party, I spent it watching the Kragen Institute for Marine Research.

The Kragen Institute for Marine Research was located a few blocks south of my condo, but while my condo was a couple of blocks from the ocean, the Institute, as John always called it, was located right on the ocean.

It was a four story white brick building. The front of the building faced the street that ran parallel to the ocean. The back faced the ocean. Directly across the street was a parking lot reserved for the people that worked in the building. Directly above the building's front doors, black letters attached to the white brick wall identified the place.

The back of the building ran right up to the ocean. It even contained docks with boats, some bigger, some smaller, all named and numbered, Siren's Song One, Siren's Song Two, Siren's Song Three, and so on. The biggest boat was a yacht named Siren's Delight. I had encountered that one before, out on the ocean searching for sunken treasure.

The building's top floor contained a balcony, at least at the back of the building. This was clearly Crystal's castle, and that top floor, the one with the balcony overlooking the ocean, was where she ruled her little domain. I had little doubt that the building was heavily guarded and that it would be hard, if not impossible, to break into it.

I didn't scout the building from the front, I was familiar with the front of the building from when John worked there. I scouted it from the ocean. I changed into a green bikini and hiked the two blocks from my condo to the beach.

Once I was in waist deep water, I removed my bikini bottom and wrapped it around my wrist. Just because I could change form didn't mean my clothes could. When you spend as much time in the water as I do, you learn to carry things around your wrists or neck or waist.

I don't carry my keys on a key chain like normal people, I carry them on a chain that I wear around my neck.

Once my bikini bottom was off, I changed form, which requires no more effort than moving my arm. I think about changing form and it happens, and just for the record, it isn't painful. All I feel is a tingle, kind of like when your foot falls asleep, then wakes up when the blood starts to flow into it.

I should point out that a mermaid's tail is always the same color as her eyes. I have green eyes so my tail is green. Savanna has blue eyes so her tail is blue. And just for the record, we don't have scales, probably because we're not fish were mammals, just like whales and dolphins. And just like whales and dolphins we can hold our breath, hold it for a long time, but just like whales and dolphins, we have to come up for air.

Once I changed form, I headed south, swimming at a leisurely pace, well, leisurely for a mermaid. My top speed is around seventy miles an hour, one of the advantages of having such dense muscle tissue, not to mention a heart that's twice as big and beats four times as fast as a human heart. The downside to all of that is I need to consume at least seven thousand calories a day or I'll lose weight.

When I reached the Institute, I just drifted in the water, watching the activity. It was evening, so none of the boats were out on the water, they were all tied to the docks. I never paid much attention to the place, not even when John worked there. Of course, when he was working there we weren't dating, we were nothing more than friends with benefits. I didn't even know that his boss was a siren. I didn't learn that until he told me that they were engaged.

I wasn't looking for the two scientists that John described to me, I was just checking the place out, to see what kind of security it had. Not surprisingly, the security was fairly heavy. A two man team circled the building as soon as the sun went down, actually it was a two werewolf team. They wore the same uniform the guards at the warehouse wore, black pants and black shirts with a yellow patch on the left breast pocket.

If this was the place where Crystal had her clone lab then the security would be even heavier inside, locks, electronic surveillance, and more werewolves. Rather than try to break into the place, I figured my best bet would be to sit in my car, stakeout the front of the building, then snatch one of the two scientists that John mentioned, the two that didn't associate with the marine biologists. Force the guy to tell me what Crystal was going to do with the other dead bodies that she stole.

I was about to turn and head back to my beach when a man in a white lab coat exited the back of the building, walked to the end of one of the docks, and called out, "It's time to come in."

I could hear a splashing to my right and turned to look. I saw a tail splash in the water, a violet colored tail. Whoever or whatever it was swam to the dock where the man in the lab coat was standing.

A second later a head poked out of the water. A head with red hair, mermaid red, which is more of a cherry red rather than an orange red or a brown red. The man on the dock squatted down and offered the woman a hand. She took it and he pulled her out of the water. That's when I saw her face. It looked exactly like mine.

They had made a clone of me. Can't say that I was surprised, one of the bodies that was stolen was a female. I didn't need to ask where they got my DNA. I took three bullets to the gut recently. Hollow points fired from a forty-four Magnum.

I left a lot of blood on the sidewalk, and of course, Crystal was there, she had used her siren's voice on Walter Francis, a friend of my father's and my old boss, convincing him that I was deadly and needed to be put down. I had little doubt that Crystal managed to grab some of the blood I left lying on the sidewalk.

I wasn't sure why she thought she needed a Low clone. Maybe she figured a Low clone would make it easier to gain access to my treasure. Maybe she thought my vault used a lock with a facial scan, or a retinal scan, or something like that. Which it didn't. You opened it with a key, a key that I wore around my neck twenty-four seven.

Before the Low clone was completely out of the water, I made my move, swimming to the dock she was about to climb on. When I reached it, I grabbed her by the ankle, pulled her back into the water and headed north, moving back toward my beach at full speed while dragging the Low clone with me.

She might have looked like me, but she wasn't me. Which meant she wasn't as strong as me. She tried to free herself from my grip but she failed. In less than a minute, we reached my beach. Okay, I didn't own the beach. It was a public beach, but it was the beach that was closest to my condo and the one I used every day.

I let go of the Low clone's ankle and turned to face her. As soon as she saw me, she went into a panic. "Oh god! It's you."

She might have sounded like me. Personally, I didn't think she did, but then we always sound different when we hear ourselves on a recording, so who knows.

I did know I wasn't going to waste time arguing with her, not in the ocean, not in front of a public beach that still had people on it, so I punched her in the head, delivering a right hook to the temple, one that was hard enough to knock her out.

While she floated in the water unconscious, I unwrapped my bikini bottom from around my wrist, changed my tail back into my legs, and slipped my bikini bottom back on. Then I picked up the unconscious Low clone and carried her out of the ocean.

It was evening, but there were still people on the beach, groups of young people sitting around campfires, couples strolling, one or two surfers.

"She okay?" one guy asked me as I passed him.

"Just unconscious."

"Do you want us to call an ambulance?"

"Not necessary."

"What happened to her?"

"Hit her head on a rock."

"How come she's naked?"

"We come from a poor family," I said. "Can only afford one bikini. Today was my turn to wear it, tomorrow is hers."

I encountered several more people on my way back to my condo. They all wanted to know what happened to her. I told them that we were attending a beach party and she had a little too much to drink.

When I reached my condo I deposited Low clone on the sofa, then I slipped into my bedroom and changed into black jeans, a black tee shirt, and black sneakers.

Low clone was still unconscious when I came out of the bedroom so I grabbed a glass of water from the kitchen and threw it in her face. The water did its job and woke Low clone up.

She was groggy at first, but as soon as she saw me standing over her, she had another panic attack. "Oh god! It's you." She started to hyperventilate, something I had never seen a mermaid do. Ever. Being able to control our breathing, being able to hold our breath for hours on end, is something we specialize in.

"Calm down," I said. There was a paper bag sitting on the coffee table in front of the sofa, one that some takeout Chinese food came in, so I grabbed it and handed it to Low clone. "Breathe into this."

She grabbed the paper bag, covered her nose and mouth, and breathed into the bag.

I gave her a minute, then said, "Better?"

Low clone nodded, she lowered the bag from her face, and said, "Please don't kill me."

It was pretty clear that she was afraid of me, which made no sense considering we had never met. But as I thought about it, I realized that it kind of did make sense. Crystal and her scientists created her, and from what I had seen, were in the process of educating her.

They couldn't release her into the world without indoctrinating her, convincing her that I was some sort of evil killer. Otherwise Crystal could end up with two Low's running around and that was the last thing she wanted. She needed to convince Low clone that I was crazy, or evil, or deranged, before releasing her into the world.

I forced myself to smile, hoping that it would help Low clone relax. "Now why would I want to kill someone with a face as perfect as yours. That would be doing the world a great disservice."

Low clone just stared at me, not quite sure what to make of my attempt at humor. Finally, she said, "You're trying to get me to relax by using humor."

Of course she would know that. She was me. Not an exact copy of me. Her eyes were violet while mine were green, which explained why her tail was violet. But she appeared to be about my height, with my shoulder length red hair, my face, and my body. And she would have all of my memories, right up to the point where Crystal convinced Walt to shoot me.

She would also have a few memories that I didn't have, like from the time she woke up at the Institute to a half hour ago, when I grabbed her and brought her over here.

"I am trying to get you to relax," I said.

"Why did you bring me here?" Low clone asked. She looked around, noticing where she was. "This is home."

"This is my home. You don't have a home."

Low clone nodded. "Sometimes I forget. I have to remind myself that my memories aren't really mine, they're yours. It's just that they seem so real."

"You want some clothes?" I said.

"I'm used to going without," Low clone said. "But I guess it's up to you."

"They don't give you clothes at the Institute?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I don't know why," Low clone said.

"Yes you do." If she was me, she knew why. She just didn't want to admit it, admit that the people that created her didn't really care about her.

I realized right then that I had found my client for this case, the person that needed my help the most. Yes, Edward Tibit hired me to find the people that stole his bodies and make sure they didn't do it again. And yes, Jason Howe hired me to find out who created the Titus clone, so he could verify that the Titus clone wasn't the real Titus, but neither of them needed my help. Not really.

Edward Tibit's mortuary would survive with or without its government contract. Edward might be a little poorer if he lost his contract, but he would survive. And Jason Howe would find a way to close out Titus's estate even if I couldn't prove the Titus clone was in fact a clone. He was a lawyer and finding ways around things was what he did.

Low clone was the one innocent person in this mess. She didn't ask to be created. She didn't ask to be thrown into the middle of my feud with Crystal. She didn't ask to be indoctrinated by Crystal. She didn't ask to be used as a pawn.

My dad, who was a career cop, told me that in any given case, I needed to find the little guy, I needed to find the most innocent person involved, and once I found that person, I should focus on helping them. Who would've thought that the most innocent person in this case would have my face.

"They were afraid that if they gave me clothes, I might run away," Low clone said, answering the question I asked.

I headed for my bedroom. As I disappeared into the room, Low clone called out. "Thank you."

I grabbed a pair of tan shorts and a red tee shirt, brought them into the living room and tossed them to Low clone. She caught them, stood up, and slipped into them. "They told me that you're evil. That you can't be trusted."

"You have my memories," I said. "You know that's not true."

"You've killed people."

"Not people, bogeymen and vampires. Even then, I've only killed those that were hurting others, hurting the innocent."

Once she had my clothes on, Low clone looked even more like me. Same height, same figure, same face, same hair, only her eyes were different. I had no idea why that was, other than they had yet to perfect their cloning process.

"Dad . . . your dad taught you that?"

I nodded. "He did."

"So you're not going to kill me?"

"No."

"They told me that you're evil, that you can't be trusted."

"They were brainwashing you, trying to turn you against me."

"How do I know you're not trying to brainwash me?"

"You have my memories," I said. "Right up until Walt shot me. And you know who convinced him to shoot me."

Low clone nodded, then said, "The two men that created me were nice to me. I think they even cared about me."

She might have had my memories, but she was only a couple of days old. Not surprisingly, she was way more trusting than I was, way more innocent than I was. Despite the memories in her head, she still believed, or wanted to believe, what people told her.

"Maybe they do care for you," I said. "But that didn't stop them from following Crystal's orders. And we both know that Crystal can't be trusted."

"So what are you going to do with me?"

"I'm going to help you find a new life. A real life, not one where they lock you in a cage every night." I paused to smile. "Of course it'll have to be in a different city. If you stay here, you could get mistaken for me, and as you know, that could get you killed."

"Why would you do that?" Low clone said.

"They used my blood to make you, which means you're part of me."

Low clone did something unexpected right then, she walked up to me and hugged me. The she said something I never expected to hear. "Thank you. Mom."

Chapter 9

"You do know I'm not your mother," I said as Low clone hugged me.

"You kind of are," Low clone said, releasing me and stepping back. "I'm formed from your DNA. That kind of makes you my mother. Or as close to a mother as a clone can have."

"What did they tell you about me?"

"They told me that if you learned of my existence, you'd kill me."

"Despite having my memories, you believed them."

"They told me that I couldn't trust the memories in my head. They said that you're deranged."

"They convinced you that the memories in your head are the product of a deluded mind?"

Low clone nodded. "Something like that."

We were interrupted by a knocking on the door. The building's front door, the door that led to the lobby was locked. All the time. If somebody wanted to see you, they had to use the building's intercom system, get you to release the electronic lock. The fact that somebody was knocking on my third floor door meant that they had already got past the front door. Maybe they followed somebody else into the building, more likely, they broke the lock.

Just to be safe, I turned to Low clone, and said, "Go into the bedroom and stay there."

Low clone nodded and disappeared into the back bedroom. Once she was out of sight, I went to the door and opened it. Crystal, the evil siren was there, along with two werewolves wearing the black uniforms with the yellow patches on their shirts.

"I want my clone," Crystal said.

She was short, barely five foot two. She had long blond hair that she wore straight, and pale blue eyes. She appeared to be in her early twenties, looking more like a college cheerleader than a supernatural that was hundreds, if not thousands, of years old. In truth, I had no idea how old Crystal was. She was always trying to project an image of a sweet, young, innocent ingenue. If there were three things that Crystal Kragen wasn't, it was sweet, young, and innocent.

She was wearing a black spaghetti strap evening gown which made me think that I interrupted something important when I snatched Low clone from her people.

"You realize that you're going to have to pay for that lock your goons broke," I said.

"I want my clone back," Crystal repeated.

"I'll tell you what," I said. "If I ever see a clone of you, I'll be more than happy to return her to you, airmail."

One of Crystal's werewolf bodyguards must've took that as a threat, which it was, because he took a step toward me, moving alongside of Crystal. Like most werewolves, he was big, a couple of inches over six feet, with broad shoulders, narrow hips, and long black hair that he wore in a ponytail.

I turned my attention to the werewolf. "You might want to take a step back there, Rover, cause you ain't that tough."

To let him know that I meant business, I reached out with my mind, to the water that made up over sixty percent of his body, then I ordered that water to boil.

The werewolf's skin turned pink, then red. At the same time be began to sweat, profusely.

"What's happening to me?" he said as he began to dance around.

"I ordered the water that makes up your body to boil," I said. "You'll be dead in about three minutes. Maybe four if you're as tough as you think you are."

"Don't hurt him," a voice behind me said. It was Low clone. "The guards were always nice to me."

I had no intention of killing him, I just wanted to scare him a little. So I reached out with my mind a second time. This time I ordered the water inside the werewolf's body to return to its normal temperature. In a matter of seconds, the redness faded from the werewolf's face.

Crystal pointed at Low clone. "You need to come with us. Right now."

Low clone shook her head. "No."

"You either come with us or we'll make you come."

I stepped directly between Low clone and Crystal. "Not as long as I'm here you won't."

"I'm not going back to that place," Low clone said. "I'm staying here. With my mom."

I winced when she she called me mom, although I'm not sure why. Maybe because I wasn't her mom, maybe because I was having trouble with a fully grown clone thinking of me as her mom.

"She's not your mother," Crystal said.

"Yes, she is," Low clone shot back. "I come from her blood."

She was standing right behind me, glaring at Crystal over my shoulder. I realized right then that Low clone was just a child. She may have looked like me. She may have sounded like me. She may have had my memories, but emotionally, she was still a child.

The scientists might have given her the body of an adult. They might have given her the face of an adult. They might have given her the memories of an adult, but they couldn't give her the emotions of an adult, only time could do that.

"You lied to me," Low clone said. "You told me my mom was deranged. But she's not, she loves me, and I'm staying with her."

Low clone stuck her tongue out at Crystal. No doubt about it, emotionally she was still a child. Which explained why she was so quick to believe me when I told her that Crystal and her people lied to her about me.

"I want her back," Crystal said, turning her attention to me. "Now."

"Or you'll do what?" I said.

"I'll go to the police."

I laughed. "As far as the police are concerned, you're persona non grata. But then that's what happens when you try to use your siren powers to convince one of them to kill me."

"She's my property," Crystal said. "I created her. She belongs to me."

"You created her out of a body which you stole. You created her out of DNA that you took from my blood, which most definitely didn't belong to you. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the stem cells you spliced my DNA into, and injected into the stolen body, also didn't belong to you."

"Let's talk about stuff that doesn't belong to you," Crystal shot back. "Like all those treasures you stole from me."

"I didn't steal anything from you," I said. "Those treasures were sitting on the bottom of the ocean. They belonged to whoever got to them first and that just happened to be me."

"I found them. You stole them from my men before they could bring them up from the ocean floor."

I should probably mention that sirens, just like mermaids, are obsessed with shiny things. If a mermaid doesn't have a shiny shiny treasure to stare at she can go into a deep depression. I'm not sure if sirens collect treasure for the same reason or if they're just greedy. Nor do I care. The fact that I snatched eight sunken treasures from underneath Crystal's snooty little nose made me feel as good as staring at those treasures did. Well. Almost.

Crystal stuck a finger in my face. I couldn't help but notice that her fingernail had been polished with a blue that matched her eyes. "This isn't over."

"You're right about that," I shot back.

Crystal turned and walked away. As she passed her two werewolf bodyguards, she said, "That clone is defective. Kill her."

When the two werewolves hesitated, Crystal yelled at them in a voice that was so screechy, we had to cover our ears. "Kill the damn clone!"

She didn't wait to see what they did, she just walked to the end of the hall and disappeared down the stairs. The two werewolves watched her go then turned back to me, then they rushed me, at full speed. They were still in human form, but their growls didn't sound human, they sounded like the snarls of real wolves.

Now werewolves are strong, but they're not strong enough to withstand the water pressure at the bottom of the ocean. I'm not sure there's anyone on the earth that's that strong, other than a mermaid.

When the two werewolves reached me, I hit them simultaneously, as hard as I could, driving the palms of my hands into their sternums. A second later, the two werewolves went flying down the hall, backwards. They crashed into the brick wall at the end of the hall and slumped to the floor. Unconscious.

Both were sitting up, their backs pressed up against the brick wall, their chins pressed against their chests. Both would have broken sternums when they woke up, not to mention headaches, but they were supernaturals, so they would recover quickly. However, it would take them a bit longer to recover from what I was about to do.

I turned and went to the desk that was located against the left hand wall as you entered my condo, then I dug through the top drawer, looking for my laundry pen, the kind that writes in black ink that doesn't wash off.

Low clone followed me to the desk, noticing the framed pictures and commendations that hung on the wall above it, memories from my ten years on the city's police force.

"These things are real," Low clone said, studying them.

"You weren't sure?" I said.

"They told me that you were deranged, that I couldn't believe any of the memories that were inside my head. So, no, I wasn't sure."

I paused to look at the stuff on the wall. I kept it there, on what I called my wall of respectability, because it made my clients feel better, especially my human clients. It made them think that I could be trusted, and that I actually knew what I was doing.

"So those memories I have, of you taking all those bullets, to save those other cop's lives, they're real."

"They're real,' I said. "All your memories are real."

I turned and headed out of the apartment. Low clone followed. Again.

The two werewolves were still at the end of the hall, still unconscious. I walked up to them, pulled out my laundry pen, and wrote on their foreheads, in big block letters that were hard to miss. When I finished writing, I stepped back and turned to Low clone. "What do you think?"

Low clone looked at what I wrote and giggled. "Spot and Rover are popular names for dogs. And wolves are part of the canine family, which is why you wrote those names on their foreheads."

"In waterproof ink," I said. "Wouldn't be much point in doing it if they could just wash it off."

We headed back into the condo.

"Can we get something to eat?" Low clone said.

"What are you hungry for?"

"Anything but fish. That's all they fed me in that place."

I put the laundry pen back and looked at Low clone. "You're kidding?"

Low clone shook her head. "You got to remember mom, I'm only a few days old."

There was that word again, the one that made me wince. I wanted to ask her not to use it, but I held my tongue, mostly because I didn't want to hurt her feelings. She might look like me. She might even have my memories, but she wasn't me. Emotionally, she was still a child.

"So you've never had a hamburger, or a taco, or a pizza, or a donut, or ice cream?"

Low clone shook her head. "Never."

"Well, put some shoes on and we'll go get some."

"Some what?"

I found myself smiling. "Some of everything."

Low clone grinned and scurried off to find some shoes.

***

A couple of well fed hours later, we returned to my condo.

"If I had known how good all of that stuff was, I would've left the Institute the first day I woke up," Low clone said.

"You have memories of my eating all that stuff don't you?"

Low clone nodded. "Yeah, but those memories only told me what the food looks like, they didn't tell me how it smelled or tasted. Or how much better it is than raw fish."

"That's all they fed you? Raw fish?"

"The scientists that took care of me specialize in cloning. I don't think they know all that much about mermaids. The only reason they let me go for a swim in the ocean is because I convinced them that I'd die if they didn't." Low clone yawned, then she looked at me. "Can I ask you something?"

"Ask away?"

"How come our eyes are different colors?"

"And our tails?"

Low clone nodded. "Yours is green."

"And yours is violet."

"Why is that?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I don't know. Maybe the body they used as a platform to create you had violet eyes."

"Supernatural DNA injected into human tissue overwhelms the human DNA," Low clone said. "At least that's what the scientist's told me."

"Apparently it doesn't overwhelm all of it."

It was strange, how Low clone could be so sophisticated when it came to some things, and so innocent when it came to others, but I guess that's what happens when you're born in a laboratory.

"Can I use the bedroom?" Low clone asked me. "I'm kind of tired."

"How much sleep do you normally get?" I asked.

"Four to six hours a night. How about you?"

"About half that."

Low clone nodded. "I told the scientists that four to six hours was a lot for a mermaid. They said that anyone that's just been born requires a lot of sleep, it doesn't matter if you're a baby or a clone."

"Bed's all yours," I said.

When Low clone reached the bedroom door, she stopped and looked back at me. "Mom?"

There was that word again. "Yeah?"

"Can you tuck me in?"

"Did they tuck you in back at the Institute?'

Low clone giggled. "Don't be silly. It's just that I have memories of your mom tucking you in bed when you were little, and well, I've never got to experience that."

"Let me know when your ready," I said.

Low clone grinned and disappeared into the bedroom. A few minutes, later, she called out, "I'm ready."

When I snatched Low clone off that dock, I wasn't sure what I would do with her. I thought I might have to kill her, and was prepared to do just that. The last thing I thought I'd ever be doing was tucking her into bed.

I entered the bedroom to find Low clone standing in the middle of the room wearing blue and white plaid pajama pants and a dark blue tee shirt that said: kiss me I'm a mermaid.

"Hard to tuck you in when you're not in bed," I said.

Low clone scrambled into my bed and pulled the covers up to her waist. I grabbed them and pulled them up the rest of the way. As I turned and headed for the door, Low clone said something that told me just how different we were, something that I had never said in my entire life.

"Mom?"

"What?"

"I love you."

"Go to sleep," I said. I turned out the light and shut the door behind me. Mostly because I didn't know what else to do.

Chapter 10

I wanted to head over to John's place, make sure the man stealing human, Sarah Crewe, hadn't convinced him to dump me at their little wine and cheese party. Problem was, I couldn't leave Low clone by herself. I needed someone that could watch her, someone that could protect her from Crystal and her werewolves. The only person I could think of calling was Savanna.

She couldn't control water like I could, at least not the water inside a person's body, but she was a mermaid, which meant that she was as just strong as me. And that meant she could toss werewolves around like they were dolls. Plus, she didn't sleep anymore than I did, which meant she would be up and around.

"What's up?" Savanna said, when I called her.

"I need you to do me a favor."

"What kind of a favor?"

"I need you to babysit for me, just for an hour or two."

"Babysit what?"

"I found out what Crystal did with the stolen bodies."

"What?"

"Come on over and I'll show you."

"You know babysitters get paid for their time."

"Whatever you want," I said.

***

One half hour later, Savanna was knocking on my door.

"You know the front door to this building is busted," she said when I let her inside. She was wearing tan shorts, a yellow tank top, and yellow sneakers. Like me, she tended to color coordinate her shirts and her shoes. Maybe that's a mermaid thing, maybe it's just a girl thing. I'm not really sure.

"A couple of werewolves broke it."

"Why?"

"They work for Crystal, she showed up, claiming that I have something that belongs to her. Then she tried to take it back."

"She's always making claims," Savanna said. "She claims that I still owe her for the plane trip out here."

I told Crystal that if she hired a mermaid to work for her, then maybe she wouldn't be losing out on so many sunken treasures. She responded by posting an ad on the internet. Savanna answered the ad. Crystal flew her out here. I convinced Savanna that working for a siren wasn't such a good idea, which is how we met.

"Are you going to pay her?"

"No."

"Good."

"So what's this babysitting job about? You get a puppy or something?"

"Not exactly a puppy."

I took Savanna to my bedroom and opened the door. To say that Savanna was surprised was an understatement. I had to put a hand over her mouth just to keep her from squealing.

"What the hell are you doing in your bedroom sleeping when you're in here talking to me?" she said, when I dragged her back into the living room and removed my hand from her mouth.

"Crystal's using the bodies she stole as platforms to make clones."

'Clones?" a stunned Savanna said.

"And she made one of me."

"You know how science fiction that sounds?"

"This coming out of the mouth of a mermaid that grew up in Montana."

Savanna paused for a few seconds then grinned. "Point taken, but why would Crystal make a clone of you? From her perspective, wouldn't another one of you be two too many?"

"She wants me dead. Maybe she thought she could use the clone to get to my treasure after I'm gone."

Savanna nodded. "She did give that cop a forty-four Magnum loaded with hollow points then convince him to shoot you."

"Which is probably where she got my DNA to make the clone."

"So how did the clone end up sleeping in your bed?"

"I was doing a little surveillance on Crystal's Institute, saw the clone swimming, and grabbed her."

"What were you going to do with her?"

"Honestly?"

Savanna nodded. "Honestly."

"I was going to pump her for information, then I was going to kill her."

"Is killing a clone legal? Is cloning legal?"

"It's against the law to clone humans, but it's not against the law to clone supernaturals. It's also not against the law to kill a supernatural. The law treats it as an act of self-defense."

"So it's not against the law to kill the clone of a supernatural."

"Nope."

"But you didn't kill her."

"She's not what I expected."

"I don't understand."

"She looks just like me, sounds just like me, and has all my memories, right up to when Walt shot me."

"But?" Savanna said, realizing there was more to the story.

"She's not an adult. She's a child."

"She looked like an adult to me."

"Physically, she's an adult, but her emotional responses are those of a child."

"Sounds like a lot of men I know."

"She calls me mom." Savanna hesitated for a few seconds, then she burst out laughing. "It's not funny."

"It's kind of funny." She slapped me on the arm. "Maybe this is Crystal's way of getting even with you, sticking you with a kid that looks just like you."

"That's even less funny."

"Did you tell her that you're not her mom?"

"She knows that, but she says I'm the closest thing she has to a mom. Will ever have."

"And you want me to watch her while you go out."

"Crystal's decided that she's defective and wants her dead. She might send some of her goons over here to kill her. They already tried once."

"What kind of goons are we talking about?"

"Werewolves."

"I can handle werewolves," Savanna said. "We got tons of them back in Montana."

"If Low clone wakes up, be nice to her."

"I'm always nice." Savanna followed me to the door. "So where you going?"

"There's a woman that John works with that's trying to steal him away from me, they had a little get together tonight. Thought I'd stop by and see if we're still a couple."

"What kind of a woman?"

"Human."

"Uh-oh," Savanna said. "You're in trouble."

"Because?"

"Because they're much better at this dating stuff than we are. While we're learning how to control water with our minds, they're learning how to charm and manipulate men."

"I'm aware of that," I said.

***

John's apartment was south of my place. Right across from the docks where the tuna boats moored. The building had once been a tuna factory, but had since been converted into an apartment complex.

Before heading over there, I stopped and picked up a pizza, partly because I was hungry, partly because it gave me an excuse for stopping by John's place. I'm not really sure about the rules for being someone's girlfriend, what is and isn't acceptable to humans. Is it okay to drop by your boyfriend's place unannounced after eleven o'clock at night? I have no idea.

My dad, being a man, didn't want to teach me that stuff, and my mom, being a mermaid, didn't really know about that stuff. Mostly because she never dated. She just walked up to my dad one day, grabbed him, and kissed him. They've been together ever since.

John's building had a big parking lot, probably because it used to be a factory. I pulled into the lot, grabbed the pizza, and checked to make sure John's Buel was there. Which it was.

There was no lock on the outside door, like there was on my building, but then there wasn't much inside the building. Just a long hallway with apartments on both sides.

I reached John's door and knocked. It took a few seconds before he answered, only it wasn't him. It was Sarah Crewe.

"Oh," she said, when she saw me. "Didn't expect to see you here."

"I bet not," I said, pushing her out of the way so I could enter the apartment.

If she thought I was just going to roll over without a fight, then she was in for a surprise, because nobody takes my shiny things from me, and John was one of my shiny things. She could have him in twenty years, when he wasn't young and shiny. Until then, he was mine.

"I definitely didn't expect to see you here," I said.

John's apartment didn't have any windows, but it had a high ceiling with rafters and a skylight. John was on the sofa, sleeping. I would've taken that as a good sign except for the fact that he wasn't wearing any clothes. Okay, he had on his shorts, black boxer briefs, but that was it.

I did notice that his pants and shirt and shoes were scattered across the living room floor. I had seen this before. When John drinks too much he gets sleepy, peels his clothes off, and leaves them lying wherever they happened to land. Then he looks for the first comfortable place he can find to lie down and sleep it off.

For her part, Sarah Crewe was still dressed, wearing what you might call the classic little black dress. This one had a wide strap over the left shoulder, and nothing over the right. She wore her blond hair in a chignon, and had four inch red heels.

"This isn't what it looks like," she said.

"Let me guess," I said. "He got bored listening to all your art talk and had too much to drink."

Sarah Crewe nodded. "That's pretty much it."

"John's a big guy, but he's kind of a lightweight when it comes to alcohol." I set the pizza on the coffee table in front of the sofa, walked over to the front door, and held it open. "I'll take it from here. You can go now."

Sarah Crewe walked to the door, then faced me. "I know you want me out of John's life, so I'll make a deal with you."

"What kind of a deal?"

"As you know, I teach art history." I nodded, but didn't say anything. Sarah Crewe continued. "I've been reading up on mermaids. One of the advantages of working at a university. The way I understand it, mermaids keep treasures."

I grabbed a fistful of Sarah Crewe's dress and picked her off her feet. It might have been against the law for a supernatural to harm or kill a human, but it wasn't against the law to scare a human.

"First you decide to take John from me, now you want to take my treasure. You're either the bravest human alive or the stupidest. Right now, I'm inclined to believe that you're the stupidest."

"I don't want to take it," Sarah said. "I just want to see it, examine it from an artist's perspective. There's got to be some really old stuff in there. Right? If you let me see your treasure, I'll leave John alone. I promise."

"You obviously didn't do enough reading, because if you had, you would've learned that mermaids don't show their treasure to just anybody. The last thing I would ever do is show my treasure to somebody that tried to blackmail me." Even John hadn't seen my treasure. The only person who had was an elf I called Gladrielle.

I tossed Sarah Crewe into the hallway, not hard enough to hurt her, just hard enough to make her land on her skinny blond butt.

She picked herself off the floor, straightened her little black dress, and glared at me. "I guess this means the gloves are off. Well, fine. The next time you catch us together, and there will be a next time, it will be exactly what you think." She turned and marched off down the hall, mumbling to herself. "You try to be nice to someone."

I was already at war with a snooty blond siren, why not a snooty blond art history teacher. Maybe I should introduce the two of them. Crystal probably dated most of the artists that Sarah studied, going all the way back to the guys that carved the Sphinx.

I sat down in the chair across from the sofa, ate the pizza I brought over, and watched television. A couple of hours later, John woke up.

"What are you doing here?" he said when he saw me.

"Protecting my shiny things. One of them anyway."

"What's that mean?" John said, sitting up.

He was still a big guy, but he wasn't nearly as muscular as when we met a couple of years back. Of course, he had been doing a lot of diving then, so he still lifted weights. Now that he was teaching, he ran instead of lifting, which gave him a leaner look. Not that he still didn't look delicious, with his blue eyes, tousled blond hair, and square jaw.

"You've lost muscle," I said.

"I forgot how much I hate those wine and cheese parties," John said, rubbing his head. "Especially the ones the art department throws. They spent the entire evening talking about artists I've never even heard of. I got so bored, I must've downed an entire bottle of wine by myself."

"Sounds like you and Sarah don't have a lot in common." Other than they were both human and I wasn't. Not that I said that, the last thing I wanted to do was remind John just how different we were.

John looked at me and smiled. "That makes you happy doesn't it?"

"Little bit."

"You don't like her."

"She wants to break us up. She's going to try to break us up. She told me so."

"Do you want me to avoid her?"

"I just want you to be aware of what she's trying to do."

John nodded. "Consider me forewarned. Anything else I should know about?"

"Crystal and I are at war."

John laughed. "You and Crystal are always at war."

"Usually it's because she's trying to take something from me. First she tried to take you, then she tried to take my life."

"What's she trying to take now?"

"Actually, I took something from her."

John smiled. "Good for you. What'd you take from her?"

"A clone."

John looked at me like I was joking. "You can't be serious."

"Somebody stole some bodies. I was hired to find them. Turns out Crystal took the bodies."

"And she's cloning dead people?"

"She's injecting supernatural DNA into stem cells, then she's using those stem cells to transform and reanimate the bodies, turn them into clones. It's kind of a short cut for making clones. Instead of growing the clone in a womb, you let the healthy supernatural cells heal and transform a fully grown body."

"I'm familiar with cloning," John said. "That process only works with supernatural DNA. You can't make a clone that way with regular DNA. But why would Crystal want to make a clone?"

"Why else? To ruin my life."

"You sure you're not just paranoid?"

"She made a clone of Titus Hawthorn and sent him to interrupt the reading of Titus's will. Does that sound like I'm paranoid?"

"How did you know it was a clone?"

"Because I saw the real Titus burn to death. And because the clone was at least four inches shorter than the real Titus."

"That's one of the problems with using that specific process for cloning," John said. "The size of your clone is limited by the size of the body used as a platform. Of course, if you don't want to wait for your clone to be born and grow up, it's the only process you have."

"And when it comes to me, Crystal doesn't seem to have a lot of patience."

"Guess you know how to push her buttons," a smiling John said. "So you stole the Titus clone from her?"

I shook my head. "Not the Titus clone. Another one."

"Who else did she clone?"

"Me."

John stared at me in disbelief. "She made a clone of you?"

"Yep."

"Fully grown, looks just like you?"

"Except for the eyes. Hers are violet instead of green."

"What are you planning on doing with her?"

"I'm going to protect her."

"You're going to protect a clone of you. One that Crystal made."

"Crystal's decided that she's defective and wants to kill her, so, yeah, I'm going to protect her."

"So what's it like?" John said. "Coming face to face with someone that's exactly like you?"

"She's not exactly like me."

John nodded. "You said her eyes are a different color than yours."

"It's more than that," I said. "She's different from me emotionally, she's more like a child."

"That kind of makes sense. Emotional development is something only life can give us." John patted the cushion next to him and smiled. "You want to stay awhile?"

I looked at John, all lean and hard in his black boxer briefs. I did want to stay awhile. And I did stay awhile.

Chapter 11

It was morning when I got back to my place. Savanna was still there, snacking and watching television.

"A couple hours?" she said when I entered.

"I got distracted. How's Low clone?"

"Slept like a baby."

"No problem with werewolves or anyone else?"

"Nope.' Savanna indicated all the crap on the coffee table. "I did kind of clean out your fridge and cupboards."

"That's fine."

Savanna pushed herself to her feet and faced me. "You said that Crystal took four bodies."

"She did. Three males. One female. All drug addicts in their late twenties, early thirties."

"Which means there are two more clones coming down the pipe."

I nodded. "I'm aware of that."

Our conversation ended with the appearance of Low clone, who shuffled out of the bedroom, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

"Morning," she said. She looked around and smiled. "When I woke up, I thought this was all a dream, but it's not, I'm actually with my mom."

Savanna moved toward Low clone and extended her hand. "I'm Savanna."

Low clone grinned. "I know who you are. I have my mom's memories. You're a mermaid, like us."

"I am," Savanna said. "Do, you, ah, have a name?"

Low clone looked at me. "That's usually the mom's job."

Savanna looked at me. "What do we call her?"

"How about Violet."

Low clone grinned. "Because of the color of my eyes."

I nodded. "Because of the color of your eyes."

"I like it," Savanna said. "Are you hungry Violet?"

Violet nodded. "I am."

"Your mom doesn't have much in the house, so we're going to have to go out. Anything you want in particular?"

Violet grinned. "Can we get pancakes?"

"Pancakes sounds good to me," Savanna said.

"Shower and get dressed," I said to Violet. "Then we'll go get some pancakes."

Violet scampered off to the bathroom. I watched her go, trying to remember if I was ever that innocent, that happy.

"Were you that adorable when you were young?" Savanna asked me when we were alone.

"I'd like to think I was."

Before either of us could say anything else, the front door burst open and six werewolves rushed into the room. They wore identical uniforms, black pants and black shirts with yellow patches on the left breast pocket. Obviously more of Crystal's henchmen sent to kill Violet and myself.

They were in human form, except for their fingers, which had long black claws on the end. They all had black hair, which told me that they came from the same pack.

They were moving too quickly for me to reach out with my mind and touch the water that made up their bodies. That meant we were going to have to take them on in hand to hand combat.

Before I could do anything, Savanna sprung into action, rushing the werewolves with a ceramic rolling pin. I had no idea that I even had a ceramic rolling pin, it's not like I baked. I didn't even do that much cooking.

She cut through the werewolves like a high powered lawn mower with a fresh tank of gas, breaking their hands with the rolling pin and all but making the long black claws at the ends of their fingers useless.

Once she disabled their hands, she went to work on their heads, whacking them with the ceramic rolling pin. One after the other. Before I knew it, six werewolves were lying on the floor, unconscious.

The whole thing probably didn't take more than five or six seconds, but that's how fast supernaturals move when fighting at full speed.

"You weren't lying when you said you could handle werewolves."

"When you take on werewolves, you always go for their their hands first. Mostly because they like to pull out their claws, weaken their opponents by slashing them and making them bleed."

"How did you know I had a ceramic rolling pin?"

"I gave it to you as a gift."

"When?"

"When I was still living here."

"Why would you give me a rolling pin as a gift? You know I don't bake."

Savanna grinned. "I gave it to you because it makes a great weapon."

"How come I don't remember you giving it to me?"

"Probably because I didn't tell you about it. I just bought it and set it on the counter in your kitchen."

"In case we ever had a run-in with werewolves?"

Savanna shrugged her shoulders. "You do tend to get into a lot of conflicts."

"Your mom teach you to use that thing?"

"Not for baking. She bakes about as much as you and I do."

I opened the sliding glass doors to the balcony, grabbed the closest unconscious werewolf, and carried him to the balcony, then I tossed him off it. He landed on the sidewalk, three stories down, bouncing on his stomach a few times before coming to rest. The fall wouldn't kill him, but it would break a few bones in his body, put him out of commission for a couple of days.

Savanna helped me pitch four more werewolves off the balcony, watching them bounce on the sidewalk three stories below. The last one, I didn't throw off the balcony, I just grabbed him by the neck and lifted him into the air, so he was dangling. Then I slapped his face until he was awake.

I didn't throw him over the balcony because he was the biggest of the group, which meant that he was the leader. Werewolves aren't very sophisticated when it comes to picking a leader. The biggest and the strongest, the one that can beat up the others, is always the leader. If I wanted to send them a message, which I did, he would be the one that would deliver it.

He had thick black hair that he wore short and a black beard that he kept neatly trimmed. His eyes were a dark brown and his nose was flat and broad, looking like it had been broken on more than one occasion.

"Wake up?" I said, slapping the big werewolf, first on the left cheek, then on the right, then on the left again.

He was about John's size, when John was still lifting weights, six three, six four, two hundred and twenty, two hundred and thirty pounds. Since he was a werewolf, he was a lot stronger than John.

That being said, he wasn't strong enough to go up against a mermaid. As I've indicated, we have extremely dense muscle tissue, muscle tissue designed to withstand the water pressure at the bottom of the ocean, water pressure that will crush the steel hull of a submarine. That of course makes us strong. Strong enough to toss a big werewolf around as if he were a rag doll.

The big werewolf woke up, realized where he was, and grabbed my arm in a futile attempt to free himself from my grasp.

I responded by squeezing his neck, not hard enough to kill him, just hard enough to choke him a little.

"Listen up," I said. "Because I'm only going to say this once. The next time Crystal sends you and your pack mates after me and my friends, we're not just going to break a few bones in your bodies, we're going to kill you, do you understand?"

Before he could answer, I reached out with my mind, to the water inside his body, then I ordered that water to heat up, not boil, just heat up a few degrees. In a matter of seconds, his face turned bright pink and he began to sweat.

"You're probably feeling a bit warm right now. That's because I've ordered the water that makes up your body to heat up. If I ordered it to boil, you'd be dead in a matter of minutes, literally cooked from the inside out. Do you understand what I'm saying?" The big werewolf nodded, or at least tried to nod, kind of hard to do when I was dangling him by the neck. "Next time I see you, or any of your pack mates, I will boil you and them from the inside out."

I carried the big werewolf out onto the balcony then tossed him over the edge. He was awake, so he landed on his feet. He looked up at Savanna and I and glared, then he helped his pack mates into the back of a black van parked directly in front of the building, one with the yellow and black logo on it.

"Do you suppose they'll tell Crystal what happened here?" Savanna asked as we watched the van drive away.

"Would you?" I said.

Savanna laughed. "I would, if for no other reason than to watch Crystal blow her top."

Violet reappeared, having changed into tan shorts like the ones Savanna was wearing, and a black tee shirt like the one I had on. I couldn't help but notice that she was wearing black sneakers, matching the color of her shoes to her shirt.

"I'm ready for pancakes," she said. She looked around, noticed the broken front door. "Did I miss something?"

***

After breakfast, the three of us went for a swim in the ocean, a nice long swim. Violet had no trouble keeping up with us, although she did tire out after a couple of hours. I didn't know if that was because she had only been alive for a few days, or if the cloning process made her different from us. Either way, I wasn't surprised. The fact that she told me that she loved me, revealed just how different we were.

When we were back on shore, I asked her an obvious question. "Can you control water with your mind?"

"I know what you're talking about," Violet said. "Because I have the memories of you doing it. But I've never actually tried it."

"Give it a try," I said. I pointed to some surfers waiting for a wave. "Feel the water with your mind. Then order it to create a wave, one the surfers can ride."

Violet focused on the ocean that we were facing. A second later, a wave formed behind the surfers, when they saw it, they rose up on their boards and rode it into shore.

"How was that?" Violet said.

"Very nice," I said.

Violet grinned, much like I did the first time my mother asked me to make a wave and I was able to do it.

We swung by Wormby's Pawnshop, mostly because Violet wanted to meet him. I'm not sure why she wanted to meet him, other than she had memories of him and wanted to see how close those memories were to reality.

Violet was wearing one of my green bikinis with a matching scarf tied around her waist and flip flops on her feet. I had on a similar outfit, and Savanna had on a blue version of our outfits.

"There's a rumor going around that somebody has been cloning supernaturals," Wormby said when we entered his shop. "I never would've guessed that it was you."

"I didn't make her," I said. "Crystal made her, I just took her away from Crystal."

"Why would you do that?"

"Because whatever Crystal had planned for her, it couldn't have been good. Where'd you hear about the clones?"

"I keep my ears open," Wormby said.

"You call those things ears?" a grinning Savanna said. Wormby's ears were big and twisted and ugly, like all gnomes.

Wormby ignored Savanna and nodded at Violet. "Can she understand what we're saying?"

"Of course I can understand what you're saying," Violet said. "I have all of my mom's memories, right up until when that cop shot her."

Wormby wrinkled his brow."Your mom?"

"She means me," I said. "And just what did you hear about clones?"

"I heard there's a Titus Hawthorn clone at O Positive."

"The employees opened the club back up?"

"Last night. They put the clone up in Titus's usual spot, pretending to be him. Of course everybody knows the real Titus is dead, so when they saw the guy, they asked who he was. Somebody admitted that it was a clone."

Wormby grinned, his giant lips taking up a good portion of his face. The smug grin told me that he knew something else, something he wasn't saying. Something having to do with the clones. That didn't surprise me, nobody knew more about what was going on in the city's supernatural community than Wormby.

"All right, out with it," I said.

"Out with what?" a still grinning Wormby said.

"You've heard something, something that you're not telling me."

"You might want to check out the Glass Box. Rumor is one of your old acquaintances is back."

The Glass Box was another nightclub. Its majority owner was a bogeyman named Theodore Wexell, Teddy, as he liked to call himself. I shot him in the head. Crystal had been a minority owner in the club, no big surprise. She had her sticky little fingers in a lot of financial pies, one of the reasons she could spend money making clones that would screw up my life.

"You telling me that Crystal made a Teddy clone?"

"The bogeyman," Violet said. "I remember him. He was stealing the youth of young women."

"Which is where that old saying--don't let the bogeyman get you--comes from," Savanna added.

Wormby held up both hands. "I'm just saying you might want to check the place out. Maybe take him out before he takes you out."

I couldn't help but wonder when Crystal got her hands on Teddy's DNA. If she got it before he met me, then the clone's genetic memories wouldn't contain knowledge of Teddy's encounter with me. Knowing my luck, and Crystal's vindictiveness, she probably took his DNA after I shot him in the head.

Violet knew that she was a clone. The Titus clone didn't know that he was a clone until we told him. My guess was the Teddy clone didn't know that he was a clone either, which meant he would be carrying a grudge against me, a big grudge.

Chapter 12

"Violet's going to have stay with you and Doug for a few days," I said to Savanna when we were back at my place.

"Why?" Violet said.

Savanna answered the question for me. "To keep you safe from Crystal and her goons."

I nodded. "Exactly."

"But you'll be here all alone," Violet said. "Who'll watch out for you?"

She caught me off guard with that statement. I wasn't used to people worrying about me, let alone watching out for me. I wasn't sure if that was because people didn't care about me or just thought that I could take care of myself. Some of them, like John and Savanna, figured that I could take care of myself.

"I won't be here that long," I said.

"You going to the Glass Box?" Savanna asked me. "See if there's a Teddy clone there?"

"He's there."

"Because Wormby said he was?"

"Yep."

"You live with that cop," Violet said to Savanna. "Doug Wert."

"I do," Savanna said. "For now."

"I remember his place, big old house, four bedrooms."

"When your mom and I first moved there, only one of the bedrooms was furnished, but Doug has finished a second room since then. You can have it."

"I don't want to take your bed away from you," Violet said.

"That's okay, I don't use it that much. I'm like your mom, I just grab a few minutes of sleep here, a few there."

Violet looked at me. "Will I be like that some day? Only needing a couple of hours of sleep a night?"

"I don't know," I said. "You and I aren't exactly the same."

"Because I'm a clone."

"Because we were made differently. But once this mess with Crystal and the other clones is taken care of, we can figure out your limits."

"Together?" Violet said.

"Together," I said.

Violet grinned and hugged me. "I love you mom."

"Go change," I said. "Then we'll go get lunch."

"Cheeseburgers?"

"Cheeseburgers, and tacos, and pizza." Violet grinned and scampered off to the bedroom. When she was gone, I turned to Savanna. "I'm pretty sure I was never that sweet."

"Maybe she retained some of the other girl's personality. The one whose body they used. Who knows what she was like before she got hooked on drugs."

We changed clothes, piled into the the Del Sol, not an easy thing to do since it's only designed to hold two people, and headed to the college where John worked. I wasn't planning on looking John up, partly because I had spent the night with him, partly because I didn't want to seem like a clingy girlfriend. One thing all the relationship books I read seemed to agree upon was that human men hated clingy girlfriends.

I took Violet to the food court in the student union building. If we just happened to run into John, or Sarah Crewe, or John and Sarah Crewe together, well, that would just be a coincidence. We started off at the burger stall, ordering double cheeseburgers, fries, and shakes.

"This is a great place to eat," I said, grabbing a table in the area where John always sat. "Not only is it cheap, but nobody pays attention to how much you eat. They're either studying or in a hurry to get to their next class."

"Plus, you have every type of food imaginable," Savanna added.

We were just finishing up our cheeseburgers and trying to decide whether to have pizza or tacos next when John found us. He was dressed like he always was, board shorts, a Hawaiian shirt, today's was yellow and blue, and deck shoes.

"Hey," he said, grabbing the last seat at our table.

He was staring at Violet. No big surprise. Telling someone you have a clone and actually seeing that clone are two different things.

"This is Violet," I said, introducing them. "Violet, this is . . . ."

"John," she said, offering him her hand. "I have my mom's memories, that's why I know who you are."

"Nice to meet you," John said, taking her hand.

"We were trying to decide what to have next," I said, looking at the tacos on his tray. "Now, I'm thinking tacos."

"Definitely tacos," Violet said, smelling the food on John's tray.

"Why don't you two go get them," I said to Violet and Savanna. "I need to talk to John."

I gave them some money and Violet and Savanna headed off to the taco stall, leaving John and I alone.

"She looks just like you," John said. "Except for the eyes."

"She is clone."

"Can you trust her?"

"What makes you say that?"

"Remember when you first met Savanna, you thought you could trust her, only to have her sell you out to Teddy."

"That's different," I said. "He bribed Savanna with a ruby and diamond necklace. A necklace worth six figures. Offering something like that to a young mermaid is like dangling a bottle of booze in front of an alcoholic."

"Maybe Crystal made a similar deal with Violet."

I shook my head. "I don't think so."

"Why not?"

"Crystal is too greedy to offer something shiny to Violet. And Violet hasn't been around long enough to learn how to deceive others."

"You want to trust her," John said. "Because she looks just like you."

I grinned. "Hard not to trust a face like that."

"Just be careful. That's all I'm asking."

"I'm always careful."

"Says the woman that took three hollow points to the gut."

Savanna and Violet returned with a tray full of tacos. We were just finishing them when Sarah Crewe appeared, carrying a tray with a salad and a bottle of water. The tables only held four people, and we already had four, so she was forced to move on, too bad, so sad to see you go.

We lingered until John had to head off for another class, finishing our lunch with a pizza.

"Be careful," he said. He gave me a quick kiss, then hurried off.

"What are you supposed to be careful about?" Violet asked me.

"Not getting shot at," I said. I wasn't going to tell Violet that John didn't trust her. Not that it made a difference, I trusted her and that was all that mattered.

***

After lunch, which can take quite awhile if you're a mermaid, we headed back to my place, where we packed a bag for Violet. Then we took her to Doug Wert's place. Doug was a cop, about my height, with sandy blond hair, blue eyes, broad shoulders, and boyish good looks.

I first met him when a sniper was trying to kill me. A sniper hired by Theodore Wexell, the bogeyman Crystal had just cloned. Doug said if there was anything he could do to help, so Savanna and I moved into his place. Once my conflict with Teddy was over, I moved back to my place. Since Doug's place was a lot bigger than mine, Savanna elected to stay there.

Doug's house was in an older section of town. It was a two story with steep roofs and a big front porch. The first time I saw it, it was in need of a paint job and a new roof. It was still in need of a paint job and a new roof. Doug insisted that he was going to fix the place up, but seemed in no hurry to get around to it.

"Is he still working the night shift?" I asked Savanna as we headed inside.

Savanna nodded. "Should be grabbing some breakfast right about now."

We found Doug in the kitchen, already in uniform. He was eating a bowl of cereal and sipping a cup of coffee. last time he got involved with me, he had his shirt set on fire by an elf, so I wasn't sure how thrilled he'd be to see me again.

"Uh-oh," Doug said when he saw me. "Do I want to know what this is about?"

"Probably not." I pointed to Violet. "This is Violet, she's going to be staying here for awhile."

"Awhile as in like how long you were here? Or as in like how long Savanna has been here?"

"As in how long I was here," I said. "Probably. Maybe. I'm not really sure."

"At least your honest." Doug looked at Violet. "You didn't tell me that you had a twin."

"We're not sisters," Violet said. "I'm her clone. I call her mom cause I was created from her DNA."

"Clone?" Doug said. He looked at Savanna, then at me. "Is she serious?"

"Considering everything you've seen since you met us," Savanna said. "This surprises you?"

"She's got a point," I said.

Doug thought about it for a second, then went back to eating his cereal. "I thought I led a pretty exciting life, then I met you guys."

"And now you actually do lead an exciting life," Savanna said. "Violet will be staying in my room. I'll take the couch."

"You're always on the couch," Doug said.

"Only when I'm not eating or treasure hunting," Savanna said.

I just assumed that Doug and Savanna were sleeping together because they were both young, attractive, and unattached, but whenever I saw them together, there were no indications that they were a couple. Maybe Savanna just assumed that Doug liked having her around because she was young and beautiful and sexy. Which is kind of the way that all mermaids think.

Violet looked at me, an excited gleam in her eyes. "Can I go treasure hunting with Savanna?"

"That's up to Savanna," I said.

"How about if we go pearl diving," Savanna said. "Been awhile since I hit the pearl beds."

"Mom showed you where they are," Violet said.

"She did," Savanna said. "You can have all the pearls that we find. It'll be a good way to start building your treasure."

"You're going diving at night?" Doug said.

"It's not night yet," Savanna said. "It's barely five o'clock. Plus, our eyes are designed to see in the ocean's dark depths. Day and night look pretty much the same to us."

Savanna and Violet headed off to change into their swimsuits. Doug watched them go then looked at me. "A clone?"

"I didn't make her," I said.

"Who did?"

"Crystal."

"The siren?" Doug said. "The same one that convinced Walt to shoot you?"

"Same one," I said.

"She must really hate you."

"That's an understatement."

"Maybe it's time you do something about that."

"I'm open to suggestions."

"It's not against the law to kill a supernatural," Doug said. "You know that."

"Hard to get Crystal alone. She's either surrounded by bodyguards or a bunch of innocent humans."

Doug nodded. "And if you kill her in front of the humans, you'll be viewed as the bad guy."

"Humans like mermaids," I said. "We're one of the few supernaturals species that they do like. I don't want to do anything to jeopardize that."

"Like boiling Crystal alive in front of a crowd of people?"

"Boiling her from the inside out. Freezing her from the inside out. But if I ever get her alone, I guarantee I'll take care of her once and for all."

"So who's trying to kill the clone?"

"Violet. Her name is Violet."

"Sorry," Doug said. "So who's trying to kill Violet?"

"Crystal."

"I thought you said Crystal created her."

"She did."

"And now she's trying to kill her?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I guess my taking Violet away from her kind of ruined her plans."

"Or maybe this is all a setup."

"You think Violet might be working with Crystal?"

"You know what they taught us at the academy."

I nodded. "Consider all possibilities."

"Maybe she wanted you to snatch Violet from her, that way she'd have a person on the inside, which would make it easier to get whatever she wants from you."

"She wants two things," I said. "My treasure. And me dead. But not necessarily in that order."

"You might want to sleep with one eye open, at least for as long as that clone is around."

I grinned. "I'm a mermaid. I always sleep with one eye open. And you're not the first person to warn me about Violet."

"So where you off to now?" Doug asked me.

"Thought I'd stop by the Glass Box, rumor is Teddy's back."

"You mean the bogeyman? The one that hired all those assassins to kill you? The one that brought you and Savanna here in the first place?"

"That's the one."

"I thought you put a bullet in his brain?"

"It seems Crystal has made another clone."

Doug shook his head. "She really needs to get a life."

"She has a life," I said, as I headed for the door. "Trying to destroy mine."

Chapter 13

The Glass Box was a single story building with red glass walls. Unlike most nightclubs, which had a bouncer out front, deciding who got to go inside and who didn't, there was no bouncer, no line of people in front of the Glass Box. The club had lost a lot of its popularity since I broke the scandal about what the bogeymen were doing to the people that frequented the place.

Bogeymen had the power to steal your youth. If they could see you, they could rob you of your youth. They couldn't turn you into an old man or an old women in a matter of minutes, or even hours, but if you let them feed upon you for a few months, you would begin to age.

The worst thing was the people didn't even know they were being fed upon. All they knew was that they were experiencing some kind of euphoric high, a high that made it hard to think, hard to care about anything.

I killed Teddy and forced most of his bogeyman buddies to scatter like cockroaches, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that a few of them still hung out at the Glass Box. Crystal had been a minority owner when Teddy ran the place and had taken control of the club after his death, so I was once again on enemy turf.

The club looked the same as it did the last time I was there, booths with red glass walls on three sides and a red sofa inside each booth. The booths faced the middle of the room, which contained a red enamel dance floor. A red glass bar with red vinyl stools occupied the wall closest to the door.

The original Teddy occupied a booth directly opposite the bar. He protected himself with a hidden sniper nest somewhere above the bar. I didn't know if Teddy clone had a sniper training a rifle on his booth, but he was occupying the exact same booth.

He was sitting by himself, wearing a black tuxedo with the bow tie undone. Just like the real Teddy, who always looked like he had just spent a night at the opera.

Like the original Teddy, he was a good looking guy in his late twenties, early thirties. Like the original Teddy, he shaved his head and wore a three day beard. The kind of beard that didn't look good on a lot of guys but certainly looked good on him. I couldn't tell if he was taller or shorter than the original Teddy because he was sitting down, but he looked to be about the same size.

I was watching him from a stool at the bar, watching him through what few dancers were on the dance floor. I was wearing the same thing I wore the first time we met, stiletto heels and a clingy black dress that showed a lot of leg.

I didn't know when Crystal had harvested his DNA, so I didn't know if he knew who I was. I had to assume he did, had to assume that she harvested his DNA after we met, maybe even after I put a bullet in his brain.

There was only one way to learn the answer to that question, so I slid off the stool and worked my way across the dance floor, ignoring the men and women that were checking me out. When you're a mermaid, you get used to people checking you out, especially when you wear something sexy.

A look of panic crossed Teddy clone's face when I reached his booth, which answered the question as to when Crystal harvested the real Teddy's DNA. It was definitely after we met.

"Relax," I said, when he reached for the hidden button that would alert security that he need help. "I'm just here to talk."

The button was on the side of one of the legs of the red glass coffee table that fronted the velvet sofa. Teddy clone pulled his hand away from the table and leaned back. I worked my way around the table and sat down on his left.

"Despite what you believe," I said. "You and I have never met."

"What makes you say that?" Teddy clone said.

He was still nervous, still scared, as well he should be. The real Teddy never really understood how dangerous I was, not until I ended his life. In sharp contrast, Teddy clone knew just how dangerous I was. His memories told him that.

"You're not Theodore Wexell," I said.

Teddy clone smiled, flashing the same kind of smug smile the real Teddy always displayed. "Then who am I?"

"You're his clone."

The smile on Teddy clone's face widened. "You realize how crazy that sounds?"

"I do," I said. "I also know that it's true."

"If I was a clone, wouldn't I know it?"

"What's your last memory of me?"

"We were, ah, in a house."

"And?"

"And you had a gun."

"And?"

"And I don't remember what happened after that."

Maybe he didn't remember what happened after that. I wasn't exactly sure how detailed the genetic memories encoded in supernatural DNA were, or just when those memories ended.

"You really think that I'm a clone?" Teddy clone said.

"What's the next thing that you remember? After our encounter at the house?"

"Waking up in my bedroom."

"When was that?"

"A couple days ago."

"But you don't remember how you got from the house to your bedroom."

Teddy clone shook his head. "No."

"Do you know what today is?"

"Tuesday."

"Yeah but do you know how much time has passed since our encounter at the house?"

He obviously didn't because he shrugged his shoulders and said, "What difference does it make?"

"Six months," I said. "Six months have passed since I pointed that gun at you. At the original Teddy."

Teddy clone stared at me in disbelief. "That's impossible."

"Not impossible. True. But don't take my word for it. Try to remember when that encountered occurred, then go ask your bartender today's date."

Teddy clone thought for a moment, then headed over to the bar. He talked to one bartender for a second, then talked to the second. Then he returned to the booth with a stunned look on his face.

"I don't understand," he said, taking the seat next to me.

"You're a clone," I said. "You've been alive for a couple of days."

"If I'm a clone, who made me?"

"Crystal Kragen."

"Why would she be making clones? And why would she make a clone of me? Or of the other Teddy? If there actually was another Teddy."

"She's screwing with my life," I said. "Bringing back clones of people that I killed. Or got killed."

"She wants me to kill you?" Teddy clone said.

"Probably hoping you'll kill me, or at least try."

"But if I really am a clone, and I've only been alive a couple of days, then this is the first time that you and I have actually met."

"It is."

"Which means that you shouldn't have anything against me."

"That's kind of up to you," I said. "If you leave me and my friends alone, I'll leave you alone."

"I got no problem with that," Teddy clone said.

"I'd also be careful about using your bogeyman powers. The human authorities have been keeping a close eye on your people since they learned what the original Teddy and his buddies were doing with those girls they kept at the Farm."

The Farm was actually a resort. The original Teddy and some of his bogeyman buddies used it as a place to keep young women, young women they could feed upon.

"You mean taking the youth of all those girls," Teddy clone said.

"That's exactly what I mean."

"If I've only been alive a couple of days, then I've never hurt anyone, because I haven't used my powers since I woke up a couple of days ago. I'm not even sure I have any powers."

"If I were you, I'd keep it that way."

Teddy clone looked around, taking in the club. "Do I still own this place?"

"No, but then you never owned it."

"Crystal owns it?"

"She does."

"If I asked her, do you think she'd give it to me?"

I laughed. "I doubt it."

"Why not?"

Crystal's a siren, they're not what you would call generous."

"I think I'll ask her anyway."

"Has she talked to you since you woke up?"

"No."

"What have you done since waking up?"

Teddy clone shrugged his shoulders. "Resumed my life. Teddy's life. Except of course for going up to the Farm. As you know, that place doesn't exist anymore."

"Not since I showed it to the cops and they shut it down." Teddy clone didn't seem to notice what I said. He seemed lost in his his own world. "What are you thinking?"

"I've been wondering why the employees at this place have been looking at me strangely. If the real Teddy is dead, and I am his clone, then that would explain the odd looks I've been getting."

"When you ask them to do something, do they do it?

"If I ask for a drink, they'll give it to me, but when I asked to see our latest profit statements, they just ignored me."

"So you believe me."

"I don't know what to believe," Teddy clone said. He went silent for minute, then looked at me. "You think Crystal is hoping that I'll kill you?"

"Why else would she have created you?"

"What do you think she'll do to me if I don't try to kill you?"

"Honestly?"

Teddy clone nodded. "Honestly."

"If you don't try to kill me, then I suspect that she has no use for you."

A stunned look crossed Teddy clone's face. "You think she'll kill me?"

"She has a lot of money and a lot of werewolves working for her. Werewolves that are well paid and do what they're told. No questions asked."

Teddy clone didn't say anything for the longest time, he just sat there considering his options. "So if I try and kill you, you'll kill me."

"Yes."

"Just like you killed the original Teddy."

"I probably won't shoot you in the head," I said. "I don't normally use guns when I kill supernaturals."

"If I don't kill you, Crystal will have no use for me and order her werewolves to kill me."

"There is a third option," I said

"Which is?"

"Even if you succeed in killing me, Crystal might kill you."

Teddy clone nodded. "Because I'll have served my purpose and she'll have no more use for me."

"Exactly."

Teddy clone shook his head. "I don't like that option anymore than the first two."

It was hard for me to feel sorry for Teddy clone. Probably because he looked and sounded like a guy that tried to kill me, not just once, but on several occasions. The original Teddy even sent a bunch of professional assassins after me. Supernatural assassins.

"I need your help," Teddy clone said.

I laughed. I couldn't help it. "I didn't come here to help you. I came here to find out if I need to kill you."

Crystal's plan to send a bunch of clones after me wasn't working out the way she hoped it would. The Titus clone was too short to pass for the real Titus, which meant that Titus's estate would clear probate without any complications, which meant that before too long, I would be as rich as Crystal. Well, almost as rich.

The Teddy clone didn't seem to hate me, didn't seem to have any desire to kill me, not the way Crystal hoped he would. Emotionally, he was a lot like Violet, young and innocent. He was quick to scare and quick to believe what you told him. Just like Violet. I suspect that was a development that Crystal and her scientists hadn't anticipated. They could give the clones someone's looks and memories, but they couldn't give them their emotions, they couldn't make the clones hate me the way the originals did.

"You got to help me," Teddy clone said. He looked scared, like when he first saw me approaching him. "Please."

"Help you how?"

"Get me out of town, some place where Crystal can't find me."

"Planes, trains, and buses leave town every day," I said. "All you got to do is buy a ticket and hop on one."

"I got no money," Teddy clone said.

No surprise there, Teddy's bank accounts would've been closed out months ago. I suspect Crystal purchased the house that Teddy clone woke up in, probably after she came up with her--let's clone some people that hate the mermaid--plan.

"Sell something."

"Like what?"

"You said you woke up in the original Teddy's house." Teddy clone nodded. I continued. "There must be something of value in there, something you can sell."

"There's a lot of art work in there," Teddy clone said. "Original paintings made by famous artists. I guess I could sell one of those."

"Well, there you go."

"I need a buyer, someone that won't ask me where I got it, let alone ask for its providence."

"There's a pawnshop a couple of blocks from the beach," I said. "Wormby's Pawnshop. It's run by a gnome named Nicholas Wormby. He won't pay you what the painting is worth, but he won't ask any questions either. Nor will he care about the providence."

Most likely, Wormby would keep the art work for himself. He had a lot of original art work in his apartment. He kind of collected the stuff.

I got up and left before Teddy clone could ask me for something else. I came here to find out if he was a threat, if I needed to kill him. The last thing I expected to be doing was helping him escape Crystal's manicured clutches.

Chapter 14

After leaving the Glass Box, I swung by O Positive, figuring I should check up on Titus clone, make sure he wasn't causing trouble. Hawthorn Tower hadn't cleared probate yet, wouldn't clear it for another month or so, but O Positive's employees, now its owners, were given permission to reopen the club.

I didn't own the building's top three floors, where the employees lived and worked, but I did own the bottom twenty-seven floors, as well as the suite Titus clone was staying in on the twenty-eighth floor, or at least I would own it once it cleared probate. As such, I didn't have to wait in line to ride the elevator up. After all, I did own the elevator.

The club appeared as busy as usual. Can't say I was surprised. Humans are fascinated with vamps. I'm not sure if it's because they drink blood or don't age. My guess is their fascination has something to do with never growing old. Humans are kind of obsessed with looking young.

Titus clone was at the very top of the club, sitting on the balcony, or mezzanine, or whatever you wanted to call it. I headed up to the club's second floor, which circled the first floor, then headed to the chrome stairs that led to Titus's little domain.

Elvis vamp was there, dressed in his usual black. As was a large human named Caesar.

"I expected you to be sitting up there," I said to Elvis vamp. "With Titus gone, you are the oldest vamp here."

Elvis vamp laughed. "Titus was always the club's biggest attraction. People came here because they wanted to see the famous Titus Hawthorn, the oldest and most powerful vampire in the city. They see Titus clone sitting up there, in Titus's old spot, and they leave happy. They think they've seen someone dangerous."

"Selling the illusion," I said.

"It's a winning formula," Caesar said. "Why mess with it."

"Instead of Titus getting all the money, the employees split it equally," Elvis vamp said.

"Titus clone behaving himself?"

Elvis vamp grinned. "We make him behave."

"Crystal created him to delay the probate of Titus's estate. Since that didn't work, she may decide to get rid of him."

"With what?"

"Lately, she's been using werewolves. They have some kind of security firm. Blackwolf Security. Their uniforms are black with a yellow patch on them."

"I can handle werewolves," Elvis vamp said.

"Just be aware that your pretend body guarding may turn into real body guarding."

Titus clone was at the top of the stairs, waving to me, something the original Titus never did. He was too cool, too sophisticated, to do anything like that.

I pushed past Caesar and Elvis vamp. "I think the clone wants to talk to me."

"What's up?" I said, when I reached Titus's little balcony.

"You got to get me out of here," Titus clone said.

"By out of here you mean?"

"This club. This building."

"If you want to leave, leave." I moved to the glass and chrome table that looked down upon the club and grabbed a seat. Titus clone took the other one.

"They won't let me leave."

"Who won't let you leave?"

"The people that work here. They're holding me prisoner. They insist I sit at this table all night, where the customers can see me."

"The original Titus was one of the club's main attractions. With you sitting here, looking like him, the club makes more money. Everybody that works here makes more money."

"That's just it," Titus clone said. "They're not giving me my share of the profits. I'm lucky if I get a bag of blood to drink."

"I'll talk to them," I said, "tell them that you're as much a part of this place as they are."

Titus clone breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you."

"No big deal."

"I'd also like to be able to go out once in awhile, take a walk, breathe some fresh air."

"You're a vampire, you don't breathe."

"You know what I mean."

"As far as being able to go outside, well, you're probably safer inside."

"How do you figure?"

"Crystal created you to delay the probate of the original Titus's estate, but because of your height difference, that hasn't worked out the way she hoped it would. As such, you're of no use to her."

"You think she'll try and kill me?"

"She wouldn't do it herself, but she might send a pack of werewolves after you."

Titus clone dismissed that thought with a wave of his hand. "I can handle werewolves."

"The original Titus could handle werewolves," I said. "But you're not him. You're his clone, and one thing I've been learning is clones aren't nearly as powerful as the originals. The original Titus would've destroyed Elvis vamp in a fight, yet he tossed you across the room like you were a rag doll."

Titus clone nodded. "I keep forgetting that I didn't actually experience all those memories in my head."

"You need to remember that you're not the original Titus, need to remember that you're only a few days old."

Titus clone nodded. "I'll try."

I got up to leave, Titus clone reached across the smoked glass table and grabbed my wrist. "Promise me that you'll talk to the others, get them to be nice to me."

Titus clone was a lot like Violet and Teddy clone. He had the body of an adult. He had the memories of an adult, but emotionally, he was a child.

"I'll talk to them," I said. "As soon as you let me go."

I tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip on my wrist. "If you could get them to let the blond up, the long legged one the original Titus used to feed off, well, I'd really appreciate it."

"Has she tried to get up?"

"She has, but they won't let her up. I think they resented the original Titus, resented the way he used to order them around. They can't take it out on him, so they're taking it out on me."

"I'll talk to them," I said. "I promise."

Titus clone released my wrist and I headed down the chrome staircase. I stopped when I reached Caesar and Elvis vamp. "Titus clone says you guys aren't giving him a percentage of the nightly profits."

"Titus left this place to us," Elvis vamp said. "He didn't leave it to his clone."

"True, but you already admitted that he's one of the club's main attractions, which means he deserves his share of the profits."

"Anything else?" Elvis vamp said.

"He says that you won't let the leggy blond up, the one that always wore the glittery blue dress. The one Titus like to dine on."

"Why should we let her up?" Caesar said.

"I realize that Titus used to push you guys around, and that you resent it, but this guy isn't Titus. He might look like Titus, he might sound like Titus, he might even have Titus's memories, but he's not Titus. Emotionally, he's not even an adult. He's a child. Just like the other clones."

Elvis vamp wrinkled his brow. "What other clones?"

"Nobody you need to worry about. Just give Titus clone a few toys to play with. Give him some money to spend, let him snack on the leggy blond, he'll be happy, you'll be happy, everybody's life will be easier."

"And if we don't?" Elvis vamp said.

"Then I may have to start throwing my weight around." I wrapped my right hand around Elvis vamp's neck, and my left around Caesar's neck. Then I picked them both off their feet, at the same time. "And trust me boys, you won't like it when I start throwing my weight around."

I put them both down and released them. They stepped back and rubbed their necks.

"Fine," Elvis vamp said. "We'll give Titus clone what he wants, but we're not giving him a car. If we do that he might leave and never come back."

"That's probably a good idea. If you let him leave the building, Crystal's werewolves will probably kill him."

"He's not strong enough to fight off a werewolf attack?" Caesar asked.

"None of the clones I've met are as strong as their originals, although I'm not sure why. Maybe it has something to do with the cloning process, maybe it's because they're only a few days old. Your guess is as good as mine."

I turned and headed down the stairs. The original Titus hired me to protect him from the world's oldest vampire, a vamp known as the Count. The Count didn't end up killing Titus, an elf did, an elf I brought in to help me battle the Count. She didn't mean to kill Titus, she just wanted to prevent him from killing the Count. She just didn't understand that a hungry vampire is kind of like a five thousand year old mummy, dry and brittle and extremely flammable.

I still felt guilty about that, about my failure to keep Titus alive. Maybe that's why I was more willing to help Titus clone than Teddy clone. Which I'll admit, wasn't fair, but then I'm not an angel, I'm a mermaid. Which means I'm as beautiful as an angel, but not as nice.

I rode the elevator down to the street. When the door opened, I found myself face to face with another pack of Crystal's werewolves. Six of them to be exact, the same number that attacked Savanna and I back at my condo.

They were wearing the same uniform all her other werewolves wore, black boots, black pants, and black polo shirts with a yellow patch on the left breast pocket. They paid no attention to me, which told me that they weren't the ones I had tossed off my balcony that morning, but then those guys would still be out of commission, nursing their broken bones. These guys were just waiting for the elevator.

Crystal must've learned that Titus clone failed to delay the probate of the real Titus's will and sent her goons to get rid of him. The fact that they were out now wasn't surprising, it was easier to find a vampire at night than it was in the middle of the day. Way easier.

"This is certainly a stroke of good luck," I said. "Well, good luck for me, bad luck for you boys."

"Step aside, lady," the biggest werewolf said. Like all the others, he had thick black hair and dark brown eyes. I don't know where this pack came from, I only knew that they weren't local. I knew all the local packs and this wasn't one of them.

The big werewolf waited for me to step off the elevator. Of course, I didn't. I just stood there, blocking his and everyone else's path.

When I didn't move, the big werewolf fed me the line that supernaturals love to spout when they're trying to scare somebody. "Do you know what we are?"

"Based on the matching uniforms, I'd say you're a boy band." I glanced at the yellow patch on his shirt pocket. "Although you might want to consider changing your name. Blackwolf Security just doesn't make me want to toss you my panties. How about Dancing Hounds? Now that's a name the girls will love."

"We're not a boy band," the biggest werewolf said. "We're werewolves and if you know what's good for you, you'll step aside."

I squealed and brought my hands to my mouth. "Werewolves! Oh my goodness! Please don't hurt me Mr. Big Bad Werewolf."

I know. I know. I was being a smart ass. But what I can I say? I'm a mermaid and being a smart ass is part of my nature. I had another reason for not moving. Even as I talked to the werewolves, I reached out with my mind, to the water that made up sixty percent of their bodies. Then I ordered that water to freeze. Not cool. Freeze. Solid.

You might think it's harder to control the water inside six werewolves than it is in one, but it's not. Especially when they're packed as tightly together as these guys were. The larger a body of water, the easier it is to touch and feel with your mind.

The big werewolf grabbed my wrist and tried to yank me out of the elevator. Only I didn't move, didn't budge, not an inch. He yanked harder. I still didn't move.

"You sure you're a werewolf?" I said. "I thought werewolves were supposed to be strong."

He yanked on my arm a third time. As hard as he could. I still didn't move. Then I yanked back. He flew into the elevator so fast that he smacked into the back wall. Before he could react, I whipped him back to his original position.

"What the hell are you?" the big werewolf said. His nose was broken and bleeding. No big surprise. I did toss him pretty hard.

Wherever they came from, there obviously weren't any mermaids around, cause my hair and eyes kind of gave that away. Assuming you knew what a mermaid looked like. It was also obvious that Crystal wasn't telling them what they were up against. She was just sending them out with orders to kill the clone and anyone that stood in their way.

Even if she had told them what they were up against, it might not have made a difference. Most people, supernaturals included, don't really understand how dangerous mermaids are. The only thing they know about mermaids is what they've seen in the movies.

We're not called the queens of the sea because we love to wear crowns. Although I do own a crown, not to mention a dozen diamond tiaras, and just for the record, I do enjoy wearing them. Especially in a room that's well lit and has a lot of mirrors.

I flipped my red hair with my right hand, the hand the big werewolf had been holding before I sent him crashing into the wall. "You can call me Little Red Riding Hood."

"Something's wrong," one of the werewolves behind the big werewolf said.

They were all shivering, probably because the water inside their stomachs, inside their bladders, inside their blood, inside the cells that made up their bodies, was turning into ice.

"What's . . . happening . . . to . . . us?" the big werewolf said, his teeth chattering as he spoke.

"I'm freezing the water that makes up over sixty percent of your bodies. If you were human, you'd be dead by now. But you're not human, you're werewolves, so it's going take a bit longer to kill you."

Long black claws appeared at the end of the big werewolf's fingers. He was going to slash me with them but he never had a chance. He froze solid first, as did his five pack mates.

They just stood there, as stiff as statues and as cold as ice. When a vampire thaws out, he comes back to life, mostly because vampires are already dead and you can't kill something that's already dead. All you can do is disintegrate them.

In contrast, werewolves are living breathing beings. They're stronger and more powerful than humans, but they're still capable of dying. Freezing them from the inside out kills them, just like it kills humans.

"Why aren't they moving?" the bouncer that they had pushed past asked me. If he had been a vampire, he might have been able to stop them, but he wasn't a vamp, he was human.

"They're dead. Frozen from the inside out." I turned to the big werewolf. Even though he was dead and couldn't hear me, I answered the question he had asked me. "I'm a mermaid. Those that know us, understand us, refer to us as the queens of the sea. That's because water, all water, is subject to our rule. And that included the water that gave you and your pack mates life."

From the first time I met Crystal, she had been on the offensive. Always coming after me. First she tried to steal John from me. When that didn't work, she gave his name to Teddy and his bogeyman buddies so they could use him as leverage against me. When that failed, she used her siren voice to convince my old boss that I was evil and needed to be shot. Now, she was trying to resurrect people that hated me, or at least make copies of those people.

Well, from here on out, things would be different. From here on out, I wasn't just going to dodge the bullets that Crystal was shooting at me, I was going to shoot back.

Chapter 15

After leaving O Positive, I decided to stop by Doug's place, see how Violet was doing. Doug was working the night shift so he wasn't around, but I found Savanna stretched out on the sofa, watching television.

"You did what?" Savanna said, when I told her what I had done.

"Killed the six werewolves Crystal sent after the Titus clone."

"Why?"

"They were headed up to O Positive, to kill the Titus clone. If I didn't kill them the vamps upstairs would have."

"And your way is less messy," Savanna said.

"Way less messy. Plus, there were a lot of humans in that club. Some of them would've gotten hurt, maybe even killed."

We were in the living room, near the house's front door. Violet came scampering down the stairs as excited as I had ever seen her.

"Look what I've got," she said to me.

She was carrying a yellow plastic box, the kind school kids store pencils and erasers and crayons in. She opened the box's lid and showed me its contents, pearls. Bright shiny pearls.

"Very nice," I said. "You had a good haul tonight."

"They wouldn't let me treasure hunt at the Institute," Violet said. "But now I've finally got my own treasure."

The first time a mermaid begins to build her treasure is a seminal moment in her life. It's as significant as the first time a human girl kisses a boy, or falls in love. It's that important, that exciting. Being able to enjoy someone else's treasure is nice, but it's not the same as having your own treasure. No matter how small your treasure might be.

"Shouldn't you be in bed?" I asked Violet when she yawned.

She nodded. "I've just been too excited to sleep. I have memories of your treasure room, but it's . . . ."

"Not the same as having your own treasure," Savanna and I said in unison.

"Exactly," Violet said. She looked at her box of pearls. "And my treasure is so so shiny."

"Go to bed," I said. "And first thing tomorrow, we'll go find you some more treasure."

"What kind of treasure?"

"Gold doubloons."

Violet's eyes grew wide with excitement. "You know where some gold doubloons are?"

I nodded. "I do. Now go to bed."

Violet hugged me. "I love you mom." Then she hugged Savanna. "I love you Savanna."

She turned and scampered up the stairs, completely unaware that we had failed to respond in kind.

"She really is different from us," Savanna said, when we were alone.

"She's more human than we are."

"Which isn't a bad thing."

I nodded in agreement. "Not a bad thing at all."

"You really know where some gold doubloons are?"

"Right now they're in my treasure room, by tomorrow morning, they'll be inside that old schooner we found."

Savanna grinned. "You are such a softy."

That's what I spent the rest of the night doing. I went back to my place, loaded an old wooden box full of gold doubloons, and took it out to a two hundred year old schooner sitting at the bottom of the ocean.

In the morning, Violet, Savanna, and I donned our bikinis and headed for the beach. Once in the ocean, we wrapped our bikini bottoms around our wrists, changed our legs into tails and headed out to sea.

Violet wasn't as strong or as fast as Savanna and myself, so we moved at a comfortable clip, one which would allow her to keep up with us without tiring. Maybe her speed and strength would increase when she had been around longer, after all, she was only a few days old, but I doubted it.

They had used a human body as the platform for creating her. And while my DNA, and some stem cells, had transformed that body into Violet, it meant that she wasn't an exact copy of me, she was a cross between myself and the girl whose body they used.

The process they used to create her had left her more human than Savanna or myself. And while it may have robbed her of some of the strength that Savanna and I possessed, it gave her something we would never have, could never have, namely the ability to love.

The schooner was located about sixty miles off shore. Because we were moving at a leisurely pace, it took us a couple of hours to reach it.

"This is where the ship is located," I said. "Let's head on down and see what we can find."

We each took a deep breath, closed the membranes in our nostrils that prevented water from getting into our lungs, and headed on down.

Once upon a time, the ship had been buried by silt, then Savanna and I used our power to control water to wash the silt off the wreck, revealing a big hole in the side of the ship.

Once we reached the wreck, we let Violet take the lead. It took awhile, but she eventually found the box I planted. It was an old box, one foot long, one foot wide, and one foot high.

I got the box from Titus, the original Titus. It contained a gold crown resting on red velvet. The crown was sitting in my treasure room, Titus gave it to me in return for my protecting him from the Count. A job I failed at.

Last night, I ripped the red velvet out of the box and removed the lid, then I filled the box full of gold doubloons. I removed the lid so Violet wouldn't recognize the box. After all, she did have my memories. Then I stashed the box inside the wreck and buried it in the silt, with just enough gold sticking out to enable Violet to find it.

It took awhile, but eventually she found it. Savanna and I were pretending to search other areas of the ship, so Violet had to swim over to each of us, tap us on the shoulder, and point to what she had found. And no, mermaids can't talk or sing under water anymore than humans can.

We helped Violet tug the box out of the silt, then let her carry it to the surface. When we reached the surface, Violet grinned from ear to ear. "I found some gold doubloons. Genuine gold doubloons."

"You certainly did," a grinning Savanna said.

Violet looked at me. "And I get to keep it?"

"You found it. You brought it up, that makes it your treasure."

Violet insisted on carrying her treasure herself, even though we would've made better time if Savanna or I carried it. Not that either of us blamed her. We both knew what it felt like to make a major find.

When we reached shore, we discovered a welcoming party waiting for us. More of Crystal's werewolves. Twelve of them to be exact.

I wasn't sure how they found us, but then how hard can it be to find a mermaid? Go to the beach and watch the ocean, if you do it long enough, the odds are pretty good that you'll eventually see a mermaid.

The fact that they were waiting for us on my beach wasn't surprising. They already knew where I lived, it wouldn't take a genius to find out which beach I used on a daily basis.

Normally the beach would be crowded with humans, but not this time. This time it was clear. Probably because the werewolves had either chased them away or scared them away.

"Looks like trouble," Savanna said.

"You guys might as well swim over to Doug's place," I said. "That way you can avoid these clowns."

"There are a lot of them," Savanna said. "Sure you can handle them by yourself?"

"We're on my turf. That gives me an advantage."

Doug's house was located in the suburbs. An older suburb with older homes located north of my place.

Savanna turned to Violet. "Let's go."

"I recognize some of them," Violet said. "They were at the Institute."

"They're werewolves," I said. "They work for Crystal."

"They're here to hurt you?"

"They take orders from Crystal and Crystal wants me dead."

"Because she wants your treasure."

I nodded. "You need to head north with Savanna, so you can secure your treasure."

"I keep mine in a storage unit across from the police station," Savanna said. "We'll take your treasure there, rent you a unit next to mine."

"I'll have access to it whenever I want?" Violet said.

"Twenty-four seven," Savanna said.

Violet looked at me. "Be careful mom."

I smiled at Violet. "Look where we are."

Violet looked at the ocean that surrounded us and smiled. "You're right. This is our domain."

Savanna and Violet headed north, leaving me to confront the werewolves alone. I waited until they were out of sight, then I changed my tail into legs and slipped my bikini bottom back on. Then I walked out of the ocean.

"You killed our pack mates," the biggest werewolf said.

I ordered the water behind me to rise up, until a twenty foot wall of water backed me up.

"That's because she ordered a couple of you to kill me, then sent half a dozen more to kill me. How did you expect me to respond?"

"We're just following orders."

"Well sometimes following orders carries consequences. You ever heard of the Nuremberg Trials?"

"The what?"

He obviously hadn't, can't say I was surprised. Werewolves are like humans. They come in all sizes, all colors, and all levels of intelligence. And this pack was clearly not the brightest bulb in the werewolf marquee.

I ordered the wall of water behind me to crash down on the pack of werewolves facing me. The water hit the werewolves hard, knocking them off their feet and onto their backs. I gave them a minute to spit the water out of the their mouths and pull themselves to their feet. Then I ordered another wall of water to rise up behind me.

"You got two choices," I said. "You can keep coming after me until your entire pack is dead, or you can walk away, tell Crystal to find somebody else to do her dirty work."

I hit them with a second wall of water, once again knocking them off their feet. As they scrambled to their feet, spitting more water out of their mouths, I ordered a third wall of water to rise up behind me. Then I ordered the water to form a bowl over them, once it had, I ordered it to freeze. Solid.

I could hear the werewolves pounding on the ice with their fists, scratching it with their claws. Eventually they would break through the ice, the only question was, would they break through it before they ran out of air. The dome covering them wasn't that big and there were twelve of them.

While they did that, I walked up to ice and yelled loud enough so they could hear me. "Give me your word that you'll quit working for Crystal and go home, and I'll release you."

"Okay," the big werewolf said.

"Okay what?" I said.

"You have my word, as the pack leader, we'll leave town, tell Crystal to hire somebody else."

I ordered the ice to turn back into water, it did, drenching the pack. One thing I'll say about werewolves is they're pretty good about keeping their word, especially when that promise comes from the pack leader.

"You realize that Crystal will just send someone else after you," the pack leader said. "She's a siren, they never do their own dirty work."

"Believe me. I'm aware of that."

"And if she does send someone else after you?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "Sooner or later, she'll have to face me herself."

"And when she does?"

"I'm going to put an end to this, once and for all."

The big werewolf and his pack turned to leave, as the pack headed off, the big werewolf looked back at me. "I didn't realize mermaids were so dangerous."

"Is that why you took the job?"

The big werewolf nodded. "Crystal called us up, said that she had a job for us. I asked her what the worse case scenario was, she said that we might have to go up against a mermaid, maybe a couple of them. I figured no big deal. Especially when there were so many of us."

"I take it you've never run across a mermaid before."

"We're based in the desert, just outside of Las Vegas, not a lot of mermaids in the desert."

"Not a lot of mermaids any where," I said.

The big werewolf turned and headed up the beach, following his pack mates. "Thank god for that."

Chapter 16

Crystal was making clones of people that hated me. Unfortunately, those clones weren't identical to the originals. They didn't hate me like the originals did, didn't hate me the way Crystal did. On top of that, the werewolves she brought in left town with their tails between their legs, which meant that she no longer had them to rely on.

Not that I was ready to celebrate, after all, Crystal did steal four bodies, which meant that she had one more clone to unleash. I had no idea whose DNA she managed to get her hands on but I soon found out. Two days after helping Violet find those gold doubloons, I got a call from Elvis vamp, and to say that he wasn't happy was an understatement.

"We got trouble," he said. "You need to get down here right now."

"What has Titus clone done now?"

"It's not Titus clone," Elvis vamp said. "It's another clone."

Crystal finally released number four, can't say I was surprised. I was kind of expecting it. "Who did Crystal send now?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Tell me anyway."

"She cloned the Count."

"You're kidding."

"I wish I was. You need to get down here, quick."

"Can't you take care him? I mean he is a clone, how strong can he be?"

"Stronger than me," Elvis vamp said. "Way stronger."

"Where is he now?"

"Upstairs, pushing Titus clone around. He thinks he's the original Count. Get over here quick." Elvis vamp hung up.

I was at Doug's place, eating pizza and watching television with Violet and Savanna. It was evening, so Doug was a work, patrolling the streets with his partner, John Simkins. "I got to go." I stuffed the last of the pizza I was eating into my mouth and pushed myself to my feet.

"Crystal has unleashed another clone?" Savanna said.

"She has."

"Who is it?"

"The Count."

"The Count?" a surprised Savanna said. "How did she manage to get her hands on his DNA?"

I killed the Count. The real Count. First I froze him, then I took his frozen body to a part of the ocean called the Cedros Trench. Not the deepest part of the ocean, but it was deep enough for what I needed. Once we were there, I thawed the Count out, so he would know where he was and what was happening to him. Then I took him to the bottom of the trench and let the intense water pressure do the rest. Which it did. It crushed the Count, turning him into vampire chunks.

Normally, the fish would clean those up, eat them. But they won't eat vamp chunks, even the sharks won't touch them. Not that anybody would know what they were, unless someone had been watching me, following me.

I could only think of one person that had the money, the manpower, and the interest in keeping track of me twenty-four seven. That person was of course, Crystal. Her people must've followed me to the Cedros Trench, then retrieved what was left of the Count. That meant she had been planning on making clones even when she had been using her siren powers on Walt, trying to convince him to kill me.

I keep telling people that sirens are evil and can't be trusted, but even I hadn't realized just how devious and cold blooded Crystal was. How obsessed do you have to be to pay people to follow someone around twenty-four seven? I had done my best to ignore Crystal whenever and wherever I could, but it was pretty clear that it wouldn't work. While I was ignoring her, Crystal was plotting to kill me.

"You want me to come with you?" Savanna said as I headed for the door.

"Better not. I don't know how powerful this clone is."

"He's a clone. How powerful can he be?"

"Hey," Violet said between bites of pizza. "Clone in the room. And we may not be as powerful as you originals, but we do have feelings."

Violet was maturing quickly. Not physically. Physically, she was already fully grown, as strong as she would ever be. She was maturing emotionally, in less than a week, she had advanced from a child of about six, to that of a twelve or thirteen year old. At that rate, she would have the emotions of an adult in less than a month.

Not that she would ever be an exact copy of me, we were just too different. We really were more like a mother and a daughter than a clone and an original. Not that being different from me was bad thing, because it wasn't. When someone fell in love with Violet, she would be able to love them back.

"Sorry," Savanna said.

"I have mom's memories of the Count," Violet said. "He's the only person she's ever faced that actually scared her."

"That was before I realized that he was just another vampire. A five thousand year old vampire, but in the end, just another vampire." I turned and headed for the door. "I got to go."

I was wearing sneakers, shorts, and a tank top. My shorts were white and tight. My sneakers and tank top were the same emerald green as my eyes, as my car, which I hopped in and drove to Hawthorn Tower.

The original Count wasn't a big guy. He was about my size, around five feet nine. What made him so dangerous was his age. He was born in Egypt, ancient Egypt, in what was known as the Upper Kingdom. That was before the pyramids had been built, before Egypt became a single kingdom.

The Count, when he was human, was known as Eradu Matuff. He had been a doctor, an honorable profession in any age. Then he fell in love with an elf. Now there are a few things you need to know about elves, they're not small, they don't live in hollow trees and bake cookies, nor do they help Santa make toys.

Elves are immortal beings, kind of like angels. Like angels, they're tall and elegant and beautiful. So it's not surprising to learn that a human fell in love with one. Eradu figured the only way he could be with an elf was if he became immortal, so he found a vampire willing to make him a vamp.

Of course it didn't work out, vampires, like all supernaturals, are descended from the Nephilim, the sons of human women and fallen angels. Elves consider the Nephilim and their descendents to be abominations that should never have existed.

It was the Count's age that made him so powerful. A vampire's ability to compel others, make them do things they don't want to do, increases with age, the same way a mermaid's ability to control water increases with experience.

The Count could compel other vamps to walk out into the bright sun and stay there until they burned up. The original Count compelled Savanna to dance topless for him. And mermaids aren't easy to compel. We're extremely independent and tend to do what we want. I was one of the few people that he couldn't compel. Probably because I'm older and more powerful than Savanna.

I was pretty sure that clone Count wasn't as powerful as the original Count, but that didn't mean he wasn't dangerous. When the original Count walked into O Positive, he compelled everybody in the club, humans, vampires, and what not, to remain still, perfectly still. He did that for twenty-four hours straight. And there must've been a couple hundred people in the club.

I reached Hawthorn Tower and parked in the lot across the street. At least at street level, everything looked normal. There was a line of people waiting out front, hoping to ride the glass elevator up to O Positive.

There was a bouncer in front of the elevator, deciding who got to go up and who didn't.

"Elvis vamp called," I said to the bouncer, who was human. "Something about trouble upstairs."

"I don't know what's going on upstairs," the bouncer said. "But everything's normal down here. Three people come down, I send three more up."

The original Count could compel people to not see him, so that he appeared to be invisible. He was powerful enough to even compel me to not see him, although he couldn't compel me to do anything else. Clone Count could've just walked right past the bouncer and onto the elevator without anyone even realizing that he was there.

The bouncer called the elevator. I hopped on. Behind me, I could hear someone complaining, asking why I got to cut ahead of everybody else.

"Because she owns the building," the bouncer said.

Technically, I didn't own the building. Not yet anyway. It was still in probate, which meant ownership was still in the process of being transferred from Titus to me. Nor would I ever own the two floors that O Positive was located on, they belonged to the club's employees.

I reached the first floor of O Positive and stepped off the elevator. It was as crowded as usual, with people out on the chrome dance floor, bumping and grinding to music that was thumping out of the speakers built into the walls.

If clone Count was here, he wasn't trying to compel everybody in the club to remain perfectly still like the original Count did. Probably because he wasn't that strong.

I worked my way to the chrome staircase at the back of the club and headed up to the second floor. Caesar, the muscle bound human that guarded Titus clone's balcony, was lying on the stairs that led to the balcony. He was out cold.

Elvis vamp was sitting on the stair next to Caesar, he was awake, but sporting a black eye. Just for the record. You have to hit a vamp pretty hard to give them a black eye. Vamps don't have as much blood in their bodies as living humans, so bruises don't show as easily.

"I take it you tried to stop clone Count," I said to Elvis vamp.

Elvis vamp nodded. "I figured he was a clone. How strong could he be?"

"He's the clone of a five thousand year old vampire," I said. "The most powerful vampire that ever existed. Even if he's half as strong as the original Count, he's still pretty strong."

"So I discovered," Elvis vamp said.

I stepped over Caesar, who was breathing, but unconscious, and headed up to Titus's balcony.

I found clone Count sitting in Titus clone's chair. Titus clone was kneeling at his feet, just like the real Titus had knelt at the real Count's feet. "I guess this is what they mean by deja vu all over again."

Clone Count even dressed like the original Count. Deck shoes, board shorts, and a Hawaiian shirt. This one was red and white. He was wearing wraparound sunglasses like the original Count. His dark hair was short and stuck straight up, and like the original Count, the tips were frosted.

The leggy blond in the glittery blue dress was there, sitting on clone Count's lap. The bite marks on her neck told me that clone Count had been feeding on her. Something the original Count didn't do. He fed on other vampires, even had a vampire entourage that followed him around and served as his dinner. Well, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

There was a spaced out look on the blond's face. Vamps are kind of like snakes. When they bite you, they release a chemical into your blood stream, a chemical that dulls the pain and gives you a euphoric high. Some humans like that high so much that they become addicted to it.

"You and I have some unfinished business," clone Count said when he saw me.

"You and I have never met," I said.

Clone Count smiled. "They told me you'd say that."

"Who told you?"

"The people that rescued me, put me back together after you tried to destroy me."

"You think that you're the original Count, and that they fished you out of the ocean and sewed you back together?"

"I don't think, I know."

He pushed the leggy blond off his lap. She stumbled to her feet, circled the table, and plopped down on the other chair, oblivious to the people around her.

"You do know the original Count didn't feed on humans, he fed on other vamps."

"I don't need you to tell me what I have and haven't done over the course of my existence."

I laughed. "Your existence. You're not even a week old."

Clone Count leaped to his feet. "I am the Count! And I've been alive for over five thousand years."

My insistence that he wasn't the original Count seemed to bother him, although I wasn't sure why. Perhaps because deep down, he knew that he wasn't the original Count, knew that he was a fraud and fake. "Just keep telling yourself that Sparky. Maybe some day, you'll actually believe it."

Clone Count glared at me for a second, then he smiled and shook a finger at me. "I know what you're doing, you're trying to anger me, make me do something stupid, like try and kill you."

"Why would I want to do something like that?'

"If I attacked you, then you could defend yourself, even kill me."

"You're a supernatural. The law says that I can kill you any time I want. Okay, you're the clone of a supernatural. But that still makes you a supernatural."

"You're trying to provoke me, but it's not going to work. I'm not going to give you an excuse to kill me a second time."

"Then what are you doing here? In my building?"

"I've come to take my revenge."

"On me?"

"Yes."

"You're not making any sense," I said. "You're here to take your revenge on me, yet you don't want to fight me."

"I don't need to fight you to take my revenge on you," clone Count said. "All I need to do is this."

He grabbed Titus clone's head in both hands, pulled him to his feet, and bit his neck. Then he drained Titus clone dry, literately sucking every drop of blood out of him.

In a matter of seconds, Titus clone turned into a shriveled dry husk, looking more like a five thousand year old mummy than a vampire.

When he finished eating, Clone Count grabbed Titus clone's dry dusty head and twisted it. The dry, brittle, skin and bones snapped and Titus clone's head separated from his body.

"I'm told you care about these copies," clone Count said. "For some unknown reason. So I'm going to kill all three of them, including the one that looks like you."

He tossed Titus's clone's mummified head at me and jumped over the balcony rail, laughing maniacally as he disappeared out of sight. I realized right then that clone Count wasn't just another clone. He was an insane clone.

Chapter 17

The original Count wasn't strong enough to kill me, although he certainly tried. Whether clone Count was strong enough to kill Violet remained to be seen. Not that I intended to give him the chance.

Perhaps I should've looked up Teddy clone, warned him that there was a crazy clone running around looking to kill the other clones, but truth be told, I didn't really care if Teddy clone lived or not.

He was a bogeyman. Okay, the clone of a bogeyman. But he was still a bogeyman and bogeymen are leeches by nature. Sooner or later, he would start using his power, feeding on humans, robbing them of their youth.

I spent the night at Doug's place, with Violet and Savanna, keeping watch in case clone Count decided to make his move. In the morning, I drove them to the beach. Savanna didn't have a job, not the kind of job humans have. She had the same job all young mermaids have, the same job Violet now had, searching the ocean for sunken treasure.

Truth be told, it's a better paying job than working as a private detective. I make way more money selling the treasures I find than I do as a detective. And that doesn't include the shiny stuff that I keep, that I put in my treasure room.

So why do I work as a detective? I guess it goes back to my father and what he taught me. When I was little, he drummed it into my head, telling me over and over again that I was special, that I had abilities that others didn't have, and that I had to use those abilities to help others, to help those that couldn't help themselves, to help those that had no where else to turn. That in a nutshell, is why I work as a private detective. It certainly isn't for the money.

With Violet at sea, she was safe from clone Count, or anyone else that Crystal might send after her. That gave me a chance to stop by the college and see John. I hadn't forgotten that Crystal and clone Count weren't the only troublemakers in my life. Sarah Crewe was still running around, determined to steal John from me.

Because I had John's schedule, I knew where I could find him at any given time of day. This morning, I found him in his office on the third floor of the marine biology building. Much to my surprise, he was wearing a suit and tie, something he rarely wore. His suit was a dark blue pinstripe, with a white shirt, and a red tie.

I was wearing jeans and a tank top. Tight jeans and a tight red tank top. My sneakers were red, and my hair was pulled back in a ponytail. And yes, they were tight on purpose. For no other reason than to remind John that I had more curves than the malnourished Sarah Crewe.

I wasn't wearing makeup, but then I rarely wear makeup, partly because I spend so much time in the water, mostly because I don't need it. I'm a mermaid, my eyes are big enough already, I don't need to highlight them. The same can be said for my lips.

"Wow," I said, when I saw what John was wearing. "Don't see you dress up too often."

With the suit, not to mention the leaner look that he was now sporting, he looked like a male model. The coeds were going to be drooling today.

"Departmental staff meeting this afternoon," John said. "Boss likes us to dress up. At least when the university president checks in on us."

He rose from his chair, circled his desk, and slipped an arm around my waist. Then he kissed me, long and hard. I responded in kind, long and hard.

"So what brings you around?" John said, when we finally separated.

"Heard you were wearing a suit, had to see if it was true."

John slid behind his desk and sat. I grabbed one of the two chairs that faced his desk and plopped down in it.

"Thought maybe you were checking up on me," a grinning John said. "Making sure Sarah and I weren't doing anything we shouldn't."

"I feel no need to check up on you," I said. "I trust you."

"And Sarah?"

"I was going to say that I trust her about as far as I can throw her, but in reality, I could throw her quite a ways. So how about about this. I trust her about as far as she can throw you. Which is not at all."

"Then you'll be relieved to hear this," John said. "I told her that you and I are in a serious relationship and that she shouldn't get any ideas."

"You actually said that?" I don't know why that surprised me, but it did.

John nodded. "I did."

I felt this warm fuzzy feeling spread through my body. And no it wasn't arousal. I'm intimately acquainted with that feeling, this was something different. Something I wasn't acquainted with, something I only felt one other time, when Violet first called me mom.

"Thank you," I said. "That must've been . . . awkward."

"Awkwardness and I are old acquaintances. Especially when it comes to dealing with women." John grinned. "So what's up?"

"I need some information." I figured it was time to get down to my other reason for being there.

"On what?"

"Crystal has an advantage over me. She knows where I live, but I have no clue as to where she lives."

"And you think I know where she lives."

"You were engaged to her."

"For a few weeks."

"She must've invited you to her place."

John nodded. "A couple of times."

"So where is it?"

I expected him to just tell me, but he didn't. Instead, he said, "Why do you want to know?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes. It does."

"Crystal released another clone last night."

"That would be the last one, which I'm guessing is a good thing. Isn't it?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"So who did she clone?"

"She cloned the Count. The world's oldest vampire."

"I thought you took him to the bottom of the ocean and left him there. In pieces."

"I did."

"So how'd Crystal get a hold of him?"

"My guess is your ex has people watching me. Twenty-four seven."

John shook his head. "I don't believe it. Crystal's not that bad."

"She gave your name to those bogeymen, so they could use you as leverage against me. In case you've forgotten. They held a gun to your head."

"We don't actually know that she's the one that gave them my name," John said. "The guy that told you that could've been lying."

"He had no reason to lie."

I tried to get Crystal's address from friends in the police department awhile back, but they didn't have it. No one had it. Wherever she was living, it wasn't under the name Crystal Kragen.

"You still haven't told me why you want to know where Crystal lives."

"Because clone Count is going to try and kill Violet."

"How is knowing where Crystal lives going to help you protect Violet?"

"It won't," I said. "But after I've disposed of clone Count, I'm going to dispose of Crystal."

"By dispose, you mean kill."

I nodded. "I mean kill."

John folded his arms across his chest. "I don't think I want to give you her address."

"Why not?"

"I just don't like the idea of my girlfriend trying to kill my ex. It sounds like a bad romantic comedy."

"What about the fact that she used her siren powers to convince Walt to shoot me? That doesn't bother you? Or how about the fact that she gave him a gun and bullets that were powerful enough to penetrate my muscle tissue. That doesn't bother you?"

"There's no evidence that Crystal gave him that gun. Walt doesn't remember where it came from and the police couldn't trace it back to Crystal."

"Of course there's no evidence. Crystal's smart enough to make sure nothing gets traced back to her. Now where does she live?"

"Sorry," John said. "I'm not telling you."

I wasn't sure I really wanted an answer to the next question, but I asked it anyway. "Do you still love her?"

John smiled and shook his head. "Love her? No. I don't love her." I breathed a sigh of relief, but before I could say anything else, John continued. "But that doesn't mean I want to see her dead."

"You'd rather see me dead?"

"Now you're just being silly."

"Ever since she learned that I was snatching those treasures from beneath her nose, she's tried to get rid of me. Whether you like it or not, whether you believe it or not, this is going to end one of two ways. Either she kills me or I kill her."

"If I tell you where she lives, and you go there and kill her, then I'll be responsible for her death. At least in part. I'm not sure I could live with myself if that happened."

"Crystal has declared war on me," I said. "And you're trying to remain neutral, which I understand. Problem is, there's no neutral in this fight. You either help me, or you refuse to help me, in which case, you're helping Crystal by default."

"I'm sorry," John said. "I can't help you with this."

"Would it make a difference if I promised not to kill her at her home?"

"Can you make that promise?"

"No."

"I didn't think so."

I just sat there for a minute, not saying anything. Finally, I looked at John, and said, "So where does this leave us?"

"You tell me," John said.

"You really won't tell me where Crystal lives?"

"I can't," John said. "If I told you where she lives, and you went there, and someone ended up dead, I'd feel responsible. If it was you, I'd feel more than responsible, I'd feel terrible."

"What makes you think it would be me? In case you haven't figured it out by now, I'm pretty hard to kill."

"Crystal's estate is heavily guarded. By humans with high powered rifles. And with water on three sides, there's only one road leading up to the place. It's like a fortress."

"When you've been around as long as she has, and have ruined as many lives as she's ruined, you kind of have to live in a fortress."

"I guess," John said.

He may have refused to tell me where Crystal lived, but he told me a lot, whether he realized it or not. I now knew that she lived in an estate, not an apartment, not a condo, not a normal sized house. I also knew that it was heavily guarded, and there was only one road leading up to it, which meant it wasn't in the city. And finally, there was water on three sides, which meant the place was located on a peninsula.

That was more than enough information to enable me to find the place, whether John realized it or not. If I couldn't find it based on what he just told me, I wouldn't be a very good detective.

"Are we still good?" John asked me.

"Of course we're still good."

John breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank god. I thought you might break up with me, especially after I refused to tell you where Crystal lives."

I'd be lying if I said the thought hadn't crossed my mind, because it did. Why didn't I break up with him? It was my fear of never finding anyone to replace him. Anyone who could love me for who I am, for what I am, the way John did. For all I knew, John was my one chance, my only chance, to experience love. Romantic love.

"My hands get dirty sometimes," I said. "It goes with who I am, not to mention what I do for a living. I understand you not wanting to get involved in that. Your sensibilities are different than mine. It's part of your being human."

"Thank you," John said.

"For what?"

"For being so understanding."

"I can't believe you thought that I'd actually break up with you just because we disagreed on one little issue. You're human. I'm a mermaid. That means our value systems are different. What chance would we have of making it as a couple if we didn't respect each other's values?"

"You never fail to surprise me," a grinning John said. He rose to his feet, circled his desk, and closed the door to his office. Then he locked it and pulled down the blind, blocking the door's window. "You ever had sex on a professor's desk?"

"I got a feeling that I'm about to," I said, rising to my feet and grinning at John.

Of course after we were done here, I intended to go for a swim up and down the coast, looking for a heavily armed estate that sat on a peninsula. Not that I would ever tell John that. If I took Crystal down in her fortress, John would never learn how I discovered its location. Not if I could help it.

John was like a lot of people that I met. He tended to forget that I wasn't just a mermaid. I was also a detective. A damn good one. By the end of the day, I would know where Crystal lived.

Chapter 18

After my quickie with John, I drove back to my place, changed into my swimsuit, and headed to the beach.

Once I was in the water, I slipped off my bikini bottom, wrapped it around my wrist, and changed my legs into my tail. Then I headed north, skirting the coastline.

The city's exclusive estates, the really posh ones, were located north of the city. Based on John's description of Crystal's palace, it sounded like one of them was hers.

It took me a couple of hours, but I eventually found it. Most of the estates north of the city had beaches, private beaches. Crystal's place was one of the exceptions. It was on a piece of land that jutted out into the ocean, kind of like a thumb.

There was no beach surrounding her place, just steep rocky cliffs that dropped straight into the water.

Her house looked like something that Frank Loyd Wright might have designed, very modern looking with a lot of glass and sharp angles. Its walls were gray stone on the lower half, redwood beams and sheets of tinted glass on the upper half. I couldn't help but wonder if that glass was bulletproof.

One advantage to being a mermaid is we have extremely sharp eyesight, quite possibly the sharpest in the world. No big surprise since our eyes are designed to see in the ocean's dark, murky depths. And trust me, when you're twenty thousand feet down, it is dark.

As such, I didn't have to get very close to check the place out. A ten foot high electric fence surrounded the yard. I knew it was electric because I could see the big red warning signs attached to it.

Guards patrolled the yard, following the fence line. They moved in teams of two, carrying high powered automatic rifles. M-16's to be precise.

There was also a man on the roof, wielding a long range sniper rifle while watching the ocean. Looking for a redheaded mermaid no doubt. Fortunately, the ocean is big and I'm small by comparison.

I counted four teams of two circling the yard, so that each side of the house was guarded at all times.

There was one sniper watching the ocean, but I assumed there was another one sitting on the front roof, watching the road that led to the house.

John wasn't lying when he said that Crystal's place was like a fortress. It reminded me of one of those places a drug lord might use as a refuge. Although it would be hard to break into, it wouldn't be impossible, not for someone with my abilities.

Not that I needed to break into that place to take Crystal out. From what I knew about her life, she didn't spend that much time at home. She was always running around, sticking her snooty little nose where it didn't belong.

Crystal was like a lot of supernaturals, driven by her baser instincts, lust, hunger, fear, greed. She seemed to be driven by greed, a greed for money and power. That greed kept her busy, running around, using her siren powers to influence people in positions of power.

On my way back to my beach, I ran into Violet and Savanna, who were headed in the same direction.

"How'd the treasure hunt go?" I asked them as we swam south, moving at an easy pace.

"Didn't find a thing," Savanna said.

"I got some more pearls,' Violet said. She held up her left wrist and rattled the plastic box attached to it. It sounded full.

"Nice," I said. "You can never have too many pearls."

"You certainly can't," a grinning Violet said.

"Where have you been?" Savanna asked me.

"Checking out Crystal's place."

"You mean her home?"

"I mean her home."

"Why?"

"She's made it pretty clear that she's going to keep coming after me until I'm dead. Even when she was using her power on Walt, trying to convince him to kill me, she had people following me, all the way to the Cedros Trench."

"Which is how they recovered the Count's DNA," Savanna said.

I nodded. "She's left me with no choice, either I take her out, or she takes me out."

"Do you know how you're going to take her out?"

I shook my head. "Not yet."

We reached my beach, changed our tails into legs, and slipped our bikini bottoms back on. As we walked out of the ocean, Savanna scanned the beach, looking for something or someone. "Do you suppose clone Count can go out in the sun the way the original Count could?"

"Probably not for as long."

"Then Violet should be safe, at least until the sun goes down."

"What makes you think that I can't handle clone Count?" Violet said.

"What makes you think you can?" I said.

"You were able to handle the real Count. I should be able to handle his clone."

"Maybe you can," I said. "But I'd rather not find out."

Violet grinned at me. "You're such a good mom."

"We need to find out how good you are at controlling water," I said.

"You already know I can control water," Violet said. "You saw me make that wave. The one the surfers rode."

I stopped at the edge of the parking lot that bordered the beach and faced Violet. "You can control large bodies of water, like the ocean or a lake, but can you control a small body of water, like the water that makes up a person's body?"

Violet shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know."

"Let's find out?"

"What do you want me to do?"

"Reach out with your mind, to the water that makes up my body. Feel it. Then order it to cool, just a couple of degrees."

Violet focused on me. Then she glared at me. For a full minute. I waited for a chill to wash over me, but it never happened. Finally, Violet shook her head in frustration. "I can't feel anything."

Savanna patted Violet on the shoulder. "Don't feel bad, I can't control the water that makes up a person's body either. Most mermaids can't. Your mom is just . . . exceptional."

We headed back to my place to change clothes. There was a new front door on my condo, a heavy steel door with a faux-wood finish. One that was strong enough to keep a werewolf from breaking it down.

"New door?" Savanna said.

"Hopefully this one will last awhile."

I unlocked the door and headed inside, only to discover that the sliding glass door that led to my balcony was broken, shattered into a million pieces. My first thought was to check my vault, make sure that it was secure, but I didn't bother. Even I wasn't strong enough to break into my vault. Besides, I knew who broke my sliding glass door.

I knew because he was sitting at my dining table, looking at an old photo album. My father made it. It was full of pictures of me, taken when I was a young tadpole.

"I was wondering when you'd get here," clone Count said.

The afternoon sun was shining through my broken glass door, but it wasn't affecting clone Count. But then he wasn't sitting in the sun, he was sitting at the one part of the table that was in the shade. Unlike most vampires, he could go out during the day, he just had to avoid direct sunlight.

"You should leave town," I said. "Go back to Europe, to where the original Count lived. You could assume his life and no one would be the wiser."

A scowl spread across clone Count's face. "I don't need to assume his life because I am him."

I laughed. "They say if you tell yourself something long enough, you'll eventually believe it."

Clone Count looked at Violet and Savanna, then he nodded at me. "Kill her."

Violet and Savanna moved toward me with blank looks on their faces, making it obvious that clone Count was controlling them with his mind, compelling them to do something they didn't want to do.

The original Count was strong enough to compel a couple hundred people at once, so it shouldn't have surprised me to learn that clone Count could compel two people at once. Although I was surprised, probably because they were both mermaids. Not the easiest people to compel.

It looked like clone Count wanted me dead as much as the original Count did. Can't say that I was surprised, he did have the original Count's memories, which meant he remembered me dragging the original Count to the bottom of the Cedros Trench, until the water pressure crushed him like the stale peanut he was.

"Have fun," a grinning clone Count said.

He rose to his feet, headed out onto the balcony, and jumped off it. A vampire that could walk around during the day was a vampire that could cause a lot of trouble. Not that I had time to worry about that because Violet and Savanna were still coming after me with blank looks on their faces.

I clapped my hands a couple of times. "Snap out of it guys."

They didn't snap out of it, they just kept advancing toward me, like robots. I knew that I could best Violet in a fight, and was pretty sure that I could take Savanna, although she would be a bit tougher. If for no other reason than she was bigger than me.

Thing was, I didn't want to hurt them. I suspect they didn't want to hurt me either. Problem was, they weren't in control of their bodies. Clone Count was controlling their bodies.

"Come on guys, he's not even here anymore. Snap out of it."

They didn't snap out of it so I retreated to the balcony, opting for the same exit route that clone Count took. When Violet and Savanna reached the broken glass door, I threw myself over the balcony's edge.

I landed on the sidewalk in front of my building, three stories down and none the worse for wear. One of the advantages of having such dense muscle tissue.

Clone Count was there, standing in the shade in my building's doorway. He looked like anyone else on the street, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, board shorts, deck shoes, and wraparound sunglasses. The fact that he was there explained why Violet and Savanna were still under his control. Although not for long.

I grinned at clone Count and he took off running, moving at vamp speed.

"Run, run, run, as fast as you can," I said as I pursued him. "You can't get away from me because you're not the gingerbread man."

Clone Count hung a left and disappeared down a narrow alley. We were pretty equal speed wise, at least out of the water. Although I was gaining on him, slowly but surely. Just when I thought I might catch him, he jumped into an open manhole, disappearing into the sewer.

I didn't follow him into the sewer. It was pretty clear that he had arranged this escape route ahead of time, which meant there might be something waiting for me down there. Plus, I was still wearing a bikini. No way was I jumping into a sewer dressed in nothing but a bikini.

I headed back to my condo. Violet and Savanna were still there but they were no longer under clone Count's control. No big surprise, he was too far away to compel them.

"You guys okay?" I asked as I walked through the front door.

"Hardly," Savanna said. "It was bad enough to be compelled by the original Count, but to be compelled by a clone, that's just embarrassing."

"Once again," Violet said. "Clone in the room."

"How come he can't compel you?" Savanna asked me.

"My guess is it has something to do with my age. The older we get, the more opinionated we get, the more opinionated we get, the harder it is to control us."

"So if I was your age, clone Count wouldn't be able to compel me?"

"That's my guess."

"What about me?" Violet said. "How long will it take until a vamp can't control me?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I honestly don't know."

"Did you see clone Count down there?" Savanna asked me.

"I did. Even chased him."

"But you didn't catch him."

"He jumped into the sewer. Now I love swimming as much as the next mermaid, but there is no way I'm jumping into the sewer. Not in my favorite bikini."

Savanna grinned. "I thought you private dicks didn't mind getting a little dirty."

"We don't mind getting roughed up, or even shot at, but swimming through sewers, no way. But do you know what we do like?"

"What?"

"Lunch."

"I could go for some lunch," Violet said.

We slipped into my bedroom and changed into shorts, tank tops, and sneakers, then we headed for lunch. This time we introduced Violet to fried chicken and potato salad. We followed that up with barbecued ribs and onion rings. We finished the meal off with banana splits.

Of course we didn't do it all at the same place, we went to three separate places. When you eat as much as we do, you learn to restaurant hop, if for no other reason than to keep people from staring at you.

"Ice cream is the best," Violet said, as we walked back to my place. She had a cone in her hand. All of us did.

"You'll get no argument from me," I said.

"Or me," Savanna added.

We reached my condo to discover a big black limo parked in front of it. The limo's owner could've been visiting someone else in my building, but the odds were that limo, and whoever was in it, were waiting for me.

That fact was confirmed when the limo's rear door opened and Crystal climbed out. She was wearing her preferred attire, a white linen suit and a silk blouse that matched her cornflower blue eyes. The suit consisted of a knee length skirt and a matching jacket. She kept her straight blond hair pinned back with a headband made out of silver and mother-of-pearl. It was her standard--I'm sweet and innocent and professional--outfit.

Crystal wasn't the only one to climb out of the limo, a man climbed out of the street side. He circled the limo and joined Crystal on the sidewalk, then the two of them approached me.

The best way to describe the man was slick. His expensive black suit was slick and shiny. His short dark hair was slicked back. Even his mustache was waxed into handlebars.

"Low Campbell?" the man asked me.

"I'm afraid you have the wrong person," I said, giving Slick my best southern bell accent. "My name's Agatha. Agatha Krump."

Slick reached into his jacket and pulled out two pieces of paper. Both were white and folded twice. My ten years as a cop told me what was going on, Slick was about to serve me a summons, which meant Crystal was about to sue me.

The second piece of paper was probably a court order, no doubt signed by some judge Crystal seduced with her haunting siren voice. The only question was, what was that court ordering me to do? I could only think of one thing, that court was ordering me to turn over any and all property that I took from Crystal's Institute. In other words, Crystal was trying to use a court order to take Violet from me. Fat chance of that happening.

Before Slick could hand the papers to me, let alone tell me what they were, I reached out with my right hand and grabbed Crystal by her scrawny neck. Then I squeezed, not hard enough to kill her, just enough to prevent her from using her siren voice.

"Before you hand those papers to me," I said to Slick. "Let alone tell me what's on them, you need to understand what's at stake. If you hand those papers to me, I'll squeeze Crystal's neck so hard that her pointy little head will pop off her body. Nod if you understand."

Slick nodded.

"Good," I said. "So here's what you're going to do. Instead of handing those papers to me, you're going to rip them up and eat them."

Slick hesitated. Apparently, he wasn't used to eating the summons and orders that he served. I convinced him that it was in his best interest to eat these by squeezing Crystal's neck until her eyes bugged out and her face turned bright red.

Slick ripped up the summons and the court order and started stuffing the pieces into his mouth.

"You might want to eat a little faster," I said. "I don't think your boss can hold her breath too much longer."

Slick ripped up the rest of the papers and stuffed them into his mouth.

"Chew and swallow," I said.

Slick began to chew and swallow the paper, not an easy thing to do. But he worked as fast as he could. When he finished, I released Crystal's neck.

Crystal stepped back, coughing and gagging. I would've killed her then and there, but we had attracted a crowd and the last thing I wanted to do was come across as the bad guy. Mermaids are one of the few supernatural species that humans don't fear and I had no intention of shattering that image. When I killed Crystal there wouldn't be anyone around, no people, no phones, no cameras. There would be no record of her demise. She would just disappear. Forever.

Chapter 19

The fact that clone Count was strong enough to compel both Violet and Savanna presented a problem. Namely, how did I keep Violet safe?

I couldn't ask her to stay in the ocean twenty-four seven. Mermaids burn a lot of energy at sea and Violet didn't have the strength or the stamina to stay there that long. Unlike Savanna and myself, she needed a full night's sleep.

I figured my best bet was to get her out of town, take her where clone Count couldn't find her, couldn't get to her.

A couple hundred miles south of the city, tucked away in a mountain valley, was a small town called Woodlawn. Woodlawn wasn't an ordinary town, it was a town inhabited by elves.

Elves are immortal beings, not as powerful as angels, but every bit as powerful as supernaturals. But unlike supernaturals, elves aren't driven by their baser instincts, they're simple, peaceful folk.

"We need to get you out of town," I said after Crystal and her lawyer climbed back into their limo and drove away. I looked at Savanna. "Maybe we should get both of you out of town, at least until I can take care of clone Count."

"And go where?" Savanna said.

"Some place nice and safe, like Woodlawn."

Violet's eyes lit up. "That's the town where the elves live."

I nodded. "You'll be safe there. Safe from Crystal, safe from the Count."

"And Savanna can come?"

"If she doesn't mind riding in the back of a car built for two people."

"We can trade off," Violet said. "Take turns riding in back."

"I'd prefer to stay here," Savanna said. "Have another crack at clone Count. I'm betting that he can't compel me twice."

"You got to come with me," Violet said. "We'll get to meet elves, how cool is that?"

Savanna had already met some elves, but she smiled, and said, "Fine. Let's go meet some elves."

***

It was early evening when we reached Woodlawn. The town was tucked away in a small mountain valley. It had two main drags, one heading east-west, the other heading north-south. There was a single stoplight in the town, right where its two main streets intersected.

"It's even prettier than it is in your memories," an excited Violet said as we cruised south.

"It is lovely," Savanna agreed.

The town had a turn of the century look. Turn of the twentieth century, not twenty-first. The buildings on its two main streets were all brick and stone, single and two story structures. The houses on the other streets were white clapboard, two story structures with steep roofs and wraparound porches. Cast iron street lights and a lot of small parks completed the look.

There weren't any bars or taverns in town, but there were a lot of cafes and coffee shops. But then elves didn't drink. Alcohol didn't affect them anymore than it affected supernaturals.

I stopped at the same coffee shop I always stopped at when I was in town, a place called Magical Java.

"Diagonal parking," Savanna said as I pulled the Del Sol into a spot directly in front of the coffee shop. "You don't see that too much."

"Elves aren't what you would call fast drivers," I said. "When they even bother to drive. Plus, they don't drink, so it's not like they have to worry about a drunk driving down the street and clipping the rear of their car."

"No need to hurry when you're immortal," Savanna said.

Elves are tall and thin, kind of like basketball players. They have dark blue hair, dark blue eyes, and pointed ears. They're extremely attractive, probably the only ones in the world that can hold their own against mermaids in the looks department. They also have the ability to mask their appearance. They call it glamor, I call it elfin magic. Whatever you call it, it enables them to appear human.

That's what the elves in the coffee shop did when we entered, they masked their true appearance, so their ears looked rounded and their hair and eyes were a dull brown.

As soon as they saw it was me, they dropped the glamor, letting us see them as they really were, with dark blue hair, dark blue eyes, and pointed ears. I had been here often enough to be recognized.

Not that everybody in town appreciated me, or my showing up. Some elves, particularly those on the town council, or elf council, or whatever you wanted to call it, consider supernaturals to be abominations that shouldn't even exist. They're not wrong either. After all, we are descended from fallen angels.

"This is a pleasant surprise," the girl behind the counter said when she saw me. Fortunately, she wasn't one of the elves who viewed me as an abomination. "What brings you here?"

"My friends need a place to stay for a couple of days, someplace peaceful and quiet. Naturally, I thought of Woodlawn."

"The bed and breakfast is still open," the girl said. "Although Claire is no longer operating it."

Claire, or Gladrielle, as I called her, was banished from the community for taking a life. Actually, she was the one that killed the original Titus, but that's another story.

"Claire's living in Montana now," I said. "With a couple hundred other disenfranchised elves. They bought a town, started a new family."

Actually, I was the one that bought the town. Mostly because I felt guilty. If I hadn't dragged Gladrielle into my life, she wouldn't have killed Titus and been banished for taking the life of a sentient being. Helping her find a new family and a new home was the least that I could do.

"You don't know how glad I am to hear that," the girl behind the counter said. "Claire was such a nice person."

"She still is." I checked the chalkboard behind her, noticed that they had added sandwiches to their menu. "You're serving sandwiches now?"

"We are," the girl said. I didn't know her name, mostly because she had never told it to me and didn't bother to wear a name tag. But then why would she? Everybody in town knew who she was.

"What's the best one on the menu?"

"For a mermaid that would be the foot long deluxe. It comes with avocado, cucumber, lettuce, tomato, mushrooms, and olives served on freshly baked bread and smothered with a sweet and sour sauce."

"We'll take three," I said.

"The usual to drink?"

"Make it three." My usual was an extra large caramel mocha latte. I also ordered a lemon meringue pie for dessert. Not a piece of pie. A whole pie.

We grabbed a table by the big window that fronted the street. The table had a red Formica top with chrome legs. The chairs surrounding it were chrome and red vinyl, giving the place a nineteen fifties appearance.

"How come there's no meat on these sandwiches?" Savanna asked as we started in on our dinner.

"Elves don't eat meat," Violet said.

Savanna looked at me for confirmation. I nodded. "They're vegetarians."

"It's still good," Violet said, chomping on her sandwich.

The sandwich was good, but then elves are excellent cooks, even if they don't bake cookies in hollow trees.

We finished our sandwiches, and had just started in on our pie, when Elrod arrived. Elrod was the local elf king. Although they didn't refer to him as a king anymore, they just referred to him as the mayor.

He called himself Jim Smith, but I referred to him as Elrod, mostly because it sounded like the name of an elf king. He ordered half a foot long and a black cup of coffee, then he joined us at our table.

"You never told me you had a twin sister," Elrod said. He was tall and thin with dark blue hair, dark blue eyes, pointed ears, and a flawless complexion. He wore jeans and a green polo shirt. Smith's Nursery was engraved on the left breast pocket in gold lettering.

"We're not sisters. She's my mom." Violet offered Elrod her hand. "I'm Violet."

Elrod reached across the table and shook Violet's hand. "Jim Smith."

Violet grinned. "Mom calls you Elrod."

"Yes she does." Elrod looked at me. "You never told me you had a daughter."

"The last time I was here, I didn't have a daughter."

Elrod looked at Savanna. "Do mermaids mature that quickly?"

Savanna shook her head. "Hardly."

"I'm a clone," Violet said.

"I guess you could call her my clone daughter," I said.

Elrod looked at Savanna, then at me. "Do I want to know what this is about?"

"Not really," we said in unison.

"So what are you doing down this way?"

"Violet and Savanna need a place to stay," I said. "Just for a couple of days."

"The bed and breakfast is still in operation. Although it is under new management."

Elrod looked at me, but didn't ask what he wanted to ask. Perhaps because he felt as responsible for Gladrielle's banishment as I did, but once again, that's another story.

"Gladrielle's fine," I said. "Her and a couple hundred other elves bought a town in Montana and started a new family."

"Gladrielle found the other elves on the internet," Savanna said. "I found the town. Low paid for everything."

Elrod looked at me, his dark blue eyebrows arching in surprise. "You bought Claire a town?"

"Mom's a big softy," a grinning Violet said.

Elrod returned Violet's grin. "So it would seem."

"It was guilt that drove me, nothing more."

"Still, it can't be cheap to buy a whole town."

"It was a day's work, that's all."

"I didn't know the private detective business paid that well."

"It doesn't," I said. "I'm talking about my other line of work."

"Treasure hunting," Savanna said. "It's the primary job of all mermaids."

"Most supernaturals don't experience guilt," Elrod said. "But then you guys aren't like most supernaturals."

"Our fathers are human," Savanna said. "They taught us all about guilt."

I nodded in agreement. "My father used to tell me that I was special, and that I had to use my skills, my abilities, to help others. If I didn't, he would refuse to talk to me. He would just shake his head in disappointment and walk away."

"Which explains why you do the things that you do," Savanna said.

Elrod looked at Savanna. "Was your dad that bad?"

"No, but then my dad's a farmer. Hers is a cop."

"Was a cop," I said. "He's retired now."

Elrod nodded and turned to Violet. "So how did Low end up with a clone daughter?"

Violet told Elrod her story, where she came from, who created her, how I rescued her. When she finished her tale, she headed to the counter to order a second pie. Savanna went with her, debating whether they should order cherry, apple, or blueberry.

"You want me to keep an eye on them?" Elrod asked when we were alone.

"I don't think anyone's going to come down here looking for them," I said. "But I'd appreciate it anyway."

"Consider it done."

Elrod grinned at me, prompting me to ask the obvious question. "What's so funny?"

"Violet's right, you are a softy."

I didn't bother to argue with him, although I could have. After all, I was going back to the city with the intention of killing two people, clone Count, and Crystal.

Chapter 20

It was around eleven in the evening when I got back to the city. I had no idea where clone Count was hanging out. He didn't have money like the real Count, but he did have the real Count's face and memories, so maybe he had access to the real Count's assets. If that was the case then he could be anywhere.

That being said, the real Count liked to push people around, specifically, he liked to push other vampires around. That meant that he was probably hanging out at a vamp club. The only question was, which vamp club?

He probably wasn't at O Positive. The vamps at O Positive, like Elvis vamp, knew that he wasn't the real Count, and being told that he wasn't the real Count bothered him, bothered him to no end. He would go to another vamp club, a club where the vamps wouldn't challenge him when he told them that he was the Count.

There were two other vamp clubs in the city, clubs that were owned by vamps and run by vamps. One was called the Artery. The other went by the name Fang.

Fang was the closer of the two, so I went there first. It was located in an old warehouse, in a section of the city containing a lot of old warehouses. The building was cinder block and unpainted. An eight foot chain link fence surrounded the building and its parking lot. There was no gate, so anybody could just drive in.

Red neon tubing above a door in the middle of the building spelled out the word Fang. There was no bouncer at the front door, deciding who got to go in and who didn't. Everybody was welcome at Fang.

I was wearing the same outfit that I put on that morning, tight white short shorts, an emerald green tank top, and matching green sneakers. My hair was tied back in a ponytail.

I parked the Del Sol and headed inside. Fang was like any other nightclub, except perhaps a bit more spacious. Flashing strobe lights on the walls blinked on and off, matching the thumping beat of the music pumping out of the numerous speakers scattered around the club.

When the music stopped the strobe lights stopped. Leaving the red lights directly overhead as the only lights still on. When the music resumed its thumping, the strobe lights resumed their flashing.

A black granite bar ran down the left hand side of the club, stretching the whole length of the warehouse. Black vinyl stools with short backs fronted the bar. Booths with black granite tables and black vinyl bench seats ran down the right hand side of the club. Fang was spelled out in red neon tubing on the back wall. Directly beneath that, resting on a dais, a disc jockey plied his trade.

The people on the dance floor were young, early to mid twenties. A lot of them had a Goth look, black clothing with heavy black makeup around the eyes. I guess the people on the dance floor were dancing, if you want to call smashing into the people around you as dancing.

The people in the booths were either drinking or being fed upon by vamps, riding the high that went with being bitten by a vampire. And no, they weren't in danger of turning into vamps. You want to become a vampire, you have to drink his blood.

There were a couple of vamps sitting at the bar, eyeing the humans on the dance floor, obviously looking for a snack. Unfortunately, clone Count wasn't among them. Nor did I see him sitting in a booth on the other side of the club. Wherever clone Count was, he wasn't here.

I turned to leave when a vamp came sauntering up to me. If he had been human, he would've been young, somewhere around twenty years of age. Being a vamp, I had no way of knowing how long he had been around.

"You looking for a bite?" he asked me.

He was about my height, skinny and pale, like all vampires. His brown hair was long and greasy. His jeans were so baggy and hung so low on his hips that I thought they might end up around his ankles. He wore a black tee shirt with a picture of a bottle of Jack Daniels on it.

"I'm looking for the Count," I said. "I don't suppose he's been here."

"I don't know who the Count is," Greasy Hair said.

He was definitely young, probably just turned in the last year. Any vamp that had been around for any length of time knew who the Count was.

I turned to to go, but Greasy Hair stepped in front of me. "I can make you feel good. Real good. All you got to do is let me bite you."

"Vamp bites don't affect me the way they affect others." I tried to step around Greasy Hair, but he just moved with me, blocking my path.

"Just one bite," Greasy Hair said. "I promise you'll enjoy it."

This is why a lot of people avoid vamp clubs, because they don't want to be bothered by vamps that don't want to drink their blood from a cup or a plastic bag. But then I'm not most people.

I grabbed Greasy Hair by the neck and lifted him off his feet. "I understand that you've just been turned and that your enhanced speed and strength make you feel powerful, but the truth is you're not all that powerful. There are a lot of beings out there that are way more powerful, way more dangerous, than you. And as luck would have it, I'm one of them.

"Now, I'm going to set you down. When I do, you're going to apologize for bothering me, then you're going to turn and walk away. Do you understand?"

Greasy Hair tried to nod, not an easy thing to do when someone's dangling you by the neck.

I set him on his feet and released his neck. He took a second to collect himself, then mumbled, "Sorry if I bothered you."

Greasy Hair turned and shuffled back to the bar. I spun around to leave, only to find myself face to face with another vampire.

This one was female. She was about five foot six. Her hair was long and black and straight. Her eyes were green, the pea green you find on humans, not the emerald green you find on mermaids like myself. Her lips were full and painted bright red. her skin was vampire pale.

She wore black leather thigh boots, a short black leather skirt, and a white silk blouse topped by a black leather vest that she left unbuttoned.

"I know who you are," the female vamp said. "You're that mermaid, the one that killed the Count."

"You seem to have me at an advantage," I said. "Because I have no idea who you are."

"Rachel," the female vamp said. "Rachel Reed. I own Fang, and with the passing of Titus, I guess I'm now the oldest vampire in the city."

"Good for you," I said. "Now if you'll excuse me. I'm kind of busy."

I tried to step around Rachel, but she moved with me, blocking my path. "I couldn't help but overhear what you said, about how you're looking for the Count."

Of course she heard what I said. She was a vampire. With her enhanced hearing, she could probably tune in on any conversation in the room, despite the loud music that continued to thump out of the speakers.

"Not the original Count," I said. "I'm looking for his clone."

"Someone cloned the Count?"

"Crystal Kragen, she's a siren. You may have heard of her. She doesn't exactly keep a low profile."

"I know who she is," Rachel said. "But why would she want to clone the Count?"

I laughed. "To ruin my life."

I tried to step around her a second time, but she blocked my path a second time. "How dangerous is this clone?"

"He's not as powerful as the original Count. That being said, he can go out in the middle of the day. He just has to avoid direct sunlight. Stay in the shade."

"That makes him more powerful than most of us," Rachel said. "Myself included."

"Yeah, well, I wouldn't worry about him too much, because once I find him, I'm going to kill him. But if he does stop by, I'd appreciate a heads up." I gave Rachel my name and number. She added them to her phone. "If he does show up, call right away, like the second you see him."

I stepped around her and headed for the door. This time she let me go. My next stop was the third vamp club in town, a place called the Artery. Fang was located on the southern end of town. O Positive was located in the heart of the city. The Artery was located on the north end of the city. I was halfway there when I got a text from Rachel. Clone Count was at Fang.

I spun the Del Sol around and roared back the way I came, breaking the speed limit and running red lights all the way. I sped by a couple of police cars, but they didn't pursue me. Probably because most of the cops in town knew my car and preferred to avoid getting involved in whatever I happened to be involved in.

I pulled into Fang's parking lot about ten minutes after Rachel texted me. I hopped out of the Del Sol and ran into Fang, moving at full speed. Clone Count was definitely there, standing in the middle of the dance floor feeding on Greasy Hair.

Everybody else in the place was just standing around, watching clone Count. Probably because he had already dined on one vampire. That vampire was lying at his feet, his body nothing more than a dried out husk.

I rushed clone Count, hoping to reach him before he noticed that I was there. Just when I thought I might succeed, a lightheaded high washed over me. It made it hard to think, hard to focus, hard to do anything except sit back and ride the high.

I had experienced that feeling before, so I knew where it was coming from, a bogeyman was feeding upon me.

I forced myself to focus, something I had no desire to do. Sitting in one of the booths on the right hand side of the club was Teddy clone. Apparently, he hadn't managed to get out of town before clone Count found him.

Rather than killing Teddy clone the way he killed Titus clone, clone Count decided to recruit Teddy clone, use him against me, set up a trap that I had fallen into. I had been so focused on clone Count that I never bothered to check and see if he had an accomplice.

Fortunately, Teddy clone's power wasn't as strong as the original Teddy's power. Even though a euphoric high was washing over me, I could still focus, not enough to use my power over water, but enough to remember where I was and what I was doing there, enough to rush Teddy clone's booth, bulling my way past the people on the dance floor.

It must've been enough to scare Teddy clone because he stopped using his power on me. With my head clear, I was able to move quickly. In less than a second, I had trapped Teddy clone in his booth.

"He made me do it," Teddy clone said. He held both hands in front of him. "He threatened to kill me if I didn't help him."

I reached out with my mind, to the water inside Teddy clone's body. Then I ordered that water to freeze. Solid.

Bogeymen aren't like vampires, or mermaids, or other supernaturals. The only power they have is the power to feed upon others, rob them of their youth. They're not any stronger or faster than your average human. If you freeze one from the inside out, they'll die, just like a human.

As Teddy clone froze from the inside out, I wheeled around to face clone Count. Only he wasn't there. I scanned the crowd, checking to see if he was hiding behind somebody, but I couldn't find him.

"He's gone," Rachel Reed said, stepping out of the crowd. "He watched you and the guy in the booth for a few seconds, then turned and walked out."

Clone Count must've decided to retreat when he realized that Teddy clone's power wasn't strong enough to disable me.

I spun back around to face Teddy clone. He was still in the booth, his mouth open, his hands out in front of him.

"What's the matter with him?" Rachel asked.

"He's dead. Frozen from the inside out."

"He wasn't human."

"He's a bogeyman. Actually, he's the clone of a bogeyman."

"Another enemy of yours?"

"Not anymore."

"And you did this to him?"

"I'm a mermaid, I can do anything I want with water, including the water inside a person's body."

Rachel turned around and looked at the the two dried out husks lying on the middle of the dance floor. They looked just like Titus clone did after clone Count got done with him, like a couple of mummies that had been around for thousands of years.

"In case you're wondering," Rachel said, speaking to the crowd. "The guy that did this was the Count. The world's oldest vampire. Over five thousand years old."

I leaned toward Rachel. "Actually, it was his clone. Not even a week old."

Rachel ignored me and pointed to the frozen Teddy clone. "And this guy here is the original bogeyman. Capable of turning you into an old man or old woman in a matter of minutes. Not to worry though. He's dead. Frozen solid."

"A bogeyman would have to feed on them for several months before they'd turn into an old man or old woman," I said.

Rachel signaled the DJ at the back of the room. He nodded and music started thumping out of the speakers. No one bothered to clean up what was left of the two dried out vampires. They just danced around them.

"These kids come here to see something different," Rachel said. "Now they can go home happy. They can tell their friends that they saw the world's oldest vampire dine on two younger vamps."

"I take it those two vamps weren't friends of yours."

Rachel laughed. "Since when have you known vampires to be friends with other vampires? I might have used them to attract customers, but that doesn't mean we were friends."

I nodded at the two dried out corpses on the dance floor. "Is anybody going to clean those up?"

"Why bother? They don't smell, but they will attract customers."

I pointed to Teddy clone. "He'll smell, once he begins to thaw out."

"I'll get rid of the body when the club closes," Rachel said. "Until then, why not use him to make a little money." She nodded in Teddy clone's direction. Some people had pulled out their phones and were taking pictures of his frozen body.

"If clone Count comes back, give me a call," I said.

"You got it," Rachel said. "And thanks."

I turned and headed for the exit. Clone Count was becoming a bigger problem than the original Count. But then I had help when I took on the original Count, namely Gladrielle, the disenfranchised elf.

The original Count had been in love with Gladrielle, even after he became a vampire, he still wanted her. If Gladrielle was here, I wouldn't have to go looking for clone Count, he would come to me.

The question was, would Gladrielle want to help me with clone Count? Considering what she went through with the original Count, I wasn't sure. But then there was only one way to find out.

Chapter 21

I called Gladrielle from my car. "Hey. It's me."

"What's up?" Gladrielle said.

"What makes you think that something is up?"

"It's after midnight. The only time people call after midnight is when something is up. So what's up?"

"I was wondering if you wanted to fly out here for a day or so. I could use your help."

"With what?"

"With the Count."

There was a brief pause before Gladrielle responded. "You killed the Count. Or have you forgotten?"

"This isn't the original Count. This is his clone."

"Somebody cloned Eradu?"

"Crystal Kragen. The siren that sent the cops after you when I locked you in my vault."

"Why would she want to clone Eradu?"

"Why else. To try and screw up my life."

"This clone actually looks like Eradu?"

"Looks like him, dresses like him, sounds like him. He even has the Count's memories, he's just not as powerful as the Count."

"So why do you need my help?"

"Every time I get close to him, he runs away."

"Sounds like he knows that he can't beat you in a head to head fight."

"He's not as arrogant as the original Count, which is why he's harder to catch."

"And you want to use me as what?" Gladrielle said. "Bait?"

"The original Count was obsessed with you, and seeing how clone Count has all of his memories . . . ."

"You're hoping that he'll be obsessed with me too."

"I'm hoping," I said.

"You sure you want me to come out there? You do remember what happened the last time I got involved with you and Eradu?"

What happened was Gladrielle went all dark elf on me, chasing me around town while throwing fireballs at me. It ended when I managed to convince her that there was no such thing as a dark elf, that it was all in her head.

"This isn't Eradu," I said. "Eradu is dead. As long as you remember that, I think we'll be okay."

"I'll catch the next flight out," Gladrielle said. "As long as you're paying."

"I'm paying," I said.

***

Twelve hours later, I picked Gladrielle up at the airport. The place was packed with humans, so she was using glamor to hide her true appearance. Instead of being dark blue in color, her long hair was a mousy brown. Her pointed ears were rounded, and her flawless complexion was dotted with freckles.

Despite all of that, she was still a striking beauty. Tall and thin with a perfect face and just enough curves to turn a man's head. She was dressed casually, jeans, black cowboy boots, and a red and white checked shirt with faux-pearl snaps for buttons.

"I see you've gone cowgirl," I said, giving her a hug.

"When in Rome," Gladrielle said, grinning. "Or in this case, Montana."

"How's the new family." A group of elves refers to themselves as a family of elves, kind of like a flock of birds, or a pride of lions.

"Good," Gladrielle said. "Everyone's happy to be part of a family again."

The elves she hooked up with had been banished from their family for doing something they shouldn't, much like Gladrielle had. In her case, she had taken a life, killed a vampire to be exact. And while a lot of people would consider that to be a good thing, elves don't. It's not that they love vampires, they're just opposed to killing.

"Can you handle my disposing of clone Count?"

"Eradu died five thousand years ago, when he became a vampire. I've dealt with that, not that this guy is him, it's just a copy."

"So you won't heave fireballs at me when I take him out."

Gladrielle chuckled. "I'll try to restrain myself."

We collected Gladrielle's bag, put it in the Del Sol's trunk, and headed off.

"How do you plan on letting this clone know that I'm around?"

"Not only does he look and sound like the Count, he has his memories and his preferences."

"Meaning?"

"He likes to push other vampires around. When he's not trying to kill me, or those I care about, you can usually find him at a vamp club, draining some young vamp dry."

"So we're going to spend the night club hopping?"

"Even if we don't run into him, word will get back to him that you're in town."

"You're hoping," Gladrielle said.

"I'm hoping," I said, before changing topics. "I was down in Woodlawn the other day."

"Why?"

I needed some place safe to stash a friend, hide her from clone Count."

"Why would a clone of Eradu want to kill a friend of yours?"

"Because she's a clone."

"You've made friends with a clone?"

"Kind of hard not to seeing how she calls me mom."

"Why would she call you mom?"

"Because she's my clone."

Gladrielle's jaw dropped. "Crystal made a clone of you?"

"She did?"

"Why would she clone someone that she hates?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I'm not really sure. Perhaps she thought she needed her to access my treasure."

Gladrielle was the only person, aside from myself, that had been inside my treasure room. I locked her in there to protect her from Crystal and some cops Crystal had used her siren powers on.

"Seems to me that treasure causes you more trouble than it's worth," Gladrielle said.

"I'll admit that it can cause problems on occasion, but if I didn't have it, I'd go into a depression."

Gladrielle grinned. "So you adopted a clone."

"I guess I did."

"What's it like, having another you running around?"

"Actually, she's quite different from me. In addition to having different colored eyes, she's more human than me. She'll hug you and say things like, I love you. Something no one has every heard me say."

"That doesn't sound like such a bad thing."

I nodded in agreement. "Not a bad thing at all."

***

As soon as the sun set, we headed off in search of clone Count. I figured we'd hit all three vamp clubs. Even if we didn't cross paths with clone Count, we could at least spread the word that the original Count's greatest obsession, Gladrielle, was back in town. Once clone Count discovered that little fact, he would come looking for us.

I decided to start up north and work my way south, so we went to the one club I had yet to visit, the Artery. The Artery was located in an old supermarket, grocery store, if you prefer. From the outside, it still looked like a supermarket. The grocery store sign at the front of the parking lot had been replaced with a red and white sign that said the Artery.

The club's glass front revealed flashing lights inside the club. Red, blue, and green laser beams danced throughout the club, lighting what was otherwise a dark room. The music was so loud you could hear it in the parking lot, rattling the club's glass front.

"You think the clone is here?" Gladrielle asked as we climbed out of the Del Sol.

"Probably not, but then tonight isn't about finding the clone, it's about letting the vamp community know that you're back in town."

We headed into the club. Unlike Fang, which let anybody in, there was a bouncer in front of the Artery, deciding who did and didn't get to go inside the club. There were a couple dozen people in line, but we bypassed them and walked right to the front. The bouncer was a vamp, so he could tell that neither of us was human. My emerald green eyes and cherry red hair told him that I wasn't human. Gladrielle's dark blue hair and pointed ears told him that she wasn't human. Although he didn't need to see us to realize that we weren't human. His sense of smell would've told him that.

One advantage to being a supernatural is you don't have to wait in line at a vamp club, supernaturals are always given preference over humans. Probably because there's no shortage of humans trying to get in while supernaturals are few and far between, although technically, elves aren't supernaturals. They were around long before we appeared, long before humans appeared.

Inside, the red, blue, and green lasers continued to shoot around the club, dancing to the music and providing much of the light inside the club. A polished oak bar occupied the middle of the back wall. Round oak tables and straight backed oak chairs occupied the space between the dance floor and the left and right walls. The DJ was behind a round desk in the middle of the dance floor. The desk was on a dais, well above the dancers.

"What is it with vampires and nightclubs?" Gladrielle asked.

"To you and me and the humans on the dance floor it's a nightclub. To the vamps it's an all you can eat buffet."

Gladrielle nodded. Like me, she was wearing shorts, sneakers, and a tank top. Her shorts were khaki, her sneakers and top the same dark blue as her hair and eyes.

I was dressed in white. White sneakers, white shorts, a white tank top. The biggest difference in our outfits was our shorts. Mine were small and tight, I'm talking paint on tight. Gladrielle's reached to her knees and were decidedly loose fitting. But that's one of the differences between elves and mermaids. Elves prefer to keep a low profile. Mermaids on the other hand, well, what can I say, we like attention.

"I don't see anyone that looks like Eradu," Gladrielle said.

"Neither do I," I said.

"So, do we stay or go?"

"We stay, just long enough to let whoever owns this place know that you're in town."

We worked our way around the dance floor, moving to the bar at the back of the room. When we reached it, we grabbed a couple of stools. Eventually, one of the three bartenders worked his way over to us. "What can I get you ladies?"

The bartender was human, so he didn't interest me. "The owner. If he's around."

The bartender signaled to somebody in a office located directly over the main entrance. The office had a two way mirror as a window, allowing whoever was behind it to see what was happening in the club without being seen.

"He'll be down in a minute," the bartender said.

"Don't suppose the Count has been around."

The bartender gave me a blank look. "I don't know who that is."

Of course he didn't, but then he was human.

"Here's the boss," he said. He drifted off to wait on another customer.

We spun around to check out the boss. He was what you'd expect a vamp to look like, tall and thin and around forty years of age. His dark hair was cut short and he slicked it back with a ton of gel. He wore a black suit, white shirt, and a blood red tie.

"You're kind of a walking cliche," I said.

"I've found that it pays to give the people what they want." The vamp extended his hand. "Gregory Hart."

"Low Campbell." His hand was cold and dry, which is pretty much how all vampires feel. "This is Gladrielle."

Gregory took Gladrielle's hand and kissed the back of it. "I've never had an elf grace my business with her lovely presence."

"We're looking for the Count," I said. "Don't suppose he's been here."

"I heard the Count was dead. Killed by a redheaded mermaid. But I suspect you would know more about that than I would."

"The original Count is dead, but he's got a clone running around."

"Why would someone want to clone the Count?"

"I'm afraid you'll have to ask her that question. I take it clone Count hasn't been here."

"I'm afraid not," Gregory said.

"If he shows up, let him know that Gladrielle is looking for him."

"Just how strong is this clone?"

"Not as strong as the original Count, but stronger than you, or anyone you know."

"Forewarned is forearmed." Gregory waved the bartender on over. "Give these two whatever they want. On the house."

"Alcohol doesn't do much for us, but food is always appreciated."

"We serve a pretty good burger," Gregory said. "Or so I'm told."

"I don't eat meat," Gladrielle said.

"One beef burger, one soy burger," Gregory said to the bartender. "With fries."

Gregory drifted off. A few minutes later, our burgers arrived. It wasn't the ideal place to eat, what with the thumping music and the flashing lasers, but it was free and tasted pretty good, so I wasn't going to complain.

We were just finishing up our free meals when clone Count arrived. This time he wasn't alone, he had an entourage. Okay, it was just two people, two young women. Judging by the way they dressed, they were either hookers or hookers in training. Considering what I was wearing, I might be splitting hairs, but there's a difference between sexy and trashy. Of course that's just my opinion.

I wondered if clone Count paid them to join him or was compelling them to join him. Although I had no idea why you'd bother to compel a couple of hookers.

Clone Count was wearing what he always wore, deck shoes, board shorts, a red and white Hawaiian shirt, and wraparound sunglasses. I wondered if he washed the outfit after his run through the sewer, or if it was a new outfit. It wasn't like he had to buy anything. He could walk into any store and compel the clerk to give him what he wanted.

"Clone at six o'clock," I said.

Gladrielle spun on her stool and gazed across the dance floor. "He looks just like Eradu."

"Except he's not," I said. "Although he thinks he is."

"He thinks he's Eradu?"

I nodded. "For some reason, he can't accept the fact that he's a clone. Something the other three clones had no problem accepting."

"Eradu always was stubborn. Even after five thousand years, he still couldn't accept the fact that I didn't want to be with him."

"That would explain it," I said.

"Should we go meet him?" Gladrielle asked me.

"Why not let him come to us. Sooner or later, he'll notice that you're here."

Gladrielle nodded and went back to her meal. I did the same but kept one eye on clone Count.

Gregory, the club's owner, must've known what the Count looked like because he drifted over to meet him. They talked for a few seconds, then Gregory pointed in our direction.

"Looks like he knows you're here," I said to Gladrielle.

Clone Count headed toward us, all but forgetting about the two hookers serving as his entourage. Gladrielle had done her job, bringing him to me. Now, it was time for me to do my job and eliminate him from existence, once and for all.

Chapter 22

"This is a pleasant surprise," clone Count said, when he reached us. He was looking at Gladrielle and paying no attention to me, much like the original Count. "I didn't expect to see you again."

He took off his wraparound sunglasses, revealing pale blue eyes. Something the original Count didn't have. His eyes were black orbs.

"You have blue eyes," Gladrielle said.

"Yeah, so?" clone Count said.

"Eradu's eyes were brown when he was human, when he became a vampire, they became black orbs. Just like the Nephilim and the fallen angels that fathered them."

While Gladrielle and clone Count talked, I reached out with my mind, to the water that made up clone Count's body. Then I ordered that water to freeze. And no, that wouldn't kill him, you have to boil the water inside a vampire to kill him. What it would do is turn him into a living statue, which would make it easy to eliminate him, whenever and wherever I wanted.

"The clones aren't identical to the originals," I said, responding to Gladrielle's comment on clone Count's eyes. "They're more human."

"I wonder why?" Gladrielle said.

"They made the clones by injecting stem cells with supernatural DNA into human bodies. Recently deceased human bodies. The process reanimates and transforms the bodies into clones, but seems to retain some of the characteristics of the original humans. Like their eye color."

Clone Count finally looked at me, glared at me actually. "I am not a . . . ." he stopped in mid sentence and smiled. "I know what you're trying to do, and while it worked once, it won't work twice."

He grabbed Gladrielle's hand and dashed toward the exit, dragging her with him. I took off in pursuit, chasing them across the club's dance floor. I might have caught them if a group of people hadn't appeared in the doorway a split second after clone Count and Gladrielle slipped out it. They were moving so fast, the humans probably didn't even see them.

That left me with two choices, I could hit the brakes, or I could run the humans over, which with my strength and muscle density, could kill them. Going around them wasn't an option because there were a half dozen of them packed in the doorway. As such, I did the only thing I could, I hit the brakes.

By the time I got around all the people, and made it out the club's doors, clone Count and Gladrielle were no where to be seen. Clone Count was turning out to be harder to deal with than the original Count, which I suppose shouldn't have surprised me. The original Count never met me, as such, he didn't know what I was capable of. In contrast, clone Count had all of the original Count's memories, right up to the point where I ended his life. That gave him an advantage the original Count never had.

The question was, where would he take Gladrielle? Gladrielle didn't have a car, and as far as I knew, clone Count didn't have a car. I revised that thought a second later, when I heard, and then saw, a car peel out of the parking lot. It was a jet black pickup. A Ford F150.

Yes, it was night. Yes, the truck had tinted windows. Yes, it was moving quickly. But my eyes are designed to see in the oceans dark murky depths. Which meant that I saw who was in the truck. Clone Count was driving. Gladrielle was next to him. I didn't know if clone Count stole the truck or compelled someone to give it to him, nor did I care.

Instead, I rushed to the Del Sol, jumped in, and gave chase. Clone Count's supernatural reflexes gave him an advantage over human drivers, but not over me. Anything he could do, I could do just as well, if not better. Plus my Del Sol had been modified for just such an occasion. My mechanic had removed the car's 1.6 liter engine and replaced it with a bigger, more powerful engine. I could hold my own against the best street racers in the city, so clone Count was not getting away from me. No way. No how.

Within a minute, I had pulled up on his rear bumper, following him as we ran red lights and weaved in and out of traffic. Problem was, his truck was way bigger than my Del Sol, so I couldn't force him off the road.

One advantage of chasing a supernatural, or in this case the clone of a supernatural, is that you can talk to them without yelling, without even being in the same car. They can hear you above the roaring engines and the squealing tires. You just have to be reasonably close.

So that's what I did, I talked to clone Count, even though he was in the car in front of me, racing through the city's streets at well over sixty miles and hour. And if for some reason, he couldn't hear me, I knew that Gladrielle could. That immortal body of hers, not to mention those pointy elf ears, could hear things that even a vampire couldn't hear.

"You can't get away from me," I said. "My car's faster than yours and I'm a better driver. Plus, I get better gas mileage. I'm prepared to do this until you run out of gas."

I waited for a response but didn't get any. The black Ford continued to roar down the street, weaving through traffic, squealing its tires, running red lights. I remained right behind it, hugging the F150's bumper.

"Fine," I said. "You want to do this all night, we'll do this all night."

Even as we drove, I reached out with my mind, trying to connect to the water that made up clone Count's body. As hard as I tried, I couldn't get a lock on it. One second, I would have it, the next, we would tear around a corner and I would lose it.

"If I stop," I heard clone Count say, his voice drifting over the sound of the roaring engines. "You'll freeze me from the inside out. Then you'll kill me, just like you did the first time." He wasn't wrong. That was my plan, but plans can always be changed. "If I promise not to kill you, will you stop?"

"Can I trust you to keep your word?" clone Count said.

He tore around another corner, his tires squealing. I stayed on his rear bumper, my tires squealing.

"I won't try to kill you if you stop," I said. "Mermaid's promise."

I should probably mention that a mermaid's promise is the most sacred oath that a mermaid can give. My mother drilled it into me when I was young, just like her mother drilled it into her.

"When you give someone your mermaid's promise, you're duty bound to keep it," she said. When I asked her why, she explained. "A mermaid's promise is what separates us from the other supernaturals. When they give you a promise, they may or may not keep it. When we give someone a promise, we always keep it. Always. It's one of the things that makes us different from the other supernaturals. Better than them."

I wanted to be better than the other supernaturals, so I always kept my promises. Always. Now, maybe I'm being a little arrogant here, or a lot arrogant, but the fact is, mermaids are better than the other supernaturals.

Clone Count slowed down, then he pulled into the parking lot of a Burger King. I followed him into the lot then parked the Del Sol next to his black pickup.

"You promised," clone Count said as he climbed out of the pickup. "You promised not to kill me."

"You okay?" I asked Gladrielle, as she climbed out of the pickup.

Gladrielle nodded. "I'm fine."

"I won't kill you," I said, focusing on clone Count. "Not this time. Not at all if you go back to Europe. Where you belong."

"If I leave town, you'll let me go?"

"I'm not the world's protector," I said. "Where you go and what you do is your business. I just want you off my turf. Which means this city."

"Fine," clone Count said. "My jet is at the airport. Gladrielle and I will leave for Europe tonight."

If there was a jet at the airport, it wasn't his jet, it belonged to the original Count, the guy that had been around for five thousand years. Not that the people that flew the jet would know that. Except for his eyes, clone Count looked and sounded identical to the original Count. I just wanted him gone, so he wouldn't be a threat to Violet.

"I'm not going with you," Gladrielle said. "That's not why I'm here."

Clone Count looked at her. "Then why are you here?"

"I'm here as a favor to Low. Nothing more."

"We'll follow you to the airport," I said. Gladrielle and I headed for the Del Sol, leaving clone Count standing by himself. When he didn't get in the truck, I looked back at him. "I promised not to kill you now. I didn't say that I wouldn't do it some other time. So unless you want that to come true, you'll get in the truck and drive straight to the airport."

"Airport it is," clone Count said.

He climbed in the F150 and pulled out of the Burger King's parking lot. We followed him in the Del Sol, moving southeast, toward the airport. I expected him to pull off at any moment and try to get away from me, but he didn't, he just continued on, toward the airport.

He didn't go to the main terminal, where you find all the commercial flights, but went to the section of the airport where all the private planes parked.

"He thinks he's Eradu," Gladrielle said as we followed him.

"He's not," I said.

Gladrielle nodded in agreement. "He's definitely not. He's not as confident as Eradu."

"That's because he's not as powerful. Which he knows, even if he can't admit it."

"Do you think he'll actually go back to Europe?"

"If he's smart, he will."

Gladrielle grinned at me. "He's a bigger pain than Eradu was. At least for you."

I grinned back. "You were a bigger pain than the original Count."

Gladrielle bowed her head. "I shall take that as a compliment."

Clone Count rolled to a stop next to a jet. I pulled the Del Sol in next to the black pickup. A minute later, the three of us were standing beside the jet.

"Bombardier Global 6000," clone Count said, smiling at the jet. "Or as the hip crowd calls it these days, a G6."

"You got a pilot?" I asked.

The grin on clone Count's face widened. "I fly it myself. Not the way people expect a vampire to fly, but it works for me."

Gladrielle leaned toward me and lowered her voice to a whisper. "Is it safe to let him fly? He is only a week old."

Clone Count spun around and glared at Gladrielle. "I am not a week old! I'm over five thousand years old. You of all people should know that."

Gladrielle held up both hands. "My mistake. It's just that Low keeps referring to you as clone Count, but then she's a mermaid and they're not exactly known for their intelligence."

"Hey," I said. "Mermaid standing right here."

"This will take awhile," Clone Count said, opening the plane.

Clone Count disappeared into the plane. I leaned toward Gladrielle. "He might only be a week old, but he does have all of the original Count's memories, which means he should be able to fly this thing with no problem."

Clone Count stuck his head out of the hatch that he had just entered and looked at Gladrielle. "Come on up. Maybe when you see the inside of the plane, you'll change your mind about coming with me." He paused for a second, then looked at me. "I guess you can come up too."

"Like you could stop me," I said as I followed Gladrielle up the stairs and into the plane.

The interior of the main part of the plane was, well, about what you'd expect it to be, plush and then some. We followed clone Count into the cockpit and watched as he donned a headset, turned on the radio, and began doing whatever kind of stuff pilots do before taking off. Things like requesting his plane be refueled and that the flight plan he filed when he landed be activated.

Eventually a fuel truck rolled up to the plane and refueled it. While that took place, clone Count removed his headset, slid out of the pilot's chair, and grinned at Gladrielle. "Pretty nice huh?"

Gladrielle nodded. "Very nice."

"Sure you don't want to come with me?"

"Thank you, but I've got a new life now. A new family. We're building something and I don't want to miss out on it."

Clone Count shrugged his shoulders. "Your loss."

He wasn't as enamored with Gladrielle as the original Count was, but then he wasn't identical to the original Count anymore than Violet was identical to me. As much as he wanted to be the original Count, he was a completely different individual.

Clone Count looked at me. "Don't suppose you want to come?"

"Why not?" I said.

I had no intention of going with him. I just wanted to see how he'd respond. Not surprisingly, his response was about what I expected. His jaw dropped and he stared at me in disbelief.

"Relax," I said. "I'm not going with you. I was just yanking your chain."

Clone Count breathed a sign of relief.

The fuel truck finished refueling the plane and drove away. When it did, clone Count looked at us, and said, "It's time for me to fire this baby up and contact the tower for permission to taxi. So if you're not coming, you're going to have to get off the plane."

He looked at Gladrielle when he said, if you're not coming, and at me when he said, get off the plane.

Before we got off the plane, I decided to give clone Count some friendly advice, even if he didn't want to hear it. "I'm guessing that you have enemies back home, other vamps that would like to take your place on the vamp throne."

"Everybody has enemies," clone Count said. He smiled. "Although none of them are as dangerous as you."

"When you get back home, keep the sunglasses on. Don't let them see your baby blues."

Clone Count didn't ask why, but then I suspect he knew why, even if he didn't want to admit it. He had the original Count's memories, which meant he had memories of people being caught off guard by the black orbs that served as the original Count's eyes.

"Take care of yourself," Gladrielle said as we turned and headed off the plane. Once we were off, Clone Count closed the hatch and started the plane's engines.

We watched as he taxied to the runway, watched as he roared down the runway, watched as he disappeared into the night sky.

"What do you think's going to happen to him?" Gladrielle asked me.

"You want the truth or a fairy tail?"

"Don't you mean an elf tail?"

"Choice is yours," I said.

"Give me the truth."

"I think someone's going to figure out that he's not the original Count, then they're going to challenge him. Even if they're not strong enough to kill him, someone else will be."

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. This guy is smarter than Eradu, and not as arrogant."

"What makes you say that?"

Gladrielle looked at me and smiled. "Because this guy, whatever he decides to call himself, was smart enough not to get into a fight with you."

Maybe clone Count would survive, maybe he wouldn't. Truth be told, I didn't care because he was out of my life. Which meant I had just one more thorn in my side. A thorn that had been there for quite awhile. A thorn that needed to be taken care of. A thorn by the name of Crystal Kragen.

Chapter 23

The next morning, after seeing Gladrielle off, I headed down to Woodlawn to pick up Violet and Savanna. I would've preferred to leave Violet with the elves, where she would be safe, but I kept getting texts from Savanna, telling me that Violet was anxious to return to the city and the ocean, so she could continue building her treasure.

No big surprise there, mermaids are always looking to build their treasure. When my treasure was as small as Violet's, it was hard for me to think about anything else. The bigger your treasure gets, the less obsessed you become with expanding it, but that obsession, that need to expand your treasure, never completely goes away. At least not for a mermaid.

It's kind of like eating pizza. Once you've downed two or three extra large supremes, you're not quite as obsessed with pizza, but that doesn't mean you don't love it, nor does it mean you won't have another slice or two.

I rolled into town a little after eleven. Instead of heading down to the bed and breakfast, I parked the Del Sol in the middle of town and walked, figuring that it was pretty close to lunch, and that I could probably find Violet and Savanna in one of the local eating establishments.

If you're looking for a mermaid, there are three places you check first. The ocean. Her treasure room. Or someplace that has food. Woodlawn was in the mountains, not on the ocean, so I knew they weren't there. Their treasures were in another city, so I knew they weren't there. That left one place to check. Fortunately, Woodlawn was a small town, with most of its eating establishments on the same street. Which meant it didn't take long to find them.

Violet and Savanna were in a cafe. It looked like it had been built back in the nineteen forties, with its black and white tiled floor, a matching Formica lunch counter that looked like a checkerboard, and green vinyl stools. The stools were round and backless. Instead of legs, a thick chrome support bolted to the floor kept them in place.

There were no tables in the place, not that there was space for them. The room was long and narrow and the lunch counter circled around it, forming a U. The red neon sign above the door gave no indication as to what kind of food the place served. All it said was Rosie's Cafe.

As soon as I entered, the elves in the cafe, both those behind the counter, as well as those sitting at the counter eating, quickly glamored up, masking their true appearance.

"Relax," Savanna said to everyone. "She's the one that brought us here."

The elves dropped the glamor, revealing their dark blue hair, pointed ears, and flawless complexions. The kind complexions you only find on immortal bodies.

Violet and Savanna were at the bottom of the U, eating two large plates of ravioli, with a couple of extra large chocolate milkshakes on the side. Well, Savanna's was chocolate. Violet's was strawberry. One more difference between Violet and myself. I would've went with the chocolate.

"I'm guessing those ravioli don't have meat in them," I said, grabbing the stool on Violet's left.

"Five different kinds of cheese," Savanna said. "Along with some diced mushrooms. They may not serve meat in this town, but they definitely know how to cook."

I nudged Violet with my elbow. "How you doing kiddo?"

"Fine," Violet said as she pushed a piece of ravioli into her mouth.

"What?" I said. "No hug? Not even a smile?"

"I think she's entered into those awkward teenage years," Savanna said. "The ones where you're too cool to be seen with your mother."

"The good news is," Violet said. "By this time tomorrow, I'll probably be past them and into those, maybe mom isn't so bad after all, years."

"That'll put you ahead of me," I said. "Cause I'm still not sure if I've reached those years."

"I know I haven't," Savanna added.

There was a single elf working behind the counter, not surprisingly, she looked a lot like all the other elves. Tall and thin and flawless and beautiful. Her hair was long and straight and dark blue in color. Her eyes and eyebrows matched the color of her hair. Her face was thin and angular. Her complexion perfect, not a single freckle or mole or blemish.

Her uniform looked a lot like something a waitress would've worn back in the nineteen forties. A knee length blue and white checkered dress with a white apron and a white collar. The name tag on her uniform identified her as Rosie. I had little doubt that wasn't the first, or even the second or third name that she had gone by. Probably a good thing because she sure didn't look like a Rosie. She looked more like a Vanessa. Definitely a Vanessa.

"What it'll be?" she said to me.

I nodded at Violet and Savanna. "I'll have what they're having."

"Chocolate or strawberry shake?"

"Both," I said.

Vanessa smiled, but the smile quickly faded. She looked like she wanted to ask me something, but was afraid to. I knew what it was, so I looked at Savanna, and said, "Saw Gladrielle last night. She flew down to help me out with a small problem."

"How's she like Montana?"

"She was dressed like a cowgirl, so I'd say she's fitting in pretty well."

"And the new family?"

"Apparently everyone's good."

Vanessa smiled, relayed my order to the cook in back, then went to take care of her other customers. I'm sure Gladrielle would appreciate knowing that she still had a few friends in this town.

I'm told you're ready to get back to the ocean," I said to Violet.

"And to see my treasure." Violet looked at Savanna. "I don't understand how she survived in Montana for all those years."

"We had a lake on our farm," Savanna said. "And a stream. When I wasn't swimming or eating or going to school, I was panning for gold."

"You went to school?" I said, surprised.

"You didn't?" Savanna said, equally surprised.

"Mom was home schooled," Violet said.

"Why?" Savanna said.

I shrugged my shoulders. "My mom thought it was more important that I learn how to be a mermaid than a regular girl."

"My mom was just the opposite," Savanna said. "She thought it was more important that I learn how to fit into the human world than learn how to do all the stuff that mermaids are supposed to be able to do. She said that I'd have time to learn all the mermaid stuff when I got older, but if I didn't learn how to fit into the human world when I was young, I never would."

"Did you have a prom?" Violet asked Savanna.

"Of course."

"Did you go?" I asked.

"Of course."

"Were you elected prom queen?" Violet asked.

Savanna pointed to herself with her fork. "With this face and this body, do you even have to ask?"

I'd be lying if I didn't admit to being a bit jealous. While Savanna was being elected queen of the prom, my mother was dragging me out to the desert and making me find the tiniest amount of water by touching it with my mind.

That also explained why I was able to control the water inside a person's body while Savanna couldn't. Well, that and the fact that I was nine years older than her. It also explained why Savanna was able to fit in so easily with humans like Doug Wert. Ten years on the police force had taught me how to interact with humans, but when I was Savanna's age, I wasn't nearly as good at it as I am now.

Vanessa brought my lunch. It smelled good. It looked good. Best of all, there was a lot of it.

"Thanks, V," I said, when she set it in front of me. She gave me a puzzled look, probably wondering why I called her V.

Savanna explained why by pointing at me with her fork. "Lotus Blossom here never calls people by their real name, she always gives them a new name, whatever name she thinks fits them."

"V is short for Vanessa," I said, by way of explanation. "I call you that because you're too glamorous to be a Rosie. And because we both know the only reason you took that name is because it was already on the diner when your family bought this town."

Vanessa smiled and went back to her job. One thing you can say about elves is they do not ruffle easily.

"And just for the record," I said to Savanna. "I do not look like a Lotus Blossom."

Savanna laughed. "No, you don't. But one of these days, I'll come up with a name for you."

"I like mom," Violet said.

"So do I," I said.

I started to chow down. Not surprisingly, it was good. Elves do know how to cook. I was halfway through lunch when an elf I referred to as Green Track Suit walked into the diner. If there was an elf in this town that you could easily ruffle, it was Green Track Suit. I called her that because she was always wearing a green track suit, looking like she had just finished her morning jog. And that's exactly how she looked this time, dressed in her green track suit and green sneakers. Her blue hair pulled back into a ponytail.

She was on the elf council, or the town council, or whatever you wanted to call it. She had been opposed to helping me out the first time I showed up, requesting their help in dealing with the original Count.

She was one of the elves that wanted nothing to do with supernaturals. Because we were descended from the Nephilim, who were the sons of human women and fallen angels, she considered us to be abominations that should have never existed. Funny thing was, I didn't disagree with her on that point.

I did disagree with her on their decision to banish Gladrielle. She had voted in favor of it, despite my attempts to talk her and the other council members out of it. I tried to convince them that Gladrielle hadn't turned into a dark elf, despite the fact that she had taken a life, but Green Track Suit and the other council members voted to banish her anyway.

What made Green Track Suit's vote so interesting was the fact that she was Gladrielle's daughter. Granted they looked to be about the same age, around thirty years old, but they were mother and daughter. Apparently, Green Track Suit had problems coming to grips with a mother that didn't age. A mother that was just as young and as beautiful and as immortal as herself.

Much to my surprise, Green Track Suit sat down next to me, taking the stool on my left.

"I heard you were in town," she said to me.

"Not to worry," I said. "We're leaving right after lunch. And with a little luck, you'll never see us again."

"That's not why I'm here."

"Then why are you here?"

"I heard that you were multiplying. Had to see for myself if it was true."

"Yeah, I found this machine," I said. "It was in a wrecked submarine, exactly twenty thousand leagues under the sea. Ship was captained by some guy named Nemo. Anyway, you hook this machine up to a little electricity, and walk through it, and what do you know, two of you come out. The two of you walk through it, and four of you come out. By now, there got to be dozens of me walking around. Maybe hundreds."

Violet giggled. She had my memories of my encounters, run-ins, with Green Track Suit, so she knew what I thought of her.

Green Track Suit slid off her stool and turned to go. "Well, I'm glad to hear you're leaving."

"In case you're interested. I saw your mother yesterday. She flew in to help me with another problem." Gladrielle's decision to help me with the original Count is what got her into trouble in the first place.

"Sounds like she still hasn't learned her lesson." Although she kept her back to me, Green Track Suit stopped walking away. It made me think that part of her actually cared about her mother.

"She's living in Montana now. Has a new family, a new town. Everything."

"Where did she get a new family?"

"The humans have something called the internet. Maybe you've heard of it."

"I don't concern myself with what the humans do." Green Track Suit still had her back to me, but she wasn't walking away.

"To make a long story short, your mother used it to find a couple hundred disenfranchised elves like herself. They decided to start a new family and bought a town up in Montana."

"Where would Claire get the money to buy a town?"

"I gave it to her, figured it was the least I could do after getting her banished from this place."

Green Track Suit finally spun around and looked at me, making no attempt to hide the surprise on her face. "You bought my mother a town?"

"A small town," I said. "Deserted and a little run down, but it is in the middle of a forest."

"But you're an . . . ."

"Abomination?" I said, finishing the sentence for her.

"To be blunt, yes."

I shrugged my shoulders. "What can I say, I'm a softhearted abomination."

"Very softhearted," Savanna said.

"This is Savanna," I said, introducing her to Green Track Suit. "As you can probably tell, she's an abomination, just like me."

"I'm a better looking abomination," Savanna said as she shoveled the last of her ravioli into her mouth.

"In your dreams," I said.

"Double in your dreams," Violet said.

I nudged Violet with my elbow. "This is me number two. Say hello to Gladrielle's daughter, me number two."

Violet raised a hand, but didn't turn around to look at Green Track Suit, she was too busy slurping up the last of her strawberry shake.

"Hey," I said to Green Track Suit. "You want to know what Gladrielle says is the best thing about her new home?"

"Not really."

"Nobody walks around in poly/cotton blend green track suits. In fact, I think the town council, headed by your mother of course, has outlawed poly/cotton blend green track suits. Red, yellow, blue, gray, orange, black, white, they're all perfectly acceptable. Just no green."

Green Track Suit tugged on her jacket. "This is not a blend."

I snorted. "Sure it isn't."

"When did you say you were leaving?"

"I was planning on leaving right after lunch, but now that I've seen your smiling face, I'm thinking of sticking around for a few days. Maybe I'll get a room at the bed and breakfast with Savanna and me number two."

Green Track Suit pulled an envelope out of her jacket and handed it to me. "When you do leave, take this with you. Maybe you can pass it on to Claire."

She spun around and walked out of the diner.

"You sure you want to give that to Gladrielle?" Savanna asked me. "Might be a bomb or a snake inside of it."

"It's just a letter," I said.

"Letters can hurt as much as bombs or snakes," Violet said.

"She's got you there," Savanna added.

"I don't think this one will hurt her too much."

I showed them what was written on the front of the envelope. It didn't say, to whom it may concern, nor did it say, to the dark elf we just banished. It didn't even say Claire, the name that Gladrielle had been using in Woodlawn. There was just one word written on the front of the envelop. Mom.

"Looks like the wicked witch has a heart after all," Violet said.

"She is an elf," I said.

"Sometimes you have to lose something to realize what you had," Savanna said.

If I had known how prophetic those words were about to become, I would have stayed in Woodlawn. Forever.

Chapter 24

It was late afternoon when we got back to the city. Violet and Savanna changed into their swimsuits and headed for the ocean. They had been away for a couple of days and like all young mermaids were anxious to resume their treasure hunting.

That gave me a chance to swing by the college and check in with John, make sure we were still a couple. It was about four in the afternoon when I got there, most of the classes were done for the day, John's classes were certainly done, which meant he would be in his office. Which is exactly where I found him, only he wasn't alone. Sarah Crewe was there.

The last time we met, I did my best to scare her away, but clearly, it didn't work. Because there she was again, sitting on the edge of John's desk, showing off her legs. I guess they were okay, for a human, although they did lack my muscle tone.

"Well," I said, blocking the doorway so nobody could get in or out. "Here we are again. Just the three of us."

A brief glint of panic flashed over Sarah Crewe's face, then she forced herself to relax. "I did a little research since our last meeting, talked to some of the professors at the law school. They told me that it's against the law for a supernatural to harm a human and that any supernatural that harms a human can be put down."

Not killed or executed, but put down, like a rabid dog. For my part, this rabid dog remained where she was, in the doorway, with one hand on one side of the doorjamb and one on the other, blocking Sarah Crewe's only escape.

For his part, John remained where he was, sitting behind his desk as quiet as a mouse in a room full of cats. Personally, I think he enjoyed us fighting over him, even if he wouldn't admit it.

The last time I talked to him, he said that he told Sarah that we were in a serious relationship. Considering that she was here, it was pretty clear that she didn't get the message. I knew they weren't talking shop. She was an art history professor, he was a marine biology professor, it wasn't like they had a lot in common, except of course, biology.

"I know the law," I said. "I used to be a cop. Ten years on the force."

"Not just a cop," John said. "The most decorated officer in the history of the city."

"And the law says that any supernatural that kills a human can be executed, but it doesn't say that we can't rough you up a bit. Especially if you deserve it." The especially if you deserve it part isn't actually in the statute, I just added that one to scare Sarah Crewe.

"Sarah understands that we're in a committed relationship," John said. "And her reason for being here has nothing to do with me."

Sarah Crewe slid off the desk, straightened her little black skirt, and faced me. She was wearing a white blouse and a black jacket that matched her skirt. Black pumps with two inch heels covered her feet. Her blond hair was pulled back in a chignon. Very stylish, very professional.

I was wearing red sneakers, tight jeans, really tight jeans, and an equally tight red tank top. And of course, no bra. My hair was pulled back in a ponytail. With my figure and gravity defying breasts, I'd say I won that round. Big time.

"You can't tell me that you guys are talking shop because marine biology and art history don't have a lot in common."

"Actually we were talking shop," Sarah Crewe said. "Kind of."

"She has a proposal for you," John said.

"I think I'll pass," I said. "I'm not really into threesomes."

John chuckled. "Her proposal has nothing to do with sex, but it is about something that I think will interest you. Very much."

"I'm listening," I said.

"There's a story about a sunken U-boat," Sarah Crewe said. "It's an old story, going back to World War II. The story goes that the war in Europe was nearing an end. The Germans knew that they were going to lose, even if Hitler refused to accept it. So they loaded a U-boat with priceless artifacts, most of them stolen, and put to sea."

"The earth is seventy percent water, you'll have to be more specific than than that."

"They were headed to Argentina," Sarah said. "But of course they never made it."

"At the beginning of the war the German U-boats were the hunters. The allies referred to them as wolf packs, because the tended to travel in groups. By the end of the war there were very few of them left and the allied destroyers were hunting them." I must have surprised Sarah with my knowledge of World War II because her jaw all but dropped. As such, I figured a little explanation was in order. "And no, I'm not an expert on World War II, or World War I, or any human war for that matter. But like all mermaids, I am an expert on what has and hasn't sailed the seven seas, and more importantly, what never made it to port.

"When it was launched, the submarine you're referring to was originally designated U-37. When it was loaded with those stolen treasures, its mission was designated Operation Bright Star. The reason it was given that name was because there was a diamond on board, that diamond was named the Bright Star because of its size, color, and clarity."

Now John was the one that looked surprised. And to be honest, I was a little disappointed over that fact. Over the fact that he thought I was too stupid to know anything about history.

"People have been looking for that ship ever since," Sarah said.

"A lot of mermaids have looked for that ship," I said. "And never found it."

Sarah nodded. "Mostly because they were looking in all the wrong places. The North Sea. The North Atlantic. The South Atlantic."

She was beginning to sound like she knew where the ship was, which definitely earned her my attention.

"You know where U-37 went down?"

"I don't, but one of my coworkers does."

"And how would he know that?"

"He found the grandson of a radio operator in Germany. That radio operator's job was to keep in touch with U-37, chart its progress for the German high command."

Now she really had my attention. "If it didn't go down in the Atlantic or the North Sea, that only leaves one place, the Norwegian Sea."

Sarah shook her head. "Not the Norwegian Sea either."

"But there are no other seas between the U-boat's home port and Argentina."

"There's one," Sarah said. "If you don't mind going a tad off course."

"You can't mean the Caribbean?" Sarah smiled. That's when it hit me. Why that U-boat would be in the Caribbean. "World War II U-boats used diesel engines, which means they would've needed to find someplace to refuel, someplace nice and quiet, where nobody would be looking for them."

"Except somebody did find and sink them. They just didn't know what they found."

"Let me guess," I said." You're putting a team together to go search for U-37."

"I'm not," Sarah said. "But one of my colleagues is. I'll admit, I'd like to be on the team, but I'm not tenured and haven't been asked."

"But he could use a mermaid on his team." Of course he could. If you're searching for sunken treasure, you definitely want a mermaid on your team. Of course there was just one problem to my searching for sunken treasure in the Caribbean. That was my mother's turf and I'm not sure how happy she'd be to discover that I grabbed the Bright Star right out from underneath her nose. But then I would worry about that when the time came.

I lowered my hands from the door jam and walked over to Sarah. She retreated a step when I reached her, worried that I might get physical, but all I did was drape my arm around her shoulders.

"Louie," I said. "I got a feeling that this is the start of a beautiful friendship. Now what do you say we go talk to this coworker of yours. I'm pretty sure that I can convince him to put both of us on his team."

"What about me?" John said as we headed out the door. "I did introduce the two of you."

"You'll get your reward later," I said. And he would.

***

I still had one problem to take care of before Violet would be safe, and that was of course the woman who created her, Crystal Kragen. Crystal, or someone that worked for her, had told clone Count to kill the other clones. I have little doubt that after that, they would've killed clone Count. Crystal's way of cleaning up her little experiment, an experiment which didn't work out the way she hoped it would.

I'm not sure what she would do now that clone Count was in another part of the world. My guess was she would send someone after him, eliminate him over there. That is if she lived long enough. And if I had my way about it, she wouldn't.

It was illegal for a supernatural to harm or kill a human, but it wasn't against the law for a supernatural to kill another supernatural. The law treated that as an act of self defense. No big surprise. The laws were written by humans and designed to protect humans. To the humans, a dead supernatural was one less supernatural that they had to worry about. Ten years on the police force, working alongside of humans, had taught me that.

I had done my best to ignore Crystal. I ignored her after she tried to steal John from me. I ignored her when she gave his name to a bogeyman, who took him hostage and put a gun to his head. I ignored her after she used her siren powers on my old boss, convincing him that I was dangerous and needed to be killed. Which he tried to do, pumping three bullets into me. And I did my best to ignore her when I discovered that she had cloned me. But her attempts to get rid of Violet were pushing things a bit too far. It was time for Crystal to go, once and for all.

After meeting with Sarah's colleague, I headed for Wormby's Pawnshop. It was mid summer, which meant that it stayed light until fairly late, and that meant Wormby would still be around. He didn't close up shop until the sun went down. Like all gnomes, he had an abnormal fear of vampires. He was convinced that every vampire on the planet wanted to drain him dry.

"I knew that something wasn't right," Wormby said, as soon as I entered his shop.

The reason he said that was because Savanna and Violet were there, dressed in bikinis, with thigh length scarfs wrapped around their waists, and flipflops on their feet. Savanna's outfit was blue, the same blue as her eyes and tail. Violet's outfit was green, one of my old outfits actually.

"We're going to have to take you shopping," I said to Violet. "Get you some bikinis that match your eyes and tail."

"I'd love that," Violet said.

"How'd the treasure hunting go?"

"Got some more pearls," Violet said, shaking the plastic box strapped to her left wrist.

"Somebody want to tell me what's going on here?" Wormby said. "Why are there two of you?"

He was wearing one of his favorite outfits, a red baseball uniform with green and white trim. Wormby's was written across the front in lime green script. A big white number 1, was on the back of the shirt. A red baseball cap with lime green trim covered his bald head. His giant twisted ears stuck up over the sides of the cap.

Wormby was behind the counter at the back of his shop. The floor behind the counter was raised, which made him look taller than he actually was. Instead of his eyes being at waist level, they were at chest level. He could've raised the floor even higher, so he could look us in the eye, but I think Wormby preferred being at chest level.

Doing it with a mermaid was on Wormby's bucket list. It wasn't at the very top of his bucket list. Doing it with a female elf was at the very top of his bucket list. In fact, he was the one that told me about Woodlawn and the elves that lived there. Turned out he would pop down there and hit on Green Track Suit. I got to admit. That was something I would pay to see.

"This is Violet," I said, explaining why there were two of us. "She's my clone daughter."

"You cloned yourself? I know that mermaids are vain, but isn't that taking it a bit too far?"

"I didn't clone me. Crystal did."

"Why would Crystal clone someone she hates?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "Your guess is as good as mine."

Wormby shook a finger at Violet. "I knew something wasn't right when you told me you were Low. Her breasts are at least two and a half millimeters bigger than yours." Like all gnomes, he had giant hands with four fingers. Well, three fingers and a thumb.

"Wait a minute," Savanna said. "You didn't notice that one of them has green eyes while the other has violet colored eyes, but you did notice that Low's breasts are two millimeters bigger than Violet's?"

Two and a half," Wormby said. "And I try not to look into a mermaid's eyes. I tend to get lost in them."

He had a gravely voice, which kind of fit his twisted gravely face. A face with one squinting eye, one bulging eye, a bulbous nose with a wart on the end, which for some unknown reason, Wormby thought was sexy, and giant lips that covered one third of his face.

That being said, whenever I needed help, Wormby was my go-to-guy. Which is why I was here. His ability to pop in and out was just what I needed to get inside Crystal's Fortress of Sirentude.

I'm not sure how he did it. One second he was here, the next he was somewhere else. I think he just pictured where he wanted to be and he was there. It was a power that was unique to gnomes. What was best about that power was that he could take anything or anyone with him. Including a mermaid. He would just want something in return, the only question was what would he want?

"I need a favor," I said to Wormby.

"What kind of favor?"

"I need you to pop me in somewhere."

"It wouldn't happen to be a cheerleader's locker room would it? Cause I'll take you there for free, anywhere else is going to cost you."

"I want you to pop me into Crystal's Fortress of Sirentude."

"Don't know where that is," Wormby said. "Can't take you someplace that I've never been."

Why didn't I believe him? Probably because he knew that Crystal was a siren. When he thought she was a vampire, he avoided her and her employees like the plague, but when he learned that she was a siren, it was, anytime you girls want to go at just let me know. I'll blow up the wading pool and fill it with Jello. I'm pretty sure that once he learned she was a siren, he checked both her and her place out.

"I'll make a deal with you," I said. "If you agree to pop me into Crystal's Fortress of Sirentude, I'll let you motorboat Savanna, right here, right now." Wormby's eyes lit up, like a kid in a candy store with a giant free sign in the window.

"What does that mean?" Savanna said. "How do you motorboat someone?"

"Let me do all three of you, right here, right now, and you got a deal."

I shook my head. "I can't let you do Violet, emotionally, she's still in her teenage years. Letting you do her would just be wrong."

"Fine," Wormby said. "Then I get to do the two of you."

I shook my head again. "I've got a boyfriend now. I don't think he'd appreciate you motorboating me."

"What is motorboating?" Savanna said. "And shouldn't I get a say in this?"

She looked at me, then at Wormby, then at Violet. Wormby and I just ignored her. Violet simply shrugged her shoulders, although she was trying hard to suppress a grin. Probably because she had my memories, which meant that she knew what I was talking about.

"It's the two of you or no deal," Wormby said. He folded his stubby little arms across his chest and glared at me.

"Fine," I said. "You can do the two of us."

Wormby's giant lips broke into a wide grin, probably because he was about to cross off one more thing on his thousand year old bucket list.

"Wait a minute," Savanna said. "I'm not agreeing to anything until somebody tells me what's going on."

I turned to Savanna, said, "Tonight, after Crystal's gone to bed, Wormby's going to pop me into Crystal's home. At which point, I'm going to kill her."

Savanna nodded. "To ensure Violet's safety."

I returned Savanna's nod. "It's the only way. You and I both know that."

"You keep calling her place a fortress," Violet said to me.

"That's because it is. A single entrance onto the grounds, an electric fence surrounding the grounds, guards patrolling the grounds, snipers on the roof."

"Breaking into a place like that sounds dangerous."

"It is dangerous," Wormby said. "What's more, the guards are all human, which means you can't harm them."

"I won't harm them," I said. "I'll just make them a little uncomfortable."

Lowering their body temperature a degree or two would accomplish that, it would make them shiver so bad, they wouldn't be able to do much of anything.

Violet looked at me. "You shouldn't do this, you could get hurt."

"If I don't do this, you'll get hurt." I forced a smile. "Besides, with Wormby's help, I'll be in and out as quick as a wink."

"Nobody's getting my help until you pay up," Wormby said.

"Fine." I turned to Savanna. "I want you to understand that what you're about to do is for Violet."

"What am I about to do?" Savanna said.

"Press your hands against the sides of your breasts. Then just kind of mash your breasts together."

"Like this?" Savanna said.

"Now hold that pose and lean across the counter." Savanna did as I said. "Lean a little more." She leaned a little more. "Perfect."

I looked at Wormby and nodded. He leaned across the counter, pressed his giant lips against Savanna's breasts, and made a motorboat noise.

"Hey!" Savanna said, jumping back.

"I wasn't done," Wormby said to me.

"He wasn't done," I said to Savanna.

"That's what you meant when you said that he could motorboat me?"

"It's not like it's painful or anything."

"No, it wasn't painful, it was just, I don't know, creepy."

"He's a gnome, he specializes in creepy." I motioned for Savanna to re-assume her position, which she did, allowing Wormby to finish his motorboating. When he finally finished, Savanna shook herself, like she had a spider on her and was trying to get it off.

"I think I need to take another dip in the ocean." She turned and headed for the exit, still trying to shake that nonexistent spider off her.

"I'll go with you," Violet said, hurrying after her.

"Who are you trying to kid," Wormby said to Savanna's back. "You enjoyed it and you know it."

Savanna didn't argue with him, she just flipped him the finger as she headed out the door.

For my part, I just stood there laughing, but that came to an abrupt end when Wormby looked at me and said, "You're next."

Chapter 25

A little after midnight, I met Wormby in his apartment, which was located just above his pawnshop. Wormby owned the building, which was just a couple of blocks south of my condo.

I knocked on the door to Wormby's apartment, then squatted, mostly because the peephole in Wormby's door was set at gnome level. If you didn't squat, Wormby would end up staring at your crotch. I don't know if he could tell who you were just by looking at your crotch, nor was I interested in finding out.

Like all gnomes, Wormby didn't like going out after sunset, let alone opening the door to his apartment. He believed that anyone that was out after sunset was either a vampire, or had just been turned into a vampire.

"Let's get this done," I said when I heard him on the other side of the door.

Wormby said the same thing that he always said when I paid him a visit after sunset. "How do I know you're not a vampire?"

"Wormby, open the damn door. I'm not in the mood to screw around, not tonight."

Much to my surprise, he unlocked the door. First one lock clicked. Then a second. Then a third. Then a fourth. Finally, the last lock clicked open. Wormby opened the door just a crack and tossed me a bulb of garlic.

"Eat that," he said.

I tossed it back to him and said the same thing I always said, "Not unless you grind it up and sprinkle it on a plate of spaghetti."

Wormby opened the door and let me inside. His place was surprisingly tasteful, clean and simple, with a lot of natural woods, mostly oak. The paintings on the walls were all originals, expensive originals. Probably stolen. Not by Wormby, but by the people that sold them to him. The furniture was all gnome-sized, so I always felt like a giant when I went there, which wasn't often.

Wormby and I weren't friends so much as business partners.

He had changed out of his red baseball uniform and into a tee shirt with alternating red, green, and white stripes. His pants were green, the stocking cap on his head was a matching green. The sneakers on his feet were red high tops. All in all, he looked like one of those lawn gnomes that people stick in their yards, which pretty much was the idea. Wormby always dressed like that when he popped in and out of places where he had no business being. If someone saw him before he could pop out, he would freeze, pretend that he was one of those plaster lawn gnomes that humans put in their gardens.

"It looks like you're ready to do this," I said.

I was dressed in black, black sneakers, black jeans, and a black tee shirt. What I liked to call, my out of the water work clothes. My hair was tied back in a ponytail. I wasn't carrying a gun, even though I owned a couple and was an expert marksman. When you can control water the way I can, you don't need a gun to kill.

"I'm not hanging around," Wormby said. "I'm just taking you to where you want to go. Once you're inside, I'm leaving. After that, you're on your own."

"I'm always on my own," I said. "That's the difference between werewolves, vampires, and mermaids."

"You do realize that sirens have sisters. You take Crystal out, her sisters are probably going to come after you."

"Then they're just as stupid as she is."

"Sirens have never been known for their brains," Wormby said. "Voices, looks, but not brains."

"How well do you know Crystal's house?" I asked.

Wormby hesitated, almost as if he didn't want to answer my question. That hesitation told me all that I needed to know, he knew her house very well. "Where do you want me to take you?"

"I'm told that sirens like their beauty sleep."

Wormby nodded. "Eight hours a night."

"Then I'm guessing that she's in her bedroom."

"That's where you want me to take you?"

"That's where I want you to take me."

Wormby held out one of his giant four fingered mitts. "Then let's do this."

I took Wormby's hand. "Let's do this."

I didn't feel anything. One second, we were in Wormby's apartment, the next were were in a bedroom. A second later, Wormby yanked his hand out of mine. A second after that, he was gone.

Crystal's bedroom was about what I expected, a black tile floor, white walls with no pictures or paintings, just a lot of mirrors set at a height that was perfect for Crystal to admire herself.

I half expected to see a mirror above her king-sized bed, although there wasn't. The bed frame was black enamel. The dresser, as well as the two chairs that flanked it, were also black enamel. All in all, the room was spacious and stark, much like Crystal's head.

The bed was also spacious and stark. Stark because Crystal wasn't inside it. There was nothing on the bed save for a white comforter and half a dozen fluffy white pillows.

Before I could figure out where Crystal was, a door started to open. I immediately reached out with my mind, to the water that made up sixty percent of the body on the other side of door. Then I ordered that water to boil.

"Mom. Stop. Please. You're hurting me."

It wasn't Crystal that stepped through the doorway, it was Violet. She was wearing khaki shorts, a white tank top, and matching white sneakers. I immediately ordered the water inside her body to return to its normal temperature.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

Violet stepped aside, revealing Crystal, who was standing behind her holding a gun. A forty-four Magnum. It looked identical to the gun she gave Walt, the one he used to put three bullets into me. Most handguns can't penetrate my dense muscle tissue, but a few of them can, and a forty-four Magnum is one of the few.

Crystal was wearing what she always wore, white linen and a silk blouse that matched her blue eyes, in this case it was a white linen pantsuit.

"She was worried about you," Crystal said. "When she heard that you were coming here to kill me, she showed up at the gate offering to turn herself in if I promise to leave you alone."

I ignored Crystal and focused on Violet. "You should have stayed with Savanna. I'm more than capable of taking care of myself."

Crystal glared at me. "You managed to survive when Walt shot you because there were plenty of people around that cared about you, but I can guarantee that you won't survive this time. Mainly because there's nobody around that cares about you."

"Seems to me," I countered. "That there are more people in this room that care about me than care about you."

"Not for long," Crystal said. She nudged the barrel of the forty-four into Violet's back, forcing her all the way into the room.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're probably wondering why I created this clone."

"The thought has crossed my mind." I reached out with that mind, to the water that made up over sixty percent of Crystal's body. Then I ordered that water to boil.

"Uh-uh," Crystal said. "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"You're not me," I said.

Crystal pressed the gun square in the middle of Violet's back. "Stop what you're doing right now, or all put a bullet in her."

"You plan on putting bullets in us anyway," I said.

Crystal's face began to turn red. At the same time, beads of perspiration began to break out across her face. Even so, that didn't stop a smug little grin from crossing that face.

"I created this clone for this very purpose, to lure you here. That's why I let her go for swim every evening."

"So I could find her."

"Find her and rescue her."

"When I grabbed her, it wasn't because I wanted to rescue her, I grabbed her so I could kill her."

If I could keep Crystal talking long enough, telling me about her ingenious plan, she wouldn't be able to pull the trigger. At least that's what I was hoping. Crystal wasn't just turning red, she was turning bright red, as red and my hair. She was also sweating profusely. Just a little bit longer and she wouldn't even be able to hold a gun, let alone pull the trigger.

"You need to stop what you're doing right this second," Crystal said, "or I'll put a big hole in this freak."

"I am not a freak," Violet screamed. "You're the freak!"

She spun around and began to wrestle Crystal for the gun. Before I could yell at her, tell her to stop, the gun went off. Violet's and Crystal's wrestling match stopped, and for a second, they did nothing except stare at each other. They were so close together that I couldn't see who got shot.

A second after that, Violet stumbled backwards, right into me. There was a red stain right in the middle of her tank top, a blood red stain. I knew that it didn't belong to Crystal because it was growing, becoming larger with each passing second.

I grabbed Violet to keep her from falling and lowered her to the floor, cradling her in my lap. Even as I did that, I heard the gun fall out of Crystal's hand, bouncing on the hard tile floor. A second after that, I heard Crystal plop onto the floor. She was making some kind of gurgling sound, probably trying to use her siren voice to either call for help, or more likely, stop me from boiling the water that made up her body. Either way, it didn't work. Her throat and voice box cooked right along with the rest of her.

"You shouldn't have come here," I said to Violet.

Violet looked up at me. "Had to save you."

"No, you didn't."

"Yes . . . ." she coughed up some blood. "I did."

"Why?"

A big smile spread across her face. "Because . . . because you're my mom."

The smile faded from her face. A second after that, so did the light in her eyes.

Chapter 26

"We have to get out of here," someone said to me.

I looked up to find Wormby standing next to us. Although I had no idea why he was there. He said that once I was inside, I was on my own. Behind him, Crystal was lying on her bedroom floor, looking exactly like what she now was, a boiled piece of meat in a silk and linen pantsuit.

"We need to get out of here," Wormby said again. "Before her guards arrive."

I nodded, picked Violet up in my arms, and stood. Wormby touched my arm. A second later, we were inside my condo, right next to the front door.

I laid Violet down on the sofa. Wormby followed me, looked at her, and said, "I don't understand, it was just one bullet."

"She looked like me," I said. "But she wasn't really like me, she was more . . . human."

There was a pounding on my front door. On the other side of the door, I could hear Savanna yelling, "Violet's missing."

I moved to the door and opened it. Savanna stepped inside, started to repeat what she just said, and saw Violet lying on the sofa. "What happened?"

"She went over to Crystal's and turned herself in."

"Why?"

"She was trying to save me."

"How many bullets?"

"Just one."

For the longest time nobody said anything, finally, Savanna spoke up. "Are you going to give her a mermaid's burial?"

Mermaids are traditionally buried at sea, in the Mariana Trench. It's the deepest part of the ocean, deep enough where we don't have to worry about humans disturbing the graves.

I took Violet's body to Tibit's Mortuary, told them what happened to the four bodies I was hired to find, as well as who took them. I also told them that they didn't have to worry about that person stealing more of their bodies, but I suspect they already knew that, seeing how they were hired to handle what was left of Crystal's body.

The media covered Crystal's funeral, although they never said how she died. No surprise there. They just referred to her as Crystal Kragen, businesswoman, philanthropist, siren. A lot of important people attended her funeral, although I'm not sure if they were mourning her passing, or just wanted to make sure that she really was dead. If I had to take a guess, it was probably the latter that brought most of them there.

The next morning, Savanna and I hoisted Violet's coffin on our shoulders and headed for the beach, dressed only in our bikinis. I had the coffin specially made. It was in the shape of a giant clam shell, like the one in that famous painting, I think it's called the Birth of Venus, something like that. My new friend, Sarah Crewe, would know what it's called.

It was steel with a white ceramic coating, which made it look real. I'm not sure how much it weighed, probably about the same as a pickup truck. The reason it was so heavy was because it needed to withstand the water pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

Violet was inside the coffin, along with her treasures. Her pearls. Her gold doubloons. Mermaids are always buried with their treasures. Always.

John, Wormby, and Doug Wert, were standing in the beach parking lot, waiting for us. They didn't say anything to us as we passed them, nor did we say anything to them. They just fell in behind us as we headed across the beach.

When we reached the ocean, they stopped and watched as we carried Violet into the sea. This was as far as they would go, as far as they could go.

There were others there, hundreds of others, but they were already in the water, waiting for us. I only knew one of them, my mother. I suspect it was the same for Savanna. Those in the water were either blonds or redheads, that's because mermaids are either blonds or redheads. There are no brunette mermaids, although I can't tell you why. Genetics, I guess.

When a queen of the sea dies, it's incumbent upon all other mermaids to attend her burial. I don't know who started the tradition or why, I only know that's they way it is. Needless to say, when Violet died, I let it be known that a queen of the sea had passed.

The media didn't bother to cover the event, which was their loss, because rarely do you see that many mermaids gathered in one place at one time. Personally, I was glad there weren't any cameras because I didn't want them capturing the tears that were running down my cheeks. It just wasn't something a deranged little mermaid would do.

BOOKS BY J. D. ROGERS

Love in the Rough

Low Campbell Adventures

Dirty Little Mermaids

Deadly Little Mermaids

Deranged Little Mermaids

The Princess Wars Series

Princess Wars

Destiny's Queen

Lost in Time

The Competition

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

J. D. grew up in a house where women were in charge of everything, which may explain his preference for strong female characters. He studied history and law in college and uses that knowledge to help build the worlds he creates. J. D. makes his home in Montana.

You can check out all his books, including what will be released next at:

<http://www.jdrogersfiction.simplesite.com/> or <http://www.jdrogersnovels.simplesite.com/>

