“Do you know?” he mouthed.
“Yes. She—we got a letter,” Zach responded, unable to keep from reading it one more time. “About Nantha. It’s crazy. It doesn’t even make sense.”
Ion gently steered June to a chair. “Sit, love,” he ordered. “Let me take a look at this.”
Zach handed it over, watching as the Merman silently read it. And then reread it.
“What do you make of it?” Zach asked when Ion raised his gaze from the paper to meet his. “Do you think it’s genuine?”
“Unfortunately, yes. It doesn’t read like a prank. The letter writer is definitely serious.” He read it once more, exhaling sharply when he got to the end. “This isn’t good at all. But, on the plus side, this means my daughter is still alive.”
Zach nodded. “If they’re telling the truth, yes.”
At his words, his mother shot him a teary-eyed glare. “Think positive,” she admonished him. “Nantha is alive. She has to be.”
“Of course she is,” Zach replied, keeping his voice gentle. “I have no doubt about that.”
Reading the missive once more, Ion frowned. “The request for virgin Mermaids has me stymied, I must admit. It sounds like something from ancient legends.”
Zach nodded, aware of what the older man meant, and didn’t dare say out loud within his mother’s hearing. Sacrificial virgins, meant to appease either some mythical god or monster.
Insanity, right? But clearly, the letter writer believed what he or she had written.
“Well?” June demanded, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. She stood, looking from her husband to her son and back again. “What are you going to do about this?”
Again, the two men exchanged silent looks. Zach knew they’d talk later, in private.
“I’ve hired a paranormal private investigation firm to help search,” Zach said. He went on to tell them about the three women, one Mermaid, one Shifter and a Vampire.
His mother recoiled at the last, but didn’t comment.
“I want to meet with them,” Ion declared. “Especially the Mermaid. It would help me tremendously to have someone else helping me under the sea.”
“I want to meet them, too,” June put in, her voice fierce and determined. “Since one of them is a Shifter, she may be able to find a way for me to help.”
“Fine.” Zach didn’t see the harm in setting up a gathering. In fact, it might actually help to have the others see who else was involved. “I’ll see if they’re available to meet tomorrow night at Broken Chains.”
Both Ion and June nodded. Like everyone else in the paranormal community, they’d visited the bar more than once. While there were several others up north in Houston, Broken Chains was the oldest and most well-known.
“I’ve also involved the Pack Protectors,” Zach continued. “They’ve promised to keep an eye out.”
Though June nodded, Ion scowled. “I don’t see how they could help. They can’t search under the sea.”
“We don’t know that’s where she is,” Zach said.
“You’d better hope she’s under the ocean,” Ion shot back. “She’s got to have seawater or she’ll die.”
June’s eyes welled up again at his words, making Ion curse. He gathered his wife close, murmuring soothing words to her. Zach took that opportunity to leave the room.
Stepping out onto the patio, he stared into the darkness. Nantha was somewhere out there, scared and worried, held captive by some fools with insane ideas about sacrificial virgins. He wondered if she knew that one thing had apparently been what saved her—that she wasn’t a virgin.
Shaking his head, he dug his phone out again and punched in Shayla’s number. She answered on the second ring and listened intently while he told her about the letter. “It’s true, what your stepfather said,” she told him. “Centuries ago, virgin sacrifices were a thing. Or so the legends go. The humans claimed it was to appease a dragon or, even earlier, various gods and goddesses. Under the sea, the dragon usually was a giant squid. Once in a while, in really ancient times, I’ve read about an angry sea god, Poseidon or one of his demigods.”
“But those were all ancient tales. Some of them might have even been myths,” she continued. “I’m not sure why someone would be trying to resurrect those stories in today’s world. Poseidon has a temper, but even he’s moved beyond asking for virgin sacrifices.”
Poseidon? He decided not to ask.
“Maybe someone is trying to start a new religion, or a cult?” he asked. “Have you heard anything about something like that?”
“No. But not only will I let the Pods know, I’ll definitely ask around when I go visit again. Which will be soon. I plan to put up those missing person posters you gave me and visit the neighborhoods where she went to school and worked.”
“Good.” He told her about Ion’s request for a meeting with the Shadow Agency.
“That’s fine,” she immediately said. “As long as you’re okay with it. You are the client, after all, so what you say goes.”
“Tomorrow night?” he asked. “Say around eight, at Broken Chains?”
“Let me get with the others, but I’m sure that’ll be fine. I’m going to call and see if I can reserve a private room for a few hours. It’ll be easier to talk that way.”
Once he agreed, she ended the call, promising to let him know if anything changed.
He wandered back inside, noting his mother and Ion had disappeared to their bedroom. He knew he should head back home to Texas City, but it had been a long day, and his mother kept the guest bedroom bed made up for situations like this. He grabbed a bottle of water and went to bed early.
* * *
When he woke the next morning and wandered out into the kitchen to grab some coffee, his mother had started frying up some bacon. The smell made his mouth water.
“Good morning,” she said, smiling, her posture relaxed. “I’m glad you decided to spend the night. I know it’s a lot farther for you to go into work, so I figured a good breakfast would help.”
She seemed so pleased with herself and so much happier than she’d been the previous night, that he didn’t have the heart to tell her he’d taken two weeks’ vacation. Plus, if he told her that, she’d want him to hang around the house most of the day. He needed to get back to the heart of the island as well as make a few phone calls. He hadn’t yet informed the Pack Protectors about the note, and he knew they’d definitely want to know.
Dutifully, he took a seat at the table, happy to eat his mother’s cooking. It revived his spirits to see her looking so much better.
“Where’s Ion?” he asked, once he’d cleaned his plate and pushed it away.
She smiled. “He headed out at first light to talk to his contacts in his underwater city. He’ll be back by afternoon. He also wanted me to tell you he’s sorry, but considering what’s happened, he’s going to have to postpone your meeting with Teredia.”
Teredia. He blanked for a second before remembering she was the Mermaid Ion had wanted Zach to marry. Though Zach hadn’t met her yet, Ion had claimed the alliance would help Nantha tremendously, by virtue of family connections. In the photo he’d shown Zach, Teredia was stunning.
When Zach had asked why someone who looked like that would need an arranged marriage, Ion had laughed. “It’s complicated,” he’d said. “I’ll let her tell you, if you’ll agree to do this for your sister.”
Zach had given his tentative