One Salt Sea
Page 53

“I think so, yes,” I said. “I appreciate the escort.”
She waved a webbed black-and-white hand. “An excuse to visit the surface is rare and should be seized. We swim in blessed seas.”
“Um, sure.”
“Open waters and sweet tides, little land creature.” Anceline smiled, not unkindly. “If we see you again, we shall go swimming fast.”
“Right. I’ll look forward to that.” In my nightmares, I’d be looking forward to that. Probably every night for the foreseeable future.
Anceline turned and whistled. The other Cetacea nodded, and waved to me before ducking beneath the waves. In a matter of seconds, I was alone, bobbing in the water a few hundred yards off the San Francisco shore.
Never let it be said that I don’t know how to live an interesting life.
I swam for the shore as fast as I could, fighting the waves as I tried to keep my head above the water. The weight of my leather jacket and the bundle of clothing I was still holding didn’t help matters, but I wasn’t letting them go after hauling them this far. None of the dockworkers looked my way as I swam by, but I wasn’t pushing my luck. I chose a deserted pier as my destination, one that seemed to have the least amount of human activity.
I had reached the dock and was trying to figure out how to climb out of the water when I realized what my next problem was going to be: with Connor in Saltmist, I didn’t have a ride home, and with Quentin back at the apartment, I didn’t have a phone.
“Oh, Titania’s ass,” I grumbled.
“You kiss your momma with that mouth?” asked a rumbling voice. Something I’d taken for a stack of fishing crates unfolded, resolving into the craggy, familiar form of Danny McReady, cab driver. Even wearing a human disguise, he was big enough to block me mostly from view. “I mean, not recently, I guess.”
“Danny!” I waved with my free hand. “Thank Oberon you’re here. I really didn’t want to steal a car today.”
“That’s my favorite paragon of law an’ order,” said Danny fondly. He walked to the edge of the dock, squatting to peer down at me. “You want some help getting out of there? Never took you for a distance swimmer, you know.”
“Believe me, I’m really, really not.” I heaved my clothes onto the dock, where they landed with a wet “splat.” I held my hands up toward him. “Pull me out. Don’t make a scene, and don’t drop me.”
“Oh, see, now you’re hurtin’ my feelings. Why would I drop—Titania’s tiny titties, girl, you’re a fucking fish!”
I hit the water hard. That shouldn’t have been a surprise. “Dammit, Danny, I told you not to drop me!” A few dockworkers looked our way. I scowled. “And could you yell a little louder? I don’t think the reporters from the Weekly World News heard you.”
“You didn’t tell me you were a fucking fish!”
“How else was I supposed to visit the Undersea? Rent a submarine?” I was going to shake Quentin for letting Danny come to pick me up without a warning. Literally shake him.
“Oh, ’cause growing some fins was a much more obvious solution.” Danny bent to offer me his hands again, grumbling all the while. “Warn a fella next time you’re going to do something crazy-ass like that.”
“Next time, I’ll make sure you get a written note. Hang on.” I grabbed his hands, focusing on trading fins and scales for legs and functional feet. “Now pull me up.”
“If you’re sure . . .” he said, and pulled me, legs and all, up to the dock. “Much better.”
“I thought so, too,” I said. I barely had my feet under me when a sharp pain pierced my upper thigh. I dropped to my hands and knees, clamping my right hand over the source of the pain. The Luidaeg’s pin was sticking out of my flesh, the metal slick with blood. I barely managed to keep from driving it farther in. “Ow, dammit!”
“What’s wrong?” Danny demanded.
“Spell’s over.” I pulled the pin loose, holding it up for him to see before pushing it through the strap of my dress. “I’m done playing little mermaid.”
“Good. That was too weird, even for you.” Danny took my hand again, pulling me to my feet. He didn’t have to work very hard to do it. I’m not tiny, but when you’re as big as Danny is, tiny is a relative term.
His cab was illegally parked at the bus stop with the hazard lights blinking. He opened the passenger-side door, waving grandly for me to get in. “Ladies first.”
“What, so I can trigger any booby traps that might be waiting?”
“Exactly!”
The interior of Danny’s cab smelled like artificial pine, not-so-artificial herbs from the Gremlin charms he used to confuse police sensors, and something that was almost, but not quite, dog. That would be the Barghests. At least there weren’t any of them currently in residence. I’m not sure I could have handled being enthusiastically licked by a venomous horror when I was sopping wet and uncaffeinated.
Danny must have seen how tired I was, because he didn’t talk after we pulled away from the curb. He just drove, racing through the city at speeds ranging from “unsafe” to “insane.” Danny’s a good enough driver that it wasn’t a problem. It was just part of riding with him—and at least this time, he wasn’t likely to drive the cab into the Summerlands. Instead, he was providing a valuable educational service to the tourists visiting our fair city: namely, San Francisco drivers are nuts.
I was the one to break the silence, asking, “Have you been able to learn anything from the rocks?”
“Some. Not much as makes any sense.” Danny’s sigh was like gravel rattling in a trash can. “See, the thing about rocks is they pay attention, but they do it slow. Once you upset them, it takes ’em a while to calm down. I’m still trying to get them to tell me their names an’ where they’re all from.”
Knowing where the rocks were from would be a start. “What do you have so far?”
“Gardens, rivers, sidewalks.” Danny gave me a sidelong look, taking a worrisome amount of attention off the road. “Some of the older ones—the calmer ones—remember you. One of ’em says it came from your yard. Says it used to live under a eucalyptus tree.”