Kindle Edition
Amazon
Category:
Fantasy
Publisher: Umbral Press
Type: Fiction
Pages: 124
Copyright: October 15, 2024
Price: $3.99 (eBook)
Aaliyah Michaels makes her living diving in the Gulf of Mexico for sunken artifacts. However, she isn’t your average diver. Something that Aaliyah found recently has made her an exceptional diver—she discovered an artifact that allows her to transform into a mermaid.
Aaliyah Michaels makes her living diving in the Gulf of Mexico for sunken artifacts. However, she isn’t your average diver. Something that Aaliyah found recently has made her an exceptional diver—she discovered an artifact that allows her to transform into a mermaid.
At the same time, she discovered something else. The second artifact has led to Aaliyah being stalked by aquatic humanoids. But are these aquatic humanoids truly aggressive? Or is there more going on? What is their connection with the second artifact that Aaliyah found? With the help of her research partner and a new friend, Aaliyah will find out the answers to these questions—and many more!
https://youtube.com/shorts/x097UiebhsU?si=BzUHCfngH98yvRi6
Excerpt
She strolled leisurely along the stretch of pale, sandy beach. The surf washed over her bare feet in small waves. She casually dodged sunbathers and people in bathing suits playing at the edge of the water. Hot sunlight from the cloudless blue sky glinted off her raven-black hair, blue polarized sunglasses, and the platinum-and-gold bracelet that covered most of her lower left arm. Every few steps, she hesitated, casting a wary look out at the deeper water.
The crowd vanished abruptly when she passed by the heavy wooden pylon sporting the large, full color plywood cutout of a Mojito. Ahead of her sat her destination—the bright, tropically-painted, open-air beach bar named Mojito Cove.
The bar sat only yards from the water at high tide. The main bar structure, covered with thatched palm fronds, had been constructed of concrete, flowing right up from a slab buried beneath several feet of sand. This gave the interior of the bar, where only the servers trod, a soft floor of pure, pale grains. Everything had been designed with rounded edges so as not to give hurricane winds anything to grab onto. Black lights hung at the ceiling to give everything, including the tiny, bright green bikinis worn by the servers, a brilliant neon glow after dark.
"Aaliyah Michaels," the owner of Mojito Cove greeted her cordially. "Long time, no see! Where've you been?"
Brushing sand from one of the curved concrete benches that ringed the bar, she replied in the same tone, "Vale Ingram! I've been busy."
"A new dive site?"
She shrugged, removing her sunglasses with slender fingers. Lacking pockets in her neon pink bikini, she gently placed the sunglasses on the bar's smooth concrete counter before her. "I need to get the money I spend here in some way." Her green eyes, almost luminous in the shade of the thatched overhang, shone.
He grinned. "You want your usual?"
"Please."
"One Mudslide coming right up!"
Vale turned away to prepare her drink. As he worked, he asked, "Is the new site interesting?"
"Aren't they all?"
Vale grunted a bit of laughter. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Aaliyah continue glancing out at the water.
"Anything wrong?" he asked.
She jolted a bit as if startled. "What?"
"You keep looking out at the water, not the beach but the deeper water. Everything all right?"
"Of course. Why wouldn't it be?"
"Just checking."
"It's fine. I'm fine."
"All right. I just wanted to be sure."
"Thank you."
Finishing up the drink, he sat it before her. She sipped through the straw, eyes closing in bliss. "Thank you. I needed that."
"Chocolate, and booze. What could be better?"
"Not much."
Vale grinned again. "Are you okay? You seem tense."
"Do I? I'm fine."
Vale went to work on a drink of his own. As he mashed the mint leaves in the glass with a muddler, he replied, "All along the beach I've seen you watching the water. You're still doing it. What are you looking for? Or is it more a matter of whom you are looking for?"
"Nothing," she answered, sipping her drink. "No one."
"Right," he said, hearing the disbelief in his own voice.
"All right," she answered, leaning forward. "I'm having problems with an ex-boyfriend. He's stalking me, almost."
"Almost? Either he is or he isn't."
"He is."
Vale cast a hard look of his own at the water. "What does he look like? I'll keep an eye out for him."
Aaliyah shook her head. "He's my problem; thanks, though."
"Since you keep looking for him in the water, I take it he's quite the swimmer?"
"Yes, he is."
Mojito in hand, Vale leaned on the edge of the bar before her. "Is he the one who gave you that bracelet? If so, maybe wearing it isn't the best thing. I've never seen you without it, but still—"
"He isn't, no," she cut in. "The bracelet has nothing to do with him. Not really."
"Not really?"
Tracing her fingers lightly over the finely etched whorls in the metal of the object in question, Aaliyah frowned, sipped her Mudslide, and said, "It's a complicated issue. Everything surrounding the bracelet is. Can we talk about something else? Please?"
Vale shrugged. "I'm just the bartender."
Aaliyah grinned again, the expression lighting her eyes. "Thank you."
"So, the new dive site is good?"
"Average; maybe a bit better than that."
They chatted about work, the weather, tourists to their city of Clearwater on the Gulf Coast of the Florida peninsula, and alcoholic drinks. The entire time, she kept watch on the ocean. When Aaliyah finished her drink she rose to go, slipping her sunglasses back on.
"See you soon?" Vale asked.
Aaliyah smiled. "Probably. You know I can't resist a good Mudslide."
She waved goodbye to the other servers and turned to go. Vale watched her closely. As before, she cast frequent looks at the open water, obviously seeking something.
"Ex-boyfriend my left foot," Vale muttered to himself.
Still, just to be safe, he kept watch over her until she had been lost from sight in the crowd on the beach.
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