“How clever,” Kesh said through gritted teeth. “But how will you dive without your Merman assistant?” He tilted his sleek head, the picture of regretful disappointment. “I would take you out myself, but of course, I have no boat sufficient for such a task.”
“Oh, that’s no problem,” Beka said. A slight breeze off the water picked her hair up, making it float around her shoulders in silky waves. “Marcus said he’d help me.”
The copper goblet Kesh was holding made a slight crunching noise, covered up by the sound of the breakers hitting the beach. He set it down out of sight, lest Beka spot the finger-shaped indentations now marring its classic lines. “Oh?” he said, not quite growling. “I thought the two of you did not get along.”
Beka shrugged, taking a sip from her own goblet and nibbling on a bit of salmon, her usual healthy appetite obviously returning as she cheered up. “I’ll admit, when I first met him, I thought he was a jerk. I would gladly have run him down with my Karmann Ghia, if I hadn’t thought it would dent the poor baby. But it turns out he’s got hidden depths.”
Kesh snorted. The only hidden depths he was interested in were the ones where he could conceal his unexpected rival’s dead and mangled body.
“No, really,” Beka said, blissfully ignorant of the sudden homicidal turn of her companion’s thoughts. “He’s taking care of his sick father even though he can’t stand the man; you’ve got to give him credit for that. He spent twelve years in the Marines, and Chico, that’s the sailor who’s been with his dad for years, told me that Marcus has all kinds of medals stowed away in his gear that he never tells anyone about.”
“Medals, foolish Human tokens,” Kesh muttered under his breath. “Let him kill a whale with only a spear and his bare hands, and then tell me of shiny medals.” His sharp teeth pulled a raw clam from its shell, tearing it into shreds that he swallowed to wash the bitter taste out of his mouth. This was not going as he had planned.
“And he took this boy with cancer out on the boat for the day. I couldn’t believe how patient Marcus was with him.”
“It almost sounds as though you like this Human,” Kesh said with a sneer. “You are the Baba Yaga. He is not for one such as you.”
Beka blushed, or perhaps it was just the reflected light from the bonfire he had built from piles of gnarled and crooked driftwood, glowing off her high cheekbones. “Don’t be ridiculous. He still treats me like I’m an annoying, ditzy pest that he only puts up with because he has to. And I know he’s not planning to stick around forever; he’s told me a bunch of times that he’s only here for as long as his father needs him. But I had to tell him at least part of the truth, and he’s willing to help me because he thinks that whatever is causing the problem in the water might be related to why the fish aren’t showing up the way they’re supposed to. Enlightened self-interest, I guess you could call it.”
“Self-interest indeed,” Kesh scoffed. “That is the only reason Humans do anything. Has it not occurred to you, Baba, that almost all of the imbalances that you are called upon to fix in nature are caused by Humans? And that this one is likely to have been as well. Why clean up their messes for them? Why not simply let them reap the rewards of their callous disregard for our beloved oceans?”
Beka’s lovely face showed her every emotion, as usual: shock, sadness, doubt, and a touch of reluctant agreement. Kesh pounced the moment he saw it.
“There are many of us who feel that the Humans have been allowed to wreak destruction on the seas for far too long. Perhaps, instead of running around picking up after them as if they were children who never learned to play responsibly with their toys, you might consider joining with those of us who would punish them for their harmful ways instead, and teach them better manners when they are guests in places that do not belong to them.”
“Us?” Beka said, a touch of sharpness in her voice that caught him by surprise. “Who is us?”
Kesh shrugged. “Some are my people, or other denizens of the magical places under the sea, where we water dwellers were forced to stay behind when most of the paranormal creatures of the world passed into the greater safety of the Otherworld during the great exodus. Others are magical folk who stayed here by choice, or visit periodically from the Otherworld, although those grow fewer every year as the Humans encroach even further on the rare untouched places left for our kind.”
“I see,” Beka said slowly. “And what kind of ‘punishments’ do you and your friends use to teach these pesky Humans better manners, pray tell?”