Page 63 of Hunters and Prey

His fleeting smile could have brightened the darkest corner of the Mariana Trench. El’s heart fluttered. “It wasn’t,” he admitted, glancing down at her hand on his bare chest. “Are we done here?”

“Almost. You have taken this experience rather well for a human, however. Is this not your first exposure to magic?”

He shook his head. “I’ve been at this for a while now, and I gotta say, I’ve encountered elves, dwarves, gargoyles, and djinn before meeting you. Nothing could really faze me at this point. Not even another one of your Gloombeast hordes.”

El touched one of the patches of salve. It had turned tacky and hard, a perfect rejuvenating bandage until the injury healed. She infused a little magic into it, as she had with the rest of his team. She didn’t want to exhaust herself by overdoing it for nonlethal wounds. “You’re finished now. By the way, that wasn’t a true horde. Were you considered a real danger, the enemy would have sent hundreds. Calypso saw you as weak and sent a few guppies to get through the Myrmidon patrols in the area. More than that draws attention and would have been discovered.”

“Thatwas a weak assault? Lady, she sent two dozen giant sea monsters—”

“Child’s play. She knew you would be unprepared for battle against the Gloom and sent only as many as she thought would be necessary to destroy you. Trust me when I say if she’d sent the horde, none of you would be alive now.”

Whatever Elpis had slathered on his shoulder, it was better than any shit he’d ever received in a military hospital. It dulled the pain, reduced the inflammation, and provided a watertight seal while he showered away the stink of Gloombeast.

Less than an hour later, Matteo stood beside her in the Salamander’s relatively spacious research laboratory, wearing another suit of tactical armor and wielding his reloaded shotgun, daring the corpse on the examination table to move. As it was frozen—and quite dead, hence being a corpse—it wouldn’t rise any time soon, but the body thawed rapidly enough that he had his doubts every time he looked at the glassy eyes and imagined they weren’t as unseeing as they appeared.

The thing on the slab no longer appeared human, its features distorted into a semblance of a scylla without the tentacled lower half. The mouth formed a grotesque beak and the soulless black eyes resembled marbles set in a gray face. Elpis wedged a metal prod between both halves and urged them open. Her first order of business had been to slice the two-foot-long barb from the aberration. The amputated stinger lay on a metal pan nearby, while Doctor Hampton, the gray-haired lead researcher for Project GLOOM, lurked on the opposite side of the table from them. The man looked like a child anticipating a day at an amusement park, eyes alight with enthusiasm.

“Well?” Matteo asked, stomach twisting in disgust. He used his best poker face.

“Yes, I can confirm it is the Gloom, but you both already knew that. They’re a collective, each one connected to their hive queen. Gloom calls to Gloom, whether they are incapacitated as these have been, or fully aware. I believe, but I could be wrong, that the infection is something they sense over great distances.”

“Incapacitated?” Matteo asked.

“What do you mean by incapacitated, young lady? These creatures are still alive?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.This is a stasis. A hibernation while they recover their strength.”

“Well, that’s excellent!” Hampton exclaimed, excitement sparkling in his eyes. “This could be a wonderful opportunity to examine these animals in a secure environment.”

“No,” Elpis said, mouth flattening into a thin line. “They’ll have to be destroyed at once.”

“Destroyed?” an alarmed researcher asked from a few paces away. The man was taking notes on paper, the only way MIRAGE allowed their agents and researchers to collect fresh data in the field. Digital wasn’t safe. Servers could be compromised by hackers, and files could be transmitted within seconds. “Why would we do that if they’re unable to cause us any harm?”

“Yet,” Elpis said. “They’re unable to cause any harm yet.The cold only hinders their metabolism and slows the rate of their transformation. Your freezer won’t stop them for long.”

Hampton’s frown deepened the lines in his weathered face. “We need these for study. You’ve already removed the barb. What danger could it pose to us when its primary weapon for spreading the infection has been removed?”

“It’ll grow another over time. Within a day or two at the most.”

“I think we should reconsider,” the doctor disagreed, appearing increasingly agitated. “We weren’t authorized by MIRAGE to destroy government property, and—”

“Government property? Are you ready to diein the name of research over this government property? I assure you, once these things complete their transformation and awaken from their stasis, it won’t matter how much glass is between both of you. That observation window wouldn’t hold me,” Elpis growled, gesturing toward the thick pane of glass dividing the lab from the next room.

“Colonel Rossi, please. Talk some sense into this woman.”

Sense? He didn’t need much sense to know he didn’t want to die a grisly death protecting a foolish government researcher from his failed science experiment. After considering the options, Matteo made the only rational decision. “If the lady says we need to destroy them, we need to destroy them. Get out your bonesaw and get to cutting, Doctor. We have three heads to remove.”

Elpis may not have been one of them, but he trusted her implicitly. And he’d rather weather the storm from his employer before he risked waking in the middle of the night to a gang of sea zombies raging across their sub.

Hoping to stave off a headache with caffeine, Elpis helped herself to one of the ceramic mugs in the crew’s lounge. The Salamander had its own dual espresso and coffee machine, an invention she’d only encountered a few times in Atlantis where the Council of Lords restricted the human-made devices imported each year with heavy tariffs and taxes.

Gods, she loved coffee. Manu had gotten her addicted to the rich black stuff when he invited her to afternoon coffee at one of only three cafes in Atlantis able to import the little brown beans.She mixed an excessive amount of sugar into the bitter brew, added a swish of cream that would no doubt punish her gut later, and stirred while exploring their digs. Comfy sofas and a couple of game tables took up space opposite a big screen. Mers had their own version of the human television set, flat panels with liquid between thin crystal panes, charmed by magic to relay precise images with extraordinary definition. She pressed a button on the remote to this one and settled on the couch.

The first sip was heaven gliding over her tongue. Moaning in satisfaction as sweet heat warmed her throat, she slouched down and reflected on the past hours. Coffee was the perfect way to end a shitty day. She’d already reported in to Regent Aegaeon and received orders to continue escorting the human vessel into Atlantian territory, where they’d all safely await further instruction from their respective superiors.

Humans truly did enjoy working against their own best interests, but she’d never seen it in action until the shriveled little man in the laboratory told her he wanted to perform a vivisection on the Gloombeast to learn from it.

Learn from it. What the hell was there to learn from it, aside from the obvious?

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