Page 2 of Dry as a Fish
"Just take it!" he insisted, closing the space between us. "I'll help you change!"
"No!" I shouted, putting my hands out to ward him off.
He ignored them, pushing into them and bending slightly to grab the bottom edge of my dress with one hand, the other shoving his smelly shirt in my face.
One thing I'd learned growing up with horses and other large animals was that when you had to deal with a fresh gelding that was mad about his bits being chopped off, you had two choices. You could leave him alone to let him work it out on his own, or you could wait until he was off balance. It was no good trying to fight a thousand-pound animal when he had all four feet planted on the ground, but if he was up in the air, all twisting and thrashing about, one good yank at the right moment could take him down to the ground.
So I didn't try to fight Chad off by pushing him again.
I stepped to the side, twisting as I grabbed his arm and yanked. I caught his ankle with my foot as I sidestepped, and down he went, sprawling and splashing into the shallow edge of the lakeshore.
"You fucking bitch!" he spat out as he splashed back up to his feet. "You're going to re-"
His words cut off as he suddenly fell face forward as if his feet had been yanked out from under him.
His eyes met mine, widening in horror.
There was one heartbeat, a pause before the storm.
Then he slid backwards, vanishing into the water so fast he didn't have time to scream.
My brain short-circuited for a moment at his sudden disappearance, and I took a step back from the lake edge.
"Chad?" I whispered. I took another step, the next words croaking out of my mouth as I tried to find volume that wasn't quite there yet, like I was caught in a nightmare where I couldn't scream. "There's something in the water."
I turned back to the party, turning to run back to the edge of the dancers that were a few yards up on the lakeshore. "There's something in the wa-"
"LYCAN!" someone screamed at the top of their lungs, and the crowd erupted into screams that swallowed my own.
A gargantuan fur-covered monster, at least ten feet high, smashed its way through the crowd. There was a woman slung over its shoulder, held there by long black claws the size of daggers. Everyone was screaming, and the crowd burst into motion, all running away from it. A tall man crashed into me, and I bounced off of him, falling back, knocking the air out of me. I landed hard on my side in soft sand, rolling several times from the momentum of the impact. I struggled to catch my breath as my foot set down in something cold... something wet.
The sensation was so minor, but it drew all my attention as adrenaline screamed through my system.
My foot was in the lake.
Warm, wet fingers wrapped around my ankle, the heat of them a stark counterpoint to the coolness of the water.
I didn't have time to scream.
Chapter
Two
DELPHON
This one was a woman.
A mundane woman at that.
I could taste her fear in the water. I sighed out through my mouth, letting bubbles escape as I thrust my long tail, dragging her further down into the depths. Once I got further out into the lake, I slowed. I reached out and grabbed her thigh, pulling her closer to me as I twisted myself to align myself with her thrashing form as she clawed at the water like her webless fingers would be able to help her get free of me. I couldn't let her go now that I had caught her.
The school thought it was the kelpies that were drowning the students.
I could, of course, drown her like I had done to that young vampire a few moments ago. Getting rid of her would avoid the rest of the hassle and allow me to get back to trying to nab some of the non-mundane students from the shoreline.Whatever was going on up there had sent several splashing through the water even though they knew better. It was a rare opportunity to cross more names off the list, one ruined by the fact that I'd grabbed this woman without checking first to see if she was one of the targets.
But she was certainly not on the list, and the Chaos God had sent out a message through the rocks.
Give her back.
