The Twice Lost

where there were fewer police—and where a lovely chestnut-haired mermaid Luce didn’t know had actually come close enough to rest her crossed arms on the embankment. With a touch of bitterness Luce thought that the two of them were probably falling in love; they seemed to be gazing at each other with ravenous fascination. “You’re amazing,” Luce heard the young man say. “It’s hard to believe that anything could be so beautiful. How can you be real?”

The mermaid’s reddish fins fluttered up behind her, haloing her in falling droplets. “Well, thank you. I’m really not about to vanish or anything, though.”

“Noooo,” the man drawled, and Luce looked at him more sharply. “No, I know you’re just as real as me. And you have such a sweet face, such gentle eyes.” His voice was purring, seductive. “It’s hard to believe you could kill people. Have you really done that?”

Luce wondered if she should try to interrupt the conversation, but her friends pressed in around her; it wouldn’t be easy to get over there. And anyway, she had said her followers could talk to anyone they wanted. But this was starting to feel a bit uncomfortable.

“Oh, I used to,” the mermaid acknowledged casually. She tucked her long hair behind one pale, exquisite ear. “But I really do think General Luce is right, like, there wasn’t much of a future in hunting ships and everything. I’m pretty much over that stuff now.”

“Pretty much?” the man crooned. Both his hands sank deep in the pockets of his long coat. “Do you think one of the people you killed might have been this woman?”

The mermaid’s eyes went reflexively to the photo the young man suddenly held in front of her—so that she didn’t watch his other hand as it came up pointing a gun. Luce was already screaming at the chestnut-haired mermaid to dive. The girl had just time to pivot her head quizzically in Luce’s direction before the air cracked wide and a blood-bursting hollow opened where her perfect ear had been.

27 Ringing

“We made the news!” Theo was already busy with his phone, scanning through the Internet results about their march barely over an hour after it was over. They were sitting in a dark cafe, all thrift-store chairs and tables plastered in collaged pictures cut from magazines. “Look, you can totally see us! I think you look better than I do, though. Why did I have to make that stupid face? You’re doing this killer noble-and-determined thing. Wait, I’ll go back in a minute, you can see . . . And—ooh, shit—it looks like some freakazoid shot some random mermaid’s head off right afterward. You don’t think the Twice Lost will decide to wipe out San Francisco, do you? To retaliate?”

Dorian’s heart slammed up in his chest, and he reached to snatch Theo’s phone, but his friend was too fast, jerking the phone far out of reach at the end of one ropy arm. “I made a point of saying that she was random, good sir. ‘Some random mermaid,’ I said quite clearly. So you’d know I wasn’t referring to that very not-random mermaid whom you’re going to such lengths to impress.”

Dorian relaxed but only slightly. “Luce is okay? But, Jesus, one of them shot . . . Was Luce there?”

“Kind of hard to tell.” Theo was back to watching tiny images scrolling on the phone’s screen, images made even tinier by the fact that he was still holding his phone as far from Dorian as he could. A taxidermy pheasant loomed from a bookcase behind him, its beak gaping as if it couldn’t believe what it was seeing. “Oh—wait, it looks like she was. You can see her in the background of this one. She’s screaming.” He pulled farther away, anticipating Dorian’s leap from his chair.

“Let me fucking see that already!”

“It looks like General Luce, screaming loudly. Surely you can take my word for that?” Theo groused even as he surrendered the phone.

A still photo on the screen showed a man in a trench coat aiming a gun at a mermaid who was looking away from him, her waves of vibrant chestnut hair startling against the pale gray water. She was looking in the direction of two crowds separated from each other by an expanse of sea: one gathering of humans and one of floating mermaids, both a short distance away. And there in the center of the mermaid crowd was Luce, her mouth wide and her face frantic and contorted as she shrieked in warning.

And he couldn’t hold her, couldn’t comfort her, couldn’t do anything to help . . .

“Hey,” Theo said. There was a sudden note of seriousness in his voice, maybe even of concern. “General Luce will probably hear about the march, since it was on TV? And then she’ll know there are people who want to help, and we’re not all rabid mer-bashing jerks, right? And that might make her feel a little better?”

“Maybe,” Dorian muttered. But the march he’d helped organize suddenly seemed pathetic, overshadowed by this outburst of violence. How could the support of a few distant humans make up for seeing one of her followers murdered that way?

“Hey, you want to text those girls we met? The hot one—wearing all the gothy shit?—said something about a party tonight. Want to go?” Theo nudged Dorian’s arm, trying to make him look up again.

“I can’t deal with a party.” For Dorian that image of Luce’s screaming face veiled the shadows. He needed to get home to his own computer, find out everything he could about the day’s events in San Francisco. “You go, okay?”

“I got the distinct impression they really wanted you to come, though. They were just talking to me because you seemed all like brooding and romantically unapproachable. You seriously need to give me lessons in that, dude. And they were all really into your T-shirt.” Theo eyed Dorian’s black shirt covetously. “Would you make another one for me?”

Privately Dorian thought that Theo was about as un-lost as they came. But whatever. “Oh—sure. Just get me the shirt you want and I’ll do the screen print.” He considered the idea for a second. “Maybe that’s what we should call the whole movement? Twice Lost Humans?”

“Oh!” Theo stared. “Yeah! That’s way better than whatever those other names were, like ‘Human-Mermaid Solidarity Front.’ Too freaking long.”

“Right.” Dorian shook himself and stood. “You go on to that party. I’m going back to the house. I want to do some work on the blog.”

“If I drive you it’s going to be way out of the way. She said they live way over in—”

“I’ll take the bus.” He wanted to be alone with his thoughts anyway.

“But we could just go to the party for, like, a couple hours? And you could work afterward?” Theo pleaded.

Dorian just shook his head and lifted one hand in a perfunctory goodbye before he stalked out of the cafe. The city was glazed in the moist heat of a midsummer evening. Slabs of deep blue air rested between the elegant brick row houses and vintage boutiques. Dorian caught himself staring into one window at the mannequins in their cowboy boots and quirky veiled hats, wondering how Luce would look—as a human, of course—wearing that midnight blue dress with the pearl embroidery around the neckline.

* * *

The tall narrow house where Dorian now lived with Theo and his mother was dark when he reached it. He was relieved by the opportunity for solitude. Maybe he could find out more about what Luce and all those other mermaids had been doing, hanging around so close to the humans onshore; maybe he could find videos that would reveal more of her reactions, more of her feelings. In that squeezing, jostling crowd there must have been several cameras pointed Luce’s way. Dorian sat on the bed and curled around his laptop, clicking eagerly.

At first he found mostly dross: a sappy tribute song for the Twice Lost that had gotten inexplicably popular, another song that made fun of the first song, some clips of various senators denouncing the mermaids at press conferences. But then he noticed “Twice Lost Mermaids Watch the News” in the sidebar. His hand shook a little as he started it.

It was a strange video. Whoever had shot it seemed fixated on Luce and the mermaids who were pressed around her. The camera never swerved from their faces or showed what it was they were looking at with such intensity. There was one corner of a laptop screen visible but it was facing away, toward the water. By turning up