“What? No, Mike. That’s impossible…”
Then I realized that I was looking down at him. The extra buoyancy, combined with the slightest sculling of my flippers, had lifted me so that I was out of the water. The water lapped at my navel, leaving my upper body in the air.
“I guess this new spell works much better than expected,” I said. “It makes it easy to swim. I feel like I could swim more than fifty kilometers an hour.”
That gave me an idea. “Wait here. I want to test this.”
Just before I entered the water, he said, “Where would I go?”
I zipped down to ten meters, then circled Mike and the raft, swimming as fast as possible. It was like my childhood dream of flying. It seemed to take almost no effort to move through the water.
I extended the range of the circle and came closer to the surface. The attached light caused a phosphorescent wake to follow my path through the water.
Lord, this is fun! I propelled myself from the water, flying ten feet into the air before slipping quietly back into the water without a ripple.
I felt as if I could swim this way for hours—race away from battles and obligations, find a deserted island…
Yeah, that’s not going to happen. Maybe when the cubs were older, and Mason recovered. I swam back to Mike on the surface.
“That was amazing,” Mike said. I’ve never seen anyone move through the water that fast.”
“Thanks, Mike. I think I’ve got the spell tweaked now.”
“Can you do the same for me?”
I balanced the new spell against the capabilities of Mike’s mystical tattoo. I shook my head. “Tweaking the tattoo isn’t possible right now, in the middle of the water. This new spell only works for me.”
“That means the mission is still a bust. I can’t swim that far.”
“No, Mike, you don’t have to swim. I can tow the raft to shore.”
“Swim fifteen kilometers while pulling this heavy raft? That would exhaust anyone. You wouldn’t have the strength to finish the mission.”
“This new spell lets me swim like a mermaid.”
“Like a mermaid.” Then he stared. “Hey! What happened to your wetsuit?”
“It interfered with the spell.”
He continued looking at me, a strange look in his eyes.
“Mike, you’re staring again.” I crossed my arms and gave him my stern look.
“Sorry. I was a big fan of that mermaid cartoon growing up. I dreamed about her. She was my first—”
“Is that why you kept giving Ariel second chances? Because she was named after your adolescent crush from a Disney movie?”
“No! That had nothing to do with it. I just don’t like fighting with allies.”
He shook his head to dislodge the thought and change the subject. “You have to be naked for it to work?”
“The spell won’t work with a wetsuit. This is just my first test drive. But I’m not going dive to the bottom of the Persian Gulf for seashells to cover my tits to fulfill your adolescent dreams.”
He jerked his eyes away and stammered, “I didn’t mean that—” He broke off at my laugh, then gave me a reproving look. “You have a wicked sense of humor.”
“That comes from hanging around with disreputable SEALs.”
It took only a few minutes to pull the anchor up, tie a line to my belt, and start swimming toward the distant shore.
It was rough at first, requiring a lot of energy to get the raft moving, and almost as much to continue.
Then I had an idea. The layer of air created by my spell work made moving through water nearly frictionless. Could I send another spell to coat the bottom of the raft? This spell didn’t need to be adaptive like my air suit spell, just a bubble on the bottom of the raft.
I played with the spell and finally got it to work. Our speed increased from five kilometers per hour to nearly ten. I could go faster, but that would tire me out. Even this low speed would get us to shore in less than two hours.
Mike felt the surge as the raft sped up. “Don’t wear yourself out, Princess. We have all night to get there.”
I turned over so I was swimming a backstroke. The line tied to my belt and the pumping of my legs left me moving backwards with only my head above water. That made it easier to talk to Mike.
“I can go a lot faster. This speed isn’t tiring me out at all. Something about the air bubbles makes moving through water easy.”
“Air bubbles,” mused Mike. He reached over the bow of our raft and slid his hand along the air/water interface.
“Supercavitation!” he blurted.
“Super what?”
“Supercavitation,” he said. “The Russians had a class of torpedoes that were faster than anything in the water. Faster than anything possible. They used compressed air forced out through tiny holes in the skin of the torpedo to create a frictionless surface, letting it slide through the water with almost no resistance.”
We spent the next hour discussing the super torpedoes and why they hadn’t worked out. Mike gave me some ideas I could use in the next generation of spells to make the air suits even better.
I loved talking shop with Mike. Between his military knowledge and my werewolf instincts, there were few problems we couldn’t attack. Add in my magical talents and we made a formidable team.
Just don’t get too friendly with the handsome warrior. You’re a married girl. Subconscious or better nature, my inner voice was right. Don’t worry, Mike is safe.
That was why I was disappointed when Mike said, “I think you should roll over and swim on your front.”
Anger surged. “Are you trying to get a better look at my butt?” I snapped.
Mike was flustered. “No, Luna. But if you don’t turn over and slow down, you’re going to smash your head on the shoreline.”
Oops. I spun and backpedaled frantically to keep from crashing into the boulders that
