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The Necklace Page 3


  “What is that?” she asked aloud, though she didn’t realize the question slipped from her lips.

  “It’s probably from an accident with a fishing boat, Mar. You can’t recognize a scar when you see one?”

  At any other time, Marissa would have taken offense to Brian’s haughty tones, but she couldn’t tear her gaze from the mark long enough to respond.

  He was wrong.

  The consistencies of the lines were too defined to be from an accident.

  It looked more like writing.

  A writing that seemed … strangely familiar.

  Shaking her head in incredulity, Marissa placed another latex hand on the paneling guarding the creature.

  Home.

  Lurching back from the tank, fear pounding through her body, she lifted her head to stare into large, haunting black eyes, intelligent eyes.

  Dr. Nash stepped forward, standing at her side, bracing an arm around her waist. “What is it, Marissa? Are you okay?”

  “It just … it just spoke…” she whispered, but her voice trailed away as she realized what she had been about to say. “Nothing, I … I… Nothing. I think the boat rocked,” she said in a stronger, louder voice.

  Trying not to cringe under Jon’s unwavering gaze, Marissa held his stare for a moment longer, before turning away. Her gaze clashed with Litchfield’s, and the cynical amusement blazing from his eyes infuriated her.

  “You sure you can handle a live specimen, Mar? I can call Jillian to come an help if you need it.”

  Shaking off Jonathon’s hold, she stalked to the other side of the lab.

  Brian’s belittling commentary was ignored; no need to respond to the pompous prick anyway.

  She would need to draw blood and get skin samples from the specimen so she could begin to classify its origins. A more in-depth study of the material would be performed at the institute laboratory, but she could get started on the preliminaries now.

  Her hand trembled as she placed all the necessary items on a small, metal tray.

  Forceps, clamps, needles, vials.

  The litany of tools sounded in her mind like a well-rehearsed song.

  Work.

  She would concentrate on work. Whatever had just happened had to be a figment of her imagination.

  Marissa refused to believe anything else.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Do you smell that?”

  Marissa raised her head from the x-ray pictures, looking up at Shannon. “Smell what?”

  “I don’t know it’s like … fish or something.”

  “We’re on a ship, Shannon.”

  “No, it’s not a fishy smell. It’s like … fish skin.”

  “Not a fishy smell, but like fish skin?” Marissa queried, raising her eyebrows.

  “Yes, it smells oily.”

  “And how would you know this?”

  “My father was an avid fisherman, all right? I’ve smelled enough fish skin to last me a lifetime.” Shannon grimaced. “More than a lifetime. And believe me if I say I smell fish skin then you better believe it, sister.”

  Marissa tried not to laugh, shaking her head, she shifted her gaze down to the x-rays splayed out on the desk in front her.

  Striving to concentrate on the three dimensional pictures of bones and cartilage, her gaze continually strayed toward Shannon, who stood off to the side like some sort of bloodhound eager for a sniff of every object in the room.

  “It’s you!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t know … it’s your clothes or something, but you definitely smell like a fish.”

  “Is this a not-so-subtle way of telling me I stink?”

  She chuckled when Shannon’s brows rose in a what-do-you-think expression.

  “Smell yourself.”

  Marissa’s head fell back, her throat feeling weak from the laugh shooting from her lungs. “Okay, okay,” she groaned, lifting her arm.

  The lingering smell of salt from the ocean air crested through her nostrils, but beneath the zesty aroma a faint odor lingered. It didn’t remind of her fish. The fragrance was muskier, more like an exclusive perfume.

  “Do you smell it?” Shannon asked anxiously.

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t smell like … fish,” Marissa responded, not sure what to say to a person who just accused her of reeking.

  “I think you’ve been spending too much time down in the lab,” Shannon replied, her voice magnanimous.

  Cringing, Marissa looked down at the charts on the desk. “I guess I’ll go take a shower,” she muttered, rising from the chair.

  Shannon chortled, the sound reverberating in the windowless conference room. “It’s the boat, Marissa. I swear… You’re starting to smell like tuna, and I’m starting to think Captain Nialls is handsome. We both have a serious case of cabin fever. We’ve been on this piece of steel for nearly a month. I can’t wait till we leave this floating prison. Just a couple more days. God, I can’t wait.”

  Captain Nialls?

  Marissa laughed with Shannon, her embarrassment fading away.

  Captain Nialls was a rugged bear of a man, large and really, really hairy. He looked like a modern day Captain Ahab, complete with a long, thick beard.

  Marissa could never envision the svelte, brunette Shannon Winters with him.

  “Alright. I’ll go take a shower. But you have to stay and study the x-rays. We need to have some sort of idea of what this mammal is by tonight.”

  “Aye, aye, Cap’n. I’ll stay and study… Arrrrgh. While you go and bath, matey.”

  “Hugh Jackman will never marry you with that accent, friend. Keep working on it.”

  “Me accent is quite superb, thank you. I think you’re jealous of me talents.”

  “Keep dreaming, fake Nicole Kidman.”

  Leaving the conference room, smiling as Shannon’s deep, rich laughter echoed passed the thick, metal doors, Marissa walked down the steep ladderwell to the berthing, or the crew members’ quarters on the second deck.

  She encountered a few colleagues on the way, but didn’t pause to speak.

  Standing on the bottom rung leading into the berthing, she listened for any sounds, her gaze roaming the Spartan quarters.

  Sighing, grateful for a moment’s solitude, she descended, sniffing warily at her arm.

  Marissa didn’t know what to think about the strange odor permeating her skin, a smell she had known about before Shannon so tactfully pointed it out. The odd fragrance became apparent the day after she’d came aboard the Suzy.

  She began to shower five to six times a day, but the aroma lingered; in fact, it grew stronger.

  She’d tried dousing her body in perfume, but her skin was too sensitive, a condition that had also increased since she came aboard.

  At first, she figured she was experiencing some kind of an allergic reaction from being so close to seawater. Although she had taken precautions, the high salt content in the air could be causing problems.

  But even that was unlikely, since she didn’t feel any other symptoms.

  Vividly recalling the first time seawater touched her skin. Marissa remembered the pain from that long-ago experience.

  Attending a friend’s birthday party, she hadn’t known the water balloons being tossed around were filled with deadly, salty fluid until one of them hit her square in the stomach, bursting on impact.

  When she awoke, several hours later in her own bed, Jon was checking her vitals.

  Marissa still didn’t know if she counted it as a fortunate experience. She hadn’t died, but since then she had never really lived.

  Turning her mind from the memories of the past, she again sniffed at her arm.

  Marissa was convinced she couldn’t be experiencing an allergic reaction without any other recognizable symptoms, medically that just didn’t make any sense.

  And, it couldn’t be the creature. Other researchers had spent a lot of time around her. They didn’t have a strange smell lingering
on them.

  She was the only one affected.

  As much as she wanted to deny it, Marissa began to accept something was happening to her, something unexplainable to her scientific senses.

  Over the days, and as more and more incidents occurred, she couldn’t find enough excuses to explain them away.

  Sitting down on her bottom rack with a slight huff, Marissa pondered her time with the specimen she secretly named Nyla.

  The more time she spent with her, the more she became convinced they shared some sort of link, a bond allowing her to be able to sense Nyla’s emotions.

  The first occurrence, just after Jonathon and Brian brought Nyla to the lab, shocked her. But, gradually, Marissa became used to the gentle impressions invading her mind. She gave up thinking the episodes were figments of unreality. The images produced by the mammal were vivid, and definitely not of her own creation.

  Somehow, she concluded, the creature’s feelings translated to words in her mind.

  Running a hand through her hair, Marissa gently massaged her scalp, attempting to dispel the headache throbbing at her temples.

  Maybe some weird form of cabin fever, like Shannon suggested, had attacked her. Although she was a marine biologist, she’d never been on a boat. The confining atmosphere could be affecting her.

  It had to be that because she couldn’t possibly explain how she could talk to a pre-historic dolphin, added along with the pungent odor permeating her skin.

  Seriously, she didn’t know how much more she could take.

  Scared

  Marissa snapped her eyes wide, Nyla’s voice intruding in her mind.

  “Oh God!

  * * * *

  “What the hell is going on here?”

  Marissa turned a furious gaze on Brian Litchfield, striding forward to grab his arm.

  “What does it look like? I’m preparing the specimen for transport.”

  “Transport?” she breathed. “Transport to where?”

  “We’re taking it back to the institute for further study.”

  “We’re a research institute. We don’t remove healthy mammals from their habitat! We especially don’t remove ones bordering on extinction.”

  Brian snorted. “Grow up, Mar. This is a huge find. The specimen is probably better off at our facilities.”

  Shocked, Marissa stared at Brian, dumbfounded. “How can you say that? We don’t have any right to take her from her home.”

  “You sound like she’s a personal friend of yours.”

  If Brian grew horns and turned into the devil incarnate, Marissa wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised.

  “Dr. Nash won’t approve of this,” she hissed, clenching her fist tight.

  Marissa didn’t wait for a response, but turned on her heels to stride through the hatchway. She headed first for Nash’s personal office on the third level, but when she didn’t locate him, she went to the next likely place.

  She finally found him standing against the railing on the observation deck, staring out at the ocean.

  Not stopping until she stood a hairsbreadth from him, she yelled in a furious voice, “Do you know what’s going on down there?”

  “Calm down, Marissa.”

  “Calm down! Litchfield’s down in the lab preparing to move Nyla, and all you can say is calm down!”

  “Marissa, there are things about this you don’t understand.”

  Her throat seized when she read the guilt blazing from Jon’s eyes. “You didn’t approve this? Did you?”

  “I had to. The new owner wants to make some changes. My hands are completely tied.”

  “N-new owner?” Marissa closed her eyes, tears gathering. “How could you?”

  Jon turned on her suddenly, grasping her upper arms in a loose grip. “The institute is losing money. The sea tours and exhibitions aren’t bringing in enough capital. The board decided to sell.”

  “You’re on the board, Jon. You could’ve stopped it.”

  “I’m the one who suggested it.”

  Those had to be the worst words Marissa could have ever imagined hearing. Jonathon was her hero. He’d always been a constant champion for marine life. He was the one who helped convince her overly-protective mother to let her follow her dreams of becoming a marine biologist.

  How could this have happened?

  “So, you’re taking her back to the institute to be destroyed?”

  “She won’t be harmed, but she will be part of a new exhibition.”

  Marissa squeezed her eyes shut, Jonathon’s statement seeping into her consciousness. She could barely visualize poor Nyla caged; everything inside her rebelled against the idea.

  “This isn’t right,” she whispered.

  “It was the only way. The institute would have closed in a couple of years. We were in the red for millions. I made the only choice possible. You have to understand that.”

  Opening her eyes, she gazed at the horizon. The sun had yet to make an appearance today, dark, angry clouds covered the sky. It seemed a fit setting for the gloom of the moment. Turning back to look at Jonathon once more, Marissa saw the faint glimmer in his hazel eyes.

  Dropping her head to her chest, she realized the futility of fighting the inevitable.

  Having nothing more to say, she turned to head back toward the hatchway.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “We can no longer allow this to continue! The humans must be stopped! The delaphin are sacred…”

  “An open war is too costly! There was a time…”

  “That was ten thousand years ago!”

  “We should attack! These inferior beings think they rule the earth…”

  “If we attack we’ll have to reveal our presence! We should…”

  “You are a coward, Zaron! It is time to take back what is ours! We were here…”

  “ENOUGH! I do not have the time to listen to this bickering,” a deep, rumbling voice intruded between the chaos, creating silence in its wake.

  Tylan, descended from Kamis, King of all Eritrea, looked around at the assembly of senators present. Two in particular caught his notice, and he glared at Zaron, son of Dayal, and Kefar, son of Feehen. “This forum is useless. Leave me. Now!”

  Raising a hand, he motioned toward the door, and within moments, the throne room emptied, echoing sounds of falling footsteps.

  Rubbing a weary hand across his face, Tylan sighed noisily. He’d been listening to the arguing for more time than he cared. Yet, none of the loud talking would change the facts.

  A delaphin had been captured.

  The sacred creature all Eritreans were sworn to protect.

  Shaking his head, he glanced around the empty throne room. The decadent halls, glistening in silver and blue, had seen the reign of all his forefathers. Fond memories of running under the huge legs of his sire’s chair, the chair he now sat in, came to mind.

  Tylan smiled faintly, partially wishing to return to the pleasant times of his youth.

  Things had been much simpler when his father sat on the throne. King Ka’an Kamis didn’t have to deal with the threatening human populace encroaching on his kingdom. He didn’t have to deal with the wave of technology inspiring the humans to go further than the land and out into the ocean and the sky beyond. He didn’t have to be troubled with a growing Dissident movement. All of these changes had taken place during his reign.

  The capture of the delaphin was a serious matter though, one requiring immediate action. The options presented before him, however, were limited.

  He could make war on the humans—test Eritrea’s might—shatter thousands of years of peace with a risky and costly invasion. Or, he could allow the capture of the creature and enrage most of the populace in the process.

  Rising from his throne, Tylan walked along the corridors of the large, opulent room, staring at the brilliant holographic images of the kings who had passed before him. Instinctively, his eyes settled on the larger than life image of his father.

  Always y
ou were a man to keep the peace, Sire. But, times have changed, and I fear for the worse.

  Turning away from the holograph, his gaze continued to wander along the walls, staring at the colorful, lifelike murals depicting his kingdom’s evolution. Unlike the other species of Earth, most of Eritrean history was shrouded in happiness, the last major war of any kind occurring over five thousand years ago.

  Lycans, Vampires, and other such beings were plagued by discord, the humans beset with strife. All the while, Eritrea remained unfazed, existing in a haze of blissful unawareness, the people turning up their collective noses at the problems of others, happy to live within their own society beneath the ocean, separated from the rest of the world’s turmoil.

  Yet, inexorably, things had changed. It was the way of all things. Deep inside, Tylan knew this. His kingdom’s peaceful lack of vigilance would come back to haunt them ten-fold.

  Sighing, he traced his fingers along the smooth surface of the mural, his eyes drawn to the detailed picture of a beautiful, young mernia forever captured in youth.

  “Such beauty,” he whispered.

  Staring at the unknown woman, a sense of peace moved into his mind.

  Cowan, send Omea to me at once. Tylan ordered his chief advisor, using the telepathic ability common to every Eritrean.

  As you will, My Lord.

  Nodding, Tylan leaned his head back to breathe a long, decided air, pushing all forms of indecision from his mind. He could not waver in his actions, not now.

  Seconds later his heightened senses were disturbed by the patter of light footsteps falling against the stone floors. Though the thick xerilon wall dulled his senses, he knew who was striding briskly to see him. He could almost visual Omea Matan’s thick-boned, Amazonian stature moving through the corridors with grace and elegance.

  “You called, my Lord.”

  “Yes, Omea. I have a job for you.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Six months later…

  Marissa tested the bath water once more, still not satisfied with the temperature.

  “Damn!”

  She’d barely turned the knob for “hot”, but it felt like heat scalded her palm.

  What in the world is happening to me?