August 30 | Night

The red dragon burst from the water, his scales gleaming against the black night sky. Rivulets splashed from his body, and his orange whiskers were flecked with droplets as clouds of steam gushed from his nostrils. He made no attempt to conceal his presence. In shock, Fitz scrambled from his chair, shouting expletives, as I tossed aside my phone and leaned over the edge of the boat to see what had happened. Dex jerked to attention, and Director Van der Woodsen whipped his head in my direction.

"What is it? What's wrong?" I asked my totem.

I saw reflected in the dragon's eyes that Nixie was in trouble. I barely had time to register how. I ripped off my shirt and dove into the Mississippi River, instantly forgiving Fitz for his overprotectiveness. Some reactions were second nature, and love made people do foolish things.

Dex had given orders not to let sex ruin our partnership, but the fact that I panicked at the thought of Nixie being hurt made it clear to me that my feelings for her were growing, despite my best efforts to keep my distance. I cared about Nixie and Dex, both, and it probably showed. I couldn't worry about broken hearts. I worried about keeping them alive.

Beneath the surface, my dragon burst through my body to give me extra speed. I took on his monstrous size, and as I swam, vast waves rippled outward from me. The need to save the princess outpaced every other thought. I had to get to her quickly, though I didn't have the mermaid's gift of being able to breathe underwater. Time wasn't on my side. Fish zigzagged out of my path. I burst past submerged trees, splintering wood in my wake.

I suddenly saw Nixie swimming away from the darkest part of the river as fast as she could. Something was chasing her. In fact, multiple things were chasing her, and she was weighed down by the unwieldy coffin. It was readily apparent that Dex had chosen her for this part of the mission because, in her mermaid form, she was stronger and more agile than she was on land, but she was still no match for sharks.

I slithered toward her in a rush, and she grabbed onto my whiskers. Dragon's teeth the size of her forearm nipped at the line she was towing. I tugged it along with us. My powerful serpentine tail whipped around to slap the first bull shark in its face. The other two scattered, but that one retaliated with a mighty chomp of its teeth as I raced away. It missed. There was nothing faster than my totem. Plus, I was running out of oxygen.

Driven by desperation, I dashed to the surface. As soon as we reached air, my dragon detached from my body and used its head to push me up, landing Nixie and me on the deck of the boat. It tossed the black coffin up next to us.

I opened my eyes, gasping for breath. Dex looked down at me with a worried expression. "Are you okay?" she asked. I smiled at her concern and nodded. Once she knew I was fine, she changed her tone. "You should have let Nixie handle it. She was capable of saving herself."

"She was about to get eaten!" I huffed.

"Was she, now?" Dex smirked. "Everything dealing with freshwater is under Nixie's domain. She would have eventually realized that and asserted her authority."

Nixie laughed triumphantly, saying, "Either way, we got it!"

"Indeed. Congratulations." Dex beamed with pride.

I smiled over at the mermaid. Her tail slowly morphed into legs, and Dex tossed her a bathing suit cover-up. The sheer fabric clung to Nixie's wet form, doing nothing to hide how incredibly divine her body was. Dripping locs draped her sienna brown shoulders, curtaining her breasts, and the lower hills and valleys of her subtly curvy figure glistened. It wasn't merely her beauty that floored me. The relief I felt at seeing her alive was palpable.

Fitz stared at where her tail had been with his mouth agape. "N-not possible," he stammered.

"Mr. Palantro, at ease." Director Van der Woodsen stepped into his line of sight. Fitz put down his weapon, sensing the director's rank. "Yes, you're seeing what you think you're seeing. Everything you are witnessing is classified. You understand that?"

"Y-yes, sir," he said.

"Excellent. I'm the director of OASIS, a part of the secret services," said Van der Woodsen. "Our faction isn't directly affiliated with your government, but we work closely with the American CIA to ensure that your world and ours don't collide. Occasionally, exceptions are made to that standard. Mr. Palantro, you are a rare exception.

"You're in Overlay City, a convergence of ley lines, where Supernaturals quietly live out our lives alongside humans. Speak of it, and no one will believe you," the director went on. "But we've existed, hidden in plain sight, for as long as humans have existed, if not longer. Yet, your kind thinks of us as fictional beings. I'm sorry to spring this on you like this, but you've been invited into our circle for a reason."

Nodding, Fitz slumped back in his chair, covered in a nervous sweat. I tried to imagine what it was like for him to discover that Supernaturals existed. I had always been a proud dragon shifter, born into the Liang family. Regardless of my questionable legitimacy, my parents had raised me on stories of our people, and how we had been forced to hide our true identities from humans for centuries.

I knew that it would be difficult for someone like Fitz to understand what that meant, but for me, it was all I had ever known.

"Because of your close personal relationship with Ms. Fontenot," Van der Woodsen continued, "you've stumbled upon a top secret Supernatural operation that has the potential to impact the entire world. So, let me offer you a role, since you have a stake in this. Your job is to keep a level-head, keep your eyes open, and do whatever your superior–that is, Dr. Rodriguez–tells you to do."

"He's a sharpshooter," Dex interjected.

"Useful," Van der Woodsen acknowledged. "Furthermore, anything you see or hear on this mission is not to be discussed with anyone under any circumstances, Mr. Palantro. If this is not within your scope of capabilities, measures will be taken to limit what you remember of your time here in Louisiana. Trust me, you don't want to try your luck against entities capable of manipulating your very memory." The director chuckled. "I'm counting on you to round out my team. Are you agreeable to that?"

"Yes, sir," Fitz gulped.

"Good." The director seemed satisfied.

"Are all of you...?" Fitz trailed off.

"Dragon shifter." I raised a hand.

Dex patted his shoulder, and Fitz glanced at her with bugged eyes. "Werewolf shaman," she replied. "I'll explain everything else to you later tonight when I get the chance, but right now we have a job to do. Get your weapon handy. That, there, is a bona fide vampire, and you're about to get a crash course in staying alive in Overlay City."

Abuela Maya gave a knowing smile when Fitz's gaze deflected to her. She had warned him about vampires. "Before we move on, may I say something? Each of you have been called together by fate," she remarked. "I believe its to learn something about the fallibility of egos and the lies we tell ourselves to avoid seeing the truth of how fragile we are."

I couldn't take my attention off Dex as she moved to the other side of the boat to give her grandmother the floor. The agent's body glided as smoothly as the river, despite a tiredness in her stride that I wanted to alleviate with a nice backrub and a glass of wine. Per her orders, we could no longer express ourselves in that way. But we didn't have to be separated to collaborate, I mused wistfully, as I swung my focus back to Abuela Maya.

"If we are to succeed on this assignment, it'll take real cohesion. No more putting up barriers and calling it professionalism." She looked at Dex, and I wondered if the old matron could read minds. "It'll take asking the right questions and not accepting the fantasy just because it suits us." Her shrewd eyes moved to Nixie. To me, she said, "And no more hiding behind other peoples' ideas of us and hoping not to be revealed."

I dropped my gaze to the deck. Either she could read minds, or she was a lot more observant back at the cottage than I had given her credit for being. How much did Abuela know about my predicament? Had she overheard me talking to my mother or David? As I thought about it, the only person I had watched out for while sneaking those phone calls had been Dex.

I had only one day left to get Hartfeld his money. Darcy Cyprian's business card was burning a hole through my wallet. I carried it with me at all times to keep Dex from finding it. Even though I told myself I would never use it, I couldn't help but wonder if I was keeping it as a backup plan.

That thought and Abuela Maya's words made me feel guilty as shit. I fought a daily internal war, wondering if I should tell Dex the truth to see what OASIS could do to get the drug dealer off my back. Every time I tried, I failed. I was too ashamed to let Nixie and Dex see me as a common criminal. There was more to me than that. No matter how it looked, there was more to me.

Abuela Maya leveraged her grandmotherly body from her chair. Her comment to me had struck close to home, but she wasn't done. She pointed at Fitz and said, "This young man can only help you, moving forward, if the three of you have enough faith in him and in yourselves to show your true colors. Heed my words. Together, we are unstoppable. Divided, at odds with one another, succumbing to our individual hubris, and we're dead before we even begin."

"Thank you, Mrs. Garcia." Director Van der Woodsen applauded. "I couldn't have said it better myself."

I ignored my internal upheaval and found a genuine smile for our newest member. "Welcome to the team, Fitz." He shook my hand, but the terrified expression on his face remained. Nixie gave him an encouraging hug as the rest of us tuned in to the unavoidable next step.

The black coffin had been screwed shut, wrapped in thick chains, scored with burn marks, covered in magical symbols, and now it dripped with the slimy, muddy residue of the deepest part of the Mississippi River. Freed from its underwater resting place, the captain and his deckhand were positioning the box upright within a cage that Director Van der Woodsen had supplied.

I wondered if the woman inside was as deadly as the overkill restraints suggested, or if her husband, Darcy Cyprian, had simply been that determined to get rid of her.

The director indicated for the boat captain to reach a bolt cutter through the bars of the cage to cut the chains. The sound of metal popping set my teeth on edge. Somehow louder was the slow, heavy thud of my heart. It didn't seem like we should be doing this.

I pondered how the vampire was supposed to help us reach the Gates of Mortality. Either way, we had no other clues. Dex's vision had shown us that Delilah Claibourne was our key. So, I forced myself to live in the present, as her spirit guide had advised. The werewolf shaman knew what she was doing, didn't she?

"Now the screws," said Van der Woodsen.

Dex quietly whispered instructions to Fitz as he kept his assault rifle trained on the box. She placed her hand on the barrel to raise it to head level. Behind them, Nixie got dressed and paced back and forth. I had fresh clothes in my carry-on bag, too, but it was humid and sticky-hot out, and my wet shorts cooled me down. Abuela held a rosary and chanted prayers. I rolled the barrel of pig's blood we had brought with us forward.

The portly boat captain mopped sweat from his brow and reached into the toolbox at his feet for a drill. I didn't envy his job. His hands trembled, loosening the screws one by one. When the coffin lid clattered against the bars of the cage, everyone jumped. The deckhand reached forward and slid the cover away to reveal the creature housed within.

Mounds and mounds of wet sand or salt poured from the container. They used long-handled brooms to clean away the debris. Then came the rancid smell of rot. I covered my nose and mouth, almost dry heaving, but I was too curious to look away from what we had dredged up.

There was none of the beauty Abuela Maya had warned us about. Withered and dessicated, the body of Delilah Claibourne was curled inside the coffin. Straggly red hair wreathed her mummified face. Slithering aquatic bugs crawled from her orifices, and gunk discolored her shrunken flesh.

The fine clothes she wore had long since decayed into tatters, and bones showed through where her skin had wasted away. However, she was draped in jewels fit for a queen. Gold and rubies dripped from her neck and ears, and her bony fingers were encircled with other precious stones.

"Bring in the blood transfer device," Director Van der Woodsen said stoically. The barrel of pig's blood was hooked up to an archaic looking contraption. He saw me studying it and explained, "It's an early blood transfusion machine. In this case, it'll slowly perfuse her and give her a nutrition boost."

As I looked at the thick red liquid pumping through the machine's pipes, I thought about what I would do with my life after the mission was over. My debt to society would be paid. Hopefully, my debt to Hartfeld would be covered as well. But then what?

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Dex and Nixie talking quietly, intimately, and I asked myself what it would be like to start over with them. Maybe I wasn't boyfriend material, but I no longer had a family to call my own. I was the outsider that my brothers had always taunted me for being, and even my street racing brothers were at odds with me. Nixie, Dex, and I could be the family we each had always wanted. All we had to do was stay alive.

"Will Delilah be content with pig's blood?" I wondered aloud.

Director Van der Woodsen hid a tense smile as he crossed his arms. "Let's hope so."