Chapter 1
Morgan Reilly’s step faltered when she caught sight of the shimmering in the bushes. Resolutely, she turned up the sound on her iPod and picked up the pace, her leisurely jog turning into a flat-out run as she tried to get the shimmering out of her line of sight. Surely she could outrun it. Just because she hadn’t yet didn’t mean she couldn’t.
When she reached the stop sign at the corner of Tenth and Main, she paused and sucked in a deep draught of warm September air, wiping the sweat from her forehead and wishing she’d brought a water bottle. Wishing all she had to worry about were the usual dangers to a woman jogging alone: shin splints and rapists. She did not, under any circumstances, look over her shoulder.
The four-way intersection was clear. No surprise: it was almost always clear, despite being the juncture of the two main thoroughfares in this sleepy hamlet. That was why she’d chosen this place for her recovery, which wasn’t going very well, not if she was still seeing things.
Focus on the facts. She repeated the phrase like a mantra in time to the Ramones on the iPod. Focus on the facts, focus on the facts, focus on the facts. She needed to ground herself in the physical, the things she could smell and taste and touch. A detective did not need an imagination. Leave that to the DA who had to make the case. A detective looked at facts, collected facts, cold hard things that you could hold in your hands, that you could subject to scientific tests and store in the evidence room. First day of class back at the Academy. The job had saved her life then. No reason it couldn’t save her life now.
She forced herself to pay attention to the tall, leafy oak trees shading the street from the midday sun, the cracked, buckling sidewalk beneath her feet, to see the blue sky, partly cloudy, arching above. Very real, very concrete. She was not imagining that. She took in a deep breath. New-mown grass, wasn’t that a good smell? Drowsy hum of a lawn mower at work, wasn’t that a pleasant sound? Nice and real. Didn’t get much in the way of blue skies and new-mown lawns in the 5th Precinct. Sweet-smelling breeze drying the sweat on her face. Wasn’t that a good change from the smog and the dirt? The scatter of pebbles beneath her running shoes. She concentrated on the feel, the sound. Real. She crossed the street.
Sometimes trauma to the brain could cause visual and auditory hallucinations after a head injury, the neurologist had reassured her. But did other people participate in their hallucinations? If, for example, you hallucinated a big orange-striped Cheshire cat with a wide grin and the habit of dematerializing, did you also feed it, and brush its coat to get the snarls out, and smell the distinct cat smell, and feel the needle-sharp prick of claws on your skin? Did you sweep its shed fur up off the kitchen floor? Did you empty the damned litter box?
She was thinking no. But that was how vivid her hallucinations were. They weren’t getting better, despite her best intentions, despite being on leave from Manhattan South, despite the utter desperation that had driven her here. The hallucinations were getting worse. She had begun to worry that instead of dealing with a minor head injury, she was suffering a major mental illness. Not that worrying had improved her mental health any.
The small yellow house she rented was halfway down the block but even from here she could see the figure sitting on the front porch. She stumbled a little on the curb. Maybe she could keep running past. Just go on running and running, never stopping.
With a sigh, she crossed the street, trotted down the sidewalk, and took the three steps up to the porch. The individual sat cross-legged on the narrow porch rail, unlike a real person who would at least have the sense to sit on the step. He wore faded, worn work clothes, neatly mended, probably not by him. The afternoon sun glinted off his blonde cap of hair. As she walked across the porch to the front door, he jumped off the rail and stood up. He was shorter than she and lighter. He glowed in the sunlight, reflecting dazzling waves of light. She recognized the pointed ears right off.
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” Morgan said, unlocking the front door and shoving it open. She ignored its indignant squeak of protest. Except for the fact that she was addressing him, she ignored the elf, too. “I don’t believe in pixies or brownies or hobbits.”
The elf’s almond-shaped golden eyes followed her movements closely. He was breathing fast. At first she’d taken that as a sign of fear or malevolent intent but experience had shown her that elves simply had a faster metabolism than humans. He made no response to her comments. He never did. He was the most restful of her hallucinations.
“I don’t believe in fairies or banshees or things that go bump in the night.” She waited until the elf followed her into the house before she slammed the door shut, using the sound to punctuate her words, snapping the dead bolt home behind her. The only thing she disliked more than holding the door open for him was seeing him materialize through the walls.
She dumped her keys in the basket by the door, then tore off the iPod and tossed it on the coffee table before she strode into the bathroom. The elf drifted after her, averting his eyes modestly when she unhooked her bra and shimmied out of her panties. She’d already had a conversation with him about staring at her naked body. Well, not a conversation, as he never answered. But he had stopped staring, so at least he understood the language.
“I don’t believe in sprites or the fisher king or She.” Morgan shoved open the shower door and turned the water on full blast. “I don’t believe in vampires or werewolves or sentient toys.” She climbed into the stall, then stuck her head out and shouted, “And I don’t believe in elves, either!”
*
The elf fixed Morgan a nice soothing cup of tea after she finally stopped shouting. She pulled her flannel robe tighter about her, cinching the belt around her waist as if girding for battle. The elf, sitting across the tiny kitchen table from her, slid the sugar bowl a little closer to her and picked up his mug, the bright blue one. The same mug he always used. She had the daffodil yellow one today.
“What do you want?” she demanded, furiously thinking I don’t believe in elves, I don’t believe in elves.
The elf slapped his mug down with a clatter and jumped to his feet, not in response to her question. Morgan moved more slowly, setting her own mug down gently, not really wanting to see what the elf was staring at. The hairs on the back of her neck rose. Whatever it was, it had materialized through a locked door. She hated that.
Then she heard the soft sound. “Mrow?” Gabby asked. Gabby, the cat. She’d come with the house. Relieved, Morgan let out a gust of air and bent down to pick up the calico. She believed in cats.
Then she froze at the sight of the highly polished black leather boots on the scuffed vinyl floor in front of her. She didn’t scream. Sometime in the last few weeks she had run out of screams. Apparently nothing could surprise her anymore. She let her eyes travel upward from the boots, noting long leather-encased legs, white cotton T-shirt adhering to an aggressively masculine chest, fiercely dark eyes and too-long black hair, a scowling expression on a hard chiseled face.
“I don’t believe in sorcerers, either,” she said firmly, and picked up the cat.
“I’m not a sorcerer,” the man said, his voice a soft rasp in his throat.
She couldn’t help her snort of laughter. Surely she could do better than this? It only confirmed what her father had said all along. True imagination requires a delicacy of spirit I’m afraid you don’t possess, Morgan.
She might have no delicacy of spirit, but her imagination, common and hackneyed as it might be, knew what she liked, and it was exactly this, unmistakably male and not by any stretch of the imagination an accountant. She sat down harder than she meant, the kitchen chair squeaking in protest.
“I am Mere,” the creature said, as if that were all the introduction he needed. Maybe it was. She couldn’t recall a hallucination introducing itself to her before.
“Pleased to meet you,” she said, her fingers curling into the cat. Gabby gave a yowl of protest and darted off her lap. “Care for a cup of tea?”
“Thank you,” he said, taking a seat at the table across from her, giving the elf a nod. He didn’t say anything else, merely gazed at her expectantly. His eyes were dark and hypnotic. They promised the secrets of the universe and wicked delights beyond measure, ancient, ageless. She would be beautiful and cherished until the end of her days, the years stretching by in long sunlit interludes of unimaginable pleasure.
The elf cleared his throat and Morgan jumped. He slanted a descriptive glance at his bright blue mug, which made her remember her offer of tea. Glad of the excuse to shake off the aftereffects of adrenaline and unexpected lust, she went to the stove and fixed Mere a cup of tea, giving him the green mug with the crimson flower. When she handed it over, she was careful not to let her fingers brush his. The fact that her hallucinations felt real, that they had shape and form, mass and substance, bothered her more than anything else about them.
She knew that when this one was over, the pot of tea would be empty, just as if three people had sat around a table talking and drinking. The seats would be warm where they had sat. The scent of the man—the creature—the hallucination—well, Mere—would linger, evoking memories of an experience she’d never had.
She inhaled his spicy scent, reminding her of a summer evening spent on a lake. Had she ever spent a summer evening on a lake? Scent memory, she knew, was stronger than any other. She found herself leaning closer for another whiff, then caught herself and pulled back. What did she think she was doing?
She looked at the not-a-sorcerer sitting at her table. If she licked him, she bet he’d taste like a man, warm, a little salty from the trace of sweat drying on his skin. She leaned over, drawn to him as much by mesmerizing instinct as by reckless curiosity, despite the hard, forbidding line of his mouth. She saw scars on his neck. . . . Not scars. Gills.
Good God, he was a merman? Her gaze flicked to his dark eyes. The air hummed between them. Not giving herself a chance to think through to the worst-case scenario, she stroked her tongue down the skin of his throat. He started in surprise and made a growling sound that reverberated all the way to the pit of her stomach.
She sank back in her chair, sucking in a breath, her hands shaking as she lifted her mug to her lips and took a gulp of tea. Yep, she’d been right. He tasted a little salty. Just what you’d expect from a man who lived under the ocean. Licking him had been a bad mistake. Now she wanted to kiss him and find out if he kissed like a man. Would he be gentle or demanding? Would he cup her face in his hands or would he let his hands wander freely, stroking her body, caressing her all over? If he would just give her a tiny taste of his mouth, then she would know.
Yeah, and then she’d straddle those leather-clad thighs and she knew where that would lead. If only he weren’t imaginary.
“We need your help,” Mere said, his voice commanding attention in the quiet room. He did not comment on the licking, as if women did that sort of thing to him all of the time. Maybe they did. Who knew what her hallucinations were up to when she wasn’t having them?
She cleared her throat. “Why me?” Why was she the one who’d been injured and not her partner Ty, who’d been driving at the time of the accident? Why was she having hallucinations when she’d done everything the doctors had told her to do? And why was she engaging her imaginary friend in conversation? Was that the kind of thing a sane woman did? Her fingers tightened on the mug. She wasn’t insane. She just had a tiny little problem with seeing things that weren’t there.
“You’re the only one who can help us, Morgan,” the merman said.
She tapped her fingers against the Formica tabletop. Trite and clichéd, but urgent. Us, he said. Apparently it was a package deal, the us meaning Mere and the elf. Although of course us might encompass all of the hallucinations: the pixies hanging upside down in the ornamental pear tree like giggling pastel bats, the banshee stomping around on the roof even though no one had died, the awful nameless creature that shimmered in the bushes near the used car lot and sometimes threw fistfuls of hard crabapples at her.
She wished, as she had wished so many times before, that she could pick up the phone and call Uncle Matt. Head out to his tiny, dusty ranch in Utah and ask him, What now? And he would say, Grab a Coke there, will ya? and they would feed the chickens and his warm steady presence would make her unclench and then she would know what to do. But she’d buried him years ago, long before his time.
“Why do you need my help?” she asked. If her hallucinations had a higher purpose, she wanted to know what it was.
“You freed the djinn.”
She flinched. “That was a mistake,” she said immediately. How could he know about that? She knew she shouldn’t have picked up the lamp in the first place. That was when this series of hallucinations had started: real, intrusive, impossible to shake. Hadn’t Mother always said, Look but don’t touch?
She hadn’t been thinking of her mother’s admonition the day she’d visited the pawnshop with Ty—Detective Tyler Greene, NYPD, the detective bureau’s most recent Medal of Valor recipient, and didn’t he know it. Her first day back on the job after recovering from the on-duty auto accident, following up an ongoing low-key investigation as a way to ease back into active duty.
The discordant bell above the shop announcing her entry. Ty shouldering through the door a step behind. (He always let her take point if he thought there was a chance anyone might get shot.) Ty striding forward to talk to the proprietor, giving her the chance to turn her attention to his one good quality, which was the only way to deal with having him as a partner. Looking at his ass in his nicely fitted khakis. A thing of beauty is a joy forever, her mother used to say.
The battered brass oil lamp sitting on top of the display case.
“A mistake?” Mere sounded amused. “The djinn does not think so.” He regarded her with his dark intent eyes. “Why did you do it? Without at least receiving your wishes first?”
Lifting the lamp, rubbing her sleeve across its surface so she could read the writing. The drift of smoke curling from the mouth of the lamp, resolving itself into something vaguely man-shaped. Knowing she couldn’t lose her job. She could do nothing to jeopardize her job. The job was all she had.
Morgan shook her head sharply. “I don’t believe in djinn. When I hallucinated the djinn, how was I to know the rest of you would come traipsing in afterwards?” The words came out in a rush. She pressed her palm against the table to steady herself.
The damned lamp. The dusty pawnshop and the graying proprietor and the damned lamp. First day back on the job, and she had to screw it up. Now here she was in this no-stoplight town and the job was two thousand miles away. She chewed on her lower lip and tried to calm down. She hoped she wouldn’t break out in hives again.
“Tell me why,” Mere said. He grasped her fingers in his hand, a fluid unexpected movement, catching her, stopping her when she would have gotten to her feet. His fingers were cool, real, and she shook him off, snatching her hand away, cradling her arm against her chest.
“What was I supposed to do?” she demanded. “I’ve seen Aladdin. All the trouble starts when Aladdin doesn’t fulfill his promise to set the genie free.”
“You wished the djinn free,” Mere prompted, as if he couldn’t quite believe it. Maybe he hadn’t seen the movie.
She shrugged. It wasn’t the kind of thing that would make more sense the more she talked about it.
“And then?”
She looked at the merman. “Then he vanished,” she summarized. “And the hallucination ended. I went to my neurologist and told him what was happening and he put me back on medical leave.” She noticed she had curled her hands into fists. She forced herself to unclench her fingers. Punching people, even hallucinations, wouldn’t help her get the job back.
“Indeed.” Mere regarded her. “Did it occur to you that djinn are bound for a reason?”
He seemed to be missing the point. All of the points. “I don’t believe in djinn,” she said again. “I hadn’t really thought about the specifics of his personal situation, no.”
“We’ve kept watch over that shop for a long time. You’re the first person to even pick up the lamp.”
“Lucky me.”
“You saw the djinn. You freed him.”
“Sure, but –”
“You saw him.”
“Okay.” Morgan held up her hands in surrender. What did Mere want? And why was she arguing with him? “I saw him. You bet.”
“Humans cannot see us. Will not see us,” he said patiently, as if explaining something to a backward but good-natured child. “Ordinarily, this accords with our purpose. But now we need a human—an adult—who can see us. Interact with us.”
“Uh huh,” she said. “I’m afraid I’ve failed to adequately explain my position to you. I may see you. I may even interact with you. But I don’t believe you exist.” Pushing the chair back, she got to her feet. “Good day, gentlemen.”