Holy shit, I was in the glide path! Finally I was going to get laid.

Nervousness hit me. Would I last long enough? Would I embarrass myself? Natty Light said, “I got you, man.” Think about math, think about the environment. . . .

What would Buck do if he found out about me and Tammy? Wouldn’t matter, I’d be leaving soon.

Then I remembered. No. I wasn’t going anywhere. I might be here till I graduated. Would I go two more years without seeing a wave? Had I been completely abandoned?

Stop thinking about that! Tammy wanted to get laid. I desperately wanted to get laid—

I might not even get to go home for the holidays.

The thought gutted me. Something like grief wrapped a hand around my throat and squeezed. Ah, God, my eyes were watering! Finn, you candy-ass punk.

This close to doing the deed, and I was on the verge of blowing it! Think about something else; think about anything else.

I sniffled.

Tammy said, “What’s the matter?”

“N-nothing.”

She sucked in a breath, looking horrified. “What is wrong with you, surfer boy? Are you . . . cryin’?”

Humiliation. My face burned as I yanked up my pants. Buck kept telling me I was a weak, weird, pathetic loser.

He was right.

Tammy scrambled for her clothes, shimmying and contorting around me like she was in The Matrix and I was contagious.

She was going to tell all her friends what’d happened. Can’t wait for school tomorrow.

After dressing in record time, she gave me a last look—clearly she now shared Buck’s opinion of me—then fled, bounding up the stairs.

Leaving me all alone. Down here in this depressing deer crypt.

I raised another beer to the mounted heads and chugged it. Then this weak, weird, pathetic loser cried himself to sleep. . . .

The Priestess (II)

Circe Rémire, Ruler of the Deep

“Terror from the abyss!”

A.k.a.: The Water Witch

Powers: Water manipulation, including tidal wave generation and flood creation. Hydrokinetic combat, shapeshifting, and constructs (can form water objects). Hydro scrying (can perceive through water). Hydroportation.

Special Skills: Spells and hexes. One spell enables her to remember past games.

Weapons: Water, trident.

Tableau: A priestess—with water for hair and tentacles for legs—looms over a sacrificial victim at a bloody altar.

Icon: Trident.

Unique Arcana Characteristics: Iridescent blue scales on her arms, with a small fin at each elbow.

Before Flash: A grad student from Bermuda, attending the University of Miami. Her focus: Atlantean mythology and the Bermuda Triangle. Engaged to a computer programmer and instructor there. Member of campus Wiccans.

Hamilton, Bermuda

Day 0

“Are you tipsy?” I asked my soon-to-be husband. I was sitting with my cheek pressed against the door. He was sitting on the other side. It was well past midnight, so we weren’t supposed to see each other.

“I might be a tee bit wispy, luv,” he said, his voice as jovial as ever. No one had ever made me laugh like Ned. “But my wipsiness can’t be helped. My family kept raising their glasses to me. They think I’m a boss for landing a woman as beautiful as you.” His crisp British accent got more relaxed when he’d had a drink or two. “My sister said if a movie were made of our lives, it’d be called The Siren and the Nerd.”

Siren. I frowned as some memory tried to surface. The ocean’s siren song. . . . I raised my hand to my head as a wave of dizziness overtook me.

Over the last week, the wedding festivities had been going great—until I’d received a long, mysterious wooden box. The accompanying note had been just as puzzling.

Priestess,

Hail Tar Ro. I believe this is yours.

Death

Ever since I’d touched the contents of the package—a golden trident, engraved with cryptic symbols—I’d been having bouts of dizziness, and nightmares about being trapped under the ocean.

I hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen, as if I was on a countdown clock. And my symptoms were getting worse.

I’d confided them to my grandfather, my best friend. He’d worried that I wasn’t ready to marry.

But I am! Ned was the one for me. We were soul mates. I was lucky to have found him.

In a fit two nights ago, I’d taken the trident to a headland cliff and tossed it into the waves. But my issues continued—

“Circe, dear?”

What had he been talking about? Oh, yes . . . “Siren and the Nerd?” I feigned a huff. “They only commented on my looks?”

“They might have mentioned your early PhD candidacy, but I told them you were going to cut out all that scholarly rubbish after our nuptials.”

I grinned, pressing my palm to the door. I loved this man like a drought loves rain. “My family also spoke a lot about you tonight—about how you went out on the water without your seasickness patch.” My brothers had taken him fishing. They’d reported back that they’d never seen anybody throw up so much and live to laugh about it. “And without your sunblock.” They’d also said they’d never seen anyone burn so fast.

“I did that part on purpose, for my Larry the Lobster impression at the reception. I’m method that way.”

Laughter burst from my lips. I’d never known I could laugh this much before Ned. I frowned. No, there’d been another time. . . . In a dark forest, a green-eyed girl and I had laughed till our bellies ached.