All the Deets

Egyptian Blue

Her eyes are the same color blue that was lavishly slathered all over the tomb walls I saw on my tour of Syria. Egyptian blue. That's the color. It's on the headdress of the Pharoah of the tomb some of my team and I were stuck in during a particularly rough firefight. Some long-dead human descended from demon shifters he probably knew nothing about.

Without taking my eyes from hers, I push my com with my thumb and listen to the static of the transmission. This damn radio cost over five G's and it's still useless all the way down here. Who would have thought that the search for some dumb teens in Indiana would uncover another covert experimental lab?

She's so still, motionless, and goddess-damned beautiful that I'm almost convinced she's just another pretty painting. Except I'm surrounded by stainless steel glowing with the dull white sheen of fluorescent lights and nowhere near the four-thousand-year-old tomb in Syria. Her dark hair and eyes, along with the dark grey, plain jumpsuit she has on, create such a startling contrast to those Egyptian blues.

Water drips into my eyes. I don't blink it away. I don't have to. My skin absorbs it like a sponge. Chest tight, I manage to croak out a question to the gorgeous statue, "you alright?"

Her head tilts to one side. A hint of a smile plays around her lips. She's a tiny thing. If I could stand with my broken spine, then I would tower nearly a foot, foot-and-a-half above her. Even so, the quiet, confident attitude is scary. I'm doped up by whatever junk the dead and dying mad scientists hit me with, but I have enough clarity to know there is something really odd about this female.

There are worse ways to die than at the hands of this pretty goddess, but something deep stirs in me. Not my wolf. I'm not sure where the poor bastard is. No, I just don't want her to die here with me. "Sweetheart," I rasp, "take my radio and knives and go up to the surface. You look like a quiet thing, can you be real sneaky?"

She nods, slowly, once.

I try to smile, but my body feels even more strange. It's like I've been shaken up and turned to liquid, then poured into my camo. "Good, pretty thing. Turn the radio on. Tell them Enki sent you. They'll get you away from here."

Her smile widens. "Enki?" she chimes. Her voice washes over me, melodious, perfect, enchanting. "You are named for the god of lakes and rivers?"

I suck in a breath, feeling as if I can breathe for the first time since I fell down the mineshaft into sci-fi hell. "Ma had a sense of humor," I manage to tell her. Yeah, the Luna of the North gave every one of us names she insisted on. Mine and my younger brother's are from the Mesopotamian culture. We aren't anything remotely close to Mesopotamian, but no one argues with Ma.

I watch, mesmerized, as her hand, as delicate as a bird's wing, reaches out towards me. Her fingers brush my cheek, then she flattens her palm against my skin. "Enki," she purrs, "I am Nanshe."

My body feels stiff and solid. Sluggishly, my brain catches up. Nanshe is the recorded name of one of the seven Sirens of the Sea. Humans may quake in their boots about us wolf shifters, but shit, if they knew about Sirens...

"Shit," I croak.

She moves closer, beaming with happiness. Her stillness is broken by her movement and she is faster than anything I've ever seen, yet I can see it. It's as if my eyesight is suddenly three times sharper than it's ever been and that's saying something. She lays her other hand on my chest, directly over where my heart races. My wolf springs back to life, making my muscles contract and seize as if I've been shocked by an electric current. All of my senses are zapped back to life all at once, sending my scream of agony echoing down the halls.