Children of the Sea 01 - Sea Witch

holster. “I didn’t catch the name.”
     
    “Oh, very good,” the thing approved. “You may call me Tan.”
     
    273
    “Tan. Right,” Caleb said, and shot him.
     
    Or tried to.
     
    The slide clicked uselessly in his hand.
     
    “It won’t work,” Tan informed him. He lifted a revolver—.357
    Magnum, plenty of stopping power there, the homeowner’s defensive weapon of choice—from the powerboat’s console and leveled it at Caleb’s chest. “This, however, will. Throw your gun in the water.”
     
    Caleb’s grip tightened. Never surrender your weapon. Keep talking .
    “Nice trick.”
     
    “Thank you. I suppressed the ignition of the primer in the cartridge. I could as easily explode it in your hands. But I might have use of them later.”
     
    Them . His hands? Caleb fought a chill at the thought of the demon using him. Using his hands.
     
    “How’s that?” he asked.
     
    “You have something I want,” Tan said from the deck of the boat.
     
    He couldn’t touch him. Reach him. Not yet. But like a criminal impressed with his own cleverness, the thing enjoyed the sound of its own voice. Caleb could use that. “Maybe we could bargain.”
     
    Tan smiled, a twist of facial muscles that revealed all of Whittaker’s teeth. “I’d rather hear you beg.”
    Caleb’s palms were sweating on the butt of the gun. Blood crusted his knuckles. “That didn’t work too well for you with your last victim. Or you wouldn’t be coming after me.”
     
    The demon hissed.
     
    “Come on,” Caleb goaded. “Make me an offer.”
     
    “Your life for the pelt.”
     
    The pelt. Gold coins shining through the rich, mottled strands of fur .
    Maggie’s hope for escape.
     
    274
     
    Caleb gave a quick shake of his head. No . As if he held the power here instead of a worthless gun. As if he wasn’t staring into the blind, black eye of a .357 Magnum in the hands of a creature that couldn’t be killed. “We both know you won’t let me live.”
     
    Tan shrugged, not bothering to deny it. “Then . . . a quick death.”
     
    Keep talking. Keep thinking . There had to be a way out of this. The fight never went the way you wanted it. You had to stay flexible.
     
    “And in return, you want . . .”
     
    “The selkie Gwyneth’s sealskin. Yes.”
     
    “Why? She’s dead.”
     
    “Let’s say I want it to . . . remember her by.”
     
    Caleb fought another shudder of revulsion. Something didn’t add up.
    The demon had burned Maggie’s sealskin. It didn’t make sense he would preserve Gwyneth’s.
     
    Like anything about this situation made sense. Think. Talk .
     
    “You don’t strike me as the sentimental type.”
     
    “My actions and my nature are none of your concern.”
     
    “I think you fucked up,” Caleb said, deliberately provoking. Keep him talking. Distract him. Find an out, an opening . “I think she died before you got your hands on her pelt, and now you’re screwed.”
     
    “She was weak.” Tan spat the words. The muzzle of his gun wavered. “Her death was . . .”
     
    “A mistake?” Caleb prodded.
     
    The demon stiffened. “An inconvenience.”
     
    “So you didn’t want her dead?”
     
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    “I wanted her ended .” He waved the gun for emphasis. “The death of her body is a bare ripple in her existence. Her people will not care as long as the bitch can be sea born.”
     
    Caleb eyed the waving muzzle. A gun was only as effective as the person holding it. “You want her people pissed off at you?” he asked, taking a half step forward.
     
    “Not at me. At you. The children of the sea are too tolerant of humankind. You overrun the earth, you pollute the water, you violate the very air, and still the elements suffer your existence. ‘Because the Creator wills it so.’ ” Tan’s mimicry was savage. “The sea king has wasted centuries in dreams and denial. His heir is too cautious to act. But they cannot ignore the deliberate destruction of their kind. Not when their numbers are declining.”
     
    The demon sounded like a fucking terrorist. As if wrapping an act of violence in self-justification and a noble cause somehow vindicated the death of the innocent.
     
    Caleb controlled his anger. “So you disguise yourself as human, kill a selkie, and hope the humans get blamed.”
     
    “You will be blamed. Your own kind suspect you already. And when more die, even that selkie fool King Llyr will be convinced of your guilt.”
     
    Tension clamped on Caleb’s