I look away, sighing.

  “God help me,” I mumble.

  So far, no additional food has been consumed. Which might be a good thing. I really didn’t want a massive orca deposited on my head. I’m pretty sure I am in the splash zone here. Which gets me thinking. The next time it opens its mouth, maybe I should be near enough to make the leap out.

  And then what? Tread water in the middle of the ocean?

  Well, I am an ace open-water swimmer. There won’t be any treading. And if I’m super lucky, I might even spy land. If so, I would make it there, eventually. Basing this decision on the “better than being slowly digested” quotient, I consider my options and my available tools. I’d never swum with a knife and I was kinda regretting that right now.

  I’m already aware of a sharp, bony protrusion sticking up from within my meat raft. I reach out for it, feeling through the fleshy mush. (God only knows what I’m sticking my hand in.) Soon, I come across what I’m looking for: it’s a claw of some sort. Maybe from a crab or a lobster, or something lost in time. No clue.

  I pull the thing out and attempt to tear the claw into two. The thing is bigger and tougher than what I’m used to, but with some twisting and wrenching, I finally break it in half. Not sure which is considered the top or bottom, or if this is a right and left situation, but one half of the claw is in my right hand and the other half is in my left. They’re big, about twice the size of a butcher’s knife. Armed as such, I decide to make my move.

  Lord help me, I make my move...

  Chapter Twenty-four

  It’s two hours later and we’ve all reconvened in Roy’s condo by the beach. A vampire, a mermaid, a witch, and a psychic.

  I shake my head.

  My life.

  “Mine, too,” says Alexis and Allison together. They both chuckle.

  “Say what now?” asks Roxy.

  “A little telepathy humor,” I say. “Sorry.”

  “Let me guess: it was something about the unlikeliness of this gathering?”

  “You got that right, sister,” says Allison, laying a hand on Roxy’s back. We’d already made introductions all around, and from what I can tell, Allie and Roxy are hitting it off particularly well.

  Pretty sure she was a friend from another lifetime, comes Allie’s voice in my head.

  Witchy friend? I ask.

  Yeah, maybe.

  But she’s not a witch in this lifetime.

  No, but she’s legit clairvoyant.

  At present, Alexis is filling us in on her underwater search. No giant dinosaur spotted, though, apparently, a collective school of barracuda had seen the giant creature.

  “How does something that massive get missed by all the fishies in the sea?” asks Allison.

  “Not all,” says Alexis, smiling. “And to answer the question that instantly appeared in all of your thoughts... yes, I can speak to fish. Kind of. Mostly, I can see what they see. The good news, their brains aren’t very complicated. Easy enough for me to scan to find what I’m looking for.”

  “Oh, my God,” says Roxy. “I can’t believe we’re having these conversations.”

  “Believe it, sister,” says Allison, bumping Roxy lightly with her shoulder.

  “I guess I do. And here I always thought I was the weirdo.”

  “Who you calling weird?” I say in unison with Allison and Alexis.

  We all laugh. This isn’t a party. In fact, it’s the opposite. A solemn gathering to suss out how the hell we can find Roy. Still, wine has been brought and poured, and is presently in everyone’s hand as we speak.

  “So, you’re really a mermaid, huh?” asks Allison, leveling her dark eyes on Alexis. I note a spark in Allison’s eye. I’m fairly certain my witchy friend is straight, but Alexis’ charm might be pulling something latent out of her. Then again, I’m certain I must have looked just like Allison is looking now; that is, during my first conversations with Alexis. I’m hoping I moved past the feelings of attraction that I know don’t really exist. Kingsley, after all, is my main (and only) squeeze. Alexis assured me the effect of her charm does tend to wear off.

  “Last I checked,” says Alexis. “Which was like thirty minutes ago when I stepped out of the ocean.”

  “I’m sorry,” says Allison, blushing. “I loved mermaids growing up. Your kind are a bit like rock stars in my mind.”

  Pull yourself together, Allie. It’s mermaid magic. You’re being charmed. I warned you about that.

  No, I’m not being charmed... I think I might love her.

  No, you don’t, says a second voice in my head. My magic is bringing out a hidden desire in you.

  What do you mean, hidden?

  Not formally recognized, says Alexis.

  Wait, wait. Hold up. Yes, I experimented a few times in college. And maybe a few times at the strip club in Vegas. Okay, there was that one time on vacation in the Caribbean. But other than that, I’m pretty sure—

  Allie, can we talk about this later?

  Right, sorry.

  “Everything okay?” asks Roxy.

  “Yeah, sorry,” I say. “It’s just that Alexis the mermaid here is bringing out some unexpressed feelings and emotions that can definitely wait to be discussed another time.”

  Meanwhile, Allison continues to blush and shoot sideways glances at Alexis.

  Yes, this is news to me, and might explain Allison’s fascination with me. And no, I’m not jealous of the attention she’s giving Alexis. Truth be known, I welcome it. Luckily, Allie’s not overhearing these thoughts at the moment, so enraptured she is with Alexis. The mermaid, for her part, ignores Allison completely, perhaps to downplay the magical connection.

  I say to the group, “So, a school of ocean creatures saw the beast, which means we can confirm it truly existed outside of our various woo-woo abilities.”

  Between my psychometry, Allison’s distance viewing, and Roxy’s clairvoyance, no one had actually seen anything tangible. Additionally, there had been no sightings of a massive creature spotted off the coast of California. No ship captain or deckhands had spotted anything. No beachgoers or swimmers or surfers. Maybe the military had picked up a sonar reading. I could only imagine the coasts of the United States are wired to pick up just about anything sizable. Then again, they would likely keep such reports to themselves. If Captain Chuck of the Coast Guard had heard of something unusual, he sure fooled me. Gave no indication of having suppressed any information from me.

  “Granted,” says Allison, seemingly breaking out of whatever spell Alexis had her under, “we’re taking the word of fish.”

  “Barracudas,” corrects the mermaid. “A very observant and trustworthy fish.”

  “Good to know,” says Allison, smiling a little too brightly at our new guest.

  “Tell me again how we are going to rescue my brother,” says Roxy. She gestures to all of us. “This is a lot and all new to me, though I always suspected gals like you existed.”

  She caught us up on her story earlier. Her connection with Roy seemed to go above and beyond the normal psychic twin link, having long since totally freaked out their parents (both now passed on). Beyond that, she had always sensed ghosts and other creatures... fairies, according to her. But she could see auras and noted that those beings didn’t sport them. I explained to her that immortals do not have such auras, as our souls are fully and eternally contained in our physical bodies. This all made sense to her, and we all felt comfortable disclosing our secrets to her—and treating her as one of our own, so to speak.

  “Alexis and I have a working theory,” I say. “We think the creature is a time traveler.”

  Roxy blinks. “Say again?”

  We give her the evidence as we see it: First, it looks straight up like an aquatic dinosaur. Second, it’s massive enough that we find it unlikely to have never been discovered before, especially if it’s swimming off the shores of California (and not in the deepest parts of the ocean). Third, Allison can sense it but can’t get a read on it. Fourth, Roxy herself senses her brother but can’t get a read on him, either. And fifth and final: none of the merfolk, at least for the past 2,000 years, have ever seen it, nor is it in their own lore. Simply put, this thing shouldn’t exist.

  “But it does,” I say in conclusion. “Added up, and we think we’re looking at a time-traveling dinosaur.”

  “Freakin’ eh,” says Allison.

  “But... how?” asks Roxy.

  “Hard to know,” I say, shrugging. “Perhaps it’s an evolutionary trait. It’s carnivorous, obviously. Perhaps jumping forward and backward in time ensures it will always find enough food.”

  Alexis nods. “And not be hunted to extinction.”

  “And survive massive, global extinction events.”

  Roxy nods, getting it now. “Like meteors and ice ages.”

  “And humans,” adds Allison.

  “In short,” I say. “We think your brother is lost in time in the belly of a great creature, though still alive.”

  “Way to sugarcoat it, Sammy,” says Allison.

  I shrug. It is what it is.

  “No, I need to hear it,” says Roxy. “However crazy it sounds. So, what do we do now? He can’t survive forever in the belly of that thing.”

  “No,” I say. “Our challenge is going to be to pinpoint when he’s at.”

  “Not where?”

  “Where is less important,” I say.

  “And why is that?”

  “Because I saw clearly, in the vision, the mouth and throat that swallowed him. That’s important.”

  “Why is that important?”

  “Because I can now teleport there,” I say.

  “Teleport? What’s that?”

  “This,” I say behind her in the kitchen, after having summoned the single flame and made the leap instantly.

  She spins, wide-eyed. “Whoa! You disappeared!”

  “Disappeared and reappeared. It’s what I do. Or one of the many things I can do.”

  “So cool... but how?”

  “One thing we do in our little supernatural club is never question how,” says Allison, winking.

  “She’s right,” I say. “I don’t know how, but I do know the rules, and one of them is... I need a clear visual of where to jump. And when it comes to time travel, I need to know when to jump.”

  “Holy shit! You can time travel?”

  “Yup.”

  I know she’s blown away, it’s evident by her shaking head, but her concern for her brother supersedes all weirdness. Besides, she’s kinda weird herself. “But... how do we know when if he’s lost in time?”

  “That,” I say, “is why we’re all here...”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Roy

  With the faint glow from my watch leading the way, I use a half-masticated fish to paddle away from the stomach.

  My target is the overhead opening to the esophagus. Having had issues with acid reflux myself, I know the esophagus uses a sphincter muscle to prevent food and bile from rising back up the throat. Even though this creature has like a twenty-foot throat, one would think its esophagus would operate similarly.

  Unfortunately, finding the opening in the barely there glow of my watch is proving to be a challenge. Turns out the entirety of the stomach wall is molted and mangled, rippled and grooved. Lord only knows what’s gone down its gullet and tried to escape.

  Like me, for instance.

  I navigate past other, smaller creatures writhing in agony in the pit of doom, literally being eaten alive by stomach acid. This will surely be my fate if I don’t get the hell out of here. Already, I can feel my flesh raft disintegrating from movement and digestion. I’m still sporting my one flipper on my injured foot. Too much movement and this hodgepodge flotation device is going to break up into nothing. So I paddle carefully, avoiding the bigger lumps of meat, scanning the area above me as best I can until I finally come across a break in the scenery, so to speak.

  There seems to be a recessed area above me that seems to be shuddering slightly. Ah, I see why. Wind is passing by somewhere nearby. Since the creature isn’t eating, it’s breathing, which suggests it’s near the surface, unless it has gills of some type. My impression of the thing was something akin to a walrus or a crocodile: air breathing and massive.

  Then again, I had only gotten the briefest of glimpses of it before dive-bombing down its gullet.

  I can hear the wind passing along its windpipe. The mother of all windpipes, mind you. Obviously, its lungs are sitting somewhere above its stomach. Surely, there is a torrent of wind rising up and down that long neck, along its trachea. A second pipe, the esophagus, would allow for food to funnel down into its stomach. Anything dumped into the stomach would be along the esophagus. No doubt, the lungs were just above me.

  But I’m not here to analyze this thing’s anatomy. I’m looking for a way out, and I’m pretty sure this opening above me leads to the esophagus... and, if I’m lucky, to freedom.

  As the flesh ceiling shudders above me with each roaring breath, I take in some air myself and whisper a small prayer to a God who seems to have forsaken me. Once done, I adjust the lobster claws in my hands and, using them like mountain-climbing spikes, I reach up and slam the first of the claws into the wall of the stomach lining...

  And pull myself up...

  Chapter Twenty-six

  We’re all sitting at the round table, our drinks in front of us, contemplating something that shouldn’t exist but does.

  “Makes sense why I could see Roy himself,” says Allison, “if the dude is like in the future or the past.”

  “Same,” says Roxy, looking at Allison. “Can you always see your targets?”

  Allie nods. “Pretty much. Granted, there are some secure military bases around the earth that have figured out how to block people like me. But other than that, I can almost always find who I’m looking for... if they’re alive.”

  “Amazing. So it’s a big deal if you can’t see him?”

  “Yeah, it means something very, very weird is going on, and I think Sam and Alexis here narrowed it down. Your brother is freakin’ lost in time.”

  “When you say it like that...” Roxy lowers her head.

  Allie reaches over, wraps an arm around her shoulders. “Sorry. That was insensitive. He’s somewhere in time. Not lost. We’ll find him.”

  I reach out and take Roxy’s hand. “It’s just a matter of figuring out this puzzle.” I give her hand another squeeze and sit back. “You can still sense your brother, right?”

  She nods, wipes a tear. “Yeah. He’s alive. I’m sure of it. If he wasn’t alive, I would know.”

  “Good enough for me,” says Allison.

  “Same,” says Alexis.

  “Allie,” I say, “if you try to tune in to him...”

  My friend shakes her head. She’s been holding Roy’s favorite LA Dodgers ballcap. “I’m sorry, I’m not getting anything.”

  “Nothing at all?” I ask.

  Allie closes her eyes. “Scratch that. Just a hint of the creature here and there. Nothing about Roy.”

  I crack my neck, drum my fingers. “Is this impression fainter than the one you had in your office last night?”

  My witchy friend says, “Much fainter.”

  “Does that mean he’s gone even further back in time? Or further forward in time?” asks Roxy.

  “One or the other,” I say. I guess I’m the designated bearer of bad news.

  “How far back, do you think?”

  “No way of knowing,” I say. “But it has stayed close enough to our timeline to still be detected.”

  But it’s getting fainter, Allie says discreetly to me.

  Alexis, who’s been gazing out the only window that affords a view of the ocean, suddenly turns and looks at me. “Sam, is it possible that you don’t need an exact date to time travel?”

  “I’m thinking I do, otherwise, God only knows where I might land.”

  “Consider this: if this thing is moving through time—likely speeding through time—then perhaps you need an approximation of the date, since the creature itself isn’t in an exact time for very long.”

  “Like give or take two or three years or something?” asks Allison.

  Alexis nods. “Yeah, something like that. What do you think, Sam?”

  “I dunno. I’d only jumped through time using exact dates. That said, how can we possibly even nail down the correct year, let alone the correct decade? That thing looked straight up prehistoric. Who knows how far back it went?”

  “Or forward,” says Allison.

  Alexis touches my hand with hers. Yeah, her fingers are cold to the touch, too. I know the feeling, though I’ve warmed up somewhat with the ejection of my dark hitchhiker. “The fact that Allie here picked up on it as recently as last night suggests it may not be too far back, even if we do not know Allison’s range or how fast it’s traveling.”

  “All I can say is that it didn’t feel very far back,” says Allie. “For whatever that’s worth. And now, it feels almost out of range.”

  “It’s moving through time,” I say. “Had it been in our present, Allie would have found it.”

  “Unless it can block a psychic hit, like some of those military installations.”

  “Maybe, but I doubt it. That thing is not from our time—or anywhere near our time. Let’s assume it is a time-traveling dino. I think that’s our best approach.”

  Allie shrugs. Alexis nods. Roxy wipes a tear. This can’t be easy to hear for her.

  I sit back, fold my arms. “Everything suggests the creature isn’t terribly far back in time, though it’s clearly moving if Allie’s signal is getting weaker.”

  “Mine, too,” says Roxy.

  “The problem is,” I say, “how does this information help us? I’m pretty sure I can’t picture a landing spot—in this case, inside the creature’s mouth—but not have a date. I’m not sure the ring will even let me make that leap.”

  “We can try,” says Allison.

  “Let’s use that as a last option,” I say. “I kinda don’t want to be torn apart and end up scattered over an entire century.”