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Jack grinned. "They're a subspecies, perfectly adapted to subterranean amphibious existence." He shrugged. "Cave mermaids, if you will. This clan split from one in the cenotes of Mexico. When they put their legs together, their feet and calves transform into an impressive fluke. They’re half-shifters, just like the mermaids and the centaurs. Shuck anything you don't want wet. We're going in."
“Wait – what about him?” I pointed at the limp form of Adonis, draped face-down over some rocks on the other side of the water. Spot had followed the directive, ‘don’t eat, relocate.’
Jack never looked up from unlacing his boots. He was unsteady on his feet, voice ever so slightly slurred from the ambient emotion and beautiful chorus swirling in the cavern. "Don't need him yet."
“Should we be guarding him or something?” Allowing a human knowledge of the presence of non-humans was punishable by death or deportation back to Mul-Apin.
“Relax. They never survive the underwater trip.”
Jack had done this before. He seemed too dismissive for my liking, and I worried that he was under the influence of too much good feelings, without enough available bandwidth for other, scarier things. I kept one eye on the slumped human shape across the pond and unlaced my own boots.
We undressed together as we had many times before, often under stranger circumstances. Inners have zero nudity taboos. Bodies are bodies, and no reason to cover them up or be ashamed of them. The water felt cool, but not cold, as we swam naked to the central island. Spot was absorbed in munching a fish and didn't follow.
Long fingers tipped with thick claws traced my skin and pulled my attention away from the human. They bumped over the scar tissue that covered my entire back, and a low murmur swept through the adults clustered around me. Inners have a thing about scars; if it looks like something awful happened to you and you’re still alive, you achieve some sort of weird strength status. Not victim, but survivor. I stopped swimming, treading water for a better look, and the naiads closed in.
Several of them stroked my red hair while Jack clambered onto the rock pile beyond. A few sang their haunting, whale-song chorus reminiscent of ancient, lost echoes. It vibrated through my chest to leave a spiritual longing for a place and time that might never have existed at all. Strong, translucent tails created currents that buffeted me and furthered the illusion of time standing still. Their feathery ends brushed my legs from all sides. I felt warm, buoyed, as though it would be perfectly fine to stay right there as long as the world would let me.
I ignored Jack’s wave to hurry up, and touched the head and shoulder of one of the naiads who'd touched me. When in Rome. The skin was smooth and slick, but not slimy, and the same temperature as the water.
The naiad clicked and burbled, then lisped, "Welcome, Friend of the Singer."
Jack was an all-access pass to infinite wonder.
Helping hands pressed into my buttocks and thighs as I climbed the rocks on the central island. A very pregnant naiad sat in a ring of other women. The skin of the mother's swollen belly was stretched so thin it showed the child within, making ultrasound obsolete. A breech birth was obvious from the tiny flippers protruding between her thighs. Older clan members clustered around, stroking her head and offering her morsels of fish she didn’t eat. Her breasts were large and swollen, in stark contrast to the women around her. Only later did I think to wonder at amphibious life having a need for milk producing glands.
The part of my brain that kept reminding me I was a doctor and not a tourist sat up and poked me. I asked, "How long has she been laboring? How different is their birth process from others I've studied? Time to start filling me in. Devil's in the details."
"Devil's in the human pantheon, not ours." Jack combed his shoulder length, black hair back from his face, water flattening the natural curl to reveal horn stubs he habitually failed to file flush with his scalp. "Three rules. Move slowly. The birth itself should take place underwater. And do not bleed, whatever you do."
Aha. One mystery solved. Good thing I wasn’t menstruating. Or wounded from that cricket chase.
"Given the anatomy, why don't we just reach in and pull the baby out?"
"Okay, four rules."
"Seriously, Jack. She's breech." I lowered my voice and spoke through gritted teeth. "There are little flippers sticking out!"
"It's gotta come out that way. The last contraction shoots it out backward to push water and microflora into the gills. If it was coming out head-first, then we'd have a problem." Jack grinned and patted my head. I slapped his wrist.
"Why are we here?" I sounded tired, a little defeated. Not that I wasn’t immensely grateful to be here. Being a doctor is the greatest sort of gift, given by the ones you treat. You’re allowed, welcomed even, into another’s sacred space. Births, deaths, and all of life’s rites of passage.
"Wanted you to see this. To broaden your horizons. If I'm unavailable one day, you might have to help them. I trust you. They trust me, and after today, they'll trust you too."
"Lead into gold?"
"Aren’t you glad I dragged you out of bed?"
Bastard.
Chapter Six
As the contractions drew closer together, the cavern dimmed and the clan's singing intensified. Everyone was focused on the mother. She filled the cave with her screams, needle teeth bared and claws carving gashes into the rocks. A gush of clear fluid erupted around the baby's legs, and the women supporting her sprang into action.
"It's time," Jack said. "Grab the kit. Sometimes we gotta clamp and cut the cord."
I suppressed an urge to scream loud enough to fill the cave. As I fumbled my way off the island and swam for shore, I murmured curses centered around why we hadn't brought it with us in the first place and how I would punish Jack later. He really must be altered.
The sweep of my arms made eddies of light in the water. As I climbed out, I raised a hand, and droplets shone as they fell to the rocks and sand beneath. I had to rake my hair back and squeeze out the water as I crouched to open Jack's pack. A smaller, zippered bag contained cord clamping equipment, and I gripped it while considering whether I should take the whole thing out and avoid a possible second trip.
