Nikolas and Company: The Merman and The Moon Forgotten (4 page)

The project leader curled both fists
around the artifact.

Snap.

“Are you crazy?” The Peruvian grabbed
his hair.

The artifact released tendrils of
yellow dust. A breeze swept most of it away, leaving only a trace
of letters behind.

“I, um, I . . .” the Peruvian
mumbled.

“It’s stardust. Now be
quiet.”

Steward Nikolas Lyons
XI,

Mayist
12
^th
.
Year 4570 of the 5th Epoch

I pray the clues were not
too severe, and this message fell into true hands. The trackers
followed you to Earth’s future, as I’m sure you’ve suspected. While
they have run you off to another time, a greater crisis has emerged
in our own. My informants tell me the Merrows of Eynclaene will be
attacked within the month by the Dujinnin and some foul creature. I
do not need to remind you they are guardians of all Huron’s wealth,
which leaves your fair city vulnerable to an ill and unthinkable
ruin. The Council of Teine insists upon your return, demands it in
fact. Who knows? Could it be that time and space will fend off the
trackers once and for all? Do not delay.

Your friend,

Ludwig, Master
Toymaker

“The Merrows attacked!” The project
leader swiped the words into an unreadable cloud. “That’s it then .
. . bloody creatures chased me from Huron. I left her exposed . . .
I should return. I must return . . . but the trackers? You might be
right, Ludwig. Abandon the trackers to this time and return home.
Kill two birds with one stone.” The project leader squeezed his
palms. “Oh Huron, what is the way? What is the way? Confound it
all! Why is the city quiet?” He locked eyes with the Peruvian. “Why
will the woman not speak to me?”

“Take it from personal experience, move
on.” The Peruvian shrugged. “They never call back.”

The project leader’s eyes searched the
Peruvian’s. “Aagh.” He waved him off and faced the archaeological
team. “I have tarried long enough. Must find Steward Nikolas Lyons
now. Good day.” Without another word the project leader marched to
his yellow Ford hovertruck, which was as swarthy and beat up as
himself.

“Wait.” The Peruvian moved between two
team members flirting at the water station. “You’re going to do
what—who? Are you not this—this Steward Nikolas Lyons? For years
you’ve demanded we call you Mr. Steward Lyons.”

The project leader looked at the
Peruvian with his blazing green eyes, making him feel six feet
short of his five foot ten. “I was! Huron knows that I was. Steward
Nikolas Lyons the Eleventh. But now I must find Steward Nikolas
Lyons the twelfth. My grandson.”

The project leader heaved into the
truck. A harness responded to the presence of a body and unspooled
itself. With a slam of the door, he nodded an empty salutation to
the crowd and pressed the power on symbol. An electromagnetic buzz
came from the hovertruck and it began to lift.

The Peruvian man stared at his own
stunned reflection in the hovertruck window. The scene was fizzling
away like a bad radio signal. He looked down to two empty hands.
The artifact that would make him wildly rich currently sat in the
passenger seat with a crazy project leader who needed to find his
grandson and save the Merrows.

“What’s a Merrow?” the Peruvian said to
himself.

The Peruvian leapt to the hovertruck,
grabbed the door handle, and yanked it open. The hovertruck pitched
to the left, forcing the project leader to prop one hand on the
roof while gripping the steering column.

“Are you mad?” yelled the project
leader.

“The artifact. You have the artifact!”
the Peruvian cried.

“I cannot waste my time in parlay with
you. The Merrows, sir. The Merrows are in need of salvation. Now
let go before you pitch the hover over!”

“Merrows?” the Peruvian said. “What are
you talking about?”

“Merrows,” the project leader shouted
over the hovertruck’s whining stabilizers. “Mermaids! Merfolk!
Whatever you folks call ‘em. They are under the citizenship of
Huron and in need of me. If I’m to save them, I must have access to
the voice of Huron. I may access the voice through my grandson,
Nikolas. Henceforth, I must return him to his proper time in
history. In short, good day, sir!” He wrenched the car door from
the Peruvian.

The hovertruck kicked a foot, and then
twenty into the air.

“Hey . . . HEY! The grant? What am I to
tell the endowment board?” The Peruvian punched the air. “Crazy old
man!”

The hovertruck stopped its
ascent and the driver window rolled down. Two silvery objects spat
out to the grass. Then, the hovertruck pointed its grill northward
and puttered off into the clouds. Incandescent
F O R D
letters were the last to be
seen.

“Told you that guy was a nut,” a voice
came from the onlookers.

The Peruvian toddled after the
artifact. He clutched it to his chest, stood to his feet and bolted
toward a stack of empty briefcases. Finding one, he dropped to the
ground and stuffed the artifact into it. With a few taps, the
password was set. He wasn’t going to let it out of his sight
again.

A llama cried from the outer perimeter.
Its bottom lip lolled back and forth as it galloped
past.

Cliiiiink, tiiiiink.
Cliiiiiink, tiiiiink,
came the sound of
grinding chains, escorted by canine growls. Three shadows emerged
from the jungle.

The Peruvian wobbled to his feet. “Now
wha—?” his voice trailed off. “Heaven help us.”

What he saw next utterly convinced him
that it was time to retire from archaeology and accept his brother
Felipe’s open invitation to start a line of clothing apparel for
small dogs. That is, if he could manage to survive the next five
minutes. Three monstrous animals lumbered across the site. Someone
must have taken the head of a hyena, stuck it on the neck of an
ostrich and stitched it to the body of a raptor.

One of the creatures, which had bits of
chain crisscrossing its torso, stopped at the hole where the
Peruvian first discovered the artifact. Its neck dropped to the
ground while oily eyes stayed on the archaeological
team.

Grung, grung, grung, grung,
grung, grung,
came
guttural sniffs from the bottom of its neck.
The Peruvian’s lip curled. Instead of nostrils at
the end of its face, this creature’s nostrils were on the bottom
side of its throat.

The creature stopped and rose up on two
hind legs. Membranous skin whipped open from behind both ears while
its head moved around like some prehistoric satellite
dish.

It found the Peruvian.

“Reegh!”

The Peruvian scrambled for the closest
hovertruck. Sound of clattering chains moved towards him. He
reached for the handle. It was locked. Claws forced him down. He
was looking back at a canine mouth. It opened, revealing teeth for
gutting set in a jaw for tearing. The Peruvian heard his own
machine gun breath. The creature’s neck slithered over until the
two neck nostrils found his face. The nostrils flared, sniffed,
growled, and then sniffed unsatisfied. The creature turned to the
briefcase in the Peruvian’s hand.

“Grrrrh.”

The creature’s gaze returned to the
Peruvian. Something rolled through its jaw. His eyes widened as the
bottom jaw unhinged from the top with serpentine ease. Between rows
of teeth pulsed a tubular, pink throat. The Peruvian closed his
eyes for what he knew would be the last time in his
life.

“Ooh,” the Peruvian moaned.

Wet lips brushed his hand and the
briefcase was ripped away. The creature’s head jerked back several
times until the case slid down its gullet.

The oldest artifact in the history of
archaeology now lay in the belly of a monster.

The membrane fan folded behind the
creature’s head. It looked back at the other two, who were
currently investigating their own career-changing team
members.

“Schreeg-gah!” it commanded. In some
strange chorus, all the heads lifted northward and in the direction
of the project leader.

And just like that, they
left.

The Peruvian rolled over. He watched
the tip of the last creature’s tail disappear into the
jungle.

Project leader leaves
babbling about his grandson saving some mermaids? Says he needs to
“fetch him” and bring him to his true home? Monsters attack the
site? Attack me? It swallows the oldest artifact on the planet and
my future in archaeology with it? The only way for me to get it
back is to hunt that monster down and gut the artifact from its
stomach? I would have to be a . . . hero?

The Peruvian knew what to do
next.

He tapped the inside of his ear drum. A
tinny voice answered.

“Communication One. How may I connect
you?”

“Felipe Sánchez, please.”

“Connecting. . . .”

“Aló?”

“Felipe. . . .”

The Peruvian retired from archaeology
and became a moderately successful producer of leggings and scarves
for toy terriers. And never again did he have to worry about a
crazy old project leader babbling on about some girl named
Huron.

Four • Prometheus
10,000

Colorado City,
Colorado

Same time.

I’m serious. You were babbling on about
Huron and some Rones. They’re evil or something,” Tim said, trying
to keep pace with Nick up the canyon steps.

Swish.
The shed door automatically opened.

Nick sighed. “OK, fine. I keep hearing
this, I don’t know, voice. Something about a city—I don’t
know.”

Tim stopped. “It’s true. You’re insane.
Just took a while to go full blown.”

Nick stepped through the shed
door.

Beep, beep.

Welcome Nick Lyons,
the computer recognition system fired up. Just
above the shed door was a cylinder-shaped sensor programmed to
recognize and introduce every person that stepped through the
doorway. Except this particular one added its own flair.

Nick,
the computer recognition system announced.
The believer of all things. Once, when Nick was five years
old, he believed with all of his heart that people could fly. More
specifically, he believed Tim could fly. So there he was, twelve
stories high, holding a very scared Tim. That’s when Sonya Lyons
let out a maternal shriek and lunged for Nick.
“In-the-Nick-of-time” became a popular catch phrase in the Lyons’
home.

“I hate that thing,” Tim groaned. “Turn
it off.”

“Can’t. Daniel hid the shut off
switch.”

Nick’s uber intelligent friend, Daniel,
had taken the standard computer introduction systems found in most
suburban houses and demonized it. Somehow he tapped into everyone’s
social utility sites, email accounts and the FBI system to give
what he called a full and honest representation of the
individual.

“Bet you can turn it down.” Tim leapt
to the workbench and swept his hand around the edges.

Swish . . . swish.
The door slid open.

Entering Caroline Wendell.
One of the three Wendell sisters hailing from the refugee
camp,
continued the computer recognition
system.

“He-llo,” Caroline greeted them in a
breathy tone. She wore her usual print flower dress and horn-rimmed
glasses, which was steamed up by a ceramic bowl teetering in her
clutches. “I made food for the after party. Mashed
potatoes.”

People only like Caroline
because she can cook, from scratch,
said
the computer introduction system.

“I wish we could shut that off,
Nikolas,” Caroline said.

A rare commodity in this
century. And for only a fourteen-year-old, she is a fantastic cook.
Chocolate chip cookies after school, pie on Sundays, and a large
bird called turkey for Thanksgiving. If boys won’t fancy her for
her looks, they’ll fancy her for her key lime pie.