Marine Biology Read online

  Marine Biology

  by Gail Carriger

  Wilberforce Ink

  Copyright © 2010 Gail Carriger First print publication 2010 in The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance 2

  All Rights Reserved

  Book Design for Wilberforsian Ink

  by J. Daniel Sawyer

  Walrus Smiling for the Camera © 2001 Polar Cruises Wolf © 2008 by daliedee on Flickr Both used under Creative Commons Attribution License

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, events, and locations are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons or events, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.

  This file is licensed for private individual entertainment only. The story contained herein constitutes a copyrighted work and may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into an information retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means (electrical, mechanical, photographic, audio recording, or otherwise) for any reason (excepting the uses permitted to the licensee by copyright law under terms of fair use) without the specific written permission of the author.

  DEDICATION

  For Jack, who I never knew.

  MARINE BIOLOGY

  by

  Gail Carriger

  The problem, Alec thought gloomily, swishing a test-tube full of seawater, is that I’m unexpectedly alive. To be unexpectedly dead would be pleasingly simplistic. After all, he made up the statistic on the spot so that he would sound more learned in his own head, half of all deaths are unexpected. One is, to a certain degree, prepared to die unexpectedly. But when one expects to die at eighteen and instead finds oneself unexpectedly alive at twenty-four, there’s nothing for it but to be confused about everything.

  He sighed, put the test-tube into its cradle and dragged his thoughts forcibly back to the sample’s acidic content. Which was unexpectedly high. There’s global warming for you.

  His phone rang. After a brief flurry of scrabbling about, he fished it out from underneath a massive book on nudibranches – How had it migrated there?– and glanced at the caller’s name before flipping it open. His stomach twisted. Great, what’s Dad doing calling me at the lab?

  “Yes?”

  “Your problem is that you never got accustomed to being alive.”

  “I hate it when you do that. Hold on.” Alec pushed his protective goggles up into his spiky hair and rolled his eyes at his boss on the other side of the lab table. “Family emergency,” he mouthed.

  Janet, who was the best kind of boss – a relaxed one – merely waved him off to the fire escape.

  Alec trotted over and pushed out into the cold gray day. The lab coat was little protection against the biting wind, but he didn’t notice. He didn’t really get cold, not since his eighteenth birthday.

  “How are you calling me, Jack? You’re non-corporeal.”

  The ghost’s tone became petulant. He did not like being reminded of his disability. “Voice dial, of course.”

  “Of course. Do you know what kind of heart attack that gave me, seeing Dad’s number?”

  “You’ve got to get over this thing with your father.”

  “He’s a dick, I’m passive aggressive, and you’re the one who’s haunting because of it.”

  “We were talking about your problems, remember? You can’t acclimatize to life.”

  “So you call me at work to tell me something I already know?”

  “No, but I thought if I started out reminding you how well I know you, you might refrain from arguing with me for the next twenty minutes over the thing I actually need to ask you. I always win these arguments, in the end.”

  “Jack, you’re making me nervous.” Alec could feel his canines starting to emerge. “You know what happens when I get nervous.”

  “Yoga breaths, darling, yoga breaths.”

  Alec breathed in deeply through his nose and then out. The telltale teeth retracted slightly – and the rest of the pack wondered how he functioned so smoothly in laboratory-land. He tried to imagine them doing yoga, and that made the teeth entirely vanish. Alec’s fellow pack members were mostly large and hairy, and took to being both with enthusiasm. It was as though they were trying to be as stereotypical as possible, working in construction, riding motorcycles, barbequing a lot. Not the yoga types. Unless the yoga somehow involved leather chaps and brisket.

  “Fine, yes, so, what’s going on?”

  “Party, darling, tonight. My place.”

  “Oh, really, must I?” Alec ran a finger under the collar of his polo shirt.

  “’Fraid so. Fifi’s calling it in and Biff’s bringing the beer. You know what that means.”

  “Pack meeting?”

  Alec looked nervously up at the gloomy sky, as if it were nighttime already. “Is it full moon? Did I forget it was full moon? I hacked one of those female cycle programs for my laptop. It’s supposed to remind me when I’m due.”

  Jack interrupted his panic. “No, something else is going on.”

  “Crap, what?”

  “Can’t tell, darling, can’t tell. But it was made clear that your presence, specifically, is required.”

  Alec swore. “Jack? Jack, you’re supposed to be my friend.”

  “Dead men tell no tales.”

  “Tales or tails?”

  Silence met that pun.

  Alec’s canines were back. “You know, if you weren’t dead, I’d kill you.”

  “But you’ll be there?”

  “Clearly, I have to be there. If my brother’s bringing the beer, I’ll bring the salad.”

  “No one will eat it.”

  “It’s either that or seafood, and I’d rather not remind them how far I’ve strayed away from family tradition.”

  “Well, that was easier than I thought. I guess you didn’t have a date for tonight?”

  “Jack, I never had a date.”

  “Pathetic. Even I have a date and I’m dead.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  “It won’t be me doing the telling.”

  “Oh, shit. That’s not what this meeting is about, is it?”

  “Just show up, Alec, bring your damn salad.”

  The phone went dead. Alec looked at it with an expression of profound disgust, as though the cell were what was wrong with his life. How had Jack managed to hang up without hands?

  Alec sighed, flipped the phone shut and slouched back into the lab.

  Janet took in his hangdog expression and immediately knew what was required of her as friend and confidante. “Oh no, what happened?”

  “Family thing tonight that I didn’t know about.”

  “Need me to be your date?”

  “Not this time, but thanks.”

  “You know, I’ve never met your family. I find it odd to think you came from somewhere.”

  “Well, if you met them, you’d find it odder.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “The worst. I think they might be staging an intervention.”

  “But Alec, you’re perfectly sober. A fine upstanding citizen I don’t think I’ve seen you drink even a glass of wine. Unless, of course, it’s your addiction to the whole Atkins diet they’re worried about.”

  Thank goodness for Dr. Atkins – the perfect excuse for a cultured werewolf to eat nothing but meat. Before the good doctor came along, Alec had been forced to hide his shameful rare burger habit.

  “With my luck, they’re pulling me out of the closet.”

  No one – really no one – especially not Alec, had expected him to survive the Bite. The only person in existence less qualified to become a werewolf was Richard Simmons. Not that people wandered around calling Alec effeminate, not to his face anyway, but under no circumstances could he be described as either large or
hairy.

  >His dad was beta to the local pack, with four strapping, monosyllabic, Playboy-touting sons – and Alec. Alec was the middle child and there’d been some talk about “looking like the neighbor” when he came along. Skinny, even after the whole big feet, eat everything, smelling-like-a-goat, phase. He also read books – not the backs of cereal boxes – and he preferred post-modern literature of all horrible things. He joined the swim team, not the football team, and that only because his father insisted he undertake some kind of sport. High school saw him wallow in typical teenage depression, except that he knew he was going to die. He didn’t have to don eye make-up and write bad poetry. The local werewolf alpha was set to try and change him into a supernatural creature on his eighteenth birthday and there was simply no way he’d survive the transition.

  Until he did.

  And spent the next six years trying to figure out why, and what to do with his life, and how to reconcile the monthly slavering beast he became with his still skinny, still post-modern-reading self.

  The yoga helped.

  Alec’s dad, aptly named Butch, owned the house that Jack haunted. That was, in fact, the reason Jack haunted it. It was a popular misconception that a ghost haunted the man who killed him. In actual fact, they tended to go for the person who pissed them off the most in life. Jack, the drag queen next-door, had hated Butch. There’d been an argument over the sprinkler system and the next thing they knew Jack was stuck forever haunting his neighbor. In a classic ironic twist, the pack now called Butch’s house Jack’s Place. This made Butch livid. Which was one of the reasons the pack did it. The other reason was that Jack wasn’t the kind of ghost who wafted around mist-like in the background. Oh, no, he was the kind of ghost who organized parties and criticized your shoe choices. Which is why the parties were always at Butch’s place – Jack liked to get up in everyone’s business. The werewolves thought this was a great joke, that the pack had a pet ghost. Jack could get away with insulting them, because he was already dead and large hairy men didn’t scare him anymore. Quite the opposite, in fact.

  Alec marched in, head high, still wearing his lab coat defiantly, and slammed his store-bought salad down on the rickety kitchen table.

  “Hi, Ma.”

  “Hi, baby. Salad? I was hoping you’d bring sushi. Still, very thoughtful dear. At least you brought something, which is more than I can say for your brothers.” His mother tossed peroxide blonde hair out of her eyes.

  Alec leaned his hip against the refrigerator. “Well, be fair, they brought their wives. Pam, at least, is useful.”

  “Not tonight they didn’t. Pack only.” Mother and son paused to look out the window at the backyard where a collection of beefy men milled about drinking beer.

  “Where you going, Ma?” Alec snagged a wedge of raw beef before his mother could stick it on a skewer.

  “It’s lady’s poker night over at Sharon’s.”

  Out in the backyard a couple of the men roared their approval as a great gout of fire flared up off the grill.

  “Ugh. Why do they bother? Everyone eats it rare anyway.” Proving his point, Alec nibbled on the cube of meat he was holding.

  “Oh, sweetie, men and fire, you know how they get. Doesn’t matter if they’re werewolves or not.”

  “Any idea what’s going on?”

  “Sorry, baby. Can’t say.”

  She hefted the platter of kebabs and carried them out into the backyard. Alec trailed after her.

  His mom placed the meat down on a dilapidated picnic table. “Right boys, there you go. Cook it or eat it fresh, it’s not my problem. Just do it out here and don’t mess up my kitchen. You know I hate coming home to find blood all over the floor. It’s hell on the linoleum. I’m off. You know where the beer is kept.”

  A chorus of polite “yes, ma’ams” met that remark.

  Alec watched her disappear back into the house.

  Jack wafted up next to him like a mercurial genie. “Not a bad sort, your mother.”

  “Cept she’s throwing me to the wolves.”

  They stood at the fringes of the gathering, Alec tense and nervous, Jack bobbing up and down softly.

  “So,” Jack had that tone in his voice, the tone that said gossip was immanent. “Did you hear Biff’s wife left him?”

  “I can’t imagine why. All that lively conversation.”

  “Hey now, a man can say a lot using only grunts. Did you bring sushi?”

  “No, salad. I told you I would. Everyone mocks me when I bring sushi, so I thought I might as well give them a real reason.”

  “That’s your problem Alec –”

  “Oh, another one?”

  “– you’re just obtuse enough not to play their very simple game with any skill. You could. You just have a death wish.”

  “Oh, thank you for the psychoanalysis, fly boy.”

  “Speaking of sushi, how’s the sea life?”

  “Still not grunting.”

  “You’re no fun.”

  “I don’t like surprises Jack, what’s the hell is going on?”

  “Oh, you’re gonna like this one, I think.”

  One of the Neanderthals in front of them tore himself away from his a scintillating conversation and lumbered in their direction. He had a massive scar on one cheek, a skull bandana around his head, and the exact expression a pit-bull wears when he catches some other dog peeing in his yard.

  “My father could give lessons on stereotypical biker behavior.”

  “Butch is a man of culture and sophistication,” was Jack’s helpful comment before he drifted away. He couldn’t get too near to Alec’s father – classic case of ghostly Tourette's. Jack would start lunging and swearing at the man who kept him tied to the world. It made for an interesting living environment.

  Alec stood his ground.

  “Son,” Butch spat the word out like it tasted bad in his mouth. “Did you bring your usual sushi?”

  Alec gave his father a funny look. “That’s the third time I’ve been asked that since I arrived. Why? You hate sushi, no one ever eats it when I bring it, and you all make stupid jokes about ’the other white meat.’ Despite the fact that the new place by Bruno’s is really good.” Butch made Alec nervous, and when Alec got nervous he babbled. “I don’t think the owner is actually Japanese, but that doesn’t seem to matter.”

  Disappointment, a common emotion when talking with his middle child, crossed Butch’s face. “You would fuck it up.”

  “Christ, Dad, if you wanted sushi why didn’t you text me? Or I could just go out and get the darn stuff right now. It’ll only take five minutes.” He turned toward the house, any excuse to leave.

  “Oh, no, really, don’t bother.” That was a new voice. With it a new smell – a briny salty fishy smell. Not unpleasant to the nose of a marine biologist, even if it was an extra sensitive werewolf nose.

  Alec turned back.

  To be confronted by one of the world’s most beautiful people – slender, high cheekbones, big blue eyes, straight white teeth, webbed fingers... Wait! Webbed fingers?

  “Whoa, you’re not a werewolf.”

  “I should certainly hope not.” The woman smiled at him. Really, very beautiful. Bummer about the gender.

  Butch was watching Alec’s reaction carefully, so Alec slid in slightly and took the beautiful woman’s hand in one of his. Trying to pretend attraction. Right, webbed fingers.

  “You’re a mermaid?”

  The woman gave him that look. “Merwoman, please!”

  “Sorry, we don’t get many of your kind in these parts.”

  “You do, you just don’t realize it,” that was another new voice – mellow, masculine.

  Alec turned. Ooo. Still blond, only taller and definitely male. Merman. Alec suddenly lost access to the part of his brain that housed the English language.

  The man gave him a slow smile. “Nice to see you again, Alecanter.”

  At a loss, Alec stuck his hand out.

  The merman�
��s skin was cool to the touch, the webbing between his fingers soft and rubbery.

  Alec could feel himself start to blush. Crap, why’d I end up the only fair skinned one in the family? “Do I know you?” Face like that – hell, body like that – I’m not likely to have forgotten.

  That smile didn’t waver. “Picture me with dyed black hair and lots of eye makeup.”

  Alec nearly swallowed his tongue. Could the man get any sexier? Oh wait. He mentally took off about fifty pounds, all muscle, from the merman and dressed him in a torn black t-shirt emblazoned with the name of some obscure band. “Marvin?” Weirdo goth-boy from high school? No way! “But you wouldn’t even join the swim team.” There’d been some teasing about that, because Marvin used to come and sit smoking in the bleachers pretty regularly, watching the swim practice. He’d always taken some secret amusement from it.

  “Home surf advantage. We merpeeps aren’t allowed. Can’t have the monkeys getting suspicious.”

  “That explains why you always wore gloves. I thought it was some weird Goth thing.”

  They were still shaking hands, well, still holding hands. Alec let go.

  Marvin lowered his own hand slowly and sidled almost imperceptibly closer. “You noticed what I was wearing?”

  ]Alec’s danger warning system went off and he glanced around at the pack. His father was paying awfully close attention to their conversation and frowning. So was the mermaid. Sorry, merwoman.

  Alec backpedaled. “You used to watch me, at swim practice. Never thought you’d see a wolf in water?”

  The merman wasn’t going to let it go. “You weren’t a wolf yet. But, yeah, that was one of the reasons.”

  Alec’s tongue came out to wet suddenly dry lips. He angled toward the merwoman. That’s what straight men did, right? Pay attention to the hot female. “So, what’s your name?”

  “Giselle. And before you ask, we’re siblings.”

  Alec wasn’t gonna, but, “Oh, good,” slipped out anyway.

  Marvin’s grin widened.

  “So, you two are the reason for the pack meeting, huh? And the sushi obsession.” Alec grappled for civilized thought.