Into the Drowning Deep (Rolling in the Deep, #1)

by Mira Grant

With his injuries, the sea was no longer his to claim. Except for this one last time. The Melusine was going to sail, and he was going to sail with her, come Hell or high water. He owed that much to the man he’d been and the woman he still loved.

Are mermaids real? Yes. Are mermaids friendly? No. Why is this so hard? —Dr. Jillian Toth

Mankind’s exploration of the oceans had been going on for centuries, yet had barely scratched the surface, leaving much of the depths uncharted. This trip would hopefully change that, in some small ways … if the people made it back alive.

She could get out of this. It would be a funny story in a few years. That time she’d almost drowned in the Mariana Trench. That time she’d almost been killed by mermaids. They would laugh and laugh and never stop laughing.

There were appetites to be sated, no matter how cold the water became, no matter how strange the sea turned. As long as there were bellies, they would need to be fed. As long as there was life in the sea, there would be teeth.

Gregory questioned the wisdom of letting an entertainment company call the shots. You didn’t let Disney plan a war or Sony run a government. Why the hell would anyone let Imagine supervise a scientific expedition?

The Atargatis had found the mermaids because the people on the ship were made of meat, and the mermaids had empty stomachs that they wanted to fill. That was how you found things, in the sea. Be delicious. That was all you ever had to do.

She’d gone along with the plan in part because she was bored, in part because she was curious, and in part because she’d been promised tropical waters and no more tanks if she was willing to do this one last thing for her keepers. They were good people. Not dolphin-good, but human-good, which was almost good enough.

Dolphins were good. Humans had the potential for good, although they did not always make the effort. But the creatures born from blending the two, the claw-and-tooth children of the deepest depths … they were not good.