Free River Road by Suzanne Johnson

and although Denis reached over the side to help me aboard, he didn’t look happy about it. I shivered at the cold energy from his hand—a much stronger signal than when we’d met back at the Black Velvet. Maybe he was nervous, or maybe he was turning on some merman mojo to intimidate me. If he thought that would work, he had the wrong wizard.
    “You don’t have to stay,” I said. “I just need you to accept a tracking charm so we can find you. We’ll want to talk to you again.”
    “You won’t blame dis on me.” The anger shimmered around Denis like a cloak. “Wizards ain’t gonna mark me like a criminal. Screw dat, screw your goddamn treaty, and screw you and every other wizard.”
    He turned and stalked toward the far edge of the deck, jerking his shirt over his head. That freaking merman thought he was going to jump overboard and swim out of here? Over my dead elven staff.
    I raced to retrieve it from my backpack, which I’d left in the wheelhouse. By the time I ran back, the urgency had passed. Jean held the mer in a tight armlock, dagger point resting above the jugular. He was spitting a torrent of French in the shorter man’s ear, and from the glower on Denis’s face, he understood every word of it. I really needed to take French lessons.
    “Let him go, Jean,” I said. “I’m sure Denis wants us to find the real killer.” I was getting really tired of the angry-merman crap too, but Jean didn’t need to accelerate it. Besides, he was clearly on Team Delachaise in this brewing war, and everybody knew it.
    Denis’s eyes flashed defiance. I’d never been face-to-face with such open hatred, and it shook me. Why did the mers hate wizards so badly?
    “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sure you’re telling the truth about not killing this guy, but we need to be able to find you later so we can officially rule you out.”
    He slipped his gaze from me to Rene, who’d been lounging against the side of the wheelhouse, watching the show. He’d stripped off his own shirt, probably ready to shift and chase down Denis as soon as he hit the water.
    “You mark me, you gotta mark him too, bitch,” Denis said.
    I flinched, but let it pass and looked at Rene.
    He gave a slight nod. “Sure thing, babe. I got nothin’ to hide. Wasn’t me sittin’ on the bank with a dead guy.”
    “Terrific,” I said. “Tracking marks for everyone.” Except Jean, who’d gone back in the wheelhouse and was reading a book. I squinted through the windows and blinked at the sight of his face scrunched into a frown over The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty . Just in case this day hadn’t been surreal enough.
    “Do this thing, and let me go.” Denis’s hiss brought my attention back to the mers at hand.
    I knelt and pulled my portable magic case from the backpack. Tracking charms were one of the common recipes I kept mixed in advance, and I pulled out a vial of ground pine bark mixed with corroded bronze and iron sulphate, plus a couple of squares of parchment.
    “I need a drop of your blood to activate this.” I looked up at Denis, who crossed his arms, his mouth a taut line across his face.
    “I ain’t gonna bleed for a wizard.”
    “Stupid sonofabitch fish-for-brains.” Muttering, Rene dropped to his knees beside me, pulled a penknife from his pocket, and jabbed the sharp tip into the pad of his index finger.
    “Thank you.” I tapped a small amount of the metallic powder on the parchment and held it out. He squeezed a couple of drops of blood atop the powder, and I stirred it with my finger, sending a miniscule jolt of energy into the mixture to activate it.
    “Where you want it?” I stared at Rene’s chest and arms, where elaborate tattoos of animals and fish frolicked. I could study him for days and not see it all. The body wasn’t bad, either.
    “Don’t matter—ain’t gonna hurt my ink, right?”
    I shook my head. “It isn’t permanent.”
    He held out his arm, and I pushed it down to rest on my