That thought made Sarita cast a quick glance around at the moonlit water for any sign of a shark or anything. They'd been fortunate and not encountered anything like that so far, but how long could their luck hold out?
Movement below her made Sarita glance down through the clear plastic window in the center of the lounger's headrest. She half expected to see the shadow of a fish swimming along under her. She'd seen that once or twice in the bright moonlight, the darker shadow of a fish in the dark water, or even a flash of color if it was right beneath the mattress. This time, though, she was shocked to see a human figure swimming past under the mattress. She saw the clear outline of a head, chest, and arms moving quickly through the water headed toward Domitian.
Cursing, Sarita immediately lunged off the mattress after the figure.
Domitian was just thinking they were getting close enough to the island that they should stop, pop the air mattress, and leave it behind when the makeshift rope tied around his waist suddenly seemed to go slack. Stopping, he turned swiftly in the water to look back and saw that while the lounger was still there, Sarita was gone.
Frowning, he quickly reached under water, grabbed the rope at his waist and gave it a tug. Pain seared his back as the cloth dug in before the makeshift rope snapped, but he ignored it and dove under water. The ocean was dark, but Domitian had no problem spotting Sarita some fifteen feet away. Still, it took him a second to accept that she appeared to be struggling with something. Not something, someone, he realized. It was a man, and he was dragging Sarita down deeper in the water and away from the air she needed to survive.
Growling in his throat, Domitian shot forward, swimming hard to reach them as quickly as possible. Sarita couldn't survive long under water without air. She already appeared to be flagging while the man showed no signs of having the same problem. Swimming up behind the man, Domitian didn't even hesitate, he simply snapped his neck, then caught Sarita by the arm and kicked for the surface, pulling her with him.
He'd feared she was unconscious on first grabbing her, but Sarita started coughing and sputtering the moment her head broke from the water. It was music to his ears. Relief racing through him, Domitian dragged her to the air mattress, and lifted her to lie across it, then held on to it with one hand as he patted her back to help her spit up the water she'd swallowed.
"Are you okay?" he asked with concern as she gasped for air.
Sarita nodded, but simply continued to suck in great drafts of air. When she'd recovered enough to speak, she turned a stark face to him and gasped, "His face."
Domitian frowned, and then glanced around for the man, but he hadn't floated to the surface. A sliver of concern slipping through him, he said, "Wait here," and released the mattress to dive under water again. He spotted the man right away, motionless in the water where he'd left him some fifteen feet away.
Bewildered, he swam to the figure and stopped to look him over. While Domitian was having to work hard to keep from rising to the surface thanks to the air in his lungs, the dead man was just floating there about ten feet below the surface, neither sinking nor floating upward. He appeared dead, though.
Catching one of the man's hands, Domitian kicked for the surface, dragging the body behind. He wasn't surprised to see that Sarita hadn't listened, hadn't rested on the lounger as he'd instructed. She was halfway between him and the mattress, looking around worriedly when he broke the surface and pulled the man up next to him.
"There was something wrong with his face," she told him, swimming closer to peer at the man now lying facedown between them. "And he seemed to be breathing under water."
Domitian nodded and pulled the man closer. It was as he started to turn him in the water that he noticed something behind the man's ear. Pausing, he pulled the ear forward to get a better view.
"They look kind of like gills," Sarita said with amazement, stopping next to him.
"Yes," Domitian muttered, running a finger along one of the six four-inch flaps that ran around the man's ear and curved down his neck.
"Does he have a tail too or just legs?" Sarita asked tightly, no doubt thinking of the fetuses in the jars back at the lab. "I couldn't tell while we were struggling."
"Legs," he answered.
"His fingers are webbed, though."
Domitian glanced to the hand she was looking at and saw that the skin between the fingers was indeed webbed.
"Probably his feet too," Sarita said thoughtfully, releasing his hand. "He was moving pretty fast in the water. If I'd been any slower I wouldn't have got him. As it is, I barely dove in quick enough to grab his foot as it whipped by."