"Detective Calder Coleo, your Majesty. Can you tell me what happened here?"

"Detective Calder Coleo, your Majesty. Can you tell me what happened here?" The little guppy could barely keep her eyes dry. Well, you know what I mean...she was really upset.

"I don't know what happened, Detec-"

"Calder, your Highness. Please. There's no need for my-"

"Ver...very well, then Calder. I cannot tell you what happened. I was summoning the Duke to dinner-"

I chewed on my cig a little and took a puff. It was getting watery, which meant that its enchantment was wearing off...I needed to hurry. "You mean Duke Ciudad, your visiting fiancee?"

She nodded, tears slipping off her opalescent orbs like...well...pearls. "Yes, that's right. He had not joined us for dinner, so I came up to his room to ask him to join us."

The er...waterworks started back up again and it took her a couple of moments to get herself together. She was easy on the eyes, sure, but something was up. I could feel my tentacles start to coil. I took a long, hard pull on my cig, knowing it would likely be the last. "And why didn't you send a handmaiden to do that?"

She looked up at me, with an odd look on her lovely, sucker-laden features. "A handmaiden?"

I spat the cig out and watch it fizzle into bubbles with a tiny explosion. Those things would be the end of me. "Yea, you know, your handmaiden. Your servant, the one who is supposed to keep a respectable distance between you two...so as to avoid any appearances of impropriety before the big day?"

Her pearly eyes got a hard and as shiny as shark's molars. "I see you have some knowledge of our ways here in Atlantis, Calder."

Her words had become a hook. I could sense the finely honed edge, but there was a backwards-curved hook lying in wait there somewhere. I gave her a small jerk of my rounded chin. "That's why I'm here, they say I can smell blood in the water."

I should'a known better to hand her a line like that.

With a subtle flash of her skin, she signaled the palace guards. Up until now, they'd been floating nearby as still as anchors. With a single signal flash, however, they darted towards me like barracudas, all steel-tipped tentacles, barbed spears and filed teeth.

She purred. "Good, because my appetite for blood is not quite sated yet."

Art Source: "A Squidman Of Few Words" (c)/by Spine Bender
Story and Characters: (c)/by Brannon Hollingsworth

#MMWW, #Makes, #Me, #Wanna, #Write, #BrannonHollingsworth, #pulp, #detective, #notwhatyouwerethinking, #twist, #CalderColeo, #Atlantis, #underwatergumshoe