by Vance, Ramy
“Yeah.”
“Your turn.”
“You know, I’m more of a dare guy.”
“Ah, ah, ah.” I waggled a finger. “We had a deal.”
He groaned. “Fine. What’s your question?”
“Who are you?”
“Humph.” He smiled. “That’s easy. I’m Jean.”
My face went stoic as I waited patiently for the answer.
“Jean-Luc Matthias. And before you make the joke—yes, I am only missing the Mark. Ha-ha.”
I made it painfully obvious that I didn’t get the joke—if there was one in there to begin with.
“You know,” he explained, “Jean-Luc Matthias. John, Luke and Matthew. From the gospels, but I’m missing the Mark. Again, ha-ha.”
“You know, you’re not very funny.”
“I am in Paradise Lot,” he muttered.
“And you’re not keeping your end of the bargain. Who are you?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes you do,” I said. “You’ve spent enough time with Others to know exactly what I mean. And as a former Other, I mean it in that way. Who are you?”
I was certain he knew what I was doing. When an Other asked you who you were, they weren’t searching for a name or race, creed or species. They were asking you to unveil every aspect of who you were. They were asking to know you like you knew yourself.
Sure, you might not know who you are. Not fully. But if you were to answer the question honestly, you were on the hook to voice every conclusion you’d ever come to when reflecting on who you were.
He paused, understanding and regret painting his face. “Clever girl,” he said, “packing so much into one question like that.”
Oh boy, back to the “clever girl” stuff.
“So?” Now it was my turn to let the word linger.
“Very well. I’m human. Not a drop of anything else in me. When the gods left, they killed my grandfather. Sure, it was an accident caused by the confusion of the gods’ departure, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s dead because of them.
“So I picked up a weapon and joined the fight, and discovered that I’m damn good at it. I don’t get scared. I don’t clam up. I just do whatever it takes to bring my targets down. It was like these hands were meant for killing. So who am I? I am anger. I am vengeance. And I’m amazing at it.”
He stopped talking and I thought that might have been everything. That this man’s entire self-reflection boiled down to one thing: hate.
But then he sighed, touching his wedding ring. “But the best part of me isn’t what I think of myself. It’s what she thinks of me. She keeps saying that I am love and compassion, and she’s said it enough times that I’m starting to believe her. So because of her, I am vengeance and compassion. I am anger and forgiveness. In other words, I’m fucked up.”
“Aren’t we all?” I said. “I think that’s what it means to be human.”
We stood together for a long moment, staring into the darkness of the sea. Two fucked up humans trying to find our way. We might not have been friends, but we shared the unbreakable bond of trying to be something we weren’t.
“So, Bella. She’s who you were referring to?”
He nodded. “And who’s Mergen? Boyfriend?”
“Nope. He’s my friend, the Avatar of Truth and a pain in the ass.”
“I get that,” Jean said.
“So,” I said, “now that we’ve bared our souls to each other, what happens next?”
“Now we get to the island, find the museum before Three Who Are One arrive—whatever or whoever they are—and cross our fingers that the skirmishes stop.”
“Sounds like a pl—” I started, when the ship rocked.
Not rocked—stopped. The abrupt halt sent us both tumbling toward the front of the ship with such force that I fell off. I now know why the expression “man (or in this case, woman) overboard” is a thing.
As I hurtled toward the black sea, I felt a hand grab me. Jean. As he hoisted me back onto the boat, I looked down to see several eyes staring back at me.
And not just any eyes. These were ones with catlike vertical slits.
Meres. Yay!
Meres and an Underwater Griffin
Most people think of mermaids and mermen as these half-human, half-fish creatures, their human halves being especially beautiful and, more often than not, naked. It’s also commonly believed that meres are these benevolent, playful creatures who save fishermen from drowning and help lost ships find their way home. You know, like dolphins with six packs and boobs. I blame movies like Splash and The Little Mermaid for these misconceptions.
For one thing, meres’ upper torsos don’t look at all human, with greenish-blue fish scales covering their (admittedly) naked chests. Their eyes are catlike in nature, with long vertical slits designed to see in near total darkness. Their ears look like lionfish fins or paper fans, where the flaps of skin not only help them hear underwater, but also detect vibrations in what is otherwise the silent deep. They have a series of vertical slits where their noses should be that are more gills than nostrils, and their mouths … well, the phrase, “What big teeth you have, Grandmother” comes to mind.
The last thing about them is that they’re never alone, choosing to travel in—what do you call a group of meres? A school, like fish? Given their size and humanoid nature, I’m going to go for a school bus of meres. (Here’s to coining the phrase.)
Regardless of the correct terminology, meres travel in packs. And they hunt in packs. There’s a reason why those familiar with meres call them the wolves of the sea.
Jean yelled at the driver to start up again and the engines roared to life. Not that it mattered. The meres just swam along with us, easily circling the speed boat despite us going at top speed. So I guess I needed to add “incredibly fast” to their list of abilities.
“Shit,” I said as Jean pulled me up onto the boat’s deck. “They’re everywhere.”
Jean looked over the edge and shrugged. “At least they’re not a school of myarids,” he said, taking this latest development in stride. “Those guys are truly vicious.”
“Good. I’m glad you’re able to see the bright side of things, but myarids or meres—either way, they’re going to try to drown us.” As if agreeing with me, the boat rocked as several meres rammed into its side.
Keiko came out of the cabin. She held two telescopic batons and tossed me one. “Nani da?”
“Meres,” I said, looking over the edge, careful not to expose too much of myself. I had no idea how high they could jump out of the water and I had an image of myself being dragged under by a particularly spry one.
There was another bang and the boat swayed back and forth as it sped forward. The tilting was strong enough that the boat was taking on quite a bit of water.
Two of the sailors came out, their faces washed with fear. They each held a shotgun and they immediately started shooting over the edge. They didn’t even bother aiming; they just blasted into the darkness of the sea.
Jean, on the other hand, went below deck to … who knows? He was taking the whole scene so casually that part of me wondered if he’d gone below for a nap.
Without a shotgun, I was of little use standing where I was. Keiko must have gotten the same idea because she pocketed her baton and went to the front of the boat to … sing. As in, literally singing. As in I’m-auditioning-for-American-Idol singing. She sang some strange song at the top of her lungs, something in the local Okinawan dialect, ancient and melodic. Beautiful really, and I might have put down a picnic blanket to listen if we weren’t under attack.
Looking at the singing noro, I figured that either the fear of drowning had caused her to go nuts or she had the most awkward nervous tic ever.
Seeing she was of no use, I decided to stop standing around twiddling my thumbs and join the driver on the bridge of the boat. I turned the two searchlights on, giving the soldiers some light to help with the shooting.
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Not that they needed it. There were so many meres that every shot was bound to hit something.
But the light did illuminate another problem. Even though every spray of bullets struck the meres, they did little damage. There was no blood in the water and the meres showed no signs of trying to avoid the shots.
Fan-friggin-tastic, I thought. This was useless. I looked around the deck for something, anything to help repel the attack. Then an idea inspired by the spotlights hit me: what do meres hate more than terrible movies that don’t represent them at all?
Fire. At least, I suspected as much. I mean, they spent their lives in cool water, so heat must have bothered them.
I ran down into the cabin, digging through its bowels until I found what I was looking for. What I didn’t find was a Jean. His backpack was lying around, but after rummaging through it, I found little of use for a battle with meres. Other fun stuff, sure, but a school bus of meres required something a little bit more “ouchy.”
Scanning the deck below, I finally found what I was looking for: a canister of gasoline and a flare gun.
Things were starting to look up.
↔
The boat rocked again and from the tilt, I figured that the meres were slamming into us from the right side. Another boom and this time the boat tilted so violently that one of the soldiers went over with a scream that abruptly ended as the meres pulled him under. Poor kid.
Not that I had time to think about that now. Running over to the right side, I looked over the edge and poured the gasoline so that it cascaded down the boat’s metal side and into the water. I waited for the ramming meres to return and as soon as they were close, I let loose the flare gun.
The side went up in flames as the meres leapt out of the water to ram us again. But instead of hitting slick, cool metal, they were greeted by a wall of fire that sent them back to the water with a yelp.
The side of the boat was on fire, offering us a “mere shield” of sorts for all of three seconds before the meres splashed the sides, dousing the flames.
I shook the canister. There was enough fuel to repeat my trick once more, possibly twice before they would be back to the old tactic of boat-tipping.
Looking around for something, anything to better our chances, I saw that Keiko still stood at the front of the boat, continuing her strange song. Her singing was barely audible above the roar of the engine and the rush of the wind.
Still, though, I could hear the words clearly (not that I understood them), recognizing them as Hoogan, the local Okinawan language that was slowly dying as the older generation passed into the good night.
“Damn it,” I screamed over the roar of engines and wind as I did my fire trick one last time. “Damn it, damn it, damn it!” My last cry was deafening to my own ears because as I yelled out, the engines suddenly went silent and the boat came to an abrupt halt.
And here was me thinking that things couldn’t get worse.
↔
“Sorry about that,” Jean said, coming out from the bow dragging two wires behind him. One of the wires was in his hand while the other one seemed to be attached to his back pocket.
“Sorry about what?” I said.
Jean looked behind him at Keiko. “What’s she doing?”
“Singing,” I said. “And don’t deflect. What are you sorry about?”
“Stopping the boat. But I was getting sea sick and—”
“You stopped the boat?” I screamed. “Are you insane? Or suicidal?”
“Miral said I’m both, that I suffer from something called Moral Madness. Personally, I think it’s a made-up condition—”
The meres banged into our side, but because the boat was no longer moving, it had settled into the water and the tilt was far less than it had been before.
“Then again, if I was insane,” Jean continued, not missing a beat, “I probably wouldn’t know it.” He dragged the wires to the boat’s edge and looked at my shoes. “Good, you’re wearing sneakers.”
“They’re not sneakers,” I said. “They’re Balenciaga Race Runners.” I could hear the meres gathering in close and a light clanging coming from the boat’s exterior. From the systematic chimes they were making, I gathered they weren’t going to ram us again. Instead, they were looking for the weakest point to dig a big hole into. They were trying to sink us.
“They’re sneakers,” Jean said. He pointed behind him toward the driver and remaining soldier. “They’re in army-issue boots and Little Miss Sunshine over there is in tennis shoes.” He draped the wire over the edge and called out, “Keep your hands to yourself. No touching railings, please.”
“Why? What are you doing—?”
But before I could finish, he pulled out the second wire from his back pocket. It had a clamp at the end like one of those car battery jacks. Then I took a closer look and saw that that was exactly what it was: a jack.
He attached the metal crocodile teeth onto the railing as sparks electrified the edge. “These aren’t your typical boat batteries. They’re souped-up, army-issue developed by Memnock Securities for exactly this kind of scenario.” His face was lit up by the sparks. “In other words, they’re bad ass.”
I looked over the edge, where electricity crackled through the water as blue waves of hot lightning. The meres who were closest to the boat were burned, their skin melting underwater. They were the first to dart away in pain.
The other meres who were lucky enough to be far enough away circled the blue flames from a safe distance.
Jean released the jack and the illuminated water went black again. “There’s plenty more of that,” he yelled over the edge. “Don’t believe me? Come in close and see.” He sat down with his back to the edge of the railing.
“Pretty cool,” I said. “What’s the plan now?”
Jean shook his head. “Not sure. That was all the juice we had and it will only be a matter of time until they decide to try again. We could call for help, but they’re hours away. We might get lucky that the electrical burns were severe enough to keep them at bay until help comes.”
He looked over at Keiko, who continued singing. She had a pleasant enough voice given that she was screaming the song at the top of her lungs.
“Who knows?” Jean said. “Maybe her singing will drive them away.”
↔
Jean wasn’t wrong. Keiko’s singing did drive the meres away, but not because they didn’t like her song. They didn’t like what her song summoned.
About twenty minutes after we stopped, there was a loud rustling as the water’s surface became disturbed. We heard screaming in the mere language and, looking over the side, I watched as several meres were knocked out of the water like killer whales did to seals they were tormenting.
Keiko came over, watching the scene with a pleased smile on her face. “Makara,” she said.
Jean nodded, “You can call one?” Then answering his own question, said, “Of course you can. The Hindu mythological creatures still believe in the divine, don’t they? I mean, after centuries of worshipping dozens of gods, what’s one more to them? And given you guys are one of the few remaining functioning religions … Say, you don’t want a job, do you?”
In answer, Keiko looked at the soldier with disdain.
“I figured,” he said, “but it never hurts to ask.”
The scene continued unfolding for another few minutes, but eventually the splashing and screaming subsided as the makara drove away the school bus (see, it’s catching!) of meres.
Then the massive beast made its way to the edge of the boat where Keiko stood and lifted its head out of the water.
I’d seen a makara before. When I was a vampire, my elf boyfriend (long story) took me makara watching. Think of it as whale watching for the divine. That day I saw dozens of makara, each one unique, each one half-terrestrial animal, half-leviathan. Elephant heads, crocodile heads, zebra heads …
But despite seeing so many, I never saw one with an eagle’s head. Except this o
ne’s head wasn’t exactly an eagle. Sure, it had the golden beak and white feathers, but it also had elf-like ears. It was a—
“A griffin,” Jean said, snapping his fingers as he came to the same conclusion as me. “This guy is half-griffin and he just fought off a bunch of meres.” He snapped his fingers twice more before bursting out into laughter. “Meres Griffin! That’s hilarious.”
“Not a mere … he’s a makara.”
“I know,” Jean said waving a dismissive hand, “but he’s in the water and … come on! Meres Griffin! That’s comedy gold.”
I had to admit that was a pretty funny pop reference. Then I looked over at Keiko who continued to give him a blank stare. “Dare da?”
“Meres Griffin … like Merv Griffin. You know, the sweepstakes guy,” Jean said.
More blank looks.
“He was the Regis Philban of the 1960s,” I added.
Her blank look got blanker.
“Ryan Seacrest. He was the Ryan Seacrest of the 1960s,” Jean said, then turning to me, “Get with the times.”
“Ahh, American Idol. Wakata,” Keiko said with a nod of recognition before adding, “Ukeru janai.”
“Agreed,” I said. “You aren’t as funny as you think.”
“Sure I am,” he muttered to himself, hurt. “Wait until I tell Bella. She’s going to keel over laughing.”
Hiking Through the Jungle Is Five Star Enough for Me
We threw Meres Griffin (as Jean insisted on calling him) a rope and the giant makara pulled us to Kakusareta Taiyo island. Given how far we had left to go, the makara was surprisingly fast. I mean faster-than-working-engines fast, and we got to the island before dawn.
Once there, Keiko whispered something to the makara. It nodded its griffin head before diving into the deep. The noro priestess bowed and turned to us. “The makara—”
“Meres Griffin,” Jean corrected.
“Urasai,” Keiko spat before continuing. “The makara agrees to wait for our return. He will ensure we get back to the mainland safely.” She turned to Jean. “He makes no such guarantee for you.”
