She nodded, understanding. They had to find another way to get to Galina. Annie had to be protected, even if only to protect themselves from her wrath.
“Is he going to tell your mother?” she asked.
“I asked him not to, but he will,” said Red, sighing. “They never lie to each other. That’s why their marriage has lasted such a long time.”
Tameka smiled, impressed. It took a lot of effort to tell the truth all the time.
“Anyway, I have to see Asha,” she said, heading for the door. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
“We have work to do!” Red called.
She stopped and turned back to him. “My sister is important. Like I said, I’ll be back in hour. Try not to cause the apocalypse while I’m gone, okay?”
Red fervently wished that Tameka had never set eyes on her damn sister. He didn’t know what lies and fictions she’d been telling her. How could she ever trust a mermaid? How could she have a relationship with something that felt no emotion and couldn’t give a shit whether you lived or died?
And does Asha know what her sister really is?
He felt Yenay’s presence beside him. “I feel like you do. I’m concerned about her too.”
“Mermaids are not singing princesses,” Red stated. “They are not poor, down-trodden heroines. They’re deceitful, emotionless killers. That thing is not her sister and she never will be.”
“To Tameka she is her sister, and she wants to get to know her. Just give her the benefit of the doubt.”
Red shook his head. “My family and I been dealing with mermaids for thousands of years, Yenay. I know them, and I know what they get up to. This Asha is up to something with Tameka, and it’s not about getting to know her human sister.”
“What could Asha be up to? All they do is talk.”
That was the worst part. Knowledge was the sharpest weapon of all, and Red wondered what damage the mermaid’s words were doing to Tameka.
27
“Asha!” Tameka shouted, running across the decrepit pier. “Asha!”
Her sister was nowhere in sight. She’d waited and she’d gone, thinking her sister didn’t care about her any more.
Damn Reiner and his exploding apartment!
“I am here,” Asha called.
Tameka smiled. Her sister was sitting in the shadows by an old, crumbling hut that contained fishing gear. She smiled and gave Asha a hug.
“Where were you?” Asha asked. She sounded unusually clingy.
“It’s a very long story,” said Tameka.
Asha sniffed her. “You smell of dragon fire.”
Tameka reluctantly explained the events of the day, expecting Asha to be appalled at her frequent brushes with death. She wasn’t. She just took the news as she usually did, all stoic and emotionless.
I thought she was getting her emotions back. It seems I was wrong.
“This red dragon led you into all these dangerous situations and almost got you killed,” Asha stated. “The red dragon who killed our parents!”
“It wasn’t him,” said Tameka, needing to protect Red. “It was another dragon.”
“He will get you to believe anything. He is manipulating you for his own ends.”
“I believe him. Trust me, it wasn’t him.”
Asha patted her on the arm as if consoling her. Tameka smiled, knowing her sister was looking out for her in the only way she knew how. It must be difficult to show you cared for someone when you didn’t feel emotions.
I need to know what she feels. Sometimes it appears as if she’s really trying to show emotion, and sometimes she’s faking it.
Tameka made a pained noise. “That hurt!”
“What is it?” Asha asked.
“I got a splinter from this bench. It hurts.”
Asha stared at her. “It is not life threatening.”
“I suppose not.”
Tameka couldn’t put up with this any longer. She needed to vent her frustrations out on her sister.
“You said you were scared before because you thought you were feeling emotions,” she pressed, hoping for a reaction. “What happened to that?”
“I pushed all that aside,” said Asha. “But sometimes it sneaks out.”
“Isn’t terror of feeling emotion an emotion itself?”
Asha shook her head. “It is just a self preservation instinct. I would rather not be lashed or brainwashed and made to forget you.”
“I don’t want that either. Yet you’re still here. You still come. Hell, I even got you to walk on dry land and go for a burger. You’re evolving, Asha.”
“And what then? What do I do then?”
Tameka hadn’t thought that far ahead. What would her sister do if she developed a range of emotions and couldn’t go back to her home under the sea? She’d have to learn to live on land again. It might be difficult but she could do it. They were both strong, and the Hamiltons and all her friends would be there to help.
Well, maybe not Red.
“What do you want to do?” Tameka asked. “What do you hope to get out of all this?”
“I just want to know my sister,” said Asha.
“It can’t go on like this forever. Something is going to change. You’re either going to be caught, or want to live on dry land, or want to go back to the sea.”
“I…I do not know.”
Asha seemed genuinely distraught. Tameka pulled her sister into a hug. The mermaid was hesitant at first, but she soon acquiesced.
“I’ll always be here,” Tameka comforted her. “Always.”
Asha smiled, a tear rolling down her face. “I love you, sister.”
Tameka was comforted to know that this was the truth. She could see it in Asha’s eyes.
Red couldn’t stop fretting about Tameka and her visit with that mermaid creature. His imagination was conjuring up all sorts of things that involved murders and lies and other things that would ensnare Tameka in some hideous plot. He hoped that she wouldn’t be taken in by Asha’s lies, but she’d already proved once that she could be easily manipulated by her sister.
I really, really hate mermaids.
“I think my master is having bowel troubles,” Raquel remarked.
Red looked over towards the bathroom door. His brother had been in there for half an hour or more. Had he really been on the john for all that time? His IBS must be really bad. No wonder he looked so grumpy.
“Is she single?” someone whispered in his ear.
He looked behind him to find Vincent, hovering. For someone so large she’d managed to sneak up on him like a ninja.
“She’s married to the job,” Red told her. “But she’s straight. Sorry.”
Vincent grinned. “Trolls are neither gay, straight or anything in-between. We don’t see gender; we only see the heart under the skin.”
Red was surprised he didn’t know that about trolls. He’d always thought they weren’t very enlightened when it came to sex.
“That’s how dragons mate too,” Red admitted.
Yenay looked at him, shocked. “You’ve had affairs with women and men?”
“Yes.”
“Are you a top or a bottom? I bet you’re a power top, right, but you like to bottom occasionally because it feels good and you like to be dominated.”
Red blushed, but nodded. She’d read him perfectly.
They heard the toilet flush, and Reiner exited the bathroom. Red was relieved. He didn’t like to talk about his sex life, or lack thereof. He’d been brought it to believe it was crass to talk about things in public, though secretly he’d always enjoyed sexual relations, especially if it was with someone he truly loved.
“Are you okay?” Red asked. His brother looked preoccupied. “Perhaps I should call you a doctor. You were in there for ages.”
Reiner shook his head head. “There’s no need to worry your scaly ass off. I was on the phone talking with Galina.”
Red was edgy. “You were what? What did you do that for?”
> “I was trying to diffuse a tense situation. I wanted to help! I tried to get her to come and meet with me on the pretense of discussing a potential threat to Annie, but she saw right through my lies. She was expecting me to be dead you see, and reasoned I must have teamed up with you to try and find her.” He looked upset. He probably never thought Galina would actually try to kill him, especially given their shared history. “We’ll never get her out of that facility now. It’s warded with very powerful magic as well as a host of human detection systems. Sorry.”
Red figured that punching his brother would only enflame the situation even further, but he did it anyway. It felt really good.
Reiner rubbed his jaw. “I suppose I deserved that.”
“What do we do now?” Red asked them.
Nobody had a clue.
“Would you like to come and live in the human world?” Tameka asked.
She didn’t have much time left, but she asked the question she’d been aching to ask for a long time. She wanted her sister back in her life full time.
“How can I?” said Asha. “I need the water to survive.”
“You’ve been on land before. You were fine.”
“That was only for short periods. Besides, I cannot do that. What do you think my father would do when he found out? It is impossible, Tameka.”
“I just wish we could be sisters all the time.”
Asha looked confused. “But we are sisters all the time, even when we are apart.”
The sun was setting, covering the marina and the sea with a sturdy, orange glow. The snow-filled clouds hadn’t burst yet, but Tameka could feel it in her skin. It was going to snow any time soon.
We can make this work. It’s just going to be difficult.
“We’ll just have to keep meeting in secret like this I guess,” said Tameka. It was a concession she hated to make, but she didn’t have much choice. “Okay?”
“This is good,” said Asha, smiling. “This is good, right?”
Tameka nodded. “Yes.”
“Knock knock.”
Tameka stared at her sister in wonder. Where had she learned a joke from?
It’s best to play along.
“Who’s there?” Tameka asked.
“Ya.”
“Ya who?”
Unable to control her genuine giggling Asha said, “I am excited to see you too!”
Asha started to laugh uncontrollably. Tameka smiled, laughing too. She didn’t care where her sister had learned a joke from. She was just glad she did.
“Asha?” Tameka asked, concerned. “Asha?”
She was still laughing, her head rocking back and forth. Tameka tried to tell her to stop but she just seemed manic, like she was having a seizure or something.
“It is so funny!” Asha shouted, giggling away, her face going a bright shade of crimson. “It is just so funny!”
Tameka slapped her across the face. Asha stopped laughing and her face resumed its usual doll-like pose. She seemed confused, as if she wasn’t quite sure where she was.
“What happened?” Tameka asked. She was really worried.”
Asha said, “I got overwhelmed. I am not used to such…joyous emotion.”
“It wasn’t even that funny a joke.”
“I liked it.”
What would have happened if she hadn’t stopped Asha from laughing? Would she have laughed herself to death? The thought that her sister could die from experiencing too much emotion at once terrified her.
“I better go,” said Tameka, standing up. She didn’t know what do next about Asha. “We’ll meet here at the same time in exactly two days.”
Asha nodded. “I shall miss you.”
“Me too.”
She considered giving Asha a hug, but thought better of it. She didn’t want her sister to have another attack of emotion.
Red had tried to persuade Reiner to phone Galina back and try and convince her he was on her side, but he wasn’t having any of it. He claimed she’d never change her mind. While perhaps his brother knew the kraken better than he did he was sure that he could get through to her. The male members of their family were sweet talkers when they wanted to be.
Am I a sweet talker?
The fact that he loved Tameka and had never told her answered that question.
“Why did you never tell the family about Annie?” Red asked.
“I wasn’t part of the family, was I?” said Reiner.
“Mother would have wanted to know. You know that as much as I do. Keeping her away from her granddaughter was cruel.”
“So was what she did to me.”
Now was the perfect time to tell his brother he agreed with him. He’d never told him he wished he’d said something, gotten his mother to change her mind about the banishment. Would Reiner ever forgive him?
“She was wrong,” Red admitted. “I should’ve spoken up.”
“You’d just lost your family,” said Reiner. “You didn’t want to lose Mother as well by sticking up for me.” He looked Red in the eye. “I know what I did was bad, but the only reason I helped Father was because this dimension felt wrong. There was no magic here and it stifled me. Didn’t it stifle you?”
“It did, but I was tired, and lost, and grief stricken. I just wanted to curl up and die.”
“We could’ve sorted this out a long time ago.”
“We’re stubborn fuckers.”
He understood now why Tameka was so protective of her sister. Asha may have been a mermaid, but she was her family, her blood. He would do anything to get back the years he’d lost with his brother. She was only doing the same.
But why did her sister have to be a mermaid?
“Do you think we’re being invaded by other-dimensional dragons?” Red asked him.
Reiner shrugged. “I really hope not.”
“I don’t think I could cope with another war. I still have nightmares.”
“Fucking shapeshifters.”
The war in their home dimension had been against a race of magically created beings, the shapeshifters. They, and their wicked creator, Loki, had gone on a genocidal mission to eradicate anything that lived. The death and destruction they’d wrought had been astronomical. The war was long over but the scars on that world remained.
“Would you ever want to return?” his mother had asked him once. It had been five-hundred years ago, just after her marriage to the prime minister.
He’d shook his head and said, “Wild unicorns couldn’t drag me back there. It’s not our home any more. This world is our home now.”
She’d been sad, but she agreed. They could never go back.
Red saw Vincent walking up to the window of the apartment. She pulled open the curtains, her ears twitching like crazy.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, walking up to her.
“I can hear something,” she said, panicking. “Something is coming.”
He was about to look out of the window too when the glass exploded. A swarm of small flying creatures invaded the apartment, convening near the ceiling, almost as if they were searching for something.
They kind of look like piranhas.
The mass of piranhas turned to look at him. Red took a step back as they attacked.
28
Tameka hesitated outside her door. She always felt a little conflicted after meeting Asha. On the one hand she was getting to know her sister, and it felt good. On the other her sister was weird, though she was trying.
She’s trying too hard to connect with me, experience emotion, and it could kill her.
She couldn’t give up on Asha. Not only were they family, but Tameka owed her. It was her fault that Asha became a mermaid in the first place. She didn’t think the guilt would ever go away for her part in everything. The least she could do was try and make sure nothing bad ever happened to her again.
If Asha starts experiencing more emotions, will she resent me?
Tameka opened the door to find a swarm of tiny flying fish attack
ing Red. Yenay was hitting them with a frying pan; the trolls were swatting them with their huge, meaty hands; and Reiner was punching them with his fists. It was the strangest thing she’d ever seen, and she’d once seen Mel Gibson in drag.
“What the…”
Red crashed over the side of her couch as the fish, which she clearly saw were piranhas, chomped through her furniture like it was butter. She screamed and charged in, grabbing one of the carnivorous fish in her hands. It stared up at her with seeming sentience, almost as if it were afraid of her.
“Stop this,” she ordered.
The piranha nipped at her hand and she slapped it onto the floor and stomped on it. It made an icky, gooey mess under her boot. She savored her victory for exactly half a second before she realized the fish were ripping at Red’s clothes, trying to devour him. She flipped over the couch and kicked half a dozen of them into the kitchen, where Yenay slapped them down with her deadly frying pan.
“What the hell is going on?” she shouted.
Red shrugged as a piranha tried to enter his mouth. He bit it in half and spat out the remains on the floor. The other fish ignored the readily available corpse and continued in their frenzied attack of Red.
Red rolled across the floor, trying to keep as much distance as he could from the swarm. A dead piranha was swatted past him by Yenay’s frying pan. He flipped to his feet and punched the air, taking two or three of the flying monstrosities out with one blow.
“Got it!” Vincent declared, stomping on the last one.
She was wrong. There was one left, and it was sitting on the toaster, staring at him with such malevolence that he shuddered. Fish weren’t evil. They didn’t hate. Yet this one, and its dead brethren, did.
“Who sent you?” Red demanded. “Who sent you to kill me?”
The piranha bared its teeth threateningly and propelled itself towards Red. He punched it so hard it exploded on contact with his fist, showering him with fish guts and scales.
He wiped the gunk from his face and said, “That was fun.”
Vincent scooped the last of the fish corpses from the kitchen floor and emptied it into the sink. She pressed the button for the recycler. The smell was making her mouth water. It was making the others gag.
Sirens and Scales Page 339
